The World Cup
Ginny put her hot cocoa away from Harry’s waving arms as he recreated Krum’s Wronski Feint. “I’m pretty sure that is not how he did it!” She laughed as she caught him from falling over demonstrating how steep the feint was done.
He smiled bashfully, “Oh, really? I was sure a seeker landed on his head in that game!”
Ron looked annoyed at them, “He was brilliant, I never seen anyone play like that!”
“He was a brilliant player, but” Ginny could feel Ron glaring at her for that ‘but’, “the Irish chasers really owned that pitch. I wish he hadn’t caught that Snitch so quickly so we could have seen more! Did you see Troy’s Porskoff Ploy? Or that Sloth Grip Roll that Moran did, it was so fast I barely understood how she got pass Levski! Did you see when they did the Parkin’s on Ivanova? And all their different formations! I didn’t even know half of them existed, and the way they always knew where they had each other. It was beautiful!” Ginny had never felt this alive; she could not wait to go back to Hogwarts and test everything out with Alex and their teammates!
Ginny saw that her dad had put down his tea and was watching her with a prudent look, this was probably the most words he had heard out of her the whole summer, but she was to exited to care. Harry matched her happy smile and throwed himself into an account of what he had seen the chasers do in his omnioculars. It was hours later when they finally settled down and she and Hermione went over to their own tent to get some sleep. Though she had barely closed her eyes when:
“GINNY, HERMIONE, GET UP!” It was her dad, in the middle of the night, what is happening? She could see Hermione turning on her muggle flashlight in the other bed. “What is going on?”
“Come on, you have to get out of here!” Her dad threw up the tent opening, giving them glimpses of complete chaos in the background. Witches and wizards seemed to be running in panic behind him. Ginny, deciding it was not the right time for questions, pulled on a cloak on her pyjamas and grabbed her wand. Following Hermione out she found her brothers looking as confused as she did. “Fred, take Ginny!” Fred grabbed her hand, for once instantly obeying their father, and started to pull on it as their father precede to tell all six of them to keep together and that he would come get them.
They started running towards the forest but there were people everywhere and everyone was running in panic. “Fred, Ginny, I think we lost the others,” George called for them.
“We have to turn!” Ginny exclaimed, looking around for Ron and his friends.
“No use, they can be anywhere, we have to keep going!” Fred answered and kept pulling on her arm.
Ginny started running again. It felt wrong not to look for Ron, but Fred was right there was no way to even know if they were behind or ahead of them. And, she had to begrudgingly admit, that trio could take care of themselves. Suddenly she fell, damn, that hurt. There were still people all over, she moved quickly behind a tree as not to get run over in the dark. She could not see the twins anymore.
“Weasley?” A voice was heard and she felt someone lifting her up by a hard grip on her left arm. Instinctively her right arm went to her wand before realizing she knew the voice.
“Captain!”
“You idiot, what are you doing here? Any idea how dangerous this is? You haven’t seen my brother around?”
Ginny shook her head, belatedly realising he could not see it in the dark, “No, you know who he is with?”
“Nah, left him with my uncle to go celebrate with some Irish friends. I should have caught up with something being wrong when our uncle volunteered to take us to this debacle. Now I don’t know how to find the kid.” While talking Flint had started to drag her towards the forest.
“But won’t your uncle take care of him?” Ginny asked.
“As if he would let an eleven-year-old nephew stand in his way to go on the rampage with his old friends.” Flint answered bitterly.
“Rampage? Isn’t he on the run from this as everyone else?” Ginny panted hard and gasped to get air enough to speak while trying to keep up.
“Grow up Weasley, who do you think the masked witches and wizards in the middle of that group is? EY, WEASELS!” The last words were shouted.
“Ginny!” the twin chorused, “What are you doing with him?” Fred asked icily towards Flint before grabbing Ginny’s other arm and dragging her towards himself. Ginny was starting to feel like an unwilling participant in a tug of war before Flint let her go.
“Take better care of her and I won’t have to.” Flint answered just as coldly. “Be more careful Weasley, I have to find my brother.”
“Thanks.” George added, reluctantly, to the exchange of words.
“Want help looking?” Ginny offered but Flint just went off towards the mass of people fighting in the camp site. Fred tried to drag her of in the other direction.
“We have to find Ron, Harry and Hermione and get to where dad can find us,” George reminded her and she followed them further into the pitch-black forest.
They never found the trio, but Bill came and picked them up and brought them back to the tent and an hour later their father showed up with Ron, Harry, and Hermione in tow. A heated discussion about who exactly had been behind it followed. Ginny was filled with unease as it went up for her what Flint had said about his uncle. Up until now it had only been something her parents whispered about, a diffuse threat that she thought belong in the history books. Her nightmarish months back in first-year, that she had written off as a freak incident, a last reminder of You-Know-Who now seemed to have been a foretaste of what to come. Suddenly it felt as if Ginny was showered in ice water – what had Ron said about Draco and Mr Malfoy? A memory of Mr Malfoy holding her second-hand potion book in Flourish and Blotts, taunting her father, showed up in her mind. Appearing out of nowhere with a cure when Draco was petrified. What if the diary did not come from the former owner of the potion book, what if… Ginny felt sick…
Early the next morning they arrived at the Burrow, her mother threw herself at all of them and was hugging Fred and George as if to make up for every time she ever yelled at them. It felt good to be home. Ginny was so relieved no one of them had gotten hurt last night that she had forgot all the summers problem.
She did not even perceive what Fred said that triggered her mother, she was to into her own thoughts. She thought it was something about ‘can’t believe I ever ended up having to thank Flint for caring about her’ that George said to Fred as they made their way upstairs. But she did perceive most of her mother’s yelling, she definitively heard the bit about her father and brother risking their lives to save the muggles while she hanged about with Death Eater children. She managed to escape the wrath as her mother turned to worry over her father going into the ministry straight away.
A few minutes later she lay in her old bed counting cracks and rebuilding her mental shield.
“Is it true?” Hermione’s voice was heard in the dark room.
“Is what true?” She was not going to make it easy.
“Are you friends with Death Eater children?”
She did not answer right away. A think silence filled the room. She could almost touch it.
“Does it matter?” She finally answered.
“Matter? Of course, it matters if your friends want me dead!” She could hear Hermione working herself up.
“I would not be friends with them if they wanted you dead.” Ginny cut her off. “But that wasn’t the question, was it?”
“You do know that to that kind of purebloods I’m not worth the dirt under their shoes?” For being so smart, Hermione could so be simplistic Ginny thought.
“Do you think it is more ok to judge them on their heritage than it is to judge you on yours?”
Ginny heard Hermione gasp offendedly and waited for a heated reply. But it never came, when Hermione spoke again, she sounded more confused than angry.
“Malfoy-”
“I’m not really friends with Malfoy,” Ginny answered without looking over to Hermione, of course she would drag up him, the trio was obsessed with him.
“No, I didn’t mean that, I just-” Hermione paused before continuing, “I just don’t think he wants me dead.” Ginny did not know what to answer, so the room was once again left in silence before Hermione continued, “he warned me.”
“What do you mean? Warned you when?”
“At the cup, he insulted me while doing it of course, but he also told me to get away from the camp.”
Ginny did not answer, but she could not say she was all that surprised, her fourteen-year-old house-mate could be a prat yes – but she could not image him wanting anyone seriously injured or dead, especially not a class-mate.
“Why did he do that? He hates me. And he is a loathsome little shit.” Hermione spoke up again, speaking in a matter-of-factly tone but Ginny looked up in surprise, not prepared for her brother’s normally kind-hearted friend to be so crude.
“He can be, can’t he?” Ginny started, where did Hermione want this to go? Ginny really had not anticipated this conversation but continued it anyway. “But he also loves Quidditch as much as any Weasley, he can be kind of funny when he wants to and he is the biggest swot when it comes close to exam weeks.”
“I guess he actually is a human under that pureblood façade?” Hermione asked and before Ginny answered she continued. “And I guess Lavender is right, he is getting quite handsome.”
“Hermione!”