[It makes her stomach twist, seeing Fred with less than his usual troublemaking grin, and knowing that she's the cause of it - even a little. This shouldn't be how things are. This shouldn't be how their reunion goes, with serious questions and answers heavy with grim truth. It should be as it was in the fountain and it should carry over to everything else, they should be laughing over tea and stale biscuits, not letting their pasts weigh on their shoulders until the smiles are crushed out of them. Ginny should be telling him of her adventures in the City, of how she's working at a bar and giving people flying lessons; not wondering if she should say anything about the attempts on her life or the years grown apart from home and family. She wonders if Fred is thinking about the war, the battle, if he thinks she has the truth of it or if she's even lived it.

But as Ginny looks at her brother, her heart squeezes tight in her chest, and she sighs in turn. He's asked how long. She won't lie. She can't do that to him. So the not-so-youngest Weasley meets Fred's gaze and murmurs her answer, soft and almost apologetic.]

I don't know. Was Bill nineteen years old when we started calling him ancient? [She braces himself for his response, even as she adds,] I've been here for three years. The last time I was home was... it was the day we left The Burrow for Muriel's.