J'espere

Ch. 1 -- Surprises In A Bush And Revelations Of The Heart

Harry Potter had done a lot of things you might call noble, or even brave, in his life. He just called them stupid. Then there were the things they both agreed on. So, one sorrow filled night at the Dursley's over the summer, he decided to write this list:

"Harry James Potter's List of Stupid Things Done Over a Lifetime"

First Year

o Faced a ravenous three-headed dog, twice

o Jumped down through a trapdoor into dark, seemingly endless, blackness

o Replaced life-size pieces in a wizard chess game with Ron, Hermione, and myself

o Drank out of a potion bottle that had a likely chance of containing poison

Second Year

o Faced a 60 ft long serpent that can kill with just one look

o Jumped down a dark, stone chute, not knowing what was at the bottom (but sent that prat Lockhart down first)

o Stabbed afore mentioned deadly serpent without taking in account position of my arm, therefore getting stabbed with venomous fang in the process

o Got stabbed with said venomous fang

o Let Lockhart fix my broken arm, resulting in the loss of all the bones in my arm (couldn't really prevent otherwise, though)

Third Year

o Thought the Grim was haunting me (just Sirius)

o Let Pettigrew escape (dirty, rotten, son of a b...)

o Almost killed Sirius

o Almost gave Snape just brain damage

Fourth Year

o Asked Cho to the ball (should've asked Ginny. Ginny...)

o Thought about Cho at all (Ginny...)

o Told Cedric we should both take the Triwizard cup (he ended up dying; why do I feel like it's all my fault?)

o Let Voldemort come back

Fifth Year

o Thought about Cho at all (Ginny...)

o Kissed Cho ( Like kissing some water animal)

o Let Umbridge get away with everything (well...almost. Centaurs had their fun)

o Went to save Sirius and almost got my friends killed for nothing

o Got Sirius killed trying to save him

Sixth Year

o Let Dumbledore weaken himself for no reason

o Let Dumbledore die

o Let Snape get away

o Broke up with Ginny (but I had to)

o Used a spell labeled "For Enemies" on a living person without knowing what it did

****

It was now the morning of Bill and Fleur's wedding, and Harry was lying in bed, reading this list over and over again. Ever since he had broken up with Ginny, he had been miserable. As the sun rose over the lake behind the Burrow, he wondered what Ginny was doing right now. He couldn't wait until he saw her at the wedding. She would look so gorgeous. But no. He couldn't think like that. He gave up that right when he broke up with her. "But it's okay just to think about it, right..." The monster in his chest roared with approval at the thought from the devil in Harry. But he couldn't think of Ginny at all. It would just kill him, especially if thinking about her got her killed. He was broken out of his constant battle between his heart and mind when he heard loud voices floating in through the open window. He crept over to it, careful not to wake Ron. He was flat on his back, arms flailing everywhere, mouth open, and drooling. Harry smirked at the sight.

"FRED! GEORGE! ABSOLUTLEY NOT!" Mrs. Weasley's shrieks were what had carried through the open window.

Looking out, Harry saw Mrs. Weasley standing in the garden, hands on her hips, yelling at two very determined looking twins.

"Come on Mum, we can get everything out here much faster if we just helped it along a bit!" Fred complained.

"I will NOT let you two levitate their wedding cake from the kitchen all the way out to the garden!" Mrs. Weasley said sternly, shaking her finger at them.

"Well, then will you at least let us donate a few sweets..." countered George.

That was about all Harry could make out before Mrs. Weasley really started screaming. Shutting the window, he saw that Fred and George were no longer in the garden. A loud CRACK! Behind him brought his attention to the center of the room, where they had just Apparated.

"Oy! Where's my wand?" screamed Ron, looking around crazily, having been awoken by the sound of the twin's Apparation.

"We only just got away..." explained Fred, who, along with George, was dressed in robes of dragon skin for the wedding.

"...didn't think she'd flip that much when I suggested we donate some sweets," George exclaimed, an innocent look on his face. "Would've been a great business opportunity for us."

"You should've thought of other people's well-being before you went around looking for 'business opportunities'" grumbled Ron. "Now I'll never get back to sleep," he complained, sitting on his bed, which was covered with a Chudley Cannons bedspread.

"Oh, too bad Ickle Ronniekins can't get his beauty sleep, George," teased Fred. "He'll never be able to get a kiss on the cheek from Fleur unless he gets his required ten hours of beauty sleep!" With that, they Apparated out of the room, cackling.

Almost seconds after the twins left, they heard a creaking outside the door that they knew to be Mrs. Weasley. Next moment, the door had been thrown open and she was yelling at them for not being dressed yet and how the girls had already started getting ready hours ago. When she finally left the room, steaming, they quickly got into dress robes for the occasion, Ron's thankfully absent of all traces of lace.

****

Later, at the reception

"Ronald, what does it matter how much I've been drinking?!" Hermione exclaimed in a rage, almost dropping what was, truthfully, her fourth butterbeer.

"It matters because I don't want you running around acting like some... some... drunk!" Ron yelled back at her.

They continued bickering back and forth for about fifteen minutes in hushed tones at one of the tables on the edge of the dance floor, and Harry had just had about enough when he didn't hear them anymore. He turned around to see what had so abruptly stopped them and saw that they weren't there any more.

"That's odd," he thought. "Maybe Ginny saw them leave."

He looked over to where Ginny was standing, and saw that she was talking to Fleur and her parents. She looked so beautiful in her pale gold silk dress, with spaghetti straps that showed of her gorgeous shoulders, the deep V-neck showing off everything else, but tastefully. And her hair! Merlin, he loved her hair, the way it glimmered in the sunlight, its flame red color... He shook himself out of his reverie in time to see that she was done talking to Fleur and her parents, who had left. He grabbed her a butterbeer and walked over.

"Hey," he greeted her, his traditional lopsided grin that she loved so much on his face.

"Harry! Hi!" she said, surprised, spinning around.

"Butterbeer?" he asked, gesturing towards her with the bottle.

"Thanks," she replied quietly, taking the butterbeer from him.

They automatically started walking towards the lake as they talked, something they had done often at Hogwarts when they were dating. All thoughts of where Ron and Hermione were fled Harry's mind when he talked to Ginny. She was making him laugh, but he could tell she was holding back, and thought he knew why. All of a sudden, he stopped walking.

"Ginny-" he started, staring out at the lake, unable to look at her. They hadn't really talked much about their breakup before.

"Harry, I know what your going to say. That I'm not acting like myself. And I'm not. I admit that. Then you're going to tell me that you don't want me acting differently. How am I doing so far, Potter?" she inquired, setting her now empty bottle of butterbeer on the ground next to her, looking right at him.

"Pretty well," Harry replied, looking at his shoes now.

"But how did you expect me to act? Did you expect me to go back to my normal self right away? When we had just broken up, I was heartbroken, Harry, but I didn't want to let on. I was so confused..." she sobbed, tears streaming from her chocolate brown eyes.

"Gin..." Harry started feebly, reaching out for her. She stepped back, avoiding his touch.

"Harry, when you broke up with me, I didn't know if you loved me or if you just cared for me deeply and didn't want to see me hurt. I wasn't even sure if you knew yourself. I still don't kn-"

She never finished her sentence, due to the fact that Harry had put his hands on her waist and kissed her. At first she was surprised, then she put her arms around his neck and kissed back, at first slow, then they both released the passion for each other that they had been holding onto since the breakup. The kisses were soon deepening and they almost lost control when they heard a squeal. Yes, a squeal.

"Harry, did you just squeal?" Ginny asked cautiously from her position on the ground.

"I do not squeal," he replied indignantly, rolling off her. "It came from over there," he continued, pointing into some far off bushes and getting up.

"Well, let's go see what's over there," she said with a smile as Harry gave her his hand.

****

As they walked hand in hand around the lake to a spot in the bushes about fifteen yards away from where they had been, not much could prepare them for what they were going to witness. Harry dropped Ginny's hand and walked over to the bush, pulling out his wand as he did so and whispering Lumos, he carefully and quickly pulled back a section of it and couldn't really muster up much of a reaction to what he saw, just plain shock. But the person behind the bush did. Or, the people in the bush, to be more exact.

"Bloody hell!" Ron hissed, looking from the wand in his face to Harry.

Hermione squealed, again. It was quite a different squeal, though. More like an angry cat.

"Harry?" Ginny asked, walking over.

"Ginny, you do not want to look in that bush," he replied with his face buried in his hands, trying to control his laughter.

He thought that they would come to their senses at some point, just not this quickly. Poor Hermione, settling for a bush. "Well, she was a little pissed. Ginny and I just almost did the exact same thing on the ground. It's probably a good thing she squealed." He imagined Ron and Hermione catching them starkers in a bush together. Ron just might beat him to death, then tell his brothers, who would beat him to a bloody pulp. He shuddered at the thought. Ron and Hermione came out of the bush looking very rumpled, but dressed, at that moment.

"You're wearing clothes now! What an improvement!" exclaimed Harry, desperate to get his mind off of possible future beatings.

"Ronald! A bush! Now really, is that any place to take a girl, especially Hermione?" teased Ginny. Ron went beet red and Hermione's cheeks were tinged pink.

"Ron! Ginny! Harry! Hermione!" came Mrs. Weasley's voice from the house, "It's nearly midnight!"

"You lovebirds be good!" Ginny said, grabbing Harry's hand and pulling him towards the house, pausing about a yard before it. She grabbed his other hand in hers. "So what's going to happen now?" she asked softly after a long silence, not looking at him.

Harry sighed. He knew he loved her, but if she got hurt...

"I don't know. Let's talk tomorrow, when we have more time," Harry told her, taking his hand out of hers and caressing her cheek.

"Okay," she replied, disappointment thick in her voice. She turned away towards the house, but before she could get away, Harry caught her arm and swept her up in a kiss. Soft and innocent, but full of promise. The perfect good-night kiss.

He bent down and whispered in her ear, "I love you." Ginny looked up and met his emerald green eyes, her own full of surprise and love. Then...

"I love you too."

*********

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