In that single moment, I knew I was hers. It was nothing more than a glance from the other side of a shop window, but I met her eyes—those pensive, brown eyes—and it was instant; it was electric. She smiled a quiet smile and raised her eyebrows when she saw me, as though greeting an old friend. I've never felt more perfect and beautiful than in the brilliance of that smile. Her fingers pressed against the glass momentarily as she gazed at me. She's a beautiful girl, I thought to myself, unable to move or speak. And she's looking at me.
Then she turned from me and walked away without a word. I could see an excitement in her expression as she left, though, and I knew that I would see her again. I had to see her again.
I waited until the shop closed that day, watching from the same window, but she didn't return. I waited the next day and the day after, but my perseverance was in vain. She didn't come back and I had no way of finding her. I didn't even know her name. But I waited, because what else could I do? I knew now that I had no other purpose than to be with her. I could feel it in my soul.
When she did come back, my lovely lady, she paused at the window and looked at me intently. It wasn't the soft love she had displayed before, but a discerning gaze. She appeared to be talking herself into something. After a moment, she smiled, nodded her head, and walked into the shop.
She approached me from across the shop and I could see her fully then. Her hair was long and red and her face was quirked in a longing half-smile. I stood in front of her, silent and still as she reached forward and brushed the fingers of her right hand against the cloth at my shoulder and ran them down the length of my sleeve to my wrist. I felt static electricity jump across me.
I remember thinking to myself, This… This is what I want to be. I went home with her that day.
The trouble started shortly after.
Her parents made it abundantly clear that I wasn't a welcome addition. They couldn't have known how much she and I loved each other and still found it difficult to accept me. I'd been staying with her for a few weeks when the arguments started getting worse. I remember overhearing a particularly nasty one that had gotten slightly out of control before it had ended. She told them that she was getting married and intended to keep me, no matter what it cost her in the end—that she would find a way. I wanted to cry, but they had no idea that I could hear every word.
On our wedding day, I could feel the love radiating from her and it filled me with warmth. She was stunningly beautiful and she made me shine like silver just by being near me. I caressed her arms lovingly as we stood at the altar. She pushed back my veil gently so its hairpins wouldn't pull.
And then he was there. At the back of the church, he burst in through the doors, screaming something I couldn't understand through his intoxication, waving his wand around like a madman. His blond hair was disheveled and his rage was unmatched as he slashed his wand through the air throwing a dark curse at my lady—my Ginny.
But I was in the way. The curse tore through me first, but I felt nothing as he ripped through my fabric to slice at her, dashing her precious blood onto my silk and lace. She gasped and held her hands to her wounds and mine before falling to her knees. A pair of arms caught us before we fell to the ground.
"Ginny," I could hear him saying frantically as he tried to talk to her. "Ginny, please, no."
I could feel my fabric pulling at the seams—feel her failing pulse at my wrists—as her lungs fought to breathe.
"H-Harry."
She choked up the word, spitting more blood onto my collar before I felt the pulse fade. My fabric contracted one final time as her lungs emptied themselves and refused to take another breath.
I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. I wanted to die.
But now I hang in the back of a dusty closet without a window. The mothballs do not keep my seams from being eaten or my lace from decaying or the stench of mildew from seeping into my cloth. I'm stained crimson and shredded through, a ghost of the gown I once was. No one can let me die, because no one wants to forget her, and I... I exist in agony without my love—without my lady.
But no one cares.
No one cares for what the dead bride wore.