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*
The summer the war ended, nothing happened with Harry.
Ginny was mad at him, of course. Harry had pretended to die to save the magical war and then proceeded to ignore her for two months. He didn’t have any answers or time for her, with a summer full of funerals (all of which she attended just as he did) and meetings and piecing together the broken parts of their lives and providing input into a rebuilding and restructuring plan for the wizarding world—
Once, she cornered him, desperate for connection, to feel that something with him once more. She knew better, knew not to push, but the silence and the awkward politeness and the general nothing between them was too frustrating for words. But she pushed too hard, asked too many questions all at once and he shut off; he blustered and flustered and she hissed and glared and they ended up slamming doors on opposite floors of the creaking slanting Burrow and not exchanging more than strained polite words for the rest of the summer.
In August, he moved out, in September she went back to Hogwarts, and that was that.
Except it wasn’t, because she missed him.
It sounded stupid, even in the quiet darkness of her four-poster bed, but he’d been one of her best friends and then he’d been something else that they’d never classified but the echo of it still reverberated in her deeply like a distant bell. And then he’d been gone on his Horcrux quest and she’d only heard less than nothing of him for months and months, and now they were still at a distance and at odds, and she wanted to at least be friends because she missed talking to him.
Her seventh year went by with snippets and bits passed on from Hermione in the four-poster one over, or through Ron by post, or her mother. Coming home for Christmas meant only a casual interaction, when he was so stiff and unyielding she wanted to scream, but that had been the problem first, hadn’t it? He always kept details close to his chest, never trusted her enough to unveil them, and she didn’t know whether they’d just fall right back into the same routine.
*
Everyone wanted to know what Ginny wanted to do now.
Quidditch or Ministry. Take a year off or go straight into work. Harry or…
Ginny felt stilted, stop-start, always jittery and antsy. There were jagged gaps in her life, Fred-shaped and Remus-shaped and the echoes of Killing Curses and scars of detentions and Harry, always that faint dark ache in the back of her mind, the center of her chest. She didn’t want to decide, frankly. She didn’t want to fill those gaps with opportunities, keep pushing on through an already-full life. She never had time to think, to relax, to enjoy anything. Her mother harped her, Hermione harped her, her brothers asked too many questions—about jobs, about Harry. It interested her, how many of these so-called inquiries into her plans involved Harry, a fascination she may have had when she was young (so much younger, now). Strangers and friends alike asking for Harry, of Harry, about Harry. She never had answers to give, not that she would offer them up in the first place.
Missing Harry was a secret she kept for herself, in the deep quiet dark moments. And it didn’t stop her from doing better than usual in her classes, or having fun with her friends, or enjoying Hogsmeade, or even going on a few dates with some nice boys. It didn’t stop her from playing her best Quidditch and earning looks from teams across the UK, or from garnering letters of interest from Ministry departments, including the Aurors.
But there was always that reminder, that lacking shape in her shadows, and sometimes it haunted.
*
Ginny’s second night home from Hogwarts (never to go back, it was such a bizarre feeling, to put Hogwarts away from her and close that up-and-down chapter), Molly in all her glory hosted a celebratory dinner. Her brothers, their significant others, Andromeda and Teddy, and Harry all pushed and packed outside in the back lawn, cool nighttime breezes brushing along bare skin and carrying the steam from hot plates off into the woods.
Seated between Bill and George, directly across from Harry (sandwiched between Ron and Hermione), Ginny felt on display, red-faced and scattered. She kept her eyes to her plate and shoveled food into her mouth, trying to fill the haunting ache beginning to gape through her with every moment Harry had his eyes fixed on her. Perhaps he thought he was being smooth or clever but she could feel his gaze; it made her scalp tingle, the tips of her ears red because she knew what it was to be looked at like that, what it meant for him. It exhausted her just as her looming decisions and her murky future did.
Everything left her tired, now.
“How’s it at home, Harry? Really have the run of Grimmauld now?” Arthur asked with a gentle smile from the head of the table, amid George’s ramblings on the joke shop and Hermione and Percy’s avidly heated discussion on Ministry reforms.
Grimmauld struck a chord, and Ginny perked up, fork in mid-air. Harry’s eyes flickered between her and her father before settling on Arthur. “To be honest, I’ve been too busy to really settle in.”
“Grimmauld Place?” she blurted out before she could stop herself. “You’re at Grimmauld Place?”
Harry locked eyes with her and she shuddered somewhere deep inside. “Sirius left it to me. I didn’t have anywhere else to go,” he said fiercely.
Bristling, she raised her chin. “I just didn’t know,” she replied coolly.
“Couldn’t exactly tell you with all your yelling, could I?” he said tartly.
“Not that you’d tell me anything in the first place,” she retorted.
Arthur looked between the two of them, something akin to understanding in his eyes, and jumped in. “Big house like that, can’t imagine you’ve filled it at all,” he said gently, and her heart thumped with love for her father, for that weird understanding he seemed to have of her and why she did what she did. “Reckon it’s still filled with some of the Order’s leftovers as well.”
Harry faltered, glancing back at Arthur. “Yeah. There are still loads of stuff in every room, to be honest,” he said finally. “I’m so busy with training I can’t be bothered to go through it all.”
“It’s really horrendous, Harry,” Hermione chimed in, hair wild and eyes keen. “You’ve got to hire someone to clean all that rubbish.”
“I don’t want a stranger getting in Sirius’s possessions,” Harry retorted sharply.
“It’s not all his,” Hermione pressed. “It’s just getting worse every time I come over.”
Harry’s spine straightened, rod-straight. “Then don’t come by, if it bothers you. I’ll get to it eventually,” he muttered.
Hermione gaped for a moment. “Well, I’m just trying to help. Honestly, I think I’ll just send someone over myself,” she said earnestly.
“Don’t do it, all right? I can handle my own home,” Harry said stiffly.
“You can’t live like that, with all that junk! I’m just concerned, we all are,” she protested.
He settled back in his chair, looking lost and eleven years old all over again. “Don’t be. I’m all right.”
Ginny, whose gaze had gone back and back between them both the whole time, settled on Harry now; lost times haunted her. If they’d been anything like before, she’d come to his defense, rattle cages just to shield him.
But they weren’t. So she couldn’t.
“It’d be something you’d be good at, Ginny,” Hermione was saying from across the table. “I’ve told you that before.”
“What is?” Ginny asked distantly, eyes still on Harry.
“Fixing up the place. You’re good at that kind of thing, with what you do for Christmas and such,” Hermione said with a bright smile, tan and glowing. Hermione had only improved upon the end of the war, and Ginny wondered how she could end up like her, as opposed to this lost, restless current she felt ensnarled in.
Swallowing, Ginny picked her fork back up. “I doubt I could handle that place. But thank you, Hermione,” she said with a small smile, returning to her food.
She could feel the slow burn of Harry’s eyes on her for moments after, and it felt like an eternity.
*
Ginny tromped downstairs, a new book loaned from Hermione in one hand and her quilt from her bed across the other arm, the same routine for the past two weeks of being at the Burrow. The sun was out, the breeze was cool, and she had layers and layers of sun block spells over her whole body (just in case). She liked it this way, just her and the garden gnomes and the rustling trees and clouds; she felt at peace for the first time in months.
Molly, however, didn’t see it quite like that.
“Again with the yard, Ginny?” Molly called from the kitchen doorway, a plate of eggs in her hand. “No breakfast?”
Shrugging, Ginny stopped short in the sunny hall, dust motes floating in the light-streaked air. “Not hungry. Need help with chores?”
Molly’s mouth twitched. “Not today. Shouldn’t you be looking at some jobs, or going on tryouts for teams?”
Cold settled in her bones. “I’m waiting to hear back, Mum,” she murmured, eyes falling to the floor.
“I’m worried about you, dear. It’s not like you to laze about.”
Swallowing hard, Ginny looked up and met Molly’s gaze hard. “I reckon it’s because I’ve never had the chance until now,” she said bluntly.
Shoulders tightening, Molly nodded slowly. “That’s fair. But you should be thinking about it, following up. I don’t know what’s going on inside that head of yours anymore,” she said, something sad and quiet in her voice.
Ginny could only shrug and move out to the yard, heart thrumming hard in her chest. What could she say? She didn’t know either. Her future was dark and deep, ocean-like secrets and fluid uncertainties.
It was easier to just read books, of other people’s futures and dreams, then to plan her own.
*
“I need your help.”
At Harry’s tentative, slightly anxious voice, Ginny looked up from her book, shielding her eyes from the warm June sun. Stretched out on her favorite blanket, in the middle of her childhood lawn, grass tickling her toes, she was content.
Never mind her mother’s nagging over tryouts and applications and employment and flats and Hermione’s litany through post and Floo of what are you going to do with your life, Ginny, you can’t stay at the Burrow forever. Never mind that these were the first words Harry had spoken to her alone in ages. Never mind the jumble in her stomach, the heat rising to her face that she couldn’t blame on the sun.
“Well, hello to you too, Harry,” she said after a moment, voice even.
He scowled faintly, brow furrowing. “Hi, Ginny.”
Turning her head away, she looked off into the thick woods across the lawn, listening to birds and the faint buzz of insects. “Help with what?”
He sat down next to her, inches between them that felt like miles. “My house.”
At that, she turned to stare at him. “You’re joking.”
Looking at her so earnestly, so awkwardly young, he nodded. “Hermione won’t let it go, and I can’t stand it anymore. I didn’t know who else to ask,” he mumbled.
Blinking, she shook her head slowly, unbelievably. “I can’t fix up that place. It’s too large! It would take—“
“I’d pay you,” he blurted out quickly, cheeks red. “I don’t care how long it takes.”
Mouth agape, she couldn’t stop staring at him. “I just—My mum, she wants me off looking for employment—“
“Ginny, please,” he said fervently, hands clenched tight into fists at his sides. His lenses refracted sunlight into her eyes.
She was at a loss, sitting with him on her childhood quilt in her childhood yard. “I just don’t know if I could handle it all on my own,” she said finally. “Shouldn’t you hire a professional?”
He looked away from her then, off into the cloud-speckled sky. “I can’t stand the idea of a stranger going through that house. I need someone I trust, and—well, damn it Gin, you know that place almost as well as I do,” he said quietly, an odd sort of breaking in his voice. “I reckon you like it there as much as I do.”
A lump formed in her throat, a reminder of Sirius and Tonks and Remus and a summer of doxy-hunting and Fred and George with Extendable Ears and feeling a part of something, as opposed to being left behind. She held her breath for a moment, wanting so badly to reach out and touch his hand, his hair, because if she could barely speak from the memories, she couldn’t imagine how Harry lived through it day in and day out.
“Okay,” she said finally, a cherry pit of nerves settling in her stomach. “I’ll do it.”
She could fairly feel the relief breathing out of him. “Thank you,” he said softly.
Awkward silence settled between them, nothing like the comfortable quiet they used to have. The hidden parts of Ginny thrummed with a subtle ache. “When… when should I start?” she asked after a moment.
He shrugged. “Whenever you want, I reckon.”
She nodded. “All right.”
After another awkward moment, Harry cleared his throat and got to his feet. “Reckon I’ll be seeing you, then,” he said, stilted and uneasy.
“Yes,” she said, glancing up at him, his body a dark form against the sun. “You will.”
He left with a nod and something that was supposed to be a smile, and she sat in solitude for some time after, weird shivers curling up her spine in anticipation.
*
She told her mother, who was positively gleeful.
“This is a wonderful idea,” Molly gushed over breakfast (the first real breakfast Ginny had sat down for since coming home). “It will occupy you, give you a purpose until your team starts up—“
“I haven’t chosen a team yet, Mum,” Ginny interjected wearily, eggs like dust in her mouth.
Molly waved her off, slanting a smile at Arthur over his paper. “But you will, and in the meantime, you’ll spend time with Harry as well—“
“We’re not spending time. I’m only going over when he’s at work,” Ginny said quickly, the back of her neck flushing hot.
Molly frowned slightly. “Seems counterproductive, don’t you think?”
Ginny bristled. “I’m not trying to get back with Harry. He asked for my help.”
“Of course he did,” Molly said with a small smile.
Rolling her eyes, Ginny finished her breakfast, and left as fast as humanly possible.
*
“Has it always been this large?”
Harry chuckled from behind her, an awkward, nervous sound. “Rethinking the whole thing, yeah?”
Pursing her lips, Ginny didn’t bother glancing at him, keeping her focus on the sweeping, grandiose, dust-and-grime-filled entrance hall. “Not at all,” she said coolly. In the harsh summer sunlight, the chandelier floated dully above their heads. “Just trying to reckon how you’ve survived here without Kreacher.”
He cleared his throat, tension radiating close enough to hit her through her clothes. “Reckon I’ll leave you to it,” he said stiffly.
Every breath felt more strained than the last, and she closed her eyes for a brief moment before turning to face him, a half-smile curving her mouth. “I’ll be just fine, Harry,” she said reassuringly. “The place is in good hands.”
Shrugging awkwardly, he pushed his slipping glasses up the slope of his nose. “Yeah, I know.”
“And I’ll be gone before you get home. I don’t want to intrude,” she added.
Dust motes curled paths between them, reflecting the warm yellow light and clouding his gaze. “All right, then,” he said quietly.
He took a breath, held it, and for a moment, she thought he was going to speak again; her heart gave a horrible clench, but settled once more as he shook his head.
“See you,” he said after a moment, eyes dull behind his glasses. And before she could say another word, he turned on his heel and left, the heavy front door echoing hard in the empty shell of a hall.
Shoulders slumping into relaxation, she slowly turned and examined the hall, breathing out slow and deep. It felt as if all the portraits were judging her, even the sleeping ones, and she could hardly stand the idea of unveiling Mrs. Black once more. And she hadn’t even begun to imagine the upstairs.
“I’ll be fine, this will be fine,” she said softly.
A snort echoed from a distant portrait, and she set her gaze into a glare. “I will, I’ll be fine. I’ll be more than fine,” she said, louder this time.
The first order of business was dusting, Ginny decided after a solid ten minutes of staring at the hall.
While it wasn’t quite as awful as the summer she’d spent here before fourth year, it was sneeze-worthy, and how Harry walked through it every day without even a thought to it was mind-boggling.
“This is ridiculous,” she murmured to herself, pulling up her sleeves and twirling her wand between her fingertips. “Scourgify!”
It was hours and hours of dust and grime, repairing cracked furniture and tattered curtains. Cleaning the chandelier had been a challenge, but being atop a broom had done the trick of managing all those nooks and high crannies nicely. She managed the main hallway and the kitchen before the clock struck five. She felt quite disgusting, but as she stood in the hallway, sun-filled and cool, she felt a sense of accomplishment, of giving. She could give Harry this, she realized then. Even if he couldn’t give her anything, and even if they were never what everyone thought they should be, she could still give him this last present. A place to come home to.
That was her secret, one she could hold onto with satisfaction.
When she got home, sneaking quietly right into the loo for a much-needed wash, letters from the Aurors and from three different Quidditch teams were set on her bed, conveniently placed by her mother. The Aurors wanted her; the Harpies wanted her to try out for Chaser and Seeker, but for a secondary position; the Cannons weren’t interested; Pride of Portree was.
The future was creeping up on her like dusk, and she wanted nothing of it. She set the letters in her desk drawer, for another day, and went downstairs to play her father in chess.
*
The next morning, still feeling the itch of grime on her skin, Ginny wearily Apparated onto the front step of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place. She’d decided to leave a little later, trying to avoid Harry (though she’d never say so). It was more for his sake than hers; awkward encounters and conversations were never his strong suit.
Upon entrance, however, she found quite the surprise waiting for her.
“I caught you,” Harry stammered as she shut the door behind her, making her jump.
“Harry, what on earth—“ she trailed off, hand pressed to her chest, as she saw a bouquet cool blue irises clutched in his hand, a focal point in the bright, clean hall. “What—“
“It looks—it’s bloody amazing, in here, and the kitchen,” he interrupted quickly, spots of red coloring high on his cheeks. “And I’m just—well, here—“
He thrust the flowers at her, light glancing off his glasses. “Thank you,” he said quietly, an odd rawness she hadn’t heard from him in ages. “To come home, and see something this nice—I just—“
Chest tightening, she took the flowers and held them close, petals brushing her throat. “You’re welcome,” she said, wanting to reach out and grab his hand, pull him into her and not let go for a long while. “I’m glad to do it.”
For you, she added silently, watching as his mouth curled into something like a smile.
“And it’s only the hallway and the kitchen,” she added lightly. “You may hate everything else I do.”
At that, he did smile. “I doubt that,” he said, voice gruff.
They stood in relative silence for a moment, sunlight and the sound of the neighborhood outside their only companions. The smell of flowers and summer filled her nose as she breathed, her eyes focused on him, his tall, lean form, the nervous curl of his fingers.
“I should get going,” he said finally, breaking the slow summer spell.
“Thank you for the flowers,” she said easily, toes curling inside her scuffed shoes.
He ducked his head with a small smile. “Of course,” he said, grabbing his plain black work robes from the new coat rack in the corner.
She slipped to the side of the hall as he moved for the door, a slightly-less awkward dance than the day before. Hand on the doorknob, he stalled for a moment, face turned slightly towards her.
“You—you don’t have to leave before I come back. If you’re not done, that is,” he said, tripping lightly over the words.
Smiling, she shrugged. “I’ll keep that in mind,” she said.
Color still in his cheeks, he nodded and stepped out into the summer morning, his echo the only company in the wide hall.
*
She finished off the basement that day. Kreacher’s pantry was all cleaned out; she imagined Kreacher’s things were with the house-elf himself at Hogwarts, his new place of employment. She’d seen him there once or twice during seventh year. Hermione’d been so proud when she heard Harry freed him, she’d cried in their dormitory when he told her through post. Ginny had just giggled behind her hand.
The first floor came next, after the basement. The bedroom she’d shared with Hermione during the summer before fourth year just needed cleaning, as did the bathroom. The drawing room took longer. She cleaned out the fireplace, washed the large windows, cleaned off the woodwork. It all brought back echoes of memories of the Order, of that summer, of doxies and boggarts and catching Harry’s eye, becoming his friend at last. It was here that Harry found her at the end of the day, lost in thought as she repaired the curtains.
“I never come in here.”
Startled, she turned around to find him in the doorway, stripped of his Auror robes and looking more relaxed in his jeans and a plain white t-shirt. He was tan, taller than she remembered, or was that just her imagination? “You’re early,” she said dumbly, nearly wrapped up in the old curtains and covered in a thin film of dust.
He shrugged. “Not by much. Is that okay?”
“It’s your house, Harry, you can come back whenever you want,” she said, untangling herself from the curtains, feeling all kinds of disgusting and all kinds of curious. “You never come in here, you said.”
Nodding, he walked further into the room, running a hand along the plush sofa back. “We slept in here, two summers ago. After Bill’s wedding.”
All the nerves across her body came alive, pieces of that secret year coming out into the space between them. “Ron said something to that effect,” she said after a moment.
“Did he? Oh,” he said distantly, eyes fixed on the fireplace. “Yeah. I didn’t sleep much here.”
Desperate for him to keep on, to tell her more, she set her wand down on the writing desk and wiped her hands on her jeans. “It gets warm in here. Too warm to sleep,” she said quietly.
“We found a Horcrux in here. Kreacher had hidden it,” he said after a moment.
“Why did you leave?” she asked softly.
“Had to. After sneaking into the Ministry, we accidentally brought Yackley back with us,” he murmured, sitting on the sofa, resting his forearms on his knees. “Death Eaters swarmed the place, I reckon.”
After a moment of hesitation, she joined him on the sofa, leaning against the opposite arm. “It isn’t as trashed as Hermione said it would be,” she said after a moment.
“What isn’t?” he asked.
“The house,” she said with a shrug. “It really hasn’t been horrid. I was expected much worse.”
He cracked a wry smile, glancing her way. “You haven’t gone upstairs upstairs yet, have you?”
“No,” she said with a small smile. “And you should probably tell me which room is your bedroom, so I don’t go in there.”
“Why wouldn’t you go in there?” he asked slowly.
Flushing, she wiped her hands on her jeans again. “It’s… it’s your room, I don’t want to intrude.”
“You can go anywhere you want, Ginny,” he said quietly, earnestly. “You can do whatever you want.”
Oddly, she had a feeling he wasn’t necessarily talking about the house anymore.
They sat in awkward quiet for a moment before she exhaled and stood up. “I should finish in here, and get home. Mum will be wondering about me,” she said quietly.
He stood as well, stuffing his hands into his jeans pockets. “Of course. I’ll get out of your way,” he said, smiling slightly. “Thanks, for it all.”
She nodded, but couldn’t breathe again until he’d left the room. She could hear him one floor up for the rest of her time, heard him rustling in his room, and it was so domestic and so foreign all at the same time that it made her whole chest ache.
*
Everything was just a little weirder, but also somehow nicer, after that.
Ginny didn’t go on Saturday or Sunday (the time in her room split between reading and re-reading those letters of portent and looking at the irises from Harry, placed on a vase on her windowsill), but on Monday, week two of the Grimmauld Place Project (as her mother called it), she was there just past eight-thirty, and there were noises in the kitchen below. She walked down tentatively, and found that Harry was still there, sitting patiently at the kitchen table, two cups of tea and a plate of biscuits in front of him.
In her torn jeans, dirty work t-shirt, and grimy sneakers, she felt quite odd, underdressed. She wished fervently that she’d done something pretty with her hair other than the usual messy updo. “Hi,” she said after a moment of just standing in the doorway.
He jumped as if startled, looking clean and crisp, his Auror robes draped on the back of his chair. “Er, hi.”
Ginny didn’t have the heart to roll her eyes at him, though she surely wanted to. “What’s all this?” she asked, coming further into the kitchen. It still looked spotless, which led her to think that either Harry was more meticulous than she thought, or he just wasn’t eating in his own home.
“Dunno. Thought we could have tea,” he said, sitting stiffly, his fingers drumming on his thighs, eyes bright and hard behind his glasses.
“Won’t you be late?” she asked, slowly sitting down across the table from him.
He shrugged. “Only a little.”
She curled her fingers around the warm teacup, chewing on the inside of her lip as she watched him from across the table. “I wanted to ask you—should I go all the way up to the topmost floor?” she asked after a moment.
Fingers stilled, he glanced down at the table. “Sirius and Regulus’s rooms.”
She nodded. “I reckon you haven’t been up there in—“
“Not since before the camping,” he interrupted, voice quiet and unreadable. “I didn’t… I didn’t want to. Not Sirius’s, at all. We had to go into Regulus’s room.”
Silent then, he stared at the table, at his cooling tea. She knew this process, knew that look on his face. Hermione always pressed him too hard, and Ron always asked too many questions, even after all these years of friendship. Ginny remembered enough to keep quiet.
Finally, he met her gaze, the lines of his face determined and set. “Could we do it together?”
Nervously she wetted her lips. “Together?”
“I have a day off on Thursday. I could stick around here and we could do the top floor together,” he said firmly.
Feeling herself going red in the face, she sipped her tea, tasting sugar and lemon, just as she liked it. “If that’s what you’d like. You’re sure you just wouldn’t rather do it yourself?”
He shook his head. “No. I don’t want to do it alone.”
She wanted to ask why he didn’t want Ron or Hermione, but she didn’t. She had a feeling it would lead somewhere she didn’t feel like going right now. “Okay. I’d love the company,” she said finally, with a small smile.
He smiled, with something slip-shod and shaky in his face. “Great. So, Thursday.”
Nodding, she sipped her tea, an odd sort of roiling in her middle. “I doubt it’ll be as exciting as you’re imagining,” she said.
“You’ll make it fun. You always do,” he said simply, and it sent a shudder right through her.
She set her cup down, gazing at him. “Ron and Hermione would be fun too,” she said finally.
Fidgeting, he got to his feet quickly. “I should go. I’ll be late.”
Perfect. She rose up as well, fists clenched at her sides. “Harry, I just want to know—“
“Seriously, I’ll be late,” he interjected, cheeks hot with color. “I’ll see you.”
Frustration overwhelmed her as he practically scurried out of the kitchen. She could hear his heavy steps above her, moving towards the front door, and she nearly gave into the temptation of stamping her foot. She was tired of secrets, especially Harry’s.
*
That day, and the next, Ginny left before Harry came home; Thursday lay like a huge obstacle before her, because what were they going to do? Talk? Clean in utter silence? It was too much to hope that he’d break his own personal code of silence to really talk to her about anything, so she was resigned to a whole day of awkward silence and stilted conversation.
They didn’t used to be like that, she thought wistfully over her half-eaten dinner on Wednesday, looking off past her father’s shoulder to the dim dusky evening. But then again, a lot of people used to be a lot of things; war changed everything, even what she had thought were the most elemental parts of herself.
“Ginny, are you listening?”
Molly’s voice, tinged with annoyance, slipped through her ears, and she started, glancing at Molly. “Sorry, Mum.”
Molly gazed at her across the table, something unreadable in her eyes; the hairs on the nape of Ginny’s neck rose. “You’ve been absolutely absent for weeks now, Ginny. I’m worried about you.”
Ginny sighed, straightening in her chair. “You don’t need to be.”
“I’m your mother, I am allowed,” Molly said, voice thin. “And you are wasting away in front of me.”
Staring down at her plate of summer peas and chicken, Ginny frowned. “I haven’t been so hungry lately, I’m sorry—“
Huffing, Molly set down her fork; it clattered noisily against the sturdy china plate. “Wasting away, wasting time—you haven’t sent any responses to the Harpies or Pride of Portree, or the Ministry—“
Hot uncertainty stuck in Ginny’s throat, a hard lump. “Did you read my letters?”
“You just shoved them away, there are deadlines on those offers,” Molly protested. “You have to make a decision, I can’t just let you flit around here and clean Harry’s house!”
“You said it was a good idea!” Ginny said hotly.
“Your mother’s just concerned, Ginny,” Arthur said gently, gaze moving between Ginny and Molly with increasing concern. “We don’t want you to regret any decisions you do or don’t make, but we want you to think about it.”
Molly nodded vigorously, face flushing. Tendrils of grey-streaked red hair stuck to her neck with the heat. “Come August, you’ll regret not having something to do. Luna’s got her position with her father’s paper, Neville’s at Hogwarts, Hermione’s with the Ministry—everyone has something—“
“I don’t know what I want!” Ginny exploded, rising from the table. “I don’t know, all right? I can’t decide, and I don’t want to. It’s not yet July, I have time, all I want is time—“
“Time’s nearly up, Ginny,” Molly said firmly.
Nails digging into her palms, Ginny lifted her chin defiantly. “Fine. I will decide,” she said stiffly before turning on her heel and walking out, all of her skin on fire with embarrassment and rage.
The walls of her childhood bedroom seemed to close in on her, pressing and pushing and choking the time away from her. She stood by her open window for a moment, listening to her parents’ murmuring downstairs; the open letters fluttered in the slight breeze, rustling on the desk. She felt light-headed, overwhelmed; she wanted to decide, but wanted to wait, to always wait because she hadn’t had enough time, she wasn’t ready for growing up and being an adult and figuring it all out. She couldn’t even reckon herself out.
She had to get out.
“I’m going out,” she said to her father as he sat in the living room, a book in his hand. “I can’t—“
He glanced at her, worry and something soft in his eyes; she trailed off, without words and exhausted. “Be safe,” he said after a moment.
Smiling tightly, she nodded, passed through the corridor to the front door, and Apparated to the only safe place she could imagine.
*
“Can I stay here?” was the first thing out of her mouth when Harry opened the front door to Grimmauld Place. She stood on the doorstep for a solid ten minutes before knocking (with the new door knocker she’d replaced yesterday, taking the place of all the serpents and dark reminders).
Harry, mouth agape, blinked for a moment. “Is everything all right?”
Ginny wrapped her arms around her middle, out of sorts and jumbled. “I just… I can’t be at the Burrow right now. I thought—I don’t know, I should go—“
He reached out and clasped her wrist, fingers cool against her too-hot skin. It sent shocks of longing through her nerves. “No, stay. Of course you can stay. I’ve plenty of room,” he said with a crooked smile.
She smiled slightly, letting him pull her into the softly lit front corridor. In loose jeans and a t-shirt, he looked more relaxed and easy than ever before in recent times. “I could take the room Hermione and I slept in, if you didn’t mind.”
“Sure, of course,” he murmured, raking a hand through his hair. “I don’t have any—er, clothes, or anything—“
“Just a place not near my mum, that’s all I need,” she interrupted, chest tightening at the sight of him.
He nodded, eyes dark behind his thick glasses. “Come on,” he said after a moment, his hand still light on her wrist. “I’ll walk you up.”
The rest of the house was dark, but for the light spilling from the drawing room and Harry’s room. He took her down the hall and up the stairs to the room she’d slept in for months and months years ago; it felt like a lifetime ago.
“Good thing you’ve cleaned, or else I don’t know where’d I’d have put you,” he joked uneasily, his hand still light on her skin; it was comforting, all her senses on edge. He was close enough to breathe in, woodsy and clean and faintly of leather, like Quidditch gloves.
She curled away from him, pressing close to the shut door of her room. “I appreciate it,” she said after a moment, missing the feel of his skin on hers, the calluses she didn’t know, but wanted to.
Looking at her directly, he stepped forward, a foot away from their bodies brushing, but it felt so much closer that her skin flushed. “Can I ask what happened?” he asked, voice low.
Shrugging, she met his gaze directly despite the shivers running through her bones. “Can I?” she asked bluntly.
He didn’t move an inch, not even blinking. “Ask about what?”
“Everything,” she pressed, leaning in just the slightest.
Resting a hand on the door, right by her head, he swallowed hard. “I wouldn’t know where to start.”
“That’s typical,” she said sharply, the color rising in her cheeks again. “All questions and no answers with Harry Potter.”
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t answer!” he shot back.
“But you won’t,” she said, voice harsh in the echoing empty corridor, and the words wouldn’t stop, they just flowed out of her, unstoppable. “You ask me to fix your house and stay for tea and act like you want to be friends again but it’s on your terms and I can’t do that again!”
He frowned deeply, eyes narrowing. “I’m doing this the best I can,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Keeping everything locked away, I know,” she hissed. “Give a little, won’t you?”
“I brought you here, didn’t I?” he retorted hotly. “Damnit, I’ve been trying to do something all summer!”
She faltered, merely stared at him, as he stared back. “That’s what this is about?” she asked finally, voice reedy.
Jaw tight under his skin, he surged forward and kissed her, shocking her so much that for a long moment, she couldn’t move, couldn’t respond. All the blood rushed from her brain, his mouth warm and slick on hers, tasting of tea and chocolate biscuits, and the familiarity socked her in the stomach. Feeling faint, she shut her eyes and grasped her fingers into the soft cool cotton of his shirt, pulling him closer and closer until she felt as if she’d melted into him, warm shadows and cool fingers on her neck, her bare arms, her waist.
He pressed her into the door, all fever and cool glasses imprinting into her skin, his mouth opening hers gently and softly. She could barely breathe for the smell of him, the feel of his damp hair through her fingers, and this had been what she missed, his give and take, his mouth, his stare, his heart thrumming hard against hers.
Lightheaded and short of breath, she turned her mouth from his, breathing hard and harshly, matching his in the echoes of the corridor. His fingers dug into the curve of her waist, his mouth resting on the line of her jaw. “I didn’t know how to get you back,” he murmured finally, voice hoarse.
Still reliant on the door, she dropped her hands from his body, breathing stuttered. “So you coerced me into cleaning your house,” she said, the feel of his mouth still hot on hers.
“I reckon we’d talk,” he mumbled.
“You couldn’t even look at me for days,” she said, suddenly tired. “You can’t just snog me in the corridor, it doesn’t work like that anymore!”
He pulled back from her, cool air breezing through the distance between their bodies. “I know, I’m sorry,” he said, staring at her with the same intensity as a few moments ago, leaving her bones like jelly.
Her hand found the doorknob, and she opened it with a creak, coming off of the door. “I can’t do this now,” she said wearily, the air pressing in on her, thick as water.
Pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, he nodded slowly. “Okay. Okay.”
Smiling slightly, she slipped into the airy dark room and shut the door behind her. The curtains fluttered in the breeze, the sounds of the sidewalk floating up, and she curled up in her old twin bed, hot and damp and exhausted to the core. Harry’s shadow remained outside the door for a moment; as she curled her arms around the pillow, breathing in the fresh scent of laundry, his footsteps fell away.
Every time she closed her eyes, she felt his mouth on hers, his hands on her waist. It took her hours to fall asleep.
*
Sunlight slanted across her face, waking her late in the morning from dreams of fifth year kisses by the lake, fierce gazes from across a crowded wedding, Harry’s limp, lifeless body in Hagrid’s huge arms. Still curled around her pillow, she memorized the whorls and curves of the hardwood floor, listening for sounds of Harry in the other floors of the house. She could still feel his calluses on her skin, new ones from whatever adventures she hadn’t been a part of and her heart stuttered hard in her chest.
Abruptly, there was a soft knock on her door. “Still alive in there?”
Harry’s voice, quiet and low in his throat, floated through the door, and she sighed silently. “Still alive,” she called, sitting up and grimacing. Yesterday’s clothes stuck oddly to her.
“I have some clothes you can borrow for the day. I’ll just leave them outside.” A shuffle, the sound of cloth hitting the floor, and then he paused. “You just let me know when you want to start on the rooms.”
Sirius’s room. Her chest seized and she shut her eyes, rubbing the sleep from her lashes. “Be out soon.”
His footsteps faded away, and she waited just a few more moments before going to the door.
Later, dressed in his old Gryffindor Quidditch shirt and a pair of his boxers fresh from the wash (still warm, in fact), she found him at the top of the stairs at the topmost floor of the house, sitting and staring into space. His gaze fell between Sirius’ and Regulus’s rooms, distant and unreadable.
She licked her lips nervously. “Morning.”
He looked over at her, smiling slightly. “Morning. You look good in my shirt.”
It was matter-of-fact and so sexy that she nearly lost her footing on the stairs. “Lucky that all our uniforms were basically the same then, so I looked good in mine too,” she said finally.
Shrugging, he stood, smoothing down his ratty-looking t-shirt over his middle. “Wonder how trashed this will be,” he murmured, something skittish in his voice.
Hesitating only a moment, she took his elbow and guided him forward down to Sirius’s door. “No way to know until we go in,” she said firmly before she opened the door.
It wasn’t as bad as she’d imagined. All of Sirius’s posters remained, and much of his shelves and such. A few large trunks spread out across the hardwood floor, full of what she could only imagine were his books and clothes and personal effects, for the shelves and desk were empty, as was the closet. She poked around, coughing at the dust that flew off at the slightest touch. The bed was made, pillows fluffed, and really, the only explanation—
“Remus must have come up here, after Sirius died,” Harry said from across the room, standing at the window. He looked smudged in the grainy, dusty sunlight, all dark outlines against the dusty window.
“You reckon?” she asked, waving her wand and beginning to clear the dust from all the surfaces.
“Sure. To make sure everything was together,” he said, voice oddly strained.
She paused, glancing over at him. “For you,” she clarified softly, a deep ache throbbing in her middle.
Ducking his head, he shrugged, his back still to her. “He never said anything. He should have said something.”
Setting her wand down, she watched him from afar. “I’m sure he planned to. There wasn’t so much time back then.”
“He could have. He was here, after the wedding—he was here, and didn’t say a thing,” Harry said fiercely.
Another piece of Harry’s lost years flitted in front of her, and she resisted the urge to press too hard. “Keeping you alive was more important than Sirius’s trunks, Harry,” she said after a moment.
Shaking his head, he chuckled dryly, without any touch of humor. “He was running. Running from the baby, from Tonks, from his fears—he lost that time with her, and he’d never get it back,” he said bitterly.
The old haunting from the war crept over her, but she shook them off, keeping her focus on Harry, on the here and now. “It’s all right. He went back,” she said quietly.
Silent, he continued to stare out the window for long moments. She went back to softly whispering her cleaning charms, making the woodwork shine in the high sunlight, clearing the floating dust from the air. She didn’t touch the trunks.
“I watched you.”
She froze by the desk, the back of her neck growing warm. “What?”
“On the Marauder’s Map. While we were looking for the Horcruxes. I watched you almost every night,” he said fiercely.
His eyes bore into her, and she finally looked up, finding him with his back to the window, color high in his face and jaw tight. “When Bellatrix tried to kill you, I just about jumped in front of the curse myself,” he went on, voice low and hoarse.
All her bones seemed to melt into her blood, leaving her weak-kneed and shuddering. “I was fine on my own,” she said softly.
“I know. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t want to rip off her head,” he said tightly. “And when you came into the Room of Requirement, and you smiled at me, it was the happiest I’d been in nearly a year.”
“And then you tried to lock me in there,” she said pointedly, all the nerve endings across her skin alive with wanting.
He rolled his eyes at her. “Of course I did. I didn’t want anything to happen to you. I couldn’t live with it,” he said, matter-of-fact, plain as day, and all the breath left her lungs in a silent swoop. “Should I go on?”
She nodded. “I want everything. I want all of it,” she said, heart pressed to her ribs with such fervent hope that it nearly overwhelmed her. “What took you so long, you prat?”
Hair falling across his brow, he gave her a half-smile, hesitant and wanting, his eyes dark and warm on her face. “I wasn’t ready, before. I’ve been here nearly a year, and I’m all right now. I’m ready.”
Faltering, she leaned against the broad lip of the desk, hands bracing. “But I’m not,” she said, raw and tired. “I’ve got all these choices and I don’t know—I’m not ready for it yet.”
The floorboards creaked as he crossed to her, his body radiating heat against the bare slices of her skin. “That’s okay,” he said quietly, his fingers slipping over the thin skin of her wrist. “Just pick something.”
“And that’s all?” she asked, disbelief crowding with warmth and shivers in her chest as she looked up at him. “I want time. To read, to dust your house, to make fun of Ron and Hermione.”
He smiled fully if sheepishly this time, teeth bright-white in the sunlight. “Reading and making fun of Ron and Hermione don’t stop with making your choice. Dusting my house was a one-time thing.”
Glancing away, she watched stray dust motes swirl through the sun-speckled air. “And if I pick wrong?” she asked quietly.
His hand rested on her elbow, another on her hip, bracketing her on both sides. His thighs pressed against her knees, his breath warm on her hair. “Then you pick again.”
She looked up, finding him so close, almost too close. “You watched me?” she asked softly, something like relief slipping through her and over her spine.
Nodding, he curved his thumb over the jut of her hipbone. “I’ve got tons to tell you, if you’ve got the time,” he said softly, his mouth hovering close to hers.
Fingers curling into his ratty shirt, finding little holes to slip in through and feel his hot bare skin, she leaned up and kissed him first, surrounded by sunlight and the memories of lives lost and found. His mouth opened to hers, his hands pulled her close, and she pressed on and felt nothing but relief, a future full of possibilities and options and truths. The secret shadows of her past began to recede, and she whispered I missed you, her true secret, into his mouth and his skin over and over, letting it into the light, just as the spirits of this old house.
*