Anywhere but in Between
Same as before. Nothing but the plot belongs to me.
Chapter 3 – Deafening Silence
Ginny wearily sank onto her seat on the trolley car and sighed a great sigh of relief. She'd had to sprint to catch the car, and she wasn't in as good of shape as she was last year when she'd been at school playing Quidditch.
She searched her bag for her mother's latest letter and found it pushed all the way to the bottom. As she scanned the news, she mentally added up the months it had been since she'd seen her family, or her friends.
Eleven and counting, she thought to herself in amazement. It wasn't that she didn't want to visit, she'd just been so busy with the Ministry's training program for the Department of Magical Games and Sports that she hadn't had the time to keep in touch as closely as she should have.
She laughed when she came to the third paragraph, and excused herself when the lady in front of her turned around a bit muffed.
Fred and George have decided to discontinue the Disappearing Dermishes line, if as you'd recall I specifically warned them would fail miserably, due to the petty shoplifting that resulted as a part of their customers vanishing. Your father has decided that the lesson was good enough for them, but I disagree. I speak about it as often as I can.
Ginny smiled at her mother's words, missing her very much suddenly. She always missed her mother, but somehow, almost being able to see Molly Weasley lecturing her twin sons made her ache to be at home again.
She put the letter on her lap as she rested her head against the headrest and closed her eyes. Their family had been through so much, and yet they all seemed to be trying to find their way through it. Ginny realized that her course of action may not have been the absolute best option, but she didn't regret it and it was the only thing she'd felt she could do.
She turned her head to look out the window and watch as the Bulgarian countryside sped by. She didn't regret her choice when she saw what an amazing opportunity this was for her. She was just starting to miss seeing the familiar faces of home.
Her letters from Luna and Hermione had been full of their news, but they didn't mention the others, which led her to believe that everyone was beginning to strike out a bit on their own. Hermione's letters, once filled with news about Ron, Neville, Ernie, Luna and her parents, were now chatty commentaries of the rigors of her Healer's Resident program. She seemed to be doing amazingly well, for as much as Ginny could read into Hermione's carefully crafted list of her accomplishments. Ginny was so proud of her, and couldn't wait to see the new flat she was able to afford on her new salary.
The only thing that was pointedly not going to show up was news of Harry.
No one's letters mentioned him, almost as if everyone came to a silent agreement that if Harry weren't around, he wouldn't want to be discussed, either. Ginny sighed, closing her eyes once again in exhaustion.
It was one of the reasons she left. She couldn't deal with the heavy feeling of waiting that hung about everything at home. Everyone seemed to be waiting for something, anything, to happen to make everything alright again, and it had only taken Ginny three weeks to realize she couldn't start her life like this. She missed Harry as much as everyone else, and she missed Percy every morning when his owl delivered her morning news. She just couldn't let them be the reason she stopped trying.
Her chest began to tighten, and she immediately tried to regulate her breathing. Being in that room with Harry, Voldemort and the Death Eaters when Dumbledore had come after them, had shaken her in places she was still discovering. It had been nothing like her first year, which had been horrible in its own right; it had been so much worse. Seeing that destruction, that pure of a hatred flowing from people into others had taken Ginny's faith in humanity and smashed it to pieces.
In a way, she almost didn't blame Harry for wanting to be a bit anonymous for a while, but she couldn't understand why he wouldn't even just answer their questions as to how he was doing.
The car slowed down and she sighed quietly as her breathing slowed to a normal pace. There was a blissful moment where Ginny's mind cleared enough to focus on the good things in her life.
"Excuse me, miss, is this seat taken?"
Ginny opened her eyes to the woman's voice, and just beyond her right shoulder, she saw a shock of black hair take the seat across the aisle.
The blissful moment of clarity erupted as the woman sat beside her and Ginny was left blinking into the astonished eyes of Harry Potter.
She did the only thing she could think to do at this particular moment.
She picked up her bag, and ran for the doors as if her life depended on it.