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Remember me when I am gone | ||||
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Category: Post-HBP Characters:Harry/Ginny Genres: Angst, General, Humor, Tragedy Warnings: None Story is Complete Rating: G Reviews: 2 Summary: Harry wants the world to change, Ginny is reluctent. All he can do... An expanded version of All He Can from Harry's P.O.V. Hitcount: Story Total: 4610 Disclaimer: insert standar disclaimer Author's Notes: For those of you who have asked for a more in-depth version of my prior piece - All he can do... - here it is. I have also added a few more ideas I have had since the original.
I lied when I said I wouldn't do it again. I'm slowly building this story up every time I look at it again. Just hope I don't ruin it in the process. |
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Remember me when I am gone away, Gone far away into the silent land… Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830—1894) There was a woman, sitting, rocking in the chair by the picture window on the far side of the room - mumbling to herself, over and over. And her eyes screaming to the world “My being is gone but still I am not dead." And in the opposite corner of the room, a man sits biting into a leather belt, over and over telling his dog to behave, there’s nothing outside, it’s just the wind. And in the middle of the room the girl - the oh-so young girl, no older than 12 - banging out a constant middle C on the grand piano under the light of the skylight. She says he is brave for coming here. “I can’t, Harry. I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand to remember,” she says each time he invites her to come along. It has become a ritual, these visits. It grounds him. They may have won the war, but there is a long way to come. You remind me of something I do not want to remember, people say, and they lock them away. And his eyes stream with anger. It makes him fume and all he can do is watch and make them as comfortable as possible. All he can do… He stands on the knoll over the valley - not hidden, but open to all, a basin where magical and non-magical alike can come and fill with their grief. He stands looking out over the hundreds - no, thousands - of white stone pillars, all the same. No matter they commemorate a witch, a wizard, a Muggle - God, how he hates that stupid distinction more each day. No matter they young or old. No matter what side they fought on, all the same. And he walks the endless aisles of identical standing stones, carved with simple silver plaques. Names, dates of coming and going, ages - oh the ages - all different but identical. She will come here with him and together they stand and remember. And together eyes, green and brown, stream with sorrow, as they remember them all. Victims of anger and greed and misunderstanding and lies. Forgotten and ignored because it hurts, oh how it hurts to remember. And his eyes stream with sorrow. It makes him weep and all he can do is watch and mourn. All he can do… The young girl runs around and around the garden, long red mane flowing out behind her flashing with green ribbons and sunlight. If she could just catch this butterfly, then she could she exactly what it was that made it just that shade of pink. He comes and watches them, the future of the human race. Those abandoned because people don’t want to remember, don’t want to have to explain. The orphanage is bright but not cheerful. But they play on, and grow, and his eyes stream with optimism. It is up to them now. It makes him hope and all he can do is watch and pray. All he can do… All he can do… She was trying to distract herself with music. Anything with funny lyrics, playful melodies or pop beats. But nothing worked. The Wyrd Sisters had become sentimental and quiet in their old age, and Slippery Penguin Soup made her feel as if she was putting on a façade, which of course she was. Ginny Weasley wanted to feel again; to feel anything but the sorrow that filled her every day. She wanted passion, happiness; hell, she’d even settle for a rip-roaring anger like Hermione’s. Harry hadn’t smiled for years. Everyday he’d go off on his “grounding” and no matter how well the day would seemingly start, he would come home embittered and sad. Ginny, of course, the empathic soul would listen to his rants and fall into the trap of depression herself — every time. She had been having a wonderful day. Her youngest daughter had been full of surprises, not least the display of her first sign of magic by turning her teddy frog into a real one and scaring the daylights out of her mother. And now, Ginny was getting surer by the day, another child was on the way. Possibly two. But then Harry came home, and her day was ruined. It is late in the day, at that time when evening becomes night and the post owls cease their deliveries and go off to hunt. The young girl who bears her father’s distinctly messy hair - though stained a vivid red to match her personality - is tucked up in bed; the wardrobe cleared of Bogart, the underside of the bed free of Bogey Men and the memory of a goodnight kiss fresh in her mind. And around the scrubbed Oak table Harry sits with his wife hugging the mug of steaming hot chocolate as if he was chilled to the bone, even though a warm spring breeze is billowing through the lace curtains of the open window. “There must be more than this,” he says forlornly, hanging his head in the way of a defeated man, as he sat hugging his mug, “I must be able to do more." Ginny can feel the first laps of sadness washing at the feet of her soul. But she follows the prompting knowing it will only cause her to walk into a rip and drown. “What Harry? What more can we do.” Silence falls across the room. Harry takes a deep slurp from the coffee in his cooling mug, knowing if he does not that nasty skin will form across the top of it. He slurps it and Ginny makes a face at him, but he doesn’t notice. “We could make people remember,” comes a long delayed reply. He raises his head, but not with any real conviction. “ But how? They don’t want to. I don’t want to.” “How can we learn,” he says with remarkable coolness and calm, for he has had this conversation before so many times, “if we forget?” “The world goes on, Harry, even if it shouldn’t.” His mind turns to the innocent young child sleeping soundly in the room above them and the other offspring at that school so far away up North. It would be so easy to lose himself in his many blessings; to forget that all he had was received in return for his service. To be like everyone else and move on. To forget. The world moves on, even if it shouldn’t. “But so many dead, homeless, insane. How can we say we have we improved if we can not care for those who most need our help?” he answers her wisdom, the conversation taking a new direction. His conviction is rising, and for once Ginny does not feel as if she is being sucked out to sea without a lifeguard in sight. Rather, it is almost as if she is being carried in a boat towards the sunrise. “You and I, Ginny, we are okay. We have everything we could need. My parents and theirs and yours and theirs saw to that. But what of that young girl, Ginny, who parents are gone and cannot provide” She did not respond, it felt wrong. “We have life, and we care for those we lost. But what of all those graves, Ginny? Left untended, uncared for. How sad those that have gone on must be to look back and see no-one wants to see. And those poor people. All alone in that horrid place, that institution,” he spits the venomous word. “They don’t need an institution to get better, they need people Gin. People.” The silence was so deep, he was sure he could hear his daughter’s slight snores. “You are right, as always Harry. No one should have to suffer any of that. There has been so much suffering already. Which is why…” “Which is why people don’t want to know.” He collapsed in exhaustion. “And why we need to show them …” Harry ears prickled. This was new; in the four years they had been having this conversation they had never got further than this. “But first I need you to show me.” And with that she kissed him. Three weeks later they left their youngest daughter with her grandmother and made their way solemnly to the St Helga’s Victims of War Hospital. A white uniformed man greeted them at the door and with a jangle of keys let them into the wide sunny day room. The woman rocked, and the man chewed and the girl played. And together they cried. “Why lock them away, Harry. Why?” Ginny sobbed, sitting down on the piano stool beside the unnoticing young girl and placing a hand on her shoulder. “Could this girl do any harm?” The next week, they walked the abandoned aisles of the memorial, finding graffiti on the stone of one Elanora Bones. And together they cried. And, another week later, the girl played with her friends. And together they cried. “This cannot be left to go on,” Ginny says with a passion she has not felt in years, “You are right Harry, this is despicable.” He recoils from the intensity of her conviction. He had always felt he owed something to these people. Ginny — well — Ginny knew that everyone did, and she wasn’t afraid to say it. “So what, my dearest Ginevra, do you propose we do about it?” He smiles at her glare of distaste at the mention of her name, “That dear Potter is yet to be seen.” And they cried on the street corner: “Have you forgotten, you who have lost so much? Have you forgotten who you left behind?” And the police would move them along. They would call a press conference, and together they would cry, “Be ashamed for you have forgotten. You have forgotten your sick and your alone and your dead!” “But what more can we do?” a reporter would sound in reply. “Have not we provided the lame with shelter and food and warmth. Have we not built memorials to those who have fallen. Do not the young orphans go on to loving homes, even if they might wait some time.” He would shake his head and whisper to straining ears, “No for you have forgotten them.” Then Ginny would get up a scream at the top of her lungs, for all to hear, “Remember them you fools! Would you let your sister, who lives and is sane, go without a shoulder to cry on. Then why let your sister, who is mad.“ “Would you let your son go without a home? Then why would you let another’s? Would you let you mother’s grave become a billboard? Remember them, go to them. Go to them!” The day is getting on, the sun is now well up and the young girl plays in the garden with her friends. They are Muggle but in an act of defiance against the Ministry, Harry has told them all about the special-ness of their friend and Molly is taking them on broomstick flights on her toy broom. Most interestingly, since they have learnt of Molly’s magic, they themselves have shown signs of the slightest amounts of their own. Like Melissa and her disappearing bruises. And he is sure he has seen Phillip conjure a shovel in the sandpit. Perhaps his daughter is a natural teacher. “We must prove it to them,” Ginny says violently, interrupting Harry’s musings, and gesticulating angrily at the Daily Prophet in her hand. “They say we are not believable, we ‘talk but don’t show’.” “So what, my dearest Ginevra, do you propose we do about it?” He smiles at her glare of distaste at the mention of her name, “That dear Potter is yet to be seen. But I suggest a visit to the Orphanage might be a good start.” There is a mischievous glint in her eye that reminds him so much of the twins, It is a year later and the crowd is getting anxious. On the outskirts of the crowd a young witch is chasing a butterfly in much the same way as the one who her father always visited did. Right behind her that self same redhead follows. “Come girls, it is almost time,” young Ms Weasley calls. “The press are waiting.” The young girls abandon their butterfly sure it, like them, will come when called. They mount the podium set up at one end of the gardens of St Helga’s with the slightly elder one’s parents. “I,” Harry booms, after a quick spell, “would like to introduce you to some people.” “You all, of course, know my wife, Ms Ginevra Weasley. I believe she has made quite a name for herself amongst your company.” “She said I was stupider than a louse with a lobotomy,” cried out a strong voice from the gaggle of people below. “Well, Mr Asra,” replied Ginny defensively, “If the Daily Prophet had not insisted on publishing your tripe of an article on the, and I quote, ‘lost cause of the Potter-Weasley Orphan Adoption Fund, who have failed to convince people of their sincerity,’ I may not have had reason to do so.” “Yes, thankyou love. I ask Mr Asra that he might refrain from shouting out until the question time. Thankyou,” a murmur of moral indignation passes over the crowd. “I would like to introduce you to two people you have never met before. This is Molly and Georgina, one is my youngest daughter and the other an occupant of Avalon House for Orphans.” He made no sign to indicate which was which. “I will now take questions… Ah, yes, Mr Asra?” “Which is which?” he asked perplexed. “Thankyou, Mr Asra. You have demonstrated my point perfectly. It doesn’t matter, because as of precisely thirty minutes ago, both these fine young women are Ginny and my daughters. This is Molly,” he wrapped his left arm around one girl, “and this Georgina. And for your reference I have no intent of telling you which is biologically related to myself, because as far as I am concerned they both are.” Here he stared directly at the journalist below. “Have I proved my commitment to you Mr Asra, or are you still not convinced?” “And now,” Harry says to his daughters that evening, after clearing the wardrobe of Bogey men and the underside of the bed of Bogart, “we wait.” And the papers take up the call, and the governments, and finally - oh finally - the people themselves. And they flood into the institutions, and they take home the children and they care for those who are gone. There was a woman, sitting, rocking in the chair by the picture window on the far side of the room - mumbling to herself, over and over. And her eyes screaming to the world “My being is gone but still I am not dead.” And a man sits beside her and together they sit, and smile, and his eyes scream to the world “Her being is gone, but I share mine with her. And we are not dead.” And in the opposite corner of the room, over and over telling his dog to behave, there’s nothing outside, it’s just the wind. And with him sits a woman, her hands in his and she cries. But she cries because she is happy, the dog may be gone but he is still here. And in the middle of the room the girl - the oh-so young girl, no older than 14 - banging out a constant middle C on the grand piano under the light of the skylight. And with her sits the maestro and together they play a beautiful song. And she looks at him and smiles. The middle C stops and without a word she takes up the harmony. She says he is brave for doing this. “I couldn’t have , Harry. I couldn’t have stood it. I couldn’t stand to remember,” she says each time she visits. It has become a ritual, these visits. It grounds them. They had won the war, and they had come so far. His eyes stream with joy. You remind me of something I do not want to remember, people say but we must remember. And they come. All he could do… He stands on the knoll over the valley - not hidden, but open to all, a basin where magical and non-magical alike can come and fill with their grief. He stands looking out over the hundreds - no, thousands - of white stone pillars, all the same. No matter they commemorate a magician or not - God, it fills him with joy that the distinction means so little now. No matter they young or old. No matter what side they fought on, all the same. He walks the endless aisles of identical standing stones, carved with simple silver plaques. Names, dates of coming and going, ages - oh the ages - all different but identical. Except for the flowers. So full of life, colour on the white. They will come here with him and together they stand and remember. And together eyes, so many eyes, stream with sorrow, as they remember them all. Victims of anger and greed and misunderstanding and lies. And they mourn the futility of it all. And his eyes stream with sorrow. It makes him weep and all he can do is watch as they mourn. All he could do… The young woman runs around and around the garden, long red mane flowing out behind her flashing with green ribbons and sunlight and her twin hot on her heals. If they could just catch this boy, then they could tell exactly what it was that made him go just that shade of pink. He comes and watches them, the future of the human race. The homes of so many. Those taken in because people don’t want to remember, but have too - don’t want to have to explain, but with hearts so full they do. And they play on, and grow, and his eyes stream with optimism. It is up to them now. It makes him hope and all he can do is watch and pray. All he could do… |
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