| Harry/Ginny  
"Ginny!" Harry muttered sprinting to her and dropping to his knees. "Ginny--don't be dead--please don't be dead--" He flung his wand aside, grabbed Ginny's shoulders and turned her over.... "Ginny, please wake up," Harry muttered desperately shaking her.  
"But," said Ron, following Hermione along a row of quills in copper pots, "I thought Ginny fancied Harry!" Hermione looked at him rather pityingly and shook her head. "Ginny used to fancy Harry, but she gave up on him months ago. Not that she doesn't like you, of course," she added kindly to Harry while she examined a long, black-and-gold quill. Harry, whose mind was still full of Cho's parting wave, did not find this subject quite as interesting as Ron, who was positively quivering with indignation, but it did bring something home to him that until now he had not really registered. "So that's why she talks now?" he asked Hermione. "She never used to talk in front of me." "Exactly," said Hermione.  
"Yeah, size is no guarantee of power," said George. "Look at Ginny." "What d'you mean?" said Harry. "You've never been on the receiving end of one of her Bat-Bogey Hexes, have you?"  
"Yeah?" growled Harry, his hands deep in his pockets as he watched the snow now falling thickly outside. "All been talking about me, have you? Well, I'm getting used to...." "We wanted to talk to you, Harry," said Ginny "but as you've been hiding ever since we got back-" "I didn't want anyone to talk to me," said Harry, who was feeling more and more nettled. "Well, that was a bit stupid of you," said Ginny angrily, "seeing as you don't know anyone but me who's been possessed by You-Know-Who, and I can tell you how it feels." Harry remained quite still as the impact of these words hit him. Then he wheeled around. "I forgot," he said. "Lucky you," said Ginny coolly. "I'm sorry," Harry said, and he meant it. "So...so do you think I'm being possessed, then?" "Well, can you remember everything you've been doing?" Ginny asked. "Are there big blank periods where you don't know what you've been up to?" Harry racked his brains. "No," he said. "Then You-Know-Who hasn't ever possessed you," said Ginny simply. "When he did it to me, I couldn't remember what I'd been doing for hours at a time. I'd find myself somewhere and not know how I got there." Harry hardly dared believe her, yet his heart was lightening almost in spite of himself.  
The classroom door opened. Harry, Ron, and Hermione whipped around. Ginny walked in, looking curious, closely followed by Luna, who as usual looked as though she had drifted in accidentally. "Hi," said Ginny uncertainly. "We recognized Harry's voice-what are you yelling about?" "Never you mind," said Harry roughly. Ginny raised her eyebrows. "There's no need to take that tone with me," she said coolly. "I was only wondering whether I could help." "Well, you can't," said Harry shortly.  
When Harry pushed open the tapestry to take their usual short cut up to Gryffindor Tower, however, they found themselves looking at Dean and Ginny, who were locked in a close embrace and kissing fiercely as if glued together.
It was as though something large and scaly erupted into life in Harry's stomach, clawing at his insides: hot blood seemed to flood his brain, so that all thought was extinguished, replaced by a savage urge to jinx Dean into a jelly. Wrestling with this sudden madness, he heard Ron's voice as though from a great distance away.
"Oi!"
Dean and Ginny broke apart and looked round.
"What?" said Ginny.
"I don't want to find my own sister snogging people in public!"
"This was a deserted corridor till you came butting in!" said Ginny.
Dean was looking embarrassed. He gave Harry a shifty grin that Harry did not return, as the new-born monster inside him was roaring for Dean's instant dismissal from the team.
"Er ... c'mon, Ginny," said Dean, "let's go back to the common room ...."
"You go!" said Ginny. "I want a word with my dear brother!"
Dean left, looking as though he was not sorry to depart the scene.
"Right," said Ginny, tossing her long red hair out of her face and glaring at Ron, "let's get this straight once and for all. It is none of your business who I go out with or what I do with them, Ron –"
"Yeah, it is!" said Ron, just as angrily. "D'you think I want people saying my sister's a –"
"A what?" shouted Ginny, drawing her wand. "A what, exactly?"
"He doesn't mean anything, Ginny –" said Harry automatically, though the monster was roaring its approval of Ron's words.
"Oh yes he does!" she said, flaring up at Harry. "Just because he's never snogged anyone in his life, just because the best kiss he's ever had is from our Auntie Muriel –"
"Shut your mouth!" bellowed Ron, bypassing red and turning maroon.
"No, I will not!" yelled Ginny, beside herself. "I've seen you with Phlegm, hoping she'll kiss you on the cheek every time you see her, it's pathetic! If you went out and got a bit of snogging done yourself you wouldn't mind so much that everyone else does it!"
Ron had pulled out his wand, too; Harry stepped swiftly between them.
"You don't know what you're talking about!" Ron roared, trying to get a clear shot at Ginny around Harry, who was now standing in front of her with his arms outstretched. "Just because I don't do it in public -!"
Ginny screamed with derisive laughter, trying to push Harry out of the way.
"Been kissing Pigwidgeon, have you? Or have you got a picture of Auntie Muriel stashed under your pillow?"
"You –"
A streak of orange light flew under Harry's left arm and missed Ginny by inches; Harry pushed Ron up against the wall.
"Don't be stupid –"
"Harry's snogged Cho Chang!" shouted Ginny, who sounded close to tears now. "And Hermione snogged Viktor Krum, it's only you who acts like it's something disgusting, Ron, and that's because you've got about as much experience as a twelve-year-old!"
And with that, she stormed away.  
Neither of them seemed to have noticed that a fierce battle was raging inside Harry's brain:
She's Ron's sister.
But she's ditched Dean!
She's still Ron's sister.
I'm his best mate!
That'll make it worse.
If I talked to him first –
He'd hit you.
What if I don't care?
He's your best mate!  
A roar of celebration erupted from the hole behind her. Harry gaped as people began to scream at the sigth of him; several hands pulled him into the room.
"We won!" yelled Ron, bounding into sight and brandishing the silver Cup at Harry. "We won! Four hundred and fifty to a hundred and forty! We won!"
Harry looked around; there was Ginny running towards him; she had a hard, blazing look in her face as she threw her arms around him. And without thinking, without planning it, without worrying about the fact that fifty people were watching, Harry kissed her.
After several long moments – or it might have been half an hour – or possibly several sunlit days – they broke apart. The room had gone very quiet. Then several people wolf-whistled and there was an outbreak of nervous giggling. Harry looked over the top of Ginny's head to see Dean Thomas holding a shattered glass in his hands and Romilda Vane looking as though she might throw something. Hermione was beaming, but Harry's eyes sought Ron. At last he found him, still clutching the Cup and wearing an expression appropriate to having been clubbed over the head. For a fraction of a second they looked at each other, then Ron gave a tiny jerk of the head that Harry understood to mean, "Well – if you must."
The creature in his chest roaring in triumph, Harry grinned down at Ginny and gestured wordlessy out of the portrait hole. A long walk in the grounds seemed indicated, during which – if they had time – they migth discuss the match.  
Harry looked at Ginny, Ron and Hermione: Ron's face was screwed up as though the sunlight was blinding him. Hermione's face was glazed with tears, but Ginny was no longer crying. She met Harry's gaze with the same hard, blazing look that he had seen when she had hugged him after the winning the Quidditch Cup in his absence, and he knew that at that moment they understood each other perfectly, and that when he told her what he was going to do now, she would not say "Be careful", or "Don't do it", but accept his decision, because she would not have expected anything less of him. And so he steeled himself to say what he had known he must say ever since Dumbledore had died.
"Ginny, listen ... " he said very quietly, as the buzz of conversation grew louder around them and people began to get to their feet. "I can't be involved with you any more. We've got to stop seeing each other. We can't be together."
She said, with an oddly twisted smile, "It's for some stupid, noble reason, isn't it?"
"It's been like ... like something out of someone else's life, these last few weeks with you," said Harry. "But I can't ... we can't ... I've got things to do alone now."
She did not cry, she simply looked at him.
"Voldemort uses people his enemies are close to. He's already used you as bait once, and that was just because you're my best friend's sister. Think how much danger you'll be in if we keep this up. He'll know, he'll find out. He'll try and get to me through you."
"What if I don't care?" said Ginny fiercely.
"I care," said Harry. "How much do you think I'd feel if this was your funeral ... and it was my fault ..."
She looked away from him, over the lake.
"I never really gave up on you," she said. "Not really. I always hoped ... Hermione told me to get on with life, maybe go out with some other people, relax a bit around you, because I never used to be able to talk if you were in the room, remember? And she thought you might take a bit more notice if I was a bit more – myself."
"Smart girl, that Hermione," said Harry, trying to smile. "I just wish I'd asked you sooner. We could've had ages ... months ... years maybe ..."
"But you've been too busy saving the wizarding world," said Ginny, half-laughing. "Well ... I can't say I'm surprised. I knew this would happen in the end. I knew you wouldn't be happy unless you were hunting Voldemort. Maybe that's why I like you so much."
Harry could not bear to hear these things, nor did he think his resolution would hold if he remained sitting beside her. Ron, he saw, was now holding Hermione and stroking her hair while she sobbed into his shoulder, tears dripping from the end of his own long nose. With a miserable gesture, Harry got up, turned his back on Ginny and on Dumbledore's tomb and walked away around the lake.
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