Hinny

The corridors of Hogwarts were bathed in the amber glow of a setting sun, casting long, skeletal shadows against the stone walls. For Harry Potter, the castle had finally begun to feel like a home rather than a battlefield. The war was over, the rebuilding was well underway, and for the first time in his life, the future didn't look like a haze of green sparks and graveyard dirt. It looked like bright red hair and the scent of flowery perfume.

Harry leaned against a suit of armor near the Gryffindor common room, a small, sheepish smile playing on his lips. He was waiting for Ginny. They had planned to take a walk down to the Lake, away from the prying eyes of younger students who still whispered when the "Chosen One" walked by.

In a dark alcove three floors down, Draco Malfoy stared at a small glass vial. The liquid inside was thick, swirling with a murky, mud-like consistency. He looked at the single strand of vibrant red hair he had lifted from a cloak in the Great Hall earlier that day.

His hands shook, but not from fear. It was a cold, sharp resentment that had been festering in his gut since the trials ended. Harry Potter was the hero. Harry Potter was forgiven. Harry Potter had the girl, the glory, and the grace of the entire Wizarding World. Meanwhile, Draco was a pariah, a ghost haunting the halls of a school that hated him, living under the suffocating weight of his family’s disgraced name.

"It isn't fair," Draco hissed to the empty stone walls. "He doesn't get to have everything."

He dropped the hair into the vial. The potion hissed and turned a bright, aggressive pink. Without allowing himself to overthink the revulsion, Draco downed the mixture in one go.

The transformation was agonizing—a sensation of skin stretching and bones snapping—but within minutes, he was looking down at smaller hands and feeling the weight of long hair against his neck. He adjusted the Gryffindor robes he had stolen from the laundry, practiced a quick, dismissive toss of his head in a handheld mirror, and began the climb toward the seventh floor.

Harry straightened up when he saw her—or what he thought was her—turning the corner. His heart did that familiar, rhythmic skip.

"Ginny! I was starting to think Professor McGonagall had caught you for that prank Ron mentioned," Harry said, stepping forward with his arms open for a brief hug.

Draco, inside Ginny’s skin, felt a wave of nausea at the warmth in Harry’s voice. He stepped back, avoiding the touch. He kept his eyes fixed on Harry’s chin, afraid that if he looked into those green eyes, he might lose his nerve.

"We need to talk, Harry," Draco said. He had spent hours practicing Ginny’s cadence, that sharp, no-nonsense tone she used when she was being serious.

Harry’s smile faltered. His arms dropped to his sides, and his brow furrowed in immediate concern. "Is it your mum? Or George? If something’s happened—"

"No one is hurt, Harry. Except maybe me," Draco interrupted, injecting a note of practiced coldness into the voice. "I’ve been thinking. A lot. About us. About the war."

Harry took a step closer, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Ginny, whatever it is, we can work through it. I know things have been intense since the summer, but I thought we were okay. I thought we were more than okay."

Draco let out a harsh, mocking laugh that sounded jarringly wrong coming from Ginny’s mouth. "That’s the problem, isn't it? You always think everything is fine because you’re Harry Potter. You think the world just revolves around your needs."

Harry flinched as if he’d been struck. The color drained from his face, leaving him looking sickly pale in the twilight. "I don't... I don't understand. Where is this coming from?"

"It’s coming from the fact that I’m tired," Draco said, stepping into Harry’s personal space, looming with a ferocity he had seen the real Ginny use on her brothers. "I’m tired of being the girl who waited. I’m tired of being a footnote in your grand tragedy. Every time I look at you, I don't see the boy I liked. I see the war. I see the deaths. I see the burden of being with someone who will always have a target on his back."

"I'm safe now, Ginny," Harry pleaded, his voice cracking. "The war is over. Voldemort is gone. I’m just Harry."

"You’ll never be 'just Harry,'" Draco spat. "And I don't want to be the girl who has to spend the rest of her life holding your hand while you have nightmares. I want someone who isn't broken. I want someone who can actually give me a future that doesn't involve looking over my shoulder."

Harry reached out, his fingers trembling, trying to catch her hand. "Please. You’re the only thing that kept me going when I was out there. In the forest... when I thought it was over... it was you. I did it for you."

Draco felt a flicker of something—guilt, perhaps—but he suppressed it with a surge of jealous spite. He remembered Harry standing in the Great Hall, surrounded by friends, while Draco sat alone on a bench, waiting for the Aurors to decide his fate.

"Then you shouldn't have," Draco said, his voice like ice. "Because I don't want you, Harry. I'm done. Don't follow me, don't write to me, and don't look at me in the Great Hall. It’s over."

Draco turned on his heel and marched away, his heart hammering against his ribs. He didn't look back. He couldn't. If he had, he would have seen Harry Potter—the man who had stared down the Dark Lord without blinking—collapse against the stone wall.

Harry slid down the cold masonry until he hit the floor. His breath came in ragged, shallow gasps. The pain was unlike anything he had ever felt. When Sirius had fallen through the veil, it had been a sharp, searing hole in his chest, a scream that wouldn't stop. When Dumbledore died, it had been a cold, hollow numbness.

But this? This was the slow, agonizing disintegration of his entire world. Ginny was his anchor. She was the proof that there was a life worth living after the darkness. To hear her say that he was a burden—that his very existence was a reminder of the trauma she wanted to forget—was a betrayal that cut deeper than any curse.

He buried his face in his hands, and for the first time since the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry Potter wept. He didn't just cry; he sobbed with a guttural, soul-crushing grief that echoed through the empty corridor. He felt as though the floor had vanished beneath him, leaving him falling through an endless, suffocating void.

"Harry?"

A voice drifted from the other end of the hall. It was soft, hesitant.

Harry didn't look up. He couldn't bear for anyone to see him like this. "Go away," he choked out, his voice thick with tears.

"Harry, what happened? Why are you sitting on the floor?"

Harry froze. He knew that voice. He knew it better than his own. He slowly lifted his head, his glasses blurred with tears and sliding down his nose.

Standing ten feet away was Ginny Weasley.

She was wearing her Quidditch robes, her hair tied back in a messy ponytail, a smudge of dirt on her cheek. She held her broom in one hand and a look of pure, unadulterated confusion on her face.

Harry blinked, his brain struggling to process the sight. "You... you were just here. You said..."

Ginny dropped her broom with a clatter and ran to him, dropping to her knees. "I’ve been at the pitch for the last three hours, Harry. Practice ran late because Demelza kept missing the hoops. What are you talking about? You’re shaking."

Harry stared at her, his eyes searching hers with a desperate, frantic intensity. "You didn't... you didn't just break up with me? You didn't say I was a burden?"

Ginny’s expression shifted from confusion to a cold, protective fury. She grabbed his face in her hands, forcing him to look at her. "Harry James Potter, I would never say that. I love you. I’ve loved you since I was ten years old, and I’m not going anywhere. Who told you that?"

Harry let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob. The weight in his chest didn't vanish, but it shifted. "She looked just like you. She sounded... almost like you. But she said things... horrible things."

Ginny’s eyes narrowed. She looked down the corridor where Draco—still disguised—had disappeared. "Polyjuice," she whispered, her voice dangerous. "Someone used Polyjuice to try and break us apart."

She pulled Harry into a fierce hug, tucking his head under her chin. Harry clung to her, his fingers digging into the fabric of her robes as if she might vanish if he let go. The grief was still there, a lingering ghost of the pain he’d just felt, but the warmth of her heart beating against his chest began to drive out the chill.

"I thought I lost you," Harry whispered into her shoulder. "It was worse than the forest. It was worse than everything."

"You’re never going to lose me," Ginny promised, her voice like iron. "But someone is going to lose their teeth when I find out who did this."

Meanwhile, in the girls' bathroom on the second floor, the Polyjuice Potion was wearing off. Draco Malfoy stood before the cracked mirror, watching as the red hair shortened and turned white-blond, and the soft features of Ginny Weasley hardened back into his own sharp, pale face.

He expected to feel a sense of triumph. He had broken the Great Harry Potter. He had seen the look of utter devastation on his rival’s face.

But as he looked at himself in the mirror, all he saw was a coward hiding in a bathroom. He had caused pain, yes, but it hadn't filled the void in his own life. It hadn't made him feel any less alone.

He heard the distant sound of footsteps and voices—Harry and Ginny, together, searching for the impostor. Their voices were filled with a unity he could never understand, a strength that came from a bond he had tried and failed to sever.

Draco gripped the edge of the sink, his knuckles white. He had wanted to destroy Harry’s happiness, but all he had done was remind himself that he had none of his own. He stayed in the shadows, waiting for the castle to go quiet, knowing that no matter how many faces he stole, he would always wake up as himself.

And in the quiet of the night, as Harry and Ginny sat together in the Gryffindor common room, the firelight dancing in their eyes, the malice of the prank was already being washed away by the truth. Harry held Ginny’s hand, his thumb tracing the lines of her palm, finally understanding that while scars might never fade, they didn't have to be carried alone.