Subplot

11 - Ginny

Ginny's last class on Tuesday afternoon was Transfiguration. When Professor McGonagall said they were closing twenty minutes early because she had to help with some obscure spell research, Ginny could not believe her own ears. The idea of Professor McGonagall ending class early was unheared of, but here she was, standing outside Professor Varlerta's building well before she was expected. She felt excited. The air was clean and icy. The moon was full. They were going to the stone circle tonight. This was the real thing, this was magical research, and it wasn't as if any old 4^th year student got a chance to experience some brand new kind of magic up close.

The words 'Rock 'n Roll High School' opened the door of Varlerta's building. Ginny found her mentor in the 'music laboratory,' talking to a portrait of a woman Ginny had never seen before.

"I know, I know," Varlerta said to the picture leaning against the sofa. "What I'm trying to tell you is that you knew me in your future - I mean, you are going to know me as your grandniece, but that was in the past - blimey, this is getting difficult!"

"Varlerta?" Ginny inquired, not sure how to react to this strange, new form of behaviour. The teacher turned abruptly, blushed a little and said:

"Oh, Ginny, I hadn't heard you enter. See what I found? It's a portrait of my grandaunt Anat. The only trouble is, it was painted decades before she even knew me, so now the portrait won't recognize me."

Ginny took a closer look at the picture. It showed a youngish woman with a pinned-up tumble of mahogany coloured curls, dressed in red velvet with a white lace collar. She looked nice, Ginny decided, even if she was a little on the plump side. The woman was holding a large lute decorated with an elaborate design of roses. Now that Varlerta had turned to Ginny, the woman in the portrait had started to play her instrument. All her attention was focussed on her left hand moving over the frets of the lute. A soft, eerie music came from the painted strings.

"It's amazing," Varlerta said, her face animated with excitement. "On the weekend I had some business to do in the western wing, and I passed a room from which I could hear music. I asked Dumbledore what was inside, and he said it was Hogwarts' collection of noisy paintings: Pictures that have been taken down from the walls because they make too much noise. People get upset when a painting won't shut up, you know. When Dumbledore showed me the collection, I saw that most of the noisy paintings were musicians, so of course that got me interested. You can't imagine my surprise when I found this picture. I didn't even know a painting of my grandaunt existed. Of course I took it with me at once. I don't mind her playing, and if I do, my stereo will always be louder." She grinned wickedly.

Ginny's eyes scanned the framed oil-on-canvas again. On the right bottom corner of the gilt frame, the words 'Anat Rosier' were engraved. Rosier, she thought. Somewhere she had heard that name before, although she could not remember where.

Varlerta started to put a few things into a backpack. When Neville arrived, she asked him whether he had his wand and flute on him, then sent him back to the castle for a warm jumper to wear under his cloak, as they would be spending the better part of the night outside. Ginny was glad she had remembered to bring warm clothes. They were already stowed away in Drifter's boot, along with her shaman drum. Varlerta zipped her guitar into its nylon bag and put freshly recharged batteries into her battery-powered amplifier. Suddenly she shouted: "Look, there's the vermin!" It startled Ginny, who had been listening to the soft lute-playing of the portrait. She turned around to look at the thing Professor Varlerta was pointing at. In mid-air, half a foot above the ground, a rat was floating. Ginny guessed that it had been caught in an invisible, magical rat-trap.

"I thought I'd seen rats out here, but now I know for sure," the teacher commented wryly. "That's what I get for living out here instead of in the castle. Maybe I should buy a cat. I really hate rats, you know. Let's put this yucky little fellow out of its misery." She raised her wand.

"No, don't kill it," Ginny shouted. Varlerta looked at her with a frown.

"Why not? It's a rat, Ginny, and rats are vermin. I don't want them in my music laboratory. If you'd ever been to some of the less genteel areas in New York City, you would understand why I absolutely loathe them."

"They are magical animals," Ginny argued. The teacher could not just murder this little rodent; she could not let her. "Please don't kill it, set it free. I hate it when people kill animals. And I think rats are cute. My brother used to have one that looked very much like this one." Ginny knelt down to look at the rat in its magical trap. It stared at her with its black button eyes; its ragged whiskers trembled violently, and its thick, naked tail thrashed around weakly within the invisible boundaries of the trap. Behind her, the door opened. Neville came back in, his jumper in his hand. "They are, aren't they, Neville?" Ginny asked him. "Rats are magical animals, just like toads!"

"Sure," Neville said vaguely, probably without knowing what Ginny was talking about. He held up a number of objects to show them to his teacher. "Professor Varlerta, I think I've got everything: Wand, flute, recorder, jumper, cloak, warm socks, boots. Look, my Remembrall - it's not red at all."

"That's ok then," Varlerta replied. "But I think Ginny just asked your opinion. She thinks this rat should live, and I think it should be killed. It looks old and sick. We could give it a quick and painless death. What do you think, Neville?"

Ginny bent closer to the squealing rat. Slightly swaying in its invisible prison, it was probably terrified. The rodent did not look very healthy indeed; its skin sported many bald patches, and it had lost its right front paw. "It's just a poor little fellow," she argued. Neville did not offer an opinion at all. Recently Ginny had noticed that he was usually quite eager to please Varlerta, and - odd as it was - eager to please her as well. Now her request for his opinion in a case of disagreement might have put Neville into conflict with himself.

"Alright, alright, kids," Varlerta said with a little laugh. "Life, liberty and the Pursuit of Rattiness for this piece of vermin, if you really think so. We'll set it free. But let's take it along to the stone circle. I don't want rats in this building, and if we free this one miles from here, there's a good chance it won't come back. Anyways, it's time to get going."

Ginny took the invisible rat trap with its occupant inside into her hand. As she got up, something slipped out of her robes' pockets. Before she could set the rat trap back down and retrieve the object, Professor Varlerta had put one booted foot on the little paper bag. The teacher stooped to pick up and examine her finding.

"Well, well, well, Ginny, what have we got here?" Ginny almost dropped the trap. The object under Varlerta's scrutinizing gaze was none other than a forgotten, crumpled bag of Potion Spoiler. I'm finished, Ginny thought desperately. They will expel me. Probably they will expel the whole family and ban at least the next three generations of Weasleys from Hogwarts.

"Wheeze Potion Spoiler," Professor Varlerta read. "If I'm not very much mistaken, this is exactly the substance Professor Snape is dying to get hold of."

Ginny felt tears well up in her eyes. "Please Professor Varlerta, I didn't do anything! Don't give this to Snape. He will kill me, expel me, disembowel me - please, don't!" She tried to give her eyes a pleading doe look.

"Don't make it sound like Professor Snape is a monster," Varlerta chided. Through the blur of held back tears, Ginny could see Neville turn his eyes heavenwards. Don't say a word, Neville, you will only make matters worse, she thought. During the first week of their apprenticeship with Varlerta, the teacher had unambiguously told them that they were free to insult Professor Snape whenever they liked, provided they did so in the Gryffindor common room where she could not hear them.

"Please don't cry, Ginny," Varlerta said now and put a hand on her shoulder. "You see, this is a serious matter. This stuff -" she was holding up the bag of Potion Spoiler - "has been giving us a lot of trouble. Students have been putting it into important potions, and recently we couldn't trust any potion even if we really needed it. Remember Professor Lupin, the werewolf, the teacher you said you liked so much? He needs a potion to stay sane when he Transforms, or he'll become a danger to everyone around here. If his potion is spoilt, it may not work properly. We can only hope that the potion he just drank was unspoilt, because as you know there will be a full moon tonight. For next month, we should be able to do more than just hope, we should be prepared. - All Professor Snape wants is to analyse this stuff, so he can cook up a neutraliser. I really have to give it to him."

Through her tears, Ginny nodded, clutching the invisible rat trap. Yes, she could see Varlerta's point, but she knew she was in for big trouble. Varlerta smiled at her and went through the door into her study for a moment. When she returned, she had a plain, white Muggle envelope in her hand. She opened the packet of Potion Spoiler and let the crystalline powder trickle into the envelope. Then she tapped the empty paper bag with her wand and made it dissolve into a cold, blue flame.

"See, Ginny, there's no need to get upset," she told the girl and conjured up a handkerchief for her apprentice. "No Ginny, no Wheeze, no Weasley - all Professor Snape needs to know is that this is the substance he's been looking for." She left the envelope on the table and put her guitar bag and the larger of the shaman drums over her shoulder. Neville hurried to take Varlerta's battery powered amplifier and her backpack, for once without dropping or breaking anything. Ginny set the trap down on the floor, wiped her eyes and blew her nose. Then she picked the rat trap back up again and followed Varlerta and Neville out to Drifter, who was already beeping its horn impatiently to tell them they were leaving late.

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By the time they arrived at the stone circle, the sun had set. The breast-high stones caught the last reddish gleam of light. Ginny looked around the deserted moor landscape while Varlerta was unloading Drifter's boot. While the teacher was setting up amplifier, guitar and drums, she was softly singing under her breath. As often, Ginny had the impression that Varlerta was neither aware that she was singing, nor what she was singing. "His hair is as green as a fresh pickled toad, his eyes are as dark as a blackboard..." Ginny flinched. Now where in the world had the teacher picked up that song, she wondered. For probably the hundredth time, Ginny fervently wished she had never seen that dwarf. To divert herself she took the invisible rat-trap from Drifter's front seat. At a questioning look from her, Varlerta gave her a curt nod of agreement. Ginny sat the trap down into the wilting grass and tapped it with her wand. The trap dissolved into thin air. The rat fell about a hand's breadth to the floor; it looked at Ginny with utmost surprise and fear in its eyes. Then it turned abruptly, and, limping on its three healthy limbs, scuttled away to the circle and disappeared among the heather.

"I think we will try to activate the stone circle in the simplest way we know," Varlerta told her apprentices. "You will play the recorder, Neville, because it's the instrument you are most familiar with. Remember the tunes we played yesterday? Now we will use them for some really exciting magic. Ginny, you and I will sing along and play the drum. All we will do for now is walk around within the circle and try to awaken it with our music. If all works well, the ground itself will give us strength. Later we might try to experiment with the guitar, the flute and the larger shaman drum."

Varlerta took the larger drum; Ginny reluctantly contented herself with the smaller one, while Neville followed, his recorder in his hand. Before Varlerta entered the stone circle, she uttered a few words in a language that Ginny did not understand and bowed to the stones. Ginny and Neville bowed as well, and then the three of them entered the circle. Varlerta started to follow the stony border on the inside, softly chanting a tune of syllables that did not make sense to Ginny. She played a gentle and simple accompaniment on her drum. Neville joined in with his recorder. Ginny, who was walking behind the two of them, felt that the tune touched something deep inside of her, or maybe even something underneath her. She softly struck her drum with the bone stick Varlerta had given her and tried to pick up what the teacher in front was singing by taking in the sound rather than the meaning of her syllables. After circling a few times within the stones, Ginny could sing along. It was as if she heard her own voice for the first time, a clear alto rising into the darkening sky, not squeaky at all. The strange syllables started coming over her lips as if she had sung them every day of her life to the rhythm of her drum. Ginny felt a warmth surround her. The stones, the sky and the ground beneath her feet, all seemed to response to her music. Fatigue was out of question. She could have gone around and around in the circle for hour, for days, for years, walking and singing without ever tiring.

When Varlerta stopped singing, silence rose up around them like a mist. The teacher turned around, both hands raised. The full moon shone on her hair and on her skin. Ginny and Neville stopped where they were. Then Varlerta bent down and unzipped her boots. She stepped out of them and placed her bare feet onto the grass.

"The earth beneath us is warm and full of energy," she whispered. "Take your shoes of as well, you won't regret it."

Ginny and Neville placed their boots next to hers. Ginny noticed that while the stubbly grass outside the stone circle was frozen, the earth inside was warm like a clay oven. Her bare feet tingled pleasantly each they touched the ground.

Round and round in a circle, singing, chanting, the drum resonating in her hand. Ginny had lost track of time, but had become aware of her surroundings, of the stars gleaming in the clear night sky, of the smell of the grass, of the vibrating standing stones. At some point she noticed with pleasure that Neville had replaced his recorder with the traverse flute. Pearly notes rose up to greet the full moon. It is indeed the stronger instrument, Ginny thought while placing her feet on the ground in time with the drum beat. The circle likes it, too. It absorbs every note and gives us a bit of tingly warmth in return. Round and round in a circle, her heart throbbing with elation. After a while Varlerta approached her, took her smaller drum and placed the large one in her hand with a flowing movement that allowed Ginny to play on without missing a single beat. Then the teacher wordlessly guided her to walk in front of Neville. Ginny was leading now, but it felt natural, as the larger shaman drum was one that led the way. When she struck it, the drum seemed to greet her. It made a difference to it whether Ginny or Varlerta was playing it. The drum liked her. Round and round in a circle, a slight breeze blowing the hair out of her face.

When the first note of Varlerta's guitar pierced the sky, the ground shivered. The stones are not used to it, Ginny thought. For centuries, people have worshipped them with voice, drum and flute, then nobody came for a long time. The stones slept. And now we came and woke them up with such a demanding, almost desecrating sound. The druids or whoever came here last never would have dared it. For a moment she saw a vision of people dressed in furs, walking the circle, bone flutes and wooden drums in their hands. They were replaced by a procession of magicians in white, flowing robes, then by a small group of chanting witches in tattered, black dresses. The transparent, pearly white people looked like ghosts, but somehow Ginny was sure they were something the circle wanted to show her, a memory of the ground beneath her bare feet. When the figures faded, there was nothing to see in the darkness for a long time, just the faintly gleaming stones that showed her where to put her feet as she was leading the others along. Round and round in a circle, the eerie sounds of the guitar echoing on the stones. Suddenly, out of the ground a last pearly procession rose. Led by a pale, thinnish girl with a large drum, this group walked the circle like their predecessors. A boy played a long flute, a rapt expression on his face. The woman in the back had a small box strapped to her back and strung at her strange instrument with obvious pleasure. The circle has accepted us, Ginny thought with relief. We are part of its memory now. We may come back.

After a few more rounds, Varlerta stopped playing. Neville finished his tune, then there were no more pearly flute notes behind her. Ginny struck her drum very softly one last time. Then the three of them left the circle in silence.

When she felt the icy grass of the world outside beneath her foot soles, Ginny inhaled very deeply. Varlerta took the drum from her and safely placed all instruments into Drifter's boot. Then she sat down on the ground and rubbed her hands and feet on the frozen grass. Ginny and Neville followed suit. Ginny's feet were warm and sported a few small blisters; her hands ached and her voice was hoarse from changing. She saw Neville pick up a few frozen grass blades and press them to his slightly swollen lips. Varlerta laughed very softly.

"That's what half-trance does to you. You play and play, and you never notice you are overworking yourself. You don't feel the pain until it's over, and you completely lose track of time. Walking the circle is certainly not something I'd like to do every day. But smart as nature is, she gave the moon cycle a decent length so people can recover." She rubbed her face with her grass-cooled hand and left a smudge of dirt on her forehead. Then she glanced at her watch. "It's after three. I should bring you two home to your beds at last. All of us will be tired tomorrow, but I warn you: You may also find that your magic is stronger than it usually is." The teacher rose and brought Ginny and Neville their boots. When all three of them were shod again, they got into Drifter's comfortable seats.

For once, Varlerta did not put on a CD, for which Ginny was grateful. She liked the silence now. Looking in the rear-view mirror, she could see Neville stretch out on the backseat. Within a moment he was fast asleep. Ginny envied him. Her eyelids felt like lead. Yet she had questions for her teacher.

"How did you know which melodies to play? Would any melody have done, or were these special ones?"

Varlerta yawned broadly. "Special ones," she replied, obviously too tired to elaborate on anything. "Got them from an old manuscript of neumes. Worked fine, didn't they?"

"Neumes? What's that?"

"Medieval music notation. I'll show you some time. But not tonight."

You bet, Ginny thought. The only thing you and me will look at when we get home is our pillows. I'm glad Drifter is Ensouled, because I'm not sure you'd be fit to steer a flying car right now.

"What about the guitar?" Ginny thought her own voice sounded heavy with fatigue, but she still wanted to know. "At first the ground seemed to be almost angry when you started playing. Then it accepted it. How did you know it would?"

"Been there before last month and tried it." Varlerta massaged her eyelids for a while, then consulted the compass and the sextant next to the steering wheel. She lightly tapped Drifter's steering wheel on the left to tell the car to turn a bit more to the west. "I wouldn't have tried it for the first time with you two around - far too risky. I'm not sure what the circle can do if it doesn't like you." Once more her face split into a yawn. "Never thought it would be that late," she muttered.

Finally Drifter's wheels touched the frozen lawn of Hogwarts' grounds. They had landed right in front of the castle's large portal. Varlerta got out and gently shook Neville awake. The boy stirred very reluctantly, but after a while the teacher could persuade him to get out of the car. She handed her trainees their instruments, magically opened the door for them and wished them a good night. Ginny could see her limping back to Drifter before the door closed behind them.

Her own feet felt like fire by now. Somehow Neville and she made their way up to Gryffindor tower. Waking up the Fat lady was a difficult task, but finally she let them in, murmuring: "Hope these special excursions of you two won't become a habit."

In the common room, Neville stopped. "Goodnight then, Ginny," he said and blushed faintly. "You were really brilliant tonight." Then he turned abruptly and made his way to the boys' dormitory.

Brilliant? Why was I brilliant, Ginny wondered. But as she was too tired to think about it or even to undress any further than taking off her cloak and heavy boots, she just let herself fall on her four-poster bed. She drew the curtains close with a weary hand and then drifted off into oblivion.

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"Ginny, what in the world are you doing?" Professor Flitwick's shrill voice pierced her ears. The Gryffindor 4^th years were practicing Summoning Charms on a high pile of various books the Charms teacher had placed in the middle of the classroom. Ginny had noticed vaguely that her Summoning Charm was far better than last lesson's. The hardest thing was to keep her eyes open. She really would have preferred to sleep in instead of being the object of Flitwick's discontent. Leave me alone, I'm tired, Ginny thought, but of course she couldn't say so. Instead she turned her heavy eyes on the tiny teacher.

"What am I doing, Professor Flitwick?" she asked. Suddenly she realised everyone in her class was staring at her. Slack-jawed, Colin Creevey murmured: "These books really seem to like you, Ginny." Ginny looked down and saw a circle of books, maybe half of the stack Flitwick had set up, float around her body like the ring of Saturn. The books were fluttering their pages, trying to get Ginny's attention and to get permission to land on the stack of about ten books Ginny was already holding in her left hand.

"I am impressed, Miss Weasley, but maybe you should leave some books for the other students to Summon," Professor Flitwick piped. Ginny felt the heat of shame rise into her face. "How did you do that, Ginny?" asked Candice Fudge, the pretty and pampered daughter of the Minister of Magic, her eyes widened in something like awe. Suddenly Ginny felt alienated from herself. It took quite a lot to get snobby Candy impressed; the popular Gryffindor girl did not talk to paupers like Ginny very often.

"Get lost," Ginny told the books and Banished them back onto the pile with an impatient movement of her wand. To her surprise, the books stacked themselves up very orderly on top of the dwindled pile in the middle of the classroom. Professor Flitwick enthusiastically clapped his little hands and bounced up and down a bit out of sheer happiness.

"Bravo, bravissimo, Miss Weasley, you are really brilliant today!" he almost sang. "Did you practice these charms with Miss Granger?"

If everyone would just stop staring at me, Ginny thought. Her feet were killing her, and she wished she would dare to Summon herself a chair and sit down for a moment.

"It's this stone circle business that we did last night," Ginny explained, suppressing a yawn. "You know, research with Professor Varlerta. It's supposed to enhance inherent strength, and apparently it did. But don't get upset, she said it will wear off after a while. I'm only temporarily talented, so to say."

"Well, I'm very impressed." Flitwick beamed at her, ignoring her hedging. "Can you Summon the whole pile again for your classmates to see?" Just what I need right now, Ginny thought, a task that makes me even more an object of everybody's gaping. Reluctantly she raised her wand. "Accio books," she said unenthusiastically, and with a papery flutter the books came and circled her like a ring again, just like she had envisioned it. Colin Creevey broke into loud clapping until he noticed that he was the only one. All the other students were scowling at Ginny, not at all happy that she had developed unexpected skills. To complete her demonstration, Ginny Banished the books back on the pile. "Can I sit down for a minute, Professor Flitwick?" Ginny asked. "We have been at the stone circle for the better part of the night, and I'm quite tired."

"Of course, take a bit of rest, don't overtax yourself," Flitwick piped quite seriously. After he had Summoned up a squashy armchair for her, he turned to the rest of the class. Gratefully, Ginny sunk into the chair and supported her feet on its matching footstool. Sleep, she thought and wiped her aching eyes. Meanwhile, Flitwick continued instructing her classmates.

"After this amazing performance of Virginia Weasley, I expect you are all very motivated to equal her achievement. Just keep on practicing, and monitor your wand movements closely. I hope you all saw Miss Weasley's perfect wrist flick."

Shut up, peabrain, Ginny wanted to say to the teacher, but of course she didn't. She hated it when people called her by her given name. Why couldn't her parents have settled on a less extravagant one? After using ordinary names like William, Charles, Percy, Fred, George and Ronald for all her sons, why did her mother have to come up with something as preposterous as Virginia for her much-longed-for daughter? And of course, Flitwick was really rubbing salt into the fact that she had done unexpectantly well today, Ginny thought wearily. They would probably make her pay in Gryffindor Tower later. Candy and her best friend Natasha Bagman did not like it if others got the better of her, and they had not had much to fear from Ginny in the past when it came to achievements or good marks.

"Ginny, you must tell me about your research last night!" Professor Flitwick leant over to her, his eyes twinkling expectantly. Standing upright, he did not have to bend much to look Ginny in the eye when she was slumped into a squashy armchair. "I heard about Professor Varlerta's exciting research project, but I didn't expect it to yield such remarkable results. You just did some wonderful charms right now, don't you realise? You should be really happy to participate in such a project, happy and proud of yourself."

Ginny did not feel proud in the least way, as her increased strength seemed to be something that had come from outside of her rather than an achievement of her own. He's kind to me, so I should at least be polite, she reminded herself. Now that her sore feet were off the floor, she was already feeling much better. She managed a warm smile and said: "Thank you, Professor Flitwick."

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The increase of magical strength started to wear off two days later, but Ginny and Neville were already hooked on it. Neville had been practically radiating with joy for these days. "I did better than Hermione at Charms today," he told her, jubilant in a degree that Ginny found touching and unnerving at the same time. "And Professor McGonagall told me that after more than four years of teaching me, she thought I was finally getting the hang of Transfiguration. I'm a wizard, Ginny! For the first time in my life I really feel I deserve that name. When I'm grown I'm going to build myself a house in that stone circle, and I'll never leave it again."

"That would be quite a small house, wouldn't it?" Ginny replied, annoyed by Neville's contentment. Couldn't he see that the strength from the stone circle was nothing but borrowed power? Unlike her, he did not seem eager to tell people about the reason for his sudden progress in various fields of magic. And of course, his idea to live within the stone circle from now on just so that people would not be able to call him a squib anymore was nothing but preposterous.

"That's right, a small house," Neville conceded. "You think it would be too small - for two?"

In your dreams, Neville, Ginny thought. Don't look at me like this. You are a nice guy, I'd actually call you a friend, but I'm not going to become Mrs. Longbottom and live out in the moors with you, no way. She turned to watch Harry and Ron play one of their prescribed three rounds of chess with their strange, lifeless pawns, pretending she had not worked out Neville's implication.

In spite of certain reservations, Ginny was nevertheless deeply interested in continuing their research. Even though she had felt the permanent need to control or even conceal her increased powers as long as they lasted, she felt empty and weak after they had left her. She couldn't wait to spend another night in the stone circle. Unfortunately, the circle was attuned to the full moon, Varlerta explained to her. They would have to wait until the beginning of December for the next one. "And I believe it's better that way," she told them. "As fantastic as the stone circle effect is, we cannot afford to rely on it. All of us have to learn to function independently of it, to draw strength from our surroundings without its special magic."

Varlerta kept on training Neville and Ginny in Strengthening, even though her exercises seemed a bit dull compared to the exciting event at the stone circle. Moreover, she taught Ginny and Neville to drive Drifter.

"Our research is not without its dangers," she told them. "If something ever happens to me, I want you two to be able to go for help."

Ginny found flying Drifter through the air comparatively easy. Ensouled as the car was, all you had to do was to tell it where you wanted to go and to occasionally correct its course. For Neville, however, things did not turn out as easily. Somehow he could not make himself clear to Drifter, or maybe the car had just developed a grudge against him. After the fourth terrifying near-crash, even patient Professor Varlerta decided that maybe it was sufficient if one of her apprentices learnt to drive a car.

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