Written for @hinnymicrofic September 12, 2023
(Go check part 1!) Sorry if this is a bit too long (777 words), couldn't resist!
Ginny’s gaze was hard and her expression unreadable. The only thing that betrayed any emotion was a single tear streaking slowly down her cheek. This was it.
Harry had just told her his last, most shameful secret: a piece of Voldemort’s soul had lived inside him for sixteen years. It had seen his every thought, peered into his every emotion and tainted his every passion.
“I thought it was only fair for you to know, I’m sorry,” Harry said, defeated.
“Fair?! Fair?! There is nothing fair about this, Harry! How can you think there is anything fair?” blurted out Ginny, furious.
Harry had expected it, had always known it, but it still felt like his heart had broken at that moment. It was the first time they had talked, really talked, since the Battle of Hogwarts. Too much pain had kept them apart, and Harry felt it would be unfair to resume a relationship with her, if she even wanted one, without her knowing the whole story. He also knew that once he told her about the Horcrux and his own death, Ginny would want nothing more to do with him. Her soul was too pure to accept the darkness he had harbored all his life. That did nothing to ease the pain. If anything, Harry was reminded of the walk to his own death in the forest: once again, Harry knew that he was throwing his life away, that he was moving towards his own demise, and he also knew that it was the right thing to do, that it was what he had to do, that it was the only thing he could do. Ginny deserved nothing less than the whole truth, even if it meant the end of the dream he had cherished without admitting it to anyone, let alone himself - the dream of a world after Voldemort in which he could enjoy some happiness. That dream was now dying.
“I understand if you are angry. I understand if you want nothing more to do with someone so tainted and so... evil.”
The last word struck Ginny’s heart like lightning, and the memory of a conversation she had had five years ago came back to her as clearly as if it had been yesterday.
Harry’s green eyes met Ginny’s brown for a long moment. They shone with such emotion now that for a second Harry felt almost crushed by the power of that gaze.
“You’re not evil, Harry, you never were.”
Harry was stunned: this was not what he had expected. How could she not understand?
“But the Horcrux...” Did he dare hope? “How can you be so sure?”
“You are not evil, you were never the Horcrux that was inside you. You are Harry, and that is enough.”
There was a pause, then Ginny continued:
“I know the evil that is Riddle better than anyone, Harry. I lived with him in my head for a year. I know what it’s like.”
“It’s not the same, Gin,” Harry interrupted. “You didn’t grow up with him inside you. What if he has distorted the way I see the world, my opinions, my feelings?”
Ginny saw the fear and terror in Harry’s eyes, glistening with tears he refused to let fall. The memory of their conversation after the Chamber became clearer and Ginny knew what she had to do.
“Yes,” came his immediate reply.
“Then answer me one question, Harry.” He nodded and she came closer. “Do you remember what Dumbledore told you? Do you remember what it is that Riddle doesn’t understand, the power he knows not, that is stronger than any evil?”
“Love,” Harry whispered, and Ginny nodded encouragingly.
“And now answer one last question, Harry, now that I have the words,” The silence lasted a heartbeat. “Can you love?”
Harry looked into Ginny’s eyes and felt like he was drowning. Her gaze was hard and bright and he sank into it. Harry thought of the nights he had spent looking at a dot on the Marauder’s Map, he remembered the summer she had pulled him out of his depression over Sirius, he thought of the kiss on his seventeenth birthday, the memory of which had been like a Patronus to him in the hardest moments of the Horcrux hunt.
Harry understood and could not hold back a tear. A feeling unlike any he had ever felt erupted in his chest and grew until it reached his lips.
“Yes, I think I can love.”
As his lips brushed hers, Harry tried to express in that kiss all that words could no longer say.
