Rows

Rows

So many Muggles.

Ginny's forehead pressed against the glass of the train as she gazed at the suburban sprawl spinning past. Row after row of houses flashed by--brick, most of them, and indistinguishable. She remembered her first trip on the Hogwart's Express, laughing with Luna at the way that the lines of trees in an orchard that they passed seemed to rotate like spokes on a wheel.

All the while, trying not to think that she had done something to keep Harry and Ron from coming to the train. Trying not to worry about them.

Git.

This didn't have any of that magic. For all that it was bustling, there was something empty about this landscape, its row houses and pocket parks and schoolyards with rusting swings, and it made Ginny sad.

Not that she needed the help.

Hermione, of course, had told her to go. He needs to see you, she'd said. You need to talk to each other and the wedding won't work. And she'd arranged for Ginny to spend the day before the big event with her at her family's Bayswater flat, supposedly doing some last-minute shopping before the big event. Mum had been happy enough to have her gone, mad as she was with preparations for the trip to France, so Ginny had Floo'd down the night before. And they'd both cried a lot over takeaway curry and Italian wine and denounced all boys as gits and blackguards. Well, Hermione had said blackguards. Ginny had used a much shorter, older word.

Then this morning, Hermione had waited until her parents were busy in their surgery--having told them they'd be seeing the sights that day--had dragged Ginny down to Victoria Station, a timetable in her hand, and had gently but emphatically shoved Ginny onto the appropriate South West line train.

And here Ginny was, watching London turn into Surrey, and wondering why anyone would want to live here when they could live in Ottery St. Catchpole. Or London, for that matter.

The train slowed, pulling into a station. Ginny checked against the map on the bulkhead. Two more stops.

"Going far?"

Ginny started.

A boy was sitting just below the railway map, dark-haired and pale. Well, a man really--a little older than the twins, perhaps. He smiled apologetically.

"Great Whinging," Ginny answered, having no reason not to.

"Nah, you sound perfectly happy to me." When Ginny gave him her best 'stupid-boy' scowl, he just smiled. "Sorry. Old joke. It's right after Virginia Water. Just another twenty minutes or so."

Ginny nodded. A woman struggled by, a baby on one hip and a fold-up pram on the other.

"Going to see a boyfriend?" the dark-haired boy-man asked.

Ginny held in a groan. There'd been a reason not to answer him after all. Boys. Gits and blackguards. "Yes, I am. We haven't been able to see each other since the summer hols started."

Nodding, the boy said, "I thought. You've been staring out that window, looking as full of excitement and dread as I feel."

In spite of herself, Ginny arched an eyebrow.

The boy laughed, a short, sad bark. "Yeah, I thought so."

"Are you going to visit your girlfriend?" Ginny asked, figuring it was both the logical question, and one that would give him one more reason not to flirt with her.

He shrugged. "Going to see if I still have one." His dark brown eyes flicked down to the battered book in his lap.

"Oh," Ginny murmured. She really didn't want to know, didn't want to hear his tale of woe, and yet something about this boy, this man seemed like he might hold a key. To something. When he looked back up, she held his gaze. "What did you do?"

Again, the sad, barking laugh. "Nothing romantic. No big rows. No affairs with other girls. I just..." He grunted and looked up the aisle. "Look, if I... If a boy broke it off with you, and then came crawling back, would you take him?"

A frisson of nausea fluttered through Ginny's middle. Here she was the one... "That depends. Why did you break it off?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Well..." He looked down into his lap again. "She deserves better than me. That's why. I'm..." Squeezing his eyes closed, he muttered, "I'm sick, see? I'm dying." He glanced up and took in her shock. "Nothing catching, I promise! It's cancer. And I might have ten years, or I might have ten months."

"Oh," Ginny said.

"After I found out, I just..." He shrugged. "I just thought she deserved better than me."

Again, Ginny forced down her rising gorge. "Did you ask her what she thought?"

The boy shook his head and gave a sad grin. "'Course not. Didn't give her the chance, did I? Told her on the phone and just hung up. And now she won't answer my calls."

"So you're going to tell her you were wrong?"

"Yeah." He peered at her, clearing trying to gauge Ginny's reaction.

Poor bugger. "Well, I don't know. How badly do you want to be with her?"

His eyes shone bright. He didn't answer.

"If it was me, I'd understand, but I'd still want to kill you."

He looked away from her and out of the window to where greenery was now flashing by. Ginny hadn't even noticed that they'd started again.

She reached across the aisle and touched his forearm, evoking a shiver. "So if you want her, let her know she can kill you if she wants, but you don't care, you know? That you still love her."

Nodding, he wiped his nose. "Thanks."

Ginny nodded.

They rode in silence. Too soon, they were pulling into another station. "You're the next stop after," he said.

She nodded again. Leaning back, she watched as their train slowed to a halt. In a carriage on the opposite track, a young girl was crying disconsolately in her mother's arms.

"You sound like you're speaking from experience," said the boy.

She locked eyes with him. She couldn't say it.

Nodding, he stood. "My stop. Wish me luck."

"Good luck."

With a wave, he smiled and walked down the aisle. "You too."

It occurred to Ginny as she watched him shuffling off of the train and onto the platform that she would likely never see this man again, even if he did get his ten years. She was surprised by how much she hoped that he did get them.

Too many Muggles.

***

Walking past dozens of indistinguishable pastel-colored Little Whinging houses, Ginny found her inner sense of dread growing. What was she doing here? Why hadn't she been able simply to live up to the agreement that they'd made at Professor Dumbledore's funeral? She'd have had her chance to see him in just another day, on the way to Bill and Fleur's wedding.

But she couldn't wait. Not any more.

For the past week she'd played the good girl. Brave, funny Ginny Weasley. But the fact of the matter was that Brave, Funny Ginny Weasley was a mask that she couldn't keep up any more. Those five weeks of being with Harry this spring had shattered the self-assured pretense that she'd built up around herself since her first year of school, and she was back to the blushing, uncertain idiot who had squeaked when the Boy Who Lived had appeared out of nowhere in her kitchen that August morning.

He had been her birthday wish. She had closed her eyes, crossed her fingers and prayed that she her brother's best friend would come and fall in love with her.

Well, he had come. He hadn't fallen in love. Not then, anyway.

And that was the worm that gnawed at her, destroying her trust that things would work out.

What did Harry feel for her? It was impossible to guess; he made her brothers look emotionally literate. Hermione swore up and down that Harry's sun rose and set on Ginny, but, though she might be Harry's best friend as well as a genius, Hermione's own understanding of boys and their feelings wasn't always exactly brilliant. Look at how she'd completely misread Ron. Not that Ron had helped.

Not that Ginny herself had helped. When she'd lashed out at her brother, it had been in part out of humiliation at his accusations, and in part out of discomfort at the intense, burning stare that Harry was giving her. Together they had set her off like sparks to dry tinder. What she hadn't meant was for Ron to go and snog Lavender. Idiot.

That burning look of Harry's had been her first clue. The burning look and her own discomfort at being its target. But Harry had never come out and said "I love you" or even "Let's have some laughs together" the way Dean had. The closest he'd gotten to telling her what it was he did or didn't feel for her was at that awful funeral, and then it had been to say that their time together had felt like someone else's life. What the hell did that mean?

There had been times when he'd lain, his head in her lap, looking up at her, those green eyes stripping her naked. Her soul, naked. Not her body. Well, not just her body. And yet he had seemed so happy, so pleased with whatever it was that he saw.

Bugger. Bloody hell.

She was the same idiot she had been at eleven. Wishing on a bloody candle.

Privet Drive.

The street looked just like every other street in the entire bloody village. The houses were square, pale and utterly lacking in personality. Every window was closed, and all of the shades pulled tight. Manicured lawns and gaudy flowerbeds. Other than a few cats--all of which oddly seemed to have some Kneazle ancestry--there wasn't a living creature sharing the mid-day sidewalk with Ginny.

It was everything the Burrow was not, and Ginny hated it. Hated that Harry Potter--her Harry Potter--had had to grow up in such a sterile hellhole.

Number four was the second house in on the left, a mint green that managed even so to look bland.

Ginny stood at the bottom of the walk and suffered one last crisis of nerve. Would he be happy to see her? Would he be angry? Would he yell at her? Here he'd told her to stay away--he wasn't likely to be pleased that she'd invaded his family prison.

Ginny tried to tell herself to walk away. If Harry yelled at her, she knew herself too well to think that she'd take it quietly. They'd row, and that would tear her apart and distract him, just when he needed distraction least. She'd seen the house. She'd been close to him--she could feel him nearby, as if he were one of the lodestones that Professor Flitwick liked to play with and she were nothing more than a shapeless, directionless pile of iron shavings following him around.

But that wasn't true. She did have a direction. She did have desire, and it was aimed at him, and she couldn't take this any more.

Before she had the time to freeze again, Ginny strode up the walk and knocked firmly on the door.

She had hoped that Harry would be alone in the house, that he would be the one to welcome her into his aunt and uncle's house. Or not welcome her.

But when the door pulled open, the face in the crack was that of a bony, horse-faced woman. Harry's aunt. "Yes?" the woman said, suspicious.

"Mrs. Dursley?" The woman's eyes narrowed even further. "My name..." Ginny didn't want to mention her last name, knowing that every encounter Harry's aunt had had with Ginny's family had been a disaster. "I'm Ginny. I'm a friend of Harry's. May I speak to him?"

The woman's face dropped, making it even longer. She stared at Ginny open-mouthed for a moment, and then scanned her from head to foot. After a small eternity of silence, Petunia Dursley shook herself and opened the door. "Of course. Please, come in."

This wasn't at all what Ginny had expected. She'd anticipated having to throw rocks at Harry's window. "Thank you."

Harry's aunt continued to stare at Ginny as she came into the entryway. Frankly, she looked as if she'd seen a ghost, and not necessarily one that she was used to having visit.

Struggling for calm, Ginny asked, "Would you like me to wait here? Would you like to let him know that I'm here, or--"

With a blink, the woman snapped to again. "Harry is in his room. You're Ginny Weasley, are you?"

Oh, dear. "Yes, ma'am."

"Ah." Lips pursed, the woman muttered, "I should have known... I think it best if you went up yourself, Miss Weasley. I think that Harry would like that best." She pointed up the stair beside her. Behind her would be the cupboard...

Curiouser and curiouser. Nodding, Ginny began to ascend the stair when she felt a bony hand on her shoulder.

"He has spoken about you, Miss Weasley. He has... missed you." The woman's dry face seemed at war with itself, as if speaking to Ginny were the last thing she wanted to do, and yet she felt compelled to do it any way. "I am sure that he has told you much about us. Please do not judge us too harshly. We did not..." For a moment, Mrs. Dursley seemed to win the fight over control of her tongue, only to lose it again. "Has he ever shown you a picture of his mother, my sister?"

Not certain that the woman wasn't barking mad, Ginny shook her head.

"Hmmm. Do get him to do that. Miss Weasley. Ginny." She began to turn away, her hand trembling as it brushed at non-existent lint on her apron. "Oh, and do tell my nephew that lunch will be ready at 1:00. I hope you will join us." Jerkily, Petunia walked back along the hallway towards what Ginny supposed was the kitchen.

Ginny discovered as the woman strode away that her heart was racing. What was that? Shaking her head, she walked up the stairs. Now, which door...?

But Ginny didn't need any help figuring out which room was Harry's. Locks. Cat flap. Horrible.

Hi, Harry. Hey there, Harry. Look, Harry, I know you said we shouldn't be involved any more, but sod that. And besides, boys don't get to break it off with me, so why don't you just hold still while I punch you in the nose...

She knocked tremulously on the door.