Take These Broken Wings

By Sinister Spiders

Chapter One: The Beginning of the End

Ginevra Weasley walked down what used to be the pathway that led to Godric's hollow with tears streaming down her face. The pavement was now all broken and jagged; no doubt smashed apart by curses and hexes too numerous to name, too horrible to think about. She around the once green garden of the place Harry had called home for a short six months. It was now littered with slowly decaying corpses, covered in a thin layer of blood-stained snow. If she squinted she could pretend that it was the poppies breaking through the snow in the spring time. But she knew better than that. There was no use pretending. It was over.

Hogwarts had managed to stay open after Dumbledore's death, and for some it was a place of refuge from the war and the outside world. Many of her friends had lost someone in their family in one attack or another. Ginny had lost her family to the Order of the Phoenix. Towards the end the war had consumed them, they didn't have the time to talk to one another about happier times, they could only speak hushed words of warning about the week to come.

Harry was a different story though. He had made time for her, even in the most desperate moments. His search for the Horcruxes begun in his seventh year of Hogwarts, taking him away from the school for much of the year, but when he returned he would always spend time with her. After Dumbledore's funeral Harry had time to think about their relationship, and with a little coaxing from Ginny, he was convinced that everybody needed something. What he needed was Ginny and her love. Ginny was only too happy to reciprocate, and soon every moment spent in his presence became her life. She was dependent on him for comfort, for information, for hope and for a future. Everyday they had spent with each other had been spent well, knowing that life was dispensable and that each hour could be their last.

She opened the heavy oak door and stepped through the threshold, a cold shiver running through her as memories flooded back. She looked over to the red lounge in the parlor and closed her eyes. Her memory taking her back to three months ago, when she and Harry were sitting on the lounge together after reading her N.E.W.T's report and talking about the way they wanted their life to be.

"Ginny," Harry said, giving her a small kiss on the lips and smiling at her as she looked into his eyes.

"Yes?" She replied, nuzzling her head into his neck and wrapping her arms around him. He shifted and fished around in his pocket for a moment. He pulled his hand out, and what he was holding was well concealed in his tightly clenched fist.

"I was just wondering… after this damned war is over…" His fingers opened slowly to reveal a simple gold ring with a diamond in it. Ginny looked at him and he smiled at her. There was no need to say any more.

"Yes Harry!" Ginny said softly, unable to contain her happiness, "Yes!" He slipped the ring onto her finger and kissed her deeply.

Back in the harsh world of reality Ginny wiped her tears away angrily. This wasn't the time for dreaming, and she had a job to do. She turned towards the stairs at the far end of the room and took a deep breath before putting her right foot in front of her left and continuing the painstaking journey to where she had to go. Up the first step, then the second, the third, fourth, fifth and so on, each one bringing back another happy memory, reminding her of how it would never be possible for her to have them again. When she reached the first landing, she allowed herself to take a look at the ring Harry had placed on her finger when three months earlier, not knowing if she would ever be able to take it off. She didn't want too, and Merlin knew she would never have to. She doubted that she would ever be able to be in love now that Harry was gone. To Ginny, Harry was love. He was the human embodiment of a heavenly emotion that she had given her soul to.

Up another staircase now, and on the landing, walking down the corridor to Harry's room. Ginny had to tread carefully to avoid stepping on or over the dead bodies, her mind filled with hatred and despair at the same time. Death Eaters and members of the Order were strewn over the carpet that led to Harry's room - disfigured, dismembered and dead. Now came the most painful part. She reached out and touched the door of Harry's room. It was slightly ajar, and all it needed was a tiny push to open it. It felt as though it was made out of lead. It took all of her strength to open the door to what had been Harry's room, the room his mother died in… The room Voldemort had died in… The room Harry had died in. Ginny collapsed to the ground as she saw the corpses, the tears flowing more freely than they ever had, her heart aching like it had never ached before.

He looked so peaceful, like he was sleeping. If she touched him he would wake up. He would breath again, love again. She crawled over to him desperately, and placed her hands on his shoulders, shaking him slightly, silently begging him to wake up. It was no use, she knew it, but she had to try. Despair gave way to anger and she brought her fists down to collide with his chest, a loud scream tearing from her lips, tears splashing down onto his face. Her body fell on top of Harry's and she continued to cry.

After what seemed like an eternity of torment, Ginny sat up and looked through the window. The dusk sun spread a pink light over the room. She wiped the tears away and remembered that she had a job to do. She looked at Harry's face. She brought her index finger up to trace the lightning bolt scar on his head, then down to his lips, in a slow, remembering caress. She leant down and kissed his lips, cold and lifeless.

"I love you Harry…." She whispered softly, her breath loosing its warmth on his pallid face. She reached deep into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out a small, stag-shaped silver paper weight. She placed it on his chest and whispered an incantation, his body faded away slowly. She stood up and looked around the room, a pile of acid-green muck not too far from where Harry's body had been. That was not her problem. She had no desire to go near that. She turned around to see another corpse, another one of her closest friends.

Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley had fought with Harry until the end. Hermione died before Harry, or so Ginny was told. She was lucky; her death was quick and provided Harry with the time he needed to destroy the last Horcrux. When she fell, so did Ron's sanity. Seeing the woman he loved die at the hand of Voldemort hit him worse than the curse that the Dark Lord sent his way. Hermione was the lucky one; she died swiftly, without pain. Ron, however… He was now left a ward in Saint Mungo's, loneliness and madness eating away at him, assisted by the curse Voldemort had placed on him.

Ginny walked over to Hermione's body and squatted beside her best friend. She gave her a quick kiss on the cheek before taking another object out of her pocket, a fine eagle-feather quill. She placed it in the hollow between Hermione's breasts and whispered the incantation. Hermione's body slowly disappearing before her, as had Harry's, as would the members of the Order who fell on that fatal night.

Ginny repeated the same process for many more people, some she did not know, some she was familiar with, and some she would mourn for the rest of her life.

She was alone. She no longer had her family. The only members of her family who had survived were now in mental health wards at magical hospitals, with little to no chance of recovery. Charlie and Percy had died early on in the night, hit by the first curse Voldemort had uttered. Bill fell not too long afterwards, killed by Bellatrix Lestrange. Fred and George were kept alive and tortured to the point of insanity, when they turned on Molly and Arthur Weasley with the intent to kill. Thankfully for her parents, they were distracted by curses shot at them by Death Eaters. They turned, but were too slow to dodge the second round of curses sent at them by Mancair. Molly Weasley died after her four sons, and Ginny had no doubt that her mother had tried to protect them. When the war moved into the house and Voldemort, Harry, Ron and Hermione made it to Harry's room, Molly tried to make it up the stairs to help the young adults who she believed were her children, but she was pulled down by Lucius Malfoy and murdered before she could scream. Her husband was tortured by Lucius when he made his way up the stairs to check if Molly was okay, kept alive only because Lucius was called to help the Dark Lord. Needless to say that he didn't make it; Ron exacted revenge for the murder of his parents before his own death.

In fact, there were very few of the Order who survived to tell the tale, Remus Lupin, Nymphadora Lupin, Severus Snape and Draco Malfoy were the only ones she knew of. Severus Snape and Draco Malfoy were thought to be Death Eaters, but Snape was working under the last instructions of Albus Dumbledore, and Draco Malfoy under instruction of Severus Snape. When the time for the war came their true allegiances, to freedom, if not the order, shone through and they survived.

There was a small pop behind Ginny that made her jump. She whipped out her wand and turned around.

"Easy there," came the familiar drawl of her ex-Potions Master. She lowered her wand slowly and glared at him. He tried to manage a smile, but it went pitifully wrong and looked more like someone had stepped on his toe while yanking on his lips.

"It's done." She whispered, motioning around her, her empty pockets and absence of bodies was proof enough.

"Thank you, Miss Weasley. You've done a good job," Severus replied. He looked at her, and she continued to glare at him coldly. "This is just the beginning of the end," he told her in a low, but soft, voice.

"It is still an end," she hissed back. He grimaced painfully.

"Part of life is living, Weasley, and I will be damned if I see you give up." Her eyes widened in shock.

"Oh please, Snape," she snapped back acidly. "Don't even begin to act like you care." A tear rolled down her cheek.

"Well, it's too late for that now, isn't it?" he said back calmly. "Don't you understand, Weasley? People survive for a reason. Life continues. We all have a job to do now the war is over."

Who did he think he was talking to? He didn't know her nearly well enough to try and comfort her. He had never cared about her before, so why should he start now?

"It was only ever a job to you! It was my life, Snape. Everything I have ever known is gone, everyone I ever loved, killed!" She yelled, brandishing her left hand in his face violently, the diamond catching the pink dusk light provocatively. He grabbed her hand and pulled her close to him.

"I have lost things to Ginevra, more than you will ever know, but you must move on." He told her in a voice too calm for Ginny to understand. If he had lost something why was he not grieving? Or was he really that cold-hearted?

"Don't even begin to tell me that you have-" she begun to yell before the tears sprung forth from her eyes again. They cascaded down her cheek and neck, their warm trails paving the way for more droplets. She fell to her knees and Snape fell to his, keeping a hold of her hand. He brought the other one up to her shoulder and placed it there softly. She did not bother making the effort to pull away from his grip since it was the only warmth and comfort she had felt in the past few days. She let it melt into her heart; it barely chiseled a tiny bit of the pain away, but it did. And that was something at least. It was a start… A beginning of an end.

A/N: First off I would like to say a giant spanking thanks to my wonderful Beta Reader LupinFan227, who is also a GWSS (and GWRL) author, so please take the time to read her work, it is wonderful!

So that was the first chapter of what will become another one of my epic Ginny Weasley/ Severus Snape fan-fictions. I am sorry if it was a bit long, but I wanted to lay the foundation of the story, and a bit (okay, a lot) of an intro never hurt anyone.

Love,

Sinister Spiders