Summary: After the war, they heal back together. But it's a long time before he sees her scars. Hinny, hurt/comfort
A/N: This was requested by @chef-hagrid a long, long time ago. I'm sorry it's taken so long to write, but I hope you like it :D
When the rain stops, then darling, what will I do?
And I know I go all in, but why do I?
You give me a reason, something to believe in,
I know, I know, I know.
You give me a meaning, something I can breathe in,
I know, I know, I know.
When he woke up, Harry found Ginny’s arm over his chest, his head tucked under her. Ginny was asleep, her soft breaths lulling him into a daze. Harry allowed himself to close his eyes before he realised why they were in such a position.
The nightmare.
Lately, in the mornings; Harry struggled to recall everything that had happened the previous night. The nightmare. What he had seen. What he had done. The first time it had happened, Ginny had been there to calm him down. Somehow, the prospect of not remembering anything terrified him. It had taken weeks for him to get used to the idea, but he had finally come to a point where he didn’t immediately burst into full blown panic upon waking up.
Harry sighed, then gently eased Ginny into a more comfortable position. Part of him felt guilty that she had had to stay in that position all night, but he gently pulled her up, caressing her hair as her back tensed.
“Go back to sleep,” he whispered, gently kissing her forehead before pulling up her covers for her.
Harry smiled as the sunlight fell over her hair, rendering it into a soft shade of red that reminded him of the sun peeking through a million falling autumn leaves. She was beautiful, he thought, his eyes flickering over her body, before they rested on the small cluster of marks peeking through the nape of her shirt.
His eyebrows furrowed as he reached forward, gently nudging her shirt a few centimetres to get a better look at what he hoped would not be what he was thinking.
And it seemed as if his whole world stopped for a silent moment.
From what Harry could see, they were all over that small part of her back, and he could bet they spread all over her back too.
How had she gotten those?
Why….why hadn’t she told him about them?
What the hell had happened to her?
Harry collapsed back on the bed, his heart stricken by what he had seen, his mind conjuring up a dozen wild scenarios of Ginny being in pain, or being tortured, and he gulped down his panic, willing the thoughts to go away.
Is that why she had insisted on wearing oversized shirts the entire summer, never opting for anything else? Now that he thought about it, Ginny had never really spoken about that past year, what had happened in Hogwarts, what had happened to her. She had always only told him about the routine searches or the interrogations that the teachers had subjugated them to, and that was it.
How had he been so dense as to not suspect something else? Because he was damn sure those scars had not been there when he’d left.
“You awake?” he heard Ginny’s voice, and he let his hand drop from over his eyes, turning to look at her. Her eyes shone brilliantly, gazing into his as she smiled.
Somehow, Harry couldn’t bear to smile back.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, her eyebrows furrowing just slightly and Harry sighed, pulling her into his embrace, as he wrapped his arms around her, the covers haphazardly over them. Ginny smiled into his shoulder, and Harry, once again, couldn’t help but let his eyes flicker over to the place where he had seen her scars. Again, they had been covered, and he shut his eyes, letting his head rest against Ginny’s.
Somehow, he just couldn’t bear to ask.
The weeks after the war had been especially hard for the Weasleys. Even Harry, being a mere observer could see that. Every morning, as he got himself up and made his way to the table, it was plain visible that there was an absence. An absence that the Weasleys felt hard.
While George had resorted to making home at his shop, Percy kept him company while also making sure he remained alive. Bill and Charlie had left soon after the second week, helping at Hogwarts, at the bank, at Diagon Alley. So, that left the two youngest Weasleys taking care of the family. And it was clear that they were drowning.
It was after Harry had found Ginny lying motionless on her bed, tears falling from her eyes without sound when he offered they move into 12 Grimmauld Place. The months had passed quickly, very quickly after that.
And right now, mid-November, what they had was everything they could have ever asked for.
So, there they were now, Harry beating up four eggs for breakfast and Ginny furiously cleaning up the muck that the wind had blown in. Now that she was officially of age, the wand was at her leisure and in no time at all, she was gazing into the hot pan, where the eggs were cooking.
Harry smiled fondly at her, before looking away, chopping the bread up furiously. The incidents of the morning still played in his mind, as his knife thudded on the chopping board.
“You know I’d cook,” Ginny started, “but I’m afraid I could possibly set the house on fire.”
Harry chuckled, dropping the bread into the same pan.
“Kreacher would kill me,” she finished dramatically.
Ginny walked slowly over to where he was standing, and gently placed her hands over his. “That was your cue to tell me what’s wrong, you know,” she said, and Harry looked at her, taking note of the all too knowing look in her eyes.
But before he could say anything else, Ginny reached forward over the counter and turned off the gas, placing a lid over the pan in the process.
“It’s about the scars, isn’t it?” she said, looking away from his eyes.
Harry’s eyes flicked up in shock, and Ginny laughed softly. Her laugh seemed forced, and Harry couldn’t help but notice her sudden change in demeanour.
“I know you saw them this morning, Harry. So, if this is about them, it’s your cue to ask.”
“Why didn’t..,” Harry stopped himself. “What happened, Gin?”
Ginny remained silent, as Harry walked over to her, lifting her chin up until she looked into his eyes, brown to green.
“Like I said, Harry,” she began, “the past year was not exactly what I expected at Hogwarts.”
“You need to tell me something more than that Gin, please,” Harry begged. “What really happened to you, Gin?”
“They….,” Ginny sighed. “ You know what they did. They tortured us, Harry. They tortured us at every moment they got. It was like a sick sadistic pastime of theirs, because they knew it was the only way they could break us.”
She leaned on the counter, looking up at Harry. “I remember, there was a girl, a Muggleborn. It started with her, I think. Amanda Seyheir, she was called. The Carrows somehow learnt that she was one and they,” her voice broke. “They killed her.”
She closed her eyes, turning her head away from Harry. “I couldn’t save her Harry, and because I couldn’t save her, I had to save the rest of them.”
Harry remained where she was, because it was the way she was speaking that got to him. As if it was something that she had gotten used to saying, something she had become used to seeing.
He stepped forward, but he had no idea what he should have said.
“The Carrows….once they had no more Muggleborns to torture, they started with us. Neville, Luna…Luna, she escaped, we helped her to, what with everything her father wrote for the Quibbler and all. But the rest of us stayed.”
And Harry understood. What she was leaving out. Why, in those long months, she had never spoken about it.
“What did they do?” he asked, his voice hoarse.
“The usual,” she answered flippantly, but Harry could sense the slight tremor in her voice. “The Cruciatus mostly, hexes; they once went through a phase of using something called Serpent - “
“Serpentsortia,” Harry ended, his heart clenching in horror.
Ginny looked at him, her eyes having a far-away look in them. “Was that the one that Snape…Draco….”
“Yeah,” Harry admitted, his eyes blazing with anger. If he had known, if only. “Can I,” he asked hesitantly, “can I see them?”
Ginny looked away, her eyes blazing with emotion. “They’re not exactly something I’m proud of,” she said darkly, turning away from him.
Harry stepped forward towards her, then let his hands pull Ginny towards him, her back against his chest. Ginny let out a breath, and rested her head on him. As Harry touched her arms, he could feel a slight tremor going through them.
“I love you Gin,” he whispered. “I’ve got you. It’s going to be…,” Harry hesitated. “It’s going to be alright.”
False promises may be, but when Ginny entered the room that night, in nothing but a tank top for the first time in a long while, Harry let his eyes caress over her arms, over her scars that started from her neck and went all the way over her back.
Ginny shuddered as his fingers traced over the long jagged scar on her shoulder, the remains of a badly performed splinching hex.
“No,” Ginny replied. “It’s been a long while since they’ve hurted.”
She wouldn’t look at him, he noticed. So Harry gently cupped her face as he made her look into his eyes.
“Gin, those scars,” he said, “they mean you fought a battle you won. You told me that, remember?”
“We,” she said, her voice shaking. “We fought a losing battle for a very long while. You don’t realise Harry, but for eight months we heard nothing. Absolutely nothing. And every single day I woke up thinking it would be the day I heard the news you were dead. We,” her voice broke. “We didn’t think we’d survive.”
Harry’s heart clenched as he watched the woman who had been strong for both of them for so long crumble before his eyes.
“And the worst part of it was that,” her voice shuddering, “that every day I woke up thinking ‘again? I had to do this all over again? Had the world not had enough?’” She closed her eyes, then whispered. “And that’s why….I’m not proud of this Harry. I’m not.”
It was Harry who closed the dwindling space between them. Because he needed her to know that he loved her. With her scars. She had been strong for so long. He needed her to know that it was his turn now, if she’d let him.
“I love you as you are,” he said. “Exactly as you are.”
And as her tears started falling, it was Harry who held her close to him, making sure to wipe away the tears now and again.
And that was the way they spent the night, in each other’s arms, fully aware that a part of them were broken, but right now, they knew they could lean on the other to get through the storm.
So, as the quiet rustle of the leaves coloured in different shades of gold ceased, the soft white dust started falling on the upper side of them. Just like that, their world seemed to get slower.
A little turbulent perhaps, like the icy cold wind that entered their house sometimes as the temperature dipped even lower, but hadn’t it been that way since the beginning?
They needed each other, Harry realised. Though a part of him had known this since the moment he had kissed her in their Common Room.
He still wakes up at night, riddled with nightmares.
Ginny’s the same, her horrors seeming to engulf her entire purpose at times.
They still pull each out of the water, keep each other afloat.
But there will be one day, Ginny says to him, when they’ll look at their scars and have a story to tell. It might not be now, but it will be.
He’ll love her forever, he tells her then. Ginny laughs, telling him forever’s longer than what they’ll live for.
But he doesn’t tell her that what they have is forever for him. So he’ll love her forever as long as he lives, their scars shining brighter every day.
And that’s the way it will always be.
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