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Falling Down By LadyTory
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Category: Post-OotP
Characters:Harry/Ginny
Genres: Angst, Drama
Warnings: None
Story is Complete
Rating: PG-13
Reviews: 30
Summary: He had heard the incantation ring out and turned from Voldemort’s body in time to see her crumple to the ground.
Angst and Drama with a non-fatal twist. One shot. Complete.
Hitcount: Story Total: 6024
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Falling Down
“We were brave like soldiers
Falling down under the pale moonlight” –Rob Thomas
It was brick red against her pale skin. Blood was streaking from her mouth, covering too many of her freckles. So wrong, he thought, as he stared down at her almost from outside of himself. He sank to his knees, thinking how awfully the color clashed with her beautiful blazing red hair. No, no, this was not right. He was supposed to save her. He was supposed to save everyone.
He had heard the incantation ring out and turned from Voldemort’s body in time to see her crumple to the ground.
A thousand images flashed through his mind in the time he fell to the ground beside her. His bare knees were sinking into the soft earth, through the gaping holes torn in his robes. His heart felt like it was bursting into a million pieces somewhere above him, as if it had forgotten to slip down with the rest of his body.
Ginny her eyes sad, but boring into him before she kissed his cheek after breakfast, had it only been this morning?
Ginny laughing as she drank smuggled butterbeer in the common room, the firelight dancing in her eyes as she sat next to him.
Ginny, hair bright and flashing in the wind and sun, scoring the goal they had needed for the Quidditch Cup, her brown eyes flashing victory as she caught his gaze just before he rounded into a dive for the snitch.
Ginny’s face lighting up as she opened her new broom from Fred and George.
Ginny’s playful smirk as she crept down to the kitchens with him after curfew for chicken legs and treacle tart.
Ginny pleading with him, in the summer sun at the Burrow, begging to borrow his Firebolt, just this once.
Ginny’s voice calling after him, as he chased Bellatrix LeStrange back to the Atrium.
Ginny’s brown eyes searing with indignation as she demanded to go to the Department of Mysteries.
Ginny stealing pieces of his chocolate Easter egg in the library as if it belonged to her as well. Everything he had was rightfully hers, he knew that now.
Ginny’s biting sarcasm and veiled fury when he forgot that she had survived Riddle’s possession.
Ginny waiting, curled like a cat on the chair at number twelve, eyes aglow with the firelight.
Ginny on the train, covered in stink sap.
Ginny in dress robes, wincing as Neville stepped on her toes.
Ginny catching his eye and giggling about Percy.
Ginny at the station, running after the train.
Ginny face down on the cold stone floor of the Chamber of Secrets, no, no not like that.
He could not stand that color tainting her pale skin, covering her freckles, obscuring her beauty, covering the lips that he long ago should have kissed. He reached out a hand, black with soot and smoke, wanting to wipe away the blood of battle. He wanted to cleanse her of that sickening clash of color. If only to see her clean at least, if only to see her for the last time as she should have been.
Harry touched her cheek wiping away the brick red blood, but leaving streaks of black on her fair skin. Even this he could not do right, he though, as he felt the tears stinging to his eyes. His mind was reeling with all he had lost.
Ginny’s lips warm and yielding under his.
Ginny’s face as he would drop on one knee in King’s Cross Station to ask her to be his wife.
Ginny, walking towards him on Arthur’s arm, resplendent in the warm spring sun shining down in the Burrow’s garden.
Ginny calling his name as he made love to her.
Ginny’s giddy smile as she told him that he would be a father.
Ginny holding his children.
The future he had not allowed himself to believe in until today, the future he held onto as Voldemort fell, a future full of love; was gone as quickly as it had come rushing into his mind. It had disappeared in an instant behind these closed beautiful brown eyes.
He wanted her to be beautiful again, to see the purity and wonder of her face free from the horror of this last battle. His tears were falling freely, leaving clean white streaks down her cheeks as they fell from his. If only he were a phoenix, he could weep her back to himself; he thought as he leaned close over her, shuddering with sobs. He leaned down determined to tell her, too late, but tell her just the same.
He placed his hands on her cheeks, his thumb wiping the last flecks of blood from her lips. His face was so close to hers, their noses nearly touching, a trail of tears dripping from his onto hers. The words echoed back to him again, and he begged.
“Ginny, Ginny. Please don’t be dead. Ginny, I love you. You can’t go.” He placed his cheek on hers, feeling his skin sliding against hers in his own tears. He whispered again in her ear. “Ginny, Ginny, please, please, I love you.”
There was a faint warm brush against his ear, a ghost of a touch, was she telling him goodbye? No, no, he would not let go yet. But again he felt it, stronger this time, and he felt her body shudder beneath him. He pulled back slowly, daring not to look, praying to the gods that this was not a trick of his mind, a last cruel joke of Voldemort’s torture.
“Harry?” It was a whisper, barely there. He wrenched his head up to stare down at her tear drenched face, and found her warm brown eyes open, struggling to focus on his. “Harry?” Her lips barely moved, but he saw it and his heart flew back into his chest, and he was crying even harder now, his joy mixing with his sorrow on her cheeks.
Her hand crept up to touch his face, weak but alive. He grasped it in his and covered it with kisses and tears. Her eyes held confusion, bewilderment and life.
“What’s wrong, Harry?” She rasped out softly. In those eyes Harry saw everything that he had been fighting for: life, love, children, his future. A smile broke through his still cascading tears as he answered her.
“Nothing,” Harry choked out through his sobs, “nothing, now, love.”
Ginny wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling herself up from the ground. She moved to hug him to her, but his hand on her cheek turned her head to his. Harry crashed his mouth into hers, kissing her with wild relief, passion and love. He tasted her blood, his tears and the smoke from the battle as she opened her mouth and returned his kiss with the same force. As he drank her in, he felt as if there was a phoenix singing in his ear. His heart was swelling with something it felt an eternity since he had known: hope.
He pulled his mouth from hers and rained down kisses to match his tears across her face. Words flowed out of him like a mantra, as he rocked her in his arms.
“He’s gone. We’re free. I love you. It’s all over. He’s gone. We’re free. I love you.”
She stilled him with a hand on his cheek, and gazed into his eyes showing him again an assurance of joy to come.
“I love you, Harry,” she said simply as she brought her lips back to his. They kissed again, pouring life and hope back into each other, promising a world of tomorrows free from fear and pain.
Harry finally rose from the ground, hauling Ginny up into his arms, determined to take her away from this place. Gazing down at her small frame as she buried her face in his shoulder, Harry did not see the wind tease away the edge of an invisibility cloak to reveal a silver hand.
~~~~
Peter Pettigrew died a traitor and a coward, as he had lived. But in his death he repaid his debts. He could not save Harry Potter’s life, but the rat did one better. Draco Malfoy’s information had been correct; Pettigrew knew when he saw her storming toward Harry. She was striding across the battlefield with the same determined love and protection in her eyes that he had seen the first time James defended Lily against the Death Eaters. She loved Harry Potter.
And so, Wormtail was the one who stepped between Ginny Weasley and the Killing Curse meant to destroy her, as he raised his wand and preformed the Traitor’s Charm behind his back. The charm that would leave her seemingly lifeless until the smoke cleared; the same charm used on sympathetic spies in battle. He could not chance saving Harry Potter’s life, so instead he saved Harry Potter’s reason for living. He died with a smile curled on his lips, eyes wide open and welcoming death. He died for the young girl who used to feed him cheese and biscuits she snuck from the table. He died so the child of his betrayed friends could have the woman he loved. In death, he gave to Harry everything that in life he had taken away from James and Lily.
Pettigrew died a coward and a traitor to the Dark Lord, so that Harry Potter could watch the sun rise glinting through the red hair of his wife as she lay beside him. He died so that Harry could place his hands on his wife’s swelling stomach and feel his child kick against him. He died so that Harry Potter could watch as his children bickered over toy broomsticks and chocolate frogs. He died so that Lily and James’ grandchildren would one day board the Hogwarts Express giddy with excitement and full of mischievous adventure, as he, Sirius, Remus and James had in a life somewhere before.
~~Fin
A/N: Many thanks to LadyTonks and Phoenix from www.apparitionpoint.com for their beta services! As well as helping me stay sane until July 16th.
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