Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
Left Behind
—
Hogwarts.
She hates that bloody school, the one that stole all her brothers away.
Why do they have to go? Why can't she go with them?
You'll get your turn next year, her mum tells her, you're too young to go just yet.
She hates being the youngest.
—
She is at Hogwarts now, surrounded by her brothers, and wishes she could be anywhere else.
They'll all leave you one day, that awful voice always says. It is dripping with venom and hate and anger, and she wishes she could go back to the days when Tom was a friend and not a source of all these hopeless feelings.
She wants to tell someone, but who can she trust? Ron? The twins? Percy?
What about Harry?
Harry Potter does not even know you are alive, nor does he care.
No, she can't tell Harry.
—
She feels their eyes on her when she isn't looking.
Her brothers, and their friends, watch her. They think they're being good by making sure she stays out of trouble. Maybe if they had cared this much before the whole diary incident, they wouldn't have to worry about her being a little fucked up now.
They think she's unstable. She isn't.
They think she'll break down any second now. She won't.
She never thought she'd wish they would all just go back to ignoring her, but she does.
—
They are all locked up together in Grimmauld Place for the summer and she thinks they only hang around her because they pity her, but she decides that she'll take what she can get.
—
It's her fifth year and she is finally starting to earn a place within their circle. She finally gets to be a part of the group and take part in their adventures.
But better than that, Harry notices her. Harry wants her. And isn't that what she's been waiting for all along?
Truthfully, she can't really remember the reason behind her obsession with him. She has long since forgotten the passion she felt, the overwhelming need to be loved by him. She can only remember that she used to have dreams of one day being with him, and even though a voice in the back of her mind is screaming that this is a sign, she tells herself that she'll be happier in the long run if she is with him.
Death Eaters raid Hogwarts and she is the first one Ron and Hermione go to for help, because she is nearly one of them now.
She almost dies trying to keep up, and that same voice is back, wondering if being accepted by them is really worth her life. But she tells herself that it could be worse, that she could have ended up like Professor Dumbledore, and then she clutches Harry's hand because she feels guilty for even thinking such a thing.
—
They have a secret, one that they don't want to share with her.
She isn't blind and she isn't deaf and she certainly isn't an idiot.
She knows that they're up to something.
She sees the secret glances they throw each other, and she picks up on the way the conversation will drop the minute she - or anyone, for that matter - enters the room.
Just when she thinks that they're a nice little foursome, something happens that suddenly reverts them back into the Golden Trio.
—
She loves him but she doesn't dare say that out loud.
She simply resigns herself to playing the role it appears she is always meant to play – best mate's little sister.
In her heart, she knows that she can be so much more than that. She knows that she already was so much more than that. But she sits back and watches her chance slip away, wondering if it was ever real at all.
Her mum says It's never too late, but what if it is?
—
No matter how many times she gets down on her knees and begs the Boy Who Lived, he refuses to tell her what they're up to.
They leave one night, slip away into the darkness, and she wonders if she'll ever see any of them again.
She closes her eyes and wishes with all her heart that she can one day hate him the way he deserves to be hated.
—
She turns sixteen and still no word from any of them.
She's nearly seventeen by the time they resurface, proclaiming something crazy about Horcrumpses, or whatever it is Harry says.
They go off and fight, and it seems like her family's motto is Protect Ginny. But none of them figure out how to stop time (though probably not from a lack of trying) and so she turns seventeen and joins the Order against her parents' wishes.
It's finally her fight, too.
—
Ron is the first.
It should be Hermione, technically, but he does the one thing they'd all known he'd do but hoped it would never come down to.
He jumps in front of her, and then he is lifeless on the floor, but maybe – somewhere – at peace.
She tells herself not to be sad, because he never would have been able to live without Hermione, anyway.
—
Hermione is next.
The girl never was a terrific fighter.
Books and research have always been Hermione's talents.
She tells herself not to be sad, because Hermione is with Ron now, and maybe it's the ending they've always needed in order to have a real beginning.
—
The rest of her family soon follows.
Her remaining siblings go nearly in the same order in which they were born. Her parents bookend the deaths.
She tells herself not to be sad, because they all went out fighting the good fight, just as they would have wanted to go out.
—
She never wanted anything more than Harry.
But Harry never wanted anything more than to bring down Voldemort.
He does, but with his friends gone, he must not see a good enough reason to stick around.
He dies of exhaustion shortly after.
She tells herself not to be sad, because Harry's whole life was about defeating Voldemort, and he can finally rest easy now, even if that rest is an awful lot more permanent than she'd like.
—
Her heart still beats, and she hates it. Each beat says Harry, Harry, Harry.
She breathes, and it has never felt so pointless. Inhale. Ron. Exhale. Hermione.
Ron, Hermione, Ron, Hermione. Harry, Harry, Harry, Harry.
—
She thinks about renting a room but she doesn't want to leave The Burrow.
She walks into the kitchen and, for once, doesn't smell anything cooking.
She holds her breath, waiting for the sound of an explosion no doubt caused by the twins. She thinks she'd give just about anything to hear her mum yelling at them one more time.
But this house is quiet and empty and wrong in every single sense of the word. Is this really where she grew up?
She goes up to her favourite brother's old room, and it's so orange that her eyes sting, or maybe that's from the tears she tries her best to keep at bay.
She has lived here for almost eighteen years and she hasn't ever been alone for this long before. She pictures in her mind the home she grew up in and as she looks around, she knows in her heart that this isn't the same place.
Without the people, The Burrow is really just a house.
—
She lies on her back on the grass in her backyard, staring up at the sky.
She knows that they're up there, and that she should be happy that they're together, but she can only feel jealous that she isn't with them.
And that is so messed up.
—
The only red hair she sees now is reflected back at her through a mirror.
She is always left behind.
—