A/N: Disclaimers carry absolutely no legal weight, and I make $6.65 an hour fighting battles with a copy machine. Bearing that in mind, I'll say nevertheless that Harry Potter is the property of J.K. Rowling, and that I am unfortunately not making a profit off of this. This is just a strange little piece I wrote when discussing the possibilty that Mrs. Weasley might die, and how this would affect Harry and Ginny. So. . . this was born. Do enjoy. Reviews are always appreciated.


Secondhand Love

by drama-princess

-~-


The Weasley's house has always seemed to be crammed full of possessions, of people, of life. Harry remembers walking in that watery morning with the buzz of escape on his lips. He remembers the smell of the eggs frying. Ron slid a bun into his pocket, and the knitting needles went click-clack against each other. Sometimes, if he shuts his eyes very tightly, he can see the thin fabric of Ginny's pajamas and the smooth, straining skin of her little girl body underneath.

One person is missing from the Weasley house now. And the beds are too big without her to roll the sheets up. The stomachs cramp with hunger without her. Guilt, Harry thinks, is strange and crumbly like grief. It is the hard scrabble for responsibility. Some part of him tells him, very sensibly (surely this part of his mind would be mad?) that it's because he loved her that Molly Weasley died, it's because Momma loved him that she died, and someday another redhead will undo him entirely.

Harry walks around the house nervously. He ducks at loud noises, but sits holed in Ron's room, tucked between chocolate stains and grotty posters. They say nothing. They play games all day, and wander downstairs for lumpy sandwiches that dry up in their throats. Chess and Exploding Snap and Gobstones, and sometimes just Guess the Quidditch Player. Ron stops every Thursday at three to write a letter to Hermione, and Harry fiddles with a loose thread on his jumper. It's too small for him now.

My turn, or your turn, or won't you open the window, it's awfully hot in here, they say to the strangers they've become. Sometimes Ron lies back against his ratted coverlet without his shirt and Harry can just feel the sweat dripping down his face and knows that sometimes there are tears there too. He can't tell the difference between sweat and tears and blood, not now. They all smell the same.

Harry never takes off his clothes even through he sweats (bleeds? cries?) underneath the heavy fabric. Ginny is always hiding behind shadows and corners. Her eyes are hungry and her body skinny. She is out at elbows now without her mother. Her socks, the white ones with crocheted trim and pink satin ribbons pool around her ankles. She wears scratchy Muggle argyle jumpers and thin skirts that hang on her frame. Ron tries to see her, just to push the lank red hair off her face, but mostly he's too busy looking at nothing.

Harry wants to go to her sometimes, but then he doesn't know what to say.

I love you, is something, he thinks, but then he's never said that before. His lips and tongue and teeth don't know how to form those words. More to the point (although he sometimes wonders what that is, what is the point) he doesn't know how to say that to Ginny. She is still chipped teapots overflowing with gardenias and star-lilies, funny lace doilies underneath second-hand books. The small girl who put her elbow in the butter dish and blushed hard at his smile.

You should talk to Ginny, Hermione writes him. He can picture her slanted over her desk, her quill poised in capable hands. He doesn't wonder anymore why Ron loves Hermione. It must be a relief to love someone too strong and plain to be a martyr on the fields. Hermione is no one's mother. It is hard enough to remember that she is someone's daughter. Surely no one ever fastened tiny slippers on her baby feet or cradled her close to feel her heart beat.

She needs you.

Why should anyone need him, he wants to cry in frustration. He cradles his head in his hands instead. Ron looks at him funny, it can only be called funny, his mouth scrunching up into something that's half a smile and half a frown.

I don't think you know how much she needs you now, she writes, pressing the quill harder than needed until the parchment bursts onto her clean desk. You and Ron need to stop, and Why aren't you answering my letters, I'm going to visit, try writing Snuffles, why don't you, don't do, you aren't doing, stop, try, don't, no, won't, can't.

Maybe she's right, Ron said once. They had been sitting cross-legged on the floor playing Exploding Snap and drinking warm pumpkin juice. The liquid sloshed between their teeth before they swallowed. Ron wiggled his toes from the hole in his socks and made them laugh for a few moments.

What do you mean? Harry asked, brushing his ink-stained hair off of his skin. He could feel the sweat beading down his spine. The blisters on his feet were oddly disconnected from him. He wished that you could do that to feelings. He wondered if it would be like a Dementor's Kiss, though, and forgot his wishes.

I dunno, Ron said. His eyes shifted towards the window. It's your turn, he said, laughing a little as if to tell Harry that he didn't really mind. Harry knew Ron did care, but he appreciated the effort all the same. Ron, the twins, Percy, Mr. Weasley, they all tried so hard to keep from crying into the scrambled eggs that it seemed rude to say

i miss her too.

or

it's my fault.

It was Hermione who stopped it in the end when she came for the last two weeks of summer. She took one look at Ginny and pulled her into her bedroom to trim the tattered curls into a gingersnap bob that curved around Ginny's pointed chin. She cleaned the kitchen and filled the empty air with chatter too loud and coffee too hot. It scalds their tongues until they feel like crying from the relief of it. The knots loosen a little. It's enough for Hermione to shoulder her way in and boil the water.

She rushes in on them playing chess and folds her arms as Ron takes Harry's bishop. It's before bed. Mrs. Weasley won't bustle into the room to take away cards or chocolates, but somehow they turn into their sheets all the same.

Ron, we need to talk, Hermione says. Harry and Ron both look over at her, at the way her hair frizzes out in the humidity. The odd wrinkle on her forehead. Harry, get out, she says, pushing his slippers into his chest until it feels like his heart could burst. He is wearing his striped pajamas.

Ron says, as if shaking himself awake from a dream. You don't have to go, Harry.

Again, Ron means it, but Harry knows better. With a small, apologetic smile, he slides out of his chair and leaves the room. From the other side of the door he can hear Hermione's voice like copper pans. The soft, slow rumble of Ron's voice answers her, and Harry thinks that they will be okay after all.

Are they talking? Ginny asks, putting her small hands on either side of the table and looking intently over at Harry. Her chin, small and pointed, fascinates him. She is Ginny, after all, the same little girl on the Hogwarts Express. And yet, she has become part of something crystalline, something delicate and brutal and terrible that Harry isn't quite sure he wants to understand. Ginny bows her head briefly, the damp bluish light shining on her neck. She could be a red-headed angel in that moment, and stir faint memories of flowers and smiles.

He nods instead, trying to shake off the feeling of soft voices. They are. It'll be good for Ron, I guess. He really needs Hermione.

Ginny is silent for a long moment. Mummy. . . her voice trembles for a minute before she shakes her head. Mummy said that people need other people. I think-- She swallows again, hard. I think she was right.

I'm sorry, Harry says simply. He puts his hand on Ginny's elbow. Her freckles are sharp in the unrelenting light. She bites down on her lower lip, leaving indentations on the chapped mouth. Ginny's nightgown is scratchy against his fingers. He sees now that she is wearing a thin strand of fake pearls, beaded like sweat against her collarbone.

Ginny shakes her head, her hair swaying gently from side to side. You don't have to be. She says this almost tenderly, her dark eyes searching his for some kind of truth that will take her out of here.

I still am.

Ginny pauses, and he sees the breath whoosh out of her, sinking her lungs and slumping the muscles of her shoulders. I know, Harry.

They stare at each other for a long moment before he puts his arms about her. Ginny is beneath that thin fabric, he realizes, as she rests her hands against his shoulders. He tries to breathe when he feels the warmth from Ginny come into his striped pajamas and sink into his body. Ginny's hair is damp from her shower-before-bed.

It is what Ron calls an awkard as hell moment, like the time Harry walked in on Ron and Hermione snogging in the shadows between the Charms corridor and the stairs. But somehow Harry doesn't mind. He doesn't blush, and Ginny's ears don't turn red. It feels right, somehow, to just stand here. This is what he is supposed to do all his life, just hold and be held. Part of him knows that it will be Ginny that loosens him from his skin and unpeels the layers of confusion and guilt. But that will be later, much later, and right now Ginny is starting to stiffen and pull away.

Harry picks Ginny up, surprised at how light and small she is in his arms. He ignores her little, startled gasp. It isn't anything like catching the Snitch, which flutters and strains against his hand. Ginny holds herself up as he carries her into his room, her mouth open in a tiny, perfect o' as he very gently puts her down on her bed. A rag doll falls off the pillow as Ginny squirms back into the tangled lump on blankets. Yellow yarn hair falls and scatters, and black button eyes stare nervously up at Harry and Ginny.

Ginny doesn't seem to notice that Susie has fallen. She tugs on Harry's hand until he sits next to her. Ginny peels off her socks, careful to hide the hole where the big toe goes, and Harry silently takes off his spectacles. Rickety metal and patched cloth, that's what the two of them are.

They lay down on the mattress together, his arm falling loosely across her chest, their legs touching chastely underneath the cotton sheets. He can feel Ginny's toes against his ankles, the soft, baby-like skin and little nails, and he nestles his chin in her neck and tries not to cry.

Ginny tries not to for a minute, too, but then a frantic sob bubbles out of her throat. Her body convulses in his arms, shaking and trembling from the strain of it all. Harry holds her close, and feels her wings beat against his chest, and wonders if all love is like this.

He hopes not.

Almost.