Time Waits For No One
Title: Time Waits for No One
Characters/Pairing: Harry/Ginny
Word Count: 1,056
Rating: G
Genre: Romance
Summary: Harry makes a hasty decision after the final battle and wonders if he will regret it.
A/N: This was written for thehpgw_otp Passage of Time challenge. My very lovely beta is in the throes of moving right now (and we all know how much fun that is) so I didn't foist this on her. That means that all mistakes are entirely my own.
Time. He thought they had time. Didn’t they? The war was all over now, and there was time enough for everything they wanted to do stretching before them. He had hours, after all ... days, maybe even years, to talk to her, to say what he wanted to say. So he left the Great Hall that day with Ron and Hermione, to do those last few things necessary to finish off the day, to put the final nail in the coffin of their year-long mission.
Unfortunately, he’d forgotten one thing. Time. Time waits for no one, and he was no exception. The few minutes he thought he’d spend in Dumbledore’s office turned into an hour and by the time he saw her again he could tell it was too late. She had closed down. The person who had run to him and hugged him in the aftermath of his defeat of Voldemort had spent the intervening time processing, and it looked like she hadn’t liked what she processed.
His heart gave a sickening leap as he faced her across the expanse of their old common room. Her eyes were prickly with anger; the relief that had dwelled there when she first saw him had been replaced with this harsher emotion, and he almost wanted to step back from her and run away. Her skin was as pale as he had ever seen it. Every freckle stood out starkly on her face, and her flame-red hair appeared out of place, though it seemed to give definition to the blaze heating her eyes. Time stood still as they looked at each other.
He spent no time wondering why she was angry. He knew. She was angry because he had tried to keep her caged and safe while he handed himself over to Voldemort. He steeled himself to face whatever she had to throw at him, and opened his mouth to say something, to forestall her aggression. As he moved a step closer, however, she brushed past him and out of the portrait hole, cutting off his words before they even formed. Time began moving again and marched out with her as he stared at the closed door and wondered where in the hell he should go next.
As he stood rooted to the spot, a few more precious seconds rushed past him, hurrying to follow her out into the castle. Slowly, he became aware of his surroundings. Ron and Hermione were staring at him, shocked. They didn’t understand, and time ticked on while she got further away from him as he shared a stunned silence with his best friends. Then reason reasserted itself, and he suddenly bolted for the portrait hole, startling the Fat Lady as he crashed her back against the wall in his haste to get out.
Time. He was kicking himself. With all the time in the world to do everything he needed to do, he had chosen to walk away from her. And now here he was, bleeding time as she got further from him. Time. As he searched the castle, that lost hour clawed at him. He rushed on, in a blind panic, not thinking where he was going. He was now hauntingly aware of every one of the hours, days and years he had so blithely dismissed as he left the Great Hall.
Finally he pulled himself up short, taking some more of those precious moments to think. Where would she go? She was furious, almost as blind in her fury as he was in his panic, so where would she go? Time flowed around him as he thought about it, but now his panic had receded a little, and time didn’t seem to be slipping by as fast as it had before. He grinned as he realised where she would be, and moved in that direction with a more purposeful step.
The sun was blazing as he made his way out the castle door, and he shielded his eyes against the unnerving brilliance. As his eyes adjusted, he could just make out the tree by the lake, and through the haze he could see a flash of vividest red. He blindly made his way towards her, unsure of what he was going to say or do when he got there, but still conscious of every second that hurtled past him while this distance stretched between them.
The headlong flurry of time slowed even more as he approached her, and his heart stopped beating in such an erratic rhythm. She squinted up at him, and the expression in her eyes was less enraged and more hurt. Her skin was flushed back to its normal hue, and the freckles had sunk back into their usual tantalising obscurity. She turned back towards the lake, dragging several seconds with her as she broke the eye contact.
He sat down beside her, careful to keep his distance as he did so. Then he waited. He waited for her aggression to pour over him, for her to do something, say something. He allowed the seconds to tick past, finally letting go of time with a conscious effort. He allowed it to move on in its unthinking way, because this time she was here, and he was not about to waste precious moments doing the wrong thing again. So he waited.
Finally, just as he was getting restless, just as he was beginning to panic and time was speeding up again, she spoke.
‘Harry.’
It was clear in her tone that the anger had gone; the single word was a caress holding a promise of the future. He slumped in relief, and she giggled and snuggled to him.
‘I should have hexed you when I felt like it. Though, I don’t suppose you’d look that good with bat wings all over your face.’
Once more he opened his mouth to speak, and once more she stopped his words. She pressed her mouth to his, a foretaste of all that was to come. As she pulled back, she whispered, ‘We have time, Harry.’
At her words, time resumed its normal flow around them. There was no need to chase it or try to drag it back, no need to fear it anymore. Yes, time waited for no one, but that didn’t matter when they were facing into its distance together.