Summary: When Ginny accepts the position of governess at a mysterious Manor, she gets much more than she bargains for. Although she likes her pupil and the housekeeper, she soon becomes restless and lonely. One afternoon, she helps a fallen horseman who turns out to be the owner of the Manor. G/?.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Oh please. If you seriously think I'm JKR, then please address your checks to me. The characters are hers. The story is mine. Well, that's what we all say, isn't it? ;) And the story is based very, very loosely on Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, which I haven't read in ages, so…
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Gin Eyre
The world seemed so quiet away from the Burrow, Ginny thought as the carriage bumbled along the path. She reached blindly into her robes - still secondhand, although it looked fairly new - and unfolded the parchment there. She smoothed the corners on her lap and traced the words she'd memorized by heart a week ago.
You have been accepted into the position as governess. Your carriage will be waiting at Wormswood and Cliffs St. at ten o' clock sharp on Sunday. Do not be late.
And that was all. At first, she'd wanted to just write back and say she couldn't do it - the lady sounded like a creep - but Mum had said that the paper itself was expensive enough to pay for a international standard Quidditch broom. Ginny couldn't deny the fact that she needed the money. After graduating from Hogwarts six years ago she'd hadn't been able to find a decent job, unless you counted being a clerk at Fred and George's joke shop. Hermione offered her an entry position at the Ministry's experimental potions lab, but her grades just weren't up to par. So Ginny placed an advertisement as a governess in the Sunday Daily Prophet. It cost her a pretty penny, too: two galleons per week. She had just given up hope after four weeks and no letters, when a handsome and fierce-looking eagle owl delivered an envelope, addressed by a Mrs. Jenkins. Inside were the parchment and the three short sentences printed in embossed italics. What was odd, Ginny thought, was that it wasn't written as if she had a choice.
But somehow she found herself alone on Wormswood and Cliffs with her belongings (charmed to be weightless, of course) in one hand and her Pig in the other. A minute later, there was a scream.
"Get your effing hands off me!"
A/N: Yeah, I know. It obviously isn't very long, but the next chapter reveals who owns the place, so…yeah. I know that's obvious, too. *looks around in innocence* We'll just pretend we don't remember, shall we?