Title: The Numbness of Life

Author: Anya

Rating: R

Disclaimer: Once more, everyone! I. Don't. Own. ANYTHING.

Summery: Ginny reflects on her life with Harry and the life 
she leads. This is all in Ginny's POV. Seven years after 
her graduation from Hogwarts. Ginny is 25, Harry and the 
others are 26. 

***********************************************************

	His eyes are so different than I remember them being 
when we first met. I remember exactly how they looked the 
first time I saw him, but they were colder, not as experienced, 
and they certainly held none of the emotions I now see in 
them, all directed at me...

	But I'm getting ahead of myself. This isn't the 
boy I knew from Hogwarts. He is very different. So are all 
of the others I knew. But how could I have ever seen this? 
How could I have predicted that everything I dreamed of 
when I was a young girl in Hogwarts, the love, the want, 
everything that I ever wanted with Harry would ever come 
true?

	But then again, how could I ever guess it would 
all come crashing down as well?.....


	I feel his lips on mine again, moving gently but 
urgently and I can tell that he needs this kiss. This isn't 
just some casual sex to him anymore, its something so much 
more. And I can't lie either. 

	Harry is a wonderful husband and I've loved him 
very much. Loved. I don't know if it's even possible for 
me to any longer. I cannot love someone who is never around 
to be loved. I remember when he first asked me out. When 
he first kissed me. When he finally asked me to marry him 
on my graduation day, one year after his. Ron was so happy. 
Hermione and he had already been married only a month after 
their own graduation, unable to wait. It wasn't hard to 
imagine the tremenous amount of love they had for each other. 
Their four children show that. And as i've heard it, Hermione 
is again expecting another one to add to the family. 

	And I know I'm jealous. I'm jealous of what she 
has that I know might never be mine. Harry and I haven't 
even tried, in eight years, we haven't even tried once. 
He always remembers the conception reduction spell to make 
sure that I dont get pregnant. But I'm not that young any 
longer. I want children. Watching Ron have a family has 
made me want one even more than ever, but Harry is hardly 
ever around to love me, let alone love a child. And I don't 
think he's going to be happy when he finds out that I am 
pregnant, after all this time. And if that isn't bad enough 
to make him upset, the fact that it's not his should
......


	I guess I should explain. Almost a year and a half 
ago was when I saw him again. It wasn't hard to see that 
he was different. He didn't even try to insult me or my 
husband or my former family name. His hair was all shaggy 
and grown, unkept and dirty. His clothes were completely 
messed up and he was sitting in a bar that I frequently 
went into for an afterwork drink, drowning himself in a bottle 
of Oden's Firewhiskey. He didn't even notice i'd sat beside 
him for nearly ten minutes before he turned to look at me. 
His eyes were so blank then, so empty and tired. I remember 
when he first said my name. Not 'Weasley' or 
'Weaslett'. 
He called me Ginny. The first time i'd ever heard him say 
my name...

	We talked for nearly an hour before I had to get 
home else Harry start to worry about me. Not that he himself 
wasn't home till another three hours later that night. We'd 
agreed to meet there, so we did, everyday after my work 
got off and talked for hours. 

	I don't even remember how it started. I just remember 
kissing him and then being somewhere i'd never been before. 
His home, a small apartment just outside London. It had 
been the most wonderful sex i'd ever had. Thats all it was 
though. Sex. 

	Harry was a wonderful lover, don't get me wrong 
but everything with him wasn't about the emotions any longer, 
it was simply about getting to the end, finishing what we 
were there to do.

	But with this man, it was different. He needed this. 
He needed me. Harry never did. He never needed anything 
or anyone, I was just there. I'm not even sure anymore if he 
really loved me...if he did, I don't think it was very strong. 
He settled. And now I believe that I settled as well.

	
	I look up at him and see him smile gently as he 
moves into me, a soft groan escaping his lips as he fills 
me with himself. His eyes never close though. They watch 
me. They are always watching me. He leans down and kisses 
me deeply before moving his mouth to my neck. 

	I don't know where the tears come from, but I'm 
crying, my head turned away, silent tears falling onto the 
pillow we've shared for over a year now. I don't let him 
see them, but he knows they are there. He's asked me about 
them before, but I only stay quiet and look away. I don't 
talk much anymore. Nothing to say.

	The tears are tears I've never cried before. Maybe 
they are tears of loss, of knowing that one day, im going 
to have to lose one of the two men I love. I'm going to lose 
things I've wanted all my life. Or maybe they are tears 
of the loss I bare of my emotions. I cry but I never feel 
it. Never actually feel the emotion that comes with it. 
I feel so empty sometimes, but then I look into his eyes, 
run my fingers through his hair and think that maybe there 
is a reason that it took so long, that all of this is happening, 
that everything in my life is falling apart...

	
	I look up to meet his eyes again, letting him see 
the tears clearly this one time, watching as his brow furrows,
 confused before kissing my eyes, moving deeper, finding 
his release, my own following not long behind.
	
	We are lying here, my head on his chest and I can feel 
his hand moving slowly up and down the bareness of the skin on 
my back. And I look up at him once more to stare into his face. 
To see the bright blond shocks of his hair, ragged and long, but 
tamer than before, his sad face, no smile no frown. And his 
eyes, his deep blue eyes that look at me with something 
I dont think i've ever cared to see before. 

	I'm not sure how it happened, but now I know. I love 
him. And he loves me. It's not a love that you know from 
fairy tales or stories. It's not true love. It's a love 
that could not be stopped, a love that in the end will destroy 
us. A love that isn't meant to be, but cannot be helped.

	But life will not let me deny the love that I now 
hold for the man before me. So now here I lie, staring at 
the door and at the man that is now standing in the doorway, 
a shocked expression on his face before it goes cold and 
emotionless like my own. Draco is still stroking my back 
and I know by the pause that he saw Harry in the doorway. 

	This...is where hell begins, this is where everything 
changes. And it is now that I wonder just where everything 
went so wrong...


FIN