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For as long as she can remember, Ginevra has always felt alone. In many ways, it didn’t make sense to her why she felt that way, for she had six elder brothers, and her Mother was always around, but that didn’t stop her from feeling that pervasive loneliness.
In some ways, she connected most to Percival in this. After all, he was in a gap, a visual spread between the mannerisms of his brothers he was sandwiched between. However, though she saw his plight and sympathized, he could not recognize hers. Where she had turned her gaze outward, observing those around her and building herself through them, Percy did the opposite. He saw his existence as a singular point surrounding a revolving group, with nothing else around. He saw himself, and himself only, taking one glance at insipid camaraderie and, judging himself an exception, abandoned the entire scheme. She wondered if she should feel negatively over feeling betrayed by this blatant overcast, but she did not. After all, everyone else around her always did the same as he, so why would Percival “Percy” Weasley, self proclaimed scholar and political minded simperer, be any different?
Being the youngest, and only female child, was a rather infuriating plight, she found. Her mother, the ever tedious and selectively blind Molly Weasley nee Prewett, tried to be doting and engage Ginevra in her own passions, primarily being the House Arts, but could not connect. There was something in the way her darling “Ginny” held herself, viewed the world, even asked her little questions, that set some sort of unease in Molly that she just couldn’t shake. Nothing she tried worked with her daughter, and heaven forbid she allow another child, especially her little girl, to engage in the reckless behaviour of her boys. Perhaps it was this disparity that caused a rift. Perhaps, it was that Molly expected quite a lot of young Ginevra that she simply could not provide. She was not interested in the “feminine arts”, and not allowed nor welcomed to join the boys in their sport. Instead, she had to find her own way to keep entertained.
It was this separation from the other Weasley’s that founded her discovery of the wonders of Books. After all, despite their dismal monetary situation, there were still numerous books scattered around the Burrow that she could dive herself into; seven children of two parents, both of whom who had siblings who went to school, books inevitably tend to pile up. It wasn’t the mystery of magic, she had seen quite a lot despite her young age, but the language that intrigued her so. It was one thing to see a spell, but to read about it, to practically hear how it could be used, the potential of it… Ginevra quickly found herself entranced.
That is not to say, however, that she spent no time whatsoever with her family. The Twins, George and Fred, or Gred and Forge as they so dubbed themselves, did try to engage her when they bothered. Whether it was sneaking her books she couldn’t get otherwise, explaining things nobody else would, secretly teaching her how to fly a broom, giving her detailed and descriptive foundations on potions… the Twins were her favourite, of this she was positive. She knew, that despite her unintentional segregation, they did love her and were not being intentionally cruel when they placed her aside. The Twins, in turn, were the only ones Ginevra ever confided in, what little she did. They helped her practice magics their parents never would, and she in turn provided alibis and excuses they would never have gotten away with otherwise. In a significantly different manner than her, the twins were also estranged from the general Weasley Clan. The fact that they were two, a combined unit with minds not confined to the bedlam her parents seemed entrenched in, set them apart in ways that she, quite frankly, would never understand. She wasn’t a pair. She was just, the singular, Ginevra.
And for now, that was all that she needed.
Harry Potter.
A grand celebrity, made fairytale by the Wizarding World around her due to the events of All Hallow’s, 1981. Books, though she hesitates to call them that as most were codswallop of fastidious drivel made to appease a ravenous public, were not few in number with him as the prime topic. They were mainly stranger’s accounts of Harry’s “miraculous deeds”, and fictional tales made to paint him as a Storybook Prince. Some, though she found these even worse, were pages of speculation as to what the boy saviour would be like, what toys he would play with, clothes he would wear, etc. It was all nonsense; a ploy by the market to sell things to a gullible crowd, and a blatant misrepresentation of a real person’s life. None of them knew Harry.
She didn’t know him either, of course, but still.
She, at the tender age of seven, wasn’t supposed to know this, but she had overheard Dumbledore, the apparent leader of the Light and Headmaster of Hogwarts among many other titles, say that Harry didn’t even know of his fame. He was under wards, and being brought up away from the public’s prying eye. The mark upon his brow was a beacon, they had whispered, so he was guarded and enclosed, not to go out in the world until he reached eleven. With that being the case, why then was it public domain for his life to be dragged from imaginary places and paraded around the world? Could someone not say “his life is his own, he isn’t a tool to be shoved about. Keep your machinations to yourselves”? He was being used, and they couldn’t even tell him why. In fact, Ginevra decided, it was likely they kept that from him too.
Ginevra found his plight recognizable in ways she couldn’t quite define, and wondered if he too could feel the breath in his lungs in a way that everyone else seems to ignore. She was fascinated, and sometimes wondered what it was like to see the man who cursed him, how it felt to watch and witness the extermination of, arguably, one of the best wizards of all time… she never let on to the darker path her thoughts had taken her. She hadn’t been scared of course: she was Ginevra, alone in a crowd that incongruously thought her to be part of them, knowledgeable of hexes and potions she had no rightly business knowing. Besides, she had little to fear from the Dark. Her blood sang sometimes when she listened hard enough, the Black lines clear as day. Perhaps that is why young Harry intrigued her so. He was an enigma. She did so love an enigma. Maybe that’s why she became one. So she wouldn’t be alone… it didn’t matter anyways. It wasn’t a crush. It wasn’t .
She wasn’t looking forward to the next few months. Life in the Burrow had always been… well, it hadn’t been anything Ginevra had particularly loved. Summers were always better, because with every child underfoot, she found it much easier to slip away. She had never been particularly monitored, mind you, but Mother had always had a bit more notice of her whereabouts than that of the others. She was ten now, and Ron was starting Hogwarts next week. And that meant, she would be alone with just Molly. The last few months had been rather wonderful, because any and all attention was so tethered to Ron, that she had managed an amount of freedom she hadn’t experienced in quite some time. She had even managed to sneakily purchase some tomes in a darker secondhand shop while her parents were focused on Ronald. Of course, she had made a deal with the twins to make a nice big distraction so she could disappear for a bit in Diagon, but the payment hadn’t been anything she was worried about. It had taken some planning, and also the keen use of some money she had managed to acquire in the last year and a half, but it had been completely worth it. She now had some books on some more, shall we say, esoteric magicks, and darker topics that she definitely hadn’t had laying about the Burrow.
See, Ginevra had always had a fascination with things that weren’t aligned with the inherent Weasley lightness. She had the blood of the Blacks on both sides, not that her parents would ever admit to it, and she was the Seventh Child of a Seventh Child, the only female Weasley in generations . She was sharper, more driven, and she knew what she wanted. Books called out to her, their words pulling her into chasms of language, intrigue, magic… She could Feel a spell by its description, Know it deeper without practising them. Magic pulled at her, called to her, and drew her into a world simmering with untapped potential. She knew it wasn’t normal. And she didn’t know why, but she knew it wasn’t something she could ever speak of with her parents.
And all of that…
All of that was nothing, compared to the feeling of hearing her blood whisper and sing from deep within her, yearning for something she didn’t yet know. But she would. Someday, she would be able to unleash that song..
But for now, she had to maintain her image of a girl without chasms of siren song and knowledge and blood, had to be Little Ginevra Weasley, daughter of the Light.
Besides, next year she’d be at Hogwarts too, and just think of all the things she could gleam in her halls.
She sighed.
One more year.
It was odd, she decided, having another child in the house. This summer had been taxing enough before, as Ronald had paraded himself around in a way that was entirely new. She’d never really given him much attention growing up, as he’d always been keen to snub her outright, sneering at her books and dismissing her as an “annoying girl ”.
He didn’t see the world the way she did, and she didn’t understand him. He wasn’t like Percy, who judged himself separate and beyond others, wasn’t like the Twins, more chaos than people, who saw everything from a joint perspective, a collective. He just… he saw images of people, and judged himself against them, his own persona part of a scheme he couldn’t catch up with.
It didn’t make sense.
Of course, less and less was making sense to her lately anyways.
For example: Harry Potter.
Harry Potter was not what she expected. He was small, for one. Much smaller than an eleven year old should be. He had made quick friends with Ronald, and some muggleborn named Hermione, and didn’t seem too interested in making many more. He was fiery, but only in specific situations. She had only briefly seen him almost a year ago, at the train station, but he didn’t look too different.
He wasn’t anything like her brothers. He also wasn’t anything like her. He was… he was an enigma. She couldn’t see his depths, like she could her family. Couldn’t feel the way he viewed the world, or himself. She didn’t see him like she saw them, and it was confusing. It was fascinating.
However, there was something…. Simmering. She could almost hear it sometimes, in moments when he was lost in his head, but it was sitting just out of reach.
It felt like something Beyond , something More .
It tasted….
She breathed in deep.
It tasted like potential.
She wasn’t sure why she didn’t notice the diary at first, because as soon as she did, she knew, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that she would never forget it. Something inside her, something she knew was there, could almost taste and see, something More , awoke the very moment she touched it, the curls of magic burying themselves in her bones.
As she sucked in a breath, she knew. She knew .
Little Ginevra was Awake, and she…. She was Hungry.