I'll never forgive myself. I keep thinking, if only I had been quicker she might be all right today. If only I had done something more to save her. When I think back though, I can't think of anything more I could have done, this doesn't, however, help my conscience much. There is always something more you can do.
That day, the last time I saw her like she was before, we were rushing outside to meet him, him and his deatheaters.
"Good luck," she said before swiftly kissing me, "I love you."
"I love you too," I had told her as I ran down to meet him.
Once, during our duel, I chanced a look back at her. She was laughing as she fired spell after spell at her opponent. Laughing as she flirted with death and danced with pain. Finally, I finished him off. I looked around, the death eaters were mostly dead, but so were a lot of our people. I peered through the fighting frantically, but it wasn't hard to see where she was.
Across the field, figures in black cloaks, floating unnaturally above the ground, surrounded her. As I raced towards her, I saw she was no longer laughing. Instead, she concentrated on the white wisps coming out of her wand, willing for them to take shape and save her.
"Expecto patronum!" I shouted, but I knew the stag wouldn't get there in time.
You see, if the last one who kissed her couldn't be me, but at least had been human, I would have been heartbroken, but I would have gotten over it, even if he had stolen her heart. But it wasn't her heart the dementors were after, it was her soul.
"Ginny!" I screamed as I almost flew over the land between us, "Ginny, don't leave me!"
I had already seen Hermione and Ron fall and not get up. I couldn't stand losing another person I loved. So when I got to her, shaking her shoulders, as if it might bring her back, it's no small wonder I didn't notice the deatheater sneaking up behind me. I did, however, hear those last words, before the end, "Avaka kedavra!"
Ghosts stay behind because of unfinished business, and that's what I did. And when Ginny gets old and dies, leaving her cursed half-life behind, I'll follow her to the next life and beyond.
They say the best die young, and it's true in this case, because that's what Ginny, the real Ginny, did, the day I fought Lord Voldemort.