The End
Once upon a time there lived a girl. She was medium height and weight, with ginger hair and dark brown eyes that sparkled when she was excited. Her favourite things were chocolate, rain and the sound of cat's feet padding on the floor. She hated people who didn't say what they meant and the shadows of spiders on the wall.
This girl lived in a little cluttered house with her family. She had a mother, a father and six older brothers, as well as three cats - Millie, Piper and Wombat, whom she loved very much. Together they lived in harmony, with only the occasional hiccup of family dispute.
Hogwarts was where she spent the vast majority of her time, however. Here she learnt a variety of lessons, such as Potions and Transfiguration. Her grades were average, but she always tried her hardest. True friends were few on the ground, but she managed to have a circle of friends who adored her as she them. These days were some of the best of her life - happy and carefree, with the comfort of companionship coupled with hope for the future.
Years came once and the girl didn't change much. She still shined her shoes every night, completed her work on time, wrote a letter to her mother once a week, and wore her hair in two plaits. Her face became worn at the edges, the spark fading from her eyes with time and eventually she became just another face in the crowd.
No one asked why. It was fate, they guessed.
Fifty years past and the girl got a job, married a suitable man and had a son to call her own. The world looked in and smiled. This was how life should be, shouldn't it? Peace and tradition tangled together to form a net to catch you if you fall. There would always be routine to rescue the day, even if there was no excitement.
Who wanted to leave a mark on the earth anyway?
Then one day, in the middle of a hot afternoon, she fell asleep curled up in the grass like a child. Her eyes glazed over, forever to stare at the clouds. That was the day the little girl died trying to become a woman.
The end. Fini. Over and done with. Virginia Weasley was dead and buried and that's where it all ended.
She was buried with the others - another Weasley woman, dying at the hands of fate. Her body became another point on a graph, plotting out an ancient blood line filled with magic and mystery.
Another life became another story, remembered only by those who were close to her. It didn't go any further into the world. Her memory would eventually die out in the second generation, when her picture would sit on the mantelpiece as an echo of times long gone. Her blood line would fade and slowly they'd forget the name of the face smiling in the picture in the hall - "Oh that's your father's great, great aunt…or something like that anyway."
There would be no legend for her soul to cradle in heaven.
Who would remember the little girl with the brown eyes, that faded like her smile as she realised her life meant little in the big picture? Who would remember the girl who settled for second best, when she could have lived for everything? Who would remember the woman who gazed at the clouds through her fingers, too scared to look upon the beauty?
Sometimes the family look back, trying to find out where they came from. They seek the seeds that built them. The DNA that threatens to push through civilisation and grip them round the throat. The heroes who may be their saviours. Pictures and memories are all very good, but they can't hear the echoes…
'Ginny? Where are you going at this time?' Hermione called through the dark gloom of the girl's bedroom. 'It's way past curfew.'
'Hush, you'll wake the others,' the bright young girl whispered.
'Only if you tell me where you're going,' the older girl replied in a stiff tone. Her morals were too high to allow for such blatant rule breaking. 'Now.'
Ginny grinned to herself as she pulled a well shined boot onto her foot. 'Can you keep a secret?' she giggled, looking towards her friend with an impish look. 'I mean really keep a secret. As long as you live.'
'I can keep a secret!' Hermione shrilled conspiratorially, eager to be able to share in this hidden treasure. 'I promise.'
'I'm going to meet a boy,' Ginny said as she plaited the left side of her long hair and tied it with a ribbon. 'We've been meeting secretly for a couple of months now, but I didn't want anyone else to know. He's not my usual cup of tea, but he amuses me. Not in a funny way, if you see what I mean…? He...he keeps me interested.'
'Who is it?'
'If I told you that,' Ginny said with a large smile, but a serious tone, 'I'd have to kill you.'
They can't see through the dense mist of time…
'You're late,' his fingers entwined with hers, pulling her forward. 'You know how I can't tolerate that.'
'Shut up or I'll leave,' Ginny whispered, pressing her nose close to his.
'You wouldn't. In fact you couldn't.'
'Oh, you think you're so attractive, well I could tell you a thing or two. Like I could tell you about the way Harry looked at me today. Or that Neville secretly has a crush on me, and blushes when I smile at him. You'd love that wouldn't you?' she teased lightly. 'Or would you be jealous? I think that's how it would be.'
'You're talking too much again,' he warned with a slight smile. 'How is a man to be heard with so much yapping?'
'Depends on how boring his news is, doesn't it Draco?' Ginny kissed his lips lightly. 'Tell me then, I haven't got all day.'
'I'll tell you when I'm ready!' Draco bit out angrily.
'Please tell me,' she pouted.
'I'll tell you…'
'When you're ready?' Ginny interrupted impatiently. 'Well hurry up and be ready before I get cross and leave.'
'That's all you ever say, you know? Every time you arrive, you're telling me you have to go soon. More so if you're not getting your own way. I know you'll stay though, because you want to know. If I didn't tell you, it would drive you crazy,' Draco purred with a predatory grin. 'I love to torment you.'
Ginny slipped her hands away from his and took a step back, fingers clasped together behind her back. 'And I love proving you wrong.'
'Even if you did leave it wouldn't be for long. You couldn't stand not knowing, when I did.'
'I think you'd cave in first. If I turned round now and walked away, would you follow me?' she whispered, her lips curled at the edges with hidden joy. 'I think you would. I think you'd run if you had to.'
'I would let you walk. I'd see how long it took you to turn round and come back,' he said, taking a step forward. 'I'd wait for you.'
'How gentlemanly of you.'
They couldn't imagine more then the old face in the old photograph…
Ginny stretched in the bed, the sheets tangled around her legs in a comforting way. Slowly she sat up, dragging the covers with her as the room was chilled by stone walls. Her eyes darted to the body next to her. His eyes were wide open, gazing at the ceiling as if seeing straight through it.
'I knew you'd chase me,' she said patting his chest lightly with a hand. 'You never like to lose your toys. It would be wrong to break a long line of possessive ancestors.'
Draco didn't answer; just let his eyes move to her for a moment. He didn't need to because she knew what he meant by that one look. It wasn't as if he ever did. Ginny knew he reconsidered everything after the fact, asking himself why he was liaising with her like this.
She lay back and stared up at the ceiling. It was cold and hard. She preferred the clouds, with their beautiful puffs of water, just waiting to tip over and spill open. They smiled at her when no one else seemed to. A giant comfort only a heartbeat away.
'I prefer the clouds,' she said conversationally.
'You would.'
'What's that supposed to mean?' she turned to look at him, but his eyes were closed.
'You're a dreamer and clouds are for the dreamless. You dream to be dreamless because you haven't ever been to that realm before. You want to understand what it means to be nothing but air and water. No substance. You're intrigued by things you're not, always seeking to become them. Do you even know who you are?' Draco said, opening his eyes slowly.
'That's a load of nonsense!' Ginny laughed, with a grin she couldn't suppress. 'I think you've been reading too many of those self-help books. I like clouds because they're beautiful.'
'Why not look in the mirror then?'
She smiled slightly. 'I'll take that as a compliment.'
'Take it whichever way makes you feel better. We all have problems. We all have dreams.'
'What are yours?' she whispered, snuggling closer to his body.
'A house, money, beautiful wife, respectable job. Children, maybe. I dream for normality away from magic and dreams. I don't want to end up being remembered for the bad things. Do you know what I mean?' Draco said slowly. 'I want what everyone else has. A choice.'
'That's a boring dream!' Ginny whined, prodding his shoulder with a finger.
'What do you dream of then?'
'Green grass, where I can lie in peace and watch the clouds go by. Maybe a home built from stars and sunbeams. A home, not a house. Then there's the hero of the story. The dashing knight and his steed, galloping through my heart in a blissful wish of womanhood.'
Draco chuckled lightly. 'Poetic Weasley. Very poetic.'
They couldn't touch against the reality of a life so similar to their own…
'How was it?' Hermione whispered into her ear at the breakfast table. Her hair smelt of mint, her breath of orange and toast and it was warm against Ginny's skin like a feather.
'It could have been worse.' And it could have been. The world could have ended whilst she lay by her cold lover, staring past the ceiling and discussing things that were silly and pointless.
'Are you going to tell me who it is?'
'Never.'
'I promise I won't tell anyone,' her friend added as a tempter.
'You would know though and that would be enough,' she said with a grin as she twirled a plait round her fingers idly and looked down at her shiny shoes.
'Can I guess?'
'No, because I couldn't bear lying to you if you guessed correctly. Anyway it really isn't that important. I'm not going to marry him, or be the mother of his children.' Ginny said with a sigh, as she snatched at an apple and tossed it between her hands. 'We both know that.'
'How can you be so sure?'
'Woman's intuition. Let's just say I'm not the only one he spends quality time with,' she bit into the apple carelessly.
'Then why do you go back to him?!' Hermione hissed in a shocked voice.
'I told you, he amuses me,' Ginny said through a mouth full of the forbidden fruit of Eden. Upon seeing the dissatisfied look on her friend's face, she added, 'I love his dreams.'
They couldn't understand there was life before they twinkled in the distance…
'Have you heard about Malfoy?' Ron asked her, his face flushed with heat and sweat. His chest was heaving heavily with effort.
Ginny looked up from her book, an eyebrow raised in questioning. 'I thought those stairs were supposed to keep you out of here?'
'I shimmied up the banister rail,' he said leaning against the wall with a sense of relief. 'Have you heard?'
'No, I haven't heard.'
Ron looked at her hard. 'It's really sad, seeing as I hated the moron so much. Now though I can't help but feel guilty for not…'
'What's happened?' Ginny said with a frown. 'Where is he?'
'Him and Harry were arguing in the corridor just yesterday. One minute he was there, and the next he isn't. It's a disturbing thought. I wonder what he was thinking of going out of school like that.' Ron continued to babble in confusion.
'Ron!'
'I don't even know how he got out without being noticed… Anyway last night, Malfoy snuck out and…and…' Ron's voice broke suddenly. 'He's dead.'
Ginny looked out of the window. The clouds were still there.
'Why?'
'They found him sprawled out on the grass this morning, looking up to the sky. Someone had used the killing curse on him. That's not all they found though. There was a girl hiding up in a tree. She's swearing that he saved her from a Death Eater, but I don't believe that.' Ron continued slowly. 'Probably another one of his conquests.'
'Probably,' she whispered. 'It rained this morning.'
Ron was silent.
'He never did tell me what his news was. I should have shut up, shouldn't I?' her eyes went to his, seeking redemption from her sibling. 'Do you think he forgave me?'
'Are you alright Gin?'
Ginny looked out the window with a frown. 'I'm as right as rain.'
Fate moved on for that little girl. She continued to plait her hair and shine her shoes, but she couldn't look at the clouds anymore. No one understood why her smile seemed to fade, but nobody asked. They were too afraid of the truth to learn it. They didn't want to know her secrets.
So she took up the dreamless dream and begged for normality. It wasn't for herself, but for the man who died under the clouds, with rain mourning his death. Ginny hadn't been in love with him. He'd amused her that was all. Still though she couldn't help herself wanting to recreate him under her skin. She moulded her future to fit his dream.
It took years for them to discover why Draco had gone out that night and the news he had never told Ginny. His father was sending him away to join the Death Eaters. This though did not affect Ginny in any way.
Fifty years passed on and still nothing had really changed. That day when she'd woken, she'd known it was the last morning she would see. It was woman's intuition, she told her husband as he left for work. He'd simply smiled and nodded at his dotty wife - he dismissed her as usual. It didn't matter though because she forgave him. It wasn't his fault that he was dreamless.
The doctors couldn't tell what had caused her heart to stop beating. Her family cried long and hard. How could they go on without the little girl, trapped in a woman's body, who kept them together?
Initial grief turned to mourning, and eventually the pain numbed. Then it was forgotten as the world moved on.
The moral of the tale? The little girl would say that life it like a cloud, you come and go, soaking through the earth and gathering in pools. Sometimes you were above the world, high in the sky, and at other times you were on the floor with people walking through you. No one remembered the clouds, which didn't matter because at least you'd been there.
The end. Fini. Over and done with.