Little House of Savages = Assassin!Ginny
YOU GUYS I HAVE MOAR ASSASSIN!GINNY. ALSO, I HAVE A TITLE.
"Little House of Savages" is the name of an old song by a band I loved so hard when I was younger called The Walkmen. And, uh, I wanted to link to the video which I used to adore but WTF I CAN'T FIND IT ANYWHERE ANGRYFACE. Here, take this live in-studio version.
This is for hglove, because she *hint hint*ed that she wanted to read Assassin!Ginny. Please don't hate me 'cause it's moving towards Draco/Ginny.
Here be all of what I have so far. Includes Ginny abroad, yay!
----------
Little House of Savages
The first time that Ginny holds a gun in her hands, she’s more than just a little bit afraid of it. Which is fair, she thinks, because sometimes witches and wizards refer to guns as the Muggle version of the wand, when in reality the two objects are poles apart. A wand is slim, compact, able to be tucked away into a sleeve - harmless in all outward appearances. Yet a gun is something else entirely. The weight of it is the first thing that hits her - for something that looks to be made of liquid silver, all sleek lines and monochromic, it catches her unawares, nearly making her drop it the first time. She doesn’t feel comfortable with a gun in her hands in the same way that she does when she’s got a wand. She’s afraid to point it at anything, afraid that if she does she’ll kill it within seconds. Afraid that it’s about to leap out of her sweaty palms as though it’s got a life of its own.
That’s the other thing about guns - once you get over the terror of holding that much power within the palm of your hand, you begin to notice the unsettling allure of the object. The possibilities and the potential of it. She uses her wand to prepare breakfast, lunch, and dinner, to clean her shoes after she’s trekked through a bit of mud, to light the candles in her room after the sun sets. But there’s really only one use for a gun. In time, she learns to appreciate such straightforwardness.
She knows that the wand is just as dangerous, of course, knows that it’s the reason the Wizarding world punishes the so-called Unforgivable Curses. But if one’s faced with the decision of dying either by wand or by gun, it’s nearly laughable how easy it is to choose the wand. The wand is clean, swift, precise. Humane, in its own way. Whereas the gun is all blood spilling everywhere and not hitting the right spot on the first fire and prolonging death. She idly wonders if that means Adolf Hitler was a more formidable enemy than Tom Riddle could ever hope to be - and then is ashamed, because death is death in the end, no matter the method. Grief is grief and loss is loss.
In a perverse way, there’s something nearly tame about the wand when compared to the gun. The hand holding the wand is connected to the brain, which has time to think of a plan, to consider the advantages and the disadvantages of it, to begin shaping the words of the ultimate Unforgivable. The mouth of the body holding the wand could stop halfway through its Avada Kedavra, has time to turn back. Yet when she’s got a gun in her hands, she’s hyper-aware that she’s never more than a hair’s breadth away from pulling the trigger. A sort of fear roils within her. But it's a heady feeling at the same time.
“You need that fear,” is what Draco tells her, the first and only time that she voices such uncertainty to him. “The fear is what keeps you from making a stupid mistake. But you need the headiness of it too, because it keeps you from making another type of stupid mistake altogether.”
-
The day that she receives that fateful message, she isn’t even in the country.
She never does forgive herself for that.
-
It’s a year after the Last Battle at Hogwarts, a year after Harry Potter defeats the twisted remains of a man who was once the young, brilliant, handsome Tom Riddle. A year after Kingsley Shacklebolt is named the new Minister for Magic, and Arthur Weasley appointed the Head of the just-formed Department of Wizarding-Muggle Relations.
“From this day forward,” Shacklebolt says, in his deep, booming voice, “Wizards and Muggles will learn to co-exist peacefully, so that the mistakes of the past are not repeated ever again.”
And it’s funny, because everyone believes him.
-
It’s been a year, and Ginny’s left Hogwarts, a fully-qualified witch. Harry’s off rebuilding the Auror Department piece by piece, Hermione and Ron are off somewhere in the States being a love-struck engaged couple. Charlie’s in Romania, Bill and Fleur are back in Egypt, and George is abroad in some flyspeck of an African country, looking at possible (possibly illegal, more like) new products.
“Your mother and I,” Arthur says to Ginny one night over supper, “are leaving for France in a week.”
“A diplomatic visit, to the Muggle French President,” Molly adds.
Percy, of course, is to accompany them, fulfilling his duty as Head of Press Relations.
They ask her whether she wants to accompany them, as a bit of a treat for leaving Hogwarts.
“Or,” Molly says, “you could accompany your Auntie Muriel.”
Ginny leans forward in her seat a bit, eyes bright with interest.
-
Auntie Muriel, it turns out, wants to leave the country as well. Only, well, it’s not quite France, where she wants to go.
-
*edited*
-
Dinner that first night is served to them in a hostel, brought out by a tall, thin Filipino boy who grins at Ginny, hair flopping into his eyes. His mum is the owner, and she clucks at him in a universal sort of way, smiling apologetically at Ginny as her son walks away whistling, wiping his hands on his dirty apron.
The food looks odd in its bowls - there’s some sort of mud-coloured liquid here, with lumps dotted throughout, and a more pinkish sort of muddy something there. Among other things, including the large amounts of white, fluffy rice, the only thing Ginny recognises.
The food is filling, though, and it’s not at all bad. Especially not when each spoonful is taken with a tiny dollop of some paste - also mud-coloured - that Muriel makes her try.
-
The next morning the two women are up bright and early, and Ginny finds herself stumbling sleepily onto a tiny plane. She sleeps through most of the 45-minute long flight, and the bright glare of the sunlight that greets her when she steps off makes her bring a hand up to her eyes. Their bags are transferred to the boot of a white car, and it whisks them away from the local airport, depositing them in front of a white house, palm trees dotting the lawn and a veranda sprawling across the entire length of the front.
A uniformed maid helps them with their bags, and Ginny and her aunt follow the bobbing black bun as it takes them on a tour with its accented but flawless English. The house is one level, a room and a loo for each of them, the kitchen detached. It’s all light wooden floors and open windows, gauzy curtains flapping in the wind. In the back is a hammock, and beyond that is quite possibly the most beautiful thing Ginny’s ever seen.
“My parents,” Muriel says later on, when they are both seated in the back, a glass of lemonade settling in each of their bellies, “honeymooned here, and they visited here many more times after that.”
Ginny studies the way the sunlight bounces off of the waves of the ocean spread out before them. As far as her eye can see, it’s all sparkling, blue water and sky and pure white sand.
“It’d always been my dream to come here, to this place that my mother would always tell me was like perfection in the palm of your hand,” Muriel continues, and her eyes are filled with a faraway sort of look.
Later, when Ginny takes a dip in the water, she thinks she understands the allure.
The sky yawns wide over her head as she treads water so clear she can see to the sandy bottom.
-
For a week, their routine is simple, unchanging. They take all of their meals out in the open, in the back, just because they can. Muriel takes walks along the beach, her form slight and hunched as she slowly makes her way over the sand.
Ginny takes swims so long that she always returns with finger pads wrinkled and the taste of salt heavy in her mouth, not that she minds.
Muriel spends a lot of time painting, as well, a hobby she tells Ginny all people past a certain age take up.
Ginny explores the rest of the island, not that there’s much to explore. Someone tells her that if she likes, she could take a ferry to the surrounding islands and even to the mainland, but Ginny has no real desire, content with the tiny bit of quiet perfection that she’s currently living in.
She takes to reading in the hammock.
-
For a week, the weather is perfect. And then on the eighth day, darker clouds begin rolling in from the east, making Ginny pause mid-swim.
The droplets begin falling just as Ginny enters the house, a few making their way through the windows before the maid rushes to pull all of them shut.
Ginny stands on the veranda, watching the way the rain turns the dust of the streets into mud, and she smiles when she notices a group of young children splashing happily away down the street, before their mothers call out to them in a language Ginny doesn’t understand, but with a tone she recognises all too well.
A cool breeze plays with her unbound hair, biting slightly at her cheeks, and she shivers slightly, because she’s wearing a thin top and it’s chillier now than it’s been since their first plane touched down.
-
She thinks she’s dreaming, at first, but she eventually realises that she’s awake and the pounding is on the door to this house that’s not hers, rather than on the door to her bedroom at the Burrow. Ginny’s never taken to being rudely awaken, and so she lies on her bed a bit longer, hoping against all hope that someone else will answer the door. But her bedroom is the only one in the front, closest to the door, and so she grumbles as she sits up, swinging her legs over.
She notices that it’s raining again.
She pads barefoot through the hall, over to the door which she unlocks and swings open without a second thought - the war’s over, and she’s in the Philippines, she thinks vaguely, what’s there to worry over?
“Weasley,” the man gasps out, before collapsing at her feet.
----------
"Little House of Savages" is the name of an old song by a band I loved so hard when I was younger called The Walkmen. And, uh, I wanted to link to the video which I used to adore but WTF I CAN'T FIND IT ANYWHERE ANGRYFACE. Here, take this live in-studio version.
This is for hglove, because she *hint hint*ed that she wanted to read Assassin!Ginny. Please don't hate me 'cause it's moving towards Draco/Ginny.
Here be all of what I have so far. Includes Ginny abroad, yay!
----------
Little House of Savages
The first time that Ginny holds a gun in her hands, she’s more than just a little bit afraid of it. Which is fair, she thinks, because sometimes witches and wizards refer to guns as the Muggle version of the wand, when in reality the two objects are poles apart. A wand is slim, compact, able to be tucked away into a sleeve - harmless in all outward appearances. Yet a gun is something else entirely. The weight of it is the first thing that hits her - for something that looks to be made of liquid silver, all sleek lines and monochromic, it catches her unawares, nearly making her drop it the first time. She doesn’t feel comfortable with a gun in her hands in the same way that she does when she’s got a wand. She’s afraid to point it at anything, afraid that if she does she’ll kill it within seconds. Afraid that it’s about to leap out of her sweaty palms as though it’s got a life of its own.
That’s the other thing about guns - once you get over the terror of holding that much power within the palm of your hand, you begin to notice the unsettling allure of the object. The possibilities and the potential of it. She uses her wand to prepare breakfast, lunch, and dinner, to clean her shoes after she’s trekked through a bit of mud, to light the candles in her room after the sun sets. But there’s really only one use for a gun. In time, she learns to appreciate such straightforwardness.
She knows that the wand is just as dangerous, of course, knows that it’s the reason the Wizarding world punishes the so-called Unforgivable Curses. But if one’s faced with the decision of dying either by wand or by gun, it’s nearly laughable how easy it is to choose the wand. The wand is clean, swift, precise. Humane, in its own way. Whereas the gun is all blood spilling everywhere and not hitting the right spot on the first fire and prolonging death. She idly wonders if that means Adolf Hitler was a more formidable enemy than Tom Riddle could ever hope to be - and then is ashamed, because death is death in the end, no matter the method. Grief is grief and loss is loss.
In a perverse way, there’s something nearly tame about the wand when compared to the gun. The hand holding the wand is connected to the brain, which has time to think of a plan, to consider the advantages and the disadvantages of it, to begin shaping the words of the ultimate Unforgivable. The mouth of the body holding the wand could stop halfway through its Avada Kedavra, has time to turn back. Yet when she’s got a gun in her hands, she’s hyper-aware that she’s never more than a hair’s breadth away from pulling the trigger. A sort of fear roils within her. But it's a heady feeling at the same time.
“You need that fear,” is what Draco tells her, the first and only time that she voices such uncertainty to him. “The fear is what keeps you from making a stupid mistake. But you need the headiness of it too, because it keeps you from making another type of stupid mistake altogether.”
-
The day that she receives that fateful message, she isn’t even in the country.
She never does forgive herself for that.
-
It’s a year after the Last Battle at Hogwarts, a year after Harry Potter defeats the twisted remains of a man who was once the young, brilliant, handsome Tom Riddle. A year after Kingsley Shacklebolt is named the new Minister for Magic, and Arthur Weasley appointed the Head of the just-formed Department of Wizarding-Muggle Relations.
“From this day forward,” Shacklebolt says, in his deep, booming voice, “Wizards and Muggles will learn to co-exist peacefully, so that the mistakes of the past are not repeated ever again.”
And it’s funny, because everyone believes him.
-
It’s been a year, and Ginny’s left Hogwarts, a fully-qualified witch. Harry’s off rebuilding the Auror Department piece by piece, Hermione and Ron are off somewhere in the States being a love-struck engaged couple. Charlie’s in Romania, Bill and Fleur are back in Egypt, and George is abroad in some flyspeck of an African country, looking at possible (possibly illegal, more like) new products.
“Your mother and I,” Arthur says to Ginny one night over supper, “are leaving for France in a week.”
“A diplomatic visit, to the Muggle French President,” Molly adds.
Percy, of course, is to accompany them, fulfilling his duty as Head of Press Relations.
They ask her whether she wants to accompany them, as a bit of a treat for leaving Hogwarts.
“Or,” Molly says, “you could accompany your Auntie Muriel.”
Ginny leans forward in her seat a bit, eyes bright with interest.
-
Auntie Muriel, it turns out, wants to leave the country as well. Only, well, it’s not quite France, where she wants to go.
-
*edited*
-
Dinner that first night is served to them in a hostel, brought out by a tall, thin Filipino boy who grins at Ginny, hair flopping into his eyes. His mum is the owner, and she clucks at him in a universal sort of way, smiling apologetically at Ginny as her son walks away whistling, wiping his hands on his dirty apron.
The food looks odd in its bowls - there’s some sort of mud-coloured liquid here, with lumps dotted throughout, and a more pinkish sort of muddy something there. Among other things, including the large amounts of white, fluffy rice, the only thing Ginny recognises.
The food is filling, though, and it’s not at all bad. Especially not when each spoonful is taken with a tiny dollop of some paste - also mud-coloured - that Muriel makes her try.
-
The next morning the two women are up bright and early, and Ginny finds herself stumbling sleepily onto a tiny plane. She sleeps through most of the 45-minute long flight, and the bright glare of the sunlight that greets her when she steps off makes her bring a hand up to her eyes. Their bags are transferred to the boot of a white car, and it whisks them away from the local airport, depositing them in front of a white house, palm trees dotting the lawn and a veranda sprawling across the entire length of the front.
A uniformed maid helps them with their bags, and Ginny and her aunt follow the bobbing black bun as it takes them on a tour with its accented but flawless English. The house is one level, a room and a loo for each of them, the kitchen detached. It’s all light wooden floors and open windows, gauzy curtains flapping in the wind. In the back is a hammock, and beyond that is quite possibly the most beautiful thing Ginny’s ever seen.
“My parents,” Muriel says later on, when they are both seated in the back, a glass of lemonade settling in each of their bellies, “honeymooned here, and they visited here many more times after that.”
Ginny studies the way the sunlight bounces off of the waves of the ocean spread out before them. As far as her eye can see, it’s all sparkling, blue water and sky and pure white sand.
“It’d always been my dream to come here, to this place that my mother would always tell me was like perfection in the palm of your hand,” Muriel continues, and her eyes are filled with a faraway sort of look.
Later, when Ginny takes a dip in the water, she thinks she understands the allure.
The sky yawns wide over her head as she treads water so clear she can see to the sandy bottom.
-
For a week, their routine is simple, unchanging. They take all of their meals out in the open, in the back, just because they can. Muriel takes walks along the beach, her form slight and hunched as she slowly makes her way over the sand.
Ginny takes swims so long that she always returns with finger pads wrinkled and the taste of salt heavy in her mouth, not that she minds.
Muriel spends a lot of time painting, as well, a hobby she tells Ginny all people past a certain age take up.
Ginny explores the rest of the island, not that there’s much to explore. Someone tells her that if she likes, she could take a ferry to the surrounding islands and even to the mainland, but Ginny has no real desire, content with the tiny bit of quiet perfection that she’s currently living in.
She takes to reading in the hammock.
-
For a week, the weather is perfect. And then on the eighth day, darker clouds begin rolling in from the east, making Ginny pause mid-swim.
The droplets begin falling just as Ginny enters the house, a few making their way through the windows before the maid rushes to pull all of them shut.
Ginny stands on the veranda, watching the way the rain turns the dust of the streets into mud, and she smiles when she notices a group of young children splashing happily away down the street, before their mothers call out to them in a language Ginny doesn’t understand, but with a tone she recognises all too well.
A cool breeze plays with her unbound hair, biting slightly at her cheeks, and she shivers slightly, because she’s wearing a thin top and it’s chillier now than it’s been since their first plane touched down.
-
She thinks she’s dreaming, at first, but she eventually realises that she’s awake and the pounding is on the door to this house that’s not hers, rather than on the door to her bedroom at the Burrow. Ginny’s never taken to being rudely awaken, and so she lies on her bed a bit longer, hoping against all hope that someone else will answer the door. But her bedroom is the only one in the front, closest to the door, and so she grumbles as she sits up, swinging her legs over.
She notices that it’s raining again.
She pads barefoot through the hall, over to the door which she unlocks and swings open without a second thought - the war’s over, and she’s in the Philippines, she thinks vaguely, what’s there to worry over?
“Weasley,” the man gasps out, before collapsing at her feet.
----------