The Mantelpiece
One day, twelve hours, fifteen minutes.
How long it had been since Harry had last held her hand – one day, twelve hours, fifteen minutes.
Ginny stood, leaning heavily on her cane, and crossed to the mantelpiece. She had been doing this for one day, twelve hours, fifteen minutes, if only to see his face again.
He smiled up at her from the pictures. In one, he was seventeen – she had caught him off guard with the camera. He had been sitting under the beech tree at Hogwarts, looking so peaceful, and she had taken the picture. They had kept it there for nearly eighty years.
There was a large time gap between that photograph and the next. In the next one, he was holding a squirming baby with a shock of black hair and chocolate brown eyes. Harry's eyes were alight with joy as James flailed and hit him in the nose with his arm.
It had been one day, five hours, thirteen minutes since any of her children had visited her. She wanted to believe they wanted to give her space, time to grieve for her husband, but she suspected otherwise, deep down. Her children were busy with their own lives, their own grief and sorrow. They had lost a father – and yet, she had lost a husband, a friend, a lover.
She moved along.
She had ambushed him for the next picture. He had been chasing Lily around the lake while James and Albus splashed each other (or drowned each other, depending on how they were feeling at the time). Ginny had taken the photograph and preserved the moment forever – the moment in which they had all been happy and carefree, before the winter chill set in.
One day, twelve hours, twenty minutes.
She had been busy, those last years; the next picture was of Harry, his hair graying but as untidy as ever, his glasses slightly lopsided as he grinned down at his granddaughter, who had her grandmother's beautiful red hair and her grandfather's smile.
And then there was a gap, so long that the next picture was of Harry, too weak to rise from the bed. He had been confined to it in the last weeks of his life. Ginny knew how much he hated being inactive. His blood had been restless all his years as an Auror, and perhaps all his years had finally caught up with him. Nevertheless, he was smiling at Ginny as she kissed him on the cheek, and both of them waved at the camera.
One day, twelve hours, twenty-seven minutes.
He was happy in the end, she thought. Surrounded by friends and family; Ron in his wheelchair, Hermione, whose back was always giving out, Ginny sitting beside him on the bed and holding his hand.
One day, twelve hours, twenty-seven minutes.
She would see him again.