[Fic]: On a Bright Summer Morning, part four: Ginny's Escape (5100 words)
On a Bright Summer Morning, part four: Ginny's Escape
A Harry Potter fanfic
By Andrew yclept Aelfwine
Rating: PG. 5100 words. AU warning. Luna Warning. Yours Truly warning.
***
The characters and situations of the Harry Potter series are copyright J.K. Rowling. They may not be used or reproduced commercially without permission. The use of these characters and situations is not to be construed as challenge to said copyright. They are merely borrowed for this work of non-commercial fanfiction, from which the author derives no financial benefit.
***
On a Bright Summer Morning, part one: Meeting Luna
On a Bright Summer Morning, part two: Meeting Hermione
On a Bright Summer Morning, part three: Luna Reflects
***
Ginny Weasley was bored stiff. Aunt Muriel--she was actually Ginny's great aunt, but the youngest Weasley didn't think there was anything great about Muriel Prewett beyond her great ability to be a miserable person to anyone within range of her screeching voice--had certain notions about what girls and boys were meant to do. Boys, of course, were meant to dig in the garden, feed the cows, cut down or pull up growing things that shouldn't be, and watch the sheep, but when they weren't doing such things it was perfectly appropriate for them to ramble about and not so terrible for them to get dirty, at least as long as they didn't cause scandal or fail to wipe their feet before they came inside.
Girls, on the other hand, were meant to be polite, to keep their voices down, and to do the things that had been appropriate for them to do during Aunt Muriel's own Crimean War-era girlhood, such as embroidery or mending, if they weren't helping with the cooking and cleaning. And God and Merlin forbid that a girl should even mention that she'd ever flown on a broomstick in her life, much less say it was a nice day for a fly and she'd love to be in the air.
Which last was the reason why Ginny was sitting here trying to sew up a seam that had given way in one of her own blouses, whilst Ron and the Twins were out flying over the farm, with the excuse that they were checking the fences to be sure that the sheep that Mister Dogburn, Aunt Muriel's neighbour, grazed on three acres of Aunt Muriel's land weren't going to get loose and either wander onto the nearby Muggle farms, where somebody might notice that some of them had blue and green wool, or else break into Aunt Muriel's garden and destroy her cabbages or her petunias or, worst of all, the herbs she put in her nightly tea.
It wasn't fair at all. Ginny had a far better eye for things like that than Ron did, and she'd actually look at the fences, whereas he would spend the whole time pretending to do Wronski feints, imagining himself playing Seeker for the Cannons, up against Caerphilly and just about to win the League for the first time since their great grandfather's boyhood.
Ginny, of course, knew that Ron's fantasies were ridiculous. Aside from the fact that the Cannons were regularly trounced in exhibition games against International Youth Quidditch League teams and hadn't won even a friendly against Caerphilly since sometime in the 1870s, it was already clear that Ron had the build for a Keeper rather than a Seeker. His 'Wronski Feint' looked more like a pigeon with an injured wing struggling to keep in the air, or perhaps a piece of crumpled newspaper caught up in a stiff breeze. Not that her idiot brother would have looked that much better pretending to guard an imaginary hoop against imaginary Chasers with imaginary Quaffles, but at least in that case Ginny wouldn't be wishing that she had a broom and they had a real Snitch to play with so she could show him just how much of an idiot he was.
Well, maybe that wasn't fair of her, but Ron didn't have to point out to her this morning at breakfast that he and their brothers would get to go flying whilst Ginny would be stuck inside all day, except maybe if Aunt Muriel let her go out to feed the chickens or weed in the herb beds.
Ginny noticed she'd not made a stitch in the past two minutes, and went back to work, stabbing the needle into the fabric, wishing she were sewing Ron's mouth shut, or Aunt Muriel's, or better yet both. She'd take the stitches out eventually, of course... maybe when Mum and Dad came home from visiting her big brother Bill in Egypt and collected Ginny and Ron and the Twins. That way she'd not have to hear Aunt Muriel's grating ugly voice again until Christmas. For that matter, it would be tempting to leave the stitches in Ron's lips until they grew up. Maybe he'd be nicer if he had to write notes instead of talking, since he'd have to take at least a little time to think about what he was putting on the paper.
“Bloody lucky git of a Percy,” she muttered. The eldest of her brothers still at home, the one everybody said would be a prefect year after next when Ron went away to Hogwarts, Percy got to stay with his friend Cedric Diggory instead of going to Aunt Muriel's with the rest of them. Ginny had asked if she could stay with her own dearest friend Luna, since after all Luna lived on the next farm over and the girls always spent as much time as they could together, but Mum and Dad wouldn't hear of it. They pointed out that Luna's parents were away and her own Aunt Imogene was staying at the Rook to watch her. Mister and Mrs. Lovegood always insisted that Ginny was a delight and almost like a second daughter to them, but it wouldn't be fair to ask Luna's aunt to keep an eye on two energetic young girls, so they'd not even ask her. Never mind that according to Luna's letters her Aunt barely even takes the time to notice she's there, although I suppose we couldn't have said that to Mum and Dad in any case, since it might make them worry. Good job Luna's got Dizzy to keep her company--if she didn't, I'd be worried about her being so alone. Not that I wouldn't rather be alone all summer than have to spend even a day with bloody Aunt Muriel...
“Ginevra!” Aunt Muriel screeched. For a moment Ginny feared that her aunt had somehow learnt to read her mind, or at least had overheard her muttering imprecations on her absent brother. “It's time to go and feed the chickens and check for eggs.”
"Thank Merlin."
"What was that, Ginevra?"
"I said I'm coming as soon as I finish this seam, Aunt Muriel."
"Well, be quick about it, child. When I was your age I could make an entire blouse in less time than it takes you to sew up one seam."
Ginny bit back her response and hastily finished the last stitches. She put down the blouse and went out the door, pausing to pick up a basket for the eggs.
Out in the yard, a broomstick buzzed her, the rider's heels barely a foot over her head. "Hey, ickle Gin-Gin, just thought I'd check up on you! How's life on the ground, huh?"
"Just you let me get in the air, Ronald Bilius Weasley, and then we'll see how's life where for who. And what are you doing here, anyhow? Why aren't you checking the fences with the Twins?"
"I just thought I'd come and check on my little sister and how she was getting on back home with the women's work. Ha ha!"
"When Fred and George catch up with you, Ronald, I'm sure you'll regret running out on your chores. You'd better hope Aunt Muriel catches you first! I just hope I get to watch."
"You're not dawdling in the yard, are you, Ginevra Molly Weasley?"
Ginny thought of telling her Ron was flying over the farmyard being obnoxious instead of checking fences as he was meant to be doing, but some things just weren't done, and tattling to Aunt Muriel was one of them. The Twins would do something appropriate to Ron, and that was enough. "No, Aunt Muriel! I'm on my way to the chicken coop right now."
"Ta ta, ickle Gin-Gin! Have fun with the other birds!" Ron waved and soared off into the air. Ginny wished she had something to throw at him, or better yet a wand to jinx him with.
Lacking either, she trudged across the farmyard to the chicken coop. "Nasty, stupid, smelly, mean little beasts." Aunt Muriel's chickens were hateful creatures, nothing like the hens the Weasleys or the Lovegoods kept. Sometimes Ginny wondered if they might have actually been the result of some demented Wizard or Witch who thought crossing chickens with trolls or possibly bugbears was a good idea, but most likely it was only the case that they took after their mistress.
If only Ginny could be with Luna. That would be so much better than staying at Aunt Muriel's. They could go for a walk or a bathe together, or sit and talk about anything they wanted to talk about. Even if there were chores to do, they could do them together, and it would be fine. Neither of them had a problem with doing chores, after all, not for people whom they cared for.
That would be the perfect way to spend the summer. Ginny and Luna, and Luna's family House Elf Dizzy of course, could stay alone together and take care of each other. And then one day they'd meet Harry Potter, and of course they'd become friends right away.
But theirs wouldn't be the fictional Harry Potter from the books. Instead they'd find a real, adorable Harry Potter with whom they could be the best of friends and who might even sometimes need their help instead of only helping them all the time. When Ginny had been about eight, her mother had explained to her that the Harry Potter in the storybooks was only somebody's imagination, but that there was a real boy out there named Harry Potter, although nobody knew where he was or what he was doing. Mum had said that it was all right to read the books and enjoy them, but that when the day came that Ginny met the real Harry, as she almost certainly would once she got to Hogwarts, since Harry was about Ron's age and Ginny wasn't even a full year younger than Ron, she should remember that he was a real person, not the boy in the books who made his own bed every morning rather than leaving it for the House Elves in Potter Manor and who always ate all his veg and listened to his teachers when he wasn't out fighting dragons and saving little girls.
Ginny had already understood that, at least a little bit. She'd noticed that Harry's place of residence and the make of his broomstick and the names of his neighbours would change almost randomly from book to book. Sometimes he lived with Risaldar Major Singh, an old Sikh who'd fought a hundred battles beside his grandfather the late Colonel Potter and had raised Harry to be a pukka sahib and to know that there is no such thing as fear, and sometimes his guardians were a wise grey-haired couple called Uncle Nicolas and Aunt Perenelle, and sometimes he even lived alone but for his family's House Elves. Sometimes Potter Manor was in Wales, and sometimes it was near London, and in one book it was in an unnamed part of Scotland where Harry had to rescue a red-headed girl named Morag and and her brother Hamish from a pack of haggis that had turned man-eater.
Ginny had liked that book, because in the illustrations Morag had looked a little bit like she did, except her hair was a slightly darker shade of red and her eyes were blue instead of being brown as Ginny's were. That said, she would've been tempted to ask Harry to leave Ron to the tender mercies of the haggis, so it was probably just as well that such a thing had never happened to them. In any case, the real Harry Potter would be better, because he'd be real, and he'd be hers and Luna's. And maybe they'd have another girl to be friends with as well?
Yes, Ginny would like nothing better than living with Luna, Dizzy, and Harry. And an adorable girl with masses of brown curls who'd be just as wonderful and loveable and cuddly as Harry and Luna. That would be a perfect household. They could live all the rest of their lives with each other, even sharing Family quarters at Hogwarts together, which they could do because the Potters were an Old House, and when they were grown up the only thing that would change would be that the girls would be married to Harry as well as being his best friends.
Now where had that come from? Ginny hadn't ever met anyone like that, or even thought very much about meeting her, although she knew somehow right now that she'd love to and she couldn't help but think maybe she'd been waiting all her life to meet her. But now, as quickly as the thought came into her head, she could see just such a girl sitting on a blanket in the midst of freshly mown green grass, along with a skinny boy in baggy clothes who had thick messy black hair that she knew would be wonderful to tangle her fingers in, and, perhaps best of all, Ginny's own dear friend Luna. She didn't know if the boy was really Harry Potter, but it didn't matter because she could tell that he was perfect. If he weren't Harry Potter after all, he would be even better than Harry Potter.
She knew they couldn't be there, because there wasn't freshly mown green grass in that part of Aunt Muriel's farmyard, let alone a blanket and two girls and a boy. But she could see them, and somehow she knew that if she was bold and courageous and if she moved right now she could be with them, wherever they were. Anywhere would be better than here, and the place where her friends were would be an absolute paradise as long as they could stay together there. Ginny dropped the basket and ran.
Luna was teaching the boy to brush the new girl's hair. That was really sweet, and cute, and adorable. And very Luna-like, of course. The boy looked a touch gobsmacked, but it was clear he was happy with the situation, and the girl had her eyes closed and was smiling blissfully in the sunshine. That was altogether wonderful. Ginny would love to help with the brushing, and she also would love to take her turn having her hair brushed the same way, and to brush Luna's hair with the help of the adorable girl and boy, and to see what they could do with the boy's hair as well. Bill was letting his hair grow long, now, despite Mum nagging him and saying he looked like her great great grandfather and was he going to start carrying a sword on his belt and a pistol in his boot, and would he wear lace at his cuffs and collar besides? Whatever Mum's opinion, Ginny thought long hair looked brilliant on Bill, and she was sure it would look brilliant on their own boy.
Ginny really did like the idea of boys, even though some of what she'd heard and read made her think she wasn't meant to feel that way at her age, but the reality of them so far had been uniformly disappointing. Of course it was true that she hadn't so many opportunities to meet them. In fact, the only ones she'd encountered, other than Cedric Diggory, who was so old he almost didn't count, and her brothers, who didn't count at all, were a handful of distant cousins, the Wizarding boys who were in Diagon Alley when she went there with her parents and her brothers, and Muggle boys from Ottery St. Catchpole and environs. Most males of her age seemed far too much like Ron, unhappy to even acknowledge the existence of a girl unless perhaps it was to make fun of her, and the few older ones who paid her any attention, other than Cedric who acted very like a junior version of Bill and Charlie, made her feel more than a little uncomfortable.
It wasn't that she didn't like the concept of meeting a boy who said she had pretty red hair and a nice smile and adorable freckles, but she wanted to hear that from a boy who said it in the right way, a boy who'd be just as quick to say that she handled a broom well and had a quick hand for the Quaffle or the Snitch, or even that she had a nice voice and told funny jokes. It wasn't that she didn't like the concept of a boy looking at her, either, or even wanting to do more than look when they were older. She simply wanted a boy to look at her in a way that would make her feel more comfortable, rather than less. Somehow she knew that this new friend Luna had found would be just that sort of boy. After all, Ginny always felt happy with the way that Luna looked at her and the way that Luna said she was gorgeous and had beautiful skin, that she was a delight to spend time with, and that she was a wonderful person to hug.
She was on the grass now. It was soft beneath her feet, nothing like the hard-packed bare soil of her aunt's farmyard. She looked about herself, realising that she was in the fenced-in garden of a very strange sort of house, one that was attached on one side to another house that looked like a mirror image of it. Both houses were very square, straight up and down, almost as if the people who lived in them had never used any magic to make their house more comfortable for themselves or to fit it to whatever personal desire they might have had.
With a dawning sense of wonder, Ginny realised that she might well actually be in a Muggle neighbourhood. She'd walked through the streets of Ottery St. Catchpole, but she'd never been in a Muggle garden. She wondered if that meant that Luna's newfound friends were Muggleborn. Would she get to go inside a Muggle house? Daddy would be delighted, and she'd have to remember everything she could so she could do her best to answer all of the questions he'd ask about Muggle plumbing and Muggle plastering and the strange devices made of plassteck and stainless steel by which Muggles compelled mysterious forces like eckletricity and petrol to do their bidding.
The last remnants of Aunt Muriel's property faded from Ginny's view. She was here, now, really and truly here. Wherever here might be, of course. She didn't think it was China or India, because she'd read that in China they had pagodas and rice paddies and in India they had mongooses and tigers. She didn't think it was Australia, because in Australia it would be very dry, there might be sheep, and there would certainly be kangaroos, which were animals that looked something like huge giant rats, only much cuter, which jumped about on their hind legs and had pouches to carry their babies in. And she was pretty sure it wasn't America, because all the books made her think that America looked sort of like Australia except instead of sheep and kangaroos they had cows with very long horns on their heads and men wearing big hats who spent all the day on horseback following the cows about and comforting them by singing songs about “little dogies,” whatever those were.
Her best friend and the two new people she hoped would be her friends were right in front of her. And here was the awkward part. What was she meant to say? Should she greet Luna first, or should she assume that the adorable boy and girl she'd never met before were her hosts and begin by thanking them for allowing her inside their household wards, or whatever it was that Muggles had instead of household wards?
If she'd gone on much further in that vein she might've begun wondering if Luna wanted to see her at all or if her first and dearest friend was far too busy with the new and interesting people she'd met to have any time for just plain Ginny from Ottery St. Catchpole. But fortunately it was at just that moment that Luna looked up and saw her.
“Ginevra! I've missed you so much!” she cried, dropping the brush and springing to her feet, which were, as was typical for Luna, bare. She threw her arms about Ginny and the two friends hugged each other so tightly that had there been a galleon or a gold ring between their bodies not even a whole family of Nifflers could have taken it away or even known it was there. Luna hugs were always a bit like that, but this one was even more intense than usual. It had been nearly a fortnight since the two girls had seen each other.
“I've missed you as well, Luna. Aunt Muriel was being miserable. I hope your Aunt Imogene has been better to you.” Ginny noticed that Luna's new friends had stood up at some point during the long hug. They were holding hands, which for some reason she didn't entirely understand made her feel kind of warm inside.
“Oh, Auntie's been her usual self--mildly unpleasant until she's had the first of her morning potions, more unpleasant until the last of them has kicked in, and then oblivious. But that doesn't really matter right now, because I've found some wonderful new friends for us, and I'm sure and very very sure that you'll love them every bit as much as I do. Harry, Hermione, this is my dear darling Ginevra. I do hope it's all right if she joins us, Harry?” Luna released Ginny from her embrace, slowly, as if she were even more unhappy to end a hug than she normally would be.
The boy gave her a lopsided grin that made funny things happen somewhere in Ginny's midsection. He had wonderful green eyes, and she could see the edge of a scar under his forelock. In some other time and place she might have squealed, tried to hide her face, or even broken a piece of crockery in her terror, but this meeting felt so dreamlike that she accepted everything she saw and heard just as it was. “Of course it is. I mean, I'm not sure if it's all right with my relatives to have any more quote freaks unquote about the house, but then again they're not very happy that I'm here, either. In any case, as none of them seem able to see you and Hermione I doubt they'll be able to see her. And you shouldn't any of you feel as if you're missing anything, because I really rather wish they'd not see me, either.”
She held out her hand. “Hi, I'm Ginny Weasley. Luna's the only one who calls me Ginevra, most of the time, although you're very welcome to call me that if you'd like to.”
“I'm Hermione Granger. It's lovely to meet you, Ginny.” They shook hands.
"And I'm Harry Potter. It's good to meet you, Ginny."
Ginny felt as if the funny thing moving inside her middle had suddenly decided to do a Wronski feint; a good one, at that, nothing like Ron's attempts. She wanted to throw her arms about him and babble in his ear about how she'd always dreamt of meeting him, and how she'd read all the stories about him. But she remembered what her mother had said. More than that, she knew, somehow, that this boy didn't need her to throw herself at him like a silly little girl who'd just discovered a herd of ponies who really did come in pink and purple with natural glitter in their coats and cute little pictures on their bottoms. "I... it's nice to meet you, Harry. And... I've read a bunch of books about you, but I know they can't possibly be about the real you, so I'll try not to be silly, and if I am I'd be grateful if you'd tell me so I can stop annoying you."
"Err... thank you, Ginny. I don't think you could possibly be annoying, because you're a friend of Luna's and, well, all of that."
"I can see circumstances under which nearly anyone could become annoying," Luna said, "especially if various nasty people were to get the opportunity to mess with their minds. But I think we've headed safely away from all the timelines where that has any probability of happening. It really is a very good thing we've all met right now, because if we'd met too many years later it might have taken us ages to get ourselves sorted."
Ginny hoped Harry and Hermione wouldn't hold it against Luna that she'd said such a thing. She was used to Luna's unusual way of seeing the world, and found it charming, but she knew that her brothers mostly thought it was absurd and that even her parents thought Luna had an over-active imagination.
Much to Ginny's delight, Hermione hugged Luna about the shoulders. "I'm very glad to hear that, Luna. I have to admit that I was raised to believe there was no such thing as a prediction of the future, except maybe for estimates on the basis of statistical analysis, but I was also raised to believe there wasn't any such thing as magic outside of fiction and mythology. I think I like your approach much better."
"Mummy works with arithmantic analyses, which I think are sort of like Muggle statistics. She says they're very useful for predicting the likely behaviour of large groups of people and things, but not so good as the Lovegood Gift for perceiving what might happen if an individual does or doesn't do something. On the other hand, she says either one is more reliable than your typical prophecy, which is the sort of thing poor Cousin Sibyll does.”
“Oh. That's really interesting. I'd never thought about there being different sorts of psychic prediction before. How does prophecy like your cousin does work?” Hermione was almost glowing. Ginny realised that this must be the way that Hermione would always look when she was curious about something. It was a delightful sight, just as delightful as the way Luna looked when she was feeling playful and safe and happy. Ginny decided it was a look she wanted to see every day for the rest of her life. She'd realised some time ago that if she ever did find Harry Potter and marry him that she'd have to share him with Luna, because she knew Luna wanted him as well and because she'd miss her best friend and it wasn't as if the Potters weren't an Old House who had an automatic dispensation to marry multiple wives so long as everyone involved was willing. The addition of Hermione was just one of those wonderful things that a person sometimes found out when she got older, sort of like when Ginny was five or six and she learnt not only that the little fish who lived in the quiet part of the river Otter wouldn't hurt her, but that it actually felt nice when they nibbled at her toes.
“Well, my dear Hermione, nobody knows as much as we'd wish we knew. When somebody like Cousin Sibyll gives a prophecy, she goes into a sort of a trance and says something. It's not in her usual voice, and she can't remember it afterwards, and it's in what people like my Mummy call 'gnomic language,' which seems to mean that it's not altogether clear. I don't understand why they call it that, because Gernumblies, which are the creatures most people call gnomes, don't really talk at all, although they do make little high-pitched grumbling noises, or at least it sort of sounds like grumbling although I must admit that for all I know they might not actually be unhappy at all.”
“So does the prophecy get lost if there's nobody else about to remember it?”
“I suppose they used to be lost at one time, and maybe they still do if they happen on other landmasses, but I'm told Rowena Ravenclaw, who was a very powerful and really brilliant witch who lived almost a thousand years ago, did a big spell that created a room where all the prophecies in Britain would be captured and recorded and filed away. They call it the Hall of Prophecy, and today it's in the Ministry for Magic building in London, which is where Ginny's daddy works and where my mummy and daddy used to work until they left so they could concentrate on the Quibbler. That's our family's newspaper about mysteries and magizoology, although Mummy still does a lot of spell research and creation and Daddy writes novels as well. He says I'm too young to read the novels, although I sneaked a couple of looks and they were all of them full of grown-up stuff that I didn't want to know about, like sex in all sorts of different positions, so I don't know why he didn't just say so instead of telling me I was too young to read them. Grown-ups are sort of strange that way, aren't they?”
“I suppose they are, Luna,” Hermione said. “Let's try to remember not to be that way when we're grown up.”
Ginny couldn't resist. She hugged Luna and Hermione together. Harry was looking at them, she realised, rather wistfully, with his lips quirked into a small half-smile.
"Come here, Harry," she said. "It's not fair for three of us to be in a hug and one of us to be left out, is it?"
"If you don't mind?"
"How could we mind, Harry?" Hermione said, just loud enough to carry. "Ginny and Luna hugs are wonderful, and Harry and Luna hugs are just as wonderful, but right now I'd really like a Ginny and Luna and Harry hug. Please?"
He hugged them, one arm about Hermione and the other about Ginny. She was being hugged by Harry Potter and his best friend, with her own best friend in the middle. That wasn't something that ever happened in the Boy Who Lived Books, but Ginny didn't care. This was better than all of the books put together, and it was real.
***
So, here's Ginny making her appearance at last. Poor thing. I wish I could've got her away from Aunt Muriel's sooner. In other news, at least one more part's needed to wrap things up, I think.
A Harry Potter fanfic
By Andrew yclept Aelfwine
Rating: PG. 5100 words. AU warning. Luna Warning. Yours Truly warning.
***
The characters and situations of the Harry Potter series are copyright J.K. Rowling. They may not be used or reproduced commercially without permission. The use of these characters and situations is not to be construed as challenge to said copyright. They are merely borrowed for this work of non-commercial fanfiction, from which the author derives no financial benefit.
***
On a Bright Summer Morning, part one: Meeting Luna
On a Bright Summer Morning, part two: Meeting Hermione
On a Bright Summer Morning, part three: Luna Reflects
***
Ginny Weasley was bored stiff. Aunt Muriel--she was actually Ginny's great aunt, but the youngest Weasley didn't think there was anything great about Muriel Prewett beyond her great ability to be a miserable person to anyone within range of her screeching voice--had certain notions about what girls and boys were meant to do. Boys, of course, were meant to dig in the garden, feed the cows, cut down or pull up growing things that shouldn't be, and watch the sheep, but when they weren't doing such things it was perfectly appropriate for them to ramble about and not so terrible for them to get dirty, at least as long as they didn't cause scandal or fail to wipe their feet before they came inside.
Girls, on the other hand, were meant to be polite, to keep their voices down, and to do the things that had been appropriate for them to do during Aunt Muriel's own Crimean War-era girlhood, such as embroidery or mending, if they weren't helping with the cooking and cleaning. And God and Merlin forbid that a girl should even mention that she'd ever flown on a broomstick in her life, much less say it was a nice day for a fly and she'd love to be in the air.
Which last was the reason why Ginny was sitting here trying to sew up a seam that had given way in one of her own blouses, whilst Ron and the Twins were out flying over the farm, with the excuse that they were checking the fences to be sure that the sheep that Mister Dogburn, Aunt Muriel's neighbour, grazed on three acres of Aunt Muriel's land weren't going to get loose and either wander onto the nearby Muggle farms, where somebody might notice that some of them had blue and green wool, or else break into Aunt Muriel's garden and destroy her cabbages or her petunias or, worst of all, the herbs she put in her nightly tea.
It wasn't fair at all. Ginny had a far better eye for things like that than Ron did, and she'd actually look at the fences, whereas he would spend the whole time pretending to do Wronski feints, imagining himself playing Seeker for the Cannons, up against Caerphilly and just about to win the League for the first time since their great grandfather's boyhood.
Ginny, of course, knew that Ron's fantasies were ridiculous. Aside from the fact that the Cannons were regularly trounced in exhibition games against International Youth Quidditch League teams and hadn't won even a friendly against Caerphilly since sometime in the 1870s, it was already clear that Ron had the build for a Keeper rather than a Seeker. His 'Wronski Feint' looked more like a pigeon with an injured wing struggling to keep in the air, or perhaps a piece of crumpled newspaper caught up in a stiff breeze. Not that her idiot brother would have looked that much better pretending to guard an imaginary hoop against imaginary Chasers with imaginary Quaffles, but at least in that case Ginny wouldn't be wishing that she had a broom and they had a real Snitch to play with so she could show him just how much of an idiot he was.
Well, maybe that wasn't fair of her, but Ron didn't have to point out to her this morning at breakfast that he and their brothers would get to go flying whilst Ginny would be stuck inside all day, except maybe if Aunt Muriel let her go out to feed the chickens or weed in the herb beds.
Ginny noticed she'd not made a stitch in the past two minutes, and went back to work, stabbing the needle into the fabric, wishing she were sewing Ron's mouth shut, or Aunt Muriel's, or better yet both. She'd take the stitches out eventually, of course... maybe when Mum and Dad came home from visiting her big brother Bill in Egypt and collected Ginny and Ron and the Twins. That way she'd not have to hear Aunt Muriel's grating ugly voice again until Christmas. For that matter, it would be tempting to leave the stitches in Ron's lips until they grew up. Maybe he'd be nicer if he had to write notes instead of talking, since he'd have to take at least a little time to think about what he was putting on the paper.
“Bloody lucky git of a Percy,” she muttered. The eldest of her brothers still at home, the one everybody said would be a prefect year after next when Ron went away to Hogwarts, Percy got to stay with his friend Cedric Diggory instead of going to Aunt Muriel's with the rest of them. Ginny had asked if she could stay with her own dearest friend Luna, since after all Luna lived on the next farm over and the girls always spent as much time as they could together, but Mum and Dad wouldn't hear of it. They pointed out that Luna's parents were away and her own Aunt Imogene was staying at the Rook to watch her. Mister and Mrs. Lovegood always insisted that Ginny was a delight and almost like a second daughter to them, but it wouldn't be fair to ask Luna's aunt to keep an eye on two energetic young girls, so they'd not even ask her. Never mind that according to Luna's letters her Aunt barely even takes the time to notice she's there, although I suppose we couldn't have said that to Mum and Dad in any case, since it might make them worry. Good job Luna's got Dizzy to keep her company--if she didn't, I'd be worried about her being so alone. Not that I wouldn't rather be alone all summer than have to spend even a day with bloody Aunt Muriel...
“Ginevra!” Aunt Muriel screeched. For a moment Ginny feared that her aunt had somehow learnt to read her mind, or at least had overheard her muttering imprecations on her absent brother. “It's time to go and feed the chickens and check for eggs.”
"Thank Merlin."
"What was that, Ginevra?"
"I said I'm coming as soon as I finish this seam, Aunt Muriel."
"Well, be quick about it, child. When I was your age I could make an entire blouse in less time than it takes you to sew up one seam."
Ginny bit back her response and hastily finished the last stitches. She put down the blouse and went out the door, pausing to pick up a basket for the eggs.
Out in the yard, a broomstick buzzed her, the rider's heels barely a foot over her head. "Hey, ickle Gin-Gin, just thought I'd check up on you! How's life on the ground, huh?"
"Just you let me get in the air, Ronald Bilius Weasley, and then we'll see how's life where for who. And what are you doing here, anyhow? Why aren't you checking the fences with the Twins?"
"I just thought I'd come and check on my little sister and how she was getting on back home with the women's work. Ha ha!"
"When Fred and George catch up with you, Ronald, I'm sure you'll regret running out on your chores. You'd better hope Aunt Muriel catches you first! I just hope I get to watch."
"You're not dawdling in the yard, are you, Ginevra Molly Weasley?"
Ginny thought of telling her Ron was flying over the farmyard being obnoxious instead of checking fences as he was meant to be doing, but some things just weren't done, and tattling to Aunt Muriel was one of them. The Twins would do something appropriate to Ron, and that was enough. "No, Aunt Muriel! I'm on my way to the chicken coop right now."
"Ta ta, ickle Gin-Gin! Have fun with the other birds!" Ron waved and soared off into the air. Ginny wished she had something to throw at him, or better yet a wand to jinx him with.
Lacking either, she trudged across the farmyard to the chicken coop. "Nasty, stupid, smelly, mean little beasts." Aunt Muriel's chickens were hateful creatures, nothing like the hens the Weasleys or the Lovegoods kept. Sometimes Ginny wondered if they might have actually been the result of some demented Wizard or Witch who thought crossing chickens with trolls or possibly bugbears was a good idea, but most likely it was only the case that they took after their mistress.
If only Ginny could be with Luna. That would be so much better than staying at Aunt Muriel's. They could go for a walk or a bathe together, or sit and talk about anything they wanted to talk about. Even if there were chores to do, they could do them together, and it would be fine. Neither of them had a problem with doing chores, after all, not for people whom they cared for.
That would be the perfect way to spend the summer. Ginny and Luna, and Luna's family House Elf Dizzy of course, could stay alone together and take care of each other. And then one day they'd meet Harry Potter, and of course they'd become friends right away.
But theirs wouldn't be the fictional Harry Potter from the books. Instead they'd find a real, adorable Harry Potter with whom they could be the best of friends and who might even sometimes need their help instead of only helping them all the time. When Ginny had been about eight, her mother had explained to her that the Harry Potter in the storybooks was only somebody's imagination, but that there was a real boy out there named Harry Potter, although nobody knew where he was or what he was doing. Mum had said that it was all right to read the books and enjoy them, but that when the day came that Ginny met the real Harry, as she almost certainly would once she got to Hogwarts, since Harry was about Ron's age and Ginny wasn't even a full year younger than Ron, she should remember that he was a real person, not the boy in the books who made his own bed every morning rather than leaving it for the House Elves in Potter Manor and who always ate all his veg and listened to his teachers when he wasn't out fighting dragons and saving little girls.
Ginny had already understood that, at least a little bit. She'd noticed that Harry's place of residence and the make of his broomstick and the names of his neighbours would change almost randomly from book to book. Sometimes he lived with Risaldar Major Singh, an old Sikh who'd fought a hundred battles beside his grandfather the late Colonel Potter and had raised Harry to be a pukka sahib and to know that there is no such thing as fear, and sometimes his guardians were a wise grey-haired couple called Uncle Nicolas and Aunt Perenelle, and sometimes he even lived alone but for his family's House Elves. Sometimes Potter Manor was in Wales, and sometimes it was near London, and in one book it was in an unnamed part of Scotland where Harry had to rescue a red-headed girl named Morag and and her brother Hamish from a pack of haggis that had turned man-eater.
Ginny had liked that book, because in the illustrations Morag had looked a little bit like she did, except her hair was a slightly darker shade of red and her eyes were blue instead of being brown as Ginny's were. That said, she would've been tempted to ask Harry to leave Ron to the tender mercies of the haggis, so it was probably just as well that such a thing had never happened to them. In any case, the real Harry Potter would be better, because he'd be real, and he'd be hers and Luna's. And maybe they'd have another girl to be friends with as well?
Yes, Ginny would like nothing better than living with Luna, Dizzy, and Harry. And an adorable girl with masses of brown curls who'd be just as wonderful and loveable and cuddly as Harry and Luna. That would be a perfect household. They could live all the rest of their lives with each other, even sharing Family quarters at Hogwarts together, which they could do because the Potters were an Old House, and when they were grown up the only thing that would change would be that the girls would be married to Harry as well as being his best friends.
Now where had that come from? Ginny hadn't ever met anyone like that, or even thought very much about meeting her, although she knew somehow right now that she'd love to and she couldn't help but think maybe she'd been waiting all her life to meet her. But now, as quickly as the thought came into her head, she could see just such a girl sitting on a blanket in the midst of freshly mown green grass, along with a skinny boy in baggy clothes who had thick messy black hair that she knew would be wonderful to tangle her fingers in, and, perhaps best of all, Ginny's own dear friend Luna. She didn't know if the boy was really Harry Potter, but it didn't matter because she could tell that he was perfect. If he weren't Harry Potter after all, he would be even better than Harry Potter.
She knew they couldn't be there, because there wasn't freshly mown green grass in that part of Aunt Muriel's farmyard, let alone a blanket and two girls and a boy. But she could see them, and somehow she knew that if she was bold and courageous and if she moved right now she could be with them, wherever they were. Anywhere would be better than here, and the place where her friends were would be an absolute paradise as long as they could stay together there. Ginny dropped the basket and ran.
Luna was teaching the boy to brush the new girl's hair. That was really sweet, and cute, and adorable. And very Luna-like, of course. The boy looked a touch gobsmacked, but it was clear he was happy with the situation, and the girl had her eyes closed and was smiling blissfully in the sunshine. That was altogether wonderful. Ginny would love to help with the brushing, and she also would love to take her turn having her hair brushed the same way, and to brush Luna's hair with the help of the adorable girl and boy, and to see what they could do with the boy's hair as well. Bill was letting his hair grow long, now, despite Mum nagging him and saying he looked like her great great grandfather and was he going to start carrying a sword on his belt and a pistol in his boot, and would he wear lace at his cuffs and collar besides? Whatever Mum's opinion, Ginny thought long hair looked brilliant on Bill, and she was sure it would look brilliant on their own boy.
Ginny really did like the idea of boys, even though some of what she'd heard and read made her think she wasn't meant to feel that way at her age, but the reality of them so far had been uniformly disappointing. Of course it was true that she hadn't so many opportunities to meet them. In fact, the only ones she'd encountered, other than Cedric Diggory, who was so old he almost didn't count, and her brothers, who didn't count at all, were a handful of distant cousins, the Wizarding boys who were in Diagon Alley when she went there with her parents and her brothers, and Muggle boys from Ottery St. Catchpole and environs. Most males of her age seemed far too much like Ron, unhappy to even acknowledge the existence of a girl unless perhaps it was to make fun of her, and the few older ones who paid her any attention, other than Cedric who acted very like a junior version of Bill and Charlie, made her feel more than a little uncomfortable.
It wasn't that she didn't like the concept of meeting a boy who said she had pretty red hair and a nice smile and adorable freckles, but she wanted to hear that from a boy who said it in the right way, a boy who'd be just as quick to say that she handled a broom well and had a quick hand for the Quaffle or the Snitch, or even that she had a nice voice and told funny jokes. It wasn't that she didn't like the concept of a boy looking at her, either, or even wanting to do more than look when they were older. She simply wanted a boy to look at her in a way that would make her feel more comfortable, rather than less. Somehow she knew that this new friend Luna had found would be just that sort of boy. After all, Ginny always felt happy with the way that Luna looked at her and the way that Luna said she was gorgeous and had beautiful skin, that she was a delight to spend time with, and that she was a wonderful person to hug.
She was on the grass now. It was soft beneath her feet, nothing like the hard-packed bare soil of her aunt's farmyard. She looked about herself, realising that she was in the fenced-in garden of a very strange sort of house, one that was attached on one side to another house that looked like a mirror image of it. Both houses were very square, straight up and down, almost as if the people who lived in them had never used any magic to make their house more comfortable for themselves or to fit it to whatever personal desire they might have had.
With a dawning sense of wonder, Ginny realised that she might well actually be in a Muggle neighbourhood. She'd walked through the streets of Ottery St. Catchpole, but she'd never been in a Muggle garden. She wondered if that meant that Luna's newfound friends were Muggleborn. Would she get to go inside a Muggle house? Daddy would be delighted, and she'd have to remember everything she could so she could do her best to answer all of the questions he'd ask about Muggle plumbing and Muggle plastering and the strange devices made of plassteck and stainless steel by which Muggles compelled mysterious forces like eckletricity and petrol to do their bidding.
The last remnants of Aunt Muriel's property faded from Ginny's view. She was here, now, really and truly here. Wherever here might be, of course. She didn't think it was China or India, because she'd read that in China they had pagodas and rice paddies and in India they had mongooses and tigers. She didn't think it was Australia, because in Australia it would be very dry, there might be sheep, and there would certainly be kangaroos, which were animals that looked something like huge giant rats, only much cuter, which jumped about on their hind legs and had pouches to carry their babies in. And she was pretty sure it wasn't America, because all the books made her think that America looked sort of like Australia except instead of sheep and kangaroos they had cows with very long horns on their heads and men wearing big hats who spent all the day on horseback following the cows about and comforting them by singing songs about “little dogies,” whatever those were.
Her best friend and the two new people she hoped would be her friends were right in front of her. And here was the awkward part. What was she meant to say? Should she greet Luna first, or should she assume that the adorable boy and girl she'd never met before were her hosts and begin by thanking them for allowing her inside their household wards, or whatever it was that Muggles had instead of household wards?
If she'd gone on much further in that vein she might've begun wondering if Luna wanted to see her at all or if her first and dearest friend was far too busy with the new and interesting people she'd met to have any time for just plain Ginny from Ottery St. Catchpole. But fortunately it was at just that moment that Luna looked up and saw her.
“Ginevra! I've missed you so much!” she cried, dropping the brush and springing to her feet, which were, as was typical for Luna, bare. She threw her arms about Ginny and the two friends hugged each other so tightly that had there been a galleon or a gold ring between their bodies not even a whole family of Nifflers could have taken it away or even known it was there. Luna hugs were always a bit like that, but this one was even more intense than usual. It had been nearly a fortnight since the two girls had seen each other.
“I've missed you as well, Luna. Aunt Muriel was being miserable. I hope your Aunt Imogene has been better to you.” Ginny noticed that Luna's new friends had stood up at some point during the long hug. They were holding hands, which for some reason she didn't entirely understand made her feel kind of warm inside.
“Oh, Auntie's been her usual self--mildly unpleasant until she's had the first of her morning potions, more unpleasant until the last of them has kicked in, and then oblivious. But that doesn't really matter right now, because I've found some wonderful new friends for us, and I'm sure and very very sure that you'll love them every bit as much as I do. Harry, Hermione, this is my dear darling Ginevra. I do hope it's all right if she joins us, Harry?” Luna released Ginny from her embrace, slowly, as if she were even more unhappy to end a hug than she normally would be.
The boy gave her a lopsided grin that made funny things happen somewhere in Ginny's midsection. He had wonderful green eyes, and she could see the edge of a scar under his forelock. In some other time and place she might have squealed, tried to hide her face, or even broken a piece of crockery in her terror, but this meeting felt so dreamlike that she accepted everything she saw and heard just as it was. “Of course it is. I mean, I'm not sure if it's all right with my relatives to have any more quote freaks unquote about the house, but then again they're not very happy that I'm here, either. In any case, as none of them seem able to see you and Hermione I doubt they'll be able to see her. And you shouldn't any of you feel as if you're missing anything, because I really rather wish they'd not see me, either.”
She held out her hand. “Hi, I'm Ginny Weasley. Luna's the only one who calls me Ginevra, most of the time, although you're very welcome to call me that if you'd like to.”
“I'm Hermione Granger. It's lovely to meet you, Ginny.” They shook hands.
"And I'm Harry Potter. It's good to meet you, Ginny."
Ginny felt as if the funny thing moving inside her middle had suddenly decided to do a Wronski feint; a good one, at that, nothing like Ron's attempts. She wanted to throw her arms about him and babble in his ear about how she'd always dreamt of meeting him, and how she'd read all the stories about him. But she remembered what her mother had said. More than that, she knew, somehow, that this boy didn't need her to throw herself at him like a silly little girl who'd just discovered a herd of ponies who really did come in pink and purple with natural glitter in their coats and cute little pictures on their bottoms. "I... it's nice to meet you, Harry. And... I've read a bunch of books about you, but I know they can't possibly be about the real you, so I'll try not to be silly, and if I am I'd be grateful if you'd tell me so I can stop annoying you."
"Err... thank you, Ginny. I don't think you could possibly be annoying, because you're a friend of Luna's and, well, all of that."
"I can see circumstances under which nearly anyone could become annoying," Luna said, "especially if various nasty people were to get the opportunity to mess with their minds. But I think we've headed safely away from all the timelines where that has any probability of happening. It really is a very good thing we've all met right now, because if we'd met too many years later it might have taken us ages to get ourselves sorted."
Ginny hoped Harry and Hermione wouldn't hold it against Luna that she'd said such a thing. She was used to Luna's unusual way of seeing the world, and found it charming, but she knew that her brothers mostly thought it was absurd and that even her parents thought Luna had an over-active imagination.
Much to Ginny's delight, Hermione hugged Luna about the shoulders. "I'm very glad to hear that, Luna. I have to admit that I was raised to believe there was no such thing as a prediction of the future, except maybe for estimates on the basis of statistical analysis, but I was also raised to believe there wasn't any such thing as magic outside of fiction and mythology. I think I like your approach much better."
"Mummy works with arithmantic analyses, which I think are sort of like Muggle statistics. She says they're very useful for predicting the likely behaviour of large groups of people and things, but not so good as the Lovegood Gift for perceiving what might happen if an individual does or doesn't do something. On the other hand, she says either one is more reliable than your typical prophecy, which is the sort of thing poor Cousin Sibyll does.”
“Oh. That's really interesting. I'd never thought about there being different sorts of psychic prediction before. How does prophecy like your cousin does work?” Hermione was almost glowing. Ginny realised that this must be the way that Hermione would always look when she was curious about something. It was a delightful sight, just as delightful as the way Luna looked when she was feeling playful and safe and happy. Ginny decided it was a look she wanted to see every day for the rest of her life. She'd realised some time ago that if she ever did find Harry Potter and marry him that she'd have to share him with Luna, because she knew Luna wanted him as well and because she'd miss her best friend and it wasn't as if the Potters weren't an Old House who had an automatic dispensation to marry multiple wives so long as everyone involved was willing. The addition of Hermione was just one of those wonderful things that a person sometimes found out when she got older, sort of like when Ginny was five or six and she learnt not only that the little fish who lived in the quiet part of the river Otter wouldn't hurt her, but that it actually felt nice when they nibbled at her toes.
“Well, my dear Hermione, nobody knows as much as we'd wish we knew. When somebody like Cousin Sibyll gives a prophecy, she goes into a sort of a trance and says something. It's not in her usual voice, and she can't remember it afterwards, and it's in what people like my Mummy call 'gnomic language,' which seems to mean that it's not altogether clear. I don't understand why they call it that, because Gernumblies, which are the creatures most people call gnomes, don't really talk at all, although they do make little high-pitched grumbling noises, or at least it sort of sounds like grumbling although I must admit that for all I know they might not actually be unhappy at all.”
“So does the prophecy get lost if there's nobody else about to remember it?”
“I suppose they used to be lost at one time, and maybe they still do if they happen on other landmasses, but I'm told Rowena Ravenclaw, who was a very powerful and really brilliant witch who lived almost a thousand years ago, did a big spell that created a room where all the prophecies in Britain would be captured and recorded and filed away. They call it the Hall of Prophecy, and today it's in the Ministry for Magic building in London, which is where Ginny's daddy works and where my mummy and daddy used to work until they left so they could concentrate on the Quibbler. That's our family's newspaper about mysteries and magizoology, although Mummy still does a lot of spell research and creation and Daddy writes novels as well. He says I'm too young to read the novels, although I sneaked a couple of looks and they were all of them full of grown-up stuff that I didn't want to know about, like sex in all sorts of different positions, so I don't know why he didn't just say so instead of telling me I was too young to read them. Grown-ups are sort of strange that way, aren't they?”
“I suppose they are, Luna,” Hermione said. “Let's try to remember not to be that way when we're grown up.”
Ginny couldn't resist. She hugged Luna and Hermione together. Harry was looking at them, she realised, rather wistfully, with his lips quirked into a small half-smile.
"Come here, Harry," she said. "It's not fair for three of us to be in a hug and one of us to be left out, is it?"
"If you don't mind?"
"How could we mind, Harry?" Hermione said, just loud enough to carry. "Ginny and Luna hugs are wonderful, and Harry and Luna hugs are just as wonderful, but right now I'd really like a Ginny and Luna and Harry hug. Please?"
He hugged them, one arm about Hermione and the other about Ginny. She was being hugged by Harry Potter and his best friend, with her own best friend in the middle. That wasn't something that ever happened in the Boy Who Lived Books, but Ginny didn't care. This was better than all of the books put together, and it was real.
***
So, here's Ginny making her appearance at last. Poor thing. I wish I could've got her away from Aunt Muriel's sooner. In other news, at least one more part's needed to wrap things up, I think.