Disclaimer: If you recognise it, it's not mine. Song lyrics Ginny uses are When I am Queen by Jack Off Jill.
AN: I really cannot write any more fluff just now, which is why I'm back to tormenting Ginny and the gang. Let the angst continue.
Easy, Like Falling.
Waking, she hadn't known where she was. Awake, she wished she didn't.
Ginny sat down to the Gryffindor table with a sick feeling in her stomach that really wasn't helped by the whispering - insidious whispers all around her, as if the Great Hall was filled with Parselmouths. The girl who . . . Malfoy . . . always knew . . . strange girl . . . Ravenclaw . . . I heard . . . . . . and under it all, always . . . Riddle . . . Riddle . . . Riddle . . .
But she thought she might be imagining that.
Coffee this morning, coffee hot and black to open her eyes and shut out the whispers, and drinking her coffee so hot it hurt Ginny could almost ignore Ron's complete silence at the other end of the Gryffindor table. Malfoy was giving her enigmatic looks from across the Hall.
I can do this. Knowing she couldn't. Ginny sipped at her coffee again, burning inside, burning inside, burning inside.
He didn't come tonight.
Ron wasn't the only silent student at the Gryffindor table - Ginny hadn't seen Harry since breakfast yesterday, but he was very definitely here now, and God, he was furious. She didn't dare look, but she could feel it like an ache in the air.
Closing her eyes briefly was like sleep, rich and thick and velvet, and she felt herself melt just a little into languorous decay.
"When I am queen I will insist," she whispered absently, her mouth barely moving against her coffee mug, "With perfect scars upon my wrists, that everything you once held dear is taken away from you . . . "
The Hall snapped into focus as she pulled herself back, no one near having witnessed her lapse. Malfoy was looking at her, and she struggled to keep it together. Concentrate, Ginevra. Ginny. Be careful . . . Harry's black temper twisted smoke-like over them, around them; insidious and deadly it silenced them all, and all she could wonder was why she wasn't afraid like before.
For Christ's sake, woman. Taking another scalding sip of coffee, she gathered enough of herself to toss back her hair, giving Malfoy a naughty wink. Tess Beazley started to giggle over at the Slytherin table, Malfoy relaxed, and Ginny felt herself coming back to life. I can do this. She readied herself for another day. I can do this as long as necessary.
After all, the best lies were always half true, and Ginny was beginning to realise, to her dull horror, that smiling at Malfoy was easier every time.
He didn't come tonight.