POV Ginny W.

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Ginny had not slept at all that night. The elation that had followed the fall of Voldemort had been blissful but had only lasted as long as the sun was up. The fear was gone but the pain, wariness and sorrow had done nothing but elevate as the bodies were found and recorded. Families had started to show at sun down. They had been contacted when those that were missing and dead had been accounted for.

Ginny felt so drained that crying was painful without someone to lean on, but the only one she felt was strong enough to support her was busy being forced into interviews after a well deserved nap. So she went to a place that held the smallest piece of joy but a piece that was joyous all the same. She went to a tree by the lake.

This was the very tree that she and Harry would go to eat lunch or just lie around when she wasn't studying for her OWLs. To keep herself from falling apart she kept her mind on these moments and these moments only until her support was here to help her through the hard ones she would have to face eventually. In fact she was so absorbed in these thoughts that it was not until he spoke that she even knew she was not alone.

"Ginny?" his voice was soft and husky but after today it made her violently jump out of her thoughts. "I'm sorry I didn't mean to startle you."

She turned to face him and a year's worth of longing made the few feet between them seem like miles. Keeping her arms tightly folded across her mid section as if to keep her insides inside her she crossed the empty space and leaned her head on his chest. He sighed contently as he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her even closer to him, resting his head on hers. She could feel his heart beat strong and steady, she could also feel hers shudder again still not beating.

After a short period of time she pulled back just far enough to punch his shoulder, but that one hit just added fuel to the fire. Ginny yanked herself out of his arms and stopped to the shore of the lake. There she threw herself on the ground and sat clutching her knees to her chest.

"Are you going to let me explain before you decide to never talk to me again?" he asked from a few feet behind her.

"I honestly don't know if I could handle it right now," she had meant for the words to be filled with anger and frustration but all she had managed was sorrow and hurt. "I missed you so much over the summer of your sixth year. I thought maybe I could fix whatever mistake I had made to make you break it off. I thought I might be able to change your mind over the school year. Then you, Ron, and Hermione had to go off and do whatever you were doing leaving me and the others to suffer here. I am not saying that your trip was a picnic I could see that much when I walked in yesterday, but we were tortured and beaten every class, we were forced into doing unforgivable curses on first years and those with detention; therefore I was among them. But I would have rather gone through that and more every day for the rest of my life than see the image of you-" Ginny had to stop she couldn't breathe and her head felt like it was going to explode with all of the suppressed feelings.

"Ginny, I don't know what to say… I would have never ever left if I had known…" Harry said sliding carefully down beside her.

"You didn't even say goodbye." She said sheepishly. Tears were falling slowly down her cheeks but she would not let the others come. Not yet, maybe not ever. "I love you Harry and you didn't even say goodbye" she repeated.

"I had no intent on dying this morning, but something changed that. Snape was one of the deaths today did you know that?" the tears stopped flowing at his off topic question.

Ginny wanted to hit him again but instead she nodded, "He was on the list."

It clearly upset Harry that Ginny helped make the list. Good. "Well I was there when he died and he told me something that helped change my mind."

"I don't want to know."

"And that is ok, maybe one day you will and when you do I will tell you everything. But for now I think you should know that it was all a part of Dumbledore's plan."

Ginny felt her jaw drop. That stupid old man had planned for Harry to be killed? Ginny thought that Harry would be just as angry as she was but when she forced herself to look at him he had a sad smile on his face. This picked at Ginny's curiosity but it could wait. The emotions that were pressing on her skull felt so painful that she felt it was almost time to let them go, but she needed to know one more thing before she was able to use her support.

"Why would you leave me?"

"I had all the intention of dying in that forest and believe me I really wanted to say goodbye to you but in the back of my mind I think I knew that I wasn't going to die." With a confused look from Ginny he continued, "As long as Voldemort was alive I could not die."

"What! When did that happen?"

"Fourth Year, he used my blood to resurrect himself."

"Oh, well a little heads up would have been nice."

Harry chuckled sadly "I am so sorry that I hurt you."

They stayed silent and not touching for a little while but when Harry spoke she knew she was not going to like what he was going to say next "Ginny" she flinched at his tone, "are you alright?" she shook her head and finally used her support; she turned and sobbed into his shoulder. She cried for Fred, her friends, her family, herself, but most of all she cried for Harry.

He didn't shush her or tell her everything was going to be ok. And to be honest if he had she would have killed him. At this moment nothing but the fact that they were together was ok. The only thing he did was hold her; he stroked her hair, and kissed her constantly. Her hair, her forehead, her wrist, her shoulders and with every kiss her heart shuddered. Then he kissed her lips. The kiss was soft and gentle but packed with love and meaning. Not passionate. No those kisses could wait. They had forever for them.

This was the kiss that started them all.

This was the kiss that restarted her heart.