Fic: "The Ever-Locked Room" by scarysnapey

To: plaid_slytherin

Title: The Ever-Locked Room
Author: scarysnapey
Pairing: Harry/Ginny, James Potter, Lily Potter, Kingsley Shacklebolt
Rating: PG13
Word Count: 6805
Summary: There is something Harry knows that he cannot teach her, a spell that her lips won’t form, a game with rules that don’t make sense. Harry marries Ginny with such a strong sense of what love is that Ginny has no time to figure it out for herself.

Author's Notes: plaid_slytherin , I hope you like it. This fic pretty much wrote itself as soon as I read your prompts. A big thanks to my beta dexstarr . And I do want to add a few warnings. I’m putting them on highlight to read, just because I think that the story is more rewarding if one reads it without the spoilers. Warning: supreme angst, character death.



Love is a force more formidable than any other. It is invisible– it cannot be seen or measured, yet it is powerful enough to transform you in a moment . . .
– Barbara De Angelis

The bed is covered in more books and papers than allow for sleeping, but that doesn’t bother either of them. Neither has slept in days, anyway. They’re huddled together at the foot of the bed, staring resolutely at the blank wall opposite them. They’ve been married for a year, but house decorating has taken a backseat to their careers, and, after the Accident, neither has had much of a stomach for stupid things like picking out paintings.

All they have in the bedroom is the bed, which, right now, is piled so high with books and papers and Prophet clippings that the sheets are hardly visible.

“I’m going, Gin,” Harry says finally, skipping right to the point. “I’m going.”

Ginny trembles, scratching at the carpet with her bare toes and shaking her head. “Harry…” she whispers. “You can’t—“

“I have to,” he responds. He buries his nose in the top of her head, even as she stiffens in his arms.

“You don’t have to do anything. This isn’t your responsibility,” Ginny snaps. Her cheeks color, and she wrinkles her nose against Harry’s chest.

“The government can’t hide this kind of thing from people. It’s wrong, and I have to make it right.”

“Hide what, Harry? What are they hiding?” The desperation in her voice makes him nervous, frightened, anxious and tired all at once. Silence stretches between them, separating them more powerfully than distance, than even time ever could. Finally Harry responds, but the answer is so unsatisfactory that he expects a fight.

“I don’t know, Gin,” he says honestly. Ginny takes a deep breath, and Harry braces himself for her rage, but then she lets the breath out, wrapping her arms around him tightly. “That’s the problem,” he adds, and he feels her tiny nod against his chest.

“I know,” Ginny says finally. She takes one big, deep breath, and Harry smells like Quidditch and King’s Cross on a windy Autumn day in September. She breathes in one last time.

“Do it, Harry.”



one year earlier.

There is something Harry knows that he cannot teach her, a spell that her lips won’t form, a game with rules that don’t make sense. Harry marries Ginny with such a strong sense of what love is that Ginny has no time to figure it out for herself.

This is why, when the letter from the Harpies is in the pile on the doorstep when they return from their honeymoon, she doesn’t even open it. She smiles at Harry and rolls her eyes and says that she has a different career in mind.

A month later, when Margie McEvoy dies after seventy years of working at the Ministry, Ginny applies for her job. Harry peers over her shoulder when she’s filling out the application, making distracting noises and asking curious questions, until finally he gets fed up and carries her to bed. She laughs and laughs until they fall asleep, and she finishes the application in the morning before Harry wakes up.

She’s straight out of Hogwarts and just married when she goes to work in the Ever-Locked Room.



Ginny isn’t sure what she’s expecting when she takes the job. She knows, practically, that there will be no simple definition of love etched into the walls of the room, but she hopes that, perhaps in time, she can grow to understand what Harry knows intuitively. Perhaps, by taking the most mysterious, secretive job at the Ministry, she can find the answers to her questions.

Training takes three months, and Ginny’s days are long and tiring and full of paperwork that she does not enjoy. She is surrounded by people who tell her what to do at every turn, though none of them knows what exists inside the Love Room. Ginny comes home, exhausted, and cuddles close to Harry. She cannot share a word about her day, but listens as he speaks of his, and together they fall asleep in each other’s arms.

It is a windy day in August, just a day before she will enter the Love Room for the first time. Ginny wakes in a cold bed. Harry is mysteriously absent, and voices float into the room through the open door. Ginny rises, curious, and peers over the banister. Harry stands by the door, pyjamas all askew, holding a large cardboard box in his arms. He says something, and a choked up voice that Ginny recognizes bids him farewell. Ginny descends the stairs as the door slams shut.

“Was that my mother?” she asks.

“Yes.”

Harry isn’t looking at her. He is staring at the open top of the box, which appears to be full of parchment and picture frames and various other junk that looks far too old to be worth anything.

“What did she want?” Ginny prods.

“I—“ Harry pauses for a long moment. “Remus left this for me. In his Will.”

There is a long, extended silence, when Ginny isn’t sure exactly what to say. She focuses on wrestling the guilt she feels over thinking, however fleetingly, that the box might be full of junk into the pit of her stomach.

Harry breaks the silence as he looks at her for the first time. “It’s my parents’ stuff.”

The two of them examine the contents with almost childish glee, balanced by the care with which they lay each object out across their bed sheets. Harry’s somber shock turns quickly to joy as the box reveals itself to be full of baby pictures, family photos from the limited time they had together. Ginny is no less excited to see these things, and she giggles madly at the hilarious expressions on baby Harry’s face.

The next layer reveals a toy broom, which Harry cannot help but smile fondly at. Below that is a letter, addressed to Remus, which instructs him to give these things to Harry when he came of age.

I would entrust these things to Sirius, the letter reads. But I worry that, if something should happen to Lily and me, he will act first and ask questions later. I can trust you to be there for Harry, Remus. I know I can.

Beneath that, in Remus’s bold script: Harry. You have come of age, but I don’t even know where you are, whether you are alive, whether I will be alive to see you again. I trust that these will find their way to you, but please do not blame me for the lateness of their arrival.

Harry’s stomach twists as he reads each. Ginny lays her hand gently on his shoulder and draws him back to the box. Below is a calendar, which shows the months for an entire seventeen years, and James had scrawled hurriedly at the top. Remus. Give to Sirius. Certain dates were circled, under which James had written things like Give Harry first flying lesson and Take Harry to Quidditch World Cup. Under each and every date, however, was written in the a green, feminine script, Remind Harry that his parents loved him.

That is when Harry loses it, imagining not how different his life would have been if his parents had lived, but how different it had been if Sirius had not gone after Pettigrew. If, instead of being sentenced to Azkaban, Sirius had pulled Harry from the wreckage, taken him home, and raised him like a son. Suddenly he is crying, and Ginny pulls him into her arms without hesitation. She holds him while he breaks, and then, together, they turn back to the box.

A baby blanket, and then a drawing that was obviously done by a child’s hand. Beneath that, only two thin, yellowing bits of parchment remain. They are clipped together. One is a photograph, the only sepia-toned one in the whole lot. In it, Lily and James hold Harry, and for once no one is smiling. James looks as though his heart has been torn apart in his chest, and Lily looks tired and frail. Little Harry wiggles, but does not smile. The other piece of parchment is a letter.

My beautiful, wonderful, redheaded wife, it begins, and it breaks Harry’s heart to think that his parents were so in love. I wish that we had more time together. The letter is only a few more lines after that, but they have Harry dissolving into tears once more. Ginny cries, too, this time, and wraps her arm around his shoulders. Foolishly, painfully, Ginny thinks about love. About Lily and James, and she and Harry. She wonders how something that is so good can hurt so much.



Ginny enters the small outer lobby of the Ever-Locked Room the next day with this in mind. Apprehension pools in the pit of her stomach as she shows the receptionist her identification. And then, with not nearly as much satisfaction as she had expected, Ginny turns on the spot and does the thing that only she, of all others in the world, is capable of.

Ginny turns and cracks and Apparates into the Love Room for the very first time.

What she sees is not what she expected, and no amount of training could have prepared her for the sudden realization that she no longer has any desire to know what secrets this room holds. She thinks irrationally of Icarus, flying a bit too close to the sun in his cockiness. She is, in this moment, just like Icarus, so certain of herself, and yet so completely unprepared for the consequences of her actions.

The room is huge, stretching far beyond the edges of her vision. Ginny sighs, the knot in her stomach growing larger by the second, and takes a seat at the small desk by the door. She flips open the heavy folder lying there and begins to read, unaware of what she will learn, but almost certain that she does not want to.

And when she leaves the Ministry that night, she has read the contents of the folder several times. Ginny thinks her heart might have stopped beating, and she walks home so that she’ll have time to dry her tears before Harry sees her face.



seven months after that.

The rain colors the asphalt outside the house at Godric’s Hollow a mottled grey. Harry watches from the window in their bedroom, tapping his fingers idly against the glass as he waits for Ginny to come home. She works later than he does, most days, and today is no exception.

He doesn’t turn when the door opens downstairs, but he hears her kick off her shoes and pad across the floor. Ginny sits on the window seat beside him, and, without so much as a ‘hullo,’ takes both of his hands in hers.

She looks Harry straight in the eye for a long time. For weeks, for months, maybe for the rest of his life, Harry will wish to go back to this moment and listen to what she says.

“If everything you believed was wrong, would you want me to tell you?”

Harry looks at her, and then at the rain, and he smiles. “I would. And then I’d hope that you were joking. And then—“ he grabs her by the waist and pulls her toward him. “—I’d take you to bed.”

Harry will wish forever that he had listened. The warning would be eclipsed by the events of the following day; the words will be forgotten, and the one thing that Harry should have remembered will be gone when he needs it most.

But he goes to bed with Ginny instead, when the Accident is only hours away.



The Floo call comes through around eleven the next day, when Harry isn’t home. He’ll never get it, and he’ll never have time to wonder why the Ministry would try him at home. He works only a few doors away from his wife, but they waste precious hours trying to contact him after it happens, precious hours that he spends in his office, filing paperwork.

He’s in an absolute state by the time he speaks to the woman at the help desk at St. Mungo’s. He is vaguely aware that he’s screaming his wife’s name over and over again, and a wizard with his hand stuck inside an enchanted grandfather clock is shaking his head sadly.

“Do you know who I am?” Harry shouts, tears streaming down his cheeks. “I am Harry bloody Potter, and I demand to see my wife!” He isn’t like this normally; he wants to tell the people sitting behind him. He is really just a normal guy, but his wife might be dead and he can’t take that.

The secretary looks at him and then at the clipboard on her desk. “Sir—“

“My wife,” Harry gasps.

The secretary doesn’t try to get him to sit down again, and the woman with a parrot permanently stuck to her ear is wailing. The frightened bird is pecking at her hair again. Instead, the secretary hisses, “753,” and rushes out from behind the desk toward the Floo.

Harry is already gone, chanting 753 753 753753753 over and over again in his head and sprinting down the corridor. He’s halfway to the end when he realizes that he isn’t even looking at the room numbers. His stomach does an irritable little flip as he backtracks. 756, 755, 754.

753. He bursts through the door, an absolute wreck, looking left and right frantically. And there, frail and smiling pitifully from her hospital bed is Ginny, who looks pale, but who seems to be in possession of all of her limbs. Harry feels his breath leave his body in one swift burst.

“I can hear you all the way down the corridor, Harry bloody Potter,” she says weakly, and Harry takes one look at the smile twitching across her lips and bursts into tears.

“Gin,” he gasps. “What happened?”

And that wipes the smile right off of her face. He’s prepared for this. He steels his face into a blank slate, ready to feign indifference at yet another aspect of her work that she cannot share with him. He knows that he should be screaming, telling her to quit, to get a new job, something where he can watch her and keep her safe. But if there is one thing Harry will never do, it is try to keep his bright, spirited wife in any kind of cage.

But Ginny opens her mouth and speaks, and what comes out frightens him more than her pale skin or weak voice. Ginny’s voice cracks as she says, “I don’t remember.” And those three words change their lives forever.

“Gin,” he blurts out. He takes a seat on the edge of her bed and turns her chin so that she faces him. “Ginevra. Did whatever’s in that room do this to you?”

Ginny’s eyes widen, as though she has just realized something that had not even occurred to her. “Harry,” she says frantically, groping for his hands as though she cannot see him. She sits up, scrambling, tangling in the sheets and screaming a bit too loud. “Harry. I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything. I don’t remember what’s inside the room.”

Harry can’t reply. His tongue is somehow stuck to the roof of his mouth. He is so worried for his wife that he can barely breathe, and that is when the nurse pushes open the door. Harry assumes that she is here to kick him out for getting Ginny too excited, but all she does is step aside to allow another man inside.

Mike McAllen, the Junior Minister within the Department of Mysteries, steps through the door, nodding respectfully to the nurse before shutting the door behind him. “Mr. Potter, Miss Weasley.” Harry bristles. He has always hated McAllen and the way he looks at his wife.

“Mrs. Potter,” he corrects icily. McAllen takes a step forward. Ginny’s grip tightens on Harry’s hand.

“Miss Weasley,” McAllen continues. “On behalf of the entire Ministry, I wish you a speedy recovery.” He sits down on the edge of her bed, and Ginny practically squashes herself against Harry in an attempt to get away. “However,” McAllen goes on, “We’ve already selected a replacement. I, along with the rest of the Board, believed that it would be… unwise… for you to return to your current station.”

Harry half expects Ginny to argue, but she shook her pale face slowly. “I understand.”

McAllen smiles. “I’m glad, Miss Weasley.”

“Mrs. Potter,” Harry snaps. McAllen ignores him and places his meaty hand just above Ginny’s knee through the covers. Ginny squeezes Harry so hard it hurts.

“Mr. McAllen,” Harry barks, finally losing it. He stands and manages to pry his hand free of Ginny’s. “My wife is recovering from an injury. I would prefer if you could keep your hands off of her, not only now but for the foreseeable future as well. I believe that any other message you have for us can be easily articulated without touching my wife.”

McAllen takes a surprised step backward, but the greasy little smile slips back onto his face. “Of course, Mr. Potter.” He turns back to Ginny. “Miss Weasley. You will have six months paid leave, and when you return, we will make every effort possible to reintegrate you in a suitable position.

“Mrs. Potter,” Harry mumbles quietly. McAllen ignores him and disappears through the door. Ginny just stares at her feet.

“Thank you, Harry,” she says finally. “For standing up for me.”

Harry grins and sits back down on the edge of her bed. “I can be quite the dashing husband, when it suits me.”

Ginny leans up and kisses his cheek. “I’m scared.”

“Me too,” he admits. “But I’m going to go to the Minister tomorrow and try to deal with whatever is in that room.”

Ginny just nods. The two of them stare at the wall for a bit longer. Harry grabs her hand again.

“Ginny,” Harry says after a moment. “Doesn’t six months seem like an obscenely generous amount of time?”



one day later.

“Kingsley,” Harry booms. “I want whatever is in there removed. Immediately! I saw what it did to my wife—“

“Harry.” Kingsley is as horribly calm as ever. He’s listened to Harry rage since he barged in five minutes ago, screaming and railing for the immediate shut down of the room. At last he seems to have reached the end of his patience. “There is nothing in that room that hurt your wife.”

“You didn’t see her, Minister. Merlin, she was pale as death and jumpy and shaky and she cannot remember a thing!”

“Harry,” Kingsley repeats. “Your wife was not harmed by anything in that room.”

“I want it gone!”

“Harry.” This time Kingsley slams his fist down on his desk. Harry clams up. He probably shouldn’t be shouting. The anger fades out of Kingsley almost as quickly as it came. He puts his head in his hands. “Harry,” he continues softly, “you’re not a bratty celebrity. Why are you in here yelling at me and demanding things? You work for me, you know.”

Harry sighs. “Minister, I’m afraid for my wife. Something harmed her, and you’re telling me that it wasn’t what is in that room. But I don’t understand what else it could be.

“You’re not supposed to understand. Not all knowledge is meant for everyone.”

“I deserve to know what is wrong with my wife,” Harry snaps. He can feel his anger rising once again.

“I’m sorry, Harry, but I cannot tell you anything other than that nothing in that room harmed your wife.”

And it hits him like a tidal wave. He isn’t sure whether Kingsley was trying to hint to him, or whether it came to him all on his own, but Harry knows. He stumbles up from the chair, taking a terrified step backward and then another.

“You did this,” he says hoarsely. “She… she wanted out, didn’t she? Fuck,” he is speaking more to himself than to Kingsley. “She’d been acting so strange, and I—“

“Harry.” If Kingsley says his name one more time, Harry is going to hex him through the wall. “There are some matters of public safety that transcend an individual’s importance.”

Harry takes a deep breath. “Not,” he says forcefully, “when that individual is my wife.”

This time, he doesn’t give Kingsley a chance to respond.



two weeks later.

“Harry,” Ginny cries. “Come look at this.”

Their room is littered with books and papers that Harry has brought home from work. Surprisingly, no one has bothered him about the incident in the Minister’s office. He has gone about his work as usual, coming home at night to listen to what Ginny has found.

It is unsurprising that the Ministry is thorough, that there is no evidence that the Love Room even exists in any magazine or book or publication. They have found absolutely nothing, and that has only made them look harder.

Harry rushes to Ginny’s side stumbling over stacks of books and piles of papers. “What is it?” he asks breathlessly. Ginny holds up a newspaper clipping. The parchment is worn and yellowed, but the headline is bold and clear. TOP SECRET MINISTRY PROGRAM ACCEPTS A NEW HEAD: YOUNGEST IN OVER A CENTURY. Ginny points to the faded picture.

“Holy shit,” Harry breathes. “That’s my dad.”



one day later.

Harry has rounded up every issue of the Prophet within a week of that clip. That’s fourteen issues, and not a single one contains the slightest mention of the Love Room. It is safe to say that one lucky reporter got a scoop and printed it before anyone could shut him up. The article is short and uninformative. The most that they can glean is that James once held Ginny’s old job.

“Everyone told me that he was an Auror,” Harry mumbles.

Ginny shakes her head. “But that makes sense. I wasn’t allowed to tell you anything about my job. Maybe it was easier for him to lie and pretend to be an Auror than to taunt his friends and family with the secrecy.”

“I guess so.”

They sit in silence for a little bit. Ginny reaches for Harry’s hand. “What do you want to do?”

“I want to go back in time,” Harry says immediately. Ginny’s eyes narrow.

“No.”

“But if I go back, and just… knock out my father for an hour, I can dart in and see what is going on inside. And then I can come back, and we can tell everyone.”

Ginny stares at him. “Has it even occurred to you,” she cries, “that Kingsley might be right? Harry, I don’t remember what I saw in there, but if you’re right, it was enough for me to want to quit, no matter the consequences.”

“Ginny…”

“Harry.”

He sighs and wraps his arms around her. “I don’t know what to do, Ginny. It isn’t right.”

“You can’t mess with time.”

“Consider it, please.”

She takes a deep breath and smells his skin and feels his sweaty hand in hers.

“Okay,” she says quietly. There is silence until the stack of papers she is holding falls to the floor. They’re both fast asleep before they even know it.



half a week later.

The bed is covered in more books and papers than allows for sleeping, but that doesn’t bother either of them. Neither has slept in days, anyway. They’re huddled together at the foot of the bed, staring resolutely at the blank wall opposite them. They’ve been married for a year, but house decorating has taken a backseat to their careers, and, after the Accident, neither has had much of a stomach for stupid things like picking out paintings.

All they have in the bedroom is the bed, which, right now, is piled so high with books and papers and Prophet clippings that the sheets are hardly visible.

“I’m going, Gin,” Harry says finally, skipping right to the point. “I’m going.”

Ginny trembles, scratching at the carpet with her bare toes and shaking her head. “Harry…” she whispers. “You can’t—“

“I have to,” he responds. He buries his nose in the top of her head, even as she stiffens in his arms.

“You don’t have to do anything. This isn’t your responsibility,” Ginny snaps. He cheeks color, and she wrinkles her nose against Harry’s chest.

“The government can’t hide this kind of thing from people. It’s wrong, and I have to make it right.”

“Hide what, Harry? What are they hiding?” The desperation in her voice makes him nervous, frightened, anxious and tired all at once. Silence stretches between them, separating them more powerfully than distance, than even time ever could. When finally Harry responds, but the answer is so unsatisfactory that he expects a fight.

“I don’t know, Gin,” he says honestly. Ginny takes a deep breath, and Harry braces himself for her rage, but then she lets the breath out, wrapping her arms around him tightly. “That’s the problem,” he adds, and he feels her tiny nod against his chest.

“I know,” Ginny says finally. She takes one big deep breath, and Harry smells like Quidditch and King’s Cross on a windy Autumn day in September. She breathes in one last time.

“Do it, Harry.”



a little less than seventeen years earlier.

Somehow this has worked out exactly right. Harry finds himself outside his own office, just down the hall from his destination. He can only assume that the date is right. Harry slips the Time Turner into his pocket and takes a deep breath. If the date is right, then he has a limited amount of time.

There is a spring in his step as he walks, determined more than ever to get this done quickly so that he can return to Ginny. Harry is almost humming by the time he turns the corner. And it takes all of ten seconds for everything to go completely wrong.

James Potter happens to be humming, too, as he rounds the corner coming in the other direction and slams directly into Harry. The two fall over, each laughing uncomfortably. They murmur awkward apologies until Harry looks up. He chokes, and James looks up, too, and both immediately stop laughing.

“What…?” James says unsteadily, and Harry realizes that he really does look just like his father. Everything except the eyes, which are currently ruining everything. James swallows. “Who are you…?” he says slowly, trying to gather up the objects he had been carrying without looking away from Harry.

“Um…” Harry manages. “I—“ Before he can finish, James fumbles with the objects he is holding, and then the world explodes. Harry is knocked back, against the wall, where he shields his eyes from the explosion.

When everything quiets, Harry cannot breathe. He stares, dumbfounded, at the place where James had been crouching. There is nothing left, nothing but the blackened walls and the shattered remains of what was obviously an Erumpent Horn. Why James had been carrying it, Harry would never know. All he knows is that in a fumble over seconds, he’s ended up ruining everything. His heart stops in his chest, but he tries to take a deep breath, anyway.

A man comes running around the corner before Harry has any time to think. “James,” the man gasps, staring at the walls. “Are you alright?”

Harry doesn’t have much of a choice. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “I’m fine. I just had a bit of an accident.”

The man nods. “Great. We’ll clean it up, later. Right now, they’re ready for you.”

Harry wishes that he didn’t know what this man is talking about. He wishes that he’d listened to Ginny. He wishes a lot of things, but he says nothing. Instead, he falls into step behind the unknown man and follows him down the corridor. The entrance to the Love Room is exactly where Harry remembers it. A few more men and one woman are standing by the entrance. Everything suddenly feels rushed, hurried, as though everyone knows that he needs to be alone before he looses his mind, and they’re speeding up everything, just for him.

“Mr. Potter,” a portly, older man rumbles. “Everything is ready for you, now. You’ll find a briefing on the desk just inside. We trust you to keep whatever is in there both secret and safe.” The man abruptly turns away. “Now, Marlene,” he addresses the woman beside him. “I’m late for my twelve o’ clock, aren’t I?”

Twelve o’ clock. Harry wants to vomit. That would be the problem. They timed it about a half hour off. Had he been on time, he probably would not have run into James. He probably would not be responsible for his own father’s death. He would probably see Ginny again. And yet.

The portly man disappears with a ‘crack,’ and the rest of his entourage soon follows. The man who had intercepted Harry in the corridor is the last remaining. “Alright, James. I’ll take care of the mess. You just… get on with whatever it is you do now.” The man cracks a somewhat awkward smile.

Harry doesn’t even know the man’s name. He takes advantage of the moment of silence to turn on the spot, and finally, after so much time spent wondering, he finds himself in the Love Room.




The briefing isn’t long. He wonders if this is the same bit of parchment that Ginny was briefed with. Will be briefed with. Harry takes a deep breath and tries to focus.

The first few feet describe the purpose and methodology behind the creation of a Horcrux. Harry skims these, as he knows most of the information already. Only the last few paragraphs are of any importance to him. The format is bizarre, addressing the reader openly. It makes Harry uncomfortable.

Exploration into the mechanism of a Horcrux has revealed something far too disturbing to be allowed out into the public. Many people would be inclined to make a Horcrux, were the price not a human life. Every man or woman who values immortality is not a murderer. For this reason, the information you are about to read is confined to this room, and will, always and forever, be entrusted to one person at a time.

The problem is that murder is not the only thing that can split the human soul.

If murder splits the soul in two, then losing love positively rends it apart. Not only is it quite possible to create a Horcrux from a soul ripped by the loss of love, it is easier. Most people lose someone they love many times throughout their life times. We hope that it is obvious to you why this information must remain confidential, lest the use of Horcruxes become standard. The young man whose mother dies of old age could create a Horcrux, guilt free. The teenage girl whose boyfriend dies playing Quidditch could do the same. The Ministry has decided that as a matter of global security, all soul fragments created in this way must be captured and stored here, in the Love Room. A method has been simply devised, along with a filing system similar to that of the Prophecy Room.

No extra effort is required on your part to capture the soul shards. As long as no Horcrux is made, the shard will appear, already contained in a small vial. It is up to you to catalogue each and place it in its proper location.

If any of this is outside of your ability, or you are having second thoughts upon reading, contact the Minister of Magic immediately. Please be aware that a decision to withdraw yourself from the job will result in serious repercussions.

NOTE WELL: We have been unable to combat an issue with time travel. If the keeper of the Love Room has traveled back in time, which we doubt will ever happen, all of his lost bits of soul will be present in the room, even if the deaths involved have not yet occurred.

Harry feels his stomach drop. Serious repercussions. If he thought that the Ministry had messed with Ginny’s mind before, then he is certain of it now. She must have wanted out. She must have been afraid of the implications. And they wiped her mind clean, just like that.

Feeling sick to his stomach and so frightened that he might retch, Harry pushes his chair back and steps to the single door. The knob turns easily at his touch, and Harry pushes his way into the filing center of the Love Room.

He knows what he’s looking for without really thinking about it, and he trails the shelves in search of his own name. The shelves appear to be divided up into sections based on whose soul is being stored. Some names only have one shard. Some have twenty or more. Each vial appears to be labeled with the name of the loved one who was lost. Harry breaks into a run, until the little sparkling bits of soul begin to blur, and then he sees it.

Harry Potter.

There are five vials. The first one is labeled ‘James Potter,’ the second ‘Sirius Black.’ ‘Albus Dumbledore.’ ‘Remus Lupin.’ ‘Fred Weasley.’ Harry stares at them again, and he feels his heart break. There is no vial labeled ‘Lily Potter,’ and Harry’s mind begins to explain what happened even as he starts to cry.

The room is almost completely dark, aside from the swirling mists of the bits of soul inside their containers. Harry begins to hyperventilate, realizing all at once that Albus Dumbledore has told him more lies. Not on purpose. Harry refuses to believe that it was on purpose. Dumbledore’s best guess was that, all those years ago, Lily Potter’s sacrifice had saved her son. Now, with the truth swimming before his eyes, Harry understands.

Voldemort came for him, that bit must be true. He killed James, and Harry’s soul had split in two, filling the first of his five vials. Voldemort had turned the wand on Lily, next, and her death split Harry’s soul once again, even as it split Voldemort’s own. This time, the piece had no place to go, as Voldemort raised his wand one last time at Harry. The curse that should have killed did not, but formed two Horcruxes. Their bits of soul switched.

Harry is seeing spots. He blinks and tries to calm down, but the sound of his own breathing is too loud. He collapses.



a month later.

Harry is starting to think that Lily suspects. He explained his eye color without really explaining anything, using his top-secret job as a screen for his deceit. Still, she’s probably starting to wonder why her husband hasn’t kissed her in a month. Why he comes home late and acts evasive. Why she wakes up in the middle of the night and finds him in the baby’s room, watching him sleep.

Harry is even starting to take comfort in the fact that it will all be over soon. Today is the day before Halloween, and Harry is packing. He tells Lily that he wants to clear up, and she nods short of quietly and carries the baby into the kitchen. Harry returns to the box. He’s written a letter to Remus. James’s handwriting is forged so neatly that he’ll never guess. He tucks in the calendar that Lily had prepared with the real James a few months before. Next goes the picture of Harry, Lily and the baby. Then the toy broom and the baby blanket. Finally the letter, which he has written on his own. If Remus looks, he’ll see a letter from James to Lily. Perhaps, if Ginny looks again, she’ll understand.

My beautiful, wonderful, redheaded wife, it begins. Harry seals the box and fire-calls Remus. “Just in case,” he says quietly, and Remus smiles and takes the box and doesn’t ask questions.

“We’re still on for next weekend, right? Lily’s coming, too?”

“Of course,” Harry mumbles, though he knows next weekend will never come.

“Wicked,” Remus says, and the fire flickers out, just like that.



one day later.

“Take Harry and go,” Harry screams. Voldemort is here, right on time. Harry wonders if he made the right choice. It was only a few days ago that he allowed Sirius to talk him into using Peter as the Secret Keeper. Now, he wonders if he should have refused. If he should have saved his mother’s life.

But then he thinks of Ginny, and of the tiny, baby version of himself. This way, the two of them have a chance at a future, even if it lasts for only a short while. He takes a deep breath and braces himself as the door flies open.

On October 31, 1981, Voldemort enters the Potters’ home. He kills Harry James Potter, first, and leaves him lying on the carpeted floor. Lily is already upstairs with the baby, and the rest turns out to be history.



exactly seventeen years later.

Ginny wakes up in an empty bed, abruptly aware that part of her is being torn in two. She can feel it in her heart, a sharp, stabbing pain. She screams, and in the empty, quiet house, there is no one around to hear her. She screams and screams and screams until her throat aches and her ears are ringing, until the pain stops and everything goes abruptly numb.

And that’s when she knows that Harry is never coming back.



three weeks later.

She finds it when she’s moving house. It’s buried beneath a bunch of other boxes, dusty and forgotten as the thrill of the mystery had whisked them away. Molly has finally convinced her to come home until she can find a place of her own. A small place for a single girl.

Ginny is uncharacteristically weepy these days, and she hates it. But she misses Harry, and this time, there is no hope of his ever coming back to her. Her tears dry up as she peels the dusty flaps back from the box and peers inside. Everything is as they left it after they first opened it. The letter from James to Lily is on the top.

Ginny lifts it out with tender hands and decides to read it one last time.

My beautiful, wonderful, redheaded wife, I wish that we had more time together. You are, in short, everything that I ever dreamed of when I thought of how I would spend the rest of my life. That my life would be cut short never occurred to me. I have memories, at least, that warm my heart and let me know that our time together was not in vain. That time we cracked the bottle of GIN and got positively smashed is the first that comes to mind. I don’t think I’ve ever been so in love with you.

I want you to know that you taught me how to love, and if I die now, it is so that the baby will have a chance to grow up and break open a bottle of GIN of his own.

Ginny blinks at the two capitalized words that somehow escaped her notice before. ‘Gin.’ Twice. She sucks in a breath. They had assumed so rashly that the letter was from James to Lily, but how could that be? Why would he entrust a letter to his wife to Remus if he thought that he might soon die? Why would he write ‘the baby’ instead of Harry? Why would he and Lily ever drink Muggle liquor?

Harry had been writing to her, and she hadn’t realized it until it was far too late. She rereads the last line. He died so that the baby Harry could grow up and meet her again, and again and again. Would it be a cycle now? Ginny wonders, but she has no answers. There are so many things here that she knows she’ll never understand. She holds the letter tightly, the last bit of Harry that she has left. She holds on as the sobs wrack her body.

Ginny takes a deep breath, trying to calm down. But she notices that the inside of the box smells like Quidditch and King’s Cross on a windy Autumn day in September, and it hasn’t become obvious until it’s far too late.