Title: "Seeking Ginny"

Author: Casca

Rating: PG-13

Spoilers: Through Goblet

Classification: Post-Hogwarts H/G, Post-HBP AU

Summary: For years, Ginny Weasley has tried to bring to an end to her feelings for Harry Potter… she's even uprooted her life… but what happens when it's time to come face to face with him again? A post-Hogwarts tale revolving around Ginny's discovery of herself…while coming to terms with her feelings for Harry.…

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros. Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended

A/N: Okay… let's get down to it. When I created my Ginny, she was virtually unknown to any of us in canon. She took on a life of her own and basically wrote her own story, with me along for the ride. When HBP came out, Ginny's character became fleshed-out and her personality flourished. She was a bit different from my Ginny and I loved her, thus I decided to revamp the old chapters to keep Ginny in character with canon – and by doing so, my story had to change.

I stopped revamping long ago. I've stopped editing. Seeking Ginny from here on out will be entirely new content, entirely different to the story I had been telling. It's a "new" version and it has the best aspects of every version I had come up with before I started writing this fic. I know this may seem frustrating to the people who thought there was nothing wrong with the story in the first place… but there was. It is very difficult to write something that you are not inspired by…and it's hard for me not to try and make it as in-character as I can. By changing the story around I've turned it into something fresh, more profound, with more pain and angst and less fluff than before. Changing it has kept me going, kept me inspired. I really, really, really hope you like it.

Thanks to Emmyjean for kicking my arse into gear and for actually writing part of this chapter. Without her it would still be a pile of crap sitting on my desktop.

This chapter has been rewritten as of September 2006.

Chapter Eleven

"Fallen"

During the month of December, there did not appear to be time for the employees of Lotion Lady to take even the shortest of breaks. Nor was there time to have a glass of water… or take a much-needed trip to the loo… or stop working at all for even the tiniest of seconds. The mob of customers inhabiting the space had one thing in common: they wanted to finish their Christmas shopping and they wanted to finish as soon as was wizardly possible. Or even faster, if they could manage. And there were exactly three people buzzing about the little shop, festive holly adorning their hair, with the authority to help them.

There was Sarah, who they had all come to discover did not have it in her nature to serve the public. She would rather spend hours helping one customer find the perfect product than help a succession of people in a row. From the glimpses Ginny had of Sarah during the many December hours spent inside the shop, the former Hufflepuff remained stressed and completely over-whelmed at the pace needed to work the holiday crowd.

Rosemary did not appear to be stressed at all. It quickly became apparent that she was quite the laid-back individual, who didn’t allow things like thirty-eight customers needing help at the same time bother her. Working steadily, as though she didn't have a care in the world, she rolled her eyes at her besieged cousin and continued her job without worry at all.

Though Ginny did not consider herself as laid-back as Rosemary, or quite as obsessed as Sarah, she had something that they both lacked and that was the ability to thrive in a fast-paced environment. Having worked in a café as trendy as Le Papillon, she knew how to work efficiently at the pace needed to serve a holiday rush. Though the customers were packed in like sardines and the work was slightly different than serving food and drink, Ginny found herself on completely familiar ground as she rushed to serve as many people as quickly and efficiently as possible.

"Oh, I'm so sorry Mrs. Bradshaw, it looks like we're out of the lavender scent today," Ginny explained loudly, over the din, trying not to wince as a small child stepped on her foot to get to his mum. "Have you tried the strawberries and cream? Sarah puts real crushed strawberry seeds into the candle mixture to enhance the scent."

The middle-aged, earmuff-clad witch looked crestfallen. "But my aunt specifically said the lavender, she thinks it calms her…well, dear, do you think you might have it tomorrow?"

"Oh, erm…" Ginny tried to peer over the heads of the massive amounts of customers to find Sarah, but as both she and Sarah happened to be rather challenged in the height department, there wasn't much hope. "Can you give me a moment, and I'll ask Sarah what time it will be available tomorrow?" she asked, and when Mrs. Bradshaw nodded her thanks, Ginny slid through the crowd, narrowly avoiding people, and hurled behind the counter.

"Where's Sarah?" she asked Rosemary, who was steadily ringing up purchases.

Rosemary snapped her gum. "Downstairs."

Ginny flung open the door to the dungeon door and clambered down.

"Sarah, are you hiding down there?"

"Of course not, I'm getting more product," came Sarah's agitated voice. It seemed that the stress of the holiday was not lost on Sarah either. "We're out of nearly all the hand and foot cream."

"That's not all we’re out of," Ginny said, hopping down the last three steps. From below the shop, it sounded as though there was a stampede above them from the hoards of people moving around up there. "Are you going to have any Signature Candles in the lavender available tomorrow?"

"Yes." Sarah appeared from behind one of the tall shelves, her arms filled with product. She blew the hair out of her eyes, emptied the jumbled products into a carton at her feet, and then disappeared to get more. "They should be dried out tonight, but not before we close, so I'll stock them first thing tomorrow—WAIT!"

"What?!" Ginny jumped. "What's wrong?"

"Before I forget…" Sarah appeared again, her arms filled with yet more product. "This came for you," she said, managing to retrieve a letter from her smock. "I didn’t want to leave it behind the counter in case it got packaged with a purchase."

Ginny quickly opened the parchment. "Oh, it's from Brian. Writing with his tail between his legs, is he?" she asked, scanning the contents rapidly, aware that her customer was waiting upstairs. "Oh, yes, see there, he found a date last night, what did I tell you? He had two of the most sophisticated and talented witches in England waiting for him, and he abandons them for what? Some floozy. Well," she said crumpling up the parchment, "He's offered to make it up to us tonight, nine o'clock at the pub down the street. Shall we let him?"

"Er… that's fine," said Sarah distractedly. "Now where did I put that cow plant?"

"No idea, but you'd better hurry – the natives are getting restless," Ginny said, dashing upstairs to get back to her customer.

In the midst of the madness, Ginny found just enough time during her shift to scribble a response to Brian's owl, agreeing to a late dinner and send it off with Maurice. Saturday hours were shorter than weekdays and they were all grateful for it when six o'clock rolled around, signaling closing time. Ginny raced to lock the door, then rushed back to the gift wrapping table to assist the crowd that was gathered, passing Rosemary, who was hastening her pace at the till now that leaving was in sight. Sarah dashed to stand near the exit to let the trapped shoppers out.

When the last customer was gone and Sarah was able to slide the lock into place for the last time, the three girls stood in their respective places for a moment and surveyed the mess before them. Display tables were piled with mountains of merchandise, all of which had been moved from various places around the shop. Most shelves were covered in products that had been knocked into piles, others had one or two bottles left on them and many were completely empty. Shopping baskets were littered everywhere, some filled to the brim and left by customers who had apparently changed their minds, some with nothing in them at all. The floor was muddy from the hundreds of shoes that had walked across it, the shelves were foamy from spilled soap, and the fireplace was sooty from floo powder.

It looked the same as it had every night that week after closing and Ginny had the same thought she'd had every night, which was that they would never, ever get the place straightened out. But like every night, at once, they began to move towards the mess and slowly but surely, Lotion Lady began to transform from a hurricane disaster area to a place of business. With the three of them working diligently, casting the proper charms, floating more product to fill the empty slots and rearranging display tables, they managed to work rather efficiently.

Ginny was just finishing up a complex table display which was artfully arranged with Sarah's new perfume line, when the door to the dungeon opened up and Sarah, hidden behind the enormous box she carried, emerged. Ginny stared, a bit horrified.

"What on earth is all that? I thought we were almost finished."

"We are," Sarah sighed and set the box down. "Well, you both are, in any event. These are the new therapeutic blends that I've had in development and I want to stock the ones that I've finished testing. They should make for really nice gifts, these. But you two go on ahead, I've got this."

"Fantastic!" exclaimed Rosemary, and grabbed her cloak as she ran out of the shop, giving both Ginny and Sarah a cheerful wave.

"Wha—Sarah," Ginny said, confused, rushing to the door to lock it behind Rosemary, "I thought those wouldn’t be ready until after the holidays."

"Some are, so I just want to put them out and see how they sell. They really will make lovely gifts. Honestly, Ginny, go on and wind down a bit before dinner. I'll meet you at the pub at nine."

"Oh, nonsense, I'll help you. We have almost two hours before we have to meet Brian," Ginny said, walking over to the shelf on which Sarah was arranging the products. "Which are finished, then?"

"Erm… 'Breathe', 'Sleep' and 'Allergy' are the main ones, but I have some muscle relaxants and inflammation reducers that can be added to any of our skin care line," Sarah muttered, suddenly distracted by the multitude of products.

Ginny looked over Sarah's shoulder at the array of different sized bottles, some wrapped together with string, others tucked into complex-looking instructions.

"You had better give me an explanation on how they work again so that I'll be able to sell them."

Sarah sighed and again blew her fringe from her eyes. "Well some of them require instructions for use because there are multiple ways to apply them," she explained, lifting one of the packages which contained a large bottle filled with clear liquid and a much smaller container of what looked like an amber-colored mixture, attached by a hefty set of instructions. "Here's 'Sleep'. For this one you need to place four to five drops in a basic sleeping draught of which I've included a hefty portion and for the most part, that is how it's meant to be used. But you can also use just the botanical oils and rub them onto your eyelids or temples for relaxation purposes. See?"

Ginny took the proffered package and scanned the label:

"A blend of botanical oils, health charms, and other ingredients to aids in bringing about a deep sleep for all those who suffer from insomnia or have trouble relaxing. Oils Used are Roman Chamomile to soothe an overactive, restless mind to induce sleep; Lavender which brings balance to the central nervous system for those who suffer from anxiety, panic, stress, and hyperactivity; Marjoram to ease the minds and bodies of those under tension and strain with a warming, calming effect; Magical Elements Used: One-tenth Cheering Charm to stimulate contentment….'"

After she was finished, Ginny let her eyes travel down the list of magical ingredients. And she wondered.

"Do they work very well?" she asked a moment later, still staring at the bottle as Sarah systematically stocked the shelf. Sarah looked up from her task and asked confusedly,

"Of course they work, Ginny, why else would I have made them?"

"I mean this one… 'Sleep'… will it really cure insomnia?"

"Well, cure is a strong word. 'Sleep' is very effective, though," Sarah said, standing and wiping her hands on her jeans. "The combination of the botanical oils nearly doubles the potency of the sleeping draught and the Cheering Charm is such a tiny one, but it makes all the difference to those whose insomnia is caused by depression. Of course it doesn’t cure the depression, but it does help with getting sleeping patterns back on track, which is a godsend to someone who is suffering from depression or just someone who might be overly stressed. But people who aren't suffering from depression can use them as well, they're not just for…"

Sarah continued with her long-winded explanation as she finished stocking the carton of products and after nearly twenty minutes, when she stepped back from the shelf to review her work, Ginny said,

"I'm going to take one of these… 'Sleep'."

Sarah looked surprised. "For yourself? Are you having trouble sleeping?"

"No, no, not for me, it's for…" She looked back down at the bottles in her hand. "Harry."

There was a pause. "Oh…oh, of course he would be quite stressed right now, wouldn’t he?" Sarah asked softly.

"Yes… he said that he's immune to every sleeping draught out there by now… I just thought that this might help…d'you think it would or … should I not? I probably shouldn’t?" She looked at Sarah now, uncertain.

Sarah studied her. "Can't hurt to try it, right?" she asked at last. "Everything I use is quite safe and like I said… the botanical oils more than double the potency of the draught, so…well, it can't hurt, can it?"

"No… no, I suppose not. Right, then, I should probably drop this off for him tonight. We still have nearly an hour before we have to meet Brian, d'you want to meet me inside the pub at nine, then?"

"That'll do. I'll stop home to change."

"Yes, you'd better," Ginny said, suddenly in high spirits now that they were finished and the night lay ahead of them. "You're a bloody mess."

Sarah laughed, "What do you expect me to look like after the day we've had? Oh, and did I mention that you've had the same spot of dust on your nose since about noon?"

Ginny let out a cry of outrage and touched her nose. "Right, I'm the type of person who warns her best friend when she looks like an abandoned house-elf, but obviously you're above all that."

Sarah gave an uncharacteristically flippant answer and laughing, the two friends parted ways outside the shop.

~*~

Ginny spent more time at home than she'd planned since her mother happened to be taking up the bathroom by giving Julian what consisted of the longest bath in the history of the Burrow—a rather impressive feat since Fred and George had once lived there. After her young nephew had been cleaned to the best of anyone's ability, Ginny was finally able to shower off the grimy feeling of a nine-hour work day and quickly made herself presentable for dinner. Hurrying downstairs to tell her mother that she was going out, she spotted the kitchen worktop piled with leftover food and prolonged leaving long enough to fill a plate for Harry.

It occurred to her moments later, when she materialized in front of Number 12 Grimmauld Place, that she hadn’t set eyes upon it since she'd been a teenager. The house looked more rundown and desolate than it had when she’d known it as the headquarters of the Order, if that was possible, with the bare trees surrounding it and the windows frosty from the cold. She stared up at the manor-like house starkly displayed against the night sky, suddenly assaulted with memory after memory. Some were too horrible to think about, but some…well, some were rather fond and she found a sad smile for times past…and for the people who were no longer here.

There didn’t appear to be any lights inside the house from what Ginny could see and for a moment, as she walked along the dirty path leading up to the front doors, she wondered if Harry was out. She grabbed the massive door knocker and knocked, then stepped back as the wind tossed her hair around. She felt a bit silly standing there all bundled up, with her mother’s plate of food in one hand and a Lotion Lady bag in the other. Harry hadn't expressed any desire for visitors, much less a visitor who was about to unload a great deal of care on him, but still…she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if the solution to his sleeping problem might be right under her nose and she didn’t at least offer it to him.

Her brow crinkled a bit as the seconds passed into minutes and she leaned over to try and look through the closest window. Perhaps he wasn’t home after all. Turning her wrist slightly and glancing at her watch, she started a bit at the time. She was going to be late for dinner.

Just as she was about to call it quits and leave to meet Sarah and Brian at the pub, without any preamble at all, the door was yanked open with a loud creak and Harry appeared in the frame, his eyes abruptly finding hers.

The bright "hi" she’d been about to say caught in her throat and came out a hesitant stutter. He looked … wired. There was no resemblance at all to the quiet, tired man she'd visited in the hospital a few weeks ago. His eyes, though bright with fatigue, were alert and ready, an intense, almost primal fire in them. His jaw was covered with black stubble and his hair was longer than he usually kept it and messier than ever.

He didn’t respond, he didn’t smile, he just looked at her and waited. Actually, he didn’t look…he squinted at her, as though the faint light emanating from the moon was hurting his eyes.

Finding her voice, Ginny managed, "I, um…I was just on my way to meet Sarah and Brian for dinner, and…." She broke off and shook her head. "I'm sorry, Harry, were you…sleeping….?"

She could keep neither the continued stuttering nor the disbelief from her voice as she asked the question. His appearance suggested that he hadn't slept in weeks… although looking past him into the hallway, all she could see was pitch blackness.

"No," was his answer, and he left it at that.

Ginny's brows shot up at his brevity. "Oh…well..."

She stood there, completely thrown off. She knew that Harry had been forced to take time off from work to recuperate from that horrid ordeal and into her mind's eye came an image of him, alone in this fortress of a house with nothing to do but stew over that boy's death.

Had anyone thought to come by and check on him these past few weeks? Why hadn’t that occurred to her when she'd decided to come tonight?

"I just…I wanted to stop by to see how you were doing," she finally managed softly. It was a lie, but it was all she could say. She found his eyes again. "I have something for you, d'you think… erm, d’you think I might…."

 She trailed off, wondering what exactly it was that she wanted. Did she really want to go inside?

 Harry was squinting down at her again, his eyes two green slits behind the glint of his glasses and his brow was drawn in thought. Then at once, it seemed as though a wave of apathy washed over him. His brow lifted indifferently and he simply turned, and walked into the house, leaving the door open and her standing on the porch alone.

She opened her mouth in surprise and started to say something but realized that she would only talking to herself. Was that an invitation? Had he muttered something that she hadn't heard, like, perhaps "come in" or "I'll be right back"? As she peered into the dark hallway, the hairs on the back of her neck prickled…and her heart began to sink as the reality of the situation suddenly washed over her.

 Something was very wrong here. She shouldn't have come like this, without any thought at all. Had it been so long since she'd used her judgment where Harry was concerned that she'd forgotten she still needed it?

  And at once it became clear to her that she was faced with the choice that she had worked forever to stay away from. She could follow him or she could walk away from him. That was all. No middle ground. It was run or jump.

She closed her eyes and tried to think, tried to reason, aware that with every second he was probably assuming she had turned around and gone on her way. Everything she had worked for over the years screamed at her to leave. In the long run, would it really help him, this stupid sleeping draught when it was clear he needed so much more? What was the real risk tonight… not helping Harry… or sacrificing herself….?

Logically, the answer was quite simple. She did not belong here tonight.

Damn.

Ignoring logic and listening to something much more powerful, Ginny stepped into the house and closed the door with a loud creak, taking even the faint light of the moon away. The entrance hall was as dark as it had appeared from outside and the smell in the air was stale and musky. Allowing her pupils to adjust for a moment, she tried to peer around.

"Harry?"

Silence answered her. Ginny lifted her brow and waited, a nervous, haunting feeling washing over her. She crossed her arms against a chill. Memories were flooding back in abundance now, the gloom of the hall reviving some forgotten fear inside of her. This house represented a cold time and she felt it in her bones as she stood there, waiting for some sign of him, unable to fathom living here every day.

 Swallowing, she glanced around. The chandelier above her was draped in cobwebs and devoid of any candles. Several unlit gas lamps lined the walls, their brass glinting, and Ginny was about to retrieve her wand to light them when she saw, in the corner of the hall, a very faint light coming from a door.

"Harry?" she called again, but no response came.

Fingering her wand and wondering if she should use it for more light, Ginny sent a glance down the corridor before walking towards the door, hesitating for a moment when she reached it. She pushed the door open finally and peered inside. She had to blink a few times in the light which, though a drastic improvement, was quite dim. Waxy candles covered several surfaces, giving off enough candlelight to barely illuminate the room… which appeared to be a messy study crammed from wall to wall with furniture and boxes.

But Ginny's eyes were drawn not to the furniture, the cluttered desk, the unlit fireplace or the crowded bookshelves. Her eyes looked past stacks and stacks of files covering every surface and the cartons that were piled high throughout the room. She barely noticed the crumbled bits of parchment strewn across the floor and overflowing the bins. Ginny's eyes were pulled instead towards a single detail that appeared repeatedly throughout the mess...faces.

Faces… countless faces surrounded her. Faces that made her stomach turn, faces of prisoners in prison garb, holding numbers, their leering smiles and gleaming eyes fixing on her. They covered the walls and were scattered across sofas and chairs, the flickering light of the candles casting eerie shadows across their devious-looking features.

There were other photographs as well… of people on the street, taken from a distance as though their subjects were being followed. There were photographs of places that Ginny did not recognize such as vacant alleys, dark dungeons, some marked with the red smoke that signaled a crime scene, some clearly taken in different countries.

Ginny’s eyes roamed over the large desk. There were a cluster of images pinned to the wall, each depicting a young boy…the same boy in every one, but at different ages, in different settings. The round, happy face caused a sick feeling to well in her throat until - her eyes halted. Her vision was suddenly filled with the image of the boy’s dead body, as it lay motionless in its photograph, sprawled across a dirty floor, his hollowed eyes staring blankly upward—

The door creaked. Ginny whirled around to find Harry standing in the doorway, half of him bathed in shadow from the corridor.

"I'm sorry, I saw a light coming from here, I didn't mean to—Harry, what is all this?" she asked, her voice shaky.

His brow went up. "My work."

She gestured with her hand, but doing so upset a stack of notes lying open on a nearby carton; they almost spilled, but she managed to catch them in time. Sweeping the room with her gaze, she replied,

"A-all of this? I thought the case was closed."

"I have to do my report, don't I?"

The sarcasm in his voice was not lost on her. "But… well, yes, but…these files, all of these photographs, it's all from the Forthwright case? You...you need it all?" She knew she was being repetitive and stupid, but she couldn’t fathom what on earth was going on.

Harry continued to look at her as though this room—which appeared to Ginny to be the ideal space for a mad stalker to keep his prey—was a perfectly normal study and she was the mad one for thinking it strange.

"Yeah," he responded flatly, "I mean, I have to be thorough, don't I? It's the least I can do for him, after all."

Ginny lifted her eyes to him. The turmoil in his eyes was palpable and raw with an underlying violence that threatened to implode at any moment. Holding his gaze, it all came rushing back. The agony … the grief … the terrible nights… the same haunting looks. How many times in how many years had she seen Harry like this? How many times had she lost herself to that look in his eyes?

The decision was made before she could even consider an alternative. She couldn’t do this. She had to get out. She had to get out now.

"I, erm… Harry…." Words were jumbled. She tried to form a sentence in her mind before she spoke, but the effort failed miserably. "I don’t … think that … you know, you really shouldn't be doing this right now," she blurted, unable to tear her eyes from his. "I think… I really think you need to get away from it. Take a step back… you know." She swallowed. "Your time off from work is supposed to allow you a rest, isn’t it? The report…well, it can wait…can't it?"

He didn't respond, didn’t move a muscle. Ginny pulled her gaze away and set the bowl of food she was carrying onto the small table next to her. With shaking hands, she took the package of sleeping draught and botanical oils from the bag.

"This is a remedy that we carry in the shop. It's supposed to help with… insomnia. I'm not quite sure how it works, but… well, there are instructions and everything, and I thought… Harry, I think you might do well to try this out. It might help, you know… and…well…"

Two agonizing seconds passed as they both stood there, immobile, both gazing down at the package that she held.

"Trying to put me to sleep, then?" he said finally, his voice a raspy whisper. "Trying to ease your conscience?"

"That's not why I'm here," she said meekly.

"The hell it's not. I don’t need your food, Ginny—"

Without warning, he grabbed the bowl from the table and hurled it with all his strength. Ginny gasped as it hit the wall beside them with an earsplitting crash, shattering, sending jagged pieces of porcelain and bits of food flying everywhere.

"—or your bloody drugs—"

He grabbed it from her hands and heaved it, too, against the wall. His eyes glowed with a rage that she didn't want to believe was inside of him and for perhaps the first time in her entire life, Ginny felt genuine fear as she stood before Harry. She had never understood how Hermione could cringe and cower under her best friend's anger…but now…

"Or the goddamn pity that you all insist on heaping onto me. Just get out, Ginny," he growled, "You’ll be late for your friends."

With that, he turned and walked out of the room, sending the door crashing into its frame….

Ginny stood where she was, completely and utterly frozen. Her body was shaking. Her brain was reeling. For the longest time, she remained shell-shocked and staring stupidly at the wall that dripped with food, unable to believe what she had just witnessed.

Slowly, mindlessly, she pulled out her wand and walked over to the mess, trying to control her rapid heart as she cleaned the food and fixed her mother's shattered plate.

She needed to leave…to do as he'd said and just get the hell out, as fast as she could. She stared down at her wand, turning it in her hands and considering using it to Disapparate. She was better at walking away now. Seeing him in Paris was proof of that. So all she had to do now was just…go.

She could almost see Brian and Sarah, sitting in an inviting pub with warm lights, good music, hearty food….

But she wasn't there. She wasn't in the picture. She was here, in this dungeon of a house, with a Harry that she was certain she couldn't handle and faced once again with two choices. Run or jump. If she left, she would once again be leaving her heart behind. She could do it, though. She could leave him again. It was a battle that she was resigned to fight for the rest of her life and she could win this one, too.

In one heart wrenching instant, her eyes filled with tears. She heard the voice in her head, insisting that he needed her, that allowing her into his home was the equivalent of showing her a gaping, open wound that desperately needed treatment. And she wanted to just… leave?

She swore loudly and balled her hands into tight fists, positively fuming that she was forced to make this decision.

Head reeling, heart pounding, she slammed from the study and followed the only source of light, stumbling down the stairs to the basement kitchen. She found him there, leaning against the worktop, braced on his arms, his head ducked between his shoulders. No breathing should be that controlled, she thought, stepping further inside, her heeled boots clicking on the stone floor.

Harry froze at the sound. "Didn't you hear what I said?" he demanded.

"Yes," she answered, her heart racing.

"Then get the hell out."

Ginny swallowed an enourmous lump in her throat. "No."

"Does it look like I’m joking, Ginny?" he asked, his voice rising as he whipped his head around. Now, however, she was past being intimidated. She was staying. The decision had been made for her… and she'd be damned if she'd make it easy on him.

"No," she answered quietly, "To be perfectly honest, you look pathetic."

He at least had the presence of mind to look taken aback. "What?"

Raising an eyebrow, she said, "Pathetic… or maybe you really are crazy."

He stared at her, struggling to find a response only momentarily before replying dangerously, "I probably am. Doesn't it make you afraid to be alone with me?"

She found herself smiling. "I learned at an early age not to be afraid of you, Harry. I bet you wish that I was, though, it would make the misery ever so much better, wouldn't it? You could wallow in it all night, all by yourself, but it begs the question of why you let me in here in the first place. You need help, and you know it—"

"Whose? Yours?" he asked, a cruel smile forming on his lips. She thought her heart might stop as he came painfully close to the issue that had been the center of her life for as long as she could remember. But she merely lifted a brow.

"Yes, mine. Why not? Lord knows I've done my share to help you in the past—"

"Your share? Your share of what, exactly?" His eyes glowed with the thrill of the fight, as he took a dangerous step towards her. This was what he wanted, she realized. He needed the action, he needed the battle. "What was it, then, did you lot have a schedule? Something like, "You take his Monday breakdown, I've plans that day”. You know, if I was such a bloody burden on you, then you shouldn’t have done your share—"

She interrupted his pity party abruptly with, "I never said you were a burden, you stupid git."

Harry stared at her and slowly, his lip curled into a sneer. "Oh, no that's right… I wasn't a burden." His voice was soft. His eyes were mean. "I was never a burden on you...particularly. Isn’t that right, Ginny?"

Stung by his blatant mocking, Ginny's face burned and her anger spiked. Harry took another step towards her.

"You're uninvited, so just get the hell out of my house."

She felt as though all the breath had left her. There was a long, awful pause before the knot in her throat was dissolved into a bitter laugh.

"You know I see right through you," she whispered. "You lash out at me, aiming where it hurts, but you know that it won’t make me leave. You know that it only keeps me here fighting. Because that's what you want, isn't it? You're so transparent—"

"I'm transparent—?!"

"You need me and you damn well know it—!"

"You're treading on dangerous ground, Ginny," he said in a low, threatening voice. "You don’t want me to go there, so just drop it."

Both fear and anger mingled together and crashed into her. For a moment, all she could do was stare at him, positively fuming. She felt vicious, and the urge to hurt him was genuine. How dare he make her fear him? How dare he take something so personal to her and make threats with it? He had no right, no bloody right, to even touch the subject, let alone use it against her.

"Then go there. I dare you. Because I promise you, Harry, you won’t win."

Their eyes, now flashing with equal intensity, locked in battle.

"I have work to do," he snapped.

"Really? It can wait," she said, yanking at the knot in her scarf and pulling it off.

"No, see," he said, his tone sarcastic, "perhaps your work can wait. But there's actually some importance to my job, so I need to get on with it."

Ginny smiled at his effort to insult her. "I'm not leaving, Harry. You can keep at it, trying to think of more ways to insult me so that I'll storm out of here, but it's not going to work. You think I'm going to leave now, after you're trying to insult me?" She couldn't stop the sarcastic snort. "Right, you can’t even do it properly, either. You used to be better at fighting."

And with that, she yanked her cloak free and tossed it on the chair, her scarf and gloves following. The gestures seemed to push him close to the edge.

"I DON'T WANT YOU HERE!"

"The hell you don’t," she replied calmly.

"You're way off the mark, thinking I'll confide in you about anything—"

"Off the mark, is it? Well, perhaps I'm thinking of our conversation in St. Mungo's where I sat with you all night –"

"I didn't ask you to come there—"

"—talking about your sleeping problems, and the Forthwright boy—"

"Stop."

His voice, low and controlled, scared Ginny far more than his loudest shouting, but she kept on, "Or perhaps I'm thinking of all the other nights, the countless other nights, at the Burrow, in the bloody Gryffindor common room—"

He let out a vehement exclamation and took a step towards her, his finger pointed directly at her. "Do not try to use YOUR bleeding heart as an example of you helping me. That was all you. I never asked for your help, I had my own friends—"

"Who, Ron and Hermione?" she shot back, "They could never quite get through to you the way I did and you damn well know it—"

"Oh, you give yourself far too much credit, Ginny. You think you can compare yourself to Ron and Hermione? You think you even come close?"

"Maybe not," she said, and her voice shook, "But they seem to be a bit absent right now, so I'm all you have."

"Well then that’s not much."

A surge of emotion swelled inside of her at his declaration, causing her temper to reach a near boiling point. "Just who the hell do you think you are, talking to me like that? I've always been there when you needed me—"

"Always?" he demanded. He lifted a brow. "Always? Are you sure about that?"

She rolled her eyes. "Right, keep talking in riddles. It's so much fun."

He ignored her jab. "Apparently, your definition of "always" is something along the lines of "when you happen to be in the country". Isn’t that right?"

She was shocked into silence before she asked, hr voice hushed, "What?"

"You heard me."

"How did my living in Paris have any affect on you? I don't remember you feeling the need to maintain any contact with me when I was there."

Harry very nearly growled, "Don’t pretend you never received a letter from me, because that would be a bald-faced lie."

"A letter?! Oh, come off it—I never received a letter from you."

He looked at her with disgust. "And you call me pathetic? I sent you an owl your first summer in Paris! Are you going to pretend that you never received it?"

"I'm not going to pretend anything," she snapped. "I did not receive a letter from you when I was in Paris...never, not once."

His eyes were narrowed now and he was looking at her as though he couldn’t believe what he was seeing… and then something changed in his eyes. "Well perhaps your roommate chucked it in the bin."

"Don't be ridiculous, Brian wouldn’t have—" And something very cold seeped into her blood. There was an image forming in her brain… an image of herself … she'd just stepped into the flat on a warm summer's day to find a letter on the sideboard and a snowy owl on the sill.

"That's for you." Brian's voice cut through the fog in her brain. "Came this afternoon."

Ginny felt a wave of nausea hit her. It was the same feeling she'd had years ago when she'd walked to the kitchen and let the unopened envelope slide from her fingertips into the bin. At the back of her mind, she marveled that she had completely forgotten about it… to the point where she'd made herself believe that it hadn't arrived in the first place. But it had been survival back then and that letter wasn't the only thing she'd forced herself to forget about.

The dawning realization must have shown on her face because he looked smugly satisfied with himself. "Forget, did you?"

She cleared her throat. "I'm, sorry. I do remember one letter—something happened, I didn’t get the chance to read it—I mean I started to read it, but something… I got caught up in—"

"Stop it."

Her eyes flew to his and she tried not to cringe at what she saw. There was a keen disappointment on his face now.

"Don't make up excuses; you didn’t even open the damn thing, did you?"

"Harry, it wasn't like that," she insisted, shame now overcoming all her other whirling emotions. "I just… in Paris, things were—"

"I don’t CARE, Ginny!" he exploded suddenly and though he was furious, his eyes shined with hurt. "You're the one carrying on about always being there, when the truth is, you only come round when it benefits YOU—your life, your crush, whatever the hell you're on about at the time. So don’t stand here in my house trying to act the martyr when the only reason you're here is due to GUILT because I didn’t just take your medicine and go to bed like a good little boy!"

The injustice positively burst inside of her. She felt as though she had lost touch with reality. How did she get here, in front of him… in front of Harry…flooded by his accusations and his resentment? "How can you accuse me of being selfish, of all things?"

"You are selfish. You “didn’t get the chance” to read a letter that I sent to you at a time when the whole goddamned world—including Paris—was reading about every failure in my life—"

"What are you talking about?"

"—printing and reprinting the interview she gave about me, quoting all the best parts about my failing at auror training, failing at relationships, failing at life—" He shoved a chair out of his way as he paced the kitchen. "Weeks and weeks of articles about it - did I really have the strength, the talent, the nerve to be an auror, or was the Ministry just giving me whatever I wanted in compensation for ridding the world of Voldemort?"

All she could do was stare at him, completely dumbfounded upon noticing her blank look, he let out a sarcastic laugh.

"Come to think of it, you were probably too busy to actually read the articles as well, eh? That makes sense now. It wasn't going to benefit you, so why would you bother?"

Ginny squeezed her eyes shut, trying to understand what he was talking about. An article? She wracked her already befuddled brain, and tried to remember all the times Brian had mentioned Harry being in the papers. But at the same time, she knew it was futile. It had been common practice to tune out the minute Brian said Harry's name or the second she saw it written in a letter from her family. If there had been something going on, there was an excellent chance that she wouldn't have even known about it.

But even as she tried…even as she stood there, caught inside the trap she had unknowingly set for herself, one word in his entire tirade had her heart frozen in her throat.

"She?"

Harry's head snapped up.

"She gave an interview about you? Rebecca?"

His eyes were unreadable. "Yeah."

Her insides were trembling with some sort of deep-rooted apprehension. It was like she had known about this in some recess of her brain, but hadn't ever allowed herself to fully realize it.

"I…don’t understand." Her voice sounded jerky and vulnerable. "How? Why?"

Harry fixed his eyes on her and Ginny tried not to shiver outwardly…it felt like he could see right into her heart.

"It wasn't her fault," he said, his eyes still level. "The press cornered her and…she was weak. She didn’t know what she was doing."

"She didn’t know what she was doing?"

Harry's brow furrowed. "Not really. There were too many reporters. It was an ambush."

As though she was being transported back in time, Ginny felt a surge of jealousy take over. Hearing him try to defend Rebecca against what was obviously an enormous act of betrayal made her feel like she’d just been slapped across the face.

"An ambush of…what, exactly? Did they feed her Veritaserum, or something? Did they hold a wand to her? How does someone talk about—how did she do that and not know that she was betraying you?"

Harry stared at her for a long time. "Some people are just too weak to—"

"Weak? How was she too weak to know the difference between being loyal and selling someone out?" she demanded hotly.

Harry's eyes flashed for the first time since she'd begun questioning him about Rebecca. "What the hell is it to you, anyway? It's none of your business why she did it—"

"None of my business?" She was shaking from head to toe, unable to control herself. "Well it's only that I'm finding it difficult to understand why you don’t have any anger towards her at all when she did something so awful, so hurtful … but me… well I forget to read one stupid letter and you're full of this anger… this resentment that I don’t understand—"

"Do you know what it's like to truly hate yourself, Ginny?"

Completely taken aback, Ginny looked up at him and saw pitiless green eyes burning into hers.

"To realize that everything you've built your life around is a lie, a-a cover… for what you should have felt years ago…?"

His words didn’t apply to her… not in the slightest. But she felt as though it was the closest he had ever come to her heart.

"That's what happened to me," he continued and now his breathing was labored, as though he was trying to control some kind of inner wrath. "When the war ended, I was fine. I had people in my life… friends. All the things that I had wanted to feel for so long, I felt. Freedom… relief… all of it. I was fine. Better than fine." His face hardened. "But I wasn't. I didn’t know that I was a walking time bomb. I didn’t know that it wasn't supposed to have been that easy. It was shock, Hermione said. It didn’t allow me to feel what I should have felt after the war and I paid for it a year later when I found myself in the middle of simulated battles, surrounded by the Dark Arts, forced to duel every single day and it occurred to me exactly what had happened, exactly what I had done!"

He gripped the back of a chair that was in front of him, and swallowed something bitter.

"I killed him. I – killed – Voldemort. Because of me, everyone was saved, and now, I was supposed to be the greatest auror of all time. Now, I was supposed to live the ideal life and continue to save the goddamn world. And not only that," he continued, his breathing coming faster now, his face breaking out into a sweat, his voice becoming more heated, "I had to be the perfect best friend. The perfect boyfriend. The perfect auror. I had to manage my time better than the bloody Minister for Magic. I had to be happy and pretend that I wasn't scared to death that I would never be able to live up to any of it."

He paused to try and maintain some sort of control over himself, but his hand trembled as he wiped the sweat off his lip.

"And then," he went on, his voice shaking almost as bad as the hand gripping the chair, "the person who had started the whole farce in the first place, who'd made me believe that I could actually be happy without any consequences… she goes and tells the bloody Prophet how worried she is about me. And that has the world wondering. Will Harry Potter ever be normal after everything that's happened to him? Can he ever recover from the trials he was put through, from the countless losses? Will he ever be able to lead a normal life?" He punctuated each query with a jerk of the chair. "Can you understand what that was like, Ginny? Having the entire world voicing your own worst fears … and trying to prove them true? That's what I was dealing with while you were in Paris. That's what you would have found in that letter had you to bothered to open it."

Ginny's own breathing had become labored. There was something struggling to come out of her, some awful bout of grief or pity or angst. Words were lost on her. She was afraid if she tried to speak, something pathetic and weak would come out.

"So here I am," he said suddenly, his hand gripping the chair so tightly, it looked as though his fingers would break under the strain. "In the same boat … with the same… failure! Because I couldn’t save him, I not only failed Devon and his family, no… I've failed the entire world. Well, I don’t want it anymore," he declared, jerking his head from side to side. "I don’t want to live with the image of that little boy looking at me and thinking I'm there to save him. I don’t want to have to watch his tiny life get SNUFFED over and over again in my head, in my sleep—" He broke off on a noise of frustration. "I can’t DO it, anymore, are you listening to me? I don’t want to—I can’t—"

His eyes were pleading with her to understand, pleading with her to give him some kind of reprieve and all she could do was hold his gaze and hang onto his every word. It hit her then, like a bludger to the stomach, exactly what this… scene, this horrible state he was in reminded her of. The restless movements, the haunted eyes, the exploding temper… it was Harry, yes, but combined with this eerie house, this unkempt, anxious ghost of a man who seemed trapped inside his own skin … it was like looking into the eyes of his godfather.

"And the worst part is, nobody understands," he croaked, and the chair he was gripping began to shake. "Nobody can know what it's like to see what I saw that day. Nobody."

"That's where you're wrong, Harry—"

"No, Ginny." He spoke with a keen sense of regret, as though he couldn’t possibly believe that she was right and all the while, his eyes still bore into hers, pleading with her to get it. "Don’t you think I wish it were true? Don’t you think I wish Ron and Hermione could really understand?" There was a long, horrible pause as he struggled with his next words. "I'm alone, okay?"

She shook her head fiercely. "No. You're not alone...they do know."

He laughed a mirthless laugh and shook his head. She felt his hopelessness. She felt his isolation. Driven by something deep inside, something beyond her control, she reached out and closed her hand over his.

"They do," she said firmly, prying his fingers from the back of the chair. "When you love someone, you know what hurts them the most. You know how they hurt, you know their thoughts and the things they do to punish themselves. Ron and Hermione… they know what this feels like for you, Harry, believe me… they know… and so do I."

His hand jerked under hers, and Ginny paused, trying to give him a moment to gain back the control that was rapidly slipping away from him.

"You cannot torture yourself," she said finally, in a low, almost-practical voice. "I know it feels like it's your fault. And I know on some horrible, unspeakable level, it seems true. It was your job to try to save him. It was. But you just couldn’t. You couldn’t, Harry! It's not as though you didn’t try… it's not as though you didn’t put everything you had into it. You just couldn’t. And you cannot give up your sanity or your life as penance for that."

She watched, torn between terror and anguish as he lifted his eyes to the ceiling, as he tried so hard to keep the tears from them. "I couldn’t… so what does that make me?"

"It makes you human!" she snapped, her hand tightening. She wanted to strangle him and hold him at the same time. "You speak about being normal? That alone makes you as normal as any man on the face of the earth! You are not a self-proclaimed hero, Harry. You didn’t ask to have that label, you didn’t give it to yourself. No human being can live up to what you've been labeled as and as long as you try, you're doomed to failure."

Her words seemed to hang over him. He stood where he was, motionless, his hand caught underneath hers, his chest moving up and down slowly… and before she knew it, the smallest signs of control began to slip back into his breathing pattern. And after a while, his breath came out in one long, shudder.

"This house is like a dungeon," he exclaimed, running his free hand down the length of his face. He took his glasses off and rubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand. "It's like … I don’t know which room to go in, I feel like a goddamned … prisoner." His pulled his hand away from his face and his eyes became darker. "I know exactly how this place drove Sirius mad."

Ginny took a shaky breath of her own. "It's not the same, though. You're two very different men."

There was a pause and then, "Maybe we're not so different."

Her throat constricted, she asked, "What do you mean?"

His eyes began to glow eerily… as though he was about to let her in on a deep, dark secret. "Sirius had his golden years just like I had mine. But then he became a prisoner. His sanity, his dignity, it was all taken from him… he lost control of himself."