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At Night | ||||
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Category: Post-OotP Characters:Harry/Ginny Genres: Angst Warnings: None Story is Complete Rating: PG Reviews: 15 Summary: He hurts and wishes and days and days go by without change. She knows because it's happened to her. Hitcount: Story Total: 4177 |
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A/N: I’m not entirely sure where this came from. It’s different from anything I’ve ever written before and so I’m a bit leery to post it. It’s very “heavy,” as my good friend Shyla tells me, but I had to get it out on paper. It’s very frustrating when a story, especially one like this, circles in your head until you spit it out. That said, please let me know what you think. -At Night- It always hurts the worst at night, sitting in the common room, just before bed. She sees him huddled in the darkest corner with his books splayed before him. His eyes are just as busy as his hands, which scribble furiously over rolls of parchment and hover over thick, musty books. His eyes are dark, and she knows that even if he chose to sit in the halo of the candles, the shadows wouldn’t leave his face. She knows it’s not transfiguration or potions he’s studying…. He thinks he’s ruined but she knows that he’s just lost his way. The green of his eyes has long since departed, blotted out by wounds as deep as hers to become black and empty. They graze over countless spells and theories, soaking up the black ink that spreads throughout him like cancer. It stains his soul, this search. It hurts him, spilling inside the bottomless hole, never to be filled. He does it because it hurts, because he thinks he deserves it. His hands are spotted with ink, black blemishes that brand his skin like a miserable, blotchy sky. They look like bruises and she’s sure his heart looks and feels the same: wounded with blows that cannot be countered. He hurts the worst at night, just as she does. Night brings quiet and the stirrings of hidden thoughts; night brings no escape. He knows how to pretend, has mastered how to smile even though inside, he feels as though his heart has been broken beyond repair. He knows how to grin when others are around, though it never reaches his eyes. She knows that it hurts the worst at night because pretending, no matter how good he is at it, makes his body tired. And once the pretending stops, he’s faced with something he cannot begin to sort out. It hurts him because there is no escape…the night will come and come again and he will still feel just as lost. Tomorrows bring no hope; the sun will shine and the earth will rotate, people will laugh for real…they’ll live, yet he will not. Not really. She knows that he doesn’t want to be saved from the hell that he’s grown accustomed to. He can’t be saved because the pain is all that’s left of him and if he loses that…. Without that desperate loneliness that haunts and threatens so strangle him, he would not exist. He doesn’t want to forget because that’s all he has left. It hurts the worst at night because that’s when the fear he feels, the weight he bares, only grows larger. She knows because she’s lived it. She’s watched him —felt him— for as long as her mind can remember, and knows what he wishes for. He won’t find the answer in books or revenge. She knows because her own soul once searched for those things, and yet, it is still scarred beyond repair. It was made into something unnatural and jagged and flawed. It hasn’t healed perfectly and so she knows what he feels at night, away from things that distract. He hurts and wishes and days and days go by without change. She knows because it’s happened to her. His eyes are drawn to hers suddenly and his gaze burns but she won’t look away. She meets his stare, unflinchingly, and tells him silently that she too wishes for things. She used to wish for avengement, for the blunt ache to leave, to be released from life altogether…. She still wishes sometimes, but now her days are filled with different thoughts, thoughts of him and dark places and a hope that together they might make the night not so unbearable. He blinks behind his glasses, his shady lashes fanning down to cover the window she’s been gazing through. “Tell me what you’re thinking.” His voice is quiet and hoarse, his mouth barely moving. She tears her eyes away from his for the first time to stare at her own hands, smudged lightly with blue ink. Her fingernails are short and square, bitten down nervously. They’re calloused and unfeminine and spattered with freckles. Her whole body trembles slightly at the question. She wants to tell him she thinks he’s killing himself. She wants to open herself up and swallow his hurt and anger away. She wants him to live. Really live. “Look at me.” He’s closer now, and she looks up to find that he’s quit his place in the corner to stand near her. A small thrill of electricity courses through her at his close proximity. She’s never understood why he affects her so, she’s always felt it and, most recently, hates the fact that he stirs her blood. “You know.” He says it like he’s just realized their souls are both irreparably damaged. Like he’s seeing her for the first time. “You know what it’s like, Ginny. You watch and know but you don’t ever say anything. Why don’t you say anything?” She bites her lip and watches as his eyes catch onto the movement. She’s surprised, at first, to hear him speak of his misery —of her own that is so much like his. “Yes, I know. I know that it hurts now, like you’re dying from the inside out, but I promise that the sting deadens over time.” His lips are white and pressed thin. His hands are shaking slightly and the urge to touch him is overwhelming. She wants to calm him, to stroke his hair like a mother and whisper sweet things in his ear. “Because of Tom,” he says, “You know because of him.” It’s not a question, so she doesn’t nod. Instead she reaches out with her lily-white hand to touch his own ink-spotted one. A bolt of something races from the contact, straight to her soft heart. It’s painful, almost like the longing she’s felt for him all these years has reached new heights. The ache is sharp and sad because she knows he hadn’t felt it. “Tell me, Ginny. When does it get better?” His plea, quiet and filled with emotion, brings the prickling of tears to her eyes. She’s struck by the look he’s giving her: he looks scared and desperate. And then she realizes that he probably is. Tugging on his arm, she silently asks him to sit, but when he does, she doesn’t let go of his hand. “It never really goes away, Harry,” she says honestly. His bottom lip trembles slightly and she watches, caught by some unknown force, as he pulls it between his teeth. He looks away —at nothing— and she knows that he’s holding himself in check. But she wants him to cry, to wail and scream; she wants him to mourn…to confide in her. “I can’t…I don’t know…” His voice is heavy with emotion as he searches for the right words. “Shh, Harry. I know. I know that you’re sick with hurt. I know that at night there’s no way to escape your own thoughts or…or the echo of ‘if only’s.’ I know that a part of you doesn’t want to be touched or saved or helped because it’s all you have left. The hurt is all you have left of him….” A wracking sob pierces the quiet suddenly, Harry’s shoulders shaking with the effort to hold it in. She can’t see his face but she knows that he’s turned away from her because he’s ashamed…embarrassed at dropping the ball. Empathetic tears are falling freely down her cheeks now as she watches him, fettered to all that the night brings. As quickly as she can, not even realizing she’s doing it, she pulls him to her and holds his head to her breast. “Oh, Harry. I’m so sorry.” His tears soak into her cotton shirt and she feels a strange sort of relief at the dampness. His breathing is harsh and irregular and punctuated with the small cries that come with weeping. Her fingers brush lightly though his hair as she whispers comforting words, though she’s not really aware of what she’s saying. Her heart, which had always been delicately susceptible when seeing others in pain, feels as though it might burst. She kisses his hair and lays her cheek against it, all the while rocking his similarly-tortured soul. “I can’t…it hurts…” he says through his tears. “It hurts so much.” “Shh. I know. I know.” “I loved him…” “I know. He loved you, too. We all love you…” …I killed him.” She holds him tighter, not shocked at his words, but feeling the sharpness of his pain.” “No! No, Harry. It’s not true. You didn’t.” She pulls his face up to meet hers, her hands on his heated cheeks, and looks him in the eye. They’re pained and swimming with tears, and she feels her heart tug uncomfortably at the sight. “That’s not true.” “It is,” he says, reminding her of a small child. “No, Harry. Please listen to me. Sirius loved you and would do anything for you. He went to save you, just as you had that night when you thought he was in danger. He didn’t die because of you, Harry. He died for you.” Harry’s eyes, she notices, grow suddenly angry and he pulls away from her grasp. “If I hadn’t been stupid enough— if I hadn’t played the hero, he would still be alive!” She matched his anger, grabbing hold of his wrist so he couldn’t turn away from her. “You went out of love, Harry —love! “Love?!” He spits the word out like a dirty curse and tries to pull his arm free, but she won’t let him go. “Love —I don’t even know what it is…let go of me, Ginny!” “No!” she shouts, yanking on his arm as if to prove that she won’t let go. “You listen to me, Harry. If you’re thick enough not to know what love is —to not know when its all around you— when its staring you in the face, then you need to have your head checked. Don’t you know? Don’t you see that we all love you, that he loved you? That I love you?” She gives his arm one more fierce pull and wipes irritably at the tears on her cheeks. “I’ve loved you forever, Harry…for no reason. I’ve ached to have you feel what I feel, to see what I see in you. I’ve loved you, Harry, even when I shouldn’t —” She pauses suddenly, as though she wasn’t aware of what she’d been saying, and drops his arm like it had burnt her skin. She looks up into his eyes and sees his stunned expression. “If you can’t see it,” she says, her voice much softer, “then you don’t deserve it.” It happens in a heartbeat, a breathless second that, even if she wants to stop it, she won’t be able to. His strong hands grip her upper arms tightly as he pulls her to him ungraciously. His mouth, warm and dark like poison, seizes her own. He’s rough and needy and demanding and there’s nothing she can do but to hold on. She can feel his emptiness, gaping and desperate for anything other than pain, and she’s afraid to pull away. He needs this, she knows, he needs to be filled with her. He can borrow her hope, her love…she doesn’t care; she only wants to take away some of his pain and give him something back in return. She will sustain him with the overpowering love and sympathies she’s always carried in her heart for him. That’s why they’re there, she realizes. The love she’s held for him, the curse she’s so desperately wanted to shake, has had a purpose: she will show Harry what love is. She will be his mainstay. He pulls away abruptly, panting, and stares at her with an open mouth. “I’m…I shouldn’t have…sorry.” He stands and she opens her mouth to tell him to stay, that she’s not sorry, but he goes. His strides are quick and long and before she knows it, he’s disappeared in the inky shadow of the dormitory stairs. She feels as though all the breath has left her body and all she can do is sit and stare. She wonders if his kiss is part of the curse she’s been dealt: only a taste of him and never anything more…. Her heart burns and aches anew with something more powerful and frightening than anything she’s ever before experienced. She wonders if he’ll ever get angry enough to do it again. The sound of someone coming down the dormitory steps makes her turn, and when she sees Harry waiting at the bottom, she stands to face him. He looks even more haunted than before, his dark eyes glittering and trained onto her. “You said that I don’t deserve to know what love is. I want to know. I want to deserve it.” His voice is calm but she can see that his hands are shaking, and in his eyes, she notices a hope that makes her knees weak. She nods and swallows. “You know what love is, Harry. You only need to learn how to accept it.” “Thank you for saying you love me. I…I’d forgotten.” “I’ll remind you any time you need it, Harry. I promise.” He smiles slightly at her words and nods. “I’d like that.” ________ A/N: Whew! What a ride. ;) Any comments are welcomed and appreciated. Jner |
| Reviews 15 |
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