Disclaimer – I do not own Harry Potter nor will I ever.

Author Notes – I wrote this some time ago but felt like that there was something lacking. I found it again when I started going over all my old files, edited it a bit and then finalised it.

This is supposed to be my version of the scene where Harry breaks up with Ginny to hunt down the Horcruxes. Hope you'll like it!

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To Live Without Being Alive

"What is the point in living if you can not feel alive?"

– author unknown

She did not have to ask him why he was there. She already knew.

His feet shuffled on the ground, his hands clenched and unclenched and his eyes flickered, looking everywhere but at her. His unruly raven locks moved in the wind, falling in to his eyes and around his face, but he did not try to pull it away. He was hiding, thinking his hair could shield him from the world. She knew that too. Sometimes, she thought she knew him all too well.

"Ginny," he started, and she closed her eyes hard, wishing that she might be wrong, that the words he was about to speak was not the ones she thought. For once, maybe she did not have to know him so well.

But he continued and she felt her heart skip a beat before it broke.

"We can't do this."

How she hated it. How she hated him. How could he, with so few words, try to end something so big? She knew he felt it too, felt the connection between them that was growing stronger by every single second that ticked by, so how could he try to put an end to it?

But she knew that too, knew all the reasons that plagued his mind and crippled his heart, and if she was honest with herself she would admit that those reasons were a part of why she loved him. For how could you not love someone that always tried to put your well being before his?

"I'm sorry, but it's for your own good."

Yes, she knew he thought that and she would always blame his relatives for that. He had never really understood what it meant to be loved and to love someone in return, and so he tried his best although he sometimes came out short. He had a bigger heart then anybody else she knew; loved harder, fiercer, then anyone she had ever met, but even those who love that strongly can not always do it right.

"You're not safe with me. Everyone around me is a target," he said, and finally his eyes met hers and the desperation in them was so blinding she almost looked away.

His eyes were what had made her fall from the beginning. Even before she had know he was Harry Potter, The-Boy-Who-Lived, she had seen those eyes on a shy and awkward boy and all she had wanted was to drown in them. She had not understood it at the time, but now she did. Those deep emerald eyes that had always shone with passion, had always had a wish in them for something more, someone more. And if you looked in to them for too long you would lose yourself in them. Sometimes she wondered if it would really be so bad.

"I'm . . . I'm sorry," he ended, uncertain, as his eyes flickered away again and her hand moved out to grab his before he had time to move away from her. Had time to leave her.

"No," she said, her voice strong. "Don't."

Her thumb moved in gentle circles over his hand as she tried to meet his eyes again, but he kept staring fixedly at the ground. He feared her, just like he feared himself and his will to surrender to her. They both knew that.

"Please, don't do this," she continued, her voice still clear but her heart starting to doubt. "You can't leave me."

"It's for your own good," he answers, his voice barely a whisper and his face in shadow. He does not see the first tear making a silent path down her cheek.

"How can you say that?" she wants to scream but ends up whispering. "How can it be for my own good to lose you?"

She sees the breath catch in his throat, sees the doubt in all of his posture, and wished that she somehow made it through to him. But she knows it is too late. The battle was lost before she even knew it had begun.

"I'm sorry," he whispers again as her world falls apart, leaving nothing but emptiness behind.

And all she wants is to pull him close and never let go, to feel his warm and strong body wrap around hers, feel their bodies melt together, but all she feels is his hand slowly pulling out of hers; his life leading away from her.

The battle was lost long before she knew it had begun and she wondered how blind she could have been to have mist it.

In the end he walks away, his back the last thing she sees of him, because although her heart wants to scream after him, beg him to stay, her voice does not respond and her knees shake so hard she can not move. She loves him and he loves her, and that makes the pain so hard to bear that she does not know if she can stand it.

And even though she knows him so well she wonders if he has understood what he has done. For how can he expect her to live without him when he is the reason she feels alive?