Chapter Six
...
A year later
George walked down the path, his dress robes brushing the cobblestone beneath him, and his hands going to his pocket every so often, as if to reassure himself of something precious still being within the fabric square.
Crossing the grass, he saw a couple waiting outside the building. Alice and Frank saw him, faces breaking open into smiles and encircled him tightly, proudly. He hurried inside with them, more to escape the cold than a sudden desire for the night to start.
"Are you ready for this, George?" Alice asked, looking at him carefully.
"As ready as I'll ever be, ma'am," he said with a small smile.
"Ginny would have loved this," Frank murmured, his hands touching the plaque outside the ward.
"She would have, wouldn't she?" a voice said from behind them.
George turned to see Draco standing there, wearing his purple Head Healer robes, and looking as uncomfortable in them as George felt in his dress ones.
"You made it," George said, grinning at him as he hugged the younger man.
"Bloody well had no choice, did I?" Draco replied, smirking.
"Right then, let's get on with it. Hopefully I can get that lovely young healer drunk again, like I did at the Christmas party," George said, grinning at the memory.
"She had a hangover for three straight days, I doubt you can get near her this time," Draco muttered.
"Ah, you're just jealous because she's not fawning over you anymore," George said, laughing.
"That's enough, you two. Come on, dear, Neville's waiting for us inside," Alice said, leading her husband into the ward.
Draco went to follow them, but George grabbed his arm gently, suddenly looking serious. "I just wanted to say thank you for doing this, Draco."
"Didn't do it for you, George," Draco said, trying to use humour to cover his other emotions.
"Yeah, I know that. But thanks anyway. Frank was right, Ginny would have loved it," he added, giving Draco another quick hug before heading into the ward as well.
Sighing heavily, Draco's fingers traced the letters on the plaque. Ginevra Weasley's Ward for the Permanent Residents of St. Mungo's. A whole lot of words to say that she'd died to save two people, despite the fact that there had been no war, nothing threatening them. Just a way to give them a life again. Come to think of it, she'd saved three people, really...
Adjusting his uncomfortable robes one more time, Draco stepped into the newly-named ward.
Colours surrounded him, colours of love - not one bit of red - colours of hope, of trust, of tumbling emotions and thoughts, of everything around them.
When George had packed Ginny's belongings, he'd asked Draco to help, unable to do it by himself. There hadn't been much really, just some clothes and some paints taken from the common area. Draco had thought it odd, considering how protective Ginny had been of things like her own hair.
Again, a gnawing had started at his brain, working away on his mind until he couldn't think straight, and he was standing there with an Irish Quidditch team shirt in his hands for thirty minutes straight. Eventually getting fed up with it all, he'd practically shouted a spell that wasn't quite Light inside the room, willing everything she'd hidden to show themselves. What they'd found had astounded them both.
Paintings had appeared everywhere. Every surface, even the walls, had been covered in paintings. The back of each and every parchment had been painted white so that they couldn't be seen past the whiteness of the room itself. The colours of her life, of her thoughts, of her mind, of her sanity and insanity, of her screams, of her silence, of her everything, all of the colours piling up in the middle of the room.
Her hair - her long red hair, the ones she'd screamed over, snatched out of thin air, removed carefully from every surface and brush - spilled out of her pillowcase, the only red colour in the entire room apart from George's own hair.
George hadn't known what to do with them all, and Draco surprised himself by offering an answer. The answer had the paintings on display all through the ward, showing the colour, life, and emotions of one person who had been shunned and silent for over ten years of her life. All except two of the paintings had been framed and hung in the ward, one currently folded and resting in George's pocket, and another hanging in the cottage Draco lived in. They'd kept a few strands of her hair each, a remembrance for her life, for her wonder, for everything they had yet to live and experience. The rest had been burned, making sure that no one would ever be able to hurt her or take control of Ginny again, even after death.
There was a jingle of bells nearby, and Draco smirked when he saw that George had his arm around Healer Thorn's shoulders, both of them sitting on an overgrown jester's hat chair. Frank and Alice were by the fireplace, talking with Neville about some plant or other he'd discovered in Africa.
Checking his pocket watch, Draco saw that the speeches wouldn't start for a while yet. Slipping outside once more, he Apparated with little more than a pop. Arriving in the cemetery, Draco made his way along the grass certainly. He'd been here often enough before, even in the middle of the night, staring at her tombstone and trying to work out why she'd done it. Oh, Alice and Frank and told him why, but he still couldn't comprehend that Ginny would give up her life for his... Tonight was no different.
He didn't talk when he came to see her, didn't think it necessary. He hadn't talked to her when she was alive, so what was the use when she was dead? But tonight, it seemed, was different after all.
All of it spilled from him. His confusion, his wonder, his anger, his regret, his every emotion. He told her about the ward, about the paintings they'd found, the one he'd kept for himself, the rest that they'd hung in the hospital ward, about all of the colours, and the jester cushions. He talked about Alice and Frank, and George. He told her how Neville had tried to paid him for healing his parents, and how Draco had put it into the ward anyway. It didn't feel right keeping it, not when he hadn't healed them, not really.
He finished talking a time later, his throat sore, and the speeches long over. Draco looked at the marble tombstone, wondering if she'd heard everything he'd said, and more importantly, what he hadn't said.
"Goodbye, Ginny. Thank you," he said, his fingers touching the tombstone gently. "Thank you for everything."
He left without another word, the sun starting to rise in the distance.
Ginny Weasley
1981 - 2002
Forever loved
...
The end
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