Chapter Text
The broom was a familiar weight between her thighs, the handle worn smooth from years of use, and the wind tore the breath from her lungs in a way that felt like coming home. Ginny banked hard around the old oak at the edge of the property, her braid whipping behind her like a flag, and for one perfect moment she was nothing but muscle and instinct and the furious joy of motion.
She didn't think about the cramped house. She didn't think about the mended patches on her robes or the way her mother's eyes went tight when the post arrived. She didn't think about the whispers in the kitchen late at night, the ones that stopped the moment she walked in.
She was flying. That was all.
The Quaffle was tucked under her arm — an old, battered thing she'd nicked from the shed, half-deflated and scuffed beyond recognition — and she was aiming for the rusted hoop Fred and George had nailed to the barn years ago. She'd made the shot a hundred times. A thousand. It never got old.
She was pulling back for the throw when the sound cut through.
"GINEVRA MOLLY WEASLEY!"
Her mother's voice had a particular quality to it — sharp enough to slice through a gale, clear enough to carry across the entire property, and laced with a specific kind of urgency that meant Ginny was in trouble. Usually for something she'd done. Sometimes just for existing.
She didn't stop. She lined up the shot, twisted her wrist, and watched the Quaffle sail clean through the hoop with a satisfying thwack against the rotted metal. Then she slowed, circling once, twice, letting herself have the last few seconds of sky before she descended.
Her mother was standing at the back door, apron on, hands planted on her hips, and her expression said everything Ginny needed to know about the state of things.
"Did you hear me calling?"
"I heard you," Ginny said, landing lightly on the grass. She tucked her broom under her arm and pushed her hair out of her face, which was probably a mistake — her hand came away smeared with dirt and sweat. "What is it?"
"Your Aunt Muriel is here."
Ginny's stomach dropped somewhere around her knees. "Oh, no."
"Don't 'oh no' me." Molly's voice was doing that strained thing, the one that meant she was trying very hard not to shout. "She's come all this way to see you, and you're out here flying like a — like a — "
"Like a what, Mum?"
"Like a boy. Like a common street urchin. Like someone who doesn't have the first clue about how to present herself."
Ginny looked down at herself. Her robes were filthy. Her hair was escaping its braid in wild, sweaty tendrils. Her face was flushed and streaked with dirt. She'd never felt more like herself in her entire life.
"So I should change," she said flatly.
"You should change," Molly agreed, and her voice cracked just slightly on the second word. "You should wash your face. You should brush your hair. You should put on something that doesn't — that doesn't look like you've been wrestling a Hippogriff in a mud pit."
"It was just flying, Mum."
"I know what it was. I also know what it looks like, and that's what matters right now." Molly's hands had unplanted themselves from her hips and were now gripping each other in front of her apron, the knuckles white. "Muriel is old, Ginny. She's set in her ways. She wants to see that we're — that you're — "
"She wants to sneer at how poor we are," Ginny said, and her voice came out harder than she'd intended. "She wants to tell us how far we've fallen. She wants to remind us that we used to be something and now we're nothing, and she's going to do it while we serve her tea we can barely afford."
Molly's face went pale. Then pink. Then a sort of blotchy red that Ginny had learned to recognize as the color of her mother's deepest unhappiness.
"Go inside," Molly said quietly. "Change. Be polite. That's all I'm asking."
Ginny opened her mouth to argue. She closed it again. Her mother's hands were still gripping each other, and something about the sight of them — the knuckles white, the fingers pressed together like she was holding on to something that kept slipping away — made Ginny's throat feel tight.
"Fine," she said. "I'll change."
She climbed the stairs slowly, her broom still under her arm, and she could already hear Muriel's voice from the sitting room — a high, thin, carrying sound like a badly tuned instrument. Complaining about the temperature. Complaining about the furniture. Complaining about everything Ginny had grown up learning to ignore.
She changed into her best robes. They were her best by default, which meant they were simply the least faded and the most carefully mended — a soft blue that had been nice once, years ago, before the elbows wore thin and the hem frayed. She washed her face. She re-braided her hair with vicious, jerking tugs of the brush. She looked at herself in the mirror, and she saw her mother's face staring back at her. That was the thing about being the only daughter — you inherited not just your mother's hair, but her burdens.
She went downstairs.
Muriel was perched on the settee like a particularly judgmental bird — all sharp angles and disapproving beak. Her robes were the color of dried blood, trimmed with lace that probably cost more than the Weasley family's entire grocery budget for the year. She was wearing enough jewelry to fund a small orphanage, and she was looking at Ginny the way someone might look at a stain on a prized carpet.
"Finally," Muriel said. "I was beginning to think you'd flown off to join a circus."
"Mum said you wanted to see me," Ginny said, and she kept her voice perfectly level. "Hello, Aunt Muriel."
"Don't 'hello' me. Look at you. Pink in the face, all that hair falling out of your braid, robes that I'm fairly certain I donated to the church three years ago." Muriel's eyes swept over her from head to toe, and Ginny felt a hot flush spread across her cheeks that had nothing to do with her flying. "I heard you out there. Flying around like some — some common farmhand. On a broom, of all things."
"I've been flying since I was six years old."
"And what has it got you?" Muriel demanded. "Muscles, I suppose. And dirt. And a disposition that would frighten off any eligible wizard with half a brain." She leaned forward, her eyes narrowing. "Do you know what people say about you, Ginevra? Do you have any idea what the other families think?"
"That I'm poor and I don't care who knows it."
Muriel made a sound like a cat being stepped on. "That you're wild. That you're unmanageable. That you've spent your entire life running around with those brothers of yours like a feral creature nobody bothered to train." She waved a hand in Ginny's direction, the rings on her fingers catching the light. "And now you're of age, and where are the suitors? Where are the offers? You could have had your pick of the Sacred Twenty-Eight if your mother had raised you properly, but instead she let you run wild, and now look at you."
Molly was standing in the corner, her hands still clasped in front of her, her face a careful mask of nothing. She'd learned to go still like that when Muriel visited. Ginny had learned to do the opposite.
"I don't want a suitor," Ginny said evenly. "I want to fly."
"And I want to be Minister for Magic, but we don't always get what we want, do we?" Muriel's voice had gone sharp and brittle, the way it always did when she was about to deliver the real blow. "You think you can survive on broomsticks and stubbornness? You think you can live forever in this — this hovel, with your mother's mended robes and your father's impossible dreams?"
"We do just fine."
"Fine." Muriel laughed, a thin, high sound that didn't reach her eyes. "You call this fine? You're one bad harvest away from destitution, girl. One poor year. One expensive illness. One — " she paused, and her eyes glittered — "one failure of a marriage contract, and you'll all be living on the streets."
Ginny felt the words hit like a physical blow. She didn't show it. She'd learned that too, growing up poor and proud in a house full of brothers who could always outrun, outcurse, or outcharm their way out of trouble. She was the girl. She couldn't run. She had to stand.
"We're not destitute," she said, and her voice was steady even though her hands were shaking. "We have my father's position at the Ministry. We have the Burrow. We have — "
"Pride," Muriel cut in. "You have pride. And what does pride buy, Ginevra? What does it pay for?"
Ginny opened her mouth. Closed it.
"Tea?" Molly said suddenly, her voice bright and brittle as glass. "Muriel, can I get you more tea? I think the pot's gone cold, I'll just heat it up — "
"I don't want tea." Muriel's eyes hadn't left Ginny's face. "I want to know if this girl has any idea what's coming. I want to know if she's prepared to do what needs to be done, or if she's going to keep flying around like a reckless child and drag what's left of this family into the mud with her."
The air in the room seemed to thin out. Ginny could feel her mother's eyes on her, could feel the weight of the silence pressing in from all sides. She thought about the broom waiting for her outside, the wind in her hair, the way nothing else mattered when she was in the sky.
She thought about the empty vault at Gringotts. The worn patches on her brothers' robes. The way her father's shoulders curved inward these days, like he was trying to make himself smaller in a world that kept demanding he grow.
"I know what's coming," she said quietly.
"Then sit like a lady," Muriel snapped, gesturing at the chair across from her. "I'm not having this conversation while you stand there like a common street sweeper. Sit. Back straight. Knees together. And for Merlin's sake, don't slouch."
Ginny sat. She straightened her spine. She pressed her knees together. She folded her hands in her lap.
"Better," Muriel said, with the tone of someone who was about to find something else wrong. "Now, I've been making inquiries. Quiet ones, because this family's reputation can't afford any more scandal than it already has."
"What kind of inquiries?"
"The kind your mother should have been making years ago." Muriel leaned back, settling herself more comfortably on the settee, and her expression shifted into something that was almost satisfied. Almost triumphant. "There are families, Ginevra. Families with money. Families with influence. Families who might be persuaded to look past your — your rough edges in exchange for what the Weasley name still carries."
"You're shopping me around."
"I'm securing your future." Muriel's voice was sharp again, the satisfaction evaporating into irritation. "Don't be obtuse. You think I enjoy this? Do you think I enjoy coming to this — this hovel and pretending that the cobwebs are decorative and the threadbare curtains are charming? I'm the only one in this family willing to do what needs to be done."
Ginny's fingers were twisting together in her lap. She forced them still.
"Let me tell you about what happened to a girl like you," Muriel continued, her voice dropping into something that was almost confidential. "A girl who flew too much. A girl who talked back. A girl who thought she could have everything because she wanted it badly enough." She paused, and her eyes were cold and hard. "She ended up unmarried at thirty, living with her mother, spending her evenings polishing silver that had been in the family for generations and watching everyone else's children grow up and become something while she became nothing."
"The girl being you?"
Muriel's face went through a complicated series of expressions — shock, then fury, then something that looked almost like hurt before it hardened into pure venom. "How dare you — "
"I don't mean to be rude," Ginny said, and she didn't, not exactly, but the words were already out of her mouth and there was no taking them back. "I just — you're telling me I'll end up alone and bitter if I don't do what you say. But you ended up alone and bitter anyway, and you did everything right. You married well. You had money. You had everything I'm supposed to want. And you're still — "
She stopped. The silence that followed was absolute.
Muriel's face had gone very pale, and then very red, and her hands were gripping the arms of the settee with a ferocity that made her rings dig into the upholstery. Molly was making a sound somewhere in the background — a small, strangled noise of protest — but Ginny couldn't hear it over the roaring in her ears.
"Finish that sentence," Muriel said, her voice dangerously quiet. "I dare you."
Ginny finished it.
"You're still unhappy." The words came out flat and quiet, stripped of all heat. "That's what I don't understand. You had everything you're telling me to want, and you're the most miserable person I've ever met. Why would I take advice from someone whose life made them this?"
The blow came faster than Ginny expected — a bony, ring-covered hand connecting with her cheek in a sharp crack that echoed through the sitting room. Her head snapped to the side, and for a moment she saw stars, white and scattered, like she'd been flying too close to the sun and it had finally burned her.
"Muriel!" Molly's voice was sharp with horror. "You can't — she's just a girl — "
"She's a disrespectful little wretch who needs to learn her place," Muriel hissed. "And if you won't teach her, I will. She thinks she knows about misery? She thinks she knows about sacrifice?" She was on her feet now, towering over Ginny, and her voice had gone shrill and jagged. "I lost my husband when I was forty-two. I lost my only son in the war. I have spent the last thirty years of my life watching this family destroy itself piece by piece, and I will not — I will not — sit here and be lectured by a girl who thinks a broomstick is a substitute for a backbone."
Ginny's cheek was throbbing. She could taste blood, just a little, where her teeth had cut the inside of her mouth. She didn't lift her hand to touch it.
"I didn't — " she started, and then she stopped, because what was the point? Her mother was wringing her hands in the corner. Muriel was shaking with rage. The dust motes in the sunlight looked like scattered gold, like everything the Weasleys had ever lost.
"You know nothing," Muriel said, her voice quieter now, but no less sharp. "You've been protected all your life, Ginevra. Your brothers love you. Your parents shelter you. You've never known what it means to truly be alone, truly have nothing, truly need to claw your way out of a hole with nothing but your bare hands and your wits."
Ginny thought about the vault at Gringotts. The empty one. The one her father couldn't bear to talk about.
"I know what it's like to have nothing," she said quietly.
"Then act like it," Muriel spat. "Because the families I'm talking to — the families I'm working to bring to this table — they will not tolerate a wife who speaks out of turn. They will not tolerate a wife who flies like a man and talks back like a street urchin and sits in a chair like she owns the world when she can't even afford to mend her own robes." She leaned down, her face inches from Ginny's, and her breath smelled like old tea and bitterness. "If you want to save this family, you will learn to be what they need. And if you can't do that — if you're too proud, too stubborn, too stupid to see what's right in front of you — then you will watch them all fall, and it will be your fault."
The words hung in the air like smoke.
Ginny didn't cry. She never cried in front of Muriel — that was the one victory she'd always been able to claim, the one small rebellion she'd held onto over the years. But something in her chest felt hollow and cold, like the wind had gotten inside her and stolen all the warmth she'd stored up from the sun.
"I'll be what they need," she said, and her voice came out steady even though she didn't feel steady at all. "I'll learn to sit properly. I'll learn to speak properly. I'll learn whatever you want me to learn."
Muriel's eyes narrowed. "And?"
"And I'll marry whoever you find." The words tasted like ash. "If that's what it takes to save my family."
The silence stretched between them, thick and awful, and Ginny sat with her spine straight and her knees pressed together and her hands folded neatly in her lap — a perfect image of ladylike composure, just like Muriel wanted.
She'd never felt more like a caged bird in her entire life.
"That's better," Muriel finally said, and her voice had smoothed out into something almost approving. "That's much better. See? You can be civil when you try."
Molly had crept forward, her face a complicated mixture of relief and guilt and something that might have been grief. "Ginny, dear, why don't you — "
"I'll make more tea," Ginny said, and she rose from her chair with her spine still straight and her hands still steady. "Would anyone like more tea?"
She walked into the kitchen on legs that felt like someone else's, and she stood at the counter with her back to the sitting room, and she let the tears come — silent, hot, sliding down her cheeks and dripping onto the chipped enamel of the sink.
Her face still throbbed where Muriel had hit her.
She didn't touch it.
She'd made her mother a promise, a long time ago, that she would never give Muriel the satisfaction of seeing her cry. It was the only promise she'd ever made that she intended to keep.
The kettle was cold. She filled it with her shaking hands and lit the flame with a flick of her wand, and she stood there watching the water heat up, and she thought about the broom waiting for her by the back door.
She wanted to fly.
She wanted to feel the wind in her hair and the sky under her feet and forget that any of this existed — the sitting room, the old woman, the negotiations that were happening behind her back like she was a piece of furniture being appraised.
But that wasn't her life anymore. It had never been her life, really. Just a dream she'd been allowed to hold onto for a little while.
Her cheek was throbbing.
The kettle began to steam.
Ginny wiped her face with the back of her hand, squared her shoulders, and carried the tea back to the sitting room.
Muriel accepted her refilled cup without thanks and took a long, deliberate sip. Her eyes never left Ginny's face, and there was something in them that made Ginny's skin crawl — satisfaction, maybe, or the particular pleasure of a cat who had cornered a mouse and was deciding how long to play with it.
"Better," Muriel said, setting the cup down on its saucer with a delicate clink. "You almost look presentable when you try. A pity you don't try more often."
Ginny said nothing. Her hands were folded in her lap, her knees pressed together, her spine straight against the back of the chair. She was a perfect picture of ladylike composure, and she hated every second of it.
"Now," Muriel continued, settling back against the settee with the air of someone about to deliver a lecture, "we need to talk about what comes next. Because you're nineteen years old, Ginevra. Nineteen. Do you know how old most girls were when they married, in the old days?"
"Sixteen," Ginny said flatly. "Seventeen. I've heard the stories."
"Sixteen," Muriel repeated, as if Ginny hadn't spoken. "Seventeen at the latest. By nineteen, they were already mothers. Already settled. Already secure. And here you are, still flying around on that broomstick like a child, with no prospects and no understanding of how the world works."
"I understand how the world works."
"Then you understand that you're old." Muriel's voice was sharp and merciless. "Too old for a first match. Too old to be choosy. Too old to be running around in the mud pretending you're still a girl." She leaned forward, her eyes narrowing. "Do you know what people say about girls who fly like men?"
Ginny didn't answer. She already knew where this was going.
"They say it damages them." Muriel's voice dropped into something almost confidential, almost conspiratorial. "The broomstick. The constant jarring, the jostling, the strain on the body. They say it — it affects things. The parts of you that matter." She paused, letting the words settle. "The parts that produce heirs."
"Muriel," Molly said, her voice strained, "I don't think we need to — "
"She needs to hear it." Muriel waved a dismissive hand in Molly's direction without looking away from Ginny. "She needs to understand what's at stake. No husband wants a wife who can't give him children. No family wants a daughter-in-law who's damaged her — her equipment — with years of reckless flying." She paused again, her lips pursed. "I've heard stories, Ginevra. Women who flew too much, who couldn't conceive. Women who flew while with child and lost the baby. It's not safe. It's not proper. And if you want to secure a match, you need to stop."
Ginny's fingers tightened in her lap. "I've been flying since I was six. I'm fine."
"Are you?" Muriel's eyebrows shot up. "How do you know? Have you been checked? Have you had a Healer look at you?"
"Muriel, please — "
"You can't know," Muriel pressed, her voice relentless. "You can't know what damage you've done. And even if you haven't done any damage yet, you might. Every time you get on that broom, you're risking the one thing that makes you valuable. Do you understand that? Your value is in your blood and your womb, and if you damage either one, you're worthless."
The word hung in the air like a curse.
Molly made a small sound of protest. Ginny said nothing. Her face was perfectly still, perfectly composed, and inside her chest something was cracking along hairline fractures she didn't know how to repair.
"That's enough," Molly said, and her voice was sharper than Ginny had heard it all afternoon. "Muriel, I won't have you speaking to my daughter like that. She's not — she's not worthless. She's a good girl, a smart girl, and she'll make a fine wife for someone."
"I'm not saying she won't." Muriel's tone had softened into something almost reasonable, which was somehow worse. "I'm saying she needs to understand the stakes. She needs to stop acting like a child and start acting like a woman who understands what's being offered to her."
"Offered?" Ginny's voice came out before she could stop it. "What's being offered to me?"
Muriel smiled. It was not a kind smile.
"There are families," she said slowly, savoring each word like a sweet, "who are looking for a wife. Families with money. Families with influence. Families who might be willing to overlook certain — eccentricities — in exchange for what the Weasley name still carries."
"You said that before." Ginny was gripping her own hands now, her knuckles white against the blue of her robes. "You said you were making inquiries. But you didn't say who."
"Because I wasn't sure if you were ready to hear it." Muriel picked up her tea again, took another sip, and set it down with the same delicate clink. "But I think perhaps you are. I think perhaps you need to know what's at stake, so you understand why you need to stop flying and start behaving like a lady."
Ginny waited. The silence stretched between them, thick and unbearable.
"The Potters," Muriel said.
Ginny blinked. "The Potters?"
"The Potters." Muriel nodded, her expression satisfied. "James Potter is looking for a wife for his son. He's been asking around, making discreet inquiries. And I've been — making myself available to those inquiries."
"The Potters," Molly repeated, and her voice had gone strange. "Muriel, you can't be serious. The Potters?"
"They have money," Muriel said, as if that explained everything. "More money than any family in Britain, probably. James Potter has been very clever with his investments, and his father before him was clever with the potions business. The vaults are — well, they're more than this family could ever dream of."
"But they're — " Molly stopped, her hands twisting together in her lap. "They're new."
"New money is still money." Muriel's voice was sharp again. "And right now, this family needs money more than it needs pride. The Potters are looking for a pureblood girl. A good one. A respectable one." She paused, and her eyes slid back to Ginny. "They're not going to get one from the Sacred Twenty-Eight."
"Why not?" Ginny asked, and her voice came out steadier than she felt.
"Because of the boy." Muriel's lips curled. "Harry Potter is half-blood. His mother was a Muggle-born. Lily Evans, her name was. Pretty enough, I suppose, but common as muck. She had no family, no connections, no blood to speak of. And James Potter married her anyway."
Ginny had heard whispers about James Potter's muggleborn bride. Everyone had. A Muggle-born who somehow caught the eye of one of the wealthiest pureblood heirs in Britain. A love match, they said. Romantic. Tragic. She'd died young, leaving behind a son and a grieving husband.
"Nobody knows what happened to her," Muriel continued, her voice dropping into something that was almost gossipy. "Died of something mysterious, they say. There are rumors, of course — always are — but nothing confirmed. And the boy was raised in the Muggle world for a while, after she died. Can you imagine? The heir to the Potter fortune, running around with Muggle children, learning Muggle ways. It's a scandal, really. It's no wonder the old families won't touch him."
"But the Potters have money," Molly said slowly.
"They have money," Muriel agreed. "And a half-blood son who needs a pureblood bride. A good bride. One with enough blood to give his children legitimacy, but not enough pride to turn her nose up at him." She paused, her eyes sharpening. "That's where we come in."
Ginny felt the words land like blows. "You want me to marry Harry Potter."
"I want you to meet him," Muriel corrected. "I want you to be presented to him. I want you to smile and sit properly and say the right things, and I want you to make him think that you're exactly what he needs."
"I don't even know him."
"You don't need to know him." Muriel's voice was dismissive. "You need to marry him. The rest comes later."
Ginny opened her mouth. Closed it. She could feel her mother's eyes on her, could feel the weight of the room pressing in from all sides.
"Are the Potters — " Molly stopped. Swallowed. "Are they actually interested? In our Ginny?"
Muriel's face shifted into something that was almost satisfied. "I've been speaking with Harry Potter's godfather. Sirius Black. He's the one handling the social side of things — James Potter is too emotional about the whole affair, apparently. Too caught up in his own feelings. Sirius is more practical. He understands the value of a good match."
"Sirius Black," Molly repeated, and her voice was faint. "He's — Muriel, he's from the Black family. The Black family."
"Sirius Black is a Black by blood, but he's no friend to the family." Muriel's lip curled. "He was disowned years ago. Too much loyalty to the Potters, not enough loyalty to his own blood. Abd he’s the last heir of the line. But he's still a Black, and that name carries weight, even if he's personally repulsive." She paused. "He's the one I'm dealing with. He's the one who wants to meet you."
"Meet me?" Ginny's voice was barely a whisper.
"At the Malfoy Summer Solstice." Muriel smiled, and it was the most triumphant expression Ginny had ever seen on her face. "I've secured an invitation. Through connections, obviously — the Malfoys wouldn't invite the Weasleys on their own. But they'll tolerate you for one evening, if I ask nicely enough."
"Malfoy," Ginny repeated. "Draco Malfoy?"
"The Malfoy family," Muriel corrected, as if Draco Malfoy were beneath her notice. "They host the Summer Solstice every year. Everyone who's anyone attends — the Sacred Twenty-Eight, the old families, the wealthy merchants, and yes, even the new money like the Potters. It's the perfect place for an introduction."
Ginny thought about the Malfoys. She thought about the way they'd sneered at her family for years, the way Draco Malfoy had made her brothers' lives miserable at school, the way his father had been instrumental in pushing through laws that made purebloods even richer and everyone else poorer.
"I can't go to a Malfoy ball," she said, and her voice was trembling just slightly. "They hate us. They've always hated us."
"They hate your poverty," Muriel said bluntly. "They hate your father's politics. They hate the way you've let yourselves fall so far from what you used to be. But they don't hate your blood. That's the only thing you still have, Ginevra. That's the only thing that's keeping you off the street." She paused, her eyes cold and hard. "The Malfoys will tolerate your presence for one evening because I've called in every favor I have. You will go, and you will smile, and you will meet Harry Potter, and you will make him like you."
"And if he doesn't like me?"
Muriel's face went through a complicated series of expressions. "Then we find someone else. But the Potters are our best hope. They have the gold, and they have the desperation. No pureblood family will touch their half-blood son, not for love or money. But you — you're pureblood, and you're poor, and you're desperate enough to overlook the boy's deficiencies."
Ginny's fingers were trembling now. She forced them still. "What deficiencies?"
"Oh, nothing you need to worry about yet." Muriel waved a hand dismissively. "He's not — well, he's not exactly a gentleman, from what I understand. Raised in the Muggle world, you see. No proper upbringing. No understanding of how things work. He's rough around the edges, they say. Unpolished. Blunt. Doesn't know how to behave in polite company."
Ginny felt something shift in her chest — a cold, bitter feeling that she couldn't quite name. She was being told to marry a half-blood raised by Muggles, a boy who didn't know how to hold a fork or bow to a lady, all because her family was too poor to do any better.
"So he's — " she started, and then she stopped. She didn't know how to finish the sentence.
"Rough," Muriel said again. "Uncivilized. They say he speaks too loudly and wears the wrong clothes and doesn't know how to read a room." She paused, and her eyes glittered. "But he has money. And that's what matters."
Ginny said nothing. She was thinking about Harry Potter now, imagining him in her head — a lumpy, uncouth brute with dirt under his nails and too much food on his plate. A savage in fine robes, running around the Potter mansion like a bull in a china shop. She imagined his voice, loud and grating. She imagined his hands, calloused and clumsy. She imagined him laughing like a common drunkard while everyone around him cringed with embarrassment.
She imagined him standing across from her at an altar, and the thought made her stomach turn.
"Can you imagine a man like that being a good husband?" Muriel continued, clearly enjoying herself. "Can you imagine him in a drawing room, surrounded by the Sacred Twenty-Eight, talking about — about Quidditch and Muggle things and whatever else he learned on the streets with those common children?"
Ginny could imagine it. She could imagine it all too well. She could imagine standing beside him while he fumbled his way through a dinner party, while the other guests whispered and laughed behind their hands, while everyone in the room knew that Ginevra Weasley had married down — married sideways, at least, because the gold made up for the blood, but the gold didn't make up for the shame.
"He's not all bad, I suppose," Muriel said, and the concession sounded almost painful. "He's handsome enough, in a rough sort of way. Dark hair, green eyes, a scar on his forehead from some childhood accident. He's tall, I've heard. Strong. He could do worse."
"A scar," Ginny repeated. She'd heard about the scar too, everyone had. A mysterious mark on Harry Potter's forehead that everyone whispered about but no one understood. She imagined a jagged, ugly thing, like a crack in an otherwise undistinguished face.
"A scar," Muriel confirmed. "I've never seen it myself, but I'm told it's not — it's not pleasant. But then, neither are you, when you've been flying all day." She smiled, thin and sharp. "You can wear your hair over it. Or make him wear his. It's fine."
Ginny's hands had clenched into fists in her lap. She was imagining Harry Potter now — a tall, brutish figure with a jagged scar on his forehead and dirt under his nails. She imagined him speaking in a common voice, laughing too loud, taking too much food at a formal dinner. She imagined him looking at her with hungry eyes, like she was a prize to be won rather than a person to be known.
She wanted to throw up.
"I don't want to marry him," she said quietly.
Muriel's face hardened. "You don't have a choice."
"There's always a choice — "
"Not when your family is drowning." Muriel's voice was sharp and cutting. "Not when your mother can't afford to mend her robes. Not when your father's job is hanging by a thread and your brothers are all going to need dowries if they ever want to marry." She paused, and her eyes were cold and pitiless. "You're the only daughter, Ginevra. You're the only one who can save them. And if that means marrying a half-blood brute who doesn't know which fork to use, then that's what you'll do."
The words hung in the air. Ginny's throat felt like it was closing up. She could feel her mother's eyes on her, could see the way Molly was wringing her hands in her lap, like she wanted to say something but couldn't.
"How do you know he'll want me?" Ginny asked, and her voice came out small and strange. "If he's so — if he's so rough and unpolished, how do you know he'll want a wife who's just as poor as he is common?"
Muriel smiled, and it was the cruelest thing Ginny had seen all afternoon.
"Because his godfather is Sirius Black," she said, "and Sirius Black owes me a favor. A very old favor, from a very long time ago. He will bring Harry to the gathering. He will introduce you. And he will make sure that Harry understands exactly what you have to offer."
"Which is?"
Muriel leaned forward, her eyes glittering. "A pureblood name. A pureblood womb. And absolutely no pride left to stand in the way."
Ginny sat in the chair with her spine straight and her hands folded and her face perfectly composed, and she thought about Harry Potter — the brute with the scar, the savage in fine robes, the half-blood who was too rough to get a proper wife and had to settle for a poor girl from a fallen family.
She hated him. She hated him for existing, for being the only option, for being so desperate and uncivilized that her family had to sell her to him like livestock. She hated the way her mother was wringing her hands, the way Muriel was smiling like she'd won something important.
She hated herself for wanting to cry.
"The Malfoy Summer Solstice," she said finally, and her voice was steady. "When is it?"
"Two weeks from now," Muriel said. "That gives you time to learn some manners. Some proper deportment. Some — " she paused, her eyes sweeping over Ginny's robes " — better clothes."
"We can't afford better clothes."
"You won't have to." Muriel's smile widened. "I'll be providing them. Borrowed, of course. The Weasley family doesn't own anything fine enough to wear to a Malfoy ball." She paused, and her voice was cold. "I'll be making a few sacrifices for this. You will not fail me, Ginevra. You will not embarrass me. Do you understand?"
Ginny understood. She understood everything.
"Yes, Aunt Muriel," she said quietly.
She sat in the chair with her knees pressed together and her hands folded in her lap, and she thought about Harry Potter — the scarred, rough-mannered brute who was apparently her only hope. She imagined him in her head, ugly and loud and common, and she felt something twist in her chest that she couldn't quite name.
It might have been hatred. It might have been grief. It might have been the cold, bitter taste of her own future, being decided for her while she sat there like a perfect little doll.
She didn't say another word.
***
Harry was elbow-deep in a vat of simmering Sleekeazy's base when Sirius found him.
The potion was at that delicate stage where it needed constant stirring — not too fast, not too slow, just a steady, rhythmic motion that let the ingredients bind without separating. Harry had been at it for nearly two hours, his sleeves rolled up past his elbows, a fine sheen of sweat on his forehead, and he'd almost managed to forget that the rest of the world existed.
Almost.
"Harry." Sirius's voice cut through the steam like a blade. "There you are. I've been looking everywhere."
Harry didn't stop stirring. "I'm working."
"You're always working." Sirius stepped closer, peering into the vat with an expression of exaggerated suspicion. "What is that, anyway? It looks like bog water."
"It's the base for the conditioning formula." Harry adjusted the heat with a flick of his wand, never breaking the rhythm of his stirring. "We're trying to reduce the drying time without losing the shine effect. It's been a nightmare."
"Fascinating." Sirius's tone suggested it was anything but. "Put it down. We need to talk."
"Can it wait?"
"No."
Harry sighed and gave the potion one last rotation before lifting the stirring rod and letting it drip clean. He set it aside, wiped his hands on his robes — which were already stained with half a dozen other potions, so what was one more — and turned to face his godfather.
Sirius was leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed, his dark hair falling across his face in that deliberately careless way that Harry had always suspected was more practiced than it looked. He was wearing robes that cost more than most people's monthly rent, and he looked like he'd just come from somewhere important.
"The Malfoy Summer Solstice," Sirius said. "You're going."
Harry stared at him. "I'm what?"
"You're going. To the Solstice. The Malfoys host it every year — garden party, too much champagne, everyone who's anyone pretending they don't hate everyone else." Sirius paused, and something flickered across his face. "A match has been fixed."
Harry felt his stomach drop. "A match."
"A potential match," Sirius corrected, holding up a hand. "Nothing's signed yet. Nothing's even been properly discussed. But James and I have been making inquiries, and there's a family — "
"No."
"Harry — "
"No." The word came out sharper than he'd intended, and he saw Sirius's expression shift — not to anger, exactly, but to something more complicated. Something that looked almost like pity. "I'm not doing this. I'm not — I'm not being paraded around like a prize stallion while some family tries to figure out how much my name is worth."
"That's not what this is."
"Isn't it?" Harry's voice was rising now, and he could feel the heat of the potion vat at his back, the steam curling around his shoulders like a warning. "You and my father have been making inquiries. You've been talking to families. You've been — what, comparing dowries? Assessing bloodlines? Trying to figure out which daughter is desperate enough to marry the scarred Potter boy?"
Sirius was quiet for a moment. Then he pushed off from the doorframe and walked closer, his face unreadable in the dim light of the brewing room.
"Your father wants what's best for you," he said quietly. "So do I."
"Then leave me alone."
"I can't do that." Sirius stopped a few feet away, close enough that Harry could see the lines around his eyes, the ones that had gotten deeper over the years. "You know I can't do that. James is — he's worried about you, Harry. About your future. About what happens when — "
"When what?"
Sirius's jaw tightened. He didn't finish the sentence.
Harry let out a breath, long and slow, and ran a hand through his hair. He could feel the tension in his shoulders, the familiar ache that came from hours of hunching over potions, and he wished — not for the first time — that he could just disappear into the work and never come out.
"I don't understand," he said, and his voice was quieter now. "That's the thing. I don't understand why this matters so much. My father married a Muggle-born. He married for love. He didn't care about bloodlines or dowries or any of it. He just — he loved her. And now he's trying to arrange a marriage for me like I'm a piece of property."
Sirius was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was carefully neutral.
"Your father married your mother because he loved her. But he also married her because he could. He had the money. He had the name. He had the luxury of choosing whoever he wanted, because the Potter family was already secure." He paused. "Things are different now."
"Different how?"
Sirius opened his mouth. Closed it. Harry watched something move behind his eyes — a thought that seemed to want to come out, then reconsidered.
"The Ministry is changing," Sirius said finally. "There are things happening — things I can't talk about yet, not properly. But the old families are consolidating power. They're making alliances. And the families who aren't part of those alliances — "
"They're being left out."
"Worse than left out." Sirius's voice had gone low and serious. "They're being targeted. Made examples of. If you don't have the right connections, the right blood, the right — the right everything — then you're vulnerable. And your father has worked too hard to build what he's built to watch it all crumble because we didn't secure the right alliances."
Harry stared at him. Something was brewing in the Ministry. Something Sirius couldn't talk about yet. Something that made marriage alliances a matter of survival rather than convenience.
"I don't care about the Ministry," Harry said. "I don't care about alliances. I care about my life. My choices."
"And what choices do you have?" Sirius's voice was sharp now, cutting through the steam. "You can marry someone suitable, someone who brings something to the table, someone who helps secure the family's future. Or you can refuse, and watch everything your father built fall apart because you were too stubborn to — "
"Too stubborn to what? Sell myself?"
"Too stubborn to see the bigger picture."
Harry's hands were shaking. He shoved them into his pockets, but that didn't stop the trembling, and he hated that Sirius could see it. He hated that he couldn't control it.
Sirius was quiet for a long moment. Then, unexpectedly, he laughed — a low, rueful sound that seemed to surprise even him.
"If I had a daughter," he said, "I'd marry her to you myself. You're a good man, Harry. A better man than most. And I don't say that lightly." He paused, and something softened in his expression. "I don't want you to marry some unknown girl either. I want you to be happy. But we don't live in the world where that's always possible."
Harry said nothing. His hands were still shaking in his pockets.
"Your father and I have been talking about this for months," Sirius continued, his voice gentler now. "We've looked at every family. Every eligible daughter. And there's one — one family that might work. One girl who might actually be — "
"Don't tell me she's perfect."
"She's not perfect." A ghost of a smile crossed Sirius's face. "She's stubborn. She's proud. She's got a temper that could probably level a small village. And she's poor enough that her family's desperate."
"That's supposed to make me feel better?"
"No." Sirius's smile faded. "It's supposed to make you understand. She's not going to want this any more than you do. She's not going to be some simpering princess who's been trained her whole life to smile and nod and say the right things. She's going to be angry. She's going to be resentful. And maybe — maybe that's what you need."
Harry stared at him. "You want me to marry someone who hates me?"
"I want you to marry someone who's real." Sirius met his eyes, and there was something raw and honest in his gaze. "Someone who won't pretend to like you for your gold. Someone who'll fight with you, push back against you, make you work for it. Because the alternative — a wife who nods and smiles and takes your money while secretly despising you — that's a life worse than being alone."
Harry opened his mouth. Closed it. He didn't know what to say.
"I'm not asking you to fall in love," Sirius continued. "I'm not even asking you to like her. I'm asking you to show up. To give it a chance. To see if there's something there worth building on."
"And if there isn't?"
Sirius's expression flickered. "Then we try again. But I have a feeling — a very strong feeling — that there might be more there than you think."
The silence stretched between them, thick and uncomfortable. Harry could hear the faint bubbling of the potion behind him, the distant clatter of workers in the other rooms. His father's company. His father's legacy. The weight of it pressed down on him like a physical thing.
"When's the Solstice?" he asked finally.
"Two weeks." Sirius's voice was carefully neutral. "The Malfoy manor. Formal robes. I'm taking you robe shopping tomorrow."
"Robe shopping?" Harry's voice rose in protest. "I have robes. I have plenty of robes."
"Nice robes. The kind that say 'I'm the heir to a fortune and I know how to spend it' rather than 'I'm a potioneer who spends all day elbow-deep in vats.'" Sirius's expression was almost apologetic. "It matters, Harry. Appearances matter. And if you're going to show up at a Malfoy event — "
"I hate Malfoy."
"Everyone hates Malfoy. That's not the point." Sirius ran a hand through his hair, a gesture of frustration that Harry recognized all too well. "The point is that you're going to be in a room full of people who will judge you from the moment you walk in. And your robes matter. The way you stand matters. The way you speak matters. Everything matters, because everyone is watching, and everyone is waiting for you to slip up so they can whisper about it later."
Harry felt something cold settle in his chest. "I don't want to be watched."
"No one wants to be watched." Sirius's voice was softer now. "But you're Harry Potter. The only son of James Potter. The heir to a fortune. The boy with the scar and the dead mother and the mysterious past. You've been watched your whole life. This is just — this is just more of the same."
Harry wanted to argue. He wanted to say that it wasn't the same, that there was a difference between being gawked at in the street and being evaluated like a piece of livestock at a breeding auction. But the words stuck in his throat.
"I'll do it," he said finally. "I'll go to the Solstice. I'll meet this girl. I'll — I'll try."
Sirius's face relaxed, just slightly. "Good. That's — good."
"But I'm not promising anything."
"I wouldn't ask you to." Sirius stepped forward and clapped a hand on Harry's shoulder, squeezing once. "That's all I'm asking. Just try."
Harry nodded. He didn't trust himself to speak.
"Tomorrow," Sirius said, already stepping back toward the door. "Robe shopping. Don't be late. And for Merlin's sake, don't wear anything you've worn to work."
The door clicked shut behind him, and Harry was alone again with the bubbling potion and the steam and the weight of everything he'd just agreed to.
He turned back to the vat and picked up the stirring rod. The potion had thickened while he was distracted, and it was going to take him at least another hour to salvage it.
He stirred. He watched the liquid swirl. And he thought about the girl — the angry, stubborn, resentful girl who was apparently going to be his future wife.
He didn't know her name. He didn't know what she looked like. He didn't know anything about her except that she was poor and desperate and probably hated him already.
And somehow, in some strange way, that was the only thing about this whole arrangement that gave him hope.