A/N : IMPT INFO ABOUT 5TH BOOK INVOLVED! Please don't read this if you
haven't read it and don't want to spoil it!
Title : Confessions of an Heiress (Edited Version)
Author : Snapespook
Genre : Drama / Romance
Rating : A solid, to-be-taken-seriously PG-13 (sexuality, mild sexual violence, dialogue about said events)
Summary : It is the night before Ginny's graduation from Hogwarts, as well as a month before her wedding, which she can't go through with until she confronts her heroic groom to be with the truth of the love and darkness in her past. . .
Please R/R
DISCLAIMER : All characters and any pre-existing events, situations, timelines or plots referenced to are the sole property of the ingenious JK Rowling and whoever else she's given the go-ahead to over the years, not me. My only editorial comment: Bummer.
A/N : I would like to apologize in advance for the no-frills physical appearance of the story; the old *insert stressed word here* method is all I can swing, and I have attempted to alleviate bunching by breaking the text up into mini-paragraphs, but not to the point of impeding on the flow. Any suggestions to improve the effectiveness of the format that my processor is capable of, please make them.
The story as a whole pertains to the original sub-plot of Ginny's life, and stretches over CoS, PoA, GoF, and OtP (most heavily CoS), and you really need to have read them all to get everything in here. The Chamber of Secrets references and tie-ins are faithful to the book, not the movie (ironic, seeing as the movie was my inspiration for the story in the first place), which as a singular source of background information will leave you totally lost. I tie my translation into everything, I assure you. In fact, I would be extremely appreciative to hear of any holes.
Deals with one instance of extremely mildly portrayed but spoken about rape later on, and gets limey just once toward the middle- both are pretty tastefully danced around with vocabulary, though. I tell you that both are coming, and both are contained in memories that she is thinking about while explaining them, so they are between the lines of ^^^ symbols in their chapters, and skipping them won't throw you completely off. But if there's one thing that absolutely no part of this fic or the events portrayed within are intended to be, it's gratuitous.
R/R : I would really appreciate feedback on this piece, especially on my characterization of Harry and style (perspective, the time shifts. . .). Any suggestions for improvement, please make them.
And now, on with the show:
~~ Confessions of an Heiress ~~
~ Chapter 1 : Summons to Truth ~
She momentarily ceased her relentless pacing in the dust-riddled quarters to peer out of the window and felt her heart leap into her throat when she saw him, briskly striding in characteristic feigned confidence up the walkway outside. As she watched his disheveled pitch head journey beneath her and disappear into the pub below, her mind began to race in utter mental panic. She sucked in a final breath of air, which had absolutely none of the calming effect that she had hoped for, and collected herself for what she knew would be one of the most difficult nights of her life.
She turned to the door on the opposite wall in anticipation of him, leaning the small of her back painfully into the windowsill and digging her nails into the head bedpost of the barely accommodated four-poster in the corner to her left, intentionally torturing her nailbeds as she attempted to delve further into the worn wood. She needed the minor stabs of pain, to keep her grasp on reality and her surroundings, in order to not mentally or physically wander off in search of a more appealing situation. For those few seconds she understood those who simply lied to avoid nights like this- such self-deception would certainly render the whole of her life far easier, but she needed to tell him. The words needed to exit her lips in order to put their contents behind her, to rid them from her present mind and leave room for the future. His hand was now on the doorknob, turning it painfully slowly to admit him to the unexpected ambush of truth.
He entered the room, pleased as always at any opportunity to see her, particularly before so momentous an occasion as her graduation, but inquisitive of her odd selection of locale- he knew from her tone when she asked him to clear his evening and meet her that sex was not the object, but he could think of little else that the cramped quarters of the Three Broomsticks' microscopic inn could be used for. He had suspected that she wished to share something with him, but after several hours of agonizing 'what-if's, including most prominently the thought that she was employing the detached safety of an easily escaped to public place to leave him, he had decided to simply swallow his fears as he was so accustomed to doing and face what was no doubt nowhere near as earth-shattering a revelation as she felt it to be. He loved his Gin dearly, but she did tend to over- dramatize matters having anything to do with revelations about herself. To him, at least. Little could be perceived as dramatic to him anymore.
He then recalled a nagging theory; she had engaged in this ritual a few times before, but whatever revelation was her actual intention had never surfaced; substituted at the last moment by some bit of only minorly surprising fluff - resolute intention lost to timorousness. But perhaps this time she would finally reveal whatever skeleton had been haunting her. It was this thought and slight apprehension of its possible consequence that silenced him, not wanting to interrupt her courage.
She met him with an almost imperceptible grain of nervousness in her smile and stood slightly on tiptoe to give him a peck on his right cheek, now far higher than her own after the growth spurt of his fifth and sixth years, and settled back on the heels of her boots somewhat unsteadily. Her mind, in its desperate search for an alternate subject to her task at hand, briefly mulled over how odd it was that she still wasn't entirely used to this new greater height difference, even after two years' practice, and how nice it had been for her petite frame to be less than a clear foot shorter than at least one male in her life for a while. After she had performed the routine locking and silencing spells on the room, with the addition of an incantation that he could not quite place, they sat on the edge of the bed together in mutual silence- he hadn't seen her this vulnerable since her third year, and had no desire to further the condition.
He also knew that anything capable of ruffling the pillar of cool composure and logic under pressure that was Virginia Weasley was no small or impersonal matter. It was reverence for this fact that continued to hold his tongue in check as her hand gingerly brushed his, as though to ask permission. He eagerly granted it, firmly grasping her hand in his to steady her. It was then that she felt the machinery of her logic centers engage, informing her mouth that silence would get them nowhere.
"Harry, I have something to tell you. Several things, actually. Things that I am genuinely sorry that I kept from you until now, things I don't want to tell you even now, but things that I need to. And I need you to listen, to every word I have to say and not interrupt, or go off on any tangents or quests, or stop listening or just plain leave until I'm finished. Once I am, you can ask any questions you like, or leave to never come back, but I want you to remember . . . you say yourself that I'm a different person now . . . and this is immensely difficult for me."
He squeezed her hand and gave her what he hoped was as reassuring a look as he intended. She took a relieved breath, reminding herself of who this was, and felt the need to remind him as well- "The first thing that I need to say," she began "is that I love you. I love every bit of your heart and soul with every fiber in my being and that will *never* change. It was never a lie, it was never a stretch. I need you to remember that, no matter what comes out of my mouth."
She could no longer remain still, nervousness having its silent half- suppressed way with her, so she stood and resumed her past hour's pastime of pacing in a small curve in front of him, airy spring robes rustling gently with each calculating step. She had worked out exactly what order in which to deliver her information to be as painless as possible and prepared herself as well as she was humanly able, rehearsed nearly every word, but presented with the actual moment she was now unsure.
"When . . . I . . ." She halted her pacing once again, apparently having shifted the energy expenditure to her vocal chords, yet still never meeting his gaze. "The first year that Sirius was gone, when Hermione at home for the Easter break and you needed the sweat of a female virgin for one of your . . . extracurricular endeavors . . ." He blushed slightly, recognizing the somewhat chiding tone of her words, recalling some of the more foolhardy 'extracurricular endeavors' that he had engaged in over the years before she continued with ". . . I didn't really have plans to go to Gillian's before it needed to be added. I told her it was an early birthday surprise, and had to beg her mother to let me stay until I would have been useless to you."
She briefly looked up at his bewildered face, his search for some pertinence in what she was telling him playing out in his furrowed brow and slightly glazing eyes, and then directly told him "I did it because I didn't want to tell you that I couldn't help you. . ." Her eyes dropped again, taking her voice with it as she went on ". . . that I wasn't a virgin. That I hadn't been for nearly four years." The math quickly done, his eyes dilated in horror at the conclusion that it rendered. She was unaware of this, however, for she had turned her back to him and begun peering mournfully out the window- recipient of the puzzling charm to render it uni-directional- as she continued "Not since the night you destroyed Tom." The tone of her voice was oddly strained at this last statement, though he did not see fit to analyze why through his rising fury.
His fists clenched bunches of he plain tattered bedspread on either side of him as his voice struggled to restrain the yell into a semi-normal tone, but failed miserably "That bastard *RAPED you*?!?!". She rounded on him so quickly that he did not even see her porcelain hand prior to feeling it's furious sting across his cheek. Towering over him from her standing position, her rarely utilized but deadly skill at intimidation was at full throttle as she screamed into his stunned face "You NEVER speak of him like that again!!!!" It was mere seconds after the words had exited her mouth that she realized what she had done. Suddenly petrified, she sank to her knees in front of him as though to beg forgiveness. She reached up to caress the burning shadow of her own hand across his flesh, eyes threatening to mist; she had not expected to lose control of her emotions like this. She spoke with begging fervor as she met his murky liquid green orbs with her own deep molten brown and painfully whispered "I love you", to rhyme with 'I'm sorry.' Absinthe and coffee again parted ways as she became fascinated by a point in space at her own level across the room for the duration of a deadly pause. "And I loved him."
Despite his efforts to maintain her hand's position on his face, it slid down his body to drop and meet its fellow before their owner's legs rose and resumed their stance before the window. "I don't even know where to start" she frankly stated, voice forcibly empty, refusing her emotions exit. "The beginning is always a good place" came his reply, the curt bite of which surprised him, for he had never before been able to contemplate the desire to wound her, but he had also never felt so completely and utterly violated in his life. Having just been informed that not only was he not the keeper of his fiancee's virginity, as he had known until two minutes previous, he was also being assaulted with the even more brutalizing concept that the revived memory of his archnemesis which had attempted his murder in its own right *was*. No other concepts, including the slap or her last statement, had fully processed, averting the impending overload of his conscious mind from the barrage of impossible information and subsequent physical release thereof; a blessing for any furniture in the room that did not wish to be demolished.
Her emotional pain at his tone was only a physically enacted wince, for she had been expecting this, and endeavored to impress a full explanation before the latter ideas *did* process. It was now that her mental reserves engaged, keying in to her fail-safe talent at regurgitating primary and extrapolated information; a gift cultivated by years of relaying facts and conclusions from her missions with him, both official and un. The more she spoke, the more she concentrated on the essence and meaning of what she was saying as opposed to who she was saying it to, and the more detached her mind could render her from the situation- her composure would be stabbed only by the necessity of the word 'you'. That ability alone would make the remainder of the night survivable.
"I had been going out of my mind all year, feeling like a prisoner in my own home, or more specifically my own body. I was always very mature for my age- you of all people know that, now. Hardly an adult, but certainly not an eleven year old. Looking back, I seem to have dispensed with the period spent as the stereotypical giggling pre-adolescent all together. But no matter how I behaved, no matter what frontier I forged or evidence I offered of my greater abilities and needs, no one around me seemed to understand that. The summer before I started at Hogwarts was the real knife, because I had convinced myself that mum and dad were just typical coddling parents, and that the boys would be my salvation once they got home from school- but they were even worse. I was trapped. I wanted to explode half of the time. My only escapes were furiously practicing on the boy's broomsticks - an unknown habit that gave me some sense of power, knowing I was skillful within their comfort zone and they had unknowingly provided the means - and talking about you; one of few subjects that they could follow without condescending to me. I was so sheepish when I finally met you because of my tremendous respect for you, not because I fancied you. I had no idea how to act, or tell myself I was even worthy of your time. At first it completely pre-occupied me, but then I realized that you were my brother's best friend, Harry Potter or not, and it was only right that I treat you accordingly, so I controlled myself. Then I began to discover what a kind, understanding person you were, as well as being extremely familiar with being pre-judged for images. I wanted to connect with you; with someone outside of my bubble I could be on level ground with and might understand me. But every time I tried, Ron knocked me down again. It was the worst it had ever been the day we went to Diagon Ally. The day I met him.
"The diary fell out of my Transfiguration book when I went to pack early that night. I picked it up and looked through it, realized that it was a diary and figured that an absent-minded clerk had shoved it in by accident, or that it was a surplus production the company was using as a free journal for the experiments in the book. Either way, it was mine, and I was comforted for some reason. I had been wishing for someone to talk to who couldn't judge me for my age all summer, and here they had fallen out of the sky. I took it to my desk with the intention of venting everything that I had kept bottled up for the last four months, but when I wrote the date in the corner the ink was absorbed into the page. At first I supposed that the paper was just old and thick, but then looked again and saw that there was still writing; I thought that the date disappearing was just my exhausted imagination, that I was too tired. But when I went to close the book I saw that the handwriting wasn't mine, nor was the phrase what I had written. Perfectly aligned in the corner of the page was neatly scrawled in his obviously antique hand - 'Is it 1992 already?'
"That night was a whirlwind of information exchange. We learned nearly everything about each other's lives- names, places, likes, dislikes, basic beliefs . . . Then surface facts gave way to deeper issues, like being pre- judged for age, a condition he identified whole-heartedly with, passions, fears, pasts, hoped futures- the last somewhat cryptically illustrated on his part- and sleep was forgotten. It wasn't until mum called everyone down for breakfast that I realized any time had passed at all . . . Writing to him was like unlocking my body and letting my mind run free, away from the confines of appearances. It was my sanctuary, and I did it almost constantly every day until I flushed the diary for you to find."
"For me to *find*?" The simple, bewildered statement fell tragically short of expressing the muddle that was his mind at the moment. He desperately hoped she'd say no, but found his hope, as well as everything that he thought he knew about his intended spouse, shattered when she answered with a short, simple "Yes."
An awkward silence hovered for a moment, as she screwed up her courage to leap off of he cliff looming ahead of her- "He wasn't controlling me. I knew what I was literally doing the entire time. The person I was then intentionally released the basilisk, and did most of the planning to capture you herself. She was captivated by him. She loved him. She would have done anything to help him in his . . . and in the end her own . . . cause."
She did not have to look to the bed to know precisely the level of his disbelief, chiseled into a frozen and horrified face, at that moment. She could only explain, and hope he understood.
~*~*~*~
Title : Confessions of an Heiress (Edited Version)
Author : Snapespook
Genre : Drama / Romance
Rating : A solid, to-be-taken-seriously PG-13 (sexuality, mild sexual violence, dialogue about said events)
Summary : It is the night before Ginny's graduation from Hogwarts, as well as a month before her wedding, which she can't go through with until she confronts her heroic groom to be with the truth of the love and darkness in her past. . .
Please R/R
DISCLAIMER : All characters and any pre-existing events, situations, timelines or plots referenced to are the sole property of the ingenious JK Rowling and whoever else she's given the go-ahead to over the years, not me. My only editorial comment: Bummer.
A/N : I would like to apologize in advance for the no-frills physical appearance of the story; the old *insert stressed word here* method is all I can swing, and I have attempted to alleviate bunching by breaking the text up into mini-paragraphs, but not to the point of impeding on the flow. Any suggestions to improve the effectiveness of the format that my processor is capable of, please make them.
The story as a whole pertains to the original sub-plot of Ginny's life, and stretches over CoS, PoA, GoF, and OtP (most heavily CoS), and you really need to have read them all to get everything in here. The Chamber of Secrets references and tie-ins are faithful to the book, not the movie (ironic, seeing as the movie was my inspiration for the story in the first place), which as a singular source of background information will leave you totally lost. I tie my translation into everything, I assure you. In fact, I would be extremely appreciative to hear of any holes.
Deals with one instance of extremely mildly portrayed but spoken about rape later on, and gets limey just once toward the middle- both are pretty tastefully danced around with vocabulary, though. I tell you that both are coming, and both are contained in memories that she is thinking about while explaining them, so they are between the lines of ^^^ symbols in their chapters, and skipping them won't throw you completely off. But if there's one thing that absolutely no part of this fic or the events portrayed within are intended to be, it's gratuitous.
R/R : I would really appreciate feedback on this piece, especially on my characterization of Harry and style (perspective, the time shifts. . .). Any suggestions for improvement, please make them.
And now, on with the show:
~~ Confessions of an Heiress ~~
~ Chapter 1 : Summons to Truth ~
She momentarily ceased her relentless pacing in the dust-riddled quarters to peer out of the window and felt her heart leap into her throat when she saw him, briskly striding in characteristic feigned confidence up the walkway outside. As she watched his disheveled pitch head journey beneath her and disappear into the pub below, her mind began to race in utter mental panic. She sucked in a final breath of air, which had absolutely none of the calming effect that she had hoped for, and collected herself for what she knew would be one of the most difficult nights of her life.
She turned to the door on the opposite wall in anticipation of him, leaning the small of her back painfully into the windowsill and digging her nails into the head bedpost of the barely accommodated four-poster in the corner to her left, intentionally torturing her nailbeds as she attempted to delve further into the worn wood. She needed the minor stabs of pain, to keep her grasp on reality and her surroundings, in order to not mentally or physically wander off in search of a more appealing situation. For those few seconds she understood those who simply lied to avoid nights like this- such self-deception would certainly render the whole of her life far easier, but she needed to tell him. The words needed to exit her lips in order to put their contents behind her, to rid them from her present mind and leave room for the future. His hand was now on the doorknob, turning it painfully slowly to admit him to the unexpected ambush of truth.
He entered the room, pleased as always at any opportunity to see her, particularly before so momentous an occasion as her graduation, but inquisitive of her odd selection of locale- he knew from her tone when she asked him to clear his evening and meet her that sex was not the object, but he could think of little else that the cramped quarters of the Three Broomsticks' microscopic inn could be used for. He had suspected that she wished to share something with him, but after several hours of agonizing 'what-if's, including most prominently the thought that she was employing the detached safety of an easily escaped to public place to leave him, he had decided to simply swallow his fears as he was so accustomed to doing and face what was no doubt nowhere near as earth-shattering a revelation as she felt it to be. He loved his Gin dearly, but she did tend to over- dramatize matters having anything to do with revelations about herself. To him, at least. Little could be perceived as dramatic to him anymore.
He then recalled a nagging theory; she had engaged in this ritual a few times before, but whatever revelation was her actual intention had never surfaced; substituted at the last moment by some bit of only minorly surprising fluff - resolute intention lost to timorousness. But perhaps this time she would finally reveal whatever skeleton had been haunting her. It was this thought and slight apprehension of its possible consequence that silenced him, not wanting to interrupt her courage.
She met him with an almost imperceptible grain of nervousness in her smile and stood slightly on tiptoe to give him a peck on his right cheek, now far higher than her own after the growth spurt of his fifth and sixth years, and settled back on the heels of her boots somewhat unsteadily. Her mind, in its desperate search for an alternate subject to her task at hand, briefly mulled over how odd it was that she still wasn't entirely used to this new greater height difference, even after two years' practice, and how nice it had been for her petite frame to be less than a clear foot shorter than at least one male in her life for a while. After she had performed the routine locking and silencing spells on the room, with the addition of an incantation that he could not quite place, they sat on the edge of the bed together in mutual silence- he hadn't seen her this vulnerable since her third year, and had no desire to further the condition.
He also knew that anything capable of ruffling the pillar of cool composure and logic under pressure that was Virginia Weasley was no small or impersonal matter. It was reverence for this fact that continued to hold his tongue in check as her hand gingerly brushed his, as though to ask permission. He eagerly granted it, firmly grasping her hand in his to steady her. It was then that she felt the machinery of her logic centers engage, informing her mouth that silence would get them nowhere.
"Harry, I have something to tell you. Several things, actually. Things that I am genuinely sorry that I kept from you until now, things I don't want to tell you even now, but things that I need to. And I need you to listen, to every word I have to say and not interrupt, or go off on any tangents or quests, or stop listening or just plain leave until I'm finished. Once I am, you can ask any questions you like, or leave to never come back, but I want you to remember . . . you say yourself that I'm a different person now . . . and this is immensely difficult for me."
He squeezed her hand and gave her what he hoped was as reassuring a look as he intended. She took a relieved breath, reminding herself of who this was, and felt the need to remind him as well- "The first thing that I need to say," she began "is that I love you. I love every bit of your heart and soul with every fiber in my being and that will *never* change. It was never a lie, it was never a stretch. I need you to remember that, no matter what comes out of my mouth."
She could no longer remain still, nervousness having its silent half- suppressed way with her, so she stood and resumed her past hour's pastime of pacing in a small curve in front of him, airy spring robes rustling gently with each calculating step. She had worked out exactly what order in which to deliver her information to be as painless as possible and prepared herself as well as she was humanly able, rehearsed nearly every word, but presented with the actual moment she was now unsure.
"When . . . I . . ." She halted her pacing once again, apparently having shifted the energy expenditure to her vocal chords, yet still never meeting his gaze. "The first year that Sirius was gone, when Hermione at home for the Easter break and you needed the sweat of a female virgin for one of your . . . extracurricular endeavors . . ." He blushed slightly, recognizing the somewhat chiding tone of her words, recalling some of the more foolhardy 'extracurricular endeavors' that he had engaged in over the years before she continued with ". . . I didn't really have plans to go to Gillian's before it needed to be added. I told her it was an early birthday surprise, and had to beg her mother to let me stay until I would have been useless to you."
She briefly looked up at his bewildered face, his search for some pertinence in what she was telling him playing out in his furrowed brow and slightly glazing eyes, and then directly told him "I did it because I didn't want to tell you that I couldn't help you. . ." Her eyes dropped again, taking her voice with it as she went on ". . . that I wasn't a virgin. That I hadn't been for nearly four years." The math quickly done, his eyes dilated in horror at the conclusion that it rendered. She was unaware of this, however, for she had turned her back to him and begun peering mournfully out the window- recipient of the puzzling charm to render it uni-directional- as she continued "Not since the night you destroyed Tom." The tone of her voice was oddly strained at this last statement, though he did not see fit to analyze why through his rising fury.
His fists clenched bunches of he plain tattered bedspread on either side of him as his voice struggled to restrain the yell into a semi-normal tone, but failed miserably "That bastard *RAPED you*?!?!". She rounded on him so quickly that he did not even see her porcelain hand prior to feeling it's furious sting across his cheek. Towering over him from her standing position, her rarely utilized but deadly skill at intimidation was at full throttle as she screamed into his stunned face "You NEVER speak of him like that again!!!!" It was mere seconds after the words had exited her mouth that she realized what she had done. Suddenly petrified, she sank to her knees in front of him as though to beg forgiveness. She reached up to caress the burning shadow of her own hand across his flesh, eyes threatening to mist; she had not expected to lose control of her emotions like this. She spoke with begging fervor as she met his murky liquid green orbs with her own deep molten brown and painfully whispered "I love you", to rhyme with 'I'm sorry.' Absinthe and coffee again parted ways as she became fascinated by a point in space at her own level across the room for the duration of a deadly pause. "And I loved him."
Despite his efforts to maintain her hand's position on his face, it slid down his body to drop and meet its fellow before their owner's legs rose and resumed their stance before the window. "I don't even know where to start" she frankly stated, voice forcibly empty, refusing her emotions exit. "The beginning is always a good place" came his reply, the curt bite of which surprised him, for he had never before been able to contemplate the desire to wound her, but he had also never felt so completely and utterly violated in his life. Having just been informed that not only was he not the keeper of his fiancee's virginity, as he had known until two minutes previous, he was also being assaulted with the even more brutalizing concept that the revived memory of his archnemesis which had attempted his murder in its own right *was*. No other concepts, including the slap or her last statement, had fully processed, averting the impending overload of his conscious mind from the barrage of impossible information and subsequent physical release thereof; a blessing for any furniture in the room that did not wish to be demolished.
Her emotional pain at his tone was only a physically enacted wince, for she had been expecting this, and endeavored to impress a full explanation before the latter ideas *did* process. It was now that her mental reserves engaged, keying in to her fail-safe talent at regurgitating primary and extrapolated information; a gift cultivated by years of relaying facts and conclusions from her missions with him, both official and un. The more she spoke, the more she concentrated on the essence and meaning of what she was saying as opposed to who she was saying it to, and the more detached her mind could render her from the situation- her composure would be stabbed only by the necessity of the word 'you'. That ability alone would make the remainder of the night survivable.
"I had been going out of my mind all year, feeling like a prisoner in my own home, or more specifically my own body. I was always very mature for my age- you of all people know that, now. Hardly an adult, but certainly not an eleven year old. Looking back, I seem to have dispensed with the period spent as the stereotypical giggling pre-adolescent all together. But no matter how I behaved, no matter what frontier I forged or evidence I offered of my greater abilities and needs, no one around me seemed to understand that. The summer before I started at Hogwarts was the real knife, because I had convinced myself that mum and dad were just typical coddling parents, and that the boys would be my salvation once they got home from school- but they were even worse. I was trapped. I wanted to explode half of the time. My only escapes were furiously practicing on the boy's broomsticks - an unknown habit that gave me some sense of power, knowing I was skillful within their comfort zone and they had unknowingly provided the means - and talking about you; one of few subjects that they could follow without condescending to me. I was so sheepish when I finally met you because of my tremendous respect for you, not because I fancied you. I had no idea how to act, or tell myself I was even worthy of your time. At first it completely pre-occupied me, but then I realized that you were my brother's best friend, Harry Potter or not, and it was only right that I treat you accordingly, so I controlled myself. Then I began to discover what a kind, understanding person you were, as well as being extremely familiar with being pre-judged for images. I wanted to connect with you; with someone outside of my bubble I could be on level ground with and might understand me. But every time I tried, Ron knocked me down again. It was the worst it had ever been the day we went to Diagon Ally. The day I met him.
"The diary fell out of my Transfiguration book when I went to pack early that night. I picked it up and looked through it, realized that it was a diary and figured that an absent-minded clerk had shoved it in by accident, or that it was a surplus production the company was using as a free journal for the experiments in the book. Either way, it was mine, and I was comforted for some reason. I had been wishing for someone to talk to who couldn't judge me for my age all summer, and here they had fallen out of the sky. I took it to my desk with the intention of venting everything that I had kept bottled up for the last four months, but when I wrote the date in the corner the ink was absorbed into the page. At first I supposed that the paper was just old and thick, but then looked again and saw that there was still writing; I thought that the date disappearing was just my exhausted imagination, that I was too tired. But when I went to close the book I saw that the handwriting wasn't mine, nor was the phrase what I had written. Perfectly aligned in the corner of the page was neatly scrawled in his obviously antique hand - 'Is it 1992 already?'
"That night was a whirlwind of information exchange. We learned nearly everything about each other's lives- names, places, likes, dislikes, basic beliefs . . . Then surface facts gave way to deeper issues, like being pre- judged for age, a condition he identified whole-heartedly with, passions, fears, pasts, hoped futures- the last somewhat cryptically illustrated on his part- and sleep was forgotten. It wasn't until mum called everyone down for breakfast that I realized any time had passed at all . . . Writing to him was like unlocking my body and letting my mind run free, away from the confines of appearances. It was my sanctuary, and I did it almost constantly every day until I flushed the diary for you to find."
"For me to *find*?" The simple, bewildered statement fell tragically short of expressing the muddle that was his mind at the moment. He desperately hoped she'd say no, but found his hope, as well as everything that he thought he knew about his intended spouse, shattered when she answered with a short, simple "Yes."
An awkward silence hovered for a moment, as she screwed up her courage to leap off of he cliff looming ahead of her- "He wasn't controlling me. I knew what I was literally doing the entire time. The person I was then intentionally released the basilisk, and did most of the planning to capture you herself. She was captivated by him. She loved him. She would have done anything to help him in his . . . and in the end her own . . . cause."
She did not have to look to the bed to know precisely the level of his disbelief, chiseled into a frozen and horrified face, at that moment. She could only explain, and hope he understood.
~*~*~*~