"You do know how bad that is for you, right?" Katie asks from beside me as I put my cigarette out in the ashtray sitting beside my bed as her body, covered by nothing but a thin sheet and illuminated only by the moonlight that streams in through the open window--I keep it open almost all year round, because otherwise it would probably start to look like China in here.
"Yeah.. I started in school. Anxiety disorder. It makes the panic attacks stop, and by the time I finally got medication, I was already addicted," I say, telling her way more than she probably wants to know or cares, but whatever. I make excuses for all my unhealthy habits. Like having Katie Bell, who would've been a famous Quidditch player if not for the fact that in the middle of the a war where Harry Potter was the most wanted Wizard in all of England and anybody with ties to him, or anybody who knows anybody with ties to him knows better than to show their faces in public, let alone play international Quidditch, as a fuck buddy, or girlfriend, or whatever the hell we are.
She doesn't say anything, and wraps her arms around my waist and kisses my neck.
"And besides, by the looks of things, I'm going to die either way, aren't I?" I say, chuckling a bit as I lean back against her.
"Hermione," She starts, and I can feel her body tensing against mine through the sheets. I roll over and look at her, her hand resting much closer to my breast than my waist now.
"Well, I am," I tell her, smiling as I say it before I lean up and kiss her, soft and light, the kind of kiss you give somebody who you don't absolutely hate after you've just had sex that ranks up in your top five best ever list. It's depressing, but it's the truth. What with every witch and wizard who's ever said more than "Hello," to anybody Voldemort's looking for disappearing and turning up at the bottom of a well or something, it's something that somebody who is, or used to be one of his best friends just has to accept. It's easier than you'd think, actually.
She lets herself fall back into silence again as she rests her forehead against mine, her hands absently twisted around in my hair.
I think, every now and then, that I might actually be safer if I were on the run with Harry and Ron, sleeping in the woods and searching for horcruxes. But honestly, as selfish as it sounds, I couldn't bring myself to leave Ginny behind, to go all those months without hearing a single thing from her.
It is selfish, actually, because she was killed five weeks and two days ago. And I don't have anybody to blame except myself, honestly.
And you must be thinking, "What on Earth are you doing sleeping with Katie Bell if the girl of your dreams was just murdered?" and to tell the truth, I can't give an answer to that because I really don't have one. At all. I guess I just deal with some things better than others.
I mean, I cried when I found out. I cried for days and wouldn't leave my flat and smoked pack after pack of Marlboro 100's and drank bottles of wine and talked to her even though I knew perfectly well that she couldn't hear me. She'd never hear me.
And then I just disconnected. I was going to say that I let go, but that wouldn't be right, because I haven't.
I haven't let go at all.
I focus on Katie, who's still looking at me. She bites her lip, and then, in a very rare moment of vulnerability, tells me, "Please don't leave me," And under normal circumstances, she'd be saying something like that because we were dating and we were on the rocks or something, but considering, I'm pretty sure she's asking me not to get myself killed.
She's asking me not to get myself killed.
I try to smile again, tell her that I'm not going anywhere, even though I'm pretty sure I probably am, but she grips my wrist with the hand that used to be on my waist, and I watch as she bites her lip again, obviously trying not to cry.
"Hey, I'm not going anywhere, I'm really not," I tell her, kissing her forehead softly. "Promise,"
Again, she falls silent for another few moments, tracing shapes onto my wrist, before she asks, "Do you miss her?"
I don't turn away, but I let my eyes wander around the room and fix them on something, anything but her. "I guess. But then it's like, what's the point, it's not bringing her back," I admit, in a rare moment of vulnerability of my own.
"Would you miss me?"
I have no idea what to say to that. I really don't. So I just keep laying there and try not to make eye contact as she slowly loosens her grip on my arm.
"Because I'd miss you," She continues, before she just stops dead and the look on her face changes completely, and she pulls away from me completely. Physically, she stays in place, but emotionally, she's gone again.
More silence, save for the clock as it strikes three am.
I'm realizing just how freaking loud silence can be as she plays with my fingers under the sheets for what feels like hours, until the clock strikes three thirty.
"I love you," She says simply. I look up at her, trying to find some trace of the emotion that her words seem to have left behind in her face, but there's nothing.
I have no idea what to say to that, so I lean up and kiss her again, smiling.
"When this is all over, we should get a place together," I have no idea what this is coming from, but that's okay, because she smiles back at me, so I smile back and continue, "And we'll plant a ton of flowers everywhere and we'll do this every night and.." I trail off and just stare at her for a few more moments.
"You make me happy," I finish, looking away self consciously as I feel myself blush in spite of myself. It's true, though, she does, and in the world we're living in, all anybody can really ask for is a little more happiness.
Ginny was the love of my life. I can say that completely confidently, and I know that it'll never change. I'll never change my mind and I'll miss her forever, I'll chase her shadows down city streets before I realize that where she is now, nobody casts a shadow. I'll sit up at night with my eyes closed until I hear her voice, and I'll forget that it's all in my head.
A little happiness never hurt anybody though. It's not like I'm doing something wrong, wanting to be happy. I think I've been hurt enough. I think I deserve a break.
It must be good enough for her, because she smiles, really smiles, and I can feel it through her whole body when her face lights up. I never said I loved her too, but happiness must be enough for her, too.
"That'd be really nice, miss Granger," She says, pulling me closer to her as she drifts off to sleep.
The next time I woke up, I marveled at how incredibly translucent I was, and wondered who that girl under me with the exact same hair and scar on the back of her shoulder was.
--
Well that was depressing.
I feel like writing depressing things. Dx
Odd pairing, I know, but I wrote them in Sink, Burn Burn, Sink, and I actually really liked them together. I wasn't really expecting this to be the way this story turned out--it just sort of wrote itself, and I went along with it.