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The golden sunlight shining through the kitchen window felt like a personal insult to her. The bright blue sky was a cruel joke and the steadily moving clouds a ruthless reminder that time still marched on even when it seemed the world should have ceased spinning weeks ago.
Ginny picked up another potato, swiping the blade of the peeler across it with savage ferocity. The void that had cracked open inside her the moment she had seen Fred’s body was currently filled with an untameable rage, and vegetables, not Death Eaters, were the only thing left to take it out on.
“I thought you might like to invite Neville and Luna for dinner one evening,” Mum said from her place in front of the stove.
Ginny grunted in response. She should try for some enthusiasm, she knew. It was the first time her mother had been in the kitchen, had been out of bed, since the funeral. It was fundamentally impossible though, each breath she took was like a tiny knife to the chest and all her energy was going towards getting through the current moment, making plans for the future - a future without Fred - was unthinkable.
“Xeno didn’t look very healthy at the -” Mum paused, wand poised over the saucepan she'd been supervising. Ginny couldn’t see her face but the way her shoulders shuddered was unmistakable. The word ‘funeral’ hung heavily in the air between. “Last week.”
Ginny released a breath she didn’t realise she’d been holding. Her mind closed to the memories trying to assault her; Fred’s casket being lowered into the ground, the officiating wizard flicking the pile of dirt smoothly over it, Harry pulling her firmly away even as she’d refused to leave Fred in the hollow graveyard all alone.
Still clutching the potato, Ginny’s hand shook violently. The peeler glided through thin air before meeting the soft flesh just above her thumb. Crimson blood bloomed like the petals of a rose unfurling; Ginny hissed in pain.
Mum turned immediately, a look of horror-stricken panic on her pale face.
“Just a cut,” Ginny said through gritted teeth.
The potato dropped to the kitchen side with a dull thud, its pale surface was now dappled with bright red spots.
“Under the tap,” her mother said forcefully, already bustling over to Ginny.
She turned the tap on with a flick of her wand and quickly shoved Ginny’s hand under the stream of water.
She watched as her blood faded to a muted pink and eventually disappeared down the drain. Fleetingly, she wished that she could disappear too.
"That should do it," Mum said gently, guiding Ginny's hand out of the water.
A comfortable warmth spread through her hand as the tip of her mother's wand tapped the tiny cut. Ginny watched as the skin knitted itself back together, whole and perfectly unblemished once more.
"I think you've done enough chores for one day," Mum said, eyeing the pot full of peeled potatoes on the kitchen side. There was enough to feed a small army, more than enough for their now-diminished family.
"Don't you need me to do anything else?" Ginny asked quickly, desperation suddenly clawing at her chest.
Mum paused. Brown eyes, so like Ginny's own, examined every inch of her face as though she was a book written in a language only her mother could read.
"You've peeled the potatoes, the carrots and the sprouts," she said suspiciously. "You washed all the dishes after breakfast and fed the chickens. Surely you want a break?"
"No," Ginny said without hesitation.
The look her mother gave her made it clear that this was the wrong answer.
"When was the last time you went flying?"
Ginny shrugged. "Before."
"And the last time you exercised Arnold?"
Ginny shrugged again. The rage that had been swirling inside of her earlier suddenly began to stir into a tornado of barely repressed fury.
"The last time you played chess? Or read Witch Weekly? Or did anything that wasn't a chore?"
"Who cares?" Ginny exploded, desperate for the questioning to end.
Mum took a step away, her back bumped into the edge of the table. Ginny barely noticed, every bit of anger she'd been bottling inside came spilling out in a terrible torrent.
"What does it matter how I spend my days?" She demanded. "What good is playing quidditch? Or reading magazines? Or -" her eyes fell upon the delicately iced cake Fleur had dropped off earlier before enlisting Dad and Harry to help with the repairs to Shell Cottage. Without stopping to consider her actions, Ginny seized it and flung it against the wall. Crumbs exploded across the kitchen; bits of buttercream and jam stuck to the tiles and slid slowly towards the counter. "Or baking stupid cakes!"
Her anger shattered in perfect synchronisation with the plate that had housed Fleur's baking, leaving only exhaustion and despair in its wake.
Ginny sunk into the nearest chair and pressed her forehead to the rough surface of the kitchen table, fervently avoiding her mother's eye. Wet tears streamed down her cheeks but she ignored those too.
She wanted to scream. She wanted to shout and rage and tear the world apart but she barely had the energy to cry. In truth, she knew it wouldn’t matter anyway. Nothing did anymore.
Fred was dead. He was never coming back. That singular horrifying fact weighed unbearably heavy and Ginny didn’t see how she could ever be happy again.
The chair beside her scraped jarringly across the tiled floor. Her mother’s land came to land gently on her shoulder. “Ginevra, look at me..”
Ginny kept her face buried in her arms. If she looked up she would only see her grief reflected and magnified a hundredfold in her mother’s face.
“Ginny, please?”
It was the way Mum’s voice cracked on the word ‘please’ that made her lift her head just slightly and peer out over the top of her forearms.
Mum looked every bit as broken-hearted as Ginny had expected, but there was something else there too, something Ginny couldn’t quite identify. It wasn't something sad, she thought, but not happy either.
“You’re going to get through this,” Mum said firmly. She stroked her hand gently through Ginny’s hair, an action she hadn’t performed in years.
“I’m not,” Ginny protested thickly; tears had begun to pour out of her the moment her mother had stroked her head. “I can’t.”
She watched as Mum closed her eyes and drew a deep breath as though gathering her strength before opening them again.
“You will. I know you will."
"You can't know that," Ginny protested.
The very idea was abhorrent to her. What kind of treacherous sister would she be if she moved on with her life when Fred's had ended so abruptly?
"I don't just know it," Mum insisted. "I've lived it."
Ginny sat up at this. She knew it was true, of course. Bill and Charlie had both told her stories about the funny uncles that had shown up regularly with sweets, toys and jokes that could not be repeated in front of their parents. Mum and Dad had both spoken of them in passing too, but no one had ever been quite brave enough to broach the subject of their death.
"Your uncles were rather like Fred," Mum said, her expression making it clear that the topic brought her great pain.
Feeling quite as vulnerable as she had when she'd returned from the Chamber at the age of eleven, Ginny slid across the gap which separated her chair from her mother's. She settled on her lap, not sparing a thought for the height she had gained in the intervening years.
"Gideon was always the first to run into trouble," Mum continued, clinging to Ginny as though she were a life raft. "Fabian was only ever half a step behind him. When the war started they couldn't wait to fight. When we moved into Grimmauld Place it was like watching history repeat itself."
Mum's eyes were looking far off into the distance, giving the impression she was looking across the years rather than the room. Tears shone on her cheeks; Ginny reached up carefully and brushed them away.
"They were so brave," Mum whispered. "Sometimes, I wished they'd been a bit more cowardly - a little more cautious, I suppose. But then, they wouldn't have been the brothers I loved." She smiled wistfully.
Ginny buried her head in the crook of her mother's neck. It was almost too painful to listen to. How many nights had she laid awake wishing that Fred hadn't gone to Hogwarts that night? Knowing that she never would have respected him if he hadn't.
"How did you carry on?" The words slipped out without Ginny meaning to say them. They were muffled by Mum's jumper but she heard them anyway.
"I didn't want to. I didn't want to eat, or sleep or breathe. That wasn't an option though, I had seven children who needed their mother."
"I don't have seven children."
Mum placed a hand under Ginny's chin and forced her to look up once more.
"You have a family that loves you." Her eyes did not waver from Ginny's for even a moment. "You have friends that adore you. You have a whole future waiting for you."
A future without Fred, Ginny couldn't stop herself from thinking. Saying the words out loud, however, would cause her mother too much pain, and so, she pushed them down.
It was her only choice, she realised, to continue living just as Mum had done. Not for herself, but for her brothers and Hermione and Harry and everyone else that had been left behind to mourn Fred.
Silence filled the kitchen. Neither Ginny nor her mother seemed to know where to go from here. They remained where they were, seated in one chair, clutching one another tightly.
They might have stayed like that for hours, time seemed to have lost all meaning, eventually, however, it caught up with them and the back door opened with a creak. Mum and Ginny looked up as one to see Dad and Harry traipsing through the door, sporting identical red strips across the bridge of their noses from a day spent in the sun.
"I'd best get on with dinner!" Mum said, jumping out of her chair so quickly that Ginny almost toppled onto the floor.
"Do you need any help?" Dad offered, hurrying across the kitchen to greet her.
Ginny righted herself as gracefully as she could manage, dodging out of the way of pots and cooking utensils Mum was directing to every available surface.
"Are you alright?" Harry asked, quietly enough that only Ginny could hear him over Mum's loud lamentations about where the day had gone.
Ginny nodded. Her smile wasn't genuine, not quite yet, but she held her hand out to him anyway. "Come with me?"
"Where are we going?" Harry asked, frowning concernedly at her.
"Flying."