Title: In the Weeks that Follow
Words | rating: 2,038 | PG-13ish
Fandom: HP | post-war
Characters: Ginny
Setting: Just days after Voldemort's death, Ginny and Ron take Harry and Hermione back to the Burrow...
And then they are all back at the Burrow. All plus two and minus one. All plus the prodigal son but minus the newlyweds... because they're still newlyweds even if it feels a millennium has passed. Because really, only a few months have passed. And back in the Burrow, with three back from the brink of death and one back from rebellion and one gone, it does seem sometimes like it had only been a normal school year.
If normal is even a term that had any meaning anymore... it didn't for her, it didn't for anyone, but they all pretended to remember what "normal" was - or used to be.
Everyone ignored the fact that Hermione curled up at night in Ron's bed, instead of on the spare bed in her room. And even George didn't blink when Harry joined her at night. They had always been here, these two dark, sad orphans. And they would always be here, with their sad eyes and wild hair. Did it matter which bed they shared? Where they found their comfort, when they all needed comfort?
On the first night, Ginny woke from a nightmare and reached out for the warm body... she kept reaching out the door, down the long hallway and there on the head of the stairs was her brother, staring down at two figures curled around each other on the couch, sleeping soundly. Ginny hesitated inches from him, hesitant, wanting to turn away but also wanting to run back to her bed, where her nightmares were hers alone and not shared with her too-tall, too-strong, too-silent brother.
But he turned his head, tears streaming down his face, looking up at her with a level of compassion she had never seen so raw, so exposed on his face. "She cant -" his voice broke and he swallowed hard, burying his face in her lap as she eased down beside him. "She can't sleep..."
Ginny peered down into the darkness, stroking her brother's shaggy hair, and understood. She hadn't had a full night's sleep in years... her restless, nervous energy was poured into anything and everything. Extra credit assignments, sports, social clubs, Dean, Harry, the war... anything. Her mother, a few summers back, had noted her fidgety hands and had thrust first dirty dishes, dirty clothes, and other domestic tasks her way... and then the twins had complained that the Burrow was becoming uncomfortably clean due to Ginny's midnight cleaning sessions and Ginny had found knitting needles thrust into her hands. Anything her mother could find for her to do, was done so swiftly and with such little effort that Ginny began feeling guilty, hiding her energy from her family as best she could.
She knew what it felt like to constantly feel tired and alone, but unable to sleep, to rest, to put her tense body into a state of relaxation. She envied Hermione the luxury of finding the place where movement ceases.
And so begins a nightly ritual, hushed meetings with Ron on the stairs in the middle of the night, watching from her doorway as her lanky brother carries the bushy haired girl back to his room. Pretending to be asleep when Harry stumbles silently back into bed... back into her waiting arms. Pretending that he never left when they rise together in the morning. Wearing a smiling face in front of her family, strengthening her brother with long glances and quick hand-squeezes. Pretending that the quick, passionate caresses from Harry in dark corners could correct the months of worry, the countless empty nights, of feeling alone in her family home.
After a few weeks, Ginny started to escape the Burrow for long, silent, lonely hours; seeking the sanctuary of wide open fields, laying in long grass for hours, staring at the slowly drifting clouds. On the third day, her mother stopped her on the way out the door thrusting into her hands Ginny's old knitting bag. The look she gave said both: At least do something useful and also a soft sadness: I know.
At that, Ginny broke. Something inside her snapped. She had not been enough, not been strong enough, had been unable to hide the truth from her mother... and so she ran. She ran at breakneck speed, the knitting bag clicking and clanking against her back, her hair trailing behind her in a long red line. She ran until she feared her lungs would burst. She ran until she no longer gasped for each breath and the pounding of her feet on the grass and rocks were fluid and rhythmical. She thought briefly of stories Hermione and Harry had told her about Muggle schooling: gym class and rugby and football... the memory flooded back and suddenly made her feel lazy, weak in ways she never had before. It was easy, far too easy to ride a broomstick for sport. This. Oh, this. Running past familiar landmarks made them seem smaller and larger simultaneously as they blurred past. Ginny licked her lips and tasted salt... sweat dripped down her face that didn't taste like fear and blood, but rather like freedom...
Along her path rose Luna Lovegood's ramshackle cottage. As Ginny neared the yard, already on a path that would curve far around it, suddenly Luna sprung up from the grass on her left. Ginny only nodded and kept running, but the wild girl with flowers in her hair and bare feet emerging from long skirts, stayed beside her, keeping pace with Ginny's long stride. Ginny instinctively slowed to a trot and the two girls ran around the edges of Luna's land, rather than cutting through as Ginny had planned.
The two girls were silent for a few minutes, until Ginny finally expressed the words she had felt boiling inside her, "I think maybe this is as close Muggles can get to flying." She grinned over at Luna, who took her words very seriously, Ginny could see them rolling around in Luna's mind as her hair flew wildly around her face.
"I think this is what the wind feels like when it dances," Luna smiled back at her, reaching out her arms to brush it through the wild grass around them. They were at that moment nearing the corner of the house again and Luna said shyly, "I'd ask you to stay for tea but..."
Ginny reached out to touch the other girl's arm softly, "Rain check?"
Luna nodded, "Tomorrow then."
Ginny didn't look back as she left behind the blonde waif, but she knew that Luna would stand there until she was out of sight. The light was dimming when Ginny trotted into the Burrow's garden. George, Ron, and Harry were playing backyard Quidditch while Hermione sat engrossed in a thick book. Ginny plopped down on the grass next to her and was greeted with a large smile.
"Your mom said that you were out in the fields knitting..." Hermione raised her eyebrows at Ginny's soaked tshirt and cotton shorts, "I always thought you had a bit of a track & field look to you." Hermione lifted a strand of hair out of Ginny's face affectionately. She tilted her head to the side and shook her head, "Football, maybe? More of a contact sport." Ginny looked at her bemused and shrugged. She had heard the word before, but like television, cell phone, and debit card, it was a word from another world. "Hey I know!" Hermione's voice and face lit up. "We should go to a game! A women's club in the nearby village is hosting a match next weekend, you'd love it."
"Love what?" Harry and Ron were smiling down at the two girls, their hair rustled from the wind and faces flushed from the game.
"A woman's football match. We should all go," Hermione glanced towards George's retreating back and grimaced slightly.
Ron sat down next to Hermione and took her hand, "Football - it's a Muggle sport, right?" Ron looked nervous.
"It can't be that hard to blend in, right?" Ginny looked up at Harry. He merely smiled. She turned back to Hermione, "I'm in."
_
That night, Ginny fell asleep the minute her head hit the pillow. She dreamt, not of the darkness that had felt so close for so many years, but of a cool breeze that swept her through cool, heavily scented trees and over a bubbling brook. When she woke, Harry was fast asleep, his head on her shoulder, his right hand twisted into her hair and his left arm and long leg pinning her to the bed. She stroked his arm and watched the sun slowly rise outside her window. But it seemed as though only a few short moments had passed before the restlessness returned. Ginny gently slid out from underneath Harry's long limbs and rustled through the clothes strewn around her room.
"We should get you some trainers and track pants," Harry mumbled sleepily from the bed. Ginny stared up at him, half bent over a pile of mostly-clean laundry, clad only in a camisole and panties.
"Wha-?" sometimes it seemed like there was more separating them than gender and dark lords and convoluted histories. Harry rolled out of the bed and threw a pair of thin shorts made out of a silky material at her while he slipped a white shirt over his head and a pair of similar shorts on over his boxers. She felt slightly taken aback at the freedom in his gaze and movements. Yes, for the past three to four weeks they had shared a bed, but he had barely touched her in those weeks and their dressing regiment was mostly comprised of shy glances and turned backs; that "shared" bed was more empty than not and a huge gap seemed to separate them even when their bodies pressed together firmly as they each pretended to sleep, and that the other didn't notice.
He looked up at her while he stuffed his feet into a pair of running shoes she had never seen before, "Do you mind if I come running with you?" His eyes didn't turn bashfully away from her bare legs, but bore into her own eyes with a fierce determinism as he tied his laces.
Ginny swallowed and gasped out, "Luna - I mean, I promised Luna I'd stay for tea."
Harry solemnly nodded. "That's about five miles round-trip. You'll need to stretch out this morning, I can almost bet you didn't yesterday." He stood and came to stand in front of her, taking one hand in his and cupping her face with the other. "If you're going to keep running like this, you need to eat more, too." His hands slipped to her waist and he whispered in her ear teasingly, "You've gotten much too thin this year." Generally a comment like this would have filled Ginny with silent rage, of COURSE she was thinner - they were all thinner and tired and worn out. But the comment was followed by a soft kiss on her earlobe and the tension inside released before it even began to build up. Of course they were all thinner. She held him close for a moment longer than she felt comfortable doing and let go just as suddenly. He nodded to the shorts in her hand and swept out the room.
Running along side him that morning, Ginny felt even more prepared for a life of long nights... of sharing a pain with her brother that no one else could possibly know... of growing ever more jealous of her best friend, the one girl in the world she couldn't wait to call sister... of tears that would be shed, of fears realized and conquered... of nights with out sleep and full of dark dreams with no one to hold on to... Living a life in love with Harry Potter wasn't the path of least resistance, and as she swung an unexpected right, plunging into a dark forest with jutting roots and slippery moss, Ginevra Weasley breathed a deep breath and committed: she loved him, alright.
And loving him meant that somewhere deep inside, she loved the pain... because maybe in the end, the pain would be worth it.