'you're far away but i can still feel your heartbeat next to mine'

[floribel]

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He was walking in a field with grass that brushed against his knees. The sky was clear, but dark somehow, and a heavy breeze passed with the scent of a looming storm.

In the distance, past the rolling hills he stood amidst, were towering trees. Their leaves appeared to ripple and their branches appeared to move from the strong gusts of wind that ruffled his hair.

"Harry?"

His head shot in the direction her voice came from. He didn't see Addie at first, and her words echoed in the surrounding air.

Harry felt his heart grow faster as a surge of panic flew to his lungs.

He turned around, and there she was, standing a fair distance away. Her rich brown hair was the same as it had been, and the freckles of her cheeks were in the exact places he'd memorised them to be.

Relief bloomed in his chest like flowers in the dawn of springtime, because she was right there. She was real. She was alive. Addie was alive.

But something was wrong.

Wet tear streaks stained her face, and her eyes looked scared. She was shivering in one of the hospital wing gowns, rubbing her arms, and her bare feet were hidden in the long grass.

"Addie?" He spoke. Although she looked the same, there was something eerily different about her presence.

"I'm scared," she said, her voice wavering, her chest heaving up and down in anxiety as the wind increased. He hated hearing those words come from her mouth—it hurt him to see her like this. He stepped closer upon instinct; wanting to bring her into a safe embrace to calm her down the way he'd done so many times before.

He took another step, and another, and another—but no matter how many he took, she remained the same distance away, even though she was standing still. No matter how close he seemed to get to her, she was always too far away to reach.

Too far gone.

He stepped on something.

Looking down, Harry picked up the rose from the ground. As soon as he did, the world around them turned into a greyscale. The green of the grass and the brown of her hair and the slight pink of her lips became void of any colour: everything except for the rose.

Its fragile, drooping red petals had dark spots like bruises, and a wave of grief twisted his stomach just as it had in Dumbledore's office those months ago. As the petals touched his skin, they broke away from the stem in his hands the same way the frail chambers of his heart had broken without her.

He watched in horror as the petals suddenly turned black and crumbled into a fine dust like ash. The next gust of wind blew the pieces away from his palms.

Harry looked up to Addie still standing before him—but thin cracks formed on her body. The pieces of her remained together for a moment, however, as if she were weightless and floating, or not really there at all.

"It's your fault," she said. He felt those words like a punch to the stomach, and suddenly he couldn't breathe.

He ran towards her. Maybe he could put her back together. Maybe he could hold her pieces in tact and never let go. But still, he couldn't reach her. He could never reach her.

The pieces of her crumbled into the same fine dust as the rose right before his eyes, and suddenly she was gone with the wind, and he was alone.

Harry's chest ached the way it had in his dream when he woke with a fright. Adjusting to the darkness, Ron's quiet snores from the bed beside his mattress on the floor, and the familiar overbearing guilt that came with the war on his shoulders, Harry sat up.

He swiped a hand across the beads of sweat lining his forehead. He had to get her out of his head. He had to. He had to. For everyone's sake, at least. What good is he going to be in this war with the inability to bring Addie from his mind? With the weight of her death making him feel close to collapsing everyday? How can a hero ever recover when the villain has already taken everything from him?

Because he tried to get her out of his head. He tried not to miss her. He tried not to think of her every second of every day.

But he couldn't. He could never stop his thoughts of her always returning.

Because right then, he couldn't help but think that if he had this same nightmare just a few months ago, he would be able to go to her dormitory.

He'd be opening the door quietly and stepping across the carpet to her bed in the dark. He'd climb in and find her figure under the sheets, and she'd stir from sleep and recognise him by touch alone as his warm arms wrapped around her. She would roll over into his embrace and put her legs on top of his and would be asking, in a sleepy whisper, with her eyes still closed, "Are you okay?" and he'd be holding her closer to his chest and whispering, "I am with you," and everything would be as it should.

It was his fault she was gone. He should have listened to his gut and stayed with her that day in the hospital wing. She was so vulnerable and defenceless and he left her to go on some pointless expedition with Dumbledore that resulted in a fake horcrux and her death. She loved and trusted him and he threw it all away.

It was all his fault.

He swallowed down the lump in his throat thickly. Before Harry truly realised it, his rucksack was in his hand and he was shoving in the nearest clothing items in the near-dark. He stepped in his shoes, pushed on his glasses, slipped the bag around his shoulder and tucked his wand securely in his front pocket.

Harry quietly left Ron's room. He quickly trailed down the steps—pushing away the memories of him and Addie standing there together in the dark, with the warm candlelight flickering over her face right before the onslaught of Bellatrix's flames that surrounded the Burrow those months ago.

He manoeuvred his way through the silhouettes of furniture pieces—the same route he'd taken to the back door when he led Addie through the dark as she laughed quietly behind him in the middle of the night.

When Harry reached the back door, he stopped for a moment to eye the coats they had used in the snow still hanging up together on neighbouring hooks.

He remembered her soft hands in his as he rolled her sleeves up. He remembered the warm feeling of standing so close to her. He remembered feeling her eyes studying his face in the low light with that endearing childlike curiosity of hers.

Harry opened the door, shut it quietly behind him, and stepped out into the cool night air. He kept his head down from the overcast, dark sky, and eyed his feet and the way they stepped on the long reeds lining the ground. Anything to distract himself from the fact that he'd just walked past the exact spot he told her he'd loved her.

He remembered the way the five words I'm in love with you had lingered on his tongue that whole night—and many nights before it—and when she stood before him in the snow with a bright smile and snowflakes in her eyelashes and they finally just slipped from his mouth.

He remembered the feeling of her cold lips finally meeting his, and how everything, even amidst the freezing temperature, seemed to warm in that moment like nothing could ever be wrong again. Like every ounce of worry washed away and every stray fear for the future simply vanished. Like he had been suffocating his whole life, drowning in unfathomable waters, and she was the fresh air of the surface. That she was air and life and everything in between.

But now, without her, he was drowning in a new kind of depth, in which the water went on forever and he would never breathe again because there was no longer any surface; there was no longer any of her.

"Going somewhere?" Ron's voice broke the night's silence. Harry stopped, and reluctantly turned around to see his best friend in his pyjamas just a few steps away with the back door ajar. He swallowed thickly.

"I can't stop thinking about her," Harry said, shaking his head. "Everything reminds me of her. I can't sleep—I can't figure out the horcruxes—I can't do anything. Everyone around me, everyone who gets close to me just dies just I can't do anything about it! Nobody else is going to die. Not because of me."

"None of them died because of you, mate..." Ron sighed, tucking his hands in his pockets. "Addie—" his voice caught. "—That wasn't your fault. Dumbledore wasn't your fault. Mad-eye wasn't your fault. It's a whole lot bigger than that. It's always been bigger than that."

"But you're all at risk around me!" his voice started to rise. "I have to leave. The bad stuff always follows me. None of you are safe around me. Addie wasn't. She never was and I kept her close because I loved her and look where that got her—"

"We're in this war one way or another!" Ron cut him off. "Bad stuff is going to happen. No one is safe with or without you—it's dangerous everywhere. You may as well be with us. And Addie?—she didn't die because you were around her. You can't do that to yourself, mate. You know she was safest with you."

Harry looked away, and wiped his sleeve quickly over his face. He took a long breath, filling his lungs, and let it go; dropping the rucksack on the ground to admit his defeat. Visibly relieved Ron stepped closed and hesitantly grabbed it, swinging it over his shoulder.

"I know she meant everything to you, but she'd want you to keep going, okay?" he said, eyeing his friend's sullen expression. Ron slung his arm around Harry's shoulders. "Do it for her. Win this for her."

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a/n:
HIII
sorry this chapter is so late i just started school again <\3
BUT IM LITERALLY SO EXCIYED FOR RUINATIONS like i keep saying that but i stg there are SOOO many moments that im so excited to write omg omg
OKAY BYE pls excuse any typos they'll be fixed when i reread this chapter at some point bc i can't be fcked to edit rn
<3

-g