Within Closed Fists

Within Closed Fists

Everyone noticed Ginny Weasley. It was hard not to, with the way she shone out over tables, chairs, windy terraces and distant fields. She was a spot of brightness in an increasingly dark time, a time that searched for angels and Madonnas with the desperate fervor of the damned. Or of the dying. Ginny was red hot and pure, like flame and Gryffindor red, defined by the color of her hair and her cheery smiles.

"Look," people liked to say. "Just look at Ginny."

And they did, their reason for doing so trapped unspoken behind clenched teeth. Clenched for bravery, clenched for fear. Clenched to keep that reason in, hidden behind sighs and chuckles and food fights in the Main Hall that were too tense for pleasure or release. So instead they mumbled out poetry, whispering odes to her hair, her face, her ceaseless good cheer, all the while taking hope from her mere existence. All the while taking hope in the unutterable. Look, just look at Ginny. Look at how far she's come, look at what she's been through. And look at how she shines.

People knew that darkness would never truly touch Ginny Weasley, just as it would never touch Harry Potter. Between those two the public had all the heroes they needed: Harry was the person who would save them, who they believed in. Ginny was the person who comforted them, who helped them to believe in themselves. With Harry as their angel of vengeance and Ginny as their angel of mercy, people were able to grasp at hope and hold it, fluttering, within closed fists.

So they never saw the times when Harry would sneak out of Gryffindor Tower, steps suspiciously uncertain as he slipped off to some hidden classroom or closet, his face scrunched against almost-tears. And maybe that was because of his Invisibility Cloak, because Harry was always very careful to stay fully covered as he stumbled over darkened steps. Or maybe it was because his audience simply did not want to see, to watch as fingers slipped and crushed and destroyed.

If people never saw Harry, apple of the public eye, then they most certainly never saw Ginny and the moments between smiles when her face would shudder and crack, opening up like a wound never fully healed. Or if they did, they argued it a trick of the light, turning raw truth into soothing lie. For them Ginny was a set of slightly yellowed teeth set off by bitten-red lips and brown eyes that stared (soulfully, how could they be anything but soulful) out at the world. Freckles all over and chubby stunted fingers tipped by long polished nails. Skin so pale it glowed and hair that went on forever, or at least to her waist. She might not have been beautiful of herself, but she was beautiful to them; fiery savior, angel true.

So they never saw how she clung to walls and tables at parties, how she sometimes choked when poked, as though just moments before she had thrust her head above the cloud cover, fingers grasping at slick vine and leaves. Only to be pulled back to the present real by those without the eyes to see clouds or beanstalks or castles or the hungry giants that hid within. And they most certainly never saw her journals and the way she would buy them with carefully saved money, lips rumpling as she ran tentative fingers over their silk and leather covers. The way that she would slip them, unnoticed, into her trunk, the bitter crack of book against book sounding as she hid their ever-growing mountain from sight.

Ginny never wrote in her journals. Ginny had no journals, just like Harry had no tears. They were heroes. That much was obvious. Just as it was completely obvious that they were destined for each other; it was only a matter of time.

***

Nobody ever noticed Millicent Bulstrode. It was easy not to with the way she blended into her surroundings, like a chameleon or blind spot. Millicent was a piece of nothing, at most a bit of darkness that clung to the edge of greater shadows that encroached on Gryffindor brightness. Millicent, you see, was a Slytherin. And so when people did talk about Millicent, the hushed whispers were quiet from fear, tones rattling with disgust.

"Millicent is so dark," people would say, "So dark and ugly and frightening. She scares us."

And she did; it was easy to play into people's preconceptions, impossible to break away from them. So people reveled in her vulnerability- lips flapping over poisonous and hurtful whispers designed to prick at her dark, thick armor. She was a luscious target, huge and ungainly and perfect for practice with darts and bloody words. She was obviously a bad seed, an example of someone 'gone bad', her arm of a certainty burning cold with evil fire. She was everything that was wrong with the wizarding world today; inbreeding gone awry- just look at her arms and legs, her thick ribcage and heavy jaw.

But those interludes happened only once every long while, brief respite from long bouts of anonymity and nothingness. At all other times she sat, unmarked, at the corners of tables and the backs of classrooms. She was awkward in such places, her large frame struggling for balance over bare scraps of wood, often one butt-cheek hovering unsupported in the air, like magic. She cast shadows that were all her own, towering over most of the girls in the room, even over some of the boys. Her height made Draco Malfoy bluster and blush the one time she mildly, oh so mildly, pointed it out to him. He stopped flinging peas at her after that. Everyone stopped picking on her after that.

Nowadays no one bothered or dared to poke her, prod her back to reality. Jokes, rants, sweet murmurs and whispered conversations passed her by, flying below her as she freely explored cloudy castles and the ogres within, her fingers stained green from the long climb. But, destination once reached, she only ever found that she towered over all of the giants she encountered. Midgets using embellishments like Sonorus, their twig limbs snapped under her feet as she, disappointed, made her way back down the beanstalk.

Fantasies had recently ceased to interest Millicent Bulstrode; their lies were only another form of escape. No, reality was a much more interesting place to play in, made even more interesting by the Invisibility that she had been granted by the people around her. Invisibility was a gift, companion to her bitter musings as she plodded over grass and gravel, her rawhide fingers tight around a bag of Chocolate Frogs and stiff new quills and crushed Rosemary leaves. There had been no point in even visiting the Three Broomsticks, in sitting at a table and sipping at Butterbeer. Millicent had no one to sit with, no one to tease about foamy mustaches and flushed cheeks. Someone with no one had no business in Madam Rosmerta's.

So Millicent had returned early, stopping every so often to pop a Frog into her mouth or inspect the holes drilled into bark and limb or crunch her toe against melting frost or gaze at Ginny Weasley, seated in the shade of a withering elm, her fingers lingering lover-like over the skin of a silk-bound diary.

Weasley had the most peculiar expression on her face, like the echo of a pain that's even now drilling through bone and soul. She looked like she wanted to open her journal, to tear it apart and watch the pages scatter, leaf-like, over field and into water. She looked like she wanted to grab up a quill and scrawl profane secrets over every sheet of parchment and then leave it out for the world to see. She looked like she had never scrabbled over leaf and cloud, never yanked open heavy doors and revealed her giants for the ants they were. She looked like no one had ever bothered to look at her, to see her. She looked like Millicent, only still caught in an endless loop of dreams and forbidding (or were they forbidden) castles.

Millicent walked over to her and sat at the edge of the bench. The wood bent slightly under her weight. She opened her mouth, pacing out curious words that echoed like failed cruelty. "Playing with diaries again, Weasley?"

Ginny just sat there, fingers still on her guilt, heart too wide open to even attempt to close it. "I'm not going to write in it. I just wanted. . ." Ginny trailed off as her fingers curled protectively around the book, her legs scrunching together nervously.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Millicent moved closer, "Why not? That's what diaries are for."

Ginny curled her toes inside her shoes and forced herself to look up and over. Millicent's eyes were dark and interested, her mouth slightly open as she breathed in Ginny's reluctance, sucking it away. Ginny noticed that there was a smattering of freckles dotting Millicent's nose, mottled brown against surprisingly pale skin. Ginny was surprised into replying, "Not my diaries."

It was the only answer, really. No doubt this strange girl would agree, would leave her alone with this journal and the faint memory of smoky whispers laying waste to her brain. There never really had been any doubt at all. . .

"Why not?" Millicent shifted even closer, tempted by the forlorn set to Ginny's lips, the jaded tilt of her chin.

"Because of before. Because of me. Because I'm me." Ginny spat, her words pale and dense as they curled around her lips and nose before crashing cold against Millicent's cheek.

"So?" Millicent drew closer, her large frame perfectly dwarfing the girl beside her.

"So I can't!" and Ginny lifted her hand, lifted it and swung, waiting for the inevitable crack in a horrified silence.

And waited and waited and suddenly realized that her arm was there- suspended in air, caught in a thick manacle. She winced as fingers pressed into her skin, bruising her wrist with their weight. And she knew there would be some sort of payback, some retribution for this, her attempted attack. How could there not be, from this strange girl, this Slytherin, sitting across from her? So again Ginny waited and waited and flinched back as she felt, as she watched her arm lowered to the bench between them, captured between their thighs. When had Millicent come so close? The ocean roared in Ginny's ears, but there was no ocean around, lakes don't sound like that and the world was tilting in black eyes that watched her, peering through her- was this a dream? A nightmare?

And then her wrist was being raised, lifted to the scarce space between their faces. Ginny could feel the pulse in her wrist setting the tempo for her heart, sharp and erratic under gentle hands, its sound suddenly deafening because. Millicent's lips were dancing over her palm. Her fingers. Settling on her wrist. They rested there, and Ginny could feel bruises forming where butterflies were banging their wings against the walls of her stomach. And then those lips were gone, and Ginny was left holding a prickly something in her hand.

Millicent stood, observing the way Ginny's hand tumbled into her lap. She didn't say anything- just smiled a cryptic goodbye and continued on her way, shopping bag swinging in her grasp as she plodded back to Hogwarts, feet heavy and heart light.

Ginny sat on the bench, her one hand gripping at the journal and her eyes fixed on Millicent's fading back. Her other hand fisted its contents, its net of fingers gentle and unsure. Then, slowly, she uncurled her fingers and looked down.

A quill.