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The Limit of Our Sight

by Ariane

The first night was the hardest.

Ginny lay in her own four-poster in Gryffindor Tower, flinching at every noise and holding in stillborn sobs and laughter.  Hermione was asleep in the next bed, too exhausted for nightmares, and Ginny didn’t want to wake her.

The sleeping arrangements were haphazard that night.  Of those defenders who would not be spending the night under Poppy Pomfrey’s care, very few could think of going home.

“Mr. Brown, your daughter will make a full recovery.  If you want some rest—“

“Yes, of course, I’ll go home and sleep in my own bed while my daughter oozes blood in your infirmary.”

“Miss Patil?”

“Nothing doing, Madam Pomfrey.”

Others spent the night keeping guard over bodies, waiting for Professor McGonagall to open the fireplaces to outgoing Floo travel.

Ginny’s mum would have nodded off at her son’s feet, had Dad and Percy not shepherded her up to Gryffindor Tower.  They would take Fred home in the morning.  Tonight he rested easy, though George did not.

No one could say how exactly anyone ended up in which bed.  Most found room in their old House dormitories, sometimes stepping over shards of broken castle to get to the four-posters, which they then cleared of rubble with a quick snap of the coverlet.  Hogwarts was spacious and Byzantine and homey.  There were beds to be had.

Bill and Fleur ended up in the boys’ dorm, sharing a room with Charlie and Percy.  Ginny just went where she always went when she felt like a nap.  And somehow Hermione, Katie Bell, and Alicia Spinnet found their way to the beds usually occupied by Ginny’s yearmates.  All of them looked at Ginny for permission first.  She gave it willingly, having no desire to sleep alone.

But sometime after midnight, Mrs. Spinnet and Mrs. Bell appeared to take their girls home. 

“Come on, darling,” Mrs. Spinnet said, limping as she led by the light of her wand.  “Your father’s been going spare over us both.”

“Gave me the fright of my life, Katie…” Mrs. Bell was saying, not without pride, as she pushed and prodded Katie to the door.

Both girls stopped in the doorway, backlit by wandlight.

“Ginny?” Alicia said softly.  Ginny sat up.

“We’re so sorry… about Fred,” Katie said.

“That’s from Angelina, too.  We saw her in the infirmary and she’s—she’s really sorry.”

It was Ginny’s first time.  She had no idea what to do with condolences.  “I—“ Was she meant to thank them?  “I—yeah.”

And then she was alone with Hermione, who slept on.

Ginny lay back on her pillows, and, not for the first time, wished for rescue.

Mum could come.  She could barrel down on Ginny’s demons with a merciless wand and a “Not my daughter, you bitch!”  Another laugh bubbled up in Ginny’s throat—though why it should be funny that her mother had killed a woman, Ginny did not know.

At any rate, it wasn’t her mum she wanted.

Sometime during the last year, Ginny had come to believe Neville when he said that Harry, Ron, and Hermione would come back, and Hogwarts would be theirs again.  And he was right, wasn’t he?  The Carrows were locked away, and Harry had turned the world right-side up.

She wanted him now, so that she could feel him reassuringly warm under her palms, maybe relearn the curve of his jaw and the slant of his shoulders.  So she could forget the moments of selfishness in which she had hated him for being gone.

“Hermione?” she whispered into the dark.

“Mmm?” was the half-lucid reply.

I’m so jealous right now I could smack you, Ginny thought.  “Ron’s okay, yeah?”

“You saw him,” Hermione said, clearly wishing to be left alone.

“Unhurt, just a few scrapes.  But he’s all right, isn’t he?”

Clever girl that she was, Hermione cottoned on.  She opened her eyes and said, “He’ll be just fine.  Me and Harry, too.”  And then, her good nature spent, she rolled over and closed the hangings.

Ginny went back to staring at the ceiling.

It was wrong, all wrong, to think of Harry blank and limp on the ground at Voldemort’s feet.  Every time it flashed through her brain, she felt like a door had slammed in her face.  Ludicrous, that it should end like this.  No way in hell is this all we get.

As compensation, her memory treated her to the look on Voldemort’s face when Harry threw the Cloak off.  Another wild giggle rose in her throat.  Priceless.  The twins would be doing impressions for months.  Or George would.  Maybe.  If he were in the mood for impressions.

Now wasn’t the time.  Tonight was for quiet, a warm bed, and a world made safe.  Never mind who died or didn’t, or who did both. The second night would be the hardest.  So would the third.

But her head was heavy, and her bones ached.  She could cry later.  There would be whole hours and afternoons devoted to it.  Right now she needed sleep.

*

She woke to an empty dorm room in near darkness, and she dressed because there was nothing else to do.  There was no one to defy, no risk to run, and no volley of curses to dodge or endure.  In light of all that, bacon and eggs seemed the most sensible option.

The common room was empty and quiet at this early hour, and Ginny took a moment to stand at a window and shake the unreality out of her ears.  It wouldn’t do to show up to breakfast half-mad.

“Hey.”

Ginny nearly jumped out of her skin, wand out, jinx on her lips—

But it was Harry, swinging that damnable Cloak off his shoulders and looking like every prayer she’d said for months.

Ginny said some very rude words.

“Sorry,” he said, folding the cloak over his arm.  “I just wanted to find you without being found myself.”

“It’s okay,” Ginny said, managing a smile and feeling a little silly.  “I’m wide awake now.”

And finally, alone in the common room, they took a moment to look at each other.

“Come for a walk with me?” Harry said, holding up his arm with the Invisibility Cloak draped over it.  Ginny stepped underneath, enjoying the silky feel of the fabric.  Like water without the wet, she thought.

Harry took her hand.  Unseen by the early risers who were beginning to come down the dormitory stairs, Harry and Ginny slipped out of the portrait hole.

They’d made this trip before, through the corridors and down to the lawn.  As in the past, they kept silent to avoid passersby and communicated only in squeezed fingers, quick tugs, and thumbs skimming over knuckles.  Watch the broken glass.  Here, this way around the bloodstain.  Careful, someone’s coming.  Right through here.  No, after you.

They slipped past knots of harried-looking mediwizards and witches at the front entrance, out into bronze panes of sunlight, and realized they had no further plan. 

“Around the lake?” Harry suggested.

“No,” Ginny said, wishing to avoid anyplace where they might encounter people and possibly be forced to speak to them.  “Let’s find some trees to get lost in.”

Harry glanced around, and his eyes darkened in the direction of a particular patch of forest.  He pulled Ginny closer to him and led them off the opposite way.

For long, dreamy minutes their feet carried them without seeming to touch the ground.  Silence and the smell of earth swallowed them whole, and in the dim peace of the trees, words finally came.

Where have you been?

What did the Carrows do to you?  Because I know a dragon we can feed them to.

So you didn’t have to drop anything evil into a volcano?  I told Luna…

Hermione snogged your brother.  Like I wasn’t even there.

You should have seen Neville stand up to that hag.

You told Snape he could stick the sword where?

Well, yes, I was scared, but I just couldn’t give Carrow the satisfaction.

Horcruxes, like Riddle’s diary.  They’re called Horcruxes.

I can’t believe it’s over.

I can’t believe they’re gone.

They walked slowly, comfortable in the way their arms linked and their strides fell into rhythm, and an hour later Ginny still had more questions than answers.

“No veelas or other exotic beauties along the way, then?”

“Umbridge and I had a brief reunion.”

Ginny laughed.  “Just checking.”

She felt none of the urgency of past nights spent with a clenched ache in her chest, trying not to wonder.  Harry was here now, and she needn’t know it all at once.  They could stop in the thin fringe of the woods, and they could sit against a mossy trunk, cradled by ancient roots.  Ginny could curl catlike against Harry’s chest, and she could listen with exquisite gratitude to the regular beat of his heart.

“You have no idea how much I’ve missed you,” she said.

His laughter rumbled low against her ear.  “I really think I have.”

“Fair enough,” she said.  “You know, it was stupid, but I was a little convinced that you would come for Christmas.”

“I was busy,” Harry said, “trying to get myself eaten by a giant snake.”

Ginny rode right past the part where she was shocked and horrified.  “Again?” she demanded in feigned exasperation.

Her reward was his smile.  “The first time just didn’t do it for me.  Why, what did I miss?”

“Mum fussed over me.  The Order talked business.  Tonks asked everyone in sight what they thought of the name Maximilian.  Everyone discussed in depth where you three were, and what you were doing.”

“Snake,” Harry said.

“Yeah, no one guessed that.”

Harry shrugged.  “To be fair, I didn’t see it coming myself.”

She let herself imagine what might have happened.  “I’m glad you had Ron and Hermione with you.”

Harry hesitated before he said, “They saved my arse a number of times.”

“That’s good,” Ginny said fondly.  “It’s a nice arse.”

“Thanks for saying.”

In the silence that followed, Ginny thought of a dozen things she still didn’t know.  Were you as scared as I’ve been?  Did you really break into Gringotts?  Damn you, why did we see you dead?  And most of all, because I can hardly imagine: what now?

“Maybe it’s not the time,” Harry said quietly, “but I have to ask…”

“What?”

“What happens to Fred?”

All the air in Ginny’s lungs turned leaden.  Her forehead seemed to prickle as the blood left her face.

Harry was quick to give her an out.  “You don’t have to talk—“

“There’s a cemetery,” she said, curiously detached from her own voice and words.  “At home in the village.  I think Mum wants him with her brothers, Gideon and Fabian.”

“Gin?”  Harry’s fingers were under her chin, gently tipping her face upward.  He looked sorry for even bringing it up.

“Don’t apologize,” Ginny said quickly.  “I can’t—I can’t not feel it, can I?”

“No, you can’t,” Harry said.  I know a little about that, his expression said.  “But you don’t need to be reminded every second.”

“Maybe I do.”  Ginny settled her cheek against his chest again.  “I look at you, and I’m so relieved that I forget…”

“It’s all right.  I know.  I feel the same way.”

Ginny was afraid to keep talking, so she bit her lip hard.  Slow and unfussy, Harry unclasped his hands where they rested over her tailbone.  Fingertips started skimming her back and arms.  Another set of fingertips furrowed into her hair along the scalp.

Gentleness was the only thing she couldn’t stand.  Ginny shook and shuddered and snotted on Harry’s robes.  He petted her softly and dripped tears on her head, right where the hair parted.  The forest heard only her occasional gasps for breath.

In time, they returned to the rest of the world.