A/N: I do not own or profit from Harry Potter.
EDIT: I wanted to add a huge thank you to those who read and reviewed.
Violated
Ginny felt violated. Her hands scrubbed and scrubbed at her small, eleven-year-old body with strong soap under scalding water, until her skin turned as red as her hair and began peeling, yet still she felt dirty. She was peeling, and yet still she scrubbed. She bled, and yet still she scoured.
She was filthy, and not on her skin, not where she could reach, and that was why she kept scrubbing, because she had no way of getting any of it off. It was inside of her, hanging on the walls of her soul like so many cobwebs and clinging like a thick moss that suffocated her spirit. She was ruined. She was filthy.
She had to get it out, get it off of herself. Desperate, frightened sobs wracked her, inaudible beneath the heavy water pressure. All the grime, all the filth clinging to her insides, she couldn't get it out or off, and it made her panic to think that his was her life, this was what she would be, forever, because she had trusted him.
Tom. She had trusted Tom. Just the name made her hunch over and sob until her stomach ached. Not in grief, but in fear. The fear, the memories that kept whirling in her head, things she hadn't remembered at first but could see in flashes now. The fear was haunting her, Tom was haunting her. Would she ever be unafraid of him?
The flash of the bulb of Colin's camera sounded loud in her mind as he fell back, suddenly stiff, and she stood stoically over his body. The blood seeping from between her fingers as she dourly painted the words on the wall with her bare hands. The heavy snap of the chicken's necks in her hands, and the few drops of blood that spattered onto her clean shoes.
She shuddered and clutched her head, trying to block it out. But it was inside, inside of her, and she couldn't touch it. She might have cut herself open, ripped out her brain and heart would it have helped. But it wouldn't have. If she did, she feared, that small brain would be coated with Tom's black grime, and her heart would be oozing blackened slime instead of proper red blood. She trembled, still sobbing, still afraid, and unable to stop being afraid.
Violated. Percy had uttered the word in blatant red-hot rage as he cradled her. Was she? Was she violated? She let the hot water soak into her hair. Wasn't it her fault? Dad had said to her that he had told her better, and he'd been right. She had known better. She should have known not to trust the book, not to listen to Tom's words. It was her fault, in a way. In many ways. She could have stopped it. She should have told Harry about it all, no matter what Percy said, and no matter how afraid she was. She should have made Percy listen when she told him that a Pepperup potion wouldn't help her. She should have tried to tell somehow, through her sobs, tell Fred and George why she was really afraid. She should have. It was her fault. All her fault.
She was done with sobbing now, but only stood as her hair drooped in flat, soaked strings over her face. It was her fault, and crying would never change that. She'd been a silly little girl, and she'd nearly killed five people. She took the truth dully, like a hit when she was down, like a victim hurt too much to fight anymore. Just numb inside.
Numb and filthy. Violated.
Done with trying to clean away the untouchable filth inside of her, she stepped out of the hot water and into the cold air, shivering as gooseflesh rose on her pale skin. She wrapped herself in one of Mum's thickest and best towels laid out just for the moment, but it did no good.
She wiped the steam off of the mirror and looked at her peaky, homely reflection, her bright hair gone dark with moisture, her freckles standing out on her pale face like unsightly dark dots across her nose. Even as she looked the steam grew back somehow and fogged the mirror again. She stared at it contemplatively, then repeated the motion and watched her reflection muddle and vanish into fog again.
Like her soul, she thought. The reflection was irremovably blighted. The steam would never go away. She tried again to clearly look at herself, and again was forced to watch her face blur and vanish.
Forced? She pondered on the word.
No, no, she decided, she wasn't like the mirror. She wouldn't muddle...and vanish again. There would be no again, she decided, slapping her palm onto the mirror so hard it banged against the wall. She turned and threw open the door to make the steam escape and let the mirror clear. There would be no again.
No one, ever again, would hurt her. Never, never again, would she simply, stupidly trust. No one would ever enter her soul and damage her, enter her body and control her, enter her mind and possess her. She would learn to think. She would learn to have people to keep her in check. She would learn not to trust. She would learn to control her mind and stay strong. She would learn to fight. She would never be a child again. Never again.
Forced? Maybe. She didn't know. Could she have made it stop? Was it her fault? Was that what they all thought of her? Tom had given her no choice when he'd drawn her in. No one outside had stopped to help her. She had been alone, utterly alone, and desperate for someone to turn to. Tom had been her only option, her only choice. Deep inside, she had been forced. And she would never, never be forced again.
"I am Ginny." She declared to her reflection as the fog lifted and the light streamed in through the door. Cool air rushed in with it and chilled her legs beneath the towel.
She was Ginny, and Ginny would not be a victim anymore.
A/N: This fiction is dedicated to all the amazing, smart, beautiful, brave, and incredibly strong girls who have been victims of sexual abuse. To the strongest people on the planet, the greatest survivors of all. ~Bill Birdbittle