DISCLAIMER: I don't own Harry Potter


Sometimes I can hardly tell the difference between sleeping and waking.

I go to sleep, and he is always there in my dreams, whether they are sad, happy, nostalgic, or melancholy; even though he is far away, he is near to me.

When my eyes are open and I am awake, I try to imagine that he is still there, that he is still with me, because life is a cold nightmare without him.


In the daytime, in my waking dreams, I remember him as he was when I knew him from a distance - a boy who struggled, a boy who kept his head up, a boy who was brave and somehow always found the courage to keep going, to keep fighting. I remember how I admired him, how I always looked up to him, even as I grew older and my infatuation with him faded.

I remember being envious of him as time went on; my subconscious has always been troubled, has never truly returned to normal since the experience with Tom's diary, and I sometimes feel as if my entire life from the second year onwards has been a swim upriver; always struggling, always fighting to escape the nightmares, the effects of being possessed.

But to me, he always seemed so much stronger, so much more resilient; he had a connection with Voldemort himself, and yet he never once gave into it as I did. He was a hero in my eyes for resisting, for retaining so much of himself, for not giving in.

He was Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived and the Boy Who Resisted, and I could never hope to be nearly as strong as he always was.

I wasn't close enough to him to understand how difficult his life was, that he was struggling as much as I ever had.

And then Sirius died, and I watched him begin to crumble, to lose his strong facade; I became closer to him, and he to me; we became everything to each other; and I saw into his heart.


I remember him as I came to know him, when he let me in. He was broken, he was scarred, he was in pain, he was not the hero I had always made him out to be. And something in me loved him all the more for that. He was the only person that could truly understand what had happened to me, that could comfort me more than my own family.

For a short time, he meant everything to me.


I go to sleep, and I dream of walking alone with him, and holding his hand. I dream of every memory I have of him, and it feels like a physical pain, the knowledge that I don't remember every single second we spent together.

I wake up, and it is morning again, another morning away from him, and I have only his memory and the loneliness that he left behind him, and my daydreams.


Assignment: Write about a first impression that isn't usually the last impression.

Assignment Prompts used: Song: I go to Sleep by Sia; Character: Ginny Weasley

Gringotts prompts: Title - Cruelty of my Dreams; Feelings & Emotions - Loneliness; Pairing - Harry/Ginny

Total Words: 501