There's this dream she used to have where this one war would destroy everything, make them all start over, rebuild towns and homes and families. But it wasn't really like that. The world just carried on where it left off, passing over the gaps like a skipped stone, breaking the surface in certain places, but leaving only ripples in others.

I

It began on a beautiful June day: a few cumulus clouds lazily breaking up the intensity of the sun, the grass green and soft enough to lie down on. It was mid-afternoon and the sun was on its way back behind the horizon. Still, she felt the sun's warmth on her skin as it uncovered the freckles a long winter had hidden.

Ginny wore her hair up in an elaborate style that her sister-in-law had picked out, but parts of it were already falling into her face. Her shoes were set aside neatly under her chair, where her mother couldn't see them; she liked the feeling of grass beneath her feet.

Her family sat around her, laughing and talking as their wine glasses were filled. They couldn't all fit at one table, so they sat scattered: her parents next to her new sister-in-law's parents, Bill next to his new wife with Charlie on his other side, Ron with Hermione and Harry, Percy with officials from the Ministry. She sat in between Fred and Tonks.

She watched as Tonks playfully grabbed Remus's hand, causing him to turn an uncomfortable shade of pink before smiling at her.

"Excuse me," Charlie said, unrolling a piece of parchment. The talking stopped immediately, in the middle of sentences, words and laughs.

"I'd like to start off by saying that I never thought Fleur would give him a chance – I don't think she thought so either," he said with a nod to Fleur. Everyone laughed, but Bill's was probably the loudest and most distinct, almost like a yelp. "But we're all glad she did, aren't we?"

The party laughed together, but Ginny found she wasn't listening. As her brother continued to speak, her eyes drifted from table to table, from face to face. Her mother was crying because Bill wouldn't be her baby anymore, but Ginny knew that he hadn't been for a long time. Fleur and Bill's hands held each other loosely, as if they had all the time in the world. Even though common sense told her war was approaching, she still hoped they had all the time in the world. She hoped they all did.

As she traveled from face to face, she tried her hardest to skip over the face with the green eyes, but something about looking at those eyes unguarded made her stare. He looked only a little older, a little more tired than when she had last seen him – it wasn't long ago, but it felt like years and seconds both at the same time. He probably didn't count on seeing her again, and he hadn't so much as looked her way during the ceremony or said, "Hello" to her when he arrived. She wanted to cry at the thought of putting on her bridesmaid's dress, sitting still as her hair was charmed into place, thinking of him as her mother used make-up to bring out her eyes, waiting patiently for him to arrive and see her. He hadn't even looked.

Ginny glanced back toward Charlie and tried to stop worrying about the war and Voldemort and whether or not Harry's arms and lips missed hers.

"It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres," Charlie read. "Love never fails."

And Ginny thought about her parents because every other love she's ever known failed in the end. At Charlie's words, she realized that maybe she never knew love in the first place, and the thought almost paralyzed her. She saw Harry out of the corner of her eye and felt the familiar lump in her throat as her eyes began to tear. To settle herself, Ginny breathed deeply and blinked her tears away. After Charlie spoke again, the guests all lifted their glasses up in a toast and Ginny finished her wine in one long gulp.

--

"Read this if I don't come back," Harry said to her, a goodbye. They were on their way out, even though the reception was still going on.

She nodded, shaking the shadows that setting sun cast upon her face. He looked at her for a second, and she thought she saw it in his eyes. But before she could be sure, he turned abruptly and walked toward Ron and Hermione; he spoke quietly to them before apparating away.

After he disappeared, she realized she should have said something.

So she whispered, "I love you," to the place where he had stood in front of her.

--

She took turns dancing with each of her brothers, her bare feet carefully avoiding their heavy shoes. The garden was dark, so her mum scurried around and charmed the flowers to glow.

"I'm dancing with the most beautiful lady here," her dad chucked. "I hope your mother isn't jealous."

Even though he was her father, Ginny blushed and replied, "Thank you." The way he smiled at her, full of pride, made Ginny realize that he meant it. She kept smiling and didn't think once about the boy with black hair and green eyes or the note that she charmed into fly to her bedroom window.

Ginny's dress floated around her as they danced and its careful gold color glowed in the light from the flowers.

--

Long after her hair lost its youthful shine, she would remember that day, the wedding, the war, the victory that stole the best years of her life; but she would remember them all together, as one instant. To her, the dancing and dodging curses would feel the same.

--

"We're leaving tomorrow," George told her and spun her around. "Our first mission for the Order."

Already? She hoped it was something easy, something that wasn't terribly dangerous, but knew in her heart that every mission would be dangerous.

"Where?"

"It's so secret that we don't even know exactly." She didn't know what to say in reply, so she just held him a little tighter.

"Does Mum know?"

"Not yet."

When the song ended, he whispered, "Don't worry, kid. We'll be back soon," as he passed her to Fred for the next dance. She had barely placed her arms around his neck when he started to speak.

"I'm sorry that we're leaving too," he said simply. "But maybe you'll feel better if you know we're trailing them – Ron and Harry and Hermione." He said the last part in a whisper, so Ginny had to strain to hear it.

"But George didn't say—"

"I know. No one else is supposed to know. But don't worry, Gin. We'll all come back just fine."

--

Come back fine once, come back fine always -- it just seemed like a big lie to her. No one ever came back fine.

--

"What's going on with you and Harry?" Her breath sort of hitched in her throat, and Fred must have heard it because he started talking again. "We know something was going on between the two of you at Hogwarts – we have our sources."

"It doesn't matter anymore," she said and rested her head on his shoulder. "It's over." She felt her eyes begin to well with tears, but she blinked them away before they had a chance to roll down her cheeks and onto Fred's dress robes.

"I don't think so," he said just a little teasingly. "I saw how he was looking at you all day. George and I were almost going to pull him aside to give him a talking to, but then we saw that you were looking at him too."

"He left. It's over."

"Ginny, Gin. Look at me," Fred said and pulled her to face him. "Everything's going to be okay. He'll come back. I know it. We'll come back too. You don't have to worry."

She nodded, but didn't say anything.

"We have to think of a prank for Bill before he leaves," he said. Ginny smiled and told him all of the ideas she had thought about the past few days: charming him into a toad the next time he kissed Fleur, transfiguring the design on his tie into something pink and fluffy.

--

One moment, she was being passed to Charlie to dance and before she could remember which way to step first, she found herself pushed to the ground. A green light engulfed him and a moment later, his body lay on the grass beside her.

Ginny didn't scream. She didn't cry. With power she didn't know she had, her wand flew from the table to her outstretched hand before "Accio" left her lips. The white-masked man before her was stupefied before he could even raise his wand to her.

She was hit by a hex she didn't hear that made her left arm feel like dead weight, but she ignored it.

She didn't think. She had no time to think. She cast spell after spell at the white masks because it was easier than surveying the ground and finding out who the bodies belonged to…

She heard the Death Eaters. "He's not here."

"Then grab the girl. The Dark Lord wants her alive."

She saw another red-head jump in front of her and she could tell by the way he landed that it was Fred. He cast a spell that Ginny couldn't understand at the Death Eater nearest them.

"We have to get you out of here," he said. "They're after you."

"Come on Ginny," George shouted from behind her.

Ginny looked around to see if anyone needed help, to look for someone on her side that she could save. She saw Fleur still standing in her bridal gown, her hair falling around her face; a line of sweat coated her forehead as she uttered spell after spell. She stood back to back with Bill. With his long hair blowing in the wind, his wand raised, he looked more like a man to Ginny than he had when he had slipped the ring on his new wife's perfectly manicured finger.

Her parents stood together – her mother's eyes anxiously darted from child to child, almost as if she was counting and recounting them as the seconds slipped by. She must have known then, that Charlie had fallen, but still, she held her wand high.

Percy and Penelope and their friends from the Ministry all fought together, defending each other before themselves like Bill and Fleur or her parents.

What had to be seconds later, more Order members reached the wedding party by portkey and began to bind the conscious Death Eaters. More ministry aurors followed closely behind them.

It was ending.

Ginny raised her want to stupefy another Death Eater, but he apparated before she could see if the spell hit.

Soon enough, the curses and hexes stopped. The twins moved to stand on either side of her, but she said nothing. She looked down at the grass, carefully avoiding the bodies of the dead and the injured, and instead focused her eyes on the places where hard footprints had smashed the grass down and warm blood had mixed with the dirt. Her eyes fell to her bare feet, dirtied and red like the ground beneath them.

For some reason, she hoped no one would ever dance there again.

"Ginny?" Fred asked when they saw her blank stare.

"Older brothers are supposed to be invincible."

Then they followed her eyes.

-

As she sat in her dark clothes at the service, she remembered the way Charlie had carried her around on his back when she was small and how he was the first to acknowledge that she was growing up, how he hadn't made fun of her for her crush on Harry when she was ten, how when she came home after her first year, he hadn't treated her as something broken, but as someone who had survived a dangerous adventure. She remembered the way he petted her hair late at night after a particularly scary nightmare that summer and the way he didn't mention it at all the following morning.

She tried and tried to remember the speech he gave at Bill's wedding, but found she could only remember a few words because she had stopped paying attention when her eyes reached Harry. How could she have known?

She had always wanted him to speak at her wedding, if she ever had one. If she made it that long.