One Touch

Just something I was thinking about today, and wrote up in about a half hour. A quick oneshot, based on the words I ended it with, really. Set in Book Seven sometime, and I'll be weirded out if it turns out to be true. Let's just hope it doesn't have to happen!

Hope you enjoy, and can't wait for Deathly Hallows!

Ginny sat in a dank corner deep in the attic. The silence around her was oppressing, and she felt as if she even took a loud breath, it would collapse in upon her and drown her in its nothingness.

So she cried in silence instead.

The tears made no sound as they fell from her eyes, traveled down her cheeks, and dripped, one by one, into the open hands held in her lap. There was no stopping them, and she had no desire to try anyways. Her long auburn hair, straggly and unclean, hid her face from the darkness beside her, over her, beneath her – in her.

The war had taken so many, so many of her family, her friends. But the deaths of the twins – whom she had learned so much from, had had such great times with, had admired and loved so much – it hit her hard. How could she stand not seeing their identical, grinning faces ever again? Never hear their infectious laughter bursting out at something especially hilarious, most likely of their own making? Why did the world have to lose that – lose them?

As she let the teardrops fall, she couldn't see them. She stared at nothing, became numb, because the hurt – well, it hurt too much. And so she saw nothing but emptiness, because seeing a world without her brothers was not a world she wanted to see. She heard nothing but echoes of memories, so faded that they were like distant broken records playing in another room.

It was this way that Harry found her.

He had been searching for her since it had had happened, knew how close she had been to Fred and George… knew how much she would hurt.

He stood in the doorway, looking quietly at his love. Her once vibrant red hair that had announced her presence a mile away was now dull and lifeless, wishing only to blend in with the shadows. He walked over to her, calling her name softly.

"Ginny…"

But she couldn't hear him.

Harry knelt in front of her and looked into her brown eyes that continued to stare at her hands. Those brown eyes had once been so full of mischief, of warmth, of love. Now they held nothing, not even despair. Her eyes looked like the dirt that covered her brother's resting places – cold and unfeeling, covering what was beneath.

She couldn't see him.

He sat down beside the one girl he loved with all of his heart. Ever so softly, he reached out and brought his arm around her, and held her close.

With a shuddering sob that sounded as though it would tear her in two, Ginny turned and clutched Harry's shirt, ripping small holes in it in an effort to hold on, and poured out all of her tears into his shoulder. She unleashed all of her soul, her torment, her loss, her aching, into those tears. Harry absorbed each of them for her, took away her pain as each watery droplet disappeared into the fabric of his shirt. He held her for a long time, as though time meant nothing and he would like nothing more than to hold her and give her his warmth.

She didn't know how long it was until she stopped crying, didn't care. All that mattered was this one moment, this one heartbeat that she was in Harry's arms. She leaned her head, soaked with teardrops, over his chest and listened as his heart beat in time with her own. Her heart was his to cherish, and his heart was hers to love. That was what mattered. This one moment, this one heartbeat.

After they lay together for a long time, she turned her face to his. Softly, so quietly that even someone standing right in front of them could not have heard it, she whispered, "Why did you hold me?"

He caressed her face with one finger, like the touch of a butterfly. "Sometimes, you can't hear anything. There's nothing to hear. And sometimes, you can't see anything. Because there's nothing to see." He paused and brushed away a stray tear. "But if you can still feel…" He smiled softly and kissed her. The lightest kiss, that held so much in the whispers of touch it brought. Against her lips, he murmured. "If you can still feel, then you know you're okay."

And there in his arms, safely protected from all the world and its troubles in his warm embrace, she knew -

She was okay.