TITLE: The Plague of the Moonflower
AUTHOR: Zmedlebum
RATING: PG
GENRE: Drama/Angst
SHIP: Harry/Ginny
WORD COUNT: 3,202 Part Two
SUMMARY: Magic can levitate feathers and hide great big castles from prying Muggle eyes, but it cannot save a dying girl when she has so much to live for. Prequel to Silverwater, although it can be read as a stand alone.
WARNINGS: Character death
DISCLAIMER: Harry Potter and co. belong to JK Rowling. No money is being made from this.

PART II

The three of you stand outside her bedroom door. Ron places a hand on the doorknob, turns it slowly, peeks inside before he nods his head. The three of you finally step inside. You feel as though you are being transported to another dimension. The three of you keep your voices low; you are entering the room of a dying person after all.

Inside the room, everyone is a silent as the soft evening breeze outside. The Weasleys crowd around her bed, so all you can see is a mass of tall, lanky bodies with shocks of bright, red hair. They conceal her from view and it isn't until Ron clears his throat that their heads turn to him. When their eyes lay on you, they part like the Red Sea ... and you see her for the first time.

She isn't how you remember her, isn't she? Her face is sickly pale. Her hair used to be so bright as well. It used to stand out from the rest, much like Ginny herself.

Her hair is not so bright anymore. It's lost all its luminosity, it is almost brown. The last time you saw her, just before she was sent home, she was suffering but she still smiled. Where is that smile now?

You creep to the side of her bed and sit beside her. Hermione and Ron join you. Bill heads to his mother on the other side of the bed and grasps her hand in his.

You can't bear to look at Mrs Weasley, because she is such a wreck. She hasn't been looking after herself lately. Her hair is limp and it hangs over her face. Her eyes, once warm and cheerful now look empty, devoid of life.

Ginny is right in front of you, but you are baffled. You ask yourself, what do I do? You don't want to touch her, because you fear that she might break. But she shouldn't break, right? She never has before. Why should she break now?

But she's dying, Harry. The Muggle doctors said that there is no hope for her anymore. The only thing you can do now is wait for that moment.

"Harry," Hermione whispers in your ear. "If you need to get out, just say the word and I'll take you to the kitchen."

"No, I should be fine."

Finally, you stroke Ginny's hair with one hand as Hermione holds the other. You keep doing this until Ginny's eyelids flutter open. A surge of warmth fills you as she turns her head to look up at your face.

"Ginny," you say quietly. You continue to stroke her limp hair. "It's me."

She doesn't speak. Her eyes say it all. I haven't seen you in a while. You've lost a bit of weight, Harry. Not to worry, Mum'll put you right.

Ginny doesn't say much, but that content look on her face tells you that she is glad you are there by her side. She is glad that she is surrounded by friends, her parents and her six older brothers, who stand around the bed like they are guarding her palace.

Hours pass and you remain by her side the whole time, stroking her hair. Hermione rests her head on your shoulder and grabs Ron's hand while the other is still held tightly in yours.

Ginny is sleeping peacefully this time, until her eyes suddenly fly open and she gasps in staggered breaths.

"Ssshhh ..." Mrs Weasley unintentionally bats your hand away and proceeds to stroke her hair in its place. "Darling, it's okay. Ssshh ... take it easy. Relax. I love you."

"It hurts," she gasps. Her words are so soft you can barely hear them.

You have a sickening feeling that the time is coming and you wish at this very moment that her time of death will be postponed for just one more day. You're simply not ready for this. Not now anyway.

"Harry ..." she says.

You wriggle free from Hermione's grip and place one hand on her forehead and the other on her abdomen. "Ginny, it's all right. I'm here."

She doesn't say anything to you, because she struggles to speak. Whenever she speaks, the energy ebbs away from her body and she needs to conserve as much as she can.

Suddenly the hand you hold in yours twitches a little. With all the physical strength she can muster, Ginny twists your palm so it faces upwards, and traces a shaky love heart on it, followed by a 'U'.

I love you.

You try to tell her that you love her too but the words simply refuse to budge.

I lo-

I love-

I-

You can't say it and you don't know why. You do love her, right?

Ginny breathes in once more and then closes her eyes. She doesn't open them again.

That's it.

It takes four seconds before Mrs Weasley's cries of anguish cut through the air like butter. It is like a knife going through your heart. Bill holds his mother in his embrace and she buries her face into her eldest son's shoulder.

A million things happen at once. Mr Weasley places a hand on his wife's shoulder as she sobs. Charlie does the same. Fred and George bow their heads simultaneously. Percy, standing apart from the rest of the family is motionless, but you know better. The Healer, who had been called from St Mungo's to look after Ginny until her last breath, also bows his head. In the midst of the family's grief, he does the only thing he really can do: he packs away his potions.

Soon afterwards, you feel Ron's hand on your shoulder, a light, warm hand. You turn around and see his grief-stricken face.

"I can't believe it," he says solemnly. The tears are spilling down his cheeks now, leaving a trail that glistens in the candlelight. You want nothing more that to turn away. You don't want to see Ron cry. Ron never cries.

By now, Hermione's eyes are already bloodshot.

While stroking your hair with one hand, Hermione squeezes Ron's hand a little tighter. He pulls out a chair from somewhere and sits in between the two of you, causing Hermione to stop.

"Harry," he says tentatively.

You look into his eyes and see the grief there. You don't say anything, but Ron understands anyway.

He nods his head solemnly and then asks if you can move out of the way. "I need to do what needs to be done," said he. "She needs her rest, after all this time."

Ron grabs the white sheet that had been keeping Ginny warm while she was alive. But just before he places it over her lifeless face, Bill and Charlie carry their mother out of the room as she screams even louder. She refuses to leave, but Bill insists that she must. Mrs. Weasley wants to run over to Ginny and shake her alive, so Bill and Charlie decide that she must be escorted out of the room immediately.

You can see where she was coming from. If Ron places the sheet over her face, they will be confirming what they had been denying this whole time; Ginny has lost her short battle with cancer. After everything, even after the Chamber of Secrets ordeal when she was eleven, this is how she leaves the world.

Ron goes to cover Ginny's face entirely before you stop him. He steps aside, standing besides Hermione, watching you, wondering what it is that you are going to do next.

You want to say goodbye, but you can't. A part of you refuses to believe she is dead. You finally lean over and kiss her on the forehead. Even though she can't physically hear you, you whisper in her ear, "I'll see you soon."

Then you pull the covers over her face.

The aftermath of the ordeal is painful. You and Hermione sit together in the living room, cradling cups of tea in your hands. Ron sits on the floor in between the two of you. You are silent and at the moment you are straining you ears to listen to Mr and Mrs Weasley in the next kitchen.

"I don't know what to do, Arthur," says Mrs Weasley. You can hear a distant clatter of pots and pans.

"Don't do anything at the moment, my dear," you hear Mr Weasley reply. "You need to sit down and rest. We'll sort this out in a moment. Stop cooking, my dear. Sit down and rest."

How can Mr Weasley be so calm? You ponder this to yourself as the tea cup trembles in your grip. Hermione sees this and liberates the cup from your hands.

"Is there anything you want to say at the moment?" she asks, addressing the both of you. You shake your heads.

"When you're ready, just let it all out."

That's the thing. You don't know if you'll ever be ready.

"We have to Owl Neville," Ron says out of the blue. "But I don't want to. He'll be devastated."

"Do that later," Hermione tells him. "Right now, just concentrate on getting your thoughts together."

What thoughts? You want to berate Hermione, to the point that she'll probably have to slap you silly, but you're not quite sure what for, really. You just want an opportunity to let all this rage come out, but right now it is inappropriate, not with what just happened.

After a few more minutes of painful silence, Ron gets up from the floor and turns to you.

"What do you want to do now?" he asks.

"What do you mean?" you reply through a constricted throat.

"I mean, do you want to stay here, or do you want to go back home? I'd like you to stay here but ... I don't know ..."

"I don't know either," you reply. You actually want to go to St Mungo's and search for Ginny's bo- ... Search for Ginny. You want to see her one more time but that is most certainly out of the question. Never in their wildest dreams would Mr. and Mrs. Weasley allow that.

It seems as though Hermione has made a decision for you.

"He can come back to my house," she tells Ron. "You are welcome to come back too, but I'd imagine you'd want to stay here."

Ron sighs and scans his surroundings, and your eyes follow suit. You see Mr and Mrs Weasley in the kitchen, talking. Mrs Weasley is doing the dishes. You see Fred and George just outside the front door, doing who knows what. Percy is by the bookshelf, just sitting there looking out into space and Bill and Charlie are in the kitchen also, talking amongst themselves. It seems as though they don't know how to cope with the situation and Ron is under the impression that he must stay and glue his family back together again. He must do this by himself, but this time this will be hard. This time the Weasley jigsaw puzzle will one piece short.

You want to give Ron his privacy and let him grieve by himself, so you want to get out of here as fast as you can.

Luckily, it seems as though Hermione can read your mind. She tugs you from the couch and pulls you in an upright position. Before the two of you depart, Ron runs to you and embraces you like a brother, afraid to let go.

"I'll Owl you, okay?"

You are back in the Grangers' dining room again. You are cradling yet another cup of hot tea and once again it trembles in your grip. Hermione is occupying herself in the kitchen, making one cup of tea after another. That is ridiculous, you think. There is only the two of us. Why is she making five cups in all?

When she opens the refrigerator to retrieve the milk, you spy a slab of chocolate cake out of the corner of your eyes. You look at it for a while, and just as Hermione shuts the refrigerator door, she catches you in the act.

She freezes. Her heart rate speeds up before she shuts the door with one soft thud. She regains composure, opens the door once again and in quick succession, she grabs the cake from the fridge and plops it on the kitchen counter.

All the blood drains from your face when you see the words that have been iced onto the cake: Happy 18th Birthday, Harry.

You stare at Hermione in disbelief as she struggles to find the right words to say. "I - uh - it is your birthday after all and ..."

She trails off and you are also finding it difficult to find the right words to say at the moment, so you don't say a thing. The only words that come out of your mouth are, "Thank you."

Hermione sighed sadly and ran her fingers through her bushy hair. "Well, I gather you're not in the mood for cake."

That was all she had to say just to make you snap.

"Oh, you really think so?"

You shoot daggers into her eyes and hope that they bore into her forehead. To you, that has to be the most inappropriate comment she can make at the moment. However, your anger immediately turns to sorrow when you see her smack a small palm onto her forehead. She shakes her head in disappointment. The volcano is finally going to erupt.

"Look," she snaps tiredly. You are unnerved by the idea that she reminds you of Ginny right there, right now. "There really is no need to take that tone with me. I didn't do anything wrong."

"Just leave me alone, please," you plead.

You need some space. You need time alone to think. But she isn't going to give it to you, I'm afraid.

"Harry, you can't keep doing this to yourself for the rest of your life. You need to talk to me. Talk to me now before it's too late."

She wasn't much for subtlety, wasn't she?

"Hermione, please," you plead one more time, "just leave me be."

"Harry..."

"I said leave me alone!"

The two of you remain silent, before Hermione approaches you and wipes the tears from your face. You flinch at the touch, you don't even notice the tears that are falling, but you let her do it anyway.

Feeling guilty while trying to gather your thoughts at the same time, you head to the Grangers' living room, sit yourself down and bury your face in your hands. "I'm sorry, Hermione," you mutter. "I really am, please don't be angry."

Hermione walks slowly to your side and embraces you. All the grief threatens to spill out into the open, but you repress them yet again. "Sssshhh ... and thankyou."

She doesn't dare to ask you if you still want cake.

Suddenly, you rise from the couch and walk away from her.

You broke your promise to Ginny. You had promised her indirectly that you were going to save her, that everything was going to be all right in the end. You didn't know how you were going to do this exactly but you believed that it was possible. But now you've failed.

Well, you're not God, Harry.

You walk to the opposite wall and just stare at it for a while. You look at pictures on the wall, pictures of Hermione as a child, beaming at the camera with her mother and father on both sides.

Hermione wanted to pull you aside and extract every bad thought that was going through your mind at the moment when you say, "I wanted to save her. She's not coming back, isn't she?"

Hermione is baffled. She has never seen you this distraught at all. You've managed to hide your emotions in the pass with great success. She doesn't know what to say. At the moment it seems as though every word she says might be poison to your system.

"Hermione, I want her back."

"Harry, I'm really sorry. I really am. I'm sorry for your loss. I'm sorry for the Weasleys-."

"I have to be alone."

You walk back into the dining room, head bowed, hands in pockets and shoulders slumped. You have been defeated once and for all, so you do the only thing imaginable. You spy a cupboard out of the corner of your eye. A cupboard under the stairs. You once lived in a cupboard, didn't you? You hated it, but it was your only source of protection from the Dursleys. The Dursleys couldn't reach you there.

You wonder what Hermione's cupboard is like.

She suddenly realises what you are about to do. She lunges for you and tries to pull you back before you can do anything. She's too late. You're inside her cupboard now. You shut the door and cast a locking charm.

"Harry!" She bangs on the cupboard door with the balls of her fists. "Get out of there. This is NOT how we're going to do this. Come out and talk to me. This isn't like you. I can easily unlock this you know-."

"Don't you dare!"

"Then get out of there!"

"Leave me alone!"

"I'm not leaving you alone!"

With one swift Alohamora, Hermione unlocks the cupboard, only to have you push her out and lock it again.

Hermione no longer tries to coax you out of her cupboard anymore. Instead, she leans up against the wall beside it, sinks to the floor and sobs uncontrollably. She doesn't want to give up on you, but you've given up on yourself. It isn't like her to cry so much and so openly. You've really fucked up this time, Harry.

Leave me alone. It's a childish and egocentric request and that is what you got in the end. Hermione sobs outside, hoping you will come out, but she is leaving you alone. And now you realise you don't like being alone at all.

Every teardrop inside you is finally being shed. You do not cry as loudly as Hermione, but the heartache is there. There are tears for you mum and dad, tears for Cedric, tears for Sirius, tears for Kingsley, Mad-Eye Moody and the Longbottoms, who finally died last week due to health complications ... and tears for Tom Riddle, because he is a lost cause ... and tears for Ginny.

You know what you should have done? You should have known better. Everyone told you to fight, to train yourself for battle, but Dumbledore didn't want you to. Dumbledore didn't want you to destroy Voldemort, not at this present moment. You shouldn't have listened to that barmy old cockface. You should have risen to the occasion. You should have stopped Lord Voldemort. That way, Karma can't get back at you for being a coward.

Oh poor you, you're so confused. You took her for granted. Now that she's dead, it's all your fault. You should be feeling guilty for being unsure in the first place. You should have -

"SHUT UP!"

... Are you telling me to shut up, Harry?

THE END

A/N: I hope you liked it. Please review.