Craving
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AN: Characters do not belong to me.
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It was completely irrational, but Ginny missed him.
Yes, she knew that he was nothing but bad news, that she was better off without him, that she was much more likely to lead a long, healthy life now that he was gone, but that did nothing to alleviate the pain of missing him. She had been just a little girl when he'd left her, still caught up in the world of make believe and lollipops and girlish crushes on the nice boy hero.
She wasn't a little girl now.
She now knew that she didn't want the nice, sweet boy who had kissed her softly, hesitantly after ridding the world of a great evil. She had hated that soft, considerate display of his love for her. She wanted passion. She wanted him to be inconsiderate. She didn't want to be treated like a china doll. And she didn't want the sweet boy, the hero boy, the considerate boy.
But she couldn't have the boy she wanted.
She dreamed of the one she wanted at night. She pretended her sweet boy was the one she wanted sometimes, pulling off his glasses and dimming the lights and kissing him without restraint, pushing and pulling at him until he grew uncomfortable with what she was doing. He worried about taking advantage of her, and she tried to convince herself that she appreciated his respect for her.
So, in the dark of night, she went out in search of someone who wouldn't think she was a breakable, sweet girl. She found a boy made of light and angles, who scorned her and mocked her and shoved her roughly against a wall behind the bar she had discovered him in and made her actually feel something.
The pale boy wasn't anything like the boy she wanted, the boy she dreamed about night after night, but he was closer than her sweet boy. So Ginny decided to meet him again, and again he feared not for her supposed fragility. His touch was gentle at times, rough at others, but he never held back. She never stopped him.
The pale boy didn't mock her shabby clothes or family any longer, though he also didn't speak kindly about them. His comments to her were brief, sometimes impersonal, other times simply a brief compliment- a word about her looks, or maybe a word of gratitude after a particularly enjoyably night.
The sweet boy continued to be clueless about her midnight dalliances. He would take her out, and smile and hold her hand, all the time unaware of the scratches and bruises that were scattered across her body. He would kiss her lips gently, taking things slow, while her mind drifted to the previous evening's escapade. While she thought of when she had bitten the lip he had commented on, and while she tried to pretend he was the boy she wanted.
And all the time Ginny just craved the attention of the boy she had wanted ever since she had realized what she had at that tender age. She imagined him there, on lonely nights with exploring hands and silent tears. She wished that there was a way, any way to get him back, to have her confidante and best friend and worst enemy returned to her. She didn't relish the blank spots in her memory, true, but she was sure that if she had him back she could make him forget about silly fear-inducing ploys of power. She would find a fitting sacrifice- a brief, vicious thought surfaced that the sweet boy would be a good lamb- and then her true love, the boy she wanted, would be returned to her for once and for all.
But Ginny might be many things, but delusional wasn't one of them. She knew that the boy she wanted had long since turned into a maniac, that the sweet boy she was so sick of had destroyed him for once and for all, and that the pale boy simply curled his lip and told her she was a fool for loving a ghost anytime she forgot and mentioned him.
She no longer felt like acting meek and pretty to appease the sweet boy, and so she stopped. He acted surprised and betrayed and confused, and asked her if anything was wrong. She couldn't manage to answer that question to him without falling into a screaming, obscene tirade, so she acted mild for one final time and told him that she just needed some room to breathe.
She never let the sweet boy kiss her again.
Finally, all she had left was the pale boy, so she clung tight to him. But as seasons passed he showed up to be with her less and less, until finally he didn't show up at all. She read in the Prophet that he had been married and that he now had a son, and that he had grown to be a prominent member of society. She also read in the paper that the sweet boy had found love, and was now well on his way to wedded bliss.
Ginny was left alone, with only memories of her boys remaining.
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