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Chapter Text

Nine-year-old Ginny Weasley usually loved her noisy family, but today she felt as if one more lecture from Percy, explosion from the twins' room, or absent-minded hug from her mother would make her scream. Her oldest five brothers had just come home from school for the summer, and she missed the quiet of the past year when she had lived alone with her parents and Ron. Much as she loved her brothers, she would not be sorry when fall came and Ron left for Hogwarts as well.

Ginny glared at a strand of purple and orange hair, courtesy of Fred and George, and pulled her hair into a ponytail so that she didn't have to look at it. Enough was enough. She ran down the stairs and out the door, shouting over her shoulder, "Going outside, I'll be back to help with dinner."

The invasion of boys had spilled over into the yard. Up the hill, Charlie and Bill had taken over the Quidditch pitch with their friends. Ginny sighed and started walking away from the Burrow, kicking at random clumps of grass and rocks. She could pretend she was setting out to seek her fortune. She was the youngest daughter in a poor but good-hearted and honorable family, which was almost as good as being the youngest son. Daughters never seemed to have adventures, but she was probably fated to meet a handsome prince or hero.

Ginny smiled dreamily as she walked further from the Burrow. Her prince would take her away from the overcrowded, rickety Burrow to an ancient manor and buy her new robes without patches or stains, and shirts and slacks and skirts made out of silk or velvet or something grand, rather than embarrassing cotton floral prints that had once been bags. Her prince would buy her a horse of her very own, maybe even a pegasus, and a menagerie just full of exotic magical beasts. There would be house-elves to do all the cooking and cleaning and gardening and she would do, well, whatever it was that grand ladies did. She tried to imagine how a grand lady like Narcissa Malfoy spent her days and tripped in a ditch.

She almost fell onto the Muggle road. Catching herself, she backed away to what seemed like a safe distance in case any of the strange Muggle cars came by. How had she come this far? She felt suddenly uneasy, as if the sun had gone behind a cloud. She should go back home. She really should not be here, alone, by the side of a Muggle road. But there was a dull roar, getting loader, and something bright in the distance. She had never seen a car. Surely it couldn't hurt to stay and watch one pass. Just one, she promised herself, and then I'll go.

The car slowed and came to a stop beside her. She stared in horrified awe at the rumbling, foul-smoke-belching vehicle. It had just been going faster than the fastest broom she had ever seen. It was huge and hideous and smelly and very, very Muggle. Before she could decide whether she should run, a Muggle, a real honest-to-Merlin Muggle, was leaning out the window to speak with her and she just couldn't go.

"Don't be afraid, little girl. I won't hurt you. Are you lost?"

"No sir," she said. "I'm fine. I live near here." Surely there were Muggle homes nearby too.

The Muggle smiled. "Ah, then we're neighbors! I just moved into the area a few weeks ago. My name is Ken Jones."

"Ginny Weasley."

"Would you like a lemon drop, Ginny?" The Muggle held out a paper bag.

Ginny grinned. Muggle candy! She hadn't dared to eat anything her mother hadn't made since the twins came home. Muggle candy would be safe, though, with no chance to give her wings or turn her skin as red as her hair. And it was Muggle and therefore strange and exotic! She stepped to the car and, reaching into the bag, took a hard yellow candy. "Thanks!" She popped the candy into her mouth and licked the white powder it had been coated in off her fingers.

"So, Ginny, tell me about yourself. Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

Ginny made a face. "Six older brothers. They're all home from school for the summer, and most of them have friends visiting too."

"Ah, no wonder you decided to go for a walk." The Muggle chucked. "I had one younger sister, and can hardly imagine six siblings."

"I ought to be going back now," she said. She felt oddly tired. Maybe she should take a nap before dinner. Anyway, annoying brothers or not, she was not supposed to be anywhere near the road, and certainly not talking to Muggles.

He looked at her with concern. "A little girl like you shouldn't wander around alone. Hop in and I'll drive you home."

She looked longingly at the car. If only she could say yes. But she thought of the Quidditch game in progress and shuddered at the trouble she would be in if she brought a Muggle through the repelling charms and wards just because she wanted to ride in a car. "Thank you for the offer, but it's not far."

"As long as you're certain you'll be all right. Do your parents know where you are?"

Ginny was starting to feel strange. "They know I went for a walk. I said I'd be back by dinner."

"Such a good girl." The Muggle's voice sounded very far away. Distantly, she felt hands guiding her into the car. "I'll take care of you, Ginny Weasley."

The car roared far, far in the distance as Ginny fell into darkness.

When she began to feel her body again she knew that something was wrong. She was lying on a hard surface in a brightly lit room. Her ankles and wrists were tightly fastened to whatever she was laying on and she could barely move a centimeter. This can't be real, she thought. It's just a dream, a nightmare.

The Muggle she had met on the road stepped up to the table, and she looked up at the bottom of his chin in horror. He wasn't wearing a white robe like she had heard Muggle doctors did in hospitals, but she had fainted, after all, and maybe he had misplaced his robe. "Are you a doctor?" She asked. "If you are you should let me go because I'm not sick."

The Muggle stared at her contemplatively, as if he was thinking what to do with her.

She shivered. "Didn't you hear me? Let me go!"

The Muggle did not reply.

"My family will be looking for me," Ginny said, trying to hide the unsteadiness in her voice. "I have six older brothers, and two parents, and some of their friends are Aurors and you really don't want to mess with them. Just let me go and I won't tell them you tied me up."

The Muggle leaned down to whisper in her ear, "No one will come for you." His breath tickled and she shuddered.

"Yes they will!" She glared at him. He had to be wrong. She was just a little girl. These things weren't supposed to happen to her. Surely someone would come to rescue her-her father, her brothers, her prince, the Aurors, or even the Muggle police. But they weren't here yet, and the Muggle was and everything was horribly wrong. She took a deep breath and screamed as loud as she could. "Help! Someone help!"

The Muggle walked around her, gazing at her calmly. He bent forward to whisper in her other ear, "No one can hear you."

"You're lying," she said, although she was suddenly horribly sure that he was telling the truth.

"Then scream, little Ginny," he whispered. "Scream all you like. No one will hear you but me." He pulled a knife from somewhere and started rubbing his fingers along its side, eyeing her strangely.

He was really starting to scare her. "What's wrong with you? You sound like a Death Eater!" How long had she been gone? Would anyone have noticed yet? She needed to get away from this madman before he did something with that knife.

"Shush, little Ginny," he whispered, and she felt the cold metal brush against her cheek. "No more talking. This must be perfect."

She squeezed her eyes shut, afraid with the knife so near them. "Let me go! You're crazy! There's nothing perfect about scaring a little girl!"

"Shhhh," the Muggle whispered. She felt the knife against her throat and held her breath. It slipped. She felt something warm trickle down her neck and knew that it was blood.

"Help!" She shouted. "Oh Merlin, someone please help!"

The Muggle was whispering again, but she was too frightened to make sense of his words. She felt the knife move to cut into her feet, her ankles, her calves. She screamed. The Muggle was going to kill her. He was hurting her, and he was going to keep hurting her and then kill her, and she'd never see any of her brothers or her parents or her friends again. She'd be dead. She'd never go to Hogwarts, never meet her prince, never do anything ever again. She didn't want to die. Not yet.

The too-bright light shone in her eyes as the Muggle cut and she screamed, begging him to stop, begging someone to come rescue her. She hated the Muggle and his drugged candies and his knife. With all her heart she wanted him dead, where he could never reach her again. She imagined what he would look like, how he would collapse and lay on the floor like a doll, harmless.

He was whispering something to her, but his words might as well have been in Chinese for all she understood. The knife was moving, following some pattern only he understood. Then it was at her throat again, pressing but not yet cutting, and she held her breath again.

He was going to kill her right now. She had to do something, anything to save herself because no one else was here and oh Merlin she didn't want to die yet.

She lost the last of her hold on her terror and felt the magic flow out of her, wild and desperate.

A flash of green light lit the room for an instant.

Then there was silence, broken only by Ginny's ragged breaths. The knife was no longer at her throat. Her hands were free.

She sat up slowly. The Muggle lay on the floor below her, the bloody knife still grasped in one hand. He was not breathing.

Her feet were still bleeding, she realized. She needed to stop that before she could think about the dead Muggle. Her robe was bloody but at least it was something. She felt dazed, but managed to tear several strips off the bottom and wrap her feet in them. She wrapped more strips around her forearms, where the Muggle had cut some sort of pattern, because the dripping blood was annoying her. The other cuts could wait. Then she looked at the Muggle again. He was dead, without a mark on him. She blinked. Green light. Unmarked corpse. Killing curse?

Ginny slid to the floor next to the Muggle's corpse, put her head in her hands, and sobbed. She didn't know what she felt, but it was awful. He had hurt her and she had killed him. Worse, she had somehow cast the killing curse with accidental magic. Would they send her to Azkaban? What was wrong with her that she was worried about prison when she had just cast an unforgivable and killed a Muggle?

But he had given her candies with potions in them to put her to sleep and kidnapped her and hurt her. He had acted as if he planned to hurt her much, much worse. He would probably have killed her. He had probably hurt other children. If she had not killed him, he would probably have hurt more.

But did that really make it all right to want someone dead so much that they died?

She was still crying when the Aurors arrived. She heard them walk in; one set of regular footsteps and one irregular, a footstep alternating with the louder sound of a wooden leg. Then they stepped through the doorway and she saw them: a young woman with dark hair and pink cheeks and an old, scarred man with a wooden leg and magic eye. The man looked vaguely familiar.

The younger Auror gasped. "Moody, there's a kid here!"

The other Auror, Moody, snorted and hobbled over to her. His wooden leg knocked on the floor. "You're Molly and Arthur's youngest, aren't you." It wasn't a question. He looked at his assistant, who was waving around some sort of device and writing on a scroll. "Jones, meet Ginevra Weasley."

The younger Auror looked from her to the device and muttered, "but the Weasleys are a Light family." She blushed as the old man glared at her and carefully walked over to Ginny, holding out her hand. "Hestia Jones, Auror trainee. I'm pleased to meet you."

Moody turned his glare to Ginny until she shakily reached up to shake the younger Auror's hand. "G-Ginny Weasley, and I'm p-pleased to meet you too." Somehow, the little social ritual made her feel better, as absurd as it was when she was all over blood and in this room with two Aurors and a corpse.

Auror Jones pulled a handkerchief from her robes and used her wand to dampen it. "Here, you might feel better if you washed your hands and face."

"Thanks." The cold water felt good. She focused on that and tried to ignore Auror Moody, who was examining the corpse.

Jones took the handkerchief, now sticky and bloody, back from her and deposited it somewhere in her robes. She glanced at the device, which had stopped beeping, and seemed to relax. "Brave girl. What do you say we head back to the office so you can see a healer? Your parents can meet you there."

Ginny eyed her warily. She wanted to ask her to promise not to let them lock her away in Azkaban with the dementors, but could she believe her if she did? The Muggle had promised not to hurt her. She and her brothers had lied often enough, but it was frightening to know that adults could lie about important things, like not meaning to kill you.

Jones reached out to grab her arm.

Without thinking, she rolled and struggled to her knees again several feet further from the Auror. "I d-don't t-trust you," Ginny said. The calm she had felt for a few minutes was shattering. "I want my p-parents to c-come here."

The device started beeping again and Jones tensed.

Moody looked up from the corpse. "Never thought to say it but you, girl, are too vigilant." He glanced at the trainee Auror. "Breathe, Jones. You too, Weasley."

"But sir, the detector's going wild again!" Why did Jones sound frightened? She was an Auror! I'm the one with reason to be afraid.

"I can hear that," Moody said. "Now breathe and try to calm down, both of you." He turned back to the corpse, but Ginny could see his magical eye watching as she took deep breaths. "Weasley, would you take a calming draught?"

Ginny eyed him warily. Was he insane? "N-no, sir. I d-don't really k-know you and I've already been d-d-drugged once t-today."

"Smart kid," Moody grunted, "but right now you're too dangerous awake." Before she could react, he had his wand out and pointed at her. "Consopio."

She slept.

The voices woke her. She kept her eyes closed and tried to breathe evenly. It was better to learn as much as she could before the adults realized she was awake. They never told her anything important. Where was she and how long had she been asleep? When Auror Moody hexed her she had been bloody and hurting, with strips torn off her robe for bandages. Now she was no longer in pain, and she felt clean. She was lying in a bed with slightly scratchy sheets, wearing a fresh robe that wasn't hers. There were bandages around both feet and her left arm, but the shallower cuts seemed to be healed already. The bed was in a room that smelled like nothing at all. Was she in the hospital? St. Mungos had that smell, probably because of too many disinfecting and cleaning charms.

"...best option for everyone," her father was saying. He sounded as if he had not slept in a week.

"Oh, Arthur, she's just a baby!" Her mother's voice broke.

"For Merlin's sake, stop your weeping." Auror Moody said. "A Muggle is dead with your daughter's magical signature on him and no visible cause of death. Your daughter was giving off so much Dark Magic when she felt anxious that I had to put her to sleep to get her out of the building. She's not a baby, she's a bloodless murder waiting to happen."

But I'm just a little girl, Ginny thought, furious and hurt all at once. How could an adult, an Auror, say that about her? Worse, how could he mean it?

"You know full well that accidental magic protects children when they are in danger, Alastor Moody!" That was her mother's voice, and she sounded as angry as Ginny was at the Auror's words.

"Not generally with killing curses," An older woman noted mildly.

Ginny fought her instinct to wince at the reminder of what she had done. Somehow, 'I didn't mean to' didn't hold much weight when speaking of a curse that was well known to require you to mean it. And she had meant it. She could remember how desperately she had wished for the Muggle to die. If only I'd wished for something less than his death. Why didn't I think of something else? I guess it might have something to do with being tied up by a madman and cut into like a roast turkey, but still, why was killing the first thing I thought of? What's wrong with me?

The woman continued, "Even accidental magic expresses the general character of the individual's magic. Duplicating an Unforgiveable indicates-

"We know," her father said wearily. "She takes after my mother. I'm sorry, dear."

Ginny's mother sniffed. "Nonsense. Ginny is simply a powerful witch whose magic protected her, just as it should. Alastor's meter must have been malfunctioning. No child of mine could possibly give off the amount of Dark Magic you claim Ginevra released."

Ginny shuddered and hoped no one noticed. What were they saying? How could she possibly have been giving off Dark Magic? Her family was Light, for Merlin's sake! There was the killing curse, but Light witches cast that sometimes, she remembered hearing that even the Aurors had used all three Unforgivables in the war before she was born.

"The girl's Dark, Molly," Moody said. "Do you really think we put adult-strength inhibitor bracelets on her for no reason? Either you get her help or you will lose your daughter."

"How dare you-"

Ginny had heard enough. If she listened any longer she would start crying. She opened her eyes and blinked at the brightly lit, all-white room. She shivered, remembering for a moment the bright light in the room the Muggle had taken her to. "Mum? Dad?"

Her parents, Auror Moody and the trainee Jones, and an elderly woman in a healer's robe were standing to the side of her bed. They turned to stare at her.

"Ginny!" Her mother rushed to her bed and embraced her. "I'm so sorry honey, whatever happened with that Muggle must have been dreadful and we're so glad to have you back."

Ginny struggled to breathe, and was glad when her mother released her. "Oh mum!"

"It's over now, honey," her father said gently. "Could you tell us what happened?"

Ginny bit her lip and looked at the adults surrounding her. She did not want to answer their questions, but somehow she didn't think they would give up until they had answers. "I really don't want to talk about it. Can I just give you my memory of what happened?"

Moody turned to his assistant. "Jones, we need a pensieve."

"Yes, sir." The Auror trainee half-ran out of the room.

The healer pulled a vial from her robes and held her wand to Ginny's head.

Ginny squirmed. She didn't like having that wand so close.

"Have you done this before?"

"No."

The woman smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "Just think of the memory you want to give me. We need to see everything from when you met the Muggle until the Aurors arrived at the scene." She paused. "Unless you had met him before?"

Ginny shook her head.

"Good. Now think of the memory and I will draw it out."

She thought, and part of her mind was free to watch, fascinated and disgusted, as the woman drew something slick and silvery from her head into the vial. It looked like the slime a snail left behind it. When the slime was all in the vial she asked, "Do all memories look gross, or is it just the bad ones?"

The woman looked at her an raised an eyebrow. "The content of a memory does affect its physical form, yes."

"All right." Ginny fidgeted with her hands and indicated thick, metal bands around both wrists. She might as well get this part out of the way. "Am I a prisoner?"

"No, honey," her father said. "The ministry does not prosecute children under eleven for injuries or deaths due to accidental magic."

"And these things around my wrists?"

"For your own protection, and that of those around you." Jones said as she arrived, slightly out of breath but proudly holding the penseive. "They prevent you from working any magic, and are used for children with unpredictable or potentially dangerous accidental magic."

Ginny grimaced, not liking the idea that she was helpless to defend herself. "But I've been doing accidental magic since I was a baby! It was never dangerous before."

"That was before." Moody growled. "Would you bet your brothers' lives that nothing has changed?"

Ginny imagined what might happen if she panicked the next time the twins sneaked up to prank her. Her magic had killed a man. What if she accidentally hurt or, Merlin forbid, killed one of her brothers? She felt the blood leave her face. In a voice that suddenly seemed far too unsteady, she said, quite sincerely, "I'd rather you locked me in Azkaban."

"Admirable sentiment," Moody said. "Arthur, Molly, stay with your daughter while the rest of us watch this memory."

They nodded, and Ginny was surprised that her mother at least did not protest. Maybe they did not want to know exactly what had happened. She wished she could forget.

"What will happen to me now?" Ginny asked, once the Aurors and healer had lowered their heads into the penseive. She did not want to say this, but how else could she find out? "Can they send me to Azkaban for casting the killing curse with accidental magic?"

Her mother drew in a ragged breath. "Oh, Ginny! What has happened to my little girl?"

"They cannot," her father said, his voice unusually calm. "Are you sure that is what happened?"

"I wanted him dead, " Ginny whispered. "Then there was a green light and he was dead."

Her parents' faces paled when she mentioned the green light. "No one else was there?" Her father asked.

Ginny shook her head.

Her mother started sobbing, and her father turned to hold her. Neither of them looked at Ginny.

Ginny stared, horrified. Her parents were afraid of her. Her mother was crying because she was so afraid. Ginny wanted to ask why, what she had done, what was wrong with her, and whether this meant she was an evil person. This morning she would have asked, would have cried. She blinked back her tears. "So the bracelets really are to keep me from accidentally killing anyone else." What a horrible thought.

Her father nodded.

"Do I have to wear them forever? Can't I ever learn magic now?" If she couldn't go to Hogwarts, couldn't learn magic, what could she do? Ginny did not ever want to see another Muggle.

"We hope that you will be able to learn to restrain the Dark aspect of your magic," her father said, running his hand through his balding red hair. "Dark families have ways of training their children so that they do not face this problem. We…don't usually speak of it, but my mother was born a Black and she's willing to try to help you."

"You're sending me to Grandmother?" Ginny asked, feeling the beginnings of hope. Her parents were afraid of her. Even Aurors had been afraid. There was something horribly wrong with her magic, so that it had turned Dark. But she had been expecting to face Azkaban or, at best, St. Mungos. Even if her grandmother was a Black and had been born a Dark witch - and why had they never told her this? - she was determined and brilliant. Ginny felt as if she just might be all right if her grandmother was in charge.

"As soon as the Aurors release you from custody," her father said. He seemed relieved at her lack of protest.

Ginny could think of nothing to say to that, and so they waited in silence for the Aurors and healer to leave the penseive.

Moody was, predictably, the first out. He took one look at Ginny, sitting alone on the bed, and her parents, holding each other and not looking at their daughter. "It was Dark Magic," he said, almost gently. "But it was also self defense by a child's accidental magic."

"You might consider taking Ginevra to a mind healer," the healer said. "I've dealt with her physical injuries, and they should heal within the next few days. The arm and feet may scar, but the rest should heal cleanly."

Ginny's father nodded grimly. "Is there anything else?"

Moody stared at Ginny's parents. "Do not remove the bracelets until you are certain that your daughter can control her magic. If there are additional incidents of this sort, we will be forced to take further action."

"There will not be," Ginny's father said.

Moody nodded grimly. "Then you are free to leave."

Ginny stood, a little unsteady on her bandaged feet. Her father looked down, murmured a charm that left her nearly weightless, and pulled her up onto one hip. He took her mother's hand and led them out of the Ministry.

"I'll pack her things," Ginny's mother said once they had reached the alley. She did not look at Ginny, who watched, stunned, as her mother disapparated with a pop.

"I'm not going home at all?"

"No," her father said. "It's safer to take you directly to mother."

He didn't say who it was safer for. Ginny didn't ask, but as they apparated, she swore that she would gain control quickly so that she would never again have to hear her father speak as if she was a danger to the rest of the family, even wearing inhibitor bracelets like a criminal. But you are, a voice whispered in the back of her mind.

Chapter Text

After the sterile whiteness and bright lights of the Auror's infirmary, Ginny was relieved to be on the street where her grandparents lived, with its overgrown rocks winding between modest homes with faded and cracking paint. Her father carried her through the rickety gate and along the pebbled walkway, still slick with rain, that led through her grandmother's herb garden to the front door. The plants ignored him, as always, but seemed even more interested in her than usual. Vines twined themselves gently around her legs and arms, never tightly enough to trip her. A flower larger than her head, and farther from the ground, leaned down to brush against the top of her head like a kiss.

Ginny's father knocked at the worn door, which opened immediately. Her grandmother stood in the doorway, tall and imposing in her dark green robes, her steel-grey hair pulled tightly into a bun. Behind her, candles flickered in their holders on the pale green wall, reflecting off the dark wood paneling and floor. "Arthur, Ginevra," she said, "come in." She stepped aside so that they could enter. Ginny's father handed her to his mother, a tall and strong woman who easily settled the small (and charmed nearly weightless) nine-year-old on her hip. Her grandmother kissed Ginny's forehead. "Welcome, my dear!"

Ginny wrapped her arms around the old woman and pressed her face against her grandmother's shoulder, breathing in the familiar scent. She did not want her father to see the tears silently leaking from her eyes, did not want him to see how pathetically grateful she was that at least her grandmother still loved her.

Her father cleared his throat nervously. "Thank you for taking her on such short notice."

Ginny felt her grandmother's arms tighten around her, and the older woman's voice became glacial. "There is no need for thanks, Arthur. Ginevra is family, and I will not neglect my responsibilities to her."

"Mother," he said hesitantly. "We only wanted the best for Ginny."

"You have a…unique definition of what is best, Arthur." Ginny's grandmother pulled one of Ginny's hands loose and held it up, stroking her wrist around the thick bracelet. Ginny pressed her face against her grandmother's neck, closing her eyes. "Inhibitor bracelets are quite the fashion this season for children, so I hear."

"Merlin, mother! We didn't want this! Molly was sure that we could keep her from falling into the Dark."

Ginny shivered and felt her grandmother's arms tighten reassuringly around her. This had happened, whether her parents had wanted it or not.

"You prejudiced fool," her grandmother said. "You chose to risk Ginevra's life, sanity, and future in the magical world in a futile attempt to raise her as something she will never be. Can you not see what an insult that is to both your daughter and myself?"

"We had to try," Ginny's father said. "For her own good. I know you've managed your…affliction, but what parent would want that for their child?"

"So that's why you're sending me away," Ginny said, turning her head to glare at her father. "Afraid I'll contaminate my brothers now I'm as afflicted as grandmother? Well don't worry, your precious boys are safe from the evil, contagious murderer!"

She ended with a shriek. If she had been at home she would have fled the room, slamming a door if at all possible, but she could not think of a dramatic way to get to the floor, so she turned her head back into her grandmother's robes, shaking with fury and sadness.

"Ginevra!" Her grandmother's voice was stern, but her hands were gentle as they patted Ginny's shuddering back.

"I'm s-sorry, grandmother," Ginny said. She was not about to apologize to her father. "I didn't mean-"

"No offense taken, child," her grandmother said. "Arthur, I believe your wife and sons require your presence."

"But mother-"

"Now, Arthur."

"Yes, mother."

Ginny listened to his footsteps as her father left. The front door opened and closed and she relaxed. "Grandmother?" Ginny said. "Dad knew, didn't he. Mum too. That's why you were so mad. They knew and didn't do anything about it because they wanted to pretend it wasn't true."

"Yes, dear," her grandmother set Ginny in an upholstered chair. "Sit, you must be tired. I'll make tea."

Ginny knew she should not be tired after sleeping in the Auror's office, but she was, a little. She was glad to sit, even on one of her grandmother's chairs, with their embroidered cushions which she always felt as if she might slip off of, since her feet still did not reach the wooden floor. She watched in silence as her grandmother summoned a teapot and tea, poured steaming water into the teapot from the tip of her wand, and let the tea steep. The familiar movements were soothing, and soon a cup warmed her hands. "Why are they afraid of me?"

"Because they are fools who cling to a rigid ideology."

"What's a rigid ideology?"

"A very simplistic way of seeing the world." Ginny's grandmother paused, taking a sip of her tea. "Your parents, particularly your mother, believe that everything and everyone who is classed as Light is good, and everything and everyone Dark is evil."

Ginny frowned. "I thought Light was another word for good."

"You would, dear. Your parents would not have given you reason to think otherwise."

"But they don't mean the same? So I'm not really evil even though my magic is D-Dark?"

"No, Ginevra," her grandmother said firmly. "You are not evil. You are not afflicted, regardless of what your parents might say. There is nothing wrong with you."

Ginny bit her lip. "But I used Dark Magic."

"Yes, dear, so I have heard."

How could her grandmother sound so unconcerned? "I'm sorry, but I don't understand."

"Ginevra, dear, did the Muggle who attacked you suffer when he died?"

"N-no, grandmother," Ginny said, pulling her legs up onto the chair to hug them against her chest. "I don't think so."

"A child with Light Magic might have crushed him with furniture," her grandmother said calmly. Ginny shuddered at the image her words brought to mind. "Or set him on fire. You agree that this would be far more painful?"

"Yes." Ginny paused, frowning. For a supposedly evil method of killing, the killing curse was surprisingly merciful, now that she thought about it. Could her parents really be so wrong? "Shouldn't the evil spell hurt more?"

Ginny's grandmother smiled. "One would think so, dear. Perhaps it would, if the killing curse was an evil spell. Did you ever hear why it was developed?"

"No," Ginny said. The Unforgivables had not exactly been a frequent topic at home. "Why?"

"A farmwife wanted a painless, instant, and less bloody way to kill chickens."

Ginny laughed, more shocked than amused. "Really?"

"Well, that was the story my mother told me," her grandmother said, smiling. "It was long ago, and no one truly knows, but it could have happened that way."

"That makes it awfully hard to think of as evil," Ginny admitted. "What about the other two?"

"The others…let me remember. The Imperius was created by a mindhealer at St. Mungos to calm her patients, as an alternative to some addictive potions. It was also useful for emergencies where a patient was causing a dangerous situation."

Ginny would not want to be put under the Imperius, but she was not sure that it was worse than being drugged. It was hard to think of a mindhealer using an evil spell. Healers were good. After all, they spent all day saving people who would otherwise die and helping people who were suffering. "And the third?"

"The Cruciatus was created by an unusually small woman, who taught it to all the women she knew for self defense. She wanted an unblockable spell to quickly incapacitate men who assaulted women and provide them with an incentive not to try anything of the sort again, while not causing permanent damage."

Ginny thought of the Muggle and shuddered. "They deserve to hurt." Was the spell not as evil as she had thought, or was she herself too evil to see? "But I think Mum would still say these spells were wrong to use, even to do good things."

Her grandmother smiled. "Likely true, dear. Do you agree with her?"

"I don't know if it's wrong," Ginny said. "But it's stupid. The Dark Arts are addictive, make people crazy, and are likely to get you sent to Azkaban."

"Ginevra, dear, that is at best a partial truth," her grandmother said, "rather like claiming that brooms and bludgers are responsible for Quidditch accidents. The Dark Arts are powerful, like a fast broom in Quidditch. Whatever you may think of them, they were created by and for those with your kind of magic. You would be a natural."

Ginny shivered. She did not want to be a natural at the Dark Arts. "I don't have to use them though? I can choose not to, can't I?"

"No one will compel you to practice the Arts," her grandmother said. "Even if you wish to, no responsible teacher would let you learn more than a few curses and defensive spells until after you graduate from Hogwarts."

"Good," Ginny said, relieved, and asked the other question that had been puzzling her since she woke in the Auror's office. "Was my magic always Dark? Would I have ever known if it hadn't all got loose like it did when I k-killed the Muggle?"

Her grandmother sighed. "It was, dear. Your parents and I knew, but, as you heard, they hoped to raise you in a way that would keep it from breaking loose. If they had succeeded, your access to your magic would have increased slowly with age, and the most that anyone would have noticed would have been a talent for hexes."

"I wish it had worked," Ginny said, briefly imagining herself growing up an ordinary witch.

"I never expected them to hold this off as long as they did," her grandmother said. "Ginevra dear, whatever you may wish, no one can put things back the way they were."

"I know."

"So, going forward, your magic is Dark. For Morgana's sake, stop wincing child, this does not mean that you are evil. It does mean that your magic is naturally more wild and related to your emotions than your brothers'. You must learn to control it."

"I know." Ginny looked up to meet her grandmother's soft black eyes. "Will I be ok if I do?"

"Yes, child. The danger is if you fail to control your magic or, worse, allow it to control you. When that happens, it can lead to madness and destruction, not because your magic itself is evil, but because it is strong and wild and unpredictable. Do you understand?"

"Yes, grandmother," Ginny said. She did not want to understand this. She did not want to need to. "This is why the Aurors were so scared, isn't it. Accidental magic never really is in control, and if it's Dark and I used a lot of it then it could have got loose somehow and hurt them. And maybe driven me crazy or something too."

Her grandmother nodded. "Yes, dear. You were in a great deal of danger even after the Muggle died."

"Grandmother, I don't want this," Ginny said, hoping that somehow there was a way out. "I just want to be a little girl. I don't want to have to keep control of dangerous magic inside me that could kill me and everyone around me. It's not fair!"

"Ginevra," her grandmother said gently. "Life is not fair. You must either control your magic or have it drained and live out your life as a Squib. No one can change the nature of your magic."

Ginny stared at her, appalled. To live without magic would be horrific. But her family… "I've lost them," she whispered. "My parents. At least some of my brothers. No matter what I do, they won't love someone with Dark Magic."

"Do try not to be so dramatic, dear," her grandmother said. "Arthur will come to his senses, and with any luck will convince your mother as well."

Ginny took a deep breath. "I hope you're right."

"Of course I am," her grandmother said, lifting Ginny into her arms again. "Now take a nap, and I'll wake you for dinner."

Ginny's grandmother carried her up the stairs to the attic bedroom she always stayed in when she visited and tucked her into the soft bed with its light green blanket. Ginny rolled onto her side and fell asleep hugging an aunt's old stuffed unicorn to her chest.

Ginny woke to music. It was haunting, slipped off in unexpected directions whenever she thought she knew where it was heading, and the harmonies sent chills down her spine. It was nothing like the cheerful songs she knew. Curious, she rolled out of bed, rubbed her eyes, and padded downstairs to find her grandmother, eyes closed, playing the piano and singing. Ginny's feet hurt, so she quickly sat on the nearest chair as the song flowed around her, the music almost tangible.

The song ended and her grandmother opened her eyes. "Good evening, Ginevra."

The music was still echoing through Ginny's mind. "What was that?"

"A ballad I learned as a girl. 'Maia's Choice,' I believe it was called. It tells the story of Maia, a wild dragon whose cave villagers had settled near. After her eggs hatched, when she could not yet leave the hatchlings safely, her mate raided the nearby villages to bring them food. The villagers banded together and came to kill Maia and her mate and capture their young. She fought them and died while her mate escaped with their young, far away from humans, where he could raise them in freedom." She paused and said, as if in warning, "it's one of many songs Dark families teach their children."

"It's beautiful," Ginny said. She felt odd, as if she was a string in the piano and the music and tale of the dragon were the hammer that struck her, setting her vibrating. "Would you teach it to me?"

Her grandmother smiled. "It would be my pleasure. Come, we have time before dinner to sing it through again." She waved her wand at Ginny's chair and it flew through the air to land next to her piano stool. Then she turned to a cluttered bookcase beside the piano and rummaged through the music on the middle shelf. After a few moments she pulled out a small leather book, old enough that its pages were fragile, opened it to near the middle, and handed it to Ginny. "Here are the words."

Ginny held the book carefully. She had never been allowed to touch anything so old, and the pages felt fragile. Then her grandmother began playing again and she forgot about everything else. The music wrapped around her, carrying her along, and by the third verse she found herself singing with the older woman as if she had known this song all her life. When it ended she felt hollow, as if her heart had gone with the song.

"We will sing again later," her grandmother said, seeing her expression. "Come, dear, it is time to eat."

Ginny followed her grandmother into the kitchen, waiting in the doorway while the older witch lit the candles on the table and in the wall sconces. The light flickered off the worn, wooden table where two place settings of chipped china had been set across from each other. "Where's grandfather?"

"Septimus has gone to persuade your parents to be sensible." She served chicken soup, which had been simmering in a small cauldron over the fire, into two bowls, placing one in front of Ginny and one in front of her own chair. "He prefers not to see or hear what I will teach you, so that later he may claim ignorance." She flicked her wand and a loaf of warm bread lay on the table between them, neatly sliced, and looked at Ginny seriously. Her dark eyes seemed mysterious in the candlelit kitchen. "You should know that your father asked only that I teach you control. We agreed that you would be free to choose whether to learn of other aspects of your heritage, such as the songs."

Ginny nodded, and took a spoonful of soup. It was delicious. "I would like to learn more songs, please."

Her grandmother smiled, "I had hoped that you would."

They ate in comfortable silence for a while. Ginny was enjoying the chance to share a meal with her grandmother and no older brothers. Too many things had happened in the past day, and most of them she did not want to think about. Here, sitting in her grandmother's kitchen eating soup and bread, she could ignore it all, just for a few minutes.

When they were done eating, her grandmother washed and dried the dishes with a few flicks of her wand, then turned to Ginny. Her dark eyes glowed in the candlelight. "Come, Ginevra. We will begin your training tonight in the back garden." She held out her hand.

Ginny took her grandmother's hand with only a second's hesitation. She did not know what she was going to learn tonight, and she very much doubted her parents would see it as anything but a possibly lesser evil, but she trusted her grandmother. It helped that the stories she had shared earlier that afternoon, and the song before dinner, had called to Ginny as nothing else ever had.

This was as it should be, she thought, as she sat beside her grandmother in a small circle of grass surrounded by herbs. The more dangerous plants seemed to be here, in the back garden. They all leaned toward the center of the circle, and Ginny would have sworn one of the flowers winked at her.

"My family often named their children after constellations and stars," her grandmother said softly. "My father was named Arcturus, after one of the brightest stars in the sky." She pointed to the Plow. "Do you see the way the Plow's handle curves? Follow that behind it and Arcturus is the first bright star you'll come to."

Ginny leaned against her grandmother's warm side and followed her finger. There was no moon, and the sky was filled with stars, far more than she had ever seen from the Burrow. There, the lights from the nearby Muggle village had shone, even at night. Here, there were so many stars that, without following her grandmother's hand, she would have struggled even to find the Plow. She gazed at the orange star, thinking of the great-grandfather she had never known.

"My oldest cousin also has Father's name," her grandmother said. "He's the head of the family. Poor man, ninety years old and his brothers and son all dead. He's all alone except for his daughter Lucretia. She married your mother's uncle Ignatius, you know, but he died years ago and they never had children. Well, there's his son's eldest still living too, but Sirius was always a bit wild."

"What did he do?" Ginny asked, curious. These people had never been in the family stories she had heard. She had certainly never been told that her mother's uncle had married someone who had likely been a Dark Wizard. And Sirius, her wild distant cousin, sounded interesting. She felt something brush against her wrists, first one, then the other, and heard a few whispered phrases in Latin, but it barely registered.

"Well, first the boy ran away from home and got himself disowned, not that I can blame him for that since they did the same to me for marrying your grandfather, but the fool let himself be sent to Azkaban after the Dark Lord fell." Her grandmother sighed. "Named for the brightest star in the sky, and the boy hadn't enough sense to even attempt to defend himself when all around him people who were far more involved than Sirius were claiming, successfully, mind you, that they had been under the Imperius the whole time."

Ginny listened, eyes wide. She had never heard the story from this perspective before; it had always been about courage and honorable death for the cause of the Light. It was a matter of pride that it had taken five Death Eaters to kill her mother's two brothers. She had never thought of the aftermath for those who fought on the other side, or thought that they must be someone's grandchildren. Something, the tip of a stick, brushed her wrists again and she shifted.

"Technically, they are no longer my family," her grandmother said. "Great-Uncle Sirius made sure of that when he blasted me off the family tree. But my parents and sisters said that should be their decision to make, and even someone from a family who consorted with Muggles was better than the Malfoy boy they'd engaged me to as a little girl, who was all set to drag me with him to the continent to offer our services to Lord Grindelwald. It was hard, though, when the next Dark Lord was here in Britain, and people I'd grown up with felt it was their duty to support him."

Ginny had never thought she was a particularly empathic person, but she found herself imagining what it would be like if she somehow found herself fighting against her family. She shuddered. "It must have been awful, with people you cared about trying to kill each other."

"It was as if the world had gone mad," her grandmother said, dark eyes filled with emotion. "My younger sister Charis and her family supported the Dark Lord, while our oldest sister's husband and eldest son were Aurors. We used to pray that none of our children would kill each other." She sighed. "The Aurors came to Charis' home one night, and when they left Charis, her husband, and their eldest daughter were dead. Callidora's husband was at work that night, though I do not know if she ever asked whether he was part of the raid. On the other side, your father and his older brother both joined a Light vigilante group. Your father lived, but your uncle died on one of their raids, and Morgana only knows who killed him." She sighed. "So many dead or locked away in prison, and for what? Thank the darkness we have had these years of peace."

Ginny could think of nothing to say to that, and so remained silent, listening to the sounds of night in the garden. After a while, her grandmother took Ginny's wrists in her own. "Lie down on your back," she said softly.

Ginny obeyed. Was this her promised lesson? The grass was cool and slightly damp against her back and a mild breeze wafted strange scents past her nose. The night felt wilder and far more alive than it had a few minutes ago. She felt as if she could cut herself on the edges of everything in sight. "What do I do now?"

"Look at the sky," her grandmother said. Her quiet words dropped like crystals into the silence. Ginny looked, and almost gasped at the sight. She had looked earlier, but it had looked nothing like this. Millions and millions of tiny sparks blinked at her from the depths of space, like the burning eyes of millions of wild black cats. Between them was the darkness, endless and soft as it caressed her cheek with the night breeze.

"Feel the earth beneath you," her grandmother continued. Ginny reached out her arms and touched the earth to her sides. The sky went on forever. The earth was simply there, solid and reliable. She clung to it as she stared up at the sky. She felt as if she were falling into the darkness, stars glittering as they danced around her.

"Feel the wind on your face, the cool air you breathe in." The air was cool and moist and smelled of strange plants. Ginny took a deep breath in and slowly let it out. Her lungs tingled with the magic in the air. There was a tension in the night now, as if lightening was about to strike.

"Feel the water that falls from the sky to bring life to the earth." Ginny had just enough time to wonder where she was supposed to feel water when the first drop of rain hit her cheek. She squinted at the perfectly clear sky as rain fell out of the air above her. If she had thought the air was full of magic earlier, the rain was that magic made fluid, falling to melt into her. A sudden wind whipped the rain around her. She breathed in rain as well as air, coughed, and the wind calmed, brushing her skin gently with the last few drops of rain.

"Listen to the night." Her grandmother's voice was as serene as before. Ginny listened. She heard rustling leaves, a few bird cries, owl wings flapping overhead, and, beneath it all, a whisper of a wild, eerie song, full of dissonance and unexpected turns, the original that the song Ginny had sung earlier with her grandmother was only a pale echo of. "What do you hear?"

"Music," Ginny whispered, not wanting to speak over it. "It's so beautiful."

She heard a smile in her grandmother's voice as she replied, "Remember this, Ginevra. You are a child of the night. Whenever you begin to lose your balance, remember this." The air was still thick with magic as her grandmother stood, her robes rustling.

"May I stay out here a little longer? Please?" Ginny asked as her grandmother held out a hand to help her to her feet.

"Not tonight, dear. You need a warm bath, clean bandages, and bed." Her grandmother chuckled. "Give me your hands; I need to turn the inhibitor bracelets back to full strength."

"They were off?" Ginny stared up at her grandmother, a tall shadow in the night. Wasn't that dangerous? So that was why the stars had been so much brighter when she lay down than they had been at first, why her grandmother had rambled on about family, fascinating though it had been. The air whipped around her, and she felt her hair stand on end. "You distracted me."

"Breathe," her grandmother murmured, "and look up at the stars."

Ginny took a deep breath in and let it out slowly, looking up at the stars. The wind calmed. Her grandmother took her hands, gently, and Ginny watched as the stars dimmed to mere specs of light. She wanted to cry at the loss.

"I'm sorry, dear," her grandmother said, carrying her back into the house. "You will have them off soon, I promise."

Chapter Text

Ginny woke when the sunlight fell across her face. She squinted sleepily at the window. It was small with white wooden trim, set in a pale green wall that connected a whitewashed floor with a sloping ceiling. The ceiling and wall were plastered, the floor and furniture wooden. Everything was worn and old, but tidy. The room was familiar, but it took her a moment to identify it as her Weasley grandparents' attic guestroom.

Then the memories of the previous day crashed into her and Ginny shuddered, rubbing the inhibitor bracelets. She could curl back up, pull the covers over her head, and refuse to leave the bed, as she did at home when she was upset. Her mother had always responded by bringing her hot cocoa and an offer to chat if she had not emerged by mid-morning, but her grandmother, however much she might care for Ginny, did not seem the sort to bring hot cocoa.

She sighed at strict older witches and slid out of bed, padding over to a familiar battered chest. Her mother must have brought her clothes while she slept, she thought. Once she had opened the lid, which tended to stick, it erupted with what seemed to be the complete contents of her room. Ginny was knocked to the floor as the chest overflowed with clothing, toys, and books.

She sat up and her oldest doll dropped into her lap. Ginny stared at the toy with amazed horror. The doll, Sally, had barely survived Ginny's toddler years. Stuffing was coming out of the gap where one of her arms had once been, most of her hair had burnt off, and her face and remaining hair was badly singed by an early bout of accidental magic. Ginny had thought the toy discarded years ago, had even held a funeral for her when her mother had been unable to mend Sally after the incident with the fire. Why would her mother pack everything, even Sally, who she must have kept in the attic all these years for some strange adult reason?

Mum's terrified of me, Ginny thought, blinking back tears. She never wants to see me again. If she had, she would have at least brought my things when I was awake. Merlin, she probably never even wants to think about me again. That's why she sent everything. She didn't want anything of mine left in the Burrow.

She ignored the empty ache in her chest and dressed, leaving her grandmother's nightgown neatly folded on the bed. She looked at the mound of her belongings and started sorting them. She folded and put away clothes that fit and found places in the room for her favorite books, stuffed animals, and dolls. Anything she didn't want, she put back in the chest.

Sally was just one of the many toys from her early childhood that she found, burnt and twisted and broken, in the mound of her belongings. The destroyed toys were all meant for young children and toddlers, she noted, picking up a wooden alphabet block that looked as if it had been squished in a toddler's hand like soft clay. She could almost see the swirls of her fingerprints. She tossed it into the chest and reached for the next object. Ginny had not realized how many toys she had damaged beyond her parents' ability to repair with magic and was mildly amazed that they had found the money to replace as many as they had. Again, she wondered why her mother had kept the toys at all.

The strangest things she found were several jars of ash, dust, and sludge, apparently charmed not to break, since they had flown out of the chest with everything else. Given the many broken toys, Ginny suspected that the jars held the remains of the toys destroyed once she was older and her anger was less likely to leave anything solid behind. She imagined her mother sweeping up the dust of disintegrated toys and the ash of burned ones, then pouring it into jars to keep and shivered at the sheer creepiness of the thought. Grown-ups were weird. Ginny threw the jars into the chest, half hoping they would break.

Finally, everything she did not want was in the chest, piled above its rim. Ginny sat on the lid to close the chest, then glared at it. It wasn't fair. She could remember so many bouts of accidental magic, and, in spite of the overflowing chest, most of them had not been destructive. Her magic had made her toys dance, limbs moving on their own as they swirled across her floor. It had made things fly and change color and trail sparks and so many other beautiful or funny things. Where were the reminders of that, of the happy childhood she remembered? Had her mother really only seen Ginny's rare anger, missing her usual happiness?

Mum hid all these things, Ginny thought, shoving the chest out into the main part of the attic, so they can just stay hidden. If her feet had not still been a little sore she would have stomped down the stairs.

Her grandmother was sitting at the kitchen table, an empty cereal bowl in front of her, sipping tea and reading The Daily Prophet. "Good morning, Ginevra," she said without looking up from the paper. "You'll find cereal and milk on the table."

"Morning," Ginny mumbled, pouring herself a bowl of cereal and a glass of milk, since there was no juice on the table.

Several minutes later, her grandmother set down the paper. "I see you found the chest your mother brought last night."

"Yeah." Ginny played with her cereal. She did not want to talk about the chest.

Her grandmother raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

Maybe her grandmother would give up if she told her a little. "Why did she have to come when she knew I'd be asleep?" Ginny stabbed the bottom of her bowl with the spoon and watched the milk splatter. "I don't think she wants me to be her kid anymore." With all those toys she kept, Ginny thought, I'm not too sure Mum ever really wanted me.

"Ah." Her grandmother nodded. "I'm sorry this is so difficult for you."

"You're not going to say everything will be all right?"

"I cannot promise that, but perhaps it will be better than you fear once your parents have had time to adjust."

"They shouldn't need time to adjust," Ginny said, glaring at her bowl. "They knew this was likely to happen. Even if they hadn't, this wouldn't be fair. Parents are supposed to be there when everything goes wrong. Even if they can't fix it. I nearly died. When Ron nearly drowned in the pond Mum wouldn't let him out of her sight for a week, but she doesn't even want to see me."

"The world is rarely fair," her grandmother said. "However, I would not be so sure that your mother does not want to see you. She spent some time in your room last night while you were asleep and brought letters for you. You may have the letters after you finish eating." She looked pointedly at Ginny's bowl of cereal, which was still nearly full.

"I know it's not fair," Ginny mumbled, reluctantly eating more cereal, which was now soggy. "It's just yesterday morning I really thought it was. I was happy thinking that."

"Everyone must grow up eventually, dear," her grandmother said. "It hurts, but you cannot stay an innocent child forever. Sooner or later it becomes too obvious that the world is not the wonderful place you thought it was."

"Yeah," Ginny said. "When a bloody Muggle tries to kill you and your parents abandon you because you fought back instead of bloody dying. Not so wonderful, that."

Her grandmother nodded. "I have always found it strange that Light families value their children's innocence so much that they will try to protect them from reality long past the age where a complete lack of knowledge of dangers puts them at risk." She paused. "Do watch your language, child. Resorting to profanities to express yourself shows an inadequate vocabulary, which I will help you expand if necessary."

"So you're the reason we have to copy pages out of the dictionary when we swear," Ginny said. She remembered the exasperation in her mother's voice when Ginny had reached the M's, just weeks ago. Her mother, who definitely feared her and just might hate her. Ginny sighed. "It's just so sudden. I thought I could trust everyone. Now I can't even count on my parents."

"Your relationship with them may not be as hopeless as you seem to think," Ginny's grandmother said. She drew her wand and floated Ginny's now empty cereal bowl to the sink. "Accio letters."

Ginny caught the bundle as it flew from a drawer, fingering the thick parchment envelopes. The top one was addressed in Fred's handwriting and she opened it.

Our dearest sister,

Please hurry up and learn whatever Dark Arts Grandmother is teaching you. Mum and Dad keep locking themselves in a room with him to argue about things we're not supposed to hear. Mum cried last night for hours but won't say why. You'd think she'd been cursed.

If Grandmother is teaching you Dark Arts, is any of it good for pranking? We could use a promising apprentice. Ronnikins is too much a prat to see the genius of having a Dark Witch for a sister, but he makes a good test subject for the ideas we haven't worked out yet. Remember our loyalty when you come into your power, oh wicked one.

Your devoted brothers,

Fred and George

Ginny smiled. "At least I still have two brothers. Fred and George are crazy, but they're also loyal."

"I'm glad to hear that." Her grandmother smiled. "They seem like good boys to have on your side."

"Oh yes," Ginny said with feeling. She did not envy Ron right now, whatever he had said about her to anger the twins. "The twins think you might be teaching me Dark Arts."

Her grandmother gave the letter a disapproving look. "They should be more discreet. Even in these peaceful days, that is hardly a subject to be openly discussed in one's letters."

"I don't think they know what that means," Ginny said, turning to the next letter. She was not sure that she knew either, though it sounded as if it had something to do with not writing about Dark Arts.

Bill and Charlie wrote brief notes that ignored the issue with Dark magic entirely, saying only that they were sorry she had been hurt and hoped she felt well enough to come home soon. Percy sent her a stiff reminder to work hard at her lessons with their grandmother and cooperate with the Aurors for her own good. He did not seem to know whether to be glad she had defended herself or appalled by the way she had done so. Ron had not written at all. After the twins' letter, and knowing her brother's temper, Ginny had not expected him to.

The last letter was from her parents and Ginny hesitated before opening it. It was in her father's handwriting.

Dear Ginny,

I am very sorry that it has been difficult for your mother and I to adjust to having a daughter with Dark magic. We should have been able to be with you at this time, and are sorry that this has not been wise. Please believe me that we still love you. You are our daughter, and nothing will ever change that. Listen to your grandmother and study hard. Remember what we have taught you.

We would love to have you and mother with us for Midsummer lunch. Please let us know if you will be able to come.

With love,

Dad and Mum

She handed it to her grandmother silently, not sure what to think. They had apologized, or, at least, Dad had apologized for both of them. But her mum hadn't written and might not agree with what her dad had. Too, apologizing didn't change what they hadn't done. The offer of a visit for the holiday was a nice gesture, but left Ginny feeling as if she had been pushed out of most of her family's life, allowed only to share as much as a cousin might. Still, it was something and showed that they didn't mean to cut her off completely. It could have been much worse. "May I use a quill and parchment to reply?"

"Of course, dear. Accio." Her grandmother summoned the necessary items and set them beside Ginny.

"Thanks." Ginny frowned at the parchment, then started writing.

After Ginny had sent replies and agreed to a visit on Midsummer afternoon, her grandmother sent the letters off with her owl. "Now that those are out of the way, are you ready for your morning lesson?"

"Sure," Ginny said.

Ginny's grandmother nodded in approval. "Your magic is closely tied to your feelings. There are many ways to control it, but the simplest are to learn to calm yourself when you are upset and to bring your magic under conscious control, in the same way that you can choose not to hit your brother even if you are very angry with him. Do you understand so far?"

"I think so." Ginny bit her lip. "So last night it was safe for you to turn off the inhibitors because I was calm?"

"Yes," her grandmother said. "That was also important because you must let your magic free for a little while every day or it will become much more difficult to control. Now, you use the same mental muscles to control your magic as you do to control your actions, and so today you will practice controlling the way you react to feelings. This is something that my sisters and I began learning with our letters." She drew her wand and cast a spell at Ginny, who suddenly found herself giggling. "That was a cheering charm. Your task for the morning is to not laugh."

It was harder than Ginny had expected. Before her grandmother had cast the charm, she had not had any desire to laugh. Now, everything seemed funny. She tried holding her hands over her mouth, but giggled through them. She tried holding the sides of her mouth down with her fingers, but found that so funny that she laughed louder. She tried thinking of something sad, but either nothing came to mind or, when she thought of something, it no longer seemed sad. She stared at the now infinitely amusing ceiling and forced a word through her laughter. "How?"

Her grandmother was smiling. "You will find a way. Wash the dishes, please."

Ginny chuckled as she washed dishes. She giggled as she put them away. When it was all done, she laughed because the clean kitchen was so funny. She twirled around the table, sweeping her dishcloth through the air and giggling.

Her grandmother took her arm, gently stopping her dance. "Come," her grandmother said, and led her to the sitting room. "Sit and focus on not laughing."

Ginny tried to climb onto a chair, but, because she was still a bit dizzy and shaky from her dance, she slipped and fell on her bum. This struck her as so funny that she started laughing hysterically, rolling on the floor with tears running down her cheeks. Through her tears she could see her grandmother calmly sitting, waiting for Ginny to compose herself.

"You have to mean it, child," her grandmother said after several minutes had passed.

By this point, Ginny genuinely did not want to laugh any more. At first it had been fun and silly, but now her belly ached and she was beginning to feel like an idiot as she rolled on the floor, helpless to stop laughing. I'm not helpless, Ginny thought. I won't ever be helpless again. No stupid charm is going to make me act like a baby. She focused on breathing normally, not laughing, and her laughs turned to giggles. She carefully climbed onto the chair and looked at her grandmother proudly.

"Good," her grandmother said. "Now stop giggling."

Ginny nodded and thought intently about not giggling. I'm not going to giggle. I'm not. No more giggling. Not giggling. Not giggling. Not giggling.

"Well done," her grandmother said.

Ginny noticed that she had actually stopped giggling, lost her concentration, and started again. She tried to scowl.

Her grandmother smiled. "It takes practice to keep it up. So, practice." She pulled an ancient book from the shelves and began reading.

Ginny sat on her chair, thinking over and over that she would not laugh as if it was the most important thing in the world. Right now it is, she thought. Don't laugh. If I can do this I'll be safer with magic-don't laugh-and then maybe I can go home-don't laugh-and Mum and Dad will want me back and it will be ok again-don't laugh.

After half an hour of not laughing while sitting, with only a few lapses, Ginny followed her grandmother to the front garden to practice not laughing while de-gnoming a garden. By lunch she had progressed to not laughing or saying "don't laugh" while carrying on a conversation and was rather proud of herself.

As they were finishing lunch, Ginny heard a gong. Her grandmother quickly drew her wand and cancelled the cheering charm. "Someone just passed the outer wards," she told Ginny, answering her questioning look. "A stranger, not family or friend. Stay with me. Do not look our visitor in the eyes. Do not speak unless you are asked a direct question. If you must answer a question, say as little as you can." She stood, and suddenly her head was held high and her face was impassive. She looked as if she could stare down a dragon. "Come"

Ginny gulped, then followed her grandmother to the front door. Someone rapped on the outside, and her grandmother opened the door. Auror Moody stood on the doorstep, scowling at them.

"Auror Moody," Ginny's grandmother said coolly. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"

"I'm here about the Weasley girl," Moody said. "Went to check her record this morning and saw you'd disabled her bracelets last night. Have you lost your mind, woman?"

"No damage was done," her grandmother said. "I had not realized that the DMLE was sufficiently overstaffed to assign experienced agents to monitor wandless children."

Moody glared at her. "We always monitor your kind."

Ginny, standing behind her grandmother, flinched at his tone.

"And what kind might that be?" Her grandmother's voice had cooled even further. "Young children attacked by Muggles, perhaps? We should all shake in our beds in fear of such dangerous criminals."

"You know what I mean," Moody growled. "It's too late for you, though you've put on a good front all these years with Weasley, but mind my words. You keep your bloody spells and traditions and rituals away from that girl and just teach her enough control to survive."

"Language, Auror, honestly," Ginny's grandmother said, as if the Auror were a particularly stupid child. "Have you forgotten that I am part of Ginevra's family? Whatever you may think of my birth family, my own life gives you no basis for such accusations. I raised Arthur and his brothers, and you have no basis to claim I corrupted any of them. Ginevra is my only granddaughter, and I assure you that I care far more for her future than any Auror."

Ginny looked admiringly at her grandmother's straight back. She wondered whether she might ever grow that confident.

"Girl," Moody said, and Ginny resisted her instinct to meet his eyes, forcing herself to look at his chest. "Listen to me. There is hope for you. You inherited tainted magic through no fault of your own. You can still choose to join your family in serving the Light. We could use someone like you in the DMLE. What do you think of that?"

Ginny glanced up at her grandmother hesitantly and saw her shrug slightly. Taking this as her cue, she said, "I don't know, Auror Moody."

"Think about it," Moody said. "My boss assigned me to monitor your progress, so I'll be keeping an eye on you."

He turned and hobbled down the walkway. As soon as he was outside the garden gate, he turned and apparated. Ginny's grandmother shut the door and hugged Ginny tightly. "He wants to use you," she said furiously. "Thank Morgana he's as subtle as a bludgeoning curse. I will not allow it, do you understand? My granddaughter will not be a tool for the Aurors to use and discard."

"He called me a 'bloodless murder waiting to happen' yesterday," Ginny said. "Why does he act like he cares?"

"Did he say that to your face?" Ginny's grandmother asked. Her lips tightened.

"No, I was pretending to still be asleep."

"Clever girl," her grandmother said. "As for why, I suspect that an Auror might see you as a useful weapon, especially if you were barely able to control your magic, which, by the way, would be the result of his foolish ban on any Dark traditions, spells, or rituals. If you were better trained, he might use you as a spy. Both are typical for the DMLE."

"You won't listen to him, will you?" Ginny thought the Auror just might have another reason to try to keep her closer to the Light - he obviously thought everything Dark was evil - but she certainly did not want to be anyone's weapon or tool.

"Of course I will not," her grandmother said. "He may threaten and bluster, but I will not leave you helpless."

"Good," Ginny said, and relaxed. She did not trust many people at the moment, but her grandmother had taken her in after yesterday's nightmare and had since done nothing but help her.

They returned to the sitting room, where Ginny's grandmother allowed her to browse the bookshelves and choose a book to read. Ginny flipped through Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, relieved not to be struggling against the cheering charm. She was halfway through the book when an older woman's voice called from the fire, "Rella, dear! It's Hestia." Ginny set the book down. Today was certainly a day for visitors, letters, and flue calls.

Ginny's grandmother smiled and went to crouch in front of the fire, which an elderly woman with a round, friendly face was peering out of curiously. "Cousin! It has been too long."

"I hear you have some wonderful news for the family," Hestia said, looking around the room. "You are planning to bring her to our Midsummer eve celebration, are you not?"

"Trust you to have heard already," Ginny's grandmother said, sounding amused. "Ginevra, would you please join me so that my cousin will stop attempting to twist her eyes out of their sockets looking for you?"

"Sure," Ginny said, and went to sit beside her grandmother.

The woman examined her from head to toe, then nodded, apparently satisfied. "My name is Hestia Yaxley, dear. I am your grandmother's first cousin by marriage, through her mother."

"Pleased to meet you," Ginny said.

"Such a polite child," Hestia said to Ginny's grandmother. The woman was practically beaming. "Powerful too, I heard. I am sure she will be a credit to you at the celebration."

Ginny's grandmother's mouth quirked. "Very well, Hestia, I had hoped to bring her, but you will need to send someone to deal with a small problem first." She took Ginny's hand and held it up so that Hestia could see the bracelet on her wrist.

"Of course," Hestia said. "I heard that as well. Expect one of the cousins to meet you at your home half an hour before sundown on Midsummer Eve. I am so glad to have met you, Ginevra, and I hope you will feel at home with us." She waved and disappeared, leaving Ginny and her grandmother sitting in front of ordinary orange flames.

"Welcome to the family," Ginny's grandmother said, smiling. "Now that they've heard of you there will be no keeping them away."

"Why was she so excited?" Ginny asked. Her grandmother's cousins and their children were distant relatives, so many generations removed that Ginny had never even met them. Why would she matter to them?

"There are so few of us who are Dark," her grandmother said. "Children are our future, and we treasure them. I married outside the group, and for most of my life Mother's family has accepted that my children and grandchildren were all Light, unable to share our heritage. You are the child we all thought would never be, and they are glad as much for that as for the addition to our numbers."

"You're really glad I have Dark magic?" Ginny asked. The Auror's words still echoed in her mind: tainted, filthy, 'your kind', 'murder waiting to happen.'

Her grandmother hugged her and kissed the top of her head. "Oh, dear child, I am so very glad. Your Yaxley kin will feel the same way, and, to some extent, so will every Dark witch or wizard in Britain. I know that it is hard for you, but believe me, you have family who will love and treasure you for the wonderful young witch you are."

Ginny rested her head against her grandmother's shoulder, relishing the feeling of the older woman's arm around her own shoulders. Maybe, just maybe, everything would be all right after all.

Chapter Text

By Midsummer Eve, life with Ginny's grandmother had settled into a pattern. The mornings were dedicated to resisting cheering charms while helping her grandmother with household chores, the afternoons to reading, listening to stories, and learning songs, and the evenings to sitting quietly in the back garden, letting the night breeze and stars fill her mind. After Moody's visit, however, her grandmother grudgingly left the bracelets activated. When Ginny begged for even a few minutes of freedom, her grandmother only told her to be patient, hinting that she would be free of the inhibitors on Midsummer Eve.

That evening, Ginny was sitting with her grandmother, trying not to wriggle in her nicest robe as they waited for the promised cousin who would, her grandmother said, deal with the inhibitors and the Ministry's tracking charms for the evening. The floo call came at the expected time, and Ginny stared curiously at the tall young man who stepped through the floo. He looked ordinary, with a round face and warm brown eyes, not at all like a Dark wizard.

He bowed and said, "Greetings, Cousin Cedrella, Cousin Ginevra."

"My, you look young today, cousin," Cedrella said, almost laughing.

Her cousin smiled. "It is a pleasing appearance, is it not?" He glanced at Ginny, who was confused. "I cast a glamour to disguise my appearance and voice," he said. "It would not do for the Ministry to pluck the identity of one who can circumvent their charms from your mind."

"They can do that?" Ginny stared at him in horror. "Read minds, not just look at penseived memories?"

"It is called legilimancy," her grandmother said. "The defense against it, occlumency, is something that I will see you learn before you leave for Hogwarts, if only to guard your mind against the headmaster and professor there who I know to be proficient legilimenses."

Ginny shuddered at the thought of someone looking through her mind. She would learn this occlumency so that she would not be helpless.

Her cousin was already muttering a stream of spells at the house. Webs of variously colored light began to appear as he cast, with threads leading away from the house. After a few minutes, he turned to Ginny. "May I see your wrists, cousin?"

She held them out to him and watched, curiously, as he went through another series of spells, revealing a tangle of threads of light tied to the inhibitor bracelets, leading off into the distance.

"Well?" Ginny's grandmother asked when he seemed to have finished.

Her cousin stared thoughtfully at the mass of spells. "There is a trace on your floo and the Aurors set up a variety of Dark-detector spells just outside your wards. Nothing too unusual there. The inhibitor bracelets send a status report to the Ministry at two minute intervals. As part of their original design, they report any significant magical surges, whether they are currently disabled or removed, and whether their function is altered. They have been modified to also send the Ministry their current location and any spells or types of magic cast in their vicinity, but the one who did this left the original loopholes in place."

"I assume you can deal with it?"

He smirked. "Of course. I suggest leaving the floo trace, since it only monitors where calls and visitors come from, and does not record conversations. Those are difficult to alter without alerting the Ministry."

Ginny's grandmother nodded. "Very well."

"For long term use, you will want to add to your wards. We can discuss that later. For tonight, I will temporarily ward the room."

"You will need the protection?" Ginny's grandmother glanced at Ginny.

"Yes," her cousin said.

Ginny fidgeted, unsure whether she was excited or anxious about seeing intentional Dark Magic.

"What will you need from Ginevra?" Her grandmother asked.

"Oh, I think a few nail clippings, saliva, and, of course, her breath should do it," her cousin said casually.

Ginny stared at the two adults, who had begun discussing the details of the plan. The hags in Knockturn Alley sold fingernail clippings; her brothers had told her so. You could do dreadful things to a person with them. Ginny could not remember a time before she burned her nail clippings and loose hairs caught in her brush every day as thoughtlessly as she took a shower. To use such things, not only nail clippings, but her spit and breath as well…it was hard to think her grandmother had not even blinked at the request. Surely she would have said something if it was dangerous?

"-timing may be tricky, with less than two minutes to work with," her grandmother was saying. "Even if we make the poppet first, which I would suggest."

Her cousin nodded. "It is entirely possible. That leaves two minutes to link the poppet, disable the removal tracking charm, transfer the inhibitors, and re-enable the removal tracking charm."

Her grandmother smiled. "If I had any doubts about your identity, you just eliminated them."

Her cousin shrugged and smirked. "I will begin warding." He drew a line across the doorways, then began weaving complicated patterns with his wand, while chanting under his breath.

Ginny's grandmother turned to her. "Ginevra, for everyone's safety, you cannot wear the inhibitor bracelets to visit tonight. In order to remove them for the night, however, we will need to make a poppet to attach them to, something that will seem enough like you to the spells not to tell the difference."

"And you need my nail clippings and spit and breath for that?" Ginny asked, nervously glancing at the glittering wards her cousin was weaving around the room.

"Yes, child," her grandmother said, summoning a small pile of leaves and flowers from the garden into a sphere hovering in front of her. "We need something of you in the poppet, or even your cousin will not be able to persuade the inhibitors to mistake it for you."

The room flashed silver for a moment and Ginny blinked.

"You always did love flashy magic," her grandmother said.

"Who, me?" Her cousin grinned, waving a hand as if to brush away smoke. A silver knife appeared in his hand, and Ginny drew back. He noticed, and looked at her curiously. "Cousin? Is there a problem?"

Ginny shrugged. She felt stupid. "I understand why you need these things. Really, I do. It's just…it's nails and spit and I know this has to be Dark Arts. And the last time I did anything with that someone died and the Aurors came and my parents started acting like they didn't want me anymore."

"Ah," her cousin said. He glanced at Ginny's grandmother, then knelt in front of Ginny so that his head was lower than hers. "That must have been very hard for you."

Ginny nodded. She would have called it something far worse than simply hard.

"This will be different," her cousin said, gazing at her intently. "It is a simple spell, a more detailed version of something most of us learn as children when we wish to sneak out of our beds at night."

"Oh," she said. That didn't sound so frightening.

He held out his wand and looked at her intently. "You can trust us, little cousin. I swear on my magic that I intend no harm to you this night."

Ginny saw the spark as his oath took. She sighed, looking at her grandmother, who looked back at her calmly, and her cousin, who reached out to take one of her hands in his. She let him hold it, watching in anxious fascination as he trimmed her nails, letting the clippings fall onto a small cloth.

He smiled, then held the cloth out in front of her. "Please spit on it."

Finished protesting, Ginny did as he asked. He carefully wrapped her nail clippings up in the dampened cloth and handed it to her grandmother. The older woman held the ball of cloth in her palm, near the ball of leaves and flowers that hovered in front of her. "Ginevra," she said. "I will set this cloth on fire as I chant the spell. When I nod, you must blow the ashes from my hand onto the leaves. Do you understand?"

"Yes, grandmother." Ginny said.

Her cousin murmured a charm and Ginny nearly jumped as large numbers appeared over her head, counting down to zero and then restarting at two minutes. "When the count reaches zero, the inhibitors send their information to the Ministry," he told Ginny's grandmother.

Ginny watched. When the countdown reached zero, her grandmother began chanting in a language that Ginny thought was not Latin, and certainly was not English. The bit of spit-damp cloth and nail clippings in her hand started burning with a purple flame, and long before Ginny had expected it there was only ash and her grandmother's eyes looking into hers as she nodded, still chanting.

Ginny took a deep breath and blew the ash over the leaves hovering nearby. Her grandmother said three words and Ginny watched as the ash and leaves and flowers transformed into a tiny naked girl. She had red hair and freckles, Ginny noticed, and, strangest of all, seemed to be breathing.

Sixty seconds.

Her grandmother threw a cloth over the poppet and pulled Ginny down to kneel beside it, her wrists next to those of the poppet.

Fifty seconds.

Her cousin was already casting, twisting the spells in her inhibitor bracelets. He reached down and touched them with his wand. The bracelets fell off her wrists.

Thirty seconds.

"On the poppet, quickly," her grandmother whispered urgently, already fumbling with one bracelet. Ginny slipped the other onto the poppet's wrist, watching in fascination as it shrunk to fit the tiny wrist. Her cousin continued to cast spell after spell, hardly pausing to breathe.

The countdown was at ten seconds when he relaxed. "Done."

The thing they had made, a miniature replica of Ginny herself, lay curled on the floor, apparently sleeping. Ginny touched its arm and drew back. It was cool and damp, like soil and not at all like a human. "How long will it last?"

"Long enough," her grandmother said, pulling Ginny to her feet. "Come, child."

Her cousin held a flower out. Ginny's grandmother reached out to touch it with one finger and, at a glance from her, Ginny reached out to touch it as well. The portkey took them.

When Ginny stumbled to her feet again, she was in a darkening meadow in the woods. The sun had nearly set, and the reddening disk was completely outshone by three bonfires. People in robes of every color stood in clusters, talking quietly. Magic swirled and danced around the fires and the people, and Ginny felt hers reach out to meld with it. She felt alive, awake, after too many days with no magic at all, when she had felt as if she were in a dream world, where nothing was quite real.

A short woman came to meet them. "Cedrella!" Ginny recognized Hestia, who she had spoken with in the fireplace. "And Ginevra! Welcome, cousins!" Hestia exchanged flowers with Ginny's grandmother, and then Ginny found herself presented with a small white flower with five petals.

She took it with her right hand, as her grandmother had taught her, and smiled at her hostess. "Thank you, ma'am."

"Call me cousin, child," Hestia said, but she was smiling. "Such a polite young thing," she murmured to Ginny's grandmother. Then, louder, she said, "Enjoy the festivities, Cousin Ginevra."

Ginny took this as a dismissal, and took off to explore. She could not go far, however, without an adult seeing her and greeting her with restrained enthusiasm. Almost all introduced themselves as cousins, although in most cases they were second or third cousins, or first several times removed. All gave her flowers. A few especially elderly witches introduced themselves as her aunts, and, like everyone, seemed delighted that Cedrella's granddaughter was a Dark witch. Ginny began to wonder if she would spend the entire evening being accosted by older relatives.

Someone bumped into her from behind, and she dropped the flowers she had been given. A small hand caught her arm, steadying her, and a girl about her age knelt to help her pick them up. "I'm so sorry! What a way to welcome you into the family."

"It's all right," Ginny said as she stood, bouquet again intact. "I'm glad to meet someone my own age. I'm Ginny Weasley."

The girl smiled. "My name is Daphne Greengrass, and it is a pleasure to meet you." She paused. "Several of us are meeting by the pond to make wreaths. You could join us if you like."

"I'd love to," Ginny said. "I don't think I could hold more flowers."

Daphne smiled at her again and took her by the hand, drawing her through small spaces in the crowd. At one point Ginny could have sworn they passed a wedding. Then the crowd had thinned and they reached a small pond. Its water was still enough to reflect both moon and leaping flames. Six girls were sitting by its edge, braiding flowers with long pieces of grass.

A small girl, her pale hair shining in the moonlight, looked up as they arrived. She nudged the girl next to her with her elbow, whispering "Daphne found Cousin Ginevra!" This set off a chorus of introductions in which Ginny learned that the little blond was Daphne's little sister Astoria and the black-haired girl sitting next to her was Adrasteia, but preferred to be called Addie. The youngest two girls, who alternated flower-braiding with chasing each other around the pond, were Myrina and Aella. The oldest girl, who seemed serious, was Ismene, and her younger sister, who introduced herself with a mischievous smirk, was Elektra.

Ginny sat on the grass between Addie and Daphne and slowly began braiding her flowers with grass. She struggled at first, but Ismene came to kneel in front of her and took her flowers and stroked their stems gently. When she handed them back to Ginny, the stems were easy to bend and held whatever shape she twisted them into. "Do you know what they mean?"

"No," Ginny said.

Ismene simply nodded. Her dark eyes reminded Ginny of the surface of the pond behind them, which was calm, without even a ripple. She reached to cup a white, five-petalled flower in her hand. "This is a mayflower, for welcome. The mistletoe is for overcoming difficulties. Nightshade is for truth, especially when it is bitter, and for dark thoughts, and sometimes Dark magic as well. The white rosebud is for a young girl, too young for courting flowers. Vervain is for enchantment. These bright blue ones are blue violets, for faithfulness and love."

"Thank you," Ginny said.

"You are very welcome." Ismene stood and returned to her place next to Elektra.

A tall young woman left the crowd of adults and hurried to them. Her long, black hair was swept up in a complicated style, crowned with a wreath of linden. Her blue eyes were wide and shining as Ismene rose to embrace her. "Thais."

"It is done," Thais said, stepping back from Ismene but holding her hands still. Her voice was steady and her head high and Ginny thought she looked as if she had just agreed to her own death sentence. The other girls were quiet, watching.

Ismene swallowed. "When?"

"Next year at Midsummer."

Ismene closed her eyes and Ginny could see her hands tighten on Thais'. She opened her eyes and seemed to see only Thais. "If you should change your mind, only let me know and I will discover a way to free you from this. I swear it, Thais. You have only to ask."

Thais shook her head. "I cannot. You know I cannot, Izzy. Father…"

"And if he returns?"

Thais forced a brittle laugh, but it shattered like glass in the night air. "Really, Izzy, do try not to be so silly."

Ismene simply gazed at her, unblinking, and Thais dropped her eyes. "Remember, cousin. You have only to ask."

Thais nodded, then turned to the cousins with a smile, deliberately changing the mood. "Come, girls! The herbs are in the fires, and the boy cousins are already preparing to leap over them."

Elektra jumped to her feet with a little too much enthusiasm. "Snake!" The cousins set their wreaths around their necks or on their heads and followed her, hand in hand in a twisting line through the adults, who had begun dancing. The music echoed in the back of Ginny's head, seeming to match her breathing and heartbeats and footsteps as she followed Daphne and pulled Addie behind her.

Then they were at the first bonfire and Thais had was running toward it, pulling the others after her, laughing. Ginny glanced anxiously at the bonfire, which was half again as tall as the adults, but closed her eyes and held tightly to Daphne's hand. When the older girl jumped, Ginny was only a fraction of a second behind her. She stayed in the air longer than she ought to have, and opened her eyes as her feet touched the grass on the other side of the fire. She laughed in wonder. She had felt as if she was flying through the air without a broom.

As she followed her cousins, who clearly planned to make another jump, she felt the magic swirling through the singing and dancing crowd, around the bonfires, holding the young people in the air as they leapt over the bonfires. It flowed around her and through her until she felt as if she were a magical creature herself. She leapt the fires with her cousins so many times that she lost count, losing herself in the night and the adults' singing and the flickering fires and the twisting and running and leaping.

As the fires burned lower, Ginny joined her cousins in dancing around the coals, throwing her head back and closing her eyes so that she could feel the beat of feet on the meadow, the flow of air around her body and into her lungs. She was alive and surrounded by family. Her magic was free, joining that of the night as it flowed around and through the gathering crowd, and it had hurt no one. The haunting melodies played and sung by her cousins and aunts and uncles echoed in her heart. "Come," her grandmother said, when the coals were barely glowing and the children had begun to disappear. Ginny took her hand and let the portkey take them home.

Ginny woke the next morning to find piles of herbs all over the kitchen, where her weary grandmother sat drinking tea. "Some plants are most powerful when picked during the night before Midsummer's Day," she said when Ginny asked. Ginny spent that day helping her grandmother harvest different leaves and roots and flowers, which her grandmother claimed were most potent when picked on Midsummer's Day itself, and the following two days packing the harvested herbs into bottles and writing labels until her hand cramped. Most of the plants were harmless, but her grandmother forbade her to touch the leaves or flowers or roots in jars with red seals, although she wrote the strange name, hypericum, over and over.

On June 24th, Ginny again pulled on her nicest robes and met her grandmother in the sitting room to travel to a Midsummer party. Having celebrated Midsummer Eve on the 20th, she had been confused about the different dates until her grandmother explained that it was a difference in tradition: the Light community celebrated on the day of the Muggle's traditional calendar date, while the Dark community celebrated on the eve of the summer solstice irrespective of which day it fell on.

Unlike the last visit, this time there was no need for secrecy. The inhibitor bracelets remained on Ginny's wrists, as they had since she returned from her Yaxley relatives, and they were able to use the floo rather than a portkey. For the first time since she had been attacked, Ginny stepped out of the fireplace into the Burrow. She was grateful for her grandmother's presence at her back, and leaned back against the older woman when her parents and brothers simply stood staring at them awkwardly.

Her grandfather broke the silence, stepping from behind the twins to greet his wife with a quick hug. "Cedrella! It's good to see you again. Young Ginevra is looking well."

Ginny smiled as he kissed her forehead, even though his whiskers scratched a little. After that, her parents greeted her, if carefully, as if she might explode. Her oldest three brothers shared her parents' caution, but the twins sent her speculative glances as the family trooped outside to the big copper bowl which already held the seven twigs, each from a different tree, for the fire.

"Mum made shepherd's pie," Fred whispered to her.

George nodded and rubbed his belly. "She was cooking all morning. My hands are still sore from peeling potatoes."

Ginny smiled, but didn't reply since their mother was approaching them with little bundles of herbs. She gave Ginny a bundle of heartsease and a strained smile. Fred had received the nettles this year, and was holding them gingerly, while George had a handful of something green and leafy.

Then her father was speaking, reciting the familiar Midsummer phrases about summer and the sun and light. He lit the branches with a spell, and Ginny joined her brothers and parents in tossing their herb bundles onto the fire. The fire blazed, brighter than the sun. Ginny shielded her eyes. Then there were only ashes.

Her mother levitated the still-hot bowl behind her and walked toward the edge of their land. Ginny's stomach rumbled as she followed with her father and brothers, dutifully singing. Her grandparents were resting under the big oak tree, she saw, glancing back. For a moment she envied them, then caught herself. She was with her family, celebrating Midsummer as they always had. She sung louder until Ron elbowed her. "Merlin, Ginny, keep it down! You screech like a banshee!"

"As if you could tell," Ginny said. "You're tone deaf."

"Quiet, children," their father said. Ron scowled and Ginny stuck out her tongue at him, relieved by the familiarity of it all.

Her mother scattered the last ashes at the corners of the Burrow itself, then pulled Ginny into the kitchen with her as the rest of the family took their places at the table. Ginny eyed the big platter of roast chicken, the bowl of mashed potatoes that was bigger than her head. The scent filled the kitchen and her mouth watered.

"Ginny!" Her mother whispered, and she guiltily stopped eyeing the food to look at her. "Listen, sweetie, this is important." She paused, boiling water in a teapot with a whispered charm and tossing in a bundle of herbs.

Ginny caught her breath. For a moment, she had thought one of the herbs was hypericum, could almost see it in a bottle with a label in her own handwriting and the red seal. She shook her head. It couldn't be. Her mother would never put something dangerous in tea.

"I've been researching," her mother continued, looking at Ginny with a desperate hopefulness. "Looking for a cure. I found this recipe in an old family book that said this tea could counter any sort of Dark magic. Sweetie, it's not too late for you. You can still return to the Light. Just drink and someday we'll look back on this like a bad dream."

Ginny hesitated. She remembered the wild joy that had come over her as she leapt the bonfires with her cousins, the strange sense of belonging when she sat by the pond, weaving flowers whose meanings had to be explained to her, and the wonder and fear when her fingernails and breath, her grandmother's chanting, and a pile of leaves and spit-soaked cloth combined to form the poppet.

She knew that she did not want to give up Dark magic. Even when it frightened her, it called to her at the same time. The teapot seemed sinister as it hissed on the counter, and she wanted nothing more than to run away. But this was her mother, so she stayed.

"I just want you safe and happy," her mother continued, her eyes bright with tears. "And how can you be if your whole life is shadowed? It's evil, Ginny! You don't know what it was like during the war, what they did." She was crying now, her eyes red as great gobs of tears rolled down her cheeks. "Please, Ginny! If you ever loved me, please just trust me and drink." She poured the tea into a cup and held it out, steaming in her trembling hands.

Ginny wanted to rage, to scream at the unfairness. How dare her mother ask this of her? Instead, she closed her eyes and then reached for the cup. The smell made her choke and the liquid felt like fire in her mouth, but she forced herself to swallow again and again until the cup was empty. She crumpled to the floor, doubled over around the terrible fire burning in her belly.

Her mother screamed. Footsteps shook the floor. Raised voices interrupted one another.

"What did you-"

"-just an herbal tea!"

"-call for help!"

The kitchen suddenly seemed far too bright, and Ginny closed her eyes, whimpering softly. Someone touched her neck with a cold hand, and she felt the skin tear. The fire was all around her now.

"Merlin, she's burning!"

"-St. Mungos won't treat-"

"-Dumbledore-"

She felt dizzy, as if the room was spinning. The pain, her body, and the shouting voices seemed farther away.

"-lost your mind!"

"-might kill her-"

"-already bloody dying!"

"-try anything!"

Suddenly she was levitated into the air and dunked into a huge cauldron full of cold water with squishy and stringy lumps floating in it. Someone held her under the surface and the darkness closed around her, quenching the burning fire. With the terrible fire put out, her body seemed real again. The outsides of her eyelids were dark now, so she took a risk and opened her eyes to see a murky liquid with flowers and leaves and roots and other unidentifiable things floating in it. It soothed her sore eyes.

Gradually, the need to breathe built up until it was no longer a comfort to be underwater. She tried to sit up, but the hand on her neck pressed her back down ruthlessly. Finally, she gasped for air that was not there, breathing in and swallowing some of the murky liquid around her. As it passed into her lungs and down her throat it soothed the burning. Then her head was pulled from the water and someone pounded her back until the water in her lungs spewed out. She was given a few seconds to gulp air greedily before a mass of leathery leaves and berries were shoved in her mouth. "Chew!" Her grandmother said. "Swallow when you can."

She chewed. The leaves were bitter and the berries unfamiliar and sticky, but they soothed the burning in her mouth. A few minutes later she managed to swallow the paste. Someone held a glass of water to her lips and she took a few sips.

A few moments later her belly cramped and she vomited into a pan that appeared on the floor in front of her. When she was done, it was pulled away. She curled up in the cauldron, letting the liquid soothe her blistered and peeling skin. The fire was gone, but everything still hurt, as if it had been burned. She drifted into an uneasy sleep.

Chapter Text

She woke to a whispered ennervate. She opened her mouth to tell whoever it was to go away, but choked when someone took advantage of her open mouth, pouring a foul potion in it. She tried to spit it out, but the person forced her to swallow. She opened her eyes and glared at a man with a crooked nose and dark, greasy hair. Behind him, she could see the sloping ceiling of her grandmother’s attic. "What was that?" Her voice was rough and painfully hoarse and she winced.

"You are recovering from poisoning," he said, and his voice was as beautiful as he was ugly. "Sit up, child. You must drink additional potions to heal the internal damage."

Her grandmother stepped around the stranger and helped her sit up, propping her up with pillows when it was clear that Ginny was too weak to sit up by herself. Ginny obediently drank the potions the stranger handed her. Whoever he was, her family seemed to trust him and he probably would not do her more harm. "What poison?" This time it hurt less to speak.

The stranger sighed. "Your mother, in her desire to "cure" you of your Dark magic, misunderstood the purpose of a recipe for tea she found in an old book. What she saw as a potential way to "purify" you was, in fact, a poison intended to detect and murder Dark wizards who had the poor judgment to attend a Prewitt dinner party."

"Was it really hypericum?" Ginny asked, remembering her suspicion. Her throat felt better now, and her voice was closer to normal. "But why would Mum put that in my tea? Grandmother wouldn't even let me touch it without gloves."

"It was," the stranger said, looking at her as if he were surprised she would recognize an herb. "Mixed with fennel, to prevent vomiting. Foolish child, why did you drink if you knew as much?"

Ginny shook her head. She would not tell this stranger how her mother had begged and cried. "But why didn't Mum know it was dangerous?" Surely she had not known. Surely.

There was an awkward silence while the stranger sang under his breath, weaving complicated patterns over her with his wand. Ginny felt some of the pain fade.

Finally her grandmother spoke, choosing her words carefully. "There are certain herbs which are dangerous for the two of us, but safe for your parents and brothers." What she carefully did not say, Ginny noticed, was what, exactly, Ginny and her grandmother shared that the other Weasleys did not. "Families who do not carry this vulnerability are rarely made aware of it."

Ginny sighed in relief. “So it really was an accident.”

The stranger sang one last note and turned to her grandmother. “She will recover with no permanent effects other than an increased sensitivity to hypericum.” His dark eyes focused on hers. “Miss Weasley, you must never drink hypericum again. Your grandmother will teach you how to assure that your food and drink is safe to consume. I suggest that you pay close attention.”

“Yes, sir.” Ginny said.

“You will be taking several potions for the next few weeks,” he said. “You must not miss a dose.”

“I won’t, sir,” she said.

His thin lips twitched at the edges in what might have been an aborted smile. “Good child. Rest, and I will speak to your grandmother.”

He swept into the hallway, cloak billowing, and her grandmother closed the door behind them.  

They must not have cast a privacy charm, because she heard their voices through the door. “You realize that I must report this,” he said. “Accident or no, the child would have died if you had not provided emergency treatment.”

“I understand,” her grandmother replied evenly.

“I will, of course, endeavor to keep it out of the Prophet, but there can be no guarantee.” He paused. “This is clearly not the first problem the child has had that she should not have,” he said finally. “May I ask why she is wearing inhibitor cuffs like a convict?”

“Ginevra was assaulted by a Muggle,” her grandmother replied. “She cast a wandless, wordless Avada when he was about to kill her. The DMLE insisted on the cuffs until she gains better control.”

“If she were within proper wards,” he said, “she would not need the cuffs.”  

“Perhaps,” her grandmother said. “I would prefer to pursue other avenues first. I had hoped she would be able to return to her parents by September, when I leave to teach at the primary school, but I do not think Molly will be ready.”

They walked downstairs then, but Ginny stayed awake and wondered about what she had heard. Who must the stranger report this to, and why? She hoped he was able to keep the story out of the papers, although she wasn’t sure why anyone would care about her family. It would be so embarrassing to have everyone know what had happened. It was bad enough that she had to wear the cuffs. What had he meant that she would not need the cuffs with proper wards? Maybe the house her grandmother had grown up in had had such wards, but where could she actually go? This house did not seem to, and neither did the Burrow. Where would she go when her grandmother returned to teaching in September, if she could not go home? As much as it hurt, she knew it would be a bad idea for her to go home.

She fell asleep wondering what they were considering.

It was a week before Ginny was well enough to leave her bed. As her grandmother helped her down the stairs, her muscles still burned and shook with every step. Her grandmother led her to the same upholstered chair she had sat on her first night at the cottage, then sat facing her.

"Now," she said in a coldly furious voice, "you will tell me precisely what you were thinking when you chose to drink a tea which you had reason to believe contained poison."

Ginny bit her lip and tasted something wild and earthy, left over from her morning’s potion. There was no good answer to her grandmother's question, and the older woman did not look patient. Ginny felt weary, as if someone had melted her bones and drained them out her feet. Maybe if she admitted that she had been thoughtless her grandmother might go a little easier on the scolding. "I wasn't. Thinking, that is."

"That," her grandmother said, "is abundantly clear. I trust you know never to do such a thing again. However, you would not have acted without some reason. You will explain what prompted this behavior. In detail, and until I am satisfied that you realize the depths of your recent idiocy." She leaned back in the chair and fixed her eyes on Ginny. "You may begin."

Merlin! Why had she ever thought her mother's lectures were hard to listen to? At least then she had only had to nod every so often and, later, beg a headache potion from her father. Grandmother seemed intent on making her scold herself. Ginny swallowed and began. "Mum pulled me into the kitchen to give me this tea. She begged me to drink it if I'd ever loved her. She told me to trust her. She was so hopeful and desperate and I really didn't want to do it but I couldn't say no."

"Ah," her grandmother said. "If she bids you walk off a cliff, will you do so?"

"No." Ginny looked at the floor. It had been stupid. She knew this. Still, she ought to have been able to trust her own mother.

"What if she weeps and begs? If she acts as if you will be dead to her unless you choose to be dead in truth?"

"I won't do it again," Ginny said, but her voice shook as she remembered her mother's tearful face and the desperation in her voice. "If you ever loved me..."

Her grandmother stared at her as if she could see through to some answer. "You must be certain. It is not easy to resist such manipulation."

Ginny lifted her chin defiantly. "I won't! I don't care who tells me to or what they say or how desperate they are, I'll never ever drink poison again and I won't jump off a cliff or do anything else stupid and dangerous just because someone begs me to either!"

Her grandmother's mouth flicked up at the edges so quickly that Ginny wondered if she'd imagined it. "Why will you not?"

Ginny chewed on her lip. "Because I want to live?"

"Is that a question or an answer?" Her grandmother asked. "I thought it was a question I did not need to ask - you did, after all, save yourself from that abominable Muggle - and yet you allowed your mother to feed you poison."

"It's an answer," Ginny said, remembering how desperate to live she had been when she thought the Muggle was about to kill her, and how very much the tea had hurt. "I want to live and I don't ever want to hurt like that again." She shuddered. "It felt like I was burning from the inside out."

"You were," her grandmother said grimly. "Do you believe those who love you would wish you to suffer such pain? To perhaps die?"

Ginny wanted to say that no, of course they would not, but she hesitated. "I think Mum might, if it could make me not have Dark magic. Not die, I don't think, but she might think it was worth it to hurt. Even to hurt more than the tea did."

Her grandmother met her eyes unflinchingly. "Molly very well might, although I hope that Septimus and Arthur are beginning to persuade her otherwise. Your mother is an extremely confused woman at the moment - she loves you with all her heart, yet she fears your magic. With time, we may hope she realizes that she cannot separate the two. Even if you were a Squib, Dark magic would still sing to you." She paused. "Do you think that it would be worth such pain to rid yourself of Dark magic?"

"Oh no, grandmother!" Ginny said, surprised at the question. "I don't want to be rid of it at all! The music is so beautiful and I loved jumping over the fires with my cousins and I really only drank the tea because Mum begged and cried. I know it scares people but I...I'm glad to be a Dark witch!"

Her grandmother smiled. "I am relieved, child. Very well. You may write me an essay at least one foot long explaining your thoughts on these matters. I will expect it by dinner."

"Thank you, grandmother," Ginny said.

Moody visited the next day. Again, her grandmother kept him standing at the door. “Constant vigilance!” He said in greeting. “Never trust anything someone gives you to drink! I hope you’ve learned that lesson, girl!”

“Yes, sir,” she said. Wasn’t one scolding enough? “Grandmother made me write an essay about it.”

“Good,” he nodded approvingly, and she hoped he wasn’t going to demand to read it. Instead, he turned to her grandmother. “Wanted to let you know I’m not the only one concerned about this situation. You’ll be hearing from me, and others.” He rolled his good eye. “May have to bring in MFS.”

Ginny’s grandmother nodded. “Thank you, Auror.”

Moody turned back to Ginny. “Study hard, girl, and for Merlin’s sake stop being so trusting.”

“Yes, sir,” Ginny said. She didn’t trust him - that was surely a start.

After he left, she turned to her grandmother. “Who’s concerned about what?”

“Never you mind, dear,” her grandmother said. “Come, you may help me harvest Ballistic Basil.”

The next month passed in a blur. Ginny spent the rest of June and July learning control and helping her grandmother with her herbology business. She felt as if Moody’s warning was hanging over her head like a bucket of worms that might spill on her any moment. Every few days, she saw her grandmother talking on the floo under a privacy shield. Ginny was never able to hear so much as a word, or see the faces of her grandmother’s callers, and it worried her. If she couldn’t trust her mother not to accidentally poison her, could she really trust her grandmother to handle whatever this was?

Near the end of July, she finally had a chance to see her cousins. The Aurors were still watching her grandmother’s home, but she had arranged for the cousins to meet in the Broads, claiming the need to collect various plants native to the area. So it was that Ginny found herself lying on the deck of a sailboat one night with Daphne to her right and Addie to her left. The moon was hidden behind dark clouds and the boat gently rocked on the water. The adults had long since gone below deck to sleep.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t visit sooner,” Daphne said. Her voice was barely louder than the crickets and the waves lapping at the sides of the boat. “Aunt Cedrella said her floo was monitored, and the Aurors would not have been happy to see either of us visit.”

“Why would they care?” Ginny asked. “They want me to learn control - wouldn’t it be good for me to be around you?”

Addie laughed bitterly. “You’d think so, but no. They would fear that we might corrupt you. My father and Daphne’s mother were Death Eaters.”

Ginny shivered, remembering bedtime stories of heroes who fought the Death Eaters. “You said they were - aren’t they still?”

“They’re in Azkaban,” Addie said.

“Oh.” Ginny wasn’t sure whether to say “I’m sorry” or not.

“It’s all right,” Addie said, though clearly it wasn’t. “It’s not as if we’ve ever known them. We’re both too young to visit, you know, because of the dementors. Father sends letters sometimes, but the guards read them and mark out anything they don’t like.” She swallowed. “What’s left is usually gibberish.”

“They are likely both half mad,” Daphne said. “All the prisoners go mad in the end, if they do not die first. But I have father, and Addie has grandmother and grandfather, and you needn’t look so sad because we do well enough.”

“What happened to Addie’s mum?” Ginny asked. “Was she a Death Eater too?”

“The Aurors killed her,” Addie said. “She was a healer, and pregnant, and not a Death Eater like my father. And they cast the Cruciatus on her, and kept casting it until she died.”

Merlin, Ginny thought, and gripped Addie’s hand as the boat gently rocked on the river. “Why?” She asked finally.  

“The Aurors came to our house looking for father and Aunt Iris,” Addie said. “Mother refused to tell them anything, so they cursed her. They were allowed to use the Unforgivables by then. Thais took me to the woods to hide, but we could still hear the screaming.”

“I’m sorry,” Ginny whispered.

 “We were on the wrong side, you see,” Daphne said gently. “That’s what father says. We weren’t people to them, just enemies.”

“But... torture?” The Aurors were supposed to have been good. Torture was something she'd thought only the Death Eaters had done. 

“She was only an enemy to them,” Daphne said. “The wife of a suspected Death Eater. And the Death Eaters did terrible things. Uncle Augustus was a researcher, but my mother was a fighter. Father says that the people she killed were not people to her either, that just like the Aurors she saw them only as enemies. He says that she fought for what she believed in, that she wanted a better world for Astoria and I. I understand, but sometimes I wish she had chosen a safer way. It might have been nice to have a mother.”

“Am...am I their enemy too?”

Daphne stroked the inhibitor bracelets. “I do not think they have decided entirely, but I do not think they see you as part of the public they are sworn to protect.”

The three girls lay in silence, listening to the lap of the water until they fell asleep.