I'm so rusty; don't go easy on me.
—
She dreams about them every night – her only love and his beautiful sister. It starts the same and it ends the same, but not tonight.
Tonight, Harry is there. And just as the light drains out of Ginny's eyes, suddenly his hands are on her. His mouth.
—
She wakes up then, her clothes damp with sweat.
A tingling between her legs, one she hasn't felt in ages. One she never expected to feel again.
A naughty dream about Harry? What would Ron think about that?
Ron doesn't get a vote.
She has so much anger there, right below the surface, waiting.
One spark is all it would take for everything to go down in flames.
—
She slips into the office quietly, eyes on the floor.
If you can't see them, they can't see you. Ron told her that once. Half-joke, half-Quidditch strategy.
She closes her eyes and there he is. His voice is sweet and inviting, and she remembers exactly how his lips would taste. The way he looks at her…
She snatches the memory back, tosses it deep down into the far away part of her brain, and instead thrusts another one in its place so she can remember herself.
He's dying in her arms now. He's doing the one thing he promised he would never do. He's leaving her.
She will mourn him forever, but she will hate him for so much longer.
—
Sometimes, something so forbidden can become enticing.
—
She looks at Harry across the office one day and finds him staring back. She doesn't look at him after that. Can't afford to.
She once wondered how it must have felt for Severus to look into Harry's eyes and see only Lily staring back at him. Or if Remus had ever looked over his shoulder and thought for just a moment that it was James, not Harry, walking in the other direction.
But now, she wonders if anyone could be so lucky. When she thinks of Ron, she remembers eyes that aren't the right shade of blue, and a face with lines in all the wrong places. She tries to remember what it was like when they made love, but it always morphs into her dream, morphs into fucking, morphs into Harry.
—
They go out to celebrate a coworker's promotion, and she manages to avoid him all night, to always stay on the other end of the bar.
She can feel his eyes on her. Concern and confusion, and maybe a little temptation of his own. She's had too much to drink and everything feels a bit, well, sexual.
He's coming toward her and it is time to leave. She takes off toward the door but before she makes it, his hand closes around her wrist: a spark.
She ignites.
—
He's drunk. So is she. It's not an excuse (there is no excuse), it just is what it is.
—
They have sex; it isn't great.
Probably because they have to keep reminding themselves to focus, to remember who they're with. She doesn't trust herself to say the right name; she bites her tongue.
She knows he is doing this as well, and it is as honest and as real as a relationship can be for either of them now.
And so what if Ron and Ginny wouldn't like it?
Dead people can't vote.
—
Sometime in the night, Harry rolls over and wraps his arms around her.
Gin, he breathes, and it is only in sleep that he could be so vulnerable, that he could make such a slip-up.
She kisses him on the forehead and pulls him close. Yeah, love, she says. It's Ginny. I'm here.
That is what they do for each other.
—