CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:  AFTERMATH

26 July 1995

His eyes were closed, but he wasn’t asleep.  She could tell he wasn’t.  He’d heard footsteps though, her footsteps, and had closed his eyes, hoping that whoever it was would just go away.  He didn’t feel like talking to anyone.  He’d refused to see anyone since the Diggorys on yesterday morning.  Not only that, but he couldn’t sleep.  Madam Pomfrey had given him a sleeping potion, but he had poured it into the potted palm on the windowsill when she wasn’t looking.  He didn’t want to become addicted to the stuff, and besides, he wanted to feel the guilt.  This pain, he deserved it. 

Ginny stood quietly for several minutes just looking down at him.  He looked so . . .so vulnerable and she wanted, more than anything else in the world, to just gather him up in her arms and hold him . . . hold him against her heart . . .hold him in her heart . . .take away some of the pain.

“What are you doing in here?”  Madam Pomfrey’s sharp whisper broke the silence. “You should know better than to disturb a patient when he’s sleeping Miss Weasley.”

“Sorry,” began Ginny, feeling her face go pink.  “It’s just that I-”

“How did you get in here?” interrupted Madam Pomfrey, her eyes now narrowed in suspicion.  “The door to the hospital was locked young lady, with a spell Dumbledore put on it himself, explain yourself!”

Ginny didn’t know what to say.  She had used her elementals to open the door of course, but this was hardly something she could tell Madam Pomfrey.

“It’s okay Madam Pomfrey,” said Harry, startling them both.

“Mr. Potter, Professor Dumbledore expressly directed that you were to have no visitors unless he escorted them in himself!  It’s for your own safety!”

“Ginny’s not going to hurt me,” said Harry, smiling slightly and holding out his hand to Ginny. 

Ginny took it in hers, noticing as she did so that Madam Pomfrey’s expression softened considerably.  It was obviously, from the look on her face, that she thought Ginny was his girlfriend. 

“Well, all right then,” said Madam Pomfrey, “but ten minutes only, not a moment longer or I’ll be informing the headmaster that you were out of bed,” she said severely to Ginny before bustling off between the beds towards her office.

Harry scooted over so Ginny could sit down on the bed next to him. 

“Thanks, Harry,” she said finally.  “I thought I was going to get detention for sure!”

“What, another one?” said Harry, raising his eyebrows.  “What would that make for you this year, Gin, ten?  Twelve?”

“Try twenty three,” said Ginny brightly.  “Twenty-three detentions, eighteen of them given out by Filch of course.”

“What on earth have you been doing that Filch has caught you eighteen times?” asked Harry interestedly.

“Oh, you know, learning the tricks of the trade,” said Ginny shrugging.

“Ah, apprenticing to Fred and George, that’s right,” said Harry thoughtfully.  “So what, you were out after hours?”

“A bunch of times, yeah,” said Ginny, shrugging.  “But several times it was because he caught me with dung bombs, stink pellets, stuff like that.  I fed Mrs. Norris belching powder once,” she added brightly.

“I’m surprised that he didn’t hang you up from your heels like he’s always threatening to do,” remarked Harry.

“Probably would have if he’d caught me,” said Ginny, shrugging.  “That was one I got away with though.  Thought I’d die laughing.  Harry, you ever seen a cat attempt to meow and burp at the same time?”

Harry snorted.

“Whish I had, that would have been worth seeing.”  He paused for a moment, looking down the aisle to where Madam Pomfrey had disappeared.  “Hey Gin, you think that she thinks we . . .?”

“Does it matter?” said Ginny, shrugging.  “The important thing is, she didn’t throw me out on my ear.  She probably would have if you hadn’t stepped in.”

“She either would have thrown you out or reported you to McGonagall,” added Harry.  They looked at each other and shivered slightly.  Harry lapsed into silence.  It was a deep silence, dark and shadowy and full of terrible, bubbling guilt.

“Er . . .Harry?” began Ginny, not looking at him but feeling as if she had to speak.  If she didn’t say something, they would continue to sit here in silence for the entire ten minutes. “Look, I know you didn’t want visitors . . .”she paused, searching for words.

Harry shifted uncomfortably.  He was afraid . . .terribly afraid that she was going to ask him something about Cedric . . .

“No, Harry, you don’t have to talk to me about . . .” Ginny swallowed hard, “about anything.  I just thought . . .” she held up their clasped hands.  “I just thought that maybe . . .maybe you shouldn’t be alone right now.”

Harry looked up at her and somehow, Ginny wasn’t surprised to see tears glistening in the corners of his eyes.  He squeezed her hand slightly.  Her concern had touched him deeply.

“Thanks, Gin,” he said gruffly and turned his head away, but not quickly enough.  She had seen the lone tear that was sliding down his cheek.

With her free hand Ginny brushed away the tear and found that she was unable to keep herself from letting her fingers linger on his face.  To cover her lapse she ran her fingers into his hair as if brushing back a wayward lock.  Quite unexpectedly, Harry turned his face into her hand, his lips lingering for the briefest of moments on her palm.

“This isn’t what I wanted, Ginny,” he said softly, his voice barely discernable, muffled against her hand.

Ginny froze; she could feel his tears; hot against her palm.  But something about his words had chilled her to the bone.  As if they had been stirred up from the sands of time Harry’s voice seemed to reverberate in her head.

This isn’t what I wanted . . .I didn’t bring you up here so I could sob on your shoulder and have you dry my tears . . .

Where had she heard those words before?  He’d said them before . . .Harry had said them to her . . .hadn’t he . . .? 

“I didn’t want it, any of it!” He was speaking in an agonized whisper and had had her by the wrists now, preventing her from wiping at his now streaming eyes.

Was she in the hospital wing, or were they on that rock ledge overlooking the castle?

“I didn’t ask to be a bloody champion, Gin.  I didn’t ask for it — any of it — I didn’t want it!”

“I know Harry-”

“Do you know why I’m still here, Gin?  Do you?”

“Harry-”

“Do you know why I’m still lying here in this bloody bed when there’s nothing wrong with me physically?”

“You don’t have to explain, Harry, I-”

“It’s because every time I close my eyes I see him, Cedric, he’s looking at me . . .”

“Harry James Potter!” her mental shout did what her audible voice could not and penetrated his clouds of guilt and anger.

As if her were a swimmer emerging from a prolonged dive, Harry took a great, gulping breath of air, then said, “what?”

“You’re not lying down, Harry, you’re sitting,” said Ginny.

Harry stared at her for a full ten seconds before what she’d said could catch up with his brain, and he actually chuckled.  But she wasn’t finished with him, heavens no.  She couldn’t let him go on like this, wallowing in guilt. 

“And I don’t care what you’ve been telling yourself, Harry, I don’t know what sort of self-pitying crap you’re wallowing in, but I’m only going to tell you this once, so you’d better listen.”

Harry, who had opened his moth to respond, promptly closed it again.

“IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT.”

“But-”

“You hear me, Harry?  It is not your fault, none of it.  It had nothing to do with you.”

“But I-”

“You didn’t kill Cedric, Harry,” said Ginny softly.  “You didn’t mix the potion that revived Tom.  That was Wormtail, Harry.”

“I should have killed him when I had the chance,” said Harry angrily.

“Then someone else would have cut off their hand,” snapped Ginny.

Harry stared at her, his brain working furiously, trying to remember what he’d said to her about Wormtail.  Had he said anything?  He opened his mouth, if he hadn’t given the map to Moody . . . but Ginny preempted him again.

“And don’t go on about Crouch, Harry.  Barty Crouch killed his father, not you.  It wouldn’t have mattered if he’d had the map or not.  He was a Death Eater, Harry, he tricked you . . .he used you. . . that’s what they are best at!”

“Ginny, I-”

“The point is, Harry, you may not have wanted this — the tournament, Voldemort coming back, Cedric dying — you may not have wanted it to happen, but perhaps it had to happen.”

“Ginny, what . . .?”

“Perhaps this is the way it had to be,” said Ginny softly.  “Like in a story where all sorts of nasty things happen to the main characters; you feel for them, you ache for them; having to go through it all, and you might be tempted to skip all the bad stuff in the middle and go straight to the end, where you know everything turns out all right because the author’s written a sequel, but you know — deep down — that if you don’t read the bad stuff, if you don’t go through the nasty bits with the characters, you know that the happy ending won’t mean as much because you won’t understand why the bad stuff had to happen.”

There was silence for a full minute, before Harry broke it by saying, “If it is a story, I’d love to get my hands on the author.”

“Why, what would you do?”

“Make them rewrite this last bit.”

Ginny smiled inadvertently at the fierceness in his voice.

“Well, if we can’t get them to rewrite the last few days, Harry, least you can do is turn over a new leaf.”

“Come again?”

“Turn over a new leaf . . .get a fresh start . . .get some sleep maybe, and face tomorrow when it comes?”

“Ginny?”

“Sleep, Harry,” she said, patting the pillow behind him.

He looked around at it, eyeing it warily. 

“Don’t think I can.”

“Tell you what.  Close your eyes and I’ll do for you what I used to do for Bill when he was having trouble sleeping.  Go on, close your eyes now.”

Harry obeyed, settling back on his pillow and settling his hands so that they were lying across his stomach.

Ginny placed one hand on top of his folded ones, the other on his forehead.

“Now, imagine yourself in a completely dark, completely empty room. . .” she continued to speak softly, her words drawing attention away from the fact that beneath the hand laying on his forehead, the tangle of thought and guilt and pain was slowly unraveling even as Harry drifted silently into a deep and peaceful sleep.

It wasn’t until his breathing had become deep and rhythmic that a voice spoke from the shadows.

“Off you go then, Miss Weasley,” said Madam Pomfrey gently. 

How long she had been standing there, observing them, Ginny had no idea, but she did not appear to be upset.  In fact, when Ginny glanced back she distinctly saw Madam Pomfrey surreptitiously wipe a tear from her eye.

*     *     *

29 June 1995

The last few days have been really weird.  I’m not entirely certain if its my own memories of what happened there in the maze, or whether its Harry’s reaction to what happened, but in addition to the usual double vision (which has been almost constant since Harry entered that maze Friday night) I feel as if I’ve been sleepwalking . . .eating and sleeping, walking and talking, but not really there, as if I’m watching myself from the outside somewhere, but also watching Harry watch himself from the outside. 

He eats, he sleeps, he goes to classes.  He feels his most relaxed when he’s alone with Ron and Hermione, both of them trying to act as if everything is normal.  He visits the graveyard every night in his dreams, and sometimes he wakes up in a cold sweat, sometimes he wakes up screaming.

I could help him.  If I could go to him . . .touch him . . .I know he would feel better, like he did that night in the hospital.  But I don’t dare.  For one thing, he wouldn’t understand. I don’t think Harry remembers anything about the night I snuck into the hospital wing.  I’m not surprised because one of the things I did was to use the hypnotic suggestion that Mira taught me two months ago to keep him from remembering it, clearly anyway, at least on a conscious level.

I’m not entirely certain as to why I did it, except I don’t want him acting weird around me, and I’m afraid he would, after breaking down like he did. If I can’t have him altogether (and I have to keep reminding myself that according to Mira, he won’t come around until sometime in his sixth year — a whole year away) then I want things to be as they were, although I’m afraid that after last Friday night, things, for Harry at least, will never be quite the same again.

2 July 1995

Mum says that I have a week before she wants to start up classes again.  Phooey!  I was really hoping that she’d have had enough, that she’d give up on this household training stuff.  Mum’s determined though.  She’s determined that she’s going to make me into a replica of her.  Personally, I think that she’d be better off training the giant squid, but there you are.

It’s good to be back in my room.  Whenever I walk into it I always get this rush of emotion.  This is my room, my space.  It belongs to me in a deep, fundamental way that probably has to do with my redecorating it from the ground up two summers ago, that or the dedication when my elementals came to me for the first time.  That was pretty intense.

Ron’s having fits.  Mum replaced his bedspread without asking him.  It was getting rather ragged, but she replaced it with this apple green quilt that clashes horribly with the orange of all Ron’s Cannons stuff.   And it wasn’t just any old green quilt.  This baby has a lace edge and little scallops along the hem; like something you’d see in a five year old girl’s room. When Ron saw the quilt he went ballistic!  But that was nothing compared to the fit he threw when Mum told him she’d binned his old spread! 

Then the twins added the last straw by doing something weird to the quilt so that now it sings “Mary had a little lamb” every time someone sits on it.  Anyway, between Ron yelling at Fred and George, and Ron yelling at Mum, and Percy yelling at everyone because we disrupted the quiet, it seemed very much like old times.

5 July 1995

I made a very stupid mistake this morning and asked Percy (when I found him still sitting at the kitchen table at nine o’clock in the morning) why he wasn’t at work. He went off on me so bad I thought he was going to hit me, I really did!  I was on the point of calling up my elementals for protection when he finally stopped yelling and stalked off of his own accord.

Mum explained everything.  It seems that Percy’s been fired.   Well, not fired exactly, but suspended from duty rather, until this entire mess over Mr. Crouch and Winky and the whole bit about Mr. Crouch’s being ill is all sorted out.  There’s going to be an inquiry and everything, this Friday in fact. 

According to Mum, the Ministry is rather concerned that Percy didn’t realize there was anything wrong with Crouch, but I think Ron pegged it when he said that Crouch left Percy in charge, and Percy, being Percy, would be the last person to argue with that! 

Anyway, I spent the rest of my morning working up in my Garden.  I’ve got a plan for a new bed.  I found some Devil’s Grass in the back field and transplanted a square of it to the freshly dug bed.  Now I need a Weeping Cherry tree.  I may have to enlist Dad’s help on that one.  I’ve never seen one in the area, so I don’t know where I could find any shoots, but maybe he knows someone.  I want to plant the Weeping Cherry tree dead center in the patch of Devil’s grass.  The effect will be quite spectacular I think.

7 July 2005

I have never seen Dad so pissed off in my life!  I thought he was going to throttle Percy, I really did!  I’m up here now, in my garden.  Fred and George and Ron are here with me.  None of us have eaten yet (unless you count the apples George picked from the orchard) and none of us really wants to go back to the house yet, not until things have settled down, anyway.

So, we’ve been sitting around, playing with an old exploding snap pack that Fred found in his trousers pocket.  For a while Ron and I played tic-tac-toe in one of the flower beds I’ve turned over, but haven’t planted anything in yet, and George actually got creative and built a dirt castle.  None of us have felt much like talking.  I know what the rest are thinking because I’ve been thinking it too.  Will we ever see Percy again? 

Percy came home from the hearing you see, the inquiry, and he was literally bouncing.  It seems that he was cleared of all responsibility for the events concerning Mr. Crouch.  Percy was deemed to simply have been doing his job.  But it wasn’t that that got Dad ticked.  Oh no.  It was the fact that Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic, has offered Percy a job working for him.

As you can well imagine, Percy is in his glory!  He was absolutely glowing with pride.  Dad, however, was worried that Fudge only wanted Percy in his office so that he would be able to keep tabs on Dad (seeing as that Fudge knows that Dad is thick with Dumbledore and is doing everything he can to discredit Dumbledore and Harry).

I think Dad’s got a point.  I mean, what qualifications does Percy have to recommend him as Junior Assistant to the Minister of Magic?  That’s a really prestigious position, and Dad was quick to point out that there were dozens of Ministry wizards who were more qualified to hold the post, and asked Percy if he didn’t think this ‘promotion’ was a bit strange, given the events of Percy’s last post.

Well, you can imagine Percy’s reaction.  He earned this position, he deserves this position, and nothing and no one, least of all Dad, is going to take that away from him.   He called Dad a lot of bad names.  He said he’d had to struggle against Dad’s bad reputation at the Ministry ever since he’d started work there, oh god, it just kept going on and on.

Finally, Percy stormed up to his room, packed his trunk with a flick of his wand and left — just like that, saying that he never wanted to see any of us ever again.

Dad just got sort of quiet — icily quiet, and locked himself into his shed.  Mum on the other hand was absolutely frantic.  She was nearly in hysterics, crying over Percy, begging Dad to please come out and go after him, and working herself into a right state.  Nothing any of us said seemed to have any effect whatsoever.

Well, I finally decided to Floo Bill.  He came at once and has been doing his best to calm Mum down and to get Dad out of the shed.  He told the rest of us to skive off.  We were all glad to comply. 

9 July 1995

Well, it’s all decided.  We’re leaving tomorrow morning for London. Bill’s found us a place to stay so that Mum can try to talk to Percy (Bill found out that he’s taken a flat there in London to be closer to work).  She insists on it, actually.  Dad says that he wants nothing to do with Percy ever again, but Mum says that it’s only right that his parents should be the ones to try first to make amends.  So, Dad says that he’ll go if Mum does, but that he’s not about to apologize for anything, that it should be Percy apologizing.  Anyway, I look at it this way, at least I won’t have to start lessons right away!

I know that sounds very petty and selfish, but when Bill announced that we would all be going to London on Monday, and that we’d be staying for an indeterminable period (so that we’d better pack our trunks, just in case we were there for the remainder of the summer) the first thing that went through my head was relief over the fact that Mum was so distracted that she wouldn’t have the time or energy to continue my lessons.

I’m sorry to be leaving my garden and my room though.  I spent most of the day today finishing up my new plot (I found a Weeping Cherry tree in the woods back behind the paddock where we practice Quidditch when we’re home on holiday, it had several saplings growing around it, so it was just a matter of digging one up), and the rest of the day packing.

I was under the impression that we’re leaving the Burrow for London because Mum wants to talk to Percy, but something I heard last night makes me think that there might be more to it than that.

I got up around two to use the loo.  Anyway, I heard voices from downstairs in the kitchen, so I used Fred and George’s trick of opening up the air vent in the third floor hall.  It has a direct connection to the air vent that opens out over the table in the kitchen.  Anyway, it’s convenient because if people are in the kitchen, you can hear just about everything they have to say.

It was Dad and Bill.  Bill was assuring him that the wards would hold, but that Dumbledore thought it best, given the circumstances, that we all be removed to a secure location.

“But surely they wouldn’t attack us just because of Harry!”  Dad sounded incredulous. 

But Bill kept talking about “how it was before” and I gathered that he was referring to when Dumbledore was in power years ago.  I guess one of Voldemort’s tactics was to target close friends and relatives of individuals whom he wanted to intimidate.  That would definitely define us then, Ron and Harry are best friends after all, and Mum and Dad have treated him like one of their own sons for years.

Given the circumstances, it’s probably a good thing no one knows about my bond with Harry then, wouldn’t you think?

10 July 1995

This has been the most bizarre traveling experience of my life, and that includes the time when I was six when Mum and I missed our Floo stop on the way to Diagon Alley and ended up in that weird Muggle’s fire.  (He’d moved into this old house see, a house that a wizard had owned once, and due to an oversight in the Floo regulatory committee, it never got disconnected.  We startled the devil out of him, I must say.  Mum had to cast a temporary memory charm on him to keep him from freaking out until we could get out of his house and then we had to use the Muggle underground to get back to where we needed to be).

Today we went by Floo powder to the Leaky Cauldron.    Here we were met by that old guy who is the innkeeper, Tom I think his name is (I always chuckle when I see him.  I can’t help but remember Harry’s first impression that he looked like a toothless walnut).  He showed us all into one of his private parlors.  Dumbledore was waiting for us. 

Dumbledore waited until we were all in the room and Tom and left before he passed around a little slip of paper that had an address written out on it in Dumbledore’s loopy writing.  

Fred of course, being Fred, asked Dumbledore flat out what this was all about, but Dumbledore just repeated himself and then added that it was imperative that Fred stop asking questions, that he’d explain everything once we got there, and that Fred should just memorize the address.

While we were still passing around the slip of parchment, Hermione walked in the door to the parlor from the bar and Ron’s jaw just about fell onto the floor.  None of us had known she was coming.  It makes sense of course, after what I heard Dad and Bill talking about early this morning.  It would also explain why we were told to bring our packed trunks.  We’re being taken to this place, #12 Grimmauld Place, for our own protection.

Dumbledore divided us into small groups, saying that each group would have to go separately by Muggle taxi so as not to arouse suspicions.  Mum went first with Fred and George.  About fifteen minutes later Dad, Ron and Hermione climbed into the next one.  Bill and I went last.  It wasn’t a very long ride, but it gave Bill and I the opportunity to have a good chat, something we haven’t had the opportunity to do for a while.  You see, even though we see each other for our dance practice every Sunday, that doesn’t necessarily mean that we have any time to really talk.  We’re usually too busy learning our new routines and moves and stuff.

Anyway, Bill’s sworn me to secrecy until he breaks the news to Mum and Dad, but he’s taken a position with Gringotts here in London.  He’s done it as a favor to Dumbledore so as to be able to help out more directly with the Order. (I asked him what ‘Order’ he was talking about, but he got very cryptic, and kept saying, “you’ll see when we get there.”)

So, Bill says he misses the tombs, but he didn’t seem too sincere in his expression of regret, and when I pressed him he admitted that this desk job does have it’s advantages.  Seems that that Fleur Delacour girl, the one that was in the Triwizard tournament last year? Seems that she’s in the next cubicle down from Bill.  When I asked for details, Bill actually blushed!  That means it’s either pretty intense or pretty serious — or both. 

I’m glad to see that he’s not pining over that last one, what was her name?  The brunette he dated after Jenny broke up with him.

Well, in what seemed like no time we had arrived in a grubby little square with this sad, wilted little patch of grass in the center and tall, dark, rather dreary looking houses ranged all around.  I know, I know, that describes half the houses in London (the other half being so posh as to make the first half sick with envy).  These houses though, they looked very much as if they had been nice once.  They’ve definitely seen better days though.

The taxi pulled up outside of number eleven and Bill paid the driver as smoothly as if he takes taxis every day of his life.  (Dad usually gets sort of twitchy when he’s dealing with Muggle money, like he thinks there is no way the person he’s handing the bill to will believe it’s real and that the Muggle policemen will call him in for fraud or something).

Anyway, it took me a full minute to realize that there was no number twelve, but just as I thought this, a door appeared out of thin air, followed by a big old house.  The whole thing just sort of appeared, if you will.  One minute it wasn’t there, the next it was.  And you want to hear the weirdest thing?  There were several Muggles out and about (one setting out a full bin bag, one washing his car and a third sitting on her front doorstep and smoking cigarettes like a chimney, and not one of them seemed to notice an entire house just appearing out of thin air.

Bill then took out his wand, tapped the door, and we were in, but a stranger, dingier, darker place I’ve never seen before in my life.

My first thought was that we’d been teleported somehow, back to Egypt.  The hall we were standing in smelled exactly like some of those old tombs that have been closed up for thousands of years, exceptm this wasn’t dry smell.  This smelled of wet rot and mold and mildew.  There was even a damp, heavy sort of feeling to the very air and every surface I touched was sticky, like it was almost moist enough for mold to grow, but not quite.

Did I say that it was dark?  Even with the old fashioned silver gas jets on the walls lit, there was a yellowy tint to the air.  I felt as if I were looking out of one of those really old Muggle pictures, tintypes.

But I didn’t have long to dwell on the house itself (except to note that the hall was done up in a dark, floor — to — ceiling paneling.  It was made of some sort of dark wood, walnut or mahogany maybe) because then I’d been taken down to the kitchen (which is in the basement) where the rest of the family were sitting around the table chatting animatedly with Professor Lupin (whom I hadn’t seen since my second year) Harry’s godfather, Sirius Black (whom I feel as if I know, but of course have never actually met) and a woman not very much older than Hermione, and barely taller than me.  She had bright, birdlike eyes and short, spikey hair that had been dyed such a hideous neon green that I had to squint when I looked at her.

Her name is Nymphadora Tonks.  She’s related to Sirius somehow, a second cousin or something.  I didn’t get a chance to really talk to her too much, Fred was monopolizing her.  But I get the feeling she could be really interesting.  She had a real bubbly, mischievous sort of personality, sort of like a female version of the twins.  Weird too, cause she, Fred and George seemed to hit it off instantly, not like a physical attraction or anything, more like kindred spirits.

After introductions were made all around, Professor Lupin stood up and gave us a sort of synopsis.  The house, he said, belongs to Sirius.  Sirius inherited it by default (he was simply the last black left alive) but it hasn’t been lived in since Sirius’s Mum died ten years ago.  Sirius had been really generous in volunteering the house for use by the Order of the Phoenix.

Then of course he had to explain about the Order.  I’d heard references made to it, but I never knew exactly what it was.  It’s a secret society organized by Professor Dumbledore.  He put it together the first time Voldemort was in power, it’s sort a resistance movement you see, people actively fighting against the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters.  It was recalled after the third task in June, and they’ve acquired several new members, and now they have a place to base their operations out of.  Their mission is to oppose Voldemort’s rise by any means necessary and to see to it that people know the truth.

Fred and George got really excited when they heard this, but Lupin made it perfectly clear that members of the Order of the Phoenix consist only of over age wizards who have completed their education.  That burst their bubble.  It was almost comical to see their faces deflate.

Anway, Dumbledore has put the house under the Fideleus charm so that the only ones who can know where it is are those he has told himself.  (Call me stupid, but I was under the impression that the Fideleus charm could only be placed on living things, people and animals and such.  It never crossed my mind that it could be placed on an object, like the house). 

The Fideleus charm makes it safe enough from outside influences, but we still have to be ultra careful inside.  Lupin says that with the house being closed up for over ten years.  None of the charms or spells that she had working were cancelled, so all sorts of nasty stuff has crept in and has been breeding.  You know, the kinds of things that feed on residual magic; doxies and pixies and such, but also, the charms that she had on different objects have gone sort of wild.

For instance, there’s a grandfather clock upstairs that will shoot bolts at people when they go by it, and then there’s the trick step on the third floor staircase, it doesn’t just trap the person’s leg now, it bites it!   So we’re not to go poking around. 

There are only three safe areas in the house, the hall, the first bedroom on the second floor, and the kitchen.

Mum says that as soon as she’s straightened things out with Percy that she’ll help Sirius in decontaminating the house.  There’s lots to be done.  Until we can get more bedrooms straightened out though, there are only two places to sleep, in the kitchen or the upstairs bedroom.

Lupin says that he, Sirius and the twins will kip on camp beds in the kitchen, and that the bedroom will have to do for Mum, Dad, Hermione, Ron and me. (Tonks lives somewhere else, I think with her parents, but I can’t be certain).

Ron (as you can rightly imagine) was rather put out.  He was all for putting another bed for himself in the kitchen, but Mum wouldn’t hear of it. I certainly hope that it doesn’t take long to get the other bedrooms in shape, sharing a bedroom with Mum and Dad is not something I find particularly appealing.  Or Ron for that matter, he snores louder than anyone I’ve ever met!

6 July 1995

I think I’ve worked harder in the last four days then I have in my entire life!  And that includes learning how to dance on Pointe!  My fingers have actually rubbed raw in some places.  Pity that we’re all under age and can’t use magic yet.  Mum’s got Fred and George helping Sirius dis-enchant all the toilets.  Grindylows in the water tank now, can we?  Nasty thought actually.

We’ve finally managed to clear out all of the bedrooms on the second floor so we all have a place to sleep now.  Well, at least it’s not as cramped as it was.  Buckbeak has the master bedroom all to himself.  Lucky bird, horse, whatever!  He’s pretty cool anyway.  This is the first time I’ve gotten to see a hippogriff up close, well, through my own eyes at any rate.  I can’t imagine that he’s happy though.  A beast with a wingspan like that should be roaming the skies, not moping about in a second floor bedroom of a dilapidated brownstone!

He likes me, or seems to.  Sirius introduced us this morning.  It seems funny to see it written like that, but introduce us is exactly what he did! 

“Miss Ginevra Weasley, I’d like to introduce you to Buckbeak.  Buckbeak?  This is Ginny, she’ll be staying here with us this summer.”

And damn if Buckbeak didn’t wink at me when he inclined his head in response to my bow!  He didn’t bow to Fred though, doesn’t seem to like him much, or to Mum.  Don’t know why, Mum love animals generally.  Perhaps it’s because she doesn’t approve of having a hippogriff in the house. He can probably sense her disapproval.  And he absolutely detests Kreacher.

Ah yes, Kreacher. . .

Kreacher is the resident house elf.  He’s old and wrinkled and is as barmy as a hedgehog in a goldfish bowel.  He wears nothing but a nasty old loincloth and goes around the house muttering in a low, croaky sort of voice.  Nothing he says is very nice, and some is downright rude.  He calls Hermione a ‘Mudblood’ which is downright nasty, but Professor Dumbledore says that he is to be treated with courtesy and respect, seeing as that we can’t set him free (he knows too much about the Order).

And about the Order!  Drives me nuts it does.  They hole themselves up down in the kitchen at least once a month.  I recognize most of them, Hagrid and McGonagall and Moody (the real Moody, the one who was locked in his own trunk for ten months!) and Lupin and Tonks, but there’s others too, most of whom I’ve never seen before, dozens of them.   They all seem really dedicated to getting rid of Voldemort, and they’ll all lock themselves up inside of the kitchen for hours every time they meet. 

I thought it would be really exciting to be living at the Headquarters for the Order of the Phoenix, but apart from a lot of people coming and going, there’s really not that much going on — that we know of.  Mum keeps us well out of the way whenever there are meetings though.  She packs us all off upstairs; forbidding us to come down the basement steps and always makes certain to lock the kitchen door behind her.  But since when has a locked door ever stopped the Masters of Mayhem?

I was right you know.  Fred and George do have a way of listening in on conversations.  They’ve invented a device called an ‘extendable ear.’  It’s a long, flesh-colored string that is charmed to magnify any noise in it’s vicinity.  You put one end of the string in your ear, then activate the device.  It literally extends itself, creeping across the floor like some sort of bizarre worm.  Then you can listen to anything that is going on within a 50 foot radius of the ear.  It’s the next best thing to being there.  I told George that, and he says they’re going to use that as their slogan for the ears when they go public. 

It looks like they’re dead serious about the whole joke shop business!  George tells me that they’re already looking at designing a line of sweets to make you ill.  Not seriously sick, just sick enough to get you out of class, they’re going to sell them by sets and call them ‘skiving snack boxes.’  They’ve already taken out ads in the Daily Prophet and everything!

Well, it’s taken all week, but the second floor is finally clean.  We had to bin just about everything that wasn’t nailed down.  There was a candlestick in the second bedroom that kept leaping off the mantelpiece and banging George on the head, no one else, just George.  In the same bedroom there were dozens of pairs of shoes stuffed into the wardrobe.  When Hermione opened the door they poured out like an avalanche, burying her up to her neck so that she could barely move.  Ron and I had to dig her out.

Fred says that there was a ghoul in the second bath in the Master bedroom, but it’s gone upstairs now, they don’t like loud noises, ghouls, unless they’re making the noises themselves, stupid things.  We have one at home you know.  It lives in the attic at the top of the house and is always groaning and moaning and making all sorts of clankings and bangings. It sort of adopted us, Mum says, when Bill was just a baby.  She doesn’t know why, but it does keep the rat population down.

Anyway, Lupin and Sirius are still downstairs in the kitchen, but now Fred, George and Ron are in the second bedroom and Hermione and I have the third.   Once we’ve cleaned out the second floor we’ll have space for everyone, and Harry too when he comes.

Yes, that’s right.  Harry’s going to be coming to Grimmauld Place for the rest of the summer.  Mum was all for Dad setting straight off to collect him, but  Dumbledore thinks it would be best to wait until after his birthday.  Seems sort of pointless to me.  I mean, the charm Dumbledore used to protect Harry, that protection spell using his Mother’s blood, it isn’t like it has a timed activation or anything.  It just works, that’s all.  He must have other reasons. 

12 July 1995

Ginny stormed up the steps to the second floor. 

What the hell was Mum on about, anyway?  She’d only made Ron, Hermione and the twins work until noon, saying that they’d worked hard and deserved a break, but when Ginny had made to follow them out of the room, her mother had called her back.

“Don’t be leaving just yet, Ginevra.  There’s a good bit more to be done.”

“They why did you let the others go?”

“Well, they deserve a break.”

“And I don’t?”

“This needs to be finished, Ginny.”

“And we could be done faster if everyone were helping.”

“Hermione is our guest, Ginny, and it’s up to Ron to entertain her.  As for the twins . . .” she shrugged.  “It’s easier to work in here with just two people, anyway.”

“But Mum!”

“Don’t argue young lady, just get back in there and finish up those cupboards.”

Ginny had grumbled loudly, but had finished scrubbing out the second bathroom cupboards.  It was absolutely pointless to argue with her mother, even at the best of times.  If only her Mum had seen fit to let her work by herself in the bath, Ginny could have called up her Elementals for help, but she couldn’t even call them silently, not with her Mum just there.  Molly Weasley wasn’t stupid, she’d be able to tell that some sort of magic was being done.

It wasn’t the work itself.  It only took her two more hours to finish the cupboards, but the shouts of laughter coming up from the boys bedroom irked her beyond measure.  They were (from the sound of the periodic bangs) playing exploding snap, and Ginny absolutely adored exploding snap.  She and Fred would usually end up beating the pants off of everyone else and play each other for hand after hand.  The last time she’d tricked him into putting a king on the pile just as the whole lot had exploded, that had won her twenty points and a grudging sort of respect from Fred, who considered himself to be ‘master of the pack.’

Why should they get to skive off, anyway?  It wasn’t as if she hadn’t done her share of the work!  Ginny scowled at a particularly stubborn bit of dirt in the back corner, and didn’t so much as blink when it turned into Dudley’s big, porky face. If she kept busy enough she was able to push whatever Harry was doing to the back of her thoughts, but when she was doing boring crap like this anything, even Dudley, was more interesting than what she was doing.

What was the big lout up to now? 

Had that been her thought, or Harry’s?  It didn’t matter. 

Dudley was on the move, he was swaggering along a tree-lined street, a pack of boys ranged around him like a guard of honor.  All of them (except one that was rather scrawny and had a face like a rat) were big and slow and stupid.

Smaller children all up and down the street scattered as they approached; all but one.  Ginny squinted at the double image in front of her.  Harry must be standing beneath a tree or something, because there seemed to be leaves obscuring her vision, she couldn’t get a clear view of the boy.  He couldn’t be any older than nine or ten though.

He stood there, hands on his hips, looking daggers at the approaching boys.

“Move it, twerp!” growled a heavy set boy whose neck (like Dudley’s) seemed to rest almost directly on his shoulders.

“Outa my way, creep!” added Dudley with a sneer.

“Why should I move?” demanded the boy bravely.  “It’s my yard.”

“Your yard?” crowed the rat boy with a shriek of glee.  “Did you hear that, big D?  He says it’s his yard!”

“Not likely, kid,” said Dudley congenially.  “Haven’t you heard?  All these yards, they belong to me.  Gotta pay rent if you’re going to play in one of my yards.”

“This yard,” said the boy with a determined air “happens to belong to my parents, not you.”

“Still going to collect my rent!” said Dudley.

“Can’t pay you what I don’t have, fatso, can I?” said the boy, rather bravely by both Harry and Ginny’s standards.

“Don’t matter,” snarled Dudley.  He nodded to the rat-faced boy, who promptly grabbed the small boy’s arms, pinioning them behind his back.  “I’ll just take my rent out of your hide, boy!”

What happened next happened so fast that Harry barely had time to register it.  Dudley’s fist flew once . . .twice . . .three times and the boy fell like a limp sack, clutching his stomach, blood flowing freely from his nose.

Dudley grabbed a handful of the boy’s hair and jerked his head up so that he was looking him in the face. 

“Let that be a lesson to you, whimp.”  He twisted his handhold of hair and the boy groaned, hands now clutching at his head.   “Never mess with big D.”

Laughing and joking, the gang sauntered further up the street, turned a corner and disappeared out of site.

Harry came out from beneath his tree, looked both ways and hurried across the street to where the small figure still lay huddled on the ground.

“Here Cecil, sit up, you’ll fee better.”  Harry helped the boy into a sitting position.  He reached into his pocket, no handkerchief, without a second thought he shrugged out of his shirt and began wiping the dirt and blood and tears from the smaller boy’s face.

“No, you’ll get you’re shirt all over blood!” protested Cecil thickly.  Harry shrugged.  “It’s just a T-shirt.  Hey, maybe this will make you feel better, this shirt?  It used to belong to the same guy who just clocked you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

Cecil looked appraisingly at the worn and dirty, glanced sideways at Harry and blew his nose on it.

Harry threw back his head and laughed appreciatively.  Ginny was well aware that it was the first time Harry had laughed since he’d left Hogwarts in June.

“That-a-boy, Cecil!”

“How’d you get that lump’s T-shirt?” Cecil asked interestedly, turning his gaze now on Harry.

“All my clothes are Dudley’s.  He’s my cousin you know.”

“Yeah, but why were you wearing his clothes?”

“Stuff he’s grown out of.  That’s what they give me to wear.”

“What who gives you to wear?”

“My aunt and uncle, Dudley’s parents.  They say it’s a waste of money to buy new clothes when I can wear Dudley’s old stuff.”

“Bit big, aren’t they?” asked Cecil curiously, holding up the gray shirt and peering in the neckhole.  “I mean, I think you could easily fit three of you in there.”

“Yeah, well, I take what I can get I guess.  Look, sorry I didn’t step in there.”

“Too many of them,” said Cecil shrugging.  “I understand.”

“It’s not that,” said Harry with a grimace.  “They would have stopped if they’d known I was around.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“Because Dudley would have told my Uncle,” said Harry, frowning at the pavement.  “And he’s even bigger than Dudley.  He locked me in my room once when I did something he didn’t like.”

“Well that’s not so bad,” said Cecil, turning the shirt inside out and dabbing at his still streaming nose.

“It was bad,” said Harry.  “They put bars on my windows and everything.”

“Well . . .”Cecil hesitated, looked sideways at Harry, then said, “don’t they have bars on the windows at Saint Brutus’s?”

Ginny could feel Harry’s temper rising swiftly.  What had Uncle Vernon done, tell the whole bloody street?

“I don’t go to Saint Brutus’s,” said Harry quietly.  “That’s just something he tells people so they won’t like me.”

“Where do you go then?”

“A school in Scotland,” said Harry carefully.  “My parents made arrangements for me to go there before they died, but my Aunt and Uncle don’t like to admit that I go to a better school than Dudley.”

“So that’s why they make you wear his old clothes and stuff?” asked Cecil hesitantly.

“Yeah, that’s about it,” said Harry, grinning.  “Looks like your nose has stopped bleeding.  Here, want me to give you a hand to your house?”

He reached out a hand, pulling Cecil to his feet in one smooth motion.

“Cecil Martin Smythe, you come in here this instant!” said a hysterical voice from behind Harry.  “My god, what have you done to my son!” shrieked the voice.  “Get away from him, Martin!  Martin!  Get out here now, that Potter kid’s beaten up our Cecil!”

“He didn’t beat me up Mum!”

“You’re all over blood, Cecil!”

“You’d better go,” said Cecil in a low voice.  “My Dad’s coming, he won’t listen to either of us.  If he thinks you hit me . . .”

“Yeah, thanks,” said Harry grinning and ruffling the younger boy’s hair.  “Stay out of  big D’s way from now on, hey?”

“Yeah.”

Harry turned and began walking briskly down the street.

“Oy, Potter!” it was Cecil, he was holding up the torn and bloodied shirt, waving it at Harry.  “Don’t you want your shirt back?”

“Nah, it’s not mine, remember?”

“Ginevra Weasley, what on earth are you staring at?”  Her mothers’ sharp tone cut through the double vision, and the tree lined street ahead of Harry faded abruptly from Ginny’s view.  She could still feel him though.  He was walking; walking quickly up Privet Drive towards his Aunt and Uncle’s house.  The sun was hot on his neck and bare back and a slight breeze lifted his sweaty hair off his forehead.

“What?”  Ginny looked around at her mother, who was pointing to Ginny’s hand.  The scrub brush had dropped out of it and had tipped over the bucket of water.  Ginny was now kneeling in a pool of dirty water.

“Why did you knock over the bucket?”

“I-”

“You’ve got to pay attention, Ginevra, now move please.  Scourgify!” said her mother, pointing her wand at the puddle.  It evaporated instantly. 

“Why can’t you just use magic on all of it?” muttered Ginny grumpily as she picked up the pail and scrub brush.

“Cleaning builds character.”

“And blisters,” groaned Ginny, rubbing at her chafing hands.

“Well, it looks to be done at any rate.  You must be tired, Ginny, go on and wash up for supper.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

“And be downstairs in twenty minutes, you can help me set the table.”

Ginny suppressed her groan until her mother was out of ear shot. 

“Where’ve you been?” said Ron as Ginny passed him going past the boy’s bedroom.

“Cleaning.”

“But we finished at noon!”

“You finished, Mum found more stuff for me to do.”

“Yeah?  What took you so long?”

Ginny glared at him. 

“Poor little Ginny,” said Fred, stepping out from behind Ron and patting Ginny on the head.  “She just can’t scrub as fast as the rest of us.”

“Fuck you,” snarled Ginny, and was rewarded by Fred’s eyebrows nearly raising themselves off of his forehead.

“What, touched a nerve, have we?”

“Look, you prat, get out of my way before I move you,” snapped Ginny.  Watching that big block of a cousin beat up that little boy had been more disturbing than she cared to admit.

“Bit tetchy, aren’t you Gin?” said Fred.

Before he could so much as draw a breath, Ginny had her wand at his throat. 

“Woah, Ginny!” said Ron, even as Hermione, who had just exited the bathroom Ginny was headed towards stopped dead in her tracks looking from Ginny to Fred to Ron and back again.

“What are you two doing?” said Hermione slowly.

“Nothing, I barely said two words to her and she pulls her wand!” protested Fred.

“You,” said Ginny firmly, and she wasn’t only talking about Fred, she knew that.  She was talking to Harry, about Dudley, even as he sat brooding in his bedroom over the state of Cecil Smythe’s nose.  “You are a great, bullying git.  I’m not afraid of you, Fred Weasley, remember that!”

One thing was for certain, Ginny thought as she locked herself into the bath and turned on the tap.  She was definitely going to have to find a private place where she could meditate or she’d be loosing her temper so fast that there’d be nothing left of her brothers but red-tinted piles of ash.

God, but this was going to be one hell of a summer.