Trigger Warnings:
Schizophrenia-like symptoms

They landed in the Ministry portkey room late morning. Ginny's stomach turned only slightly and she felt a sense of pride at acclimatising to the sensation. Bill tapped their clothes with his wand and they transformed into muggle-wear. She was now wearing a pair of dark blue jeans, a white top and a strange hooded jumper with a zip down the front. Bill chatted away pointing out things of interest as they walked through muggle London to meet Charlie for lunch.
Ginny had never been out in muggle London before and was in awe at the sheer magnitude and activity. She quickly discarded Diagon Alley as being the busiest locale. There weren't even this many people doing last minute shopping before school! She stuck close to Bill as he wove a way through the crowds.
He took them down a moving staircase and Ginny's eye's almost popped out of her head.
"Bill, the staircase! How haven't they noticed?" She whispered alarmed.
"This isn't like what we do Gin, it's powered with electricity".
"Electricity" she repeated, feeling the word on her tongue.
"Why don't we have ones that go up like this in School? It would be so much easier to get to the seventh floor!" She practically whined getting a laugh in response.
They went deeper underground as Bill explained that they needed to get an underground train to meet Charlie. Bill guided her through using a machine which gave her a small slip which was a bit like a hard, shiny slip of parchment which he called a ticket in return for some strange paper money.
They followed the crowd forward to a series of small gates. Ginny stood as tall as she could and tried to crane her head over the crowds to see what she needed to do next but had no luck. She simply wasn't tall enough.
When they reached the gate she realised it was more of a metal barrier. There didn't seem to be any handle to open it and when she reached out to push it, it didn't budge. Bill showed her how to feed the ticket through a slot on one side of the barrier. It yanked the ticket out of her hand startling her, before sucking it through and popping it out the other side. At the same time, the two sides of the barrier opened forwards leaving a gap large enough for her to walk through. Ginny stood blinking at the strange contraption until she felt Bill gently shove het though to the other side.
Once Bill had joined her, he linked her arm with his and hurried forward to a quiet spot in the room. Ginny looked back and saw the crowds of people surging through the barriers and down a corridor to the side.
"But, how?!" She asked.
As much as it pains me to say, Muggles can be smart and dangerous. It's why they need to fear us. Why they need to be ruled by us. Tom supplied.
Bill chuckled "You're taking a class this year which will explain it all but I'll catch you up on some of the main points when we reach Charlie".
It was a maze underground filled with people and complicated maps with bright colours. Bill showed her the way with practiced ease and even explained how to read the maps. Apparently, you couldn't use them to navigate above ground and only really worked to show you the way on the underground trains. Ginny struggled to wrap her head around that.
They finally reached the train platform. The air was stale and they seemed to be in a middle of a long tunnel. She tried to see the light at the other side but saw nothing. Then, without warning, a train came hurtling round the corner making her jump. It stopped abruptly along the length of the platform and its doors flung open. People came spilling out onto the crowded platform and Bill grabbed her hand pulling her through the crowd onto the train.
It was unlike any train she had ever seen. There were few seats and the majority of people were standing holding onto brightly coloured rails and hoops. Several were reading some kind of large muggle paper. Bill tucked her into a corner and put his arm around her.
With a couple of beeps as a warning the doors slammed shut and the train shot off. Ginny felt the ground lurch beneath her but Bill's arms kept her upright. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a muggle man with a briefcase rebound off the door spilling his coffee. He was definitely cussing but she couldn't make out the words. She craned her head around to see what he did but within a second the platform had vanished.
"There will be another in a few minutes".
In a few minutes! Ginny thought. Just how quick were these things?
"It's just like magic!" She exclaimed in an excited whisper and then clasped her hand over her mouth horrified. She had just broken the Statute of Secrecy.
Ginny frantically looked around to see if anyone had heard her meeting the gaze of an older girl with beautiful black curly hair and dark skin. She must have been in her late teens. The older girl let out a chuckle.
"Yes, it's almost like magic. Isn't it? I thought that too when I first rode the tube when I was little".
Ginny's eyed widened in surprise. Did the girl not know that they were surrounded by muggles?
"Alas, there's no magic in real life. I'll just have to live with reading about it" she sighed wistfully. "I'm reading Lord of the Rings at the moment. It's delightful".
Magic isn't real? Ginny processed. So she was a muggle.
"I don't think she's read that one" Bill replied smiling kindly "Everything is a little new to her, she's never been to London before but perhaps we could find a shop that will sell it".
"Oh! Well, I hope you have a lovely time. Any bookstore will likely have a copy and there are plenty of Waterstones and WH Smith bookstores in London, you'll bump into one eventually. Lord of the Rings has magic and battles but isn't too graphic. I'm completely enamoured by Gandalf the mysterious wizard but..."
The train came to a halt and a loud voice announced which stop they were at and Ginny stumbled once again and looked around trying to find the source of the voice.
"Oh! That's my stop. It was lovely to meet you both" the girl smiled widely and hurried off the train.
"Bye! Thank you!" Ginny shouted after her before they hurtled off again. After a few more stops Bill announced that the next one was theirs. Ginny's mind was reeling after talking to the girl. She said magic wasn't real but she still knew about it? It didn't make any sense.
Bill guided her out, back through some barriers and up another set of moving stairs until they reached the street. Ginny breathed in some of the fresh air. Muggle London was so different to how she expected. The way people spoke about muggles she had kind of expected a place quite like Diagon Alley but without the magic (or perhaps a bit more basic if some people were to be believed). Not this. The sprawling mass of buildings were so high that they seemed to reach the sky and people were endless. How did muggles build so high without magic? Some of the buildings were far taller than Gryffindor tower! The roads were filled with vehicles of multiple sizes. Some were a bit like Dad's car but there were other larger vehicles a bit like the knight bus that she rode once when she was small. There were also strange once person vehicles which zipped through the other traffic with ease.
Bill guided her to a place on the road which had some lines marked out to the other side. He showed her a little button on a pole to the side.
"Remember roads in London are always really busy so you can't go walking across the street. You need to press this button and the cars will stop. That over there" he pointed at a weird black box with three circular lights facing the cars "tells the traffic whether or not they can go. If it's green the traffic won't stop. Orange tells them to either get ready to go or get ready to stop and red tells them to stop".
Shortly after the light flashed red and underneath, facing her, a little man which was previously red changed to green.
"The little green man means you can walk across the road and the red man means you should stop on the side. But if you're ever not sure there's nearly always a crowd of people here to follow".
Ginny felt like she didn't have enough eyes as she walked through with Bill. There were a couple of moving pictures, and lots of lights and sounds. Different music was playing from several stores. They eventually reached a square which had a large lion statue by a large impressive building which reminded her of Gringotts. Charlie was waiting casually leaning against the statue plinth in similar clothes to them both but with a couple of bits of string hanging from his ears disappearing into a large pocket on the front of his jumper.
As they approached he pulled the string from his ears and tucked it into his pocket. Charlie reached them in a couple of strides and pulled her into a hug.
"Charlie!" She shouted in delight and hugged him close. "Why did you have string in your ears?".
Charlie gasped "String! You're calling my precious music device string?" He said in mock offence.
He pulled away and took the string out of his pockets again.
"I'll show you".
He placed the knobbly bits of the string into her ears and she jumped. There was music in the string! It was a strange music that she had never heard before. How?!
"How did you make that?!" She squealed.
Charlie chuckled. "I didn't make it Gin, they did" he said with his head cocked towards some muggles.
"Really? But, how?".
"Electricity" Bill added.
"Electricity, again? Are you sure electricity isn't just, you know, and they're not lying?".
Bill laughed.
Charlie took out a large circular thing from his pocket and showed her how to work it. He had another circle inside with a logo of AC lightning bolt DC The Razors Edge written on it. Apparently you could replace the smaller circles which contained the music to hear lots of different things. Ginny didn't care what Bill or Charlie said, electricity was muggle magic. How else could you possibly explain it?They ducked into a nice looking restaurant for lunch. Their apparition arrival time was in about two hours so they had plenty of time to eat before they needed to find a secluded place to disappear. Bill had asked where she wanted to eat but the sheer number of options made her head spin. Charlie suggested a Greek place him and Bill had been to a couple of times and Ginny agreed.
She looked at the menu and was pleased to see that she recognised a few things from Bill's cooking. He recommended the stuffed aubergine and ordered something called a "he-ross" for himself. Charlie ordered falafel. When the waitress came and asked for drinks she quickly grabbed the menu and looked it over but hardly anything was familiar. Bill saved her the trouble and ordered their drinks. They had a jug of water to share and glasses of Pepsi Max a trendy drink that only came out last year according to the chatty waitress.
"Charlie doesn't eat meat either" Bill commented.
Ginny whirled round in her seat to face Charlie in surprise.
"Looks as though we're the only real animal lovers here, Gin" he said dramatically holding the back of his hand to his forehead and leaning back.
Bill swatted him arm playfully.
"We can't all have the willpower of steel, Char" Bill rebuked playfully.
"I do miss cheese though. It's a good job I don't eat out too much as there aren't that may options that don't have any animal products in them at all. Though there's far more here than... where most people like us go to shop".
"Does Mum know?" Ginny asked, it sounded like something her Mum would argue against.
"Oh, yes. I've been vegan for years but she won't listen to that any more than she listens to me when I tell her I don't want to date!" he sighed dramatically but a pull at the corner of his lips showed he wasn't really that bothered.
"We used to swap food at the dinner table all the time. I'd get extra of my favourites and Charlie had all my veggies and bread. Used to drive Mum up the wall until we got sneaky enough that she couldn't catch us" Bill laughed.
The Pepsi Max was served in a tall glass with a straw, ice and a thin slice of lemon. Ginny tentatively took a sip and choked causing Charlie to guffaw with laughter.
"It's fizzy!" She spluttered. "Way more fizzy than... um...".
"Try it again now that you're expecting it" Bill encouraged.
She took another sip. It was actually quite pleasant though she couldn't place the flavour.
"What flavour is that?" She asked.
"No idea!" Charlie replied "But I like it".
The meal was pleasant. Her aubergine had been stuffed with roasted vegetables and couscous. It was rich and filling. They still had half hour before their apparition time after they had paid so Bill suggested they head out to try and find a bookstore.
Luck was on their side and within a ten minute walk they found what they were looking for and Bill wandered in. The store was a bit smaller than Flourish and Blotts and everything was stationary inside. Nothing moved or flew around their heads. Ginny felt that they could search it forever and never find The Lord of the Rings, nothing seemed to be alphabetised.
Bill asked one of the muggles at the checkout who wandered off to find him a copy. It came as part of a three piece set. Ginny insisted she would pay but Bill and Charlie had none of it.
"Consider it an early going away present" Charlie added.
She thanked them profusely and tucked it into her bag. Bill had sent her trunk up to Dad's office at the Ministry for him to collect and take home. There was nothing of real value inside so Ginny didn't mind if her Mum snooped around.
Finally, they found a quiet alleyway and tucked themselves behind a bin, and apparated away.

Stay safe everyone.
~Fiona.