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For a long time—it feels like an hour, though maybe it's actually less than that—the apartment is silent except for the noises coming out of Ginevra, short, bitten-off sobs, as though she's fighting them back but they're forcing themselves out. It's taking everything Sam has not to get up and go in there, but she specifically told him to stay out, and so he is. It's not like when Jess used to cry, squalls that would flare up and blow over, and she always felt better afterwards. Listening to this is like having pieces of himself ripped out.
He does, at least, move so that Ginevra can see him. She's sitting on the floor, curled into herself as tightly as possible, arms wrapped around her knees, head down against them. And finally she looks up, her face a cast of misery, and they look at each other. He can't think of anything to say—there's nothing that can be said to make this OK—and so he settles for saying nothing.
"You think I'm disgusting," she finally says, her voice hoarse.
"No," Sam says. "No, Ginevra. Never."
"You heard what I did to Malfoy. That's disgusting. You'd be right to think so."
"I wouldn't think any less of you if you'd done that to someone of your own volition, and God knows I wouldn't think that because you did it when you didn't want to."
"I didn't even struggle," she says, and her voice threatens to break again.
"You couldn't struggle."
"Maybe if I'd been stronger. Maybe if I'd wanted to more."
"You kept your own mind against a spell that takes it away. You fought it." She shakes her head, and Sam says, "I never told you that I was possessed, did I?"
She looks up, surprise chasing the misery off her face. "By the devil?"
"By a demon. It wanted revenge on Dean and me for sending it to hell."
"When was this?"
"Not long ago. A few months back." He waits for a reaction, but there isn't one, just an expression of inquiry, waiting for him to go on. He says, "I did some pretty fucked-up shit when I was possessed. I murdered someone, Ginevra. Someone who never did anything to me. I murdered a man, shot my brother, and assaulted a friend of mine. Oh, and robbed a gas station. For malt liquor and menthol cigarettes." He rubs his eyes. "Because the demon that possessed me was a class act."
"You didn't do those things," Ginevra says. Her eyes are, as ever, intelligent and direct. "The demon did."
"The distinction frequently feels academic. I remember most of the time I was possessed, and I…I remember not just doing most of those things, but wanting to do them. Enjoying them. I think sometimes that if I'd been stronger, I would have been able to fight the demon off, at least long enough to—" He edits himself. "Long enough to keep from doing what I did."
Her expression is just skeptical enough that he wonders if she guessed what he was about to say. "I got possessed once, too," Ginevra says. "But largely due to my own stupidity. It was my first year at Hogwarts, and I found this lovely diary that would answer when I wrote in it." She shakes her head. "Voldemort had imprinted it with his spirit. It turned out to be a horcrux. Of course. So while I thought I had discovered this wonderful friend, I was really using an object of Dark magic—more or less the darkest magic there is. I opened up a chamber containing a basilisk, which proceeded to petrify several students, including Hermione, and meanwhile Voldemort was sucking up my energy to make himself corporeal again. Not to mention that I confessed all my innermost thoughts and feelings to him. I told him about my crush on Harry! Not only did I cause furor and havoc on the Hogwarts campus, but I talked about my love life—or lack of one—to an evil overlord!"
Sam laughs; he can't help it. "What did the evil overlord have to say about it?"
"He was surprisingly insightful," Ginevra says sulkily. "The wanker." After a pause, she adds, "You can come back into the kitchen if you wish."
"Are you sure?"
"I wouldn't say so if I wasn't," she informs him in the arch Ginevra-voice he's come to know so well.
He comes in and sits down against the cabinets a few feet away from her. To his surprise, Ginevra scoots over next to him. After a moment, her head drops onto his shoulder. "Can I put my arm around you?" he asks after another moment.
She doesn't answer out loud, but she wiggles her way underneath it and he gets the hint. Gently, he tucks loose strands of hair behind her ear. "I think you're brave," he says in barely a whisper, but his voice won't come out any louder than that. "And strong, and fiercely intelligent, and just fierce in general."
"I am not." Ginevra's voice is no steadier than his.
"Yes, you are. And hilarious, and kind, and beautiful, and occasionally prone to ill-considered but heartfelt behavior such as throwing down against religious fanatics five times your size. What that asshole did to you—hell, both those assholes, we'll count Voldemort, too—has nothing to do with all that. The only thing that makes me think is that I'd like to shake your friend Neville's hand for killing him."
"Thanks," she says quietly.
"You're welcome."
He should take his fingers out of her hair. She's four months out of a rape and problemetically young and going back to England and nothing good ever happens to women who get involved with him, and he should stop stroking her hair and he should not be thinking that its coarse-soft texture feels like raw silk.
Except that it does.
He's completely fucked.