Standing there spellbound, Ginny ceded control of her disobedient eyes, which were unknowingly fastened with his for what seemed like an inordinate period of time. His green glistening gaze was much more enchanting and intense without the glasses; they were roasting captivatingly at her insides and drawing her in like a magnet, so deep she was beginning to see herself and her reflection in them.
She had never seen him like this before ever since he lost his memory of her, so close, ingenuous, candid, and personal. There were still water droplets on his chin. His hair was wet and disheveled, and his cheeks were glinting with radiant pink, one of them sporting a purple bruise from her punching him earlier. He must have rushed through his shower to catch her because his shirt buttons were completely misaligned and the collar was rolled inward.
He could do no wrong in her mind now. Her rage was completely obliterated, overcome by his wholesomeness and pure innocence. All she wanted to do now was cuddle him, hold him, comfort him, protect him, and love him, just like she had always wanted to do and just like she was always destined to do, because she was his beloved, his soul-mate, and his guardian angel.
“Erm… Ginny… Sorry to startle you… I… was just… I just want to give this back to you,” he handed the broom to her timidly.
Just when she was about to lose her balance at the sound of his voice hitting her eardrums, she abruptly grabbed hold of the broom for support. Thankfully, he was holding it tightly, as if instinctively, he knew she needed his strength now.
“Are you sure you’re okay? You know… when I… crashed into you earlier… sorry about that…” he muttered curiously, seeing how unstable she appeared to be.
“I mean… I hope I didn’t hurt you… I really didn’t mean to…”
“Oh, sorry,” he apologized again, finally releasing his grip on the broom.
Her anger was rushing back, because his endless apologies for all the wrong reasons were driving her crazy. As her eyes began to blaze madly, she wanted to punch him again.
“Eh… I was wondering… you know… if I can… come in,” he whimpered hoarsely as he continued to gaze at her, inching closer. He was so close she could smell the fresh scent of soap he used, as well as the moisture and his body heat. They were electrifying every part of her skin. Distracted by all this, the tone of his lingering voice once again hypnotized her senses, and it managed to quell her anguish and tears. She was enthralled with him once more.
Ginny saw herself stepping aside and making way for him to enter. As he slowly walked past her, the back of his hand waltzed across her abdomen, sending tickly vibrations all over her body. This was already the third time he touched her in less than two days, once by the staircase and the other when he saved her. She was unsure whether he did it deliberately this time, although admittedly, she didn’t give him much room to maneuver. As he strolled to her dresser chair, she saw her arm softly close the door behind her, keeping them safely alone in her crammed room.
“Oh man! My shirt!” he finally noticed how ridiculous he looked with the misaligned shirt from his reflection. As he unbuttoned it, Ginny's heart skipped a beat when she got a glimpse of his bare quivering center from the mirror. She also spotted the bruise on his chest and remembered painfully how she elbowed him very hard earlier in the match, in addition to punching him. She was beginning to regret her recklessness, of her taking her rage out on him.
“Sorry!” he blushed and turned around shyly, realizing it was inappropriate to undress in front of her like that while they were alone in her room.
She chuckled sadly at the sight of his awkwardness. Because of his memory loss, he no longer remembered she had already seen and felt his nakedness countless times before. Those intimate and desperate moments they had once shared, when all hope was seemingly lost, were clearly all but wiped clean.
“Ginny…” he murmured breathlessly as he approached her carefully after fixing his shirt. “I… have a small favor… I want to… ask you…
“I… I think they were… broken when I got hit…” he pulled his glasses out of his pants pocket and handed them to her. One of the arms was undone.
Ginny knew he was lying. She clearly remembered they were not broken. He had just been wearing them and observing her outside the window with Hermione earlier. She was wondering hopefully if this was just his excuse to come in. Besides, in the past he would always approach Hermione when he had problems with his glasses. But she didn’t want to confront him; she wanted him to stay to prolong this beautiful fantasy.
Struggling to breathe, Ginny found herself methodically retrieving her wand from the desk and repaired them. As she handed them back to him, his fingers caressed her palms lingeringly, as if he didn’t want to let go, just like the way with the broomstick earlier. Ginny’s whole body recoiled as he slowly guided her hands to his face, wanting her to put his glasses on for him.
“Thanks… Ginny… I… also have another favor to ask you…” he squeezed her palms onto his wet cheeks before finally letting go.
“Can you help me… trim… my hair?” he sat himself down on her dresser chair.
With her feet light and airy, she retrieved a pair of scissors from the drawer and hovered behind him, both staring at the reflection of the two of them. If only she could grab hold of the reflection and touch it, feel it, keep it, and make it permanent and real, she mused despairingly, because it was indeed a perfect picture. Harry had thought so last year too. He once told her he always carried this reflection in his heart.
She gently played her hands through his wet locks, gradually working her way to his neck, and caressed his sides when he started to giggle.
“I’m ticklish, especially there…” he twitched as he grabbed her hand again, “…and there too…”
“You still have the dream catcher…” he smiled brightly, recognizing it from the reflection.
“I remember giving it to you… two years ago for Christmas…
“Do… Do you… still recall that night?” he said longingly. “You and I, under the Christmas tree, stacking presents past midnight, like little kids…
“And I said… I want you to have the best dreams in the world. Don’t be like me, always having nightmares all the time…”
Hearing all these familiar words, Ginny immediately froze, her eyes tearing up immensely. Could it be true, she asked herself, that he finally remembered their past together, that he was returning to her, that this wasn’t just another one of her perfect dreams.
As Harry slowly got up from the chair and gazed at her deeply, she placed her hand softly on his bruised cheek. Breathing heavily, Ginny found herself standing there helplessly, her feet melting away, as he leaned towards her, letting her see his eyes up close, which were varnished with tears.
She found her other hand tracing its way to his chest, her fingers gracing his shirt and the buttons. Along the way, she could feel his quivering heartbeat calling for her touch. Seeing the buttons, she couldn’t help but smile. It was because she recalled two years ago, how Harry had to lie to Ron, telling him she was helping him sew back the buttons when he saw his little sister holding his best friend’s clothes in the middle of the night.
Slowly, her fingers gently undid the buttons, and one by one, they began to peel away, exposing his bare chest and the bruise, which was next to his thumping heart. Just like before, he would always let her have her way with him. She pressed her hand on the bruise despairingly, feeling his heartache, hoping she could undo the damage.
His face contorted in discomfort. Seeing this, Ginny wanted to pull away, afraid of inflicting more pain on him, but he quickly placed his hand over hers and defiantly pressed it deeper into the bruise.
“Ginny, no matter what you do to me, I will always be by your side,” he said forgivingly.
“Nothing you can do is going to drive me away…
“I promise you. My eyes will see only you…”
This was all too familiar to her. Ominously, those were the exact words he said to her last year.
Trying to avert his gaze, her eyes fell to his bare abdomen, and it reminded her of what she loved to do to him in her room last summer. Longing to relive the past, she suddenly and boldly sank all ten fingers into him. Just like before, he was laughing madly and running to her bed.
“Stop it!” he laughed.
She found herself chasing him. It was a small room. He could never escape her, and just like before, she melted into him as they rolled playfully in her bed.
Her bed was warm again. Her room was filled with laughter again. She had successfully turned back time like she had always wished for. It was too good to be true.
“I love you Ginny…” he whispered musically to her lips.
She leapt into him and buried him into her bed, kissing him passionately.
Suddenly, a crisp piercing sound of shattering glass could be heard from the room next door.
Startled, Ginny removed her lips from Harry’s and looked up blankly, recognizing the frantic voices that were blasting from next door. They were Ron and Hermione’s.
“Harry? Harry…” she called out tenderly, looking across her room, but he had vanished.
She found herself alone in her bed. But instead of holding Harry, she was cradling his jacket tightly in her arms. She had unknowingly fallen asleep.
Her bed returned sadly to its frozen state. Void of his laughter, her room quickly felt very spacious, lifeless, and conspicuously empty.
“It was just a dream,” she whimpered hopelessly, cuddling his jacket and wiping away her tears as she stared hollowly at the dream catcher.
“A dream… a beautiful dream…”
“I AM SORRY!” Ron’s voice echoed gravely from next door, interrupting Ginny’s sorrow thoughts. Hermione could be heard shrieking uncontrollably, cursing him, and launching all kinds of foul language at him.
“What’s going on?” Ginny immediately stormed to Ron’s room but they couldn’t hear her because of Hermione’s screaming. She had never seen Hermione lose control like that. But as she stared at the floor, she understood the reasons why she was upset. There were shattered pieces of porcelain littered all over and she recognized the broken pieces. They were from the pair of doves she gave Harry two years ago for Christmas that formed the symbol of their bond. Now they were no more, nothing more than a heap of shapeless dregs, remnants of their former love, ready to be discarded.
Hermione was still screaming and pointing violently at Ron, who was sitting on his bed, covering his face bleakly. Harry was trying to calm her down, trying to restrain her, who appeared ready to pounce on him. Just like in her dream, he had taken a shower and his shirt was misaligned, but unlike her dream, he didn’t go visit her in her room.
“Hermione, it’s only a dove statue! We’ll just scoop everything up! That’s all!” Harry demanded. “Calm down! It’s nothing really!”
Ginny’s heart stopped beating when she heard his indifference, his unemotional reaction to the destruction of what they shared. In front of her eyes stood a stranger, a person she no longer knew, a person she was no longer familiar with.
“Why you so worked up, Hermione? Watch it! Don’t step on the shattered porcelain!” Harry continued.
“YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND, HARRY!” she barked and turned to Ron again. “YOU IDIOT! IT WAS ONLY A QUIDDITCH GAME! YOU DIDN’T HAVE TO TAKE IT OUT ON HARRY! YOU WERE THE ONE THAT LET GINNY SCORE!”
“I SAID I DIDN’T MEAN TO BREAK IT! MY ARM JUST ACCIDENTALLY SWIPED IT OFF THE SHELF__”
“WHILE YOU WERE TOO BUSY BLAMING HARRY FOR YOUR LOUSY GAME! THAT’S WHY YOU WERE FLARING YOUR ARMS LIKE AN ASS! YOU KNOW DAMN WELL WHAT THESE DOVES MEAN TO__”
“What’s going on? What happened?” Mrs. Weasley crashed in. The three of them turned to the doorway and saw her and Ginny standing there. Hermione quickly silenced herself and gazed sympathetically at a teary Ginny, who looked like she was going to die at the sight of all the broken fragments and Harry being so cold about it.
“Is that the doves you once told me Ginny gave you?” Mrs. Weasley asked Harry meaningfully, bending down and examining the fragments. She had seen him holding them preciously by Ginny’s bedside when she was inflicted with the dream curse two years ago.
“Eh… yeah… I guess,” he replied uncertainly. “Ron didn’t mean to break it. We were just about to clean it up. It’s nothing really.”
“If we can find all the pieces I know a charm to get them back together! It’ll be good as new!” Hermione screeched frantically, reaching down to help Mrs. Weasley.
“No, there will still be cracks and scars. Some things just can’t go back to the way they were. It’ll never be the same again,” whimpered Ginny numbly as she left for her room.
“Ginny! Wait! Your broom!” Harry leaped over the broken porcelain and chased after her. Unfortunately for her, he reached her room just in time to catch her tears before she was able to close the door.
“Ginny, your broom… Erm… why… why… are you crying again?” he finally spotted her tears in full view for the first time. She could not deny him anymore. She could no longer hide her scars. She had failed. At last, he saw her crying. Sardonically, he still didn’t understand the true reasons behind those pearls.
“I said I was sorry for hurting you this morning__”
“FOR THE LAST TIME, HARRY, YOU DIDN’T HURT ME THIS MORNING! PLEASE STOP APOLOGIZING!” she slammed the door in his face, leaning her entire weight on it, determined to shut him out, perhaps once and for all.
“But you did… hurt me… really bad… Harry… last year…” she sobbed weakly, crumbling to the floor. Her grinding pain was overwhelming her and confusing her, to the extent that she unwittingly weaved the dream she had earlier with reality.
“Why do you keep on apologizing to me?” she whimpered mockingly.
“… but for all the wrong reasons…
“… you just hurt me even more…”