Chapter Text
The grass crunched beneath Lee’s brown oxfords. It was the first day without rain since the end of the war, but he felt swallowed by the weight of his jacket, the air too heavy for the stark blue sky to last.
He stopped beside a stone bench on the edge of the cemetery. “I saw you sitting out here and I thought… well there’s someone who looks worse than I do.”
Ginny jerked up, back suddenly straight as a pin. She was sitting with her flowered dress spread out beneath her like a fan. Bright colours, that was what Mrs Weasley had wanted.
“Oh.” Ginny sighed and slumped. “Thank Merlin, it’s only you.”
“Only me,” Lee repeated. “You alright, Red?”
She huddled smaller on the bench. “No. Wanna sit?”
It wasn’t big enough for two people, not really, so the length of her leg pressed tight against his. Lee took a deep, steadying breath.
“I’ve never seen George like that,” he said softly.
It was like he’d thrown a stone through a window. Her entire face broke open, and Ginny scrunched up her eyes, pressing her palms flat against them like she’d be able to push back the tears. “Fuck.”
The wedge in his throat grew more solid. Lee forced himself to talk past it. He’d been good at that kind of thing before, just talking and talking until it fixed something.
He didn’t think it could fix anything here.
“You know,” Lee started, “Fred once promised me a thousand Galleons if I sang a Celestina Warbeck song at his funeral. During the war, he… thought about that kind of thing a lot.”
Ginny let out a quietly amused scoff. “Which song?”
“Beat Back Those Bludgers, Boys, and Chuck That Quaffle Here.”
When she laughed, it struck him like the first chord of a song, low and melancholy, and unexpectedly familiar. He held onto that familiarity, held onto the idea that if he recorded her, he could press play on the wireless and hear that sound again and again.
Ginny wiped away a stray tear. “He wanted you to sing the Puddlemere United song at his funeral?”
“Thought it might incite a riot.”
“Oh, it might have done.” Ginny sniffled. “What stopped you?”
“I didn’t think anyone here would appreciate it.”
“I would have.”
It was silent for a moment. A bird whistled high up in the treetops.
Lee started a hum low in his throat and hoped he’d remember the tune before he humiliated himself. “Beat back those Bludgers, boys, and chuck that Quaffle here.”
Ginny’s knee pushed against his. “I’m nearly nine hundred and ninety-nine Galleons short, if you’re expecting payment.”
“There's no team that looks as fine, flying in their Quidditch gear.”
She chuckled, unsteadily, and wrapped an arm around herself. And Merlin, it hurt. It hurt like a curse to the chest, watching her sink into grief this way. She’d been the most vibrant person in any room for as long as he could remember, and now she was… Now she was a portrait in greyscale, as still and silent as something the Muggles drew.
“Aren’t you going to continue?” Ginny asked, her head ducked, hair curtaining her face.
“The world cup waits for you at the end of the Quidditch year. There is no retreat! Let's turn up the heat!”
Lee knew it wasn’t working, that he wouldn’t get a smile from her today, but he’d never learned when to quit. “So don't accept defeat! Time now to compete! Beat back those Bludgers, boys, and chuck that Quaffle here!”
He couldn’t tell if she was laughing or crying, but her shoulder shook against his. The breeze picked up, and he watched gooseflesh rise among the freckles on her bare knees.
“Are you cold?”
“No.” Ginny looked at him. Her eyes were rubbed raw from the past few days, cheeks splotchy red. “I don’t feel much of anything, to be honest.”
He turned his face to the ground. “Oh. Shit.”
She drew in a breath loudly enough for him to hear.
“You know, he—” Lee stopped himself. “Damn, sorry. Should I not—? I’m being an arse. You don’t want to talk about him.”
“No, I do,” she said forcibly. “Everybody else is skirting around it, trying to pretend… except mum, who’s crying every time she opens her mouth.” Ginny tucked her hands under her thighs and shivered. “Merlin, it feels good to talk about it.”
“Yeah.” The tight fist squeezing his heart let up a bit. “Never thought I’d see Percy cry.”
The shakey upturn of her lips didn’t feel as much like victory as he’d expected it to.
“He used to cry all the time when we were little,” she said. “When I was, I don’t know, five, maybe, he’d just got this train set for Christmas. Originally Muggle, I think, but Dad smuggled it home from work somehow and put charms on it so it would have a real steam engine. It worked until Fred—”
He knocked his shoulder against hers softly. “Until Fred what?”
“Until he and George made it pink, because they knew it was my favourite colour. It shot up in a burst and stained Percy’s face for days. He cried about it, saying they’d ruined it, until Dad managed to set it to rights.”
Her knee shifted away, and he felt it as keenly as any loss, settling low in the pit of his stomach.
Lee looked up as a drop of rain hit his nose. It was so light it might have been his imagination. The sky was still clear blue, but the air had grown thick. If they were at a Quidditch match, he’d have started putting the spells up over his announcing stand, making sure the sounds wouldn’t interfere with his audio.
“You have somewhere else to be, don’t you?” he asked.
“They won’t notice I’m missing.”
“Guarantee that isn’t true.”
Ginny worried her lip. “I’d rather just sit here, if it’s all the same to you.”
“Really… here? There’s got to be someplace better.”
Ginny glanced at the sky too. “Do you reckon there’s still food left at the reception?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said, mind already ticking. “Booze, as well.”
“Now you’re talking.”
Lee got to his feet and left out a hand. “Madame?”
After a second’s hesitation, Ginny took it.
~
They raided the reception to retrieve a leftover platter of cheese and savoury biscuits. Then Lee grabbed an unopened bottle of wine and as many little cakes as he could fit in a crumpled up napkin.
They walked all the way out to a little duck pond, far from the graves.
Even though Lee had put on his best dress robes and his good trousers that morning, and even though the grass was still damp from days of rain, he sat down beside her to consume their haul.
The cold wet seeped through the fabric right to his skin.
Ginny tossed an olive in the air and he caught it in his mouth, then he popped the cork on the wine and proffered her the first swig.
He watched her head tip back, watched the long line of her throat stretch and constrict from her hearty chug.
Ginny pulled it away with her eyes slightly clouded and wiped her fist across her mouth. “Okay, you first: one memory with Fred. A good one.”
A smile crept onto his face. “I’ll give you the highlights. Flobberworms. Flitwick. And a very ambitious Summoning Charm.”
“That hardly counts.”
“Should I deprive you of your imagination? I could never be so cruel.” Lee took the wine. “You.”
“He and George were about to go off to Hogwarts, and they really wanted to make sure they made an impression during their first week. They were sneaking around for months planning. Then my mum found their stash while she was cleaning.”
“Oh, Merlin.”
“Exploding candies, Woolie’s Wart-tastic prank kits, Burn-Your-Mouth Chocolate Frogs, fever inducing bonbons. Mum lost her head, but they were cackling like mad, racing down the hall to get away from her, so I knew they weren’t in any real trouble. Nothing they couldn’t talk their way out of, at least.”
“People forget that about them—how well they could talk.” He made it sound like they were both dead, the way he said it.
“Their punishments were never as harsh as mine,” Ginny agreed. “They could—they could argue their way from a month’s grounding to a week saying things like, ‘Oh, but really, mum, if you only look at the damage we actually did, not what we intended to do—”
Lee laughed. “That’s proper good reasoning, if you ask me.”
Ginny wiped at her eyes again. “God, I hate crying.”
Lee took another swig of wine. “Once, we sneaked some catnip into McGonagall’s Christmas stocking. And a hairball prevention potion.”
She laughed just as the sky split open, and rain began pelting at their faces.
It was still sunny. Somehow, it was still sunny. It was like the wind was blowing the rain from some distant storm their way, leaving the sky clear, robin’s egg blue. The raindrops shone golden orange in the air, and threw ripples across the pond.
“Do you want to leave?” he asked, pitching his voice louder to be heard properly.
“No.” She was emphatic. Ginny collapsed back against the grass, her arms stretching out at her sides, her knees up to the sky.
He watched the hem of her dress slip up her bare thigh and forced himself to look away, at her face.
Her brown eyes were shadowed, and water had spattered against her freckles and made her thick coppery hair collect in ropes around her face, plaster to her forehead.
Slowly, he reclined back with her. As if they were running some Quidditch play they’d practiced a thousand times, he knew to look at her just as she looked at him.
She didn’t take her eyes off him.
“Everyone’s been weird,” she said, too loudly. But the rain was still streaming down, and the only reason he was sure that’s what she said was because he was focused on her lips.
Lee had felt weird too, since the war. Like his skin was stretched too tight and he had to be ready for something—whatever it was—the second it came. There was a part of him that still waited urgently for more news, more deaths, another missive from his parents begging him to come hide with them.
He’d had dreams that it was him reporting Fred’s death on Potterwatch, sometimes George’s too. Then other dreams where he was a soldier, and Oliver Wood was shouting orders at him.
We need to swarm the enemy sickbay.
Sir, yes sir!
It’s up to you, men, to take their lives in your hands. Do you accept the responsibility?
Sir, yes sir!
Lee! Do you have your weapon?
He’d look down, and there would be a Beater’s bat clutched in his hands, or a radio, or some shapeless blob he couldn’t even make out. He never had time to answer.
Good! Now get out there and let’s win us a WAR!
Ginny turned her face to the ground, almost burying it in the grass. After a while, her shoulders began to heave, and he let it go on for a minute before he asked, “Is there anyone you want me to get? Anyone that could… I don’t know what to do here.”
She looked up, bits of grass sticking to her face. “No. I don’t know. Luna’s been a help, but she’s so… disconnected from it all. And Harry’s in his own world.” She smiled blearily, hiding some other emotion he couldn’t place, and rubbed at her face until the debris fell from her cheeks. “Sorry. You can go.”
“No, no. I don’t have anywhere to be. I swear.”
“I’m crying a lot.”
“It’s a funeral. Even if you start dancing, I’m not stopping you.”
“What about when I go streaking through the reception?”
He imagined it, and he knew that the image would be burnt into his mind, flashing through his dreams that night. “That’ll be charming. I’ll make sure to get my good camera.”
Ginny smirked. She’d aimed that expression at him a thousand times, but now it seemed plastered over her real emotions like an ill-fitting mask.
The rain softened, to where he could hear birds perking up from their hiding spots in the trees, and Ginny’s breath evened out.
“Your turn,” he said, voice hushed.
She nodded and closed her eyes, lashes dark auburn against her cheeks, beaded with water. Merlin, he could not get his head on straight today. This wasn’t just some girl. This was Ginny. But, fuck, she was beautiful.
“My third year, they were prepping for the Yule Ball. Obviously, Fred took Angelina—”
Lee remembered. He’d had a thing for her at the time, so he was fuming jealous, but he never said it. He went on a date with her once, a year later, and they’d had a few laughs, but ultimately she wasn’t as interested in him as he was in her.
“I had to try really hard to get a date,” Ginny continued. “I wanted to go so badly. Once Neville asked me, I was over the moon, but my nicest dress was—well, it was one of mum’s old things. Gorgeous, really, but huge on me, and it was ancient enough that she’d had to patch it up several times. I looked like a quilt.”
He couldn’t remember her that night. To be honest, he probably hadn’t paid any attention to his best mates’ little sister, not when they were kids. But now that they were older… Well, now, three years’ difference didn’t seem so big.
“Fred helped me Transfigure the dress into something wearable when I came to him crying, even though there were only a few hours before the ball, and Angelina wanted to… well, at the time, he said they wanted to “study” together, but I have a feeling that wasn’t true.”
Lee snorted.
“He helped me undo the Charms too, so mum never noticed. He really… he really was brilliant. They never talk about that, but when it came to magic, he and George were leagues better than anyone else their age.”
“Smarter, too.”
“Yes! Everyone always thinks Percy is the smartest, but he… oh, I don’t want to say anything bad about Percy anymore. He’s here. There used to be times I would think that he wouldn’t… that if anyone was lost in the war he’d… I thought about it too, you know? Especially Dad, with his position at the ministry, and Ron gone off with Harry.”
“Yeah.”
Ginny sniffed. “But he’s here. So, he’s still an arse, but he gets a pass.”
She let out a long exhale and sat up. Her dress clung to her skin, and water droplets collected in soft pearls across her chest, her arms, the place where her neck met her shoulder. And he was… the biggest idiot in the world.
“Do you have the time?” Ginny asked.
Lee took the excuse to look away. “Er, yeah. Nearly noon.”
“They’re having a wake back at the Burrow. I should…”
“Yeah, yeah, of course. You—”
“Come with me?”
Lee paused. “I thought it was only family.”
“So? Mum won’t care. And Harry will be there too. Hermione probably as well. Besides, you’re practically family anyway.”
“Not like they are.”
Ginny frowned. “So, what? You’re not allowed to come but my awful aunt Muriel can? She hated Fred.”
“No one hated Fred.”
“And that’s exactly that kind of stupid, sunny optimism this wake will be lacking.”
Lee cracked a smile.
“Please?” Her eyes were so brown, like dark wet river stones begging him to slip and fall. She combed her hair over one shoulder with her fingers, and squeezed the rain out. “I’m not asking again. I’m not that pathetic.”
Since the war, Lee’d got this feeling sometimes, that there was something bigger than him moving through his body. It sent a chill up his back, made his teeth grind and his muscles tense, but he’d come to trust it. Maybe because a part of him recognized the feeling—brave and passionate and so much like Fred’s magic it once left him dry-heaving. If it was Fred looking out for him, making sure he didn’t leave the important decisions up to chance, this was one of them.
All right, mate. Wouldn’t be the first time I went along with one of your schemes.
All he said to Ginny was, “Of course.”
~
The Burrow was bursting at the seams, voices leaking out of the windows, people streaming in through the door. As soon as they walked inside, Ginny was grabbed away by some relative, and he was left standing there in the entryway, surrounded by more gingers than he’d ever seen in his life.
A man and two hundred redheads walk into a pub—no, not quite. He’d work on it.
But Lee felt as out of place as he would have in the Slytherin common room. He was just about to retreat, feeling guilty but unneeded anyway, when he caught sight of George.
George sitting alone in the front room, a bottle of Firewhiskey untouched beside him. His face was completely blank, and the loudness of the house seemed to make his silence all the more incarcerating.
Lee took a step forward, then another.
Someone brushed past him, bumping his shoulder, and Lee was shoved bodily into an umbrella stand.
George looked up.
When his eyes locked on Lee’s, Lee expected… anything.
Anger, relief, sadness—he’d have taken it all, just for simple recognition.
But it was like George couldn’t see anything in front of him. His eyes were glazed and far away, even when they looked right at him.
Lee stepped closer, until he finally took a seat on the old, floral sofa adjacent to George. A puff of dust rose up from beneath him.
He didn’t say anything, and neither did George, but he felt like being there was more important than whatever came out of his mouth. Maybe the most important thing he could do, today.
Even though it was packed, Lee hardly recognized anyone, except for Bill, who gave him a nod and clapped his shoulder as he passed. Something released in his chest, unspoken permission to stay, and Lee sunk back further into his seat.
He did not know where Mr and Mrs Weasley were, or where the twins’ other brothers were hiding, but he wished he were with them.
It was selfish. He knew it. But he would’ve taken even Auntie Muriel’s company over the emptiness beside him.
Someone had carved a hole out of the world, and it was sitting right next to him.
Say something, Lee demanded. Anything, dammit. But neither of them did.
He realized he hadn’t heard George’s voice since the battle.
Of course, George hadn’t spoken at the funeral. Arthur had given the eulogy. George had been there like this, stone-faced and pale. He hadn’t cried. He didn’t join the rest of the family after the main service in saying their final goodbyes, either.
Privately, Lee thought he’d never say any sort of goodbye. It was too damn permanent.
In the end, it was Ron who saved him from his silent battle with himself.
He saw Lee just as he escaped from the crowded hall into the front room, and his hunched shoulders relaxed by a margin.
“Hey, mate.” Ron rubbed at his eyes. “Glad you could make it.”
“Yeah.” Lee cleared his throat, finding it surprisingly dry. “Sure. Of course.”
“A few of us are going to go upstairs where it’s… less of all this.” Ron gestured vaguely. “I came to get George. You wanna join?”
It was an interesting trade off. Lee’d finally have some place to be, but he’d still be in the same room as George.
“I… yeah, that’d be all right.”
Ron gave him a thin smile and stepped past to grab George by the elbow. “Come on, now. You’ve managed down here long enough. Mum won’t hold it against you for leaving.”
Lee wasn’t sure if George heard Ron or just responded to the tugging, but he got to his feet and let Ron lead them up the old, rickety staircase to the upper floors.
It was darker there, but one of the bedroom doors was propped open, so a bolt of light punctured the dim.
Lee thought there must be a Silencing Charm over the room until the moment they stepped inside, but then it was clear that wasn’t true.
People were sprawled around the cramped space in all kinds of manners—gathered on the beds, perched on the windowsill, sitting on trunks and desks and the floor, but the only conversation was held in a few low murmurs.
Ginny sat on one of the beds beside Harry, his arm around her, with Hermione across from them on an old trunk.
Lee felt unnerved. Surely there should be someone in every room you felt more comfortable standing beside than Percy Weasley, but there wasn’t.
Lee did it anyway.
Percy was sat in one of the desk chairs, as tidy and buttoned up as always, but his face was red and sweaty, and he was clinging to a glass of wine. He nodded at Lee as he stepped closer and took a hasty sip before motioning with a jerk of his head towards the desk.
Lee raised himself onto it with hesitation. It seemed like what everyone else was doing, so he might as well, but he’d never felt as wrong-footed in his life.
Why couldn’t he think of a single funny thing to say? Something to break the ice, at least.
Lee watched Ron guide George over to sit beside Charlie, who was propped up against the window, a beanbag at his feet. Then, of course, Ron took his place by Hermione, and the room was still.
Ginny caught his eye, and gave him a shaky smile before she turned away to murmur something to Harry.
“You know, it’s the principle of the thing,” Percy said.
“What?”
“He’s so out of it he couldn’t even say a word at his own brother’s funeral. It’s absurd.”
“You blame him?” Lee watched Ginny lean her head on Harry’s shoulder and close her eyes.
When he glanced away, Percy looked aghast.
“I think we should’ve waited; that’s what I think. But British wizards,” he huffed, “two weeks maximum and they have to be in the ground. Oh no, don’t account for all the other funerals we’ve had in the past few weeks. Just keep pushing till it’s done.” Percy tweaked his glasses, and he took another swig of his drink.
“That’s another thing,” Percy said, “all the pushing. It can’t be good for him, can it? But there we go—push, push, push. ‘Talk to us. How are you feeling?’ Do you know what the papers—” he drank again, “do you know what the papers asked me? They asked, ‘What was the last thing your brother said to you?’”
Percy let out a slightly hysterical laugh and pulled at his shirt collar. “And I told them, ‘Why, just a few short hours before, he called me a Ministry-loving, family-disowning, power-hungry moron,’ and do you know what—for some reason they didn’t find that very funny.”
Lee could only stare at him.
“He’d have found it funny,” Percy insisted. “He’d have found it hilarious, actually, and I suppose I’m meant to take some great comfort in that, but I refuse. I refuse. He meant it well, I know that, because the incomprehensible thing was that he loved me.”
“He—”
“And the actual last thing he said to me? It was the last thing he ever said to anyone. Did you know? And so I’m up late at night thinking, ‘If I hadn’t made a joke, maybe he wouldn’t have been distracted, maybe—’”
“Perce, how much wine have you had?”
“—I suppose I’ve had about thirty ounces, give or take. A bit from several different bottles, you see, but probably only about one bottle total.” Percy took another drink. “He said them to me, his last words. It wasn’t supposed to be like that. That’s a cruel, cruel joke the universe played on us. And I hadn’t seen him for—I hadn’t seen him for months and—”
Lee scanned the room for someone to help him out and found Ginny already watching. She slid off the bed without a word and approached.
“Oh, Gin,” Percy said, “I was just telling Lee—hey, stop that.”
Gin had taken the wine from him and drained the glass. “More downstairs if you want it.”
Percy slumped in his seat. “Rather far away, isn’t it?” His tone was petulant, but Lee couldn’t help feeling sorry for him.
Unexpectedly, Ginny’s face softened, and she put a hand on Percy’s shoulder. “Try to keep it together, all right? The day will be over soon enough.”
“Then there’ll be another day. And another after that.”
Ginny chewed on her lip. “Yeah. I suppose there will.”
She sidled up next to Lee and leveraged herself onto the desk in one sharp, jerky motion. She was halfway to being sloshed herself, he realised. “You seen Bill?”
“Downstairs. He was making the rounds.”
“We asked him to keep mum busy for a while so all of us could get some space. Damn depressing down there.”
He huffed half of a laugh. “I suspect Fred would’ve been devastated to see that this was the party we threw after he died.”
Ginny smiled a little. “Yeah.”
“Can’t imagine what he’d have said.”
Ginny cleared her throat and put on a deeply appalled voice. “A man only dies once, and here you all are spoiling it!”
From over on the bed, there was a sudden, sharp laugh.
Lee looked up and found Ron watching them, a ghost of amusement on his face.
“He’d have probably wanted fireworks,” Ron added.
Everyone seemed to tune in at once, the smaller conversations dying down, and suddenly the room felt a lot less divided. They were there together.
“Music, too.” Charlie had a slight grin on his face. “Something that would really shock everyone.”
“Something ghastly,” Hermione agreed.
“Maybe something from that band, Haunt You From Hogsmeade,” Ginny threw in.
“He’d have wanted us to play Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” Lee said. “Or In My Time of Dying.”
“The Grateful Dead,” Harry put in.
The tiniest laugh came from Percy, but then he shook his head.
“What?” Ginny prodded.
“I can’t.”
“Please?”
Percy shook his head again before, so low Lee wasn’t sure the people across the room would hear it, he said, “That Muggle song. (I Just) Died in Your Arms Tonight or whatever it’s called.”
Ginny let out a real, true laugh.
Hermione blushed before she said, “Death Cab for Cutie?” but Ron nodded with the kind of enthusiasm only alcohol could bring.
“Bloody hell, don’t be embarrassed. Percy’s was a lot worse, and Fred would’ve liked them both.” Then Ron tilted his head, thoughtful, and added, “Candle in the Wind would’ve been his favourite. Flair for the dramatic, that one.”
Lee hid his laugh. Understatement of the bloody century. If Fred could’ve hired the Frog Choir from Hogwarts to serenade him mournfully as his coffin was lowered into the ground, he’d have done it.
“The Skeleton Twins.”
Everyone looked at the window.
The voice came, short and rough, from where George was sitting on the floor. The room went quiet. George did not look up, but then a chuckle escaped Charlie’s lips, and then leapt around the room like a startled Patronus, hitting them one by one.
Yes, The Skeleton Twins.
Fred would’ve liked that. It was a Wizarding rock band, if Lee remembered right, and he would’ve appreciated the joke more than anything else they’d said so far.
Which was no surprise. No one could make the twins laugh harder than each other.
“We could put a bit of music on,” Hermione suggested gently. “I could cast a charm so they don’t hear us downstairs.”
They all waited, hoping George would weigh in, but he didn’t.
“I do believe I’d like that,” Percy finally decided.
So Ron got up and dug around until he found the wireless, and then he switched it on.
Celestina Warbeck’s crooning tones came out first, and they all stared at one another for a second before, wordlessly, Ron changed the station.
The next one came out too hard, fierce and upbeat, and Ron was about to change it again before Ginny said, “Wait, I like this one.”
“Yeah,” Harry said. “Er… The Weird Sisters. Pretty good, you know?”
Ron shrugged and stepped away.
The music brought something into the room that hadn’t been there before, some energy that swept through them like the crowd before a big game. Laughing was easier, and talking didn’t feel like they were violating some unwritten rule of silence.
He spoke to Charlie for a bit, not about anything important, just nattering about what Lee might like to do for work, and if he’d ever want to check out the dragons on the reserve.
Eventually Bill came up, and when he saw them all gathered around looking, at least for a moment, like any normal group of teenagers, he gave Ginny a firm nod and promised them another hour.
Later, Percy got absorbed in some discussion with Harry, and Lee left to go sit on one of the abandoned trunks near the back.
Ginny walked over and sat beside him.
They were silent for a long moment.
“Got the full Percy treatment, did you?” Ginny asked. Her hands were tucked between her knees, her ankles stuck out to the sides. As she spoke, she ground her toe into the floor, and the heel of her shoe slipped off her foot.
“Has he been like that this entire time?”
“Mostly, yeah.”
“He seemed like my safest bet, walking in here. Might’ve made the wrong call on that one.”
She frowned. “Safer than me?”
“You were… busy.”
Ginny’s movement paused, and then she began it again, like she was trying to wear a hole in the hardwood.
Just as Lee was about to say, “Right,” and announce his early departure, Ginny spoke.
“You’ll come around again, won’t you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Just, with Fred gone, and George how he is… it would be weird. To never see you again.”
Lee scratched at his neck. “You’ll see me again.”
“Will I?”
“Yeah, ‘course. You can be sure of that.”
“Good. Because, you know, you’ve always been… it was the three of you, not just the twins. And with Fred and George all… I couldn’t stand—”
He put his hand on hers, right atop her knee, and her movement stilled. “You’ll see me again.”
She looked at his hand, then at him, and as soon as her lips parted, he pulled away.
It was just in time, too, because then Harry came over, and Ginny shot to her feet like she couldn’t get away fast enough.
“Hey!” she said. “Hey. Going back downstairs?”
Everyone else was still having enough of a good time, the conversation not yet died down, but Lee didn’t blame anyone for wanting to leave. The evening had come, nighttime settling in outside the window, and it was a hard day to want to spend around other people, pretending everything didn’t feel wrong.
“Wha… er, yeah.” His speech was slow and slurred, and Lee realised Harry was completely pissed, more so than he’d given him credit for. “I was jus’ gonna say g’bye to your parents, an’ then…” He looked at Lee, and his eyes seemed to focus and unfocus behind those famous glasses of his. “Heyy, mate. Didn’ see you there.”
Lee stood as well, feeling like he was about to watch someone crash in a tangled heap. “You sure you want Molly and Arthur to see you like this?”
“Hm…? Oh. Feels rude dunnit? To leave w’thout saying g’bye.”
“You aren’t staying the night with Ron?” Ginny asked. Lee was glad to hear she didn’t sound upset by Harry’s state, but strangely disappointed, too.
Harry was about to answer, until the door swung open, and everything stopped.
Mrs Weasley stood there, her face pale and her eyes wide.
All conversation fell to a hush.
She just stood there, taking in the suddenly too-loud music, the disco lights Charlie had charmed to flash beside the wireless, and George backed away in the far corner, a faint smile on his face until he looked up.
The Weird Sisters rocked to silence while the rest of the room seemed to be in a trance.
Ron pushed up from the bed and took one halting step forward. “Mum.”
Mrs Weasley shook her head.
“Mum,” Ginny echoed, helplessly, “wait.”
But she spun around, bumping straight into Bill as he was rushing up the stairs to stop her. His hands grabbed her shoulders to keep them both from falling, but as soon as she was recovered, she pushed past him and disappeared from the doorway.
It was quiet enough to hear the thunk, thunk, thunk as she descended the stairs.
Hermione stopped the wireless.
They all looked at each other.
“I think everyone had better leave,” Percy murmured.
It wasn’t exactly a rush out the door, but the space was cleared within a minute, and they descended the stairs like guilty children. Lee came the very last aside from George, who did not move from his spot on the floor.
Bill had disappeared chasing after his mum, but Arthur was standing at the bottom of the staircase, confusion written all over his face.
He looked older, Lee realised. Older than he’d ever seen him.
Mr Weasley shook Harry’s hand blankly as he passed, and accepted a hug from Hermione without his expression changing, but when he saw Lee coming down, something cleared in his eyes, if only for a second.
He stuck out his hand, firm and strong, and Lee shook it, and he thought that it felt a lot smaller and frailer than he remembered it being.
“Mr Weasley,” he said. “I…”
“Thank you for coming. Molly and I were glad to see you.”
“Yeah. Yeah, of course.”
Lee watched Hermione and Ron lead Harry over to the fireplace to Floo home. The downstairs was mostly cleared out now, and he couldn’t help feeling they’d all overstayed their welcome.
Ginny was beside him, her face to the floor.
“I think I’m heading up to bed,” Mr Weasley said.
“Dad—” Ginny started.
“Goodnight, love.” He kissed her on the head as distractedly as he’d dismissed everyone else, and then he began the slow climb up.
Lee had never thought the Burrow particularly large before, but the stairs looked like they went up forever.
Ginny pushed away towards the kitchen.
He followed her without thinking, and only realised once he was in there that she probably didn’t want company. But without a word, she offered him the plate of pasties she was digging into.
Lee waved her away and took the seat adjacent to the head of the long table, swinging the chair around so he could sit with his arms resting against the back.
Ginny sat at the head, biting viciously into a pasty in a way that reminded him of Ron.
“You sure—” she swallowed her mouthful of food roughly, “you sure you don’t want anything? Mum stress cooks. She’ll want it gone before it goes bad or poor Harry will end up with eight shepherd’s pies under a stasis charm in his kitchen.”
Lee actually was a bit hungry, but he’d mostly forgotten about food the past few days. He guessed that morning at the duck pond had been the closest thing to a proper meal he’d had for weeks.
“Yeah, all right.”
“Grab the bowl of mash. The one with the big spoon.”
There was a huge, crystal bowl full of fluffy white potatoes sitting beside the stove, virtually untouched.
He brought it over, and Ginny dug in immediately with her fork. “Fuck.” She let out a half scream. “Aggghh! Today was awful.”
“It was shit,” he said bluntly.
“Fuck yes, it was. The worst.” She nudged the ladle at him. “Go on.”
For a spoon, it was comically large, but Lee was ravenous, and between the two of them they polished the potatoes off in a quarter of an hour.
Ginny sat back in her chair and sighed, her hands on her stomach.
He felt calm for the first time in… days. He knew it wouldn’t last, but he soaked up every moment of it.
Ron stepped into the kitchen shortly after, and he assembled a sandwich from the leftovers on the counter and scarfed it down before he said anything.
“I’m off to bed.” His voice was gruff. “Gin, Hermione’s going to crash out in your room, all right?”
“Yeah, sure. Check on George when you head up?”
“Got it.” He roughed Ginny’s shoulder as he passed, and then patted Lee on the back. “See you around, eh?”
“Send me an owl if—you know, if George ever needs anything.”
Ron patted him again. “Good man.” Then he took the stairs up two at a time.
The house was quiet. Lee didn’t know where Mrs Weasley had disappeared to.
Ginny let her head fall against the table, and she let out a long breath.
“All right?”
“You should probably leave before I start crying again.”
“If you want me to.”
She shifted her head so it was facing him and gave the barest smile. “If I want you to. Ha. Can’t imagine why I would want that.” She sighed again. “I’m glad Hermione’s staying. I’ve never felt so lonely in my life.”
Lee looked away, at the wall, and his eyes settled on the Weasley family clock.
He didn’t even realise what he was looking for until it wasn’t there.
“Where’s—”
Ginny pointed, and he found it, Fred’s spoon just a few centimetres below the others. It was supported by two nails underneath it, making a little ledge so it would stay stuck to the wall.
“What happened?”
“It fell off. No setting for death, was there?” Ginny straightened up, propping her cheek on her hand. “Mum wore it around her neck for a few days, but then she was worried she’d lose it.”
“Oh. Shit.”
The rain had started up again outside, and they could hear it through the windows. Maybe there was a werewolf nearby, or maybe it was the wind, but something was howling.
Ginny laid her face back on the cool wood of the breakfast table.
“I should go,” Lee said, and she nodded.
But he stayed another thirty minutes, just listening to the rain, and the sound of Ginny’s breathing as she drifted off.
The near silence was somehow still not as quiet as back home would be. Where his parents were. Lee loved his mum and dad, of course he did, and he found a new god to thank every day that they’d all survived the war, but somehow the house felt just as empty with them in it as it did when he was by himself. Maybe because he knew there was nothing waiting for him outside.
Fred, the best mate a man could ask for, had disappeared in the blink of an eye. And George, the other half of a whole, was now only a shadow of himself, set on haunting the Burrow and nowhere else.
It was time, Lee knew, time to leave. No matter how much he didn’t want to. While he was here, he could pretend Ginny needed him as much as he wanted her to. As much as he wanted anyone to.
But she didn’t. She’d wake up in the morning and have her boyfriend, and Hermione, and four and a half brothers there to help her move through the grief, and he couldn’t expect to insert himself into the middle of it like he still had a place here.
Lee stood, and he snuffed one of the candles between two fingers as he departed, leaving Ginny in something closer to darkness.
They wouldn’t speak to each other again for nearly three months.