DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this story are not the views of the author.  The author may not be held accountable for any H/G support garnered by this fic. ^_^

 

Swallowing Grief

by Angela

 

            The Shrieking Shack was the same.  It was musty and dark and very cold in spite of the mild night.  Harry left footprints on the dust-covered floor as he trudged up the stairs.  His cloak slipped from his shoulders, falling unheeded to puddle onto suddenly-invisible steps.  He lifted his wand.  “Lumos!” 

            The bedroom was just like he remembered, even down to the brown stain of blood that splattered the floor in the corner.  From when he hit Sirius.

            That night seemed a lifetime ago, yet there he was, most likely the first person to stand there since.  He hardly remembered his rage--the fury that made him want his godfather dead was unfathomable to him now.  Harry crouched on the floor, reaching out to touch the tiny spots on the wood.  Sirius’s blood.  He’d caused that.  He’d caused Sirius’s blood--his living blood--to drip onto the floor.

            Harry wanted that moment back.  He remembered the way his godfather’s eyes flashed with rage and murder, the way his bones and muscles trembled beneath his thin, pale skin.  Sirius had been agonizingly alive then--painfully hanging on for the instant of his vengeance.  Harry wondered how things would’ve been different if Sirius had been allowed to kill Peter Pettigrew that night.  Would he have been so reckless, so eager to throw himself into the dangerous game of revenge?

            Yes.

            It was always a game with Sirius.  A deadly game, certainly, but a game nonetheless, with teams and rules and consequences.  Falling through that veil hadn’t been part of the plan.  It had been a stunner, for god’s sake!

            Tears pooled in Harry’s eyes.  He clenched them shut.  He’d cried enough--it never made him feel better anyway.  He remembered the jostling, one-armed hug that Sirius had given him after Christmas.  Harry had wanted to hug back, to cling to him like a little kid and make him promise again and again that he wouldn’t be reckless.  He hadn’t, of course, but now Harry wondered if being fifteen automatically made a kid too old to say what he felt.

            “Damn it!”  Harry pulled his legs up against his chest, burying his face in the crevice between his sharp knees.  There was no point in trying not to cry now.  Time and again, for as long as he’d known him, Harry had seen his own loneliness mirrored in Sirius’s haggard face.  They were two of a kind--lost and alone, but on the brink of having what they both needed most.  They’d been on the brink of being a family. 

            Sobs shook painfully in Harry’s chest.  He’d always mourned the absence of his parents in his life, but that absence didn’t burn like this loss.  James and Lily Potter had always been an unfulfilled ideal, but Sirius . . .  Harry knew the flesh and blood reality of Sirius Black.

            And he knew what it was to have him taken away.

            “Damn you, Sirius!  Why the bloody hell couldn’t you just stay home like you were supposed to?  You were supposed to be my family!”  Harry yelled, his voice damp and catching on a sob.  “You and your bloody need to show off!  What were you thinking?”

            He pressed his sleeve against his eyes, catching his rushing tears in the thick wool.  He knew it was his own fault, when it came down to it.  If he hadn’t fallen into Voldemort’s trap, if Sirius hadn’t rushed in to rescue him…. “Damn it, Sirius,” Harry’s voice broke into softness, “why didn’t you see through this one?”

            “Because he loved you.”

            Harry looked up, alarmed.  He hadn’t heard anyone come in--only Ron and Hermione knew he was there, and they’d promised not to follow. 

            She was dressed in black, a dark scarf covering her shining hair.  She stepped out of the shadow slowly, her tiny frame making no sound on the floor.  For a crazy instant Harry thought of the ninja, and how they might do a good turn for themselves by recruiting Ginny Weasley.

            He looked at the floor.  “Go away,” he ordered sharply.  “I want to be alone.”

            She didn’t move.  “You’ve been alone for weeks now, Harry.  We’re all worried about you.”

            Harry glared at her.  “I said, leave me alone!” he snarled.

            For an instant Ginny seemed taken aback, but then her eyes hardened and her lips pressed together in a stubborn line.  “And I said I won’t.”

            Harry’s pulse pounded in his temples.  “You’re wasting your time, you know,” he told her coldly.  “If I don’t want to sit and cry on Ron’s or Hermione’s shoulders, I’m sure as hell not going to use yours.”

            Ginny blinked in surprise. “And who said I wanted to watch you cry?” she asked, outraged.  “Maybe I’m here to tell you to get up and get over it.  Maybe I came to kick some sense into you so you’d realize that Sirius Black died that night, not Harry Potter!”

            Harry was on his feet in an instant, his wand clattering to the floor as his hands balled into helpless fists.  “Shut up!” 

            He turned away from her, looking again at the ruined four-poster bed and the tattered wallpaper.  High on the wall there was a strange pattern of holes--as though a buck had rammed through the drywall.  Had his father slept in this room?  In this bed? 

            “You don’t understand anything,” he told her softly, his eyes narrowing.  “You have a mum and a dad and a whole barrelful of brothers.  Your life is so bloody charmed you can’t see it.  You’ve never even seen a thestral.”

            Ginny pushed him, her small hands hitting his shoulder blades.  He spun around to face her.  “Charmed?  Is that how you see us?”  Her face was flushed and furious.  “We invite you into our home--mum even calls you her honorary son--and into our family…. You know all about Percy and you were there when Dad--”  She choked on her words.  “And you call us charmed?”  Tears formed in her eyes.  “Go to hell, Harry.”

            She walked away.

            Harry’s legs gave out.  He slumped onto the floor, exhausted. “I wish I could,” he whispered raggedly.  “At least then I’d be with Sirius.”  He closed his eyes, leaning his aching forehead on his hand.

            Ginny landed with a soft whump beside him.  Her eyes were shining and her face pale.  There was just enough time for Harry to register that she didn’t seem angry anymore before her arms came hard around him.

            “Don’t say that, Harry,” she whispered into the hair that fell on his neck.  “Please, never ever think that.”

            Harry was trembling.  His stomach was queasy and he knew he was going to cry again.  Wordlessly, he leaned into Ginny’s embrace.  Warm.  Soon his whole body was shaking with the force of renewed sobs.  He reached a hand out, clutching the thin black material of her shirt on her back. 

            “I never told him that I loved him.”  Harry’s words were muffled in Ginny’s hair.  Her scarf had come loose and now hung low, tangled in the mass of her unbound hair.

            Ginny rubbed his back soothingly.  “He knew,” she promised him.  She kissed his hair, his forehead, his temple, all the time whispering comforting thoughts and encouragement.  Her hands were on his back and shoulders, patting out tension and holding him close against her warm body.  She smelled like cinnamon.

            He touched her face with trembling fingers, relieved to find wetness on her cheeks.  He was tired of crying alone.  He was tired of being alone.

            When her lips found his, Harry somehow wasn’t even surprised.  He closed his eyes and remembered how to kiss her back.

            It wasn’t at all like kissing Cho.  Ginny’s kiss wasn’t hesitant or gentle.  It wasn’t confused.  Most of all, Harry wasn’t embarrassingly aware of being himself in his awkward body.

            All he felt was Ginny.

            She was so warm.  Hot, almost, and her arms wound tightly around his back.  Harry pressed closer.  Her head tipped back, her mouth opening hungrily beneath his.  Harry was dizzy.  Starving.  He felt as though the ache that had been eating at him since Sirius’s death had somehow turned inside out. 

            They fell back onto the floor, barely registering the cloud of dust that puffed around them.  “I’m afraid of being alone,” Harry whispered hoarsely against her lips.  He was lying on top of her, one arm braced on the floor to keep his weight from crushing her.

            Ginny gazed up at him, her eyes soft and shiny.  “You’re never alone, Harry,” she told him reverently, her fingers tracing the scar on his forehead.  “Everyone loves you.”

            For a very long time they lay like that, their legs tangled and their kisses pausing only long enough to catch breath.  Harry was overwhelmed with this new concept of Ginny.  She was ablaze, shining with fierce compassion and physicality.

            He’d never thought of her like that before.

            “I--I’m not in a good place, you know, right now.  I don’t know how to think… about this.  About you.”

            For an instant her face lost its luster.  “Then don’t,” she said simply, smiling again.  “I’m still Ginny.  Still your friend.”