Remember When...

====

No, it wasn't Macondo, and it wasn't Cacutta in time past

But subway magic turned the tunnels into Beautyrest mattresses

And plenty of God's children started sleeping there. Some

Were

actually Angels fatigued from long hours and no pay.

This is an aside, but I have to alert you. Angels run

Around

, don't shave or bathe; acid rain fractures their

Feathers, and French fries and coca-cola corrupt

The color of their skin and make them sing hoarsely.

The gossamer shoes so perfect for kicking clouds

Stain and tear on the concrete and in the hard light

Of the city they start to look like abandoned barges

Foundering in the cancerous waters of the Gowanus Canal.

Shabby gossamer shoes always arouse the derision of smart New Yorkers

Mercifully, Angels aren't tourists, so they are spared total disdain.

- Sonnet for the Heaven Below by Jack Agueros

====

Flushed

Sometimes, there are days where I wish I could go back. Back to England, back to Hogwarts, back to home. Back to anywhere, it feels like, but New York. And then there are days when I love this city, my newfound home, the bustling place for trade and art that it is.

And sometimes, I regret ever doing things. I wish I could do them over again, and not make that one little slipup that ruined it all for me. And then there are somethings that I wish I could repeat over and over.

But I guess that whatever event happens to us happens, and there's nothing we can do about it. Our destinies are different from what they could've been, had that one event not had happened. I know mine has been set way differently.

~*~*~*~

"Ginny!" Louise shouted across the room. The red head looked up wearily as she shook off her boots and tossed them onto the floor, not noticing where they landed. The common room was empty, except for the pair of girls who had not moved since she left them, as students who had been studying went to bed.

"You're back! Ron was just about to send out a search party but then he got too tired being frantic and went to..." She trailed in surprise at the look on Ginny's face.

"Oh, hullo Ginny. Nice to see you... oh." Emilie looked up from her paper. "What's wrong? Have you been crying? You look... ugly."

Ginny gave them a tired look. "Thank you, guys, but I'm ok. And thank you for your concern, Emilie, it's always nice to know that I have good friends that will remind me of my devilish good looks. And there's nothing wrong. It's just... it's just that I'm tired," she tried halfheartedly in a deflated and empty voice. She added a yawn for effect, but a real one proceeded the false one.

Ginny could only imagine what she looked like. Hair askew and windblown, damp with melted snowflakes, her vest and pant seat wet from snow. Her brown eyes were probably bloodshot from the salty tears, with heavy bags showing from past nights of fitful sleep and her cheeks, a bright pink color. Her head was scalding from the place where Draco had kissed it, though no one could see it, but her ears were numb and freezing, along with the rest of her body.

Inside, Ginny felt as though she had died and her soul had already made its way up to heaven above, or hell below. She was a robot, with all the emotion stolen from her body by Draco Malfoy, no less. But who else than Malfoy? No one could make her feel more ashamed or disgusted, or joyful or happy than he could. And now that he was gone, he was removed, he was away... she thought that she was never feel again, feel such emotion as she had. The thought terrified her and pleased her at the same time, no more hurt and anguish, but no more happiness.

She had opened the thick oak doors as the snow began to fall harder and the wind became colder, and eased them close behind her. She was careful to be quiet; save Peeves or Filch hear her. She could see the wet path that Draco had left in the carpet, but chose not to follow it. What use would it do now? There was nothing more to say, and nothing that had been forgotten. He had promised, as did she. Freezing from the snow and cold, she trudged up the staircases, down halls, and finally to the portrait of the Fat Lady, who informed her of the time in a rather huffy manner before allowing entrance to the room.

Ginny sat down on in the easy chair across from them, sinking into its worn seat. Her legs were tired from walking, her hair was tired from the wind, her eyes were tired for crying, her mouth was tired from talking, and her heart was tired from loving. Her chest was heavy with weighted clothes, and on her shoulders, it seemed, the world resided. She placed Draco's sketchbook onto the coffee table in front of her, its cover gleaming black like a beetle's back. Her friends, following her motions, looked questioningly at the book but bit their tongues and waited for Ginny to speak.

A wilting Christmas tree let off a faint pine fragrance behind her, filling Ginny's nostrils with its dying scent. She inhaled a deep breath and let it out in small, jagged sighs. The two friends looked at her then at each other.

"You know, Ginny," Emilie began gently. "You're not too good at lying. Look, your thumbs start crossing each other and your ears and your cheeks get red."

"Flushed, Emilie, it's called flushed," Ginny said. She let another breath, smoother than the last, which puffed her freckled cheeks. "And besides, I've been outside for the last hour and a half. It'd be a miracle if anyone went outside for that long in that weather and didn't come in flushed."

"Bet Draco wouldn't come in flushed," she teased from her spot on the couch, her parchment on her lap and books still piled high around her.

"Yes, he was most certainly flushed outside," Ginny said, much too loud by her standards. "Oh my god. I did not just say that." Ginny looked around to her two friends in utter disbelief. Emilie was smiling broadly and Louise was dipping her quill in her inkwell.

Ginny buried her face in her hands as her cheeks began to burn in embarrassment, but felt somewhat relieved that she had told someone something.

"Oh... our little Ginny's getting it on with Malfoy, the Prince of Slytherin!" Emilie said happily. Ginny only sighed in response.

"For some reason, Emilie, I am sensing that Ginny is less than ecstatic with her conquest," Lou commented with a straight face, though all of the girls knew of the jest hidden and subtly laced in her words.

"What a bitch," Emilie replied seriously. "Malfoy's not good enough for her. Snob."

Louise sighed. "She gets lucky with one guy and suddenly she thinks that she's God's gift to men." She shot a glare at Ginny, who received it with dull eyes. "Leave some guys for the ugly looking girls. God, Gin, a little courtesy here."

"It's not like I don't like him - " but Ginny was cut off before she could further explain.

"So you do like him, is that it?" Emilie interrogated, a gleeful smile on her pale face. Ginny's only response was further blushing.

"I knew it!" Louise exclaimed. "I knew that no woman is immune to Malfoy's charm! Not even our own Ginny!" Ginny's face turned a shade deeper, making her look like a strawberry in a wig.

"He is pretty good looking," Louise added as an afterthought, as though she just realized this, or was admitting this for the first time.

"It's not that he 'charmed' me," Ginny said slowly, and the two chattering girls in front of her fell silent. "He drew me." She caught their confused looks and pointed at the sketchbook on the coffee table in front of her. Emily leaned forward and grabbed it off of the table. "He's been drawing pictures of me since the almost the beginning of the year, and one day I caught him drawing me in the library, and it all blew open. And then I couldn't stop looking at him, always wondering if he was drawing me, and I... I...

"Then he caught me painting a couple weeks ago, the one in my room. The one that you pointed out to Ron. And he just... something just happened that made me not stop thinking about him. His face, his eyes, his hands. His sketchbook. I couldn't stop thinking about him, how much I hated him and how daft he was and how good he was to look at and how good his drawings were of me.

"And when I went outside tonight, he was there, and he found me. And he made me talk, and he made me angry, and jealous, and sad, and he even made me cry, and he made me fall in love with him. With everything about him. Then he gave me his sketchbook and walked away, because I had asked him to leave." Ginny's voice was thick, and her words were choking her and clogging her throat. She sounded as if she would start to cry at any time.

She tried to fit deeper into the chair, willing it to just swallow her completely. She felt so empty and so hopeless that she didn't really even see a point of being here, being her.

"These are amazing!" Emilie commented, breaking the silence to admire a picture. "I am so jealous now; why you?" she asked with not scorn, but admiration.

Ginny's first answer came as a squeak and a mumble. "Because he loves me - loved me," came a little louder than a whisper.

"And you?" Lou asked, running her quill feather under her chin.

"Do I love him?" Ginny asked, sitting up a bit. Louise nodded. "Yes, I suppose if constant obsession, unexplained and unnatural feelings and compulsive jealousy and possessiveness mean love, then of course I do."

"How did it feel?" Emilie asked amazed, handing the book over to Louise. "How the hell can it feel to admit you're finally in love?"

"I think it feels terribly wonderful," Ginny said, although her tone suggested otherwise.

"So why are you so blue?" Louise asked confused. Ginny sighed as though she was tired with the world.

"The only thing I want - the only person I want is out of reach. After this year's over, I'll never see him again. And I'm supposed to hate him!" she exclaimed, though her tone lacked volume. Her intention was clearly written on her face. "It's all too confusing, this love stuff. I don't recommend it. It hurts too much."

"Aww... Ginny, don't say that. I'm sure it's lots of fun to be in love."

"Yeah," Ginny agreed with open sarcasm. "It's great stuff, this love thing. Great feelings." She slumped further in the easy chair.

"I wanna die," she whined, closing her eyes. They stung terribly, hurting her tired eyes with her salty tears. She yawned wide; feeling a sense of weariness of such magnitude that she had never felt before.

"I think you need some sleep," Louise said quietly.

"I second that motion," Emilie agreed.

"Personally, I think I wanna die," Ginny repeated. Emilie groaned.

"But Ginny, dear, that is too cliched. Don't you know? 'Romeo and Juliet', it's been done!"

Ginny shook her head. "Emilie, what are you talking about?"

"Never mind. Go to bed."

"But what about Ron?" She yawned again.

"Ginny, we'll deal with Ron. Trust us," Louise said easily with a smile.

"I think I'm going to stay in bed tomorrow," Ginny groaned, and Lou huffed.

"You can't stay in bed if you're not in bed, Virginia Isabelle Weasley!"

Slowly, Ginny rose off the leather couch and haphazardly made her way around the common room. Every step took an extraordinary amount of strength as she could feel her consciousness ebbing away, carried out the window of the circular tower steps. As she climbed the stone steps, she rubbed her eyes, grimacing at the stinging sensation she felt when they were shut. It seemed that her heavy dragging feet rubbing against the stone was the only sound in the room, besides the dying fire. Emilie and Louise's loud shouts and shrieks were reduced to whispers and hisses as they struggled to finish their homework. She glanced out the window as she rounded the corner to the girls' dormitory. The snow had tapered off and the clouds cleared away, and she could see the brilliant moon. Its light alone shone down on the castle, a solitary spotlight that illuminated the blanket-covered ground.

Ginny would always remember that night, that crazy, angsty night. That was the night she won love, and lost it, and when she gained a sketchbook but lost a part of her soul. That was the night that she held everything and let it go.

That was the night the stars didn't shine.

And when the stars don't shine, it's up to us to make our own starlight, to shine so bright that nobody notices they've gone missing.

If that makes any sense.

Damn. I've got to get to work now.

The young redhead released the curtains from her hold and they fell, the image of the busy New York traffic disappearing behind a thick sea of beige. Making sure her door was locked, she Apparated from her loft apartment in New York to the studio across the street.