Chapter 8 The Broken Line
A/N: Thanks to the avid reviewers who never fail to drop a line each time I upload a new chapter. Big love goes to Ark the Wanderer for the encouragement and support. It's always a pleasure to hear comments (good or bad) from the readers. If it weren't for you guys, this story would have sucked big time! Hahaha! I'm not kidding.
"Ginny dear, stop pacing. You're giving me quite a headache," Mrs. Weasley said as she stirred the pot of stew another time. Her daughter had been walking around the house for the past hour, a few times sitting near the counter to try to read the newspaper but getting nowhere past the front page. She couldn't blame her, though. Harry going out to the field wasn't keeping her warm and secure either.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize I've been doing it," she said, sitting herself back at the table and picking the prophet once again. She had been reading the same sentence for a while now and it still hasn't made sense to her as when she first read it earlier. With a sigh, she put it down again and turned to her mother. "Mum, do you think Harry's alright?"
"I believe Harry's very capable, dear," she assured her daughter.
"I know he is. But still, there's a million ways a situation can go wrong," she reasoned out.
"I'm sure Harry had thought of them all before he went there," Mrs. Weasley said. "There's nothing we can do right now but wait. Why don't you go upstairs and sort out your mail instead of worrying," she suggested.
"I don't want to do that now, Mum." Reading required attention and she definitely did not have that right now. Besides, the last time she scanned through her letters, she just received minor inquiries regarding her injuries and more 'regards to Harry' than anything else. She told him this and joked that people should make a fan club on the two of them if they were so popular. He just laughed it off and said something along the lines of "I thought they already had!"
"Well, why don't you sort out your room, then. Last time I looked, I couldn't see a square inch of floor space that wasn't filled."
"Fine. I'll go clean my room while Harry's in mortal danger," she said sarcastically, leaving the kitchen and taking the stairs two steps at a time.
Though not really intending to do any cleaning, the sight that greeted her when she opened her door made her reconsider. Immediately to left of the door was the enormous pile of letters (mostly fan mail) from when she had the accident. Standing in the middle of the room were five trunks that were sent to the Burrow while she was in St. Mungos'. She hadn't unpacked them yet, opening only one or two to get a change of clothes or retrieve her Quidditch gear.
Ginny sat on her bed and opened the lid of the trunk next to her and found they contained clothes. So were the two identical ones right next to it. She pulled out her wand and waved it once, sending the contents of all three trunks to her opened closet. As the stacks of clothes arranged themselves neatly on the shelves, she looked for her favorite aquamarine jacket she had been missing for the last week. No luck. She probably left it at the Harpies quarters, in which case, she'd just write to her roommate Karina to send it to her.
She moved on to the next trunk which she knew contained all her Quidditch things. She flicked her wand once again and banished her team uniform, set of practice balls, gloves, broom supplies and Professional Flying Techniques manual to a smaller cabinet near the window and set her own Firebolt 2.0 lying under her bed. Four down, one to go, she muttered to herself as she shrunk the first four cases and stuck them at the foot of her closet.
The last trunk was her personal favorite – a 30" long, 21" high, 23" wide antique solid teak in black cherry finish that had intricate rose carvings on all sides. She purchased it two years ago as a reward when the Harpies won the Quidditch League Finals and carted it off wherever she went, preferring to pack her more valuable belongings in it.
She brushed her hand along the top of the chest and traced the spiraling line of the vine where her name Ginevra was carved in very small curled letters. It was so beautiful she almost went dizzy looking at it. She pointed her wand at the gold-plated clasp and mentally cast the unlock spell followed by the password. The metal clicked and she opened the lid.
Inside, an assortment of odds and ends were piled on top of each other. She pushed her worries aside once again, concentrating on the task of unpacking the last of her luggage. She reached in and picked up a framed photograph of the Weasley family taken on Christmas three years ago. All of them were smiling in it and a few seconds later, Harry (who probably took the picture) ran to her side and waved. She stared at it a little more, trying to remember the very instant Harry appeared in that event. Nothing. With a resigned sigh, she placed the frame on her bedside table and moved on.
After half an hour, Ginny had almost finished replacing the contents of the black cherry chest into her drawers. A few trinkets were left lying on her bed which she meant to give to her family as presents from the places she recently visited. An old, heavy bronze key marked with 12 Ora Legale Villa was also resting beside the moving photograph, something she assumed she picked up from her flea market haunts.
As she came to the bottom, she found a bottle of ink had smashed on the back corner, drenching her lucky socks and a few rolls of parchments. She siphoned the dried liquid from the socks and the wood but the pieces of paper were hopeless as they were the permanent, no-erase kind and threw them in the bin. Moving to close the trunk, she found a leaf of talking post-it note adhering to the side of the box, this one only partially ruined by the ink. In it was written the broken reminder:
G,
Don't forget to
She tried getting the post-it to talk but the charm was already damaged. The usual cheery voice resembled that of the Bloody Baron's as it spouted off indistinct gargling sounds.
Don't forget, she repeated to herself. Don't forget what?
A/N: This one's more of an intermission chapter, as I'm sure you've noticed. I'm trying to build a foundation for later events so there isn't much action going on. I was originally planning something cute and sweet at the end but it's gotten too long already. Watch out for it next week. Again, a review would be nice.