A/N: I think I'm slowly getting into the present gen. I don't know why. Results Day was good and I should be happy. But instead I have this weird collection of angsty DH one-shots. Hm. Oh, written from Helen's prompts like suns, rising.
Warnings: sirius over-use of italics
Prompts: cat, door, tears
Disclaimer: I just want to give Ginny a hug okay but I can't because she's a fictional character and if I could create characters who made me feel this many emotions I wouldn't be writing fanfiction right so just no I'm not Jo Rowling sorry for the rambling
tell me, "tomorrow"
and i'll wait by the window for you
i'll wait by the big house for you
- stephen fretwell, run
Of everything that she could possibly feeling at this moment in time, the thing that Ginny resents the most is the bloody cat.
She agrees with Ron completely - what in Merlin's name possessed the girl to buy the fluffy thing? She'll never know, but she never needed to know before because everything was just fine and dandy when Hermione was here to look after it. Now the three of them have vanished on their mission to save the world, though, and since she gave in to Hermione's begging, she's been lumbered with the beast.
Don't look at me like that, she sniffs, glaring back at Crookshanks unashamedly. I hate you too.
And she does. It's not the cat, per se; more the fact that he wouldn't be purring at the end of her bed if Hermione and Ron and Harry were here. Every moment she spends alone with the mass of ginger fur reminds her that they're no closer to completing their task and coming the hell home than she is to waking up without finding yet another bloody rat or bird by her bed from the bloody stupid cat.
There's the slam of a door from downstairs and voices shout to each other, followed by the twin footsteps of two teenage boys bounding to their old room. Vaguely Ginny registers that somewhere along the line – since the deaths of Sirius or Dumbledore or Moody – Fred and George did stop using magic for everything.
George is yelling down to Molly, something about their old prototypes, and Fred confirms that they're not where they'd been left, and then their mother is hurrying up the stairs and shooing them out.
That room is as tidy as it's been for over a decade, she hears her Mum scold, and it's staying that way.
Ginny wants to leap up off her bed, upending the bloody cat who's her only comfort at this godforsaken time, wrench the door open, and scream at them to shut up, just shut the hell up because don't you understand?
She doesn't care about the Pygmy Puffs and the love potions and eavesdropping on the old Extendables anymore; she just doesn't. It doesn't matter, because what use is a bloody Decoy Detonator when Harry, Harry is battling against Voldemort?
The DA stopped mattering a long time ago but she keeps it going for Neville's sake, and Merlin, her NEWTs? Who the hell gives a bloody rat's arse about NEWTs in the middle of a bloody war?
Fred says something; Ginny can't quite hear through the walls, but Molly goes back downstairs and their sister definitely hears a curse or two from the twins' old room.
Ginny tries to keep going; she does, really, because she's got to be whole when Harry (and Ron and Hermione) get home. She needs to save her energy so she can be his warrior when he gets back because he's been doing it alone for too bloody long.
There's a knock at her door and she murmurs something. A freckly face appears and asks has she seen any of those – you know, those little round things – they were like little – uhm, you know –
He stops trying to explain and scratches his head.
But now, while Harry's away, she can afford to be broken, so she shrugs noncommittally and her brother frowns.
Don't ask me if I'm alright, she thinks. Just don't, because I'm not, but no-one can know because no-one seems to understand except this bloody beast of a cat and I can't feel sympathy with a cat, I can't.
Are you alright? he says, no trace of a teasing smile on his face.
She rolls away from him and faces her Holyhead Harpies poster, and after a moment's pause she hears the click of the latch on her door and realises he's gone.
Ginny buries her face in the pillow, and suddenly there's a heavy mass next to her head. Crookshanks mewls beside her, and she finds she's blinking back tears, and together they cry silently at being left behind.
All the Ginny feels ;_;
Review? I'll love you forever.