On Sunday morning, at breakfast, Ginny asked her Dad Harry's question.

"Hey Dad, how do you know that there isn't anything really different between us and muggles?"

Arthur Weasley looked up from his toast.

"Has someone been telling you that there is a difference?"

"No, but I know that there are some people who say that we're better than muggles. You and Mum have always told me that they're wrong, but I want to know how you know that."

"I guess I'd say that I know it because I've seen a lot of muggles, and they're all fascinating people. They're clearly just as clever as we are at coming up with new inventions, even though they don't have magic. Why, some of their ideas are so clever that we've appropriated—that means stolen—them, like the Hogwarts Express or the wizarding wireless. They've come up with all kinds of clever ways to talk to each other from far away without owls or patronuses, like the felly-tone and the kom-pewter. Lately they've even been making felly-tone's they can carry around with them! Plus, they manage to feed and house a hundred times more people than we have in the wizarding world. Being able to do all that without magic takes quite a lot of cleverness.

I can tell you that no animal, even a magical one, ever invents things like that. Muggles are certainly much smarter than any animal, and I think its pretty clear that they're smarter than the average wizard would be if you took his magic away, or we wouldn't have to take ideas from them. So clearly, the only thing to conclude is that they're just like us!"

"But just because they're smart doesn't mean they're like us. How do you know that muggles are nice people?"

"Well, Ginny, not all muggles are 'nice people'. Some of them can be quite nasty, and enjoy hurting other people. But there are wizards like that too. And wizards and muggles are both very good at hurting other people accidentally, particularly when we're scared or angry. But when you consider that pureblood wizardkind produced someone like You-Know-Who, and all the people who followed him, and that we all nearly killed each other just before you were born, I think you can say that just the fact that the muggles haven't all killed each other shows that can't be too much meaner than wizards."

"So you're saying that muggles aren't mean, because they haven't all killed each other yet?" Ginny was a bit disturbed that this was her father's best explanation.

"I'm saying that's good enough evidence to conclude they're not meaner than wizards. Unfortunately, that's not a very high bar. In actuality though, any random muggles you encounter is almost certainly perfectly nice and harmless. There are mean muggles out there, but the muggle government tends to keep them in line, just like the aurors deal with dark wizards."

Feel somewhat reassured, and having gotten a lot of information to think about from her dad, Ginny considered letting the topic drop. There was still one more question weighing on her mind, but she was not sure if her parents would appreciate her asking it. Her dad had been very responsive so far, however, so in the end, her curiosity won out.

"But even if muggles are as smart and as nice as wizards, aren't we better, just because we have magic?"

"Ginny!" cried her mother, butting into the conversation. "How can you even ask that? I did not raise you to be an arrogant muggle-hater!"

Before Ginny had a chance to rebut, Mr. Weasley talked his wife down.

"Molly, dear, It's a perfectly reasonable question. And if we don't give her answers to it, somebody else will. It's fine to have these kinds of questions, Ginny, and I'm glad you're asking us first."

"The thing is, if we can agree that wizard's aren't smarter than muggles, and we aren't nicer than muggles, then the only real reason we could still be better is because we're stronger than muggles. Nobody disagrees that we are stronger. We have magic, which makes us more powerful, and our bodies are just naturally tougher. And some wizards say that because of that, we have more rights than muggles do, we deserve to be treated better.

But that's actually a really dangerous way of thinking. Because it's really just another way of saying 'Might makes right', of saying that whoever's strongest should get their way. By that reasoning bullies are better than the people they beat up. That kind of thinking says that the ministry should be ruled by the most skilled aurors, the wizards best at fighting, even if they don't know anything about politics or leading people. That kind of thinking says that wizards who are old or injured are worth less than those who are young and healthy. A lot of people don't want to take it so far, but if you want to claim that being stronger than muggles makes us better than them, then this is where that idea leads. Ultimately, this is the kind of society that You-Know-Who was trying to bring about. He thought that he was better than everyone else just because he was stronger.

Your mother and I have a different way of thinking, though. We believe that every person, everyone who can think and feel, is equally valuable, and that if some of us are stronger, we should use that strength to help the people who aren't quite as strong. That's why I do the work I do in the ministry. I want to use the magic I'm lucky enough to have to help the muggles who don't deserve any less than I do, just because they happened to be born without magic. Does that make sense, Ginny?"

It did. Ginny wondered why she had never heard all this before. Then she realized that before she probably wouldn't have cared. She hadn't really been interested in her father's passion for muggles until Harry asked for her opinion about them. While she'd known that Harry Potter had been raised by muggles, her storybooks never made a big deal of it, and told of how he had amazing adventures with magical creatures, and was basically just like a child raised by wizards. Now that she'd talked (via writing at least) with the real Harry Potter, though, she knew that being raised by muggles had hugely influenced his life, and made him quite a bit different from children like her who grew up in the magical world. And thus, her curiosity about Harry's life had led to a curiosity about muggles.

She realized that, though she might be influencing Harry with her advice on avoiding trouble with Slytherin, he was influencing her also. She was pretty sure he was making her a better person. She knew enough to realize that what her father had just shared with her was special. For the first time, she thought she might realize why he was so excited about his work. Ginny hoped someday she could find something to be so passionate about.

"Thanks Dad. That makes sense. I think I see why you care so much about muggles now."

Her father smiled, and the conversation continued along more usual lines. Ginny remained thoughtful, wondering what kind of work she would do after Hogwarts, and vaguely feeling that her Dad's defense of muggles ought to have left her with another question.

After dinner, her dad offered to show her his newest project, and Ginny found herself unusually keen to see it. He led her out to the shed, where he had leaning against the walls several similar looking muggle contraptions, each of which had two large thin wheels, connected to each other by some kind of system of metal rods, with several other strange protrusions that Ginny wasn't quite sure how to describe. She felt like she might have seen these contraptions before somewhere, but she couldn't recall for sure where or what they were used for.

"What are those?" she asked, pointing at the objects.

"Those are what I wanted you to see!" Mr. Weasley said excitedly. "They're called 'bicycles,' and muggles use them to get around. Here, let me show you!" He took one of the bicycles off of the wall, and began to demonstrate how it was used.

"See, you sit on this part, sort of like how you would sit on a broom, and then your hands hold onto these bars, and you can turn them to change directions. But the really clever part is how they get it to move without magic. You put your feet here, and then you just keep pushing and it makes the wheels turn!"

Mr. Weasley rode the bicycle out of the storage shed and into the yard, and Ginny watched him wobble as he clumsily rode around the outside of the shed. Suddenly, he ran over a rock in the grass, lost his balance and pitched off onto the ground. This fall did nothing to diminish his good cheer: after a quick charm to heal his scrapes, he was back to describing this strange muggle vehicle to Ginny.

"I'm not very good, of course. There are muggles who can go much faster, and who don't fall off. They even have versions that run on eckeltricity like cars, and those ones can go really fast. Some wizards have learned how to ride the things before—I think that Sirius Black actually had one of the eckeltricity ones before he went bad—but I think that I actually understand how they work! I built this bicycle from parts, and as you can see, it works great!"

"Wow, that's really cool, Dad" said Ginny, slightly overwhelmed, but trying to be supportive.

"Do you want to give it a try?" he asked eagerly.

"I'd rather you let me ride a broom."

This was a topic Ginny brought up with her parents every few months. She was pretty sure that Dad wouldn't actually be upset at her flying, but Mum always told her that she was too young, and that there would be plenty of time to fly at Hogwarts and that flying wasn't very feminine, and Dad deferred to her meanness. Of course, Mum's opposition wasn't actually keeping Ginny from flying, but it would be nice to actually be able to fly during the day and not have to worry about getting caught, and so Ginny would periodically make sure that her parents' opinions on the matter hadn't changed.

"Ha, of course you would." Dad smiled. "I've actually been trying to get the bicycle to fly. I found a report at the ministry last month about a wizard who made a flying bicycle, but it doesn't say how he did it and I haven't been quite able to get the charms to work so far. I did make a pretty good substitute, though. If you prefer brooms to bicycles, you might want to give that one a try." He gestured to the second bicycle, still leaning against the wall of the shed.

"Just don't let your Mum see you."

Curious now, Ginny walked over and tried to feel the second bike. To her considerable surprise, her hand went right through the front wheel, as if it wasn't there. When she tried to touch the seat, it felt like a smooth wooden rod, rather than whatever a bicycle seat was supposed to feel like. The handlebars seemed to be the front of the wooden rod, and where the back wheel appeared to be she felt stiff bristles.

"It's a broom!" she exclaimed.

"It sure is! Give it a try. I promise not to tell Mum."

Ginny was very happy to oblige. As she twisted the broom around to maneuver it out of the shed, she noticed that its illusionary wheels were turning. To her even greater surprise, when she looked down at her legs, they appeared to be turning the pedals, even though she could feel that they were firmly clenching the broom.

"It's a pretty good illusion, isn't it?" her dad called out.

"I had to invent a whole new spell for it, and I never would have been able to do it before I built a bicycle. It makes me wonder what kind of magic we could accomplish if we really understood other kinds of muggle tools. Of course, there's probably not anything useful about a broom that looks like you're riding a bicycle, but at least now we know that its something that can be made."

Ginny rode the bicycle broom around the yard as her father rambled on, taking care not to go too fast or too high, since she didn't want to give away just how much she'd practiced. She agreed with her father that the bicycle was probably a completely useless creation, but if it let her ride a broom, she wasn't going to complain.

Despite Ginny's precautions, her Dad commented on her riding.

"You seem quite comfortable on that broom, Ginny. I think you might be a natural. I really should talk to Molly about letting you learn to fly."

"Would you?" asked Ginny excitedly.

"I'll do my best. You know how stubborn your mother is. But she let Ron ride by the time he was your age, so there's precedent."

"Thanks Dad!" Ginny jumped nimbly off the bicycle broom and gave her father a hug. He might talk a lot, and use words that were hard to understand (what in the world was a "precedent"?), and he might be a bit too interested in muggle inventions, but her Dad really cared about her, and listened to her, and tried to figure out what she wanted, and Ginny appreciated that a lot.

Harry's next letter arrived on Thursday.

24 September, 1991

Dear Ginny,

I'm not sure how to tell you what a telly is. It's a box with pictures that move, kind of like a wizard photograph, but the pictures keep changing, and all the tellies can show the same pictures at the same time. Muggles use them for news and for telling stories. The Dursleys had one and sometimes when they weren't paying attention to me, I got to watch it. I actually learned a lot from that. If I use other muggle words that you don't know, please continue to tell me. It's easy for me to forget what you don't know about (sorry about that).

You asked what I've been learning in my classes, so I guess I should talk about that too. Classes here are really cool, although they're definitely harder than my muggle school. I'm not sure how I'll keep up with all the homework now that I have three Quidditch practices a week.

I've already told you about potions. Snape has continued to be nasty. I don't like the way he teaches. He expects us to read the book before class, and then understand it, he doesn't seem to do any actual teaching. We basically just make a random potion every week. Some of them are pretty specialized healing potions, like the cure for boils, and some of them just seem completely useless, like the forgetfulness potion. Why would you want to try to forget something?

Charms is pretty neat. It's the most like I thought magic would be like, learning how to wave my wand and make things happen. Mostly we've been learning how to make lights and colors come from our wands. I'm pretty good at the practical parts, the spells seem to work as well for me as for anyone. The essays are a lot harder though. Professor Flitwick has also been drilling us a lot on the theory behind charms, and I feel like I don't get it at all. It's really cool to feel like I can do real magic, though!

Transfiguration is probably my second favorite class after charms, even though its really hard, because its the other class where we spend most of the class actually doing magic. McGonagall is almost as strict as Snape, but she's only mean to me when I've actually done something wrong, so I don't mind too much. So far we've mostly been learning how to go from one small object to another, like making matches into needles. Apparently it's easier to transfigure between things that aren't alive and are the same sizes and shapes. There's a lot of other details that go into making transifgurations easy or hard, but I don't really get those either.

Herbology's not as exciting as charms or transfiguration, but it's kind of fun too, and its nice that its not as hard. It kind of reminds me of working in Aunt Petunia's garden, but it's cool because there's so many different kinds of plants, and I'd never even heard of any of them before coming here. Professor Sprout is really nice, and when she explains it I usually feel like I actually understand how the plants we're learning about work. Plants aren't as complicated as spells.

Defense Against the Dark Arts seems like it could be cool, but it's not, because Quirrell is teaching it, and he's not cool at all. He stutters a lot, and he uses really big words, like he's trying to show how smart he is, so it's really hard to understand what he says. He also stinks of garlic (he's afraid of vampires for some reason). And whenever we practice spells, he just sits there and stares into space instead of trying to help us do them better. I still think it sounds like a cool subject, though, if we could get a better teacher.

I don't actually have to take Flying anymore, since I'm on the Quidditch team

Astronomy is kinda different, because it's late at night and on top of a tower. I'm not really sure how it's magical, though. Professor Sinistra is okay, but she makes us memorize a bunch of facts and I never know why they're useful, except for showing off. So now I know a bunch of random astronomy facts like the names of Jupiter's moons: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.

History of Magic is probably the worst class. The guy who teaches it, Professor Binns, is a ghost, and he just talks without paying any attention to what the students are doing and he's really boring. He also doesn't seem to look at our essays very hard, so I don't usually pay attention in his class. He talks a lot about goblins, I think.

I also tried to follow your advice about making more friends. I talked with more of the other Gryffindor first years. It didn't go too well, though. None of them are fun to talk with like you or Ron. I don't think any of them actually want to be friends with me.

Hermione is really bossy, and gets annoyed at all the things I don't understand from class. Dean and Seamus are always hanging out together and I felt kind of awkward trying to hang out with them. They also tried to ask me a bunch of questions about Voldemort, and how I got so good at Quidditch, and what my family was like, and I didn't really have good answers. Neville I feel kind of sorry for, because he seems like he's bad at everything, and McGonagall and Snape pick on him and he gets detention a lot. But he's not much fun to be around, because he spends most of his time on homework (even though it doesn't seem to be helping him) and he whines a lot about his Gran and the teachers, and how hard everything is for him, so talking to him just makes me feel kind of sad.

I'm not too upset about it, though. I still think I'm pretty lucky to have you and Ron (and Hagrid I guess) as friends.

Wow, this letter ended up pretty long! It's a lot easier to write 12 inches to you than it is to write them for McGonagall (which is what Hermione wanted me to do tonight). I hope you've been having a good week. As usual, I want to read your reply soon!

Your Friend,

Harry

PS: Do you want me to tell Ron that it would be nice if he wrote to his sister? I'm sure he just forgot.

Ginny enjoyed reading about Harry's impressions of the Hogwarts classes. She felt like she had learned nearly as much about them in one letter from Harry as she had in all the stories her brothers had told her. As she had many times before, she wished she were just one year older, so that she could be there experiencing the classes alongside Harry. She was sad that he was having trouble making friends among his housemates, although she wasn't surprised that most of the Gryffindors weren't quite sure how to act around a famous kid like Harry Potter, particularly when he didn't act like they expected him to, and didn't know the things they expected him to know.

Ginny was embarrassed as she read the kinds of questions that Dean and Seamus asked which made Harry uncomfortable. She was pretty sure she'd been asking the same kinds of questions when she first wrote to Harry. Of course, she knew better now, and she sincerely hoped she could do a better job of not annoying him in the future. Thankfully, Harry seemed to have forgiven her for asking him about stuff he didn't want to talk about.

Harry hadn't really written her any questions this time, but Ginny's interaction with her father over the weekend gave her plenty to write about.

26 September, 1991

Dear Harry,

Thanks for telling me about your classes. That was really interesting. I'm glad to hear that the rest of the teachers are better than Snape and that you're having fun learning spells. Don't let me distract you from your essays too much!

It's too bad you didn't find friends. Maybe you could try to meet people in other houses? I know Ron's likes to talk about how Gryffindors are the best by far, but the twins have plenty of friends in Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. They might be a little less focused on fame than Gryffindors.

The main thing I wanted to write you about today, though, is muggles! I talked with Dad about them on Sunday, and actually learned a lot. He pointed out that the fact that muggles are able to invent all these machines (like the telly) that wizards can't even understand, shows that they're pretty smart. And the fact that they manage to get along without killing each other shows that they aren't completely horrible people. They can be really nasty, but so can wizards. I mean, a lot of wizards are really mean to muggles, and we had that big war with You-Know-Who back when you and me were being born, and then back around when my parents were being born there was this big war with a dark wizard called Grindelwald.

So according to Dad, and I think it makes sense too, the only real difference between us and muggles is that we're stronger than them. And we can't say that being stronger makes us better, because that would be like saying that bullies are better than people who get beat up, or that adults are better than kids, or that the most powerful wizard should get to make all the rules, which isn't fair at all.

So Dad says that actually we should be trying to use our magic to help muggles, because they aren't quite as lucky as we are. That's what he's doing at the ministry, and I think he's right. I didn't realize it before, but Dad's job is actually kind of cool. I don't know if he really understands muggles, but I think that trying to use magic to help them seems like the right thing to do, even if they can be as messed up as wizards.

Of course, all that thinking still doesn't do me a whole lot of good, because I'm not allowed to even see any muggles, but its nice to feel like I understand why people like Malfoy don't like muggles (it's because they're bullies!) and why they're wrong. It seems like we could help muggles a lot more if we didn't have to worry about that annoying statute of secrecy, though.

Oh, also, Dad showed me a bicycle he made, which was pretty cool. Have you ever ridden a bicycle? I didn't want to try it, but he let me ride a broom he disguised to look like a bicycle, and that was pretty cool.

I hope that your Quidditch practices this week have been less painful than the one last week. I always look forward to your next letter!

Your Friend,

Ginny

PS: Telling Ron to write me wouldn't help anything. The fact that he's forgotten me is the whole problem. Last year I was his best friend! Now he doesn't even miss me. It's so not fair.

As she sent the letter off with Hedwig, Ginny paused to wonder what her year would have been like if she hadn't made friends with Harry. It probably would have been really boring and involved a lot more fights with her mum. She was quite lucky, she decided.

Author's Note: Thanks Gin110881, scrappy8, and sbmcneil for reviewing the last chapter! When there aren't many reviews, I value the feedback I get even more!

I realize that Arthur's defense of muggles is, at the very least, simplistic, but Ginny is 11 and hasn't expressed a lot of interest in this topic before.

The next chapter will start into showing what Harry's up to during a month that's completely skipped in canon. His quest to make friends will continue.