The day Harry first caught a glimpse of fiery red hair, he'd felt the pace of the world shift; a fleeting idea that his lazy, hazy days were long over and, instead, a rush of life came filling their place as violently as a tidal wave.
"Long black, please. With a pinch of cinnamon," Harry forces himself to speak as clearly as possible, the emptiness of the local coffee shop and the vendor's revolving yawns as he pours the coffee not doing anything for Harry's 'start-the-day-when-everyone-else-is-asleep' resolution.
The bridge of his palm rubs twice over his temple, fingers slipping under the rims of his glasses to pull at his bottom lid as Harry waits for his coffee, bill crisp and ready, rolled inside his other palm.
Must stay awake.
The cup slides towards him over the counter and Harry shakes another yawn from deep within his bones. The wall clock ticks 5:30 AM, the coffee themed longer arm moving over the centre of the clock just so.
"Thanks, mate," the vendor nods as Harry pushes his tip into the metal tin, grabs his cup, turns on his feet, tired gaze swiping one last time over the small shop: completely empty.
His palm travels over an upturned chair on his way out, mind conjuring moving images of people in the coffee shop, happy people sipping at their coffees, waking up with every drop of liquid, people sharing.
Sharing what? A life together, probably. It's something Harry's been teetering on the edges of, but could never quite place it - the familiarity of the feeling, the warmth he'd sometimes feel out of nowhere and then the same old gap digging deeper inside his soul.
The doorbell rings and Harry's elbow crashes into something rather soft, coffee mercifully spilling just over his hand, scalding his wrist as it drips into his sleeve.
"Sorry," he yelps as he comes stumbling through the door, skipping nimbly over the entrance stairs, blinking.
She stares at him through the glass window - only for a heartbeat; brown eyes he'd been searching for all of his life, long, red hair swishing as she turns her back to him.
Then the memories come flooding in and the horizon blackens.
Harry falls.
There's a freckled hand on his cheek when Harry comes through, soft and searing everywhere it touches.
"Are you alright?"
Harry blinks, scrunches his nose to reposition his glasses, green eyes brave enough to travel till they settle on hers. Had he ever seen them before?
Briefly, Harry feels as though they'd been gazing at each other for a lifetime. But quickly then the feeling goes.
"Mate," she tries again, hand removing from his cheek. A fresh gust of wind blows and, oddly, Harry misses the warmth of her touch.
"Got dizzy, 's all," he offers weakly, pushing hard on his elbows to help himself get up, coffee spilled all down his trousers. Brilliant.
She looks at him quizzically, her own coffee cup held up against her sternum, warming her against the sunrise chill. Her fingers curl around a strand of hair, push it back behind her ear, and she says, "Hope I didn't trip you on your way out, though."
Her voice rings cosily inside his brain.
"Nah, just the 5 AM vibe," Harry gestures dismissively, pretending that he's not having a conversation in a public spot with his crotch bathed in caffeine.
"Understandable," she laughs and Harry's senses spike up, golden sunlight piercing through his chest. "The sun is on the wrong side of the sky, isn't it?"
Harry grins widely. "Yeah. Yeah, it absolutely is. Cheers to that," he beams, raising his empty cup; she half raises hers.
"I'll go, then," she says after a beat, small, faint smile still tugging at her lips, "if you're certain you're alright, I mean."
"Positive," Harry nods, feeling anything but.
He watches her walk away, hair like wildfire waving down her back. Something rips within his heart, breath hitching as he bends to press his fist against his ribcage.
Why does he suddenly feel so alone?
"Ginny," he blurts out another morning.
She stares at him, frozen in the doorway of the coffee shop, clock ticking deafeningly as the silence creeps around them.
It's early and it's empty again, and Harry's been about to leave, warm cup in hand, when this name, those five strange letters string themselves together, pull harshly at his tongue. Where did they come from?
How did he know she'd come?
"Are you stalking me?" she asks, a little angry, a little frightened, hand still locked around the handle. The vendor gapes at them, distraught.
"No, I just," Harry hurries, spilling coffee all over his wrist again, "honestly, I have no idea where it came from," he finishes lamely, rubbing the back of his head with his coffee stained palm. When the wetness seeps into his skin there, Harry swears loudly.
Who gave him permission to live anyway?
She shuffles towards the counter, shooting him an appraising, amused sort of look, her shoulders visibly less tense now. She nods at the vendor as he shows her the big cup offer, ruffles through her wallet, slips some money into the tip jar.
"Are you some kind of mentalist?"
"No, not unless I have some dormant mind reading skill," Harry shrugs, leaning slightly into the counter as she grabs her coffee, sips, smiles. "No idea where it came from, honestly. I saw you and then I - er, I heard myself talk."
He reckons he might sound like a massive git right now, but he's also embarrassed himself quite enough around her too. Thus, Harry supplies with a heartfelt shrug and his best grin.
Ginger eyebrows raise and fall at lightspeed, brown eyes twinkling with what Harry hopes is amusement. Insane people can still be endearing, can't they?
"It is, though," she says after another hearty sip.
"What is?"
"Ginny, my name."
"Oh. It's pretty."
Harry mentally kicks himself.
"Yeah. Well, hoping I haven't disclosed personal information to a possible killer, I'll see you around - er?"
Harry's heart skips, brain stupidly skirting right over the fact that she might've, sort've implied he's a killer and choosing to focus only on the fact that she's asking for his name. His name!
"Harry," he grins, pushes his glasses back over his nose as he turns to face her.
"Right," Ginny smiles, slightly more confident this time, leaning for the door. "See you 'round, Harry."
"See you, Ginny," he calls brightly and then, as she's about to slip through the door, more seriously, "Definitely not a killer."
Harry kicks himself again, nearly cringing himself into a heart attack. Or a long bout of depression.
"I'm never seeing her again, am I?" he asks dejectedly, slumping over the counter.
The vendor shakes his head.
Harry's heart howls with exhaustion in his chest as he keeps up speed, some foggy, half-baked memory prickling at the back of his head.
Red hair, freckles strewn like constellations, long, heavy dresses floating throughout a ballroom as the orchestra booms.
He shakes his head hard, black hair sticking to his forehead as he sweats, shaking once again to banish the image from his mind. What is wrong with him?
Harry's panting hard, battling this vague illusion, fighting with himself to keep on running. Run, run, run at sunrise. But where to?
Everywhere, he can't sleep anyway. He hasn't been able to for a very long time.
"Fuck - ah," he grunts, chest colliding into something softer, thoughts colliding into something more profane.
"Can I go anywhere in this city without tripping over you?" a voice he recognises instantly complains, Harry's vision shooting right back into focus as he slaps his glasses on and offers her a grin.
"Quite literally," Harry chuckles, grabs her arm to hoist her up.
Then, suddenly, as painfully as if he'd been clobbered over the head, Harry sees it, hears it vividly, strikingly even:
"Could I dare ask for your first dance?"
"If I were you, I'd dare ask for them all."
And then her laugh, the mischief in her eyes, the rapid thumps of his heart as they waltz around the ballroom; toes tickling with fatigue, palms sweating as the night comes to a close and then - and then? Shadowed corners filled with whispered moans, hardwood floors planting bruises on his ribs as they tumble down -
"What?" he gulps, falling back into reality, Ginny's vexed expression pinned on him.
She rolls her eyes heartily, flicking the sweaty strands of hair plastered to her temples. "I said, I'm nearly done with my morning run and would you fancy a coffee? I also said it's on me this time, since you seem to have spilled yours because of me the first time we met, but I'm reconsidering this one seeing how you're clearly not interested."
His eyes bulge. "Not interested? Me? Ma'am, that's my middle name when it comes to coffee."
"Oh, yeah?" Ginny grins, daring, the mischief lacing in her voice playing on the chords of the same old memory louder and louder in his brain; his breath hitches. "See if you can run as well as you talk."
And she sprints, and he's chasing after her, another Ginny from another life running and laughing right before his eyes. Harry scrunches his lids shut and simply runs, listening for her footsteps, stepping where she steps. He doesn't need his eyes for this, he'd done it every time they met in every life they've lived.
It hits Harry like a trainwreck, this realisation that he's either mad or -
"Beat you to it!" she announces, one leg flexed against the coffee shop stairs and Harry doesn't think, he simply dives right in.
"Not if we simultaneously go in," he laughs, heaving her over one shoulder, ankle slipping between the door and its frame, twisting so it opens.
"You're absolutely mental, let me go," she laughs, too, as Harry spins twice on his heels before he gently places her down, elbow leaning against the counter.
He withers a bit under the vendor's judgy look, a shake of the head before he takes their orders.
The clock ticks loudly, ticking yet another instance back to life with it - another clock ticking on Harry's wrist, ticking away the time they had together; his army green uniform, the heavy sack strapped to his back, the anguish in her eyes as he tells her he must leave, he can't, won't let the others fight as he stays home, sheltered, happy.
"It's for some stupid noble reason, isn't it?"
"There's a nice spot of nature nearby if you want to enjoy this with some sun," Harry hears himself talk as his hand jiggles the coffee cup.
"Figure I'll become one giant freckle afterwards, but eh, why not?" she smiles dazzlingly and Harry trundles after her, as if pulled by something rooted deep within his chest.
Their hips slightly touch as they sip the warm liquid, heads lolled back to bathe under the sun. May's flowery flavours roll through the air and Harry's nearly gotten himself under control again. No more insanity, no more letting himself get tugged out of the present.
"Harry?"
"Hmm?" he answers, eyes still shut behind his glasses. His fingers twitch, begging to be near her; Harry squeezes his cup more firmly.
"How mental would it be if I told you I think we've met before? I mean, casting aside the strop I pulled in the coffee shop when you called my name. I was a little frightened then."
The present is no longer within reach.
Green eyes pop open, soft, freckled cheeks shifting into view. He lets his tongue roll all the words he never knew he'd had in him prior to this very moment.
"I think we've met thousands of times before."
Her head slumps between her shoulders, her elbows sink between her knees, Ginny bending into herself as though trying to find that deeply rooted truth of all their alternate realities.
"What's happening?"
"I don't know," Harry says and he means it.
"I've been thinking of you way before we met in the coffee shop."
"I've been thinking of you all my life and so much earlier than that."
She turns to look at him, a blazing sort of look within her eyes.
"I knew your name before you told me."
"I called your name before you told me yours."
Ginny falls quiet again, long, red ponytail wrapped around her wrist as he stops to think. Harry's fingertips prickle again, longing for her skin. He hasn't touched her in a lifetime.
"Would you mind if I tried something?" she asks softly and Harry has no time to nod.
Her mouth slants over his, gently at first and then slightly rougher, her chest leaning into his as she kisses him breathlessly. His fingers trail over her back, no longer begging for her touch but drinking it, melting over her skin, buzzing with how familiar it feels.
Harry steps on the tails of his frock as he returns her kiss.
Harry yanks off his army hat as he returns her kiss, leaving it to roll into the dirt as he sinks into her.
Harry wraps her into his coat as he returns her kiss, ocean breeze freezing everything but them as the boat cuts the waves at speed.
Harry slaps his coffee cup absentmindedly to the ground as he returns her kiss, tugging her into his arms, setting her into his lap as they kiss hungrily onto the sunlit bench.
"Do you see them too?" Ginny asks, a little out of breath, lips hovering over his swelling ones.
"You mean us?"
"Yeah, us, but different."
"I see them too, yeah," Harry sighs into her kiss and holds her closer.
"It's like a string that's pulling me to you," Ginny moans as Harry's mouth finds a freckled spot at the base of her neck.
"I feel it, too, inside my chest."
"Yeah, right there," she slips a hand between them, resting it against their chests. "I've felt it pull before, but now? It won't let me be."
"It never let me be," he sighs into her ear as her hands rake through his hair, his world finally falling into its rightful place. "I've always searched for you, unconsciously. Where have you been?"
"Searching for you, but in all the wrong places."
Their hands link as they walk to Harry's flat, running shoes light on the cobbles as tens of instances of Harry and Ginny walking hand in hand trod loudly after them. The tens turn into hundreds as they climb the stairs two at a time, following them closely.
"That book," Ginny gasps when he pushes open the front door, her fingers curling around the spine of a black old book he'd always had holding dust in his hallway. "It's here every single time."
"Takes more than a million lifetimes to break some habits, then," he grins, no longer questioning anything, but finally, finally accepting everything.
They clash back into kissing, pulled by the same string growing smaller and smaller until their bodies meet, clothes melting away as their limbs wrap around cotton sheets.
Harry loving her onto the darkened, dusty ballroom floor.
Harry loving her like a soldier about to go to war.
Harry loving her onto the mercilessly cold deck of their boat.
Harry loving her like he'd missed her all his life and now they've finally, blessedly found each other.
The muscles in her stomach twitch, her belly taut as he slides into her, the brain dazzling familiarity sending him shivering above her. They move in perfectly synced motion, well rehearsed thrusts and pulls, pants and moans, whispered cries and bruising skin.
Ginny arches her back, her breasts brushing over his chest, her heart beating against his. Harry cradles her, shifting them into a sitting position in the middle of his bed, wrapping her legs around him. They move in perfectly synced motion, her forehead sweaty against his clavicle.
"I've loved you from the dawn of time," Ginny whispers as he thrusts erratically into her, ready to melt into her skin.
"I've loved you forever after," Harry answers as he claims her lips.
I love yous in millions of forms reverberate inside his room, cracking the walls, sending them high over the peak. And then, as they lay to rest between his sheets, the ghosts of all the lives they've lived together come to take a final bow before their eyes, their mission over now.
"We've found each other again, I guess," Ginny yawns into his shoulder, nestling in.
"We're always going to find each other. There's too much of you that's seeped inside me, and too much of me that's always with you."
They lay to rest, finally able to sleep; happy, in comfortable familiarity, never to be broken apart. For death is just a momentary parting, till their restless souls awake again to call for their other half: Harry and Ginny, until the end of time.