Echoes

- echoes -

For most of us, there is only the unattended

Moment, the moment in and out of time,

The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight,

The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning

Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply

That it is not heard at all, but you are the music

While the music lasts.

-- T.S. Eliot

The dark voice haunts her, but Ginny is strong. She doesn't listen; not really.

She dreams, and the moments replay one by one; she's not the same girl at night as she is by daylight. She's still that girl she had been to him and only him. Dreaming, she can open up the book and write words she cannot read; one can't discern a thing in dreams, she knows that.

He always says her name like it's a secret no one else knows: "Ginny". He has that power and he uses it, though she'd never really thought of it that way. She'd never thought of power until she had to; until he taught her to. Now that she's almost of age, she thinks she understands how she was used, but none of that matters when the memory of a memory tickles the back of her neck with phantom breath.

"Still waiting, little Ginny?"

She doesn't turn around. "You're not real," she says, staring straight ahead, and he laughs his hateful laugh.

"No more real than I ever was," he says. "No more real than you."

She feels him behind her, and for a moment she's not sure who he is. There's been so many boys spaced between them, like pawns across a chessboard. Which one is he? So many boys; sometimes she forgets all the different ways they kiss, and it blends into one until there's only one boy kissing her, and he's not a boy at all.

Ginny doesn't know how Tom kisses, or if he does; Tom had never kissed her, and she's grateful. She is. He was never a boy. He'd never wrapped his arms around her waist from the back like Michael did, or told her he fancied her like Dean did, or laughed at one of her silly jokes like Seamus did. He's just a memory to be misplaced. Not even that.

There are things Ginny had never done with anyone: she'd never sat in the sunlight on a spread-out blanket, sipping at something icy-cold and laughing as he touched her hair. She'd never seen his eyes clearly, though she wonders if they aren't pitch black: all pupil, dark enough to suck you in and never let you escape. He must have had eyes like the Veil: tipping you straight into death. Ginny thinks she should be afraid; maybe she should hate him and everything he stands for. Instead, she feels a little secret thrill at the pit of her stomach: she'd escaped. He couldn't have her.

"So many little lies," Tom whispers at the back of her mind. "Such a pretty girl, and such pretty lies."

She'd never leant against a tree, content as the leaves tangled in her hair and he slept by her side, careless and vulnerable and breathing like she was, and she's grateful. Ginny knows she'd never been tempted. Not really; this is nothing.

"Still mine, aren't you?" he hisses, his sibilants heavy and his vowels sleek. "Still mine to play with, aren't you, pretty? Got such pretty white skin," he whispers. "Such pale wrists you've got, and a virgin's thighs. But not for long. Not for long, my Ginny."

Ginny doesn't hear him. She was okay; she is okay. Ginny doesn't listen; not really.

"Got a pretty virgin's cunt, too, don't you?" He's a dream; not real. "I know it bleeds so prettily. Bleed in little streaks down your thighs, don't you? I know what it's like."

"You're dead!" she screams, but when she turns he's never there. "I hate you and you're dead, you fucking bastard!" Even then, she knows he is and he isn't, but the one whose name she pronounces really is dead. The rest of him isn't human, and has no hold on her. She hates the human part more. The part that had smooth skin and a smoother voice, and fingers which had somehow known hers.

Ginny doesn't hate Tom by daylight, though. Daylight is for flying and laughing and proper talking. Dreams aren't real anymore; she's not like Harry. She'd always made sure to keep moving. An inner whirring Snitch pushed her onwards and she went. That was simple enough. Keep moving and the nights keep turning into day, every time.

"I know what it's like, Harry," Ginny says suddenly, pulling up a chair. She has to reach him; it's up to her because no one else knows but the two of them. Now that Ginny doesn't want him, she can understand, even if Harry's problem isn't really Tom; not the same way as last year. It's more difficult to say things like his name and 'possession' and 'second year' when Harry's so distant. Her energy snuffed out like a wick, looking at him. "There's a trick to getting past this stuff, you know." She could tell he doesn't understand-- doesn't expect her to say this. She isn't Luna, and none of it comes out right. "Make sure you don't slow down. Don't pause to think and it'll be all right eventually."

Harry stares blankly, but she plunges on. "See--" she bites her lip, trying to think-- "it doesn't matter if you move forwards or backwards, as long as you don't stand still long enough to remember--" Perhaps she should've written this down. She can't talk about Sirius to him.

"What?" Harry's voice is as blank as his face.

"Some things," she finishes lamely; nothing comes out right. It's all garbled, like one can no more say what one wants while awake than read while asleep.

"You're not making sense," he says, and maybe he's right. Maybe she should start over again.

Back to the beginning. "Hi Harry," she says, studying his profile. Harry looks so serious, as if he doesn't smile unless he absolutely has to. She doesn't feel uncomfortable so much as sympathetic. Oh Harry, she thinks. I can help if you'd stop being such a prat.

"Hey." Harry sounds morose, but no more resentful than normal. Ginny decides this is a good sign.

"What're you up to?" she says, going for casual. She resents having to do this, but who will if she won't?

"Nothing," he says and goes back to his textbook. They're in the library, but it's much too quiet, and Ginny fidgets.

"Oh."

And then there's silence. A moment later, she breaks: "Don't you want me here?" she says, hating that softness in her voice. He's going to ignore her if she's soft, she knows that.

"Not really," he mumbles. He doesn't quite sound guilty, but it's enough to keep her in place.

She can't say the right things, that's the problem. She can ignore it and she can go past it, but she can't overcome it.

"I'll be here if you want me, then," she says, but she knows he's not listening. On impulse, she touches his hand lightly, getting him to look up. "Okay?"

He jerks his hand away, glaring at her but saying nothing. "Sure," he says through gritted teeth. "Whatever."

But someday Ginny will wake up in a garden, and Harry will be touching her hand gently, his fringe blowing into his eyes. This is not a dream and it's not hope; it's an old fantasy, as dated as the journal she remembers keeping. She takes it out sometimes; looks at it. If she thinks about it long enough, it's almost real, so Ginny doesn't think; doesn't look very often.

"You'll have to talk sometime, you know," she says softly. Harry doesn't answer anymore.

She still hears that voice in her dreams-- far away, faded and indistinct, but she knows it's him. His voice had always been so soft-- so soothing. "Ginny," he whispers in that dark voice, and she dreams she shivers.

"I have you feeling nostalgic, don't I," he whispers. "Pity."

"I don't miss you," she whispers back fiercely, remembering herself. She's not that girl. "You're nothing. Not even a ghost of a ghost."

Tom takes her hand and she turns around, expecting emptiness. His face is the same as it's always been: all defined planes and sharp angles, half in shadow. His eyes burn into her, and she remembers how she could never figure out their color. Tom's fingers are strong, but Ginny's have gotten stronger, and he cannot crush them in his grip. "Good," he says. "You've grown. Good."

She wakes up with a sore hand and a fading sense of urgency. She can't imagine how she'd ever manage to tell them that Tom had never really left. And anyway, that's all rubbish. She can't imagine explaining her dreams, or even wanting to. Ron would laugh and Harry would most likely not pay attention; Hermione would take notes and never bring it up again and Luna would listen, but not be of any use. Besides, what would she say?

"I think I've got pieces of him stuck inside me somehow," she tells Luna resignedly, at last.

"Love is like that, I hear," Luna tells her, blue eyes open too wide. "I believe they're right, although I've never been able to fall in love in order to test it." She pauses to consider. "Though I daresay I'd like to."

Ginny laughs, smiling wider than is comfortable. "I don't think you would, actually," she says lightly. "More trouble than it's worth, trust me."

Luna doesn't blink, and Ginny believes she trusts her. They change the subject as easily as only old friends can, and Luna seems interested in watching Ginny practice. "You're so easily entertained," Ginny laughs, and Luna nods. "There are usually many things to see," she says.

No one else watches her fly with such a wistful yet concentrated expression, and Ginny's flattered; time passes quickly.

Later that day, Ginny sits still in the fading sunlight and takes care to breathe in and out carefully, winding her red hair around her fingers. She thinks about starting a notebook, but then she laughs. The sun is bright and the sky blue; she's not the girl she'd been with him. She's different with each one of them, though none of them could guess, and Ginny's all right with that.

As long as the daylight lasts, she can laugh without echoes.