Phasma, Procer, et Veritas

He was her prince. Scrawny and more than a bit scruffy, but her prince all the same. And she had loved him from before she could love, had known his name before she had known hers, had heard the sound of his voice and smelled his unique scent long before she had met him. His name rolled off the tip of her tongue like honey, yet in his presence that same tongue seemed to swell, and she was incapable of speech, unable to utter a sound in the presence of him. She got shivers at the thought of all he had done, for the world, for her family, for her brother, for her. The thought of his name and all that it meant brought upon her an incomprehensible sense of longing. To know the boy behind the deed, the boy behind the legend. And she could not know a world without him who had saved wizard kind.

Yet in spite of this incredible sense of want, of need, of utter fixation, she found that she could not see him. He was there, palpable and there and oh so real, and yet he was not. There was no life in his eyes to her; to her he was lost, a child in a storm on a split piece of wood which would sink any moment. And he would fall. And he had no idea how to stop it. And she had no idea how to help him see. And when she looked into those eyes, and wandered their depths and found that she was drowning in a shallow bed of water, which had once been a deep ocean, but had been dammed up to her, closed to her prying, she saw not him, but another.

The other was her ghost. And she had hated him since before she could hate, had feared his name before she had loved her prince's, had known his putrid stench and heard his cruel voice as a child in her bed. He had been a surprise. Charming and intelligent and kind as no one else. He had known her and understood and calmed her worries and told her bedtime stories long after her mother had deemed her too old for them. He had used her. But she clung to his memory anyway. Not as the memory of him or her own deeds but as the one time that her prince had truly seen her, the one time he had come to her rescue. And to that memory she clung tightly, bound to it as she was bound always to the knowledge of who she was, who her family was, what her parents' names were. It was real, had been real, had not been another of her dreams. Because when she had woke from that nightmare, the blood had still been there and that accursed book had been lying in it. And her prince had been there with her. And through this memory she always remembered her ghost.

His eyes had been real. More real than her prince's, more knowing than her parents', more sorrowful than all who had lost loved ones in the last century combined. And it had all been an act. But somehow, when she remembered her ghost, she could never bring to mind how those dark irises had been holding secrets, plotting against her. She could not see how they would have looked as he looked upon her as she died: no pity, no sorrow, no caring. She could only see what they had held to her, what they had been to her as she confided in him with all her secrets, all her innermost thoughts and troubles. When she looked at her prince, with all the emptiness he carried, she could only wish and hope that one day they would hold that same sense of lovingness and sensitivity. And she imagined him with those eyes which would haunt her dreams forever.

But through all her dreams and all her hopes, she could not find love from either of them. The prince was too empty, and the ghost had been a lie. So she found a third.

The third was her reality. She had not known of him until she had met him, had been indifferent of his life and well-being as only a casual acquaintance could for years upon years, had not smelled or heard him until the moment he was there. He was no surprise: fond of Quidditch, funny, and mediocre at all his classes. He was handsome, with none of the endearing scruffiness of her prince and none of the mysterious darkness of her ghost. He was in her brother's year, and was one of his closer friends. Not one that he would tell his secrets to, but one he would gladly have a pint with to discuss the bust sizes of their female housemates. Her mother loved him, her father found him amusing, her brothers found him to their liking and immediately took him to the Quidditch pitch to "bond" by hitting Bludgers at him.

His sandy hair had reminded her of walks on the beach, moonlight strolls where you felt no danger, no sense of adventure, and that was what romance was, was it not? A sense of peaceful lovingness and the knowledge that you would always be protected? His blue eyes were like the pond she had swam in as a child in pigtails: clear and safe and calm. Secure and docile, and vaguely reminiscent of her brother's, her brother who had always kept her from harm.

So Ginny found herself in the church one afternoon, just as the sun set out across the green Irish landscape, pouring through the stained glass to rest on her and her partner standing before the alter. She struggled painfully with herself, and clutched at her last remaining hope that fairy tales were not just stories made for children to give them a fantasized view of the world, and looked out into the crowd of family and friends and gazed into the eyes of her prince, as violently green as the hills outside. He was empty as ever, showing only a spark of joy as the sister of his best friend got married. And she hated Harry Potter. She thought of her ghost, her Tom, and found no reason to cling yet more tightly to a memory of what never was, what had been but a lie. And she hated him as well. So Ginny looked finally into the eyes of her reality, her Seamus, who would love her unconditionally, would protect her and grow old with her and sit by the fire with her on winters' nights as their children rolled around on the floor. And she said the two words that would forever bind her to reality, to the knowledge that growing up meant letting go of dreams and fantasies, and let go of her prince, forgot about her ghost. Love wasn't meant to be exciting. Love was acceptance, and that was what she had found.