Full Circle

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Full Circle

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Chapter I

Clock

Ginny

I sat on my bed and looked around my bedroom. It was still the way it had always been--the pastel blue walls, the old and faded carpeting, and the plain single bed in the corner. I was back at the Burrow not for some short holiday, but for good--or for as long as I hadn´t found a place of my own, that was. Maybe as early as tomorrow I would go look for a job. At the thought, I couldn´t help but sigh. Not that I didn´t want to work. In fact, I had always imagined myself having a job of my own, earning money and doing something I enjoyed and could be proud of. But the setting I had in my mind was a time of peace, and not the time I was currently living in.

I stared in the mirror of the dressing table across the bed. For a split second, I expected an innocent and sometimes naïve little girl to stare back at me. But I knew better, so much better. That little girl was long gone. She had been replaced by someone else--someone who had seen more of the world than was appropriate for her years.

Living in a time of war could do that to a person. War didn´t just kill the body. It could also kill the soul, slowly and painfully.

But who was I kidding? Maybe everybody else, but not myself. The war just made it worse, but it was not the one which had gotten to me. Long ago, something--or someone --else already had.

Tom Riddle.

Tom Riddle who had grown up to be the epitome of evil, the Dark Lord Voldemort.

Even though I miraculously survived that nightmare with my body and soul intact, I had always known and felt that a part of me died back then. And ever since, I had never been the same. The first few months after that horrible experience were filled with nightmares dominated by the mocking and unmerciful face of Tom. Countless nights I would wake up, screaming, sweating and barely breathing. My roommates (who also happened to be my closest friends) would also wake up from the sounds of my screams. They would hug me and hold me, and also soothe me with comforting words. Then I would send letters to Mum and Dad, and sometimes to Bill, telling them all the horrors that came to haunt me in my sleep. If it weren´t for my family and friends, I wouldn´t know how to get through day by day. They helped me to cope. Up to now, I still had nightmares, but thankfully, they didn´t come as often as they had.

Yet I sometimes long for the days when I didn´t know evil firsthand. Those days seemed a million years ago. I wanted to go back even just for a while to the young girl I had been once--the girl who saw the world through rose-colored glasses. But Fate seemed to enjoy playing cruel jokes on everyone, because five years ago, the tension between the Light and the Dark sides escalated into an all-out war, and it was still going on. Gone were the days when people could still live in denial, still pretend that life was just going fine. Now, even the most indifferent and neutral of people were affected in one level or another. Widespread destruction and brutal killings were sickeningly common things nowadays. People lived in fear for their loved ones and themselves.

I was always worried for my family. We openly and strongly supported the Light Side in general and Professor Dumbledore and Harry in particular, thus making us wanted targets by Voldemort and his supporters. The danger became much more real than it already had been to the whole family when Bill was kidnapped by Death Eaters and went missing for the better part of August last year. It was a `clean´ job--the Death Eaters left no traces and made sure that there were no witnesses. Nobody could do anything but wait. I barely remembered what happened during that agonizing month. I guessed I just did my best to live through it. What I could remember was the way I gazed at our family clock, with Bill´s golden clock hand pointing to "mortal peril" all that time. I would always look in the hope to see the hand pointed anywhere but there. And at last, one day by the end of that awful summer, Bill´s clock hand pointed to "traveling," and then moments later, to "home." I had almost fainted in my ecstatic relief when Bill came home, telling us how he miraculously escaped from his abductors.

But I always knew that my family was very lucky, considering that most families had at least one member killed by Death Eaters. I was afraid my family won´t be as lucky the next time. It was a pessimistic thought, yes, but at wartime, it was simply a realistic view. There was always the dreaded and unspoken question in my mind. Who would die first in my family?

I shook my head, wanting to get rid even just for now those haunting thoughts. I was not supposed to think about that. Not at the moment, anyway. I was supposed to be celebrating because I just finished my studies. In a half hour or so, there would be a family dinner downstairs in my honor.

Rap, rap, rap.

I looked towards my bedroom door, glad for the distraction from my own thoughts. "Come in. It´s not locked."

The door slowly creaked open, and Hermione´s face came into view. She then stepped inside. "Ginny! It´s so nice to see you again!" she exclaimed, her arms wide open.

I supposed I missed her more than I realized, because I threw myself in her arms and hugged her tightly. "Hermione! It´s so great to see you in the flesh! It´s been a year! I´m so glad you came!" I pulled away from the girl I always considered as my sister and looked her over. "You look thinner than you did in the pictures you sent me." Hermione didn´t just look thin. She looked tired. I could clearly see the dark circles under her eyes. "You´re still working on that charm you told me about in your letters?"

She sighed. "Well, my committee finally perfected that experimental charm we´ve been working on for the past half a year. Thank goodness it´s all done, but we´re working on a new one now, so it´s stress all over again." She looked longingly at my bed. "Can I just lie down a moment, Gin? Your bed looks so soft."

I laughed. "Oh sure, go ahead."

Hermione walked over to my bed and lay down. "Oh God, this feels heavenly. I guess I´ve spent too many nights sleeping over at the lab," she said. Her voice was slightly muffled, because she was lying face down, with part of her head buried in one of my pillows. Then she rolled over and looked up at me. "Hey, you know what? I don´t know what the charm we´ve just finished is for. Talk about weird," she said in a low, confiding voice.

I sat on the edge of the bed, feeling like a girl in a slumber party. "You don´t know? But how could that be? You--you made the charm! How could that be?" I cried out in total surprise. It was surreal for Hermione to not know something. Let alone something she helped to make.

"Well, I know it´s a concealment and transfiguration charm in one, but it doesn´t stand alone. It´s a component of some complex spell which I don´t know. Would you believe, Professor Dumbledore told me not to ask questions! He told me kindly, of course, but he was firm. It´s the first time he did that," Hermione said. "I couldn´t sneak around and pry because I don´t want him and my other mentors to lose trust in me. Besides, I bet no one unauthorized can get through their offices. You should see the security of the place! Well, whatever the charm is for, I´m sure it´s something good."

"I´m sure it is," I said. Then I suddenly remembered Colin, Ava, Estelle, and my other Muggle-born close friends. "It has to be, so that people don´t have to go into hiding just because some bigoted self-appointed Dark Lord wanted them out of the way!"

"Oh Ginny," Hermione said sympathetically, squeezing my hand gently. She knew exactly what--or who--I was thinking of.

"They should´ve finished school, too, with me. But no, they had to leave because they couldn´t be safe in the wizarding world." That was the very reason why I couldn´t be happy that I left school for good already. I couldn´t share the moment with my close friends. It didn´t feel right.

"At least they´re still alive," Hermione said comfortingly. "That means a lot at these times...for anytime, actually."

I sighed in resignation. "Well, that´s definitely more than enough for now, I guess. And yeah, being alive is always more than enough." We were silent for a few moments, both pondering about life and war.

"You know, I´m scared to leave Hogwarts," I said. "Did you feel that when you left?"

Hermione nodded. "Oh, I did. Hogwarts is the safest place in the world, and leaving it feels like...I don´t know, but it feels like being lost. And to be honest, I feel rather scared even now. I´m a Muggle-born, after all. " She smiled at me. "But you´ll be fine. We´ll be all fine as long as we do our best to fight in our own ways."

We fell into silence again. I didn´t want to be dwelling on depressing matters for long, and I know neither did Hermione, so I decided to change the direction of the conversation.

"Hey, Hermione, are you and Ron still going strong?" I asked teasingly. Of course I already knew the answer to that question. Just about everyone knew that Ron and Hermione were both devoted to each other. I just loved making her blush.

And so she did. She went scarlet and giggled like a schoolgirl. "Yeah...yeah, yes we are," she said, grinning like an idiot. I couldn´t help but giggle as well.

"What about your sex life?" I asked in between giggles.

Hermione turned bright red, and instead of answering, she threw a pillow at me, which would have hit me right on the face if I hadn´t caught it. "You´re having too much fun with me, Gin! It´s your turn now to be in the hot seat!" she exclaimed.

I suddenly turned serious, because I knew what was coming next.

"So is Harry included in the family dinner tonight?" Hermione asked. There was an unmistakable wicked note in her voice.

I pretended to be very interested with the geometric pattern of my bed covers. "Of course he is. He´s practically a part of the family. He´s got his own golden hand in our grandfather clock! He might as well be my brother," I answered as nonchalantly as possible.

"Except he isn´t," Hermione said. She wiggled her eyebrows to emphasize her point.

I threw back the pillow at her. "Please, please stop your matchmaking fantasies. I´ve accepted long ago that Harry can never like me the way I do, so you might as well accept it, too."

Hermione sat up on the bed. "Ah, he´ll notice you. Someday I know he will," she said stubbornly. "And he´s not dating anyone. That I know for sure."

I couldn´t help but smile. It felt great to have someone hope for me when I couldn´t hope for myself. But I wanted to be practical.

"We´re barely even friends," I pointed out reasonably. "He barely talks to me."

"That can be fixed," Hermione said optimistically. "Hey Ginny, how about telling him how you feel? It´s perfectly acceptable for girls to make the first move. After all, it´s almost the new millennium already."

"I thought of doing that, and I would´ve done that to an ordinary wizard I fancy. But Harry´s not an ordinary wizard. He has a lot more important things to bother with. I don´t want to add to the burden he already has," I answered truthfully.

Hermione´s eyebrows furrowed. "But you´re not a burden!" she exclaimed in protest.

"Oh come on, Hermione. If I tell Harry how I feel, he´ll think over it and worry about not hurting my feelings. He´ll worry about handling the situation in such a way that I won´t be embarrassed. Harry does the noble thing, even at his own expense," I explained.

Hermione looked at me intently, as if trying to read my thoughts. Then she said something that took me by surprise.

"Ron and I sometimes don´t understand Harry, especially lately. Harry´s often...brooding and detached. Oh, he´s still the same, but we sometimes can´t get to him. But I always admired the way you know Harry, how you seem to know what he would feel about something. Anyway, how do you do that?" Hermione was looking at me with frank admiration and curiosity.

I could´ve answered honestly and told her that watching and loving Harry for as long as I did made me know him in ways that other people--even the ones close to him--didn´t. But if I did that, Hermione would surely go on again just how she wanted Harry and me to be together, and just how she thought we would be perfect for each other. But I didn´t need to hear that, because it would fuel my wishful thinking again. I had spent a lot of my time putting behind me all those dreams I had involving Harry, and I had no intention to have those dreams catch up on me again.

"I don´t know how I do that," I lied instead. I looked away. I was bad at lying, and I was worried that Hermione could see right through me.

"Ginny, you´re always there for him, even if he doesn´t know it," Hermione said softly. "You´ve told me that you like him, but I think--I think you love him...very much. And that you´re much lonelier than you´d let on." She blushed, as if she just realized what she said, and looked down at her hands. "I´m sorry if I said too much. Maybe I´m wrong. But I just want both of you to be happy. I can feel Harry´s really lonely, too, and I sometimes I don´t know how to reach out to him. And I just think...maybe you could."

I knew I couldn´t lie anymore.

"No, you´re not wrong. I--I do love him," I said, my voice shaking a little. "But you´ve seen the way he treats me in the rare times he talks to me. He´s always polite, nice, and brotherly. Brotherly! I´ve gotten used to the idea that he´s not for me. I´ve got so much practice on not getting what I want, you know. Practically all my life. I just learned to live with it."

Hermione looked as if she was just about to contradict me, but she didn´t get a chance to. I heard Mum´s shrill voice from downstairs calling my name.

"Ginny! Hermione! Come down here!"

I hastily pulled Hermione to her feet. I didn´t really want to hear what she was about to say. I was quite embarrassed for admitting one of my deepest secrets. It was something that I had never admitted to anyone but myself. "C´mon," I said. And together we went down the stairs.

As soon as I reached the first floor I couldn´t help but smile. In our small living room, a glittering banner reading `CONGRATULATIONS, GINNY!´ hung from across two walls.

There were balloons of different shapes and colors floating around. There were also bouquets of pink roses in vases on the table. And there were scented candles flickering all over the place. Ah, these were a few of my favorite things.

"You like it, dear?" Mum asked me, peering in the living room from the kitchen. "C´mon, we´re in here."

"You better like it, Gin! I had to buy all those balloons from Diagon Alley!" Charlie´s voice piped up.

"And I had to buy the flowers! I still smell like roses!" Bill exclaimed, his voice carrying over from the kitchen.

"That´s not exactly a bad thing, Bill. I´m sure Fleur will like it," I shouted back, and I could hear the twins laughing like crazy.

"Will both of you please grow up?" Percy´s voice said irritably. I just shook my head and smiled. Percy acting like some big boss was so typical. But it didn´t really mean much. He was really a kind and thoughtful person under his rigid exterior.

I looked around the living room. "This is why you all sent me to my room right away as soon as I got here this morning, and why you won´t let me go down for the whole day, huh? So you can surprise me." I walked over to a vase and touched one of the petals of a rose. It felt so soft. "Yep, definitely worth being cooped up in my room."

Hermione and I went to the tiny kitchen. I each gave a hug to Mum, Dad, and my brothers. "Thanks, really. You didn´t have to, but I really, really love it," I said sincerely.

Mum beamed at me, looking very pleased.

"I am famished, and I would really appreciate it if we start eating, as it´s already dinner time," Percy said importantly. He was leaning against the counter, his arms crossed over his chest.

"Ron isn´t here yet. And Harry, too," Hermione pointed out.

"Of course, we can´t start dinner without ickle Ronniekins--" Fred said.

"--and Harrybuns, could we?" George finished.

I could feel my face growing red. I looked at Hermione, and I saw that her color had turned to that of a ripe tomato´s.

"Okay, Fred, George, stop it," Mum said sternly, looking up from icing a pastry. "Carry these to the tables outside in the garden." She gestured towards the pots on the kitchen table.

The twins stood up from their seats and did as they were told, all the while grumbling about "abuse and maltreatment."

"Boys, can you follow your brothers out there? I´m afraid they´ll do something with the food," Mum said to Bill, Charlie, and Percy. "I have no intention to turn into a canary or what-have-you all of a sudden."

"Sure Mum," Bill said. He stood up and nodded at Charlie and Percy. All three went outside. I hoped they would be able to stop in time whatever pranks the twins had up in their sleeves. It would be a shame if the dinner Mum obviously prepared carefully would be ruined by anything unpleasant.

"Where are Ron and Harry, by the way?" Dad, who was getting plates from the cupboard above the sink, asked no one in particular. "Their Auror training is done for the day, right? They should be here by now."

"Oh, they usually had to train overtime. Their superiors are really strict. But I´m sure they´re on their way," Hermione said. She sat on the chair vacated by George, and took in a deep breath. "Mmm...I can still smell the candles even here. It´s divine. Where did you get them, Mrs. Weasley?"

Mum turned around and smiled at Hermione. "Dear, you haven´t gotten used to calling me Molly yet, have you?" Hermione just smiled back sheepishly. Anyway, I bought those candles from Criselda´sCandle Cove over at Diagon Alley," Mum finished.

"I love the candles very much, really," I said, and I poked my head out of the kitchen into the living room to sniff more of the vanilla fragrance.

Then my heart froze as my gaze landed on something I had never wished to see in the first place, much less again.

In the grandfather clock, both of the golden hands bearing Ron´s and Harry´s names were pointed to "mortal peril."

My mouth suddenly went dry, and I could feel the blood leaving my face. Somehow, I was rendered immobile with shock and disbelief. My eyes had to be playing tricks on me. Or the clock must be busted. This could not be true. This could not be true.

"Ginny? Ginny, is something wrong?" Mum asked me in alarm. I understood what she said, but I couldn´t answer. The next moment she knelt down in front of me and gripped both my shoulders. She shook me lightly. This snapped me out of the temporary paralysis. I looked into her eyes, and with a shaking finger, I slowly pointed to the clock.

Mum´s eyes followed the direction I was pointing to. I watched her reaction in a strangely detached way. Her eyes grew wide, her face went pale, and she brought a hand to her heart. And she let out a scream that seemed to ring all over the house.

"MY SONS!!! NOT MY SONS!!!"

What happened next was all a blur to me. I could only remember snippets of what went through those agonizing minutes.

Mum was hysterical while Dad, despite of his own fear, tried to calm her down. For the first few moments, Hermione was in a condition that was almost as bad as Mum´s. Nevertheless, Hermione quickly gathered enough presence of mind to turn up the Wizarding Wireless for any news and to gather them all to talk about a plan. She ended up crying, though, so Bill and Charlie led the impromptu meeting. The men were all doing their best to be calm, but it was obvious from the way that their voices and hands shook that they were in terrible fear as well.

I didn´t cry and I didn´t go hysterical, but I wished I did. On the outside, I knew I seemed calm and collected, but on the inside, the fear and panic was so great that my brain decided to numb itself instead. That was the reason why I couldn´t cry. I was what Hermione would call "working on auto-pilot." I brought glasses of water to Mum and Hermione. I even fanned Mum because her skin was getting hot. But it felt as if someone else was doing it, and I was just floating above everyone else, watching, detached.

The only thing I was totally and completely aware of was the way I unwaveringly stared at the clock. It seemed that no matter what I did, my eyes never left it. I was doing the same thing I had done when Bill was kidnapped. I was now again willing the clock hands to turn to "home" even if it was a useless thing to do. I stared and stared, hoping that the hands would turn away from "mortal peril" and rest on someplace safe.

And then I saw Ron´s clock hand slowly turning, turning to "traveling." My heart leapt to my throat as I stared, transfixed. The clock hand turned again, and this time it rested on "home."

Upon seeing that, my brain seemed to stop numbing itself. I felt blood pump through my veins as my heart wildly pounded. Of course, I would love Harry to be home as well, but right now, I was beyond ecstatic to know my brother was home.

"Ron´s home," I said simply to everyone in the living room before I ran to the kitchen, where Ron most likely Apparated in, if he did Apparate.

Sure enough, I found my brother slumped on the kitchen table. My heart broke at the sight of him. His hair was a mess, his robes torn, and his hands bloodied. I ran to him, knelt beside him, and gently lifted his head off the table. And my heart broke some more.

Ron´s face was bathed in blood. Blood dripped from his hair down to his cheeks. I was afraid that he had a huge wound at the back of his head. His right eye was so swollen that he couldn´t blink it. His upper lip was severely cut. A huge gash ran across his forehead. Ron was almost unconscious.

What had they done to my brother? What could they have done to Harry?

"Oh my God! My boy!" Mum´s voice exclaimed behind me. I looked towards the kitchen doorway and saw her, Dad, and Hermione rushing towards Ron. The rest of my brothers peered in, tactfully staying away for a while to let Mum, Dad, and Hermione see Ron.

I stepped away, letting them see for themselves what happened to my brother. I looked down at my hands and robes only to see them covered in blood. Ron´s blood.

Dad, showing surprising strength, carried Ron in his arms, like a groom would carry his new bride. Only this wasn´t a bride and a groom walking towards a bright future. This was a father and a son facing a dark uncertainty.

"Let´s bring Ron to the hospital, and we´ll go find help with looking for Harry," Dad said gruffly as he walked out the back door towards the enchanted Volkswagen outside. We all followed them out. As I trailed close behind, I couldn´t help but notice how my brother looked so small and helpless in our father´s arms.

Then slowly and painfully, Ron lifted his head and opened his mouth to speak in a very faint voice which only Dad could hear.

End of Chapter I