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Sunday lunch at her parents house was becoming a fortnightly routine, or thereabouts. It still felt a little strange to say ‘her parents house’ and if she was honest with herself despite having lived with Harry in Grimmauld place for 3 months now, it still felt as though the Burrow was her real home. She was sure that, when their renovations were finished, when the place felt lighter and less steeped in memory, when it became normal and less of a dizzying adventure to wake up with him every day, then it would start to feel like home. But for now, whenHarry’s shifts aligned with her practices and they had a precious Sunday together, they headed to the Burrow, picking up Teddy on the way, and she felt settled.
The lunch had been a happy one. Ron and Hermione discussed all the flats they had been viewing, and expressed (to George and Harry’s outrage) a desire to live south of the Thames. Mum and Dad shared news of how well baby Victoire was doing (‘Really smiling now!’). George explained his new product idea for the shop - Belching Bonbons, which Mum firmly told him to stop discussing at the table. Ted sat in a high chair next to Harry, who carefully examined each piece of food, cut it into thin strips and placed it on Teddy’s plate, watching each mouthful with the concentration of someone handling a venomous tentacular.
By the early evening, when Teddy was overtired and thrashing about in Harry’s arms, they agreed that he would take him back to Andromeda’s and Ginny would meet him at home. ‘I’m just going to go to the orchard for a bit,’ she told him. He nodded, and she adored that he didn’t ask why, that he didn’t question why she would want to sit in the place of so many happy memories, doing nothing at all. Nor did he suggest that he come back and sit with her; he understood her desire for her own company without being offended or concerned at all.
She went, and sat among the long grass, and listened to the humming buzz of insects. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the quiet, her mind, for once, gloriously blank.
‘What’re you doing out here on your own?’ came an annoying voice. ‘Weirdo.’
She opened her eyes and scowled at Ron. ‘It is impossible to get five minutes alone in this family, even when you’ve moved out.’
‘Yeah, I know,’ he said, choosing to ignore the anvil sized hint and flopping down on the grass next to her.
‘Isn’t your girlfriend back in the house? Shouldn’t you be all over her?’
‘Her and Dad are talking about muggle stuff. It’s all completely going over my head and I realised you weren’t there so I thought I’d come and find you.’ He picked up a stick and started twirling it through his fingers.
Harry had lightly complained about Ron’s clinginess of late. In the year and a half that had passed since the battle, Ron had taken it upon himself to know exactly where everyone was at all times, and woe betide anyone that did not keep him informed.
‘Well, I’m here.’
‘Why haven’t you gone home with Harry?’
‘He’s taking Ted back first, and he likes to put him to bed and that can take ages. And anyway, I miss the orchard, I think it’s my favourite place in the world.’
‘Not your new home with your beloved boyfriend?’
‘No, not yet, but we’re getting there.’
‘How’re you finding living with Harry?’ he asked, poking at the grass with the stick.
She raised an eyebrow at him, and sniggered.
Ron rolled his eyes. ‘Oh, come on, you know I’m not asking for details, just checking, you know, that you’re OK…’
‘You don’t think I’m OK? Why wouldn’t I be OK?’
‘Fine, excuse me for checking on my little sister.’
She laughed, and looked back at the orchard, golden and perfect in the summer evening. The air was fragrant with apples. ‘It’s wonderful,’ she said at last. ‘We’re really happy.’
‘Good. You let me know when he starts to get annoying and I’ll sort him out for you.’ She snorted in derision, and gave him a playful whack. ‘I’m serious!’ he said. ‘I shared a dormitory with him for six years and then that miserable tent for what I think was about sixty more, and then a year of being in the flat. I’ve been around him 24/7 for about half my life, I know he can be annoying sometimes.’
‘Well, nothing annoying so far, sorry to steal your annoying boyfriend away, but I think I must just appreciate him more.’
‘He’s all yours, you can deal with his obsessions and moping.’
‘He doesn’t mope with me, I’m more fun than you.’
‘Not to mention him always wandering off.’
‘Eh?’
‘You’ll be walking somewhere with him, chatting away and then you’ll turn and he’s gone! Turns out he’s had some thought or idea and he’s stopped to have an epiphany or realised there’s someone shady he can tail. Then you realise he hasn’t been listening to you at all.’
‘Maybe you’re just really boring.’
‘You just wait. You’ll be having a really important conversation with him and he’ll suddenly say something about a murder.’
‘I feel this is an auror problem.’
‘No, it’s definitely a friends with Harry problem.’
‘You’re acting like I barely know him, I’m well aware he gets very focused on…’ she gestured vaguely, trying to find the word, ‘...murders.’
‘Focused is one way of putting it.’ He frowned. ‘And he always takes ages shaving.’
‘Are you trying to put me off him or something? What’s wrong with you?’
‘No!’ he exclaimed, looking rather stung. ‘Just making sure you’re OK.’
‘Well I am,’ she said stubbornly, and looked back at the orchard. A blackbird was flitting between the long grass and the thorny hedgerow. She opened her mouth, and closed it again.
‘What?’ said Ron immediately.
‘Nothing.’
‘You were going to say something,’ he urged.
‘It’s not annoying, just… It doesn’t matter.’
‘Go on.’
‘Only…’ She fixed her eyes on the blackbird, it’s little yellow beak opening to warble a mellow little song. ‘The nightmares,’ she said at last.
Ron didn’t say anything for a few moments, just sniffed and flicked the stick against the grass. ‘Yeah, well… we’re all having them these days, aren’t we?’ He looked awkwardly at her. ‘Aren’t we?’
‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘Of course. I just… it surprised me, the first time. I expect you’re used to it.’
‘Yeah, he’s always been a yapper while he’s asleep,’ Ron said easily. ‘It weirded Hermione out as well, when she first heard it.’
‘I just don’t know if… should I be waking him? Sometimes he sounds really distressed.’
‘I used to think that then realised the poor bloke would never get any sleep if I woke him every time he started muttering about spooky stuff during the night.’
‘He does just sleep right through it, doesn’t he?’ said Ginny, her eyebrows raised in slightly despairing amazement. ‘I wake and drowse through mine, but he must just be a deep sleeper.’
‘I dunno about that,’ said Ron. ‘I’ve seen him wake lots of times.’
‘Oh. He usually calms down a bit when…’ She remembered who she was talking to and stopped.
‘I don’t want to hear about you cuddling him,’ said Ron bluntly.
She tutted. ‘Well, OK, fine, yeah, but - it… does seem to make a difference having someone there with him, like it doesn’t end the nightmare but it it calms him and - and I think-’ She felt too awkward, and her face felt hot, so she stopped again.
Ron’s ears were very red too. ‘What’s the problem then?’ he said slightly aggressively.
‘There’s no problem, I told you it wasn’t annoying,’ she snapped. ‘It’s just sad isn’t it?’
‘Yes, his whole life’s been effing tragic.’
‘Yes that’s what I’m saying.’
‘Yeah… right then.’
‘Yeah.’
They looked away from one another, Ginny swiftly finding the blackbird again, remembering with fierce pain the previous night, where she had woken to hear him whimpering and pleading beside her, calling out for Sirius. She had slipped her arm over his side, and he had grasped her hand and pulled it to his chest, where she could feel his frantically beating heart.
‘It’s not nice to hear,’ said Ron after a long while. ‘And he doesn’t like it being brought up.’
‘Yeah I didn’t think he would.’ She picked at the grass. ‘I just feel bad, you know, mine are a bit different and more like insomnia and he’s so good at staying up with me and talking about something else until my brain’s not thinking about it anymore, but there’s not anything I can do for-’
‘Well you just said he calms down with you, so you clearly are helping,’ said Ron. ‘I don’t need to know details but me and the rest of our dorm used to just have to try and ignore it.’
‘You didn’t do anything?’
‘What did you want us to do? Get into bed with him and stroke his hair?’ he said flippantly. ‘Girls…’
‘I don’t know why I brought it up,’ she said. ‘It’s just the way things are and I get it… I’m just saying it’s the one thing… I’ve wondered if being in Grimmauld Place doesn’t help.’
‘Yeah probably not, that house is bleak.’
‘We’ve been renovating it.’
‘Yeah, I know, I’m bored of listening to Harry talk about mist coats and tiling. Are the house elf heads down yet?’
‘We can’t do that until Kreacher dies, I think.’
‘See? Bleak.’ He suddenly snorted in amusement.
‘What?’
‘Just thinking of you both in your creepy haunted house, screaming your heads off every night. Absolute lunatics.’
‘We don’t scream!’ she protested, though she was laughing too now. ‘I don’t think.’
‘Kreacher skulking about muttering slurs, boggarts banging about in the wardrobes, Harry yelling in parsletongue…’
‘He doesn’t do that anymore, he says he can’t.’
‘I know, thank fuck. I always found it so sinister. Anyway, I’m glad you’re happy in your little house of horrors.’
‘Thank you, we are.’ She looked at him closely. ‘How are you? How are your nightmares?’
‘Oh, they’re, you know…’ Ron waved hand airily. ‘They’re there. I… think about Hermione being tortured all the time. Think about Fred. Think about Harry dead on the lawn.’
She nodded. ‘Yeah… sounds about right.’
‘It’s been very weird this summer, not living with him,’ he said. ‘You know, I’ve pretty much lived with the bloke for nearly a decade. I’ve spent all the past year panicking if he’s out of sight.’ He turned to her, grinning, but his eyes betraying something like fear. ‘What do I do with myself now? How do I fill all my worry time? I’m going to be so bored.’
‘Oh, Ron,’ she said, and found that her laugh was a little watery. She leaned over and hugged him. It was amazing, what growing up could do for siblings. ‘You’ve got Hermione to worry about.’
‘Yeah,’ he said, nodding fervently. ‘Yeah and I do, obviously, but she’s so clever. She keeps herself out of trouble. And Harry’s… you know, well in comparison he’s an idiot.’
She laughed again, shaking her head against his shoulder.
‘We both are! Compared to her, everyone is. But you know, he’s always… Do you know how often he gets attacked when we go to Azkaban?’
‘No?’
‘Every time,’ he said, ignoring her renewed laughter. ‘Every time, Ginny. And on raids and arrests and pretty much anything out of the office. I’m constantly in that sodding hospital with him.’
‘In that case maybe not living with him will do you some good,’ she said sympathetically.
‘I completely agree and have told him as much. But that’s what I mean… What do I do with all this new time?’
‘You still work with him. You can still worry a little bit.’
‘Thank you, I will.’
They sat in silence for a little while longer. The air was starting to grow cold, and the blackbird swooped away beyond the trees. ‘You really remind me of mum, sometimes,’ Ginny said daringly.
‘All right, that’s enough of that,’ said Ron, heaving himself up with a sigh. ‘Clearly too much soppiness, so I’m putting an end to things. Let’s go.’
‘Spoil sport,’ she said, but took his offered hand and let him heave her up.
‘You coming back inside?’ he asked.
‘No,’ she said. ‘No, I’m going to go home to Harry.’
He nodded. ‘All right, well… look after each other, yeah?’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘You deserve a rest.’