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Author: Kalarien Story: A Golden Day Rating: Teens Setting: AU Status: WIP Reviews: 9 Words: 12,802
A/N: Thanks to everyone for the reviews! I love reading every one of them. And for all you who’ve been waiting for a first encounter...you won’t be disappointed by this chapter! Thanks again to Incurable Romantic and especially to musings for dealing with my inability to consistently type “Portkey”. ----- It took very little for her to find him, in fact. Nearly the moment she left the Leaky Cauldron she spotted him, heading into a pub directly across the street. The sign labeled it as the “Laughing Muskrat”, a rather disingenuous name for a London establishment, she thought. As she watched, the door closed in a rather final way behind him suggesting to her that “closed” rather than “open” was the current state of the business. Such barriers, of course, mean little to witches, and less to Ginny Weasley. She found a back way. *** The kitchen was spotless. He didn’t know quite how that had been managed; usually it took no more than about thirty seconds for dirt to settle, and he normally had to clean it twice a day, before opening and just after closing. He’d got lucky, he supposed, and decided to use his luck to take a much-needed nap before they had to open. He wasn’t that lucky. As he stepped out into the small, cold yard between the pub and his shack a figure stepped into his way. “Harry.” The voice was earnest. The figure itself was female, young and thin, wearing what looked like choir or academic robes. She had a freckled face, blush with the March wind, which currently held an expression of disbelief, though it was clear that it wouldn’t take much for that face to become as fiery as the red hair surrounding it. Her eyes searched his face, as though she were trying to find something buried there. She spoke again. “It’s you. It really is.” He felt rather awkward. After all, he had no memory of this girl, no memory of anything, really, but it seemed as though she remembered him. Quietly, he replied “Hello,” and then, deciding to take a risk: “Who are you?” Shock passed over the girl’s face slowly, as though she had to process his words before comprehending them. “Who am...Harry! It’s me!” This struck Tom as nearly funny. So close to funny, in fact, that a snicker escaped. Just a little one, mind you. A little one that became, given a moment, a chuckle, then a true laugh. “Well, of course you are!” he managed to say through his laughter. “I’m me, too!” The blush turned red and grew toward her ears. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she coughed to disguise a sob. Similarly to the snicker, that one sob opened up the floodgates and soon she was full out crying. “Damn it!” she choked, and all but collapsed to the hard ground to bury her face in her knees. Feeling guilty, he crouched to touch her shoulder. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” “Well, it certainly had that effect.” Sniff. “I should hex you.” He didn’t know quite what to make of that. So he didn’t say anything. “I hate crying!” was the next thing she said, though it seemed to be rather rhetorical. He opened his mouth to speak, thought better of what was about to come out, and closed it. Then: “What’s your name?” It seemed the smart thing to ask, seeing as “Who are you?” hadn’t had the desired effect. She sniffed again, and looked up at him. “You really don’t remember?” He shrugged, unbalanced himself to sit on the ground with her rather than crouch, and replied, “I don’t remember much of anything past eight months ago. I don’t even know if I remember my name.” She considered that piece of information for a moment. “Harry. Your name is Harry Potter.” “That explains it,” he said, more to himself than anything. Then, to explain, “An old man called me Mr. Potter today. He disappeared before I could ask him anything.” She nodded, doing her best to wipe the tears and redness from her eyes. “That would have been my Uncle Bernard. He mentioned seeing you. That’s how I found you. I...we all thought you were dead.” “We?” The thought of family had just hit him; he wondered if he had parents, siblings... “Ron. Hermione. Tonks, Remus, Mum and Dad.” She looked as though she was going to continue, but he interrupted her, “Mum and Dad? You’re not...are you my sister?” The tears threatened to fall again. “Oh, no, Harry. I’m not your sister. I’m...well, I’m your friend.” “Oh.” He’d been hoping...something. They were silent for a moment, watching their steaming breaths dissipate into the cold air. Then she spoke again. “Ron will be happy. He was flattened when you disappeared. Blamed himself, you know, that you were taken.” This was quite intriguing, of course. “What do you mean, ‘taken’?” he asked. “I wasn’t kidnapped, was I?” She shook her head, wonderingly. “You really don’t remember? This is going to be tricky.” She took a deep breath and seemed to hold it as she cautiously, almost as though she were scared he would vanish at her touch, put her hand on his arm. It was warm. “We lost you in the battle—” “—battle!” he interrupted her. What battle? What war, for that matter? He looked her up and down, and raised his eyebrow. “Forgive me if I say, you don’t look the military type!” She (most likely in his best interests) ignored this. “Ron said he’d given you a Portkey back to the Burrow, but you never showed up there. We figured the Death Eaters got you; you were pretty badly injured and....” “Back up.” He was starting to get a headache. “A what-key? What the hell is a death feeder and...and isn’t a burrow where rabbits live?” This last came out dryly. He was, on an intellectual level, finding this all a little hard to believe. After all, he’d been in London for nearly eight months and hadn’t heard of any sort of battle that would have ended him up in Ottery St. Catchpole. Her face said it all, eyes wide and staring, jaw slightly dropped. “No...I don’t believe it! How could you have forgotten?” “Forgotten what?” Here he lost all of his patience. “Look, I still don’t have any idea who you are. You show up here telling me that my name is Harry and that I was in a battle, and that there are all sorts of people who miss me, but I still don’t know who you are! I don’t remember a single thing except waking up in Pottery St. Catch-hole or whatever that dinky little town is called with a headache, a sore back and the names Tom and Ginny bouncing around my head. That’s it. I don’t know anything—” She had squeezed his arm. “You...you remembered my name?” This was her, then. “I suppose I did. Hello, Ginny.” It was then that her pocket started to beep. *** She didn’t notice the beeping at first. Her mind was far too caught up in what had just transpired between her and Harry. He remembered my name. He didn’t remember anything else, but he remembered my name. The fact that he had also remembered Voldemort’s given name was inconsequential at this time. He remembered my name. “You’re mobile is going,” Harry remarked. She looked at him quizzically and nearly asked what a mobile was when she realized that her Porta-Floo was sounding. “Sorry, I need to answer this.” She pulled out the small vial that contained a miniature, heatless, continuous flame. This was one of the (many) reasons that the twins were seen as a vital part of the Order. Their inventions had allowed many things for the organization, one of which was a portable version of the Floo for communication purposes. Each vial contained a flame, courtesy of Hermione, and a small portion of Floo powder. Unlike regular Floo, the person making the call didn’t actually find their head in another place (allowing them to keep an eye out in dangerous circumstances), but instead an image of their head showed up on the connecting Porta-Floo. Likewise, when the witch or wizard on the other end answered, a similar image showed up for the other. It had saved the lives of a number of Order operatives in the past months and no one was allowed out on watch without one. She popped the cork on the vial and an image of George’s head, at about half its normal size, materialized above her hand. “Gin! You’re safe! WHERE THE BLOODY HELL ARE YOU!” “I’m...taking care of something. No need to shout. What’s going on?” she replied. Harry, she noted, had turned a rather sick shade of green. “WHAT’S GOING ON IS THAT DIAGON ALLEY IS UNDER ATTACK! You’d better get over here to the shop, the Order is going to be coming through Floo and we’ll be attacking together. And don’t Apparate, they’ve set up a block.” “Hold on a second, George.” She turned to Harry, who was still looking rather faint. “Come with me.” “Are..are you kidding?” he asked, quite obviously more than a little freaked out. “Go with you to a...a battle?!” Reaching down, she took his hand. It was softer than she remembered, most likely a result of holding bar towels rather than broom handles. “Trust me.” He was quiet a moment. Then he shrugged. “What the hell. I’ll follow a pretty face anywhere.” She raised her eyebrow at that, but turned back to the Porta-floo. “George, expect company.” Her brother didn’t bother to ask what she meant by that. “Hurry, Ginny,” was all he said as his head disappeared. She turned back to Harry, who was still rather pale, and asked “Where’s your wand?” “My...what?” “Right. Er, did you have anything with you when you woke up?” She stood as she spoke, and offered her hand to pull him up with her. He ignored it and jumped to his feet on his own, not noticing her rolling eyes. “Yeah, a stick and an old cloak. And some strange looking coin. I’ve got them put away in my shack.” A rather mischievous look manifested itself across her face and she pulled out a stick quite similar to the one Harry had woken up with. “Accio Harry’s wand and cloak!” A vague crash came from inside the shack. “What’s going—” Harry never got to finish his question; a small box came soaring toward them, and landed neatly in Ginny’s hand, quivering a little bit. Opening it, her smile broadened. “Put on the cloak—here.” She handed it to him. “Don’t take it off, whatever you do. Now, I want you to repeat after me: ex-pel-ee-AR-mus.” “Ex-pel...Ginny, what’s going on?” He had the cloak half on and hadn’t yet noticed that this left him half invisible. One arm was quite apparently crossed under the cloak, and his nearly floating head was raising an eyebrow. “Just say it. And finish putting that cloak on. Ex-pel-ee-AR-mus. Expelliarmus.” “Expel-iar-mus. Expelliarmus.” He looked rather uncomfortable. “How do I know you’re not making me say something horrible like ‘I’m a twat’ or something in another language?” Ginny decided that this wasn’t even worth response. “Good. Now.” She pulled his wand from the box. “Take this. No, the other end. Hold it firmly like...like you’re going to hit a table with it or something.” “Like this?” His form was rather rough, but Ginny figured it would do well enough for the time being. They were working under deadline, after all. “Good, good.” She pulled out her wand and backed away slightly. “Now, point it at me and say—” “Expelliarmus!” Ginny’s wand flew into the air and landed behind her in the rubbish bin. “Beautiful,” she murmured. She grinned, probably the first real grin she’d had in months. “Beautiful, Harry! You’re going to be my secret weapon!” Harry had turned white (again). That is to say, his head had turned white. The rest of him was invisible beneath the cloak. He asked, slowly “What did I just do?” “Magic,” Ginny answered matter-of-factly. Harry nodded feebly, apparently resigned to the idea that none of his life was as it had seemed. She was coming over to put his hood up. “Now, point your wand toward where mine landed. There you go.” She ignored the fact that he was shaking, and gently arranged his hood so that he was entirely invisible. “Remember what I said to get that box? ‘Ak-ee-oh’? No, don’t say it yet. When I say okay, say ‘Accio wand’, all right? Say it very quietly, but confidently. Okay, go!” She barely heard him whisper “Accio wand!” and her wand came flying. She snatched it out of the air before it got to him. Grinning, she pushed back his hood so she could look him in the eye. “Harry, you still have it. Did you know that you’re my hero?” A sort of spark ignited in Harry’s eye. He smiled just a little bit and an invisible hand touched her ear, the nape of her neck. She shivered. “Harry.” He kissed her. She started to cry, again. “Damn it, Harry!” This was, quite apparently, not the reaction he was looking for.
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