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SIYE Time:7:16 on 29th March 2024
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A Change in the Weather
By ToughLove

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Category: Post-HBP
Characters:None
Genres: Angst, Fluff, Romance
Warnings: None
Story is Complete
Rating: PG-13
Reviews: 6
Summary: Rain patted against the windowpane, introducing another night of angry skies and fierce winds. She had grown so used to storms that she could not remember a time without them. Many days she half wondered if the sun was a figment of her imagination, but she supposed those doubts were what Voldemort wanted. He wanted to drive all those who questioned him to believe that darkness was the way of life...the only way of life. Oh, how she prayed for goodness after war. Leaning down slowly she placed the softest of kisses on his forehead and pulled away to stare at him once more. It was time to go.
Hitcount: Story Total: 5557



Disclaimer: Harry Potter Publishing Rights © J.K.R. Note the opinions in this story are my own and in no way represent the owners of this site. This story subject to copyright law under transformative use. No compensation is made for this work.





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Harry’s lifeless body was sprawled before her on the blood-stained grass; sweat glistening in the moonlight on his brow. His chest rose and fell at an uneven pace as he struggled to catch his breath. Ginny’s fingers grazed his forehead as tears drenched her white freckled cheeks before dripping off her chin and onto his frayed, gray t-shirt. His eyes were opened wide in concentration, as if the slightest stray thought would cause him his life. His grip on her hand was painful, but she didn’t care. His unblinking eyes turned to face her, and she could see that he was struggling to speak. His lips moved slightly but she heard nothing. The pain in her chest was such that she could not look him in the eye.

“Oh Harry,” she sobbed. “Please. Please don’t leave me.”

The warmth in his hand was disappearing, and she could feel his body shaking against her. “G-Gi-n,” he muttered against the wind.

She forced herself to look at him, and saw that his eyelids were growing heavy over his eyes. She begged and pleaded with a higher force inside her head to spare him, but she felt that her prayer was much too great to be answered.

“Harry, please,” she cried. “I can’t live without you.”

With a pained expression, he whispered, “I-I’m S-s-orry.”

Panic soared through her insides as she felt his grip loosen on her hand. He kept his final gaze on her and with a painful breath...

Ginny woke, her heart hammering against her chest, as her eyes danced around the room in relief. She pushed herself up into a sitting position, lifted the covers off of her legs, and slid off the edge of her bed. She grabbed her silk robe that was draped over the ottoman, and slid it on over her nightgown. Pulling the material around her middle, she slipped out of her room and tiptoed toward Fred and George’s old bedroom. She tentatively stepped toward the door and placed her hand on the handle, staring at the rust beneath her fingertips. She paused to catch her breath before pushing the door open. Then, careful not to make any noise, slipped inside and closed the door behind her.

There he was. Asleep.


Just like he had been the night before.

His hair was sticking out in every direction, and his mouth hung open in an unattractive, yet adorable fashion. She approached his bedside, careful not to tempt the old, wooden floor to creak as she walked. It was the third night she had visited the lonely, darkness of his bedroom. A slight chill lingered within the four walls, and Ginny couldn’t help but feel that Voldemort’s presence was all around him, haunting him in his wake and coaxing him into the most dreadful of nightmares. This thought sent a shiver down her spine, and she pulled her robe more tightly around her. Remembering what it felt like to have him living inside her mind, body, and soul made her chest hurt.

She was petrified of what was to come. It was not just the war that frightened her. It was that she might lose the only thing she truly needed.

Harry.

She had recurring nightmares ever since the end of her 5th year at Hogwarts, and it always ended the same way. He died in her arms. Yet, there he was, before her, just as he had been the night before... alive and well.

For now.

She knew he planned to leave with Ron and Hermione in the week following his seventeenth birthday. It was a reality that she was trying to come to terms with, but she was failing miserably. It pained her to sit back and watch him make decisions that did not involve her.

She fingered the corner of his bed sheet as she stared down at his sleeping state, wishing that she could curl up next to him and hold him close. She longed for the feel of his arms around her, the gentle touch of his rough, callused fingertips gliding up and down her bare arms, along with the gazes he passed at her when he thought she wasn’t looking. She missed the brush of his lips against her palm when the most passionate of all kisses wouldn’t procure the sensation that the softest of touches could.

Rain patted against the windowpane, introducing another night of angry skies and fierce winds. She had grown so used to storms that she could not remember a time without them. Many days she half wondered if the sun was a figment of her imagination, but she supposed those doubts were what Voldemort wanted. He wanted to drive all those who questioned him to believe that darkness was the way of life...the only way of life.

Oh, how she prayed for goodness after war.

Leaning down slowly she placed the softest of kisses on his forehead, and pulled away to stare at him once more. It was time to go. She tiptoed back toward the door, but was quickly drawn to a halt.

“Ginny,” he grumbled.

Her heart was hammering against her chest. He had caught her. ‘How terribly embarrassing this is,’ she thought. She turned back toward him, and quickly opened her mouth to explain, only to find that he was still immersed in slumber. She felt awkward, as if she was peaking in on an extremely private moment, knowing that she should leave but not willing herself to.

“No,” he moaned, tossing violently in his bed. “You can’t have her!”

She was frozen in place—unable to move... unable to breathe.

“Don’t touch—you can’t have her. Let go—No,” he cried. His back arched as if he were in pain, and he began twisting and turning uncontrollably.

She wanted to wake him, but she was too paralyzed by what she was seeing; too afraid to move.

“Gin-please No, she can’t be dead. She can’t be dead ”

These words awoke her insides, and she darted to the edge of his bed, and with fear glistening her eyes, she begged him to calm down.

“Harry, please. Wake up.” She reached out for him, dodging his flailing arms, before gripping them tightly and continuing her calls for him to wake.

He gasped, pulling his arms free from her grasp, his eyes wide open in fear and his forehead dripping with sweat. His chest rose and fell rapidly as he fought to regain his breath. He stared at her for many long minutes before his eyes recognized her, and a completely different expression of terror fell over his face.

“Ginny,” he whispered breathlessly.

She did not answer. She just stared, horrified.

“Ginny,” he repeated more confidently. “What are you doing in here?”

She mouthed wordlessly. She honestly did not know how to answer him. Her heart was pounding so hard that she was sure he could hear every time it thumped against her chest. “I-I you were having a nightmare— I-I was just...”

His face grew panicked. “What did you hear?”

“N-nothing,” she stuttered.

“What did you hear, Ginny?” he repeated once again.

She glared at him. “What does it matter what I heard?”

“What did I say?” he demanded.

“I don’t know. You were mumbling... I was just trying to wake you...”

Unconvinced, but feeling defeated, he dropped his gaze. “You didn’t have to,” he growled.

“Fine,” she spat. “Goodnight Harry.”

Whipping around, she made for the doorway, but not before Harry leapt from his bed to stop her. He gently placed his hand on her shoulder, and she momentarily forgot herself.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

She came to herself then, facing him. “Why are you so ashamed of your nightmares?” she asked softly.

He hesitated, then said, “I’m not ashamed... I just—I don’t like people knowing...”

“Why?” she asked, sadly.

“Everyone always treads on water around me when I’m awake. They try not to mention any of the bad things, they hold back how the feel, and try to protect me from myself. I just— I don’t want people knowing that I’m also troubled in my sleep. It would just give them another reason to fuss over me...”

“I have them, too,” she whispered, averting her eyes to the window.

He swallowed. “When?”

“Every night,” she whispered, blinking her eyes toward him.

A wet blanket covered her dark, brown eyes. She tried to hold them back, but one slipped out of her eye and quickly trailed down her cheek.

“Sometimes they last for two minutes... other times I’m trapped inside them,” she said, her voice wavering. “It’s like no matter how hard I try to wake up, I can’t... and sometimes I feel like he’s standing over me... laughing.”

He was watching her intently, and his gaze made her feel more and more vulnerable.

“They seem so real, you know?” she said, choking back tears. “All the blood... the-the pain, the anger... the death...”

His face was screwed up in anger. “Why didn’t you ever tell me you had nightmares?”

She pulled her chin up. “For the same reason you never told me...”

He brought a shaky hand to his forehead and turned away from her. “That’s different, Ginny...”

“How?” she asked loudly.

He turned back toward her. “This is my burden to bear. You shouldn’t have to suffer from the repercussions of what is to come. You should be young, free... happy...”

She stared at him, open mouthed. “Is that what you think was to happen when we broke things off, Harry? That because we were no longer together... it would somehow make the thought of losing you a more bearable one?”

“No... I mean yes... No. I just know that if you and I stayed together it would have made things harder.”

“In what way?” she cried.

He sighed heavily. “Ginny, I don’t think we should be talking about this...”

“No, I think we definitely should. In what way, Harry?”

He appeared to be fluttered by her question. “Ginny, you and I... you and I are the only thing in life that actually makes sense. Perhaps the only thing that I feel I can control by ending it. I don’t know what is going to happen with this war...I don’t know where I’m going to be in a year...I can’t stop the fear and the hatred inside me...but I had to stop you before I lost control of that, too.”

“That’s hardly fair,” she protested angrily.

“I had to, Gin. You don’t understand. You were starting to make it impossible for me to control my actions. I was losing control of the way I felt, the way I breathed, the way I looked at the world all together. I started to forget to be afraid. The only thing I really knew was that if I allowed things to progress any further, I may have lost myself all together. I may have forgotten who I was, and in turn, I would have lost you.”

“So instead you decided to just push me aside? Get rid of the distraction?” she growled.

“No,” he said quickly. His gaze found the ground. “I just didn’t want it to get to that point where I wouldn’t be able to say no... where you would ask me if you could come with me and I’d be unable to deny you. I didn’t want to lose my senses and place you in danger because I was too weak to put a stop to it.”

Her eyes began to overflow from resistance. “Well I’m glad things are so easy for you now that you’ve gotten rid of me. I wouldn’t have wanted it to be hard for you given that you have enough to deal with without an idiotic romance.”

“Ginny,” he pleaded, as she once again turned to leave.

“What, Harry?” she asked, throwing her arms up in the air. “What do you want?”

He looked defeated. “It’s not easier,” he admitted, trying hard to avoid her eyes. “It gets...harder everyday. I can just ignore it better, now.”

“Why are you ignoring it, Harry? Why are you ignoring everything real in your life?”

The rain crashed angrily on the window and a crack of thunder sounded.

“Because it’s easier to pretend I’m not losing anything. If I don’t think about losing you than I don’t have to feel so upset all of the time. Only in my nightmares...”

“Well I can’t ignore it, Harry,” she sobbed. “I can’t ignore the fact that I lose you every night in my dreams, only to wake and find that I cannot separate the lies from the truth. I can’t ignore how I feel about you... how I miss you. And I especially can’t ignore that you dreamed of my death, too.”

He stared deep into her eyes, and frowned.

“I can’t ignore it anymore...”

She moved forward quickly, seizing his lips with her own, allowing no time for resistance. For a few long minutes she was kissing stiff lips as he was trying hard to not kiss her back. The attempt was short lived. He lifted his hand to her face and cradled her cheek, then followed not long after with an affectionate nibble on her bottom lip. She took a firm grip of his t-shirt and gave into the sensations she had been longing for. His lips were gentle at first, brushing against hers in a shy but affectionate fashion. He seemed to be concentrating hard on the pace and avoiding mistakes. She thought it sweet that he tried so hard to not appear rusty, when she herself had been as out of practice as he.

She noticed, however, that with each brush of his lips he became more and more passionate. He slid his fingers down her arms and gripped her waist tightly in his hands. The feelings flowing through her body were almost too intense to take in. He pushed her back against the wall and flattened himself to her. She pulled him as close as he could possibly get, and he moaned into her mouth, squeezing her sides and giving into all emotions.

Then, without warning, he pulled away from her, backing towards his bed, in a desperate need to create space between them.

Slightly dazed, Ginny started, “Harry, what—?”

“I can’t...”

She raised a brow.

“Ginny, I just can’t...”

“I don’t understand...”

“I can’t be with you right now...”

“Harry, please...”

“I can’t....”

She was losing it. “But I’m in love with you...”

The look upon his face was unlike any that she had ever seen before. He appeared to have been dreading and anticipating this moment for some time. When a good few moments passed without a response, Ginny looked away, devastated. She turned and grabbed for the door handle, at which time Harry had made his decision.

“Ginny, wait,” he protested, grabbing her arm.

“Harry, just let me go this time, please.”

“I can’t...”

“Why can’t you?” she asked, frustrated.

He swallowed the lump in his throat. “Because...I-I...”

“What?” she demanded.

Before Ginny could even register what was happening, Harry was kissing her again. This kiss didn’t last as long as their first, but for some reason it meant so much more. He grabbed her hand tightly in his.

“Lay with me.”

She said nothing as she followed him to his bed. He pulled her down next to him, staring into her eyes as he pushed a strand hair behind her ear. They stared at each other until their eyes grew heavy and sleep began to overtake them. Just as Harry drifted off to sleep, Ginny heard him whisper, “I’m in love with you, too, Gin.”

She felt more powerful all of the sudden, and she couldn’t stop the cheesy grin that had formed on her face. She relaxed into his hold, listening to the sounds of age projecting from the ancient walls of the burrow house, and with all that had just occurred, she almost did not know that the rain had stopped.

With a fleeting smile, Ginny thought that maybe Voldemort wasn’t the only one whose power was strong enough to change the weather.
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