If you have not done so, I demand you go read the prequel to this story, "The Locked Box," before going any further, it can be found on my page and you won't understand a word of what is going on in this one if you don't.
As always, I own nothing of the Harry Potter Universe, just the storyline.
His death effected her in a way that she never thought possible. Ginny had always been strong. Always careful to never let her guard down. She had to be. Growing up with six brother made a girl tough, but since his death, Ginny felt anything but. She put up her walls, giving the illusion of strength, but she was more fragile than ever before.
She managed to function properly, going about her duties as expected. She went to work, she made appearances at the Burrow, was always there for Sunday dinner. She made sure to pass by under the radar. She always did just enough so that their questions remained unasked. Because no, Ginny was not alright. No, Ginny was not feeling well. But what did it matter? She would never feel well.
She felt like she was living inside of a glass box. Her barriers looked sturdy and magnificent to others, but with each little pebble that was thrown her way, another chip appeared. It was only a matter of time before everything shattered around her.
A year passed and Ginny's life remained silent. An empty whisper of what it had once been. There was always something to remind her of him, but she steadily became better at pushing those thoughts to the back of her mind. She tucked them deep into the furthest depths of her heart and locked them up tight. She was a good actress.
She allowed herself to be courted, but whenever she looked upon her lover's face, it was never truly his that she was seeing. She did what was expected of her. She had loved him once, it wasn't foolish to think that with time perhaps, she could love him again. Her family supported their union of course, because she always allowed them to think he made her happy. That was what truly mattered anyways, right?
He knew the truth though. He knew that he had become second best in her heart. He was resilient though, always careful to be what she needed. She was thankful for that. He knew when she needed comfort and when she just needed to cry, he polished the glass for her, helping her to keep up her facade.
A gentle squeeze of the hand here, a word of comfort there. It amazed Ginny how patient he was with her, when she was so obviously still in love with the man whom he had hated for so much of his life. She always felt the guilt, but there was nothing she could do for it, he was competeing for her affections against a dead man, and nothing would change that.
Nevertheless, he continued to care for her, and to tread carefully, always protecting her when he could and holding her when he couldn't. She knew it destroyed him to do so, but it seemed as if the hope that she would love him again was all he had left in the world. He nolonger had any real family, and his friends all had their own lives to attend to. She truly was his world, and it was all but shattered.
It happened unexpectedly, or perhaps not quite so unexpectedly. A simple family gathering like so many before, where she drifted amongst her brothers, rarely letting even the ghost of a smile haunt her face. She hated to be surrounded by so many people who cared so deeply for her, it hurt so bad to watch their pain as they tip-toed around her, being careful never to bring up any memories or mention any names that might cause her to break down as she had so many times in the few months following his death.
It made her sick to her stomach the way they would hide the photograph that used to sit above the fireplace, the photo of just the two of them, taken after the war, shortly before they had begun dating. Her mother always thought it was such a lovely photograph, because he was smiling in it as he looked at her, in a way that he rarely ever did.
A bit ironic really, that she was thinking of that very photograph while drifting around the living room of her childhood home, listening in on the conversations around her, but not really taking part. Ironic that she be thinking of it, and then there it was, above the fireplace just as she knew it must always be when she wasn't there. They must have forgotten to put it away. She picked it up off the mantle and placed a pale finger on the glass, tracing his image.
It truly had been such a long time since she'd looked upon a photo of him. Watching the ten second scene play out over and over again tugged at her heart and she stopped dead. She had never truly realized it before, but looking at the photograph, and that moment in time on replay, she felt the nagging realization that it was almost as if the moment were trapped forever behind that thin pane of glass.
Trapped. Is that what he was now? Is that what she was doing to him? Hanging onto her every last memory of him, tucking it deep within herself? She remembered the way she had always thought of her feelings for him, as being locked away, because she had been so scared to let him, to let either of them really, find out how she truly felt. She hadn't ever wanted to feel vulnerable again, and that was perhaps why she played her silly game to begin with.
It was ironic, she thought, that here she was doing it again, without even realizing. She was locking him away in a box, or trapping him behind a pane of glass, as if he didn't deserve to be let out. How could she do this to him? Had she not learned the first time? When it had resulted in his horrible, untimely death? She was the worst sort of criminal. She hurt others without even realizing what she was doing.
He wasn't meant to be trapped. He had always been happiest on a broom, flying in the air without having to deal with any of the stressed placed on him by others. It was perhaps the only time she saw him smile like he was in the photograph she now clutched in her hands.
She brought herself out of her train of thought to realize that everyone had stopped talking and they all were looking at her with trepidation. She clutched the photo tighter and she looked around the room at all these people who meant so much to her. Was she hurting them too?
Her gaze rested on one face in particular. His. He had been there for her all this time, regardless of it all. She didn't deserve it. He didn't deserve to be treated this way.
Glancing back to the photograph in her hands she swalled a lump that she hadn't yet realized was rising in her throat.
"I suppose it's time to let go now, isn't it?" she asked, her voice waivering slightly. Her mother gave her the slightest of smiles which she returned before lifting the photo up a little higher in the air. She gave it one last glance before slashing it through the air towards the ground and watching it shatter at her feet. She watched in a childlike sort of transfixtion as the glass sprayed out across the floor and the photograph itself flitted away, caught up in the wind of the impact.
She smiled.
R&R