Chapter 3
Simplest Route Home The one reason why You have to stop When you reach the top - is: The next step is the sky. - John Ciardi
"Neville, you've been following me around for three weeks. It's not going to get any more exciting then this."
"I don't know about that. I've read more then I have in years. Hermione has kept me well-stocked with some interesting books."
It was on the tip of tongue to ask for more information about her friend, but she decided against it, biting her tongue to keep the words in.
Neville smiled at her. "So, are you going to remember lunch today on your own or do I need to remind you?" He slouched down in his chair, slinging his arm over the back of the chair next to him. It wasn't as comfortable as his office chair but the view was better.
"Um, if you're hungry," she said distractedly, "I think I have a chocolate bar in my bag."
"Not anymore you don't." He smiled as she looked at him in confusion. "I ate that for breakfast."
"Why don't you go get something from the takeaway on the corner."
"Why don't you let me take you home and I'll leave you alone?"
It was a familiar answer. He found a way to insert it into every conversation they had in the last week. She smiled at him distractedly and flipped another page in the large tome in front of her.
"Why don't you use magic anymore?"
This was a new tactic and Ginny stopped to consider the question. With a sigh, she looked up at him. "I gave up on magic because it gave up on me." Her answer was simple but the pain in her eyes was not.
"Did the magic give up on you or did Harry?"
"I don't want to cry again," she muttered as she shoved away from the table. It was pretty certain no one would bother her pile of books so she left everything where it was and walked away.
***
Ginny walked aimlessly through the park. The sunshine offered heat on her shoulders but not the warmth she had craved for years. Did the magic give up on you or did Harry? Did the magic give up on you? OR. DID. HARRY. HARRY. HARRY. I miss you, Harry. I miss you everyday. You told me you were going to ask me a question. I was going to say yes. YES. YES. YES. Did you give up on me? On us? Have I been bitter all these years because I thought you gave up on me? I have, haven't I? I'm sorry.
She knew Neville stood behind her and turned around to face him. She needed to get this new bit of information off her chest. He wouldn't think poorly of her for being honest. "Ask me that questions again, Neville."
He scanned her face, knowing the question she wanted him to ask but choosing another one instead. "Will you let me take you home?"
Without thinking, the answer the question she thought he was going to ask on the tip of her tongue, she answered quickly, "Yes."
In an instant, Neville crushed her in a hug and walked her to the curb. Before she knew what was happening, he had his right hand up and the Knight Bus was crashing to a stop in front of them.
"The Burrow, Stan, and there's 10 galleons for both of you if you get is there in less then 5 minutes."
"Yes, sir, Mr. Longbottom, sir. Did I ever tell you about the time Harry Potter told me an' Ern that you was him? I mean, he was you?" He continued his story for the benefit of Ernie even as Neville drug Ginny to the back of the bus and threw her into an overstuffed chair.
"I don't know about this, Neville. This wasn't what, I mean, I was going to tell you I thought that H-"
This time he cut her off from saying the name. His hand over her mouth stopped her from talking but, with a wicked glint that hadn't been in her eyes for some time, Ginny stuck out her tongue and licked his hand.
"Bloody hell!" he yelped, taking back his hand as if she was a fire- breathing dragon who got to close. It was too comical not to laugh. Ginny couldn't stop once she started but was forced to stop suddenly when the bus came to an abrupt halt, throwing them both up the aisle.
"The Burrows, sir," Stan announced proudly, as if he was the director of a tour through this particular part of the country.
Throwing the well-earned money at the men, Neville grabbed Ginny and dragged her off the bus towards the Weasley parents who waited on the front step of the same house Ginny had grown up in.
"Welcome home," he whispered in her ear, tormenting himself with the scent of her hair.
"How did they know we would be here today?" she asked, staring at Neville when it became too painful to look at her parents.
"Whenever your father is home, he does nothing but stare at the clock, waiting for your picture to move towards HOME."
With a sob she could no longer contain, Ginny collapsed on the grass. She held out her arms and her mother and father were there. Mrs. Weasley sank beside her and held her like a baby, crooning, "Baby girl, baby girl" over and over again. Mr. Weasley encompassed both of them with his arms, crying silent tears while smoothing Ginny's hair.
The reunion lasted a couple of minutes until Molly looked up at her husband. "Go get the others," she instructed. In a daze, Ginny followed them into the house where Mr. Weasley had his head in the fireplace, yelling out directions and saying excitedly, "Come home. She's come back" at each stop. In seconds, there were popping sounds all over the front room as her brothers Apparated one after another. Children began flying out of the fireplace, scrambling over each other to get to their grandparents.
When did we get so old? she thought numbly as she noticed strikes of grey highlighting the red-hair of each of the Weasley boys. Fred and George spent the first five minutes trying to figure out how to hug her and set off Fizzy Whizbees at the same time. Ron kept slapping her on the back, not able to talk yet.
Mercifully, Hermione rescued her from the boys. "Oh, Gin. It's good to see you." The two girls embraced but Hermione held on a couple seconds longer when Ginny tried to break away. Hermione held onto her shoulders and gazed into her eyes. After a lifetime, she smiled. "You need to eat better but there is less pain in your eyes then I thought I'd find." With a kiss on Ginny's cheek, she hurried to the kitchen to help with the meal.
Bill and Charlie swept her up next. They both talked non-stop about their respective spouses, children and careers. There were no odd silences and Ginny felt she couldn't have talked if she had wanted to.
"Dinner!" Molly yelled at the top of her lungs over the roar of the crowd. Instantly, everyone stopped what they were doing and scrambled for the tables set up outside.
"Shall we let them get the good seats before we try?" Neville asked her as he took her hand. She hadn't moved with the others and the shock still hadn't worn off of her pale face. "Ginny? Are you going to be okay?"
She shook her head, covering her face with her shaking hands. "What have you done to me? These people are never going to let me leave."
"For your information, Ginny, those people are your family. They wouldn't have let you leave in the first place if they had known what you were going to do when you left Black Manor. I haven't seen your father smile this much since Grant was born. Actually, the only time he smiles anymore is when the grandkids are here. You'd never know him if you saw him at work. He's changed since you left."
"Since the war," she said softly. Her hands dropped to her side as she felt the same emotions well up inside her again after all these years.
"No, since you left, Ginny. A few battles didn't put the creak in his back or the shaking in his hands. Having his daughter leave him without a look behind her did that."
"Low blow! I didn't make my father old." Ginny was shaking with fury but Neville wasn't in the mood to let her get off lightly. She had agreed to come home and she needed to see what she had missed, good and bad. He felt some sense of unease that he was being the devils-advocate here but his happiness that she was finally showing emotion at all made it better.
"Are you sure? Were you here? Don't make excuses for what you did, Ginny. You're too strong of a person to make excuses. Your family has changed."
"Mother seems the same. She hasn't changed," she stated with only a small whine.
"The woman was in St. Mungo's for the first four months after you left. The only thing that saved her was helping with Ron's convalescence."
"What?" This bit of news didn't sound good.
"Did you notice Ron's limp? No, probably not. He's gotten pretty good with the false leg. The wound from the wand the Death Eater drove into his leg festered on the inside. The wand was made of a poisoned wood and when Hermione took it out, she left a splinter in without realizing. They had to take the leg halfway between his hip and knee after months of agony and fierce pain. He was in a bad way for a long time. Between Hermione and Molly, they saw him through it. I think he blames himself more for Harry's death then you do. He had no will to live after he lost both his best friend and his little sister."
"STOP!" Ginny screamed, putting her hands over her ears.
"Neville!" Hermione scolded from the doorway. "Let her be. She doesn't need the history all at once. What's done is done."
"She needs to know why, though. Just like you need to know why she left."
"We don't need to know anything. It's enough that she's here now. Come on, it's time for dinner. I think the twins are eager to show off their new Exploding Ice Cubes."
Still shaking, Ginny let Hermione lead her to the place reserved for her at the table. Neville was across from her but it was a shock to be seated beside a redheaded urchin on either side. They both stared at her with more amusement then trepidation while eating but got braver as the meal came to a close.
"Hi, I'm Fred Junior" the urchin on the right said to her. He looked and sounded just like his father. Guessing quickly at his age, Ginny guessed him to be four.
"Do they call you Fred Junior? Seems like a mouthful?"
"Sure. That way it takes longer for them to yell at me."
The boy on the other side was tugging on her arm. If she had to guess, she would have thought he was Fred Junior's twin.
"I'm going to have a birthday," he whispered.
"That's nice. How old will you be?" He held up four fingers with the shaky but practiced expertise of someone who was very happy to be older.
"That's Thomas. He's my cousin."
Annabelle, George's wife leaned over Thomas. "He's shy around people he doesn't know very well but he told us he wanted to sit next to you because you had pretty hair like Nana." She smiled into Ginny's shiny eyes. "I'm glad you came back. The boys know all about you. You should hear the stories Fred and George tell them about you."
"About me?" She had become a legend without even realizing it was possible.
"Sure," Fred Junior told her. "I like the stories about you winning the Quidditch Cup. Uncle Ron says he was really the one to win it but Aunt Hermione told us the real story." Ginny looked around the table in confusion. All the adults had quit talking to watch the new aunt.
"What other stories have they told?" she quizzed her nephews.
"About how you and Uncle Harry killed the big snake," chimed in a small boy directly across the table from Thomas.
No one dared draw a breath. Ginny's eyes had grown round and glassy but none of the little boys saw her pain at the memory of Harry rescuing her from the Basalisk and Tom Riddle.
"I like stories about Quidditch," chimed in Fred Junior again.
Thomas, in an uncharacteristic show of force for one so shy, stuck out his tongue at his older cousin. "You already told that one. She wants to know the rest, too."
"But I like the Quidditch stories," he whined, sticking out his lower lip. It made everyone laugh to see the tiny boy looking so much like his father and uncle. Both boys had done their share of pouting when they were younger.
"Fred Junior, why don't you pick another story to tell your Aunt Ginny?" his mother interjected before the situation got out of hand.
It took a couple of stuttering starts for him to pick another story that didn't have anything to do with Quidditch but he relished in the telling. "One time you took Uncle Neville to a dance and he said you were as pretty as a fairy. He liked that you danced with him all night long."
The older family members ducked their heads as Neville tried to hide under the table. His face was redder than the raspberry jam sitting in front of him. He could only remember telling the boys that story once. They had been having a bad day and all of them had been sent to separate chairs in the front room until they promised to settle down. He had offered to tell them a 'quiet' story and they had sat through the whole telling of the Yule Ball without a single word. That they didn't fall asleep at any point had surprised everyone.
"That's a good one but I like how Aunt Ginny beat off twelve Death Eaters with only her wand and broomstick," chimed in another boy, this one the only fair-haired boy of the bunch. He stood up on the chair vacated by Fred Junior and pretended to wave around a wand while chanting, "Die evil scumbags!"
Everyone tried to get to him first to stop the little boy's wild antics but Ginny's laughter stopped all of them. She reached out and tickled him until he squealed. "Who made up that one?" she asked, shaking her head at Ron as he lifted his hand. "And how many are you fending off in this attack?"
"Thirty-two!" cried all the little boys in unison. It was obviously a fun story for them to act out.
"Aunt Ginny?" A little girl stood behind her and pushed her hand into the cleft of Ginny's bent arm. Turning to get a better look, Ginny almost fell off her chair. The red hair was a little longer but the curl gave her away. She caught Neville's eye from her position and mouthed, "Percy's little girl?"
He nodded and mouthed back, "Long story."
The little girl was attempting to pull her down so Ginny accommodated her. "Nana told me you were Head Girl when you were at school."
"Why, yes," she stammered. "I was Head Girl." Her school days were a complete fog, pushed in the far recesses of her mind, but she could still remember how happy she had been when she had received one of the greatest honours Hogwarts had to bestow.
"I want to be Head Girl, too. Aunt Hermione was Head Girl and she says to study hard and stay out of trouble."
"Why do you want to be Head Girl?" Ginny asked, afraid of seeing the need for power in yet another Weasley offspring, even one so young.
"So I can keep Fred Junior from getting into too much trouble," the little girl explained, reaching over to ruffle her cousin's close-cropped hair.
He ducked her hand and blushed. "Geroff, Katherine. I told you to quit doing that." It was a good feeling to watch the interaction of the near- siblings, to know they were all so close to one another.
"Aunt Ginny! Aunt Ginny!" hollered the boy from across the table again.
"Hush, James. You're going to wake up Grant."
Turning slowly back to the table, Ginny surveyed the little boy again. He looked like a Weasley but his hair was sable and curlier than the other cousin's hair. Her eyes lifted to the man beside the boy. Ron returned her gaze with tenderness. "James?" she whispered.
"We didn't think you'd mind much," he answered, hugging the little boy. "Dumbledore is his godfather and it was his idea."
"No, I don't mind."
Ron leaned down and whispered in the boy's ear. He nodded and ran around the table, launching himself past the other children and into her arms.
"Daddy says if I'm very quiet, I can ask my question." She nodded and he continued. "Do you live with Uncle Harry? I want to meet him."
Hugging the little boy close, she buried her face in his hair. His gaze was so wistful and full of hope. "No, sweetums. I don't live with Uncle Harry. I'm sure he would want to meet you, too." Afraid she was going to begin sobbing again, she kissed the little boy on the forehead and set him down. "I have to, uh, I."
Immediately, parents called their children away from their aunt, making room for her to leave her place at the table. Molly moved to follow her, but Arthur stopped her with a hand on her arm and a shake of her head. The whole family looked to Neville and he excused himself from the table. This was yet another battle for him to win for the group of people he now considered as close to a family as he had ever experienced. With any luck, he wouldn't let them down.
"Just another dinner with the Weasley's. At least we didn't think to show her the dungeon we added to the house. That would have really set her off." George quipped, ducking the blow his wife tried to deliver to his ears. Everyone burst out laughing uneasily and began to clean up the dinner table, content for the moment that Ginny was home.
Simplest Route Home The one reason why You have to stop When you reach the top - is: The next step is the sky. - John Ciardi
"Neville, you've been following me around for three weeks. It's not going to get any more exciting then this."
"I don't know about that. I've read more then I have in years. Hermione has kept me well-stocked with some interesting books."
It was on the tip of tongue to ask for more information about her friend, but she decided against it, biting her tongue to keep the words in.
Neville smiled at her. "So, are you going to remember lunch today on your own or do I need to remind you?" He slouched down in his chair, slinging his arm over the back of the chair next to him. It wasn't as comfortable as his office chair but the view was better.
"Um, if you're hungry," she said distractedly, "I think I have a chocolate bar in my bag."
"Not anymore you don't." He smiled as she looked at him in confusion. "I ate that for breakfast."
"Why don't you go get something from the takeaway on the corner."
"Why don't you let me take you home and I'll leave you alone?"
It was a familiar answer. He found a way to insert it into every conversation they had in the last week. She smiled at him distractedly and flipped another page in the large tome in front of her.
"Why don't you use magic anymore?"
This was a new tactic and Ginny stopped to consider the question. With a sigh, she looked up at him. "I gave up on magic because it gave up on me." Her answer was simple but the pain in her eyes was not.
"Did the magic give up on you or did Harry?"
"I don't want to cry again," she muttered as she shoved away from the table. It was pretty certain no one would bother her pile of books so she left everything where it was and walked away.
***
Ginny walked aimlessly through the park. The sunshine offered heat on her shoulders but not the warmth she had craved for years. Did the magic give up on you or did Harry? Did the magic give up on you? OR. DID. HARRY. HARRY. HARRY. I miss you, Harry. I miss you everyday. You told me you were going to ask me a question. I was going to say yes. YES. YES. YES. Did you give up on me? On us? Have I been bitter all these years because I thought you gave up on me? I have, haven't I? I'm sorry.
She knew Neville stood behind her and turned around to face him. She needed to get this new bit of information off her chest. He wouldn't think poorly of her for being honest. "Ask me that questions again, Neville."
He scanned her face, knowing the question she wanted him to ask but choosing another one instead. "Will you let me take you home?"
Without thinking, the answer the question she thought he was going to ask on the tip of her tongue, she answered quickly, "Yes."
In an instant, Neville crushed her in a hug and walked her to the curb. Before she knew what was happening, he had his right hand up and the Knight Bus was crashing to a stop in front of them.
"The Burrow, Stan, and there's 10 galleons for both of you if you get is there in less then 5 minutes."
"Yes, sir, Mr. Longbottom, sir. Did I ever tell you about the time Harry Potter told me an' Ern that you was him? I mean, he was you?" He continued his story for the benefit of Ernie even as Neville drug Ginny to the back of the bus and threw her into an overstuffed chair.
"I don't know about this, Neville. This wasn't what, I mean, I was going to tell you I thought that H-"
This time he cut her off from saying the name. His hand over her mouth stopped her from talking but, with a wicked glint that hadn't been in her eyes for some time, Ginny stuck out her tongue and licked his hand.
"Bloody hell!" he yelped, taking back his hand as if she was a fire- breathing dragon who got to close. It was too comical not to laugh. Ginny couldn't stop once she started but was forced to stop suddenly when the bus came to an abrupt halt, throwing them both up the aisle.
"The Burrows, sir," Stan announced proudly, as if he was the director of a tour through this particular part of the country.
Throwing the well-earned money at the men, Neville grabbed Ginny and dragged her off the bus towards the Weasley parents who waited on the front step of the same house Ginny had grown up in.
"Welcome home," he whispered in her ear, tormenting himself with the scent of her hair.
"How did they know we would be here today?" she asked, staring at Neville when it became too painful to look at her parents.
"Whenever your father is home, he does nothing but stare at the clock, waiting for your picture to move towards HOME."
With a sob she could no longer contain, Ginny collapsed on the grass. She held out her arms and her mother and father were there. Mrs. Weasley sank beside her and held her like a baby, crooning, "Baby girl, baby girl" over and over again. Mr. Weasley encompassed both of them with his arms, crying silent tears while smoothing Ginny's hair.
The reunion lasted a couple of minutes until Molly looked up at her husband. "Go get the others," she instructed. In a daze, Ginny followed them into the house where Mr. Weasley had his head in the fireplace, yelling out directions and saying excitedly, "Come home. She's come back" at each stop. In seconds, there were popping sounds all over the front room as her brothers Apparated one after another. Children began flying out of the fireplace, scrambling over each other to get to their grandparents.
When did we get so old? she thought numbly as she noticed strikes of grey highlighting the red-hair of each of the Weasley boys. Fred and George spent the first five minutes trying to figure out how to hug her and set off Fizzy Whizbees at the same time. Ron kept slapping her on the back, not able to talk yet.
Mercifully, Hermione rescued her from the boys. "Oh, Gin. It's good to see you." The two girls embraced but Hermione held on a couple seconds longer when Ginny tried to break away. Hermione held onto her shoulders and gazed into her eyes. After a lifetime, she smiled. "You need to eat better but there is less pain in your eyes then I thought I'd find." With a kiss on Ginny's cheek, she hurried to the kitchen to help with the meal.
Bill and Charlie swept her up next. They both talked non-stop about their respective spouses, children and careers. There were no odd silences and Ginny felt she couldn't have talked if she had wanted to.
"Dinner!" Molly yelled at the top of her lungs over the roar of the crowd. Instantly, everyone stopped what they were doing and scrambled for the tables set up outside.
"Shall we let them get the good seats before we try?" Neville asked her as he took her hand. She hadn't moved with the others and the shock still hadn't worn off of her pale face. "Ginny? Are you going to be okay?"
She shook her head, covering her face with her shaking hands. "What have you done to me? These people are never going to let me leave."
"For your information, Ginny, those people are your family. They wouldn't have let you leave in the first place if they had known what you were going to do when you left Black Manor. I haven't seen your father smile this much since Grant was born. Actually, the only time he smiles anymore is when the grandkids are here. You'd never know him if you saw him at work. He's changed since you left."
"Since the war," she said softly. Her hands dropped to her side as she felt the same emotions well up inside her again after all these years.
"No, since you left, Ginny. A few battles didn't put the creak in his back or the shaking in his hands. Having his daughter leave him without a look behind her did that."
"Low blow! I didn't make my father old." Ginny was shaking with fury but Neville wasn't in the mood to let her get off lightly. She had agreed to come home and she needed to see what she had missed, good and bad. He felt some sense of unease that he was being the devils-advocate here but his happiness that she was finally showing emotion at all made it better.
"Are you sure? Were you here? Don't make excuses for what you did, Ginny. You're too strong of a person to make excuses. Your family has changed."
"Mother seems the same. She hasn't changed," she stated with only a small whine.
"The woman was in St. Mungo's for the first four months after you left. The only thing that saved her was helping with Ron's convalescence."
"What?" This bit of news didn't sound good.
"Did you notice Ron's limp? No, probably not. He's gotten pretty good with the false leg. The wound from the wand the Death Eater drove into his leg festered on the inside. The wand was made of a poisoned wood and when Hermione took it out, she left a splinter in without realizing. They had to take the leg halfway between his hip and knee after months of agony and fierce pain. He was in a bad way for a long time. Between Hermione and Molly, they saw him through it. I think he blames himself more for Harry's death then you do. He had no will to live after he lost both his best friend and his little sister."
"STOP!" Ginny screamed, putting her hands over her ears.
"Neville!" Hermione scolded from the doorway. "Let her be. She doesn't need the history all at once. What's done is done."
"She needs to know why, though. Just like you need to know why she left."
"We don't need to know anything. It's enough that she's here now. Come on, it's time for dinner. I think the twins are eager to show off their new Exploding Ice Cubes."
Still shaking, Ginny let Hermione lead her to the place reserved for her at the table. Neville was across from her but it was a shock to be seated beside a redheaded urchin on either side. They both stared at her with more amusement then trepidation while eating but got braver as the meal came to a close.
"Hi, I'm Fred Junior" the urchin on the right said to her. He looked and sounded just like his father. Guessing quickly at his age, Ginny guessed him to be four.
"Do they call you Fred Junior? Seems like a mouthful?"
"Sure. That way it takes longer for them to yell at me."
The boy on the other side was tugging on her arm. If she had to guess, she would have thought he was Fred Junior's twin.
"I'm going to have a birthday," he whispered.
"That's nice. How old will you be?" He held up four fingers with the shaky but practiced expertise of someone who was very happy to be older.
"That's Thomas. He's my cousin."
Annabelle, George's wife leaned over Thomas. "He's shy around people he doesn't know very well but he told us he wanted to sit next to you because you had pretty hair like Nana." She smiled into Ginny's shiny eyes. "I'm glad you came back. The boys know all about you. You should hear the stories Fred and George tell them about you."
"About me?" She had become a legend without even realizing it was possible.
"Sure," Fred Junior told her. "I like the stories about you winning the Quidditch Cup. Uncle Ron says he was really the one to win it but Aunt Hermione told us the real story." Ginny looked around the table in confusion. All the adults had quit talking to watch the new aunt.
"What other stories have they told?" she quizzed her nephews.
"About how you and Uncle Harry killed the big snake," chimed in a small boy directly across the table from Thomas.
No one dared draw a breath. Ginny's eyes had grown round and glassy but none of the little boys saw her pain at the memory of Harry rescuing her from the Basalisk and Tom Riddle.
"I like stories about Quidditch," chimed in Fred Junior again.
Thomas, in an uncharacteristic show of force for one so shy, stuck out his tongue at his older cousin. "You already told that one. She wants to know the rest, too."
"But I like the Quidditch stories," he whined, sticking out his lower lip. It made everyone laugh to see the tiny boy looking so much like his father and uncle. Both boys had done their share of pouting when they were younger.
"Fred Junior, why don't you pick another story to tell your Aunt Ginny?" his mother interjected before the situation got out of hand.
It took a couple of stuttering starts for him to pick another story that didn't have anything to do with Quidditch but he relished in the telling. "One time you took Uncle Neville to a dance and he said you were as pretty as a fairy. He liked that you danced with him all night long."
The older family members ducked their heads as Neville tried to hide under the table. His face was redder than the raspberry jam sitting in front of him. He could only remember telling the boys that story once. They had been having a bad day and all of them had been sent to separate chairs in the front room until they promised to settle down. He had offered to tell them a 'quiet' story and they had sat through the whole telling of the Yule Ball without a single word. That they didn't fall asleep at any point had surprised everyone.
"That's a good one but I like how Aunt Ginny beat off twelve Death Eaters with only her wand and broomstick," chimed in another boy, this one the only fair-haired boy of the bunch. He stood up on the chair vacated by Fred Junior and pretended to wave around a wand while chanting, "Die evil scumbags!"
Everyone tried to get to him first to stop the little boy's wild antics but Ginny's laughter stopped all of them. She reached out and tickled him until he squealed. "Who made up that one?" she asked, shaking her head at Ron as he lifted his hand. "And how many are you fending off in this attack?"
"Thirty-two!" cried all the little boys in unison. It was obviously a fun story for them to act out.
"Aunt Ginny?" A little girl stood behind her and pushed her hand into the cleft of Ginny's bent arm. Turning to get a better look, Ginny almost fell off her chair. The red hair was a little longer but the curl gave her away. She caught Neville's eye from her position and mouthed, "Percy's little girl?"
He nodded and mouthed back, "Long story."
The little girl was attempting to pull her down so Ginny accommodated her. "Nana told me you were Head Girl when you were at school."
"Why, yes," she stammered. "I was Head Girl." Her school days were a complete fog, pushed in the far recesses of her mind, but she could still remember how happy she had been when she had received one of the greatest honours Hogwarts had to bestow.
"I want to be Head Girl, too. Aunt Hermione was Head Girl and she says to study hard and stay out of trouble."
"Why do you want to be Head Girl?" Ginny asked, afraid of seeing the need for power in yet another Weasley offspring, even one so young.
"So I can keep Fred Junior from getting into too much trouble," the little girl explained, reaching over to ruffle her cousin's close-cropped hair.
He ducked her hand and blushed. "Geroff, Katherine. I told you to quit doing that." It was a good feeling to watch the interaction of the near- siblings, to know they were all so close to one another.
"Aunt Ginny! Aunt Ginny!" hollered the boy from across the table again.
"Hush, James. You're going to wake up Grant."
Turning slowly back to the table, Ginny surveyed the little boy again. He looked like a Weasley but his hair was sable and curlier than the other cousin's hair. Her eyes lifted to the man beside the boy. Ron returned her gaze with tenderness. "James?" she whispered.
"We didn't think you'd mind much," he answered, hugging the little boy. "Dumbledore is his godfather and it was his idea."
"No, I don't mind."
Ron leaned down and whispered in the boy's ear. He nodded and ran around the table, launching himself past the other children and into her arms.
"Daddy says if I'm very quiet, I can ask my question." She nodded and he continued. "Do you live with Uncle Harry? I want to meet him."
Hugging the little boy close, she buried her face in his hair. His gaze was so wistful and full of hope. "No, sweetums. I don't live with Uncle Harry. I'm sure he would want to meet you, too." Afraid she was going to begin sobbing again, she kissed the little boy on the forehead and set him down. "I have to, uh, I."
Immediately, parents called their children away from their aunt, making room for her to leave her place at the table. Molly moved to follow her, but Arthur stopped her with a hand on her arm and a shake of her head. The whole family looked to Neville and he excused himself from the table. This was yet another battle for him to win for the group of people he now considered as close to a family as he had ever experienced. With any luck, he wouldn't let them down.
"Just another dinner with the Weasley's. At least we didn't think to show her the dungeon we added to the house. That would have really set her off." George quipped, ducking the blow his wife tried to deliver to his ears. Everyone burst out laughing uneasily and began to clean up the dinner table, content for the moment that Ginny was home.