Ashes of Adonis

There's something bizarrely intoxicating about the new ministry buildings. All angles and curves and slate-colored marble, they command reverence in all forms, and somehow manage to convince you of your own importance. After all, if you are somewhere as elegant as this, dressed in conservative black, walking with conviction, resonance, and purpose, surely fate has scheduled the appointment, as opposed to a snippy secretary with a nasal voice and the mental capacity of a distracted mosquito.

There is the ever-present clicking of heels against the cold marble; distracted mumbles; the occasional squeal of an overzealous young child somewhere down the hallway-- comforting whispers; an important executive flanked by adoring subordinates. Small herds of interns hurry down the hallway, murmuring in hushed tones, letting loose the occasional giggle. These are the sounds of the ministry corridors. There are no windows to speak of, although the roof of the main hall is composed entirely of skylights, casting luminous squares of natural light that migrate during the course of the day.

Everything's normal. Everything's fine, fine except for the irritating fact that I've been fingernail-drumming the 1812 overture on my legal pad for the past fifteen minutes. It's a nervous habit of my childhood, something I picked up after being frightened of the prop artillery set off during the beginning of a Chudley Cannons game. I was three; they were loud, but I am told that I was rather louder, given that my father had to remove me from the stands in order to soothe me. Years later, during my NEWTS, I nearly drove the administrator insane by tapping it with my quill.

Even if my father were free, I could not very well discuss the matter with him. Oh, I do wish that I could; I wish it were as simple and straightforward as that. But his opinion on the matter is set in stone and I don't feel like arguing the point. I do not wish to be told that I am wrong, and the reason isn't because I believe in what I'm doing. I don't know what I'm doing, and, quite simply, that scares me.

Perhaps I'm insane. It has been suggested before.

I follow the hallway four doors down, cross the hallway leading to the administrative wing, and continue walking past the dignified Centaur sculpture that my father had commissioned for his first act as Minister. It is a path that I have memorized, nearly, while waiting for interviews, although to be perfectly honest I never truly thought I would walk it. And now I am strolling it, calmly, carefully, wearing a serene smile that does not at all reflect the hellishly loud musical movement blaring within my skull. I've always wondered why this happens to me. I'm not a musical person, and if I have any musical preferences at all, it would be... piano. Melancholy music. Sob stories about pain and rain and lost love. No cannons.

And I don't know why I'm this nervous. It's not as though I'm dressed inappropriately. I must fit in perfectly, really. A black sweater melting into a knee-length black skirt, coupled with uncomfortable heels that simply scream business-casual. Admittedly, the scarf is an exception, but that inclusion was more by Luna's design than mine... ironically, I never did care much for red...

I turn once more, facing a large set of doors directly before me. The plaque is engraved upon indulgent gold, like so many other name and title markers scattered down the hallway. It is nondescript in every possible quality. This plaque is no more prominent than the rest. It is conformity, polished to its highest point.

H. Potter, President,

IV Office of Research & Dev.

I've passed it before. Always passed it, and always glanced at it out of the corner of my eye. And I've always known that it was there, but I've never been strong enough to do a thing about it. I watch it for a while, as though hoping it will retreat - for I cannot--and note with a degree of sickening anxiety that one of the hallway's marble pillars has settled itself in the pit of my stomach. I could run. I could run, and nobody would follow me. Nobody would stop me if I chose to leave this here. But I know that I cannot do that. I wish it was as easy as that, but I cannot.

"ID, please." The eerily pleasant recording serves to jerk me to attention. I finger my dinky plastic necklace before lifting it a few inches. A small, glowing orb above the doors turns from pinkish gold to bluish green, and the lock slips open with an appreciative click.

I hesitate before stepping within the waiting room itself. It is furnished immaculately in mahogany paneling with a few paintings and antiques scattered about. It strikes me, in genre, as somewhere between the Gryffindor commons room and... well, the Gryffindor commons room, really. There's a large fireplace at one side and several comfortably worn chairs in the other. A suit of armor watches from one corner. Next to it, an entire wall is covered in a massive bookcase... some of the shelves aren't covered with books, and are instead littered with tiny figurines. A folded chessboard sits untouched in the corner, under what appears to be a gold bound copy of Quidditch Through the Ages...

"Nice scarf."

I glance around the room before realizing, to my relief, that the voice was that of the painting above the mantelpiece- a brunette with plain features and blindingly red nails that she's apparently filing with her wand. I nod, my default response. It's silly. The voice wasn't even familiar, certainly not the one I'd been dreading... but it seemed like an eerily appropriate first greeting. Casual. Engaging. As if there has not been four and several billion years since our last meeting, as though there isn't a gigantic chasm between us. And I am not ready for this. I am not quite ready to see happiness in her life, while my own is battered and broken and plummeting towards the polite-society hell where the wives of prominent executives go when they die.

But I will not have a mental breakdown in the waiting room. That would defeat the purpose of being here in the first place. It would, in fact, take the purpose outside and shoot it. I don't want to be the victim here. I won't be the victim here. And therefore I will square my shoulders and pretend to be terribly interested in... well... whatever this is. It seems to be a wire sculpture of some sort, several orbs suspended within each other, with what appear to be runic charms dangling from the exposed ends. In other circumstances, I would be intrigued by a pretty shiny wiry thingy such as this. In these circumstances, however, I am tempted to hurl the pretty shiny wiry thingy across the room.

Damn it all, I hate waiting rooms.

Particularly empty waiting rooms. Rooms that seem as though they ought to have someone in them, but don't. It isn't that I'm impatient. I can be patient when it suits me. But waiting rooms irk me, designed for the sole purpose of sitting in silent worry and knitting yourself into anxious oblivion.

The painting that I observed earlier now clears her throat. "You can go into 'er office now, love. She'll be with you in just a sec." Winking, she returns to the task, leaving me merely to stand and blink. Of course, secretarial portraits are nothing spectacular, but this one in particular, apparently of a certain Bendra D. Bedgehummer, seems so violently anti-Hermione that I am forced, for a moment, to reevaluate exactly where I'm standing.

Through the door, her office is organized, painfully organized. I could never live without a certain degree of clutter, but this... everything is perfect, level, sorted, classified, and color-coded. The desktop is immaculate, covered with the thinnest sheet of marble... a marble that, if I am not mistaken, echoes and accentuates the marble from the hallway itself. Even the color schemes are mathematical. I smooth my skirt and sit, staring down at the legal pad in my lap. I don't know why I brought it; in fact, I am not even entirely sure that it's mine.

The office is far too small. Three walls, including the one with the door I entered through, are covered entirely in bookshelves, organized to hell. The fourth has rows of certificates and diplomas, scattered with a few particularly treasured photographs...

...A little girl glances cheerfully back to me, wearing a swirly blue dress and giggling uncontrollably, possibly because she's dressed in her prettiest dress robe and is currently holding a toad. It seems, as though by some bizarre quirk of nature, that her hair inherited both her father's color and her mother's curly unmanageability; it is constrained, for the moment, by a bow, although the hold seems precarious indeed. Cherubic brown eyes peer mischievously from beneath unruly curls; a number of red tendrils have already wiggled their way free of the ribbon.

She's growing up... her fifth birthday is in three months... and it kills me that I remember my niece's birthday not on its own right, but in the context of a much less joyous occasion. She deserves better than that, but I cannot give her better than that.

When Hermione announced that she was pregnant... well, nobody had been expecting them to have children so soon. Perhaps it shouldn't have been a surprise. Ron brought something out in her that threw caution to the wind... I mean, she'd always been fun, but fun in a demure, scholarly kind of way. But Ron's Hermione was known to giggle and break into song. Living life to its fullest. We'd had little warning that they were getting married, either... they went for a holiday in Vienna and returned wearing a pair of rings they hadn't had when they'd left.

Bringing a child into the family was an important decision. The name Miriam was chosen after my great-grandmother on my mother's side. Everyone was happy. Ron was ecstatic. And I was going to be an aunt. My mother and I, we had all of these grand plans for spoiling our granddaughter and niece, respectively. We bicker now... bicker over silly things. But somehow, we agreed wholeheartedly on Miriam. We would spoil her rotten.

And yet things went wrong... they were perfect, and they were beautiful, and they shattered like porcelain on cold concrete...

The next photo... Harry. Of course. Yes, it would be Harry, grinning too damned broadly from within a stately wooden frame, laughing lightly. And he's happier than he has any right to be, no pauses, no remorse... and I realize full damned well that the picture only expresses a single moment in time, that I've had moments of happiness, too, but the picture... it's just so arrogantly happy. He's happy, even while I'm miserable, while I'm bitter and broken and alone. He has his wife; he has his daughter, his sons, his big house, his work, and his perfect life.

Ron. There're no photographs; no evidence, aside from Miriam, that she ever had a first husband. A husband who died. He didn't leave her, he didn't hurt her in any way at all, he died in the line of duty, and, damn it all, he deserves so much better than a blank space on the wall. There are no photographs, but he is present in omission. Harry thought that he was being so noble... sacrificing the life he could have had to raise the child of his martyred friend. So heroic of him. But I know better. I know that Ron wouldn't have wanted it... I know that he would never want his little sister, his pride and joy, the sister he tried to protect from all of the horrible things in the world, to hurt that badly. I know that Ron would never have wished this upon me. He wouldn't have wanted every single breath to feel like there were a thousand knives tearing into my soul.

Because Harry never intended to leave me... I don't think he could have intended to do so... but we had lost too much of ourselves. He didn't notice that his fiance was dying, and, by that point, I had become too skilled a liar. I was too good at hiding my pain.

But he should have known. If he had ever truly loved me, he would have known, he would have seen it. He should have known that I couldn't be that strong. And it hurt because I loved him, loved him with all of my heart and mind and soul and I knew I was going to lose him, knew that from the beginning, and I could never, ever let that go. And I don't want to feel this way in the office of the woman I'm trying so damned hard to impress, and I don't want to think these thoughts now, of all times, but, then, losing the only man I've ever truly loved has never exactly been a convenient development.

"Are you finished?" Harry had asked as he stood in my apartment, his voice edgy, unstable.

"No. I'm not finished. I can't be finished..."

I don't know when they were married. I never knew the exact date, which is a feat, because he's never stopped being a media phenomenon. They must have gone through great lengths to keep it a secret... to keep it hidden. But why hide something if they don't believe that it's wrong? Not for my sake. They've never gone a single thing for my sake. Were they there when my mother cried? No. And she's never seen her granddaughter, never held her, and I don't know if she'll ever be able to...

It hurts. All of it. It hurts in ways that are impossible to quantify, simply because Harry's smiling. It's selfish of me. And there are pictures in a mountain castle, and pictures of the twins... their twins, their little baby boys, gurgling and laughing from beneath shocks of unruly black hair. Green eyes. Harry's eyes. James and Evan, eighteen months, maybe... they're so tiny, so adorable. I hadn't wanted children right away... I had a career, I had a social life, and I had so many other things to worry about. I was barely twenty-one. I had so much to live for, a whole life ahead of me, a happy life. I could take my time.

I had happiness, and I took it for granted. It's a mistake I will never repeat, not because I've learned, not because I'm wiser, but because I seriously doubt that I'll ever be that happy again.

Damn this. I need a drink.

This room... this life... these memories... sharp, painful, and I don't need that right now. I don't need this right now, either. And I don't know why I came... but it was wrong. It was the wrong idea, the wrong moment, the wrong life. I push the not-quite-comfortable padded chair against the desk with more force than is necessary, and I stand back, surveying the photographs, the people in them, and I swallow, forcefully, and I walk to the door. I don't care if she comes into an empty office. In fact, I hope she does. And I hope she's confused. If my life is confusing and empty, well, she sure as hell can deal with an office full of confusion and emptiness.

"Ginny?" inquires a voice, surprised in recognition.

My reflex, under stress, is to arm my most disarming smile. My mother wants grandchildren, you see. Easily accessible grandchildren. Charlie has a family, but they live in the states, and as his wife is a Muggle, they cannot Floo here. And as for Fred and George... well, Fred is quite happy with the bachelor life, and the thought of Cho and George having children is, frankly, quite scary. As I stand here, before the woman who used to be my closest confidante, I am fairly sure that my reaction should have been something other than the lingering, biological dread that only possessive mothers should be able to give.

I smile disarmingly. "One and the same."

There's a mere year's gap between us, but Hermione has always managed to make me feel very young in comparison. Even while we were friends, friends for quite some time... even after we graduated, even when we were no longer measured by our years, she was always older. Hermione is not even twenty-five, and yet being in this room with her makes me both far too young and very, very old. She's a mother, thrice a mother. She has made the three most important decisions in her life, whereas I have yet to concretely decide what my favorite breakfast cereal is. While she was getting married, widowed, and mothering her children, I was merely standing perplexed in the shampoo aisle, attempting in vain to decide between "intensive conditioning" and "maximum therapy".

Hermione blinks in surprise, chuckles, and shakes her head, strolling over to her desk. "Well... it's certainly good to see you... after all... it's been a while..." She's wearing my sweater. Not the one I have on now, no, but the comfortable green one. I don't know why it bothers me, but it does.

"Yes," I agree, feigning interest in the paneling on the ceiling, "I suppose it has been a while, hasn't it?" Another smile, a slightly weaker smile, but a smile nonetheless.

She bites her lip, a clear indication that she's deep in thought. She seems to notice that I noticed, because she clears her expression and smiles. "Here... sit down... do you want anything? Tea, maybe?"

I lower myself into the chair. It's almost comfortable- not nearly uncomfortable enough. "I'm not really a tea person... coffee, maybe? Black?" And I sure as hell wouldn't say no to something a bit stronger...

She presses a small black button on her desk and then proceeds to smooth her sweater (my sweater) and rearrange every object upon the marble of the desktop. Pieces of paper are picked up, folded, then put back in the exact same place; I notice as she moves a paperweight across her desk, then, after rustling around a bit, puts it back.

"Trobby," she addresses the house elf that bounds in from a cleverly concealed door in the wall-paneling, "A cup of coffee, please. Black?"

"Black," I nod. He promptly scurries off, much to my amusement. "I suppose the days of SPEW are long past, then?" I cannot help the slight, teasing smirk that winds its way upon my features. Oh, she drove all of us utterly insane over it...

Hermione laughs. "Well... if they enjoy it... I suppose that it's not my place to take it away, hmm?"

I merely nod again. Somehow, I had assumed talking to her would either be much easier or much harder. And as the course of the conversation wanders away and dies, it occurs to me that I probably should bring up why I came, my pretext for coming. Even I don't know why I came, came here when I could have gotten access from at least a dozen other people... and while part of me protests that I don't know why, part of me knows exactly why, and also wants to articulate it. But I did not come to burn my bridges, even if the bridges are fragile and impassible regardless.

"So, Ginny..." she trails off, and she's giving me this appraising look, this thoughtful look, and it gives me some sort of twisted satisfaction to know that she's just as confused as I am, that she has no more insight into the situation than I do. "What can I do for you?"

I glance down at my legal pad, attempting to scan it. I see vowels, consonants, but the words themselves are obscured. The sensation of dizziness passes briefly, but she must have noticed; when I meet her eyes again, she looks concerned. I feel as though the pressure upon my shoulders could very well crush me into the not-quite-comfortable seat.

"I'm doing some research for a book I could possibly be writing," I reply, smoothly, "And I was wondering if I could be granted access to the private research libraries."

She nods thoughtfully, then smiles. "What sort of book?"

"A history of Wizarding journalism, when applied to current events. I was working on a novel, but it never really materialized... It's a fairly dull topic, but hopefully I can make it compelling... thank you, Trobby... although my editor nearly exploded when I told him that I was going to write it. Apparently, I know too much." I force myself to grin and sip my coffee. It tastes like cardboard, and I shall have to drink it anyway, for if I cannot otherwise occupy my hands I will begin to tap on the legal pad again...

"Well, I don't suppose access will be a problem, then," she smiles, scribbling notes upon a piece of paper on her desk. "I'm sure I can arrange something... which paper do you work for, again?"

"The Prophet."

"Ah... yes, that should be no problem..." After making a few more notes, Hermione folds her hands upon her desk and smiles. "Well, I will see what I can do... it might take a week or two, because they're reorganizing the library... but I'll keep in touch about it. Where are you staying?"

I rip a page from my notepad and scrawl my address on it. My handwriting has never really been fully legible, but it hasn't changed over the years- she'd still be able to read it. Sure enough, she merely squints, before nodding inquisitively.

"Isn't South Street mostly commercial?"

"I live above a boutique... one of Luna's, actually. Big studio apartment. It's nice."

She nods. "I've been to the shop."

"Yeah... it... it's nice..." And I want to continue talking, but I feel so very tired... and what is there to talk about? Her life, her house, her marriage, her children? No. I can't talk about that... I won't talk about that, because there is quite simply nothing to say. She has security where I have none; she has a life, and a love, whereas I must be content to flit between high-end parties, smiling and nodding and chuckling indulgently at jokes that I do not find the slightest bit funny. She has everything I've ever wanted, really, and she's sitting right in front of me. I feel worthless, utterly worthless.

It's ironic. I thought it would bring me closure... I thought it would be over. But he's smiling from behind that frame. He's happy, blissfully happy, but what kills me is that I have absolutely nothing to do with it. And I wonder if he ever thinks of me, when it's quiet. But then, with three children, it's probably never quiet. And yet he's happy. He's happy, and I'm not. I probably ought to be glad that his life is going well... love, in nature, is self-sacrificing. And yet I'm not happy. I'm hollow, bitter, and broken, and it's becoming increasingly easier to slip away... and part of me wants to let it go, to move on, to work past it, but part of me wants to cling to the ruins and all of the godforsaken memories.

And part of me has lost the capacity to care.

I can't let it go. Because while she may have her life, her husband, and her family to go home to, I don't. This is what I have, this is all that I have, and damned if I'm going to give her the satisfaction of knowing. Maybe I'm childish. Maybe I'm stubborn. Maybe, in the end, it doesn't matter.

"I should probably be going..." The silence was uncomfortable, but it becomes no more inviting when broken. I stand, quietly, surveying my writing one more time as if in verification. She's biting her lip again, musing in quiet contemplation, and, while I know that she's anything but the sort to subscribe to interrogation, I feel as though I'm on display. And there's nothing I can do about it. I've already turned before she opens her mouth to speak.

I told Harry that I ought to be going, then, as we strode listlessly down Diagon Alley. We had been sent on a quest for fiddleweed, a task made much harder by the simple fact that most of the shops closed at dark. It was in the vicinity of ten o'clock, and the few shops that remained open were of little use to us. We judged our search to be in vain, and there were a few petty jokes that I no longer remember, and as we talked, we laughed... one must understand that I had marched out of my ardent admiration of him somewhere in the summer before my fourth year, and I had never looked back from my decision.

I had, by seventeen, dated several other people fairly seriously. None of them were Ron-approved, although I am firmly convinced that vows of chastity were prerequisites to approval. Nonetheless they were all morally decent enough that he could never make a concrete case against them. He pulled for Harry and I during most of his years at Hogwarts, but, upon graduation, declared the two of us a lost cause and gave me leave to run off with a passing vampire if I was so inclined.

And so, coming into the kiss, I had not viewed Harry as anything but a friend for over three years. The lack of foresight changed absolutely nothing about it. I said that I ought to be going, and he said that it was probably a good idea. I knew full well that he and Ron were leaving for training the next day. That was no surprise. The surprise, then, was that he did not choose to voice his farewell, but rather articulate it in a significantly different fashion... for he closed the space between us and kissed me with no warning, rhyme, or reason, and I didn't care, not while he was curling an arm around my neck and kissing me in ways I'm sure my brother would not have appreciated.

And it was all over far too quickly. There was surprise in that gorgeous emerald green of his eyes. Perhaps he had expected me to pull away, or perhaps he hadn't expected to kiss me at all-- and he didn't say anything, but to give me a kiss on the forehead. He stepped back, and, with a weak, quirky kind of smile, he turned and walked into apparition. I Apparated, too, back to the house. I would have forgone the entry entirely if I could have materialized directly into my room, a confused and lovelorn seventeen-year-old in every possible respect.

Naturally, I told Hermione.

"Do you want to come over for dinner sometime?" she asks, tentatively, quietly. As though she fears my reply, she continues quickly. "I mean... maybe just... I don't know. Miriam really wants to meet you, and-"

For a moment, an inexplicable rage flashes across my consciousness. I subdue it, shake it off, but the inclination to snap is so very tempting. She doesn't deserve the show I put on for her... she smiles, then nods at my earnest fabrications of invulnerability. She has enough. I shake my head. "Please... don't do this. I can't... you can't... seriously expect... and it has nothing to do with Miriam, nothing..."

She sighs, shaking her head. "Ginny... you know that I never wanted it to end up this way..."

"You're right," I grind out, "I know that."

There's a long pause, and for a long moment our gazes meet. I am the one to look away. Resolved, she squares her shoulders again, swallows, and begins to stack papers on her desk. She nods faintly. "Alright... I... I'll get back to you about the library access, then..." Hermione frowns slightly, and makes an attempt at smiling. "I'm sorry, Ginny. It was good to see you again."

"Yeah," I return, but it is more a murmur than a reply. "I'm sorry, too."

I turn from the room, quickly, and set the door lightly onto its hinges behind me. The painting says something, but I cannot make it out, and I do not pause to try. I see no reason. I do not intend to return, not now, not ever; I have my closure, and any more closure would probably kill me. I'm shaking, and I hate that... I hate physical manifestations of weakness. Feeling them is inescapable, but to express them... is to give them power, to guilt everyone into affection, and I don't want that. It's too fucking hard to live this way, and it's hurt me for too fucking long. I've paid the price. I've paid a hundred million prices in a hundred million seconds of a hundred million rainy days, and I'm tired of hurting. I hate him for doing this to me. But I can't hate him.

I am sorry that it turned out this way. No, beyond that, I'm sorry that I tried to make it work at all. And I'm tired. I'm tired of the weight on my shoulders, and I'm tired of wondering, and I'm tired of wishing, and I'm tired of hoping for things that will never be. Because that's what it is. They're wishes in vain, wishes that see no hope of ever meeting completion... silly little wishes, the silly little hopes of a silly little girl who simply cannot let go.

I lift my chin as I pick my way through the crowds. Perhaps a meeting just let out, or perhaps I simply didn't notice them all before. But I notice them now, every single one... an angular oriental witch in gauzy red robes, a portly gentleman with a voluminous salt-and-pepper mustache... a freckled, sandy-haired man with a handsome smile and a wedding ring. It's my job to notice people, to read people. I'm good at it. I'm good at noticing places, events, people. And there's this whole world in front of me, and these burning bridges behind me, and there shouldn't have to be a choice.

I'm still young. I should be able to toss my hair, laugh, have a couple of careless one-night-stands for good measure. There have been others since him. There have been a few dinner dates, my mother's doing, and a few double dates, Luna's doing, and somehow I've managed to have drinks with an inexplicable many figures from my past. Yet after the goodbyes are said, the pleasantries exchanged, and the chaste kisses abandoned at the doorstep, I remain, breath for breath, the same broken individual that sobbed at Harry to get the hell out of my life and never come back.

There's the knowledge that I would take him back, even now. Despite the damage, despite the pain and the tears, if he asked, I would forgive it all- not forget it, no, but I would forgive him for it.

But he hasn't asked for forgiveness, and therefore I'm not compelled to give it to him.

He doesn't need my forgiveness to be happy; he doesn't need anything of mine. And from this point forward, I will no longer need his. I'm standing in the middle of this crowded hallway, bumping shoulders with just so many anonymous strangers that I will never see again. And with them as my witnesses, I will let him go.

This is his tomb, then, these walls, because the Harry that I knew, the Harry that I loved, is buried here, beneath this marble, beneath this concrete, far beyond any fathomable edge to my consciousness. This is where I lay him to rest. The crowd surges before and behind me, swells with the grins and giggles and groans of a guilty generation, and I do not care. I press myself against the wall, feeling its coolness through the clingy fabric of my sweater, and I do not cry, because I have spent too many tears on this man. His image is engraved upon my downcast eyelids, and so I open them. I will not swear by my name, or by his name, or by the name of whatever deities are lending an ear at the moment. I will not swear at all. Promises were broken to bring me here, promises dashed on the rocks like ships before the sirens.

Promises can be broken. People can be broken. But finality cannot be, and this is my goodbye.