Disclaimer: We all know its JKR's and not mine.

Author's Note: So this part took me forever. Witness the pause in updating. I think it went through about seven different incarnations. I hope the final one meets with your approval.

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It took her a moment, in waking, to realize that it wasn't still night, that the darkness was not the world's, but her own, to understand that the bed was not her luxurious Gryffindor four-poster, but the stark infirmary cots. Even as her mind reassembled these few hard truths, she became aware of the pieces that were missing from the picture.

"Titus . . ." Even as she groaned the name, reaching out with her feet to end of the bed where he had sat sentry, she knew he was gone, but . . . she wasn't alone. The Slytherin's overly large, almost dangerous presence had been replaced by a far quieter, safer one.

"Hello." Neville murmured, causing Ginny to turn her head in the direction of his voice. "You're awake. Th-that's good."

"How long have I been asleep?"

"Just the night, it's eleven now."

She'd been reaching toward the sound of his voice as he spoke, expecting to feel his hand answering hers at any moment, but it didn't come, leaving her grasping at air. Disconcerted, she drew her arm back to her body, curling her fingers into a small fist. "Neville?"

"I can get Titus if you want." He offered, his voice laced with hurt and betrayal, and she realized how he must have interpreted the name on her lips.

"Neville--"

"I think he has transfiguration right now, but after--"

"Stop being an idiot. I don't want Titus. I want you."

"You called out for him." He pointed out quietly.

"Because he had been here during the night, and he wasn't here anymore."

"He snuck back in?"

"Luna disillusioned him, so he appointed himself the night guard."

"She never told me she could do a disillusionment charm." He grumbled, "If I'd have known I would have come. I- I wanted to stay."

"I know." This time his hand met hers when she extended it. "But I'd rather have you now when I'm awake. You have to sleep sometime and last night you needed to . . ."

Her voice trailed off as another fact slipped back into her seemingly, infinitely fractured mind, and it bothered her how long this one thing had taken to work its way into place. "Harry . . . did Harry come?"

She had her response in the way his hand tensed in hers, in his whispered, "I'm sorry."

Cruel was the only word for it, because despite her self-righteous indignation earlier in the semester, despite the momentary bought of independence that had caused her to burn Harry's first letter, when the numbers on their D.A. galleons had changed, all her resolved had melted. She'd waited anxiously by the Gryffindor fireplace for the sight of his face, for the few brief instructions he'd given, and ever since then she'd been hanging on equally anxiously for his next scheduled visit.

So it was cruel, so incredibly cruel that after all this time of missing him, of wanting to speak with him for only a moment, of waiting for her chance, when it had come, she'd be struck down, prevented from seeing or hearing or speaking with him by the very thing that had brought him to her again. Of course he hadn't really come for her, that would have been frivolous, reckless to the extreme, and Harry had put aside recklessness since Dumbledore's death, put it aside in favor of calculating efficiency.

No, Harry had not come for her. He had come for answers, for the secrets that lay within his nemesis's writings, convinced that clues to where Snape might be, how Snape might think, lay in reading everything the former potions master had written, and so they had been charged with trying to obtain access to those few items still left in Slughorn's office. Journals the old potions teacher was not even supposed to have, McGonogall having confiscated and examined every other possession of her former colleague. But these had been potions specific notebooks, too valuable to Slughorn in their innovations and insights for the ambitious old man to relinquish just because they happened to be written by the wizard who had committed the most notorious murder since that of James and Lily Potter.

Still, she had been anticipating the moment of conveying those much sought after secrets, of seeing his countenance shine with admiration at her daring, and of this time stealing a kiss without regard for how the flames might singe her hair.

And he had come. He had come, and she had been here, and it had been Neville he'd talked to, Neville who'd had to admit their failure and her injury. She could just imagine how horrified Harry would have been, how he'd berate himself for putting her in danger, and it occurred to her that he might have berated Neville, too.

Strangely enough, it was that thought which caused her to burst into tears.

Ginny had never been a delicate girl, no matter what her brothers might have thought, and in keeping with this she was not a delicate crier. In fact, if Neville's currently frozen body was anything go by, she was quite a frightening one.

"For Merlin's-sake, Neville," she gasped out between sobs, "don't just sit there, hold me!"

A brief war seemed to take place inside her friend, as he weighed which option he found more terrifying—disobeying her command or obeying it and actually holding her. Apparently disobeying her proved the more frightening prospect, and the bed shifted with his weight, as calloused hands, which she knew from memory had dirt under the fingernails, drew her into an awkward, fumbling, and not terribly comfortable embrace.

But it was an embrace all the same, different from the one the she wanted—too long arms cradling her in the crook of a too high shoulder—yet somehow it was what she needed at that moment. Shifting against him, bringing a steady hand up to calm his trembling ones, granting him permission to comfort, provided a kind of comfort in itself, a kind of control over her world that she lacked all too often.

They stayed that way for what seemed like seconds and days simultaneously. Neville holding her as she cried out all her frustration, all her loneliness, Neville stroking her hair as her sobs quieted into the occasional sniffle, Neville shifting her body to lie across his chest when his right arm fell asleep. And although it was only Neville's timid friendly kiss on her forehead, rather Harry's sweet lips on hers, she felt less lonely than she had in a long time.

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Three days passed before they spoke of Harry again.

The intermittent days in the infirmary were frightening—too many voices, too many reassurances, too many hours lost to sleep. But with the slow improvement in her sight came an easing of the tension as it became apparent that indeed all of her vision would return, so that now as she sat cross-legged on the bed with Neville inventorying the numerous presents she had received, her smile was pure and untroubled even though all her eyes could distinguish was light and shadow.

"There are Bertie Bott's and a whole pack of Drooble's and chocolate fro—whoops!"

Ginny laughed in delight as she felt the little charmed piece of chocolate slip through her fingers and Neville's long body go flying across the bed after it. She was still laughing as he came back, and carefully placed the candy back in her hands, covering them with his own to keep it trapped.

And then she wasn't laughing at all.

It struck her how much sharper everything seemed without sight, little things she would never notice—the feel of large, calloused hands swallowing her own; the smell of earth and flowers—and she realized that she couldn't remember one single scent or feel or sound to associate with Harry, but now these would forever remind her of Neville.

And at that thought Ginny pulled her hands away, and Neville moved from the bed to the chair beside it.

It was the movement that told her, he had felt it, too, that one split-second when their hands had been doing more than trapping a runaway piece of chocolate.

Holding her a few days ago had seemed to melt the last of the awkwardness in him. He sat on the bed like all the others, touched her with the same affectionate casualness, even went so far as to draw her to lean back against him as Colin had the entire D.A. pose for a picture around her bed before Madame Pomfrey kicked them all out. But now he retreated back to the propriety of the visitor's chair that no one but him had ever used, and she didn't know how to call him back.

"Your brothers sent five daydream charms." He continued, as though what had just happened had not happened at all, only betraying that it in fact had by the tremor in his voice, "They figured that if you couldn't see what was happening around you . . ."

"I'd want to dream about brawny pirates, snogging me as salt water sprayed my face?"

"Umm," She could hear Neville fumbling for the boxes to check. "I- I think it's a knight in armor snogging you after he's killed the dragon."

Groaning at all the personal issues, of which her well-meaning brothers obviously had no inkling, but were brought up by that particular imagery all the same, Ginny grumbled, "Do me favor, give them away, or better yet sell them and buy me more chocolate. I'm sure Lavender or Pavrati or even Romilda would pay a bit to their hands on some. I can even bet who would star, at least in Romilda's fantasy."

"Are you sure?"

"The only daydreams I want are about all the Honeyduke's chocolate you can buy with the money."

"I can buy you chocolate."

"Dammit Neville! Just get rid of the blasted things!"

"Right. Sell the charms, buy you chocolate." He muttered as his silhouetted form bent to place the boxes back on the floor, and she suspected to keep her from seeing his expression, though she couldn't do that anyway.

"Buy us chocolate." She amended, trying to convey an apology without actually apologizing. "Buy us lots of chocolate we can get fat on, so fat we'll never be able to get back on a broom again."

"I never was much good on broom."

Merlin, she wished he wouldn't do that! Insert little drabs of reality into her efforts at fantasy. Plowing on resolutely in an effort to keep him from dragging down her pleasant little moment of frivolity, she replied, "And I don't want to ride another broom for ages so we're free to eat all the chocolate we want."

"The quidditch team will never forgive me. They miss you."

"The quidditch team misses Harry!" She snapped unthinkingly, fed by all her frustration at being trapped in the infirmary, at missing Harry's visit, at Neville's sudden withdrawal and the confounding feeling of his hands on hers that wouldn't go away.

"You miss Harry." Neville hissed back suddenly no longer timid or apologetic. "The rest of us just miss you. Ginny Weasley before Harry Potter."

She recoiled as though slapped. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means there's a lot of people around here who liked you before you became Harry's girlfriend, and don't really care that he's not here. Frankly, we'd all be fine with it if it was just Ginny Weasley leading the D.A. and captaining the quidditch team, not Ginny standing in for Harry."

He stood at that, dumping the rest of her presents on her lap.

"What do you know?" She whispered, clutching a little tighter at the now melting piece of chocolate he had placed in her hands.

Neville paused and looked down at her before saying very quietly. "I know the green dress you wore to the Yule Ball was just as old as Ron's dress robes, and I know it didn't matter. After Fleur and Hermione you were the one everyone watched, and the others were just a novelty anyway. Let me know when that Ginny comes back, I liked her better."

And when he left her she felt lonelier than she had in a long time.

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It felt like days before he returned, but in reality it was less than twenty-four hours.

This time when she awoke to a hand being pressed over her mouth, the fingers were long and slim and familiar, and she had no inclination to cry out.

"I thought you were waiting for the old Ginny to come back?" she whispered against the flesh of his palm, aware from the stillness of her surroundings and his warning gesture that the time must be beyond normal visiting hours.

"That was mean of me."

"That was honest of you."

Neville's hand had moved from her mouth, but only to finger a strand of her hair, tracing its length along her cheek, a gesture far more intimate than he would have dared only a few days before, or even a few hours before. It was a conscious gesture, putting the earlier awkwardness of the day behind them, both acknowledging and purposefully ignoring what had caused them to lash out at each other. Something had changed, when he had held her, when she had begged him so pathetically to carry her through this time, to be stronger than she was and he ever believed himself to be, and with that change came the right for him to touch her like this, and for her to lean into it.

"I like Ginny after Harry just fine."

"You're a horrible liar."

"I'm not lying."

"Is that what you had Luna disillusion you for? To tell me that Ginny after Harry is okay?" she whispered, hoping just a little that it really had been that important to him.

"No . . ."

Her breath caught as he trailed off significantly, and she thought she knew what his next words would be.

"Harry . . ." The name transformed on her tongue, simultaneously a prayer and curse, as she wished to hear more from him and wept inwardly with the knowledge of what such contact meant.

"There's been a letter." Neville whispered the words against her ear, confirming all her worst fears, his hand cupping her cheek in apology, even as his other hand pressed the parchment into hers. "I didn't want you to hear it from anyone else."

"Thank you." She replied quietly, amazed that even as her insides curled up on themselves, her outside demeanor remained calm, almost untouched by the news. No tears came, no screams escaped her throat, even the sharp, bitter anger of earlier didn't manifest. It was for Neville's sake, she realized. It seemed unfair to him, to thrash about as though the world was ending when the fact that he was here proved that it very obviously wasn't.

Neville's earlier chastisement had not been entirely misplaced. She'd spent this semester suspended, waiting for something that would never come. There were things Harry had to do, she'd always known those things would come, even at eleven she'd known. It was time for her to face that those things had never included her in the way she wished, to shoulder her loss with as much dignity and quiet resignation as Neville, with the resolve and unquenched fury of Titus, and perhaps even the absurd hope that carried Luna.

It was time to stop waiting for Harry to realize a mistake he hadn't made.

"Read it to me, please." It was both an entreaty and a command, one she fully expected to be granted, but aware of the magnitude of what she asked.

He didn't answer, but when he moved away she somehow knew it was only to check that Madame Pomfrey was not likely to stir from her office any time soon. Sure enough, in a few moments, she felt the bed shift as he came back to her.

She didn't have to tell him what to do this time. With the confidence of one who had already been given permission, he slipped behind her, cradling her against his chest, so that as he whispered Lumos, the magic of the word trailed against her ear, illuminating them in soft wandlight.

Sliding the wand under the sheets to dampen the glow, Neville moved to unscroll the parchment, only pausing momentarily when her hands didn't release it, but rather moved with his.

"Dear Gin . . . You've probably guessed what I'm about to say, and you're probably already too mad at me to really read this because of it, but please calm down a little and find a way because it's damned important."

The words came haltingly at first as he stumbled over Harry's too-quick scrawl, and the occasional endearment, but gradually he grew used to the hand-writing, and the endearments no longer gave him pause, so that as he reached the final paragraph the words were steady and sure.

Harry's words on Neville's lips.

"So that's it. We're about to do something terribly noble and stupid, and I only wish I was a little braver because if I was you'd be here with me and not back in the Gryffindor common room cursing my name. So I'm sorry for being too much of a coward to brave out the possibility of losing you, and I'm sorry for not being cowardly enough to run away with you and leave this to everyone else. I'm sorry for a lot of things and maybe it's selfish of me to tell you now, but the thing I'm the most sorry for is that I never said I love you. Because I do. I love you Ginny Weasley, and hopefully when I come back you'll have decided you love me, too."

Lowering the parchment clasped in now entangled hands, they were quiet with the power of moment. She had shivered at the whispered 'I love you's, and if she noticed the pause between the first and second time it was said, the new layers of emotion in a voice that had lowered to caress the words against her skin, well . . . she had shivered the second time, too.

"There- There are tear stains." He whispered finally, guiding her fingers with his own. "Here . . . and here . . ."

Neither one of them said anything about the fact that she sniffled or the few drops of moisture that fell against her shoulder.

There was a lot that went unsaid about that night. Madame Pomfrey never said a word about the extra shoe at the end of the bed or the third hand curled around the parchment in her sleeping patient's lap. When Titus came later that night he merely gave the seemingly levitating Red the once over, grinned, and went back his far more comfortable four-poster. Even Luna said nothing when she came to relieve Neville so he could go to Herbology and the kiss he pressed to Ginny's forehead was a little too tender, but truthfully she might not have been paying attention as there was a very interesting dust fairy floating around the foot of the bed.

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So that's it. I hope the story continues to work for all of you, but if it doesn't please feel free to tell me.

Panache