Patience
For @ginnystrophyhusband September 9th microfic prompt: Patience.
Ginny sat at the old wooden table, face in her hands, staring unseeing out the opaque kitchen window, now frosted over with snow and ice from the morning storm.
She wondered how it was that in this house supposedly full of people she hadn’t seen anyone in almost an hour, despite sitting herself at the heart of the home.
The clock continued its methodic clunking behind her, creating an undertone that numbed her brain, hypnotizing her until time froze over like the world outside.
She’d been agonizing for this holiday week for months, but now that she was here, it wasn’t the reprieve she’d been seeking. Somehow staying busy, distracted, mission-driven, made the waiting more bearable. But she realized wishing to return to Hogwarts right now was borderline lunacy.
She was stuck. In this home full of faraway memories, in this hand-wringing role, in this frozen wasteland of time.
Underneath the table her heels bounced restlessly up and down. And a voice - her voice - echoed in her mind.
“Muuum,” Ginny had pleaded for the hundredth time, tugging on her mum’s hand.
“Patience, Ginny,” her mum whispered in a stern warning, signaling that she’d run out of Get-Out-Of-Whinging-Free passes and would soon cross over to the wrong side of her mother’s patience.
Her impatience that day had itched so terribly through her entire small body that she had to bounce on her heels just to keep it from overwhelming her.
So she had watched the scarlet steam engine grow smaller and smaller until it curved around the bend, carrying her brothers and the Boy Who Lived away to grand adventures that she, by no fault of her own, was deemed too small to join.
Ginny shoved herself away from the kitchen table and headed for the stairs. It felt good to make her legs work, to feel her muscles burn from climbing up and up and up until she stood facing Ron’s closed door, behind which the ghoul remained in faux-quarantine. The ghoul had remained inside, now having grown accustomed to the comforts of a full bed and temperature controlled room, despite the Ministry invasion tieing Ron’s whereabouts to Undesirable No. 1.
The constant ache gave a strong pulse inside her chest, as if to remind her it was still there.
She reached up for the attic door, requiring three jumps to reach the handle and tug it down so she could continue her climb.
A gust of frozen air stung her face as she scanned the attic through slants of light spilling in from missing shingles. Yellowing spell books, chipped cauldrons, discarded Muggle oddities - and there, at last - the box of Christmas decorations.
Ginny dragged it toward her, careful with the torn handle, then lugged it down the stairs. By the time she reached the living room she was sweating, her arms shaking with fatigue. She dropped the box with a thud. Something fragile shifted with a concerning crashed inside, and a plume of dust stung her eyes.
The ache pulsed again, sharper this time.
Damn thing refused to be ignored.
It had been a year ago - might as well have been a lifetime - that Harry was here in this house, fancying her without her knowing it, while she wasted energy worrying over her argument with kind, respectful, chivalrous, infuriating Dean.
The thought tasted bitter while at once lifting a second reluctant swarm of happy memories from sunlit days.
“Imagine my parents opening their home to you year after year, and all you could do to repay them was picture their daughter topless at Christmas dinner,” she’d said, laid out beside him. Faces inches apart.
Harry’s laugh echoed in her head, sounding distant. How was it that she couldn’t quite recall his facial expressions anymore, yet she remembered the sound of him laughing, the feel of him pressed close?
“You weren’t topless at dinner, I only thought about it at dinner,” he’d corrected her, still grinning despite the heat of a blush. “And it was once. For barely a second. I didn’t know if your dad or Bill ever learned Legilimency.”
She’d smiled then. She smiled now.
“So… they don’t, do they?”
“Who doesn’t what?”
“Bill and your dad. Know Legilimency.”
“No, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Mum does. So you’d better start constructing that curse-proof wall in your brain because it’s different now,” she’d teased.
“How so?”
“This year, you’ll be remembering me topless at Christmas dinner.”
He’d grinned, and she reached for the details of his face in her memory. “Refresh my memory?” He’d said, pulling her even closer.
Ginny blinked away the stinging of her eyes, trying hard to refocus on the box of Christmas baubles in front of her, willing them to bring her joy and peace and good fucking tidings of cheer. Anything.
But they remained still and lifeless. Just like they had all year. Waiting for somebody to return and pull them out of their confining, unceremonious box.
“Patience, Ginny.”
It had been months since anyone had heard from Harry, Ron, or Hermione. The others looked to her now to be strong, to keep fighting, even as her own patience threatened to decay into despondency. If only there were some sign, some hint of how much longer.
Patience, Ginny.
She could wait, she reminded herself. In fact, she had to. She had to hold the line for the D.A., defend her house, fight the Carrows’ war of torture and attrition, no matter how long it took.
For them. For him. For this eerily-lonely home holding out the storm.
Reaching into the box, she pulled out the stockings and their candle-weighted holders and set them carefully on the mantle. One by one, she lit them, adding a the set of balsam scented candles on either side. She stood back to appreciate how the room had shifted, just a little, into something warmer, before bending down to unwrap more decorations from the box.