Harry stumbled backwards and froze as his brain struggled to process the presence of someone who made him so deeply unhappy while he was the happiest that he had ever been.
“Harry, what’s wrong?” Ginny asked, startling him out of his fear-born stupor.
“I have to go now,” Harry said urgently, slipping his hands from her grip and turning to run out of the ballroom as fast he could.
As he fled the crowd, he could sense, more than he could feel, the steady presence of Ginny behind him, keeping up as he ran as quickly as he could through the crowd of dancers.
He burst through the side door someone had pointed out earlier and kept going, looking for a small and plain door similar to the one he had found Ginny behind, sure that Petunia would never dare to search for him behind one of them. Grand, conspicuous door after grand, conspicuous door passed him in a blur. His muscles began to burn again, and his lungs protested such strenuous motion so soon after the vigorous motion they had been put through while dancing.
Before he could work himself into a panic, he came upon a plain door tucked away into a corner and wrenched it open, falling unceremoniously into the darkened interior. Ginny followed at a just barely more sedate pace and waved her hand as she entered the room. The door closed itself and the lamps lit themselves at this motion, revealing a slightly dusty storeroom.
Harry remained on the ground for a moment, allowing the musty carpet to fill his vision, content to just be away from the ballroom, and more importantly, away from the Dursley’s.
He heard Ginny bustling around doing something, and a small voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Petunia, was shouting that it was his job to do whatever Ginny felt needed to be done so she didn’t have to do it. But he couldn’t muster up the energy to get himself off the ground. It was like gravity was suddenly stronger than it had ever been before, and it was far easier to simply lay on the ground and succumb to its effects.
After only a few moments longer, however, Harry sensed Ginny walk over towards him. He distantly wondered what she was doing until she answered his question by sliding her hands under him and rolling him over.
Harry barely had a chance to note this change in position and be glad that his back had long since healed, before had she grabbed his hands and began pulling him into a seated position, and then to his feet. She kept her grip on his hands and steered him a couple feet further into the room and pushed him gently into a chair that looked like it had been cleared off just recently.
Then she sat herself in a chair facing his that had been similarly cleared off.
“So, are you going to tell me what happened back there, or am I just going to have to guess?” Ginny asked lightly.
Harry stared at her blankly, still unable to coordinate his mind and muscles sufficiently to respond to her. A small part of his brain screamed at him that he was being disrespectful to the princess and that he needed to answer her now, but no matter how loud that part of his brain screamed, his muscles refused to cooperate.
When it became clear that Harry was not going to respond, Ginny sighed.
“I guess I’ll have to guess what happened then,” Ginny said, “Let’s see, when I moved my head to kiss you— and you can rest assured that I still plan to collect on that kiss— anyways, when I moved my head, you saw something absolutely startling. Since we were in the ballroom, that something was probably a person. I bet it was a long-lost twin, so you, quite understandably, freaked out when you saw someone who looked just like you standing mere feet away! I’ll bet you thought it was an illusion at first, and that’s why you stumbled backwards! Or maybe it was an illusion and my brothers Fred and George decided to come to the event after all…”
She continued to ramble on, suggesting possibilities that ranged from the absolutely ridiculous to the just barely feasible. She dropped the names of people he’d never heard of and places he’d never been to and he lost himself in the soothing drone of her voice.
Eventually his heart-beat steadied, and his thoughts smoothed out. When he felt ready to tell her about what had happened— he owed her that much, at the very least— he listened for her to take a breath, so he could jump in.
“Uh, Ginny,” Harry started, hesitantly. “I’m, uh, ready to tell you what happened, if, if you’re still interested in hearing about it.”
“I am definitely still interested, just, you should know that you don’t have to tell me about it, if you don’t want to. It seemed to upset you a lot, and talking about it might help, but you don’t have to tell me just to satisfy my curiosity.”
Harry thought this over, before he decided that he did want to tell her about it. She was one of the easiest people to talk to that he had ever met. Granted he hadn’t met all that many people, but still.
“I saw my aunt behind you,” Harry began slowly. “I live with my aunt and uncle and cousin and have since my parents died in a carriage accident when I was very little. They,” he gulped, taking a moment to collect himself, before continuing.
“They don’t like me very much, and I’ve always been a bit of a burden to them. They had only ever wanted their one perfect son, but then one day I was dumped on their doorstep, and they really had no choice but to take me in. And I’ve tried my best to be grateful, I really have! I just sometimes. It’s hard,” Harry finished lamely.
He fiddled with the sleeves of his fancy dress robes while he waited for her response, careful to avoid eye contact.
“I get the feeling there’s more to it than them not liking you very much, if you felt the need to run away from them…?” Ginny asked tentatively.
Harry ran a shaky hand through his still mostly untamed hair, not noticing that he had knocked his hat off in the process, “Is it that obvious? Just, give me a moment.”
Did he want to confess how bad things were with Dursley’s to Ginny? He’d never ever actually talked about it with anyone, since Hermione and Daphne only knew what they observed. Their time together tended to be too short for it to be worth it for them to push Harry into talking about things he definitely did not want to talk about.
Then there was the added complication that telling Ginny was telling someone who potentially had the power to change things. And he couldn’t decide if it would be worse if he told her and she did get involved, or if he told her and nothing ever changed.
After another moment, he remembered that she didn’t even know his last name. As long as he avoided names when telling her about them, there was no easy way for her to track him down. Honestly, he didn’t know why he was bothering to worry about her doing anything at all, since he clearly wasn’t important enough to justify any action, let alone a coordinated search.
He could use this one chance at anonymity to really talk to someone. Having decided this, he took a deep fortifying breath and began to tell her about his life. He couldn’t quite stop himself from glossing over the worst bits, but he did tell her about some of the things, just enough to give her an idea of what they were like. Because he also didn’t want her to think that Harry was whiny, or above his station
So, he told her about things like the names they called him. And then, because he felt lighter after getting that off his chest, he told her about how he never got time to himself, ever. Then he found himself telling her about how frequently they restricted his food. It wasn’t until he heard himself telling her where the Dursley’s made him sleep that he managed to stop himself.
Because the more he confided in her, the lighter he felt. It was as though holding these things so close to his chest, so secretly, had been weighing his soul down. And now that he was sharing the years of hurt with someone, they had less power to weigh him down.
As he trailed off after he had exhausted the list of things that he was willing to tell her about, he was finally able to glance at her face for the first time since he had seen Petunia. He was struck by how warm and sad her expression was, but he couldn’t find any pity at all on her face.
He felt a rush of affection for her so strong that he completely lost the remainder of his train of thought.
“I’m so proud of you for telling me all that, Harry,” Ginny said, reaching out a hand to rest on Harry’s knee. “I’m sure it was hard for you. I just want to make sure you know that you did not deserve that treatment at all. Nobody does, but certainly not a child. And I am so glad that you burst into that room I was hiding in, because meeting you has absolutely made this ridiculous Ball worth it.”
Ginny paused for a moment. “I hate these types of things, usually, because everyone is always falling over themselves to get my attention, but it’s always so obvious that no one ever wants the attention of me, Ginny. They just care about ‘the Princess Ginevra’. So, when you first didn’t even pretend to pay attention to me, which was so unlike all the courtiers I’ve had to deal with all these years, and then after I called you out on it, truly listened to what I was saying, I knew that I had found someone special.”
Harry couldn’t imagine someone not properly paying attention to Ginny. She was light and energy and warmth and a breath fresh air, even in the stuffy ballroom. Not only that, she was one of the most animated and fascinating people Harry had ever had the pleasure to talk to.
Someone being willing to genuinely listen and get to know Ginny should have been the rule, not the exception.
Before he could begin to try and order these thoughts into a proper response, Ginny continued, “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to make this about me. You must think I’m so spoiled with all these people fawning after me, and me being so ungrateful about it.”
“No!” Harry burst out, stunned that she could even think this. “People should want to get to know the real you, and being upset that people would rather only meet your title isn’t spoiled, it’s human!”
Ginny shook herself and gave him a small, crooked smile, “Thank you for reminding me of that Harry. I can usually remember it, but it’s always harder after one of these state events.”
Harry nodded and said, “I’m sure they bring up all the memories of your past bad experiences.”
“They do. Oh! Do you mind if I change the subject for a moment? I just remembered something from earlier that I meant to ask you about.”
Harry was a little relieved that they were moving from these topics, since they made him feel so out of his depth, and said, “Yeah of course, what did you want to ask?”
“Why did Hermione address her question about how we met to just me? She didn’t seem like the type to ignore a friend in favor of talking to, well, ‘The Princess’, but I don’t know what else to think,” Ginny said, trailing off.
“Oh, she did that because she knows me,” Harry answered, “I, uh, tend to be a bit reticent and she, probably pretty accurately, assumed that she would get a better response if she directed her question at you instead of me.”
Ginny smiled in relief and said, “I was hoping you would say something like that, she seems really nice and she makes Daphne happy and I’d have hated it if she turned out to be another royal groupie.”
“It’s hard to imagine Hermione being a groupie— the one time she was one, it was for Gilderoy Lockhart, and when he turned out to be a fraud, she was a tiny bit heartbroken and a whole lot furious. Since then, she’s done a good job of recognizing that people are only human.”
“She seems like a smart cookie, if it only took one lesson for it to sink in,” Ginny said.
They both subsided into comfortable silence, Ginny’s hand still resting on Harry’s knee.
Out of nowhere, Ginny asked, “Do you want to dance some more?”
“I don’t want to go back to the ballroom,” Harry replied nervously. “But I did love dancing with you.”
Ginny smiled slyly and stood up, using her wand to banish the furniture to the edges of the room. Then she gave her wand a final wave and the room was filled with the sound of gentle music, the perfect kind for slow dancing.
Harry’s chair had joined the rest of the furniture in moving to the edge of the room, so he stood up and rejoined Ginny in the center of the room.
It was easier than breathing to settle back into the rhythm of dancing with Ginny. They didn’t do anything fancy as they danced, mindful of the size of the room, and Harry couldn’t help but feel that the dancing was more to give them an excuse to hold each other than it was to actually dance.
Between the music and the empty room, Harry’s world narrowed down, once again, to just the two of them. Nothing else mattered but Ginny’s hand in his, her waist under his other hand, and the places their bodies occasionally met as they stepped in tandem in a simple diamond pattern.
Once again, Ginny’s hand drifted up from his waist to grasp the back of his neck, and this time, Harry was the one to tilt his head to the appropriate angle.
But their first kiss was not to be, because then the castle was filled with the sound of the clocktower bell tolling.
Harry’s heart lurched far worse than it had when he’d seen Petunia. He had to get out of here now. He had to get back to the Dursley’s house before the Dursley’s. Because he couldn’t risk getting back after them when there was a small chance that Petunia hadn’t seen him, when getting back on time could mean that he might be able to get away with tonight.
He desperately wanted to avoid trouble with the Dursley’s so he could preserve this near-perfect night in his memory without tainting it with more contact with them, or even worse, with a punishment from them.
He staggered to his feet before the bell tolled again, “I have to go!” He cried, running for the door.
Ginny’s grip on his hand tightened and he could tell that she wanted to keep him from leaving, but he yanked his hand free of hers in a move that felt like he was ripping his heart in two at the same time.
Harry pulled the door open and sprinted toward where his instincts said the exit was. As he went, he heard Ginny yell after him, and his heart tore just a little more as he continued his desperate rush out of the castle and to where he had hidden the broom.
In his blind panic, he failed to notice that his hat had fallen off. It would sit in the room where they had danced, unnoticed, until the next day when Ginny returned to search for clues as to the mystery boy who had captured her attention and who owed her a kiss.
Harry’s instincts lead him accurately through the castle and across the castle grounds. He crashed through the forest taking the most direct path possible to where he had hidden the broom.
As the clock finished tolling, his handsome outfit finished its transformation back into the tattered remains he had been wearing when his Dogfather came to him.
His mind was so focused on getting back to the Dursley’s, however, that he didn’t notice this at all.
As he came up to where he had hidden the broom, he bent down and picked it up without breaking stride and used his momentum to launch himself into the air and onto the broomstick, instantly accelerating as fast he could.
The flight back was much less enjoyable than the flight to the castle had been. The just slightly too cold night air froze his nose, cheeks, and hands. He had the fleeting impression that the night seemed much more sinister now.
Gritting his teeth, Harry shoved down the rising anxiety. He was so focused on his internal struggle that he barely noticed the time it took him to get back at all.
He landed right next to shed and hurriedly put the broom back where he had found it. Then he tore into the house at top speed. Despite his speed, he was sure to wipe his feet and close doors behind him— there could be no evidence that he had been out of bed.
Once safely in his cupboard, he immediately shed the remains of his tattered robes and donned the usual rags that he slept in. He carefully laid down, arranging himself in the best position to quietly catch his breath.
He lay in suspense for far longer than he had thought he would have a chance to. While he was glad that he had clearly beaten the Dursley’s back, waiting around like this, unable to do anything, was not good for his heart. He tried to focus his thoughts on more mundane things, like how he must have travelled faster than he thought he did. But his focus didn’t last long, and Harry couldn’t shake the certainty that Petunia had seen him in the ballroom.
If she had, there would be hell to pay once they got back.
Then Harry tried to distract himself by dwelling in his memories of the evening. But he couldn’t manage to relax enough to because he was just too wound up waiting for the Dursley’s to return for his mind to hold onto the memories.
Finally, he tried occupying his thoughts with mentally running through his path through the house, verifying that he had left everything just the way he was supposed to. This worked well enough, and during his fourth mental run through, the Dursley’s finally did come through the front door.
And for the third time that night, Harry’s heart stopped.
Seconds after the Dursley’s came through the door, Harry’s cupboard door was slammed open. He was still dazed from the shock when Vernon’s large hand reached in painfully grabbed Harry’s arm. Vernon squeezed it viciously as he wrenched on it to pull Harry out of the cupboard.
Vernon let go once Harry was clear of the cupboard, and he scrambled to get his feet under him so he could at least be standing on his own, when Vernon’s hand went for Harry’s neck.
He immediately collapsed his legs that he hadn’t quite managed to get under him, and twisted his downward momentum to the side, out of Vernon’s grasp. This, unfortunately, put him in a corner that Vernon immediately rushed to block him into, but at least Harry had escaped the stranglehold for the moment.
“Vernon!” Petunia screeched. “You can’t kill him! Think of the law!”
“You saw him at the Ball. So, he was at the very place that we had explicitly. Ordered him. Not. To. Go.” Vernon ground out these last few words and took a menacing step toward the corner where Harry was cowering.
Harry waited until Petunia spoke again, thus distracting Vernon, to pull his feet under himself so he could watch his fate be decided on his own two feet.
“Yes, well, killing him is still illegal,” Petunia insisted, with a nervous look at Vernon’s still clenching and unclenching hands. “Why don’t we just put him in the attic until you’ve calmed down a bit dear, it’s not like he’s going anywhere.”
Vernon gave Harry one last dirty look with his beady eyes and said with a grunt, “Fine, shut him in the attic, but if I hear one peep out of him before I’m ready to deal with him. Well,” he clenched and unclenched his hands one more time, significantly, “I’d better not hear anything.”
Harry nodded frantically. He was too afraid to comply with their usual demand of verbal answers because he was so worried that if he made noise, he’d set Vernon off again.
Petunia grabbed Harry’s arm with her claw like hand, digging her nails in, and began dragging Harry up the many flights of stairs to the attic.
Rather than dwell on the occasional glare that Petunia shot his way, he absently recalled the various chores he had completed as they passed various rooms. It was a pointless exercise, but Harry had little else to distract him from dwelling on all the terrible things he had to dwell on.
When they arrived at the single dingy door that lead to the final set of stairs, Petunia pulled her keyring out of her clutch and unlocked the door.
Harry had started to walk in of his own volition when she dug her hand into his back and shoved Harry through the door.
Almost before Harry was clear of the threshold, she slammed the door shut and locked it with a resounding, ominous click. Through the keyhole she said, “You heard Vernon. If you make a single sound, I won’t be able to stop him from killing you. Don’t expect food.”
He heard her footsteps trail away, and once he was sure he was alone, he let himself give into the shaking that he had felt coming on from the moment he had been yanked out of his cupboard.
Harry was afraid that if he stayed at the bottom of the staircase, he’d accidentally make a sound and bring Vernon’s wrath down on him, so managing the shaking as best as he could, he made his slow and silent way up the stairs.
The attic was a large, empty room, with a single circular window that looked down on the driveway. There was far less dust than Harry was expecting there to be considering he had never been up here to dust.
He did know that at some point Petunia had sold or gotten rid of just about everything that used to be kept up here because he had been specifically ordered to go to town that day. On his way out, he’d spotted some traveling merchants on the way to the Dursleys’ house. And then, when he’d come back, he’d spotted them on the road traveling away from the Dursley’s, laden with furniture and chests that Harry didn’t recognize.
When nothing was missing from anywhere else in the house, he’d had to assume the goods had come from the attic, which was the one room he wasn’t allowed in.
Looking around, Harry had the thought that if the Dursley’s hadn’t kept the door locked, it would have been the perfect hideaway for Harry.
Well, it had now become the perfect hideaway for him, even if he wasn’t exactly willingly hiding away. Harry could just make out a single tarp, of the kind typically used to cover furniture while painting, in the corner of the room.
There were no lamps in the room, and it was quite dark out, so it was hard to see much of anything else in the room.
Harry carefully and silently made his way to the tarp and unfolded it just enough for him to lie on his side- ever careful of his lingering injuries, between two halves of it, so he was protected from the slight chill of the empty room and hard surface of the bare floor.
As he lay there, wrapped in the rough tarp, he decided that he was really quite lucky all things considered. Vernon could so easily have killed him, and while he couldn’t summon up the energy to be grateful to Petunia for stopping Vernon, he did feel more positively dispositioned towards her than he had in years.
His thoughts drifted off into remembering that moment where Vernon had tried to strangle him. And Harry was absolutely stunned to realize that he had dodged Vernon— and gotten away with it!
His thoughts stopped for a moment in the aftermath of this shocking realization.
Harry had never, not once, dodged Vernon before. He had always known that it would only end badly for him because Vernon would only escalate the situation in revenge. This was possibly the only situation where he could possibly have gotten away with dodging Vernon without harming himself further.
He had the odd thought that Ginny would have been proud of him. He had no idea where the thought came from since really, she probably wouldn’t have cared one way or the other. But since there was no harm in it, he decided to take a moment to bask in her imagined pride.
Harry was utterly exhausted after the emotional pendulum of a day that he had had. And since all the Dursley’s were likely in bed sleeping off the alcohol from the complementary bar at the Ball, Harry had to conclude that he was as safe as he could be within the walls of the Dursley’s home.
With this decided, his shaking became much less violent, and he was almost able to relax into the tarp.
Now that he was somewhat settled, he could finally turn his thoughts to committing his time at the Ball to his memory. A moment later he was shocked to realize that he had automatically started at the moment he’d met Ginny. But a lot had happened before he got to that moment that he wanted to commit to memory as well.
He’d gotten to meet one of his parents’ friends and had had real magic performed on him for the first time in his life. Then he’d gotten to fly all the way to the castle, which was just as beautiful as he’d always dreamed it would be. And, of course, then he’d met Ginny.
He never wanted to forget what the best night of his life so far had been, and what would most likely be the best night of his life, ever.
As he relived the wonderful night, he eventually fell asleep with the slightest hint of a smile on his face.