Chapter 5
“And—here we are!” Bill snapped on the lights with a flourish.
Ginny blinked at the unaccustomed flood of electric light and peered around the inside of the beach rental. It was certainly different from the Burrow, or, for that matter, Hogwarts. Everything in here was sleek and modern and very Muggle, from the racks of electric lights in the ceiling to the shiny wooden floors to the pale furniture. Ginny hauled her trunk further inside, among the crowd of her family all chattering and thumping and pulling their own luggage.
“I like it,” Ron decreed, throwing himself back on the sofa. “How’d you get it again, Bill?”
“It’s an investment property of Asgrim’s,” Bill explained. “One of the goblins at Gringotts. He owes me a favor, and said we could stay in it rent-free all summer.” He headed over to the kitchen, appareled in brushed steel and black granite, and opened the refrigerator. “Looks like we’re fully stocked!”
“Good, I’m starving!” Ron jumped to his feet again.
“You’re always starving!” Hermione scolded affectionately as he rushed past her into the kitchen.
“Make sure you try to go to bed and get some sleep,” said Molly, throwing her bag onto the vacated sofa. “The time difference is a big one.”
“Which is why we should have taken the plane…” Arthur faltered at Molly’s glare. “Though, you’re right, Molly, the Portkey was much faster!”
They gathered in the kitchen for a makeshift meal of bakery bread and butter, just-opened bottles of juice, sliced fruit, and tortilla chips dipped in guacamole. Ginny particularly enjoyed these: it really made her feel like they were in California to scoop guacamole with a yellow corn chip and bite into it with a satisfying crunch.
“So!” said Arthur, leaning against the kitchen island. “What do we all want to do while we’re here?”
“Well, there are several magical historical sites I’d like to visit,” said Hermione. “Things from the Indian shamans who used to live here, and the Spanish wizards who came later…”
“I hope you won’t be too busy with that!” Ron threw an arm around her shoulders and kissed her cheek. “We want to go to the beach, right?”
She smiled at him. “That too.”
“I wish to spend time with Bill,” said Fleur, giving Bill his own kiss. “Walk the beach, sample the American food…”
“What do you want to do, Ginny?” Molly asked.
“I don’t know.” Ginny swallowed her tortilla chip. “Go swimming at the beach, I guess. Explore. It all sounds good to me.”
“We should go to the San Diego Zoo!” said Arthur enthusiastically. “While Molly and I are still here.”
“Sounds like fun,” said Bill, and Ginny nodded.
"Come on, we’re in America!” said Ron. “Does no one else want to ride a roller coaster?”
Hermione, Fleur, Arthur and Molly all protested mightily, while Bill laughed and Ginny said, “I would!”
“Well, do what you like,” said Arthur. “Within reason, of course.” He turned serious. “This house is isolated, but not that isolated. There are plenty of Muggles around. Be careful what you talk about in public, and Bill and Fleur, watch how you use magic.”
“Are there no other wizards here at all?” Ginny asked.
“None in San Benito,” said Bill. “The nearest magical community is in San Diego, and it’s pretty small. So watch yourselves.”
“Hey, we can’t even do magic at all outside school,” said Ron.
“Still. Be careful what you say in public.” Arthur looked at his watch. “We should put our things away. Then try to get some sleep.”
The rental had four bedrooms. Arthur and Molly took one, Bill and Fleur another, Ginny and Hermione shared the third, and the smallest, a loft off the living room, was left for Ron. Molly gave him her most ferocious scowl when she sent him off to the loft. “Don’t even think of trying to share Hermione’s room when we’ve left, young man.”
Hermione blushed. “We won’t do anything like that, Mrs. Weasley,” she promised earnestly.
Ron said nothing, but his scowl, as he turned to head up to his loft, made Ginny wonder if he’d been contemplating doing that very thing the moment Molly’s back was turned. The thought made Ginny grin as she pulled her luggage down to the hall to hers and Hermione’s bedroom.
It was a smallish room, but it overlooked the beach, the sound of ocean waves melodious through the window. Hermione’s trunk was already open next to one of the single beds, and she was folding her clothes into the bureau. She gave Ginny a brief smile. “Shall we keep sharing all summer, do you think?”
“I don’t know. I might move into the other bedroom once Mum and Dad go home, but then everyone will be visiting all summer…We’ll see.” Ginny grinned. “Would you like to share with Ron?”
“Don’t be silly!” Hermione blushed again.
“Well, we are at the beach. Romantic walks along the shore through the moonlight…Snug little restaurants on the water…”
“That we could never afford. Hot dogs are more in our budget.” Still, Hermione wore a pleased little smirk as she turned back to putting away her clothes.
Ginny started unpacking, throwing her things onto the other bed. “I don’t know what you see in him, Hermione, really. You’re complete opposites!”
“Maybe that’s what makes him attractive. What made you like Dean Thomas?”
“I hardly know anymore. He got so annoying. And did you see him with that Ravenclaw girl at Slughorn’s end-of-year party?”
“Well, you two had broken up by then.”
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean I wanted to watch him snog that girl for hours right in front of me. That’s why I slipped out…” Ginny broke off. She did not want to tell anyone, even Hermione, what had happened when she’d slipped out of Professor Slughorn’s end-of-year party.
Hermione didn’t seem to have noticed anything. She’d finished putting away her clothes and was now lining up her books on the built-in shelf. She placed a small, green diary at the end of the line.
“Still keeping a diary?” said Ginny, hoping to change the subject.
“Yes.” Hermione grinned at her. “Though I suppose you disapprove, after your experience in first year?”
“Shut up,” scowled Ginny while Hermione laughed. “It’s not my fault that diary turned out to be full of Dark magic.”
In her first year at Hogwarts, Ginny had discovered a blank diary among her new schoolbooks. She hadn’t written anything in it, but it had been in her bag at her very first Defense Against the Dark Arts class. The teacher that year was an old Auror from the Ministry of Magic. (Defense teachers never lasted longer than a year at Hogwarts. Rumor had it that the job was jinxed. Teaching Defense had become almost a rite of passage among Ministry Aurors.) The teacher had demonstrated for her first-year students a newly-invented charm to detect hidden Dark artifacts.
Ginny’s bag went off like a siren.
This led to a great deal of fuss, resulting in Ginny being hauled to Headmaster Dumbledore’s office, along with her bag and all its contents. Dumbledore, McGonagall and the Defense teacher had emptied her bag right then and there, running Ginny’s possessions through a battery of magical tests and examinations. They finally determined that the Dark magic resided in the small, blank diary.
For a while there, things had looked rather serious for eleven-year-old Ginny. Dumbledore, McGonagall and the Defense teacher had subjected her to what amounted to an in-depth interrogation, demanding to know what the diary was and where she’d gotten it, until Ginny was in tears. At last, Dumbledore had determined that Ginny was innocent of all wrongdoing, but he had informed her parents and, naturally, confiscated the diary.
It had been quite the first day at Hogwarts.
“I still wonder where you even got that thing,” said Hermione. “Or what the Dark magic was.”
“Who knows? Dumbledore took it away and I never saw it again.” Ginny grinned at the other girl. “Still, it was sort of good, right? That’s how we got to be friends.” Hermione had discovered Ginny after the incident, huddled in a corner of the girls’ dormitory in Gryffindor Tower and weeping, and had taken the younger girl under her wing. They’d remained friends ever since.
“Yes, we can be glad of that. And it introduced me to Ron. Even if you disapprove of me going out with him!”
“I don’t disapprove of you going out with Ron!” Ginny threw a pillow at Hermione, who threw one back, and the conversation dissolved into a laughing pillow fight.
Later, however, Ginny lay awake, unable to sleep.
The time difference was partially to blame, of course: California was eight hours behind England, making Ginny feel like it should be morning instead of the middle of the night. But her conversation with Hermione had reminded her of Professor Slughorn’s end-of-year party, and what had taken place then.
Professor Slughorn had been the Potions Master at Hogwarts School for longer than Ginny had been alive. He had a penchant for collecting talented and charismatic students, inducting them into what he called the “Slug Club”. Though Head of Slytherin House, he had no problem collecting Gryffindor students as well, and so Ginny and Hermione were both members. The parties he threw were fun, Ginny admitted to herself, and she’d certainly met many interesting witches and wizards, and made useful contacts. But for his end-of-year party at the finish of the schoolyear, Slughorn had allowed his club members to bring their significant others, even if they weren’t members themselves. The Ravenclaw girl had arrived with Dean Thomas on her arm.
Dean had spent so much time sucking on the Ravenclaw’s face, while glaring meaningfully at Ginny, that Ginny got fed up and left the party early. Quite possibly she’d had too much elf-made wine: she took a wrong turn and got lost in the labyrinth of Hogwarts Castle.
She found herself in an unknown corridor. Tired, feet aching, she slumped down an a nearby bench for a rest and to try and figure out where she was. But then she heard voices behind a nearby closed door.
“…Yes, Severus, we have the diary, the cup, the locket and now the ring, but I’m certain there are more…”
It was the voice of Albus Dumbledore, muffled through the door but audible. Ginny knew she shouldn’t eavesdrop on the Headmaster. But still she held her breath and listened.
“You’re in no condition to go chasing more.” It was another man who replied, one whose voice Ginny didn’t recognize, cold and impatient. “And I can’t keep Apparating back to England. It would raise questions.”
“You will not need to hunt this one, Severus. I’m sure it’s somewhere here in Hogwarts. I am much better placed to look for it than you, whatever condition my hand might be in.”
“Whatever possessed you to put the ring on? You must have known he wouldn’t leave it without protections!”
There came a pause. “A foolish dream, Severus. A promise to the dead. I believe that’s something you understand.”
Another pause. “Well, I have contained the curse for now. And we have destroyed the ring. Keep drinking that potion. I must return home.”
“Yes, your ward will be missing you. Tell me, how is he?”
Another pause, and even behind a closed door, it seemed spiky with rage and tension. “You remember your vow, Dumbledore,” the stranger said at last. His voice came out a low, menacing hiss. “You just remember what you promised me. I will do your bidding, but the boy is mine. You don’t lay a finger on him, now or ever.”
“I remember, Severus.” Dumbledore sounded tired now. “But I do wonder: did you adopt the boy out of love? Or vengeance?”
The stranger made no verbal reply to this. Instead, there came the sound of angry footsteps, rapidly approaching the door. Ginny panicked. She jumped to her feet and darted noiselessly around a corner, hiding in the shadows, just as the closed door slammed open and a dark figure stormed past her hiding place. She did not catch more than the most fleeting glimpse of him—a sense of dark clothing and darker hair—before he was gone, his footsteps echoing down a staircase.
Ginny could hear Dumbledore moving about now, much slower than the stranger. It was time to be off. She darted back along the corridors, head spinning, until she reached a familiar area of the castle and then made her way back to the safety of Gryffindor Tower.
Even now, lying in bed in a beach house in California, thousands of miles from Hogwarts Castle, Ginny couldn’t get the eavesdropped encounter out of her mind. Who was that man talking to Dumbledore? What was all that about a diary, a cup, a locket and a ring? They couldn’t have meant the Dark diary Dumbledore had confiscated from her, could they? And what was that about a curse? And a boy? What boy had this Severus person adopted, who seemed so very special in such a strange way? What promise had Dumbledore made?
It's not my business, Ginny told herself now. It’s the Headmaster’s. She was just a fifteen-year-old student who had recently completed her O.W.L.s. She had no business even thinking about the Headmaster’s private conversations.
But the whole thing had been so strange…
It was a long time before Ginny fell asleep.