The night the war ended, the Weasleys slept at Hogwarts. Everyone did. The survivors of the Battle couldn't seem to bear to leave each other. In those magic hours just after victory, everyone was united. Slytherins healed Hufflepuff wounds, Gryffindors and Ravenclaws rejoiced, young and old huddled together, singing the songs that every generation knew. The broken castle was alight with a thousand wands.

The Weasleys slept in the Gryffindor common room, Mrs Weasley on Mr Weasley's lap. Harry slept upstairs with Ron and Hermione (gender boundaries were no longer a priority). George and Percy lay in front of the fire; they'd fallen asleep crying together. Ginny sat apart. She couldn't sleep. There was something on her mind that she couldn't shake. Well, not something… someone.

An hour past midnight, she gave up on trying to sleep and stepped out the portrait hole. It was disconcerting not to hear the usual remonstration from the Fat Lady. She turned and stared at the burnt-out frame for a long moment. Parvati had told her the Death Eaters had destroyed it, but it was another thing altogether to see an absence where there should have been a familiar face. Ginny hadn't known portraits could die. She turned around and walked the other way, feeling heavier - yet also, somehow, emptier - than she had a moment before.

Even with the castle half demolished, she could pick out the familiar path to Ravenclaw tower. It was strange seeing such everyday things - archways she'd walked through a million times before, back passages behind dusty tapestries, mosaic floors - cracked and caved in and dusted with debris. Like seeing someone you hadn't met in ten years, or coming into your room after it was ransacked.

(She didn't know it at the time, but she walked through the place where Fred had died.)

Even though she knew it was all over, that McGonagall would take over and restore Hogwarts as best she could, Ginny didn't think she would ever feel safe at Hogwarts again. For every pang of familiarity, there was a pang of fear when she saw the hateful anti-Muggle messages scrawled on the walls, or a place she remembered seeing a peer tortured. She walked with her hand on her wand and her muscles tensed.

But most of all, she felt numb.

When she heard footsteps, her wand was out before she could think. The hair on the back of her neck prickled. There was light coming in through the broken roof, but there were shadows too, and she glared at each one. Who knew if they'd really found all the Death Eaters... there might be some left in the creases of the corner, injured, hiding, waiting...

"Ginny?"

A scratchy, silvery voice. Ginny relaxed as the source moved into the torchlight, flats clacking softly against the mosaic floor. She would recognize that voice anywhere.

Luna Lovegood and Ginny Weasley gazed at each other from across the broken hall. She raked her eyes over every detail. She hadn't gotten much time to see her ex-girlfriend before the battle had started, and had gotten only a few glimpses throughout. Her mother had forced her to take a shower and change into clean robes, but Luna obviously hadn't gotten the same attention. Her robes - a light shirt and dark blue trousers - were still bloodstained and dusted with broken glass and rubble, as was her hair. There was a gash down the side of her face that hadn't gotten attention, and dried blood under her nose. The skin around her eyes looked tired. Despite this, her eyes themselves were bright. To Ginny, she looked absolutely beautiful.

"Luna."

They walked towards each other, slowly and then faster, each grasping for the other like a drowning woman grasping for a lifejacket. They embraced and sank down to the mosaic floor in the middle of the circular junction between hallways.

"Luna, Luna. I've missed you so much."