InsaneJournal

Who: Ginny Weasley and Fabian Prewett
What: Lunch and catch-up
When: Backdated liek woah to late May
Where: Hogwarts grounds
Warnings: Mild language



Fabian normally didn't spend time with the students when he was working on the wards at Hogwarts. His appointment technically made him school staff, but his role required no contact with the under-eighteens. The big exception was his nephews and niece; his reasons for speaking with them were unimpeachable. Today he was sharing his lunch with Ginny, as much for the purpose of checking up on her, and letting her check up on him, as anything else. They were sitting outside the castle on a blanket, enjoying a picnic, almost as if they were in Devon on the quidditch field instead of at school.

"Have the seventh-years and the fifth-years started the big exam rush, or is it just the Ravenclaws?" It had been a long time since Fabian had been a student, but the rhythm of the academic year was one of the things he'd picked back up after the long void of Azkaban.

“Everyone. It is a little unsettling that sixth years do not have to worry about exams until next year but the homework is enough to make me start worrying.” Ginny said once she finished chewing her sandwich. “I am looking forward to go home for the Holiday. It would be nice.” She was looking forward to her own bedroom at the Burrows, being at school was nice but there was nothing like waking up into your own bed.

“What about you? Are the wards at Hogwarts up to your standards?” She knew he was checking in on her. Ever since the news of Gideon’s death, Ginny had been a little down. For the moment she lost the spark she had.

"The wards here are better than any I've ever made, or will. Or maybe mine will be this good if they last a thousand years. Sometimes I wonder about the wards I'm examining. The oldest ones have been strengthened dozens of times across the decades, but they originally came from the wands of the founders themselves. It's the ones in the centuries since then that I wonder about: anonymous witches and wizards, a thousand years' worth, all building this place up. I wonder if somebody will be thinking the same about me a thousand years from now." That the school would continue so far into the future was a given. "Been thinking a lot about perpetuity recently."

“If you want Uncle. I can go into the school library and write ‘Fabian Prewett is one of the wizards that helped strengthen the wards in 1998’, in every single copy of Hogwarts, A History I can find. That way at least one person will be thinking about you in a thousand years.” She perked up a bit at that. So he was thinking of death, it was natural. “I think we all have had things on our mind recently.” She bit her lower lip and lowered her sandwich into her lap. “It is weird, being at school and it is the same thing every day. Yet the world continues to go on behind the walls. Some of it doesn’t seem - real. You know?”

Fabian found himself smirking at Ginny's offer to deface the library books. He could only imagine what the librarians of the present and future would have to say about that: nothing good for about 200 years, at which point the marginalia would become valuable historical data.

"I do. And it's got to be doubly strange for you precisely because everything stays the same." Fabian reached over with a clean hand to tousle Ginny's hair. "Some things will stay the same, though. We all love you. And there are some good things. Bill's staying in Britain for the time being." Which was a silver lining to a very dark cloud.

“I will do it.” Ginny said with a nod. They wouldn’t notice it was there until someone pointed it out. She would have to charm it so it couldn’t be erased. Not to hard she imagined.

Ginny blew her hair out of her eyes after he messed with it. “I told Bill he better be at the platform when I arrive back home. I have gotten very good at the Bat Boogey Hex and not afraid to use it on brothers who forget about their baby sister.” She ran a hand through her hair to tame it down a bit. Looking back in the direction of the castle. “I can’t believe how fast the year went.”

"Yeah, October seems like it was just yesterday, and yet so much has happened. Not just Gideon. Everything. Good things too. Me and Gwen, which is weird in its own way, but a good kind of weird. If you'd told me when we were on the platform at the beginning of September that I was going to be living together with a girl close to Bill's age before you and Ron came home for the summer, I would have laughed at you--but here we are." He smirked at Ginny and raised his glass of water to her. "Bill's not going to forget you, though. He's never got too much on his mind for that."

“Does the years keep going by faster as you get older?” She asked - that was a frightening thought. “Also don’t screw up with Gwen. She is one of my top three favorite quidditch stars.” Ginny said being half serious. “That is a relief to hear, but a shame he won’t see how good I got at the Hex. Are you doing alright? I mean with the recent news?” Ginny asked, turning the conversation a bit to something that was on her mind.

Fabian took a bite of his sandwich while he considered that question. By the time he'd swallowed it, he had an answer that he thought was fair and honest, without saying things Ginny didn't need to hear. "I think I have to know what all right is to say whether I am or not. I get up, I'm going to work again--and being careful, moreso than usual, when dealing with clients--I come home, I help Gwen take care of herself and I let her help me when I need it. I see the family and my friends, though I'm not going out much otherwise. I'm tired a lot, which is normal for someone who's grieving." He looked up from his contemplation of his sandwich to look at Ginny.

"It's a little different for me, Gideon dying, you know. I'm angry with him for doing something stupid that got himself killed, but also I've been grieving bits and pieces of him for a long time, since we got back from Azkaban. I'm glad he was happy with Bilius, but I don't think that changed who he was, any more than I think what's happening with Gwen changes who I am. Bilius keeps wanting to treat me like I'm the closest survivor, but I'm not sure I am. Gideon and I weren't really talking to each other at the end. So I don't know what to think."

Ginny looked at her Uncle and then sighed. “Sounds like there was a lot of unsaid words that you wished that was said.” She finished off her sandwich, “And you should get some rest. Even if you have to take a sleeping potion...bloody hell - I am sounding like mum.” The redhead mumbled to herself. “Have you talked to Uncle Bilius?”

Fabian found himself smiling at exactly how much Ginny did sound like her mother. "A little. He wants all sorts of things to be the way they used to be, and I'm not sure they can." Which covered a multitude of sins that Fabian didn't think Ginny was old enough to hear about and some that she couldn't because of Fabian's Order vows. "It's not that I care about him less, or that I'm angry with him, or anything like that. It's just that everything is complicated right now and I have to weigh everything I'm doing against competing interests. Competing obligations. Both the ones I chose, like being with Gwen, and the ones I inherited from Gideon, too, like being my dad's heir."

“Well, things cannot go back to the way they used to be. I am sixteen and I know this. You have to take what you can and continue moving forward.” Ginny looked right at him as if she was evaluating what he was saying to her. “I don’t know everything that is going up, but blaming it on complicated things right now just sounds like an easy excuse not to face things. But everyone needs time to heal.”

"I need some time to grieve this out," Fabian allowed, "and to make some decisions. Everybody wants different things from me, and I have to decide which of those things is right for me. Like, Dad wants me to inherit the house, which is nice, obviously, but to him and Mum, that comes with certain kinds of responsibilities. Like, for instance, they think I ought to get married and have a son of my own with the sort of woman who's used to running a big house like theirs. And probably, honestly, another pureblood." Fabian made a face at that.

"And I could see a lot of good I could do with that, but also I don't know what's going to happen with Gwen and me, and maybe she doesn't like the idea--I don't know yet, I haven't asked her--" he held up a hand in protest "--but anyroad, I care a great deal about Gwen and I love my parents, but that doesn't mean I want to change up my whole life for any of them. Or maybe I do, but not exactly the way any of them want. There are things I could do with the house that I know Mum and Dad would hate, but I would think were very worthwhile. So that's what I mean by complicated."

“I didn’t know granddad and grandmum had that way of thinking.” Ginny didn’t want to think that her own family were into keeping the pureblood ways alive. She looked over at her uncle, “Then don’t change your whole life for them. Do what you want. Take advice from a sixteen year old and do the things you want to do. There is plenty of things mum doesn’t approve of me doing but if I don’t do it, then I will never know.” She reached over and patted his shoulder. “Or don’t take advice, I'm only sixteen.”

Ginny had a way of making Fabian smile that even her brothers couldn't duplicate, for all his fondness for them. "No, from the vantage point of forty-six, that still looks like the right answer. It's just figuring out what you really want that's the hard part." He caught Ginny's retreating hand and gave it a squeeze.

And changed the subject: "Have you decided what you're going to do this summer?"

“Playing a lot of quidditch. I need to make sure those scouts are looking my way. And not thinking about school for a good three months.” She gave him the biggest grin. “And maybe find out how I can get a better broom before school starts. Do you think I could work part time somewhere?”

Fabian found himself echoing her infectious grin. "Maybe." He thought about it, and decided to elaborate. "There are a lot of new shops opening off what used to be Knockturn and you might be able to find something there. Ron may be working for Wheezes and with him and Percy both there, and Verity, they might be staffed up. I'll start keeping an eye out for openings when I'm about, all right?"

“Knockturn alley turn for the good? Would Mum allow me down there?” Ginny asked with a sceptical look. “But thanks. Might want to avoid working for the brothers, I may be their favorite sister but they won’t play favorite employee.”

"Probably not. And I can't imagine your Mum would object to New New Diagon or whatever they're calling it now. It's only old people like me who think of it as Knockturn Alley still anyroad. There are plenty of respectable businesses and some of them have to be looking for help." Fabian thought about it for a moment. "Maybe you should talk to Gwen. She'd know if there's something in her boss's office and might know if any of the quidditch supply shops need a part-timer."

“New New Diagon? That doesn’t sound charming at all.” Ginny’s mouth almost dropped open when she thought about working part time in a quidditch supply shoppe. She would spend all her money on quidditch stuff. At least she would know of anything new coming into the shoppe first. “I will do that. Thanks for the advice.”

Fabian toasted Ginny with the last of his water. "Always. And thank you for yours, as well. It's nice to know that occasionally even forty-six and sixteen can have useful things to say to each other."