The Room of Lost Things by Deadptarmigan
Summary: Alternate Universe. Harry and Ginny. Please enjoy this screwed up little story. Photography credit goes to Daniil Kontorovich on Behance. Editing credit to Andrea Gonzales.
Rating: R
Categories: Alternate Universe
Characters: None
Genres: None
Warnings: None
Challenges: None
Series: None
Published: 2019.07.07
Updated: 2019.07.08
Index
Chapter 1: Chapter One
Chapter 2: Interlude
Chapter 3: Chapter Two
Chapter 4: Chapter Three
Chapter 5: Chapter Four
Chapter 6: Chapter Five
Chapter 7: Chapter Six
Chapter 8: Chapter Seven
Chapter 1: Chapter One
Author's Notes: I hope you enjoy this story!
PART I
1.
Ginny's head hurt. It hurt like nothing else had in her entire life, not even the time she'd tripped over a cauldron, and fell down the stairs at the Burrow. Her arm was broken in two places — the bone had torn the skin. And still, it hadn't hurt like this.
"Ginny!"
Harry's voice. He sounded like he was in pain, too.
She opened her eyes. "Whazza?"
Several things were revealed to her: Harry was covered in muck and blood, he was holding a long, curved fang, they were no longer in the Chamber of Secrets, and they were surrounded by things. Furniture… books… lamps… globes… everything anyone could think of was stacked high.
She tried to sit up, but couldn't. She clutched at her head. Tears spilled out of her eyes, and she couldn't stop it. "Harry, I'm so sorry," she sobbed. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know what that diary was, I didn't know!"
He patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. "S'okay," he muttered. "I'm not worried about that — Ginny, I don't know where we are."
"You didn't — didn't take me somewhere?" Ginny asked through her tears. But then she remembered — remembered seeing a homely little face in between two giant, bat-like ears. "Did you bring a house elf with you?"
"You saw a house elf?" Harry asked urgently. "Was it Dobby?"
Ginny shook her head rapidly from side to side. "I don't know a Dobby. I just know what a house elf looks like."
Harry looked disappointed. "There's no escape–"
"There's no escape at all from this room," Ginny agreed. The words came out of her by rote.
"Right," Harry agreed. "So we have to wait for Dobby — it had to be Dobby — to come back and get us."
Ginny was now shaking uncontrollably. Her teeth chattered. "W-w-w-why do y-y-you think it's this D-D-D-D-Dobby? Was he your Muggles' house elf?"
"No, they didn't have a house elf," Harry said. "Dobby kept trying to help me this year… kept trying to help me by making it hard to come back to school and stuff. Remember when Ron and I had to take your dad's car — Ron!"
Ginny turned her head, expecting to see her brother walking toward them. "W-w-w-where?"
"He was there — he came down to the Chamber, but then Lockhart stole his wand and tried to duel me. Caused a bunch of rocks to fall down, and Ron was stuck on the other side." Harry staggered to his feet, then collapsed on the ground. "I can't get up," he muttered. Trying to stand up had sapped him of energy, it seemed. He didn't speak again for a long, long time. "Sorry, I — m'head hurts so bad."
"Mine too," said Ginny. She was in a hazy, drifting state. The elf had pointed his finger at her, right after he brought her and Harry to this room. This Dobby had done something. It was why her head hurt. It felt like there'd been lightning in her brain.
Ginny dozed, and woke. Dozed, and woke. The next time she opened her eyes, she found a plate of toast and a cup of tea sitting next to her head. It was just in time; her stomach rumbled. Her hands shook as she brought the toast to her lips. It was difficult to chew and swallow, and Ginny only managed half a piece before she set it down. She took a sip of tea, and dozed again. Harry had not moved the entire time her eyes were open.
What woke her up next actually launched her into a sitting position.
It was a voice. It was Professor Dumbledore's voice.
It was coming from a wispy, silvery bird… a phoenix, Ginny thought, judging by the plumage.
"–worry, we are going to find you. We found Mr. Ronald Weasley. He will make a full recovery, it will just take time. I have found the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets, and I promise you this: I will find a way through the barrier. We will find you and Miss Weasley. Oh, and Gilderoy, of course."
Ginny's head spun. They found Ron? He was all right, or he would be in time?
"Ginny?" Harry said weakly. "Did you say something?"
"Not me, Dumbledore," Ginny said. She cleared her throat, and repeated the message word for word.
"What happened to Ron?" Harry asked, sounding a little sharper.
"I don't know," Ginny said helplessly. The tears started again. She ate more of her toast.
The next time she woke up, Harry was lightly shaking her shoulder. "Ginny. Ginny, wake up."
She blinked. "Sorry, Harry, I don't know why I'm so tired."
"Dunno, but Tom Riddle was taking your life force, he said. Maybe it — it takes a while to grow back?" Harry said.
"But haven't you been sleepy, too?" Ginny asked. "Maybe it's something that house elf of yours did. Maybe he did something to us."
"I… possibly," Harry's face fell into a pensive line. "There was — there was something else." Then his expression shuttered. "Or maybe not. Listen, Dumbledore sent us another message." He proceeded to tell her that Dumbledore and several curse-breakers had busted through into the Chamber. "Including Bill," said Harry. "Dumbledore said he came back from Egypt to help find you… They were very surprised not to find us," he finished glumly.
"Surely they will, though," said Ginny. For the first time since she'd arrived, she got to her feet. Her legs were as shaky as a baby hippogriff's.
"Oh!" said Harry. "I have your wand… here."
He held it out to her, and Ginny took it. "Thank you," she said quietly.
From this vantage point, she could see a lump of black robes directly ahead, in the center of a small clearing. "Harry, look! Someone else is here!" Ginny picked her way toward it, using the furniture and things next to her to help her along the way. Harry followed her. Both of them were breathing hard by the time they were halfway there. Ginny plopped onto an old, old chair to rest. Harry kept going.
"It's Lockhart," he called back to her.
2.
Ginny felt relieved. Professor Lockhart was an annoying git, she privately thought, but he was an adult. He would know how–
"He's mad as a hatter," said Harry.
Her hopes sank.
3.
"But maybe he recovered," said Ginny, after Harry told her what had happened. "Harry, he's an adult."
He'll know what to do.
The magic of the room provided a cup of tea. Ginny knelt next to the professor and gently tapped his shoulder.
He turned over. His eyes were wide and staring.
"Do you know what to do? We're trapped here," said Ginny. "There's no exit."
The professor just stared.
He smelled funny, like maybe he'd gone to the bathroom in his robes. Ginny leaned away from him. Maybe he was physically weaker than they were, maybe he'd been hurt more when that charm had backfired.
When Harry prodded him with his foot, he showed some life.
"Please, professor, we need help," she begged. There was no escape from this room, but maybe he knew how to send that kind of message Dumbledore used. "We're stuck here. We need help."
"Oh my yes," he finally said. He struggled to his feet. The smell of a backed-up toilet grew stronger. "And I'm the obvious choice." He threw Harry a black look. "Not that one over there. Let's get going, shall we?"
And for a few minutes, Ginny genuinely thought Professor Lockhart would be able to help them. His cape swirled about him, and if she walked far enough away from him, she could pretend she didn't know he'd made a mess of himself. Harry walked close enough beside her that his arm brushed against hers.
"Ah, here we are!"
Ginny stopped, feeling a tendril of hope.
"Just in time for my book signing!"
Then Professor Lockhart sat behind a broken writing desk, and beamed at them. "Welcome, welcome! You're just in time to hear the thrilling tale of how I defeated the banshee!"
"The banshee?" A black, hopeless feeling settled over her.
"Yes, yes, the banshee," he said. "Come now, don't you want your books signed?"
Ginny's entire face heated. She almost lost her temper right then — something about the way he was sitting… the way he pontificated… it reminded her of when she'd been given the diary. They'd all been in Flourish and Blotts, even this one. That was why she was suddenly so angry.
"See?" Harry said quietly. "Mad as a hatter."
4.
Gilderoy — Ginny could no longer thing of him as Professor Lockhart — proved to be more of a liability than a help. As her strength returned, she grew increasingly annoyed with him.
"But where is that red-haired boy?!" Gilderoy was shouting. "HE HAS MY WAND!"
This was at least the fiftieth time Ginny had heard this refrain, and she shared a quick, irritated glance with Harry. She knew most of what had happened in the Chamber by now. They'd slept several times since Harry'd told her in an embarrassing rush of words, including the bits about Gilderoy he'd already told her.
"We figured out where you were… it was Moaning Myrtle's bathroom that's the entrance — you know that — and we went to Gilderoy. Stupidly. Then he grabbed Ron's wand… it backfired, and the ceiling caved in. He was probably already barmy… I wasn't paying attention. I was, uh, I was trying to get to you. And there was this — this boy, but he wasn't quite real, y'know? I knew him from when I found the diary, and it turns out Voldemort had made it. Voldemort was Tom Riddle. It was him in there, Ginny, I dunno how. Then the basilisk came, and I fought it, and that's all. Oh, and I stabbed the diary. It was — it was bleeding and Tom Riddle was screaming. Then — then, I–"
"Then you what?"
"I woke up here," Harry said in such a way that Ginny knew he was keeping something from her.
It hurt to think about what had happened. It was easy to ignore when she was trying to take care of Gilderoy (whose moods were strange and demanding), but at night, whatever she used for a pillow was often wet with tears by the time she fell asleep. It was Voldemort, then? This whole last year… the diary… she'd been talking to Voldemort? Telling Voldemort her secrets, letting him soothe her? It made her sick to her stomach to think about.
It got to the point she thought she saw Tom Riddle out of the corners of her eyes. It didn't help that she knew something else had happened. Harry was often distracted — they didn't talk much. Ginny still couldn't hardly look at him. But she knew something was on his mind, other than the fact they had to wait in this room until Dobby decided to come let them out. There was no escape, otherwise.
Ginny had just caught a glimpse of Riddle, and her fears were surging. What if Harry hadn't really seen Tom Riddle disappearing? What if he was still out there? What if he was still in her?
She and Harry were walking side by side, making a path through stacks and stacks of furniture. The silence fairly boiled between them, but Ginny couldn't seem to breach her embarrassment. What if he thought she thought he was a liar? But she couldn't keep going on like this, thinking she saw Tom Riddle everywhere. She couldn't.
"Harry–"
"Ginny–"
They spoke at the same moment.
"You go first," said Ginny, with an air of great relief.
"You know more about our world… the real world, I mean, not here. Do you know who or what a Serious Black is? Is it a person? A type of spell?"
Ginny stopped in her tracks. "Sirius Black?" she said faintly. "He's not here, is he?"
"I didn't even know it was a he," said Harry. "Someone mentioned — in the Chamber — someone mentioned him."
"Oh, Tom must've mentioned him," Ginny said with authority. "He was a follower — a Death Eater. Mum and Dad only whisper about him, but I do know he killed a street full of Muggles, right after your — right after your parents."
"You know, I think that's the most you've ever said to me," said Harry. "But it wasn't — it wasn't Voldemort. It was something else. But never mind. What were you going to say?"
"I–I forgot," Ginny lied.
5.
They'd reached a giant pile of old broomsticks. Without even thinking, Ginny took one and climbed on. It was ancient, and it puttered through the air, but it was flying. She was doing something she loved. True, it would be better to have a nicer broom. And she missed being outside. But this was almost as good.
Her face cracked a smile for the first time in what felt like months.
Then Harry was beside her.
"It just goes on and on, doesn't it?" he said quietly.
Gilderoy was jumping up and down below them, shouting at them to come back, they were supposed to be his fans, why were they leaving him?
6.
Ginny was staring at Tom Riddle. Horror had paralyzed her entire body. He was tall and pale. She was trapped in his gaze, he was sucking the life out of her… it wasn't over, it would never be over.
Then a silvery, beautiful weasel appeared. "Ginny, Dumbledore taught us how to make these talk," it said with her dad's voice.
Tom Riddle burst apart in a cloud of sparks.
Ginny's eyes filled with tears. Her dad kept talking. "We are still looking for you. We will never stop looking for you. Ron is out of St. Mungo's and is home now. They gave him a reward; his picture was in the Daily Prophet and everything. He's finally able to tell us everything, and we know — we know Lucius Malfoy gave you a diary. Dumbledore says it may have done things to you. It may have made you do things. Ginny… we don't know why you're gone, or where you are, but your mother and I — and — and everyone… we miss you. We love you."
7.
"But what was it?" Harry's mouth was hanging open. "Dumbledore's phoenix, your dad's weasel… what are they? How do we make one? If we did, we could tell them we're alive. Maybe they could find us before Dobby comes back."
"I don't know," Ginny said, spreading her hands. She closed her eyes, and wished — oh, she wished she knew what those silvery creatures were.
Something hard landed on her foot.
Her eyes flew open. There was a book, moldy and old, suddenly there as though it had dropped from the sky. Harry bent down and picked it up, brows furrowed with consternation. "It just appeared," he said in a hushed voice. "Look… it's called Advanced Protection…"
Ginny read over his shoulder. The page it had opened to outlined something called the Patronus Charm. "I think I've heard of this," Ginny said slowly. "I remember Dad coming home from a visit to Azkaban once… said his 'patronus was fucking knackered from all the Dementors'?"
"What're Dementors? And your dad swears like that in front of you?"
"I was listening in at the door," Ginny admitted. "And Dementors are the Azkaban guards. Dad says they're terrifying. They keep all the prisoners in."
"Oh," Harry nodded. Then he smiled faintly at her. "You eavesdrop a lot?"
"You have to when you're the youngest," Ginny shrugged. "Otherwise you never find stuff out."
"All right, well… this charm doesn't look too complicated… all you do is think of a 'thought full of warmth and good tidings' and say 'expecto patronum'," Harry told her.
8.
Ginny and Harry slept twice more before Dumbledore's patronus arrived. Both of them looked at it with extreme frustration. It turned out that thinking a thought full of warmth and good tidings was extremely difficult. "It's because we're trapped," Harry'd kicked a table leg in anger. "How're we supposed to think good thoughts?"
Ginny privately agreed. It was a magically exhausting spell, even though she'd only managed to emit a silvery blue spark from her wand — it'd winked out of existence so swiftly, she might've even imagined it. But she kept trying. And once Harry got over his frustration, he kept at it, too.
It didn't help that Gilderoy took turns jeering at them, and trying to get them to want his autograph.
But neither Ginny nor Harry were feeling particularly charitable when the patronus arrived.
"As I am sure you are aware, we did not, in fact, rescue you from Lucius Malfoy's manor house this evening. The Ministry conducted a raid. Malfoy fought, and used several house-elves as decoys — alas, they are dead. He is now in Azkaban, where he will remain for quite some time. He tried to claim the dark objects were his wife's sister's — also in Azkaban — but the Ministry is no longer accepting his bribes. I have seen to that. I was so certain you would be there, Harry, that we would find you and Miss Weasley. And Gilderoy. If you are with Miss Weasley, please tell her that her father and brothers exacted an elegant revenge on her behalf."
The patronus winked out of existence.
There was a pained look on Harry's face.
"What's wrong?" Ginny asked.
"Nothing," Harry said quietly. "Nothing."
9.
It was the following day — as far as they reckoned days in this strange place — that Ginny crossed some sort of invisible threshold in the room, and felt a wave of intense dread. Frozen, she expected to see Tom Riddle come out of the shadows, and start trying to kill her again. It took minutes before she realized nothing was wrong, she was staring at cupboard with a large stain on it, as though someone had thrown aside on it. It was littered with other, smaller items: a dusty old brooch, a tiara, and several chipped mugs.
"It's leftover nerves," Ginny muttered to herself.
But she led them onward, and when Gilderoy wanted to stop when they were too close to that cabinet, Ginny prodded him with her wand. "No," she hissed. "You don't get to stop right now. Get up."
"Well, I certainly won't be returning here," Gilderoy said irritably. "You're a terrible event coordinator. I'm going to have to have a word with your manager."
"You do that." The nerves had made her snide.
Harry finally ended up having to help her drag him by the feet.
10.
Her mother sent a patronus that night, and then Bill.
Ginny wept at the sound of their voices.
Harry tried for hours that night to conjure a patronus. Ginny watched him, too depressed to even try. All she kept thinking about was that cold sliminess she'd felt earlier that day. "They said we've been gone for almost a month," she said. "Why has Dobby been gone so long?"
Harry dropped his wand, and the look he gave Ginny made her stomach clench in fear. "I think Dobby was Lucius Malfoy's," he said. "I don't know for sure. But when Dumbledore sent that patronus… he said some house-elves were used as decoys. I thought — I think — I think it was Dobby. I think Dobby's dead."
"Why didn't you say something?" Ginny demanded, before she could stop herself. "Why didn't you tell me?"
Harry shook his head. "I don't know if I'm right. I don't."
"I know I'm not Ron or Hermione, but I deserve to know these things!" Ginny said hotly.
Harry flushed. "It isn't because you aren't them, I just — I didn't want to say it out loud."
Ginny's anger receded. "I didn't mean to shout at you, Harry, I'm sorry."
Harry shrugged. "It's better than you not talking to me at all."
9.
By the time Ginny got up from her nap, Harry was gone, leaving her to deal with the mess Gilderoy'd made of his pants and robes all by herself. She still felt that urge to put distance between herself and that cabinet and whatever was in it, but she didn't want to move too far. It would take much too much effort to find Harry again.
She was sitting cross-legged on a giant round table, when Harry rounded the corner of the nearest alleyway. His face was terrible to behold: set, white, and there were tear tracks on it. Ginny looked at him with horror. He hadn't cried at all that she'd seen. What was it?
"Harry? What's happened?" she slid off the table and picked her way toward him.
He jumped at the sound of her voice, and stared at her, mouth gaping. "G-Ginny?" he asked, as though he'd seen a ghost.
"Yes?" she said, confused.
"I thought you left," he said faintly. "I saw you leave this place… you and Gilderoy. I watched you. I was calling for you, and running to try to catch up, and everything. There was this giant glowing door, and you went through it. And I was all–"
His voice broke off.
Ginny's mind raced. "Harry, I — I think there are boggarts here. I think you saw a boggart today… and I'm — I'm pretty sure I've seen a couple out of the corner of my eyes. And my dad's patronus landed right on top of one."
"What's a boggart?" He was standing quite close to her, and he clasped her shoulder, as though checking to see if she was real.
"It's this creature that takes the form of what you — something you're afraid of," Ginny told him. "It must've been a pretty strong one if it showed you a whole scene."
"I feel so tired," Harry murmured.
"Yeah, well, it was feeding off you," said Ginny. She helped him sit down in a ratty old chair. "Mum says the best way to get rid of a boggart is to laugh at it… she had a spell — 'Riddikulus' — that she used, but you can just laugh at it. Fred and George used to hire themselves out as boggart exterminators… they called themselves the 'Boggart Boys'."
"It wasn't funny, though, how could I laugh?" Harry asked. "I know it's selfish, but being left alone in here… there's nothing funny in that."
"I wouldn't want to be left alone here, either," said Ginny.
11.
"Does this look familiar to you?" Harry asked.
Ginny looked around, feeling rather dull. Mounds of furniture, a few tapestries, a painting of Wendell the Weird–
"Yes," Ginny said. "I think… isn't this where we woke up?"
"Yeah," said Harry. "Yeah, it is."
They exchanged a defeated look. It was then that they ceased their wandering, and began to set up something like a camp. Harry sent furniture flying with careless mutters of "Wingardium Leviosa," and cleared a large area of furniture and other detritus. Ginny used all her magical know-how to make reasonably-sized rooms. She even — furtively — did something she had begun to quite frequently: she chanted her request, focusing on what she needed.
An outdoor shower appeared. A yellowing curtain surrounded it, but Ginny checked, and the water ran. And it was warm. She wasted no time and hopped in. There was a point when spells could only do so much.
"You got it to give you a shower?" Harry said, delighted.
Ginny squeaked.
"Don't worry, I can't see anything," he said. "Privates are private, I know that."
"Right," Ginny whispered. "Right."
He wandered away, and Ginny finished her shower.
It took them days before they were satisfied with it. Not because the work was particularly difficult, but because they both kept swinging between hoping it was a waste of time, and actually putting it together. But it was a decent camp when they were done with it. Ginny had a bedroom with walls made of stacked furniture. The roof was open — the walls only went up seven feet. She'd found a beaded curtain several alleys over, and was using it for a door. Her bed was huge, and had a wispy white canopy. It wasn't girlish, or anything, but it was soft; it looked soft, and it was actually soft. After a month of sleeping wherever she could, that first night was as wonderful as it could be.
The second night was awful.
Dumbledore's patronus came, and didn't say anything for the longest time. At last, it said: "We are still searching. My sources say that Lord Voldemort is still in Albania." There was clear frustration in his tone. "Arthur Weasley is in the process of tearing apart the Ministry, looking for any sign of you. Cornelius Fudge is no longer our Minister; he has been replaced. But still, we have no good leads. Bill Weasley is heading the search effort in other countries. We had hoped we would find you sooner than this, Harry. And Ginny, if I may call you Ginny. Your mother has that marvelous clock of hers, so we know you are not dead. Just lost. But I make this my birthday promise to you, Harry — you will not remain lost forever."
Ginny crawled into bed with Harry that night. "I can't be alone," she sobbed as he made room for her. He patted her on the shoulder.
Dobby was dead, most likely, and even Dumbledore could not seem to find them.
"How are we going to get out of here? We need someone to find us!" Ginny's entire body was shaking. "I don't want to stay here forever!"
"We won't," Harry said firmly. "We won't. We need — we need to learn how to cast that patronus charm."
Ginny cried harder, thinking she might make herself sick from it.
"Ginny, it's okay," he whispered. He patted her on the back as she cried into a pillow. "It's going to be okay. We just need to learn more magic… look at how many books are in here, there's a ton of textbooks. Maybe if we just keep studying…"
"You sound like Hermione," she sniffled.
Harry huffed out a chuckle. "She'd be right."
"Okay, so we'll start studying," said Ginny. She felt a little tendril of hope.
"We'll keep studying until we learn the patronus," he said firmly.
There was a long, long silence. She looked at him. They'd dimmed most of the lights as they did every time they wanted to sleep. But she could still see his profile. "Harry…" she whispered. "Are you still awake?"
"Yeah," he whispered back.
"Is Tom Riddle really gone? The Tom Riddle from the diary?"
"Yeah," he said. "I'm sure he is. Last I saw him, the diary was spurting ink like blood. He was screaming…"
"But there's something you aren't telling me," Ginny said.
"It's not… it's not about that, I promise."
"Is it about Sirius Black?" she asked.
He sat up and scrubbed at his face. "Sort of," he said. "I didn't tell you but… I got the basilisk fang because it — it bit me. It was in my shoulder. I killed it with the sword, and I killed the diary with the fang, but I think — this sounds mental, as mental as Gilderoy, but… I think I died a little?"
Ginny was confused. "What?"
"Ginny," he breathed. "I saw my parents. I swear I did. They said a bunch of stuff about how Voldemort left something in me when he tried to kill me as a baby. Then Mum cried… Dad cried… said they were sorry they trusted the wrong person, and that Sirius Black was the best friend they've ever had."
"Sirius Black?" Ginny said, shocked.
"You believe me?" He asked her. He sounded astonished.
"Of course," said Ginny. "I knew there was something you weren't telling me."
"Thank you," he whispered. "I think I was dead… but then I heard this song. Remember how I told you Dumbledore's phoenix — the real one — plucked out the basilisk's eyes? Well, I could hear it. I think it did something to bring me back. And then I could hardly see my parents anymore, but my dad kept telling me: stab the diary. Use the fang and stab the diary. So as soon as I could move, I did. And then we were waking up here."
Ginny thought about this for a long time.
"Are you still awake?" Harry finally asked.
"Yeah," said Ginny.
"You don't — you don't think we died, do you? This isn't some — some afterlife, or anything, is it?"
Ginny shook her head. "No, Harry, we're alive. We're alive, and trapped in a place with no exit. A place that grants us pretty much everything else we want–"
"–it does seem to answer the little — little prayers. That's what Muggles call it," said Harry. "It answers the little prayers, but not the big stuff."
"Yeah, prayers," said Ginny, waving her hand. "But we are alive. You're alive. I'm alive. Gilderoy's alive. I promise you're alive."
12.
The next day, they got out of bed, and began to collect all the textbooks they could find. Each were determined to do whatever it took to get out of there.
Chapter 2: Interlude
Author's Notes: So this interlude is longer than it was on fanfiction.net, but only because of the 1,000 word minimum on SIYE chapters!
You've been missing nearly a year, Ginny, my dear. There has been a death in the family. Not a person, don't fret. But Scabbers was brutally murdered by Sirius Black, of all people. Why he broke out of Azkaban to murder our family pet, I will never know. I suspect we never will. He has not been heard from since. Everyone is fine. Ron was there when it happened, and the only person he will speak to about it is Professor Dumbledore.
...
Harry, once you return, you will be interested to know you have a godfather. His name is Sirius Black, and he's been in Azkaban since he was wrongfully accused of betraying your parents, and killing a street full of Muggles. He… is not yet capable of casting a patronus, but I myself am working with him. I am sure he will contact you shortly. Give my regards to Ginny, wherever you may be. Oh, and Gilderoy, I suppose.
...
It's your thirteenth birthday, my girl. Your mum and I have been missing you. We miss you every day, but this summer has been particularly hard. We had the chance to go to the Quidditch World Cup — I know how much you would have enjoyed it. We — we didn't end up going, no one felt up for it.
…
We have searched by all means that we know of, and still we cannot find any trace of you. It is… unbelievable to me that you will remain missing forever…
…
How has it been three years since I've seen your face?
…
We miss you, Ginny! We learned how to make patronuses just for you. Deuced hard, that was. We promise not to make too much mischief with them.
…
I confess, I do not know how this has happened. I do not understand how two children and a professor disappeared, leaving behind what I assume is a slaughtered Horcrux. You will not know what a Horcrux is, Harry… but I would have sworn — never mind.
…
Harry, I need to tell you about a prophecy made about you… about Lord Voldemort… before you were born…
…
GINNY, WHERE ARE YOU? COME HOME!
...
Harry, it's Sirius again. I wanted to tell you about your father. Both of your parents, really, just in case we're right and you're alive but missing all your memories. Your father was, at heart, a good man. Not as good a person as your mother, but that's a standard nearly impossible to meet. You see, we had a friend named Remus, and it wasn't long before we suspected that there was something terrible going on with him. Why did he leave every month? Where did he go? Why did he often look sickly afterward? It wasn't until your dad cottoned on that it happened around the full moon that we realized our friend -- who was astonishingly shy, you have to know -- was a werewolf. I'm ashamed that my first reaction was horror, but it was your dad who pointed out he was the same friend we always had, and to knock off being a prat. He was... he was a great man, your father. I'll remember him every day of my life, and I want to help you know him. To remember him. I just... I wish I knew how to find you, Harry. Your parents would be tearing the country apart in their search for you.
...
Minutes, hours, days -- and when you were all grown, months. I was prepared to have you off at Hogwarts and not see you for a few months stretch at a time. I knew I'd miss you, but I never even considered that Hogwarts wouldn't be a good place for you, my girl. After all, where else would you learn to use all your gifts? We always thought you rather exceptional, you know. I'm your father, though, so I might be biased. But you ARE exceptional. I didn't imagine that I would ever have to say it's been nearly half a decade since I've seen my daughter. My only hope is that I'll somehow find you, and I'll never have to realize the time since I'd seen you had stretched to a lifetime. I don't know if my messages get to you. I am thinking of you. If Christmas wishes were real...
...
Ginny. You're missed. This is Bill. Do you remember me? Are you still out there somewhere?
...
I realize the last time I sent a patronus, I forgot to tell you about your mother. She impressed every single one of the professors by being effortlessly skilled at magic. Your dad fell in love with her, oh, somewhere back in second year, and never came out of it. But he always noticed her. I've been getting to know some of your friends, you know. I think your mum would have found a lot of kinship with Hermione. Two Muggleborns, and both of them acknowledged the best in their years.
...
Sirius mentioned that he has been sending you messages about your parents. Ah, Harry. I do wish you were here to hear about them yourself.
The messages came at dreamy intervals. There were usually a spate of them around birthdays and Christmas, but the rest of the time, they came at the whim of whoever sent them. The more the years passed, the more philosophical they became. Long ago, Dumbledore had promised that Sirius Black would contact them, and Sirius -- as he told Harry to call him during his first message -- would talk at them sometimes for hours. Ginny took to finding Harry wherever he was and sitting next to him while the silvery dog told him long, rambling stories about his parents. It was one of their few solaces. Ginny often dreamed about them; she'd be running through the dark Room, praying that she wouldn't be chased anymore, and then one of the patronuses would surround her with their light.
Other times, no such light came to her rescue, and Ginny was swallowed up by the darkness of her dreams.
It was on these mornings that Ginny woke up more determined than ever to figure out how to cast her own.
Chapter 3: Chapter Two
years later1.
Ginny's favorite spot in the entire room was nowhere near the ground. She'd found it in the early months of them being trapped here. Restlessness had seized her one day, and she'd kicked off on one of the ancient, battered brooms. It was a small window that overlooked the castle grounds. Or at least, it pretended to overlook the castle grounds. It showed all the familiar landmarks – the lake, the forest, even the Quidditch Pitch – but it never showed people.
Ginny leaned her head against the window, and unfocused her eyes. It was easier to imagine people walking around, or flying on brooms, or dueling. Sometimes she spent entire days up here, making up stories about what her brothers were doing...
They'd been here for years. Actual years.
The first year was the worst. Ginny'd still been raw from the experience with the diary, missing her family, and living for the moments they sent her a patronus. First birthday, first Christmas, without her family.
The second year was the worst. The days were interminably long, boring, and Ginny'd had to force herself to keep studying magic. She didn't want to fall too far behind Harry, who was dogged in his determination to continue learning. "Every new spell opens up more possibilities," he said almost constantly. Then he'd show her some new charm, or neat work with Transfiguration. That would usually goad her competitive streak, and she'd attack it ferociously. Part of her lethargy was due to the fact that was the year she started her monthly bleeding. Her mum had warned her about it, but Ginny'd still been surprised and unhappy to wake up with an ache below her stomach, and her thighs sticky with blood.
The third year was the worst, because that was when Harry stopped wanting to do anything but fly or try to find trouble. This was the year they'd had their most blazing rows. Ginny figured this was because one of Dumbledore's patronus messages had arrived with some very unsettling information:
"I still have hope, you see, that someday you will be found, and whatever has happened — if you have had a memory charm placed on you that has made everything you have learned about the wizarding world disappear from your head, or something similar — will be undone. I did not intend to tell you this until much later, but all plans must change. I am hopeful you are still alive, Harry, because it was destined from before your birth that you would meet Voldemort one day."
The rest of the message had been a tangle of information… prophecy, Horcuxes, and other things Ginny and Harry had not really understood. For a long time, Harry did not even bother to try to figure any of this out, but had thrown himself at various activities with a recklessness that frightened Ginny. It did not help that some very dark books — one she thought had been bound by human skin — began to appear at her little writing desk. Gradually, she learned about Horcruxes.
"Harry, remember when you told me you saw your parents?" Ginny asked one day, troubled. "And they said Voldemort had left something in you, but the basilisk killed it?"
"Yeah," he grunted.
"I think — I think you were a Horcrux," she said in a near whisper. "You said you thought you were dead? I think you were… actually dead."
He got up abruptly, a fierce and angry look on his face, and left. Ginny didn't see him face to face for days, and not until the broom he'd been flying on finally cracked, and dumped him off. It was just lucky she'd been close enough to cast a cushioning charm. Still, his arm had been broken. It turned out to be a blessing, though, since it pinned him down long enough for him to get some of the poison and fear that had been going on in his head. For the first time, Ginny'd been the one to hold him as he cried.
By their reckoning (which was imperfect) that had been six months ago. Things were… better.
"What're you thinking about?" Harry's voice startled her from her thoughts.
"Oh!" Ginny said, turning her head sharply. "Just… thinking. About being here."
Harry clambered off his broom, and onto the wide ledge. It was large enough for both of them to sit, but just barely. Their bodies pressed together in a way that made Ginny… flutter.
The fluttering was new. It hadn't been something she'd necessarily had words for, she just knew that ever since Harry had his accident, sometimes when he touched her, it gave her a weird, though pleasant, sensation in her stomach.
Ginny relaxed against him, and then almost immediately felt a shooting pain in her neck. "Ouch! Damn," she said. She reached up to rub out the kink, but couldn't quite manage it with the way they were sitting. Without even thinking, Ginny asked: "Harry? Would you rub my neck for me? I twisted wrong."
He hesitated for a second, then did as she asked.
The fluttering increased by a degree.
Ginny didn't stop him, even when the pain receded.
"What's everyone up to today?" Harry asked quietly.
"Well, look, it's sunny." She pressed her hand up against the glass. "And it isn't too cold. I bet it's warm enough that everyone is — everyone is heading outside for a walk on the grounds. Fang is chasing the first years, and they're tripping in the mud. Hagrid's dusting them off as he finds them."
"The twins are playing a prank on — on Snape," Harry said. "He just gave them detention for playing a prank on him, and they're retaliating by playing another prank. It's not going to end well for them." He chuckled. "Your mum's gonna send another Howler. Hermione's trying to talk them out of it, listing all the ways it'll go wrong. The twins — and Ron — are ignoring her."
"They should listen to Hermione," Ginny said easily. His hand was still on her neck, and it was very warm where their skin met. She was still fluttering.
They continued to talk quietly, to share a dream about what their friends' lives were like.
2.
Over the next weeks and months, something subtle began to change between Ginny and Harry. It was her doing, she knew. It was just that she liked that fluttering feeling, liked the way his touch made her happy, that she sought it out at every opportunity. You're just starving for affection, Ginny justified it to herself. Her parents had always been affectionate with her, they were always patting her hand, or hugging her around the shoulders, or kissing the top of her head. She missed that. That's why she prodded Harry into touching her at every opportunity.
Except it did not feel the same when he did it. He made her flutter, and her skin tingle.
Gradually, they began to spend more time together. Harry no longer disappeared for days. They studied together more. They ate most meals together, and even dusted off some of the old games they'd found the first year they got here. This suited Ginny quite nicely. It made it easier to get Harry to make her feel good.
"Harry, I've got a snarl, will you help me?" And he would carefully brush out her hair. Once he did so for an entire hour, and Ginny was practically purring when he finished.
"My back hurts, Harry, will you rub it? Just for a second?" This during the time right before she started bleeding, and it was no lie. He didn't complain, just put his hands on her and rubbed her back until the pain was gone, and Ginny's entire body was relaxed and… happy. What's better is that he would provide her with backrubs three or four times a week, often without her having to initiate.
3.
"Harrryyyyy, let's go flying!" Ginny plucked the Defense against the Dark Arts textbook he was reading out of his hands. He was sitting in an armless chair, and she stood over him, legs on either side of his knees.
"Hey!" He protested, grabbing for it. Ginny held it up higher, grinning down at him.
"You've been studying too much, I want to play," she said.
His eyes drifted down to her neckline, examining the lace she'd sewn onto the old clothes. She wriggled her shoulders. "You like?"
"Huh?" He asked, distracted.
"The lace!"
There was a pause. "Of course I like the lace." Then he gave her a mock glare. "You should be studying too, Miss Weasley."
"We could study flying, Mr. Potter," she told him.
Then he put his hands on her, just like she wanted, and tickled her sides. Ginny shivered and laughed. His fingertips were on her ribcage, tickling in a way that made it slightly harder to breathe.
"All right," he said finally. "Let's go flying."
4.
She discovered that she liked touching him just as much.
Harry sat on the floor in front of her chair, and leaned against her legs. Ginny took this to mean he wanted a backrub. She grinned, and began kneading his shoulders. Whatever he'd been up to, his muscles were tense.
"It's like a rock," she murmured.
Harry turned his head sharply. "What?"
"Your right shoulder," Ginny explained. "The muscle is really hard."
"Mm," said Harry.
A few minutes later: "That feels so good, Ginny."
There was a tone in his voice that made her cheeks heat. "Good," she murmured. He leaned forward, and she stroked his back, massaging the muscles. His body was so different from hers. He was long and lean, whereas she was curvier. She touched his neck, comparing their skin tones. They were similarly pale from always being indoors.
"Are you cold?" Ginny asked. He had goosebumps on his neck.
"No, I... no," said Harry.
Then he stood up abruptly, reached out for a blanket, and wrapped it around his waist, but not before Ginny noticed a lump in his trousers. I wonder what he keeps in his pockets, thought Ginny.
5.
Mostly, she liked the fluttery, tingling sensation. But she couldn't deny that the more they gave each other little touches, the more she felt a sense of frustration. Not with Harry, exactly, but with herself. The fluttery, tingling had turned into a growing sense of anticipation.
Ginny thought about it on her way to Gilderoy's camp. It was her turn to clean him up, and clean up the sty he called his camp. At one time, she'd felt bad for him. Whatever had happened to his brain when the memory charm backfired had never healed. Gilderoy still pontificated, still pretended he was famous, still pretended she and Harry were fans. But in so many ways he could not take care of himself. If they had not been in a magical sort of prison that provided concrete answers to their prayers, he would be long dead. Or locked in the Closed Ward at St. Mungo's. The room provided everything Gilderoy needed to stay alive.
Her thoughts turned to Harry.
The only thing their prison could not do, it seemed, was provide Ginny with a way to alleviate the feeling of anticipation.
Just the other day, Ginny'd had a splinter, and Harry had been very solicitous, taking it out, soothing the small sting of pain, and Ginny'd taken the opportunity to hold his hand until she had to get up to have a pee. She'd considered the splinter worth it.
So deep in thought was she that she'd been standing in the middle of Gilderoy's camp for several minutes before she realized he was not there. Judging by the state of things, he hadn't been there for quite some time. Confused, Ginny wracked her brain. When was the last time she'd seen Gilderoy? She avoided it as much as she could, to be sure. But she usually at least heard him several times a day.
"Harry, I think we need to find Gilderoy," said Ginny, once she was back at their camp. "I haven't seen him in ages. What if he died somewhere?"
"Wouldn't his body have started to stink?" Harry said indifferently.
"What if the room made it disappear somehow?" Ginny pointed out. "I'm going out to look for him. I'll be back when I find him, I suppose."
"No, wait for me, I'll come with you," Harry got to his feet. Ginny's eyes dropped to his trousers for a quick second. No lump. Sometimes Harry carried something around, and sometimes he didn't. It had become a bit of a game for her to try to guess when it would be there, and when it wouldn't.
The ancient brooms did not let them rocket into the air. Instead, they flew like drunken bumblebees. The room was huge, and if they flew far enough, it would loop back to where they began. The stacks of furniture and piles of stuff made it difficult to spy a body. They flew in lazy circles, hardly talking. Ginny wondered how she would feel if Gilderoy died. Would she feel a little lonelier? She didn't think so. Meanwhile, if Harry died…
It did not bode thinking about, and she flew closer to him.
Harry spotted Gilderoy first. "Ugh, Ginny, I found him. Don't look."
"Is he dead?" Ginny asked, immediately trying to look.
"No, worse," said Harry. "He's got all his clothes off."
Harry corkscrewed down closer. "OI!" He shouted. "PUT YOUR CLOTHES BACK ON! PRIVATES ARE PRIVATE!"
It was their biggest rule. Both Ginny and Harry had grown up with the mantra, though living with six brothers had made her a little more relaxed about it. The twins and Ron had never been particularly modest, and Ginny'd caught glimpses of their worms (as she'd called their privates when they were little) many a time, and would not be very bothered to see Harry's. Harry, on the other hand, was far stricter. "Dudley used to take all my clothes, and laugh to see me run around naked," he'd told her once, and she thought that might be why.
Ginny unfocused her eyes; the last thing in the world she wanted to see was Gilderoy's worm. But it was fun to watch Harry try to chase the jabbering, capering, Gilderoy over piles of furniture.
6.
It was a couple days later that something odd happened.
Ginny was face-down on the soft blanket they used for picnic lunches, and Harry was tickling her back. Not massaging it, but tickling it. He'd been doing so for quite a while, and Ginny's body felt like... she didn't know how to describe it. It felt like it was anticipating – anticipating presents on Christmas morning. Like something grand was about to happen. Her breasts especially liked Harry's fingernails making light patterns on her back.
And then... Ginny felt an odd trickle between her legs, and she lifted her head and squeezed her thighs together at the same instant.
Harry pulled back. "Did that hurt?"
"No," said Ginny, distracted. The anticipation faded slowly, leaving behind confusion. "No, I – I have to go to the bathroom." She was confused and disoriented as she lurched to her feet. Her bleeding had stopped three days ago. Had it started again?
She closed the door to the loo, and muttered: "Lumos." Several globes began to glow. Ginny pulled her trousers and knickers down. Her knickers were damp, but no blood.
Had she peed? It hadn't felt like pee.
Ginny stripped off the rest of her clothes, and got in the shower regardless. There was a bit of an odd scent, and she washed extra well.
The next time she felt it, she was less surprised. There was something about having her back tickled that she really liked, and whenever Harry did it, she ended up having to freshen up her knickers with a spell or two.
Ginny went into the loo, and turned on the taps. She tapped her wand on the edge to warm the water, squeezed soap into it. The bubbles began to rise as Ginny got undressed. Her thoughts wandered to Harry, and she wondered if wizards had something like the bleeding, and if that's why he kept something in his pocket so often? She tried to remember if she'd ever heard her mother talking to Ron or the twins about anything like it.
The year before she'd left for Hogwarts, her mum had sat her down and explained certain things to her.
It was a cozy morning at the Burrow. Snow drifted outside, big, soft flakes. Ginny was content to sit inside; she'd been out all morning.
"Have some hot chocolate, dear," her mum said.
Ginny warmed her hands on the mug. It was hot, steam wafting from the top. There was cream in the shape of a kneazle, and Ginny grinned. "You haven't made shapes in my hot chocolate in a long time."
"Yes, well... there is something I wanted to talk to you about," she said.
Ginny's eyebrows flew upward. Her mum sounded almost shy. Molly Weasley was never shy. "What is it?" Ginny asked.
And then her mum launched into an explanation that had Ginny gaping with unpleasant surprise. "Well, what've we got to do that for?" She asked, outraged. "Were we cursed? Is it just you and me?"
"No – no, it's not a curse. Ginny, witches–"
"Why is it just witches? If there's any bloody reason to be a Muggle, that's one. What about Squibs? Have they got to bleed every month?"
"Witches and Muggles and Squibs," her mum said firmly. "All women – most women, I mean. It just happens when you get older. You need to expect it, and you need to learn how to cast spells to keep you... hygienic."
Ginny had been outraged at the time, and hadn't paid much attention to the rest of her mother's explanation. She'd learned the spells – for which she was now fervently grateful – but now she wondered if she'd only been a little more receptive, her mother might've explained what she was experiencing now, why she was getting slippery down there when Harry touched her long enough. Or maybe even explained why Harry had to carry around a – a collapsible telescope or something everywhere he went.
She impatiently wiped the tears off her face, and slipped into the tub.
7.
A strange energy grew between them. It drew Ginny to Harry more and more, until they spent nearly all their time together. It became part of the air around them, and mostly Ginny loved it because it felt good, but sometimes it made her snappy.
Harry was brushing her hair again. It was all spread out above her on the blanket, and Harry was stretched out next to her. Ginny had her eyes closed, but opened them when he shifted.
He'd covered his lap with a pillow.
Ginny felt a surge of irritation.
It was fine that he didn't want her to know what the lump was, but he didn't have to hide it, did he? It just made her more curious. He could show her what it was, or tell her, and explain it, and then Ginny could stop looking for it all the time.
"What's wrong?" Harry laid aside the brush.
"Nothing," Ginny snapped.
"That's a lie, your forehead just got all crinkly. You're upset."
"It's nothing," Ginny said in a softer tone. "It's... nothing."
She got to her feet. "You know, I think I want to take a walk, want to come?"
"Sure," he said.
Ginny was not the only one who got snappish; they seemed to take it in turns. One night, Ginny tickled Harry's back the way he so often did to her.
She pulled up his shirt, and stroked him lightly with her nails. Harry sighed, seemingly content. But the longer she did it, the more irritated he seemed. She finally took her hands away, and he went to bed early.
At least, he said he went to bed, but when Ginny walked by the little room they'd built for him, she knew he was still awake.
"Harry, are you okay?"
There was a long pause. "I'm fine," he said in a voice not very like himself at all.
"Are you sure?" Ginny asked, confused. "You sound like... I don't know. Sick, or something."
"I'm fine."
Ginny's eyebrows flew up at the finality. She nodded, even though he couldn't see her, and went into her own sleeping area, and flung herself on the bed.
One day, Ginny tried to broach the subject. They were walking through the stacks, not touching. There was something between them that crackled. "Did the Dursleys ever... talk to you?"
There was a crease between his brows. It crinkled his scar. "Talk to me? About what?"
"About... about anything?" Ginny said, thinking of her mum, and how she'd told her about the bleeding.
"I've already told you everything," Harry said. "They talked to me only when they had to. Mostly, I hid in the cupboard."
Well, that's that, Ginny thought sourly. "The Dursleys were awful," she said, linking her arm through his.
8.
Gilderoy was still off on his jaunt the day Ginny and Harry decided to go hunt for more games and books. Usually they undertook these ventures separately — one of them heading one direction, the other going the opposite, figuring more ground would be covered that way. But today they weren't in any hurry. Light shone through the windows, and Ginny hummed a little as they walked.
"Just no more gobstones," Harry said. "If I never play another game of gobstones again, it'll be too soon."
"That's just because you always lose," said Ginny.
"It's not!" Harry insisted.
"Oh, yes, it is," said Ginny, even though they were fairly evenly matched.
"You'd like that, since I beat you at everything else," Harry said.
There was a feel in the air that Ginny had come to recognize as the precursor to her getting slippery, and she beamed. "You wish, Potter," she said.
And then, somehow, Harry was chasing her. Neither one of them were running very fast. It was difficult to do in the tiny, cramped alleyway they were in. But Ginny was breathless with laughter nevertheless, managing to stay a couple steps ahead of Harry, her smaller body more able to navigate through the piles. Every once in a while, she felt his fingers brush against her back, her sides…
She saw a dead end in just enough time to fling herself sideways, and scramble up stacked tables. He almost caught her, then, his hand slid all the way from her thigh to her ankle, leaving a path of tingling skin behind it. Good day to wear these shorts, thought Ginny. They were at the top of the stack, picking their way across, moving more quickly than most people would have been able to.
"Ginny…" Harry said in a sing-song voice. "I will catch you."
"What are you going to do if that happens?" She tossed back a laugh.
He gave her a look that snapped her to a halt.
Several things happened at once. Harry knocked into her suddenly still body, a Jack Russell terrier patronus popped up out of nowhere and said "Hi" with Ron's voice, and… Ginny lost her footing. She stepped backward onto nothing, and fell straight down. She hit several things on the way down. Sharp pain slashed over her back, stealing her breath, and Ginny hit the ground.
"GINNY!" Harry was shouting.
Ginny couldn't say anything, still feeling stunned hurt. She rolled over onto her stomach.
"Oh, God, Ginny," he said. "Ginny?"
"Ummmm," she tried to say something. The stabbing pain was already turning into a low, pulling throb.
Harry's hands were at her side. For once, she didn't even enjoy it. He tugged her shirt up, and Ginny heard him suck in a breath. "That bad?" she panted.
"Yeah, I–"
"Do you remember the charm?" Ginny asked. She was the one more drawn to healing magic than Harry, and she'd been the one to find the most basic healing spells — a boon, when Harry'd broken his arm.
"I — I remember a couple," he said. He whispered one, and Ginny felt the wetness on her back disappear. Only to swiftly be replaced by more.
Ginny squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again. "Touch the top of the cut with your wand," she ordered. Her voice did not shake, and Harry didn't hesitate a second. Ginny taught him how to heal her; in minutes, her back was already feeling better. Her body was quivering from shock, and she was suddenly cold. She squeezed her eyes shut again, and sent a quick prayer for heavy robes. They appeared immediately, and she pulled them on. "I'm cold," she explained.
An otter then appeared, and a girl's voice said: "Hi." It disappeared as swiftly as the terrier.
Harry looked stunned. "I think — I think that was Hermione."
"And the terrier was Ron," Ginny said. Despite her injury, and her body's reaction to it, Ginny grinned. It had been brilliant. "He made me fall off a stack of furniture. All these years later, and he's still finding ways to torment me."
"It wasn't me?" Harry said, worried. "I didn't make you fall?"
"No, no," Ginny said. "No. I was just so surprised to hear Ron of all people. You know, we need to start practicing the patronus again… if Ron can do it, I certainly can."
Harry helped her to her feet. "You need to rest," he said. He steered her in the direction of camp. "We'll — we'll practice the patronus tomorrow."
9.
Instead, Gilderoy came home. Ginny saw him. He was dressed, thankfully, and there was something shining on his brow, reflecting back the suddenly sullen light coming through the windows. Ginny felt a chill, and grew certain that her elusive patronus would not make an appearance this day.
Or any other day.
Chapter 4: Chapter Three
one month later1.
Ginny woke up that morning already irritated with Harry. This was not the usual state of affairs; in fact, they usually got on together quite nicely. There'd been a handful of blazing rows, to be sure, and a couple of ongoing arguments. But over the last few weeks or so, sullen anger had built up inside her like a pressure headache.
She sat up. The dressings on her bed were no longer white. She changed them often, but now they were a spangled blue. Her sleeping area had accumulated the clutter and detritus of a room that had been lived in (and seldom de-cluttered) for years. Books were stacked haphazardly on a shelf, two battered old brooms leaned against a cabinet, and clothes littered the floor.
Ginny threw on something on and stomped out. "I thought you were going to check on him today," she said crossly.
"I don't have to, I can smell him from here," Harry retorted. He sat polishing a broom. He glanced up at her, and his brow creased. "You could put on some clothes, Ginny."
Ginny raised her eyebrow. "You don't have to look," she said coolly.
"You don't have to look," he muttered, not quite under his breath, still staring at her mostly bare legs as though they had personally offended him.
She glared at him, told him to go clean Gilderoy up, and stalked off down an alley. The walk made her head clear, and she felt bad for hitting him with her bad mood. When he caught up with her a little later, it was as though they'd never snarled at each other.
"I cleaned him up – he'll be good for another week," Harry told her. They were hovering on two ancient brooms, bobbing up and down, eating apples. The light coming through the windows – false light, they'd discovered long ago, wherever those windows opened to, it was not to the outside – was grey, and had been for quite some time. It made her not want to fly up there and perch in her favorite spot. What was the use? It would just look out at an empty grey world.
Maybe that was the true source of Ginny's bad mood.
It returned once they got back to their sleeping area, and Ginny went back to her room, and studied her Transfiguration textbook.
"Hey, you've had that book a really long time," Harry said in a sour tone. "Can I have it now, or are you looking for more weird things to do with your clothes?"
Ginny slammed it down on her desk. "You don't seem to mind the weird things I do to your clothes," she accused. "In fact, I'm the only reason you and Gilderoy have any at all, thank you very much."
"If you didn't keep hogging the book, maybe I could figure out sewing on my own," Harry said nastily.
She flung it at him. He caught it with the unerring skill of a seeker, and backed out of the doorway.
It wasn't until they met up with one another a couple days later that Ginny realized how rude she'd been. "I'm sorry," she said. "I don't know what's wrong with me."
"No, I'm sorry," said Harry. "I've just been feeling... weird. I shouldn't take it out on you. Everything is feeling weird, lately... even Gilderoy is acting more – erm, bizarre than usual. He's taken to wearing this ugly little tiara..."
Ginny snorted. "He'd like to be a princess, wouldn't he?"
They spent the entire day together, glad to be away from whatever it was that had seeped into their camp. It made Ginny wish that someone would send them a patronus, even if Dumbledore sent one of his rambling ones, full of things it took days for Ginny and Harry to figure out. Just being near one made them feel better.
Ginny's thoughts segued into action, and they spent some time practicing making their own.
"It's all right, we'll get it eventually," said Ginny encouragingly.
Then they crossed over some sort of invisible barrier, and Ginny felt almost instantly hopeless. She put her wand away. "That's enough trying that for today."
Harry rolled his eyes.
A few days later, it was laundry day, and Ginny dressed in her rattiest, most tattered outfit. Everything else was dirty, and she piled it into a basket to take it over to the loo.
Harry was sitting in their living area, where they ate together and studied. Though they'd mostly been doing those activities independently lately. Ginny felt a stab of melancholy. It disappeared when Harry snarled at her.
"What are you wearing?"
Ginny dropped the basket and glared at him. "I just put this on to do laundry."
"It's a little thin, don't you think?"
"No," Ginny said shortly, even though he was right. She was so irritated with him it made her skin itch.
"I could rip it off you without even using magic," he said angrily. "You walk through one alley, and it'll get caught on something for sure. You want to be out here naked?"
"I'm not going for a long walk, Harry, I'm obviously doing laundry. But go on – I can see you've put a lot of thought into this."
"Someone has to have common sense. But go ahead and do what you want." Then he turned his back to her and went back to his studies.
This bothered Ginny more than anything he'd said, and she fumed all the way to the loo.
She wore that ratty outfit the next day, and the next, just to bother him. But it wasn't until she realized that he wasn't even studying the Transfiguration book he'd stolen from her that things erupted.
Ginny marched over to where he was sitting, leaned over, and grabbed it.
"Hey!" Harry said. "What're you doing?"
"Taking this back," she said heatedly. "You aren't even using it."
"I was just about to," he protested.
Their faces were inches from one another. Ginny's annoyance with him was a physical thing between them. It heated her skin. "You can be so stubborn," she said through clenched teeth.
"Me!" He scoffed. "Who's the one still wearing that ratty old thing? I've never met anyone more stubborn than you."
"Oh, are you going to try to rip it off me?" She said tauntingly.
His finger poked in her face. "I should, just to prove I'm right."
Ginny rolled her eyes, and this appeared to be the last straw for Harry. He halfway stood up, and had twisted the fabric of her gown in his fist, when the old chair he was sitting on broke. They tumbled down together.
Ginny landed directly on something hard he was keeping in his pocket. Ha! was her triumphant thought. She knew how much it hurt wizards to have their bits trampled, and whatever he had in there was surely smashing right up against Harry's privates. A mean impulse made her rock against him, grinding into it. She was so irritated with him it felt... actually, it felt fantastic, and Ginny kept doing it until she felt the wind against her bare back, and realized Harry'd been right after all.
She sucked in a breath, and lurched to her feet, hugging the remains of her shirt against her chest. Harry's eyes were closed, and he appeared to be in a state of shock.
With all the dignity she could muster, Ginny stalked off to her room.
2.
Ginny flipped through the pages of Transfiguration: Changes through the Ages, looking for new spells that were within her skill range. After all the drama, the book was not exactly helpful. But Ginny poured over it, determined to find something useful, determined to push her knowledge of magic further. If she didn't, she knew that Harry would win this little contest of wills they were having.
But the language in this one was almost too dense to parse.
She shoved it aside and groaned, clutching at her head.
Then – without warning, without a hint that something was about to happen – her breasts were squeezed quite painfully. Ginny struggled away, sucked in a breath–
"You're my wife, aren't you?" Gilderoy said. His breath was hot in her ear, and he pressed against her back. "The little redhead's my wife."
Ginny stamped his foot. Hard. She twisted and slipped out of his grip, drawing her wand in the same instant. "Don't make me hurt you," Ginny said tightly.
"You're my wife." His eyes were wide and desperate. He reached for her. She batted away his hand.
"I'm not your wife," she said. It was best not to argue with him. Gilderoy was mad. But Ginny had to distract him long enough to get away.
"You've been cheating on me," he said.
"I am not your wife," Ginny reiterated.
"You were with that boy – that – that boy. The one who wants to be famous," he sputtered. He pointed his finger at her. There was nothing else for him to point. Harry'd taken his wand away years ago, before they were even here.
"Harry?" Ginny asked, bewildered.
"Yes," Gilderoy said. "You're my wife! And you were going at it like – like krups!" He sounded scandalized.
"We were just wrestling over a book," said Ginny, not sure what he meant by going at it. Gilderoy was mad, and the things he said often didn't make sense.
"Wrestling," he spat. "I know what I saw!"
His outrage had provided enough of a distraction that Ginny was able to slam him with a spell that made his eyes roll into the back of his head. He slumped forward, toppling onto the floor, as though he were a marionette that'd just had its strings cut. Ginny did not by word or gesture help him, but simply stepped aside.
The stupid little tiara Harry'd mentioned rolled on to the floor and under her bed.
Ginny floated Gilderoy's prone body out of her room, and back through three different alleyways to the camp she and Harry had built for him. It was rudimentary at best, but he had a bed, a chamber pot, and several reasonably comfortable chairs. They'd never seen evidence that Gilderoy used any of these things. Wrinkling her nose in disgust, she cast three cleansing charms on him, and barely cut through the smell. Ten spells later, and he was clean, Ginny was tired, and all she wanted to do was make him stay asleep.
Harry never came back to the camp that night, and it was just as well. Ginny's mood had turned positively black.
And so did her dreams.
They stood in the Chamber of Secrets. Ginny floated above her body, looking down on the scene below. Tom Riddle stood over her, a triumphant grin on his face. The back of his head was covered in basilisk fangs; they protruded from his skull.
"I have her now…"
Ginny woke up several times that night, heart racing, sweating through her nightclothes. She did not know why Gilderoy grabbing her like that had disturbed her so, but she could have sworn there'd been a red gleam in his eyes. She tossed and turned the rest of the night, and when she finally threw off the spangled covers, her eyes felt like she'd been rubbing them with sandpaper all night.
A steaming cup of coffee waited for her in the common area. For once, Ginny had taken care with what she was wearing. No more thin shirts or nightgowns. She sipped at her coffee, and then — restless and itchy — she picked the direction opposite of Gilderoy's camp, and headed out.
3.
She caught up with Harry far away enough from camp that most of her bad mood had burned away. They shared breakfast together for the first time in what felt like months, and some of the tension eased out of her shoulders. Whenever her mind drifted to Gilderoy, and the way his hands had felt squeezing her breasts, the cold, slimy feeling would come back. But she forced herself to shake it off.
"Is everything okay, Ginny?" Harry asked. They were walking close enough that their arms brushed.
"It's fine," Ginny said.
"You're lying," he said. "Look, I know things have been weird lately, but I'm… I know you better than that. Something's bothering you."
"I know," said Ginny. "I'm just… distracted."
The look he gave her was pensive and concerned.
To take his mind off of it, Ginny told him how useless the Transfiguration book was, and how silly it was they'd been fighting over it.
They were still together later in the day, playing the way they used to, as though the darkness of the last month had never been.
Ginny had painted giant, blank canvas that had a drooping corner to Harry's specifications, and they took turns using an ancient bow to shoot arrows at what Harry assured her looked exactly like Vernon Dursley. It was a great deal of fun, and it wasn't until Ginny got a cramp in her calf from trying to aim from the top of a tower of furniture that they stopped.
"Ouch!" said Ginny.
"What is it?" Harry scrambled up the other side.
"Nothing, just a cramp," said Ginny. She massaged it with her fingers.
He batted them away. "Let me," he muttered.
Ginny's stomach fluttered. "I'll try not to land on you this time," she joked.
He muttered something under his breath.
He kneaded her calf gently, easing all the soreness away. Ginny reclined with a sigh, closing her eyes. "That feels good," she said. The cramp was gone, and her whole body felt... happy.
"Does it still hurt?" He murmured.
Ginny shook her head. She wanted him to keep touching her, but didn't want to lie. "It feels better now."
He hesitated a moment, then took his hands away.
Ginny did not like that, and some impulse made her want to wrestle with him, grapple with him again. "All better!" she chirped. Then she sat on his knees facing him. His eyes widened, and then his hands were on her hips, yanking her closer. That thing was in his pocket again. Despite every instinct she had telling her to press against it, she didn't want to hurt him. Fighting that urge took massive amounts of energy, and Ginny could hardly breathe.
Then he was pushing against her.
Ginny groaned, and buried her face against his neck. His fingers were digging in now, rocking her against that hard thing. They wrestled against each other, breath coming out in sharp pants. It was fantastic exercise, wrestling was, though Ginny did not know how that could be. She could run through the alleyways and stacks for an hour and be fine, but a minute of wrestling with Harry and she was breathless…
He was pulling at her harder now, and the seam of her trousers was chafing her privates.
"Harry," she gasped. "Harry, you win, it's starting to — to hurt."
He stopped immediately. There was a moment that they looked at each other — his color was high, his green eyes wide. Ginny looked away first, feeling confused and strange.
4.
They rowed that night.
Ginny wasn't even sure how it started, just that as soon as they got back to camp, they were sniping at each other. It didn't help that Ginny couldn't stop thinking about the wrestling. It added a flavor to the fight that had never been there before.
They were standing so close, Ginny could feel the heat radiating from his body.
"Well, maybe if you hadn't–"
"Don't you dare try to pin that on me!"
"What're you going to do, wrestle me over it?" Ginny nearly shouted. The tips of her breasts were tingling, and her entire body was hot. She wished he would.
"DON'T TEMPT ME!" Harry did shout.
Ginny just scoffed.
He stepped even closer. "Don't laugh," he warned her. "It's hard all the time, and it's all your fault."
"Oh ho!" Ginny said scornfully. "I make life hard for you, do I? You'd be a mess without me here, you'd go the way of Gilderoy, and you know it!" She clenched her teeth and did her best imitation of him. "I'm Harry Potter, I don't even know how to clean my own laundry." She grabbed a salt shaker off the table, and pointed it outward from her groin. "I carry weird, secret things in my pockets, and I'm COMPLETELY NUTTERS!"
Harry pointed his finger in her face. "You're the one who's mental. You're the one DRIVING me mental. You're lucky I have self-control, you have no idea how badly I want to — want to — to spank you."
"Oh, so you're my dad now?" She batted his finger away. "You and Gilderoy… first he thinks I'm his wife, now you think you're my dad. Well, I'll tell you this, Harry Potter, you–"
But Harry was no longer paying attention. "Gilderoy what?" he said in a low, dangerous voice.
"He grabbed these–" Ginny indicated her breasts "–and kept saying 'the little redhead's my wife'."
"He touched you," Harry said flatly. The heat in his eyes had extinguished, leaving them looking cold and grim. Ginny took a step back. With quick, economical motions, he plucked the salt shaker out of Ginny's hands, placed it on the table, and grabbed his wand.
"Harry?" she said uncertainly.
"It's our most important rule," he said, shaking his head. He looked her up and down. "We don't get — we can't look at each other. We don't… privates are private." He was now staring at where Gilderoy had grabbed her. "Our most important rule," he reiterated.
Ginny looked at him, thinking about the wrestling.
"He needs a reminder," Harry muttered, and stalked off.
5.
Ginny followed him.
They searched for Gilderoy for hours that night. Usually he was not difficult to find, and as time went by, it grew more and more unsettling. Ginny wasn't worried, precisely – if Gilderoy disappeared, this would not trouble her very much. It was just... odd.
5.
They finally came back to their camp to find Gilderoy had been there at some point.
Ginny glanced around in dismay. His foul stench still permeated the air, and all their stuff had been strewn about. Books and scrolls littered the common area, ripped and broken.
Her room was even worse. Everything had been torn apart. Everything. Gilderoy must have had the strength of a wild animal to even break her broomsticks. Tears pricked her eyes. She tossed her head, refusing to allow them to fall. Torn pages of books littered her floor like leaves, and she waded through it.
She righted her bed, and plucked at the canopy. She'd loved that canopy, but she didn't think even magic could set it to rights.
"Reparo," Harry said from the curtained doorway. He waved his wand in a corkscrew pattern, and books flew back together.
"Thanks," Ginny said softly.
There was no hint of the cold, slimy energy that Ginny now realized had permeated the room, and had caused her fights with Harry. She opened her mouth to tell him–
Dumbledore's glowing, silver patronus dropped in front of them. "A most extraordinary event has occurred," it said. "As I have told you in other messages, I have been attempting to help Sirius regain the ability to cast the patronus charm. He is in hiding at his parents house, and it has been a greatly frustrating exercise. He seemed unable to cast it... I fear I am making the story longer than in ought to be, Harry, forgive me. We found another Horcrux at Sirius's house. The family house elf had quite the story for us... Sirius's brother apparently found out what Voldemort was up to, and managed to steal it, dying in the process. So we have found another Horcrux, and destroyed it. That makes three... remember I told you about the goblet and the diary." There was a pause. "I am compelled to tell you that the man who murdered your parents is slowly being untethered from the half-life he is living in Albania. Consider it a birthday gift, Harry. Happy birthday, and many happy returns of the day."
It winked out of existence.
Ginny did not waste a second, but strode to Harry and hugged him. "Happy birthday," she said. It was as though their fight had never happened. They held each other tightly for long, long minutes. Harry tickled her back up and down, and she sighed.
"I haven't been keeping up with the calendar," Ginny admitted. "I'm glad Dumbledore sent us the message."
"Me too," Harry said.
They disentangled from one another and finished setting her room to rights. "I don't think anything is even missing," Ginny said, troubled. Why would Gilderoy come wreck her room? He hadn't gone into Harry's. It made her uncomfortable to have had him in here, and she nearly asked Harry if she could sleep with him. But the thought of that made her want to wrestle, and she kept her mouth shut.
6.
The day Gilderoy Lockhart died, Ginny was exploring some of the far stacks for clothes she could fix to her liking. Ginny was sick of her usual wardrobe. Well… she was sick of Harry's comments about her wardrobe. She wanted a different style, was frustrated with the shabby old robes, and needed a change. An old dresser, way past the Tower of Brooms, seemed a likely spot. Ginny hadn't been out this way for at least a year.
It was old and the drawers were mismatched, but Ginny found three shirts and some pantaloons that could be cut down to size. "Preservation spells," she muttered. They were very handy here, as were all the things she'd learned growing up at the Burrow.
She shook out the pantaloons, and held them up to her waist, eyeing herself in the full-length mirror that suddenly appeared. It wouldn't take much. And she actually liked the stripes... they weren't bad.
Ginny gave a perfunctory look around, then pulled off her threadbare trousers. It was safe, she knew. Harry was off scouting for an exit, or new spell books, or maybe even new robes. She hadn't seen him at their camp in a few days.
She missed him. It didn't help that Gilderoy was coming around more. Every once in a while, she caught glimpses of him out of the corner of her eye. It was almost like the way the boggarts had been so long ago, when they'd first arrived. It'd taken months to get rid of them. She also heard him chanting prayers.
He was mad, Ginny knew, but she wished he would go away.
Aside from Gilderoy's chaotic wishes coming true, he had taken to watching Ginny in such a way that made her skin crawl. After he'd wrecked her room, he'd disappeared for over a week. By the time they'd found him, he had no memory of even doing it. Nor did he remember grabbing Ginny.
"You are never to touch Ginny, do you understand?" Harry'd told him. "Touch her again and I'll toss you in a cabinet and leave you there."
"You'll keep me from my own wife?" Gilderoy'd cried, so they knew that fantasy was still alive in his head.
"SHE'S NOT YOUR WIFE!" Harry'd bellowed.
Gilderoy had not said a word directly to her since, but the way he looked at her made her skin crawl.
She wished he would avoid her, the way he had taken to avoiding Harry.
Ginny was feeling less light-hearted as she continued to search the wardrobe for more clothes. It's just stupid Gilderoy, she thought, annoyed.
As though her thoughts had conjured him, Ginny heard him chant: "Ropes! Ropes! Ropes!" and before she could even think, she was pulled up tight against the wardrobe and bound to it. Green, leafy ropes cut into her belly, her thighs, and her breasts.
Ginny shrieked.
"Ah ah, no screaming," said Gilderoy. He strode around the nearest stack. He looked nearly sane, looked nearly like the smarmy professor he'd once been. Except he smelled rank, and there was a light in his eyes that made Ginny's stomach shrivel. He was wearing the tiara again... instead of looking ludicrous, it looked... menacing.
"HARRY!"
Several things happened at once: Ginny shouted her prayer, she heard running footsteps, and Gilderoy reached for the waistband of his trousers. Between one step and the next, a giant metal trap sprang into existence. Gilderoy tripped into it, and it snapped closed. Ginny's eyes bulged, and she screamed again in earnest. Harry's basilisk fang, the one he brought from the Chamber of Secrets, appeared before her. Ginny grabbed it.
"GINNY!"
Harry was close now.
"HE'S DEAD!" Ginny shouted.
The ropes fell to her feet, but still Ginny could not move. The trap – it must have been meant for something huge, like a giant – had snapped in half the moment Gilderoy had tripped it. Sharp metal spikes plunged into his chest and stomach. Blood welled up and spilled out – so much blood. Ginny's heart pounded. The tiara fell off his head, and onto the floor.
"Ginny! What happened?" Harry slid to a stop. They stared at each other over Gilderoy's dead body.
"I – I – I don't know," said Ginny. To her horror, tears pricked the backs of her eyes.
Harry kicked at the body, which made a squelching sound.
"He said a prayer, and these ropes appeared – and – he –"
"Do you think it was because of what you're wearing?" Harry asked.
"I – what?"
Harry gave her a cool, assessing look. "I think you made him desire you. Did you tease him with your body? The way you do me?"
A horrible flush climbed up her cheeks. "No. Harry, I–"
"Don't bother denying it. I've seen inside your head," he said. "You tease me with your body. You've grown up to be quite manipulative, you know. I never thought you had the smarts for that."
Ginny just stared at him, filled with stunned hurt. "That's not fair."
"You know what's not fair? Being stuck here. And it's all your fault, Ginny. You should never have written in that diary. We wouldn't be stuck here if you hadn't."
There they were. Harry had finally spoken the words that Ginny had never wanted to hear, but had always known were true. It was her fault. It was her fault they'd been in the Chamber for Dobby to grab and put them here. It was her fault for trusting a diary that wrote back to her. Who did that. Something inside her broke a little.
"Oh, God, Harry, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry, you're right, everything that's happened to us is because of me," she said.
"I wish I did not have to be stuck here with you. I wish you were your brother. I wish you were Hermione."
Ginny's vision doubled. Surely this was why she saw a second Harry behind the first, peering out from the stacks. He was mouthing something to her, and pointing.
Stab it.
Ginny looked at the tiara.
"Don't–"
The first Harry, the horrible Harry, did not get a chance to finish his warning. In one fluid motion, Ginny knelt and stabbed the tiara with the basilisk fang. It broke in two as though made of paper, and black liquid seeped out. Tears were falling down her face as she watched Harry writhe and scream and die, finally disappearing as though he had never been.
Ginny covered her face with her hands and sobbed.
Vaguely, she was aware of gentle hands lifting her. Harry plucked the basilisk fang out of her hands, and held her against his chest as he walked. Ginny's hot tears soaked into his robes.
"I never once blamed you, Ginny," Harry said earnestly. "Not once. Not one single time did I think we're in here because of you. We're here because of Dobby... we're here because of Lucius Malfoy, and because of Tom Riddle. Not because of you."
"Okay," she whispered. "It just seemed so real. You were saying everything I was afraid you were too nice to say."
He cradled her closer. "It wasn't real. And I don't wish you were Ron or Hermione, either. I would love to see them again, don't get me wrong. But I don't look at you and wish you were someone else. I look at you and think how lucky I am that I have you with me. I know that's selfish, I know it's terrible to say. But I would've gone mental without you... I told you about my boggart. The idea of you not being here... I hate it."
Ginny couldn't speak. Harry carried her all the way back to camp, brought her into his room, and tucked her under the covers.
"It's just us now," he murmured. "It's just us."
Chapter 5: Chapter Four
1.They slept in the same bed that night.
Ginny could count on one hand how many times they had done so. The first time was about a month after they arrived here, confused and bewildered, and all unknowing that they were going to stay here for years. Ginny'd crawled into his bed, and soaked it with tears. The second time, Harry'd surprised her with a Christmas party, they'd found a dusty old bottle with a fizzy drink that made everything funny until the room started to spin, and they'd passed out next to each other. The last time had been about a year ago, after Ginny'd started bleeding between her legs, and she'd remembered her mother telling her that would happen. That night she'd missed her mother so badly she was sick about it, and Harry'd stayed with her.
"Remember when we had to use chamber pots?" Harry murmured sleepily. "And all our puking had to be done in a chamber pot?"
Ginny winced. "Yes." Once the bleeding had started, a real, true bathroom had sprung up near their camp. It had a toilet, a deep bath the size of a small swimming pool, and a shower room. It almost made it worth it to bleed every month.
They were curled up together like kneazles. Neither of them said a word after that, but Ginny knew he didn't fall asleep for a while. But eventually his breathing deepened, and Ginny followed after him into sleep.
She woke up some time later. Her eyelids were still heavy, and she was still tired... it wasn't time to wake up. Something had woken her.
Harry curled around her. His hand was on her stomach, and Ginny thought this might have been what woke her. Her skin felt very hot and sensitive where his fingertips rested. Warmth radiated outward from that contact. Ginny rested her hand next to his, enjoying the sensation of his hands on her. Then her eyes fell closed again and she slept.
2.
The next couple of days were very quiet. Eventually, they went to the spot where it had happened. Ginny remembered wondering if the room would take a body away, if that would be part of its magic.
It wasn't.
The body was already swelling, and the smell wafting up from it made bile rise to the back of her throat. Instead of vomiting, she forced herself to walk a protective circle.
"What're you doing?" Harry asked.
"We need to burn the body. I'm not going to touch it, are you? I don't want to move it anywhere. I don't even want to float it." Ginny swallowed hard and tried not to breathe.
"But we can't just let flames go wild in here. Can you — can you imagine an inferno?"
"You're definitely the brains around here," Harry teased.
She gave him a half-smile.
It had occurred to her that the only thing he hadn't refuted that thing saying was the fact Ginny teased him with her body. It was miserable to think about — she had used every opportunity to get him to touch her, and to touch him. She'd bent the truth. It hadn't felt like being manipulative. And she also couldn't forget how good the wrestling felt, even though she'd thought she was hurting him.
What kind of friend did that?
He was creating a pyre, using his wand to chop up furniture, and placing the wood around the body still mangled in the giant trap. It did not even seem to bother him that fresh waves of stench rose up whenever the body was touched.
The meanest thing he'd done was tell her she made it hard all the time, and it was her fault. Harsh, but maybe true. The meanest thing she'd done was try to smash his privates.
"Let me help," Ginny said. "Let me do it."
"Ginny, you–"
"No, I want to."
She finished the pyre, and stood back. Her hands were shaking, and it hit her that this was a person. This was horrible, mad Gilderoy, a man who'd used magic to steal the success and fame of others. A man who had surely been going to do something terrible. A man who'd been the only other person aside from Harry she'd seen since Tom Riddle had forced her into the Chamber. It was for that that tears pricked her eyes.
They lit the body on fire together.
3.
That night, they sat side by side on the sofa in their common area. Ginny had to force herself to keep a little distance. Harry's body was radiating warmth, and all she wanted to do was lean into it. To have him wrap his arms around her and hold her.
Instead, she kept up a stream of nervous conversation about the outside world.
Harry seemed distracted, and was scratching idly at his arms, chafing them.
"I wonder if Ron and Hermione are together," she said. This seemed to startle him.
"Together?"
"Yes, together. Mum said she thought Ron might fancy Hermione — you know, because she bugged him. I don't know how that makes sense, but I always liked to think Mum was right. I like Hermione."
Harry leaned his head back against the sofa, closed his eyes, and shook his head. "The others — life outside — you give it so much movement when you talk about it. I try, but I can't — I can't see them older than thirteen."
"Well, we know they went to some sort of ball together," Ginny said. "Maybe they danced? Maybe he kissed her at midnight, like some of the old stories?"
"Is that what together means?" Harry murmured. He sounded very sleepy, and was moving his hands restlessly over his chest, scratching. He yawned. "Sorry, Ginny... I think I maybe – maybe I got bit by some mites. I'm itchy, and – and so tired."
Ginny dragged a blanket over him.
"No, don't leave," he said when she got up. She plopped back down. "Tell me more."
So she told him stories about how she thought their lives were going, starting with painting a picture for him of how long and hard they'd worked to make a patronus. "They bickered the entire time," she told him. "Dumbledore – who gave them a private lesson or two – found it very amusing."
"Why'd he give them lessons?"
"Because they love you, and Dumbledore knows it," Ginny said promptly. "Aren't they theorizing we've got our memories taken away? Maybe he's hoping they'll jog your memory, too. Or maybe he didn't give them lessons at all. Maybe they tried to figure it out on their own. Maybe they've been working on it for years, just like us."
"So dancing and kissing," Harry said, apparently no longer listening to her, and sounding on the verge of sleep. "Dancing and kissing, that's what together means..."
He did fall asleep then. Ginny watched him at it for a while, then tried a spell on him that would help with the mites.
4.
That night, she had the strangest of dreams. First, she'd tossed and turned, then finally fell into restless, shallow dreams she didn't remember, except that she was in a warm, warm cocoon. Then, still in the cocoon, it segued into something that felt like... wrestling. Something pressed and pressed and pressed on her until the most extraordinary feeling happened. It woke her straight from sleep. She gasped for air, disoriented, feeling pulses and tremors of pure pleasure from between her legs. Gradually, she grew aware that her hand was between her legs, clutching a wad of sheets, and it had been those things providing the pressure that had sent her over an edge she hadn't known existed.
5.
"The dust mites still biting?" Ginny asked Harry sympathetically.
"Yeah," said Harry. "I did a spell, and it got a little better. But I'm itchy where they bit me."
Ginny could see that.
"That must've been a bad infestation," she said.
"Yeah," he said, distracted.
Ginny watched him for a while, for some reason reminded of when they were looking for more games, and he'd started chasing her. She squirmed a little. Up until she'd fallen, it had given her a sort of... breathless happiness. There was no guilt there.
She drew her wand.
Harry got up and wandered over to the table. Food began to appear, and Ginny watched as he took a bite of toast.
Her yew wand was warm in her grip. Ginny ran through the entire memory. Harry chasing her through the alleys, fingers tickling at her sides when he got close enough.
She held that image at the very forefront of her thoughts and said: "Expecto patronum!"
Silvery wisps poured out of her wand. Ginny gaped. The most she'd ever produced was a silvery blue spark, but this – this. It wasn't corporeal, but it was so much closer. She laughed, delighted. Harry was staring at her, shocked, and she launched herself at him.
"I almost did it!" she crowed.
She'd just landed in his arms when he kissed her. It was a quick, hard peck on the lips. All thoughts of her almost-real patronus flew out of her head. Harry's arms were around her, his lips had just touched hers...
And then he kissed her again. Gently. Ginny tilted her head, and kissed him back. He licked at her lips, and Ginny opened them, letting him in. It was then the kiss got truly brilliant... blood thundered in her ears, and every place their bodies were touching began to tingle.
They finally broke apart.
"Ginny, I–"
But whatever Harry'd been about to say was lost, as his eyes rolled back in his head, and he toppled over in a faint.
Ginny caught him before he hit the ground, but it was several seconds before her brain began to work. She touched his forehead, and winced. He was burning up. Aghast, she realized he must've had a fever last night, as well. That's why he'd fallen asleep so early
"...Ginny..."
She laid him on the ground, knelt over him, and pulled up his shirt. Her eyes grew round with shock. "Oh, God, Harry."
"Ginny?" His eyes were open and glazed.
What she could see of his chest was covered in tiny, glowing embers. As she watched, they began to smoke. She sniffed, smelling faint sulfur. "Oh God," she said again.
"What is it?"
Ginny panicked. "Oh, God, it's dragon pox. Harry, you have dragon pox." People died from dragon pox. Her Grandmum Cedrella, Granddad Septimus... oh God. Oh God, she couldn't lose Harry. Not Harry.
"Dragon pox?" His lips, which had just been on hers, were cracked and dry. "I can't have dragon pox. I already had chicken pox..."
This was the last lucid thing he said for quite some time.
6.
Ginny couldn't make herself move.
They'd been sick before, of course. They'd both gotten a lung ailment some time ago — that had been the most serious. Ginny's cough had lasted months. But dragon pox… dragon pox was something else entirely. It started with tiny embers growing on the skin, itching, burning, and causing a fever as the body tried to fight it. Then it could go in the body. Then the embers would grow on the inside, would leap like flames from organ to organ.
She was breathing in fast, hard pants.
"Please, please, please," she begged the magic of this place. She didn't even know where to begin…
Three potions, two thick books, an ewer of water, and clean, white towels appeared.
Ginny moaned.
She tipped the first one into his mouth. The glowing embers dimmed, and Harry moaned.
The books turned out to be written in a language so dense, that it took her a very long time to untangle the words. While she did this, she kept providing Harry with cool compresses. "Dragon pox victim needs… charmed oatmeal bath? Poultice of sugar and cool sap? Tea of willowbark?"
Ginny floated him to the loo.
A single bowl of oatmeal was her granted prayer. Ginny dumped out the bowl in the bottom of the giant bathtub, and used her wand to multiply it, and then muttered the charm the book had required. Once the tub was full of now green glowing oatmeal, she undressed him with shaking hands. She left him in his pants, knowing he would not appreciate her violating the rule he was so strict about, and drew him down into the tub with her. Ginny held him in the strange bath, holding his head up above the oatmeal, and soaked him.
The fever potion had worked, but his body was still unnaturally warm.
After a long soak, Ginny floated him to the shower. The oatmeal had pulled some of the embers out, and more washed away with water from the shower.
It was then that he started to shiver.
Ginny ran with him back to the common area, and put him on the sofa. She placed a warming charm on it. His full body shudders did not abate, and she threw a blanket over him, and got under there with him.
This entire time, she'd been terrified each breath would be the last.
Ginny had never seen a dragon pox victim. The minute word had come from her dad's oldest brother, her mother had bundled all of them off to St. Mungo's to start a series of potions that would — theoretically — leave them immune to the disease. Ginny'd only been five, but she remembered that whole time period vividly. "I'm not risking a single one of our children, Arthur," her mum'd said. "I don't care what it costs." The potion had been vile, like burning, rotten eggs. The funerals had been even worse.
Ginny held Harry as he shuddered. "You don't get to leave me here by myself," she whispered. "I need you."
Her wand chimed the alarm that it was time for him to drink more of the potion. Ginny rolled off the sofa, grabbed it, carefully measured it onto a spoon, and tilted it into his mouth.
Harry mumbled something, and his clenched, shuddering muscles relaxed.
7.
The next days were a repetition of all of that. Harry remained asleep during his oatmeal baths — at this point, Ginny would pull down his pants once they got in, just to be sure all the embers were properly covered. "I'm not going to tell you about this when you wake up," Ginny told him, as she peeled his pants down. "I just wanted to promise you that I'm not looking."
Ginny's nerves were stretched tight, her brain was numb but for what she needed to do to help Harry, and when she dozed, she dreamed of dust mites burrowing into her skin.
8.
Harry woke up.
She was showering off the oatmeal and the embers when he cracked his eyes open. "Ginny," he said faintly. "I'm sick?"
"Yeah," she said, tears started streaming down her face, so she ducked under the running water with him. "You're really sick. But you're going to get better. You have to get better, Harry."
"Most stubborn person… I've ever met," Harry murmured. "'Course I'll get better. I'd never…"
He was asleep before Ginny could hear him reassure her he'd never leave her.
"And you won't," she told him fiercely.
9.
The next time Harry woke up, Ginny was asleep. Her head was on his chest, and when she felt fingers stroking her hair, she startled awake, leaving a damp spot.
He was awake and alert.
"Oh, you're awake," she said weakly.
"I'm awake," said Harry. "I thought I wasn't supposed to get dragon pox," Harry said weakly. "I had chicken pox the same time Dudley did…"
"Chicken pox?" Ginny said, bewildered. He'd said that before, but it still didn't make very much sense.
"You're supposed to not get any pox if you get the chicken pox," Harry explained.
"The only thing that works against dragon pox is drinking this vile potion every three months for a year. Mum made all of us do it when Grandmum Cedrella got sick… I was five," said Ginny. She laid a cool cloth on his brow, and stroked his flushed cheek with her fingertips. His fever was not entirely gone.
"It always feels so damn good when you touch me," Harry sighed, closing his eyes.
"I like touching you," Ginny admitted softly. "I like it when you touch me. But–"
"But what?" He cracked his eyes open.
"The — the horcrux…" Ginny said. Her face flushed. "It was in my head… it knew exactly what to say to — to hurt me. It said I was teasing you… manipulating you." She spread her hands in a helpless gesture. "I didn't mean to," she told him. "It just… felt good."
Harry was shaking his head back and forth. "No, Ginny. I didn't — I don't know what he meant by that. I thought you were just showing me how to — to treat you. And it feels so good."
"I thought I was hurting you, do you remember? When we were so angry at each other, and the chair fell apart? I landed on you — I, um, wrestled with you."
"It didn't hurt," Harry said. "It felt better than anything."
Ginny nodded. Her hands were shaking when she reached for a water glass, and filled it with water. "Here, your voice is still all raspy." As soon as he took a few sips, she gave him a hunk of willowbark to chew. She watched him chew. "It felt good to me, too," she said. "And I felt bad because I knew whatever you had in your pockets was… smashing it." She gestured at his groin so he could not mistake her meaning.
He did not break eye contact. "I don't carry anything in my pockets, Ginny," he said.
This flustered her. "Well — and then, we had that fight, and you said I made your life hard all the time, and I figured it was because I was so — so demanding of — of–"
"You don't make my life hard," he said. "Listen, I… something happens… I told you, it feels really good when you touch me, when I touch you. And even just looking at you feels good. It… something happens to my… when we touch each other… I get hot. And when I get hot, I get hard. Not my life. My, er, privates."
Ginny stared at him. "So when I landed on you…"
"Yeah."
"So the thing that feels really good is us…?"
"Yeah, I mean, it's… brilliant."
Ginny was quite surprised. She mulled it over in her mind, thinking of all the times she'd seen the lump in his trousers, all the times she'd wondered what it was. Despite her worry about him, despite her tiredness, despite everything else, Ginny felt that now familiar trickle between her legs. She stared at his lap, thinking.
"I don't think it'll come up if I'm sick," Harry said hoarsely, as though reading her thoughts.
Ginny flushed. "So it… you like wrestling?"
He nodded.
"Is it something we can do again?" Ginny asked. It was a bold question, but she needed to know it wasn't going to fall under his "privates are private" rule. She would respect the rule as much as she could, but they'd already wrestled, and nothing terrible had happened. "I mean, when you're better," she added. "It doesn't break any rules. You know that."
"I'm tired of rules," Harry murmured.
Ginny looked at him. His color was high, and the embers on his chest looked very painful and fiery.
"I think you need to rest," she said.
10.
It was a long, hard road to recovery for Harry, and Ginny stayed at his side the entire way. The days and nights melted together, and Ginny had lost all track of their calendar. Patronus messages came at sporadic moments, but no one mentioned the date. All Ginny's energy went into caring for Harry. But he was recovering, and that was all that mattered.
11.
Ginny sat cross-legged on the old blue rug, leafing through a collection of old records. The old victrola they'd found was in front of her, and she was determined to find something to listen to. Something familiar. But not Celestina Warbeck. Anything but that. She pulled out several likely ones, but kept digging.
"The Dursleys never listened to much music," Harry said. He was reclining on the sofa behind her. It had been almost a week since he'd last had a really bad fever, and all the embers were gone from his body. "They just watched the telly. Had it tuned to either one of Dudley's programs, or the Muggle news."
"Awful people. We used to listen to music all the time in the evenings," Ginny said. "Even the twins would sit still for it. Dad said we ought to be paying a monthly stipend to whoever figured out how to enchant these, for that alone."
She felt his touch at her back, fiddling with the ends of her hair. At that moment, she found a record that made her crow with delight: it was more a story than music, but it was Ginny's favorite from the time when she was a little girl. "Oh look," she said softly, smoothing the battered cover with reverent fingers. "It's a tale from Beedle the Bard. They put it to music. Oh, Harry... I loved this one."
She got up on her knees, tugging down her robes as she did. She slipped the record out, and placed it where it needed to go. To her absolute delight, when she tapped the needle with her wand, she heard the introductory strains of music.
"It works?" Harry murmured.
"Yes," she breathed. She turned to him and grinned.
"Come sit with me," Harry invited, patting the sofa.
Instead, Ginny lay down next to him. Before she could even articulate that it was slightly chilly, Harry was draping a large, soft blanket over them. They snuggled each other. This was one good thing that had come of Harry's bout with dragon pox: he touched her nearly as much as she wanted him to.
They listened in mostly silence to the start of the story. It was Ginny's favorite from Beedle the Bard. A wizard called a star down from the night sky, but for messing with such forbidden magic, was doomed to wander the earth until the star burned out its fire. She listened, or she tried to, but Harry started stroking her arm, and then Ginny's thoughts turned to wrestling. Was that something they were going to do again? Was it something she could ask for them to do? It felt like she could. And it felt like he wanted to, the way his hard privates were pressed against her bum.
This was not the first time during his recovery that she'd felt it. But it was only now that Ginny truly felt that he was up for wrestling. It was quite the exercise; the last time they'd done it, they were both out of breath within seconds. Ginny'd not wanted to chance giving dragon pox an opening to leap from his skin to his lungs.
But now… now, Ginny felt like he might have recovered enough.
Ginny shifted so she was facing him. Her toga-like robes rode up. There was an intensity in the look he gave her that made her shiver. It seemed he was ready, too.
Then, without her having to ask, he rolled her over onto her back, climbed on top of her, and settled between her thighs.
Ginny sighed to feel him pressed up tight against her. "I was hoping we'd be wrestling again soon," she said, even though this did not quite feel like the wrestling they usually did.
"You can tell me when you want to wrestle," Harry said. He slid against her, and then winced.
"Did that hurt?" Ginny asked, concerned. They'd never wrestled with him on top, maybe it was different.
"A little. It's the zipper on my trousers," Harry answered.
A pause. "You can take them off."
Harry didn't reply, but the pressure against her disappeared, and he fumbled around under the blanket. "I still have my pants on," he assured her. Then he was back on her.
Ginny tickled his back as he moved slowly against her. She wanted to get back to their conversation just a moment ago. "Harry, you said I can tell you when I want to wrestle?" she asked tentatively.
"Yeah," he said.
"You can tell me, too, you know," said Ginny, privately thinking it would be nice if he initiated it every once in a while.
He stopped moving. "I... I would, but..."
"But?" Ginny said.
"We'd be wrestling all day," Harry admitted.
This did not sound so bad to Ginny, and she told him so. He pushed against her with renewed vigor. Ginny widened her legs, feeling a low throb between them, feeling herself grow slippery. They did not talk much after that. The only sounds in the room came from the victrola, and the quiet gasps and sighs from the sofa.
There came a point that Harry pressed against her particularly hard. His hips jerked against her, no longer moving in a rhythm. Ginny did not think he was even aware that his hand had slid over her bunched up robes, and was cupping her breast.
Then he moaned low in his throat, and something hot and wet landed on her bare stomach above her knickers. His privates were throbbing. Ginny could feel that even through the thin fabrics that separated them. More warm wetness landed on her.
The pressure lessened by degrees until Ginny was certain that whatever had happened made Harry's privates go soft.
This left her feeling quite bereft. Ginny could not help but remember the dream she'd had, where she'd experienced a — a sort of bursting, when the throb sort of… exploded. Like Harry's just had.
"What… what just happened?" she asked breathlessly. "What was that?"
"I call it finishing. I just finished."
"Oh," said Ginny. She was still throbbing, and her hips were still sort of twitching, even though there was no longer anything to rub herself against. It took a while for her body to stop wanting it. Harry was asleep long before she could calm herself down.
She got out of bed several hours later, and for the first time in weeks, went to her own sleeping area. She was restless, hot, and it was those feelings that had her on her back in her own bed, using her own hand to rub at her area. Pulling her robes up, she spread her legs, and touched where it was throbbing. It was her nub, she knew. It'd always felt good to touch it, but never quite as good as this. Ginny closed her eyes and sighed, pressing harder, imagining Harry above her. The little nub was — itchy. So itchy she couldn't stop rubbing it through her knickers. She moaned.
"Ginny, are you-?"
Ginny sat up so fast she felt light-headed.
Harry'd parted the curtain, and was staring at where Ginny's hand was. "What — what are you doing?"
"I — I — I… it was itchy," said Ginny. This was the wrong thing to say.
"Itchy?" He said, alarmed.
"Not because–"
"Is it dragon pox?"
"No!" said Ginny.
Harry strode toward her and sat down at the edge of her bed. There was an urgent, feverish gleam in his eyes. "Are you sick again?" Ginny asked.
He shook his head. "But I need to make sure you aren't. I started itching before I even got a fever."
"Harry…" she sighed. "It's not that."
He was leaning over her now. His hand covered her wrist, which was, Ginny realized with some surprise, still between her legs, caught between her thighs, which she'd slammed together as soon as Harry'd come into her room. The look in his eyes made it difficult to think, difficult to breathe.
"Ginny," he said quietly. "I need to see you." His green eyes burned into her. Ginny could tell they trembled at the verge of something, and Ginny's instincts told her it was something she wanted — something she needed.
"All right," she whispered.
The tenderness with which he touched her belied the urgency in his eyes. He stroked her legs, seeming not to mind that she kept them shut. His palm ghosted over the hair on her calves. Ginny slowly let her thighs fall apart. It was a little difficult to believe that he was breaking the rule… he'd said he was tired of it, but that was at the worst of his fever. She supposed it was the fear she had dragon pox that did it, but that look in his eye…
She was fairly certain she recognized it, was fairly certain he was hard.
"Where is it itchy?" Harry asked.
She flushed, and tapped at it.
His fingers tugged at her knickers, pulling them down all the way, and tossing them to the side.
"I love the color of your hair," he said.
And then he was looking at her, and their rule was irrevocably broken. He adjusted his shoulders against her thighs, opening her totally. Ginny could not even find the energy to be embarrassed; all she could feel was the low throb, and a strong sense of anticipation.
He inhaled. "I don't smell any sulfur… it smells good. And there's no smoke, just… wetness." He glanced up at her, curious.
"It gets… slippery," she admitted. "Like when you get hard."
Harry sucked in a breath. "And you were touching it?"
"Yeah, I… it felt so good last night, but I didn't — there's something that happens at the end, and I didn't get there," said Ginny. "I had a dream once, and it happened."
"I — I understand," he said. "I totally understand. I have something I do too, when we aren't wrestling… But Ginny. I can do it, if you show me."
Ginny paused for three seconds, then said, breathlessly: "Yeah, okay. But I don't really know what I'm doing either."
"We'll learn together," Harry said. "We'll do it together like we've done everything else these last years. It feels right, doesn't it?" There was a hint of a plea in his tone.
Ginny nodded.
Then he touched her, gently, on her folds. Just like every other time, it felt different with his hands on her. And when she showed him where her nub was, and he began to rub, it was… like nothing she'd experienced. Not even wrestling. It'd felt good, pressing hard against him, but this, this was… "Oh God," Ginny moaned. "Oh, God." His touch was light, rubbing her nub, rubbing around it, the sensation was almost too much. Something built inside her; she writhed against his gentle rhythm…
And then she burst.
Ginny was still feeling radiant tremors when Harry climbed up her body, covered her with his, and kissed her. "I did that before, didn't I? I kissed you? We kissed? That wasn't a fever dream like the dancing, was it?" He pulled an inch away from her.
"No, you kissed me. Then you fainted," Ginny said. "I don't know what you mean about the dancing."
He kissed her again, and his hands roamed everywhere. It was as though once he decided to break their rule, he wanted to break it all at once. He propped himself on one arm, and tugged her shirt up. Ginny covered her breasts with her forearm, feeling suddenly shy.
But when he looked at her, a question in his eyes, she moved it and let him look. She knew what he saw: pale, round curves with pink tips.
"God, Ginny, I don't know how or why you're so perfect, but you are," he said fervently. He was hard and hot, pressing insistently against her. Then she was tugging at his pants – if he was going to shatter the rule in a thousand pieces, Ginny was going to as well.
He didn't let her get much of a look, but the small glimpse she had made her stomach flutter. But then he covered her again, kissing her, and they were wrestling... he was rubbing against her, insistent, breathing in harsh gasps.
His hips moved, it shifted, and it stopped rubbing her... started poking.
Some instinct made her squirm, made her lift her legs up, made Harry rock against her more insistently. That anticipation feeling began again, brought on by all the fluttering, and the way Harry'd been moving against her.
And then it disappeared when Ginny felt a felt pressure and fullness, and Harry's penis pushing inside her, accompanied by a sharp pain, like a bee sting. "Ouch!" she cried out, eyes flying open. She caught a look of intense pleasure and concentration on his face.
The next second, Harry jerked his hips, moaned, and she felt liquid heat shooting into her in bursts. He buried his face in her neck, his entire body trembling with the strength of his finish.
Ginny felt it slip out of her, along with a trickle of liquid. That white stuff, she supposed.
The sharp pain had only lasted a second, but it was still sore. Ginny winced. Harry opened his eyes. "Are you all right?"
"Yeah, I – it only hurt for a second," said Ginny.
"I tried to stop, the second I heard you," Harry said earnestly. "It just – I finished, instead."
"I know," Ginny said. Then she was chuckling. "We just – shattered – the rule."
Harry rolled over onto his back, bringing Ginny gently with him. His hands were still on her body, stroking her, tickling her back. She liked how affectionate he was after he finished.
"Did you like it?"
"Not so much the bit at the end, but we can try again since you liked it so much. It just stung. Maybe it won't next time." Ginny was filled with restless energy, but did not want to move. Instead, she chattered. "But Harry... that part before. That was brilliant. I think – I think I've been needing you to make me finish for months."
She looked up at him to see what he made of that.
He was asleep.
Chapter 6: Chapter Five
1.He slept for quite a while.
Ginny did not.
Instead, she thought about what had just happened. She weighed the thoughts in her head against each other. On the one hand, it was tempting to believe that what had happened belonged solely to her and Harry, as a product of spending so much time together, trapped here in this space. On the other, she remembered the conversation she'd had with her mother — her first instinct then was to believe it'd been just the two of them. She'd been wrong.
Ginny rolled over, and got up. She was sticky, and wanted to rinse off. She grabbed a towel and some clean clothes, and left Harry on her bed.
She thought about it in the shower, she thought about it as she kicked off on a broomstick and headed up to her favorite spot, and she was still thinking about it when Harry came to find her. The world outside was empty, and full of fall colors. The students must already be back to school. Somewhere during Harry's illness, during the madness surrounding Gilderoy, Ginny had had another birthday. This one had gone unremarked.
It was quite some time later that Harry finally came to find her.
"Hey," said Harry.
Ginny jumped. Then smiled. "Hey."
He clambered on to the sill next to her. "I was worried when I woke up and you were gone," he said forthrightly. "I've been able to just… open my eyes and find you near me. I got used to it."
Ginny reached out and entwined their fingers. "I was just thinking. And I was restless… after. I had a lot of energy."
"Meanwhile, I had all of it sapped out of me," Harry grinned, green eyes lighting up.
Ginny chuckled. "I'm lucky you rolled off me when you did."
He took a deep breath. "I… wondered if you left because you — wished — you regretted that it, that I–"
Ginny was shaking her head. "No. No, no, no. You were already asleep when I said this, but Harry — I didn't know I wanted your hands on my body like that, but I think my body knew. I've been thinking about some conversations Mum had with me, and a lot of them led back to: 'You'll learn about this at school, when you're in your third year. Or the summer before your third year, like my mum told me, if you promise to not spread tales. They discourage us from letting us tell you kids too early. You're all cooped up together at school, and heaven knows there isn't much oversight.' If that doesn't describe our situation perfectly, I don't know what does."
"The Dursleys never even hinted at anything like it," Harry said. "I'm not surprised. It's very pleasant, they wouldn't want me hearing about it. So… we can…?"
Ginny nodded. She shifted so her feet dangled over the edge. "I'm just surprised that you –"
"Broke the rule?" Harry said, amused. "I've been tired of it for a while. I wish we'd never had that rule." He put his arm around her, and curved his hand around her hip. Ginny leaned into him and sighed.
"You were always so adamant about it. And when Gilderoy – grabbed me, I thought..."
"That I was going to hurt him? I was," he admitted. "So maybe I didn't want there not to be a rule, so much as I – I want to be the exception. I want to see you, to know your most private thoughts, and to – to see everything about you. I want to know you. I mean, we've been here for years, and I – I know you practically better than I know myself. But there are things I don't – didn't know, and I would think about them all the time... you'd wear that ratty outfit, and I could see... shadowy things, and I couldn't stop thinking about how much I wanted to see everything."
Ginny's heart raced. "That's... a lot of what I felt." She swallowed. "I knew you were keeping secrets–"
Harry chuckled. "Like the salt shaker in my pocket?"
She swatted his thigh. "Yes, like that."
His hand left her hip, moving inside her shirt, and pressing flat against her stomach. Heat radiated from it. He kissed the top of her head just as he cupped her breast. Ginny couldn't help but steal a glance at his lap. He was hard again, and it made her feel slightly breathless.
"We'll figure something out for the pain," Harry said. "Maybe there's a spell... maybe we can – figure it out. But Ginny – it was right. I'm supposed to be in you."
"And we can try it again," said Ginny. It was hard to concentrate on his words with her nipple tingling against his palm. "I just... don't know how often I'll want to do it if it hurts that much every time."
2.
They did it again not even an hour later.
The room provided them with a meal, first, which they ate with their fingers, sitting cross-legged on the floor. Ginny couldn't make herself look away from Harry for very long. Aside from Gilderoy, he was the only person Ginny'd seen in years. She'd long ago memorized his every feature, she knew the timbre of his voice just as well as her own, and yet now there was a newness about him that caught her attention and didn't let go.
She had a feeling he felt the same way.
When their meal was finished – Ginny only ate half of hers – there was an awkward little moment. For a second, she worried over the pain. Would it hurt again? she wondered. But his gaze slipped down to her breasts; it felt like a caress, and her nipples tightened. The path his eyes took drifted down to her lap, and she throbbed. There were more important things to think about than pain... like how his fingers had felt rubbing her nub...
"Ginny, I..." he said hoarsely.
She rolled up onto her knees and began to take off her top. Her fingers trembled slightly, and she fumbled the third button. Warmth spread across her face. By the time she'd finished unbuttoning, Harry was directly in front of her. Then his lips were on hers, his tongue was tangling with hers, and his hands were on her belly. Her skin was so, so sensitive to his touch. Every brush of his fingertips made her pulse.
His body was different from hers and she was eager to learn those differences. His muscles quivered and jumped as she ran her hands over him. "Does that feel good?" she murmured. Her thumbs had just brushed over his hard nipples, and he'd made a sound low in his throat.
"It all feels so good," he said. "So, so good."
His arms wrapped around her fully and he hugged her hard against him, trapping her hands against his chest. The kiss he gave her was almost frantic in its intensity. Ginny curved as close to him as possible... his penis was a hard ridge rubbing up against her stomach. She was throbbing, now, and wet. When he made another sound against her mouth, curiosity seized her.
She pulled back a little, and slid her hand straight down his chest, past his navel, paused for a single breath at the waistband of his trousers, and then cupped his bulge.
"Oh, God," he choked.
She rubbed it lightly, traced her finger along the hard ridge, and rubbed it again. Their eyes met and tangled; his were dark and his pupils were dilated. "Harry, can I...?"
"Yes," he said immediately. "But what do you want to do?"
"You agreed without knowing?" she said, smiling a little. There was a flush high on his cheekbones and his lips were parted. Every time she rubbed him, he blew out a breath.
"I can't think of anything I don't want you to do," he said, eyes intent. He caught her hand in his, and pressed it harder against him. "Can't think of anything."
So – with greater finesse than when she took off her own top, she undid Harry's trousers and pushed them and his pants down past his hips.
And then she looked her fill. It curved up toward her, bobbing lightly, and when Ginny touched it, his whole body shuddered. The skin tone was more flushed than the rest of him, especially the head of it, which was red and glossy. "It's so hot," said Ginny. Her hand circled around it–
Harry stopped her. "Wait."
"You said I could do anything!" she said.
"You can – but I – I don't want to finish like this. I want to be inside you. I need you, Ginny," he said. "I'll be gentle, I know I will."
Less than two minutes later, Ginny was sprawled naked on the sofa. Her legs were spread, her back was arched, and Harry's fingers were massaging her nub. "Oh, Harry, yes," she kept saying. Her hips bumped upward, and still his fingers were almost maddeningly gentle.
His lips found hers, and she kissed him back fiercely. Pleasure had her light-headed, and she moaned into his mouth. His fingers slipped. "Don't stop!" she cried out.
He chuckled. "I'm not, it's just very slick."
"I told you, I told you I get slippery," she said.
He pinched her nub lightly between his thumb and forefinger, and continued to massage her. "You want me to touch you," he told her. "You've wanted me to touch you as much as I wanted you to touch me."
"Yes," Ginny gasped out. The feeling was intensifying, and she squirmed and cried out when his thumb pressed against her, wriggling...
"You like that." It wasn't a question.
Their eyes tangled together again. There was a hint of vulnerability lurking in the green depths. "No. No, I love it," she told him. "Don't stop."
He continued to stroke her until she clamped her thighs around his hand and burst. Pleasure radiated outward from her nub, and her entire body shivered from the intensity of it. When the waves hadn't quite stopped, Harry was climbing on top of her. His penis brushed against her and she sucked in a breath.
He froze. "Did that hurt?"
"No, I... no," she said. Her body was just so sensitive.
"Tell me if it hurts," he said hoarsely. He was hot and hard and throbbing against her. Then he kissed her, eased his hand between their bodies, and guided himself to her entrance.
The head of his penis eased into her. Ginny bit her lip, anticipating pain, but other than a little soreness, there was nothing but that fullness. His eyes were locked on hers as he moved into her. Ginny's hands came up and stroked his sides. His body quivered above her and within her.
"Does it hurt?" he whispered.
She shook her head. "No."
He groaned, squeezed his eyes shut, and pulled out a bit, and pushed back in. His hands were in her hair, and then his lips were on hers. Ginny's hips began to rock in time with his thrusts... they moved of their own volition... there was another stir of desire deep within her. Her thighs clamped around him.
He'd found a rhythm.
"Harry," she moaned. "Harry, I think you were right. I think – I think this is right."
His movements became more erratic. "I know," he huffed out. His hands convulsed in her hair. "I know I'm right. I'm supposed to be here. I'm supposed to be in you. God, Ginny, it feels so – so–"
But then he cried out, his whole body shuddering, and jets of heat spurted into her as he finished. He collapsed on top of her and she held him as he trembled. He was probably right about this, she thought. Then he began pressing kisses everywhere he could reach: the corner of her mouth, the tip of her nose, each eyelid, and the tender spot just near her ear.
3.
The third time, Ginny knew he was right.
It was some hours later, after they'd slept for a bit, and Ginny had the dreamy sense that she'd been hovering on the border between sleep and wakefulness for quite some time. Every part of her was happy and restless, and when she finally blinked her eyes open, she realized why: her arms were curved around Harry's back, her fingers were tangled in his wild hair, and his mouth was on her breast, suckling at the tip. Each pull made her nub throb, and she groaned.
"Good morning," he said. His eyes smiled at her.
"This is... an excellent way... to wake up," she said. He hadn't really played with them before, Ginny hadn't realized how so, so sensitive they were. Heat continued to pool between her legs, and when he left one nipple behind to kiss the other, it sent a jolt of pure happiness straight to her nub.
"I'm glad you like it," Harry said, pulling back a little. He cupped her with his hands, eyes devouring her. "They're so – it's so – you know, I've spent hours wondering what they looked like." His fingertip curved around her hard nipple. "I'd think about them... needed to see them." He dipped his head again. "They're so... it's so..."
He played with her a few minutes longer until Ginny was writhing against him. "Harry," she gasped out. "Harry, I need–" She needed his fingers on her nub; she needed the magic of his touch on her body. Ginny got it, just not exactly what she was expecting.
Harry eased inside her, and the fullness felt so good that Ginny cried out against his shoulder. Her hands scrabbled at his back.
He stopped. "Does it hurt again?" he asked.
She shook her head from side to side, frantic. "No, no, keep going," she said. His body filled her. They both moaned when his penis was inside her all the way. "Oh, Harry," she choked out when he began to move. They stared at each other intently. It felt so good, it was overwhelming. Ginny couldn't think, could only react to the way he was prodding her. Her arms wrapped around the small of his back and she held him tightly.
"Oh God, Ginny," Harry cried out when she lifted her leg and hooked it over her hip. His rhythm changed, sped up, and Ginny couldn't control the sounds she made whenever he moved.
When she burst, it was even more intense than when he put his hands on her. Her fingernails dug into his skin, she arched her back, and... burst. With his penis inside her, it seemed to last forever... ripples of heat spread outward over her body, her nipples tingled, her toes spasmed, and she cried out his name. "Harry! Harry, you were right!"
His hips jerked against hers, he moaned, and she felt the heat spurting into her again. They writhed against each other. Ginny's heart was still beating madly in her chest, and she still had him locked tightly against her. He tilted her chin up and kissed her; his mouth slanted against hers, his tongue tangled with hers, and Ginny realized that nothing in her life – even before being stuck in this internal room – had ever been more right than this.
"Harry," she whispered, once their bodies had calmed and they were snuggling each other.
"Yeah?" he said.
"When can we do that again?"
He chuckled sleepily. "When we wake up," he promised. "I told you... we can wrestle as much as you want..."
4.
Over the next weeks, Harry proved himself to be not only totally comfortable being naked in front of her, but was very inventive in finding places for them to wrestle. It surprised her how easy he was with his body, and she told him so repeatedly.
"No secrets, remember?" Harry asked as he tugged up her shirt.
He proved that one night in a particularly lavish way. Ginny had lost track of the days, had lost count of how many times Harry'd been inside her, but figured it had been about a month or so since he'd recovered from dragon pox.
Ginny was sitting at the edge of the bathing pool, dangling her feet in the water, and watching Harry rinse his hair. She chuckled as went wild as soon as Harry shook it out. "It really never lies flat, does it?"
"Are you referring to my hair, or my penis?" Harry asked easily, grinning at her.
"More your hair. Your penis isn't always hard. Sometimes you're sleeping."
Harry laughed, then glided over to her. He stroked her thighs, coaxing them apart. "This is a nice view," he said.
Ginny leaned back on her hands and watched him look at her. He was as easy with her nudity as he was with his own, and there was a heated, gratifying expression on his face. His fingers spread her, and his thumb found her nub, tickling it back and forth. Little ripples of magic proceeded from where he was touching her. Then he took his fingers away.
"Harry..."
"Ginny..."
He maneuvered her so her feet were out of the water, and pulled her toward him. "Now this is an even better view." He leaned into her and inhaled. "You smell so good, Gin, I have to..."
And then he kissed her.
Ginny's entire body stiffened with shock the instant she felt his lips and tongue on her. "Harry!" she squealed. He looked up at her, green eyes hot, and continued to taste her. The sensation of his tongue pressing on her nub was almost too much. She grabbed at him, hands clutching in his wild hair, ready to push him away. Instead, she pulled him closer, stomach muscles quivering, and fell back against the tile.
His chuckle vibrated against her.
Ginny was splayed out, eyes closed, as Harry kissed every secret part of her. It was brilliant. And when she finished, it felt different from all the other times Harry had thrust her over that edge. "Harry, go, go, go!" she shouted, writhing against his mouth. He pinned her hips down with his hands, and sucked, hard, on her nub.
Ginny screamed and shattered.
It took her a while to come back to herself.
"I love you," Harry said.
And Ginny was suddenly back to herself again. "You love me?" she said faintly.
"Yeah, I love you."
Ginny was up and on her feet before she knew what was happening, and drawn to her favorite window like something magical was pulling at her. She didn't even bother with knickers, just threw on a robe. Her knuckles were white on the broomstick, and that fluttery feeling was back in her stomach. At the same time, she thought she was about to cry.
And then she did cry, landing on the wide sill, and pressing her hand against the glass.
"I don't think I said anything wrong," said Harry. Ginny didn't startle. She knew he was behind her.
"You didn't. It was right. And I love you, too," said Ginny. "I love you… the way my mum loves my dad, I think. She always used to tell us that even though they got married really young, they knew they were made for each other. I feel like that."
"Then why are you crying?" Harry leaned against the window. The light of the false moon fell across his face.
She drummed her fingers against the glass. "Do you think you'd still love me out there?"
"Oh," said Harry. He did her the favor of not replying right away. "I've thought about that, I've thought about that since I realized I was in love with you." He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "I don't have your imagination. I don't know what life would have been like for us outside of this room. Hell, Ginny, I don't know if I would've survived. Who knows if I'd even be alive right now? Voldemort could've picked me off." He took a deep breath. "I do know that I think you're beautiful, and brave, and funny, and you manage to be all of these things trapped in a room. If I never noticed that outside of here, I'd be an idiot."
"Well, you're definitely not that," Ginny said with a watery chuckle.
"I think I would have fallen in love with you anywhere," Harry said. "I can't imagine why I wouldn't."
"I did have that horrible crush on you," Ginny pointed out. "That might've held you back a bit."
"That's true. But you would've realized I'm nothing special once you got to know me," Harry said easily. "Then you would've stopped getting embarrassed all the time."
Ginny snorted.
"I don't think you could just throw anyone in a room together, and have them fit like we do," said Harry.
"So I'm not just… the witch you got stuck with?" Ginny needed him to clarify.
He shook his head. "No. No, you aren't. Here, sit with me."
Ginny left her position at the window and perched next to him. His arms wrapped around her, and she sighed and leaned into him. He nuzzled her hair. Warmth radiated from where he touched her, burning away the melancholy.
"This… place. This prison, this magical room, this… whatever it is. It's not — even if we get out of here — we'll always have these memories of — of being trapped. I think that's why we were never able to make a patronus–"
"But what about the Horcrux that was in here with us?"
"That too," said Harry. "That was part of it." He drew his wand, and tapped it against his leg. "I wanted this to be a surprise, because I was planning to throw you a lavish, two-person 'sorry-for-forgetting-your-birthday' party, and this was going to be the culminating moment, but look: Expecto patronum!"
The words were her only warning. Then a magnificent, silvery stag burst forth from Harry's wand, and cantered and leapt over the stacks of books and piles of furniture as though following a path only it could see. It was absolutely the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. "Oh, Harry, it's so beautiful," said Ginny.
"Of course I think about you as my happy thought," said Harry. "You make me happy here, Ginny. We're trapped, and you make me happy to be here, because it's with you."
Ginny, operating on instinct, whispered the incantation.
"Ohhh, look, Harry, they match…"
Harry watched his stag and her doe cavort together, galloping side by side, and playing with a satisfied gleam in his eyes. "Just like the rest of us," he said in a tone Ginny'd heard often over the last few weeks.
"Here?" she whispered.
He was tugging up her shirt to reveal her breasts. "Yeah, you can go on top. Just sit in my lap."
"Do not drop me," she warned him.
5.
Their stag and doe patronuses were a familiar sight over the next few weeks. They were brilliant, and Ginny loved them, loved standing next to them, loved that she could touch them. When she did, she felt peace and happiness suffuse her limbs. "You're beautiful, yes, you are," Ginny told them repeatedly. "I'm not frustrated with you that we can't make you talk, no, I'm not."
6.
Harry woke her up one morning by stroking her back. Ginny purred at the sensation. Her monthly bleeding had just ended, and he massaged the last of the cramps away. The last time she'd bled — the first time since they'd started fitting their bodies together — they'd been celibate the entire time, much to Harry's consternation. "What do I care about blood?" he'd asked. Ginny'd told him she didn't want to risk hurting anything and getting sick. Then he'd shown her what he'd liked to do to himself before they'd started wrestling.
This time, Ginny'd relaxed the rule on the second day. It was hardly a normal bleed, anyway, coming as it did only a couple of weeks after her last one. It wasn't heavy at all, just spotty. Still, she'd told him she couldn't, and instead had given him the same private kisses he'd given her that time at the edge of the bathing pool. That first time, he'd nearly come undone. It'd only taken a minute or two before he'd finished in her mouth.
"Sorry… I…"
Ginny shook her head, thoughtful. "I didn't mind. It doesn't taste bad."
7.
It was just after a particularly good finish. Ginny splayed on top of him. They were on their picnic blanket, having rolled off the couch at some point during the festivities. Their hearts were still pounding, and the sweat was drying off their bodies. It was always the best right before bed, Ginny knew. Harry lasted the longest, and this time, he'd made her finish twice, prodding her with a rhythm that drove all rational thought out of her head. She finally had been unable to stand it, had flipped him over and off the couch, and rode him until she burst.
"That was the best yet," Harry said blissfully.
"It was really, really good," Ginny agreed.
His fingers tangled in her hair. "When was the last time this was brushed?"
"Don't know," said Ginny.
He extricated himself from her with a sigh, grabbed his wand, and summoned the hairbrush. Ginny lay face-down on the blanket. His hands were gentle and patient as he worked out the snarls and knots. His fingers massaged her scalp even as the brush worked on the curls further down her back. "My dad used to do this kind of thing for my mum," Ginny said. Her voice was muffled by the blanket. "I don't know if he brushed her hair, but once I saw him washing her feet. They were sitting in the kitchen… Dad was kneeling in front of her… there was our old tub filled with water and soap, and Mum sitting there with her feet in it, eyes closed. Not even talking."
"I think I know why," said Harry.
Ginny thought she did too.
8.
It was another month before Harry made a suggestion that changed everything.
Ginny was practicing with her patronus, trying to get it to talk, teaching it as she thought a mother might teach a child. "Just say it," she said encouragingly. "You can do it, I know you can." She smiled in such a way that she hoped the patronus felt loved. "It's normal to be shy…"
"Normal!" Harry said with a tone of great excitement. "Ginny, that's it!"
He lifted her off her feet, and swung her around. "I've just had the best idea. I mean — I should have thought of it before. I mean, obviously, especially thinking of your mum and dad. And I've been thinking about my mum and dad, and how — in my vision, you remember — even then, they were — you know. But Ginny! People who feel like we do get married."
"Married?"
"Yes, it's brilliant," Harry said. He smiled down at her. "I mean — we don't need it, we already know how we feel, but everything about our life is so weird, so strange… this is one thing we could do like… like other couples who love each other."
9.
It almost didn't happen. Not because Ginny had disagreed, not at all. In fact, after that first moment of shock, Harry's excitement had leapt to her like a wildfire. It was the fact that Ginny knew people didn't just stand in front of each other and say they were married. She'd been to a couple weddings. There was a proper magical component to it, Ginny knew.
"All right, we'll pray for something to tell us what to do," said Harry.
And he tried.
Ginny tried.
They said the words, they chanted what they needed, and they tried to make their request as clear as possible. Nothing happened.
Harry took this personally. "You work on what you're going to wear," he said through gritted teeth. "I'm going to get what we need."
Ginny, who did not care very much what she wore, decided to watch him, instead. It was as though Harry were having a battle of wills with the magic of the room. His face was red, and the ground beneath his feet grew heated and cracked. There was a hint of ozone in the air — something that Ginny remembered smelling outside, right before it rained. The air grew thicker and thicker around her.
"GIVE IT TO ME!" Harry shouted his command.
It felt like something was… ripped open, and a book dropped from the air, and landed with a hard thunk on the ground before Harry's feet. Ginny's eyes were round. She'd never heard Harry use that tone before.
"Ginny, I–"
But her kiss interrupted him. They'd figure out what they needed from that book later…
10.
It turned out to be a very simple ritual.
Harry spent several evenings studying the book the magic of the room had so reluctantly provided. "It looks simple, but I want to get it right," he told her at least twelve separate times. Ginny spent the time decorating their common area. She'd strung together globes of light, and hung them in the air with a charm. Then she found an old arbor, fixed it, and set it in place. She transfigured everything she could find into climbing fire roses, and entwined them around the arbor.
She made the furniture match the colors — white, red, and gold.
And then she worked on her dress.
Ginny'd never been one to dwell on what kind of wedding she wanted. Ironically, the few times she'd played pretend as a young girl, the groom in her imagination was the actual groom she'd be marrying as soon as he figured out the ritual. It was a very strange and lonely path their lives had taken, but Ginny couldn't truly regret it.
Not since it had led to Harry.
Ginny'd crafted dress robes for Harry, sober and black, but with Gryffindor red-and-gold trim along the edges. Her dress was slightly more extravagant: she'd embroidered fire roses around the middle, and her skirt was pure luxury: an expanse of white lace that flowed out behind her. The fire roses glowed like embers, and she used a couple to tie back her hair.
The look on his face when he told her he was finally ready was very gratifying to see. It made her entire body heat with longing, with happiness.
He conducted a quick ceremony with exacting precision. "We don't want to get a single word wrong," he told her. So Ginny memorized her lines, and repeated them.
"I vow on my magic to honor, love, and cherish you," she told him solemnly.
He repeated it after her. His green eyes never left her face. It was as though he were trying to memorize her every feature.
"Now we bleed together," he said quietly. He nicked his palm with a silver knife. She did the same, and they pressed their small wounds together. An intense feeling coursed up her arm.
"Oh!" she said, shocked. It felt like Harry surging through her blood. She looked at him. His eyes were tightly closed for the first time since he took her hand at the beginning.
"I can feel you," he breathed. "I can feel your magic. I can feel you."
Between their linked hands, a warm light appeared. It grew until it encompassed them.
"We're bonded for life," Harry told her.
Their patronuses — their only witnesses — looked on.
After that, it was much less solemn. Ginny'd found another dusty old bottle of fizzy drink, and they drank and toasted each other, and their patronuses. Just as it had years ago, it made everything funny. Ginny sat cross-legged in her wedding dress, laughing so hard that she cried.
Later, when they fit their bodies together, Ginny was still feeling giggly.
"I can't concentrate when you laugh," Harry told her breathlessly. "You're going to make me finish."
Ginny shook her head, not really caring. "I don't care. D'you think everyone does this? After they bond, I mean?"
"I'd feel very sorry for them if they didn't," said Harry.
11.
It was three weeks after their wedding –by their reckoning – that the first patronus found them. It had been so long since one had appeared, it actually confused Ginny for an instant, to see a shining, silvery thing that was neither stag nor doe.
She was picking listlessly at her food. Ever since right around the time Harry'd forced the magic of the room to give him a book, the food the room had been providing was... off. At
least to her. "You're sure the chicken isn't off?" Ginny asked him. It was getting to the point that she had to mention it.
"Tastes fine to me," said Harry. He proved it by shoveling in more food.
Ginny watched him, irritated. Then she sighed, and forced herself to take another bite.
It was just then that her mother's boar appeared before them.
"Ginny."
It said nothing more, but disappeared.
Ginny stared at the spot it had just been in. "I thought they gave up on us," she said thinly. "My parents, I mean, maybe not Dumbledore. It's been so long..."
Harry looked at her, sympathetic.
That night, Ginny had strange, misty dreams. She tossed, and turned, and tangled herself in the blankets. She woke up once, gasping for air, feeling a great burning in her chest. She got up on all fours, panicking, thinking she was about to die.
"Ginny!" Harry sat up, alarmed.
A pink potion appeared next to her hand, and without pausing to think, Ginny gulped it down. The burning subsided immediately, and she sank back down on the bed with an unbelievable feeling of relief.
"Sorry," Ginny whispered. "I think – I might have had a nightmare? I can't remember..."
The room provided another, thick potion for her the next day. "I wonder what that's about," Ginny said. But drinking it made her feel better, made her eat her entire breakfast.
Ginny perhaps would have been more curious about this had the other patronuses not appeared.
"Ginny, Mum and Dad received word..."
This was Bill's voice.
"The Head of the Magical Bonds Department contacted Dad yesterday, said there was an unauthorized notation in their book. Is it possible you are alive and well and married to Harry Potter?"
"Good, they heard our good news," Harry said, his mouth full of food. He is always eating, Ginny thought, exasperated. "Maybe now they can look for us again. Or tell us how in the name of Merlin they taught their patronuses to talk."
Bill's was just the first in a deluge of patronuses.
They arrived at every hour of the day and night, whispering words of love (from her mum), and shouted questions at them (also from her mum). Dumbledore sent no less then seventeen patronus messages. Even Ron and Hermione and the twins joined the fray.
And none of them bothered to tell them how to communicate them.
"WHY AREN'T OUR OWLS REACHING YOU?!"
Ginny's mum's patronus disappeared.
It went on like this for a month, and then another. Ginny's nerves grew tighter and tighter. Everything was wearing on her. She couldn't even enjoy Harry's body the way she used to. It was making her physically ill. Four more times, she'd woken in the middle of the night, gasping for air, feeling that burn in her chest, and bile at the back of her throat.
One afternoon, Ginny snapped.
Her mother's boar had just left, begging her to answer them, when Ginny stood, drew her wand, and summoned her patronus. The air heated around her, and she felt a shift beneath her feet. Her hair blew back behind her as though from an invisible wind.
"GO TALK TO MUM AND DAD GOD DAMN IT!" she shouted, undone.
And her doe turned on its heel, bounded forward a few times, and then disappeared, as though it leaped through a door Ginny could not see.
Chapter 7: Chapter Six
1.She whirled around to stare at Harry. He gaped at her, and something about the magic she had just performed, and the look in his green eyes, made her entire body flush with wanting. A low throb started below her stomach.
"I... think you might have got their attention," Harry said.
She moved toward him.
They hadn't done it in almost two days. For the last little while, it had made Ginny uncomfortable to have him in her. "I sort of feel like I'm bleeding, even though I'm not," Ginny'd told him, trying to explain. In fact, the bleeding had vanished as quickly as it had appeared. And good riddance to that.
But now Ginny looked at him, and felt like it would be quite brilliant to have him in her again.
A minute later, she was flat on her back, breasts exposed to Harry's hungry gaze, and his hard penis rubbing urgently against her nub. Heat suffused her limbs, and she writhed against him, grabbing his arse. "Harry, I need you, I need you to do it," she gasped out.
He obeyed, and Ginny groaned through gritted teeth as he entered her. She was so sensitive, she could feel every inch of him. "More," she ordered. He withdrew and pushed back in.
Harry prodded her just the way she needed until she was near-mindless, panting, and only able to focus on the sensation of him moving in and out of her with a brisk rhythm.
She reached down between their bodies, and found her nub. It did not take her long at all to finish. Harry did not give her any time to recover, but kept at it until she was climbing again, straining against him. "Oh God oh God oh God," she chanted. He pushed harder. Ginny caught her breath and held it in her chest, feeling pleasure that bordered on pain at every point their bodies touched.
His hips jerked against hers, the brisk, hard rhythm turning into something more frantic. As he drove her into the sofa, he drove her higher... and higher...
She screamed against his chest when he pushed her over the edge. He moaned long and deep, and burst in her. Ginny closed her eyes and locked her arms around him, not wanting to let him go.
And so they were still basking in the aftermath of wrestling when her dad's weasel appeared beside them.
"Ginny, was that you?"
It sounded hopeful, afraid, and astonished. After a long, lingering moment, it disappeared.
Ginny wriggled under Harry. He slipped out of her with a sigh. "I missed that," he said.
"It wasn't that long," said Ginny, sitting up.
"I feel like it's been a while since you really enjoyed it with me," Harry said quietly. He was unwilling to stop touching her, and his hands stroked over her breasts, and the tiny belly she had. One hand splayed over it. "I think you're finally getting enough food," he said.
"I think you're right," Ginny said. She groped for her wand. She was pretty confident that she was going to be able to do it again. Especially right after creating another particularly happy moment with Harry.
So she was rather shocked she could not even summon a patronus. She tried, and tried, and tried, until she had to sit down, she was so light-headed.
"You need a break," said Harry.
Ginny let him coax her into taking a nap with him.
2.
It was a week before anyone made contact. Ginny and Harry both tried incessantly to send their patronuses with a message.
"I don't know how it happened, it just did," said Ginny, for at least the thirtieth time. They both took turns yelling at their patronus.
Ginny was in the middle of screaming at Harry's stag – just to exhaust all their options – when Dumbledore's silvery phoenix glided in front of her.
"Harry, look, Dumbledore has a message for you–"
"Ginny."
Ginny gaped at it. Not in all the years they had been here had Dumbledore ever sent a patronus specifically to her.
"Due to the timing of your patronus, and the lack of communication these last years, your parents believe you to be dead..."
"How does that make any sense?" Ginny asked, bewildered.
"The doe arrived at a most fortuitous moment, when it appeared all was lost. The Dementors were laid out in a trap, you see, guarding the snake–"
Ginny and Harry exchanged a glance of pure bewilderment.
"–we might have lost all that night. Your parents... your family... they believe the patronus to be closure, if you will, and the record of your marriage a cruel taunt from an unknown Death Eater. They believe they were somehow given a goodbye from you, all these years later. I, however, continue to believe otherwise. Perhaps I am an old fool after all."
Harry made an irritated sound.
"But now... with only one Horcrux left to find, and no real idea of where to find it... Ah, Ginny. If you are listening, if you are alive, and if you are able... please contact me. I know it is difficult to send a patronus with a message. But please try."
The phoenix disappeared.
"If he'd just fucking tell us how to do it–"
"I know."
Ginny was ready to pop with frustration. When the phoenix appeared again, she was ready to wring its beautiful neck.
"Pardon, Ginny, but if you don't know the spell, and if your message to your parents was – erm – accidental, all you must do is speak the charm 'Skadjitye', tell your patronus your recipient, and speak your message. It will find us wherever we may be. If you... have been getting our messages, you will know this."
"It's about fucking time," said Harry.
3.
Unfortunately, Dumbledore made it sound easier than it was. Whatever Ginny had done the first time had been a burst of pure magic; it had been ripped out of her. That first day, she tried until she actually fainted, and woke up to Harry's worried face. His hand was on the curve of her belly. Ginny frowned, feeling a faint, fluttery sensation beneath his touch.
"We'll take a break," he said. "You're so pale..."
4.
By their reckoning, it was three weeks later that they were able to reliably send each other patronus messages. It was difficult for both of them for different reasons. Harry had a hard time concentrating on the message; his patronus seemed stronger and more robust than hers. Ginny wondered if so much of his magical energy went to maintaining his patronus that he had little left over for the message.
Ginny not only found it overwhelming to try to send a message more than a word long, but she was... distracted. When they'd first started wrestling, she would have figured their interest in it equal. Then Harry'd proven true to his word: if he had his way, they'd be wrestling all the time. Then when she'd been feeling faintly nauseated and having that weird and scary burning sensation in the middle of the night, she had barely wanted to do it once every other day, let alone the three or four times a day Harry'd gotten used to.
Now she wanted it all the time.
When Harry managed to have his patronus tell her he loved her, Ginny launched herself at him, and began pulling off his clothes. This became such a common occurrence that Harry stopped bothering to wear anything but pants.
It was not only triumph that made her want him inside her.
"Ginny, my love, you saved us. Your father... he was about to... the Dementors nearly had us, and in one perfect moment, your patronus appeared and damned them. It gave us enough time and – and hope to defeat the Horcrux – it was making us believe – terrible things about you, and what happened to you. And your patronus appeared... and we heard your beautiful voice, damning Voldemort to hell."
Ginny was sobbing so hard that she almost made herself sick. "I don't know why my emotions are so big!" she wailed. She was already pulling him closer. "We can't ever tell them, Harry. We can't tell them I was mad they didn't tell us how to teach the patronus to talk."
"We won't," Harry promised. He rubbed the mound of her stomach in a way that made her shiver and grow slippery. It had become one of his new favorite places to touch her.
Ginny felt that odd fluttering in her, but thrust it aside just as Harry thrust into her.
5.
Harry finished too soon.
"Noooo," she moaned.
"Sorry!"
"When can you get it hard again?" She asked.
"I dunno," he said in a thick voice.
She used her entire body to flip him over onto his back, and straddled his stomach. Idly, she noted that they were both definitely going to need another bath sooner rather than later. Then she pinned Harry down. "What do you need, food?" A plate of waffles – his favorite – appeared on the bed next to them. Ginny fed him a bite, then took one of her own. Syrup appeared on the bedside table.
"You have a lot of energy," Harry said around his food.
"I was just about to finish!" Ginny said with great indignation.
She got up on her knees and retrieved the syrup. She dipped another bite into it, and offered it to Harry. He took it.
Whipped cream – her favorite – was the next item to arrive. They ate like that, Ginny feeding both of them, still tightly coiled, and wanting Harry in her again. When the waffles were gone, Ginny asked eagerly, "Can you go again?"
"I don't know, we've been doing it a lot lately, I think it's going to take a while."
Ginny did not know where or how she got the idea; it was born of frustration and delight both. She dipped her fingers in the whipped cream, and coated the tips of her breasts with it. His eyes grew wide as saucers, and Ginny felt a stir of interest against her bum.
Harry licked it off her – then, he added more and did it again. By the time Ginny was panting and writhing in his lap, he was hard again. They did it just like that, it slid in so easily, and Ginny buried her face against him. It was always easy like this, so easy, to experiment with different rhythms, and find one that made her eyes roll.
She clutched at his shoulders. He leaned down and kissed her, hard, forcing her lips open, and his tongue inside. And the pressure built and built, until finally she burst. A cry was ripped out of her as she did.
Ginny fell backward, beaming, arms outstretched. Harry got up on his knees, frantically rubbing himself, until he burst, too, managing to get it mostly on the tips of her breasts.
"That was brilliant," she said.
Harry reclined next to her, a small smile playing across his face. "I get why you were so disappointed I went off too soon."
Ginny laughed.
They were sweaty and messy, but she hugged him anyway. He stroked her back, just the way she liked, and she wriggled with contentment. His fingers found their way to her belly, and rubbed it.
"I probably shouldn't eat so many sweets," Ginny said ruefully.
"No, don't," Harry said. "You were so skinny for so long… this is better."
6.
Everything became clear all at once.
Ginny was practicing her patronus as she normally did, and happened to walk by a full-length mirror. She looked at it out of the corner of her eye. Froze. Looked again. Turned this way and that, eyes growing nearly as round as her belly. Her shirt was large around the collar and arms, but was stretched tight over her belly. It looked like she had something stuffed under there... it was almost comical looking, the way her belly was so round. Her belly...
Her pregnant belly.
Without even thinking about it, she whispered the charm, and sent it to Harry. She heard it shriek "GET OVER HERE!" from a long way off.
It was minutes before Harry skidded to a halt in front of her.
"Ginny! You did it! And so clearly!" He was already reaching for her, to celebrate in their usual way. But Ginny shook her head, wordless, and pointed at her belly, then cradled it, still staring at herself in the mirror. She was smaller than other pregnant women she'd seen, but it was unmistakable.
He stared, and then his eyes popped. "Oh, God – you're having a baby. We're having a baby."
Ginny's eyes filled with tears. "Oh, God, Harry. A baby. We're having a baby here."
7.
That same night, Harry sent his first patronus to Dumbledore. He managed four words: "Alive. Trapped. Harry. Ginny." Ginny saw beads of sweat on his brow once the stag left. Whatever had happened the night she'd sent the first message, doing it deliberately took a lot more energy.
Ginny cradled Harry against her chest. His hand was on her belly, smoothing it over.
"I think I've been feeling it moving," she said in a raspy voice. She'd been a storm of tears for hours, feeling every emotion she'd heard about, and several she hadn't. Whatever she had or hadn't said to Harry during that time was lost. "It's this fluttery thing… I thought it was just from having your hands on me, since you've always been able to make me feel things when you touched me. But it feels like… kitten paws. Inside me."
"I wish I could feel it," said Harry.
He was feeling a lot of what she did, she knew. There was no such thing as true, uncomplicated happiness in this place. Or if there was, it never lasted long. The space of an evening. A part of Ginny was excited, but she felt an equal measure of terror. A part of her never wanted to leave here, was terrified to take her baby and Harry out of here. A part of her hoped desperately that Dumbledore's patronus would return with some sort of key.
As though her thoughts had conjured it, the patronus appeared.
"I cannot help but feel my own ears have deceived me," it said. "It seems unreal that you should contact me this evening, this night when I have so desperately been searching for any sign of Voldemort. I was so certain your destinies would be entwined… so certain that I cannot accept that when the snake was killed, Voldemort was gone for good. Harry, I was so certain you were a Horcrux. Is this truly you? Or have age and secrets made a fool of me, and I am speaking to ghosts?"
Harry pushed off of her.
"Can you manage it again?" Ginny asked, pulling a blanket over herself. She had not liked the waxen look on his face.
"Yeah, I have to tell him."
She watched as he summoned his patronus, and painstakingly gave it words to carry to Dumbledore. His face greyed, but the patronus bounded out of their prison. "Was a Horcrux. Not now."
Dumbledore's reply was swifter than Ginny expected. "You were a Horcrux? Now you aren't anymore? You know for certain? How do you know? I am convinced it is you speaking to me. It's impossible to divert a patronus… Oh, Harry. I have a hundred thousand questions for you."
"And you are not to answer any of them tonight," Ginny said firmly.
"But–"
"No, Harry, you're a father now. I don't want you getting sick."
8.
Dumbledore was true to his word. The phoenix pestered them the entire night. They finally gave up trying to sleep, and just wrestled instead. Ginny started laughing in the middle of it. "This is what did it, you know, the wrestling. Gods!" she gasped. Harry laughed with her, but kept up his brisk rhythm, and soon Ginny could not think clearly enough to laugh.
9.
"…and I think you will find it easier to write down what you want the patronus to tell me," said Dumbledore.
It was an afterthought.
Communication over the last month had been sporadic. Ginny's belly got bigger and bigger, and Harry still only managed about four words at a time. It seemed to drive both Dumbledore and Harry mad. Ginny was trying to ignore it, for the most part.
"Oh, he wants to give us that information now, does he?" Ginny snapped. She marched over to their study area, grabbed a quill and some parchment, and sat down to write out a piece of her mind.
Dear Dumbledore,
When you first began communicating with us, neither one of us knew what a patronus was. The magic of this room — YES IT IS A ROOM FULL OF EVERY KIND OF THING, WE ARE NOT GOING TO LIE TO YOU — provided a book with an answer, but still, we had no idea how to cast one. We tried for years. It wasn't until the tiara Horcrux Harry told you about was destroyed that we made any sort of progress in casting our own. Remember how Sirius had a problem casting his since there was a Horcrux at his family's house? We are fairly certain that it was the Horcrux making it impossible to cast it. And then when we finally could cast one, we had no idea how to make it talk. I tried to teach it to talk, like it was a baby! Then one night, I was so angry at it, I yelled at it. And that's when it finally worked. I know you are frustrated at what is our apparent lack of communication, but NO ONE TOLD US HOW TO DO IT.
It worked. Ginny said the charm, read the words, and it hardly took any energy at all to send her patronus with its message.
"You just sent a patronus howler to Professor Dumbledore," Harry chortled.
"It's the baby," Ginny said. "He has your temper."
Harry gaped at her. "My temper?"
"You know you have a terrible temper, Harry," Ginny told him. "Remember how you bullied the room into giving you that book on bonding rituals?"
He sputtered, and she winked at him.
Just then, a large, silvery dog bounded at them.
"While Professor Dumbledore recovers from that, I had to tell you well done, Miss Weasley," said Sirius Black. "It has been so long since we truly considered you alive… well, we never gave up hope… Dumbledore especially. But we worried you'd been placed in a magical coma, or given such a strong memory charm you'd lost all reason, or you were truly trapped. We've been making inquiries, and you truly believe it was a house-elf that did this to you?"
It was Harry's turn to write a long reply.
"No, don't tell them about the baby," Ginny said, reading over his shoulder. "I don't want them to know about the baby. Not yet."
"But–"
"Please, Harry," she said.
"All right," he said, crossing those lines out.
"We are fairly certain it was Dobby the house elf," Harry read out loud. "As I said previously, though I don't know how forthcoming my messages were when I was still only able to say four or five words at a time, the second I stabbed the diary Horcrux, he grabbed all of us and brought us here. Ginny saw him. He was trying to 'help' me all year, you see. He stole Ron and Hermione's letters, he made the barrier between the Muggle world and Platform 9 ¾ close. He sent a Bludger after me. I think he thought he was helping me, but then we heard Lucius Malfoy had him killed. Or got him killed. I think — we think he intended for us to escape, but he died before he could do so. But now… we want to get out. We need to get out."
It was a flurry of communication after that. Ginny and Harry took it by turns, telling Dumbledore and Sirius everything that happened. Every once in a while, there would be a pregnant pause, and Ginny knew they must be talking amongst themselves.
Then another patronus came to them after a silence that stretched for hours.
"Ginny, we're all with Dumbledore. All of us," her dad said. "He's just told us everything."
Ginny started to cry. Harry, who was used to this by now, handed her a handkerchief.
"Now that they're all there, do you want to…?"
She shook her head frantically side to side. The prospect of carrying on a conversation with her family, even with such an odd method, overwhelmed her every sense. "I can't, Harry," she whispered. "I can't. Not yet." It was too much. She was feeling too much. Cradling her round belly in her hands, feeling the baby kicking against them, she closed her eyes.
Harry went with something short and sweet. "We need you to help us get out of here. Ginny is going to have a baby."
The silence after that was deafening.
Ginny sent her own patronus. "Did you get that?" she asked.
Her mum's boar appeared. "In what manner did that happen?"
Ginny and Harry exchanged a bewildered look. The only thing that made sense to them — the only thing they'd done differently in the last little while — was the wrestling. "What if the rest of them do it magically?" Ginny asked, after a long, silent communication. "Maybe they use wands and such instead of the way we do it. Otherwise, why would they be asking?"
"Then how would Muggles make babies?" Harry asked her.
"I don't know, Harry, I don't know how Muggles do anything," said Ginny. "I wasn't the one raised with them."
Harry carefully wrote out his answer. "We thought it was the wrestling."
There was another very long silence.
Three patronuses arrived nearly at the same time.
"Naked wrestling?" the hyena asked with one of the twins' voice.
"Ignore Fred," the weasel ordered.
"What I meant to ask is if it was Gilderoy Lockhart or Harry. And if it was… pleasant, or scary," her mother asked.
This time, some instinct told Ginny that she was the one who had to answer. It took her a while to write her answer. She decided to omit the part where Gilderoy had grabbed her; that had bothered Harry much more than her. "It's with Harry, of course," she said. "And it was always pleasant, even though the first time stung a little. But just like a bee sting. Nothing serious. The only time it was ever scary was when we were on the windowsill. I told him not to drop me, but he almost did anyway, had to grab me by the leg. It was worse when we weren't wrestling. Everything was harder, we'd fight a lot. Wrestling's made it bearable to be in here. It's been wonderful, actually, much more than pleasant. Loving Harry is only good part being here. But we need to come out now. We need you to help us out. We can't escape, there is no escape, we have to be let out. Our baby can't be trapped here like we are. Mum, Dad, I miss you. I want to see you."
It was Sirius who spoke next. "Ginny, you said there was a windowsill? Can you see the outside?"
Harry answered him. "We can see the grounds at Hogwarts, but it's not a real window. We never see anyone, we just see the empty grounds."
"You're at Hogwarts?!" Dumbledore's voice thundered through the room. "Impossible!"
It was then that Ginny's head started to hurt. A flurry of patronuses arrived, just as the pain spread to her back. Harry took over all the communication, while Ginny sat there, a quivering mass of anticipation.
"I think Ginny's got to get to bed. It's late," Harry said finally. "We will be here if you find us."
"We're going to find you, Ginny. And Harry," her dad said. "We're not going to let you stay trapped there a moment longer than necessary. All the boys are on their brooms, they are going to look in every window. We will find you. We love you. It has been… wondrous to hear your voice again, Ginny."
In fact, it was difficult to sleep. Every little movement made her think this was the moment, this was the moment it was going to happen. Harry fell asleep long before she did, and her body continued to clench at uneven intervals, and relax. It made it difficult to do anything but doze. Her heart started to race.
Harry knew something wrong before she did.
"–something is wrong. She's not moving, and I think — I think she's wet the bed."
Ginny forced her eyes open. "What's wrong?"
Harry's scared face appeared in front of her. "I thought I couldn't wake you," he said roughly. "You peed the bed–"
"I what?!" Ginny shrieked. She tried to sit up, and the pain took her breath away. "Oh God, that hurts." She grabbed her belly. It rippled under her hands.
"It's a relatively modern rule that you two have fallen victim to in a most unusual way," Sirius's patronus was suddenly at her elbow. It strangely made her feel better. "In order to keep certain things from happening, they enacted a rule to keep sex education tightly controlled at Hogwarts. You're all charmed to forget what you've learned, until a special class in your third year. Everyone wanted to wait to explain to you… but it sounds like the baby is coming now. Harry, we didn't know it was imminent." He explained a lot of things then: Ginny hadn't peed, she was having what were called contractions, and it was very, very dangerous that her heart was racing so fast.
"Harry, you need to perform a charm," her mother said. "We'll help you. I've told Arthur — he's stopped searching, and he's on his way back here. He's got the most experience delivering babies…"
Harry did, and Ginny immediately felt better. But also, strangely floaty. Her heart slowed to a steady pace. But Ginny was hardly aware of any of these things. She knew Harry was pulling off her clothes, was positioning her legs. "Harry — Harry, I don't like this charm," she said thickly.
"They said you need it," Harry said.
Ginny shook her head from side to side. Tears slipped out of her eyes. "I don't like it. I don't like it. I feel like I'm going to float away…"
"It's agitating her," Harry said to someone. A gentle hand brushed over her forehead. "Okay, they said I can try to — lessen it." He spoke a charm, and the pain came back so quickly it took her breath away.
"Tell her she needs to start pushing," said her dad.
But Ginny was already feeling the urge. It was a command, and she rocked up onto her elbows and bore down with all her might. "Stop — stop for a second, Gin," Harry said. He was down between her legs, fiddling with something. Ginny felt pressure on the inside, but no pain. Another charm, she thought.
"All right, I see it," said Harry. "Now what?" Then: "Push, Ginny."
Ginny pushed. And something gushed out of her, leaving a sudden lack of pressure. She fell on her back, panting, heart racing. The room was spinning. Globes of light looked like stars.
"He's not breathing," Harry said. He muttered something. But her heartbeat was shushing in her ears, and Ginny couldn't hear. Was something wrong with her baby? Weren't babies supposed to cry? Why wasn't he crying? Ginny tried to ask these questions, but couldn't seem to make her mouth work.
Black sparkles converged at the corners of her eyes.
And then Harry bellowed a harsh swear, and Ginny opened her eyes to see a door appearing no more than five feet away. "Oh my God," she said weakly. "Oh my God."
Harry placed the baby on her chest, picked them both up in his arms, grabbed their wands, and strode toward the door, pulling it open with a resounding crash. The last thing Ginny saw when the darkness covered her was the door opening to an office filled with people. Her eyes focused on her mum and dad… and then everything went black.
Chapter 8: Chapter Seven
1.A golden snitch hovered just out of reach. Ginny leaned forward, brows crossed, and the cool metal brushed her fingertips before it fluttered away. "Well, that's not nice," she said, and woke up.
"Ginny!" said her mother.
Her eyes were open and she gaped in pure astonishment at the faces around her. So many faces. She lingered over each one. Her heart was fluttering just like the snitch in her dream. Its swift wings beat inside her chest.
She felt a great wave of relief when she saw Harry in the background. "James?" she croaked. Had anyone seen to him? Called a healer?
"Your mum did," Harry assured her.
"I did what?"
"Thank you for saving him, Mum," said Ginny. Tears burned behind her eyes. Her mum was right next to her, and her dad moved to the other side. Harry moved to sit on the edge of the bed by her feet. There was a tiny bundle in his arms. Ginny's whole body felt heavy and sore, but she sat up, and looked at Harry beseechingly.
"Of course," he murmured.
Ginny cried to hold James in her arms for the first time. It felt surreal, like it was happening in a dream. This was compounded by the fact that her parentswere looking him over with her. They were both crying as well. James Arthur Potter was a little scrap of humanity. She thought she could see Harry in his thin little face, and it made him so suddenly beautiful to her that her breath caught.
"That was my reaction, once your mum fixed him," said Harry. "Look, his little nose is just like yours." He smiled at her, a happy smile, but an overwhelmed one. Ginny understood.
"You can all talk now," said Ginny.
There was a great sigh, as though the wind had entered the tower. Instead, it was about ten different people exhaling at once.
"Oh, Merlin, Ginny," her father said fervently. "It is so good to see your face."
Ginny looked at him. He was older. He was balder. There were wrinkles around the corners of his eyes, and he'd changed the shape of his glasses. Fresh tears spilled down her face. "Hi, Dad," she said.
Of all the faces in the room, this was the one she'd missed the most, though she'd never admit it to her mum. And it didn't really matter, anyway, because when she looked at her mum, she realized this was the face she'd missed the most.
The next minutes were almost painful in how wonderfully happy they made Ginny. One by one, her brothers came to see her, and to take a peek at the baby. Fred and George seemed the most changed. Their faces were long and solemn, and their eyes a little teary. But George slipped her a candy, and Fred gave her a wink before he shuffled off to give Charlie a chance to say hello to her and the baby.
During a lull, Ginny's eyes strayed to Harry. He was standing with Ron and Hermione, and it looked so naturaland perfect that more tears came out. "Your mum's a watering pot," she told James. It was the first thing she'd said directly to him, she realized, and the words had come from a place inside her she hadn't known existed. She felt vulnerable and exciting and loving all at once. Her tears dried and she beamed at her small, perfect son.
"You're so perfect," she told him. "Oh, James, you're so perfect."
2.
Over the next few days, Ginny had the opportunity to examine James's perfection in detail. Her family stuck close. They ended up living in Dumbledore's personal quarters while they adjusted to life outside of the room, and her family never really left.
They let Ginny rest a lot and spend time with Harry and their small son, but Harry was subject to more interrogations by virtue of the fact that he'd not just given birth to a baby.
Three days after they arrived in Dumbledore's office, Dumbledore examined them for any sign of what Dobby'd done to them. "Ah," he said at least seventeen times. "Ah!" He clapped his hands. "I do believe I've found it! It's a memory block. He made it simply impossible for you to require an escape." By this time, Dumbledore had been caught up on all that both Harry and Ginny knew of the room. "I can see the magic he used to do it. It's like a great scar on your brain."
Ginny exchanged a look with Harry. "So it was James?" Harry asked. It wasn't a question, not really. They'd discussed it yesterday, holding on to each other, staring down at their son, knowing that it must have been James who made the way for them, and had enabled their escape.
"James needed to be out of the room," Dumbledore agreed.
He left them alone then to process this. Harry climbed in back of Ginny, cradling both her and their son in his arms. Their conversation was silent and gentle. Ginny leaned back in the shelter of Harry's arms. He stroked her arm. All those years, they'd longed to be out, and Dobby's magic had been too pervasive to allow them to truly require it. A small jolt went through her.
"I think you're right," Harry said, surprised. "That's why we 'knew' there was no escape. That was what Dobby did to us." There was a low ache in Ginny's stomach at these words, and she saw it reflected back at her in Harry's eyes.
All those years.
She cuddled James closer when he let out a little squawk, and thought about it. All those years. Ginny couldn't exactly regret it. She held one reason why it'd been worth it, and she was looking at another. But her other family was made up of familiar strangers. Seeing them was like hearing a language so close to one she knew that she kept straining her ears to understand, but somehow falling short. It was already getting better; she'd spent enough time with them that it was getting easier. But there was so much about their lives she didn't know, and so much of hers they couldn't understand, not really.
Dumbledore had the grace to retreat, and leave them alone for a bit.
3.
"Is it going to hurt?"
Ginny asked this of Sirius Black, who was swiftly becoming a confidante.
"I doubt it," he said cheerfully. "It's really just a tiny memory block they did."
They'd just spent an hour with Sirius. Ginny wondered if his time in Azkaban made it easier for them to relate to him. He was half a beat off from the rest of their visitors. There was a bitterness and darkness to him that he couldn't quite hide, and it was that that made both Ginny and Harry feel more in step with him than the others.
He was convincing them to have the charm taken off them.
"We already know what leads to babies, though," said Harry. Ginny knew he didn't want his mind fiddled with again. Neither did Ginny, but she saw it more as having her mind unfiddled with.
After only a few more questions, they finally agreed.
The rest of her family filed in.
"We're going to have the memory block taken off us," Ginny told them.
"Oh!" said her mum. Her hands made a fluttering gesture, one so familiar to Ginny that her throat felt tight. "You know, I nearly forgot about the memory block!"
It was done to all students before they entered Hogwarts. Sirius had expanded on his brief explanation. It was a tiny, unobtrusive thing meant to decrease the chances of molestation (whether mutual or more coercive) between students. If they didn't know certain things, there was less of a chance they'd do them.
"Well, that certainly worked," Harry'd muttered. He still wasn't convinced he'd known anything – his opinion remained the same. Why would the Dursleys tell him about something that would bring him so much pleasure.
But Ginny had to admit she was curious.
"Here, let's give him to Uncle Ron," said Harry. He plucked slumbering James from Ginny's arms, kissed the top of James's head, and handed him to Ron.
"Blimey, Harry!" said Ron. "Give a bloke some warning."
"It's just a baby," Harry retorted. "Look, you're holding him like he's a potato."
"He's about the–"
"Don't insinuate our son's a potato, Ron," said Ginny. But she was grinning. So was Harry. Then something in Ron relented, and he relaxed, and cuddled their small baby.
"He's too cute to be a potato," said Ron. "He's more like a little gnome."
"Which I've always thought looked like potatoes," Harry pointed out.
Ron laughed, a warm, happy sound. "I know," he said cheerfully. "You told me that when you came to visit."
Ginny watched them laugh together, and felt a surge of pure happiness, like her patronus was in the room with them. For the first time, she realized it was going to get better and easier.
Then Dumbledore bustled into the room. "Are you ready?" he asked. He barely waited for an answer when he tapped Harry's head with his wand. Ginny jolted forward when he stiffened, and his mouth gaped open.
"Did you remember something?" she said eagerly.
Color stained his cheeks. "Erm, yeah," said Harry.
Dumbledore did the same to her, and Ginny tensed at the feeling of having memories she hadn't even known were there suddenly relieved. Or hadshe had an idea they were there? She'd been so frustrated with Harry, thinking he hadto have known about sex, and what they could do about the feelings they were having. Maybe that frustration was instead a subconscious indication of a memory block. Because Ginny – thanks to having six older brothers who did not always guard their tongues around her, nor suspect she was just outside the door, listening – had known quite a lot about sex in general. Embarrassment and hilarity warred inside her, and she saw that same war on Harry's face.
"Oh, God," she gasped. "The salt shaker!"
Harry's shoulders shook.
It took all of her self control to pull her shoulders back. There would be no more spilling private things in front of her family. Merlin's beard, she'd told them about having sex on the windowsill. She narrowed her eyes at Harry, who was struggling to pull it together.
His eyes laughed at her. "I did what the Dursleys always warned me against. But thankfully, we won't have to look to them to help with James."
Later that night, Ginny and Harry were alone together, with the baby in a little cot next to them. Their bed shook with laughter.
"So do you think James would've come earlier or later?" Ginny asked him.
Harry rolled over onto his back. "Who knows? Maybe earlier, because I would've had some idea what the hell was happening, why you were getting me hard all the time. Maybe later, because – because we could've just used... hands."
"Or mouths," Ginny smiled. She poked her head up. "I think you would've wanted to have sex. There was no stopping you, I don't think that would've changed."
"True," Harry admitted. He played with her hair. "We could've had months, though," he said a little dreamily. "Remember when you told me that? You'd been wanting me to make you come for months. And I would have."
"Oh, I know," said Ginny. "I know." She kissed his jaw, and twined her fingers in his hair. "You took very good care of me, Harry."
"We took care of each other," said Harry. He held her the rest of the night. When everyone was gone, when it was just the two of them, it was easier to get her bearings. Despite the soreness in her body, Ginny felt the promise of desire thrumming through her. She was always going to want Harry, she realized. Always.
4.
Several weeks later, Ginny sat on the porch swing at the Burrow. Her head was resting on her mother's shoulder, and James was in a little basket at their feet.
They were all still adjusting. There had been an awkward moment when – as the time came for them to leave Dumbledore's office – Ginny wasn't sure if her parents knew that she and Harry were not to be separated. They were young, yes, but they were a family. Legallya family, even.
"I go where they go," Harry'd said implacably. "Parents don't leave their kids unless they've got to."
"Of course," said Arthur, with the barest hint of hesitation. Ginny felt a swell of love for him.
But still, it was an adjustment.
"It's worth it," Ginny murmured.
"What is, dear?" said her mum.
"Adjusting to life here," Ginny admitted. "It's a little strange, but I'd rather be here."
Her mother shifted and wrapped her arm around Ginny's shoulders.
"I missed you all the time," she whispered. "Every day. But you understand. You're a mother. You know how it changes you. Ah, Ginny. It feels like a miracle to have you here with me."
Ginny looked at James and smiled. Her own little miracle.