Please Forgive Me

Author: Jezebel (imfromupnorth⊕yahoo.com)
Rating: PG, PG-13ish
Category: Uh, angst? H/G



OK, I have no clue why I wrote this. It's depressing in a
makes-me-want-to-commit-suicide kinda way, and while what I
normally write *is* angsty, it just ain't on this level, ya know
what I mean?

Oh, and please take pity on me, and leave a review! I have never
written an HP fic before and I really need to know, honestly, if
it's any good.



The two caskets lie side by side.

One's just a little shorter than the other. It's barely
noticeable, really, but then, Ginny was never very tall. She took
after her mother in the height department.

I assume that Molly Weasley was as attractive as Ginny in her
younger years. To look at her today, though, you'd never know it.
This is the fourth child she's lost to an ongoing war. She's
sixty years old, and unlike most witches, she looks every day of
it. Her face is ravaged. And after these last few years, I don't
think she's got any tears left to cry for her dead children. Her
eyes are bone-dry, her face stony.

I wonder if she blames my son.

He was my son, really. I never had any others, and he never had
another father. When I heard, it was almost the same as the last
time, with his real father. Twenty-one years prior.

The house looked as though it had been attacked with a Muggle bomb.
Only this time, there was no baby crying in the wreckage. The
baby was unborn. No one had even known that Ginny was carrying,
but when they brought her body out of the smoldering ruins, it was
obvious. Whatever spell she'd been casting on herself to hide it
was gone.

This time, though, there was no rage in me, no desire to kill
whatever man had betrayed them this time. I was too old and too
tired. Just past forty, and I felt older than Dumbledore.

I steal a glance at Molly again. Each of the worn lines in her
face reminds me of a tragedy I know she's experienced.

Bill's death, six years prior. Then, two years after that, Fred
and Arthur, lost together. Last year, Percy. And now her baby,
her only girl.

If I close my eyes I can still see them dancing at their wedding.
It was a bright spot in the middle of the darkness, a happy
occasion in the midst of horror. They had chosen a sappy Muggle
song as "their" song, but watching them together, swaying gently
to the music, was enough to bring tears to the eyes of everyone
in the room.

I remember one point, where Harry mouthed the words to Ginny,
smiling down at her. "Please forgive me, I can't stop loving
you." Then he'd leaned down to kiss her sweetly, both of them
smiling through the kiss, their eyes closed.

I know I have to get away from these memories, even if they're
all I have left. I glance to Molly's side. Yet another child
is missing. He's in hiding, unable to attend the funeral of
his younger sister and his best friend.

Ron Weasley personally assassinated five suspected Death Eaters
the day after he found out. He had to go into hiding so quickly
that his fiancee, Hermione, couldn't go with him. She's here,
her face slack, her eyes filled with tears that refuse to fall
down her pretty pale cheeks. She glances up across the gravesite
at Molly, and her chin quivers, but she refuses to let the tears
fall.

Molly's other children are here to support her. George holds one
of her arms, still looking somehow incomplete without his second
half. Charlie stands alone a few feet from her, looking none too
young himself. He's several years younger than I am. He's never
married, never had children, and looking at the twin coffins, I
can understand why.

As I close my eyes and listen to the ceremony, I keep hearing
their wedding song. "So if you're feeling lonely, don't..."

I can't help but feel lonely. I've lost everyone I love to this
war. Every time I think it can't get worse, it does. Losing my
parents, my two best friends, betrayal, Azkaban, losing Janie, and
now the only child I've ever known, along with his wife and my
future grandson. If only they'd gone into hiding sooner. If only
they'd never conceived a child.

"As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death..." I can
barely hear the words, not that it matters. We held this Muggle
funeral for the sake of the good Muggles who sheltered Harry and
Ginny these past months. It's clear from the looks on their faces
that they had no clue who they were really guarding, or why they
died under mysterious circumstances. They don't realize that
they're lucky they weren't murdered as well.

These lives have to mean something. These smootly hewn wooden
caskets must have some meaning, somewhere. The two...no, three,
I remind myself...lives that ended so suddenly have to count
for something. The Boy who Lived can't have died in vain.

As I look around, at the young lives destroyed, at the family
beyond tears, so far into pain...I vow that he won't have.