Title: Echoes of Dreams
Summary: Voldemort's final curse released days after his death, quaking wizarding England. Harry's dreams were lost to the months to follow. He struggles to find new ones and rebuild in a world that's lost it's will to dream.
Pairing: H/D
Rating: R
Warning(s): angst, H/C, profanity, sex, issues of consent
Disclaimer: This piece of art or fiction is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros. Inc. No money is being made, no copyright or trademark infringement, or offense is intended. All characters depicted in sexual situations are above the age of consent.
Sitting in the shambles that might be called a room, reading crisp parchment trembling in his hands, Harry wondered just how long Ginny and he had been drifting apart.
"Harry,
Asleep, you look so peaceful, so trusting, so much the man I love but I dare say that neither one of us love enough. Here, in the dark, there is truth greater then our embers of love.
It's the dark that truly gets to you, isn't it? It's the dark that drives truth from your lips, and what a bitter truth it is. Desperate echoing pleas haunt you, hunt you, and take you places you'd never speak aloud in the light of day. I've watched you dream these many nights, I know you sense me. I've heard you gasp his name, "Draco." I have heard the echoes of "Dean" upon my lips as well; it is long past time for us to part. Tomorrow, Harry. Tomorrow we grasp the hands of night and follow our own dreams.
Love always,
Ginny"
Tears threatened, sobbing breaths constricted his chest but he knew, he knew, she was right. If she hadn't been, anger surely would have followed instead of this sick empty feeling. It was the same feeling he'd felt upon seeing Grimmauld Place after Voldemort's quake, the same which had followed when the last Malfoy walked away from court and into Azkaban. It was the feeling that something was missing, something that nothing else could make right, the death of yet another dream. Summoning a quill, he penned the words he wished he'd never had to write:
"Gin,
You're braver than I am; I don't think I could walk away from this… from us. I understand, I don't like it but I understand it. With space, with distance, we may yet be friends again despite or perhaps because of this.
Best of luck following your dreams Gin, mine have already departed.
Sincerely,
Harry"
He watched it wing away in the claws of Twiggend, his new owl, and wondered what other unhappy little surprises awaited him. Breakup before breakfast? Who knew what lunch would hold, he thought bitterly. Hopefully Neville won't have too many surprises; he was supposed to be looking for suitable gardens for purchase after all and short of the Forbidden Forest, there wasn't all that much out there that he would object to. Sighing softly, he stretched and headed towards the shower. Time to face another day.