The Dark

It's dark tonight and I shiver, as it's the beginning of Autumn. The streetlights are unlit in this little city street as always, but not by any magic on my part. No shadows. No existence. The only proof I have that I'm alive is when I put my make up on in the mirror, and when Harry and I lose ourselves in our physical desires. The rest of the time I feel as though I walk about in a reoccurring dream. I live under the radar. That's the whole purpose really; to be non-existent. People gaze upon me. They see me as any strange experimental young person. To them I'm a London Goth who works in a shitty pub in a shitty part of town. My hair is long and dyed, freckles concealed, my eyes outlined by smudged black eyeliner, body pierced and adorned with darkly beautiful jewellery. I like the jewellery. My clothes are mostly elegant and black. I go by the name of Violet. You wouldn't pick me as Ginny Weasley and that's the point.

Though it may seem so, I haven't turned my back on the wizarding world, the very opposite in fact. I work for it everyday, though sometimes I feel as isolated as ever. In my disguise I pose as the dedicated muggle bartender working away every night, but the muggles don't know I'm really a witch and that they drink in one of the meeting places of the wizarding world's 'baddies'. To them I'm just the uni student saving up to travel overseas. They don't know my real purpose. I watch every customer, every person they speak to, spying upon those identified as Voldemort's supporters, trying to find out the dark wizard's plan. Sounds special, feels useless.

I got nothing tonight. Not a scrap of conversation that suggested anything of minor importance- not a bloody thing. In fact, I haven't seen any of those in league with Voldemort in the bar for weeks, and it makes me wonder if they are onto me, and whether I should be afraid to be walking home alone at three a.m.

Though I have my wand, I mustn't use it unless my life is endangered because the detection of magical occurrences that was once under ministry control is now in the hands of Death Eaters. However, as I make my way home I'm not really scared. I've seen far too much of all this to feel a great deal of emotion about anything anymore- except Harry. I know I'm becoming numb. I forget to stay alert to danger. I don't hurry past dark laneways. Instead, like tonight, I meander along as I imagine that an exotic and gorgeous vampire comes to fulfil my dreams, removing me from this harsh mortality; because isn't that what we all want? I look up. There are no clouds tonight. I can see the stars, but no moon, as I wait for that man with the porcelain skin and the piercing eyes to descend upon me. Vampirism would be the easy way out and it's too hard a fight to stay human in this world to just give it up. I hate myself for dreaming I could escape. I can't give in because there's Harry, who never really gives up. My demon of the night won't come; it will be Voldemort instead.

Voldemort. Thoughts of the horrific being shake me from my fantasy of blissful escapism. I withdraw into the comfort of numbness. It seems a fitting night to rain but it won't; vast starry skies. Rain would fit my mood, but the weather is ironically fine. I like storms. They remind me that the universe is bigger than our deadly wizard wars. I want the rain that comes down in torrents, that refreshing, freeing rain. If only superficially, it cleanses me as it cuts through our polluted city air, washes away the dusty pavements. I walk past a homeless man shuffling around in his newspaper blankets. He's there every night and I know I'm almost at the building I call 'home'.

A raised bit of concrete on the footpath interrupts my thoughts as I stumble a few feet before righting myself. I should have known to lift my feet. I know this path. I'm standing in front of my building. I have to pay attention or I'll soon be off this case; dead or sent away from Harry. But it seems to me that nothing will break this monotony.

I feel dirty and tired and so sick of spending every night in that awful pub. No, there will be no cleansing and freeing for me; Harry is burdened, and therefore I should be. All around me it's dark and deserted and if the rain won't come then the uneven footpath may as well open up and swallow this old and haggard building that I stand before, and take me with it, too.

I hate this building. It's cold and smells of decay. We could afford something better, the Order that is, and I could contribute my wages, but we're better off here in this hole; more difficult to find, less noticeable. We can't use magic to make it better; can't cause the slightest tremor. It would be like a beacon in the night for all Death Eaters, leading to our swift deaths. This is the place we call home, only blocks from our Diagon Alley, yet so far from our true home; that magic community of hopeful laughter and light. My family. Does Ron still fight, or has he fought his final battle? I wish I knew. I haven't seen them in what must be six months.

Reluctantly I move into the building. The wood of the stair that meets my foot is rotten. These rotten wooden stairs might sink and crumble next time I step upon them, or when Harry does. Nobody else occupies the rooms here. Most are uninhabitable

When I reach the upstairs landing and walk through the door I see a candle, two actually, lit upon the table. At first I am surprised but this is good to see; usually it's dark in our room and more often he's not here. Tonight Harry slumps over in his big old chair at the desk, but he does not look up as I stand in the doorway. It's a painful sight I view from here. The desk, the chair, the bed; that's all we have to furnish our place. The unfairness strikes me again that at twenty he has so few luxuries, and yet so much to deal with. He is handsome and I wish I had my brushes and things so I could paint him now. His dark hair is neglected, choppy like the midnight sea, grown to a length around his jaw. I like it this way. I see something half-written, perhaps a letter, obscured beneath his clenched fist. His quill lies on the floor between the door and his chair, clearly tossed away in frustration.

I absently hope that Hedwig will be back soon. She is like a glowing angel in this place. But each time she arrives we are pained by a lack of developments from the Order, and the same instructions for Harry and myself: Continue given assignments.

Harry is holding his forehead. Massaging it as his eyes sear. I can see him struggling to keep at bay the hot stinging tears. He's too brave, too often. He should let it out. He deserves to. I don't let myself cry. I'm afraid if I start I won't stop, maybe he is too.

He lets out a sharp breath, and drops his hands to his lap. Turning his head to the right, he looks at me standing in the doorway looking like death, so pale from the cold, clad in black. Smell of spilt vodka on my skirt. Stink of smoke in my hair. I close the door and shed down to my underwear. The room looks cold where the candlelight does not fall, but it's warm in here somehow. Just by being here he makes it warm.

I sit cross-legged on the bed, and watch him without expression. He returns my gaze. His scar is fading back to normal after a moment of truth; evil antenna of the enemy's pleasure and pain. Harry and I don't need each other's words- or we don't want them. I won't ask him if there's news; he'd tell me. He doesn't ask me either. I won't question him on where he went or if he was hurt today. If he were hurt it would be far too deadly an injury for him to be here. I can't ask him what his eyes say. Are they pleading, desperate, scared? As well as I know him, I can't tell from the depths of green what he truly wants to say, but I think it's either very simple or very complicated. Not hopeless though. No, if he were hopeless he'd be numb. I fear the day. There'd be no frustration, no angry outbursts, and no cause for fighting back tears over the challenges we face. We need his passion to win this war.

He's quiet and though that is not unusual a sudden engulfing fear begins to asphyxiate me. I force myself to breath because I know nothing has changed and we are still at war and no closer to an end, and my fear... is my fear. He has the ability to change things, the responsibility to face the terrible battles, to win this war. He fears the end because he loves those close to him. For them, he fights to win this war. He fears that his ability to love fades, that which is the power he has over Voldemort, and which he clings to... and yet it's love that seems to torture him because to love is to have responsibility, to have compassion, and it's exhausting...I can't let him become immune.

"Come here." His voice beckons softly, low and gentle. The very opposite of what I know he must feel inside.

I walk up behind him, where he sits in the big old chair. I run my hands across his bare shoulders and he covers my small hands in his own. Larger, warmer. The power lies in those hands to kill and to love. He tilts his head to look around and up at me. Small smile. Power in those green eyes too.

On the desk I can see he has started writing some sort of private poem, and not a letter as I had thought. He sees that I see it and does not try to stop me.

Numbing hollow heart; fear of death fading

Taking of life, while we should be making.

Face the fight, haunted by the prophesied;

"Neither-

He places his hand to hide the page, sighs with frustration, scrunches it into a scrap, and throws it down to join the quill.

"Couldn't," he says softly. "I can't write it."

He touches the ends of my hair, which splay in black silky strands across his naked arm as I lean in. I brush my lips against his jaw. "Then don't," I say.

He twists a long lock of my hair around his fingers. "Why don't you let it grow bright and red and real, again? Look what I've done to you."

"No, never you. It's this war, Harry." He knows. He knows I have to disguise myself. Red hair equals Weasley and that just won't do. But Harry manages to directly link his not ending this war with the colour of my hair. I can't help but love him.

I feel guilty that he should return my love. It would be better that Harry be surrounded by a world of wizards and witches than hide in the dark with me. Unlike myself, in the part I play, Harry does not really have to hide because Voldemort can always find him. But he won't go back to live with the Order at Grimmauld Place. He tells me the memories are too much to bear.

I massage his bare shoulders and he straightens up, allowing me to comfort him with my hands, but not melting into them either. I can feel the tension in his muscles, the knots beneath his naked skin. I don't know what the Order sent him out to do today, but he has had to mingle with people again, I know that much. He has had to present himself as Harry Potter- heroic and normal and brave. He's fatigued by the effort, but he's tried hard today; made an effort to look stable, to be part of the wizarding world. I know this because his hair is clean, his chin and cheeks are smooth. I run my fingers through the growing lengths of his hair. Slowly as I knead at his tense body, I feel him relax into my touch, just so slightly only I could know it.

Finally he sighs and gives in to my caresses. I move around to face him, slide my knees either side his hips. The metal buckle of his belt digs into me so I unclasp it; slip the belt out of the loops as he watches me without expression. My hands run around his lean body and I lie my head against his chest. I long for him to hold me. Sometimes he's gone for days. I close my eyes when his hands finally move around my own hips to pull me closer. In this moment it is time to put away our fears. I surrender to the warmth of his face against my mine, bath in the familiar intimacy I feel as our lips meet. As cold and as dark as our world is, his kiss ignites me, makes me forget everything else. I wonder how our bodies stay warm when our lives are so frozen and torn...