He remembered being a Muggle… Had it been so long ago? He recalled being in a school, where they taught subjects like science, arithmetic, English… He reminisced, picturing himself in the back of the class, praying the bell would never ring, so he would never have to walk home with his darling cousin Dudley and face his aunt and uncle again. The teacher was speaking, but he heard no words. He stared at the line in the book, but he read nothing. He was impenetrable. No one could reach him, inside his shell. He had surrounding himself a fragile shell of hope, that someday, someone would love him, like a family was supposed to. The fragile, feeble shell protected him from all that could harm… from anything that could cause emotion. Nothing could reach him… nothing.



The small, dark letters, printed on a page, formed words. Words formed a phrase. The phrase began a poem. The poem became a sun sprite that melted his wall of defense. Aunt Petunia’s sneering glare couldn’t have done it, nor could Uncle Vernon’s beady eyes, or even Dudley’s fists… but a line of a poem did. “Bring me the sunset in a cup,” Ms. Dickinson had said. He had taken that with him, from the class that day, kept it buried in his pocket, only to find it years later. Her red hair gleamed against the glistening lake, as he told her that they wouldn’t be able to go on. He remembered his first year, boarding the Hogwarts Express, seeing her hair shine for him then. He recalled saving her from Riddle, in a chamber most covert. He thought of her smile, lighting up her face.



At that moment, his shell of hope faded again, broken by the picture of her face, freckled and felicitous, his perfection. She was, and always would be, his hope he clung to… Bring me the sunset in a cup.





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Oftentimes, when she felt too surrounded by the expanse of her family, she would go off by herself with a bottle of butterbeer and a chocolate bar, in the warm summer afternoon. She’d sit in the grass, catching ladybugs, caterpillars, and the occasional gnome, filling herself with the sunny solitude.

She was a happy person; all her friends and family knew her to be so. When Percy became too unbearable, Mum too demanding, Dad too busy, Ron too grouchy, or Charlie and Bill too far away, Ginny was there for a smile or two. If the twins weren’t around for a laugh, Ginny would fill in for them. She was, after all, the princess of the family, the doted-on only daughter, crimson strawberry sprinkled with sugar in her father’s bowl, her mum’s peaches and cream.



Sometimes, when the usually bright blue sky was fogged up with puffy gray clouds, Ginny, for no particular reason, would feel as heavy as a rain cloud, just before a storm. She’d drip upstairs to her room, shut all the doors, turn off all the lights, and sit in the cool darkness on her floor, staring out the open windows. Rain would pelt into the room, streaking her rosy hair a ruddier scarlet. The hurried rain accompanied glistening tears, ones that didn’t fall, but stayed shimmering in her eyes, unshed. Thunder spoke to her melancholy, embracing and exhilarating her.



Slowly, she’d sift through her box of memories: poems and paintings from Muggle school, photographs waving wildly at her, Quidditch ticket stubs, butterbeer bottle caps, collections of cards from Chocolate Frogs… Buried at the bottom of her box she hid her bottle of bitter hopes. It contained a liquid of silvery gray, unobservable through the lapis lazuli glass. Bill had bought the bottle in Egypt, and sent it to her by owl. Being the baby of the family, she’d been the only one to receive a gift with the letter. Bill had seen the deep blue bottle and somehow thought immediately of his little sister. It was small and round, about the size of her fist, but it served its purpose well. In it, she put her impossible dreams, desires deserted, and hopes forgotten.



Hopes still worth hoping for, when extracted and bottled, were an amber color and tasted warm and bubbly, filling like butterbeer, fizzing like pumpkin juice with just a touch of the giddiness of mulled mead.



However, hopes that in time turned hopeless were taken from the mind, much like memories, but did not form a Pensieve. Instead, when accumulated, they made a zippy little tonic-like beverage.



Unlike the joyful, happy hopes, sad forsaken ones tasted bitter and stinging going down the throat, glazing over the eyes and aching the heart.



Whenever Ginny wallowed in her despondence, she uncorked her azure bottle, nipped a little droplet or two off the top of the bottle, filled to the brim. The taste filled her mouth, flooding her with recollections. She remembered wanting to be a Muggle, normal, unmagical at age three, sick of possessing a power she was prohibited from using. The desire to be older, to go off to Hogwarts with her brothers, filled her, and she felt her five year old self, painfully waving goodbye that September 1st. Her eight-year old desire to dance, to become a prima ballerina, choked her. There wasn’t enough money, her mother had said. Ballet was expensive and she simply couldn’t continue lessons. Ginny had cried for days. The same thing had happened with cooking classes, acting, and art. When she finally got to go to Hogwarts, she wished she’d be welcomed into Ron’s group of friends; she wished that they would sit in the common room together, laughing in front of the fire. When Harry had rescued her from Tom Riddle and the basilisk, she had hoped that he would look into her eyes and fall in love. In third year, she craved so much to be asked to the Yule Ball by him, and in fourth, when he was dating Cho Chang, she had fancied her dying over and over and over…



In the midst of all the bitterness, sweetness prickled on the tip of her tongue. Ginny knew that he was finally hers, always and forever, even if he said he wasn’t, even if he wanted to protect her, even if he would be gone… Always and forever, in her bottle of hopeless hopes, there was one she could keep hoping for. Ginny would then close the windows, turn on the lights, dry her hair and wipe her eyes. She’d wander outside on the newly soaked earth and watch the sunset, for the storm had ceased. The day had become clear.