A Long Road Home

(Only a Year Too Long)

(silence)

“It’s only a year, Ginny, only a year.” The sympathy in her mother’s voice is well-meaning, but all it does is help to prove to Ginny that she does not understand. Long, graceful fingers tear at the air as she sprints alongside the train, The Boy Who Lived – Harry, she corrects herself, Harry – and his scar etched in her mind. It’s all fruitless, of course, fruitless and useless and she’s only a ten year old girl, how the hell is she supposed to keep up with a train?

The train’s whistle pierces her ears, but even it cannot compete with him. How dare they? How dare Percy and Fred and George and Ron spend the year with Harry Potter when she can’t?

“Who knows? Maybe Ron will become friends with him, and you can meet him.” There’s a longing for this to happen, Ginny can tell. It’s different with her mother, who hides behind maternal instinct and what she believes is best for her children, but it’s definitely there.

She sinks back into the car seat, her fingers grabbing furiously at the loose threads in the upholstery.

“Ron, friends with Harry Potter?” Ginny scoffs. “Mum, he eats like a pig. That is never going to impress someone like him?”
”Ginny, please don’t say such things. I know you’re disappointed about not being able to go to Hogwarts, but there is no need for such behaviour.” Molly Weasley implores her husband, begging him to help her control their only daughter, but he just drives on.

It’s so unfair, all of it. Ginny wants to scream, but the words become trapped in her throat, they burn her insides, and tantalise her. The rest of the car trip passes in silence.

---

The next three days pass in silence, too, and it starts to unnerve Ginny. In a house of nine people – not to mention that stupid ghoul in the attic – to be the only child at home is surreal. She wonders vaguely if this is punishment, though for what she doesn’t know.

(really, the silence is only unnerving because she cannot preoocupy herself long enough to remove the face of Harry Potter from her mind)

---

(a/n: Call me insane, because here is the first of my 75 prompt fics for Kyota Chan’s Aboard the Love Boat challenge. Obviously, I’ve taken on Harry/Ginny, making me even more mental, because I have very little idea what I’m doing. However, I hope you enjoy it, and please, do leave a review. ;)

tbc,

Cuba …x