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SIYE Time:13:50 on 29th March 2024
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Anytime
By Chloe

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Category: Post-OotP
Characters:Harry/Ginny
Genres: Angst
Warnings: Death
Story is Complete
Rating: G
Reviews: 26
Summary: Sirius Black is dead, and not knowing what else to do, Harry is giving up. Until Ginny comes downstairs...
Hitcount: Story Total: 6224







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Fear. Surprise. Both expressions were frighteningly clear on the man’s face as he fell. Falling. Falling. He fell slowly, and the closer to the ground he came, the slower he went. The veil swirled forward, and wrapped it’s dark hangings around him. He was being pulled down. Drowned. Chocked.



“SIRIUS!” Harry screamed. “SIRIUS!” The name echoed off of the walls around him, causing an intense atmosphere of dark. Of hurt. Of alone. He was helpless to run forward and pull the veil away. Sirius couldn’t fall…he couldn’t go…



“SIRIUS!” he cried desperately, wishing and begging in his heart for the man to stop his decent.



Sirius continued to be tangled in the ever lengthening veil that wrapped around him. But then the dark curtain, as swiftly and gracefully as it had risen- fell away. Sirius was nowhere to be seen. Only a small, ancient archway. And a black veil, rippling in the still air.



A quiet voice whispered from behind Harry, pain etched in every word. “He can’t come back, Harry. Because he’s dead…he’s dead…he’s dead…” the words echoed around him in a very unreal way.



“NO!” Harry cried, lunging against Lupin’s grip. His voice cracked as the words ripped from his throat. “HE-IS-NOT-DEAD!”



“Sirius!” Harry found himself sitting bolt upright in bed, his striped pajamas damp with sweat. He had thought that once Voldemort had achieved his mission in the Department of Mysteries, that his nightmares would cease.



Well, it was true, he hadn’t had a single dream involving the comings and goings of the Dark Lord, but these memories-these replays of Sirius’ death-were even worse by far. It hurt more than the memory of Cedric dieing. More than what he could remember of his parents.



He had known Sirius. He had loved him. And now, because of all Dubledore had told him, he knew that Sirius had loved his godson as a true son. It could have been like having his father back. The thought tore at Harry’s already weary heart and emotions.



He looked around the room, wondering if anyone had awoke. But Dean, Neville and Shamus were both breathing loudly from their beds, and since Ron, who was the lighter sleeper of the three, was still in the Hospital Wing with Hermione, Harry found himself the only one awake in the dark room.



He couldn’t lay down and try to get back to sleep, not after the dream had occurred again. He dared not even close his eyes for fear of seeing Sirius’ fall once more. He couldn’t stand the thought of seeing it one more time, and frustration rose up inside him as it had tended to do over the last year or so, to think that he couldn’t sleep without seeing that nightmare again.



Throwing his feet over the side of the bed, and setting them on the cold wood floor, Harry stood up, and walked swiftly to the room door, pushing it open silently, and creeping downstairs.



He needed to think, he needed to get away from his bed. Every time he looked at the still-warm pillows and bunched-up blankets, it only reminded him of the lack of sleep he was getting on top of everything else, and it only made his temper rise higher to not be able to sleep.



He swung heatedly off the staircase to the boys’ dormitories, and threw himself into an over-stuffed armchair. He stared into the dieing embers of the Gryffindor’s fire, and let his mind wander. It ran back to his dream once more, and to the memory of Sirius’ fall.



No! He didn’t want to think about this again! He shook himself, trying to think of something else. The O.W.L.s. How had he done? What if he flunked every single subject? He tried to make the thought worry him, but nothing seemed important now that Sirius was gone.



What about being an Auror? What would it be like? What sort of amazing adventures would he have? Would he get a special seat at the World Cup? But he couldn’t make his tired mind to ask all these questions or supply the answers. He didn’t care. He didn’t care what he became after Hogwarts. He didn’t care if he never left this chair or the Gryffindor common room every again!



He let his mind become unfocussed once more, and looked blankly into the flames dieing away in the fire place. He could still remember Sirius’ face appearing in the opening, smiling.



“When’s your next Hogsmeade weekend anyway? I was thinking, we got away with the dog disguise at the station, didn’t we? I thought I could-”



“NO!” said Harry and Hermione together, very loudly.



“Sirius, haven’t you seen the Daily Prophet?” said Hermione, anxiously.



“Oh that,” said Sirius grinning, “they’re always guessing where I am, they haven’t really got a clue-”



“Yea, but we think this time they have,” said Harry.



Harry blinked, and buried his face in his hands. If only he had just let him come to Hogsmeade. If only he had just asked to stay at Grmmauld Place! If only he’d done a million things. Things that would have given him more time with Sirius. Time to get to know him better, to become the friend James had once been.



If only you hadn’t gone to the Department of Mysteries. something told him in his head. No, it wasn’t true. Sirius’ death was not his fault! You wanted to be the hero, you wanted to save the world, you wanted to make a difference. You wanted to think you could understand what was going on. No! That wasn’t it, Harry had sincerely thought Sirius to be captured!



You killed him, Harry, you killed Sirius Black.



“No! No, I didn’t! I didn’t kill him! I DIDN’T!” Harry leapt out of the chair and ran to the window, pressing his head against it. The cold glass fogged from his panting breath, and soft words. “I didn’t kill him,” he whispered desperately. “I didn’t…I- I didn’t mean to…”



Harry felt a burning tear run along side his nose, and plunge onto the windowsill bellow. He closed his eyes, and felt another tears slip silently down his face. He pressed his sweaty palms against the cool window as well, and let the condensation and sweat slip both hands slowly down again.



Harry opened his eyes once more, and allowed them to rove over the moonlit grounds of Hogwarts. He couldn’t see anything clearly without his glasses, but he didn’t really want to anyway. He wasn’t looking at the dark stretch of grass or the towering blackness of the Forbidden Forest. He wasn’t watching the dieing lights in Hagrid’s hut nor following the movement of a rising, and then falling Thestral miles into the depths of the forest.



His mind was wandering to its angriest corners again. Why did Dumbledore have to move the Mirror of Erised? That mirror was designed so that the one who gazed into it would see their hearts deepest desires. Well, right now, more than anything, Harry was sure he wanted his godfather back.



Surely, if he looked into the mirror, Sirius would gaze back at him? Surely…but that mirror was gone. Dumbledore had moved it. Another thing he’s messed up for me. He’s ruined everything! Harry knew the words were not true, but wanted to shake himself of the blame. To land it on someone else. Dumbledore had kept the truth from him, he’d let it go so long all because he just didn’t want to tell Harry everything! He should have told him his own past years ago! If the Head Master had revealed everything to Harry a long time ago, this never would have happened! Sirius would still be alive!



But Harry’s anger did not last long. Grief shattered rage, and he was left feeling cold again. No matter how hard he tried, how many things he attempted to put in the front of his mind to replace that memory, he could never forget. He always ended up staring the truth in the face once more.



Sirius was dead.



Harry felt his shoulder begin to shake slowly, and he slid down the window until he was kneeling beside it. He covered his face with his hands made cold by the window’s icy glass, and let go. Every emotion poured through his head till he couldn’t think.



“Sirius?” he whispered hoarsely. “Sirius…?”



Harry didn’t know why he was calling his name. Did expect his godfather to answer? Maybe. He knew he was dead, and yet- it couldn’t be possible. Or at least he couldn’t accept it. He didn’t want to.



“Hello?”



Harry came out of his thoughts with a jump. Jerking around, he saw someone standing at the foot of the stairs leading to the girls’ dormitories. Her red, sleep-tousled hair, hung loosely to the shoulders of her flowered night-robe, and she squinted in the dim light to where Harry knelt beside the palely glowing window.



“Hello?” Ginny repeated, walking further into the room. “I heard someone crying-” she halted in her steps when she got near enough to see who it was kneeling by the window. “Harry,” she breathed, and started to back away, wishing she hadn’t come down here.



She had thought maybe it had been Maryann Fairhem she’d heard down here, knowing that the first year was now sure they weren’t going to win the House Cup, and thought it all due to the five points she’d lost in Potions. But whoever it was, Ginny was sure she’d heard someone, and had wanted to help anyone so upset they’d be crying in the common room at 1:30 in the morning.



But not Harry. If anyone, Harry had the right to be this upset, and to be it alone. After Sirius’ death, Ginny had expected nothing less of him.



“I- sorry…” she muttered, continuing to back away. Harry, still surprised to see her here, suddenly came to himself, and scrubbed angrily at his tears with the cuff of his pajama shirt.



“It’s alright,” he snapped, angrier than he meant to be. He didn’t want Ginny, or anyone else for that matter, to see him cry. It made him feel even weaker than he already did.



Ginny froze when he spoke, and simply stared at him, at a loss of anything to say or do at this point. “Is there something I can do?” she asked at long last.



“No,” Harry replied dully, turning his eyes to the window once more. “Nothing.”



Ginny turned and started to leave. She knew he was hurting, and she didn’t dare explore the issue. But then, Harry spoke again.



“I don’t suppose you’d ever understand. You’ve never lost anyone you love.” Harry didn’t know why he was keeping her here any longer than he had to. Didn’t he just want to be alone? And yet, he felt the desperation of needing to say something. To let everything bottled up inside him come forward. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt as much that way.



He wasn’t sure if Ginny was his first choice in someone to talk to, but she was here, and he had to talk.



Ginny slowly came forward, and sat down a few feet away from Harry, still giving him some room to think. “Well, no I haven’t…but I’ve come pretty close. And I know how you feel.”



“You don’t know how I feel!” Harry shouted before he could stop himself. “You’ve never lost your parents! You’ve never had someone fall dead beside you in a flash of green light! You didn’t have to watch Sirius Black die!” he was panting again, and felt tears rising in his throat, but refused to let them climb to the surface. Shaking his head unsteadily, he chocked, “You don’t understand death, Ginny.”



Ginny was quiet for a long moment. “You’re right, Harry,” she said at last. “You’re right. I’ve got both my parents, I wasn’t there when Cedric was killed, and I didn’t see Sirius die. But I’ve nearly lost two very important people. And I’ve been every bit as close to death as you. Possibly even closer. In the Chamber of Secrets, I was only inches away from being dead, Harry.” Her voice was suddenly solid and almost stern. “Don’t tell me I don’t understand death.”



Harry froze in his thoughts and looked at Ginny. She was watching him closely, understanding etched through her brown eyes, and unshaken determination to be understood herself clear in every moment of staring.



“But you haven’t lost Sirius like I have,” he said at last, and studied the common room’s carpet awhile. For some reason he didn’t want to meet her gaze. He didn’t want to think someone’s sorrow could be stronger than his. “Nobody has.”



Ginny continued to stare at him, and then looked out the fogged-up window. “No,” she admitted, sighing slowly. “But I have very nearly lost two others…others very important, very precious to me…and the thought of nearly losing them never stops scaring me, Harry. Sometimes it’s as if they died, it hurts so much.”



Harry looked up slowly. “Your dad?”



Ginny looked as though she was trying not to cry, and nodded. “I- I keep wondering, what would have happened if he died? And I just keep thinking and thinking about it, and start wondering- I wonder what would happen if Dad and Mum died. W-what would become of Ron and I?”



Harry suddenly remembered that night in Grimmauld place when Mrs. Weasley had tried to tackle the boggart that kept changing into her dead children, then Mr. Weasley, then Harry himself. Mrs. Weasley had said the same thing Ginny had…



“And what’s going to happen if Arthur and I get killed, who’s g-g-going to look after Ron and Ginny?”



Harry shook the memory of seeing the dead Weasley’s on the floor and looked up at Ginny again. He didn’t want to remember Grimmauld place.



Ginny sighed shakily, “And then my imagination goes wild. The moment I realize that Dad could have died, I worry…I worry about everything…I worry that Ron’ll be killed by You-Know-You, he’s so close to it all. That Bill or Charlie will never come home again. That something awful will happen to Fred and George. That Percy-” Ginny shook her head and looked blankly out the window.



Harry watched the starlight reflect in her brown eyes, and felt suddenly selfish. He’d lost Sirius Black, but Ginny…she hadn’t lost anyone, and yet- she had so much to lose. So many people precious to her in the Order. What if something did happen to the Weasley’s? Harry wasn’t sure he could bare it. But for Ginny, he realized, it would be nothing short of devastating.



“Who’s the other person you’ve nearly lost?” he asked at last, hoping maybe that he could get her away from thoughts of her family dieing.



Ginny turned away from the window, and looked over at him instead. She stared a long moment, and then said simply, as if he should have known all along, “You.”



Harry was taken aback. “When did- what- what do you mean?” he shook his head, clueless of anything else to say.



“In the Chamber of Secrets.” Ginny said, looking out the window again. “When I woke up, and realized that you had fought Tom Riddle’s Baslisk, and nearly died…I- I thought I was going to cry. Harry could have died. I kept thinking. Harry nearly died, and it would have been all my fault.



Harry stared at her. He couldn’t think of a way to respond. Perhaps he hadn’t considered Ginny really caring about him that much, if at all. True, she’d had an obvious crush on him for her first year, and well into her second year of Hogwarts. But- Hermione had told him that Ginny was well over that.



“If only I hadn’t written in that stupid diary,” Ginny continued, still gazing at the stars. “If only I hadn’t let Tom take a hold of me. If only a million things! Then maybe it wouldn’t have come to a fight. Maybe you wouldn’t have had to risk your life…for me. And nearly lose it. For me.”



Ginny stood up suddenly, and walked to the window, pressed her forehead against it, and hugging her chest silently, squeezed her eyes shut. To Harry’s shock, he saw tears spilling quietly down her face as she tried to turn away from him and face the window.



But the stars illuminated every tear as it fell crystal to the windowsill. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, her breath fogging the window slightly.



“Why?” Harry asked, clueless of anything to do. When Cho Chang cried, he’d simply stared at her and waited for the tears to stop. But Ginny’s tears were different. Perhaps Harry had always thought she was too brave to cry. To spunky, too much like Fred and George for tears. It was too unexpected to be uncomfortable.



She continued to look out the window as she spoke. “Because…” she whispered. “Because Sirius is dead, and I’m crying about my silly fears. Only near-death experiences. And yours for that matter! I’m just being silly…” She closed her eyes again, and rubbed at them with her small fingers. “I’m sorry,” she repeated, and slowly turned to look down at where Harry still knelt on the floor.



“It’s okay,” Harry said, shrugging one shoulder half-heartedly. “You’re not the only one who cries.”



Ginny ran her sleeve over her nose which was starting to run. Harry remembered the night with Mrs. Weasley and the boggart again, and could recall Lupin pulling from his robes a handkerchief for the weeping mother. As he stared at Ginny, Harry found himself wishing he’d been as considerate as Lupin to keep a handkerchief handy.



Ginny finished wiping her nose, and continued to rub away at her tearful eyes. “Sorry,” she said a third time. And finally, opened her eyes again. As she gazed out the window, a small smile appeared on her face. “Sirius,” she said quietly.



“What?’ Harry stood up and went to the window, so emotionally taut, he was ready to believe anything he heard. He moved quickly by Ginny’s side, looking around the grounds for a shadow of a black dog.



Ginny pointed to the glowing sky, to where a star shone particularly bright. “It’s Sirius,” she repeated, looking at Harry as she indicated the star again.



Harry looked at the star and felt his heart fall into the pit of his stomach in cold disappointment. How could he have thought that it was truly his godfather to whom Ginny was referring? Maybe he was still hoping…still figuring Sirius would come back. Because he had to. Because Harry wanted him more than anything.



He continued to gaze at the star, and felt a lump grow in his throat. He wanted Sirius. He wanted him so badly…he didn’t know why it hurt so much, but somehow the fact that he, Harry, wanted Sirius Black more than even his parents sent such deep, unexplainable pain through his chest, that he almost clutched at his shirt to relieve the pain.



“You know,” Ginny said quietly, still fixing her great, dark eyes on the diamond light as well. “Firenze says that when Sirius is even with Venus, ‘it is unclear what it tries to convey, but a feeling of hope through death is felt.’” Ginny then smiled, almost laughing slightly, and glanced at Harry.



Harry shook his head slowly, and chocked, barely above a whisper, “I can’t see Venus…”



Ginny’s face turned a bit more somber, but still she smiled as she looked back out the window and shook her head, “Neither can I. But I’m willing to bet that Sirius is conveying hope through death no matter where he-” Ginny paused, and glanced quickly at Harry. “No matter where it is,” she corrected quickly.



Harry knew that ‘mistakenly’ calling the name Sirius as his godfather rather than the star was no mistake at all. He tried to nod, to benefit from the clever symbolism, to let the words touch him…but he couldn’t. It just hurt even more to think about it.



“I don’t want to talk about Sirius,” Harry said flatly, and slumped onto the floor again, setting his back to the window.



“I understand,” Ginny said, and with a tired sigh, turned to walk away. “I’ll leave you alone, Harry.”



“No, it isn’t- I don’t-” Harry shook his head. He didn’t want her to go. He didn’t want to be alone. He didn’t want to sit in the silent common room and grieve for Sirius all night while everyone upstairs slept soundly. He hated the thought. And yet he didn’t want to talk about his pain. He didn’t want anyone to ask him questions.



He didn’t know what he wanted.



He couldn’t say all this to Ginny, though. It wouldn’t come out right. There wasn’t a chance in the world he could make her understand. So he turned towards the window, and wrapping his arms around his knees, he buried his face in his pajama’s sleeves.



He didn’t know how long it was. He sat there forever, it seemed, lost to everything but the fact that Sirius was gone. Sirius Black was dead. It hurt more than he could bare. He felt a hot tear trickle down his nose now and again, but he didn’t really give it much notice.



Lost to grief and sickening memories, he could only sit, think, and hurt. He didn’t even notice when someone, someone very far away it seemed, started rubbing his shaking shoulder in comfort. Slowly the distant fingers moved back, and forth, back, and forth, back, and forth…



Harry opened his eyes. Had they been closed? He looked up, and glanced around him at the still-dark common room. Something had awoken him. Then he saw it. Ginny was sitting next to him, her hand on his shoulder, and her head on that hand. Harry reached for his shoulder, and found her fingers intertwined in his pajama shirt.



So Ginny hadn’t gone. She had stayed there with him, probably for hours, massaging his shoulder. Trying to comfort him. If only he’d realized it, he would have thanked her. But now, her head lay on his shoulder, and her eyes were closed; her mouth slightly open, and her breath soft and quiet.



Harry didn’t move. He only lay his head on his knees again, and let his own breath even out to hers, until he too was asleep.



“Lord Voldemort is waiting…” a voice quiet with malicious pleasure whispered through the unseen shadows.



Someone was shaking. A shadowy form rose from the floor, his face twisted with pain, and his eyes dark with determination. “You’ll have to kill me.”



Laughter. High, cold cackles from the past. “Crucio!



The figure reeled onto his knees in pain, groaning against it, and clutching his robes. The Dark Lord’s wand swung up, relieving the unforgivable curse, and then swung back down in the same motion, with an even more powerful, “Crucio!



The man fell off his knees, and held himself inches away from the floor, screaming in agony. “Harry!” he cried, and fell back into the shadow, a look of fear and surprise etched on his face. From nowhere, a black curtain curled around him, swirling, swishing in the still air, and falling away leaving nothing in its wake, and only a dead echo of anguish in the stale air.



“SIRIUS!” an arm wrapped around his chest as he tried to run towards where the man had knelt.



“There’s nothing you can do, Harry-”



“Get him, save him, he’s only just gone through!”



“It’s too late, Harry-”



“We can still reach him-”



“There’s nothing you can do, Harry…nothing…He’s gone.”



“NO, SIRIUS! NO!”



Harry’s eyes snapped open. Again, he was damp with sweat, and yet he felt cold. He reached feverishly for his scar which was stinging slightly. But something about the room had changed…He looked around, and realized why his body felt so cold. Ginny was gone.



A sense of loneliness struck Harry unaware. For a reason he couldn’t explain to himself, he really wished she’d stayed. But Ginny was likely very tired, and probably hadn’t meant to fall asleep on the hard floor next to Harry, and so he put the thought away, and got off the floor. Feeling a bit sore, he turned to the window, where the night still glowed with starlight. It must be very early in the morning, though, for he could see just the faintest idea of pink beyond the Forbidden Forest.



Harry slowly walked up the stairs to the boys’ dormitories, swung into his room, and went unwillingly yet deliberately to his sleep-tousled bed. He still didn’t like the idea of climbing back into that bed; the one he was in when he’d seen the vision of Vodlemort attacking Arthur Weasley. The bed where he’d seen Voldemort torturing Rookwood, and the room in which he’d fallen to the Dark Lord’s glee, laughing in the evil one’s cold laughter.



And it was the bed where he continued to relive death of Sirius Black, as well as the vision of his godfather being tortured by Voldemort, and though it hadn’t happened, it was almost as frightening as Sirius’ death.



But he had to sleep. He had to rest. It was the only way he’d ever be back to normal, and right now he wanted nothing more than normalcy. But before climbing in, he took a look out the window, and gazed at the stars once more.



They were so beautiful, yet they made him feel so lonely. Spotting Sirius, he felt the lump rising in his throat again, but it was soon chocked back with curiosity. Not far from Sirius there was a bit of blurred light Harry didn’t remember seeing there before.



Fumbling in the dark for his glasses, Harry slipped them up his nose, and looked toward Sirius once more. There, shining faintly in the lightening night, was the golden form of a planet. Venus.



Ginny’s words reverberated in Harry’s memory, and he sighed quietly, the window before him fogging immediately. He felt his heart lighten just the slightest bit, and was so surprised to feel at all better, it lightened even more. He felt as though he could laugh. It was as if he’d sighted normalcy as a part of his future.



Harry shook his head and sighed again, rubbing his eyes. You’re tired. he told himself. It was the only explanation for his sudden relief. But even as he sank onto his rumpled bed, he found himself still feeling in slightly higher spirits. “Go to sleep,” he ordered himself aloud, laying down on his pillow, but leaving the hangings on his bed apart so he could still see Sirius and Venus.



But try as he would, he couldn’t make himself sleep. He had to get up. He had to do something about this sudden glance of hope. It sounded silly even to Harry, but he had to tell someone that no matter how he felt tomorrow, no matter what happened to him the next moment, no matter how angry he was likely to get or how depressed he became, right now, this moment, he felt just a little better.



Harry swung his legs over the side of his bed, and smacked the wood floor with his bare feet. He sat for several moments, trying to think of what he was doing. At that moment, a small voice rang at the back of his memory.



“I understand…I’ll leave you alone, Harry.”



A thought sprung on Harry’s mind, and it made him smile slightly in the darkness. Standing up from his bed, he went for his trunk, and unlatched it quickly. Digging around inside it, Harry pulled from its dark interior a feather quill, a bottle of scarlet ink, and a piece of parchment…


***


The sun shone cheerily through the window of the girls’ dormitory, and Ginny rubbed her eyes against it. Dumbledore had allowed everyone to sleep in more than Mrs. Weasley would ever let her children under normal circumstances, due to the traumatizing experiences many of the students had undergone through either O.W.L.s or Voldemort.



Ginny yawned and threw her feet over the side of her bed, and felt quite lazy for sleeping so late. Throwing a flowered night robe over her shoulders, she meandered sleepily towards her room’s door, and pushed it open.



Ginny gasped in surprised, and caught herself just in time on the door handle. The staircase leading down from the girls’ dormitories had melted into a slick, stone slide. She raised her eyebrows, wondering who’d tried to get up here last night.



But then, something near her feet caught her eye, and she bent down to pick it up.



It was a rolled-up piece of parchment with a rock tied around it. “Probably to give it weight,” Ginny mused aloud. Someone must have paced up the stairs a ways and thrown it.



Ginny untied the string, letting the rock fall down the stone slide, and unrolled the parchment. In sparkling, red ink, there were written just two words:



Thanks Ginny



Ginny smiled slightly, and turned back towards the dormitory door, rolling the note back up as she went.



“Anytime, Harry,” she said. “Anytime.”



The End



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