Sunshine or Shadows

Chapter 10. Hogsmeade with Harry

It was late, way past midnight, Ginny thought, and stray light still spilled into her room in Gryffindor tower. Someone had left a coach light on out on the grounds, and she was staring out the window at it, perched on the wide windowsill.

"Ginny?"

Natalie sat up in her bed and stared sleepily at her. "Why are you up?" she asked through a yawn.

"Someone left a stupid light on," Ginny whispered, not wishing to wake up the girls in the room next door. "How could I sleep with that blasted light glaring at me?"

Natalie rubbed her eyes and sat up straighter against the bed board. "You're crazy, Ginny," she said. "It's plenty dark in here. Why don't you come back to bed, we've got to look our best for the big trip to Hogsmeade tomorrow."

Ginny turned from the window and smiled at her friend. "Oh, are we going to Hogsmeade tomorrow?" she asked, impishly batting her eyelashes. "I hadn't remembered."

"Right," Natalie said. "You've only been whining nonstop since I met you on the train about it. Hogsmeade this, Hogsmeade that. I tell you, Ginny Weasley, if I'm anything short of enchanted with the place after a solid month's worth of buildup, you're going to hear about it."

Ginny laughed. Natalie Stewart had quickly become one of her favorite people. So much had changed at Hogwarts, with so many students and professors gone and so many new arrivals, that Ginny probably would have considered running off to join Harry, Ron and Hermione in London after all if it weren't for her growing fondness for the witch. The two seventh years had a room all to themselves due to the fact that there were now six less students living in Gryffindor tower than usual: losses had been high among Gryffindors in last spring's fight.

Natalie was always keen to lend an ear to Ginny's Quidditch problems and kept the Gryffindor girls entertained with stories of Luna's zany family, seeming to delight in the new discoveries she was making every day at Hogwarts. She was an interesting girl: bright and exotic-looking with a father from Kenya and an English mother just as pale as Luna. It hadn't taken long for Ginny and Natalie to develop a warm friendship, and Ginny was genuinely relieved to have someone to talk to who was so much more like herself than the rest of her friends.

"What are you thinking about?" Natalie asked. She had settled herself back in her bed, and pulled her covers up around her as she spoke. "Come back to bed, Ginny."

"I will," Ginny replied. She hopped off the window sill and stretched her back. "I was just thinking of my mum and dad. I promised myself I'd write twice a week, when I left, and I haven't sent an owl for two weeks now."

"Guilt keeping you up, then?" Natalie prodded.

"No. Yes...maybe." Ginny said, moving over to her bed. She pulled back her blankets and slid under them, grabbing a pillow and hugging it as she addressed her friend.

"How are they, anyway?" Natalie asked.

"Fine, I guess," Ginny admitted. She paused to consider whether she really did know how her parents were fairing. The letters she received from her mum were all sunshine and rainbows, which left her little to go on. "Dad is very busy with his new position at the Ministry and they've started a project to update the scullery in the back of the kitchen -- Muggle style. That keeps him busy and gives Mum something to fret over."

"And how is your mum?" Natalie prodded.

"I don't know, honestly," Ginny said. "She and Andromeda Tonks have become thick as thieves. Mum usually just writes to tell me about Mrs. Tonks' little grandson, Teddy. She visits hospitals during the day and brings bakery to the children staying there. She keeps busy, I guess."

"That's the best you can hope for, then, isn't it?" Natalie asked.

Ginny sighed. She supposed that it was, but it didn't do much to diminish any of the guilt she felt in leaving her mum alone in an empty Burrow. "Yeah," she said.

"So," Natalie said through another yawn, "are you going to be a good girl and drop that grudge you've been carrying since you came here and be a nice girlfriend tomorrow to Harry Potter?"

Ginny reached behind her and tossed a spare pillow at Natalie. "Wench," she said. "I have been a perfectly nice girlfriend, thank you very much." She narrowed her eyes menacingly and gave her friend a glaring stare. "And, what Harry Potter doesn't know about what I may or may not have been saying in the strictest confidence of a cherished friendship --"

"I get it. I get it," Natalie said, chuckling into her pillow before giving another yawn and pulling her covers up higher. "My lips are sealed on the Harry Potter bashing. Now, good night - you won't look very pretty tomorrow for our big date if you stay up any later."

"Stop calling him 'Harry Potter'," Ginny said, smiling back. "He's just Harry. And I've already given up on "pretty", but you've still got a chance if we shut it now, I suppose."

"Okay, 'night Ginny," Natalie said, turning over and pulling her covers over her head.

"'night," Ginny replied.

She wouldn't sleep, she thought. She'd been at the window, missing Harry and staring at the coach light that had been thoughtlessly left to burn through the night. All wrapped up in her own misery, Ginny had once again allowed her memories and imagination get the best of her. She was recalling how she used to sit in a similar windowsill in the room directly below this one, staring out into the night and telling herself, over and over, that Harry would be all right. He would come out of this thing.

It is a far better pain she was in now, of course. She no longer feared that the next time she saw Harry, he would be maimed beyond recognition, dead or even would simply just have disappeared. She just missed him. Plain and simple.

"I mean it, Ginny," Natalie murmured from under her covers. "You're definitely going to look like a troll tomorrow at this point, and you're working on maggot if you keep it up." Her voice trailed off as she spoke and she gave another huge yawn.

Ginny laughed. "Yeah, well...looks aren't everything, are they? Maybe Harry likes me for my quick wit and beguiling personality."

Natalie didn't answer. She had fallen asleep, Ginny assumed. "Fine," she whispered softly, "desert me in my time of need." Under the faint light of the distant coach lamp, Ginny could see well enough to grab her wand and use it to mark another diagonal slash through a set of four vertical lines she'd already burnt into her bedpost earlier. She was marking the days she'd spent in Hogwarts, just as she'd done last year, and using the tally to remind herself that each day that passed brought her closer to Harry. It was a bit pathetic, she admitted, but it helped. A small amount of vandalism and wrongdoing seemed almost necessary, sometimes, to make her feel like herself amidst all that had changed.

Deep into the afternoon on the following day, Professors McGonnagall and Sprout herded the students into the courtyard to make sure all paperwork was in order before sending them off to Hogsmeade for the first trip of the year. Ginny bounced on her toes and stretched her neck to see over her fellow students, trying to gauge how many stood before her in the queue. She was standing shoulder to shoulder with Neville and Natalie, and just behind a daydreaming Luna, trying to remain relatively still while her heart leapt about inside of her ribcage.

"Oh, come on!" she grumbled. "How long does it take to look at a signature, anyway."

Neville cast Ginny a stern look. "She's not a young witch, Ginny. You know that."

Ginny smiled. Neville seemed so old these days. Apprentices spend too much time in the company of older witches and wizards, she mused; he must be picking up a facial expression or two.

"I know," she said. "I just want to get going. I feel like I'm going to burst if I have to wait one more minute."

"One minute and counting..." Natalie said, leaning against Ginny's elbow and laying her head on Ginny's shoulder. "Then we're off to see our Harry Potter."

"Our Harry Potter," Ginny repeated, laughing at her friend's little phrase. "You make him sound like a Muggle cartoon character...and since when am I sharing him?"

"Since always!" Natalie said, pouting now in jest. "I've heard so much about the boy in the papers, and such. And then, I get to Hogwarts and find myself in the unique position of rooming with his girlfriend...I feel like I know Harry Potter as well as I know my own brother by now," she said. "I'm meeting him, and you're not stopping me."

Ginny frowned. Of course, she thought. Natalie and Neville were expecting to be part of a foursome this afternoon. Neville and Harry, after all, were really good friends and Luna was going off on one of her fact-finding missions, having declared earlier that she wanted to search the woods behind the post office for Merryberry bushes. It wouldn't be right, she knew, to expect her new friend and Neville to pal around together while she and Harry sought a bit of solitude, but she couldn't help it if her excitement died just a little bit upon this revelation; like a beautiful bird struck down mid-air, a month's worth of dreaming about dragging her dark-haired, hunk of a boyfriend off to the Shrieking Shack went plummeting to the ground in an awful instant.

"I can't wait to see how things are going at the Ministry," Neville added, painfully oblivious to Ginny's disappointment.

Ginny looked up at him, feeling small against his six foot frame, and managed a hint of a smile. "I'm sure he wants to hear all about you as well," she said pragmatically, adding, "Professor Neville," with a smirk.

"I'm not a professor, Ginny. I thought we'd settled this before." Neville scrunched his brow and adopted his trademark look of bewilderment -- the look that always reminded Ginny of the Neville she'd known all those years ago: the Neville who was always looking for his poor lost toad; the Neville who just didn't get the joke; the Neville who danced with her and blushed every time they strayed closer than two feet from each other.

The smallish students in front of them shifted forward and Ginny took a few large steps to fill in the void, causing Natalie to stumble clumsily. The queue was moving now in earnest and Ginny led her friends to the front, biding her time restlessly by chatting half-heartedly while she nursed her wounded spirits. She felt a bit like Joan of Arc, she reflected: sacrificing her private time with Harry for the good of her sweet friend Neville, and for her blossoming friendship with the new witch in school.

When they at last reached Hogsmeade, Luna drifted off on her shrubbery mission and Neville, Natalie and Ginny headed straight for the Hog's Head. Harry had specifically asked them to meet there, saying that the Three Broomsticks was usually too crowded these days.

'Is this place nice?" Natalie asked as they approached the stained entryway to the tavern.

"No," Neville replied. He pulled open the heavy door without further embellishment, and ushered Ginny and Natalie inside.

"Harry gets too much attention at the Broomsticks," Ginny whispered as the two entered.

Natalie raised her eyebrows and smirked. "Does he, now?" she asked. "And is that him there? Over at that table, way in the back?"

Ginny's heart stopped. For a full second she couldn't breathe: she must have forgotten just how handsome he was.

"Hi guys!" Neville shouted. He pushed forward and gave Hermione a huge hug, greeting Harry and Ron loudly and peppering them with questions straight away.

Ginny felt a tug on her elbow and she looked down at it. Natalie was trying to get her to move. "Am I not moving?" she thought. Inelegantly, she stumbled forward and allowed herself to be led over to the pub table, wondering whether she looked like a patient who Natalie had just escorted out of the mental ward at St. Bartholomew's.

"Ginny!" Harry shouted over Neville's voice, interrupting him and pinning Ginny with a devastating grin. "Ginny!" he repeated. He stood up to pull out a chair as she approached and Ginny sank into it, smiling goofily.

"Hi," she managed.

The others were already chatting in wildly animated tones: Hermione going on about the spells she'd tried out on her new, hopelessly soiled flat; Ron talking about a pre-season Quidditch match he'd just been to with George and Lee; and Neville and Natalie answering questions about the changes that have gone on at Hogwarts. Everyone was talking about everything all at once and Ginny's head was spinning from it. She and Harry were sitting next to each other now, and neither seemed inclined to try and join the circus of a conversation that was going on.

As she watched Natalie exchange a few barbs with Ron about the Cannons' prospects for the year, a warm, wiggling spell hit Ginny square in the middle of her stomach.

"Harry!" she yelped.

"What?" Harry asked. He was grinning again and pulled his wand out from under the table to taunt her with it. "Somebody losing their touch?"

Ginny giggled. "Perhaps," she said. Under the table, a warm hand squeezed hers and she hooked her fingers into it. "How've you been, Potter?" she asked.

"Oh," Harry replied, "I've been fine. Hermione keeps us in schoolwork six hours each evening and I'm working full-time now at the Ministry. My cubicle is on the same floor as your father's old one. It's kind of neat, don't you think?"

"You didn't mention anything about working full-time in your letters," Ginny said.

"I'm sure I did," Harry said. "Perhaps you haven't been reading them properly."

"Not a chance. I've practically memorized each and every one."

"You have?" Harry asked. He was sporting a gleaming expression now.

"Well, the good parts, anyway," Ginny admitted. She had too: any sentence beginning with something along the lines of "I remember when you" or "I can't wait until we" was permanently sketched into her brain now, like the stone etchings she'd seen in Egypt, years ago. She recalled these passages frequently -- usually whenever lessons got a bit boring or when Neville got a bit long-winded about plants over dinner.

Harry looked at the table and lowered his voice. "Me too," he said. "And...how's Quidditch?"

Ginny's lip curled up. "Good. Exceptionally good, actually. We've found a young Seeker -- third year only, who'd rival you in speed and recklessness but doesn't quite have your reflexes. There's a new kid though who can catch any Snitch in sight in ten seconds flat. He's not a fast flyer, but I may just go with him."

"Why don't you then?" Harry asked. "Nine times out of ten it's down to reflexes in the end."

"Well, he's got some of Malfoy's finer qualities...a right a snob, to be honest. It's a bit hard to like the guy."

Harry laughed and stared at his hand. Ginny knew he missed catching Snitches himself, and she wanted to change the subject in case it made him feel envious. "How's work?" she asked.

"Like I said, it's good," Harry replied. "I'm getting pretty good at rounding up the Dementors and we've got a team of Aurors who we work with to guide them back to houses that we've set up. They're amazing -- they know all sorts of spells for hiding ourselves from Muggles, and the ones I've met so far are pretty fair flyers. It's quite a kick when we get a call -- everyone races across the country on their brooms to go hunt the Dementors down, and we've never lost one yet. Not one."

"Well," Ginny said, "that's good. Sounds like you've found your calling...again."

Harry smiled shyly. "And your classes? Are you done with the make-up work?"

"Yes," Ginny said. "I'm now officially just as smart as you. I'm done with my sixth-year work and I'm all caught up to where I'm supposed to be now."

"And your Apparition tests?" Harry asked. He looked hopeful, as he asked it, and Ginny's soaring pride took a little perfunctory dive.

"Er..." she muttered. "Not so good."

"You haven't taken them yet?" Harry asked.

"No," Ginny said. "I've taken them twice."

"Oh."

"Yeah. Oh." Ginny sighed. There was no hiding her own disappointment. She wanted all of the freedom that came with an Apparator's license as badly as she'd wanted the right to practice magic itself. But she hadn't yet even managed to splinch herself.

"Well," Harry said, "it's not as easy as it looks. You'll get it. Just keep trying."

Ginny's forefinger absently rubbed Harry's thumb while they talked. Strangely enough, the loud conversations that had been assaulting her senses ten minutes ago seemed to have faded into whispers, and she was feeling quite alone with her boyfriend, talking about his new, busy, adult-sounding life and relishing in the feel of his Weasley jumper scratching against her wrist under the table.

Without meaning to, she closed her eyes. "Let's get out of here," she said. Natalie and Neville would learn to forgive her, she reasoned. But before any answer came, Hermione's voice rose up out of the background noise.

"It was, wasn't it?" she asked.

Ginny lifted her eyelids and gazed at Hermione who, it seemed, had been speaking to her. "I'm sorry, what?" she asked.

"I was saying," Hermione said, "that it was scary. The thing with George and those Dementors."

"I er...yes. It was horrible, actually," Ginny returned. Right, Hermione, Ron, Neville, Natalie. It had been so easy to forget all of them for a while there. Harry let go of hr hand to scratch the back of his neck, giving a little cough, and Ginny turned toward her friends. "Is he doing well?" she asked.

"Better," said Ron. "He's a right man about town still, but we've got the business all set to open back up before the holidays. Dad says that hard work heals the soul, and George seems to have more time on his hands than is good for him so..."

With a prideful smile, Hermione patted Ron's shoulder. "Ron's been going over the books and learning to make all of the products that Fred used to be responsible for. He's been quite amazing, actually."

"We should have a good stock in hand for Christmas," Ron chirped. "Luckily, though, the twins had loads of galleons stocked up, so we should be all right even if we don't sell anything for an entire year."

"George will still be vulnerable to the Dementors though," Harry added, "so we're keeping a close watch on him."

The strange statement had an the odd affect of drawing quizzical looks from Ginny and Natalie, nods of approval from Ron and Hermione, and a thoughtful chin rub from Neville. "They're getting worse, aren't they?" Neville asked.

Harry nodded. "Every time we round up a group of them, it seems, we get two more reports of sightings in an entirely new area. They've been found in Ireland, France and Spain now...it's pretty bad."

"The suicide rate has doubled in the last quarter," Hermione added, importantly.

"On that note," Natalie said, speaking for the first time since Ginny had decided to pay attention, "is anyone thirsty? I'll go and get us some chips and drinks." She and Ginny sorted out the orders and passed out the drinks while the others continued to trade facts and theories about the last remnant of the Voldemort era that any of them were aware of: the blasted Dementors.

As she watched her friends savor their mugs of butterbeer, Ginny thought about her mum and dad, George, Dennis Creevey, Mrs. Tonks, and all of the people who she knew to be at risk to the types of attacks of the soul that were being discussed at the table; she felt such a strong connection to it all.

Hermione related an idea she had come up with for monitoring the state of the Dementors' arousal so that they could be monitored. Ginny hadn't quite followed the whole story, but it would somehow make the Dementors' bellies glow when feeling amorous.

"And why would we want to do that?" Natalie asked.

"So that we can learn what does it for them...and how to avoid it," Hermione replied. "It'll be the key, I think, to ultimately reducing their numbers...permanently."

"Well, why don't we start with what turns normal creatures on, then, and just think of the opposite?" Ginny asked.

She hadn't realized she'd even spoken it aloud until she saw Harry's face, beaming at her again. "That has merit," he said.

Ginny snorted. He sounded like her dad for a second. "You think so? Well, there's more where that came from," she quipped.

"There is?" Harry leaned in and whispered into Ginny's ear, "Then let's get out of here and you can tell me all of your brilliant ideas."

"I just might," Ginny said. She shot a look of apology toward Natalie, who smiled in return and gave a small wave.

When Ginny and Natalie finally fell down into their beds later that night, it was past two in the morning. The friends had all gathered at Honeyduke's just before closing, where they found Luna milling about and sucking on a candied unicorn horn, clippings of a shiny green shrub with red berries on it sticking out of the pocket of her cloak. They were the last line of students to arrive back at Hogwarts and only narrowly missed being given a detention by outpacing Filch as they raced through the corridors.

In her bed, Ginny wrestled with her drooping eyelids. She wanted to write Harry a letter already so that he'd have it when he awoke. Neville had given her the idea while they were walking back and it sounded so romantic that she decided that she simply had to do it. Sleepiness, however, was winning over and she allowed the darkness to come as her head sank deeper into her pillow. Instead of writing something meaningful to Harry, she used her last moments of consciousness to replay the naughtier moments of the evening - which could be thought of as romantic, she mused, if one looked at it the right way.

Strolling along the cold pavement next to her hunky boyfriend, being pulled into the back room of Zonko's for a mind-numbing snog...listening to Harry Potter tell her again and again how much he had missed her. He thought he was going to go insane, he'd said, if he had to spend another Friday night reviewing Potions essays with Hermione. There was a picture of herself in Harry's cubicle at the Ministry -- how endearingly adorable. He thought about her all the time and had a huge calendar on the icebox with all of the Hogsmeade weekends marked with huge stars. Hermione had been instructed to keep those weekends sacred, and Ginny felt grateful for her friend, who seemed so far to be good to her word.

The only part of the evening that didn't warm Ginny's heart was the memory of that bloody "ending kiss" of Harry's. She'd even tried to keep him from doing it, not wanting to hear the little smooching sound that he made whenever he was letting her know that the fun was about to end. Next to the annoying buzz Natalie's wand made in the morning when it woke them up, Harry's ending smooch rated second among Ginny's least favorite sounds. And it was the last thing she thought about before drifting off to sleep.