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Bill was the first to leave, Ginny both remembered him coming and going, and she also didn’t remember. He was constantly on the move, he always had somewhere else better to be, better to go. But Ginny at least had the memory of his letters, his handwriting slightly messy like their dad’s and not their mum’s.
~`~
“Ginny?”
Ginny sat down at the kitchen table, Harry had left before the sun came up, kissing her cheek before sneaking out of her bedroom. He had slept for a few hours before it became clear he wasn’t going to anymore, and she had told him to leave, wanting to try and get a little sleep before the nightmares started.
Nightmares that haunted her since she was eleven, Tom’s smooth silky voice telling her that she was nothing and worthless even though the diary, even though Voldemort, was long gone. She didn’t even know where to begin, how to tell anyone about them, not her brothers, not Harry, not her parents.
“Morning mum,” said Ginny, sitting down at the table, right beside Arthur and accepting the sports section of the Prophet.
“What are your plans for the day?” asked Molly, and Ginny was sure that she was going to roll her eyes at her. “Going to the orchard again?”
“Yes,” said Ginny, thinking of the offer hidden under the mattress in her bedroom. “I need to practice.”
“Have you thought maybe about setting up a few interviews?”
Ginny sighed, ignoring the question as she did every morning, instead flipping through her section of the paper. She had learned from her dad a long time ago that it was sometimes easier to just hide behind the paper or in the quietest corner of the room.
“Molly, she promised September,” said Arthur from behind his half of the paper. “If you keep badgering her she won’t tell us anything when she has news.”
~`~
Charlie was next, he left and some of the constant noise of the house left with him. Fred and George decided to make the house even louder, which was fine with Ginny, even if it never fixed the noise that Charlie took with him.
~`~
Ginny stepped through the trees, breathing in the smell of green and flittered sunlight. Blue was peaking in between the leaves above her, and the world was calm and quiet otherwise.
She missed Luna, she missed Neville, she missed the chaos that was seven.
Bill had left first, but not before putting her on his old broom once. He had stood where she was now, on the edge of the meadow, staring up at a blue sky. Ginny didn’t know if she had made him proud or if she had met his expectations, but it didn’t matter anymore.
Charlie had been the one to tell her to paint the sky with her broom, to dance with the clouds and find peace in the silence. He liked to go high, while Ginny found all the excitement down in the crowd of players.
He was always meant to be a one off player, while Ginny found the comfort of the team. But Charlie had taught her how to roll, how to shoot, how to play the game that they both loved. She was the one with the Seeker build, small and thin, light and fast, able to fit into any space.
Which was why she was the perfect Chaser, she fit between players, she could slip in and out of situations, she could throw across a pitch.
She had survived a war, had fought back to back with her friends and family, had lost a brother and friends. She had a godson that she barely knew and she currently lived in a house that was the ghost of chaos and noise. She saw death at eleven by a boy named Tom who built her up only to take her down.
She could paint the sky with her broom, it was one thing that Charlie could never teach her, but somehow had. Bill had put her on a broom first, but Charlie had kept her on a broom, he had made sure she had the chance to touch the sky.
Her world smelled of green and sunlight, until she stepped out of the orchard, kicked off from the ground, and let the sky take her away.
~`~
Percy was the next to leave, he left in anger, he left screaming and yelling. There were nights that year and in the three years they were separated that Ginny would climb up the stairs to his old bedroom and curl up in his bed. He was always her brother, not in the way that Bill or Ron or Fred were her brothers, Percy was her August sibling, the Major to her Minor.
The summer that Percy left, the war effort became more real, became a thing that they all lived with and lived in.
They didn’t even live in the Burrow that summer, but that didn’t stop Percy from carefully packing away one of his old sweaters into her trunk before he disappeared that night. Like Bill he would write to her, his handwriting neat and tidy like their mum’s, not messy like Bill’s or their dad’s.
Percy would write her, tell her everything and absolutely nothing, and she would hide his letters from everyone. Carefully folding them and putting them back into their envelopes. For a moment it would feel like he was holding her, like they were curled up together in his old twin bed, his fingers running through her hair as he read her Babbity Rabbity and she played with his glasses.
~`~
Ginny sat on the ground, a pile of apple cores beside her, her hair pulled back into a messy bun. A box of letters, sent and unsent in her lap.
Dear Minor,
Hogwarts isn’t Hogwarts without the autumn rain storms, the lake should be flooding and Quidditch practice should be fun for once, not that anyone is really thinking about Quidditch. Neville is already talking about rebelling, about starting Dumbledore’s Army again. Luna is ready to join him, apparently the Ravenclaw tower has been under as much stress as the Gryffindor.
Whispers are coming from every corner of the castle, I’ve even heard things from some of the Slytherins. It doesn’t help that the school feels so empty, students are disappearing out of classes and their common rooms, even from their beds throughout the night.
I’m worried about the school, about so many of these kids in their first year and how the changes here will affect them. I know what that’s like, after everything that happened my first year, I’m scared that these kids are going to end up like me.
I miss you, love always,
Major
Ginny folded up the unsent letter, wondering for a moment what happened to cause her to not send this letter to Percy. Though the truth was that she had a plenty of unsent letters, to her friends, to her brothers, to her parents.
To Harry.
Ginny stared down at the stuffed envelope of letters that were all to Harry. Years of letters all to a boy that she loved and cared for.
She closed the box and laid back down under the canopy of green.
~`~
Fred and George left the only way they would ever leave, in a rush of noise and excitement and just them being them. Fred would be yelling on his broom, so loud and excited that they would hear him for miles, George would be grinning and crying and that was him.
The pair of them would come back, they would make jokes, they would laugh, and only one of them would survive the war. Fred would leave them forever, he would never make it back home, but George would. The Burrow was a home, a home that everyone returns to eventually.
~`~
“Mum said dinner’s almost ready,” said George, sitting down on the grass beside her. His face is all scruffy and his hair hadn’t been cut since the funeral over a year ago, but something about his appearance is familiar, it’s the most he’s looked like himself in a year.
“And she sent you?” asked Ginny, reaching for her broom.
“She sent both of us,” said Percy, appearing from the trees, his curls fluffier than he usually kept them. Part of Ginny was surprised that their mum didn’t tie them down and force them to get haircuts...she had done it before.
“I thought she knew us better,” said Ginny as Percy sat down beside her, wrapping his arm warm around her shoulders, keeping her down on the ground.
“Who would’ve thought that it would be Ron and Bill?” asked Percy, and George laughed, a mix of his old laugh and something haunted and hallow. He was slowly becoming himself again, all of them were, but George had been hit the hardest without Fred.
Ginny flew until her hands got stuck to her broom, she ran when she couldn’t sleep at night, she sometimes found herself in a different bed when she needed a little warmth. Percy sometimes found himself in his old bed, staring out the window at the same stars Ginny loved. While George, he had his vices, his own misery, and his own way of dealing with it.
He had Angelina the same way Ginny sometimes found herself in Harry’s bed at the flat he shared with Ron and Hermione.
“It was always going to be Ron and Bill,” said George, and Ginny reached over to take his hand in her own, leaning her head over to rest her cheek on his shoulder as he squeezed her hand. Fred and George had taught her how to dodge anything, from apples to Bludgers to spells meant to kill her, she had been trained at a young age to dodge anything that went her way. “You’ve just finally slowed down long enough to see the whole picture.”
“It’s not easy being third of seven.”
“Imagine being one of seven,” said Ginny, as Percy tightened his arm just a little bit more around her shoulder, pulling the three of them closer together. “At least the two of you blend in.”
“Maybe with Charlie,” said George, rubbing a hand along the scruff of his chin, “well, if you discount the eyes.”
Ginny felt herself smile for a moment, as she took in the warm feeling of her brothers holding her close, the almost jokes and quiet laughter they were able to make themselves share. It felt like home, like there actually were seven of them all crammed together, but the truth was, Ginny couldn’t really remember a time when it was only seven of them at home.
Someone always had a friend over, something was always going on, one of them was either gone or missing. She knew it happened, once upon a time ago, she knew it happened because there was one photo, one single photo of the seven of them hanging up in the hallway with all of their baby photos.
She could see it as she walked back through the trees with George leading the way and carrying her broom, and Percy’s hand warm in hers like she was a little girl again. Bill was holding her in the photo, sitting on the steps out the back door of the kitchen, Charlie sitting beside him with Ron in his lap, looking everywhere except at the camera. Percy sat on the bottom step with Fred on his right and George on his left, the pair of them both seconds away from sprinting in those directions.
All of them, even Ginny, just barely looked up at the camera when the flash came, before turning to look somewhere else.
But it was a photo of the seven of them, and the only other one that Ginny knew of was the photo that they took in Egypt after her first year. The one that they took for the only holiday she could remember them ever all going on together.
“You’re not one of seven, you know,” whispered Percy as the Burrow came in sight, “you’re seven of seven, the best of us all.”
~`~
Ron would leave and continue to leave them, he would leave in the middle of the night and then again in broad daylight. He was meant to be the first of them to leave, he was meant to pack his bags and disappear into the world before any of them, and in many ways he did. Finding a place in the world before her or any of them really do.
~`~
Ginny fell down on her bed and sighed, exhausted from her day of flying and night of happy families. She was getting tired of getting tired, she was also getting tired of saying goodbye to everyone except her parents.
She pulled the contract out from between her bed and box spring, flipping through the pages, rereading the glossy ink in the moonlight. She knew that it would be stupid to not take the deal, but she had hope for what she really wanted, she had hope for more.
It was why she felt stuck. She knew it, her parents knew it, her brothers knew it. They knew that she was in one place, in one spot, stopped in the middle of her flight.
That was what she dreamed of, all those years ago on the cold Chamber floor. She remembered it in the worst of her nightmares. She was on a broom, up in the sky on a crisp autumn day, her favorite kind of days for Quidditch. She had been spinning and twirling, painting the sky with her broom before she noticed them.
They were shorter and stocky, like Charlie and the twins, but both with bright flaming red hair and the same brown eyes and freckles that she shared with her mum. Her Uncles Gideon and Fabian had died a little over a year before she was born, and she only knew about them from the stories of others, from Bill and Charlie, from old Mad Eye when he was alive, from the other Order members that once knew them. They had both been part of the Department of Magical Transportation, and they were known for throwing the dumbest pranks on their co-workers, including putting one of their co-workers wands in a jello mold.
They were kind, bright, and Ginny felt at ease when she landed before them.
Fabian spoke first, his smile bright, his fingers dancing along his legs as he tried and failed to sit still. He reminded her of Fred then and still did now, as she knew he would be there too.
Gideon nodded along, occasionally getting in a few words, before another man appeared. He was tall and thin, with a long red beard that matched his hair, and blue eyes the same as Ron and George and Bill.
Uncle Bilius had passed when she was six, it had rained the day he died and it rained every day after for a solid month. Her mum had made her wear a black dress and a black ribbon which Ginny had ripped out of her hair immediately once the ceremony started.
If Fabian and Gideon had been loud and bight, then Bilius had been calm and quiet, relaxing.
In her nightmares, Tom would appear, but in the chamber…back then…she woke up to screaming and to Harry.
Now when she wakes up from that nightmare she goes running into the night.
~`~
Ginny tried to leave, after graduating from Hogwarts she tried to move in with Harry and Ron and Hermione. But there was something off about the three of them, they weren’t the trio that she loved and knew, they were broken and separated and not themselves.
She wakes up with Harry cold beside her, unable to sleep himself while she’s waking up with nightmares. Ron sleeps more on the couch in the hot living room than with Hermione in their bedroom, and Hermione doesn’t sleep as she pours over books and files and towers of parchment paper.
They have so many ideas, the three of them, they’re always moving and changing, but she’s not ready to be a part of that.
Which is why she’s the last one, sitting in a quiet kitchen, feeling lost and alone for the first time in her childhood home. The Burrow was meant to be nosy, it was meant to be loud and chaotic, to be a home.
~`~
“I have an announcement.”
Ginny stared at her family, at her friends, at the people that made up her life. The contract up in her bed was signed and sent off, her worries gone now.
“Okay,” said Fleur, picking up her glass of water, and never before had Ginny thought that she liked having a sister-in-law. She had been so quick to judge.
Ginny glanced around the table, it was nice to have everyone around, Sunday night dinners were new to them all, but she could feel this new tradition starting and staying in place. “I have signed with the Holyhead Harpies as a starting Chaser and reserve Seeker.”
She felt their arms around her before she saw any of them move, five pairs of arms, five people that loved her first and most in the world. She could feel the missing sixth, but it didn’t matter as five felt pretty awesome.
“So when are you leaving?” asked Bill later, sitting down beside her on the back steps. He handed her a beer, while cradling his daughter Victoire in his other arm, still her overbearing oldest brother but also still just Bill. Ginny reached over and took the little girl from him, kissing her forehead, she had two godchildren already, Teddy Lupin who had been a surprise and her first niece Victoire, who she adored from the second she held her.
“Harry is getting his own place, he asked me to move in with him a few weeks ago,” said Ginny, remembering the late night conversation they had the night before. “September first.”
“Moving in with the boyfriend again,” said Bill, taking a sip of his beer as Fleur sat down beside him. “I thought that didn’t work out the first time.”
“It’ll be different with just the two of us,” said Ginny, looking down at her niece, she was a little over a year old now. She loved to be cuddled, she loved when Ginny played with her curls, and even more so when Ginny took her flying. She was a sweet little girl, with violet eyes and strawberry blonde curls, with all the Weasley freckles and the same dimples as Bill, as their dad.
“Just don’t get pregnant,” said Bill and Ginny rolled her eyes. “You couldn’t change a diaper until Victoire was born.”
“I’m seven of seven, I’ve never had a younger sibling,” Ginny told him, as she softly traced the curve of her niece’s cheek and chin. “How would I know how to do anything like that?”
“Mum’s a Healer and midwife,” said Bill, as Fleur rest her head on his shoulder. Ginny looked over at her sister-in-law, she looked tired but in a happy way, and Ginny wondered if she would ever get to that point. “She was supposed to be there for Victoire.”
“Ron ‘as ‘ery helpful,” said Fleur, and Ginny nodded, thankful over a year later that she wasn’t there for that moment in her niece’s life.
~`~
Ginny is the last to leave, but she’s the only one that leaves and stays gone after the first try.
~`~
“So that’s everything?” asked Ron, and Ginny looked around at her childhood bedroom, the empty walls, empty bed, empty room. She was going from one empty room to the next.
“I think so,” said Ginny, she had already checked the drawers, checked her closet, checked the bathroom and living room. She had packed up all of her books and clothes, her broom and Quidditch gear, she was ready to say goodbye.
“Well this is the last box that I’m carrying, no matter what,” said Ron, and Ginny rolled her eyes.
“Don’t worry about it,” said Ginny, taking the box from him and pushing him out the door. “I’ll take it.”
Ginny followed Ron out of her old bedroom and downstairs to the living room, carrying the last box of her stuff. She looked around the room, getting the last sense of finality.
She didn’t expect to feel this way for leaving home.
“Ginny?”
Ginny wrapped her arms around her mum, closing her eyes as a sudden wave of emotion hit her. Part of her really didn’t want to go, but the other part of her was ready to leave.
“Seven of seven,” whispered Molly, rubbing Ginny’s back, “I’ve watched you all come and go so many times, I know you have this baby girl.”
Ginny nodded and wiped at her eyes as she pulled away. Molly carefully ran a hand through Ginny’s bangs before kissing her forehead. It was time for her to go.
“It’s never goodbye,” said Molly, kissing Ginny’s cheek, “trust me, I’ve seen it over and over again.”
“Thanks mum, for everything.”
Ginny grabbed her last box and headed into the floo, her mum was right, it wasn’t a goodbye, she would be back Sunday night for dinner. Just as they all came back again and again and again.
The Burrow would always be home.