Watching, Falling...

Dedicated to my best friend Lily, whose mother was killed in the World Trade Center.

 

Ginny.

I’m watching you, watching you from across the lake. You look beautiful, Ginny, beautiful beyond all others, do you know that? You always are. Always have been. Your bouncing, tumbling copper-red hair, warm, teasing brown eyes…it’s too bad I’ve never taken the time to notice before. It’s too bad I’ve only noticed now, when it’s too late.

You’re laughing, now. Laughing, joking, talking, with him. Him. Him, who was raised to serve the Dark Lord ever since birth. But you did it for him, Ginny. God knows how you did it, but you gave him the strength to defy Lucius Malfoy. Defy his father, and in doing so risking his life. Just for you. And that’s it. What I don’t understand. How could you and him…together…happen so fast? You’ve always been tagging along behind me, burning red when I glanced your way, dipping your spoon into your pumpkin juice if I said something. I never told you how I did love those cute, quirky ways of yours, Gin. I never told you that I found it adorable rather than annoying, as you presumed.

But then, all of a sudden one time in my sixth year, I looked behind me and didn’t see you. I wondered. Wondered where you were. Do you know where you were that moment two years ago, Gin? Do you remember? Because I do. I recall that exact moment with painful vivaciousness.

I remember it so well because that was the second my life turned upside down.

I’d grown accustomed to you always lagging along behind me, a doe-eyed look in your huge brown eyes. But that moment you weren’t there following me from behind. That moment, you were ahead of me. Ahead of me and not alone, either. Oh, no. You were bouncing up the corridor, laughing it up with Draco Malfoy.

And I saw the look in your eyes then, Ginny. It wasn’t one of mild affection, or amused congeniality when you looked at him. No. It was a look I’ve seen in photographs of my Mum and Dad. A look that’s been done to perfection in thousands of paintings and books and movies.

It was an expression of love.

And, God, how could so much shock and horror and pain and regret could be felt in that one, fateful instant. I wanted so much for that not to be real. For me to be dreaming, to have misinterpreted the look in your eyes, anything. But it wasn’t. I knew it was real. It was stunning. Appalling.

But what sent the hardest shock of pain directly to my heart was the matching gaze in Malfoy’s face. It was a mutual love, of you two. Is, I mean. And it wasn’t just love I saw then. It was passion and desire and lust and, most of all, a deep gentleness, a caring concern.

It pained me so much.

So I stood in the middle of the corridor, late to Transfiguration, contemplating my thoughts. Contemplating the information my eyes had just absorbed.

I was dense, I was. Maybe I still am, honestly I don’t know. Probably. But I had gotten so used to having you around, smiling at your blushes and clumsiness, that you opened up your own space inside me, snug right in between the spaces of Ron and Hermione and Hagrid and Sirius. And what was so pathetic about it, what was so utterly stupid, was that I didn’t even know it. Despite myself, I had fallen in love with you, Ginny Weasley. And I was completely unaware of it.

But seeing you and him, on my way to Transfiguration when I was sixteen, it became increasingly obvious. It was hard to deal with. Hard to consider that all in one second my love for you was slammed into my face at the very same time that Pain unwound itself from its dark, lurking hiding place and purged itself into the fresh, sweet emotion of Love.

And now today, the day of your graduation, you’re strolling hand in hand by the lake with Malfoy, your airy white robes billowing in the soft breeze, shooting the breeze until it’s time to get changed for your graduation. When Ron asked me to come to your graduation, Gin, I refused at first. It’s stupid, but…but I wanted to see if you would ask me yourself, personally. I idiotically hoped that maybe you would care about me enough to invite me to your Hogwarts graduation.

But days passed, and you didn’t.

So here I am now. Pacing the school grounds, skirting off the Forbidden Forest, just walking quietly and watching you and Malfoy. Watching you.

 

*

 

“Virginia Weasley!”

And so you twirl up to Dumbledore in long strides, absolutely glowing with pride and happiness. You accept your certification of training with a huge smile and bounce back to your seat. Beaming at your family. At Hermione. And most of all at Malfoy. But not at me.

If someone had told me three years ago that I was going to fall desperately in love with Ginny Weasley but suffer an agonizing anguish because she had a serious and steady relationship with Draco Malfoy and never noticed me, I would have laughed. Called them mad, wondered if they’d had one too many butterbeers, suggested they take up residence in St. Mungo’s.

I guess that goes to show how wrong I was.

 

—five years later—

 

Dear Mr. H.J. Potter,

You are cordially invited to the wedding of Virginia Weasley and Draco Malfoy, to take place at the Malfoy Ma…

 

My eyes trail off the page in a sort of agonized, helpless resignation. So. After all these years, it’s happening. Any trace of a possibility that might have existed before…no. It’s gone, all hope lost, why am I even thinking about this any more?

Should have gotten over you years earlier, Ginny, should have pushed all existence of you out of my mind, forgotten you and found someone else.

But I can’t do that, Ginny. Because as heart-wrenching as the thought of you is, it is only because with thoughts of you you bring a certain love and warmth, and it reminds me that you no longer love me. Did you ever? Did you ever love me, Ginny? Was there ever something of depth, something meaningful behind the schoolgirl crush?

I suppose I’ll never know.

 

*

 

”You may now kiss the bride.”

There you are, up at the aisle, facing Malfoy. After all these years, my solitary hobby in life is still watching you. I can take in your whole appearance—your perfectly arranged red hair, a single curling strand carefully positioned against your high ivory cheekbone, your gorgeous white dress spilling onto the ground in pools of silk. But most of all, I can see your eyes. Glistening, shining, full of warmth and affection and caring and love.

Love for him.

My hatred for him has subsided, replaced by a bitter resentment edged with sadness. Because for all the catty fights that he and I have shared, the idiotic duels and empty threats, Malfoy has finally won our long-going battle. He’s ended up with the true prize after all. Your love.

He doesn’t know it, of course, nobody does. Nobody notices the way I so subtly retreat from rooms of which you and Malfoy occupy, the way I’ve stared off into the distance, thinking about you.

No one notices the way I always watch you.

No one notices that I’ve completely fallen for you.