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Author: RSS Story: A Less-Than-Perfect Love Rating: Teens Setting: Post-DH Status: Completed Reviews: 2 Words: 232,639
It was a damp October day with grey skies as they trudged through the forest path. Harry had met Ginny at the gates for their Hogsmeade date, but soon they realized that the last thing they wanted to do was go into town on the main road as a spectacle to the other students, who were mostly staring at Harry. Some of the more intrepid students even approached him, asking for autographs. They had hung back, talking to Luna, while everyone was walking off. Then they decided to take a shortcut through the forest. Ginny swore up and down that she had taken it twenty times with Fred and George. By his past experiences with this forest, Harry didn’t like the idea of entering it so much, especially with Ginny, who was his responsibility. Now that he was here, however, he didn’t mind the scenery, the stumbling over roots and tree parts, or the peace and quiet that they wouldn’t have had on the main road. Ginny was right, and he should have trusted that this path didn’t go through any real dangerous places, like Acromantula nests. Harry noticed a single strand of unicorn hair on a nearby branch and pulled it off, handing it to Ginny. “Beautiful, eh? Unicorn hair. Tug it. It won’t rip or tear.” “Alright.” He lifted a branch out of the path so Ginny could pass underneath it. “Do you feel like your wand is really special? Like you could never be the best wizard, I mean, witch you could be without it?” “I broke my wand last year.” Harry startled himself by saying that. He hadn’t spoken about it since it was repaired by the Elder Wand. “That’s horrible.” “Right.” She stopped short. He watched her wrap the unicorn hair nearly three times around her wrist and tie it in a loose knot. “Thanks.” She held up her wrist. “Now I’ll be reminded that I need to write out the plan for my potions project before school on Monday.” After a few more moments, they found the second forest path into Hogsmeade. It was a clear path but barely wide enough for the two of them to navigate. He walked in front and Ginny followed behind, yet after two or three minutes of walking this way they emerged from the forest onto a nicely kept gravel road, wide enough for a carriage or car. Harry figured they were nearly there and admired Ginny’s in depth knowledge of paths leading into Hogsmeade. If he had known about this way when he had been back at school he never would have taken the main road! “How’s the ministry? How’s the dungeon treating you?” she asked as they walked on the side of the road leading into Hogsmeade. “Getting down to work?” “Sounds like they mean to kill you before it’s all over, Harry. No special treatment for Harry Potter?” “No. I wouldn’t ask. I think that I might be punished even more severely than before.” “I think this is only the first term. I’ve heard it gets better, but everyone has to go through it. I’ll be alright. They’re not going to kill me. It’s going to be a rough few months, I admit…” Harry stopped suddenly, realizing that they were approaching buildings. He remembered that this road ran exactly parallel to the High Street. At the first intersection they turned and ended up walking between two buildings and onto the main road. “What’s wrong?” Ginny said this before she even looked at him. She always sensed when something was wrong, as if she were listening to his thoughts. He shook his head clear, remembering the last time he had been there. The fear. The dark, dank smell. The Caterwauling Charm. He closed his eyes. Memories of the last night of his life-long ordeal coursed through him. Then he opened them again and had a feeling that something else was very wrong. He looked up the street one way and then turned his head to look back the other. The High Street looked wrong. The Three Broomsticks was there, warm and inviting as ever, but the rest of it seemed the same shade of grey. The gloomy, rainy day didn’t help either, yet to Harry the dismal weather didn’t affect the sombre atmosphere that seemed to have settled over Hogsmeade. Ginny pulled his hand, reminding him to walk. He noticed a few of the businesses were still boarded up. Scrivenshaft’s was all wooden boards, as was the clothing shop, Gladrags. Honeydukes was open but half the windows were still blown out from the battle in and around Hogsmeade that night. Posters were up over the wooden boards. They were those “have you seen?” posters that once had Sirius’s face on them, but now Death Eaters snarled and gnashed their teeth in the frames. Some family members of missing persons also had put out posters here and there along the boarding up storefronts. They walked on in the rain, without talking, up the street to the new Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes, which had taken over Zonko’s. The place was packed with students. Harry didn’t want to go in; he didn’t feel like it at all. Ginny popped in to say hello to Lee and promised to meet him at the back door in ten minutes’ time. Lee had moved to Hogsmeade in mid-summer. He had promised George that if he went ahead with the expansion Fred and George had planned before the war, he would run the shop for him. Before he turned to go around to the back of the shop and wait for Ginny, Harry noticed a golden plaque on the outside of the store. He squinted and read the following inscription blazed into the gold. 'Anyone can speak Troll, all you have to do is point and grunt.' While she was inside, it began to rain even harder than before. When Ginny came out the back door to find him, he was leaning up against a brick wall in the alley behind the shop, holding a large red and white striped umbrella that he hadn’t had before. “Where did you get that?” “I Transfigured a stick I found.” “Can we get out of here?” She rubbed her arms and chattered a bit. Harry realized it was a bit cold now, with the rain and all. She moved out from under the umbrella and leaned against the wall. “Get under here, you’re going to get soaked.” He moved closer to her, trying to cover her with the umbrella. “What’s wrong with you? I’m just not feeling well.” “You know, Harry, you changed the moment we reached the village. You wear everything on your sleeve, but refuse to talk about it. Tell me. I’m listening. What, you think I’ll laugh at you or judge you? Say whatever you want to say, whenever you want to say it. What’s bothering you?” But Harry didn’t really want to argue. He asked himself why he wouldn’t just say what was on his mind. Ginny was his girlfriend and it wasn’t unfair of her to ask him to open up to her. It wasn’t out of fear for her reaction. Honestly, it wasn’t. He concluded that there were so many thoughts fumbling around in his brain that he had no idea where to begin… He took a deep breath. She looked sideways at him. “Will you get under the umbrella now? You’re soaking.” He added quickly, “Please?” “You’re right. Nothing looks like it used to. You don’t even look like you used to.” She had said this gently, and it did make him feel better. He thought for a long moment about what she had said, until he felt a quick punch on his arm. “You’re smiling.” He swallowed, hesitating at this turn in their conversation. What did that mean, he would tell her one day? “Will I? Where will we be when I say that to you?” he blurted out nervously. Harry dropped Ginny’s hand and handed her the umbrella. He took his glasses off and rubbed them on his shirt, focusing on the fuzzy way the stones beneath his feet looked. He knew she was holding something back. The way she had said the last thing sounded like she assumed they would be together whenever the day came that, as she had promised it would, when ‘all was well.’ “Do you think we’ll be together?” He replaced his glasses on his face but still avoided having to look at her. They caught eyes.
All Ginny heard was nervous breathing and the pitter-patter of rain on the umbrella. He had looked away from her again, which he kept doing. A moment ago, he had hesitated and then there was a flash in his eyes that she recognized instantly, but could not pin. It bothered her that she could not remember what it meant. “Why the face?” She twisted her mouth into that strange knowing smile she liked giving him when she knew exactly what he was thinking. The umbrella disappeared and a stick clattered to the ground. The rain began soaking them immediately, although she was already soaked to the core. He thrust his hands into his pockets again. “I don’t know. I’m just thinking that if they did turn out… to me, it just sounds too easy, too good…” “Yeah, maybe.” Ginny stared at him hard for a few moments as if to say, I know you; she hoped to dig that into his brain and make him feel it. That was the look she had seen. Self pity. “Even now?” she whispered harshly, “After everything? After last year and all you went through to get here — are you joking?!” “Well,” he chanced a glance at her and looked away again, “I’m sorry, but nothing’s ever been that easy for me, Ginny. You know me — can’t you see that? How is that not one-hundred percent obvious to you?” She felt him then, lightly touching her shoulder and swung around to face him. She expected that he had nothing to say but she hadn’t expected the sharp way he glared at her. “I’m sorry!” he nearly yelled, his angry tone startling her a bit. He continued, a little less forcefully, “But I’m making a rule now, as far as you and I go. You made one for me, with the writing letters, and now it’s my turn.” “I’m not sure I like that rule. Can’t you just lie to me?” He stared her down for a few moments, until she nodded at him and gestured that he should go on. “Fine! If that’s what you want. But you can’t get angry.” Harry looked as if he were thinking. He moved a few wet black strands of hair out of his face and tucked them behind his ear, a movement usually enticingly delicious to Ginny, but at this moment, she didn’t even consider it. She stood nervously, hugging her arms over her soaked jumper. Would he tell her? Her heart was racing at the thought of finally hearing, after months of sheer speculation, what Harry really felt for her. He had promised to be honest, which he said he would always be, and he had also said he would never lie. Whatever he had to say now would be blunt and honest. Ginny realized that as much as she wanted to hear him tell her exactly how he felt, she knew she would have to accept what he was about to say. That would be the hard part for her, especially if it wasn’t what she wanted to hear. She felt like backing him out, to make it easy on him. He was right, maybe things were best left unsaid? Yet, before she could stop him, he began talking. “Fine. If that’s what you want. To be honest, I don’t want to care about the future right now. I don’t know what’s going to happen at all in two weeks or two months or two years. I care about now. I care about you. You know that. I’m not running off or anything. I think with being at Diagon Alley and the Ministry these last two weeks and now seeing Hogsmeade this way, the real world is kind of kicking my arse a bit. And you can’t be angry at me because of all that. You’re not allowed to get angry over it. Final word.” “I’m allowed to be angry if I want. You can’t tell me how to feel,” she quipped rather coldly, but it was true, she wouldn’t let him dictate her feelings one way or another, absolutely not. “Blimey, Ginny, do you still want to be with me, now that I said that? I’m sorry if it wasn’t what you were expecting, but maybe I’m not what you expect.” “Yes, of course I still want to be with you, Harry! You think one stupid conversation where I get angry and I’m going to not… want to be with you anymore? I’m happy we’re talking. In fact, I’ve learned more about how you feel in this one half-hour conversation than I have in four months of being your girlfriend!” “Neither do I,” she whispered. She leaned into him, looked up into his dark green eyes, and searched the face she loved. Water dripped from his eyelids and strings of long black fringe stuck to his forehead, the faint pink line of his lightning bolt scar just barely visible. Ginny breathed in his scent, a mixture of white soap, freshly polished broomstick wood, sweet treacle, and rain water, and she remembered how she had thought she would never see him again last year when she had seen him lying dead in Hagrid’s arms. Now, the intensity in the way he looked at her was rendering her speechless and turning her thoughts to mush. They were together. He was alive. Whether or not he loved her, he liked her plenty and wanted to be with her, after everything. That was all that mattered. This was how she was supposed to feel; how she had felt in summer! Everything made sense again. The anger was gone as quickly as it had come. “Let’s just keep going then. And I like your rule. As long as you’re always honest about how you feel — and you tell me straightaway if you ever start to feel differently for me — I’m not sure it matters.” They shared one soft slow kiss before Ginny pulled away. “Harry,” she began quietly, again staring at the button she went back to playing with on his shirt. “I think we need to talk more. I feel better when we talk. I understand you better. I wish you were more open with me. Don’t forget that I’m here, too; if you’re feeling upset, you can talk to me and I can listen, and help just as much as anyone you know but more because, well… just offering myself to you, not as a girlfriend now, but as a friend.” He took her hand, and turned it in his, as if appreciating it and then, for the first time since summer, he stepped into her and hugged her. Ginny stood for a long time, pressed against Harry. Not moving, but holding one another like they had in the early days of summer, in a stance of shared sorrow and pain and joined comfort. She stroked his hair, and held him close, but they didn’t talk again, they didn’t kiss, and they kicked the same rock in silence, taking turns, hands in pockets, on the long walk back to Hogwarts. ***
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