3.//TABULA RASA
>>>
She closes her eyes. Tick tock and it's to the beat of her heart. A few slow breaths and she can forget about the
twirling spoon commanded by a redheaded girl.
It's just the two of them here. She should be used to this, she should be able to relax, rest her shoulder, offer hers if need be, but just do something other than cupping a mug of an hour too cold cocoa.
She resists the need to pluck her wand. Her fists clench involuntarily. She still can't even begin to think about touching that wand.
Too much... memories.
"You guys came awfully early."
Ginny's lips murmur the words and it's hard to catch them. Her head is buzzed, intoxicated, overfilled with water that's soaking through her papercup. Dixie quality.
Her eyes look up to meet Ginny's puffy ones.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
The other girl's lips pull to the side. It's such an uncanny imitation of Draco's that she has to blink fast and tighten her hold upon her mug. Thank Merlin it wasn't hot.
"Exactly what it implies, you must think I am some dull virgin not to know what you and Ron have been doing since you discovered you had a cunt."
She's affronted, but it shouldn't be surprising. What is, though, is Ginny kicking back her chair, one straight hair-strand plastered to her mouth. Small immaculate mouth with thin lips that are curled up in some sneer.
"I bet you didn't even know what happened to him, huh? No, why should I even ask?"
The cocoa swings violently to the side. It's easy to hear the ripples as the House stands still, no single whisper to stem the rise and fall of her chest.
"What's your fucking problem?"
The obscenity slips past her lips. She feels herself recoil into some coming argument.
Too late.
Ginny barks a laugh. "Finally, heh, I hear the famous prefect Granger curse. I'm quite flattered to be the target."
Her emotions are conflicting. Melancholy, Worry, Anxiety, Curiosity...
"If discussing my sex life is considered small talk for you than I think you should reconsider your social skills, Miss Hogwarts."
The title startles a chuckle out of Ginny. She pulls a chair to her side and swings her body on it.
"Miss Hogwarts? How did you come to hear that one?"
"It's quite hard not to when I overhear all your fucking exploits around the school. I hear the Squid got cheated though."
Ginny has the decency to blush. She doesn't even quite comprehend why that slipped past her mind. Doesn't even know she thought that in the first place and is wondering if she preferred the five hours of dead silence or this lively alternative.
"I see my brother got something other than his cock in you."
She doesn't see the need to objectify that statement. The nearest thing that Ron and her had gotten to would at best be placed under some hardcore PG-13 label.
Yet, the words of dull virgin resound in her head and she thinks it's some form of credibility to have this assumption planted in there.
"If that theory played out, you'd be worse off than Bellatrix. I hear she put out even for Voldemort."
It's like adding salt to a yet-to-be-healed wound.
Her casual comment quickly jolts her back. Her filmstrip of a mind jerks and there it is, the scene starts playing.
She involuntarily whimpers.
"Ah, am I supposed to believe that bullshit? Don't you think that you should leave it alone? It's been about six months since that, no one is going to buy it anymore."
Her breath is labored still. However many potions she downed, the spells she cast on herself, something that Harry and she did (she can't recollect it exactly), the memories sometimes overfill her. They come in some flood, the dam starts to chip and there she will be, arms chaffed, wrists bound up in a chain and the dank prison, all alone, only - Stop!
"Speak for yourself, hypocrite."
And there it is, she blinks back tears, vaguely seeing a fuzzy Ginny. Tall, seemingly-all-too-perfect Ginny, standing near the doorway.
Her red hair only stirs and she blows on the strand near her mouth. Like a gust of wind, she realizes that her slight friendship between this assumed sister-in-law had fallen like the spilt cocoa that rolled all over the Black kitchen.
Ginny only looks her over and she wonders if this realization has hit her. If it even affected her, if she even mattered to this once-shy-dependent girl.
It hits her that Ginny probably already let her go some time ago as she leaves without an apology.
>>>
Ron and her sit next to each other. The sun is right on the horizon and it reminds her of yesterday. Yesterday with it's giggles and its wandering hands.
Now they're just... apart. Not even tips of their fingers brushing, only that itchy crab grass engulfing her palm.
"Did you get anything out of him?" She fingers a blade of grass.
"No, he's worse than me when I chugged down those sleeping pills I thought were candy. Not even you jumping on my bed could have sprouted, er, anything..." he trails off awkwardly.
She bites her lip.
"Yeah, I had no success either."
"- I wouldn't expect you too. You were like a banshee on mute," Ron shakes his head, " And that's some sort of paradox right there if I ever heard of one."
"I'm glad I bring novelties to your life."
Ron just laughs, he coughs into his hand and she gets some bitter taste out of it.
"You know, it just figures that the one day we decide to forget it, to start what we had all over, would just bring it all back." She sees Ron's nostrils flare, "To think I almost missed it, thought it was an adventure."
"Don't lie, you still think it is." Her head ducks down. She can remember a similar conversation she had with Harry. How she had just had it with his rash chivalry, how she had accused him of this arrogance and he only gave her a half smile, tongue slipped out as he raised her chin, the tears were already in her eyes. He told her it would be on his arse that he'd at least make this tale a bestseller.
She wouldn't put it past Ron to actually go through with the idea once it hit him. If, that is.
"I'm expecting to be back at Pomfreys, getting points docked down for going past curfew. Damn Harry, he owes me at least 20 detentions."
"Only because you were stupid enough to forget that he conveniently has an invisibility cloak those 20 times."
Ron only grins at her and flicks a few blades of grass at her head.
"Sometimes I wonder if our bad influence on you was such a good idea."
"Sometimes I wonder if I had any influence on you."
He lays back and she can see why she still hung around him. See that flicker of whatever stirred within her when he would spread his freckled arm towards her and have that laid-back posture that she would want to curl into.
But it was only every once in a while. Broken moments that were starting to lose their value. Episodes that had been wearing thin.
"Ron, don't you think that maybe we should..."
Stop. Halt. Quit this before she has nothing good to look back on?
His blue eyes look inquisitively on her. Same ones that closed behind pale eyelids that sparkled with just-disguised freckles that she kissed once.
"... Go back, maybe we can visit Harry again?"
She sees him crack his knuckles as he lets off an unconvincing chortle.
"Right, I see you have taken over Ginny's place as President of the Harry Potter fan club...Do I get some consolation prize at the very least?"
>>>
The door creaks and she stays behind. Her hand is steady on the knob and it's some sort of reflex. A habit she assumes that developed after those many episodes, those little escapes she would carry along with Harry, to wait on him. Gasp in the air and take in the sky with it's many stars she would point out to him.
"Hermione? Are you coming?"
She tucks a curl behind her ear, dragging her feet upon the foyer. She always hated entering this house. It was nothing but bad news.
Nothing but Ron having a shadow loom over his face with each step he took and Harry - oh, how Harry's gaze would be so blank. The house would be a reminder of what they knew they had to do... What they had done.
Why, after it's conclusion, was it showing itself again?
"Hermione?"
She's a statue. Carcass held up, turned to stone upon looking at him with the blood bathed upon him, the bed stained red. With Ginny at his side, watching her reproachingly, and how she couldn't move, how the tears slipped out, how she had stumbled back on the door.
How Harry wouldn't approve. How Harry would positively fear having to confront her in this mood, water hose Hermione. A Cho replica.
"Miss. Granger"
The voice slides in her brain. Wish wash, who would call her that?
She's brought back from her daze to see Remus in front of her. His worry-creased face furrows more and he huddles a bandaged hand in his arm crest.
"Remus, how many times have I told you to call me Hermione? You disturbingly remind me of Snape when you use the surname."
He cracks a smile.
"My apologies. Now, if you wouldn't mind, can I talk to you?"
Through the corner of her eye she can see Ginny cradling a hand near her mouth and how Tonks has an arm around her. Ron only looks back at her with wide eyes.
Remus sees and shakes his head, "Sorry Ron, I mean privately."
She feels her heart hammer in her throat.
"This can't be good for my blood pressure."
>>>
A/N: Ok, it's been a looooooooong time, hasn't it? Mostly because I wasn't completely satisfied with how I
was handling the story before and I didn't really know how to go about it. But, now I do. I totally have everything
planned and I'm real excited about it.
The question is, is there still interest in this story? I mean, I'd love to keep churning the
chapters but support for the story will make me real motivated or else you'll see my lapse of updates like last
time. So, type to me!