"I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery."
She fits her feet neatly into the slots made by the tiles, bowing her head and pretending not to listen as the waves of conversation wash over her. The medication's not working-she still sees him-yes, yes...tried everything...
Her bottom lip tucks itself underneath her front teeth and she clenches and unclenches her fingers. It's for the best, she reminds herself, but the words are as empty now as they ever were. For the best, forthebest forthebest. It has a beat, and she listens to it with her head tilted over, until a hand closes over her shoulder and she's propelled forward, into yet another bright, white room with a hanging plant in the corner and a smiley-faced man whose smile doesn't reach his eyes.
"Hello, Ginevra," he says, and her head jerks up, and she glares at him, her eyes molten.
"My name is Ginny," she says, cold, precise, sofullofangershemightsplitapart, and at least this one does not give a condescending smile and continue to call her by her full name, by that name, he simply apologises and says hello Ginny, like that will make it better.
It doesn't, but at least it doesn't make it worse.
"Behave," Molly Weasley tells her youngest with another firm pat on the shoulder and a last look behind, like she doesn't understand what's happening. Of course she doesn't, though. Not really. Her daughter is crazy, after all, and how do you cope with that?
"What do you want?" Ginny finally asks, slumped over in the bright white couch, her feet criss-crossed over each other. Her shoelaces are untied, but she doesn't care.
"What do you want?" he returns in that maddening way adults have. He has a clipboard in his lap, and she wants to throw it out the window.
"I asked you first," she says, her lip curling. Childish girl, oh so immature, but she doesn't care about that, either. She's c-r-a-z-y.
"To help you," he says, just like all the others. "I want to help you."
"You can't," she smiles, that hard sunny smile that always makes her mother recoil just a bit. "No one can. Are we done here?"
"I don't think so, Ginevra," he replies, and she can't take it, jack-knifing from the sofa, anger drawn in crackling lines around her.
"Don't. Call. Me. That.," she hisses. Her magic explodes, making a painting fall, and the light bulb burn out. He leans back from her, and she can see fear in his eyes, and for a moment, she is so pleased, and she can see him, in the corner, and just like that, the magic drains away, gurgling away from her, and she flops down to the floor, feeling like a puppet with its strings snapped in half.
"Don't call me that," she repeats, her voice dull, too quiet. She can see him out of the corner of her eye. His clipboard lies forgotten on the floor. "He called me that."
"I'm sorry, Ginny," he says, and is that genuine regret? She can't tell anymore. She's too tired. She wants to go home. Home to a house full of whispers and stares, where he hides behind every corner, flickering just out of sight along the edges of her vision. Ginevra, he whispers to her, and his smile is poison.
"I'm sorry, too," Ginny whispers to the floor.
The Healer says more, but she can't pay attention. Something about weekly sessions, about medication. More medication to be tipped down her throat or spelled into her stomach when she refuses to take it anymore. About working hard, and you must work hard, too, Ginny, this cannot be cured in a day!
Or in a bloody year apparently, because it's been over a year since the first time she admitted to Molly Weasley that she couldn't stop seeing Voldemort wherever she went, couldn't stop hearing him hiss in her ears. She regrets it now. She might be going c-r-a-z-y, but it is preferable to this slow torture under the guise of "getting better." There is no better. Not for her.
He delivers her to the waiting room, where her mother sits, her hands folded in her lap and her face a mask of worry, and when he lets go, Ginny seizes her chance, darting straight out the swinging doors before anyone can react. A shout rises up, her name blurted like a klaxon, but she refuses to stop. This is too much, much too much, and she can't take another moment.
The wind on her face is bitterly cold, but it smells like freedom and brine and autumn, and Ginny slows to a walk, laughing as falling leaves swirl around her in lazily drifting patterns, as her cloak blows around her, and passing Muggles give her odd, mildly concerned looks.
She can't see him anywhere.