This story was written for TASHAx.'s prompt in The DG Forum Fic Exchange – Fall 2011. Come visit us at the DG Forum!

An Always Within a Never

Chapter 1

Carefully, she examined herself in the mirror. She'd grown skinny. Her arms were frail, her torso bony, her legs thin. The girl frowned. True, she'd always been slender but this was something else entirely.

She'd lost a lot of weight, and not in a healthy way. Working in the vineyard had helped her put on some muscles; her arms and legs showed noticeable bulges in what would have been the right places if she hadn't looked so frail. Somehow being muscled made her look all the more fragile.

Delicate, she thought as she looked at her face. Part of a spell scar was on her left cheek where a stray hex had hit her. It hadn't healed properly. (Like everything, she thought. Nothing had healed the way it should have.) She wasn't pretty any more. Sure, she had red lips (though those were frail as well) and her eyes were still the same intense colour as before.

The expression in her eyes, however, had completely changed. Gone were the days when she'd been carefree laughing Ginny Weasley. Here was the new Ginevra Weasley.

Empty eyes stared back at her in the mirror. (Eyes like she sometimes drew when the dreams were vivid, bright and burning.) They looked haunted, she thought. She looked haunted. All cheekbones and empty eyes, loss in the way her mouth curved downwards – no, Ginny Weasley wasn't a pretty girl any more.

Shaking her head, she forcefully tore her eyes from her reflection. Ginny quickly spread lotion on the burnt parts of her body. As a redhead, she didn't tan and working in the sun had left her skin paper dry and aggressively red, despite the best sunscreen charms. A rapid hard brush of the hand on her arms, on her back and legs. The lotion made her smell of almonds, deceptively sweet.

Vianne had given her the lotion, although Ginny hardly talked to her. She hardly talked to anyone. Some events left people speechless. But Vianne did like Ginny (although she didn't quite understand why). Vianne had offered her the job in the vineyard when she had seen her in the town square of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes.

Ginny had travelled France, from village to village, led by nothing but her wish to escape from England and all the feelings that stuck to her hands, feet, back. By chance (was there such a thing as fate, she sometimes wondered), she had arrived in that small village near Montpellier in the Languedoc region one day. She had met Vianne, had found work in her vineyard and discovered she appreciated the peace and quiet between the vines. Sure, people had pointed fingers, whispered, asked hushed questions. However, when it seemed clear that she was there to stay with Vianne, people had moved on to other, more interesting things. Like Jean's pregnant wife and Christine's unfaithful husband, Ginny thought with a wry smile.

What she liked most about Vianne was that the older woman didn't seem to care what people thought. She made great wine, she lived in her domaine, she was not really part of the village. Domaine du Lapin Pantoufle was a known name both among magical and Muggle connoisseurs. Wines that people said catered to your feelings and enhanced your moods. Wines like heaven. And Vianne was a Wine Master. Bonne sorcière du Languedoc they called her, good witch of the Languedoc. No one could imagine she was anything but a witch.

Ginny had not liked wine before the war. Too much of a bitter aftertaste, she had thought. Her sweet champagne days were over, though, and these days she found that she quite liked Vianne's dry red wine that chilled and tasted of longing, north Mistral wind and cold nights.

She refilled her glass and toasted her mirror self. "Here goes nothing," she murmured, and drank deeply. After she had licked the last drops of liquid from her now black-stained lips, she steeled herself and opened her closet.

None of her old clothes fit her anymore. Frailty and loss had made her a shell of the former Ginny Weasley whose robes had been form-fitting (though tattered sometimes), bright and gay with colours and vibrant in the spotlight. Now she simply pulled on the one simple black dress Vianne had insisted she purchase when they had last been to Toulouse to sell wine. It only served to accentuate her pallor. Somehow, even Ginny's hair seemed to have lost its vibrancy.

She didn't bother with make-up and carelessly brushed her hair, yanking and pulling out strands until she winced and the sink was covered in red (her hair, once her pride, was now nothing but an accessory that reminded her of her brother's lopsided smile). A simple braid would suffice, she decided – after all, it was a memorial service.

The anniversary. The day she had dreaded ever since bolting from England right after the Final Battle had come. The anniversary. Memorial service to so many. Fred and Colin, Remus and Tonks, anyone, everyone (and her whole generation, dead inside from a war that hadn't been theirs to fight).

No. She wouldn't cry. She'd promised herself she wouldn't. Pulling on her practical black ballerina flats, she straightened and drank the last of Vianne's wine. The wine tasted like ashes on her tongue. Nothing at all. Hollow mind. Ashes on her tongue.

She felt delicate, fragile, breakable as she looked in the mirror one last time. As an artist, she could see the beauty in her hollow cheeks, empty eyes and wine-stained lips. She doubted her mother would think the same way, but what did it matter?

Grabbing her bag (like Hermione's, endlessly extending, ever useful), she heard her belongings clutter inside. The books she had grown to love over the past few months, Primo Levi's If This Is A Man and Muriel Barbery's The Elegance of the Hedgehog. Photographs of home, her sketchbook, a few pencils, some drawings. Her keys, a Clos Syrah Léone vine leaf, her wand. Her coat.

Ginny stood rooted to the spot, firmly clutching her bag. It was time, time to return to England. Closing her eyes, she wrapped her arms around herself, and, goal firmly in mind, Apparated to the Hogwarts front gates.

TASHAx.'s prompt n°3

Basic Premise: After Voldemort has been defeated Ginny fled England and worked in a vineyard in France for a few months (whether Draco spots her there or not is up to you, but if he should try to approach her she would run away). She is delicate and needed to escape for a while. She returns to England a year after the fall of Voldemort for a grand anniversary party, and find she's struggling with all these people pretending the war never occurred.

Must haves: Draco spotting similarities between himself and Ginny, and the time away making Ginny look a little worse for wear (none of this "OMG YOU LOOK AMAZE WITH A TAN!" she's been greiving).

No-no's: Draco being instantly precious with her.

Rating range: Whatevs.

Bonus points: Ginny does something artistic.