And I Died, But I Thanked Him

So I ran faster
But it caught me here
Yes my loyalties turned

Somewhere in the corner of a bed at Hogwarts, Ginny Weasley lies curled up among the sheets, staring at the wrinkles in the fabric. So unlike paper are they, loose wrinkles with no defined edges or ends. But Ginny likes sharp edges and corners, like the folding of pages. They remind her of ink, and of books and of dust. And of blood.

And Ginny dreams of Tom. Sometimes of Harry, never of Ron, her beloved brother who keeps close watch over her, and always of Tom, the hematite sheen on his black hair, and the surly way he delivered her hell. In her dreams he glided over her, weighing heavily on her body without even touching her, like some sort of Incubus. But Ginny knows Tom is not an Incubus, and that Tom is essentially gone. Gone, because of her. Gone because Harry Potter cared enough about her to save her life.

Like my ankle
In the seventh grade
Running after Billy

But no, that´s not it either. Harry Potter doesn´t care about Ginny Weasley, Harry Potter only cares about Quidditch and adventures and saving the fucking world. And possibly other things as well, but Ginny doesn´t make it onto that list, and she knows it. As Ginny rolls over onto her back she feels the loose fabric of her pajamas slide along her slender body, shifting up so they expose her stomach. It is rare that Ginny has extra fabric to spare in her pajamas, as they are usually too small, but these are new ones that she got for her birthday. An act of charity from a friend of hers with money, who said they´d looks cute on her. But Ginny is poor, dirt poor and she could never be the perfect Princess to Harry Potter the perfect Prince.

Running after the rain
These precious things

Harry Potter doesn´t care about her, Ginny knows that. She was reminded of that at dinner when Harry sits next to Ron and Hermione, and doesn´t talk to Ginny except to ask her to pass a plate of butter so he can butter his roll. She´s reminded of it again when he gets up to leave and is accosted by Draco Malfoy, and turns a slight shade of red when Malfoy uses some insult containing one of his usual innuendos. Damn Draco Malfoy. Damn Harry Potter.

Damn Harry Potter for having elusive darkness to chase, to vanquish, and Draco Malfoy for being so dark an invulnerable.

Let them bleed
Let them wash away
These precious things
Let them break their hold over me

If Tom was here, he would kill them both. Ginny is sure of it. He would drench them in their own blood, force their bodies the shake and shiver and writhe with pain and screaming. But no, he´d kill them separately, even if Harry´s death is something Draco Malfoy would probably like to watch. These images haunt Ginny in her head, because inside she knows they´re wrong, and that these feelings should pass, and that when she´s had enough time the memory of Tom will slip away like a bad dream into the gutters of her mind, stored for safe keeping.

It isn´t as though Tom consumed the whole of Ginny´s life, afterall. She´s not broken beyond repair, just a little cracked in places that nobody´s found a way to fix yet. Tom was different from most boys, in that he didn´t have to be expected to notice Ginny. Tom was special, is special because he could see Ginny from the inside from the very start. He didn´t fancy her because of her red hair, or wince at the sight of her face because of her freckles. Tom wasn´t even a boy at first. He was a book.

But once Ginny had seen Tom as a boy, she had never been able to forget him that way.

He said you´re really and ugly girl
But I like the way you play

He had simply asked her once if she had wanted to see him, and, somehow both scared and enticed by his dark mystery, Ginny had agreed. Then he came, stepping from gold light of the parchment to the world of the living, towering before her, glittering an transparent like some sort of estranged specter. He was surreal, yet earthly, and he lifted a hand to her face that made Ginny tremble, though her skin itself had felt nothing. The next thing she felt was pain, yet excitement as Tom´s rich voice, a black whispery voice that made her think of smoke, asked her to follow him.

And somehow, she did so. Because he was Tom. And she was Ginny. And Ginny hadn´t ever wanted it to be anything else. Tom wouldn´t smile at her boyishly like Harry Potter, who was just elusive enough to hide right under her nose. Tom wouldn´t torment or tease her family like the wretched Draco Malfoy, at the same time working in a subtle seduction of Harry. Tom wouldn´t hurt her. He would make her bleed, yes, possibly make her cry, but he wouldn´t hurt her.

And I died

And when Ginny awoke, it was all just a dream, a shadow, a memory floating calmly on the frozen spirit in her heart. Ginny´s heart itself, Harry Potter, was kneeling over her, showing genuine concern in his eyes. Ginny knows now she was stupid to believe it, stupid to believe that he really cared.

Harry Potter didn´t give a damn. But he would give his life, because the cursed life of a hero is nothing to the hero himself. It can be everything to everyone else. Harry could never be anything Ginny wanted him to be; calm, peaceful, hers. He was too busy belonging to everyone else, saving the world from the latest incarnation of the only boy who had been something Ginny wanted.

But I thanked him
Can you believe that?
Sick, sick
Holding on to his picture
Dressing up everyday

Ginny knows it both is an isn´t her own fault. On the one hand, falling in love with Harry Potter isn´t all that uncommon. On the other, Ginny is tired of doing common things. She is tired of being a little girl who fits evenly into everyone´s lives with nothing interesting to make her mark on the world, even when she tries to stand out. She is tired of being the Girl Who Loved the Boy Who Lived too much, tired of being the Girl Without A Shot. Not that her competition isn´t more than worthy.

I wanna smash the faces
Of those beautiful boys

One thing Ginny can be certain of, is that while never having a shot at Harry Potter, she knows her competition very well, unlike many of the other girls who sit staring dreamily at Harry, their starry eyed expressions usually attracting nothing more than the typical boyish smile. Harry Potter will smile for anyone, even the masses of people who don´t appreciate him for anything other than his looks and his heroism. Yes, Harry Potter will smile for anyone just to keep up the façade.

But he only cries for Draco Malfoy. Malfoy, sick, twisted, evil, icy cold Malfoy with eyes like burnished silver and platinum hair that shines the way copper does when it´s been badly polished. The boy isn´t lunatic, and Ginny knows this, but she doesn´t see how Harry could possibly see anything in Malfoy other than his occasional slight fits of insanity. Ginny knows her competition well enough to know the way she would like the smash his angular face, and how she would like to slit his sweaty throat.

Those Christian boys
So you can make me cum
It doesn´t make you Jesus

Harry wouldn´t want her to slit Draco Malfoy´s throat though, especially since someone like Tom would rather enjoy the sight. Harry wants to observe Malfoy from a distance, until the snake slithers into his territory unannounced, just before making the kill. Malfoy need hardly announce himself though he likes to do it anyway; Harry always knows he´s there.

And Ginny hates him for it. Harry, not Malfoy. And only because she loves him can she hate him so.

These precious things
Let them bleed
Let them wash away
These precious things
Let them break their hold over me

Ginny stares at the ceiling above her bed in silence, lost in memories, wide awake in the still of the night. The night is strange and foreign to her in it´s silence, something that contrasts far too sharply with the passionate heat pounding in her ears and chest and stomach. She wishes she could cut open her skin, rip out the heated anger and throw it away.

I remember,
Yes, in my peach party dress
No one dared
No one cared to tell me

Instead of releasing her anger, Ginny relives more of it as her mind drifts back to the previous years Yule Ball. She was lovely for once, like a spring fairy in one of her silly roommates´ storybooks, with her long red hair pulled back, and her robes soft and shimmering unbrokenly. It was the color of peaches and cream , and oddly enough, for once, just once, she did not look too pale or too thin in it.

Of course, Ginny being the foolish girl that she was, with no diary to make her write her feelings (as she´d been unable to keep one properly since Tom) so she could analyze them and see reason, had tried to find Harry so she could make him as to dance with her. It was almost midnight Ginny remembers now, though she´d not sure how she knew. It´s not really important, what´s really important to the story is that when Ginny finally found Harry in the rose garden, her hair was messy and her cheeks were red from running.

And Harry was kissing Malfoy. On the mouth.

Where the pretty girls are
Those demi-gods

For accuracy´s sake (and perhaps for the sake of shattered illusion), Ginny bothers to remind herself that she arrived just in time to actually see Harry initiate the act of kissing Malfoy. They had been standing apart at first, their faces bright and slightly moist from perspiration as the moon streamed unwaveringly down on them. Malfoy had moved forward, tauntingly, saying something asinine, when Harry had scooped Malfoy´s chin up with his hand, making the other boy step into him. And their lips had met.

And Ginny Weasley had sat down on a marble bench, crying her eyes out.

With their nine inch nails
And little fascist panties
Tucked inside the heart of every nice girl

Her first reaction had been that of shock, revulsion, jealousy. Her second reaction had been much less understandable, a cold sick self-disgust. Ginny hates herself even now for having bought into the notions of fairytale princesses who were beautiful and kind. She should never have tried to be pretty to find herself a prince.

After all, she once had one already, didn´t she? No princess got more than one, and certainly no ordinary girl like her would ever hope to achieve such a feet.

These precious things
Let them bleed
Let them wash away
These precious things
Let them bleed
Let them wash away

And as Ginny closes her eyes for the hundredth time that night, her face twists with anger. If only she could keep something, or prevent it from keeping her.

These precious things
Let them break their hold over me
Precious....precious

~fin~