The Mystery in the Attic by Forge2
Summary: Harry is spending the summer at the Burrow after the tragic events at the Ministry in OotP. His late-night foray into the kitchen for a snack is interrupted by a sound from the attic. Is it the ghoul or is there something more mysterious at work? Written for the SIYE "Summer at the Burrow" challenge.
Rating: PG-13
Categories: SIYE Challenges new
Characters: None
Genres: None
Warnings: None
Challenges: None
Series: None
Published: 2024.02.29
Updated: 2024.02.29
Index
Chapter 1: Chapter 1
Chapter 2: Chapter 2
Chapter 3: Chapter 3
Chapter 4: Chapter 4
Chapter 5: Chapter 5
Chapter 1: Chapter 1
Harry Potter lay awake, even though it was well after two in the morning. His body bore the soreness of a long day’s effort, working alongside Ron to remove the gnomes from the Weasley back garden and hurling a quaffle at his best mate with Ginny. They’d flown for much longer than his bruised legs and strained shoulders now thought reasonable, though it had been an excellent chance to forget some of his woes, if only for a little while.A long, pained sigh escaped him as he considered his recent months. Fighting against the tyrannical rule of Umbridge and the insufferable toadies of her Inquisitorial Squad. The horrible vision of Sirius being tortured within the Department of Mysteries. The ill-fated rescue mission which had endangered his dearest and most loyal friends. The unfathomable despair of watching Sirius fall through the veil, never to be seen again. Convulsing under the possession of Voldemort, desperately hoping for Dumbledore to end them both to ease his suffering. The dawning realization that he was meant to kill or be killed by the most dangerous wizard alive.
He found that he was gritting his teeth so tightly that his jaw had become sore. Harry shook his head from side to side before sitting up on the camp bed. The snores from his friend indicated that his sleepless musings had not disturbed Ron’s slumber. Harry affixed his glasses on his face quietly before slipping out of the room.
His descent down the stairs wasn’t as quiet as he’d hoped, as a creaky board just past the first landing snuck up on him again. He froze in place, listening intently for any sign that the noise had wakened Mr. or Mrs. Weasley. When he could hear nothing except the muffled thumping in the attic from the Burrow’s ghoul, he continued down the stairs to the kitchen.
Unlike the Dursley’s home, there was no rule against popping down for a late-night snack in the Weasley home. In fact, Harry had been encouraged to do so regularly during his stays at the Burrow. When he’d finally grown bold enough to take his hosts up on the offer, he had been pleased to find that others were also partaking almost more often than not. He’d stumbled upon Ron pilfering biscuits on more than a few occasions and both George and Fred making short work of some of their mother’s leftovers. He’d nearly bumped into Percy one night, looking rather silly with a milk mustache after drinking directly from the bottle. Even Mr. Weasley had met him in the kitchen one night, shushing him before smuggling him a bribe of half the dessert he’d squirreled away from his children’s prying eyes.
He had never seen Mrs. Weasley during a late-night foray into the kitchen, nor had he found Ginny there. Considering how adept Ginny had been at getting into and out of trouble, Harry thought that it seemed unlikely that the youngest Weasley avoided the kitchen at night completely. He probably just had not caught her there yet.
When he stepped off the stairs, however, nobody was awaiting him in the soft moonlight that streamed in through the kitchen window. It was just as well, he thought to himself. It wasn’t as though he wanted to talk with anyone very much. With his head swimming with thoughts of war and prophecy and loss, he considered a quiet kitchen with leftover treacle tart just about the best situation he could hope for.
Several floors above him, the ghoul thumped again. Usually, it was relatively calm in the night, so its movements seemed somewhat out of place to Harry. Then again, the twins had been tasked with quieting it down in years past. Now that they were both living in a flat above their joke shop, perhaps the ghoul had decided movement was less likely to result in punishment from those who lived below. This was especially true since it took an awful lot to roust Ron from his sleep, even though he had inherited the job of keeping the ghoul quiet at night ever since the twins had left.
Once Harry was satisfied that the ghoul had not woken any of the Weasleys, he made his way to grab a small plate and a fork. He was careful only to take half the remaining piece of treacle tart, not wanting to be an overly greedy guest. He hopped up to sit on the kitchen counter, willing himself not to eat the entire thing in a single bite. Mrs. Weasley’s desserts were well worth savoring.
He sat there on the counter, legs dangling above the kitchen floor, as the uncommon quiet of the Weasley home enveloped him. The window overlooking the back garden had been left open to let in the cool summer night breeze, and Harry thought he could barely hear the sound of Hedwig in the distance. Harry knew that Errol sometimes attempted to cozy up to the beautiful snowy owl, but nothing he had seen from Hedwig made him believe she was interested in giving the tired old bird a second thought.
A whirring sound from within the kitchen startled Harry, almost causing him to drop the last of his dessert. His eyes fell upon the Weasley family clock and its various arms that almost all pointed toward “Home.” One arm was spinning around and around until it finally rested on “Work,” and Harry could barely make out in the moonlight that it belonged to Charlie.
Living far to the east in Romania, Harry supposed it made sense for him to be at work this early in the morning. He wondered whether dragon keepers often worked odd hours, and resolved to ask Ron or Ginny about their brother’s job sometime soon.
He finished the last bites of the tart before quietly washing his dish and returning it to where it belonged. Though Harry did try to be a courteous houseguest, if he thought about his actions they might have been done more out of habit after years of sneaking food at the Dursley’s house.
With his midnight snack finished, he turned to climb the stairs back to Ron’s room. This time, he managed to avoid the creakiest stair on the way up. He slipped quietly into the loo for a minute before heading down the hallway to where his friend’s snores emanated.
Before he reached the door, the ghoul in the attic made another noise. A thumping sound Harry was accustomed to, but also something that was almost a hiss. He hesitated with his hand already reaching for the doorknob. Even with the tart in his stomach, Harry still wasn’t confident that he would be able to fall asleep, and the ghoul was unlikely to quiet down unless someone went to shut it up. The only way Ron would wake up to take care of it was if his mother yelled at him, which was liable to roust the whole Weasley clan.
Harry crept up the stairs to the attic much more slowly, since he wasn’t as familiar with which of the steps were safe and which might creak and give him away. The ghoul wasn’t thumping anymore, but he could hear its soft footfalls on the floorboards as he approached the doorway. It was open just a crack with a light on inside, so he peered inside before entering.
Through the opening, he saw a large pewter cauldron precariously positioned upon a few wooden crates. It was filled nearly to the brim with a silvery liquid that bubbled occasionally. A light blue mist swirled upward from the cauldron toward the roof, where it seeped through the shingles and out into the night sky.
The sight of the cauldron confused Harry. Mrs. Weasley had been brewing potions for the Order regularly, but everything he knew her to be cooking up was stored in either the pantry or Bill and Charlie’s old room. With as much dust as could be found in an attic, it wasn’t exactly an ideal place to brew sensitive potions, especially with the ghoul tromping about in there.
He wanted to go in for a closer look but stopped himself short when a figure stepped between the potion and his view. Standing with her back to the door, Ginny peered down into the depths of the cauldron.
She held a thin book in one hand and something Harry couldn’t quite see in the other. She muttered to herself in frustration as she read something from the book before setting it down. She positioned her other hand over the edge of the cauldron while leaning the rest of her body as far from it as her short arm could manage. Ginny released whatever was in her hand and pulled her arm away from the potion as fast as she could, ducking down behind a box of Christmas decorations.
FWTHOOOM!
The room was bathed in flickering purple light that cast odd shadows around the attic. The explosive reaction blew away all of the blue mist, replaced by a heavy, sickly green smoke that cascaded out of the cauldron and onto the floor.
Harry’s instinct to help nearly caused him to abandon his stealthy position outside the door out of fear that Ginny had been injured by the blast, but his ears picked up a quiet laugh and a reverent swear from the youngest Weasley before his hand reached the door. Instead of entering, he listened closely for any clue as to what he should do next.
“Don’t worry,” came Ginny’s quiet voice from beyond the cracked door. Harry froze, certain that he’d been discovered. “You’ll have your attic back soon. This has to simmer overnight before I can add the final ingredients.”
A loud, agitated moan was the only reply Ginny received.
“Now don’t get shirty with me! If you can’t keep quiet, I won’t sneak Mum’s leftovers up here before Ron gets to them.”
The quieter grunt from beyond the doorway still seemed frustrated to Harry, but it had the lilt of acceptance in tone.
“That’s what I thought. I’m going to head to bed, but I’ll see you tomorrow night, yeah?”
A panic seized Harry as he realized that Ginny would be coming down the stairs momentarily. He snuck back down the stairway as quickly as he dared. His footsteps were achingly loud as he accidentally stepped on every creaking stair possible in his hurry. It was a small wonder that he didn’t rouse the entire household while slipping into Ron’s room when the traitorous hinges squeaked into the night.
He flopped onto his camp bed without bothering to set aside his glasses as he lay completely still. He perked up his ears for any sign that Ginny was stealthily creeping past the door, but the hallway remained silent. Either she was much more adept at quietly navigating the Weasley home than Harry or the irregular snores of her brother were providing her auditory cover. With a small smile, Harry guessed that it was probably a combination of both.
It took him a long while before his mind calmed down enough to drift into a fitful sleep. Two thoughts flit through his mind before he succumbed to the weight of his eyelids: he wondered what kind of potion Ginny was hiding in the attic, and smiled at the memory of her swearing.
Chapter 2: Chapter 2
If Harry hadn’t already known that Ginny was up to something, he never would have guessed based on her demeanor. He took every opportunity to watch her interactions, but she never gave any indication that there was anything amiss.At breakfast, he noticed that she didn’t look especially exhausted despite her late-night escapades. Then again, she hadn’t gone overboard in trying to present herself as awake and perky. Having spent as much time at the Burrow as Harry had, he knew that she wasn’t exactly a morning person. Still, she maintained just the right amount of grogginess to seem reasonable without allowing herself to become as surly as early-morning Ron.
When Mrs. Weasley assigned chores and informed them that she would be visiting Diagon Alley to pick up some supplies, Harry wondered if Ginny would try to join her mother to procure more ingredients for whatever she was brewing in the attic. Instead, she huffed about being asked to help make lunch while the boys got the “more fun” job of finishing the de-gnoming of the garden. (Several gnome bites later, Harry felt quite certain that he would have preferred to switch tasks with Ginny. Or at least had her alongside him and Ron as they made a game of who could launch the little blighters furthest.)
He kept a sharp eye out to see if Ginny slipped away into the Burrow or headed up the stairs at odd times, but he could never catch her doing anything that seemed suspicious. His attempts did result in a few instances when she caught him staring at her, which led to him awkwardly averting his eyes. Harry felt determined to catch her in the act, but couldn’t bring himself to loop Ron into the task. It didn’t feel right to blab to him about what Ginny was doing, especially since Harry didn’t know what kind of potion she was brewing.
The question of what was bubbling in the attic cauldron simmered in the back of Harry’s mind all day. Several ridiculous possibilities occurred to him before being quickly rejected. It was a frustrating enough mystery that he almost wished he’d paid better attention in Snape’s class.
In the late afternoon, Ron, Ginny, and Harry were tossing stones into the pond together. The sploosh of the rocks interrupted the droning of insects and the warbling of birds in the trees. Conversation was sporadic, as the simple joy of throwing stones was more than enough to keep the quiet from becoming awkward. Harry stole occasional glances at Ginny for any indication of guilt about her clandestine potioneering, but her warm, easy smile gave away none of her secrets.
He had just about decided to simply ask her about it when Ron accidentally put a new possibility into his head.
“So what’s all this about you and Dean?” asked Ron, flinging a rock high into the air before it landed with a splash near the opposite bank, causing a startled frog to leap into the water. “Didn’t you just break things off with that Corner bloke?”
Ginny let out an exasperated snort and threw her stone clear across the pond. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I broke things off with Michael after the last quidditch match. Dean asked me out a few weeks before the term ended.”
Harry thought that Dean had always been a decent type, but something about the speed with which he’d swooped in after Ginny rubbed him wrong. Not that Harry had much experience in those kinds of matters, but it seemed almost disrespectful to jump in so quickly after her previous relationship had ended. Harry hadn’t even been aware that she and Michael were over before Dean had already made his move. He wasn’t sure why the timing rankled him, but it somehow felt wrong to Harry.
“I’m just a little concerned, is all,” said Ron defensively. “He’s older than you and I know how older guys think sometimes…”
Harry tossed his stone into the water as he watched the beginnings of an argument unfold. Ginny’s bright eyes flashed dangerously as she turned on Ron, who had the decency to look sheepish about under her glare.
“Unless I’m misremembering, I think I proved that I could handle myself fairly well while we were all at the Ministry. I’m not at all worried about dealing with my boyfriend, especially since he’s not nearly as dense as some people I know.”
She threw her stone with such ferocity that Harry heard it collide with the far bank and sink several inches into the soft, wet earth.
“Sorry, sorry! I’m just trying to be a decent brother. Looking out for you and whatnot. No need to get your knickers in a twist!”
The spat continued, but Harry’s mind was flooded with thoughts that hadn’t occurred to him before: What if Ginny was brewing a potion in secret because it had something to do with Dean?
Sirius had given Harry a brief yet mortifying talk about romance the previous summer which had covered many subjects, including contraception. What his godfather had simply referred to as “the potion” was the most reliable method, and it was readily available. Madam Pomfrey kept a supply in the hospital wing and many apothecaries and potion shops carried it. Sirius had been adamant that it was challenging to brew correctly and that it was far safer to get it from someone who knew what they were doing instead of trying to make it on your own. Not that Ron had gone into details, as both boys were too embarrassed to discuss it much, but Harry knew that Mr. Weasley had given him a similar talk around the same time.
Ginny was threatening to use a Bat Bogey Hex on her brother as Harry attempted to get a read on her. Maybe Mrs. Weasley hadn’t yet given her a version of that uncomfortable talk, so she didn’t know the dangers of attempting to brew the potion. Without meaning to, Harry considered the size of the Weasley clan and briefly questioned whether they had heard of contraception, before shaking his head furiously to dispel any such thoughts.
Judging by the heated argument between the two youngest Weasley siblings about the basic premise of Ginny’s romantic life, Harry held no illusions about how bringing up a sensitive subject like the potion would go. He pictured himself as a smoldering mass of liquified limbs and charred hair before resolving not to broach the topic.
Still, the thought that Ginny could be in over her head unsettled Harry. He took more chances to look over at her until she finally stormed away from her brother, leaving him in a blustering huff.
“Girls… Am I right?” asked Ron, leaning back in frustration and flinging another stone at the pond.
He accepted Harry’s inarticulate grunt as answer enough. The two of them remained at the pond for several more minutes before returning to the Burrow, where Harry noticed Ginny’s conspicuous absence. While Ron was showering, Harry quietly crept to Ginny’s closed door and knocked twice. He told himself that he only intended to check to make sure she wasn’t upset, but nagging curiosity about whether she had snuck up to the attic was the more likely cause. Only silence greeted his knocks.
Harry didn’t consciously decide to check for Ginny in the attic, but soon found his feet climbing the stairs to the topmost door in the Burrow. It, too, was closed. Before he could convince himself to do otherwise, Harry’s hand was on the knob. He was surprised to find it unlocked, stepping quickly inside and shutting the door behind him.
The attic was humid and dusty. Dim sunlight peeked through the shingles and a few cracks in the boards, allowing Harry just enough visibility to find the string to pull to turn on the lone lightbulb. The room was stuffed full of various boxes, many of which were overflowing with odds and ends. One corner seemed dedicated to holiday decorations, while another contained a pile of what looked like old school things.
There was a loud thump to Harry’s left that caused him to jump. Staring at him from a nest made of old blankets and worn-out clothes was what he could only assume was the Weasley’s ghoul. It was greyish-brown in color and had exceedingly large eyes that looked at Harry with consternation.
“Oh, hullo there,” stammered Harry, very much unsure what to say to a ghoul. “I just came up here to see if Ginny was around. Have you seen her?”
The ghoul glared at him and made a small grunt, which Harry had no idea how to interpret.
“Right then… I’ll just look around a bit then get out of your hair.” Harry took a few cautious steps away from the completely hairless ghoul before returning to surveying the rest of the attic.
It took him a moment to realize what was off about the room. Despite what he’d seen the night before, there was no cauldron full of secret potion visible. He cocked his head to the side before noticing a large cardboard box that was turned upside down. It wasn’t covered with the same layer of dust as the rest of the items.
Careful not to knock anything over, Harry lifted the box to reveal the bubbling cauldron. Swirling steam emanated from the liquid, but it dissipated quickly into the air after escaping the potion. He thought it looked rather complicated compared to the more basic remedies he’d seen Mrs. Weasley brewing or the concoctions he’d created for Professor Snape. It didn’t resemble the Polyjuice Potion in the way it looked, but it did give the impression of something similarly complex.
He replaced the cardboard box where he had found it. His intrigue about what the potion might be was piqued, but he knew that his lack of potion proficiency made identifying the brew unassisted nearly impossible. Harry had begun to resign himself to never finding out what secrets bubbled within the cauldron when he spied a slender book nestled beneath a worn pair of pants. The title was emblazoned across its spine in red block letters: Potions of the Heart.
Before Harry had time to register the book’s meaning, the ghoul stomped its thick foot upon the wooden floor. A resounding thump echoed through the attic and surely throughout the entire Burrow. He spared one final glimpse at the book before bolting for the door. He had taken three steps down the stairs before he realized his mistake of leaving the light on, but Mrs. Weasley’s frustrated yell for Ron to quiet the ghoul stymied any thought of returning to the attic to cover his tracks. With any luck, he thought, maybe Ginny would assume that Ron had left the light on.
“I’m in the shower, Mum!” called Ron irritably. “Make Ginny do it!”
Harry felt a shot of panic course through him as light footsteps indicated Ginny was quickly making her way up the stairs. He was still too far away from Ron’s room to make it there before her, so he ducked into Bill and Charlie’s old room as quietly as he could, hoping against hope that she didn’t find him.
She rushed past and hurried up the stairs toward the attic. When Harry heard the door click behind her, he snuck back down to Ron’s room as quietly as possible. His stomach clenched each time a stair creaked, but he was safely on the other side of the door by the time Ginny’s footsteps made their way back down.
Chapter 3: Chapter 3
Harry didn’t think there were many available options for what the mysterious potion could be, but none of them were heartening. There was a chance that it was some sort of contraceptive potion, but as much as he didn’t want to contemplate what Ginny might be doing with Dean, that wouldn’t be entirely unreasonable. He admitted to himself that Mrs. Weasley’s overprotectiveness, which extended most to her youngest and only daughter, might be worth avoiding by attempting to brew something away from prying eyes.Though he hadn’t been able to read anything except the title of the book, Potions of the Heart seemed like the kind of book that might provide instructions for a contraceptive. Yet a nagging question kept running through Harry’s mind unbidden: what other kinds of potions might be in a book like that?
As a student raised by muggles, Harry had been shocked to learn early in his time at Hogwarts that love potions were real. Whispers and tall tales about them persisted despite the school’s firm stance against their use. He had heard from some older students that none of the potions actually recreated love but instead imbued an intense obsession. Even though Harry didn’t truly believe Ginny would stoop to such a level, the idea that the hidden book (and maybe the cauldron) contained a love potion was difficult to shake.
On the one hand, Harry didn’t feel especially great about spying on Ginny. He had enjoyed spending time with her in the DA and liked flying with her and Ron in the back garden. She had risked a lot by following him to the Ministry and had trusted his instincts when few others would have. He also remembered her being staunchly opposed to any attempt he had made to apologize for roping her into a dangerous situation. Spying on her seemed like a betrayal of that trust.
On the other hand, love potions were supposedly quite dangerous and could lead to some really bad side effects. If there was a chance that she was planning to use one on Dean, Harry thought he owed his friend to at least investigate further. If it was a contraceptive potion, he could always try to simply ignore it and not think about the implications. It wasn’t his place to police her choices.
He had a hard time deciding what to do, especially since Ginny sat right next to him at dinner and suggested practicing quidditch once they’d cleaned up after the meal. They flew around the makeshift quidditch pitch as the evening light faded. Harry’s eyes were drawn to her more often than he thought reasonable as he tried to determine the best course of action. Her mischievous smirk and musical laughter didn’t strike Harry as those of someone plotting to use a love potion, but he reminded himself that he didn’t really know Ginny all that well.
By the time he crawled into his bed, he had formulated a plan. Ron unknowingly cooperated by falling soundly asleep within minutes of his head hitting the pillow, which allowed Harry to stealthily crack open the door to their room, giving him an unobstructed view of the hallway leading up to the attic. Even if Ginny was able to silently sneak by, he’d be able to see her move past while hidden in the darkness of the bedroom.
Unfortunately for Harry, his plan had a fatal flaw: pretending to sleep in one’s bed for hours while very tired often leads to actually falling asleep.
With a sudden jerk, Harry awoke with a start. The bedroom remained dark and Ron’s snores continued to fill the night air. Harry whispered a curse under his breath as he pulled the invisibility cloak from its hiding place under his sheet and tiptoed out of the room.
Not worrying about being seen allowed him to focus on avoiding the loudest of the creaking stairs, which were burned in his memory by his recent overly loud retreats. He made almost no noise as he ascended to the attic. The door was closed, but traces of light squeezed through the outer edge of the door frame. There was a chance that the light had merely been left on since his foray into the attic, but Harry suspected that he had simply slept through Ginny sneaking past.
With the door closed, he had no way to see what was happening in the next room. Though he was nervous about approaching too close to the door, the cloak granted him a little more boldness than he would have shown while visible. Harry eased his ear as close to the door as he could without making a sound, listening for any hint of what was happening beyond. There was a faint gurgling that he figured to be the potions, a quiet rustling, and-
With a sudden whoosh of movement, the door whipped open. Harry froze instinctively as light flooded into his eyes. Ginny peered out into the hallway questioningly, looking right past him and into the darkness at the end of the corridor. Standing two steps beneath her, his face was level with her red hair that had been swept into a messy ponytail. He fought against his lungs, which suddenly felt a nearly irrepressible need to breathe, heightened by the presence of a sweet-smelling floral scent.
After a few moments of terrible certainty that she would step forward into him, she released a longsuffering sigh before turning around and returning to her spot. She didn’t close the door behind her, allowing Harry to watch as she covered the cauldron with the empty box and slid the book under some old clothes.
She wore an unreadable expression as she turned out the light and moved back toward the door. Harry pressed himself against the wall and did everything he could to melt into it; the cloak could do nothing to prevent him from taking up space that could lead to Ginny bumping into him. As she went to close the door behind her, she whispered something to the ghoul that nearly made Harry gasp in shock.
“As long as I can get what I need from Harry, I’ll see you tomorrow night!”
In the dim moonlight that kept the attic from being entirely pitch black, he watched Ginny blow a kiss at the ghoul before quietly sweeping past, avoiding brushing against Harry by barely a hairsbreadth.
He stood against the wall for long minutes after she disappeared down the stairs, waiting an extra ten minutes after he felt confident she must be back in her bed before painstakingly creeping back to Ron’s room. Harry barely slept at all that night.
~tMitA~
At breakfast the next morning, Harry looked only slightly better than dead, causing Mrs. Weasley to fuss over him incessantly. Before he realized what was happening, he had been sent back up to Ron’s room to rest up for the remainder of the morning while Ron and Ginny were dispatched to tend to a variety of chores.
Gazing at the ceiling from his bed, Harry considered the circumstances. His best mate’s younger sister, whom he’d considered a friend until the previous evening, was secretly brewing some sort of potion that he alone knew about. She was consulting a book called Potions of the Heart and apparently needed something from him to complete the concoction. Ginny definitely had a crush on him in the past, though Harry had thought she’d put it behind her over the last few years. Now, however, that seemed less and less likely.
From the window overlooking the back garden, he heard a squabble breaking out between Ginny and Ron. It didn’t seem like anything major, but it alerted Harry that both of them had been assigned outdoor tasks. Knowing Mrs. Weasley, that was probably purposeful to keep them from bothering Harry while he rested.
With a furtive glance at their retreating figures, Harry stuffed two pillows and some of the dirty laundry from the floor under the sheet to make it look like he was snuggled under the covers napping. He grabbed the invisibility cloak and, without thinking more about the decision, stealthily made his way up the stairs to the attic.
He cracked the door open and slid inside, closing it behind him quietly. The ghoul moaned at his intrusion, but he shushed it and focused on his goal. Instead of moving toward the box hiding the cauldron, he made a beeline straight to the pile of old clothes laid atop the book. He pulled it out and positioned himself so that a small beam of light illuminated the book as he began to leaf through the pages.
Sure enough, the entire first section of the book contained almost a dozen love potion recipes. Harry grimaced at the loopy writing and flowery illustrations as his eyes raked up and down the pages. Now that he had the book in his hands, he felt confident he needed to determine exactly what she was brewing. Some of the potions had to be ingested directly, but others could be used as a perfume or through other means to make their effects take hold. Harry wanted to know exactly what he was up against.
Harry didn’t remember the exact coloration of the potion when he’d first seen it, but he couldn’t find anything that matched his hazy memory. He thought it had been grey or silver when he first saw it with a blue mist rising out of it. After she added something to it, it flashed purple and seemed to be belching green smoke that fell to the floor. Harry skimmed every potential love potion for a match, but either Ginny was a worse potioneer than Neville or she was making something that wasn’t listed in the love potion section.
With a nervous feeling in his gut, he flipped to the chapters about contraception. Again, he found nothing that matched what he’d seen the previous night, much less anything that would involve taking something from someone else. Harry breathed a sigh of relief as he began perusing the rest of the book, eyes watchful, while worrying that someone might check up on his unoccupied bed.
Near the end of the book, the late stages of a recipe looked similar enough to warrant a closer inspection. He turned back a few pages and found its heading:
Love Scrubbing Potion
For one seeking to remove any traces of affection, attraction, obsession, lust, or love. If brewed properly, this potion will cause its drinker to lose all romantic feelings for a subject whose hair is used as an ingredient.
Caution! The effects of this potion are permanent. Do not use unless certain that one desires these effects. Once scrubbed of all infatuation for a subject, the drinker may become neutral or even antagonistic toward the former object of their desire. Potion must be ingested willingly or the potion has no effect.
The long and complicated process of brewing the potion began beneath the explanation, but after seeing that it required hair from the one the brewer wished to remove feelings for, Harry stopped reading. He closed the book and carefully slid it back under the clothes where it had been hidden before quietly pulling the string and leaving the attic behind. He didn’t pay much attention to the sound of his footsteps as he made his way back to Ron’s room, but he didn’t run into a soul. He pushed the dirty clothes off his bed and flopped down, his mind swimming with more thoughts than he could keep up with.
Harry felt a keen sense of shame at having mentally accused Ginny of brewing a potion meant to ensnare someone else’s feelings. Sure, the evidence may have pointed in that direction, but Harry morosely admitted to himself that such a scheme was well outside what he knew of her. It had been unkind and mistrustful to spy on her, and Harry felt lousy for having done it.
Now he was saddled with information that he didn’t want. His presence in Ginny’s life and within the Weasley’s home had become such a burden to her that she had secretly brewed a convoluted and potentially dangerous potion in hopes of ridding herself of the feelings she obviously wanted nothing to do with.
Ideas flashed through his mind, each more unpleasant than the last. Should he try to avoid Ginny where possible? Give her extra space in the common room? Would being on the same quidditch team make things too awkward for her? She had performed well after he’d been banned by Umbridge last season, maybe he should step aside to let her continue with the team. Was visiting the Burrow making her own home a place she couldn’t be comfortable?
Harry groaned in frustration and covered his face with a pillow.
In response, he heard Ginny’s voice from the hallway.
“You alright in there?”
Chapter 4: Chapter 4
Ginny’s chipper voice froze Harry in place. He’d left the door to Ron’s room open, providing anyone waltzing down the hallway a view of him moping on the bed. In his embarrassment, he almost left the pillow over his head to wait for the bed to swallow him up completely. Instead, he let it fall to the side.“Yeah, I’m fine,” he replied unconvincingly, causing her to snicker.
“If you’re practicing to try to convince Mum, you’ve got a long way to go.” She arched an eyebrow at him and gave him an appraising look. “If you’d rather not talk about it, no worries, but I think even Ron would be able to tell something’s up from that.”
Harry silently cursed his inability to lie convincingly about himself but sat up anyway. “I messed something up and I don’t know how to fix it.”
Ginny stared at him for a long moment before walking to Ron’s bed, kicking the door closed behind her. She got settled and took a deep breath, looking intently into his nervous face.
“Is it about the Ministry? I know how terrible it feels to blame yourself for people getting hurt because Tom manipulated you.”
There was a disarming earnestness in her voice as she spoke that almost startled Harry. Even though his guilt about the foray into the Ministry still ached in his chest, that had been relegated far into the recesses of his mind. He actually let out a small, nervous laugh.
“No, it’s something else.” His cheeks burned under her stare and he averted his gaze out the window. “I accidentally snooped on someone and realized that I’m making their life much more difficult. I’m trying to figure out how to make things better.”
“Well, at least you’re not being incredibly vague about it,” replied Ginny, a smirk plastered across her face. “Otherwise, you’d be making another person’s life harder, too.”
Harry raked his hand down his face, unsure how to continue. He didn’t have many details he could share without giving himself away.
“Let me guess… You were wandering the Burrow late at night and stumbled into some mystery that you just couldn’t help investigating?” Ginny eyed him knowingly as color rushed into his cheeks. “Just a hint, Harry: sneaking around under an invisibility cloak pretty much disqualifies you from claiming to be ‘accidentally snooping.’”
He let loose a vehement swear as his traitorous cheeks turned a darker shade of red. Ginny simply laughed at him from her perch on Ron’s bed, the musical sound of her mirth filling Harry’s ears.
“Sorry to burst your bubble, but I don’t get caught unless I want to get caught. You’re not as quiet on the stairs as you think.”
Harry groaned as he fell backward onto his bed. He grasped for his pillow and covered his face with it. Perhaps the bed would simply absorb him, allowing him to fade into an oblivion in which he no longer felt mortified by Ginny’s easy-going dismantling of his spying.
“I’m so sorry for snooping on you,” came Harry’s muffled voice from beneath the pillow. “I promise it’ll never happen again.”
“Oh, you’re not getting out of this that easily. You’re going to have to pay for your mistakes.” From beneath the pillow, Harry asked what he needed to do to make things right. “Well, first of all, you’re going to have to tell me what you found out. After that, we’ll see what else you need to do to make amends…”
“Do I have to?” Harry hoped the patheticness in his voice might sway the youngest Weasley, but her only response was to tear the pillow out of his grasp and fling it into a pile of dirty clothes across the room.
“Fine! Fine…” said Harry crossly, adjusting his glasses so they were no longer crookedly perching atop his nose. “Two nights ago I couldn’t sleep, so I went down to the kitchen for a bite to eat.”
“The treacle tart, of course,” interjected Ginny with a smirk.
“Well, you’re not wrong. When I was heading back to bed, I heard the ghoul thumping. I figured it would keep at it all night since Ron could sleep through the Hogwarts Express barreling through the Burrow.”
“And when you realized that you were mistaken, I’m sure you immediately scampered off back to bed?” asked Ginny, feigning incredulity.
“Maybe I should have, but I saw you adding something to a potion that made it explode! I was worried that you might have gotten injured or something.”
“Mmhmm… Sounds almost plausible. So I guess you went back downstairs as soon as you saw I was okay? I’m sure you didn’t eavesdrop on my conversation with the ghoul, right?” She made a disappointed clucking sound with her tongue when Harry merely hung his head in response. “And you didn’t think twice about how odd it was that a witch was having a full conversation with a ghoul about something she was obviously intent on keeping a secret?”
A feeling of dread was growing in the pit of Harry’s stomach as she spoke. How stupid could he have been to think she was casually explaining herself to the ghoul? He chanced a glance into her mischievous brown eyes, feeling all the more in trouble at her look of triumph.
“Well, even if you accidentally stumbled upon someone in the attic two nights ago, I’m sure you would have decided to leave well enough alone after realizing your mistake and that the noise had only been someone you know and trust. Surely, you wouldn’t have attempted to check back up on things the next day? It’d be far too easy to mistakenly leave evidence of your snooping by leaving a light on or something like that…”
As embarrassed as Harry was, he couldn’t help marveling at how Ginny had him absolutely dead to rights. She’d seemingly caught him at every turn.
“It was after Ron kept badgering you about Dean yesterday. You looked upset about it when you stormed off, but nobody answered when I knocked on your door to check on you,” explained Harry, knowing how ridiculous it sounded from Ginny’s bemused expression.
“How chivalrous of you!” she exclaimed, grinning widely while rolling her eyes. “You’re not nearly as sneaky as you think under that invisibility cloak. It doesn’t stop you from making noise and you’re the only one in this house who uses Charlie’s old shampoo, so I could’ve found you out with nothing but my nose.”
Harry didn’t respond, other than hiding his face behind his hand. He felt the heat of his cheeks on his palm and wondered if this was how Ginny had felt after sticking her elbow in the butter dish all those years ago. He decided not to bring that up, especially since she hadn’t yet begun using her Bat-Bogey Hex on him.
“And you were so very concerned about my emotional well-being after that tiff with my brother that you simply had to see if I was weeping bitterly in the attic? Were you at least smart enough not to mess with the potion? Because if I have to remake the whole thing, I’m billing you for ingredients and you’ll be the one waking up every two hours for a week to stir it.”
“I swear, I didn’t touch it!” moaned Harry in frustration. “I didn’t even know what it was until today, so there was no chance I’d tamper with it.”
From behind his hand, Harry noticed a change in Ginny’s demeanor. She looked quizzical for a moment before losing some of her bravado.
“You didn’t figure out what the potion was yesterday?” she asked, her voice suddenly less confident.
“No, I didn’t put everything together until I read the book today. I saw the title yesterday, but the ghoul was being loud so I had to duck out before your Mum sent you up here to check on it. I spent the rest of the day trying to figure out what you could be brewing up here.”
“Omigosh…” whispered Ginny, her face quickly becoming just as flushed as Harry’s. “You must have thought that I was…”
“No, that’s the thing,” interjected Harry, wanting to cut off the embarrassment that he’d caused. “I knew something about it didn’t make sense. You’re super fun and pretty, so part of me knew that it probably wasn’t some sort of love potion or anything. It’s not like I thought you needed the help!”
Harry noticed that his reassurances had done little to assuage her blushing; in fact, she looked to be turning an even deeper shade of red as he spoke. Suddenly, she let out a small gasp.
“Last night, when I knew you were listening in, I said I needed something from you for the potion! You spent all night thinking I was making a love potion for you?!”
Harry grimaced, unable to hide that she wasn’t too far off the mark. He thought that Ginny might flee the room out of mortification, but he felt an overwhelming need to somehow make things right. Ginny’s ease around him over the past year had been a welcome change, and he didn’t want things to go back to the uncomfortable way they had been during his first few years knowing her.
“Okay, yeah. The thought might have crossed my mind some last night,” admitted Harry hastily. “But I read through all the potions today and realized I had it wrong. It’s not a big deal to me or anything, I promise!”
Ginny drew herself up and forced herself to look at Harry in the eye. He met her gaze, trying his best to show his resolve and earnestness.
“So you understand what the potion is? And what it does?”
Harry gave a small nod. “Yeah, I do. I hate that having me always around made you feel like you needed it. You don’t even get away from me when you’re in your own home because your family basically adopted me. It’s not fair to you, and I’m sorry about that.”
She shrugged sadly and allowed herself to glance away. Her voice was quiet as she responded. “It’s not your fault. You just showed up, not knowing my parents had been telling ‘brave Harry Potter’ stories to me my whole life. Plus, it didn’t hurt that you saved me from Tom and a basilisk, either. But I figure it’s probably not helpful to expect any guy who asks me out to live up to that kind of standard, y’know?”
Harry thought about how it felt to have Cho talking about Cedric the previous term and the unmistakable feeling that he’d never measure up to the standard she had in her head. “That’s fair, although I won’t apologize for coming after you in the chamber. The world’s a lot better with you in it.”
A soft, rueful smile was the only acknowledgment Harry received, but he felt alright about that. As hard as the conversation felt for him, he couldn’t imagine how difficult it was for Ginny. He smiled in return, thinking that she had proven her qualifications for Gryffindor house multiple times over the previous months.
“Well, now that it’s all out in the open, could I ask you for a favor?” she asked, not quite able to make eye contact again yet.
“Sure, anything you need.”
She reached forward cautiously, her fingers almost brushing Harry’s cheek. He winced when her thumb and forefinger plucked a single black hair from just above where his glasses rested upon his ear.
“It’s the last ingredient,” she breathed, her voice almost a whisper. “After tonight, neither of us will have to worry about feeling awkward about any of this ever again.”
The clouds that had been blocking out the sun parted just enough to allow a beam of sunshine through the window. The brilliance of the light gave Harry an excellent view of the smattering of freckles along Ginny’s cheeks, nose, and forehead and the glittering flecks of gold in her brown eyes. A summer breeze wafted through the window, flooding his nose with a flowery scent. Before he’d fully processed the thought, an impulse to close the space between them and kiss her overcame his senses.
“Thanks for understanding, Harry.”
As Ginny stood up, the sound of Ron’s bedsprings creaking broke Harry from his trance.
Chapter 5: Chapter 5
Harry lay in bed for another hour until Mrs. Weasley came to check on him with a cold rag and a hot cup of tea. He was not nearly as adept at fooling others as Ginny apparently was, but he felt fairly confident that the Weasley matriarch hadn’t guessed from his responses that he’d been furiously trying to figure out what to do with his suddenly evident feelings for her daughter. Mrs. Weasley had advised him to drink his tea and then come downstairs if he felt well enough, and he agreed to do so.His mind reeled during lunch when Ginny plopped down into her seat across from him as if nothing had happened. It was as if she had already taken the potion; she bickered good-naturedly with Ron and talked with her mother about making a trip to Diagon Alley later that month. She skillfully ignored Harry, who kept looking over at her after every few bites. Without fail, she found something else to focus on whenever his eyes wandered her way.
That afternoon, Ginny snuck away before the boys could ask her to play some quidditch with them. When Harry goaded Ron into asking his mum where she’d gone, they learned that she’d flooed over to Dean’s house for the afternoon and wouldn’t be home until after dinner. Ron was frustrated to only have Harry to test his keeping skills against, but Harry was out of sorts for reasons wholly unrelated to quidditch.
Despite his attempts to reason his way out of it, there were definitely some feelings brewing inside of him. His initial arguments against those feelings couldn’t withstand cross-examination. Sure, she was Ron’s sister, but that didn’t give him a right to veto who could ask her out. She was technically dating Dean at the moment, but who was to say they’d be together forever? If she’d been strong enough to not act on her feelings for years, it wasn’t that big of an ask for him to wait until she was unattached before he tried talking to her.
The nagging thought that she wanted to scrub herself of any feelings for him was the toughest for Harry to counter. Did she want to be rid of those feelings because she thought he would never return them, or could she see the dangers of being with him from afar and want to spare herself from the kind of pain that could bring? Maybe she just hated being conflicted about dating Dean and wanted to give her feelings for him a chance to grow.
Questions raged inside of him as he and Ron got ready for bed. When Ron grumbled about Ginny being allowed to stay at her boyfriend’s house so late, Harry’s look of frustration probably looked like agreement, even though it was for much different reasons than Ron was espousing. As Harry brushed his teeth, he heard the roar of the floo and Mr. Weasley’s happy greeting for his daughter.
Ginny’s voice was extra cheery, causing some of Harry’s resolve to wither. He’d nearly convinced himself to go talk to her tonight to suggest she forgo the potion out of a sense of never knowing what the future might have in store. But as her happy laughter echoed up the stairway, the selfishness of his plan felt all the more real. He couldn’t ask her to hold onto those feelings while she was with someone else. If Ginny was determined to scrub herself of any affection she felt for him, it wouldn’t be right to try to stop her. Instead, he trudged into Ron’s room forlornly.
Other than Ron’s deep breathing and occasional snores, the only thing Harry could hear as he lay awake in his bed was the sound of the summer breeze rubbing a branch lightly against the Burrow’s roof. He turned over onto his side and futilely tried to will himself to sleep. By his watch’s reckoning, it was nearly midnight. Soon, Ginny would be downing the potion that would forever scrub her of any feelings for him. He tossed over again, punching his pillow a little harder than necessary in an attempt to make it comfortable enough to overcome his wakefulness.
From out in the hallway, Harry heard the faintest creak of a board underfoot. If he hadn’t been listening so intently, he might have missed it. He mentally cursed his ears for betraying him by doing their job so well.
There was nothing but silence that followed, but Harry’s heart was beating far too quickly now. He gave himself one last chance to mount an argument as to why it was more noble to stay in bed and give Ginny space, but found his mind fully dedicated to what he would say when he reached the attic. With a long sigh, he rose from his bed and began stealthily creeping up the stairs.
Light from the attic illuminated the edges of the door as Harry approached it. He gulped involuntarily as he reached forward, lightly knocking twice before twisting the knob and swinging the door inwards.
Ginny stood next to the cauldron, a small phial of the white potion clasped in one hand and a tiny hair clenched between her fingers in the other. She didn’t look particularly surprised to see Harry in the doorway.
“Ginny!” he said much more loudly than he’d intended. Her eyes went wide as she shushed him and indicated he should close the door behind him. When he continued, his voice was much quieter. “I’m glad I caught you. I’ve been thinking about this whole thing all day and I don’t know if it’s such a good idea…”
“What?!” she hissed back, staring in disbelief at him. “What do you mean?”
“I dunno!” he shot back as the reasonable-sounding arguments he’d been going over in his head fled into the reaches of his brain he couldn’t access. “It just seems really drastic! I like us being friends and I don’t want to be nothing to you.”
He cast about for reasons for her to not take the potion that didn’t give away the feelings he’d been fighting with all day.
“Maybe I can just give you more space when you’re dating someone?” he suggested, grasping at straws. “That way you don’t have to deal with me being around all the time, but it wouldn’t close off any chance of something happening later. Who knows how we might feel in the future?”
It was as if Ginny was trying to stare straight through his eyes and into his soul. His chest heaved as he tried to convey the importance of her decision with his gaze.
In one swift movement, she brought the hair between her fingers into the phial, stoppered it with her thumb, and shook it vigorously. The liquid changed to maroon the instant the hair made contact. When Ginny saw that the potion was ready, she lifted it to her lips and drank the whole thing without hesitation.
Disappointment swallowed Harry like a fifty-foot wave crashing over a sandcastle. His shoulders slumped down as he watched Ginny wipe her mouth with her sleeve.
He waited for the change to come upon her. Harry wondered whether it would be visible on her face once every iota of care and affection for him was scrubbed from her by the potion. Would her laugh still sound almost musical? Would she no longer enjoy playing quidditch alongside him?
Ginny shuddered as a shiver moved all the way up her body. Her long, red hair danced behind her before the tremor faded. A small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth as she looked back at Harry.
“The potion worked,” she said with finality. “I’ve been scrubbed of any feelings I had for Dean.”
Harry Potter blinked several times in quick succession, staring at Ginny without comprehending.
“That’s probably for the best, though,” she added with a sly grin. “Since I broke up with him this evening, I’d rather not spend any time pining after him. Nice enough bloke, but just not who I had real feelings for, if you catch my drift.”
His mind was reeling as she took a tentative step in his direction. She’d broken up with Dean? And then put Dean’s hair in the potion, not his own? His mouth was slightly slack as he attempted to assimilate everything that was happening, but his obstinate mind refused to put the pieces together.
“After that big speech about being stealthy this morning, you didn’t honestly think I would accidentally step on a creaking stair tonight, did you?” She laughed at Harry, though not unkindly. It was more than a giggle yet less than a guffaw, and it conveyed a sense of confidence and excitement that Harry didn’t quite understand. Nonetheless, it buoyed his faltering spirits enough to coax him to step forward toward her.
“You and Dean… Aren’t together?” asked Harry, wanting to make sure he wasn’t getting his wires crossed before allowing himself to hope.
“Looks like it,” she replied, taking another two steps toward Harry. Her smile widened as she approached, looking more and more pleased with herself by the moment.
He had taken two and a half more steps her way when he paused to ask, “And you’re sure that wasn’t my hair in the potion just now?”
“Harry Potter, is your Gryffindor courage failing you?” she asked, a wickedly devious smirk overtaking her. “After all the kind things you said in Ron’s room and your attempt to talk me out of drinking the potion just now, you can’t think of a single way to test out whether I might still harbor any feelings for you?”
She took an exaggerated step toward him and crossed her arms defiantly, arching an eyebrow at him in a challenge to his resolve.
Before Harry realized that he’d decided to act, he found himself moving forward to catch her lips in his. Her hands snaked around him almost before he’d reached her, enthusiastically meeting his kiss with her own. He pulled her close against his chest as her hand found its way into the back of his hair.
When they finally broke apart, Harry felt as though everything from the past few days had been obliviated right out of his head. He was holding Ginny in his arms, whose flushed features suddenly seemed even more attractive than usual. Any questions about the potion had been deleted from his brain; no matter how good Ginny might be at fooling people, Harry would eat his broomstick if it turned out she was feigning the attraction written across her face.
Her hand slid from his shoulder down past his elbow until Harry found it tucked in his, their fingers interlacing as if they’d been holding hands like this for ages. Her other hand reached for the string to pull to turn off the attic light. She glanced over Harry’s shoulder and winked.
Before the light was extinguished, Harry followed her gaze to the corner where the ghoul was curled up in his nest, a plate that had once contained a pile of leftovers empty in front of him.
“Thanks for your help,” she whispered to it with a small laugh. “Promise to keep this whole ordeal under wraps until I figure out how to tell everyone that I’m with Harry?”
The ghoul made a groan that Harry was almost sure didn’t express understanding before the light switched off, leaving him nothing but moonlight and the warm pressure in his hand to guide him back downstairs.