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WEASLEY GIRL: SECRETS OF THE PAST
Based on the Harry Potter books by J. K. Rowling
CHAPTER TEN
A Letter
"Miss Weasley, will you please stop playing with your mouse and practice the spell?" McGonagall sighed as Ronnie reluctantly placed the mouse back down on her desk. "You're the only one in the class who hasn't even made the attempt."
It was the first Transfiguration class since Lavender's Petrification, and they were supposed to be learning how to turn animals into water-goblets.
On the desks of all he other students stood various hybrids of animals and water-goblets. Hermione, of course, had the prettiest goblet; her iguana had transformed perfectly and was now stanting on proud display on her desk, all shiny and silver with elegant carvings on the rim. Harry too had managed to make a passable goblet out of his frog, even if said goblet was still a rather unpleasant green colour. Neville's goblet, however, was still covered in canary-yellow feathers and kept bursting into song, and Parvati's tortoise had just turned a silver colour and looked rather indignant about it - her heart clearly hadn't been in it.
But Ronnie's mouse was the only animal in the room that had no goblet-like qualities whatsoever; it had spent most of the lesson happily sitting on her shoulder; even if she probably smelled of Crookshanks the mouse hadn't let that stop it in falling in love with her like most other animals, and Ronnie's stomach twisted as she had to pick it up and put it back down.
"Go on, Miss Weasley," said McGonagall. "It's a simple wand movement. Three light taps, and the incantation is 'Fera verto.' When you are ready."
"But it's so cute," Ronnie murmured, looking at the mouse. "Look at that twitchy little nose."
"Miss Weasley," said McGonagall. "You are not here to pick out a new pet. How are you planning on passing Transfiguration if you can't even turn a simple mouse into a water-goblet?"
Ronnie shook her head. "I'm sorry, Professor," she said. "I just don't like turning helpless animals into objects. It feels too much like killing them."
"Your concern for the animals does you credit," said McGonagall, "but I assure you, they are not dead. The spell can always be reversed. Mister Longbottom, may I?"
"What? Oh, er, yes, Professor," said Neville, pushing his feathery goblet across his desk.
McGonagall lightly tapped the goblet twice with her wand. Almost immediately, it switched and changed into a small yellow canary bird, which shook its feathers and looked around the room.
"See? The animal is quite unharmed," said McGonagall, as the canary flapped its wings and then immediately flew over to Ronnie to perch on her head.
There were a few giggles around the classroom at that.
"So basically," said Parvati, "it's like Petrifying them."
The giggles stopped immediately. The room went deathly still.
"Miss Patil," said McGonagall in a rather taken-aback tone. "That was uncalled for."
Parvati looked down at her silvery tortoise, casting a quick glance at the empty chair next to her. Her eyes were filled with tears.
Nobody said anything. Finally, McGonagall shook her head and lightly tapped Parvati's tortoise with her wand, making it change back to its original green colour. "Perhaps this is not the time to learn this particular spell," she said softly. "Miss Patil, Miss Weasley — you may be excused. Go get some fresh air."
Next Transfiguration class, they studied Untransfiguration instead. It was several weeks before another Transfiguration class involved animals — and even then, it was the Avifors spell, which turned any object into a bird.
Days turned into weeks, and nothing more happened on the diary or Wormtail front.
Students were arguing about whether Lavender's Petrification had something to do with You-Know-Who's diary or not. Some of them were certain that it must have; Petrification was an act of extremely Dark magic, and who was the biggest practitioner of extremely Dark magic for the last few decades? Others (like, to take a completely random example, Cormac McLaggen) thought it was unlikely, claiming that everybody knew You-Know-Who was gone, and how much trouble could a diary be, anyway?
Fred and George claimed they were constantly checking the Marauder's Map for signs of Vernon Dursley or someone that could be Wormtail, but either they just had lousy timing or the targets in question had really left Hogwarts grounds.
"But then," said George, "he was one of its creators. Maybe he knows how to hide from the Map."
"But I can't imagine Wormtail being the sort to go around kidnapping and Petrifying people," said Fred. "There's something we're missing here."
Ronnie was also fairly certain that they were missing something — there was some detail here that she wasn't quite seeing, something that would have made sense of it all — but unlike the obviously biased Fred she didn't think it had anything to do with Wormtail's character. But she couldn't think of what it was.
And so far, that was the last word on the subject. If the teachers knew more, they weren't saying (and Lockhart had been noticeably colder towards Ronnie since her accusations of him, not that she minded), and so there was nothing to do except continue their lives as normally as possible.
Well — almost normally. The dormitory was still strangely empty without Lavender in it, and Hermione had taken to spending almost all her spare time in the library. Now, of course, Hermione had always been the sort to spend a lot of time reading, but after Lavender's Petrification she had really taken it to extremes, looking for likely causes of Petrification.
So with schoolwork, Quidditch practice (for Harry), endless research (for Hermione) and lots of speculation that led nowhere (for the rest of them), time passed — and soon, Halloween was upon Hogwarts again.
Halloween was always a grand occasion at Hogwarts; Ronnie had been told often enough about the splendid Halloween feast and the marvellous decorations by her brothers, and had already experienced the start of one Halloween feast herself. Of course, that particular Halloween feast had been interrupted by a troll, let into Hogwarts by Professor Quirrell, so it had been cut short.
At breakfast one rainy Saturday morning shortly before Halloween, Fred and George stopped by up by the High Table on their way to join the other Gryffindors, to ask Lockhart whether he was planning on letting a troll into the school the way Quirrell had.
"Because if you are," said Fred, in front of the entire school, "would you mind giving George and me a little hint about it when you do? We'd like to get a proper view this year."
"Yeah, last year, we didn't even see the troll," said George.
Any other teacher would have deducted a considerable number of points from Gryffindor for this, or at least told the twins to stop fooling around, but Lockhart merely smiled his award-winning smile. "If a troll should come here this Halloween," he said, "then you'll have nothing to fear as long as I'm here. I know exactly how to deal with such creatures."
"Come on, you two," Oliver Wood called impatiently from the Gryffindor table. "I've booked the Quidditch pitch and we're practising no matter how much it's raining, so make sure you eat a healthy breakfast!"
Wood had been deathly (and loudly) afraid that Lavender's Petrification would mean that Dumbledore once again declared Hogwarts to be unsafe and cancelled all Quidditch practice the way he had last year — but so far, this hadn't happened, and Wood was determined that, now that he had a "good seeker" (McLaggen grumbled a little at that), Gryffindor would win the Quidditch cup. So he'd called for a lot of practices, no matter the weather.
Not that Ronnie would admit it, but it actually was kind of nice to not be on the team when that meant you didn't have to fly while it was raining Krups and Kneazles.
"I wish your brothers would stop bothering Professor Lockhart so much," Hermione muttered from beside Ronnie, as the sniggering Fred and George came up to the Gryffindor table to sit. "He's got the patience of a saint, really, dealing with such questions."
"More like the brains of a beetle," said Ronnie, pouring herself a glass of orange juice. "He's too dense to realise when he's being made fun of. And I still say he's hiding something."
"Make up your mind!" Hermione snapped. "Either he's an idiot, or he's cunning enough to hide things from Professor Dumbledore and the entire staff. He can't be both!"
"So you're admitting that he's one of 'em, then?"
"That's not what I said!" Hermione frowned. "The problem with you, Veronica Weasley, is that you can never let go of your biases!"
Ronnie shook her head. Hermione was usually so smart and a good judge of character, but just because some vain ponce smiled at her with unnaturally white teeth she was completely unable to see what an absolute tit the man was.
On a related note, there was Ginny. She at least managed to talk in Harry's presence now instead of squeaking, but whenever he was around she had this nasty tendency to turn shy — and Ginny had never been shy in her life.
Did fancying someone have to mean you turned into someone completely different?
Her musings were interrupted by the arrival of the breakfast post owls.
As usual, a number of students received letters from home, though Ronnie wasn't expecting any today — poor old Errol had, the last time he carried a letter from Mum, managed to get lost three times and eventually had to be rescued from the Forbidden forest by Hagrid. For an encore he had crash-landed on the Gryffindor table, upsetting a pot of strawberry jam which had taken ages to clean off his feathers. The Weasleys had silently agreed to not send him out on any long journeys for a while after that, and Harry had offered them to borrow Hedwig if they needed a letter sent (Percy was still reluctant to let anyone borrow Hermes, though he had let up slightly after returning to Hogwarts).
But just as the other owls had dropped their letters and parcels and taken off again, an unknown owl came swooping down down to the Gryffindor table, immediately perched on Ronnie's head and dropped a letter right in front of Harry, only just missing his cereal bowl.
Harry carefully picked it up while Ronnie tried convincing the owl to get off her, and Neville, who was sitting opposite, said with some excitement: "I recognise that handwriting! You just got a letter from Mr. Lupin!"
"Oh!" Harry's eyes widened behind his glasses. He'd written a long letter to the selfsame Mr. Lupin quite some time ago, but Hedwig had returned without a response. "I was starting to wonder if he didn't want to talk to me at all!"
"Open it!" said Ronnie eagerly. This was the first really exciting thing to happen in weeks — well, not that she was particularly eager for more Petrifications or anything like that, but still.
"Maybe Harry wants to read it alone," said Hermione, even if she too looked rather curious about the letter.
But Harry had already torn the envelope open, and for once he seemed oblivious to the fact that several people were looking at him. "Thank you," he said to the owl on Ronnie's head, which hooted and took to its wings again, flying up and away.
For what seemed like an eternity, Harry read in silence. Ronnie felt curiosity well up inside her, and she could see that Hermione, sitting next to her, was also a lot more curious than she wanted to admit. Ginny and Colin, sitting nearby, were also looking interested, and Colin wasn't even trying to hide that he was stretching his neck to try and catch a glimpse of the text.
Harry only looked up from the letter once, and then only to ask "What's a Howler, again?"
"Er," said Ronnie. "It's a letter that yells at you in a really loud voice. Why?"
Harry just nodded at the letter and kept reading. Finally, he looked up and put it down, a small smile on his lips.
"What does he say?" said Ronnie, unable to contain herself.
Harry handed the letter to her. "Read for yourself," he said.
Ronnie and Hermione put their heads together and read:
Dear Harry,
I apologise for not having replied to your letter sooner, but I have been ill and it's only now I feel up to the task of writing. I was, however, very glad to receive your letter — to think it's been eleven years, and you're already at your second year at Hogwarts. Sometimes it feels like only yesterday that I was a student there myself.
I have often thought of you these past years, and as you correctly surmised in your letter I did read about your Muggle relatives and your current staying with the Weasley family in the Daily Prophet. I have, however, learned to take everything the Prophet says with a grain of salt, and when you say that the Weasleys are good people, and your friend Neville likewise had nothing but good things to say about them, of course I will believe that over any newspaper article. I'm very happy that you have such good friends; I know that I would probably never have survived my time at Hogwarts without my friends by my side.
Yes, your father, James, was indeed one of my best friends. He was a bit of a mischief-maker and had an uncanny talent for trouble, but he was as loyal and true a friend as I could ever wish for. I won't hesitate to say that over the years he became like a brother to me. Ever since we were sorted into Gryffindor together, we were practically inseparable — James, myself and our two other friends Peter and Sirius.
We had more misadventures and got up to more mischief over the years than I can even remember. I hope you will forgive me, though, if I don't recount these in detail. I would hate to receive a Howler from Professor McGonagall about encouraging you to mischief.
Your mother, Lily, was in our year, and was one of the kindest, most charming witches I've ever known. James was smitten with her from early on, though it took years before she would give him the time of day. I'm afraid she didn't much approve of his madcap pranks.
By the time we were in seventh year, though, James had mellowed out a lot, and Lily had warmed up to him considerably. They were chosen as Head Boy and Girl, and left Hogwarts not only with top honours but as a couple.
I count myself as lucky and privileged to have known two such wonderful people, and am truly saddened that you never got to know them.
I think I still have some photographs of our Hogwarts days. If you would like some, you have only to ask.
Sincerely yours,
Remus J. Lupin
"Wow," said Ronnie as she put down the letter (which was immediately snatched by Ginny). "Neville was right, he seems nice. Doesn't hurt that he doesn't listen to everything the Daily Prophet says either."
"Are you going to ask him for the photographs?" Neville asked after managing to glance at the letter as well.
"I think I might," said Harry. "I don't really have all that many. Hagrid gave me a couple of photos last year, but they were when Mum and Dad were married and had me." (Ronnie had seen one of these photographs; it was of a proud-looking James holding a Harry who couldn't be more than a few months old, displaying him for the camera any which way. Funnily enough, James had looked more like the Harry she knew than baby Harry had; it was hard to recognise her best friend in that wide-eyed baby with the toothless grin, who kept pulling his father's hair.)
"He didn't say much about Peter or Sirius, did he?" said Ronnie. She remembered Neville's story from the Hogwarts express, of the one friend who had died and the other who had turned traitor.
"I didn't really ask," said Harry, sounding a little embarrassed. "Neville said he didn't seem to want to talk about them, so..."
"He didn't," said Neville. "He talked a little bit about Peter, but not about Sirius."
"That's understandable," said Hermione. "If you had three good friends, and two of them died while the third turned out a traitor and a murderer, wouldn't you find it harder to talk about that third friend too?"
"I really hope none of us ever have to find out," said Harry dryly.
"Oh!" Hermione looked sheepish. "Harry, I didn't mean — You know none of us would ever —"
Ronnie decided to help Hermione out a bit by changing the subject. "What did Mr. Lupin say about Peter?" she said, looking back at Neville.
"Er." Neville fidgeted. "You know my memory's not the best. I don't really remember any details."
"Broad strokes then!"
"Well. Er."
"What Longbottom doesn't want to say," came a very unwelcome voice from behind, "is that 'Peter' was a fat, pathetic excuse for a wizard, who thought he could become less pathetic by hanging around people that were successful and popular, if only by comparison. He was exactly like Longbottom, in fact."
Neville turned dark red and looked down at his plate.
Ronnie was at her feet at once, twirling around to look directly into the icy-grey, mocking eyes of the offender. "Malfoy -!" she growled.
"Yes, yes, I know. 'Sod off, Malfoy.' You're so predictable, Weasley." Draco Malfoy was flanked by Crabbe and Goyle, who stood on each side of him and looked menacing — which was probably why Malfoy looked so self-assured at the moment.
Harry had raised himself as well. "Lay off," he said. "Neville's not pathetic, and neither were any of my father's friends!"
"Just ignore him, you two," said Hermione steadfastly. "He doesn't know anything!"
"Oh, don't I?" Malfoy looked like he was enjoying this. "Granger, the things I could tell you about Potter's father and his so-called friends — but of course, you wouldn't be interested," he added, taking a quick look at the various other Gryffindors who were raising themselves. "Gryffindor's turn to have the Quidditch pitch for practice, isn't it? Nice weather for it. I'm thinking of watching you from a window, in a nice dry room and with a hot drink in my hand."
Crabbe and Goyle chortled dutifully, as Wood also raised himself. "If you think you can spy on the Gryffindor team —" he began.
"At least the Gryffindor team are capable of flying even if the weather gets a little rough," said Ronnie, "instead of running inside the moment a cloud shows up!"
Malfoy glowered at her, ignoring Wood. "At least the Slytherin team has decent broomsticks! The Gryffindors can barely hover along on theirs!" (The Slytherin team had recently been given, as a generous donation from Malfoy's father, new broomsticks of the brand-new Nimbus 2001 type — which was probably why Malfoy was now the team's new Seeker.)
"At least the Gryffindor team has a Seeker that didn't get in just because his rich Daddy bribed the team captain with new broomsticks!"
"At least I'm on a team! Which Quidditch team are you on, Weasley? Or no, wait, you're the mascot of the Gryffindor team, aren't you? Weasley the Ugliest Ghoul!"
"Why you —!" Ronnie suddenly felt Hermione grab her to hold her back.
"Don't!" the bushy-haired girl hissed. "He's not worth it!"
"Is there a problem down there?!" said Professor McGonagall, her voice carrying as well as ever across the from the High Table.
There was a short silence.
"No problem, Professor," said Malfoy, who had managed to make his voice sound all smooth and calm again. "Crabbe, Goyle and I were just wishing the Gryffindors a happy upcoming Halloween."
"And I suppose they all stood up because they thought your words were worth a standing ovation?" said McGonagall, clearly not believing him for a moment. (The entire Gryffindor Quidditch team — Wood, Fred, George, Angelina, Katie and Alicia — was standing along with Harry, Ronnie, Hermione and Ginny.) "Sit down, you lot! And Mister Malfoy, do stop bothering them."
"All right." Malfoy gave Harry a nasty smile. "Well, I suppose I should wish you luck as Gryffindor's new Seeker, Potter... You'll need it. First match is going to be against Slytherin, and I'm going to enjoy —"
"Now, Mister Malfoy, or I'll take five points from Slytherin."
"Gryffindor bias," Malfoy snorted, but very softly so that McGonagall wouldn't hear it. "We'll see how it goes on the Quidditch pitch." Then he turned and, together with Crabbe and Goyle, walked back to the Slytherin table.
Harry and Ronnie sat down, as did the other students who had stood up. Harry was looking at Malfoy with a weird mix of anger, exasperation and curiosity.
"Don't pay him any mind," said Ginny, handing Mr. Lupin's letter back to Harry. "Hermione's right, he doesn't know anything."
"Yeah, he's just jealous!" Colin added. "He's not on the Gryffindor team!"
But Harry didn't look too convinced of that, and when Neville finally had the voice to speak again, he said: "Thing is — Mr. Lupin did say that Peter was...well, he didn't use the word 'pathetic,' but he was a bit of a tag-along, not as talented as she others... Dunno if he was fat or not, but — how could Malfoy have known?"
"C'mon, Neville, you know better than to listen to anything Malfoy says," said Ronnie.
"So should you, Veronica," said Hermione admonishingly. "He's just trying to get you to lose your temper so he can get you into trouble, don't you see that? Now that Snape's gone, Slytherin's lost the teacher most biased in their favour. Malfoy's clearly trying to make up for it."
Ronnie didn't have an answer to that. She knew Hermione was right; she'd let Malfoy provoke her. But it was just so easy to forget logical arguments like that when he was standing there and mocking both her and her friends.
And it was a little weird... How had Malfoy known about this Peter fellow?
Maybe his Dad had been at Hogwarts at roughly the same time as Harry's Dad, and spent family dinners talking about how pathetic the Gryffindors he'd went to school with was? Ronnie could all too well imagine Malfoy and his father swapping nasty tales about people they didn't like. Yeah, that'd be it. Probably Mr. Malfoy would take extra care to tell his son foul things about Harry's Dad and his friends, to give him some more ammunition against Harry.
"How is Quidditch practice coming along anyway," she asked Harry, deciding to focus on more positive things.
"Oh, it's brilliant," said Harry. "Wood reckons the team's really going to do great. Just you wait, Ronnie, I'll beat Malfoy so hard that he won't know what hit him."
"Good," said Ronnie.
Practising in weather like this couldn't be very fun, though, no matter how much you were looking forward to beating Malfoy. Ronnie had debated going out to watch, but the sour weather and pouring rain made the nice, dry common room feel all too inviting and comfortable. She'd pondered finding a window to watch the game from, but the Quidditch pitch wasn't easily visible from Gryffindor tower and anyway, what would she have seen? Some miserable-looking dots flying around, all obscured because of the heavy rain?
It was Colin who got the idea to go down to the front entrance with some towels or something for the team so they could at least dry off after their lengthy exposure to the October rain.
And so, since Hermione had decided to spend the day in the library again, it was Ronnie, Neville, Ginny and Colin who greeted the team as they staggered in, tired and soaked to the bone, their Quidditch robes looking to be ten times heavier than usual with all the rainwater they had absorbed. Neville had managed to scrounge up quite a few towels and blankets, which were accepted with praise and thanks from all the team-mates — including McLaggen, who was too exhausted to keep up his usual standoffish nature.
"We really have to learn that Hot-Air Charm," Katie said through clattering teeth as she rubbed herself down with a towel that got wetter and wetter.
"I'd be happy with a charm that made these glasses repel water," said Harry, wiping them off on his towel. "If we play in weather like this, I'll never be able to see the Snitch."
"There is a charm like that," said Ronnie eagerly. "Impervius! Dad's used it on the car windows! Dunno when we learn it..."
"Hermione probably knows," said Neville.
"You've got to talk to Flitwick about that one, Harry!" said Wood, who despite being just as wet, tired and shivering as the rest, seemed to have a lot more energy to spare. "Anything for an edge against Slytherin!"
"Yeah, I hate to admit it, but those new brooms they've got are the tops," said George, his red hair sticking out all around him after a frantic rubbing with a towel. "Fred and me managed to sneak a peek at the Slytherin team practising. Fastest broomsticks I've seen, makes us look like flying snails in comparison."
"It's not the broomsticks that count, it's the witches and wizards riding them," said Angelina, who had wrapped a blanket around herself and was looking a lot more content. "Helps to have good housemates too. I couldn't imagine any Slytherins doing this for their team!"
They were in a better mood as they moved up to Gryffindor tower, getting no more than a sour look from Filch as they passed him (if they'd gone in dripping wet he'd have thrown a fit). In one of the corridors, they passed by a silvery-white, transparent figure, who was staring forlornly out of a window.
If this had been a Muggle school, Ronnie thought, no doubt panic would have erupted because Muggles weren't used to ghosts — but here at Hogwarts, even Harry, who had grown up with Muggles, barely gave them a second thought.
"Hello, Nick," said Harry politely, and various choruses of "Hey, Nick," sounded from everyone else as they walked past.
Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington, affectionately known as Nearly Headless Nick, Resident Ghost of Gryffindor Tower, turned around and smiled at them, though the smile didn't quite reach his eyes. "Hello, hello," he said. "Ah, Ronnie," he added as he saw that she was with them. "Terribly sorry — no sign of that diary yet. We'll find it, though, never you worry."
"Er, thank you, Nick," said Ronnie. "I know you're, er, doing your best and all."
"Oh — while I have you here," the ghost continued, floating around so that he was in front of her.
If he'd been corporeal he would have been blocking her path, but since he was a ghost she could walk straight through him if she wanted. She hated doing that, though; walking through a ghost felt like having a bucket of ice water thrown at you, and it felt a little awkwardly wrong too somehow. So she stopped, and Harry stopped beside her — which of course meant that Ginny and Colin stopped too, even as the rest of the group went on.
"I've told Dumbledore this too," said Nick, "but I thought since you're so closely tied to this case... and obviously, if we do find the diary, we'll let you all know, soon as possible, but, well, we're taking Halloween off from the search."
"Oh." Ronnie wasn't quite sure how to take this. "Er, that's all right, Halloween's a pretty big day —"
"Absolutely!" Nick agreed. "In fact —" (he straightened himself and took on a pompously proud expression that looked more funny than impressive) "— this particular Halloween just happens to be my five hundredth deathday!"
"Oh," Ronnie repeated, trying to remember whether she was supposed to offer congratulations or condolences. Marking the day you died sounded awfully depressing to her, but a ghost might look at it differently. "Five hundred." She exchanged glances with Harry and Neville, but Harry looked blank and Neville just had that vague look of unease he usually had when a ghost was talking to him. "Er, wow."
"Many happy returns!" said Colin, and then added. "I think?"
"Of course, deathdays come and deathdays go," said Nick, "but number five hundred, that's a bit of a special occasion, isn't it? So I'm holding a party down in the dungeons. Friends coming from all over the country, even, well —" He looked a little flustered. "So what I would like to ask — it's silly, really, but I thought, since we ghosts have been taking a lot of time out to — and of course there's no harm in asking, feel free to say no if you don't —"
"What is it, Nick?" said Harry. "Just ask!"
"Well," said Nick, looking a little relieved. "The thing is, one of my guests will be Sir Patrick Delaney-Podmore — one of the high representatives for the Headless Hunt, you know." ("What's the Headless Hunt?" Colin whispered to Ginny, who shushed him.) "I sort of thought I would — you know, since I did die from beheading, you'd think I'd qualify, wouldn't you? I mean, getting hit forty-five times in the neck with a blunt axe, that sounds pretty beheaded to me. Right?"
"Yes!" said Ginny, subtly elbowing Ronnie and giving meaningful looks to the boys..
"What? Oh, yes!" said Ronnie.
"Absolutely," Harry agreed.
"Right!" Nick's face was a study in righteous indignation. "But apparently, Sir Patrick is of another opinion. Half an inch of skin and sinew holding my neck on, that's enough for him to say I'm not qualified to join the Headless Hunt!"
He looked upset enough that Ronnie wondered if he'd do his old trick of grabbing his head and flipping it over like it was on a hinge — but he didn't. Instead he just turned to Harry and said, in a calmer voice: "So I was wondering — just tell me if you don't want to — but could you perhaps drop by my party and talk to him?"
"Me?" said Harry, blinking in surprise.
"Why, yes! You're famous among ghosts too, you know," said Nick, looking at the rest of Potter's Gang. "Oh, you're all welcome too, of course, and so is Miss Granger, if she would like to! I just thought, if Sir Patrick found that Harry Potter was speaking for me — but you'd probably rather go to the school feast?"
"No, no, I'll come!" said Harry hurriedly.
Nick beamed at him. "My dear boy! You have no idea how much this means to me! Oh, and if you get the chance, could you possibly mention to Sir Patrick how impressive and frightening you find me?"
"Er, yes, of course," said Harry, who looked like he was starting to wonder just what he'd agreed to and whether it really was a good idea.
Ronnie thought about the Halloween feast, and how it had been interrupted last year. Then she looked at Harry and how overwhelmed he seemed. She repressed a sigh and put on as cheerful a face as she could. "I'll come too!" she said.
"Me too!" said Ginny and Colin simultaneously.
"Yeah," said Neville, sounding slightly less enthusiastic but clearly wanting to show solidarity. "Er, don't worry, Sir Nicholas, we'll tell this Sir Patrick all about how scary you are!"
"Do ghosts show up on cam —" Colin began, but then his face fell as, no doubt, he remembered that his camera was out of commission and he wouldn't be able to take pictures to show his family back home anyway. "Never mind."
As Nearly Headless Nick floated off, looking happier than any of them could ever remember seeing him, Harry turned to Ronnie with a 'what-did-I-just-get-myself-into' look on his face. "Er," he said. "You guys really don't have to come along, you know —"
"Of course we don't have to," said Ronnie. "But we will. Right?"
Neville, Ginny and Colin all nodded.
"And Hermione will be thrilled," Ronnie continued. "I can just hear her now: 'A deathday party, how fascinating, I bet there aren't many living people who can say they've been to a deathday party...'"
"All right, all right," Harry laughed. "Point taken."
And so it was that, on the evening that Halloween, while all the other students were going down to the Great Hall for the spectacular feast, Potter's Gang, Ginny and Colin were all preparing for a trip down to the dungeons.
Hermione, prepared as always, had advised them all to wear thick underclothes under their robes because she'd read that whenever a large number of ghosts were gathered the temperature would drop several degrees around them.
Ronnie didn't really think it'd be much of a problem, but Ginny, when she showed up at The second-year girls' dormitory to see if Ronnie and Hermione were ready, turned out to have dug out her old jumper and the thick woollen stockings Mum had knitted for her, and was wearing them under their robes.
"I thought, better safe than sorry," she said. "It's getting warm, though."
"Never mind," said Hermione encouragingly. "You'll be grateful for the warmth when you're down in the dungeon surrounded by ghosts." She had also decided to wear a thick woollen jumper under her robes, together with a pair of woollen trousers, and now she was giving a meaningful look to Ronnie, who was only wearing her normal vest and knickers under her robes. "She'll be very grateful," she added.
"Yes, Mum," said Ronnie, rolling her eyes. "Are we going, or what? We're late enough as it is without waiting for me to dress for winter! Oy, Parvati," she added, turning to Parvati's bed, "move your arse, you'll miss the feast."
Parvati looked up from her bed, where she had been lying and looking glum all afternoon. "I'm not going to the feast," she said. "I don't feel like it."
"Well, do you want to come with us to the deathday party then?" said Hermione.
Parvati rolled over on her side. "No."
"I'm sure Padma's gonna miss you if you don't go to the feast," Ronnie goaded. She had always been a little surprised at how little time Parvati seemed to spend with her twin sister, even if said twin sister was in Ravenclaw. Fred and George had always been completely inseparable.
But Parvati just shrugged.
Hermione sat down on the bed next to the gloomy-looking girl. "You really should go," she said. "I'm sure Lavender wouldn't want you to miss out —"
"Lavender's not here, is she?" Parvati snapped, suddenly angry. "How do you know what she'd want?! Crookshanks, get off!" This last part was of course to Crookshanks, who had jumped up on the bed and started rubbing his head against Parvati's hand, much like Mrs. Norris had done to Ronnie when she and Harry had discovered Lavender.
"He just wants you to feel better," said Ronnie — and as Parvati sighed and started to scratch behind Crookshanks's ears, looking a little calmer, Ronnie was suddenly very proud of her cat. Smart bugger.
"Look, you don't have to go anywhere you don't wanna go," she said. "Crookshanks'll be happy to keep you company here if you like."
"Maybe you can go up to the hospital wing to visit Lavender," Ginny piped up.
"There's no real point, is there?" said Hermione dubiously. "I read up on Petrification — Petrified people don't know if anyone's there or not. Lavender won't even notice."
"Parvati can tell her afterwards, when she's revived, can't she?" said Ginny stubbornly. "Don't you think Lavender would like knowing that someone visited her while she was Petrified?"
Parvati slowly sat up. "You know," she said, "maybe I will."
They left her in the dormitory, still on her bed and petting Crookshanks, looking pensive.
"I'm not sure visiting Lavender will be good for her," Hermione murmured.
"Better than just lying around and moping," said Ginny.
Harry, Neville and Colin were waiting for them down in the otherwise empty common room. None of them had dressed up either, though Harry had at least made an effort at getting his unruly hair to lie flat. (He hadn't succeeded very well, but you could at least see that he'd tried.)
"Well," said Harry, not saying anything about them being late. "Better get going. Er, unless you'd rather go to the feast. I can go alone, you know," he added, for about the seventh time since Nick's invitation.
"Rubbish!" said Hermione, for about the seventh time since Nick's invitation. "We all promised! And besides, I'm looking forward to attending a real deathday party! I bet not many living people can say they've been to one!"
"Do I know her well, or do I know her well?" said Ronnie to Harry, unable to keep a certain smugness out of her voice.
He snorted with amusement. Hermione just huffed. And then they were off.
Halloween looked to be spectacular this year — the Great Hall was decorated just as brilliantly as it had been last year, and Hagrid had provided some enormous pumpkins that he'd carved into lanterns big enough to room three men, and rumours were going around the school that Dumbledore had booked a troupe of dancing skeletons for the entertainment.
They could hear the chattering of excited voices as they passed by the entrance to the Great Hall and instead took off down towards the far less inviting, much more gloomy dungeons.
Only Hermione and Colin looked excited about the upcoming deathday party, Ronnie noticed; Colin of course didn't know what he'd be missing and Hermione would never pass up an opportunity to learn something new (even if it was just how ghosts celebrated the day they died). And in a way it was kind of fascinating, and if the deathday party hadn't been at the same day as the Halloween feast... But the alternative was to let Harry go alone, and Ronnie knew neither she nor any of the others would want that.
The passageway leading to Nearly Headless Nick's party had been lined with candles; thin black tapers that burned an eerie blue and created a very gloomy effect. Probably Nick had asked one of the teachers to do it, maybe Flitwick, to create the proper atmosphere.
The further they went down the corridor, the colder it got. After a few metres, Ronnie was starting to wish she'd taken Hermione's advice anyway and worn her jumper and stockings, but she'd be buggered if she showed it and got a round of 'I-told-you-so' from the bushy-haired girl. It was bad enough that some strange sounds that were probably supposed to be music was heard from up ahead; though it sounded more like someone torturing a thousand mice. (Oh, God, she hoped that wasn't how ghosts actually made music!)
Just as they were about to turn a corner, a piercing howl came from up front, and a transparent, silvery-white form came floating through the wall; a young girl ghost with long hair and round spectacles. "I'm leaving!" she howled, ghostly tears streaking down her face. "I'm never coming to any of your stupid parties again!"
"Now, Myrtle," came the voice of Nearly Headless Nick, whose head bobbed on its shoulders as it stuck out from that same wall. "I'm certain nobody meant —"
"YES, THEY DID!" Myrtle screamed. "I'LL GO DROWN MYSELF, THEN YOU'LL ALL BE SORRY!"
Ronnie and Hermione had just enough time to pull Harry, Colin, Ginny and Neville aside to save them from being run through by the howling ghost girl as she flew at a great speed up the corridor; so upset that she didn't even see them.
"I'm going to take a wild guess," said Harry as she vanished and Ronnie let go of him, "and say that was that Moaning Myrtle you girls told us about."
"How can she drown herself?" said Colin. "Isn't she already dead?"
"She'll remember that when she reaches that bathroom of hers, and then she'll just sulk and flood her toilet again," sighed Nick, looking vaguely absurd as his loosely-connected head was sticking out of the wall. "Peeves was teasing her about something, and someone else may have laughed, and she's so sensitive about — but I really don't have the time to go soothing her feelings right now, the Headless Hunt hasn't arrived yet, and it's nearly time for my speech — hello, by the way, such a pleasure to see you all here!" This last part was said somewhat more jovially.
"Is she going to be all right?" said Neville, motioning in the direction Moaning Myrtle had vanished.
"Of course she will," said Nick dismissively. "She's a ghost. Nothing can hurt a ghost. But I can't wait for you to meet Sir Patrick, Harry! Now, when he arrives with the rest of the Headless Hunt, you'll make certain you tell him how frightening I am?"
"Oh — of course!" said Harry.
"Splendid, splendid! Well, I need to go go mingle a bit before my speech — do come in, the entrance to the dungeon is just around the corner, it's the doorway with the black velvet drapes!" Nick's head vanished in through the wall again.
They all exchanged glances and then began moving towards the corner.
Just then, though, Ronnie felt an unexpected, painful warmth against her chest."Ow!" She yelped, stopped, and grasped for the Warning Fang she had underneath her clothes. It was all of a sudden growing extremely hot.
Something or someone extremely dangerous was near — but where? She looked around the corridor, but nobody was there apart from her and her friends, who had also stopped and were looking at her with concern.
"Are you —" Neville began.
"Shh!" Harry suddenly looked around. "That voice! It's that voice again!"
Ronnie fished the hot Warning Fang out from under her clothes and held it out in the air to keep it from burning her, trying to listen for a voice. She couldn't hear anything apart from Harry, the regular hissing of the plumbing, and the trying-to-be music from behind the wall, and the others looked just as blank.
But Harry was over by the wall, looking like he was straining himself to listen. "It's saying something about killing — oh, no —"
"Harry, there's no voice!" said Hermione.
"Shut up for a minute!" Harry hissed. "I'm trying to find out where it's coming from!"
"The Warning Fang —" Ronnie began, but was interrupted by a gasp from Ginny, who pointed to the floor.
Fifteen or twenty small black spiders were scurrying up the corridor. Neville squeaked and Hermione stepped back, and Colin just stared as the spiders rushed past them without so much as acknowledging their presence, and vanished. Ronnie had never seen spiders act like that before; it was like they were running away from something...
Whatever the Warning Fang was warning her about, whatever voice Harry was hearing, whatever the spiders were running from, it had to be connected.
She was about to say this, when the Warning Fang suddenly grew cool again and Harry backed away from the wall. "It vanished," he said. "The voice vanished, just like that. None of you heard it?"
They all shook their heads.
"Just like last time," said Harry breathlessly. "I thought it was Peeves having a laugh. Ronnie didn't hear the voice, but I did. It was just before we found Lavender..." he trailed off.
It took perhaps five seconds before Hermione spoke up, her voice sounding strangely small. "Is it just me, or did it suddenly get very quiet?"
And then Ronnie realised what she meant: The music, or what the ghosts probably thought was music, had stopped. An eerie quiet had sunk over the corridor.
Later on, none of them could say just who had started running first — Ronnie said it was Harry, Harry said it was Hermione and Ginny claimed they'd all started at the exact same time — but before they knew it they were racing down the corridor, rounding the corner and straight for the door with the black velvet drapes.
Running into the dungeon in question was not unlike running into a freezer; Ronnie felt the cold sting on her face and hands as the entered, but what she felt didn't concern her so much as what she saw.
It was a beautiful, gloomy, eerie and deeply unsettling sight all at the same time. The dungeon had been decorated in black and midnight-blue; a chandelier hanging above with more black candles, a raised stage where a ghostly orchestra was playing on saws (so that had been the music!) while dozens, if not hundreds of ghosts were gathered on the dance floor beneath.
But none of the ghosts were moving. In fact, none of them were their usual silvery-white or grey; they all looked oddly black and smoky, and were floating motionlessly, horizontally or straight up and down, with looks of shock on their faces. The orchestra had frozen in the middle of playing, the dancers in the middle of dancing.
All the ghosts they knew from their time at Hogwarts — the Bloody Baron, the Fat Friar, the Grey Lady — plus dozens of ghosts they hadn't even seen before, were floating there motionlessly. Even Nearly Headless Nick was frozen and motionless like the others, staring blankly at whatever it was that had shocked him.
"They've... they've all been Petrified," said Neville, his soft voice sounding unusually loud in the eerie quiet. "Every last one of them."
"But we only just talked to Nick!" said Ronnie, feeling a sense of dread in her stomach. "What could have got to all of them that fast?"
"What could have done it at all?!" said Neville. "I didn't even know ghosts could get Petrified."
"Look!" Colin pointed. "Whatever it was, it got Peeves too!"
And true enough: There, by a large table where a large amount of putrid, rotten food was decoratively placed around a disgustingly grey cake shaped like a tombstone and bearing the words SIR NICHOLAS DE MIMSY-PORPINGTON, DIED 31ST OCTOBER, 1492, was Hogwarts's resident poltergeist. Unlike the ghosts, Peeves had not gone black and smoky; he was just as colourful as usual, wearing an orange party hat and a bow tie, but he too was floating stiffly and motionlessly... And upside-down, for some reason. His malicious face had stiffened in an open-mouthed grimace, as if he had tried to yell something, and his hands were making a weird gesture that Ronnie didn't recognise; he held his hands slightly apart as if applauding something, but his thumbs were touching.
"This is impossible!" said Hermione in the somewhat shrill tone she usually got when she was scared. "What could possibly Petrify hundreds of ghosts? And Peeves! I've read Hogwarts: A History, nobody's ever been able to do anything against Peeves before! Caretakers and teachers have tried to get rid of him for centuries, none of them —" She stopped, heaving for her breath. "We're not staying here," she announced. "We're going to the Great Hall to tell the teachers what happened. NOW."
Nobody wanted to argue. Though Ronnie did take a final glance at Peeves as they hurried out of the dungeon. That gesture he was making could be a letter, couldn't it? It looked kind of like a W... Or, since he was upside-down, maybe it was meant to be an M? Was it supposed to be some kind of clue? Was he trying to tell them who was responsible for this?
In that case, could it be that he meant Wormtail, or... Something clicked in her head. What if it was...
...Malfoy?
TO BE CONTINUED...
Author's Notes: Yes, the chapter title refers to both the letter Harry gets from Remus Lupin, and the letter Ronnie thinks Peeves is forming with his hands. Double meanings are fun!
The Basilisk's being very effective, isn't it? And why try to target a bunch of ghosts, in a place where no humans were likely to set foot, apart from Potter's Gang? It seems like maybe in this universe, the goal might not be the deaths of Muggle-borns... or is there another explanation?
And the shipping poll is officially closed! Thank you to everyone who participated; it was very interesting to get a glimpse at people's romantic preferences. As I've said before, the poll probably won't affect the story all that much, if at all. So just because a pairing got a lot of votes doesn't mean it will happen... this was just because a lot of people were reviewing and writing to me about shipping, and a lot of them wildly disagreed with one another, so I got curious about which pairings were the most popular.
Here are the results:
1: Harry/Ronnie (104 votes)
2: Harry/Ginny (61 votes)
3: Ronnie/Neville (56 votes)
4: Harry/Hermione (54 votes)
5: Harry/Luna (44 votes)
6: Neville/Hermione (42 votes)
7: Neville/Luna (42 votes)
8: Ronnie/Hermione (41 votes)
9: Potter's Gang foursome (39 votes)
10: Neville/Ginny (38 votes)
11: Ronnie/Draco (32 votes)
12: Hermione/Draco (31 votes)
13: Ronnie/Luna (30 votes)
14: Ginny/Luna (26 votes)
15: Crookshanks/Hedwig (26 votes)
16: Nobody, this story doesn't need romance (26 votes)
17: Ginny/Draco (24 votes)
18: Hermione/Ginny (22 votes)
19: Crabbe/Goyle (20 votes)
20: I don't care, I just want SOMEONE to get it on! (16 votes)
21: All of them! At the same time! (Hogwarts Orgy) (16 votes)
22: Hermione/Luna (14 votes)
23: Harry/Draco (13 votes)
24: Harry/Neville (12 votes)
25: Neville/Draco (2 votes)
There aren't very many big surprises here, with the notable exceptions of "Potter's Gang Foursome" and "Crookshanks/Hedwig" getting so many votes; I included those mainly as a joke.
Harry/Ronnie is by far the most popular pairing, which was as to be expected. After all, the majority of gender-flip fanfics seem to be romances, a convenient way of pairing up two characters that are canonically the same gender, without having to write slash. So when I changed Ron's gender a lot of people were probably expecting there to be romance, and most likely with Harry, since the two are the main characters in the story.
So I suppose I owe you guys a clear answer here, rather than just stringing you along. Will Harry and Ronnie get together?
And the answer is... eh. Probably not. Yeah, I know there have been a few blushing moments here between them, especially with Ronnie being so much more cuddly than canon Ron, but I really don't see it developing beyond a very deep friendship. The TV Tropes page for Weasley Girl call Harry and Ronnie "Platonic Life Partners" (no, I wasn't the one who added that particular trope), which is more in line with how I see them in this story.
I haven't planned everything out to the fullest detail, mind, so the plot or characters could take a sudden sharp turn that surprises even me, but I wouldn't hold my breath. My goal with Weasley Girl was never to write a romance story; just to explore what a female Ron would be like... And to see how many changes I could plausibly make from one changed chromosome. But since Harry and Ron never got together in canon, I doubt Harry and Ronnie will either.
(Actually, highly personal opinion here, but Harry/Ron could have worked as a pairing in canon; they have more chemistry with each other than with anyone else, including Hermione or Ginny... But J. K. Rowling would never have got away with that, especially not in a children's book series. Society isn't quite there yet.)
Sorry if this crushes your romantic dreams. But looking at Ronnie as she is in this story, I think she has a lot of growing up to do before she's ready for any sort of romance.
About the rest of the poll? Well, I know there are some parings that definitely won't come to pass, just as there are some pairings that might... but I'll talk about this some more later on because this is shaping up to be a long enough author's note as it is.
(Okay, one clear statement. Hedwig/Crookshanks? Definitely not gonna happen.)
You'll notice that Colin is suspiciously absent from the poll. The reason for that is simple: When the poll started, back between chapters two and three, I hadn't actually planned for Colin to have any notable role in the story; I knew he'd make an appearance since he's pretty much the only other Gryffindor in Ginny's year we even know the name of, but I'd really only planned for him to have a few cameos, like one of the students who got a couple of spoken lines here and there, nothing more than that.
But Colin proved to be much too persistent to be satisfied with just a minor role. Just like his canon counterpart, he had an uncanny ability to show up uninvited and unexpected, and then just stick around. So for better or for worse, he's become a fairly central character. We'll see just where the story takes him, won't we?