The Last Ride Together
AN: The idea struck me while I was answering a question from that poem in my exam, and it kept me squirming.
Thanks to All-powerful-oz (from DLP) for the Beta.
Summery: The last wish of dying wife. Harry/Ginny.
“My whole heart rises up to bless
Your name in pride and thankfulness!
Take back the hope you gave,-
I claimOnly a memory of the same,
-And this besides you will not blame,
Your leave for one more last ride with me.”
He jerked back, his mouth opening in the progenitor of a scream but a dying whisper issued instead. His hands, clutching her bed sheets, suddenly released their hold and found her forehead, which was burning as he had expected. He was aware of a clock ticking in the distance. He was aware, that beneath his fingers, his wife rested cocooned amongst a hundred sheets. He was aware of her feverish state, her eyes wide and wild staring up at him. It was curious how he had never noticed before, that they were a bit mad at the edges. A dog barked away somewhere, frothing probably. She whispered into his palms, the sick, heated air from her mouth inciting him to action.
And the only thing he could do was scream.
“Have you gone mad, Ginny!”
There was no question she had. Her head was burning - he felt it again. Was it his imagination or was it hotter than he'd ever felt it before? The new drugs must have been at fault. That's it, he had to call the healers, get her to Mungo's, something, anything.
But he couldn't move.
He couldn't.
Some traitorous, disgusting, pathetic part of his mind was riveted by her request. Not that he was aroused by it. No, of course not. But it was such a strange thing to say… exotic, yes, that was the word for it.
She whispered again, and after a short moment he sighed and bent towards the bed, aligning his ear to hear the soft words that croaked out of her throat. The poem repeated, stressing at the worst parts. Perhaps he misunderstood, he thought. She couldn't obviously mean that! He should get Hermione and ask her, just to be completely clear about things.
But then, as he was straightening her blankets and cooing softly to her that everything was going to be alright, and that he would be getting Hermione just to be safe, you know… her hand shot out and grabbed his. Well, not shot out exactly, but the moment it appeared, moving more with that action than it had probably done in the last week or so, he felt captivated. It used to be a slim hand, pale with this lovely smooth skin he could play with for hours. But now, emancipated by her disease, it was all skin and bone. Around her wrist, he could see the bulge of her ligaments, tendons? - Whatever the hell they were, as she grabbed him. The skin was flaked with this unnatural white, and the bones quivered as they gripped him tight. It looked horrible. It looked diseased. It looked dead. But it was his dammit; she was his and it didn't matter that she would be dead soon, it didn't matter that she would be gone. She was right here, right now, in front of him, alive. And he knew, right then, that he would quell beneath her request, that he would let her seize the instant, do with it whatever she wished. And with that realization came serenity.
And he slipped into the blankets beside her. Then he stripped away the blankets, leaving the final layer, a thin soft white cotton sheet draped like a veil over them.
If he churned his imagination, and turned back the clock, it would be almost like the first time. In the French Riviera between the tender night and the honeymoon bed they had made love upon the plush carpet, with only a sheet to drape them, to stick to the slick skin and move with their contortions, its pristine white such a delightfully erotic shade against their exertions.
It seemed that she too was thinking of that night for she whispered, “Riviera.”
He disrobed her, carefully slipping away the hospital whites, kissing the skin as it became visible. It seemed to flake between his lips, pebbly and extremely salty, abound in the accumulated toxins that her body continually released. It stung his lips and writhed upon his tongue, that taste and he pulled back, gazing into her suddenly confused eyes to reassure her. She acquiesced, but her body didn't lose the tenseness in the interim.
He conjured a soft cloth and wet it with a delicately placed spell, but some of the water splashed off and trickled over her face, making her quiver in almost silent laughter. He was smiling too, he knew. He bent over her and captured her lips in a kiss, letting the rough skin grate over his, moving his tongue in ways she loved, touched the delicate parts of her mouth, the small spot below the lower incisor. She was terribly aroused he knew, if the way she tried to grip his shoulder was any indication.
Then he lowered the cloth to her skin and began to clean it. He'd been doing it for nearly the past month, since she was now too delicate for a cleaning spell to be applied. It hadn't been pretty, and he'd always been aware that some part of her felt degraded when he gave her this bath. But tonight was the first time it felt intimate. As the clothes dropped upon the floor, he traced with the cloth the scars of her illness. But she was still beautiful, it was written upon her skin.
The air in the room was warm and the arousal between her legs was clearly visible. He cleaned around it, and let her silently moan for more before pressing the tip of his tongue into -
FUCK!
FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!
It was dried piss and it stank and there was no way he was going to press his dick into there, let alone his mouth. Fuck it, he thought in disgust. You're sick. Accept it. I don't want to have sex with a sick woman. Sick women don't have sex. It's not a bloody poem; there is no last ride together.
She must have seen it because she began to throw a tantrum.
Her voice, angry and louder than it had been in ages, said Harry. Harry. Hurry. Hurry…
He hated her for that. She knew he would do it for him, no matter how bad it was. He couldn't deny it to her, not then, and most certainly not now. Anger rose in him, virulent and violent but he quenched it. Whipping out his dick, the whole pretense of love making abandoned, the dirtied smelly cloth thrown aside, a would be remainder of a putrid low. And he thrust into her.
He wasn't hard. He wasn't gentle. He settled for somewhere in between, letting her rock against him for what he thought was the last time in their lives. She enjoyed it, he knew. She loved to be moved as she was undulating now, an almost convulsing shiver that ran from her pelvis to her arms. Oh Harry, Harry, Harry…
He tried to think of all the beautiful things they had done together, and was pleasantly surprised how soon she stilled - not even a minute? - her orgasm passing without a whisper. Sickness, he supposed, was the cause of that. He opened his eyes and pulled out and stilled between her wide open legs for a moment.
“Happy now, dear?”
If he was surprised when he heard a female choke at his words, he did not show it. Instead he turned gravely to the woman standing shocked at the doorway, her eyes wide and her face pale. Sedately, he said, “Can you please give us a minute.”
The woman choked again, but somehow pulled herself together to say, “She entered into convulsions a minute ago, Mister Potter.”
Oh.
He turned back towards Ginny and founding no evidence of breath was curious about the absence of emotion.
“In that case, dear...”
He was a senior Auror, taught to react to certain situation with blinding speed. “Obliviate.”
But the door had already slammed shut.
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