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He showers quick, tries to scrub the train off him. Snorts at the sight of Vernon’s large bottle of hair-thickening shampoo. Having stared at his uncle’s head all the way back from London, he reckons Vernon’s due a refund.
There's some lurid deodorant of Dudley's - hair gel, too, looks cheap and shit. He feels a stab of pity for whichever poor girl his cousin’s trying to scrub up for these days. Dudley trying to pull, he thinks with a laugh, Christ. But thoughts of pulling lead to thoughts of girls, which lead, inevitably, to thoughts of Ginny.
He shoves the hair gel back on the shelf. Adds Dudley pulling to the don’t think about it list he’d started making on the train, somewhere around the Cumbrian border, when Ron had offered him a Caramel Kappa, Ginny’s favourite, and he’d wanted to throw up all over the chess board.
—
They lug their trunks across the Burrow’s yard in sweaty, stony silence. ‘Beautiful evening,’ her mother remarks, as her children clamber back over the threshold of the rickety old house. ‘I do hope we get more of this lovely sunshine.’
Stupid thing to say, she thinks, stupid thing to hope for. There's a wishbone out drying on the kitchen window sill. Wonders if her mother plans to waste it wishing for more good weather in the middle of a war.
—
The Dursleys had waited all of two seconds after he’d slammed the car boot shut before speeding off to dinner at some miserable gastropub off the M3. Suits him fine, wants to be alone. He stabs a fork through the plastic film of his ready-meal, makes sure to puncture the yellow reduced sticker Petunia's left on for his benefit, and watches the bright white of the mashed potato atop the shepherd’s pie whirling around in the microwave.
You know, it’s made from real shepherd, he’d said to Ginny once. That’s such a dad joke, she’d said, and he’d said I wouldn’t know and she’d said Potter you get one dead dad joke a day and you already used today’s up at breakfast. Shepherd’s pie is on the don’t think about it list, then, he thinks, just before he burns his fingers sliding the ready meal onto a tray. Probably best to add cottage pie, too, same idea. Maybe all savoury pies, play it safe.
—
Dinner is shepherd’s pie - her old favourite, a Molly classic, and yet it tastes like dust, like ash, like nothing. ‘I know you’ve had a tricky time, dear,’ her mother says gently. She stiffens, glares at Ron, traitor , but then - ‘what with your exams being cancelled - and right when you’d done all that work -’ so she's safe, then, goes back to moving mash potato around her plate. ‘Made of real shepherds,’ her dad says, weak smile, trying his best. She gulps down her mouthful and excuses herself, slams the bedroom door shut, finds she's shaking.
—
He flops down on the sofa, feet up on the coffee table, eats straight from the hot plastic as he flicks through channels. The nine o'clock news is all budget this, Hong Kong that, Tim Henman out at Wimbledon. The nine o’clock news is not Dumbledore's dead, Snape murdered him, there’s a war on, Harry Potter's dropped out of school to go hunt bits of Voldemort's dismembered soul.
Dropped out of school, he thinks. Scandalous, delinquent. What d'you reckon? he asks the Ginny in his head. Harry Potter, troubled dropout? Do anything for you? The Ginny in his head laughs. It’d be fun if she were here, he thinks, curled up next to him on this ugly sofa, taking the piss out of Petunia’s cushion covers and Dudley’s wrestling trophies. Imagines taking her up to his bedroom, pointing out the lamp Dobby whacked himself around the head with. But then the Ginny in his head looks at him and says I never really gave up on you and I knew this would happen in the end, and it all bursts, shatters into a hundred dusty pieces.
He chucks the rest of the meal in the bin, adds dropping out of school to the stupid list. Might as well add the budget, Hong Kong and Tim Henman, why not.
—
Lying on her back on her bed, staring at the sunset’s stains on the ceiling, the only sound the late summer birdsong out of the open window. Quiet, too quiet, for a house this full. Downstairs, the kitchen’s all whispers. Every now and then she hears an unfamiliar footstep creak on the landing, strangers on the staircase. Headquarters, now. The war’s come home, and it’s using their loo.
—
Turns off the telly, goes upstairs and lies on his bed, stares up at the painted peach ceiling. On the walk from the living room to his bedroom the list expanded to include his trunk (train, Hogwarts, Ginny), his jumper (still smells a bit like her on the left arm, pathetic), and Hedwig (how does it feel knowing your owl prefers me, Potter?).
—
She’d got her hopes up, that's the thing. First mistake, stupid. He’d been telling the story of Ron’s camp-bed collapsing in on him that time, lying back on his elbows under their tree with his hair ragged, handsome. She’d laughed, see, and said well, maybe this summer we’ll spare you the indignity of the camp-bed and, being dense, he’d said well Fred and George’s room was nice if you don’t mind the smell of soot. She’d rolled her eyes, said Potter can you really not notice when a girl’s trying to get you into her bed. He’d gone red, then, stammered a bit, but it was all over his face: the wonder, the want. Your mum will go ballistic, he’d muttered, but he’d said will, not would, and his hand had toyed with her hip, fingertips trailed her thigh. He’d wanted it, too. He’d thought they’d have it, thought they'd get the summer, at least.
We could’ve had ages, he’d said. Months, years, maybe. Stupid, stupidest thing, hope. No use for it.
—
He's dreading the dreams the most, knows they'll be unbearable. Almost hopes he dreams of lockets and green light and dead headmasters. Can't be worse than bright brown eyes, freckles on a bottom lip (how do you even get freckles on your bottom lip, Gin? Don't be jealous of my freckles, Potter, just because your skin's so boring), the smell of her hair (what do you mean my hair smells? What is that supposed to mean? Why are you laughing?) and the sound of her laugh and her gasps and the feel of her breathing, soft, lying beside him under the cloak on the lakeshore. Looking down under the table at dinner, seeing her thigh next to his on the bench, hand on his knee, body drawn to his, magnets, magic.
—
It’d have been cramped. He’d have had to sneak down from Ron’s room, under the cloak. She’d have shown him her Harpies poster, now this is what a proper team looks like, Potter, worn her nice pyjamas, the ones with the little shorts, asked him to take them off. Cleared a space for his glasses on the bedside table. He'd have slept on the right, nearest the door, ever on guard, and stroked her cheek with his knuckles, looked at her that way, like she’s precious. It would have been like that time they’d fallen asleep under their tree, heads together - the time she’d slipped up, let herself imagine it: two bodies in a bed in a house with a garden, laughter, little people running around who’d look a bit like them both.
Stupid, stupid thing. Grips the bedspread in both fists, banishes it: all of it, all the hope. File away that future, bury it. Kill your darlings, push them out to sea.
—
He stares out of the window for a while, eyes next door's new extension, which sort of works - ugly nothing suburbia - until he remembers Ron at the window in a flying Ford Anglia, zooming him off to the Burrow where a little red headed girl is blushing and sticking her elbow in the butter dish and god, this really is shit, isn't it, they weren't lying. She knew then, of course she did. He's never been good at thinking of nothing, has he, and he's thought about her as he's fallen asleep every night since October, so what chance does he have now?
—
Knock at the door. Ron, with two cups of tea and a half-empty box of Caramel Kappas. ‘Thought you might want some company,’ he mutters, sits on the bed. She sighs, no fight in her, and so brother and sister sit, sipping, in birdsonged silence.
‘How are you doing?’ he asks. She means to snap - how do you think I’m doing - but takes one look at him and finds she’s fresh out of spite. ‘You’re going away with him, aren’t you?’ she says, instead. Ron nods, and it’s awful, all ache, terrible, gaping grief, all this filling in the blanks of everything that she’s losing.
‘I just hoped,’ she says, eventually, eyes on her knees, ‘we’d have more time. I know - I know it was stupid.’
That’s all of it, really, isn’t it: her great failing, uttered aloud. Crumples, then, beside her big brother, and cries, heaping earth on all the hope as they lower it into the grave. Stupid thing, useless thing.
—
When he wakes groggily the next day - crick in his neck, still in his jeans - his first thought is: he's overslept. He’s missed Ginny on her way down to breakfast, going to be late for Potions, fucked it.
But no, of course not. There’s no Ginny, no breakfast, no Potions. Might still have fucked it, though, who's to say. Don't, he tells himself, as he heads for the bathroom to scrub the night off him, just don't think about it.
—
When she wakes the next day, covered in a blanket she doesn’t remember slipping under, she thinks about the wishbone, downstairs on the window sill. Thinks how stupid, how stupid it is, for something to die, and someone to make wishes out of its bones.