The dead play by the rules

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Classification: Angst

Pairing: D/G

Rating: G

Author’s notes: I’m afraid this isn’t one of my fluffy stories. I wish I could write a happy one where they live happily ever after, but it wouldn’t be true. The reality is unfortunately very harsh and we don’t always get what we want.

If you thought that You do not know I die was a sad piece, you’ll find this absolutely heart wrenching. I suggest you have some Kleenex at hand!

Summary: Draco died and Ginny is in a coma. While unconscious, she gets the last chance to say goodbye to him. Ginny’s POV. A very short one-shot.

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The dead look so dead when they are dead.

(Somerset Maugham)

Everything around me is so dark and dreary. Incorporeal shadows move ever so slowly through the foggy air. Numerous silhouettes coil and uncoil and then dissolve like smoke. They get near, but I can’t see their faces. Whenever I try to look them in the eye, they turn away from me.

I only now realize what is so peculiar about them. They are all dead. They look so irreversibly dead.

Am I dead? I peer at my own hands. They are solid and lucent. The opalescent glow of my body is the only source of light in this realm of darkness. I’m not dead then? Maybe I could ask someone, but there is no one here, even the shadows are gone. I realize that I’m standing on a narrow slithering path, strewn with grey dust. I can’t help thinking that it might be ashes. Burned human flesh and bones.

Before me, in the distance, I suddenly see a very familiar silhouette and I run towards it. But the faster I run, the further away it is from me. I stumble and cry.

“Please, Draco! Please, stop! Don’t leave me!”

He turns around. His gaunt face is blank and his body is nothing but a lifeless shadow. Slowly, he approaches me.

“Ginny?” he whispers and there is a flicker of recognition in his pale eyes.

“Oh, Draco!” I reach out to touch him, but my fingers graze emptiness. Powerful emotions inundate me, all at once. I feel my throat constrict, the sob beginning somewhere deep down, fighting its way out.

“Don’t cry, love,” he says as his pale image wavers.

“You can’t be dead,” I moan. “You shouldn’t be dead.”

“I’m sorry, Ginny.”

“But you saw them coming! Why didn’t you run?” I exclaim, enraged.

He shakes his head. “I’m not a coward. I stayed and fought.”

“I want to die!” I weep inconsolably.

“No you don’t,” he replies gently. His voice is so soft and the words leave his lips like a breath.

“Let me stay with you,” I plead.

“You don’t belong here.”

Another sob escapes my mouth and resounds against invisible walls.

“Please!”

He shakes his blond head again. “You can’t, it’s against the rules.”

“Since when do you abide by the rules, Draco Malfoy?” I cry out.

He chuckles softly. “The dead have to play by the rules, sweetie.”

Tears cloud my vision and I blink them away furiously.

“Can’t you come back with me?” I ask, trying to find a solution where there is none.

“And do what?” he asks softly. “Drag out a miserable existence like Moaning Myrtle or Nearly Headless Nick?”

I understand. Vaguely, my mind registers that it makes sense. Having his wraith next to me for the rest of my life, I’ll only retain the wraith of the happiness we once had.

“It’s all right, Ginny,” he smiles faintly. “I’ll be watching over you. I won’t forget you and I’ll never stop loving you.”

I want to tell him how much I love him and that I will never forget him either, but I just cry and can’t stop. Sorrow and pain are so overwhelming, that it seems like my heart would burst.

“I wish I could hold you in my arms,” he says suddenly and his face twists.

Tears spilling down my face, I raise my head. “I don’t want you to leave.”

“If you keep the memories of me, I’ll be more alive than I’ve ever been. But I’ve got to go now.”

I forget that he’s just a fleshless ghost and I make an attempt to grab his hand. But I can’t hold him back. He is drifting away. He turns one last time to look at me and walks away into the darkness.

I clench my fists. I’m so angry and hurt. Why did it have to happen? Somebody, tell me! Because I don’t understand! I refuse to understand!

Oh, Ginny Weasley! Haven’t you learned by now that everything in life comes with a price tag? And there is no bargaining. No bargaining…

Bright light above my head blinds me and, unwillingly, I wake up.