Disclaimer: I still don't own Harry Potter, okay? Also, this is set in an AU and being that Ron and Ginny don't know anything about their families, they do not know they're related, and I felt it suitable to keep the K+ rating. Okay, that's all for now, enjoy!
We know it was called the Wizarding War, but the name has no meaning to us. We know families were destroyed, but that isn't something we needed to be told. Other than that, all history of the war that got us here in the first place has been hidden from us, and we've been hidden from anyone who knows. The Ministry actually forbids the orphanage and school from telling us anything about it, thinking it'll "inspire today's youth to become dark witches and wizards", and that the last thing we need is a home full of frightened children. I'm thirteen, and even I know better than that.
The idiots over at the Ministry feigned interest in somehow creating a bright, cheerful generation, but if they really cared, they'd check up on this institution every so often. It consists of three colours: brick maroon, antiseptic white, and a faded grey. But mostly grey. It's the color of the walls that trap us here, the curtains on the windows that don't open, and the faces of nearly everyone who inhabits this building: the young children who are desperate to conceptualize the idea of "home", still desperately seeking one; the older, more jaded ones who have given up on laughing and playing pretend by the time they're ten years old; and the caretakers who pretend they're capable of mending such corrupted lives, not for our benefit, but to prevent the guilt and hopelessness from swallowing them too.
My days would be like those of nearly everyone else I know, a blur of maroon, beige, and grey, if I didn't have one thing to look forward to. It's that bright orange hair exiting the school building in the autumn afternoon, a flame persistently flickering in a dismal, dark forest.
I don't find him, and he doesn't find me. Without looking or planning, we merely wind up next to each other, falling into step as if we'd been walking together all our lives. We've been drawn to each other since we were children. Even when I was six and he was seven, I knew Ron's ever-present freckly grin meant he was the only one at the orphanage with a sense of humor. I was a really anxious kid back then. I had a nightly ritual of wondering about my parents, which led to my other ritual of crying until I fell asleep or one of the caretakers got me milk and tissues. "They're dead," I'd think. "They have to be dead, because why would they put me here?" Other nights the story was that "Maybe they're not dead, but they were captured by the bad guys and are in some prison somewhere wondering if I'm dead!" Then there were the worst nights, the ones where the moon disappeared and I couldn't even trust my own shadow to show up to comfort me. "What if my parents were the bad guys, and if I stayed with them, I'd have to do evil things? What if this is the best possible life I could be living?"
When I met Ron, things started going uphill. Well actually, he met me. I stayed away from the other kids in the orphanage, not wanting to let their grey faces to remind me of all the empty possibilities. I think he saw me off sulking somewhere and jumped out from behind a tree and tickled me. Imagine that, a boy so kind he goes around tickling strangers! I was thrilled. I was also really timid then, as I said, so I liked that he let me tag along with him. The caretakers in his orphanage, which was next-door to mine, called me his pet, since I was always trotting a few paces behind him. We both needed that companionship.
The years in between then and now are filled with a series of adventures and dares, originally referred to as Bravery Missions. When I was eight or so, Ron started a game in which he'd come up with a series of tasks to "thicken my skin". I always asked "Why are we even doing this?", a routine and eventually rhetorical phrase for me. He always replied the same way: "Just trust me. This'll pay off in the end". After he ate the dirt and rode down the hill in a wagon and put snow down his shirt with me, there was no reason for me not to trust him. Laughing and screaming and shivering through these ridiculous tasks for years, it never even occurred to me to as what the payoff he spoke of was, or what he considered the end. Besides, being pulled from everything pure and kind and fun life had to offer, I'd rather walk around with ketchup in my shoes all day and know that Ron's doing it too than sit around and sulk. We did do that, by the way. We thought we'd get in trouble, but we didn't because nobody cares about us. That's why we've got to look out for each other.
"Smashing to see you again, Ronald," I greeted him.
"My name is not Ronald!"
"It may as well be. We don't have any proof that it isn't." We'd had this conversation year after year. Some kids here were left with full names, backgrounds on their parents, reasons they were living this wretched life. Ron and I were left with first names, and had to make up the rest. I picked Ginny Gale, like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, which I got to see at one of our monthly movie nights. She was one of the only girls I'd seen in the movies who was a hero, who saved the world instead of waiting to be saved. She's the reason I know there's more outside of this dismal town, and she's the reason I know there's a way out.
"Shut up, Ginnabella, we have more important things to worry about today." Ron playfully pushed me, and I shoved him back for calling me what he assumed was my full name. "I know we have to get going, but first I've got a surprise for you."
"What kind of surprise?" I poked him in the arm, as we both instinctively turned left. The orphanage was visible in the distance on the right, but we were used to delaying our trip back to our dilapidated non-home in favor of our favourite hiding place. Today, our absence will be more than just a delay.
Ron was wearing a small smile, the kind your face forms when you know you have a secret. "It's got to do with our talent," he replied cryptically.
"No!" I halted in my place. Last year, while stuck in a makeshift canoe, freezing at night (it started with a Bravery Mission and ended with a passing citizen and a police crew) and convinced we were going to die, we decided we may as well get rid of all our secrets, since someone should hear them before hypothermia killed us or we drowned. Little did we know, we each had the same one. In addition to our names, we were given one more piece of information about ourselves. We didn't grow up knowing it, but were told on our eleventh birthdays. We received letters delivered by owls from the Ministry of Magic, telling us of our statuses as a witch and a wizard. The letters informed us that there was a school that would accept us, that would teach us to use our skills, but it had been closed since the end of the Wizarding War. Though it had ended in a miracle, over a third of the Wizarding World had been murdered, and they had decided the only way to protect the rest of them was to keep the new generation from learning magic, or at least until they could figure out better protection against what they called the "Dark Arts." If this school- Hogwarts, as they called it- were to reopen, we would be accepted there. Until then, we needed to keep our skills a secret.
I studied Ron's face and knew he was telling the truth. "Then what are you waiting for?" I asked, excitement growing in my voice.
We picked up our pace, dashing around street corners until we collided with the familiar, rusted fence. Ron looped his finger through one of the chain links and pulled the fence back. I climbed through, and he followed behind me until we reached our clearing and sat down.
"Get me some sticks and leaves," he instructed, pulling his rucksack off of his back. Once I had gathered a pile, which I did with a speed that would break records, he grinned mischievously and looked up at me. "Ready?"
I nodded, not knowing what I was in for. Ron started to stare intently at the pile, and kept his focus for a long time. There was complete silence and I watched him, wondering what he was doing but not daring to ask and break the concentration he seemed to need.
Finally, he leaned back, looking satisfied. At first I wasn't sure why he looked so proud, until I heard it. There was a crackling noise, and a pungent smell filling the air. Smoke began to rise off of the sticks, dancing into the sky. It started as a narrow stream, just a polite interruption to the clear woodland air, but it thickened by the second, going up in puffs. I watched it, stunned, until I felt a tap on my knee. Ron pointed back at the pile. A small flame was flickering in it. It grew and spread, until the entire mound was on fire.
"Ron! Ron, that's brilliant!" I gasped. "Did you do that with-"
"Yes! I did it, Ginny. I figured out how to us my... my magic."
The fire was completely incredible and wild and unexplainable, but wasn't the last thing I expected. I've never considered trying to come up with the last thing I expected, because then what fun would surprises be? I did manage to figure out what the last thing I expected was when it happened. Ron leaned over and kissed me right on the mouth. He was almost unnaturally warm (I guess conjuring fire with your mind will do that to you) and it was exciting and everything I would have imagined it would be if I had ever thought to imagine it before. I really should have thought of it, too, since we seemed to fit perfectly together, and it just made sense. We kissed for five whole seconds, and the moment seemed to mark an end to the beginning of our lives.
"Bloody hell," were his words when it was over. "We should have done that a long time ago."
I nodded, dumbstruck and apparently incapable of forming the words to respond.
He grinned, putting his hands on his chin and his elbows on his knees. "Let me see your bag."
How typical it was of Ron to change the subject right after a monumental milestone moment like that. Still not speaking, but smiling to myself at his familiar antics, I pulled off my rucksack and unzipped it, revealing that all day I hadn't been carrying around books, but all the clothes I owned, as well as as many bags of crisps and pretzels I could find and a lifetime collection of money I'd found on the street.
"Perfect!" Ron exclaimed. "I'm not sure where we're going yet, but I think the first thing we need to do is take a bus to King's Cross and get as far away as they can take us. We'll work it all out from there. We can find a place to live, try and look for our parents, maybe even find other wizards. Oh, and I was thinking once we get some sort of home, you could marry me, too."
Not looking up, I listened as I helped him shuffle through the contents of my bag. "Yeah, we should- wait, was that a proposal?" I nearly shouted, my snapping open so quickly it hurt.
"No, it... well yeah, I guess so. But I'd sort of been thinking it would happen all along."
Without being able to help it, I started laughing. "It makes sense," I replied, because it did. "Alright, Ron, once we get out of this stupid little town, we can get married. But one thing at a time, for now."
He laughed too, sticking out a hand to pull me too my feet and into a hug. "Ready?" he whispered into my hair.
"I'm ready if you are. Are you sure this'll work?" I questioned, my confidence replenishing with the realization that months of planning had lead to today.
"It doesn't matter," he said back, releasing me to stare me in the face. "This is a Bravery Mission, Ginny. The be all and end all of Bravery Missions."
"Why are we even doing this?" I whined, only out of tradition.
"Just trust me, this'll pay off in the end."
In an instant, I figured out what the phrase I had never paid attention to truly meant. "This is the end, isn't it?" Suddenly I realized that he had been planning this much longer than I had. Ron had been planning for us to run away together his whole life.
"Yup," he smirked, taking my hand in his. "And it's going to start to pay off right about... now!"
And with that, we started to run.
Thank you bunches for reading!
This was my first attempt at an AU so let me know if you thought it was okay (or if you thought it wasn't, I guess).
Written for The Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition as a Keeper for the Chudley Cannons.
It's a oneshot at the moment, and I don't think I'll continue it. However, if you do have any suggestions for another chapter, don't be shy about shooting me a PM :)