A/N: First fic written in the second-person perspective! Written for:
The Flower Language Challenge, prompt: Anemone – losing faith and hope in the war.
Ashleigh's Monthly Competitions (September Competition), prompt: your first OTP (mine was Harry and Ginny).
The Ultimate Shipping Challenge Extravaganza, with Harry/Ginny.
The Scrabble Challenge, prompt: tantalising
The A-Maze-Ing Race Challenge, prompt: Harry/Ginny.
Smoky Trails
You stand on the drenched pavement with a slim cigarette wedged between your pale, long fingers, staring abstractedly into a future that will never be yours. Your feet tap an impatient rhythm into the cold, slippery stones beneath your feet while you put the cigarette to your lips. You constantly tell yourself that this will be your last one; but the waft of nicotine that manages to replace your gut-wrenching agony with a hint of oblivion is too tantalizing for you to give up. And so you look at it like you would look at an old friend, smile reproachfully and put it between your lips again, watching your thoughts dissipate in a haze of smoke.
You are just about done with your daily dose of temporary solace when you notice a pair of worn, muddy brown boots on the pavement. Your nonchalant curiosity on seeing human presence after over four hours turns to mild annoyance when you realise that you recognise the boots that are now nearly jogging towards you.
Harry.
Your eyes turn wary and your breath hitches in your throat as you look into those brilliant emerald eyes that have desperation written all over them. You lean in, an involuntary action where your body betrays your current hatred for him by reminding you of the years you spent loving him instead. Your whole body freezes, but not before he is too close to you and your nicotine-stained lips are on his, hungrily devouring what hasn't been yours for too long.
You hate admitting (even to yourself) how it burns your pride and pops your temporary bubble of happiness as he pushes you away with firm hands that still hold you by the shoulders. You compare the warmth that seeps into your aching shoulders from his calloused palms to the hazy, smoky warmth that has settled into you from the cigarettes. You decide that you'd prefer his warmth any day, but your anger has given you another variety of warmth that makes you push him away.
Your eyes blaze in anger and the loos of pure devastation on your face does nothing to quell it.
"Why would you leave me behind?" you roar, while the tears flow fast, blurring the differences between heart and mind.
"I wanted to protect you, Ginny," he replied, his words crashing around your mind like the honest lies they were.
You wonder for the millionth time if he would have lived it down had you died, which leads you to wonder how you would have been had he died. The vivid image of his stone cold body lying motionless in Voldemort's arms raises the hair on your flesh. He notices the slight shiver in your arms and warms you, rubbing your cold palms in his warm ones without a word.
You look down at the darkening pavement lit no more by the twilit skies and fight yet another eternal battle in your mind for the millionth time.
"Forgive me," he whispers into your ears, daring to cross the invisible boundary you have been keeping him outside for all these weeks. You let him touch your hands, your hair, your soul, welcoming the human warmth that your life has been lacking for months now. His hands are on your waist, and your hands stop him while a storm brews within your eyes.
"It was not your place to stop me, and then leave me behind, all alone!" you sob into his chest, holding him without allowing him to hold you.
He strokes your back and you don't see the tears that form in his eyes or hear the silent apologies he mouths to you over and over and over again.
"You're the only family I have left," he whispers brokenly. "I couldn't imagine losing you, I couldn't risk it."
The words pierce at your cracked heart, shattering it into a billion little pieces. "You should have trusted me," you whisper back, trailing smoky kissed down his jawline. He catches your cheeks in his palms, gently moving your face away from him as yours eyes widen with hurt and fear.
"Please, Ginny. Quit smoking those hideous things," he pleads, and the strange fire in his eyes and the undertones of molten iron in his voice make you want to quit.
Almost.
Instead, you put the now nearly non-existent cigarette to your lips and inhale deeply, only partially registering his deep look of hurt and betrayal before the nicotine teases your brain into a temporary state of happiness.
"I love you," you drawl, but the words sound truer than most of everything she'd been speaking lately. "But you've left me once; how do I know that you won't leave me ever again, no matter how dangerous the situation?"
His eyes beg and plead with you to just understand, but his mouth fails to answer you. "I just had to protect you," he whispers again, desperate.
"I'll make you a promise right here and now," you declare, fed up of being treated like fragile china all your life. The war had proven otherwise, and you knew just how much you were now respected as a warrior. But while your body had hardened, your mind had only weakened, and you trained yourself to live out a solo existence.
"I'll come back to you the day you promise to never leave me, ever."
He looks at you and you look at him and you both stand there in the blustery cold, each secretly longing to be enveloped in the arms of the other for what feels like an eternity before his now frozen lips finally, finally mouth the words you've been longing to hear…
I promise.
Please do leave a review on your way out - it would mean SO much to me :)