Ginny's War

Harry, Ron and Hermione disappeared back into the Room of Requirement. Harry had told her to wait. Like hell, Ginny thought, and raced headlong down the corridor where Tonks had disappeared, dodging spells as they burst through the shattered windows. Adrenaline surged through her. After so long waiting, frustrated, she yearned for action.

She rounded a corner, then another -- and pulled up short at the terrible sight before her: Tonks, kneeling over the prone body of Remus Lupin, sobbing uncontrollably. His eyes were open and fixed, staring upward at nothing. His wand lay inches from his outstretched hand.

"Oh, no, Tonks! No!" Ginny ran to kneel beside Tonks, putting her arms around her. Tonks continued sobbing, rocking back and forth, and Ginny thought she had never heard anything so piteous. "I'm so sorry!"

There was a boom outside the walls, and the entire castle seemed to shudder. Ginny stood and tried to pull Tonks with her. "Tonks, come on, we have to go. It's not safe." Tonks shook her head violently, but Ginny persisted, pulling harder, and for a moment she thought she had won. Tonks was on her feet, and they were stumbling down the corridor. Someone screamed outside, and Tonks jerked her arm away, running back toward Lupin's body, her abrupt movement sending Ginny falling to her knees.

Then there was a blinding flash, and with a mighty roar, the outer wall between them begin to crumble. Ginny threw herself to the floor, covering her head with her arms. The avalanche of stones seemed to go on forever, but it could have been only a few seconds. When it stopped, she was covered in dust and small pieces of rock, but miraculously unhurt except for a few cuts and bruises. She coughed and looked back toward Tonks, and the world tilted.

Tonks had almost made it back to Lupin, but she lay face-up, half-buried under a pile of rocks. Ginny scrambled over the debris toward her, screaming her name. A pool of blood seeped from the back of Tonks' head, and her eyes were glassy and full of pain.

"Tonks! You'll be OK! You have to be OK!" Ginny cried, then waved her wand over the stones, sending them flying away. "Just hang on! I'll go find Madam Pomfrey --"

With what seemed a huge effort, Tonks raised her hand and grabbed Ginny's arm like a vise, fixing her with a desperate stare."Tell Teddy ... I'm sorry...." she gasped. "I love him...." And then Tonks was gone, too, sprawled beside the man she had loved, her pink hair fading to a dull, mousy brown.

Ginny fell backward, a sob bursting from her throat. She let herself cry for a moment, then, tears streaming down her face, she picked up their fallen wands and tucked them into her pocket. Teddy would want them someday.

---

Ginny made her way to the Great Hall, passing a few students and teachers running in the opposite direction. Once inside, she was relieved to see her mother among the crowd of people, talking seriously with George and Professor Slughorn. She flung herself into her mother's arms as she had not done since she was a little girl.

"Ginny! What are you doing here?" Molly shouted. "I told you to stay --"

"Mum, Tonks and Lupin are dead!"

The three others gasped. "What??" George cried. "What happened?"

Haltingly, Ginny explained what she had witnessed. "Aberforth said that Lupin was dueling Dolohov," she finished sadly. "He must have --"

Molly's arm was around Ginny's shoulders, and Ginny felt her stiffen. She looked up and saw Percy staggering toward them.

They could tell immediately from the look on Percy's face and his red-rimmed eyes that something was wrong. "Percy? What's happened?" Molly gasped, her hand flying to her chest.

His voice was shell-shocked. "It's Fred, he's ... he's dead."

Molly let out a shriek, and something tight gripped Ginny's insides. She rounded on Percy. "No! Shut up, Percy! You're lying!"

"He's not." George's voice sounded hollow, and it was as if all the blood had drained from his face. "I can feel it." The stricken certainty in his eyes caused the thing inside Ginny to grip even harder, and her vision blurred. Her mother was making the most horrible, pitiful noises, like a wounded animal. For a moment, Ginny thought she would pass out. Not Fred, nonononono. And, shamefully, from somewhere deep inside, came the thought, "Why couldn't it have been Percy instead?"

"There was an explosion ... it was so fast ... we couldn't...." Percy's voice trailed off.

"I should have been with him," George whispered. "Why wasn't I with him?" Molly enveloped him in her arms.

Suddenly, there was a loud crash, a cry from somewhere just outside the Great Hall, and a group of Death Eaters burst through the doors, spraying spells into the room. Ginny's vision cleared, and she was filled with a rage that she'd never known before, hot and black and consuming. She raised her wand and ran toward them, barely hearing her mother and Percy's cries of "Ginny! No!" as a spell shot by her.

"Sectumsempra!" she screamed as she pointed her wand at the nearest Death Eater. It hit him solidly in the face, and he went down, blood spraying all over. Spells filled the air, and she saw George next to her, firing at another Death Eater, then another, his curses a snarl. Her mother and Percy were nearby, their wands shooting just as quickly. Somewhere, she knew, the rest of her family would be doing the same. All except Fred. She whirled, not caring as an Avada Kedavra whizzed past her shoulder, firing the curse again and again, savoring the sight of it hitting another Death Eater, scarlet bursting from his chest.

Then, seemingly in an instant, it was over, and the only people with their wands raised were on her side: her mother, George, Percy, McGonagall, Slughorn, Sprout, fellow students. She saw her father and Bill run in, and she could tell from the looks on their faces that they knew. All the Weasleys seemed to move at once, and they were engulfed in one another's arms, Molly sobbing as if her heart were broken and trying to gather her children into one embrace. Their tears mingled, bathing them all in their shared grief.

----

Voldemort's voice echoed throughout the school, ordering his forces to retreat and demanding that Harry turn himself over to him in an hour. Fear sent a chill through Ginny. She wished she knew where the hell Harry was. It was a familiar feeling.

Her father and brothers went to retrieve the bodies of Fred, Lupin and Tonks, joining a silent, grim-faced progression as the fallen were discovered and brought into the Great Hall, some to be treated by Madam Pomfrey, many more past her ministrations. Her mother would not let go of her, holding her close and stroking her hair. At any other time, it would have annoyed Ginny, but now she didn't mind.

They gathered around Fred's body, mourning, waiting. She had never seen her father cry before that night, and it terrified her. Ron and Hermione came in, but not Harry. They didn't know where he had gone.

She couldn't take it anymore. She couldn't take any more loss. She would find Harry, make sure he didn't do anything stupid and noble. At the first opportunity, she slipped away and out of the Great Hall.

She ran into Neville, leaning against the wall in the entrance hall, taking a break from carrying bodies in from the grounds. He looked as if he had aged 20 years, and she put her arms around him. "I'm so sorry, Ginny, about Fred," he whispered into her hair, and she nodded her thanks against his shoulder, before drawing away.

"Have you happened to see Harry anywhere?" she asked.

"No, I haven't. I'm sorry." He gave her hand a squeeze, and they walked out the front doors onto the grounds. Oliver Wood, his face set into a stony mask, walked toward them carrying a small body in his arms. Colin Creevey. Another arrow of grief pierced Ginny's heart. Neville went to help Oliver, and Ginny walked further from the front entrance, among the sad heaps on the ground.

Then, she heard a whimpering from a shape to her left. As she drew closer, she saw that it was a girl, a third-year Hufflepuff whom Ginny had seen but whose name she didn't know. She was so very small. Ginny crouched down beside her.

"It's all right," she said, trying to make her voice as soothing as she could. "It's okay. We're going to get you inside."

"But I want to go *home*," the girl whispered. "I don't want to fight anymore!"

"I know," Ginny said, and she couldn't stop her voice from breaking. "It's going to be all right." She knew she was lying, knew it wasn't ever going to be all right. There had been so much death, and Fred was gone, and Lupin and Tonks and *Colin*, how was it ever going to be all right again?

She took the girl's hand, and then suddenly, she felt something, a presence nearby. She immediately thought of Harry, but as she looked around, there was no one, no one except her, the girl and the bodies.

---

The girl would not release Ginny's hand, begging her to stay with her. And so she went back inside, holding the girl's hand as Oliver carried her to Madam Pomfrey. Finally, the girl's hand slipped from hers as the sleeping draught took effect, and she turned, intending to return to her search. The hour was almost up.

Ron and Hermione walked into the Hall, their shoulders drooping. They must have been looking for Harry, too. She could tell the answer to her question from their body language, but she had to ask.

"Did you find Harry?"

"No," Hermione said, looking as worried as Ginny had ever seen her. "He's nowhere."

"I saw him outside, maybe 20 minutes ago." Neville said, seemingly appearing from nowhere. "It was just after I saw you, Ginny. He was wearing his invisibility cloak, but he took it off and spoke to me. He said he had something he had to do and would be gone for awhile."

"Oh, no!" Ginny clapped her hand to her mouth, sudden knowledge sending ice down her spine. She had sensed him after all. "He's gone to turn himself in!"

"He wouldn't!" Ron shouted.

"He would," Hermione said quietly.

"He said he wasn't --" Neville began, but then they all became aware of a rising commotion around them. "Harry Potter ... outside ... dead ... You-Know-Who...." Voices rose and mingled as people rushed toward the entrance hall and the front doorway. The four of them looked at each other and then ran, pushing people aside to reach the front of the crowd, hearing Voldemort's voice echoing with awful words -- and then stopped in horror at the sight before them.

Voldemort stood on the lawn, surrounded by Death Eaters. And there was Hagrid, with Harry lifeless in his arms.

Ginny swayed and fell into Neville, who grabbed her shoulders and held on. She heard screams around her, and Harry's name was ripped from her throat. For yet another time that night, grief exploded within her, raw and encompassing and worse, ten thousand times worse, than Amycus Carrow's Cruciatus curse. She barely heard what Voldemort was saying, she wanted to scream and never stop, but she couldn't, her voice was pushed back down her throat, and her head spun, there was nothing but painpainpainpain.

She felt Neville's grasp pull away and he was running toward Voldemort and he was going to die, too, they were all going to die, and she wasn't sure she even cared anymore. The next few moments passed as if they were coming to her from a great distance, as if everything were behind water. She couldn't pull her gaze away from Harry's body on the ground. He looked as if he could simply be sleeping.

Then all hell broke loose, and reality snapped back into focus. She and Hermione were clasping hands so hard that Hermione's fingernails were digging into her skin. Giants and centaurs were everywhere, Neville somehow had the sword of Gryffindor and was slicing off Nagini's head, Voldemort's mouth was open in a scream of fury ... and Harry's body was no longer there. Before she could make sense of any of this, curses began to fly everywhere, and she was being pushed and pulled by the crowd back into the entrance hall, propelled into the Great Hall once again.

She tried to fight her way free, but there were too many people, too many spells, she was too short and was being buffeted from spot to spot. Then, somehow, she had made it to an open space in the crowd, and Hermione and Luna were beside her, but before she could even catch her breath, Bellatrix Lestrange was in front of them. Their wands flew up instinctively, and the battle was joined.

There were three of them and only one of her, they should be able to beat her, but she was like quicksilver, darting and blocking their spells, cackling with mad glee. An Avada Kedavra came so close to Ginny that she could feel its power against the hairs of her arms. She had to do something, she couldn't let Bellatrix kill them all --

And then, shockingly, her mother was there, screaming like a Banshee, shooting magic more powerful than Ginny had ever seen come from her wand. It was astonishing, and soon the entire crowd had stopped fighting and was watching two furious duels. Ginny was both terrified and exhilarated, seeing her mother locked in furious battle. It turned to pure exhiliration as Bellatrix fell to her mother's killing curse. Voldemort screamed, and she knew that her mother was about to die --

Then, impossibly, Harry's voice rang out, shouting a shielding charm in front of Molly and he was *there*, oh Merlin, he was there and he was *alive*. The joy that erupted within her almost instantly turned to fear, as he and Voldemort squared off.

This was it. This was the final battle, and everyone in the hall knew it. Only one of them would survive, and the fate of the world hung on this moment, on these two wizards, on the man she loved and the fiend who had once possessed her.

For untold minutes, Ginny felt as if she stood on the edge of a sword, her world a mere second away from toppling into disaster or triumph. And then, blessedly, blissfully, Harry was the one left standing, and it was triumph.

---

She tried to hang onto him, tried to stay near him, but the crowd was too great, too insistent on showing their joy and gratitude, and she was pushed aside no matter how hard she struggled. Finally, she felt her mother's arms around her as she whispered, "They need this moment, too, Ginevra." She allowed herself to be led away to the circle of her family. There would be time later. All the time in the world.

---

The survivors mourned and celebrated as the morning wore on, and still Ginny did not get to speak to Harry. Everyone seemed to want a moment or two with him, and he tried to comply. She knew how much he was hating all of the fuss. Her body drooped, and yet she knew she could not sleep until she had spoken to Harry. She would not.

The giants and most of the Death Eaters had fled during the frenzy and jubilation that followed Voldemort's defeat. The injured and those who had been captured were locked away in some far corner of the school until they could be transported to Azkaban. The others would be hunted down in due time -- of this, she had no doubt. Ginny didn't know how the bodies of the dead Death Eaters had been disposed of, and, frankly, she didn't care.

She sat with George, Bill and Fleur on his other side. As if by unspoken agreement, at least one of the Weasleys was always with George. As hard as it was for all of them, she could not imagine what it was like for him. The twins together had always been larger than life, filling every room they entered with their energy and life. Out of all her brothers, they had been her heroes from the first moment she could remember, the ones who never seemed to be too busy for the baby of the family. Now, George seemed as if he had been Confunded, all trace of light and spark drained from him. He had tried several times to paste a smile onto his face, to crack a joke for their benefit, but it simply would not work. For just a moment, she had the painful thought that it might have been less cruel if George had not been left behind, if he and Fred had died as they had lived: together.

But then she glanced at her parents across the Hall, talking to McGonagall, and into her own heart, and she knew that as bad as it was for them to lose Fred, losing both of them would have been even worse. She laid her head against George's shoulder, trying to give him whatever meager comfort she could.

When she looked up again, Harry was standing before them. She could see her own exhaustion mirrored in his face. Ron had said he'd gone upstairs to Gryffindor tower to finally sleep, but she could tell he hadn't gotten any. He laid one hand against George's shoulder, his green eyes full of remorse and grief for Fred. "I don't know what to say. I am *so* sorry."

George inclined his head slightly, acknowledging Harry's respect without a word. Then, for the briefest of moments, the barest hint of a true smile played about his lips, the first she had seen all morning. "Well done, Harry, I knew you'd do it," he said, and then it was gone.

Harry nodded to Bill. "Zank you, 'arry," Fleur said, then gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. For a moment, the five of them stayed as they were, silent. There was so much to say, but words seemed so inadequate.

Ginny's heart was beating wildly, but she couldn't move. Then Harry turned to her. "I tried to get some sleep, but I couldn't, not until.... Ginny, can we ... can we talk?"

George squeezed her arm, and she got up, not looking at either of her brothers, and followed Harry into the entrance hall, up the stairs and to the landing. He halted, and they stared at each other for a moment, neither one seeming to want to be the first to speak.

Everything Ginny had felt since the wedding -- anger, fear, longing, pain, frustration -- clamoured to be let loose. She had been holding it in for so long. The dam burst. She raised her arm and punched Harry in the chest as hard as she could. "That's for not letting me know you were OK for eight months!" she raged, continuing to rain blows, which he made no move to stop. "And that's for making me think you were dead! And that's for not dancing with me at the wedding! And that's for being a stupid, noble idiot! And that's just because!"

The blows stopped, her anger doused as quickly as it had flamed. There was only one emotion left, the most important. "And this is because I love you." She pulled his head down to hers, and if the kiss on his birthday had been intense, this was beyond anything either of them had imagined since. Days and weeks and months of longing seemed to be poured into this one kiss. When they finally drew apart, they were both shaking and gasping for breath, their foreheads pressed together.

She took his hand and drew him up the stairs. They ran into Lee Jordan, carrying down a stack of Daily Prophets. He brandished the front page at them, grinning -- "HARRY POTTER DEFEATS VOLDEMORT!!" it screamed in large letters -- but when he looked as if he would stop and chat with them, Ginny scowled at him and he instead scurried down the stairs.

She led Harry wordlessly through the halls, past rubble and debris and gaping holes in the walls, until they were in front of the Room of Requirement.

"Uh, I don't think it's --" Harry began, but Ginny interrupted.

"McGonagall and Flitwick put out the fire," she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "It was just the one version of the room, anyway." Then, deliberately, she stated, "I need a place to be alone with my boyfriend." She opened the door into a cozy room that was very like the Gryffindor common room. There was a large sofa with many scarlet and yellow pillows, and a fire crackled warmly in the fireplace. She led him to the sofa and pulled him down beside her.

"Boyfriend?" he asked, his mouth quirking slightly but his heart singing. "Isn't that a bit presumptious?"

"Is it?" She fixed him with her steady gaze, and he wondered how he had never before noticed the flecks of gold in her brown eyes. They sparkled in the firelight.

"No. It isn't."

This time their kiss was soft and gentle and comforting.

"I missed you so much," they said, almost in unison.

"You'd better have," Ginny replied. She took a breath. "Ron and Hermione told me some of what happened. It sounds ... awful."

"It was," Harry said simply. "Was it awful here?" He knew the answer from Neville, of course, but he could not shy away from what she had to tell him. He needed to hear it, needed to know exactly what she had endured during their long months apart.

"Yes." She rubbed the scar on the back of his hand and gave a humorless snort. "The Carrows made me miss Umbridge. In Dark Arts, we had to do the Cruciatus curse on students who had detention. I wouldn't do it. Neville wouldn't either. But they figured out we weren't really trying, and we told them we never would. So we got detention. There were some very *dutiful* students."

Harry thought of Crabbe and was glad that he had burned to death.

"The pain ... it was horrible. But it was even worse to see my friends writhe and scream on the floor and not be able to help them. And it was worse to hear my friends cry themselves to sleep every night."

"Ginny, I'm --" Harry began, his heart aching for her, his wand hand itching to curse someone, but she laid a finger on his lips.

"I know you're sorry, Harry. It's not your fault. But I need to tell you all this. I haven't told anyone." She took a deep breath. "There were two times this year, before tonight, when I fully expected to die. When Snape caught me, Neville and Luna stealing the sword of Gryffindor, I thought for sure he'd Avada Kedavra us right there. I was so scared. But he just sent us to work with Hagrid. I couldn't believe he didn't even tell the Carrows. I guess now I know why he --"

Harry could not contain himself. "Ginny, why in the name of Merlin did you try to steal the sword out of Snape's office?? That was stupid and reckless!"

Ginny's eyes blazed. "He didn't deserve it! Or, we thought he didn't. Would you have sat by and done nothing? Would you have watched your classmates be tortured and done nothing? No, you wouldn't have. We revived the D.A., and practiced spells, and did underground stuff, but it wasn't going to be enough. We thought, if we had the sword, we'd have something powerful when it was time to fight. And, by the way, you could have left me your damn Marauder's Map -- we could have really used that thing! I mean, it's not like you had any use for it, right?"

Harry flushed. Should he admit to her that it was one of the few things that had kept him sane the past few months? That watching her dot had provided him immeasurable comfort? He wasn't sure he was ready to admit that. And yet, after everything, didn't he owe her the truth of his feelings? He looked down at his hands.

"Actually, Ginny, I used it a lot. Sometimes, when we'd had yet another fruitless day of searching and I couldn't see any end to it all, I'd sit and look at it, at all the students where I would have been if I were a normal person. And I'd see your dot -- sleeping in the dormitory or eating in the Great Hall -- and it would make me feel better. If I couldn't talk to you, at least I could see where you were. I loved looking at your dot. Is that ... pathetic?"

For a moment, she couldn't breathe. Her silence worried him, and when he finally dared look at her, she had tears in her eyes. "Oh, Harry," she cried. "That's the most wonderful, romantic, pathetic thing anyone has ever told me!" She flung her arms around him, and then they were both sniffling and chuckling with the absurdity of it all. "You know," she admitted into his shoulder, "there were nights when I'd be lying in bed, feeling angry and depressed and wondering if we would all make it through the year, and sometimes I'd think I could *feel* you, like if I'd turn my head, you'd be standing right there. I thought I must be going mental."

She snuggled next to him, and they sat in silence for a few moments. Then she spoke again.

"Harry, as bad as the year was, when I was stuck at Aunt Muriel's, all I wanted was to come back here. I knew it wasn't safe, knew I'd probably be taken like Luna, but at least I would have been *doing* something, not sitting and waiting like a *child*, and thinking about what was happening to Neville and Seamus and Michael and Colin --" Her voice broke. "Wondering if they were being tortured, or worse. I felt like I'd abandoned them. They'd taken Luna off the train at Christmas, and now I'd left Neville, too. I thought I would go mad from the guilt and the not knowing."

"And, of course, I didn't know where the hell you and Ron and Hermione were, or what you were doing, or even if you were still alive. I tried to tell myself that I would *know* if any of you had died, but I wouldn't have. I would have just been there, listening to Muriel lecture me about my clothes and waiting and waiting and doing *nothing*."

She sat up and locked her eyes onto his. "So I need you to know something, Harry, and I need you to accept it. The second I turn 17, I'll never be left behind again. You were fighting your war -- and you had to, I understand that, I really do -- but I was fighting one, too. You tried to keep me safe, but I wasn't safe. None of us were. No matter where you are, there's danger. So, Harry Potter, if I'm gonna go out, I'm gonna go out fighting. I'm not gonna go out waiting on the sidelines. Can you handle that?"

He stared into her brown eyes; they were fierce and determined and so undeniably *Ginny*. "I guess I'll have to, won't I?" He brought his lips to hers, and it was a promise, as much as any that had been ever been spoken aloud, as much as the vows that Bill and Fleur had spoken those many months ago. "But you're going to have to accept that I'm always going to worry about you and want you to be safe, even if I know you can take care of yourself and I can't lock you away from the Dementors and the Death Eaters and who-knows-what-else. Deal?"

"Deal." She snuggled next to him again, and after a moment, said, "You know, we'll be in the same year next year." When Harry did not respond, she looked up at him. "I mean, if you come back."

Come back to Hogwarts? Harry had not considered the possibility. There were a lot of possibilities he had not allowed himself to consider. His future, once so narrow, now seemed open and limitless. For so long, Voldemort had taken up so much of his life, had hovered over it like an eclipse. But now, for the first time, Harry could truly envision a future, one filled not with battles and death, but happiness and love. The possibility rushed through his veins like fire whiskey.

So he thought about it. He thought of the walls around him, the Quidditch field beyond, the students he had laughed with and argued with and fought beside. He thought of the knowledge he still desired, the once-cherished dream of becoming an Auror. He thought of Hagrid and McGonagall and Dumbledore. And most of all, he thought of blissful moments by the lake with the girl -- no, woman -- beside him. He smiled. "Yeah. Yeah, I think I will."

Ginny smiled back. Neither of them realized that it was the first time that either of them had smiled, really and truly smiled, since the battle had begun -- and, indeed, for a lot longer. "I heard Kingsley tell my dad that McGonagall's a shoo-in for Headmaster," she said, blinking suddenly heavy eyelids.

"I'm glad, she's --" A wide yawn interrupted Harry, chasing away the rest of his thought. "I'm so tired," he admitted. The last drops of the adrenaline that had kept him going for what seemed like weeks were suddenly gone. He felt as if he could not move a single muscle.

"Then sleep," Ginny whispered. "You've earned it." She scooted to the edge of the sofa, and he let her push him gently down until he was prone on the cushions. It was heaven to lie down, to rest, and this time, unlike in the dormitory tower, he felt oblivion approaching. Then heaven redefined itself as Ginny slid down beside him, fitting her small body against the length of him, resting her head against his shoulder. Part of him sang at the unexpected bliss of it, and he wanted to stay awake, to savor the nearness of her, to revel in the connection between them. But sleep, so long kept at bay, would no longer be denied.

He had just the remaining strength to wrap his arms around her and pull her even closer. Then he succumbed, knowing that she would be right there, in his arms, when he awoke to the rest of his life.