Ginny

Chapter Six - Lily

Sirius was right. James' house was huge. According to Dafydd's confusingly fast mini history of the house, it had been many things in its past, including a dairy, a smithy, the local manor house and a town hall. The house itself was not that tall but it sprawled all over, with rooms sticking out of first floor walls at odd angles. It vaguely reminded her of the Burrow, the way that everything defied the Muggle laws of physics. The house was surrounded by four gardens. The first, at the front of the house was a formal nearly clipped lawn, surrounded on three sided by huge pine trees completely blocking the house from view. The second was a circular orchard, fruit trees all round the sides of the meadow-like lawn, with one large apple tree roughly in the centre. The third was a vegetable plot, behind the old stables, which were now converted into garages. The last was a large unexceptional stretch of grass by the back door. Once inside the house she was struck by a multitude of different doors and passages, nick-nacks floating in mid air, piles of dubious looking things and several somewhat larger than necessary cat-flaps.

James insisted on escorting Ginny through the hall, up the stairs and to her room, much to Sirius' apparent amusement. It was clear that if he had been in James' position he would have simply said "Your room's up the stairs, first door on the left", or something like that. Or so Ginny's thoughts ran as the three of them hauled their luggage up the staircase. When they got to the first landing, though, it was clear that such simple directions would not have sufficed. It would have been something more along the lines of "up the second set of stairs, down the corridor to the right, turn left after three doors, go down the first short flight of stairs you come across, mind the hole in the floor, and your room's the second door on the right."

Some of the doors were downright bizarre. Ginny was sure they passed one that seemed to fasten with buttons along the edge. Another had a zip. She was beginning to get a little worried about her own room - these odd doors didn't seem to open from the inside - but it turned out her door was normal. She was just beginning to disbelieve James' constant attempts at reassurance - "we're nearly there now. Just a little longer..." - when he stopped and turned the handle of a thankfully ordinary-looking door.

"Here we are. There should be clean sheets, if they look like something's been in them give us a shout. We'll be... uh, downstairs in a few minutes, I think." He looked shiftily at her for a moment. "Good night. I'd get to sleep if I were you, I think my dad has...uh...plans for tomorrow."

The two of them departed, leaving Ginny feeling more than a little stranded. For a start, she couldn't remember how to get back to the hall. And if the house's downstairs was anything like its upstairs, "we'll be downstairs" was not a sufficient description of location. Co-ordinates might have been helpful. And a map. She entered the room, expecting the worst. Strangely enough, she found what seemed to be the most normal room. There was a low, single bed with a floral cover on it. By its side was a wrought iron table with a lamp and a lot of cable, which was pilled up next to it. Two of the walls were bare stone, the other two were amateurly plastered over and some parts were thicker than others. On the far wall a bay window with leaded panes looked out onto the large fir trees of the front garden they had passed along the drive. The rest of the wall space was taken up by a large, ineffective radiator, a wooden armoire stained dark red and containing nothing but mothballs and fake fur coats and finally probably the largest wardrobe Ginny had ever seen. A full-length mirror ran down the middle and a drawer that refused to open filled the space at the bottom.

Stowing her trunk at the base of the bed, she sat down happily, thankful for the relative normality of her room, to find the bed wet. On further inspection, it wasn't actually wet, just very, very cold. Hmm. She would reserve proper judgement after a nights sleep. She was actually extremely tired. It was only 7:30, but she had been up since the crack of dawn, repeatedly packing and repacking both her own, Narcissa and Roìsìn's trunks. This was due mainly to Narcissa, after she had, in the middle of the night, panicked that she had forgotten to pack her state-of-the-art, no mess, no fuss curling irons (which resembled more some sort of medieval torture device than a hair care tool) and had attempted to find it in her trunk in the pitch dark. Being in pitch dark, she had sleepily fallen on the wrong case and torn through the other girls' cases before reaching her own, finding the curling irons and crawling back into bed, leavi the dorm looking like a particularly violent Whirlwind charm had hit it.

Ginny slumped on the cold unfamiliar bed, and, kicking her shoes of, she burrowed, fully clothed, beneath the covers.

*****

In the centre of the room was a large object several metres across, covered with a heavy velvet cloth.

Dafydd swept the cloth aside with a flourish to reveal an octagonal board, at the centre of which was a raised square. Atop both these boards were assorted protrusions representing some kind of landscape, along with squares and other shapes labelled carefully with writing that seemed to make little or no sense (although the word 'doom' seemed to feature quite prominently, with varying numbers of 'O's). The whole thing was supported by a central pillar, to which were attached some odd kind of seats supported only by a pole which joined them to the board. There were attachments beneath the seats best compared to the pedals on a bicycle.

"Behold," said Dafydd, dramatically. "Crudnugget."

James broke the temporary awed silence by leaning in Ginny's direction and muttering, "He always does that," earning him an annoyed glance from his father.

"Well, if you'd all like to take a seat..." Dafydd said, hopping into one of the small, backless chairs. "Remember, this is where you have to sit for the rest of the game; you can't change your mind."

Ginny assumed this was purely for the benefit of Sirius and herself; James and Gwendolyn didn't look like they were paying much attention. She carefully sat down on a seat in front of an odd sort of pink puddle with tiny stepping stones across it, a decision applauded by Gwendolyn.

"Oh, good choice! Right in front of the Lake of Paint!"

"The lake of pain?"

"No, dear, the Lake of Paint. I meant what I said. Have you ever seen pink pain?"

"I - "

"Exactly; pain doesn't come in pink," said Gwendolyn, seating herself next to her husband.

Sirius sat rather deliberately next to a rather bemused Ginny. James sat next to him, glaring slightly, but Sirius didn't seem to notice, because he was occupied with poking the Lake of Paint.

"It won't come off your fingers for weeks, you know," muttered James darkly. Sirius quickly withdrew his hand, wiping it on the underside of the board.

"So!" Dafydd clapped his hands together, smiling. "Now we can begin!"

Ginny raised her hand tentatively. "Um -"

"Yes?"

"How do you actually play?"

"Oh, it's easy. You'll pick it up as you go along."

"... Oh." It certainly didn't look very easy. To say it looked complex would have been an understatement, to say the least.

All the same, Ginny declined to comment, and Dafydd was soon handing out the playing pieces. This was a rather lengthy process, as it seemed necessary for him to choose the correct piece for each individual player, his decisions apparently based on the sizes of people's front teeth. Ginny was eventually presented with a little metal figure that looked something like a woodlouse and something like a duck, but stood on two legs, had a tail like a snake, and wore a waistcoat and what looked like pantaloons.

Once everyone had their playing piece, Dafydd announced that they must all hold it in their hands "like a little wounded bird." Ginny did so, confusion rising.

"Now," said Dafydd, "Repeat after me: Ahh it's so cute."

"Ahh it's so cute," chorused the group.

"Don't you just want to take it home."

"Don't you just want to take it home."

"And hug it and squeeze it and call it George."

"And hug it and squeeze it and call it George."

"Oh yes," Dafydd paused dramatically, "I could eat it right up with a spoon."

"Oh yes; I could eat it right up with a spoon."

"Thank you everybody. Now we may commence. If we would all put our pieces on the 'start' squares..."

Ginny cautiously placed her woodlouse creature on the first 'start' square she saw, but was corrected by Gwendolyn and told that because her hair grew past her shoulders, she had to start from a square on the other side of the board. James immediately offered to move it there for her and Ginny, more confused than ever, accepted.

Sirius went first - Ginny didn't try to work out why - and by the time it was Ginny's turn she had figured out that to move a piece, you had to pick a card from an ordinary deck and then give a compass bearing. Your piece would then trundle along a number of inches (although later she realised that it was in fact two-thirds of inches, apparently just to be obscure) equal to the number on the card (she hadn't seen what happened if you drew a face card yet, and awaited the occasion with curiosity).

As her duck-woodlouse shuffled two-and-two-thirds inches north-north-east, Ginny asked, "So... why exactly is it called Crudnugget?"

James was about to reply when Ginny's piece landed on a vaguely rectangular orange area. There was a rush of wind and something - she didn't see what - hit her very hard in the back of the head.

"Crudnugget!" Ginny shouted, without being entirely sure why.

Dafydd raised his hand in the air. "First Crudnugget of the game! First Crudnugget of the game!"

Ginny looked at Sirius. "What does that mean?"

"You win a turkey," said Sirius.

"A turkey?"

James nodded, and Ginny watched, bewildered, as a very small metal turkey appeared next to her woodlouse-beast, and stared at everyone, apparently as bemused as she was.

*****

They had been playing Crudnugget for almost three hours, and Ginny was beginning to get the hang of it. There were a number of squares whose effects she hadn't witnessed yet, for example the Square of Meh (few of them were actually square, this one included), but already the game had been interrupted by James' growing six bright green pointy ears on the back of his head, having landed on the Square of Perpetual Earache.

By steady enquiry throughout the game, Ginny had gathered a fair amount of information about Crudnugget, mostly from Dafydd. Once you started playing Crudnugget, you had to continue playing for a length of time directly proportional to your age divided by the time in months since you last played, then multiplied by the number of times you had played before (this was the simple version. Various other factors, Dafydd said, could also affect it, but usually it wasn't in a major way), and were only allowed to stop for very short times in order to use the toilet, eat, and, if the game was long enough, purchase food and supplies. It had been originally created in the 1800s by the aptly named and more than slightly eccentric warlock Merwyn the McMad, who had, according to his diaries, created it because of 'the lack of games one can play indoors in which people get hit a lot'. A proposal to outlaw it had been put forth during the early 1940s, when several talented witches and wizards were unable to aid in the struggle against Grindelwald because they were playing Crudnugget and the board wouldn't let them go. It had already been outlawed in France by 1927, and was currently illegal in seven countries. In Britain it was only permitted under the supervision of a licensed professional, and all purchases of Crudnugget boards were strictly monitored by the Ministry of Magic ever since the discovery in 1962 of a couple in Cornwall who had started a game in 1929, had been playing ever since, and had witnessed the only recorded occurrence of a Crudnugget board allowing itself to be moved while a game was in progress. The board seemed to feel some sense of self-preservation, as it allowed them to make a mad dash out of their house and to their garden shed to avoid a German bomb.

The thing that had hit Ginny on the back of the head was apparently called the Crudnugget Stick. She was told that there were several thousand different reasons for being hit on the back of the head with the Crudnugget Stick, but, as with Quidditch fouls, there were very few people indeed who knew every single one. Unlike with Quidditch fouls, these very few people did not include James, or even Dafydd, but the latter suggested that, aside from landing on one of the designated squares, they included "breathing loudly", "pedalling the pedals too much", and "annoying the Crudnugget board". James suggested that it was in fact completely random because the Crudnugget board was evil incarnate, shortly after which he was hit on the back of the head by the Crudnugget stick.

Ginny pulled another card from the proffered deck in Dafydd's hand - the six of clubs - and, looking hesitantly across the board, estimating the distance, she directed her piece south-west onto a small, harmless-looking green square (she'd realised that the Crudnugget stick would choose to deal out whacking to all those not on an actual square by the end of their turn) - and was promptly hit on the back of the head.

Shaking his head, Dafydd muttered, "Square of Serenity and Walloping. Gets 'em every time," and, picking a card, he sent his piece towards a square leading to the Upper Zone of Spiffiness and Peril, but was about half an inch short.

James gave a relieved sigh. "Thank God," he said. "Whenever anybody ascends to the Upper Zone, you have to go through a twenty-minute ceremony..."

"Surely that's a good thing?" Ginny interrupted. "I mean, it uses up time, so less -"

"... During which everybody gets hit on the back of the head with the Crudnugget stick three dozen times."

"Ah."

"Yes," said James, watching Sirius move his piece (which looked something like a cross between a flamingo that had swallowed a plate and some kind of rodent, and wore a top hat). As its webbed feet came to rest on a square labelled 'The Square of Clichéd Plot Device', James glared at its owner. "What did you do that for?"

Sirius giggled. "It's fun."

Nevertheless, Sirius watched just as apprehensively as everybody else as Dafydd handed round cards. Ginny wasn't sure what the fuss was about, but she gathered it wasn't good. On receiving her card, she turned it over a few times, but all it showed was the number seven, written in black ona background of dark blue. The other side was completely blank. She leaned over to see what was on Sirius' card, and just managed to glimpse the number five and Sirius looking at her, vaguely amused, before there was an odd whooshing sensation and a brief blackout, after which the whole room had adjusted itself. She looked down at her card, but now it had a six on it. Come to think of it, she wasn't even sure it was her hand.

She was still looking, confused, at her card when there was a giggle and she heard what she was sure was her own voice. The gleeful tone, though, was unmistakably Sirius'. "I got Lily!"

Ginny looked up, perplexed, to see herself grinning at her across Sirius, who was now on her right, and suddenly realised she was looking at herself through glasses.

"Don't worry," said Gwendolyn. "It's the Square of Clichéd Plot Device. That's what it does." Ginny stared blankly. Gwendolyn - if that was who it was - smiled and nodded, but didn't give any further explanation, leaving Ginny very confused.

"Square of Clichéd Plot Device. You swap bodies with the person sitting on the seat whichever number your card was," said Sirius, pushing some hair out of his eyes. "So you got me, and Sirius got you, and -" he pulled his hand away from his head, "my God, Sirius, when did you last wash your hair?"

The person, presumably Sirius, who was currently occupying Ginny shrugged.

"So..." Ginny looked at the person next to her. "You're James."

James nodded Sirius' head.

"You get the hang of it soon enough," said Dafydd. It probably wasn't Dafydd, thought Ginny. If James was Sirius and Sirius was her, and she was apparently James, then Dafydd and Gwendolyn were probably each other. Although you never knew with Crudnugget. There might have been some kind of special rule rendering some people immune to the effects of various squares.

Ginny nodded. She didn't think it was a good idea to speak much, because it was James' voice coming out of her mouth (well, his mouth, but he wasn't using it), which was more than a little weird.

Sirius seemed the least bothered by the whole thing - although it was hard to tell with Dafydd and Gwendolyn, and it was with a wide grin (on Ginny's face) that, during Gwendolyn's turn, he announced that he was leaving in order to use the toilet.

"You are not!" exclaimed Ginny, outraged. "You stay right there!"

"Or you'll do what?"

Ginny glared at him as he got off the Crudnugget chair and almost skipped out of the room, beaming. "I'm sure there's some kind of law against that."

"It wouldn't make any difference," said Gwendolyn, waving a hand dismissively. "Most laws don't apply to people playing Crudnugget."

*****

Over the next few hours, Ginny, James, Sirius, Gwendolyn and Dafydd were restored to their rightful bodies (much to Ginny's relief), Ginny attempted to avoid looking directly at Sirius, Gwendolyn grew a pair of large, curved ram's horns and was then turned upside down and had to sit on the ceiling. Ginny had the misfortune to take a chance card that caused her to sprout blue fur all over her body, which caused Sirius no small amount of amusement - although he got his just desserts when he landed on a pink frilly rectangle that turned him into a goat.

The problem with Crudnugget was that, just when you thought you'd got used to it - the fact that if you finished a turn without landing on a square, you got hit on the back of the head; the fact that landing on almost any square led to getting hit on the back of the head - something you would never have expected would turn up. Like the Oboe Square.

The Oboe Square required that the person who had landed on the square cried "Oboe! Oboe!" and that everybody then faced their seats to the left and pedalled clockwise. Why this action was assigned to the Oboe Square seemed utterly mystifying until Dafydd called for a halt and pulled an oboe from a pouch hanging from the Crudnugget board's underside. He played one note on it, and everybody else was hit on the back of the head in quick succession by the Crudnugget stick.

Generally, Ginny decided, it was best not to expect anything. However much you thought you were accustomed to the game, there was always something that would surprise you. She had given up trying to work out why some of the completely arbitrary things happened, but was still puzzled by one thing - what determined who won? There had to be an aim to it all, unless Merwyn the McMad had been far more mad than she had previously supposed - although, Ginny reminded herself, this was more than likely. Perhaps the general aim of the game was to survive.

This seemed to be true, when, after Ginny's ten hours were up, she was the first person allowed to leave the board.

"You can get yourself something to eat if you want," called Gwendolyn from the ceiling.

Ginny nodded. "Thanks."

She went upstairs to the, but didn't take any food. Playing Crudnugget for fifteen hours really prepared you for the worst, and she kept half-expecting to be hit on the back of the head, or to have something foul-smelling sprayed on her if she opened a cupboard.

After a couple of hours of puttering around the kitchen, nervously poking things, and listening rather worriedly to a wall after she quite clearly heard a loud scuffling sound from it, she was joined by Sirius and James, who Sirius had stayed to wait for.

"Hi," said James, closing the door behind him. "Mum and Dad'll be down there for ages, probably overnight, so..." he shrugged and opened a cupboard. "Anyone hungry?"

"No," Ginny lied. Although she was hungry, she didn't particularly want to try anything prepared by James. The first day of her visit had made her horribly wary of accepting any offers from the Potter family. They all seemed to end badly. "I'll just...sleep...now...so...bye." Ginny spun on her heel and attempted to get out of the room as fast as possible without looking too suspicious.

*****

Ginny sighed and put the last if her clothes away in the cupboard. She hadn't had the opportunity to unpack before now as Crudnugget had really taken up all her time from when she had arrived. Now she had finished and could finally go to bed. She crossed over to where she had laid out her nightdress. Glancing at her watch she realised it was five in the morning. Bloody hell, they had been playing Crudnugget for ages.

Thunk.

For no obvious reason, her book had suddenly slid off her nightstand. That's odd, she thought. Must not have been properly on the table or something. Ginny decided to leave it there on the floor and pick it up later. She took off the jumper she was wearing, dumped it on the floor and began to unbutton her shirt. The shirt followed her jumper to the ground and she reached for the zip on her skirt -

Crash!

Ginny spun around, her heart thumping wildly, to see the whole night stand tipped on its side, sending the lamp and glass of water spinning madly across the floor. Now that was just creepy. A rustling sound, somewhat like a low whisper emanated from the corner where the table had been.

It could have been a ghost, but she didn't remember James having said anything about having a ghost. However he had also omitted the more unsavoury details of Crudnugget. She had no idea how she was ever going to face Sirius again. No - it didn't sound like a ghost, and she didn't think that they could make themselves invisible.

But people could.

"Hello?" asked Ginny, tentatively. "Is anyone there?" she continued feeling rather stupid.

Her question was met by silence. Then there was another rustling whisper.

"Who...what are you?"

The faint whisper came again. It sounded distinctly like someone saying 'shit'.

"I know you're there," she pursued, gaining confidence.

Now she could hear the words more clearly.

"Bugger. She's heard us."

"Well, it's your fault. 'Let's hide by the table. She'll never spot us by the table'. Eejit. Can't you just keep still?"

"Oh, come one, like you don't think sneaking in here is worth it?"

"How should I know, you're the one who had a personalised peep show today."

"You can't see me, but I'm glaring."

"D'you think if we're really quiet, she'll just forget about us?"

"Erm - "

Wait - she knew that voice!

"James?" gasped Ginny.

There was a thud, like some one falling over followed by a distinct "Ow".

"Oh, crap! You've done it now. Let's run for it."

"On the count of three."

"Right."

"One...two...three."

Suddenly Sirius materialised in the room looking greatly like a rabbit caught in a car's headlights. Ginny screeched and dove at her shirt lying on the ground, vainly attempting to get it on, with out letting Sirius see any of her.

"Oh - I was, um..." her drifted off, then kicked a spot in the air; seeming to connect with something with a satisfying oomph. "James, you bastard, how could you do that to me? Wanker," grumbled Sirius.

"I'm not here," said James' voice firmly.

"I still stand by my wanker, and would like to add twit to the list. I hope you're happy with yourself."

"Marvellous, thank you."

"I thought you said you weren't here?" Silence. "Suit yourself."

"Why...?" she began, looking suspiciously at Sirius, who immediately became deeply engrossed in his shoes. "No," she said rigidly, "don't answer that."

The boy looked faintly apologetically at her, then kicked the air occupied by James'. Gwendolyn and Dafydd abruptly burst into the room, both in pyjamas and dressing gowns, obviously having just jumped out of bed. Dafydd looked wildly around, as if a masked attacker with a machete could jump out from behind the curtains at any moment.

"What happened? Is everyone all right? You're not dead are you? Why's Sirius here?" gabbled Dafydd.

"Oh, I was just passing through. I'll being going now - " said Sirius off handedly.

"Don't you move. Where's James?"

"I'm not here," came James' voice from a patch of air.

"You've been playing with that cloak again, haven't you? I knew we shouldn't have let you keep it. Where are you, then?" fumed Dafydd, folding his arms and glaring round the room.

"I am nowhere," said James.

Ginny paused before asking, "what cloak?"

"His invisibility cloak, dear. We're sorry about this. James can be rather, well, male, sometimes," apologised Gwendolyn, "and he does have a tendency to do idiotic things now and again."

While Gwendolyn had been speaking, her son had dashed out from under the cloak, made for the other side of the room, leaving a silver heap where he had been. Ginny spun round in time to see him standing in from of a hole in the wall that had just materialised, before he flung himself through the door (for that was what it was) and let it slam shut behind him, leaving no sign that it had ever been there.

Ginny blinked.

"Oh, dear. That's him gone then," sighed Gwendolyn.

Sirius chuckled. Ginny had a feeble attempt at asking what had happened, but it really seemed pointless. None the less, Dafydd tried to explain.

"We have old servants' passages in our house - not that we have any servants - they run behind the walls through out the house. Only James has ever been able to get through them properly, odd really. He disappears on occasion, on expeditions, he claims. Went missing for almost a week once."

"We assume that there's some sort of access to the kitchen. Found chunks out of the bread and cheese in the past. He's a bit like a rat, I suppose."

"Love, really," scolded Dafydd.

"Well - he is."

"Be that as it may, it's time we all got to bed," he held up a hand as if to silence them. "Don't worry about James, he'll turn up in a day or two."

Sirius grinned. "We can have some fun on our own for a while, then, can't we Lily?" He smirked as he swaggered out of the door.

"Well, night dear," said Gwendolyn, taking her husband by the arm and guiding him from the room. "See you tomorrow."

She shut the door behind her.