If people were wind, Ginny Weasley would be a beautiful and fiery storm.
I hated storms.
Me? I would be the small gusts of wind no one really noticed. No one felt it, no one thought about it, no one paid it any mind. Invisible. Never special enough to be noticable.
I was "just another Hufflepuff". Someone who wasn't brave, wasn't cunning, wasn't smart. We were no one special.
She was a Gryffindor poster girl. With her beautiful long red hair and courage. She was defiant. She stood up for herself and others. Ginny Weasley: a heroine.
She was everything I wanted to be.
I wonder how it felt like to be brave?
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When I got to know about it, I was so excited to share classes with Harry Potter. He was the boy who lived. Someone everyone knew who was. A person, so unlike me. A Hufflepuff girl.
But in our second year as Slytherin's monster roamed the school, she was there. Ginny Weasley.
The hero saved the future heroine from death. The perfect romance story.
How I wanted that to be me.
I was jealous. I wished something could happen to me. Something special. I wanted to stand out. But yet, I didn't show it. I knew that it wasn't her fault that Harry Potter saved her.
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In fifth year, I was excited to be able to join the DA. I was going to show them that I could also be a heroine in the story. I wasn't just another Hufflepuff.
I could finally be brave. But yet… I felt so scared.
What if we were caught? What if I was expelled? What would happen? What if what if what if?
I hated it. This uncertainty. My own cowardice and second thoughts. Why couldn't I be like Ginny Weasley? Always standing proudly without a single hesitation or glint of fear in her eyes?
What made her so much better than me?
Why was she the perfect heroine, and I, just another background character?
It wasn't fair.
I clawed marks into my arms and legs. Enjoying the sight of red marks breaking the pale skin. Hating it. Hating myself. Hating everything. Why did I have to be born such a coward?
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Harry Potter didn't come back for his last year.
I didn't know whether I was relieved or disappointed Ginny Weasley didn't join him too. They weren't together. They weren't the perfect couple. Fighting evil together, like in beautiful fairy tales. But that meant she was here with me. At Hogwarts. A constant reminder that she existed, that someone so perfect to existed, in contrast to my own imperfection.
It was worse than it had been the last years.
With Death Eaters taking over the school, that beautifully defiant look had an almost constant presence in her eyes. And how I loved to hate that look. She talked back. She took her punishment. She glared. They couldn't break a heroine.
I was not one. I broke in front of their presence. I cried. I backed out. My gaze was set all but permanently on the floor. A sheep, like everyone else. No one special. Hufflepuff.
How I wished, after all the times I kept my mouth shut, held my gaze down or stood silent, that I had done something about it. I imagined wonderful scenarios, where I confronted them. I spoke back, I won my fights. I was admired. Beautiful and strong. Like her.
Cowardice and fear gripped me; nailed my whole self into the floor every single time. I said to myself: "next time, next time, I will stand up for myself. Next time I will save the others. Next time, I will finally do something." Next time never happened. And as a thousand 'what if's filled my head with the same ferocity as a dementor's presence would've created, I cried. Again and again. The tears never stopped. Ginny Weasley never cried.
Coward.
The red marks turned to blood. They bled. And bled. And bled.
What does it feel like to be brave?
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Of course. I was also too afraid to end it all.
Harry Potter came back. He and Ginny Weasley. The perfect couple. The hero and the heroine. Finally reunited.
Jealousy burned like fire.
Emotions were supposed to fuel the power of your spells, right? But maybe envy was such a weak, petty emotions that it didn't make a difference. An ugly thing.
Weak and petty, like me. Jealousy. It fitted me, I realized.
Because in the end. Who was I? No one special.
At least I could be jealous, if nothing else. I held onto it.
A Hufflepuff. I don't know when it came to that, but I realized I hated that house. The rest house. A very synonym to "nothing special". It was the final proof of my own uselessness.
Sometimes I wondered if I would get sorted into Slytherin if I got a resort. Hatred. Spite. Ambitions.
But maybe not. I was weak after all. I didn't have the drive to fulfill my ambitions. No resolve to change anything in my life. All dreams and no drive.
So weak. So terribly weak.
When I was alone, the knife was strong in my hands. At least I had control of how my blood flowed. I took comfort in it.
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It was all coming together.
I hid. I ran away from their spells. And once when I had an opening. An opportunity to show what them that I could be useful and strong… I tripped.
And I fell.
I fell.
I failed.
Again and again.
Why was it, that the heroes never fell? They cast their spells, screamed their words of bravery. All so graceful and heroic.
Why did I have to fall, when they always shone like stars when the moment came?
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Harry Potter killed you know who.
I never managed to bring myself to say his name. Always too afraid of it.
And they became heroes. They became the perfect couple in the perfect ending.
I watched from the distance.
Ginny Weasley's hair shone as beautiful as ever in the spring sun as she kissed her boyfriend. He held her tight in his arms.
How the jealousy burned. It burned and burned till it was nothing left but jealousy itself.
I wanted to cut it off. I wanted to mar her perfect face. To break her courage. Break her bones. One for one. Make her fall, make her cry, make her look as pathetic as I always have looked.
I wondered, if this was the resolve I always lacked.
The knife felt strong in my hand as I walked.
Is this how bravery feels?