The Castle in the Sky

Chapter 1

"Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dream."- Paulo Coelho

Ginny opened her eyes with a contented sigh. She had had a very nice night's sleep, filled with pleasant dreams that she couldn't quite remember anymore; they were slipping away from her like grains of sand through an hourglass. She didn't so much mind that she always forgot her dreams: as long as she was left with the simple memory that they were happy, she was OK.

Her contentment didn't last long, however, as she caught sight of the magical clock on her nightstand. It read, "8:30am, you're thirty minutes late for work!"

Ginny yelped and jumped out of bed so fast you would have thought it caught fire. She scrambled to her dresser and flung open the drawers, frantically searching for her clean work robes. She found them and yanked them out of her drawer so fast, that the lime green sleeve got caught on something and tore clean off.

Ginny swore out loud and turned around to scan her room for her wand. It wasn't on the dresser. It wasn't on the nightstand. She had left it in the kitchen the night before.

Still clutching her uniform and the detached sleeve, she darted from her bedroom, down the hall and into the kitchen, where she promptly slipped on a puddle of milk that had been dripping onto the floor the whole night. She had forgotten to put it away and her cat must have gotten onto the table and knocked it over.

Grumbling, Ginny got up as fast as she could. With mixed horror and amusement she noticed that her clean, yet ripped uniform landed in the milk as well, and now had wet spots all over it. She also noticed that she must have bruised her hip, for it was smarting and throbbing painfully.

She saw her wand on the counter and limped over to it, no longer in that big of a hurry. She was late already…what was the difference of being a half hour late and an hour late? She would get yelled at all the same.

She held the torn sleeve up to the uniform and muttered, "Reparo." The sleeve fused itself perfectly to the uniform and she headed wearily back to her bedroom.

Ginny slipped into the clean uniform, pulled her hair up into a tight bun, splashed a bit of water on her face, and Apparated to work.

The moment she arrived in the faculty room of St. Mungo's Hospital, Mr. Jahorvas, her boss, bore down upon her.

"Ginny, you're late!" he hollered, his face turning slightly red from anger. Ginny shrunk back a bit, her face turning red as well, though from embarrassment and not anger.

"I - I know sir," she started. "And I'm terribly sorry, I -." She was about to give her excuse, but didn't quite get it out, as Mr. Jahorvas wasn't done yelling at her.

"This is the third time this week! Weasley, I am really getting sick of this! If you weren't one of the best Healers that this hospital has ever seen, you would have been out of here faster than you can mend a broken bone! Two months ago!" He was shaking now, obviously very, very angry.

Ginny decided not say anything. She just gulped and nodded her head. She was rather used to his fits of rage. He wasn't a very calm person, and how he came to be head of St. Mungo's staffing sector, she would never know.

He continued to glower at her for a minute and then snapped, "Hurry up and punch in…you're needed in emergency in Bites and Stings."

Ginny nodded profusely. "Yes, sir," she said quickly, hurrying away as fast as her bruised hip would allow, to punch the timecard and wash her hands.

It was Ginny's break. She was sitting in the faculty lounge, chewing lifelessly on a biscuit, staring at the wall. It was about then that she started wondering when her life had become…this: A boring, monotonous routine. Every day was the same. She would wake up, sometimes late, get dressed, go to work, go home, and sleep. She spent weekends at the Burrow with her family, and sometimes Harry.

Ginny was twenty-five years old, unmarried, and she lived alone in a small flat…with her cat, Magellan. A few years ago, there had been a small emergence of romance between Ginny and Harry, but nothing had ever come of it. Ever since her childhood experience in the Chamber of Secrets, she had been afraid to let anyone in. She closed herself off before anyone could get too close.

Her insecurities had been the end of any sort of beginning Ginny and Harry may have had. She wasn't terribly sorry that things between her and Harry didn't go anywhere, however. After the war, he had so much emotional baggage…she wished anyone luck that would try to get too close to that.

After the war, Harry had become…somewhat insane. He was prone to randomly spout obscene things about Voldemort, and how he was the king of the Wizarding World, and how people were not nearly as thankful to him as they should be - seeing as how he had saved their necks twice and all.

In fact, Harry had actually been a temporary patient of St. Mungo's Psychiatric Ward immediately after the war. It seems that his final conflict with Voldemort caused him to speak nothing but Latin. The Mental Healers suggested that it was some sort of spell, but usually when one is placed under a dialect-changing spell, the subject's pupils become dilated and they usually become very frustrated that no one can understand what they are saying, because to them it just sounds like they're talking normally.

But not Harry; he was going around speaking in Latin as if he'd been speaking it his whole damn life. No one knew what to think. No one knew what happened. And since Harry was only speaking in Latin at the time, he certainly wasn't telling anyone anything useful.

However, from what people could piece together, the final conflict between Harry and Voldemort had happened sometime in the middle of the night. Apparently, Harry just woke up, walked out the front door of the Burrow (he had been staying with them during most of the war), and wasn't seen again until dawn, sitting on top of a hill some 400 miles away, with Voldemort nowhere to be found. The only evidence that Harry actually killed him was Voldemort's snapped in half wand that lay at Harry's feet.

Ginny had woken up that morning to raucous celebrations to find out that Harry had at last defeated the Dark Lord. He wasn't available for comment however, as he was being shipped off to St. Mungo's for evaluation.

He woke up four days later, speaking perfect English again, and no one had any idea how he was cured…he just was. The Healers couldn't even find any proof that a spell had been used on him in the first place. They said he could have just been speaking Latin of his own free will.

As far as Ginny had been concerned at the time, the only mystery was: where did Harry learn Latin?

Anyway, the point is that Harry's brain was addled a bit after the war, and he hasn't been the same since. Ginny pitied anyone wishing to get involved romantically with Harry Potter. He was a nice enough guy…he just had major issues.

Ginny had never really been in love before, and up until now, she never really thought much about it. Sure, she had had crushes and boyfriends in the past, but never anything that made her heart stop, her breath catch in her throat, and drive her with the feeling that she never wanted to be without that person, or that feeling, ever again. Ginny sighed lazily and finished the rest of her biscuit. Her wand started vibrating, meaning she was needed again in Emergency. She washed off her hands and was just heading out the door when Mr. Jahorvas practically knocked her over on his way into the faculty lounge.

"WEASLEY!" he roared. Ginny stared at him dumbly. She had no idea what she had done this time. "I have been paging you for the last twenty minutes! Where in Merlin's beard have you been?"

"I was eating, sir, it was my -," she started, but once again, Mr. Jahorvas cut her off.

"I don't bloody care where you were," he said huffily, shoving an envelope into her hand. "You should have come when I paged you! This letter came by urgent owl delivery and the bloody thing wouldn't let me leave to give it to you! It insisted that you be summoned to my office. So I paged you. And I paged you again. And still again, I paged you. AND YOU DIDN'T COME. You know how short my patience, and inevitably, my temper is, Weasley."

Ginny nodded. She did indeed.

"I had to end up stunning the stupid bird to come and find you! Now take your letter…and take the rest of the day off! Your presence today is giving me a migraine. And I need to get rid of that bird before it wakes up and pecks me to death…" he said, rubbing his temples as he walked out of the room.

Ginny shrugged. At least she had the rest of the day off. She looked down at the letter in her hand. It was addressed to Miss Ginny Weasley, St. Mungo's Hospital, c/o Albus Dumbledore. That was odd. Why would Dumbledore be sending her a letter?

She shrugged and opened it. She let out a small, startled gasp as she read it. She made sure to re-read it just to be sure she wasn't mistaken in what she was reading. It didn't make any sense to her at all. It read:

Dear Miss Weasley,
I have never been very fond of letter writing, so I shall skip the formalities and get straight to the point.

I have come to learn over these past few years that you have managed to become one of the most renowned and well known Healers to ever work at St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. If you can quite remember so far back, you will know that our resident Hogwarts Healer, Madam Poppy Pomfrey was also quite renowned in her days at St. Mungo's as well. That is why I am seeking you out. I wish you to do an old man in his last years of life a great favour.

Poppy Pomfrey has been with us here at Hogwarts for going on forty years now. She started when she was little older than you. While her services and commitment to Hogwarts will forever be gratefully appreciated, we, that is to say I, wish for her to retire after this school term has ended. And I would like you to take her place.

I know it sounds like a great deal of responsibility…and it is, do not let anyone tell you otherwise. However, I would never have dreamed of contacting you unless I thought that you could handle it. You by no means need to accept this offer, but I must make one point: the pay that you receive at Hogwarts will be substantially greater than that which you are receiving at this moment. And I think that you will find the staff, and general environment to be a bit more enjoyable as well (Ginny could picture him winking mischievously at her as she read this).

Should you decide to accept this offer, you are to contact me by return owl at your leisure. You would arrive here on the first day of term, and stay with us all year. The span of one term should be ample time for Poppy to train you and teach you how things in the Hogwarts Hospital Wing are done. After this term, her final one here at Hogwarts, she will leave and you will take over full responsibility of the Hospital Wing.

Please consider. Opportunities like these come but once in a lifetime, Miss Weasley. I am sincerely hoping to hear from you soon.

Yours,
Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Ginny took a few deep breaths to steady herself. It didn't seem to be working, and she sat down heavily in the chair she had been sitting in before being dismissed for the day. Dumbledore wanted…her…to be the new Healer at Hogwarts? It just didn't make sense to Ginny.

As she was sitting there, scanning the letter for the tenth time, her close co-worker Abigail Smartyne walked in, looking exhausted.

"A man just came in…had a hopping charm on him. We couldn't hold him still long enough to cast the counter-charm! Tried stunning him, but he only hopped faster! Took us nearly an hour to finally catch him and hold him down," she said, wiping the back of her hand across her sweaty forehead. Her mousy brown hair was hanging from her bun in straggly-looking pieces. Her hazel eyes danced with life and excitement, no matter how exhausted she looked. Ginny knew that chasing people inflicted with various spells and charms around hospital rooms was what Abigail loved to do best.

Ginny smiled at her friend, and gestured to the letter clutched in her hand. Abigail's exhaustion seemed to vanish like the flame of an extinguished candle. Her eyes got, if possible, even brighter, and her face wore a guise of pure curiosity.

"Ooh, what have you got there, Ginny?" she said, hurrying over to where she was sitting, and peering over her shoulder, trying to read the letter.

"I got a letter from Dumbledore, just a few minutes ago," she said, handing Abigail the letter. "Seems he wants me to take Madam Pomfrey's place after she retires."

Abigail was silent for a moment while reading the letter. "Ginny, I really think you should do it!" she exclaimed.

"Why?" asked Ginny incredulously.

"I'd simply die for a job at Hogwarts!" she said, not answering Ginny's question.

"I dunno…it seems like an awful lot of work and responsibility…and I don't know if I would be able to handle it," Ginny said truthfully. She didn't feel like the kind of person that would be able to be in charge of a whole wing at a school full of children that were always getting into trouble. At least, the last part had been true when she was a student there, some eight years before.

"Dumbledore wouldn't have asked you if he didn't think you were able to," Abigail pointed out unnecessarily.

"Yes I know," Ginny snapped. "But -," she started, but for the third time that day she was cut off.

"Listen," Abigail said firmly. "Go home and talk about it with your family. You and I both know they'd want you to do it. Just don't forget to come back and say goodbye to me," she said smiling.

Ginny got up and hugged her. "I wouldn't even dream of forgetting," she said, pulling out of the hug. She couldn't help but giggle a little.

"What's so funny?" Abigail asked, giggling too. Ginny had always been known for her infectious laughter.

Ginny, laughter still bubbling from her chest like champagne bubbles said, "Can you just imagine the look on Jahorvas's face when I tell him I'm quitting?"

And the two young women embraced again, still giggling like schoolgirls.

Ginny sat in the kitchen of the Burrow, surrounded by her family and the smell of spices. The smell of spices always comforted her, and put her mind at ease. Probably because she had grown up around it her whole life and it was so familiar.

She was laughing at Percy, who was blundering around the kitchen chasing Fred and George who had transfigured his glasses into tea saucers, which lay broken and forgotten on the floor. Mrs. Weasley was hollering at them to stop, and Mr. Weasley was sitting at the table trying to look as if the whole situation didn't amuse him greatly. Ron was watching from the doorway, laughing so hard that he was doubled over and tears were streaming down his cheeks.

Bill and Charlie were away at their respective jobs. Both now were married and had children, which meant that they stopped by the Burrow less frequently than the other Weasley children.

The thought made Ginny a bit sad, but she knew that that was the way life was. She knew her brothers still loved the rest of their family, but Ginny could imagine that having a family of your own would be very time-consuming. She didn't blame them, though she thought it would be nice to see them other than on holidays. And if she took this job at Hogwarts, it meant that she would see even less of them.

Once everyone was settled in around the table, and starting to load their plates, Harry walked in. His dark hair was even wilder and more unkempt than Ginny had last remembered. His eyes were so green that they seemed to make the rest of his face look radioactive.

"Harry!" the Weasley family called in unison, smiling at him. He made no reply, just sat himself at his reserved spot at the table dutifully, and began to eat.

Halfway through the meal, Mrs. Weasley turned to Ginny. "Ginny dear," she said. "What was it that you wanted to talk to us about?"

Ginny swallowed what she was eating, and started to explain her letter from Dumbledore and what he was asking of her. She took out the letter and passed it around the table.

Once Mrs. Weasley was done reading it she exclaimed, "Well Ginny, this is fantastic! Isn't this what you've been waiting for, for quite some time now? A chance to prove yourself to the Wizarding World?"

Ginny gulped and nodded. Her mother was right. She actually had been waiting for an opportunity like this to come along. She was only asking her family's opinion to make sure that she wasn't just dreaming all of this.

"Really Ginny, wouldn't it be nice to have some freedom? Mum told us all about that horrid Jahorvas man with the awful temper, who is always breathing down your neck," said Ron seriously.

The table was riotous talking about it, and encouraging Ginny to take the job. The only person who had remained silent was Harry. Suddenly he stood up.

"Wait!" he said, his eyes getting huge. An abnormal hush fell over the table as everyone stared intently at Harry. His facial features relaxed a bit and he smiled. It was a rather insane smile, but a smile nonetheless, and no one had seen Harry smile in months. Everyone at the table beamed at him. "The calamari is quite good today," he said thoughtfully. Even the randomness and absurdity of this statement didn't sway the beaming faces. They had become used to Harry's random outbursts, and no one thought twice as to what calamari he was talking about.

"That's nice Harry, dear," Mrs. Weasley said, patting his arm. He sat down like a child who had just been praised magnificently. Turning to Ginny she said, "So what do you say? Are you going to do it?"

Ginny looked around at her warm, loving family, each one beaming at her. Even Percy, looking ridiculous without his horn-rimmed glasses was smiling at her and nodding his head, encouraging her. She smiled back at them, feeling as though she was the luckiest person in the world to have a family that loved her so.

Taking a deep breath she said, "Yeah, I think I will."

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Ok, you know you want to review! :) Thanks bunches to my beta, Odyssey. As for the disclaimer...JK Rowling owns these characters, I just borrowed them for a while, but I fully intend on giving them back :)