A/N: Partially inspired by Lover's Eyes by Mumford & Sons. No copyright infringement intended.
Ginny lies curled in her bed in Gryffindor tower. She's alone – all of the other girls have long since gone home. The war is over, and most families have wounded to care for or dead to mourn. She does as well, but she cannot bear to grieve with her family. She cannot bear their grief because she feels complicit in the cause.
There was a time, not as far past as many would think, that she was well and truly happy. Whenever she was with him, her eyes would soften, her lips curve into a smile as she walked into his embrace. There were some who said that their love wasn't real, and that it was a mere fiction created by a powerful dose of Amortentia. She denied it. After all, wouldn't she have stopped loving him by now if that was true?
They had thought that somehow, love would conquer all. After all, if the magic of love had saved Harry's life on several occasions, how could it fail in so trivial a situation? A tear ran down her dirty cheek as she reflected on how wrong they had been.
It is always the innocent who are the greatest victims of war. They had both been innocents, even still. And together they were able to forget the corruption of the world. But the forgetting had been a willing blindness, an oblivion rather than reality. She should have known that the world would not let them be.
Harry had picked her up and spun her around, when everything was over, giddy with relief that he had won. He had kissed her, and she had responded woodenly, numb beneath his tongue. She caught a flash of grey eyes as he put her down, and had fled to hide in her dormitory, curled as she was now.
Ginny stifles a hopeless sob, thinking about him. From the first moments when they had sat shoulder to shoulder in the Room of Requirement, both hiding from who they were supposed to be; to the last, when he had crumpled before her, never to rise again.
"Don't ask me what price I'd pay," he yells, pale skin mottled with anger, "I'm risking everything for this, Ginny! I'd give my own life if I thought it would make you safe!"
"I know!" she screams back at him, tears falling unchecked down her cheeks, "Merlin, I know!" She chokes on her tears and he rushes to her side, anger forgotten.
"There's nothing more we can do," he whispers into her hair, "We'll die if we try to fight this war here."
"It's killing me though," she whispers back, "Every time the first years come to me with scars and nightmares. Every time I think about what my family is going through. Every time I watch Neville stand against the curses, wondering if he'll go mad like his parents. It's killing me."
She doesn't say anything, even though she knows what he's just done. His blonde hair lies limp against his gaunt cheeks, and his eyes are shadowed. This war is killing them both. She just goes to him, as she always does, and holds him as he cries. She knows what he is. She cannot love him for that. But for everything else, for everything he was and everything he could have been? Her heart loves that man and grieves that he has been reduced to this.
"Are you drunk?" she asks angrily, storming into his room.
He is drunk, sitting in his chair with his shirt unbuttoned and a bottle of whiskey in his hand.
"You cursed me," he says bitterly, "You fought me."
She goes to him then, kneels beside him. "I will always be what I am," she replies, voice trembling and breaking, "I will always fight what you have become."
"Do you love me, Gin?"
"Always."
She stumbles through the dust and devastation, trying to get back to her family. Fred is dead, but she thinks the rest are still alive. Curses are flying everywhere, and she's hurt, but she keeps walking. Before her, the dust clears and there are Death Eaters ahead. She sees three, and they're talking. There is no one around to help her, and they've spotted her. Ginny raises her wand, knowing that it will be her last stand.
"Get over here," yells one to someone out of sight. She aims a curse at them, but they block it easily.
He walks around the corner and sees her. It has come to this. She is defenseless, hurt, outmanned. He is being ordered to kill her.
She sees his hesitation and drops to her knees.
"Well, well," he sneers, his voice hard and cruel, "A Weasley."
She hears him come closer and closer, feels his hands on her shoulders. They are strangely gentle for a moment before they pull her roughly upright.
Their eyes meet. "Remember me, Gin," he whispers roughly, tears in his voice, "You're the only one who will. Forget the evil I've done and try to remember this one bit of good."
She opens her mouth, but he levels his wand at her. He is still putting on a show, buying them time.
"I love you," he whispers, and turns on the Death Eaters. They aren't expecting it, and he manages to dispatch two before the third rallies.
Ginny raises her wand once more, and begins cursing the man, but it is too late. Even as her curse draws the wall down onto the Death Eater, he has fallen.
There is no time to mourn as she fights for her life, but she refuses to run from his side. She defends his body from all until at last the battle ends, and she crumples over him.
Luna finds her, guides her back to her family. She doesn't understand, but she is willing to let Ginny keep her secrets. She is the one who distracts everyone when Ginny makes her escape.
It is nearly a year later. Her family worries – despite Harry's victory, Ginny seems to be trying to drink herself into an early grave. She screams in the night and doesn't come home half the time, disappearing for days at a time.
Harry finds her one day in a seedy bar in Knockturn Alley. He grabs her by the arm and drags her away.
"Are you trying to kill yourself, Ginny?" he asks. For the first time, he is angry with her, and his anger breaks the walls she has built. In a flood of tears, she tells him the whole story, overcome with guilt and grief.
Harry doesn't say anything, he just holds her. Even after everything, he is still Harry. He still loves her.
"Come on, Gin. There's something we need to do."
He takes them to the gates of Hogwarts, to the war graves cemetery. All students who died during the last year are buried there; regardless of what side they took. He helps her find the right grave. It is out of the way, under a tree at the back. There is no inscription except his name. Neither of his parents had survived either, and no one had been left to remember him.
She raised a trembling hand to the stone and whispered the charm. Beneath her palm, words engraved themselves in the stone.
Draco Lucius Malfoy
1980 – 1998
In diligimus peccata oblita
"In love, our sins are forgotten," whispers Ginny, palm still pressed against the cold stone. They stay that way for a while, Harry standing back from the grave. Eventually, he goes to her and raises her gently to her feet.
She smiles weakly at him. "Thank you, Harry."
They walk slowly back out the gates arm in arm, and Ginny reflects that perhaps even though Draco's story has ended, hers may have a few chapters yet to unfold.