He ran onto the Quidditch pitch while I was practising. I think he might belong to someone in Hogsmeade. Sure, you can see him—I managed to get temporary permission from Flitwick to bring him in the castle. I can only have him in here for one night so he can get some rest and have a proper meal.
Well like I said, I’m sure they wouldn’t mean any harm; they just don’t always think things thro—What?
No, why would he say—oh, hell, he’s a bloody liar and he’s just trying to make me look bad. For some reason he’s suddenly taken against me lately, I don’t know what about—but whatever Pucey says, it’s not true. And I haven’t seen any cats, half-tailed or not.
Well, if you do, catch it and take it to Ravenclaw Tower, alright? And don't let anyone else get it. I wouldn't put it past Pucey to lock it in your trunk to blame you or something.
I meant that in the nicest possible way of course. I wish you could’ve flown during the break, you can hold your own with the boys. Hopefully your holidays weren’t too depressing because of that.
I’m thinking of holding practice this weekend, some light training just to start.
Well, that’s not bad. You had me worried for a second. I need those boys in shape…not that I’ll go easy on them during practice.
I don’t worry so much about you, Ginny. You’ve got enough talent in your pinkie finger to fly circles round your brothers. We’ll get you up the air ASAP, I need you to help me get Ron ready for the game.
The only thing making this so-called gala worth going to was Luna's presence. Ginny would never have been invited to this kind of thing by herself or even as part of her family--the Weasleys weren't proper people to bring around to fancy parties--but Luna had kindly extended the invitation, and Ginny couldn't resist getting inside Malfoy Manor when she had the chance.
She was almost regretting it, though, because while the food was great, the company (besides the aforementioned Ravenclaw girl) was awful. A few mild conversations with boring people whose names she vaguely recognized, a few raucous conversations with classmates she knew fairly well but didn't care to hang around with, and enough overhearing conversations Luna was having with people whose expressions were either feigned interest (failing to mask faint confusion) or dreadful bewilderment that Ginny had stopped trying to drink around Luna, because she always ended up snorting it out.
After a few hours, though, she was thirsty, and felt it prudent to stay away from her eccentric friend until she'd finished her drink. Ginny leaned against a pillar at the edge of the room, taking the opportunity while she was out of sight to scratch at her itchy dress robes. Resentfully, she glanced around at all the glamorous attendees, who all looked relaxed in their shiny clothes; either they were faking it or their clothes were worth more than the Weasleys could afford to spend on all their children combined in a year.
Sirius Black was loitering nearby--or at least he was until Harry Potter's dad swung out from between the pillars next to Ginny and yanked him backwards.
She didn't think anything of it until Sirius' protests got too loud and James, trying to be secretively hushed but too eager, quieted him. Something was up, and Ginny was too intrigued to not listen in. Anything to inject some liveliness into the evening.
Thankfully, they hadn't noticed her, and her nonchalant stance leaning against the pillar didn't attract their attention.
"...business to take care of, and I could use a hand."
"You’ve got two. I’m drinking." Ginny stifled a laugh as James Vanished the contents of Sirius' cup; she wasn't very quiet, but Sirius' angry, florid, and eloquent response covered up the giggles she couldn't suppress.
Shushing him quickly, James continued, his tone so serious that it made even Ginny quiet down and pay attention. “I want to spy on your relatives. Harry overheard something pretty interesting between Snivellus and Lucius, and apparently there’s something in the library I ought to take a look at. Give me a hand?”
"You owe me a bottle."
"If we can find an excuse to drag Malfoy in front of the Wizengamot, I’ll buy you five."
"And if he squirms out of it?"
Their answers were so rapid-fire that Ginny was having a hard time keeping up.
"Then I’ll buy you one and we can drink it together in commiseration and misery."
Sirius raised his empty glass in a mock toast, still looking bitter about it being empty. “Well then by all means, let’s cause some trouble. I assume you need me to make a distraction?”
"It is one of your best talents."
Sirius sketched a bow. “Always nice when one’s gifts are appreciated.”
James winked and darted off right past Ginny, still failing to notice her presence. She jumped back around the other side of the pillar just in case Sirius looked in that direction--adults never reacted well when they thought you'd been eavesdropping.
He exited the area, eyes jumping around the faces in the room and landing on Ginny, who pretended not to notice him until he tapped on her shoulder. "Miss Weasley," Sirius Black said, affecting a short little bow, similar to the one she'd just seen him give James. "You look like you'd rather be anywhere else."
If she hadn't overheard the conversation before, she would have been confused--the Blacks weren't exactly friends with the Weasleys. "That about sums it up," Ginny answered, raising her glass (Sirius, reminded of his empty one, glanced at it regretfully). "Galas are dull."
There was a gleam in his eyes. "I hear you're a fan of shaking things up a bit."
Did Sirius listen to Hogwarts gossip? Did the students who were related to him gossip about her? Ginny shrugged it off and grinned at him. "Yeah, I like a little chaos every now and then."
"This party needs a little chaos."
"The Malfoys won't like that very much."
Sirius winked. "I'll take the blame, Miss Weasley."
It took her three minutes and a few well-placed, easily-triggered Bat-Bogey hexes for the room to be overrun with chaos that Fred and George would be proud of. It was a little crude, and she wished she'd had more time, but she'd at least managed to make the bats look like birds this time to hide her identity. From the other side of the room, Sirius shot her a thumbs-up; she saw Mr. Potter disappearing into a hallway right behind him, safely concealed by the screaming women (and some men) who were being pursued by flitting bogeys.
Ginny crossed her arms, nodding and smiling at Luna, who was insisting that the bogey-birds were, in fact, Kinaloons, invisible bird-like creatures who liked to cause mischief and only became visible when they were lured out by the right combination of laughter and alcoholic vapors.
Emma beamed in response to the red-haired girl’s smile; she was a shy girl who preferred to let her twin sister handle the bulk of their socializing, and even after a year-and-a-half in Hufflepuff, she still sometimes got tongue-tied around people she didn’t know well unless Romilda was there to help her out. Still, at least Ginny knew Romilda, so that was almost like having her help from a distance…right?
She shook her head, and then nodded, and then realized that she needed to explain her contradictory gestures: “I don’t know where she can possibly be going; we were just going to go out, and see—well, everything. But then she just took off…I guess she got excited, and I was taking too long,” Emma added fairly. “I was hesitating…and Rommy hates hesitating.” She shrugged, and continued, answering the second question in the affirmative: “She’s wearing a skirt and wooly tights and socks and a jumper like me,” Emma explained, pointing down at her slightly quirky but very Muggle-style clothes, “and she’s got a bright pink cloak on. I mean really bright, like it almost hurts to look at, so she should be easy to find…”
Emma’s voice trailed off as she glanced back over her shoulder again, but still saw no sign of Romilda. “But I guess not,” she said quietly. The Hufflepuff sighed, and shook her head. “Mum’s really going to be cross about it,” she said, and explained: “She made us promise to stick-together. And Rommy knew that,” Emma added grumpily. “Merlin, when I catch her, I’m going to give her such a piece of my mind…”
She meant it, too. Emma was not normally a confrontational person, but she could manage a rant under the right circumstances—and this was definitely that! She realized that she was probably sounding rude, though, with her complaining and griping, so she quickly said, “But I’m probably keeping you from something fun! Or important! I’m sorry! Thank you for making sure I didn’t get trampled, that was really great of you!”
Ginny had heard Romilda complain--or at least it sounded like complaining to Ginny--about her sister's shyness, but at first meeting, Emma seemed far from shy. Words tumbled from her mouth like they were looking for a listener but hadn't the time to wait around for an audience, instead choosing to seek one out. Ginny found herself amused, rather liking this girl; she'd looked timid at first, but Ginny was fairly certain that Emma had her own brazen streak, albeit less used than Romilda's seemed to be.
She shook her head to dismiss Emma's thanks, stopping abruptly to wipe away a strand of hair that flapped against her cheek and got itself latched onto her lip. "I was looking for my family, too," she explained, a quick scan revealing no redheads nearby. "Two sets of eyes are better than one for looking, so maybe we can help each other....hang on, did you say pink cloak?"
The memory, though recent, had already been pushed back in her mind, and Ginny had nearly forgotten the brief encounter with an excitable girl in a pink cloak only minutes before she'd seen Emma. "I might've seen her, then, when I was coming out of the Menagerie. She was moving quick, so I didn't see her face, but I don't think there are many pink cloaked-people running around...we could head that way, see if she's in any shops nearby?"
Emma let out a little shriek of surprise, but didn’t fight the arm that pulled her out of the road. A rush of heat raced up her cheeks, and Emma felt like she must have turned as pink as Romilda’s cloak. “Oh gosh!” she squeaked, turning to look over her shoulder at the crowd, “thank you!”
She looked up at her rescuer, and grinned in recognition. “Ginny Weasley, yes, of course!” she said. Everybody at Hogwarts knew the Weasleys, of course, and Emma had certainly heard Marigold talk about Ginny often enough to know who she was: the youngest sister of Marigold’s brother’s best friend, and the new Reserve Chaser for the Gryffindor team. Being as big a fan of Quidditch as she was, Emma not only knew Ginny, but had a million questions she wanted to ask her about the Gryffindor team—but right now there was really only one question that matter.
Emma self-consciously straightened her robes. “I’m, um, I’m Emma Vane,” she introduced herself, sticking her hand out to shake Ginny’s. “I was just looking for my sister…Romilda? You haven’t seen her, have you?” she asked anxiously, still looking around for a glimpse of that bright pink cloak. She figured that Ginny had to know who Romilda was; her sister was outgoing and popular and in Ginny’s house, after all…and Emma tended to assume that everyone knew Romilda. If they didn’t, they tended to meet her soon enough.
"It’s just, we were supposed to stick together…and if our mum finds out we didn’t, she’ll be really cross, and she’s only just decided that we’re old enough to really go out by ourselves, and she’ll definitely change her mind and probably never let us do anything unsupervised ever again, and I’m sure Rommy didn’t mean to run off on her own and oh gosh I’m babbling, I’m sorry!" Emma clapped a mittened hand over her mouth, which did nothing to stop a giggle from escaping. "Sorry!" she said again, feeling her blush deepen.
Relieved that the girl didn't instinctively fight her off and nobody reacted to the noise of shock she made, Ginny released her arm when they were safely out of the crowd, turning to face her companion sociably. She was a bit amused by the formality of shaking hands but obliged, Emma's introduction lighting a little flame of recognition above Ginny's head.
"Romilda Vane?" Well, of course Emma looked familiar, if Romilda was her sister. Ginny knew Rom had a twin, but she'd never actually met the other Vane before. Romilda's features were shadowed in Emma, though, so even though Ginny hadn't properly met Emma before, she recognized her through Romilda. "Right, I know Romilda--I haven't seen her, though. Do you know where she was headed, or what she's wearing?"
Fred and George were probably at the joke shop, Ginny figured; she could look for them later, and their red hair would make them easy to see wherever they went. But Emma looked pretty frazzled about being separated from her sister, and Ginny couldn't leave her alone without it plaguing her conscience for a while. "I'm sure your mum will understand--you didn't get separated on purpose, after all, and Rom's gotta be around here somewhere."
Emma Vane hesitated on the threshold, tying and re-tying her canary yellow scarf. For the first time, Mrs. Vane was letting her daughters go out in Diagon Alley all by themselves—not just down the block to Fortescue’s, or across the street to Mrs. Scrimmy’s, but properly out, all afternoon, no desination in mind and no promise to come straight back—so long as they stayed together, of course.
Hands squeezed Emma’s shoulders and Romilda laughed, “Come on, Ems!” She brushed past her hesitating twin and then with a bounce of brunette curls and a flash of her bright pink cloak, Romilda vanished into the crowd of afternoon shoppers.
"Rommy, wait!" Emma hurried to follow, shouldering her way through the press of cloaks and scarves as politely as she could, searching for a glimpse of that bright, eye-smarting pink.
Her sister’s voice came back to her through the press of bodies: “Keep up, Emmy!” The Hufflepuff did her best, but everywhere she turned there were only more people, none of them her twin.
"Romilda, wait for me! Where are you?" Emma spun around in the street, looking every which way, but it was too late: her sister was gone. She was alone. Emma stopped, cheeks flush and eyes wide, staring down the street that had so completely swallowed Romilda. She didn’t know what to do, or how to find her—but she knew that mum was going to be very cross if she found out about this! She hated being in trouble, and just like usual, it was going to be Rommy’s fault if she was—and Romilda, she suddenly realized, was the one who had the money mum had given them to spend!
Never leaving Fred and George in charge of anything (or anyone) should have been a no-brainer. The twins were hardly known for their responsible natures. But a frazzled Mrs. Weasley trying to get her shopping done--and having decided that bringing her children along while her husband was at work carried less risk of damage to her home than leaving them at the Burrow--was willing to give them custody of Ginny if it meant keeping the troublemakers out of her hair.
Naturally, that meant Ginny only needed to put minimal effort into slipping away. She pointed to the Menagerie and they nodded, so she ducked in while they walked past--her chaperones thus severed, the girl was free to play with the cats and lament that she hadn't saved up enough money for one yet.
A knocking on the window made her look up automatically, assuming that it was one of her siblings trying to get her attention. Little faces were pressed against the glass, trying to get the owl in the window to hoot at them. Ginny rolled her eyes. It would sooner peck their eyes out.
She straightened up, rubbed her hands on her pants, and figured she might as well track down the twins before their mother found out they'd separated. Three steps out the door, though, she was pushed aside by a pink-cloaked girl eager to get somewhere-or-other; five steps past that, another girl was stopped in the middle of the road, risking being bowled over by the busy crowd that didn't accommodate a lost child's hesitancy. The girl looked vaguely familiar, but if she stood any longer in the way, she was going to get trampled by the chattering group of fur-clad Germans with stuffed bags not looking at the path as they came up behind her.
Ginny ducked under a tall man's elbow and put herself between the girl and the nearest sharp-edged bag. "Might want to get out of the way," she said in the girl's ear, putting an arm around her waist companionably (she didn't want it to look like a kidnapping, after all) and steering her towards the edge of the crowd. "Big bunch of tourists heading your way, not watching where they're going. I'm Ginny. You looking for someone?"
