Landslide (Closed)

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Natalia's parents—with her sister in hospital. Dusti's mother and father. Now, it was Theodorus Nott and Abigail Shacklebolt, the latter of whom had been very close to James. Those were just a few of the latest deaths, the ones that had impacted her family the hardest. As much as Ginny wanted to be able to be strong for her everyone around her, there was only so much that she could take. The broken world to which she had had to adapt over the past year—so different from the memories she had retained, yet so painfully similar—had been tossed around again.

She was supposed to be decades wiser. From everything that she understood, the world before the attacks had been at peace. Her children had grown up in peace, only hearing of how things had been for her and their father… That was how everyone had always dreamed it would be. But it hadn't stayed.

Her memories of that peace had been wiped, stolen from her. She wanted them back; she wanted that taste of something that seemed so foreign to her in spite of her having lived it. Had that been the goal all along? Ginny didn't know, and she didn't want to burden Harry with her thoughts in that regard. He had too much to think about without her concerns.

Being at the Three Broomsticks in the middle of the week at an off-peak time was the most privacy Ginny could hope for, short of being at home, and she didn't want James to see her upset. Having ordered a butterbeer for herself, she stared blankly at the foam that dribbled over the top of its tankard before taking her first sip. She didn't need to order firewhisky; the last thing she needed was for some gossip columnist to write that Ginny Potter had been spotted drowning her sorrows in alcohol, alone.

SHADOW
OOC: Choose whichever character fits!

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@ginevra

casey sat at the bar of the three broomsticks nursing a glass of firewhiskey. he was going between that and glasses of butterbeer. whatever took his fancy at the moment he needed to order a new drink. he ran his finger around the rim of the glass as he stared down into the liquid. never in a million years had he thought he'd be grieving the loss of one of his friends so young. they were supposed to grow old together. causing trouble even when they should have been old enough to know better, teaching their own kids about how much fun it could be but abby would never be there now. she was gone and it hurt, it hurt more than he'd ever thought loss could. he'd never been directly touched by death. he hadn't lost family members before. no one he'd loved as much as he loved abby had been taken from him. he swallowed and lifted the glass to his lips and he downed it, letting the glass back down to the table heavier than he should have and he rested his head in his hand as he closed his eyes. he could only imagine how james was feeling. he'd been a lot closer to abby than the rest of them, while they'd all been close, it had been something more for them. he'd seen them all at the funeral of course but it hadn't been for long. he'd been with his parents and they'd been with their respective families. he pushed his hand through his hair and opened his eyes, sliding the glass forward a little and motioning to the bartender to fill it up again, knowing in that moment that there was every chance he'd be scraped up off the floor at the end of the night. he didn't drink often. in fact he didn't really drink at all. he'd never been drawn to the bottle like a lot of his friends had so tonight would be interesting. how things changed when grief kicked in.

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Ginny looked over to see who was seated at the bar beside her. There was no particular reason for her having done it; possibly, it was just the need for a distraction. She was glad, though, that she had looked, or she wouldn't have seen Casey Finnigan. He must have been there when she had arrived, and she watched in silence as he swallowed the firewhisky in his glass.

When he motioned to the bartender for another drink, Ginny spoke up. As a mother and as a friend of his parents, she was concerned, though, as a human being who was grieving just as he was, she could emphasize with his desire to forget his pain.

“Casey,” she spoke, making every attempt to sound perfectly normal and failing miserably at it. There was no point in asking the young man how he was; his alcohol certainly wasn't celebratory. She didn't want to seem as though she was condoning his drinking, but she understood it. “Do you want to talk about it?” If he didn't, she understood that, too. She could at least make sure that he wouldn't drink too much.

@casey

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@ginevra

“Casey,” he lifted his eyes from his glass when he heard the familiar voice of ginny weasley .. or potter from behind him. he hadn't figured anyone he knew would be in the bar right about then but he should have known better. it was a popular bar with almost everyone he knew. he lifted the glass when he let his attention fall back to it and he sipped it quickly, almost like he was worried it was going to vanish. "ginny." he said in greeting as he set the glass down on the wood. he'd known her for pretty much his whole life, he'd been friends with james since before school and he'd spent many a summer day causing trouble with james and their friends at the potter house. yet it felt strange to sit here with her at the moment. he didn't know if she'd remembered the days with abby and their group at the potter house. didn't know how much she remembered of abby. “Do you want to talk about it?” he downed the rest of his drink and shook his head a little. he didn't think he could. it was too raw. still too fresh and he'd never been good at that anyway. baring his soul and his feelings for the world to see wasn't his style unless his soul was baring a joke. "talk about what? people die all the time." he knew he sounded a little colder than he'd have liked to and his statement was contradicted with the fact he was sitting at a bar nursing alcohol, which was something he'd never done before. "how's james?" he asked her, resting his elbow on the counter as he looked at ginny, turning the conversation to someone else.

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“Talk about what?” Casey asked her. “People die all the time.”

“They do,” Ginny nodded, granting him that. He wasn't wrong, but it wasn't every day that young people who shouldn't have lost their lives so soon were killed by someone equally as young as they. “But…” She remained hesitant, listening as her voice trailed off. The tragedy was what made it different; it was what made all of this different, and Ginny knew that Casey had to have been kidding himself otherwise.

He asked after James, too, and Ginny frowned. She knew that her own son wasn't handing the situation any better. “Honestly,” she sighed heavily, “I don't think he's much better than you are.” James hadn't taken the news well, but his reaction was understandable. It made it no less painful, though, for her to watch him grapple with his grief, as his mother. Abby Shacklebolt had meant so much to him.

Ginny wished that she could have remembered more about the young woman. Everything that she did know had been, in large part, told to her by others. Everyone whom she and Harry had ever known knew her, but the shame was that she could not say the same of them. She had known them; she was told so, but she couldn't say anything about what had made them who they were or provide much at all in the way of insight about… anything.

She pushed her glass—unfinished—farther onto the counter and looked at Casey. “If you're going to drink,” she told him, attempting to play the part of the responsible adult, “someone's got to make sure you get home safely.” It might as well have been her. She didn't want to be held responsible for allowing her friends' son to become an alcoholic, for one thing. For another, she hoped that someone would have done the same if it were James in Casey's place.

@casey