Disclaimer: Ginny is property of J.K. Rowling. Ron is property of J.K. Rowling. So are Hogwarts, Tom Riddle, the diary, etc. Ginny's scars are property of yours truly. So is her eating disorder. And depression. And loneliness. My, don't we have a happy life... The poem is property of Adrienne Rich, the best poet in the world. Mwah ha ha ha ha hah, etc.
A/N: Rated PG-13 for eating disorder and self-injury. May be triggering, in the case that you are a self injurer (and my heart goes out to you. Be good to yourself.). I have a hard time writing about SI and EDs in more than "i am tessa and i have an eating disorder. there are scars all over my legs. now go away." So please don't be too harsh- constructive criticism is greatly appreciated, but no flames, please. The is a rather... delicate spot for me. Thank you, and blessings!
Ginny sat silently on her bed, half-heartedly combing fiery locks of hair. Half-heartedly, as she had done everything for the past year... Sunlight fell through the window near her bed, searing her eyes, and she managed to drag herself up to close the draperies against its penetration. The scarlet velvet surrounded her, closed her in. She had been meaning to hang black silk instead, black for her life and silken for her thoughts, but giving up was so much easier. So she gave up.
Ron was worried about her, she knew. Worried about how much weight she was loosing... She smiled bitterly. As if weight was the least of it. He hadn't seen her scars yet, those little crisscrossing tally marks down her arms. Down her thighs. Scarlet... perhaps the velvet was appropriate. Another bitter smile.
She had dreamed about the diary again last night... Its cover against her hands, its pages beneath her fingers. And then the dream dissolved into blood...
I could have made him stay... Maybe if I were more beautiful. Thinner. Maybe he would have stayed...
. She broke. Cried silently into her pillow. Let herself be overcome with grey...So easy to give up.
***
Her footfalls are silent on the stone, the walls rising up to each side of her, beaded with moisture nearly frozen. Her hair snakes down her back in tendrils, and she almost expects the locks to rise up and become snakes, become the grey locks of Medusa. The floor is slippery with ice, and she must work to keep her balance.
The floor crumbles, and she screams. Falls. Her fingertips scrabble on the broken stone, searching for something to hold on to, and find nothing. Nothing...
And she hits the ground.
Above her is his face, clearer than she remembers it. His skin is pale, like ivory, and the obsidian of his hair is startling against that bloodless background. Fingers, delicately tapered, reach out to her, and she grasps them. They are papery, smooth, like the pages of the diary. She reaches out to take them, but when her hand is almost there, almost touching, they vanish. And she looks and realizes that her fingers are bleeding from the tips, and she is covered in blood.
***
She wore her sadness like a cloak around her, and would not shed it. In the halls of Hogwarts, people passed her by, not even seeming to notice this pale child. There was an almost tangible, unbreachable wall of silence surrounding her, and even her friends seemed to shy away from it...
Silence can be a plan
rigorously executed
the blueprint of a life
It is a presence
it has a history a form
Do not confuse it
with any kind of absence
And again and again, through the stifling despair of those days, she took up her knife, added to the painfully methodical spiderweb of scars she bore. Nobody guessed. Nobody knew. And she spiraled down into that emptiness, blackness, that was overtaking her soul. Unseen, unheard, unloved. And she liked it that way.