Facing Backwards

At dinner that night, Harry once again felt as if the whole sea of students in the Great Hall were looking at him, but this time, he kept getting winks and waves from the students who had actually had his 'secret' lesson. It made him smile--especially when he saw the way the Ravenclaw first-years were grinning at the attention that their older housemates were lavishing on them.

After dinner, the whole faculty (except for Nott and Armstrong, the Astronomy teacher, both of whom had to supervise detentions) decided an impromptu celebration was in order. They led Harry back to his rooms, somehow conjuring bottles of butterbeer and mead out of thin air (whether by magic or slight-of-hand, Harry could not tell) as they went.

He found himself thinking that he was actually somewhat relieved that he would not be celebrating alone with Ginny that evening.

"I'm so disappointed that the headmaster chose not to join us," squeaked Professor Flitwick to Harry as he sipped away at what looked distinctly like an upside-down Shirley Temple.

Grubbly-Planke patted the top of the diminutive professor's head and let loose a huge cloud of pipe smoke. "Since when did Severus ever join in a faculty do that wasn't the follow-up to a cremation?"

This evoked laughter from several of the younger teachers, but Harry was thoughtful. There was a part of him that still felt as if he had to prove something to Severus Snape. He still felt the urge, having completed a very successful first day of teaching, to turn to Snape and say, "Ha! See, I can do it after all!" And he hated that part of himself.

There was much drinking and laughter. Neville and Flitwick, being the two house heads present, forced Harry to stand on the rickety coffee table and sing the school song--Harry chose the tune of "Layla," for no particularly good reason.

At a little past ten, Luna began to look peaky and Ron bustled her off to bed. The rest of the faculty dribbled off in ones and twos until only the Longbottoms were left.

"I've got to go change the password," Neville said through a yawn. "You coming darling?"

"I'll be along in a minute," Ginny said. "I'll just help Harry clean up a bit."

Neville looked around at the scattered debris: bottles, the paper streamer with which Flitwick had spelled out the words of the school song, bags that contained the last crumbs of biscuits and crisps. "Oh," he said, clearly surprised to see the mess. "Right. See you when you get back." Humming "Layla," he walked out of Remus's living room--Harry's living room--and closed the door behind him.

Harry looked up to see Ginny's squirrel-dark eyes on him. "You didn't have to stay, Ginny."

"Nonsense," she said, whipping out her wand. "Mum would have been furious if I'd left you to clean up a mess like this all alone. Scourgify!"

When the bottles and bags had all be tidied up and the room was back to its genteel, bare state, Harry turned to thank Ginny, hoping she would leave, but she was sliding onto the couch. Harry stood awkwardly, uncertain that he could sit next to her without doing something he would regret.

Looking around, he saw the bottle of firewhiskey where he had put it the previous evening. Not really wanting more, but wanting something to do, he wandered over and picked the bottle up.

"I'd love a sip," Ginny said. "I have something I want to show you--give you, actually."

When Harry turned around, Ginny laughed. "Don't worry, they won't bite! It's just the poems I was telling you about." As Harry sat beside her, his stomach trembling, she pulled a small packet of parchment out of her robes. "I figured it was time to burn them."

"Don't do that!" Harry blurted. "I mean, shouldn't you keep them?"

"Why?" Ginny sighed. "Who for? They're schoolgirl drivel. You think I should show them to Neville? I won't have any kids... They belong in the dustbin. Do you want them?" She held the sheaf up by a corner, peering past them at Harry with a look of amused embarrassment.

"I'll tell you what, Gin," Harry said, "I'll read them and then we can burn them properly, okay?"

Ginny laughed. "Merlin, I used to have fantasies about you coming across these in my sock drawer. Though what you would have been doing looking through my socks, I'd rather not think." Demurely, she placed the papers on the table and began to untie the faded lavender ribbon that bound them. "Listen, Harry, you really don't have to read these. But if you do, just... don't laugh too much, okay?"

Harry nodded and began to read. They were sonnets, stumbling in their meter, lurching in their rhymes, but indescribably sweet--the compulsion of a young girl to describe a feeling for which she had no words. As he got to the seventh or eighth, the imagery began to get more frankly sexual, but again so sweet, since it was clear she was putting words to desires she had no practical experience in. Harry remembered his own dreams and daydreams, thoughts and images, inchoate urges that had burned themselves into his teenaged brain.

When he looked up after finishing the last sonnet, Ginny was sitting with her arms crossed, her face hidden behind a wall of bright red hair. "They're really lovely, Ginny," he said. "I wish I'd..."

"Don't wish for something impossible," she said, picking up the poems and walking over to the fireplace.

"You don't have to burn those," Harry said. "I really wish you wouldn't."

Ginny shook her head. "I think I do need to burn them. There's no point in hanging on to the things I used to think and the feelings I used to feel. I'm forty." She waved the parchment. "Besides, they're terrible," she said, and tossed them into the fire.

With a flash, the parchment was consumed, leaving nothing but black flakes of ash floating up the chimney. As Harry stared at the remains, Ginny sat next to him, opened up the whiskey bottle, and then put it down again.

"Thank you for showing them to me," Harry said.

Ginny shrugged. "I guess I'm glad you saw them. I don't think I could have let them go without that."

"I used to wish for impossible things all the time," Harry sighed. "For my parents to come back, for Sirius to come back, for the world to see that I wasn't I wasn't an attention-grabbing liar like Lockheart."

"Well, that last one wasn't so impossible."

"It seemed like it at the time," Harry laughed sadly. Leaning forward, he took the whiskey bottle. They'd finished a little over a third the night before. He took a swallow and felt the liquid flame ignite his mouth, throat and stomach. "Do you dream of Riddle much?"

Ginny shrugged. "For years I'd have nightmares a few times a week. It's down to every few months, now. But when he shows up in my dreams and says, 'You'll do what I want, you silly girl...'" She shivered. "I knew the Boggart would take his shape, damn it."

Harry nodded, holding himself back from the urge to touch, hold and comfort her.

Ginny looked up at him. "You and I are the only ones left who remember him that way, you know. Before he was Voldemort. There are wizards around who went to school with him, but they never really saw how evil he was."

"I know, Ginny." He couldn't help himself. He took her hand.

She looked up and smiled wanly. "I thought your Boggart was interesting."

Harry snorted. "Yes, very. I mean, I hadn't even thought of Hermione as a possibility."

"Hmm." Ginny withdrew her hand and moved the hair out of her face.

When Harry offered her a drink, she shook her head again.

"Afraid I'm trying to get you drunk and have my wizard's way with you?" Harry joked, furious with himself.

"No, Harry," Ginny said. "I'm not afraid of anything you might do. It's myself I'm frightened of." She let out a long, tired sigh. "I need to tell you something, Harry. When I came to your house for the reunion, I don't think I'd really put words to it, but I had every intention of seducing you."

When Harry said nothing, she continued, rather quickly, "I'd been thinking about it for years, you see. Ever since Hermione became Minister. It was a few years after Neville and I had gotten married, and I'd started to realize that nothing that St. Mungo's or I could do would make him... Anyhow, I'd had this little daydream that had floated through my head for years: what if I'd ended up with Harry? I mean, I had such a crush on you back when we were young. I'd see some poor girl or boy pining away, writing sonnets in the Library or down by the lake, and it would bring all of that flooding back. Love Neville though I did--and do." She sniffed. "Did you ever think about that?"

"What, about having an affair?" Harry asked. "Of course, I did. I mean, even before the Ministry and children made any intimacy with Hermione rarer than either one of us would have liked..."

She shook her head. "That too, but no. I was thinking more about how we all paired up, the year that you, Ron, Neville and Hermione left school." When Harry didn't respond she went on. "Did Hermione ever tell you about the big conversation that Luna had with us?"

Harry shook his head.

"Really?" Ginny gave a short laugh. "That's amazing. It was this huge, life-changing conversation, and you boys had no idea. Men."

"Yeah, well, clearly you couldn't quite get on without us entirely, or the conversation--whatever it was--wouldn't have happened. When was this?" Harry sat forward, his nervousness evaporated.

"Oh, just before Christmas, Luna's and my sixth year. And it was Luna, of course. Hermione and I were sitting in the library, studying, and Luna just walks up and says to Hermione, 'Have you made up your mind?'"

"About what?" asked Harry.

"That's what Hermione wanted to know. So Luna goggles at her for a second, since the reference of the question seems self-evident to her, of course. And then she lays out this amazing dissection of the dynamic between you, Ron, and Hermione."

When Harry raised his eyebrows, Ginny continued. "She said that both you and Ron cared for each other as much as either of you cared for Hermione, which, in her estimation, was quite a lot. That neither one of you would ever risk hurting the other by asking her out. So it was up to her--Hermione--to choose. Therefore the question: 'Have you made up your mind?'" Ginny shook her head. "The amazing thing was, when she put it that way it all seemed absolutely obvious."

"But why did Luna care?" Harry asked.

"Well, I'd think that would be clear in retrospect. What she said to Hermione was that she liked my brother, but that she knew he'd never date her--Luna--so long as she--Hermione--wasn't attached to someone. That if Hermione wanted to date Ron, that was okay, but it was only six months till the end of the school year, and Luna didn't want to wait around while the three of you stayed stuck in the status quo. Well, Hermione just sat there, looking like someone had just cast some sort of Befuddlement charm on her. And then you could see the little gears start to click--you know the way it is with Hermione. Like one of those computator things Muggles use."

Harry grinned. He knew just what Ginny meant. "Computers," he said.

Ginny dismissed the word with her hand.

"Ginny," Harry said, thinking he knew where this was headed, "how did you feel about all of this?"

She looked into the fire. "At the time, I thought I was well out of it. Remember, I'd been going out with Dean since the end of fourth year. I thought the whole conversation was hysterical: that Luna had seen straight to the center of the problem--the problem none of us had quite recognized--and just sort of sliced through to the bone. Well, Hermione looks up after a minute, once all of the cogs fell into place, and asks me if it would be okay if she asked you out."

"But if you were with Dean, why was she asking you?"

"Come on, Harry, don't be stupid. Anyway, I said fine, go ahead. I think, in the back of my mind, I'd always assumed that she and Ron would end up together, so seeing his best friends together might actually get Ron off his bottom."

"He was really upset with us for a little while." Harry could see Ron's quiet, wounded looks when Hermione and Harry had first begun to share the aura of something more than friendship.

"Yeah, well, unfortunately, so was I," Ginny sighed. "Surprised the hell out of me, and Dean got more than a bit shirty. We finally broke up that weekend of the blizzard that February; he kept yelling at me that he wasn't going--let's see if I can remember this correctly--'going to keep the seat warm for Harry any longer.'" She shivered slightly. "I made up my mind to tell Hermione--and you--that I'd made a huge mistake, that I wanted to be with you as much as I always had, that fighting against the silly crush had made me realize that I actually cared for you. I was so relieved, I felt as if I had finally made the right decision..."

"But," Harry said, dread extinguishing the warmth that the firewhiskey had lit in his stomach, "that was the weekend..." Hermione wrapped tightly against him, under the comforters at the Hog's Head. Both of them weeping with awe and terror at what they had discovered.

Ginny nodded. "You two came back from Hogsmeade, once the snow died down, and it looked as if you'd had an Illumination spell cast on you. Ron and I were so happy for you, but we cried." Ginny reached forward and drank from the bottle. "Then Ron realized what an amazing creature Luna was. And Neville was so sweet to me. He hung around while I sowed my wild oats for a few years. We hooked up finally at your wedding, actually, and here we all are."

"So if Luna hadn't asked Hermione to make up her mind," Harry said slowly, "everything might have been different."

Ginny nodded. "I think Hermione and Ron would have been very happy together--though can you imagine the yelling? Or your wife and my husband; I can only picture what a peaceful household that would be..."

"Hermione without children," mused Harry. Wonderful a mother as she was, it had been Harry's need for a family that had moved them forward. Would she be happier if there were nothing besides herself, her husband and her work? Perhaps.

"Luna would have been content either way, I think," said Ginny. "We know how happy she and Ron have been together."

Harry smiled, "If she'd ended up with Neville... I mean, can you think of a more ethereal couple?"

Ginny snorted and handed Harry the heavy, green bottle. They had almost finished another third. "So true. In any case, Ron and I certainly weren't going to end up together." She pulled a disgusted face, and they both laughed. "So that would have left you and me."

Harry took a drink. "Yes."

"So," Ginny said, "That's what I was thinking that afternoon, when we were all coming down on British Rail. Looking at Neville, who was talking Numerology theory with Luna, and Ron, who was trying to convince Sidi to try out for Quidditch, and I had this sudden flash that if Luna had never asked that question, or if Hermione had made a different choice, had chosen my brother, or if I had said, 'No, Hermione, I really want Harry all for myself,' then you might have ended up marrying me, and loving me, and spending that stormy night at the Hog's Head with me. And all Hermione ever talks about these days is how the two of you never have the energy or the time to make love any more. And I thought, Right. I have the energy. I have the need."

Harry looked at her staring intently into the fire, her features fine and flushed, and the effort not to reach out and embrace her was almost more than he could bear. "Ginny," was all he could manage to say, and she looked at him.

"I know, Harry. It was ridiculous. We got to your house, and all of you hugging Sidi, how happy you were, Harry, and I thought, how could I even dream of mucking this up? I must be a horrible, horrible person."

"You're not, Ginny, you're not." Harry felt feelings swelling up inside him that were so far beyond his ability to name that they almost choked him. "I am happy and so are you, but here we are. I kissed you, Ginny, you didn't try to seduce me. I didn't mean to and all of that, but I did it. And if Albie hadn't come in looking for water, who knows what I would have done next." He ran his hands through his thinning hair. "Do you know how a Time Turner works?" he asked.

She shook her head, caught off guard.

"Every choice that a human being makes moves the entire universe through one door of possibility and away from the junction that led to other doors. Those doors aren't available any more, but they're still there, unused potential. Hermione said Professor Vector called it a Decision Tree--you work your way from the trunk to the limb to the branch. You can never go back without magic, but the tree is still there."

Ginny eyed him warily, clearly uncertain where this was leading.

"A Time Turner transports you back to one of the nexuses, one of the decisions. But here's the thing, Ginny. All through our past, yours and mine, there are hundreds of those decisions that might have led to a different outcome. Luna could have waited to ask the question. Hermione could have answered differently--I know she could have, I know she could just as easily have said, 'Luna, I really want to see if Ron and I can make a go of things...'" Harry paused. "Did you know they... saw each other for a while, after we left school--during your last year, and Luna's?"

Ginny's jaw fell. "No, I didn't know that. Hermione never told me, and neither did Ron."

Harry nodded. "Yeah, well, it was rather humiliating all of the way around. I was a wreck--Tom Riddle's death had torn so much of me away that I was a shell for months."

"I remember, Harry."

I bet, Harry thought, and a memory of Ginny sitting at his bedside at the Burrow, just gazing at him, thinking he was asleep, sunlight in her hair, came flooding back into his mind. "We buried your parents and the rest. You and Luna went back to school, everyone else slowly went back to work, but Ron and Hermione kept taking care of me. That fall, the two of them came to me, weeping, both of them, and confessed that they'd been sleeping together for months. At first it had been just that--sharing a bed for comfort--but, I mean, they were eighteen, they were forced together because of me, they'd been best friends for years..."

"Oh, God, Harry, you must have been..." Ginny reached out and touched Harry's cheek, which he suddenly realized was wet.

"At first," he said, "I thought, Great, I don't have it in me to love anyone, anyway, and they were the two people I would most have wanted to be happy together. And then I realized I was angry, furious, but that I no longer had the strength even to do anything about it. Hermione just sat there, a blubbering mess. It was Ron who looked up and said he needed to leave for a while."

Ginny's eyes lit up with recognition, "Yeah! He came and visited the school." She covered her mouth with her hand. "Oh, Harry! That was the weekend he and Luna got engaged!"

Harry nodded. "While he was gone, Hermione and I hashed some things out. She'd kept telling me that the loss of so much of my power didn't mean anything, but she hadn't touched me since the night of the last battle. I was feeling so sorry for myself, I just sort of assumed it was because I was a cripple, a half-wizard, a half-man, that she wouldn't want me any more. But it turns out, she was terrified she might hurt me, might tear open all of the scars." Harry gave a sad laugh. "Not the physical ones. You understand. I told her to tear away, there wasn't much but scar tissue left, but what there was couldn't stand to be alone."

When Ginny had nothing to say, Harry went on, "It's decisions, you see, one after another. A marriage isn't just one promise--'Do you?' 'I do' and you're done. It's a series of hundreds of choices that you make every day, some of them good and some of them bad, and all of them adding to or taking away from something larger than either of the individuals involved." He felt himself wanting to lean in to her. Shut up, Harry.

Ginny turned to face him fully. "Harry," she said, putting up her hand to arrest even the intention of the lean, "we decided not to have an affair. In your kitchen."

"We did."

"Do you think," she asked, and he could tell that she was as afraid of her own impulses as he was in this moment, "do you think we made the right decision?" She was chewing on her lip.

Harry sighed, "I don't know."

"Well," muttered Ginny, "neither do I. I've wanted you for so long, Harry, it's like an addiction. I'll go months, years, and not think about you as anything but my friend and Sidi's dad and Hermione's husband. And then you'll look at me the way you did just now and I melt into puddle, I ache for you so badly. It's ridiculous." Her forehead began to turn deep red. Whether the passion that caused the blush was embarrassment, desire or anger, Harry wasn't certain. "You do feel the same way, don't you Harry? I'm not just letting fantasies and what's left of my hormones blind me?"

He shook his head. What do I say here? he thought. Do I say, I've dreamed of drowning myself in your hair for decades, dreamed of tearing your clothes off for longer than I've known what to do next? Do I say, Well, yes, Ginny, of course I find you quite attractive, and rotten weather we're having this spring, what? "I told you, Ginny. I wanted to kiss from when we were students. I've wanted to..." I'm sitting on a wand-tip, Harry thought. Which way am I going to fall? He took a deep breath and pressed on. "Ginny, I do feel the same way. Look at me. Would I be such a mess right now if I didn't?..."

The fire coughed. Both Harry and Ginny turned toward the hearth as the flame turned green and began to twist. With a loud pop, Hermione's head appeared alongside the wild-haired head of Harry's youngest, Albus.

"Hey, Albie!" Harry said, almost too brightly, "what are you doing up so late?"

"Harry," Hermione said, her smile and voice brittle. "Oh, Ginny, how are you."

"Hi, Hermione. I was just helping Harry clean up--the faculty were all toasting his success today." She, too, was sounding just a bit too cheery.

"Oh," Hermione said, "How nice. Harry, Albie's had the nightmare..."

"The one about the lions, Daddy. They're fighting."

"Really?" Harry said.

Hermione nodded, "Guess we were wrong. Anyhow, he just wanted to see that you were okay."

"I'm fine, Sunny Jim. I'm sorry I didn't check in before your bedtime. Is the babysitter fun?"

"She's got a ring in her nose," Albie said, that clearly being the funnest thing his four-year-old brain could comprehend.

"Cool," said Harry. "Listen, Albie, you go get some sleep, okay? I'm fine."

The boy nodded. Hermione nodded. "Good night, darling. Good to see you, Ginny."

And with a poof, they disappeared.

"He have nightmares about lions a lot?" Ginny asked. That had been the dream that had brought him into the kitchen the previous October, just as Ginny and Harry had been about to slide into an embrace.

Harry shook his head and laughed. "He's like a bloody sex detector. He tends to wake up with that dream whenever Hermione and I... You know." Albie hadn't had that dream very often in the past year.

"Oh," Ginny said, looking at him. "Well, clearly he's picking something up."

"Clearly."

Ginny laughed and shook her head. "Guess you do feel the same way I do. Kind of a relief, actually."

Harry laughed too, thinking, there's no shame in the truth.

"On that note, I think I'd better..." Ginny was clearly intending to leave, which Harry thought was an excellent idea. How, then, they ended up tangled in each other, Harry's glasses mashed artlessly against Ginny's forehead, his arms wrapped around her back and his fingers tangled in her hair, Harry had no idea. He felt a rush of desire moving through him like a river flood. The feeling of her tongue, of her hair, the press of her stomach against his, the flash of flame as her hair washed over their faces, her lean, stubbly thigh under his hand.

With a gigantic effort of will, like pulling himself out of a warm, hungry pool of quicksand, Harry broke off the kiss. Ginny's face was flushed, the brown lipstick she wore smeared across her cheek--and his too, Harry guessed. She looked as shocked and feral as he felt.

"Harry," she moaned, "please..."

"No," he said. "I can't."

She looked as if he had hit her. A scream seemed to be welling up inside her, but instead, she let out a deep sob. She unhooked her leg from behind his back, placed her shoe on Harry's chest and pushed him away none too gently. Fingers trembling, she began to close up the buttons that were left on her blouse; Harry had no memory of tearing them off, but he must have done.

Harry watched her stand and walk shakily to the door, trying desperately to think of something to say to her, but he couldn't. "Bollocks," Ginny spat, and out she went.