Weasley fic
Okay, well, I've been told this doesn't suck. If it does, indeed, suck, then blame may be laid at Maruchina's feet, because without her, these writing endeavours of mine would never reach fruition. So this is for her.
Title: Cocoa
Rating: Rated PG for mentions of past violence.
Disclaimer: Oh, come on, we all know it ain't mine.
Spoilers: Through CoS. I know. You all thought this was gonna be OotP.
Penelope had twitched the curtains closed before she fell asleep on Ginny’s bed, so when Ginny was lying awake on her own floor at about three that morning, there were no gradations of black to tell her where her desk or bed or chair were. Experimentally, she placed her hand on her pillow in front of her eyes, and thought she saw something move, but couldn’t be certain if she had really seen anything, or if she only thought she had.
This was what Ginny did with her time while everyone else lay asleep in their beds. She stared at everything around her, she recounted stories to herself, she recited nursery rhymes; anything to keep her from that moment when her mind would go slipping down into dreams for the night.
Inevitably, she would wake in the morning, surprised she had ever slept and not remembering the moment she had drifted off, but that was the point. She liked it that way. And it seemed to her that if she staved off sleep for long enough, she didn’t dream at all. Of course, Percy would probably tell her that it was because she didn’t sleep long enough to dream, and that was a bad sign; and her mother had taken a few moments at breakfast the day before to stare at the purplish circles under Ginny’s eyes, but Mrs. Weasley had seemingly thought the better of asking about them. For a few weeks after term ended, everyone had seemed so overly solicitous, so very, very concerned, that finally Ginny had just screamed and had tantrums until they’d stopped asking. That was last week, and she was determined to enjoy the newfound quiet.
Tapping her fingers restlessly on the pillow next to her head, Ginny couldn’t find a thought to keep her occupied. There was really nothing left to think up after a month of trying not to sleep, and her mind kept on circling back to trying to remember. Try as she might, it was impossible. She could recall the feathers clinging to her robe but couldn’t for the life of her remember killing any roosters. She remembered sitting through Potions with the hem of her robe soaked, staring at her feet, trying to figure out what puddle she could have walked through in the hallway, but couldn’t recall going into the girls’ bathroom on that particular day. She could remember the paint staining her robes, but not whether she had used a brush when she had stained Tom’s threats all over the walls. She wasn’t sure if she should be relieved. On one hand, it was comforting, not to know exactly what she’d done. It allowed her to take refuge in denial, and that was nice sometimes. On the other hand, the scenarios she conjured up for herself were sometimes so much worse than the reality that Dumbledore and Harry had pieced together for her. Ginny was young, but she wasn’t that young, and Tom could have done anything to her and she would never have known.
She had just turned over to stare up at the blackness where her ceiling should be, when she heard the door creak open. Immediately, she was completely alert, and she reached down the sleeve of her nightgown for her wand, which now was with her every hour of the day.
“Ginny?” A voice whispered. It was one of her brothers. Not Percy, it wasn’t nearly stuffy enough, it was either one of the twins or Ron. She didn’t release her wand, however, and her fingers were already going numb from holding it so tightly.
“Ginny?” The voice asked again, and this time, she was almost certain it was Ron, “Are you awake?”
“Yeah, I am. Penelope will be too if you aren’t quiet.” She tried not to sound cross and failed miserably.
“Oh, right. Forgot she was here. Err... So, you couldn’t sleep either?” That “err” couldn’t come from anyone except Ron.
“No.” she answered curtly.
“Ahh.” He was silent for a moment, and if it weren’t for the fact that the door hadn’t creaked shut again, she would have thought he’d left. Finally, he cleared his throat gently and asked, “So, fancy a cup of hot chocolate?”
Afterwards, she couldn’t be sure if it was the fact that Dumbledore had kindly said almost the same thing to her when he absolved her of blame, or if it was merely that Ron was being so kind to her when she’d given him no reason at all to be, but she had to blink furiously and swipe at her eyes in the dark before she rose and shuffled towards the door.
Ron was a slightly darker blot against the hallway, which wasn’t much lighter than her room, “I haven’t been able to sleep much either.” He confessed in a whisper as he led her down the stairs to the kitchen, “I keep having dreams where I’m trying to remove the stones from the passageway, only they keep coming back-and I hear you and Harry on the other side, but I never clear the way for you, and Lockhart is laughing at me...” They were at the bottom of the stairs at this point, and Ron paused before asking in a faint voice, “I suppose your dreams are worse, though?”
“...Not really. I try not to sleep.”
“Ahh.” Ron tapped the doorframe twice and the candles in the kitchen suddenly bloomed with flame. Thankfully, he didn’t say anything else about it, and simply made himself busy with heating up milk in a saucepan and rooting through the pantry for cocoa. That was the one good thing about growing up surrounded by boys-it was never a problem for them when you didn’t want to talk about your feelings.
Ginny sat at the kitchen table, legs tucked under her, hands folded on the table around her wand (which she still hadn’t released) and simply watched her brother work. She was struck in that moment with how much he was like their mother, not in how he studiously measured out the cocoa (Mum would have known how much to add by instinct) or how he meticulously watched the milk pour into the saucepan (she would have already been checking a recipe or the time as she poured) but in the way he snuck glances back at her as he worked, like he was worried she would disappear.
The warmth of the kitchen wrapped itself around Ginny, and the gentle yellow light of the candles soothed her eyes, which were aching from her keeping them forced open all night. She hardly noticed the time passing, only stared into space and enjoyed feeling safe for the first time in perhaps months.
“Here it is!” Ron put a mug of steaming cocoa down in front of her with a slight smile, “It’s probably not as good as Mum’s-I couldn’t find the cinnamon-but it should be all right.”
Ginny forced a smile, “I’m sure it’s perfect, Ron.” She swirled the spoon around listlessly while she waited for the cocoa to cool.
“So, er... Anyway. I, uhh... I just wanted to... to ask... well...” Ron cleared his throat, never taking his eyes off his mug of cocoa, “I guess I just wanted to tell you that if there’s anything you need, I’m here.” He raised his eyes to hers, and oddly enough, he only looked apologetic, and not pitying, “I’ve been in things like that before. You know... With the dark... and... the terror... I don’t know exactly what you, you know, but... yeah. Anything you need. Anything at all.”
Quiet descended again as Ginny found herself blinking desperately for the second time in an hour.
“...when you got back the philosopher’s stone with Harry...” she began quietly, “...were you scared?”
“...Yes.” He met her eyes across the table, “I knew that the only way to win that chess game was to...” he swallowed.
She already knew the fiction by heart, how each of the obstacles had been overcome, and how Ron, Harry and Hermione had soldiered on to win against all odds. All of last summer, she’d demanded Ron tell her how it had happened, over and over again. Every time he talked about it, he spoke about heroics and excitement. Every time he talked about it, the story became a bit grander, and his eyes shone a bit more fervently. Every time he told her, he lied. Now he was finally telling the truth. “I thought I was dead. I thought I’d never see you or Mum or Dad again. I thought I’d never see Herm or Harry ever. I did it only because I didn’t have enough time to think about what would happen, otherwise, I’m not sure I could have.”
Ginny nodded. His honesty touched her, but it didn’t help like she thought it would. Frightened or not, Ron was a hero. Ron had helped to defeat You-Know-Who, while Ginny had just been tricked into helping him. In the end, she hadn’t even saved herself. She didn’t even help save Harry, Fawkes did that.
“Ginny...” Ron began, his long fingers lacing themselves nervously around his mug, “It’s... It’s...” He swallowed hard, “It’s not your fault. ...I’m not just saying that to be nice. It’s really not at all your fault.”
“Don’t say that!” She whispered, shocked out of her silence, “How can you say that? People missed parts of their lives because of me! People could have been killed because of me! I gave Tom everything he wanted and I couldn’t try to stop him! I was stupid, Ron, just... stupid.” The tears came again, in earnest this time, and she could do nothing to stop them. All she could do was hide behind her curtain of red hair and let the tears drip down into her cocoa, souring the chocolate.
Ron’s hand crept across the table, as if he were considering grasping her hand, but he faltered and his hand lay halfway across the table like a discarded utensil. Her tears had already stopped when he said softly, “No, you weren’t. You weren’t at all stupid. You couldn’t have possibly stopped yourself, and not just ‘cause you’re eleven--I couldn’t have. ...Same goes for Mum and Dad and McGonagall and Hagrid and Minister Fudge. Same goes for everyone we know-‘cept maybe Harry and Dumbledore. He could have tricked any of us... It was just your bad luck to be holding the cauldron in Flourish & Blotts--it’s not your fault, Ginny. If anything... I-If anything... it’s my fault.” He stared down at his hands, and his words astounded her so much that she found she couldn’t respond. She only stared blankly at him, her drying tears almost completely forgotten on her cheeks, the mug in front of her warming her hands.
“I should have figured it out faster. I should have listened to you. I should have taken better care of you. I should... I should...” she saw his face contort for only a moment before he dropped his chin to his bony chest and all she could see was his hair bright in the dim light, “I should have protected you.” He amended with an unsteady voice.
Time passed again, unbroken by speech, only this time both siblings hid behind their hair and sniffled suspiciously. After a while, they both sipped cautiously at their drinks and avoided looking at each other. Ginny had barely finished slurping up the dregs of chocolate before Ron took the mug out of her hand and headed towards the sink, “I’ll, uhh, I’ll clean these up, Ginny. You can, uhm, you can go back to bed if you want.”
She got up and headed towards the stairs with every intention of sneaking back to her room without a backwards glance, but something made her turn and stare at the way her brother’s shoulders slumped as he cleaned out the cups.
“Ron?” The cold was seeping into her bare feet as she spoke.
“Yeah, Ginny?”
“You... you did protect me. You came after me, and that... that means a lot.” She watched his head rise as he listened to her, “And also... thank-you. For that, and... For the cocoa. So... yeah, thanks.”
Ron’s head ducked back down, and she could have sworn she saw his ears turn red, “You’re welcome.” He murmured.
“Right then. Uhh... Good night.” She turned and headed back up the stairs, and barely heard him say, “’Night,” in response.
She climbed the stairs noiselessly and slipped into her room and back onto the spare mattress lying on her bedroom floor without a sound. Penelope’s heavy breathing reassured Ginny that she hadn’t woken their guest up, for which she wasn’t sure if she was thankful. She pulled the covers over her, and fully expected to lie awake, staring into darkness and turning her brother’s words over in her mind. She expected, perhaps, to cry again or to try again to remember what had happened.
Instead, she drifted off into sleep, and when she dreamed it was of sunlight.
Title: Cocoa
Rating: Rated PG for mentions of past violence.
Disclaimer: Oh, come on, we all know it ain't mine.
Spoilers: Through CoS. I know. You all thought this was gonna be OotP.
Penelope had twitched the curtains closed before she fell asleep on Ginny’s bed, so when Ginny was lying awake on her own floor at about three that morning, there were no gradations of black to tell her where her desk or bed or chair were. Experimentally, she placed her hand on her pillow in front of her eyes, and thought she saw something move, but couldn’t be certain if she had really seen anything, or if she only thought she had.
This was what Ginny did with her time while everyone else lay asleep in their beds. She stared at everything around her, she recounted stories to herself, she recited nursery rhymes; anything to keep her from that moment when her mind would go slipping down into dreams for the night.
Inevitably, she would wake in the morning, surprised she had ever slept and not remembering the moment she had drifted off, but that was the point. She liked it that way. And it seemed to her that if she staved off sleep for long enough, she didn’t dream at all. Of course, Percy would probably tell her that it was because she didn’t sleep long enough to dream, and that was a bad sign; and her mother had taken a few moments at breakfast the day before to stare at the purplish circles under Ginny’s eyes, but Mrs. Weasley had seemingly thought the better of asking about them. For a few weeks after term ended, everyone had seemed so overly solicitous, so very, very concerned, that finally Ginny had just screamed and had tantrums until they’d stopped asking. That was last week, and she was determined to enjoy the newfound quiet.
Tapping her fingers restlessly on the pillow next to her head, Ginny couldn’t find a thought to keep her occupied. There was really nothing left to think up after a month of trying not to sleep, and her mind kept on circling back to trying to remember. Try as she might, it was impossible. She could recall the feathers clinging to her robe but couldn’t for the life of her remember killing any roosters. She remembered sitting through Potions with the hem of her robe soaked, staring at her feet, trying to figure out what puddle she could have walked through in the hallway, but couldn’t recall going into the girls’ bathroom on that particular day. She could remember the paint staining her robes, but not whether she had used a brush when she had stained Tom’s threats all over the walls. She wasn’t sure if she should be relieved. On one hand, it was comforting, not to know exactly what she’d done. It allowed her to take refuge in denial, and that was nice sometimes. On the other hand, the scenarios she conjured up for herself were sometimes so much worse than the reality that Dumbledore and Harry had pieced together for her. Ginny was young, but she wasn’t that young, and Tom could have done anything to her and she would never have known.
She had just turned over to stare up at the blackness where her ceiling should be, when she heard the door creak open. Immediately, she was completely alert, and she reached down the sleeve of her nightgown for her wand, which now was with her every hour of the day.
“Ginny?” A voice whispered. It was one of her brothers. Not Percy, it wasn’t nearly stuffy enough, it was either one of the twins or Ron. She didn’t release her wand, however, and her fingers were already going numb from holding it so tightly.
“Ginny?” The voice asked again, and this time, she was almost certain it was Ron, “Are you awake?”
“Yeah, I am. Penelope will be too if you aren’t quiet.” She tried not to sound cross and failed miserably.
“Oh, right. Forgot she was here. Err... So, you couldn’t sleep either?” That “err” couldn’t come from anyone except Ron.
“No.” she answered curtly.
“Ahh.” He was silent for a moment, and if it weren’t for the fact that the door hadn’t creaked shut again, she would have thought he’d left. Finally, he cleared his throat gently and asked, “So, fancy a cup of hot chocolate?”
Afterwards, she couldn’t be sure if it was the fact that Dumbledore had kindly said almost the same thing to her when he absolved her of blame, or if it was merely that Ron was being so kind to her when she’d given him no reason at all to be, but she had to blink furiously and swipe at her eyes in the dark before she rose and shuffled towards the door.
Ron was a slightly darker blot against the hallway, which wasn’t much lighter than her room, “I haven’t been able to sleep much either.” He confessed in a whisper as he led her down the stairs to the kitchen, “I keep having dreams where I’m trying to remove the stones from the passageway, only they keep coming back-and I hear you and Harry on the other side, but I never clear the way for you, and Lockhart is laughing at me...” They were at the bottom of the stairs at this point, and Ron paused before asking in a faint voice, “I suppose your dreams are worse, though?”
“...Not really. I try not to sleep.”
“Ahh.” Ron tapped the doorframe twice and the candles in the kitchen suddenly bloomed with flame. Thankfully, he didn’t say anything else about it, and simply made himself busy with heating up milk in a saucepan and rooting through the pantry for cocoa. That was the one good thing about growing up surrounded by boys-it was never a problem for them when you didn’t want to talk about your feelings.
Ginny sat at the kitchen table, legs tucked under her, hands folded on the table around her wand (which she still hadn’t released) and simply watched her brother work. She was struck in that moment with how much he was like their mother, not in how he studiously measured out the cocoa (Mum would have known how much to add by instinct) or how he meticulously watched the milk pour into the saucepan (she would have already been checking a recipe or the time as she poured) but in the way he snuck glances back at her as he worked, like he was worried she would disappear.
The warmth of the kitchen wrapped itself around Ginny, and the gentle yellow light of the candles soothed her eyes, which were aching from her keeping them forced open all night. She hardly noticed the time passing, only stared into space and enjoyed feeling safe for the first time in perhaps months.
“Here it is!” Ron put a mug of steaming cocoa down in front of her with a slight smile, “It’s probably not as good as Mum’s-I couldn’t find the cinnamon-but it should be all right.”
Ginny forced a smile, “I’m sure it’s perfect, Ron.” She swirled the spoon around listlessly while she waited for the cocoa to cool.
“So, er... Anyway. I, uhh... I just wanted to... to ask... well...” Ron cleared his throat, never taking his eyes off his mug of cocoa, “I guess I just wanted to tell you that if there’s anything you need, I’m here.” He raised his eyes to hers, and oddly enough, he only looked apologetic, and not pitying, “I’ve been in things like that before. You know... With the dark... and... the terror... I don’t know exactly what you, you know, but... yeah. Anything you need. Anything at all.”
Quiet descended again as Ginny found herself blinking desperately for the second time in an hour.
“...when you got back the philosopher’s stone with Harry...” she began quietly, “...were you scared?”
“...Yes.” He met her eyes across the table, “I knew that the only way to win that chess game was to...” he swallowed.
She already knew the fiction by heart, how each of the obstacles had been overcome, and how Ron, Harry and Hermione had soldiered on to win against all odds. All of last summer, she’d demanded Ron tell her how it had happened, over and over again. Every time he talked about it, he spoke about heroics and excitement. Every time he talked about it, the story became a bit grander, and his eyes shone a bit more fervently. Every time he told her, he lied. Now he was finally telling the truth. “I thought I was dead. I thought I’d never see you or Mum or Dad again. I thought I’d never see Herm or Harry ever. I did it only because I didn’t have enough time to think about what would happen, otherwise, I’m not sure I could have.”
Ginny nodded. His honesty touched her, but it didn’t help like she thought it would. Frightened or not, Ron was a hero. Ron had helped to defeat You-Know-Who, while Ginny had just been tricked into helping him. In the end, she hadn’t even saved herself. She didn’t even help save Harry, Fawkes did that.
“Ginny...” Ron began, his long fingers lacing themselves nervously around his mug, “It’s... It’s...” He swallowed hard, “It’s not your fault. ...I’m not just saying that to be nice. It’s really not at all your fault.”
“Don’t say that!” She whispered, shocked out of her silence, “How can you say that? People missed parts of their lives because of me! People could have been killed because of me! I gave Tom everything he wanted and I couldn’t try to stop him! I was stupid, Ron, just... stupid.” The tears came again, in earnest this time, and she could do nothing to stop them. All she could do was hide behind her curtain of red hair and let the tears drip down into her cocoa, souring the chocolate.
Ron’s hand crept across the table, as if he were considering grasping her hand, but he faltered and his hand lay halfway across the table like a discarded utensil. Her tears had already stopped when he said softly, “No, you weren’t. You weren’t at all stupid. You couldn’t have possibly stopped yourself, and not just ‘cause you’re eleven--I couldn’t have. ...Same goes for Mum and Dad and McGonagall and Hagrid and Minister Fudge. Same goes for everyone we know-‘cept maybe Harry and Dumbledore. He could have tricked any of us... It was just your bad luck to be holding the cauldron in Flourish & Blotts--it’s not your fault, Ginny. If anything... I-If anything... it’s my fault.” He stared down at his hands, and his words astounded her so much that she found she couldn’t respond. She only stared blankly at him, her drying tears almost completely forgotten on her cheeks, the mug in front of her warming her hands.
“I should have figured it out faster. I should have listened to you. I should have taken better care of you. I should... I should...” she saw his face contort for only a moment before he dropped his chin to his bony chest and all she could see was his hair bright in the dim light, “I should have protected you.” He amended with an unsteady voice.
Time passed again, unbroken by speech, only this time both siblings hid behind their hair and sniffled suspiciously. After a while, they both sipped cautiously at their drinks and avoided looking at each other. Ginny had barely finished slurping up the dregs of chocolate before Ron took the mug out of her hand and headed towards the sink, “I’ll, uhh, I’ll clean these up, Ginny. You can, uhm, you can go back to bed if you want.”
She got up and headed towards the stairs with every intention of sneaking back to her room without a backwards glance, but something made her turn and stare at the way her brother’s shoulders slumped as he cleaned out the cups.
“Ron?” The cold was seeping into her bare feet as she spoke.
“Yeah, Ginny?”
“You... you did protect me. You came after me, and that... that means a lot.” She watched his head rise as he listened to her, “And also... thank-you. For that, and... For the cocoa. So... yeah, thanks.”
Ron’s head ducked back down, and she could have sworn she saw his ears turn red, “You’re welcome.” He murmured.
“Right then. Uhh... Good night.” She turned and headed back up the stairs, and barely heard him say, “’Night,” in response.
She climbed the stairs noiselessly and slipped into her room and back onto the spare mattress lying on her bedroom floor without a sound. Penelope’s heavy breathing reassured Ginny that she hadn’t woken their guest up, for which she wasn’t sure if she was thankful. She pulled the covers over her, and fully expected to lie awake, staring into darkness and turning her brother’s words over in her mind. She expected, perhaps, to cry again or to try again to remember what had happened.
Instead, she drifted off into sleep, and when she dreamed it was of sunlight.