This is in the memory of my friend's father who left us too soon and unprepared.
Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition
Team Pride of Portree
CHASER 3: Ginny Weasley
Optional prompts: 1.(song) Losing you by Dead by April
2. (word) harm
6. (quote) To light a candle is to cast a shadow. - Ursula K. Le Guin
Word count: 1521
Beta by: Little Tee, Shannon and Story Please. Thank you so so much!
Author's note: The story is inspired by recent events in my life and my thoughts on how it was to lose someone unexpectedly. I had in mind something quite different at the start of the round, my style of happy ever after, but I couldn't write anything happy when I was everything but happy. The quote described perfectly the situation: light and shadows / happiness for something was nulled by the sadness that followed. Also the song gave voice to the feelings we all felt even if it wasn't meant for this situation. I'm sorry if I saddened you.
It's a Muggle AU!
All alone, I'm watching, I'm waiting for you
Come back to me
You promised you'd stay
Keep me safe from harm's way
Only like a father could
I'm alone
Who I'll call when I need?
Who will protect me now
Cause gone are the days when you were protecting me.
So cold and so alone, forever, forever.
I'm not strong, I need you.
I'm waiting, watching for you.
Won't you come?
OoO
I open the door, my heart beating fast. The house has been empty for many years and being here again brings back many memories.
After Dad died, we left the house and moved into a smaller one. With all my brothers away and me at college, the old house was too big for Mum and there were too many bittersweet memories for her to bear.
Yet, we kept the house. None of us wanted to part with our childhood home and all the memories of happiness that we had felt here. Mum didn't want to sell the house she and Father had lived for their whole married lives.
I am the first one who has had the courage to come back to our old town. I still have no idea what I had in mind when I decided to do it. Maybe it is my father's haunting memory that drove me to do this, to come here again. Many nights I've spent alone, praying for him to come back to us and the loneliness I felt all those years ago has come back to haunt me. I realise now that I must be feeling Mum's loneliness too.
I hadn't been living in a bubble; Dad had been sick for a long time but I hadn't quite realised what it meant until it happened.
I was unprepared; all of us were.
I remember coming home and seeing his jacket—the one I always used to steal, to burrow into its oversized depths whenever it was chilly—gone and realising so too were the days he protected me, protected us, from harm. We were all on our own.
Mum took it the worst. After all, they'd been married since they were eighteen and that was thirty-three years ago. Half of their lives they'd been together and they'd been parted in the cruelest way.
"You promised me you'd wait," I whisper, even though I know there's no one to hear me. I can see his portrait in the hall in the moonlight. It's staring back at me with the same intensity his eyes used to have.
I slip off my backpack, unzip the side, and take a candle and matches out. There's light now in the house and I can see things more clearly. There's no electricity because no one has lived here for a long time. All the things we left behind are untouched under a heavy layer of dust. I move towards the living room.
"Ginny! Don't run in the living room or else!" I can still hear Mum's shouts from the kitchen. I would laugh and run towards Dad who would sit in his armchair each afternoon reading about new inventions. He used to drive Mum crazy with his passion for them.
Then he would stand up and take me in his arms throwing me up and down.
"Come, Ginny, I won't let your mother harm you." he would say and we'd laugh together. I knew she wouldn't harm me, just thoroughly scold me.
I can see my shadow on the walls as I pass. Why did I come here in the middle of the night? Why couldn't I wait until morning?
More questions I cannot answer.
Maybe it is just nerves.
Maybe I just want to feel close to my dad again before my big day.
I am not a little girl anymore and he hasn't been there to keep me safe from harm. I have had to do everything on my own.
My brothers have had it rough too but...Bill, Charlie, Percy...they were all busy with jobs, wives, and children on the way. Even Fred and George have left to start their own novelty joke shop.
Ron and I were hit the hardest. When Dad was sick, Ron had been the one designated to help Mum. And after he left for college, everything had fallen on me.
Both Bill and Charlie had offered to come home, but my parents had refused, not wanting to burden them. Both had had demanding jobs and couldn't afford to take an extended leave of absence. I said I could do it all. I always was very stubborn and I wanted to help Dad. Just like he always did for me.
Maybe I'm still that stubborn. I have come here alone, after all.
I become captivated as the reflection of candlelight dances across my old mirror in my room. I look into its silvery mist as a glimpse into yesteryear flickers into being: a window to the past.
A young girl with fiery hair is smiling back at me. Her eyes are shining with childhood glee forged from ignorance.
What a funny thing life is.
A candle is lit and it automatically produces a shadow.
Happiness is known only after sadness. Just like you only know light from the shadows that accompany it.
Life disconnected us from our home; after the funeral, it was just a house. But now, looking at it through candlelight, I see my home again.
I remember it just like it used to be, full of laughter and love.
I have been lost in pain, we all have. I've been waiting a long time to come back here. I can't remember when I decided to do so, but my presence here is proof I finally did.
I'm getting married tomorrow afternoon in a town far away from this place, but I hopped on a plane to come here.
Harry has always said I'm impulsive. Maybe that's why I'm playing the part of a phantom, haunting my childhood home like the Ghost of Christmas Past.
I am now in the doorway of my parent's bedroom, a place where I would often crawl in between them to sleep as a little girl. The place where I was when he left me—us—forever.
How I wish that these past eight years were just an ugly nightmare. I want to wake up to find everything as it once was.
I can't go into my parents' room, not yet, so I instead find myself in my father's study.
"Losing you was the hardest moment of my life," I whisper, looking at the family portrait he proudly kept on his desk. It had been the last time all nine Weasleys had successfully crowded together for a Christmas card.
Now I can see the heavy circles under his eyes, a sign that I had refused to notice.
I spent so many days in here with him just listening to his stories.
After he died, but before we moved out, I used to sneak in here and just sit in his chair. Waiting and hoping to see him enter the room again... it was all I wanted, all I waited for.
The pain is still there and I know I'll miss him all my life.
I sit again in his chair, but now I'm not looking over at the door expecting to see him. No, I just see my shadow. Nothing more.
The candle is nearly gone now. I should get another out but dawn is near.
"I've kept my promise Dad. I'm happy and safe from harm's way. And, I found a man who loves me. He looks at me the same way you looked at Mum. You would have loved Harry. He's been brave to fall for a girl with six brothers. Mum loves him and...if only you were…"
I can't stop my tears from falling. He won't be walking me down the aisle. Bill will instead.
After a good long cry, I leave the study.
From the big windows on the hallway, I see that the sun is starting to rise. I can see the shadows of the trees in the front starting to appear, to grow.
To light a candle is to create a shadow.
I've only come here to say goodbye. There are too many memories here. I don't think we'll ever be able to live here again.
But as I close the front door, I feel something warm gently embrace me, stopping the mounting feeling of despair just like his hugs once did.
My phone rings and when I look it's Harry. I know everything will be alright.
"Thanks Dad…I love you too."
OoO
Losing you hit me hard
There are shadows in my heart.
I come back home after many years and it's dark,
I lit a candle and the shadows are back.
Why must we feel grief and sorrows to understand happiness and laughing?
Why there must be darkness too besides the light ?
Why can't I light a candle and shadows to disappear not appear?
But I know I'll be alright.
I know you'll waiting, watching for me.