The battlefield is quiet. Deadly quiet. She is crawling on hands and knees through the wreckage. The grass is still wet with blood.

The blank faces around her are too familiar. Friends and enemies alike.

She sees her brother. His stomach is bleeding from a gaping wound. She chokes on tears. He is clinging to Hermione's dead body. She leans and kisses his forehead. He opens his mouth to speak as breath leaves his body. She cries as she continues on her way.

Draco Malfoy is sobbing on his knees in front of the corpse of his father. He doesn't even glance up as she passes.

Finally, she reaches her destination. She stops and lets her eyes roam over the still body of Harry Potter. His glasses are broken, the lenses shattered. Dried blood is on his cracked lips. Tears have cleared paths through the dirt and ash on his cheeks.

She places a hand over his heart. The hand that wears the golden band inset with a tiny sapphire. She tries to imagine that there is a pulse beating beneath her fingers.

She cries and chokes on her own vomit. Her broken ribs ache as she sobs. She lays her head on his shoulder and closes her eyes.

She is woken by the sensation of lips against her skin. Her eyes flutter open. She stares into a pair of brilliant green eyes. Her heart jumps into her throat.

"Harry." she whispers through tears. "You weren't breathing. I was so scared."

He strokes her hair. "Everything is okay now, Gin. Everything is okay now."

It is so white here. She thinks she must have reached heaven.

"Ginny," a voice says. She looks around and sees the worn face of her mother.

And then it hits her. This isn't heaven. It's a hospital.

"Ginny, honey, you're finally awake. How do you feel?"

She glances around the room "Where is he?"

"Where is who?"

"Harry," she replies weakly. "Have they moved him? Maybe to another ward?"

But one look at her mother's face tells her they haven't moved him anywhere. And in her whole sixteen years, she has never felt this empty.

"Mommy," she sobs. "He's not here, is he?"

Molly Weasley's eyes flood with tears. Her daughter's posture changes. She is now sinking, too weak to hold herself upright. Molly wraps her arms around her as the tears begin to fall.

"He wasn't supposed to die," the girl whispers as her tears soak her mother's shirt.

"No," the woman agrees. "He wasn't supposed to. But no one ever is."

fin