When the nightmares come,
Ginny learns the best thing to do is to lay an arm across his waist
and run the fingers of her unused hand
through his always-messy hair; a
hummed tune calmly floating from her throat.
When he screams in his sleep, she pulls him closer,
kissing the back of his neck to usher him away from the darkness.
It’s exactly what she wishes someone had done
when the nightmares came for her at twelve.

When the silence overtakes him
at the breakfast table, jam dripping off his toast as he stares across
the room like the Dark Lord just waltzed in,
Ginny asks him questions to bring him back to earth.
She asks how Neville’s getting on in his new position,
what he thinks of her soon-to-be sister-in-law’s wedding plans,
where Luna’s at in the world nowadays, and
of course she knows. She always knows the answers, but
it’s better to keep his mind distracted. She knows that
this is the only way he’ll survive.

When the tears overtake his entire face in
the middle of the grocery store, she doesn’t ask what triggered
this sudden shift. Perhaps the little golden boy
at the end of the aisle reminded him of another
who once wielded a camera or the clerk who just posted how
there’s a sale on socks; maybe
it’s just the overwhelming sense that the muggles surrounding them
will never know what it is they went through. Ginny doesn’t
shirk away or snap. Instead, she offers him her palm,
running her thumb over his knuckles as she squeezes,
never once letting her blazing eyes leave his face.
When he drops onto their couch,
hardly awake due to the exhaustion of yet another interview,
she follows suit, throwing herself nearly on top of him.
It always pleases her if a laugh leaves his lips,
and soon her arms find their way about his neck.
Through their laughter, she places a kiss on his forehead
where the reminder, the proof, still lingers,
as if to say, “I’ve got you now. Don’t you worry,
I’ll kill anyone who ever tries to take that smile away.
I’ll burn them to the ground before
they can even touch you,”
and she means it
with all her heart.