Runaway Witch

Prologue: Fleeing

Ginny Weasley ran through the fields behind the Burrow, through the grey light of the pre-dawn morning. She shifted her knapsack as she ran, trying to make it to the nearby Muggle train station in Ottery St. Catchpole. She couldn't live in this war-ravaged world any longer. People were forever dying around her, while Ginny herself could not do a thing to stop it. She found the train, used the Muggle money she had received in exchange for her own savings, and bought a ticket to London. It would be easy enough to escape, go to another country, find another place to live in. She had been practicing her memory-altering charms during the last year, researching in between revising for her OWLs.

The train pulled out of the small Muggle town and headed across the countryside of Cornwall. Ginny pulled her plane ticket out of her bag. She had also been secretly studying Muggle computing over the past two years and had managed to escape to a Muggle Internet Café during a recent Diagon Alley trip. Hacking into the British Airways site had been fairly easy, and within minutes she had a ticket on the way to her. Along with the ticket, she had the Muggle passport provided by the Ministry of Magic four years previously when she had travelled with her family to visit Bill in Egypt.

Bill. He had been missing the last six months. Charlie had vanished earlier and Percy had been killed at the same time as Bill's disappearance. The twins were at the front line of battle and next year Harry, Ron and Hermione would be joining them. Ginny couldn't just sit by any longer and watch those she loved be killed, knowing she couldn't do anything and was a liability.

"Next Station, King's Cross. All change please. This is our last stop."

Ginny looked up at the announcer's call. She had to change trains to get to Heathrow. Stepping onto the platform, she looked up. She was on platform 9, and the barrier to platform 9 and three-quarters was only 100 metres away. She turned her back on the barrier and strode towards the concourse area.

Now, which way to go? She didn't have the faintest idea which way to turn or which train to get on. Ginny vaguely remembered from Muggle Studies that something called The Underground went to the airport. But where could she catch this?

Ah-ha! Ahead of her was an information booth.

"Excuse me. Do you know where the train to Heathrow leaves from?" Ginny asked.

"Go down the escalators up there on the right and to the Piccadilly line on the Tube."

Sure enough, the train was there and, within a few hours, Ginny was on a plane to the one place on earth where she believed she would be safe.

As she exited Los Angeles Airport, she looked around for the bus she knew would be there. There were only a few more changes before she exited at her destination. A small town a few hours from Los Angeles.

Sunnydale.