InsaneJournal

Ficlet: Vivid
Title: Vivid
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters: Harry Potter, Ginny Weasley (mention of Ron Weasley)
Word Count: 604
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, Ginny Weasley, Voldemort, etc. I wish I did, though.
Notes: for r_becca's H/G ficlet challenge, I had chosen the word: vivid.
Summary: It's dark. Voldemort has won, and Harry muses over his one major regret, and what became his downfall.
Rating: PG13

VIVID

Harry had such clear, life-like memories of his friends long after the war was over, and they were dead. None were quite as vivid as the images of Ginny Weasley. Of course, he often mused, how those recollections could not be vivid; the colour of her hair alone invited immortalization. It reminded him of all the blood on his hands.

With a small frown, Harry pushed off the floor of his cell. His feet scuffed the dirty stone floor; his left leg dragged behind him for it had been damaged in the final battle in the heart of London. The tourist season made Oxford Street an unbearable vision when the Death Eaters attacked.

Harry had taken Ginny to the shops in an attempt to show her Muggle sights. They’d held hands, and Harry had gotten the courage to finally kiss her. In retrospect, he was glad to have gotten the chance, but every now and then, he wondered if he hadn’t given into his whims, if he hadn’t let his desire for a normal life get the best of him… would Ginny still be alive?

In his head, she was eternally young, a perpetual cherub. She had never been particularly beautiful, but she had a carriage all her own that made her stand out. The freckles on her nose were too prominent, her nose a little too upturned, and her eyes a little too closely set. Something in the combination turned Harry’s head in his seventh year, and he’d finally let Ron talk him into it.

You’re the only person worthy enough to date my sister, Ron had said.

Worthy enough for what? Getting her killed? When Harry replayed the conversation in his head, he always heard this reply over and over again. His internal voice was always strangely willful and bitter. His tone, more than his words, betrayed his thoughts on the witch. She stood out, and she had more in common with him than anyone else; Harry could appreciate that.

And he had gotten her killed.

At the bars of his Azkaban cell, he stared out with old hurt in his eyes, old failures. But Ginny… Ginny was his paramount failure. He’d led her straight into the snake’s nest, knowing that anyone near him was vulnerable. But his seventeen-year old heart (and hormones) wouldn’t let him be, wouldn’t let them stagnate.

There were definite flashbacks inherent; things that he could not forget. He wanted to, more than anything in the world, but the Dementors outside his door refused to let him. It seemed to burn the memories onto the backs of his eyelids, brand them into his frontal lobe.

But Harry refused to cry; he did not deserve the relief, he thought. He could still hear Ginny’s screams as her body was lit under the Cruciatus Curse, could see her writhing. He could not triumph when everyone he loved was stripped from him, and he did not want to fight for a world that did not want him there.

He was paralyzed not only with a Binding spell, but his own impotence. He could not save everyone. In fact, he was sure that he could not help anyone, and that was what led him to turn himself in to Voldemort. To give up completely.

Harry sat in his cell these last few days, waiting for retribution. Every day that passed, he felt it slipping through his fingers, that Voldemort had something he wanted from Harry still. But he didn’t care. All of his purpose, his determination died with the red-haired girl, and he lived only in his vivid memories of her.