A florecer las rosas madrugaron,
y para envejecerse florecieron:
cuna y sepulcro en un botón hallaron.
{Roses awoke at dawn to bloom,
and they bloomed to fade:
In a bud they found cradle and grave.}
Pedro Calderón de la Barca
The child slammed the door hard and flung down on her bed.
"Ginevra Molly Weasley, what manners are these!" her mother shouted from downstairs.
But Ginny didn't answer, she just sank her face deeper into the pillow and cried. She cried so hard that she fell asleep even though her chest was still shaking from the sobs.
When she woke up, a warm golden light came in through the window, the sign that it was well into the afternoon. With a snort, she rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand and sat up on the bed, staring off into the distance. She stayed like that for a while, then she rummaged between the mattress and the bedstead. Ginny pulled out an old, frayed feather, a bottle of ink and an old, worn diary with black leather covering and the former owner's name written on it.
With an almost religious solemnity, she sat at her desk and opened the bottle. She breathed in the light strawberry scent of the bright pink ink—it was Bill's Christmas gift from a couple of years before and she had saved it for a special use, like writing in her secret diary. Then she smoothed the yellowed pages of the diary with her fingers and carefully dipped the quill into the ink.
Tom
The word was sucked out at the precise moment it was written. It was replaced by roses and vines of ivy: the drawing was black and white, but so realistic it looked like a daguerreotype.
Happy Birthday Ginevra!
Ginny covered her mouth with her hands, astonished.
You're the only one who remembered!
And I didn't know you can draw so well!
Actually, it's a spell.
I wish the flowers were real, but it seems that my magic can't work outside the diary.
But what did "you're the only one who remembered" mean?
Frantically dipping her quill into the pink ink, Ginny told him how none of her siblings had even wished her a happy birthday, how her father had only given her a hasty peck on the top of the head before going to work, and how her mother had baked an apple crumble instead of the promised chocolate cake. Even Bill and Charlie seemed to have forgotten about it, when six years before they had saved up for four months to get her the doll she wanted so much.
Don't be sad, Ginevra: it is still afternoon, right?
The day is not over yet, and by tonight your older brothers' owls will arrive.
Come on, don't cry, or you will make me sad as well…
I'm sorry, Tom. I didn't mean to wet the pages.
Maybe you're right, after all, the owls are from Egypt and Romania, it must take a long time to get here.
And that flower spell, is it hard?
No, because those flowers are beautiful and it's a pity that they stay on a page, isn't it?
It is not difficult, in fact, it is one of the first spells that they teach at Hogwarts.
You can try it: it is understandable for a loving daughter to offer flowers to her mother.
The spell is "Orchideus".
Ginny stared at the slowly fading words, then with sudden eagerness opened her desk drawer and took out Charlie's old wand. She waved it, imitating the flicking motion she had seen her mother make so many times, repeating the spell. Daisies and sweet peas, azure flax flowers and red poppies, but that bunch of roses and vines of ivy was not going to appear.
Why can't I do it?
It is normal to fail at first by not being able to get even a daisy: I remember that I only succeeded at the end of the lesson.
Actually, I only get wild flowers, but I really want the ones you 'gave' me.
Really? Then you are much more skilled than many witches of your age! Anyway, all you have to do is visualise every last detail of the flowers and you are done.
Ginny practiced for days and days, but all she managed to get were daisies and wild roses.
Yes, I know that Ginny got the diary after her birthday, so bear with me.
Yes, I've realised after posting that the prose it's not as polished as it should, but it's past midnight here, I'm tired and the LOs wake early in the morning, especially on schooldays.