They sit by the brook of their childhood days, dipping their feet into the clear water and enjoying the memories. One is blissfully oblivious, laying back against the moss and feeling the moist earth underneath him dampening his clothing. It promises discomfort later, and stray blades of grass will stick to his back in bruised green smears, but for now it is freedom, and it is pure.
He lives for days like these, away from Hogwarts, away from everything horrible happening to his world, away from the trials and tribunals of everyday adolescence that pick and prod at his brain until he cannot concentrate…With a sigh, he stretches his arms and crosses them above his head, pillowing his shock of orange hair with them. It is a rare break in the dreary cold of autumn, and he has dragged his unusually pensive sister out to enjoy the momentary sunshine; it takes him back to summer days when they had come down here with an old net and pail to catch pixies or frogs. He would hold her hand because their mother was certain she would wander off if he let her go, and he would
grudgingly look after her, the older brother at work. But when they had reached the brook they were friends, not siblings, and they would take turns dipping the dented bucket into the shallow stream, or flicking the tattered net at imagined glimmers together.
"Gin?" he says now, and she turns to him with brows raised in question.
He feels a momentary flush of family pride at how well the youngest Weasley has turned out, and he grins at her.
"Remember the time we found an imp down here?"
She does, and she smiles faintly. They had wandered down here early one morning when the mist still clung coldly to the dewy grass, and had startled a twittering little imp from his morning jig. He had squeaked irately and waved a small fist, but they had only stared at him, wide eyed, until he had shaken his green head and left.
"Of course Ron, when we told mom she wouldn't let us outside until George and Fred and gone and checked out the entire yard."
She resumes her melancholy gaze of the brook, blind to the shimmering glade around her broken into a thousand shades of green and yellow. Her mind is back with autumn hills and moonlit nights.
"Miss Harry, do you Ginny?" her brother asks softly, and she blinks, startled.
"Y-yes, Ron."
She closes her brown eyes, the lie like poison against her heart. Her slim fingers clench the moss beneath her and pull it up. A nervous action, a weakness. He would smile at her superciliously, telling her all the obvious reasons she was not in Slytherin and all the ways she was beautiful for the same with just a touch.
She briefly recalls a warm breath skimming her knee, and eyes glittering like silver diamonds in the darkness of a bedroom. A pale hand sliding up her thigh, and him resting
his head against her stomach. His hair was white in the moonlight, and felt like satin beneath her hands.
"Of course," she sighs, and opens her eyes.
Her brother sits up now, and his rust coloured sweater creates a new hue of clashing color with his hair. He smiles in that funny way of his, his mouth quirking to one side with his eyebrow lifting disbelievingly on the other. For a moment they say nothing, and Ron takes the opportunity to pull off his battered shoes – a cast off of Fred's – and his socks, gasping a little when he dips his feet into the autumn cooled creek. He turns his attention back to his sister, and his eyes are pale blue and friendly. He elbows her jokingly in the side.
"Why so glum, Gin? Aren't you happy? Seems to me that I see you one moment and you're so bright and cheery I can hardly stand you… Then the next minute you look as if you just lost your best mate."
She glances at him from beneath lowered lashes and shakes her head. Her hair, a dark fiery crimson, falls in a straight sheath over her face and hides her blushing cheeks; she is red with shame, not embarrassment.
"And you Ron, are you happy?" she whispers, dipping her hand into the cold
creek and shivering slightly when the softly drifting water tickles her wrist.
Ron looks at her askance, before throwing up his arms and smiling half heartedly.
"I'm as happy as can be expected! I've got the best family in the world, the smartest mates a bloke could have, and my sister is in love with the hero of our world!"
He laughs, unaware of his sister's rapidly paling face or her tightening throat. She wipes a hand across her mouth and pulls the sleeves of her itchy green sweater over her fists.
Another tic, another weakness.
He would smile so coolly, so confidently, and in his eyes would be a smirk. She loses herself in her memories.
Ron Weasley is always happy, or at least honest. It is something both expected of him by others and pressed upon him by himself. For if he was not the jovial one – the blunt one – then the world around his best friend may crumble. Harry Potter is fragile and gentle despite his inner strength, and as his best friend Ron must maintain the lie that even if the world falls apart, a nightmare that is rapidly becoming true, Ronald Weasley will stay the same and is there for him.
"Ron," Ginny whispers brokenly, because she's always known him better, "Are you really okay?"
Shifting, he turns to face her and his eyes have darkened. His smile fades and he looks pained. He digs a rock up from the ground and drops it into the water, smiling when a satisfying plunk sounds. He wipes the dirt off his fingers with the grass. Ron ignores the question for a moment, content, but he cannot hide for long and he is notoriously lousy at hiding anything from anyone.
Always the cheerful one. Always the honest one.
"If you're talking about Dumbledore, I'm doing what I can. I just can't believe he's gone. If you're talking about Hermione, we both know that it wouldn't have worked. She's in love with her books, not me. I still love her; how could I not? But she's not for me."
"Are you going to break up with her?"
A laugh answers her question, and Ginny looks surprised.
"Gin! 'Mione and I were never steady. Just a snog here and there, a date in between the fights! If you ask me, she has her cap set for someone else."
"Oh," she breathes, and relaxes.
Her heart is heavy, and her mind is filled with torturous, traitorous thoughts of someone forbidden. Her brother takes his feet, large and pale with cold, and wipes them on the moss. He grins ruefully at his sister and shakes his head.
"This isn't like you, Gin. Are there problems with you and Harry?"
He eyes her quizzically, and she avoids his gaze.
"No," she says, and her voice is bitter. "Harry is perfectly fine without me."
Ron frowns, eyeing her thoughtfully.
"Harry told me he offered to take you with him to London. Can you believe that? Muggle London!"
His voice is misty, and he tamps down the wave of jealousy that Harry had offered to bring Ginny, but not him. Burying her face in her knees, Ginny remembers the offer and the way her heart had sunk. For if she went to London, how could she be there to get owls from the other? What if he stopped by? What if he came for her?
These are irrational thoughts, for the calm and cold Draco Malfoy would never do something so impetuous as stop by the Burrow and risk exposing their affair. And here she is, three weeks later, with no owl, no visit, not a word. Her heart is heavy and she cannot eat, can barely sleep, and can barely think of anything but him.
Her guilt chews at her gut like a volatile potion.
Looking at her, Ron is thoughtful and sad. His darling sister, always there to lend a smile and a hug, constantly brash and spirited and brave, seems to have sunk into herself and lost her light. And he is awkward and heavy handed when it comes to emotion, and can offer no solace for if he does he may break the fragile glass around her heart.
Ron sighs and looks away, admiring the trees and the grass, and the sunshine dappling the world through them.
"I can tell you… No matter what happens you'll always be my sister, Ginny. We'll see this war through to the end."
She swallows and nods silently. If she speaks, she'll cry.
Gathering up his shoes, Ron walks slowly back to the Burrow, and in his mind he remembers the little girl version of the young woman behind him. Funny that…How everything seems to fade when love blossoms.