What She Did
"Where love is concerned, too much is not even enough." – Pierre Beaumarchais
Ginny Weasley does not flinch when the love of her life breaks up with her.
Tears slip down her face, fast and furious, but she does not show just how badly he has broken her heart. She nod and she tries to let him know that she understands. She does understand, for the most part, but there is another part of her—a part that is screaming so loudly she sometimes presses her hands over her ears to drown it out—that wants to scream at him, throw things and tell him that she doesn't forgive him, not for this.
Instead, Ginny nods and retreats back to the castle, desperately trying to hold herself together. She had believed he would be there for her in these horrible times, strong, steady, and willing to fight by her side. And now he won't be, and she berates herself for not expecting it. The Boy-Who-Lived has to be their savior once again; she shouldn't have been so selfish to think she would get him to herself, even for a little while.
Her heart is breaking as she remembers their stolen kiss, the way she would feel warmer when he sat next to her, and how soft his hands would feel as they explored each other's bodies, a little more adventurous each day. Voldemort and O.W.L.'s had flown from her mind, replaced with the feel of his lips on her neck and the steady pounding of his heartbeat beneath her trembling fingers. She won't have anything to distract her next year, and that terrifies her more than anything else.
Ginny Weasley gazes into the night sky and waits.
She has waited for Harry Potter all her life, but waiting for her family is new, and the combination makes this all the more frightening. She's too young, of course she is, so she stays at home with her mother and cleans until her fingers are raw. She needs to do something, anything, to distract herself from the thought of someone not coming home.
One of the first people back is Harry, and it is so hard not to throw herself into his arms and kiss him, as she has so often dreamed of. A few months ago, she could have done that, and it breaks her heart all over again when he just stares at her, because she knows that he wants to hold her too.
Instead of drawing comfort from the one man who has been by her side all her life—he saved her from death when they were twelve—Ginny hugs herself and tries not to cry, because her brothers and her father and so many others are out there and Voldemort attacked and that wasn't supposed to happen.
Not for the first time, she wishes she could have been fighting too. She's seen death, has fought in other battles. She was fifteen the first time she was tempted to cast the killing curse—but she didn't, and she thanks Harry for that, because he is the one she thought of to prevent herself from doing the unforgivable—and sixteen when she had to watch her brother's face get mauled and not be able to do anything about it because if she looked away from her enemy to try and help—just for one second—it could cost Ginny her life.
Almost everyone comes back, but then George and Lupin show up and there is blood dripping down his side and he's deathly pale. She's trying so hard not to cry—she presses her lips together as tightly as possible and holds her shoulders in an attempt to stop shaking. Her mum fusses over him, and even as she's told he'll be alright—he'll be without an ear, but at least he's not dead, hmm?—and the rest of her family arrives, one by one, the pit in her stomach won't drop.
And then she learns someone has died, and she almost loses it, because what if that had been Ron or Fred or George or her father…? What if that had been Harry? She can't bear entertain the idea, not even for a second.
That night, she spends hours in the bathroom, pressing her face against the toilet seat and trying not to lose whatever she had managed to get into her stomach earlier.
Ginny Weasley knows that Harry broke up with her, but she also knows that he didn't want to.
She realizes that she's taking a chance when she pulls him into her bedroom for a kiss, but she can't bring herself to dwell on that. All she wants is to be embraced by him again. She's missed him so much, so very much, and she needs something before he leaves her behind, as he inevitably will.
The kiss is wonderful. They are passionate and needing and wanting, and she is drawn back to slightly better times. Ginny wants nothing more than to drag him to her bed, and go further than they ever have before—and she wants to do this because she loves him, so much more than she ever imagined possible.
A part of Ginny thinks that maybe showing him how much she needs him will make him take her with him (take her with him because she is quite aware that absolutely nothing—not even her best kisses or her most desperate attempts to argue—will make him stay).
And then Ron comes along to ruin everything, and she is by herself again, utterly alone. She wants to curse or scream or hit him, but she swallows all of that down and moves on, as she usually does.
She's still not sure how she'll make it through the next year without him.
Ginny Weasley quietly finds her seat on the train and specifically doesn't think about the fact that there are three people in this compartment when there should be six.
Luna and Neville are just as silent on the train ride to Hogwarts. None of them know what's coming, which makes the coming year all the more terrifying.
What they do know is that there will be Death Eaters running rampant throughout the schools, and Muggleborns are being rounded up like cattle. They don't know how many of them are being killed, and how many are being sent to Azkaban. What they do know is that half of the usual First Years are missing; half of the rest of the school is missing. They walk around the corridors with grim faces.
No one smiles or laughs—they are too busy worrying about how badly they will get flogged in their detention later, or if the Carrows will throw a random Cruciatus at them. Ginny and Neville and Luna start the DA again, and involve as many people as possible. They try to create a safe haven for some students—any student they can.
As Parvati Patil leans over the first student in a long line (and this is just from the last day's detention), Ginny thanks her quietly for wanting to become a Healer. Parvati doesn't answer for a long time, and then she says that healing a twelve-year-old form the Cruciatus curse wasn't what she had in mind when making that decision.
Ginny Weasley can't stand to miss him so much.
Long after everyone else goes to bed, she curls up on the couch, tucks her chin between her knees, squeezes her eyes shut, and tries to put together every memory she has of Harry Potter. She thinks of their first meeting, when he was just a scrawny boy with no mum, and she thinks of frantically waving goodbye to Ron and wondering if he would get a chance to talk with him.
She thinks of waking up one morning to find him eating at her breakfast table; how her heart raced and a blush had spread down her whole body. She'd run to her room, desperate to look nice for this fantastic boy who she'd never met but who had saved everybody in the entire world.
She thinks of opening one of her books to find a diary, and slowly losing herself as she writes and writes and writes, desperately attempting to find out what was happening to her. She thinks of how deathly she felt, and then slowly falling into darkness.
She thinks of waking up in his arms, and how she was so very lost for years after the Chamber. She would watch him from afar and dream of waking up with his arms wrapped around her again (albeit in much better circumstances). She thinks of watching him fight for his life in a tournament he never should have been entered in.
Most of all, though, Ginny thinks of how she became friends with him during her fourth year. She matured and grew as a person, and got to know the real Harry. He wasn't the Boy-Who-Lived anymore, and that was more rewarding than anything she could ever imagine.
She has to stop there some nights; remembering the kisses and the proclamations of love can be too much. She's afraid they'll overwhelm her, and if she begins to cry…
She doesn't know how she'll stop.
Ginny Weasley doesn't want to go into hiding—she makes that abundantly clear. She pleads with her parents, and then makes it as difficult as possible for them to leave the Burrow. It's not as if she wants to go back to school. She just needs to.
She needs to help Neville and Luna fight against the Carrows and Snape. She needs to stand alongside the DA, and be ready and willing to fight when Harry shows up (and she knows him, knows that he will inevitably need an army to kill Voldemort, kill the Death Eaters). Of course, her parents are more concerned about her being kidnapped or being killed, and finally she goes along with them.
It's a pain to stay with Auntie Muriel—cramped into a little house with half of her family during a time of war wouldn't have been fun anyway—but she bears it. She can close her eyes and think of him, think of all that he has done and given up for so many people, and she feels selfish for complaining about anything.
She doesn't deserve Harry.
Ginny Weasley can't breathe.
Her vision is swimming, her heart is beating wildly out of control, and for a moment the only thing that is clear is Harry Potter's dead body, carefully cradled in the arms of a gentle giant.
She has already lost a brother, and that completely destroyed her… but this? The death of her beloved? It decimated her.
And then Ginny has her wand out, and she focuses on the evil smirks gracing the faces of Death Eaters. She stares and Voldemort, and promises that she will help to kill him, no matter what the cost. Her life doesn't matter anymore, not when she'll have to be alone for the rest of it.
Ginny Weasley wants so badly to be angry with Harry Potter.
But she can't—doesn't even know if it's physically possible at this point. He pretended to be dead. Her heart had been broken; she had given up on everything, and he's miraculously sprung back to life. She has never been more thankful… but she's at a loss for what to do next.
She watches him leave the Hall, Hermione and Ron in tow, and resists the urge to follow. He deserves some alone time.
She closes her eyes at the thought, because what Harry Potter deserves is… it's just so much more than she can offer. She wants to give all of herself to him, and maybe that's too much, but he has given up all of himself to everybody else, and he needs to have his girlfriend all to himself.
She can give him that; she can.
Sometimes, though, she's partly afraid… that giving too much of herself, will not be enough.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
This was written for the FanFiction School of Imagination and Creativity, English Assessment 2.
Hope you liked it! I always loved Ginny and Harry! Please, drop a review with your thoughts!