The Way Things Could Have Been

Prologue

The war was over. Had been for a few years now. After Harry had finally defeated Voldemort once and for all, I thought we were finally going to be together like I had dreamt about since the first time I laid eyes on him at the age of ten. But, unfortunately, things didn't exactly turn out like that. Actually, they didn't turn out like that at all. Not in the least.

We were together for awhile, a few months. But he just couldn't seem to be able to come to grips with the world. With himself. With anything. So we split up. It hit me hard, him walking away from me for the second time. I told him his "problems" didn't bother me, that I would help him work through them... but he told me he just couldn't handle a relationship right now, that he needed to spend some time alone... "rediscovering himself," whatever that means.

And he disappeared. No one know what happened to him. Not even to this day. There were searches... and the Daily Prophet did a lot of stories. But, in spite of being in the spotlight his entire life, he is very good at hiding. Or was. Who knows, actually?

After Harry left, I didn't leave my apartment for almost a month straight. I could hardly eat anything, and when I did manage to, I couldn't keep it down. I wouldn't see anyone, and kept wards on my place so no one could get in (not like they didn't try). After that first month was over, I was so weak from not hardly eating, so my defenses were down. By the time that Ron and Hermione made it inside to me, I was so sick I was almost dead. My will to live had left with Harry. They took me straight to St. Mungo's.

I got physically better in no time, thanks to the Healers. But my emotional depression did not go away. Nothing anyone did could seem to make me happy. Not even the merest hint of a smile graced my face.

News travels fast in the Wizarding World, so everyone knew my story. Both parents and four oldest brothers killed by Voldemort's Death Eaters, and girlfriend of Harry Potter before he disappeared. The Daily Prophet covered my ongoing battle with depression on a front-page spread, while I sat in what might as well have been a mental ward. It was excruciating.

I still wasn't really eating much (though a little more than before being admitted to the hospital). I got at least one visitor a day, sometimes two, sometimes more than that. It was mostly silent, no one saying anything. But when someone did say something, their words were laced with pity. There's only so much of that a person can take before they reach their limit. My limit was two weeks before I check myself out of St. Mungo's without even telling the Healers I was leaving.

No one even knew I was gone until it was too late, and that's exactly how I like it. I was following in my ex-boyfriend's footsteps, and it was exhilarating. I didn't want anyone to find me, but on the off-chance that they did, I didn't want them to recognize me.

So I took on a whole new identity. I became someone who was a complete one-eighty-flip from the Ginny Weasley that I once was.

I even changed my name.