Ruminations

Ginny watched the leaves fall off the trees, floating on an invisible breeze. They touched the ground without making a noise, without even breathing. One followed another, like a game, racing in their serenity. They hailed the beginning of the fall, the beginning of the end of the year. The end of the sun.

A leaf fluttered onto her hair, some of it blending and merging with her own natural tones. This is where she belonged, in the countryside, with the wildlife. Here she could forget everything that had been. Everything that had happened.

She'd seen torture and pain, death and destruction, people crying, mourning, hurting. In her short twenty-four years she'd seen enough to shake her faith in god, her faith in humans, her faith in friendship. She'd reached the point where she didn't want to live anymore and somehow she'd pulled herself through.

The ministry of magic had dissolved, Voldemort's reign and allies had self-destructed, the magical world had been thrown into chaos. The only thing left for the remaining witches and wizards to do was to disperse into the muggle world, to leave the ruins of the wizarding economy and maybe, when the war had settled and the peace had taken hold, a new magical world would be formed.

Ginny Weasley would not be one of the founders. She had made a vow on the last day of the war, as everything she had ever loved dissolved around her, as everything she'd ever wanted was lost to the ocean of time, that never again would she practise magic, never again would she learn an art that could be used to kill. Never again would she love.

In the countryside, lost far away in the ancient bracken of England's rolling hills, she had found her home. And so Ginny Weasley existed, day in, day out, watching the sun come over the horizon and witnessing it sink back down. Ignoring the ache where her heart used to be, ignoring the pain where her love was.

All of her family had perished, one after another. The numbness of agony had spread through her like the plague; it was an epidemic her generation suffered from.

Before she had run, everyone she knew had had the glazed stare where death had stared him or her in the face. The sympathetic looks that people managed to dredge up for her, as they had nothing left to offer. But it had been a long time since she had seen another persons face. It had been a long time since she had wished to.

Another leaf fell, resting on her stomach. She brushed it off, her hand riding over the swollenness, feeling the new life inside. Even as her belief in love had ebbed and faded, new life had been fashioned in the darkest hour. The darkest hour before the blood-red dawn of a new day. The baby that grew and flourished inside her would be born into a world wrought from innocent blood and formed from suffering. A world where the defenceless would never be safe, and the defensive even less so.

Ginny dreaded to think what quality of life it would have, where it's life would lead, but she had learnt long ago that looking into the future was like setting oneself up to be knocked down. That was something she would not do again. She had forgotten what it had felt like to love, what it had felt like to be dependent, but come the winter months she would have to be strong and reliable, for she would have another mouth to feed, another being to love. She would have to teach herself how.

The baby would be a him, this she already knew. She had a picture vividly floating in her mind, a young boy, mischievous and naïve, hair the colour of fire and eyes the tone of steel. A young man, brave and loving, supportive and respected. She knew though that most babies did not survive for very long, in this day and age there was nothing to support them on. Even through her shattered faith though she could feel instinct in-built into every woman or girl, the intuition of motherhood.

Yet there was no doubt on what the baby would be called. Arthur Draco Weasley. She would not put Malfoy on the end; she would not taint her baby with that name. The cursed name.

The evening was growing cold, the sun sinking in the sky. She needed to eat, to feed her baby. If it had been up to her she would have died months ago, but this baby had already saved her life in so many ways.

Here in the depths of the forest the only food was what she could forage herself, too slow now to hunt, her diet had become vegetarian. Happy as she was, the throes of pregnancy were taking their toll. Throwing-up, mood swings, cravings, all the side effects were draining her of energy.

She claimed to be happy on her own, away from everyone else; she didn't want to be found by anybody.

Until someone did.