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Author: Grandma Kate Story: Ginny's Fourth Year at Hogwarts Rating: Everyone Setting: Pre-HBP Status: Completed Reviews: 5 Words: 35,779
The Harry Potter Universe belongs to J.K. Rowling. I’m just borrowing the characters for a while. This is for pleasure only, no profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended. Bold Face Type indicates a direct quote from Chapter Twenty-Three, Christmas on the Closed Ward, in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. A/N This story is told from Molly’s Weasley’s point of view and parallels Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and the summer after it.
Harry stayed up in his room the next day and did not answer when Molly called him to come down and eat. She thought he must be tired so told the rest of the children not to bother him. Everyone else spent the following morning putting up Christmas decorations… Sirius…was actually singing carols, apparently delighted that he was to have company over Christmas… It was around six o’clock in the evening when the doorbell rang and Mrs Black started screaming again. Sirius opened the door and was surprised to see Hermione standing on the doorstep, clutching her Hogwarts trunk. He pulled the curtain across his mother’s screaming portrait, sent her trunk to the top of the stairs, and led Hermione down the steps to the kitchen. ‘Oh, Hermione dear,’ said Molly, rising from the kitchen table. ‘We didn’t know you were coming. Ron said you were going to the mountains with your parents. Sit down. Ron, give her your chair. You can take one from by the wall.’ ‘Do you mind if I stay with you for Christmas?’ asked Hermione, standing by the door, still bundled up in her coat. ‘Professor McGonagall said you’d be staying here because of what happened to Mr Weasley. How is he? What happened to him?’ ‘It’s a long story, Hermione,’ said Fred, picking up his fork. ‘He’s still in hospital.’ ‘Ron and Harry can tell you,’ said George, continuing to heap potatoes on his plate. Hermione looked around, still standing. ‘Where is Harry?’ she asked Ginny. ‘He won’t come down,’ she said calmly. ‘I think he’s afraid we’ll all be scared that he’s been possessed by You-Know-Who.’ Molly gasped. ‘I thought he was just tired or coming down with something. Do you really think he’s avoiding us?’ Ginny nodded. ‘He’s ashamed about being possessed. I know I was when I realized what he had been doing through me.’ ‘How did you get here, Hermione?’ asked Sirius. ‘We thought you were skiing with your parents.’ ‘I came on the Knight Bus,’ said Hermione. ‘I told my parents that we all had to study. They understood. They know I don’t like skiing all that much. I want to go up to see Harry.’ Hermione turned and started toward the steps. ‘I’ll go with you,’ said Ron and Ginny together. ‘Jinx!’ They said as they stood up to follow Hermione. ‘Wait!’ said Molly, making rather complicated motions with her wand. The loaf of bread on the table sliced itself, as did the rolled roast beef. The bread slipped on either side of the meat and cut itself diagonally and arranged itself on a plate. ‘You’ll all need something to eat. Take this plate of sandwiches if you are going to talk to Harry. You can eat with him while the twins and I eat with Sirius.’ Ron and Ginny followed the plate of sandwiches, which had started up the steps after Hermione. ‘Thank you, Mrs Weasley,’ called down Hermione. Molly and Sirius looked at each other. ‘Do you think Ginny is correct? That Harry is worried about being possessed?’ ‘She’ll set him straight,’ said Sirius. ‘From what she has told me, the possession she went through is nothing like Harry seeing what Voldemort wants his snake to do.’ “I didn’t know she had talked to you about that terrible year,’ said Molly, after blanching at hearing You-Know-Who’s name spoken. The twins stopped eating and watched their mother and Sirius. ‘She wanted to know if there was a chance that Voldemort had possessed me and made me betray James and Lily and kill all the Muggles,’ said Sirius. ‘I told her that Peter Pettigrew did it all and then framed me.’ ‘And he was Percy’s rat,’ said Fred. ‘And went to Hogwarts with Ron when Percy got Hermes for being a Prefect,’ added George. ‘I saw Peter Pettigrew in his Animagus form in the picture of all of you in front of the pyramids,’ said Sirius. ‘That’s when I decided to escape. I knew he was at Hogwarts with Harry.’ ‘The picture that was in the Daily Prophet?’ Molly was learning new information. ‘And that’s why you dragged Ron into the Shrieking Shack! To capture Peter Pettigrew.’ Sirius nodded his head. Now the twins looked confused as their mother got up and hugged Sirius. ‘The picture in front of the pyramid made you drag Ron into the Shrieking Shack?’ Fred looked puzzled. ‘To catch Percy’s rat Scabbers?’ George shook his head. ‘And this is good?’ ‘Yes, very good and very brave,’ said Molly, smiling at Sirius. After dinner, Sirius went upstairs to feed Buckbeak, singing ‘God Rest You Merry Hippogriffs” at the top of his lungs. Molly heard Harry’s voice join in and was thankful that whatever Ginny told him must have reassured him that he was not possessed. Molly sent Bill to The Burrow to get the Christmas jumpers and small presents for the children. He returned with word that house-elves were there again. She asked him if he had had time to take the jumper to Percy and he said that he’d take care of it before Christmas Eve. Sirius’s delight at having the house full again, and especially at having Harry back was infectious. Everyone pitched in, cleaning and decorating, so by the time they went to bed on Christmas Eve the house was barely recognizable. It was extremely festive with a huge tree and decorations everywhere. Molly woke Christmas morning missing Arthur and the usual stocking filled with presents from him. She had made one for him and planned to take it to the hospital that afternoon. When she arrived downstairs, she discovered that Hermes had returned the parcel addressed to Percy, unopened. He flew off before she could even send a note beck. Molly burst into tears and was sobbing at the table when Fred and George came in saying, “Happy Christmas!’ together. ‘Is something wrong with Dad?’ asked Fred. Molly shook her head. ‘What’s wrong, Mum?’ asked George. ‘P-p-percy,’ sobbed Molly. ‘Something’s wrong with Percy,’ said Fred. She shook her head again. George saw the parcel with Percy’s name on it. ‘Percy is a git!’ he said in a loud voice. ‘He’s returned his jumper.’ ‘Don’t cry, Mum. He’s not worth it!’ said Fred, but that just made Molly cry more. Fred and George looked at each other and Apparated away. ‘Oh, I hope they don’t go to Percy’s and hurt him,’ said Molly between sobs. Molly cried for a while and then began to make breakfast. The children and Sirius and Remus came down slowly, almost as though they were giving her a chance to pull herself together. They ate while telling each other what they had received for Christmas. Molly was pleased to see Ginny was wearing the hair clasp that she had bought for her from Sirius. Harry was asking Remus and Lupin about the book they had given him. He seemed particularly pleased with it. Since they had breakfast so late, Molly made a light lunch and then they prepared to go to the hospital to see Arthur. Mundungus had volunteered to borrow a car from a friend because public transportation would not be running either Christmas Day or tomorrow on Boxing Day. Molly was rather suspicious about the small car that Mundungus drove up in but it was quite roomy inside so she settled herself into the back seat between Bill and Fred with good grace. The journey to St Mungo’s was quite quick as there was very little traffic on the roads. Molly and the children went into the hospital and up to Arthur’s room. They found Arthur propped up in bed with… a rather sheepish expression on his face. However, Molly thought that there was something different about Arthur that she just couldn’t put her finger on. Hermione had brought a Muggle camera and she took a picture of the Weasley children and Harry grouped around Arthur. Molly was clutching Ginny and Harry on one side of his bed. Fred, George, and Ron were on the other side and were so serious and pale that their freckles stood out starkly. Bill and Remus stayed with Mundungus while he found a place to park the car. They arrived after the picture was taken. Then they all gave Arthur his presents and he was quite excited about the fuse-wire and screwdrivers that Harry gave him. When he leaned over to shake Harry’s hand, Molly peeked at the bandages under his nightshirt. ‘Arthur,’ she said with a snap in her voice like a mousetrap, ‘you’ve had your bandages changed. Why have you had your bandages changed a day early, Arthur? They told me they wouldn’t need doing until tomorrow.’ ‘What?’ said Arthur, looking rather frightened and pulling the bedcovers higher up his chest. ‘No, no — it’s nothing — it’s — I —‘ He seemed to deflate under Molly’s piercing gaze. Arthur explained that the Trainee Healer Augustus Pye had closed his wound using what Muggles called 'stitches‘. Molly told him that she was not at all happy about Healer Trainee Pye ‘trying to sew your skin back together’… Hermione, Ron, Harry, and Ginny suddenly announced that they needed a cup of tea right away and left hurriedly. Arthur tried to explain what stitches were but Molly was having none of it. ‘WHAT DO YOU MEAN, THAT’S THE GENERAL IDEA!’ Arthur finally calmed her down by saying that the stitches seemed to work because the bleeding had stopped. He and Molly and Bill and the twins had a good visit while Remus talked to the man in the next bed that had just been bitten by a werewolf. The children finally returned in more sombre moods than they had been when they went off to find tea. Everyone was quiet on the journey home. Later that night the four youngest children told Molly about seeing Professor Gilderoy Lockhart in the Spell Damage ward. They said he was in the long-term resident ward. When they told her about meeting Neville and his grandmother visiting Frank and Alice Longbottom, Molly grew very sad. She told them that she knew Neville’s parents and what had happened to them. ‘They were friends of Harry’s parents and of Fabian and Gideon. They were all in the Order together. Bellatrix Lestrange used the Cruciatus Curse on them so long that it ruined their minds. I think Bellatrix was with Antonin Dolohov when he killed my brothers, too. She is very cruel and dangerous.’ ‘Sirius’s cousin?’ asked Ginny. Harry nodded. ‘The very same.’ The children spent the rest of their Christmas Holiday doing a bit of the assigned homework but mostly playing games and visiting with Sirius. Fred and George hung on his every word as he told them about pranks that the Marauders had managed while they were at Hogwarts. Various combinations of children also visited Arthur with Molly about every other day. Sirius and Molly and Arthur had already decided that the Weasleys and Harry would stay at Grimmauld Place until it was time for them to return to Hogwarts on the twelfth of January. It was so much easier to be in London with Arthur still recovering. Sirius used the occasion of New Years Eve to have a party for members of the Order of the Phoenix. Molly allowed the children to stay up until midnight so they could wish each other a ‘Happy and Healthy 1996!’ There was much joking among the four youngest children about what it would have to change and who would have to leave to make Hogwarts a happier and healthier place. Fred and George seemed unusually cheerful and begged to stay up until all the grown-ups left. Their mother was against it but the twins and Sirius pointed out that they were of age. Shortly after midnight, Molly went up to the room she and Arthur shared and wished that this New Year would be a much better one with everyone healthy and safe. She also wished that she and Arthur would be able to return to the Burrow soon. Her last wish was for Percy to return to his family. As she settled into bed, she missed Arthur’s warm body and comforting arms. When she finally fell asleep, her dreams were troubled. In the nightmare that woke her, Bellatrix Lestrange was chasing Ginny and Hermione and Ginny’s friend, Luna. Molly sat bolt upright in bed, too upset by that dream to go back to sleep.
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