Title: Ginny Weasley, The Sorcerers Stone, and The Chamber of Secrets
by: ginnyismyname at yahoo dot com
Author's Note: Ow...I didn't mean my last author's note to sound mean. If it did, my apologies. I just wanted to clear things up. Thank you to the few people who review my stories. I enjoy all of them.
Chapter 4: Flourish and Blotts
A week passed slowly with more pitiful mishaps at the kitchen table, but Ginny tried to make them seem like it didn't bother her, but it did. Wednesday came along and the whole family, plus Harry got ready to go to Diagon Alley to buy school supplies and to meet up with Hermione Granger, the girl who was best friends with Ron and Harry.
They all put there coats on and stood in front of the fire place. Mrs. Weasley took the flower pot from the mantel and checked the contents. "We're running low Arthur," she sighed. "We'll have to buy some more today...Ah well, guests first! After you, Harry dear!"
Ginny turned at watched Harry. He didn't do anything. Mrs. Weasley was holding out the flower pot to him, but he just looked at everyone completely oblivious. "W-what am I supposed to do?" He stammered.
"He's never traveled by floo powder before," said Ron suddenly. "Sorry, Harry, I forgot."
"Never?" Mr. Weasley asked, "But how did you get to Diagon Alley to buy your school things last year?"
"I went on the underground --" Harry started but it was interrupted by an extremely excited man.
"Really?" Mr. Weasley said eagerly, "Were there escapators ? How exactly--"
"Not now, Arthur," said Mrs. Weasley. "Floo powder is a lot quicker, dear, but goodness me, if you've never used it before --"
"He'll be all right, Mum," said Fred, stepping forward. "Harry, watch us first." He walked to Mrs. Weasley, grabbed a pinch of floo powder from the pot and threw it into the fireplace like Ginny has seen him do a hundred times before. "Diagon Alley!" He shouted and vanished in a swirl of green flames.
Ginny looked over at Harry and noticed the shocked expression on his face. "You must speak clearly, dear," Mrs. Weasley instructed. "And be sure to get out at the right grate..." George threw his pinch and disappeared as well. "Well, there are an awful lot of wizard fires to choose from, you know, but as long as you've spoken clearly --"
"He'll be fine, Molly, don't fuss," said Mr. Weasley, sticking his hand in the flower pot and extracting a tiny handful of floo powder.
"But, dear," Mrs. Weasley fussed, "if he got lost, how would we ever explain to his aunt and uncle?"
"They wouldn't mind," Harry pointed out. "Dudley would think it was brilliant joke if I got lost up a chimney, don't worry about that --" Ginny frowned.
"Well...all right...you go after Arthur," said Mrs. Weasley. "Now, when you get into the fire, say where you're going --"
"And keep your elbows tucked in," Ron advised.
"And your eyes shut," Mrs. Weasley said. "The soot --"
"Don't fidget," said Ron. "Or you might well fall out of the wrong fireplace --"
"But don't panic and get out too early; wait until you see Fred and George." Everyone was advancing on Harry shouting their own personal advice and Ginny thought he looked utterly terrified. Harry took a pinch of floo powder and walked to the fire place. Ginny felt like telling him to watch your breath, you could swallow a lot of hot ash.
Harry threw the powder into the fireplace, it turned bright green, he stepped forward and coughed, "Dia-gon Alley," and disappeared.
Ginny became very worried. "What did he say?" Mrs. Weasley asked. Ron shrugged. Ginny said, "Dia-gon Alley?"
"Ron, go!" Mrs. Weasley ordered. Ron got a pinch and left with a flash. Ginny fallowed.
"Diagon Alley," Ginny said as clearly as she could. She had traveled by floo hundreds of times so she was used to the quezzy stomach, the dizzy feelings and the warm, unsettling tickle of the flames. What she never really felt before was worry. She was worried for Harry. She prayed that the second she left the fire she would see him, covered in soot and completely ignoring her.
She fell out of the grate at the Leaky Cauldron and looked around. The twins, Mr. Weasley, Ron and Ginny stood looking around at each other stupidly. Mrs. Weasley appeared a second later and Ginny's side. "He's not here?"
"No, Molly, what happened?" Mr. Weasley asked, the lines on his face becoming more visible with worry.
Mrs. Weasley looked terrified. "He didn't speak clearly." In other circumstances, Ginny might have found this certain phrase rather funny, but today and with whom it involved, she was worried. Mr. Weasley took the twins, Ron and Percy and went out onto main street, looking in every shop to see if Harry was got out of the wrong grate. Mrs. Weasley took Ginny down the side streets.
Ginny was just hanging onto her mother's arm as the mad woman ran down road. Ginny's heart was pounding and she was so frightened for Harry. Every time she saw someone with jet black hair should would do a double take. After about 15 minutes of going into shops full of crazy looking wizards or witches all looking for the best bargain and who were not always interesting in a missing underage wizard, Mrs. Weasley and Ginny reached Main Street again and Ginny saw her father and her brothers talking to a girl with bushy brown hair and large front teeth, a giant of a man with wild hair all over his face, and a dusty and very relived looking Harry who was holding two pieces of his broken glasses in his hands.
"Mum! They found Harry!" Ginny squealed and pointed to them in the distance. Mrs. Weasley started a slow run pulling Ginny, who was fearful that her arm would fall off. "Oh, Harry -- oh, my dear -- you could have been anywhere --" Mrs. Weasley was gasping for air as she pulled out her huge clothes brush out of her hand bag and started sweeping the soot off Harry.
Ginny dusted some of her own soot with her hand because apparently her mother was more interested in Harry's appearance than her own daughter's. Mr. Weasley grabbed Harry's broken glasses and tapped them with his wand and they were back to new.
"Knockturn Alley!" Mrs. Weasley screamed, when she found out where Harry had ended up. She grabbed Hagrids hand and shook it tightly. "If you hadn't found him, Hagrid!" She shuddered.
"Well, gotta be off," said Hagrid, trying desperately to get away from Mrs. Weasley, which Ginny didn't blame him for wanting to get away from that Kung-Foo grip. "See yer at Hogwarts!" Ginny watched him as he walked away, which wasn't hard in the crowded streets because he was a good three to four feet taller than everyone else.
Ginny sighed as she felt her mother grabbing her arm and begin pulling her again. She was steered to Gringotts. "Guess who I saw in Borgin and Burkes?" Harry asked Ron and the brown haired girl as they climbed the steps of the wizarding bank. "Malfoy and his father."
"Did Lucius Malfoy buy anything?" Mr. Weasley asked sharply from behind them. Mr. Weasley and Mr. Malfoy were enemies, the worst of them.
"No, he was selling--"
"So he's worried," Mr. Weasley interrupted Harry with satisfaction. "Oh, I'd love to get Lucius Malfoy for something..."
"You be careful, Arthur," said Mrs. Weasley sharply as two goblins bowed before they entered the bank. Ginny smiled at just like she always did. "That family's trouble. Don't go biting off more than you can chew -- "
"So you don't think I'm a match for Lucius Malfoy?" Mr. Weasley said angrily but he was so distracted by a man and a woman that the brown haired girl, who turned out to be Hermione Granger, went up to. "But you're Muggles!" Mr. Weasley said delightedly to them, "We must have a drink! What's that you've got there?" He pointed to the paper in the Granger's hands, "Oh you're changing Muggle money. Molly look!" He pointed excitedly.
"Meet you back here," Ron told Hermione as Harry and the Weasley's were escorted to the underground vaults. Ginny leaned slightly over the edge of the speeding cart, enjoying the ride. She closed her eyes and imagined she was flying but all too soon the cart stopped at their vault. Ginny got up to stretch her legs and after her mother put all their savings into a coin purse, Ginny got back into the cart, slightly more embarrassed than when she got of the cart.
The next ride was even shorter when they reached Harry's vault. Ginny stayed in the cart this time but wasn't too surprised to see that no matter how many people were blocking her view of Harry's savings she still could see the golden glow that seemed to be radiating from it.
After one more ride they were back in the lobby of Gringotts and then out on the steps and outside in the sunshine once more. Percy was the first to separate from the group, mumbling about something, making Ginny suspicious, but not suspicious enough to run away from her mother and find out what he was up to.
A black boy with dreadlocks ran up to the Weasleys, the Grangers and Harry all of a sudden and did a friendship handshake with the twins, "Fred! George! Or George! Fred!" He laughed and looked around, "Hiya Harry. Ron. Hermione." He waved to each one. The twins introduced him as Lee Jordan, their friend from school.
"Well, we are going to go look for some robes," Mrs. Weasley said. "We'll all meet at Flourish and Blotts in an hour to buy your schoolbooks." Fred and George and their friend Lee, started walking stealthily off in the opposite direction and Mrs. Weasley yelled out, "And not one step down Knockturn Alley!"
Mrs. Weasley pulled Ginny through the crowd to a quieter street which sold a lot of secondhand goods. Ginny was steered into a dark green shop that was full of clothes, not one item looked a like. Racks of mismatched clothes filled the room and against the wall in the middle of the room was a huge lighted mirror with a door next to it that said "Fitting Rooms" above it.
Mrs. Weasley smiled at her daughter. A young woman with dark hair and a gentle disposition walked up to Ginny and her mother. The tag on her shirt said that her name was Daisy. "Hello! Welcome to my little shop," she grinned widely and Ginny thought she spotting a silver tooth on the left side of her mouth. "Can I help you?"
Mrs. Weasley nodded and smiled in return, "Oh yes, my daughter will be starting at Hogwarts this year and she needs some school robes."
"Oh, I can do that! I'll be back in a jiffy." The woman turned quickly and disappeared in the racks of clothes. Ginny looked around from where she was standing. Nothing really caught her eye. Not two minutes had passed before Daisy appeared again by the mirror. She motioned for Ginny and Mrs. Weasley to come over to where she was.
Ginny followed her mother there and saw that Daisy had brought out a stool and a box full of old school robes. "Please step up, dear." Ginny stood up on the stool and saw her reflection. She looked pale and sad, she glanced at her pathetic ponytail before Daisy held up a robe for Ginny to put on. It wasn't too old looking. It was about a foot too long though, and the woman pinned it to the correct length and handed Ginny and second one to try on, then a third, and finally a winter cloak and she was aloud to step off the stool. "All right, your all set, anything else?" Daisy asked, after wrapping Ginny's school uniforms in brown paper.
"Yes," Mrs. Weasley said. "My daughter's birthday was last week and we said we would like to get her a coat, do you have a selection for young women?"
Daisy nodded and led the way to the back of the shop where it was the kids to teens section. Ginny perused the racks for a while, everything was too young or too old. She found a brown leather jacket that she thought was so cool but her mother said no. Then she spotted it. A pea-green pea coat. It was perfect. Ginny's fingers trembled as she slipped on the perfect jacket and it fit! She turned to her mother and tears began forming in Mrs. Weasley eyes, "My little girl!" She cried. Mrs. Weasley nodded and asked Ginny to take off the coat then she looked at the inside seems, "Oh good," she said.
"What?" Ginny asked.
"Well," Mrs. Weasley said smiling with tears in her eyes, "when my little girl becomes a woman," Mrs. Weasley motioned to her own large chest, "I can take out some of the seems so it will still fit."
While Mrs. Weasley was paying for Ginny's school uniforms and her new pea coat, Ginny looked at herself once more in the mirror. No, she didn't have much of a chest. She was wearing a training bra but there wasn't really anything to train yet. "Soon," her mother would tell her, "you'll get them soon enough." Ginny crossed her arms over her chest, she was starting to get self-conscious.
They left the shop and continued on with the shopping. Ginny already had her dragonhide gloves, a pair Charlie gave her last Christmas. In a shop selling used cauldrons she found her pewter standard size 2, a pointed black hat, a set of glass phials that were practically new, and a set of brass scales that needed a good wash. They went to a shop two doors down and found a extremely cheap telescope that the man assured them that there was no curse on them, it was lifted at least two summers ago.
They found Mr. Weasley buying parchment, quills, and ink for all his children and standard potion kits, he helped carry Ginny's things all the way to Flourish and Blotts. Ginny took one look at the building and thought, "Oh, great." There was a huge crowd of middle-aged women there for a book signing. Who was signing the books? None other than Gilderoy "I-just-can't-stop-loving-myself" Lockhart.
Ginny hated that fool. Sure he had a nice smile, but could a guy that pretty seriously get down and dirty killing vampires, banishing banshees, and cook a Christmas Eve dinner for a hag? Ginny didn't believe a word in any of his books, not that she even read them all.
Ginny stood off to the side by the door with her cauldron and brown paper packages of her school robes and supplies. Mr. Weasley went around the shop, zig zagging through witches to get to bookcases to find Ginny's school books, every time he found one he would put it in Ginny's cauldron and go looking for the next. When he had finished he excused himself and went outside for some air.
Ginny glanced over at the line of mad infatuated witches and saw that Harry, Ron, and Hermione found there way to the front with Mrs. Weasley and that Lockhart had recognized Harry and started pulling him up to the front. They took a picture together and then Lockhart began waving to the crowd for silence.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he said loudly. "What an extraordinary moment this is! The perfect moment for me to make a little announcement I've been sitting on for some time!
"When young Harry here stepped into Flourish and Blotts today, he only wanted to buy my autobiography --" Ginny rolled her eyes, "which I shall be happy to present to him now, free of charge -- He had no idea that he would shortly be getting much, much more than my book, Magical Me. He and his schoolmates will, in fact, be getting the real magical me. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I have great pleasure and pride announcing that this September, I will be taking up the post of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry!" The crowd clapped and cheered and Ginny's mouth hung open. She couldn't believe it.
What could she possibly learn for that guy? What color best suited her red hair and brown eyes? How to write a dime novel in the form of a best seller? Ginny sighed and suddenly realized that Harry Potter was walking over to her.
"You have these," Harry mumbled to her, tipping his complete set of Gilderoy Lockhart books that the author himself gave to Harry for free into Ginny's new cauldron. "I'll buy my own --" Ginny couldn't believe how wonderful this was but her emotions were quickly stopped when a mean looking, blond haired boy interrupted her thoughts.
"Bet you loved that, didn't you Potter?" The blond boy stepped in front of Harry and sneered at him. Ginny felt a rush of unexplainable anger, "Famous Harry Potter," the boy continued. "Can't even go into a bookshop without making the front page."
Before she could think Ginny step up to the boy and barked, "Leave him alone, he didn't want all that!" She glared at the boy knowing that she was doing a stupid but slightly brave thing. It was the bravest she had been around Harry all summer.
"Potter, you've got yourself a girlfriend!" The boy drawled. Ginny turned scarlet, how could this boy know that she like Harry like that? Harry shouldn't know. Ginny took a step back but Ron and Hermione found their way over and took her place. Hermione put a comforting arm on Ginny. She had heard what Malfoy said and realized, just by looking at her face, what Ginny was feeling. She felt a rush of gratitude to this bushy haired girl and smiled slightly.
"Oh it's you," said Ron, looking at the blond boy with a completely unpleasant look on his face. "Bet you're surprised to see Harry here, eh?"
"Not as surprised as I am to see you in a shop, Weasley," the boy retorted. "I suppose your parents will go hungry for a month to pay for all those."
Ron turned as bright as Ginny was, he dropped his books in Ginny's cauldron and started toward Malfoy but Hermione and Harry quickly grabbed him. "Ron!" Mr. Weasley shouted, struggling over through the crowd with Fred and George. "What are you doing? It's too crowded in here, let's go outside."
"Well, well, well -- Arthur Weasley." A tall blond man who must have been the blond boy's father, because they wore matching sneers, walked up to the group.
"Lucius," said Mr. Weasley coldly. Lucius Malfoy. Her father's arch enemy.
"Busy time at the Ministry, I hear," said Mr. Malfoy. "All those raids...I hope they're paying you overtime?" He reached down into Ginny's cauldron and extracted one of her new school books, a tattered and battered copy of A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration. "Obviously not," Mr. Malfoy said. "Dear me, what's the use of being a disgrace to the name of wizard if they don't even pay you well for it?"
Ginny felt her anger rise and looked over at her father, she was pleased to see the same anger filling him as well. "We have a very different idea of what disgraces the name of wizard, Malfoy," he said. Ginny felt very proud of him.
"Clearly," said Mr. Malfoy, his pale eyes moving swiftly over the heads of the Weasleys to Mr. and Mrs. Granger who was watching apprehensively. "The company you keep, Weasley...and I thought you family could sink no lower --"
There was a huge thud of metal as Ginny's cauldron went flying when Mr. Weasley had thrown himself at Mr. Malfoy, knocking him backward into a bookshelf. Ginny wished she would have brought her wand with her so she could help by throwing Mr. Malfoy a Bat-Boogey Hex. The twins where cheering on their father and Mrs. Weasley was begging her husband to stop. The assistant nearly peed his pants with worry and finally, in the shop strolled Hagrid, "Break it up, there, gents, break it up--"
He pulled Mr. Weasley and Mr. Malfoy apart like big rag dolls. Mr. Weasley had a cut lip but Mr. Malfoy had a black eye because a large copy of an Encyclopedia of Toadstools has found it's way to his pupil. Mr. Malfoy was still holding Ginny's transfiguration book. He thrust it at her, his eyes glittering with malice. "Here, girl -- take your book -- it's the best your father can give you -- " Then he left the shop.
Ginny put the book back in her cauldron and smiled sweetly at her father. They made their way out of the shop, down the street and to The Leaky Cauldron. The Weasleys said goodbye to the Grangers who would be exiting via the Muggle street outside and the Weasleys and Harry made it back to the Burrow by Floo.
"All right," Mrs. Weasley said, still a little upset about the day's events. "Go put all your stuff away. Boys," Mrs. Weasley called the Fred and George. "Please help take Ginny's stuff upstairs while I start on dinner?"
Fred and George grabbed Ginny's cauldron and Ginny held a stack of packages that she tipped over on her bed. The twins put the cauldron by her trunk. "Did you see when Dad hit him in the eye with the edge of that huge book?" Fred said excitedly.
"Or when dad pushed him over that table!" George said, about to re-enact it for Ginny.
"Yes, I was there, remember?" Ginny rolled her eyes. The twins shrugged and left the room. Ginny went straight for her cauldron where the Gilderoy Lockhart books were. She took them out one by one and looked at the priceless treasures. The gifts Harry gave her. Sure she probably would never read them, but they came from Harry so she placed them safely and carefully into her trunk.
She turned back to her cauldron. Inside was her new battered books. She threw her History book in her trunk, followed by a few Potions and Herbology books, a book of spells and a book of beasts and Defense Against the Dark Arts. Then she pulled out the last book. A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration Ginny picked it up and realized that it felt weird. She noticed a big gap in the pages and opened it up. Inside the book was a small diary. Ginny smiled. A new treasure!
She opened it to the first page and in smudged ink it read, "T. M. Riddle." She smiled and turned the next page. It was empty. Ginny frowned. She was hoping for an interesting read, but the whole thing was empty. She flipped through the paper but nothing. Suddenly the idea struck her that she should write in this book. She rushed over to her desk an pulled out a quill and a bottle of ink and she flipped it to the first blank page.
Ginny dipped her quill in the ink and wrote down, "Dear Diary," her words vanished. Ginny looked at the bottle of ink to make sure it wasn't invisible ink. Suddenly words appeared where she had just written. But they weren't her words.
In a very neat, boy's handwriting said the words, "Please, call me Tom."
Author's Note: Wow, this one was loooooong!
