CHASING GINNY: The Many Flames of It Girl and Holyhead Harpies' Chaser Ginny Weasley
By Margarita A. Li
Damn is it hard to keep up with the red-haired vixen that makes a splash on every magazine. I'm lucky I have my sources; else we'd never be able to explain why Ginny Weasley is so damn popular.
Sorry, love, I know you'll hate it, but the fans of The Q's and A's magazine are dying to know: how DID you manage to become a popular Quidditch player to international supermodel to dignified spokesperson and still have time to eat, sleep and drink?
So we're tracing our steps all the way back to our lovely Miss Ginny's days at Hogwarts. After ditching her awkward shell and proving she is just as good as her six other brothers, who provided her with more than enough friends to drool over, including hilarious announcer Lee Jordan and the heroic Harry Potter, Ginny began dating Michael Corner, who would become the youngest head of the Magical Games and Sports Department ever; and after that, budding artist Dean Thomas, and after that, fellow young model Blaise Zabini, who actually gave Ginny her first big break, and in her final year of Hogwarts, things started to pick up and Ginny had no time for boys anymore!
So Ginny, at the young age of barely seventeen, began starring in the eye-catching and provocative Insomnia handbag ads, which began circulating in men's magazines across the wizarding world, from Play to Young Bachelor's Digest to even The Q's and A's. The fan letters poured in as Howlers from each of her family members warned Ginny of falling flat on her face if she didn't make strategic career moves. So after one last visit to a Hogsmeade photographer, Ginny began concentrating on her Quidditch.
Strategically, indeed.
Ginny was drafted before you could say 'Gryffindor', and before the year was over, Ginny had three contracts under her belt: Insomnia handbags, the Holyhead Harpies, and Mounted shoes. Soon, the shockingly fresh-faced ads began to surface from their male-targeted roots to regular circulation, from billboards to ads in women's magazines and mentions at Quidditch games.
While Ginny trained, her popularity grew, and a Prides draftee introduced her to Kirley Duke, the lead guitarist of The Weird Sisters, and the two instantly began dating. Ginny's eleven-month relationship with the prince of magic's rock airwaves cemented her as a punk princess and landed her yet another ad account, this time for Laces and Nets, a popular brand of a new style.
The romance fizzled as Ginny's career became more than just flashing the cameras a smile in popular clothing, shoes and with, of course, the perfect accessories. Kirley and Ginny are still 'good friends', constantly still being seen together to this day in London's most fashionable shops and cafés. Some speculate the pair have been on-again, off-again, but each respectively have had many flings to follow.
While playing hard-core, Ginny managed to meet and snare another rocker, Dominic Freyr, whose roots to the Harpies was fan-based. The romance ended as Ginny reached her twenty-first birthday and the Harpies lost out in a second-to-last round of playoffs for the League Cup.
Ginny became quite the party-girl, seen at every hot spot whilst following her first love, Quidditch, and shopping at the finest stores for jewelry, as she got many free clothes, shoes and bags from her ad campaigns. Hope arose for another romance with fellow Quidditch player Artemis Signy, but their four-month fling ended when Signy and Ginny were matched against each other in the League's All-Star Playoffs for the International Team.
Ginny, now twenty-two, is on the league's fourth ranked team and her popularity only seems to be mounting, forgive the pun. Do we have hope for the Glory Girl, as fan magazines have begun to refer to her? Of course. Only time will tell if Quidditch will tell her who is the one.
NEW DRAFT REGULATIONS TO PROVIDE INJURED TRAINEES MORE TIME
By B.B. Finley
The Public Relations Department of the British and Irish League Draft released a statement late last week that read:
"We are more prepared to deal with individual problems now that politics have settled down and we are thus expanding the cut-off age of the draft to twenty-five. Some injuries in the past have prevented bright players from getting their proper opportunities; as well as the Second War has kept some of our bravest and best from even considering their drafting cards. With the draft now enlisting players from the age of sixteen to twenty-five, we are also providing a lot of injured current players an opportunity for salary until they can heal."
The announcement has not come without controversy. The Boy-Who-Lived, Harry Potter, has returned from a three-year Auror mission in America to catch the dying last of You-Know-Who's free supporters, was one of the cleverest Seekers in Hogwarts history, being the youngest house team member in a century when he made the team in his first year.
When we reached the Public Relations Department of the British and Irish League Draft, the new vice president, Ronald Weasley, looking spiffy and somewhat nervous, told us that Mr. Potter's return was announced to the department came after the statement was released. While this is true, fans of Quidditch who attended Hogwarts during Potter's six-year engagement on the team can't help but be hopeful that Potter may join, for example, the Holyhead Harpies, breaking the infamous tradition of the Harpies only hiring witches to play for them, but for the legendary Potter, rules and traditions have nearly never been upheld.
It should be noted that the Harpies' star Chaser was seen giving the Boy-Who-Lived a more than affection kiss upon his return on the streets of Muggle London.
TWO
Molly Weasley dropped the magazine like a hot potato. Fred and George Weasley smirked at each other.
"Ron got promoted and didn't even owl!" Molly exclaimed and the twins' evil grins dropped almost instantaneously. They looked back to Charlie with huge puppy dog eyes.
"Just wait." Charlie mouthed to them, rolling his eyes as he did a crossword in the Quibbler.
"Harry's home!" Molly exclaimed happily a moment later. Fred and George's smiles stretched once more.
Simultaneously, the Weasley women screamed.
"I cannot believe she did that!" Both screamed, about two entirely different reporters.
"What?" Three entirely different men asked with innocence too pure to be their own.
"This—this—this article!!!"
"She put photos of me when I was in school and from when I was drafted—when I was dating you, ew!"
"She kissed Harry and worst—they got it on camera!"
"Oh, please."
"Mum, you kiss Harry."
"Oh, shut up, Kirley. It isn't your awkward teenage pictures they're publishing in a Quidditch magazine, mind. You'd think they'd stick to Quidditch."
"Oh, shut up, Charlie. It isn't your daughter they're talking about."
"There're still photos of me in there!"
"She's my sister, you know!"
"There's only one solution." Both said at the same time, standing up and having an obviously hereditary cold glint in their eyes. "Christmas. This will all be settled at Christmas."
Ginny hustled onto the pitch for the last pre-Christmas hols practice with a new glow about her, a basket tucked under her arm.
"Weasley, do you insist like smelling of gingerbread when we've all been starving!" Her team's manager, Roger Davies, growled, before attempting to kiss the lovable redhead on the cheek.
"Well, fine, I don't have to feed you my little men that absolutely JUST came out of the oven." Ginny pulled off the thick golden cloth keeping the heat in, and the beautiful scent was released into the air and all of the players crowded around the girl eagerly. Hands reached into the basket and Ginny got the last three until another hand reached in.
"Oh, we have a visitor. But I'm sure you already knew that." Roger said, his voice slightly muffled, him having gingerbread in his cheek.
"Hi, Ginny. Good gingerbread. Nearly as good as your mum's." Harry cheekily said, appraising the little woman dressed in green Quidditch robes with a gold talon streaked across the front.
Ginny smirked, taking a gingerbread cookie for herself. "It's her recipe, the best I can hope for is nearly as good."
"Wonder if that's the cycle." Harry said after a moment.
Ginny raised one eyebrow quizzically at her friend. "What would you mean, my love?"
Harry had to stop himself from scowling. Ginny hadn't been a trendy, London city girl when he had left, but then again, he had probably changed himself.
"I mean, if the recipe has deteriorated more and more since the original, I suppose the original was enough to knock you out. Then again, your mum probably got progressively better, having done the recipe over and over again, so in time, you should be able to do the same. You know, cook and knock someone out."
"That's not the only thing I can do to knock you out." Ginny muttered with a smirk.
Harry Potter's brow furrowed as his former teammate and best friend's sister mounted her broom suggestively, and his eyes darted first to the ground in his confusion, and then back up to the feisty and petite little vixen punching at the Quaffle as if it were light as a feather.
Was she flirting with him, or was she just messing with him?
He took another bite of her gingerbread Quidditch player.
"Mum, I'm fairly sure he can take it." Ron said, rolling his eyes as his mother bustled about the kitchen worriedly.
"I'm pretty sure she's been over him since she was thirteen, Mum." Percy added monotonously from behind a book.
Their mother stopped to stare at her third eldest child with sad eyes and a bright smile. They had patched things up in Ron and Harry's seventh year, when the Second War made it hard for Percy to find loyalty within the Ministry as he worked his way up. Percy returned to his family to get the 'family man' appearance required for the International Magic Cooperation Department, and he was made ambassador to America, and when he crossed the pond, he had taken a Dark-Lord-defeating Harry Potter with him.
"I'm just worried about him. He's no match for Ginny's charm. She can grasp the best and the brightest in her clutches in less than six hours—"
"You'd think you were talking about some scarlet woman you read about in the scandal sheets rather than your own daughter." Charlie commented as he ran a finger through his mother's cookie batter.
"She's getting to be no more than some spoiled heiress hopping about London with different men every week and—"
"Mum, she was with her best friend." Charlie protested in a slightly frustrated and strangled voice.
Ron reached for the latest copy of Young Bachelor's Digest, one of his favorite magazines. He was shocked to find the back cover emblazoned with his sister's barely clad curvy figure, in high heels and lingerie revealed by open robes.
"Underneath it all, I'm in Love. Are you? Love Lingerie: London, Paris, New York, Los Angeles, Milan, Hogsmeade. The perfect stocking stuffer." Ron read with inquisitive disgust. "Ugh, that was not a pre-meal image."
"Who's the hot redhead?" Fred asked whilst passing the magazine with a quick glance. "AH! AH!"
"Put it away!" George exclaimed when he too read the words, Ginny Weasley, Holyhead Harpies Chaser.
Fred grabbed at the magazine and tossed it into the fire, hitting Harry Potter on the cheek.
"AH!" Harry cried, Ginny's cheeks (and not the ones on her face) flashing before him. The magazine fell into the fire promptly and Ron turned.
"Could've owled us when you knew you were coming home, mate." Ron greeted good-heartedly.
"What in bloody—excuse me, Mrs. Weasley—what the HELL was that?" Harry demanded, his eyes wide behind his thin glasses, horrified.
"Just another of Ginny's ads." Charlie answered reasonably. "Quite scary, really."
"Harry, my love!" Molly bustled over to the fire, stirring her batter all the while. "How've you been?"
"Well, I—"
"You're coming up for Christmas, naturally."
"Naturally, I just—"
"Make sure to pass on word to that wild daughter of mine, I mean honestly, she's just—"
"Harry, mate, how were the States? Ginny said you came and saw a game of hers up there when she was on the national team." Ron continued, cutting his mother off and receiving a thwap on the head.
"Yeah, it was great when they beat those Yanks. I can't remember much about the after-party, naturally, you know…" Harry's eyes scanned the room. "Tell me, Ron, is Gin dating anyone?"
Molly gasped and scowled, and Fred grinned.
"No, she isn't, Harry, why do you ask?" George asked innocently, whilst his twin whistled a happy tune.
"Oh, no reason, it's just she and that…Kirley fellow she was dating before I left were out in London together looking pretty cozy if you ask me…she looked a mite guilty about it when I said something." Harry told them with a grin. Percy's chest puffed out greatly.
"I never liked him. Too old for her."
"Exactly!" Molly chorused.
"What on earth have I done to have my ears burning so?" A female voice asked in the doorway, and there the girl stood, in the flesh, looking like a warm bundle of soft fabrics with presents stuffed under her arms and suitcases in gloved hands. Harry's eyes turned to see the ravishing girl, having obviously just walked up the hill from the village, snow settling on her hair and the light from outside and the fire striking it just right. Her cheeks were rosy, as was the tip of her nose. "Harry Potter, I swore I thought I told you to come here for Christmas. Are you still in London being an old busybody? It is three days before Christmas, and I'm expecting you this very evening in this house to test my gingerbread cookies."
Harry gaped at the girl in the doorway and shook his head, the appendage disappearing from the fire with a pop.
That very evening the Weasley living room and kitchen were bustling with people. All five of the grandchildren were crowded into the living room, eating their packed little plates on the coffee table, barely able to fit, what with their bachelor twin uncles trying to entertain them, their youngest uncle's fiancée trying to cradle the baby delicately and the Christmas tree touching the ceiling with piles upon piles of presents lining the floor beneath it.
Bill and his wife Fleur had already retired upstairs, glad they had a night off from their five-year-old, three-year-old and newborn, which Hermione and the twins were sharing duty of. Charlie and his wife Nala had also opted to take their supper upstairs, their own twins being a handful, even though they were six and their younger brother was three. Ron eventually decided to join his fiancée in the living room, leaving Percy, Molly, Arthur, Ginny and Harry in the kitchen.
"Harry, dear, if you don't mind my saying, I'd watch out for Ginny if I were you." Molly whispered whilst she served Ginny's second batch of gingerbread Quidditch players that evening.
"Hmm?" Harry asked, not sure his ears were clean.
"She seems very sweet but she's really—well, she's a bit—fast, if you know what I mean? All I can do is not approve, I can't make that stubborn little girl do anything. She's been managing her life from her sixteenth birthday and trying to get her to settle down is like fighting a dragon with no weapons." Molly shook her head. "I wish she would settle down, but she won't. Don't let her fool you into thinking she will."
"What do you think, Harry? As good as my mum's?"
Both Molly and Harry looked up guiltily and Harry realized his cookie had gotten cold while Molly had been talking to him.
Harry took a bite. Surprisingly, it was better than Molly's.
"Tastes great!" Harry replied, and Ginny grinned. Both Molly and Harry's smiles drooped at the sight of the size of her smirk.
"That can't be good." Molly whispered.
Harry woke up at about eleven that evening to pounding at his door. He was in part of the expanded part of the Burrow, where the 'singles', meaning Percy, Harry, Fred, George and Ginny were being housed. He searched for a proper pair of pants, but Ginny marched right in anyhow.
"What have you been telling my mum?" She asked in an almost sultry voice, flinging her pajama-clad figure down on his bed.
"I thought you were in Love." Harry said after a moment, finding it the most appropriate comment at the time.
"What the bloody hell gave you that impression?" Ginny hissed, sitting up.
"It said so in the ad." Harry replied, shrugging. Her eyes narrowed in the dark.
"Very funny."
"Well, it seemed like quality lingerie, I don't see why you don't wear it down here—"
"Would you like me to wear it?" Ginny asked in an almost innocent voice, standing up and glaring at her friend.
"Why do you always do that?" Harry demanded in a loud whisper, rushing up to her as if the other 'singles' could hear her.
"Do what?" Ginny asked, grasping a bit of her chin-length hair and twisting it around her finger.
"Twist my words around? I'd swear you were flirting with me if I didn't know any better!" Harry spat accusingly, and Ginny backed up, falling back on to the bed.
"And would it be terribly insulting if I was flirting with you?" Ginny huffed, turning her back on him.
"NO!" Harry shouted. "I didn't say that! It's just awkward!"
"Why?" Ginny asked coldly. "It's not like you'd take me up on any insinuated suggestions."
Harry stepped forward softly and stared at her cotton-clad back. He hadn't been in the country for more than a week and he was seriously contemplating hooking up with its most infamous bad girl.
"When did you change, Gin? I knew you were independent when I left…"
Ginny turned, her eyes dancing with malice. "Who said the change was a bad thing?"
"I didn't."
Ginny's eyes softened. She had thought about seducing him once or twice, for her own amusement. But then again, it had been in her shallow, lonely days. Now she was merely alone. Wiser, older, more mature—he was honest.
"I like going about my business as I normally would. It isn't my fault if people choose to photograph it." She said finally, dismissing him as lightly as possible even if a string tugged at her heart painfully.
Harry rolled his eyes. "Never mind, forget I said anything."
"Oy! Gins, can you make me a cuppa?" Fred called loudly in his sleep. Harry backed up, hitting the wall of his small room.
"Harry Potter, you are one to talk about change." Ginny suddenly snapped reprovingly. "You come back from the States weak and pessimistic. I could see it in your eyes in the fire!"
"What? What are you talking about, you nutter?" Harry squeaked. It was true. The Second War certainly had drained him, but hadn't it drained everybody? Well, obviously not everybody, Ginny seemed fine, but…
"I mean, I know you don't have a purpose now that you've caught every single person even contemplating the Dark Arts but—"
"I do too have a purpose!" Harry protested, and Ginny's eyes narrowed.
"Your whole life revolved around capturing and ensuring Death Eaters stayed behind bars, Harry. You wanted life to be perfect. And now it is and you're depressed. I saw it in your suspicious eyes in London and I saw it in the fire and I see it now." Ginny told him monotonously.
Harry's heart began to sink. She was too observant for her own good.
"When did you become so perfect, Ginny?" Harry retorted softly, his voice harder than ice.
"Why'd you come home, Harry? Your missions ended a year ago. Percy came home a year ago."
Harry swallowed the lump in his throat.
"Unless you develop your own, independent, optimism, Harry, you're never going to be able to see life as you once did."
Harry's breathing got heavier and he gritted his teeth. "And how did I once see it?"
"With a fresh hope, Harry, I remember it. I remember when it was more about doing it because it was right than because it was your job." Ginny told him, standing up."
"How WOULD you know, Ginny?" Harry hissed at her, and Ginny rolled her eyes.
"You forget your rescues over time, I suppose, when you're a hero." She muttered icily. "I was once on the receiving end of your optimism, Harry. You're not going to find it here. It's your own battle."
"Shut up, Ginny." Harry said quietly.
"Why, so you can continue being miserable and suspicious and treating your former teammates like they're strange new girls who you've never met before but know you can't touch?" Ginny chuckled bitterly. "As if I would let you! There's only so much a strong girl can do, Harry!"
"Shut up, Ginny!" Harry repeated, louder this time.
"What if I don't want to?" Ginny shrieked, her fingers curling into tiny, powerful fists.
"GIN? Where's my cuppa?" Fred, as it turns out, was awake, and awkwardly stumbling through the halls of the add-on searching for her.
"I've got to go." Ginny whispered.
"Good."
"Think about it, Harry." Ginny continued, as if she had never heard him.
Harry punched the air where she had been standing after she left.
The tension between the pair could've been sliced through only the sharpest of knives and spells the following morning. Percy, Charlie, Arthur, Fleur, Nala and Bill were all called to the Ministry for some random emergency, and Ron and Hermione decided, after much consideration, to take the kids out into the snow. Molly began preparing the Christmas feast, and the remaining four tried to squeeze into the living room.
"Will you please tell Ginny to pass the crumpets?" Harry asked George quietly. George rolled his eyes and reached for the crumpets plate himself.
"Will you please tell Harry to grow some balls?" Ginny asked Fred more friskily.
"Will you please tell that scarlet woman that just because she has found a way to lead her life as guiltfree and superficially as possible does not mean that the rest of the world can do the same with their less-spoiled careers?"
"Will you please tell the self-righteous bastard that some of us have chosen to lead happy-go-lucky lives and can realize when what they're doing is making them into miserable, geeky saps?"
The twins finally had had enough. Ginny and Harry were locked into separate rooms until the pair could remember some silencing charms.
Two nights before Christmas and all through the house,
Some creatures were stirring, even the real mouse.
Harry Potter and Ginny were wrapped up tight,
Stuck in the bathroom for what it seemed like all night.
For at the top of the stairs, they screamed in woe,
They were unheard by the creatures below.
While the faint smells of Christmas beckoned quite near,
The Boy-Who-Lived just began filling with fear.
Those boys and parents with Ginny's bright red hairs
Created the noises of the joy downstairs.
The beautiful athlete with a gift of flight
Untangled herself from the brunette that night.
As the pair arose from their painful landings,
The uncontrollable lust gave their tongues wings.
As they fell back to the floor with a clatter,
They just missed the gingerbread platter.
In their haste, recognized names flashed in their minds
Regret so temporary, wounds healed with time
There's Ronald, and Charles, and William and Fred!
And George and Percy, and the parents in bed!
The eggnog was flowing, the treats a delight
Now pour away! Pour away! Pour all night!
The tension between the pair quickly dissolved
As their tongues spelled the words of each of their faults
All past loves forgotten, all lies pushed aside
All best friends besotted on a tinkling sleigh ride.
Their hands moved to places only described
In the darkest of places with the least bit of light.
Soon to follow were robes to the floor
At a sensual speed they couldn't take anymore.
So quickly words of caution were murmured
After the release of wands was heard
The couple got to a speed unmeasured by time
That managed to get made into a cutesy rhyme.
As they eventually reached their climaxes respectively
He searched her brown eyes rather inspectively.
All he could see was not some secret mission
But a little girl begging, as if for permission
Permission to love him, permission to care
Begging for answers, hoping he'd stay there
So they cuddled closer and the lock was unlocked
The elder twin scowled as his pay was docked.
The identical pranksters, with matching looks of disgust
Closed the door again, not believing the lust.
The brunette and the redhead settled to sleep
Both soundly sleeping without the least peep.
The tumultuous pair had more problems to fight,
But all was forgotten on this cozy winter night.
To be continued…