Independent Woman

Independent Woman

He's been following me now for two days. Not outright about it, of course, otherwise Mum'll have his head, but when I turn around during dinner, he's watching, when I leave the table, he's watching, and when I walk up the stairs, he's still watching.

After four years of living in my brothers' shadow, Harry Potter's shadow, Hermione's shadow - hell, everyone's shadow! - I had decided to remake myself. I would be independent, a true maverick, having my way with guys and everyone else. I was sick of being the little sister. I was sick of being oh-her. I was to be Ginny Weasley again, maybe not again but certainly for the first time, blazing her own trail and not following those of others.

But he scares me, years after I learned that he wasn't a deranged mass murderer sniffing for Harry's blood. Just in a different way, I suppose. Harry always seems right at ease with him, even though he's still gaunt from Azkaban and that hollowness has never left his eyes. His hands tremble when he sets the table. His is still not free. His confinement at Grimmauld Place has made him restless. I can ask him to pass the salt or if he's seen Ron anywhere or what the twins are up to - but not much more than that. At a time in my life when I must be fearless, especially with You-Know-Who resurrected (well, he was never dead, but to be honest, I can't think of a better word) and the Death Eaters invigorated by their master's rebirth, I find myself frightened witless by my friend's godfather.

What's worse is that I can feel him watching me. I want to tell Mum, ask her to tell Sirius to stop looking at me that way, but that was the old Ginny. New Ginny needs to learn how to handle her own difficulties, not tug on her mother's skirts. So, I decided, I'll walk up to Sirius after dinner's over and everyone's settled down. Ask him what the bloody hell he's doing. Handle it with supreme finesse and skill that he'll tell me everything right away. Then I'll never have to look over my shoulder again.

Unless it's You-Know-Who and company. In which case I will definitely look over my shoulder and continue doing so until I have either Stunned the lot of them or I die.

Oh, I hope it's not the latter. Really.

-

His steps are heavy as they follow me upstairs. I can see his shadow ahead of me as I walk; the shivers on my skin are involuntary. It's awfully difficult to throw off a lifetime's worth of assumptions, when his name has been mentioned in the same breath as You-Know-Who's and when Mum's threatened, "If you're not good, Sirius Black'll get you!" countless times in the past. He won't do anything, I tell myself as I lead him into my room. Probably not the best place to confront a volatile man but it, of all rooms in the house, would protect my privacy, and I did not want any of this to get out.

I lock the door behind me, him sitting on my bed, and I activate one of the twins' most brilliant inventions yet, their Silence Shields. Guarantees that no one will hear a word you say for an hour. Sixty minutes, I think. That ought to be enough time to get this straightened out. So I squeeze the little white sphere I had hidden in my pocket for an occasion such as this, watching in awe as it magically expands to encapsulate both Sirius and me.

He's looking at me again, a half-grin, half-smirk on his face. "So, Miss Weasley - "

"I'd really prefer you just call me Ginny, thanks," I snap back, unafraid to increase the volume of my voice if necessary.

"I take it you don't like the formality, then, Ginny?"

"Why, no, I don't." I must restrain myself from rolling my eyes like the hapless teenager I am, but I cannot. Nor is there any way of preventing the sarcasm from slipping into my tone. "How funny that you should notice that."

"I've got a knack for that sort of thing is all." He leans back, resting his head against the pillow - my pillow - and sighs contently, closing his eyes. I can't help but smile: he looks every inch a Black, no matter how passionately he denounces his family name and tradition. "So, the question is posed, Ginny. What is this all about?"

"I see you don't have a knack for figuring those things out," I reply. A horrible, highly unoriginal retort, but it was the only one that I could force out of my dry mouth. "I, ah, um...was, erm, wondering why - I mean, if...how..."

"You find the fact that I have been observing you - you find it unsettling."

It was not a question but a statement, brusque and declarative. There would be no flowery and avoidant language when dealing with Sirius. "Yes, I do. I don't know how old you are, but you're closer to my mum in age than to me."

Laughing, he sits up and his fingers snake around my wrists, pulling me closer. I've never examined him up close before, and God, it's so easy to glance at it and think Azkaban, yet in those few fleeting seconds his slim face is in my view, I swear I found a different Sirius, one beneath the layers of grime and fear more than a decade of solitary confinement, hallucinations, and stark madness had instilled in him. It was a lighter Sirius, the laidback, de facto prince of Gryffindor House, handsomely careless.

"Women are so predictable," he says. "They don't change much at all with the years."

My eyes narrow. "Do you know what I'm going to say next?" I challenge.

"Ginny, I'm quite sure that I do know, so let's skip the question, shall we? Why? A fancy, I suppose."

I want to step backwards in revulsion. A fancy? Involving a fourth-year-to-be? I love enchanting men, wrapping them around my finger until they are at my every whim, but they were my classmates. It wasn't serious. They knew it and I knew it. And never, ever with an adult. And certainly not with Sirius, who seems impervious to any sort of seduction.

"Oh, Ginny, you needn't look at me like that. It's a compliment, really, and not entirely superficial. I do admire independent women, especially those that are openly rebellious such as yourself. There's something so tempting in girls that resist all of your pointless flirting charms. Those are the ones you want, the ones that have and are in full ownership of their own brains. There, is that a good enough explanation?"

What he says is flattering. I'm "independent"! I cheer silently. I'm "openly rebellious"! I'm "tempting"! Then I remember this conversation was never supposed to happen. Surely Sirius's - dare I think the word? - lust, if it was that, was only that, the ephemeral creature that possesses men's brains only to leave them shortly thereafter. It would have faded away when he realized that we could never possibly share anything more than a platonic friendship.

But that wasn't happening. No. I couldn't overcome my stupid curiosity and had to lift the curtain of mystery just a little bit. An inch or two of space was enough for everything to come spilling out. My peace of mind had been horribly distorted and there was no retreating. I had been immersed too deeply to be able to extricate myself.

Knowing my logic, I thus decide to immerse myself a little bit more. "When you say it's not 'entirely' superficial, does that mean there are superficial reasons for your, um, lust?"

"Now you are putting words that I have never said in my mouth," he exclaims, shaking his head, but I could sense there was a darker, more sinister edge to his remarks. With Sirius, that always seemed to be the case. "Your boldness in saying such a thing is inspiring, however."

"Merlin, I'm touched," I sigh.

"If you really want to know, though, I like the way your hair falls down around your shoulders and flies when you run, these brilliant streams of red..."

He cups my cheek with one hand and with the other pulls me closer. Independence and rebellion, I scream internally. Men are not exceptions to this rule. But no one's listening anymore.

"I like the way you can express the most endearing emotions or tell a person to sod off with one look..."

What are my eyes telling you now? I wonder. I certainly don't know.

"Oh, and your lips. Since you and your family moved here, I've been interested in learning what they might taste like..."

I know now that his are bruising, that they consume like flames that grow higher and higher, that they force the strongest-willed women to slip onto their knees, begging both for release and for more. I also know that they are wet and uncontrollable, so that within seconds he has me pinned down against the creaking mattress of my bed, his fingers working furiously on the buttons of my shirt, and I am panting as one hand fondles my breasts and the other sneaks its way up the length of my skirt.

"Have you ever done this before?"

I think of the snogging sessions of third-year, our boyfriends sneaking into our dormitory and the night being filled with loud and probably highly annoying kissing sounds. I suppose that doesn't count. "Not really. I mean, I've kissed and all, but, you know - "

Sirius reaches for my wand, which is somehow sitting atop my night table. He points it in my direction, muttering a few words under his breath. "Contraceptive Charm," he tells me. "Simple as hell and always effective. We don't want little Blacks running around the place in nine months' time, do we?"

"I..." It dawned on me. "Oh!"

"Smart little girl, you."

"You're not really going to - "

" - shag you?" he finishes for me. "Of course I am."

I roll away from his outstretched arms, buttoning my robe back up. "Well, you won't be because I didn't say you could."

"You seemed quite eager earlier, when I had my hands all over your - "

"Oh, don't say it, please!" I plead, flushing a red that matches my hair.

"Ginny, you can't be as innocent as you're trying to be. Does fucking an older man not arouse you?" I patently try to ignore the heat simmering within my body. "Then go. It's my house, isn't it? Leave this room and forget that any of this ever happened."

I stand rooted to the floor, unable to so much as blink. Sirius's tight lips grow into a secretive smile.

Men always seem to interpret silence as direct consent, don't they?

He sweeps me back onto the bed and he is again diligently prying my shirt off my shoulders. "How much time do we have left?"

"Half an hour or so, I'd wager."

"Excellent," he whispers before latching his lips onto my bare shoulder. A small gasp escapes from me when he nips it with his teeth - he meant it to be gentle, I suppose, but he might as well have been tearing out chunks of flesh. "Your clothes are in the way, Ginny," he growls.

"From what I can see, it's clearly not stopping you from doing anything."

"Take them off." For a moment, my mind refuses to react. "Take them off yourself," he repeats, "or I'll take them off for you."

Hardly daring to breathe, I lift my shirt from my body and toss it off to the side, my skin growing chilly against the air, and step out of my skirt. I leave my bra on, figuring that Sirius could at least manage that. My heart pounds with anticipation, and I hate myself for it.

I glare at him. "Is that better, oh Sir Black?" I taunt, sounding much braver than I feel.

Reaching around me, he unclasps my bra and lets it fall off my arms. "Much, Miss Weasley."

He presses me against the headboard, his fingers running up and down my torso, now twisting every which way at his silken touch. Are his fingers really so smooth after those years of imprisonment? They trail down to my hips and slide downward until they brush past my - oh, Merlin, I can't even bear to say it - and I cry out, every bit like the slut Mum was determined to never let me become. Instantly, I cover my mouth, fearful that someone had heard.

As if reading my thoughts, Sirius says, "You're forgetting your brothers' very convenient invention here. You have complete freedom here. Let yourself go."

He kisses me again, this time stronger, more ferocious. He's an Animagus, after all, and his animalistic nature is pervading him and pervading me. How on earth my body is still functional with his weight on top of it is inconceivable but it's working, writhing and recoiling as he pushes his thigh between my own.

Freedom is his reasoning for forcing himself upon me, perhaps also the reason why I have let him advance so far without putting up much of a struggle. Through sexual subjugation, he admires my streak of autonomy. Through treating me like a cheap whore, he exults my status as a woman.

Life is such a paradox, isn't it? I can't stand it.

He slips his hand under the waistband of my panties, and suddenly I fill with righteous indignation and a rage so strong and unrefined that I feel my mouth might foam with it. Once upon a time, there was a girl enraptured with a boy to the point where she gave up her existence and lost her soul because she thought he would be the answer to her grievances and woes. Well, that girl was Ginny Weasley and that boy was Tom Riddle, and when I lay in the hospital wing at the close of my very first term at Hogwarts, I promised myself to never let anyone toy with my mind and skew what I held to be noble and good.

As Sirius positions himself above, preparing to thrust into me, I see it, the dark blemish that was my first year replays itself in his intense eyes, the tears and the days of endless wandering and powerlessness. I then do the only thing that I can do. I knee him in his most sensitive region and he falls over with a pained cry. I kick him and I kick him again. Hastily, I throw on my robe and, fastening it around my naked body, reach for my wand, pointing it at him.

"You're underage," he whispers.

"But wizarding law lets me use magic under the most drastic of circumstances." I back away slowly, towards the door. "I'd say that the current environment qualifies as drastic, wouldn't you?"

He grins, gritting his teeth. "Well, we can at least agree on that, Miss Weasley."