When he wakes, he forgets the dream. Still, something in his daily life recalls that feeling of the fruitless quest, of seeking endlessly without capture. Flashes of it intrude at odd moments, and he is overcome with a familiar sensation, without knowing why.
The Burrow is quiet and subdued, the way it was never meant to be. Celestina does not sing out from the wireless. The pots and rolling pin stay hidden in the cupboard, and the usual constant hum of conversation is gone. It's like living underwater, or in the moment after a Sonorus is removed, when the listener's ears hum and sounds don't register.
He comes around for dinner and eats whatever cobbled-together food is being served to the family, but the place doesn't feel like the Burrow he remembers. When he tries to catch Ginny's eye, she only looks at her plate and never at him. He wants to touch her, but he can tell she doesn't want it. His fists are clenched in his lap, fingers aching from the strain of holding them still.
After dinner, the house is still weirdly silent. Harry wonders if he is expected to sit with Ron in the sitting room, not really talking about anything. Instead, he steps out the back door into the garden, where the sun has just set and the sky is a pale twilight purple. The grass has been allowed to grow and the gnomes are running wild, and everything looks a little unreal in the pale light and long shadows.
Ginny is standing under a tree at the back of the garden with her back to the house. She is in deep shadow, the sky's fading light screened by the tree. Harry can barely make out her outline from the forest beyond. After a moment, his vision adjusts and he can see that she is standing with one hand at her side, and one resting against the trunk of the tree. Her head is bowed and her shoulders are shaking, but Harry hears no sound from her, as if she's under a silencing spell.
He wants to go to her, but he knows this is not the time. Instead, he watches her for a moment, knowing it is a moment he will remember forever: the lengthening shadows of evening, the overgrown garden and the gnomes' laughter, and Ginny in the midst of it, standing still in the low light and consumed by her grief.
The moment is only that, and it lasts no longer. It is like a snitch that hovers in view for a moment and then disappears. But Harry is a good Seeker, and he knows that the snitch never leaves the field of play. As long as he keeps seeking, he will catch it one day. Now may not be the time for them, but their time will come, and when it does he'll be there with an outstretched hand.