Three hours later, Remus began to stir in his sleep; however, Ginny hardly noticed. She was far too busy saving her life with "ruthless wand-waving," directing the thick reeds and long, tough bamboo sticks.
"Wha-?" He sat up, looking confused and squinting in the sun. "W-what are yo-ou d-doing?" he said, yawning.
"What – oh, this?" Ginny showed him the platform she had constructed. It was a long, flat platform of bamboo trunks, held together by the tough reed that grew from the woods and water nearby, nearly two meters square. In the middle, there were two one-meter rectangles cut into it, where both brooms were attached at either end. "It's… erm… something?" She couldn't explain this any better than Ron could have explained how a television worked.
He snorted. "Quite descriptive of you."
"Thanks a lot, that's really saying something coming from Mr. Asleep over here," she said imitating his yawn. "It's like, a thing… that starts with a letter of the alphabet…."
He gave her a blank look that clearly said "Decide what it is, or tell me what it does."
"I attached our brooms together! This way, only one of us has to fly, while the other can sleep, or eat, or whatever."
"Right, and we're expected to be able to steer this thing… how?"
"It's just like a giant broomstick…" she said nervously. She truthfully had absolutely no clue how it worked. "Okay, so I don't know, but you never know until you try! Let's try."
"No! You actually expect me to trust this… thing?" he exclaimed, earning a glare from Ginny.
"And who was the one who wanted to leave hours ago? Do you want to get home or not?"
"All right," he relented, "but no testing over oceans."
"Suit yourself… although some brooms have been known to work differently over water, due to the ground magic that holds them up. Certain brooms don't fly over deeper water well, because they don't have sky-hook-connections," she pointed out.
"Sky-hook-connections?" He looked at her as if she were insane – which certainly couldn't be denied, but she usually hid it uncannily well around adults who thought her a respectable young adult.
"Now who's Captain Oblivious?" she reprimanded, "Read Willy Wonka and the Great Glass Elevator – Muggle book."
"I know perfectly well what it is!" he said in annoyance.
They ran a quick test by going over some of the shallower sections of the water, and then set off flying for their unknown destination.
"Oh!" Ginny exclaimed, sudden realization dawning upon her, "Point Me!" Her wand spun around rapidly, pointing slightly to the left. "So if that's North… Hogwarts must be this way!" She pointed straight ahead of them. "But, that's the way we're going…" She turned on Remus. "You knew where we were!" she accused, "You knew exactly where we've been all along, and you never told me! All those times I tried to figure it out, you just kept it to yourself." She plopped down on the now-stable platform, irritated.
Remus, recognizing the fact that she'd never listen to anything he said anyway, simply said nothing – why waste energy? Instead, he focused on remembering the currents and depths of the various areas of the Atlantic Ocean. He could always conjure a map, but this way was more interesting. If worst came to worst, he could do that. And if he wanted to, he could Apparate, but only if matters became bad. He would have to take the wand, meaning that a sixteen-year-old girl would be stuck in the middle of nowhere, with evil beings all around her and no means of defense – no, this way was better.
For the next three days, Ginny and Remus, weary from their travels, had decided to take turns driving as they kindly took to referring to it. Ginny preferred sleeping and eating in the time she had off, but was mildly bothered by the fact that Remus would often spend his hours staring at the blank sky, or unmoving waters. The tedious job of driving nearly drove Ginny to insanity trying to stay awake time and again. Once she actually did fall asleep for a moment, but just after that they were ambushed by a large group of flying fish, which nearly knocked them out of the air. She had to wake herself up to steer the contraption up thirty feet to get out of their line of fire, causing Remus to nearly fall off as he was sleeping at the time. Life had been boring for the partners as of late. Ginny guessed it was nearing the end of January or the beginning of February, drawing her conclusion from the biting cold air and the occasional ice chunk seen in the turbulent waters. Every few minutes a wave would collide with another, drenching them with icy sea spray.
Ginny could tell she was sick. The proper clothes and food helped in the past few weeks, as well as the numerous warming charms. However, after so many they started to lose their effect, and Ginny was shivering as the ice cold wind cut through the blankets as if a knife to butter.
Remus was driving, not paying attention to anything as he stared straight ahead, his face revealing no emotion. Ginny closed her eyes lightly and rested them for she had been straining her vision for the past twelve hours during her shift as she looked for any site of land. None had come in that time, but that was to change soon.
She moaned, rolling over as the bitter wind bit her already frostbitten nose. Rubbing her stinging eyes, Ginny sat up, straining to see in the direction they were moving in and determined to see land. Strangely enough, she didn't need to look askance to see land though. Right there, only about five hundred meters into the distance, she could see the rocky coastline of Scotland. Sure, she had no clue whereabouts they were on the coast, but it was there, and that's what mattered.
Glancing to her right, she saw Remus in the exact same position he had been eleven hours ago. He was sitting there, hands clasping the broom handle as if they were frozen, tightly gripping the splintering wood. He stared straight ahead, not minding the biting winds nor the snow that was now more than capable of stinging when flying as quickly as they were. Ginny turned around, satisfied with her numb view of land, now just wanting to stay slightly warmer.
Huddling against the floor, she looked up at her old professor, wondering what he was thinking about. For in the time it took her to slouch down, he had his face twisted into a position that was unmistakable for one who was deep in thought. It was obvious to Ginny that he hadn't yet noticed the land, although it had undoubtedly been in view for at least an hour if she looked hard enough.
"I wonder, maybe he isn't… it's always possible. I definitely should be telling this to Dumbledore, but I can't leave her here by herself. If I could only Apparate back for just a minute…"
Ginny felt cold air rushing past her cheeks; she felt the cold sting her eyes without relent. She could hear Remus speak; yet he wasn't speaking, for she was Remus. The biggest change was in color. For the past few weeks since their daring escape, she had seen in nothing but black, white, and various grays. Now, however, her sight was perfect. In the distance she saw the lush, green coastline of the wilderness beyond the borders of Gairloch. But, she had no reason to see its significance.
"But… No, he betrayed them, no chance… unless…" Ginny could hear Remus thinking hard; she could hear him. She felt her head glance down. But the head wasn't hers, below, slightly to the right of Remus' foot, was her head. She was no longer Ginny Ginger Belladonna Andromeda Weasley, she was…
Ginny gasped and sat up to see Remus looking at her with a look of concern on his face replacing the one he had had only seconds earlier.
"Yeah, erm, I'm fine." She had no clue what to say.
"Okay, good…" he trailed off, resuming his earlier composure of thought.
Ginny sat in silence as well, a new thing for her over the past few weeks. Had it been several months earlier, she would have spent her time imagining the pictures of Harry that she had in her dormitory. Had it been only about two months ago, she would have spent her time depressed, thinking about how life would have been if something were different. Had it been a few weeks ago, she would be asleep or reliving the worst moments of her life (her first year at Hogwarts). Even a few days ago she would have filled the silence with chatter that was meaningless to her traveling companion, simple, meaningless words that were to go in one ear and out the other, making no imprint on his mind. But now she was thinking. Her face set, much like the other's was, eyes wide, staring into the abyss, unaware of anything except her thoughts. What just happened? It was like I inhabited him or something! Does this have something to do with the Dementor attack? Ginny shivered just thinking about the memory, aware once more of the subzero winds that removed all feeling from her body.
The two sat in silence for the next hour, and even as they switched places on the craft did they remain so. Remus conjured a large, warm plate of fried chicken for himself and coffee for them both. Ginny took it with a nod. This was how they had come to understand each other – if Remus was silent, Ginny remained so as well. If Ginny was silent, Remus followed her example and did not speak. They rarely had had many conversations during the past week or so, just silent communication, the occasional 'Thanks' or 'Good Morning' was heard, but on the whole it was quiet. Ginny's ears were ringing at first, but eventually she came to a mutual agreement with herself, not minding, even liking it – sort of. All this thinking time made her realize exactly how much she actually missed everyone – exactly how good her life really was.
The initial happiness of finally being over land soon wore off, as flying endlessly over low hills and brush was hardly more interesting than flying over water. The only advantage was that they could land every once in awhile, but they didn't. Both were eagerly awaiting their return to Hogwarts, but for very different reasons.
One more day passed. Ginny let her mind wander; she had been catching up on sleep and food during their traveling time, and didn't look half as haunted as she did before. But she thought her ears looked permanently red and her lips the same, but blue. She had long lost feeling in her toes and even feet, the same for her fingers and hands. On the last day, she was having trouble gripping the broom, fingers swollen stiff from cold and from lack of movement. Sure, magic was on their side, but it still couldn't make things comfortable, and the only people that they had contact with (themselves) had absolutely no experience in healing. Remus, of course, knew what to do after encountering dark creatures or forces, and they had eaten plenty of chocolate during the time since their escape, but nothing could make up for the physical pain felt constantly for that long of a time-frame.
"There it is!" Ginny practically shouted, overcome with joy as the forbidden forest came into view. Remus was driving again, and she stayed up for most of his shift, watching for any sign of Hogwarts. Of course, she had underestimated the size of it and eventually fell asleep, her dreams filled with images of a certain black-haired, green-eyed boy, a blond-haired girl, and two others, one with hair burnt orange in color, the other with masses of frizzy brown. She couldn't wait to get home…