Cold Embrace

We stand together, in stony silence, as he is lowered into the ground. I feel as if all that I am and all that I'll ever be is silence. Or was silenced, when his eyes went dull. When he fell to the floor in front of the one I intended to destroy.

Instead of taking away the only obstacle to our love, I destroyed it. I destroyed it, and now every voice inside me that screamed and whispered and cried and begged for release is silenced. I am silence.

The tumultuous noise of my soul lies in the grave, six feet under, deep in the cold embrace of death - where I put it. I cast aside the bitter tears. No more will I shed. There's no use in mourning. Everything in my life is over.

Nothing is going to be all right, no matter what he tells me.

He stands beside me, his hand placed on my shoulder carefully - he won't let his hands touch my bare flesh. He won't let himself do that to me - hurt me. He's blinded by his love for me, and he can't see. He can't see that his tender, longing glances burn me more fervently than his skin will ever be able to manage.

The service ends quickly. No one wants to linger here; their fears haunt them more now than ever, and they want nothing more than to be in the supposed safety of their homes, so nothing can happen to them like it did to -

Not that it was the shadows in the night that took him, though that's what they think. How could I convince him? How could I make him realize that I wanted to kill him? He can't believe it. He looks into my eyes, and all he sees is the falsity that was my love for him.

His Ginny. He thinks I'm his Ginny.

As they depart I step forward, and escape his touch. I kneel by the monument, tracing the lines that make up the name - the name of my lost soul.

I lay a single red rose next to the cold, unforgiving stone. I smile; the stone knows well.

The stone knows I don't deserve forgiveness.

The stone knows better than he does, and he kneels beside me.

"You loved him," he says softly. "So did I."

He reaches out towards the grave, the rose. Something inside of me snaps. I grab his hand - his unworthy skin - before his innocence can taint the love that once was, and should have never been.

My flesh simmers beneath his, but I don't care. My nerves should be screaming, but all that I am is silence.

"He was everything to me, Harry," I hiss, in a strange parody of the sound my skin makes as it sizzles. "He was everything, and you were nothing."

His expression remains solemn and contemplative, but his eyes betray his hurt. He feels the knife twisting in his back, I know. But he chooses to ignore it.

When he remembers the way my bright, beautiful brown eyes shined for him, everything that should be pain is only pleasure, and all he cares for glistens on my red hair.

I can see it in his eyes.

And I hate how blind he is.

I hate him.

"Ginny," he continues quietly, forcibly retracting his hands, "I know you're hurt right now -"

"No, you don't quite get it, Harry." I interrupt - louder, and bitterly. "My soul is in the ground. My heart is crumbling to dust. And if I could make just one wish, it would be that you were in that grave, and not - not..."

I quiver, and he takes it as vulnerability. He doesn't know the silence, the quiet I profane if I speak his name.

When I speak his name, part of him lives. And any part of him alive gives hope to my desperate frame, and suddenly, the voices rise, as if they'd never left.

And they condemn me.

He reaches out to put his arms around me.

My swollen red hand delivers a fierce blow to his cheek. Long nails dig furrows into his visage, like the claws of an animal. He recoils in shock, and grabs his face. He looks as if he can't even conceive of the blood on his hands.

"Harry, you bloody git! I tried to kill you!" I cry unrestrainedly, my frustration pouring out at him freely like the blood spilling from his veins. "I tried to kill you- not Voldemort. Ginny tried to kill you!"

He stares at me in disbelief. But there's something there. There's something there that makes me believe that now, he might just understand.

I strike it home. "Harry," I say, cool as the cadaver beneath me, "I'm not your Ginny. I'm Ron's."

Emerald eyes go wide. They stay so as this information processes. When it does, he simply stares at me. Stares at me, hurt plain in every feature.

"I loved you," he whispers.

"So did he," I reply, "but apparently he loved you more."

I stare off into the distance, not allowing him to meet my eyes. "If he had loved me, he wouldn't have left me here alone."

He snarls harshly, suddenly. "You deserve to be alone."

I stare blankly back at him. He seems disturbed at the lack of effect his comment has made. I smile wanly.

"Don't you think I know?"

Silence reigns for awkward moments while he glances down at the single red rose I've laid by the monument. "Do you know what that means?"

I nod, but say nothing.

He gazes meaningfully at me. "Always, Ginny," he says softly. "Even if it was all a lie."

With this, he turns away and leaves me to the silence that envelops me.

It lasts, for a time, as I kneel by the unforgiving stone without repenting.

I don't want to be alone. With Harry, I'm alone. He's not there with me; he could never be. He's what I deserve, though. He's what I deserve, for what I've done.

I deserve to be alone.

It occurs to me that I don't care what I deserve. I didn't choose to love who I do; I don't deserve the repercussions of what it's made me do.

A voice sounds within me, a single, echoing voice. It's love, and it's come again to make me do its bidding.

Like a faithful dog, I'll follow it to hell and beyond.

It's not hard to find a shovel, even when it's dark like it is now. The soil is freshly packed, and it hasn't settled yet; there isn't much resistance. I dig - swiftly, effortlessly, unrelentingly, and alone. Not for long. And then eternity awaits.

The shovel makes me impatient. Soon, I'm clawing at the earth with desperate, burnt and bloodied hands, struggling with all the might within me. It's probably been hours, but I don't feel it. Not in my hands, not in my body. But my soul is calling to me, and something beyond my physical manifestation aches to answer.

I reach the dirtied casket, and by that point, I don't even know what I'm doing consciously; mentally, something else has taken over, and all I know is that I must've gotten that coffin open somehow.

Because soon I look down upon him. My soul.

My Ron.

I allow my heart to hope for a fleeting moment as I look down upon him. Pale, and still, and cold. Yet I pretend that he sleeps silently. I pretend that I'm a little girl again, afraid of the dark, curling up next to him, drinking in the warmth and safety of his presence. I pretend that the cover of the casket is the cover on his squeaky old bed, old and worn and perfect. I pretend that he can awake, and smile at me, and make everything in my world right.

I pretend, and beside him, I drift into pleasant dreams, never to depart again from his cold embrace.