The following morning, a Saturday, Demelza, Amy and I planned to head outside to a secluded area of the grounds, in order to discuss possible ideas as to how we could change Ludo's behaviour. After breakfast, we made our way to the entrance hall, but before we could go outside, we found our path blocked by Fred and George.
"We need to discuss something with you" Fred said, pointing at Amy.
"What's that?" Amy replied.
"Your uncle. Come on, let's go somewhere more private" George said, grabbing hold of Amy's arm.
"Wait!" I said, "so, you're gonna just leave the two of us here are you?"
"Yes, cause it's nothing to do with you!" snapped Fred
"Excuse me!" Demelza exclaimed "Amy is our best mate, anything that involves her involves us!"
"Yeah" I continued, "she's not going anywhere without us! I think you'll find that we know a great deal about Ludo and his recent behaviour! Don't we Amy?
"Yeah they do guys, they know everything I know!" Amy insisted.
Fred and George exchanged a glance.
"Oh, alright then!" George said, "but we need to go somewhere else, we can't discuss this here!"
"We know" said Demelza "in fact, we'd been about to head out to discuss Ludo ourselves!"
"Ok. Follow us" said Fred.
We walked towards the Whomping Willow, and for a wild moment I thought we were about to head out to the Shrieking Shack, but then the twins led us beyond the Willow and into the cover of a set of smaller trees behind it.
"Right" said Fred, when we'd all sat down. "remember when we made that bet with Ludo at the World Cup? Well, it was fucking leprechaun gold!"
Amy bowed her head, gnawing on her bottom lip.
"We don't blame you!" George said quickly, seeing this.
"I know, it's just that I'm not surprised at all by this, and it feels horrible!"
"The whole lot vanished within a few hours. We realised when we got back to the tent after the Death Eater attack. That's all our life savings gone, just like that! Of course, it's possible Ludo just made a mistake, so we've sent him an owl asking. We suspect he did it on purpose though"
"Losing the fake wand was the worst part though right?" I said
Fred and George glared at me.
"Now is not the time for jokes Ginny" Fred said darkly. "If you're not going to take this seriously, then get back up to the castle"
I held up my hands
"Alright, I'm sorry" I said, "it was insensitive, I know"
"Look, can we just get to the main point, which is what we're actually gonna do about this?" said Demelza
"Well this is the thing" George said, "Fred and I aren't sure what to actually do about it. What if just owling him doesn't work, what if he tries to deflect it away? Amy, this is why we wanted to talk to you, you know him best, what's the best course of action to take here?"
Amy sighed
"Honestly, it's a very difficult question to answer. Ludo always silences me whenever I try to talk to him about his misdeeds. Sending him an owl is unlikely to get you anywhere, but it's the start you needed to make. Going in aggressively from the off won't work, so I'm glad you've started with the assumption that he was simply mistaken. Let's give it a couple weeks. If he doesn't pay you what he owes you by then, we'll have to consider reporting him to the authorities, as painful as that would be"
"Should we tell him that?" asked Fred
"Not straight away. Give it a few back and forths, then go for it"
"But wouldn't it become blackmail by that point?" I said
"That's exactly what I was thinking" George added
"There's hardly many alternatives though, are there?" said Demelza
We all fell silent for a few minutes.
"Nah, you're right Amy" I said, I think that's the best plan we can realistically go with"
Fred and George nodded and stood up
"Thanks for your time. We'll come back to you in a couple weeks if we have any updates" said Fred
"No problem" Amy replied "and for my sake as well as yours, I pray you can get through to him"
5 minutes later, I was sitting alone in front of the lake, facing the castle and dipping my feet in the water. I had excused myself from Demelza and Amy as they returned to the castle as I said I wanted to take some time to think about everything.
Ludo seemed to be turning to life as a criminal, that was extremely worrying. Amy's life was already bad enough, and if her only living relative ended up in Azkaban, then well, I dreaded to think of the possible outcomes. Would Amy be shunned by the wizarding world just for being related? Would she have to live alone in her parent's old house, with no legal guardian? Would we be able to adopt her in order to prevent that? Where was Sirius, what was he doing? I'd need to ask Harry about that or perhaps even write to Sirius myself, I hadn't done so yet. And what was upcoming in the Triwizard Tournament? Would Hermione see the light and try to enter? Who was the impartial judge? How could everyone be sure they were impartial? Would our attempted trickery actually work?
All of these questions were making my head hurt, so I tried to concentrate on what I could see around me for a moment. Hogwarts and it's grounds are honestly some of the most stunning areas of natural beauty you can get in the world! It's a real shame that none of you reading this will ever be able to see them. Well, you've seen some decent recreations of them in those films, but that's nothing compared to seeing them in person!
The lake shimmered, the sunlight perfectly reflected inside it. I saw the giant squid thrust itself from one side to the other, and wondered briefly how long it had been here, and if there was anything actually magical to it. Perhaps it was a Kelpie, and this was it's preferred form. Hell, it could even be the Loch Ness Kelpie, that's been fooling Muggles since the beginning of time. The Scottish Highland mountains towered over everything, forming a neat ring around the valley that Hogwarts is hidden in. The Forbidden Forest stretched off to the left, and I realised that I still hadn't been in there, and really needed to one day. To the right, the Whomping Willow looked as imposing as ever, and I thought back 2 years, to when Harry and Ron crashed our car into it, and narrowly escaped unharmed, well, apart from Ron's wand being snapped, which was a huge hinderance for him that year. As far as I knew, the car was still running rampant in the forest. Maybe I would try and find it one day.
Then there was Hogwarts Castle itself, the centrepiece of it all, the best school in the world. I doubted anyone else, magical or not, could create a building as beautiful or a school as brilliant as Hogwarts. My 2 years here so far had contained some of the very best and very worst memories of my life, but still, there were very few better places in the world. The fact we got to live here for most of the year was wonderful. I could only hope that the rest of my time here would be peaceful and relatively trouble free. In fact, sitting here, on the quiet grounds, which at this moment in time only contained a couple people dotted around the lake, was very peaceful indeed. Perhaps I would do it more often in the future. I stood up and stretched, deciding to head back to the common room, in search of further entertainment for the weekend. Classes would begin in 2 days, so I needed to make the most of the remaining free time.
I was walking along the corridor, apparently deserted, to get to the stairs up to Gryffindor Tower, when all of a sudden, everything turned upside down, literally, as I felt a huge force smash into my back and I was flung head over heels into the small bit of wall on the landing between the staircases. I hit it face first with a sickening crack, felt my nose break instantly, and my head felt like it had split completely open. When I landed on the ground, my limbs were all sticking out at awkward angles, several of them broken in multiple places. It was pain like there had never been before, I saw blood trickling down next to my eyes, and my vision began to blur.
Lillian Avery and Sarah Bagman stood over me in triumph.
"Next time, think twice before you gang up on me" Avery said fiercely.
The last thing I registered before I blacked out was her spit in my face.