Summer of the Serpent by SSHENRY



Summary: WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF SS POTTER! - - - Ginny Weasley survived the Chamber of Secrets, but will she survive the summer suprises and discovery that follows? This is the first in a series. Other works from the world of SS POTTER include LIFE IS BUT A DREAM, TOWARDS TOMORROW and TODAY THE TEMPEST. This story is a dark, fiction and is a prequel to Towards Tomorrow (also being posted on this site)
Rating: R starstarstarstarhalf-star
Categories: Pre-OotP
Characters: None
Genres: None
Warnings: None
Challenges: None
Series: SSPotter
Published: 2005.01.10
Updated: 2005.01.27


Summer of the Serpent by SSHENRY
Chapter 1: The Journal
Author's Notes:

July 6th

 

Professor Dumbledore said that I’d been very brave.  Well no, he didn’t actually say brave.  What he said was that I was “an extraordinary young woman” who “showed a great deal of courage in dealing with a situation that most adult wizards would have found overwhelming.”

 

And therein lies the problem.  Most adult wizards would never have found themselves in my situation, would they?  Most adult wizards would have realized that they were dealing with a dangerous piece of dark magic and would have disposed of that cursed diary before it ever had a chance to work its magic on them.  But not me, oh no.  Naive trusting, lonely, love struck little Ginevra Weasley had to be so sappily pathetic that she poured out her heart to the most powerful Dark Lord in recorded history.  Of course I didn’t realize Tom’s true identity until it was too late, but that’s no excuse.  It should never have happened.

 

Professor MacGonagall said that I was not to be held responsible for falling prey to Tom’s deception.  (She didn’t actually say his name, but I knew exactly who she meant by “Him”).  It was very nice of her to say what she said, and she might truly mean that I am not to be held responsible.  Problem is, I hold myself responsible!  I could have killed Mrs. Norris, and that would have been bad enough, I love cats desperately, but Colin?  Justin?  My own brother’s girlfriend Penelope?  I still see their faces in my dreams, all stiff and stone like.  Sometimes I dream that I’ve been turned to stone, that I can see and hear but can’t respond, and I wake up screaming and twisted up in my sheets.

 

I could have killed Hermione, and that would have killed Ron.  (Stupid prat doesn’t realize it yet, but he’s crazy about her.  He’s always talking about her, quoting things she said, raging about what a stickler for details she is, but he sleeps with a photo of her — O.K. of the three of them — under his pillow).

I could have killed Harry.

 

Ginny Weasley paused in her relentless writing; her quill poised above the next page of the diary Bill had given her that morning in the hospital wing.

 

When she’d gone to sleep after that horrifying night, her mum and dad had been sitting by her bed, both of them looking so very tired, but relieved. She could understand the tired looks.  It was not every day that you’re told that your youngest child and only daughter has been murdered by the resurrected heir of Slytherin.  They’d promised that they would stay until she went to sleep.  When she had drifted off Mum had been holding her hand.  Dad had just been there, solid, reliable and safe.

 

When she’d woken up, Mum and Dad had gone, but Bill was there, her favorite brother.  He must have Apparated in from Egypt as soon as he’d heard the news.  She’d opened her eyes to find him looking at her bemusedly.

 

“Sleeping Beauty awakens!” he’d said, grinning.

 

She couldn’t help but grin back.  He always had that effect on her. When he smiled it was like a piece of sunshine had dropped into her very soul.  But her smile faltered when she remembered where she was and what had happened.  If he was here-then he must know.  Oh God, what must he think of me now? she’d dropped her gaze, unable to meet the directness of his cobalt blue eyes.

 

“Ginny.”  His voice was soft, compelling.

 

Funny, wasn’t it, how interesting the pattern of the spread suddenly became.  She just couldn’t tear her gaze away.

 

“Gin,” his fingers were under her chin, lifting it, until she was looking him in the eye.

 

He was the only one who could call her Gin without making her mad.  She didn’t know why.  Maybe it was the way he said it, as if it were the most precious name he knew.

 

She cringed when she met his gaze, expecting to see disappointment, as she had when her father had looked at her, or overwhelming worry, as had been in her mums.  What she hadn’t expected was to see the laughter crinkling his eyes.  The great prat was laughing at her!

 

“What’s so funny!” she’d said furiously.

 

Bill had thrown his head back then, laughing outright; laughing so hard that he’d had to wipe tears from his eyes.

 

“You never do anything halfway, do you sis?” he’d said at last, spluttering to get control of himself.

 

“How do you mean?” she’d asked cautiously, her eyes narrowed.

 

“What I mean- is that you throw yourself into your studies, getting top marks across the board, you throw yourself into your dance, learning complex routines that would have most adult witches crying in confusion and when you have a crush on a bloke you can’t just have a normal 12-year-old fantasy crush, you have to go and get rescued by him as well!”

 

She’d had to smile tentatively as he’d bent over, clutching his stomach in new paroxysms of mirth.

 

“And he didn’t just rescue you either,” wheezed Bill breathlessly, “but the stupid git did it properly, didn’t he?  Slew the dragon and everything!”

 

“Basilisk,” said Ginny faintly, still smiling.

 

“Come again?” said Bill, wiping his eyes with the hem of his sleeve.

 

“It wasn’t a dragon.  It was Basilisk.”

 

Bill stared at her for a full ten seconds before belting out more peals of laughter.

 

She was grinning now.  She couldn’t help herself.

 

“And he advanced on the beast,” said Bill, whipping out his wand and making slashing gestures as if he were wielding a sword.  “His wand at the ready.”

 

“It was a sword actually,” said Ginny, grinning at the look on Bill’s face.

           

“What?”

 

“He killed it with a sword,” she managed before dissolving into giggles herself.

 

There was something intrinsically humorous about her, Ginny Weasley, having been rescued by the very boy she had so secretly admired for so very long.  And not just rescued, but rescued heroically.  Damn, but that was better than any of the fantasies she’d ever had about him.

 

Madam Pomfrey had come out of her office just then looking stern, but her gaze had softened when she’d seen the brother and sister laughing together and, after helping Ginny to clean herself up and get dressed had declared her to be perfectly fit and ready to rejoin the school body.

 

“Doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” Bill had said darkly as he’d escorted her down to the Great Hall in time for lunch.

 

Ginny, who was looking at him sideways, had seen the momentary shadow that had flitted across his handsome face.

 

“What do you mean?” she’d ventured.

 

“Only that nobody could be perfectly fit after going through something like that Gin,” he’d said seriously, squeezing her hand in his own.  “Having the Dark Lord in your mind like that is not something that can be cured with a potion for dreamless sleep and a mug of hot chocolate.”

 

The look on his face at that moment was one Ginny did not think she would soon forget.  It was so frightening, so foreign, that it crossed her mind to wonder if this man was in fact Bill Weasley, and not perhaps some remnant of the shadow Tom that had fought for control of her soul.  He knewHow could he know?  How could he possibly know what Tom had taken from her?  What he had shown her?

 

“Bill?”

 

“I’ll make him pay Gin, I swear I will,” he said quietly, looking down at her with the love and concern and acceptance of everything about her — even this whispered a small voice — in a way that made him so, so Bill.

 

“Nobody robs my sister of her childhood, of her innocence without paying for it,” he’d said darkly.

 

That was when he’d given her the journal.

 

She’d drawn back from it, as if burned when he’d handed it out to her.

 

“I can’t!” she’d whispered, stricken at his generosity, and her seeming lack of gratitude.  She couldn’t take it from him, she just couldn’t!  What if - what if it was like the other?

 

“Bullshit!” he’d said vehemently, and Ginny had stared at him openmouthed.  She’d heard Bill swear of course, around her brothers, but he never swore in front of her or mum, that she could remember.  She knew in that moment that her relationship with Bill had just entered a new level.  He was speaking to her as one adult to another, and somehow, this brutally honest acknowledgement of his feelings spurred her to take the journal from his hands.

 

“It’s beautiful Bill,” she’d said softly, and it was too, all buttery soft sea-green leather.  It even had her name engraved across the bottom of the cover in neat block letters.

 

He’d shown her how the cover pulled loose, meaning that she could refill the journal as many times as she wanted.

 

“I want you to use it, Gin,” he’d said quietly.  “There’s got to be a lot going on in your head right now.  I know it’s not as good as a Pensive, but maybe it will help you to be able to put your thoughts down on paper.”

 

He’d stood silently, just looking at her for a few minutes before he continued.

 

“There’s only one charm on this journal Gin, and that one I placed on it myself.  No one except you will be able to read anything that you’ve written on this or any other journal that you put inside this cover.  Not unless you give them your express permission.”

 

He’d left her then to head down to the gates of Hogwarts so that he could Apparate back to his flat in Cairo.  But he’d promised to owl her at least once a week on top of their regular Sunday afternoon dance lessons.  She’d watched him go, admiring the gracefully way he carried himself. And when she’d walked into the Great Hall, it had been with her head held high and the courage to look Harry in the eye and actually give him a genuine smile for the first time in her life.

 


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