Chapter 4
4.
The moment classes are over on Friday afternoon, Ginny is pushing past the queue for the floo and spinning off toward the Burrow. She ignores Mum’s welcome back how was— as she sprints up the stairs, three at a time, flinging the awful robe Mum makes her wear and her bag through her door onto the bed she’s left Tom hidden in all day as she goes, and is halfway herself again by the time she reaches the upper landing. Bill’s door is open, and Ginny crashes into him, wrapping her arms neatly around his middle in a bear hug.
“Heya, squirt, what’s— Is that my shirt?”
“Maybe.”
It is, of course. Pink Floyd. All of them have picked up on a bit of muggle, living with Dad, and Bill got music and fashion—if you could call band merch fashion.
“Look, I know Mum’s tastes aren’t really your style,” Bill says, laughing as she unpeels herself from him to dodge his hair-ruffling hand, “but wouldn’t Ron’s things fit you better? Or Perce’s?”
“Perce dresses like he’s been in Aunt Muriel’s closet. And most of Ron’s stuff was your stuff. He just has no taste in what he chooses.”
Bill snorts. “Well, I’d say Mum could shrink that, only I might want it back,” he says doubtfully. “So do me a favor and don’t let her try. Muggle things go a bit funny with magic.”
Best not to bring up the shirt she’s got split up in pieces between her hamper and desk, then. She’s testing some techniques she’s been collecting from the muggle sewing magazine Dad tries to convince Mum to try—which Mum will never in a million years find out she has any interest in, but Luna is always making her own clothes so interesting, so…
“It’s more comfy like this, anyways.”
“I thought you didn’t like robes.”
Ginny huffs and flings herself over onto Bill’s bed. There’s a stack of records there—Bill’s thumbing through a box of them. Looking for something, or maybe just having a look. He’s still got his leather jacket on.
“You’re not gonna stay?” she realizes, heart falling. Mum only said he was coming by this afternoon, but she’d hoped…
“Nah. Some mates’ve got a gig in Soho—in London— Asked me and Tonks to come around before and help them set up, since they’re lugging it over muggle. It’s a riot. Mum would have my head if I came back here after. She can smell a pub on you from a mile away, Gin; remember that when you’re a bit older.”
“Can I come?”
He laughs outright.
“Why not?”
“Just said it was at a pub, didn’t I?”
“So? I’ve been in—”
“So you’re not even in Hogwarts yet, and dressed like that you look about five, Gin.”
“No one cares.”
“Look, this gig’s not a place for kids.” Bill does that thing where he gets all adult, turns his voice serious. He’s better at it than Dad. “I mean it. There’s some real creeps out there, and you don’t know what to look out for yet. Give it a few years, Gin. And maybe then I’ll have a place Mum won’t give me the stink-eye for letting you stay over at, alright? Cause she wouldn’t let you stay out late enough, either way.”
Oh, but it was good enough for Charlie? “Mum’s a bitch.”
“Gin,” Bill snaps. “Jesus. What happened? You fight with her again? She didn’t say anything when I came in.”
“No.” Ginny probably sounds like Ron in a sulk, but what does she care? “Just that everyone in this fucking house has to go around treating me like I’m some sort of overgrown toddler all the time.”
Bill doesn’t bother with that, which is, unfortunately, fair, because she knows she’s just trying to wind him up. Tom’s pointed out how obvious she is with it, it’s just so much easier with Ron and Mum than Bill. Bill does, however, pull one of the records from its case and sets it on the turntables by the window, flicking his wand to shut the door as the noise starts—guitar so distorted she’s only guessing that’s what it is, drums played by an orangutan on a firewhiskey bender, vocals by one of the engines Dad’s got out in the shed that have a tendency to explode the more he pokes around with them. Bill can probably scream along to every beat. He flops down on the bed beside her instead.
“So not Mum, fine. What, then? What’s got you all splinched?”
“I’m not—” Who is she kidding? She is, ‘cause Bill’s only here for a bit, and, okay, she’s had ages to figure out how she’s going to say this, but every time she tried to figure it out there have been other, much less stressful things to consider—books to read, places out of Mum’s reach to sneak off to, daydreams to… dream… and Tom to write to. But it’s so much easier to talk to Tom, because it’s writing, isn’t it, and she doesn’t actually have to say anything. She’s never kept a secret from him before, but it’s… easier, considering he can’t see her face.
The song ends. Bill nudges her with his knee.
“I think maybe I’ve gone and thought I fancied girls?” she blurts.
Another song starts. Bill stretches over to turn down the volume, a peculiar expression of concentration laced with—what, panic?—on his face— Panic? Is he panicking, too? Oh, Merlin; Ginny is panicking, she’s—she’s only just gone and said it, just like that, hasn’t she; what a—
“There’s a lot loaded into how you just said that, Gin,” Bill starts. “I—Christ. You haven’t— Why do you think— I mean, how do you know?”
She flinches, but, okay, reasonable question. And this is Bill. “Maybe I kissed Luna Lovegood?”
Bill takes a moment to think on that, and the look of concentration doesn’t quite leave his face as he gestures vaguely towards the window. “Luna Lovegood?”
“Luna Lovegood,” Ginny corrects, pushing his arm to point in the direction of the Lovegoods’ home with what she knows is dead accuracy. He stares out past it, as though he can see all the way to the shady side of the hill, then lets it drop.
“Isn’t she, what, five?”
“She’s the same age as me, Bill.”
“Aren’t you what-five?”
“This isn’t funny!”
But she isn’t any happier to see the shit-eating grin go.
“I know. Damn, though, Gin; most people wait to figure this sort of thing out while they’re off at school, you know? So they have— Did you tell Mum? Is that what this—”
“Of course I haven’t told Mum!” The very thought makes Ginny shudder. “God, that’d be bloody torture. Ug. Can you imagine?”
“I think we’re imagining things differently,” Bill says. “You know she isn’t going to be, what, nasty about it?”
“She’d see it as some sort of bonding experience. She’ll try and ask me, like, if there’s any girls I think are cute, that sort of—”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
“Of course it is,” Ginny snaps. “Cause it’ll all be so fake!”
After a second, Bill shakes his head, shrugging out of his jacket. “Sometimes, you make things out to be a lot more complicated than they need to be. Mum isn’t some super-villain trying to trick you into… She’d love to have a real relationship with you. Without all the bickering, maybe, but she loves you for you, no matter who you are.”
Ginny lets him go on, but even if she wanted to she wouldn’t be able to stop from rolling her eyes. “You been reading her ‘how to survive a teenage witch’ books?”
“Have you? She’s trying—and I know it isn’t… easy, but she loves you—”
“She loves the idea of me,” Ginny can’t help but correct. “The girl at the end of a chain of boys. That’s why she—”
“You don’t believe that.”
“No?”
Ginny sighs, and falls back, staring up at the ceiling filled with hand-painted astronomy charts. She’s never known who painted them. Mum and Dad don’t have the taste, and while Bill definitely could have—he’s an eye for detail; Dad says it’s why he’s so good at curse-breaking—he’s never seemed interested in the stars. Luna is. And she’d bet Luna could’ve painted something like this, only ten times more beautiful—but it’s been there since before Ginny was born.
“I dunno,” she tells Aquarius, Luna’s sign. “But I know she wanted a girl— you think it’ll be all smiles if I tell her? Everything she wanted out the window—”
“Does fancying girls make you not a girl, then?”
“I don’t know!”
“I was being facetious,” Bill says after a pause. “Sorry. Gin, you— Look, there’re some people who aren’t born in the right sort of body for who they are. And that’s fine, but it’s different. If you—if you were a bloke, that’d be fine, too, but whether you fancy girls or boys or goblins or whatever doesn’t really have much to do with that, okay?”
If she were a— “What?” Is he taking the piss? “Obviously I’m not a boy—I haven’t got the right bits, if you hadn’t noticed, Bill.”
“...thank you if I never have to hear my sister talk about her bits ever again, but bits haven’t got much to do with… We’re off the point. I’ll see if anyone has a book I could send you, ‘cause I know I’m never going to say any of this right. I’m not— Charlie would be… The point is, even if how much Mum loves you was somehow wrapped up in you being a girl—and it isn’t, by the way, unless you’re going to say she loves any of us boys less—but even if it were, you fancying girls wouldn’t change a thing. Got it?”
“Easy for you to say.” But she only says it because he’s making her feel guilty. He’s the only one of them who can.
“Maybe,” Bill agrees. He pauses again. “So… you kissed Luna, so she knows, I assume. And now you told me. Anyone else?”
“I don’t see how it’s anyone’s business,” she grumbles, rolling over to bury her face in Bill’s quilt.
“Will be if you want to have a snog with anyone at Hogwarts.”
“Ugh.” That’s a lot more to think on—the way the thought of snogging girls at Hogwarts both makes her stomach flutter and turn, and either way makes her want to go sprinting out of the house and over to see Luna—how could she even consider snogging anyone else? Unless—unless it were Luna and—
“Though,” Bills goes on, “most people do their experimenting there, not with the neighbors, and then word gets around and you don’t have to announce it.”
“Word gets around?”
“Hogwarts just loves a good bit of gossip.”
“Ugh,” Ginny says again, pushing herself up. “Well, I’m not going to be part of that.”
“Oh? You mean you haven’t been writing Ron and the twins all year, begging for details about the Harry Pott—”
“Shut up!” He’s trying to embarrass her, the prat. “That’s different. He’s Ron’s friend.”
“Now. According to Ron, who previously called him, and I quote, if Nathaniel Boorish and Aidan Lynch were combined—though if he really hates quidditch as much as Ronnie wrote, I’m not sure the combination of two pros is really—”
“He’s on the team now—Don't! Whatever. I wasn’t ‘begging him for details’. He was writing them whether anyone wanted to hear or not, not that he’ll say a word now. As you apparently know.”
“It’s a wee bit different, yeah, but only because you’re the one who cut up my Bowie shirt—”
“I was eleven!”
“—because it had a lightning bolt— Oh, please. You still wear it, don’t you?”
“You went right mental on me, of course I wear it! Not going to throw away a good shirt, am I?”
“And it has nothing to do with your little crush—” Bill cuts off, tilting his head. “Do you still have that crush, by the way?"
She shrugs. It’s different, now that Harry Potter is, well, a real person. And since he’s missing, and Ron won’t—“I’ve never actually met him… And he’s…”
“A boy?” Bill guesses. “Plenty of people like both. I’ve fancied boys before, you know.”
“You’re having me on.”
“Serious. Felix Richardson, NEWT year—”
“Who?”
“Yeah, well, you’re better off not knowing. Don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who spent so much time whinging, if I didn’t shut him up—got a face for politics, though, if he weren’t such a clod.”
“Doesn’t sound like you fancy him.”
“Fancied. Past tense. Definitely not gonna be telling my kid sister about the shit we got up to—”
“I told you about Luna!”
“Exactly.” He studies her. “How about Dad?”
“What?”
“Have you told Dad?”
She shakes her head—she hasn’t even considered it. In fact, besides Luna, who she hasn’t so much discussed things with as, um, well—besides Luna, the only person she’s told is Tom, finally, in one brief sentence before she went to bed last night, after a whole day trying not to think about it, and she thinks to tell Bill that before she goes on listing everyone in the family—
But she stops. Tom is… she hasn’t even told Luna about him, and Luna knows her better than anyone, except maybe Tom. And there’s a lot of risk—whatever was done that got him trapped in that book, he thinks that it will make people think he’s dangerous. And it was a muggle diary, too, as much as a book can be counted as a muggle artifact—the point is, Dad’s office exists to prevent muggle things from being misused by magic. And Bill is a curse breaker. They won’t see him as a person, Tom says. Ginny knows he is, he’s a wonderful, horribly trapped person, but they’ll just see him as an object pretending to be one. And if Ginny were to lose Tom—
She couldn’t bear it. Any more than she could bear if Luna is angry at her and never wants to see her again and—oh—
Bill punches her arm. “Dad’s not going to be mad, either,” he says. “Stop it with that face, Gin-Gin. It’s making me miserable.”
Dad—oh, fine; it wouldn’t hurt to tell Dad, except that if she tells Dad he’ll tell Mum, or guilt Ginny into doing it, but…
“But what about Luna?” she says quietly.
“What about Luna?”
“She… what if she…”
Bill scrunches up his eyebrows. “You said you kissed her. I think she knows.”
“Yeah.”
“And? What did she say?”
“Nothing?” Ginny says.
“Nothing?”
Ginny buries her face in her hands. “I kind of… ran away.”
Bill stares. He takes a deep breath, then, for some reason, holds it, his face going red and lips pressing tight and rolling back between his teeth—
“Don’t laugh!” Ginny says.
“I’m—trying—”
“She might hate me forever!”
“Luna Lovegood.”
“Shut up!”
“Ginny,” Bill says, as he loses his grip and finally laughs. “I don’t—I don’t think Luna hates you. Though if you— if you kissed her and ran away she’s probably— ha— pretty— damn— confused.”
Ginny is pretty damn confused, too. “You’re not helping,” she says. “I didn’t exactly, I didn’t exactly have a plan, I didn’t mean to—”
“You didn’t mean to kiss her?”
“She was just, she was right there, and I—maybe I panicked a bit, okay! I don’t know why I had to go and… and…”
“Oh, well, I can help with that, at least,” Bill says. “You kissed her ‘cause you’ve got a bit fat crush, little sister.”
Ginny grinds her teeth. “If you’re just going to poke fun at me—”
“I’m not. I mean it,” Bill says. “And shame on Fred and George—or the kids at school—if they’ve gone and taught you that a crush is something to make fun of. Most of the time, it just sucks. Especially if you don’t talk to them—to Luna, I mean. Though… kissing her is a pretty direct declaration.”
“But I—I didn’t even mean to—I didn’t even realize—”
Bill pats her shoulder. “I’m not trying to push you into anything, Gin. If you want, you can just tell her you were curious. Though… you should probably apologize, since it sounds like you didn’t even ask. And then you—you—sorry, you ran away—”
He chokes down another laugh, but Ginny’s gut is twisting too much to even roll her eyes. Talk? To Luna? After she— Oh, Merlin. That sounds absolutely terrifying. She’s, she’s thought her whole life that she’s going to be a Gryffindor like all her brothers, but right about now, she thinks she’s crashing towards Hufflepuff. Not brave in the slightest, not half as clever as Luna, not cunning at all—Tom was a Slytherin, and as much as she admires him, she can’t imagine following in his footsteps—so that leaves Hufflepuff. At least Cedric Diggory will be there, and he's great, but—
Suddenly there’s a beeping sound, and Ginny glances at Bill’s wrist, where the muggle watch Dad fixed up for him ages ago is beeping frantically, the limited black lines flashing to painstakingly spell out, YOU’RE LATE!
He sighs, pushing a button to stop it. It beeps a few more times, upset that he’s not actually moving, but he ignores it to look at her instead. “I’m glad you told me, Ginny,” he says. “That’s a pretty thing to carry around on your own. But I think you should consider telling Mum and Dad. Maybe not now—but when you’re ready. If you keep something like that to yourself too long, it’s just gonna eat you up.”
“I don’t see why it’s any of Mum’s business.”
“Think about it,” he repeats. He reaches over and ruffles her hair, like she’s five, for Merlin’s sake. “And—if he hadn’t had to leave so fast yesterday, I’d be sending Charlie your way. You should write him.”
“Charlie?” she says, even more skeptical. The only time Charlie talks girls is to tell Mum that he’s really, yes, entirely certain that he won’t be getting married, so she can leave off asking him about it. Besides, Charlie's as married to his job as Percy is. Even the World Cup last year he only came to because the Dragon Reserve had him sent over on some sort of business. He was only here this week because of his job, and while he hadn’t been happy about abruptly needing to return to Romania, she thinks it’s because it means he’s going to have to come all the way back again, and all he really wants is to stay at the reserve.
“Or, well—you know, I’ve really got to get this home and go meet Tonks. She’s an Auror now and she’ll kick my arse if I don’t show up to do my share of the heavy lifting.” He pauses. “Though if you want, she might be someone else to talk to. If you’re still confused about things later on.”
Ginny’s met Tonks a few times—she’s friends with both Bill and Charlie—but she’s never understood how someone so, so careless could become an Auror. The first time they met, Tonks nearly broke her arm tripping down the stairs, after all.
But she’s not that bad. Doesn’t take shit from the boys. And she’s not Mum. And… she’s a girl, and all that.
“I’ll think about her,” she concedes. “But I’m not telling Mum.”
“Alright, alright,” Bill says. He gets off the bed, turning towards the box he was flipping through when she came in, but doesn’t go back to whatever it was he was doing. “Are you okay? If I leave, I mean? I don’t want to leave you here on your own, if you’re really that mixed up…”
No, she wants to say. She wants to grab him and make him stay. He’s the only one of her brothers that really listens when she talks. But, like she told Luna, that doesn’t matter when he’s never there. Even now, on the day he said he’d be around the Burrow, he’s leaving.
So instead, Ginny says, “Whatever. Enjoy your ‘not for kids’ show with all the creeps.”
“I’m sure I will,” Bill says, laughing. “You want to help me carry this?”
She jumps off the bed and runs off to her own room before he can rope her into that. Whatever muggle lugging he’s going about later, he can still charm it while he’s at the Burrow. Besides, maybe she’s—she’s not okay being on her own, right now, but then, she’s not actually alone. Bill might leave her, but there’s only one person she can always rely on.
She shuts the door to her room, perches herself on her bed, and opens the diary carefully. The confession she made last night, before she’d been too nervous to see what Tom had to say about it, has vanished into the pages. She takes a deep breath, uncorks her ink bottle—Christ, how is she almost out again; maybe she can nick some from Ron’s trunk—and fills her quill.
Hi, Tom, she writes.
Ginny, I was worried. Did something happen? You stopped replying.
No. I —She hesitates. fell asleep.
You sounded uneasy.
I am a bit. But I talked to Bill and
It’s Friday, then?
Ginny’s stomach turns. It’s hard for Tom to keep track of time when she doesn’t write him. He says it feels like years are passing, but also like time hasn’t passed at all, between the sentences. He lives in his own memories, up until he was sixteen years old, and so he has sixteen whole years to relive when someone isn’t writing to him, and a lot of it was too painful for him to recount for her. She should have brought him with her to school today, if only she weren’t so stupidly scared.
Yes. It’s Friday afternoon. I had to run into the floo today while Mum was busy arguing with Ron about what a jerk he’s been and everything. Sorry I didn’t bring you. School felt like it went on forever. I couldn't even sleep through class it was so boring!
I’m simply relieved to hear that you are well. If it’s not too terribly rude of me to ask, did you really kiss Miss Lovegood, or was that something that you wrote while half-dreaming?
Ginny flushes. I wish it was a dream.
It wasn’t a pleasant experience?
She hesitates. Pleasant? Well, sure, she’d… she’d do it again, at least. But in her hesitation, Tom adds:
In my experience, for what it is worth, kissing is a skill like any other, which can be improved over time.
Ginny’s flush twists into jealousy. She almost wants to demand to know who Tom had been snogging, except, well, that was fifty years ago, wasn’t it, and so anyone who it might’ve been would be, oh… as old as Dad’s oldest brother, Uncle Edward, at least. And he’s old. So there’s no point in being jealous. Except… for Tom, since he can relive his memories whenever he wants, it might have been five minutes ago. She might have just interrupted him from snogging someone, and—
And what? She snogged Luna, if you can really call it that. And he… Doesn’t he deserve some happiness? It’s not like he can just go around kissing who he wants to, now, since he’s trapped in a book.
Resisting the sudden urge to press her lips into the page—she’d have a hard time explaining that—she writes, I don’t really know. I wasn’t thinking. I just did it. Then I ran away. Which Bill thinks is about the funniest thing on the planet.
That seems cruel, if you took the leap to tell him about it.
Doesn’t it?
She pauses again. The thing is, half the reason she closed the book so fast last night—and she hadn’t just fallen asleep, despite what she wrote; that’d taken ages and ages and then Mum was yelling that she was going to be late—is because she doesn’t know what Tom will think. That she kissed Luna, who is a girl. Like Bill says, there’s nothing wrong with that, theoretically, but sometimes the kids at school make stupid jokes and no one says anything, and Tom's from fifty years ago, and he was raised in the muggle world, and he’s told her how awful the church was to him for having magic, and yes, he knows enough about the muggle world to know that it’s backwards abut a lot of silly things like that, but… She’s afraid, maybe, that for once Tom will prove that he’s not perfect. That he’s got some sort of prejudice she hasn’t seen, even though he’s proven over and over again—
She’s being stupid. She can just ask him. Bill said it’s important to talk to people, and it’s Tom. If there’s anyone she can tell anything, it’s Tom. So she writes:
Does it bother you?
If anything, I’m a little bit jealous.
That’s not what Ginny expected. She blinks. Because she’s out here doing new things while he’s stuck? But she doesn’t ask that. I mean does it bother you that I’m a girl and she’s a girl and I kissed her.
Does it bother you?
Only if it bothers other people.
Then no. I am, however, concerned by the stress this incident seems to be causing you. I only know what you’ve told me about Miss Lovegood. The thought that she might hurt you is upsetting.
Luna couldn’t hurt anyone, Ginny assures him. She’s always been really good at seeing when people are hurting. She always tries to help. She says when people are hurting they’re more likely to do stupid things and it’s okay. Except she doesn’t say it like that. She’s very
Empathetic?
Yes that.
I’d still be careful. Sometimes it’s the people we think we can trust who deal the worst pain.
Upstairs, she can hear Ron arguing about something with Fred and George, their words made muted and distanced by the wood floors and walls between them, but their anger just as clear. She thinks about how cold Ron’s been towards her since they got home, how here she was just waiting for them all and now they’re treating her like dirt. But Luna’s not like that.
I hope so.
She’s not. She’s brilliant. She showed me a potion she’s brewing before
She’s brewing a potion?
Its called the Balm of Sunny Days. Have you heard of it?
I can’t say that I have. It might have been invented after my time. But if she is brewing before she has even started at Hogwarts, perhaps you are right about her capabilities. I’ve always had something of a fondness for potions, myself.
But your favorite subject is defense?
Well remembered. It is. However, potions is a quite practical branch of magic, and one can be ever so creative in the combination of ingredients.
Luna says she’s working mostly with stuff she can gather. I don’t think her dad would like it if he knew she’s brewing. Her mum died in that potions lab.
With the right precautions, brewing can be perfectly safe. If she is brewing with only what she can find in as mundane a place as Ottery St Catchpole, especially so. Although, there is something to be said for following the older magics.
What do you mean by that?
What you might call old wives’ tales. Most of it is foolishness, of course, but it comes from somewhere. In my time, there were plenty of covens that barely used modern magics at all. And with the right concentration of intent, anything is possible.
Ginny chews on the end of her quill. Luna had said something about… brewing on intention? Luna’s brewing without a wand, she finally writes. I didn’t know that was possible.
Perhaps she is a more powerful witch than you are aware.
Maybe? I guess we’ll know when we get to Hogwarts.
Alternatively, she might be brewing placebos. The intent of one who uses the potion may also create illusory magical effects, even if it is nothing more than a perfectly mundane stew.
How do you tell the difference?
There are many ways. You might try to see if she can be convinced to let you brew with her. Afterwards, I might help you analyze the products of your labor, and we could be more certain.
I think it’d be cool to try and brew potions. I could get a bit ahead before Hogwarts starts.
There’s a pause in their conversation as Tom considers that. He has promised that once they’re at Hogwarts he’ll help her distinguish herself from the rest of the Weasleys, but without a wand—and Mum has said quietly they won’t be going for supplies until the last week of summer, which Ginny has taken to mean they haven’t saved enough to afford everything; Ron’s wand got destroyed when Sirius Black blew up the greenhouse, so they already had to replace that, and they won’t let Bill or Charlie pay for their school things—so there won’t be time for her to make any meaningful progress in most of her classes. But potions, if it’s really possible to brew without a wand—oh, Tom is writing:
You might consider, if you do trust Miss Lovegood so entirely, introducing us. I must admit I am curious as to what sort of person might drive you towards your more reckless extremes when we have worked so hard to learn to control yourself. If she is as empathetic as you say, then surely she will understand how precarious my position is, and out of care for you, at the least, she will honor a plea for discretion. If you are willing to learn, there is much I am sure I could teach you about potions.
You
Are you still there, Ginny?
I’m here. Sorry. I’m supprised is all. That you want me to tell someone.
Surprised. It’s a calculated risk. I do trust your judgement. You have written about Miss Lovegood’s peculiar situation in the past, as well, and I suppose for someone as isolated as myself, any chance to interact with another human being, let alone one as interesting as she is, is a temptation. I am so curious about the world outside of my covers, after all. So, do you trust Miss Lovegood?
With my life, Ginny is quick to respond. But I’m not sure about yours. I don’t want you to feel lonely Tom. But she’s impossible to predict.
Consider it, if you will. In the meantime, I suppose I could give you some advice from afar on ingredients and techniques to try, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to do you much good at all.
You will!!!!!!! You’re a wonderful teacher.
If you will permit me a moment to teach, Ginny, one exclamation mark conveys excitement as well as seven. We’ve been over this before.
Right. I’m sorry. I promise I’m trying. And I’ll try hard with potions. If Luna even lets me anywhere near her again. If I can ever face her again.
Why don’t you tell me a bit more about your friend? I have some experience in navigating such misunderstandings. The worst thing to do would be to let the wound fester, so to speak.
What do you want to know?