Disclaimer: Everything you recognise ain't mine. Comprehende?
Summary: Ginny was happy. She had everything she everwanted...except for one thing. And now on her graduation day, that one thing returns. Will Ginny ever have it?
Author's Note: This story is femslash. If you don't like it stop now. Ok? Good. Right. This story will also delve into eating disorders and possibly a little self harm. So once again, if you don't like it, then go away. Hmph.
Ginny stared blankly across the abandoned school grounds, her red hair whipping against her freckled face. Her graduation was twelve hours away. She was supposed to be sleeping, but well…it was her last night in Hogwarts…she was too sad, excited and scared to even comprehend sleeping.
Everything she used to know, everything she used to feel, suddenly didn't matter. Now she had the big wide world to survive. What was she meant to do now? She blinked, her eyes beginning to fill with warm tears. It was actually over. She'd thought about this day since she'd arrived. Back then it had seemed like light-years away, but now looking back to that first day…well it seemed like only yesterday.
A tear rolled down her cheek, but she didn't make a move to wipe it away. This time she didn't need to hide her tears. This time she could let it all out with no fear of someone walking in and catching her. This time she could let it all go.
She stayed there till the sun slowly crept over the horizon, and the noise of waking students flew out of open windows. Ginny hadn't realised just how long she'd been standing there and was stunned by the light. Realising she had to get ready for the graduation breakfast; she sprung back into the world of the living and left the solace of the roof to the stress of the morning.
"Ginny! Where were you? You missed the midnight feast!" A cry came out as soon as she stepped foot into the Gryffindor common room. A bright eyed, red cheeked Colin came bouncing over to her as she struggled to come up with a decent lie. Sighing she told him exactly where she was. "I was on the roof, just watching the stars, waiting till the sun came up." Well it was a little bit of an exaggeration, but he accepted it just fine before leaving her to go talk to a dark haired girl in the year below, whose name Ginny couldn't quite recall at the moment.
Dragging her feet, she walked over to the girls' stairs and made her way all the way to the top, to the seventh year dorm. She hoped there was a shower free. She needed something to wake herself up, make her look presentable to all the people she'd be seeing today. Graduation was at noon and the school was expected to be heaving with parents, siblings and former students. Two of them she knew would be Harry and Hermione. She hadn't seen her brother's best friends since his funeral. The two of them had been off hunting for any remaining Death Eaters and had forgotten her back at school. They had owled her once or twice, on birthdays and what not, but to Ginny it seemed that they no longer cared for her. And they had every right too. She wasn't worthy of their friendship. She was only their friend because of Ron, and now that he was gone there was nothing left to connect the three of them.
There was a shower free, but no mirror space she found as she walked into the tiled bathroom. But Ginny didn't need a mirror to see the bags under her eyes and her gaunt cheeks. She walked straight to her usual shower and turned on the hot water as she undressed. Once naked she stepped under the burning water, not flinching as it turned her pale skin red. She took her rough sponge and began to scrub at her skin, trying to rid it of its invisible dirt and the small amounts of fat that stretched over her skeletal frame. In her eyes it bulged and wobbled. In her eyes she saw her distortion. Her eyes she saw a lie.
Half an hour later she stepped out of the shower cubicle, dressed back into the clothes she had been wearing last night, her hair wet and leaving patches on her back and shoulders that were darker than everywhere else. The mirror was still being filled by her four room mates, all plucking, painting and primping. She rolled her eyes as she walked to her four poster bed to change into her 'best clothes' which her mother had bought her last week.
She shut the curtains behind her and pulled out the clothes she'd been told to wear: a pair of long black pants and a long sleeved, figure hugging green shirt that supposedly complemented her hair and eyes. She dryed her hair magically, leaving it to its own devises as she skilfully put on some muggle mascara without a mirror. Fully dressed she fell back onto her bed and stared at the wooden beam above her. This would probably be the last time she'd ever see it. The last time she ever lay on her bed as a seventh year…as a student full stop.
She lay there, staring until she heard her name being called by a dorm mate with curled blonde hair.
"Coming," she replied dutifully, forcing herself to get off her bed and back out into the real world. She'd promised the other four girls that they'd do this together, and the other four had promised the boys they'd go as Gryffindor, united through out. This made Ginny laugh. If they were so united then surely one of them would have noticed her this past year as she shrunk into her own skin and pulled her back out again. But in reality she was just a nobody to them, to the rest of the school, to the rest of the world.
The blonde held out her arm for Ginny to take, which she did take reluctantly, and forcing a smile on her face she headed out of the dorm, the five Gryffindor girls, ready it seemed for anything. As they walked down the stairs she wondered if she'd ever see or talk to them after graduation. They'd probably all go off and pursue a rich husband, or a modelling career with some glossy magazine. Whereas she'd be alone, as per usual, with a dead end job. They wouldn't have time for her in their busy lives. Not that she minded. Over the past year she'd gotten used to the loneliness of life.
Author's Note: Two strangers ahead in the next chapter. Tears. Hugs. Love. Watch this space.