In Dreams' Tongues

"Gin- Ginny?"

"Mm?"

"Hi, um, well... er, sorry to wake you."

"You didn't."

Harry frowned. "I did."

"Oh, alright, you did." Ginny yawned hugely and silently in her bed, like a cat. "That's okay. I don't mind."

"Okay. You sure?"

"I am, Harry."

"Okay..." There was a moment where he remained standing, then sat down, in wandering thought.

"Harry? Are you going to say anything?"

"Not yet."

"Then why'd you wake me up?"

There was silence- Harry didn't respond. He simply stared at the wall, the streetlights moving ever so slightly with the movements of distant, detached shadows.

"...Harry?"

"Okay, alright." He spoke slowly, as if only just realizing what he was saying. "I had that dream again."

"That dream?"

"Well... one of them. One of the one's I've been having."

"And it was about...?"

"Yeah."

"...Death and, destruction and all of that?"

Silence again- it made Ginny anxious, impatient; why did he have to block so much from her? It was just a dream, anyway. He protected her too much, to her it seemed.

"...You were in there."

"Aren't I always?" She smiled, almost teasingly- it was a feeble effort- it faded like dust in the gloom.

"There was Hogwarts- it burned fast, down to the ground, Ginny. Then there was Hagrid's hut-"

"Like in your sixth year?"

Harry nodded in the darkness; his face was difficult to read. "There was nothing left- I... couldn't even see his body in all that fire, rubble..."

"And what about Fang?" Ginny did her best to try and sound unaffected, almost business-like, but she couldn't pretend that hearing about Harry's nightmares, over and over again, until- and perhaps long after- the war would end, disturbed her to the core. They made the hairs on her dance with some worry. It scared her, for some reason.

And how long had he had these dreams, of apocalypse, the descent of unimaginable doom, his loved ones' peril? How long had he had not a soul to speak of them to? How many dreadful images had he forced away from his mind?

"...Fang was long gone, too. I think that I heard him howling, somewhere. Behind what was Hagrid's hut."

Ginny nodded, her mussed red hair falling from behind an ear. "What else, Harry?" She wanted Harry to tell her everything, get it done with, clean his mind out a little; she wondered if he knew half of what he was telling her. She wondered whether he knew she was there at all.

"There were bodies, everywhere- they either fell, or just disappeared, or were summoned elsewhere, I dunno. Some just... sort of faded into the darkness. Some just blew away, like leaves."

"Hm," said Ginny, trying to sound thoughtful.

"I couldn't catch them."

Ginny let a moment's silence fill her. "Did you see their faces?"

"I heard their voices more than I saw any of them, Ginny."

Ginny clutched some of the sheet in her hand for comfort, or just because she needed to hold something. "What else, Harry?"

"There were Dementors.... everywhere I turned, I saw one, I felt them coming, all directions; I turned around, and they were still there. Nothing but Dementors."

"Did you fight them?"

"I didn't- well, I tried, but every time I felt for my wand, it had gone missing."

"Did you try to find it?"

"I was too busy trying to find Ron, Hermione, everybody else, whoever was..."

"Still alive?"

"I suppose." He chuckled hollowly, quietly; somewhat painfully. The sound of it reverberated then fell to the floor with a dull thump.

"Harry?"

"Hm? Ginny?..."

"Did you see them die?"

"Not until after I had to search for them, for what seemed ages, ages."

"How long, Harry?"

"Must've been hours."

"But you saw them die?"

"Yeah. They died." Harry sighed down into the bedsheets.

"Who killed them?"

"Just some deatheaters. Some random deatheaters. I couldn't really tell who they were."

"I'm sorry, Harry."

"Don't be." He attempted to wrangle a smile, a small one, for either himself or for Ginny, she couldn't be sure. "It was just a dream- wasn't even real."

"And what about me, Harry?"

Harry didn't seem to know how to put his answer into words. He decided not to look at her; instead, he focused on his lap. "You... well, you were with me."

Ginny sat up straighter at this. "I was?"

"Yeah... we were holding each other's hands, and then we were..."

"...Go on?"

"We were both killed. Avada Kedavra."

Ginny felt a chill crawl up her spine like red-brown ivy. "At the same time?"

"Yeah. Exactly at the same time."

They were both deathly silent for a moment, and suddenly Ginny felt much more awake, receptive.

"And that's when I came to you, here." Ginny felt for his hand and found it almost immediately- they felt each others' palms and lines and calluses and wrinkles and stickiness and smoothness and roughness and the cold and the heat, and the soft. They felt each others' breath grow closer to one another's, and it had never felt so precious as any other breath from any other living being. They knew- indeed, they felt- that both of their eyes were closed.

Harry cleared his throat, so softly, in a way that Ginny could have seen coming. He stood up.

"Sorry to wake you, Ginny."

And he went back to his room.