A/N: Written for the Andrea Gibson Appreciation Competition, using the quote "If you told her the war is over, do you think she could sleep?" If you decide to review, it is much appreciated. I'd also like to give credit to HedwigBlack for she inspired a lot of this, and for the hummingbird metaphor which I might love a little too much... :P I hope you don't mind that I used it... Also, thank you to Joanna (DobbyLovesSocks) for being my beta for this.
Word count: 1,598
Warnings: Mentions of depression/descriptions of self-harm. I hope I managed to handle it sensitively.
You're fifteen.
And these walls you spent too much of your time in as a little girl no longer remain the canvas of an innocent mind. You took the stories you never told and painted poetry along each wall. Words and words that make no sense to the outside world adorn the dresser where pretty beaded necklaces and bracelets in every shade of pink imaginable still hang. Even you yourself can hardly understand these words but what you do understand is that they tell a story only you can read.
Why
does the world go blank
when I speak
does no one like me anymore?
You tear down the beaded necklaces and bracelets and throw them across the room. They strike the wall and another part of your innocence dies as they fall to their death. You know these pieces of jewelry can never be mended, can never be replaced.
Because you toss them in the rubbish bin and never see them again.
You're five foot six.
That little princess dress you stuck together yourself by accident at the age of five no longer fits. But that doesn't matter because you don't care anymore and so you watch the already torn threads burn by the tip of your wand.
And that too is tossed away into the rubbish bin and you never see it again.
Your mother is devastated when she finds out you burned your old clothes and broke your toy jewelry but you still ask to be left alone and offer no trace of remorse for what you did. Instead, you slowly close the door on her and lock it, silence it. Your mother is a fragile creature beneath the mask she wears outside and you take advantage of it.
You tear down the Quidditch posters and rip them apart with your hands because you would rather yourself destroy another part of you instead of a wand, a tool. You let them float down in pieces to the floor and you spit on them, your heart, your pride. Nothing matters anymore.
You yank on the curtains - their pink colour disgusts you - and let them fall to the floor.
You remember you painted your name on the headboard above your bed and turn around to face the bright and sparkly, chipping-away-paint. Your hand is drawn to the clay you sculpted by wand techniques and an assortment of Charms, the messy strokes of a brush you had painted by hand. It only takes you a few seconds to tear it all away.
The letters are tossed into a pile you now consider rubbish and you crawl up onto the bed, make sure no one is watching you before you begin to burn small words into the wood of the headboard.
bitch
slut
whore
stupid
crazy
insane
ugly
should-have-never-been-
born
hate
hate
hate
And you seal it all in messy scrawls of a painfully angered young girl. Before you know it, you begin to cry.
"Arrrggghhhahhhhh!" You rock yourself back and forth on the bed. Your wand is pointed to the wall and all is turned a black colour as though curtains of ink are flowing down the walls and pooling at the floorboards. Your wand is pointed to the curtains on the floor and they turn a dark blue. You fling the tip to the left and the curtains are hanging again. Your cries are now slow, quiet, and you curl into a tighter ball on the bed and sob through broken lips.
"WHY?!" You throw your head back against the headboard - you don't care if it hurts. You then straighten up, look toward the ceiling and wonder why you're not bleeding.
"WHY, LILY?!" Her name is bittersweet honey on your tongue, something you can't quite swallow.
"LILY, WHY?!" It takes you too long of a time for you to realise you're calling for comfort.
"Why..." Cold tears stain your face. You wonder what Rosie would think if she saw you like this but then you get up and punch the wall when you remember she hated that name and you called her that name just because you could and she was Rose and she was your cousin and you loved her and you wonder how anyone can be as selfish as her and leave.
You punch the wall again for good measure. But it does nothing to ease the hurt.
You sink down to the floor beside your bed and cry again, cry until your throat threatens to choke you. You tried to keep your hummingbirds in check but no caged bird can beat away its pain with a broken wing. So you sit there and try to remember what it was like to fly, to sing.
And then you finally wipe away the tears, forcing yourself to look away from your tarnished bedroom and move into your bathroom.
You turn the tap on. Victoire told you baths were calming.
You open the drawers and look for an unused razor. Sharp, clean.
Then you strip yourself and sink your feet into the hot water. You only realise that steam is emitting from it when you step in and your skin immediately begins to burn. Your body forces you out of the water but only for a short while before your will takes over you.
Then you submerge yourself up to your collarbone and shakily sigh. The steaming hot water forces you, again, to cry. It bites your skin like a million knives and no you don't like it why don't you like it.
You stand up in the tub and vigorously rub your hands up and down your arms, tears slowly slipping from your eyes, sweat breaking out on your forehead.
And you think about how pathetic you must look and and you want to sink back down into the water as though your mother or Rose or Lily or anyone is watching you right now. You think about your old boyfriend who you don't even want to call an ex-boyfriend and imagine his look of disgust at you and somehow his image appears in front of you, shaking his head at your body and your tears and your pain.
And you slowly begin to sob again as the razor cuts your skin. You let out a cry somewhere between a whine and a scream.
Seeing your own blood plop into the water below you makes your stomach turn. The blade sends a searing pain up your arm that bolts through your body and sends a shiver down your leg.
You're crying again. You're losing more blood as the minutes pass and as you slip between the real world and unconsciousness you wonder if the sounds of your father's yells and heavy pounds on your bedroom door are even real.
He bursts into the bathroom and you don't even hear the sound of the door almost coming off its hinges. Perhaps a smile slips up upon your face at your nothingness but you never know for his blurred image slowly turns to black.
o
Nobody ever knew the reason Roxanne Weasley - the firestarting Quidditch star of Gryffindor House, the princess, the adored fourth year girl that paraded through the corridors in aloof happiness, fell from grace. But all but a few people even cared. First there was Rose, then there was Lily, and then there was a girl who grew up and faced the world and couldn't take all of what it offered for she could only see how much the bad seemed to outnumber the good. And hummingbirds often beat their wings to the extent of what most - and maybe even themselves - can't handle.
She tried to keep her hummingbirds in check and wouldn't let them go but broken wings healed and maybe if these birds shall sing when she sets them free she will smile. But for now, Roxanne Weasley lives in the future's past and can't find her way out.
o
You lie awake that night, staring at the black ceiling. You remember your father's cries and your mother trying to be strong and Fred, who spends more time at the joke shop than at home now and has no idea what happened. But he hardly matters. You don't think about Fred anymore, even if he thinks about you.
You turn onto your side, but that's uncomfortable. You shift onto your back again but that too is uncomfortable, so you throw the covers over your head and close your eyes tight against the darkness. You wonder if you will sleep tonight. You wonder how you could make a deal with death but not fall asleep but then you realise you'll wake up again in a few hours and you don't want to. You've seen death lying on its back in the Hogwarts Owlery and you've heard the painful music of a broken heart. You wonder if you can face that, you can face the nightmares that now haunt you, but even with the words of "It will be okay," "You'll get through it," "We'll figure it out," "I'm here for you," and "Let me help you" that you hear every day, the prospect of life with these thoughts of yours and this pain is unbearable. You know you are loved but you realise that it's wrong to ask people to sign up for a war not worth fighting for.
So you push everyone away.
And you begin to sob again and quietly slip out of consciousness, thinking that if your caged birds can't sing they are already dead.