Note: This has been written for a contest at TFC (link given in profile). The prompt given was Freedom/Liberty, and the only requirement was that the fic be longer than 500 words. I have written close to 1300.

Disclaimer: All characters are owned by J.K Rowling, and the song mentioned at the end - Bohemian Rhapsody - is by Queen. The title "Easy Come, Easy Go" is also, as some of you may have recognized, borrowed from the same song.

Easy Come, Easy Go

by shabd

We spend our lives proclaiming the importance of freedom in loud, officious tones, but I wonder if we truly realize its overwhelming magnitude while we are preaching it. After all, freedom means something different to every individual out there, be it Muggle, Wizard or even Beast. Perhaps no single meaning is true, and none are false; perhaps all of them have some grain of truth in them, and coming together, they all constitute the true meaning of this sweet-sounding word: Freedom.

- - - - - -

Harry grunts as he gets out of bed, slipping his feet into his slippers and moving toward the bathroom without a word. I hear him flush the toilet, before the sound of running water takes over. I keep still, lying on my side, blankly facing the decrepit wall and its torn wallpaper. For three years now, this has been my morning.

In the beginning, everything was perfect. The war had ended, and Harry had come back to me, alive. We were married at once, moving to a place far away from home, from our previous lives. But I didn't realize the sacrifice I was unknowingly making, till the days started running together and he stopped coming home for dinner, and I stopped cooking it. I knew it wasn't love when the everyday kisses became occasional pecks on the cheek, and the empty house became a cage, rather than a restful sanctuary. But I still couldn't conjure the energy to get away, and perhaps it was for the good – I had nowhere else to go anyway.

The bathroom door opens and Harry comes out, rubbing a towel over his face. I sense his gaze on me, but if he acknowledges me at all, I seem to have missed it, for not a word reaches my ears. I resist the urge to turn my head; we have nothing more to say to each other, and trying only makes it worse. The bare wall stares back at me, reflecting my life as it has become now – empty, dull, faded, forgotten.

The sound of the bedroom door opening and closing shut has a finality to it, and I somehow muster the energy to raise myself off the bed and make my way across the room. The thought of a shower leaves me cold, so I bypass it and make my way downstairs, already knowing that Harry would have left by now. I enter the empty kitchen and am proven right, but the victory is hollow, and I am left with a bitter sense of disappointment. The feeling soon passes, though, and the emptiness returns – I have become used to his absence by now.

I open the fridge and take out a bottle of water, taking a customary glance inside but already knowing that I will find nothing. I am reminded that my grocery shopping is long overdue, but I don't bother. Home-delivery has replaced home food, and the counter is filled with empty pizza packets, the sink piled high with dirty dishes. I spend a moment deliberating, but then turn away. Even performing a simple cleaning charm seems beyond me these days.

I used to be busy, obsessed with creating the perfect home. I'd cook, clean, dust, rearrange, move; but now, I've realized the futility of it all – why bother having a perfect home if there is nobody to appreciate it?

The sound of the telephone ringing startles me. We had it installed soon after we moved in, and Harry had found my ignorance of all electrical appliances amusing at first. I move towards it gingerly, wincing at the layers of dust that had settled upon it, and pick it up. "Hello?" I whisper.

"Ginny?" Hermione's voice sounds cracked, and I immediately know that she has been crying. I lean against the wall and close my eyes, waiting for her to speak. "He hit me, Gin."

I stop breathing. I can hear Hermione crying softly on the other end, but I do not speak. I cannot find the right words, and what is the point anyway? This is not the first time he has hit her, and I know that it won't be the last, either. The right thing would be to leave him, but I know that she wouldn't even consider such an option; she is in the same position as I - we had nowhere else to go.

As I wait for her to break the silence, I wonder what exactly it is that Hermione expects from me. Does she expect me to perform miracles, like pulling a rabbit out of a hat and fixing her broken life? Does she want me to hold her while she cries, to be the glue that keeps her from falling apart? I almost laugh. How can someone who's barely living teach another how to live?

The irony of the situation does not escape me – as a child, I had always told myself that I would never live like the Muggles, and that I would run away before getting trapped in a meaningless life, but here I was, doing exactly that. I briefly entertain the thought of running away; taking my wand out from the closet I had locked it in, and just vanishing without a trace. But then I shake myself; I had no use for such silly notions of freedom in my life.

"What shall I do, Ginny?" Hermione's pitiful voice sounds extremely small to my ears, and I desperately clutch the receiver closer, not wanting to let her go.

"I don't know, 'Mione." I sigh, not knowing what else to say. "Why don't you leave him?"

I can almost see her shaking her head vehemently in reply. "No," she says, "anything but that."

I am struck once again by the short glimpse of the old Hermione that we all knew back in Hogwarts, when she was stubborn and independent and strong, long before she married Ron and became a shell of her usual self. I never pressed her for details, and she never volunteered any information, but I had often tried to guess what made her morph into this woman whom I didn't recognize, but could certainly relate to.

I look at my reflection in the mirror that hangs on the opposite wall, and find myself wondering if what I see is the same thing that Hermione sees in herself everyday – a woman, old, weak, tired, not knowing who she is or what she is doing.

"I'm sorry," I hear her whisper. "I shouldn't have asked you that."

"Then why did you?" I whisper back, just as quietly.

There is a small pause. "I guess I only wanted someone to remind me of my choice," she eventually answers, sounding much surer of herself than before, "and to tell me that I could be free too, if I wished."

I have no words to reply to her, but she continues before I can even make an attempt, "I love him, Gin. Without him, I am nothing. I cannot escape it; this is my bohemian rhapsody."

I feel the ghost of a smile on my face, as her words sink in. I recognize the shadow of my own words behind them, as I remember what I had said when she had asked me to leave Harry, "I could never do that, 'Mione. With him, I am unhappy, but if he were to go, I would not be able to breathe. He is my bohemian rhapsody."

"Easy come, easy go," I smile, and I can feel her smile back through the phone. "Easy come, easy go," she agrees.

- - - - - -

Being free doesn't always mean freedom from chains or ropes. Being free, I realize, could be anything – free from prison, from your wife, your debts. Free from rats, from matrimonial ties, from responsibilities. You could be free from your sins, your nightmares, your troubles. But sometimes, the one freedom you really wanted was the one you knew you could never get – freedom from yourself.