SIYE Time:13:33 on 12th December 2024 SIYE Login: no | | |
|
|
Ginny By shawn24
- Text Size + |
Category: Post-HBP
Characters:Harry/Ginny
Genres: Action/Adventure, Angst, Fluff, Humor
Warnings: None
Story is Complete
Rating: PG
Reviews: 6
Summary: This little fic was first going to be part of a larger work, but after the first post, I just couldn't make the outline do what I wanted it to, and I have ended up thinking it works better as a one shot. What do you folks think?
Hitcount: Story Total: 5582
|
|
Chapter | |
|
Ginny
It was a cold, windy day in the middle of the British winter, and Ginny Weasley was cold. She was wearing her nightdress, the one with short sleeves, and her arms were covered with goose bumps. It was a cold that made her muscles feel hollow, like she could reach right down and touch her very bones. It was almost as though there were a hundred dementors closing in on her. She wanted nothing more than to be sitting snugly at the foot of the fire in the Gryffindor common room, arguing about Quiddich with her brothers.
But there was no common room left. And if they were not successful today, then there might not be any Hogwarts left at all. This was a battle, it was THE battle. At Hogwarts, and at home, Ginny Weasley was famous for her bat bogey hex, but today, she found out how futile even that was against dementors, giants, and werewolves. They were simply outnumbered. Hogwarts, the Order, and even the ministry backups were without a clear leader with Dumbledore gone, and it showed. The Quiddich pitch, where she had spent so many happy moments, was destroyed, as were most of the greenhouses and the outer grounds.
Then, as if in slow motion, Ginny heard the words she’d dreaded. Words that, for her, signaled the end of all hope. A powerful, deep but snakelike voice rang out through the smoke and mist, “Avada Kedavra!” In a battlefield full of full grown warriors, death eaters, and monsters, it was a boy that fell; a skinny, black haired boy that was supposed to save the world… again. As he fell to his knees the lids closed forever over his once brilliantly green eyes.
Ginny woke up in a cold sweat, the covers twisted violently around her rickety little bed and her flat pillow was on the floor. She sighed heavily and sat up in bed “Should have known,” Ginny scolded herself. “Should have known these dreams wouldn’t go away just because I am home for summer vacation.
Miserably, Ginny poured herself out of bed. She retrieved her flat pillow and attempted to straighten her tangled mess of sheets. Looking down at her lumpy, very uncomfortable bed, she longed for the large, soft bed that she enjoyed while at Hogwarts, and wondered weather she would be heading back there at the end of the summer like normal. As much as Ginny looked forward to the end of term, and as much as she enjoyed being part of a large family, she did not particularly enjoy her summer vacations, particularly this one. Ginny was the only girl in a house with six boys. As a matter of fact, Ginny was the only girl to have been born in the Weasley family for as long as anyone could remember. As a result, her parents, particularly her mother, had seen fit to treat her as girly as it is possible to be. Ginny hated this, immensely. While her brothers were allowed to run around playing in the mud or flying in the orchard, Ginny had to stay in the house, for what she called “Lady Lessons.” Her mother spent a great deal of time telling Ginny what ladies did do, and particularly what ladies did not do. You see, not only was Ginny Weasley the baby girl in a house full of seven men, but the Weasleys were also a very old pureblood wizarding family. Now, obviously the Weasleys were not taken by the pureblood supremacy rubbish that families like the Malfoys believed in. For Ginny, though, this meant that her parents had very traditional, very outdated ideas about what constituted “proper” behavior.
For instance, Molly Weasley, though she was very proud of her daughter’s accomplishments on the pitch, did not believe that Ginny should be playing quiddich. Quiddich was too dangerous, too grotesque, and was simply not for girls. Molly had enough boys under her roof, and she made it clear that Ginny was not one of them. Ginny had overheard her mother once complaining to her father, Arthur, that had he only not taken Ginny along with her brothers to the Quiddich World Cup in the summer before her third year, then Ginny would not have taken such a liking to it. Apparently, Molly was unaware that Ginny had been sneaking rides on her brothers’ broomsticks for years prior to the World Cup. Ginny loved to fly, and she was quite good at it, thank you very much.
The hardwood floors in Ginny’s tiny room were cold to her bare feet, and she quickly padded off to the bathroom. She was up early, as she often was these days owing to the dreams that haunted her at night. It had its advantages though, there was always plenty of hot water for a long, blissful shower before the rest of the horde woke up. The hot steamy water released her tense muscles and brought her mind in focus. She began to wonder what dreadful things her mother had in store for her for today’s Lady Lessons. No doubt sewing, cooking, and cleaning. She thought about the hundred other things she’d rather spend her Thursday afternoon doing, mostly things that “girls shouldn’t do”. This brought a smile to her face as she remembered a blissful lunch hour she had spent at the lake at Hogwarts doing MANY things that girls shouldn’t do.
There he was. This time it had taken almost 4 minutes of consciousness for Ginny’s thoughts to work their way back to Harry. Compared to the worry and heartache she felt for Harry, her daily Lady Lessons were caldron cakes.
One might think that the recent hault in their relationship would make Ginny upset at Harry. In truth, Ginny felt sad for Harry, and sad for the world. Since he was one year old Harry had been battling Voldemort. To Ginny it just seemed like Destiny, just as much as it was her Destiny to be with him. She’d always known it, ever since she was a small child, and her father would tell her bedtime stories about the baby hero that had saved the world.
He had so much love and hope inside of him. During her second year, just after he had rescued her from Voldemort, Harry found part of his missing family. All Harry ever wanted was a family, and this hope had allowed Harry to conjure such a strong patronus that it fought off a hundred dementors. Though she didn’t find out about it until much later, this story awed Ginny, and she loved him even more. All he ever wanted was the only thing she ever had. Of course, this was a side of Harry that most people didn’t see. Everyone wanted a piece of the Boy Who Lived. They either loved him or hated him, but they all wanted something from him. It made Ginny sick. None of them really cared about him, none of them knew him like she did. You see, Harry talked to her, he opened up to her. During their brief time as a couple they spent a lot of time just talking. Ginny blushed thinking of the OTHER things they spent a lot of time doing.
Ginny was jerked from her reverie by the loud banging on the bathroom door that announced that one of her smelly brothers was awake as well. After a few pieces of toast and two cups of strong tea Ginny found herself doing the first of her daily “woman’s chores,” feeding the chickens.
As she lazily tossed handfuls of corn to the scurrying chickens, Ginny’s thoughts continued to linger on her boyfriend. Getting to know Harry was actually more fun than she thought it would be. As a child she imagined him a strong valiant hero with bulging muscles and a cape flapping in the wind. In reality he was a nervous, bumbling boy that didn’t know the first thing about girls until she got a hold of him. She knew that he had kissed Cho Chang, but the experience didn’t show in their first few kisses. Granted, their first kiss still brought a certain warmth to Ginny when she relived it. But it had taken them both by surprise, and happened without either of them really thinking about it. After that, Harry needed a bit of training. He was a bit heavy with the tongue the first few times, but Ginny didn’t mind. On the contrary, it was very satisfying to show him exactly the way SHE liked to be kissed. And Harry was a good student. Ginny was starting to wonder what OTHER things she might like to teach Harry when a pesky chicken nipped at her shin, reminding her that the world did indeed continue to spin without Harry by her side.
“Yes, Chicken, I know,” Ginny voiced out loud, “I know Harry officially broke up with me, but I am still his girlfriend, it’s just a phase, okay!” The truth was that Ginny wasn’t worried. Not at all. In fact, she very much doubted that Harry’s self imposed isolation would last the summer. Again, he had opened up to her, he had let her in, and Ginny knew that this was not something that Harry did very easily. And once he let someone in, they were in. As for as Ginny was concerned, they were now the Golden Quartet. Ginny knew from experience that teenaged boys thought primarily with two parts of their bodies. Harry was different in that he also thought with his heart. Ginny also knew that those three parts of Harry missed her as desperately as she missed him, and it was only a matter of time before Harry realized how incomplete he was without her and ended this foolishness. No sir, Ginny was not worried, not worried at all. Really. She wasn’t worried.
According to Molly Weasley, all witches worth their salt should be able to make clothes for her family. That way, if times get hard, she won’t have to depend on stores to provide clothing herself and loved ones. As such, sewing and mending were an integral part of the summer Lady Lessons. Ginny had complained of course, arguing that it was pointless to learn to mend by hand, when she could simply magic the needles to work themselves, as she had seen her mother do on countless occasions. Molly’s response was that a witch can not magic needles to do something that she doesn’t know how to do herself. The logic to this argument only made Ginny that much more angry.
As Ginny put up her feed bucket and went back inside the Burrow for her daily dose of finger poking, she remembered how angry she had been on her last birthday. What she had wanted more than anything was a new pair of chaser’s gloves. Her old ones were hand-me-downs from George. They had seen better days, and besides that they were beater’s gloves. Beater’s gloves were thicker, which were good for holding the bat, but made it harder to catch the quaffle. What Ginny really wanted were some nice sleek gloves, that would not only be useful for a chaser, but also for those times when Harry was out (for whatever reason) and she was forced to play seeker. What she got from her parents instead, was a sewing kit. She about died. What was worse, is that it was a very nice, deluxe sewing kit, one that was probably twice the price of the gloves that Ginny wanted. But, as good little ladies do, Ginny graciously accepted her sewing kit, feigned an acceptable about of excitement over them and began her unofficial career as a seamstress.
Her first project, which she is still working on, was a sweater, very much like the jumpers her mother makes for the entire herd for Christmas every year. It was supposed to be a Christmas present for Harry, a Griffindor maroon jumper with a snitch and broomstick on it. But at her current rate of progress, Harry might get his sweater for their tenth wedding anniversary.
With her father at work, her mother doing some shopping for the depleted Order, and Ron staying the first part of the summer with Harry at Privet Drive, Ginny was blissfully alone. So at around eleven, after making absolutely no progress on the jumper from hell, Ginny headed upstairs for the absolute best part of summer break, a nap. In her opinion, Hogwarts should institute a mandatory nap time every day. Ginny knew both her mood and grades would improve with a half hour’s blissful rest on the big soft beds in her Hogwarts dorm room.
Ginny’s room, small as it was, was the largest bedroom in the house. This was one of the perks for being the only girl born in eons, and Ginny rather enjoyed it. The furniture that Ginny owned, however, would have easily fit into a room half the size. Her rickety twin bed was in the far left corner, was covered in a patchwork quilt made by ( you guessed it) her mother. She had a small writing desk in the near right corner, where she had already this summer composed letters to Tonks, Hermione, and two letters to Harry, both of which ended up in the bin. She had a vanity against the far right wall that her father had found back when he worked in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office. It had been cursed by a witch to snap the hands of anyone who opened its drawers. Arthur had confiscated it and given it to Ginny, after performing the proper counter curse, that is. It was easily the nicest bit of furniture in her room, the only other bit being a small footlocker in which Ginny kept her modest wardrobe. It wasn’t that Ginny minded being poor, but as she climbed into her rickety bed for a well deserved nap, she couldn’t help but miss her big soft bed at Hogwarts.
Ginny woke up to soft booming sounds. In that delicate state between sleep and wake, she envisioned one of Fred and George’s experiments going wrong, which had often woken her at all hours of the night. As the soft thundering sounds grew lounder, and her tiny window shook in its pane, Ginny realized fretfully that Fred and George no longer performed experiments in the room beside her, they had long since moved into the flat above their shop. That realization made Ginny sit bolt up in bed and instantly grab her wand. She looked out her window to find a great disturbance in the orchard behind her house, and birds flocking to the sky as if something big had scared them suddenly from their perches. Ginny raced downstairs and out the back door to get a better look. What she saw was horrible. Giants. Lots of giants, heading straight for her house. She raced back inside the house and headed straight for the hearth. The bowl of floo powder, which was never very full, was completely, leaving her without a way to escape. She couldn’t floo out and she couldn’t apparate, she was completely trapped. The first of the giants was breaking through the tree line behind her house as Ginny hurried to the broom shed and seized her brother Charlie’s old CleanSweep 6. It wasn’t the world’s fastest broom, but it did get her airborne and away from the terrible scene that was quickly becoming her childhood home. As Ginny flew low on her broom away from the attack she held back a laugh as he remembered her mother’s words, “little ladies do not go around riding on broomsticks.” When had a sewing kit ever saved her life?
The nearest wizarding house to the Burrow was the Diggory House. Ginny had first headed in that direction, until she realized sadly that the house would be uninhabited at this time, as Amos worked with her father at the ministry and would be at work too, as for Cedric, well the house would be empty. Ginny steered her broom quickly back south and headed for the only other wizarding home in Ottery St. Catchpole, the Lovegoods.
Luna Lovegood was a small, but fiercely loyal girl, if a little strange. In this situation, however, Luna was quick to act. Almost instantly she had, not only floo power ready, but also the enchanted galleons that Hermione had given the DA members to contact each other. With this the two could contact Ron and Harry in Surrey, and warn them of the attacks. As Ginny stepped into the Lovegood hearth with her hand full of powder, she briefly wondered what they would find at the Order Headquarters, if it still was Headquarters. She wondered what happened to a Fidelius Charm when the secret keeper died. She silently hoped that what she was stepping into was better than what she was stepping out of. She decided that anywhere was better than the middle of a death eater attack and tossed the powder to the hearth saying “#12 Grimmauld Place!”
“Where are we?” asked Luna as she brushed the soot from her shirt.
“This is the base for the Order of the Phoenix.,” Ginny answered, looking around for signs of inhabitants. It was a testament to the seriousness of the situation that Luna did not retort with a far fetched conspiracy theory involving flesh-eating dung bats or incognito vampires. The old house was cleaner than Ginny had ever seen it, though there was no proof that anyone was currently staying there. No sooner had Ginny opened her mouth to say a loud “Hello” then there was a soft pop and none other than Dobby the House Elf appeared.
“Dobby,” Ginny practically screamed at the little elf, “is anyone here, there has been an attack, my house…its..”
“I’m sorry Miss, there is nobody here besides Dobby. Dobby works here now, taking care of the Order. Now that brave, noble professor Dumbledore is gone, Dobby takes care of the Order, and Harry Potter’s house.”
“Could you help us, Dobby is it?” Luna asked, her big blue eyes nearly as large as Dobby’s.
“Yes of course, ma’am. Dobby would be honored to help The good Harry Potter’s Weezey and her friend, just tell Dobby what you need.” Harry Potter’s Weezey, huh, thought Ginny. She smiled at wide eyed elf and visibly relaxed. Everything was going to be just fine.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|
Reviews 6
|
Chapter | |
|
../back
‘! Go To Top ‘!
|