A/N: This is a little oneshot written in Ginny's POV. I got the idea when the rain started pounding against my window this afternoon. Hopefully you like it!! Happy reading and please review!
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. How unfortunate.
Ron and I had always been close. Being the two youngest, we were never separated from each other. We were always seen as the innocent, naïve ones, ignorant of the world around us, eternally carefree and laughing. And for a long time all we needed was each other. We trusted each other more than we trusted ourselves. Whether I wanted to play, or dance, or cry, or scream, I could always go to Ron. We did everything together. Ron made everything better. He made everything perfect.
Maybe we were so close because we were so much alike. Sometimes I feel that we are essentially the same person. Nobody understood that. And nobody understood that we understood each other. But we knew, and that was all I needed.
When we were little we would giggle and run and play together. I didn't like it when anybody else joined us. Bill and Charlie were too old, and the games they played with us were always too hard. Percy had too many rules. And Fred and George didn't have enough rules. So we stuck to each other. And it was exactly as I wanted, and I wouldn't have traded it for anything in the world.
Now that I look back on it, we never really were ignorant or naïve. Maybe we seemed that way, but deep down I think we both knew that our happiness could never last forever. Though I love and treasure the memories of those sunlit days of summer, and the cool, breezy spring afternoons, and the falling leaves and snowflakes of my childhood, the times I remember and long for the most are the storms.
Ron and I both loved the rain. My favorites were the light drizzles, the sun showers, the kinds that you could barely even feel. Ron liked the big, fat drops the plopped to the ground and soaked the kitchen windows so that you couldn't even see out of them. But the best, by far, were the storms.
Mum would never let us stay outside, but we never wanted to. The best place to watch a storm was the window ledge in the sitting room off of the kitchen. The ledge had, when I was younger, held a worn cushion for sitting, but now my mother used the ledge as a place to put her pots of magical herbs used for potions and other things. But when a storm came, Ron and I would, without fail, curl up next to each other on the cushion and watch the rain fall, harder and harder, always urging on our silent wish for lightning and thunder.
I loved the lightning. I don't know what exactly drew me to it. Maybe it was its unpredictability, its spontaneity. And the fact that it is always the first to be spotted. When I wished for lightning, I kept my eyes wide and alert, because you could miss lightning. It was devious, impulsive, always trying to escape your eye. I wanted to catch it in the act. And when I saw it light up the sky in the distance, it gave me a satisfaction that made me smile even on the dreariest of days. When your eye caught the lightning, it was like the seeker catching the golden snitch, and the thunder that inevitably followed was the anticipated cheer of the crowd. I would watch the lightning inch closer and closer every time, until it made the dark, cloudy sky overhead light up like fireworks. I liked the quiet yet explosive spectacle, the warning of what was to come.
Ron used to love the thunder. He loved the thunder as I loved the lightning. I don't think he knew exactly what drew him to it either. We shared that. I think I know though. I know Ron. I probably know him better than he knows himself. And I know that he likes commotion. He likes it when many things happen at once, and he doesn't have to focus on one thing all of the time. He likes to bounce around, my brother. He hates the quiet. I don't think he knows how to appreciate it. But it doesn't matter to me. That makes him who he is, the person that is my other half. He likes the rumble of the thunder, the low groans and the loud shrieks and the sounds in between, all of it. The noise gives him a more concrete thing to wait for than a flash of blinding white light. You can't miss the thunder because you can't close your ears. I think that maybe being the youngest of six brothers has made him afraid to be left out, afraid of missing something. He doesn't like surprises. He likes to have a strategy. He likes to know what's going to happen. So the lightning for him is simply the predecessor, the warning that tells him he can expect the thunder. He likes the predictability. When there's lightning, there will always, unavoidably be thunder.
Maybe our mutual attraction to storms says something about our personalities, I don't know. But there is a parallel. I am the lightning, the reckless and spontaneous one. I always go first. But I will always, without a doubt, be followed by the thunder. Ron is the thunder. My thunder, my brother, my best friend, that follows me wherever my impetuous self may take me. There is never one without the other. I am quick and to the point, open about my feelings, forever wearing my heart on my sleeve. Ron is more reticent and reserved; it takes him longer to open up, but when he does, he spills it all, the thunder that screams and moans and whimpers.
Maybe our mutual attraction to storms was also what attracted us both to Harry Potter. I used to think that maybe I liked lightning because I loved the story of Harry Potter, the boy with the lightning bolt scar. But I think it was my love of lightning that made me love that story, not the other way around. I think that my love of lightning was not only what drew me to the story of Harry Potter, but was also what drew me to the actual Harry Potter. He was everything I ever wanted and admired and loved. Like me, but unlike me, in so many ways.
Ron used to like the story too, but not as much as I did. Harry Potter was lightning, just like I was. Ron was thunder, respectful of the lightning, in awe of it. Ron was in awe of Harry Potter just as he was in awe of me. And when Harry Potter became a reality to us, a real person and not just a story, nothing changed. Thunder is the other half of lightning, and just as Ron was my other half, my best friend, he became Harry's as well.
Today, a hot, humid August morning at the Burrow, when everything, for the moment, seems peaceful and calm, though I know that nothing really is. The house is full, but what I crave most of all is that quiet, explosive lightning that puts everything back in its place when it all seems to be falling apart. I am near the garden when I feel it, the light drizzle that I love so much, that slowly turns into the heavy drops which are my brother's favorite. I hear my name being called from the kitchen window, my mother, looking for me, waiting for me to return to the safety of the house before the summer storm begins to rage. My clothes are damp and my long, vivid red hair is stringy and wet from the rain. Ron is already waiting for me.
Mum's plants and herbs have been carelessly removed from the window ledge and placed arbitrarily on the floor. Ron is already sitting on the soiled ledge and looking out the window, a place saved for me. I make my way carefully, across the floor littered with potted green sprouts of unusual things, to the window ledge and I sit down next to him. There is not as much room as I remember, so one of my legs winds up resting across Ron's knee. The pitter patter of the rain against the window brings us both back to the time when we were little, when we knew that bliss could not last forever, but didn't know when it would end. We know now. It's gone.
The first bolt of lightning strikes in the distance. An infinitesimal shiver runs up my spine. I catch the light with my eyes through the rain flecked window. Ron is waiting, I watch him, waiting for the thunder. I am waiting too. And it comes, as it always does, a low rumble from far away. The lightning I love comes closer and closer, lighting the dark afternoon sky. The thunder becomes louder, now right at the lightning's tail, always the loyal follower of its spontaneous friend.
As the storm reaches us, and the lightning and thunder appear simultaneously to Ron and me, I feel a hand on my shoulder. I don't look to see who it is, lest I miss the lightning. But there is no need anyway; I know exactly who is standing behind me. I could never mistake the strong hand of the man I love with all my heart, my lightning. I know he is watching also, entranced by the same sight as I am. I see out of the corner of my eye, as another roll of thunder sounds across the village and rattles the walls of the house, Hermione drop to the floor next to one of mum's Flitterbloom plants and reach for Ron's outstretched hand as she too listens to and watches the raging storm outside. I know that she too is thunder, Harry's thunder, Ron's thunder, my thunder.
Lightning strikes so close now that the whole sky is illuminated from the jagged jet of blinding light. Harry and I find it, catch it, and wait for the cheer of the crowd. It comes, as it always does. Ron and Hermione do not have to wait long for the thunder. It erupts in long cracking, cackling cries, almost laughing, forever following that mischievous impulse of light.
As the four of us watch the storm reach its apex and fade into nothing but the soft drizzle of summer, I realize that maybe that bliss I knew as a child hasn't really gone. I always knew it would have to come to an end. And maybe it has. My ignorance has gone with my childhood. But maybe I was wrong to think that the happiness would be gone forever also, disappearing into nothing but memories. Even through the regret and tears and sorrow, I still journey on, because at times like these, when I can escape with my beloved lightning and my ever loyal thunder, I think that maybe the bliss will never truly leave me after all.