Starved For Attention

Everyday she gets smaller. Her robes are falling off of her now. She swears she's not hungry as her stomach clenches in silent protest. A fist pressed to her abdomen shuts it right up. And if this is the way dying feels, it's not so bad.

He laughs at her without making a sound. His eyes say it all. She started this thinking maybe he would protect her. She found that it just made her easier to break. Her brittle bones snap in his iron grip, but she never cries. She will never cry. Not again. And he fucks her, and she stares up at the sky, at the stars as they spin&spin because she is sweating too much and it is far too cold and she should be warm with his body covering hers but it is too cold and everything is moving and then it all goes black.

She wakes up in the morning to see the morning sky blinking down at her. She laughs wryly. He hadn't even carried her inside. She moves to sit up and feels a shooting pain in her back. Her hands rove her spine, finding a spot of tender flesh. A bruise from sleeping on bricks all night. But it's okay, because the bones are still there. She moves her fingers over her body, counting every rib and joint and tendon with a silent one, two, three, four.

In the pocket of her robe is a stale roll. She takes it out, holds it in her papery hands. They don't close so well anymore, and are a mottled purple around the white bread. She glances around, no one can see her perform this act, and, holding the roll with both hands, lifts it to her mouth and takes a bite.

That's enough. She rips the rest into pieces and throws it over the edge of the tower. She hopes the birds eat it. They need it more than she does.

*

People are starting to worry.

Hermione grabbed her arm yesterday, as she squealed on about Ron, and her eyes flew wide open. Her fingers wrapped all the way around it, the flesh having fallen away long ago.

Harry says she looks like she hasn't slept in weeks. Well, of course not, silly boy. Nothing gets DONE when I'm asleep.

Draco, of course, knows exactly what is going on. He watches her pick at her food from across the hall, feels her protruding bones stab into him when they fuck. But to worry or care would be too much effort. He knows she is dying, more than she does, and she thinks maybe he wishes she would just go already.

But she doesn't. Not yet.

*

The halls are so crowded. Would these people just SHUT UP? They're making her head hurt, making it spin and nothing is staying still and GOD what the hell is HAPPENING? She grabs the wall beside her, holding herself up and she stares down into the hollow between the fabric of her robe and the flat planes of her chest. She has made herself a child again. Someone worthy of protection. So WHY isn't ANYONE protecting her? Why hasn't anyone taken her hand? She doesn't feel steady and Draco is kissing Pansy and her stomach turns. She thinks she might vomit, but instead she just coughs. Coughs up red. Oh, dear, is that blood? Again & again. Now people are staring. And she is laughing. On her knees, hacking up blood, laughing as everything sways and tilts and oh, this must be what a carousel is like. Harry had told her about those. She always wanted to go on --

This room is white. Dear gods, have I died? Did I actually for-truth die?

Wait, nope. Not yet, Ginny, dear. Just the hospital. Just the fucking hospital. Haven't made it yet, darling.

She runs a hand through her hair. A clump of red comes away in her fingers, brittle and fine.

Maybe not yet. But someday.

"Fifty-two.

I think I'm dead.

Finally."

~*~fin~*~