Chapter 3 – Submergence

When along the pavement,
Palpitating flames of life,
People flicker round me,
I forget my bereavement,
The gap in the great constellation,
The place where a star used to be.

- D.H. Lawrence, "Submergence"

(Flashback: Ginny is 9. Harry is 20.)

"Harry?"

"Yeah?"

"What happens to people when they die?" Even though Ginny's eyes were closed, she could sense Harry turning to look at her.

It was currently the middle of the night, and Harry and she had been lying on their backs in the fields behind the Burrow, staring up at the stars for about an hour ever since she'd been woken up by the sound of pebbles being thrown at her window. At first, they'd halfheartedly attempted to have a conversation, but she'd been unusually quiet that night. She knew he could tell that something was up.

His initial silence was to be expected. If anything, he always tried to be honest with her. Well… somewhat honest. He would tell her as much of the truth as he could as long as it didn't involve revealing anything about her future. She could feel irritation at his concealment ever niggling at the back of her brain.

Being the baby and only girl of the Weasley family had not taught her to be patient.

Tonight was different, however. For once, she appreciated that he was trying to find the right words to say to comfort her.

"Well, I've always believed that after people die they all go to a place where everything is happy all the time, back to that time in their life when everything was perfect. Time doesn't really pass. People there don't hate each other and there's not war. Only love. They get to be with their loved ones forever and they can watch over those that they left behind." He was silent for a moment before speaking again with, what Ginny suspected to be, a slight quiver in his voice. "I think about my parents and that's how I see them. Happy and together, watching over me until we can be together again."

The sadness in his voice set something off within Ginny, and, without realizing it, she was crying softly.

Ginny heard Harry sit up abruptly, obviously startled by her tears. "Ginny, what's wrong?" he asked gently, placing a hand on her arm.

She tried to put her hands over her eyes, as if covering them meant that Harry would forget that she was embarrassing herself by crying in front of him.

"Today, I was supposed to go swimming with Madelyn Gilly. We'd been planning on it for a week. But…but then, Fred and George wanted me to help with pulling a prank on Percy. They never ask me. They always ask Ron because he's a boy so I said yes. When Madelyn came over and I told her, she got really mad at me and we had an awful row. Then she ran away."

She broke off abruptly, feeling her throat close up as she remembered it all—Madelyn's mother frantically banging on the door during dinner looking for her daughter, telling everyone about their meeting earlier, her parents grabbing their wands and rushing out to join in the search efforts, the hour she spent sobbing in her room from the guilt, her parents coming with looks filled with sorrow.

"She tried to go swimming alone. She drowned and it's all…all my fault! She's dead and it's because of me!" She finally gave into the sobs that she'd been fighting since her parents told her.

Ginny took her hands away from her face and opened her eyes, seeking Harry's, hoping that when he looked at her he wouldn't blame her…like she blamed herself. Looking into his eyes, she saw pity, concern, and understanding. For some reason, it just made her cry even harder.

She felt herself being pulled into an awkward hug and realized offhandedly that she was caught up in Harry's arms. Then she felt ashamed that she was thinking about her hopeless, stupid love for Harry when her best friend had just died.

She wasn't sure how long she sat there crying with Harry's arm around her, but eventually her tears began to subside. Her mind reflected on his earlier words and she felt her eyes water again.

"Do… do you think that Madelyn is happy where she is?"

Harry nodded and murmured softly, "I do."

"Do you think that I'll get to see her again?"

"I do," he replied again, in a voice not his own. Confused, Ginny looked up into his face and found herself staring into the round, ruddy face of Madelyn Gilly.

"I died. I died and it's all your fault," Madelyn accused.

"No!" Ginny said, closing her eyes and trying to move away from her dead friend. When she opened her eyes again she was met with an entirely different face.

Her mother's.

"I died because of you. My death is on your hands," said her mother in a voice that was both angry and sad.

"NO!" Ginny gasped, covering her face with her hands and crying. "I'm so sorry… so, so sorry…"

"…so sorry…" she murmured over and over again.

"Ginny!"

"…so sorry…"

"Ginny, wake up!"

Ginny sat up with a gasp, images from her dream from the past still flashing through her mind. Her eyes slowly focused on Hermione who was sitting on the edge of her bed watching her with concern. She seemed unsure of how to comfort her friend. She settled for placing a hand on her leg and squeezing it softly.

"Gin, what's wrong?" Hermione asked cautiously.

Ginny's heart was racing. Every time she blinked she saw her mother's face—in the dream or on the floor in the Burrow—and it made her heart ache. She'd been walking around numb for the past week; the dull ache that the loss caused was almost welcome.

"Gin?"

She couldn't lie and say she was fine. But she also couldn't tell Hermione how she was really feeling—that the pain was so bad that she couldn't breathe.

She just settled on, "Sorry. I had a bad dream, I guess." She tried to smile but doubted Hermione would buy it.

Hermione frowned, obviously not believing Ginny's half-hearted attempt at putting on a brave face.

"Well…" Hermione began. Ginny could tell that she was fighting the urge to give advice. "I just wanted to tell you that I've made breakfast. If you're at all hungry, you should try to get down there before Ron wakes up." A small smile accompanied her wry attempt at humor.

"Thanks Hermione. I'll be down in a few minutes." Hermione nodded, standing up and leaving the room to most likely continue making "breakfast" or whatever it was that she tried to pass off as food.

As soon as she heard Hermione's steps descending the stairs, she lay back down and tried to rub the dream from her eyes. She'd been having the same dream since her mother's death, but it didn't make waking up any easier.

After a few minutes, she began to hear rustling downstairs and she finally made the effort to rouse herself from bed. She quickly put on the dressing gown that was sitting at the foot of her bed and slipped her feet into an old pair of hand-me-down slippers that had once belonged to her mother. Running her hands through her hair a few times, she made an attempt at looking presentable as she walked down the stairs to the kitchen.

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It was a sunny enough day outside yet the kitchen didn't seem quite as bright without Molly Weasley's motherly presence. Hermione was trying her best to play mother hen to all the Weasleys and to Harry. Her efforts, despite her good intentions, paled in comparison and served only as a reminder to what had been lost.

Not to mention, Hermione had the cooking skills of a garden gnome. What were supposed to be fluffy eggs would almost always come out stiff and, if left for longer than a minute, stuck to the plate. It was enough to make even Ron eat without his usual gusto.

Of course, bless her heart, she prepared every meal for them. Lunch was pleasant enough (how hard was it really to prepare a sandwich?), but dinner… she felt green just thinking about the meat pie Hermione had tried to make the previous night. It had provided no small amount of amusement to her brothers, who managed to hide their smiles (and food) behind their napkins in an effort not to offend Hermione.

It wasn't as if the rest of them were awful cooks (well, her father was); the fact of the matter was that, in the absence of their mother, no one really cared about taking care of themselves. There was a big, Molly Weasley-sized void in their hearts and in their home that could never hope to be filled.

When she walked into the kitchen, most of the family was already down there. Bill was nagging Fleur to try to eat more, despite the quality of the food. Ron had already shoveled through most of a plate of food and seemed to be eyeing the platters on the table for more. The twins were poking at their food at one end of the table, whispering between themselves and to Charlie, who seemed to be paying distracted attention to the conversation. Her father and Percy were unsurprisingly absent from the table. Percy was probably already at work, and her father had barely left his room. She made a mental note to take a tray of food to him later.

She walked around the table, responding in turn to the chorus of 'Morning Gin', and took an open seat next to Fleur. She sat silently, nibbling a piece of toast, and listened to all the conversations around her. One voice was conspicuously absent. The hairs on the back of her neck began to prickle and she looked up to notice a pair of emerald green eyes watching her closely.

Ignoring the shiver down her back that his gaze always caused, Ginny gave Harry an icy glare and returned her full attention to the slightly burned piece of toast in her hands.

Ever since her mother had died, Harry had been avoiding her like the plague. He said it was because he wanted to give her space, but Ginny knew him better than he knew himself. What Harry was doing was being classic Harry. True to form, he'd blamed the death of her mother on himself and was beating himself up accordingly. Hermione had been bugging Ginny these past few days to try and talk some sense into him.

"After all" she'd said, "it's not any more his fault than it is mine or Ron's or Mr. Weasley's." It didn't escape Ginny's notice that her own name was not on the list.

For once, however, Harry's peace of mind was not on the top of her list of priorities. Harry could take care of himself. He'd made that perfectly clear when he'd broken up with her after Dumbledore's funeral, when he'd left her alone to go fight against Voldemort, and when he'd made the decision to steer clear of her for the two weeks that she needed him most. So, if Hermione thought she was going to start worrying about Harry right now, she would be sorely mistaken.

Feeling the anger beginning to rise in her, Ginny stood abruptly from the table and excused herself before anyone could ask where she was going.

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Harry watched moodily as Ginny left the table. The look she'd given him before leaving had been so full of contempt, hurt, and anger that he couldn't help but feel ashamed for having avoided her for the past few weeks.

'You were just giving her space to deal with her grief,' he told himself. Every time he repeated that excuse it sounded even more stupid. He knew that he was really avoiding Ginny for one reason that he couldn't bring himself to admit. He knew that the most important thing to do right now is to be there for Ginny. He KNEW all of this but there was always that voice in the back of his mind that held him back… the voice that said, not only did he know that this was all his fault, but also Ginny knew that her mother died because of him.

So he avoided her so he didn't have to look into her eyes and see the blame. He avoided her so he didn't have to see the hurt that he'd caused. He avoided her so he didn't have to come to terms with his own grief in losing the closest thing he'd ever had to a real mother.

His resolution, however, didn't make it any easier to see Ginny's face everyday. It was obvious that she was just going through the motions. She got up, she ate her meals with her family, she looked after her father, and she went to bed at night so she could wake up and do it all over again. He could tell that she wasn't sleeping well. She was liable to snap at anyone at any moment (though, it did make him feel slightly better that her anger wasn't focused solely on him). It tore him up inside that she was in so much pain but he had no idea how to be there for her in the way she needed without causing her more pain.

It didn't help that Hermione, of course, knew exactly what he should do. She was sympathetic to his reasons to a point and was willing to listen to his logic. Thinking back over their last encounter, though, he wasn't sure how much longer he would have her to listen to him. They had been talking in his room for some time, mostly her talking to him and him avoiding the issue. He only knew things were going bad when she stopped talking and sat in silence for a few minutes. When she finally did speak, her words left him feeling that maybe he was just as screwed up emotionally as he'd thought.

"You know, Harry, I hope you realize soon that your excuses and your self-sacrifices don't amount to shite."

She had ignored his shocked expression at her use of language that she usually scolded Ron for saying and had stood up and left his bedroom, leaving him alone to stew in his own misery.

The back door slamming caused all of the Weasley brothers to turn around and look at him, each with an angry expression. Hermione just tutted to herself at the kitchen sink. Harry felt about five inches tall. Voldemort he could handle. Five Weasley brothers had him cowering in one of Weasley's mismatched kitchen chairs.

Harry looked at Hermione, hoping for some advice to help him in his present situation. She gave him a look that plainly said 'Get-your-head-out-of-your-arse-and-go-talk-to-her'.

Steeling himself for the worst, Harry pushed away from the table and started to walk towards the door. He was surprised when he felt a hand on his shoulder and turned back to see Ron holding him back.

"Let me talk to her," Ron stated, looking past Harry toward the door. When Harry started to protest, Ron cut him off quickly and said, "I think you've done enough for right now." With that, he shouldered past Harry and made his way outside.

Feeling the glares of everyone in the kitchen, Harry stuffed his hands in his pockets and left the kitchen, retreating to the safe and solitary confines of the room he shared with Ron.

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There was no question as to where Ginny had gone. Ever since they were kids she would go off alone out in the fields behind their house. There was a tree that she would always go play under and use to store her various toys that she didn't want the boys to mess with. When she got older, she just went and sat there to read or think.

Stepping out the door, he looked around until he could barely make out the top of the tree and began to make his way towards its. It wasn't look until he could make out her form in the distance.

Clearing his throat, Ron spoke loudly, "Don't know what you see in that prat." He heard Ginny sniff and raise a hand to her face, causing him to realize that she had been crying and to almost stop in his path. She never cried. He knew she was a girl and girls usually tended to cry but this was Ginny. Hermione was a veritable waterworks but Ginny had always been the only girl in a family of six brothers. She made people cry but she did not cry. She'd never been one to play the victim and she'd always made that perfectly clear, much to the terror, amazement, and admiration of her older brothers.

Acknowledging his comment, she laughed and turned her head to watch his approach. "You do know that's your best mate that you're talking about?"

He sat on the ground beside her, so close that their shoulders were touching. "That's exactly how I know how much of a prat he really is."

"Well, you know I just figured that it takes a prat to know a prat'." He looked over at her to see that she was grinning. He elbowed her softly in the ribs, causing Ginny to laugh softly.

Here they lapsed into silence. Ron had never been really good with these kinds of talks. Sure, dating Hermione he'd been forced (emphasis on forced) into participating in more than a few discussions about feelings and the like, but those were usually easier because Hermione would prompt him on what he should be feeling and saying.

On the whole, though, he tried to keep away from talking about his emotions. Looking over at Ginny, he could see that maybe it was a family trait. He could also see that her mood wasn't just about Harry. He began to feel the guilt seeping into him for having left her alone for a year to search for the Horcruxes and then again for those days they left to fight Voldemort. It had always been in his head that he would be leaving things behind but it had never really occurred to him that things would go on without him.

It wasn't as if he was daft or self-centered enough to think that life would stop after he'd left. It was just things like seeing that Percy had become reconciled with the family again or that Fleur so big with child or that his father had managed to lose even more hair on his head. The most astounding thing to see was how much Ginny had grown up in the past year. He knew he wasn't the only one who'd noticed it (Hermione had to restrain him from pounding Harry's eyes back into their sockets to keep him from noticing how much she'd grown). He remembered back to when they were kids and had both been so small and scrawny, all freckles and bright red hair. They had been quite the pair, almost inseparable. He couldn't remember when it was that they had grown apart—probably sometime right before he had left for Hogwarts. He was ashamed that she was pretty much absent from his memories at that time. For him, life became about Quidditch and Hogwarts and trying to get the twins to include him on pranks. All he knew was that she'd become fascinated by the life of Harry Potter, but he didn't even know when that had begun.

He remembered the summer before her first year at Hogwarts. She had been so excited to be going to school with Ron and had asked him so many questions about everything. He remembered ignoring her for the most part, too excited by what a friendship with Harry Potter meant and what a crazy witch Hermione Granger was. That ended up being how their relationship at Hogwarts had been like. It still haunted him that one of the only memories of Ginny that he had from that year was finding out from someone else that she was missing; he hadn't even noticed himself. How could he notice her missing if he never saw her in the first place? Guilt was what took him into the Chamber of Secrets that night and what had kept him by her side during her recovery all summer.

However, this newfound loyalty had barely lasted into the next school year. Luckily for her, she'd learned that she couldn't trust him to keep her at the front of his thoughts and had made her own friends. Even now, this was true. The whole year he'd been gone was about helping Harry and keeping Hermione safe and somehow getting them home safely. He hadn't given one thought to how Ginny was coping with being left by her boyfriend, her brother, and her best friend.

But the worst part was that he'd yet to talk to her about how she was dealing with their Mum's death. He was pretty sure that she hadn't talked to anyone about it. He'd only thought as far as how her death was affecting him and how the family would change in her absence. He had no idea how she was coping with her death. For Merlin's sake, she'd been there when it happened! Hermione would call him insensitive for not even considering his younger sister but she was too busy trying to be helpful to try to start anything. He was supposed to protect Ginny… what a good job he'd done so far.

After sitting in silence for a few more moments, Ron decided to try talking again. "So what's up with you and Harry anyway? It seems to always be something." He cringed after the words were out of his mouth, realizing he'd been less than tactful.

Ginny either didn't notice or was just too used to him to let it bother her for she gave no indication that his words had bothered her. She let out an aggravated sigh and began pulling grass out of the ground and letting it fall from her fingers. "You're right. It is always something with us, but I couldn't even begin to tell you what it is. Sometimes he just makes being together so hard!" Ron was silent for a few moments, not really sure how to answer this. So, of course, he said the wrong thing.

"If it's so hard, then why do you put up with it?

She was silent for a while before answering. "Because I'm in love with the man who he'll become in the future. Because we have history that he won't understand for years. Because I know that we will be together and I'm afraid of what would happen to our future and our past if I left him now. Sometimes being in love with someone can be the most difficult thing a person can do."

Ron tried not to look at her as if she were barmy, but was having trouble. He genuinely had no idea how to answer that. She sounded a bit like Firenze when he would start talking in Divination about their pasts and futures. Honestly, it gave him a headache and it made no sense. Looking at her, though, she looked peaceful and unperturbed, as if she'd simply told him that it was sunny and warm outside. She seemed so… mature. He stared at her for a few moments, trying to see a hint of the seventeen year old that she really was. It was if there was something that only she knew but wasn't keen to tell anyone else.

He shook his head and cracked a grin. "You remind me of mum right now." Ginny started at this declaration, almost as if she'd been pinched.

"What do you mean?" she asked warily, the tremor in her voice not going unnoticed by him.

"Mum had this way of knowing things about our lives that even we didn't know. She always knew when Fred and George were going to be up to no good. She could always tell that Charlie was going to run off and do something crazy like working with dragons. She was even the one that told me that I was in love with Hermione."

Ginny smiled at this, as if she were starting to remember these things too. "She always called you her special boy. She knew that one day you were going to make your mark on the world, and she was right. You saved the world, Ronnie." His ears began to turn red at the pride in her voice. He pulled up a handful of grass, embarrassed by her words.

"Harry saved the world," he corrected her, but she shook her head.

"You all did. He could never have done it without you. Before she—well, before she would talk everyday about how proud she was of you and how brave you were. That didn't stop her from being scared out of her wits, mind you. But, oh Ron… she was SO proud." Ginny's eyes were beginning to water up and so were Ron's.

He didn't think he'd ever get used to talking about his Mum in the past tense.

He could feel Ginny starting to shake next to him. When he hesitantly reached out to put a hand on her shoulder, she started to sob and bury her face into her hands.

"Oh god, Ginny," he spoke softly before taking her into his arms and holding her tightly against him. He tried to forget that he couldn't remember the last time he'd hugged her. Ron just sat there holding her and rocking her back and forth for what felt like forever. He didn't think about the cramp in his back that he was getting from holding her at such a strange angle. He didn't think about the fact that the body heat from holding her was making the heat ridiculous. All he thought about was holding onto her as tightly as he could and never letting go. He had failed her so much already, but not this time.

So even as the sun made its way higher into the sky, Ron held his baby sister because she needed him and it was the least he could do.

"Ron, it's all my fault!" he faintly heard her sob. He tried to look at her face but she refused to look up. He was confused.

"Ginny, what are you talking about? What's all your fault?" When she didn't answer, he grabbed her shoulders and held her an arms distance away. Her face looked tortured and he wondered how he'd never seen it before.

"Look at me," he commanded her. He shook her slightly to get her to look up at him. "You have to know this. Her death wasn't your fault!"

Ginny shook her head and try to free herself from Ron's grasp. "If I'd just stayed put like she told me, she wouldn't have died!" Ron shook his head.

"How do you know that? They're Death Eaters, Gin. They would have killed everyone!" He let her cry silently for a moment before speaking again. "She died protecting her children and grandchildren. That's all she ever wanted. She wanted us to be okay and we are… because of her. So please stop blaming yourself. No one else does. She never would have blamed you."

Ron hugged her again, whispering things that he hoped were comforting into her ear. He didn't stop until she quieted and pulled away. Wiping at her face, she resumed her position sitting next to Ron and staring off into the distance.

"Thanks Ron… for everything. I guess Harry's starting to rub off on me," Ginny said quietly, giving him a wry smile.

"That better be the only way that Harry is rubbing off on you," he responded, giving her a light shove. When she was conspicuously silent, he looked over at her sharply, the idea of Harry doing anything to his baby sister causing his face to turn red in anger. "That IS the only way he's rubbing off, isn't it?"

Before he could ask again, Ginny had grabbed two handfuls of grass and stuffed them down his shirt. She took off towards the house before he'd realized what happened. Hearing her laughter, he got up and took off after her, shaking the grass out of his clothes as he ran.

He was going to kill her, but it was nice to hear her laugh again.