Had Ginny known that Operation Rescue Harry was a thing, she would have insisted on being included.
Honestly, she just didn't understand why her brothers could not comprehend the idea: if GINNY were involved in the planning they wouldn't get caught.
So… they got caught.
About an hour or so after her Recovery Tea and Toast and I-Broom-Puked-Again Shower, Ginny poked her head out her room to eavesdrop on all the redheaded yelling.
"You could have died! You could have been seen!"
Ginny grinned at the top of the stairs. She loved every single bit of rage emitting from her Mum, since it wasn't aimed at her. She waited a bit for the din to die down before she scampered down the stairs and into the kitchen to see which brother was the focus of the latest rant. "Mum have-"
Smack.
Ginny lurched to a stop.
Whollop.
Oh, Merlin.
He was sitting at their table, eating breakfast.
He was eating breakfast at her table. With her brothers. He had done this before at Hogwarts, eating breakfast.
Runny eggs.
Toast.
Harry Potter.
With her brothers.
At. Her. Table.
His shirt was too big on his small shoulders and his glasses had a line at the bridge, so they'd been broken and repaired so many times the reparo wouldn't fix them all the way. His black hair was messy, but in the very best way of messy, like he was someone who didn't like rules just the way she didn't like rules and who made the rule that hair couldn't be tousled and messy at the breakfast table? And everyone was talking and then he was looking at her and she held out her hand and said "Hi, I'm Ginny and once you get to know me, we're going to be best friends."
At least, that's what she said in her head. But for some reason, her hand wouldn't move. Words weren't coming out of her mouth.
His head was tilted a bit, as if he were trying to listen to something she was about to say, before Ron distracted him by pointing out the window.
Ginny stood there, frozen. Then her fingers seemed to spasm and she realized she did indeed have control of her limbs, so she sat down at the table.
Except, she didn't do that. She meant to sit down at the table, but instead, she made a sound only dogs could hear and sprinted back up the stairs.
She didn't stop until the mirrored landing, invisible from the kitchen table. She caught sight of her wide, brown, completely-gob-smacked eyes.
Stepping closer to the mirror, Ginny gingerly poked her finger at her reflection. Then, in a small whisper, she tested her voice to make sure it still worked properly. "What… the fuck… was that?" she whispered.
Because even though she wasn't precisely sure what that word meant, Ginny did know it was Awful and Big and she needed an Awful and Big word to truly express the scope of the tragic disaster that just took place in her kitchen.
Her Best Self tsked.
Her Less-Than-Best Self applauded.
Then both selves whipped around to Ginny and also demanded to know, "Whatthefuckwasthat?"
Tearing her gaze from the mirror, Ginny pondered the question back up to her room. Safe, she slid down the door until her bum was on the ground.
What was that?
The butterflies in her belly didn't feel much different than the nausea she suffered after the broom every morning.
Neither scenario was part of Ginny Weasley's Ultimate Awesome Life Plan.
In fact, nothing was happening the way it should! All year, aching bones, cruddy letters, not one thing had been the way it was supposed to be.
Her throat began to burn and that was yet another thing. She was about to bloody cry, she realized with rising anger.
Here she was, huddled on the floor, throat constricting, eyeballs about to leak, and what about that said, "Ultimately Awesome?"
Pouting, she lifted her wrist and shoved it against the tears threatening to fall.
She glanced at her damp sleeve. Her stupid sleeve was damp.
Her stupid sleeve had lime green dots on it. Why had she picked such a stupid shirt to wear this morning, with lime green dots?
Why did she care what color the stupid dots were on her stupid shirts?
It couldn't be because Harry Potter was sitting and eating eggs. No. It was because her brothers hadn't warned her Harry Potter was sitting and eating eggs. So, it was her brothers' fault she was caught by surprise, and now that she was no-longer-surprised she would march right back down there and not be a blithering idiot.
After she changed her stupid shirt.
()()()
()()()
An hour later, Ginny glared at her disaster of a room, littered with dozens of stupid shirts.
With a huff, she stomped over to the battered old trunk that served as a writing desk. Throwing it open, she yanked out the frayed journal she had used over the winter to practice her "new bones" handwriting.
She tossed two shirts out of the way and plopped down on the floor, flipping past all the ledgers to the next empty page in the back. Fishing one more time in the trunk for a spare quill and ink, she set her journal upon it, and began to make a list.
How was your school year?
Did you like your classes?
Did you have a favorite?
FOLLOW UP! What is it about (insert favorite class here) that you like so much?
Fred and George told me about Quidditch this year. Did you mean to catch that snitch in your mouth instead of your hand? How did that happen? Did the wings tickle that dangly thing in the back of your throat?
Do you have a pet?
Who's your Quidditch team?
Do you like to play Gobstones? Fancy a round after dinner?
Ginny frowned at that last one, then crossed it out. Of course Harry Potter didn't play Gobstones. He was the youngest seeker in a century.
In fact, Gobstones was rather a babyish game. Why had she spent so much of her short life cultivating Gobstone skill? That was time, time, time she was never going to get back.
Maybe chess. Though, he'd be rather unimpressed with her after playing with Ron all year.
Also, she didn't think she could convince the pieces to cheat again.
When Ginny finished scribbling her list, she memorized it, tore out the page, and ripped the evidence to shreds. Wondering whether it would be safer to ingest the remains, Ginny dismissed the idea as perhaps a bit extreme. Instead, she ditched the tiny papers under a loose floorboard and then tossed another three stupid shirts on top for camouflage.
With a renewed sense of confidence and purpose, Ginny sprinted downstairs.
But, her heart sank, realizing the downstairs was empty.
Through the screen door, she could spy Fred, George, Ron, and Harry Potter as they played two-on-two Quidditch.
Harry soared through them all on his beautiful, beautiful Nimbus. Way too high for her to shout her questions at him.
"Fuck," Ginny whispered for the second time that day.
Her Best and Less-Than-Best Selves agreed with the sentiment.
()()()
()()()
It was official, Ginny decided a few days later: her tongue was defective.
Oh, it was fine when she was doing her chores. It was fine when she was helping her mum finish peeling potatoes and her Dad flooed in and she said, "Hi Dad. How was work?" Perfectly fine.
Her tongue worked fine when Percy hogged the shower the next morning, and there was no more hot water and she didn't have a wand to magically heat it, so she had to take a freezing cold shower and if she caught pneumonia and died it would be his fault and she promised to come back as a ghost and wag her ghostly little eyebrows at him every single time he snogged a girl, so the next time he felt the need to take an extra-long shower, he should really think about how it's going to affect his performance later in life.
Yep. Tongue worked perfectly fine for that whole impromptu speech.
It just didn't work when Harry Potter was near.
She had tried. So many times she tried. She tried stammering out her list, but no sound would emerge when he was in the room. She was so silent he didn't realize she was in the room with him at all.
She practiced. She practiced her questions in front of the long mirror propped up in a corner of her bedroom. She practiced her facial expressions with her list. When the boys were outside playing Quidditch, she practiced with Harry's beautiful owl, Hedwig.
True, the owl blinked at her strangely. Still, Ginny proved her tongue worked perfectly well when she was talking to Harry's owl.
It was just absolutely, completely, soul-destroyingly defective around Harry.
Obviously, her tongue got confused because his eyes were really green. Soooooo green.
It was hard to tell at first, because sometimes his spectacles were a little smudged, but then he'd turn his head and laugh at something Fred and George were saying, and a person could really see just how green they were. Like, wet fields in the springtime, or the lime-flavored Fizzing Whizbees that Bill sometimes sent her, or the pickled toad feet her mum kept in a jar in the pantry.
And his manners were so nice. Ginny never thought she'd be the kind of person impressed with manners. Yet, watching Harry, she realized they were more than nice. They were excellent, with the right amount of "proper" without ever crossing the line into "stuffy" or "snooty" or "totally-obnoxious-suck-up." It seemed to her that Harry struck the perfect balance between having a sense of mischief with brothers, but treating parents with respect and, oh, he just seemed to truly, honestly appreciate every little thing about the Burrow.
His eyes would light on the clock when Mr. Weasley was on his way home and they would shift back and forth between the clock and the floo, as if he were timing how long the trip would make, and when Mr. Weasley appeared and the clock shifted again, he would glance down at the table and try to hide a grin, as if delighted that the clock was so accurate.
She wanted to tell him that the clock was always accurate, and it took exactly four seconds of "travelling" before the whoosh of the floo would alert them Dad was home. She wanted to tell him that once her Mum had caught a young Percy sneaking off to the ministry after Mr. Weasley. She wanted to tell him her Mum had been furious, yelling and stomping all over the kitchen as she lectured Percy that he wasn't allowed to go to "work" until he passed his NEWTS. Ginny wanted to tell Harry that she held the record for the number of days stuck on "mortal peril" and see if he was a little impressed.
Instead, her mouth opened and shut a couple times like a fish, and she dropped her dinner plate.
It was fortunate she had plaited only a tiny section of her hair (even though the plait itself was a little crooked and the ribbon she found that matched the stupid stripes on another stupid shirt was frayed). It was good, because her usual ponytail wouldn't have hidden her face so well. Beneath the curtain of hair, she kept her gaze fixed on her food for the rest of dinner.
But the moment Ron claimed the last pork chop, she flew out of the room and up the stairs. Yanking open her bedroom door, she threw herself face down on her bed, and let frustrated tears flow.
()()()
()()()
Ginny avoided everyone for almost a week after the dinner plate incident.
Surely seven days were enough for Harry Potter to forget she was a mute, clumsy idiot. So, on the morning they were to go to Diagon Alley, Ginny decided it was time to, once again, brave a family breakfast.
And she was absolutely fine until Harry Potter joined them, asked her a polite question, and her elbow sank into the butter dish.
That was the moment Ginny wished she had a wand. She could transfigure her chair into a pool of witch-eating slurpsand. She could picture it so clearly: whispering her profound thanks to that Blessed Pit of Sucking Death that would engulf and digest her, forever removing her from the Table of Shame.
However, her chair was just a chair. So she tried to wipe the butter off her elbow with as much dignity as possible.
She tried not to look at Harry, but his bright green eyes were alight with delight as he listened to her Dad talk about work. He got distracted for a moment when the plates in the sink started to wash themselves. His awed expression followed the napkins flying across the room as they darted off to the laundry. His whole face lit with surprise and a quiet sort of marvel.
If he were delighted by simple household spells, what would he think of the gnomes in the garden or the ghoul in the attic? Maybe she could show him how to break into the shed with Bernie Botts Beans? They would giggle, and then, maybe he would look at her with the same delight as when her Dad asked him how Muggle voices bounced from Fellytone to Fellytone and how they found their way back to the right one? Even though Harry said he had no idea, Ginny could tell how happy he was to have been asked.
Desperate to say something, anything at all, Ginny sat up to ask him about the car flight. He might tell how it was different from a car on the ground.
Yes. That was what she would do.
Ginny gulped a deep breath, ready. Waiting for a break in the table conversation.
Just a small one. Her heart began to pound with anticipation. A tiny break was all she needed.
Ginny's eyes darted about the table, skittering from person to person. Yes, she knew she wasn't sitting on the world's best question, but it would get Harry Potter talking to her. Maybe he would look at her and think about his answer. Maybe she wouldn't be a complete ninny and she might have a follow up question. Maybe, he might ask her something and she opened her mouth and –
Now! Now! No one talking! Jump in! Now!
Ginny squeezed her eyes shut, determined to get her question out before another one of her brothers monopolized the conversation further…
Sqeeaeeep.
…
Ginny's squeaky squawk echoed through the room. The clock on the wall shuddered.
A spring bounced out.
As one, her family turned toward her, staring at her with surprise and shock.
The cuckoo door sprang open, and the wooden bird took a suicidal leap onto the stone kitchen floor.
Her whole family stared at Ginny. Waiting.
Ginny's mouth opened before she realized she couldn't remember English.
With the weight of all those eyes (especially the polite green ones) upon her, Ginny snapped her jaw shut. With as much dignity as possible, she ducked her head, lifted herself off her chair and muttered something that might have resembled an "excuse me," in Swahili.
In a desperate attempt to cling to the tattered remains of her self-respect, Ginny forced herself to walk. When her obituary was published, detailing the cause of death as Acute Humiliation, it would say, "at least the poor girl avoided a screaming exit. Before her unfortunate demise, Ginevra Molly Weasley glided up the steps one final time, avoiding the creaky one."
When Ginny reached the landing, she caught a glimpse of her reflection.
Mirror Ginny shook her head and stomped out in disgust.
Unable to deal any longer, the real Ginny sprinted up the rest of the stairs to her room. With a cry of despair, she dove straight onto her bed, and screamed into her pillow.
The door squeaked behind her, but Ginny was too frustrated to tear the head off whatever brother had dared to cross the threshold of her sanctum.
"Ginny? Just a reminder we're off to Diagon at half past."
Or her Dad. She didn't have the heart to tear the head off her Dad. "I don't want to go," she said, muffled into her pillow.
She felt her bed shift as her Dad sat down on the edge. "You never miss a chance to take the floo. Your first word was 'whoooooosh'."
Ginny began to sob.
As fresh tears gushed from her eyes, she flopped over onto her back, arms outstretched on either side. "What is wrong with me?" she wailed.
"Nothing. Nothing is wrong with you."
That made her sob harder. With a frustrated wipe on her sleeve, she sat upright and scrambled to her knees. "You're saying that because you're my Dad." And she meant to sound fierce and brave and all Gryffindor, but a little sob snuck in, and her nose started to run so she wiped it with her other sleeve and then just glared at her Dad, even though her Dad didn't deserve a glare because he wasn't doing anything wrong except sit there, in his nighttime cap, even though it was morning.
And that, for some reason made her sob harder. That cap looked silly. Everyone but their Mum thought it looked silly. "I don't think anything is wrong with you," he repeated. In his silly looking nightcap.
"Dad," Ginny hissed, trying to make him understand without having to explain it in too much humiliating Harry-Potter-centric detail. "I Can't. Make. Words. I- I- it's like my brain and my tongue used to be connected and now- "
"Ginny."
"No, really!" He was gently smiling at her, like this was all perfectly normal, thank-you-very-much and it so clearly WASN'T.
"DAD!" He needed to stop smiling. Now. "Look at me! Nothing WORKS right anymore."
He started to chuckle.
"No, no, no. Don't you dare laugh! Everything is AWFUL. And-and those boys of yours never include me in anything and-and, well I always have to peel potatoes. Just once, I'd like to be the one who gets to set the table, or wash a dish, but the potatoes take forever, and then all those boys are involved in their next activity and they started without me, and I can't ask to join them because," Ginny gestured with a fierce jab, "my brain doesn't work anymore. Because… because…"
She was sobbing so hard, a bogey bubble popped out her nose.
Which was enough to make Ginny pause her sobbing. "Did a bubble of snot just come out of my face?"
Her Dad bit his lip. Then he fished in his pocket and offered a handkerchief to her.
Ginny stared at the handkerchief, and then back up to her Dad and started laughing through her sobs. Hysterically.
Crying and laughing at the same time was really confusing.
But her Dad started laughing as well, and she took the handkerchief and wiped her face. Then, with a half-laugh half-sob and magical third-half groan, she dove forward, head in hands. "Dinner plates and squeaks and, and my elbow went right in the butter dish, Dad."
Ginny heard the bed springs squeak before she felt her Dad's steady hand patting her on the back. "No one noticed but you."
Ginny tilted her head just enough so she could glare at him with one eye. "That's not particularly comforting."
"Well, it's the truth." He took the handkerchief from her, and dabbed at her eyes, which probably was spreading runny bogeys all over her face, but he meant well and that was just the kind of day she was having.
"Now," he said as he finished, gently tugging on her braid, "Let's take your mind off all this. Would you like the good news, or bad?"
"The bad news," Ginny groaned, dramatically. "Let's just ruin the whole day all at once."
"Alright," her Dad nodded. Then, from his pocket he drew out three wands. With quiet care, he placed them in a row on the lid of her trunk.
"Oh," Ginny breathed, eyes widening. "How are those bad news?"
"I know you were hoping for one of your very own at Ollivander's," her Dad said softly. "We wanted to, but the fact is the book lists are rather extensive this year and- "
Ginny scrambled forward and clutched her Dad in the squeeziest hug she could manage. Yes, she had wanted a new wand, one that had chosen her. Sure, she had wanted to explore the dusty stacks at Ollivander's; she had never been inside.
But that had been a bit of a pipe dream, really, like imagining what one could do with all the money from winning a sweepstakes or if the chickens got enchanted and started laying solid gold eggs.
"It won't be perfect," her Dad added. "But- "
"Rubbish," Ginny waved her hand and, because she did not like that sad, guilty look on his face, she hugged her Dad tighter before springing away. "So… do I just pick one?"
"Pick each one up, give it a little flick or wave." Her Dad kissed her forehead. Ginny knew it was in gratitude for not making a fuss.
Lifting the first one, it tingled for a moment, but then it started to make her palm itch. Ginny couldn't help but wonder which of her dead relative's wands she was handling as she fingered it.
With a shiver, Ginny thrust it back down on the desk, and picked up the second one. Though it was smooth and cool, it also felt… sticky, somehow. She gave it a bit of a wave, but nothing happened. With a sheepish glance at her Dad, she held out her hand and performed some underage magic, "colovaria."
Slowly… so, so, slllllllllllllloooooooooowly, the fingernail shaded until it was a bright gold.
Her Dad pretended to care about the broken rules. "Are you trying for a Ministry inquiry?"
"Says the head of misuse who has a tap-dancing traffic light in his shed?" Ginny reminded.
"Right," her Dad said, clearing his throat. "Code of Silence it is."
"Dad! You are not supposed to know what that is."
"Right," her Dad replied tongue-in-cheek, then held out his hand. "Code of Silence?"
Ginny snorted and gave his hand a firm shake. "Code of Silence."
She put the sticky wand down and picked up the last one. But it was only a fraction of a second before the wand shot out of her hand. It banged itself on her closet across the room, as if she had some sort of disease it wanted to avoid catching.
Her Dad snorted. "The second one, then?"
Ginny nodded and picked up the sticky wand again.
It didn't feel bad in her hand, she thought, weighing it. Lifting it up and down, and up again. Not wrong, but not quite right either. Still, Ginny held it to her chest, and smiled at her Dad, remembering Harry's manners. "Thank you."
"You're welcome," her Dad spoke softly.
"What was the good news?"
"Pardon?"
"You said there was bad news, and good news, so- "
"Oh, that's right. I've forgotten," her Dad scruffed her hair. "And that's the lesson."
Ginny rolled her eyes as she and her Dad recited together. "Always take the good news first."
Feeling better than she had earlier, Ginny reached up with both hands and gently fixed the angle on her Dad's silly cap.
"Ebony with a unicorn hair core," he nodded at her wand. "Belonged to my mother."
"The Black who told her family to go snuff themselves after she married Granddad?" It didn't feel like a sassy wand, but maybe Ginny misjudged.
"Not the exact phrase she used, but yes. She would have liked you."
"Blacks are poised and terrifying and occasionally evil." Ginny's fingers traced the wand. She could tell it wasn't evil, it just wasn't 'Ginny' either. "What part of spastic and butter dishes, and intermittent muteness would she have liked?"
"All of it put together," her Dad said firmly. "Ginny, it will pass. You got bit by a lovebug- "
"Those aren't real," she scoffed.
"Might as well be. There's no cure but time," he patted her hand, and then got up to leave. "Give it time."
()()()
()()()
Unfortunately, the fifteen minutes of time she had before flooing to the Leaky was not enough time to get over her lovebug-induced-stupidity.
Diagon Alley was just another unmitigated disaster on top of all the other unmitigated disasters that had comprised her recent life.
Harry Potter had dumped a whole set of Gilderoy Lockhart books in her cauldron, and her voice still wouldn't work. She couldn't even manage "thank you," because he hadn't really given them to her. He had more thrust them at her, like "oh, there's this mute girl conveniently carrying a cauldron for me to hide the evidence of Lockhart's embarrassing fawning."
And because Harry was embarrassed, Ginny had sympathetic embarrassment pains. Was a person supposed to say "thank you" for that?
Now, she could have mitigated embarrassment all around if she had been smooth enough to say something like "Oh, that was a bit embarrassing for him, not you." Or "Isn't he just a bit ridiculous?" Or even "Oi, I didn't know those camera flashes made such a popping sound."
She wanted, so desperately, to have said something like that, because Harry Potter was clearly uncomfortable with all the attention, and she wanted to make him feel better.
But nothing would emerge from her mouth. She might have blinked at him, but she couldn't be sure.
And it wasn't fair, because all those people wanted to be around Harry because he was famous for something terrible he didn't even remember. Not because of his curious marvel or his manners or his smudgy spectacles or the fearless way he flew a broom or because they just knew they were supposed to be best friends and run off and have amazing adventures together while occasionally defeating dark wizards who tried to attack them during their professional Quidditch matches.
But that wasn't even the worst because that Malfoy git! Oh, that Malfoy git started in and oh, yes, THEN she found her voice, and it was so loud that everyone in the bookstore turned to stare at her.
And her sweet, mild-mannered Dad got into a fisticuff scuffle and she didn't know whether she was incredibly impressed with her Dad or incredibly embarrassed that they might have accrued a family-wide lifetime ban from Flourish and Blotts.
To finish everything up, Dad forgot that he had promised she could use her knuts at Fortescue's for a scoop of banana mint ripple because they had to go home and fix his face and that was the end of her trip.
And to put the cherry on top, it wasn't until they arrived back home that it sunk in that her parents hadn't even mentioned robes. She'd end up having to wear Ron's from the last year, and she hated wearing her brothers' old clothes because the fasteners were always on the wrong side and it didn't matter how many times they were washed, they always smelled like brother.
Ginny hid in her room for the remainder of the day. She stared out the window, watching the boys play Quidditch. They soared with the wind, dipping and rolling and diving with unabashed freedom.
()()()
()()()
The night of August 31st, Ginny couldn't sleep.
At first, her bed didn't feel right.
She tossed, turned, constructed a pillow fort, and tried again to sleep.
She couldn't because the nightclothes she always wore felt wrong.
Ginny threw off her pajamas and stomped to her dresser.
She changed into a softer T-shirt and thrust her legs into the pink pair of pajama bottoms she had stolen from Charlie at Christmas.
For some reason, he hadn't asked for them back.
Still, Ginny tossed and turned.
Ginny grabbed her new wand and practiced lumos and nox for about an hour.
That just made her frustrated, because it took forever for the lumos part to slooooooooooowly light up. Nox winked it out right away.
Her wand didn't listen to her.
Ginny shoved the wand under her pillow and tried to sleep.
But even that didn't feel right.
The wand was strange. Even if her Grandmum-who-died-before-Ginny-was-born had a bit of gumption, it was still a stranger's wand.
Ginny tossed herself onto her stomach and tried to sleep again.
Wasn't that just perfect? It was oddly fitting, Ginny thought with a grumpy kick, that she had a stranger's wand.
She felt like a stranger to herself the last few weeks.
Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing felt right.
Ginny rolled on her back and stared up at the dark ceiling.
She didn't even feel like Ginny anymore. Ginny had been awesome. This spastic-mute-ungrateful-mess-of-a-person she had become wasn't even close to awesome.
Ginny rolled onto her side, curling up in a ball. She felt as if she were drowning beneath a wave of helplessness, struck by the idea that none of this: not the wand, the muteness, the isolation, the feeling of not being herself in her skin…none of this was the way it was supposed to be. Nothing had felt right since…
Oh.
With a jerk, Ginny sprang upright, snapping up in realization.
It hadn't been the way it was supposed to be since the broom accident.
She needed to fly. Ginny just wasn't really Ginny without flying.
The broom accident was the moment it all went wrong, she realized. Everything else that was off cascaded from that one moment.
It wasn't really her tongue that was the issue. She had thought she was off her game, but it didn't occur to Ginny until right this very moment that she was literally off her game.
Because Awesome Ginny's game? Not Gobstones! Awesome Ginny's game took place on a broom.
And with that realization, Ginny understood, in a manner that was true and beat into her very soul that everything, everything would turn out right… her inability to speak to Harry, her stupid shirts, that damn pink broom, the ever-lasting potato chore, her secondhand wand and her horrifying lack of skill at plaiting a braid that didn't have at least three kinks in it…
…everything, everything, everything would be alright, if she were just able to fly on a broom again without heaving up the contents of her stomach.
Driven by a sudden, uncompromising need, Ginny sprang out of bed and raced to the window. The sky was still a dark indigo. However, Ginny knew as if she were a seer or a master of divination or a bloody centaur, that it was now or never.
"Now or never," she breathed. She scrambled to her closet and thrust her head and arms through last year's Weasley sweater. Ginny couldn't care less it was inside out and she didn't bother putting on trousers. No time. Instead, she rolled the bottoms of Charlie's baggy pajamas up above her knees. Ginny flew down the stairs, leaping over the Creaky Step and the Even More Creaky Step, and sprinted across the kitchen.
Despite the late summer weather, her bare feet tingled with the chill of morning dew as they raced across the field.
Ginny leaped over a scurrying gnome, eyes fixed on the broom shed.
Now, or never.
With a furtive glance over her shoulder, Ginny tugged open the broom shed. That poor door was barely attached at this point. Unlocked, and oh, so easy.
With the barest of sneers toward that stupid, stupid pink broom, Ginny's hand gripped Fred's battered old comet, before a tiny prickle between her shoulder blades made her stiffen.
She shifted, releasing Fred's broom. Slowly her eyes turned toward another broom.
It occupied a small corner of the shed. The Weasley brooms were haphazardly leaning on each other, but that broom? Ginny held her breath, certain that even breathing on it would show a shameful lack of reverence.
Harry Potter's Nimbus 2000.
With a hand as steady as her nerves, she reached out, and drew a fingertip along the smooth handle. Her eyes shut, worshiping the wood that was polished and perfect and unsplintered. One eye opened and squinted at the shadowed broom, and she reached out with the other hand, just to adjust it.
Just a bit. Just so the last little bits of starlight and moonlight hit it juuuuuuust the right way. A broom like that deserved good lighting. It should also be underscored, with maybe a brass band or heavenly choir. She'd give anything to fly on a broom like-
Ginny snatched her hands back from the Nimbus and plopped herself on the ground, staring at that magical marvel of aerodynamic engineering. Huddling there, with her chin in her hands, she pondered the sublime wrongness of the thought tickling her brain.
The broom was just sitting there. No one was awake yet.
No one was using it.
No one would know.
With a guilty groan, she let her head fall into her hands. But it popped right back up again because her eyes couldn't bear to be parted from the sight of that broom.
Oh, it was so, so beautiful.
She bet it was fast. Really fast.
Her brothers, she reminded herself, had had a go on it. Harry was generous that way, which just went to show he was better than most mortals, because if Ginny owned a broom like that, she'd never, ever let her brothers breathe on it.
Now, Ginny reasoned, if she were an incredibly rude person, she could go wake Harry up and ask him, quite politely, for a turn. Of course he would say yes. Because he was perfect, like his broom.
But, if she knew he were going to say yes anyway, should she really disturb his sleep? Just for the unnecessary verbal confirmation?
Of course she shouldn't. Her parents raised her better than that.
Harry Potter, after all, deserved all the joy in the world that a good night's uninterrupted sleep could provide.
Ginny's Best Self chose that moment to wake up and thwap Ginny out of her reverie.
Was she seriously considering stealing Harry Potter's broom and taking it for a joy ride?
Right. Stealing her brother's brooms was one thing, but this was Harry Potter, and Harry Potter's broom. She couldn't do it.
But… her Less-Than-Best Self cooed… if there were any day, on any broom that was going to fix this flying problem, it's this one.
Right. Ginny sprang to her feet. She could do it.
Stop! Her Best Self - which today sounded quite like her mother- screeched. Don't do this! Steal Harry Potter's broom! What if you crash it?
What if it soars! Ginny's Less-Than-Best Self crowed!
What if you puke your guts all over the polished and treated wood?
You didn't eat breakfast yet! Dry heaves! Woooo! Worst that could happen? Pfft. Dry heaves.
Nooooo… worst that could happen is crashing, breaking the other half of your bones, and having to explain to Harry Potter that you stole his broom and then smashed it to smithereens.
If you have any chance of getting back to normal, it will be now. Right now. Right here, with Harry Potter's magic broom. Honestly, it's a Nimbus 2000. It's not going to bump, shuffle, hop or buck.
"Okay," she breathed, willing the voices in her head to shut up. "Okay…" Ginny reached out and took the broom in her hands, her eyes drifting shut again at the sublime feel of it.
Her Best Self tried one last time. Is this who you want to be? Are you the kind of person who would swipe Harry Potter's broom?
Her eyes snapped open. She flung open the shed door and mounted the broom.
Why, yes. Apparently, she was.
"Merlin, I'm going to get sorted into Slytherin," she muttered as she closed her eyes, and kicked off.
And for one shining moment, everything was as it was supposed to be.
The wind shoved her hair away from her face, and she was Ginny Bloody Weasley again, daring and brave, on a stolen broom.
She clutched the broom and leaned forward, daring to speed and weave and spin.
You're terrified.
Ginny grit her teeth, unwilling to listen to the voice in her head. No. She wasn't terrified, and she barrel-rolled that perfect broom to prove it.
It's not the same. Your bones remember shattering.
Her stomach pitched and she glanced down at her grip.
Her knuckles were so white, they were almost blue.
Don't you remember what flying used to feel like? It's not there anymore.
Her hands began to tremble.
The broom was sublime.
But where was the feeling? The flying feeling? That feeling of being above and beyond, of speed and freedom?
She felt a couple tears try to burn out her eye, but she blinked them furiously away. She zagged down, her arm reaching out to skim the pond before lifting higher, and higher.
Her fingertips just felt cold and wet.
It's. Not. There.
With a curse, she ducked closer to the broom, going faster and faster so those damned tears would dry up before they had a chance to fall.
She was Ginny Weasley. She wouldn't cry on a broom. Especially one like this. Not ever.
What's the difference? You cry everywhere these days.
Ginny forced herself to stay in the air, circling, circling, until the sky turned lavender, then a light pink.
When the sun barely crested the horizon, she drifted down, landing with a smooth finish next to the shed. Stomach gurgling, Ginny began to shake.
With trembling hands, she pushed the shed door open again. Gently, reverently, Ginny placed Harry Potter's magnificent broom back in the corner of the shed, rotating it slightly so it was in the exact position it was before.
Then, unable to hold back her lurching stomach any longer, she stumbled out of the shed. She managed to kick the door shut before she doubled over, and dry heaved in the garden.
She coughed. Her stomach cramped, and she gagged and gagged as she felt phantom aches in her bones.
She had been correct about one thing, though: her stomach didn't have any content to actually chuck up. The gnomes scattered in all directions at the choking sounds she was making, but nothing emerged but painful hacks.
After a minute or two, her legs started to tremble. Ginny dropped to her knees as her stomach cramped yet again after the longer flight. Her arms wrapped around her waist. Throbbing, pounding aches reverberated through her head, down her neck and arms, and pulsed in her clammy hands.
And that was when she knew.
It was over.
Ginny Weasley's Ultimate Life Plan floated away on a current of air she'd never, ever be able to ride.
Everything about who she was, and who she wanted to be, was over.
As if she were a hundred years old, Ginny pulled herself upright. With all the enthusiasm of someone heading to the gallows, she dragged her body back to the house.
Her Mum would be up soon, cooking a final family breakfast before they set off to Hogwarts.
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AN: Can we all just give our inner-11-year-old-girl a big ol' hug? Thanks to ginnyweasley777 and Curse-04 for beta reading this chapter. While this is *not* a canon-compliant story, I'm sorry there wasn't a butterfly with big enough wings to butterfly-effect the whole elbow+butter dish thing away. Thank you for reading! (And to those of you who have been leaving comments? You seriously make my day. Thanks so much!) See you all next week :)