CHAPTER NINE: BETS AND BETRAYALS

21 August 1994

Dad came home with the tickets!  Ireland vs. Bulgaria this next Monday night!  Ron and the twins are in ecstasy and even Percy was grinning like a fool all through supper.  Of course, that may have been because he got another letter from Penelope today, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

My heart plummeted though, when mum thumbed through the sheaf of tickets and said, “ten tickets, Arthur?  Why on earth would you need ten tickets?”

“Well, Bill and Charlie have both said that they’ll come.”

“With Percy, Ron and the twins, that still only makes seven of you.”

“And Ron wants to invite Harry and Hermione.”

“Nine then.”

“And Ginny of course.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Arthur!  Why would Ginny want to go to the Quidditch World Cup?  Grown men zooming around on broomsticks like they were ten-year olds.”

“There are women on both teams!” piped up Ron.

Mum looked at him as if he had just sprouted an extra head.

“And it’s ruined their reputations!” declared mum.  “Look at that Ivanova girl, the breakup with her last boyfriend was all over the papers.  Fame went right to her head.”

“She’s good, mum, they all are!” insisted Ron.

“That has nothing to do with your sister, Ronald.  A school game is one thing.  It’s more of a social than anything else, but why on earth would she want to go to a professional game where they take it all so seriously?”

I couldn’t stand it any more.  “Because Ginny likes Quidditch!” I said rather angrily.  “And she wants to go.”

“Nonsense, Ginny, I need you to help me get the shopping done at Diagon Alley tomorrow.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but Dad beat me to the punch.

“Now Molly, let her go.  How often will she get the chance to see the Quidditch World Cup?”

“Yeah,” said Ron, and promptly dropped a bombshell that rendered mum incapable of refusing me.  “Ginny’s got to come or Hermione’ll have to sleep all by herself in her tent.”

Mum, who looked as if she’d been about to refuse again, stopped with her mouth slightly open.  She hadn’t considered the fact that by refusing to let me go she might be causing problems for a guest.

“Oh, all right then,” she said rather angrily.

Damn!  It never occurred to me that mum would think I didn’t want to go, or that I shouldn’t be interested in Quidditch!  Not want to go to the Quidditch World Cup?  Not be interested in the most exciting sport ever invented?  Is she mental?

Thank God for Dad is all I can say, and Ron of course.  I don’t know whether it was Ron’s intent to help me, or if he was really thinking just about Hermione, but it doesn’t matter.  I am going to the Quidditch World Cup!

After breakfast Mum and Ron and I walked down to the village.  Mum and dad agreed to sent Harry’s aunt and uncle a letter by regular Muggle post, asking for their permission to take Harry to the World Cup.  You should have seen the envelope when mum had finished with it!  Ridiculous!  It was completely covered by Muggle stamps (all sorts they were, and all of them came from dad’s collection).  I know enough about Muggle post (there is a benefit to having Harry inside my head) to know that you only need one stamp on a letter, provided that it is the right sort of stamp.  I tried to explain it to mum, but I don’t think she thought I knew what I was talking about, so to be certain she covered the damn thing with half of dad’s stamps.  And then of course even Ron didn’t know Harry’s address.  Mum was about to go back to the house (she said that dad had it written down somewhere) but I rattled it off for her.  She looked as if she were about to ask how it was that I had memorized Harry’s address, but then just smiled at patted me on the head. 

I hate it when people do that, pat me on the head. It makes me feel like a two-year-old, or a cat.  I always like to imagine that cats curse people out whenever they pat them like mum patted me.  That’s why their ears go flat. 

I stopped by Madam Bletchley’s for my final costume fitting.  I know Ottery St. Catch Pole isn’t a big place, but there are enough people in the surrounding area to put together a good sized crowd for the recital.  Can you believe that this will be my first actual performance?  Mum has always found a reason for me not to participate before.

Bill Apparated in just after supper.  We’ll be going over our routine one more time in the morning.  We agreed to do an intro number for Miss Bletchley’s program.  I haven’t told anyone about this.  It’s supposed to be a surprise.  Dad and mum promised that they’d come weeks ago, and Bill will be there of course.  I don’t know about the others.  Ron will come if Hermione does, but I don’t know about Fred, George or Percy.  And Charlie, well, Charlie isn’t really interested in dance. 

22 August 1994

Ginny sat bolt upright in her bed, both hands clasped over her forehead.

“Shit!”  It felt as if someone had rammed her in the forehead with a white-hot poker, it stung!  Fighting back tears, Ginny kicked off her covers and stumbled across the room to where her mirror hung over her dressing table.

She peered into the mirror, squinting her eyes against the dim light from the nearly full moon shining in her bedroom window.  Nothing looked wrong, her forehead still seemed smooth and blemish free, although for a second she was almost certain that the moonlight had caught a glimmer of emerald in her eyes instead of her familiar amber-brown. So what the hell had happened?  Ginny sank down onto the edge of her bed, cradling her stinging head in her hands.  The dream came back to her in disjointed fragments.

A dark, dingy room, firelight flickering across the walls and two men, one of them short, with a balding spot on the back of his head.   The short man and a voice, a high, cruel voice. 

She knew that voice.  It was Tom’s voice, a voice that still haunted her dreams with horrible suggestions and twisted glimpses of terrible things. 

The short man (it was Peter Petigrew, she could tell when he turned his face away from the fire) was talking to the owner of the voice who was sitting in a large, wing chair in front of the fire.  They were speaking of — of killing someone.  They had already killed someone else (they said a name — a name that slipped out of her mind as soon as she’d heard it) and were planning on killing someone else.  “Come Wormtail, one more death and our path to Harry Potter is clear.”  They were planning on killing someone else before they killed Harry.

And then there had been a snake, a huge, diamond-patterned snake that looked simply to be allowed, and another man, an old man with a dodgey hip and a walking stick and a look of terror in his eyes. 

He had killed the old man. 

Somehow Ginny knew that wasn’t the death that Tom’s voice had been speaking of, the “one more death” before their way to Harry was clear, but Tom obviously was not about to let this old man, or anyone stand in his way of what he was planning to do.

“It’s just a dream!” she whispered to herself, head still buried in her hands.  “Just be thankful that it wasn’t the one where Tom forces his way into your head!”

Ginny shivered and climbed back into her narrow bed, pulling the covers up to her chin and trying desperately to go back to sleep.  She needed her rest, she had a long day ahead of her.   Hermione was coming this afternoon . . .and the recital . . .

22 August 1994

I gave the performance of my life this afternoon.  Both my solo and my duo with Bill were performed perfectly and, since Muggle mirrors never lie, I knew that I looked perfect.  Even the photographer who took our individual pictures before the recital seemed impressed.

So there I was, with the rest of the performers, on stage for the final bow, and there’s cheering an clapping and the house lights come up and I look out, out into the audience and I see — no one.

Well now, there was quite a crowd of people, at least two hundred or so, but look as I might I couldn’t find a single familiar red-head among them (although there was a moment when I was certain that I had caught a glimpse of red at the very back of the auditorium).

At first I thought that I had to be mistaken.  I mean, mum and dad promised after all, it wasn’t like they didn’t know about the recital, I’ve only been talking about it non-stop for the last two weeks!  They’d promised, they were out there, I was certain of it, they were just behind someone is all. But as the audience began to trickle away through the exit doors, I could feel a leaden weight growing in the pit of my stomach.  They hadn’t come.

And I was almost right.  When I came out of the dressing rooms Bill was waiting for me, his dance bag over his shoulder and beside him was — George!

“You did make it!” I said, and I must have sounded rather pitiful, because he gave me a huge hug and presented me with a bouquet of wildflowers he’d obviously picked on the way, he’d even tied them with one of his own shoe laces (to judge from the way his shoe tongue was flopping about).

“For the best damned dancing I’ve ever seen!” George said gruffly as he handed me the flowers.

I’ll tell you one thing, whoever the girl in his dreams is, she’s going to be one lucky lady.

We walked home together (Bill conjured up another shoelace for George so he wouldn’t trip).  When we got to the front garden, George muttered something about needing something from the shed before he came in, so Bill and I walked in to find the house in an absolute uproar.

It appeared (from the luggage stacked beside the stairway and the deep voice booming from the kitchen) that Charlie had just arrived, and Percy was having a fit because mum was going to put Charlie up in Percy’s room.  In fact, everyone was so busy that they didn’t seem to notice Bill and myself coming in, or the fact that I was carrying two costumes over my back, or that Bill and George and myself had been gone for most of the afternoon. 

To my complete surprise, George himself was sitting at the kitchen table, looking as if he’d been there all afternoon.  He barely glanced up with Bill and I walked in.  How he got there ahead of us, I have no idea, but I found his silence strangely alarming.

Bill got cornered by mum, (who was still going on about which room Charlie would be staying in) and so I went upstairs by myself, feeling rather ignored and sorry for myself.  

I found Hermione unpacking in my room.  She said that dad was out in the shed pulling apart some small kitchen appliances that the Doctors Granger had given him (which explains what happened to dad).  And Ron came bursting in, waving a bit of parchment and yelling about how the Muggles had said Harry could come and that he’d be there tomorrow.

Just then mum stuck her head in the door.  “Oh there you are, Ginny dear!”    She was all flushed and slightly out of breath.  “I need you to come down right away.  There’s ten for supper tonight, and I haven’t even started.  I thought I’d make chicken casserole and if you’d put together a pudding, and see to the table.  Hermione, dear, are you settled in properly?  Is there anything you need?”

“I’m all set thanks-” began Hermione.

“You know where the bathrooms are?  Ginny can show you, won’t you dear?”  Without another word she bustled out again

I stood quite still, afraid to move in case it triggered the scream that was building up inside of my head.  Mum hadn’t even remembered.  My own mum hadn’t even remembered that I was having my first dance recital,

“Ginny?”  Hermione’s voice was quiet and tentative.  “Ginny, are you all right?”  But her sharp eye had taken in the dance bag and the costumes slung over my back and the two bouquets of flowers (the roses from Bill and the wildflowers from George) in her hands.

“Oh my god, was the recital tonight?”

I nodded mutely.

“What time?”

“Three.”  I was rather embarrassed to find that my voice was trembling slightly.

“I’ve been here since two!” said Hermione, her eyes suddenly blazing.  “And I asked Ron where you were, and he shrugged and said that you were probably off somewhere doing Bill’s poofter thing.  I thought you were practicing!  Oh God, Ginny, I’m so sorry!  I really wanted to see it!”

That was the last straw.  The icy anger that had been building up inside of my thawed abruptly, turning into tears.  I threw myself, sobbing, onto my bed.  Somehow, I wasn’t surprised to hear the sudden splattering of rain against the windows.  Trust the elements at least to sympathize with me!

Not that Hermione didn’t, but she didn’t try to coddle me, either.  She simply let me cry, sitting beside me on the bed and running her fingers through my hair and listening to my sobs compete with the rain drumming on the windowpane.

“Did anyone come?” asked Hermione quietly as I sobbed myself out.

“Well Bill of course,” I managed, hiccupping slightly.  “We did a number together, Miss Bletchley asked us to.  It was really good.”

“I bet!”

“And then George turned up.

“George?”

“Yeah, weird, huh?  I didn’t think he would be interested, but he said he really enjoyed it, he gave me these and everything.”  I motioned to the wildflowers beside the bed.

Carefully, Hermione got up and put the nosegay in a cup of water and sat it down on the beside table.

“The roses already have their own little stem cups,” she said, indicating the tiny green plastic vials attached to the end of each stem.  “But the wild ones will fade soon if they don’t get some water.  I bet the performance was beautiful though, want to tell me about it?”

“Ginny, mum’s on a rampage!” said George, bursting into the room without so much as a knock.  “She said she told you to come down and help her with supper ages ago, and wants to know what’s keeping you — blimey, why are you crying?”  He looked genuinely startled to find me in tears.

“You of all people should know the answer to that!” said Hermione in a dignified voice.  “At least you had the decency to show up, George, I suppose I’m going to have to seriously reconsider my original opinion of you as an insensitive prat.”

“Hermione, what are you on about?”

“It’s still a crime!” said Hermione hotly, “that out of a family of nine, only two of you show up to your sister’s first dance recital!”

George pulled back as if he’d been slapped in the face.

“You mean — that, that was tonight?”

“You were there, George,” I told him, wiping at my still streaming eyes.  “Or did you forget already?”

“Well no, of course not!”

“I have to give you credit, George,” said Hermione sweetly.  “At least one of you lot was kind enough to remember your only sister.”

George, looking thoroughly chastised, withdrew from the room as if all the ghosts of Hogwarts were after him.  I could hear him clattering off down the stairs.

“Now Ginny, I want you to tell me everything!” Hermione insisted once George had left. 

And I did.  You know?  I do believe that I may just have found a friend in Hermione Granger.

23 August 1994

Harry arrived today.  He came just in time for supper  (after a bit of a tussle with the Muggles).   Mum kept asking me why I kept ducking and sniggering while I was making up Harry’s camp bed (the damned ornaments coming at my head, and Dudley’s tongue!) and he’s grown, Harry has!  Not a lot, mind you, but enough so I could tell the difference. 

Do you want to hear something embarrassing?  When I saw him, I had the sudden urge to throw myself into his arms.  Damn, but wouldn’t hat have been a sight?  Poor Harry would probably never have spoken to me again!

I have to admit, it’s one thing to know what he’s thinking and feeling, even when he’s miles away.  It’s another thing altogether to keep looking and acting normal when he’s right there in front of me.  Damn.

So I made certain to sit as far away from him as possible at the supper table and to keep myself busy with conversation.  Mum helped, inadvertently mind you, by starting in on Bill, who was sitting next to me.  She doesn’t like it that he’s let his hair grow, or that he’s now wearing an earring (he’s had his ear pierced for ages, but the stud he usually wears when he’s at home is barely noticeable).

I have to chuckle.  Harry’s first impression of Bill was that he was ‘cool’.  Bang on, Harry!  Just wait till he gets to know Bill better.  Cool doesn’t even begin to cover it.  Bill is awesome!

He talked to mum and dad last night, Bill did, after everyone had headed off to bed, and asked them why no one else had showed up to my recital.  I only know that he toalked to them because they both apologized to me profusely at breakfast.

They both had perfectly reasonable excuses, and while I know that they love me, and I know that keeping track of seven children and all of their activities and concerns can’t be easy, and while I know that their apologies were sincere, I couldn’t help but feel that while I still love both of them desperately, something is now missing from what I feel for them.  Something is — different.

Ah well, can’t let the doldrums ruin the expectation of tomorrow’s match!  It’s going to be absolutely fantastic, I can feel it! 

24 August 1994

With a twinge of jealousy, Ginny watched as Harry, Ron and Hermione set off for the water spigot on the far side of the camp.  Always together those three, and what she wouldn’t give to be included in their little clique. 

She wondered vaguely what would happen to the friendship if any of them developed a serious romantic interest outside of the trio — or inside of it for that matter.  How would Harry react if Ron were ever to get his act together and tell Hermione how he really feels?

“Come on you three, firewood!”  Her father’s voice cut through her musings, bringing her back to earth with a jolt.

With surprisingly little grumbling, Fred and George headed off to the woods at the top of the field, Ginny tagging along behind.  By the time she had caught up witht hem, the twins had already collected a good sized pile of deadwood.

“Why don’t you take this bit back, Ginny,” said Fred brightly.  It was hard to miss the significant look he shot at George.

“Take it yourself,” Ginny snapped.  “I’ll find my own wood, thanks.”  And she immediately bent to her task.

“Nice try,” she heard George mutter from the other side of the gorse bush.  “But I don’t think it matters, Fred, she won’t rat on us.”

“Can’t take that sort of chance,” replied Fred, also in a near whisper.  “If anyone finds out this will cost us more than House Points Georgio.  It will probably land us in Azkaban.”

“This is the best chance we’re going to get!” George hissed.

“But if anyone sees us . . .”

“We can trust her, Fred.”

“Fine, you go then.”

Ginny stuck her head out from behind the gorse bush just in time to see George give the tiny gold object on the chain around his neck a final twist before he disappeared into thin air.

“Bloody hell!” she exclaimed before she could help herself.

Fred spun around, obviously startled.

“Now Ginny, don’t get your knickers in a twist, you didn’t see what you thought you saw.”

“Like hell I didn’t!” said Ginny bluntly.  “That was a time turner!”

Fred did a doubletake.

“You’ve seen one before?”

“Yeah, but how did you get your hand on one, those are restricted!”

“Answer my question first,” said Fred, now smiling slightly, “and I’ll tell you where we got ours. Where have you seen one before?”

“Hermione had one, last year,” said Ginny quickly.  “She was using it to get to all her classes.  But she turned it in at the end of the year, she said she couldn’t take the hassle anymore.”

“Well, that explains what it was doing in McGonagall’s office then,” said Fred, shrugging.  “She called us into her office at the end of the year, bawling us out for setting off fireworks in the common room, you know, like we do every year.  She’s getting good at the reprimands, I must say.”

“And it was right there,” George was back.  He was grinning from ear to ear.  “Couldn’t resist something like that in plain sight, and it’s Ireland, dear brother of mine, but Krum caught the Snitch.”

“You’re winding me up!”

“Should be some good odds on a long shot like that!”

“You can say that again!”

“Wait a minute,” said Ginny, staring at the pair of them.  “You’re using that,” she pointed at the tiny gold hourglass on George’s chest, “to place a bet on the world cup?”

“Already done,” said George, grinning broadly. 

“But that — that’s changing the future!”

“Just our future,” said Fred.

“And for the better at that,” added George.

“But-”

“It’s done, Ginny,” said Fred.

“The only ones who saw me were the three of us,” said George, “and we were expecting me, so there you are.”

Still trying to wrap her brain around this concept, Ginny sagged onto a nearby stump, her head in her hands.  She was forcibly reminded of the events of just barely two months ago, when Harry and Hermione had used Hermione’s time turner to go back in time and rescue Sirius Black and Buckbeak the Hippogriff.

“God damn, George, we could all be in so much trouble if anyone found out!”  Ginny groaned.

“Nobody is going to find out.”

“You stole a time turner!”

“Liberated,” corrected Fred.

“Temporarily borrowed,” amended George.  “And it’s not like we’re going to keep it after all,” George added.

“Yeah, we’re not completely stupid,” interjected Fred.  “McGonagall isn’t Filch, after all.”

“What are you going to do?” said Ginny acidly, “walk up to her and say, ‘oh, by the way Professor, I just happened to pick this up off your desk by mistake, I certainly hope you won’t suspect me of doing something illegal with it!’”

Fred sniggered.

“No, actually,” said George.  “We’re going to wait until school starts then sneak back into her office and hide it at the bottom of a drawer.”

“She’ll never even know it was gone,” chimed in Fred.

Ginny raised her eyebrows.

“Okay, she’ll know its gone missing, but when she finds it she’ll just assume that she misplaced it,” explained George.

“Oh, great, then she’ll be even more uptight than she already is!”

“Yeah, that thought had crossed our minds,” said George, frowning slightly.

“But it’s a small price to pay for financial independence,” concluded Fred.

“And what do I get out of all of this?” asked Ginny innocently.

“Aiding and abetting!” smirked George.

“Yeah, shouldn’t be worth more than five to ten in Azkaban.  We can all three of us learn Morse Code,” said Fred, sniggering.  “Send messages by banging out codes on the bars.”

“It’ll be a lifetime sentence for the both of you, maybe even the death penalty if mum finds out!” warned Ginny.

“Yeah, well, name your price,” said Fred warily.

“You want to use the money you win to open a joke shop, right?”

“She’s good!” said George to Fred, then to Ginny, “that’s our eventual plan, yeah.”

“So you’ll be stocking merchandise, trick sweets, joke stuff.”

“And your point is?”

“Well, seeing as that the year after this is your two’s last at Hogwarts, and seeing as that I’ll still have three years to go . . .well, someone should take up the slack.”  Ginny shrugged delicately.

“Brilliant, Ginny!  Keep up the family tradition!” chroteld Fred.

“We’ll keep you stocked, free of charge,” agreed George, grinning more broadly still, “And we’ll teach you the tricks of the trade!”

“Good to know someone’s interested,” said Fred.  “Can’t trust Ron to do it, not while he’s hanging out with Miss Top-of-the-year Granger.”

“Watch it, Fred, I’m top of my year too you know.”

Yeah, well, that’s different,” said George brightly.

“And why’s that?”

“Because,” began George.

“Because you’re,” added Fred.

“Ginny!” they finished in unison.

Their arms full of firewood, the three of them made their way back toward camp.

“George, can I ask you a question?” asked Ginny as he helped her to stack the wood Fred and her father weren’t using to start a fire beside the boy’s tent.

“Depends,” said George warily.

“Did you really remember to come to my recital?” asked Ginny, watching her brother closely as she spoke, “or did you use the time turner to go back to see it once you’d realized that you’d missed it?”

“Hey,” said George, hedging the question completely, “at least I came!”

25 August 1994

Home again, home again.  Mum was frantic!  She met us in the front garden, all tears and hysterics.  She was scared to death by the reports in the Daily Prophet about the Dark Mark showing up after the game last night.

Dad tried to comfort her with hugs and hot tea laced with whiskey.  She was just calming down when Ron ruined it by pointing out that she must have known we were okay because of the clock.  He had a point, but mum lost it altogether.

“It’s only a clock!”  she screamed, then burst into tears, and muttered things about how was she supposed to know what sort of effect Dark Magic could have on it and on and on and on.  I didn’t think it was ever going to end.

It was a pretty hair raising night.  The match itself was incredible!  Even knowing how it was going to end didn’t spoil the excitement of the actual playing any.  I’ve never seen playing like that, it was fantastic! 

And as if the match itself wasn’t breathtaking enough, the size of the stadium was almost overwhelming!  The closest thing I’ve seen to it, was the view of New York City from the top of the World Trade Center.  (I went with mum and dad to a conference in New York once when I was six).  I’ll never forget how overwhelming it was to see all those buildings, and then to think of all the people that worked behind each of those little windows . . .

And then there were the number of people in the stadium, and the vendors with all their merchandise.  I must have been pretty exhausted, what with getting up early and the walk and everything, because Hermione said that I fell asleep at the table after the match while we were having hot chocolate.

We hadn’t been asleep for more than a couple hours when the entire mood of the camp changed.  It went from gleeful celebration to inebriated madness in the blink of an eye.  There were Death Eaters, you could see their robes, and they had the Muggles that lived at the bottom of the field floating up above their heads, twirling around like bizarre puppets.  Sick bastards.

Dad sent the lot of us up to hide in the woods, I think his concern was partly that he didn’t want any of us getting trampled (they were trampling or blasting any tents that got in their way) and partly the fact that they were torturing Muggles, and that Hermione, being a Muggle-born, might prove to be a tempting target.

Well, we got up to the woods, and George pulled me and Fred into a dense thicket as soon as we made it into the tree line.  A moment later there were two George’s, one holding my hand and breathing heavily from the run up the field, the other standing in front of us, looking rather amazed at the fact that he’d just traveled forward in time about 14 hours.

“Who won?” the second George asked abruptly.

“Ireland,” said Fred at once.

“But Krum caught the Snitch,” added George.

Even as the second George’s cry of “you’re winding me up!” was falling on my ears, it occurred to me that if we could just get him a message, tell him what had happened here tonight, there might be a way to prevent what had happened with the Muggles.

“George?”

Both of them turned to look at me.

“George, something happened here tonight, you need to tell dad-”

A sudden explosion from the crowd in the camp, and a bolt of light which hit a tree not three feet from where I was standing, took us all by surprise.

“Can’t stay,” said the second George hurriedly. 

“George, wait, I have to tell you-”  but he was gone.  “Damn!” 

“Come on, Ginny, we need to get deeper in, don’t want to end up as a tree frog or something.”

By the time it had all sorted itself out, I forgot all about asking the twins to go back and warn dad.  And, since it’s all worked itself out — nobody got hurt after all — there’s no point in trying to convince them to go back now.  They’d just get into trouble themselves.

Ah well.  It could have been worse.  Lots worse, and at least they will get there joke shop out of all of this!  So while mum rambled on about how worried she’d been, I climbed straight upstairs, fell into bed, and slept till nearly four this afternoon.