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SIYE Time:13:42 on 29th March 2024
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Summer of the Serpent
By SSHENRY

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Category: Pre-OotP
Characters:Harry/Ginny, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Albus Dumbledore, Neville Longbottom, Luna Lovegood
Genres: Angst, Humor, Drama
Warnings: Sexual Situations, Extreme Language, Dark Fiction
Story is Complete
Rating: R
Reviews: 111
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)
Hitcount: Story Total: 85729; Chapter Total: 11950







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CHAPTER SIX

Ginny’s Room

 

 

 

 

15 August

 

It is so good to be home!  Everything is exactly as we left it, but somehow, nothing looks quite the same.  Either the house has changed (which isn’t a complete impossibility given the charms holding it up) or I’ve changed.

 

I’m betting it’s not the house.

                             

I must have wandered around the house for an hour — touching everything, running my hands over the trestle table in the kitchen, counting the quartz stones in the fireplace (there are still sixty-two of them), watching the family portrait that’s hung over the living room sofa (Fred and George make the most god-awful faces!), but when I got to my room everything seemed suddenly — wrong.

 

This is the room that I’ve lived in all my life.  It’s small — twelve feet square — with a double window overlooking the back garden.  The wardrobe, dresser, single bed, bedside table and desk take up most of the floor space (I’ve always had to move the desk over against the bed if I want to practice my dancing), but it wasn’t the furniture that was wrong.  It wasn’t the placement of the furniture. It wasn’t the location of the windows or the door that still sticks (if you don’t turn the knob and lift when you try and open it).

 

What was wrong was the pink and white flowered paper on the walls — and the white ruffled curtains with the pink satin bows at the windows.  What was wrong wasn’t the shelves over the desk — but what was on them; my doll collection, the fairy and fantasy adventure books and the model unicorns I’ve been collecting since I was six.  What was wrong was the pink comforter, the innocent stuffed animals sitting on it and the hooked rug in the shape of a rose.  But worst of all was the picture.

 

The picture has hung over my bed for as long as I can remember.  It is a picture of an enchanted fairytale land, complete with castle, knights, fairies, gnomes and hippogriffs.  There’s even a fantastic dragon rising up behind the castle on rainbow wings and a princess waving serenely from her turret window.

 

I used to pretend that I was the princess, and that the knight who is riding out to slay the dragon was Harry.   Is it a wonder that Bill laughed at Harry’s really having rescued me?

 

~*~

 

Ginny closed her journal and sat down on the end of her bed, staring around at the beautiful room she’d always been so proud of.  Her mum and dad had put all sorts of time and energy into that room.  Why did everything seem so strange suddenly?  It was if she had walked into a little girl’s room — a little girl she didn’t know.

 

She blinked and shivered.

 

That was it.  This was a little girl’s room.  This room belonged to the innocent, happy-go-lucky Ginevra Weasley she’d been before she’d ever met Tom Riddle.

 

“I can’t sleep here,” she whispered hoarsely, fighting the suddenly overwhelming urge to burst into tears. She felt vaguely sick.  It was almost as if she’d walked into the room of someone who had died.

 

She stumbled out of the room, her eyes blurring, desperate to get away, but hesitated on the landing.  Up or down?

 

The twins were in their room on the same floor as herself.  But this wasn’t something she could explain to them.  Besides, they’d probably rigged a nasty trick for the next person (who wasn’t their parents — even they weren’t that stupid) to knock on their door or open it uninvited, and it probably included the jar of honey mum was missing from the pantry and the sack of feathers she’d been saving to make into new feather pillows. 

 

Percy, whose room was one floor down, wasn’t an option either.  She was still miffed at the way he’d reacted to her accident in the hotel dining room.  Stuck-up git.

 

Mum and dad were downstairs, in the kitchen.  She might be able to explain the situation to her dad but she didn’t think that she could bring herself to face her mum just yet.  She knew what her reaction would be — tears of course.  What else?

 

Up was Ron.

 

She stumbled up the steps - blinded by her unshed tears - and burst into Ron’s room without knocking.

 

As usual, the fiery orange of his Chudley Cannons paraphernalia made her feel as if she had walked into the heart of a sun.

 

“Ginny?”

 

Ron had been sorting through Chocolate Frog cards on his bed when she rushed in.

 

“Ginny, what’s wrong?”

 

“I — I can’t stay in that room another minute,” Ginny gasped, still on the verge of collapsing into hysterical sobs.

 

“What room?  Ginny, tell me what’s wrong!”

 

Ron steered her onto the bed and helped her dry her tears with a corner of the bedspread.

 

When she had finally gotten herself under control she found Ron kneeling in front of her, concern and alarm etched all over his freckled face.

 

“Ginny? Has something happened?  Is it -“ Ron gulped, “is it You-Know-Who?”

 

“No, nothing like that.  It’s — it’s just my room,” she whispered miserably.

 

“Your room?” echoed Ron, confusion now mingling with the alarm and concern.

 

“It’s not my room anymore.”

 

“Ginny, what?  Of course it’s your room!”

 

Frustrated, Ginny stood up abruptly and walked over to the window and looked unseeingly at the frog pond.

 

“I don’t know how to explain it, Ron, but-” she sighed heavily, “I realized when I walked in, that it’s no longer my room.  It belongs to the old Ginny,” she whispered.  “The one who lived here last summer.”

 

“Oh!”  Ron’s face relaxed and a smile actually crinkled the corners of his eyes.  It was a smile tinged with sadness though - sadness and understanding.

 

“A lot’s happened, hasn’t it?” he said finally.

 

“Yeah,” she admitted, smiling back tentatively.

 

“A lot has happened.  That changes a person.  So, all we have to do is change your room a bit to make it your room again.”

 

She looked up at him hopefully

 

“Can I?”

 

“I don’t see why not. Tell you what - I’ll help you if you want.”

 

Would you?  Oh Ron!” and Ginny threw her arms around him in relief.

 

“It’s not that big a deal Ginny, really,” said Ron, his ears going rather pink.

 

“Well it’s a big deal to me!”

 

“So, do you want to just change a few things, or should it be a total makeover?”

 

“Lets do the works.”

 

“Hey, sounds like I just found something to keep me occupied for the rest of the summer.  Where should we start?”

 

“Well, I’ll have to pack up all my old stuff, and get rid of the curtains — ruffles!” said Ginny disdainfully.

 

Ron snickered.

 

“No, I don’t see you much as a ruffles-person anymore.  But I’ll have to ask mum what to do about the paint and stuff.”

 

“Do we have to tell her?” asked Ginny with a slightly desperate note to her voice.

 

“You afraid of how she’ll react?”

 

“Wouldn’t you be — if you were me?”

 

“You’ve got a point, Ginny, but she can’t expect you to keep a pink, frilly room now that you’re no longer a little girl.”

 

 “But she put so much time and effort into it,” said Ginny.  She felt slightly guilty thinking of what her mother’s reaction would be.  “She sewed the curtains herself and-”

 

“When you were four,” said Ron, his lip curled.  “You’re not four years old any more Ginny.  And you’re right.  After everything that’s happened — you need a change.”

 

“But-”

 

“Leave it to me,” said Ron in a business-like tone that put Ginny oddly in mind of Hermione.  “I’ll talk to dad.  I’ll do it right now.”

 

And he clattered off down the steps as if relieved to be able to finally do something.

 

 

~*~

 

 

18 August

 

Well, the worst is over with.  Ron talked to dad and he agreed that I could make over my room however I liked.  He said there was enough left over from the Galleon Draw that I won’t have to worry about money, but Bill and Charlie both sent some anyway — ten galleons from Charlie and twenty from Bill!  Don’t I have the nicest brothers ever?

 

Dad said that I don’t have to use Bill and Charlie’s money for my room.  He suggested that since I’m making a fresh start that I go ahead and use their money for some new clothes.  Sounds like a good idea to me!

 

Just as I feared, mum broke into tears when dad told her what I was planning to do.

 

“But it’s a beautiful room!” she wailed.  (I could hear her all the way upstairs).  She sounded as if her heart was breaking, but dad calmed her down — eventually.

 

I’m staying in Ron’s room (on the camp bed Harry used last summer) until my room’s finished.  He’s helping me to pack up my stuff in the boxes dad brought home from the Muggle home goods shop in the village.

 

It took us the entire morning of the sixteenth to pack up my dolls and books and collections.  There was a whole drawer of photos.  Those I’m not going to pack up.  I’ll sort them into a photo album.  The girl in the photos may not be who I am now, but she is part of me just the same.

 

There was stuff in my closet and under my bed that I’d forgotten I even had.  There was a toy broomstick that Ron gave me when I was two; a dress-up princess outfit that mum and dad gave me for my fifth birthday (the toy scepter shoots silver sparks and rainbow bubbles); the china tea set with the kettle that sings “I’m a little teapot” when the tea is cool enough to drink, and my storybook castle; complete with all the lords, ladies, knights, dragons and (my favorites) the king and queen. I loved that castle, especially the knight with the green eyes and the princess with the long red hair.

 

I’m glad Ron was helping.  He kept me from getting too morbid by telling me silly stories and bits of things that he, Harry and Hermione have gotten up to.

 

Once we had finished with all my things we took down the curtains, the enchanted-land picture, the fairy pictures on the wall over my desk and even folded up the comforter and the lace-edged sheets.

 

When we’d packed everything up, dad magicked the boxes up to the attic and put a shield around them to keep the ghoul from ruining the contents.

 

Yesterday Ron and I watched while dad vanished the furniture and used some spells to strip the wallpaper and paint.  By lunchtime the room was completely bare, so we spent the rest of the day going over paint samples.

 

Fred and George tried to get involved, giving us suggestions (some of which were downright ridiculous; like how I should attach all the furniture to the ceiling with permanent sticking charms) and attempting to hide little “surprises” in various corners.  Percy put on his prefect face though (or should I say Head Boy face — his badge came with his Hogwarts letter) and tracked them all down.  Percy may be an uptight git sometimes, but there’s no denying that he’s clever - nearly as clever as Fred and George.

 

Mum wanted me to get my things at Diagon Alley, but I didn’t see the need.  Everything I need I can get in the village, and dad loves observing Muggles in what he calls their “natural habitat.”  He never passes up the opportunity to spend time in the Muggle world. 

 

Dad has a whole shed full of Muggle stuff that he’s picked up.  He takes it all apart — charms the pieces — then puts them back together again.  I don’t think what he does is strictly legal.  Can’t be, seeing as that there was an inquiry at the Ministry about the car.  That’s dad for you!

 

Anyway, today dad and I went into the village to pick up new things for my room; paint, a new rug, linens and even a couple framed pictures (Muggle of course).  We made a day of it and even had lunch at the café by the post office. 

 

We had a good long chat over lunch, and while dad never came out and actually said anything about the Chamber of Secrets, he alluded to it a few times, saying how proud he was of how I’ve “dealt with my challenges.”

 

That’s one way of putting it I suppose.

 

I had to suppress a giggle as I watched two little old witches (Harry was watching them argue over the proper use of dragon liver while he ate lunch in the Leaky Cauldron) superimpose themselves over dad while he was talking.  Poor dad has no idea of the “challenges” I deal with!

 

 

 

23 August

 

 

My room is perfect!  Finished (finally) - and perfect!

 

Dad wanted to use a charm to put up the paint I picked out (a soft, sea-foam green) but I insisted on doing it myself.    If this is going to be my room, I want it to be all mine. 

 

I let Ron help when we stripped the floor of its white paint though.  That was quite the chore.  We sanded it down to its natural light ash color, put on a light coat of varnish, and left it natural. 

 

We kept up a running conversation the whole time, which was good — seeing as that without it I probably would have gotten distracted by the sudden flashes I had of Harry’s activities (mostly chores) and his emotions (mostly anger and frustration).   They certainly do work him hard — those Dursleys.  (And I thought we had it bad with Mum’s insisting on the garden being gnome-free!)

 

It took us two days to paint and sand and another two days for the room to air out afterwards. 

 

While the room was airing out dad showed me something he’d been working on while Ron and I were doing the walls and floor.

 

He’s added a second floor to his work shed.  He put in skylights and a hardwood floor — and a bare!  It’s for me!  It’s a studio, where I can dance and not have to roll up my rugs and move my desk.  The studio is about 20 feet long and 15 feet wide.  It is nice and airy and he even rigged up a Muggle stereo system so that I can have music to dance by!  Don’t I have the most understanding father in the world?

 

Dad reinstated my furniture (using a transfiguration spell to change all the furniture’s white paint to a light ash — to go with the stripped floor).  Ron and I laid out the large braided rug (all in green shades to match the walls) and then we unpacked the linens.

 

I’ve opted for a creamy white spread that is thick, but not fluffy, and hangs down over the space beneath the bed  - for which I’ve bought a set of plastic storage bins.  The sheets are crisp Irish linen.  No frills or lace, but they have an almost silken texture.  They cost me a pretty sickle too let me tell you!  I also bought several throw pillows.

 

The only stuffed animal that survived the purge is a large, snowy owl that looks so much like Hedwig that I felt guilty even thinking about putting her in a box.  But she looks so serene and sophisticated that she hardly detracts from the overall feel of my room.

 

The shelves over my desk are completely empty — except for my schoolbooks and the model of Mr. Chubbs (he’s been stalking up and down, glaring and growling low in his chest.  I don’t think he approves of my room’s makeover). 

 

We hung the pictures (both of them) in less than half an hour.  My favorite is a Muggle photograph taken when dad was fudging around with that old camera.  Its  of Mr. Chubbs.  He’s sitting on the stone walkway in the back garden, his back to the photographer, just before the walk splits to circle the fairy tree.   Anyway, he’s looking at the fairy tree as if it holds the answer to life, the universe, and everything.  The wildflowers are in full bloom on either side of the walkway. It looks for all the world as if you could step through the wall and onto the path.  That one is hung over my bed.

 

The other is another Muggle photo of a mountain meadow.  There is a stream with wildflowers growing beside it and, in the distance, a towering mountain range.  This one I hung beside my reading chair.

 

The chair - which dad rescued from a Muggle junk shop - has been reupholstered in a cream colored brocade that has green vines and leaves embroidered all over it.  I put it beside the windows where there is enough light to read by for most of the day. 

 

I put my foot down when it came to hanging curtains.  I don’t want anything to obstruct the view of the garden.  Leaving the windows bare invites the outside in — making my room seem like an extension of the out-of-doors.

 

It’s so nice that I don’t think I’ll want to leave it!  Too bad I can’t take my new room with me to Hogwarts!

 

I invited mum up to take a look (she’s been avoiding the proceedings as long as she can).  When she saw it she stood quite still for several minutes just taking it all in.  Then, in a voice that was decidedly shaky, she said that I’d done a “very nice job” and then she left.  I could have sworn that I saw tears in her eyes.

 

I refuse to let her reaction spoil my perfect room!

 

 

Note to self:

 

Never assume anything is perfect!  I just found footprints of green paint on the inside of my wardrobe door!  They go all the way up — across the top — and down the other side.  Stupid gits.  Nothing, I repeat, NOTHING is safe when Fred and George are around!

 

~*~

 

Ginny could hear her mother downstairs several minutes later, crying as if her heart would break.  Her father was attempting to comfort her.

 

“You have to admit, Molly, she did a beautiful job,” he said in a placating tone.

 

“Oh, it’s beautiful, Arthur, but it’s so — so mature!”

 

“Now, Molly-”

 

“She’s only twelve, Arthur!  She should be playing with dolls and decorating with fairies and flowers and — and-”

 

“She’s grown beyond that, Molly.  This is who she is now.”

 

“Nooo!” wailed her mother.  “She’s just a baby, Arthur.”

 

“She’s hardly a baby.”

 

“A child then.”

 

“Molly, I don’t think that after what happened-”

 

“I won’t have that discussed in this house, Arthur, do you hear me?  We’re going to make sure that Ginevra has a normal childhood.”

 

“A little late for that,” Ginny replied under her breath.

 

Ron stuck his head in the door just then, looking rather sheepish.

 

“I take it mum saw it finally.”

 

Ginny was only able to nod.

 

“Don’t let her get to you, Ginny, it looks bloody brilliant!”

 

“Well it should, seeing as that you did most of the work,” she retorted. 

 

“Do you want me to help you down with your clothes and stuff?” Ron asked her, looking around the room appreciatively.

 

“Actually, would you mind if I stayed one more night?”  I sort of want to, um, clean it.”

 

Clean it?  What are you on about, Ginny?  It’s spotless!”

 

“Yeah, well, do you remember the cleansing ritual?”

 

“The one dad’s Gram used to do?”

 

“Yeah.  The offering is supposed to sit out all night, isn’t it?”

 

“From what I remember. Will it work for you? I mean, it’s supposed to be really old magic that only elemental magicians can call up. Least that’s what Bill says.”

 

“Gran did it every year,” countered Ginny.

 

“Yeah, well, she was an Elemental, according to dad, anyway.”

 

“It can’t hurt though.  Even if the magic itself doesn’t work, the idea of mentally cleaning out my room might just make me feel better.”

 

“Hey, whatever!  Stay as long as you want.”

 

 

~*~

 

 

24 August — Just Barely

 

 

Sweet Merlin!  I’ve never felt anything like it!  As long as I live I am going to remember this night!   How do I describe what happened?  Are there words?

 

How about — power — passion and joy? No.  That’s not enough. 

Absolute power — untamed passion — unadulterated joy

 

(Ah, the wonders of adjectives!) That’s a little better, but it still doesn’t convey the whole of it. 

 

I decided, you see, to do the elemental cleansing ritual that my great-grandmother used to do.  I wanted to use it to sort of ceremonially ‘clean’ my room of all negative emotions.  I had no idea. . .

 

My great-grandmother — dad’s Gran -  was a wizened little witch.  She looked like one of those dried-apple dolls - all wrinkles and lines.  But she had a vividness about her that couldn’t be hidden by age.  It showed in her eyes, in the way she spoke and even in the way she moved. 

 

I adored her.  We all did.  She was so much fun to be around and she didn’t talk down to me, even then.  She treated me like a person - not a baby (even when I was a baby!)  She used to live near the Diggorys.  She was great friends with Cedric’s grandparents, but she died when I was ten - just a year before I left for Hogwarts.

 

Anyway, I remember the summer I was nine when I actually got to see Gran do her ritual.  I’d heard her talk about it before, but I’d never been around before when she’d actually done it.  Mum left Ron and me at her house while she took the rest of the boys shopping for their school things. 

 

Gran had us help her with that special ritual she said she did every year that helped her to keep away ‘bad thoughts’ and ‘ill intentions.’  It involved several key ingredients and a lot of preparation - which she made me memorize.   I never could figure out why she made me — and not Ron — memorize it.

 

It took me over an hour to collect all the ingredients tonight.  Dad saw me prowling around by the pond and came down to see if I was O.K. When I told him what I was planning to do, he just looked at me for several minutes, then said, “It just might work at that!” gave me a kiss on the forehead, and went back to the house.

 

The ritual calls for an elemental sacrifice and a piece of the person requesting the cleansing in order to activate the ancient magic.

 

According to Gran, the elemental sacrifice consists of representations of each of the four elements. She said that the exact ingredients didn’t matter exactly - as long as they felt right to me.

 

I picked a sprig of lavender to represent earth, a blood-red candle to represent fire, a goblet of lemon and orange-scented water to represent — water, and sandalwood incense to stand for air.

 

To represent myself, I cut a lock of my own hair.

 

All of this got placed on a low table in front of the open double windows in my room.

 

As Gran had directed, I took a bath, put on a clean shift, and let down my hair before lighting the candle and incense.

 

After the candle and incense are lit there is a chant that is recited for each element.  It’s very simple, really.  I was rather surprised that I remembered it so well all of three years later, but there you are.

 

Anyway, as I finished the invocation I added my hair to the flame, then raised my arms to ‘draw down the power’ as Gran had instructed. I wasn’t expecting what came next. 

 

I felt a sudden tingling in the tips of my fingers.  The tingling spread quickly, until every inch of my body felt as if it were stuck full of pins.  What happened next happened all at once — and all at the same time.

 

There was a flash of brilliant white light — like lightning, only it didn’t burn me — it pierced me.  It filled every corner of my mind, my body — my soul.  And then the wind — it was like a sudden gust, the kind that precedes a thunderstorm.  It swirled and danced through the open windows.  It left the candle alone, but it swept right through me!  I could hear the echo of the wind’s voice in my mind and at the same time a rumble like thunder came up through my feet — grumbling low and powerful and deep and I was awash with a crystalline clarity - as if my whole self had been refracted through a prism.

 

And then, for the briefest of moments I became the fire and the wind, the water and the earth.  I was everywhere!  I was everything!  It was such an amazing feeling that I had to shout with laughter.  I felt like singing and laughing and crying all at the same time!

 

And then it was gone.  The light and air and water and rumbling - all gone.  It wasn’t my imagination however, for the chimes I had hung above the windows continued to dance play and my hair was all tousled into knots.

 

The sacrifice — all of it — was gone.  Gone as if it had never been.  The water, the candle, the incense, the flowers - even my hair — had vanished. 

 

In the place where the sacrifice had been laid out - lying all by itself in the middle of the table - was a small, silver ring.

 

I had never seen it before, but when I picked it up I saw that there were etchings — runic symbols I think — all around the circumference of the ring.  I looked them up in Charlie’s old Runic dictionary.  They represent the elements.  Oddest of all was the etchings on the inside, which translated as, “we are one.”

 

The ring was a perfect fit for the fourth finger of my right hand.  I tried to slip it back off - but it wouldn’t budge.  I actually panicked for a moment, but it twisted on my finger easily.  It just wouldn’t come off.  In fact, I’m not entirely certain that I want it to come off.  It’s rather soothing actually, and it tingles.  The same tingling I felt in my skin when the elements came to me is still emanating from the ring.

 

Is that what happened?  The elements came to me?  Why would they come to me?  I really wasn’t expecting anything to happen.  I just thought it would be a nice way to claim my room as my own.  It worked better than I ever could have imagined!

 

For the first time since I opened Tom’s diary last year I feel at peace.  And do you want to hear the weirdest thing?  It was one year ago today that I first wrote in that diary.

 

The shadow — his shadow - is still there.  It is burned into my soul.  The knowledge Tom gave me is still there — carved into my heart.  But I know now, I understand now, that it can’t hurt me.  It can’t hurt me, but it could hurt others.  This is not knowledge to be taken lightly.  Neither is it knowledge that can be shared readily — with anyone.  I don’t know if there is anyone alive who would be able to deal with the power that that knowledge.  I know I’m not up to the task.  But I don’t exactly have a choice, so I guess I’ll have to be as good of a guardian as I can.

 

The knowledge.  I’ll always be separate — apart — because of it.  That can’t be helped.  But that doesn’t mean that I can’t love or be loved.  The light and the wind told me that. 

 

 

 

 

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