What Will Not Love Discover (Harry/Ginny, PG-13)
Title: What Will Not Love Discover
Author: pumpkinpasty @ pumpkin_fics
Rating: PG-13 for the f-word
Word Count: 3000
Summary: While Harry’s off hunting Horcruxes, he and Ginny find a way to communicate.
Notes: A mildly AU fic set in Ginny’s sixth year. I’ve always wished DH had more Ginny, god I love her. Inspired by the myth of Pyramus and Thisbe, a couple of good old-fashioned star-crossed lovers.
In the wall that parted the two houses there was a crack, caused by some fault in the structure. No one had remarked it before, but the lovers discovered it. What will not love discover! It afforded a passage to the voice; and tender messages used to pass backward and forward through the gap. As they stood, Pyramus on this side, Thisbe on that, their breaths would mingle. "Cruel wall," they said, "why do you keep two lovers apart? But we will not be ungrateful. We owe you, we confess, the privilege of transmitting loving words to willing ears." Such words they uttered on different sides of the wall; and when night came and they must say farewell, they pressed their lips upon the wall, she on her side, he on his, as they could come no nearer.
All Harry wanted was more time. Time to press his lips on her thigh and grasp her hair in his hands, to whisper confessions that terrified and strengthened him. Time enough not to feel like he was cramming a lifetime of pleasure and pain into a few short months. But time, he didn't have. Nor did she.
- - -
The crack in the wall had always been there. It was older than she was, probably - a relic of some past Gryffindor girl who'd dropped her trunk at an odd angle and chipped the wall. It wasn't deep but sometimes she thought the outside air could seep through, because in spring she'd enter her dormitory and smell fresh tree blossoms, in autumn she'd smell the crisp mossy chill of the lake, and in winter the fire from Hagrid's cabin. She never thought much of it, except to marvel vaguely at the fact that these smells didn't seem to fill the castle like they did her dormitory.
It was a strange crack in Ginny Weasley's wall, an oddity, perhaps, in a castle whose magic was unknowable.
- - -
Grimmauld Place was just that - very grim, nauseatingly old. But Harry found a kind of sanctuary in his dead godfather's old room. He took comfort in the scantily-clad Muggle girls (there was one that looked a bit like Ginny, if he squinted right), the enormous Gryffindor banners and the old photo of his dad with his friends. He was trying to pry the photo off the wall when he noticed, out of the corner of his eye, a long stark crack in the wall between Sirius's wardrobe and his bed. He bent low and ran his fingers across it. It was cold, though Harry was sure that on the other side of the wall was another room, not the street. A fault in the construction, maybe - or the enchantments that concealed the old house. Maybe Sirius had chucked an old silver vase at the wall in a temper, or blown something up with James. Either way, he didn't think much of it - after all, he had more pressing worries.
- - -
He overheard Ron and Hermione whispering late one night, when they thought he was in the shower.
“I’m sure they’re fine, Ron. They’ll have searched the house and realized Harry isn’t there. They might be watching, but I think the fact that you’re a pureblood family -“
“Aren’t you reading the papers? To them we’re as good as Muggles - we’re blood traitors, all of us: my dad, working in the Muggle artifacts office, our ties to Dumbledore… They’re not safe! And they know I’m Harry’s best mate.”
“Ron,” she murmured, “They’ve got the whole Order protecting them. We couldn’t ask for anything more, any stronger sort of protection now-“
“I dunno,” said Ron, waving her off, his brow furrowed. “I just really hope Harry’s got a plan.”
- - -
He slept in Sirius’s room that night - slipped out of the parlor as soon as Ron and Hermione fell asleep - because he needed some distance. Time to think without the weight of their presence muddling his thoughts. They’d given up so much to be with him. He couldn’t forget that.
He climbed the stairs on tiptoe, grateful for the thick layer of dust which muffled his footsteps.
“Lumos,” he whispered, when he reached the top landing and pushed open Sirius’s door. He lit the overhanging chandelier with another flick of his wand, and let the door fall closed behind him. The room was still musty, but as he crossed to the bed, he thought for one wild moment that he smelled fresh flowers.
He sprawled on the sagging mattress and pulled his mother’s letter from the pouch around his neck.
“’One year old and already zooming along on a toy broomstick,’” he read aloud. “’James thought it was so funny, says he’s going to be a great Quidditch player.’ If only you could have seen me win the Cup, Dad,” Harry murmured, and sighed. His throat was beginning to tighten, as it often did when he took time to contemplate his parents. He’d missed so much. There was so much he’d never had… and he wasn’t the only one. Voldemort was killing families up and down the country. Everyday more kids became orphans, lost their mums and dads and grandparents - or died themselves.
But it was no good to dwell on what he'd missed. “Your parents are dead,” he told himself. “They’re not coming back.”
And then, somewhere beside him, he heard a gentle, distant voice.
“Harry?”
- - -
She hadn’t been able to place the voice, at first, and then she was sure she was losing her marbles: her first day back at school and already she was hearing his voice in her head. But then she had heard it again, and once more, and she traced it to that odd crack in the wall beside her four-poster. She couldn’t explain it, but it was Harry on the other side of that wall; she was sure of it.
“Harry? Harry, where are you? Are you here? At Hogwarts?” She had to whisper, press her lips right up against the wall, so she wouldn’t wake the other girls.
A long pause, then -
“Ginny?”
“It’s me,” she said, heart thudding. “I can hear you.”
“How? I’m not - are you here?”
She frowned, confused. “I’m at Hogwarts. Where are you?”
She heard him pause, could even hear his heavy breath, and then she heard a rustling of paper. When he spoke again, his voice was different, harsher.
“Tell me where you are exactly,” he said.
“I’m in my dormitory,” Ginny said. “The girls’ dormitory. Third floor of Gryffindor Tower, against the wall facing the lake. I can hear you through a crack in this wall.”
“And what happened on my birthday? What did you say you hoped for?”
“That you wouldn’t meet someone while you were off doing… whatever you’re doing.”
She heard another rustling of paper.
“It’s really you,” he said, and in his voice he was smiling, she knew it.
- - -
He used the map to check if she was, in fact, crouched against the wall in her dormitory. He used his birthday because he knew any imposter would think she’d told him to be safe, which he realized now was the reason he loved her, because she would never be so obvious.
“Ginny,” he said, though he didn’t know how he managed when his heart felt like it was bursting out of his chest. “Are you okay? Are you safe there? We heard about Snape -“
“I’m okay. No one has even seen him yet. Death Eaters were swarming the train, though, rounding up Muggleborns, asking to see blood status cards… it was awful.”
Something clenched in his stomach and he felt like he was going to be sick.
“How are we doing this?” Ginny asked. “Did you cast some sort of spell?”
Harry shook his head, then remembered she couldn’t see him. “No. You didn’t either?”
“Nope. Should we be worried? Do you think this could be monitored? This crack in the wall has been here for ages… I don’t see how they could have-“
“Unless they suspect you of communicating with me. Listen, I can’t put you in any more danger. After the wedding, I was so worried. I didn’t know if you’d been taken, or if your family was safe… It’s not worth the risk.”
She was quiet.
“What if I research it here in the library? I’ll find out if there’s a way they could be have created this. Let’s meet back tomorrow night, okay?”
Harry hesitated. They would be going to the Ministry tomorrow. If anything went wrong, and they knew he was communicating with her… he felt sick just thinking about it.
“All right,” he said. “Tomorrow night. Same time. Goodnight, Ginny.”
“Goodnight.”
He left the room, making sure the door was locked tight behind him. He wouldn’t be returning the next night, or any other night, no matter how much he wanted to - not if it meant putting her in danger.
- - -
She slammed another book shut. The sun was finally falling and her stomach was growling; she’d skipped lunch and dinner to research her mysterious wall-crack. She couldn’t find anything in Modern Magical Communication, Ancient Wizarding Architecture, or Charms of Espionage: 8 Ways to Eavesdrop on a Private Conversation. She was wishing for Hermione’s encyclopaedic brain when Luna wandered out of the stacks to her right.
“There you are,” Luna said. “Neville and I were looking for you. You’ve got a lot of homework for the first day back,” she added, picking up Before Owls Flew: a History of Messaging in the Magickal Community and examining the spine with interest.
Ginny huffed and tightened her ponytail with a sharp tug.
“Listen, Luna, you haven’t ever heard voices coming out of a wall, have you?”
“Do you mean like overhearing someone in the next room?”
“No, I mean, like voices coming from the wall.”
“Oh, that. Well, I’ve never heard them, but Mum told me once about this ancient couple, a witch and a wizard, who loved each other but couldn’t be together, so they found a way to talk to each other using cracks in walls. They would talk at night so no one suspected a thing.”
Ginny gaped at her.
“Er… do you remember the names of these two people?”
- - -
They were alone. Hermione sat nursing Ron’s arm, giving him sips of water every now and then and smoothing his hair while he dozed. Harry couldn’t watch them without feeling a sting of guilt in his chest.
“Harry, our blankets and cots are in my beaded bag, do you mind setting them up?”
He busied himself digging through her bag. She’d thought of everything, Hermione. She had books and food, cloaks and underwear and shaving cream for him and Ron. She had even packed a few bottles of Butterbeer. Harry didn’t know where they’d be without her. Without warning, he stood up and strode over to where Hermione was curled in her small folding chair, looking sadly at Ron. She glanced up at him.
“Oh - did you not find them? You might have to use a summoning charm, I packed-oh!”
Harry had bent low and pulled her into a fierce hug; he thought he’d better do it quick before the feeling left him.
“Thanks, Hermione, for-for-“ He tore away from her, unable to find the words, and patted her shoulder.
She had gone very pink and her eyes were watery. “Oh, Harry,” she said, but before she could finish he swept out of the tent and left her alone with Ron.
It was a long while before he saw her dim the lights inside the tent and finally heard her snoring in the cot beside Ron’s. His thoughts wandered to Ginny, and her voice so close to his ear the night before in Grimmauld Place. She would be calling for him now, he thought. And he would not be there to answer. The wind rustled some trees to his right and he started, raising his wand. “Damn it,” he said aloud, and shook his head. Every sound was a Death Eater, now - every squirrel with a mouthful of nuts was Voldemort, coming for them.
“Harry?”
He froze.
“Harry it’s me, it’s Ginny!”
The voice was coming from somewhere to his left; he turned and nearly choked. A slit was cut in the side of the tent - had it been there before? He glanced around; no one was near. Hermione and Ron were still snoring inside. His heart thudded.
“I’m here,” he said. “I can’t talk very loud.”
Somehow, her voice drifted out from the slit in the tent, sounding far away but very real, very Ginny.
“It’s okay. Listen, are you all right? I heard about the break-in, Dad just owled-“
“We’re fine. Ron got splinched-“
“What?”
“-but he’s fine. We’re safe and Hermione took care of him.”
There was a long silence. Harry started to wonder if she had left, or if he had imagined her voice altogether.
“If I ask what the hell you were doing, can I expect you to dodge my question?” she said, and he thought he heard a lilt in her voice, a smile he could picture even now.
“Yes,” he said simply.
“It’s driving me mad, you know,” she said, and now she sounded rather sad. “Being here, while you’re out there.”
“Ginny, I could never…”
“Forget it,” she said quickly. “So I was in the library today, and I couldn’t find anything on people talking like this, through the walls, but then Luna told me this story she heard from her mum, about this witch and wizard who were lovers, but forbidden to see each other, and they talked through cracks in walls to get around their stodgy parents. I looked it up, and it’s - well, it’s a form of love magic.” She paused. “Not just for lovers, though,” she added quickly. “Friends - good friends - have activated it in the past, I think. And I’m thinking maybe this is it, you know?”
“Er, I mean, are you sure? It being Luna, you kind of wonder.”
“Well, not for sure, but it’s the closest thing I’ve come across. You never told me, though, how are you hearing my voice?”
“Well, last night it was through a crack in a wall, like yours. Now it’s -“ he paused, trying to think of a covert way of saying ‘tent.’ He gave up. “Now I can hear you through a tear in this tent Hermione packed.”
“That’s weird,” she said, and Harry agreed.
“So it’s love magic?” he said, his heart seizing a bit. It wasn’t much of a question, whether or not he loved her. And he had to admit that according to Dumbledore, love magic seemed to follow him around.
“I think so.”
“And that doesn’t scare you, a bit?” he asked, knowing the answer.
“Never.”
- - -
They agreed to limit their conversations to every few nights, to avoid suspicion. In the middle of classes, Ginny found her thoughts wandering to the crack in her wall. More than once she set off sparks and explosions while bungling potions in Slughorn’s class, but she didn’t care.
She sat on the ground in her nightgown when they talked, and sometimes, on cold nights, she wrapped her arms around herself, closing her eyes and listening to his voice and imagining his arms instead. Her dormitory was mostly empty now, anyway - she’d had a lot of Muggle-born Gryffindor girls in her year.
Sometimes they didn’t talk. Knowing the other was there, on the other side of the wall - his thoughts filled with her and hers with him - was enough. She didn’t tell him much about Hogwarts, though he asked; she didn’t want him to worry. Harry didn’t tell her much about his plans either, but Ginny had stopped asking.
“Did you ever… do anything? With Dean, or Michael?”
Ginny snorted.
“Jealous?”
“A little.”
“I saved the best for last, Potter,” she said, and put her hand to the wall.
- - -
She became his private world, where he didn’t have to think or talk about Horcruxes or Dumbledore’s lies or Ron’s increasing irritability.
“Best dream you ever had,” he prompted.
“Mmm. Winning the Quidditch Cup, and sex with you after. Yours?”
Harry choked. “Er, same. Minus the Quidditch Cup.”
She laughed, and he sighed.
- - -
“In fifteen years,” she asked, “who will you be?”
His stomach clenched. “Don’t do that,” he said, and his voice tore through his throat, which was swollen.
“No,” she said. “Answer.”
He clenched his jaw.
“In fifteen years,” she said lightly, “you will be living in a flat in Godric’s Hollow, because you’ll want to be close to your parents, and because the town there is mostly Muggles, and they won’t know anything about anything.
“In fifteen years,” she continued, “you’ll work for the Ministry - or no, maybe you’ll sign with England - and girls will want to fuck you and the papers will ask ‘Harry, boxers or briefs?’ but only I’ll know, because only I’ve got you down to them in the locker room after a really messy, muddy game.
“In fifteen years,” she said, and now her voice was softer, “you might still - be upset - about things that’ll happen in the next year or so. And you'll know - and I'll know - that things won’t ever be the same. And that’ll be good, in some ways… and awful in others. But when it gets bad, when it gets really rough, we’ll lie in the grass, or on your couch, and I’ll put my head in your lap. I’ll grab your hand and we’ll get better. And we’ll think -“
But here Harry spoke, thickly, through the fog of his glasses.
“We’ll think how lucky we are, and we’ll think - we’ll think about the future.”
“Yes,” she said, and he heard her sniff a little. “Let’s do.”
- - -
Feedback is much appreciated, and as always, feel free to follow this journal for fic updates.
Author: pumpkinpasty @ pumpkin_fics
Rating: PG-13 for the f-word
Word Count: 3000
Summary: While Harry’s off hunting Horcruxes, he and Ginny find a way to communicate.
Notes: A mildly AU fic set in Ginny’s sixth year. I’ve always wished DH had more Ginny, god I love her. Inspired by the myth of Pyramus and Thisbe, a couple of good old-fashioned star-crossed lovers.
In the wall that parted the two houses there was a crack, caused by some fault in the structure. No one had remarked it before, but the lovers discovered it. What will not love discover! It afforded a passage to the voice; and tender messages used to pass backward and forward through the gap. As they stood, Pyramus on this side, Thisbe on that, their breaths would mingle. "Cruel wall," they said, "why do you keep two lovers apart? But we will not be ungrateful. We owe you, we confess, the privilege of transmitting loving words to willing ears." Such words they uttered on different sides of the wall; and when night came and they must say farewell, they pressed their lips upon the wall, she on her side, he on his, as they could come no nearer.
All Harry wanted was more time. Time to press his lips on her thigh and grasp her hair in his hands, to whisper confessions that terrified and strengthened him. Time enough not to feel like he was cramming a lifetime of pleasure and pain into a few short months. But time, he didn't have. Nor did she.
- - -
The crack in the wall had always been there. It was older than she was, probably - a relic of some past Gryffindor girl who'd dropped her trunk at an odd angle and chipped the wall. It wasn't deep but sometimes she thought the outside air could seep through, because in spring she'd enter her dormitory and smell fresh tree blossoms, in autumn she'd smell the crisp mossy chill of the lake, and in winter the fire from Hagrid's cabin. She never thought much of it, except to marvel vaguely at the fact that these smells didn't seem to fill the castle like they did her dormitory.
It was a strange crack in Ginny Weasley's wall, an oddity, perhaps, in a castle whose magic was unknowable.
- - -
Grimmauld Place was just that - very grim, nauseatingly old. But Harry found a kind of sanctuary in his dead godfather's old room. He took comfort in the scantily-clad Muggle girls (there was one that looked a bit like Ginny, if he squinted right), the enormous Gryffindor banners and the old photo of his dad with his friends. He was trying to pry the photo off the wall when he noticed, out of the corner of his eye, a long stark crack in the wall between Sirius's wardrobe and his bed. He bent low and ran his fingers across it. It was cold, though Harry was sure that on the other side of the wall was another room, not the street. A fault in the construction, maybe - or the enchantments that concealed the old house. Maybe Sirius had chucked an old silver vase at the wall in a temper, or blown something up with James. Either way, he didn't think much of it - after all, he had more pressing worries.
- - -
He overheard Ron and Hermione whispering late one night, when they thought he was in the shower.
“I’m sure they’re fine, Ron. They’ll have searched the house and realized Harry isn’t there. They might be watching, but I think the fact that you’re a pureblood family -“
“Aren’t you reading the papers? To them we’re as good as Muggles - we’re blood traitors, all of us: my dad, working in the Muggle artifacts office, our ties to Dumbledore… They’re not safe! And they know I’m Harry’s best mate.”
“Ron,” she murmured, “They’ve got the whole Order protecting them. We couldn’t ask for anything more, any stronger sort of protection now-“
“I dunno,” said Ron, waving her off, his brow furrowed. “I just really hope Harry’s got a plan.”
- - -
He slept in Sirius’s room that night - slipped out of the parlor as soon as Ron and Hermione fell asleep - because he needed some distance. Time to think without the weight of their presence muddling his thoughts. They’d given up so much to be with him. He couldn’t forget that.
He climbed the stairs on tiptoe, grateful for the thick layer of dust which muffled his footsteps.
“Lumos,” he whispered, when he reached the top landing and pushed open Sirius’s door. He lit the overhanging chandelier with another flick of his wand, and let the door fall closed behind him. The room was still musty, but as he crossed to the bed, he thought for one wild moment that he smelled fresh flowers.
He sprawled on the sagging mattress and pulled his mother’s letter from the pouch around his neck.
“’One year old and already zooming along on a toy broomstick,’” he read aloud. “’James thought it was so funny, says he’s going to be a great Quidditch player.’ If only you could have seen me win the Cup, Dad,” Harry murmured, and sighed. His throat was beginning to tighten, as it often did when he took time to contemplate his parents. He’d missed so much. There was so much he’d never had… and he wasn’t the only one. Voldemort was killing families up and down the country. Everyday more kids became orphans, lost their mums and dads and grandparents - or died themselves.
But it was no good to dwell on what he'd missed. “Your parents are dead,” he told himself. “They’re not coming back.”
And then, somewhere beside him, he heard a gentle, distant voice.
“Harry?”
- - -
She hadn’t been able to place the voice, at first, and then she was sure she was losing her marbles: her first day back at school and already she was hearing his voice in her head. But then she had heard it again, and once more, and she traced it to that odd crack in the wall beside her four-poster. She couldn’t explain it, but it was Harry on the other side of that wall; she was sure of it.
“Harry? Harry, where are you? Are you here? At Hogwarts?” She had to whisper, press her lips right up against the wall, so she wouldn’t wake the other girls.
A long pause, then -
“Ginny?”
“It’s me,” she said, heart thudding. “I can hear you.”
“How? I’m not - are you here?”
She frowned, confused. “I’m at Hogwarts. Where are you?”
She heard him pause, could even hear his heavy breath, and then she heard a rustling of paper. When he spoke again, his voice was different, harsher.
“Tell me where you are exactly,” he said.
“I’m in my dormitory,” Ginny said. “The girls’ dormitory. Third floor of Gryffindor Tower, against the wall facing the lake. I can hear you through a crack in this wall.”
“And what happened on my birthday? What did you say you hoped for?”
“That you wouldn’t meet someone while you were off doing… whatever you’re doing.”
She heard another rustling of paper.
“It’s really you,” he said, and in his voice he was smiling, she knew it.
- - -
He used the map to check if she was, in fact, crouched against the wall in her dormitory. He used his birthday because he knew any imposter would think she’d told him to be safe, which he realized now was the reason he loved her, because she would never be so obvious.
“Ginny,” he said, though he didn’t know how he managed when his heart felt like it was bursting out of his chest. “Are you okay? Are you safe there? We heard about Snape -“
“I’m okay. No one has even seen him yet. Death Eaters were swarming the train, though, rounding up Muggleborns, asking to see blood status cards… it was awful.”
Something clenched in his stomach and he felt like he was going to be sick.
“How are we doing this?” Ginny asked. “Did you cast some sort of spell?”
Harry shook his head, then remembered she couldn’t see him. “No. You didn’t either?”
“Nope. Should we be worried? Do you think this could be monitored? This crack in the wall has been here for ages… I don’t see how they could have-“
“Unless they suspect you of communicating with me. Listen, I can’t put you in any more danger. After the wedding, I was so worried. I didn’t know if you’d been taken, or if your family was safe… It’s not worth the risk.”
She was quiet.
“What if I research it here in the library? I’ll find out if there’s a way they could be have created this. Let’s meet back tomorrow night, okay?”
Harry hesitated. They would be going to the Ministry tomorrow. If anything went wrong, and they knew he was communicating with her… he felt sick just thinking about it.
“All right,” he said. “Tomorrow night. Same time. Goodnight, Ginny.”
“Goodnight.”
He left the room, making sure the door was locked tight behind him. He wouldn’t be returning the next night, or any other night, no matter how much he wanted to - not if it meant putting her in danger.
- - -
She slammed another book shut. The sun was finally falling and her stomach was growling; she’d skipped lunch and dinner to research her mysterious wall-crack. She couldn’t find anything in Modern Magical Communication, Ancient Wizarding Architecture, or Charms of Espionage: 8 Ways to Eavesdrop on a Private Conversation. She was wishing for Hermione’s encyclopaedic brain when Luna wandered out of the stacks to her right.
“There you are,” Luna said. “Neville and I were looking for you. You’ve got a lot of homework for the first day back,” she added, picking up Before Owls Flew: a History of Messaging in the Magickal Community and examining the spine with interest.
Ginny huffed and tightened her ponytail with a sharp tug.
“Listen, Luna, you haven’t ever heard voices coming out of a wall, have you?”
“Do you mean like overhearing someone in the next room?”
“No, I mean, like voices coming from the wall.”
“Oh, that. Well, I’ve never heard them, but Mum told me once about this ancient couple, a witch and a wizard, who loved each other but couldn’t be together, so they found a way to talk to each other using cracks in walls. They would talk at night so no one suspected a thing.”
Ginny gaped at her.
“Er… do you remember the names of these two people?”
- - -
They were alone. Hermione sat nursing Ron’s arm, giving him sips of water every now and then and smoothing his hair while he dozed. Harry couldn’t watch them without feeling a sting of guilt in his chest.
“Harry, our blankets and cots are in my beaded bag, do you mind setting them up?”
He busied himself digging through her bag. She’d thought of everything, Hermione. She had books and food, cloaks and underwear and shaving cream for him and Ron. She had even packed a few bottles of Butterbeer. Harry didn’t know where they’d be without her. Without warning, he stood up and strode over to where Hermione was curled in her small folding chair, looking sadly at Ron. She glanced up at him.
“Oh - did you not find them? You might have to use a summoning charm, I packed-oh!”
Harry had bent low and pulled her into a fierce hug; he thought he’d better do it quick before the feeling left him.
“Thanks, Hermione, for-for-“ He tore away from her, unable to find the words, and patted her shoulder.
She had gone very pink and her eyes were watery. “Oh, Harry,” she said, but before she could finish he swept out of the tent and left her alone with Ron.
It was a long while before he saw her dim the lights inside the tent and finally heard her snoring in the cot beside Ron’s. His thoughts wandered to Ginny, and her voice so close to his ear the night before in Grimmauld Place. She would be calling for him now, he thought. And he would not be there to answer. The wind rustled some trees to his right and he started, raising his wand. “Damn it,” he said aloud, and shook his head. Every sound was a Death Eater, now - every squirrel with a mouthful of nuts was Voldemort, coming for them.
“Harry?”
He froze.
“Harry it’s me, it’s Ginny!”
The voice was coming from somewhere to his left; he turned and nearly choked. A slit was cut in the side of the tent - had it been there before? He glanced around; no one was near. Hermione and Ron were still snoring inside. His heart thudded.
“I’m here,” he said. “I can’t talk very loud.”
Somehow, her voice drifted out from the slit in the tent, sounding far away but very real, very Ginny.
“It’s okay. Listen, are you all right? I heard about the break-in, Dad just owled-“
“We’re fine. Ron got splinched-“
“What?”
“-but he’s fine. We’re safe and Hermione took care of him.”
There was a long silence. Harry started to wonder if she had left, or if he had imagined her voice altogether.
“If I ask what the hell you were doing, can I expect you to dodge my question?” she said, and he thought he heard a lilt in her voice, a smile he could picture even now.
“Yes,” he said simply.
“It’s driving me mad, you know,” she said, and now she sounded rather sad. “Being here, while you’re out there.”
“Ginny, I could never…”
“Forget it,” she said quickly. “So I was in the library today, and I couldn’t find anything on people talking like this, through the walls, but then Luna told me this story she heard from her mum, about this witch and wizard who were lovers, but forbidden to see each other, and they talked through cracks in walls to get around their stodgy parents. I looked it up, and it’s - well, it’s a form of love magic.” She paused. “Not just for lovers, though,” she added quickly. “Friends - good friends - have activated it in the past, I think. And I’m thinking maybe this is it, you know?”
“Er, I mean, are you sure? It being Luna, you kind of wonder.”
“Well, not for sure, but it’s the closest thing I’ve come across. You never told me, though, how are you hearing my voice?”
“Well, last night it was through a crack in a wall, like yours. Now it’s -“ he paused, trying to think of a covert way of saying ‘tent.’ He gave up. “Now I can hear you through a tear in this tent Hermione packed.”
“That’s weird,” she said, and Harry agreed.
“So it’s love magic?” he said, his heart seizing a bit. It wasn’t much of a question, whether or not he loved her. And he had to admit that according to Dumbledore, love magic seemed to follow him around.
“I think so.”
“And that doesn’t scare you, a bit?” he asked, knowing the answer.
“Never.”
- - -
They agreed to limit their conversations to every few nights, to avoid suspicion. In the middle of classes, Ginny found her thoughts wandering to the crack in her wall. More than once she set off sparks and explosions while bungling potions in Slughorn’s class, but she didn’t care.
She sat on the ground in her nightgown when they talked, and sometimes, on cold nights, she wrapped her arms around herself, closing her eyes and listening to his voice and imagining his arms instead. Her dormitory was mostly empty now, anyway - she’d had a lot of Muggle-born Gryffindor girls in her year.
Sometimes they didn’t talk. Knowing the other was there, on the other side of the wall - his thoughts filled with her and hers with him - was enough. She didn’t tell him much about Hogwarts, though he asked; she didn’t want him to worry. Harry didn’t tell her much about his plans either, but Ginny had stopped asking.
“Did you ever… do anything? With Dean, or Michael?”
Ginny snorted.
“Jealous?”
“A little.”
“I saved the best for last, Potter,” she said, and put her hand to the wall.
- - -
She became his private world, where he didn’t have to think or talk about Horcruxes or Dumbledore’s lies or Ron’s increasing irritability.
“Best dream you ever had,” he prompted.
“Mmm. Winning the Quidditch Cup, and sex with you after. Yours?”
Harry choked. “Er, same. Minus the Quidditch Cup.”
She laughed, and he sighed.
- - -
“In fifteen years,” she asked, “who will you be?”
His stomach clenched. “Don’t do that,” he said, and his voice tore through his throat, which was swollen.
“No,” she said. “Answer.”
He clenched his jaw.
“In fifteen years,” she said lightly, “you will be living in a flat in Godric’s Hollow, because you’ll want to be close to your parents, and because the town there is mostly Muggles, and they won’t know anything about anything.
“In fifteen years,” she continued, “you’ll work for the Ministry - or no, maybe you’ll sign with England - and girls will want to fuck you and the papers will ask ‘Harry, boxers or briefs?’ but only I’ll know, because only I’ve got you down to them in the locker room after a really messy, muddy game.
“In fifteen years,” she said, and now her voice was softer, “you might still - be upset - about things that’ll happen in the next year or so. And you'll know - and I'll know - that things won’t ever be the same. And that’ll be good, in some ways… and awful in others. But when it gets bad, when it gets really rough, we’ll lie in the grass, or on your couch, and I’ll put my head in your lap. I’ll grab your hand and we’ll get better. And we’ll think -“
But here Harry spoke, thickly, through the fog of his glasses.
“We’ll think how lucky we are, and we’ll think - we’ll think about the future.”
“Yes,” she said, and he heard her sniff a little. “Let’s do.”
- - -
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