Traveling Soldier
This fic was inspired by the Dixie Chicks "Traveling Soldier." I hope you enjoy it.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything associated with Harry Potter, nor do I own the lyrics to "Traveling Soldier." Those rights belong to Warner Brothers and the Dixie Chicks respectively.
Oh, and this is Harry/Ginny. Don't like, don't read. Flames are welcomed, but, please, don't just bash Ginny. She's not that bad.
2 years.
24 months.
730.484398 days.
17531.6255 hours.
1051897.53 minutes.
63113851.9 seconds.
And counting.
"And now, ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming…Ginevra Weasley!"
The people applauded like mindless robots. Their mechanical hands made a deafening roar as the red-headed girl made her way to the stage.
"So Ginny, what song will you be singing for us tonight?"
"Traveling Soldier, by the Dixie Chicks." Her voice was soft; hoarse with sorrow.
"Well there you have it folks, here's our very own Ginny Weasley playing, Traveling Soldier."
The boys catcalled when she sat. She didn't blame them. Her skirt may have been a little too short, but it didn't matter. She wasn't interested in any of the men here, anyway.
"I cried…Never gonna hold the hand of another guy…Too young for him they told her…Waitin' for the love of a travelin' soldier…"
When the boys realized what, or rather who, her song was about, they stopped their dirty calls, disappointed. Their girlfriends glared at Ginny, but she kept playing. She would never stop playing. Never. Not until he was in her arms.
"Our love will never end…Waitin' for the soldier to come back again…Never more to be alone when the letter said…A soldier's coming home…"
The Daily Prophet had declared him MIA(). The people on the street speculated that he was dead. Her family silently agreed, but they never said so to her face. So she waited. For 2 years she waited.
The boys were catcalling again. They had not seen the look of sadness in her eyes. But the girlfriends had stopped glaring. Some of them even had tears trickling down their painted faces, smearing the makeup caked across their skin.
'How sad,' Ginny thought as she played and sang to the crowded bar. 'Why do they wear a mask?'
But she knew she'd never have an answer.
"A man said folks would you bow your heads…For a list of local Vietnam dead…"
Vietnam was a terrible war, that's what her muggle great-grandfather told her while he was still alive. But the aftershock was worse, he said. Men had flashbacks of the torture the Vietnamese inflicted. Asylums filled up with "crazies;" soldiers who had watched their friends die, been assaulted on the front lines, gassed with the terrible chemical that burned your lungs and scorched your eyes. The thing that scared Ginny the most, though, was that she could easily make the connections between the Vietnam War and the war with Voldemort. Both had ended, eventually, but with great costs to both sides, especially that of the victors'. And the soldiers that had fought so bravely for all that they loved had seen things no one should see, done things no human being should do, and their minds had suffered for it. Hoards of men visited their terrible deeds at night as they slept. She knew her Harry was one of them.
"And one name read and nobody really cared…But a pretty little girl with a bow in her hair…"
'And that's true,' she thought, her fingers absentmindedly plucking the strings of her guitar. 'Sure they care about Harry Potter, Man-Who-Saved-The-World, but not the man I know. They know nothing about Plain Old Harry, The-Man-Who-Had-Bad-Dreams-At-Night, The-One-Who-Loved-To-Fly-In-Spring, Survivor, Lover, Confident, Friend. My husband.'
She sighed into the microphone, and the sound seemed to spring forth from the very depths of her soul. It swirled in the dusty, beer-drenched air for a moment, then dropped off to nestle somewhere far away, where despair thrived on the tear's of lost loved ones.
"I cried…Never gonna hold the hand of another guy…"
The door jingled. One more customer. One more person to hear her broken heart.
"Too young for him they told her…Waitin' for the love of a travelin' soldier…"
The crowd began to whisper excitedly, but Ginny couldn't bring herself to care. She lost herself in the song that so accurately described her love and her.
"Our love will never end…Waitin' for the soldier to come back again…"
Someone shouted, but they were quickly silenced. A tense, hushed quiet fell over the mass of listeners.
"Never more to be alone when the letter said…A soldier's coming…"
A single tear ran down her face.
"I cried…Never gonna hold the hand of another guy…" A strong baritone rang out with her own voice, clear as day.
Ginny whirled around, still playing, to come face-to-face with a man, dripping wet and covered head to toe in mud. But his face and hands were clean, and his calloused fingers gripped the spare microphone with suppressed passion.
"Too young for him they told her…Waitin' for the love of a travelin' soldier…"
Her gaze moved up his face, drinking in the sight.
"Our love will never end…Waitin' for the soldier to come back again…"
His green eyes, deadened by war but still lit with a small defiant spark, locked onto hers. He walked forward slowly, almost drunkenly. Swaying with the soft music.
"Never more to be alone when the letter said…A soldier's coming home…"
The last few notes rang in the still air. Then, as if hit with a charge of electricity, the man dropped his mic and ran across the last half of the stage.
Ginny met him with open arms.
"Never more to be alone when the letter said…A soldier's coming home…"
AN: Lovely reader, won't you review? Please? I want your thoughts!
()-Missing in Action-used to describe a soldier's unknown whereabouts.