Just Remember

Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to JKR.

A/N: I hope this one-shot is satisfactory..I have been working on it ever since I finished "Pulling Him Closer" and I can't seem to get it to exactly the place I want it..but hopefully it's good, and I would love to hear what you honestly think. Thanks!

The branches of the willow tree in the backyard swayed mockingly. The sound of the wind whipping through the branches told of happy tales and smiling faces. However, the truth was that there wasn't much smiling those days. There was frowning, weeping, and the occasional halfhearted smile. No full out grins, they were not to be found in the Burrow's back yard. Ginny sat under that mocking willow tree and let out a long sigh allowing her chest to rise and fall slowly. The sun was out, but she couldn't see it. The fierce wind, she could hardly even feel it against her pale and freckly skin. It's hard to truly see and feel once you've lost those you love. She'd lost George, Percy, her father, and the person she'd loved most; she lost him too.

Harry, oh she'd loved that boy. She loved everything about him from his disheveled black hair to his old worn out sneakers. She sometimes even admired the way he took on his role as the hero of the wizarding world, even if he overshot expectations and unnecessarily felt he needed to protect everyone.

Ginny sighed again and pulled her knees up to her chest as she remained under the overbearing tree that cast a shadow over her body and her heart. She looked into the garden and felt her chest constrict dangerously. That's where she had last talked to him, and she hadn't visited the garden since. It just wouldn't have been right, she knew that. She remembered the way he had held her hand and touched her face affectionately. The way his heart had tried to hold on to hers. Tried and seemingly failed.

Ginny hadn't dwelled on thoughts of Harry when he left with her brother and Hermione. She concentrated on helping the Order and kept busy to keep her thoughts astray from Harry. She regretted it, she regretted it because she never had a chance to come to terms with what it would mean for Harry to no longer be alive. She hadn't thought of what it would feel like to have someone like that taken from her life along with her family and friends. His heart let go of hers before she even got a chance to prepare for it. It didn't just let go though, it took some of her with it, and she hadn't felt whole since. In that moment, sitting under that overbearing tree, she tried so hard to keep her thoughts away from the day Harry had left. She tried to think of other things, just as she had when he had gone off to fight Voldemort years before. But that night flashed through her glazed eyes anyway, because she was much too tired to fight it off, she was always too tired.

-Fleur and Bill's wedding was over, which Ginny was entirely grateful for. She hated sitting at the reception wishing Harry would ask her to dance and knowing that he wanted to do just that. The sun was lowering and the distant signs of the moon taking over the sky were beginning to appear. She'd always liked the sun better, but the moon had just as much of a right to rule the vast area overhead sometimes.

Most of the guests were gone and the party consisted of family, which wandered inside until Ginny felt herself to be quite alone sitting at one of the reception tables. She let out a sigh and felt her happy facade drop and her back hunch. It's so much easier to express how you really feel than to suppress it. A war was breaking out, that much she knew, but her feelings weren't about all of the innocent who would die. Her feelings were selfishly about the boy she cared most about. She felt it odd and unfitting for him to leave the Burrow without knowing that she still cared for him and without him letting her see how much he still cared about her. And that thought scared her; it was as if she knew he would die. In that crazy moment she almost considered becoming a seer. Her thoughts adrift, she failed to notice the figure walking toward her until he was right upon her and she shrieked at the sudden shadow overtaking her.

"Gin, quiet, its just me." he didn't need to say his name, his voice told her all. Harry.

It was as though he had read her mind, because right when she looked up and smiled he grabbed her hand without a second thought or regrets and pulled her into the garden and out of view of the occupants in the house. Right when they reached the garden, their shoes becoming damp with dew already, he leaned down and kissed her hard. Ginny lost her breath for a moment before recovering and kissing him back.

They seemed to forget about the wet grass at they sat down and stared at each other for a moment. His eyes were full of emotion that she couldn't read and she decided that there was no way she could be a seer. Harry leaned over in his seated position and began to kiss her again as he placed his hand on her waist as if to hold her there and never let her go. He took his mouth off her's for a second, both of them breathing hard.

"I'll stay if you ask me," he somehow says, in between deep breaths, though she knows he doesn't mean it. He has to go.

"I think I can live without you for a while," Ginny responds jokingly although she feels her stomach tighten and her cake churning in my stomach warningly. He kissed her again and she can already feel that her lips are swollen. As he pulls away his face looks worried, not just for her but for himself, Ron and Hermione and for the rest of the wizarding world if he fails. She wants to comfort him but as Ginny raises her hand to his face he pulls away and shakes his head. She feels confused until realization hits her that Harry has made the decision that neither of them need comforting and that they both should stay strong. And she admires him for that, because she would like nothing more than to put her head on his chest and cry until the tears have all gone. Maybe then if the tears were gone, all emotion might leave her body then too. It took her a moment to realize he was speaking again and she shook her head to clear her thoughts.

"If you ever need something to cheer you up, or to keep you from doubting what we have, just remember this." He kissed her again and motioned to the silent and seemingly peaceful night around them. And as he continued to kiss her she realized that it was the nicest thing he'd ever given her. He'd given her a gift, not an ordinary one, but a gift to live on. He gave her the ticket to life when there seemingly was none. -

Suddenly Ginny felt the most awake she had in years. "Just Remember," she whispered it to herself and gasped. How could she have forgotten? How could she have forgotten that the garden at the burrow could be so peaceful and lovely? How could she have forgotten the feel of his lips on hers? It seemed so silly as she continued to think about it. She had forgotten about Harry's most important gift and had hid inside herself when she should've been thinking of Harry and the loving memories she shared with him. It would be hard to do, but she needed to move on. That's the gift Harry had given her. He had wanted her to remember better times. He hadn't just wanted her to remember that night, and he especially had not intended her to dwell on the war and the deaths it encompassed. But he had wanted her to remember the day that they first kissed, and the night he had told her he loved her and the endless nights they would sneak outside and play quidditch before he had left. He wanted her to remember it all, and to never forget it, and to be able to move on. To move on in life knowing that wherever he was, he still loved her. Maybe she had imagined his heart letting go of hers; maybe it was she all along trying to let go of his heart.

She stood up quickly and whipped her head around looking for something, and then she saw it. The Garden. It had always been there waiting for her to return, and now with a slightly nervous stomach she walked into the Garden. She walked into it, and realized that it's grass was oddly dewy as it had been that night, even though it was now sunny out. She barely flinched when she saw two butt marks in the grass, her and Harry's marks. It had been years ago that they had sat in those exact spots, but her mind told her not to challenge logic. Not to challenge logic when she had been given so much already that day. Anything was possible she realized now. And as she sat down in the indent where Harry had once sat, her heart relaxed and it almost felt full again.

"Just remember," she mumbled again as she tucked her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. And she would.

A/N: Thanks for reading, and that'd be cool if you read my other most recent story "Pulling Him Closer" (it's much more cheery). hehe.