When She Loved Me

When She Loved Me

When I first saw Ginny Weasley, we were both new. I was stiff and staring; my hair, the colour of coffee, was tied back from my face with a red ribbon, and my dress was unblemished by sticky fingers or dirt. My shoes were shiny, my skin delicate and my smile gentle and soothing.

Ginny was small and delicate too. She had a feathering of soft, strawberry-blonde hair on the top of her head and bright, clear blue eyes, although she kept them closed most of the time. She had a little pink mouth, like me, and seven freckles on her tiny, button nose.

I watched over her, unnoticed, for a year. When she learned to walk, she tottered over tome on unsteady little feet and smiled, her expression matching my own. She sat down and stared at me with her huge sapphire eyes and reached out to take my hand. From that first touch, I knew she would look after me, young as she was.

* * *

For the next three years, Ginny carried me around her house, showing me things and feeding me her mother's wonderful baking. My dress was soon covered in pumpkin juice and strawberry jam, chocolate sauce and goodness knows what else. But I didn't mind; the mess showed that I was loved, that I belonged to someone.

* * *

When we were five, Ginny and I watched in horror as Fred and George, who were eight at the time, turn a six-year-old Ron's teddy bear, Teddy, into a spider. Ron screamed and threw poor Teddy, now a horrible tarantula, at one of the twins, and ran to tell their mother what they had done. Ginny ran too; I clung to her for dear life as she pelted up the rickety staircase to her bedroom.

"I'll never let them get you like they got Teddy, Lou," she whispered, stroking my hair and straightening out my dress. I just smiled my small smile, and blinked serenely as she set me down on her bed.

Ginny went to her bookcase and drew out a slim, slightly battered book. I recognized it immediately as her favourite story, Cinderella. Her father brought it home from work one night, a long time ago, with a stack of other fairy tales.

Ginny settled herself next to me, opened the little book, and began to read out loud. She could only recognize small words like 'and' or 'the', but she had heard the story so many times she knew the rest from memory.

* * *

When she was seven, Ginny took me outside for the first time. We went to the very bottom of the vast garden, and Ginny picked up a small bucket in the hand that was not holding me.

"We're making mud pies," she told me happily. We skipped up to a tap in the wall of the house that sparkled in the sun. She filled the bucket to the brim with water and took me to a patch of dry, dusty earth close to her father's toolshed.

Ginny set me down opposite her and poured the bucket of water over the dirt. The pale earth soon became dark and mushy, and Ginny grinned; she thrust her hands into the mud, allowing them to sink out of sight. She took a large handful of mud and began to fashion it into a circular shape, squeezing and kneading it until it became what she wanted.

"There!" she said happily; se stood up, the pie held carefully in her hands, and pottered over to the high windowsill of the toolshed, Standing on tiptoe, Ginny managed to set the pie onto the sill, to let it bake in the scorching sun. She made five more pies with the remaining mud, and placed them on the windowsill with the first.

After two long minutes of waiting, Ginny went to check on the pies.

"Not yet, Lou," she said to me, "any minute now."

For another three and a half minutes we waited, Ginny pulling the petals off daisies one by one, me watching her placidly. When she went to check again, the pies still weren't ready, so Ginny picked me up and took me inside; she decided to check on them again after lunch.

Ginny's mother shrieked when she saw us; she whisked Ginny away for a bath and change of clothes, while I sat on a chair in the drawing room, hoping Fred and George wouldn't find me.

When Ginny came to fetch me, she was wearing a clean dress, and her hair was in two plaits, one behind each ear.

"Come into the kitchen, Ginny," her mother called, "I've made shepherd's pie for lunch."

After lunch, we played with Ginny's brothers; well, I watched as Fred and George chased Ron and Ginny with a hose and large bucket, throwing and squirting water at them as they shrieked and ran around the garden.

This play continued until late in the afternoon, until the children's father arrived in a blue car, three boys in the passenger seats. As the four got out of the little car, Ginny let out a yell that had nothing to do with being nearly drowned by Fred and everything to do with spotting her father. She ran to the tallest of the three boys and hugged him around the waist, her clothes and hair clinging wetly to his baggy jeans.

Not caring that his sister was soaked to the skin, the boy laughed and picked her up, talking to her as they made their way up to the house.

"Bill, wait," Ginny said quickly, "I need to get Lou."

Bill nodded and brought Ginny to where I was sitting. She lifted me up and hugged me, before taking a piece of Bill's shoulder-length auburn hair and running her fingers through it.

"Longer than mine now," She said softly. Bill planted a kiss on her forehead and took us into the house. The mud pies we made earlier sat on the windowsill of Ginny's father's toolshed, hardened by the sun and completely forgotten.

* * *

When she was ten, Ginny ran into her room on the last day of the summer holidays and hugged me tightly, tears staining her cheeks and falling onto my hair and dress.

"Ron's going now too, Lou," she sobbed. "They're all going away and leaving me by myself."

I wanted so badly to hug her, to wipe away her tears and tell her that everything would be all right. But, being a doll, all I could do was smile passively and let her cry herself hoarse.

Ginny sobbed herself to sleep almost every night after Ron left for school. She talked to me a lot, but only in her bedroom; she never took me outside. She didn't let her mother see how much she missed her brothers; I was the only one who knew.

One day, almost a year after Ron and the others left and came back for the summer, a stranger came to stay at the Burrow. I didn't see him during the time he resided here, but I heard a lot about him from Ginny. She told me he was 'Ron's best friend,' 'very handsome,' 'wears glasses,' and 'has green eyes'. She was very fond of him, but blushed when she mentioned him, even in the confines of her room while talking to me.

Another day, a little while later, Ginny told me that she was leaving tomorrow, but I couldn't come with her in case the other girls made fun of her. I felt sick when she said it. I thought she'd take me everywhere, that I was her best friend and she couldn't sleep with me beside her, looking after her as she dreamed. I'd done so all our lived, and it hurt that she didn't want me any more.

That night, she slept alone. To try and get used to it, she said. I didn't sleep a wink. I kept hoping, praying, that she's wake up and realise that she needed me with her. But she didn't stir all night.

She left me the next day, alone on top of her wardrobe. She didn't hug me or say goodbye; she didn't even look back as she hauled a heavy trunk out of her room. I felt me heart split in two as the door closed with a snap.

And so I sit here, gathering dust, day after endless day spent alone. Nobody ever tells toys that the child they look after, comfort and play with in their youth will grow up and forget you. I thought Ginny would love me for ever, that I would take care of her and be with her until my eyes stuck and my hair frayed and my limbs fell off. But she left and forgot me.

I watch her when she comes home for the holidays, each time a bit different, a bit older, but she never sees me. I sit in the same place, my skin grey from layers of dust, my dress spotted yellow from the damp, and remember the ten years we were together and she loved me.