Sunshine or Shadows

Chapter 16. Wins and Losses

Ginny,

Congratulations on another win. I can't believe I had to miss coming (I know... again), but Ron told me you were brilliant as Seeker, and I heard from some guys in the department that scouts are showing up for every game now at Hogwarts.

Ginny let the scroll she was reading fall into her lap and stared out her window. "Right, Harry," she scolded internally, "I want to read about bloody Quidditch."

Quidditch, in fact, had kept her up late into the evening last night with equipment checks, an evening practice, and what must have been forty-seven conversations with excited teammates: each wanting to sell her on a particular technique they'd seen in Quidditch Weekly or - in one case - that had simply come in a dream. She was dead tired, had a full weekend of studying ahead of her, and was beginning to regret promising Natalie and Luna that she'd accompany them to Hogsmeade to hunt for some new spring clothes. With no money in her trunk, Ginny didn't even dare think about buying anything for herself, but Natalie had convinced her to come along anyway, just to get a break from all of the work.

Hogwarts, Ginny thought, had never felt as suffocating as it had this last term. All of the seventh year students walked around with anxious looks on their faces almost constantly, and Ginny felt like the only bit of relief any of them had were the Quidditch matches. Fortunately, Gryffindor was still in fine form and despite a few injuries to key players, they had managed to post enough victories to put themselves in the lead for the cup by an even hundred points.

The team was made up of strong members - good flyers, every one of them - and Ginny had driven them hard at practices. In fact, the only team that had come close to beating them was Hufflepuff, with an unfaltering goaltender who had become somewhat of an obsession for Ginny. When she wasn't studying, she was thinking of ways to distract a goaltender who seemed to have eight arms and swung his bat like a Greek warrior. She'd been trying to think up strategies in her dorm on a sunny Saturday when Natalie came in from the owlry all in a fuss, tossing a letter from Harry onto her lap and scolding her good-naturedly for still being in her night clothes before leaving for breakfast.

"Be right down," Ginny had promised.

Shaking her head to clear it of Quaffles, Bludgers and Snitches, she made herself comfortable in her bed and picked up Harry's letter again. She skimmed the next few lines and waited for some of the old magic to reappear, rising out of the parchment in perhaps a few carefully crafted phrases like she used to get. Harry and Ginny still wrote each other faithfully, but the process was beginning to seem more of a chore lately: not altogether unpleasant, but not necessarily soul-satisfying either. Somehow, without formal application or even the benefit of a Hogwarts' degree, Harry had slid into position as replacement for his friend, Red O'neil, in the Auror squad he'd been working with, and Ginny was growing tired of reading apologies and pronouncements that Harry was going off again on another "assignment".

If having an off-campus boyfriend who had a side-job at the ministry had seemed to put a damper on their romance; Ginny felt that this new, full-time Auror thing had squashed it more or less completely. Sighing, she flicked her wand and deposited this last scroll of Quidditch and Ministry drivel in the bin without finishing it, throwing on a sloppy set of workout clothes and getting up to join her friends in the Great Hall.

"There she is," Natalie chimed when Ginny reached the Gryffindor table, "the queen of Gryffindor." She, Neville, Luna and a few other students from their year looked up from their plates and greeted Ginny.

"Not hardly," Ginny said.

"Hey, Ginny," said a boy sitting next to Neville, "are you going to play Seeker in the Quidditch cup?"

Ginny shook her head and squeezed in between Neville and Luna. "No, Stalworth's arm is almost mended; he'll be fine by next Saturday." She fielded this question three or four times a day now, and wished her housemates would find something else to chat about. She'd pitched in for her young Seeker, Preston Stalworth, when he'd gotten injured and for other teammates on other occasions and had managed to do a decent job of it, but her team was built around strategy and plays: their success depended on key players doing what they'd been trained to do, and she grew tired of explaining this over and over again. Stalworth wasn't a likeable bloke by a longshot, but he was a fast flyer and Ginny liked his odds against the larger, though sure-handed Hufflepuff match-up.

"Why don't we let the captain worry about who plays where," Natalie said, plopping two slices of toast on Ginny's plate and catching her eye. "She gets all cranky when people second-guess her."

"Fine," the boy said. "I was just saying that she's a good Seeker. Not quite Harry Potter, but--"

"Who is?" a girl across from them interrupted.

The next ten minutes went by a blur of Harry Potter trivia facts, recited proudly and somewhat inaccurately by the Gryffindor students: each with a similar tone of adoration and each making Ginny want to cringe on Harry's behalf. She tapped Neville, who was staring quietly at his plate, and gestured toward the back door.

"Hey," she said, "want some help in the greenhouse again?"

"You're going with us to Hogsmeade, remember?" Natalie interjected.

"We still have time for the greenhouse," Luna said. "Professor McGonagall doesn't even begin to line us up until after eleven."

Neville sat up a bit. The students at both ends of the table were still recounting Harry stories: the goings on of Quidditch in years' past giving way inevitably to the final fight during the Battle of Hogwarts, and Neville was speaking loudly in order to be heard over the eager chatter. "Actually," he said, "I've got something to show you there. It's about Luna's Merryberry bushes."

"When he and Voldemort had their wands drawn..." a girl was saying, her voice nearly drowning out Neville's while Ginny strained to filter it out. She didn't like to recall that day and especially didn't care to relive the final duel. Fred had been killed, Colin had been struck down, two Hufflepuffs and a Ravenclaw who she'd known from classes had just fallen to the floor and Tonks and Remus were gone as well. She remembered fighting for all she was worth, watching her mum take on Belatrix with a fury unlike anything she'd ever seen before, and drowning in a sickening feeling that it was all going to blow up on them at any moment.

And then, it was as if a single Impedimenta curse had brought everyone suddenly to a complete standstill. They all found themselves planted in their spot - mouths open and breathing hard - and all staring at Harry and his oldest enemy as they traced a tight circle in the center of the Great Hall and taunted each other. She never wanted to remember what had gone through her mind then.

"Let's get out of here," Natalie whispered.

Ginny lifted her head and smiled at her friend's concerned expression. "Good idea," she said.

The four friends left their half-eaten breakfasts and followed the muddy path to Neville's greenhouse, where they often spent time visiting with each other. He had stacks and stacks of empty terra cotta pots, piles of different kinds of soil enhancers and bottled potions and ingredients, and shelves stacked three-high with an absurd variety of plants. Some of Neville's plant species were hostile and aggressive and some were mild-mannered and ordinary, but Ginny was always drawn to a collection of simple roses that he kept toward the back of the greenhouse in the spot that was granted the most sunlight.

"How are my roses?" she asked, walking over and tracing a finger along a new creamy yellow rosebud.

"They're great," Neville boasted. "Those right there are getting set to bloom for the third time this season. That's unheard of, really."

"These are lovely, Neville," Natalie said. "It's a bit early for roses, yeah?" She dipped her nose down and gave an appreciative smile while Luna studied a gnarled twist of woody branches which was growling at them.

"A bit early," Neville replied. "I've warmed up the soil for them. They seem to be responding well to it."

"I love plants with thorns," Luna said. "They're lovely to look at, and they can protect themselves, which can be very important."

Natalie snickered and pulled Ginny along to a potting bench where seven little pots sat in a neat row, each with a little vine popping up from the dirt with a handful of shiny green leaves hanging on to it rather delicately. "What are these?" she asked.

"My project," Neville said, walking over and picking up one of the pots. It snapped at him and he set it down quickly. "I've grown these from clippings Luna gave me. These are the Merryberry bushes."

Ginny crinkled her nose. "They smell awful," she said. "You should be looking for ways to kill them, not multiply them."

Neville gave a dismissive look and picked up another plant, lovingly. "No, they're great. And only that one smells," he said. "I added decaying fish to the soil, and it seems to have picked up the scent. See?" He held the pot he'd picked up under Ginny's face and she took a reluctant whiff.

"This one's all right," she said. It smelled musky and a bit like the seashore, which was quite appealing. "How did you get rid of the smell?"

Natalie rubbed one of the shiny leaves and sniffed her finger. "It smells like my mum's perfume," she said. "It's a muggle brand - Channel. I'd pick it up anywhere."

"Your mum wore a musk?" Ginny asked without thinking.

"No, stupid," Natalie reproached. "She wore this." She closed her eyes and took in another noseful. "I miss that smell," she said quietly.

Ginny place her arm around her friend's slender shoulder. Natalie didn't often talk about her loss, as with most people at Hogwarts. "I know you do," she said.

"The scent is different for each person," Neville said, as he and Luna joined the girls at the potting bench.

"Like Amortentia?" Ginny asked.

Neville smiled proudly. "Just like it, as a matter of fact."

"It smells kind of pungent," Luna said. She bent down to smell the tiny vine. "I must like that." She turned to Neville, asking, "What do you smell?"

Neville dropped his eyes to the floor at once. "All right," he blurted, clearing his throat before speaking again. "This is what I wanted to show you." He picked up another one of the seven pots and it began to wriggle and sway a bit. "Luna had told me some of the properties that Merryberry bushes were expected to have, and it seemed a bit odd to me: a plant that smelled of cinnamon, caused wizards to make romantic gestures, and attacked unwelcome strangers when planted near a doorway."

"Does it do that too?" Natalie asked.

Luna shook her head. "No," she said. "Mine didn't do any of those things. I told Neville it probably wasn't a proper sample."

"The truth is," Neville said, "that none of these claims, nor any of the hundreds of others that have written about, could ever be backed up. I think I've figured out why."

Ginny drifted back over to the roses, uninterested in Neville's plant lessons. She wanted to get away from the scent of Harry's aftershave before the familiar pangs of longing and disappointment returned to ruin her mood. She listened casually while Luna and Natalie appeased their friend, asking question after question and sounding sufficiently impressed by his answers. The plants mimic the magical properties of the things they are planted near, he'd discovered by experiment, and he'd spent the last few months trying to find the right conditions to reproduce the affects of seven potions by adding exact measures of their main magical ingredients to the soil, coaxing them along with sunlight and nutrient suppliments.

While Neville recited a tedious list of quantities and mixtures that he'd tried and failed, Ginny peered over the rose bushes through the dirty glass wall. It was finally spring, and she had less than two months before her final year was over. It angered her that she didn't feel more excited by the prospect, and she wondered if all graduating students went through similar emotions. She had studied hard this year and knew she would do well on her written exams; her Quidditch team was prepared as well as they were ever going to be for their final games; she and her friends had dutifully taught the older students how to defend against the Dementor attacks that never came; and they all had Easter break to look forward to very soon.

If she were smart, Ginny mused, she might feel like she'd accomplished something. But with every failed attempt at Apparating, her dreams of passing the physical part of her Defense Against the Dark Arts exam dwindled and she knew that she'd have to think soon about some rather disturbing life truths. Perhaps she should start thinking about taking one of the professional Quidditch teams up on the various letters of interest that had been mailed to her at the Burrow over the Christmas holiday.

"Neville," Natalie said, speaking a bit louder and jarring Ginny from her thoughts. "These are fantastic. You're going to be famous!"

"Actually," Neville said, speaking in a low, steady voice, "there's a more important reason I've been studying the Merryberry bush clippings."

Ginny's ears perked. She recognized Neville's tone: it was the all-business, driven tone he'd adopted during their year spent fighting the Carrows, Snape and the horrors of uncertainty that nearly choked the life out of each of them. She smiled, remembering the stunts they'd all pulled together: she, Neville and wildly sweet Luna.

"What are they for, then?" she asked. She watched her friend's face betray the hopefulness he always seemed to hold in abundance. "Neville," she repeated, "what are you trying to mimic?"

Neville flushed. "Veelas," he said. "But it's not what you think," he added hurriedly.

The three witches stifled their laughter and looked around the greenhouse to give Neville a bit of privacy. Whatever uses a wizard had for replicating a Veela, Ginny thought, were maybe best not repeated aloud.

"It's for Harry," Neville spilled. "I think it might be possible to mimic the Veela qualities. For Harry's work."

Natalie snorted. "What does Harry need Veelas for," she said, laughing now and ignoring Ginny's elbow to the ribs. "He's got a cute, ginger-haired spitfire of a girlfriend, what possible -"

Ginny elbowed Natalie again, noting that Neville's face had gone bright red. "Neville," she said, "can you do it? Can these have the same affect that Veelas have? On the Dementors?"

Neville shrugged. "I hope so."

Luna twirled a lock of long, blond hair in her index finger and smiled engagingly up at Neville. "I'm glad you were able to use those clippings, Neville," she said. "You can feel free to use them in any way you like."

Ginny furrowed her brow. "No, Luna," she said. "Don't' you see? The Veelas keep the Dementors in line." She chewed on her lip, thinking for a moment. "Harry said they don't seem interested in escape when a Veela is around and..." she cast her eyes cautiously at Neville, who seemed to be recovering from his earlier embarrassment, "and they don't seem interested in...Well, there haven't been any cases of breeding at any of the houses since they've adopted the new guard rules requiring a Veela to be present."

Twisting her hair up even further, Luna looked thoughtful. "Yes, I see," she said. "Oh, that would be very good."

"Yes it would," Natalie chimed in. "I'm sick to death of hearing Ginny go on about the 'bloody Veelas', so I, for one, am all for planting vines instead and firing the lot of them."

Ginny giggled. The thought had a lot of appeal, she had to admit. "Well, except for Fleur."

"Fleur can find another job," Natalie said. "Don't' you worry about her. She'll just bat those long lashes and wiggle her bottom at the right time, and I'm sure she'll be gainfully employed elsewhere within hours of her sacking."

"Well, we're not quite there yet," Neville said. "And I'm glad you brought up your sister-in-law, Ginny. I wanted to ask if you could get her to give us a few samples of hair, and maybe finger nails. Possibly a couple of flakes of skin."

"She'll go mental," Ginny said, laughing. "We'll have to get those the old-fashioned way, I'm afraid. I can't imagine Fleur Delacour voluntarily cutting her silky mane for the likes of me." She smiled at Neville. "I'll see them over spring break. I'll raid the bathroom after she finishes one of her hourly preening sessions."

"So you'll get some?" Neville asked.

"Sure," Ginny said. "Of course I will."

"Well, I hate to break this up," Natalie said, pulling out a silver pocketwatch and staring at it, "but it's almost eleven. We've got to go."

"Just a sec," Ginny said. She waited for Luna and Natalie to leave the greenhouse before confronting Neville about a nagging thought that had been looping around in the back of her head since they'd all been sniffing the Amortentia-replicating vine. She took a few moments to collect her thoughts, letting her fondness for her friend outweigh her apprehension over starting an uncomfortable conversation.

"Neville," she began, carefully, "do you mind if I ask you something?"

"Anything," Neville responded. He was back at the potting bench now, holding a pair of clipping shears and studying one of the plants.

"What did you smell? In that plant over there?"

Neville flushed again, and Ginny cringed. "I can't tell you," he said.

Ginny felt heat rise up her body until her cheeks burned from it. She took a few back-steps and placed her hand on the greenhouse's exit door, taking a nervous breath. Something was confirmed for her, in Neville's mannerisms and response, and it broke her heart to have been right. "Okay," she said, trying to sound nonchalant. She jerked the door open and jogged to catch up with Luna and Natalie with an enormous amount of guilt piling up within her.

On the way back to the Gryffindor Common Room, Ginny tried hard to clear her mind of its conflicts and worries so that she could have a productive day. Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts were on her planner for revising in the evening, and she was hoping to have another go at Apparating once she got to Hogsmeade. She had felt a strong sense of tingling on her left arm and a very faint pulling sensation had presented itself in her chest on her last attempt. The experience was enough to provide just a trickle of hope, as if her body knew that time was running short for overcoming this particular hurdle, and she wanted to have her mind as focused as she could make it before leaving Hogwarts' grounds.

"Maybe I'll have something interesting to write Harry about," she thought while she jumped a puddle and joined Luna and Natalie. "Maybe today will be the day."