A/N this is like my story feels like home. each chapter is based on or inspired by a song off the norah jones album come away with me.

Seven Years – Ginny

Ginny Weasley was seven years old. She was a little girl with nothing wrong, but she was all alone. She had six older brothers but she played alone. Ron was only a year older than she was, but he acted like he knew everything and always wanted to tell her what to do when they played together. Fred and George were both ten, and they were fun to play with sometimes, but they spent most of their time figuring out ways to pull pranks on the others. They left her alone though, and sometimes let her help, because she was their favourite. Percy was twelve and Charlie was fifteen, they were both away at school. She didn't miss Percy that much; he wasn't any fun to play with; he never wanted to get dirty or do anything that might possibly in some way be at all dangerous. She did kinda miss Charlie, but he hardly ever played with her; he spent most of his time flying or hanging out with his friends. Bill, now, Bill she missed. He had just graduated and gotten a job with Gringott's, the wizarding bank. Everyone had thought that he'd stay in London for a while so they could train him for the job, but he had tested so well that they sent him straight to Egypt to train there. He was her favourite. He had never gotten too old to play with her and always had time to talk or listen to her sing. He liked it when she sang. She missed him.

Well, if no one wanted to listen to her sing, she'd sing to herself. She was outside lying flat on her back, spread eagle, in the field behind their house singing to the sky. Sometimes she would get up and run across the field, spin in circles, or make up her own dances. Sometimes she would pretend she had a partner and sometimes she danced alone. She liked to dance and to run, it made her feel free and it didn't matter if she was alone.

In an hour or so she would have to go inside because it was getting dark. She didn't really mind. She would help her mother fix dinner and then listen to her father tell them all about his day. She liked listening to her father talk about all those muggle things that he learned about at work. She liked it better when he got a day off and could work in their garage. He liked to take muggle things and make them magical, and he would let her watch, sometimes even help. She knew he wasn't supposed to do it, mostly because her mum would always pretend to be mad, but also because it was his job to stop other people from doing the same thing. He said it wasn't the same thing, though, because he would never sell any of his things or give them away so there was no chance a muggle could get a hold of them.

That was a good year, when she was seven. Being alone never felt lonely that year. When she was eight the twins went off to school as well and she missed having them around, they were entertaining. From there it only got worse. When she was nine, Ron was talking about how he would get to go to school the next year and even though she didn't really get along with him or play with him she knew it would be even lonelier without him around. More than that, though, Charlie was talking about graduating, and he wanted to work with dragons in Romania! That was as far away as Egypt! Her family was leaving her. When she was ten she was stuck at home alone with her mother. She loved her mother, but since everyone else was gone and she was the last her mother babied her more than ever.

When she started school she finally had a real friend she could talk to, but that turned out to be the biggest mistake of her life. That "friend" had nearly cost the lives of other students, had nearly cost her own. Her second year wasn't much better. Her big brother and friends practically ignored her and she had no other friends. She was pretty shy after what had happened her first year and she just kinda disappeared her second. Her third year she was getting pretty tired of being lonely and missed the days when she was just alone so she decided to figure out how to be happy just being her again.

Her fourth year saw a great deal of improvement. Apparently, when you are happy just being you, it's a lot easier to make friends. She still didn't have many, but she had a few. There was Luna Lovegood. She was a bit nuts, but in a good way. She was happy just being herself as well and didn't care what anyone else thought. There was also Neville Longbottom. He was in her brother's year, but he didn't have many friends either and they seemed to be making a circle of outcasts. She had also become pretty good friends with Hermione, one Ron's best friends and the girl he refused to admit fancying. Three friends may not sound like much, but she figured it was more than most people.

Not that she told her friends everything. She kept to herself quite a bit. Her friends might eventually learn everything, but she had long since stopped talking about anything that really weighed on her mind until she had pretty much dealt with it on her own. Very few people, including her friends, realized how alone she really was, alone, but no longer lonely.

It had taken her eight years, but once again, she was able to sing for herself and dance free. Unfortunately, though, loneliness is persistent and would seep in at the edges, always adding just a hint of melancholy to the solitude. Anyone who looked close, though, could tell that her crooked smile told a tale of grace that was all her own.