Title: A New Dawn
Author: Crepe
Rating: K-11
Pairing: Harry/Ginny
Genre: Angst, romance
Summary: Her eyes still bore the signs of crying and tiredness but she was staring at him with that hard, blazing look that he loved so much, the one that had been his last dying thought.
A/N: Juu, pitkästä aikaa kirjoitin jotain. En oikein ymmärrä näitä osastoja, joten en ole varma onko tämä oikea vai olisiko tämä kuulunut pikemminkin Godrickin notkoon, mutta tänne se kuitenkin päätyi. Ficciä inspiroi aika paljon Sarah McLachlanin World On Fire ja Vienna Tengin Eric's Song. Olkaahan herttaisia ja kommentoikaa jos luette! Kiitos Sikuriinalle rohkaisusta postaamiseen ja avusta otsikon keksimiseen.
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A New Dawn
Harry felt his insides flinch with nausea when he walked outside of the castle, only to find more ruins. Things he hadn't even had time to notice before, not with all the chaos and despair, amongst fighting and losing people and walking to his own death. Broken down walls, blood on the grass from which the bodies had only been cleared out last night, the bodies of people who had still breathed, feared, loved and fought, facing the possibility but never really knowing they would never live to see the dawn of the new future.
But just as they had finally reached their victory with the rising of the sun, he felt all of the feelings he hadn't quite had the time to feel reach him simultaneously when he watched the sun go lower behind the trees, next to the battleruins. He wasn't sure he could ever accept the fact that the world had to be set on fire before it could be set free. Especially when he had been one of the main people lighting the matches. To rise out of these ashes into a better future seemed a task better suited to a phoenix than a young man who had already carried too much weight on his shoulders.
He didn't know how long he just stood there in the middle of the grounds watching the sunset and fighting the pain, but he was so lost in thought that he didn't even hear the footsteps behind him, approaching and coming to a halt a couple of meters away from him.
”I'd have thought you'd sleep three days in a row after yesterday”, said a soft voice behind Harry and he whirled around to see a girl with messy red hair and brown, slightly bloodshot eyes standing before him, looking as tired as he felt and shivering with cold from being outside with only a short-sleeved shirt on.
Harry unfastened his cloak and approached Ginny almost cautiously. He could smell the familiar flowery scent when he wrapped his own cloak around her slender figure, although it was vague under the smells that still lingered on the battleground, smells that Harry doubted would ever leave, like the smoke and the dust that covered the ruins. Harry glanced left and saw the wall that had collapsed, causing Fred to fall to his own death, still laughing from the merriness of getting his brother back, and the stab of guilt made him take several steps back away from her.
Ginny narrowed her eyes slightly but then the look vanished and gave room for a sad small smile. ”You do know that you don't have to be noble and stupid anymore, don't you, Harry?”
He swallowed nervously but kept his gaze at a safe distance away, on a collapsed tree near the lake that a giant had probably stomped on. He would give anything to know that she had waited for him, that she would still take him, but he wasn't so sure she was right. Surely he couldn't deserve it after what his war had cost her, and when there was still so much to be strong over, a world to be rebuilt from mere ruins and -
”Look at me, Harry”, an intense voice broke through Harry's musings and he turned his gaze back to her. Her eyes still bore the signs of crying and tiredness but she was staring at him with that hard, blazing look that he loved so much, the one that had been his last dying thought. Suddenly he could see no more ruins, no more other dying or dead people, all he could see was that jet of green light that had missed the girl standing before her by only a millimetre. To have left her behind, to try and shelter her, to be willing to die for her and still almost lose her forever was unbearable.
He could see bruises on her wrists and a deep slash on her neck where the Carrows had probably taken out their frustration, being unable to break a resistance that she had been leading with her friends.
”I'm sorry”, he said, with newly-found heat in his voice, ”I thought I'd protect you by leaving you. Turns out they got to you anyway.”
Ginny shook her head in a frustrated manner but she didn't speak. She started to take slow steps towards him.
”I – I'm not good for -” Harry started but he was cut off by Ginny finally opening her mouth.
”You know you're standing almost right next to a spot I was on last night, comforting this little girl? Do you know whose presence I could've sworn I sensed, only less than an hour before you were declared dead?” She was getting closer and her eyes were still blazing, staring right through him and making him lose any thought of more ways to apologize, more reasons to stay away.
”But you came back. You came back to save the world.” She was so close the smell of the smokey ruins started to disappear, leaving only Ginny and her scent and the freckles on her cheeks. She leaned in to whisper in his ear, ”Come back to me.”
And Harry did. He took her face in his hands and kissed her, kissed her for all he was worth, knowing this was what he had fought for all along and what he had come back for and what he would need from now on to heal not only the rest of the world but his own. The pain in him throbbed as insistently as ever but something in him broke free of it anyway, getting lost in the soft but firm touch of her lips and the hands clinging on to the back of his shirt.
When he finally pulled away from the kiss and looked Ginny in the face that was glistening with new tears, through which she however gazed at him with new strength and confidence, he understood. It wasn't his war. It was their war, in which he had had his own battles, she had had her own, and in which they had had their losses and victories together anyway. And as much as she couldn't have been with him before, she could and would be willing to stand with him now, to rebuild the foundation of their world together.
They held each other close when the sun finally disappeared behind the trees and the world became gradually darker again. But they didn't flinch away from the shadows closing in on them and the ruins where they had lost so much in.
After all, they were hardly children and afraid of the dark anymore.
