Disclaimer- I'm a poor college student, that means I don't have enough money to buy the rights for this story. I just play around with the ideas that Rowling presents.
A/N So sorry about how long it's taken me to post this! Finals are creeping closer and my professors have decided to give a crap load of projects to us all. And I did end up having guy problems on top of that, too. I hate it when guys won't leave you alone, but that's all good now. I had to rewrite this chapter before I was actually satisfied with it. The flashback was from the original write of it, and I managed to fit it in! Happy reading all.
Chapter Nine
The Past, the Present, and the Future
A soft pattering of rain was heard on the roof of the Potter Manor, and Ginny was up in the attic closest to the sound. She had always found the rain comforting, right now she needed all the comfort she could get. Many thoughts had been swimming around in her head. Harry had told her that he might never see her again, and refused to tell her why.
It was now late April, exactly three weeks since she had last seen Harry. The house had taken on an unusual quiet with Harry's absence. Right before he left after Christmas, he had given Ginny a memory that would forever be stuck in her memory; her first kiss.
Raising her hand to her lips, Ginny could easily recall the soft, yet tenderness that had met Harry's own lips. The kiss was gentle, yet passionate. The night she had spent on the sofa with him had been well worth waking up with such a stiff neck. A look of longing came across her face as she remembered the night that it had all happened. To say the least, kissing had probably been the most innocent thing they had done all night.
"That was entertaining," Ginny announced as she flopped down on the sofa in the front room. Harry sat down next to her, trying to conceal a yawn. The night had been long, but fun. The food was almost as good as Ginny was used to, and Lily made it all.
"It's like this every year. Well, except for the fact Mab was here," Harry stated. Chuckling, Ginny leaned towards Harry, resting her head against his chest. Sirius and James had broken out the liquor, much to their wife or fiancé's dismay. And after many, many glasses of what Lily deemed "vile" liquid, the two were both very smashed. The two had gotten to tell some rather amusing stories about their days at Hogwarts.
"For the first time in years, Christmas has been enjoyable," sighed Ginny, "So, what exactly are you waiting to give me?" Her eyes sparkled with anticipation. It had been a long time ago since someone had made her wait for a certain present. The last time she could remember it happening was on her eleventh birthday, when she had received her wand.
"You were just waiting for everyone to go away weren't you?" Harry chuckled. Shifting around, Ginny sat up and looked at Harry. He got up off the sofa and picked up a small box from underneath the skirt of the tree. The box was covered in silver wrapping paper, with a small red ribbon covering it.
"Well when you said you'd give it to me later, I was rather curious what you were giving me that your siblings and parents couldn't see," responded Ginny as Harry handed her the package. Harry shrugged as Ginny gently took the wrapping paper off the present. Inside the shiny paper was a small, velvet covered box in which she found a necklace. Gasping, Ginny pulled the silver necklace out. It was a silver chain that held a small charm on it. The charm was strands of the silver metal wrapped around a glowing ball and scattered across the strands were emeralds and diamonds. Moonlight made the gemstones sparkle in the night, giving the necklace a magical feeling.
"My mum gave it to me," Harry explained as he helped Ginny put the necklace on, "My father gave it to her the day before he left the Black Estate for the last time. The necklace itself is magic, but I don't know how to get it to work. My mum gave it to me to give to the girl who managed to capture my heart. I think it will help you in escaping slavery, or at least I hope it does."
"It's too bad that you can't just give me my freedom," Ginny mumbled as she turned the charm over in her hands. The ball of light gave off a slight bit of heat, and softly glowed different colors as Ginny moved it around.
"I know," sighed Harry. "But laws are laws. It's always been that no witch or wizard can free his or her slaves. You've got to figure out how to earn your freedom. My mother did."
"Wait a minute, your mother was the only slave to escape slavery?" Ginny asked. Harry nodded slowly. "How the hell did your mother manage that? No slave has ever accomplished getting out of his or her bonds. Slaves are charmed by the Ministry to be monitored if they're doing illegal magic."
"I haven't the slightest clue how she accomplished it," answered Harry. Disappointed, Ginny leaned up against Harry. For a moment, neither of the two had a care as they sat on the sofa. In comfort, Ginny snuggled closer to Harry.
Wiping a lone tear out of the corner of her eye, Ginny took a few calming breaths. Sirius was coming over sometime today, and a few chores still needed to get done. They mostly had to do with baking something. Lily had understood that she liked to do it, and had asked her to make a few items. Standing up and brushing off her skirt, Ginny had wished she had told Harry on Christmas that she had cared for him, too. She had told him over his spring break that she cared for him, but it would have suited the moment better that Christmas night.
Carefully Ginny made her way down the rickety old stairs that led up to the Potters' attic. Last time Harry had escaped a weekend from school, he had shown her the place, saying that few people ever ventured up there. It was his last gift to Ginny so that she could be left alone for a while. The stairs that led up to the place were rotting away and a bit dangerous, but if you knew where all to step then you were fine.
When she was finally at the bottom of the stairs, she could hear Sirius in the kitchen trying to beg for Lily's forgiveness for something. Ginny had a sneaking suspicion that he had eaten something that Lily had needed. It was a usual occurrence in the household with some male eating the cooking that Lily was doing before they were actually allowed to eat it.
"What do we have here?" a voice behind Ginny asked. The voice was familiar, but still slightly unrecognizable. Is if it had been a long time since Ginny had heard it, and it had changed slightly in that time.
"I don't know, dear brother," another voice responded. A smile appeared on Ginny's face as she turned around. Her twin brothers, Fred and George were standing behind her with their usual relaxed looks on their faces. Almost nothing could faze the twins out of their odd moods. That wasn't always a good thing, but when Ginny was sad, it was almost always the twins who brightened her up.
"You're…you're alive," breathed Ginny as she looked over her elder siblings. The twins had been well fed, and from the look their muscles, well worked, too. Neither looked like they had received any kind of beatings or foul treatment from any one of their previous masters, or mistresses. Their eyes were still sparkling with mischief, something Ginny was relieved to see. Even slavery couldn't kill the happy-go-lucky spirit of the two.
Without a second thought, Ginny rushed at her brothers, quickly hugging both of them. It had been five long years since she had seen the twin terrors she called brothers. Happy wasn't the word that described what she was feeling at the moment. Her eyes started to water as she stepped back from the two.
"Well, Fred, I think our favorite sister is happy to see us."
"I agree, George. How long has it been? Two, three years?"
"No, no, more like ten."
"I could have sworn it was shorter than that. Too bad we're just poor, uneducated slaves who can't count."
"Shut up you two," Ginny laughed, "It's been five years since Fudge decided to be an ass. And five years has been too long."
"Five?" asked Fred in mock surprise.
"Oh dear, not five," George mocked. Ginny rolled at eyes at her brother's lack of maturity. Nothing could kill their sense of humor, unless you actually killed one of them. Then again, their mum had tried to end Fred and George's lives quite often with how much they had destroyed their room. And had blown up other random things at the Burrow, accidentally blowing up the kitchen had been the closest call to end their lives.
"Well I missed you two, too," Ginny chuckled. Her brothers smiled. "So have you two found anyway to escape the slavery spell?" she asked seriously.
"Our darling sister wants to know if we figured out how to escape the horrors of slavery," George said to Fred. Groaning, Ginny knew that her brother's were going to be pains in getting to the answer. It probably meant they had a faint idea of how to save themselves, but not enough of one to have a plan. That directly led to them beating around the bush, multiple times.
"I daresay we have put some thought into that effort."
"Thinking for us can be dangerous."
"Yes, yes it can. But I dare say that something good came out of it."
"Escape. Such a lovely word that all slaves long for."
"It's just a dream they all tell us."
"Freedom doesn't exist."
"Unless you count death as freedom."
"And being dead is bad."
"But there was that one slave who did manage to escape. She got pregnant by Potter."
"As you can see for us, we can't get pregnant."
"So that puts a small flaw in our plans."
"Would you two stop it and get to the point!" Ginny demanded. If she didn't interrupt, the twins would go into the history of anything and everything that related to slavery. Or just keep randomly babbling on.
"Fine, ruin our fun," mumbled Fred. Out of his pocket he pulled out a tattered envelope. Handing it to Ginny, he looked over to George so he could explain what the old envelope contained.
"We found the envelope in one of the boxes in Sirius's attic, or one of his closets. Whatever, where we found it isn't important," George said, "As you will read in the letter, it has our ticket to the way out. But it only tells us where to go, now how to get it."
Gently opening the fragile piece of paper, Ginny slipped a well-worn letter out of it. The paper was smeared with dirt and ink, and in a few places there were teardrops. Glancing it over she started to read part of it out loud, "My dearest love, I know you yearn for your freedom. You have my warmest wishes that you escape. The necklace that I gave you will open places that even I cannot dream of leading you to. If only deep within the Ministry do you head where it all began can you undone the unjust that has been done to you. You must once again reclaim your power and use it against the men who bound you into servitude." Realization dawning on her, Ginny handed the letter back to George.
"Gin, are you okay?" Fred asked. Ginny's face had paled and she was trembling a bit.
"Yeah, I'm fine," replied Ginny.
"What did you end up figuring out?" George asked, "We just found the letter and it in itself should be enough to get us freedom, right?
"Not exactly," Ginny responded, "Whoever wrote this, it was to a slave. I'm guessing it was a he too. So for the sake of my explanation the writer is a he, and the person the letter was given to is a she." The twins nodded their understanding. Ginny was giving them a warning to not make stupid comments while she was explaining what she had figured out. "But what the writer is saying is that the girl needs to go back to where ever the slavery-binding spell was cast to get it removed. So that means for us we need to get back to the Ministry, because that's where our spell was cast. Then some necklace is going to open the doors for her. How? I really don't know. But with you two, we should be able to figure it out, necklace or not. The final thing that is going to get us our freedom is getting our wands back! That's why slaves can't be freed! If we have wands then we can defend ourselves and remove the bloody curse."
"By Merlin, she's gone insane," muttered Fred. George nodded in agreement as the two looked at their sister, who was reading over the note one more time. "You're over analyzing it Ginny. There is no way that just because we get our wands back that we can become free."
"Well our wands won't do us any good unless we know the counter curse," Ginny snapped, "And I'm not losing my marbles. How many slaves do you know who have wands?"
"None, but Ginny—"
"No buts, Fred, that's why the Ministry has hold over us. Because we don't have our wands to remove the spells put on us! And very few witches and wizards have the counter curse. Each time they perform the spell, the counter curse changes, and no one knows what the overall counter curse is to free all the slaves. Old Voldemort is probably the only one who knows that. The pieces of the puzzle are coming together. You two got the note, I could possibly have the necklace, and, well I think all we need to do is find Ron," exclaimed Ginny. For a moment, Fred and George pondered the idea over in their heads. It made sense. Once a person was made a slave, their wands were taken away, and then the slavery-binding spell was cast.
"As crazy as it sounds, we'll go for it," the twins said in unison. Ginny smiled as she flung herself to embrace her brother's.
"You know what that means, George?"
"By Jove, I think I do!"
"We need to steal Ickle Ronnikins!"
"Umbridge won't know what hit her."
"Wait a minute," Ginny interrupted. The twins stopped their ranting to look at their sister. "Ron is with that horrid, horrid woman? The one who taught at Hogwarts the last year you we were there? The lady that you two wouldn't stop pranking? The very same lady that gave us all a speech on the uses of slaves?"
"The one and only little sis," George answered. A look of horror appeared on Ginny's face. Umbridge was an awful teacher, and a bit unusual with her punishments. If Ron was there, he would probably be on the brink of insanity.
"Well, since Sirius doesn't know we left, we're going to take off again. Mustn't get caught now!" Fred said cheerfully. They both gave Ginny one last hug before disappearing out of sight.
Tears of joy clouded Ginny's eyes as she walked into the kitchen where Sirius and Lily were still arguing. She had a few things to do in the area before she could once again go up to the attic to be alone. Having forced herself down the stairs had really paid off.
