Three dollars and some change

Tending the Living
A Harry Potter story
by mhalachaiswords

Summary: Sitting on the hill overlooking the Burrow, Harry's not really sure what he's looking for, or when he'll ever find 'normal' again.
Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns all things Harry Potter. I am but borrowing the characters for a brief time and shall return them intact at the end.
Spoilers: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows spoilers. Set just a week after the end of the main story (pre-epilogue).
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Unapologetically Harry/Ginny.
Words: 2,190
Author's note: This was an idea that came to me as I thought more and more about DH. It's a chance for me to get back to writing HP. It's also only the third non-drabble straight HP story I've written. Interesting.

~~~

Harry sat on the low stone wall on the hill overlooking the Burrow. The cold early morning dew clung to everything, but Harry didn't move. Voldemort had been dead for over a week and Harry wasn't sure if things would ever get back to normal.

"Normal," he muttered, drumming his heels against the crumbling stone wall. "What the bloody hell is normal, anyway?"

He felt rather foolish, talking to himself, but there was no one around to hear him. All the Weasleys were tucked snug in the Burrow, fire crackling in the kitchen and kettle steaming on the stove.

Not all the Weasleys, Harry's mind whispered to him. Percy was back but Fred was dead, and things would never be normal again. Every time Harry turned around in the house, he half-expected the twins to pop up beside him. But that wasn't going to happen again.

He'd been too busy tending to the living to pay heed to the dead. He worked too hard during the days, stayed up too late, and tumbled into the spare cot in Ron's room past midnight, asleep before his head even hit the pillow. It was almost enough.

But not quite.

He meant to find the time to think about the dead, really he did, but other things kept coming up. He hadn't really considered those who were dead, not Lupin and Tonks (they asked him to be Teddy's godfather, like his mum and dad asked Sirius for Harry, and he hadn't even wondered where the baby was, orphaned by Voldemort even younger than Harry) or Colin Creevy (he'd been so excited and tiny and young when he met Harry six years before, so excited to meet a real live hero and all it ever got him was dead, his body limp in Neville's and Oliver Wood's arms) or Dobby (he saved Harry's life and hadn't asked for anything in return except for the privilege to die a free elf; Harry's hands still ached with the memory of holding the spade he used to dig Dobby's grave) or even Hedwig (she was the first creature Harry had ever been responsible for, feeding her and keeping her safe and he had been too selfish to let her go, hadn't been quick enough to save her from Death Eaters).

He didn't feel guilty. Not really, not truly. It wasn't his fault that so many had died at the hands of Voldemort's followers. He knew that.

He just wished things might have been different.

Way down the hill, a spot of movement caught Harry's eyes. He glanced through a fringe of too-long hair to see a small red-headed figure moving up the hill in his direction. After a few minutes of watching her steps in the thick grass, Ginny glanced up at Harry and smiled faintly. "It's early," she called.

"It is," Harry agreed. He stared at the steaming mug in her hands, suddenly aware of how very cold he was. "Why are you up?"

Ginny shrugged as she settled down on the stone wall next to Harry. "I thought I'd like to go for a morning walk." She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. "You've been coming up here every morning."

Harry went back to kicking the wall. "I didn't think anyone could see me from the house."

"My room's at the back of the house." Ginny set down her mug and reached into her coat pocket, pulling out something that looked suspiciously like a muggle thermos. "Here. This will warm you up."

Harry unscrewed the lid and took in a sniff of the fragrant steam. Tea. "Thank you," he said, surprised at her thoughtfulness. "Did your Dad find this?"

Ginny shook her head. "It's Charlie's. He brought it back from Romania a few years ago and left it here." She grinned suddenly, the smile bright like sunshine through the clouds, and Harry couldn't breathe for a second. "He's always been horrible at heating charms."

A dragon-wrangler who couldn't cast heating charms. The corner of Harry's mouth twitched, then he met Ginny's eyes and they both started laughing. It had been so long since Harry had laughed that the sound was almost painful to his ears.

"Percy used to be so horrible about it," Ginny said after the laughter died away. "He came back from Hogwarts at the end of his first year, going on about how good he was at heating charms. After about three days, Charlie got fed up and stuffed him in the dustbin and Bill had to go dig him out."

"Is Percy still here?" Harry asked. Although he usually didn't take his tea without milk and sugar, the tea that Ginny had made for him was perfect.

"Yes." Ginny set her mug down on the wall and looked down at the house. "He was talking to Dad and Bill about what was happening at the Ministry. He says he's been trying to get out of there for months, but with the Ministry being infiltrated by Death Eaters..." Her voice trailed off. "I remember this story that Percy wrote to Mum and Dad, just after he started his third year at Hogwarts. It was the twins' first year, that."

Harry's insides turned to ice. It had been a week since Fred had died, and Harry still didn't have any idea what to say to George, or to Mr. Weasley and Mrs. Weasley about Fred. What could he possibly say?

"I took the letter from Mum's writing table after Errol brought it," Ginny continued, her voice catching, then smoothing out. "Percy was very disapproving, but I remember Dad being so proud of the twins. They were the last to be sorted in their year, and after Fred had been sorted into Gryffindor, George followed Fred to the Gryffindor table. Professor McGonagall was adamant that George had to be sorted too, and he started arguing with her on the floor of the Great Hall that there was no need, and he'd be fine in Gryffindor, thank you very much."

The idea of standing up to Professor McGonagall on the very first day of Hogwarts terrified Harry. Having a full-out argument... "Did he get detention?" Harry asked.

"Nah." Ginny looked away, but Harry had seen the tears in her eyes. "Dumbledore stepped in and brought the hat over to George at the Gryffindor table. It shouted Gryffindor before it even hit his head. Mum made me promise never to tell Ron how sortings happened, saying it was just between us girls." She wiped her cheeks with the sleeve of her jumper. "Silly child's stuff."

"How is George?" Harry heard himself asking. He almost didn't want to know.

Ginny stared hard at the house. "Bill's in with him tonight. He... I don't think he knows how to be alone. They're always--" She stopped suddenly. Her breathing grew a little ragged, and Harry was suddenly terrified that she would burst into tears. He didn't know if he could handle a weeping Ginny. The last time he had seen her break down was six years ago, after she'd almost been killed by the diary-Horcrux Tom Riddle and she'd been terrified that Dumbledore would kick her out of Hogwarts. Silly child's stuff, Harry's mind supplied, mocking him in his uselessness.

Fumbling, Harry reached out his hand and covered hers; he was surprised at how small her hand was, how cold her fingers were. Without looking at him, Ginny turned her hand over and gripped his hard.

"They were always together," she finally said. "Even when one of them caught cold at Hogwarts. The other would sneak into the infirmary and spend the night there. Madame Pomfrey gave up trying to stop them after second year."

"I'm sorry," Harry said, almost inaudibly. The words were so inadequate, almost hurtful in their meaningless. He hadn't been able to say anything to George, or Mr. and Mrs. Weasley about Fred. What could one say?

Ginny blinked as the rays of the rising sun rose over the house to cover them in warm light. She turned to Harry, still gripping his hand tight. "Hermione says you probably come out here every morning and sit up here blaming yourself."

"She said what?" Harry demanded. He felt unexpectedly hurt, as if Hermione had betrayed a confidence, even though he'd barely spoken to her since after he had put the Elder Wand back in Dumbledore's tomb. "How would she know, she's been off hiding in corners with Ron ever since--"

"I know," Ginny replied, unperturbed. "They're both so juvenile. But it's just another way of dealing, I suppose." She relaxed her grip on Harry's hand but didn't let go. "Fleur will probably be pregnant before Christmas, too."

Harry wasn't quite sure how to respond to that so he kept his mouth shut. He wasn't entirely certain that he should be sitting here with Ginny, listening to her talk about babies and getting pregnant.

"How's Teddy?" she asked.

"Who?" He blinked, then realized what she was talking about. "Oh, he's... I guess he's fine."

Ginny's eyebrows went up. "You guess?"

Harry's face burned and he had to look away. How could he tell Ginny that he didn't know if he could face Andromeda Tonks after his fight with Voldemort had left her daughter and her husband dead? How if he went to see Teddy Lupin, then it would be like admitting that Lupin and Tonks really were dead?

He found he was gripping Ginny's hand rather tightly, but she didn't pull away. "We... we could ask Mum if we can go see him," Ginny suggested after a few minutes. "Dad knows Mrs. Tonks, we can go with him."

Harry shrugged agreement. "I guess." He let out a long breath, wishing that the growing knot in his chest would go away. "They should have made a better choice in godfather."

He wasn't prepared for the sharp blow to his shoulder.

"What was that for?" he demanded, jumping to his feet and rubbing his shoulder.

"You're not a bad choice in godfather!" Ginny exclaimed, springing off the wall. "Don't say that!"

"What do I know about being a godfather?" Harry demanded. "I haven't even tried to find out what happened with the baby after his parents died--" Harry's throat gave a funny spasm on the word, "And I'm... I'm too young!"

Ginny put her hands on her hips. "You fought and killed Voldemort a week ago! Everything happened too fast and you know that the baby was fine with his grandmother!" Her voice had risen until it rang out on the hilltop. "And as for too young, you're only a couple of years younger than Sirius was when your parents made him your godfather, and he did an okay job... or would have if he hadn't been thrown into Azkaban!"

"Well, I'm not in Azkaban!"

"I know!"

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

The air rang with the shouts, leaving Harry feeling sick. He didn't want to be fighting with anyone, especially Ginny. Not now. Not ever, really.

Even if she was rather pretty when she was angry at him.

Ginny took a deep breath. "You should go see Teddy," she said slowly. "And I'm coming with you."

Harry knew when he'd been beaten. "If you want," he said. "Do you think your Mum will understand if we duck out of here for a few hours?"

"Of course," Ginny said. "She'd want us to make sure Teddy's okay. She knows... I mean, we've all got a few godparents rattling around in the background. Mum made sure, just in case anything happened to her and Dad."

Whatever Harry had been about to say was wiped from his mind by that admission. "She what?"

Ginny's expression removed any hint of the child from her sixteen-year-old face. "She's been losing family members to Dark wizards for a very long time. She'll understand about Teddy."

Down the hill, a solitary figure shambled across the yard, drifting to a stop by the pecking chickens. It was George. With a pang, Harry realized that this was probably the first time that he had ever seen George by himself.

"Come on," Ginny said, taking Harry's hand. "He shouldn't be alone." She started to drag Harry down the hill.

"But what if he wants to be?" Harry asked, holding back.

"He doesn't want to be alone, that's my point!" Ginny dropped Harry's hand. "Stay up here if you like, I'm going down."

"Ginny, don't--" Don't what? Go down there? Leave me alone?

"Then come on!" Ginny turned and ran down the hill, her unbound red hair gleaming in the sun.

Without a second thought, Harry ran after her. He wondered if boys like him would always run after the red-headed girl, and what Snape would have said about that, and how it really didn't matter because this was just the way it was.

He didn't know about normal, but this was what he had. Voldemort was dead and he was alive. He'd mourn the dead and tend to the living, and that was the way it was supposed to be.

end