Gen fic: "Aftermath" (Ginny, gen)
Title: Aftermath
Author: Flora
Words: ~1225
Character: Ginny
A/N: this is a pinch hit for saeva's HP gen ficathon. This is for anj1290, and the prompt was: How the Weasley brothers help Ginny deal with the events in HP and the Chamber of Secrets...or not help, as the case may be.
Aftermath
In those first hours and days, or maybe weeks, I suppose--that summer is a bit of a blur--it was all I could do to stay upright. The nurses at St. Mungo's, where I'd been taken as soon as I left Hogwarts, because Mum wasn't taking any chances even though supposedly there was no need, said it was only natural, that it would take some time to recover from the draining to which I'd been subjected, but I didn't have a comparable experience for a long time, and I remember thinking there was something lingeringly wrong that they simply weren't telling me.
It would have been nothing new, not being told. Youngest child and only daughter, with six occasionally overprotective big brothers? Pish. I was accustomed to not being told things I really ought to have known. It wasn't until I realized they weren't protecting me, at least, not the way they might have, that I started to think perhaps the nurses were right. That perhaps I was healing, at a reasonable pace, but that replenishing that which had been taken was in fact a long process.
It started, oddly enough, with Percy.
Percy has always been the least demonstrative of my brothers. He's so controlled, so ordered, that it wasn't possible that the discussion between him and Dad about Harry's situation was accidental. He knew I was there, and even though he never once looked at me while they talked, it was as though he'd put up a sign: Ginny is old enough, worldly enough, to hear this.
I think that was some time toward the end of July, and I remember that within a few days, I was beginning to feel more myself.
Funny how something as nebulous and fragile as the implication of trust can be so critical to healing. I've always assumed, at least, that that was the genesis of the turning point.
And then, we all went to Egypt.
I remember it was hot, there, of course, and that this put me in an even stranger place, emotionally, than the one I'd been in for weeks. It wasn't just that it was much hotter than England; it was also dry and red-brown in a way I somehow wasn't prepared for, and which never the less felt comforting. Reassuring. I didn't say anything about this; it was odd, and being odd felt like being out of control again, so I just swallowed the feeling and went with everyone to the various attractions and events until one evening just as I was watching the reassuring sunset (dry, red-over-brown and hot), Charlie plunked down next to me and ruffled my hair, and then said the strangest thing, which I remember still, as one of those whole-moment memories where nothing about it can ever leave.
"Exactly what you need for what ails you, isn't it?"
I'm sure I looked rather like a gaping fish, and I know I couldn't think of a single thing to say, but he didn't seem to mind. He just went on, talking about damp versus dry, cool versus hot, the living red clay versus the decaying green stone deep under Hogwarts.
After a while, he clapped my knee and walked off, leaving me to think about what he'd said.
I hadn't ever thought of Charlie as especially insightful, but, well, I think that was when I developed a new opinion of him. He had a point.
I think that was the first night I really slept through.
I was all smiles the next day, real smiles, not the phony one I'd put on as I waved for the camera. I don't think Mum noticed, but the twins did; every time one of them walked past me that day, he'd lean low and whisper something silly--something small, nothing of consequence, but it was as though for the first time they thought I could be played with again.
And those two, well, they'd always been attentive to detail that way, as though between the two of them they'd got three doses of intuition. By the last night there, I was downright light-hearted, included in their games and the recipient of a number of winks from Charlie, who didn't seek me out again, but nodded my way all the time, in case I should forget that he understood.
I don't know that I'd have ever healed, not really, but for the lot of them. Nothing Mum had was the same as being a part of this group that was, for all the differences, closer than I'd ever even realized.
And then there was that last night in Egypt.
I felt good, by then. Strong and able to stand on my own two feet, which just weeks before I'd have said I'd never feel again. Mum and Dad were in bed, but I think everyone else was still up, energy of youth and all that, when Bill stood up and stretched, then went to the door and outside into the dark. Just as he crossed over the threshold, he turned back and beckoned.
I didn't know what he wanted, but I went. Why not?
He had something he wanted me to know, he said. Just in case.
Just in case what, I wanted to know.
He looked at me very hard, until I thought he was going to tell me I didn’t need to know the details, then answered. It was a curse, he said, of a very particular kind. My soul had been involved, and while he was confident I would never invite that sort of thing again, I would also always be just a little more vulnerable.
None of the nurses had bothered to tell me that, probably in order to not contribute to my despair, but as soon as he said it, I knew it was true. I asked what I should do.
He smiled, a gentle smile that let me see his teeth gleaming blue in the moonlight, and said, "Nothing, really. I just wanted you to know why I was about to teach you the kinds of charms we use before we go into a tomb."
I blinked, then got out my wand. They weren't difficult--a bit advanced, I suppose, but then, I was a motivated student. He made sure I had the incantation and the wand manipulation, and then he gave me this.
I didn't know what to make of it at first, but he pulled a chain over his own head and threaded it on, then fastened it 'round my neck. It was heavy against my breastbone.
I asked if it was a talisman, and he grinned again and shook his head. No, he said. The kind of magic we were dealing with didn't work that way.
What, then, I asked.
A reminder, he told me. He lifted it between us and showed me, the symbols that painted a picture of the path the wand should take, the imprints that showed when viewed obliquely and would remind me of the incantation. Just in case, he said again, and told me to reinforce the charm every month, on the same day or under the new or full moon to remember.
I nodded my understanding and went in, to sit with Ron and bemoan the fact we were to return to school so soon.
It felt ...normal. And I'd needed that, too.
Author: Flora
Words: ~1225
Character: Ginny
A/N: this is a pinch hit for saeva's HP gen ficathon. This is for anj1290, and the prompt was: How the Weasley brothers help Ginny deal with the events in HP and the Chamber of Secrets...or not help, as the case may be.
Aftermath
In those first hours and days, or maybe weeks, I suppose--that summer is a bit of a blur--it was all I could do to stay upright. The nurses at St. Mungo's, where I'd been taken as soon as I left Hogwarts, because Mum wasn't taking any chances even though supposedly there was no need, said it was only natural, that it would take some time to recover from the draining to which I'd been subjected, but I didn't have a comparable experience for a long time, and I remember thinking there was something lingeringly wrong that they simply weren't telling me.
It would have been nothing new, not being told. Youngest child and only daughter, with six occasionally overprotective big brothers? Pish. I was accustomed to not being told things I really ought to have known. It wasn't until I realized they weren't protecting me, at least, not the way they might have, that I started to think perhaps the nurses were right. That perhaps I was healing, at a reasonable pace, but that replenishing that which had been taken was in fact a long process.
It started, oddly enough, with Percy.
Percy has always been the least demonstrative of my brothers. He's so controlled, so ordered, that it wasn't possible that the discussion between him and Dad about Harry's situation was accidental. He knew I was there, and even though he never once looked at me while they talked, it was as though he'd put up a sign: Ginny is old enough, worldly enough, to hear this.
I think that was some time toward the end of July, and I remember that within a few days, I was beginning to feel more myself.
Funny how something as nebulous and fragile as the implication of trust can be so critical to healing. I've always assumed, at least, that that was the genesis of the turning point.
And then, we all went to Egypt.
I remember it was hot, there, of course, and that this put me in an even stranger place, emotionally, than the one I'd been in for weeks. It wasn't just that it was much hotter than England; it was also dry and red-brown in a way I somehow wasn't prepared for, and which never the less felt comforting. Reassuring. I didn't say anything about this; it was odd, and being odd felt like being out of control again, so I just swallowed the feeling and went with everyone to the various attractions and events until one evening just as I was watching the reassuring sunset (dry, red-over-brown and hot), Charlie plunked down next to me and ruffled my hair, and then said the strangest thing, which I remember still, as one of those whole-moment memories where nothing about it can ever leave.
"Exactly what you need for what ails you, isn't it?"
I'm sure I looked rather like a gaping fish, and I know I couldn't think of a single thing to say, but he didn't seem to mind. He just went on, talking about damp versus dry, cool versus hot, the living red clay versus the decaying green stone deep under Hogwarts.
After a while, he clapped my knee and walked off, leaving me to think about what he'd said.
I hadn't ever thought of Charlie as especially insightful, but, well, I think that was when I developed a new opinion of him. He had a point.
I think that was the first night I really slept through.
I was all smiles the next day, real smiles, not the phony one I'd put on as I waved for the camera. I don't think Mum noticed, but the twins did; every time one of them walked past me that day, he'd lean low and whisper something silly--something small, nothing of consequence, but it was as though for the first time they thought I could be played with again.
And those two, well, they'd always been attentive to detail that way, as though between the two of them they'd got three doses of intuition. By the last night there, I was downright light-hearted, included in their games and the recipient of a number of winks from Charlie, who didn't seek me out again, but nodded my way all the time, in case I should forget that he understood.
I don't know that I'd have ever healed, not really, but for the lot of them. Nothing Mum had was the same as being a part of this group that was, for all the differences, closer than I'd ever even realized.
And then there was that last night in Egypt.
I felt good, by then. Strong and able to stand on my own two feet, which just weeks before I'd have said I'd never feel again. Mum and Dad were in bed, but I think everyone else was still up, energy of youth and all that, when Bill stood up and stretched, then went to the door and outside into the dark. Just as he crossed over the threshold, he turned back and beckoned.
I didn't know what he wanted, but I went. Why not?
He had something he wanted me to know, he said. Just in case.
Just in case what, I wanted to know.
He looked at me very hard, until I thought he was going to tell me I didn’t need to know the details, then answered. It was a curse, he said, of a very particular kind. My soul had been involved, and while he was confident I would never invite that sort of thing again, I would also always be just a little more vulnerable.
None of the nurses had bothered to tell me that, probably in order to not contribute to my despair, but as soon as he said it, I knew it was true. I asked what I should do.
He smiled, a gentle smile that let me see his teeth gleaming blue in the moonlight, and said, "Nothing, really. I just wanted you to know why I was about to teach you the kinds of charms we use before we go into a tomb."
I blinked, then got out my wand. They weren't difficult--a bit advanced, I suppose, but then, I was a motivated student. He made sure I had the incantation and the wand manipulation, and then he gave me this.
I didn't know what to make of it at first, but he pulled a chain over his own head and threaded it on, then fastened it 'round my neck. It was heavy against my breastbone.
I asked if it was a talisman, and he grinned again and shook his head. No, he said. The kind of magic we were dealing with didn't work that way.
What, then, I asked.
A reminder, he told me. He lifted it between us and showed me, the symbols that painted a picture of the path the wand should take, the imprints that showed when viewed obliquely and would remind me of the incantation. Just in case, he said again, and told me to reinforce the charm every month, on the same day or under the new or full moon to remember.
I nodded my understanding and went in, to sit with Ron and bemoan the fact we were to return to school so soon.
It felt ...normal. And I'd needed that, too.