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Author: critmo Story: Per Asperissima Ad Astra Rating: Young Teens Setting: Pre-HBP Status: Completed Reviews: 8 Words: 28,635
A light evening breeze picked up and the Dark Mark was scattered. Within seconds only shrouds of quickly dispersing mist were left, and the first stars twinkled above them. An unmistakable and pervading feeling of peace settled over the world of Muggles and wizards alike; Voldemort was no more. * * * * When Ginny regained consciousness, everything around her was white. She had a splitting headache and felt weak beyond belief. With difficulty she managed to focus her eyes and recognised Fred sitting by her side. He was looking at her anxiously, trying to be his usual nonchalant self. "Hey, Gin," he whispered. "Are you up for some Quidditch?" She tried to smile, but the effort tired her and she drifted off to sleep. Later, she learned that she was in St. Mungo's, which explained the overwhelming impression of whiteness. The night Voldemort had been defeated, her parents had found her in the garden. She lay on the ground without any sign of consciousness. The Healers at the hospital supposed she had suffered a severe shock and put it down to the appearance of the Dark Mark. Her family were ready to believe the first part of the explanation, but distrusted the second one. Ginny did not offer any other explanation, though. She was very ill for several weeks and was only allowed to leave for the Burrow at the beginning of autumn. Only then did she fully learn about the events since June. You-Know-Who was gone. Nobody had seen any evidence, but still everybody knew. The Minister of Magic, Fudge, who had survived the war by shrewdly keeping as far away from danger as possible, had celebrated "V-...V-Voldemort's" demise as a result of the careful and discerning measures taken by the authorities to ensure public safety. This time, however, he had earned himself a sharp and worst of all public reprimand by Albus Dumbledore. The Hogwarts' Headmaster had not used the word "incompetent", but everybody seemed to understand that he meant just that, and it was widely expected that Fudge's days in office were numbered. Meanwhile, Aurors and Order members were uprooting the last Death Eaters and legal actions against them were being prepared. Harry Potter had not returned. Hardly anybody doubted that he had killed Voldemort and most people feared that he had perished in the process. Search parties had combed through the country, but had not found any trace of him whatsoever. Ginny remained at the Burrow. She was still very weak, but she refused to tell anybody what had given her such a shock. Her family tried to cheer her up, but she felt miserable, even more than during her last year at school. Only Ron kept a certain distance towards her, and she did not blame him. She was completely worthless, wasn't she? She could not work, she could hardly help her mum in the house ... and she had no idea how to help Ron over losing his best friend. Hermione was more friendly towards her, but Ginny rather felt worse because of it. She did not deserve anybody's kindness. A desolate year went by, and there was still no news of Harry. The search for him had been abandoned. Ginny hardly knew how she had got through the year, and she could barely remember the summer before, because she had been in the hospital, but this year's summer was obviously trying to make up her loss. It was just perfect, with fine hot days and an occasional rainy night. Nature was wearing its most jubilant green and the Burrow's garden promised a record harvest. Still, Ginny did not feel jubilant, she was lonely even at her family's home and felt depressed. For Ginny's birthday in August there was a small family dinner outside the Burrow in the field. Ginny would have liked to avoid any celebrations, feeling unfit for being celebrated, but her mother would not hear a word of it. Ginny did the best she could not to be withdrawn, but to be friendly and light-hearted. It helped to have Bill and his family there. He and Fleur Delacour had married during the war, promising each other to survive together, and they had. Two years ago they had even had twins, a boy and a girl. They dearly loved their "Aunt Inny", and Ginny loved them too. Holding them seemed to promise her that there was still hope in this life. As soon as possible, however, she left the table and made her way to her favourite childhood spot. It was a place near a birch tree, overlooking a small river. Here she had always found peace. The view over the rolling countryside of Southwest England had something soothing about it. She had hardly settled down, though, leaning against the birch, when Ron and Hermione found her. Ron held a small parcel in his hands. He looked rigid, and judging by her red eyes, Hermione had been crying. An image flashed before Ginny's eyes: three friends in the evening sun, just like this evening, under a castle wall, a dark-haired boy handing Ron a parcel ... Her heart began to race, she felt sweat break out on her upper lip and on her back. Ron handed the bundle over. "Harry said to give this to you if he had not returned by now." Her brother's eyes were empty. Hermione dragged on his hand. "We'll be in the garden," she said softly, without offering any further explanation, and Ginny nodded dumbly. Unwrapping the paper with trembling fingers, she found a beautifully carved box of light coloured wood, adorned with a simple, yet intricately flowing pattern of lines ... and a letter. She had no idea how long she had been sitting there, her fingers incessantly tracing the lines on the box, before she summoned all her courage and unfolded the parchment. She owed him that. Dear Ginny, When you read this, Voldemort is dead for a year - and it is very likely that I am too. I have never found the courage to talk to you after I had messed up that summer after your fourth year to ask your forgiveness - much less to give you this. Obviously, it has been in my family for a very long time, and the moment I saw it I knew it was meant for you; it matches your eyes. I hope you can overcome your hate for me and wear it. It is too beautiful to remain hidden. Yours, Harry Curiously, yet hesitantly, Ginny opened the box. Inside was something wrapped up in a fine, soft cloth. She put the box aside and held the small bundle in her lap, where she uncovered an uncommonly large and regular piece of amber set in a silver necklace that was bent into the same intricately flowing lines as those on the box. The amber caught the last rays of the sun and lit up. Harry was right: it was exactly the colour of her eyes. The silver of the necklace gleamed elegantly on her fair skin, and with a rush of delight she put it on. It fell in place, as if it had been meant for her, perfectly. She remained sitting under her tree for a long time. "Ginny's tree" she had called it when she was still a little girl. The slight rustling of wind in its leaves had always helped her to calm down and see things more clearly. But not now. There were a few things she saw more clearly now than ever before, but at the same time everything seemed so much more confusing and difficult. Pain was choking her. She had spurned Harry and scared him off while his feelings for her obviously had been of a very different kind. The necklace bore witness to that, and she asked herself where he could have found something as as beautiful as this for her .... She needed help. Ginny found Hermione and Ron in the garden as they had promised. Ron got up and walked away when they saw her coming. "What's wrong with Ron?" Ginny asked anxiously. "He's angry with you," Hermione explained quietly. "He's not sure you deserve Harry's affection." Ginny lowered her eyes. She understood Ron, and she felt so ... betrayed at the same time, but she could not tell them. Instead she picked the thing she could not understand. "Harry didn't like me." "Yes, he did." Ginny's pondering had given Ron time to return. He let himself down on the bench and took Hermione into his arms. Ginny looked desolate. "I ... he ... he just couldn't. He hated me." Ron sighed. "Ginny, Harry is unable to hate others. When Sirius was killed, he wanted to pay the Lestrange woman back and put the Cruciatus curse on her. But it didn't work, he couldn't hate her enough." Ginny had not known that. "That was his greatest fear too," Ron said. Hermione turned towards her. "Do you know the prophecy?" She shook her head. "It was made by Trelawney in front of Dumbledore and he told Harry after the affair at the Ministry. It basically said that Harry had a power unknown to Voldemort and in the end it would be one of them killing the other. However, while Voldemort could cast a killing spell anytime, Harry was afraid that he could not, that he didn't have enough hate inside him to kill Voldemort after all." "When he left us," Ron said very softly, "he was not expecting to come back. He said he would try his worst, but he had no hope left." "I don't think he even wanted to come back," Hermione whispered, her eyes brimming with tears. Ginny felt tears stinging in her own eyes again. She remembered the day she had found the Selmerila rose on Hagrid's grave and had understood that Harry had wanted to die or at least had not minded taking the chance, and that much of it was her fault. "The only person Harry Potter has ever really hated," Ron continued in a low voice, confirming her thoughts, "is Harry Potter himself." Hermione nodded. "But he loved you, Ginny." The world began to spin, Ginny felt feeble. "No." "Yes," Ron persisted. "Have you never wondered why he was always there when you could use help?" "She doesn't know, Ron," Hermione softly admonished him. Something like anger crossed his features again. "She does know about Malfoy and his friends, and she does know about Fletcher." He was right. She did know. Harry had been there, just in case. He helped her, but .... "What is it I don't know?" Ron looked at Hermione and she nodded. "What you don't know is that Harry got into trouble when you yelled at him in the Entrance Hall." "I remember seeing him in detention. He was still there, when I was allowed to leave." "He had to serve two months' worth of detention." "Two full months?" Hermione nodded. "Do you remember that there was no Potions class for a week after your ... encounter with Harry?" "I think Snape was ill." "Yeah," Ron said, "that's what they told you. Snape was at St. Mungo's." "Why?" "Because he annoyed Harry," said Hermione. "He tortured him," Ron corrected her. "We had Potions after lunch that day. Snape knew about your argument and he ironically complimented Harry on his intelligence. He said that some people had no idea where their place was. Some didn't even have a dog's instinct for it." "Harry was fuming," Hermione took over. "But he was not going to show it, so Snape observed that Harry displayed the same regrettable taste in school girls like his insufferable father. He said, 'What is it with the Potter's taste in despicably red-headed women?'" "That blew it," Ron remarked with obvious satisfaction. "Harry's mother was red-haired, too. At school she stood up for Snape when Sirius and Harry's father teased him. Now, Harry literally blew up at that moment. He knocked Snape through the dungeon wall." "Yeah," Ron chuckled. "The slimy git never knew what hit him. Harry had not even bothered to use his wand." "It had to be hushed up, of course, for discipline's sake as much as for Harry's security. They didn't want Voldemort to know how powerful Harry had become. So most of the witnesses were obliviated and the dungeons hurriedly repaired. That's why there were no lessons at all down there for a week." Ginny shook her head. "Why didn't they expel him?" Ron's face broke into the first full grin for a long time. "That was the best thing, really. They just couldn't." "What?" "Dumbledore tried to put the fear of Merlin in Harry, but Harry remained very calm. He told Dumbledore that if he chose to turn a blind eye to the ..." "The didactic and moral deficiencies of the teaching staff, ..." Hermione helped, her grin matching Ron's. "He actually said that, didn't he?" Ron snorted with laughter now. "Well, he told Dumbledore that Snape had been making his life hell since his very first moment at Hogwarts. And since Dumbledore had chosen to ignore that, he shouldn't be surprised if Harry had to take matters into his own hands. So, if he wanted him to leave the school, he would be gone immediately, because he didn't care one bit. But if he stayed, he wanted it to be understood that any further insults by Snape would be followed by immediate retaliation." "What did Dumbledore do?" "Nothing." "Almost nothing," Hermione confirmed. "You see, Dumbledore couldn't expel him because Hogwarts was the only safe place where Harry could prepare himself against Voldemort." "So Harry received detention for two months, because he had attacked a teacher, and no house points were to be given to him ever again," Ron finished. "But he wasn't expelled. He said it was worth while. In fact, Snape never dared to cross Harry again. But I think, ever since then Harry's relation to Dumbledore has been strained even more than before. I've always thought the old man made a mistake when he decided never to let Harry know more than he could find out by himself." Hermione nodded thoughtfully. Ginny's head was spinning again. What Harry had to put up with because of her. Ron and Hermione exchanged another look of understanding. "There's one more thing you don't know," Hermione said softly. Ginny's head snapped up. More? "Malfoy's killing curse was not aimed at Harry." Her eyes widened. "It was meant for you." She had hidden her face in her hands, as if she could hide from the truth. "No." She shook her head. "Malfoy must've known he wouldn't stand a chance against Harry," Ron explained, "so he decided to kill you instead. He hated you anyway and he probably suspected what it would do to Harry. But Harry saw it coming and he cast a shield charm and jumped before you. If he hadn't taken it, Malfoy would've hit you right in the back." The world had stopped turning. Everything was quiet and motionless, not one movement in the whole garden, Ron and Hermione seemed frozen and Ginny was numb with horror. Then tears began silently streaming down her face and reality returned with a searing pain in her heart. What a terrible mess her life was. Harry had nearly died for her, and she had never even visited him in the hospital. She had so firmly believed that she did not matter to him in the least, and now they told her that he had loved her. Her fingers glided along the silvery lines of the necklace, and in spite of everything she could not help but smile a little. Hermione returned the smile. "That belonged to Harry's mother. It was the first gift she received from his father. Sirius had wanted to give it to Harry that summer to take care of, and Harry found it in Sirius' room at Grimmauld Place." Ron smiled as well. "He showed it to us when we had returned from the continent. He only said, It's Ginny's." All of a sudden one thing became very clear to Ginny. She had no one she could tell about the reason for her problems with Harry, she had no idea how. But there was an expert for Voldemort, and he would be able to understand her, she simply had to find the answer to all her fears, thoughts and worries ... Harry Potter. He had been gone for more than a year now, and most people considered him dead, but there was no proof. He might be injured, lost his memory, he might even be held prisoner ... and she had to find out. She desperately needed to talk to him! * * * * Ginny started looking for Harry. She spoke to everybody who had seen him before Voldemort's defeat. With the help of her father, Ginny managed to gain permission to talk to the imprisoned Death Eaters. However, even if some of them seemed ready to go out of their ways to be helpful, none of them was able to give her a hint where that dark hiding place of their Lord had been. Obviously, he had only taken Wormtail with him, but Pettigrew had never been found. She spoke to the Aurors who had been looking for Voldemort and then for Harry, but without success. Nobody had seen either of them. She went to Hogwarts and talked to Professor Dumbledore, but the old Headmaster could not help her. "I've learned one thing about Harry, though," Dumbledore said with just a trace of the usual twinkle in his eyes, when she was about to leave. "I've always expected a surprise from him. He never merely stuck to the rules." She had almost closed the door behind her when she heard him say, "Perhaps, Professor McGonagall could be of assistance in this case." Ginny turned back. "Professor McGonagall?" There was definitely no twinkle in Professor Dumbledore's eyes now and his voice was brittle. "After the events in Mr Potter's fifth year, he lost a lot of his trust in me, I fear." Ginny nodded and went down the revolving stair case to find Professor McGonagall in her office. The Head of Gryffindor House looked at her sternly. "Yes, Miss Weasley, it is true. Mr Potter has confided in me." She did not mention that this meant that he had not trusted Dumbledore anymore. "When?" "Mr Potter spoke with me several times. Times when he needed advice beyond the consolation his friendship with Miss Granger and your brother could offer." Her rigidness betrayed rather than hid her involvement. "When Hagrid was killed .…" There was no need to continue. Even from afar, Ginny had known how devastated Harry had been. Shame and guilt pooled in her stomach like ice. "Can you help me find him?" asked Ginny. "I don't really know how," McGonagall answered, but her expression softened considerably when she saw how Ginny's head dropped. "Ha ... " She caught herself. "Mr Potter's thoughts revolved around two things constantly. Voldemort ... and you." Ginny's eyes snapped up to encounter the knowing gaze of the Deputy Headmistress. "When he went to find Voldemort, he had given up any hope on you. It was partly because he had no hope anymore that he went away." Ginny suppressed the anguish and guilt that threatened to tear her apart. "Do you know where he went?" Professor McGonagall shook her head. "He came to me the night he overwhelmed Bellatrix Lestrange. He knew by then that Voldemort could not be found ... in the usual places. And I suppose he still is where he confronted the Dark Lord. You will have to look into dark places, Miss Weasley." * * * * A full year passed by, and Ginny thought she could not go on. She had searched for traces of Harry everywhere. She had found evidence the Aurors had not; she had found three Death Eaters, but not a sign of Harry himself. She was devastated. Could he, indeed, be dead? She had spoken to so many people; she had looked in so many places. She had been to locations she would never have ventured if not for Harry. She had encountered dark creatures that were as evil as Lord Voldemort himself, if not as powerful, but she had not found him. There was no trace of him. The many questions inside her, the many things she wanted to talk about, but could not, had been pushed aside in her concentration on finding him, but now they began to resurface. Halloween was drawing near, and Bill had brought his children to the Burrow for a week. He and Fleur went away on a much-needed holiday and left their offspring with their grandparents. Ginny slept even less than usual, and helping her mother with the twins, who were lively enough to rival their infamous uncles, began to take its toll on her. She was not the only one to be irritable, however. Ron and Hermione had arrived to celebrate the holiday with them, and Hermione seemed to be quite irritated and there was a visible tension between the two of them. Ginny met her in the kitchen late at night. Neither had been able to sleep and Hermione was looking depressed over a cup of hot milk. "What has my stupid brother done?" Ginny asked wearily, sitting down. Hermione did not answer at first, then looked at her sharply. "I asked Ron to marry me." Ginny sat up straight. "You did not." "Why not? We've been sharing a flat since leaving Hogwarts, we're ... well, we're doing everything married people do." She blushed a little. "So why shouldn't we marry? I'd love to be Mrs Ronald Weasley." Ginny shook her head at this scandalous mixture of avantgarde and conservatism. "So what did he say? He didn't say no, did he?" Hermione toyed with her cup, leaning it to one side so that the milk would just not spill. "He said, 'not yet.'" "Not yet? What's that supposed to mean?" Hermione sighed. "He doesn't want to marry without his best man." "Harry?" "Harry. Ron simply refuses to give up hope." Ginny felt immensely tired and she feared the answer she would get for her next question, but she just had to know. "Is there no hope left?" "It's such a long time, Ginny." Hermione's eyes clouded. "Reason tells me he's dead." Ginny could see tears running over Hermione's face and only then did she notice that she herself had been silently crying all along. Hermione suddenly straightened her back and pushed her hair out of her face. "Ron says he doesn't feel it that Harry's dead. He believes he's still out there." "He doesn't feel it?" Hermione managed a smile. "In contrast to me, Ron's not the type to listen to reason to much, Gin. He listens to his heart, and his heart does not feel the loss of Harry yet. And therefore he still has hope." Her face wore a meditative and touched expression now. "Ron has a great heart, and who am I to break it?" She got up, wiped away her tears and smiled at Ginny. "Excuse me, I have to wake your brother." She giggled. "And tell him I love him to pieces." (A/N: Thanks to Wolf's Scream and Jenadamson for their help. Look at my profile for a disclaimer.)
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