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Ginny, head out of the window, deeply inhales air thick with heat. One, two, exhale. One, two, inhale.
It actually helps a little, slows her rapid heart marginally until she can get a hold of herself. It’s not real, she reminds herself as screams echo through her mind. She ignores the whispering voice that remind her it once was.
Not anymore. She’s fine. Fred is dead but they won the war. It’s over. It’s just a nightmare.
She inhales one more lungful of night air before pulling herself back into her bedroom, locking her window behind her. She doesn’t like to leave it open. Just in case.
Grey eyes watch her from under a pile of blankets, even in the hot summer.
“Sorry,” Ginny whispers as she slips back in beside Luna. Luna reaches for a lock of her hair, twirls it around her finger. The finger’s missing the nail, but Ginny doesn’t wince in sympathy. She’s seen worse.
“I wasn’t asleep,” Luna whispers back, like there’s someone else in her bedroom, listening to them. Luna doesn’t sleep much, and neither does she, really. It seems like Mum does nothing but sleep.
Neither of them sleep anymore that night, at least Ginny doesn’t. She watches as the sky outside turns from midnight blue to a vibrant pink. Once the first beam of sun hits her she can’t stay in bed any longer.
~
Ginny takes long walks in the morning in the fields that surround the Burrow and Mum hates them, but Ginny needs them like she needs air. She understands why Mum worries - she’s already lost one child, but Ginny takes her wand. She can defend herself. She just needs a quiet hour, sometimes not even that, where she can lay down in a cornfield and have her only company be the sun and the quiet rustling of the grass in the calm early morning breeze. When she can pretend that everything is fine, Fred is alive, Luna is okay, Harry Hermione and Ron haven’t vanished to Merlin-Knows-Where.
The glorious heat of summer had come early that year, like nature’s attempt at an apology. Ginny wanders the fields aimlessly, the sun beaming onto her tanned skin. Luna never asks to come, and Ginny doesn’t offer, but she wouldn’t say no. Luna’s company, whether her nonsensical ramblings or quiet humming, would be appreciated sometimes. Luna doesn’t like to leave the safety of the Burrow, though.
When she returns that morning Luna is sitting cross-legged by the vegetable patch. Her and dad keep it watered now; no one else can be bothered. As Ginny approaches she sees Luna tending to a piece of fabric with a needle, teeth gently biting her lip in concentration, humming a tune to herself.
She doesn’t notice Ginny until her shadow falls upon her, as focused as she is. She starts slightly, and Ginny feels like the needle has jabbed her in the chest.
“Oh, hello.” Luna says lightly. Ginny sits, more so collapses next to her in the dirt. Even the dirt is hot.
“Watchu doing?” Ginny asks. Luna holds up the fabric, an old skirt Grinny recognises, and a patch in the shape of a radish. Ginny’s never been particularly interested in sewing, perhaps the consequence of competing with six brothers, but she’s content to watch Luna work.
Ginny doesn’t recognise the rune Luna’s humming, but after a while she gets the rhythm and joins in. She thinks it’s one that Luna just made up, maybe to stave off the boredom and despair during those dark weeks in the cellar of Malfoy Manor.
Luna’s never spoken of it with her, and Ginny is smart enough to know when to let sleeping dogs lie. Besides, she can infer some details from Luna’s sleep, which is broken by nightmares or her missing fingernails or the way her skin is stretched tight over sharp bones.
Ginny’s never spoken about her side of the war either. She never told about the Carrow’s and their terrifying detentions, about how the Cruciatus curse would leave her trembling for hours afterwards. How she was so worried for all of them; Ron, Harry, Hermione, Luna, Neville, Mum Dad, the twins, Bill, Charlie, Percy - that it would make her physically sick, would leave her retching over the toilet at night, her only comfort maybe a quick hand squeeze from one of the other terrified girls, all before getting up and facing it all over again. How the night the war was won, Harry had climbed into bed with her, and by the first light of day he was gone, and she had let him go without an explanation or even a word because… Because?
“Are you okay?” Luna asks lightly, without looking up. It’s only then that Ginny realises she’s gone silent, and is staring vacantly into nothing. They all do that now.
“Fine. I’m fine.” I’m always fine. Luna resumes her sewing, but not her humming.
Ginny lies back in the dirt, hair spread like a flame under her, and lets the sun have at her. She lays still as stone, even as she feels insects scramble over her scalp and the heat begins to burn. A singular white cloud floats across the sky above, blown slowly by the gentle wind.
“I think they’ll be ready soon, the strawberries.” Luna says, holding up her finished work. Ginny wants to say that it doesn’t really matter, they don’t need to grow their own food anymore, probably will never have to again, they are war heroes now. But it matters to Luna, so she doesn’t say it.
“Will you still be here when we pick them?”
Luna is quiet for a moment. They hadn't discussed this either, but Ginny took Luna home after the war and she’s been here, like a shadow, ever since. Not that Ginny minds, Luna is… something a bit more than a friend, she thinks. They don’t talk about it, but if she had to, Ginny thinks she could kill for Luna.
“I haven’t spoken to Daddy yet.” Luna says, not in her usual light tone. Ginny takes her clammy hand and squeezes. Ginny doesn’t even blame Xenophilius for selling out the trio: would she do the same for her child, if she had one? For someone she loved? She thinks so, but it’s complicated, like everything.
“I don’t want you to leave.” Ginny assures her. She’s sure that Luna would easily find somewhere else to go, but she doesn’t like the thought. She’s gotten used to Luna in her bed, at the table and by the vegetable patch. It’s going to hurt like an unforgiveable when she leaves.
Luna lies down next to her, their hair tangling with dirt. Luna stares vacantly into the endless blue sky, stretching high above them. The gentle breeze rustles the grass. Ginny inhales deeply. I am fine, I am fine.
Luna is squeezing her hand tight, and it would hurt if she had any nails. She tells Ginny that they are coming back, only slowly, and Ginny marvels endlessly at her patience.
“Do you ever want to leave?” Ginny asks, in a whisper so quiet it’s almost silence. Luna hears anyway, and she shrugs in the dirt.
“I don’t think so. Not by myself, I wouldn’t want to go anywhere without you.”
“I wouldn’t go without you. But sometimes I just want to leave and be someone else for a bit. Somewhere far away from here. Pretend to be muggles.” Ginny still isn’t sure if she could do that to Mum. Mum would have them all at home for the rest of their lives if she could, and Ginny knows she’s extra anxious about Ron.
“That would be nice. Being someone else.”
As she lay there with the sun burning down on her, Ginny imagines floating away like a translucent ghost, higher and higher until the world was ant-sized and she was amongst the stars. Then she imagines falling back down, leaving the stars behind. Falling down fast, but instead of dying, her ghost slips into another person, a muggle chosen at random, her own body rotting away by the vegetable patch, but she won’t care, because she’s a muggle now, with muggle friends and muggle family living in a muggle house among muggle things, with no knowledge of the war fought to save her.
~
Ginny lies curled with Luna that night, tucked under the covers despite the thick, hot air invading her bedroom. She can feel herself sweating, but she doesn’t kick the sheet off. Luna’s long hair tickles her nose, and she smells of earth. There’s still dirt under Ginny’s fingernails.
Predictably, she can’t sleep. She lies with her eyes closed for what feels like hours, but her brain is somehow wide awake despite her exhaustion. It’s ridiculous, Ginny thinks, that she slept better during the war. Then, she would sometimes fall into a deep sleep, like her body was trying to prepare her for inevitable and unstoppable horrors.
But now, her body does the opposite. Merlin, what she’d do for a good night’s sleep. Or even just a decent one. Dad says she’ll have to wait, that it’ll come eventually. Mum says nothing at all.
So Ginny waits in her dark bedroom, but sleep doesn’t come.
~
It’s four or maybe five, Ginny doesn’t remember, days later when she finds Luna waiting for her on the outskirts of the Burrow after her walk.
The sky is once again a spotless blue, not a speck of cloud. The breeze is slightly colder, and so Ginny is loosely wearing one of Mum’s knitted cardigans over her shoulders.
Luna is dressed in one of her usual enigmatic outfits, and as Ginny nears she realises that Luna has a backpack on. Ginny swallows, but her legs carry her to Luna.
“Luna, are you -”
“No,” Luna interrupts, somehow knowing what Ginny is intending to ask before she says it. “I was thinking about what you said a few days ago, about being someone else. I want to do it. With you.” Luna adds, while Ginny stares, the fields around them swaying with the breeze.
There’s a lot of thoughts flitting through Ginny’s mind, half-formed and instantly batted away by the desire to become someone else, to be able to shed responsibilities and the terrible past like a snake sheds its skin.
“Wait here,” She tells Luna, and runs past the dry vegetable patch and into the house, heading for her room. She ignores the empty, cold kitchen and the door to Mum and Dad’s bedroom that stays firmly shut.
She packs manically, throwing rumpled clothes into her bag, only stopping to cast resizing charms. After a few minutes of rushing she stops, panting, and stares around the rest of her room. Her childhood stares back at her.
Ginny has an urge to take take and take until her room is bare, but she stops herself. She doesn’t want to drag her past to wherever they end up. The only other thing she takes is a group picture of Dumbledore’s Army from fourth year, taken by Colin Creevey. She has a burst of grief thinking briefly about the little boy with the camera who, like her, had been so enamoured with Harry Potter.
She tears loose a scrap of notebook paper and scribbles a brief paragraph that explains basically nothing. What can she say? She has no idea where she’s going, no idea how long she’ll be gone for, or who she’ll be when she returns. Ginny leaves it on her pillow, and then slowly walks through the burrow, but she doesn’t run into anyone else.
Luna is waiting in the same spot when she returns. She’s squinting at the sun when Ginny slips her hand into hers.
Together, they traverse the fields to the edge of the Burrow, where the wards end. Then Ginny grips her wand tight, pulls Luna close, and thinks, somewhere new.
There’s a pull behind her bellybutton, and Ginny squeezes her eyes shut as the world she knows vanishes.