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SIYE Time:12:08 on 28th March 2024
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Friends, At Least?
By werekitten

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Category: Pre-OotP, When Ginny Met Harry Challenge (2007-1)
Characters:Albus Dumbledore, Harry/Ginny, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Severus Snape
Genres: Fluff, General
Warnings: None
Story is Complete
Rating: PG
Reviews: 138
Summary: ** Honorable Mention (tie) in the When Ginny Met Harry Challenge **
Ginny Weasley is disappointed by her first view of Harry Potter, but quickly realizes that she is more than ready to forgive. She starts a pen-pal correspondence in hopes of becoming friends with Harry, and then perhaps more...
Hitcount: Story Total: 59721; Chapter Total: 6465





Author's Notes:
Here's the next chapter, I just love posting them, so I couldn't bring myself to wait a full day between posting Chapter 7 and Chapter 8.
Thanks to my beta, Spencer, and to my kitten, Minerva, for inspiring me (and Ginny)
I just love getting reviews! *hint* please! *hint*




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Ginny was impatient. Impatient for the twins to respond to her letter, impatient to know if her plan would work, impatient for her revenge to begin.

She knew that she needed to punish the Dursleys. She was shocked and a bit appalled that the entire wizarding world had let their hero, famous Harry Potter, fend for himself for eleven years. No one had thought to check to make sure that he was fine, that he was treated right.

Well, Ginny would set that right. She didn’t even think of asking an adult to help her. She had to be the one to avenge Harry.

And she would. If she had to wait until she was seventeen and able to use magic outside of school, she would. But Ginny was not a patient person, not when it came to helping others.

There were quicker ways for a girl with her creativity to punish the Dursleys.

---


Usu ally the darker corners of the Gryffindor common room were unoccupied, and almost never occupied by Fred and George Weasley, who loved to be the center of attention. But tonight, that was different. Having received a strange letter from their sister just that morning, the twins decided on some privacy to discuss it.

The letter worried them. Fred and George weren’t in to the whole “she’s our baby sister, she can’t grow up too fast” attitude, but only because Ginny had a prankster’s mind and they couldn’t wait to put it to use at Hogwarts. But now Gin was asking for some pretty dangerous help in the letter, and the twins weren’t sure how far they wanted their little sister to go.

Still, the twins had to admire Ginny’s imagination. Her prank involved a kitten, of all things! But her kitten was no ordinary sweet ball of fuzz – it was a monster. And that was what scared the twins.

Ginny wanted an avenging kitten. This outwardly charming beast would be the perfect cat until someone was hurt. Then it would become a fiend, and ferociously bite or scratch whomever had been violent.

Ordinarily, Fred and George would object to such a request from their sister. After all, such a kitten could, no, would hurt someone. But Ginny’s letter had contained a thinly veiled threat:

I know that this isn’t the sort of thing that you two usually do, but just think of it as a favor for all these years of keeping quiet about that time Dad’s hand on the clock was jinxed to point to ‘Mortal Peril’ . . .

The twins had thought it could be amusing to watch their mother freak out, but they hadn’t realized just how deep their mother’s fear for her family went. That prank fell into the “not the slightest bit funny” category.

It was plain that Ginny intended to tattle on the twins to Mum if they did not agree to her plot. And if there was one thing that Fred and George were scared of, it was Molly Weasley in a rage.

George turned to his twin. “It sounds like this is all for a good cause! Like, something decent.”

Fred nodded in agreement. “Yeah, but we’re supposed to be pranksters! No moral fiber whatsoever, everything in the name of a laugh, and all that.”

Looking over the letter again, Fred shook his head in disbelief. “Blimey, mate, can we even do what she’s asking?”

“We better,” muttered George darkly, “or she’ll make sure we pay.”

“Yeah, but a spell that specific has got to be at least sixth year!”

George shrugged. “So? With enough research, we can do it.”

They both made a face. Research! Ginny was the master of torture, along with Professor McGonagall.

The twins sighed and headed off to the library.

---


The kitten was finished. The twins had worked almost non-stop for a week – unheard of! One of their many mottos was, “If the preparation is worse than the results, don’t do it.” Exams fell into that category, along with making a complex kitten for their sister to use for a cause that she wouldn’t even write about.

But Fred and George couldn’t risk Mum’s wrath.

Having performed the final incantation, the twins stepped back to admire their work.

“Well, there it is,” said George, walking in a slow circle around the glowing kitten.

Fred frowned, and waved his wand. The kitten stopped glowing. “Yeah. It couldn’t be glowing though. I know it’s just a transfigured sock, but Ginny wanted it realistic.”

George nodded. Neither said it aloud, but they knew that the other was thing the same thing. What Ginny wants, Ginny gets. It had become almost a mantra for them in the past week.

George paused. “It needs something . . . a name!”

Fred grinned. “How about Minerva, after McGonagall? Since it’s such a cruel kitty.”

George grinned back. “I like it!”

They quickly scrawled a note to Ginny telling her how to activate the kitten – tell it, “I solemnly swear that Minerva is up to no good” – and that Ginny was a terrible sister for forcing them to do research.

They wrapped the result of their efforts in a brown parcel and tied it to the legs of several school owls. The package was about the size of Fred’s head. George’s too, for that matter.

They let the owls flap out the window, and thanked Merlin that their part in Ginny’s trick, whatever it was, was done at last.

---


After the excitement of tracking down Flamel had vanished, Harry’s thoughts turned back to Ginny. He supposed that he had better answer her second letter.

Harry had begun to enjoy corresponding with Ginny, and he knew it. Harry had always tried to be honest with himself, if not with others. However, he just couldn’t bring himself to tell Ginny that he had fun writing to her, that he hoped she had fun writing back . . .

Harry sighed and pulled out a fresh sheet of parchment. He started at it blankly, wondering what to write.

Suddenly he was hit by an overwhelming desire to meet Ginny for real, to talk to her face-to-face. He couldn’t stand having a friend on paper only, he wanted someone physical, someone he could speak to.

Ginny was able to understand Harry, to “talk” with him in a way that no one else could, not even Ron and Hermione. Although Ron was his best mate, Harry could never forget Ron’s inability to comprehend the feelings of others. And Hermione was too intellectual, too formal, and she hated Quidditch.

Almost against his will, Harry wondered what would happen if he combined Ron and Hermione. What would the person be like?

Well, someone like Ginny.

Harry sighed again. Ginny would never want to be friends with him, and meeting her while he was at school was impossible.

But he could see her . . . in a photo!

Harry started to write his letter, telling Ginny that he hadn’t minded confiding in her about the Dursleys. He knew it was sort of a lie, but it was a white lie, and that made it okay.

Then, trying not to sound too eager, Harry added a paragraph asking Ginny for a photo. He said that he couldn’t really remember what she looked like from his brief glimpse of her at platform nine and three-quarters, and he was curious to see what Ginny looked like. It wasn’t really a lie, and he was certainly not going to tell Ginny about his urge to meet the perfect friend.

Harry looked back at her latest letter, searching for something to respond to. His eyes fell on the question, So, what is your most embarrassing moment?

Harry colored just thinking about it.

When he was five, he and Dudley had been placed in the same reception class in primary school. Harry had begun to see that he didn’t have a normal family, but he did not know that other children had never felt the none-too-gentle kiss of the cane.

On the first day of school, their assignment was simple: What did you do over the summer? Draw a picture.

Harry hadn’t really done anything over the summer except chores. He certainly didn’t want to draw about that.

But there was one other thing he had done over the summer, something he would never tell the Dursleys about: he had dreamed.

Early on, Harry had learned not to speak to the Dursleys about his parents. He had come to realize that his aunt and uncle wanted him to forget his parents, not that he could remember them anyway. But he could think about them; he could imagine.

All alone in his cupboard, Harry had often constructed complex fantasies about sunlit days spent hand-in-hand with his parents, or about cold, windy nights spent in front of a cheerful fire with motherly arms wrapped around him.

So although his parent’s faces eluded him in even his most detailed dreams, Harry decided to draw a day at the park with his parents for his first assignment at school. After all, Dudley was the only one at school who knew that Harry’s parents were dead.

The next day at school, Harry came proudly bearing a work of art, or at least he considered it so. It was made of three colors: forest green, brown, and pink – colors that Dudley had deemed ugly, and therefore the only colored crayons that Harry was allowed to use. But they suit his purposes wonderfully, and Harry’s drawing was not the worst one in his class.

The teacher asked each student to present his or her drawing. Dudley’s was a picture of a day at the beach with Petunia and Vernon. Somehow, Dudley’s pink bonnet had not made it into the picture.

When it was Harry’s turn, he stumbled up to the front of the classroom, nearly tripping over Dudley’s old pants. He held up his picture so that everyone could see it, and explained that it had been a really fun day, wandering through a peaceful green park with his mum and dad.

When he finished everyone began to clap, as the teacher had instructed. Everyone except Dudley.

He stood up in his seat, pointing to Harry’s picture. “That’s a lie!” Dudley’s well-practiced shout carried well across the room. “That picture isn’t true! He hasn’t got any parents!”

And, laughing at Harry, Dudley told the entire class how Harry’s parents had died in a car crash, leaving Harry at the mercy of his aunt and uncle. Harry recalled hearing the story told the exact same way by Aunt Petunia.

The teacher, who had been staring at Harry, quickly recovered. “Dudley, don’t talk that way about Harry! I’m sure he had a lovely time in the park with his parents, didn’t you, Harry?” She glanced expectantly at Harry who was still standing in the front of the room, his face very red.

Slowly, the tiny boy shook his head. “No,” Harry said simply, “I didn’t.”

He had trudged back to his seat, laughter ringing in his ears.

Harry looked back at the parchment on which he was writing his letter to Ginny, shaking his head to clear the laughter that he could still vividly remember.

Sighing, Harry decided that he really should tell Ginny about the incident. After all, she had told him her most embarrassing moment, although Canary Cream Puffs didn’t hold a candle to being shamed about his parents, or lack thereof.

Harry dipped his quill back into the ink and then added a final paragraph to the letter explaining what happened in primary school. After all, he told himself, a deal is a deal, and she did tell me about her most embarrassing moment.

He signed the letter, rolled it into a scroll, and headed off to find Hedwig.
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