Spoiler Warning
Potter47
Harry was dreaming. It was a good dream. Not at all prophetic, nor important to the plot, nor even alluding to some random detail that would appear in the near future. He was simply dreaming, and once he had finished, he woke up.
When his eyes opened, he smiled. It had been refreshing to be allowed to sleep without all those putrid plot-points popping into the ponderous pictures of his mind.
“Hooooooooot!” said Hedwig from outside the window. Harry didn’t know why he insisted on closing the window each night–perhaps he had a cruel streak no one had noticed but Hedwig herself.
He took the letter from Hedwig, and she watched him expectantly, as though waiting for an apology.
“Hoot?” she asked.
Harry ignored her.
Harry walked across to his bed, making sure to be quiet so as not to wake the Dursleys–(He didn‘t know it, but Hedwig purposely delivered all his letters in the middle of the night as a form of retaliation)–looking through his mail.
Fan letter... fan letter... He blinked as he came to the third piece, which was folded in such a way that it now looked like a paper accordion, (though it probably wouldn‘t play too well). It was glued on one end.
“Letter fan,” Harry determined, tossing it with the others. He had a very large dyslexic fanbase, though he hadn’t been aware until very recently–the wizard forwarding service took forever to realise that all the “Ryhar Erpott” letters were intended for him.
Just then, Harry wondered for the first time why he had never wondered how all his mail somehow came into Hedwig’s possession to be brought to him. Did she have the fore-sight to visit the dispatcher before the letter was written? Or did owls perform mid-flight stock-swaps?
Harry didn’t know, so he shrugged to let Hedwig know that he wasn’t sure of the answer to the question he had not spoken aloud, and continued to look through letters in his hand.
The only interesting bit of post was–predictably–the very last one. (Hedwig had done this too intentionally, but Harry would never know it, so it doesn‘t particularly matter.)
“To Harry, from Ginny,” Harry read from the envelope. He nodded. This was very peculiar, because Ginny never wrote him before. At least, he didn’t think so.
Tearing up the envelope said, (much to the surprise of Harry, who hadn‘t realised it was sentient),
“Harry, it’s awful–”
It sniffled, and Harry realised this was a Bawler–he’d never received one before.
“They’ve locked me up, the Muggles, it’s terrible–you’ve got to get me out–”
The envelope continued in Ginny’s distressed voice, giving him the location and address of what Harry gathered was a Muggle jail.
Harry set off at once, doubled back for the envelope, which was very damp, and began a very quick trot down Privet Drive, hoping that he was going in the right direction–by a lucky coincidence, the prison was in Little Whining, so he wouldn’t have to go far.
Harry soon became bored of the silence, so he began to sing under his breath:
“I’ve got to save Ginny Weasley, from the Muggle Jail.
I’ve got to save her from unmagical horror,
I’ve got to save Ginny Weasley, from the Muggle Jail
I’ve got to save her once again.
You can’t take my best friend’s sister,
You can’t take my best friend’s sister,
You can’t take my best friend’s sister, and get away with it....”
Harry would have wondered where the hell that came from, but he didn’t have time because before he knew it, viola, he was in front of the prison.
“Hello,” said the viola. “What are you doing here. Would you like to hear a tune? I’ve just learned Save Ginny Weasley–”
“No thanks,” said Harry, “I’ve got to–er–do something.”
He went into the jail, and amazingly, no one was home. He therefore followed the signs on the walls marked To Ginny’s Cell (or perhaps that‘s just how his mind read them) and before long, he was standing outside her barred quarters.
“Er... hello,” he said. She seemed to be asleep, laying face-down on the uncomfortable-looking cot. But at the sound of his voice, she sprang up (perhaps more springingly than she would have on a different bed) and he saw that she had tears in her eyes.
He blinked–he’d never thought he’d think that Ginny resembled an envelope, but... the resemblance was undeniable.
“Harry! You’re here! Thank goodness!” She hesitated, then shivered. “Goodness, I sound like Hermione–”
“Why are you here, Ginny?” Harry asked. “Why on earth are you in jail?”
“Oh,” said Ginny, and she looked sheepish. “Well...”
“What?”
“I sort of... I sort of spoiled book six.”
Harry blinked. “What?”
“I spoiled book six,” Ginny repeated, and then added: “in my Sink into Your Eyes contest entry. I wrote it post-HBP.”
Harry blinked again, and he felt rather nauseated, and he fell over (luckily, landing on the visitor‘s chair). A minute or so later, he had digested this enough to speak:
“How–how could you?” Harry said, and he had never looked at Ginny in this light before, this... this almost evil light. It was wholly new.
“I couldn’t help it! Have you read that book?”
Harry shook his head vehemently. “I’m waiting until the challenge is over,” he said. “I could never–”
“But you can’t blame me, after reading it–do you have any idea how difficult it is to write pre-HBP once you’ve read what happens? I mean... it’s impossible–”
“No, it’s not,” said Harry, still incredulous. “Plenty of people have done it–”
“Yes, but I’m not some Muggle fanfic author, am I? When I read it, it was like... like I’d lived it, you know what I mean?”
“Very funny,” said Harry, hardly laughing.
“I’m not kidding! It was... it was amazing, I could feel the story in my head, in my heart, in my soul, how could I just ignore it?”
“If you couldn’t, why would you write for the pre-HBP challenge, Ginny? Why not just write a separate story?”
Ginny smirked, and Harry couldn’t imagine what she found amusing. “You wouldn’t understand,” she said. “You haven’t read it.”
She was silent for a minute, as though savouring something inside, her eyes closed in a peaceful way that almost made Harry forget her clear evils and feel something for her. The tears plastered on her cheeks couldn’t be called anything but ‘beautiful,’ after all–except perhaps ‘wet’–and that little satisfied smile was simply breathtaking.
Alas, she was evil.
“God, those people on that site sure are strict. I mean, prison? All I did was spoil the damn book, and it wasn’t like they hadn’t already read it–”
“But it said it, Ginny,” said Harry, and his voice was almost...forgiving. “In bold letters, right on the front page.”
Ginny corrected him: “It was on the second page by then.”
“Still,” said Harry.
And then they were silent for a while, sitting opposite each other and just looking at each other. And suddenly, an overwhelming wave of curiosity poured over Harry, and he had to ask it:
"So...er...any of us spend any time with Madam Pomfrey this year?"
Ginny's eyes widened, and she blinked. She opened her mouth to speak--
"Not like that!" Harry interjected. "I mean, do any of us get hurt?"
"Oh," said Ginny, breathing a bit easier. Then she narrowed her eyes: "You think I’d say? After what happened to me for just hinting at character development?"
Harry furrowed his brow.
“Then... who’s the Half-Blood Prince?”
She smirked now. “Guess,” she said.
“Dean?”
She laughed a little laugh in her throat, but didn’t answer.
“Seamus?”
Ag ain, no answer.
“Oh, come on, give me some clue–”
“Curiosity killed the Kneazle, Harry,” said Ginny.
“Well, fine then, don’t tell me,” he said, half-disappointed and half-relieved.
They were silent again for an extended period of time.
“So?” Ginny said. “Aren’t you going to get me out of here?”
“How?” Harry said. “I can’t use magic outside school–”
“Just touch me through the bars and Apparate me out–”
“I can’t Apparate!” said Harry.
Ginny blinked, in an almost found-out way. “Oh, right. Hehe. I, er, forgot you hadn’t taken the Apparition tests yet–”
“I thought it was Apparation,” said Harry.
Ginny blinked again. “Oh, right. Sorry.”
Harry watched her peculiarly, but soon enough the peculiarity was gone and he was just watching her.
She doesn’t seem evil, he thought. Even if she did spoil HBP...
And then thoughts of morality turned to thoughts of–erm–other things, and Harry was struck by how beautiful Ginny was. He wondered why he’d never noticed–perhaps the bars were covering up her ugly parts, but he found that unlikely.
Ginny stood, and began pacing round her cell, and he watched her movements–almost catlike in their grace–and he knew in his heart that she wasn’t evil.
Evil is a strong word, said a voice in Harry’s head, which was very alarming and seemed almost illegally out-of-place.
And then suddenly Harry knew in his heart not only that she was innocent, but that she was the most beautiful thing in the world, and he sprang up from his chair and reached through the bars and brought her quite awkwardly to him and kissed her.
This, if anyone was watching, would have been a very funny sight. An extremely funny sight, actually. Their cheeks were all squished and their heads were bent at strange angles, and Harry looked like he had been Sticking Charmed to the bars, permanently affixed in a compromising position.
And then it wasn’t so funny any more, because the bars were gone, and Ginny was free.
They didn’t notice.
And now it seemed quite obvious (to that imaginary person that was watching) that they had been Sticking Charmed to each other.
After an unknowable amount of time, a guard appeared beside them, dressed in Potter-memorabilia (he wore a stuffed Hedwig on his shoulder like a parrot) with a SiYE cap on his head, and he said:
“None of that! This is pre-HBP, you hooligans! Can I have your autographs?”
They didn’t notice.
Finis
Author’s Note: I’m not posting this in the challenge because I’m not sure if it would be considered a spoiler. I tried not to make it one, but... it might be. Please, review, and let me know if you think it should be a real entry, and I might move it.
Please review anyway.
EDIT: Well, I've fixed one line that was determined spoilerous, so this is now officially part of the challenge. Yay!
Vote 47, it's the Prime choice!