the kids aren't alright [ginny]

[Deleted]

Jamie had honestly thought that her life couldn’t get any worse. There’s something about learning that your mother lied to you for sixteen years that tended to give that impression, but no. There was something much worse. Not only had her mother lied, but she had done it to protect herself. Jamie had always thought that a mother’s job was to protect her child, but maybe she had been wrong. Nothing her mother had done was meant to protect Jamie. She had spent her whole life believing that her mother had tried her best to raise a child in a world that frowned on teenage mothers and single mothers both, but there was some glaring errors in that theory. If her mother had done her best, then why had she chosen her own life over the life of her child?

Jamie wished she could understand. She really did. But she didn’t, not one bit. Her mother had told her the truth, and somehow that was almost as painful as the endless lies. Fenrir had come back, when Jamie had just turned seven years old. He had given her mother a choice: bite her, or bite the child. And Jamie’s mother had chosen to save her own skin. She had doomed Jamie to a life of fear, a life of living with the stigma of being not only his daughter by blood, but his daughter by bite. Jamie wasn’t sure how she was ever going to go back to her home, with everything she knew. She wasn’t sure if her mother ever expected her back. All she knew was that she needed to talk to someone who wouldn’t be biased. The trouble was that anyone she could think to talk to would obviously be biased in her favor. She wanted to talk to a werewolf, too, but all of her blood siblings would probably take up arms and mob her mother’s house. She needed Lily. She would probably try to mob her mother’s house, too, but Jamie had a better chance of stopping her.

Approaching the Potter’s house was strange. Jamie had the distinct feeling that she didn’t belong there, but right now, her rage and her sadness were much stronger than any sort of tingling in her toes. As she approached the door, Jamie swallowed back her fear, and wondered where on earth one could find the doorbell.

Ginevra Molly Potter

[Deleted]

Ginny had only been back at the house for a few weeks now but it didn’t feel as weird anymore. She felt like she belonged there, especially with summer and her kids being around. They had all gone out with their father today and Ginny decided to stay behind and try to get some articles done for the Prophet. She had recently started going back to work and with some help from her fellow journalists and Harry, she had been trying to get some work done. She had just been sitting at the kitchen table, pages upon pages of newspapers with stories she had written in the past scattered across it, her head in her hands. Then the doorbell rang.

Grateful for the distraction, Ginny jumped up from her seat and made her way through the entrance hall to open the door. She did not recognize the teenager standing outside, but smiled widely nonetheless. ”Hi! You must be one of the kids friends… I’m sorry, they’re not here. Do you want to come in and wait? Oh, I’m Ginny,” she shook her head at her own silliness not introducing herself first and held a hand out to the girl standing on her porch.

@jamie

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Jamie was perhaps overly proud of the fact that she had been able to find the doorbell. It had been quite a feat, considering that the doorbell had been hidden right underneath her nose. The woman who opened the door looked quite a bit like Lily, and Jamie assumed that it was Lily’s mother. She looked pleasant enough, and a little bit of the tension that the Hufflepuff had been carrying in her shoulders melted away. Her muscles recoiled, though, when Ginny announced that none of her children were home. Jamie swallowed, before nodding slowly. “It’s very nice to meet you, Mrs. Potter.” She finally managed to eke out around the knot that was forming in her throat. Jamie hadn’t realized just how much she had needed Lily until she was told she was not allowed to see her friend.

“I’m Jamie –” She cut herself off before she could say her last name. Ginny Potter had been one of the heroes of the Second Wizarding War. Her father had been one of the villains. Jamie didn’t want to start off on the wrong foot. “I’m one of Lily’s friends.” She added as a way of explanation. It was sort of strange, Jamie thought, to meet the mother of the girl she thought of as her sister. Intellectually, Jamie had known that she and Lily were biologically unrelated for a long time, but the reality was just beginning to sink in. Lily had a family already, and Jamie wasn’t part of it. That didn’t change the way she felt, though, and that was that. Jamie nodded when she was asked if she'd like to go inside to wait for Lily; she wasn't sure how much longer she could make it on her own.

Ginevra Molly Potter

[Deleted]

”Oh no, call me Ginny, please,” she said, waving off the girls formal greeting. She got a little butterfly feeling in her stomach at being called ‘Mrs. Potter’, but that didn’t mean she wanted to be so formal with the girl. She looked nervous for some reason, and Ginny hoped that offering her first name to use would help ease the girls mind. She gave her own name and Ginny nodded, ”Jamie, nice to meet you.” It was a bit off that a last name wasn’t given, but she was sure the girl had a good reason. Plus, Ginny didn’t like to press issues unless they were really important to her and for the moment the last name thing wasn’t her business.

”Oh! Well, Lily will be home soon with the boys,” she reiterated, Ginny stepped aside as the girl nodded and shut the door behind her. ”Come on in, make yourself comfortable. I think I have.. Tea… or something. Do you want something?” she still wasn't entirely used to hosting people in the house as of yet. She wasn’t her mother, after all.

@jamie

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Calling someone’s parent by their first name weirded Jamie out a little. She hadn’t ever done it before, but somehow she couldn’t see someone related to Lily giving up on something like that. Jamie nodded her assent to the idea as Ginny continued on with a sentiment about how it was nice to meet her. Normally parents weren’t too thrilled by Jamie visiting, but then again, normally Jamie gave her last name before she was invited into somebody’s home. She gave a bland, generic smile before stepping onto the premises of the house.

“Tea would be great, thanks.” Jamie said, guessing that being alone in the house with one of Lily’s parents without the girl present would be awkward for both parties involved. She hesitated, before asking the question that was beating on the inside of her ribcage. “Do you know how soon “soon” is?” She asked, trying her best not to whine. She certainly didn’t want Ginny to be subject to her long, rambling explanation of her situation with her mother and how, ultimately, it had ripped apart Jamie’s self-esteem. “I…Lily…” The Hufflepuff began. She let out a strangled noise, throwing her hands up in exasperation. How could she do this?

Ginevra Molly Potter

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Ginny smiled as she accepted the offer for tea and disappeared for a moment before returning with a tray. She answered Jamie next question as she moved toward the sitting room in order to place the tray on the little table between the couch and the chairs. ”Awe, I think they’ve been gone about an hour so they should be back… erh…” she actually wasn’t sure how long they would be gone for. She turned back to the girl and bit her lip, ”I’m sorry, I don’t actually… maybe another half hour?” she guessed.

Then the girl said Lily’s name and made a strange sound, throwing her hands up in the air. Ginny’s eyes widened. ”What’s wrong?” she asked, probably sounding a little intense. More than she had meant to. She was still the mind of a seventeen year old, after all, and hadn’t exactly learned the art of holding back. Well, according to Harry, adult Ginny hadn’t really mastered that art either.

@jamie

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She was barely hanging on from minute to minute, and Jamie couldn’t fathom waiting for another half an hour. She was going to start talking, but Ginny inviting her to speak by asking her what was wrong just made Jamie feel less awkward about the situation. “My mother is a liar. She’s lied to me every day for nearly ten years, and if I hadn’t found out the truth on my own, she probably never would have told me. I had the chance to be a normal person, but she took that all away by being selfish, and not even my own mother would choose me over herself.” Jamie said, the words all slurring together as they left her mouth. She didn’t have the energy to articulate every syllable of the wound that ripped her heart open, but she tried her best to at least be understandable. “I am worth so little that even the woman who gave me life didn't think that I warranted any protection. I had finally found these people who love me, but now I’m beginning to think they’d make the same choice, and I really don’t know what to do. I try my best to be a good daughter, be a good sister, but it doesn’t ever seem to be enough.” It wasn’t enough for Odette. It probably wasn’t enough for Adrian, come to think of it, and Lily probably just pitied her. Jamie was wrecked. “When will I be enough for somebody?”

Ginevra Molly Potter

[Deleted]

Ginny’s eyes widened slightly at the girls first words. They were rather straightforward, weren’t they? She also spoke as if Ginny had any idea as to what she was talking about. It was a bit vague and hard to keep up with but Ginny listened. Once the girl paused, asking a question, the redhead cleared her throat. ”Well, that all sounds rather complicated,” Ginny said, trying to apply that motherly tone. She probably sounded a bit strained, though. But even as a teenager Lily had always been a decent listener, right? No, not really. She was often to brash and harsh for things like that. Incredibly loving and kind, of course, but her advice was… generally not the most gentle. Like it wasn’t going to be now, ”who gives a flying hippogriff what anyone else thinks. Are you enough for yourself?” she asked, her eyebrow raised high.


Ginny had gotten over caring what people thought a long time ago. Heck, even longer than she actually remembered. It wasn’t worth the time or the tears wondering why people didn’t accept you or want you. She understood that would be harder if it was your own family but she had stopped trying to live up to people's expectations, even her families. Even now she wasn’t renewing her vows with Harry because people expected her to, she was doing it because she wanted to.

@jamie

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Jamie was too fixated on her own pain to notice if Lily’s mother sounded anything other than normal, and motherly to boot. All she could do was nod when Ginny said that the situation sounded complicated. It had tied Jamie up into knots that not even a scout would know how to undo. She had expected a little sympathy, perhaps a well-meaning cliché about love and being loved, but that didn’t come. Ginny was perhaps the bluntest person Jamie had ever met, though Max did come in a close second. The difference between her imagination and the reality was jolting for Jamie, though not as jolting as the question she had been posed.

She was a Hufflepuff. To her, that meant that she was defined by her ability to do good unto other people. She couldn’t exist in a vacuum. She was an extrovert, through and through, even if she was a little shy. Seeking the approval of others was as natural to her as a flower seeking the sun. Generating love for herself in the same way she did for other people hadn’t even occurred to Jamie. Even if she could, why would she want to? “Why would I be?” Jamie asked after a long pause. “The only things I’m good at are worrying and loving other people who probably don’t love me back. You can’t make a life like that, can you?”

Ginevra Molly Potter

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At Jamie's next words, Ginny shook her head. "Plenty of people have made a life like that. It doesn't matter if they love you back," she said, hoping she didn't sound too harsh. "If all you can do is show love, kindness and gentleness to those around you then maybe that is your blessing. Maybe that's your talent, your contribution. If you do these things with the intention of being thanked or being loved back, you're doing them for the wrong reasons in the first place. You have to decide if you are loving them because it's the right thing to do or if you're doing it because you want their approval," she continued, "as more me, I've loved so many people I can't keep track but that's the thing. If you're keeping track of how many of them love you back or how many of them change because you loved them, then that love wasn't genuine. What's important to you? Because you can't change people. You can't," Ginny knew this, she had known this for a long time.

"As for the worrying, maybe you just need to channel that energy differently," she added softly, unsure how to elaborate just yet.

@jamie

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Jamie really didn’t understand how adults were so good at saying things that made so much sense, not just to her brain but to her heart, too. The thought that she loved just for receiving love in return was foreign to her; even when he couldn’t stand to look at her, Jamie had loved Adrian from afar. Max didn’t want her love, either, but Jamie had given it. The expectation of reciprocation hadn’t come…until after she found out her mother had lied to her. Well, that was troubling. She searched for something to say, but Ginny continued to talk, and Jamie felt like it’d probably be best if she shut up and listened.

The Hufflepuff couldn’t fathom loving too many people to keep track. Jamie’s list probably wouldn’t even take up both of her fingers. “I just want them to know I love them.” Jamie said, though the statement came out sounding more like a question. She seemed to be like a bull in a china shop when it came to this conversation with Ginny, who was schooling her in just about every way possible. She looked at the redhead, and blinked. “There’s nothing to channel it into. I can’t play Quidditch or practice spells or talk to anyone. I can’t just give up all this…energy…to the air.”

Ginevra Molly Potter

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"If you want them to know, they know," Ginny nodded. "when living life, the first step to any action is a desire. If your desire to show them you love them is there, then they probably already know it," she reiterated. As Jamie said she didn't have any way to use that worried energy, Ginny assumed she just meant during the summer. Ginny nodded, pursing her lips for a moment in thought. "I don't do art, really, but there is always singing, painting, that kind of stuff. But... I mean, maybe you just need to go on runs. Or maybe you need to find a summer project and put all of your energy into it. Plus, you can always play some Quidditch if you're at an adult wizards home," she winked.

All of her kids were welcome to have friends here and use the yard for Quidditch, of course, she was sure they knew that. As for this girl, Ginny didn't know how to teach her to stop worrying. NOt that she necessarily had to completely halt it, but how to use it in an effective way that didn't make her sick and stressed all of the time... that was another story. Ginny hadn't always been good at that herself.

@jamie