May 18th, 1653- Weasley Manor, Wales
Ginny Weasley groaned aloud and rolled over, got her hands underneath her body and pushed upwards. It was dark—very dark. The ground underneath her was hard packed dirt and grass. She dug her fingers into that dirt.
"Harry?" She called, glancing around. She was outside, and once her eyes had adjusted it didn't seem as dark. She was alone in a field behind a massive mansion. The hill rose up with perfectly green grass, a sweeping willow tree and a verandah behind the house.
Finally deciding that she could look for Harry after she had worked out what had happened to her, she got to her feet, stumbled a moment, and then made her way up to the mansion, shoving her wand up her sleeve in case these people were muggles. After all, if this was a wizarding manor house, she wouldn't have gotten through the wards.
She knocked on the door politely, hoping that it wasn't too late at night but really having no way of telling. Her theory about muggles was shot to hell when a house elf answered the door. It stared at her for a moment.
"Blinky does not recognize the girlie, but the girlie is a mistress," the elf managed, still batting huge eyes.
"Can I speak to your master?" she blurted, hoping that she didn't sound too rude.
"Master is this way," the elf managed, opening the door further and letting her inside. "If the miss with the strange clothing with follow Blinky, Blinky will take you to Master Septimus and Mistress Persephone."
Ginny ignored the comments, unsure what to make of the elf—if she had somehow been transported somewhere where it was unusual to wear muggle clothes, then perhaps her jeans and t-shirt, with an over robe that she had been wearing when they had gone to rescue Sirius would seem unusual to it.
"Master," the elf said, leading her into a sitting room where a man in about his late forties or early fifties, probably about the same age as her father, sat with a younger woman. The woman had dark hair pulled into an elaborate updo, braids and ties around her head. The man—his hair was a bright, Weasley red, the same colour as Ginny's own.
"Good heavens," the woman said, rising to her feet. She was dressed in a very old fashioned gown, even for the wizarding world. "What on earth are you wearing, child? Come in, sit. My lord, I seem to recall that you told me that the Weasleys never had daughters. In fact, you said that any female relatives that you possessed were by marriage."
"I don't recall," the man said, also rising. He was dressed in a waistcoat and trousers, with his moderately long hair pulled into a tie at the base of his neck. "Any female relatives! But for her to get through the wards she has to be related to me—a Weasley by birth. Perhaps she is a child of my brother's union? An illegitimate. Girl," he addressed her briskly, but not disrespectfully. "What is your name? And where do you hail from?"
"Ginny—Ginevra Weasley, Sir," Ginny answered, still unclear what was going on or where she could possibly be. But this man was clearly a Weasley.
"And your parents?"
"Arthur and Molly Weasley," Ginny answered. "My mother used to be a Prewitt."
"Arthur—I know of no relative of mine named Arthur, but I sense no untruth from your lips, either." His eyes locked on hers. Ginny felt a strange probing sensation, but did not react, sure that it was her imagination.
"Persephone," the man gasped, tearing his gaze from hers. "She's from the future."
"What?" the soft spoken woman asked, at the same time as Ginny shrieked the word.
"It's all here, in her head. The year 1996. She will be born in the year of our lord, 1981."
"What—what year is it now?" Ginny asked, voice trembling. She refused to allow it to break.
"You have landed in the year of our lord, 1653," the man answered. "This is Weasley Manor. I am Septimus Weasley, the head of the family, and this is my wife, formerly Persephone Bones."
"Merlin," was all that Ginny could say.
"I've no idea how to send you back," the man, Septimus—hey, wasn't her grandfather named Septimus?—said. "I'd never even considered that it was possible. You shall have to stay here, for the time being."
"And—Harry? The person that was with me when I got sent here," she explained at his questioning glance. "We got separated. I don't know what happened to him."
"May I?"
Ginny nodded, unsure of what she was agreeing to. He grasped her chin in his hand, eyes on hers again. The probing sensation from before came back, as if someone was rummaging around in her brain. Maybe that was what he was doing? If it was, it was an obscure branch of magic—she had never even heard of it.
"He is a Potter?"
"Yes," Ginny agreed.
"Then he has probably done as you have—landed in the place where his closest blood relatives remain. I am sure that he has found Potter Manor, none the worse for wear. We shall have to check. But first, to come up with an identity for you. You are clearly a Weasley, with that hair. But your manners are atrocious, your clothing improper. And Weasleys do not have female children."
"She's yours," the woman said, speaking up again.
"Persephone?"
"If you take her in, people will simply assume that she is to you as you assumed that she was to John. She is a product of one of your affairs when you were younger. Her mother has died, and you are all that she has left. And as a daughter of the Weasley family, you thought that it was time that she was introduced to polite society."
"Of course. It's perfect," the man agreed. "But she needs a name. And some etiquette lessons. Fast."
"What's wrong with my name?" Ginny wanted to know. "And my manners—what's wrong with my manners?"
"Women do not talk back to men in this time period, Ginevra. You keep your eyes to the ground and speak only when spoken to. You are on your fifteenth summer?"
"I'm almost fifteen," Ginny answered, trying to do as he had said, with keeping her head down and avoiding eye contact.
"You shall be introduced this season, then. Starting in September. We only have three months to teach you. As for your name, well it is simply unusual. It will draw attention to you, and unless we want your true origins to be discovered, you must appear to be entirely unremarkable—a marriageable female entering her first social season. It even makes sense that I would be taking you under my wing right now, with your age."
"Oh," Ginny answered, trying for demure.
"She's hopeless," he observed, shaking his head. "Her name, however—something similar enough to hers that she can easily learn to answer to it. Guinevere, perhaps? As a tribute to her father, Arthur. We do not want you to forget where you came from," he added fondly. Ginny was grateful, but didn't like the name.
"No, I don't think that I could be Guinevere," Ginny answered. "What about Genevieve?" The name had simply popped into her head, but she liked it. She felt like a Genevieve. Septimus and Persephone were nodding along.
"Yes, Genevieve. Genevieve will do quite nicely, I think," Septimus said. "But you must do your part. I know that it will be difficult, but you must begin to think of yourself as Genevieve. We will try everything that we can to send you home, but I doubt that we will be able to."
"I-I understand," Ginny—Genevieve. She had to think of herself in terms of Genevieve now—said shakily. Ron, Hermione, Luna, Neville. Michael, who she had been intending to dump soon anyway, but was still her boyfriend. Her parents, her brothers. Harry was the only one that she might ever see again, and even that wasn't a sure thing. Maybe he had landed in a different time period all together.
"It hurts, and you will miss them," Septimus said understandingly. "But you must, child. Imagine, if the Gaunts, or the Lestranges discovered where you were from? They would try to take advantage of your knowledge. From what little I saw, the use of magic has changed drastically in the passing of nearly four hundred years. We do not have structured spells. Magic is much more difficult to master. Your spells may help you, and they may hinder you. But you must not use them in front of others."
"Of course," Ginny answered. "But my name—can Ginny not still be short for Genevieve?"
"That would be easier, of course," Septimus said. "And you were raised by a common woman. That will be your cover story. If you have been known as Ginny all of your life, of course I cannot be so cruel as to try to take that from you, when you have so abruptly lost your mother to the world. But you must introduce yourself as Genevieve. Only those that you become closest with may refer to you by your given name at all, let alone by a shortened form of it."
"Thank you," Ginny answered, trying to incline her head graciously. Her mind raced as she tried to recall everything that she knew about mannerisms in the middle ages among the upper classes. This was where it would have been beneficial for her parents to have taught her about the family traditions, but they had long since stopped following most of them. But even in families like Neville's, where they hadn't followed the old traditions, his grandmother had still taught him about them. Though she had been grateful as a child not to have to sit through hours of lessons on old and useless traditions, now she wished that they had.
"You'll get there," Septimus said, sounding amused. "Blinky!"
"Yes, Master?" The elf popped into existence next to them.
"Blinky, meet your new Mistress, Genevieve. You are to follow her commands as you follow Cadmus'. She is my daughter. She will be living here now."
"Yes, Master," the elf said.
"Show Genevieve to one of the suites in the east wing, one that is properly fit for a lady. We shall introduce you to our son, your older brother Cadmus tomorrow. He is twenty," he added to Ginny. "And we shall begin on your lessons then, as well as bring a tailor in to help you with your wardrobe. We are operating under a time limit here."
Shell shocked, Ginny nodded and got to her feet. "I—thank you. I've no idea how to proceed. How would I tell you goodnight?"
Septimus smirked slightly. "Perhaps you will become presentable after all. We shall skip that tonight—as your father and the head of your family, you would offer me a slight curtsy and back up three steps before turning to leave. The words goodnight would suffice. Since you have no skirt, you cannot do that."
"Of course," Ginny answered. "Goodnight, then."
"Good night, Genevieve."
"Oh," she said, poking her head back inside, and wincing when she realized how rude she was probably being. "What about Hogwarts? Do girls not go to school?"
"Hogwarts is a college, Genevieve," he answered bemusedly. "Women do often attend, though for shorter periods than men. It benefits them to learn magic. But you will attend Hogwarts when you are older. Magical basics, as well as other lessons are taught through private home study."
"Oh. Thank you." He nodded at her, and she followed the elf out of the room. The manor was ornately decorated. Ginny had always known that the Weasleys had, once upon a time, been as wealthy and prestigious as the Malfoys, Potters, Longbottoms or any other high up pureblood family, but their wealth had dwindled away, due to bad luck and a turn of gambling debts, long before even her father's grandfather had been born. The Weasleys hadn't always been doing as poorly as they had been in her time, but putting seven children through Hogwarts wreaked heck on a single ministry salary.
The elf let her into a sitting room with rosewood upholstery and heavy mahogany furniture. There was a single door off of the sitting room that the elf stated led to her bedchamber, with more separate doors, one leading to a bathing chamber and the other to a closet that was currently empty.
It popped out again, and came back with a dressing gown that belonged to "Mistress Persephone," and told her to settle down for the night. Suddenly, that seemed like an excellent idea. She was totally exhausted, and a part of her harboured the hope that she would wake up tomorrow in the hospital wing after their adventure, all of this having been a weird, Department of Mysteries induced dream.
She fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow, and she didn't dream.
The next morning, Ginny woke up to sun coming into the room from a strange angle—she was used to not being able to see it from her dormitory, since she had the bed furthest from the windows, and it came in from her right when she was at home. But here, the windows were widespread above her head, and the light cast down almost directly on her sleeping form.
"Is Mistress Genevieve awake yet?"
"Oh, Blinky," Ginny said, sitting up in the bed. "Yes, I'm awake."
"Blinky has been told to get Mistress Persephone. Please stay here, Mistress Genevieve. Blinky will be right back."
Ginny nodded and collapsed back onto her pillows; suddenly exhausted again. She was glad that she had landed here—she didn't know what she would have done without these relatives of hers. Probably stumbled around in confusion and gotten herself gang raped and killed—from what she understood about this time period, this was no place for a woman on her own.
"Genevieve, dear, are you awake?"
"Yes," she called apprehensively, pulling the covers up to her chest and looking over them. Persephone Weasley was young, to have a twenty year old son. Probably not even forty herself—but people married really young in this time period, didn't they?
"Oh, Merlin," Ginny muttered, sliding out of the bed to meet her. They might want to marry her off. In fact, if they were adopting her, they probably would want to marry her off. She could bear children. That was all that they were waiting for, right?
"You can call me Persephone, dear," the woman said, coming right in with a pile of fabric in her arms. "This probably won't fit you, but a few nips and tucks here and there should make it passable. Septimus has floo called the tailor—he's coming in a couple of hours. But your clothes will take a few days to be finished, and you need something to wear until then. Septimus and I have considered getting you a governess, but we will need to teach you the basics ourselves, otherwise a governess will be very suspicious about how you got to be fourteen years old, and you don't know anything about manners."
Ginny stared at it, overwhelmed. "How do I even put this on?" Ginny asked. "And how many dresses is this?"
"Just one, dear. The slip layer, petticoat, crinoline, overcoat, undergarments, corset, lower skirt and outer fabric."
"Oh my God." She simply stared as Persephone placed the fabric down on the bed in front of her and picked a white, stiff thing out of the mixture.
"Never take the lord's name in vain, child," Persephone scolded. "These are undergarments—put them on." She stood and stared as Ginny, feeling self conscious, stripped down to her bra and underwear.
"What on earth are those?"
"Undergarments," Ginny said wryly, mentally saying goodbye to comfort and sliding her panties down her legs and unclasping her bra.
"How strange," Persephone said. She took the little white short—things that Persephone offered and pulled them on, grimacing, and followed with the layer of fabric that covered her torso. Persephone looped the corset around her figure on top of it and pulled the laces in the back, nearly pulling Ginny over in the process. She led Ginny to the side of the bed and directed her to hold on to the bedpost.
Ginny gasped as Persephone pulled the corset tight. It didn't restrict her breathing, or anything, but it certainly wasn't what a person would call comfortable—every breath that she took was such an effort that it threatened to send her breasts heaving out of the top of the corset. And she certainly wouldn't be able to run in this. It was a good thing that she had left Voldemort far behind her—perhaps the only good thing about this mess.
By the time Persephone finished layering crinoline, slips and petticoats, Ginny felt like she weighed three times her original weight. Persephone finished it off by sliding an open layer of white and green accented silk overtop and fastened it with the button over her ribcage. Then she spun Ginny to the mirror.
"Oh," Ginny managed, staring at herself. Though the dress was a huge pain, she couldn't deny what it did for her figure. The corset forced it into a perfect, hourglass shape. Her breasts sat in the perfect balance, skirts falling. The lower petticoat, which showed through the over layer, was a dull, forest green, while the upper layer was white and green, decorated with vines along the pattern. Her hair was still tumbling down her shoulders, but Persephone was pushing her down into a chair and scraping that up into her fingers, twisting it into an elegant knot. "I look like I'm dressed for a fancy dinner."
"Oh, this? This isn't formal at all, Genevieve. For a social event, you would need more material, several more layers and petticoats."
"Oh, my," Ginny managed.
"Now, normally a maid or a house elf would help you with this, but for the mean time, until you understand what all of the layers are yourself, Septimus and I thought that you could use the aid of a person that understands your situation."
"Thank you," Ginny said. "Thank you so much. You've no idea what this means to me. I don't know what it's going to do to your reputation, to tell people that your husband had a child with his mistress, so thank you for that."
"That won't affect our reputation, silly girl. People do that all the time. Sometimes a family needs a backup heir. Sometimes, a man will have to marry more than one woman to accommodate another title, though that's rare. Usually an illegitimate child is good."
"Oh. I guess I need to know all of these things," Ginny said. "I always thought that my mother had taught me good manners, but the stuff that she taught has nothing on any of this."
"We'll work it out, dear girl," Persephone said, finishing her hair with a final pin and giving her a spontaneous embrace. "See, you're looking like you fit in more already. Since you were raised by a common woman, we can always use that as an excuse if you forget yourself and say something out of turn."
Persephone helped her up and gave her a pair of slippers that she slid on, and then she led her to the door.
"Etiquette starts at breakfast today," she said. "We'll teach you. Just watch."
I know what you're thinking. Seriously, I do.
Another story, Taylor? What about Harry Delacour Potter and the Goblet of Fire? It's been nearly a month since you updated that.
It's coming. It is. I swear. I'm having some difficulty getting the words to come, but I am getting there.
Or maybe you're thinking, what about The Most Unlikely Alliance Ever?
Well you definitely don't have to worry about that one. I can churn stuff out for that like a factory, since nobody takes it seriously, so things like massive plot holes don't really matter that much. People read that because it makes them laugh.
But here's my latest plot bunny—a Harry/Ginny time travel story like no other that I've ever seen! As you probably gathered from the prologue, they will make it home, when they disappear. But they'll be several years older, in love and married, and more ready to face Voldemort when he comes. That will be the sequel. Got to have them fall in love first.
~ITookTheOneLessTravelled
