A/N: This is officially the most pointless, plot-less, ridiculous, pathetically adorable piece of fluff that I have ever even considered writing. Its probably terrible, I wrote it at eleven-thirty at night when I couldn't sleep and had nothing better to do. The product of my over-tired, ever-strange mind. :) I fully apologize for posting it, but I couldn't help myself. :)
Those Emerald Eyes
"However, Ron did not appear on the map, and after a while Harry found himself taking it out simply to stare at Ginny's name in the girls' dormitory, wondering whether the intensity with which he gazed at it might break into her sleep, and she would somehow know he was thinking about her, hoping that she was all right."
~The Deathly Hallows, pg. 313
With the tent up and all the security measures checked, Harry offered to take the first watch. Exhausted and emotionally wrenched, Hermione grudgingly agreed.
Harry sat outside for fifteen minutes, straining to hear signs that Hermione was still awake. He had developed a routine. He would wait for fifteen or twenty minutes until he heard her breathing deepen. Then he'd sneak inside the tent, find her bag, and one whispered Summoning Charm later, he snuck out again, the Marauder's Map in hand. Settling himself down again that night, Harry spread the map over his knees, his eyes searching hungrily for that name...that one little black dot in the Sixth Year girls' dormitory.
Finally, after glaring at Snape's dot in the Headmaster's office for a while, he found her.
Ginny Weasley.
His green eyes that had seemed to dim every day since the death of Albus Dumbledore suddenly regained some of their old light as he watched her stationary dot. He imagined crawling into that bed with her and holding her close to him...running his fingers through her soft hair and kissing those soft, full lips...feeling them curve into a gentle smile...
Harry was surprised to feel hot tears prickling his eyelids and clinging to his lashes, but he couldn't bring himself to look away from the map, or Ginny's name.
Gritting his teeth against the tightness in his chest, he took a steadying breath and whispered, "I love you, Ginny. Why didn't I tell you that before I left? I love you."
***
Hundreds of miles away in the Gryffindor tower's girls' dormitories, Ginny Weasley lay peacefully asleep, cradled in the arms of a pleasant dream. She didn't know why, though. She usually had terrible dreams, sometimes she even revisited the Chamber of Secrets in her dreams...especially after a "detention."
Detentions these days consisted of having the Sectumsempra and Cruciatus curses used on you. She had collapsed in bed that night aching all over and with a deep gash on her arm. There was another gash on her stomach, still healing from weeks ago, that twinged painfully every time she moved a certain way.
During the detention, Ginny hadn't allowed herself to show any sign of pain. She refused to cry out, which seemed to infuriate Amycus Carrow, who was overseeing her detention. She was even able to smile blandly up at Amycus as she was leaving, earning herself the gash on her arm and a slap across the face.
Half-dead, she had dropped into bed and, beyond the point of tears both emotionally and physically, she focused every bit of Weasley will power she had left in her on pulling up every detail of Harry's face from distant memories of shining hours that seemed to have happened years and years ago...Those stolen moments by the lake must have been in a whole other lifetime... His hair...his smile...that look of sheepish innocence...and those emerald eyes. She dropped off to sleep imagining the feel of his lips on hers.
Ginny's dream lifted her, then dropped her in another, happier place and time in which Harry, Ron and Hermione were back, Voldemort was finished, this misery was over...and for the first time in her life, Ginny fervently wished that she was a Seer.
She and Harry were stretched out under the beach tree by the lake, the one that they'd claimed as their own last year. Ginny could see the mark Harry had carved in the trunk with his wand quite clearly: A roughly-shaped heart, inside of which read H+G FOREVER.
Forever.
Forever.
Forever.
The word seemed to echo in her mind.
Forever.
Harry's Firebolt and Ginny's old Comet Two Sixty hovered inches above the grass next to the couple.
Ginny's head rested in the crook of Harry's neck, and she could feel his lips brushing her ear now and again. The feeling was so vivid that even Ginny's subconscious mind, the part that knew she was dreaming, was sure she would wake up and it would be real.
The war was over. Voldemort was dead. And they had days, months, maybe even years...
"I love you, Ginny." The voice was low and husky, and sounded almost desperate for her to hear the words. "Why didn't I tell you that before I left? I love you."
Ginny's eyes popped open, and she rolled over, reluctantly. Why was it that when she wanted urgently to wake up, she was found it impossible, yet when she wished she could stay asleep until this living nightmare was over, she was jarred out of oblivion?
Ginny sat up and pushed aside the curtains of her four-poster.
She shivered, sure that someone was watching her, but she could see curtains drawn around every other bed in the dormitory in the dim light provided by the moon and stars.
Sometimes, she thought she felt those eyes on her, that intense yet vulnerable gaze penetrating the miles that stood firmly and un movingly planted between the two of them. Sometimes, Ginny could swear she could feel those emerald eyes watching her with an urgency and affection that caused a hard lump to form in her throat and an almost unbearable longing to settle in her chest.
Ginny stood and leaned against the windowsill, the glass of the window cool against her cheek. She gazed outside, wondering how far away Harry, Ron, and Hermione were, wondering where they were sleeping, what they were doing...wondering if Harry ever thought of her as she did him. "It's my imagination," she told herself firmly. "It's not as if he could actually see me."
Ginny crawled back into and pulled the covers up to her chin, closing her eyes and fantasizing about being able to be there with the other three, helping them on their quest...
Ginny didn't know it, but that night - and most other nights - she drifted to sleep under the gaze of those emerald eyes.