7
When Ginny was eleven years old she sat in her room and talked to a boy who was kind and smart and he understood what it felt like to be looked over.
When Ginny was eleven years old she woke up on the wet floor below Hogwarts with Harry Potter crying into her shoulder, telling her she had to wake up.
Now Ginny is seventeen and she still feels like shes waking up on that cold floor every night,Harry Potter is not here to tell her she survived anymore,so Ginny makes a vow that she will burn so bright she will never feel cold again. The first step of her plan is to leave her room. She has been staring at her door for at least thirty minutes trying to work up the nerve, but the burrow is silent and silence means you have something to hide from. so instead she writes a letter, to her dad.
Dear Father,
tea this afternoon at three P.M?
Don't bring your wand.
Your loving daughter,
Ginny
P.S you have to bring the tea
She folds up the note and slips it under her door, she knows someone will stumble upon it eventually, if she cannot bring herself to go out into the world, maybe she can bring it to her.
Ginny hears a knock at the door at two thirty, she had expected this, her father was an anxious man, she remembered when she was young he used to have the bouts where he would get stuck in his head, and her mother would have to whisper into his ear that he was okay, sometimes she wondered if it she got her own anxiety from him, or if they both got it from being child soldiers.
She opens the door, and takes in her father for the first time in three months, his hair is the longest shes ever seen it and he had stubble on his cheeks.
"Hi daddy" she says in a voice that sounds more like the child she never got to be than the woman she is now.Arthur opens his arms and before she can think she is leaping into them.
"oh my sweet girl, my sweet girl" he whispers into her temple. People always assumed that it was Molly who pushed to keep having children until she had a girl, and while its true Molly was desperate for a daughter, it was authur who kept convincing his wife to have another, he had wanted a daughter his whole life.
letting go of her dad and walking over to her desk she sat down, he sat on her bed.
they sat in silence for only a moment before Arthur asked her if she wanted to talk about it, Ginny couldn't help but snort. "it', the war, the deaths, the torture, the betrayal; had all bee wrapped so neatly into a two letter word. no Ginny didn't want to talk about it. she shook her head no.
He looked her over, smiled softly "have you ever heard about a cruise ship?"
"tell me about it" and so he did, explained muggle vacations, and how they would sail around the world In boats bigger than any Ginny had ever seen, and so she sat and listened with her knees pulled to her chest, when she started to cry softly he paused and Ginny glanced up to see his lips set in a firm line.
"i've never told anyone this, not even your mother" he hesitated, Ginny nodded that his secret would stay between them. he took a deep breath and continued "my mum had a hard time getting pregnant, she had two miscarriages before having me, but her and my dad wanted a big family, so they kept trying. when I was seven years old, she was pregnant again, we were all thrilled. no one more then me, I wanted to be a brother" his voice cracked "she went into labor and we went to the hospital, she was in labor for thirty-seven hours. And when the baby came the doctors rushed him away, they said that his umbilical cord had been wrapped around his neck and he had lost the oxygen to his brain, that they didn't know if he would survive the night" he took a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling, Ginny saw the tears flow down his face. "I uh I had a brother for six hours. his name was Dylan James Weasley." he took a long breath "they let me hold him, and he squeezed my thumb, and then he was gone."
Ginny moved next to him on the bed, placing her hand on his back
" I don't know what its like to grow up with a brother, but I know what it feels like to loose one. I never wanted that for you, I never wanted my children to know what that feels like. To loose a sibling, it changes you, you mourn the life you lost, and the one that they should have had"
Ginny was trying to observe this new knowledge. Her dad had a brother, not as long as she did, but she imagined it didn't matter. A loss is a loss.
And so they held each other while they cried, both mourning a brother that should be alive.
When their tears ran out they talked about muggle things, and about trees and how to tell them apart by different barks.Ginny and her dad had always been close, he just got her in a way that no one else did. He did expect anything of her, didn't care if she was smart or athletic just that she was kind. Her favorite thing about her dad was that he knew not to push her, that she would come to him when she wanted, that she knew she always could.
when her mother called for dinner he got up, extended a hand to her. She knew she didn't have to take it, that it was a only an option. she took it, it was easy to go through the door when she wasnt walking though it alone, when she wouldn't be the only one collapsing with her grief.