Gift for nundu_art - No Need for Felix Felicis
Title: No Need for Felix Felicis (or The Boy Who Was Very Very Lucky)
Gift for: nundu_art
Author: doraeazure
Pairing: Harry/Ginny
Rating: G
Word Count: 3,174
Summary: Voldemort is dead, a summer has passed, and Harry still hasn’t spoken to Ginny. But he will. Just as soon as he figures out where he put all that courage he has leftover from defeating the Dark Lord. Or was it luck?
Author's Notes: To nundu_art, I tried to stay canon, I really did! Since this is an eighth year fic, I’m not sure whether I really succeeded, but the story insisted on running this direction in spite of my many attempts to rein it in, so I finally gave up and let it go where it would. Also, your Helen Keller quote was a big inspiration for Ginny in this fic. I hope that comes across okay. Enjoy! My beta was Aggiebell90, and she deserves many cookies. Thanks!
Harry had been busy. To be completely honest, he’d been busy for the last seven years, maybe even for his entire life, except perhaps for that first year that he couldn’t remember but which seemed to have been a happy one, based on what he could gather from pictures and various stories he’d been told.
Anyway, yes. Busy. First with preparations, and then with Horcrux hunting and running for his life, then with a giant battle, and then dying, and finally, with destroying a megalomaniac intent on killing him a second time. And one would think that should be the end of it. Harry had certainly thought so. Most people Harry was in close contact with seemed to think that should have been the end of it.
In truth, it was only the beginning. To start, there were trials to attend and testify at (Harry attended the trial of every Death Eater of whom he had personal knowledge, and some of their suspected supporters as well. It wasn’t by choice, as he, along with Ron and Hermione, had been subpoenaed by the Wizengamot, but he wasn’t precisely sorry for it. Many, many people went to Azkaban because of him, but many others went free when they mightn’t otherwise.) Meanwhile, there were funerals (oh so many funerals) to attend, and the clearing of Snape’s name that needed doing, and Harry’s house to fix up, because while being at Grimmauld place still broke his heart sometimes, it had been Sirius’s and now it was his, and he wanted it to be home. (To finally have a home!)
He’d also made an emotionally fraught trip to Australia with Hermione and Ron to retrieve Hermione’s parents. Originally, he’d intended to let Ron and Hermione do this alone; their relationship was still new and still fragile, considering everything they’d been through in the last year. He had not felt in the least offended or left out when Hermione had tentatively asked him if he minded staying when she and Ron went to Australia. He’d simply hugged her and paid for their Portkeys. (Harry and Hermione had bonded rather a lot during their time alone in the Forest of Dean; they were both still surprised when sometimes he knew what she needed better than she did.) But when Ron showed up on his doorstep two nights before their scheduled departure (and a full week after Hermione had recovered enough from everything else to start breaking down in guilt-laden tears at the very thought of her parents) and had desperately begged Harry to come along because there was no way he could deal with Hermione by himself right now, he’d simplyclapped his friend on the shoulder and packed a bag (a few changes of clothes, some toiletries, a huge supply of Muggle chocolate for Hermione, and a bottle of Ogden’s for Ron).
And then, after all of that, when everything else was tapering off and it was starting to look like Harry might have some time to himself, he was recruited to help with the rebuilding of Hogwarts.
It wasn’t that anyone pressured him into it. It was that the new school term was supposed to begin in a couple of weeks and there weren’t enough hands to finish rebuilding the bits of the castle necessary for the reoccupation by children in the time allotted, and the autumn start date had already been pushed back three weeks. Harry loved Hogwarts, and he was honestly a little bit afraid of what might happen if he was left to his own devices (his nightmares were still terrible), so he threw himself into the reconstruction with a will. It turned out he enjoyed the work so much that he kept right on doing it, was still doing it, even two weeks after the school reopened. It was easy because he was at Hogwarts anyway;he and many of the other former seventh years whose education had been interrupted by the war had returned to Hogwarts for an eighth year. (Harry, Ron, and Hermione still called it this even though they had never begun their seventh. It was just easier to go along with the term granted all their year mates)
So Harry had been busy. Very very busy. But he wasn’t sure that was really an excuse that was going to fly with Ginny. Because he’d been avoiding her, and he was sure that she knew it.
The problem was that Harry was selfish. He’d been so caught up, first in the war, and then in all his various post-war activities (all carried out while valiantly trying to avoid the press and the smothering attention that seemed to go along with any of Harry’s attempts to go out in public), that he had yet to have “The Talk” with Ginny.
“The Talk” was where he sat Ginny down and explained that he was in love with her and that he couldn’t imagine life without her, so could she please forgive him for being a prat and abandoning her while he pranced around Great Britain having grand adventures without her? And after she forgave him (like he hoped and prayed and dreamed everyday that she would do), he would sincerely promise never to have grand adventures again without her.
Because Ginny was that sort of girl. She would happily accept a prince charming so long as she got her own sword and her own horse and the chance to ride alongside him in all his campaigns.
And Harry had refused her that. And then, first due to circumstance, and then out of fear of rejection, he had gone months without talking to her. And while he’d seen her around Hogwarts in the couple of weeks since the start of term, and they’d even exchanged a few meaningful glances, the fact of the matter was that she seemed happy without him, laughing and joking with her head held high and her eyes sparkling, strong and confident.
Harry looked at her like that and he worried that maybe he’d put it off too long, like maybe his selfishness had pushed her patience too far and now it was too late. Harry may have defeated a Dark Lord, but he didn’t really feel like he was worthy of her when he saw her like that.
So, like an idiot, he kept avoiding her.
It all came to a head on a Saturday afternoon in the third week of the term. After a long day of reconstruction work involving clearing the rubble of curse-smashed stone from a mostly unused corridor, Harry found himself walking the grounds of Hogwarts. He was meandering, really, no true destination in mind and no real goal other than enjoying a bit of fresh air tinged with the onset of winter. After awhile, he found himself wandering the lawns between the Quidditch pitch and the lake. He was toying with the idea of walking the path around the lake and maybe throwing stones in for the giant squid to fetch when a clear ringing laugh caught his attention.
It was a sound so familiar that Harry was turning, eagerly seeking out its source, before he even had time to actually think about what he was doing.Once he located her, he found he couldn’t look away.
Ginny was walking towards him, dressed in her Quidditch kit and surrounded by the other members of the Gryffindor team, clearly just leaving the pitch. Harry, who wasn’t on the team this year due to crazy crowds that appeared at any and all of his public appearances (which would have included Quidditch), hadn’t known practice was being held today, or he might have stuck to the other side of the castle.
When she turned her head and met his eyes across the empty lawn between them, he felt something inside him clench painfully and he froze. Ginny was beautiful, and he couldn’t help but admire the way her bright hair and scarlet and gold Quidditch robes fit perfectly into a backdrop seemingly painted by the autumn just to match her. Nor could he bring himself to regret this chance encounter.
Ginny tilted her head, studying him, and her thick hair, held back in a loose plait to keep it out of her face, swung over one shoulder. She smiled tentatively and he couldn’t help but return the gesture.
She looked away from him then and Harry felt his heart sink, but then she was handing her broom to another Gryffindor girl in her year, waving the others on to the castle and turning towards him.
When she reached him, she smiled again and the two of them turned wordlessly towards the path around the lake. After a few silent minutes, Harry finally drummed up the courage to reach for Ginny’s hand (but only after spending several minutes mentally chanting “You defeated a Dark Lord!” to himself) and held his breath for an endless moment until her fingers curled warm and reassuring around his.
They wandered for awhile, taking in the beauty that was Hogwarts in autumn. The leaves had been falling steadily for a little while now, and there were big piles of them raked together all over the lawns-part of Hagrid’s annual efforts to keep the grounds neat and lovely until the first snowfall of winter. It wouldn’t be that long now, maybe a few weeks, Harry thought, tugging his scarf a little tighter around his neck and shoving his free hand in the pocket of his denims when a chilly breeze swept by, blowing a few leaves from Hagrid’s neat piles. He must have raked them together just this afternoon, Harry realized, or several of those neat piles would have been flattened and scattered by students’ leaf-jumping by now. Hagrid was pretty quick to start burning whatever leaves he didn’t need for compost as soon as he scraped them together, so leaf-jumping season was pretty short at Hogwarts, and all the students knew it. Even now Harry thought he could detect the distinctive smell of burning leaves on the cold autumn air. A quick glance toward Hagrid’s hut revealed the orange glow of a small bonfire burning on the far side of Hagrid’s garden wall.
“So,” Ginny finally prompted when they reached the far side of the lake. Harry sighed, desperately wishing words weren’t necessary to get across what he wanted to say because, as Hermione may or may not have implied many times in the past, words were really not his strong suit. He rubbed his scar-a stress-induced habit he’d developed over the last couple of years-and tugged at his fringe uncomfortably.
Ginny just stood there, eyes steady, patiently waiting.
“So. I think I may be a bit of a prat.”
Ginny’s laugh was like the sun coming out. It made him blow out a breath of relief, despite the noticeable lack of any kind of protest. Still, he found himself struggling for words. He kicked at a nearby drift of fallen leaves in frustration, barely noticing the way they crunched under his trainers.
Ginny huffed out another, quieter laugh. “Harry.” When he looked down at her, her expression was fond but exasperated. “Just say it.”
Oh sure. Like it was that easy. “It’s just…” Harry stopped talking when his tongue sort of stuck itself to the roof of his mouth.
Ginny was frowning up at him a little, and then she was rolling her eyes and muttering, “Oh, honestly,” and Harry had a moment to wonder if she’d been taking lessons from Hermione-they had been spending a lot of time together lately-before there was a sudden impact against his chest and he was suddenly falling backwards. He caught at Ginny’s elbows in surprise, trying to catch his balance before he fell on his rear, but she seemed to be falling too, and then there was a fluffy sort of landing in which leaves flew up all around him, and then a harder impact when Ginny landed draped partly across his left side.
He stared at her, eyes wide behind his glasses. “Did you just…?”
“Shove you in a pile of leaves? Yes. Harry,” she said, clearly exasperated, tossing a handful of leaves in his face and making him sputter. “This is me. Relax. Talk to me.”
“Right, yeah, just….” He looked at her. Ginny was lovely at any time, but she seemed made for autumn, the orange and red and yellow leaves perfectly complementing her red hair and brandy colored eyes, the chill in the air painting her cheeks a becoming pink. He touched the point of her chin with gentle fingers.
“I love you,” he told her.
“There we go,” she whispered back, and her smile was soft. He had to stop and look at her for a moment. She just crossed her arms over his chest and propped her chin on them, silent, watching him.
“Right.” Harry cleared his throat and turned his attention to the sky. There was no way he was going to get this out if he had to look at her while he did it. “But I left you here. I know you hated it, but I was trying to keep you safe. But I hadn’t accounted for the Carrows, and so that was an utter failure. And then I made you wait while I ran around doing whatever I’ve been doing this summer, and…Ginny, everything I’ve done in the last year, I did because I had to, because I was going to die if I didn’t and a lot of people would have died with me. But I also did it for you. Because I love you and I want to be with you, and I couldn’t very well do that with a psychotic snake man hunting me. But then I got here and I saw you and I just thought…I thought maybe I’d made you wait too long.”
“Harry.” She said his name softly and when he dragged his gaze down to hers, he was shocked to see tears in her eyes. “Harry, don’t you know? I love you. You’re everything. A few months, a year, a war, that was nothing. I would have waited forever for you.”
Her hair shone bright against the red streaked sky behind her as Harry reached up and tangled his fingers in it, drawing her mouth down to his own. The kiss was soft and lingering, gentle, but it still made his blood heat and his breath leave him when she cupped his face between small hands and kissed him back. He stared up at her in wonder when she finally pulled away.
“I’m going to marry you someday,” he told her, breathless.
Ginny choked on a laugh. “You’d better!”
They lay in the leaves for awhile, talking quietly and exchanging kisses. Only when the sun disappeared and the temperature dropped did they make an effort to untangle themselves and climb out of their leafy haven.
“I’ve been thinking about houses,” Harry said, reaching out to steady Ginny with one hand on her elbow as she struggled to get out of the leaves and untangle the hem of her robes from her the tops of her boots at the same time.
“What?”
He drew her close. “You know, houses? Grimmauld is...well, I’ve been fixing it up, but it’s not…I mean, it’s nothing like the Burrow. Is that what you want? White picket fences? Do you want that? Because, I could do that. I mean, I know it’s all a long way off but it’s something to think about, you know? And if you want a white picket fence in the country, that can be arranged. We could have our own Quidditch pitch. And eventually there’d be kids. And…dogs? We could…have a pygmy puff farm, if that’s what...I’ll give you anything you want, Ginny. Anything at all.”
Ginny’s hair, when he put his nose in it, smelled sharp and cold, like the air, filled with the first nip of winter, that she’d been out in for the past several hours. The fuzzy bits pulled loose from her braid by the wind tickled his face as he breathed her in.
“I only want you,” Ginny replied, leaning against him.
His arms tightened fractionally around her. “You already have that.”
He could feel her smile stretch wide against his shoulder where her face was pressed into his jumper. “Then that’s enough for me.” She pulled away just enough to meet his eyes. “We’ll work out the rest together as we come to it.”
“Alright.” He smiled at her, felt it widen when she smiled back, then felt unaccountably nervous when her smile went a little wicked. He opened his mouth-he didn’t even know what he was going to say-and got hit with another face full of leaves. He swiped them away with his hands and spit them out of his mouth (and wasn’t that disgusting), only to have more shoved down the back of his jumper.
“Hey!” he managed to get out, twisting around a bit to the sound of Ginny’s laughter in an attempt to shake the leaves from his clothes. He sent her a disgruntled glare but he was pretty sure she could read the amusement under it when she just propped her hands on her hips and grinned at him.
“Don’t think you’re off the hook for avoiding me all term, Harry. I may love you, but you made me wait much longer than necessary. That’s abuse of your power.” Ginny shook her index finger at him warningly, trying hard to look intimidating through her laughter.
“It’s going to be like that then, huh?” Harry asked, already resigned to his fate.
“I’d watch my back after first snowfall if I were you, Potter.”
Harry sighed, mock put upon, watching her beneath his lashes as he dislodged the last of the leaves from his hair with one hand. She was snickering madly, clearly pleased with herself, not at all poised for retaliation.
Harry’s lunge was swift and unexpected. Ginny barely had time to shout in protest before he caught her up by the waist to prevent her escape. He swung her about in a dizzying circle, then laid a loud smacking kiss on her lips, set her back on her feet, and firmly reclaimed her hand.
“Come along, minx. You can plan your revenge for my thick-headedness later. I’m starving!” He tugged at her hand gently and they resumed their walk, this time headed back for the castle.
“You know, I’m surprised you’re taking this whole revenge thing so well. I expected the defeater of the Dark Lord to put up a much bigger fight,” she said teasingly.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I’m dating the caster of the scariest Bat Bogey Hex known to man. I figure I’m getting off easy,” he explained.
“Smart man.”
Ginny’s head came to rest on Harry’s shoulder. Harry smiled and slowed their pace so as not to dislodge her.
“I don’t know about that. But I am a very very lucky one.”
Gift for: nundu_art
Author: doraeazure
Pairing: Harry/Ginny
Rating: G
Word Count: 3,174
Summary: Voldemort is dead, a summer has passed, and Harry still hasn’t spoken to Ginny. But he will. Just as soon as he figures out where he put all that courage he has leftover from defeating the Dark Lord. Or was it luck?
Author's Notes: To nundu_art, I tried to stay canon, I really did! Since this is an eighth year fic, I’m not sure whether I really succeeded, but the story insisted on running this direction in spite of my many attempts to rein it in, so I finally gave up and let it go where it would. Also, your Helen Keller quote was a big inspiration for Ginny in this fic. I hope that comes across okay. Enjoy! My beta was Aggiebell90, and she deserves many cookies. Thanks!
Harry had been busy. To be completely honest, he’d been busy for the last seven years, maybe even for his entire life, except perhaps for that first year that he couldn’t remember but which seemed to have been a happy one, based on what he could gather from pictures and various stories he’d been told.
Anyway, yes. Busy. First with preparations, and then with Horcrux hunting and running for his life, then with a giant battle, and then dying, and finally, with destroying a megalomaniac intent on killing him a second time. And one would think that should be the end of it. Harry had certainly thought so. Most people Harry was in close contact with seemed to think that should have been the end of it.
In truth, it was only the beginning. To start, there were trials to attend and testify at (Harry attended the trial of every Death Eater of whom he had personal knowledge, and some of their suspected supporters as well. It wasn’t by choice, as he, along with Ron and Hermione, had been subpoenaed by the Wizengamot, but he wasn’t precisely sorry for it. Many, many people went to Azkaban because of him, but many others went free when they mightn’t otherwise.) Meanwhile, there were funerals (oh so many funerals) to attend, and the clearing of Snape’s name that needed doing, and Harry’s house to fix up, because while being at Grimmauld place still broke his heart sometimes, it had been Sirius’s and now it was his, and he wanted it to be home. (To finally have a home!)
He’d also made an emotionally fraught trip to Australia with Hermione and Ron to retrieve Hermione’s parents. Originally, he’d intended to let Ron and Hermione do this alone; their relationship was still new and still fragile, considering everything they’d been through in the last year. He had not felt in the least offended or left out when Hermione had tentatively asked him if he minded staying when she and Ron went to Australia. He’d simply hugged her and paid for their Portkeys. (Harry and Hermione had bonded rather a lot during their time alone in the Forest of Dean; they were both still surprised when sometimes he knew what she needed better than she did.) But when Ron showed up on his doorstep two nights before their scheduled departure (and a full week after Hermione had recovered enough from everything else to start breaking down in guilt-laden tears at the very thought of her parents) and had desperately begged Harry to come along because there was no way he could deal with Hermione by himself right now, he’d simplyclapped his friend on the shoulder and packed a bag (a few changes of clothes, some toiletries, a huge supply of Muggle chocolate for Hermione, and a bottle of Ogden’s for Ron).
And then, after all of that, when everything else was tapering off and it was starting to look like Harry might have some time to himself, he was recruited to help with the rebuilding of Hogwarts.
It wasn’t that anyone pressured him into it. It was that the new school term was supposed to begin in a couple of weeks and there weren’t enough hands to finish rebuilding the bits of the castle necessary for the reoccupation by children in the time allotted, and the autumn start date had already been pushed back three weeks. Harry loved Hogwarts, and he was honestly a little bit afraid of what might happen if he was left to his own devices (his nightmares were still terrible), so he threw himself into the reconstruction with a will. It turned out he enjoyed the work so much that he kept right on doing it, was still doing it, even two weeks after the school reopened. It was easy because he was at Hogwarts anyway;he and many of the other former seventh years whose education had been interrupted by the war had returned to Hogwarts for an eighth year. (Harry, Ron, and Hermione still called it this even though they had never begun their seventh. It was just easier to go along with the term granted all their year mates)
So Harry had been busy. Very very busy. But he wasn’t sure that was really an excuse that was going to fly with Ginny. Because he’d been avoiding her, and he was sure that she knew it.
The problem was that Harry was selfish. He’d been so caught up, first in the war, and then in all his various post-war activities (all carried out while valiantly trying to avoid the press and the smothering attention that seemed to go along with any of Harry’s attempts to go out in public), that he had yet to have “The Talk” with Ginny.
“The Talk” was where he sat Ginny down and explained that he was in love with her and that he couldn’t imagine life without her, so could she please forgive him for being a prat and abandoning her while he pranced around Great Britain having grand adventures without her? And after she forgave him (like he hoped and prayed and dreamed everyday that she would do), he would sincerely promise never to have grand adventures again without her.
Because Ginny was that sort of girl. She would happily accept a prince charming so long as she got her own sword and her own horse and the chance to ride alongside him in all his campaigns.
And Harry had refused her that. And then, first due to circumstance, and then out of fear of rejection, he had gone months without talking to her. And while he’d seen her around Hogwarts in the couple of weeks since the start of term, and they’d even exchanged a few meaningful glances, the fact of the matter was that she seemed happy without him, laughing and joking with her head held high and her eyes sparkling, strong and confident.
Harry looked at her like that and he worried that maybe he’d put it off too long, like maybe his selfishness had pushed her patience too far and now it was too late. Harry may have defeated a Dark Lord, but he didn’t really feel like he was worthy of her when he saw her like that.
So, like an idiot, he kept avoiding her.
It all came to a head on a Saturday afternoon in the third week of the term. After a long day of reconstruction work involving clearing the rubble of curse-smashed stone from a mostly unused corridor, Harry found himself walking the grounds of Hogwarts. He was meandering, really, no true destination in mind and no real goal other than enjoying a bit of fresh air tinged with the onset of winter. After awhile, he found himself wandering the lawns between the Quidditch pitch and the lake. He was toying with the idea of walking the path around the lake and maybe throwing stones in for the giant squid to fetch when a clear ringing laugh caught his attention.
It was a sound so familiar that Harry was turning, eagerly seeking out its source, before he even had time to actually think about what he was doing.Once he located her, he found he couldn’t look away.
Ginny was walking towards him, dressed in her Quidditch kit and surrounded by the other members of the Gryffindor team, clearly just leaving the pitch. Harry, who wasn’t on the team this year due to crazy crowds that appeared at any and all of his public appearances (which would have included Quidditch), hadn’t known practice was being held today, or he might have stuck to the other side of the castle.
When she turned her head and met his eyes across the empty lawn between them, he felt something inside him clench painfully and he froze. Ginny was beautiful, and he couldn’t help but admire the way her bright hair and scarlet and gold Quidditch robes fit perfectly into a backdrop seemingly painted by the autumn just to match her. Nor could he bring himself to regret this chance encounter.
Ginny tilted her head, studying him, and her thick hair, held back in a loose plait to keep it out of her face, swung over one shoulder. She smiled tentatively and he couldn’t help but return the gesture.
She looked away from him then and Harry felt his heart sink, but then she was handing her broom to another Gryffindor girl in her year, waving the others on to the castle and turning towards him.
When she reached him, she smiled again and the two of them turned wordlessly towards the path around the lake. After a few silent minutes, Harry finally drummed up the courage to reach for Ginny’s hand (but only after spending several minutes mentally chanting “You defeated a Dark Lord!” to himself) and held his breath for an endless moment until her fingers curled warm and reassuring around his.
They wandered for awhile, taking in the beauty that was Hogwarts in autumn. The leaves had been falling steadily for a little while now, and there were big piles of them raked together all over the lawns-part of Hagrid’s annual efforts to keep the grounds neat and lovely until the first snowfall of winter. It wouldn’t be that long now, maybe a few weeks, Harry thought, tugging his scarf a little tighter around his neck and shoving his free hand in the pocket of his denims when a chilly breeze swept by, blowing a few leaves from Hagrid’s neat piles. He must have raked them together just this afternoon, Harry realized, or several of those neat piles would have been flattened and scattered by students’ leaf-jumping by now. Hagrid was pretty quick to start burning whatever leaves he didn’t need for compost as soon as he scraped them together, so leaf-jumping season was pretty short at Hogwarts, and all the students knew it. Even now Harry thought he could detect the distinctive smell of burning leaves on the cold autumn air. A quick glance toward Hagrid’s hut revealed the orange glow of a small bonfire burning on the far side of Hagrid’s garden wall.
“So,” Ginny finally prompted when they reached the far side of the lake. Harry sighed, desperately wishing words weren’t necessary to get across what he wanted to say because, as Hermione may or may not have implied many times in the past, words were really not his strong suit. He rubbed his scar-a stress-induced habit he’d developed over the last couple of years-and tugged at his fringe uncomfortably.
Ginny just stood there, eyes steady, patiently waiting.
“So. I think I may be a bit of a prat.”
Ginny’s laugh was like the sun coming out. It made him blow out a breath of relief, despite the noticeable lack of any kind of protest. Still, he found himself struggling for words. He kicked at a nearby drift of fallen leaves in frustration, barely noticing the way they crunched under his trainers.
Ginny huffed out another, quieter laugh. “Harry.” When he looked down at her, her expression was fond but exasperated. “Just say it.”
Oh sure. Like it was that easy. “It’s just…” Harry stopped talking when his tongue sort of stuck itself to the roof of his mouth.
Ginny was frowning up at him a little, and then she was rolling her eyes and muttering, “Oh, honestly,” and Harry had a moment to wonder if she’d been taking lessons from Hermione-they had been spending a lot of time together lately-before there was a sudden impact against his chest and he was suddenly falling backwards. He caught at Ginny’s elbows in surprise, trying to catch his balance before he fell on his rear, but she seemed to be falling too, and then there was a fluffy sort of landing in which leaves flew up all around him, and then a harder impact when Ginny landed draped partly across his left side.
He stared at her, eyes wide behind his glasses. “Did you just…?”
“Shove you in a pile of leaves? Yes. Harry,” she said, clearly exasperated, tossing a handful of leaves in his face and making him sputter. “This is me. Relax. Talk to me.”
“Right, yeah, just….” He looked at her. Ginny was lovely at any time, but she seemed made for autumn, the orange and red and yellow leaves perfectly complementing her red hair and brandy colored eyes, the chill in the air painting her cheeks a becoming pink. He touched the point of her chin with gentle fingers.
“I love you,” he told her.
“There we go,” she whispered back, and her smile was soft. He had to stop and look at her for a moment. She just crossed her arms over his chest and propped her chin on them, silent, watching him.
“Right.” Harry cleared his throat and turned his attention to the sky. There was no way he was going to get this out if he had to look at her while he did it. “But I left you here. I know you hated it, but I was trying to keep you safe. But I hadn’t accounted for the Carrows, and so that was an utter failure. And then I made you wait while I ran around doing whatever I’ve been doing this summer, and…Ginny, everything I’ve done in the last year, I did because I had to, because I was going to die if I didn’t and a lot of people would have died with me. But I also did it for you. Because I love you and I want to be with you, and I couldn’t very well do that with a psychotic snake man hunting me. But then I got here and I saw you and I just thought…I thought maybe I’d made you wait too long.”
“Harry.” She said his name softly and when he dragged his gaze down to hers, he was shocked to see tears in her eyes. “Harry, don’t you know? I love you. You’re everything. A few months, a year, a war, that was nothing. I would have waited forever for you.”
Her hair shone bright against the red streaked sky behind her as Harry reached up and tangled his fingers in it, drawing her mouth down to his own. The kiss was soft and lingering, gentle, but it still made his blood heat and his breath leave him when she cupped his face between small hands and kissed him back. He stared up at her in wonder when she finally pulled away.
“I’m going to marry you someday,” he told her, breathless.
Ginny choked on a laugh. “You’d better!”
They lay in the leaves for awhile, talking quietly and exchanging kisses. Only when the sun disappeared and the temperature dropped did they make an effort to untangle themselves and climb out of their leafy haven.
“I’ve been thinking about houses,” Harry said, reaching out to steady Ginny with one hand on her elbow as she struggled to get out of the leaves and untangle the hem of her robes from her the tops of her boots at the same time.
“What?”
He drew her close. “You know, houses? Grimmauld is...well, I’ve been fixing it up, but it’s not…I mean, it’s nothing like the Burrow. Is that what you want? White picket fences? Do you want that? Because, I could do that. I mean, I know it’s all a long way off but it’s something to think about, you know? And if you want a white picket fence in the country, that can be arranged. We could have our own Quidditch pitch. And eventually there’d be kids. And…dogs? We could…have a pygmy puff farm, if that’s what...I’ll give you anything you want, Ginny. Anything at all.”
Ginny’s hair, when he put his nose in it, smelled sharp and cold, like the air, filled with the first nip of winter, that she’d been out in for the past several hours. The fuzzy bits pulled loose from her braid by the wind tickled his face as he breathed her in.
“I only want you,” Ginny replied, leaning against him.
His arms tightened fractionally around her. “You already have that.”
He could feel her smile stretch wide against his shoulder where her face was pressed into his jumper. “Then that’s enough for me.” She pulled away just enough to meet his eyes. “We’ll work out the rest together as we come to it.”
“Alright.” He smiled at her, felt it widen when she smiled back, then felt unaccountably nervous when her smile went a little wicked. He opened his mouth-he didn’t even know what he was going to say-and got hit with another face full of leaves. He swiped them away with his hands and spit them out of his mouth (and wasn’t that disgusting), only to have more shoved down the back of his jumper.
“Hey!” he managed to get out, twisting around a bit to the sound of Ginny’s laughter in an attempt to shake the leaves from his clothes. He sent her a disgruntled glare but he was pretty sure she could read the amusement under it when she just propped her hands on her hips and grinned at him.
“Don’t think you’re off the hook for avoiding me all term, Harry. I may love you, but you made me wait much longer than necessary. That’s abuse of your power.” Ginny shook her index finger at him warningly, trying hard to look intimidating through her laughter.
“It’s going to be like that then, huh?” Harry asked, already resigned to his fate.
“I’d watch my back after first snowfall if I were you, Potter.”
Harry sighed, mock put upon, watching her beneath his lashes as he dislodged the last of the leaves from his hair with one hand. She was snickering madly, clearly pleased with herself, not at all poised for retaliation.
Harry’s lunge was swift and unexpected. Ginny barely had time to shout in protest before he caught her up by the waist to prevent her escape. He swung her about in a dizzying circle, then laid a loud smacking kiss on her lips, set her back on her feet, and firmly reclaimed her hand.
“Come along, minx. You can plan your revenge for my thick-headedness later. I’m starving!” He tugged at her hand gently and they resumed their walk, this time headed back for the castle.
“You know, I’m surprised you’re taking this whole revenge thing so well. I expected the defeater of the Dark Lord to put up a much bigger fight,” she said teasingly.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I’m dating the caster of the scariest Bat Bogey Hex known to man. I figure I’m getting off easy,” he explained.
“Smart man.”
Ginny’s head came to rest on Harry’s shoulder. Harry smiled and slowed their pace so as not to dislodge her.
“I don’t know about that. But I am a very very lucky one.”