Ginny Weasley and the House of Broken Men

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Ginny could hear screaming all around her. No wait, that was silence. Ginny heard absolutely nothing around her. Well…now that she thought about it, Ginny thought she could hear the sea, a few birds, and someone humming something that was probably supposed to be a Celestina Warbeck tune. Ginny opened her eyes slowly. Oh no! Rotten idea! Very bright sunlight! She closed them quickly. My name is Ginny Weasley, we’ve just had a war, I have five fingers on my wand hand and five fingers on my other wand hand. I have ten toes (she counted as she wiggled them) and I can still use them. I am in my own bed (she poked the mattress,) in my own cottage (hence the sea,) and I think peanut butter is rubbish. I do not have amnesia. Check.
The humming grew louder, Ginny could hear her bedroom door open and a warm smell of cooking and home wafted towards her, “Mmmm mum, it’s good to hear you hum again,” Ginny said without opening her eyes. She felt her mother’s lips press against her forehead. “How long have I been out?”
Molly Weasley set a steaming mug of tea on the bedside table, then ran her hand over her daughter’s hair, “About three days. That awful Goyle boy hit you with a ___ of a cruciatus curse, but your brothers set him straight in no time and from what Ron says, there’s not much left of him. How are you feeling? Why won’t you open your eyes?”
“’Bit woozy, really, but other than that, fine. It’s too bright in here.”
Molly tutted gently, but drew the drapes anyway. Ginny slowly opened her eyes. Molly sat on the end of Ginny’s bed and let her daughter look at her, “We won, right?”
“Of course, Harry defeated He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, the Order overwhelmed the distraught Death Eaters, You-Know-Who’s allies were forced to retreat and efforts are being made to set everything right again. Progress is being made slowly, but progress is progress…” Molly rambled on deliberately.
“Mum…Mum…MUM!” Ginny broke through, “Mum how many did we lose?”
Molly looked at Ginny sorrowfully, “Oh Ginny…Sturgis Podmore, Jack Sloper, Eleanor Branstone, Phillip Marks, and Louisa Wilde in the final battle at the Ministry, a few more in the other battles that night. The Death Eaters went mad after he was defeated and they lashed out all over. Of those sent to St. Mungo’s, your brother George—the rest of the boys are fine—and Susan Bones, Tobias Hamersley, and Colin Creevey. They’ll all be right as rain in no time…”
“Mum, I saw Sirius. Right before I got hit, I mean, Harry forced You-Know-Who through the veil and it sort of…broke, there was this great light and then the veil was gone and all these people were left lying there and…”
“I know, Ginny,” Molly interrupted, “Hermione didn’t want to say anything before, she didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up…when she sent Harry forward with that plan, to drive You-Know-Who through the veil, she thought that pushing someone, or something, deathless into death might somehow…break it. Not death, certainly not, but the conduit…possibly. She hoped that by breaking the veil, they could undo what it had done and, bless that brilliant child, she was right. All those who had fallen to their unnatural deaths through the veil were rejected from death in its destruction.”
“So that means…Sirius is alive?” Ginny was almost afraid to ask.
“Yes. Sirius…lives…”
“Where is he?” Ginny asked anxiously.
“He’s here,” Molly replied. Ginny began to thrash about at once, trying to rid herself of the bedclothes and stand up, “Now calm down, Ginny, he’s not going anywhere, calm down and drink some of this,” From years of living with her mother, Ginny knew better than to argue when Molly gave an order which involved ingestion. Ginny obediently drank a few swallows of tea as her mother neatly turned down the bedding.
“Mum, what do you mean, he’s not going anywhere?” Ginny asked as she followed her mother out of the room and into the tiny hallway. Ginny’s cottage only had two small bedrooms and a tiny bathroom upstairs. Molly quietly opened the door to the other bedroom.
“Sirius is alive, dear, he just hasn’t woken up yet,” Molly said sadly, gesturing towards the bed. Lying peacefully Ginny’s guest bed was Sirius Black, looking exactly as he had the last time Ginny had seen him except…this Sirius looked very serene (and serene was the very last word Ginny would ever think of to describe Sirius Black.) Sirius had been…well, dead, for the last five years, though to look at him, those five years may as well have never been; he had not aged a day.
“He’s getting better though, when I first brought you both here, it was hard to tell if he was even alive, you couldn’t even see him breathe. He moves about now and is regaining his color. I expect he’ll wake up in a week or so, hard to come back from the dead, you know. We brought him here because St. Mungo’s is such a madhouse these days, we thought it would be best for him to recuperate in a quiet, safe place rather than in bedlam…”
Ginny walked slowly across the room to stand by the bed, reaching out hesitantly to touch his face, afraid he would be cold. Ginny smiled softly at the warmth of his skin, could feel him trying to force his way back to life, “I thought you were gone forever, old friend,” Ginny whispered to him.
“Come on Ginny, I’ve taken care of him already, come downstairs with me and I’ll make you something to eat. You’re looking terribly thin.”
“You go on, mum, I want to stay for a few minutes, it’s not every day you get to see someone come back from the dead…” Ginny’s voice trailed off as she turned in time to see silent tears well up in her mother’s eyes.
“I know, Ginny,” Molly said very softly before she left the doorway. Ginny heard her steps resonating softly as she walked down the stairs. The war had changed them all, Molly was a much different person these days. Ginny turned back to Sirius and pushed his long black hair out of his face.