An Eventful Year

Oh, my god.

Harry Potter is in my kitchen. Well, my mum's kitchen, if you want to get all technical. But.. oh my god. Harry Potter!

Oh! I'm being dreadfully rude, aren't I? I'm sorry, I'm not usually this rude. My mum and dad did raise me well; they're the best parents! Oh, that's not the point, is it? I'm sorry. I'm Virginia Weasley (do call me Ginny), youngest of 7 children, and the only girl. I do love my brothers, but sometimes being one of two girls in the house is kind of.. oh, I don't know. It's just hard, sometimes. They're really protective of me, and although I usually don't mind it, it does get on my nerves once in a while. And, I mean, boys are so different from girls!

Usually my brothers are lovely - Bill, he's 24, and Charlie, 22, I never see, they're both so busy now, but they're so fun and nice to play with. Bill works in Egypt, that's why I never see him except for holidays, when he comes home to visit. He's a curse-breaker for Gringotts, the wizard bank. That's why he's all the way over in Egypt. He's really smart, too - he used to be Head Boy at Hogwarts. Charlie lives in Romania studying dragons. He's practically obsessed with them, and works with his friends to take care of them in the wild. When he was at Hogwarts he was the seeker for Gryffindor, and led them to many Quidditch Cups. Fred and George told me that they hadn't been able to win the Cup until Harry joined the team. He's the youngest seeker in about a century, they said!

Percy, he's 16, is all right, if you like the sort that sticks to the rules. It does get on my nerves sometimes, always being nagged at by someone besides my parents, but he's always nice to me, and nags out of love and protection. Or so I tell myself when he just won't stop. He's a prefect in Gryffindor, and Ron told me that he's always nagging them about studying, something that his friend, Hermione, strongly agrees with.

Fred and George are identical twins, both of them 14, of course, and so much fun to be around, always joking, the both of them. Whenever they go to Hogsmeade, they make sure and stop by Zonko's Joke Shop. According to Ron, they like to play a lot of pranks on people too. They also play quidditch on the Gryffindor house team, my favourite sport. They're both beaters. Mum always gets mad at them because they're always breaking rules, but she doesn't really mind. She just wishes that they weren't in situations where they could go and get themselves killed. She thinks it's too dangerous.

And Ron, he's a year older than me, only 12, and he's my favourite. He's taller than me, and always likes to play wizard's chess with me. He thinks he's really good and he's always been able to win when we play, but I'll beat him one day, don't worry. He's the one that's friends with Harry Potter. No, that's not why he's my favourite brother, but it sure helps a lot. He told me that when he first went on the Hogwarts Express, Harry bought a load of sweets for them to share. Ron's really envious sometimes that Harry has so much money (left to him from his parents) and he has to get everything from his older brothers. He's never really told me this, but I can tell.

So anyway, more about how I discovered that the Boy Who Lived was in my house, sitting in my chair.

I'm usually a late sleeper, but there was so much noise this morning. I woke up to the sounds of my mum banging around in the kitchen and practically yelling, "don't know what you were thinking of", and "never would have believed it." I'm sure she thinks she was muttering quietly, but she doesn't know how loud she can be sometimes. I was wondering what on earth she was on about at this hour of the morning (it was 10 to 8), so I went downstairs.

And saw Harry Potter, waiting patiently for my mum to finish buttering his bread, ravenously attacking his sausages. I'm sure he thinks I'm a bother, but I couldn't help myself - I squealed, then became so embarrassed that I promptly ran out of the room and into another, where I could hear what was going on. Why was he here? I thought he was supposed to be with his relatives, the Dursleys (Ron's told me bits and pieces about them, they sound awfully horrid)!

I know Ron had been writing to him, sending letters and stuff for a while now, since Hogwarts let out for the summer. We had even sent him a birthday card. It was my idea. But we hadn't heard a single word from him, and I know Ron was greatly distressed. He kept mumbling about how he thought the Dursleys were torturing him with strange Muggle type things. I thought he was being rather stupid, but it still had me rather worried. He even got Fred and George concerned about him, and I kept seeing them making plans for something (they never told me, and kept saying how I was "just a girl". That's when I hate having brothers.), and sometimes going into the shed and staying in there for quite some time. And now it was a week into August, and after not hearing a single word from Harry he had suddenly appeared in my kitchen! I'm sure my brothers were behind it somehow.

"Ginny", said Ron, in a voice I'm sure he thought I couldn't hear. I'm sure my eyes widened in surprise when I heard my name, I'm always told that they do that. I strained to hear what was going on. "My sister. She's been talking about you all summer."

Have not. Okay, maybe a few words here and there.. Wait. Fred was saying something.

"Yeah, she'll be wanting your autograph."

I most certainly do not! Okay, so I already have it. What? It's the summer, Ron doesn't need his books, I can't help it that I was looking through them to see what I'd be learning, noticed that he and Harry were practicing their signatures in strange handwriting, and carefully cut it out! Absolutely does not mean that I want his autograph.

I was pretty sure that they had stopped talking about me, so I decided to go up to my room and get as much sleep as I could today. I was walking by the hall mirror, when it took one look at me, and screamed, "My, what a mess!" I froze in horror, staring at my reflection. No! I looked awful! The mirror was right! And I let HARRY see me like this?!

I ran upstairs as fast as I could, and locked the door. I gazed at myself in my full length mirror, and was completely disappointed in what I saw.

I had never really paid attention to my appearance, but as I looked at myself, I tried to see myself through Harry's eyes, and saw myself as a.. little 11 year old girl. Of course, this made perfect sense to me, seeing as I happen to be a little 11 year old girl, but that was not the point. How could I possibly think that Harry would ever at least have a little bit of a crush on me? He's much older than I am. Okay, he's Ron's age, and Ron's only a year older than me. But he's older than me, and I'm sure he has a lot of pretty girls throwing himself at him. He's famous, after all! He must be used to that. Ron said that when Harry's name was called during the Sorting, everyone let out a huge gasp, and then when he was sorted into Gryffindor, there was a lot of applause. I think Ron said that Fred and George started shouting, "WE GOT POTTER! WE GOT POTTER!"

If Harry was used to a lot of girls practically dying for him, I must be completely different from what he's used to. I took in my height (short, which had never bothered me, but it made me seem so little), my blazing red hair, which looked too red and was simply out of control, my freckles scattered everywhere. I looked 8. The only thing that I thought wasn't so bad was my brown eyes. My nightgown was faded, and was too short - it ended right below my knees. It wasn't too tight on me, though, that's why I continued to wear it and didn't bug my mum to buy me a new one. She had told me to use everything for as long as I could, in order to save money. I don't know how long I sat there, staring at myself. I was in shock, I suppose. I can't believe that I came downstairs looking like THAT!

My window was open, for obvious reasons, it being summer. It was a really nice day out, I noticed, as I stuck my head out of the window and felt the breeze. It felt nice, and made me forget for a second that it was so hot out. My room overlooked the garden, and I could see Harry with Fred, George, and Ron, busy at degnoming. Probably mum's punishment for whatever they did. I still didn't know what they had done, but it was probably serious, as mum sounded pretty upset. I made sure they couldn't see me as I watched Harry try to throw his first gnome. I hoped he wouldn't have a problem with it. Then again, of course he won't! He's Harry Potter. He single handedly got rid of He Who Must Not Be Named. Dad told me that a lot of witches and wizards had tried to do what Harry did, and failed.

Ron demonstrated how to swing the gnome around in circles to make them dizzy, then release them so they fly over the hedge. The point of making them dizzy was so they couldn't find their way back. Harry took a gnome and tried to just drop it over the hedge, which was not a good idea. Gnomes aren't too nice, rather devious actually. If they sense that you'll skip all the swinging in the air and just try and drop them some place, like Harry.. they have teeth for a reason. They usually like to go for the fingers, or if they're in such a position, even the palm.

I winced as Harry was viciously attacked by his gnome.

It attached itself to his finger, and he had a look of surprise and shock on his face as he tried to shake it off. They may be slightly dull, but they know how to hang on. He waved his arm around wildly, and Fred and George stopped what they were doing to laugh. Ron was turning red from laughter.

"Why didn't you swing your gnome around in circles like I told you, Harry?" he managed, grinning.

"I.. I thought.."

"Well, do it now!" ordered Ron. Harry decided to do as he said and ignoring the pain, swung the gnome.

"Good, good. It's getting dizzy now, can't you see its face?"

"It looks like it's going to throw up!" added Fred. George nodded in agreement.

"I can't see it's face, you git! It's going around in circles!" shouted Harry. He swung faster and faster, and suddenly the gnome let go of his finger and flew off past the hedge.

"Wow, Harry - that must've been fifty feet.."

Now that they were really settling into their job, I got kind of bored watching them throw gnomes over the hedge. I decided that if Harry Potter was going to be staying at my house, he was going to see me. And I was going to look GOOD. Well, as good as a scrawny little 11 year old can manage to look. I brushed my hair, and put on pants and a shirt. I then heard dad slam the front door and I ran downstairs to greet him. I then saw my brothers and Harry tramp in and say hello, and I ducked into the same room that I was in earlier to listen. Hmm. Mum sounds mad.

"Imagine a wizard buying a rusty old car and telling his wife all he wanted to do with it was take it apart to see how it worked, while really he was enchanting it to make it fly."

Huh. Well, I now know that it has something to do with that car that Dad keeps in the shed.. I didn't know it could FLY! No one tells me anything.

"..There's a loophole in the law, you'll find ...as long as he wasn't intending to fly the car, the fact that the car could fly wouldn't -"

Dad's breaking the law! Or at least, he's breaking the loophole. Can you break a loophole? ..What's a loophole?

"Arthur Weasley, you made sure there was a loophole when you wrote that law! ...And for your information, Harry arrived this morning in the car you weren't intending to fly!"

Oh my. We have a flying car. And Harry arrived in the flying car! I'm pretty sure Harry isn't allowed to do magic over the summer, so he didn't summon the car to his house and drive over here. He didn't even know where we lived! So that means..

"Your sons flew that car to Harry's house and back last night!" shouted mum.

Dad and mum argued for a bit, and I realised that if any of them decided to wander in here, they'd find me eavesdropping, and mum had already yelled at me so many times for that, so I dashed up the 2 flights of stairs to my room. And it's a good thing that I did when I did, too, because after about 5 minutes, I heard Ron and Harry climbing up the stairs, Ron chattering about where everything was, stuff like that. I managed to make eye contact with Harry before total embarrassment at being caught staring came over me and I shut the door with a snap.

He has such nice green eyes.. Wait! They're talking about me again!

"Ginny," said a voice I recognised as Ron. "You don't know how weird it is for her to be this shy, she never shuts up normally -"

Well! I shut up every now and then! Ron is so rude when I'm not around! If he keeps up like this, I'll find myself a new favourite brother.