A/N: Thank you to those who read and reviewed the last chapter. You are lovely people :)

I have nothing really to say here, apart from I hope you enjoy the new chapter :D

Oh, and that there's some swearing in this chapter, which there wasn't in the first, I don't think. So just a head's up.

TWO

The bell above the door tinkled as Ginny walked in, closely followed by George. It was strange to have one twin by himself, especially for this length of time and Ginny decided that she found it even more unnerving than the two of them together. At least when there were the two of them, she knew what to expect, but George by himself was a wild card; unpredictable.

"Ah, you have arrived," the elderly shopkeeper said as she came through from the back room, "I believe I have something for you, young lady." Ginny looked up at George in confusion, but George merely shrugged and gestured her towards the counter. He did, however, follow closely behind his little sister. He may have brushed off Percy's concerns of an attack earlier, but that did not mean he was stupid.

"You do?" Ginny asked curiously. Clarence just smiled, reaching underneath the counter for a second and pulling out the earring she had put aside earlier in the day. For a minute, it was like all the air in the room had left, to be replaced by crashing thunder and howling winds. Ginny could have even sworn that she felt drops of rain on her skin. But then the minute was over and she was staring at a single feather earring, with the shopkeeper watching her expectantly, and her brother staring at her with a slight frown on his face.

"Oh, um, how much?" she asked, shaking her head slightly in an attempt to clear her mind.

"Six sickles," Clarence answered, at exactly the same time as George said, "But Ginny, you don't even have pierced ears." Ginny's mouth formed a slight 'o' and her hand went up to her ear.

"I completely forgot," she muttered with a frown, "Mum would kill me." But still something inside her shifted, unsettled at the thought of walking away from this earring.

"What does it even do?" George asked the elderly shopkeeper. In his experience, Clarence would never sell them anything harmful, but it never hurt to be cautious, especially these days.

"It is the feather of a thunderbird," Clarence explained, "It can topple cities and destroy worlds. It can command a power that our people have long forgotten. But in this case? I believe it is an ornament. And it looks fetching with your sister's hair." George rolled his eyes. Crazy old lady, he thought, missing how the shopkeeper's lips twitched upwards as though she had heard him. He looked at his sister instead, who was busy staring at the earring with a slightly glazed look in her eyes.

"Ginny?" he asked, nudging her with his elbow.

"Hmm?" she looked up at him, though he could see that it was an effort to drag her eyes away from the earring.

"Let's go, Ginny," he said. There it is, Ginny thought to herself as he tried to drag her towards the door, there's the difference between Fred and George that nobody had noticed before. George was the cautious one, whilst Fred was always game for a stupid risk or two. Fred would have offered to pierce her ear himself, whilst George tried to take her away from it. She wasn't sure in that moment which she preferred.

"Just let me buy this," she said impatiently, shaking her brother's hand off of her arm, "Six sickles, did you say?" The elderly lady nodded eagerly, holding her hand out for the money. Ginny quickly counted out six silver coins and deposited them in Clarence's waiting palm. Quick as a flash, the shopkeeper grabbed the money and darted her other hand out, stabbing the earring straight through Ginny's earlobe.

"What the fuck?" Ginny screeched, stumbling backwards and clutching her ear. George quickly put himself between the two women, wand pointed at Clarence. The old lady merely chuckled darkly and began retreating into her back room.

"I saved the world, boy, I saved the world!" she cackled before turning and making a dash for the other room. George's stunner hit the door as it slammed behind her, scorching the wood.

"Come on, Gin, let's get out of here," he turned to his sister only to find her staring into a mirror for sale, a strange, unfamiliar look in her eyes as she played with the earring. A trickle of blood ran down her neck where it had been stabbed through her earlobe but Ginny paid it no mind, transfixed on the feather. George didn't know it, but Ginny's mind was far away from him and the shop, far away from Knockturn Alley even. She was in the sky, with the grey and black clouds gathering around her, rain soaking her skin, the rumble of thunder vibrating through her body and the flash of lightning blinding her eyes.

"Ginny!" George yelled, shaking her shoulder. When he received no reaction, he took out his wand and ran a diagnostic spell over her. He was quite proficient with healing spells, had to be in his line of work. The spell should have caused any parts of his sister that were hurt to glow a bright, post-box red, making it easy to see what was wrong with her. It went haywire though, or at least that was what he assumed. Her entire body glowed red, then white, before the spell fizzled out completely. The entire process took about a second.

George was getting really worried now, but he needn't as it appeared that the spell had jogged Ginny out of her trance and she looked up at him, with an all too familiar look of annoyance on her face.

"What'd you do that for?" she asked grumpily.

"You were staring at that feather, you wouldn't answer me," George said, running a hand through his hair in relief, "How's your ear feel?"

"Fine," Ginny snapped. She wasn't quite sure why she was annoyed with her brother; it was akin to the feeling you get when somebody has woken you up when you were having a really good dream. You know they didn't do it on purpose, but you can't help but resent them slightly for it anyway. She looked again in the mirror and cleaned the trickle of blood off with a licked finger. Her eyes flashed momentarily to the feather and she again felt the rain on her skin and the thunder rumble through her body.

When they finally left the shop, she tried to take it as a coincidence that the clear blue sky had begun to cloud over.

Pansy shivered in her summer dress as the sun was blotted out by enormous, rolling black clouds. She hitched her bag higher up on her shoulder and dashed down the street to Flourish and Blott's, making it inside mere seconds before it began to rain. Sighing at the pure idiocy of weather, she rummaged in her bag for her school list along with the list her father had made her of books that he deemed far more instructional. She had a feeling that she would have to go to Knockturn Alley for most of those, but it never hurt to try, she supposed.

"Mother is not going to be pleased." Pansy wrinkled her nose as she recognised the voice as that of the Weasley who had been prefect in her first year. She followed the voice around a row of shelves and found herself watching an argument between the Weasley girl and her brother. Two other Weasleys and Potter himself were standing around them. The other Weasley's seemed to be agreeing with the pompous Weasley, but Potter was simply staring at Ginny, a weird look on his face. Perhaps he had a lickle crush, she mused. Pansy smirked to herself as their voices rose, they were so common that they couldn't even keep their arguments private. Peasants.

"Merlin, it's just an earring!" the girl exclaimed, drawing annoyed looks from many of the shop's customers, "If you don't stop going on at me, I'll bat bogey you!" Pansy quirked an eyebrow; so the girl had spirit. Mind, she was a Gryffindor, Pansy mused, even being a lowly Weasley couldn't quite cancel that out.

And then Ginny shook her hair out of her face and Pansy saw it; a rust orange feather hanging from the little Weasley's ear. It oozed power, that Pansy was certain of, but what power this was, she was not certain. Pansy had been surrounded by power her entire life, and so she was very familiar with the feeling of it. She knew, for instance, that dark magic felt like oil sliding over her skin, calling to something inside of her, the part of her being that refused to adhere to civilisation, the part that only followed her own rules, few as they were. And she knew that light magic felt of innocence; it drew up memories of early childhood and love and made her feel safe and secure. She supposed that they felt different to each individual, much in the way that Amortentia did. But this earring... it had a power that she didn't know, had never felt before.

Well, until now. It was not light or dark magic, she knew that much. It felt... old. Old and wild and untamed. It also, Pansy paused, trying to put into thoughts what she was feeling until, yes, it also felt of nature.

"Interesting," she whispered, drawing away from the shelves and off towards a different section of the shop. This would need research.

"I will not have my only daughter walking around looking like a... like a... scarlet woman!" Molly shrieked. Ginny shrunk lower into her chair, hoping that her lack of argument would calm her mother as it usually did. She did not, however, seem to be in any luck, as Molly seemed to take this as a sign that she should go on. "Take it out immediately," she demanded, hands on her hips.

"Bill has an earring though," Ginny mumbled, wondering why she felt an odd, panicked fluttering in her stomach at the thought of removing the earring. Really, she thought, if she were to be rational about it, she should have taken it out as soon as she could, lest it be some kind of dark object. Tom Riddle's diary popped into her head and she blanched slightly. Ignoring the voice in the back of her head that told her that this was nothing like the diary, she put her hand to her earlobe and pulled the earring, not even trying to listen to her mother's tirade about Bill's choice of body jewellery.

She winced as the metal pulled against the raw hole in her ear, causing a new trickle of blood to seep down her neck. But the earring wouldn't come out. She frowned, a tiny crease appearing between her eyes, and tried again. But to no avail. It wouldn't even move; there was a slight pull and then just... nothing.

"Shit," Ginny swore, giving the earring a big yank.

"Ginevra Weasley! What has gotten into you lately! Oh, you are going to be doing so many chores this holiday, missy! And if you don't take that earring out of your ear this minute, you won't even be leaving your room until it's time for you to go back to school." Ginny closed her eyes against her mother's ranting, and concentrated on trying to calm the feelings bouncing around her mind. On one hand, she was panicking, a lot. An earring, which could possibly be choc-a-bloc full of dark magic was stuck in her ear. On the other hand, it felt familiar, as though it had always and should always be there. She had the strangest feeling that she didn't even want to take it out. Of course, this was not helping her panicking side.

"Mum," she said in a voice of forced calm, "I can't get it out."

"Two stirs clockwise, three fifths of a stir anti-clockwise," Snape muttered to himself, wiping sweat off of his brow before it could drop into the cauldron and ruin three days of work. He followed the last two instructions and, to his great relief, the potion turned emerald green.

"Thank fuck for that," he said under his breath, rummaging through the bags Wormtail had brought him for a crystal vial. It was the only item he had actually needed for the potion from the list he had given the rat, but he figured that he should make the most of having a servant whilst he could, and had stocked up on everything he would need throughout the school year. Of course, the fact that it kept Wormtail busy and out of the house whilst he was brewing was merely a bonus.

Duplicating the vial, he quickly bottled two samples; one to send to each of his masters. Hopefully Dumbledore would be able to find out what the potion did, because so far Severus only had guesses. The recipe had been handwritten by the Dark Lord, and for all Severus knew the snake had invented it himself as well. If that was the case then they would probably not know what it did until the Dark Lord used it. And that would be a bit too late.

From looking at the ingredients, Snape thought that it had something to do with raising something, though he had no idea what.

"Inferi, perhaps? A mass amount?" he mused. Shaking his head in frustration, he grabbed both of the vials and left his lab for the first time in days. Whatever the potion did, it was nothing good.

Arthur could hardly believe it when he felt the power rolling off of his only daughter when he walked through the door that evening. He recognised it at once, of course. He had grown up on stories of the thunderbirds, in particular the one in his family tree. But why was the mark of a thunderbird on his daughter?

"Ginny..." He started, stepping into the kitchen proper and reaching a hand out to her, "What has happened?"

"She's gone and gotten her ear pierced, that's what happened!" Arthur jumped at the sounds of his wife's voice, he hadn't even realised that anyone else was in the room, fixated as he was on the power surrounding Ginny. The room was actually fairly full of people; Ron and Percy sat at the table, Molly stood by the sink, directing the washing up into the cupboards with her wand and Harry stood in the doorway which led to the rest of the house, his unwavering gaze fixed on Ginny. Harry, at least, could feel what Arthur could, though he probably had no idea what it was that he was feeling.

"Your ear pierced, Ginny?" Arthur inquired, trying with all his might to keep his voice even.

"I didn't ask to get it pierced," Ginny burst out furiously. Arthur got the feeling that she had been having this argument all afternoon. "That stupid old crone stabbed this thing through my ear lobe! It was hardly my choice." She turned around to face her father fully and Arthur was hard pressed to contain a gasp. A single, rust-orange feather hung from her ear, pouring wild, thunderbird power all over his little girl.

"Ginny..." he murmured, frozen with shock. He staggered to the table and sat down, not even noticing when his wife began to rant again. Arthur put his head in his hands and blocked it all out, trying with all his might to dredge up the stories his father had told him. The thunderbirds were ancient, he knew that much. The one in his family tree was thousands of years ago, so long ago that he had all but been forgotten. He was a myth now, a family story to explain their red hair.

"Dad? Dad, are you alright? I'm sorry, okay? Dad?" Ginny's voice snapped Arthur out of his thoughts, and he raised his head to find himself staring into the eyes of his daughter.

"Yes, sorry sweetie, I was miles away," he apologised, trying for a smile, "Molly, let's just leave it this once. Ginny's sorry, and if what she says is true then she didn't mean for any of this to happen." Molly scowled at her husband but acquiesced, nodding her head once before turning back to her housework. "I'm going to go and freshen up and get changed before dinner," he added, standing up from the table. He left the room and headed for the attic, sure that he had some old family things up there somewhere that might be able to shed some light on this situation. He just prayed the ghoul hadn't eaten them.