A/N: I haven't written for days, after the election, but I finally found words to fit some of the feelings that have been suffocating me these past several days. And, being me, I translated them into a Harry Potter fanfic - though not my usual drarry. This one is about Harry and Ginny, learning to live and let go, and finding a quiet peace.

Harry woke alone in their rented room, fingers searching blindly across the empty expanse of the bed for Ginny. The sheets were cold; the warmth of her body already leached away. He fumbled for his glasses, tugged his worn jeans and jumper on, ran a hand through his sleep-tousled hair. He glanced at the clock by the bed. It was early, still.

Her shoes were by the door, where she'd kicked them off the night before; the quilt was missing from the end of the bed. Frowning, he shoved his glasses up his nose, bleary eyes catching on the sliding door, left open, curtain billowing gently in the breeze.

He slipped his feet into his shoes, stepped out into the morning, shivering, jolted into wakefulness, and then took the jagged stair down the face of the cliff, instinct drawing him toward the sea. He watched his footing carefully, feeling every one of his half-healed war injuries protesting as he navigated the steps carved into the sandy cliff.

They had been eroded, worn down by wind and rain, and the logs forming each step were slick and treacherous. They were deeper, he guessed, than when they'd been put in, originally, uncomfortably steep. Each step jarred his aching knee, and he winced, clutching at the splintery handrail. Some of the steps were gone completely, washed away in some long-past storm, and he jumped awkwardly down, grimacing as he thought of having to clamber back up.

The crashing surf grew louder as he descended, filling his ears with a constant pulsing roar. Scraggly plants he couldn't identify clung to the cliff face; tiny pink flowers bloomed impossibly, defiantly, in the sandy soil. A gull soared past him, crying mournfully, and he stopped to watch it fold its wings and dive, then climb back into the air. He turned his head, tracking its path across the low-hanging clouds and out over the churning sea, colorless and dotted with foam.

He followed the tracks leading off across the sand, nodding to an older couple as they materialized suddenly, out of the fog, shapeless under layers of coats the indescribable color of the sea and sand around them. The man whistled, once, the sound carrying eerily in the creeping fog, and a shaggy black dog bounded over the sand to his side, shaking droplets of water into the air. The man raised his hand to Harry and the three of them faded back into the mist.

He picked his way forward, skirting a patch of kelp, dark green and vaguely gelatinous, and stinking of fish and decay. Tiny purple crabs scuttled away from his worn trainers. He bent down, suddenly, spying something winking gold at the water's edge and chasing it without thinking. He ran his thumb over the oddly smooth stone, not gold, he saw now, but yellow-amber and glassy. He hefted it, testing its weight, and then slipped it into his pocket. A pelican skimmed low across the water in front of him, scooped up a fish in its beak and took to the air once more. The gull wheeled and dove, cries echoing in the mist.

Craggy rocks thrust from the water like jagged black teeth; the surf rushed over them, around them, flinging spray into the air. A flash of color caught his eye, a deep blue-green, and he stared down into the shallow pool, wondering at the gently waving fronds of an anemone. He'd seen a picture of one, in the brochure for this place, that Hermione had waved in his face, instructing him to get away, salvage his fractured relationship, his will to live. The photo hadn't done it justice. He moved on, following the siren-song of the sea and the fading path of footprints gleaming darkly on the gray sand.

He rounded another hulking rock and nearly stumbled into Ginny, as she stood silent and unmoving at the water's edge, staring out to sea, eyes distant, unreadable. The wind changed, suddenly, whipping her brilliant hair out behind her like a banner, impossibly bright in this gray, colorless world. Harry's breath caught in his throat as he watched it dance, watched a ray of sun pierce the fog and turn her hair to flame.

She shivered, drew the patchwork quilt close about her bare shoulders, and turned to him. Her lips smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes; they looked past him, at the sea, and he knew.

"You're leaving."

It wasn't a question, not really. He'd known this was coming, he supposed. This trip had been their last attempt at connecting, in this strange new world they found themselves in, now that the war was over. Now that they no longer had to fight, they didn't know quite what to do with themselves. Sometime in that last year they'd spent apart, they'd both grown up.

Her eyes focused on him, finally, and her smile grew sad. "You're not surprised."

"No."

She nodded, accepting it, much like he'd accepted that he'd already lost her. After all he'd been through, this fizzling of their childhood romance didn't seem as tragic as he'd once thought it would.

"What will you do?"

He shrugged, the corners of his mouth tugging up. It felt foreign, that smile, and slid quickly off his face. He'd forgotten how to smile, it seemed; he'd somehow failed to notice.

"Learn to live, I suppose. You?"

She sighed, slumping against him. He slung an arm around her shoulder, letting her familiar scent wash over him, mingling with the smell of salt on the breeze.

"The same. It's not going to be easy, is it?"

They stood together, staring out at the storm-tossed sea as it rushed in and retreated, flecked with foam. The breeze lashed strands of Ginny's hair across both their cheeks, damp from the clinging fog and tasting of salt. Gulls wheeled against the leaden sky; a flock of geese soared overhead, honking. Orange and purple starfish clung to the rocks, unexpected jolts of color in the desolate landscape. Silvery fish darted in the shallows, racing the waves to shore and back out. Sea-grass waved amid hulks of driftwood on the sand. A whale breached in the distance, startling them, and was gone with a quiet flip of its tail. A seal bobbed close to shore, watching them with curious eyes. Tiny shorebirds danced along the water's edge.

Harry laughed, breathy and uneven, feeling the bitterness he'd carried for so long fall away as he watched the ceaseless, uncaring sea, feeling a quiet peace well up to replace it, borne in on the encroaching tide.

"No. But, then, nothing worth doing ever is."