Swing By

The chiming of the clock outside rang into the still morning; 4 am, closing time, but Angelina didn't turn around. She rested her elbows on the back counter and took her time eying her options; she wanted something strongly alcoholic, for sure, but expensive, and classy. She settled on gold mead and poured herself a large glass. If there was ever anything good that came out of working at this place it was all the free drinks and lavish tips.

"We'll take another round."

The three men that had settled in by the bar still hadn't left. "We're closed now." Her hip was leaning against the counter as she took a long sip of mead.

The man in the middle—who was at least forty—looked up at her with glassy eyes. "Say girlie, don't I know you from somewhere?"

Angelina rolled her eyes. "Sure you do. That's why I don't go there anymore." She downed the rest of the glass and set it down on the counter.

He chuckled and his friend elbowed him. "See I toldja, she had her eye on me." He grinned and started to droop to one side. "Go on, sweetheart, ask me out."

Angelina took the few steps from the counter to the front, her hips swaying seductively. "Alright." She leaned forward slightly and the man smirked. "Get out."

She gave herself another drink, and a bit later, after the other man fell off his chair, they left—but not before one of them tipped a bag of galleons into her dress and playfully squeezed her ass. She was used to it by now. Seventy galleons was well worth another ten minutes of her time.

She had just unzipped her dress to fish out the last of the galleons when the bell on the door sounded lightly. "Sorry but we're—"

She stood still, her dress falling from her front, spilling gold onto the counter, and mouth slightly open. Angelina Johnson does not fall speechless. But she couldn't quite believe it. Her eyes were still reeling with shock, when she regained speech.

"—closed." She was still staring.

He looked exactly the same as she remembered. Hair messy and falling on his forehead. Finely defined features softened by a sprinkle of freckles. And those beautiful eyes; amber turning gold in the light. But it was his smile she remembered best. The kind of smile that could stop the rain.

She only wished she remembered it as it was; but it was the kind of perfection that loses definition in memory.

"You didn't tell me you were coming." Her voice was tight.

He smiled and sat opposite her. "I thought I'd just swing by."

"Thank you." Her throat was constricted, and she wasn't sure she could ever breathe right again. "For coming to see me."

His eyes registered her sadness, but his smile hadn't faltered and it had now shifted to his trademark teasing grin. "So this is what you do now, Angel?"

Angelina didn't look at him as she zipped up her dress, suddenly very much self conscious—she was never like this before. But of course, he was never here. "It's temporary." She lied. To be honest she wasn't sure what she wanted to do with her life—why people were allowed to live such pointless lives while others were condemned to an eternity beneath the land.

"It clearly pays well." He teased, tossing a galleon into the air and catching it in his fingertips.

She watched the light change colors in his eyes. He had the kind of eyes you could lose yourself in forever. She thought she'd have forever for that.

He tossed the galleon again, and it slid down her chest into her dress, shaking her from momentary reverie. "Hey!" But she was laughing because you could never get mad at him.

"You never admitted that I have good aim." He grinned playfully and picked up another galleon and flicked it with his fingers. It landed neatly across the room into an empty glass on the far end table. "You were always afraid the world would collapse if you weren't the best."

She cringed. It made her sound like such an awful person. "That's because you had terrible aim before."

"Yeah right." He smiled and hopped onto the counter. He seemed to be radiating a soft light and floating on its rays. "So, tell me about your life."

Angelina smiled as if she were trying to be modest about the opulence in her life. "Well, it's great. You know Ali and I are living in a flat together." She was thinking about the life she would have wanted—what they all would have wanted, if they'd made it out whole. "She's a Healer now, she's really good, too. She works in the Emergency ward—that's where they have the best Healers—it's amazing, the way she can save people." She thought Ali would have liked that, if she'd ever made it out of the Emergency ward in the first place. She was always trying to help.

"Did she and Charlie ever get together? I think she was the only person he liked more than dragons." He grinned.

Angelina made herself laugh. "Yeah, she did. Charlie comes back every other weekend to see her and she's thinking about transferring from St. Mungo's to Romania to be with him." She didn't mention the ordeal with Dolohov, and the way he liked to exterminate mudbloods. As the image of her body nailed to the wall resurfaced, she changed subjects. "Oh, Katie and Oliver got together."

"Really? I always thought she'd go for someone more handsome and worldly and lively."

"Yeah, I did too," But it's hard to be lively when you're lying in a box under the earth. "But she's good for him. He's crazy for her and they're having a great time. I think someday she'll convince him to just fly off as far as they can and a couple months later they'll come back engaged and pregnant."

He laughed. "That's Katie, alright."

"George is doing great too." How many times had she used the word great? "Lee's helping out—he's been fantastic—and they're having the time of their lives. They just opened last month in Ireland and Paris."

"Wow. I always thought the French would be uptight and humorless." He was envisioning it, and his eyes glimmered.

"Are you kidding?" Her voice wasn't her own. "You remember how it's always been; George can joke away storm clouds." Well, the ones that weren't hanging over his head, anyways.

He grinned. "So listen, there's something I gotta know."

Angelina sat up on the counter beside him but didn't look at him as she mentally prepared for what she thought she'd never have to explain to anyone in coherent words. "Shoot."

"Who did it end up being?" His eyes still shined the way they used to. "I always thought it was going to be Lee. Or, what's the guy's name… the hotshot Ravenclaw… Roger Davies! Yeah, him. Well, no, not really. It was Lee, wasn't it?"

Angelina managed to smile in spite of herself. It was the least she could do, to play along the tagline for as long as he was willing to laugh it off. "No, it wasn't Davies, for sure."

"Aha!" He snapped his fingers. "I knew it. Lee is crazy about you, but you knew that, of course."

"I did." She laced her fingers behind her knees and turned to look into his beautiful eyes. "But it wasn't him."

"Oh?" He raised his eyebrows and regarded her with his liquid amber eyes. The light in his eyes danced teasingly.

"No." She shook her head, unable to understand. He looked so carefree and happy, as if they were just joking around or playing it off cool—except he was so sincere, and that was something that she remembered having to look for in him. Not that he was dishonest, but that you remembered his laughter and your inside jokes together, not the rare heart-to-heart honesty she couldn't bring herself to think about.

"Well don't keep me waiting!" He playfully elbowed her, but she didn't feel it. The breaking dawn cast orange light in through the windows and as it fell on him his figure looked opaque.

"You couldn't tell?" She teased, more than slightly disappointed. After all, it had always been hinted at, an understanding that others conveyed in their admiring looks.

He smiled brilliantly, but the gleam in his eyes didn't give anything away.

"I mean it was always, always," She looked right into his eyes, trying so hard to look into his soul and find recognition. He was much better at hiding than she could ever be. "George." She smiled sunnily. "Couldn't you tell?"

He smiled his cute lopsided grin that he only smiled sometimes. "George. That sexy bastard."

She laughed and rolled her eyes. It was just like old times in that moment.

"I'm not sure I believe he'd ever have let you do this." He gestured grandly at the bar. The light of the rising sun streaming in through the windows cast sad shadows and illuminated the real darkness.

"He didn't." Angelina admitted.

"Oh."

"I did."

"Why?"

Was he really asking her? "I guess I just… forgot who I was."

He must have sensed her sadness, but he put his arm around her as he'd always done—in her mind it had always marked her as his girl. She couldn't feel him now, just a warm emptiness.

"You know, before, we all had these hopes and dreams. We were so bright and bubbly and full of energy. We were young—and people say that we still are, but we're not—I'm not. I don't feel whole, I don't feel safe, I don't even know myself when I look in the mirror. I know I used to be talented, I could've been a Quidditch player, a Healer, an Auror, I could've been anything, but now I'm just—"

She stopped herself from finishing that sentence. Her eyes were stinging, so she stared up at the ceiling and blinked rapidly until she felt the tears retreat back inside her eyes. She'd never cried before him and now was certainly no time to start.

He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, but she couldn't feel a damn thing but pain. She reached to hold him tight, and had nothing to hold onto. The tears spilled down her cheeks and she buried her face in his chest, yearning for the warmth, the smell of him—anything that would remind her how real it had all been.

But that was the thing.

"I've been waiting for you for so long." Her voice was broken and she bit down on her lip.

"Why?" He didn't understand.

"Because I love you. I love you. It's always been you and it always will be—I can't… without you I just can't… I—" She wished she could hold onto him. he squeezed her hand, but it wasn't there.

"Listen, Angel, you're going to be fine." He said softly, the light of dawn blazing into her stinging eyes. Her vision must have been going hazy, because he was starting to dissolve into the light.

She reached her other hand to hold onto him. "I don't want to be fine, I just want you to stay." Her hand was on his arm, she could see her fingers wrinkling the fabric of his shirt, but she couldn't feel it. "Stay with me, please."

He looked at her with a sudden sadness. "I can't, Angel." His hand touched her cheek to brush away the tears, but they were still there and he wouldn't be. "I can't stay. I'm just swinging by."

She held onto his hand, trying to imagine the feeling of his skin on hers, and finding that it was another one of those moments of pure happiness that she could no longer remember. "When do you have to go?"

He was fading fast. The light was coming through and around him and she could make only make out his blazing hair and beautiful eyes and those lips she never kissed and never would. "Soon."

"Where are you going?" How could he leave now?

He didn't say, because she knew well, even if she couldn't say.

She looked into his face and saw now that she wasn't looking at the boy she'd remembered; the bright light softened his features and glowed right through him. All her life she'd belonged to him and she'd been waiting, hoping, dreaming of the moment she'd know he believed in them too.

"Angel," His voice sounded far away. "Remember when we danced?"

If she concentrated very hard, she could barely see him. "At the ball, of course." She could picture, exactly, their last dance. Her head on his chest, feeling his heart beat in unison with hers. But she couldn't remember the touch of his hand or the feel of his breath on her cheek.

"Let's dance again, before I have to go." He hopped off the counter and extended his hand.

Angelina took his hand. She was now taller than that night, and when she laid her head on his chest, it was more against his shoulder. She couldn't feel his heart beat either way, only the pulsating heat of light. There wasn't any music, but he hummed the song and the tears fell silently as she danced in the empty air.

Goodbye.

He didn't say it; she didn't, but she felt it. A new kind of emptiness and sorrow that would never be fulfilled. And a strange, sad peace fell upon her. He would not come back again.

But she kept dancing, and hoping that when he got to heaven he'd remember his Angel.

Please review, and let me know what you think. It's my first oneshot :) Personally, I think this is so much better than anything I've written before, probably because I haven't written in a long time.