a/n: The lack of capitalization is intentional. I know this style isn't universally loved, so if you take issue with it, please don't take it to a review or pm. (If you're into Once Upon a Time, and especially Swan Queen, I have many other fics that may be more your style.) Thank you!
her mum likes to barrel into all her children's homes, and ginny is no exception. she is a whirlwind of cleaning advice, pride, and worry, and they only sit down for brunch when ginny's been properly scolded about the state of her living room– all of you children! simply awful!
ginny sits on the couch, and hands her mum tea. she always ends up missing the smells of home during their visits–honeysuckle by the burrow sign, something warmly baked in the kitchens mixing in with the fresh grass outside in the yard through open windows. it brings back an old, tired restlessness–being eleven and the youngest and the only girl and straining her neck to see above so many heads– and also, well. something just tired.
"your balcony is so empty, sweetheart. you ought to garden out there."
ginny snorts. "mum, i'm awful at planting spells. all my flowers end up singing, swearing, or biting me."
her mum shakes her head and leans in like she's telling a very important secret–just as she did when passing on messages to order members–and says, "do it the muggle way." she gives a small grin.
ginny stares into her tea for a moment, as if in divination class. "why?" it's never mum who loves the muggle way–dad, on the other hand, once tried to build (grow) a television set in their living room.
"most great herbologists do it the muggle way, even if they never describe it as such. you get to start from the ground up, and it's a decent way of clearing your head." at this, she gives ginny a significant look, all caution at the eyebrows because they can say voldemort now, but still not tom.
"right." she smoothes out her pants and runs a hand through her too-long hair. "thanks, mum."
she nods, sharply, and it looks like she wants to say something else before she raises her cup for a sip. she smiles. "ginny dear, will you fetch me a sugar cube?"
(mummy , ginny thinks into her shoulder, home from hogwarts before anyone else and for once everything is so quiet. only birds chirp outside, and her head isn't drowning in stone. mummy, i don't want to go back next year.
"mum." she says, "can i ride my broomstick for a bit?")
hermione thinks it's a rather good idea. "my dad kept gardenias in window boxes. it relaxed him after a long day at the office." she says, looking up from her prophet.
"what did your mum do? oh, and don't tell mine that you agree with her. otherwise she'll be telling my grandkids all about it. see ginevra III, if your granny had just listened to me, we wouldn't be in this mess!"
hermione raises an eyebrow. ginny remembers the first time she ever saw that eyebrow–diagon alley, that one retrospectively terrible day–and it really has not changed at all. "what mess could possibly come from not planting a garden?"
"destruction, chaos, and can't forget mayhem." ginny says, counting them off on her fingers. she waves hermione's eyebrow off, shakes her head with a smile. "just you wait, she'll think of something."
"my mother reads after getting home from work." hermione says softly, with a grate at the end of each word. "or, read i suppose. i don't know what monica wilkins is like."
"oh." ginny says. she watches hermione's expression turn grey weather grim. "the three years is almost up though, right?"
hermione shakes her head and shoulders out of it. "right. i've planned a month trip to australia for the end of the year. i've already drafted five arguments if the ministry tries to give me grief about it."
ginny gives a sharp grin. "how very hermione."
she swats ginny with the newspaper. "so the garden?"
"ugh." ginny says, staring at her yes, very forlorn balcony. "i'lll think about it."
ginny wakes up drenched in sweat.
she sits up out of sleep, body lifting itself off the wet chamber floors for the millionth damn time, and breathes in.
with a shaky hand, she manages to grab her wand from her bedside and get a lumos out. with the light, her skull feels like it has caved in. she still hears rasping laughter from the back of it.
sleep is impossible, so she stands in the balcony under a blanket, tries to focus on the still night street, foggy street lamp light. she can't. the cement under her feet is freezing, freezing like the water in the chamber, freezing like the halls of hogwarts under the carrows' rule, freezing like her body after coming back to herself far, far away from where she'd last remembered.
she gets her slippers, and a warm mug of cocoa. she counts her steps, stares at her hands as they work for her. she closes her eyes, and thinks of the heather and hyacinths growing around the burrow, daisies growing in cobble-stone cracks along diagon alley. growing and growing and growing. she breathes out.
("in due time, hogwarts will seem like a home again." professor mcgonagall says, and ginny isn't quite sure who she's talking to.
"i'm sure it will, professor, but–" ginny says, all nervy energy still built up from the battle, lungs and mind still not quite ready to rest. "–hogwarts has never really been mine."
professor mcgonagall looks at her. it's not pity in her expression, professor mcgonagall does not do pity, it's something hallowed. something hollowed.
they're two hallways away from where fred died. they're a floor away from the girl's bathroom.
"no, ms. weasley." she says, gently. "i imagine that it hasn't been.")
she ends up doing the bloody garden.
she starts out with cherry tomatoes, lettuce, and spinach. she's wary of flowers, but doesn't really know what else would fit in a diagon-alley balcony over-looking a muggle street. not that the muggles would care, really. all they see in her balcony is a run-down building.
she buys flower seeds too. snapdragon, roses, irises. the works.
by the end of the first day, sweat is dripping down her brow and strands of hair are sticking to her neck. she's almost elbow deep in shit–no, soil, soil , and her hat is doing jackshit at keeping the sun from burning her eyes.
still. after finishing her last row, she takes her tea out there too, and her book. her chest isn't so tight. when it falls dark, she reads by wand light.
neville gives her a pointed look. "i've got magical fertilizer back home. just a pinch of it would solve the dryness issue."
ginny stares at her garden. her dirt pile. she magics soil off her hands, and lets it fall back in. she picks up her watering can (her mum's), and watches the soil rise and fall, lull itself to work. "i think i'm alright. thanks for the watering tip, neville. this all makes me wish i'd paid attention in herbology."
he smiles and pats the dirt. "you've got a strong foundation here, in any case. you should be beautiful flowers, and good vegetables. as good as vegetables can be, anyway."
she sighs. " if they decide to grow already."
he looks at them and gives a conspiratorial nod. "don't worry too much about that. plants always have a plan."
she rolls her eyes, and knocks his shoulder with her own.
she starts to relax out there instead of in the living room. she has to water them on a schedule, after all.
blankets beat the chill when the sun can't, and the new air keeps the stone out of her head.
"if i can escape lord voldemort's death curse twice," harry tells the soil sternly, "then you can become a tomato."
she laughs, and kisses him on the cheek.
"when the flowers have bloomed," hermione begins, leaning on the rail in her work suit. "may i have a bouquet for my parents' dining room table?"
she's rubbing her hands together. they might be shaking.
ginny thinks about that house, waiting, and winks. "i think that can be arranged."
hermione snorts.
luna is there when the first bit of green shows through.
she gives her a small smile, eyes bright and familiar. "they must have heard all the talking. talking is its own magic for them, in a way."
ginny's careful not to harm it when she does her daily watering. it might need to be weeded out later. but that's more than okay. it means the first step is over.
she turns back to luna. "you think? i bet they just wanted to see what all the fuss is about." she looks at the flowers. "i'm sorry that the world's a bit full of shit. it's a bit better than it used to be, though. there's time to garden, for instance."
"time to rest, and time to wake up." luna says, and she lies down on the blanket they brought outside. ginny watches her eyes catch the clear blue skies.
harry sits next to her, and they leaf through luna's postcards. the seaside in iceland, a phoenix in scandinavia.
"i'm going to send charlie a snapdragon." she purses her lips in the direction of her balcony. "though i suppose i'll have to preserve it by magic."
"ginny." he says. "what are we doing?"
she leans into him, and remembers the cut on his lip when he woke her up in the chamber. "we're doing just alright, i think."
he gives a hoarse laugh. "the lilies are, in any case."
she holds his hand, and he holds hers back.
she keeps the flowers next to her bed, thorn stemmed roses, and the hyacinths a night blue bright.
ron stays over on the couch one night, and she puts one next to his too.
he stares at it. "is it supposed to be all bent like that?"
"shut up." she says, and throws a pillow at him. "they don't keep the nightmares away, but they're something to look at when you wake up."
his eyes widen. they haven't talked about this sort of things since they were twelve and thirteen. he gives a wry and tired sort of grin. "does anything?"
"i'll let you know. the balcony's nice too. if you go out there, bring tea." she tosses him a blanket. in the creases of his eyelids, his grin turns gentle.
when she ends her lease at the diagon alley apartment, the garden stays.
she takes cherry tomatoes and chard for her mum, a bouquet for hermione, and leaves with the crisp scents under her nose through the open window.
"you'll be okay," she tells them. "the person moving in likes to garden, i hear."