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SIYE Time:23:29 on 28th March 2024
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A Pocketed Piece of Parchment
By Calliope

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Category: Post-HBP
Characters:Other, Harry/Ginny
Genres: General
Warnings: None
Story is Complete
Rating: G
Reviews: 12
Summary: Assuming things could be over in a matter of months, then, and assuming Harry would emerge alive, whole, and victorious ... because frankly, it gave her nausea to imagine any other outcome ... Ginny would now be facing two years of Hogwarts without Harry Potter.
Hitcount: Story Total: 5079







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Ginny always knew it didn’t matter how much she protested or how many times she proved herself. She could save the lives of the entire extended Weasley family — which would be quite a feat — and it wouldn’t make a difference. Harry would never have her with him right now. Ron and Hermione would go and he would be fine letting them take care of themselves, even listening to them when they presented their own cases for why he can’t do it without them. And he would believe them. But Ginny? No.

It was all for the best, anyway. She wasn’t sure whether it made her feel wonderful or distressed, but she would be a distraction. If Harry was always worrying about Ginny, which she knew he would do no matter how many Death Eaters she took down, he would never be able to concentrate properly on what he had decided he needed to do now.

Ginny had now written down the entire organized argument that she had used to persuade herself that she belonged here, at Hogwarts, rather than with Harry, wherever he may be. She had found herself needing convincing so many times in only a month that it was simply easier to read the same thing over again. It always worked, though lately it had been necessary to read the creased and faded parchment two, even three times over to keep her from tossing aside her Herbology book, grabbing her broom and pulling a Fred and George, riding off into the sunset to find her…well…whatever he was. Most often she had referred to him as her “pseudo ex-boyfriend” in conversation lately.

The Herbology book in question was sitting in front of her now, simply begging to be read, but Ginny noticed none of this as she stared out the window of the Gryffindor common room. How many times last year had she sat with Harry in this seat as she studied for her O.W.L.s and he claimed to be writing essays but was somehow looking at her, a slightly bemused look on his face as though he was not sure how he came to be there, every time she glanced up? Not all that many, really…not nearly enough.

Ginny supposed she had just never really considered what it might be like to have two entire years of school without him. Really, if the war wasn’t over by next September, she would most likely be back at the Burrow studying with her mother at the kitchen table in a year’s time, but she could feel things building to a climax and couldn’t shake the hopeful feeling that Harry could be coming back (to her?) in only a few months’ time.

Every once in a while she received a letter from one of the three friends. Hermione wrote long letters that managed to go on and on in explicit detail without ever actually revealing anything. Ginny couldn’t decide whether she preferred this to the short, to-the-point scrawls she was sent from her brother. “Can’t say where we are, but we’re all well…” Bollocks. And though the sight of Hedwig flying towards her every few days at breakfast sent her heart leaping into her throat, Harry’s letters contained no more substance than those of his two best friends. Every one of the letters, though, no matter from whom it came, seemed to hold an increasing amount of excitement, as if they were drawing closer to a discovery. They never actually said anything, but Ginny knew them all well enough to read the hints even they probably didn’t know they were dropping.

Assuming things could be over in a matter of months, then, and assuming Harry would emerge alive, whole, and victorious — because frankly, it gave her nausea to imagine any other outcome — she would now be facing two years of Hogwarts without Harry Potter. Something she had never done before and had secretly hoped in a wild and irrationally selfish wish she would never have to do. It was a bit pathetic to realize how involved in her life he had been, without ever even being directly involved in it between the end of her first year and somewhere in the middle of her fifth. Ginny found herself turning expectantly when she saw a mop of black hair, expecting to find a lightning-bolt scar and a pair of glasses framing brilliant green eyes almost entirely concealed beneath. She was beginning to get used to the small drop in her stomach she got whenever she entered the common room and glanced around to find Harry not there. She had even forced herself to stop glancing up in the air every time she passed the Quidditch pitch, reminding herself that there would be no grinning Seeker on a Firebolt.

Ginny stared down at her Herbology book without actually registering what any of the words on the page were. She thought one of them might have had something to do with Flesh-Eating trees — no, that was just the title of the book, as though she might forget what text she was reading and have to look to the upper corner to remind herself rather than take an extra split-second to glace at the cover. She tensed her neck muscles in resistance against a sudden reflexive urge to glance about the room for Harry’s face as she heard the portrait door open.

The sound of footsteps was now coming towards her from the direction of the Fat Lady. She told herself the gait was a little too fast to be him — it was ridiculous to think he’d be here — don’t look up.

“Hey, Ginny,” a hesitating male voice cut in.

She looked up. Dean.

“Hi, Dean.” Ginny gave what she knew must be a pretty weak smile. “All right?”

“Yeah, I just finished a pretty harsh detention with Flitwick.”

Ginny tried to keep from snorting. “Harsh” and “Flitwick” did not often appear in the same sentence.

“I had to stay for hours and write lines…something about being an orangutan or something.” He smiled uneasily. “I wasn’t concentrating so well today.”

“Something wrong?” asked Ginny, not being sure if she wanted to know.

Dean shrugged noncommittally and jammed his hands in his pockets. “Probably just nervous about the game on Saturday.”

Ginny breathed a small sigh of relief, hoping he didn’t notice. “We’ll be fine. You guys were doing great at the last practice. You and Seamus work well with Demelza.”

“Yeah.”

There was a brief and awkward silence.

“Ginny?”

“Yeah?”

“Are…I mean, have you been okay? You’ve seemed a little…I dunno, quiet.”

Ginny smiled. She would probably never tell Dean how much it meant to her that he had been able to get past the mild but hurtful glares in the hall and actually express some care for her well-being, but it was sweet.

“Yeah, I’m okay.”

“You miss him, don’t you?” said Dean quietly.

Ginny couldn’t bring herself to say anything, so she settled for a feeble nod and was barely able to stifle a small whimper. Stay strong, you do not let your emotions get the better of you like this. She willed Dean to go away.

Luckily, Dean seemed to be on the same wavelength as Ginny for the first time in a very long time. He mumbled something like “though you might,” patted her clumsily on the shoulder and stumbled away.

Ginny lowered her gaze back to the text in her lap and thought she might have recognized the word “Snargaluff” briefly before the letters all mixed themselves up into gibberish…come to think of it, “Snargaluff” may have been gibberish as well…

Ginny looked back out the window with a heavy and almost indignant sigh. She wasn’t going to get any reading done tonight. She glanced over at Dean, feeling angry at him for stirring things up but guilty at the same time…after all, he hadn’t really meant to…he didn’t know it was killing her to be sitting here while Harry risked his life doing who knows what…

Ginny slammed her Herbology book decisively, drawing a few alarmed looks before she drew a piece of parchment out of her pocket that had clearly been read many times so that it looked decades old. She was still sitting there with her nose almost touching the page when Seamus dragged himself up to bed a long time later, muttering implications about Slughorn and some essay and leaving the common room empty save for one small and forlorn redheaded girl determined not to move until she knew she would only go to bed and not fly into the night in search of the boy for whom she knew she would still glance around the room before disappearing up the stairs.





A/N: I lost the eBay bid to buy Harry Potter from JKR yesterday. So no, it's still not mine.

I've been trying to decide lately whether I'll be finishing After All, since I really wanted to be done before HBP and it's now AU. I probably will, since there's really only one chapter left, so I'll be working on that for a while...I promise I'll do my best, but I can't promise where it'll take me. I mean, I didn't even know Dean was going to pop up in this story until he got there. That tricky ex.

Anyway, this story is dedicated to all my friends who moved away that I still look for in the halls at school...and whose cars I look for as I pass their house...God, I miss them.

Now that I've finished maybe the longest A/N ever, please review...if only to tell me never to write an A/N this long again.
Reviews 12
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