Mute Belief

By: Unfortunate

Disclaimer: Verily disclaimed. All proceeds will go directly to my ego. Do not pass go.

Summary: It's a Ginny/ Draco ficlet. Oh joy. Years after he's gone she's not said a word. Here are her beliefs. She's mute- not dead.

Just because I don't speak doesn't mean I can't. Everyone always assumes I don't even think. In public, when people talk to me, someone will always politely butt in and tell the person I don't speak. It's amazing how fast they'll shut up. With their faces turning red, stuttering, walking away- always away, like I wasn't a person, like I wasn't even fucking there. My life becomes half told stories- people think I can't hear them, and I haven't heard an end to a story since before it all happened.

And it was a gradual thing too, like a cold. Getting a bit sicker every day until it develops into something serious and the nurses sigh and say 'there's nothing we can do, I wish we'd caught it earlier'. Caught the disease, or just the persons' descent?

When I was little I didn't speak much. Most toddlers, all they do is talk. I was in hero worship of my brothers and just stared at them in mute awe. They ignored me, and I just never had a reason. Mum thought I was mute for awhile when I was three or so. My brothers would never let strangers talk to me- I couldn't speak, I can't listen?

I didn't have a voice, not a brain.

Then I became a chatterbox. Talked all the time, scatterbrain. Harry must have thought Ron was insane for telling him I talked all the time. Harry made me clam up.

Then I talked to the wrong person.

It was innocent at first. Dumbledore had started to integrate houses. It resulted in over twenty cases of Hospital Wing visits, but he persevered. I just was sitting at the Slytherin Table, as I had to do every two weeks, talking to Malfoy. Talking to Malfoy who was like, my brother's worst enemy. To Draco Malfoy who was the antithesis of everything to me.

He didn't speak at all, just listened to my ramblings. I was reminded of being a child again except with the roles reversed. Eventually someone leaned across the table from Ravenclaw and told me Draco Malfoy just didn't speak much anymore and I was wasting my time. But, I remembered all those stories I never got to hear the end of, all those talks that never had a conclusion, and I just kept talking.

I was fixing the broken karma in my life, I believe. It was my good deed for the year. I worked on him like a pet project. I would have started a Save Draco Malfoy fund if I'd thought it would help. But I know better now. I shouldn't have tried to fix him, he wasn't broken. I was, but the scars were so heavy they scabbed that.

For a day every two weeks, I'd talk to him. He wouldn't even look at me in the beginning, but as the year went on and I just never shut up he began to listen. I could tell by the way he'd stare at me. It was like having a diary, like Tom all over again except he never tried to steal my soul away... Only his eyes took my words.

I think it was after Easter that he even spoke to me.

"You shouldn't tell someone your every story Virginia," he'd said in a husky, unused voice. "Never know what secrets you might betray; never know what part of yourself you're giving up."

I was silent for about a minute, weighing the words. Looking back, I think he was speaking from experience. I think in his own subtle way he was warning me to stay away.

"I've already given up my soul. What more is there?" I'd asked.

A wry fleeting smile crossed his lips. A hand on my hand caressed it and my breath came faster. "Your heart... something you should never give away."

I was red. He smirked at me and left and I knew- I just knew, that it was somehow too late. But I also knew that he didn't care, that it was too late for me to ever have his heart. Never let it be said that he didn't have one. Let it be said instead that he chained it to his wrist after losing it the first time.

Harry was a thing of the past. He was now my friend, and only my friend. Turns out my obsession with unattainable figures were as insatiable as ever. I craved Draco like chocolate. Wanted him like air, felt starved when he wasn't around.

He had blonde hair, toddler's hair. Like a little Lost Boy from Peter Pan. Never grow up, never have to, no rules except your own, no responsibility- little Lost Boy, why are you crying?

Gray eyes- expressionless, emotionless, lifeless, staring. Nothing in those eyes like emotion. Emotion would make you weak. Speaking would give you away. Breathing would be proving you human. Mustn't let your guard down- Daddy and the world are ready to steal your soul.

Cherub lips, want to kiss them? I do. I believe in evil. I believe in angels. Can't have one without the other, darling. Little Lost Boy, want a thimble? I can give you that. I could give you my heart if you would let me place them in your artist's hands. Little Lost boy- think you've lost your marbles, well maybe you have, but you can have mine. Think I'm going mad? Already there.

Next time he said anything other then "pass the jam" was on the Astronomy Tower where I'd knew he went to get away. I'd followed. Edging closer, excited by the feeling playing in the sky. He'd placed his arm around my waist and nipped my ear sending sparks of pleasure languishing down my body. My mind was numbing, this was like a diaphanous dream flowing.

"Do you have any," the husky voice had paused here as if he couldn't remember words, "knowledge of what you're getting yourself into," he'd whispered. His voice was soft and melancholy. I shook my head, no. "Too bad, sweetheart," he said, lips curving into a sneer. He slid his hands under my school robes until they were on my stomach and then with his will alone he drew me towards him.

Boy, why are you crying?

That night, when I lay within the circle of his arms he leaned to my ear to sigh. "What did I tell you about," there was a poignant and slightly agitated silence from him, "About giving your things away?" he hissed with a slight sibilance.

This time I didn't say anything.

There wasn't anything particularly romantic about the moment. It was one of those incomprehensible things outside our vocabulary.

Years later, on our wedding day, he had still said almost nothing of importance to me.

All that talk about the importance of talk is bull. To communicate all you need are your eyes. I swear he could tell me the meaning of life in his blistering eyes. Words don't communicate like that.

People asked me why I married him and I didn't say much of anything. I knew deep down what he was and that was empty. Lacking a soul and heart some would say. I wouldn't say lacking. He didn't lack anything. It had been stolen from him. He was like me in that way, and about only that way. We weren't anything alike.

Polar opposites pulled together out of fear of being wounded yet again. We were lonely young people looking for a quiet empathy in each other. Like Peter Pan and Wendy, not understanding what they were feeling, putting funny names to serious feelings.

The news of the wedding wasn't leaked until we were married for almost three months. The service itself was beautiful. Candles adorned the altar and wax slid genteelly down the marble surface. I remember the pictures of Madonna on the walls. I remember the smells of incense. But mostly I remember Draco saying 'I do'. That flat intonation that meant more to me then the ring.

We'd been married in everything, but name for years, the only thing preventing us from joining earlier had been his Father, freshly in the grave, murdered by his crazed wife, alongside his common lover. Draco had not said anything about the double tragedy. Took it all in stride and decided, one day, that he wanted to marry me.

Never knew why.

It wasn't like he loved me.

Never did.

When the War started to get really bad, and the sides grew deadly, our only child was born. It was a girl. Don't think he cared what it was. Don't think he loved her at all. Little Lost Boy why do you hate me? It didn't matter that he didn't love us though, he cared. In his own little way, he did.

When she was two months old he left. Last thing he ever said he whispered into my ear: "Ginny, take care of her. Go marry some nice little man and raise her like you. Don't tell her about me... ever. Let her have a real father, not me. Make sure you forget about me, forever. Don't try to find me, don't remember me. Just let the memory go. Say goodbye. Tell me you love me and say goodbye," he said softly. And like that the starry romance of a sixteen year old was clouded over and forgotten. The hypnotism I'd been placed in by looking into his swirling eyes was collapsed and Neverland disappeared.

I trembled miserably.

"But...," I tried to convey my thoughts into words only to be cut off.

"Say you love me and say goodbye."

The words weren't threatening. They were orders. I looked into his eyes and whispered the words, never looking away. He held my hand and turned, walked away. Left.

Final battle happened that night. Everyone lost people, and if you hadn't then people considered you less then them. I never knew where he went, I just went home. People wondered, but I'd stopped speaking. I didn't have any words left. My family welcomed me and his daughter home. Harry took a shine on her, and started to raise her like his own.

Six years later she doesn't even know the sound of my voice. I haven't spoken since those few years. I haven't heard the end of a story in that long, never finished a conversation. I haven't laughed.

I cry.

Every night I cry.

My daughter, she doesn't even call me mother. She looks more like him each day, but she calls Harry her father and she just...doesn't remember me. Wendy and Peter have had a little child that was found by a man who was never lost. I give her presents every birthday and Christmas, and she likes them, but that doesn't make me her mother.

So this is it:

I believe that silence tells many things, but no one listens.

I believe in good and evil.

I believe that emotion is only good for people who have someone who love them.

I believe that eyes are the windows to the soul.

I believe...Mute belief.

And it turns out that he's not coming back. In the very beginning I almost hoped he would return, but deep down, I sort of... knew. Call it a sick sense, but I awoke the night he left screaming. I'm still screaming now, but silently.

When my little found girl was four Ron and Harry finally told me about what happened. The only reason they were here was because he had sacrificed himself. No one was really sure if he'd meant it, but he'd taken a Killing Curse for all of them...

And then...

I dunno, it just sort of all made sense. Like I'd found the marbles.

I read somewhere that people wrote stuff down like this because they have some twisted psycho-something tendencies, but this is a statement of belief, or rather, disbelief.

And so here I am declaiming it all, on my death bed of all things. I'm not that old really- only 20 something and I'm dying.

It turns out that I've been dying for years. None of the mediwitches can do anything except make me comfortable and tut gently about catching 'it' earlier. My brothers come in every once and a while and mum comes in to have a good cry almost every other day. Harry brings my baby in here sometimes too, and she skirts around the bed. They play games when I get too tired to try to communicate. I like to see how happy they are, it makes me feel like I did one thing right.

And, I suppose today is the day. I just sort of...know.

I mime to one of the aides to call my family in. They do, and so now I'm just waiting. I wonder idly if death is really so bad. I'd like to go to France, maybe write a song, I'd like to invent a spell to cure frizzy hair for Hermione, I'd like to have a proper Weasley Christmas, or play with my girl just once. I'd like to do a lot of things really, and I wish I'd done them now. But, as the sayings go and all...

When they get here I'll tell them a story. I'll speak and I'll tell them I love them, and that I care. But, I'm sort of happy that it's ending. You know, I don't need to speak to tell everyone how fucked-up my life is. You can sort of tell.

I don't need to speak really, and I sort of know it's too late. Even as I'm lying prone, thinking about all the things I'm giving up by giving up.

But in a way I'm sort of...happy...

I can see shapes forming, and I know the room isn't empty anymore.

"Ginny..."

Little Lost Boy, why are you crying?

Please...

I won't hurt you...

"Say you love me and say goodbye, Ginny..."

Little Lost Boy?

You look happy...

Little Lost Boy? Do you still have my heart?

Do you have my voice?

Fin

i want to think that i'll join you and we'll be exultant,

and that we'll be alive and running in verdant meadows of flowers

where tanned arms can link like magic rings and we can be free

in neverland when an eternal summer smears and everything is lost

so that we're lost too and nobody cares.

and that by the mediterranean of cloud nine we can have our joie de vive

and we'll never be drained or hurt.

in a space where words are cheap, and so we can converse in:

smiles, touches, eyes

where peter and his wendy can manage to subsist forever and

never again be bothered by captain hook and where we can feast like satyrs

getting drunk on life like we did at sixteen and get lost in the essence of:

peter and wendy, wendy and peter. that is beautiful