FIC: DEAR GEORGE (GEN)
Author: kiertorata
Title: Dear George
Rating: PG
Warnings: mentions of character death
Word Count: ~7k
Summary: Scattered around the corner of his room lay the piles of letters that had been accumulating over the months, a subtle measure of the longest year of his life.
Notes: This is everything that I never write: gen, first person, epistolary fic. I'm super nervous to post this, but this story was just screaming to be written and I'm glad it's finally finished. Immense thanks to profshallowness for the amazing beta job and the lovely knowyourincantations for providing Neville's gran's society's name.
6 September 1998
Dear George,
The first week at Hogwarts is over now, as you probably know, if you, you know, take your head out of your arse sometimes and look at the date on the newspaper.
Which you probably don’t. For all I know, you’re stuck at the bottom of your bed, drowning in your own piss, surrounded by Kneazles that are just waiting for you to die so that they can eat you.
I shouldn’t joke about things like this, but everyone else is being so serious.
Mum went mental when you left. (Not that she wasn’t mental to begin with.) To be fair, you can’t really fend off Mum with just a note that says, “Don’t look for me.” She went through her entire Floo address book asking if anyone’s heard anything of you. She even made Dad swear that he would talk to Shacklebolt to get some Aurors to search for you. I don’t think he really did, because the Auror Department has their hands full of more important stuff at the moment. Plenty of Death Eaters still on the loose, and all that.
In the middle of all of Mum’s panicking and Percy’s overeager attempts to soothe her and wriggle his way back into the family, I’m sort of glad to be back at school. Even though everything’s a little weird.
You’re probably not interested in hearing about all the meddling Ministry officials at Hogwarts. (Trust me, they’re nowhere as bad as a certain toad with a fondness for kittens. The new Minister got at least that right.) In addition to that, there’s the constant booms and rumbles coming from the closed-off parts of the castle where the renovators are doing their job. They were supposed to have been done before the new term, but turns out it isn’t exactly a trivial matter to repair an ancient castle.
Parts of the castle are still under renovation, and a lot of corridors are closed off as unsafe. Luna says it’s because the castle was wounded during the battle and is leaking ancient magic. For once, I might actually agree with her.
Of course, the weirdest part is how many of the beds are empty at night. It’s less apparent in our dorm, because the “eighth years” who decided to return were stuck in with us lot. I don’t know whose brilliant idea it was not to just vanish the empty beds or store them in a cupboard - maybe the house elves missed the memo or something - but it’s bad enough as it is without the constant reminder of all the people who are gone.
Parvati Patil had a point, though, about how it would have been wrong without the beds. She said it would have felt disrespectful, as if the teachers were trying to brush off what took place last year, if they had removed them. Maybe McGonagall just wants to let people mourn.
Speaking of McGonagall, she seems well on her way to becoming the next Dumbledore, at least if you count by the amount of greys in her hair. On the other hand, if you count by her ability to radiate a sense of mysterious comfort or twinkle her eyes, she isn’t all the way there yet.
I think she was trying to be uplifting in her back-to-school speech, but it went a bit backwards when she got to talking about Snape. I think most of us are still struggling with the fact that the Git was Good All Along. It didn’t stop him from letting the Carrows torture us last year.
If there’s something good about all this, it’s that preparing for N.E.W.T.s has never come with as little pressure. Put things into perspective, wars do. I think the teachers and everyone’s parents are still just very relieved that we are (mostly) not dead, and I certainly hope the shock keeps them off our backs for another few months. In case it doesn’t, my back-up plan involves fireworks and causing general havoc before running off. Could also put in a nice swamp in there as an homage to you and Fred, although some might call that unoriginal.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention. There’s also a counsellor at Hogwarts. Do you remember Percy’s ex-girlfriend Penelope Clearwater? The quiet, frigid, Ministry sort of type? Apparently, she did her Healer’s licence in Psychomagic and now she’s here to clear us all of trauma. I doubt her “if anyone needs to talk, I’m here” thing will attract many students, but I might book a session just to give her an update on our family drama in case Percy hasn’t kept in touch.
Anyway, I’m just waiting for Quidditch season to start. That’s my preferred form of therapy.
I don’t really expect you to read this, even if it finds you. I’m sure you’re receiving around ten letters per day from Mum unless you’ve managed to develop a way to block them. Knowing you, I wouldn’t be surprised. Anyway, I guess it just made me feel better writing this.
Your annoying little sister,
Ginny
*
19 September 1998
Dear George,
For all I know, you chucked my last letter into the fireplace without even opening it. Or maybe my little letter was lucky and you gave it a proper send-off with one of your Wildfire Whiz-bangs. But I do know that quite probably it reached you, since my owl came back without a letter!
I also know something about your whereabouts now. I know that you’ve really left Britain as the owl I used took long enough to get back.
I’m a great detective, don’t you agree?
Don’t worry, I’m not going to look for you. It’s just nice to try to imagine you somewhere. The image I had last time I wrote was a bit grim, so these days I like to think of you on the coast of Spain or somewhere similar, getting outrageously tanned sunburnt and flirting with bikini-clad girls. Maybe you’re even sipping a sickeningly sweet drink with a little umbrella in it.
It’s a less gloomy thought, at least.
Things are alright here. I may have come off a little depressed in my last letter. (It’s the depression, probably. Har har.) But a definite improvement to my circumstances has occurred since then.
Yes! You guessed right: the start of Quidditch season!
In case the news hasn’t reached you yet (which by all means, it should have as I’m something of a celebrity now), you are lucky enough to be holding in your unremarkable hands a letter written by the current Quidditch Captain of Gryffindor.
She has the Quaffle! Like lightning, she zooms past the opposing Beater, leaving behind a cloud of confusion. And she scooooores!
Quidditch tryouts were almost a bit of a flop, what with folk being a little less enthusiastic about anything dangerous after the war. But I have a collection of raw diamonds that I’m confident will shine under my strong leadership. (Push-ups! Sit-ups! Early morning laps around the pitch!)
Slytherin hasn’t even managed to scrape together a team yet. It’s probably because half of the Slytherin students didn’t return to school. (Really, if the Gryffindor dormitories are depressing, it’s hard to imagine theirs.) I’m sure they’ll get a team together before the first match, but it feels a bit unfair to kick their arses when it’ll mostly be scared second-years against us.
Blaise Zabini is the only one from Ron and Harry’s year to have come back. I heard he and his Mum fled England and spent last year in Italy, so he’s one of the few Slytherins whose family isn’t being hounded by the Ministry for war crimes.
He was always kind of hot.
(I’m trying out a new technique of shocking you into replying. How would you feel about me dating a Slytherin? Delighted? Well, I’m sad to inform you that you don’t need to start preparing for that reality just yet, since I’m still (happily) together with Harry, although the second year of long-distancing is starting to take its toll on me. I wouldn’t mind a good snog now and then.)
Harry figured he would have more time to spend with Teddy if he just took up Shacklebolt’s offer and started the Auror programme, so he didn’t return to Hogwarts. Teddy’s living with Andromeda, as you know, but Harry spends nearly all his spare time there. It’s weird to think that my boyfriend’s taking care of a baby without me.
Ron follows Harry everywhere like a loyal (=brainless) dog, so he also entered the Auror programme, and now they’re living the bachelor life in dear, dismal Grimmauld Place. Harry’s allowed Ron to paint half the rooms orange, which I received a picture of when he last wrote.
Sharing a dorm with Hermione has its cons. I try to leave my stinky Quidditch gear around to mark my territory and keep her away, but she still somehow manages to remind me about all the upcoming exams several times a day. Mental, she is.
It sometimes feels so pointless to do mundane things like prepare for exams.
Who really cares about memorising ancient goblin revolts or knowing how to brew a cooling salve after what we went through? During the war, everything was bigger, we were all fighting for something. We were all fighting for this - for everything to be normal again. But now that everyone can have a normal life again, it feels like everything’s become too normal too quickly.
I’m not making any sense, am I?
Sometimes it feels wrong to enjoy things like Quidditch, when Fred’s not here to enjoy anything at all.
Your famous Quidditch star sister,
Ginny
*
9 October 1998
Dear George,
Did you like my little trick? I still don’t know if you read my letters, so I thought an official Ministry envelope might trick you into reading one.
Hogwarts isn’t the same without Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes, you know. I’m not trying to guilt you to return, or anything, but the atmosphere is altogether too serious here. I miss your pranks.
Lee Jordan’s brother Daniel brought with him a stash of some dusty-looking Nosebleed Nougats and Skiving Snackboxes and has made a fine profit dealing them to students. I have a feeling they’re from one of the faulty development batches you gave to Lee, so I would be cautious before eating one.
You might wonder what happened to your shop. Dad and Bill settled affairs with the landlord and I think they handled all the finances to their best ability. Bill has all of your leftover stock stored in the cellar of Shell Cottage. (Hoping it won’t explode - I don’t think Fleur would forgive him after that.) He took them so that Mum wouldn’t spend all her time going through them and crying (and getting hit in the face by a firework in the meanwhile).
I hear Mum’s doing a little better. She was broken after you left. I think she put all of her mourning of Fred into missing you. Charlie popped by at home last week and wrote to me saying she’d started to knit our Christmas jumpers. We were all wondering if she would have the heart to do them this year.
Percy also wrote to me. I think he’s still overdoing the whole repentance thing, even though it’s nice to hear from him. After his little detour to the dark as the official boot licker of various Ministry oafs, he informs me that he’s returned back to his true passion, cauldron bottoms. Apparently they’ve allowed him to lead a research team and he couldn’t be more overjoyed. And I hear he has a girlfriend too, which I will make it my mission to find out more about at Christmas! (It’s important to stay on top of these things in case I feel in the mood to talk to Penelope the counsellor.)
It’s a sad day when you hear more often from Percy than from your favourite brother. (I’m really not as heartless as I sound.)
I’ll let you in on a secret. You have to promise not to tell the numerous friends you probably spend all your time with! (Har har.)
I don’t feel fine most of the time.
I think there must be something wrong with me, because the war’s not affecting me like it affects everyone else. I haven’t cried. I haven’t collapsed. My classmate Gemma had a nervous fit in Defence class the other day when we had to practise duelling. She had to be taken to the Infirmary and she didn’t return until late at night. But I’ve just kept going.
I have nightmares sometimes. Everyone does. We don’t talk about them, and outwardly you wouldn’t think anything was wrong. We’ve all just got better at Silencing Charms.
Sometimes I’ll be doing something completely ordinary, like preparing Quidditch strategies or studying (shocking, I know), and I’ll be hit by a hollowness that feels like my heart has been replaced with an aching hole. I feel like I have to keep going, doing whatever it is that I was doing or the world will break or something. Or like maybe it’s me who’s broken. Acknowledging it would make it real, and I don’t want it to be real because I’m afraid that the hollowness will just keep spreading like a curse and engulf me completely, so I just try to ignore it.
It’s easier to pretend I’m just fine. When these things happen, I try to go out for a few laps around the pitch.
Do you get to play Quidditch in the place you’re staying?
I don’t expect you to be doing fine but I hope you are a little better.
In woefully bad spirits,
Ginny
*
25 October 1998
Dear George,
I’m hiding behind the curtains of my bed from Hermione, who’s looking for someone to drag with her to the library. I think she doesn’t quite know what to do with herself now that Ron and Harry are not here. Not that either of them were very keen on the whole library thing.
She’s taken to spending a lot of time with the Patil twins, and has found a like-minded soul (read: swot) in Padma, who is like a Ravenclaw equivalent of her, except all cold and logical and a little scary, if you ask me.
Lavender Brown, who you might remember was Parvati’s best friend and also the girl Ron was glued to at the lips that one year (or was it after your time? Shame, it would have been top-class entertainment to hear your comments on it) was hospitalised after the war for a couple of months. She was victim to the same disgusting monster who got Bill (I won’t give him enough respect to write his name). I hear she’s been healing alright, but since she’s already missed almost half of the school year, they’re making her return next year to repeat the year.
Parvati often says that if she didn’t have Padma, she doesn’t know how she would have made it through everything. Then she’ll look at me guiltily, remembering that I lost a brother, or possibly even remembering that I lost a brother who had a twin.
If I’m honest, it does anger me sometimes that I had to lose someone and not everyone did.
But our family was just so involved that it was almost like a statistical impossibility that we wouldn’t lose anyone. Not that Arithmancy, or prophecies, or anything can fix it. It’s all just shit and explaining it isn’t going to make it less shit.
I’ve spent more time with Luna and Neville this year. You probably don’t remember Luna very well. She used to spend summers with me sometimes when I was little. She was in the D.A. too, and with Harry and the rest of us at the Ministry.
We’ve got very close this year.
She suggested we hold a memorial. I was against the idea at first, but Luna has a way of convincing me of what’s best for me even when I try my level best to avoid it.
We snuck out after dark last night. It was pretty cold outside, so we charmed blankets with warming charms and built a fire on the outskirts of the grounds. Luna knew a spell to attract fairies for fairy lights, and soon we had the sky glowing with dancing haloes.
We held a quiet moment for everyone we remembered and spelled their names in the air with sparks. We talked about all our friends that are gone and how much we miss them.
Like Colin, you know? He could be irritating as hell, but now that he’s gone I miss him and his stupid camera more than I’d like to admit.
Gemma from my dorm told us about her cousin, who was taken by Snatchers last November. They only found her body weeks after the final battle. It had been rotting in the cellar of a distant manor that had acted as a base of sorts and been forgotten.
There’s nothing you can say to stories like that except be there and visualise ever horrible detail.
I talked about Fred.
I know you’re probably not ready to talk about him, but I’m going to anyway. I need to. You’re not the only one to whom Fred was the closest brother.
I miss him. I miss him more than anything.
I always looked up to you two. I feel like Fred was always even less serious than you. (You were both the epitome of seriousness so it’s a tough call.) He would always notice when someone was feeling down and do something to lighten the mood or take the attention off that person. He was the only one who could tell when you weren’t feeling your best.
I liked to sneak into your room when you two had left for Hogwarts and look at all your things.
If you’re wondering who took your Wonky Wand, it was me. I accidentally broke it when I tried to make blue slime like you and Fred did, and I never said a word when you blamed Ron about it for weeks.
Remember when you tried to teach me to cast Diffindo when I was still too young to have a wand? I blasted a hole into the roof, and Fred tried to cover it up with a bad Reparo and eventually Dad found out and helped us fix it so that Mum wouldn’t get upset. The way all of us came together like criminals still makes me laugh.
If I learned something from you and Fred, it’s how to help someone out in a tricky spot.
Remember that summer you and Fred decided it was a bright idea to run away from home and live on your own in the woods? You probably think I was too small to remember that, but according to Mum I cried for an entire hour before we all realised you had only made it to your nearby fort.
It felt like the entire day. I remember feeling like the world had come to an end, like nothing would ever be okay again with the both of you gone. And then when Dad had fetched you home and yelled at you, Fred snuck me the shiny stone he had brought back for me and I held onto it for hours because it felt like if I didn’t let go, you wouldn’t leave again either.
I suppose what I miss the most about Fred is everything that never happened. I can't stop thinking about everything that he was supposed to be a part of.
I always imagined I’d visit your place when it got hard. (No-one thought we’d have to deal with war-hard, so in my imagination it was pretty mild things like breakups and getting fired from a shitty job.) I imagined Fred would be the one to settle my nerves before my first professional Quidditch match (probably by claiming he snuck a U-No-Poo in my morning tea), and the one to crack a stupid joke at my wedding so that no-one would realise that I was nervous.
He was supposed to be the godfather to my kids.
He was supposed to be happy and grow as old as you both looked when you crossed Dumbledore’s Age Line.
And as stupid as it seems to think of something so insignificant, I can’t stop thinking about the summer job at your shop that you promised me before everything went to shit.
It feels selfish to think about things like this when everything that he was supposed to be for you is worse. I feel like I’ve lost two brothers at once. It’s not like you’ll ever be the same without Fred, right?
Your loving sister,
Ginny
*
21 November 1998
Dear George,
If you think my handwriting has drastically improved since my last letter… you’re not wrong. I’m using a Quick-Quotes Quill to write this. (Be prepared for some Rita Skeeteresque dramatisation.)
Why, you ask?
Today was the match against Ravenclaw. And as all captains truly dedicated to their team do, I had to sacrifice my body and soul in the name of Quidditch.
I think all the dueling last spring must have awakened a battle rage in our Ravenclaws, because they were a force to be reckoned with. The Ravenclaw team had really worked on their Chasers, and the first hour of the match was horrible for our team spirit watching the point difference grow and grow. I wish I had trained our Beaters more! (They’re not bad, but have none of the team-work skills that you and Fred had!)
There were a couple of scares seeing the Ravenclaw Seeker Collins whizz by, but luckily they were false alarms. Our Seeker Maggie Thompson is fast but doesn’t have quite the intuition for the snitch that Harry did. But she held her own trying to keep Collins off the Snitch with her best feints and bluffs while our point tally was too low.
The best moment was against my shitty ex Michael Corner. He tried to block me and get the Quaffle and YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN HIS FACE when I bluffed him and threw the Quaffle right by his ear, scoring us the points that allowed Maggie to finally be able to catch the Snitch and win us the match. The Ravenclaw Beater couldn’t see me because he got in the way. When Michael realised what happened, he looked like he wanted to punch me.
Then a Bludger got me and broke my wrist but we had already won so it didn’t matter.
I wish you had been there.
Perhaps I should consider a back-up career as a Quidditch reporter for the Prophet? (If you’re wondering what my non-back-up career plan is, it’s a secret. I might tell you if you ask me in your next letter. Har har.)
I always wonder what you’ve been doing all these months. Have you been alone or have you met people? Who are they and do they understand you? Is it easier to be around people who were far away from the war when it happened?
I want you to be happy.
I hope someday you’ll feel all right enough to be able to come back.
I don’t care if you’ve changed. I don’t care if you can’t joke around all the time anymore. I don’t even care if you never crack another joke in your life. (We already have Percy for that, but if you try hard enough, I know you can be even more serious than him. I’ll even get you a subscription to Cauldron Bottoms Weekly if you like.)
If you don’t want to have the shop any longer, do something else. Take up a boring Ministry job. Take up a muggle job. Start making sandwiches or rearing Flobberworms or something.
Maybe go out with Luna. She's weird enough for you. (She's currently sort of getting with Neville, but I'd kind of like to keep her in the family!)
Anything. I’m here for you when you’re ready. I'm not going to be another Mum when you clearly need some space. (But you’d better be at my first professional Quidditch match, or I'll not count you as my brother anymore!)
Yours, delirious from healing potions,
Ginny
*
26 December 1998
Dear George,
I think everyone sort of hoped you would come home for Christmas. I didn’t expect it, so I wasn’t disappointed, but I got you a gift anyway. I won’t send it - you’ll have to come home to see. There’s a whole pile of presents waiting for you, whenever you decide to come back. (And before you say that a pile of presents don’t make up for Fred being gone, I KNOW.)
In a way, it’s been the worst Christmas and the best Christmas at the same time.
We went to Fred's grave together.
I would have liked to talk to him in private, but with the whole family there and everyone wanting to talk to him, it was all sort of a mess. We all said some words, and I think all of us cried a bit (Mum cried more than the rest of us put together). I set off a Whiz-bang which I know Fred would have liked, although Mum didn't find it funny.
And then after a while we left because Fleur felt too cold in her skimpy cloak. (That's what you get for refusing to wear one of Mum’s jumpers!)
We sort of pretended to have a jolly old time when we got back to the Burrow, but then Bill said something I won’t forget about how we shouldn’t have to pretend anything, and how it’s all right to miss both of you and how it’ll be wrong for a while and keep being wrong forever, but we can also have good moments despite that. I don’t know when he got that smart about emotions, maybe being married does that to you.
The evening turned into a sort of mixture of crying, laughs, full stomachs and Celestina Warbeck’s My Baby Gave Me a Hippogriff for Christmas never leaving your head again. (I EXPECTED JEWELS AT LEAST BUT INSTEAD I GOT THIS BEAST. You’re welcome.)
Later I watched Ron kick Charlie’s arse at chess and played gobstones with Harry and Bill in front of the fire. I ate so much of Mum’s Christmas pudding that my stomach is still aching. Tomorrow we’re all going out to the Christmas market before Bill and Fleur leave for France to stay with Fleur’s family. Luna might visit later, and Neville too (who, apparently, has had a horrible Christmas and desperately wants me and Luna to save him from his Gran and her friends from Witches for the Protection of Moral Standards).
Last night I overheard Percy crying in your old room. I think he regrets not being around when it counted.
Sometimes you have to be grateful for people like Fleur, who keep on going as their normal, annoying selves despite everything that happened. She’s been complaining about how British food makes her fat, how we don’t know how to celebrate with a proper feast. (Should have brought over some of your famous French cuisine then, shouldn’t you have, Fleur? I’ve heard Bill is the one in their household that does the cooking. Although I count that in both their favour. I wouldn’t cook for a husband either.)
My favourite Christmas present?
Getting to see Harry.
Oozing holiday cheer,
Ginny
P.S. Sometimes I wish Fred had chosen to stay behind as a ghost.
*
13 February, 1999
Dear George,
Everything’s been a blurry mess these past few days. We lost the match against Hufflepuff. It was due to some stupid mistakes from all of us, but mostly to our Keeper not focusing enough. Because I’m team Captain, I couldn’t really shout at him in front of everybody, so I went for the second best thing and punched Zacharias Smith.
I don’t know what happened.
He just came to gloat in that incredibly irritating way of his where he doesn’t stop bothering you before you say something back, and I was feeling so tense and angry that I just sort of swung at him to shut him up.
In hindsight, I think he was trying to make a pass at me.
I’m just so angry sometimes, and I don’t know why. Angry at Mum and Dad for letting all of you fight. Angry about them being part of the Order. Angry about all of it. About Harry ending up in the middle of it, for You-Know-Who marking him as his equal.
I was scared that they would ban me from playing Quidditch, but instead I just had to clean the Owlery and do some lines for McGonagall. I was also sent to talk to Penelope the counsellor.
I expected something clinical and boring, but Penelope’s office was actually sort of nice. There was a leather sofa and saggy armchairs, and a worn oriental rug and a lot of plants. And the room was lit softly with little paper lanterns in different colours.
She didn’t mention what happened with Smith at all, and instead asked me questions about our family.
I don’t think I painted any of you in a very flattering light. I was upset and a lot of things came out that I didn’t mean to say, mostly about Mum and how she always wanted me to be the girl of the family. I’ve always resented her a bit for pushing all that onto me, but also like I’ve disappointed her for not being all the things she hoped I’d be.
We didn’t get to talking about the war, but I did tell her that because I’m the baby of the family, I sometimes feel that I’ve had to be the one to act normally and hold it together for everyone else.
At the end, she taught me a bit of Mind Healing that would sound a bit woo-woo if I tried to describe it. It made my head feel tingly in a not-bad way and calmed me down a bit even though I was still aware of feeling upset.
The hour was over sooner than I expected and she needed to see another student. She said that if I come back next week she won’t make me take the Calming Potion Pomfrey prescribed. I’m slowly crumbling under N.E.W.T. revision, Quidditch practice and holding on enough to not lose it, but I’ll try to go back.
Your mess of a sister,
Ginny
*
5 March 1999
Dear George,
It’s time for the big reveal. I did say that I would only tell you if you asked, but I have to take that back because I’m far too egotistical and far too excited to keep this a secret.
As you know (because I’ve never been one to shut up), it’s always been my dream to fly professionally. Well, THAT MIGHT VERY WELL BECOME TRUE, because some of the smaller teams are scouting, including the HOLYHEAD HARPIES, which is not only my favourite team in Britain, but the whole world. They said they will come to Hogwarts later this spring to look for potential talents. Hooch told us today.
They’re only looking for people to invite to their tryouts in June, and it would only be a reserve position, but for the first time in months, I feel excited.
Luna and I are talking about getting a flat together after graduation. We’ll both probably be too busy to really spend any time there, but I just love the idea of our home.
She’s going to help her dad with the Quibbler and do some research. She’s fascinated by magical creatures and has been corresponding with an old zoologist who looks a bit like Dumbledore, who says he might take her on part-time after school.
Hermione of course has let me know more than once that she doesn’t consider professional athlete a valid career. She’s applying to a Magical Law programme in the London College of Wizardry, and for various apprenticeships as back-up.
I think she’ll be sorely disappointed when she realises the only British wizarding university is something of a joke and run by purebloods. (Then again, our Hermione enjoys a good challenge. Maybe she’ll enrol just to rustle some feathers.)
With hope,
Ginny
*
1 April, 1999
Happy birthday, brother dear! I hope the bikini girls are treating you well. Ask them to make you a drink in my name.
Missing your jokes,
Ginny
*
8 April, 1999
Dear George,
Welcome to another instalment of Family Drama, brought to you by your favorite neighborhood reporter, Ginny Skeeter! Merlin knows you must be desperate for gossip on that deserted paradise island, or wherever you are. I’ll try my best to indulge!
I’m spending the Easter holidays at Grimmauld Place with Ron, Harry and Hermione. (They all say “hi”!)
Ron recently dropped out of Auror training, and he's currently jobless and lounging about at Grimmauld Place trying to figure out his life. Mum, of course, knowing that I’d spend my holiday here, tried to talk me into making him return home, so that she could force all her plans on him. She wants him to try for Ministry jobs or apply for apprenticeships, but he’s having none of that. He’s got his mind set on bartending.
In my opinion, Mum can complain all she wants. I’m rather enjoying the drinks Ron’s been making. Hermione pretends to disapprove, but she’s tipsy on a Fizzy Fairywater as I write, so she really doesn’t have room to judge.
We’ve all had a good laugh at Ron’s new beard. It has become a big enough part of his identity that I felt that it deserved a name of its own, so I’ve decided to call it Henry. I swear, Ron fiddled with it at least thirty times during breakfast only. I kept count.
Ron has a rather grand idea of him and Henry running their own bar someday. He’s so wrapped up in visions of setting shots on fire and getting applauded by all the girls flocking to admire his amazing barmanship, that I haven’t had the heart to tell him that he’ll probably have to start with wiping tables for Tom at the Leaky. Anyway, he has an interview for the Leaky next week. I hope he gets the job. I know where I'll be going for my first firewhisky after school’s over.
The second important bit of gossip (which you may have guessed if you read carefully) is that Hermione and Ron broke up. They managed to be all adult and proper about it, too, and not cause a scene, which is why it almost completely slipped my notice. Apparently it happened a few weeks back, but because I’ve been busy avoiding Hermione to avoid N.E.W.T. revision, and because Harry is too emotionally dense to remember to tell me these things, I only heard about it when I arrived. I caused an embarrassing moment for everyone asking about it (which you would have enjoyed), where Ron blushed scarlet and Hermione went all unnaturally cheerful for a full ten minutes.
(In all honesty, Harry and I think it’s probably just a minor hitch. Those two have been making eyes at each other since we got here, and I think Hermione is oddly keen on Henry, too.)
Other than being the focal point of Mum’s parental rage and being single and ready to mingle, Ron’s well and he misses you, although he didn’t say it in exactly those words.
He did say he wished you were still living in Diagon Alley. He said it would have been nice to be able to pop by at your flat after work if he gets the job at Leaky.
This is turning out to be a hell of a long letter. I hope you don’t mind! I intend to use my aching wrist as an excuse to skive off the N.E.W.T. revision session Hermione’s planned for us. Either that or a Bat-Bogey Hex.
Tomorrow, we’re going to go watch the match between the Cannons and the Falcons! Harry got Ron tickets for his birthday, but was sneaky enough to coincide them with a match that takes place during our visit. I leave you with the image of Ron’s face turning purple as his favourite team loses yet again!
Always missing you,
Ginny
P.S. Harry and I are fine, I think. I feel like I don’t understand what’s going on in his life as much as I’d like to. This year has been tough on the both of us, but we’ve been catching up and it’s been nice.
P.P.S. Harry says “hi”, by the way.
*
30 June, 1999
Congratulations George, you are soon officially the least educated person in the family!
I just sat my last N.E.W.T. today. Defence went pretty well, but the bar is set pretty high with so many of us having fought in the war so who knows!
In Care of Magical Creatures, I got bitten by a Snogtail and I’m pretty sure I messed up a few of the different subspecies of dragons, so I’m not expecting a good grade in that. (Charlie would be disappointed in me.)
I did alright in Charms and Transfiguration, and while I don’t think my results will be overwhelming, they won’t be underwhelming either.
I wish I could write to you with some proper good news, but I still haven’t heard from the Harpies. I should be receiving and owl from them by next week the latest - it nearly killed me to sit my exams before I’d heard from them! I’ve been a nervous wreck all week (!!!). But it was probably for the best that I didn’t hear from them yet, or I might have just skipped the remaining exams (and had to deal with all the Howlers from Mum and Dad).
I’ve been thinking. You need a partner if you want to run the store again, and although I know I would have made a good one, I'll have to kindly refuse as I'll be having my hands full with Quidditch (fingers crossed). But Ron wouldn’t make a bad partner. He might not have the brains and the genius, but he’s good with people (despite the limited emotional range and all that). Consider it?
It would be a shame to lose the shop altogether. It’s what Fred and you worked for. It’s what you love to do. But I’ll stop playing Mum and making life plans for you when I don’t even know if you intend to return.
I’ve started to prepare myself for that, you know. For you not returning.
Everything’s been going better than ever in a lot of ways. I’m finally out of school in a bit and ready to start my life with Harry (and with Luna!). It feels good to leave Hogwarts behind. (For some unfathomable reason, the last few years left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth.)
And still you’re gone.
How these things can coexist feels bizarre and unreal at times. It’s like the laws of the universe have been altered by your absence and now everything, no matter how good, is also wonky and artificial like a Muggle movie.
I talked to Penelope a few times these past few weeks. A lot of things have been pouring out. It’s strange how many times you have to face them and they still keep resurfacing.
We’ve talked about Harry and about the ways the public eye shaped the way I saw him and felt about him.
We’ve been talking about my first year and everything that happened with Tom and the diary. Because of what happened, and because I had all of you to lean onto, I didn’t make good friends with anyone from my year until much later. There’s been a lot of times over the years when I’ve been lonely but haven’t known it.
We talk about you a lot.
I’m scared about not knowing what your life is like. In my weaker moments I even wonder if you’re alive anymore. I’m angry at you for leaving me and for making me worry and never feel completely at peace.
Penelope says that I can’t let it stop me from living my life. She says I should live the life I want, and if you do choose to return, it’ll be returning to a happier version of me rather than someone who’s stopped living.
And of course, we talk about Fred. She said I should write letters to Fred, but I think I’ll keep writing them to you.
Much love,
Ginny
*
30 June, 1999
Dear George,
I already lost one brother. I don’t want to lose another one.
Please come back,
Ginny
*
He finished reading the letter and let it fall softly onto his desk.
Specks of dust floated under the narrow ray of light that stubbornly made its way through the crack in the curtains. Maybe soon he would open the window and let in a bit of air.
Scattered around the corner of his room lay the piles of letters that had been accumulating over the months, a subtle measure of the longest year of his life.
Something was stirring. Something was starting to dissolve.
George dipped his quill into the ink and began to write.
Dear Ginny.
Title: Dear George
Rating: PG
Warnings: mentions of character death
Word Count: ~7k
Summary: Scattered around the corner of his room lay the piles of letters that had been accumulating over the months, a subtle measure of the longest year of his life.
Notes: This is everything that I never write: gen, first person, epistolary fic. I'm super nervous to post this, but this story was just screaming to be written and I'm glad it's finally finished. Immense thanks to profshallowness for the amazing beta job and the lovely knowyourincantations for providing Neville's gran's society's name.
6 September 1998
Dear George,
The first week at Hogwarts is over now, as you probably know, if you, you know, take your head out of your arse sometimes and look at the date on the newspaper.
Which you probably don’t. For all I know, you’re stuck at the bottom of your bed, drowning in your own piss, surrounded by Kneazles that are just waiting for you to die so that they can eat you.
I shouldn’t joke about things like this, but everyone else is being so serious.
Mum went mental when you left. (Not that she wasn’t mental to begin with.) To be fair, you can’t really fend off Mum with just a note that says, “Don’t look for me.” She went through her entire Floo address book asking if anyone’s heard anything of you. She even made Dad swear that he would talk to Shacklebolt to get some Aurors to search for you. I don’t think he really did, because the Auror Department has their hands full of more important stuff at the moment. Plenty of Death Eaters still on the loose, and all that.
In the middle of all of Mum’s panicking and Percy’s overeager attempts to soothe her and wriggle his way back into the family, I’m sort of glad to be back at school. Even though everything’s a little weird.
You’re probably not interested in hearing about all the meddling Ministry officials at Hogwarts. (Trust me, they’re nowhere as bad as a certain toad with a fondness for kittens. The new Minister got at least that right.) In addition to that, there’s the constant booms and rumbles coming from the closed-off parts of the castle where the renovators are doing their job. They were supposed to have been done before the new term, but turns out it isn’t exactly a trivial matter to repair an ancient castle.
Parts of the castle are still under renovation, and a lot of corridors are closed off as unsafe. Luna says it’s because the castle was wounded during the battle and is leaking ancient magic. For once, I might actually agree with her.
Of course, the weirdest part is how many of the beds are empty at night. It’s less apparent in our dorm, because the “eighth years” who decided to return were stuck in with us lot. I don’t know whose brilliant idea it was not to just vanish the empty beds or store them in a cupboard - maybe the house elves missed the memo or something - but it’s bad enough as it is without the constant reminder of all the people who are gone.
Parvati Patil had a point, though, about how it would have been wrong without the beds. She said it would have felt disrespectful, as if the teachers were trying to brush off what took place last year, if they had removed them. Maybe McGonagall just wants to let people mourn.
Speaking of McGonagall, she seems well on her way to becoming the next Dumbledore, at least if you count by the amount of greys in her hair. On the other hand, if you count by her ability to radiate a sense of mysterious comfort or twinkle her eyes, she isn’t all the way there yet.
I think she was trying to be uplifting in her back-to-school speech, but it went a bit backwards when she got to talking about Snape. I think most of us are still struggling with the fact that the Git was Good All Along. It didn’t stop him from letting the Carrows torture us last year.
If there’s something good about all this, it’s that preparing for N.E.W.T.s has never come with as little pressure. Put things into perspective, wars do. I think the teachers and everyone’s parents are still just very relieved that we are (mostly) not dead, and I certainly hope the shock keeps them off our backs for another few months. In case it doesn’t, my back-up plan involves fireworks and causing general havoc before running off. Could also put in a nice swamp in there as an homage to you and Fred, although some might call that unoriginal.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention. There’s also a counsellor at Hogwarts. Do you remember Percy’s ex-girlfriend Penelope Clearwater? The quiet, frigid, Ministry sort of type? Apparently, she did her Healer’s licence in Psychomagic and now she’s here to clear us all of trauma. I doubt her “if anyone needs to talk, I’m here” thing will attract many students, but I might book a session just to give her an update on our family drama in case Percy hasn’t kept in touch.
Anyway, I’m just waiting for Quidditch season to start. That’s my preferred form of therapy.
I don’t really expect you to read this, even if it finds you. I’m sure you’re receiving around ten letters per day from Mum unless you’ve managed to develop a way to block them. Knowing you, I wouldn’t be surprised. Anyway, I guess it just made me feel better writing this.
Your annoying little sister,
Ginny
*
19 September 1998
Dear George,
For all I know, you chucked my last letter into the fireplace without even opening it. Or maybe my little letter was lucky and you gave it a proper send-off with one of your Wildfire Whiz-bangs. But I do know that quite probably it reached you, since my owl came back without a letter!
I also know something about your whereabouts now. I know that you’ve really left Britain as the owl I used took long enough to get back.
I’m a great detective, don’t you agree?
Don’t worry, I’m not going to look for you. It’s just nice to try to imagine you somewhere. The image I had last time I wrote was a bit grim, so these days I like to think of you on the coast of Spain or somewhere similar, getting outrageously tanned sunburnt and flirting with bikini-clad girls. Maybe you’re even sipping a sickeningly sweet drink with a little umbrella in it.
It’s a less gloomy thought, at least.
Things are alright here. I may have come off a little depressed in my last letter. (It’s the depression, probably. Har har.) But a definite improvement to my circumstances has occurred since then.
Yes! You guessed right: the start of Quidditch season!
In case the news hasn’t reached you yet (which by all means, it should have as I’m something of a celebrity now), you are lucky enough to be holding in your unremarkable hands a letter written by the current Quidditch Captain of Gryffindor.
She has the Quaffle! Like lightning, she zooms past the opposing Beater, leaving behind a cloud of confusion. And she scooooores!
Quidditch tryouts were almost a bit of a flop, what with folk being a little less enthusiastic about anything dangerous after the war. But I have a collection of raw diamonds that I’m confident will shine under my strong leadership. (Push-ups! Sit-ups! Early morning laps around the pitch!)
Slytherin hasn’t even managed to scrape together a team yet. It’s probably because half of the Slytherin students didn’t return to school. (Really, if the Gryffindor dormitories are depressing, it’s hard to imagine theirs.) I’m sure they’ll get a team together before the first match, but it feels a bit unfair to kick their arses when it’ll mostly be scared second-years against us.
Blaise Zabini is the only one from Ron and Harry’s year to have come back. I heard he and his Mum fled England and spent last year in Italy, so he’s one of the few Slytherins whose family isn’t being hounded by the Ministry for war crimes.
He was always kind of hot.
(I’m trying out a new technique of shocking you into replying. How would you feel about me dating a Slytherin? Delighted? Well, I’m sad to inform you that you don’t need to start preparing for that reality just yet, since I’m still (happily) together with Harry, although the second year of long-distancing is starting to take its toll on me. I wouldn’t mind a good snog now and then.)
Harry figured he would have more time to spend with Teddy if he just took up Shacklebolt’s offer and started the Auror programme, so he didn’t return to Hogwarts. Teddy’s living with Andromeda, as you know, but Harry spends nearly all his spare time there. It’s weird to think that my boyfriend’s taking care of a baby without me.
Ron follows Harry everywhere like a loyal (=brainless) dog, so he also entered the Auror programme, and now they’re living the bachelor life in dear, dismal Grimmauld Place. Harry’s allowed Ron to paint half the rooms orange, which I received a picture of when he last wrote.
Sharing a dorm with Hermione has its cons. I try to leave my stinky Quidditch gear around to mark my territory and keep her away, but she still somehow manages to remind me about all the upcoming exams several times a day. Mental, she is.
It sometimes feels so pointless to do mundane things like prepare for exams.
Who really cares about memorising ancient goblin revolts or knowing how to brew a cooling salve after what we went through? During the war, everything was bigger, we were all fighting for something. We were all fighting for this - for everything to be normal again. But now that everyone can have a normal life again, it feels like everything’s become too normal too quickly.
I’m not making any sense, am I?
Sometimes it feels wrong to enjoy things like Quidditch, when Fred’s not here to enjoy anything at all.
Your famous Quidditch star sister,
Ginny
*
9 October 1998
Dear George,
Did you like my little trick? I still don’t know if you read my letters, so I thought an official Ministry envelope might trick you into reading one.
Hogwarts isn’t the same without Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes, you know. I’m not trying to guilt you to return, or anything, but the atmosphere is altogether too serious here. I miss your pranks.
Lee Jordan’s brother Daniel brought with him a stash of some dusty-looking Nosebleed Nougats and Skiving Snackboxes and has made a fine profit dealing them to students. I have a feeling they’re from one of the faulty development batches you gave to Lee, so I would be cautious before eating one.
You might wonder what happened to your shop. Dad and Bill settled affairs with the landlord and I think they handled all the finances to their best ability. Bill has all of your leftover stock stored in the cellar of Shell Cottage. (Hoping it won’t explode - I don’t think Fleur would forgive him after that.) He took them so that Mum wouldn’t spend all her time going through them and crying (and getting hit in the face by a firework in the meanwhile).
I hear Mum’s doing a little better. She was broken after you left. I think she put all of her mourning of Fred into missing you. Charlie popped by at home last week and wrote to me saying she’d started to knit our Christmas jumpers. We were all wondering if she would have the heart to do them this year.
Percy also wrote to me. I think he’s still overdoing the whole repentance thing, even though it’s nice to hear from him. After his little detour to the dark as the official boot licker of various Ministry oafs, he informs me that he’s returned back to his true passion, cauldron bottoms. Apparently they’ve allowed him to lead a research team and he couldn’t be more overjoyed. And I hear he has a girlfriend too, which I will make it my mission to find out more about at Christmas! (It’s important to stay on top of these things in case I feel in the mood to talk to Penelope the counsellor.)
It’s a sad day when you hear more often from Percy than from your favourite brother. (I’m really not as heartless as I sound.)
I’ll let you in on a secret. You have to promise not to tell the numerous friends you probably spend all your time with! (Har har.)
I don’t feel fine most of the time.
I think there must be something wrong with me, because the war’s not affecting me like it affects everyone else. I haven’t cried. I haven’t collapsed. My classmate Gemma had a nervous fit in Defence class the other day when we had to practise duelling. She had to be taken to the Infirmary and she didn’t return until late at night. But I’ve just kept going.
I have nightmares sometimes. Everyone does. We don’t talk about them, and outwardly you wouldn’t think anything was wrong. We’ve all just got better at Silencing Charms.
Sometimes I’ll be doing something completely ordinary, like preparing Quidditch strategies or studying (shocking, I know), and I’ll be hit by a hollowness that feels like my heart has been replaced with an aching hole. I feel like I have to keep going, doing whatever it is that I was doing or the world will break or something. Or like maybe it’s me who’s broken. Acknowledging it would make it real, and I don’t want it to be real because I’m afraid that the hollowness will just keep spreading like a curse and engulf me completely, so I just try to ignore it.
It’s easier to pretend I’m just fine. When these things happen, I try to go out for a few laps around the pitch.
Do you get to play Quidditch in the place you’re staying?
I don’t expect you to be doing fine but I hope you are a little better.
In woefully bad spirits,
Ginny
*
25 October 1998
Dear George,
I’m hiding behind the curtains of my bed from Hermione, who’s looking for someone to drag with her to the library. I think she doesn’t quite know what to do with herself now that Ron and Harry are not here. Not that either of them were very keen on the whole library thing.
She’s taken to spending a lot of time with the Patil twins, and has found a like-minded soul (read: swot) in Padma, who is like a Ravenclaw equivalent of her, except all cold and logical and a little scary, if you ask me.
Lavender Brown, who you might remember was Parvati’s best friend and also the girl Ron was glued to at the lips that one year (or was it after your time? Shame, it would have been top-class entertainment to hear your comments on it) was hospitalised after the war for a couple of months. She was victim to the same disgusting monster who got Bill (I won’t give him enough respect to write his name). I hear she’s been healing alright, but since she’s already missed almost half of the school year, they’re making her return next year to repeat the year.
Parvati often says that if she didn’t have Padma, she doesn’t know how she would have made it through everything. Then she’ll look at me guiltily, remembering that I lost a brother, or possibly even remembering that I lost a brother who had a twin.
If I’m honest, it does anger me sometimes that I had to lose someone and not everyone did.
But our family was just so involved that it was almost like a statistical impossibility that we wouldn’t lose anyone. Not that Arithmancy, or prophecies, or anything can fix it. It’s all just shit and explaining it isn’t going to make it less shit.
I’ve spent more time with Luna and Neville this year. You probably don’t remember Luna very well. She used to spend summers with me sometimes when I was little. She was in the D.A. too, and with Harry and the rest of us at the Ministry.
We’ve got very close this year.
She suggested we hold a memorial. I was against the idea at first, but Luna has a way of convincing me of what’s best for me even when I try my level best to avoid it.
We snuck out after dark last night. It was pretty cold outside, so we charmed blankets with warming charms and built a fire on the outskirts of the grounds. Luna knew a spell to attract fairies for fairy lights, and soon we had the sky glowing with dancing haloes.
We held a quiet moment for everyone we remembered and spelled their names in the air with sparks. We talked about all our friends that are gone and how much we miss them.
Like Colin, you know? He could be irritating as hell, but now that he’s gone I miss him and his stupid camera more than I’d like to admit.
Gemma from my dorm told us about her cousin, who was taken by Snatchers last November. They only found her body weeks after the final battle. It had been rotting in the cellar of a distant manor that had acted as a base of sorts and been forgotten.
There’s nothing you can say to stories like that except be there and visualise ever horrible detail.
I talked about Fred.
I know you’re probably not ready to talk about him, but I’m going to anyway. I need to. You’re not the only one to whom Fred was the closest brother.
I miss him. I miss him more than anything.
I always looked up to you two. I feel like Fred was always even less serious than you. (You were both the epitome of seriousness so it’s a tough call.) He would always notice when someone was feeling down and do something to lighten the mood or take the attention off that person. He was the only one who could tell when you weren’t feeling your best.
I liked to sneak into your room when you two had left for Hogwarts and look at all your things.
If you’re wondering who took your Wonky Wand, it was me. I accidentally broke it when I tried to make blue slime like you and Fred did, and I never said a word when you blamed Ron about it for weeks.
Remember when you tried to teach me to cast Diffindo when I was still too young to have a wand? I blasted a hole into the roof, and Fred tried to cover it up with a bad Reparo and eventually Dad found out and helped us fix it so that Mum wouldn’t get upset. The way all of us came together like criminals still makes me laugh.
If I learned something from you and Fred, it’s how to help someone out in a tricky spot.
Remember that summer you and Fred decided it was a bright idea to run away from home and live on your own in the woods? You probably think I was too small to remember that, but according to Mum I cried for an entire hour before we all realised you had only made it to your nearby fort.
It felt like the entire day. I remember feeling like the world had come to an end, like nothing would ever be okay again with the both of you gone. And then when Dad had fetched you home and yelled at you, Fred snuck me the shiny stone he had brought back for me and I held onto it for hours because it felt like if I didn’t let go, you wouldn’t leave again either.
I suppose what I miss the most about Fred is everything that never happened. I can't stop thinking about everything that he was supposed to be a part of.
I always imagined I’d visit your place when it got hard. (No-one thought we’d have to deal with war-hard, so in my imagination it was pretty mild things like breakups and getting fired from a shitty job.) I imagined Fred would be the one to settle my nerves before my first professional Quidditch match (probably by claiming he snuck a U-No-Poo in my morning tea), and the one to crack a stupid joke at my wedding so that no-one would realise that I was nervous.
He was supposed to be the godfather to my kids.
He was supposed to be happy and grow as old as you both looked when you crossed Dumbledore’s Age Line.
And as stupid as it seems to think of something so insignificant, I can’t stop thinking about the summer job at your shop that you promised me before everything went to shit.
It feels selfish to think about things like this when everything that he was supposed to be for you is worse. I feel like I’ve lost two brothers at once. It’s not like you’ll ever be the same without Fred, right?
Your loving sister,
Ginny
*
21 November 1998
Dear George,
If you think my handwriting has drastically improved since my last letter… you’re not wrong. I’m using a Quick-Quotes Quill to write this. (Be prepared for some Rita Skeeteresque dramatisation.)
Why, you ask?
Today was the match against Ravenclaw. And as all captains truly dedicated to their team do, I had to sacrifice my body and soul in the name of Quidditch.
I think all the dueling last spring must have awakened a battle rage in our Ravenclaws, because they were a force to be reckoned with. The Ravenclaw team had really worked on their Chasers, and the first hour of the match was horrible for our team spirit watching the point difference grow and grow. I wish I had trained our Beaters more! (They’re not bad, but have none of the team-work skills that you and Fred had!)
There were a couple of scares seeing the Ravenclaw Seeker Collins whizz by, but luckily they were false alarms. Our Seeker Maggie Thompson is fast but doesn’t have quite the intuition for the snitch that Harry did. But she held her own trying to keep Collins off the Snitch with her best feints and bluffs while our point tally was too low.
The best moment was against my shitty ex Michael Corner. He tried to block me and get the Quaffle and YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN HIS FACE when I bluffed him and threw the Quaffle right by his ear, scoring us the points that allowed Maggie to finally be able to catch the Snitch and win us the match. The Ravenclaw Beater couldn’t see me because he got in the way. When Michael realised what happened, he looked like he wanted to punch me.
Then a Bludger got me and broke my wrist but we had already won so it didn’t matter.
I wish you had been there.
Perhaps I should consider a back-up career as a Quidditch reporter for the Prophet? (If you’re wondering what my non-back-up career plan is, it’s a secret. I might tell you if you ask me in your next letter. Har har.)
I always wonder what you’ve been doing all these months. Have you been alone or have you met people? Who are they and do they understand you? Is it easier to be around people who were far away from the war when it happened?
I want you to be happy.
I hope someday you’ll feel all right enough to be able to come back.
I don’t care if you’ve changed. I don’t care if you can’t joke around all the time anymore. I don’t even care if you never crack another joke in your life. (We already have Percy for that, but if you try hard enough, I know you can be even more serious than him. I’ll even get you a subscription to Cauldron Bottoms Weekly if you like.)
If you don’t want to have the shop any longer, do something else. Take up a boring Ministry job. Take up a muggle job. Start making sandwiches or rearing Flobberworms or something.
Maybe go out with Luna. She's weird enough for you. (She's currently sort of getting with Neville, but I'd kind of like to keep her in the family!)
Anything. I’m here for you when you’re ready. I'm not going to be another Mum when you clearly need some space. (But you’d better be at my first professional Quidditch match, or I'll not count you as my brother anymore!)
Yours, delirious from healing potions,
Ginny
*
26 December 1998
Dear George,
I think everyone sort of hoped you would come home for Christmas. I didn’t expect it, so I wasn’t disappointed, but I got you a gift anyway. I won’t send it - you’ll have to come home to see. There’s a whole pile of presents waiting for you, whenever you decide to come back. (And before you say that a pile of presents don’t make up for Fred being gone, I KNOW.)
In a way, it’s been the worst Christmas and the best Christmas at the same time.
We went to Fred's grave together.
I would have liked to talk to him in private, but with the whole family there and everyone wanting to talk to him, it was all sort of a mess. We all said some words, and I think all of us cried a bit (Mum cried more than the rest of us put together). I set off a Whiz-bang which I know Fred would have liked, although Mum didn't find it funny.
And then after a while we left because Fleur felt too cold in her skimpy cloak. (That's what you get for refusing to wear one of Mum’s jumpers!)
We sort of pretended to have a jolly old time when we got back to the Burrow, but then Bill said something I won’t forget about how we shouldn’t have to pretend anything, and how it’s all right to miss both of you and how it’ll be wrong for a while and keep being wrong forever, but we can also have good moments despite that. I don’t know when he got that smart about emotions, maybe being married does that to you.
The evening turned into a sort of mixture of crying, laughs, full stomachs and Celestina Warbeck’s My Baby Gave Me a Hippogriff for Christmas never leaving your head again. (I EXPECTED JEWELS AT LEAST BUT INSTEAD I GOT THIS BEAST. You’re welcome.)
Later I watched Ron kick Charlie’s arse at chess and played gobstones with Harry and Bill in front of the fire. I ate so much of Mum’s Christmas pudding that my stomach is still aching. Tomorrow we’re all going out to the Christmas market before Bill and Fleur leave for France to stay with Fleur’s family. Luna might visit later, and Neville too (who, apparently, has had a horrible Christmas and desperately wants me and Luna to save him from his Gran and her friends from Witches for the Protection of Moral Standards).
Last night I overheard Percy crying in your old room. I think he regrets not being around when it counted.
Sometimes you have to be grateful for people like Fleur, who keep on going as their normal, annoying selves despite everything that happened. She’s been complaining about how British food makes her fat, how we don’t know how to celebrate with a proper feast. (Should have brought over some of your famous French cuisine then, shouldn’t you have, Fleur? I’ve heard Bill is the one in their household that does the cooking. Although I count that in both their favour. I wouldn’t cook for a husband either.)
My favourite Christmas present?
Getting to see Harry.
Oozing holiday cheer,
Ginny
P.S. Sometimes I wish Fred had chosen to stay behind as a ghost.
*
13 February, 1999
Dear George,
Everything’s been a blurry mess these past few days. We lost the match against Hufflepuff. It was due to some stupid mistakes from all of us, but mostly to our Keeper not focusing enough. Because I’m team Captain, I couldn’t really shout at him in front of everybody, so I went for the second best thing and punched Zacharias Smith.
I don’t know what happened.
He just came to gloat in that incredibly irritating way of his where he doesn’t stop bothering you before you say something back, and I was feeling so tense and angry that I just sort of swung at him to shut him up.
In hindsight, I think he was trying to make a pass at me.
I’m just so angry sometimes, and I don’t know why. Angry at Mum and Dad for letting all of you fight. Angry about them being part of the Order. Angry about all of it. About Harry ending up in the middle of it, for You-Know-Who marking him as his equal.
I was scared that they would ban me from playing Quidditch, but instead I just had to clean the Owlery and do some lines for McGonagall. I was also sent to talk to Penelope the counsellor.
I expected something clinical and boring, but Penelope’s office was actually sort of nice. There was a leather sofa and saggy armchairs, and a worn oriental rug and a lot of plants. And the room was lit softly with little paper lanterns in different colours.
She didn’t mention what happened with Smith at all, and instead asked me questions about our family.
I don’t think I painted any of you in a very flattering light. I was upset and a lot of things came out that I didn’t mean to say, mostly about Mum and how she always wanted me to be the girl of the family. I’ve always resented her a bit for pushing all that onto me, but also like I’ve disappointed her for not being all the things she hoped I’d be.
We didn’t get to talking about the war, but I did tell her that because I’m the baby of the family, I sometimes feel that I’ve had to be the one to act normally and hold it together for everyone else.
At the end, she taught me a bit of Mind Healing that would sound a bit woo-woo if I tried to describe it. It made my head feel tingly in a not-bad way and calmed me down a bit even though I was still aware of feeling upset.
The hour was over sooner than I expected and she needed to see another student. She said that if I come back next week she won’t make me take the Calming Potion Pomfrey prescribed. I’m slowly crumbling under N.E.W.T. revision, Quidditch practice and holding on enough to not lose it, but I’ll try to go back.
Your mess of a sister,
Ginny
*
5 March 1999
Dear George,
It’s time for the big reveal. I did say that I would only tell you if you asked, but I have to take that back because I’m far too egotistical and far too excited to keep this a secret.
As you know (because I’ve never been one to shut up), it’s always been my dream to fly professionally. Well, THAT MIGHT VERY WELL BECOME TRUE, because some of the smaller teams are scouting, including the HOLYHEAD HARPIES, which is not only my favourite team in Britain, but the whole world. They said they will come to Hogwarts later this spring to look for potential talents. Hooch told us today.
They’re only looking for people to invite to their tryouts in June, and it would only be a reserve position, but for the first time in months, I feel excited.
Luna and I are talking about getting a flat together after graduation. We’ll both probably be too busy to really spend any time there, but I just love the idea of our home.
She’s going to help her dad with the Quibbler and do some research. She’s fascinated by magical creatures and has been corresponding with an old zoologist who looks a bit like Dumbledore, who says he might take her on part-time after school.
Hermione of course has let me know more than once that she doesn’t consider professional athlete a valid career. She’s applying to a Magical Law programme in the London College of Wizardry, and for various apprenticeships as back-up.
I think she’ll be sorely disappointed when she realises the only British wizarding university is something of a joke and run by purebloods. (Then again, our Hermione enjoys a good challenge. Maybe she’ll enrol just to rustle some feathers.)
With hope,
Ginny
*
1 April, 1999
Happy birthday, brother dear! I hope the bikini girls are treating you well. Ask them to make you a drink in my name.
Missing your jokes,
Ginny
*
8 April, 1999
Dear George,
Welcome to another instalment of Family Drama, brought to you by your favorite neighborhood reporter, Ginny Skeeter! Merlin knows you must be desperate for gossip on that deserted paradise island, or wherever you are. I’ll try my best to indulge!
I’m spending the Easter holidays at Grimmauld Place with Ron, Harry and Hermione. (They all say “hi”!)
Ron recently dropped out of Auror training, and he's currently jobless and lounging about at Grimmauld Place trying to figure out his life. Mum, of course, knowing that I’d spend my holiday here, tried to talk me into making him return home, so that she could force all her plans on him. She wants him to try for Ministry jobs or apply for apprenticeships, but he’s having none of that. He’s got his mind set on bartending.
In my opinion, Mum can complain all she wants. I’m rather enjoying the drinks Ron’s been making. Hermione pretends to disapprove, but she’s tipsy on a Fizzy Fairywater as I write, so she really doesn’t have room to judge.
We’ve all had a good laugh at Ron’s new beard. It has become a big enough part of his identity that I felt that it deserved a name of its own, so I’ve decided to call it Henry. I swear, Ron fiddled with it at least thirty times during breakfast only. I kept count.
Ron has a rather grand idea of him and Henry running their own bar someday. He’s so wrapped up in visions of setting shots on fire and getting applauded by all the girls flocking to admire his amazing barmanship, that I haven’t had the heart to tell him that he’ll probably have to start with wiping tables for Tom at the Leaky. Anyway, he has an interview for the Leaky next week. I hope he gets the job. I know where I'll be going for my first firewhisky after school’s over.
The second important bit of gossip (which you may have guessed if you read carefully) is that Hermione and Ron broke up. They managed to be all adult and proper about it, too, and not cause a scene, which is why it almost completely slipped my notice. Apparently it happened a few weeks back, but because I’ve been busy avoiding Hermione to avoid N.E.W.T. revision, and because Harry is too emotionally dense to remember to tell me these things, I only heard about it when I arrived. I caused an embarrassing moment for everyone asking about it (which you would have enjoyed), where Ron blushed scarlet and Hermione went all unnaturally cheerful for a full ten minutes.
(In all honesty, Harry and I think it’s probably just a minor hitch. Those two have been making eyes at each other since we got here, and I think Hermione is oddly keen on Henry, too.)
Other than being the focal point of Mum’s parental rage and being single and ready to mingle, Ron’s well and he misses you, although he didn’t say it in exactly those words.
He did say he wished you were still living in Diagon Alley. He said it would have been nice to be able to pop by at your flat after work if he gets the job at Leaky.
This is turning out to be a hell of a long letter. I hope you don’t mind! I intend to use my aching wrist as an excuse to skive off the N.E.W.T. revision session Hermione’s planned for us. Either that or a Bat-Bogey Hex.
Tomorrow, we’re going to go watch the match between the Cannons and the Falcons! Harry got Ron tickets for his birthday, but was sneaky enough to coincide them with a match that takes place during our visit. I leave you with the image of Ron’s face turning purple as his favourite team loses yet again!
Always missing you,
Ginny
P.S. Harry and I are fine, I think. I feel like I don’t understand what’s going on in his life as much as I’d like to. This year has been tough on the both of us, but we’ve been catching up and it’s been nice.
P.P.S. Harry says “hi”, by the way.
*
30 June, 1999
Congratulations George, you are soon officially the least educated person in the family!
I just sat my last N.E.W.T. today. Defence went pretty well, but the bar is set pretty high with so many of us having fought in the war so who knows!
In Care of Magical Creatures, I got bitten by a Snogtail and I’m pretty sure I messed up a few of the different subspecies of dragons, so I’m not expecting a good grade in that. (Charlie would be disappointed in me.)
I did alright in Charms and Transfiguration, and while I don’t think my results will be overwhelming, they won’t be underwhelming either.
I wish I could write to you with some proper good news, but I still haven’t heard from the Harpies. I should be receiving and owl from them by next week the latest - it nearly killed me to sit my exams before I’d heard from them! I’ve been a nervous wreck all week (!!!). But it was probably for the best that I didn’t hear from them yet, or I might have just skipped the remaining exams (and had to deal with all the Howlers from Mum and Dad).
I’ve been thinking. You need a partner if you want to run the store again, and although I know I would have made a good one, I'll have to kindly refuse as I'll be having my hands full with Quidditch (fingers crossed). But Ron wouldn’t make a bad partner. He might not have the brains and the genius, but he’s good with people (despite the limited emotional range and all that). Consider it?
It would be a shame to lose the shop altogether. It’s what Fred and you worked for. It’s what you love to do. But I’ll stop playing Mum and making life plans for you when I don’t even know if you intend to return.
I’ve started to prepare myself for that, you know. For you not returning.
Everything’s been going better than ever in a lot of ways. I’m finally out of school in a bit and ready to start my life with Harry (and with Luna!). It feels good to leave Hogwarts behind. (For some unfathomable reason, the last few years left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth.)
And still you’re gone.
How these things can coexist feels bizarre and unreal at times. It’s like the laws of the universe have been altered by your absence and now everything, no matter how good, is also wonky and artificial like a Muggle movie.
I talked to Penelope a few times these past few weeks. A lot of things have been pouring out. It’s strange how many times you have to face them and they still keep resurfacing.
We’ve talked about Harry and about the ways the public eye shaped the way I saw him and felt about him.
We’ve been talking about my first year and everything that happened with Tom and the diary. Because of what happened, and because I had all of you to lean onto, I didn’t make good friends with anyone from my year until much later. There’s been a lot of times over the years when I’ve been lonely but haven’t known it.
We talk about you a lot.
I’m scared about not knowing what your life is like. In my weaker moments I even wonder if you’re alive anymore. I’m angry at you for leaving me and for making me worry and never feel completely at peace.
Penelope says that I can’t let it stop me from living my life. She says I should live the life I want, and if you do choose to return, it’ll be returning to a happier version of me rather than someone who’s stopped living.
And of course, we talk about Fred. She said I should write letters to Fred, but I think I’ll keep writing them to you.
Much love,
Ginny
*
30 June, 1999
Dear George,
I already lost one brother. I don’t want to lose another one.
Please come back,
Ginny
*
He finished reading the letter and let it fall softly onto his desk.
Specks of dust floated under the narrow ray of light that stubbornly made its way through the crack in the curtains. Maybe soon he would open the window and let in a bit of air.
Scattered around the corner of his room lay the piles of letters that had been accumulating over the months, a subtle measure of the longest year of his life.
Something was stirring. Something was starting to dissolve.
George dipped his quill into the ink and began to write.
Dear Ginny.