Disclaimer: Not mine… It's JK's
Ginny breathed deeply, looking at the hourglass in her hand. It was small, hardly the same size as the one Hermione had had. It was supposed to be sending them back. A lot of Snape and Albus' power sources were infused into the coin-sized glass.
"Now, Ginny, this spell will send you back for as long as Hermione is there. We are assuming that this spell that will bind you together, will take you back to be with the person you are being bound to, or to bring her here. It will most likely, however, by the first. You have to concentrate on Hermione as hard as you can, understood?" Albus asked.
"Albus, I still say this is dark magic," Sirius protested.
"Would you like Hermione to fall in love with Professor Snape?" Ginny snapped at him. That shut him up fast. Arthur Weasley hugged his daughter, whispering for her to be careful. Molly Weasley smothered her daughter in a sobbing hug, then Ron and Harry had there turn. Luna, the newest member of the order, Harry's girlfriend, waved distantly at her. Snape nodded tightly to her as he took his spot in the triangle around her, Arthur taking his, Dumbledore stepped forward and slipped a note into the pocket of the school robes she was wearing, shrinking the bag at her side to pocket-sized and handing it to her.
"Thank you sir," Ginny said.
"Courage comes in all types my dear:" he said, "courage to fight your enemies, courage to fight your mind, and courage to fight your heart. The greatest courage can be seen within the depths of our soul when those we love are in danger, but the most significant is the courage to fight those friends so they can see sense. All these types of courage, you must employ for this task, Miss Weasley. Make me proud. That letter is to me," he nodded to the letter in her robe pocket.
"Thank you headmaster," she nodded her head, graciously.
"Tell Hermione to control her powers and to think, rationally about who and what she is fighting. Point out every flaw you see in me in that time," Snape said. "Do not bring up me as I am now. That will just hurt your cause," Snape informed her.
"Thank you sir," Ginny nodded.
Dumbledore took his place in the triangle and put his two palms up. Snape and Arthur's palms came in contact with his and each others and they began to murmur. The wind began to swirl and the hourglass in Ginny's hand burst into millions of little pieces, cutting her right hand with millions of microscopic pin-pricks. Ginny disappeared with her squeak of pain.
They all three lowered their hands and opened their eyes. "Albus… tell me that she has another hourglass on her," Snape said, through gritted teeth.
"I'm afraid not. We're just going to have to find another way to get them back," Albus said, sounding defeated.
Ginny felt herself falling through darkness, and then she landed in a bright room, luckily onto a bed, which she bounced off of.
"Lucius Malfoy, but Severus Snape is assistan-" she heard, but it stopped as her presense was known.
"Bloody fucking hell!" Ginny mumbled, sitting up to see a wand directly in her face.
"Ginny!" a happy voice called and she was tackled backwards, a mop of bushy hair in her face.
"Hey 'Mione," Ginny said, hugging her friend back with her left arm, shaking her bleeding wand-hand.
"Are you here to take me back?" Hermione asked.
"That was origionally the plan, but the power-pumped hourglass I brought for Dumbledore to enlarge exploded when they performed the spell to bring me back to you. They planned on me being here for a few weeks before the headmaster could think of a way to get us back with the special hourglass, which I'm sure the way was put into this note, but we have no hourglass?" Ginny muttered.
"A friend of yours, Miss Granger?" Albus asked.
Ginny suddenly noticed the headmaster who smiled at her. "Ginny, at your service sir," Ginny said, humbly.
"A note you have from me you said?" he asked.
Ginny reached around with her left hand to her right pocket and took out the note, handing it out towards him, noticing a little dot at the Headmaster's feet.
He took her hand and waved his hand at it. It healed quickly. "I believe that the pieces of the hourglass have been absorbed magically into your blood stream," he told her. "There's a reason hourglasses are unbreakable. We don't know what effect it would have if one were to be broken."
"Well, obvious the effect that I'm stuck here, unless you can find another person as strong as Professor- the professor to add your power with to make an hourglass strong enough. The second power donor was extremely adept at dark magic as you are adept at light magic," Ginny muttered.
"S-he did that for me?" Hermione asked. "It's hard to get a wizard to give up power but he…"
"He did it without question, yes, Hermione, because he's worried about your safety and about what his younger self might do," Ginny said, stiffly.
"You were sent here to be with me for the two weeks when the headmaster found a way to get us back to make sure I didn't. Ginny that's ridiculous. I'm smarter than that!" Hermione exclaimed.
"Obviously not because someone's starting to form feelings for someone else!" Ginny replied, sharply.
"Ginny, we can find some way to contact them and if anything bad happens they can send word that we're doing it wrong. We can give H-im his parents back!" Hermione said. "If you can travel here, then if we mess it up, they'll send something back to point that out to us and we can stop!"
"I'm afraid it does not work like that Miss Granger. You could do a series of very drastic things and they wouldn't know until hours later what it was you did wrong. I detailed the way these memories are coming to me to myself," Albus said, indicating to the letter.
"But sir," Hermione objected.
"Hermione, stop and think about this!" Ginny exclaimed. "It took hours until we found out that the Hogwarts Express was burning! If you just save them, there'll be a wide-spread memory-altercation, but the people whose memories are altered will still remember it being the other way around. You are putting the people you love in more and more danger every second you breathe in this time! Snuffles almost decked the professor he was so mad about this!" Ginny shouted.
Albus nodded gravely, finishing to read the letter from himself. He sighed. "My future counterpart foresaw something like this occurring. He would like you two to stay here. Miss Howard, you now have a bunk-mate, transfer from your old school," Albus told her. Hermione nodded, dumbly, sitting down on the edge of her bed.
"I will see you at another time today ladies. Miss Ginny, what would you like your alias to be?" Albus asked.
"Ginette Wesley," Ginny replied, easily. "I had a few hours to think of it.
"Very good," Albus inclined his head. "Please, try to keep a low profile," he said, speaking more to Hermione than to Ginny.
"Ginny, I can't help it. I see him and everything I knew about how he was when he was our age… it just slips away and I feel safer knowing that he's there, in some form, still watching over us, ready to protect us, to protect the side of good, and Sirius and James are horrible! They're absolutely dreadful. They accuse me of wronging the headmaster. Ginny I'm loyal, aren't I?
"That's the problem Mya. You don't realize this yet, but you do feel deeply for Professor Snape, in our own time. I can see it… Don't you dare contradict me! You care and I can see it, but you have to know the difference between the two. The Severus of this time has to play his own part. He has to stay loyal to the Death Eaters until the exact second he betrays them. Do you understand?" Ginny said.
"Why would it be any different because I'm here?" Hermione asked. "I don't care for him and he doesn't care for me."
"You do care for him, and he said if you keep going around protecting him and such, you're going to convince him to switch sides too early. You have to stop yourself, Hermione," Ginny told her.
"Control your powers, think rationally, and know the difference between them, Mya. Feel it and you can control yourself," Ginny told her. "I'll be with you. I promise I will."
"Ginny, you'll have to be sorted, which is a problem," Hermione whispered.
"Why? We're in the same house," Ginny frowned.
"No we're not. My house has changed and the reason, as far as I can deduce is because I am as pure-blood as Draco Malfoy in this time," Hermione said.
"You're a Slytherin? That is way too weird," Ginny said. "It's fine. We can get synchronized schedules, I'm sure, and only meal-times we'll be separated."
Hermione nodded. She went about her business of getting ready, while Ginny's eyes settled on Doyle, who had placed himself in front of her, wagging his tail, happily.
"Who is this?" Ginny smiled, giggling happily at the little fluff-ball, as she picked him up.
Hermione smiled. Ginny may be demanding sometimes, but she still was a sweet, gentle person at heart.
Okay, it's another non-review-answering chapter, but I'm really glad for them. They inspired me to no end. The vote for Ginny ship has come in and it was an overwhelming, unanimous vote and she will indeed find herself in the same predicament as Hermione. Hehehe.
