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Ginny stood in the middle of her bedroom, turning slowly on the spot, drinking it in. She’d always loved it, so warm and bright and cosy. It hadn’t changed in years, not really; the same pink paint on the walls, still decorated with dog-eared posters from her childhood; the same narrow bed, with its chipped white enamel frame, mattress covered with a bedspread knitted by her mother; the same pretty curtains, embroidered with roses and just slightly too thin to keep out the early morning sunlight.
Ginny rarely found herself stuck for words, but even she found it hard to articulate the sense of comfort she found from simply being there. The idea of that ever changing bothered her more than she’d anticipated, even though deep down, she knew she was being irrational. After all, it wasn’t like she’d never sleep in there again. But after today, it would never be her bedroom again.
So much of her life up to this point was rooted in this room. These four walls had been her sanctuary and her safe space, and so many of her memories were contained here. It wasn’t just the place where she slept. It was also the place where she’d played, where she’d grieved and where she’d nursed a broken heart. It was where she’d dreamed.
Historically, it had been the nursery - the room each Weasley baby started out in, until the next sibling displaced them. As the youngest, Ginny simply never left, and over the years, she’d made it her own.
It wasn’t without its drawbacks, of course - so low down the house that it existed against the perpetual backdrop of her brothers stomping up and down the stairs outside, and so close to the kitchen that she couldn’t pretend that she hadn’t heard Mum calling for help from downstairs. Once she made it to her teens, she’d have certainly liked it to have been a bit closer to the bathroom. Still, she wouldn’t have swapped with any of her brothers, not for anything.
She could have her pick of the other rooms now, of course; the rest of the brood had all flown the nest within months of the end of the war, but the thought of switching had never occurred to her. All the other rooms were, in her opinion, infinitely inferior; Bill and Charlie, in the room next door to her, suffered from all the same disadvantages, without the benefit of her pretty view of the orchard, or the handy window that gave out onto the low roof over the living room that she always thought of as her balcony. On the floor above, Percy had to be next to Fred and George, and Fred and George had to be next to Percy, while Ron had five sets of stairs to contend with and the family ghoul as an upstairs neighbour.
No, Ginny was quite convinced that her room was the pick of the bunch, and it had seen her through so many milestones, big and small. She’d opened her Hogwarts letter here. Crept in and out through the window in the dead of night, teaching herself to fly a broom. Charmed her nails every colour under the sun in flagrant violation of the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery. Dealt with her first period, tried on her first bra and written her first love letter. She’d even made her first real friend, when circumstances had forced Hermione into her life, and into her bedroom.
Ginny had not been happy about it at the time, that invasion of the precious little space that Ginny ever had to herself amidst the chaos of the Burrow. Hermione seemed nice enough, but she was Ron’s friend, so then twelve-year-old Ginny really couldn’t understand why she wasn’t staying in Ron’s room, and absolutely scandalised her mother by saying as much. It wasn’t until after they returned from the World Cup, and Hermione gently, kindly soothed Ginny through the nightmares that their brush with the Death Eaters had rekindled, that the two girls began to bond. They rarely saw much of one another at school, with different timetables, different dormitories and different interests, but it didn’t seem to matter. Theirs was a friendship forged from late night confidences exchanged within the four pink walls on the first floor of the Burrow, and every time they were pushed together again, they picked it up again just as they had before.
Eventually, Ginny’s three hundred and sixty degree turn landed her back facing the mirror again. It was full length, with an ornate gilded wooden frame and seeing it made her smile. She remembered how Fleur had conjured it, that first night she’d bunked in with Ginny and Hermione in the summer before her fifth year, another interloper forced into her private little haven. Ginny and Hermione had rolled their eyes at each other as Fleur shoehorned the mirror in, shoving Ginny’s rickety old dressing table out of the way to accommodate it. But, despite the fact that it was clearly far too big for the room, Ginny hadn’t vanished it when Fleur left, and now, she couldn’t imagine her bedroom without it - just as she couldn’t imagine her life without Fleur being a part of it any more.
Ginny smiled softly to herself. Fourteen-year-old Ginny would never have imagined she would grow to even tolerate her sister-in-law, let alone to love her as fiercely as she did. It was just one of the hundreds upon thousands of ways in which her life had changed since that summer. Or perhaps, she wondered, would it be more accurate to say they were ways that life had changed her?
She smoothed her dress over her hips, wondering if she even recognised the woman she saw reflected in the mirror today. She had Ginny’s freckles, and Ginny’s eyes, and Ginny’s long red hair tumbling down over her shoulders, but as she gazed at her reflection, the Ginny gazing back at her looked oddly unfamiliar. It was almost like she was looking at a fantasy version of herself, a little girl playing dress-up in someone else’s clothes and imagining an actual grown-up into being.
“Knock, knock,” came a familiar voice.
Ginny spun around, startled to see her father leaning on the door frame. “Dad! How long have you been standing there?”
“A little while. You seemed a million miles away. How are you feeling?” When Ginny simply hummed in response, he frowned. “Is everything okay, Pumpkin?”
“What? Oh! Yes, everything’s fine. I was just… reminiscing. All the things that have changed. All the things that haven’t.”
Dad lifted his eyebrows and cocked his head to one side inquiringly. “You’re not getting philosophical on me, are you?”
Ginny snorted with laughter. “Hardly.”
They looked at one another in silence for a moment, until Dad stepped forward into the room, smiling fondly at her. “So, you and Harry, eh?”
“Yeah. Me and Harry.” Ginny grinned at him. “Who saw that one coming?”
“Your mother certainly says she did, though I’m not sure how much of that is wishful thinking,” laughed Dad.
Ginny knew that feeling. She had definitely done more than her fair share of wishful thinking when it came to Harry, much of it here in her bedroom. She looked down at the worn patterned rug that covered the floorboards, calling to mind the hours she’d spent sprawled across it, playing childish games of make-believe. She’d often imagined Harry as some sort of fairy tale prince, an all-conquering hero who would swoop in and save her from the clutches of a nameless horror. It was so prescient she was almost surprised she’d flunked divination quite so badly.
Thinking about it, she realised she must have been standing almost in this exact spot when she’d kissed him on his seventeenth birthday. She’d truly believed she’d said goodbye to him that day, and it broke her in a way that no quiet conversation at Dumbledore’s graveside ever could. She’d sobbed and sobbed for weeks afterwards, curled up on her bed and wrapped in one of her mother’s blankets despite the summer heat. That he’d come back to her - to all of them - still seemed like the most impossibly precious gift.
“You’ll be pleased to know I had a serious chat with the young man this morning,” Dad told her, breaking into her reverie. “Checking on his intentions towards you, making sure he understands his responsibilities and such like.”
“Dad!” exclaimed Ginny. “You didn’t!“
“I most certainly did,” Dad told her, sounding extremely proud of himself. “I’m your father, it’s part of the job description.”
“And does that same job description include embarrassing the hell out of me?” asked Ginny, a little more sharply than she’d intended.
Not that Dad seemed to notice. He laughed, and shook his head. “Not on purpose, no.”
“I bet Harry was mortified.”
“He did turn quite a funny shade of pink, yes. It was very entertaining.” Dad smirked. He gave her an indulgent smile, then took both of her hands in his. “Ginny, he’s part of the family, has been for years. I love him like a son. But you’re my only daughter and you being happy is the thing that matters most to me in the whole world. So I do have to ask you - are you sure he makes you happy? That this is what you want?”
Ginny’s face split into the broadest of grins. “Oh, Merlin, yes!”
“Then that’s all I needed to know.”
For a moment, Arthur Weasley simply stood there gazing at his daughter, eyes soft, lips turned into a wistful smile.
“Dad?” Ginny asked, softly, wondering where his thoughts had taken him.
“Sorry, Pumpkin. I was thinking that it seems like it was just yesterday you were running around with dirty knees and pigtails. Now look at you - all grown up.”
Ginny laughed softly. “I don’t feel it.”
“Oh, love - I don’t think anyone ever does.” Dad held her gaze for a moment, then dropped her hands to check his watch. “Goodness me, is that the time? We need to be making a move. Want to take a walk with me?”
Ginny took a deep breath, then beamed at him. “Yeah. That would be nice.”
She made to take his arm, but he nodded in the direction of the dressing table. “Forgetting something?” he prompted Dad.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, spotting the simple bouquet of lilies of the valley that lay there, stems bound with a strip of lace. She picked it up and turned back towards the mirror one final time, taking everything in; the white satin dress that fell to her ankles; the Prewett tiara pinned to her hair; her grandmother’s bracelet sitting at her wrist, and the delicate necklace that was a wedding gift from Harry at her throat.
Ginny heard the sound of soft footsteps on the rug behind her, and then Dad appeared in the reflection over her shoulder.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Ready,” she nodded.
“Well, I’m glad one of us is!” joked Dad, but Ginny could see tears threatening along his lower lids. “It’s the honour of my life to walk you down the aisle, Pumpkin,” he told her, his voice shaking with emotion.
Suddenly, Ginny found her own throat tightening, and she knew that if she said even one more word, she’d start crying too. Instead, she gave him a huge smile and let him lead her onto the landing.
As Dad headed down the stairs, Ginny took one last look over her shoulder into the pink bedroom on the first floor. No, it wouldn’t be her bedroom again. Her bedroom was at Harry’s flat in London. The next time they stayed at the Burrow, this would be their bedroom instead. For the first time ever, Ginny was looking forward to sharing it.