Chapter Ten
"Is he down here?" Hermione asked, peeking into the living room as she pulled the folds of her dressing gown closed. Ginny popped up from her comfortable position on Harry's chest to answer.
"Who?"
"Ron," Hermione snapped, sounding irritable. Ginny rolled her eyes.
"We haven't seen him all night," Harry offered, tugging Ginny back into place. She settled again without an argument. Hermione furrowed her brow, pacing the length of the room. Ginny turned to Harry with her eyebrows raised. It seemed any hope of a repeat performance of the past night was out while Hermione paced like a crazy woman in her nightdress.
"Didn't he tell you where he was going?" Ginny pressed. All she earned was a scowl for her efforts.
"Out," Hermione answered. "Which, really, is a completely ridiculous answer. He's obviously not in. Where else could he be but out?"
"So you had a fight?" Ginny asked, distracted momentarily when Harry began playing with her hair. He had always seemed so fascinated by it. When they had dated those few short weeks at Hogwarts he was forever twining his fingers through it.
Hermione dropped into a chair and put her face in her hands. "I'm such a nagging arse!"
Now Ginny was sitting up straight. "A what? I don't think I've ever heard that word come out of your mouth!"
She ignored Harry's muttered, "I have."
"I've been really worried and scared. And oh, what if they hate me? They could. I wouldn't blame them. It's been far, far too long. And I'm terrified to be by myself. The nightmares, they can be so awful but then won't it be worse if he's there, and then he's not? And I'm alone for the first time not by my choice, but by his? I can't handle that!"
"Hermione, what are you on about?" Ginny asked, moving further from Harry and staring at her best friend. Hermione turned frustrated and worried eyes back to Ginny.
"It happened before, but Harry was there and if he wasn't, I don't know. I couldn't have… I would have…" she trailed off, putting her face in her hands before mumbling, "I'm sorry."
"Hermione, Ron's not going to leave you again," Harry said, understanding far more of Hermione's rambling than Ginny had.
"I never thought he'd leave me in the first place!" Hermione groaned, her head shooting up out of her hands, her lower lip just barely trembling. "Never!"
"I would never have guessed it either," Ginny said in a soft tone. "But I'd stake every Galleon I have that he wouldn't again."
"I thought it might be different there," she mumbled back. Hermione's knees were drawn to her chest, her arms lay folded across the top of them, and she rest her cheek there as she looked to Harry and Ginny.
It was so strange for Hermione to be coming to Ginny for support. For so long, it had been the other way around. She had always complained about Ron, grumbled over his manners, his moods, the signals she could never seem to decipher. But she wasn't really coming to Ginny for help, just for a bit of griping. It had always been Hermione who would offer support, advice, help with homework. She who had advised Ginny to move on past Harry, and then to take her head out of her bum when Harry started to pay attention again. Ginny was the younger, the little sister role, before she was ever a friend. The past year at Hogwarts had changed many things for Ginny, but the biggest change, she was convinced, was how no one seemed to treat her like a child anymore. It seemed that, once you survived your first torture sessions, the nightmares that followed, organized a rebellion, fought a war, you lost that childhood status. Even though, through most parts of most days, in many ways, she still felt like a child.
"Australia?" Harry clarified Hermione's last comment, bring Ginny back to the present. Hermione nodded.
"But," Ginny started, feeling her brow scrunch in confusion. "I thought George was going too? How could he leave, be that big a prat, if George was there too?"
"That was… he was serious?" Hermione blinked at Ginny.
Ginny shrugged. "Seemed to be. Mum's yelling was anyway."
Hermione seemed to crumple in on herself. "I didn't think he was serious. I didn't think he had even asked George yet. And I didn't know any of that when I said those things to him," she mumbled through the hands now covering her face.
The back door slammed open and Hermione's head shot up. But it was only Arthur, who blinked at the three teenagers staring at him before asking, "Was I not expected?"
"Sorry, Dad," Ginny said, smiling up at him. "We thought you might be Ron."
"Ron?" Arthur questioned. "Is he not back yet?"
Out of the corner of her eye, Ginny saw Harry go to answer, but Hermione's voice cut him off. "Do you know where he went?" She sounded more shrill than she probably would have liked.
Arthur seemed to have noticed as well. "With George," he answered kindly. "His apartment over the shop, actually. George said he needed a few things and Ron offered to go with him."
Hermione muttered something Ginny couldn't quite catch before walking out of the room, Arthur patting her on the shoulder as she passed before turning to follow her.
"They won't ever stop, will they?" Ginny mused as she gave Harry's chest a little push. He fell back to the sofa, pulling her with him.
"Not likely," he answered through a yawn, reaching for her hair once again. His fingers thread softly through her fiery strands. "But they wouldn't be Ron and Hermione if they did."
"Don't know how you could stand them, all those months," Ginny yawned into his tee shirt. This one was red but worn, appearing almost pink at the seams. His body heat positively seeped through.
Harry chuckled. "The map helped."
"Map?"
"My Hogwarts map. You. You're dot, watching you sleep," Harry mumbled into her hair, effectively hiding his face from her. "It was how I spent a lot of my time."
"I didn't know that," Ginny murmured into his chest, a giddy smile overtaking her features. She heard Harry's embarrassed laugh rumble through him.
The warmth of the Burrow combined with Harry's chest did magical things. The worn sofa cradled her body and Harry's deep breathing lulled her senses. Ginny felt calm, almost happy. And she wasn't sure if she really should. It was only last night that she was crying by herself on a staircase. And nothing had happened in the short twenty or so hours since then to change anything. Fred was still gone, George was still a mess, Ron still angry, her mum still miserable.
Except…
Ron wasn't quite as angry, not really. She could tell by the way his shoulders finally straightened, even in the way he started offering that goofy grin when Hermione came into the room. And her mum was different too. Not by much, but Ginny had come across her after Ron had somehow gotten her to agree to he and George taking a holiday halfway across the world, and she had pat Ginny's cheek as she entered the room. Just a warm hand, the briefest of touches, but it was something she hadn't done in what felt like ages. When she closed her eyes, Ginny could feel the press of her fingers still. It had taken everything she had not to sob in relief in that moment. Somewhere deep inside, Mum was still Mum.
And George. Definitely still a mess. But he laughed. Ron made him do it, Ginny had heard. She was in the living room, dusting and tidying up, trying to help her Mum in any way possible, and she heard Ron's cursing and yelling and George's laugh.
And now, at the end of the day, she finally understood what Harry meant when he had said, "It's over, isn't it? It's all over."
Fred was gone. And it still hurt like hell. But the rest of her family was here. And they would heal, not just individually, but together. There may be setbacks, and nights when Fred's void seemed impossible to survive, but that's when they'd pull together. That's what family was for.
And someday, she knew, the nightmares would stop too. But until then, she was content with having her very own nightmare repellent.
"Harry?" she murmured, he started underneath her, possibly drifting to sleep.
"Hmm?" he hummed in sleepy acknowledgement.
"I know what you meant," she whispered, keeping with the mood. "Today when you said it was all over."
He hummed again and his fingers stroked once more though her hair.
"We're going to be okay, all of us," she said.
"I really think we are Gin," Harry whispered, dropping a light kiss to her crown.
O~O~O
A loud wolf-whistling woke Ginny. She burrowed closer to Harry and tried to ignore it, the shrill piercing sound, but soon it was accompanied by someone poking her in the shoulder.
"Ow! What?" she yelled, rolling away from Harry and nearly falling off the couch. It was only Harry's quick hands that saved her, dragging her back into his chest. He was squinting past her and Ginny reached over him for his glasses, which he must have slipped off at some point.
"Getting a little cozy there, aren't you Potter?" teased a voice, but the words were all wrong, slurred a bit.
"Nah, probably Gin, if anyone's out to take advantage, it'd be her," mumbled a second voice, sounding highly amused with themselves. She felt Harry tighten below her.
"My, my," Ginny started, moving away from Harry and sitting up to see Ron and George, grinning like idiots and obviously smashed, leaning into each other and staring down at her. "Isn't somebody pissed? First time with Firewhiskey, Ronnie? Doesn't go down as smooth as Butterbeer, does it?"
"Even smoother," Ron boasted in a slur. George guffawed before pounding Ron on the back. Ginny heard Harry laugh from where he was still stretched out behind her.
"Ron, good brother that he is, was helping me get my things for our world trip," George said, patting Ron hard on the back once more. Harry actually reached around Ginny and pulled her closer, it had looked for a moment that Ron might just topple forward. "But we found the bottle and thought, 'Why Miss Granger might not appreciate this particular item,' so we thought we'd lighten the load."
"How thoughtful of you," Ginny snorted.
"We thought so," Ron said, nodding.
"Well Miss Granger wasn't too happy with you when we talked to her a few hours ago," Ginny said, eyeing Ron now and judging the time lost by how dark it seemed to be outside now. Ron's eyebrows drew together in a line.
"Told you," he muttered, apparently to George.
"You also told me what you'd do about that," George replied with a waggle of his eyebrows. Ginny got the feeling that she was happy to have been left out of that particular discussion.
Ron grinned. "Chapter eighteen."
"I'm telling you Ron, she'd tie your wand in a knot if you tried it!"
Ron merely grinned wider before stumbling up the stairs.
"Ah youth," George slurred, looking back to Harry and Ginny with a twinkle in his eye. "You two behave now," he quipped before following Ron up the stairs towards his own room.
"You know Gin," Harry murmured to her moments later, "I think our rooms might be occupied for a bit."
"She really is going to tie his wand in a knot," Ginny chuckled.
"I'd rather not think about it," Harry answered through a grimace while Ginny laughed.
"But, I think you're right," she said, grinning as she settled back into Harry's embrace. He summoned a blanket and tucked it around them. "Guess we'll just have to wait it out here."
Harry handed her his glasses and she stretched to place them on the side table, his arms came around her as she did.
"Night Gin."
"Goodnight Harry."
A/N It's short, but… well, it's all I had to say. Cheers!