By Midsummer Eve, life with Ginny's grandmother had settled into a pattern. The mornings were dedicated to resisting cheering charms while helping her grandmother with household chores, the afternoons to reading, listening to stories, and learning songs, and the evenings to sitting quietly in the back garden, letting the night breeze and stars fill her mind. After Moody's visit, however, her grandmother grudgingly left the bracelets activated. When Ginny begged for even a few minutes of freedom, her grandmother only told her to be patient, hinting that she would be free of the inhibitors on Midsummer Eve.
That evening, Ginny was sitting with her grandmother, trying not to wriggle in her nicest robe as they waited for the promised cousin who would, her grandmother said, deal with the inhibitors and the Ministry's tracking charms for the evening. The floo call came at the expected time, and Ginny stared curiously at the tall young man who stepped through the floo. He looked ordinary, with a round face and warm brown eyes, not at all like a Dark wizard.
He bowed and said, "Greetings, Cousin Cedrella, Cousin Ginevra."
"My, you look young today, cousin," Cedrella said, almost laughing.
Her cousin smiled. "It is a pleasing appearance, is it not?" He glanced at Ginny, who was confused. "I cast a glamour to disguise my appearance and voice," he said. "It would not do for the Ministry to pluck the identity of one who can circumvent their charms from your mind."
"They can do that?" Ginny stared at him in horror. "Read minds, not just look at penseived memories?"
"It is called legilimancy," her grandmother said. "The defense against it, occlumency, is something that I will see you learn before you leave for Hogwarts, if only to guard your mind against the headmaster and professor there who I know to be proficient legilimenses."
Ginny shuddered at the thought of someone looking through her mind. She would learn this occlumency so that she would not be helpless.
Her cousin was already muttering a stream of spells at the house. Webs of variously colored light began to appear as he cast, with threads leading away from the house. After a few minutes, he turned to Ginny. "May I see your wrists, cousin?"
She held them out to him and watched, curiously, as he went through another series of spells, revealing a tangle of threads of light tied to the inhibitor bracelets, leading off into the distance.
"Well?" Ginny's grandmother asked when he seemed to have finished.
Her cousin stared thoughtfully at the mass of spells. "There is a trace on your floo and the Aurors set up a variety of Dark-detector spells just outside your wards. Nothing too unusual there. The inhibitor bracelets send a status report to the Ministry at two minute intervals. As part of their original design, they report any significant magical surges, whether they are currently disabled or removed, and whether their function is altered. They have been modified to also send the Ministry their current location and any spells or types of magic cast in their vicinity, but the one who did this left the original loopholes in place."
"I assume you can deal with it?"
He smirked. "Of course. I suggest leaving the floo trace, since it only monitors where calls and visitors come from, and does not record conversations. Those are difficult to alter without alerting the Ministry."
Ginny's grandmother nodded. "Very well."
"For long term use, you will want to add to your wards. We can discuss that later. For tonight, I will temporarily ward the room."
"You will need the protection?" Ginny's grandmother glanced at Ginny.
"Yes," her cousin said.
Ginny fidgeted, unsure whether she was excited or anxious about seeing intentional Dark Magic.
"What will you need from Ginevra?" Her grandmother asked.
"Oh, I think a few nail clippings, saliva, and, of course, her breath should do it," her cousin said casually.
Ginny stared at the two adults, who had begun discussing the details of the plan. The hags in Knockturn Alley sold fingernail clippings; her brothers had told her so. You could do dreadful things to a person with them. Ginny could not remember a time before she burned her nail clippings and loose hairs caught in her brush every day as thoughtlessly as she took a shower. To use such things, not only nail clippings, but her spit and breath as well…it was hard to think her grandmother had not even blinked at the request. Surely she would have said something if it was dangerous?
"-timing may be tricky, with less than two minutes to work with," her grandmother was saying. "Even if we make the poppet first, which I would suggest."
Her cousin nodded. "It is entirely possible. That leaves two minutes to link the poppet, disable the removal tracking charm, transfer the inhibitors, and re-enable the removal tracking charm."
Her grandmother smiled. "If I had any doubts about your identity, you just eliminated them."
Her cousin shrugged and smirked. "I will begin warding." He drew a line across the doorways, then began weaving complicated patterns with his wand, while chanting under his breath.
Ginny's grandmother turned to her. "Ginevra, for everyone's safety, you cannot wear the inhibitor bracelets to visit tonight. In order to remove them for the night, however, we will need to make a poppet to attach them to, something that will seem enough like you to the spells not to tell the difference."
"And you need my nail clippings and spit and breath for that?" Ginny asked, nervously glancing at the glittering wards her cousin was weaving around the room.
"Yes, child," her grandmother said, summoning a small pile of leaves and flowers from the garden into a sphere hovering in front of her. "We need something of you in the poppet, or even your cousin will not be able to persuade the inhibitors to mistake it for you."
The room flashed silver for a moment and Ginny blinked.
"You always did love flashy magic," her grandmother said.
"Who, me?" Her cousin grinned, waving a hand as if to brush away smoke. A silver knife appeared in his hand, and Ginny drew back. He noticed, and looked at her curiously. "Cousin? Is there a problem?"
Ginny shrugged. She felt stupid. "I understand why you need these things. Really, I do. It's just…it's nails and spit and I know this has to be Dark Arts. And the last time I did anything with that someone died and the Aurors came and my parents started acting like they didn't want me anymore."
"Ah," her cousin said. He glanced at Ginny's grandmother, then knelt in front of Ginny so that his head was lower than hers. "That must have been very hard for you."
Ginny nodded. She would have called it something far worse than simply hard.
"This will be different," her cousin said, gazing at her intently. "It is a simple spell, a more detailed version of something most of us learn as children when we wish to sneak out of our beds at night."
"Oh," she said. That didn't sound so frightening.
He held out his wand and looked at her intently. "You can trust us, little cousin. I swear on my magic that I intend no harm to you this night."
Ginny saw the spark as his oath took. She sighed, looking at her grandmother, who looked back at her calmly, and her cousin, who reached out to take one of her hands in his. She let him hold it, watching in anxious fascination as he trimmed her nails, letting the clippings fall onto a small cloth.
He smiled, then held the cloth out in front of her. "Please spit on it."
Finished protesting, Ginny did as he asked. He carefully wrapped her nail clippings up in the dampened cloth and handed it to her grandmother. The older woman held the ball of cloth in her palm, near the ball of leaves and flowers that hovered in front of her. "Ginevra," she said. "I will set this cloth on fire as I chant the spell. When I nod, you must blow the ashes from my hand onto the leaves. Do you understand?"
"Yes, grandmother." Ginny said.
Her cousin murmured a charm and Ginny nearly jumped as large numbers appeared over her head, counting down to zero and then restarting at two minutes. "When the count reaches zero, the inhibitors send their information to the Ministry," he told Ginny's grandmother.
Ginny watched. When the countdown reached zero, her grandmother began chanting in a language that Ginny thought was not Latin, and certainly was not English. The bit of spit-damp cloth and nail clippings in her hand started burning with a purple flame, and long before Ginny had expected it there was only ash and her grandmother's eyes looking into hers as she nodded, still chanting.
Ginny took a deep breath and blew the ash over the leaves hovering nearby. Her grandmother said three words and Ginny watched as the ash and leaves and flowers transformed into a tiny naked girl. She had red hair and freckles, Ginny noticed, and, strangest of all, seemed to be breathing.
Sixty seconds.
Her grandmother threw a cloth over the poppet and pulled Ginny down to kneel beside it, her wrists next to those of the poppet.
Fifty seconds.
Her cousin was already casting, twisting the spells in her inhibitor bracelets. He reached down and touched them with his wand. The bracelets fell off her wrists.
Thirty seconds.
"On the poppet, quickly," her grandmother whispered urgently, already fumbling with one bracelet. Ginny slipped the other onto the poppet's wrist, watching in fascination as it shrunk to fit the tiny wrist. Her cousin continued to cast spell after spell, hardly pausing to breathe.
The countdown was at ten seconds when he relaxed. "Done."
The thing they had made, a miniature replica of Ginny herself, lay curled on the floor, apparently sleeping. Ginny touched its arm and drew back. It was cool and damp, like soil and not at all like a human. "How long will it last?"
"Long enough," her grandmother said, pulling Ginny to her feet. "Come, child."
Her cousin held a flower out. Ginny's grandmother reached out to touch it with one finger and, at a glance from her, Ginny reached out to touch it as well. The portkey took them.
When Ginny stumbled to her feet again, she was in a darkening meadow in the woods. The sun had nearly set, and the reddening disk was completely outshone by three bonfires. People in robes of every color stood in clusters, talking quietly. Magic swirled and danced around the fires and the people, and Ginny felt hers reach out to meld with it. She felt alive, awake, after too many days with no magic at all, when she had felt as if she were in a dream world, where nothing was quite real.
A short woman came to meet them. "Cedrella!" Ginny recognized Hestia, who she had spoken with in the fireplace. "And Ginevra! Welcome, cousins!" Hestia exchanged flowers with Ginny's grandmother, and then Ginny found herself presented with a small white flower with five petals.
She took it with her right hand, as her grandmother had taught her, and smiled at her hostess. "Thank you, ma'am."
"Call me cousin, child," Hestia said, but she was smiling. "Such a polite young thing," she murmured to Ginny's grandmother. Then, louder, she said, "Enjoy the festivities, Cousin Ginevra."
Ginny took this as a dismissal, and took off to explore. She could not go far, however, without an adult seeing her and greeting her with restrained enthusiasm. Almost all introduced themselves as cousins, although in most cases they were second or third cousins, or first several times removed. All gave her flowers. A few especially elderly witches introduced themselves as her aunts, and, like everyone, seemed delighted that Cedrella's granddaughter was a Dark witch. Ginny began to wonder if she would spend the entire evening being accosted by older relatives.
Someone bumped into her from behind, and she dropped the flowers she had been given. A small hand caught her arm, steadying her, and a girl about her age knelt to help her pick them up. "I'm so sorry! What a way to welcome you into the family."
"It's all right," Ginny said as she stood, bouquet again intact. "I'm glad to meet someone my own age. I'm Ginny Weasley."
The girl smiled. "My name is Daphne Greengrass, and it is a pleasure to meet you." She paused. "Several of us are meeting by the pond to make wreaths. You could join us if you like."
"I'd love to," Ginny said. "I don't think I could hold more flowers."
Daphne smiled at her again and took her by the hand, drawing her through small spaces in the crowd. At one point Ginny could have sworn they passed a wedding. Then the crowd had thinned and they reached a small pond. Its water was still enough to reflect both moon and leaping flames. Six girls were sitting by its edge, braiding flowers with long pieces of grass.
A small girl, her pale hair shining in the moonlight, looked up as they arrived. She nudged the girl next to her with her elbow, whispering "Daphne found Cousin Ginevra!" This set off a chorus of introductions in which Ginny learned that the little blond was Daphne's little sister Astoria and the black-haired girl sitting next to her was Adrasteia, but preferred to be called Addie. The youngest two girls, who alternated flower-braiding with chasing each other around the pond, were Myrina and Aella. The oldest girl, who seemed serious, was Ismene, and her younger sister, who introduced herself with a mischievous smirk, was Elektra.
Ginny sat on the grass between Addie and Daphne and slowly began braiding her flowers with grass. She struggled at first, but Ismene came to kneel in front of her and took her flowers and stroked their stems gently. When she handed them back to Ginny, the stems were easy to bend and held whatever shape she twisted them into. "Do you know what they mean?"
"No," Ginny said.
Ismene simply nodded. Her dark eyes reminded Ginny of the surface of the pond behind them, which was calm, without even a ripple. She reached to cup a white, five-petalled flower in her hand. "This is a mayflower, for welcome. The mistletoe is for overcoming difficulties. Nightshade is for truth, especially when it is bitter, and for dark thoughts, and sometimes Dark magic as well. The white rosebud is for a young girl, too young for courting flowers. Vervain is for enchantment. These bright blue ones are blue violets, for faithfulness and love."
"Thank you," Ginny said.
"You are very welcome." Ismene stood and returned to her place next to Elektra.
A tall young woman left the crowd of adults and hurried to them. Her long, black hair was swept up in a complicated style, crowned with a wreath of linden. Her blue eyes were wide and shining as Ismene rose to embrace her. "Thais."
"It is done," Thais said, stepping back from Ismene but holding her hands still. Her voice was steady and her head high and Ginny thought she looked as if she had just agreed to her own death sentence. The other girls were quiet, watching.
Ismene swallowed. "When?"
"Next year at Midsummer."
Ismene closed her eyes and Ginny could see her hands tighten on Thais'. She opened her eyes and seemed to see only Thais. "If you should change your mind, only let me know and I will discover a way to free you from this. I swear it, Thais. You have only to ask."
Thais shook her head. "I cannot. You know I cannot, Izzy. Father…"
"And if he returns?"
Thais forced a brittle laugh, but it shattered like glass in the night air. "Really, Izzy, do try not to be so silly."
Ismene simply gazed at her, unblinking, and Thais dropped her eyes. "Remember, cousin. You have only to ask."
Thais nodded, then turned to the cousins with a smile, deliberately changing the mood. "Come, girls! The herbs are in the fires, and the boy cousins are already preparing to leap over them."
Elektra jumped to her feet with a little too much enthusiasm. "Snake!" The cousins set their wreaths around their necks or on their heads and followed her, hand in hand in a twisting line through the adults, who had begun dancing. The music echoed in the back of Ginny's head, seeming to match her breathing and heartbeats and footsteps as she followed Daphne and pulled Addie behind her.
Then they were at the first bonfire and Thais had was running toward it, pulling the others after her, laughing. Ginny glanced anxiously at the bonfire, which was half again as tall as the adults, but closed her eyes and held tightly to Daphne's hand. When the older girl jumped, Ginny was only a fraction of a second behind her. She stayed in the air longer than she ought to have, and opened her eyes as her feet touched the grass on the other side of the fire. She laughed in wonder. She had felt as if she was flying through the air without a broom.
As she followed her cousins, who clearly planned to make another jump, she felt the magic swirling through the singing and dancing crowd, around the bonfires, holding the young people in the air as they leapt over the bonfires. It flowed around her and through her until she felt as if she were a magical creature herself. She leapt the fires with her cousins so many times that she lost count, losing herself in the night and the adults' singing and the flickering fires and the twisting and running and leaping.
As the fires burned lower, Ginny joined her cousins in dancing around the coals, throwing her head back and closing her eyes so that she could feel the beat of feet on the meadow, the flow of air around her body and into her lungs. She was alive and surrounded by family. Her magic was free, joining that of the night as it flowed around and through the gathering crowd, and it had hurt no one. The haunting melodies played and sung by her cousins and aunts and uncles echoed in her heart. "Come," her grandmother said, when the coals were barely glowing and the children had begun to disappear. Ginny took her hand and let the portkey take them home.
Ginny woke the next morning to find piles of herbs all over the kitchen, where her weary grandmother sat drinking tea. "Some plants are most powerful when picked during the night before Midsummer's Day," she said when Ginny asked. Ginny spent that day helping her grandmother harvest different leaves and roots and flowers, which her grandmother claimed were most potent when picked on Midsummer's Day itself, and the following two days packing the harvested herbs into bottles and writing labels until her hand cramped. Most of the plants were harmless, but her grandmother forbade her to touch the leaves or flowers or roots in jars with red seals, although she wrote the strange name, hypericum, over and over.
On June 24th, Ginny again pulled on her nicest robes and met her grandmother in the sitting room to travel to a Midsummer party. Having celebrated Midsummer Eve on the 20th, she had been confused about the different dates until her grandmother explained that it was a difference in tradition: the Light community celebrated on the day of the Muggle's traditional calendar date, while the Dark community celebrated on the eve of the summer solstice irrespective of which day it fell on.
Unlike the last visit, this time there was no need for secrecy. The inhibitor bracelets remained on Ginny's wrists, as they had since she returned from her Yaxley relatives, and they were able to use the floo rather than a portkey. For the first time since she had been attacked, Ginny stepped out of the fireplace into the Burrow. She was grateful for her grandmother's presence at her back, and leaned back against the older woman when her parents and brothers simply stood staring at them awkwardly.
Her grandfather broke the silence, stepping from behind the twins to greet his wife with a quick hug. "Cedrella! It's good to see you again. Young Ginevra is looking well."
Ginny smiled as he kissed her forehead, even though his whiskers scratched a little. After that, her parents greeted her, if carefully, as if she might explode. Her oldest three brothers shared her parents' caution, but the twins sent her speculative glances as the family trooped outside to the big copper bowl which already held the seven twigs, each from a different tree, for the fire.
"Mum made shepherd's pie," Fred whispered to her.
George nodded and rubbed his belly. "She was cooking all morning. My hands are still sore from peeling potatoes."
Ginny smiled, but didn't reply since their mother was approaching them with little bundles of herbs. She gave Ginny a bundle of heartsease and a strained smile. Fred had received the nettles this year, and was holding them gingerly, while George had a handful of something green and leafy.
Then her father was speaking, reciting the familiar Midsummer phrases about summer and the sun and light. He lit the branches with a spell, and Ginny joined her brothers and parents in tossing their herb bundles onto the fire. The fire blazed, brighter than the sun. Ginny shielded her eyes. Then there were only ashes.
Her mother levitated the still-hot bowl behind her and walked toward the edge of their land. Ginny's stomach rumbled as she followed with her father and brothers, dutifully singing. Her grandparents were resting under the big oak tree, she saw, glancing back. For a moment she envied them, then caught herself. She was with her family, celebrating Midsummer as they always had. She sung louder until Ron elbowed her. "Merlin, Ginny, keep it down! You screech like a banshee!"
"As if you could tell," Ginny said. "You're tone deaf."
"Quiet, children," their father said. Ron scowled and Ginny stuck out her tongue at him, relieved by the familiarity of it all.
Her mother scattered the last ashes at the corners of the Burrow itself, then pulled Ginny into the kitchen with her as the rest of the family took their places at the table. Ginny eyed the big platter of roast chicken, the bowl of mashed potatoes that was bigger than her head. The scent filled the kitchen and her mouth watered.
"Ginny!" Her mother whispered, and she guiltily stopped eyeing the food to look at her. "Listen, sweetie, this is important." She paused, boiling water in a teapot with a whispered charm and tossing in a bundle of herbs.
Ginny caught her breath. For a moment, she had thought one of the herbs was hypericum, could almost see it in a bottle with a label in her own handwriting and the red seal. She shook her head. It couldn't be. Her mother would never put something dangerous in tea.
"I've been researching," her mother continued, looking at Ginny with a desperate hopefulness. "Looking for a cure. I found this recipe in an old family book that said this tea could counter any sort of Dark magic. Sweetie, it's not too late for you. You can still return to the Light. Just drink and someday we'll look back on this like a bad dream."
Ginny hesitated. She remembered the wild joy that had come over her as she leapt the bonfires with her cousins, the strange sense of belonging when she sat by the pond, weaving flowers whose meanings had to be explained to her, and the wonder and fear when her fingernails and breath, her grandmother's chanting, and a pile of leaves and spit-soaked cloth combined to form the poppet.
She knew that she did not want to give up Dark magic. Even when it frightened her, it called to her at the same time. The teapot seemed sinister as it hissed on the counter, and she wanted nothing more than to run away. But this was her mother, so she stayed.
"I just want you safe and happy," her mother continued, her eyes bright with tears. "And how can you be if your whole life is shadowed? It's evil, Ginny! You don't know what it was like during the war, what they did." She was crying now, her eyes red as great gobs of tears rolled down her cheeks. "Please, Ginny! If you ever loved me, please just trust me and drink." She poured the tea into a cup and held it out, steaming in her trembling hands.
Ginny wanted to rage, to scream at the unfairness. How dare her mother ask this of her? Instead, she closed her eyes and then reached for the cup. The smell made her choke and the liquid felt like fire in her mouth, but she forced herself to swallow again and again until the cup was empty. She crumpled to the floor, doubled over around the terrible fire burning in her belly.
Her mother screamed. Footsteps shook the floor. Raised voices interrupted one another.
"What did you-"
"-just an herbal tea!"
"-call for help!"
The kitchen suddenly seemed far too bright, and Ginny closed her eyes, whimpering softly. Someone touched her neck with a cold hand, and she felt the skin tear. The fire was all around her now.
"Merlin, she's burning!"
"-St. Mungos won't treat-"
"-Dumbledore-"
She felt dizzy, as if the room was spinning. The pain, her body, and the shouting voices seemed farther away.
"-lost your mind!"
"-might kill her-"
"-already bloody dying!"
"-try anything!"
Suddenly she was levitated into the air and dunked into a huge cauldron full of cold water with squishy and stringy lumps floating in it. Someone held her under the surface and the darkness closed around her, quenching the burning fire. With the terrible fire put out, her body seemed real again. The outsides of her eyelids were dark now, so she took a risk and opened her eyes to see a murky liquid with flowers and leaves and roots and other unidentifiable things floating in it. It soothed her sore eyes.
Gradually, the need to breathe built up until it was no longer a comfort to be underwater. She tried to sit up, but the hand on her neck pressed her back down ruthlessly. Finally, she gasped for air that was not there, breathing in and swallowing some of the murky liquid around her. As it passed into her lungs and down her throat it soothed the burning. Then her head was pulled from the water and someone pounded her back until the water in her lungs spewed out. She was given a few seconds to gulp air greedily before a mass of leathery leaves and berries were shoved in her mouth. "Chew!" Her grandmother said. "Swallow when you can."
She chewed. The leaves were bitter and the berries unfamiliar and sticky, but they soothed the burning in her mouth. A few minutes later she managed to swallow the paste. Someone held a glass of water to her lips and she took a few sips.
A few moments later her belly cramped and she vomited into a pan that appeared on the floor in front of her. When she was done, it was pulled away. She curled up in the cauldron, letting the liquid soothe her blistered and peeling skin. The fire was gone, but everything still hurt, as if it had been burned. She drifted into an uneasy sleep.
A/N: Thank you for the reviews! I want to know what you, as readers think, which parts you like and which you dislike. Of course, it's always nice to just hear "I like it" too.