A/N: There will be some intentional grammar mistakes in here for Ginny’s
diary entries, the ones in italics, as for the rest…those would be mine.
: )
Disclaimer: All characters and plot belong to J.K Rowling, author of
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. London: Bloomsbury Publishing,
1998. I am merely retelling the story from another character’s point
of view. All text taken from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
will be noted by **text**.
Chapter One: Hero at the Burrow
Ginny Weasley woke up one bright summer morning, stretching as she
kicked her feet into her slippers. It was going to be a good week, this
one. Harry Potter was coming to spend the rest of the summer with her
family. Not to mention that she would be going to Hogwarts School
of Witchcraft and Wizardry with four of her brothers this year.
And Harry Potter was going to be there too! She’d had grown up hearing
of him, how he had defeated You-know-Who when he was barely a year old.
She had heard all the stories, read all the books on him she could find.
Her brother Ron was even best friends with him! He so fascinated her;
the one and only time she had seen him was last year. He was very quiet,
had jet-black hair that stuck up in all directions, wore glasses, and
had a scar on his forehead (although Ginny had never seen it). She so
wanted to meet him! He had to be a great wizard, even at such a young
age to defeat the Dark Lord. I bet he could turn us all into toads
if he wanted to, she thought.
Kicking on her bunny slippers, she groggily came downstairs to get
breakfast. She could hear her mum fussing at her brothers, most likely
the twins, and clattering plates about as she fussed. Ginny entered
the kitchen and stopped dead in her tracks. Harry Potter was sitting
in her kitchen! Gut instinct took over Ginny as a small squeal escaped
her lips and she ran as fast as she could back up the stairs into the
safety of her room. What was he doing here now? And why hadn’t anyone
told her he was here? Surely everyone must know how much she wanted
to meet him, she had been pestering Ron all summer about when he would
be coming. Her face flushed as she thought about how she must have looked,
with her hair uncombed and in her nightdress. He must think she was
very silly.
She heard the slamming of the kitchen door and the voices of her brothers
as they filed out into the garden. She ran to her window, looking out
to see if he was with them. He was! He was talking to Ron, and
although she couldn’t hear what was being said, she could see that Ron
was hunting in the bushes. Most likely de-gnoming the garden again.
Ron was showing Harry what a gnome was, she had heard that Harry lived
with Muggles all his life and didn’t really know much of her world.
She stood there, just a bit to the right of the window, peeking out
beneath the curtains as she watched him and her brothers whirl the gnomes
around and around in the air, hurtling them over the fence. Harry’s
gnome had bitten him, he danced about the garden, shaking the thing
off, casting it nearly fifty feet. She couldn’t help but giggle at the
sight.
Oh, it was going to be so exciting, going to school with her brothers
and learning so many new things. And Harry Potter would be there as
well, perhaps he might want to talk to her or something. And surely
her brothers wouldn’t pick on her as much as they did now that she was
all grown up! Ginny frowned at the thought of her brothers. She had
six, although the two eldest were off at their jobs. Bill, the oldest
was a curse-breaker for Gringott’s Bank. Charlie was working with Dragons.
She missed them both desperately. Percy, well, he never paid too much
attention to her, except he did manage to get the twins off her back
every once in a while. Percy was more interested in becoming Head Boy
at Hogwarts, than playing with his little sister. He had shut himself
inside his room all summer, sending letters to someone and snapping
at her each time she knocked on his door to ask or tell him something.
Fred and George, the twins, always caused trouble wherever they went,
thriving on the attention. They were loads of fun to be around, when
one wasn’t the object of their pranks. Unfortunately, Ginny was most
often the object of their pranks, however, she never let them get away
with it. One of the advantages of being the only girl out of seven children
is that her parents let her get away with things that the others would
definitely get into trouble for. It also helped to have so many other
siblings to place the blame onto, if possible, which was quite easy
to do.
Ginny’s favorite brother, however, was the one that right now was the
most distant from her, figuratively speaking. Ron was only one year
older than her, and growing up it had always been the two of them pitted
against the twins. She had missed Ron all last year while he was off
at his first year at Hogwarts, and she had been so excited when he finally
came back home and they could play together. But Ron didn’t want to
play with her anymore. He was off doing stuff with the twins, or telling
her to go away, she talks too much, and to quit pestering him. It was
funny how, in a house full of people, Ginny felt so alone. With Ron
acting so mean, she now had no one to talk to at all. She could, she
supposed, talk to her mum. But sometimes her mother was just so busy,
with the housework, and cooking, and everything else involved in being
a wife and mother. Her dad, whom Ginny loved dearly, was hardly at home
anymore, working late hours at his job at the Ministry of Magic. She
could talk to him, when he was at home, he’d once told her there would
always be room in his lap for her to sit on. Her dad loved to show her
all the new things he brought home from his job at The Misuse of Muggle
Artifacts Office. He even let her watch as he bewitched some of the
things he’d taken from there, like some old car that Muggles used as
transportation. He told her not to tell mum, which Ginny didn’t. She
loved it when her dad told her all about the neat things that Muggles
did in their world.
Ginny looked back out at the garden, noticing that the boys had all
gone inside. Harry was back inside the house. Maybe this time she could
get a good look at him, she wanted to see the scar on his forehead.
She slowly creaked open her door, just a bit, as the footsteps coming
up the stairs became louder and louder. She could see the top of his
head, black hair sticking up every-which-a-way. He wore glasses, which
magnified the most beautiful pair of deep green eyes she had ever seen.
He looked so skinny and scrawny, Ron towered over him. EEK! He saw her!
Ginny slammed the door shut, before he could see it was her. Oh, no!
She heard Ron telling Harry it was her. **"Ginny," said Ron.
"You don’t know how weird it is for her to be this shy, she never
shuts up normally—"**
I’m going to kill Ron! she thought angrily, cheeks flushing
with embarrassment. How dare he say something like that to Harry! Ooooh,
she was going to put spiders in his sheets tonight if she could! What
must Harry think of her now, if all Ron was going to do is badmouth
her? She’d never leave her room if this is what she had to face.
Unfortunately, Ginny did have to leave her room when her mother called
her for lunch that day. Thank goodness that the twins and Ron and Harry
were asleep. Her parents told her how they had stolen the car and retrieved
Harry from those Muggles he lived with. Her mother was still mad at
her father, who was trying not to grin at how successfully he’d managed
to get the car to fly. He gave Ginny a wink across the table, nodding
his head as he pretended to listen to his wife as she put lunch on the
table.
"Did you get to meet Harry, pumpkin?" her dad asked her.
He knew how excited she was to meet Harry.
Ginny nodded, smiling. "I like him, Daddy."
Her father’s eyes twinkled merrily at her. "Good girl," he
said. His expression changed as he regarded her intently. "Our
little girl’s growing up, Molly," he said to her mum. "She’s
going to be leaving us soon." He reached out to tweak a long red
lock of Ginny’s hair affectionately.
"I know, Arthur," her mum replied. "But we knew this
would come one day, although I would prefer to wait a few more years."
"Mum!" Ginny said, knowing the our-little-girl-is-growing-up-speech
by heart now. "Don’t you want me to learn how to be a witch?"
"Of course I do, honey," her mum replied. "And you are
going to be the best there is, just wait and see."
Ginny smiled. "And I’ll be put in the same house as Ron and the
twins and Percy, " and Harry she added to herself.
"Yes, Ginny. Weasleys have been in Gryffindor for the past three
hundred years," her father smiled at her. "And you definitely
have all the qualities of a Gryffindor and I know you’ll do us proud."
Ginny flushed at her father’s praise. "Thanks, Daddy."
For the rest of the day, Ginny occupied herself with drawing and painting
with the set of wizard paint she received for her birthday, thinking
about starting Hogwarts and what it meant to be a Gryffindor. She just
knew she could be a good one, Gryffindors were brave, loyal, and courageous.
She could be all of those things, although she wasn’t too sure what
exactly she had to do to be brave, loyal and courageous. Ron had told
her she had to wrestle a troll. That didn’t sound to fun, but she might
be able to handle one; she’d been wrestling with her brothers for years
and they sometimes act like trolls.
Ginny was excited about starting Hogwarts, but she was also a bit scared.
What if she wasn’t very good at being a witch? What if she didn’t know
how to do anything as well as the others? What if she didn’t make any
friends? Ginny didn’t have any friends outside of her family. She wasn’t
too sure how other girls her age acted; what if they all thought she
was weird? What if Harry Potter didn’t like her at all?
Ginny cleared her head of these disturbing thoughts and concentrated
on drawing. She was sketching a picture of her room, so she would have
something to remember it by while she was at school. She loved her room;
her parents had let her paint whatever she liked on it and the walls
were now filled with prancing unicorns and dancing fairies, and one
wall had a little brook that had real water rushing inside it. Her room
was a safe haven from the rest of the world; her brothers never entered
it. Only her mum would come in sometimes to take up her dirty laundry.
Ginny suddenly wondered what Harry’s room looked like back at the Muggles’
house he lived in. Ron said that they were awful people; they starved
him and locked him up in a cupboard. Shame on them for treating Harry
Potter so! She also wondered what Harry thought of her home; did he
like it? She knew her family was poor, but they managed to get along,
as her dad always told her. Personally, Ginny loved the Burrow, except
for the family ghoul who sometimes would make too much noise at night
and keep her awake. Did he think it was too noisy, especially with the
added noise coming from Fred and George’s room? They were constantly
blowing something up, or setting something afire.
The light outside her window turned darker and darker and pretty soon,
Ginny heard footsteps outside her door again. She ran to peek through
it again, but it was only Fred and George. She shut it with a snap in
disappointment.
"Ginny? Come down for dinner!" Her mum just called out. Ginny
opened the door, yelled "Coming!" and dashed back inside her
room to make sure she at least looked alright. Her red hair just curled
down her back, and her jeans and shirt didn’t have any paint splatters
on them. She went downstairs.
Supper that night was not what Ginny had hoped. She was fine until
Harry entered the kitchen and sat down next to her father, who quizzed
him on everything he had heard about Muggles. His eyes would widen in
amazement and he’d say "Did you hear that, Ginny?" which would
cause Harry to look over at her and she would suddenly forget to speak.
That’s not the only thing she forgot as she constantly kept on missing
her mouth with her fork and dribbling food down her shirt. This would
cause the twins to make comments and Ginny wanted to give them both
a sound thrashing, but what would Harry think if she attacked her brothers?
She dropped her fork once and it clattered to the floor. She hit her
head on the table as she bent down to retrieve it. Fred and George snickered,
Percy scolded them and then turned to her and said, "Ginny, what’s
gotten into you?" She didn’t think her face could get any redder
as she felt Harry’s eyes on her. She was the first one up from the table
once it was over and made a beeline for her room, where she would be
safe once again.
As she lay in her bed that night, she thought, It wasn’t supposed
to happen like this. She sighed and pulled the quilt over her head,
hoping that tomorrow would be better.
