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Ginny leaned her head on Harry’s shoulder.
“Why do you carry this around?” He asked curiously. She turned to look at what he was pointing at, and her stomach dropped. It was his picture on the Undesirable No. 1 Poster.
Ginny’s eyes stung. She thought back to the long year, first at the Burrow, then at Hogwarts, then at Auntie Muriel’s. The constant heavy despair that hurt just as much, if not more than the Cruciatus. “It was a way to keep you with me,” she said quietly. They’d promised to either try and be honest at the difficult questions or just not answer. “Even through… Everything.”
Harry ran his fingers over her knuckles. “I’m sorry.”
It was sincere.
“No need,” she shook her head. They’d gotten the sobbing and ‘sorry’s and stories and are you sure you want to do this out of the way and she had no wish to rehash it. “It was the only picture of you I could risk by keeping it on me always. Even people who saw it and were sort of on our side just thought the breakup was that bad.”
Harry sighed, pressing against her. His voice wafted over her hair. “I’m glad it was useful in some way.”
“Trust me, it was. It was bad enough being Harry Potter’s ex-girlfriend, I really don’t want to know what would have happened otherwise.” She saw guilt pass over his face but it disappeared when she nudged him. Good. She had no patience for stuff like that. “I’m guessing the Slytherins gossiped about us with their families.”
At that, he grinned faintly. “Yeah, I was counting on that.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ron and I staged this huge fight right outside the Slytherin compartments,” he explained, rubbing his finger over her knuckles. She had been surprised at how tactile he was. He was usually stiff with all physical interactions except those with Ron and Hermione, and sometimes even those. But she loved it. “He lambasted me for breaking up with you. I assumed this bored tone and said some… Really unflattering things about you.” He peered down at her anxiously.
“Come on, I’m not about to hit you for trying to protect me,” she rolled her eyes.
“You did before,” he smirked.
“That was different. I am not a damsel in distress, and definitely not yours, Potter.” She smirked back at him.
Harry laughed throatily and kissed her, thumbing her cheekbone. “Oh, I know,” he said as they separated, holding hands. “You certainly aren’t. It’s just… It’s hard. I can’t curb the urge to protect those I love. If I could lock all of you in a room and never let you out, I would.”
Her heart skipped a beat at the ‘all of you’. She kept her tone light, though. “Well, I suppose I’m the sucker who fell in love with you, and your saving people thing is part of you.”
“I see you’ve been talking to Hermione about me,” Harry rolled his eyes. “Speaking of Hermione, why is her picture on the Undesirable poster so much better than mine?”
“Dear Merlin. Get over yourself, Potter.”
“No, really, Weasley. Where did they even get this picture? I don’t recognize it. I look terrible.”
Ginny giggled. “It looks better than the one I found with a moustache and beard drawn on it.”
Harry didn’t look like he was faking his look of horror.
A sudden idea occurred to her, and she was stifling laughter. “If I carried a picture of you around, what do you think Voldemort did?”
“Voldemort?”
“He was obsessed with you,” Ginny said gleefully. “Maybe he drew devil horns and his own moustaches and beard on it—”
“Ginny, no.”
“Maybe he threw darts at it.”
“Oh my God. Please stop.”
“I bet you’d find one picture of you with needles stuck through it in his evil lair.”
“Suddenly I’m really scared of next week’s inspection of Malfoy Manor,” Harry said dryly.
“Not as scared as you were last year?” She said, half joking, half serious.
“With you by my side?” He kissed her cheek. “Never.“