Disclaimer: Everything you recognise belongs to the great, wonderful JKR
A/N: I've been very productive recently, haven't I? This one's short and a little darker, and of the "What if…?" genre. And, gawp, no romance of any description. How did I do it?
The Purity of Blood
["I think Mum's got a second cousin who's an accountant, but we never talk about him" - Ron Weasley, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone]
The mediwizards arrived to find what appeared to be a crumpled rag doll lying in the shrubbery beside the rambling farmhouse, its flame-red hair standing out starkly against the vegetation.
All efforts at revival were in vain; the child's neck was broken, her spinal cord severed. She couldn't have been more than ten or eleven years old, a slim, pretty little girl who should have been on her way to Hogwarts soon enough, instead of the local graveyard.
The position of her body, and the open window immediately above her, with its flapping curtains, left no doubt as to how she had died. For anybody to take their own life was a terrible tragedy, but one so young…
Her family, who all shared the girl's red hair, stood in a huddle near the front door of the house, silent and shocked. A pleasantly plump mother, genial looking father, a tall boy wearing a badge entitled 'Prefect', twins of about fourteen, and a younger boy with a smudge on his nose. A little apart from them stood a black-haired lad with spellotaped glasses, whose fringe covered his forehead. None of them had tried to approach the body, not even to check whether she was dead or alive.
The mother clutched a sheet of parchment, bearing the Hogwarts seal, tightly in one fist. None of the mediwizards could see what was written on it, but then, they didn't really need to. Each could see in their mind the text that was printed upon it as clearly as though they had been sent it themselves.
"We regret to inform you that we are unable to offer your daughter, Virginia Elizabeth Weasley, a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, due to lack of magical ability. We suggest that you see to her enrollment at one of your local muggle schools (see list below)."
The body was transferred quickly and efficiently back to St Mungo's for tests which would prove that she had, in fact, committed suicide, although there was no doubt in anyone's mind that this was the case. They asked the parents only the most necessary questions, as briefly as possible.
The black haired boy came up to them before they left and pleaded for them to take him with them to Diagon Alley. He used to be a family friend, he explained, though he wasn't any more. He seemed deeply horrified and disgusted, and they agreed, understanding why he was so upset, yet unable to break the taboo that forbade them from speaking of it in front of the family.
As he passed, on his way back to the portkey, one of the mediwizards noticed the youngest of the redheaded children, a boy of maybe twelve years old, talking to his mother; his eyes filled with unshed tears.
"I'll miss her, Mum," he said in a quavering voice.
"You'll miss who, dear?" she replied calmly. Too calmly.
"Ginny, of course!"
"Ginny? What are you talking about, Ron? I don't know anyone called Ginny."
The mediwizard sighed and shook his head, but he could not interfere. He had seen it too many times, but he never ceased to be amazed at the lengths some families went to, just to preserve the purity of blood.
