Ginny slammed her hands down either side of the basin, tilting her head up slowly to look herself in the eye. She didn't recognise herself, those purple bags didn't belong under her eyes, and those crinkles in her forehead looked unfamiliar, even though she saw them every day. There wasn't a spell that could fix the toll all of these years had taken on her. The hate in her eyes scared her; they were harsh and dead looking; lacking their original sparkle. She wasn't human anymore, she didn't feel.
She reached for her make-up bag, not that it would make a huge amount of difference. Her hands shook as she clumsily applied her mascara and the cheap muggle concealer she dotted underneath her eyes barely made a difference. "Gin?" a man leaned against the door frame, his strong, masculine arms folded smoothly across his chest, deep green eyes fixed on hers. "This isn't you,"
"You left me." She mumbled, quickly looking back towards her pitiful reflection in the mirror. "You left and you didn't come back."
"I'm here aren't I?" he padded across the cold tiled floor and placed his hands on her fragile waist, letting his head rest on her shoulder. "I'm here now." He whispered into her hair.
"It's not the same." She watched his reflection, trying to keep her hands still, but they stubbornly refused. "I can't do this." Her breaths were short and shallow and her voice squeaked in an effort to remain even. "Go away." She managed to choke out before the tears began to stream down her face.
"I don't…" he began, and then rethought his words "Can't you feel this?" he breathed into her neck.
"No." she wiped her cheeks with the sleeve of her cardigan "I can't feel you at all, you aren't here." Ginny turned to face her beloved, watery eyes firmly meeting his "You're just in my head, I'm the only thing keeping you here, and I can't feel you at all." She tore herself away from his image and ran for the door, but he suddenly appeared, blocking her way. "Let me go Harry, I'm late for work." She fixed her eyes just over his shoulder, refusing to make eye contact with her past.
"You don't care about work, you never have." His mouth twitched into a small smile "You once took three weeks off, told them you were having your tonsils removed." She broke into a grin,
"Should've seen Jacksons face when he turned up at the flat with those ghastly yellow flowers, to hear me singing my heart out to the killers in the shower, priceless." She giggled, and then quickly covered her mouth with her hand in shock. She hadn't laughed in three whole weeks.
"Miss Atomic Bomb…" he began to sing under his breath "making out we got the radio on…" he stopped, waiting for her to continue. She met his eyes once more,
"You're gonna miss me when I'm gone…" she hesitantly began "You're gonna miss me when I'm gone…"
"Racing Shadows in the moonlight, through the desert on a hot night,"
"And for a second there we'd won, yeah we were innocent and young…" he carefully took her hand, stroking her thumb with his.
"How does it feel?" he murmured
"Numb." She stated.
"And your heart?" he enquired
"The same." He leaned forwards and kissed her. If you'd asked her afterwards she would swear she'd imagined it, but for those few seconds she could feel his breath on her skin, warm and familiar.
And then he was gone, her hand was empty, but her heart ached a little less.