The Locket

'Pain - has an element of Blank - It cannot recollect When it begun - or if there were A time when it was not. . . .'

-Emily Dickinson-

Chapter Five

There were no windows in the drab little room, but Felicity instinctively knew that the sun was rising in the sky. She sat up in her pallet and reached for her toes, easing the soreness in her back. Selene was sprawled in the pallet beside her, limbs and hair positioned as if to consume as much space as possible.

Felicity moved off her pallet and toward the bucket in the corner, careful not to wake her companion. The water was ice cold, but she managed to perform her morning ablutions without too much discomfort. When she was finished, she tiptoed back to the pallet and sat, leaning back against the cement wall, feeling its coolness seep through her tunic.

Selene grunted and opened her eyes. "It's morning, isn't it," she said, though it was not a question. She sat up slowly and rubbed her arms to soothe the trail of gooseflesh that had formed upon its surface. "How are you feeling?"

Terrified, Felicity thought, but she did not wish to alarm her companion. "Fine," she said, forcing a lightness that she did not feel. "Ready to get this over with."

Selene nodded but Felicity knew she could see right through her farce. Their musings were interrupted by the sound of the door creaking open and the heavy footstepd that followed. It was Master Malfoy's personal attendant, the man who had fetched her from Master Nott's manor. His lips were pressed into a thin line, and he refused to meet either girls' eyes. "You," he said, raising a finger to Felicity, "you must come with me."

Moving with a show of composure she did not feel, Felicity nodded briefly at Selene and followed the man out of the room. The passage through the winding corridors seemed to take ages, as it always does to one about to be punished.

The man halted in front of a door so abruptly that Felicity almost walked into his back. Before he ushered her inside, the man turned to her. "I..." he began. He shook his head as though thinking better of it and pushed her inside. The door slammed behind her with an ominous thud, and she waited alone in the dark.

~~~

Ginny peered through the dirt-streaked window at the sign flapping miserably overhead in the wind. "You ought to repaint that," she said. "It's the only bit of color in this place, and I think even that is beginning to turn gray."

"Everything eventually turns to gray," he said sadly. "It's best just to let it slide into it." He moved close beside her and held out a cup of tea. "Besides," he continued, remembering his deal with Felicity, "I have a girl who promised to come and paint it next weekend."

"You have slaves now?" His eyes were glazed over as he looked out the window, focused completely on the flimsy sign. "Neville?" she said again.

He snapped out of his reverie and looked down into her puzzled face. "Sorry," he said, placing his lips for a moment on the crown of her head. "I wandered off."

"I don't blame you."

When he didn't smile as she expected he would, her expression clouded again. "Neville, what is it?"

He sighed loudly, fogging up the window and traced his fingers over the condensation in whirling patterns. Finally he spoke. "There's something I always have wanted to ask you...for almost twenty years." He started fidget with the leaves of a nearby plant. "I've just never known how."

"You want to ask about Hermione." She had surprised him, whether it be with her frankness or accuracy, she did not know. "You're like Ron," she said softly. "Your ears turn a bit pink. Also...well, it's been almost twenty years of hints and bits of what happened. Anyone would be curious."

He did not reply, acute embarrassment clamping down tightly on his speech.

"Don't be embarrassed," she said, yet again surprising him with her ability to tell exactly what he was thinking. If it were not for the ridiculously expensive charge on the magic meter for Occlumency, he would surely have suspected her of it.

"How can I not be?" he finally said. "I know the bare facts. I know how horrific it was. I know...I know how much it hurt Ron..."

Ginny's shoulders shook it what may have been an empty laugh or a silent sob. "Hurt Ron?" she said. "No...it didn't hurt him. It killed him."

"And you?" he said, his voice softer than a whisper. "Surely you know what it's like to die a little inside when one you love is taken away from you/"

Ginny's dark eyes met his. "I do. But I always knew I had it in me to ...recover is not the correct word." She signed resignedly. "You don't recover from such things. But sometimes I realize that what keeps me from truly cracking is Ron."

Oh Ron, she thought sadly. Always my favorite. Although Ginny would never have admitted it, Ron truly was her dearest brother. He never was one for extravagant fits of loving emotion, and only lost his temper with regard to her love life. He never showered her with gifts like the twins, or covered her with displays of affection like Bill and Charlie. Even Percy, in his own way, had been kind to her, giving her books and documents to 'enlighten her young mind' as he would say. Ron never did those things. He would laugh when she fell, warn her to keep away when she was ill, and tell her to stop whining when she was feeling down. Yet it was Ron who always took the blame when the fault was hers, Ron who always sacrificed a little so that she could have more.

Ginny smiled a bit, remembering when she had heard the truth about Ron's terrible dress robes.

We couldn't afford all those dress robes, her mother had told her as she was wasting away on her sickbed. He wanted you to look beautiful when your turn for the ball came, so he told us to buy him the cheapest set we could find, and spend the rest on you.

And she had been beautiful that day, while Ron had remained in the background, frayed laces and all.

"Ginny?" Neville said.

She shook her head and smiled. "Just thinking about Ron." She sat down on a cushion and deeply inhaled the scent from the yellow roses that Neville had recently potted. "After the whole incident with the diary and Tom Riddle. My family wouldn't leave me alone. They interpreted my silence as despair, I suppose." She shrugged. "I know I wouldn't leave my sibling or child alone after something like that, I don't blame them for it, not at all. In fact, I love them even more, if that's possible, for their concern."

Neville nodded, wondering where she was going.

"But Ron," she said. "He tended to me the first day when I got back, and after that, at my lack of response I suppose, he left me alone. During my third year I looked back on his behavior and was a little hurt that he ditched me. But now I realize...he knew that I was just trying to sort out events for myself, and gave me space to do so, when no one else did." She ran a finger down a soft petal. "At the end of the day, Ron always knew what was right, even though everyone else thought he was wrong. It's probably his greatest unrealized strength."

Neville was aware that she had not answered his question, that she had not mentioned a single word about Harry. Does she not want to speak of it, or just not to me?

Neville opened his mouth to voice his thoughts, but Ginny once again interrupted him. "I care for you, Neville, I always did," she said, her voice a bit husky and low. "And now that you're back in my life again...I haven't felt this way about anyone since...since..." She didn't complete her statement, and the ensuing silence rang loudly in Neville's ears.

Finally he spoke. "You can say his name, Ginevra."

~~~

There were two men in the shadows. One she could barely discern as the man who had escorted her to the room, Master Malfoy's personal servant. The other slowly moved forward to reveal himself. His robes indicated that he was of high society, and Felicity remembered to keep her eyes downcast and her position submissive, though this time it was not forced.

Malfoy's servant circled her slowly, lazily, basking in the waves of fear he could feel emanating from her body. "I think," he said softly, "that your master has been soft with you."

He stopped in front of her face and she could feel his eyes roaming over her features. "I don't know why," he finally said. "I've seen bitch-dogs more appealing than you."

That would certainly explain a lot, Felicity thought, the retort bubbling its way to the surface in a mind awash with fear. She did not feel the warmth that signaled a mind intrusion, and she thanked her lucky stars for that small mercy. His breath was warm on her forehead and she longed to move away.

"My Master does not wish her to be harmed," he said at last, speaking to the hidden figure in the shadows.

"What he does not see will not bother him," the other man replied, and his voice conjured the image of an older man.

The servant smirked and turned to her. "I would stay and see this, but my Master, especially his daughter doe not wish to see you harmed. It seems you've cast a spell on her too, little slave." He took a moment to chuckle at his joke, and Felicity's hand twitched with the urge to connect it with his face.

The older man had stepped forward. His frame was that of a robust man who had fallen into the pit of his own excesses. His skin hung from a diminished frame, his small eyes glinting with cruelty and the anticipation of slaking a vicious urge.

"If I am not here, than I can honestly say I did not see any harm come to you," the servant was continuing. "I do not lie to my Master. Now I shall not have to." He leaned in closer, nostrils flared as though proximity to her was a contagious disease. "I've asked Master MacNair to be gentle," he whispered. "If my Master hears of any of this, I will allow him to be as harsh as he wishes." His eyes grew serious. "Trust me, slave, you do not wish that." With that, he nodded at the older man and left the room, closing the door quietly as he exited.

Before Felicity could even think about what was about to happen, she was lammed into the wall. The air was driven from her lungs, and she struggled to take her next breath. His wand was outstretched and his leer revealed yellow, misshaped teeth. Another two flicks of his wand clasped her hands into manacles and pinioned them above her head.

There were no formative thoughts capable of being formed in her mind. No, please no, was the only coherent sequence of words that forced their way from her brain to her mouth. What she would remember later was the exquisite way her mind increased its capacity to feel. She felt the cool bite of the manacles around her wrists, the scream of the fabric of her tunic as he tore it from her back. The room was cold and gooseflesh rose upon her skin and along the backs of her arms. The small hairs on the nape of her neck stood stiff and straight, and she could feel every single one in their follicles.

His hands were cold as they stroked her back and moved along her hips to her stomach, then moving up to her chest. He squeezed hard, she could feel the blood vessels bursting, producing the finger-shaped patterns of colors that would soon decorate her breasts.

One hand was mercifully removed, and she could feel him press himself close behind her, feel the terrifying hardness against her lower back. The hand reappeared at her throat, pressing a wand into the soft flesh at the corner of her jaw. He whispered a word into her ear.

Her world ruptured into an explosion of pain, accompanied by the chorus of her screams. It lasted forever; she lost passage of time and self. She separated from her body, all she knew was the pain, and it seemed to be everywhere, in her blood, in the air, in the cool water dripping from the ceiling.

A small fragment of her mind was clinging on to coherency, like a minnow trying to swim against a tsunami of madness. Hold on, it whispered to her fragmenting mind as it flailed in vain, hold on. She wanted to scream I can't, wanted to scream please show me how.

Then mercifully, she knew nothing at all.

~~~

Her eyes appeared black by the tears that welled up inside, but it seemed that she was quite determined not to cry. His use of her name gave her courage, though she did not know why. "Harry," she said so softly that he wasn't sure she had said it. Then again, louder, "Harry."

Her face was so tortured that Neville longed to cup her cheeks in his hands and kiss her, but he managed to control himself, feeling unsettled by the fact that he was not sure how to comfort her hurt. Almost twenty years had gone by since she had felt her loss, and she had never been able to mourn properly. Two decades of pent up grief was too much emotion for any person to handle.

"I feel guilty Neville," she finally said.

"We have nothing to be ashamed about. We've done nothing to be ashamed about."

She had made a sound then, somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "Not about this, not about you." She entwined her fingers in his. "I haven't felt this way about anyone since Harry. And as overused as this phrase may sound, I know he would want me to be happy, I know it. But I still can't get over this feeling of guilt."

He rested his other hand over their entwined ones. "You and Harry." He struggled to say the name, though not entirely for the same reason as she. "You and Harry had something special. The fact that you feel guilty - it's natural, Ginny. Honestly, I would feel surprised if you didn't."

"I feel like I'm complicating things for you. You have your shop and your plants. The last thing you need is a crybaby witch to upset things."

"I'm not going to lie, things haven't been the same recently." The corners of his lips quirked upwards. "But if you call yourself a complication, I can only hope for more complications in my life."

She smiled at that, not with her lips, but with a relaxing of her face, a shining of her eyes. She followed his example, and placed her free hand over his, creating a pillar of hands, a newly forged bridge of mutual attraction and trust. And leaning forward, she crossed that bridge, pressing her lips home onto his.