Title: That Which is Wholly Unsayable
Author: pumpkinpasty
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 5414
Summary: The line between dreams and reality is a thin, gossamer thread; when the pull is strong enough, it breaks.
Notes: Written for emmagrant01 in the 2007 smutty_claus Christmas Exchange. Many mercis to akissinacrisis for her typo-catching and motivation. Five years later, this remains one of my most-read and most-recommended stories. This fic was loosely inspired by Audrey Niffenegger's The Time-Traveler's Wife, and the title was snagged from Rilke's Ninth Duino Elegy.

What if you slept?
And what if in your sleep, you dreamed?
And what if in your dream, you went to heaven
and there plucked a strange and beautiful flower?
And what if, when you woke, you had the flower in your hand?
Ah! What then?

- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

HARRY: It's hard to be the one who leaves. When all you've grown up with is yourself, with one room and three people who wish only that you'd never existed, all you can really dream of is the comfort of a family- one that's too loud, too nosy, but who would give you something to hold on to. Something to grasp at while you're away or desperate or sad or alone. Something to make you grin and roll your eyes and then choke on your Butterbeer with laughter, joy at the ridiculousness of it all.

When you've grown up alone and then are gifted with someone like her - very soon you stop asking for anything but the angled softness of her body in your arms, her copper-red hair like silk on your fingertips; her smile, her wrinkled nose, her laugh. She gives you everything: the family, the bursts of roaring laughter, the twinkle in her eyes and the drink bubbling it's way up your nose. She gives you more than you dare to ask for because somehow, she knows. And this - this you need more than anything.

It's hard being the one who leaves, so in your mind you stay, and you dream.

"Do you think this lake will be here forever?" he asks, gathering her hair in one hand and pulling it aside, exposing her neck.

"I think this lake hasbeen here forever."

The late afternoon is thick with the hum of spring, warmth and pollen and butterflies and everything so full of life, he thinks. Fervor.

She twists out of his arms and stands up, tiptoeing to the edge of the water and peering down, searching. Then she bends down, reaches one hand in and emerges with a rock, flat and smooth and perfect. She tosses it to him. "See?"

It holds an imprint of some ancient shellfish, its impression round and twirling and concentric within the wet stone. He traces it with his finger. Old, ancient. Eternal. When he is gone - tomorrow or the next day or a hundred years from now - this will still be here.

Ginny smiles at him from somewhere knee-deep in the freezing water, her hair swinging in the breeze, her arms flowing languidly from side to side, tracing circles in the lake.

When he is gone, tomorrow or the next day or (he can't help thinking) someday soon, she will still be here.

He tries to smile back, and as he does, her smile fades. He curses inwardly. She stills, watching him - warily? Or simply softly? Sadly?

Then, something ice-cool and wet splashes across his face once, twice, again and again. And somewhere beyond his spluttering "What the -?" she is laughing, and diving, and he is running in after her, laughing too, weighed down in socks and robes and his stupid scarlet tie.

The water is colder than ice, still freezing with remnants of winter, and the breath is knocked out of him as he submerges, black-blue-green rising all around him, the rush of bubbles and his paddling arms roaring in his ears. He kicks to the surface, inhaling rapidly and looking around at the empty lake, tense, alert. His robe billows to the surface; he tugs his arms out of it and pushes it to the shore.

Then, out of nowhere, a pair of small arms catch him around his leg and pull, and he falls facefirst into the water again, with a shout of surprise. The stream of bubbles from his nose distort his vision; he thrashes and grasps and catches her slippery ankle just as she's wriggling away from him, and they surface, splashing, laughing, kicking, coughing.

"You - are - mad-"

"So what if - hey- I am?"

"Then we mustn't let word get out - I'm mad too, remember? The Prophetwould have kittens."

"Oh, right - let's keep it quiet, then - hey!"

He grabs her waist and ducks underwater, dragging her with him for a split second and emerging with her spluttering and sopping, blinking and reaching blindly for him.

Then he catches her arm, pulls her to his chest, and presses a kiss to her lips.

She struggles, of course, but after a moment she melds to him, her lips slippery wet and her tongue warm, slow, languid.

He pulls away and grins at her, smug at his good fortune, and the way he can feel her heart beating fast against his chest. For a moment she seems dazed; her brown eyes round and warm and a soft smile playing at her lips. But then she blinks, hard, and looks at him with newfound incredulity.

With a spark in her eyes she bends down, scoops her arms into the water, and splashes his face once more. Of course he has no choice but to splash back, and it is in this way that they continue, laughing and diving and tickling until the sky turns purple and they trudge back inside, hands entwined.

GINNY: It's hard being the one who stays. I wait for Harry; each passing day that I will him and the rest of them to come home againfeels like a heavy eternity. I see them for miles into my future, as if I'm staring into a dark-walled tunnel in which I am trapped, now and forever, with no place to go but forward.

I stay busy. That's the thing about war, isn't it? There's always something to do, always someone to fight. So I do. When they come for us at the Burrow, I am the fastest, the most furious. I pack the bags in an instant, hurl them down the stairs. Mum, too stunned to do much more than repeat how are they how are they oh god, stumbles over herself while Bill levitates the trunks. I grab our Gringotts key, my broomstick and, despite my misgivings, the family clock. Mum clings to it, her mind sickeningly eased by that damn face, those damn arms, each pointing to the same damn word. Mortal peril, we know. She finds solace in the fact that it doesn't say Dead. The way she holds it - if it did, we would know. Immediately. Somehow, I think that is worse.

We flee to Auntie Muriel's; Bill Apparates back to Shell Cottage, where Ron and Hermione wait. Ron and Hermione. It's not until Auntie Muriel has ushered us inside and fixed mum hot tea with a dash of something heavily alcoholic, until the adrenaline has given way to the hard lump in my throat and the churning of my stomach, that it sets in: Ron and Hermione. Not Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

The bile rises. I am useless, full of regret. My mind races with could-haves, should-haves. Could have asked how was he, where was he. Could have remembered. Should have cared. Should have Apparated back with Bill, mended wounds, made myself useful. Should have helped.

Mum sits, her face pale, thin, strained. Her grey hairs shining softly among the red, in the firelight. Her brown eyes dull, red-rimmed. I wonder if I resemble her, in some way. Waiting,like her.

That night I fear - I fear for Harry, Ron, and Hermione, sure - but I also fear for her, for what she has become. Once vibrant, now lined and fraught with anxiety, worry. Loneliness. I fear for her heart and mine, and hope that they will stay whole and intact; bruised, perhaps, but therenonetheless.

It's hard being the one who stays, so as the moon fades in the pink-blue dawn, I hold her hand, and I pray.

The end of the world begins on a Wednesday, while Ginny and eighty like-minded fifth years are confined to the library, studying feverishly for the OWLs like the examsare the most important thing. It's a fit of irony too bitter to laugh at.

Across from her, Hermione sits restlessly, one hand trembling around the tiny gold flask that weighs heavily in her pocket. Ginny pauses, quill poised, her eyes scanning the same line of text again and again, attempting to ignore the rapid tapping of Hermione's foot and the way Ron keeps compulsively clenching his knuckles white. She stares, the words little more than incomprehensible black scribbles, and she holds her breath, waiting.

Waiting.

And then quite suddenly, there is the first explosion. Madam Pince comes barrelling out of the stacks, her heels clacking, sharp eyes fixed at the ceiling.

Then, a second explosion; this one rattles the dust in every crevice, peppering Madam Pince's hair with a grey-white veil. With a sound like an angry cat, she turns and marches, tap-clacking, through the heavy library doors with an air of unreckoned determination.

Then, a scream. A shout. A third explosion.

And then silence.

It all happens very quickly, then: the flask flows from Hermione's fingers to hers, her fingers to Ron's, and then they are on their feet along with the frantically chattering crowd. Ron looks aghast from the others to Hermione, who sways slightly, pale, at a loss.

"I don't know!" she wails, over the sound of a fourth explosion overhead and the subsequent screams around them. "I can't - I don't - " She looks wildly from Ginny to Ron.

Later, Ginny would call it brashness, impulsiveness, necessity. But never bravery. She would call it her chance, her only chance, to fight. For that's what it was; for once, she had no one to save her, and only lives before her to save.

She raises her hand to squeeze Hermione's arm and nods once before climbing on the table and yelling, "OI!"

Hermione's eyes are urgent, frantic, calculating, but she and Ron manage two last grateful smiles for Ginny before they turn and flee, Ginny watching their retreating backs with a knot in her stomach.

Three hours later, it is over too late.

HARRY: Years ago - it's odd to think that's only been a few - I had a science teacher: Mr Graham. He was thin and wiry, with unruly brown hair that wasn't exactly curly, and he wore square-framed glasses. I suppose it isn't surprising that I remember the man, or that I still like him, after all these years, two worlds away.

He insisted we call him Graham - that was the kind of teacher he was. The cool teacher, the one that everyone loved. He gestured wildly when he talked, and he would stride back and forth across the room when he was in the process of making a point. More often than not he would bounce a tennis ball up and down or toss it into the air as he lectured on lightwaves or orbits or the tides and the moon. His class was the only one in which Dudley and his gang really ignoredme; no one wanted to be on the Graham's bad side, and I think we all had a feeling he would have been the first teacher to punish Dudley if he hit me.

One day, I was taking my seat in the back of the room (people are less inclined to throw things at you if you are not in their direct line of vision) when Graham climbed onto his desk and yelled, "POLKISS!"

The entire class jumped, including Polkiss. "Yeah?" he said, his beady eyes swivelling around to look at Graham.

"CAN YOU HEAR ME?"

Polkiss looked bewildered. "Er - yeah."

Graham climbed off the desk, then looked around the classroom and shouted, "SOUND WAVES!"

The class laughed. Then, picking up his tennis ball and tossing it with one hand into the air, he pointed at his ear. "THIS CONTRAPTION," he said, "IS FOR HEARING." A ripple of laughter, again. "The ear is designed to catch soundwaves like the ones I just sent out, and the ones I'm sending out now. As the waves" - here he drew a series of concentric arcs on the blackboard - "hit your eardrum, all of the waves turn into vibrations, and from there they turn into little electrical impulses that your brain interprets into decipherable sounds." He paused. "This is called hearing. DID YOU KNOW THAT, POLKISS?"

"Er – no."

"Ought to have done the reading, then, yeah? Now, everyone, think of your favourite song."

The room fell quiet, and I thought. I didn't have a favourite song – I wasn't allowed to touch the radio – but Aunt Petunia played The Beatles while she cooked, and there was one I liked: it sounded sad, in a way, and lost, and you never quite knew why.

"Can you hear it?" Graham asked. "You know the words, don't you? The tune?"

We murmured our assent.

"Potter!" he said suddenly. "Where do you hear your song?"

I paused. "In my head, sir."

"Exactly. In your head. So would you say, then, that you are imaginingyour song? It is not playing in this room, after all."

"Yes, sir."

"Ha!" he said, and then he strolled back to the front of the room. "There's the catch: At this moment your ear is hearing - at this moment, the waves of your own song are being transformed into vibrations and impulses interpreted in your brain, and in your ear. At this moment, a physical process is occurring - phantomhearing, if you will."

There was rapid mutter, chatter throughout the room. Some looked surprised; others confused; the logical Hermione-types, disbelieving. I sat very still, absorbing this.

"Bizarre thing, imagination," he said. "And powerful, too. If you know how to use it."

I couldn't understand, then, what he meant. All I knew - all I remembered, later, was that he was looking right at me.

When Dobby is buried, the goblin glares at him, suspicious curiosity in his wrinkled eyes.

When Dobby is buried, Fleur eyes him pityingly, her perfect mouth pursed. Here is the Boy-Who-Lived, he knows she is thinking. Here is our saviour, our beacon, and he hasn't had a proper shower in weeks.

When Dobby is buried, Harry can't find Ron because he is hidden somewhere in the forest outside, punching his fist into a tree once, twice, again and again, until the angry, helpless tears in his eyes subside.

When Dobby is buried, Hermione is unconscious, pale, frail, and the lump in Harry's throat when he sees her is so hard, so unbearable, that he runs from the room.

When Dobby is buried, dead, gone - Bill is in his room, fastening his cloak. Harry pauses in the doorway.

"Where are you going?" he asks, as Bill stuffs his wand into his pocket.

"Muriel's," he says, "to check on Mum and Gin, and to get an update from Dad."

Harry sucks in a breath. "Is she - are they - are they okay?"

He keeps his eyes fixed on the mirror. "They got to Muriel's in once piece, if that's what you mean."

It isn't.

Bill puts one foot on the quilted bed to lace up his boots. He doesn't look at Harry when he speaks.

"She's been doing a lot," he says. "At Hogwarts. For Mum. She keeps herself busy, finding ways that she can fight." There's a stern, proud pointedness to his voice that makes Harry shrink a little and stare at the floor, picturing her face. She is laughing - beautifully, of course. He can almost hear her. He missesher.

Bill starts tying his other shoe.

"Listen," Harry says, "d'you think you could tell her - tell her that I - "

Bill looks at him sharply, his clear blue eyes boring into Harry's, and Harry falters, his mind jammed. Tell her I miss her, I dream of her. Tell her I see her, I hear her, I smell her and feel her -

"- that I hope she's okay," he finishes lamely, and Bill, with another appraising look, nods curtly.

"She's our only sister, Harry," he says. "We don't like to see her hurt."

GINNY: How strange, that the more I remember, the harder it aches.

It aches.

I am sprawled on the lavish four-poster in an upper bedroom at Muriel's estate when Cooky, the house-elf, bows her way through the doorway, balancing a plate of biscuits and tea. Cooky, incidentally, is a pretty house-elf. As pretty as they come, anyway, with long lashes and a buttonlike nose, blue-green eyes and a smiling mouth. She is old - her face has the beginning of lines, crinkles around her eyes and nose and mouth - but she is kind, with none of the inherent resentment of Kreacher, or the unceasing revolution of Dobby, The Free Elf. Or so I've heard.

"Is Miss Wheezy all right today?" she asks, when I ignore the tray she sets beside me. I haven't eaten for several days, and am not even approaching real hunger.

And, of course, I am not all right.

"Cooky?" I ask, regarding her doll-like features with fresh contemplation. "Have you ever - have you ever been in love?"

Cooky's round blue eyes grow wide, and she freezes, glancing wildly at the doorway. "It's okay," I add quickly,"if you have. Muriel doesn't need to know." She trembles and I hesitate, hating what must come next. "I - I give you permission to have fallen in love."

She relaxes a little, and I smile encouragingly. "Tell me about him."

Cooky's eyes mist wistfully, and she tilts her head. "It is hard," she begins, "for house-elves to fall in love. We so rarely see each other, and when we do it is nearly impossible to get permission, you see. We must get permission to talk, to marry, to have children. Sometimes, even, house-elves is arranged to marry other house-elves they do not love, just to have children! But Cooky chose her love, and he was handsome, you see. Handsome with big blue eyes and a nice voice to talk to all day, but his family forbid him to see any other elves, you see, so when Cooky went to visit him it was a great risk. But Cooky went! Once every two weeks Cooky went to see her love, and they would spend all night cleaning the rain gutters and pruning the garden and talking for hours until the moon went away and Cooky had to go home, to make breakfast for her mistress.

Then one day Cooky went to see her love, and found that he was not there. Cooky searched all throughout the house, and waited until morning. The next night she went back and searched again, until she came across a pile of loose dirt in the garden. And buried beneath it, Cooky knew, was her poor, handsome Barny! Dead, said the neighbor, from an accident with a cooking charm. And Cooky cried, she did, and her work was horrible for many months after, and she always had to iron her hands and shut her ears in the oven because she missed him so, until Mistress told her to stop because she was going to ruin the oven."

When her story is over, I can't breathe. Cooky's eyes are watering with great round tears, and her ears twitch.

"Cooky, I'm so sorry," I whisper, lying my hand atop her cool, long-fingered one. And I am.

"This was many years ago, Miss Wheezy," Cooky says. "Cooky is better now, mostly. And you - your love is the great Harry Potter, yes?"

I fidget in my chair. The great Harry Potter, mylove?

I can't say. Won't say. Though I know the answer.

"Don't worry, Miss Wheezy," Cooky says. "Harry Potter misses you very much."

My mouth is dry, bitter, like unbuttered toast and black coffee. "How do you know?" I whisper, as if that's a logical question. How does she know?

She wraps her hands around mine, squeezes them, and looks at me with those round eyes, so plaintive, sad, pitying. Understanding.

"Oh, Miss Wheezy," she says, "don't you feelit?"

HARRY: That night, I dream of Ginny.

GINNY: That night, I dream of Harry.

In her dream, she is flying. Soaring past the garden and the pond, the apple orchard and the hill where blackbirds circle the wreckage of the Lovegood's home. She flees along the winding road to the quaint Muggle village and beyond, through a rustling thick forest, the moon visible only through cracks in the foliage overhead and the breeze cool in her hair. Trees rush past her in the black; she is growing colder when suddenly she bursts into a clearing, so vast, so green-blue under the moon, and leading straight to the shore of a lake and small wood cabin, solitary and still among the swaying, singing grass.

The water is clear and dark, oddly inviting, so she glides to the edge of the glassy lake and dips her toes in. It is warm, soothing, still humming with the remnants of the day's sun - so unlike the evening chill sweeping the banks. She shivers, exhales. Sighs.

The black-blue water glimmers with the moonlight, with the flickering yellow lights glinting from the cabin, which she sees, now, is lit from the inside, perhaps by a fire. For a moment the lake, lit by crystalline beauty, swirls around her. She stares at the window, inexplicably drawn to the soft, yellow-orange light, and the breeze.

The wind carries a soft sound to her ears - a voice, perhaps, calling softly. Her name. Ginny, Ginny. Then, a silhouette pauses in the window - but she blinks and it's gone.

The voice, again, calling softly. Ginny, Ginny. The breeze, ethereal. Whispering.

Before she realises what she is doing she is floating again - gliding out of the water and toward the little cottage, to the rounded front door and the lush grass marking the path to it. The scent of fresh flowers, laden in the air, envelops her. Wisps of her hair curl as she sinks to the ground, wind-ruffled and mesmerized by the soft whispering in her ears.

With a twist she wrenches the door open, steps inside, and abruptly, the voices stop. Abruptly, she gasps.

"Harry!"

Somehow, from his place in the little armchair, he looks just as surprised to see her. Surprised, helpless, and a little lost. Broken, Ginny thinks, then pushes the thought away.

He stands up and stares at her, haggard and tired and disbelieving. From the doorway she can see the harsh lines of his ribcage, the shadows beneath his eyes, along his jaw. The jagged seam of a scar across his cheek, the bruises, and the muscle. Most of all, the sigh in his eyes – so weary, so worn, yet as deeply green as ever.

"Ginny?" Her name is foreign on his lips, the way he says it - as if he doesn't believe, can't believe, though he wants to, desperately-

He steps forward, reaching for her, and stumbles; in a flash Ginny is before him, clutching his hands and gathering them at her chest, peering up at him.

"Ginny," he whispers her name again. Desperately. A little lost. "Are you real?"

She wishes she knew.

"Yes," she says, nodding. "Yes. I'm here."

I am here.

A shudder rips through him, then; a broken half-sob, half-sigh, and he leans against her, squeezing her hands in his.

"I'm sorry," he mutters. "Sorry for – everything -"

"Shut up," she whispers, her breath ruffling his too-long hair.

"I can't," he says. "I can't." He sounds strained, fighting for air.

She frowns.

"Dobby is dead," he says. "Dobby is dead. I dug the grave."

Ice trickles through Ginny's chest, both at the news of the house-elf and the haunted note of his voice, as if he's here but not here, as if he's one thousand miles away, and speaking from the distance. It scares her, the blankness in his eyes, the weariness, the ache.

How terrifying: her war-soaked hero, standing before her as if every breath is an effort. Maybe it is. She clutches at him, presses her lips to his forehead. She is shaking, but she stands very still as he leans against her, his breathing rough.

After a moment he lifts his head and looks at her, his eyes searching hers. "God," he says. "I missedyou."

She laughs, a watery laugh. He straightens up, never tearing his eyes from her, clearing his throat. He lets one of her hands go, and rests his other heavily on her shoulder, his palm pressing into the bare skin beneath the thin fabric of her nightgown. His fingers graze the top of her shoulder blade, again and again, here and there, softly. She shivers.

"I've waited for you," she whispers, and then cringes. She sounds ridiculous, and somehow these words stun him; he steps back and tears his hands away from her, as though scalded, burned. He doesn't know that this is how she feels every moment he touches her, holds her. It burns, and it aches.

"You never had to -"

"I know," she says. "I know." She pauses. "But I did."

He looks at her, his worn face studying her, his eyes suddenly anguished, conflicted. "Ginny, I -"

"Please just kissme."

And the next thing she feels are his lips, hot and dry and crushing against hers – his fingers, digging into her back, her waist, scrabbling at the hem of her nightgown and stroking her thighs, her hips, the soft swell of her stomach. She kisses him back with haste, with heat, with a moan in her throat, but when she gasps for breath he doesn't stop, doesn't pull away, only trails his lips to her ear, her jaw, the column of her throat.

And then the nightgown is gone and she is shivering with the heat and the cold, his hands and his lips, her moans and his whispers. His tongue grazes her breasts, his hands caress her sides, and she trembles and quivers and every other euphemism for melt against him, for lose control.

She sinks into the meagre mattress in the corner of the room; he pulls her against him, presses her beneath him.

His stubble scratches against her stomach when he kisses her, trailing his lips across her collarbone to the soft slope of her neck; her hands push away his shirt and fumble for his shorts, curling her fingers at the waistband and pulling them down, freeing his cock. She gasps, a little, at the sensation of his length, hard and soft and warm and straining toward her, pressing into her lower belly. She moans, and feels some sort of longing, some primal, irrational longingto feel him buried within her, straining and pulsing and groaning inside her.

He crushes his lips to hers and she throws herself into the kiss, knocking his nose with her own, her fingers clawing at his back as his hands palm her breasts. Then he pulls away and leans close to her, their breaths mingling, moist, heavy. He trails his fingers down her sides and gooseflesh follows, cresting along her skin, tingling. She shivers again, involuntarily.

Her arms encircle him and he smiles faintly, his fingers sliding between them, grazing the crease of her thighs and slowly spreading her legs, peeling her damp knickers away. She tenses, and then - then, oh.

He slides his fingers between her thighs and strokes, firmly, if a little fumbling, around her clit, tentatively thrusting one finger inside her, watching as she gasps, writhes, jerks into his hands. He draws his fingers back and forth across her, once, twice. He slides his other hand across her breastbone and her belly and watches with fascination as her spine rolls, as she arches like a cat into his touch, neck bared, a whimper dying in her throat.

Outside, the moon is full and pale and the lake ebbs and flows with the breeze; the flowers sway, the willows rustle. The room smells of sex and sweat and sweet and Harry. A low breeze brushes her forehead and it, too, tastes of Harry – clean, sweet, sharp, of wood and the outdoors. His fingers caress her and she moans, a guttural moan, long and uncontrollable, and then he stops – pulls away, and leans close to her again, those green eyes penetrating. He sighs – more of an exhale, involuntary and complete.

Then he is propped above her, between her legs, biting his lip and positioning himself. The watery glow of moonlight catches his face, throwing it into relief, and her heart twists to see the bruises, the cuts, and his eyes, those damn eyes, the way they look at her.

She sits up, suddenly, and wraps her arms around her neck, pushing him back, straddling him. They are close, too close – her nose brushes his, and his eyes lock on hers, searching for her response to a question she's answered in her mind a million times over.

Nodding almost imperceptibly, she caresses his lips with her own, reaches one hand to stroke his cock, then lifts her hips and sinks down onto him.

A sharp, burning pain, a stretching, and she cries out; he groans, Ginny. Warmth skitters through her belly, and inexplicable tears spring to her eyes.

"God, Ginny – I'm sorry -" But she tells him to shut up and he does, clutching at her hips and gripping her ribs and surging against her as she sinks onto him again, biting her lip and digging her fingers into the rangy muscle of his shoulders. His hands brush her everywhere, and she rises and falls into him, slowly at first, then faster. It aches. She concentrates. His fingers tease her sides, her belly; he nuzzles her breasts, kisses her neck.

And then he is panting harder, his hands grasp and stroke at her uncontrollably, and then he is thrusting up into her, hard and rolling. A sharp warmth bursts deep inside her. He comes with another groan, long, a ticking in the back of his throat, and her name. Her name, always her name. Ginny. She cries out, shocked by the force of it – of him, bucking into her.

His arms encircle her, and he pulls her flush against him.

She doesn't come, yet somehow - somehow she feels just as dazed, just as flushed, just as dizzy and sated. He clings to her, sweaty, his chest rising and falling heavily.

He pulls out of her, his cock softening; she whimpers from the sudden loss. He looks at her, brushes damp hair from her forehead. Grazes the small of her back, pulls a blanket around her.

He surrounds her, fills her: the scent of him, heady and masculine; the taste of him, lingering on her lips. His skin – hot, sticky against hers. The wet and the warmth, the dull ache between her legs – it lingers, encompassing her, dizzying.

He kisses her once more. Leans his forehead against hers. Smiles, faintly. His neck shimmers with sweat.

"Ginny," he whispers, sated. (Her name. Always her name.) She feels tired, warm. A little lost, looking into his eyes.

"Ginny, I -"

A blinding pain, then – a bright, blinding light and her head, split open, agony. Her skin is on fire, burning, stinging. She screams, shouts, feels his arms tighten around her. Hears his shout, his anguished NO!-

And then it is over.

Somewhere, miles away, she wakes to a sticky warmth, a dull ache between her thighs. Her eyes are full; her chest tight, constricted. She turns on her side, stretching and sliding her legs through the sheets, and then she sees them: gentle impressions, indentations on the pillow and sheets beside her.

She freezes. And then she is falling, sinking, falling, somebody catch her. She shifts once more and again feels the pull between her legs, aching, like her heart. She runs her palm over the sheets, over the dips and grooves in the mattress. They are warm, damp. They smell of his skin, and his hair. Sharp and clean and faintly of the outdoors. Sex and sweat and sweet and Harry.

Then, realising. With a whimper, she wraps her arms around her middle, cradling herself, holding herself together. As if she will break, if she lets go.

She buries her face in his pillow.

And then she begins to cry.

Miles away, he wakes abruptly to the sensation of falling, falling, somebody catch him.

He looks down at himself – sticky, sweaty. His heart misses a beat, as if he's missed a step in a trick staircase.

He can't breathe. He can't breathe.

For, in the dark of his room, the scent of those flowers still lingers, faintly, on his skin.

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