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She couldn't sleep.
Not that Ginny ever slept particularly well in the dreary old house she was currently stuck in. The room was dark; only the faintest traces of moonlight made it through a small gap in the heavy velvet curtains. She lay with her head against her pillow, fingers slipping agitatedly over the raised embroidery on her comforter, eyes wide, staring straight into the blackness above.
A soft sigh sounded from the bed across the room as Hermione turned in her sleep. Ginny hardly heard it over the words that were still echoing loudly in her mind, that had been repeating over and over since the moment they'd slipped so thoughtlessly, so honestly, from Harry's lips earlier that day.
‘I forgot.’
At first, she'd been angry.
‘Lucky you,’ she'd spat, and even those infuriatingly captivating green eyes, turned on her, wide with apology, hadn't done much to soothe the burning indignance within Ginny.
She'd managed to shove it aside just long enough to give him the reassurance he'd so obviously been in need of, because even when she was furious with him, Ginny was apparently incapable of watching Harry suffer.
And didn't that just make her even angrier?
She promised herself it was because she owed him a debt that she could never fully repay. Assured herself that any protectiveness, any affection, she felt towards Harry was borne out of gratitude and nothing more.
Still, Ginny had allowed herself to dwell on it for hours. It was easy, simple even, to sink back into that familiar ache that accompanied thoughts of Harry. Far easier than facing the other thoughts that currently chased her through the dark, the ones that whispered to her in a cold, smooth voice, the ones that told her she would never escape him no matter what she did, the ones that no unrequited crush in the world had a hope of distracting her from.
Ginny rolled out of bed before those thoughts could catch her. Giving in, as she always did, to the other deep yearning that dwelled within her, the one that longed for freedom.
Hermione didn't stir as Ginny moved across the dark room. Ginny hadn't expected her to, stealth was a skill she'd earned through years of practice, cultivated due to her brothers’ insistence on excluding her, and Ginny's determination to never be left out of anything.
Her slippers awaited her at the end of the bed; silently, Ginny slipped her feet into them. She retrieved her dressing gown from the back of the door, enveloping herself in its warmth as she slid out into the moonlit hallway.
If she were at home, she'd head straight for the broomshed, confident that she could regain her equilibrium in the air.
Flying wasn't an option at Grimmauld Place, however. It wasn't like the Burrow, where the orchard stood, ancient and never-changing to provide safe cover; here, they were surrounded by too many Muggle eyes to risk such a blatant display of magic. A disillusionment charm would give Ginny the freedom she so desperately craved, but she knew her mother would never consent to it.
‘I forgot.’ Her mother never did.
The desire within her intensified, growing into a ceaseless itch beneath her skin that could only be calmed by going outside; by looking up and seeing not confinement, but the endless sky she'd once been sure she'd never see again.
Ginny slipped down the dark landing, her footsteps loud in the silent house despite her best efforts to be quiet. She had no destination in mind, just a restless need to move. The eyes of a dozen long-dead house elves followed her downstairs, the Santa hats Sirius had placed on their heads did nothing to make them appear less gruesome; Ginny’s pace quickened without her permission.
She sidled around the curtains that concealed Mrs Black's portrait, determined not to invite her (no doubt loud) opinion on Ginny's late night wanderings.
She paused when she reached the front door; her fingers curled around the cool brass doorknob. She wavered, muscles tensing as she hovered on the precipice of a reckless decision.
As she should have foreseen, the moment of hesitancy cost her the opportunity. Two sets of footsteps sounded from the hallway behind her, swiftly accompanied by Bill's voice. “What are you doing?”
Ginny whirled, the anger flaring anew within her, burning white hot in response to the edge of accusation in Bill's words. “I don't see how that's any of your business.”
Beside Bill, Sirius' eyebrows shot up in silent surprise. Bill, however, looked thoroughly unimpressed by Ginny's brusque tone, reminding her strongly of their father, and causing her gut to twist uncomfortably. “It's my business if you're planning on sneaking out in the middle of the night.”
“Don't be too hard on her, Bill,” Sirius said, smiling affably at Ginny. “This house has a way of making you want to run.”
Ginny didn't return Sirius’ smile; her eyes had locked with Bill's. Her chin rose as she stared down the appraising look he was giving her, determined he wouldn't see the emotions roiling within her. Pretending to be fine was just another skill she was well practised in.
She could see that Bill was pretending too. The dark circles beneath his eyes gave him away even as his expression remained as stoic as ever. He was worried, Ginny knew, about Dad, and about Mum, about the whole family really, and her behaviour right now was only adding to his burden. Another sharp, stabbing twist of guilt penetrated her stomach. Still, she found herself unwilling to back down.
“Well, I know where I'm intruding…” Sirius said easily. Out of the corner of her eye, Ginny saw him back towards the stairs, giving his mother's portrait a wide berth. “Goodnight, both of you.”
Neither Ginny nor Bill responded.
“What's going on?” Bill demanded as soon as Sirius's footsteps had receded upstairs.
“Nothing,” Ginny said, shrugging with forced apathy. Even if she wanted to talk to him, which a very childish part of her did, Bill had bigger things to deal with right now. “I just needed some fresh air.”
Bill's head tilted just slightly, his gaze roving over every inch of her. “You seem upset.”
“I'm fine.”
It was a pointless lie. He'd always been able to see through Ginny, and now he was giving her that same look he'd given her a hundred times over the course of that horrible summer in Egypt; the one that meant he was trying to decide if she was about to break.
’I forgot.’ Bill hadn't.
Ginny knew, without him having to tell her, that it was the whole reason he was here, locked in this dreary house, in a country he'd never shown any desire to return to, working a desk job he'd never wanted, fighting a fight that only felt personal to him because his little sister had been a naive fool.
He took a step towards her, the ancient floorboards creaking beneath his boots. “Talk to me, Ginny.”
Ginny retreated from him, her back meeting the door until she was pressed up against it. “There's nothing to talk about. I just wanted some air.”
Bill sighed, looking wearier than Ginny had ever seen him. When he spoke his voice contained a hint of apology, “I can't let you go out there. You know I can't.”
“Fine!” Ginny snapped, hating the patient expression Bill was still giving her even when she knew she was being unreasonable. “I'm going to get something to drink… I trust I can be unsupervised in the kitchen by myself?”
Bill stepped aside wordlessly, leaving her path to the rest of the house unimpeded. Ginny marched past him, keeping her eyes straight ahead, intent on the steps directly in front of her that led to the basement kitchen. His hand brushed her shoulder as she passed, but Ginny shrugged it off.
She was halfway to the basement steps when she heard him move behind her. She didn't look back, continuing her own path downwards even as she heard him ascending to the upper floors of the house, no doubt having placed a number of wordless charms on the front door to prevent Ginny from opening it.
The kitchen was dark, the only illumination came from the slowly dying embers in the huge fireplace, which glowed faintly and did very little to brighten the gloom. Eerie shadows followed her as she moved, retrieving a milk bottle from the pantry, and a goblet from the cupboard above the sink, before settling at the long wooden table.
The milk splashed loudly into the goblet as Ginny poured it. Her eyes stared unseeingly at its translucent surface. Regret filled her much like the milk filled the cup; silently she cursed her own foolish actions for leading her down here.
She hated this kitchen. Especially in the middle of the night. Especially on this night.
It was cold, and dark, and dank. Just like the chamber had been. At night, with no one else around, and only the dimmest of lights to penetrate the darkness, Ginny almost felt like she was back there. She could almost hear the dripping of the chamber walls, and smell the centuries of decay, and feel the life draining right out of her all over again.
‘I forgot.’ Ginny hadn't, and, if she was being honest, that was the thing she hated most of all.
It didn't matter whether Harry remembered or not, not really. There was nothing he could've said this afternoon that would’ve prevented Ginny from feeling this way. It had been inevitable, from the moment she'd agreed to talk about it. Harry forgot, but Ginny never could
No matter how hard she ran, no matter how fast she flew, she would never get away from it, because it was in her. It lived under her skin. He lived under her skin.
At first, she thought the distant echo of footsteps existed only in her mind, another memory approaching to join the others that already haunted her. The creak of the kitchen door, however, suggested a more corporeal intruder to Ginny's solitude.
Bill coming to check on his pathetic, weak sister no doubt.
“Don't worry,” she said without turning. “I haven't fled into the night.”
“I didn't realise you were such a flight risk.” Ginny turned sharply at the sound of Harry's voice. “But that's good to hear.”
He was standing in the doorway, hair even more dishevelled than usual, his pyjamas rumpled enough that Ginny suspected he'd at least managed to get more sleep than her. For reasons Ginny no longer wanted to examine, the thought that she'd given him enough peace to finally get even a small amount of rest, took a lot of the sting out of her own sleepless state.
“Sorry,” she said awkwardly. “I thought you were Bill.”
“I can see where the confusion came from,” Harry said with his characteristic dryness. The door fell closed behind him as he moved further into the kitchen, collecting a goblet of his own before picking up the half-empty bottle of milk Ginny had left on the table. “I couldn’t sleep,” he said as he poured.
“Me either,” Ginny admitted.
“Can't imagine why,” Harry said, falling into the chair beside her. “Given the warm, comforting atmosphere of this house.”
Their eyes met through the dimness and Ginny felt a grin spread across her face; the darkness within lessened its grip a little more.
She didn't know whether he'd forgotten again, or if he was just pretending not to know exactly which ghosts had chased Ginny from her bed. She was simply grateful he didn't want to talk to her about it, or worse, apologise.
“Sirius says this house makes you want to run,” Ginny said, filling the silence before Harry could do either of those things.
He shrugged as he took a sip of his milk. “Not really anywhere to go though, is there?”
For the second time that night, images of the Burrow flitted through Ginny's mind, accompanied by a deep sense of longing to go home. This time, with Harry in the room, so matter-of-factly stating there was nowhere to go, because to him there wasn't, the yearning for home was oddly comforting. At least she had a home to long for.
In place of answering Harry's question, she asked one of her own. “Do you want a mince pie?” Ginny couldn't go home, but she could at least have a taste of it in the form of her mother's baking.
Harry looked thrown by the question, though not, as Ginny had thought, because it had seemingly come out of nowhere. “Your mum said they were for Christmas Day.”
“Yes,” Ginny agreed, smiling as she remembered the severe warning Mum had given about sneaking them early. “But I know her hiding spot.”
Harry returned her smile, eyebrows raised questioningly. “Are you asking me to commit a crime with you?”
Ginny's smirk grew; she hoped that her furiously beating heart wasn't audible in the silent kitchen. “Just a small one… I wouldn't want to risk you being put on trial again.”
‘I forgot.’
It was impossible to believe he could have, when nobody else had, when he was the one who had actually witnessed her lying lifeless at Tom Riddle's feet.
It was impossible to believe he hadn't when he was looking at like he currently was, with an excited grin that was probably disproportionate to their current mission of clandestine mince pie retrieval.
He was the only person who had seen her at her very worst. He was the only person who never looked at her like he had.
“Well, in that case, lead the way.”
‘I forgot.’
For a moment Ginny did too, and it didn't make her feel angry, it made her feel hopeful.