A/N: Not sure why I'm so angsty this morning, but I've written this just now... I hope you enjoy it!

Useless

It was like a rug being ripped from underneath his feet. Or life pulling back the curtains and showing him the gears, the inner workings, to prove that all those fairy tales he thought he looked up to, never really existed after all.

It couldn't be merely cynicism. He would never be caught saying such drastic things as 'happiness doesn't exist.' But it didn't stop him from feeling it. Because right now, it didn't exist... for him.

Maybe it was his own fault, really. After all, he'd spent countless nights imagining the touch of her fingertips, her hair against his neck, her lips-

No. The recollection was too much, even in the aftermath... even knowing how false it all had been.

So he'd dreamt her into being what he wanted? And she wasn't that at all, when he looked at her without the frosted glass between them.

She didn't love him.

The words echoed inside his head, rang out and reverberated until he cried from the pain. And he had nothing, nothing, but the smell of salty night air and sick regret, pooled in the pit of his stomach as he buried his face in his pillow.

He couldn't blame the world for not giving him what he was supposed to have. Because he knew now that he'd never been the one. She'd never chosen him. When had she ever said anything...

It was just too hard to let it go. And instead, he worked to prove it, to show himself his own lack of intuition or simple observation. He replayed days, weeks, years, in search of proof... that his hopes had been lies, fueled by his love for her and no other truths.

So... what if he'd actually gone through with telling her? He shivered against his cold, untucked quilt as he imagined so many more months without her, if he'd been 'brave'. And for once, he was so very thankful for his own cowardice. It had been better, hadn't it, to have her at all than to lose her to an admission she could never reciprocate.

But now what? He'd really lost her now.

Hadn't he.

His eyes burned, jaw muscles sore from crying, but it seemed almost natural to them now, distorted from their usual position at rest. And he didn't even try to catch his breath as his teeth clenched a bit of pillowcase fabric, knuckles white as his fist closed around a bedpost.

Was this what it felt like... to grow up? To finally understand that dreams are simply... dreams... and that no matter what you do, there are things you can never change?

He'd give up his own life to change this. To live inside of his own dreams forever.

The night wore darker, more distance between his mistake and the walls of Shell Cottage. He'd left them.

He sat up in bed, suddenly filled with renewed fear.

He'd left them.

Blindly, he'd tried to go back to them, as soon as he'd disapparated. But it hadn't occurred to him, hadn't struck him quite so permanently, just what it really meant... until now.

What if... he never saw her again?

He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his lips together to keep quiet. His brother and Fleur were surely sound asleep.

Visions of her face flashed before him, hazy and low, as she looked up at him, waiting for something. But as desperate as he was to do the right thing, he couldn't know what that really was, what she needed him to do.

He sank back onto his pillow again, opening his eyes to the reality of his new location.

And all of a sudden, as if injected directly into his heart, he knew...

No matter what selfish things he felt, even without the locket there to remind him, they would never measure up against... well, love. As sappy as it sounded. Because there was a very distinct difference between living inside of a dream and living for one.

So maybe she didn't love him.

But maybe it didn't even sodding matter.

There wasn't a magic switch to flick. There was no unveiling to be done when it came to his own heart. Because he knew. He had always known, somehow. He needed her. He needed to love her. And he could never stop. He didn't bloody well know how! So maybe he could carry this one burden. It was useless to even try and fight against it.

Because... bloody hell... what if they needed him too and didn't even know it? If they were in danger, if he could be the one to protect them like he'd secretly promised he'd do...

The burning, sick curiosity to know what they were doing - Harry and Hermione - now that he was gone... it was still there. Time had drawn them closer, even if not in the way he'd most feared. But it wasn't fair to stand between them. To ask her to choose. It wasn't fair, because he was her friend too. It had always been the three of them. And he'd broken them.

In life, he could reach for a chance he didn't exactly believe in. And that was something he could never do in his dreams. In dreams, you reach and what you want comes to you. In life, you reach into a void, and if what you want is there when you reach the other side...

That was what happiness must feel like, he reckoned.

And the other? If nothing was there at all...

He'd get to that. But for now, he would reach. And he'd find them. Damn it all, he would. No matter what.

He'd see her again. He'd see Harry again. And sod it if they tried to stop him from standing by them. He'd lurk in their shadows and jump in front of curses. Any life he had left was theirs. He didn't have a path or direction anywhere at all without them. There was no alternate course to take. It was them... or it was nothing.

And that was true and real and right. And he didn't have to guess or look for something that wasn't really there to know it. It was his soul he could see now. And there was nothing buried there. Nothing but his own secrets, the ones he could go on keeping from her because...

Because.

There didn't need to be any silly explanations or newfound epiphanies.

Her name was enough. Her face was enough. Her heart and her soul and her brain and her body... more than fucking enough.

Well, whoever lived there, inside her own heart, whoever her own guarded secret was or would be... they were too sodding lucky. Bastard.

But for him, she was every heartbeat, every foot in front of the other, every tick of his watch...

And no slice of You-Know-Who's effing soul was ever going to rip that away from him.

He didn't know how. He didn't know when. But he knew it as surely as he knew he was still breathing...

He was going to go home.

A/N Part 2: I wanted this info to come after the story... This oneshot was inspired by the song "The Dream" by Rufus Wainwright, which you can listen to here:

http: / / www . youtube . com / watch?v=MT7eqgw_ivc

The dream has come and gone.
The earth lumbers on.
The dream is back in space, back where it came from.
The dream has gone away.
The earth could not play.
The earth just spins in place, throwing things away.
And I am left behind, corrupted, crushed and blind...
all for a dream that, in truth, was never really mine.
But who was the dream?
Was it you or was it me?
I truly loved, which is harder to do than to dream of...
I wanted to dream.
I just didn't know how hard it would be when the dream had to go.

I'm not even typically a fan of his music, but this just sort of appeared to me and I listened once and was suddenly writing the story!