Roughing It

Chapter 1:

The air was cool as she unzipped the tent door and stepped out. The stars were bright tonight but then again, the stars were always bright in the middle of nowhere. This was how she liked it. The feeling of being cut-off, where it was impossible to worry about bills, work, what she was going to do with the rest of her life...

She walked towards the fire to warm up a bit. The rest of the crew were lounging around it, speaking, most likely, about one of the three things they always talked about around the fire: the virtue of muggle camping, the virtue of drinking, or the lack of any virtue in relationships. Ginny moved to grab a drink from the cooler near the camp.

"Ginny, where the hell did you get to? We have a question for you."

Here we go, she thought.

"So, Harry Potter, can he fly?"

"Honestly Duncan, I fully expected you would have come up with something new to ask me by now." But, she smiled during her response. Duncan usually opened the night with a random Harry Potter question for Ginny.

"Well, can he or not?" asked Kate.

"If you don't count the broomstick he uses, no, he can't." replied Ginny, an image of Harry playing Quidditch roving through her mind. Ginny sat down on a log near the fire as she opened the beer she had pulled from the cooler.

"Have a nice nap?" she asked the others, who nodded in reply. Hers had been lovely, given her sleeping quarters: a measly tent and worn-out sleeping bag. Ginny had been living in the wilderness of Australia for two years now. At times, she still woke up in the morning thinking she was back in The Burrow.

She had arrived in Australia to immediately begin an apprenticeship at the Australian Academy of Spell Conception and Innovation, the top institute in the world for the study of spell design and creation. During the war, Ginny had studied under McGonagall and Flitwick, furiously trying to develop new spells that would help them in the war effort when no one more experienced was available. She found she had a knack for it, and desired to explore the subject further. At the recommendation of Professor McGonagall, she applied for and was accepted to the Academy.

She wasn't lying to herself about what it meant to grab this apprenticeship. Thousands of applicants applied every year and only a handful was accepted. The academy required all recruits to complete a rigorous 5-year program, two of which were to be spent without any use of magic at all. Ironic, she thought, considering that she had finally gained the privilege to perform magic upon graduation at Hogwarts and now she was giving it up entirely.

How a new recruit opted to spend their two years of relinquished magic was entirely their choice, but they were required to spend it within the confines of Australia and with four other applicants, one of which was born into a muggle family. Upon arrival in Australia, she had decided that if she was going to do this, she was going to do it right. So, she opted for the Wilderness, which basically was the muggle equivalent of 'roughing it'.

It wasn't the safest road; Australia was home to some of the world's deadliest creatures. But, she figured if she could survive the fall of Voldemort, she could survive anything.

Boy had she been wrong.

Getting used to camping 'the real way', as Duncan had called it, was not easy. Duncan had explained the ins and outs of it to Kate and Ginny, both extremely inexperienced where camping was concerned. He told them what to expect: sleeping in a tent on the ground, having a proper sleeping bag that would keep you warm through all the elements, understanding the virtue of water, getting comfortable with abandoning all forms of oral hygiene...

Ginny romanticized it in her mind as becoming one with nature and convinced herself that she was strong enough. Camping would be completely natural to her - she had never been a girl's girl anyway.

The first night in the great outdoors, it had poured. Her tent, pitched on a slope, collected puddles of water in the corners. Getting along without magic wasn't going to be that easy after all. She desperately wished she could apply a quick drying charm to her tent. At least one thing had worked, her sleeping bag had kept her extremely warm - that was until the down feathers inside it got soaked when her tent caved in on her, leaving her freezing in the cold night air.

By the second week, she was miserable. She hadn't showered properly since they'd left Sidney and they hadn't seen running water in days - which provided the only way to shower in the wilderness. Her hair was like dreadlocks. She didn't feel entirely bad - She and Kate, being just as inexperienced and just as miserable, had become fast friends during their rants of criticism for 'roughing it'. Born in England, Kate was raised Romania, with blonde hair and striking blue eyes that made you feel like you were peering in to the depths of something you never thought existed.

Later in the night, during the second week, Duncan made a run into the local town and came back with a surprise for the camp. Whiskey. Of course, it wasn't as strong as Firewhiskey, but right then, Ginny just wanted to be numb to the elements, and the year and 50 weeks ahead of her. Lynn and Lorne joined them around the fire and they didn't even bother to pour the contents into a glass because no one was in the mood to deal with the clean up; they just passed the bottle. And this was how the group of five learned each other's darkest secrets.

Alcohol, Ginny would learn, is directly related to honesty. The more of it you drink the more secrets you are willing to divulge and the deeper you are willing to dig. It was a liberating experience, releasing the things that were weighing her down. But, it left her feeling incredibly guilty the next morning when she woke up with a pounding headache and the knowledge of what she had told everyone the night before. Ginny, in the past two years had learned the virtue of sobering charms too and missed them dearly.

As they passed the whiskey, Lynn began a game that required one to state something they had never done. If someone else in the circle had done what was stated, then they would be required to drink. It was a great way to get to know each other.

"I've never been ice-skating," said Lynn. Duncan quickly took a pull from the bottle. He was from Arizona, in the States, where ice very rarely stuck around for long.

"You've never been ice-skating?!?" asked Ginny, alarmed. And this was how she learned Duncan was from Arizona, in the States, and that it was a desert. The game proceeded on this way for hours, and in those hours each of them had learned many things about their companions, things that most other people close to them have probably never known.

As the whiskey dwindled, the questions became more intense.

"I've never cheated on a significant other," said Duncan. Lynn drank, taking a swig. She explained that she'd had a boyfriend in England once, who was, for all intents and purposes, cheating on her. In retaliation, she decided it was high time she let him know what it felt like. He caught her in bed with another woman. Her now ex-boyfriend had been pleading for her to come back ever since. Lynn, who was the oldest in the group at 23 (Ginny was the youngest at 18), would become a wealth of knowledge to the group throughout their adventure.

"I've never been in love," countered Lynn. Ginny reached for the bottle from Lynn and, without examining the faces in the circle, took a long hard drink from it - she was going to need it for what was undoubtedly going to be a Q and A. When she was done, she brought her eyes upon the people sitting around the fire. Apparently, even though she was the youngest, she was the only one who had ever been in love - everyone was looking at her with gaping mouths.

Up until then, Ginny had drunk quite a lot, mainly because she done many things that had been asked to the group. But now they were entering a territory that she wasn't sure she was ready for. She didn't miss the glint in everyone eyes - they had finally discovered her secret. Those sitting around the fire realized they had just struck gold. Apparently Ginny Weasley was a firecracker in disguise.

"Are you still in love, Ginny?" asked Kate quietly. Ginny thought the question strange - she was expecting the first question to be something along the lines of who she loved, not if she still was in love.

"Yes."

"Who is he...or is it a she!?" cried Duncan.

"I'd rather not discuss his identity."

"Oh come on Ginny, that's not fair! Lynn just told us she cheated on someone and Geez, Duncan once broke into a famous Muggle museum just to enchant the paintings! You can't withhold a measly name when we've all just told you some of our darkest secrets!" huffed Lorne.

Ginny sighed; Lorne wouldn't be saying these things if he knew who her secret was. She deliberated. In the end, she presumed, it would be better for them to know. With the way things were going, by the end of this trip they were going to be best friends and she wouldn't want to keep something like the person she loved from them would she? The alcohol was talking now, but she didn't care. She hadn't even said his name since the day she left. She needed to release this one secret.

"Alright, Lorne, I'll tell you. But, on one condition." Her words were slurred.

"And what's that?" Lorne asked, a smile forming at the corners of his mouth. Ginny knew he had heard the slur of her words too. Damn.

"You cannot ask me any questions about him after I tell you."

"Well, geez Ginny, I just want a name, it's not like I want to stalk the boy." He chided.

"Harry Potter."

Silence, and more gaping mouths followed her exclamation.

"Did you say Harry Potter?" Duncan asked, in disbelief.

"Yes."

"You're in love with Harry Potter?! Honestly Ginny, a crush is a crush..."

That was over the line, she knew it. But she couldn't fault them. There was no way they could have know that she had loved him since she was small.

"It is not a crush," she managed, with the most sincerity she could muster, "we've known each other since I was ten years old." It was getting away from her now and she knew at this moment she had absolutely had too much to drink.

"Does he love you back?" Kate asked.

"I don't know. I think so. We've never verbally said those words to each other. But, in some ways, I don't think we have to."

"Harry bloody Potter..." Duncan was saying repeatedly in a whisper.

"Duncan, I didn't even think you would know of him, I mean, you're-" Ginny began.

"Know of him! Jesus, Ginny, he's a god damn modern saviour according to the newspapers. His face was plastered everywhere for weeks last summer after he'd killed You-know-who."

Ginny was hoping things wouldn't go there, but it was already too late. She took another pull from the bottle and then passed it off to Lorne. She wrapped her arms around her body, moving her hands to warm up. Kate glanced at Ginny from across the fire, the light flickering in her eyes. She knew exactly what Ginny had been through and also knew she was about to be deluged with twenty questions.

"You were there weren't you? When he fought Voldemort? I remember reading about you - you were the reason he could kill him...my god Ginny, he must be crazy about you. He couldn't have succeeded in the end if he wasn't. I can't believe I didn't put it together sooner - I knew I recognized your name from somewhere..." Kate trailed off.

Everyone was glaring at Kate for what she had just said - they had no idea what was going on anymore.

Lorne chimed in, "Ginny... you fought Voldemort?"

"No."

She hadn't spoken about any of it since it had happened, not even to herself, let alone Harry. It was too raw. But, something about this place, about being 'one with nature' had made her finally feel ready to release everything she had kept buried for so long. It didn't seem right not to when she was in the middle of nowhere with four other people she barely knew.

She began from the beginning; how they had met, how she had thought she was madly in love with him during her first two years at Hogwarts, how she had deeply embarrassed herself numerous times with her crush on him. She told the story of the Philosopher's Stone, of her brother and Hermione and their role in Harry's life. She blushed when she briefly mentioned the Riddle Diary and how Harry had saved her from a basilisk. She went into detail during her discussion of the Triwizard Tournament and Cedric's death and how that was the way it was discovered that Voldemort had returned and that times wouldn't be easy or as happy any longer. Lorne mentioned that he remembered when that had happened - his sister had been in Fleur's year at Beauxbatons.

She described the darkness, not knowing if your family would survive through the day. She didn't sob, but tears silently escaped down her cheeks as she discussed her fear of losing her brothers...she had so many of them, she didn't think they could all survive the war, which was something she had never told anyone. Ever. And they didn't all survive...

She told them of the Department of Mysteries and the death of Harry's godfather, Sirius. The members of the circle took in a breath of air as she described the events of that night. Lynn continually repeated, "Can you imagine?" in between slow tears of disbelief at the life Ginny and her friends had experienced.

She smiled a little when she described the first time Harry had kissed her after the Quidditch match, but it faded as she began to discuss Dumbledore's death and Snape and how they had been betrayed. When she discussed Harry's decision to finish what he and Dumbledore had started and how that meant he could no longer be with her, Kate sighed. Her eyes met with Ginny for a moment, as if, even though they barely knew each other, she already understood who she was and what that must have meant to her.

She told them how Harry had left Hogwarts and had collected the final Horcruxes, only to discover that Voldemort would not be so easily defeated. And finally, she explained to them that it was the love other people possessed for Harry, and the love that he returned to them that finally allowed him to win the battle he'd been fighting since he was small. The love of her family, her parents and brothers, the love of his best friends Ron and Hermione, and the love of the people who had guided him, Remus and Hagrid.

She told them how she had fought in the final battle, against Death Eaters, never really seeing Voldemort until he had died and withered to a pile of ash. She told them how, as the sun crested up against the windows of the castle, Harry had found her cradling the body of her brother, Charlie, killed by Bellatrix Lestrange, whose body lay in a heap nearby. Harry had scooped her into his arms and held her until she wasn't numb anymore.

When she had finished, she felt exhausted and weak, but also light, airy and, surprisingly, sober.

The circle was silent for a while, the fire just embers now and the whiskey long gone. Ginny suddenly found she was cold. No one asked her any questions, and she felt relieved, as if she had covered every detail of the past eight years of her life, even though she knew she had left many things out.

Lynn was the first to move. She picked herself and walked over to Ginny, pulling her into an embrace. She cried then, cried until she wasn't numb anymore.

"Ginny, hello? Are you in there somewhere?" she heard a voice pulling her back from her memories of their first drunken night together. Somewhere in the depths of her mind she was being dragged back to the present.

"Ginny, are you alright?" asked Kate, watching her closely.

"Huh? Oh yeah, I'm fine, I was just thinking, is all."

"Well, we were thinking about rolling in to the town to end our last night the same way we began the trip - with a nice bottle of whiskey." Duncan said, not entirely sure it was kosher to bring whiskey in to The Circle again, as it had now been named by the five of them. They hadn't had whiskey since the night Ginny told them of her association with Voldemort and Harry Potter.

She had a new found respect for being in the wilderness after that night. No amount of rain or puddles in her tent could ruin her feeling towards being so cut-off from responsibility and civilization. She could tell her darkest secrets and no one would ever know. It was as if a secret bond had been formed between the five of them. What they said in The Circle, stayed there. In the future, she would look back on her experiences here and count them among the best years of her life.

"Oh, really? Well, if it's anything like last time, then I'm sure we'll have a ball." She smiled, but no one ignored the tinge of sarcasm in her voice. She told Duncan after that night of whiskey binging that she would never touch the stuff again and she certainly intended to keep that promise. There was still something there, gnawing at her soul, something she hadn't told the other four in The Circle that night, something she hadn't told anyone about the night Voldemort died. She hoped she never would.