TO BE A WOMAN
Prologue—
I had come to the Burrow to pick up the last of my things. Some old Quidditch jerseys and photographs. A few old outfits that still fit. I even took the quilt my grandmother made me.
I wanted my life scrubbed from this place, cut, severed.
I knew the ring on my finger gave me the excuse to go. Molly would never have let us leave if she didn't think we were following her plan. Only Fred and George had ever truly gotten free from her, on their own merit. The rest of us Weasley children were marching to the beat of her drum, even though there had never been a real need to march in the first place.
"Do you have time for a cup of tea, darling?" Molly asked.
"I have to go," I said. "I have work in the morning and…"
"You are doing this on purpose then? To punish me?" Molly said.
I looked at her for the first time, saw how deep the lines in her face had become. She was a little thinner, hair still the bright red we had all inherited. I could never tell if it was magic or genes that made the hair so bright.
"I do not want to have tea," I said.
"You don't call me Mum anymore," Molly said.
I had been wondering when that would come up. I had stopped calling her "Mum" years ago. In my head she was Molly, an emotional stranger, someone I desperately wanted to know but could not remember.
"I don't."
"I wish you would."
"I don't think that will happen."
"I don't understand what I did, Ginny," Molly said. She was crying now, making her face red as a sunburn. I hated the way she cried, like a pig. The same squealing, the same panicked breathing.
But I didn't feel the need to stop her. I didn't feel the need to take away the pain. I just hated the noise. Just wanted it to stop.
"You had so many chances, to fix this," I said. I could feel the Healer's voice in the back of my head, telling me to be honest, to share my feelings.
"I tried—"
"No. You ignored my pain for YEARS. Told me to suck it up. And now… You took something from me that I wanted. I wanted so much. You ruined everything because you were too cheap and too selfish and—" I could not get the words out. I couldn't.
It was unfair.
And Molly would never get it. She would never get it. She had what she wanted. She got what she needed. And I would never have what she took from me.
"Do NOT tell me you are sorry, Molly Weasley," I said. "If you were, you would have let me see a healer years ago. You would have listened to dad and all the letters from Madam—You did this for whatever fucking… Whatever reason. I don't know. I stopped trying to understand it years ago. It hurts to think it was on purpose."
"Do not talk to me like that—"
"I'm—I can't have kids. I can't have children. You ignored it for years and it was serious. It was a serious issue. You took that from me. Made me… I can't talk to you right now."
I left without a goodbye. I took everything I wanted from the house and she was not part of that… Part of that life I planned to live. She was not part of anything really.
And that hurt as much as—It hurt. I didn't have to compare it to anything, I told myself.
It was allowed to just hurt.
Without being bigger than it was.
Without shrinking to fit into my palms.
It hurt.