An Ironic Title

Chapter 3: Losing Their Savior . . . Losing My Love

"Ginny?"

Someone is speaking to me, I'm not sure who. It doesn't really matter now, anyway, now that he's gone.

An arm comes around my shoulders and I look up into the concerned face of Dean Thomas, my boyfriend. But his title doesn't really matter anymore, the next time I'll snog him doesn't matter anymore. All that matters is that he's gone.

"Gin, you alright?" Never have I felt like smacking him more.

"No, I'm not alright," I say, angrily shrugging him off. "And you know it." Why is it that boys always insist on asking those type of questions when the answer is quite obvious? Well, except for him. . . .

"Look, I know that Harry was one of your best mates, he was my friend, too, remember? I understand that you're hurt." You don't understand you can never understand! When you say or hear or even think his name, do you feel as if your heart is being ripped to pieces and you're burning up from the sheer pain of it? I don't think so. I feel like screaming all this and more at him, but I don't.

Instead I say, "He loved me, Dean," and stalk off, my demeanor warning him not to come after me or he'll wish he hadn't. I glance around and see if anyone's watching me. No one is, they're all gazing at his casket, grieving for the boy they all loved, and the man I wish I could have grown to love. I let out a choked sob at these thoughts and then I run, tears running unabashedly down my face and mixing with the rain of the dreary day, my hair windswept and my tattered dress robes flowing behind me. I'm not exactly one of the most glamorous girls at Hogwarts, right now, but I know that he wouldn't have cared, he thought I was beautiful no matter what. He said he loved me and that he'd be thinking of me if he died.

I wonder if he was thinking of me now, up there with his parents and Sirius. I wonder if he was wishing I was there with him in that sunlit meadow (or bedroom, whichever he preferred), and . . . well, Mum wouldn't find it proper that I think such thoughts at so young an age. I haven't even gone that far with Dean.

But . . . oh, how much I want to be with him, how much I want to crawl into the casket with him and be buried beneath the warm, dark earth. I cannot express how much I want to do that right now. I could die down there and then be with him forever and . . . oh, if Mum could hear my thoughts, she'd slap me silly!

And speak of the devil, here was Mum now! It's quite easy to recognize her messy, curly bright-red hair, somewhat streaked with gray, despite her attempts to lighten it with numerous spells. She comes up to me and strokes my long hair, sweeping it out of my face, as she did for him so often. I turn to Mum with an expression very like his, I imagine and she smiles at me, though it looks slightly forced and her eyes are somewhat watery. I can tell that she's being brave for us, but she cries when she knows we can't see (a lot of the times in Dad's arms), because she doesn't want to let her children's spirits down. She cares about her family more than anything in the world (and he was part of that family). I guess that's why I love her so much.

"You didn't have to speak to Dean like that," she reprimands gently. Did I say love? I meant detest.

"He doesn't understand. He wasn't anything to him."

Mum understands what I mean, she always does. I guess it's a girl thing. "Well, of course he can't understand, dear. You shouldn't expect him to. Harry didn't really invite him to the will-reading, did he?"

I don't say anything, I don't want to admit defeat, but Mum knows that I understand her.

"I think you should go apologize," she says and then turns to leave.

"Apologize for what? He loved me, Mum! It's the truth!" I call, my heart breaking. Can't anyone understand?

Mum turns back and she gazes at me pityingly. "I know he loved you, which is why he would want you to move on," she says and then walks away, back to Dad. I want to scream, "But I CAN'T!" to her retreating back, but I don't. I just let the tears stream down my face and watch as Dad holds Mum to him. I wanted to have that type of relationship with him, we could have had such a future together, once we both realized our love for each other.

Of course, my first love for Harry had been more of the fan girl type of love, it hadn't been true love, as I now realize ours was. I remember first seeing him when he went through to Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters, and thinking that that was the Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, the savior of the wizarding world. He hadn't seemed like much of a savior to my ten-year-old brain, though, he looked pretty raggedy in his loose-fitting Muggle clothing.

However, I had learned so much more about him in my first year at Hogwarts, I remembered feeling horrible when I first woke up on the floor of the Chamber. I had put the savior of the wizarding world, my secret crush (though it wasn't really secret from that musical Valentine that that horrid dwarf sang) in danger! He could have been killed! Yet he had simply shrugged off and led me out of the Chamber as if we had simply been picnicking and it had started raining, so we decided to leave - with haste. Later, when he was telling the story in McGonagall's office, I learned that the basilisk fang had pierced his arm and I nearly screamed. I had nearly killed him! This was all my fault! But he didn't seem to mind, in fact, he hadn't mentioned my relation with the diary at all, he was trying to shift the blame away from me - toward him if he had to. But Dumbledore had rescued him in the nick of time, not this time, though, especially not because of what Harry had said to Dumbledore in his will, I would never have believed it of him, but there it was in black and white - literally.

As the years passed in Hogwarts, I began to open up toward Harry and come out of my shell, I realized that he wasn't the savior of the wizarding world that the Ministry had painted him to be, he was Harry (I guess I'll have to get used to hearing his name, so I might as well start now), Harry who liked Quidditch and chocolate frogs and mischief-making, especially mischief-making if what Remus told us about the Marauders was true, which I have no doubt it is. Remus wouldn't lie, especially not in honoring Harry's final requests.

And over those years, I found myself going past the supposed 'savior' he was and seeing the Harry that he actually was, the Harry that I found myself falling in love with, much more than fan girl love. Yet I hadn't told him, why hadn't I told him? I was screaming at myself now, yet I knew the answer: because I was afraid he wouldn't love me back, was afraid of that adolescent embarrassment that he'd had in the beginning. I should have taken the chance, because now he was gone and I didn't have it anymore.

But I did have another chance, I realized. I walk back to the grieving people at the funeral and up the aisle to the casket to pay my last respects. Ron's there and, upon seeing me, murmurs something and leaves. I wonder what it was and decide to ask him later. Then, it's my turn and I go up to the casket, looking at Harry's emerald-green eyes, staring into space, seeing nothing. "I love you, sweetie," I say, and, leaning forward, I kiss him, bringing all the love that I wish I'd shown him all those years into it. "And I know we'll be together again, someday."

Now Dean comes up and wraps his arm cautiously around my shoulders and I allow myself to relax into his embrace. "Sorry," he says pleadingly. I will . . . this time anyway.

"Harry would want me to move on," I say, saying his name for the first time since his will had been read. Dean nods and leads me away from the casket and as he does, I whisper, "And I'll see you again someday," to the sky where rays of sun are starting to peek out.