Reaching
By starstruck
Author's Note: I wrote most of this a few months ago, but decided I didn't like it and didn't quite finish. I found it and decided I liked it again, finished it, and posted it before I stop liking it again.
Before, I wanted to focus more on how the Harry/Ginny marriage went, but now it's also fairly Weasley-centric. It was angsty and strange before, and it's still angsty and strange. And I'm not even sure why I do like it.
In any case, if the italics disappear, every other scene (beginning with the first, then the third), is italicized.
--
When he asks her to marry him, she doesn't understand. Not really.
On the surface, she is still a little girl, bubbling with her quickly resurfacing first love. And, on top of that, she's experiencing a sudden need for life to come quickly Ð wars tend to awaken carpe diem in people. Besides, it was Harry Potter. So many girls would die to have him.
Some already had.
Still, some part of her wars against it. They had never even really been friends, let alone lovers. He had never pressed his soft lips to her pink ones, had never entangled his large fingers in her long ones, never taken her into his arms. They weren't lovers, sweethearts, or any other ridiculous term given to people in the throes of love or lust. Why did he want her? Why would he want her?
But she tosses her hair defiantly, looks into his lost green eyes, and says, "Alright then.
--
They were immediately elevated to symbols of the better times to come.
She was sure, then, that it was all because of Harry Ð he was, after all, the Boy who Lived Twice.
Later, she understood that she was part of it. It was only logical that the rosy-cheeked daughter of the faithful Weasleys and the great Harry Potter would join together in matrimony... and love. If she could rise from the ashes of her dead brothers and father to be so happily married, everyone else could go on as well.
Harry understood, even then.
She didn't.
--
He touches her often when people are watching. A stolen kiss, a long arm slunk around her waist, a hand brushed across her cheek.
He stops when they were alone. She aches and longs for even the slightest hint of affection. But she can't tell him.
She has the power to drive him away.
She will never use it.
--
Eventually, they learned how to seek warmth in each other. They were two disillusioned souls lost in the cold of pain and war. And now he needed her.
When she was heavy with his child, she went to see her family often. Her mother, George, and little Juliet. George never spoke of the dead. Her mother rarely did. And when she did, it was always the same conversation.
"Look at her," her mother would whisper through parched lips as Juliet dug through the grass, her slick brown hair blowing in the slight afternoon breeze. "Tell me what you see, Ginny.
"I see Juliet," she would always say.
"No, you don't," her mother would continue. "You see him. We all do. He's in her eyes, in her expression, in her movements. Don't you see him, Ginny?
"I suppose.
"He loved his little Juliet. He loved her as we must always love her.
"They both loved her," she would tell her mother.
"They both died for her," her mother would utter.
--
One day, when she is older and perhaps wiser, she sees herself in the mirror and doesn't recognize herself.
And she wonders what happened.
She noticed it in everyone else, of course. In Lily, who grows more gangly and black haired like her father every day. In her mother, who looks old in a way she never did before.
In Harry.
He doesn't look at her like he used to.
And when she looks at him, sometimes she wonders if he ever really loved her.
He used to tell her they were written in the stars, meant to be, destined to be together.
Harry had always trusted prophecies.
And even as the sun gleams through the windows, the dark closes in on her. And she needs it to stop.
--
Molly didn't question her sudden appearance on the doorstep with Lily and Orion in tow. She simply smiled and showed them in.
Juliet and George joined them for lunch, but the table was still as silent as they are always with each other now. She wondered why they even called themselves Weasleys anymore. As alive as they may have been, her family was long gone.
And Juliet would fill the silence with talk of Quidditch and other things that were important then but not now.
And even as Juliet's mild voice fills the air, the silence drowns them.
--
She yells to her mirror, making all kinds of claims and threats and hurtful words to it. She tells it to stop thinking of itself and think of her for a moment. She tells it she's sick of this, of them, and she just wants to get away. She calls it words she pretends she's never heard and cries and hates herself while she says them.
Orion wants her to stop.
But she can't, she can't, the words are flowing like a river and they won't end, they won't dry up, they won't, they won't, they can't
"Mommy," his voice is a whine, a whimper, that of a scared child. She turns to him, finally, and then she sees his eyes, his father's eyes, and she collapses onto her bed, his bed, their bed and cries.
--
He came home and they all pretended like they were normal. Lily spoke of the weather, and Orion spoke with of the robes he'd wear to Hogwarts as though the day were tomorrow, and they all laughed as Harry ruffled Orion's messy red hair.
Maybe this is the way it is for everyone now. Maybe hope and happiness and the things that made her family died with the war.
The tears began to slide down her cheek again, and she excused herself to the bathroom so they wouldn't notice her sobbing again. Harry and Lily gave her quick "Okays" and returned to their conversation, but Orion gave her a quick unnoticeable hug.
And she ran faster, because then the tears threatened to spill faster.
--
When they died, she never had time to grieve for them. She'd cry pretend tears at their funerals, and then they'd all be off saving the world again, and she'd pretend that most of her family and friends weren't covered with dirt and old flowers.
Now she feels guilty for never visiting the cold stones above them. She cries and cries now, her sobs and moans scaring the children outside to play.
And then she hates herself all the more, because she isn't crying for them, she's crying for herself, and all that she's lost and all she can't have now and won't have ever. And she doesn't know why she's so selfish now.
--
"You're the last Weasley, you know," she told Juliet one day.
"That's silly, Aunt Ginny," laughed Juliet while she picked more red flowers for the vase on the table. "There's grandmother and Uncle George and you, of course. You're all Weasleys. And Lily and Orion are Weasleys, too. We all are. Not just me.
"Lily and Orion are Potters," she explained. "They have the Weasley blood, maybe, but that doesn't matter anymore, you know. And mother, George, and I are extinguished Weasleys.
Juliet paused, confused. The flower in her hand was almost picked, but it held desperately to its stem, clinging to the last of it's origin.
"We were all Weasleys," she said, maybe to Juliet, maybe to herself, so that she could finally understand. "But the war took our family, our happiness, and our fire. We can't be Weasleys without each other.
Juliet turned to look at her for the first time. Her hair was peppered with the beginnings of grey now, which it shouldn't have been yet, but it was. The wind blew and it blew with it, and Juliet wondered why someone relatively young looked old and sad.
"Weasley isn't just a name, it's a state of being," she concluded finally. "And you're the only real one left, Juliet.
And before the bewildered redhead girl could speak, the woman was gone, off to find her own children and take them home so they can play house.
And Juliet stared after her, distracted so that when she gave the flower a final tug, it uprooted completely, taking all the other flowers and buds with it.
--
The world didn't need their symbol anymore, she explained to herself. They didn't need Harry Potter and his beautiful Weasley wife, the perfect example of absolute wedded bliss and love.
Anyone who could forget or move on had, and those who couldn't pretended to. And now she was just one of them.
Sometimes she can remember what it felt like to be happy. She feels like happiness is a thing she once had in abundance, and as she grew older, it became more and more out of reach. But sometimes it still dazzles her, teasing and making her reach for it, even though it will never give itself up.
She will never stop reaching.
--
If you're wondering about Juliet's parentage, it's up to you. She's the daughter of one of the dead Weasley brothers, but the father and the mother can be your choice. They're just both dead.
I had originally planned to specifically indicate who her parents were, but I just couldn't make it sound right, so I just left her in as the granddaughter with not-quite-specified parentage.