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Entry tags:

harry potter - ginny weasley

078.

[ video ]

... is this—oh, alright, it is.

[The voice may be familiar to many, and the face in essence too, but as Ginny Weasley leans back from the camera to address the network, it might be clear to those who know her that she's different today. For one, she's wearing her Gryffindor uniform, all robes and tie and cardigan. For another, she's younger and thinner—almost drawn, and though her eyes are as quick and bright as ever, they carry a wariness and weariness that haven't been present in years. Her hair is still long, though shorter than she's been wearing it in the City, and there's no mistaking the still-healing split lip or faded bruising along her cheekbone and eye.

None of this seems to bother the witch at the moment, though. There are more important matters to attend to.]

Hullo. I seem to have taken a wrong turn at school—not unusual, really, the stairs like to play tricks—but I was on my way to a classroom and ended up in this, er, charming place. And while I'm terribly fond of London, I know this isn't it; and honestly, I'm running late as it is.

[There's a hardness in her jaw and in her tone that the City softened long ago, but she isn't demanding answers like she had the moment she 'arrived.' She has her bearings, now. To an extent. She pauses, then smiles, shaking off the very real irritation for a more charming façade; come, now, help the innocent school girl find her way home.]

Hardly back a month from holidays and I've already got loads of things to do! I'm not usually late, you know. I don't mind missing a few minutes of Professor Carrows' class, for example— [She chuckles, shrugging.] —but I'm sort of in charge of this meeting and they're all fairly useless without me. I've read a guide, of course, but I don't exactly trust everything I read nowadays.

Thank you for your time.

[OOC; ginny's been hit with Feels Like the First Time! she's back to being 16 years old and for her, it's february of 1998, so she's still at hogwarts and helping neville lead the DA and causing general havoc with the student's rebellion.

she won't remember any CR she's made in the city for the duration of the curse because to her, this is her first time arriving here. it will all come back to her tomorrow, of course. enjoy!]

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[Ginny pales a little then takes a half-step back before she realises what she's doing, hand curled around her wand in the pocket of her robes, chest a little tight. The City does things. The City makes them think things.

Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain.

Quietly, quickly,]

Percy, you of all people should know. You can't just—you can't bloody say that to me, not to me, after everything I've—

[She cuts herself off.]

I'm not different. I'm your sister.

I know, Ginny. I know you're not different.

[Except you are ... but he's not sure what's 'normal' for him anymore. Is the sixteen-year-old Ginny he recognizes from home the normal one, or is the nineteen-year-old Ginny he's shared countless midnight cups of tea with the normal one?]

But it's true.

You're not making sense.

[Maybe she isn't in a different world. Maybe the Carrows grabbed her on the way to the Room of Requirement and she's actually lying on the floor of the dungeon between rounds of the Cruciatus. Maybe she's dreaming, has been dreaming all these hours. Why else would Percy be here, talking to her, being kind to her, saying they live together? Isn't that something that's just a dream, now, their family back together? Where's the rest of them? Where's Harry?

Ginny shakes her head, starts to laugh, but this is nowhere near funny.]

This is a dream. I bloody well knew it. I knew it the second I got here. [Sharp, dry, cold.] Not that I mind, I suppose this is better than being Cruciated.

It's not a dream!

[How do people prove that something isn't a dream? They - they pinch themselves! That's what he does after a particularly bad nightmare, pinches himself hard on the arm, hard enough to remind himself that the shadows are just shadows and the crumbling walls aren't real.]

Pinch yourself.

I'm not going to pinch myself, I'm not a child—stop treating me like one!

[Even though she's certainly acting like one, more than she does nowadays because she forgets. The war makes her forget that she's only sixteen, is allowed to act like she's sixteen, but she guards herself so tightly that she can't do this. Not where the others can see.

So this is a dream.]

Then I will!

[He'll regret this later, probably, but his siblings have always brought out what he considers to be the worst - and what they probably consider to be the best in him.

And he reaches out and pinches her. It's not too hard, not as hard as he pinches himself, but she'll feel it.]

Ow!

[Ginny yanks her arm back with a scowl, wand whipping up as she does so, and even though she's angry and annoyed and confused, she won't hex him. Still, the threat is there as she snaps out,]

What the hell are you doing? Are you mad!

[And then he's got his wand out, too, not moving to hex her but ready for a Shield Charm if one becomes necessary.]

See? It hurt! Things don't hurt in a dream! I'm telling the truth, Ginny.

Things hurt in dreams.

[It's low, firm, older than she should sound. But it isn't where her thoughts are, not really; because it's true, she should wake up by now. She should bolt upright in bed or on the stone floors and she should be aching but awake. But she's still here with her estranged older brother and they have their wands on each other, though her grip feels more uncertain now.]

So you're saying the truth is... [She swallows roughly.] That the truth is that someone was in my head again?

No, they don't.

[And in that moment, he sounds tired, sad. Things ought to hurt in dreams; that wall crumbling ought to crush the breath out of him - but he shakes away that temporary melancholy and focuses on her. She's the important thing right now; she's always the most important thing. Focus, Weasley.]

Sort of, but ... it's a bit more complicated than that. This - City is run by deities, and they just - do things to people. But it's not just something in their head, it's them. Like - my friend, Rose. When I first met her, she'd been changed into herself at six years old. She wasn't a twenty-year-old who thought she was a six-year-old, she was actually a child.

[Exasperated, frustrated.]

Well, I'm not. I know I was the last time you saw me, but honestly.

[She knows this isn't what he's getting at. Not really. But she's trying to wrap her head around this and it's just not working. She wants to sit down. Her wand arm's already lowered to her side without her realising because her thoughts and focus have turned inward, turning things over, trying to find this missing time. But there isn't anything missing. She was at Hogwarts and then she blinked and she was walking down an alleyway here in the middle of the night. That's all.]

I— [Ginny tightens her jaw, looks away, tries to breathe.] So, what, these... deity things, they've... I've been enchanted?

[He's ready to argue that point, but she's lowering her wand, so Percy does, too, though he doesn't tuck it back inside his pocket. Not yet. Of course he's not about to hex his own sister, but he's not willing to let himself get hexed by her, either.]

That's the closest parallel to something in our world, yes. The curses usually wear off at midnight.

[She doesn't like this. Every inch of her, her expression, everything screams that she hates the idea that she's been toyed with again. If it's her own doing, like detention, that's one thing. This, without her knowing, without her being in control of it overall...

Ginny Weasley does not cry, but if she looks even an ounce as shaken as she feels, then it's close enough.

Very quietly, after a long pause,]

Have you got any tea?

Of course. Come on, sit down.

[He leads her into the kitchen which is, she might notice, decorated quite to her tastes as well. Percy gestures for Ginny to have a seat as he gets the teapot off the range and fills it with water from his wand. Helena follows them, tagging at Ginny's heels.]

Is Lady Grey all right?

Yeah, fine, whatever.

[It's absent, distracted, her thoughts nowhere near tea and biscuits and sitting down. She's still in her uniform, wandering the kitchen and crossing to the glass doors and the tiny balcony just outside it, trying to process, struggling to grasp all of this but she can't. She tries to swallow through the tightness in her throat and finds it a little hard to breathe—so she pops the latch on the doors and pushes them aside, stepping out into the summer air, wind stirring her robes and hair behind her as she tries to take in this sight of a City she's never seen before...

... but supposedly has lived in.]

Okay.

[He says this to her back, then sighs to himself before turning back to the range, turning on one of the burners and setting the pot down on it. Once that's done, he joins her out on the balcony, joining her at the railing, and points out over the City.]

That way is the shop. I can take you there later, if you'd like.

[She doesn't jump when he joins her, doesn't draw her wand again, but she does shove her hands into her pockets to hold onto it (and if she curls a little into herself, it's unconscious and it's purely habitual defensiveness, nothing against her brother). It's a little warm under the wool robes but she finds it a comfort to have her uniform be the one familiar thing in all this unbelievable newness and her gaze follows Percy's gesture and she frowns.]

What shop?

Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. The twins' shop, though I run it now.

[She (barely) bites back the retort that if this wasn't a dream before, it certainly is now. Percy running the twins' joke shop? It must be a joke. If she was here as Percy claims, why isn't the shop hers? She'd be the logical choice. She cares about their products and their brilliance a hell of a lot more than Percy. Ginny glances at her brother then shrugs, trying to keep the flatness out of her voice, though it's difficult.]

Good for you.

[It's a bit forced and a lot artificial. It's so at odds with the warm pride from the same witch weeks before at the grand opening.]

Been here long, have you?

[Well, if that wasn't the fakest congratulations he's heard since ... well, since the Ministry, really. He looks into the sun for a moment before looking back over the City. The keys to the shop are heavy in his pocket, and he has to resist the urge to touch them.]

About five months. I arrived near the beginning of December.

[She stares at him for a heartbeat, then her gaze skitters away, trying to hide how startled she is. Five months and she never noticed him missing? But that isn't right, either. She's heard that time works in funny ways here. And besides, whispers a bitter voice at the back of her head, why would you notice? It's not like he's around you to begin with. (Maybe if he was, she'd find detention more bearable instead of knowing the Carrows were working under the same Ministry her brother did.)]

Sorry to hear that. [And that is probably a bit more sincere. And the, airily,] I don't plan on being stuck that long. We'll go home.

[Whether or not she's been here before, according to her brother, it doesn't matter.]

[Didn't he say the same thing when he'd arrived here five months ago? 'Don't worry, Gin, I'll get you out. It'll be all right.']

I hope you're right. I'd like that.

If there's one thing I know how to do, Percy, it's how to fight back.

[No matter the odds.]

I know, Ginny. If anyone could, I imagine it's you.

[That's how she's managed to stay so strong even after three years. Even after all the things he can only imagine the City's done to her. Because Ginny Weasley is a fighter.]

It's about time you knew that about me.

[It's quietly said. Less resentful, just... simple, as a little sister would say to a brother she still loves in the back of her heart but hasn't seen in years.]

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