Chapter 8

Dearest brother of mine,

The school year so far is going great for me. I did fall off my broom several times, so I'm regularly in excrucioting pain, but you know me – I can't really fly worth a damn. Anyway, the pain goes away fairly easily when I get back to the common room and daydream a bit. I'm afraid I'm just running out of interesting topics to daydream about, if you have any to suggest, I'd really appreciate it. I believe certain brothers of ours usually have great ideas. I've also been supplying daydream ideas to some friends of mine who also fell off their brooms, and once I know someone else is daydreaming about the same thing as me, it always sorts of ruins it all for me.

We're getting frequent updates about what's going on outside of school from our headmaster, and as we have no reason to distrust him, you really don't need to tell me what's happening.

Do tell Ron I hope he feels better soon. Spattergroit must really, really suck, I really wish he could get better soon. It turns out, Hogwarts without any of my many brothers in it really, really sucks.

Love you all, miss you all,

Ginny

PS: Now that you're married, am I going to become an aunt any time soon?

"Cryptic enough?" Ginny asked her friend on their way to the Great Hall after class.

Luna frowned and made a face.

"Yes. The bit about trusting the headmaster is slightly overdone, but it's nothing they can arrest you for. And I don't think anyone outside your family could understand the daydream reference. You do need to work on your prose though. You repeat daydream four times."

"Good. If I send it today, the twins might be able to pass me some daydream charms at the next Hogsmeade week-end, provided it doesn't get cancelled."

"They won't cancel it," Luna said with assurance, casually stepping aside to avoid a running first year..

"How do you know that?"

"Something Daddy heard about. They're trying to create opportunities for Pureblood students to meet and start dating, so that we all make babies soon and restore wizarding society."

"..."

"Indeed. It's really stupid. As if the only reason neither of us is snogging Draco Malfoy is lack of opportunities."

"Eww. Kissing Malfoy. I might have to Scourgify my brain to get rid of the mental image."

"I'd much rather kiss Seamus Finnigan."

Ginny snorted. Luna and Seamus. That would be an explosive match.

"I'm very serious, you know." Ginny looked at her friend and her jaw dropped. Luna actually looked like she meant it.

"You want to snog Seamus Finnigan?"

"He has his charms. I like the red hair. I wouldn't have minded kissing your brother last year, but he's so very rude."

"Seamus is hardly Merlin's gift to women either... and you wanted to snog Ron?" she asked, astonished.

"Don't act all that surprised. I know as his sister you're supposed to be blind to this, but your brother is actually good looking. But also very rude," she added as an afterthought.

"OK, now, I'm really going to have to Scourgify my brain. Anyway. Seamus? Are you sure about that?"

"Not really. It was just a passing thought. I might try. I've never kissed anyone, you know. It'd be lovely to know how that feels like. Who would you kiss if you had the opportunity?"

Ginny rolled her eyes.

"Luna, you know who."

"You-Know-Who? Really? And how would Harry feel about that?"

"What? No! I mean, that's not..." Ginny stopped, seeing the look on her best friend's face. "Luna! You made a joke! On purpose!"

"I've heard that boys like that. I'm training myself. How am I doing?"

Ginny bit her tongue to avoid laughing out loud.

"You're doing great." They'd arrived in the Great Hall, and started to make their way to their respective tables. "Hey, you know what?" she said as they were going to go their separate ways. "You should just walk up to Seamus one of these days and snog him. That's how Lavender got Ron last year, and that's how Harry got me. It's turning out to be a very efficient method."

"I'll try that," Luna answered. She gave her a bright smile and sat down at the Ravenclaw table.

Ginny came to severely regret her matchmaking skills as the first Hogsmeade week-end of the year came around. Luna had taken her advice a few days earlier, and was now taking advanced snogging lessons from Seamus. They were, as she had expected, the most mismatched couple she'd ever seen – from what she could gather, the only thing they had in common was an interest in shoving their tongues in someone else's mouth. Ginny wasn't sure if it was disgusting or mildly interesting, as she observed them two tables away at the Three Broomsticks. Probably a bit of both, she mused.

The whole affair would have been merely funny, had Lavender's sudden fascination for Neville not resulted in the same kind of action. But, as she saw all of her closest friends somehow giving in to teenage hormones at the exact same time, she found herself extremely bored, and not amused at all. She sighed as Parvati and Anthony grabbed the last free table and started doing things that she suspected were probably illegal in several countries. After dropping a couple Sickles on her table before leaving, she concluded that Hogsmeade was completely uninteresting when most shops were closed and one had no friends to talk to whatsoever.

Nonetheless, she had no inclination to return to the castle before curfew. The illusion of freedom for a full day was nothing to laugh at in the middle of a war, so she started walking around the village aimlessly. The advantage of Hogsmeade was, as soon as one left the main street, peace and quiet surrounded you. The atmosphere was conducive to deep thoughts, and Ginny found herself wondering what more the D.A. could do to help Harry or the Order.

The problem wasn't a lack of ideas – it was a lack of ideas that wouldn't get someone killed for nothing. Neville's crazy campaign to write on the walls of the castle was about as far as she was willing to go on the offensive. Other ideas – like Seamus's suggestion to enlist house elves to poison the Carrows and/or Snape – were clearly more risk than they were worth; not to mention, they couldn't ask devoted house elves to endanger their lives like this. Anyone doing this was bound to be killed – not by Death Eaters but by Hermione the minute she'd hear of that. Strangely enough, the potential wrath of Hermione Granger had managed to shut Seamus up more effectively than the idea of torture by Death Eaters. No one had even quite forgotten Marietta Edgecombe. Or Dolores Umbridge. Or Draco Malfoy's broken nose. Or pretty much anyone who'd ever found themselves on the wrong side of Hermione Granger's wand..

The one idea Ginny did have, she had no idea how to realise. She knew for a fact the Order was working on it too. They all guessed that Dumbledore must have left the Sword of Gryffindor to Harry for a reason. They had no idea what that reason might be, but Harry probably did – and if Dumbledore thought Harry would require the sword, then one way or another, it had to make its way to him.

The sword was in Hogwarts, at least according to what Scrimgour had said. Admittedly, since the man had died, it could have been moved, but it might not have been. Unfortunately, Hogwarts was big – very, very big. And Ginny had absolutely no idea where to start looking. Last time she'd seem the stupid sword, she'd just come out of the worst ordeal of her life, and all she wanted to hide in her mother's arms and cry forever. After Harry had given it back to the Headmaster, she had no idea where it'd been put.

Sending the D.A. on a mass scavenger hunt for the sword in the castle sounded like both the best and the worst idea of the lot. If she could unglue Neville and Luna from their current face-sucking partners long enough, she'd have to ask for their opinions.

She was so deep in her thoughts that she hadn't noticed that she was being watched, until a familiar looking old lady sat down right next to her in a park.

"Wotcher, Ginny," the old woman whispered

It took a lot of willpower to avoid hugging Tonks right there. The square looked quiet, but you never knew who could be watching in the shadows.

"It was much too easy to sneak up on you, dear. You should be more careful. Constant vigilance and all that." She waved her wand around under her coat for a couple seconds. "You can talk freely, I just made sure no one can eavesdrop." Her friend sounded tired and worried, not at all like the Tonks she knew.

"I'm so glad to see you... I missed you so much, you and everyone else...What's new?" Ginny asked, desperate for uncensored news.

"Quite a lot, actually. First things first. I just slipped in your pocket several Daydream Charms, courtesy of your brothers. They're shrunk and disguised – Bill and I taught you the countercharms this summer, you should figure it out. For anyone else, right now, they're just quills to take notes in class."

"Brilliant. It's quite hard to get over Cruciatus without these..."

"On that topic," Tonks continued in a completely unusual serious tone, "Your mother begs you to do nothing whatsoever that could get you in trouble. Your father and your brothers just ask to do nothing you'll get caught for. I'm asking you to do nothing that will get you punished too harshly if you do get caught for it."

Ginny sighed. She wasn't sure she could do any of these things.

"Finally... Would you like some good news?"

"Merlin, I'd love some – I just didn't know there were any to go around these days..."

Tonks paused for a moment, as though she was nervous at the idea of saying her good news.

"Remus and I are having a baby," the older witch said, a smile creeping on her face.

"You are?" A giant smile broke on Ginny's face. More than anything, she wished she could hug her friend. "That's fantastic! Remus must be so thrilled! And you...!"

"Remus is... getting used to the idea. After a few kicks in the backside from a friend, he's coming to the point where he's mostly fine. That's all I'll say on this topic. I have to run before we start looking suspicious. One last thing: if you have access to a wireless, tonight go to station 145 at 10 pm. The password is Fawkes. I can't say more than that."

Before Ginny could reply, Tonks was gone.

She practically danced her way back to the castle, beyond excited by Tonks's baby news, the relief of knowing she had more Daydream Charms, and the anticipation of whatever was supposed to be happening on the wireless that night.

It seemed like nothing could possibly get her down – not the very public displays of affection that her friends seemed committed to, not the shove that Pansy Parkison gave her to trip her down the stairs (the bruise the next day would probably be ugly, but who cared?), not the threats of torture from the Carrows at dinner that night.

A few minutes before ten, she barged in the seventh year boys' dormitory, and loudly demanded they stop snogging their girlfriends. She didn't even want to know how Seamus had managed to sneak Luna up there.

"Ginny, what are you doing?" Lavender asked – no, demanded. She was clearly of the opinion that any minute spent without her tongue down Neville's throat was a minute wasted.

"I couldn't do this in my dorm with Heather listening." She set several privacy charms around the room before taking out her wireless and setting it to 145. She wasn't sure how the password would work, but somehow, the radio just asked for it, and when she answered "Fawkes," she almost yelled in surprise when the radio tuned to the sound of her brother's voice.

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Potterwatch," Fred's voice announced.

Lavender squealed, and everyone sat down around the radio, teenage hormones quickly forgotten.

"My name is..."

"Don't say your name you idiot!" Ginny was fairly sure that was Lee Jordan.

"Oh. Right. Well, we'll come up with code names later. Everyone listening to this probably knows exactly who I am... Anyway, this is the very first episode of Potterwatch, the wizarding world's new underground news source... "

Fred kept on talking, sometimes interrupted by Lee or George. He wasn't saying anything very new to Ginny – mostly, they rambled on about how to detect Death Eater, and she recognised most of these tips almost word for word from Tonks's lectures – but it felt so good, so amazing to hear her family, even if it was over the radio. Tears in her eyes, she looked up and saw her four friends looking starstruck at the wireless, almost as if they expected it to spring to life, with giant smiles on their faces.

After just fifteen minutes, Fred's voice concluded:

"This was our very first edition, but fear not – there will be more. Tune back in next Thursday at the same time. The password will be Padfoot. Spread the word to people you can trust. Onwards."

AN: OK, I have no idea where that dialogue between Luna and Ginny came from. It sort of just wrote itself like it had a life of its own and was just using my fingers to be typed out as a vehicle. I hope you liked it even if it's a bit random.

And yes, Luna and Seamus are a horrible couple. But teenagers, even Luna, are horny, and will go for inappropriate partners. Don't worry if you hate that ship, it won't sail for long.