The girl with hair on fire looked out over her kingdom, a little garden of violets and forget-me-nots under the pale morning sky. A stream criss-crossed through the grass, sending the soothing whisper of its trickle through the crisp air and curling around her soft skin, spattered with freckles as the garden was with flowers. There was no finer sight than that little world from the balcony of her cottage, her own cottage, a million miles away from the loud clumsiness of the Burrow, or any other human at all, at least until last night.
Ginny sighed as she remembered, and pulled the thin, sky blue dressing gown tighter around her tired body. She glanced over to the bed, a mess of pillows and blankets, and now flesh too, for a limp form was cast there, sinking and swelling with the breath of sleep. Still, through her regret she could not deny the beauty of the smooth, pale skin in the yellow light of morning, nor the little nose, nor the plump lips, nor the pointed chin, nor the eyelids that stretched up towards the sky, nor the shock of bubble-gum pink hair across the crumpled pallor of the sheets. It was beauty, yes; but not that same beauty as the black mess above a jagged, lighting-shaped scar, with silly, long limbs and a slight yet steady chest. And here came the tears again, but Ginny fought them back with that fire inside, evaporated them, and cast a strong, hard gaze back out to the sun.
The body behind her stirred, but she did not turn. She did not want this; she had not thought of the morning when they had collapsed into a hazy sleep. The old pain returned now, knelling somewhere deep inside, echoing through her cells, spreading like a cancer. She clenched her jaw.
There was a yawn, a lurch of the bedsprings, the gentle rustle of hair, and then a protracted, 'Wow.' Ginny looked back now, and saw Tonks sitting cross legged on her bed with the lop-sided smile that she had smothered with kisses mere hours before. 'Last night…' Ginny said nothing and refused to alter her expression, so looked on, refused to think or feel, refused to act.
To Tonks she was a goddess, with the blazing sun behind her fierce, orange mane; a thin cloth hanging lightly to her full skin; strong, steady brown eyes; and a set jaw; the image of power and fury on a hot summer morning. Her own heart ached too, its little strings torn by the beauty before her, like the mournful cry of a violin. Her dark eyes smiled, and the rising sun was in them. She could not see the shadow falling over her goddess' face.
'I don't know what the hell that was,' Ginny said in a measured voice, looking out, away from Tonks and towards a different world, 'but if I can't take it back then the best I can do is pretend it didn't happen.' Tonks' dark eyes narrowed and focused hard on the ones that would not look back. There was confusion in those small, dark beads, and the familiar sinking disappointment when the first happiness in a long time is permeated with failure. Tonks hopped up from the bed and wandered around the room, grabbing up the clothes that had been cast off in such haste.
'It was fun, Gin,' she snapped, pulling her t-shirt over her head, 'it was really fun. But I guess you've forgotten what that feels like.' There was a moment when all was still, but from nowhere Ginny picked up the glass on the table beside her and threw it full-force at the wall behind Tonks, who jumped back in shock. It shattered into a million tiny pieces and fell on the floor like snow, snow that could draw blood. The sun shone in them.
'You don't know anything. YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING!' she screamed, and Tonks' eyes flew back to Ginny to behold her falling to her knees as sobs rattled her body and all the hidden tears flooded forwards, drowning her little frame. Tonks looked down at her with a strange expression, her brow knotted and eyes glazed over, as if remembering another grief, an ancient grief that she could not quite recall now that she had woken from it. It was like trying to remember a dream. It echoed through her, scared her with its lingering ghost, but she could not quite recount the depths, for they had been such depths.
'I lost my husband,' she said in an old, sober voice, alien to the vibrant, frivolous mouth, 'like you lost Harry. You could have got better too if you hadn't hidden here. It's been 3 years, and it's a bit better now.'
Ginny's sobs rattled to a halt as the words permeated the cool air. The elder did not reach down with a consoling hand and a companionable tear, but stood fixed and eternal and solid, and Ginny would have expected no less. They didn't move for a time, but the silence was enough to bind up their aching hearts. Tonks came to sit next to Ginny, and they leant back on the wall and looked out into the glorious summer day.
'Every year I've watched the world get pretty again, like it hasn't noticed,' said Ginny, resuming her old look.
'Yep, the world is indifferent,' said Tonks, a strange brightness returning to vitalise her tired expression, 'and after a time we've got to learn to be too.' They looked at each other now, and Tonks smiled a sad, sad smile, before reaching up to the cabinet and grabbing the half-empty bottle of firewhisky. She took a large gulp without flinching. Ginny recalled how they had drunk it last night after Tonks had turned up from nowhere out of the rain. They had little need to talk, but when they did they laughed, and the drink had cast a warm, hazy bubble all around so that when the familiar loneliness of the night set in, Ginny had allowed herself to curl into the arms of the woman beside her.
The sun was high in the sky, and they watched it flashing off the stream and into their squinting eyes. The heat would be stifling soon, but now it was a vital, fresh comfort on their balmy skins and the breeze a luxuriant whisper to the ear. The beauty of their world shone before them, blinding and overwhelming, and the sorrow in their hearts could not block it out, but entwined with it to give rise to an enchanting symphony of pain and glory, and the complex little things they could scarcely comprehend.
Tonks' fingers entwined around Ginny's and she did not pull them away. There was a fear, like a small clock, ticking away in her heart, for all the hurt that would come in time and the struggle of the days to come, but perhaps it were better to struggle against that hurt that to surrender yourself to it in a pretty little cottage. Tonks was right; she was mad, and although she struggled to imagine anyone but the great spectre of him at her side, Ginny did not think she could do it alone.
She stood up and, turning her back on Tonks, walked out onto the balcony with the wind playing with her flaming hair. She needed someone like herself, someone strong and hurting, and she knew as she looked out over her kingdom, that if it were to ever be anyone again, it would be Tonks.