Surfacing

Chapter One: Building a Mystery

If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.
~ Samuel Clemens (a.k.a. Mark Twain)

Mr. and Mrs. Potter of number 12 Grimmauld Place were proud to say that they were normal, thank you very much. Maybe by our standards they would have been considered weird and freakish, but they were considered one of the jewels of the wizarding world. They weren't exactly perfect though. Their perfection existed in their imperfections. On this particular instance Virginia Potter chased her two year old daughter Adia around the house consequently running into Mr. Harry Potter as he came in the door, setting Mrs. Black off again screaming. Mrs. Black's painting is about the only thing that survived their cleaning of the house, (which included the Black Family Tree and the giant umbrella stand).

After silencing the screaming deceased and the scowling two year old, who was finally caught and forced into her training pants, Mr. Potter pecked his wife on the cheek and set the tot on his knee asking her quite seriously, "Now Adia, what did you do today?"

Immediately, the youngster launched into a lengthy tale about being forced to take a nap and tidy her room. "...And then Daddy,...and then, she made me eat a sandwich. Daddy, a sandwich, and only after I finished the whole sandwich did she let me go play," she finished, trying her best to look woe-be-gone and long suffering.

Adia looked thoughtful as her father looked across the room at her mother and tried to hold back a laugh and a smile, while failing horribly. "Daddy, I didn't really eat a sand witch did I? 'Cause that's horrible. I don't want to eat anymore witches Daddy," and with that Adia crossed her plump arms in front of her roly-poly tummy as if to signify the end of the matter.

At the end of this speech Harry burst into uncontrollable laughter. Adia looked at him reproachfully; she didn't understand anything funny about the question. Ginny jumped in to console her daughter, "Honey, you didn't eat a witch, I promise. It's illegal to eat your own people. No one has eaten another human being, magic or not, for over 2,000 years. Such practices died out a long, long time ago," Ginny comforted, or tried to at least. She still hadn't gotten used to the art of explaining things to small children. What am I doing wrong? She mused over dinner. Harry did it so perfectly; he was the father every kid wanted. Motherhood had not come easily for the only girl Weasley. Once she had asked Mum why Adia seemed to be more attached to Harry. Her answer was most troubling.

"Oh Harry's her father. She doesn't have that womb to world thing with him. You'll see, when she hits puberty she won't want to be around either one of you. Cheers!"

While her mother's answer had made no sense whatsoever to her, Ginny's thoughts were somewhat sidetracked after that. Ginny discovered that she was pregnant with her second child. Harry had been overjoyed, while Adia seemed quite unsure with how to deal with her mothers expanding waist line. She no longer threw childish insults at her mother, but she didn't talk to her either.

You come out at night, that's when the energy comes

Lately Ginny had become restless. She couldn't sleep. The non-existent wind made her cold, and the rain made her smile. The doctor said it was a faze. It didn't feel like one. It felt...grotesque. The dark felt so good. Being pregnant once had nearly killed her. She didn't want to look at herself. Being fat did not suite her. Nothing suited her. Not anymore. The air suffocated her. It weighed down. Made her heavy. The silence she was beginning to feel was thick, she almost swore it had mass. But she could tell no one. No one understood.

And the dark sides light and the vampires roam

Vampires...were erotic. They fascinated her. She'd never met one though. She never would. Harry saw to that. Being an Auror had changed him. The darkness of the world fascinated her. As humans we do this too. We always wonder about hell, it's a notion that never leaves. Ginny wondered about hell quite a lot. Who would be there, did it even exist?

You stretch your Rasta wear, and suicide poem

She would never let her clothes stretch, yet they did so anyway. That was yet another defect of being pregnant. Suicide. It was a sentence in itself. Had she ever actually written down a suicide poem like she did in second year, well, the effect wouldn't be pretty. One night after Adia and Harry had gone to bed, and she had pretended to be asleep for at least an hour, Ginny found herself at the kitchen sink. With a knife. She was startled when she realized the knife was there. It hadn't been there a moment ago, had it? Its shiny metal captivated her. It distorted her image, and it reminded her of life. The knife called to her, begging her to believe the distorted image she saw was true, so that she could end it. She began running the knife gently over her wrist. Press down, not across she thought, being reminded of a long ago conversation with a long forgotten friend.

And a cross from a faith that died before Jesus came

Faith. What was it? Who defined it so long ago that we were still reaping our reward? Ginny had none. No faith, no patience, no hope, no light, no dark. She was drifting in No Man's Land.

You live in a church, where you sleep with voodoo dolls

This one's simple. Church=The Order. Ginny sat by and watched miracles and believed them not. She held to the belief that no faith was good faith, such bad non-believer.

You wear sandals in the snow and a smile that won't wash away.

She had recently begun to feel like a china doll. A very fat china doll. Unable to feel life's pull on her, and immune to everything around her. Voldemort died and Ginny smiled. Ginny had pneumonia, and still she smiled. Okay, so maybe she wasn't immune to life's pull on her. But she didn't feel the elements. Never. Except when sunburn showed itself on her freckled back. I don't care who you are, those hurt. Then, it happened.

You woke up screaming aloud, a prayer from your secret god

She did. Literally. Ginny slept for the first time in months, and when she did, she dreamt. She dreamt of Harry dying. It scared the shit out of her. If that was a prayer from her secret god, then who was her devil? Then, weird things started happening. When she was five months pregnant a new power arose, calling himself Voldemort's heir. Harry had no special prophesy to help him here, he was meant to deal with Voldemort, not his heir. Still, the Minister of Magic expected the boy wonder to pull it off again. The man called himself Lord Dymor. Ginny supposed it stood for something else but all she could think of was Dymor sounded like "Die More" and no one knew his other name, if that was his first or last name, or if he only had one name like Voldemort.

Oh you're beautiful, beautiful fucked up now.

Then, something happened that Ginny did not expect. She lost her child. A beautiful baby boy with black hair. Ginny wondered what color his eyes would have been. She gave her son no name. She had more pressing matters to think about.

Such as Where is Harry?

You're building a mystery.

And choose it so carefully.