A/N: For the Duct Tape competition.
Prompt: Lips.
Pairing: Harry/Ginny.
Voldemort crumpled to the ground, a maze of cracks and crevices, looking more like a dilapidated statue than a human being. Harry turned away, wand falling from numb fingers. Let the Death Eaters take him, he thought, and bit his lip to stifle the crazed laughter that threatened to bubble forth. He'd killed the Dark Lord. It was over. But could it really be over?
"Harry? Harry! Over here!" he heard a frantic shout and turned his head, his neck creaking painfully, to see Ginny Weasley dashing toward him, her hair streaming behind her like a flag afire, her cheeks muddied with tears and dust.
He didn't feel like he could move, but it turned out that he didn't have to-Ginny thudded into him moments later, nearly knocking him over, and covering his face with tiny kisses.
"Don't you dare do that again, don't you dare," she repeated harshly, although what it was that Harry was supposed to never do again, he hadn't the faintest. Kill the Dark Lord? Well, Merlin willing, there wouldn't be another Dark Lord for quite a while, right? Surely there couldn't be another one in his lifetime?
Or was it something else? He blinked, gazing down into her worried, scrunched-up brown eyes, still glimmering with tears. ...Oh.
Don't worry her like that again, his mind helpfully supplied, and he finally had the strength to move, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her closer. She was so thin-so frail-and he could feel her heart hammering against him.
"I'm sorry," he managed to mutter, and her grip around his waist tightened. When she raised her head, he could see the pain, as vivid as a painting, and he winced.
"I thought you were dead," Ginny whispered, her voice wobbling.
"I'm not," Harry reassured her, although his visit to "King's Cross" couldn't help but haunt him, and for a moment, he was afraid to look around, afraid to find that his battle with Voldemort had been naught but the dreams of a dead man.
"Come on," Ginny insisted, unwinding herself and tugging on his hand. "Mum wants to see you-she'll be so happy-"
"Wait," Harry interrupted. Ginny stopped mid-sentence, her bottom lip trembling.
"Come here," Harry whispered, and crushed Ginny against him, capturing her lips in a desperate kiss. Her fingers raked through his hair, digging painfully into his scalp, but he couldn't summon the strength to care, too caught up in the moment, in this, in everything. The world could have fallen and burned three times over around them, but he wouldn't have noticed, focused only on the sensation of her lips against his, the slippery slide of her tongue tangling with his own. The taste of relief and sadness and Ginny, and Harry was lost.
When they finally stopped for breath, Harry realised that someone had been calling his name for quite some time now, judging by the ragged desperation in their tone, and that Ginny's name also echoed through the ash-shrouded air. They blushed and sprang apart, Ginny's cheeks colouring bright enough to rival her hair.
"Um-we should go," she muttered awkwardly, kicking at a piece of rubble and stuffing her hands in the pockets of her robes.
"Yeah," Harry replied, slightly dazed. They held hands as they walked back to the main courtyard, silent even as the sounds of mingled jubilation and sorrow drifted up to them from the main crowd.
They didn't need to speak.