A/N: I just want to take a second to thank everyone for reading, reviewing, etc - it means so much. I hope you enjoy this final chapter!

And so, because I struck a deal with my best friends, even though said deal makes me a bit nauseated, I find myself once again in the warm, cozy kitchen of the Burrow. Mrs. Weasley has enlisted me and Ron to assist with dinner preparations, so we're standing in the kitchen, watching vigilantly as a knife slices potatoes into neat little cubes. It almost defeats the purpose of using magic when we have to monitor it, but neither of us is quite used to cooking using magic. Part of me is worried that I've done the spell wrong, and when sharp knives are involved, it's better to be safe than sorry.

"Should we start on the carrots?" Ron asks with a look at the mountainous pile of vegetables resting on the counter.

I look at my watch. "We have time, I think. Probably best to have only one knife going at a time."

"Yeah, knowing your luck, it is."

"Thanks," I reply dryly. "Where'd Hermione go?"

"I dunno," he says casually, which strikes me as a bit peculiar. The knife slicing the potatoes comes to a stop, and Ron sweeps the pile onto a pan so they can be roasted. "I think she's with Ginny," he admits.

Since arriving unfashionably early at the Burrow this evening, the only Weasleys I've seen have been Ron's parents. Mr. Weasley's all excited because he just got his hands on a VCR, and honestly I'm amazed he isn't asking Hermione for pointers on how to work it. Not that it will do him much good without a television and a tape, but mostly he's enthralled by the fact that these items even exist. Ginny, from what I understand, is up in her room and has no interest in surfacing until dinner is served, so Hermione had shot Ron a look and headed up the stairs. This is just as well. If I don't see Ginny, she can't make me feel like I'm worth less than something stuck to the bottom of her shoe, and I won't be reminded of how beautiful she is, how brave and clever and brilliant, how we were, for a period of about twenty-three days, perfect for each other.

A thought comes over me that sends a chill over my entire body. What if we've both changed too much? I know Ginny, along with Neville and Luna, was at the heart of the Hogwarts rebellion, reviving the DA and doing things like sneaking into Snape's office. And just as living in a tent for months and being attacked in the home where my parents were killed and burying a house-elf all changed me, I'm sure those things changed her too. And I don't want to be the same as I was, but I don't want to grow apart from someone who means the world to me. During those twenty-three days, whenever I let myself picture a rosy future (rather than a grim, grisly one where I didn't live to see eighteen), I always pictured us growing and changing together in ways that complemented and supported each other, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe it was just a teenage romance gone sour.

But I don't think it was. It didn't feel frivolous, or casual, or uncertain. It felt like I couldn't believe we waited so long, or ever dated other people (if you can call what I did with Cho dating). We settled right in, there was no awkwardness or confusion, it was just… right. Something that right, it doesn't just fade away. You can't shove it into a corner and pretend it doesn't exist. I watched my two best friends make themselves miserable trying to do just that.

"Oh, dammit," Ron grumbles, oven mitts on his hands. "Harry, can you go grab some pepper? There should be a jar in the scullery."

I agree and walk out of the kitchen, finding the door to the scullery already partially ajar. The small, square room is dark when I step inside, and I catch a glimpse of a small body and a sheet of flaming-red hair.

"Hermione, I can't find it!" she shouts, whirling around. "What the-" Then the door slams shut behind me and we're left in almost total darkness. The only source of illumination is a small window in the ceiling, but it's a bit grungy and the light is dim and yellowed.

"Now stay in there!" shouts Hermione from the other side of the door. "You're not allowed out until you're friends again!"

Even in the semi-darkness, Ginny's face is burning a bold and all-consuming scarlet as she stares at the door.

"Don't you have your wand?" she spits at me. I pat my pockets, still flabbergasted by this turn of events (I did not think Hermione's scheme would culminate in this, nor did I think Ron would be complicit), and realize that for the first time in months, my wand is elsewhere. Usually, unless I'm showering or sleeping, it's in my pocket or in the waistband of my slacks. Today - the one time I let my guard down - it's lying uselessly on the counter, next to the pile of carrots that Ron had better fucking be peeling.

"No," I confess, looking anywhere but her furious eyes. "You don't have yours?"

"No, I was just coming down here to - oh, I'm so stupid to fall for this," she fumes. "Why would she send me to find something she left here?"

"What was it?" I ask despite my own burning resentment toward Ron. Here I was so impressed with his ability to be neutral in this whole thing, but he's been on Hermione's side this whole time, the tosser.

"Her Sleakeazy Hair Potion, she said she left it here after Bill's wedding - I bet it's not even in here." Pushing past me in the small space, Ginny pummels her fists against the door. "Hermione! Let us out!"

"No!" is the response from outside. I hear a low muttering - probably Ron - but the door remains locked. And knowing Hermione, she's used plenty of magic to reinforce it.

I lean back against a spice rack and stare indeterminately at a jar of pickles by Ginny's right ear. What the hell am I supposed to do now? If I knew, at all, what to say to her, I would have said it months ago. I wouldn't be the bloke who has to third-wheel on his best friends because they feel sorry for him, I wouldn't be the topic of all their private conversations and Hermione wouldn't have trapped us in a damn scullery. I can't see how she possibly thinks this will help.

"What happened to your eye?" Ginny inquires quietly.

"I found a Punching Telescope in a closet the other day," I explain, hoping to infuse a little bit of humor into the situation, "and it sort of went rogue on me."

"You deserved it," she states, her lips set in a thin line.

"Thanks."

There's maybe a foot of space between us, and that's with her standing so firmly against the shelves that she can't possibly be comfortable. I remember when we used to sneak behind tapestries at Hogwarts and it felt like I couldn't possibly be close enough to her, and now she can't get far enough away from me.

"Let's just say we're friends or whatever so she'll let us out," Ginny whispers.

"You honestly think Hermione's not listening in with an Extendable Ear?"

"Oh, you just know everything, don't you?" she snaps, inching into the far corner of the room. Her face is still so red that she's bordering on beetroot, her eyes are narrow slits; she is utterly livid.

"Know what?" I decide, watching her almost vibrate with the force of her rage. "You should yell at me."

"What?"

"I can tell you want to yell at me, so yell at me." When she remains silent, I press on. "What else are you going to do in here?"

"No," she barks. "No, I'm not going to give you the satisfaction! Not when you thought you could just back expecting everything to just be how it was when you didn't even bother telling me what you were-" Catching herself, she stops and begins pounding on the door. "Hermione! Let. Us. Out!"

The other side of the door is dead silent; either I was wrong about Hermione spying, or she's just waiting to see how it unfolds. Ginny starts firing away at the worn-down wood with both fists.

"Open up!" she wails, now slamming her shoulder into the door. She may be one of the strongest people I know, physically and mentally, but I know she won't be able to muscle her way through that door. Yet she persists, colliding with the door with such force that it rattles on its hinges and I determine that I can't watch this happen.

"Ginny, stop!"

"No!" Jumping from the ground, she flings her entire body weight at the door but it won't budge.

"You're going to hurt yourself!"

"So what?"

"Is it that bad?" I bellow, stopping her frantic assault on the door. "You can't even be in a room with me anymore, it's that awful?"

"Yes!" Slumping against the door, she slides dejectedly down to the floor and then does something I have rarely seen her do.

She starts to cry.

My heart plummets into my stomach and I make the step toward her, intent on doing something, anything to to stop her from feeling this way, but she curls into a tiny ball, knees against her chest, face in her hands.

"Ginny-"

"Go away," she mumbles.

"I'm just as trapped in here as you are," I remind her. "Look, I - I know I haven't told you much. But I couldn't."

"You told Ron and Hermione," says Ginny bitterly.

Tentatively, I sit down against the wall opposite her, doing my best to make sure our feet don't touch. I reckon I'm just lucky she took her anger out on the door.

"Yeah, I did. But I couldn't tell you. I was just trying to protect you." The explanation sounds cliche and hollow now, and I know she won't accept it, but it's the truth. "But I can tell you now, if you want."

"Oh, that's nice," she sneers, her reddened cheeks marred with drying tears. "You're only saying that to smooth things over."

"No," I say calmly. "I don't - look, I reckon I ruined everything. I shouldn't have expected everything to just click back into place, but… you deserve honesty. You deserve the truth. So, if you want, I'll tell you everything, I'll sit in here all night."

Not that I fancy explaining to her why Ron walked out on us, or how Hermione was tortured to within an inch of her life, or what we were seeking when we showed up at Hogwarts, but she deserves to know. She should know why she didn't see her brother for months on end, or why her family had to go into hiding. She and Tom Riddle aren't exactly strangers, after all.

"Maybe I don't care anymore."

I could tell her anyway. I could just start talking, it's not like she has any choice but to listen. But if she's already mad about everything being on my terms, that's probably not the smartest course of action.

"Okay," I nod. Ginny grabs a pouch of gummy worms from a low shelf next to her and rips into it, angrily biting the head off of one.

"I'm hungry," she explains, and I hold my hands up defensively. "Do you want one?" The bag is thrust into my face, so I select a yellow and green one. I wouldn't put it past Hermione to keep us in here during dinner, though Mr. and Mrs. Weasley would surely notice our absence.

How do I explain to her that I just don't want her to hate me without it coming back to somehow bite me in the ass? I can hear the argument now - that I should have thought about that before vanishing for several months, walking willingly to my own death, and then coming back and thinking we'd just fall back into place. Deep down, I don't think she truly hates me. She's just angry, and sometimes that just takes time.

"Maybe I don't even want a boyfriend," she says suddenly, voice dripping with vinegar.

"I never said anything about being your boyfriend."

Of course, I would love to be her boyfriend again. It killed me that I couldn't hold her while she cried at Fred's funeral and it kills me now that I find out things like her making Quidditch captain through her brother, and that I won't be visiting her in Hogsmeade next year. But that's a pipe dream now, a distant memory. I can't hope for things like that. After last year, shouldn't I just be grateful that she's alive and safe, that (most of) my friends survived, that against all odds I accomplished my mission?

"Well…" I've clearly caught her off guard with my nonchalance. "Just so you know."

"Okay."

"Because I'm going back to school anyway, it would be stupid." Who's she trying to convince anyway, me or herself?

"I know. I heard you're Quidditch captain."

"How did you know that?"

"I live with your brother."

She wrinkles her nose in disdain for Ron. "I figured he spent all his time with Hermione."

"He does, but we do talk occasionally." I'm going to hear it from the pair of them for that comment, if they are indeed listening in, but I don't mean it maliciously. They do spend a lot of time together, and they should.

"Do you…" Ginny bites off another stretchy piece of the gummy worm. "Do you get lonely?"

After a long pause marked by chewing on both our ends, I finally opt for honesty. "Yes. But it's okay. I've got Auror training to keep me busy."

"Yeah."

Through the crack in the door, the smell of the roast is wafting in, which means dinner will be served soon. Truth be told, I'd rather stay in here with Ginny. It's calm and quiet and we're having what can almost be called a civil conversation. I'm rather accustomed to being locked in small spaces, anyway, thanks to my aunt and uncle.

"What happened to Hermione?" asks Ginny.

"Oh, I'm sure she's still out there, she's just not talking."

"No, I mean… she has a scar on her neck that she didn't used to have." My stomach rolls over. "And Bill said she was in terrible shape when you lot got to his house… what happened?"

"She was tortured for information," I say, suddenly fascinated by my own hands, "by Bellatrix Lestrange."

"What? Why?"

"None of it makes sense unless I tell you the whole story from the beginning, and even then… you might not fully understand what it was like. But I can try to explain. If that's okay with you." She swallows heavily, and even in the thin, distorted light, I can see the conflict on her face. "Or I can answer your question, but that might just make it more confusing."

"Okay," she nods, steeling herself. "The beginning."

So I tell her. I start with explaining that the diary she toted around her entire first year at Hogwarts contained a piece of Voldemort's soul, but that I had destroyed it in the Chamber of Secrets, though I hadn't fully understood what I was doing at the time. Then I explain that my private lessons with Dumbledore during my sixth year were teaching me about Horcruxes, because Dumbledore was operating on a theory that Voldemort had split his soul into seven pieces to ensure his immortality. I explain about the locket, which she remembers from Grimmauld Place all those years ago, and how it took great pleasure in trying to destroy us before we could destroy it. I do my best, my absolute best, to do my friend justice as I explain that the locket had driven him mad, that he wasn't in his right mind when he stormed out, that he did want to come back right away but got caught up by Snatchers. I tell her how he saved my life by returning when he did, and how he became our driving force in the weeks that seemed most bleak. I tell her how it was my fault that the Snatchers caught us in March and how they took us to Malfoy Manor to be identified by Draco, who couldn't commit one way or the other. I explain how we were held captive while Hermione was tortured and Ron broke his hands from pounding on the cellar walls in his panic to get to her. I tell her everything, even the part where I spoke to Dumbledore in a sort of purgatory before choosing to go on. She hardly speaks, barely moves, until I conclude the tale.

"I don't expect anything from you," I say candidly. "I know I should have been honest with you a lot sooner. You were - you are - incredibly important to me, and at the time, I just needed you to be safe. And I still need that. Even if you hate me, even if we never talk again after we get out of here. So now at least you know. Do with it what you will."

"I don't hate you," she says in a low voice. "I never did." For a second, she picks at a loose thread in the knee of her jeans. "I know you couldn't tell me back then, but it's just… everything's different now."

"I know."

"I'm still mad at you."

"I know."

"But I won't always be."

I drop my chin on my knee and nod, unable to suppress the smile that fights to consume my face. It's stupid to be so happy about something so small, but it feels like a weight has lifted off my shoulders just from the mere act of talking about the past twelve months. It feels like progress. We're moving at a flobberworm's pace, but at least she's not trying to hex me or fire my own mistakes back in my face at every turn. I don't know what's going to happen next. I know I probably won't dread visits to the Burrow or snipe at Ron and Hermione over little things anymore.

The world did tilt on its axis. Everything changed after the war. Voldemort is gone, really gone this time, but so is Fred, so is Remus, so is Tonks, so is Dobby. And the old Harry and Ginny, they've gone too. Ron and Hermione aren't the same people they were before the locket and Bellatrix, but those things broke them and then made them into stronger people. Just because things are simple for them now doesn't mean Ginny and I will work the same way. Maybe it's silly to compare when our stories are so different. Maybe I just need to be grateful for what I do have, which right now is a gorgeous girl on the floor of a dusty scullery, offering me a gummy worm.

I laugh and take an orange one, and somehow she's offended.

"What's so funny?"

"Nothing," I assure her. "Is it so wrong that I missed you?"

"Yes," she snaps before softening. "Well, just come round for dinner more often then. Mum still cooks three times as much food as we need."

"Okay," I agree. "I will."

Ginny's right, everything's different now. But, I decide as we sit in the quasi-darkness, that might not be such a bad thing.

Thank you so, so much for reading this story! When I first wrote this story I wasn't sure if anyone would like it but me (because like... it's Hinny but it's Romione? It's angst but funny? I still don't know!) so it's meant a lot that people have responded positively. I hope that even though they didn't exactly end up professing their undying love and making out in the scullery, that you enjoyed this little journey! Please share your thoughts in the reviews!