nightseer

A Search’s End



Laguna Loire wasn’t what Ginny expected. Or who.

She expected another Fudge clone with an “I’m ever so sorry, my dear, but I can’t simply spare the resources right now.” Or another Rufus Shinra with his smug smirk and overzealous bodyguards and pet mad scientist. Maybe, if she was lucky, a Dumbledore type with twinkling eyes and an open mind and willing to help.

She hadn’t expected twinkling green eyes. Hadn’t expected his sad smile. Hadn’t thought to look for the flash of recognition in his eyes, or the odd way he tensed and relaxed all at once that was something only he could do. She hadn’t expected the hints of grey by his temples, saying it had been far longer for him than it had for her.

Ginny hadn’t expected to find Harry.

She numbly sat on the edge of the chair he gestured to as he smiled up at his advisor built like muggle wrestler. A silent argument ensued, the kind she had once shared with him during their all too brief relationship. Loire—because he couldn’t be her Harry; he just couldn’t be—won. The advisor left, gifting her with a glare that said volumes about what he would to do her if she hurt President Loire as he passed her chair, and then…

She was alone with Loire, because he was not her Harry. He wasn’t!

Loire sat back in his chair, fiddling nervously with the pen in his hands, smiling at her in a sad way she recognized from Neville just back from Luna’s grave. He was still tense yet relaxed in that only Harry way, the way Harry had been every year in school, wanting to just be with Ron and Hermione but wary of the hex to the back that always came.

Ginny wanted to cry and scream and rage Loire wasn’t Harry, but a small part of Ginny knew Loire was wary of a hex to the back because of her and what she meant for the life he had built here. She was the hex he was waiting for to hurt him, to ruin his life. She was the reason he had slipped into defensive/protect mode.

“My fifty-third birthday is next week,” Loire said softly, not looking at her but one of the two pictures sitting on his desk. His silver wedding ring caught the light as he dropped the pen carelessly on his desk and traced the frame surrounding one picture. “I gave up looking for a way back years ago. I think…no, I know the day I woke up and saw Raine for the first time is the day I quit looking.”

He sighed as he looked up to meet her eyes. “I’m sorry, Gin.”

Ginny closed her eyes, trying to block the sight of him out, to block out the pain. The affection and love in the way he said her name was pale in comparison to what she remembered, but it was there. She couldn’t lie to herself now. He was Harry; he simply wasn’t hers anymore.

Pretending her lips weren’t trembling with the effort to not start bawling like she had when Harry first disappeared, she smiled and opened her eyes. “Can I meet her?”

This time it was Loire who closed his eyes for a moment. Then he looked at her with watery green eyes, his smile sad and full of grief and longing. “She died twenty five years ago, twenty six this August,” he murmured, twisting his ring around his finger. Loire flicked his hand up for just a moment and shrugged as he said, “Pathetic, huh?”

Ginny’s half formed scornful thoughts and rising shriek died at the way his eyes begged her to say “No, it’s not pathetic; it’s right”. Twenty five years. Twenty five years and he still wore his wedding ring. He still loved her.

The lioness in Ginny demand she hurt him the way she was hurting, but she couldn’t do that to him. She loved who he had been too much.

“No,” she said with a slight shake of her head, “It’s not pathetic. It’s romantic.”

Loire completely relaxed and smiled, really smiled at her. A beautiful, warm, goofy, Harry smile.

And then, just like when they were at Hogwarts and first dating, his eyes clouded over in thought, realizing seconds too late what he was doing and how much he had hurt her. Older, wiser, but still so much Harry underneath it all. “Gin…”

Suddenly Ginny was laughing and crying. Slipping out of her chair and onto the floor, unable to stop laughing at the absurdness of it all and crying from the loss.

He had grown, changed, taking her Harry away and leaving this man in his place, only little bits and pieces of Harry were left.

Laguna Loire was a complete stranger. Her Harry was gone. Bits and pieces were left, but he was gone.

Now she was just crying.

He shot out of his chair and walked around his desk, causing her to giggle brokenly once around a sob as he stumbled over his own feet in his rush to reach her, and sat down on the floor next to her. He stroked her hair a few times before dragging her onto his lap, holding and rocking her and whispering useless apologies in her ear as she cried into his shoulder. She cried herself to sleep, never letting go of the man who had been Harry, unable to stop her thoughts from racing around in a never ending loop.

She hadn’t been lying to herself.

Laguna Loire wasn’t her Harry.

Her Harry was dead.