Harry Potter 06 - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

and higher they rose, obscuring the body. White smoke spiralled into the air and made strange shapes: Harry thought, for one heart-stopping moment, that he saw a phoenix fly joyfully into the blue, but next second the fire had vanished. In its place was a white marble tomb, encasing Dumbledore’s body and the table on which he had rested.
    There were a few more cries of shock as a shower of arrows soared through the air, but they fell far short of the crowd. It was, Harry knew, the centaurs’ tribute: he saw them turn tail and disappear back into the cool trees. Likewise the merpeople sank slowly back into the green water and were lost from view.
    Harry looked at Ginny, Ron and Hermione: Ron’s face was screwed up as though the sunlight was blinding him. Hermione’s face was glazed with tears, but Ginny was no longer crying. She met Harry’s gaze with the same hard, blazing look that he had seen when she had hugged him after winning the Quidditch Cup in his absence, and he knew that at that moment they understood each other perfectly, and that when he told her what he was going to do now, she would not say ‘Be careful’, or ‘Don’t do it’, but accept his decision, because she would not have expected anything less of him. And so he steeled himself to say what he had known he must say ever since Dumbledore had died.
    ‘Ginny, listen …’ he said very quietly, as the buzz of conversation grew louder around them and people began to get to their feet. ‘I can’t be involved with you any more. We’ve got to stop seeing each other. We can’t be together.’
    She said, with an oddly twisted smile, ‘It’s for some stupid, noble reason, isn’t it?’
    ‘It’s been like … like something out of someone else’s life, these last few weeks with you,’ said Harry. ‘But I can’t … we can’t … I’ve got things to do alone now.’
    She did not cry, she simply looked at him.
    ‘Voldemort uses people his enemies are close to. He’s already used you as bait once, and that was just because you’re my best friend’s sister. Think how much danger you’ll be in if we keep this up. He’ll know, he’ll find out. He’ll try and get to me through you.’
    ‘What if I don’t care?’ said Ginny fiercely.
    ‘I care,’ said Harry. ‘How do you think I’d feel if this was your funeral … and it was my fault …’
    She looked away from him, over the lake.
    ‘I never really gave up on you,’ she said. ‘Not really. I always hoped … Hermione told me to get on with life, maybe go out with some other people, relax a bit around you, because I never used to be able to talk if you were in the room, remember? And she thought you might take a bit more notice if I was a bit more – myself.’
    ‘Smart girl, that Hermione,’ said Harry, trying to smile. ‘I just wish I’d asked you sooner. We could’ve had ages … months … years maybe …’
    ‘But you’ve been too busy saving the wizarding world,’ said Ginny, half-laughing. ‘Well … I can’t say I’m surprised. I knew this would happen in the end. I knew you wouldn’t be happy unless you were hunting Voldemort. Maybe that’s why I like you so much.’
    Harry could not bear to hear these things, nor did he think his resolution would hold if he remained sitting beside her. Ron, he saw, was now holding Hermione and stroking her hair while she sobbed into his shoulder, tears dripping from the end of his own long nose. With a miserable gesture, Harry got up, turned his back on Ginny and on Dumbledore’s tomb and walked away around the lake. Moving felt much more bearable than sitting still: just as setting out as soon as possible to track down the Horcruxes and kill Voldemort would feel better than waiting to do it …
    ‘Harry!’
    He turned. Rufus Scrimgeour was limping rapidly towards him around the bank, leaning on his walking stick.
    ‘I’ve been hoping to have a word … do you mind if I walk a little way with you?’
    ‘No,’ said Harry indifferently, and set off again.
    ‘Harry, this was a dreadful tragedy,’ said Scrimgeour quietly, ‘I cannot tell you how appalled I was to hear of it. Dumbledore was a very great wizard. We had our disagreements, as you know, but no one knows better than I –’
    ‘What do you want?’ asked Harry flatly.
    Scrimgeour looked annoyed but, as before, hastily modified his expression to one of sorrowful understanding.
    ‘You are, of course, devastated,’ he said. ‘I know that you were