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Chapter 10

    "Ow!" Ginny sat up. She was still in her same sitting position from when she sat down—before her nap. She picked up the object that hit her. It was one of Charlie's old boots. "Stop that, Ghoul!"

    "Not until you call me by my real name!" a scratchy hoarse voice said from behind dozens of crates.

    "I don't know your real name, Ghoul!"

    "Then I won't stop throwing stuff!" he said as a mirror crashed right next to Ginny's left foot.

    Ginny groaned and reminisced about one of the tales Mr. Weasley read to her from a Muggle children's book. It was about a girl who had to guess a manikin's name or else he wouldn't give her baby back.

    Ginny glanced at her watch and it was almost dinnertime. Unexpectedly, she saw that two people entered the room below her. It was Ron and Harry. She quickly took out the Extendable Ears: Deluxe Edition, and held one of the flesh-colored strings to her left ear. It was connected to a funnel that was standing on the grimy floor.

    "If you like aliens so much, why do you want to repel them with those mad tin hats?" Harry asked.

    "Well, they only fend off the bad ones," Ron replied.

    "So simply the cute furry cuddly ones will show up?"

    "Yeah, and he will only like me. And when Crookshanks comes along, he will scare him away by revealing his sharp fangs."

    "That's rather frightening to me, even. Maybe your dad should take us to see Critters 12, and then you won't want to even think about it!"

    "Okay, then maybe one of the less cute but harmless aliens can come live here. He can be my personal butler. I'll name him Wil-mer-ikinson-artle-bee. Wilmerikinsonartlby! I can't wait to see the look on McGonagall's face when I show up for Transfiguration with him!"

    "I say you just get a house-elf!"

    "A house-elf won't make Crookshanks run for his Galleons."

    "What do you have against Crookshanks, anyway? He was right in torturing Scabbers!"

    "Yeah, but he also thinks he's Mr. Know-It-All."

    "Crookshanks is just a cat, Ron." Harry shook his head. "Didn't Fred say he was going out to get a cat for Ginny?"

    Ginny started paying more attention as the subject of her came about. She was also thrilled at the fact that she was getting her own cat.

    "When did he say that?" Ron asked.

    "While we were just downstairs and you were helping your mom with the stew. I was still on my sugar quill high, and I was asking Fred and George all sorts of strange questions. I can hardly remember them all, though. But I said something like, why does Ginny have such pretty eyes or something weird like that."

    "You think my sister has pretty eyes?"

    "Well, No--" Harry had partial genuineness in his voice. Ginny frowned.

    "So you think she has ugly eyes?"

    "No!"

    "Then what's the deal? Do you like her eyes or not?"

    "I don't know! Why does that matter?"

    "You told Fred and George she had pretty eyes."

    "Yeah, and I also said my shoes were made out of Hagrid's beard."

    "Okay, so that means you hate Ginny's eyes?"

    Harry groaned. "NO! HER EYES ARE BEAUTIFUL! OKAY?"

    Ron was shocked at those words, and then a few seconds later, he said, "I don't know what you see in my sister's eyes. They're just brown and boring."

    Ginny was so ecstatic that she squealed. She was so jovial that she arose and danced. Harry thinks I have beautiful eyes!, she thought. No one could take her off Cloud 9—no one except the ghoul. A large book hit her on the back of her knee and she lost balance and collapsed on the floor, hitting her head on the corner of an old coffee table.

    She got up and rubbed her head which now had a large bump on the right corner of her forehead. "GHOUL!"

    Harry looked up, "Is that ghoul thingy still up there?"

    "Yeah, he's making more noise than usual, probably because Ginny is accompanying him today," Ron said with a snigger. Harry refrained from laughing. Ginny forgot about the ghoul and listened in.

    "Does she really have Dragon Pox?" Harry asked.

    "I'm not even sure anymore. It seems as though she, Fred, and George were up to something, and I wish they could have clued me in."

    "Maybe she's a werewolf," Harry joked, but Ron didn't find it quite as comedic.

    "I bet she is! Fred and George probably put her in a room with another werewolf so it could bite her. One of their little experiments!"

    Ginny rolled her eyes at the nonsense Ron was talking about.

    "But there isn't a full moon, tonight," Harry pointed out.

    "Yeah, well, whatever they're keeping from us, we're going to find out!"

    "How will we do that?"

    "Don't be thick. You find your way through everything!"

    "Okay, maybe I do, but it will be five times harder without Hermione around to aid me."

    "Right, but Hermione is coming tomorrow, and I'm sure Ginny will tell her everything, and Hermione will make it ten times harder for us to find out. We better make haste."

    "What are we going to do, then?" Harry demanded.

    "Well, did you bring your invisibility cloak?"

    "Yeah."

    "Good, we're going in the attic!"

    Ginny looked straight. She was humored by the fact that Ron and Harry thought there was some brilliant scheme she and the twins were planning, but she undeniably didn't like the concept of them going into the attic and seeing her in her condition. A boil, a bump in the head, eerie glasses, could it get any worse?, she thought. Suddenly, an old dead Bludger hit her in the stomach.

    "RUMPLESTILTSKIN!" she yelled.