Background

Well, my editor asked me to write something publishable by five thirty, tomorrow morning. She'll Apparate in my flat, take it and make sure it gets printed by tomorrow evening. Sounds pretty simple: a story with some insight into life behind closed doors during the war. Sound simple... but it's not. It's really hard, really strange and really, really painful.

We lived in a safe house after the war broke. The Burrow was taken down by the Ministry, so we moved into the village of Ottery St. Catchpole. My father became Minister of Magic during my sixth year, and he was often out of the country. My mother lived alone, as Ron and I were at Hogwarts. If you're reading this, you probably know what life at Hogwarts was like back in those days: cemetery-quiet and coffin-still.

I always knew that Harry would win the battle. I read it in his teacup from the first day they started teaching us Divination. It was always there, but nobody except me had the guts to look for the signs. I was better at Divination than Trelawney, no doubt about it.

I had been in love with him for years, until I started dating other boys. I dated Dean Thomas for a year, until I could no longer think of romance while watching Harry doing what he was doing to himself. A full circle. I couldn't run from him.

Funny how I always thought I could make it all better for him. I knew he needed something more than a friend by his side, and then, at the beginning of my sixth year, he came forward and awkwardly asked me to help him ease the tension of the whole situation. He made it crystal-clear that he didn't love me as a boyfriend should, and that he couldn't ever love me like that, and I told him I wasn't in love with him anymore. I still loved him, though. Therefore, I helped him.

He fell into himself more every day. I watched, and tried to pull him back, I hung on to every scrap of feeling he showed me, I asked him to lean on me for support if things got too bad for him to take. He never asked for anything more than physical release, and I gave him what he wanted. Nobody knew it, but for the last year of the war, while we were in school, I was the only connection he had to the world beyond his mind. Not Hermione, nor Ron, but me.

They were also trying to help him, but it was as though they were bouncing off a brick wall; they couldn't get through to the real him, and I'm not entirely sure he could, either.

After the final battle, he moved in with Hermione in a flat in London. I missed him, but I was very glad he was out of Hogwarts. He had seen the worst of human nature in there; I reckoned he'd be happier away from the dusty, old walls of the castle. I heard he started to drink after visiting the ruins of his parents' house.

This time I couldn't be there to help him through rough times. I was stuck at school, but I would've left it in a heartbeat had he asked me to. He never did, so I assumed he'd be alright on his own.

When I graduated, I moved in with him and Hermione. He couldn't allow me to see the wreck that he had become, so he left for Amsterdam. He never mentioned me in the book he wrote there, but I didn't mind. People would've thought I was a cheap tart that slept with the hero; they could never have realized what I did was out of love and compassion. I know that doesn't sound any better, pitiful shagging, but it did the trick, so I don't regret anything. I'm sure he didn't, either.

When he got back, so messed up he could barely remember his own name, I left the flat. I knew that if he came around, he wouldn't like me to see him like that.

It took Hermione a full year to bring him back among the sane. It was only after he was completely cured that he came to see me. I remember it like it's happened yesterday...

He knocked on my door at ten o'clock on Saturday morning. I opened it and gasped; he always was a beautiful person, but he was breathtaking now. He wore black trousers, a black turtleneck, both of which were obviously designer clothes, dragonhide shoes, and a beaming --although fake-- smile.

"Hi, Gin."

"H-hello, Harry." That was all I could bring myself to say before I flung my arms around his neck, knocking the air out of him. At the time, I didn't give a toss.

We talked for a while, nursing cups of steaming tea, and one thing led to another...

Two months after this happened, I got a call from Hermione, telling me that Harry had been abusing painkillers. When I talked to him, he denied it, and told me he was clean.

A few months later, Hermione put Harry in St. Mungo's rehab unit. It was all done with utmost secrecy, of course, so I couldn't be told immediately. They only told me six weeks later. It was too late to stop him. Harry always was a smart bloke... he had set up a little delivery arrangement providing him with enough painkillers daily to kill an elephant.

I was in the hospital when he took the overdose, two weeks after I had found out about the situation. I immediately knew Ron was in trouble; I could sense it. I Apparated in Ottery St. Catchpole just in time to stop him from hanging himself in the bathroom. Then I took him to St. Mungo's, checked him in Suicide Watch, and went to the rehab unit only to find out Harry had died while sleeping. I arrived five minutes too late to bid him goodbye. Hermione was sedated, and she remained in a vegetable-like state for three days. It was better that day. She couldn't have taken the pressure of dealing with the loss and the media attention it attracted. I had to deal with everything myself.

Where I found the strength to hang on to my sanity is beyond me. All I know is that, when Hermione and Ron were let out, I helped them recover before nursing my broken heart. The wounds are still fresh, but I haven't mourned and never will. If I do, it'll kill me.

Who could've guessed that shy little Ginny would be the one to save the Incredible Trio? I kept them alive for as long as I could; not long enough, in Harry's case, but sane enough to fulfill the destiny I had seen in his teacup when we were in school. I was the background character that the hero couldn't do without; although he fled the country when I came to live with him, he came back to me. I know he loved me, but not in the normal sense of the word. Harry was a strange boy: incapable of recognizing love, only the addiction therein; exquisitely beautiful, without knowing it; unfit for the real world.

Background characters like me are what make prophecies come true, what heroes rely on when their own strength falters; we shape the world, we mourn the heroes, we live our lives. And as much as it hurts to admit it, heroes only live through us.

Gods always need followers.