My Heart Still Beats For You

October 10th, 1999

Everyone was dressed in black. There were flashes of white throughout the crowd as a few people pulled out handkerchiefs.

Draco hated black.

Ginny stood alone, holding a light blue handkerchief to her face, although, strangely, her eyes were dry. She stared unseeingly at a black casket from a distance. It seemed unreal to her. This was all a dream. A chapter out of someone else's life.

Had a dream about you
You sat right down beside me
And you told me we were through
It was all so real and you told me reasons why
You brought me to the window
And you taught me how to fly

Except it wasn't someone else's life. It was her life.

She let some stranger pat her on the back before they moved on. All these people, they hadn't really cared. Sure, they'd known him, but had they cared about him, truly? Had they felt what he felt? Had they known exactly what he'd been thinking without having to ask?

She continued to let her mind wander to the past as someone gave a small speech. Their words seemed distant and unfeeling to her. She felt cut off from the world around her as blurred figures in black moved around her.

She felt slightly dizzy as she remembered his last words to her. 'I'll come back to you,' he had said. But had he? There didn't seem to be much hope now.

Her world had slowly crumbled around her, and now she was trapped in the ruins of it.

I thought about you for a long, long time
I said I love you but we just don't have the time

The speaker finished, and people began to move away as the ceremony ended. But Ginny had no urge to leave just yet.

There were murmurs of apologies directed at her as they shuffled past her, occasionally patting her shoulder or touching her arm briefly. But what did they have to apologize for? Was it just something they felt the need to say as they saw her standing there?

She took a shuddering breath and thrust her hands in her pockets to warm them. But she soon brought them back out, the cold sting of the breeze welcome.

"Are you all right?" asked an elderly man, one of the last to leave. "The funeral's ended, you know."

She nodded in response. When the man seemed unsure, she gave him a small smile. Then he walked on. She continued to stand there, suddenly aware of her sheer aloneness. She glanced around, and indeed, she was the only one remaining.

She closed her eyes and felt the wind swirling around her, blowing back her hair and caressing her face. How long she stood there with her eyes closed, smiling faintly, she didn't know.

Suddenly, she felt the wind change. It seemed to stop, for just a moment or two. She opened her eyes, and she thought she saw a faint grey shape in the distance. As it came closer, it seemed to take a clearer form.

It was the ghost of Draco. His spirit. Numbly, she smiled and gave a small wave of both hello, and goodbye. This form of Draco nodded in reply, and seemed to slowly fade until Ginny nearly believed it had been a hallucination, merely a shape in the light fog that was settling.

He had come back to her, if only for a moment.

And now you're lying here
But my heart still beats for you

"I love you," she whispered to the empty space before her. And she could have sworn she felt a small, almost nonexistent, unnaturally warm breeze flow gently against her hand in return.

Note: lyrics copyright Hootie and the Blowfish.