The Play
A tall and thin man ran in a sweeping arc out onto the stage in a top hat, his arms open wide a spotlight following him. “Good evening everyone! Thank you for coming to our first-ever production.” He took a huge bow.
A large cheer went up across the auditorium. Ginny stood again with the rest.
Suddenly, as he straightened up from his bow, with a loud pop, he was suddenly shirtless in boxers and tall socks.
“Oh, Henry!” He called, dramatically, suddenly pulling put an oversized muggle magician’s wand. “It’s time to start the show!”
An effusive red glow, was rising, hinting off the back curtain from the floor the stage.
People whooped and catcalled as a man suddenly flew out from behind stage right, slightly flailing midair.
“That will be a harness,” Hermione was hissing to Ron. “You can see the wire.” Ginny had noticed. The muggle MC was using magic in all his antics, presumably by someone off stage. And the wizard MC was using muggle illusions.
Ginny looked down around the crowd. She saw her parents standing, clapping and smiling. Every time she was in a crowd this size since the war, it would hit her how lucky they all were to be alive. She looked at all the faces she couldn’t ever know. A sadness filled her.
“Andrew, bit underdressed for a show, are we?” Henry said from midair, traditional, frilly robes bouncing on his splayed arms. He then was let down unceremoniously and stumbled onto the stage.
Andrew tapped his own head with the fake wand and muggle street clothes appeared. “Welcome to an evening of celebration —.”
“You look better that way. — And remembrance.” They were trading dialogue and alternating between casual and announcer voices.
“And you look absolutely daft. — And we hope you all have a fabulous time this evening.”
Henry pulled hard on his robes and they ripped free to show a modern wizard’s suit beneath. “Better. — You better, because the Daily Prophet already wrote a rave review.”
“Henry, they saw the rehearsal. — A huge thanks to our ensemble cast and crew.”
“Oh, — ok, Andrew, let’s show them how it’s done around here.”
They turned to each other, grabbing arms, heads together and circling each other.
“You’re a witch”
— “Wizard you cunt”
“And I’m a muggle”
“Get off your duff and”
“Let’s get into trouble!”
When they said the last words, Henry went soaring up into the rafters, while trying to effect some arabesque, and Andrew waved his fake wand and shot off stage left, waving dramatically.
The audience clapped again and was seated once more. Silence emanated from the stage and consumed the whole theater with a dark and cool breeze.
Ginny shivered slightly in her seat. It had been a long time since she would have considered the solution of nestling up with Harry’s arm around her shoulders. Instead she stared straight ahead, and leaned back into the velvet cushion for some marginal warmth.
A set appeared, moving, behind the beds. It was a dungeon dormitory with silver and green tapestries. The beds lined up in two rows along the edges of the stage. Forms were lying still under covers and mystical green lights circled above with winking stars.
The subtle music swelled and one silhouetted figure that had been sitting on the floor next to his bed stirred. A light behind him pulsed slightly as he raised his leg in an arc and placed it on the ground next to him. He was holding a mirror, gazing into it. And the other hand was resting on a pile of books and pinning a wand down.
“The dark lord will rise, tomorrow,” the man crooned into the mirror, standing up, grasping his wand. He was dressed white and green stripe pajamas. “Bet you wouldn’t cross me, tomorrow, you ignorant chum!” He had flung the mirror away and ran to the bed near him, drawing his wand across the boy’s throat.
The young man playing boy Riddle then danced swaying up to the front of the stage, and a window appeared.
“Just thinking about, tomorrow,”
He placed his hands together and leaned his cheek, tilting his head.
“Clear the earth of vermin,” He turned around, the other boy had gotten up and come to the front of the sage.
“Take the power,
From muggle scum!”
The other man was dancing in an army march, and others high-kicked off their blankets leaping to their feet.
Riddle was walking through his pajama-clad troops and tapping them on the head, alternating trying outfits. Some of the choices earned laughter from the crowd.
“We’re stuck in a world,
Deprived of my glory.” The Riddle actor was at the front of the formation of men. The beds had danced their way off stage and a dais had appeared behind the group, Riddle turned, sashaying his way up to the stairs.
He spun and swooped to his soldier, grabbing his arm with flair.
“My mark is your pride, and” He pushed his wand into his arm and then swung his arm skyward in triumph.
“This, my destiny.”
“The dark lord will rise
Tomorrow”
The men were marching masks, throwing off sparks in different directions. One was accidentally hit and dramatically affected a salute as lights like jagged laser simulating electricity surrounded him as he fell.
“So you better watch out till
Tomorrow,
We will slay.”
The Riddle at the top of the column had risen further, and now again had regained the mirror. He gestured wildly, examining his face where his nose had disappeared.
As he was distracted, his troops had formed kick line and were belting out.
“Tomorrow, Tomorrow
We’ll end you, tomorrow
Join us or you will pay”
At the last beat of the song, the theater lights went out.
The crowd hooted and clapped as a new soft song swelled up and a warm orange glow rose up like a sunset ombre. A group of people sat around in a modern muggle home on floral and plaid mismatched couches. An assortment of fire whiskey bottles lay around them.
A large-built man swigged on some beer. As he spoke, his accent was American. “Voldemort was an amateur. He could have easily taken that castle with some suppressive fire.”
“He had trebuchets, Rex. That’s better.”
“Shut up Karl,” a whiny voice broken in.
“We could have easily taken out Hitler. Just fly in there on a broom with a cloak.” A man sitting in a chair by himself wore all black and spoke in a Russian accent.
“Oleg, Did you take your potion?” A woman came up, rubbing his shoulders and offering him a glass, he shooed her away.
“Yes Lexi.”
Karl shoved a book into Rex’s hands. “The trebuchet can launch fire projectiles.”
“In the 1800s. I would just carpet bomb the forbidden forest, easy.” Rex said, miming explosion as he clinked glasses with Oleg.
“Now, for Hitler, we also could have just made a Portkey into his room while he was sleeping, and night-night Hitler.”
“You think it’s so easy, huh? Well taking out Voldemort wouldn’t have been easy. No way muggle weapons would work against him.”
“They’re all dead!” Lexi was picking up bottles and trying to pry a drink from Karl’s hand.
“Shut up Lexi.” Everyone said.
“Fine, I’ve got a letter to post.”
“Was this to axe murderer down Brighton?” Karl shouted.
Ginny’s eyes glazed over as the ensemble chased Lexi around to snatch her letter. The dramatic reading of a letter to her prison lover faded, as flashes and pops of magical and mechanical evasion filled the stage.
She saw again the actor Riddle near the stage rafters. His nose vanishing from his face, and then her mind replayed the only time she had ever seen Tom in person. He had that slivered nose. He moved with a haunting gait. And in that moment, she had been focused on Harry, staring at his body, willing him to life. But now, she replayed her only glimpses of the real Riddle. She tried to see the boy Tom, anywhere within him.
His shoulders were still a similar build. But the Tom she had known was slimmer. His face, she could almost restore him in her mind.
And she remembered that handsome face and black wavy hair, as he had been in the chamber. She had peered up at him, staring as long as she could before her eyes drifted closed on that stone floor warmed by the heat leaving her body.
And Ginny saw other faces. A young boy in a ward of orphans. A child by the sea. Trips into Tom’s memories flooded her mind.
She saw him clearly, about 16 years old. He had been sitting, arms crossed over his legs, hugging himself, body wracked with grief. His curtains drawn. Ginny had sat on his bed, unable to do anything but watch. He lifted the letter again, re-reading the last lines. “We are unable to locate anyone by that name.” The seal on the letter had shown it had come from the Ministry of Magic’s record’s department.
Young Ginny watched as it fell to the bed and scanned for more. He had been searching for his father.
Tom let himself fall to one side, away from where she was sitting. His body still. “I will find him. He has to be alive. I am not alone on this planet. My father will understand me even if no one here can.”
Ginny remembered laying down next to Tom, waiting a long time until he fell asleep. It must have been an hour she laid there next to him, the bed moving with his sobs. He just kept repeating “I’m not the only one.” Ginny tried to roll over and put her hand on his back. She knew he couldn’t feel it. He didn’t even feel warm to her. But she left her hand there for a long time. Eventually he rolled over and fell asleep, and the memory faded.
When she had come out of the diary she had been tossed back onto her own bed. Immediately grabbing the book again, her quill out of ink, she had snuck a hand out beyond her curtains for supplies on her nightstand, ignoring calls of the other girls escalating into taunts about her being holed up here. She just wished against merlin that they would not open her hangings. She was readying herself with a jinx but nothing happened and she hurriedly dipped her quill.
“What did you mean, the only one?”
There was a long pause. And Ginny wondered if he had gone away. A strange fear gripped her, for the first time, truly scared that the magic might stop working, that she may lose Tom. But he was right there a moment later.
“Haven’t you ever felt like people don’t understand you? Like they are right there, but they don’t really know you and can’t understand you for who you are?”
“You’re really smart, aren’t you. You have to be to have made this diary.”
“I was.. ahead of my time, yes.”
“Well, most of my brothers felt the same way. Charlie told me. Both he and Bill felt that way. Both top NEWTS and Head boys. But see, we got lucky because our whole family had each other.”
“I was an orphan Ginny..”
“I know, but you weren’t alone in the world. We were always out there. Well, my family wasn’t alive, but someone. You just didn’t find them yet. Surely you found people when you got older, if you lived.”
“I don’t think I ever did.” There was a long pause and Ginny stared at the page, ready to contradict, but something stopped her.
“Thank you, Ginny. For what you did just now in the memory. Your hand. The comfort. No one had ever done that. I can’t say what it meant. Maybe I have finally found someone.”
Ginny remembered laying in bed that night after finally shutting the diary, wanting to go back into every single one of his memories. She wondered who he had been, and what he had become in life. She didn’t know who that Tom was, but she felt this energy when they talked. It was like magic. She could almost feel his emotions through the page. Somewhere quiet between them, she had known he was changing. All their debates, all their nights of arguing, and he had finally shown her something real. She reached behind her back for the diary, and brought it up to her chest, holding it to her heart as she drifted to sleep.
Ginny’s attention phased back into the theater, her senses seemingly activating.
“Oi! Voldemort’s gonna be toastier than a kebab in forrest fire.“
“And, Hitler’ll be heil-tailing it—”
“Karl!” They all called, the familiar refrain calling out his pun.
“Are ve doing this?” Oleg asked, pulling a time turner from beneath his fitted, textured black robes.
The cast gasped.
“Yes, ve still have plenty of these in Russia.” Oleg winked at the audience who laughed.
“Let’s lock and load, boys!” They clicked glasses loudly. “First one to knock the other sodding dictator wins.”
“Wait, we gotta kidnap the dementor!”
Ginny shifted in her chair and cast her eyes down at the orchestra sections without meaning to. Luna happened to be looking up at her. Ginny gave a flicker of a smile, tightening the corners of her mouth. Luna mouthed at her ‘are you ok?’ And Ginny nodded, taking a breath. This was stupid. He literally was a mass murderer. She shook herself. Literally everyone in this whole theater, thousands of people from all walks of life, had been impacted by the war he had started. She remembered the curling terror rush through her body as she watched her family run away into the castle as she was left behind near the Room of Requirement.
A cold rustling and swooping sound went though the hall as well as another cold breeze and a slight smell of rot. She looked up.
The men were circling on brooms, chasing a large figure in an oversized cloak.
“Try again!” Karl shouted.
Rex threw a giant rope lasso and caught the Dementor around the middle, pulling it toward them. It stopped gliding, looking confused, but then started coming for them instead.
“Listen up!” Oleg said, “We are going to give you the motherload from the Motherland. You can feast on the Fuhrer.”
Ginny looked down at her painted fingernails. She had chosen white. But she wished she had gone with a silver. A strand of hair was itching her. And she felt stifled and cold all at the same time.
She heard Harry laughs from a few seats on and looked back at the stage.
Somehow the dementor now had a muzzle and it was floating in a corner of the mismatched living room. Weaponry and cloaks were strewn around, the cast focusing on maps.
“Ginny, please just go. No one is going to see you. They don’t patrol around 3 am.”
“But, Tom what is so special about this place? I am going to get detention for a month doing this. It’s easy for you to say, nothing but time Tom.”
“Don’t snark me. I want to share this with you.”
“You want me to go to a dungeon? What if this thing isn’t there anymore.”
“Just trust me!”
“Ok! Fine.”
Ginny had donned her blackest cloak and made her way to the bathroom, careful no one had heard her. She exited out to the stairwell down to the common room, successfully waking no one. The common room was mercifully dark, and she cracked the portrait, managing not even to wake up the Fat Lady.
She tiptoed down to the hallway stone and then gently pushed the portrait shut without even as much as a click.
What on earth could be special about a sodding dungeon. She was nearly muttering under her breath about foolish boys and their stupid demands the entire way down to the potion’s class room. And then she shrunk into an alcove and referenced the map in Tom’s hand and scrawled instructions.
She hitched up her robes and light-footedly sprinted along a corridor after closing a door to a stairwell. Torched weren’t lit down here, but her wand had illuminated the hallway enough. She was feeling slightly spooked.
She rounded another corner and saw the statue of an old marble column. She walked up to the wall next to it and pressed her wand into a groove between stones, 7 bricks from the bottom. “Enexio” she read.
The blocks of stone silently carved themselves into pillars she easily could pass through, dust and rubble falling to the floor.
Ginny gasped, her slipper-clad feet, stepping over a translucent threshold. A long courtyard-like room became visible. Long rows of pillars framed rows and passageways of topiary trees stretching up to a misty and starry false sky. Torches had crescendoed to life along walls draped with red and green tapestries. And between the trees she saw what looked to be ancient statues, greek and Roman.
Ginny walked up to the closest statue, it looked like those she had seen in her father’s history books. It was carved marble bleached with time. a muggle status with two figures. One was extending a wand upward, the hand belonging to a fallen wizard, wrestled by a muggle.
Ginny wished she could talk with Tom and take this all in at the same time. What would it be to be walking with him in this place. She walked through the aisles along the long runners of carpets. This was some vast museum-like storage. In several areas, small grotto-like zones contained fountains, bisecting the room. Small topiary trees were growing. How they were alive underground like this, she did not know.
She followed a path that led toward wooden shelves holding thousands of books. A large wheel-like rock with a square hole in the center was spinning, catching her eye. Druid inscriptions covered the object.
Several desks and seats were standing ready for no patrons. Ginny grabbed her diary away from her chest, opening it up against an old sled-like writing desk.
“Tom, I could spend forever here.”
“See that you don’t. Forever, it turns out, isn’t that fun.”
“Thank you for showing me this place.”
“I didn’t have entirely innocent motives. Did you see those statues muggles made about oppressing wizards?”
Ginny had sighed. He was back at this again.
“Yes, I did. What is this place?”
“Gryffindor and Slytherin built it together. They sealed it away from any of the other founder so they could hide away the sins of muggles and stop the coming war. When I found this place, I knew Slytherin had failed. He was willing to embrace the dark and willing to use its power, but he thought concealment was the answer to persecution.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Well, Ginny, that is why I brought you here.”
Tom had directed her to the back of the courtyard beyond the colonnade. A tall banner at the center had a sigil blending Gryffindor and Slytherin’s crests.
She flicked her wand, rolling up the tapestry and placed her hand on the stone Tom had indicated. “I vow to know the truth,” she spoke as instructed. A handle had appeared and she pulled open what had become a door.
She entered a small study with windows overlooking a galaxy. The walls were lined with shelves, full of rolls of parchment, documents, and boxes of objects. She looked down at Tom’s diary.
“This, dear Ginny, is where you learn the truth about our world.”
On the desk, a single book lay, framed by a large writing pad. A large ornate S was carved into its leather cover.
She wended her way around stacks of paper to examine the book. It was Slytherin’s journal. How had Tom found this place. Ginny was impressed. Her parents had never told her about how to find concealed places or search out such secrets.
Ginny breathed out, shakily. As she tipped the hard cover open, she saw a calligraphic hand static that this diary belonged to Slytherin. She gently turned to the first page. The paper was well-preserved, but this was indeed an artifact.
She happened on a bookmarked page that explained the story. Having discovered this cache of materials and statues while journeying to discover more about Merlin before founding Hogwarts, Slytherin and Gryffindor had a heated debate about the items. Gryffindor wanted to make the archive public, but, friendship prevailing, he had relinquished to Slytherin’s insistence that the religious tones of Europe would spell a widening persecution of wizards. And so, Godric being adamant about not destroying history, they had made this entombed room on the grounds of Hogwarts. Gryffindor had argued that the Muggle’s rage toward magic was not to be taken personally, but Slytherin was adamant that they must protect their society at all costs.
Ginny continued reading for some time, understanding that Slytherin saw Blood Purity as a sign of trustworthiness to guard against what he sensed as a coming religious persecution. He was adamant that if they did not control tightly the bloodlines of the people involved in the learning of magic, that they would eventually lose control of the narrative of what magic meant and that would threaten the very institutions they attempted to establish as a centralized magical society.
Later, back in her dorm, her mind spinning, she wrote more to Tom.
“Tom, what do you think would have happened if the statute wasn’t ever created?”
“Well, we can never know. For many years, I researched and plan ways to go large leaps back in time so I could meet Slytherin himself. But this was before I knew he was a fool obsessed with religion. He was a product of his time. The real threat was always Muggles just being as they are. They would overrun, demand, enslave, and generally ruin lives. This is why Grindlewald was right. They should have been contained and managed for their own good.”
“But what about that other section of books there.. the magic of various muggle tribes?”
“They are our magical brethren. They were persecuted as well.”
But Ginny fell asleep thinking of the Incas and the Druids and remote tribes in the Andes and the Inuit people and native Americans. Not all were persecuted. The muggles largely thought it was lore and ignored them.
Ginny flooded back into the present with a large flash illuminating the whole auditorium.
Loud whirling violins and flutes overlayed a spiral of color and sound and then the protagonists fell slowly from the top of the stage and landed in a large closet, overlooking a room.
An empty room lay beyond the closet.
Ginny watched a bit numbly.
The dotty woman burst through the closet doors and out onto the stage, exploring the room.
“Lexi, get back here!” Karl hissed. “This is not one of your video games, you daft woman.”
Silently, Oleg summoned her back just before the door opened up.
“Ok, clock is on.” Rex jeered, tapping his watch, clutching some pretty heavy firepower trained through the closet slats.
Oleg held up his wand, “There are four of them. He’s got some kind of vial to his arm.”
“Dude, Hitler is a meth-head. That’s a doctor with an IV.”
“Do you think they’re armed,” Karl hissed at Oleg.
“I thought it didn’t matter, Mr. My Wand is Faster than Bullets.”
Oleg was counting down with his fingers, 3—2—,
Karl shook his head wildly.
Oleg trained his wand through the slats and Karl put his arm out reflexively. “Wait, the killing curse. It damages you.”
Oleg glared at Karl. “That’s not how it— Fine, you do it.” He apparated away with a pop.
“Oleg?” Rex said uselessly.
“What was that?” The last doctor in the room asked, and Hitler sat in bed, looking around.
“It’s show time Karl.” Rex said, hoisting up a second gun next to the sniper.
“Ok, ok!” He was fumbling with his wand and then blasted open the doors, stunning the doctor.
Hitler looked startled and angry and started to shout in German before clutching his chest and going mute.
Rex had his gun trained through the slats, still, hidden. “Get him Lex.”
Rex fumbled around with his wand again, pulling the absurd lasso around the Dementor to draw him out of the closet. But the beeping on the heart monitor had already grown loud.
The dementor glided out, and when Hitler saw it, there was a loud fart. The heart monitor went wild again and Hitler collapsed into bed.
Lexi ran out of the closet to Hitler’s side, “There there, Mr. Hitler.” She looked into his eyes tenderly and stroked back his hair, effecting a kiss on his forehead.
“He’s dead!” She shouted. “We could have at least tried to reason with him! You never let me try anything, Karl!”
Lexi attempted to hug Hitler and was on the verge of climbing into bed with him when a disgusted Karl bodily summoned her across the room.
Karl gathered them and cast a strong shield charm, pulling the three back into the closet. The dementor wouldn’t budge. So Karl dropped the rope as Rex shut the door. Rex was fumbling with the time turner as a shout went up in the room. More dementors swooped in. And their dementor, rope around his middle, glided over to another.
“Look, it’s his grandpa” Lexi cooed.
A wizard burst in the door, and Karl about panicked. He blasted open the closet door where they stood hidden.
“Will this shield hold?” Rex grunted, holding the time turner like a grenade, still spinning.
“Never tested it against bullets.”
The German guards started shooting, bullets bouncing off.
“Has been now.”
Cracks appeared in the shield moments before the flashed away.
The bright lights were a screen over her mind.
She saw the flash of Colin’s camera. Harry had been sitting beside her at breakfast, well, not really as much beside her as just adjacent on the bench. But she had felt the warmth of his arm as he had strided over the bench and righted himself.
Every once in a while when he cut his sausages, Ginny had felt the brush of his robe. The flash had gone off, startling Ginny out of her reverie.
Colin had taken a photo of Harry. Later that week, the unctuous boy had merrily shoved a developed photo onto Harry’s parchment while he was studying with Ron. Ginny had sat in a chair near the far wall, writing in the Diary on and off as she read some of her class assignments.
“Colin’s picture was developed!” She wrote, thinking of what it must look like with her next to Harry. She badly wanted to see the picture. But she couldn’t just go over there and ask.
“Is this about Harry Potter?”
“Yeah, the one Colin took of us. I don’t know if Harry likes me like that. I guess it doesn’t matter.” In her mind, Ginny was playing it cool.
Riddle didn’t respond but Ginny didn’t notice. She had kept on, “I could probably go look at it, but that would probably be too awkward. I’ll just maybe go over there and see if I can see it.”
But as Ginny was standing up, he had gotten up and decided it was time for bed. The picture falling to the floor behind the two boys as they made their way up the boy’s staircase.
Ginny stood and stared for a moment, not registering that she was moments from tears. Some upperclassman nearly stepped on the photo before she snatched it from the ground, not even looking at it until she was safely behind her hangings.
“Tom, he left it behind, he didn’t even notice he dropped it. What does it mean? Do you think he likes me? I mean, the Harry in the picture gives me one armed hug and smiles at me. It’s everything I always dreamed we could be since I was a girl and I think we look really good together. What do you think it means? Does he not like me? Is this a sign? Or maybe he didn’t want to be seen with a picture like this, that must be embarrassing, he really hates Colin.” Ginny had gone on and on.
Tom’s response had come a bit slowly, but nevertheless allayed her fears. He had said boys at that age often are shy and to be patient.
The next day, he was going to have a more interesting entry.
Ginny didn’t know where she had been for the last three hours. She woke up, laying on her bed. She sat up suddenly, having a really strange feeling.
Ginny’s attention snapped like an elastic band.
The sight flashed through her whole body as a startling jolt as the crowd laughed.
The scene changes had been abrupt. Voldemort was sitting in a fancy garden, his legs up on top of a table, topiaries lining a walk. A sort of misty projection of hedges and fountains filled the back wall of the stage.
He was twisting in his chair, writing in a diary.
“Dear Diary,” He said, musing and liltingly. “Today, I have achieved my lifelong-dream. The world is mine!” A snake, wrapped like a boa around him was shiningly pink.
He stood up grandly, and gestured for his servants who came rushing in
from the sides of the stage in formation. They started singing a musical number, while, on the side of the stage, the marine came in crouching. He lobbed mustard gas over a hedge.
All the minions went down, but Voldemort’s head spun left and right, noseless, sniffing and unaffected.
The marine was just about to pop over the hedge with an assault rifle when he stopped. Lexi had gone up to Riddle, clutching his diary.
“You-Know-Who?”
Voldemort turned around playfully, continuing his song.
“Who?”
“You!”
“May I know you?”
Lexi swooned, and he caught her.
“Oh Mr. You-Know-Who!” She raved, a break in the song, stroking the luridly pink snake around his neck. “Won’t you just give up the world. We could have it all.”
“Oh, but my dear,” he stroked under her chin and she swooned, “I already do have it all!”
He dropped her on the floor, stepping over her form, while flicking his hand upward to send a green light at her while dancing over his fallen men.
Karl came out of nowhere, snatching Lexi a second time away from death, while she resisted him and reached toward Voldemort.
Ginny’s stomach turned. She was frozen. The crowd around her was laughing and she felt chills run through her whole body.
Play Voldemort was prancing across the stage, having picked up some staff, poking a peacock out of the way and banishing bodies of the downed servants with kicks and parries.
What he didn’t see or notice was that he was dancing away from every shot Rex leveled at him.
“Damn it!” Rex shouted. Karl holds Rex back just as he was about to run up on Voldemort, guns blazing.
Just then, Oleg comes blazing out with a massive rocket on his shoulder and shoots it dead as Voldemort.
“Where’d you get that?” Rex said over the wizzing rocket.
“Nazi’s” Oleg replied. A large explosion happened on stage, contained, of course. In the fire conflagration, Ginny could see cartoon impact symbols and the death eater sign. She noticed George pointing it out and talking to her parents. He had told her they had involved him in the show. He must have created the “bomb”.
Lexi was crying out and trying to run into the fire. “You didn’t let me try!”
Ginny tired to just breathe. She had no idea why she was barely able to hold back tears.
“Yes! Mission Accomplished!” Rex shouted.
As the group was celebrating, a man who looked like a gardner walked on stage.
“Are you wizards?”
“Yes, they are!” Rex said proudly.
The crowd went wild. A muggle breaking the statute of secrecy was what had been teased about this play. But it wasn’t breaking the statute if a Muggle said it. This loophole had been much discussed lately, and this was a huge nod to the movement.
Rex, Karl, and Oleg all embraced, Lexi still in a hold struggling agains Karl. The four apparated away in a large visual flurry.
The stage went dark and the audience roared.
Ginny felt numb, like she was on auto-pilot. She and Harry were ushered on stage by their handler as the applause and whistling were still in full swing. She hand sort of stumbled out of her seat behind Hermione and Ron. A core number of war heroes were to be honored at the final curtain. And Ginny felt sure she wouldn’t be on this list if she wasn’t Harry’s wife. Her war achievements did not rise to the level of national note.
When the curtain rose, the lights blinded her from seeing most of the house. She felt numb and surreal. She thought she would stumble, but her movements were smooth and steady with no effort. Her body had taken over. The next thing she knew, Harry and someone else was lifting her arms with theirs. A shout roared around the auditorium. She looked at the cast. She looked at the young Riddle, standing with his stage makeup, looking at her, cheering. She looked at the older Voldemort standing next to him, and it captivated her. She felt this wave of sadness wash over her that she couldn’t explain. Tears came to her eyes. She forced herself to look at the audience and blinked rapidly.
“That was a great play!” Harry said in a chipper voice as they walked down their short apartment hallway.
“Yeah, it was great.” Ginny said falsely. She was relieved her emotions weren’t bleeding through anymore. It sounded believable. “I’m going to shower and take this off.”
“Oh— yes,” Harry was sort of cozying up to her. He was a little drunk following the afterparty. She didn’t really stop him, but she didn’t encourage him either.
Twenty minutes later she was lying in bed, showered, with the lights off. He had retired to the living room with another glass of scotch.
The next morning she was the first up. The owl brought a fresh Prophet to the balcony, hovering and tapping at the door. After paying the owl, she unrolled it, and the tabloid-style section fell out. She wasn’t a fan of this particular muggle influence post-war.
But when she saw multiple frames of her own face staring up at her, she froze, feeling cold all over.
“'Heroine' in love with Voldemort!” “Is Ginny Weasley Lexi?”
Multiple frame of a listless-looking Ginny, with tears in her eyes, gazing at the older and younger men who played Riddle filled the top half of the page. The images cycled through as tears filled her eyes and she batted her lashes. Ginny looked at the Riddles. The harsh stage lights had revealed caked stage makeup but the photos again made them look like regular people. She didn’t feel the pull this morning. Only fear prickling through her whole body.
She had been target by reporters before. Her last few seasons with the Harpies had seen a growing wedge between her and members of her team. Sure enough, the reporter was a friend of her rival teammate. The bludgers she had shot at Bailey suddenly seemed not enough. Ginny had a vague recollection she had completely forgotten. Despite being much younger, the daft girl once mentioned that her older sister's best friend had been in Ginny's Griffindor dorm her first and second years before the family had moved to France.
Ginny didn’t realize she had been unable to move for the last five minutes, mind racing through how to handle this disaster. Tensions in the Wizarding World were high with the new political movements. This would be seen very badly. The word treason floated through her mind. Behind her, the door to the bedroom clicked open. Ginny didn't look around, but she knew what Harry would look like, framed in the doorway. She pulled the tabloid into her robe, wrapping her arms around her chest. Dropping the paper on the console. She didn't want to turn around.