Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Author's note: This is just a little one-shot I wrote when I woke up this morning.
- Bitter Silence -
She was tired and all her bones ached. She kept her face wooden so it wouldn't betray her true feelings. All she wanted now was to return home. All she wanted now was her mother's tea and to hear her brothers joke, but she dismissed this thought bitterly.
She looked up and saw the familiar silhouette of her house loom in the distance, overshadowed by a dark cloud of rain that hovered above it.
Not too far now, she realised.
But every step she took cost her more effort than the last one. It was as if her body didn't want to go back to that place. That place where it had all started. The place where it would end, too.
She struggled on as her memories of a certain day filled her head. She pulled an aggravated face, trying to see if that could make the thoughts go away. This was the last thing she wanted to think about, especially after…
No, she wouldn't name it. Seeing it was more than enough, she thought bitterly. She held her head high again and now felt small specks of water suddenly touch the top of her head.
Great.
Rain.
Her feet kept moving on in the hope to reach the house she had left so secretively soon.
"Look where you're going!"
"Look where you're going yourself, you arrogant-"
"Who do you think you're talking to!"
"To you. I don't see anyone else here."
Ginny rolled her eyes and stuffed her fingers in her ears and tried to make herself as small as possible so they wouldn't see her.
She could recognise their voices, but this was an argument that happened daily now, so it was no surprise to her anymore to hear them bicker like this.
She heard one of them breath heavily through his nose.
"And what kind of right do you have to talk to me like that? I work as hard as everyone around here and still you look at me as if I'm not worth the light of day. I risk my life out there every day, just like the rest of us! And all I ever hear you do is complain! You always just complain about the others without doing anything yourself!"
"This is still my house and I can make you leave it!" The other bellowed. "And if you think that I let others do the dangerous things than that's your problem! I don't need you to believe me. But if Harry and me don't brag about the things we do then that doesn't mean we don't do anything at all. We don't brag, unlike you. And I know who you're trying to impress with it too, but I'm warning you to stay away from her. Got it?"
Ginny shook her head in her hiding place behind the curtains, on the windowsill. Only part of that was true.
Harry never bragged, she thought with a small affectionate smile. But her dear brother, however, always took his chance to tell the others what he had been up to.
Mostly to see if he could impress Hermione, she suspected. But seeing as how Hermione was part of the missions most of the time, this didn't work.
Ginny had to bit her tongue so she wouldn't giggle. Ron was somehow different lately. Well, everyone was after that last attack. Now she had to bite her tongue so she wouldn't cry.
She still missed them. She missed their jokes and laughter. And she even missed Percy. But not one of those three would ever come back to this house.
She suddenly noticed the silence around her and realised both boys must have stormed away from each other angrily. She let out a sigh of relief when she could finally climb down from the windowsill.
But as she jerked the curtains back she found herself staring straight back in a pair of blue eyes
"Not quiet enough, Ginny." He said coldly. "If you make that much noise breathing out there then they'll certainly find you and kill you."
She looked at her feet as she tried to figure out what he meant by that tone of voice.
"Who asked you, anyway." She said confusedly.
"No one. But I'm just trying to warn you. I don't want you to get hurt."
He took her hand as he said that and Ginny looked up at him surprised. This was not what she had expected.
He suddenly let go and disappeared around a corner quickly.
Damn. She had promised herself not to think about that anymore. Now she felt happy, but saddened even more. She was glad it was raining now. Because if she met someone in the house they wouldn't be able to see she had been crying.
She passed the two dull grey slabs of stone next to a tree quickly. She didn't want to let that come into her mind as well.
But as soon as she had though about Fred, George and Percy, she had remembered her parents as well.
She didn't look at the pieces of stone to avoid thinking about that night.
Anything but that night. Anything…
But not…
"How dare you return here."
"I have every right to be here. This is my house now. I am the rightful owner."
"No!" the woman shrieked. "You are nothing to this family anymore. Not to yours and not to mine."
"Then leave this property now!"
Ginny remembered the authority in his voice. It made you obey whatever it was he had just said.
"What are you waiting for, aunt. Go."
"Oh dear…the little boy thinks he can threaten me. Well you listen here. Now that your parents are gone, the house and land belong to us. To our Lord. You have no right to them anymore, not now you betrayed them and us!"
"I never laid a finger on them!" he suddenly bellowed.
Ginny's heart stopped for a moment. She had never seen him actually this frightening.
"You betrayed them anyway! And now you've come back to reclaim the things for you and your little bride? Is that what you came here for? I can read your thoughts, you ungrateful child."
Again Ginny's heart stopped for a moment. Reclaim the things for his little bride? Was that why he had sneaked out in the middle of the night? To do that?
She felt warm and smiled at the memory of the ring she had left on her bedside table when she had decided to follow him this night.
But her warm feelings disappeared when she suddenly realised the silence around her. She stood up from behind the rock she had been leaning against and pulled the cloak she had borrowed from Harry tighter around herself.
Nephew and aunt were staring at each other, wands raised in purest concentration.
"Can you, little boy?" she teased him, daring him to say the words.
Ginny looked a him too. Could he? Could he really…kill someone?
She noticed how his eyes darted to her, even though she was invisible, with uncertainty. Searching reassurance with her for a moment.
And it was that one moment in which he fell to the ground, stiff, lifeless.
Ginny had stood frozen to the ground, unable to move or speak. She heard Bellatrix cackle and walk away. Ginny just looked at his face which would be locked in that sideways glance of uncertainty forever now.
Without saying his name, without touching his face once, she turned around and ran.
A distant shout of 'Crucio' caught her by surprise and she felt herself curl up like a snake, trying to keep herself covered with the cloak even though all she could think about was the pain.
She cried. She kept seeing him fall. She kept seeing him look at her for reassurance. He had known she had followed him but never spoken a word to her.
Perhaps he had recognised her breathing, she thought bitterly.
Her feet had reached the usually sandy road to the house up ahead. But it was muddy now and she had to be careful not to trip.
The door was open as she stumbled in. She looked around as if she hadn't been here in years. It all looked so much different from the way she remembered it, or wanted to remember it.
She always pictured her mother in the kitchen. That was the reason why she had avoided going in there after-
And it was quiet too. No one talking, no one walking around or arguing…it was as if the house was completely empty. As if everyone had just disappeared.
Where was everyone? Had they left without her?
Suddenly she realised that the dark rainy cloud above the house hadn't been that at all. Had she been too tired to recognise it? Or had she just not wanted to see it.
Who was it? Who had died? Who had left her, too, like everyone seemed to do these days. Fred, George, mum, dad, Percy…and him…
Who was the next one to be added to that list? Ron? Harry? Perhaps more than just one. Perhaps everyone she had ha dinner with that evening.
She wanted to call out but couldn't, afraid for the answer of total silence. Not afraid of Death Eaters. If any of them still lingered to take her, like they had done everybody else, than she would be taken too. But not without taking her revenge for all the pain they had caused her.
She looked up at the ceiling, as if she could see straight through it and cursed the smoky skull that loomed over the house and seemed to mark her whole life.
She was alone now. Alone in this house with only a bitter sort of silence to surround her.
She sat down and wondered what she should do now. Why wasn't she crying? Or should she be crying now at all? She was so tired of this life, running and hiding wherever she went.
A sudden loud thud made her look up. She grabbed her wand firmly and threw herself around the corner, throwing all the spells she could think of into the corridor.
"Protego!" two voices yelled. "Ginny, no!"
She was so surprised to hear her name that she immediately dropped her wand. She looked to where the voices had come from and saw two faces she recognised all too well. She staggered over to them.
"Ginny…we…we thought you…" Ron whispered.
But Ginny didn't answer. She couldn't. She fell into Ron's arms and shook so heavily that Ron nearly fell back into the hole in the floor he had just climbed out of. He held his sister tightly.
She felt another pair of arms embrace her and she knew it was Harry.
"Who…" she whispered in a low voice.
"Not here, not now. We've got to leave this house."
Ron nodded, as if he had gotten to terms with this hours before. But to Ginny it was something unbearable.
Leave this house? The only thing that bound them to their family? The place where she had lived all her life and where she had discovered…his true self?
But both Ron and Harry had taken one of her arms and dragged her outside, down the path she had worked so hard to climb up. At the bottom of the hill she turned back to look at the house. It looked the same way it had always done. But it would never feel the same anymore.
She turned back and took their hands in hers. She would never see this house again. And she understood now that it was the best thing to do.
Ron squeezed her hand encouragingly and they walked on in silence, knowing they would never return to it again.
The End