Subplot

25 - Ginny

For days, Professor Varlerta had been talking about little else than her band - about rejoining her band for the holidays, about the CD they were going to record in a breathtakingly short time, and of course about the farewell feast when her band would come to Hogwarts to perform as an end-of-term treat. Of course, Varlerta usually hurried to add self-consciously: "A treat for me rather than for anyone else, I reckon," but Ginny didn't believe so. She had listened to some older Magic Mushroom productions and found the more the listened to them, the more she liked them.

It was obvious that Professor Varlerta was looking forward to seeing her band very much. Ginny felt a little envious. Playing drums was all very nice, but she had come to realise that the drum set wasn't the kind of instrument to be enjoyed in solitude only. Playing in a band of her own, now that would be something! Of course, most other students at Hogwarts were not interested in Muggle arts; it might be difficult to find other musicians among them. However, maybe a gig of the Mushrooms might convince others that the stage of the rock band was the choice place to be.

Varlerta had complimented her for her improving drum skills and had even consented to jam with her two or three times in the last months. Regarding the anticipated arrival of the Mushrooms, she had told Ginny: "If I was you, I would cling to Aisha, watch her closely and even try to get her to teach me a few things on the drums. All I know about the drum set I have learned from her. She's one of the best drummers I know, a true magician - on the drums, I mean."

It had taken Ginny a while to figure out what Varlerta had actually said. "You mean, Aisha - is a Muggle??"

Varlerta had laughed. "Sure she is, and so is Pat. How Roary will get them through Hogwarts' Muggle-repellent barrier is a mystery to me, by the way. Both are as Muggly as it gets - they could eat and digest a wand without generating a single spark. However, if you hear them play, you might change your mind about Muggles not being able to do magic."

That conversation had taken place two days ago. Since then, Varlerta had talked about the arrival of her band conspicuously less often. As a matter of fact, Ginny had not seen too much of Varlerta since Friday. Instead, she and Rhonda Celps had sat on the sunny lawn with snobby Candice Fudge and Natasha Bagman, forced to be amicable by the rule that students should be out in the ground in groups of four or more students only. As the Saturday afternoon wore on with unnerving slowness, a few Ravenclaw Fourth Years came by, among them Cassandra Clearwater. Ginny did not generally mind Cassy. She knew that Cassy would be her sister-in-law in another month, and as Molly had pointed out, it was always important to be on good terms with your family. However, if she had to discuss Percy's and Penelope's wedding one more time, she would throw a screaming fit, she thought. All Cassandra seemed to be interested in were dress robes, flower decorations, hair potions and the male half of the guest list. Ginny thought the Ravenclaw girl insufferably superficial. Of course, she did not really throw a screaming fit when Cassy - how else could it be - turned the conversation to the wedding. Candy and Natasha were invited, too; so were quite a few people working for the Ministry, as well as their families. Ginny was glad that the Clearwaters would pay for most of the reception. They'd better, she thought, as they had organised the celebration in a way that did not go well with the Weasley way of life.

Percy and Penelope were going to get married in the posh, traditional Ceremony Hall on Anglesey, the first address for the wedding of a pure-blooded witch and wizard couple in Britain, if not in the world. Ginny knew from hints in her mother's letters that this had been a cause of major disagreements within the Weasley family. It was not hard to imagine her father losing his temper over this whole business, something he did rarely, but very impressively on special occasions. "My son is not getting married in the core institution of all the conservatives and pure-blood fanatics Britain holds! If you two are going to celebrate your wedding there just to impress society and improve your career options, I advise you to get yourself some surrogate parents that will look and behave adequately in this setting and in your future life," he might very well have said. Molly would have smoothed things over, would have reached a kind of truce between Percy and his father, of course. Everybody would eventually attend the wedding and pretend that everything was fine. Ginny would get a new dress robe, but Cassandra, Candice and even the daughter of debt-ridden Ludo Bagman would get better ones - if Britain's witch and wizard high society could be persuaded to actually attend a Weasley wedding. All in all, Ginny could think of better ways to spend that particular day in a delightful way.

When Cassandra took Madam Malkin's dress robe catalogue from out of her robes' pockets, Ginny saw Rhonda turn her eyes towards the blue and cloudless sky. The two girls secretly shared a grin. Candice and Natasha were a power to be reckoned with; as in each group of year-, house- and dorm-mates, open conflict among the female Gryffindor Fourth Years would not do. Ginny reminded herself that she would have to sleep in one room with them for another three years, and consequently pulled herself together. When asked to comment on a particularly costly emerald green silk robe, she actually managed to reply: "Very pretty, Natasha - I think it would match your eye colour," without having to puke at her own hypocrisy. Behind Natasha's back, Rhonda pretended to gag. Ginny felt rewarded for her patience.

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The Mushrooms arrived on Sunday around one o'clock, while many students were having lunch. When the door of the Great Hall opened and Roary stepped in, looking as handsome as ever, all heads turned. Ginny thought they might have hardly chosen a better moment for their arrival to be noticed. Varlerta rapidly rose from her seat at the High Table and practically ran to greet them. The two Muggle members of the band stepped out of the shade so that Ginny could see them. Her first impression was one of disappointment: Next to radiantly gorgeous Roary and rather good-looking Varlerta, Pat and Aisha seemed ordinary and insignificant, the kind of generic Muggles you passed on the street without really noticing them. Ginny murmured an excuse to Rhonda and put her half-empty plate away. Then she moved closer to the group as unobtrusively as she could.

Pat was tall and lanky, moving as gracelessly as a male adolescent on the height of puberty. His overly long face immediately reminded Ginny of statues she had seen of Echnaton, only missing the heretic Pharaoh's slightly slanted eyes. Despite the summery warmth, Pat wore a knee-long cloth jacket over his leather pants; on his lapel, Ginny spotted a battered red metal ribbon. The only remarkable feature of the male Muggle was his straight, shiny brown hair which hung long over his back and reminded Ginny suspiciously of Varlerta's hair.

Aisha on the other hand looked completely unremarkable at first sight. She was easily the smallest and youngest member of the band, but not as in 'young and pretty.' She wore a nondescript grey t-shirt over black denims; her black hair was cropped very short. Somehow, it made her face look naked and exposed. Her features, especially the large, dark eyes staring out of an olive complexion, were dominated by a beak of a nose which could not even euphemistically be called feminine, a nose decorated with a stud the shape of a silver spider. Her ears were adorned with a number of slender, silver rings; on her right upper arm the tattoo of a dragon wound out of her t-shirt sleeve. Molly would have never let her into the house, Ginny thought.

When Varlerta spotted Ginny, she beckoned her closer and introduced her to her fellow musicians. Ginny felt very shy all of a sudden. She stared down at Aisha's ugly German health sandals, the same model Bill wore, she couldn't help noticing, and even almost the same size. Aisha took Ginny's hand and gave it a firm squeeze.

"I've heard a lot about you," she said with a warm, melodious alto voice, her large brown eyes somewhere between serious and humorous. "It's always a pleasure to see a new generation of female drummers grow up."

Ginny felt the heat rise into her face. "I'm...I'm only learning," she said stupidly.

"Yes, of course you are," the drummer replied. "We are all only learning. That's the point of the whole business." These words strongly reminded Ginny of Varlerta. Maybe it was a musician thing, she decided.

Varlerta turned to Aisha. "I think we should go and introduce you two to the teachers and to the headmaster. After that, I'm rather eager to get practicing. As a matter of fact, I had hoped you would arrive much earlier than this."

Ginny was taken aback. "You want to - practice? But you are already...." Her voice trailed off. Varlerta laughed.

"Of course we want to practice. We haven't played together for almost a year! It was a really nice idea of Dumbledore to ask us to play tomorrow night, and we certainly wouldn't want to make fools out of ourselves."

"Definitely - no gig without practice," Aisha confirmed.

"I've been looking forward to it for weeks. Wait until you hear some of our new material," Pat told Varlerta proudly.

"Wait until you hear some of mine," Varlerta replied smugly.

"Oh yes, and then there's the waltzes to practice," Roary remarked good-naturedly.

"Waltzes? Did you say waltzes?" Aisha seemed dismayed.

Varlerta laughed. "Dumbledore asked us to play, but he specifically requested that we play three waltzes so some of the teachers get to dance, too. Of course, we're not playing Strauss, we're playing rock waltzes, jazz at worst. We haven't got any of our own, so we will have to cover a few tunes."

Roary put an encouraging hand on Aisha's shoulder, gently tapping three-four time with his fingers. "Don't worry, Aisha, it will be brief and painless. I've got a new one on CD which you might actually like."

"At least waltzes are better than Arab pop," Pat teased the drummer.

"I like Arab pop," Aisha snapped back stubbornly, though visibly more amused than angered.

"Severus, what a pleasure!" Roary turned away towards the teacher who had been in the process of silently gliding by like a giant, black stingray. Roary grabbed one of Snape's wide robe sleeves and stopped him in his tracks. "How have you been, mate? Hair still black, I see."

Reluctantly mixed emotions oozed out of Snape's face. Ginny remembered that Roary had helped Snape recover his hair colour on Christmas day. She assumed that not many people had ever greeted the unpopular teacher with words like "what a pleasure!" On the other hand, she knew that Snape had avoided Varlerta like the plague since spring; she even had a good idea why this might be so. The teacher seemed undecided whether to stride off, blatantly disregarding etiquette, or whether to stay and chat with the odd assembly of musicians around Roary. The singer of the Mushrooms made up Snape's mind for him by clasping his shoulder and saying in an irresistibly kind voice: "Severus, I want you to meet my band." He extended his other hand to Pat and Aisha as if by introducing them, he was offering a truly rare treat.

Professor Snape surveyed the visitors from head to toe, slightly sneering at their casual clothes. Ginny wondered briefly if he had ever seen a Muggle before. Then Snape straightened his shoulders, a trick he often used to appear taller than he was, and briskly took hold of Pat's hand. "Severus Snape, Potions Master of Hogwarts," he said in a firm, clearly superior tone.

Pat immediately assumed the same posture as the wizard facing him. "Patroklos Kohler, Muggle," he barked back in an identically pompous tone without batting an eye. In Snape's face, a muscle twitched. For the fraction of a second, it seemed like Snape was going to grin, but maybe Ginny had only been imagining things.

"Aisha," the drummer mentioned unemotionally, both hands firmly arrested in her pockets. Snape answered her with a sneer.

Aisha popped a very large, very pink gum bubble in front of his face, making Snape recoil. Ginny was impressed, as she had not noticed that Aisha was chewing gum. Suddenly, she found it a bit harder to believe that the drummer was a Muggle after all. "Are we going to practice any time soon?" the smaller woman asked Varlerta, disregarding Snape's sour face. If Roary had let go of Snape's sleeve, the Potions Master probably would have left at that point.

Ginny felt a wish germinate in her heart. She acted on the spur of the moment. "Oh please, Professor Varlerta, can I come and watch while you practice?" she asked.

Varlerta looked rather anxious for a second, but maybe that had to do with Snape's presence at the scene. "Er, I don't know, Ginny. We haven't seen each other in a while, you know, so I'd prefer to practice without an audience for now. You can see us tomorrow night," she replied, but her voice lacked the certain firmness of a definite refusal.

"Oh, please, Professor Varlerta." Encouraged by past successes, Ginny tried her doe eyes on the teacher once more. "I wouldn't be in the way, you would hardly know I'm there. And you said I should watch Aisha play...."

Varlerta looked rather unhappy.

"So, how is teaching coming along, Var?" Pat tilted one eyebrow towards the enchanted ceiling in dry amusement. "Still suffering from role conflicts?"

"Oh, shut up, smart-ass!" Varlerta bent her head as if to curtain her face with her hair, failing to conceal a deep blush. Pat laughed.

"Or have you by now come to enjoy turning your fellow magic adolescents into law-abiding citizens?" Pat teased on.

"I said shut up," Varlerta hissed and neatly placed a heel on Pat's toes. Pat grimaced and withdrew his foot.

Snorting, Professor Snape succeeded in disengaging his sleeve from Roary's hand. Then the teacher rapidly fled the room. If Ginny wasn't mistaken, he might have been dangerously close to laughing.

Varlerta looked after him, then shook her head as if to clear it. "Let's go and see Dumbledore," she reminded her fellow musicians, nodding to Ginny as a farewell.

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Knowing that the Magic Mushrooms were practicing in Varlerta's building gave the place a rather magnetic quality in Ginny's eyes: She wanted to be present, to listen in, to follow Varlerta's advice and watch Aisha play. Of course, she knew she wasn't invited, wasn't even supposed to leave the castle: Due to a fine drizzle that had started around two o'clock, the grounds were deserted; not even Harry, Ron and Hermione were willing to go outside with her to form the required group of four. All they could talk or think about were their OWLs. Tomorrow they would get back their results. As everybody knew, students with poor results in their OWLs might not be permitted to continue school and to get their NEWTs. Of course, such things happened very rarely, but this did not prevent very many Fifth Years from suffering from serious nerves. Nobody suffered as much as Hermione, of course, in spite of many assurances from Ron that she was the least likely student to be banned from Hogwarts due to poor academic performance.

Fred and George had their NEWTs to worry about, but somehow, they did not look worried at all. Instead, they were repeatedly seen drawing up tables of incomprehensible objects. Ginny suspected that now everybody's exams were over, they might be working on something for which they needed Ron's and Harry's help, but when she asked, the twins answered evasively. Suddenly Ginny found it incredibly hard to imagine that they would not be at Hogwarts anymore next year. They had always shooed her aside and treated her like a child, but she knew if she needed anything at all, Fred and George were the right brothers to ask. Except for a shoulder to cry on, that is. Except for accompanying her to Varlerta's building, maybe together with Lee Jordan, who seemed just as aloof as the twins regarding his NEWTs. Ginny shrugged to herself at the three almost-graduated wizards. The twins were her family. If she really needed them, they would be there for her, wouldn't they? Consequently, this had to mean that in this particular situation, she didn't really need them at all.

When dusk fell, Ginny decided to break two school rules at once and to run out to Varlerta's building in the darkness as well as unaccompanied. She knew how to magically open the front door and could slip out noiselessly, she encouraged herself as she descended the stairs into the Entrance Hall. She had been outside the school when other students were sleeping quite a few times, and she knew that the likelihood of the Death Eaters' attacking the school exactly when she was alone in the dark grounds tended towards zero. Ginny broke into a trot, inhaling the balmy air of the summer night. The smell of freshly mown grass reminded her of childhood summers spent roaming the vicinity of the Burrow, at a time when each summer seemed endless and limitless. She skipped along the path around the ink-black lake, humming a tune to herself. Above her, stars twinkled; the young, green leaves on the ancient trees rustled. Being out here on her own felt like a privilege. She was starting to understand why the three elder brothers attending school with her always got into trouble for rule breaking. Did they feel the same sudden bout of bliss, this overwhelming sensation of freedom?

Ginny touched her hand to the warm wood of Professor Varlerta's door and whispered the words 'Rock'n Roll High School.' She should change her password every now and then, Ginny thought giddily, wondering how many people could come in here whenever they pleased. When the door opened onto a slightly stuffy room of dim lights and entrancing sound, Ginny wondered for an instant if she was crazy to come out here. After all, Professor Varlerta was a teacher, entitled, no, obliged to disembowel her for rule breaking.

The musicians were immersed in their playing; none of them had yet looked up at her. Should she go back to bed, hoping she had not been noticed? Suddenly Ginny realised that Sirius and Lupin were sitting on the sofa on the side, looking straight at her. So the Magic Mushrooms had admitted an audience to their practice session after all, but she had not been invited. Ginny felt a mild indignation and sneaked towards the sofa behind Varlerta's and Pat's backs. As she sat down right next to Sirius on the sofa's armrest, Aisha winked at her.

Sirius wagged an admonishing finger, but moved to make room for her. Lupin, looking slightly drawn and weary, pointed at his watch; the band was playing rather loudly, so talking would not have been of much use. Knowing that she did not have much to say for herself, much less to gesture for herself, Ginny just smiled back at him, then let herself sink into the soft seat. The sofa was not designed to seat three, so Ginny could not help sitting very close to Sirius. She could feel the warmth of his leg through the fabric of her robe. The music was enveloping her; Ginny realised that the room was stiflingly hot. There was something in the atmosphere that made her want to just drift away with the sound. Sirius handed her bottle of chilled butterbeer. Ginny relaxed against the back-rest, watched and listened.

She had heard some of the Mushrooms' tunes before, but the sound within the building seemed to have a palpable multi-dimensional quality. Varlerta's guitar, semi-distorted and seasoned with a slight flanger effect, somehow sounded different when merging with the sounds of her fellow musicians. Pat's fretless bass was amplified by a device that looked like a piece of refuge beamed into the present straight from the seventies, but emitted a sound that went straight for Ginny's stomach, booming and singing at the same time. Even seen from behind, the Muggle bass player looked in his element far more than in the morning. His bass lines wove in and out of Varlerta's wall of sound, sometimes going along with her in forceful unison, sometimes straying off into counterpoint. Quite a few times, Ginny was sure that Varlerta was accompanying Pat, not the other way around.

Whenever Roary opened his mouth to sing, sometimes to moan or roar, there could be no question of who was accompanying whom anymore; not only visually, but also audibly, Roary was the band's front man. Deep and husky, his voice gave Ginny goose bumps on her arms. In her first year at Hogwarts, Candy and Natasha had insisted that Gilderoy Lockhard had a sexy voice, an opinion that had left Ginny bewildered: How could a voice be sexy? Listening to Roary, Ginny changed her mind. Voices could indeed be sexy.

All this, however, she found not nearly as remarkable as Aisha. At first, all Ginny heard of the drummer were complicated rhythms, intricate patterns of bass drum and snare drum she herself couldn't yet play. When Aisha changed to a simpler pattern, not without a subtle little roll on the snare, Ginny's attention shifted to Aisha's right hand and left foot, the extremities used to play the high hat. Aisha's left foot, she noticed, was always in motion, opening and closing the high hat very, very slightly. Set off with slight variations in the right hand beat, the high hat seemed to talk rather than merely to keep time. Ginny was fascinated; she was starting to realise that contrary to what she had assumed up to now, Varlerta was not a good drummer after all. Aisha's playing gave Ginny a glimpse, or rather a reverberation of why she wanted to be a drummer, of what she was trying to achieve. Even though it was beginning to dawn on her that this might take an immense amount of practice, Ginny decided that playing the drums in that fashion was her deepest wish, her heart's desire.

The song ended in a bass and guitar riff which stopped abruptly on the last quaver of the measure, accentuated with a china crash cymbal which Ginny had never seen before. For the fraction of a second, nobody spoke; the silence seemed just as loud as the music had been. Then Aisha said: "Excuse me, Var, but this drum set is a piece of sh--" she cast Ginny a sidelong glance, "a piece of junk." She slapped the floor tom with her palm in a slightly belittling way.

"My drum set is just f...." Varlerta followed Aisha's glance. "Ginny, what are you doing here? Didn't I tell you...?" Her eyes strayed off to Sirius and Lupin; she did not finish her sentence.

"You told me to watch Aisha play," Ginny replied stubbornly but very softly.

"You're not supposed to be outside after dark on your own - it's against the school rules," Varlerta replied without anger. Pat tilted up his eyebrow at her again. Then he put his bass guitar on a stand and asked Roary: "Coming outside for a fag and a snog?" The singer nodded and followed Pat outside, leaving the door open to let in some fresh air at Aisha's request.

Varlerta sighed. "I'll walk you up to the castle. Stop embarrassing me in front of my friends by undermining my authority, or you will encounter a side of me neither you nor I want you to meet."

After bidding Sirius, Lupin and Aisha goodnight, Ginny obediently followed Varlerta outside, still trying to make sense of the teacher's last sentence. While walking back to the castle, she said in a small voice: "That was really great, Professor Varlerta."

Varlerta, however, was not mollified by compliments or formal address this time. "You think that nothing can happen to you because you've fought your first fight," she said in a voice that sounded surprisingly weary. "Maybe you feel safe because the castle hasn't been attacked since last fall, or because in spite of all our fears, we are all doing our best to enjoy ourselves nevertheless. I know how easy it is to feel invincible because you are young and have had a chance prove your talents to yourself. I was like you once, believing that I could get away with everything in life, that I was above the petty fears of all the rest. Well, I was not." The teacher stopped in her tracks and put a hand on Ginny's shoulder.

"Do me a favour, Ginny, and try to develop your judgemental abilities in proportion with your other skills, if only so your parents won't rip off my head because you were silly enough to get yourself killed," she said in a very serious tone. Ginny suddenly felt very young and foolish.

"I am sorry, Professor Varlerta," she said in a small voice.

"Well, you'd better be," Varlerta said gently.

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As always on the last day of the term, there was a little ceremony for the proud students who had achieved an official qualification at the end of the year - the awarding of the OWLs and NEWTs. Along with Ron and her parents, Ginny had watched Percy getting his top grade NEWT diploma two years ago, while the twins had gotten their identically mediocre OWLs. Today, her parents couldn't come: Her father was busy at the ministry, once more prevented from keeping up to schedule by current troubles. As far as Ginny knew, there was much disagreement in almost every department now; quite a few people were petitioning to have Fudge prematurely removed from his office, while others were ardently supporting the status quo. Her mother was busy with wedding preparations once more. While Ginny sat by herself in a back row, watching her three elder brothers receive pieces of parchment which would have a bearing on their later lives, she felt resentment grow in her heart. Would her mother have missed Percy's NEWT awarding for anything in her life? No, Molly would have found a way to come even if she was dead, Ginny thought bitterly.

As much as they loved their mother, her favouritism did not agree with the four youngest Weasley children. Molly came from a hardworking pure-blooded kitchenwitch background; academic achievement and social status meant a lot to her. It was often hard for her to cope with a husband whose ambitions lay very far from her priorities. Molly had coped with poverty, even with the loss of social respect that had come with it, without hardly ever complaining; warm-hearted and cheerful, she had brought up all her children with much affection and commitment. Not for the first time, Ginny wondered what it had been like for her mother to give up the last of her children to the great Scottish boarding school that turned her babies into grown witches and wizards. The Burrow had to be so empty without them! - Yet while Molly was trying to be the perfect mother, it was hard for her to accept that her four younger children would not put much effort into being the perfect sons and daughter.

Fred and George had caused little but trouble since the day they could walk, while Ron - well, Ron was Ron, Ginny contemplated as she saw the gangly fifth year accept his parchment diploma from Professor McGonagall's hands. Ron would probably never truly excel in anything: His academic achievements were no greater than the twins'; his position as a Quidditch keeper was shaky, and his skills at playing chess were at least partially due to a set of figures that had been in the family for generations. Even his miraculous new ability was something he had to share with Harry, Ginny thought as she saw Ron take his seat between his friends. Hermione was beaming with pride because she had secured herself the best OWLs of the year, if not of all history, and Harry had done considerably better than Ron. Ginny sighed, thinking that Bill, Percy and even sporty Charlie had spoiled it for the four of them. No wonder her mother did not attend today's ceremony, she thought: She did not have half as much to be proud of as she had had two years ago.

Fred and George did not seem to be flustered either by their parents' absence or by their decidedly sub-average NEWTs. "All that mattered was that we passed something, because it will look better once somebody is writing up our biography," Fred said airily. "Who cares about grades? We are going to be self-employed anyway," George added. Their remarks made Ginny wonder whether the twins would really have a common biography, or whether the stories would drift apart at some point. When Fred went off to kiss Angelina in congratulation for the best Gryffindor NEWTs of the year, George looked the other way. Maybe their lives were not completely as identical as everybody believed, Ginny thought.

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After Ginny had packed her trunk as well as she could with one night at Hogwarts still to come, she managed to persuade Harry, Ron and Hermione to walk her to Varlerta's building. Hermione had refused at first, pointing out that if Ginny left the group to watch the Mushrooms practice, they might get in trouble for being out in a group smaller than four. However, she did not make a fuss, maybe because everyone was in such a good mood: worries about the exams were over; all fifth years had passed and would remain at Hogwarts. ("Only because Crabbe and Goyle are at Durmstrang," Ron had pointed out.)

Ginny wondered briefly if she should invite Ron, Harry and Hermione in - admittedly, she hadn't even been invited herself, but at least she had followed the rules this time - but realised that the three weren't really interested. They liked to keep to themselves at times and to have their little secrets, she knew. For example, they had kept Sirius a secret for more than a year, but Ginny hadn't needed them to be introduced to Sirius anyway.

Entering the building resulted in a bit of a disappointment: In stead of a noisy rehearsal, all Ginny encountered was a silent, empty room. "Hello?" she asked, feeling a bit uncomfortable. Coming to watch a rehearsal without invitation was one thing; snooping through Varlerta's deserted house was another matter, somehow.

"In here," a voice Ginny identified as Aisha's called out. Embarrassed, Ginny followed the voice into the small hallway that lay behind the music laboratory. The door to Varlerta's bathroom stood open; Aisha was shortening her hair with a plastic Muggle device.

Ginny stared; somehow, Aisha's extra-short black stubbles fascinated her. She had not seen too many women with short hair yet; at Hogwarts; most girls and women and some of the men wore their hair long. In the mirror, Aisha's reflection grinned back at her; the drummer finished her task in a matter of seconds. Short black bits of hair fell down into the sink.

"Don't even think about it," the mirror said to Ginny, startling Aisha. The Muggle woman froze for a second, then continued cleaning her little black machine.

"I'll never get used to it," she said to Ginny. "I often wondered how you lot cope with it. I think if my mirror at home offered an opinion on my looks every time I stood in front of it, I would probably smash it to pieces." She cleaned her hair off herself, off the sink and the floor.

"I heard you play yesterday," Ginny said apprehensively. Life was to short to dwell on trivialities like talking mirrors. "Could you - could you teach me something?"

Aisha consulted her watch. "In half an hour?" she asked sceptically.

Ginny shrugged and looked at her feet. "It's probably too much trouble," she said slowly, hoping Aisha would object to her assumption.

"Okay, sit down at the set and show me what you've been practicing lately. Var said she taught you to play drums, which means you probably could do with a bit of help. - Not meaning that Professor Varlerta...." Aisha blushed.

"She's a great teacher. She's not a drummer, though," Ginny hurried to say. Aisha nodded and followed Ginny out to the drum set.

Ginny sat down and played a couple of rhythms. Aisha corrected her position and the way she held the sticks; she made a few suggestions regarding what to practice next. Ginny realised at once that most of her suggestions hit the nail on the head; she fervently wished she could have Aisha as a drum teacher at least once a week.

Someone knocked at the door; Aisha rose from her stool and opened it to let in Professor Lupin. He gave her a warm smile. "I found you a drum raiser, and Professor Flitwick said he'd do a bit of a lightshow for your gig," he said.

Aisha blushed almost purple; Ginny could see it even from behind the drum set. "That was very nice of you, Remus," the drummer replied unusually softly.

Lupin had meanwhile spotted Ginny and waved her a greeting. "Where are the others? I thought I'd show you what we mean to do in terms of a stage, but...."

"I'll come with you," Aisha said promptly. Then she turned to Ginny. "I won't be long. Keep practising." With these words, she followed Lupin out and closed the door behind her.

Ginny practised. Then she practised more. Aisha did not come back. Ginny decided she needed to use the bathroom. While washing her hands, she spotted the black device Aisha had used for shortening her hair. Ginny dried her hands and took the little machine in her hand, wondering if she could operate it. A switch turned it on; little iron teeth started to move this or that way, accompanied by a humming noise. Ginny smiled to herself as she turned the thing off, imagining her father's simple pleasure at such devices.

Ginny stared at herself in the mirror, at her thin, freckled face framed by dull read hair. She tugged at her meagre braid in displeasure.

"You can't, young lady," the mirror said in a very bossy voice. "It's not done."

Ginny stuck out her tongue. "Who asked you?" she snapped at the mirror. She certainly wasn't going to shave off most of her hair, but felt that the mirror was overstepping his competencies.

"A young, pure-blooded wizard girl needs beautiful long hair to make a good match," the mirror said haughtily.

"My hair is not beautiful," Ginny said defensively, playing with the device's button. She envied Varlerta and Parvati with their jet-black silky masses.

The mirror refrained from commenting or contradicting. Before Ginny had even properly made up her mind, she had ran the humming device over her scalp - once, twice, a third time. Red locks fell to the floor.

"Your mother will die of shock, dear," the mirror said with acid disapproval.

Ginny replied with a defiant snort and finished her work. Only after she was done, she contemplated herself in the hostile mirror. The effect was devastating. Her face looked naked and alien; the freckles stood out like spots. Ginny felt absurdly like crying; she must have acted under temporary insanity, she decided. For a second she wondered if maybe Hermione or even Roary would know a way to magic her hair back on. Then she took a deep breath and started to clean up after herself just like Aisha had done before her. Only after she had finished, she risked a second look. Her head looked as if covered by shiny, copper-coloured plush. Ginny ran a hand over the hair tips. It felt nice, even if it did not look nice. Tonight, everybody would stare at her and make funny remarks; tomorrow her mother would throw a genuine Molly fit. Ginny shrugged; she did not even know why she had cut off her hair, but she would deal with the consequences whenever they occurred. She went back to the drum set to get some more practice.

Aisha stared when she returned, but at first she did not comment. After a while she asked: "Do you want me to fix your hair at the back?"

Ginny felt like telling her that there was no hair left to fix, but instead she followed Aisha into the bathroom, where she parted with another little bit of her hair. Then Aisha stepped back a bit and scrutinized Ginny. "It's okay now, I suppose," she said. A more enthusiastic comment would have made Ginny feel very relieved; as it was, she knew she would have to live with what she had done. In two or three years, her hair would be back to normal, she tried to comfort herself.

Aisha started unscrewing her own cymbals from the stands. "Do you want me to help you carry the drum set?" Ginny asked politely, wishing she could get an Invisibility Cloak for the task, if not for the rest of her life.

"Nope," Aisha said happily and slid the cymbals into a flat padded nylon bag. "You don't think I'm going to play on Varlerta's piece of junk, do you? I brought my own, or rather Roary brought it from the States in a Shrink Box. These magic things really come in handy, even though I can't use them myself, of course. I admit I still find them a bit spooky." She grinned apologetically and put the round cymbal bag over her shoulder. "Coming with me to the Great Hall? We're doing a short sound check before the feast begins."

Ginny walked behind the drummer in a kind of daze, wondering what life without magical powers must be like - or without long hair, come to think of it. Well, Aisha had neither, she decided, but the Muggle woman seemed happy enough. "So how do you like Hogwarts? I suppose it can be - bewildering," she asked timidly.

"Oh, it's not too bad, actually," Aisha replied. "There's a lot of strange things going on here, but over the years I've come to enjoy the world of magic. And of course, Hogwarts can't possibly be more bewildering than the Basilisk Bar." Her reply awakened Ginny's curiosity, but before the girl could ask for more, something else demanded her attention: A group of her Hufflepuff year mates in the Entrance Hall looked at Ginny as if she had grown at least one extra head. Pretending she did not notice their stares, Ginny kept her head up high. On the stairs, she met Hermione, Ron and Harry. Unfortunately, they were much more difficult to avoid or ignore than students she hardly knew.

"Morgana's ass, Ginny, what happened to you?" Ron had recently integrated this particular expression into his standard vocabulary.

"Goodness, Ginny, what did you do to yourself?" Hermione sounded just as dismayed as Ron. Harry ogled her wordlessly.

"Why, don't you like my new nose?" Ginny said dryly, unwilling to comment or explain.

"Mum is going to bite your head off, you know," Ron informed her.

Ginny nodded. "Sorry, I'm busy at the moment. Talk to you three tonight." Happy for an excuse to get away, she hurried after Aisha.

In the Great Hall, the tables had been moved closer to each other to make room for a small stage, twenty-foot wide and about two feet high. In the back of the stage, Aisha's shiny black drum set looked impressive; the rest of the stage seemed to be a dump for cables and metal stands of every kind. Varlerta and Roary were spreading Spellotape with a lavish hand, while Sirius and Lupin stood on the side, emitting smart remarks of every kind. Meanwhile Pat was showing Neville how to use a sound mixer. Wearing a headphone and a very confused look, Neville did not even see Ginny enter, something for which she was grateful.

"Aifa, did you bring ve mike for ve bafe drum?" Varlerta's question was only marginally intelligible, as she held several spare strips of Spellotape between her bottom lip and upper teeth. "Oh, and Firiuf, could you pleave paf me vat ftand over vere?"

Ginny stood on the side, watching Aisha and Sirius hand Roary and Varlerta the requested items. Any second now they would all look at her; their faces would fall, and they would utter remarks of regret for the mad, self-mutilating girl. Ginny braced herself for the worst she expected, namely Sirius' look of displeasure, but failed to brace herself for the thing that actually happened: While Sirius gave Varlerta the stand, he kissed the teacher, playfully avoiding the Spellotape on her lips. Both adults laughed and simpered at each other in a way that made it clear this was certainly not the first gestures of affection they were exchanging.

Ginny felt as if someone had poured red-hot iron into her stomach. She felt like running away, but it seemed that her feet were glued to the ground, that her neck had frozen in a position which made it impossible to turn away. While she watched Sirius disengaging the Spellotape from Varlerta's lips so he could kiss her a bit better, she had the distinct sensation of her heart crumbling in her chest.

"Ginny, do you think you could maybe help me with this sound mixer?"

Very slowly, Ginny turned around to Neville who beckoned her towards him. She looked down, hoping he would not see the tears welling up in her eyes. Without her commanding them to, her feet carried her up to the sound mixer.

"Could you tell me which cable goes into which input? They are all different colours, and I forgot to write down which one I put where," Neville said as if nothing had happened. Ginny noticed that he had found a task for her which forced her eyes away from the stage. He knows, she thought.

"Input one is the red cable, input two the pink one, input three...." She could hear her voice falter. If she could only instantly Disapparate to a dark and lonely cave, she thought. Whatever excitement about the concert had survived her hair accident had now evaporated.

"Input three?" Neville asked her gently.

"Blue," Ginny whispered. She felt tears running down her face, and there was no hair left that might have concealed them.

"Blue," Neville repeated very softly and noted the colours on a sheet of paper. Then he took a clean white handkerchief out of the pocket in his robes. Ginny noticed that it had the Longbottom coat of arms embroidered on it. "I like your haircut," Neville said awkwardly as Ginny buried her wet face in the crisp, almost chafing material. "It shows off the back of your head."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The feast went by in a kind of blur. Around her, others talked about this and that, but Ginny could never quite catch their conversations. She put several items in her mouth, which were probably edible, as she was able to chew and even to swallow them. The twins announced that Molly would bite Ginny's head off, which wasn't news to her. Neville sat next to her, answering questions about the band now and then. Rhonda Celps said she was impressed that Ginny and Neville knew how to work the Muggle PA system. Ginny tried to figure out how Rhonda had gotten such ideas in her head; she had only looked over Pat's and Neville's shoulder without comprehending what she saw. Neville replied very modestly that they had learned a few things about Muggle technology in 'audio magic class', as he termed it.

Again and again, Ginny's eyes strayed to the large, black dog that sat between Lupin's and Varlerta's chairs, wolfing down all the delicacies they put on his plate. She told herself over, and over again that she had seen it coming, that Sirius was too old for her, and that her overwhelming feelings of loss were completely inappropriate. Unable to force herself to be cheerful, at least she had managed an acceptable level of outward composure. The pain will pass, she repeated to herself over, and over again.

Finally, the feast was over; the plates wiped themselves clean, and the tables and chairs arranged themselves along the walls. Ginny followed Neville to the sound mixer. Students stood around and talked, expecting the concert. Finally, the lights dimmed themselves until only the stars above could be seen. Dumbledore climbed onto the stage, surrounded by a few shooting stars conjured up by Professor Flitwick.

"Another year lies behind us, a troubled year, but not as troubled as we feared," he said kindly. "Contrary to many predictions, not the least from the Minister of Magic, this school still stands here as it has for more than a thousand years. It is still a treasury for the most precious thing the magic community of Britain owns - a treasury for our future, for our children.

"Another year we have all done our best to teach and learn. We have proved that trouble cannot tear apart our unity. Loyalty towards our friends and truthfulness to ourselves are still our best protection against the darkness that tries to permeate our community.

"Today, we are here to celebrate. Without celebrating our good times, without food, music and pleasure, there would be little sense in fighting the darkness. However, we are not only celebrating the end of the school year; we are also celebrating the beginning of a new era of friendship between magic and non-magic people. It is my firm belief that through the troubles ahead of us, we should never forget that we share this world with the Muggles, and that our worries are essentially shared worries. As a symbol for this friendship, tonight a band consisting of two Muggles, a witch and a wizard will play for us. I hope we will have a chance to dance and to be merry. Students and teachers of Hogwarts, please enjoy - the Magic Mushrooms!"

There's something more to the visit of this band than meets the eye, Ginny thought. She wished she could read between the lines and figure out what Dumbledore had not said, but now she had to turn her attention to the sound mixer. Unlike this afternoon, the buttons and potentiometers started to look familiar again. While the band, all dressed in black denims and t-shirts, entered the stage through a rain of colourful sparks, she put her headphones on her head. Neville gave her an encouraging look. Ginny was grateful he would be mixing alongside her, not because she did not believe she was up to it, but so she could not be tempted to ruin the sound of the band in a jealous fit.

The music had not lost its magic for her. While Ginny slightly adjusted the volume of the bass drum, she felt the sound wash through her heart like cleansing water. There was no reason to hate the witch on the stage because of a broken heart, and now that the first shock was dulled a bit, she did not feel hatred any more. Aisha's straight beats and Varlerta's energetic rock riffs had put a few students on the dance floor already. Unlike many other songs of the Mushrooms, this one was a simple, catchy rock number with an unobtrusive touch of metal. Fred shoved George into a group of moderately dancing Hufflepuffs; Angelina shoved Fred into George and made a hesitating attempt at head-banging. Ginny felt her right foot tap to the beat. Pain mingled with pleasure - in an odd, ambivalent way, she might actually enjoy herself tonight, she realised.

Obviously, the band wanted the students to dance and enjoy themselves during these first few songs rather than to listen to their more intricate compositions: Another rock number followed and was received graciously. Flitwick conjured up colourful flashes that lit up the faces of the dancing students in synchronicity with the beat. Varlerta and Pat were moving while playing, their bodies and flowing manes synchronized with their music. Aisha was mostly hidden by a wall of shiny brass cymbals. Roary did not even need to move to look great on stage; his droning voice sent shivers up Ginny's spine. Candice and Natasha stood on the side and looked upon the singer with a rapt expression, perhaps dreaming up scenes that clashed curiously with the things Ginny knew about Roary.

She looked around, spitefully wondering how many more girls would make fools of themselves this evening - it took one to know one, she decided - but, of course, her glance was caught by a wizard and a dog, standing on the side. Lupin was moving with the music almost imperceptibly. It would have been misleading to say that he danced, as the slight motion could not be pinned down on any single part of his body, but somewhere between his head and his toes, the rhythm affected him. Sirius in his dog shape was thrashing his tail to the beat. Damn him, Ginny thought. Then her gaze strayed to another wizard who was standing on the side, immobile as if Transfixed, but whose gaze never left the stage: Professor Snape. Ginny thought about a few things that Hermione had said in her presence, about the way Snape had so obviously worried about Varlerta when the witch was in the power of the Death Eaters. Of course he had avoided her all this time, but this could be interpreted in more than one way. Suddenly she wondered if Snape knew about Varlerta and Sirius, and if not, how he would take the news. Could it be that her heart was not the only one that was broken tonight?

Fred and George had meanwhile declared the area right in front of the stage as their mosh pit, much to Angelina's pleasure and Rhonda's displeasure. Groups of students were bumping into each other enthusiastically, while on the side, other students made sure to keep their distance from the more violent dancers. Lee Jordan even attempted to stage dive, am ambitious undertaking, considering that the stage was only two feet high. Obviously in her best-OWLs-results party mood, Hermione levitated Lee Jordan over the heads of the increasing crowd of dancing students, zoomed him around and turned him a few times, much to his obvious pleasure. When Lee had both feet back on the ground, visibly dizzy but in his best spirits, Seamus Finnegan went up to Hermione, maybe asking her to do the same with him. Neville adjusted the treble potentiometer for Aisha's ride cymbal, a smile on his face. Then he glanced sideways at Ginny. She almost smiled back at him. Through cheers of the audience, Roary announced the next song, 'Kick the Habit.'

With its slap bass lines and rap-like vocals, the third song had a bit of a 'new metal'-feeling. Aisha's uptime beat, enhanced by a noisy open high hat, kept the dance floor boiling; a couple of students were now hovering in the air, trying to work out how to dance without ground contact. Maybe because the lyrics were mostly spoken rather than sung, they caught Ginny's attention. At first she was straining to hear Roary well over her headphones just to make sure the different quality of his voice carried well over the distorted guitar riff, but then she hung on to every word:

"It is high time to see/ what's best for me/ cause shit hit the fan a long time ago //

Inwardly I'm bleeding/ this road is leading/ to a dead end street for all I know //

No, this can't be it/ I decided I quit/ cause my dream has become my enemy //

So I'm telling you/ what it is that I'll do/ I give up and finally leave you be

I kick the habit - kick the habit of dreaming of you.

I spent so many days / longing to see your face/ what a waste of time, this has got to end //

So I pull myself free/ of this captivity/ it's not easy, but I understand //

When dreams fall apart/ all these pains in the heart/ are withdrawal symptoms, but that's okay //

Although I'm still keen/ on this dream-nicotine/ I am strong enough now to pull away //

I kick the habit - kick the habit of dreaming of you."

Ginny had to concede that there was a slight credibility gap, because the wizard singing these heartbreaking lyrics was so conspicuously gorgeous. She wondered if Roary had ever had to dream of anybody in vain, if he had ever suffered like she did now. However, somehow his lyrics expressed something that seemed to fit her situation like a dragon-hide glove: It hurt to see that Sirius had someone else, and accepting that he would never be hers would not be easy in any way, but eventually she would. While another couple of songs drifted by her almost unnoticed, she did her best not to let her eye stray to the black dog at the other side of the room anymore. Instead, she concentrated on the sparkling, colourful lights above the stage which at one point formed hearts and roses exploding into lively, silvery tear drops. Obviously, somewhere deep down in Flitwick's mind slumbered a sick sense of humour.

Roary announced that on special request of the Hogwarts staff, the band would play three waltzes now, all of them cover versions. This time cheers came from the back of the room; Professor McGonagall forcefully steered Dumbledore onto the dance floor, while Professor Sprout gestured wildly for Vector to join her. Ginny noticed that while there was a shortage of male dance partners among the teachers, nobody approached Snape. She saw the pale face of the teacher shine out among the gloom of his black robes and black hair, at times coloured by Flitwick's lightshow, and shuddered. She would not have dared to ask him to dance either, for anything in the world. Lupin however danced with Astra Sinistra to the moderately distorted, not altogether slow version of My Favourite Things. Many of the wilder students had deserted the dance floor to get themselves some cool pumpkin juice; only Angelina and Fred, sweaty but beaming with happiness, were dancing something that could only be termed 'bumper car waltz.'

Neville tuned down the lowest frequencies of the bass, taking out the boom, just as Ginny reached for the same button. He smiled at her and said very quickly: "I think we might leave this for a while now. Would you dance the next waltz with me?"

Ginny looked down at her feet. Dance? It was the last thing she felt like doing tonight. Misunderstanding her glance, Neville said: "I know, but there is something I can do about that." Bending down, he undid his shoelaces and took off his shoes. Ginny stared at his socks, unwilling to look him in the face. The socks had grey and red stripes; one big toe showed through a hole.

"Alright then," she said due to her lack of a decent excuse, and when the band went on to play a decidedly rockier version of Temple of the Dog's song All Night Thing, she found herself on the dance floor, doing her best to keep Neville from bumping her into any teachers. He might not be very accomplished at steering, but was certainly in flow with the music; all in all, waltzing with him went tolerably well. When Neville suppressed a grimace, she realised that now it was her time to watch her feet: Obviously she had stepped on his unprotected toes. If he ever stepped on hers, unshod as he was, she never felt it.

After the song glorifying one-night-stands was over (somewhere in the back of her mind she wondered if Professor McGonagall had listened to the lyrics, and if so, how she had liked them), Ginny would have liked to return to the sound mixer, but Neville just held on to her hand and remained in waltzing position. Remembering that there was only one waltz to go, Ginny decided not to make a fuss. Over her shoulder she could see that Ron and Hermione were getting ready to dance as well, while Harry stood in front of Cho, looking very apprehensive. Cho smiled the ghost of a smile, but nodded. Harry took her hands.

"Last chance to waltz tonight," Roary said over the microphone with his deep, husky voice. "This next song is fairly new - in fact, the CD will come out in September. I rather like it, actually: Sad Songs and Waltzes, originally played by Cake."

He is showing off, Ginny thought with a touch of criticism, but could not decide whether Roary was showing off his connections as a musician who received pre-release promos, or his successes as a CD-snatching time hopper, a popular sport among audacious witches and wizards as far as she knew. As Varlerta played the first, very simple chords of this slightly nostalgic song of the future, she felt Neville's knee bump the time against hers very gently. Just when Roary started to sing the plain, almost naïve tune, Neville induced another round of slow and aimless turning. Above them, a cloud of glimmering music notes twinkled and turned - a slightly tacky, but still charming effect, Ginny decided - very much like Flitwick, indeed.

"I'm writing a song all about you. // A true song as real as my tears. // But you've no need to fear it // Cause no one will hear it. // Sad songs and waltzes aren't selling this year."

Just as the band had finished the first chorus, all lights went out so suddenly as if someone had switched them off: Flitwick's sparkling light effects died just like the few lamps that were still burning above the counter that held pumpkin juice for everyone; even the stars on the ceiling died as if they had never been there. Ginny wondered if maybe she had suddenly gone blind. An icy wind swept through the Great Hall. The Mushrooms stopped playing; through many screams and shouts, Ginny could identify a cry of pain that might very well have been Varlerta's. There were a number of heavy thumps around her, as if some heavy objects or maybe even some people had hit the ground. She wondered whether she was in pain as well, but found out that all sensation had been drained from her body. She did not feel unwell at all, only very drowsy, as if a comfortably warming blanket of snow had fallen right onto her brain. Lying down for a little nap was the obvious thing to do.

Hands shook her vigorously, even violently. "You can't sleep now, Ginny," a voice said with an urgency that sounded unfamiliar. She realised the person shaking her was Neville, that he was doing his best to keep her from sinking to the floor.

"Wake up, Ginny, don't faint," he whispered. "We've got to get our instruments and help Varlerta."