Curse
June, 1998
This time, there were flowers.
It wasn't like it had been in December, with every plant withered and dying, stems barely visible beneath the layers of grey snow. Now there were countless lilies, scattered all over the grave, somehow thriving in the hard, cold earth.
"I feel a little redundant now," Ginny muttered, clasping Harry's hand tightly with one of her own. Her other hand clutched a small tiger lily, fully in bloom and swaying softly in the light summer winds.
Harry shook his head. "You aren't."
Ginny snorted softly with laughter. "Thanks."
A hint of a smile played at his lips, but he didn't look at her; the white marble drew his full attention too well.
The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
Ginny read it over and over with him, not letting go of his hand, not saying a word. Harry had told her a hundred times that she didn't have to come, that this was something he just had to do, but she hadn't listened. She'd been to enough funerals lately, including that of her own brother, to have had her fill of graveyards for a lifetime, but this was different. Now she wasn't thinking of Fred, or Lupin, or Tonks, or anyone except Harry. She wanted him to talk to her, but knew he wouldn't until he'd cessed out what he needed to. And then he'd talk.
"I wonder what they'd say," he said finally in a strange voice, "if they knew what I've done."
Ginny didn't respond.
"We died to save each other."
That one needed some explanation. "What do you mean?" she asked softly.
"My parents let Voldemort kill them to save me. I let Voldemort kill me to save them, their memories."
"You're not dead, Harry."
"I should be. Twice over."
"But you aren't."
"They are. They were the first. Then Sirius, then Pettigrew, then Remus, and countless others in between. And then me."
"Harry."
"I feel cheap."
"Harry, stop," Ginny said more harshly, stepping in front of him to break his line of sight with the headstone. "You weren't fighting for them. You were fighting for the lives of everyone else, for Ron, for Hermione, for my family, for Neville, for Luna... for Teddy, for that beautiful baby boy who you get to raise because you destroyed death, Harry. After everything and everyone you lost, after everything you have to fear from death, you looked their last enemy in the eye and in doing so made yourself able to defeat it, for their sake and for your own, but mostly for the sake of everyone else."
Harry couldn't move his eyes away from hers. "You make me sound so heroic," he muttered.
"It helps that you're a hero," she whispered to him, biting the inside of her lip to dissuade her tears.
Harry shook his head. "I--"
But then his lips were occupied, and the rest of his sentence died in his throat. "Please don't make me argue with you. It just doesn't seem the time," Ginny requested quietly after she'd pulled away.
Harry smiled sadly and pulled her into a hug, taking in her sweet scent and the way her hair glistened in the sunlight on its way down her back. "I'm going to re-build my parents' house," he said throatily after a few minutes.
Ginny squeezed him tightly. "I'd like to help you."
"You don't have to."
"I know, Harry. I want to." She paused. "We are doing it by magic, right?"
Harry smiled. "Unless you have other ideas...?"
"Nope, magic sounds good to me. I won't be able to do much for another couple of months, mind."
"Nor will I. I've got a baby to look after."
They planted the lily in the centre of the grave and, after one last good look, walked from the graveyard, hands clasped, feeling the heartbeat of the world around them.
"I think," Ginny told him as they walked through the metal gates, "that they'd have been proud, so incredibly proud... but I don't think they'd have been surprised."