35. Sleep
i I won't sleep if you won't sleep
Because tonight may be the last chance we'll be given
We are compelled to do what we must do
We are compelled to do what we have been forbidden /i
Dashboard Confessional, The Secret's In the Telling
br Ginny was sitting on the cramped windowsill of her room – she might not have fit comfortably since she was ten, but it was the best view in the house, and with work she could fit her thin sixteen-year-old frame still. She couldn't move much, and her legs cramped something awful, but she could see all the stars, and the flying field from there.
br There, on the flying field was the reason she wasn't sleeping now, preparing for tomorrow's battle. The Death Eater's were going to attack the Burrow at dawn – and they were never going to know what had hit them. They expected the Weasleys, and then not even the older brothers – Arthur, Molly, Fred or George and Ginny. They would have been no challenge for two dozen Death Eaters. But nearly fifty were in the house, all of them armed to their teeth.
br Tom Riddle (she refused to call him that other name, even now) would be there. And Harry would kill him – she had to believe that. Harry, who had been flying in endless circles for three, no, she checked the clock by her bed, it was four hours now. She could just see him when he passed in front of the moon. A brief outline of boy and cloak against the white light, almost like something out of a picture book.
br He couldn't sleep, hadn't slept in weeks, she knew. Knew because she watched him. Watched the way he drank four or five cups of coffee in the morning before she was even done her first, the little dark circles under his eyes and of course the flying. The past few nights she'd stayed up past three watching him. Tonight she would stay awake as long as he did. She couldn't hold him, couldn't let him tell her why he wouldn't prepare like everyone else and she certainly couldn't help him, all because he wouldn't let her.
br So she suffered with him. She couldn't do anything else, and Ginny was not like the peacefully slumbering Hermione, curled on her side in the cot, she wanted to be doing something. Fighting or fucking, she thought, remembering Fleur saying it was all anyone in the house was suited for anymore, and that was true.
br Those in the Burrow tonight were the ones who had suffered he worst in the war, or at least who had fought the most. Fleur and Bill had lost their first child a few months ago, she had miscarried during a siege. Ron and Hermione had been torn apart that spring when there had been suspicions about Percy's loyalty, and Ron had stood up for his brother. Ginny's parents had lost two sons, Charlie at Christmastime and Percy only a month ago. Lupin had lost everything, had been losing things since Grey-Back had bit him. The rest were the most seasoned among the Order, the old DA and the Aurors. They had been chosen for that – these were not people who cared whether or not they died in the ending of the war so long as it did end with them.
br The battle would seem small, Ginny had been told. Would, at first, be just another skirmish, but the Death Eater's ranks would swell, said Ron, ever the strategist. They would bring in more and more. Those at the front line would go first if anyone went. Reinforcements would come, snuck in at night when the battle might end. It was expected that the Dark Lord's army would follow the old rules of engagement, and leave them be at night. If they did not, well, they were all dead, Ron had said. And at the end of the layers of reinforcements would be their general – would be Harry. She knew the plan, wait until Tom thought Harry wasn't there, until he was fighting just for the pleasure of the carnage.
br Ginny was in the first line.
br Ginny was the carnage.
br Harry didn't know that, though. Nor did her parents or her brothers, save Ron. Ron hadn't wanted it, but she'd told him she'd rather die fighting for home and hearth than hide behind her brother and her ex-boyfriend's reputations. She knew when Harry found out he'd be infuriated, when her mother found out it would be worse. But she didn't care – it was as much her war as anyone else's. Besides, she thought, it was a stupid plan anyway,