Disclaimer: All belongs to JKRowling, not me. Damn.
Just a memory, lost in time
When I was young, I craved recognition. I was ambitious and rather – I am sorry to say – spoilt, not a good combination. However, how does one avoid being spoilt with six older brothers? They cooed over me, told me I could do anything and I believed them. My family was very large and poor, we burst out of the seams of our dilapidated house despite the number of times Dad added new rooms on.
I was born on the eleventh of August, nineteen eighty-one, a tiny thing with a shock of bright red hair and startlingly blue eyes (they turned brown as I got older). All this I have gleaned from my adoring brothers and the family photo album – naturally, I would have no memory of what I looked like when I was born.
My parents christened me Ginevra Molly after my mother and my great aunt (Ginevra Prewett, a venerable old lady, she always terrified me when I was small), and so I entered the big, wide world - an astounding place, full of surprises, if you do not know it.
My doting elder brothers were, in order of age, longhaired Bill, my guider and protector throughout my childhood. Bill was always on the wrong side of Mum due to his ponytail and fang earring and because of the fact that he would never settle down, find himself a steady girlfriend. After he graduated from Hogwarts, we hardly ever knew when we were going to see him next. Charlie, who comes next, is my favourite brother. Charlie was very like Bill – without the penchant for always moving. These two were the main contenders in the let's-give-Gin-everything-she-wants-and-consequently-turn-her-into-a-little-brat club along with my father.
Percy was the middle child – the forgotten one, the one who did not have a special ally in the ranks of siblinghood and who I now realize bore this with a strength that would have surprised us all – had we known about it. It was Percy who came back from his first year at Hogwarts and taught me about what he had learnt during the year – the magical properties of plants, potions, the theory of transfiguration, everything. Even at the early age of six, I had an astonishing thirst for knowledge and I drank up every last thing he told me. I was the only member of the family who stayed in communication with him when he and Dad had a huge row about loyalties when I was fourteen – but more about that later.
Fred and George, the tricksters, the jokers, were fourth and fifth in the family. They kept me laughing throughout my early years. They knew exactly how to make me happy again when I had fallen down and grazed my knee or had lost a toy and other such childhood woes. George was quieter than Fred – more sensitive than his twin. Fred made up for this by being louder and more obnoxious. Both twins, however, could not suppress an irrepressible desire to put a smile back on people's faces. Their joke shop was an almost immediate success and is now one of the most profitable businesses in the wizarding world.
Finally, there was Ron, my childhood companion, the blundering little boy who had his teddy bear turned into a spider by Fred and George and is consequently terrified by the eight-legged creatures as a result. He was the brother who was by my side through my childhood. Losing Ron was one of the worst things that ever happened to me, but lose him I did.
As you can see, I was the last child, and only girl of the Weasley family. As I said before, the entire family spoilt me, but Dad, Charlie and Bill were the worst offenders. Despite this, my first memory was of Ron chattering away to me when I was two years old, shortly before his fourth birthday. As I have said, Charlie was my favourite brother, but Ron, Ron was the one I loved the most.
I suddenly realize that people must be questioning why I said I wanted recognition, when I so obviously had the full support of a loving and caring family. Therefore, I will try to do my best to explain. Though my family adored me, I was being constantly pushed to the back, my achievements being eclipsed by the things my brothers did. Bill was head boy, had thirteen top mark OWLS to his name and top grade NEWTS as well. Charlie was brilliant at quidditch and was offered the position of seeker for England (which he turned down). Percy was also head boy and received top marks on his OWLS and NEWTS just like Bill. Fred and George set up their joke shop the moment they left school and had cleared over two thousand galleons in profit before they had been open a year. Finally, there was Ron, and who does not know about Ron? Ron had helped to save the world twice by the time he was thirteen. There are not many teenagers who can say that.
So, my brothers did these brilliant things, and I tried to be brilliant as well, but I was never quite good enough. I flew, but not like I was a bird, at home in the air – that was Charlie's forte. I got brilliant marks, but never quite as good as Bill and Percy, the cleverest of the seven of us. I was witty and could say funny things but Fred and George were the stand-up comedians of the family. As for saving the world, it was very rare that I helped to do that. I did however have one thing my brothers did not. I had a dark streak - a love of the forbidden. I adored evil and all that went with it. Do not interpret me wrongly, I do not mean that I was evil, merely that the dark fascinated me and tickled my curious nature. However, that is enough about my family, now on with my life.
I never met many other children before I was eleven, due to the fact that I was home-schooled with my brothers like most wizard children until I attended Hogwarts. I met a few of Dad's colleagues' offspring but they were always much older or younger than me. I have often thought that someone should create a Primary School for wizard children, but for some reason that idea has not occurred to anyone else.
Ron was my closest companion when we were young, that is, until he was eight and I was seven. Then he did not want to play with his little sister anymore – girls were yucky, he said. He then tagged around after Fred and George, bothering them whilst they went around committing their evil deeds and often helping them when they needed a third pair of hands. However, the twins went off to Hogwarts when I was eight and suddenly it was just Ron and I left. The house was so quiet; I still find it unbelievable. I had grown up in an atmosphere of bustle, and noise - the silence was eerie. Ron confided in me that he found it scary, and I must say, I whole-heartedly agreed with him.
The upshot of the twins going away to school though, was that I had Ron all to myself again. We spent hours and hours just playing together. We played long and involved make-believe games - it was wonderful. I was too young to know that happiness never lasts; when you want something to go on forever, it always disappears in the night.
Two years later, it happened. Ron got his letter delivered to him by an impressive screech owl, and Mum started digging out robes for him and old spell books and potion ingredients and all sorts of other things. I was so jealous I must have been green as the frog in the pond of our garden. He donned his shabby robes, picked up his battered wand and set off on a shiny red steam train to learn magic.
It would be apt, here, I think, to note what; at this stage, I believed magic to be. In my mind, I knew of three kinds of magic. First, there was the magic my father, mother, Bill and Charlie practiced and Percy, Fred, George and Ron were learning at Hogwarts. They waved their wands, and things happened. For example, broken items always mended themselves (except in Fred and George's case – they were always the ones smashing objects to pieces in the first place).
I hated this kind of magic because it was taking Ron over one hundred miles away from me and I would have no one to play with anymore. I would be always alone. For some reason, when I was younger, I had a tremendous fear of being left alone for more than an hour or so. I have no idea why this scared me so, or what it stemmed from, but the idea was there and it annoyed my family constantly. Ron especially. I used to go and climb into his bed in the middle of the night merely for the thankfulness I felt when I knew that at least someone was still there for me in the world.
On the night before he started at Hogwarts, I climbed in at about midnight, as I was accustomed to doing. "Go away Gin'," he muttered, I ignored him and huddled down but I went to him only twice more for comfort in the middle of the night after that, he and I grew up, and over the next year, the closeness melted away.
The second kind of magic I knew of was the magic grown ups never talked about and made them sad if anyone mentioned it. I knew the story of Harry Potter off by heart; I had made Mum tell it to me time and time again though I did not understand it. I knew that there had been a war before I was born that had finished when I was only two months old. I knew that Harry Potter who was a year older than me had defeated the evil wizard, Voldemort or You-Know-Who as everyone called him.
I knew people had died, though death was still a foggy concept. My mother's two brothers, Gideon and Fabian had died as had my father's brother, Bilius. My parents had many, many friends who had lost family. This magic intrigued me. I wanted to know what it was like in those dark days. Sadly, in my late teens it came to be that I was actually living what I had wanted to know, and suddenly thinking I had not needed to be so curious. There are some things it is better never to know.
The third kind of magic was my favourite magic. It was the magic that dominated the stories my father read to me when I was small. It was the sort of magic that you could do anything with. It knew no bounds, no chains of reality. There was good and evil. The evil interested me, but good always triumphed in the end. The way it was meant to. Everyone got on with their lives and forgot about what had taken place. No one was scarred like my parents and their friends.
However, I digress yet again.
We took Ron, the twins and Percy to London to catch the train from platform 9 ¾. I knew that number off by heart. I had, after all, been travelling to Kings Cross to drop off my brothers practically since I was born. It was there – at Kings Cross – that I first caught a glimpse of him, Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived. I fell in love with him the moment I saw him – or I thought it was love, now I examine it, I would prefer to call it an Infatuation. I was infatuated with his messy black hair, his bottle green eyes behind round glasses and his expression of total helplessness.
When my husband reads this, he will laugh and perhaps he will then apparate out for a while and go and tease Harry about my former 'infatuation' with him. At least, in my mind, he does that, and I am sure he would. If he could.
We waved goodbye, and then the tears started flowing. Either Fred or George (I can't remember which now) offered to send me a Hogwarts toilet seat, and I was surprised to see, a couple of months later, Errol, our late, useless owl deliver what was indeed a Hogwarts toilet seat – but that is another story. Suffice to say, noting my pleasure, Mum allowed me to hang it on the wall in my bedroom. After she had disinfected it.
I was bored without my brothers and infinitely lonely. Mum took it upon herself to teach me how to sew, knit and cook. It is safe to say, I did not take to kindly to it. I am a real tomboy at heart and if I had to be on my own, much preferred to be outside in our tree house or flying one of our ancient brooms up in the orchard (though Mum never needed to know that). Since I was six, I had been sneaking into our broom shed and stealing my brothers' brooms because they always said I was too young to fly and play Quidditch with them. I resented being wrapped in cotton wool from a very early age.
In June, Ron came home and I was amazed at the change in him. I had been subconsciously expecting it, but it still came as a shock. He, Ron, my big brother, had grown up. He had proper friends now, Harry and Hermione. He would not stop talking about them; it was obvious he loved them both to pieces – in a platonic way of course. It was Harry this, Hermione that – twenty four seven.
Then of course, there was the small fact that he had just helped to save the world. He had helped save the Philosopher's Stone, getting a decent concussion in the process. Our parents were so proud of him. Now he was my 'cool' big brother and he no time left for his baby sister. He practically ignored me for the rest of the summer, barely acknowledging my presence most of the time.
However, something else happened that made me forget my sadness at this abandonment by my childhood playmate. One sunny August afternoon, I received my Hogwarts letter. An impressive owl that looked almost identical to the one who had delivered Ron's letter the year before delivered it. I had been waiting for this moment ever since I was old enough to understand what Hogwarts actually was.
This time it was I Mum was bustling about and getting things ready for, and I was too excited to pay any attention to Ron (something he was quite put out about – I think he enjoyed me following him around and begging him to play with me). It was then that I first realized how poor our family really was, but I ignored it in my pleasure at going to the famous wizard school. I did not care that my books and robes were not new, and my telescope's lens was a bit scratched. I was going to Hogwarts! Nothing else mattered.
By half way through the summer holidays, Ron was getting very worried because his new friend, Harry (Harry!) was not answering any of the letters Ron wrote to him. Mum and Dad were just getting worried and discussing whether or not to go and find him at his aunt and uncle's, when Ron and the twins took it into their heads to go and rescue him. At the dead of night. In Dad's illegal turquoise flying Ford Anglia. Apparently, they thought Mum and Dad were not moving fast enough.
As it turned out, Harry was in dire need of rescue, but that did not stop Mum blowing her top at her three youngest sons. It was so loud; I could hear the racket from my bedroom. I have always thought it a very good thing we did not have neighbours. Mum always did have a terrifying temper, though I have not been on the receiving end of it many times.
I went downstairs to have breakfast, and you can imagine my surprise and discomfort upon finding the object of my affections sitting calmly in the kitchen, eating toast and bacon. As far as I can recall, I turned beetroot red and disappeared from the kitchen faster than I had entered it, though I have tried hard to wipe the incident from my memory (unsuccessfully, it has to be said).
The rest of that summer passed in a hazy blur. I seem to remember me sticking my elbow in the butter dish whenever Harry and I were eating at the same time and other clumsy and completely embarrassing incidents. Then there was also a particularly hazardous trip to Diagon Alley. I shall always remember that day. It was a Wednesday and it was sunny like most of August that year. Everything went all right (except for Harry getting lost in the floo network) until we got to Flourish and Blotts.
It was there that we ran into Lucius Malfoy and his son Draco Malfoy, and I first saw the strength of the ancient feud between the Weasleys and the Malfoys. I was terrified when I saw my father rolling on the floor fighting Lucius Malfoy (the only time I have ever seen his lose his cool in public). Luckily, know harm came to him or Lucius.
That was the day I got the diary.
Lucius must have slipped it into my transfiguration book when he picked it out of my cauldron. Being the innocent little thing I was, I thought some one had just left it in there and forgotten about it. You can imagine my surprise when I opened it up intent on documenting my first year at Hogwarts, and the diary wrote back.
Tom – for that was his name – was everything a girl could wish for. He was kind, he listened whilst I poured out all my worries and woes too him. Writing to him was like doing drugs. Addictive. I could not stop myself from fetching a quill, dipping it in an inkpot and filling those creamy pages with my scrawled words.
The sorting hat put me in Gryffindor after a lot of deliberation. He could sense the evil that had already started to usurp my soul and my love of darkness. I remember what he said to me whilst I had him on my head even after so many years:
Hmm...another Weasley? Different to your
Brothers...and desperate to prove yourself?
Where should you go? There is something
Lurking around you that shouldn't be there
Slytherin would suit you well, young Ginevra.
No, actually there're things coming to you that
Will test your courage to its limits.
Better, be GRYFFINDOR!
All that school year I wrote to Tom loyally, and whilst I barely noticed, he made me open the Chamber of Secrets, and attack muggle born students with quite a large snake. To this day, I don't know how he managed to blind me to what I was doing but eventually, of course, I realised that there was something wrong with my diary and I tried to flush it down a toilet. The fact that it would fall through the head of the ghost of the victim of Tom's last attack on the school who would consequently wash it out of the toilet by flooding the bathroom and therefore allow Harry Potter to find it is a bizarre and cruel twist of fate.
You would not believe how terrified I was when I saw Harry Potter picking my diary off the floor of the charms corridor where it had fallen out of his bag (this was due to an incident I will refrain from mentioning for my own sake – I will only tell you that involves a dwarf and a singing valentine from me, to him). I watched aghast, barely noticing when Draco Malfoy took the opportunity to throw a taunt or two at me. Harry put the diary back in his bag and I knew right then that I would have to do anything to get it back. I could not afford for Harry to discover how to work it. Tom might tell him all my secrets – my crush on Harry, the fact that I was attacking muggleborn students!
I managed to steal it back one lunchtime when there was no one else in the tower. I went into their dormitory and got it. It was as simple as that. I have no idea what Harry and his roommates saw the mess I had left and I have no doubt he noticed that the diary had gone but I did not care: I had my diary back and it was only then that I realised how much I had missed it. I resolved not to write to Tom though and I put the small black book from Vauxhall Road into my trunk. I attempted to turn my attention to happier subjects but however much I tried, my thoughts always drifted back to the diary lying upstairs, untouched.
One day the lure grew too much and I opened my trunk and got the book out. I sat there and just looked at it for five whole minutes before opening it. The creamy, slightly yellowed pages were still there, just as before, completely unblemished. I dipped my quill into my red ink and contemplated the page again. I knew I should not do it but the darkness called me. With a deep breath, I scrawled across the page: Hello again, Tom. It's Ginny. Did you miss me?
Four days later, Hermione Granger and Penelope Clearwater were lying petrified in the hospital wing.
I carried on writing, unwittingly pouring my soul into Tom. I grew weaker whilst he grew stronger, feeding on me. One sunny day in June, he decided enough was enough and he was strong enough to survive on his own outside of the diary. He made me go to the bathroom where I had tried to dispose of the diary earlier in the year and where I now know the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets is hidden.
He emerged from the diary and forced me to right my own epitaph on the wall in chicken's blood, write under the announcement he had made me write eight months previously, declaring the chamber open: Her skeleton will lie in the chamber forever. Cheery, I know. I should point out now that another cruel twist of fate meant that sixteen-year-old Tom was one of the most handsome people I have ever met in my entire life. Nature's little joke, I suppose. I struggled and fought as he dragged me down to the chamber but I did not have the energy for a true attempt at escape and eventually he overpowered me and I lay limp in his arms.
Whilst he was waiting for me to die, he took great delight in telling me his entire sordid life story. His full name was Tom Marvolo Riddle, the letters of which can be arranged to spell I am Lord Voldemort. He was the last true heir of Salazar Slytherin and had first opened the chamber in his fifth year at Hogwarts. I was going to die, he informed me gleefully, and he was going to help his older self return to the power he had once known.
I think I lost consciousness at some point, for the next thing I knew, I was lying on the floor and Harry Potter was standing before me, covered in blood and gore and holding a ruby encrusted sword. A large snake was lying prostrate on the floor. I took all this in and promptly burst into tears – shock, I think. Now, Harry was excellent at playing the hero to the damsel-in-distress, but when it came to dealing with the damsel afterwards, he was terrible. He hurried me up the tunnel and I am afraid I remember little else of the evening. It was all a restless blur of the red hair of my mother and father, the hospital wing and seemingly endless mugs of hot chocolate.
This may seem like an end to my story but it is not. What is to follow during my teens is far worse, if that is possible. This is not an end, but perhaps, an end to a beginning. Now I must rest, recuperate. Telling even that small part of my story had taken a huge effort. In addition, my granddaughter is at the door, demanding attention, presents – it is her birthday today. Do not worry, though. I will be back. Telling this story is something I must do. Something I need to do.