Chapter 31: chapter 31
Yes."
"How long will it take?"
"Normally it would take years, but I have a trick that'll cut that down to just months."
Ginny perked up. "Really? Oh, thank Merlin. I thought I was going to be massively far behind."
"Once you've got intermediate occlumency down, we'll move onto wandless casting."
"What! I thought only really powerful wizards could use wandless magic?"
"Not true. It just requires the combination of a specialised form of occlumency—which most practitioners don't bother learning—and the time to learn how each spell you want to learn should feel moving through you, rather than through the crutch of a wand."
Ginny grinned. This was awesome. This is what she imagined being the friend of the Boy-Who-Lived would be like. "And then?"
"That'll be plenty for the moment. We'll practise duelling as well, but that's just further application of our wandless studies."
"Okay." Her face set in determination. "When do we start?"
"Right now."
Ginny danced around the secret training spot, letting her happiness wash over her barriers and through her mindscape like a flash flood. She'd gotten it down. Harry had just spent half an hour inspecting and probing her mind, and declared her fit for the fight.
"Yes, yes." Harry said, grinning at her as she jumped in the stream, splashing him with cooling water. "You're happy, we get that."
"Harry, you've no idea what it feels like. This is the first time I've gotten good at something that is just mine. Something none of my brothers can do. When Mum would yell at me before, I felt like I was being beaten into the ground. I just wanted to shrivel up and disappear. Now, I feel like I can easily take it. If feels amazing."
She leapt from the stream and wrapped her arms around Harry. "Thank you."
Harry returned the hug and smiled. "Well then, there does remain one more thing to do."
She looked at him. "What?"
"Close your eyes."
She suddenly realised how close they were.
"W-w-what?"
"Close your eyes."
She hesitated for a moment, but closed her eyes. He wasn't going to… was he? Was he?
She felt Harry's hands reach up to her neck and flick her hair away before withdrawing. Something dragged across her neck and upper chest.
"There we are. No need for this anymore."
She opened her eyes. Harry was holding a silver chain necklace with a lightning bolt pendant attached to it.
She was puzzled. "I don't remember putting that on."
"This has been serving as your basic occlumency for the last seven or eight months, and letting me send you those dreams. Now you've got your own occlumency, you don't need it any more."
Ginny bit her lip. Conflicting emotions clashed, not the least of which was disappointment that he hadn't. She felt she should be angry that she'd been wearing a magical artefact, which had been messing with her head for over half a year, without knowing, but, on the other hand, she couldn't deny it had turned out for the best. Harry knew what he was doing…right? She trusted him, didn't she?
She thought back to the memories of the future — to the conversation with Fate and Death — to John committing suicide on the end of You-Know-Who's wand, thinking Death would give him a third chance, …to her eulogy.
Yes. Yes, she trusted Harry.
"Harry?" Ginny sat cross-legged on the grass of the secret training spot. She was trying to feel her magic flow through her while focusing her intent on creating a lumos light in her palm. It had been weeks since Harry had deemed her occlumency sufficient to move on to the next step.
"Yes, Ginny?"
"Can we talk?"
"Sure."
"It's about John."
Harry seemed to stiffen. "Oh, yes?"
"I-I…" Ginny hesitated before plunging forward, "For months I thought I was over him, I mean, he did all those things — or will do them — but, in the last few weeks, I haven't been able to shake the feelings I had for him before. I guess I just can't connect the boy he is now to the John who utterly failed to do what he should have done… and what he did to me."
Harry looked thoughtful.
"I still want to continue our training," she added, quickly. "I just feel torn, between what I feel for John," — her voice dipped down to barely audible level — "And what I feel for you." She blushed lightly.
"Do you want to like him?"
"No!" She shook her head causing her red hair to flail.
Harry looked thoughtful again. "One moment." He stood up, and with a *Crack!* was gone.
She waited.
Five minutes later, Harry returned with another *Crack!*. He held a vial of crystal-clear purple potion. "This is a potion that reveals all the worst traits and habits of a person to the drinker," he said. "It's supposed to be very difficult to continuing liking someone after having drunk one of these. The effects only last a few days, but the mind still remembers all the bad things, even if the magic is no longer present."
Harry handed the potion to her. She looked at it, uncertain. She didn't know what she'd been expecting when she brought this up with Harry, but this wasn't it.
"How did you prepare this so quickly?"
"I have his hair in my supplies."
"How did you get his hair?"
Harry grinned. "You don't want to know."
Ginny looked back at the crystal-clear, purple liquid sloshing around as she turned the vial this way and that. She bit her lip.
Could she really do this? She didn't like the feelings she had for John, but they were still her feelings. Could she choose to hate him? To decide he was no longer part of her future and permanently shut him out from that?
She looked up at Harry who was sitting with his legs out in front, pointedly angled away from her, looking towards the waterfall. The message was clear. This was her decision.
Her hands trembled. Her entire world shrunk to the tiny glass vial in her hands.
She rubbed the tip of the vial's stopper between her thumb and forefinger and forced herself to remember all those times John hadn't stood up for her.
She popped the stopper.
She drank.
.
.
.
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