Ginny saw little reason to decorate the Burrow for the holidays. Her head said it was pointless; however, her heart ached as she remembered last year when she and Ron spent a week of evenings stringing popcorn, putting up the streamers and decorating the tree. By the time the other brothers arrived back from Hogwarts, the Burrow was festive and merry. She and Ron had exchanged high-fives and then, as was tradition, all of them trampled out into the frozen garden to catch a gnome for the top of the tree.

That was, of course, before Ron became a colossal git who forgot how to use a quill.

Ginny made up for the lack of festive cheer by throwing herself whole-heartedly into the package wrapping for the brothers who were remaining at Hogwarts, and their friend Harry Potter. For her brothers, she tossed together the brown wrapping paper with the frayed ribbon they had found from last year's "reuse" pile, deliberately putting the "F" jumper in the package labeled "George" and vice versa.

It was the little things, after all.

While her Mum was puttering around with Percy's sweater, Ginny reached down toward the bottom of the jumper pile and pulled out the emerald green one. With painstaking care, she folded it ever-just-so, and then taking deliberate time to make sure her creases were all perfectly straight and tidy, she wrapped it in a particularly festive piece of paper, all glittery red and gold (Gryffindor!). She had thought the paper so pretty last year she saved it in her trunk, thinking she'd wrap Bill's present in it this year.

However, Bill hadn't saved the world from He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, so he'd just have to be satisfied with the plain brown paper.

On the day they were to travel to Romania, Ginny, along with her Mum and Dad, bundled up in their warmest coats and scarves and took the floo directly to the Ministry of Magic. Ginny stepped in, excited to feel the whip and whisk of floo travel, even if it was only to the Ministry.

They dropped all the packages headed to Hogwarts at the Ministry Post. They carried the rest, the ones for each other, Bill and Charlie, to the Ministry's International Floo network.

Ginny's bones still ached a bit, especially during the longer journey through the International Floo, which was bumpier than the domestic journeys. She coughed a bit as they arrived in Romania, sooty and dusty, as they were ushered from the international side of the room to wait for Bill in a designated area. Then, they would pick up a local travel floo to Charlie's cottage on the Dragon Reserve.

"Do you see Bill, Dad?" Ginny asked, bouncing on her toes to see above the shoulders of the holiday dressed crowd, bustling through the floo terminal. One of the packages almost slipped from her grasp as she was bumped by another family, speaking a language she didn't recognize.

Ginny grinned at all the different sounds and business about her. While she would have much preferred the Burrow if Harry Potter had been invited to spend Christmas there with the family (so they could become the Best Friends: Ultimate Awesome Life Plan Step Four) as far as consolation prizes went, International Travel was a good one.

Everyone, it seemed to Ginny, had someplace to go and someone to go with. She couldn't even bring herself to feel too much regret at the missed opportunity to befriend the well-mannered Harry Potter. They'd become friends later, and she'd tell him all about her first international trip and the sounds of bells jingling and…was that a dancing Christmas tree in the corner? It was! Entranced, Ginny would tell Harry Potter all about that, too. Delighted, she watched it perform a folk jig.

"Mum!" Ginny tore her gaze away from the gorgeous dancing tree to see a long arm popping above the crowd across the room. Hopping up and down, she spied the telltale red hair from beneath the arm and tugged at her Dad's sleeve. "It's Bill!"

Bill had a pack slung over his back, and grinned as their Mum fussed over his too-thin coat (Hot in Egypt, Mum). With their Dad, he exchanged that man-pat thing on the back that boys do when they think they're too old for hugging.

Ginny didn't think anyone was too old for hugging.

Maybe Bill had given her a hard time about the hexed broom, but she also remembered when he had been a student at Hogwarts, he had sent her letters.

It was a low bar for favorite brother status, but it was what it was, Ginny figured. Granted, when he had written her, she was just learning to read at the time, so his letters were short and full of small words ("Class was good. Charms are fun.") but occasionally he'd make them rhyme, which meant unlike her other horrible brothers who never wrote, he made an effort. ("Girls are cool and you are one!") She had missed him since she got out of hospital and he went back to Egypt. So, she squealed, dropped her packages, and threw her arms around him.

"Hey, Gin," he laughed and spun her around. "How are the bones?"

"Good as new," she replied, cheekily. "Because most of them are new."

She wouldn't tell him about the aches. The aches were there, but the healers said they would be gone by summer.

They spent a moment or two picking up packages and then headed to the domestic floo. Not an hour later they had left their things at Charlie's cabin, and he was giving them a tour of the dragon compound, just as proud as could be.

Charlie looked weather-blown, but happy, thought Ginny. Terrible writer, but as Bill had said back at St. Mungo's, she wasn't a broom or a dragon and he didn't always know what to say. However, Charlie was chattier than usual as he led the family on a "short" trek over rises and through paths that would be shady and cool even in spring. Ginny thought maybe, if she asked him to, he could send her leaf samples or even a dragon scale or two.

In. A. Letter.

With that thought, Ginny skipped along, listening to Charlie point out various sights. The preserve itself was vast, and the compound was just a tiny piece, Charlie explained. The dragonologists lived in the small cabins protected under an invisible fire and dragon repellent dome, Charlie explained.

"Like a ward?" Bill asked.

"Same concept, but not as fancy. We don't want the dragons to bounce off it, we just want them to not come too close. So, theoretically, if the ones outside the compound do a fly by, they just get the feeling there's no food or anything interesting in this area."

"You can't see it?" Ginny squinted at the sky. "Do you cast it yourselves?"

"Nope. We outsource to freelancers."

Bill scoffed. "Freelancers aren't real security. Normally they're just your run of the mill Curse makers."

Arthur frowned, Molly tutted, and Ginny was intrigued by all the judge-y-ness.

"Is the difference between a curse maker and curse breaker the obvious? Or are there subtleties I'm not getting from the context?" Ginny piped up.

Charlie looked at her like she was an oddly-talking plimpy, but Bill laughed and ruffled her hair, which earned him a fierce glare. "The best curse breakers work for Gringotts, but the goblins do their own curse making."

Molly muttered something about "professional treasure hunter… not a sustainable profession… department of transportation always steady."

Ginny promised herself then and there she would never, ever work at the department for transportation, no matter how pretty floo terminals were decorated during the holidays.

But Bill just threw an arm around their Mum, kissed her forehead, and kept right on talking.

Ginny took a mental note at Bill's technique, hoping she would get tall enough to be able to ignore her mother in such a way that her mum didn't notice it.

Bill really was the coolest. She'd want to be Bill when she grew up, if Bill were a professional Quidditch player and best friends with Harry Potter.

"-so there are private security companies or private contractors that hire out for curse making. Which is just slang, Gin," Bill added, when he noticed her smirk. "Curse making sounds more exciting than 'ward caster. Especially when most witches and wizards can cast their own wards after they've done their NEWTs. Most people who hire out just do it because they're lazy."

"Hey!" Charlie objected. "Big ward. Dragon proof. Not lazy, highly specialized."

Ginny grinned but tuned them out as they began a well-practiced brotherly bicker. She let her mind drift a bit as they picked their way through the grounds, Charlie pointing out this or that. There were a few dragons occupying some territory close to the compound. The dragonologists had built some structures near a few areas that were attractive for dragon egg clutches. A Ukrainian Ironbelly had laid claim to the closest quarry near the compound, even though she wasn't laying her eggs quite yet. He said the Romanian Longhorns were the most plentiful dragon, being native to the local habitat, so they were easy to spot. On the far side of the compound, Charlie explained, was their rehabilitation area, which is where he worked, rescuing and healing dragons who were sick, injured or too young to survive on their own in the wild.

Dragons weren't particularly interesting to Ginny, but she thought they were at least-

"Ooooh, won't you look at that?" Ginny's Dad breathed, as the path turned and they were overlooking a wide expanse.

She held her breath as they stopped in their tracks, Charlie's grin taking in their reaction as they caught sight of three… no four… green dragons flying over their heads to race into the valley below.

"Oh," Ginny sighed. She jogged to the rock wall that was likely meant to keep them safe from the rather steep incline, and with a quick hop, she plunked her seat upon it. "Aren't they incredible?"

"I've always said so," said Charlie. "The horns are-"

"Not the horns," Ginny breathed. "Look at them fly."

It was like watching a Quidditch match without a Quaffle or Bludgers. The dragons soared, sometimes racing at each other only to dip and glide away at the last minute to avoid collision. The feints, the climbs, oh! Had that smaller one just drilled through the sky, turning over and over while tracing the figure of an "S" in the air?

Ginny would have closed her eyes in bliss, the magnificence of the acrobatics, if she hadn't been so afraid of missing something.

Charlie chuckled and leaped up on the wall to sit next to her. "So these are four adolescents. It's their first mating season and they're showing off for the female. See her, Gin? She's down there tucked under that rock overhang." He pointed across the expanse. Ginny squinted. She could barely make out the emerald green of the dragon's hide in the distance, she blended in with her surroundings.

One of the dragons dipped in the air, almost hanging suspended for a moment. Its belly expanded, then it burped. A tiny bit of smoke leaked from its nostrils.

"Charming," Ginny smirked at its antics, before squinting back at the female under the rock. "She doesn't seem very impressed."

"Yeah, well, as I said these are adolescents. They're like fourth years trying to get a date with the Head Girl."

Ginny knew enough about Hogwarts to understand his point. "Is that why she's not flying, too? They're a bit beneath her?"

"Females don't usually join in the flying until they've picked each other off a bit."

"Well, that's no fun," Ginny frowned. The flying looked like… everything. Absolutely everything. Being a dragon was probably the next best thing to being a broom. Ginny, for the first time since the accident, longed to be back on a broom- any broom, even the awful old Comets- and be airborne once more. "Why would she want to just laze away napping under a boring old rock when she could fly with the rest of them?"

"Well," Charlie drawled. "I don't know. Maybe she doesn't want to risk breaking every bone in her body."

If she were a nice person, she'd apologize for breaking his broom. But she was the youngest sibling and knew she couldn't give an inch. So, she adopted the strategy of…well, bluster. "Your broom was defective. Could have happened to anybody."

Charlie knew very well the broom had been hexed, but he pretended anyway. "And yet, I won the Quidditch Cup for Gryffindor on that broom. Didn't seem too defective then."

"Right, because all you had to do was steer it in circles until the snitch bopped you on the nose. Seems to me like the Chasers did all the hard work."

Charlie sighed. "It was a nice broom."

"I did put it back together for you. By hand."

He blinked. "You did?"

"Yes. It was part of my rehabilitation task. Splinter by splinter."

"Does it fly again?"

"Nope. I think the gnomes ate some of the splinters, so there were definitely some missing bits. Rather crucial ones."

"Hmm."

"Mostly around the middle. Where the cushioning charm is built in."

Charlie winced.

"I don't know how to apply a cushioning charm," Ginny said with mock sadness. The "mock" part went right over Charlie's head. "Since I don't own a wand and no one has ever taught me how."

"If you had waited until my next visit, I could have taught you to fly."

That, Ginny thought, was the biggest load of rubbish she had ever heard. How many times had she asked her brothers to let her join? How many times had she invited them out in the morning, but they would rather have a lie-in instead of a sunrise flight? Honestly, her brothers were awful. AWFUL. Each one of them had a selective memory, except for Ron who probably got obliviated his first week at Hogwarts, which is why he apparently had forgotten he had a sister.

One of the adolescent dragons took a dive too fast and didn't pull up quite in time. He careened at an angle into the tree line in the distance. She wouldn't have even known a dragon had gone down, except along a straight line one tree after another tilted, then cracked. Tilted then cracked, going down like a row of dominoes.

Ginny felt like she could feel each crack deep within her body, and it took every bit of will she had not to flinch with each tree tumbling.

Charlie, having no need to save face, went ahead and winced. "Ow. That one will probably be in the infirmary tonight. Let that be a lesson, Gin. Fourth year boys think they're invincible."

Bill, catching the last bit of the conversation, sprung over the wall to sit on the other side of Ginny. "And dragonologists don't?"

"Says the curse breaker," Charlie snorted.

Ginny rolled her eyes. "It's not a profession or an age thing. The delusion is obviously due to the presence of bollocks."

Both brothers slowly turned, as one, and stared down at her.

"What? It's the common denominator."

"And what's your excuse, then, Ginny-Bean?" Bill, recovering quickly from the shock of the word "bollocks" out of his ten-year-old sister, drawled.

"I have no delusions," Ginny sniffed. "I am invincible. I broke every bone in my body and survived."

"Oh, Merlin," it was Bill's turn to roll his eyes. "Half. It was half."

"Got an award from Fred and George and everything," Ginny dismissed Bill with a pointed look at Charlie. "You didn't send me an award, by the way, don't think I didn't notice."

"You broke my broom!" Charlie objected, a bit too loudly, because their Mum, a distance away watching the dragons, heard.

"Charlie Weasley!" she huffed, scurrying over the wall to thwap Charlie on the head. "Your sister could have died! She could have been addled! And you're fixated on a broom of all things?"

She thwapped him on the head again for good measure. Bill bit back a chuckle.

Ginny, however, was all in. "I think it's going to rain soon," she sighed heavily, hoping she sounded truly pathetic. "I can feel it in my newly grown bones."

Their Mum, horrified at the potentially permanent damage to her youngest, thwapped Charlie on the head for a third time.

Bill burst out laughing, until he too, got a thwap for his trouble.

Ginny caught her Dad's eye. He winked at her.

She adored her Dad. He had an appreciation for the subtleties her brothers missed, but never once ratted her out.

With another, overly dramatic struggling-but-isn't-she-brave sigh, Ginny figured she had put in a good day's work annoying her brothers.

With a bounce, she sprang off the wall and took her Dad's hand. Together, they headed up the path to watch the dragons some more, and Ginny was convinced that despite no Harry Potter, it was going to be a wonderful Christmas.

()()()

()()()

She changed her mind the next morning.

It had started so well, with Christmas muffins and Weasley sweaters pulled over on top of flannel pajamas. Presents were exchanged. Some were better than others. Her Mum had knitted Ginny's Weasley sweater this year in a lovely greenish-blue color instead of pink! Total surprise, because her Mum had colovaria-ed the yarn to disguise it when she was knitting, so Ginny wouldn't see.

Bill's present was a bit boring. "Oh look," she said with mock excitement. "A box!"

Bill laughed and pointed at the box with his wand. "That is a bona fide Barkius curse box. Made it myself."

"What's it do?" Ginny asked, shaking it.

He glanced over at their parents, who were distracted as they cooed over their own gifts. With a subtle hand, he passed Ginny his wand. Ginny ducked low and tapped it on the box. "Alohamora," she chanted.

The box jumped and sparked something at her. She yelped and her bum lifted about a foot off the ground before plopping back down.

Both Charlie and Bill practically rolled over, they were laughing so hard.

Charlie wiped an eye. "Oh Merlin, I am so glad you tried that while I was here to see it. You look like a giant Puffskein."

Ginny's hands flung upwards to grab her hair, to find that it was quite literally standing on end in all directions. "Bill!"

"Right," Bill said, holding his sides laughing. "So… in curse breaking, that's called a rebound. Doesn't give a clue to what the curse or hex on the box is, just that it's there."

"Why would you give me a cursed box and how long is my hair going to be like this?" Ginny wailed.

"It's good practice sensing hexes. Hair should be back to normal in an hour, maybe. Long enough that you won't be tempted to go trying random spells on the box." Bill took his wand back. "There are several layers of hexes. You'll need to research and get through them all to open the box."

"Lovely. How do I do that, how long will it take, and what's inside?"

"To answer the questions in order: Not going to tell you, not going to tell you, not going to tell you. Figure it out."

"Way to motivate," Charlie snickered. "Should have told her there's a Jocunda Sykes card in there. Ginny could sell her to a collector and retire before she turns eleven."

"Please," Ginny had scoffed. "As if I'd sell a real Jocunda Sykes. If I had a Jocunda Sykes card, Percy wouldn't have a room anymore. I'd throw his bed out the window and set up a little shrine. Gnomes could be recruited to dance around the card throwing confetti."

That had led to a fast and merry debate between Bill and Charlie as to which chocolate frog cards were rarest and laughs about "a friend of a friend once knew someone who had a Youdle."

Amid the laughter, Charlie turned on a crackling old wireless he had managed to borrow. Mum swayed with Dad to her beloved Celestina Warbeck. Bill had bowed to Ginny and was sort of dancing with her, letting her balance on his toes as he waddled back and forth like a penguin while she giggled.

But her giggles stopped when Charlie tapped her on the shoulder. He held out a long thin present, wrapped in knobby green paper with a rather floppy looking red bow tied around it.

Her breath caught.

Sure, it was wrapped poorly, but it was from Charlie, so of course it was wrapped poorly. He had that mischievous Weasley twinkle in his eye that everyone was so used to seeing on Fred and George, it was like it hopped off their faces and stuck itself to Charlie's. "Is this what I think it is?" she breathed, her heart starting to pound.

He shrugged, but the twinkle in his eyes practically started to tap-dance, so she squealed and felt the long, thin package that so obviously held a broom.

Her hands were shaking a bit as she ran them from one end to the other, and she sent a little mental 'sorry' out to Bill, because she had destroyed Charlie's hexed broom, and instead of yelling at her, he gave her one of her very own for Christmas, which meant that from now and forever, he would have to always be her favorite brother, even if Bill wrote letters.

"Well," her Mum huffed. "You should open it; we all know what it is."

With a squeal of joy, Ginny tore open the package.

Later, she would think of it as a lesson. Later, she would remind herself one shouldn't assume that all good things come in broom-sized packages.

Later, maybe oh, fifty? Sixty years from that moment? Maybe a few decades would go by and she might be able to laugh.

But it wasn't a few decades later yet, so her smile froze on her face. "It's… "

Awful.

Horrible.

The worst present in the history of Christmas.

"It's… a, um, training broom." Did her voice sound neutral? Neutral was the best she could possibly achieve at the moment, so she hoped she at least sounded neutral-ish. "Right?"

Meanwhile, her quidditch-loving self began to internally beg someone, anyone, to contradict what her eyes were telling her. Please, oh, please, say it's a joke. Please say it's only meant to look like a training broom, but really it's a Nimbus 2000 in disguise. Or a Comet. Or an old, battered, used Cleansweep. Anything but a training broom.

"Yes. Training Broom," Charlie beamed. "Mum, stop giving me that look. It's about as safe a broom as you can buy. Charmed to the teeth to cap the height at about four or five feet. Cushioning charms activate on either side when- "

Charlie's words faded into an undecipherable buzz as Ginny stared at the broom she held limp in her lap, unwilling to let the smile drop from her face and reveal just how horrified she was.

Charlie hadn't learned to fly on a training broom. None of her brothers learned to fly on a training broom.

Even Percy.

For one, training brooms were expensive and no self-respecting kid would want to ride it after a day or two.

Even Percy.

For two, and three, they were slow. And borrrrrrrrring.

For five and six (four could take care of itself), not a single one of her siblings would have accepted the loss of face that would occur if they needed a training broom, of all things. Bill hadn't learned on a training broom. And if Bill hadn't needed it, there wasn't a single sibling down the line who would be such a wimp to need one.

Even Percy.

And, oh, she knew her brothers. There wasn't a single one who wouldn't spent years and years and years taking the mickey out of any sibling that rode one of these.

But even with allllll that, Ginny thought (as she tried to maintain the smile that was feeling rather sickly on her face) the training broom that Charlie was looking so proud to give her wasn't truly a crime against humanity because it was designed for a six-year-old Hufflepuff, but rather, because it was designed for a six-year-old Hufflepuff girl.

It wasn't just that it was a terrible, awful, horrible, baby training broom that made it so terribly, awfully, horrifically, horrifyingly horrible.

"It's…" The words caught in Ginny's throat. She couldn't physically finish the sentence. Her vocal cords might as well be carrying teeny tiny protest signs, refusing to say the awfullest part out loud.

It. Was. Pink.

()()()

()()()

Late that night, Ginny had an out-and-out battle with her Best Self.

Her Best Self knew that Charlie had meant well. Not just meant well, her Best Self reminded her, looking down her imaginary Best Self nose at Ginny with a smug sniff. He had, in one gift, forgiven her for breaking his broom and told her she was the best little sister in the world, and he adored her and wanted her to be happy, even if he never wrote or knew what to say to her and had once mistaken her for a baby vampire.

But… Ginny's Less-Than-Best Self piped up, demanding equal time to counter the Best Self, Charlie didn't get her at all. Love and forgiveness? Sure, Love and forgiveness were great, her Less-Than-Best Self lectured. But love and forgiveness wasn't respect. Honestly, a pink training broom was not the kind of thing you gave to a girl you respected, even if… especially if… she was your sister.

Even an adolescent dragon or a fourth-year boy could have figured that out.

It's a gift. He didn't have to get you anything. You're not ungrateful, her Best Self reminded her. Just be a good, polite girl, express gratitude and start figuring out a jinx to get around the height limit, her Best Self advised. Respect is ephemeral and unnecessary, in the long run-

"Oh, piss off," Ginny muttered to her Best Self, and mentally stuffed her in a closet. Next to the pink broom.

Ginny laid there on the makeshift sofa bed, staring at Charlie's ceiling. She was in a quandary. The situation needed to addressed, swiftly. The problem with brothers, though, was they couldn't be told anything. They could be taught, but not told, and subtlety often went over their heads.

Especially Charlie's. He was notorious for missing anything that wasn't dragon sized.

"Oh," Ginny breathed as she sprang upright, the quilt falling away from her as she nearly tumbled off Charlie's sofa.

The idea roared into her brain, flew a lap, and then breathed fire at all the "good girl" expectations piled on her. Oooooh, both her Best and Less-Than-Best Selves cooed as one, because even her Best Self recognized a gloriously brilliant idea. The idea- the gorgeous, huge, loud, Gryffindor idea- spun through her brain. The idea barreled over obstacles like "self-preservation" and her pesky conscience, to land fully formed in the front of her mind.

She had to do it. Ginny was so very pleased with the very diabolical irony of it all. Subtle, but obvious at the same time. Yeeeeeessss, her Less-Than-Best Self urged. Do it! Do it now!

Her Best Self, knowing when it was facing defeat, threw up her hands and muttered something about covering her tracks. She'd need to figure out a reason Bill might have done it, to cast doubt so she could invoke Code of Silence, but…

Pfft… details. She'd worry about the details later.

Now, whispered her Less -Than-Best Self.

Just do it now.

Resisting the urge to bounce, Ginny slid off the couch, careful to avoid any creaking. Ducking low (because that was how one accomplished "sneaky,") Ginny weaved her way across the room to the steps. Her parents, being heavy sleepers, were not an issue. After a lifetime of sneaking up and down the Burrow steps without so much as allowing a single creak, neither were Charlie's relatively silent ones.

No, she thought, as she slowly, sooooo slowly, pushed open Charlie's door. She entered the room he was currently sharing with Bill. No, the dangerous part was now. Not waking either of them up.

She paused for a moment, somewhat taken aback by the sheer volume of the chorus of snores. Good gracious Merlin, they were loud.

Beneath the raucous din emerging from both brothers' truly disgusting nostrils, Ginny's footsteps were noiseless. Ginny crouched down by the nightstand and ever-so-slowly, lifted Bill's wand from the surface. With a silent apology to her once-again favorite brother, Ginny held the weight of it in her hand for a moment. She took a deep, silent breath.

This was it. Now or never.

She shut her eyes and focused her thoughts.

Last chance to turn back, her Best Self warned.

Oh, no way was she listening to that prissy git of a Self.

Her eyes opened again, adjusting quickly to the dark and she grinned when she spied Charlie's closet door open.

Perfect. Absolutely perfect.

Ginny had spent weeks watching her mother do the spell on her nails. She knew the wand movement, she knew the incantation, she just had to focus her thoughts on the goal. With a deft flick of the wrist, she pictured the color in her mind and breathed a near-silent "Colovaria."

All the clothes in Charlie's closet rippled…

… and turned pink.

Ginny blinked, in amazement.

Her Best and Less-Than-Best Selves both agreed, she was bloody brilliant.

Squeeing out loud, would of course, give her away. No, all she had left to do was return Bill's wand to the nightstand and try to cleanse her mind of their snoring.

It was done. Her idea was….

Ginny frowned. Kind of… anticlimactic. Ginny's hand clutched around Bill's wand for a moment, holding it steady above the nightstand.

The problem was, she reckoned, Charlie's closet was pretty small. He only had a couple of shirts and spare trousers in there. Yes, they were now all bright pink, but the sight, perhaps, didn't quite have the impact that she was trying to present.

More, her Less-Than-Best Self chanted. Just a bit more.

With a silent spin, she danced out of the room and padded down the stairs. For good measure, she whispered the spell on Charlie's tablecloth. Suppressing a giggle when it not only turned pink, but somehow shimmered with something positively glittery, she thought it a shame that the curtains didn't match.

So she waved the wand again, with yet another "Colovaria." Then, she remembered Charlie had a pair of galoshes outside, and as silently as she could manage, she pried open the front door, and whispered the spell there, too.

Then she sighed.

More, her Less-Than-Best Self whispered again.

She knew she should ignore the voice. She had done enough. It was just that, her idea had seemed bigger. As far as pranks went, it was a bit disappointing. A couple patches of pink could hardly teach Charlie the lesson she…

Ginny heard the rumble of the dragon in the distance, burrowed up in the paddock down the lane.

Her eyes grew big as the New Idea slammed into her conscious.

Noooo, her Best Self emerged from the recesses of her mind. Don't you dare.

Ginny's breath caught and before she knew what she was doing, she stepped her feet into Charlie's over-sized newly pink galoshes.

Stepping out of the cottage onto the path leading to the compound, Ginny bit her lip.

Her insides were skipping with glee and mischief, although her brain kept telling her she really, really shouldn't.

But she could.

It would be positively wicked.

Her Best and Less-Than-Best Selves went to war again.

Fred and George would do it.

Yeah, well, if one of them were eaten by a dragon the family still had a spare twin. She was the Weasley girl. Someone would notice.

Ginny scampered down the path, toward the compound. The slushy snow crunched beneath Charlie's pink boots, and they were so big for her feet she stepped out of one of them at one point, leaving it behind her as her thick wool night sock stepped into an inch deep puddle. Her toes immediately chilled as she limped back to retrieve the shoe. Impatient, she shoved her freezing foot back into it and shuffled the remainder of the way to the paddock.

She smelled the dragon before she saw it. Not that she needed to see it again. She saw it yesterday. It had been… uh, big. The stench that was rushing her nostrils was disgusting. Like, large piles of poo boiled in a cauldron of dirty socks and pickled herring. Honestly, she just didn't understand Charlie's fascination with dragons. Her father and Bill had asked a bunch of questions that involved dietary habits and flight lengths and, trying to sound interested, the only question she had been able to come up with was "which is faster, a Ukrainian Ironbelly or a Nimbus 2000?"

Charlie's response had been, "before or after the Ukrainian Ironbelly eats it?"

Ginny scoffed as she almost stepped out of Charlie's boot again. The Ukrainian Ironbelly was in the closest dragon paddock, which was just fine for Ginny's purposes. It was really too cold to trek all the way to the next enormous paddock which was, really, really a long walk away, she thought, with a shiver. Granted, the next compound had a Welsh Green, which was lots smaller and more tame, according to Charlie. But for Ginny's purposes, the Ukrainian Ironbelly was… well, it would make more of an impact.

An enormous, impossible-to-miss pink Ukrainian Ironbelly. That was the kind of "not-subtle" that big brothers could comprehend.

Still, she was quite rationally a bit nervous. Excited nervous, she tried to convince herself. This had to be Excited Nervous and not Oh-Merlin-I'm-About-To-Be-Eaten-By-A-Dragon nervous. She blew out a steadying breath, visible in the crisp December night air. Then, she ruined it when she gulped as she approached the rock wall that surrounded the extensive pit the dragon had claimed.

She shivered again, her eyes adjusting to the dark as she traced the lumpy shadow of the dragon's shape in the pit. Her nightgown was little protection against the chill air, but at least she could see. The sky was crisp and clear, with little cloud cover and about a million visible stars.

If she were being honest with herself, which she tried to be, she did realize the abundance of starlight was a mixed blessing. On the one hand, Ginny thought, with just the slightest trace of panic, it meant she could see the Ironbelly was right there. Laying on its stomach, almost blending in with the rocks, save for the metallic shimmer the starlight conferred upon its gray hide.

On the other hand, if it opened its sleeping eyes, it would see her. While Charlie had insisted the Ironbellies weren't particularly vicious or volatile, (indeed, he had referred to the Ironbelly as a really big Kneazle, albeit one who could accidentally step on you and not notice you were dead until days later when your bits started to smell between its claws) the fact was a dragon was a wild magical beast, and as such, unpredictable.

"Now or never," Ginny whispered, her voice somewhat shakier than she was used to hearing it. "Just don't wake it up," she muttered, a bit more steadily.

Ginny raised Bill's wand over the rock wall and muttered the spell.

Her heart sank. Nothing happened.

Alright Ginny. Enough is enough, her Best Self piped up. A pair of boots is one thing, but a dragon is just-

You need to get closer, her Less-Than-Best-Self chimed in, with a cheerful mental nudge.

With a fleeting glance over her shoulder, hoping she hadn't been followed, Ginny sprang over the wall, leaving Charlie's pink boots behind her.

The good thing, is the very presence of the enormous dragon and the body heat it emitted by the very nature of it being a fire-breather, kept the rock quarry somewhat warm. Not, "oh it's a nice summer day" warm, but her toes didn't necessary feel like they were about to freeze and chip off her feet.

The bad thing was, of course, she was close enough to the dragon to feel the warmth.

She ducked behind a rock, sidled over a bit closer to the sleeping dragon, and tried to keep her hand steady on Bill's wand. Which was decidedly difficult because she was less than a Quidditch pitch length away from a bloody dragon.

A Dragon.

Heart pounding so loud Ginny was sure that was her blood she could hear flowing through her ears, Ginny crept even closer. She winced as she sliced her foot on a particularly sharp rock, and then tried the spell again.

Now, in later days, Ginny would wonder whether the spell didn't work due to the nature of dragons, or whether it was her own power that was rather feeble and limited. Perhaps deciding to turn a giant Ukrainian Ironbelly pink, was a bit ambitious. Somewhat beyond her skills as an untrained witch with a stolen wand.

She would have been completely, utterly, disappointed in her efforts had it not been for two things:

1) While she hadn't been able to change the entire dragon pink, she had managed to magically polish three of its front claws, on the left side.

2) The dragon woke up.

Ginny's blood seemed to freeze in her veins, which was, in retrospect, probably a good thing. A tiny voice that belonged to neither her Best Self nor the Self that had goaded her into this suddenly, obviously stupid endeavor echoed Charlie's words about dragons that she had barely been listening to the other day, namely, when facing any dragon (even docile kitten ones like Ukrainian Ironbellies) one should move slowly and smoothly, avoiding sudden jerking movements.

So, she thought, with an edge of panic, it was maybe good that she was so scared she couldn't move?

The Ukrainian Ironbelly shifted, stretched, yawned, and burped a tiny little flame over its shoulder. Smoke rose out of its nostrils. With another shift it gazed through Ginny, noticing the small human in a nightdress just standing there. The dragon seemed to look her up and down, as if it were taking stock and making note that she didn't have any food or toys. Then the Ironbelly pulled herself to her feet, the impact of her step vibrating the rocks beneath Ginny.

Oh, Merlin, she should have thought this through. Ginny stumbled, careful to protect Bill's wand because if she managed to not get eaten by a dragon, she didn't want to get reductoed into a million pieces when Bill forgot that she was his favorite sister and pulverized her for breaking his wand.

Keeping eye contact with the dragon, Ginny pulled herself to her feet again. Staring at that dragon, with its big teeth, and terrible breath and three pink toes, or claws, or whatever it was that dragons had, Ginny tried to remember what Charlie had said a reasonable witch should do when facing a dragon, but her memory failed her. Utterly failed her. Probably because she had been bored and hadn't been paying attention and if she lived through this, she promised she would keep that valuable lesson close to her heart for all eternity. She promised the ghosts of Merlin and Morganna and threw in Babbity Rabbity for good measure that if she lived through this night she would always, always pay attention. Even when her brothers were lecturing about boring subjects like dragons, because she had just learned her lesson.

The lesson: a person never knew just what might come in handy when one was facing a dragon. Although, she absolutely conceded that paying attention might even have useful applications outside of the dragon world.

Oh, bloody hell, her brain is going off in all directions and the dragon had just paused.

It was staring down at its claws.

Its three pink claws.

The dragon slowly, slower than Ginny could possibly imagine doing anything, raised its gaze to hers, fixing on Ginny with a contracting pupil.

And Ginny stood, frozen, as death stared her in the face.

The beady, deep red eye narrowed. That eye was the size of Ginny's head and stared into Ginny's face.

Oh, Merlin. She was going to die. Or piss herself. She wasn't sure which was worse. Both, she thought frantically, as her insides threatened to liquify. Dying after pissing oneself, so her brothers would find her dead, smelling horribly, would be worse.

Ginny stood there, the starlight turning her nightgown silver and ethereal, like the ghost she might soon become.

And at some level, she thought that this moment? This was a life choice.

She could either wither under that stare, or she could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was related to Fred and George.

Nah, her Best Self spoke up. Prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Fred and George are related to you.

But, maybe don't get eaten, okay? Her Less-Than-Best Self piped up.

Right, Ginny thought. Don't get eaten. Still staring directly into the blood-colored eye of the metal-gray dragon, Ginny gulped down a deep breath, and began to speak.

"Hi. It's, uhm really very pretty. You know, your claws." Ginny said, with what she hoped was a smile that appeared sincere, even though she was having to concentrate on not pissing herself. "But, uh, I realize none of the other dragons have nail polish. I suppose dragon mums don't do nail polish. My mum? Expert. But I understand if you don't like it with your uh, skin, I mean, scale tone."

Oh god, she was babbling.

"I can fix it though! You don't have to get all, flamey, or anything." She waved Bill's wand over her own fingers whispering the incantation. The color disappeared (actually it didn't, because Ginny didn't know the spell to make it go away, but she figured charming the nails the same color as the natural nail beds would suffice to fool a big dragon).

The dragon's eyes flickered to Ginny's wand and then back to her claws.

"Right," Ginny breathed. "So… um, how about, I undo this, and then you and I can just pretend tonight never happened," Ginny chanted, with a fake hopeful smile sort of plastered on her face. Without expecting a response from the enormous dragon, Ginny waved the wand, muttered the incantation in the general direction of the dragon's three pink toes, and they were once again metallic gray.

The dragon peered down at her claws. Squinted at them. Then she steadied her gaze back on Ginny.

Ginny suppressed the urge to run, screaming, back to Charlie's cottage. Play. It. Cool.

Right. She could be cool. No worries. No problem. Just back up a few steps, keep eye contact, control bowels. "Alright then," Ginny smiled brightly. At least, she hoped she was giving the impression of friendly competence and a job well done. She risked the dragon's ire as she backed up two steps, then three, still keeping her eyes on the dragon and wondering how in the world she was going to climb up the rocks to the path above while backwards.

But Ginny didn't have to wonder long, because on her fourth step, the dragon seemed to understand she was trying to escape. With a boom and a clatter, the dragon closed the distance between them, her newly gray claws slamming into the rock right next to Ginny's left foot.

Ginny couldn't help but notice that each claw was twice as big as Ginny's left foot, and maybe in the next eight seconds those claws might be oh-so-casually used to pick pieces of Ginny, like Ginny's left foot, out from between the dragon's teeth.

As the impact of the dragon stomp seemed to reverberate through the whole quarry, setting Ginny's bones tingling, Ginny squeezed her eyes shut, and waited to be eaten. After a few silent moments, when the sensation of being chomped into several bits didn't occur, she allowed herself to squeeze open one eye, and take in the situation.

On one side of her, were four metallic gray claws. Above her was a large Ukrainian Ironbelly head, tilted down at her. She could only see one eye, but the eye maybe didn't look particularly hungry?

Then, the muzzle of the dragon knocked her off her feet, propelling her sideways a broom's length to her left. Ginny winced as she landed bum first on the really hard rock, understanding the phrase "rock hard" with perfect clarity she would hitherto afterwards never forget. Before she could do something unceremoniously ineffective, like rub her bum with her wandless hand, the dragon's muzzle knocked her again, a bit softer. Her vision a little blurred from the impact, Ginny glanced up to see the dragon gazing at her expectantly.

Why was the dragon just staring at her, as if she were an idiot? Because the dragon, which Charlie had said over and over was truly quite intelligent, as all dragons were, was staring at her like she was supposed to know something, or do something or…

Oh.

Oooooooooh. Ginny's eyes widened, as the dragon's claws scraped the rock next to her foot, the scratching causing the fine hairs on Ginny's arms to rise in protest.

To Ginny's credit, it didn't take her too very long to comprehend. She gazed from Bill's wand to the dragon's eyeball, to the claws that had stopped slowly drawing down the rock and were now tapping the stone next to her.

Oh bloody hell. She had found a vain one.

"Oooookay,' Ginny whispered, scooting back a little bit to get some space, and then she tentatively tapped the nearest claw and gulped the incantation "Colovaria."

The claw turned bright bubble gum pink.

Ginny didn't dare move a muscle while she waited for the dragon to react.

At first, the dragon didn't move her gaze from Ginny. Then the dragon's gaze moved down Ginny's arm, to Bill's wand, to its own claw. With a blink, it eyed its claw, and snorted.

Then, it sat back on its hind legs looking for all the world like a crup pup waiting to be fed a treat.

Ginny didn't need any further instruction.

With another gulp, she drew herself to her feet and with a spastic flick, she waved the wand over the remaining three claws. Wide-eyed and speechless, she glanced up at the dragon again, as the dragon seemingly perused the work. Satisfied, she pulled back her front leg for balance, allowing the other one to shoot forward and plant itself next to Ginny on her other side.

"Alright. I guess you do like the color," Ginny breathed. "You're lovely, hang on a moment." Pushing up her nightgown sleeves, Ginny made quick work of the other claws and then backed away from the dragon once more, so she could see its looming face a bit better. "There you are. It's, um… flattering, I think. It's a very dramatic color against your gray," Ginny offered, somewhat truthfully. It did stand out, which was rather the purpose of pink nail polish, after all.

The dragon sniffed at the claws, glanced at Ginny again with a somewhat bored expression, and then turned and glided away.

Ginny snatched at the opportunity to make a quick exit. Backing away tentatively at first, she turned and scrambled up the rocks once it appeared clear that the dragon was no longer interested in her, her wand, its claws or a potential late-night snack. Pulling herself over the rock wall, Ginny allowed herself to release the breath she hadn't been aware she'd even been holding. Safe on the other side of the rock partition, Ginny allowed her knees to buckle, and plopped down below the wall, her back to the paddock as she caught her breath.

And it was that moment, that Ginny discovered she knew far more curse words than she had realized.

If her mother had happened to be strolling by on a freezing cold December evening, overtaken by the sudden urge for a late-night walk and had happened to overhear the repeating string of "bloody hell, fuck, shit, fucking bloody hell, piss, fucking shit," emerging in a frantic whispered chant from her ten-year-old daughter… well, the dragon would have been the least of Ginny's worries.

While her mouth seemed on autopilot serving up a string of profanities she hadn't even known she knew, Ginny's brain was uncharacteristically silent.

Merlin's sweat socks, she had managed to get both her Best and Less-than-Best Selves to shut up. When her mouth finally stopped moving, and her brain shifted from survival mode to partake in some higher-level thinking, Ginny's gaze drifted down to her lap, where she clutched Bill's wand.

Then her gazed shifted again, and landed on Charlie's pink boots, abandoned in her earlier attempt to clear the wall.

An unbidden, nervous giggle replaced the string of profanity emerging from her lips. Her mouth quirked in one corner, staring at Charlie's gorgeously ugly pink boots.

Another giggle emerged from deep in her chest. In fact, she realized it wasn't even a giggle. It was a bona fide grown-up girl chuckle.

She had charmed Charlie's dragon's toenails.

Pink.

Adrenaline suddenly shot through her body, and she wanted to sing and dance and laugh and fly. Instead, she grinned a grin as wide and as genuine as any since the broom accident. She was Ginny Weasley. She was back. Harry Potter may have been the youngest seeker in a century but just wait until theybecame best friends and she told him about the time she decorated a dragon. He would think she was the coolest girl in the whole world…

…because, she was very likely the coolest girl in the whole world.

With a grin and yet another giggle, Ginny sprang to her feet. She leaped into Charlie's pink boots and with a few tugs, hefted them back onto her feet.

Practically skipping, she drew herself upright and headed back toward the cottage to replace Bill's wand. And all the way back, all she could think was she had done it and had even managed to not soil her drawers.

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The next morning, Ginny woke to Charlie's bellows. He was on the stairs, clutching a pink shirt in one hand, pink pants in the other, his eyes on the pink tablecloth. Horrified, his stare shifted suspiciously toward Ginny.

And now, Ginny thought, was the final piece.

With yet another silent apology to Bill, Ginny widened her eyes at Charlie, allowing her glance to follow his. The shirt, the pants. With a jerk of her head she followed his glance at the curtains and the table and then her eyes met Bill's, who was standing right behind Charlie, his wand in his hand, a stunned expression on his face.

Ginny held her own astonished look for a moment… two… three… and then she burst out laughing.

Both her brothers stared at her, unmoving.

She laughed harder and sprang up. She rushed past Charlie and threw her arms around Bill. "Oh sweet Merlin, Bill. You're hilarious. Truly you are."

Out of the corner of her eye, Ginny watched Charlie's stunned eyes narrow in irritated comprehension at his older brother.

Ginny leaned back and scruffed her hands through Bill's hair. "I, for one, love my new broom, but it's very very sweet of you to point out the gender stereotypes on my behalf."

She hugged Charlie next. "Really, Charlie, Bill's just being silly. You'll need to forgive his overly sensitive, entirely unnecessary, protective tendencies."

Charlie spun to glare at Bill.

Bill glared over Charlie's shoulder at Ginny.

Ginny adopted a slightly apologetic face and mouthed, "Sorry!" at Bill. Then she added a "Code of Silence" reminder, just for good measure.

Bill blinked.

Ginny mouthed "Code of Silence," again, just in case he missed it.

With yet another blink, Bill's face went surprisingly blank. Then he looked at Charlie and shrugged. "Training broom was genius. Pink is a bit embarrassing though. We're redheads, mate."

Charlie rolled his eyes, and then yanked on his pink shirt and stomped into the kitchen to start breakfast.

Ginny grinned at Bill.

Bill glared at Ginny. "That's not how the Code of Silence works," he muttered under his breath.

Ginny threw her arm around his waist. "Just keep Charlie away from the paddock this morning. In fact, it's probably best if you make a quick exit before he checks on the dragons today."

Bill's horrified face stared at her.

Ginny grinned. "I hope there's bacon!"

With a skip, she followed Charlie into the kitchen to help cook up the morning feast.

What a glorious holiday it was.

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Thanks ginnyweasley777 and Curse-04 for beta reading! And thank you to all who left comments, I truly appreciate the encouragement.