this is for Chi {theworldwas spinning for us}, because she is my lovely HG twinny and i adore her.
for Jenny's {wizardology} Tragedy Challenge on HPFC.
with extra help from the P R O M P T S, P R O M P T S, P R OM P T S forum's Prompt of the Day thread.
also, a huge thank you to Blue {BlueEyes444} for BETAing this for me. Love you! :)
the inglorious few
/the moment ended right there, right then.
...
She moves like water pouring down a waterfall; gushing, rushing, and powerful. Her wand movements are smooth and flowing, her voice is sharp and articulate as she whips spells left and right twirling madly, Ginny Weasley knows how to fight. She knows how to fight as well as Harry, Ron, Hermione, as well as anyone, and she is fierce and reckless with her passion for dueling.
The air is thick with hexes and curses flitting through the air, jets of bright lights flying everywhere. Its chaos and she's never felt more at home.
She's not sure who she's up against, all she knows is Luna's by her side, and got her back as always and they're dueling to the death. Exhilaration consumes her as she dances for her every breathe. Finally a jet of bright red light bursts from Luna's wand and the Death Eater falls.
She grins lightly at her misty eyed friend who nods absently at her. Ginny looks around, taking in the falling castle, the bodies strewn on the ground, and the sadistic leers upon their enemy's faces, her excitement dwindling into alarm.
She sees Rose Zeller hit with a green light. She sees the light leave her pale blue eyes. She suddenly feels dirty, ashamed.
But then another Death Eater steps into her path and the battle begins anew.
...
The castle feels empty.
She's in the Room of Requirement; clasping hands with a corpse at midnight, feeling the silence overwhelm her. He walks in innocuously, as if it's normal to stroll into a morgue in the middle of the night. Like it's okay for him to walk back to her after leaving her for so long.
His absence had been like a knife-wound straight to her heart and she'd been bleeding everywhere ever since.
His green eyes are dull, despite the dim light around them. It's like he doesn't have any life left in him, like he had lost it all yesterday. {Yesterday when she fought, Voldemort fell, and her brother died.}
He stands in front of her in the Room of Requirement and she doesn't offer him her hand because it's busy gripping Fred's cold, limp fingers so tightly, she almost thinks she could squeeze the life back into him. He doesn't speak and neither does she, until finally he throws himself into the seat next to hers and just cries.
It's quiet, but it breaks her simple silence, the careful balance she had as his muffled sobs fill the air. She lets go of Fred's hand, gets up, and pushes herself into Harry's lap, wrapping him around her, encasing herself in his long limbs and warm embrace. It feels like coming home, even though his wet tears spatter on her pale skin.}
"I wish…," he mumbles over and over into her shoulder, holding her close to him like he's afraid she'll run away from him.
"I wish," he says, as his sobs slow down, and it's just him staring into her eyes in the middle of a morgue at midnight. "I wish I could have saved them all."
"I know," she replies, because there's not much else she can say, her sanity is in tatters and her emotions are even worse.
...
She isn't a hero.
The cool wind nips at her nose and she snuggles herself deeper into her warm winter coat, burrowing into its comfort. She's wearing a long black dress and her wild red hair is tied back. She's going to a funeral and she's not a hero. Not today, maybe not ever.
George stares sullenly up at the sky next to her. He doesn't want to be here; none of them do. She watches as the man his parents hired speaks about her brother as if he knew him. George mutters under his breath, but she ignores him, ignores everyone, especially HarryRon&Hermione in the corner, staring at the black-cloaked man at the podium with closed eyes. George isn't a hero either.
Finally, the man finishes speaking, walking away from the podium. She's jealous of his poise, his unfeeling. Arthur, her father, walks up onto the stage. He says a few words, he does. Her father is a good man, he loves them, she knows it. Her father isn't a hero.
Finally, it's her turn, she stands up, long black dress and red hair tied back, and makes her way onto the small stage erected in front of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. Her shoulders are stiff as she takes in the crowd. Lee Jordan sits in the very back row, his eyes red and puffy. Angelina Johnson stares up at her impassively, her black eyes as cold as the weather around her.
HarryRon&Hermione look up at her, those horrible unreadable expressions on their faces, and she wants to cry, because, they should have been heroes, but they really weren't and she was the only person who knew.
"My brother," she begins and the whole crowd seems to flinch. "was a hero. He fought 'til his last breathe and laughed as free as a bird. My brother never stopped living, not for anyone, and especially not for Voldemort. He never gave up and never changed himself for anyone else. That is what real heroes do."
She pauses for a moment, gathering herself. She looks straight into Harry's inexpressive eyes as she begins to speak again.
"Real heroes save lives, keep their sanity, and love on. My brother saved his own life, by loving and living everyday as most he could. My brother was Fred Weasley and he will always be remembered as a hero."
The crowd stays silent as she walks off the stage and back to her seat. George stares at her, pain contorting his face, and she squeezes his arm gently.
No, she isn't a hero.
None of them are.
...
"Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale," she chants lightly under her breathe, her steps unsteady as she makes her way to the platform entrance.
Finally, she just breathes in the fresh September air, letting the soothing, familiar sounds of Kings Cross station on September 1st envelop her. Harry taps her on the shoulder softly, she nods at him in understanding and when he tries to smile at her, she smiles weakly back instead of ignoring him like she has for the past four weeks.
She's sick of fixing him, but she's realized she's pretty broken herself.
His grimace becomes a full-blown smile and they pass through to the platform and there, his hand so close to hers they're almost touching, there in the midst of Platform 9 and ¾, she feels at home again. The pure joy envelops her as she imagines what the year will be like.
Animagus training with McGonagall, tea down at Hagrid's Hut, and planning pranks with Fred and Ge-
Then just as quick as it had come, her good mood evaporates, and her chant begins again.
She's slowly losing her mind, whether it's to the monotony or to grief, she's not sure.
...
He kisses her for the 32nd {first} time by the Black Lake, and she thinks that this was how it was supposed to have gone.
He was supposed to have kissed her there the first time by the Black Lake, interrupting her rant about Quidditch. She should have been surprised at first, before falling into him, and they should have been happy, oh so happy. He should have been able to love her, live his life the first time, no need for a second chance.
But things don't always work out how they should.
His lips taste like watermelon and loss of innocence, and she thinks that there's nothing more poetic than that.
...
She takes the plunge on Thursday and she doesn't ever look back.
Her insanity feels like home, warping her already tormented mind in new shapes, new forms, and Harry watches as she slowly destroys herself from the inside. She's just another person who he hadn't been able to save and another reminder of why he'll never be a hero.
Hermione and Ron exist in another plane entirely, in which they view everything from their own plastic bubble of despair, clinging to each other and their feelings, pretending anything else didn't exist.
She dreams of Fred and Weasley Jumpers, flitting in and out of fantasies of family Quidditch games and snogging Harry under the mistletoe during Christmas. Everything about is warm and inviting, and she doesn't notice when one day, the hallucinations begin during dinner in the Great Hall.
But this time, it's the Death Eaters and they're torturing her and she screams and thrashes.
...
Plain white walls greet her as her eyes flutter open.
Welcome to St. Mungo's, she thinks with a somewhat bitter smile.
...
"I wish," he says calmly, clutching her hand like a lifeline. "I wish I could have saved you."
"I know," she replies.
...
{Sometimes she still thinks of midnight in the room of requirement when she had held hands with a corpse and fallen in love with Harry Potter.}
...
fin.
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always,
summer