The Centaur Clan

Seventeen- Home

Harry arrived home at midnight to find all of the lights off but one. Ginny sat beneath it, a mere lamp over the kitchen table, a cup of cold coffee in her hand and her head on the table. Harry and Hermione's letter to her was on the table before her, the edges of the page wrinkled from her fingers tight grip.

Even in her sleep, she was tense.

Harry approaches her slowly, placing a warm hand on her shoulder. "Gin. Ginny, wake up."

She opens her eyes sleepily, and her tired eyes focus on Harry. A tear falls down her face, and then another. "No. Not another bloody nightmare- I can't take them anymore." She presses her eyes shut. "I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't-"

"Ginny, this isn't a dream." Harry pleads with her- she was truly a wreck.

"Ginny, this isn't real." She whispers to herslef, her grip on the coffee mug tightening. "It's another hallucintation." Harry freezes- another? "Harry's not here, Harry's gone. Harry's missing. Hermione's gone. Hermione's missing. Harry broke up with you in a letter because he thinks he's going to die. Harry broke up with you before he died because he's a stupid prat."

Harry's heart clenches. "No, Ginny that's not why-"

"Harry still loves you, but he's gone. Maybe he doesn't love you the way you love him anymore, but that's alright. He's gone. He's missing. So's Hermione. He isn't here."

"Ginny!" Harry grabs her shoudlers and shakes her lightly, and slowly, cautiously, she opens her eyes.

She stares at him with eyes shining with tears, a shaking hand reaching up to tough his face, her fingertips brushing his cheek. "H-harry?" She says, her voice breaking.

He smiles at her. "I'm home."

And then she pulls him into a tight embrace.

*          *          *

Hermione hesitated at the door. She was almost afraid to open the door and feel everything from her past life flood back into her- the life that she'd been set and fine with a mere month ago.

But the only person inside of this house was Ron. And she loved Ron more than anything in the world. This thought moves her to grasp the knob firmly and turn, the latch opening and allowing her into the house.

Ron was on the floor, surrounded by- and she could nearly feel her heart stop. He was surrounded by pictures of her.

Pictures of them, together. Pictures of just Hermione. Pictures of just Harry, and pictures of Harry and Ron together. Pictures of them all.

Tear tracks were stained onto his face, and the letter they'd written to him was tight in his hand. He looked up when she entered, and as soon as her eyes meet his, she knew that her love for Ron was still there, still on the back burner of her heart, but still to prominent to ignore.

"Hermione?" His voice was light, gentle. "Is that you? Are you home?"

She smiles at him. "I'm home."

He leaps to his feet and enguls her in a hug. She feels his tears falling onto her shoulder, but it only makes her hug him tighter, and as she breathed in his scent- peppermint, fresh parchment and something that was purely him, she couldn't think of the last time she'd hugged him. She'd forgotten how safe he'd made her feel- she'd forgotten it all, and it all came rushing back to her.

But as she hugged him, her mind filled with the guilty thought of Harry, and how she longed to be with him too. She wanted to see his face, the face that always made her smile. The one that had shown her that she loved him a different way than she'd thought.