Family

Family

Chapter Nine
Sunrise

"James, James!" Lily cried excitedly. "Come over here for a moment."

James set his cup of coffee down the bedside table and sat down beside Lily on their bed. "What is it?"

Lily took his hand and put his palm on her belly. "She´s kicking."

James knotted his forehead, waiting. Suddenly he felt it--something inside Lily´s belly bumped on it.

"Whoa," James exclaimed. "He can´t wait to get out of there!"

"Sshh," Lily chided, patting her belly. "Not yet, little one. Wait another four months--whoops!" Lily chuckled aloud as she felt another kick.

James laughed. "This boy´s going to be a bit impulsive, if you ask me. Probably even mischievous, like his dad."

Lily sighed. "I hope not. And she´s going to be a girl, James."

"A boy," James insisted. "And we´re gonna name him James Junior."

Lily rolled her eyes. "James Junior?" She began to giggle.

"C´mon, Lil, I´ve already got his future all planned out!" James protested. "He´s going to grow up to be a cute little boy, he´ll learn to ride a toy broomstick as soon as he learns to walk on his own--and he´s gonna be an excellent Quidditch player for Gryffindor once he goes to Hogwarts. He´ll learn all the secret passages out of the castle, too. Mischievous as he´d be, he´ll still be the star student of his class."

"Seems like his whole life is going to be a big adventure," Lily said dryly.

"He´ll be Head Boy too! And after he graduates, he´s going to marry the girl he loved since Hogwarts days, and they´ll marry, and I´ll have grandchildren of my own--"

"James," Lily interrupted, "shouldn´t we be thinking about James Junior´s birth first before we think about having grandchildren?" She couldn´t seem to get over their child´s name.

James stopped. "Oh." He laughed heartily once more, and this time, Lily joined him.

James caressed the bundle of joy that was inside Lily--the child waiting to see the light of the world. "You know," he began as they quieted down, "whatever the future holds for our child here...I could only pray that it will be the best life he can possibly have. Peaceful, free of worries and fear--surrounded by the ones he´ll love--"

Lily gazed into her husband´s face, her eyes shining. "We´ll always be there for her, won´t we?"

"Him," James corrected her.

Lily grinned, and James, smiling back, bent over to kiss her forehead. "Yes, Lily. We´ll always be there for him."

* * *

The first rays of sunshine hit Harry Potter on the face.

Harry slowly opened his eyes and looked around him. The sky over the horizon was clear, but gray-bottomed clouds loomed overhead dangerously. Squinting, he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and sat up.

It had been real, he thought. If it weren´t, he wouldn´t have sought refuge here, in the place he went to when he was feeling miserable.

And he felt worse than miserable. He already knew too well what miserable felt like. But this was different. It was almost as if he actually felt his heart break.

But then again, he thought, maybe it already did.

He found himself clutching the grass he had been sitting on as last night´s events came rushing back to him. He wanted to cry, to shout out angrily, to curse everything around him...the sky even seemed to feel his misery, for it began to drizzle.

Last night, when Ginny had gone to bed, he had picked up The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts again and agonizingly read the part of the paragraph he had skipped--

The curse is very rarely used, for the Death Eaters generally used Avada Kedavra, the Killing Curse, when they wanted to destroy. When the Cunctantis Curse was used, however, it was mostly for the mental and emotional torture of the loved ones of whom the curse was cast on. It was not very popular for the fact that the Death Eaters commonly used the Cruciatus Curse when they tortured--

So it´s really my fault, Harry thought now. Somehow Lucius Malfoy knew of his feelings. Why else would he want to kill Ginny slowly? Didn´t he say so himself? "The Dark Lord is going to be very pleased when I deliver you to him." And Draco Malfoy had hinted it--"While the Dark Lord is after you...they´ll also be after her."

Looking back to his childhood, Harry realized that he had never cared for anyone the way he cared for Ginny Weasley. But what did it matter? It had been so much easier when he had no one to care for deeply, than having someone very special who would leave him in the end. It had been his parents. Then it was Ginny. Won´t he ever have anyone to love at all?

Harry waited for the tears to come again, but they didn´t. It was as though he had shed enough of them in one night.

Ron had a reason for telling him to stay away from Ginny, after all. Of course he didn´t want her hurt. He, Harry, was really a magnet for trouble, no matter how hard he tried to avoid it. All of them had a point. It wasn´t worth loving someone at the risk of her life.

If only he had known what the curse was earlier, then he´d have stayed away as quickly as he can and not told her of his feelings.

But someone already knew.

Harry stood up. The rain was now pouring down heavily. His dressing gown and pajamas were already soaking wet and muddy. In a daze, he made his way back to the castle.

Round the Forbidden Forest, past the lake...a bolt of lightning flashed, illuminating the Hogwarts castle. Balling his hands into fists, Harry stormed into the castle, intent on doing what seemed to make perfect sense at that moment: go to Dumbledore and ask him a fat lot of questions.

Before he knew it, he was standing in front of the stone gargoyle to which Harry should give the password to Dumbledore´s office. He took a deep breath.

"Cockroach clusters."

The gargoyle did not budge.

"Lemon drop, chocolate frogs, pumpkin pasties, sugar quills--damn you!" Harry told the gargoyle that the fiery hot world underneath them was filled with blood. "Let me in! I want to speak to Dumbledore!"

Harry heard a low growl beside him. It was the large black dog--Sirius. The dog was glaring at him, his yellow eyes menacing, his fangs bared.

"I have a mile-long list of questions for Dumbledore, Sirius," Harry snarled. "Get out of the way."

Sirius began to bark loudly. Harry felt his temper rise up--if any professor finds out what he´s doing, he´d be in detention for sure--

And sure enough, a professor arrived.

"Harry? What is happening here?"

Harry and Sirius looked up. The gargoyle was springing back to its guarding position; Albus Dumbledore was now standing in front of Harry.

"Harry?" he said again.

Harry swallowed. Dumbledore was as calm as he ever was. Harry suddenly forgot all those things he wanted to say, all the questions he ached to ask. Dumbledore merely gazed at him, his blue eyes searching his own.

"Why didn´t you tell me?" Harry finally managed to croak out.

Sirius, who looked alert when Dumbledore arrived, began to lower its body on the floor, its ears and tail drooping.

Dumbledore looked as though he was expecting Harry to say just that. He gazed at Harry some more before finally saying, "If I knew of a better way to tell you, I wouldn´t. So I didn´t."

"What´s a better way of telling me that Ginny is going to die?"

Dumbledore didn´t say anything for a long while again. Harry bit his lip--he hadn´t said anything as harsh as that to Dumbledore before, he had always respected him--

"There´s none," Dumbledore replied quietly, just as calmly. "But telling you that you can save her is certainly better."

Harry blinked. Of all the things he imagined Dumbledore saying, this certainly wasn´t it. He was very taken by surprise that he didn´t even have the time to realize that he must be pleased about it.

Dumbledore smiled swiftly at him. "Maybe you´d like to hear it in my office, Harry. Padfoot?"

Sirius stood up silently.

"Peace," said Dumbledore.

The gargoyle sprang aside and the wall behind it opened up like an elevator door. The three of them stepped on the spiral staircase, taking them upward to the large oak door with the brass knocker the shape of a griffin. Dumbledore opened the door and let Harry and Sirius in before entering himself.

Sirius was transforming back to his human form when Dumbledore closed the door and went over to his desk. Sirius certainly looked better since he began staying in Hogwarts--he looked fuller, his hair was cropped short, and he was shaven. If it weren´t for the haunted, haggard look on his face, he´d have looked like the handsome young man who appeared in Harry´s dream.

Harry noticed that several of the books on Dumbledore´s desk were among those found in the Restricted Section of the library. One title caught his eye--The Nature of Death Eater Curses was on a particularly large and nasty-looking blood-red book.

"I´ve been researching a bit," said Dumbledore, noticing Harry staring. "Please have a seat."

Harry´s mind was suddenly ringing with questions--new ones. Was it possible that Dumbledore had unearthed a long-forgotten counter-curse? Or had he invented one?

"I don´t get it, Professor," said Harry, in a completely different tone from the one he had used on Dumbledore earlier. "I thought there´s no counter-curse--it´s said so in The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts--have you really made one, then?"

Dumbledore began to smile. "I certainly haven´t," said he. "Creating counter-curses is not entirely difficult when you put your heart to it, yes--but we´re talking about a Death Eater curse here. That puts it right up there on the rank of the Unforgivable Curses."

Harry swallowed. "So--so there isn´t...one?"

Dumbledore turned to Sirius and nodded once.

Sirius looked at Harry, but unlike Dumbledore, he wasn´t smiling. "Harry," he began, "your parents were working on the counter-curse for the Cunctantis Curse right before they died."

It took a while for what Sirius had just said to sink in on Harry.

"And...they found it?"

"No one really knows," Sirius said. "James updated me about it a few days before the three of you went into hiding...fourteen years ago. He told me then that they were very near the answer." Sirius´s jaw began to harden, as if he was fighting something back. "But only God knows if they did find out. If they left any record of their progress, it´s all destroyed the night they...died." Sirius´s voice shook slightly when he said the last word.

Harry´s mind was whirling. So no one knew if the counter-curse had really been invented. There were no records left, no witnesses, nothing. Lily and James Potter kept it to themselves. They were the only witnesses....

"But I dream about my parents," Harry said slowly, recalling the very last dream he just had. "Ginny and I dream about them--a while ago I dreamed of them, and Mum was expecting me." Harry looked from Sirius to Dumbledore wildly. "So--you mean--Ginny and I could--dream of them do the counter-curse or something!"

Sirius began to smile himself. "Exactly."

"That´s why I didn´t want you to remove the ring," said Dumbledore. "You might dream of the counter-curse--they might tell you."

Something else nagged at the back of Harry´s head. "But...what if they never did find out? Or what if...they don´t show in our dreams?"

"They found out, and they will show in your dreams," Sirius insisted. His eyes were wide and gleaming. "I´m ninety-nine percent sure of it."

Harry blinked. "What about the remaining one percent?"

"The other ninety-nine is based on trust."

Harry looked at his godfather. Sirius merely nodded once, but Harry felt as if complete understanding flowed through them, and Harry, in that single moment, began to trust as well.

"There are...certain risks that you must take, though, Harry," said Dumbledore, breaking the silence. Sirius looked up, his forehead creased--apparently, what Dumbledore was going to say was new to him as well. "From what I see, the only possible way for the Cunctantis Curse to be broken is through the channeling of energy from one healthy person to the victim. And though the victim may be spared, there is little guarantee that the person who had given her that energy will be completely well afterward, too."

"That person will be me," Harry said quickly and resolutely.

"There´s a risk?" Sirius asked disbelievingly. "Isn´t there any other way?"

"I´m afraid so," said Dumbledore grimly. He turned to Harry. "Harry, are you sure of what you´re saying?"

Harry nodded. "Yes."

Dumbledore looked at him very seriously. "You do realize that there is a possibility that you might...die in the process, don´t you?"

Harry faltered--but he weighed the options for just a second. He had a decision.

"I don´t care. I´ll do it."

Dumbledore and Sirius stared at him for a long while, both studying him, as if measuring Harry´s sincerity and determination.

With his lips pressed together in a grim, thin line, Dumbledore nodded at last.

The rain outside was now pouring down in torrents. As Harry climbed into the portrait hole, he heard a grumble of thunder--mixed by the sound of gentle female laughter.

Ginny and Hermione were talking in front of a blazing fire in the common room. Ginny was wearing a maroon bathrobe, and her hair was tied carelessly into a ponytail so that a few tendrils floated around her face. She had a serene smile playing on her lips as she listened to Hermione explain something that he couldn´t quite understand.

For a while there, Harry stood, frozen, enraptured by how Ginny Weasley could look so beautiful--and peacefully happy--despite her sickness.

Hermione suddenly looked up at him, and her jaw dropped. Ginny turned around as well, but she didn´t look shocked or anything--her shoulders, instead, slumped forward and her smile faltered.

"What happened to you?" Hermione asked urgently, standing up.

Harry shrugged. "Went out for a bit of rain," he said. Now Ginny was looking at his muddy pajamas.

"You shouldn´t have been outside, Harry!" Hermione shrieked, now that her initial shock seemed to have worn off. "You know the professors forbade us!"

Harry shook his head and gave Ginny a quick, but meaningful, glance. "I had to see the sunrise." He smiled as Ginny raised her eyebrows. "See you in a bit."

After changing into slacks and a sweater in their dormitory, Harry went back down, to find Ginny sitting alone in front of the fire. Hermione, and indeed, everyone else, was nowhere to be found.

"Where´s Hermione?" asked Harry.

"She went off to find Ron," Ginny replied quietly. She didn´t look at him--she merely stared into the fire, but a glance at her eyes told Harry that she wanted to say a lot.

Harry sat down beside her on the floor. Ginny, barely looking at him, sighed, hugging her knees together.

I´m not going to let my guard down, thought Harry as he took a deep breath. This is our only chance.

"I just talked to Dumbledore," he said.

Ginny looked at him in surprise. Harry merely smiled as he went on. "I have good news."

Ginny looked skeptic. "A real good one?"

Harry nodded. "It´s really amazing, it´s as if my parents knew I´d be able to use it...see, when they were alive, they were working on the counter-curse for the Cunctantis Curse. But no one knows what came of them, since they died--only they know. And, you know, we get these dreams about them...."

Ginny´s eyes widened as the words began to sink in. "Then you think...I can actually...?"

"Yeah!" Harry said, grinning very widely and taking her hand in his. "There´s no need to be sad or anything, see? All I have to do is to find out what that spell is--Dumbledore said it involves transferring energy from--"

Harry stopped when the excited, hopeful light in Ginny´s eyes began to fade again. He knew he had said too much.

"Transferring energy--you mean from you to me, right?" she said softly. "Aren´t you going to get hurt or something when you do it?"

"No!" Harry replied--too quickly. He watched Ginny´s face fall.

Ginny slipped her hand off Harry´s touch. "You´re lying to me, Harry."

"I´m not!" Harry retorted, suddenly feeling angry, though he knew he had lied. "Don´t you want to get well?"

"Of course I do," Ginny replied as tears began to fill her eyes. "Of course I do. But not if you have to sacrifice for me."

"Gin, you sacrificed for me and for those third years in Honeydukes. Please, I want to repay you somehow--"

"I don´t need repayments, Harry Potter!" Ginny abruptly yelled, angrily swiping the back of her hand across a tear-stained cheek. "I did that out of my own free will. I don´t want anyone getting sick or dying because of me, because I have to be saved. I hate being the damsel in distress, you know that?" Her chin trembled as she spoke. "I don´t want the world knowing that the boy who saved us all from the Dark Lord is going to die just because a plain girl like me--"

"Stop it!" Harry bellowed, raising both palms up in frustration. "Stop it, Ginny! The world doesn´t need me--they do not know me. You´ve got a lot of people close to you--you have a family, you´ll break all their hearts if you let that curse--"

"So now you´re saying that it´s okay if it´s you who´s going to be wiped out from the face of the planet instead, just because you don´t have a family? What kind of an excuse is that?"

"It means everything. What would your parents say if you leave them?"

Ginny glared at him, but not without her eyes glistening. Then, in a sudden swift motion, she held her right hand up and began to pull off the emerald ring with her other hand--

"NO!" Harry shouted--and just in time, for he had grabbed both of her hands and wrenched them away from each other. Ginny whimpered, her voice full of pain. She gritted her teeth together and closed her eyes.

"Harry, please," she whispered bitterly.

"No," Harry said firmly. "I won´t let you."

Ginny let out a defeated whine. She finally collapsed into Harry´s chest, and Harry welcomed her. He closed his own eyes and held her close and tight to him, savoring the moment, not wanting to let go.

All he ever wanted was to give Ginny a part of him. He knew he´d do everything for her, and even if it was the slimmest chance they had--the only chance they had--he was willing to gamble his life for it. Just for her.

Harry put his hands on either side of her face and carefully traced the path her tears created on her cheeks with his finger. Taking a deep breath, he said softly, "I know the risk I´m going to take. I know I might die. But it´s a lot better than not doing anything." He smiled briefly. "You know, that´s just what I was thinking when you were taken to the Chamber of Secrets--I knew I wanted to do something."

Ginny started to protest again, but Harry cut her off. "I had thought then that there was no chance we´d find you down there, but you were there." He put a finger on her chin and tilted her head up. "And I think...while there´s hope--even if it´s only the slightest bit of hope we have--we have to take it."

Silence followed as Ginny moved away from him. She sat down on an armchair and buried her face in her hands, still sobbing. Harry knelt in front of her, hoping against hope that she would consent.

Ginny finally looked up, and she was smiling, a sad, bitter one. "Harry," she whispered as a new set of tears filled her eyes, "I don´t know what I´d do if God hadn´t given me a sunrise person like you."

"So...we´ll do it?"

Ginny gazed into his eyes. Please say yes, Harry willed his own eyes to tell her. Please say yes.

"All right," she murmured, at long last. "We´ll do it."

Harry let his breath out. He suddenly realized that the rain outside had receded; only pinpricks of drizzle were now dripping onto the glass window. Rays of sunshine were now breaking out of the gloomy gray clouds.

Harry turned back to Ginny. "Do you mind another night wandering, Gin?"

Ginny blinked in surprise. "What? Why?"

"Because...I want to show you the sunrise."

Just as Harry had predicted, the stars appeared again when he and Ginny sneaked out of the castle just before sunrise the next morning. Harry knew he was taking another risk, bringing Ginny out to the grounds without anyone knowing, but he knew he couldn´t let this opportunity waste away. He wanted to show Ginny that there was hope, and they had to cling to it, no matter what happens.

"You want to know something, Harry?" she asked as Harry removed the Invisibility Cloak over her head.

"Hmm?"

Ginny was slightly blushing as she brushed her hair out of her eyes. "Promise me you won´t laugh first."

"I promise you I won´t laugh," Harry said. "Now spill it out."

Ginny sat down on the damp patch of grass, right where Harry had been sleeping the previous morning. She was looking above her, at the sky which was slowly turning from navy blue to a lighter violet. "After third year I told myself I should get over you."

Harry sat down beside her. "And you did."

"Yeah--or at least I thought so."

"Yeah?" he asked. "Why? What happened?"

She shrugged. "I dunno...it was like I was trying to be aloof to you. Then I saw you...feeling lonely and all...and I knew you needed someone. And I realized that all I ever wanted was to give you a part of me, to comfort you, and to...well, love you with all my heart." She looked up at him and smiled, somewhat shyly, and just as her cheeks reddened, she ducked her face out of his sight. "Silly, huh?"

Harry felt his own cheeks getting warmer by the minute as well, but it was matched by a giddy, happy feeling from deep within his chest.

He edged closer to Ginny so that their shoulders were touching each other´s.

A few quiet minutes passed by as they watched the sky changed hues--from violet to pinkish-orange, then to a near blue. They were listening to birds twittering, feeling the air warming their skins, breathing the sweet scent of the morning.

And suddenly, Ginny gasped. For they were sitting atop a sloping ground, and in front of them, a valley became clear--green, and breathtakingly beautiful. Mountains just as green with trees, both evergreen and deciduous, bordered the valley on the north, east and south, and at the eastern horizon in front of them, the sun, in all its glory and magnificence, peeked out behind the mountains. The small birds on the tree just beside them began to fly off towards the sun.

Ginny sat there, awed at the splendor of nature. She was probably feeling what Harry had felt when he first saw the sunrise himself, right there, when he was feeling lonely. It was his secret place, his hideout from the world, and he was now sharing it with Ginny.

"It´s...beautiful," she whispered. "Probably the most beautiful thing I´ve ever seen."

Ginny, smiling serenely, looked at Harry. He was staring at her, sensing a strange feeling--it seemed as if something was pulling him to Ginny. It was as though he wanted to actually kiss her.

Ginny tilted her head on one side, her forehead creased in an expression of puzzlement. And it suddenly struck Harry how innocent and vulnerable she was.

Harry smiled back. "I know," he replied softly. "That´s why I wanted you to see it."

Ginny nodded, still smiling. She leaned closer to Harry and laid her head on his shoulder. Harry gingerly put an arm around her and took her right hand in his, entwining his fingers in her soft, cool ones, and their rings glowed, and Harry let out a contented sigh.

Something Ron had said before came back to Harry. "It´s a different feeling, having a warm body just beside you, and you´ve got the liberty to just reach out and hug it...it´s this feeling that you´re with someone you can give your whole heart to."

Harry grinned to himself, pulling Ginny closer. Mush, he thought. You´ve fallen pretty hard.

Harry was sitting on his four-poster bed two days later, books strewn all around him. Ginny had gone to bed early, and without Hermione to talk to (Ron still wasn´t speaking to him), he thought he´d make a head start on the O.W.L.s. But although his regular school books such as The Standard Book of Spells, Grade Five and Unfogging the Future were opened, there were also books that certainly looked out-of-place there: The Muggle Theory on Signals and Communication and Bewitching Muggle Artifacts: All the Hows, Whys, and Why Nots.

Harry was beginning to feel tired himself, but looking at his alarm clock, he saw that it was only ten in the evening. There was a throbbing pain inside his head--but it was not his scar, at least. He seemed to be getting migraines.

A loud tapping on the windowpane jerked Harry wide awake again. He looked, and saw a large snowy owl, carrying a package, tapping its beak on the window.

"Hedwig!" Harry said, jumping off his bed and hurrying to let his owl in. Hedwig quickly sailed into the room and landed on Harry´s bed.

Harry opened his bedside cabinet and came out with a small pack of Owl Treats, which he offered Hedwig. With an affectionate nip at his finger, she took it, and Harry began untying the package tied to her feet.

There was a short letter attached to it.

Deal still stands. I hate doing favors for you and seeing your owl and sending stuff through this weird way, so you´d better keep your word.

Dudley

Harry laughed out loud despite his tiredness. What word? He hadn´t threatened his cousin or anything...but apparently, the memory of Harry catching him watching pornographic movies last summer was still fresh in Dudley´s mind.

Harry was starting to rip open the package when Ron opened the door to their dormitory. Ron looked at him and his strewn books for a while, then headed for his bed. Harry saw that he saw slightly flushed.

Hermione, Harry thought idly, smiling to himself. She does things to him.

Hedwig had finished the pack of Owl Treats and had dipped her beak into Harry´s evening pumpkin juice. "Thanks, Hedwig," he muttered, stroking her feathery head. She playfully cuffed him on the head and flew out of the room.

Chuckling softly to himself, Harry went over to close the window, when he felt his head spin all of a sudden. He clutched his head in both hands and shut his eyes, waiting for the pain to subside.

"Hey--you okay?" Ron said, sounding alarmed.

The pain had receded, and Harry opened his eyes. Ron was looking at him apprehensively.

"Yeah," Harry said. "Yeah, I´m okay."

"Is it your scar?"

"No, thank God," said Harry, sitting down on his bed. "I think I just need a bit of rest."

"If you´re sure...."

"Yeah, Ron. I´m okay."

Harry pretended to busy himself with arranging his books, but he was privately glad that Ron had said a few words to him--and he sounded concerned, too....

"So," Ron began, and this time, he sounded uneasy. "um...how are you and Ginny?"

Harry was so surprised at hearing that question from Ron that he dropped Unfogging the Future on the floor. "Er--what do you mean?"

"I mean, er, are you...you know...?"

Snogging? Sleeping together? WHAT? Harry waited with baited breath.

"Are you...er, a couple already?"

Harry started to laugh, relief washing over him. "Not really." But then, he stopped and considered it, and feeling considerably bolder, went on. "There´s an understanding, if that´s what you mean."

"Are you sure?" Now Ron´s voice was even and serious.

"I reckon so," said Harry. "Why?"

Ron quickly looked away. "Nothing."

"Oh. Okay." Harry brushed off the crumbs Hedwig had left on his bed, waiting for Ron´s next words, for Harry sensed in the tense air that Ron wanted to say something else.

And it came, and what he said made Harry fight to keep himself from jumping to the ceiling in delight. "That´s good," said Ron evenly. "I´m...real happy for you."

Harry felt muscles tug his lips upward. "Thank you," he said sincerely.

Ron merely nodded, but Harry saw a hint of grin in his blue eyes.

Harry climbed into his bed. He could have hugged Ron senseless, but then again, it wasn´t a very manly thing to do.