Running out of giftie ideas = a birthday drabble!
This goes out to redhot_witch, whose birthday I almost missed! Since my earliest memory of you is of a wonderful review you left for "Before I Let You Go", I figured I'd write you a drabble based on the idea of Harry's return. (I'm half asleep as I type this, so I hope it doesn't suck!)
Happy Birthday, Red! :)
Title: "In Dreams"
Rating: PG
Ships: H/G
Word Count: 812
Summary: "Adventures unforseen await me when I close my eyes each night… but one dream returns to me more often than any other. I dread it with a fear that words cannot tell; if only I could resist sleep and fight that tempter that smothers me in the reveries where I am reunited with my love."
My dreams seem so real sometimes. For me, the nighttime is a thing both feared and anticipated; it takes me away from my loneliness to places where the skies are colored lavender, where fish fly and birds swim, where two moons hang side by side in the heavens and the wind sounds like running water while the babbling brook speaks in foreign tongues. At times, I am so parched in my dreams that I wake to find my hand outstretched as though the cup had only just vanished before I could drink from it. What games dreams do play.
Adventures unforseen await me when I close my eyes each night… but one dream returns to me more often than any other. I dread it with a fear that words cannot tell; if only I could resist sleep and fight that tempter that smothers me in the reveries where I am reunited with my love.
Last night, he came to me in the same manner as always. There he stands in the shadows of my bedroom, wearing the wounds of battle… underneath his skin as well as on it. His face is hidden, but I feel his gaze fixed on me as though his green eyes could bleed me with their sharpness.
And how I long to bleed for the sight of them.
In the dream, he says few words before lays me down. He is slow and cautious and gentle as I come undone in his arms, and in my ear he whispers promises that only a weak and lonely spirit could conjure. But then I wake, my bed empty, my heart aching for the loss of him. He is gone, retreated into the unforgiving torture chamber of my mind, that he might emerge again the next night and once more dash my hopes. My dreams, you see, are merciless.
A candle is lit beside my bed tonight; small defense against the chill that seeps in through cracks in my windowpanes. The tiny glow casts odd shapes on the walls and I look towards the opposite end of my room and muse that the shadow cast by my bed curtains looks almost human. The thought makes a chill run through me and so I close my eyes. Lying on my back, I wait for sleep
At that moment, I feel a sharp wind pass over my face and the candle blows out. Over the sound of my own beating heart, I think that I hear soft footsteps inside the room. Surely it is only my imagination. I am awake; it is too soon…
My eyes have adjusted to the dark and they float helplessly to the place where he usually stands in my mind.
And there he is.
I sit up. In the usual way, he walks slowly towards me, and my breathing becomes distinctly shallow. Something is different, though. Tonight, he is limping, and his right hand is stuffed in his robe against a pain in his side. At first, these variations confuse me and nothing more, for I am watching his face and willing myself to see his eyes through the darkness.
Something else has changed. He is weak, slowly slumping onto the bed beside me as though he has lost command over his legs.
“Ginny,” he whispers and I feel his hand close over mine.
He feels like ice. But the next moment, he is pulling me towards him so that we are both seated side by side. His cold fingers move from my hand to graze my cheek. They’ve never done that before….
For the first time, I am compelled to speak.
“Are you a ghost?” I whisper.
“No,” comes his raspy voice.
I raise my hand and run it along the fabric of his shirt. He is soaked.
“Then… I’m dreaming…” I breathe. Closing my eyes, I let my palms wander along the length of his arms, feeling rips and tears in the cloth as I go. The body within is thinner, but a second passes before I notice another difference from my nighttime machinations. He is not shaking now…
Just then, a hand slips beneath my hair and gently draws it away from my neck. My breath never makes it past my throat as I feel moist lips press lightly against the spot beneath my ear with a sensation so familiar that I cannot stop the tears from spilling from my eyes. He murmurs raggedly against my cheek, “Not a dream…”
I’ve no chance to scream or cry out before his mouth finds mine, and he kisses me in a way that puts my nighttime fantasies to shame. It is minutes before I find my voice at last, and as I draw him into my bed, gaily banishing my taunting dreams to the dark corners of my memory, I open my arms to him and whisper, “Come home.”
Fin
Heh. If only I could have written my thesis with that kind of speed.
Happy Birthday, Red! :)
Title: "In Dreams"
Rating: PG
Ships: H/G
Word Count: 812
Summary: "Adventures unforseen await me when I close my eyes each night… but one dream returns to me more often than any other. I dread it with a fear that words cannot tell; if only I could resist sleep and fight that tempter that smothers me in the reveries where I am reunited with my love."
My dreams seem so real sometimes. For me, the nighttime is a thing both feared and anticipated; it takes me away from my loneliness to places where the skies are colored lavender, where fish fly and birds swim, where two moons hang side by side in the heavens and the wind sounds like running water while the babbling brook speaks in foreign tongues. At times, I am so parched in my dreams that I wake to find my hand outstretched as though the cup had only just vanished before I could drink from it. What games dreams do play.
Adventures unforseen await me when I close my eyes each night… but one dream returns to me more often than any other. I dread it with a fear that words cannot tell; if only I could resist sleep and fight that tempter that smothers me in the reveries where I am reunited with my love.
Last night, he came to me in the same manner as always. There he stands in the shadows of my bedroom, wearing the wounds of battle… underneath his skin as well as on it. His face is hidden, but I feel his gaze fixed on me as though his green eyes could bleed me with their sharpness.
And how I long to bleed for the sight of them.
In the dream, he says few words before lays me down. He is slow and cautious and gentle as I come undone in his arms, and in my ear he whispers promises that only a weak and lonely spirit could conjure. But then I wake, my bed empty, my heart aching for the loss of him. He is gone, retreated into the unforgiving torture chamber of my mind, that he might emerge again the next night and once more dash my hopes. My dreams, you see, are merciless.
A candle is lit beside my bed tonight; small defense against the chill that seeps in through cracks in my windowpanes. The tiny glow casts odd shapes on the walls and I look towards the opposite end of my room and muse that the shadow cast by my bed curtains looks almost human. The thought makes a chill run through me and so I close my eyes. Lying on my back, I wait for sleep
At that moment, I feel a sharp wind pass over my face and the candle blows out. Over the sound of my own beating heart, I think that I hear soft footsteps inside the room. Surely it is only my imagination. I am awake; it is too soon…
My eyes have adjusted to the dark and they float helplessly to the place where he usually stands in my mind.
And there he is.
I sit up. In the usual way, he walks slowly towards me, and my breathing becomes distinctly shallow. Something is different, though. Tonight, he is limping, and his right hand is stuffed in his robe against a pain in his side. At first, these variations confuse me and nothing more, for I am watching his face and willing myself to see his eyes through the darkness.
Something else has changed. He is weak, slowly slumping onto the bed beside me as though he has lost command over his legs.
“Ginny,” he whispers and I feel his hand close over mine.
He feels like ice. But the next moment, he is pulling me towards him so that we are both seated side by side. His cold fingers move from my hand to graze my cheek. They’ve never done that before….
For the first time, I am compelled to speak.
“Are you a ghost?” I whisper.
“No,” comes his raspy voice.
I raise my hand and run it along the fabric of his shirt. He is soaked.
“Then… I’m dreaming…” I breathe. Closing my eyes, I let my palms wander along the length of his arms, feeling rips and tears in the cloth as I go. The body within is thinner, but a second passes before I notice another difference from my nighttime machinations. He is not shaking now…
Just then, a hand slips beneath my hair and gently draws it away from my neck. My breath never makes it past my throat as I feel moist lips press lightly against the spot beneath my ear with a sensation so familiar that I cannot stop the tears from spilling from my eyes. He murmurs raggedly against my cheek, “Not a dream…”
I’ve no chance to scream or cry out before his mouth finds mine, and he kisses me in a way that puts my nighttime fantasies to shame. It is minutes before I find my voice at last, and as I draw him into my bed, gaily banishing my taunting dreams to the dark corners of my memory, I open my arms to him and whisper, “Come home.”
Fin
Heh. If only I could have written my thesis with that kind of speed.