Roughing It

I'm not J.K. Rowling, thus, I do not own Harry Potter or his world.

Thanks to Darker_Rage for being an AMAZING beta. If wasn't for you, this chapter would be completely horrid!

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Harry knew he was stumbling on his words - if he didn't clean this up fast, he would end up doing more harm than good.

"Ginny, I want to be with you -" he hesitated, "But it makes me angry when I think about how we spent five years together at Hogwarts, entire summers together, and now your moving to the other side of the world..." he paused again, "I wish I had paid more attention to what I was feeling... I was completely oblivious to all of it. We wasted so many opportunities because I'm a prat," he finished in a whisper.

Harry looked her in the eye as he spoke. Ginny hadn't turned from his gaze, but her eyes weren't telling him anything about what she was thinking. Ginny had always been good at that. He wished he was capable of that right now, because he was almost certain his eyes were pleading with her to respond positively to his words. Ginny's eyes dropped to the floor.

"Say something..." he whispered.

"I don't know what to say..." she countered. Her voice held a tinge of regret mingled with anger - but he knew it wasn't directed towards him, it was the situation they now found themselves facing. The war was over; how was this happening to them? "Harry, we can't...I mean, I can't...not after what...not yet."

She didn't have to finish. He knew. So this was how it was to be...a regret in their minds for what could have been.

"It's not that I don't want to. I would love to", she continued, "but we are going in different directions now. You're here, doing amazing things, and I, well, I'm still trying to find out what I want my amazing things to be. I have to do this. I've spent so much time worrying about you, and wanting you to have the things you want that I forgot to even figure out what it is I want. And I know that now I'm about to deny you the one thing that will finally make you happy, but you need to understand that if I don't do this now, I'll never be happy with you." She said these things as if it were the first time she thought them. She didn't sound very upset about leaving him behind either. He was getting irritated.

"I'm not asking you to stay Gin, I'm just asking you to consider -"

"I know what you are asking, and I won't Harry. I think we both need this time. Obviously, neither of us wants to take it, but I think we both know we need it. We are still teenagers Harry." She sat down on the bench and he moved to follow her. For a while, he just looked at her. She looked like she was gearing up for a struggle as she sat on the bench; her hands clutched the edge of the seat while she crouched forward, as if she didn't want to give in to sitting down for fear of never being able to get up.

It was January. Her cheeks were pink from the cold and her hair, the loose waves of red and orange he loved so much, was flowing out of the cap she was wearing to keep warm.

"Do you ever think about who you are, Harry?" she asked. He thought about the question for a moment. He knew who he was because since he was young, everyone had told him. But now, thinking about her question, he realized he had no idea what the answer was. The only answer he had ever known was the one everyone told him. Who was he?

"No, I don't think, I have," he answered airily.

"I know who I am now, but I don't know who I want to be. And in taking this apprenticeship, while I don't think I'll find the answer, I might get closer to it."

"I don't know who I want to be," he responded, not really listening to Ginny anymore. There was a new problem now, who the hell was he anyway? Ginny didn't mind, she wasn't really expecting him to have an answer for her.

She moved closer to him and placed her hand on his cheek. For a moment, she traced the lines of his jaw, as if she were trying to remember exactly what it felt like to touch him.

She moved in close then, embracing him. Her lips skimmed his neck as she whispered, "We have time."

She kissed him softly on the cheek, her lips barely making contact with his skin. She pulled away, and for once her eyes didn't try to hide what she was feeling - it didn't seem like she wanted them to. They told him she wasn't sure she even believed what she had just said to him. Did they have time? For months it was uncertain if they would ever have time and, now that they finally had it, he thought it was foolish to throw it away.

He watched her as she got up to collect her belongings and prepare to leave. This was the end. He hated not having the security of knowing when they would see each other again. For so long he had had control and now it felt as though he was feeling the loss of it for the first time in his life. He was beginning to think he had never had it.

She smiled at him as she lifted her bags, and raised her hand into the air to wave to him, as if they were miles apart already, even though there was hardly any space between them. She placed her coat on her arm and turned, not willing to say good-bye to the boy she had loved since before she could remember.

And that was how Ginny Weasley walked out of Harry Potter's life.