Everyone had gone to bed, and in the stillness of the night, the Burrow groaned and complained in the way old houses do. Ginny lay awake in the dark, trying to sleep, but her mind wouldn't let her. She was thinking on what she wanted to do. The Holyhead Harpies had try-outs coming up...
She mused, turning this way and that was when she heard a squeak on the landing.
She didn't understand why she got out of bed and opened her door to see who it was, but before she had even consciously made a decision, she had swung the door open and there stood Harry. He jumped and swore in a whisper.
"Merlin, Ginny..."
"Sorry," Ginny said quietly. "What are you doing?" Harry shrugged guiltily.
"I couldn't sleep," he replied evasively. Ginny watched him for a minute. He was still too skinny, and the dark circles under his eyes seemed permanant. She made up her mind.
"Well, I can't either, so we might as well not sleep together. Come in." She jerked her head to indicate her bedroom. Harry stared at her.
"Your room?" His voice cracked on 'room,' and Ginny bit back a smirk.
"No, the pantry. Yes, my room, Potter." Harry continued to stand on the hall, bouncing shiftily on the balls of his feet.
"Er...what about your dad? And your brothers? Ron?" he asked pointedly. Ginny waved her hand impatiently.
"They're asleep and I'm lonely. Please come in."
"If you're sure..."
"Just come in," Ginny said exasperatedly. She plopped back down on her bed, and Harry, ever chivalrous, sat on the floor and leaned against her bed, but made no move to get on the bed with her. Ginny made a face. "You know I can't let you sit there on the floor without pillows." He shook his head, but Ginny dropped a pillow on him anyway.
"If it's a pillow fight you want, it's a pillow fight you'll get," Harry warned her.
Ginny dropped a blanket on his head anyway.
They both got settled, Harry stretching out his legs and Ginny burrowing herself into her pillows. She could just make out the top tufts of his persistantly messy hair over the edge of the bed.
"This is weird," Harry said after a moment. Ginny laughed.
"Relax, please. I sleep easier knowing where you are, anyway. You have this awful habit of going off and doing dangerous things." He chuckled.
"I suppose I do," he said with a practically audible eye roll.
"You do!" Ginny insisted. "First year - well, second year for you - I pass out and wake up in the Chamber of Secrets to a dead basilisk and you holding a sword. And second year you're running around with a convict, and third year you did the Triwizard Tournament - Harry, there hasn't been a single year where you haven't gotten mixed up with something potentially life-threatening." Harry was silent, and for a moment she worried she'd offended him. But then he spoke.
"I always wondered - do you ever think about the Chamber of Secrets?" he asked and had anyone else asked her that, she would've changed the subject or not replied. As it was, she shifted uncomfortably.
"I...yes," she said at last. "There were dreams - nightmares, really - that I had for awhile, but they're - they're mostly gone."
"Mostly gone?" Harry asked and Ginny chewed on her lip before replying.
"Mostly." A pause.
"I have nightmares, too."
"What are they about?" she asked and he waited awhile to reply.
"I dream that everyone's dead," he said at last, in a soft, flat voice. "Ron, Hermione, you...you're all dead. And Voldemort is there, and he's laughing, and I can't do a thing." He paused, then cleared his throat. "What are yours about?"
"Oh," Ginny said quietly, processing what he had just said, "I dream that I'm back in the Chamber...and he's there and he's...well...he's telling me how he's going to kill you, and then kill me. I could hear everything he was saying, the whole time I was lying there, I just couldn't - " She stopped, unable to go on, and Harry seemed to sense this.
"I was just thinking...I mean, I guess I always did manage to get in some sort of trouble...but you're the only one I know who's actually faced Voldemort alone, too."
"I didn't face him, not like you did. I was a stupid little girl who wrote in a diary and didn't have the sense to tell anyone when it got out of hand," Ginny muttered, but she could see the top of Harry's head shaking before she'd even finished the sentence.
"You're the only one I know who's been possessed by him, too." Ginny snorted.
"We're destined for each other," she said with dark humor. Harry laughed quietly.
"Wish I'd figured that out sooner," he yawned, and she reached out a hand and ran her fingers through his hair. He leaned back into the bed, into her touch.
She woke up a few hours later, as the first light of dawn gently crept into the room, her fingers still entwined in his hair and Harry quite asleep, snoring, and looking startlingly at peace.
Here is a picture of healing: the laugh of a boy and girl who have a lifetime left to live.