Harry Potter and the Ritual of Love's Memory

Chapter 28

In the smallest bedroom of the house at number 4 Privet Drive, a teenager with messy hair sat at his desk surrounded by opened envelopes and parchments of various lengths. The longest of the letters was signed by Hermione Granger. A hastily-scrawled letter from Ron Weasley lay to the boy's right, which rested upon a more formal-looking parchment folded underneath it from Neville Longbottom. A letter from the twin Weasley brothers was being used as a page marker in a nearby book. A brightly colored sheet of paper containing the correspondence from Luna Lovegood was propped against the wall with a short note from Cedric Diggory beneath it.

Harry Potter didn't consider himself much of a letter writer, but he'd responded to each of the letters his friends had sent him over the past three weeks. Except for the one in his hand which he was rereading again.

It wasn't that he hadn't had the time. With his Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon determined to ignore his existence and his cousin Dudley's wariness, he'd had lots of time to himself. But things were a bit more complicated when it came to responding to the youngest Weasley.

It wasn't that her letter to him had been anything ground-breaking. Ginny wrote about the stresses of temporarily moving out of the Burrow to an undisclosed location, her frustration at not being able to take her new Cleansweep for a ride in the orchard behind her house, and her hope that she'd be able to make the Gryffindor Quidditch team in the upcoming term. Her mother was out of sorts as she adjusted to life in a new home, and that was causing tension between the two female Weasleys. Her dad was stressed by the move and by his job at the Ministry of Magic, which was not meeting the dangerous moment their world had been thrust into.

Hedwig had brought the letter the previous day, along with one from Ron. But try as he might, Harry couldn't figure out how to send back a message that seemed reasonable. He'd started four different letters only to scratch out multiple sentences on each one before chucking his parchment into the bin and starting again.

The response to Ron had been simple, but it remained safely in an envelope in the desk drawer. Hedwig had become rather agitated when Harry refused to give the letter to her, insisting that both letters bound for the Weasleys be sent together. His failure to put quill to paper for Ginny's letter resulted in hiding the completed response to Ron from his owl until he was ready to send both.

Harry's eyes raked over the letter one more time, bouncing up from her signature (she had simply signed off with "Gin") to the sentences which concluded her letter.

"Hoping you'll get to join us sometime soon, but at least we're not having much fun without you. When you arrive, we'll hafta make up for lost time!"

Harry's stomach turned an uncomfortable flip as he read the words again. His eyes closed, and a vision of a memory that he'd never technically experienced flooded his senses all over again.

He could feel the warm, summer sunlight even with his eyes closed. A soft breeze blew a few strands of fiery-red hair across Harry's face, tickling his nose just a bit. He scrunched his bare toes in the grass as he leaned against the thick tree trunk supporting him from behind.

Ginny, or at least some sort of older version of Ginny, was leaning against the tree to his right, with her head resting on Harry's shoulder. Her left hand flexed slightly within his right, and he felt his thumb making small circles around her knuckles.

The floral scent he associated with the youngest Weasley filled his mind and he sighed to himself in contentment. It really was quite the good memory, even if he'd never actually really experienced it.

"Hey, Harry? What are you thinking?" asked Ginny, a grin plastered across her slightly-swollen lips, and Harry couldn't help thinking about what might have been recently happening to leave her in such a state.