When Dad arrived and Ginny told him what had happened he became quite upset with Dumbledore and the man from the Ministry. She heard his shouts all the way from her room as they echoed through the hallways. Dumbledore and the ministry man had gathered outside her door along with the hospital director that seemed to also be on their sides. Nurse Sharon and Dad were on her side as the group argued about Fawkes.
Apparently her dad and Dumbledore were political allies in the Ministry, so the old man was surprised that Dad would stand up to him so much and wouldn’t back down. That made Ginny feel warm and fuzzy that Arthur was defending her so much. Her mood was brought down a little by the fact that one of the reasons Arthur was so mad at Dumbledore was because he blamed him for Ginny getting her memory erased and whatever had happened down there in the Chamber of Secrets. Dumbledore seemed rather stumped on how to respond to that, taking over ten seconds to provide any kind of coherent response before launching into some speech that she couldn’t make out through the closed door to her room.
Slightly bored and tired of straining her ears to listen in on the argument outside, Ginny decided to practice her magic like Balthazar had taught her. She looked around her to look for objects she could float around. Finally, she settled on a chair. It was a really big thing to start on, but Ginny was feeling ambitious today. It wasn’t like she had anything else to do really.
She almost went to raise her hand towards the chair before stopping herself and remembering what Balthazar said. Right, she should be able to make a tendril from any part of her body. She paused. Hey, did he mean any part? She stared at the chair hard and focused on her magic. Growing tree, sunshine and rain…
Right out of the tip of her nose a tendril of magic slowly reached out, extending one little bit at a time towards the chair across the room. Ginny went cross eyed trying to stare at the space where she knew the tendril was on the tip of her nose, but it was completely invisible. Maybe she felt a little tingle or buzzing sensation, but not enough that she could say for certain. But in her magic sense she could feel the tendril and its magic as clear as day. Well, it wasn’t really like sight, or like any other sensation. She just knew it was there and she kept her magic senses focused on just this room. She didn’t want to be sensing too much and end up getting distracted and throwing the chair really hard somewhere.
The magic tendril grew long enough that it lightly tapped the seat of the chair and started poking into it and spreading over it. Ginny waited a few seconds and watched as it spread over the large object. But eventually it stopped looking different, so Ginny started the next part. Visualizing the tree of her magic tendril slowly bending, the chair slowly lifted until it was floating a few inches off of the ground.
She practiced moving the chair around a few inches off the ground around the whole room, feeling that same excitement for using magic that she had when Balthazar was teaching her. She lifted the chair higher off the ground and began to gently rotate it in the air. This one was a bit strange with the tree image, but Ginny managed to figure out something passable after a minute or two. The adults were still arguing loudly outside.
Ginny started breathing heavily and sweating as she rotated and floated the chair around on the magic tendril poking out of her nose. She held it for a few more seconds and adjusted the chair so it floated over to where it had begun and settled right where it had begun. Ginny let out a long breath as she made her magic tendril release and start to retract. It reversed until it was just in front of her nose again. Ginny watched cross eyed as it shrank, but again didn’t see anything with her eyes.
After a second or two, the tendril sank back beneath her skin and dissipated back into her body. She stared proudly at the chair that was in the exact same place it had been only a few minutes ago. She wiped her brow and her lungs burned like she had just been sprinting around. She noticed that her magic was drained in comparison to how vibrant and active it normally was within her body. She settled back onto the pillows of the bed. Maybe that was enough of that for today. Who knew magic could be so exhausting? She wondered if it had been more inefficient because the chair was larger and far away or if it was always that draining to make the magic tendrils.
She didn’t think the tendrils should take so much of her magic, but Balthazar had said that that bone crown was making sure she wouldn’t run out of energy. So maybe it had kept her from feeling how expensive it was while she trained in the other world. She should really ask Balthazar what it was called next time she went. If she ever ended up going again.
She would definitely figure out how to go back eventually. She was sure she would learn a lot from Balthazar when she went. Maybe give herself some time to really master what he had shown her first to really wow him, though.
Eventually the noise died down from the argument outside as the adults decided to go to the Ministry to resolve things. Sharon had stayed behind to watch over Ginny while Dad went to go plead her case to the government.
— — —
An hour later, Dad returned. Ginny thought he was done and asked if it was okay for Fawkes to be her familiar. But apparently the government couldn’t decide things that fast, and so it would still be a while before they knew the answer. But luckily they couldn’t just break the familiar bond she had with Fawkes without a huge amount of justification for it, so they’d probably know way ahead of time before anything actually happened.
Also Dad talked about how Dumbledore had undercut his credibility by trying to intimidate her while she was in the hospital, so he would have a harder chance of winning the case than he normally would.
But everything was in motion now, and all they could do was wait for more things to happen as the government started doing paperwork or… argue about it? Ginny wasn’t totally sure what they were waiting for, but Dad assured her that it would be a while.
So now it was time for them to go home. Ginny walked behind Dad as they left the hospital, happy to be out of the confining bed after what felt like forever. The nurses hadn’t wanted her to walk around at all just in case she fell or her magic went out of control, so she had mostly sat around and been bored for this whole time.
Ginny was a little nervous as they got in Dad’s beat up old blue car riddled with all sorts of enchantments. This was the big moment, to see if returning to her old house made her remember anything. And she would finally be meeting Molly - Mom for the first time for real. Molly hadn’t spoken to Ginny much before her episode of out of control magic, so Ginny felt like she knew nothing about the woman at all.
Eventually they arrived at the fantastical house. Ginny pulsed her magic sense and inspected the outside of it curiously. Wow, the whole thing was infused with all sorts of enchantments and thrumming with magic!
Dad looked hopeful as Ginny kept staring at the house.
“Seem familiar?”
Ginny tore her eyes from the house and looked at him,
“What? Oh, no. It is just really interesting.”
“Ah.”
They went inside where the plump woman Molly was waiting. She was hovering by the door and went for a hug as soon as Ginny went through the door. Ginny was swept up in her arms before she could even react. After a few seconds the woman released her and inspected her and met her gaze.
“Don’t you worry,” Molly said, “You’ll remember now that you’re home.”
Ginny glanced at Dad.
“Molly…” He said in a warning tone.
“Right, right,” the woman said, “We’ll be patient, let’s just show you around then.”
Ginny was given the big tour of the whole cluttered house, going room to room. Eventually she was shown to her room. There was a stack of books piled up on a bookshelf and a wooden chest at the foot of the bed that was closed.
“This is my room?” Ginny said in wonder as the three of them walked in. With all three of them in the space it was a little cramped but there was still some space to move around in.
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“Yes. I know it’s a little…”
“It’s huge!” Ginny said, “All of this space is just for me? Is this all my stuff?”
Molly and Dad shared a look.
“Yes, Ginny. This is all yours,” Molly said, “This is your room. Do you… is anything familiar?”
Ginny walked forward and flopped onto the bed and rolled over to feel how large it was.
“No. It’s all new,” She said before rolling around a bit on the bed, “But it's nice. Bigger than even Dudley’s room was.”
“Dudley? Who’s that?” Molly asked sharply and Ginny sat up from the bed and looked at the woman.
“Dudley?” Ginny asked, “I was just saying this room was really big.”
“You said a name. Dudley,” Dad said from the side, “Does that name sound familiar?”
Ginny thought about it for a second and her memories swirled and something odd was attached to the name…
“I don’t like Dudley,” Ginny eventually stated, “I don’t remember why though… And not as much as I don’t like Eric.”
The two adults looked confused and asked more questions, but Ginny couldn’t remember anything more than she remembered someone named Dudley and she didn’t like him.
Eventually the tour continued after it became clear Ginny didn’t know anything else and Molly and Dad showed her the rest of the house. Ginny didn’t feel familiar about any of it and her memories stayed firmly in place even if all of it was all very interesting to see.
Molly was disappointed that Ginny didn’t remember anything else, but tried to not let it show. Molly cooked them a meal and it was very good, way better than the hospital food had been. Ginny complimented it, which Molly liked.
“You’ve never been all that interested in cooking, Ginny,” Molly said, “Perhaps now is the time to learn if you’d like?”
“Sure, that sounds fun. Is it hard?” Ginny asked easily.
Molly shook her head with a smile, “No, just takes some getting used to is all. You’ll see when we start. How about we make dinner tomorrow together for your father?”
“Sure. Are you going back to work again, Dad?”
The man nodded, “I’ve got tomorrow off and then back to work the day after if everything goes well. I’d like to take more time, but well… My department seems to be having some trouble without me. I suppose that’s one way to get a raise! All of them are realizing how important everything I was doing to their own work now that I’m gone for so long.”
“It’s a good thing, I say,” Molly said with a huff, “Everyone not appreciating how hard you work…”
“What do you do, Dad?” Ginny suddenly asked, “You work at the Ministry, right? Do you arrest people?”
Dad chuckled, “No, the most I usually deal with is giving people fines. I do work along with Aurors who do the arresting for more serious cases, but I’m just tagging along usually. I work at the misuse of muggle artifacts office. Many times people enchant muggle items improperly or leave them where muggles can find them which can cause all sorts of trouble. It’s my job to go around and make sure that people who do that are punished.”
“That sounds important,” Ginny said, “Do you break the enchantments yourself or does someone else do it? What if someone disenchants an item right before you and the Aurors catch them?”
Arthur got a strange look on his face, “Disenchant? That’s a very complex process, Ginny. Usually we just lock them away. Someone can’t just disenchant something in an instant, it takes some time and a specialist if you don’t want to get hurt.”
“It is? But… It’s supposed to be hard?” Ginny asked in confusion.
Dad chuckled and gestured around at the walls around them.
“This whole house is enchanted all over the place. Why, it might even collapse without the support of our enchantments! It’s been standing here for generations and nothing bad has happened to it yet.”
Ginny nodded several times, “I know, but isn’t it so scary? I mean if someone injected their magic right there the whole enchantment on that wall would collapse! What if someone came in and did that while we were sleeping!”
She raised her finger to point at the weak point in the enchantment on the wall that she had been trying to resist poking with her magic the whole time they stood there. Both of the adults turned to point at the section of the wall she was pointing at.
“Ginny, what are you pointing to?” Molly asked, “I don’t see anything.”
“The enchantment on that wall,” Ginny said, “Can’t you feel it? With your magic sense? There’s a bunch of holes in it, just a little magic in it in the wrong spot and it might shatter!”
The two adults looked at the offending wall and took a step back from it.
Arthur peered at her closely, “What is this ‘magic sense’, Ginny? Are you saying you can see magic?”
“Well, it’s not like seeing. It’s hard to describe, I just know everything that’s there,” Ginny said, “Did I not use the right word? It’s the thing where you feel the magic around you?”
“Ginny, when did this happen?” Arthur said slowly.
Ginny tilted her head slightly to the side, confused.
“Happen?” Ginny said, “I’ve always been like this. Do you not have a magic sense? You must feel so blind, not able to sense all the enchantments covering this place!”
Arthur stood and gestured to Ginny, “Follow me, let’s test this. I’ve got a few enchanted knick knacks in the garage.”
“Arthur…” Molly warned, a slightly disturbed look on her face as she looked at Ginny. Ginny shrunk back. What had she done wrong? She was just trying to help. Were other people really not able to use their magic sense like she could? That was so sad…
Ginny followed Dad to the garage, Molly trailing behind them.
He rustled around in the cabinets of what looked like his workbench before pulling out three strange metallic parts. Ginny looked at them and tried to figure out what they were for.
“They’re for the car,” Dad supplied as he saw her curiosity, “I built that thing top to bottom by enchanting bits like these one at a time.”
Ginny turned around to look at the car parked outside with new appreciation. No wonder the whole felt like it was enchanted if he had enchanted each part individually as he built it. She looked back at her Dad, impressed.
He straightened and smiled slightly as he saw how she was looking at him. “Really fascinating project, getting the enchantments to work without interfering with one another…”
“Arthur!” Molly snapped, “Weren’t you doing something?”
Dad looked down at the items sitting on the bench. “Oh, right. Ginny, can you tell me which of these are enchanted? You’re saying you can feel the magic, right?”
“Sure. The center one’s not enchanted, and the left and right ones are,” Ginny said, “You really can’t tell?”
“No… No I can’t. I just remember which is which,” Dad said while looking between her and the parts on the workbench. He did the same test with different parts each time and Ginny pointed out the enchanted ones easily each time.
“Should I disenchant one of them too?” She asked, “I don’t want to break one if they are hard to make…”
Dad shook his head and took out his wand. He pointed at one of the unenchanted metal bits and said some strange words. Ginny felt something shoot out of his wand in her magic sense and impact the object before sinking into it and forming a basic enchantment.
“Whoa, so that’s how you do it…” Ginny said in amazement. The enchantment had so many threads of pulsing magic covering the object, she couldn’t even see how hard it must be when she was still working on lifting things with her magic without throwing them around too much.
Dad handed her the thing, and Ginny looked at it for a second and injected her magic into one of the massive weak points covering the thing. But her dad had cast it in only a few seconds, of course it wouldn’t be perfect.
Her magic spiked into the object and the enchantment shattered. She handed it back.
“Done.”
Arthur eyed the object before saying more words and waving his wand over the object. A wave of magic washed over the metal bit before retreating back into the wand.
“Well, by Merlin,” Dad said in wonder, “You really did it. Could be a fluke. Just one more time to be sure…”
They repeated the same thing again, Dad making extra sure that the thing was enchanted properly before handing it over to Ginny so she could break it.
He stared at it for a long time, just turning it over after he was done.
“So? Do you believe me?” Ginny asked.
Dad put the metal object on the workbench and kneeled down to Ginny’s level, looking into her eyes. He put his hands on her shoulders and had a very serious look on his face.
“Ginny, you can’t tell anyone except us about this. It has to be our secret, or people will… this is a very useful skill, and people will be bothering you all the time if you let them know you have it. Can you promise me, to keep it a secret between you, me, and your mother?”
Ginny jerkily nodded, taken by surprise by the red haired man’s sudden seriousness. “What about my brothers?” She asked, “Should I tell them?”
Molly and Arthur shared a look before Dad looked back at her. “Not for now,” he said, “Me and your mother will discuss it later about telling them. Don’t feel bad, this is a wonderful gift you have. But you have to be careful about who knows about it. Do you get it?”
“I think so?” Ginny said, “Mean people like that Dumbledore might want me to disenchant things for him.”
Dad snorted, “Yes. Mean people like Dumbledore. Exactly right.”
He released her shoulders and stood up again, “How about I show you all the enchantments I can make? Must be interesting when you can see them for yourself.”
“Yeah! Show me, that was really cool when you shot that enchantment out of your wand.”
Dad spent some time applying various enchantments and explaining what they did to Ginny as she felt the magic shoot out of his wand and apply the different enchantments over and over again. At some point Molly had left, Ginny barely even noticing when the woman went with how much fun she was having with Dad.