The silence is deafening.

Any minute now, you will come through my bedroom door. You'll throw your arms around me in a bone-crushing hug like you used to do. I'll be able to smell your conditioner again. I'll feel your skin, I'll touch you again. You'll kiss me like always, and we'll collapse together on my bed in a fit of giggles. That's what we do, what we'll still be able to do when you come back. And you will come back.

Because they're all wrong.

You haven't been taken from me. Whatever lies they've been telling me are wrong, everything is all wrong. Ron isn't crying in his room right now, Harry isn't trying to comfort him and hide tears of his own. Mum isn't going through your things, because you'll be back. You always come back… don't you?

The silence is painful in my ears.

I want to hear your laugh, see your smile, and not have to pretend that I don't listen to their lies. They're all wrong, Hermione, all of them, aren't they? You can trace a lie faster than anyone I know, so you can surely say that they're lying to me, trying to break me. You're coming back to me. To your friends, to the people who will always love you, no matter what. I don't want to wait anymore, but I know I have to. Because I promised I would wait for you to the ends of the Earth.

Like you always did for me.

The silence is driving me to insanity.

Your kisses, like you, are sorely missed by me. Even my annoying brother misses your constant nagging. I've told him that you're coming, you will be, but he just smiles and says, "Sure, Ginny." He doesn't sound as sure as he wants to sound, but I can pretend that, like me, he believes. I can pretend to not hear the sobbing coming from the boys, because they don't want me to hear it. I can pretend that you're coming home to me.

That you aren't gone.

It's difficult for me to take Mum's advice. She tells me to move on, find a new companion and lover. It's not as easy as all that, and she knows it as much as I do. It doesn't ease the pain of missing you. It doesn't make me as happy as when you were here. It doesn't feel the same.

The silence is getting to me.

It's okay.

Like other things, I can pretend to ignore it.