Sunshine or Shadows

Chapter 2. Ginny and Harry, Sitting in a Tree

Several hours after her mother went inside, Ginny turned onto her back to relieve her shoulder from the stiffening pain that was developing. She had taken up residence high in the garden's oak tree in the tiny playhouse that Bill and Charlie had built over a decade ago, and waited patiently for what was to come. It hadn't taken long for Ginny to finally piece together what might have caused the colors and shapes of the light emissions she'd seen earlier in the top windows of the house, and she was now certain that her brother and his friends were preparing their things for a journey of some type. She was positive, now, that the orange light flashes had come from Expanding and Reducing spells and she could only come to one conclusion as to what the three might be expanding and reducing: their trunks and their belongings.

Determined to see them off, but also not wanting to draw any unwanted attention, Ginny stuffed herself up into the treehouse and forced her brain to stay awake as she sat there listening for the screen door and as the sky gave in to impossible darkness. She knew that Harry and company wouldn't be able to Apparate from inside the house with the new wards that the Order had set up; they would leave from the ugly garden, Ginny had decided. It had become a favorite point of departure for members of the Weasley house and their visitors as its Oak tree provided ample cover - shielding comings and goings from neighbors - and because it was situated close to the back door.

As Ginny rotated her shoulder, massaging it with her hand and wishing that the temperature outside would just drop a bit so she could be a little bit less uncomfortable, she heard with startling clarity the sound she had been waiting for: the dull thud of the screen door bashing against its frame. The sound was followed by a soft, feminine "Shush!" and then by the scuffing of trainers on the back porch. She sat up abruptly, bumping her head in the process on a low point in the steeply slanted treehouse roof, and trained her eyes on the approaching figures. As Ginny waited for the stars that had erupted in her vision to clear, she saw Harry walking toward the garden, followed closely by her brother and Hermione, who looked to be holding hands.

"Ron," Hermione whispered anxiously, "do you have the checklist?" Ron nodded and handed what looked to Ginny like a small bit of parchment over to Hermione, releasing her hand as he did so and looking about him with shifty eyes as if he was a cheesy Muggle detective. Ginny smiled at the image. She watched as Hermione began to rattle off the items of the list, and as Ron muttered an important, "Check," after each one.

"Harry," Ginny whispered once the stealthiest of the trio had reached his destination right under her hiding spot.

Harry's head shot up in Ginny's direction and he stared blankly at her for a moment before putting a finger up to his mouth to indicate that she should keep silent. Even in the darkness of the evening, Ginny couldn't help but notice how attractive those lips were. She stared at his mouth for a moment and allowed her vivid imagination to assist her eyes, remembering that Harry had sort of full, generous lips for a bloke: the kind that made for a sweet smile and an even sweeter kiss.

"Hermione, Ron," Harry whispered to the pair, "I'll be right with you. I've got to check for something in my rucksack." He pointed to his eye as he said this, causing Hermione to gasp and she opened her mouth to speak.

Harry cut her off with another of his finger-to-the-lips gestures. "I know," he said, still whispering, but more loudly now that he'd put some distance between himself and the pair. "I'll use Muffliato, and I'll illuminate the sack up here in this treehouse so no one will see or hear anything even if they do come out." Hermione glanced up at the treehouse and nodded her head, returning her attention to Ron and the piece of parchment she was holding.

"Harry," Ginny repeated.

Harry gave her a nod and walked over to the oak, hoisting a tattered rucksack over his right shoulder and climbing up the knotted rope to join her. Once he had settled himself, crouching low against the back of the small space, he drew his wand from his back pocket and issued an incantation.

"Muffliato," he said, then he stowed his wand and directed a curious gaze toward Ginny, who offered him a shy smile.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi," Harry returned with a crooked grin. He looked like a little boy, Ginny thought, who was risking going to bed without supper in order to sneak outside to meet up with his girlfriend.

"Going somewhere?" Ginny asked, figuring that she might as well get the obvious out of the way.

"Umm..." Harry responded

"It's okay," Ginny soothed. "I know that you can't tell me anything." She caught his eye as Harry lifted his head back up, looking somewhat relieved, and she added, "And, I know that whatever it is you're up to, it's probably really important."

Harry nodded, keeping his eyes trained on Ginny's and she noticed for the first time since seeing him that he wasn't wearing his glasses. "No wonder he looks like such a child," she thought.

"Missing something?" Ginny asked, pointing at the crook of Harry's nose and smiling when he scrunched it.

"Yeah," Harry said. "I put my glasses in my rucksack earlier because Ron stepped on them and I thought it'd be best if I waited for Hermione to do the repair...I think I mist have accidentally shrunk them when I was trying to make everything fit, and now they're too small to find..."

"And you think you can find them up here? In the dark?" Ginny asked, perplexed as to how in the world he planned to accomplish such a thing, given that the two of them took up every cubic inch of volume as things stood.

"Yeah," Harry said again. "I'll just tell them that I couldn't manage it, and I'll get my glasses sorted out later." He smiled again, sending a flutter through Ginny as she comprehended his meaning; he was there in this crowded and dirty little treehouse to give her a proper goodbye.

"I don't need to see in order to Apparate, anyway," he joked. "I'll just hold on to Ron's shirttail and wish for the best."

Ginny gave in to a fleeting impulse and turned her head just enough to place a quick kiss on Harry's temple, mesmerized by the look of his profile without the wire of his glasses cutting across it. The gesture seemed to have taken Harry a bit by surprise, though, and he recoiled like a startled animal, bumping his head in the process.

An insensitive giggle escaped as Ginny watched Harry rub his head gingerly. "Scared much?" she asked, smiling coyly.

"Umm...'course not," Harry muttered, shifting his eyes uncomfortably under Ginny's scrutiny.

"Come on, Harry," she said. With much effort, she rearranged her body so that she was sitting on her knees, facing her uneasy guest in order to give him a bit more space to breath. "I just think that we should say some things to each other...before you go off to fight the baddies and save the wizarding world or whatever."

Harry lifted his eyes and found Ginny's. He was breathing deeply and seemed to be flushing in the heat. "We're not going off to do that, it's just a few things that we need to find," he said. "Ginny, I wish that I could tell you. I really do."

Ginny scooted closer, sliding her knees along the rough timber of the treehouse's floor, and dipped her head down to bring it level with Harry's. "That's not what I want to talk about," she said, moving forward again until she was kneeling before Harry, cradled between his long legs which were bent at the knees and sticking outward at long angles. Harry's chest was rising and falling noticeably now, and Ginny placed her hands on each side of his head, suppressing a giggle that was threatening to escape. Harry was flustered, she could tell, but she needed to do this. They needed to do this.

"What do you want to talk about, then?" Harry breathed.

Ginny couldn't quite make out his eyes, there in the blackness of their crowded accommodations, and she felt a growing desire to look into those green depths, unimpeded by glass, just once. There was something about Harry's eyes, she thought, that just made her feel so much better about everything. She settled upon recalling a memory, derived from one of their stolen visits to the lake at Hogwarts, in which she could clearly remember staring into those beautiful eyes, unencumbered, while he attempted to recover from a rather passionate snog.

"Are you laughing?" Harry asked.

"Sorry, was I?" Ginny replied, embarrassed that she'd let her imagination carry her away with it. "Okay, then," she said and she strengthened her hold on Harry's head and leaned in for a gentle kiss.

The gentle kiss quickly graduated into the most intense snog of Ginny's life. "One for the memory books," she thought, as she hastened to recover her senses. Harry had somehow found a way to lean the two over and they kissed and fondled with an almost frantic urgency for what must have been fifteen minutes or so, feeling quite alone despite the fact that her overprotective brother was still, undoubtedly, within cursing distance from them. Ginny wondered whether she had at one point or another stuck a foot out of the tree house opening, or whether Harry would soon be developing a cramp in one or both of his long legs. She giggled at the thought, trying to picture what the two of them must look like, if there was any light left in the world to see with.

"Quit laughing," Harry quipped. "It doesn't do much for a bloke's ego." He tried to free an arm that had been pinned between himself and Ginny, and he squirmed around a bit to untangle his legs from where they had been intertwined with hers. Ginny giggled again at the predicament they found themselves in: stuffed inside of a tiny little wooden house, all entangled as they were.

"All right," she said. "I'll quit laughing if you'll quit trying to move. We've got to sort this out one limb at a time, I'm afraid." She hoisted herself up and leaned back on her knees, freeing Harry from his entrapments and smiling down at him while he stretched an arm and groaned.

"Comfy?" she asked.

"Perfect," Harry replied, grinning.

"I love you," Ginny said. "That's what I wanted to talk about."

Harry stared at her. For a second of two, Ginny caught a bit of bluish light that had appeared for some reason at the treehouse's opening, and she watched Harry's naked eyes as he stared at her in bewilderment. He reached a hand up to his scar and touched it. The purpose of this gesture, Ginny couldn't surmise, but she quickly lost the inclination to consider it any further when Harry sat up and pulled her toward him for another fervent kiss. She groaned lightly as he worked his fingers through her hair, peppering her mouth with a series of short, wet, kisses before delving in and exciting every nerve in her body.

Harry's hand worked to bring her even closer, pressing his lips to hers almost painfully. Their teeth clashed this time when she opened her mouth to receive Harry's kiss: not hard enough to cause orthodontic concern, but it was definitely enough to let Ginny know that she'd awoken something inside of Harry.

Something pressed on her leg and Ginny realized that it was Harry, trying to maintain his balance by squeezing his long limbs around hers. He must be terribly uncomfortable, she thought, folded up as he was and squashed once again into the playhouse's odd, angular back wall. She smiled into their kiss, thinking that he didn't seem be too put out by the arrangements. His concentration seemed still to be focused on massaging her neck and causing perfect little pulses of ecstasy to course through her while he continued to administer the most wanton kiss that Ginny had ever been treated to.

When the intensity of the kiss threatened to overwhelm her, Ginny let out an inadvertent grunt, and Harry released her.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm so sorry. I just..."

Ginny leaned forward and gave him another kiss, letting him know that he didn't need to feel embarrassed for wanting so badly to be loved. She tried to bring a hand up to his face, but stumbled, realizing too late that she had been using that hand to balance herself. As she fought to regain her balance, Ginny noticed with a surge of disappointment that the bluish light had grown brighter and was now accompanied by the faint sound of someone clearing their throat.

"I...I love you too," Harry whispered, sending a shock wave through Ginny that made her feel almost numb.

Harry blinked as the light caught his eyes and he held a hand up to block it. Ginny too put a hand up and squinted into the blue beam, cringing under the dawning realization that Harry was being summoned by the rapid crescendo of delicate coughing sounds. He appeared at her side now, somehow having been able to turn himself around, and was sporting the rucksack on his shoulder, getting ready to throw a leg over the edge of the opening. With a frown, he drew out his wand again and released the Muffliato spell.

"I'm coming, Hermione," he whispered, sharply. "I'm coming, just...just give me a moment, okay?"

"Can't," Hermione whispered back, pointing the light of her wand directly at Ginny's face now and offering a hint of a smile. "I would love to, you know that," she said, "but...I heard noises in the house. Someone's up." She lowered her wand slightly so that it no longer glared in Ginny's eyes, and added, "We've got to go now."

Ginny stole one last quick peck on the side of Harry's spectacle-free face, and steeled herself for the wave of loss that was about to hit her. She smiled winningly at the three, watching Harry as he climbed down the knots of the rope and shrugged his shoulders at Hermione, whose scrutinizing gaze was directed at his nose - undoubtedly noticing that it still lacked glasses.

"Bye," Harry said, letting a little of that deeply masculine voice seep through the whisper.

Ginny shook her head. No, she thought, I'm not saying goodbye. I won't. She glanced up at the Burrow and noticed a flicker of candlelight making its way from a window on the third floor to a window on the second floor.

"Go," she whispered, almost desperately. "I love you guys, now go. Go save the world."

The three travelers nodded and ran behind the oak tree, drawing their wands. As they stood there, Ginny noticed that they did not seem to have trunks with them, just Harry's rucksack and a gaudy beaded bag that Hermione clutched clumsily with her free hand. Hermione gave a little smile and a wave before Apparating and Ron whispered, "Bye Sis, take care of Mum," and pointed his wand at his chest before disappearing from Ginny's view.

"I will," she whispered back, lifting her eyes to Harry's. He had his wand pointed at his chest as well, and was staring intently at the back of the Burrow.

"We'll...it'll all be okay. It will, Ginny," Harry said before closing his eyes to begin his Aparrition.

"I know it will," Ginny replied, staring out into the garden again now that Harry's form had dissolved into the night. "Somehow, one way or another, we'll be together again."

Ginny climbed down from the treehouse and faced the steps of the back porch. Someone was awake in there, she thought, and it was probably her mum, as the woman had the keenest ability to sense when people were sneaking around that Ginny had ever come across. She braced herself for the interrogations that would follow: some tonight and some in the morning as the Order gathered at the Burrow for their weekly "get together".

She couldn't lie so boldly under normal circumstances, Ginny reflected, but she had a sense that things hadn't been normal for some time now, and an alibi took shape in her mind which Ginny hoped would be sufficient. She needed to make the house's inhabitants believe that Harry Potter and his friends had figured out a way to break the Burrow's wards and had Apparated from their rooms while she, Ginny, slept peacefully in the quiet confines of the treehouse in the old oak tree.

She smiled as the story repeated itself in her head. It would do, she thought, and she entered her beloved childhood home through the back door and stuck a foot in the threshold to keep the screen door from slamming. Soon, she would be called upon to ease her mother's worries and to allay the Order's doubts, and she felt more confident in her role by the minute. Harry loved her, she loved Harry, and Ginny allowed the newfound knowledge to seep into her being and strengthen her resolve.

She and her mum would find their own roles in the war, she knew, and perhaps if they had any time left between fighting evil and going back to Hogwarts, they could work on the garden a bit and get it ready for the spring. Perhaps next spring, Ginny mused, would find herself and Harry on the stone bench sharing kisses in one of those "stolen, romantic interludes" that her Mum had waxed on about.

"Yes," she thought, "I think I'll start on the garden first thing in the morning," and she rubbed her eyes and peered innocently at the stairwell to await the arrival of whomever was descending it. For a brief moment, she rather wished she hadn't slipped that petrified bouquet of four-leaf clovers into Harry's pocket, but the thought slid appropriately back into the basement of her mind immediately.

"No," she thought. "Harry will need the luck this time, I'll just have to rely on my wits."

And with that thought bolstering her Gryffindor courage, Ginny stepped into the foyer to face her family and to protect the mysterious but undoubtedly important, secret plans of her brother, her friend and the wizard she loved.