Soundtrack (HP)
Title: Soundtrack
Rating: PG
Summary: Harry never realized what a constant feature of his life with Ginny the radio had been until she was gone.
DISCLAIMER: J.K. Rowling owns the Harry Potter universe and everything it encompasses. This is a work of fan fiction, and thus derives no profit or material benefit therefrom.
Harry wondered why he'd never realized before just how much Ginny loved to listen to the wireless. He reckoned it had been such a constant feature throughout all their years together that he never noticed it until it was gone.
He'd never had a radio of his own to listen to. The Dursleys had frowned upon it, as the sound interfered with Dudley's enjoyment of the telly or his video games, and he'd turn up the volume so loud it rattled the windowpanes. Harry could only think of one time he'd overheard Aunt Petunia listening to the radio, when Uncle Vernon and Dudley had gone to a father-son tenpins tournament and she'd apparently thought Harry was asleep in his cupboard. He'd lain back on his cot and closed his eyes, imagining that was his mum singing as she bustled around the kitchen, making roast pork and glazed carrots for dinner, with lemon custard for pudding. Only it wasn't his mum, and while Aunt Petunia did make roast pork and glazed carrots and lemon custard, Harry had to content himself with a hunk of moldy cheese, day-old bread and an abandoned jar of olives he scrounged from the back of the pantry.
Consequently, Harry had never grown accustomed to listening to the radio, though he did enjoy the Wizarding Wireless Network when he visited the Burrow or during the few weeks he stayed at number 12, Grimmauld Place before Sirius died. Once he was old enough to live on his own -- once Voldemort had been dealt with once and for all -- Harry found a flat and furnished it with the basics, but it never occurred to him to invest in a radio. It really wasn't until after he and Ginny were married that the wireless became a constant in his life.
It was all Ginny's doing. One radio stayed on a shelf in the bathroom, where she would start off the day with it tuned to the early morning news, the only broadcast that included stories and events from outside Britain, followed by the market report. She'd stop whatever she was doing and turn up the volume to listen in; as a broker for the International Magical Trading Standards Body during the first few years of their marriage, before there were any children, she needed to keep up with the state of business affairs in the wizarding world. She also kept a radio in her office purportedly for the same reason, though Harry came to realize the afternoon market report didn't air until the end of the day, and news broadcasts only came at the top of each hour. He never could get her to admit that the late-morning broadcast of “The Coven,” a serialized drama that was very popular among witches, was why she really listened to the radio at work.
At home, a second radio sat by the kitchen sink. Upon entering the kitchen each day, she would flick her wand at the radio and turn it on. It stayed on as long as she was home. If the weather was nice, she'd prop it up in the open window and listen while she worked in the garden. She would frequently sing along, which might have been nice, except that she was always horribly off-key. When their children turned out to be just as tone-deaf Harry reckoned it must have been a Weasley trait, though he knew better than to say so, nor did he venture to suggest that her singing was far more effective than any gnome repellent.
On Sunday afternoons, Ginny would sit at the kitchen table and fold laundry or brew household potions or bake pies and listen to the weekly Quidditch matches while Harry and Ron whiled away the hours playing chess and Hermione read stories to the children or took them on nature walks. Eventually Harry had to ask Ginny to refrain from baking whenever Holyhead was playing, because the pies always ended up being burned no matter how well the team did.
This was the way things were for almost fifty years. Then Ginny fell sick. The Healers at St. Mungo's gave it a fancy name, but Harry knew it was cancer, just as he knew not all the magic in the world could defeat it. He raged, he made bargains, and he grieved, but not even the hero of the wizarding world was a match for the disease that was gradually eating his beloved from the inside out. When the Healers finally admitted there was nothing more they could do, he took Ginny home. The Healers had denied her request to have a radio at her bedside, fearing it would disturb the other patients, so as soon as she was settled back home, the first thing she did was to ask Harry to bring in the radio that had sat in their bathroom for so many years and turn it on.
Ginny died quietly in Harry's arms three weeks later, in the middle of the afternoon on a Thursday in June, with bumblebees droning amongst the flowers Ginny had managed to plant before her strength ebbed away, a cat curled up on the end of the bed, and the wireless playing Myron Wagtail's latest Top Thirteen hit.
Two days after she died Harry laid Ginny to rest, with their children, all grown now and some with children of their own, beside him and his extended family all around him. He let his eldest daughter and Ron accompany him back to the house. When they reached the fence surrounding the garden, though, Harry turned to them and said, "I think I'd like to be alone for a little while now. Tell the others not to worry about me." His daughter hugged him and kissed his cheek and Ron clapped him on the shoulder and promised to stop by in a few days, then they Disapparated away.
With a sigh so faint it might have been silent, Harry walked the remaining few meters to his empty house. The cat greeted him at the door and wove her way between his legs as he entered the house, but otherwise he was completely alone. The last time he'd ever felt this way was when he'd stood up to face Voldemort for the last time, knowing that even with Ron and Hermione and Ginny and Neville and Luna ready and willing to take his place should he fall, this was a task only he could accomplish.
He went into the bedroom he and Ginny had shared for over four decades, the bedroom where each of their children had been born and where Ginny had taken her last, feeble breaths, and changed from his dress robes to the trousers and shirt he wore for working around the house. Though Ginny was no longer around to scold him for leaving his good robes thrown across the bed, he hung them up in the wardrobe anyway.
As he sat down to lace up his brogans, he was overcome with a strange sense of unease. Ginny was gone. The emptiness left in the wake of her parting was almost suffocating. Yet Harry knew it wasn’t grief that plagued him; not only had he rarely been one to give in to crying, but he had come to terms with his loss already.
The cat, ever the opportunist, jumped up beside him and butted his arm with her head, meowing plaintively. Harry smiled and rubbed her head briskly. “Reckon it’s just you and me now,” he said.
His voice seemed to echo throughout the house. Every sound seemed magnified now: a raven croaking in a nearby tree, the squeak of a floorboard as Harry put his weight on it, the rustling of leaves as a breeze passed through them, the insistent meowing of the cat. Even his own breathing sounded unnaturally loud to Harry’s ears.
By chance he happened to glance at the bedside table and spot the radio he’d set there for Ginny to listen to. He didn’t recall having turned it off. Someone else, someone well-meaning, must have done so in the flurry of activity following Ginny’s death. Now its silence screamed at him.
He’d never realized until now how much a part of his life with Ginny the radio had been; how much he identified her with having it playing in the background, a soundtrack to everything they had been through together. Without another thought, he took out his wand and, with a flick of his wrist, turned the radio on.
Rating: PG
Summary: Harry never realized what a constant feature of his life with Ginny the radio had been until she was gone.
DISCLAIMER: J.K. Rowling owns the Harry Potter universe and everything it encompasses. This is a work of fan fiction, and thus derives no profit or material benefit therefrom.
Harry wondered why he'd never realized before just how much Ginny loved to listen to the wireless. He reckoned it had been such a constant feature throughout all their years together that he never noticed it until it was gone.
He'd never had a radio of his own to listen to. The Dursleys had frowned upon it, as the sound interfered with Dudley's enjoyment of the telly or his video games, and he'd turn up the volume so loud it rattled the windowpanes. Harry could only think of one time he'd overheard Aunt Petunia listening to the radio, when Uncle Vernon and Dudley had gone to a father-son tenpins tournament and she'd apparently thought Harry was asleep in his cupboard. He'd lain back on his cot and closed his eyes, imagining that was his mum singing as she bustled around the kitchen, making roast pork and glazed carrots for dinner, with lemon custard for pudding. Only it wasn't his mum, and while Aunt Petunia did make roast pork and glazed carrots and lemon custard, Harry had to content himself with a hunk of moldy cheese, day-old bread and an abandoned jar of olives he scrounged from the back of the pantry.
Consequently, Harry had never grown accustomed to listening to the radio, though he did enjoy the Wizarding Wireless Network when he visited the Burrow or during the few weeks he stayed at number 12, Grimmauld Place before Sirius died. Once he was old enough to live on his own -- once Voldemort had been dealt with once and for all -- Harry found a flat and furnished it with the basics, but it never occurred to him to invest in a radio. It really wasn't until after he and Ginny were married that the wireless became a constant in his life.
It was all Ginny's doing. One radio stayed on a shelf in the bathroom, where she would start off the day with it tuned to the early morning news, the only broadcast that included stories and events from outside Britain, followed by the market report. She'd stop whatever she was doing and turn up the volume to listen in; as a broker for the International Magical Trading Standards Body during the first few years of their marriage, before there were any children, she needed to keep up with the state of business affairs in the wizarding world. She also kept a radio in her office purportedly for the same reason, though Harry came to realize the afternoon market report didn't air until the end of the day, and news broadcasts only came at the top of each hour. He never could get her to admit that the late-morning broadcast of “The Coven,” a serialized drama that was very popular among witches, was why she really listened to the radio at work.
At home, a second radio sat by the kitchen sink. Upon entering the kitchen each day, she would flick her wand at the radio and turn it on. It stayed on as long as she was home. If the weather was nice, she'd prop it up in the open window and listen while she worked in the garden. She would frequently sing along, which might have been nice, except that she was always horribly off-key. When their children turned out to be just as tone-deaf Harry reckoned it must have been a Weasley trait, though he knew better than to say so, nor did he venture to suggest that her singing was far more effective than any gnome repellent.
On Sunday afternoons, Ginny would sit at the kitchen table and fold laundry or brew household potions or bake pies and listen to the weekly Quidditch matches while Harry and Ron whiled away the hours playing chess and Hermione read stories to the children or took them on nature walks. Eventually Harry had to ask Ginny to refrain from baking whenever Holyhead was playing, because the pies always ended up being burned no matter how well the team did.
This was the way things were for almost fifty years. Then Ginny fell sick. The Healers at St. Mungo's gave it a fancy name, but Harry knew it was cancer, just as he knew not all the magic in the world could defeat it. He raged, he made bargains, and he grieved, but not even the hero of the wizarding world was a match for the disease that was gradually eating his beloved from the inside out. When the Healers finally admitted there was nothing more they could do, he took Ginny home. The Healers had denied her request to have a radio at her bedside, fearing it would disturb the other patients, so as soon as she was settled back home, the first thing she did was to ask Harry to bring in the radio that had sat in their bathroom for so many years and turn it on.
Ginny died quietly in Harry's arms three weeks later, in the middle of the afternoon on a Thursday in June, with bumblebees droning amongst the flowers Ginny had managed to plant before her strength ebbed away, a cat curled up on the end of the bed, and the wireless playing Myron Wagtail's latest Top Thirteen hit.
Two days after she died Harry laid Ginny to rest, with their children, all grown now and some with children of their own, beside him and his extended family all around him. He let his eldest daughter and Ron accompany him back to the house. When they reached the fence surrounding the garden, though, Harry turned to them and said, "I think I'd like to be alone for a little while now. Tell the others not to worry about me." His daughter hugged him and kissed his cheek and Ron clapped him on the shoulder and promised to stop by in a few days, then they Disapparated away.
With a sigh so faint it might have been silent, Harry walked the remaining few meters to his empty house. The cat greeted him at the door and wove her way between his legs as he entered the house, but otherwise he was completely alone. The last time he'd ever felt this way was when he'd stood up to face Voldemort for the last time, knowing that even with Ron and Hermione and Ginny and Neville and Luna ready and willing to take his place should he fall, this was a task only he could accomplish.
He went into the bedroom he and Ginny had shared for over four decades, the bedroom where each of their children had been born and where Ginny had taken her last, feeble breaths, and changed from his dress robes to the trousers and shirt he wore for working around the house. Though Ginny was no longer around to scold him for leaving his good robes thrown across the bed, he hung them up in the wardrobe anyway.
As he sat down to lace up his brogans, he was overcome with a strange sense of unease. Ginny was gone. The emptiness left in the wake of her parting was almost suffocating. Yet Harry knew it wasn’t grief that plagued him; not only had he rarely been one to give in to crying, but he had come to terms with his loss already.
The cat, ever the opportunist, jumped up beside him and butted his arm with her head, meowing plaintively. Harry smiled and rubbed her head briskly. “Reckon it’s just you and me now,” he said.
His voice seemed to echo throughout the house. Every sound seemed magnified now: a raven croaking in a nearby tree, the squeak of a floorboard as Harry put his weight on it, the rustling of leaves as a breeze passed through them, the insistent meowing of the cat. Even his own breathing sounded unnaturally loud to Harry’s ears.
By chance he happened to glance at the bedside table and spot the radio he’d set there for Ginny to listen to. He didn’t recall having turned it off. Someone else, someone well-meaning, must have done so in the flurry of activity following Ginny’s death. Now its silence screamed at him.
He’d never realized until now how much a part of his life with Ginny the radio had been; how much he identified her with having it playing in the background, a soundtrack to everything they had been through together. Without another thought, he took out his wand and, with a flick of his wrist, turned the radio on.