Sunshine or Shadows

Chapter 15. The Holding House

The day after Christmas began in good fashion; Ginny had awoken in a satisfied mood - all full of smiles and worthy intentions. She passed the morning agreeably by having tea in the kitchen with Fleur and Lucille, sharing a bit of family gossip and listening to their stories. Fleur and Bill, it turned out, lived quite an eventful life for newlyweds, and Ginny had to admit that she was impressed with the adventures they'd managed to squeeze in when they weren't picking out drapery fabrics or taking weekend jaunts to France for some "proper food". And the times suited them: according to Fleur, Bill would be secure in his employment for centuries if he could live that long, so extensive was the web of curses left behind by Voldemort's Death Eaters.

Charlie's Lucille was endearingly bubbly, vibrant, and had an unusual laugh, which Ginny had at first found annoying, but later came to like. Her breath kind of hitched in her throat, when she was amused, and she even snorted at one point when Fleur went on about how the Veelas have become "virtually indispensable to ze Ministry". Ginny sent up a silent prayer that Charlie would keep this one around while they giggled over the comment. It wasn't hard to see Lucille as a witch whose good nature and quick wit could tame a dragon tamer.

"I'll bet they have," Ginny muttered under her breath, catching Lucille's eye. She wasn't fond of the idea of Harry working with Veelas, and Fleur's protestations to the contrary weren't doing a thing to convince her that the Aurors - the male ones, in any event - weren't just keeping them around for pure entertainment. Ginny could just picture the airy tarts strutting around the grounds, pushing their breasts out and licking their lips to help stem the boredom of a double shift or an overnight stakeout. "I'll bet they've found loads of uses for you lot," she added internally.

Even with the thought of loose Veelas working closely with her Harry threatening to topple it, Ginny's good mood managed to hold strong all the way through to lunch - when Harry Apparated in to take her to one of the Holding Houses. There had been a constant drone of excitement buzzing within her all day, though she wasn't exactly sure what they'd be doing once they got there. Harry had only mentioned something about showing her new techniques, and that he wanted her to use them to train the older students at Hogwarts in case they were ever needed, but it sounded intriguing enough to bolster her spirits along splendidly.

When Harry finally arrived and entered the kitchen, Fleur leapt out of her chair, saying something in French and lavishing his cheeks with kisses as her way of greeting. Ginny and Lucille shared another wry look before Lucille jumped up to extend her hand.

"Well, hello handsome! You're Harry Potter," she chirped.

"I...yes," Harry replied. His eyes found Ginny and she smirked back at him - it was always good fun to watch Harry squirm. She watched him for a moment, considering whether she should let her sister-in-law and girlfriend-in-law dote a bit more.

"Harry," she said instead, "this is Charlie's girlfriend, Lucille Paddington. Lucille, this is Harry, who you've probably just embarrassed. I don't think he likes being referred to as 'handsome'."

"Right. Sorry," Lucille said, looking nothing of the kind. "I'll try and remember that."

Harry took Lucille's hand and gave it a rough shake along with a soft "hello", looking as uncomfortable as a boy who'd just wandered accidentally into a lingerie shop, before turning to Ginny. "Are you ready?" he asked.

"Yep," Ginny replied, excitedly. She threw on her cloak and stuffed her wand into its pocket. "How are we getting there?"

Harry's face froze. "Oh, I completely forgot. You can't Apparate yet, can you?"

Ginny studied her boyfriend. How was it possible for him to forget that she couldn't Apparate? On some days, it was all she could think about. Her future career, her independence: this one fatal flaw could jeopardize them all, and Harry couldn't remember for two whole days?

"Ginny," Harry said, speaking now with a measure of caution in his voice. "I've told Neville and Luna to meet us there, but -"

Grabbing the sleeve of Harry's jacket and putting on her best, Molly Weasley, no-nonsense look, Ginny let out an exasperated breath. "Just shut up and take us there," she said. "You're not going anywhere without me while I'm on holiday, so don't even finish that thought."

Harry fidgeted with his wand. "The Holding House we're going to only has three Dementors in it, so I suppose there's no real danger..."

"'E's right, ze Dementor 'ouses can be very dangerous," Fleur said, leaning forward on the table and directing her words to Lucille - for what reason, Ginny couldn't quite figure out. "Zay are not meant for young wizards and witches"

"Sounds like a date then," Ginny said, ignoring Fleur's comments. She smiled and tugged on Harry's jacket. "Shall we?"

"It's against all rules," Harry said. "You know that, right?"

"Like I said," Ginny returned, "you're not going anywhere without me, so it's either we Apparate together, take a broom ride, or we find something else to do with ourselves."

"You're scary sometimes," Harry said, smirking. Giving one last thoughtful glance at his wand, he pulled Ginny in tightly and Apparated the pair to a sandy patch of grass in front of an old, Victorian-style lighthouse.

"Are you all right?" he asked when they reformed. "It's much more uncomfortable when someone else does the Apparating."

"I'm fine." Ginny turned in a circle and took in her surroundings. The lighthouse was quite large and weather-beaten, but it looked elegant, to Ginny, with its white clapboard exterior and pretty stone walkway. She felt instantly sorry for it: such a quaint spot to be used for such a gloomy purpose. While they stood, a fairly sturdy wind whipped up around them and Ginny's hair began lashing violently against her face.

"Are we going inside?" she asked.

"Not yet," Harry said. "Neville said he'd bring Luna at noon. I'd like to wait for them."

He pulled out his wand and pointed it at a nearby pile of stones. "Estucio" he commanded. The rocks glowed immediately and cast a wide sphere of warmth, which Ginny found quite comfortable - more than enough to take the chill out of the late-December air. Harry thrust his wand again, conjuring a large, twill sofa and the two sank down into it.

"Nice," Ginny said. She pulled her hair out of her eyes and tried to stuff it into the neck of her cloak to keep it from flying up like a turned-out umbrella. Her excited buzz was dampened just a little bit when she learned that their friends would be joining them, but she took a second to remind herself that Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood were no strangers to the battleground.

While she chided herself for assuming yet again that she'd have her boyfriend all to herself, Ginny noticed that Harry too had fallen quiet, fiddling with the end of his wand and chewing on his lip - a habit that Ginny had always found to be curiously sexy. They sat together in silence, staring at the radiant nest of stones for what seemed to Ginny like a full minute, and she finally had to poke Harry on the side of his head to make sure he hadn't slipped into some sort of trance.

"Everything all right in there?" she asked.

Harry laughed. "Yeah," he said. "Sorry."

"Are you thinking important, Ministry, Auror thoughts or important, seventh-year student thoughts?" Ginny asked. She smiled through a few stray wisps of hair that were still plastered against her face and giggled at Harry's expression. He looked like a strange poet, sitting on a sofa with the sea at his back, his hair even wilder in the wind than usual. "Or maybe," she added in a lush tone, "important, hormonal teenage boy thoughts?"

Laughing again, Harry reached forward and pushed some of the hairs out of Ginny's eyes. "Something like that," he said. "I had such great plans for us...while you were going to be home. I wanted to take you out again. We haven't been anywhere except Hogsmeade since your birthday, did you realize that?"

"No," Ginny said. She had, of course, but didn't care. It was always more of an issue to her that their dates were so few and so far between; she never gave two thoughts about the setting.

"Well, I have, and I feel like a complete jerk," he continued.

In the bright glow of the rock pile, Ginny could see every line in Harry's face. She hadn't remembered him ever having them before, but there was an impression of worry lines on his forehead now, even when his face was relaxed. He looked sad or tired or preoccupied...something that she couldn't quite place.

"Harry," Ginny said. "You're not a complete jerk." She grabbed his hand and put it in her lap, looking down at it and rubbing his fingers, just like she'd remembered him doing once or twice before. It was difficult to hear, with the moist sea air gushing past her ears, and Ginny found that she was nearly shouting just to get her words across.

"Don't argue with me," Harry teased. Looking down at their joined hands, he turned his gaze back to the rolling waves and muttered something that Ginny couldn't quite make out over the roar of the wintery wind. She watched him closely for a second, guessing that his mellow mood had a lot to do with Red O'Neil, and her heart lunged down into her stomach.

"Okay, I won't argue," she said with a smile. "But you're my jerk, so I'd appreciate it if you kept the insults to yourself."

Harry affixed her with a steely look that effectively vanquished the smile from her face, and then turned back into the wind, staring out at the water. He muttered something else, and Ginny felt herself growing angry with him. She couldn't hear, in the unfriendly accommodations, and Harry was obviously in a reflective mood.

"Can we go inside and wait?" she yelled. "Come on, Harry, the warm, glowy thing is nice and all, but we can't really talk out here."

With the polished grace of a more advanced wizard that Ginny knew him to be, Harry drew out his wand and called out another spell. The howling of the wind vanished immediately, leaving Ginny with only the soft sounds of the heated rocks shifting in their pile; Harry's cloak brushing against her own while he stowed his wand; and her heartbeat pulsing in her ear.

"That's better," she said.

"Sorry," Harry murmured. He pulled out a pocket watch and peered over Ginny's shoulder, looking out toward the lighthouse. "They're late," he said.

"Well, it's Luna and Neville. What did you expect?"

Harry took Ginny's hand again. "You're not still on about those two, are you?" he asked.

"Not really," Ginny said. "I really, really thought that they'd be an item by now, but Natalie has convinced me to back off." She turned to look at the lighthouse. "Luna is just too preoccupied - with her father in Azkaban and all - and Neville...I don't know if Neville is interested in anyone, to be honest. All he ever talks about are plants."

Harry squeezed her hand. "Plants can be good," he said. "Saved my life once in a tournament."

"Yeah, I remember," Ginny replied. "And didn't one also almost kill you?"

"Well, if you're going to be particular..." he said, grinning mischievously. "But then again, what hasn't almost killed me?"

Ginny laughed. "I like this spell," she said. "I can hear your breath."

Harry leaned in. "I can hear your hair moving against your cloak."

"Is that a fact?" Ginny asked, happy to finally have Harry's full attention. He reached behind her and pulled her hair out its trappings, running a finger through it.

"You have pretty hair," he said.

"You have pretty hair too," Ginny teased. She reached up and gave his hair a tousle.

"Hey," Harry said. "I'm trying to be romantic."

Ginny smiled. "Then shut up and kiss me."

She pushed forward, unable to wait for Harry to comply, and snatched his lips. They melted back into the soft sofa and let the warm heat and dark afternoon sky isolate them from the cold day, reconnecting them as they forgot about the world for a few precious moments. As they kissed, Ginny found herself missing the sounds of the waves and the waterfront and wishing that her hair were still being thrown about by the blustery weather. The stillness and quiet of Harry's spells felt disturbingly unnatural now, as she listened to him breathe - this time through his nose - and she could almost swear she had a channel on his thoughts.

Harry was running a hand up and down her arm - a firm, manly kind of pressure that Ginny felt right through the wool of her cloak. His kisses were the long, lingering kind today, and they made her feel somehow liquid. She tried to remember when he'd ever seemed so emotional to her, and it then dawned on her again why he would be feeling that way.

"Your friend lost his soul," she said in her head. Wrapping her arms around his waist, she held Harry as tightly as she could manage, given that they were both dressed so generously in winter garments. "And I know that you want to go out and somehow get it back for him, Harry Potter. Don't think I don't know that." She pulled back from their kiss and stared at him.

"Are you going to be okay?" she asked.

Harry straightened his glasses and grinned awkwardly before looking away. "Yeah," he said. "I'm fine."

A red flare shot through the air above Harry's head, and Ginny jumped in her seat, letting out an embarrassing yelp.

"What the--" Harry whispered a curse word and leapt into battle position, brandishing his wand to cast a protective shield over Ginny and himself. The shield broke the silencing charm, and Ginny sobered quickly at the sound of Neville's coughing and Luna's gentle apologies.

"It's all right," Luna cooed. "It's only me and Neville."

"Right," Harry said. He extinguished his pile of rocks and grabbed Ginny by the hand, pulling her forward while her heart labored to catch up on missed beats. "Hi guys."

"We didn't mean to scare you two," Neville said. "It's just that...well, we've been waiting for a while now and..."

"Right," Ginny said. Poor Neville and Luna must have been shouting at them, trying to get their attention. "Let's get started, then."

Harry quickly composed himself and led the group into the Holding house, muttering a long list of incantations to release the house's protective charms. "I've already cleared everything with the guards, so we can go on ahead," he said.

"Right. Guards," Ginny muttered. She had forgotten that there were guards there as well.

The lighthouse was a dreary place: haunted by an Admiral and his landlocked lover who were fortunate in that they both chose to come back as ghosts in their last moments, and so were afforded the togetherness in death that eluded them in life. The Admiral was a rather proud chap, and Harry treated him as a commander of sorts, letting him go on and on about rules of engagement and so forth before they were finally allowed to practice the new spells on the lighthouse's three Dementors.

After a half hour or so, they had gotten into a good rhythm, taking turns using "attack" maneuvers on one Dementor at a time.

"Like this?" Luna asked, while her Patronus wiggled about.

Harry was guiding two stags in a tight circle around a pair of fidgety Dementers who seemed not at all pleased to be watching what was going on with their housemate. "Not quite, but you're getting the idea," he said. "It's more of a stab. You've got to concentrate on something sharp, like a sword, and use your wand to guide the Patronus."

The freed Dementor swooped in toward them, and Ginny and Neville held out her wands, instinctively. Luna licked her lips and called out a lofty, but commanding, "Expecto Patronum," which caused the Dementor to stop abruptly, turning its back on the little hare whose nose was lengthening into a long, swordlike shape.

"You're almost there, Luna," Ginny said. Of the three of them, Luna was by far the closest to being able to do what Harry was asking of them, and Ginny was a little upset with herself for being surprised. It was always so easy to underestimate Luna Lovegood.

"Oh, good rabbit," Luna yelled. She pushed her wand awkwardly through the air and the four friends laughed as the silver hare, instead of making a hostile jab, did a little flip. The Dementor took the opportunity to attempt an escape through the upper-level window, but was stopped by a third stag and a vague form cast by Neville.

"Bad rabbit," Ginny said, laughing.

"No, that's really good," Harry said. "Forming the shape is the hardest part. You'll just have to practice your wand motions and then you'll have it."

"That'll make one of us," Ginny whined.

"We'll get it," Neville said. He was looking at his wand with a somewhat disgruntled expression playing around on his face. "I think we've got the idea, Harry."

The Admiral and his wife were floating along a wall behind Neville, watching the proceedings with interest. "May I remind you that we are only sparring here," he said, in a somewhat patronizing tone. "It wouldn't be proper protocol to actually stab an unprovoked enemy."

Harry gave a courteous nod. "Right, thanks Admiral. I think we're just about done, anyway."

"Just one more try," Ginny said. She cast her mare again, reliving her favorite memories and feeling the rush of good feelings and powerful magic work its way through her. "A dagger," she thought. If there were fouler creatures walking the Earth than these nasty Dementors; she couldn't imagine what they would be, and she was becoming quite enamored with the idea of being able to impair one, if she had to, to help protect the younger students at school. And, if she had managed two Patronuses under duress, she thought, it certainly couldn't be that difficult to form a useful shape out of just one.

"Come on, make me a dagger," she willed.

The light in the room flared for a brief moment and Ginny watched her mare thrust its head into the air, twisting from side to side. With a rush of pride, she allowed her emotions to rise to an almost overwhelming level and sharpened her vision, glaring at the Patronus. "Make me a dagger," she commanded again.

This time, the mare morphed completely into a strange figure: half of a horse whose head had sharpened into a large, brilliant dagger. It leapt forward and ran into Harry's circle, coiling back to strike one of the trapped Dementors.

"Finite Incantatum!" Harry yelled.

For a second, Ginny just stared at her wand. Her heart was beating fast and her brain was struggling to catch up with what had just happened.

"Ginny...you did it," Neville was saying.

Ginny let her wand hand fall to its side and looked up at Harry. "Was I about to kill it?" she asked.

Harry shook his head. "No, you can't kill them," he said. "Listen, I think we'd best put an end to this session now. You guys go out the front and I'll reset the security charms."

"That was fun," Luna said, as she fastened on a colorful cloak, pulled on a furry, white hat and directed a small bow toward the ghosts. "Thank you Admiral and Miss Rosemarie, you have a very nice home here."

"Er," Ginny added, "yes. Thank you. And I'm sorry about...I'm sorry I got carried away."

"Think nothing of it," Rosemarie said, speaking for the first time since they had arrived. She glided over to Ginny just as Harry left and put her face so close to Ginny's that it caused a chill to run through her. "I saw you two," the ghost said. Her voice was low and sultry, and it reminded Ginny of a gin-soaked pub singer. "Young lovers," Rosemarie said, "shouldn't be meeting in a place like this."

Ginny flushed. She'd never been called a "lover" before, and hoped desperately that no one else had been able to hear Rosemarie's rues. Ghosts were known to see the world a bit more dramatically than the living. "Yes, well," she said, grabbing her cloak and taking a few steps toward the door. "We'll try and find a more appropriate place," she said. "Bye then, and thanks again for having us."

"Ginny, are you coming?" Neville called from the doorway. "We decided to stop by Diagon Alley for a bite to eat."

"Sure," Ginny said. "I'm starved."

"Don't let him go to sea, darling," Rosemarie droned. "They grow too fond of it."

"Uh...okay." Ginny practically sprinted from the lighthouse and took Harry's arm as soon as she got within grabbing distance. "Let's go," she said. There was something creepy about her Patronus's apparent bloodthirstiness and Miss Rosemarie's interest in her love life, and she wanted to put some distance between herself and this place as soon as she could.

The four friends decided upon a new sandwich shop in Diagon Alley, stopping by Ron and Harry's flat first to invite Ron and Hermione along. While the others talked and pored over the teen-friendly menu offerings, Ginny stared across the table, trying to quell the discontent that was fermenting inside of her. She had no reason to be anything but happy, she knew, but there it was anyway - that vexing, nagging trickle of unease - gnawing away at the good mood she'd awoken with and making her the world's biggest bore.

"So, do you really think Dementors are going to attack Hogwarts?" Neville asked, addressing Harry over an oversized, grease-stained menu. "They never had before."

"No, not really," Harry replied. "Dumbledore had some form of communication with the Dementor population, and was never worried about them coming in against his wishes."

"Oh," Luna said. "Well, that's good."

Harry shook his head, thoughtfully. "But it may have been easier for wizards to control them before. Now that they've had a taste of freedom, we don't know for sure how much of Dumbledore's provisions will still hold."

"Not so good," Neville added. "Can they get into the school?"

"I don't think so," Harry said. "But I guess I would just feel better if you were prepared for the worst."

A draft from the opening door caught Ginny's attention and she lifted her head just enough to see over Neville's. Ron had shuffled in with a beaming Hermione on his arm, and Ginny gave them a wave, calling out, "Hi guys. We're just about to order."

"Hi guys," Ron added, shrugging off his coat and taking Hermione's for her. "Good, I'm starved."

"When are you not?" Hermione chided. "Hello Neville, Luna, it's so good to see you."

A waiter approached the table and Ginny watched her brother and Hermione for a few seconds while everyone placed their orders. They were different now: cozier or something more than they were in the summer. She smiled at her friend and put a hand absentmindedly on Harry's thigh next to her.

Bristling slightly at the contact, Harry straightened up. "All right there, Ginny?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said, handing her menu to Hermione. "I'm all right. I'm just not sure I know what I want."