The road to victory is bumpy, there are thorns in the way that cut into your flesh and put hesitation and doubts in your soul. There is darkness on this road, and it’s not pretty. It goes straight into your heart, trying to turn it black. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about.

I think I always loved you, my Harry. At first, I loved the concept of you - the boy who survived the greatest dark wizard’s curse, the legend. Then, when I first saw you at the train station, I fell in love with the young boy who looked so lost in the world I grew up in; the boy who had no one to trust but himself, who got pulled into his destiny not by will, but by a prophecy that could destroy him, that would destroy his innocence.

When I started school, on my first day at Hogwarts and for so many years after that, I yearned for you. I wanted you to be the one for me, wanted you to have me as I am. Even after the chamber, when I knew I was tainted, knew I was no longer ‘pure’; I still wanted you to love me, and make me feel like I could be whole again. I waited so long for you to notice me, and then you finally did.

I won’t get emotional now, because I already have my resolve, I’ve made my decision, but let me say that from the first time you kissed me, I knew it was too good to be true. Oh how I wished for you to see me as I am, to help me become what I had the potential to become, but you didn’t see me, not really.

And now, Harry Potter, I still love you, I think a part of me forever will, but I can’t let that love stop me from doing what I feel is right. I won’t go on living every day like there’s peace around me, and I won’t be sheltered and worried over every step of the way. I don’t deserve such treatment. You feel that I’m too young, or too weak, to go and fight? Then I’m sorry, because you are wrong. And I will prove myself.

Our love has ended before it began, Harry Potter. Goodbye.


___

Dumbledore was dead.

Ginny wiped the tears from her cheeks, and turned to look at Harry. He was sitting next to her, his eyes full of grief. She had worried when she’d seen his emotionless face, because she knew that emotions had to be acted upon. Waiting for the grief to pass without sharing your feelings with anyone was a sure way straight to explosion.

Looking deep into his green eyes, after watching him for so many years, it wasn’t a problem for her to see he was about to say something serious, something she wouldn’t like. But even though her heart started thumping heavily in her chest, and she suddenly had a problem breathing, she stilled herself and smiled at him softly, trying to make him understand that he had someone to talk to.

“Ginny, listen,” And right then, when she heard the way he said her name, she knew. The loud voices of other people disappeared in the background and she concentrated on what he was saying. “I can’t be involved with you any more. We’ve got to stop seeing each other. We can’t be together.”

Feeling like he’s just torn her heart out of her chest and twisted it, Ginny said, with an oddly twisted smile, “It’s for some stupid, noble reason, isn’t it?”

His silence made her want to laugh, because she felt that it was her only choice. That, or starting to cry, and she hated crying.

“It’s been like… like something out of someone else’s life…" She closed her eyes, to control the will to cry, and opened them to hear him finish the sentence. “I’ve got things to do alone now.”

She did not cry, she simply looked at him. Somehow she knew that he wasn’t going to do anything alone. He would take Hermione and Ron with him anywhere he went. Just not her.

“Voldemort uses people his enemies are close to. He’d already used you as bait once, and that was just because you’re my best friend’s sister. Think of how much danger you’ll be in if we keep this up. He’ll try and get to me through you.”

‘Oh, so it’s all about you, Harry? It’s not about me at all.’ She thought, but only said, “What if I don’t care?”

“I care,” he said, and she felt that urge to laugh again, “How do you think I’d feel if this was your funeral? And it was my fault…?”

Ginny looked away from him, over the lake. It always calmed her, the calm of the water. Even if there was a state of war, the water in the lake always remained calm, calming. Did he know that he was playing with her feelings? She didn’t think so, because Harry wasn’t the kind of person who used other people’s feelings for his profit, but he was doing it now. It was as though he tried to make her sorry that he had feelings for her. It was all about him. He never asked her what she wanted.

Still not looking at him, she said, “I never really gave up on you. 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,” she could see him trying to smile from the corner of her eye, but still she looked at the water. “I wish I’d asked you sooner. We could’ve had ages, months, maybe years…”

‘But it’d have still ended the same’, Ginny thought, but again didn’t voice her thoughts. Instead, she said, “But you’ve been too busy saving the wizarding world,” a small mirthless laugh escaped her mouth. “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.”

She turned to look at him just as he stood up. He did not look at her, just turned and walked toward the Forbidden Forest. She kept watching as that idiot Scrimgeour went to him, watched as they talked and then smiled to herself without real emotion when she saw Hermione and her brother rush to him, asking questions.

‘So that was how it’s going to be…’ she thought, ‘how foolish of me, to hope for something more than a brush off. Oh, Harry, if you only trusted me enough.’

And then, with a sad smile, she turned to watch the lake for a while longer, knowing that next year she’d be back at Hogwarts, no matter what, and she would fight, in her own way.