Suspension

Author's Notes: I'm not a big H/G fan, but someone suggested I write one... so, here it is. :) I actually wrote this a long time ago and just now got it out to look at it. Maybe not my favorite, but it's got some nice parts that I surprised myself with. ;P It could use a little more depth and length, but I really don't have the time/inclination/motivation.... Yeah. So. Have fun and enjoy!

~~~~~~

Ginny had learned to knit.

She could also cook and clean, garden, make tea, Apparate, and do a number of those mundane, boring, and ultimately uninteresting things that her mother found so meaningful. Right now, she sat on the roof, knitting.

Molly didn't like it when her daughter spent time on the roof, but it was beyond her to punish the poor girl. She knew how tortured Ginny must feel, if only because she felt some of it, too--like a piece of her heart had been carried off thoughtlessly in someone's pocket, like loose change, and had yet to be returned.

"Still waiting, is she?" asked Fred, coming up behind his mother in the garden.

"Oh, hello, dear!" Molly answered, false cheer coloring her voice. "When did you come home?"

"Oh, just now. George'll be along in a bit. He had some business to finish before dinner. And he's bringing somebody with him. Do you have enough?"

Molly laughed, more false cheer. "Of course I do, Fred. When have I ever not made enough dinner?" She avoided her son's eyes and bustled back into the house.

It had been three years since they had gone, her son and his friends. Three years--not a word from the trio as they traversed the countryside. She knew it was hopeless. No message, not a single owl since that day...

The country was healing, now. It had been a hard year and a half, a time of painstakingly weeding out those still loyal to the Dark Lord and those controlled by curses, finding justice for victims and taking time to honor and remember those lost. Terrorists, crazed loyalists to the Dark Lord, still lashed out violently, although the attacks were growing weaker and fewer. The mass hysteria that had pervaded the wizarding world for some weeks had finally dissipated, leaving the cold facts of the situation and a return to the normal. But could it still be considered normal, after everything that had happened? Everyone who had been lost?

Molly returned to her kitchen, stirring the soup and sprinkling in a little more salt. She sighed. She knew what this "somebody else" business was. It was the same as it had been for the last few months. The twins, and even Bill and Charlie to a lesser extent, brought as many friends as they dared to dinner, for one reason and one reason only: Ginny.

They were worried about her. She spent all her time "mooning around the house," George had once said. Sewing, cooking, cleaning, sorting--she took to everything with the same melancholy, disinterested air. It had started not long after Ron and Harry and Hermione left; it had gotten steadily worse with Voldemort's destruction, and for a time Molly didn't dare let her daughter out of her sight. But, little by little, it had improved, and Ginny had now reached a plateau of sorts. While still not the happy little girl Molly remembered from earlier years, she showed less of the pain and at least tried to be cheerful sometimes.

"What's for dinner, Mum?" a voice whispered from the stairway. Molly turned to see Ginny, her hair limp and unflattering as it hung around her wan face.

"Stew," Molly answered gently. "Fred's here," she said briskly, changing the subject. "He said George is bringing a guest to dinner."

She winced as she heard Ginny seat herself on the bottom step.

"I wish they would stop doing that," the girl said.

"Well, Ginny, they're worried about you--"

"I can do that for myself fine, thank you!" Ginny's voice carried a note of anger, the first real emotion she'd expressed in days. Molly didn't know whether to be happy or contrite.

"Well, go and talk to him, then," Molly said in a measured voice. She carefully kept her face averted from her daughter as Ginny stood and stormed out the door. Once she was gone, Molly wiped a stray tear from her eye.

Ginny's shouts outside could be heard clearly from the kitchen.

"I don't care what you think, Fred Weasley, it's my life and I can spend it pining away if I darn well please!"

A pause.

"Yes I can! Just try and stop me!"

Another pause.

"No! I will not eat dinner with one more visitor! I will not! You can't make me! I'll run away if I have to, but I refuse to spend one more dinner in awkward conversation with another--"

Molly was quite shocked at her daughter's language.

**

True to her word, Ginny skipped dinner. She sat on the roof all alone, wrapped in one of Ron's old sweaters and watching the sky. She sat out here every night, watching for an owl or some sort of sign that they were finally coming home. They should have been home more than a year ago, when Voldemort vanished. They knew he had been destroyed, due to various signs among the Death Eaters--Ginny didn't know specifics. But she did know that he was dead, and that her brother, her friend, her...something.... were not home, and they, by all rights, most definitely should be. She brushed a tear from her freckled cheeks, and huddled into Ron's sweater. She wished she had one of... his... but Ron was all that was left. Another tear slid down her cheek. She missed Ron. He had always been there for her, her closest brother, her best friend as a little girl, and now he was gone. No more Ron to tease her and get angry when she teased him back. No Ron to cry with, no Ron to laugh with, no Ron at all. She buried her head in her arms and cried as she hadn't in a week or two. Damn. And she'd been doing so well...

Someone climbed out the window and made his way over to sit beside her on the roof.

"Hey, Ginny."

"Go away, George."

"Fred told me what you said."

She fought to keep her voice from betraying her tears. "Too bad. I wouldn't've minded repeating it."

George sat in silence for a few moments. "I'm sorry, Gin. We just... we wanted you to move on, too. We have."

"You have not!"

"Maybe no," George shot back, "but I'm doing a helluva lot better job than you are! Look at Mum! Look at everything she's been through--first Ron, then Percy, and Da--"

"Don't even start!" Ginny screamed, standing up and glaring at George. "Don't even start! I know what you've going to say! You're going to say how well Mum has managed it, and how you don't know why I can't, too--well, I'll tell you why! I'm not Mum! And I've been trying, you know--yes, I have! That's me, working all the time around the house, letting Mum pretend to cheer me up, watching her be so sad all the time and know there's not a thing I can do about I! I can handle it, George. I don't need your help. And I definitely don't need someone to help me 'keep my mind off of things'!" She stalked back to her window and climbed through. George sat alone on the roof for a while before following her back into the house.

**

The word passed among the brothers in record time, and for the next several months nothing more was said on the matter. Ginny still sat on the roof and helped her mother, and still cried sometimes, especially at night. She spent a lot of time on the roof, out of reach of the world below her and closer to the infinite wonder of the heavens. Sometimes she thought happy thoughts, recalled good memories. Sometimes they weren't so nice. Sometimes she just sat up there, without thinking, and tried to let her mind heal itself. It took a long time, but she felt as if she was improving.

**

Things happen when we least expect them, Hermione once told her. You realize something, you meet someone, you reach a turning point that changes your life. Hermione could be so philosophical. But she was right, too: things can happen when you least expect them.

**

Ginny sat outside in the grass, idly twirling a daisy between her fingers and reading Quidditch Through the Ages. She'd only read it a billion times before, but it was Ron's, and somehow reading it made her feel closer to him.

She heard voices coming up the lane. At first she disregarded them and kept thumbing through her book, but as the voice got louder, she threw down the book and listened in rapt attention. She knew those voices--she knew them well. She stood, hoping against hope that it was not a dream, and hurried to the front of the house. Three figures walked casually down the little lane. She strained her eyes--yes, yes, yes... Yes!

She screamed for her mother and flew down the lane toward the three, crying like she'd never cried before: tears of absolute, utter joy. The members of the trio looked up, and they too picked up the pace.

Ginny slammed into Harry's arms as he hurried down the lane. He was taller, leaner, sadder, but still... he was Harry. She smiled through her tears as Ron, then Hermione embraced her in turn, but she returned to Harry. Harry...

Molly Weasley hurried out of her house, her broken, forlorn, sad little house, so empty these past few months with the burden of loss. She joined Ginny in a sprint down the lane, sweeping her son, his friends--her children, all--into a tight embrace and helped Ginny lead them home. Questions would come, answers would follow, tears would flow, hearts would break and be made whole--but that was later. For now, finally, they were home.

Author's Notes: What did you think? A little intense for me, but still good, still good. I love reviews with a passion, and any of yours will make me cry with joy. Okay, not really, but you catch my drift.