Chapter 4: Making Toast
"I never thought I'd be grateful to Draco Malfoy," said Ginny over her tea a little later.
"Malfoy?" asked Ron disgustedly, looking as if he'd bitten into a vomit-flavored Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Bean. "What does he have to do with anything?"
"Harry said something about him as I was passing the house," Ginny informed her brother, rolling her eyes. "I figured anyone who knew a Malfoy might be a Dark wizard or witch, but they would at least be a wizard or a witch, and that would be a place to start."
"And instead of any old wizard or witch, you get Harry," said Fred, shaking his head. "That's just amazing."
"Maybe not," said Hermione. "What were you doing in Little Whinging anyway, Ginny?"
"I had no idea where I was," Ginny retorted. "They took me there."
"Who took you?" asked George.
"A witch I've never seen before, and Cornelius Fudge, and Percy," Ginny said tartly.
The room broke into babble. Mrs. Weasley waved her wand and produced a loud whip-crack noise which shut everyone up.
"Why don't you tell it to us from the beginning, love," she said, hugging her daughter, "and all the rest of you just stay quiet until she's finished!" she snapped at her husband, her sons, Harry, and Hermione.
"Well, the beginning's where I was really stupid," said Ginny, flushing. "I was in the front room, reading, and I saw Percy walking down the street. I was confused – I mean, he can Apparate, what's he doing walking somewhere? And I decided – I have no idea why, now – to follow him and find out what he was doing. I'm really sorry, Mum. I should have realized it was a stupid idea."
"Everyone makes mistakes, dear." Mrs. Weasley must be as anxious as everyone else to hear more, Harry thought, if she was letting this amount of misbehavior from Ginny slide. "Do go on."
"So I went out the front door and followed him," Ginny continued, "and he didn't go very far, only about three blocks over. I could probably find the place again if I tried. He knocked at the door and gave some kind of password, and they were about to let him in when I ran up behind him and called his name."
She giggled. "He jumped about a mile. Then he started telling me to get out of there, that it wasn't safe, that I could get hurt, and then the door shot open and this witch was standing there. Kind of tall, brown hair, wearing green robes, and looking really angry. She was the one who turned me into a cat. Then she conjured a cage around me and took me inside."
Ginny shivered. "I don't think I like cages," she said quietly. "Percy was really angry with her, though. He kept saying how she had no right to do anything to me, and the house was supposed to be kept magic-free, and she kept saying how I got what I deserved, this was important and I shouldn't have interrupted, and I wasn't hurt and he could take me home after they finished the job. They were almost yelling when Minister Fudge knocked on the door."
"Did you hear a name for the witch at all, Ginny?" asked Mr. Weasley.
"The Minister called her..." Ginny shut her eyes, remembering. "I think it was Athena," she said finally.
"Athena?" exclaimed Mr. Weasley. "Athena Fleming? The Secretary for National Defense against Dark Wizardry? Merlin's beard, what's she doing mixed up in this?"
"I think I may know, Dad," said Ginny dryly, "if you'll let me tell you."
"Sorry, love, sorry..."
"The Minister really reamed Percy out. Couldn't he keep his family out of this and all that. He finished up with something like 'If I can't trust you out of my sight, I guess I'll need to go with you this time – yes, and the Secretary too – yes, and this blasted cat! If she is your sister, you ought to be able to keep track of her for the ten minutes it will take us to make this rendezvous and come back!" Ginny imitated Fudge's pompous tones very well. Everyone laughed.
"So they left the house with me and walked a few blocks to a park, and they Portkeyed from there to... somewhere else, where is it you live, Harry? Little Whinging?"
"That's the name," Harry said, "but I don't live there. I just have to stay there for a few weeks every so often. I hate it there."
"It's not a very pleasant kind of place," Ginny said thoughtfully. "Anyway, once Fudge and Percy and the witch – Ms. Fleming, Secretary Fleming – and I got to Little Whinging, they had to look at a map for a while, and finally they found a park and sat down on a bench and waited. And waited. It must have been the middle of the night before the other people showed up."
"The other people?" repeated Mrs. Weasley blankly.
"The people they were there to meet. They didn't just go out on an excursion for their health. It was a prearranged meeting. And I knew one of them. Draco Malfoy's mother."
Hermione gasped. Ron muttered something under his breath. Mr. Weasley leaned forward, intent on his daughter's every word.
"She was there to pay Fudge off for looking the other way while Lucius Malfoy breaks out of Azkaban," Ginny said, every word carefully bitten off. "He still can't believe the Malfoys could be involved in anything so terrible, and I think he's trying to finance some kind of new project to try to make himself look better in the eyes of the public after the whole You-Know-Who fiasco. At least that was what it sounded like."
Mr. Weasley treated the table to a description of Fudge that had Ron staring, the twins open-mouthed, and Mrs. Weasley, with her hands clapped over Ginny's ears, saying, "Really, Arthur!"
"Yes, really, Molly," said Mr. Weasley, his voice trembling with anger. "Oh, this will set a few robes on fire at the Ministry, it will..."
"After the gold exchanged hands," Ginny continued, "Mrs. Malfoy got a look at me, and she thought I was just the darlingest thing she'd ever seen. She couldn't live without me, and couldn't she just see me for a minute? And Percy kept on saying no, and she kept on insisting, and finally she opened the cage with her wand and tried to Summon me." Ginny snickered. "She should have Stunned me first. I bit her and ran."
"That's my girl," said Mr. Weasley absently. "Consorting with Death Eaters..." he muttered to himself.
"I heard them yelling at me to come back, saying I didn't know where I was going, but I was so scared by then I didn't know what to do, so I just ran. Percy and Fudge and the Secretary chased me. I guess Mrs. Malfoy and her people Disapparated or Portkeyed away or something. They didn't seem too interested in getting me back. Then I heard someone say 'Malfoy was such a fool' inside one of the houses, and I jumped through the window, and there was Harry. And that's it."
Mr. Weasley jumped up from the table, came around it and hugged Ginny, then hurried out the door to the stairs. "Start with Amelia..." Harry heard him mumbling. The twins shot each other significant looks, then followed their father.
Mrs. Weasley sighed. "You're safely back, Ginny love, that's all that matters now. But if you ever do anything like that again, I'll pickle you in one of Severus Snape's concoctions until your skin turns purple, understand?"
"Understood, mum," said Ginny with a straight face, glancing at Harry. Harry coughed and decided to develop an interest in the tabletop.
"Is there anything to eat, Mum?" asked Ron. "I'm hungry."
"You're always hungry," said Hermione. "But I am too. What time is it?"
"It's almost 5," said Harry, looking at his wristwatch.
Ron yawned. "Oh dah, ih oo ay oh ee-ih," he said with his mouth wide open.
"What?" said Ginny.
"I said, oh damn, it's too late for sleeping," grumbled Ron.
Mrs. Weasley reached across the table and flicked Ron's head with her fingers. "Mind your language, young man. Let me see what I can find in the pantry." She bustled over to the larder door.
"None of us have to be anywhere tomorrow – today – do we?" asked Hermione. "As you're always telling me, Ron, it's summer. We can sleep late for once."
Something was bothering Harry, and suddenly he put his finger on it. "Hermione, what are you doing here? I thought you weren't coming for another couple weeks."
Hermione shrugged. "To tell the truth, I don't have much in common with my parents anymore. I love them still, of course, but I'm so out of the Muggle world for most of the year that I really don't have anything I can talk to them about." She seemed uncomfortable talking about it, so Harry let it drop.
Mrs. Weasley emerged just then with a loaf of bread and some butter, and conversation ceased for a while as everyone paid attention to their slice of bread, browning it to what each person considered perfection. Hermione liked hers just dark enough to be seen, Ginny a bit darker than that, Harry preferred his noticeably brown, and Ron probably would have eaten it had it turned into charcoal on the toasting fork.
Mrs. Weasley kissed Ginny one more time and disappeared upstairs, probably to help Mr. Weasley with whatever he was doing, Harry thought. He moved a bit closer to Ginny on the hearthstone. "So what were you reading?" he asked quietly.
Ginny looked up in surprise. "What?"
"What were you reading when you saw Percy going by?"
Ginny smiled. "What do you think?"
Harry chuckled. "Which one?"
"Costume of Doom."
"I haven't read that one yet, I'm still only halfway through Insane Dorm Hall," Harry confessed.
"Oh, I love that one," Ginny said. "But then, I love them all. Every time I read them, I find new things to enjoy. There's just so much detail, and then the big overarching story that ties it all together..." She gestured with the hand not holding a toasting fork. "I think they're just wonderful. How about you?"
"They're the only reason I've been able to sleep lately," Harry said, checking to make sure Ron and Hermione couldn't hear. They seemed very occupied by their toast. "I guess I see myself in the characters. Myself, and you, and Ron and Hermione, and everyone else. A kind of resonance between the real world and fiction."
"Resonance..." Ginny mused. "That reminds me of something... oh, that's right! How do you like the choir practice scenes?"
"Well, I like the jokes the choir director tells," Harry said, thinking back. Erica had sung in the women's choir in Seminar and Actor, and then she had finally gotten into the co-ed choir in Dorm Hall... "And I like how they all call him Big Guy. Why do you ask?"
"Well..." Ginny seemed to be blushing again, but it might have been the heat of the fire. "I've always wanted to sing, but there was just never enough time or enough... enough money," she said fiercely, "for me to take lessons. So I've been thinking, maybe I could train myself, using what Big Guy says about using your voice right. The idea with the big tin can and the other cans to put inside it. What do you think?"
Harry shrugged. "'Fraid I didn't read that part too carefully, Ginny, but I guess it could work. You'd have to find somewhere to practice, though..."
"I thought the Room of Requirement," Ginny said, "because if I thought about needing a piano to check my tuning with, it could probably give me one."
"You can borrow the Marauder's Map if you ask very nicely," Harry teased, and Ginny giggled.
There was a burst of flame on the end of Ginny's toasting fork, and she sighed. "Well, there goes that piece of bread." She pulled it out of the fire and looked at it dejectedly. It was burnt to a crisp.
"I'll eat it, Ginny," Ron said. "You can have mine." He handed her his toasting fork in exchange for his and turned back to his conversation with Hermione.
Ginny looked at the bread on the fork. "This is barely toasted at all," she said, touching it. "It's hardly even warm." She looked over at Ron and Hermione. "Whatever they're doing over there, I don't think it has anything to do with toast." She glanced into the fire. "Harry, I think yours is done."
She was right, which spared Harry having to ask her what she meant.
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(A/N: This should have gone on Chapter 1, but I posted too fast – sorry!
Harry's reaction to the Erica Gorelli books is almost exactly my reaction to the Harry Potter books, words and actions both, except that I was in a library, where I was supposed to be doing service hours... you should never leave me alone around books.
Ron's reaction is equivalent to my dad's – he didn't say "baby stuff" exactly, but he made it very clear he didn't want anything to do with Harry Potter. Right up to the point where I found him reading my copy of PoA.
Mrs. Weasley, of course, is analog to my mom. She was reading in a hurry, and she was worried about Satanism and stuff, so her first verdict on PS/SS was "It's not that good." A few weeks later, though, she read the first three in three days, then announced she was taking a two week vacation before she read GoF. Ha. Three days later, she had finished it.
Then, of course, came OotP, and we fought over that for days...
CapriceAnn: Thanks for crossover! Enjoy!
nadine: Thanks for starting with me! Enjoy!)