Weeks later, Ginny had finally found a wandmaker: Phyllis Gregorovitch, daughter of the famed wandmaker.
"This is strange," Phyllis said, walking into the dusty shop and smiling. "Normally I would seek an apprentice but this time, the apprentice seeks me!"
"Yes," Ginny said, looking down. "Yes, I was originally undergoing an apprenticeship with Mr Ollivander..."
"Of course, yes. I am sorry for your loss." Empty words. Ginny rather thought of it as gain. Ollivander had gained peace, she had gained a wandmaker, and Phyllis had gained employment.
"I suppose," Ginny said, deciding not to voice her thoughts, "that you would like to know what I know and what I don't know. Ollivander taught me a lot regarding the storage of wood, unicorn hair, phoenix feather and so forth..."
Ginny spent the rest of the morning going over her past knowledge with Phyllis and by lunchtime, she thought things were going well. Phyllis was pleasant enough and seemed patient, and Ginny thought they would get along alright.
She popped into George's shop to say hello, feeling slightly guilty. It had been some time since she had seen him.
"Hi George, on lunch break?"
"Not til two. Pass us that box, Ginny."
Ginny obediently passed up a box on her left; George, teetering dangerously on a stepladder, began making room for it in the impossibly small storeroom.
"How's Ron?"
"Round here somewhere, the useless bludger," George said, although Ginny could tell he meant it affectionately. "I thought you saw him more often than I do, anyway, in and out of his house like a yo-yo."
"I haven't been over there for ages," Ginny said. "They're always busy."
"Yeah, now Quidditch season's winding to a close. You can say goodbye to Ron and Harry once the semi-finals are here," George said. "Pass up that tape, Ginny."
She passed it up, duly, and said her farewell, retreating to Florean Fortescue's for an ice-cream and to think for a while.
That night, Ginny lay on her bed and closed her eyes and let the memories take over. It had been at least a month since she'd seen anybody. How strange it was, how suddenly the ties fell away, how suddenly things fell apart. She walked alone these days and it felt strange.
She saw them at the Ministry, saw them at the Battle. She saw them duelling for their lives, she saw them running and laughing through the grounds, she saw them by the lake, she saw them studying in the library. Her friends, every moment, every memory unstained and pure, and she wanted to lock the memories away, keep them safe and cherished. The scrapbook, the closest she could get to making the memories solid, something she could actually look at and touch.
She wanted all her yesterdays back, but that was impossible.
Summer was well and truly here – nearly gone, and what had she done? For some reason she thought summer would bring it all back, all the beautiful smiles and lazy joy, the sun and sea and happiness. But there had been nothing. She went to work, she came home. She sat and thought of her friends, what they were doing, if they were okay.
When she closed her eyes, she could feel the darkness in her heart, the growing shadows, the spreading cold. Yet tonight it felt worse than ever.
She lit her little woodstove and managed to gingerly push her head through the flames, calling out. The residential healer would know.
"Pansy? Pansy?"
"Oh!" Pansy, making a cup of tea nearby, nearly dropped it. "Oh, it's you. Hi, Ginny. Everything alright?"
"Yes," Ginny said. "Except I feel awful."
"As in, a cold?" Pansy asked hopefully, clearing wanting it to be something easily fixable with a simple Pepper-Up.
"No, as in...cold," Ginny said. "I feel cold. I feel a darkness."
"I get that sometimes," Pansy said. "Go out and party until you forget everything."
Ginny frowned. "You're stumbling. Are you drunk?"
"Maybe. I was about to have a cup of Sobriety-Spiked coffee, but you interrupted."
"Oh, Pansy."
"I know, I know. Look, in two weeks, it'll be gone."
"Why two weeks?"
"Because that's the end of summer."
"What? Pansy!" Ginny exclaimed, recoiling as Pansy nearly fell on her. "Watch out! How much have you had to drink?"
"Lots," Pansy said happily, rolling over on the floor. A moment later Ginny heard soft snores. She sighed.
"Oh, Pansy. What's going to happen to you?"
Two weeks til the end of summer. Ginny wasn't going to waste that.
She wanted it, wanted that old feeling back, of warmth and happiness.
She managed to grab five minutes with Hermione. She did some careful calculations and managed to catch Hermione at home, by herself.
She opened the unlocked back door quietly. Hermione was by the kitchen counter, making either tomato soup or an Anti-Moodiness Serum, she couldn't tell.
"Hermione?" Ginny asked quietly.
"Hmm? Oh, Ginny. How're you?"
"I – I miss you. Everyone."
"Oh." Hermione held up a spoonful of basil, making sure it was level. "Well, we're always here for you, and –"
"Do you remember when you said you thought we had one last summer in us?" Ginny asked. "What happened to it?"
Hermione finally paused in her cooking, frowning. "I...don't know. I suppose everyone was busy and I forgot to organise anything..."
"Well, there's two weeks left," Ginny said quietly. "I think we can still reclaim our summer." She paused. "I want one last summer with my friends. That's all. Before we fall apart."
"Fall apart?" Hermione asked softly.
"Yes. Before we forgot to talk and owl and visit each other," Ginny said. "Before we run on, without each other."
There was a long pause before Hermione spoke. "You know...I think this house needs a really good party."
"A cocktail party?"
Hermione smiled. "I was thinking something a bit bigger."
"Lots of people," Ginny smiled. "Everybody we know, and more. A really big bash."
"Yes. Just give me a reason, and we'll send out the invites." Hermione paused. "Everyone from my year at Hogwarts, and yours if you want."
"How would we get hold of them, though?"
They looked at each other.
LIVE LIKE A MUGGLE DAY!
Celebrate with Hermione, Ron and Harry at: 19 Barrow Lane, Brightwater
25th August, 7:00pm onwards
Friends and partners welcome.
BYO!
"Awesome, a piss-up!" Blaise exclaimed, holding the invite reverently.
"Yes," Ginny said. She and Hermione had made the invitations as vague as possible, and had deliberately omitted 'invite only' from it.
"Friends welcome, hey? Awesome," Blaise said. "Cheers. I'll definitely be there!"
"Excellent," Ginny said, and she meant it.
Blaise left, grinning. Ginny and Hermione had made a show of casually wandering into the Tipsy Hippogriff on a random weeknight and coincidentally stumbling across Blaise. Ron was with them, and was completely confused.
"You gave an invitation to Blaise!"
"Yes."
"With 'friends welcome'? Are you completely mad?"
"Yes," Ginny said. "We are. Now let's owl the rest out."
Hermione grinned at him.
They kicked off early. Ginny arrived at their house at five o'clock, to prepare it.
"You're late," Hermione teased. "I thought you said you were coming at four?"
"I know, but cleaning my apartment took longer than I thought."
"You were cleaning your apartment? I thought it was our place that needed cleaning," Hermione laughed. They weren't really cleaning the house, but they were placing anti-theft spells everywhere, and moving everything that was of value and would probably be broken; they placed it all into a cupboard and locked it against curious drunks.
They left the guest bedrooms open, although they put spells on Hermione, Ron and Harry's bedrooms. The spells would ensure the doors would only open if given the correct password, much like the Gryffindor portrait. Thus, they could choose who to let in their rooms.
"Ron's password is Chudley Cannons, Harry's is Butterscotch, mine is Crookshanks," Hermione told Ginny. "So if you need to escape for a bit of peace and calm, just go into one of them."
"Alright," Ginny said, smiling. Summer was coming back again. Ginny could feel it.
Four hours later, the house had at least a hundred people in it. They were dancing in the lounge, drinking in the kitchen, falling over ornamental sundials in the garden. And by one o'clock in the morning, things were still going strong: four burlesque and unwelcome men had tried to enter the house, only to be seized by such a number of spells that they were left in puddles on the lawn.
"I think they were Muggles, the poor things," Hermione said. "I think it's a boneless spell that made them all puddly like that." She sent about restoring their skeletons and obliviating them; they went confusedly on their way, much to the entertainment of everyone.
"Good thing the police just left," shouted George on his way past.
"Were the police here?" Harry frowned.
"Three times."
"Where was I?" Harry asked confusedly.
"Under the pool table. More rum!" – Blaise's contribution as he stumbled past and got into a fight with a rosebush. The rosebush won.
Ginny was feeling more alive with every moment. This is what she wanted, this jumbled chaotic mess, with her at the heart of it, not caring and not thinking, just letting the current tug her along.
But by three in the morning, things were beginning to calm down. People had gone home, others had set up temporary beds in the lounge room, a happy mess of sleeping bags and people. Others wandered the streets, playing in the secret darkness of the playground, made strange and fantastical by night. Ginny and Harry jumped onto the swings and raced each other to the stars, laughing and half-falling off them. They leaped off, chased each other to the reserve as a train came through. The signal bell was ringing, the little red light blinking in the darkness.
And they ran on, stumbling through the long grass to the train. Its dull whistle blared through the morning mist, and they stopped a mere metre away as it rushed past. Grass train stars, it's all Ginny could see, Harry standing still beside her, his hair whipping back as the last carriage bumped over the rails and watching the red blinking light fade into darkness. They could see clear across the river now, the tiny city lights across the bay reflecting in the water. They smiled at it, smiling at nothing, as the train murmured into the distance. They walked back, slowly, and Ginny stumbled slightly in the long grass. Harry held out an arm to steady her.
"Alright?"
She nodded and wandered through the twisted, tiny path, until they reached the main road again. The tar stretched into darkness, devoid of any cars. As though it had been emptied just for her, for her to walk down. A couple of boys - Theo and Blaise - melted from the shadows and straddled the white line in the middle of the road, swaggered down it like they owned the whole town, the whole beautiful country. Ginny walked on the footpath, past the takeaway shop. The lights were on, she could see the woman behind the counter, rubbing her eyes sleepily and turning the frying pan. They wandered down the street, Blaise making them laugh with exaggerated staggering. A fingersmudge of dawn appeared, a tiny light blue mark over the mountains. Ginny paused at the bus stop.
"Let's catch a bus."
"Where to?"
"Anywhere."
"We'll be waiting a while."
"Got all the time in the world."
But that was not true. The tiny blue mark lightened just a bit, and Ginny wanted it to go away, so she could stay in this strange suspended time forever.
"There's one at 6:14. First one of the day."
"Half an hour."
They wandered home. Ginny pushed open the gate and the front door, gently. Everyone else was sleeping, a deep dreaming sleep, the kind only the drunk and babies can manage. They sat around the table. Harry was lounging in the kitchen, against the counter, eyes casually running over the pantry in search of food. Theo fetched his jacket, his socks. There was a brief but desperate battle over a pair of unclaimed socks between him and Blaise and Theo won, pulling them on triumphantly.
"What are you doing?" Lavender asked, emerging sleepily from the guest bedroom.
"Leaving, the Muggle way!" Blaise was insanely cheerful.
"What, now?"
"Yeah, there's a 6:14 to town."
"Who the hell catches a bus at 6:14 in the morning?"
"We do." Blaise was laughing like a hyena and Lavender threw a paper cup at him.
Ginny watched them leave, watched them all gradually trickle away. Morning melted into afternoon, afternoon into evening. She was the last guest to leave, bidding farewell to Ron.
"Goodnight," Ron called softly, as if afraid to break the night with noise, and she mouthed the same word soundlessly as she stepped into the fire and floo'd away, arriving in her kitchenette. She stared out the window once more, at the beautiful stars and the broad river, a lone figure walking along the shoaly banks as always, under the lovely pale moon. Her bed was empty, cold, the covers sealed over it, cold and unused. She had been too busy running under the stars, too busy to sleep and dream, racing through the long, dewy grass alongside the train...
She shook away the memory like a dream. Nobody said goodbye. She was just another face in their lives, yet she was not resentful. And here she was, them all gone, still partying, still trying to keep it going, and she loved them for their youth and vibrancy, even now as she lay her weary head onto soft pillows.
But when she slept, she dreamed of stars and the dark, dangerous mystery of the night, and she was running, running, racing down the green hill, more alive than she had ever been, and as she disappeared into the sunlight she thought she heard a voice crying her name, long and lonely, a sad echo.
But she was gone.
Molly Weasley was chopping potatoes, getting ready to make a stew for tonight's dinner. Arthur sat at the large, battered kitchen table by himself, eating toast. It was so quiet; the empty bedrooms upstairs, swept clean, the quidditch shed with dusty brooms lying forgotten, never to be used again. Molly had trouble getting used to her silent mornings.
"Arthur, dear?"
"Yes?"
"Do tellee-phones sometimes break?"
"Sorry, dear?"
"Tellee-phones," Molly said patiently. "Do they break, sometimes?"
"Yes, I would imagine so," Arthur said, bewildered. "Quite a lot of Muggle contraptions break down, really..."
"Well, it's half-seven, and Ginny hasn't called," Molly said, sliding the potatoes into the bubbling pot over the fire.
"Oh, I'm sure she's just –"
"She always calls, precisely at seven-thirty." Molly began steadily chopping carrots now.
Arthur looked at her calm face, her steady hands.
"We'll just pop in and see if she's alright, then," he sighed, folding up his newspaper. "She said something to me last week about having a dreadful cold. After work, I'll –"
"Now."
"Right now, dear?"
"Yes."
There was no use arguing with his wife, not when she was in one of these moods. He got up and placed his plate on the sink.
"Riverside Apartments, that's the place, isn't it?"
"Yes. 4B," Molly said.
They apparated.
Ginny's door was unlocked. Arthur knocked twice, then turned the handle gently, surprised when the door clicked gently open.
"Ginny, dear?" Molly called out. "Ginny?"
They looked at each other, two parents, with parent's instinct. Molly walked slowly towards the bedroom, its door open, morning sun streaming across Ginny as she lay in bed. The sun lit up her richly red hair, illuminated her clear skin with its freckles like tiny stars. Her eyes were half open, gazing out through the open curtains, out at the gloriously blue sky.
Molly's mouth opened and a strange, dark keening noise came out, from the very back of her throat, the very darkness of her heart, welling up until she wailed Ginny's name, a strange and empty word, a lonely echo.
