A\N: Written for 'The A-Maze-Ing Race Challenge'. This is a Hinny fic.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Harry Potter.

When Harry was young (sixteen) and full of confidence (he'd been so sure, so confident, that he was entering a fight he wasn't getting out alive from), he made a choice. He weighted options, considered action courses, cringed at possible (and very likely) consequences. Back then, he could afford to know his next step. He was calculating and detached, because that was the only way to cope.

He couldn't look at the situation as Ginny Weasley's friend. Not even as Ginny Weasley's acquaintance, much less boyfriend. No, this was about who got to live and who got to risk their necks – and Ginny fit the first group. That fact hadn't troubled him in the least – it was obvious that, if Ginny died, Harry would not be the rallying point for the forces of resistance. And those forces needed a rallying point, because the one they had had been killed by an ally, and that was a big enough blow on its own.

Out of all that, Harry's (detached, cool, calculating, always calculating) mind had concluded that Ginny had to live. For the resistance's sake, of course. The Harry making this decision wasn't, he wasn't, Ginny Weasley's sweetheart. He was the Harry that had to make sure the war ended on as much of a positive note as a war can get.

And that left two options. Either Ginny managed to disappear somehow, out of reach of enemies, or he had to reduce the target on her back. A disappearance was out of question; not because Harry was worried he wouldn't find her again (detached, cool, calculating), but because there was hardly any way for her to vanish that the Death Eaters couldn't find out about.

That left reducing her status as an Undesirable. This was the part over which Harry lost most sleep. Because it was hard to figure out a solution, and all ideas were rebuked by logic at some point of their execution. Harry's frowns were increasing. His inner turmoil was reaching epic proportions.

And then came the glaringly obvious path. The one that held most sense, avoided almost all disadvantages. Harry wondered why he hadn't thought of it earlier. Calculating Harry told him that it was because he wasn't being detached enough – because this choice hurt him more than any other, and Harry was furious that he'd let himself falter in his coolness.

He had to cut his ties with her, because that was the primary reason she was a potential target in the first place. He couldn't risk letting Death Eaters try to use her to control him, because even calculating Harry would falter in his coolness if that happened. And then the rallying point would be gone, and it had been his decision to become that rallying point, so he was going to live by it. Ginny Weasley was his kryptonite. And, since he couldn't hide her, he needed to hide that from his enemies. That was how young and confident Harry had chosen to sever the connection he'd had so freshly made.

That was a direction. And he'd called it south. It was a bad direction. A sour one. He didn't like it.

Then came depressed and longing Harry. This Harry didn't like the calculating, cold approach. This Harry liked memories and anger. This Harry didn't lack direction, he lacked something worse: he lacked a compass.

He knew where to go, of course. He knew exactly what he was supposed to do. He just didn't know how to do it. He had to go right, but he didn't know where left was.

It didn't help that he kept reminding himself that she'd been there to slap the back of his head whenever he needed to focus. She could guide, and a guide was precisely what he needed during his quest to find all the ingredients for Voldemort's destruction. But she wasn't there, and eventually he learned to resign himself to that.

This was a period of serious self-pity too. Being isolated with only his best friends for company meant that the world was suddenly a universe he was divorced from. Their tent became their private bubble of home, and there was only him, Ron, Hermione and lots of things (most of which he couldn't care less about) in that world. So he became a little too focused on his and his loved ones' misery, and he missed the big picture. He scowled at being forced to live like that, scowled at having to make choices he didn't want to make, and he scowled because he felt played. And he was being played. But it was a good play.

This was chess, and he was the Queen. The male equivalent of the Queen, the insulted part of his brain corrected him. But not the King. No, the King was the piece that needed to be protected. The Queen was a different story. She was the most powerful one, the one who stood in the shadow of the King, but the one that got the job done. And she was to be treasured. Taking it was the equivalent to game-over, it was a big move.

But, if necessary, the Queen was expendable. To protect the King.

He could see the similarities between Ginny and the King, unsurprisingly. But Ginny was only the King in his life. Not the resistance. In the resistance, he didn't know who the King was. The king had to be someone who didn't only serve as a leader, but without whom there was no reason for a game at all. Once he'd thought it might be Dumbledore. But it was a foolish though. Without the King, the game ended. Dumbledore was gone – and Harry liked to think that he still had a chance to win this game, with as many unharmed pieces as he could.

No, Dumbledore was the player. He was the one who moved the pieces. Of course. And the player couldn't be taken, could he? So, even after his death, Dumbledore still managed to make things roll from the grave. And that was good (Harry had a hard time admitting it, but sometimes it was inevitable) because, without the old man he thought of as a father once or twice or still, Harry doubted he could have made it this far.

He supposed Dumbledore was like those enabling parents. He avoided allowing his children to make choices, out of fear that they'd make the wrong ones. So, instead, he made those choices for them, behind their backs, and, while he was at it, he took on their consequences. Eventually, the children would resent him for it. But, in the end, they'd just feel moved that he'd cared enough to try and take the hardship from their lives.

But there were always things he couldn't do for them. Maybe that helped the resentment along too. That's how Harry found himself in the mission he was in.

The other side's King was Voldemort. The rest were merely pawns. Each of them held exactly the same weight. There was no distinction besides the King-pawn one. And there was no player. It was all wild – the King controlled everything, and the King had greedy wishes and impartial thoughts. That was why he lost pawns so easily. But he had a lot of them anyway.

And this direction, this game of chess (game of war) was east. Because, much like the sun-rise, it was the start of something. But whether the day would be cloudy (and then the sun wouldn't matter much) or clear was up to the skies (his fate was in the hands of wild fortune – he knew nothing anymore). And that wasn't about direction, wasn't about a compass.

Determined Harry made his debut appearance then. This Harry had no rebellious fight in him anymore. He didn't question his instructions anymore. There was no point. The instruction-giver had clearly known what he was doing when he'd planned his game. So why bother presenting his dislike at that plan? It would work. It would keep his King safe. His female King (this was the part of him that felt insulted for Ginny). It would end this pointless fight, to which he'd already lost too many pieces.

This Harry called the coolness and the calculation and the detachment back. They would be needed, but only until he broke down in front of the taken Bishops and Knights and Rooks about Death and if it hurt. Then he'd let them go, because so what? He was going to die anyway, what was the point of holding on to all his anger, and rage, and protest?

But then he didn't die. But he didn't want those dark feelings back anyway. Instead, he called up the good ones, and his calculating self told him that it was okay now. There was no target to remove from Ginny's back anymore.

And this was west. Because he was getting closer to north, but he needed east's swing to get there. West was the end – and he liked this ending.

Then came hopeful Harry. Now, hopeful Harry had always been the shy boy, the one who got mocked for his optimism. But Harry liked hopeful Harry the most, so it was always there, even if hidden. It was the happiest one, because he lived under the illusion that his illusions would come true one day. But hopeful Harry always hoped they weren't illusions. And, this time, Harry wanted to make sure they weren't.

Ginny screamed and slapped him and cried and hit him some more, because the night he had chosen was not a good one, and yet he couldn't wait any longer. He was glad that he was the one she was hitting. Firstly because if she was hitting him, she wasn't hitting anyone else (and wasn't getting hit back), and secondly because it meant that he had some opening to comfort her. Then the hitting stopped, and she was just crying, into his chest.

After that, it was like his life reached the point where it finally changed from one thing to the other, and he appreciated that. Out of everyone's pride and all those nasty things that make people human, there were always going to be bumps in the road, but he still had one of those self-satisfied feelings that came from knowing that he had worked hard, worked really hard and made so many sacrifices, and it had paid off.

There would be too many things he would want to mention to put them all in paper, so he won't. But that's a good thing, because it means there were more things to celebrate than there ever were to mourn. He classified that a victory.

And, as a plus, he didn't have to deal with calculating Harry ever again, at least when it came to Ginny. He could be whatever he wanted, and that persona wasn't among it. Ginny appreciated it. Consequentially, so did he.

This was north. North was his favorite. North meant that it was the final sprint. The (happy) ending in a smooth ride. He'd had the four compass points with Ginny.

But there were so many less significant directions in a compass. And he wanted to try them all. Eventually, he wanted to say he had done so. And this was a good goal. If nothing else, he wanted this to be the one wish he was granted. The compass was tricky, and any sudden movement could switch it up and present Harry with an unwanted direction.

But it was in this random fortune that the greatest prizes could sometimes hide. Harry was nothing if not hopeful.