Hallucinations
Disclaimer: I don't own anything
Warning: This story contains mentions of suicidal thoughts and sexual references. Nothing big, though!
"You're trash – you know that, don't you Cho?" His voice was so harsh, had lost all the warmth that had been there only minutes before as they caressed each other in what should have been – what she had believed to be – an act of love. She could see her reflection in his cold eyes – eyes like ice, that only mirrored emotions rather than expressed them – through the veil of tears that covered her own. "Cho slut Chang," he taunted. "Good for a fuck but wasted on anything else-"
"-least of all intelligent conversation," her cousins mocked her, circling her, closing in on her, always speaking, voicing some new threat. She felt her cool exterior crack and released the handkerchief she'd been twisting into a sweaty rope, lashing out at one of them. He laughed and jumped back out of reach; another grabbed her arms and twisted them behind her back as she cried out in pain. "Now, now, we can't have you disturbing our parents as they talk," the one said, grinning and twirling her wand and his own in his fingers. "Silencio!" Then his hand reached out toward her and she struggled as suddenly his face became many, all different but all leering at their power over her…
And they became one again, became a boy with dark hair and grey eyes that promised her endless silly things that made her laugh and forget everything, every trouble, every past experience. He smiled at her and she moaned his name – "Cedric…" – begging him to say hers, but he only smiled, and when she reached for him to hold him close – just once more – he was too far away, becoming fainter, disappearing, leaving her, and still he wouldn't speak no matter how she pleaded.
It was the eyes; always in the eyes, and so when his eyes glazed over, unfocused, lost their colour and went blank, it was her own screaming that woke her up.
It was amazing that her cries did not wake the dead themselves – but never did even Marietta in the next bed do so much as stir, and it seemed only she could hear them, echoing in her mind, waking her to a cold, shivering sweat that slicked her body, and the horrible sense of consuming emptiness.
I'm so tired of being here
Suppressed by all of my childish fears
And if you have to leave
I wish that you would just leave
Because your presence still lingers here
And it won't leave me alone
She shook helplessly on the window seat, incapable of sleep, allowing the cold night wind to flow through the open window and pierce her skin, numbing it in an attempt to numb herself. She closed her eyes and drew a deep breath, the air hurting her lungs with its icy bite. If only it could freeze the pain and the longing, because she didn't know how long she could stand them.
These wounds won't seem to heal
This pain is just too real
There's just too much that time cannot erase
He'd found her crying behind a tapestry-covered door, one of Hogwarts' many secret passages. Her surprise at someone entering her haven had registered as shock, so that her convulsing sobs ceased and she could only stare as he closed one hand over the bared wrist she had extended, and gently took hold of the other that hovered with the knife only inches above. She'd lost herself then in the depths of his eyes, and for how long they stood there she didn't know.
"Why me?" she asked as he traced a finger over the curve of her lips, and she curled up against him. He smiled slowly.
"Because when I saw you, I was touched by the hurt in your eyes."
She'd been made to believe that she was defiled and therefore unwanted. But to him, it was her suffering and the survival of it that made her beautiful, and nothing was more precious.
And when he'd taken her to the ridiculous little teashop she soon fell in love with on their Hogsmeade weekend, he'd listened when she felt the need to talk, looking dimly into her cooling coffee as she picked nervously at the corner of the pink tablecloth, his eyes never leaving her face. The others had gone almost straight to the physical then complained at how unyielding she was, their eyes always straying to below her neck. But with him she felt her sanity return bit by bit, so that she melted in his arms when she was ready.
When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears
When you screamed I'd fight away all of your fears
And I've held your hand through all of these years
But you still have all of me
Now she masked herself with a smile and giggles, hid herself in a group of lemming she liked to call friends and the group called the DA. She filled her time constantly with schoolwork, spells, Quidditch, talking and friends, never allowing herself a moment in which to think, because if she did his face would fill her mind and she would break down. There seemed to be bubbles, pink hallucinations that clouded her vision and thoughts, each one representing a piece of her, of her sanity, and she couldn't think or else the bubbles would pop, leaving no evidence that she'd ever had control.
"Miss Chang!"
Pop.
Professor McGonagall's severe voice cut through to her. She jerked her head up to look at her teacher, having been staring at her desk blankly for ten minutes. "Your raccoon will hardly transfigure itself to give you a passing grade. Pay attention." She thought however that she detected a hint of pity, but it was there so quickly she was not sure. Pity was unnecessary – she wanted his empathy, his understanding, and couldn't have it.
Pop.
"It still had black patches around its eyes and a long tail – who wants to turn raccoons and ferrets into rabbits, anyways?" Marietta complained, herding her out of the classroom. "I mean, rabbits breed quickly enough, why does the world need more?" She began a stream of talk, seeming to not realize that her conversation was quite on-sided. Cho felt deaf, all the sounds surrounding escaped her hearing as she tuned out. Vision began to fuzz at the edges, and static seemed to fill her. She suddenly felt huge, out of place, and the bubbles were floating everywhere. Why did no one else see them? She shook her head, but it was so hard to move, and she looked down to see her feet stop. Dirty, cracked stone, water running in the grooves.
She looked up to see a girl about her own age, dark hair falling in tangles into dripping, hollow eyes. They both reacted at the shock of each other with a simultaneous gasp, then stared in observation. A tear escaped the girl and trickled down her cheek, scalding water burning a white trail to mark its presence. Something caught her eye then; blemishes on a wrist, sleeve drawn up, a hand poised claw-like above it. Pain. She looked down at blood dripped off long nails, her eyes following its progress to the floor, the splash almost audible.
Her reflection blinked back at her, rust and cracks marring her already moonstruck image. Then it became pearly white and solid, moved forward, gaining thick glasses and pigtails. "What are you doing here?" the squat ghost demanded, taking in her appearance. Transparent eyes widened. "Ooh," the ghost squealed. "You're the one, aren't you? The one they say cries everywhere." Vengeance glinted behind those thick lenses, and the girl floated closer, her voice lowering. "The crazy one."
She fled, Myrtle's maniacal laughter echoing after her.
You used to captivate me
By your resonating light
But now I'm bound by the life you left behind
Your face it haunts my once pleasant dreams
Your voice it chased away all the sanity in me
It was true that she cried. Cried because no matter what she filled her time with, the pink bubbles continued to burst, consistently taking from her what he'd helped her to build up. She felt the walls closing in on her, choking her, even as she felt more empty with every passing day.
The tears were there when she changed in the locker room after Quidditch practice, the whole team dispirited at her lack of concentration on the pitch. She stood under blistering hot water, trying to drown herself in its constant flow. She didn't hear him come in, didn't know until the river slowed to a drizzle and a rough hand caressed her skin, creeping up from her belly to her breast, fondling her. His other hand reached out-
And covered her mouth as she opened it to scream. She moved desperately to cover herself, hating him, hating his touch. "Roger?" Her lips formed the name incredulously against his palm, pupils growing huge with horror as his dilated with a lust she'd seen countless times before, and it terrified her. A sneer twisted his usually friendly face.
"Think Diggory'd mind another captain taking over his prize 'player?'"
Cedric.
Pop. And something snapped.
He backed off, cursing her after she tasted the blood of his throat, teeth sinking into tender flesh. "Crazy bitch," he swore, cradling his hand as he backed out of the steam-filled room. "You can't keep up your disguise forever, you know." He was gone.
Blood smeared her lips; she stood trembling, naked, arms crossed over her chest protectively as memories swamped her. Her hand rose, a finger touched the steamy glass of the mirror and she wrote haltingly his name – pop – and erased it. Crossing back to the shower, she turned the tap – the pressure increased. It pounded her body, and she hoped it could wash away the feeling of violation she thought she'd lost, only to gain it again.
These wounds won't seem to heal
This pain is just too real
There's just too much that time cannot erase
The Boy-Who-Lived. When she was through with him he wouldn't be so alive. Her own naiveté disgusted her at the thought that she could survive another heartbreak. Conflicting emotions overwhelmed her; anger at herself for daring to let another get so close and set herself up for consequence, and anger at Harry for denying her, for mocking the one place in her life that, ridiculous as it might be, still had meaning, and for asking her to let down her guard only to leave her not two hours later for another girl. Anger at Roger for being there after what he'd done to her. Guilt consumed her at the insult she made to Cedric's memory by looking at another for comfort.
The confusion was too much. She didn't understand, couldn't fathom what the storm raging inside of her meant or if it meant anything at all. She curled up under the covers of her bed, shuddering with sobs she refused to emit, and staring at her wrist and the knife. Any moment, he would finally come out and stop her, stop her because she didn't want to do it and she needed him to say she was beautiful…
He never came, and she fell asleep waiting for him to kiss her tears away.
When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears
When you screamed I'd fight away all of your fears
And I've held your hand through all of these years
But you still have all of me
I've tried so hard to tell myself that you're gone
And though you're still with me
I've been alone all along