A/N: This is the first chapter of my second feature length OC story. It's about Valerie Hart, best friend and roommate of Ginny Weasley. If you've read my mini-ficlet 'Instigator' you've heard of Val H. If you haven't, it doesn't matter. Read & Review! Thanks! -Mac
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, which means I don't own Ginny. But however, I do own Val H., her family and all of her dysfunction. So it seems like I own a lot. Smiles. Life doesn't suck.
Chapter One
Dysfunctional Is My Middle Name
Hello, my name is Valerie Hart and this is my story...
I'm not quite sure where I should start. I was living in London, although I'm from the States, in a nice little flat with my roommate--and best friend--Ginny Weasley. The two of us did everything together, including having spent the holidays in each other's company. I had spent my first winter holidays in Europe with Ginny's family. I had lived with her for four months, since the previous September. This year though, Ginny wants to go home with me. I tried to talk her out of it, but she just won't have it. I knew that stubborn streak in Ginny would someday be turned on me. She is far too much like her mother. It's scary sometimes.
Why am I trying to talk her out of it, you ask? While I have an amazingly good time with Ginny's family, especially during the holiday season, I don't even have a good time with my family. So I can't expect Ginny to. My family is just difficult to understand, an outsider wouldn't be able to comprehend. I must sound weird, talking about understanding and outsiders. My family is an acquired taste. My family is crazy, and fine I'll say it, dysfunctional to the max. You really don't want to hear why. But I guess I'll tell you anyway.
It may have a little to do with the size, but not much. I have three sisters, and five brothers. I think maybe it has more to do with how many marriages and divorces there have been. And when I talk about marriages and divorces, I only refer to those of my mother and father. Shall I explain further? Might as well. My dad was my mother's third husband, and she was his second. Since they divorced, my mother has married twice more, making her total five at the current time. My father has remarried once more--though I think this will stick.
One of my sisters came from my mother's first marriage--the only one that is older than me. I have two older brothers, who are the same age, one from my mother's second marriage and one from my father's first. Together my parents had one son a year older than me and two daughters: me and my llittle sister. When my father married Sharon, his current wife, they had twin boys and a little girl. There are so many, yet the sad thing is no matter how you look at it , I'm always the middle child.
I blame most of the dysfuntion on my mother, and I know this Christmas with her is going to be a blast. Did you notice the sarcasm? She can get a little crazy during the holidays, planning all kinds of parties, get togethers, luncheons and galas. Just kidding on the last one, well not really. But I'm completely serious on the crazy planning thing. It doesn't help that Maddie--my oldest sibling, sister, whatever--got engaged like a week ago. Can you say engagement extravaganza? Two days ago, I received the itinerary for the two weeks I'm planning to spend there. It has almost every minute of everyday planned out for me and Ginny. She just laughed when I showed it to her. She thinks these "events", as my mother insists we call them, are going to be fun. I, however, know better.
These things are my mother's way of keeping close ties to her "important" friends. When I say important her, rich is impllied along with it. My mother has always been--by definition--a socialite. She's nearly a celebrity in our society. She might as well be one. Anybody who's somebody is at her annual Christmas Bash. Of course that's why she loves having all of her children there, even her stepchildren--my father's children. She even invites my father and Sharon--along with the twins and little Cecil. She must have him there to show that she can behave amicably toward her ex's. It proves their divorce never turned nasty--that's good PR for her. It shows she's the charitable, compassionate, I-love-everybody person she claims to be. Plus it doesn't make it odd that his older child, Cameron Hart is there when he has no blood relation to anyone there--or high social ranking.
But she must have him there. He is part of the duo that makes all parties fabulous. Cameron Hart--you know my half brother from my father's first marriage--and Matthew Wilson, my half brother from my mother's second marriage, are the same age. When my parents were married they were the Golden Boys, perfect in every way. Young, but perfect in every way. They have always been the best of friends since then, even after the divorce. My mother's party scene gave the two a nice playing field to become the bad ass, playboy hotties they are today. Never seen apart, as teens they whiled the female offspring of the most important wizarding families on the East Coast. Even now as young adults they retain such a status. I'm only two years younger than them, I've seen every move they've made since they grew out of their girls-have-cooties phase. They're my big brothers and the funniest people I know, besides Ginny, and it wouldn't be a party without them.
But I'm getting off track. My point was I didn't want to go, let alone take Ginny with me. I had to though, my mother begged and begged. She begged so much that she was still begging even after i said yes. Then Ginny begged me to let her come too. She said she couldn't handle Phlegm--some nickname she had for one of her older brother's wife--and Lavender. Not long ago Gin's brother Ronald, sorry Ron--he hated me for weeks after I called him Ronald for the first few days I knew him--proposed out of the blue to an old flame. Ginny says he's an idiot for doing it, says he only did it because Harry proposed to Hermione and he couldn't be left out. She pleaded with me to take her with me, repeatedly and for long periods of time without pause. Ginny thinks high society will be fun, and she misses out on it all the time. See both Ron, Harry, Hermione and even Lavender work at the Ministry and they get to experience all the 'society stuff' that comes along with the job. I finally had to give in and I regretted it the moment I said yes. I tried to talk her out of it not five minutes after I agreed to let her come. But damn her, she wouldn't let me.
So here I am, packing my bags for a trip I don't want to take, on my way to see family I don't care to see, with a person I don't want to take with me. In two days I would be in complete hell. It just has to be complicated, doesn't it? My life just can't be simple. But with the people I call family and the people I claim to be my friends, I can't expect it to be. I thought movig to a new city, country, continent would simplify things. It didn't. It only got me mixed up with Ginny and she's a big part of this problem. And if my life wasn't complicated enough as it was, it would only get worse once I was back home. I should have known.