The First Day

Harry left Ron's room in a state of mild shock. Ron and Hermione. He couldn't get his mind past the idea that Ron and Hermione had shagged. He shook his head a little and crept down the stairs down to the first floor and slipped into Bill's bedroom. He climbed into the bed and lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, thinking about what Ginny had said earlier. He knew his nightmares had been bad, but he hadn't been aware the rest of the family had been able to hear him. I guess my Silencing charms weren't as good as I thought... He tried to stay awake as long as he could at night, to keep the nightmares at bay, but eventually he fell asleep, no matter how hard he tried not to go to sleep. Harry had a rather uneasy relationship with sleep, ever since his second year of school, and it had only gotten worse as he got older and his link with Voldemort grew stronger.

He hadn't realized it was near the end of July. He's been so busy trying to stay away from the rest of the family, wrapped in his own misery. His fingers glided over the bruises on his face. Damn, that hurt. Ginny certainly hadn't pulled her punches, neither the physical ones nor the emotional ones. The first slap had jarred him; the subsequent three stripped him of the mental cotton wool he'd pulled around himself. But it was what she'd said that made him cringe. Waking the whole family with his nightmares, how he'd made Ginny feel like he'd betrayed her, Molly and Arthur staying up late, worrying. It was a wonder they still allowed him to live here, after all the trouble he had caused them over the years. He knew they had done it all without question, but he couldn't help but think that there might be a limit to even their generosity. The Dursleys' kindness hadn't lasted longer than it took to bring him inside the house the morning he'd been left on their doorstep.

And if there was anything Harry hated, it was to feel like a burden.

He rolled over on his side, and stared at a crack in the plaster of the wall until false dawn saturated the room with dull greys. His eyes drifted shut and he fell into a fitful slumber.

*****

Ginny grabbed her dressing gown and ran up the stairs, hoping to get into the bathroom before anyone else did. She hated waiting on the landing, like a refugee, for the bathroom to become available. Luckily, it was open, and she ran inside, and quickly showered and washed her hair, a skill acquired long ago when the house could have up to over ten people and only the one bathroom. She hung the damp towel over a hook and wrapped her dressing gown around her body and went back into the room to dress for the day. Before she left, she ran a comb through her wet hair, and bound it into a ponytail. She heard the bed in Bill's room creak and fled down to the kitchen, still unwilling to face Harry after she'd hit him the day before. He probably didn't want to see her anyway.

She went into the kitchen and without being asked, pulled a stack of plates from the cupboard and began to set the table for breakfast. Ron was already awake, up to his elbows in flour. It still gave Ginny a jolt to see Ron cooking rather than eating. She had to admit he was good at it. He slid the scones in the oven, and started scrubbing the flour off his hands. He muttered, 'Every bloody time.' Swiping his hands on a dishtowel, Ron dashed upstairs. Ginny giggled a little. She knew what he meant. Every time she washed the dishes after dinner, the running water made her need the loo, too.

Ron's head popped through the doorway. 'Gin, someone's in the bathroom, so take the scones out when the bell dings, all right?'

He disappeared before she could say anything. 'Oh, sure... I'll clean up here, too,' she grumbled. With a glance around the kitchen, she pulled out her wand and began to clear the flour from the table, and Banished the mixing bowl to the sink. 'Bloody men... Can't live with them, can't kill them.'

Molly emerged from the scullery, with a basket of neatly folded laundry. 'What was that, dear?'

'Nothing...' Ginny grabbed a dishcloth and scrubbed the table.

'Your brother's getting better at cooking, but he needs some work with the cleaning and washing up after himself.'

'No kidding.'

'Sit yourself down, then. Your father will be down soon, and we'll have breakfast.'

Ginny toyed with a spoon nervously. 'Mum? Can I tell you something?'

Molly turned at the sound of her daughter's voice. 'Of course you can...'

Ginny took in a deep breath. 'I slapped Harry yesterday afternoon.' She started to balance her cutlery across the rim of her teacup.

'Ah.'

Molly didn't say anything else, so Ginny continued. 'I didn't realize I'd done it until afterward.' She drew a shaking hand over her eyes. 'I've never been so angry before. It... Scared me,' she confessed. 'What if I do it again?'

Molly dropped into the chair next to Ginny. 'I don't think you will.'

'How do you know?' Ginny asked mulishly, angrily swiping at the tears on her face.

'You obviously didn't care for it,' Molly said dryly. 'And nobody's themselves right now.' She gently stroked Ginny's hair. 'We've all done things we're not proud of, especially the past couple of months.' She hugged Ginny, and brushed a kiss over her cheek. 'Don't worry too much about it.'

George slouched into the kitchen. 'We've become the weepiest bloody family in England. Maybe all of Britain. Fred would be outraged,' he pronounced, pouring a cup of tea for himself.

Ginny gaped at him. 'Yes, he would,' she agreed faintly. 'He'd do something silly like set off fireworks in the sitting room.'

The corner of George's mouth twitched. 'Or switch out everybody's wand with a trick one while they were in the loo,' he said pointedly. 'Where did Percy hide mine, by the way?'

'It's in my desk,' Ginny told him. I'll give it to you after breakfast.'

*****

Harry pried his eyelids open and rolled over, shoving most of the bedding to the floor. He stumbled out of the bed and blearily grabbed a pair of clean boxers from the pile of clean laundry Molly had left in the room earlier. He hauled himself to the bathroom, and turned on the shower. He was exhausted, having spent most of the night tossing and turning, the echoes of his conversations with Ron and Ginny bouncing around his brain. He stood under the spray, hoping the hot water would prod him into wakefulness, or at least clear some of the cobwebs from his head. He opened the first bottle he could see, and worked the shampoo through this hair, realizing halfway through it was Ginny's. Shrugging, he worked the lather through his hair and rinsed it out. He reached for the facecloth draped over the side of the tub, as he picked up the bar of soap. He lathered the facecloth and washed with an attention to detail he hadn't had since the night he'd woken up after the battle.

It afforded him an opportunity to take a good look at himself. He had always been thin, but he was astonished to really notice how scrawny he had become. He could easily count his ribs, and was little more than skin and bones. I look like Sirius when we found him in the Shrieking Shack. It was a startling revelation to him. And another signal he hadn't paid attention to anything around him in weeks. Sighing, he rinsed the facecloth and wrung it out, returning it to the edge of the tub.

As he pulled on the clean boxers, he wondered which course was best in the end - shutting himself away like he had been doing, or letting himself feel something, even if it did hurt almost unbearably. Standing in front of the mirror, he started shaving, taking the time to carefully shave the area under his jaw he always missed. Rinsing the razor, he gave himself a look, wiping the condensation off the mirror. 'Remind yourself to thank Ginny one day. It was about time someone smacked some sense into you.' He wiped his face on his towel and hung it up to dry.

He opened the bathroom door, and came to face Ron, shifting from foot to foot on the landing.

*****

Going into the kitchen for breakfast required more courage than facing a room full of Death Eaters, Harry concluded. Everyone went silent and stared at him for a moment before they studiously went back to their meals. 'Sit down, dear,' Molly said tremulously, gesturing toward the table.

He would have probably fled back up to his room, had Ron not been behind him. The only available place at the table was the empty place next to Ginny. Ron prodded him in the back. 'That's what you get for dawdling,' Ron told him smugly, before going to sit in his place at the table. Harry gingerly slid into the seat next to Ginny after Molly set a plate on the table for him. She heaped his plate with food, and he mechanically plowed his way through it, not arguing when she added more.

Arthur left for work, leaving the rest of them still milling about the table. Ginny rose from her chair, and for reasons he didn't comprehend, Harry's hand shot out and closed around her wrist. He met her wide eyes, flicking his toward the back door and garden. She hesitated for a moment before nodding. He pushed his chair back and the two of them silently left the kitchen.

Ginny kept glancing sideways at him. She had felt her stomach twist when he appeared in the doorway, the faint bruises shadowing his face. Outside in the sunshine, they appeared much worse. He stopped at the base of a large oak tree. Ginny reached up and traced the bruise feathered across one cheek. 'I'm so sorry...' she whispered thickly. 'I shouldn't have... Slapped you,' she said softly, remorse etched over her features.

Harry took a deep breath. 'Maybe it was just what I needed. To get through the fog, I suppose.' He looked down at her and wrinkled his nose. 'Just don't do that again, all right? You have a very good right arm on you,' he added, a fleeting smile drifting over his face. One of his hands rose and his fingers laced through the strands of hair that rested over Ginny's shoulder, gliding through them. 'Gin? I'm sorry... About Fred.' His eyes closed for a moment. 'It was not something I wanted to happen. It was like losing my own brother.'

Ginny swallowed. 'Fred knew what he was getting into. We all did.' She shrugged. 'Doesn't make it hurt less, but it wasn't pointless, and Fred would kick your arse halfway to London if he knew you were wallowing,' she told him.

Harry's hand stilled and came to rest on her shoulder. 'Any death is pointless when it's like that,' he said flatly. He had come to the conclusion long ago that there was no such thing as a purposeful death.

'Maybe,' Ginny argued. 'But you can wallow in the grief and let it swallow you, or you can remember the person as they lived,' she said firmly. She looked up at Harry. 'And you can make damn sure they're never forgotten.'

Harry shrugged. They were getting into territory he'd rather not visit. He gestured to the ladder, unsure of what he was going to say once they got there, beyond trying to give Ginny an answer to her accusations from yesterday. 'After you.'

*****

'Earn me back,' Ginny murmured against Harry's lips.

Harry stared at her dumbfounded. 'How do I do that...?'

'You could try trusting me,' Ginny said tartly. 'Believing what I tell you would be a good start, too.'

'Yeah...' Harry rubbed the back of his neck. 'Do you mind if we go somewhere else? I just can't shake the image of Ron and Hermione...' He flushed.

'Say no more,' Ginny interrupted. 'I can do without that image myself. I can't believe Ron actually...' She shuddered dramatically. 'I mean, I love him, but I'm surprised he managed to keep his foot out of his mouth long enough to kiss her.' She descended down the ladder.

'I'm more surprised he didn't say something that would make her turn him into a rat,' Harry retorted, following her down the ladder. 'So... Where should we go? We're sort of trapped here, unless you want a trail of reporters following us.' He glanced down at her. She had a questioning look on her face. 'I do read the paper. Bloody Rita Skeeter and her blathering on about where I've disappeared to. Nothing most of those leeches would like more than get the story,' he said bitterly.

'River,' Ginny suggested. 'It's where I like to go.'

Harry followed her to the grassy river bank, conjuring a blanket for them to sit on. He stretched out on it, basking in the warm sunshine. 'You look like hell,' Ginny commented conversationally.

Harry opened one eye, and found her face hovering over his. 'Thanks.' The eye closed. 'I know that. Why do people seem to want to comment on the obvious?'

'It's a talking point.'

'I haven't been sleeping well,' sighed Harry.

'Tell me something I don't know,' Ginny shot at him. 'None of us have.'

'Sorry,' he mumbled.

Ginny leaned back against the blanket. 'Can I ask you something?'

'You just did.'

'Git.' She nudged him a little.

'Go ahead.'

Ginny fiddled with the edge of the blanket. 'You don't dream about him anymore, do you?'

Harry's eyes popped open. He turned his head to look at Ginny. 'No, I don't. They weren't really dreams anyway. I was there...' He reached over and touched the back of her hand. 'Why? Do you?'

'Sometimes,' she confessed. 'A lot last year.' She gnawed a hangnail thoughtfully. 'Usually when things got bad at school.' She gazed at him again. 'Can I ask you something else?'

'Sure.'

'Snape.'

Harry propped himself up on his elbows. 'That's not a question,' he pointed out to her.

'Why was his name said at the memorial?' Ginny asked bluntly.

'I asked McGonagall to add it,' he told her.

'Are you spell damaged?' she asked incredulously.

'He saved me. He was working with Dumbledore the entire time,' Harry said softly. He lay back on the blanket and curled into a ball. 'I was there when he died... He gave me his memories,' he rasped.

'Oh...' Ginny lay down, and pillowed her head on her arm. She wondered if he would fall asleep if she stayed quiet. In time Harry's breathing deepened and slowed. She reached out a hand and gently brushed the hair from his eyes. He badly needed a haircut. Mum's going to start nagging about that, now he's decided to come out of the room... she thought with grim amusement, before sleep claimed her as well.

It was peaceful in the meadow, with the sound of the river flowing next to them. The tranquility was shattered when Harry flailed in his sleep and smacked Ginny in the face. 'Merlin's sagging...' Ginny groaned. She sat up and caught Harry's wrists in her hands. 'Harry, wake up!' She struggled to transfer one of his wrists to the other hand, then began to shake him. 'Wake up...'

Harry sat up with a gasp. His wide eyes took in the riverbank, Ginny's hands wrapped around his wrist, blood trickling from her nose. 'Shite,' he murmured, working a hand free from Ginny's grip, and using a thumb to wipe the blood away. 'Did I do that...?' She nodded. 'Doesn't look broken,' he offered.

'It's fine.' Ginny let go and used the tail of her shirt to stem the blood. 'Were you dreaming?'

'Yeah...'

'What... What were you dreaming about?' she asked tentatively, not entirely certain she wanted to hear the answer.

Harry's mouth worked like a fish for a moment. 'I dream about them,' he found himself telling Ginny. 'The ones who died. All of them,' he admitted.

'All of the ones from the battle?'

'No.' Harry looked up at the clouds drifting across the sky. 'All of them. All the ones he killed or had killed.' His breath began to come in shallow pants. 'They surround me,' he gulped. 'And I can't get out. It's like they're smothering me.'

'Harry...' Ginny delicately touched the side of his face.

'No matter how many people tell me it wasn't my fault, the truth of the matter is it was,' he said harshly. 'I was the one he was looking for, and he wasn't going to stop until he had me.'

'Stop it!' Ginny commanded. 'You didn't ask for it. You didn't ask for any of it. You're just as much a victim of his greed and insanity as the rest of us.' She took a deep breath, and held his face between her hands, forcing him to look at her. 'It wasn't your fault.'

'When are people going to stop telling me that?'

'When you start to believe it,' Ginny said simply.

*****

Harry slept off and on most of the next afternoon in the back garden, Ron sitting next to him, writing in some journal, dragging his body into the house only when Molly called him and Ron for dinner. Harry slid into his place at the table, and tilted Ginny's chin to the side, so he could examine her nose. 'All right?' he asked shyly.

'It's fine. No worse than getting clouted in the face by an opposing team in Quidditch.'

Dinner was fairly uneventful, except for George asking Harry if he wanted to join him and Ron Monday morning to have a look at the shop and begin the process of rebuilding it. Harry glanced at Ginny sharply, but she just gave him a small nod of encouragement. 'Y-y-yeah... I'd like that,' he stammered, cramming a large spoonful of treacle tart into his mouth to cover his confusion.

He started to help Ginny with the dishes after the meal was finished, but Arthur took his elbow. 'Can we have a word with you?' he asked, looking so serious, that Harry's heart jumped into his throat.

Harry nodded, unwilling to trust his ability to speak at the moment. He let Arthur propel him into the sitting room, and stood awkwardly by the fireplace, timidly watching Molly and Arthur settle on the sofa and an armchair respectively. 'Have a seat, son,' Arthur told him, gesturing to the place next to Molly on the sofa. 'We need to talk with you.'

Harry's breath caught in his throat. I've caused too much trouble, he thought, beginning to panic. 'Do you want me to leave?' he asked in a strangled voice, knotting his fingers together behind his back.

Molly's brow knit in consternation. 'Harry, why would we want you to leave?'

Harry shakily walked to an ottoman, and perched on the edge of it. Ginny's words from the previous afternoon began to ricochet through his brain. 'The nightmares, the reporters... I'm disrupting your lives...' he babbled. Please don't make me leave, he pleaded silently. I don't have anywhere else to go. He pushed himself off the ottoman and began to pace nervously in front of the fireplace.

'Harry, we don't want you to leave,' Arthur said firmly. 'You're welcome to stay as long as you like.'

Molly got to her feet, and stood in front of Harry. 'Harry, dear, please, sit down.' He stopped, and she put an arm around his shoulders and guided him to the sofa, making him sit between her and Arthur. 'We wanted to talk to you about Fred,' she said gently.

Harry inhaled shakily. 'All right...'

'Son, we don't hold you responsible for it. No matter how you might feel about the whole thing.' Arthur cupped the back of Harry's bent head, a gesture that nearly unraveled Harry's control over his emotions. Arthur's hand began to gently stroke his head, and Harry felt his eyes burn with unshed tears. 'The moment those two joined the Order officially, they knew what might happen. We all did. So did you.'

Molly's hand landed on Harry's knee. 'Everyone there knew they could die.'

'But they didn't have to,' Harry said hoarsely. 'Tonks didn't. She could have stayed home...'

'And she still chose to go,' Molly said. 'She took a calculated risk, just like you did.'

'I didn't mean for it to happen,' Harry choked. He bent forward, and buried his face in his arms.

Molly wrapped her arms around him, hugging him tightly. 'I know, dear,' she crooned, brushing her lips over his temple.

Harry felt his body tremble and to his dismay he began to cry. It wasn't tidy, nor was it brief. Harry hadn't allowed himself to weep in years, and he found once he started, it was difficult to stop. He tried to bring his emotions back under control several times, but it was nearly impossible for him to slam the gates closed. Eventually, he gave up and did what he'd wanted to since the end of his fourth year - let himself imagine that Molly was his mother and cry on her shoulder, like he was a small child.

Molly rocked him to and fro, murmuring nonsense, rubbing his back. She looked up at Arthur, a concerned expression on her face. He was looking at Harry with an inscrutable look of his own. He met her gaze and they both knew each was thinking the same thing.

Harry had been sobbing in earnest for over half an hour, but he hadn't made a sound, other than the occasional rasping breath. Molly didn't like to speak ill of people, but she tried to imagine what kind of childhood Harry had that would make him learn to cry like this. All her children were noisy criers. Especially the boys. She bent her head closer and caught the edges of something he was saying, almost too low to hear. 'Please forgive me...'

*****

When Molly, Arthur, and Harry left, Ginny began to wash the dishes from the dinner table. When she had dried, and put the last plate away, they still had not emerged from the sitting room. She started scrubbing the counters, then washed the floor, in an effort to do something that would take her attention away from the door. The eerie silence told her one of her parents had put a Silencing charm on the door, and she experimentally lobbed a butterbeer cork at the door, thinking she could put an Extendable Ear through the crack under the door. But it veered away from the door. Finally, when there was nothing left to do, she sat at the table, and glared at the door, willing them to come through it. Ron and George joined her eventually, after her parents and Harry had been ensconced in the sitting room for two hours. Arthur came in briefly for an analgesic potion for Harry, and a dishcloth for his face. When he returned to the sitting room, Ron bustled about making tea and set a cup in front of Ginny. 'Drink it,' he ordered. When she didn't protest, Ron took it as a sign of how distressed she was.

Another hour passed by, and Ginny's incessant worrying of her lower lip between her teeth caused a minor uproar when her lip began to bleed. George took her chin in his hand, and pulled his wand out. 'You're sure this is mine?' he asked warily. Ginny nodded stiffly. 'Episkey,' he muttered.

'Blimey,' Ron breathed, looking at his watch. It was nearly ten. 'Come on, Gin, you ought to get to bed,' he urged.

Ginny stubbornly shook her head. 'No.'

Resignedly, Ron settled in the chair next to her. Ginny eventually fell asleep, her head resting on her folded arms. At last, Molly came through the door, and stopped at the sight of her two youngest children, slumped at the table. 'Ginny,' she said softly, waking her. 'Ginny go on up to bed, dear.'

'Where's Harry...?' she mumbled.

'In the sitting room. I came to take him some hot chocolate.'

'Hot chocolate?' Ron asked. 'Really?'

'It's what he asked for,' Molly said absently, pouring milk into a cup, and adding chocolate to it, heating it with a tap of her wand.

'It helps...' Ginny said muzzily, a long-ago memory coming to the surface. 'Remus said so...' she added as she stumbled to the stairs.

'Here, Mum, I'll take it,' Ron piped up. When Molly looked at him askance, he promised, 'I won't ask about earlier.' She handed him the cup.

'Good night, then, Ron,' Molly said tiredly. She trudged up the stairs to the fourth floor.

Ron took the steaming cup into the sitting room. Harry was huddled in a corner of the sofa, looking decidedly worse for wear. 'Here, mate,' he said, holding out the cup.

Harry took it gratefully, and blew gently on the steaming liquid to cool it before he began to sip the hot chocolate. He glanced up at Ron, looking at him with a concerned expression. 'I'm all right,' he said, fatigue making his voice husky. 'Really...'

'Tell Ginny before you go to bed,' advised Ron. 'She was worried enough to bite through her lip.' Harry nodded and tried to stand up. Ron held out a hand. Harry looked at the proffered hand and clasped it, allowing Ron to haul him to his feet. 'You're on your own to get to bed,' Ron informed him. 'I'm not carrying you.'

A ghost of laughter came from Harry, as he made his way up the stairs. He stopped in front of Ginny's door and knocked softly. Ginny opened it, dressed for bed. Harry's forefinger traced her lower lip. 'You okay?'

'I should be asking you that.'

Harry lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. 'I've been worse.' He held out the cup. 'Want some?'

Ginny accepted the cup and turned back into her room, beckoning Harry in with a motion of her head. They sat next to each other on the bed, passing the cup back and forth until it was empty. Ginny set it on her desk. 'I'll take it down to the kitchen in the morning.'

Harry nodded, and before he could stop himself, he tilted her chin up, and brushed his mouth across hers. She tasted of chocolate and ginger biscuits. 'Good night, Gin,' he murmured.