synaesthesia
Michael Corner was handsome and dark, but his eyes and face were
nothing like Harry's. This suited Ginny just fine, as the line between Tom and
Harry tended to be blurred in her frequent nightmares.
She didn't remember the events of that night very clearly, after all. Tom and
Harry mixed together in her memory, both boys an integral part of the trauma.
The entire summer after her first year was spent sitting in a daze, her
attraction to Harry warring with the terror of that night.
The first time she saw him again since they parted at the end of her first
year, she could not meet his eyes.
And even after years passed and her attraction to Harry waned, the shadow of
Tom followed at her heels. She had gotten back on normal terms with Harry, but
Tom was not something-- someone-- she could ever shrug off.
Whenever Michael touched her, she heard Tom's silk-and-smoke voice purl in her
mind; she turned her head aside and cast her eyes down. Michael thought she was
merely coy.
She listened, eyes averted and face burning, to
Michael's flimsy, insubstantial flattery, and felt the fragile necks of
roosters snapping horribly in her timorous eleven year-old grasp. Michael
thought his charming words too much for her fragile maidenly sensibilities.
The complete loss of control and utter submission she felt when Michael stood
over her while she was seated, trapping her in her chair with his arms, made
her think of the way the world had looked in the instant when Tom seized
control. In that instant, everything looked faraway and hazy, and yet terribly
clear all at once; and then one moment later everything cut to black as
abruptly as if the world had flipped off its light switch, and she remembered
nothing. The first few moments of reawakening, before she regained full lucidity,
were similar. The voices of others, and all external events, were little more
than a smear of colors and annoying gnat noises that swam into her vision with
laborious reluctance. But the feel of the blood on her hands and the smell of
iron were always terribly clear to her.
It was inevitable that Michael would move in for a kiss eventually. Ginny
thought herself completely capable of handling this.
After all, this sort of contact was perfectly desirable. When Michael finally
angled in, Ginny actually moved forward to meet him, telling herself it was
good and not to jerk away--
And then she thought of Tom's lips, whispering in her ear just before she fell
unconscious: of the muted laughter in his mocking voice as he freed himself
from the pages--
She pulled away violently, her teeth coming together sharply and convulsively.
She tasted the sharp tang of iron as Michael's lip tore slightly; the taste
triggered a lick of deep red at the edges of her vision, which slithered in and
out of her sight in time with the soft curses of surprise he hissed. The taste
of his blood made her think of whispered threats and horrible pronouncements
etched on the wall: of sticky warm blood crawling out of the blank patches in
her memory and sheathing her hands.
It made her think of hours of her life lost, while she stood and painted death
threats on the wall in blood at the bidding of another.
The letters she made with that macabre paint were graceful and flowing, because
the handwriting was never hers.
After she left Michael, she took up with Dean. Dean's worst fear was to lose
his hands, for to him-- artist, calligrapher, and forger if paid handsomely--
his hands were everything. They were beautiful hands, with long slender fingers
gifted with grace and agile strength, and they reminded Ginny vividly of Tom's
hands.
Immediately, she knew that she would not stay long with Dean, either.
Dean's skill in beautiful lettering was much sought-after by fellow students,
and Ginny found herself watching Dean painstakingly crafting letters one by one
far more often than she would have liked.
She would rather not have watched, but a masochistic prickling behind her eyes
caused her to stay. The letters reminded her of Tom's graceful script.
The first time Dean kissed her, she closed her eyes and saw Tom's elegant lazy
handwriting spill for an instant across her sight, in a fine shade of glorious
dark crimson.
The next day, she told him it was over.