Chapter Text
Ginny lay on cold stone. The damp breathed through her robes. It crept over her skin in slow, icy waves until she could no longer tell where the floor ended and her body began. Tiny snakes emerged from the cracks between the stones, gliding silently over her feet and around her wrists. Impossibly cold. They hissed softly as they slithered over one another. Twisting together into one impossible mass before slowly becoming a single enormous serpent.
It coiled around her body, tightening just enough to steal her breath, its enormous head lowering until its yellow eyes filled her world.
Its tongue flicked out.
"Enemies of the Heir… Beware..."
The hiss echoed and bounced around the Chamber of Secrets. Suddenly she was standing. Her back was pressed against the slimy stone wall of the Chamber.
She was free.
A narrow passage stretched out before her.
She ran.
Her footsteps echoed unnaturally loudly as she sprinted between the towering columns.
She only had to reach the end.
A column moved. It wasn't stone. A hooded Death Eater raising a wand.
A curse flashed past her shoulder.
She kept running.
Another column shifted. Another Death Eater.
Every pillar she passed came alive, each transforming into another masked witch or wizard. They seemed to grow out of the stone itself, turning towards her one by one until dozens of masks were watching her.
Spells tore through the air. Red and Green.
"Crucio!"
Pain exploded through her body.
It felt as though every bone cracked apart at once while fire spread through her veins.
She screamed but somehow kept moving.
"Crucio!"
The pain came again. Sharper.
Every nerve was screaming for her to stop, but she couldn't.
She didn't dare.
She turned a corner and Bellatrix Lestrange was waiting. Smiling as though she had known Ginny would come.
"Avada Kedavra."
Green light flooded everything.
She felt herself falling backwards into endless darkness—
"NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!"
Ginny bolted upright with a gasp.
Her heart slammed painfully against her ribs, and cold sweat clung to every inch of her skin despite the warmth of the room. Her breathing came in short, panicked bursts as she instinctively reached for her wand before freezing.
The familiar wooden walls slowly came into focus, covered in the same posters that had hung there for years.
Above her bed, a large poster of Gwenog Jones, captain of the Holyhead Harpies, smiled down at her and gave her an enthusiastic wave. Beside it hung an older poster of the Weird Sisters, the band members taking turns bowing dramatically to an invisible audience.
A window overlooked the orchard and the rambling garden surrounding the Burrow.
Beneath the window stood a small oak desk. Its surface was cluttered with rolls of parchment, bottles of ink, scattered quills and neat stacks of brand-new seventh-year textbooks she had only recently bought for what would be her final year at Hogwarts.
The room itself was neither large nor elegant. The furniture didn't match, the floorboards creaked, and almost every surface bore the marks of years of use.
But it was home.
Ginny wiped trembling fingers across her forehead before turning towards the clock on her bedside table.
4:00 a.m.
She let out a slow, shaky breath.
She already knew she wasn't getting back to sleep.
On unsteady legs, Ginny climbed out of bed.
She pulled on a pair of faded Muggle jeans, a T-shirt and an oversized hoodie before quietly opening her bedroom door. Every step made her wince as she carefully avoided the floorboards she knew would creak. The Burrow was still asleep. She slipped down the crooked staircase, eased the front door open and stepped into the cool morning air.
The garden lay silent beneath the last darkness of night.
Without hesitating, Ginny crossed the dew-covered grass and hurried towards the old broom shed. The familiar smell of broom twigs greeted her as she opened the door.
Several brooms leaned against the wall.
Her hand instinctively found her Cleansweep Eleven. Or rather, Ron's old Cleansweep Eleven.
She swung one leg over the broom and kicked off the ground.
Within seconds she was climbing rapidly into the dark sky, leaving the Burrow shrinking beneath her. The cold air rushed against her face. She welcomed it. Anything to drown out the memory of Bellatrix.
She flew hard. Fast turns. Sharp dives. Steep climbs that made her stomach lurch.
She practised feints, rolls and tight turns, pushing the Cleansweep as far as it would go. Every manoeuvre demanded complete concentration, forcing her mind away from dreams and memories.
Soon her muscles burned. Her breathing became heavy. Sweat soaked through her hoodie, dripping from her forehead for reasons that had nothing to do with fear.
She stayed in the air until her arms ached from gripping the broom handle and her legs trembled with exhaustion.
Only then did she slow.
The sun had climbed high on the sky, bathing the countryside in warm golden light when Ginny turned the broom towards home.
The Burrow waited below, glowing softly in the sunshine, looking exactly as it always had.
Ginny landed softly and carried the Cleansweep back towards the old broom shed before carefully placing it inside. Her muscles ached pleasantly from the training, the exhaustion finally replacing the lingering panic from the nightmare.
She took a moment outside before walking back towards the house. The Burrow was already awake. Faint sounds of movement came from inside, along with the familiar creaks and noises of a house that was never truly quiet.
When Ginny stepped into the kitchen, the smell of breakfast immediately met her.
Her mother looked up from the stove, her eyes narrowing slightly as she took in Ginny's appearance.
"Were you out training again?" Molly asked.
Ginny froze for half a second before forcing herself to act casual.
"Yeah. I need to get back into shape if I want a place on the Quidditch team this year," she said lightly, as though that was the only reason she had been flying before sunrise.
Molly studied her for a moment.
She clearly wasn't completely convinced, but she knew Ginny well enough to know when not to push.
"Hmm," she hummed.
Then changed the subject completely and said:
"Harry is here. He's waiting for you in the sitting room."
Ginny blinked in surprise.
"Harry?"
Molly nodded.
"He arrived a little while ago."
Any thought of breakfast disappeared immediately.
Ginny hurried through the kitchen doorway and towards the sitting room, her heart suddenly beating for an entirely different reason.
Harry stood up from the armchair the moment Ginny stepped into the sitting room.
He had clearly been waiting for her for a while. He stood there with his hands wrapped around his wand, his thumb running nervously over the smooth wood as if he didn't quite know what to do with himself.
"Hi, Ginny," he said hesitantly.
Ginny stopped in the doorway.
Only a moment earlier, she had been excited to see him again. After everything they had been through, after the battle and everything they had lost, a part of her had still hoped that seeing Harry would feel like coming home.
But the uncertainty on his face changed everything.
She could already tell this wasn't just a visit to say hello.
"Long time no see," she said quietly, studying him.
"Yeah..." Harry looked down for a moment. "I've been busy the last few weeks. The trials against the Death Eaters have slowly started, and I'm often at the Ministry. And I've also been looking for an apartment. My Auror training starts soon too."
He rubbed the back of his neck, almost looking embarrassed by his own explanation. As if he knew that being busy didn't fully explain why he had waited this long to come see her.
Ginny slowly nodded.
She had been busy too. She had been dealing with her own nightmares, trying to figure out who she was after the war and learning how to live with everything she had seen.
But she had still hoped.
"Hey, we're technically still broken up, so you don't owe me anything," she said, attempting a joke as she stepped a little closer.
Harry's lips twitched slightly, but the smile never reached his eyes.
"Yeah... that's actually why I came. To talk about that."
He took a deep breath.
"You know I care about you. I always will. But I think the war changed us. It definitely changed me, and..."
He trailed off.
Ginny could see him searching for the right words.
"I'm not ready for a relationship right now," he continued. "I have too much going on with my Auror training and the trials."
She felt the words hit and her heart sank.
"I don't expect you to wait for me until I figure things out," Harry said quickly. "Maybe I'll never be ready. I just needed to..."
"Break up with me again," Ginny finished quietly.
Harry looked ashamed.
He didn't look relieved. He didn't look like someone who wanted to hurt her. He looked like someone who knew he was hurting her anyway.
He slowly nodded.
"Okay..." Ginny took a deep breath, forcing herself to keep her voice steady. "It's not like I expected us to move into a mansion together and have three pure-blood offspring right now."
Her tone came out sharper than she intended.
"Please, don't be angry," Harry said softly. "You're my family. You always will be. I love you. I'm just not..."
He stopped himself.
Ginny looked at him. She already knew what he was going to say.
"You're just not in love with me anymore."
Harry's expression fell slightly.
"You mean everything to me," he said quickly. "It's not because there's someone else. It's not that. I'm just not the same person anymore and I..."
He sighed and shook his head.
"Yeah. I'm sorry."
Ginny looked away for a moment, blinking quickly as she fought to keep the tears from falling.
She had lost so much.
She had lost Fred. She had lost the world she had known. And now she was losing the future she had once imagined with Harry.
But she couldn't force someone to stay.
"That's what it is..." she said quietly. "Thank you for telling me."
Harry nodded.
For a moment, it seemed like he wanted to say something else. Like he might hug her or find some final words that could make this hurt less.
But there were no words that could make it hurt less.
"I have to go," he said eventually. "I have to testify at a trial."
Ginny simply nodded.
Harry hesitated one last time, looking at her as if he wanted to memorize the moment.
Then he turned toward the door.
And he left.
Ginny stood frozen in the middle of the sitting room long after the door had closed behind Harry.
She didn't move and didn’t cry.
She simply stared at the empty space where he had been standing, as if her mind was still trying to catch up with what had just happened.
She had known, somewhere deep down, that this might happen. She had known the war had changed him. It had changed all of them.
But knowing something and hearing the words out loud were two completely different things.
Only when Molly stepped into the room did Ginny finally seem to return to herself.
"Did Harry leave again? Already?" her mother asked.
Ginny turned around quickly, almost too quickly, and wiped at her eyes before Molly could notice the tears threatening to fall.
"Yeah. Yeah, he just wanted to say hello."
"Really? This early in the morning?" Molly looked surprised. "He could have stayed for breakfast."
"He had to go to the Ministry. He's testifying at a trial," Ginny explained.
She looked around the room, searching for anything that could end the conversation before her mother noticed too much.
Molly's expression softened.
"I just wish we saw more of him these days," she said quietly.
Ginny swallowed.
"Yeah..." she replied, not really knowing what else to say.
"I was actually thinking about going to Diagon Alley today," Ginny said suddenly, forcing a lighter tone into her voice. "Maybe do some shopping." She moved towards the fireplace.
"Would you like some company?" Molly asked hopefully.
"No, no," Ginny said quickly. "I think I just need a day to myself."
She reached up and took a handful of Floo powder from the small container on the mantelpiece.
Molly watched her carefully.
"Are you sure?"
Ginny paused. For a moment, she almost turned around. Almost let herself fall apart.
Instead, she forced a small smile.
"I'm sure."
She stepped into the fireplace.
"Diagon Alley!"
She threw the powder at her feet, and emerald flames erupted around her.
Within seconds, Ginny was pulled away, spinning through the Floo network and leaving the Burrow behind.