Facing Backwards

By the time they got back to the beech tree and picked up their robes from the mute Felicity Goldstein, Harry's head was so full of warring thoughts that he felt he couldn't get a handle on any one of them. I want to take my brain out, he thought. I want to take my brain out and rinse it in nice, warm, sudsy water....

Having delivered his bombshell of a proposal, Neville was back to his jovial, unworried self. He told Harry he had to wash up and update his notes on the Gillyweed project, that they would meet at dinner, and then he strode off towards the greenhouses, whistling off-key.

As Harry stumbled back into the cool, dark entry hall, he was greeted by the pale, moon-shaped face of Professor Armstrong. "Hello, Professor!" he called, waving.

"Professor."

"I didn't call the other night, because--to my surprise--both your daughter and young Mr. Weasley were actually in their beds. Something must be up. Those two have never been so quiet for this long." The Gryffindor Head of House gave a broad smile.

"I don't think it's anything too troubling, Professor," Harry said. "I was just panicking a bit. Thank you again for checking."

"Any time, Professor. Perhaps your daughter is finally exerting a positive influence on young Harry, eh?"

"We can certainly hope so. See you at dinner." The image of the Weasley boy, weeping, flooded back into Harry's brain, shoving a half-dozen other equally disturbing images to the side.

As he stepped into the Defense classroom, in the midst of unbuttoning his shirt, Harry realized he had a visitor.

Ginny was sitting on the stairs, her elbows propped on her knees. Like Harry, she had shed her robes, which were sitting in a dark clump beside her.

On the teacher desk in front of her rested a large stone bowl whose contents glowed silver.

"I borrowed it from Severus," she sighed. "You asked me why Monday night was your fault and I realized I really had no clear memory of what exactly happened--just how I felt."

"Uh," Harry said, because he wanted desperately to tell her about her conversation with her husband, but couldn't.

"Come here," Ginny said, standing and walking over to the Pensieve. "I want to know if you see what I see."

"Uh."

"Please, Harry."

"Okay, Ginny, of course." Looking into the Pensieve, he could see himself and Ginny seated on Remus's forlorn old couch.

"Go in for a closer look, Harry. Come on." She touched his shoulder.

Hesitantly, Harry drew out his wand and touched it to the silvery pool of memories.

Instantly he was sucked off of his feet, and found himself dropping into Remus's living room. There he was, looking thoroughly miserable, staring at Ginny, who was standing beside the couch, as though she were a particularly delectable desert. "What an idiot," he muttered.

"Don't be hard on yourself," Ginny--the real Ginny--said beside him. "That look has made me weak-kneed more than once."

Harry could only grunt.

His memory-self gave a forced laugh. "He's like a bloody sex detector. He tends to wake up with that dream whenever Hermione and I... You know."

"God, I hate my laugh," Harry muttered.

Ginny shushed him, while her memory-self laughed, "Oh! Well, he's clearly picking up on something." Her eyes sparkled.

"Clearly," memory-Harry said, his eyes too flashing.

"Guess you do feel the same way I do. Kind of a relief, actually." The two memories laughed; memory-Ginny shook her head in a way that made her hair flow quite remarkably over her shoulders. Even watching it the second time made Harry shiver.

"On that note, I think I'd better..." And then the two of them, memory-Harry and memory-Ginny, froze for a moment. Harry thought briefly that the memory had ended, that the image was actually stopped. But no, he could see the pulse at the base of Ginny's throat. And like two magnets, the two memories moved together until there was no space at all between them.

Harry gave a wordless grunt at the sight.

"Oh, yes," Ginny said beside him. "Hmm."

"Oh," Harry muttered, "that's when I tore your buttons. Sorry about that."

Now it was Ginny's turn to grunt.

In Harry's memory, the whole incident had lasted two heartbeats. As he watched his simulacrum and Ginny's writhe against each other, on and on, he muttered, "You'd think a memory like this would seem as if it lasted longer than it actually did, you know?"

Ginny grunted again.

On the couch, Harry could see himself pulling--not against Ginny's grasp, but against his own desire.

"I think," Ginny said, "we can stop there. I don't want to watch the rest, do you?"

"No," Harry said, and felt himself falling upwards, out of the Pensieve and back onto his feet again. He was panting; his shirt stuck to him.

"Now you know why I took off my robes," said Ginny, a blush only slightly belying her wicked grin. "So, did you see it?"

"See what?" Harry sighed. "I couldn't tell which of us started it all..."

"That's just what I mean," Ginny said intensely. "I've watched that... scene four times, from different angles, and I can tell you neither one of us initiated that kiss, or whatever you want to call it."

Harry pondered her mutely.

"Harry, you're the one who's always talking about the enchantment that can be done without a wand or an incantation. We did that together, Harry, for better or for worse."

Harry snorted. "For better or for worse..."

Her dark gaze pinned him. "I spent the last six months thinking about what it would have been like if Albie hadn't interrupted us. For better or for worse. Tell me you haven't been thinking the same."

Harry looked down at the Pensieve. The scene had started again; Ginny was burning her poems. "Of course I was thinking the same." And beating myself up about it all the while.

"Harry. I'm not blaming you. Merlin, you should see your face." He could feel the heat rising to his cheeks. "Look, Harry, I guess I'm trying to say I'm sorry. I mean, I was angry as all hell that night, and you'll have to forgive me, there's not a damned thing I could have done about that." She looked down to herself in the Pensieve, drinking whiskey. "But watching this today I've realized you were trying to do the right thing, even if I did want to throttle you at the time."

"I didn't feel like I was doing the right thing. I felt as if I was being a bloody git."

She looked at him mutely. He could feel the proximity of her, and hated the fact that, between the conversation with Neville and watching himself snogging on the couch with Ginny, he could feel the thread pulling between them again. He tried desperately to think of a way to discuss Neville's proposal with her without sounding like the randy bastard he in fact was. Looking down from her black eyes back to the Pensieve, he saw himself, pressed against Ginny, her leg wrapped over his back, and he started to sweat again. "You watched this four times?"

"Yeah," she smirked.

Harry reached across and took her hand. "Listen, Ginny, I..." He could feel the calluses on her long wand fingers. "There's something I want to show you. In the Pensieve..."

There was a shuffle at the doorway. Sidi was standing there, her face long and white. "Daddy..."

"Siria Potter!" Harry screamed, more in shock than anger. "What the hell do you think you're doing, sneaking in here like that?" He could feel the adrenaline pumping blood out of his stomach, into his face.

Sidi looked up, even more stricken. Her lower lip quavered, and she ran.

Turning back to Ginny, Harry was confronted with those depthless black eyes. She squeezed his hand lightly and let go. "Go after her, you poor prat."

He felt the urge to finish the conversation, the urge to explain, the urge to ask for forgiveness and advice. He took a breath, however, nodded, and ran out the door.

Sidi hadn't gotten far. She was crumpled at the feet of Uric the Oddball, weeping into her robes.

Harry sat next her. After a moment, he put a hand on her shoulder. "Sid, I'm sorry."

She glared over at him, wet and venomous. "So are you and Ginny Doing It?"

Harry started. "No!" he barked. Which was true, so far as it went. "Siria, sweetie, Aunt Ginny and I have a lot of past together but, no, we're not, you know, sleeping together. We never have. And that's not what I was talking with her about. Nor is it what I was apologizing for."

Sidi wiped her nose on her knee. "What then?"

"The apology? For snapping at you like that. That was totally out of line. You just interrupted a really personal conversation, and I was surprised and embarrassed, and I lost my head. I'm sorry."

She looked at him, dubious. "And what were you talking about? You were holding her hand."

He was about to protest that the conversation was private, but he recognized in the hard set of Sidi's jaw that he could not avoid the issue entirely. "Neville asked me to do him a favor, sweetie. Something very personal. And I was about to ask Ginny for her advice, since it's something that affects her. And that's all I can tell you."

"Did you fancy Auntie Gin?" The green eyes were soft, now, and tentative. "When you were younger?"

"Yeah," he conceded. "Yeah, I did. Can you blame me? And, as it happens, she fancied me."

"You're joking!" Her eyes flew wide, the red rims stretched around stark whites.

"Thanks a lot!" Harry laughed. "You should ask her some time! What do you think she was writing about in that possessed journal the year she got dragged down into the bowels of the castle by that basilisk?" Ginny, waxen and cold. Red hair on white flesh. Child-thin throat.

"Wow." The tears had stopped, but her face was still blotchy and swollen.

"Tell me about it," Harry joked humorlessly. Silly little girl. Oh, Ginny.

"Was she..." Sidi began. "Was Ginny one of the people you wished you'd talked to? Like you said?"

Harry gave a small nod.

"Do you think?..." Sidi was contemplating all of this with a mixture of wonder and horror playing across her face.

"What-if and Might-have-been are fools' games, Sid. We made our choices, your mum and I. And we've been blessed in them. The past is the past." He dried her cheek with his thumb. "And I can say that--I've traveled back to the past. It's overrated." Listening to Tom Riddle, Sr. preparing his stage magic show one night. Showing Ron and Harry card tricks. Talking about his wonderful new assistant--Luna's great-aunt, who would one day be his wife and the mother of the child who would kill him. The crushing sadness of sitting there, trading jokes with that man, knowing what horrors his future would bring.

Sidi rested her head on Harry's shoulder. He still felt like an utter berk, but this, at least, was better. "So what was it?" he asked. "Why did you come to see me?"

"Oh." She'd clearly forgotten. "It's Harry. He still won't talk to me. And I'm... worried about him. I think he's up to something, and, well, I'm usually the one who keeps him from doing anything too dangerous..."

"He's got other friends, doesn't he? Do they know what he's up to? One of his cousins?" Harry thought of Ron with Fred and George, Seamus and Dean, during those long months when they weren't talking to each other. Walking with Hermione around the lake.

Albie.

Sidi shook her head against Harry's shoulder. "He hasn't been talking with anyone. He's been sitting with a bunch of first-years, who sort of idolize him for some of the silly pranks he's pulled. But I don't think he's talking even with them."

"Well," Harry said, "he came down here, the night before last. The night before that disaster of a lecture. I think he wanted to talk to me, but all he said was something about a squid."

She started and blushed.

"Does that mean anything to you?"

She shook her head.

"Hmmm." He could force her to talk to him. But after the beginning of the conversation, he couldn't bring himself to do that.

"Daddy?" Sidi whispered.

"Yes, sweetie?"

"I'm sorry I was so mean during that class. I felt so bad..."

"It's okay, sweetie. No one's fault but my own."

"Did you ever figure out who, uh, mixed all the scrolls up?" She peered up from under her brows.

"Yes," he answered. She nibbled on a lip. "And it wasn't young Harry, don't worry."

"Oh, good," she said, clearly relieved. She gave him a quick peck on the cheek, sprang up from the floor with all the energy and flexibility of youth.

Much more stiffly and slowly, Harry rose and shuffled back into the classroom. Ginny wasn't there, but the Pensieve was still on the desk. Next to it was a note.

Harry--

Thought you two might want some privacy. Floo'd back over to mine and Neville's. You said you wanted to show me something. I'll come over this evening.

No firewhiskey this time, right?

Ginny

* * *

At dinner, Neville made a big show of seating Ginny next to Harry, which made Harry's stomach lurch in a confused tangle of embarrassment, annoyance, and desire.

Afterwards, when he went to check in with his family via the Floo, he found the Pensieve still sitting there on his desk. He didn't look into it--he didn't need to. As he knelt at the fireplace, all he could see in his mind's eye was his own lips on hers, his chest to her chest, their hands roaming.

When he tossed the Floo powder into the fire, some of it stuck to his sweat-dampened palm.

No one was home.

As he walked down to the Quidditch pitch, Harry felt as if he were walking crossways to a strong current. Images of himself with Ginny alternated oddly with images of Hermione rolling with Percy across the huge bed upstairs at Grimmauld Place. He felt like a hormonal sixteen-year-old again, and it was not a welcome feeling.

Walking into the stadium, Harry barely noticed the Hufflepuff team, most of them already aloft. He barely noticed Alithea Weasley standing just inside the entry arch.

When he did notice her, however, her bright, dusklit beauty sucked him in so forcefully that it was only through a concentrated act of will and a last-second grab of her broomstick that he held himself back from kissing her.

Damn.

The strawberry blonde gazed at him for a moment, sad amusement on her lips. "Shall we fly, then?"

Once his feet had left the ground, Harry felt his head clear. It was a change for which he was grateful.

Alithea had nowhere near the natural gift for flying that Circe Taylor did. But she made up for this with a kind of ferocity that impressed Harry. As they went through the drills, she showed none of the tentativeness that held back Circe. She nearly knocked him off of his broom several times. With a laugh, Harry shifted her towards drills to develop her finesse: balance on the broom, spotting feints, keeping turns tight so that the opposing Seeker couldn't anticipate her move.

The rest of the Hufflepuffs had already wandered off to the changing rooms before Harry and Alithea touched down. She was grinning again, but there was no hint of sadness to it now.

"Where did you learn to play for blood like that?" Harry asked.

"Well, I come from a family of Quidditch players, don't I? Dad had me up on a broom not long after I could walk. Also," she stared up at the bulging white lens of the moon rising over the castle, "when I got to Hogwarts, I needed to find something that I could be good at that wasn't sort of undermined just by who I was, you know?"

"I'm not sure I do," admitted Harry.

The sweaty young woman sighed. "It's... boring having people react to you, not because of what you do, but because of what you are."

"Ah," Harry said.

"I work really hard in all of my classes here, but it wouldn't make a difference if I didn't. I'd still get top marks. The teachers are all bloody desperate to please me, you see--the male ones. And Grubbly-Plank. My first Charms exam? Professor Flitwick gave me three hundred percent. I hadn't even finished the last couple of questions."

"Well," Harry said, "some students would love to be in your shoes."

Alithea snorted in a most unladylike manner. "You were going to kiss me when you first came in, right?"

Mutely, Harry nodded.

"It would have been all right if you had. People do it all the time. Teachers. Students. Male. Female. It has nothing to do with me, see?" She sighed. "Took me a long time to realize that--when it first started happening it scared the bloody hell out of me. My second day here, I'm barely eleven, and Tertius Plinth, the Head Boy, walks right over from the Ravenclaw table and plants a huge, wet kiss on me as I'm trying to eat breakfast. I didn't want to show my face for days." She snorted again. "For that matter, neither did he. His girlfriend nearly skinned him. Thing is, Quidditch is the one thing I do where being part-Veela has nothing to do with it. If I fly hard and catch the Snitch, I help my team. If I don't..."

"I understand," Harry said. "You're very wise not to take it personally, people's reaction to you. I used to have people adoring me and hating me, and it all had to do with things I didn't have control over. It took me a long time to learn not to feel like I'd actually done something to make them feel the way they did."

They were standing at the doors to the changing rooms. "Tante Gabi talks about you all the time." This time, Alithea's smile was shy. "Did you really save her life?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "Not really. I thought I was at the time, but she was just fine--and she knew it. I think she was just touched by the idea of this older boy playing the chivalrous idiot over her."

"Hmmm," Alithea said. "Well, good night."

"Good night," Harry sighed. "Good luck at the match tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it."

* * *

Harry came back to his rooms and decided try to Floo home again. Hermione was seated at the kitchen table, her reading glasses in her hand, looking over some scrolls. "Hullo, Harry." She chewed on the arm of her glasses.

"Darling," Harry said. "I called earlier, but everyone was out."

"Yes," Hermione said vaguely. "I had to head back to the office right after dinner. Celestine took the kids to the Muggle cinema around the corner."

"Oh," Harry said. It was an old ritual on the many Friday nights when Hermione had to work late. "Hope Albie doesn't wake up with nightmares." That too was part of the tradition.

"Hmmm," Hermione replied. "Harry... How is everyone there?"

"What?" Harry asked. "Fine. Everyone's fine. And there? Everything's okay?"

Hermione nodded.

"Well," Harry said, "I have to do some work too. Ginny's helping me with a project."

"I see." She shook her head. "Can I ask you something? Has she talked to you at all about Luna?"

This caught Harry off-guard. "Luna? You mean, her being pregnant? No. But Neville thinks..." Now Harry shook his head.

"Hmm."

"You're still coming up on Tuesday, aren't you?"

"Yes." She pursed her lips. "Harry?"

"Yes?"

She gazed at him for a moment through the flames. "I love you."

"I love you, too, luv."

When Harry pulled his head out of the fireplace, it didn't stop spinning, even when it had cleared the flames. He felt ridiculous, but he couldn't get rid of the feeling that Hermione wasn't telling him something.

He stumbled downstairs, cradled the Pensieve in his arms and walked it up to Remus's living room. Dumbledore had said that the device was perfect for sorting out thoughts when your head got too crowded. Well, Harry sorely needed that at the moment. With some difficulty, he plucked out a series of memories--Albie flying, Percy at the table, Hermione snapping at him about, well, Percy.

Further back. Discussing Harry coming to Hogwarts. Last fall, the dinner party, where Luna told them all that she was pregnant. And Ginny...

Lying in bed, weeping in Hermione's arms, telling her he had always loved her, would always love her.

Albie's birth.

The day Hermione took over the office of Minister for Magic. All of them standing there--the two girls, so young, all of the Weasleys and their various spouses, come to pay their respects. People from the DA, from the Order, from Hogwarts. And everyone beaming. Everyone except Snape. And Percy.

Visiting Hermione's office, back when she was an Unspeakable, and walking in to find her yelling at Percy, both of them red-faced.

Minnie's birth, and Sidi's. Lord, how could he ever have forgotten the smell? Hermione's body, with which she had such a complicated relationship, doing something so remarkable and terrifying. And the miracle of watching this little purple puppet, this wet Mandrake, take a breath and turn pink. Like magic.

That Christmas party, telling everyone Hermione was pregnant. Ginny hiding behind Neville's arm.

As he was sorting through the last memory--the wedding--Harry felt the actual Ginny's presence, watching the exchange of vows at his side. "Do you mind if I watch?" she asked. "I don't want to intrude."

"Don't worry about it," Harry croaked, and pointed up to the wedding party, to where Ginny was standing in a lavender dress at Hermione's side. "You were here, you know."

"Yeah," Ginny sighed. "I know." They watched in silence; Harry heard himself speak the lines from the Book of Ruth far too loudly, making all of the guests laugh, and watched as Hermione, radiantly tearful, repeated the lines so quietly she could barely be heard over the rustle of her dress and the gentle breeze blowing through the arbor in the Burrow's back yard that had served as their chapel.

He noticed both Ginnies, then and now, chewing on their lips, and sighed.

"So," whispered Ginny, as Hermione placed the ring on memory-Harry's finger, "what are you looking for?"

Harry groaned and shook his head. "I'm looking... I'm looking for the lie. For what I missed that somehow led away from... that." He watched as Hermione and his own memory-self kissed, to joyous applause.

Ginny stared at him, hard. "Do you really think Percy and Hermione?..."

Harry shrugged. "Why not? Look at us, at you and me. Could easily have happened, don't you think?"

Ginny scowled as the newlyweds skipped gleefully back up the aisle, followed by the maid-of-honor (Ginny herself) and the best man (Ron). "Okay. Fine. Look at us. We haven't done anything, have we? I mean, think about it, Harry, we're lovely people, you and me, but who would you trust to have a more tenacious grasp on the straight-and-narrow, you and me, or Hermione and my stick-in-the-mud brother?"

"Yeah," Harry said, although he was not sure that this argument reassured him terribly. "Yeah, I suppose you're right."

Neville trouped by, with Hermione's sister Lydia, the last of the wedding party, followed by the Drs. Granger. "Lord," Harry sighed. "Hermione's dad. He's not much older than I am now. I'd forgotten he ever looked that... healthy."

"Yeah, well, I'd forgotten any of us ever looked so alive." Ginny was watching the still-barefaced Neville, who was seeking her younger self out in the crowd that was knotted around the married couple.

Harry collapsed into a chair that had just been vacated by a limping Mrs. Figg.

"Harry," Ginny said, "you still love Hermione, don't you?"

The stew of undifferentiated emotion that was simmering away in Harry's gut spewed forth as spite. "Of course I do. What kind of a question is that? Would I be such a mess if I didn't?"

"Look," Ginny growled, "this is getting boring. You can beat yourself up about something that didn't happen. I'll leave you to it." And with a ripple, she disappeared from the memory.

Oh, damn, Harry thought, and left the Pensieve himself. Ginny was putting on her robes and getting ready to leave--not as furious as she had been the other night, but distinctly unchuffed, as Ron had put it.

"Look, Ginny..."

"Forget it, Harry. Forget it." She began to leave, then turned back. "It was just a bloody kiss, all right? I mean, it was nice, wallowing in all that teenage randiness, but bloody hell, Harry, it was just a kiss..." With a deep intake of breath, she uncrossed her arms. "I'm sorry. I just feel like you're making a bloody epic poem out of the whole thing. Why can't we just enjoy each other's company and leave it at that?"

"Yeah," Harry nodded, "the whole guilt thing, it is boring, I know. Sorry."

"Bye..." She waved off his apology, started to leave again, and then turned back. "Oh, wait. That wasn't the memory you wanted me to see, was it? The wedding? Was there something else?"

In all of the turmoil since Harry had first seen Ginny with the Pensieve--Sidi, Alithea, Hermione--Harry had quite forgotten Neville's proposal. "Uh, yeah, Ginny, but it's late. Do you think Severus would mind? I could show you tomorrow."

Ginny looked at Harry quizzically, her dark eyes flashing. "I don't think he cares. Doesn't like the bloody thing, he says. Makes you spend all of your time facing backwards." Harry shivered. "Look, I'll come up after the Quidditch match, okay?"

"Why don't I bring this down to your rooms? Once the match is over."

Slowly, Ginny nodded, then she touched him on the shoulder and left, her robes susurrating gently as she passed through the outer office and down the stairs.

Harry shut the Pensieve away in a cabinet, next to a broken Sneakoscope.