It Meant Family

2nd of July 1993

"Which is to say that my body is too woman to really mean anything, is too woman to be considered a threat, is too woman to have right to my own space, or to have right. I don't know when I became a space to be filled" - The Girl Becomes Gasoline, Reagan Myers

The Burrow, Ottery St. Catchpole, England

They had never been to The Burrow before and it was very different from what Harry had imagined, though he wasn't exactly sure what he had pictured. The cottage was tall and very homely, Harry and Sirius could smell the strong scent of tea and biscuits as soon as they walked in the door.

It was surrounded by vast terrain, the closest building was another magical residence about an hour on foot to the north. The house belonged to the Diggory family, their son was a Hufflepuff a few years older than Harry, they'd seen each other during Quidditch matches as they were both seekers for their house teams.

Even in Ginny's room, with the door closed behind him, Harry could still hear how alive their home was. Fred and George laughed loudly, Percy demanded silence for his studies, Ron seemed to be wrestling with every single item in his room from the banging and crashing sounds that came from it and in the lowest floor Mr. and Mrs. Weasley chatted with Sirius over tea.

Ginny sat in her bed quietly, her long ginger hair covering her swollen red eyes - she had been crying - she played with the hem of her pants waiting for Harry to speak up first. He was sitting by the window and the light reflected in his glasses, making it impossible for her to see his eyes.

"Fighting Voldemort is much easier than talking about it, isn't it?" he turned to her looking for a reaction and felt relieved when she smiled.

"I don't even know how I got that book" her eyes watered, she felt stupid and weak, unable to hold back her tears, she had spent the whole summer replaying the events of that year - or at least the parts she remembered - obsessively looking for answers, but the more she tried to reach her memories, the more distant they seemed to be. It was like trying to put out fire with gasoline.

"Lucius Malfoy," Harry spat it out almost automatically "he put in your cauldron when you went to Diagon Alley" he didn't know if the information was a burden or a relief, knowing that a parent of one his classmates was capable of such despicable thing, but he figured Ginny had the right to know "Dobby told me."

"I feel ridiculous" she cried "I opened my heart to that stupid journal, I trusted it even with no reason to do so and he got into my head" she got up and started pacing around the room. "My first year at Hogwarts was supposed to be this amazing experience, but I can't even remember most of it and the parts I do remember are just filled with fear and pain. I-" she stuttered "I wanted to have fun and be a normal, happy, 11 year old girl and he used me like it was nothing" she sobbed, but her tears were not what Harry expected, she wasn't sad, she was angry. "Like I was nothing."

"You're not nothing" he fired back immediately, getting up too, he tried to calm her down and sound reassuring instead of heated "and you're not ridiculous either. He got inside your head and you fought back, he tried to kill you and you survived." There was nothing he could say to make things better, what happened to her was horrible and there was no fixing it, it was traumatic and there was no forgetting it.

"You're saying it like I stopped him, but you were the one who saved me. If you hadn't been there I-"

"But I was. And sure, maybe I destroyed the journal, but you fought him throughout the whole year." Harry was getting angry too, he wished he had punched Tom Riddle in the face before stabbing his book, there were no words to describe what it felt like to have a part of your life taken away forever, he knew, he had never not known "He could've had complete control over you from the moment you opened that diary, but he didn't, you pushed back, you tried to get rid of it in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. There's a reason why people don't survive when he decides to kill them, but you did."

"So did you. More than once." She had stopped crying and was leaning against one of her walls, her face was still red, her eyelashes still wet, but she was starting to resemble more the Ginny he'd met a year before, though he knew she would never truly be that girl again, partly because she was older, but mostly because what had happened changed her forever.

"I guess we're both pretty strong." He replied, managing to make her laugh, Harry had spent a lot of time in his life trying to convince himself that even when pain was forever, he was still allowed to be happy and he felt responsible for convincing Ginny of it too.

"I guess" she walked over and hugged him tightly, Remus and Sirius didn't hug him much and neither did his friends, so he was a bit surprised, but it felt nice. She was quick to put some distance between her and Harry as soon as they let go of each other and walked towards the door nervously "Fancy some biscuits or tea...? Or both, you can have both." He nodded awkwardly.

xXx

The charmed tea pot kept the drink warm indefinitely, but Harry was a much bigger fan of coffee and contented himself with eating the butter biscuits. A few moments later the other Weasleys of the residence joined them at the table and by then Mrs. Weasley had already baked a pie and a cake which they all eagerly devoured.

"Finally," Percy stated at the sight of his sister, "was all that 'staying-locked-in-your-room-half-the-summer' drama really necessary?" Harry wanted to reach for his wand, but instead he looked at the older boy and gave him a friendly smile.

"Well, next time we fight Voldemort, we'll make sure to call you" Percy raised his eyebrows, surprised by the response and all the redheads at the table shivered at the name "since you can go by unaffected by a near death experience." Harry turned back to his cake, but stopped before actually taking a bite. "That is, of course, if you manage to survive it."

All the siblings held back a laugh as Percy went pale and Sirius gave his godson a proud smile. Mr. Weasley offered everyone another serving of tea to defuse the tension which seemed to work as the conversation changed topics and was divided into smaller groups.

Harry didn't say much, he mostly sat quietly, eating and looking through the window at the garden gnomes outside. He wasn't quite sure when the conversation circled back to Voldemort, but when he heard the name leaving Sirius' mouth with disgust he'd noticed that the sky had already become a much darker shade of blue.

"-ings Voldemort has done." Sirius raged, slamming his hand at the table.

"He's crazy, that's what he is" Molly growled, Sirius loud slam directed all the attention towards their conversation.

"You're wrong," everyone was surprised when Harry spoke up "Tom Riddle's not crazy," the boy seemed almost offended, "he's evil."

It was the first time they'd heard The Burrow in complete silence, it felt wrong and surreal compared to how alive it had been when they arrived earlier that day. Harry was certain his body shrunk in the chair as all the eyes in the room were directed towards him. But his godfather, who had an impeccable ability to read him, intervened, placing his hand on the boy's shoulder with an agreeing smile.

"I reckon it's time for us to get home lad" he got up elegantly "Kretcher probably has supper waiting for us." Harry nodded relieved.

After a few minutes of pleasantries and goodbyes both stood in the dark dirt road, the boy squeezed his godfather's hand tightly. A bolt of lightning glowed in the sky, the sound of its thunder followed shortly and just as quickly Harry felt himself pulled back into his own mind.

It was dark inside his brain, it was cold and storming, the window behind him was open and the wind rushing in hurt his bones. There was a crib to his right and in it a little boy sat crying, his face wet and swollen. On the floor, a grown man held the lifeless body of a redheaded woman. It was that night, he realised, the night his parents had been murdered and he was reliving it with no escape.