afnpc (afnpc) wrote in afic, @ 2011-09-14 22:51:00 |
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Entry tags: | character: ginny weasley, player: kaia, player: sarah |
Who: Ginny Weasley, Molly Weasley (NPC) and Natalie Grant (NPC)
When: Thursday, September 15th, 2005.
Where: The Burrow, later afternoon
What: Ginny picks up Natalie for the night and ends up talking to Molly about George
Rating: Low.
“Now, dearheart, we just punch the dough down.” Molly wrapped her fingers around Natalie’s hands and balled the small digits into little fists. Under Molly’s guidance, Natalie punched her hands down into the round dome of rising bread dough. The dough, warm beneath Natalie’s fingers, deflated as she mashed it down with her fists. She grinned up at Molly.
“It feels so weird!”
“It is strange.”
“I like it, though!”
Molly chuckled and tugged gently on Natalie hands, pulling them back from the bowl. “Now, we cover it and let it rise for another hour. Then we can put it in our loaf pans and bake it.” Natalie eased off the stool she had been kneeling on and moved over to the sink.
“Can we make enough for Eva?” Natalie asked, glancing over her shoulder at her grandmother. Molly smiled at Natalie and nodded. She liked Eva, though she could tell there was something sad about the girl, a trait she had seen in all of her children on and off. She wanted to hug the girl close and feed her.
“Of course, dear.”
====
Ginny was sore all over from practice, so recently showered that her hair still was plastered to her head and had a desperate craving for carbs. Enough to feed a country, preferably. Still, she had to pick Natalie up, as promised. She didn’t stay over all that often, but when she did they had a lot of fun.
The only flaw in the plan Ginny had devised for the weekend, was promising to bake a cake with Natalie, and she didn’t cook. Ever. She could barely make herself porridge in the morning without setting the kitchen on fire.
She walked into the house without knocking - the Burrow would always be where she felt the most at home - and immediately heard footsteps as Natalie ran towards the door.
“I’m here!” she called. “Feed me!”
===
“Aunt Ginny!” Natalie cried out, wrapping both arms securely around her aunt’s waist. “Were you at practice?” she asked even as she was grabbing her aunt’s hand and leading her to the kitchen table, where she and Molly were beginning to frost the cookies they had made earlier.
Molly leaned over and pressed her cheek to Ginny’s before kissing it, hands already in the mixing bowl as she prepared the icing.
“Hello, dear,” Molly said, motioning with her head for Ginny to take a seat at the table. “Have a cookie if you’d like. I can make you and Natalie a sandwich once we’ve finished our project—Natalie and I’ve made cookies for school friends,” Molly explained, with Natalie nodding emphatically beside her.
====
“I was at the pitch all day,” she told Natalie as they walked towards the kitchen. “I even had lunch there. We have our own cook and everything. He’s almost as good as Mum at cooking, can you believe it?”
She looked over at the table. It was piled high with cookies, coloured frosting it several colours, and looked like it had been a long time in the making.
“I can make my own sandwich, Mum,” she said. “Nat, do you want one?”
She went to pull cheese and butter and several kinds of vegetables out of the fridge. There was an abundance of sandwich meats, as usual, but unless it was an emergency Ginny preferred to stick with the vegetarian food.
“So, Natalie,” she said. “A fairy for Halloween? I’ll be your knight? Does that sound good?”
She did, of course, have to somehow get away long enough to get absolutely drunk off her mind and make Cormac McLaggen’s head explode, but there’d be time for that after the kids were asleep. She hoped. Too much time with children, even the ones she loved the most, made her a bit crazy. It was a good thing not more of her friends had spawned, really.
====
“All day?” Natalie echoed. “I bet you’re tired, Aunt Ginny,” Natalie said sagely, nodding her head and giving her a look of impressed child wonder. “No one is as good of a cook as GrandMolly,” she added at the end of Ginny’s statement. “She can make everything!”
“I think Natalie should have something to eat other than cookies,” Molly said to her daughter. From the sound of it, Natalie had had nothing to eat but carbs all day. She’d said she had muffins with George for breakfast, and pizza for lunch. “Preferably something green.”
“Sandwich is good, Aunt Ginny,” Natalie agreed, smearing a cookie with bright pink icing. “I’m going to make the last dozen all orange and black for Uncle Ron, even though he’s not my classmate,” she went on, pointing to the frosting. Indeed, Molly and Natalie had even whipped up some black frosting for said cookies.
====
“Once upon a time I was a waitress,” Ginny told Natalie, for what was probably not the first time. “At a café. I would much rather play Quidditch all day long. It’s much more fun.”
Ginny started making them a sandwich each. “Carbs is what makes the world go round,” she added, but she did slice some tomatoes, cucumbers and capiscum to put on the sandwiches, hoping that would make Molly happy.
She really should say something to Mum about George, who simultaneously terrified, angered and frustrated her, but where would you even begin? She wasn’t the best person to make people stop drinking, hell, she did it too much half the time herself, and she definitely wasn’t one to talk to people about their mental state. She was too nuts for her own good more often than not.
“Do I get some green ones?” she asked. “Or should I eat all the orange ones to show Ron that I can crush him any time I want?” At Natalie’s wide eyes she hurried to add, “In Quidditch. Not real life. He’s too tall for that.”
====
“I can’t wait to learn to fly!” Natalie exclaimed. “I don’t think I can play all the time though. I couldn’t play for all my favorite teams at the same time, and everyone would get sad if I didn’t pick theirs... especially Uncle Ron and Oliver,” Natalie said matter-of-factly. She watched the interaction with her daughter and granddaughter and smiled. Natalie seemed well-adjusted, given the circumstances. And though Molly was certain that George was well behaved around Natalie, she couldn’t help but worry. He wasn’t good, and ever since he hadn’t picked Natalie up, she was afraid that spend-the-nights-with-GrandMolly were going to turn into Where-Is-Daddy?-moments again.
“Your Aunt Ginny would never ‘crush’ any of her brothers in real life because ‘crushing’ isn’t very nice to do to someone you care about, is it, Nattie?” she asked. Natalie nodded in agreement with her grandmother.
While Ginny finished the sandwiches, Molly and Natalie finished icing the cookies. Molly had a mind about her to get a word in with Ginny before the two left for the evening.
“Natalie, why don’t you run and play a bit? I’ll wrap up your sandwich and some cookies to take with you to Aunt Ginny’s,” Molly said, stroking a hand over Natalie’s curls. Molly was grateful that Natalie was at an age where she still would rather play than be involved in grown up affairs. Natalie grinned and swiped a cookie with a mischievous little grin that mirrored her father’s before quickly disappearing out the back door into the garden.
“Now,” Molly said, eyes flicking over to her daughter and giving her a patented ‘Molly Weasley Fixed Look.’ “Ginny, dear,” her mother continued, even as she was beginning to wrap up the cookies for Natalie’s classmates. “How is George?”
Molly wasn’t one to beat around the bush, which, she was rather sure, is where a few of her children got the talent from.
====
Grateful that Natalie was finally out of earshot Ginny poured herself some juice and sat down at the table. Talking was all and well, but food was better. Necessary even.
“The truth?” she asked, taking a big bite from her sandwich. And then another one. She had only just swallowed before she started talking. “He looks like shit, he sounds like shit and I don’t know what to do. Like, at all.”
The sibling code required hiding things from the parents as needed, but Ginny rather thought that they’d gone way past that at this point. She would’ve been furious with Ron if he’d told them when she was at her worst, but what else was she supposed to do? Nobody else seemed to even get close to making an impression.
She really, really hated that she had to be the one doing this.
“He needs a therapist, Mum. Like the one I used to see. I know it’s a Muggle thing, but I honestly don’t think anything else will help.”
If there was one things Muggles did well it was therapist. Which was weird, but very true. Ginny was very well aware of that she might not have been alive, had Hermione not seen that she’d started seeing one all those years ago.
“I’ve tried talking to him,” she said. “But he’s not listening. I think he wants to, but he just can’t.”
====
Molly didn’t display an outward reflection of the internal conflict raging inside of her. In fact, she kept bundling the cookies up, filling the little boxes she and Natalie and labeled for each of her classmates. She even filled up the boxes Natalie had insisted on making for Uncle Ron and the green ones for Ginny—though Ginny didn’t know the box was for her yet.
Molly finally sighed, though, at Ginny’s last statement. “I had hoped Eva and Natalie were helping him along.” She knew George had always said he was fine, said he was okay, said he was getting along, but Molly knew better. She knew he hated how the punchlines to his jokes never quite sounded the same to anyone, and how talking about his ear made him feel. She knew how tired his eyes always were, and how thin he had gotten.
Things had gotten better, to be sure, when Natalie had come around. And George seemed to really care for Eva, but Molly still worried. George would never be the same without Fred, but he had never learned to heal right without him either. “He’s got to have motivation to do that,” Molly said. “Do you think he wants to? Has reason to?” Molly liked to think that their family was enough reason for George, but she knew that sometimes it was more than that, even if you really loved your family.
“And do you think he’d go if we gave him somewhere to go?”
====
Ginny took her time with the sandwich. How come she had to be the responsible one? That was Bill’s job, surely? Or Charlie’s? Not to mention Percy’s. He could organise the living shit out of just about anyone and was more responsible than any person should ever be. She understood why George hadn’t told him, though. You didn’t get help from Percy. You got fancy words and stern looks.
So he’d told her and she had to keep it together, which was weird and not like her at all, but she knew the place he was in. Someone had to say it, someone had to not suggest, but tell him what he needed.
“He’s trying to do right by them,” Ginny said. Whatever the hell that meant. “But I don’t know if he’s strong enough. He’s trying, but he needs help. Rather a lot of it.”
She drained the juice glass in one go.
“And he will. I’ll make him. Drag him kicking and screaming if I have to.” And then, because it was all too much already, “I should go check on Natalie. I promised her we’d...” Oh. She had to say something vaguely convincing here. “... buy her this colouring book I saw with fairies and goblins and all that crap. Fat fairies, and goblins with these chunky little legs. Awesome one, really. At least compared to those little pink princess ones she’s got laying around.”
====
Molly had once been of the same mind as Ginny, that talking to the younger boys was more of a job Bill would have taken on. As it was, Bill had his own life now, and his own responsibilities. Molly recalled the day that George had admitted to her that his responsibilities had increased, and that he had a daughter who he’d decided was going to come live with him.
He’d cried when he told them, and Molly was quite sure he expected both of them to be disappointed in him.
Molly couldn’t say she was disappointed in George’s having a child, though she was sad at the series of events that had led to her arrival in their lives.
And she was worried about George’s ability to care for himself, much less a daughter. Still, Molly would be the first to admit that Natalie adored her father and George adored Natalie, and he’d made every effort to take care of her physically, see to her needs, clothe and feed her. And he got along well with her, made her laugh and kept her happy.
But the sadness still lingered around his eyes and Molly could only worry at that, much like worrying about a distant dark cloud on a pretty spring afternoon. Except she knew George’s cloud was larger than it seemed, and likely fill of more rain than they all knew.
“Will you give me the name of the woman you spoke with and how to get in contact with her?” Molly asked as Ginny started to make her excuses. She didn’t press the issue or ask Ginny to stay and talk about it more. She knew her daughter had Ron to turn to, and she trusted one of her other children would let her know if Ginny needed something more than she was admitting. “Or, perhaps we could get Eva to talk to him about it? I think she would.” It was clear from Molly’s tone that she quite liked the girl—a bit rough about the edges, but full of a kind spirit and fond of George, that much was sure. And George was fond of her as well.
=====
Ginny thought about Eva and how she’d told her that it wasn’t that easy and that they could try all they wanted and that it wasn’t up to them anymore. It was utter bullshit. Sure, he had to want to be sober to stay sober, but it would never happen if he didn’t have someone telling him it was possible.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Eva... has a lot going on right now. But I suppose you could ask.”
He didn’t tell Eva everything either. He didn’t want to scare her away, or something stupid like that. Really, she was the hotheaded, never think before you talk person of the family, but he was dumber than she’d ever been. Well. Maybe not. But he was definitely up there with the best of them.
“Cynthia,” she said. “Cynthia... what was it?” She knew full well what the name was. She still saw her sometimes, when things were particularly bad. She didn’t want anyone to know that, though, not even Mum.
“Oh yes, Cynthia McCarthy. I’m sure Hermione can help us with the phone number. Or Eva. She’s a halfblood, isn’t she?”
====
“Would you talk to Hermione, dear?” Molly asked, wrapping up Natalie’s sandwich and bundling it all up in a bag with Ginny’s box of Harpies-themed cookies, with a few extra for Natalie. “And if you talk to Eva, perhaps you could encourage her to talk to George.” The question was, how to bring up the subject of therapist with George.
“Should I give him the telephone number?” Should they give it to Eva directly? Should Ginny do it? Molly wasn’t sure.
====
“Maybe see what Eva thinks. If she wants to bring it up to him. I’m not sure she would, but if she doesn’t, I will. You need someone to do it for you, most of the time. It’s like you don’t even realise you need it until somebody tells you it might be a good idea.”
And she was talking too much again. Sure, her mother knew that she’d been in a bad way when she was younger, but some things she had kept hidden even back then. As much as she could manage anyway.
“I’ll talk to everyone. Or I’ll try to anyway. Hermione’s easy enough, it’s her birthday and everything. I’ll track the other two down somehow, shouldn’t be too hard.”
Not that George couldn’t be crafty when it came to that stuff, but Ginny was stubborn. As for Eva... She wasn’t too sure about that, but maybe she was just scared. Just like Ginny was herself.
“I better go get Natalie. We’re going to plan Halloween outfits and eat things with too much sugar. Thanks for the cookies and everything.”