Prologue: It's love...make it hurt.
Author's note: Given that this my first year of college and i am still a developing writer, I'm gonna have to ask for patience in between chapters and sugar-coated constructive criticism. Although I have read all the books, I am no expert on key little facts, so try not to be too nick-picking. Whether or not I find the time or desire to continue this will probably be based on reviews...so let me know what you think. As always...Harry potter belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic, Warner Brothers, etc.
This wasn't the first time, nor would it be the last. I felt my brain swirl around inside my skull and the metallic taste of blood mix with saliva in my mouth. There was no crunch of broken bones, and any would be taken care of immediately—my experience made me more qualified to be a healer than any NEWT scores. The thud my head made when it hit the floor darkened my world for a few moments, and I welcomed it. If I was unconscious then I wasn't here when he hit me, slapped me, beat me. The pain from my body being knocked to the ground was old, almost familiar. There were a few swift kicks to my stomach, pushing my back closer to the wall with each one. It was the fourth kick, the last one I remember, that swung head back, and I couldn't tell if the cracking noise that responded was the plaster of the wall break or my skull.
He wasn't always like this. Please believe me when I say he wasn't, because I'm not trying to defend him in any way. People change, for better or for worse...he changed for worse.
He used to be sweet. Sweet and kind and understanding and he loved me and who I was and all my quirky little thoughts and inspirations. Then he changed; Suggestions on what to wear to dinner became demands, assumptions became rules, laws, and fights became bloody.
The first slap was the most vivid—all the others blur together with different dates and situations, always the same pain, the same outcome. A joke, a stupid joke told after lots of butterbeer late at night while staying over at the Burrow for Christmas. The moment I said it I knew I had gone to far. I saw his smile, his soul, the man I married pull within himself and abandon me with the dangerous shell of a man I had known to be reserved for fighting the ultimate evil—not his wife. His eyes got darker and I remember the way the sleeve of his sweater swung at his wrist the second before he backhanded me. I remember I felt the softness of the wool and the power of the muscle. I remember the way my neck snapped back and the blood dripping from my nose before his hand even left my face. I remember seeing the blood on his sweater, the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes.
I remember the look on his face, the look of utter shock. My husband was back and realized what had happened when he left me—left me defenseless, and look what some monster had done to his wife in his absence? He gulped, and started crying before I did, but it was only when I started to cry that he reached out and held me. He just held me as we both sobbed together, lost from each other and the peaceful marriage we had once shared. I cried on his shoulder, his arms tight around me, and what hurts me more about that memory is that it was the first time I didn't feel safe in his arms. During the death and destruction of The Great War, he just had to hold me and the world went away; it was just us, and I was protected by not just a man who loved me, but by love itself. He moaned into my hair how sorry he was that night, how it would never happen again, how much he loved me, and even then I couldn't bring myself to believe him.
That night when we made love, he was as tender as he had been the first time. It was almost as if he felt he could make it up to me, that cruelty could be overshadowed by kindness. That was the first time we made love and I clung to him all night, desperate to hold on to that one part of my husband that I recognized.
The next morning during breakfast, he squeezed my arm so tight that it left bruises of each of his fingers—not for telling a joke at his expense, but rather for laughing at one Ron had made. My family laughed as he flipped Ron the bird and squeezed my arm. That was the first time I realized that I could never tell any of my family about this. They loved him too much, at times I believed, more than they had ever loved me. If they were ever to believe it, it would break their hearts, and I refused to put my family through any more suffering of any kind.
So the years passed by, and they never knew—no on did. Spells were casts before red could even fade to purple, or any blood could stain the carpet—but nothing took the pain away...ever. He continued to control me, and even convinced me to quit my job as an auroa. Somehow he seemed to think it was safest for me to stay at home, keeping the house tidy and the garden colorful. I had always be insistent about having children, at least throughout our engagement. But once he hit me, I vowed to never bring a child into this home. Even if he never touched him or her, how could I hide things from someone else living in the house? Even with all the spells I had mastered, eventually the child would hear yelling or crying or cracking or see daddy hitting mommy. That was the one thing I felt I had control over—no children. He knew nothing about the muggle birth control I took every day and how I had gone to great lengths to hide it the garden; I feel embarrassed to admit that I uncovered and reburied it every single day.
When I finally came to that night, he was looking at me with that same face. Not necessarily a "What have I done?" face but more of a "How could someone do this to you?" face. His features softened and but his arm was still raised, almost threating to me to accuse him of anything—that he, my loving husband, could possibly do anything this cruel to me. I looked at him as the darkness faded away and the light showered on his face. I looked at the scar that reminded me that this was my husband, not a monster. Somehow his hair always seemed to cover the scar as he beat me, so seeing it was my touchstone, my white flag. I looked up at the scar, and then at his face, and his arm still tense, his fist still clenched. I thought about what I have been reduced to by love. It wasn't fear that kept me from leaving Harry, it was love. I still loved the man with a scar on his forehead and no one matter what that monster did to me I knew I could never leave Harry.
I started to cry, tears of pain and humiliation and above all—hope. If nothing else, crying brought Harry back to me, reminded him not only of who I was, but who he was—my husband. His arm dropped and his eyes instantly watered over, the inside of his glasses somehow becoming sprinkled by the tears. He reached down and wrapped his arms around me as we both cried.
"Oh Ginny...I'm so sorry...I didn't know...how could I...how...Oh god Ginny!" He moaned into my hair as he held me tight. I rubbed his back to comfort him, and reminded myself that he loved me. This is what love is—it's passionate and painful, and it hurts. I knew that it was Harry who beat me, that Harry and the monster were the same person somehow, but I also knew that no one could comfort me like Harry could. No one.