Hold On to Me, Love

Hold On to Me, Love

I know you hear me

I can taste it in your tears

All around her, they cried. She would have cried as well, but she didn't feel sad. She didn't feel anything, aside from the odd heaviness that seemed to cover the Great Hall like a thick blanket.

She looked towards the end of the table where the seventh years sat. Hermione was there, crying, sobbing softly into Ron's shoulder. He looked as if he was about to follow suit, rocking Hermione slightly back and forth, murmuring words meant to comfort her and comfort himself as well.

Ginny slowly surveyed the rest of the room. There would be no speech from Dumbledore tonight; he was leaning his forehead on his steepled fingers, unmoving and silent. She thought that he had never looked older.

She eased herself up and, taking one last look at the sad faces around her, strode out of the Great Hall. No one stopped her.

She gazed up into the sky as she walked to the lake. What clouds still drifted in the gentle breeze were tinged with red from the setting sun. One of the wispier ones looked eerily like a lightning bolt.

Harry would have loved to see that.

It was hard to think of Harry as gone. She was so used to thinking of him as the valiant hero, always triumphing over evil, that she never stopped to consider that winning one, last time might mean dying.

As Ginny settled herself down near a large rock by the lake, she had to wonder why she left the Great Hall in the first place. Now that she was here, faced with the tranquility of a glittering lake and the beauty of a setting sun, she had to wonder why she still felt nothing.

Nothing, save a shocking numbness accompanying the realization that Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived, was dead.

She heard the grass to her right crunch faintly as someone walked towards her. She looked sideways. The first thing she saw were the tips of expensive-looking black shoes peeking out from under a flowing black robe. And, as her eyes traveled upwards, the next thing she saw were the piercing gray eyes of Draco Malfoy.

"Weasley," he said, by way of greeting.

"Malfoy," she acknowledged, before turning back to the lake.

"I'm surprised you're not weeping madly for St. Potter with the rest of those bloody Gryffindors."

She shrugged. He blinked. It seemed as if he didn't know what to make of her lack of reaction. She saw him lower himself down on the grass beside her and shifted a bit to the left so that he would have enough space to lean on the rock behind them, which he did, resting his arms on the knees of his propped up legs. After a moment of silence, he spoke.

"So why aren't you weeping madly for St. Potter with the rest of those bloody Gryffindors?" he asked, his tone mildly curious.

"I don't know," she replied. And she didn't.

He studied her for a while, tapping his lower lip with a slender finger before finally saying, "You should cry." At her questioning look, he added, "I hear it helps."

She smiled a bit at that. "Really."

"Really."

"If crying's all that, then why aren't you?"

"Who says I'm not all that?" A corner of his mouth turned up in a small smirk.

"You know what I mean."

He stretched out his left leg and reached out with the hand closest to her. His fingers toyed with a lock of her hair. "My father told me that Malfoys don't cry, that crying is a sign of weakness. But," he sighed, letting his left hand fall, "my father told me a lot of things and not all of them are necessarily true."

Silence hung between them, natural and strangely comfortable. There was none of that glaring need to fill the void by saying something, but Draco said something anyway.

"I thought all Gryffindors liked group sobbing," he remarked, obviously wondering why she wasn't with anyone from her house.

"I suppose I'm not like the others." She plucked at the hem of her robe.

"Yes," he mumbled, his brow furrowing, sounding like he had just realized something. "Yes, I suppose you aren't."

They were silent once more, only this time it was - in some indefinable way - different. This time, Ginny could feel Draco regarding her with narrowed gray eyes and a strange expression on his face. This time...

Ginny was still looking at the lake when Draco reached out with his right hand and gently turned her head to face him. Then he leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. It was a surprisingly gentle and wonderfully comforting gesture and she found herself responding by resting her head on his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin on her head. The only sounds were the light rustling of the grass and the gentle lapping of the lake. He stroked her hair and held her like that for a very long time.

He held her as she cried.