Howl__________
Harry's broom is the best I've ever seen. I can feel its want to be in the sky as I pull it from its rack in the Quidditch locker room.
If I'm caught I'm damned. Once for being out of bed after hours, twice for being outside the castle, thrice for being in the boys changing room, and lastly for using someone else's property without permission.
But to hell with it. I need to get out.
It's cold as I walk out onto the pitch, and the grass is wet beneath my bare feet. I've thrown on a cloak over my pyjamas but the wind cuts through that in a second. It tangles through my hair, makes it stream like red ribbons behind me.
I breathe in. Why is it I can actually taste freedom?
I mount the broom. And it seems I see the school around me, up in the stands, cheering for Ginny Weasley, the youngest female seeker in a century and a half.
I kick off.
And I'm alone. Utterly alone, and I love it. No phantoms who haunt my dreams, no brothers who steal my thunder, no Boy Wonders who make sure the spotlight is well and truly on them, and no almost-best friends who top every single class.
I'm just me. Just Ginny on a borrowed Firebolt, her head tipped back as she soars up into the night sky and reaches for the stars.
And as I turn and spin and dance like a dervish with this partner of wood, something like a tune comes from me.
I let it go.
All the silences I've kept, all the curses I long to shout, all the answers I'm too scared to give in class merge into this thing that is somehow beautiful - beauty born of pain. All the times I've wanted to hex Malfoy, all the times I've wanted to push Ron out of my way, all the times I've wanted to tell Harry I've grown out of that crush, all the times I've wanted to grab Hermione and kiss her hard up against the wall, all the missed chances I've ever had blend into this thing that is a sound like nothing I've ever heard before.
I look up. The moon is almost full, and everything is silver. Highlights of precious metals glint on my skin and trickle through my hair. I open my mouth and breathe it in; mercury coats my tongue.
And something breaks out of me. A muggle song Hermione played once. My theme song.
"I can feel so unsexy for someone so beautiful so unloved for someone so fine I can feel so boring for someone so interesting so ignorant for someone of sound mind . . . "
The note carries on beyond the words, and my voice sounds rich and full like red wine as I sing a now wordless song into the velvet sky.
All of my anger stress fear pain worry loss feelings are ripped from the base of my throat and tear the night apart with a cry scream sob howl.
Howl
HOWL!
Like a wild thing I fling out my arms, legs tangled around the Firebolt, I throw back my head and let this go on like it's going to last forever.
I forget.
High above the forest I swoop and dip and turn and loop and fly with abandon no one will ever see. This is for me. This is for no one but myself. And I know that in this eternal moment I am at a strange kind of peace with the state of all things.
My voice dies slowly. I wrap my hands around my wooden dance partner again, and we slow down after our too brief time of freedom.
Gingerly, I return to earth. I land on the cold, wet grass of the Quidditch pitch.
The night will not last forever. I have to go back to bed.
_____
A rather short one-shot. Hope you enjoyed it. Lyrics are from Alanis Morisette's So Unsexy.