She didn’t cry when it happened, and she didn’t cry at home.
But on the train back to Hogwarts, sitting in a compartment with Neville and Seamus and Lavender, an unfamiliar ache began to form in the back of Ginny’s throat. Luna should have been with them, going on about fantastical creatures or listing recent headlines from the Quibbler. Ginny tried not to think about it; she tried to concentrate on the conversation, but her thoughts ran wild as though she had no control over them whatsoever.
The walk up to the castle was the most dreary she had ever experienced. Back in September, things had certainly been bleak, but life at post-Dumbledore Hogwarts had largely been an unknown.
Now, though… now, they knew.
Neville bumped her arm as they walked through the gates. “You’re quiet.”
“Am I?”
“I don’t think you’ve said two words since we got on the train.”
Ginny rolled her eyes. “Don’t exaggerate, Neville.”
“Did you get any news? Are they all right?”
“I don’t know, Neville.” She sighed, revealing how tired she was”the kind of tired that had little to do with a lack of sleep. “I never know anything, remember?”
“Ginny…”
“I don’t want to talk about them,” she said, hating the way her voice faltered on the words. She had wanted to sound firm, even angry, and yet, she saw from the worried look on Neville’s face that he’d seen her desperation. The truth wasn’t that she didn’t
want to talk about them, but that she simply couldn’t. She had things to do at Hogwarts with the DA, and she had to be strong. Ginny’s strategy was this: don’t think about them, none of them, and don’t imagine anything that hasn’t actually happened yet.
But now, something
had happened, hadn’t it? She saw Luna in her mind, her face bright with understanding.
“Okay,” he said quietly.
Ginny shoved Luna to the side and silently thanked Neville for letting it go. She knew that talking about it would make him feel better about things, but he never pushed her. Kindnesses like this did little to soothe that ache in her throat.
Suddenly the sound of laughter surrounded them. As Ginny turned to find the source, she nearly walked right into Pansy Parkinson and a couple of her housemates.
“Daydreaming about your boyfriend, Weasley? Better to watch where you’re going instead… running into walls won’t help him defeat the Dark Lord now, will it?”
Normally, Ginny’s anger rose up quickly like a snake biting. A scathing retort or a stinging hex would knock Pansy back before she could finished speaking. But not this time. Instead, the sight of Pansy brought Hermione to mind so vividly that she could have been standing next to her. Ginny could see her friend and hear her voice: Hermione would have rolled her eyes and muttered “cow” under her breath. The image almost brought a smile to her face… almost.
Ginny blinked twice to clear her head; she felt Neville’s eyes on her, waiting for something that wasn’t coming.
“Cat got your tongue, Weasley?”
Neville’s face morphed from concern to rage in a split second, his hand on his wand. “Get lost,” he told Pansy in a menacing voice he rarely used. She left with her friends, their laughter echoing in the corridor. Just as quickly, his brow was furrowed and his attention was back on Ginny. “Are you okay?”
Running into walls won’t help him defeat the Dark Lord… the Dark Lord…
No. She threw up the walls around her mind like a door slamming hard. She couldn’t let herself think of them”she’d managed to resist it for months now, even at home where it was much more difficult.
Neville put a hand on her back. “Ginny?”
As soon as he touched her, she knew she was going to cry. For once, she could not fend off the unwanted thoughts and images bullying their way into her imagination. She had to get alone. “Neville,” she said under her breath, preparing to make an escape.
“There you two are.”
Ginny knew the voice without looking; it was Professor McGonagall. She swallowed and bit her lip, wanting out of this corridor.
“Hello, Professor,” Neville said, covering well. “Nice holiday?”
Ginny glanced up and saw the professor’s mouth twist in conflict. “Not especially, Mr. Longbottom.” She straightened herself. “In light of Miss Lovegood’s… Well.” She wrung her hands. “Are you both all right?”
Ginny felt his eyes on her again, but she did not dare make eye contact with either of them.
Neville tried to answer. “Er…”
“I see. If I can be of any assistance…” She trailed off. “And please… be careful, both of you. Don’t take any chances.”
Something in her voice made Ginny look up.
Professor McGonagall was looking beyond them, over their heads. “Miss Lovegood… she’s a bright witch, isn’t she? We must hope for the best.”
Hope for the best… hope for the best…
“Excuse me,” Ginny blurted, surprising even herself as she walked off toward Gryffindor Tower.
She mumbled the password to the Fat Lady, who blew her nose loudly into a tissue as the door swung open.
Ginny kept her eyes on the floor as she moved toward the girls’ staircase, the sounds of conversation and laughter muffling as they reached her ears. Neville would not be far behind her, she knew, but there was no room for him in her mind now. Other faces were crowding in, demanding attention after being ignored for so long.
It was Luna, gazing at the stars as they’d walked through the Forbidden Forest with Hagrid, a contented smile on her face.
Ginny did not want to cry; it wouldn’t help anything. In fact, everything would be exactly the same, so what was the point? But this time… it didn’t feel like a choice.
She felt like she was moving through waist-high water, going upstairs… gripping the edges of the bathroom sink. Luna was either dead or in Azkaban”strange Luna with her wide eyes and her Nargles.
Ginny splashed cold water onto her face and looked in the mirror as an overwhelming fear for her family seized her. “I saw them yesterday,” she reminded the glass Ginny. “George, Fred… Mum and Dad… owls from Bill and Charlie…”
An eleven-year-old Ron looked down at her through the opening of the tree house. “Ginny, quick! Up here!” His expression was urgent as his hand reached down to her.
Ginny shook her head and turned, leaning back into the sink… concentrating on the unpleasant feeling of the hard porcelain line against her tailbone. She would not think about them. They were fine.
“Quick!” Ron said again, his arm stretching down.
She reached and he grabbed her, hauling her up in one motion and ordering her into the corner of the hideaway with a finger pressed gravely to his lips. Huddled together, they heard the twins wandering around below, calling sweetly for Ginny as if they only wanted to share a sugary treat with her.
“Ron, have you seen Ginny?”
Her eyes were wide on Ron as he signaled for her continued silence. Then he crawled back to the opening and flashed his brothers an annoyed look. “Right. I always like to have Ginny tagging along behind me everywhere I go.”
Then the twins were gone and Ron was squirming uncomfortably under Ginny’s grateful expression. “Quit looking like that,” he told her. “It’s no big deal.”
In the bathroom, Ginny stared at the floor. It was full of squares”the same squares that covered every bathroom floor in the castle. She was struck by the memory of her first year, when both her feet could fit inside just one square and she could walk around without touching any lines. No more. She was grown up now, feet and everything.
If Luna went to Azkaban for what her dad wrote about Harry, what would they do to
Ron?
She hurried to the toilet and retched, losing her breakfast. She took several deep breaths, in… and then out…
She rested her forehead and palms against the stone wall; as the cold pressed into her skin, the last of her mind’s defenses began to crumble.
Harry.
She closed her eyes and let him fill her senses… his messy hair, his glasses, his green eyes weighed down by responsibility… his hands”calloused from flying”on her face and in her hair… She ached for him to say her name, to kiss her, to hold her… to simply show himself to her alive.
The tears came hard”choking sobs that shook her as they echoed around the stone walls. It felt foreign to her, and she wondered somewhere in the back of her mind if it was better to cry regularly like Hermione did rather than face this kind of monster when the pain would no longer be denied.
After a long time, she quieted down; she turned on the water and splashed her face to clear away the evidence of her tears, and smoothed her robes.
Then she carefully put Ron, Harry, and Hermione back into a little box in her mind, locked it up tight, and buried it where she would not stumble upon it again anytime soon. She straightened herself in the mirror. “I won’t think about them,” she told the glass Ginny one more time. “They will all be fine.”
Then she lifted her chin, tried on a small smile, and left to find her friends.