"Expelliarmus!" called George, and I knew he'd successfully disarmed Ludo, as I heard a whooshing sound and Ludo crying "Hey!"
"Don't want you silencing us or trying any other shit!" Amy snarled at him.
"Don't you dare talk to your uncle like that!" Ludo snapped back.
"I don't think you're in a position to be dictating what others can and can't do right now" said Fred
"And why would that be?" Ludo replied
"Well, considering you're wandless and the three of us aren't-"
"All right, all right, what do you want!"
"Don't play stupid!" said Amy "you know exactly what we want!"
"Oh my god, you're not still on about that World Cup bet are you?" said Ludo
"Course we are!" said George
"Yeah, you owe us, and you haven't paid!" said Fred "Fucking leprechaun gold, are you taking the piss or something?!"
"Look, you two are too young to be betting in the first place!" said Ludo "You shouldn't have taken the risk, gambling is not a toy you can play with! You're not getting that money back, it's gone!"
"We will if you want your wand back!"
"I can easily buy a new wand, it does not bother me in the slightest"
"Ok, how about this" said Amy "we'll get it unless you want us to report you to the authorities!"
There was silence for a moment
"You're bluffing" said Ludo
"We are not!" George replied
"Amy would never report me to the authorities! Me being sent to Azkaban is her worst fear! I've seen it before, it's her boggart!"
"That's right Uncle. It is" I heard leaves crunching, clearly Amy was standing right in front of Ludo now "That's not going to stop me doing what I need to do though. I'm not a Gryffindor for no reason"
"You will have nowhere to go!" I am your legal guardian, there is no one left in the family to take care of you!"
"Well then, that should make the decision easy now, shouldn't it?"
Another moment of silence, then Ludo sighed heavily
"Very well" he said, with great reluctance "you will get it back. It's going to take a little while longer though. I didn't lie when I said it was gone, I need to get it paid back first, and that's going to take a couple weeks. How come you've changed your tune Amy? You were all over the place about us being in debt before!"
"That was before I found out you'd stolen the money. And I still don't think you should be betting when we're so financially unstable, but if you do, you need to pay up when you lose!" said Amy
"How do we know that's not bullshit?" Fred asked Ludo
"I'll make an unbreakable vow if you want" Ludo replied
"Yes!" said the twins
"No!" said Amy "I don't want my uncle to die, thank you very much!"
"But come on Amy, he could easily just be lying!" George moaned
"Ludo" said Amy, ignoring George "if we don't receive the money by Christmas, we WILL report you! Do you understand!"
"Ye-Yes!" said Ludo in a worried tone.
I snuck a glance out towards them just as George shoved Ludo's wand into his hand and they turned back towards the castle.
That evening, after Harry had sent a letter to Sirius about the task, there was a party to celebrate Harry's success in the task. Fred and George had great success with tricking Neville into eating one of their new "Canary Creams" which turned him into one, for about a minute, and I of course took a few of those. Harry opened the egg in front of everyone, only for it to emit a horrible screeching sound, which no one could make even the slightest bit of sense of. Eventually, we got tired and bored of all the noise and re-living the task, so Demelza, Hermione and I went and sat in the latter's dormitory.
"Glad to see you've calmed down now" I told Hermione
"Yeah well, seeing Harry and Ron re-unite was pretty emotional, especially considering how it happened and how stupid their fight was in the first place"
"So what happened with Ludo in the end then?" Demelza asked
"Huh?" said Hermione
"Oh, course you wouldn't know, so once everyone was gone after the task, Amy and the twins confronted Ludo about the World Cup bet" I said "they forced him to give the money up or they'd report him. I can't even blame them now, it's been so long"
"That's blackmail!" said Hermione. She chewed her lip. "But then again, what other choice did they have?"
"Before we fell out we'd been talking about this, and we agreed that if it came to it, it would. Thing is, he didn't just hand over the money, no, he said it would take a couple weeks because he'd already spent it. He even offered to make an unbreakable vow to prove he wasn't lying!"
"Seriously? Right in front of Amy?!" exclaimed Demelza
"Yep. It would have been bad enough doing that anywhere else, especially with a young niece, but right in front of her, that's messed up! Amy obviously refused, she was all for helping the twins but she didn't want her uncle to die. She did however insist on them getting the money by Christmas, or they would report him" I said
"Amy is a true Gryffindor" said Hermione. "It takes a lot of courage to make your worst fear happen for what is morally right. What will she do though if Ludo does get sent to prison? She has no one left to live with"
"That's what she said to convince Ludo to give in. If in the unlikely event he does go to Azkaban, then well, maybe we can look at adopting her, that is, if we're mates again by then"
"And if you're not?"
"We'll cross that bridge if it comes to it. Are you actually going to go to the kitchens and try and get the house elves on your side? Because trust me mate, that's not going to do a damn thing, it'll only insult them, and like Fred said, we don't want them dropping their cooking standards!"
"Speak for yourself! I personally won't mind a drop in cooking standards as a protest against their slavery! And I thought you agreed with me Ginny?"
"In principle I do, but I acknowledge that it's going to be practically impossible to do anything about it, so I don't want to waste my time"
"Hermione, that's not why they would-you know what, never mind" said Demelza, shaking her head. I had to agree, there was clearly no getting through to her on this subject.
We sat there in silence for a while, before I decided to break it by completely changing the subject.
"You know" I said "there's a lot of things about the world we live in that I don't understand"
"Like what?" asked Demelza
"Well, for one thing, why don't we use muggle weapons such as guns and knives in combat? It would give us something different and an advantage over dark wizards, who would never use such things. They consider it below them"
"I would have thought that was pretty obvious Ginny" Hermione said
"Really? Ok, what's your answer then?" I replied, raising an eyebrow
"Wands are far more versatile, efficient, variable, and unpredictable. With a gun or a knife, you only have limited options, and you can't be sure of exactly how much damage you want to cause to your opponent. With a wand, you can aim to kill or injure and know for certain that either of those things will happen if your spell lands. With a gun, or a knife, unless you're at very close range, you can't be certain if the wounds you cause will be fatal or not. Plus, you have to waste valuable time reloading ammo. Wands are untraceable too"
Even if you could reload the gun magically, or add various other magical elements to it, or charm several knives to fly at people, that would be pointless because then what's a wand for? With a wand, you can have everything you need in one small wooden stick to carry in your pocket, combat and otherwise. Muggles have to use so many different devices for everything they do, we carry an all in one device. Makes life so much simpler. Makes conjuring machine gun turrets for battles pointless too, because that wastes valuable seconds that you could instead spend just fighting the opponent directly and not making yourself a sitting duck"
"Plus, anyone could fly a broom above the range of the bullets, and then destroy them with a blasting hex, they could use a shield charm to deflect them away, or if it's a handgun, they could disarm the person trying to shoot. You could even vanish all the bullets if you're quick enough. Pretty sure it would be impossible to even conjure such devices anyway, because remember, the Muggles are our former oppressors. Although we get along with them now, we wouldn't really want to use their technology in our lives anyway, because we strive to be different. We have magic for a reason, we don't need Muggle solutions to our problems. It's probably the reason why we don't use televisions or other electrical devices like that too" Demelza added
"I can't see muggles allowing us to sneak guns away from them into the wizarding world either" Hermione said, "they'd keep that stuff well hidden. Actually, let me get my muggle studies book, that might tell us more"
She dived into her bag and pulled it out.
"Yes, it says it right here" she said "It is impossible to conjure guns, and it is illegal on both our end and theirs for any magical person to obtain or use one"
"There you go mate" said Demelza, smiling at me "Impractical and unlawful. Simple"
"I'm not done though" I said "why isn't the Killing Curse used more often in battles? Surely it's a very quick and easy way to win duels, right?"
"Jesus Christ mate, what's gotten in to you today?!" Demelza exclaimed "why are you talking so morbidly?"
I rolled my eyes
"Just answer the bloody question"
"Well, first of all, the majority of people, even Death Eaters, weren't willing to kill all the time, and I would hope the same applies to you too! That would be the main reason. Secondly, it would make you very predictable if you were using it all the time, so much so that your opponents would just duck out of the way, or block your spells with solid objects, then retaliate, whereas if you use different curses every time, you'd have a better chance of landing more often and actually doing damage. Someone repeatedly missing with AK also runs the risk of it being fired back at them, and of being disabled by someone else" Demelza began
"Plus" said Hermione "AK requires a huge amount of power and concentration to pull off, the majority of people don't have that, and in duels, you need split second reactions. There's also plenty of other fatal curses. It's also why you don't see human transfiguration in duels. It takes time and effort that just isn't there for you in that moment. Bottom line is, AK is only something used as a last resort, unless you're You Know Who of course, who made it his signature spell"
"Why don't we take healing potions or use healing spells more often in battles?" I asked
"Now that's a very simple one" Hermione answered. The effects of healing potions take a long time to begin after taking them, so it's pointless to have them in a battle. Healing spells can only repair minor to moderate injuries, and all of them require great care and concentration, which again, you simply don't have time for in battles. Muggles have an interesting device called a defibrillator, which can restore a heart to it's normal rhythm if it's beating abnormally. As far as I'm aware there isn't a magical equivalent for that, not yet anyway, and in any case, that and CPR wouldn't work on an AK victim, as that stops all brain activity immediately"
"Neither would work for victims of non AK fatal curses either" said Demelza "the spell creators would make sure of that"
"Is there a limit to vanishing spells? Because surely you could use them to vanish a person's limbs, heart or brain, or even their whole body if you're powerful enough" I said
"The Vanishing Spell was created with a non human usage handicap, for the obvious reason of stopping that type of thing from happening. Again though, most people don't want to kill, so wouldn't do such a thing anyway, even if it was possible. You also can't vanish wands either. Now, is that enough of this talk for you for one night? I certainly think so!" said Hermione
"I second that!" Demelza said
"Alright, alright" I said, holding up my hands. "For now, anyway..."
