A/N: J.K Rowling's characters and mostly William Thackeray's plot, and my deft and skillful turn of phrase and creative use of language. (Well, you can't blame me for trying…) Seriously though, reviews are always appreciated.
Prologue
Ottery St. Catchpole, 1989
Amid an eclectic array of magically enhanced Muggle objects, young Ginevra Weasley, just turned eight years old, danced merrily to the strains of Celestina Warbeck on the Wizarding Wireless Network. Tossing her waist length, tomato red hair over her shoulders, she whirled through her father's shed, tripping over tables and laughing gleefully as a Muggle stapler attached itself to the hem of her dress.
Little did the young girl know that her father was that very day, in that very shed conducting the most illegal of yard sales to help pay for her elder brothers' school expenses. Though Arthur Weasley did an honest day's work at the Ministry of Magic and had always managed to provide for his family the basic necessities of any Wizarding family, the strain of having five children at Hogwarts and two more due to start in a matter of a few years was taking a toll on the fragile balance of his financial status.
"Oh, Arthur," she had heard her mother whisper worriedly when she thought Ginny out of earshot, "the worst sort of Dark wizards will come to buy cursed Muggle artifacts. Surely we can't have Ron and Ginny exposed to that lot."
"I'll do what needs to be done, Molly," her father had replied with an authority he rarely used. "And the objects are not cursed, merely improved by magical means." With that, he had taken all of his favored projects, found Muggle items from the village below, and moved them into his shed.
Thus, Ginny danced across the room much to the delight of her father, who sat in his chair by the cashbox, all sense of dignity having long been forgotten, as wealthy wizards, mostly suspected former Death Eaters, poked and prodded at the unusual wares. Late in the afternoon, business hit a slump, and Ginny strove to distract her father from his troubles with a mock battle between a stuffed Hippogriff and a very real gnome.
Suddenly, however, an elegant coach bearing a family crest depicting two snakes intertwined with some ancient symbol alighted before the humble Weasley dwelling and out stepped the infamous Lucius Malfoy in all his icy imperiousness.
"Well, well, well," he sneered as he approached the tiny outbuilding, "Arthur Weasley. And one of your countless offspring. Funny isn't it, how the poor always manage to breed like doxies while the better half shows considerably more restraint. Gods above, Arthur, I wouldn't have thought your wife that desirable, but who am I to judge the ways of blood traitors?" he added distastefully.
Arthur, though he normally would have sunk his fist into the aristocrat's haughty face, realized that not only would his sons miss out on Malfoy Galleons for their schooling, but also that Lucius could have him fired more easily than he could summon a house-elf. And so he held his tongue, scarlet patches appearing on his cheeks and clashing with his thinning red hair.
Ginny stared incredulously at this expensively clad man who had the nerve to speak such scathing words to her father. I wonder how he makes his carriage fly, she wondered in awe, he doesn't even have a winged horse. His finely tailored black robes nearly reached the dirty floor where Ginny crouched, and he carried a highly polished walking stick with a silver serpent at the top. Blonde hair that rested between his shoulder blades was neatly queued back with a black ribbon, so different from her father's balding head and shabby wizard's hat.
"The biting tea set. Shall we say twenty Galleons?" Mr. Malfoy snapped succinctly.
"Twenty it is, Lucius," responded Arthur mildly as Lucius extracted a velvet money bag from beneath his robes.
"Wait!" Ginny stood abruptly, tearing the hem of her serviceable brown cotton shift. "Not the teapot. Not for twenty Galleons. We should have forty for it."
Lucius cast his gaze down to where Ginny stood defiantly, arms crossed and scowling. "Aren't we an impertinent little chit?" he said with the faintest touch of amusement. "Forty Galleons is quite a bit for a silly Muggle tea set, even if it does bite one's nose."
"I like this set. I don't want Daddy to sell it, but you can have it for forty."
Lucius' cold grey eyes swept over the girl's blazing amber ones. "Forty Galleons it is," he said quietly, shoving a handful of coins at Arthur. "I did promise my son a present after all."
Ginny followed him out of the shed on tiptoe, watching in fascination as he climbed back into his carriage and a house-elf's squeaking voice sounded from the interior. As the invisible horses took wing and disappeared into the sky, Ginny cast a critical eye over the ramshackle Weasley abode and her tired, worn, shabbily dressed father selling trifles to wealthy purebloods. We're pureblood, she thought in confusion, so why must we be so shamefully poor?