The Truth is in the Silence

The Truth is in the Silence

She awoke as a chill brought shivers coursing down her spine. Keeping her eyes closed, she slowly reached out her hand, feeling the cold sheets beside her.

He had been up for a while.

Ginny took a moment to stretch luxuriously and blinked into the darkened room. It was always hard to tell the time deep in the dungeons, a fact that she loved. She could lose herself down there without a thought to the world thriving beyond the cold stone ceiling. Faintly, she could hear the quiet murmur of the Slytherin common room above. If she could hear their voices at the cold depth she was at, that meant that the common room was full. It also meant that she had missed dinner.

As if on cue, her stomach emitted a painfully empty growl and she pressed her hand firmly to the bare skin just below her belly button. Of course, it seemed to be her luck that she would miss dinner on the same day she had missed lunch as well. Pushing her hunger aside, she sat up, holding the deep green sheet to her chest, and she winced at the soreness in her thighs. She was going to pay for her over-exertion at Quidditch practice in the morning.

The door swung open and he entered without so much as a glance to her on his bed, which suited her just fine.

Slipping out into the frigid cold, Ginny began the now-all-too-familiar chore of finding her scattered articles of clothing while Malfoy stood at the desk, flipping through a stack of parchments. Finding her skirt half-way underneath Blaise's bed---how it had traveled across the entire dorm room, she had no recollection---she shrugged into her now-wrinkled shirt.

"Why didn't you wake me?" she asked, her voice sounding foreign in the silence of the room.

Without looking at her, Malfoy gave up on the parchments he was sifting through and instead began rummaging through a book bag at his feet. "No reason in particular," he murmured distractedly, pulling a rolled parchment from the bag. He obviously found what he was searching for because as abruptly as he had entered the room, he turned to leave. Just before he closed the door, though, he turned to face her. He didn't smile or acknowledge her in any way other than his usual cold, mocking stare and Ginny met it with a patient one of her own.

"Your knickers are on Goyle's nightstand." And, with that said, he was gone.

Leaving her trainers untied, she pulled her hair back into a ponytail, retrieved her missing knickers (she shuddered to think what Goyle might have done with them if she'd left them), and grabbed the rumpled Slytherin cloak off the floor. It was too large for her; she had no clue to whom it had belonged to, and to be perfectly honest, she wasn't so sure she wanted to know. Making sure the hood hung low on her face, she casually made her way up the gelid stone steps and into the crowded common room. Ginny had learned long ago that the best way to avoid being seen was not to hide or sneak, but to walk directly into the situation she was trying to evade. And the Slytherin common room was no exception.

The fire was roaring, chasing away the biting shadows, forcing them to claim refuge in the unoccupied corners of the room. She basked in the warmth a moment, absently noting that the bastard prince was no where to be found, and then traipsed through the middle of the room, hesitating once to dodge a poorly-aimed practice hex by one of the brothers dim (Goyle and Crabbe were taking turns on what suspiciously looked like Neville's toad). Few looked up and even fewer seemed to care. Then again, mystery girls leaving Malfoy's dorm was hardly out of the norm; they probably thought she was a random Ravenclaw (Malfoy never associated with Gryffindors and if they thought she was a Hufflepuff, she'd never have made it out the door without them attempting to humiliate her).

She traveled through the halls, enjoying the way most students ducked out of her way. Ah, the wonders of being a Slytherin. It wasn't until she closed the door to the prefect's bathroom did she finally take off the cloak. She knew it was risky, using a bathroom someone could see her walk in and out of, but the only other alternative was Moaning Myrtle's bathroom and she already knew what a big mouth that ghost had---especially where Harry Potter was concerned. She didn't trust her further than she could throw her.

Ginny cleaned herself up as best she could---she charmed most of the wrinkles out of her shirt, washed her face, and tied her shoes---but she still looked as though she had just had a thoroughly enjoyable romp in bed. Suddenly unable to meet her own reflection, she carefully folding the material of the cloak so that the crest and the green inner-lining were bidden and tucked it under her arm before ascending the last three flights of stairs to Gryffindor tower.

* * * * * * * * * *

It had started two weeks earlier. No, scratch that. It began six *years* earlier when His diary found its way into her hands, into her very core. Ever since she woke up in foul smelling puddles deep down in the belly of the castle, she had changed. It was almost as if when Harry had severed the tether between her and Tom part of her never came back. Or some of Him stayed. It was hard to tell. She had once heard her parents talking late at night over tea not too long after what they referred to as 'The Incident.' They had said that she had lost her innocence. And that was true. She was no longer a child. She saw the world through different eyes, but she didn't think that they were the eyes she was supposed to have.

He had never left her. Every night He haunted her dreams---soothing whispers, fevered touches, feathery kisses---every night He invaded her heart. Sleep never came easily to her anymore. She died every night. She died in His arms. But when she was with Him, she was whole. She could *feel.*

In the waking world, she could find pleasure no where. Her family, though she loved them, seemed louder and brighter than ever before. But it was an uncomfortable brightness, one that burned her. They were no longer beautiful in her eyes. They were just..... there. In fact, nothing held the beauty she once saw, especially the famous Harry Potter.

He was a paragon of goodness and perfection. He was a shell of a person. He compromised everything he was to mold himself into the person everyone needed him to be. Ginny wondered if he ever thought about what *he* wanted to be instead of being a puppet of the masses. He was a hero in the eyes of many, but what did he have to give up to become that person? He was someone she should love, in fact she wanted to love him, yet there was..... nothing.

And then Ginny would tell herself that *she* was the one with the problem, not Harry. She was seeing things that weren't really there. And she would ignore the fact that she was never happy, faking smiles to appease her family, and she would close her eyes when the world became so bright that it hurt because it seemed to be the only thing she could feel. Time slipped past her and life continued on around her.

At school, she took to remaining on the edges, her time occupied by observing those around her. No matter what she heard or witnessed, nothing seemed to penetrate. She just didn't care. It felt as though she were living from dream to dream.

One day, during her fifth year, she had accidentally walked in on Harry and Jamie McCauley snogging in the Quidditch locker room. She had held her breath, waiting for tears, and when they didn't come, she had at least hoped to feel some shock. She had felt nothing, and she had watched as Harry's hand traced its way up the Hufflepuff's side to briefly play over the girl's breast. Sighing, Ginny had turned and left, wondering what was wrong with her.

And that was why she had spent the last two weeks in Draco Malfoy's bed.

She hated him---there weren't many around who could genuinely say they liked the git---but when she looked into his eyes, she got the vague feeling that if anyone could tell her what was wrong with her, it was him.

It had been a Tuesday and Snape had been brutal in his homework assignments that morning so Ginny found herself in the library immersed up to her shoulders in books. At first, the crying had been so quiet, she thought she must've been mistaken. But then, as most things go, it seemed to be all that she could hear and she realized she had been reading the same sentence for some time. Sighing, she dropped her quill and tried to locate her distraction as fast as possible.

In the next aisle over, Ginny found a young Ravenclaw curled up on the floor, arms wrapped tightly around her legs, and face hidden in the depths of her black hair. A bit irritated at the disruption, especially by a Ravenclaw (of all people, they should realize the sanctity of the library), Ginny sat down and awkwardly patted the other girl's shoulder.

Surprised, the girl sucked in a breath and looked up, her eyes rimmed in red.

"Are you alright?" she asked, as soothingly as she could possibly manage. It wasn't that she wasn't sympathetic; it was just that she had two more feet to write before dinner. At that point, every minute counted.

The girl---Ginny wracked her memory for a name..... Lauren..... no, Laura---shook her head sharply.

Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, Ginny gave it another shot. "Boy trouble?" She figured it was a fifty-fifty chance between being due to a boy or to a Slytherin.

At that, Laura's eyes welled up even more and she emitted something that sounded like a strangled hiccup.

Ginny wrinkled her nose and tried to think of a general thing to say. "Look, boys are just that---little boys. They aren't worth crying over---"

"You wouldn't understand," Laura cut her off in a very small voice.

"Try me," Ginny coaxed as Laura hesitated. "It's either me or someone else. You can't sit here crying in the library all night, can you?"

And then, in an even tinier voice, she said a name. "Draco Malfoy."

Ginny almost grinned. So she was right on both counts. It was a boy *and* a Slytherin. She should've gone into Divination instead of Arithmancy.

"You're not the first girl that he made run and cry....." Ginny began, but she stopped as Laura whispered something, refusing to meet her eye. "What?"

"I loved him."

It took a moment for the full weight of the words to sink in.

"Malfoy?" The younger girl hid her face in her hands. "Blonde haired, smirking, evil prat, Malfoy? Did you have an accident in potions---"

"No! We..... we were..... seeing each other."

"For how long?" Ginny didn't know whether she wanted to laugh out loud or smack some sense into the girl. She opted for neither and tried to keep her face neutral.

"Three weeks."

Huh. "And, let me guess, he suddenly decided he'd had enough of jerking you around and called the whole thing off."

Laura nodded, on the verge of tears again, but admirably keeping them at bay.

Desperately trying to come up with something consoling to say other than, 'You stupid bint, what did you expect? Once a git, always a git,' but before she could speak, the devil himself made his entrance.

"Zabini," they heard him say through the bookshelves.

"Malfoy," the other boy greeted.

Ginny couldn't help but think that if they could hear their voices, then Zabini most likely heard their conversation as well. Laura's eyes widened and she looked as though she were on the verge of throwing up. Ginny quickly heaved the girl up and ushered her out the door.

"Go back to your common room before he sees you crying over him. His ego doesn't need to get any bigger at this point." Laura nodded solemnly and darted down the hall, weaving through a group of Hufflepuff third years that were just let out of Charms down the hall.

Once the girl was gone, Ginny went back to her essay but found herself staring at the blank page rather than writing.

* * * * * * * * * *

It was a week after the library incident when she found herself slowly packing up her things after Arithmancy class. If she could just stall long enough without making it look contrived--

"Miss Weasley, do you have something you wish to ask me?" Professor Vector questioned from the front of the classroom.

"No, ma'am. Sorry." Ginny heaved the bag onto her back and calmly looked to the older woman.

"Nothing to be sorry about, dear girl. I just needed to step out before my next class and wanted to make sure there wasn't anything you needed. Have a good day, dear." The professor slipped out the door without waiting for a response.

It wasn't twenty seconds later when Malfoy sauntered in. If he was surprised to see her standing prone in the middle of the class, he didn't show it.

"I have a proposition for you," she said bluntly, not about to let him speak first.

His eyebrow arched up as he sat in one of the front desks. "I think I'll have to pass," he said casually.

"You won't," she intoned, taking a step towards him. "North Tower, the old Astronomy class room, midnight tonight." Taking a cue from her teacher previous, she left without waiting for Malfoy's response. It didn't matter, though. She knew he would come. He had an insatiable curiosity.

* * * * * * * * * *

TBC...