Ginny Weasley stared into her teacup as if willing it to give her answers, to take her pain away. Her head throbbed, her heart ached, her eyes still stung with the remnants of the tears that had washed them for what seemed like ages now. She knew they were red and blotchy and she no longer cared. She didn't know what to care about anymore. She felt as though she'd been gutted. Fred was dead. How could she continue with any semblance of normalcy? Her mother was broken, her father lost. Each of her five remaining brothers blamed himself for what had happened, Percy most of all and he was inconsolable. George roamed the Burrow like a ghost and she had to admit it hurt to look at him. She took comfort in Harry, but he was exhausted. She daren't add to his burden.
Now she sat alone, awake in the middle of the night. Everyone else had gone to bed hours ago, but she'd been unable to find sleep. She hadn't realized until losing Fred, just how much she'd taken her family for granted. To her, they'd always be there, all of them...a unit. The only thing positive to come from this heart-wrenching tragedy was that now she felt closer to Percy than she ever had. He'd reasserted himself into the family and was resolved to make amends for his bad behavior of the past. Of course everyone had forgiven him, welcomed him, he need not trouble himself in such a time. Sighing, she looked at the clock, the famous Weasley clock that didn't tell time, but told her where each member of her family was. The arm that had represented Fred had vanished, just as though he'd never been. A cabinet slammed and she jumped up, her wand raised, the instincts of the battle still fresh in her body.
"Oh, Ginny dear...I didn't see you there," her mother said, a teacup in her hand and the same tear tracts down her cheeks that Ginny knew she herself sported.
"I'll put the kettle on for you," she said feeling embarrassed for some reason. Something about seeing her mother so raw made her feel small and helpless.
"I'm sorry I've been neglecting you," Mrs. Weasley said. The words stung Ginny. How could her mother feel that way? She had so much to deal with. Could she really make herself feel even lower?
"Mum, you haven't...not at all! If anything, we haven't helped you enough."
"Oh, who knows what to do in these situations?" she said. "When I lost my brothers..."
"Mum..." Ginny did not want to hear about lost brothers. She'd spent the better part of the year attempting to accept the fact that Ron could die, but had quickly learned that no amount of understanding could fully prepare a person for the loss of a loved-one. When Harry, Ron, and Hermione had shown up at Hogwarts on the eve of the battle, after months of not knowing where they were, she'd felt a hope like no other. She'd thought all was well, that nothing could possibly happen to her family now they were all together. She'd never imagined...Fred...and she'd been dangerously close herself to meeting her end.
"We'll stick together," Ginny said a last. "That's what we'll do." The kettle boiled and Ginny cast a silencing charm on it to keep from waking anyone else. She knew they all needed sleep if they could get it.
"This chamomile always makes me think of you," said her mother smiling, though the smile didn't quite touch her eyes. "How you hated it as a child...but when you were ill, I insisted..."
When you were a child, said her mother. Did this mean that now she saw Ginny as a grown-witch? Funny how when Ginny felt younger than ever, Mrs. Weasley should finally see her as an adult. "We hardly ever used potions or tonics when you children caught colds or flu. Your father read about the soothing properties of tea in a book about muggles...and it always worked with the boys, but you...you thought it tasted like flowers and you said it reminded you of garden gnomes. You used to be scared of them, you know?"
"What?"
"Yes. Oh, how you'd complain that they were trying to bite your fingers."
"Were they?"
"Oh, it's possible.."
"But they're so harmless!"
"Yes, well. Hard to imagine now, considering the woman you've become..." Ginny resisted the urge to then ask her mother why she wasn't allowed to sleep in the same room as Harry if she was so grown, but decided against it. Still, she smiled that the thought had occurred to her when she'd been too bereft to lighten the mood with joking lately. "I'm so proud of you, Ginevra!" And her mother suddenly burst into tears and the sorrow broke over Ginny like a cracked egg. She put her arms around her mother and let her cry into her pajamas. At the moment she felt too wrung out to cry herself.
"I'm sorry..."
"Mum, you don't need to apologize. I am proud of you...of all of us, really. We will make it through this. I don't know how or when...but we just keep going...together."
"You are a true Gryffindor. All my babies...I just never knew how brave..."
"We inherited it from you and dad. You made us feel safe enough to know that sometimes...sometimes you have to take risks. I don't regret for a minute any risk I've taken..."
"Nor do I," said Mrs. Weasley. They sat sipping tea together and the ordinariness of it struck Ginny. "Can I ask you a question...?"
"Yes, of course..."
"You and Harry...how long have you been together?"
"Since fifth year...only he sort of ended it...before he left...but I knew it was for my own sake. He was trying to protect me."
"But it wasn't really ended was it?" she asked, a bit of Weasley mischievousness creeping into her eyes. It reminded Ginny of Fred and for the first time since his death it didn't hurt...it made her feel happy.
"I never stopped thinking about him..."
"And Ron and Hermione..."
"Are very much together, obviously," said Ginny, again, not mentioning that they'd been allowed to share a room. Ginny knew it was only because of Hermione's haunting nightmares.
"He finally figured it out, eh?"
"Yes, well...he had help," said Ginny. She told her about the book Fred and George had gotten for Ron, Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches, and her mother laughed and laughed. And it felt natural, not forced.This is how we move on, she thought...slowly, but surely.