Ginny's legs trembled as she headed into the kitchen. She was grateful that was no one else would be around to witness this. She couldn't believe that this was happening. She was going to be seventeen in a couple months! What witch her age
still got spanked?
"Come on Ginny, lets get this over with," she heard her mother call.
She shuddered and took another step towards the kitchen door. She had expected to be lectured by her mother for not staying in the Room of Requirement, but she hadn't expected this. In fact, she thought given the funerals, and the tragedy of losing Fred that this little incident would be forgotten. It had been over a few weeks since they had buried him. However, her mother had shocked her the night before when she told her that she would have to be punished.
She'd been laying in bed, trying to read a book but her thoughts kept returning back to Fred and all the others that had died. It had been a rough few weeks, and time wasn't healing quite yet. George was taking the loss of their brother the worst. He barely spoke or ate anymore. Harry kept himself holed up in Ron's room because of the intense guilt he felt for it all...
"How are you doing baby?"
Ginny looked up to see her mother standing in her doorway. She had been worried about her mother as well. She had lost a lot of weight in the last year worrying about them all.
"I can't stop thinking about Fred," she told her mother.
Her mother entered the bedroom and walked over to the bed and sat down.
"I can't either," she said. "Parents are supposed to bury their children, I lost Fred, I thought I had lost Harry, and then you came so close to death..." and then suddenly her expression was stern. "Ginny, we told you to stay in the room. You weren't supposed to leave. You shouldn't have been fighting in the first place."
"I didn't have a choice mum-" Ginny began remembering how she had been asked to leave the room. Sure Harry had told her that she had to come back, but still. She hadn't had a choice but to fight. She couldn't have just stood back in the corridor while hexes were shot around her.
Her mother was speaking again about how she shouldn't disobey, and she barely heard a word until her mother said:
"Which is why I am going to spank you."
"What? Mum, no! You don't understand. I didn't mean-"
"I almost lost you that night because you didn't listen. I told you that you couldn't return to Hogwarts. When you did return, I told you to stay put."
"Mum, I was asked to leave the room!" Ginny exclaimed. "I'm not a child anymore!"
She wanted to add that she had also lost her brother but her mother wasn't listening.
"No one is going to be home tomorrow morning. Hermione is still in Australia. Ron and George are going to the joke shop, and everyone else will be returning to work. Harry was asked to go to the Ministry."
Harry the prat! Ginny thought to herself. She loved him, but he was the reason why she was going to be spanked.
Ginny entered the kitchen and found her mother sitting in a chair waiting. The breakfast dishes were cleaning themselves in the sink. She was relieved to see that her mother didn't have the paddle. She had never been given the paddle herself, her parents rarely used it. It had usually been the twins who received it, and once Ron had.
Her parents had always believed spankings were a good punishment, even as they grew older. Though she was embarrassed that she was about to receive a spanking at her age, she knew her brothers had been given ones at her age as well. She knew the twins had, and Ron had.
"Mum, please," Ginny pleaded as she walked over to her mother. "I didn't have a choice."
"I told you when we got word to go back to Hogwarts to stay home. Imagine my surprise when your father and I arrived to find that you had gone with the-" her mother couldn't say the word twins though, and didn't add more.
"I'm too old to spanked," Ginny said. "And I was going to stay in the room."
"As long as you are in school and live under my roof, you are not too old. Ask your brothers that question. In fact, ask Ron why he got one the other day."
Ginny was shocked. Ron had been spanked? She remembered that her mother had sent them all out of the house, all but Ron. She had noticed her brother had been quiet that day. Why had he been punished? Was it because he had left last summer? One good thing about her parents was that they made sure no one else was around if she or her brothers were going to get it.
"Come on Ginny. Your father agrees with this," her mother said now.
This was a surprise to Ginny. Her father never wanted her to be spanked. She walked over to her mother and laid down across her lap. She was hoping given her age that she would be spanked over her clothes, but she wasn't going to get that lucky. She felt her mother lift her a little to pull of her nightgown. She felt a cool breeze on her thighs. She whimpered as she felt her knickers being lowered. There was a moment before she felt the hard smack of her mothers hand on her bottom.
It started out slowly, but then the slaps came quicker and harder. She tried to keep quiet, but it didn't work. She started to sob. Not only because of the pain, but from everything. She hadn't cried for a few weeks over the deaths. Now it was all coming out.
"All right," her mother finally said after a while. "It's all right."
Ginny stood up, tears blinded her vision. She pulled up her underwear, and winced as the fabric touched her swollen bottom. She was going to walk away but she was suddenly pulled down into her mothers lap.
"I love you and your brothers so much," she said. "I almost lost you too Ginevra. You were just inches from death. You shouldn't have had to fight, none of you. You're only sixteen, you have so much ahead of you. I'm proud of you as well, but still... you shouldn't have been there."
Ginny didn't know what to say. It had been years since she had sat in her mothers lap... not since the year she had written in Riddles diary... she had been spanked for that as well.
"I'm sorry mum," she finally said.