If the Fates Allow

Chapter 10

Atlantis

Just look at the world around you

Right here on the ocean floor

Such wonderful things surround you

What more is you lookin' for?

(Disney's The Little Mermaid)

The early afternoon was siesta time in Greece, when all shops closed and people hid in their houses from the unbearably hot sunrays.

Harry and Ginny spent these hours at Delphi, under a clump of ash trees, among which Harry had conjured two hammocks so that Ginny and he could have some sleep. The last time he had slept was in Budapest two days earlier, after all.

"Keep a lookout, Beaky, will you?" Harry yawned as he climbed into his hammock and dropped off immediately in the pleasant shade of the ash tree.

He was dreaming. This in itself wouldn't have been anything out of the ordinary, but what he dreamed about was definitely unusual. Not that he hadn't had such dreams before, but the last time he had had them had been in his seventh Hogwarts year - before he had partly defeated Voldemort. During those five 'Voldemort-free' years Harry hadn't seen anything about the Dark Lord's life through dreams, as though the connection between the two of them had been severed... and Harry had been happy about it, happy not to have Voldemort intruding into his mind, not to glimpse into the Dark Lord's mind in return, and not to have his scar hurting.

But Voldemort was back now, 'fully operational', and Harry was again dreaming about him...

"My lord, the Disneyland attack has been a real success," a nasty male voice said from under the hood of a black cloak.

"How many Muggles died, Macnair?" asked Voldemort with a look of sheer delight on his face.

"Thirty four, my lord. Fifteen of them children," came the satisfactory answer.

"Oh, good, good..." nodded Voldemort. "The Muggles believed it to be a mere terrorist attack, but at least the wizarding folks now know that I'm back. The fools have been hoping that I died when I last battled Potter, but I've proved that the little brat hasn't been able to kill me," he added with a wicked smirk.

"Not when you're holding all the aces in this little card game with Potter, my lord," said Bellatrix Lestrange contentedly.

"Yes, I'm holding the aces, aren't I?" cackled Voldemort and squinted sideways at a little girl standing next to Wormtail. "Come here, child," he barked at the small figure.

The little girl cringed and looked as if she had shrunk in the wash.

"Are you afraid of your grandfather?" asked Bellatrix with a derisive grin.

The little girl shook her head, her curly red-gold locks dancing around her head, but her huge green eyes were filled with horror and her tiny lips were pressed tightly together, as though trying to prevent a sob from escaping her mouth.

"Then come here, what are you waiting for?" growled Voldemort.

The little girl suddenly buried her face into Wormtail's midsection, encircling his waist with her arms.

"I... don't... want... to!" she cried.

Wormtail gently pushed her back. "Go, Amrita, he won't hurt you!"

"He always... always hurts meeeeee!" she wailed, clinging to his arms desperately, as though hoping that Wormtail would protect her from that evil being she knew as her grandfather.

"Enough of this! Come here, child! Imperio!" Voldemort pointed his wand at her, and she walked up to him, no trace of fright on her face left - she almost seemed happy to obey.

The Dark Lord reached out and cupped her chin with his white, spidery hands. "Don't worry, I'm not going to do the ritual on you this time, child - I just wanted to see you. I, as a loving grandfather, wanted to see my beloved granddaughter."

Bellatrix let out a shrill laugh and Voldemort smirked at her. "I'm glad you like my sense of humour, Bella." Then he glanced back at the little girl. "You know, midget, you resemble your father and grandmother more and more every day. Disgusting."

Still under the Imperius, the child smiled, clearly not understanding his insult.

"Go now, I've had enough of you. I'll send for you next week when we'll do the ritual," he held out his pasty hand, and the child obediently kissed it, then backed away from him. Wormtail caught her by the hand and led her out of the room.

"So," said the Dark Lord, looking around, his eyes stopping briefly on every one of his Death Eaters. There weren't many of them - fifteen at most. Ten had been incarcerated after the Department of Mysteries case - only Lucius who had had connections in the Ministry had managed to talk himself out of prison. Macnair, Rookwood, Rodolphus Lestrange and Avery had managed to break out of Azkaban a year later, but Rookwood and Avery had been sent back to prison after the latest Potter-Voldemort battle. The Dark Lord's little army had indeed decreased, but he still seemed quite satisfied with them - the elite of his servants, the very best, the most loyal ones. And these faithful minions were now listening to his every word. "To the plan, ladies and gentlemen."

"The one about your becoming immortal?" asked Rodolphus Lestrange.

"Exactly," nodded Voldemort. "And thanks to our late Lucius now I know how to achieve it."

"Lucius?" some of the Death Eaters muttered, confused.

"Yes, Lucius. He had told me how to get into his manor by an underground passage decades ago. I sent Bella and Macnair through the hidden passage, into Malfoy Manor. They did it two days ago, after both Malfoys - the Draco kid and his Muggle-lover wife - departed, leaving only the house-elves behind. It wasn't hard to outwit them, was it, Bella? They didn't even notice your presence. That idiot Lucius had also told me about the alarm charms at his manor, so Bella and Macnair could deactivate them without any problem. As you may know, the Malfoys have the greatest collection of books and scrolls on the Dark Arts in all Great Britain, over 400 books. Bella and Macnair used a copy charm on all of them, and saved their contents in a special book not so very unlike my onetime diary.

Lucius had never been too bookish, so he hadn't read a tenth of his Dark Arts books. I, however, had only to take the copied version into my hands and converse a bit with it. If I wrote 'tell me about soul-switching curses', then the required text appeared in the book. And when I wrote: 'tell me about the ways of gaining immortality', it did." With a triumphant grin he stood up. "Now I know what I need to become immortal."

"Is that a potion, my lord? Or a charm?" asked Goyle.

"I don't know yet," replied Voldemort. "But I will, soon. It's written on an ancient parchment, that some of you will get for me."

"And where is that parchment, my lord?" interjected Wormtail - he had obviously returned after taking the child out of the room.

"It's in..."

"Harry, Harry!"

"What?" he groaned.

"It's already five o'clock, you told me to wake you up at five o'clock."

He didn't look at Ginny, just sat up in his hammock. He was angry with her. Had she waited two seconds more, he would have heard where this parchment was... though, what would he have done if he had heard it? He wouldn't have been able to prevent Voldemort from getting it, would he?

His mind wandered back to the scene in which he had seen the little girl - his daughter. She had been so scared of her grandfather... she had said that Voldemort had been hurting her...

Harry's hands clenched into fists. How he would love to hurt Voldemort! Terrorising his only granddaughter! That man definitely didn't have a heart...

And what sort of ritual had Voldemort been talking about? Had he been doing it to his daughter?

Anger surged up in him, but at the same time he couldn't help but feel grateful to Pettigrew... only he seemed to be caring for the child, and the child seemed to trust him... perhaps even love him.

What Harry didn't understand was why he had had the dream at all, when he wasn't supposed to have such dreams anymore, not after having fully learnt Occlumency in the Circle. He was sure though that Voldemort hadn't intended to let him see this Death Eater meeting. Voldemort wouldn't have wanted him to hear what he was looking for... Perhaps it all happened because of him seeing Daphne's picture only a couple of hours earlier - the sight of his little daughter had turned his thoughts to his other daughter whom he had never seen but longed to see... and this dream finally presented him with the opportunity to see his older child, see her walking, hear her talking, to see more of her than he had seen in the photos... If only Ginny had waited a bit before waking him!

"Are you all right?" she asked worriedly when he hadn't answered for a minute.

"What? Er, yeah. I'm fine. Just a bit sleepy. Three hours haven't been enough to make up for a whole sleepless night."

"You can continue napping on our journey to Delos," she replied. "You can rest your head on my shoulder if you like. The journey to Delos must be much longer than the journey from Athens to Delphi, isn't it? You'll have several hours of sleep."

"Yeah, and your shoulder will be sore and have a cramp by the end of it," he said. "Anyway, we can't go to Delos on Beaky's back."

"Why not?" she frowned, and the Hippogriff also stopped looking for worms and turned to him with an accusatory glance.

"Because the wizarding authorities of certain Greek islands have banned all magical flying things from their area. Yes, even broomsticks."

"But why would they do so? It's totally mad!"

"Yes, mad. And the wizards on Crete started this madness after that idiot Icarus dropped dead during a flight from their island. The wizarding population of Crete decided that flying was dangerous. They haven't flown ever since. They use mopeds instead or Apparate."

"Icarus... Icarus..." Ginny muttered. "Wasn't he the son of Daedalus, builder of the maze?"

"Yeah, that was him. Though no one knows why exactly he built the maze on Crete at all, since it's been proved that the Minotaur never existed. Perhaps it was just a boggart that assumed the form of a Minotaur whenever it appeared for King Minos."

"And why did other islands also ban flying things?" she asked incredulously.

"Perhaps because Crete is the biggest of them and they wanted to keep up good relations with their 'big brother'," Harry shrugged.

"And how are we going to Delos, then?" she enquired.

"With the Hippobus, I presume."

"But haven't you just said that no Hippogriffs were allowed?"

"Yeah, that's what I said. The Hippobus is pulled by Hippocampuses."

Ginny's eyes widened. "Those half-horse, half-fish things?"

"Uh-huh. It sails out of Pireus. There are two lines, one goes southwards, towards Crete, the other in a north-easterly direction, towards Troy. We're going to take the southern line and get off at its fifth stop."

* * * * *

"We'll be back as soon as possible, old boy, I promise," Harry patted Buckbeak's neck as he led the Hippogriff into a Flying Creature Repository in Pireus. There were several flying horses, some Hippogriffs and even a dragon (securely separated from the others) stored in this repository. Not a single animal rights campaigner would have found anything objectionable at this place - the repository was a huge garden invisible to Muggles with tiny woods, arbours and creeks, where the animals could feel pretty much like in their natural habitat - with the exception that they couldn't fly away because the airspace above the garden was charmed not to let anything bigger than a small bird fly out of it. Such repositories for flying magical creatures had been established in Greek ports since ancient times, after the ban had been introduced on certain islands.

"Yes, and see, there are other Hippogriffs, Beaky, I'm sure you'll enjoy their company," added Ginny. "Be a good boy."

With that Harry and Ginny turned around and headed for the gate, leaving the crestfallen Buckbeak behind.

They made their way to the coast where a huge hornbeam tree was standing with several witches and wizards under it, some of them occasionally glancing at their watches and one of them growling "It should have arrived three minutes ago! What are they thinking of, being this late! I haven't got all day, I've got to be on Syros at eleven o'clock!"

"German," Harry grinned at Ginny. "Germans have this thing for arriving everywhere on time. But look at the Greek wizards, they aren't in any hurry. That's what I've grown to love and respect about them: they never worry about time, hardly ever argue - Spiro and Jason are exceptions - they are friendly, patient and tolerant."

"I wish more British wizards were like that, too," Ginny sighed. "Then there wouldn't be this stupid racial prejudice that Muggles are to be wiped out and Mudbloods trampled upon..."

He nodded, gazing into the glorious sunset. The deep orange disk of the sun was already half hidden below the horizon, painting the sky in all colours of red, tangerine and yellow, its rays reflected in the Aegean Sea. "...and there wouldn't be Voldemorts and Death Eaters either," he commented and he felt a hand slip into his, gripping it tightly.

"The Disneyland case... it shook you very much..." she whispered. "It shook me, too. You-Know-Who has to be stopped somehow... and if you're the only one who can..."

"Let's talk about something else, Ginny," he replied, pulling his hand out of hers.

She sighed. "You're doing the same as in your sixth year. Hiding something."

"And what if I am?" he snapped so that the witches and wizards waiting for the Hippobus looked at him with interest. "What if I am?" he leaned closer to Ginny so that the other wouldn't hear him. "I can have secrets, can't I?"

"Of... of course," she replied, slightly taken aback by his outburst. How could she have known what Harry had seen in his dream that afternoon? How could she have known that the Dark Lord was very likely to gain immortality soon? And how could she have known how Voldemort was treating Harry's little daughter - especially when she had no idea that the child was in Voldemort's custody?

"Ah, the Hippobus!" someone cried happily and Ginny stood on her tiptoes to see what was happening.

She could barely believe her eyes: ten huge Hippocampuses were emerging from the water, a long silvery case looking like a bus without any wheels behind them.

The half-horse, half-fish creatures swam to the shore and basked in the setting sun's rays while a ramp was extended from the bus onto the sandy beach. In a couple of minutes the bus was emptied of witches and wizards, and the new passengers could get on.

Harry and Ginny got on last, only to receive a 'Hey, Neville' from the conductor, who happened to be a pretty young witch in a very tight-fitting uniform and a peaked cap with the emblem depicting a Hippocampus. She was standing next to the 'driver' who directed the Hippocampuses by tapping certain cords with his wand. These cords were connected to their reins and as the driver tapped them, a tremor ran along the reins, making the creatures outside sense in which direction they should swim.

"Hi, Megara, how are you doing?" Harry asked the pretty conductor.

"Never better, Neville," she winked at him. "Where to?"

"Delos, tickets for two, please."

"42 Sickles," Megara beamed at him, handing him two tickets, totally ignoring the fact that he was clearly travelling with another woman. "We'll be stopping at Atlantis for the night and continue the journey at six o'clock tomorrow. Don't be late, Neville."

"We won't," replied Harry with a grin and guided the disgruntled Ginny to two vacant seats.

"So, Neville, where do you know her from?" she asked after flopping down into the seat by the window.

"Just from the bus," he shrugged.

"Really?" she sounded doubtful, and kept determinedly gazing at the water-drops on the windowpane as the sun finally disappeared behind the horizon.

As the sun sank completely, the Hippobus set into motion. To Ginny it felt much like travelling on a boat - at least until the bus dived into the depths of the sea. Then it no longer felt like sailing, but rather like... like... she couldn't find the right word to describe the feeling. She had never travelled on board a submarine, but she assumed that it must feel a lot like this. The Hippocampuses swam so smoothly that if Ginny hadn't known that the bus was pulled by these creatures, she would have thought that there weren't horses at all: so many years ago the Thestrals had given them quite a rough ride, but with the Hippocampuses she couldn't feel anything of the sort. This ride was simply incomparable to anything she had experienced so far. Under normal circumstances she would have been lulled into sleep by the gentle swaying of the bus, but she had no intention of falling asleep when there was so much to see. Colourful shoals of fish crossed the path of the bus which had waterproof lamps on all sides, illuminating the water around. Ginny almost jumped into Harry's arms when a huge octopus came darting towards them. Harry chuckled at her frightened expression.

"Don't worry, unbreakable glass," he said, pointing at the windowpane.

"Who's worried?" she scowled at him, then turned away from him to continue enjoying the sea-scenery, or - in Harry's opinion - to sulk because of Megara-the-conductor's too enthusiastic greeting.

Their first stop was the island of Kea at half past nine. The Hippobus emerged onto the surface near the town of Korissia, then continued its way towards Kynthos, their second stop, and shortly before eleven o'clock they arrived at Syros. The grumpy German wizard got off, muttering something about the shortcomings of the Greek Wizarding Transportation Company, that - in his opinion - couldn't hold a candle to the German one.

"Not all Germans are this nasty, the ones I know are all really nice," Harry said as the bus submerged into the sea for the last part of the journey to be accomplished that day.

"And they're all witches, I presume?" Ginny arched an eyebrow at him.

"You're jealous," he grinned.

"Jealous? Hah!" she waved impatiently. "Why should I be? You're not my husband."

"No, unfortunately."

"Unfortunately?" she gasped.

"Wake me up when we reach Atlantis, will you?"

With that he closed his eyes and dropped off - or pretended to be asleep, Ginny couldn't decide. She was getting more and more confused by this new Harry - the defiant Harry not letting her speak when she entered 12 Grimmauld Place, the broken Harry admitting to having committed murder and shedding tears for his daughters, the secretive Harry not willing to talk about his other daughter, the compassionate Harry wanting to help her so much that he even risked his freedom, the cheeky Harry who kept irking her with his blasé comments and enjoying making her jealous...

Oh yes, she had to admit that she was terribly jealous of all women Harry seemed to pay attention to, she was even jealous of Phaedra though she knew Harry didn't love that woman, yet Phaedra had at least got to sleep with him and bear his child... and that impostor Linda - she had also given him a child, and Ginny envied her because of this... even though she had died.

Ginny had never ever felt jealous of Draco, not even when she knew that he was cheating on her regularly... she didn't mind Draco having dozens of lovers, yet the mere thought of Harry with someone else made her stomach clench.

She wondered what Harry could be feeling when he imagined her with Draco - if he imagined it at all.

She glanced at the peacefully sleeping Harry (if he just pretended to be asleep then he must have been a great actor) and felt like reaching out to touch his face...

Now she understood that one could love a person in several different ways. She had first loved Harry from the age of 10 to 13, but that had been some adoration-sort-of-love, and definitely an unrequited one. Then, two years later she fell for him again, but at that time she didn't fall for the hero, the Boy Who Lived, but for a bewildered, ashamed, full-of-doubt boy. And now... it was different again. When she had entered the old Black house two days earlier, she had expected her suppressed-for-five-years emotions to resurface, yet she had come to realise that instead of those he had awoken different feelings in her.

And, this third type of love was the most complex and most confusing of all the three she had felt for him. She wasn't sure, though, that she liked this sort of love, when it was so multi-faceted, so unclear, so... she didn't know what to name it. She just felt it, and didn't have the vaguest idea how to handle it.

She wished she could see into Harry's soul, to get to know whether he was feeling the same way or not... hadn't he told her he loved her when they were heading for Delphi? Perhaps she had only dreamt it...

Some excited voices broke her train of thought and she turned away from Harry to look out the window.

She immediately understood the excitement: what she saw in the dark, gloomy water ahead was a million tiny lights coming from hundreds of ancient-looking Greek buildings. It was a perfect image of a town full of houses with Ionian, Doric and Corinthian type columns and tympanums - but it was all underwater. Some of the buildings were partly or totally covered with seaweed, and all of them had some weird, transparent kind of wall set into their doorframes.

As the Hippobus parked in front of a building that bore the legend 'Hotel Atlantis', Ginny spotted several smaller vehicles, all pulled by one or two Hippocampuses.

"Harry," she nudged her slumbering companion, who opened his eyes, blinked and said with a satisfied grin: "At last. My favourite hotel in the world."

He stood up, followed by Ginny and headed for the exit where Ginny saw a long tube instead of the ramp this time. This tube led from the door of the bus to the entrance of the hotel, and one could pass through it into the building without getting wet. At the end of the tube/tunnel was a transparent wall that - like in all buildings around - served as the entrance.

Harry saw Ginny gape at the funny door and shudder as they passed through it.

"Tricky, huh? The door's water-repellent, but humans can enter it," explained Harry. "Very useful for witches and wizards who arrive with their own Hippocars, because Hippocars aren't big enough for carrying such portable tunnels and they have to swim from their parking places to the doors. When they pass through the doors, they dry off, since these tricky doors carry drying spells."

"Fascinating," said Ginny admiringly as she looked around the hall of the hotel. The back wall of the hall consisted of nothing but a huge window through which one could observe the sea-life outside.

All around the hall Corinthian columns were standing and an enormous whitish chandelier was hanging from the ceiling; the candles on it were all standing in shells, and the iridescent insides of the shells reflected in the candlelight painted the whole hall in all the colours of the rainbow.

Ginny looked over her shoulder to see that not many of the Hippobus' passengers had followed them into the hotel. "Where are the others?"

"Most of them are spending the night on the bus because they can't afford this hotel," he replied.

"How did your little conductor friend know that you'd spend the night in this hotel and not on the bus? She must have known it, otherwise she wouldn't have admonished you not to be late for the bus tomorrow morning."

"This isn't the first time I've taken the Hippobus and slept in the Hotel Atlantis," he shrugged. "Once I was almost late for the bus..." here Harry turned away from Ginny, to talk to the receptionist, but Ginny strangely had the feeling that Harry didn't want to talk about the topic any longer.

"One or two rooms, sir?" asked the receptionist.

"Er..." Harry squinted at Ginny. "Two."

"One," said Ginny.

Harry's eyebrows ran so high that they got concealed beneath his black locks. "All right then, one."

After he got the key, he looked at her incredulously.

"What's this great conversion, Ginny?"

"It's just being realistic, Harry. Look around here, no surprise that most of the passengers can't afford this hotel, it looks darn expensive. I don't want you to spend all your money on me..."

"Money doesn't count," he told her seriously.

"But it does! It makes me feel uneasy that you're making all sorts of sacrifices for me, I feel too much in your debt already."

"Don't feel in my debt, Ginny," he said. "Helping you gives me a great opportunity for a bit of pay-back with your precious husband. By spending money on this mission, I'm investing in a Draco-irritating endeavour, and that means it's me who's in your debt, not the other way around."

"Ah, so you're doing this merely to annoy Draco?" she folded her arms.

"Partly," he shrugged, then suddenly cringed and hid behind Ginny's back.

"What?" she whispered, wondering who Harry was hiding from.

Three girls crossed the hall, heading for the restaurant part of the hotel. All of them had chestnut brown, straight hair that almost reached the floor as they swept past in their lilac toga-like dresses. As they disappeared into the restaurant, Harry came out of hiding, looking relieved.

"Who were these chicks?" Ginny demanded.

"Nymph, Nympha and Nympho. Sirens," came the answer.

"Sirens?" Ginny gaped as they headed upstairs. "That sort of mermaids who enchant blokes with their song?"

"Well, not all of them are mermaids, some of them are half woman-half bird things, again others look totally like normal humans, like these three... but yeah, they enchant blokes with their song... and... actually... they were the cause for me almost missing the bus once."

"Why, what did they do?"

"Dunno. All I remember is that they cornered me in this hotel, then... I woke up in my room late in the morning and I didn't remember a thing. I still don't know what happened there, but next time I saw them they were waving at me rather happily... Well, here we are," he opened the door to their room.

She sort of regretted having asked for one room instead of two... Harry admitting to having very likely had an affair with three sirens at once miffed her a lot. It seemed that Harry had been with almost every female but her... she definitely felt like kicking something.

However, when Harry turned on the candlelight with a swish of his wand, all her anger disappeared to be replaced by awe. They were in wonderland for sure!

The room's walls and floor were carved of marble, several pearly white statues of ancient Greek gods and goddesses standing on the floor and various shelves - most of them modelling Poseidon, his son Triton and Aphrodite sitting in a huge shell, wearing pretty much nothing.

A small brook was babbling from a cleft in the wall, into a tiny pool with goldfish. The seats seemed to have been made of shells, like so many things in the hotel, and a thick layer of moss served as carpet.

In the middle stood a double bed made of the biggest shell Ginny had ever seen. It was cushioned with sea sponge. The room had a huge window looking out over the centre of Atlantis. The window had a curtain of bubbles hanging over it, and Ginny reached out tentatively to see whether any of the bubbles burst if she touched them, but when she saw that the bubbles were unburstable she pulled the curtain back to watch the scenery beyond the windowpane.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Harry joined her and they both gazed down onto the square that teemed with fish and merpeople.

"Breathtaking," she whispered, too touched to speak aloud. "I don't think I would have seen so many wonders from the bus, so... thanks for bringing me here."

"You're welcome," he replied, sneaking an arm around her waist. She didn't seem to want to resist too much... She bent her head on his shoulder and despite The Fates Charm endangering her father's life, despite her husband's rage when he found out about her flight, despite all the perils possibly awaiting them on Delos, she felt totally safe now, in Harry's arms.

"I wish we could remain like this forever," she said quietly.

"Wouldn't it be boring?" he whispered back, as though not wanting to breach the peace with loud speaking.

She looked up at him to see him smile gently - a smile she hadn't seen from him ever since his sixth year at Hogwarts... "Why, isn't it nice just standing here so peacefully? Isn't it... romantic?"

He nodded. "But I could think of even more romantic things."

"Like what?" she cocked her head.

"Like this," he replied and she felt it an eternity before his lips touched hers.

Suddenly a shadow got cast over them, and they looked up to see what had blocked the street-lights. It happened to be a mer-couple: a madly enamoured mermaid and merman snogging and floating through the water in front of their window.

Harry and Ginny burst into laughter.

"They're also in love," he snickered. "But I bet not as much as we are."

"Yeah, they can't love each other as much as we... er..." her voice trailed off and she looked away from Harry. "Have we just...?"

"...carried on where we left off five years ago, Gin."

"But... is this right, Harry? I'm a married woman..."

"...and I'm a married man. The only problem is that we married the wrong persons."

"True," she nodded, seeing that he didn't have many more of pangs of remorse because of Phaedra than she had because of Draco. "Harry... what will become of us when I get freed and can divorce Draco?"

"I'll divorce Phaedra, of course."

"Will she agree to get divorced?" she asked with a doubtful expression.

"Not likely, but I'll persuade her. Somehow I will, and then I'll propose to you, Gin."

"Really?" she beamed at him.

"Yeah. I'll buy you a ring with... what would you like? Sapphire? Ruby? Emerald?"

"Emerald..." she sneaked her arms around his neck. "Emerald, like your eyes."

"Oh, Ginny... I love you so much," he buried his face into her fiery tresses. "I don't even deserve you."

"No, Harry... it's me who doesn't deserve you," she sniffed into his neck. "You deserve someone who can give you children..."

He drew back to look into her eyes. "If I have you, I don't care if I don't have anything else, not even children."

"What... what about your daughter?" she whispered, fearing that he'd push her away and turn as cold as he had turned the last time she asked him about the kid.

Not this time.

"Ginny... come, sit down," he led her to a huge shell-seat that was big enough for both of them. "If we're talking about love and marriage already... I think we need to be sincere at last. I need to be sincere at last, even though it might turn you away from me."

She gulped, looking worried but excited. "Why would I turn away from you? I love you, Harry."

"But perhaps not even your love will be enough to overcome your repulsion when I tell you the whole truth. No, Ginny, don't interrupt me, please," he held up his hands when she opened her mouth to protest. "Hear me out, then you can decide. And I'll understand if you no longer want me after that."

Her eyes widened with shock, but she nodded.

"On the day of your... your wedding," he began, "Voldemort managed to lure me into a trap again... the same way as he had done in my fifth year. With Occlumency. Yes, I admit, I've been a damn bad Occlumency student. I simply didn't manage to master it... I got deceived by seeing you in Voldemort's hands..."

"Me?"

"Yes, Ginny, you. Of course I wasn't sure whether my vision had been right or wrong, so I tried to contact you in the Burrow, but you weren't there... your dad wasn't there either, and your mum said she didn't know where you were..."

"Obviously... I must have been bargaining for my father's life with Draco right then, and Mum wasn't supposed to tell anything, she was so afraid that Dad would be killed if she told anyone anything," said Ginny.

"Yeah, so, I didn't find you there, though the holidays had already started, and you weren't even at Grimmauld Place, so... so I drew the conclusion that you were indeed in Voldemort's hands... stupid me, falling into the same trap twice..." he heaved a deep sigh. "But at that time I didn't want to endanger anyone's life like I had done in my fifth year... I went there alone. I had no idea that Dumbledore had cast a Tracking Charm on me and followed me... He died there, fighting Voldemort and the Death Eaters..." Harry's voice faltered, then he gulped to make the lump in his throat disappear and continued: "I almost defeated Voldemort. I managed to rid him of his wand and he was cowering in front of me, totally at my mercy... and then he told me."

"What?" Ginny frowned, suspecting that the worst part was coming.

"He told me that I had been deceived by him... no, not that you weren't in his hands, I had realised that before I even started fighting him. He told me that it had been him who had sent that impostor to me in my sixth year."

Ginny gasped. "But... but why would he do such a thing? I mean, what advantage would he gain by making someone seduce you?"

"What?" Harry snorted. "That the woman was supposed to get pregnant. Voldemort must have seen to it that she was sure to conceive."

Ginny furrowed her brows, her pretty face contorting with the effort of concentration. She began chewing her lower lip, but seemingly couldn't solve the riddle, so she looked up at him again. "But why would it be good for You-Know-Who if you had a child?" she asked.

"Because he would bring up that child, Ginny and he'd be able to blackmail me with her."

Her mouth was hanging open, but her eyes revealed to Harry that she was beginning to understand things.

"Yes, Ginny... that's why I didn't kill him. He said Wormtail and Bellatrix would kill my daughter if I killed him," Harry went on, speaking to his shoes. "I was selfish, Ginny. I wanted to save that kid so much that I let Voldemort escape... I didn't even know that child, yet I regarded her as more important than ridding the world of Voldemort... just because that unfortunate kid was mine!" he looked up to meet her eyes and was surprised to see that he saw understanding in them rather than disgust. "I will never forgive myself, Ginny. Every single murder that Voldemort committed in Disneyland Paris and will commit in the future will be my fault! I should have sacrificed my daughter to save the world, but I was weak... and I made the wrong choice."

"Harry," Ginny slipped her hand into his, "don't blame yourself. All parents would have done the same thing."

"Would they?" he smiled sadly. "I don't think so. Your parents love all seven of you dearly, but... I think they wouldn't have hesitated to make the right choice if they had to... They know that vanquishing Voldemort is the most important thing... I knew it too, yet ignored it. If Voldemort destroys the world, I'll be the one to be blamed, no one else."

"You're too strict with yourself, Harry," she replied seriously. "If it had been my child, I wouldn't have decided otherwise."

"Even if you knew its grandfather was Voldemort?"

"What?" Ginny's eyes widened to such an extent that they resembled Luna's.

Harry pursed his lips. "The girl who seduced me... Linda... was Voldemort's daughter. Typical Voldemort-humour: he named his daughter 'snake'."

"But... holy heavens, Harry! This means that You-Know-Who must have slept with someone! Ewww!"

Harry had to stop himself from chuckling at her disgusted expression. The thought of the Dark Lord having sex with someone turned his stomach, too, so he'd rather not even try to imagine it.

"Yeah, that means he must have," Harry nodded. "And this also means that Voldemort and I are related now... well, sort of. He's the grandfather of my daughter. And he's treating the poor thing like shit."

"How do you know? You've never met her, have you?"

"Saw it. Today. In my dream."

She paled slightly. "Are you still having those visions about him?"

"It seems so. And it's funny because I haven't had any of the sort for the last five years. Also, I thought I had managed to learn Occlumency fully in the Circle - apparently I was wrong."

"Was You-Know-Who... torturing your daughter?"

"No, but I wouldn't put it past him. The little one seemed to be afraid of him and she said he always hurt her..." he gulped. "I seriously hope he's not casting Cruciatus on her."

Ginny squeezed his hand, knowing that his younger daughter had died of Cruciatus.

"I saw other things in my dreams, too," he carried on. "Voldemort said that he needed some parchment telling him how to become immortal. I wish I could stop him... but I can't because when he was about to say where that parchment was, you woke me up."

"Oh... sorry," she pursed her lips.

"Don't blame yourself. You couldn't have known you were interrupting something."

"I'm not blaming myself. And I'm not blaming you, too. You just acted like a father... I'm just sorry for you."

"Don't be. I got myself into trouble. Had I kept my trousers zipped, I wouldn't have got into this situation. Either way, it's my fault."

"Harry... I don't care whose fault it is, I love you - together with all your faults."

"I really don't deserve you," he breathed, leaning closer to her in the shell-seat. For a moment they just stared into each other's eyes, the only noise coming from the goldfish splashing in the tiny pool.

"You don't have to deserve me, just touch me at last, Harry," she replied finally, plastering her lips to his.

The mer-couple outside had left - perhaps to find a place more private, and the bubble-curtain fell back into place after Harry swished with his free hand towards it (his other hand was engaged in other activities).

Ginny thought she'd burst with pleasure - it was happening at last!

At that moment something downstairs indeed burst.

The lovebirds jumped apart, Harry immediately directing his stare downwards. With his glasses he saw through the floor.

"Death Eaters, damn them," he stamped his foot indignantly. "Couldn't they've waited just half an hour???"