Ginny's Winter

Ginny Weasley hated being alone. Ever since the last of her brothers had left for their schooling days at Hogwarts or for careers far and wide, she'd found that with every passing day the silence in her house was become less and less satisfying. Though she'd never admit to it, she really did miss her brothers.

And it didn't help that her Father worked long hours, either. She'd never noticed it before, but with Ron not there to distract her with a Quidditch game or two, she now saw that her Father was always gone when she woke up and didn't come home until she'd been tucked in.

It was for this matter that she found herself staring out her bedroom window at the snow that was pattering down on the tall brush that surrounded the burrow as far as the eye could see. She had on her favorite pajama and long, woolen red overcoat, but she wasn't planning on going outside. Her parents had been invited to an important dinner and, seeing as everyone was busy, she'd been left home alone for the night—a fact that made her much colder than she'd ever remember being.

But it wasn't so much the alones that frightened her—it just annoyed her, mostly—it was something far worse. She kept hearing a voice form under her floor. Every night it would arose and talk to her, but she wasn't exactly sure of what it told her as some nights it could be heard more clearly than others. If there was something she new, however, it was that it wasn't going to go away. She'd tried to tell her mum about it, but she'd dismissed it as Ginny being lonely without any of her brothers around and sat her down for a try of biscuits. But not even warm treats could evade her from the coldness of the voice that chilled her every bone.

Ginny took a deep breath and opened her window, the icy winds throwing themselves against her rosy, freckled cheeks. Closing her eyes, she remembered the boy she'd been told so much about as a child: The-Boy-Who-Lived. She didn't quite suspect him to be heroic or prince-like. After all, he was just a baby. If she couldn't remember anything about being a baby, how could he? She thought long and hard about the kind person he must be, clasped her hands together, and she got ready to speak.

"Dear Mr. Potter, There's something under my floor," she began, "at night I hear it. It says things, evil things, and it frightens me very much. Mum says I'm just "over imaginative," but I would never think up something that horrible." She shutters slightly, remembering the voice's pleas for blood one night, "And I know it's a lot to ask for, but I need your help, Mr. Potter. No one believes me about the voice, but you might. I know you will! You won't even have to come for that long, Mr. Potter. Just this once, I need your help. So please, please make it all stop," she whimpered.

Suddenly a loud, violent gust of wintery wind rushed into her room, forcing her to hastily shut her window. The brush below danced in a frenzy of adrenaline that mirrored her own, the night sky becoming livid with twisting and twirling snowflakes.

As soon as it came, however, the excitement was gone, the world becoming motionless in a matter of seconds. Ginny blinked. She could feel herself holding her breath in anticipation, wondering what might happen next. And just as she was about to tear her eyes away from the window, a fleck of bluish-white light caught her beautiful brown eyes.

A gentle calming mist enveloped her and she could fell her entire body relax as the light grew brighter. Soon a graceful stag skillfully raced up into the sky before it faded to snow. She pressed her hands against her window as she watched it prance, her breath causing the glass to fog. As she smiled, the words, "Thank you," faintly escaped her lips.

She abruptly ran out of her room, the door slamming shut behind her. Before she skidded down the stairs however, she stopped. Straining to hear any sounds below, she slowly began stepping down the stairs. Ginny grabbed a loose pole from the staircase for good measure as she went. The familiar sounds of pops and crackles from doing magic became clear.

Her pace quickened, the slippers causing her to skip down the steps with ease until she hit a bump in the eighth step. Ginny then stumbled down the stairs in a heap, landing with a loud thud that startled the visitor. She could feel her mind go num as an agonizing pain flooded through her right side, which had taken the hardest fall. Knowing full well that there was company, however, she did not hesitate to push herself up while collecting her stick and come face to face with a pair of glistening emerald eyes.

"Well… hello," he said simply staring at her bemusedly.

"Hello yourself," resounded Ginny. She scrutinized him as well.

He wore a long, deep green robe that was fixated over what one might expect to wear to the Ministry. His hair looked distraught and agonized by the wind where as his eyes, set behind distinct circular spectacles held only by the tape on the bridge, were mad with a twinkle of inquisition. However, none of this made him scary. In truth, it only gave Ginny a certain heightened expectation of this man.

"Who are you?"

"That's not important," he replied as he began to walk past her to examine the staircase, "What've you got that stick for? Thought I was going to hurt you?"

"No," she began, "but something else might."

The man reached the eighth staircase and pulled out his wand to tap at it for a moment or two before proudly stating, "Adhaereo." Ginny watched in awe as it compacted itself into a flat surface once again. Her father had been trying that spell on that step for weeks without success.

"Are you hungry?" she asked, suddenly remembered what her mother had always told her about good hospitality. "I could make you something if you like…"

He stood up again and dusted the snow off his pants. "Hungry? I hadn't thought about that… What've you got?"

Ginny perked up and ran towards the kitchen, throwing open the first cabinet she met, which was where they kept their fruit, as the wood held an anti-spoiling charm. She grabbed an orange from the middle shelf by standing on her tiptoes and turned around to find that he had followed her in the room. She handed the fruit to him and watched with fascination as he turned it around in his hands. Oranges were her favorite fruit.

Without even peeling off the skin, he bit into it and began to chew. Ginny couldn't contain herself and began to giggle. He looked at her oddly, his mouth stopping in chewing. "Is this poisoned?"

"No, you're eating it wrong!" She took the orange from him and dug her nail into the skin to reveal the citrusy fruit inside. He eyed it once more before gesturing that he did not want it.

"I don't like those much anyway… have you got something like… I don't know… bacon?" Ginny looked at him oddly but quickly set to work giving him a seat at the end of the massive Weasley dinner table and pulling out a medium sized frying pan from the overflowing cabinets. He spit out the orange when she wasn't looking, whipping his tongue with a napkin to get rid of the taste.

The bacon was done in a flash as the magic stove was meant to cook it to perfection in just minutes. She placed the strips on his plate and waited in anticipation for him to take him fist bite. He bit into the crunchy strips and suddenly found himself floating over to a cabinet he would have otherwise not noticed, grabbing a bottle of chocolate syrup and squirting it into his mouth, chewing the bacon more fervently again afterwards.

"Are you nutters?" cried Ginny. "You'll get yourself sick."

"It tastes too good to make me sick," he replied, drowning himself in another swing of the syrup. "What did you say your name was again?"

"I didn't because you didn't."

He frowned for a moment before letting it go with a shrug. "Fine. I'm Harry."

Ginny's heart fluttered with the sudden realization as to who this might be. However, she needed confirmation. "Harry what?"

"Just… Harry," he said, suddenly unsure of himself.

"Ginny Weasley."

"Ginny Weasley. Sounds familiar," he added making her blush. He pushed the half empty plate away from him and stood up, abandoning the chocolate as well. "It's been fun, Ginny, but I have the feeling that it's best I not stay any longer."

"Why not?" she sounded hurt. "Where've you got to go?"

He stopped short in his stride out of the kitchen, as if not expecting her to reply. "Well, I… I've got a friend who needs me to come back."

Ginny's heart sank. Harry, whether he was the Harry or not, had somewhere more important to be than to be with her. She looked down at her shoes in a sudden shame in herself. "What sort of friend?"

Harry quirked an eyebrow. "What?"

"Are you married?"

"What sort of question is that!?" he sounded alarmed by the bluntness of the child.

"What's her name?" she pressed on.

"Uh, Hermione," he said rubbing the back of his neck, "But we're not married. She's just a partner."

A sudden hope filled her again. "How so?"

"If I told you, I don't think you'd understand. Although you do seem a clever girl, you're more brave than anything."

"Brave?" This confused her.

"Yeah. Brave," he replied more confidently.

She scoffed and folded her arms. "I'm not that brave."

He looked at her animatedly. "Really? Some gent comes knocking about in your home and instead of staying in your room and hiding under your bed you creep down the stairs with a pole in your hands ready to hurt him if need be. And then instead of asking him where he's from or what he does you just ask his name, which he doesn't give you at first, and suddenly offer him food. Any you, little girl, have the gull to tell me you're not brave?"

"I am not a little girl! I'm ten years old," she replied, puffing her chest out and placing her hands on her hips in a way that made her feel bigger than was possible for someone of her size to be. He smiled. "And I knew you weren't going to hurt me if he sent you. I just had the pole because I was… being careful."

"Who sent me?"

She looked at him in disbelief, as if the knowledge were as common as knowing the difference between day and night. "Mr. Potter, of course! He saved us all from He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, you know. I asked him to."

"Why'd you ask him to send me?"

At this she cowered slightly. "Because he's the only one who'll believe me about the sounds I keep hearing. He'll fix them."

"You know what I think," said Harry as he bent down to met her eye level. "If a girl as brave as you is so frightened of some ruddy noise that she's got to call the savior of Brittan to help than it's got to be true, and very scary at that. I'm no Potter's angel, but I'll see what I can do."

Ginny beamed and grabbed his hand, leading him towards the stairs. Her heart was racing at the thought of leading the two of them to the thing that frightened her the most. She ignored his pleas to slow down and flew directly to her room where she could feel it getting ready to speak. However, upon her entrance, she slowed, dropping his hand.

"Is that where it's at?" he said gesturing to a large pile of miss-matched pillows from her brothers' rooms stacked atop the sounds' source to muffle its foul tongue.

Harry walked over to the mess and began to throw the pillows aside. Underneath was nothing more than an ordinary floor. He tried a simple detection spell to see if it picked up on anything to no avail. Ginny watched in silent amazement as he muttered a variation of the detection spell and used the lighted tip of his wand to trace a rune on the floor. It gave the room a golden huge as it the oddly placed shapes brightened.

"Arthrimancy," he explained to her, as if that were enough for Ginny to comprehend.

When the runes stopped glowing, the entire hum of the Burrow fell silent as they waited for some sort of noise. When it came, Harry nearly jumped out of his skin.

"YOU FILTHY HALF-BLOOD! How dare you enter a place of purity! No matter that they think bloody muggles are the best thing since sliced bread! You are your stupid time-tuner are condemned to death if you don't leave now. I know who to call, Harry." I spoke foully and with elongated S's. Ginny had clogged her ears with her fingers the moment it had uttered a sound. She now found herself trembling in a violent fear.

As it rattled on about death threats Harry cast a silencio, hushing its voice but still allowing the vibrations to rattle the house. "That is frightful. How long's it been there?"

Ginny had to calm herself before replying. "I don't know. One day it wasn't there and the next it was."

Harry looked quizzical for a moment before her gleefully jumped back into staring at the floor. "Well, it's nothing a little magic can't fix." With a spell Ginny didn't recognize he began to drawn an elaborate set of runes that overlapped and intertwined to look more like a web of images than any one picture. She thought that one in the top right corner resembled a girl, but didn't have to be sure of it as he quickly scribbled another atop it, the shaking growing more violent with each lighted stroke.

When he finished a loud bang collapsed the make shift dolls and paper back books off of her shelves, the sounds of shattering dishes chorusing below. Ginny stumbled backwards and landed in a heap on the floor. Harry smiled at his handy work. "No worries, it's expected when you've got vermin like that around."

Ginny looked up around quizzically before timidly replying, "Is it gone?"

Harry looked uneasy as he rubbed the back of his neck. "It depends on your definition of gone."

"So he's not going to come back?" she asked, getting giddier by the second.

"Yeah, sure, if he's got nothing against you he won't. Didn't try to expel his soul fragment, did you?" he joked, making her giggle. They gazed at each other in appreciation until a flashing from under his shirt caught Ginny's eye.

"What's that?" she asked unsurely.

He looked down at himself in dismay, wriggling something out of his shirt faster than Ron could run to the dinner table. He cursed under his breath and began to fiercely stride out of the room. "Wait! What's wrong?" Ginny called after him. She trotted down the hall to where she could already hear him descending the stairs.

"No!" he cried, "You mustn't come any closer! Something's gone wrong with the experiment," he pleaded, causing her the cease movement at the top of the staircase.

Ginny looked down at his back for an answer and soon received it when he turned around, the blinking, yellowish light becoming relevant once more. It hailed from a compact pocket watch swaying on a golden chain. She stared at it in wonder.

"Remember my partner?" she nodded, hearing him only as much as she needed to as the blinking penetrated her senses, "Well this is what we're working on." He allowed her to gaze at it just for one moment before he tucked it in his pocket. "It's a time traveling device, but something's gone wrong with it."

"What's happened?" she bellowed down to him once she'd been snapped back into reality.

"I'll have to go back and ask her—I don't know! Please, you've got to find somewhere safe now, or it might confuse which body it's transporting."

Ginny studied him, waiting for any sign of movement, but when it did not come she could not help but ask, "What about the crack? It's not all the way fixed is it?" She took a few steps down the stairs, to which made him take a few more in alarm.

"Not entirely, no, but I can try to come back and fix that too if this all works out," he reasoned, creaking down another few steps. "It'll only feel like I've been gone five minutes to you. I'll be back, I promise."

She looked at him skeptically. "People always say that! That's what Dad says everyday when he's off to check on something in his office, but it's always more. People don't ever mean it."

The hands of the pocket watch began to turn to a rhythmic dance that caused the light to fleck against the entire house. "Do I look like people to you?" And before he left with a flash, he smiled and waved up at her.

A gust of wind similar to the one she'd heard earlier crashed through the windows and brought a slice of the winter air with it. The house froze stiff and sank into a chilling darkness, as the wind had blown out all the candles, even the ones that were supposed to have been under a wind resistant charm.

Ginny's heart was beating so fast she could have sworn she was going to pee herself if she didn't sit down. Plopping herself down on the stairs she couldn't help but stare at where he'd just been. She hugged herself and remembered everything that had just happened in a most vivid detail, which led her to the clear and concise conclusion that only one wizard could have done all of this and his name was not just Harry, but Harry Potter. And when he returned, she was going to make him say it to her. She was going to listen as the words flooded out of his mouth and made her every sense stop with the realization that it was indeed he. So she waited.

She counted all the steps on the stairs that she knew creaked and waited. She ran back to her room to grab a blanket to keep her warm, as the heating charms had also worn off. She bit her lip and braided her hair, but she sat patiently there and waited. But more than five minutes had passed by long before any of that. Five minutes had passed by when she was just getting to thinking about him painting runes in her floor. But she only knew that it had when the front door opened to let in the parents that would punish her with a month's chores because of the mess she'd made.

Yet still she waited. She thought about him every morning when she rolled out of bed to see if the snow had pilled up any higher. And she thought about him every night when she went to sleep. He intoxicated her dreams with grins and chocolate syrup. And when thinking about him had become too repetitive to keep her waiting, she began to draw him, again and again. Sometimes in slacks and a Quidditch jersey, as she was sure he loved Quidditch as well. And other times with his hand in hers as he led her to all sorts of places.

She painted lovely pictures of when they traveled to the future and what it'd be like. She imagined him taking her to see the Pyramids of Egypt being build and drew them helping it be built. She even stuck the pictures of her vanity so she could stare at them while she brushed her hair.

And then one day during spring as she was sitting under the apple tree in the Burrow's backyard thinking about her brother Charlie's expected visit that evening, she sketched him and herself like she'd never sketched them before. She drew herself as an older, prettier girl with long red hair and big brown eyes and him standing next to her—only they weren't dressed in their nighties like she usually depicted them. They were dressed in the sort of beautiful robes Mr. Diggory and his wife had worn when he remarried last year. She flushed as she gazed at the picture, wishing it to be real. Wishing for his smile to match hers like so one day as flowers sang ballets to them from afar. All of it: the world would be theirs if she was patient enough.

But she still waited; waited and waited for The-Boy-Who-Never-Came for the rest of that year.