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The first thing she feels is the cold. So intense it takes her breath away and leaves her clutching her neck, hurtling upright and gasping for air. Only when she feels as if her lungs can once again work can she register the rest of her surroundings.
Her hand comes down to rest on a slick tile, green with algae, and her eyes follow the trail of slimy growth along the floor until they reach the figure of a young girl, sprawled on the tiles. She’s wearing Hogwarts robes and her flaming hair spills over the damp floor. Ginny creases her eyebrows.
Her breathing is uneven and loud. She’s trying as hard as she can to slow it down, to get a grip, but the more she sees of where she is, the harder it is. She slips and stumbles forward when she tries to stand up, and she reaches out in front of her, hand coming to grasp another slimy surface. She recoils back when she lifts her head to meet the eyes of a great stone snake, boring into her.
She can’t remember how she got here. She can’t even remember how she got here all those years ago. She was at the beach yesterday, wasn’t she? She had had dinner with Harry last night on the boardwalk. Hadn’t she?
She wraps her arms around herself, retreating into the middle of the passage, eyes darting around to assess every dark crevice, every writhing tunnel that twists away from the chamber, to some other dark abyss. She refuses to look at the girl. The girl hasn’t moved since she stood up, the girl is most likely beyond her help. Ginny squeezes her eyes shut and wills herself to remember how she got here.
‘Ginny.’
She shrieks, hand coming up to cover her mouth. Her breathing is hard and fast now, accompanied by unstoppable shaking. Her chin quivers and she tries to stop, but she can’t. Something had slithered right up to her and hissed in her ear. There is something in here with her and she knows what, but she doesn’t want to. She’s never seen it except in her imagination. She’s never dared ask Harry about it.
She’s given up all effort at remaining calm. What if she’s going to be here forever? Would Harry look for her? A shock runs through her body as she thinks perhaps, she’s already been here for years. Perhaps he’s moved on. Perhaps he was glad to have the opportunity-
‘Ginny.’
This time she doesn’t make a sound. She looks at the floor and shakes her head violently, hands clutching her hair. Tears, ice cold tears, are falling onto the ground and she realises that she’s been sobbing this whole time. This place does not even offer her the relief of hot tears, of some degree of warmth. They come cold and sharp against her skin- painful even.
Someone clutches her arm and she refuses to lift her head.
‘Ginny. Ginny!’
Her head snaps up.
‘Harry,’ she manages to gasp, lifting her hands to throw around his neck, she collapses into him. ‘How did you get here? How did I?’ she says, clutching his shirt. Then she leans in and whispers in his ear, ‘There’s someone on the floor.’
‘You’ve always been here.’
‘What? But I haven’t, just yesterday- ‘
The silky sound of something gliding across the dank floor interrupts her. His hands tighten around her waist. She feels her throat constrict; it’s getting hard to breathe again.
‘Whatever you do, don’t open your eyes.’ Harrys says slowly.
She buries her face in his neck. She won’t open them. She knows what will happen if she does.
‘Harry…’ she whispers.
‘Don’t worry Gin, everything’s going to be okay.’
And he starts moving toward the sound. The terrifyingly clear sound of each scale sliding over the grimy tiles, now accompanied with a hissing that rings in her ears.
‘Harry what are you doing?’ Ginny asks, eyes still closed, though turning her neck to talk in his ear.
‘Don’t worry little Ginevra, soon it will all be over.’
She instantly releases her hold on him, going limp in his arms, and he stumbles. She opens her eyes in the panic and she sees his face.
‘Your eyes!’ She moans. She scrambles on the floor, moving away from him but closer to the snake that she knows is there. She can feel it waiting for her, coiled and poised, every muscle in its body looking for her.
Harry looks like Harry, but he also doesn’t. His eyes are gouged out and streaming red down his face. She remembers what Harry told her about Fawkes and the snake, but Fawkes could not have done this.
‘Come now Ginny, we’ve been waiting for you,’ he laughs, then points to the girl behind her. Ginny doesn’t even turn her head to look, she’s frozen on the ground and he towers before her. ‘She’s been waiting for you.’
She feels bile rise in her throat, burning with acidity. In front of her, Harry’s face is melting into something completely new, a monster with deathly white skin and red eyes, only slits for a nose. She scrambles backwards again, trying and trying to get away from him but it seems the floor behind her will never end, and he follows her with a leisurely gait. He’s enjoying himself; he’s smiling at her.
Until finally she meets resistance. She can barely see through tears now, her throat is raw from screaming and she’s flailing her limbs, dumbstruck with fear. She knows what she is leant against, she knows what is going to happen next. Some desperate part of her has her eyes darting around the chamber once more, seeing if a boy with a sword will emerge from behind a pillar, but no such things happens. She looks at the man last and he hisses something so quickly, so sharply that she can barely look up before she see’s the terrible face of a giant snake descending upon her.
‘Ginny!’
Once again, she is fighting for air and shooting upright, clasping her neck. She feels a hand on her back and looks to her side, then screams and jumps out of bed, landing on the floor entangled in sheets. She reaches a wall and slides down it, clutching a blanket.
‘Ginny.’ Harry is out of bed almost as fast as she was and crouching before her. This Harry looks real. This Harry feels real.
‘You’re scaring me,’ he says, hand reaching up to push a strand of hair out of her face. ‘You were thrashing about in your sleep I couldn’t get you to wake up.’
It takes some while for her to regain some control over her breathing, and suddenly she just feels exhausted. She holds Harry’s forearm and he helps her get up and return to the bed. She stares at her hands as he moves away from her into the adjoining bathroom. She can hear him filling a glass of water.
The bed is different to their one at home though, and the bathroom is on the other side of the room. She feels unbearably hot.
‘Where are we?’
He walks back into the room and hands her a glass of water. His lips are set in a thin line.
‘We’re in the Seychelles, Gin,’ he says, settling on the other side of the bed. ‘Do we need to see someone? You’re really frightening me; I’ve never seen you like this.’
‘For our honeymoon,’ she whispers.
‘Yes.’ He brushes his hand down her back.
She puts down the glass of water and settles back into bed, casting off any sheets, sticking to her body due to the sweat.
‘Ginny- ‘
‘The chamber. It always is. This one just… It felt so real.’ She wipes her cheek, feeling the return of tears.
Harry lies down next to her but leaves a space between them. She instantly crosses it and presses her body close to his. His hands wrap immediately around her and he kisses her forehead.
‘You kept saying that you couldn’t open your eyes,’ he murmurs. She relishes the sound of his soft voice, notices the sound of waves outside for the first time since waking up.
‘I’ll tell you in the morning, okay?’ she replies.
‘Course.’
She shifts even closer to him and closes her eyes. His warmth doesn’t bother her, she craves it. Harry is always warm, from his hands to toes. Dream Harry had been ice cold. She should have known. Of course it was a dream.
She doesn’t take long to drift back to sleep, because despite what may wait for her behind closed eyes, she knows that when she opens them, he will be there, real and warm.