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Ginny still remembers a time before the nightmares.
Once upon a time, she slept through the night, body splayed wide on the bed, belly down, with her hand trailing over the edge. She remembers waking up to the sound of roosters crowing as the sun rises, to the smell of breakfast, to pots and pans clanging several floors below.
Once upon a time, she was always the last to wake, and Fred - the bravest of her brothers - was the one tasked to wake up the Ginny Monster as they dubbed her. She used to chase him all over the house until he escaped into the kitchen where the rest of her family sat waiting for her. Fred loved to bribe her with little men made of sugar, and she learned early on to hide her sticky fingers from mum and only to giggle when her back was turned.
That was years ago.
Now, she gasps awake once, twice, thrice in the middle of the night, her body curled into a tight ball, shivering under a mound of blankets. Now she beats the chickens to the sun, beats her mother to the kitchen. Now, Fred is gone, and it is only her and Ron left of the huge brood of children that used to bring the Burrow to life. She learned to make the little sugar men years ago, but Fred made them best, and since he’s died, they’ve tasted of little else but sawdust.
Today, like all other days, Ginny stands in the open field of her house. The only sounds to break the rustling of the wind are the rocky rumbling snores of the gnomes. Behind her, the house is as pitch black as the night sky but for the dying embers of the living room fire. Her fingers are sticky from failed sugar men, and she ran outside before someone thundered down the stairs and she let herself guess the wrong brother.
She pulls along Ron’s old Cleansweep, checks it, mounts it. And then flies.
When Ginny hits the air, her body relaxes almost immediately, the tension seeping out of her shoulders, her back, her legs, her arms. As she soars past the clouds and right into the stars, her fingers slowly let go of their death grip on the handle. And she flies and flies and flies, twirling and tumbling at speeds that will make her mother scream.
The broom becomes a part of her, moves with her like her very fingers do. In the skies, she feels unbound, powerful. Like her nightmares have lost their hold on her, like she can conquer the gaping empty feeling in her chest. Tumbling in the clouds, she feels settled in her skin, feels at home as if the skies are hers and she is untouchable. Beneath her, her sleepy little village grows smaller and smaller until it fades out of sight.
Then she spots Fred cheering by the shed as she executes the perfect spiral dive.
She blinks. He disappears.
She falters.
The dive moves from perfect to deadly. The broom bucks in panic and instinct wants her to roll over and get settled. But Ginny lets herself fall further. Relishes in it. There is an inexplicable allure to the momentary weightlessness. She surrenders to gravity, lets the wind whip at her face until her eyes water - until tears are streaming down her cheeks. She fights the urge to wipe them away. This high up in the air, there is no one to see her weakness and she knows full well they will be gone by the time she strikes her landing.
Once she falls as low as the chimney, she calms the Cleansweep and rights herself with a beautiful somersault. The top of her head skims over the shingles of the roof, and smug satisfaction settles in her stomach as she executes a perfect Sloth Grip Roll. Her heart is pumping a mile a minute and the adrenaline in her blood drives away the cold. As she predicted, her face is dry by the time she’s smoothly soaring again.
She flies low and slow. The colour of the sky had turned into beautiful pinks and oranges, sun peeking from the horizon as if saying hello. A few metres below she hears the crowing of the chickens, the clanging of her mother’s pots and pans. There is someone thundering down on the stairs, and then another ambling more leisurely, their footsteps near feather-light but for the creaks of the ancient floorboards of the old house. (Ron and Harry, she thinks. No mistaking them.)
And despite herself, she hovers just a few minutes more above the shed, squinting at the spot her imaginary Fred had cheered for her. He’s gone as she expected, but the absence does not hurt less.
“Ginny?” a soft voice calls, breaking her out of her reverie.
She ducks behind the chimney, her hand automatically taking out her wand, eyes scanning the grounds for enemies. Her heart, just calming, speeds up once more.
Instead, she only spots the odd dark head. She moves closer. There is only Harry on the lawn, a hungry, jealous look in his eyes as they follow her loping, leisurely path on the skies. They soften when she meets his gaze, and Ginny grows boneless when she realises that it was only him who called her. She skids to halt, hovering a foot over his head, her heart still racing but no longer in fear.
“Hey there,” she croaks, wondering for how long she was lost in her thoughts that he could be here now when she was listening to him walk down the stairs just a moment ago. “D’you want to join me?”
A shadow crosses over his face, but he pulls up his little smile so quickly that she’s unsure. He shrugs instead, “I can’t, Gin. I lost my broom.”
“Well then take one from the shed,” she replies. “They’re no Firebolts, but for a morning fly I think they’d do just fine.”
She is getting antsy again. Really, this close to the ground, she feels keenly her smallness. Even flying she is dwarfed by the trees, by her house, by the godforsaken shed. She had always been a small girl – it’s half why she is such a good quidditch player. But being small is dangerous this low when just about anyone can grab at her leg and yank her off the broom.
It’s why no one trusts her to ever take care of things, she thinks with no small amount of bitterness. At least her skill is undeniable in the skies – on the ground, everyone only sees how small and young she is. No matter that she was leader and saboteur for months even before the battle started. (Maybe Fred would have lived if she was –)
She shakes herself. She wants to take Harry and fly, wants them to soar so fast and so high, they outstrip the birds in the sky. Where they are mere ants in the ground, dwarfed by the hugeness of everything else, the sky makes them limitless, and Harry is one of the few people who truly understands what that means.
So she laughs at the way he brightens at her offer. She watches as he jogs over to the shed. Then she waits - almost impatiently - for him to come back to her. The fear that came with being watched still lingers in her bones, and she huffs in frustration at her own weakness. Flying - and flying with Harry at that - may just be what she needs to shake off the cold sweat and racing heartbeat.
Harry comes trotting, a much older broom propped over his shoulder. Fred’s broom she thinks with a sinking feeling in her gut. He pauses his approach, suddenly wary. Ginny tries to school her face, but his expression had cleared just as quickly.
“I’m sorry I didn’t think -”
“No, it’s -”
Stutters and halts. Stutters and halts. The story of the two of them. And all the forgetting too, she thought tiredly. Suddenly, the gravity is too much. She needs to leave. Now. The exhaustion threatens to consume her with every lick of the grass on her ankles. She can’t be here. Can’t stay still lest she never moves again.
“Let’s just go,” she says coolly. “Get another one if it makes you feel better, but that broom hasn’t been Fred’s in years. A new broomstick was one of the first things he bought when they opened the shop.”
He called it another gift from you.
But she can’t say that - not now when Harry is drowning in his own guilt as is and she is drowning with him.
He nods and mounts, and together they fly again. Ginny pushes her broom until it screams in agony and then dares to ask it for more. Bigger loops. Sharper curves. Somersaults. Rolls. Spins.
Falls.
Ginny listens to Harry scream her name. Watches him zoom towards her, his face a painting of anguish. Once again, she rights herself an inch from the shingles, and he pulls himself into a sharp curve to miss crashing into her.
“What was that!” Harry demands, eyes still wild with fear.
Ginny laughs quietly. She turns to face the sun, gaze lingering at the shadows of the shed. Fred was not there - he will never be. No pissing her off into awakening. No more sugar men.
She turns back to Harry, looking at her now with shuttered eyes. “I just wanted to try a new move is all.”
Harry had always preferred loping, leisurely flights. She hadn't realised how much harder it would be to fly together - not when she wanted to outfly the birds and the shooting stars. She looks back at his flagging trail, fearing it would be her, this time, that he cannot follow.
Their eyes meet, and in that second, his soften into grief.