(Untitled)

[scarlet_lioness]

Who: Ginny and Charlie
Where: Kitchen, Order HQ
When: 11 August, 2001; early morning
Status: Ongoing

The morning of Ginny's birthday found her up with the sun and in the kitchen, working on making pancake batter from scratch. She'd unconsciously sublimated her mother's habit of cooking as a distraction for stress, it seemed.

And she had been agitated

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[scarlet_lioness]

Ginny's face broke out into a relieved sort of smile when Charlie voiced his awkward approval of her relationship with Neville. It wasn't necessary, but it was appreciated.

It was quickly replaced by a look of anger, though, when Charlie voiced his disapproval of Harry. In fact, it made Ginny so angry that she slapped him once he'd finished talking about the rest, hard enough to sting but not to leave a lasting mark, across the face.

"Don't you dare talk about Harry like that. Ever again. None of this is his fault. He didn't ask to be The Boy Who Lived, he didn't ask for the fame or the attention or the responsibility. He got it because of when he was born, because Tralawney made a stupid prophecy, because Snape overheard part of it and Voldemort decided Harry was a threat. He was just a KID, Charlie. He did his best. He did what he thought would keep the people he cared about safest and he got blindsided by that betrayal just like the rest of us. Worst than the rest of us.

"And yeah, the horcrux was stupid and reckless, but can you blame him for resorting to it? He had the entire bloody Wizarding World looking to him as their saviour, their Chosen One. He was doing what he thought he had to, given the mantle people placed on him. You may think it makes him a terrible person, but that's where you're wrong.

"The simple fact he wrote a letter explaining it all, offering bringing him back as option, proves he's a good person. He could have said to himself, well, if I die I die and then it will be someone else's problem but he didn't. He was willing to split his soul in two so that if something went wrong, he could be brought back to help make it right. Can you imagine the strength that must have taken? He didn't have to do that. He didn't have to keep the mantle.

"And if that's not enough reason for you to forgive him, how about the fact that without Harry, instead of making me pancakes like you are, you'd be visiting my grave? My skeleton was supposed to have been lying in the Chamber of Secrets for eight years now, in case you've forgotten."

Ginny was a bit breathless by the time she finished, and her brown eyes were a little shiny with unshed tears.

[red_apostate]

The physical blow stung him deeply, the sudden violence of it making him rock back on his heels. And the words, the words came fast and bitter, dousing his happiness in their anger and grief. It shocked him, turned his mood, and by the time she'd delivered the last emotional blow he was already retorting.

"I don't hate the silly bugger, Ginny, I just think he's useless! In the weeks he'd been here, he hasn't bothered to save the world even once. Hasn't come out of his room more than five, six times, and only to use the fucking loo. I've nothing better to do than watch the kid, and all he does is sit at his bloody desk and read some bloody book and cry and stare out the window. If that's the Harry Potter that saved you from some damn great snake, it really is a wonder you're still among the living.

"Lord, darling, I've said it since the beginning. Even if he was great and mighty once, even if he's got himself in prophesies and has a special place of loathing in the Dark Lord's heart, his glory days are over. He died. Bit it in the worst way. Whatever he may have done, whatever plans he made with horocruxes and letters... dying's got to take it out of you.

"So sure. I'll lay off of the kid. Leave him and his gloriously tarnished legacy alone... but until he proves himself to me and this Order, I'm not following him anywhere or trusting him with my back. He'll damn well earn my forgiveness on his own merit, now."

Charlie glared at his sister for a long moment, then huffed, turning back to the pancakes, which had burned themselves into charcoal. He scraped them off a little more vigorously than was really needed, tossing them into the wastebin under the sink. He started afresh, new butter on the griddle, batter following in thick pools that browned around the edged almost immediately. The dull sizzle filled the kitchen, raising in pitch in an instant as he began to lay strips of bacon on the faintly smoking surface.
The routine seemed to calm him, and after a moment, he began to talk again with his backed turned to Ginny.

"You should have seen him with Norbert, though... took to her as natural as any handler I ever saw. Heh. I mentioned it to Mum in one of my letters, and she cut me to the quick for tryin' to distract the boy from greatness." He laughed, flipping the pancakes one by one with deft movements of the spatula. "But still. Was going to look him up once he'd done the Hogwarts thing, offer him a job. But greatness intervened, didn't it?"

[scarlet_lioness]

"That's just calling the cauldron black, brother dear. In the past few weeks, you've done nothing but hole up in that shack of yours. And you don't have Harry's excuse of being brought back from the dead and having to catch up on three years worth of depressing news that you think is all your fault."

Ginny sighed, her anger draining.

"He's family, Charlie. Has been since that September first in King's Cross when we found him looking utterly lost as to how he was supposed to get through to Platform Nine and Three Quarters, and then when he and Ron bonded over whatever it is eleven year old boys bond over. He's been family since the moment Ron wrote Mum about how Harry wasn't expecting any gifts for Christmas and she knit him a jumper. He's been family since Ron, Fred and George rescued him from his Aunt and Uncle's in the dead of night by sneaking out and flying Dad's old Ford Anglia there.

"And you know just as well as I do that if Dumbledore and the Ministry would have allowed it, Mum and Dad would have adopted him officially in a heart beat, even if it meant selling everything we owned to do it. He's their seventh son, and he was a damn sight better than the rest of us, at times, because he was always grateful. Always. Always told them that. We... didn't.

"Christ, Charlie, we took them for granted so much growing up. More than we should have. Who gives a bloody fuck about being poor or not new things every school year and family holidays away? We had something better. We had a Mum who loved us so much she practically worried herself sick and went ballistic on us because she cared and a Dad who thought family and happiness were more important than money and status and wasn't ashamed of that, even when other people thought he ought to be, even when they accused him of being less of a man because of his career choice.

"I never realized how hard they worked to keep the family together until they were gone. Never realized how hard it was going to be, or how often I'd feel like a failure because I couldn't. I never realized how bloody much I'd miss having Mum around to try and coddle me, or Dad around to..." Ginny broke off, her words becoming too choked to get out.

[red_apostate]

A small mountain of pancakes floated serenely to a china platter, and Charlie set to with the dozen or so eggs they had in the icebox, cracking them into an old earthenware bowl. He listened as he whisked with his favourite tarnished fork, one he'd nicked from the burrow all those years ago, that under the blackened handle and tines akimbo was still a piece of Molly Weasley's fine silverware. He'd carried it all this way, through thick and thin it had been with him in his small mess kit or in his pocket when he'd ran and ran from that last valiant fight. He loved the way the third tine had been bent a little higher than the others, and that after a meal you could click it with your teeth and it'd click right back. He loved the feel of the flowers set into the old silver, the initials L.P. embossed on the back in great looping letters that could only be his Grandmother Prewett's.

He looked out the window for a long time, the thin muslin curtains doing little to dim the beauty of the low morning sun. Instead, they diffused it, blurred it 'till his entire vision was filled with hazy light. And then the tears dislodged, plopping one after the other into the eggs, and he grinned despite himself.

"You guys all loved the kid, didn't you? Fucking hell, of course you did. Mum wrote about him all the time, and sent clippings from the prophet as well; sometimes the entire front page. Dad at least had the tact to talk about you sometimes, or mention Percy's newest ambition, or ask how my leg was feeling. God knows you certainly went on about how wonderful he was when you wrote to tell me about the thing with that evil Diary... and when you and him hooked up? All I heard about for a month was 'Harry' that and 'Son in Law' this." He set the bowl down, tears on his cheeks despite his calm voice. "Try to imagine how I felt, away on work for eleven months out of the year, hearing about this amazing hero who'd taken time out of his busy schedule to become an honorary part of the Weasley family. Lord knows I wondered if I'd been replaced, silly old man that I am." A laugh died in his throat.

"But for that one month... it was home again. Nothing changed but a brighter fire in the hearth at Christmastime, a little more grey in dad's hair maybe. I loved being under curfew again, my little room still plastered with the muggle music posters that drove Mum up the wall. I know I must have showed it, too, because Dad always took me aside and offered to get me some sort of position in the ministry. Something closer to home.
"Given the choice knowing how little I saw of Mum and Dad in those years, I would have taken him up on it in a heartbeat. But instead I hid, worked with my dragons and drank like a man who had nothing to lose and reveled in what I thought was the high life." He wiped his eyes with the back of a sleeve, sniffing as the tears came in earnest. "Fuck. Sorry... I just can't believe that they're dead. Even though I saw it, I still feel like they're out there somewhere waiting for us to stop being so goddamn stubborn and find them already."

[scarlet_lioness]

"Son-in-law?" Ginny squeaked, before clearing her throat to regain a normal speaking voice. "Oh, Merlin. I was fifteen. She was talking about me getting married when I was fifteen?"

Briefly, it crossed her mind to wonder what her mother would think of having Neville for a son-in-law, and she blushed.

"You know," Ginny smiled ruefully through her own tears, "You're absolute crap at the comforting thing, going on a crying jag yourself."

Getting up from her chair, which she'd sat down in again while they talked, she gave her brother a hug. At 5'8, he had a good four inches on her, and was much wider than her as well.

"Charlie, you're an idiot. No one is ever going to replace you in my life. You will always be my big brother and I will always be your little sister. And you wouldn't have been happy doing anything other than what you did, and we all knew that. Dragons are your passion and always have been. Part of the reason I looked up to you was because you did what you were passionate about, rather than take the easy route to play Quidditch for ten years and then be set, and reveled in life. It made you cool."

[red_apostate]

He smiled, pulling away from her hug, tears still in his eyes. "Whoever called me good at comforting ought to be roundly hexed. You should know better, Ginevra. All I do is yell and curse and cry when someone talks about my Mum." He reached up and mussed her hair, a few good shades brighter than his. "All the reason went to you, little sister. We boys have to rely on our striking good looks," He scrunched his broad face into a pantomime of handsomeness, "and enough stubbornness to kill an elephant at 100 yards. Got to go finish breakfast."

He disengaged, shoveled the pile of crisped bacon onto a plate, dug a tin of strawberry preserves out of the icebox, and put most of it in the oven to keep it warm. The rest he dished up onto two of the faded china plates they'd scrounged up from the house's storage all those months ago. "Here you are. Breakfast is served. I'll make eggs later, if anyone wants them... they're no good cold or even re-heated. Got to be fresh out of the pan, and I doubt people would be happy if I woke them up just because their eggs were getting cold." He smiled, setting Ginny's plate on the table.

[scarlet_lioness]

"You poor sods, you can't help it that Mum and Dad saved the best for last. Or that I was the clear favourite," Ginny's smile was back, and brilliant.

"After all, I got the reason, the Quidditch prowress and the good looks," she did an exaggerated hair toss, like some women who were entirely too full of themselves are wont to do, and winked.

She slid back into her seat just as Charlie set the plate down in front of her.

"Not bad, big brother," she declared after taking a bite. "'Course, I did half the work, but still. It's good to know that you actually listened to Mum when she made you learn the basics before you went to Romania, and that you still remember them."

After a few more bites and a drink of her Mimosa that she'd made while he'd finished off the cooking, she said, sincerely, "Thanks, Charlie. You really didn't need to do that."

"Now, come on," she gestured to a second glass of Mimosa, for him, "I need a toast, since Moody's not around to give me the old Hope you survive another year one. Something... I don't know. More birthdaylike, yeah? Hopeful. We need some hope."