It was the next day and Ginny was helping Molly with the cooking. They were chopping the vegetables at the moment to put in the stew. It felt oddly familiar as Ginny went and helped. Molly had been rather surprised that Ginny was picking it up so quickly, her old self hadn’t cooked very much according to her.

Ginny considered telling Molly about her odd familiarity with cooking, but decided to not to. The woman had constantly freaked out when Ginny expressed interest in anything in the house yesterday. Each time she seemed to hope it would be the sudden breakthrough that would restore Ginny’s memories to how they were before.

So Ginny didn’t tell Molly when things started feeling familiar. She didn’t want to upset the woman who she still couldn’t see as her mom. Molly seemed to want some other girl to return, eager for the new and strange Ginny to disappear again. It was sad, but Ginny cheered up by remembering that she at least had Dad. He seemed to understand and talk to her like she was her own person at least. Even if he wanted her memories to return too.

After they were done chopping, they put the chopped vegetables and meat in the pot and left it to bubble and simmer.

“Very good, Ginny!” Molly praised, “Wasn’t that good? Now to just make the sides. We’ll lay them out on the tray with some oil on top and get them cooking. For some of the roasted vegetables.”

The two of them laid out the vegetables on the large metal tray and sprinkled some oil on top. Molly picked it up and put it in the enchanted oven before closing the door.

“Alright, Ginny. All done, now we just have to wait!” Molly said in a false excited tone. Was she trying to make it sound more interesting so Ginny would want to do it again? Ginny didn’t mind doing it, it was sort of relaxing to do. But she wouldn’t call it exciting or anything like that.

Molly took the time to show Ginny how to set the table. She had forgotten so Molly had to teach her from scratch.

After forty minutes or so, the food was about ready. Dad had come back in from the garage and cleaned himself off with a single spell from his wand. Wow, Ginny could see why people would be so tempted to use them all the time if they were that convenient…

Dad trailed behind as Molly and Ginny went forward to do the last few steps for the stew. Molly took a few leaves of a herb and sprinkled them on top of the broth before giving it a critical eye and nodding. The woman went over to the oven, “Stay back, Ginny it’s hot,” she said firmly before she pulled out the tray from the oven. Her back was turned to Ginny and Ginny could feel the heat wash over her as she stood there suddenly frozen. The memories swirled in her mind, suddenly churning furiously as everything grew distant and muted around her.

“Ginny? Ginny, are you alright?” the red haired man said from behind her in concern. Her dad, but she never knew her parents? He couldn’t be her dad. A hand landed on Ginny’s shoulder, but she didn’t react. Her eyes were glazed over as strange disjointed memories washed over her.

The woman turned around with the tray in her hands quickly and started to say something in concern. Ginny had a flash of a horrible memory. An impact on her head, a spray of blood, hitting her head on the floor, darkness!

She reached out her hand and felt her magic rising to respond to her panic, grabbing the tray and getting it away from her. The red haired woman… Red? Why was her hair red? The woman let out a gasp and stumbled to the side as the metal tray was torn from her grip and went shooting high speed into a nearby wall. Ginny kept her magic on it and kept pressing as hard as she could until it was crushed into a wedge of metal, vegetables sent flying and scattered all over the place.

There was a grip on her shoulder that had grown tight. The red haired woman looked upset and took a step towards her.

“Ginny! What are you doing?”

Ginny cringed back and held her hands at the ready, but the woman luckily stopped approaching with a hurt expression on her face. The woman cared what she thought about her? What? Something… What… Ginny looked up into the concerned face of her Dad and suddenly came back to herself. She quickly went up and hugged him, feeling horrible. She was breathing heavily and her heart was racing. Why had she done that? Molly could have been really hurt if that tray had hit her!

“Shhh. Shhh. It’s okay, Ginny,” Dad said as she stood there silently hugging him, “We’re not mad. You’ll be okay. It’s all fine…”

Eventually, Ginny managed to calm herself down, her breathing and heart rate smoothing out. She let go of Dad and looked between the two concerned adults.

“Sorry…” She said, “I don’t know what came over me…”

“What happened?” Dad said, “Just run us through it step by step. Take as long as you like.”

Ginny did her best, but it didn’t make any sense even to herself. She had just gotten a deep sense of danger when she had seen the tray and thought that Molly was about to… hit her with it?

She told them about her memory of being hit with a tray then hitting her head on a hard tile floor. But other than that everything was still fuzzy, and even as Ginny waited the memories sank deeper into her mind, fading back into obscurity again.

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After a few minutes more of the adults cleaning up and fussing over her to make sure she was alright, they returned to have the soup for dinner. It was very good soup, but none of them said too much as they ate. Half way through, Ginny paused as her spoon was half way to her mouth. There still was plenty of soup left. Yes, that would cheer everyone up! Fawkes had always helped her, maybe it would work on her parents too?

“Hey, can I call Fawkes here so he can have some soup?” Ginny asked suddenly, “It’s good, we should see what he thinks about it.”

Both adults blinked in surprise. “A Phoenix is dangerous and…” Molly began, but a look from Dad made her stop. They had a staring contest for a few seconds before Dad turned to Ginny.

“Go ahead, Ginny. I’ll go get another bowl for him.”

“Thanks, Dad!”

She tugged gently on her familiar bond as Dad stood from his chair and walked over to the kitchen to get the extra bowl.

Molly looked like she wanted to argue, opening and closing her mouth several times, but eventually didn’t end up saying anything.

After a few seconds delay, Ginny felt the other end of the familiar bond tug back and then a giant ball of flame appeared next to her, causing Molly to gasp in surprise. The flames died down and there Fawkes sat sitting on the floor and inspecting the surroundings with little jerks of his head. His wings were slightly flared out as if he was ready to jump into the air and start flying at any moment. He looked at Ginny and trilled a long note.

“No, Fawkes. I’m not in any danger. This is my house,” Ginny said, “We were having dinner. I was wondering if you wanted to try some of this soup? I think it’s pretty good.”

Fawkes his head to the side and chirped.

“Oh, of course! Here, I’ll pull out a chair for you.”

Ginny reached over and pulled back the chair next to her so it was out from under the table. She let go and a second later, Fawkes leapt up onto the chair and sat there calmly.

Molly looked frozen, holding her hand in the pockets of her robes while eyeing the phoenix suspiciously. Dad had been surprised by Fawkes’ appearance, but quickly recovered and came over and after using the ladle to fill the bowl with some soup carefully placed it in front of Fawkes. He eyed the bird cautiously and moved slowly as he did so, but didn’t seem nearly as tense as Molly was.

Fawkes chirped as the bowl was placed in front of him.

“Fawkes says thank you, Dad,” She said.

He blinked, “You’re very welcome… Fawkes.”

He sat back at the table and watched as Fawkes craned his neck forward and dipped his beak in the soup and opened his beak and swallowed one of the meat chunks floating around in the soup.

He started drinking the broth and eating the little floating chunks, looking like he was hungry. After the adults saw the bird enjoying the soup, they slowly started eating their own meals again.

Eventually they finished, Ginny refilling Fawkes bowl two more times after he finished the first one.

“You ate so much!” Ginny told Fawkes, “Do you eat this much all the time?”

Fawkes chirped and she frowned.

“Huh. It’s only when you use your flames to travel around that it’s so much? I guess that makes sense. I’ll try not to call you if there’s no food around then. Do you mind? If I use our bond to call you to come have dinner with us sometimes?”

Fawkes chirped.

“Okay. I’ll try to tug extra hard if I’m in danger. Like this.”

Ginny reached for her familiar bond and tugged hard, much harder than she had the first time. Fawkes flinched slightly. Then he did the same back to her and she flinched too. It was like someone had put a hook in her gut and tugged really hard on it for a few seconds before letting go.

Fawkes chirped.

“Okay. I’ll try to come too if you do it. But you’re the one that can teleport so it’s probably easier if you come to me.”

Chirp.

“I can learn too? Oh, that’s exciting. At that Hogwarts place?”

Chirp.

“Oh,” Ginny slumped slightly, “Six years is a long time. That long?”

Fawkes let out a long trill.

“Rats. That stinks. Do you want to stay for a while? Or go somewhere else?”

She suddenly looked at her parents whose eyes were bouncing back and forth as they watched them talking to each other.

“If it’s okay?” Ginny asked her parents, “Can he stay over if he wants to?”

“Yes, Ginny, that should be fine,” Dad quickly said before Molly could say anything, “So long as he doesn’t damage anything and you tell us and get permission to have him over ahead of time. Right, Molly?”

Molly grumbled a bit and looked frustrated but nodded as well in agreement. Yay!

Ginny turned back to Fawkes, “So? You want to stay here or go home? Actually, where do you live? With that mean old man Dumbledore?”

Fawkes trilled and let out a harsh click at the end.

“What? Really? So he’s just jealous of us then? He used magic to create a one sided familiar bond with you? That couldn’t have been nice for you.”

Fawkes chirped.

“He’s not all mean? I don’t know, if you say so… But you’re staying with him? He’s not forcing you to be there or anything?”

Chirp.

“Ah, good. I guess we shouldn’t make him more jealous than he already is.”

Chirp.

“Okay. Bye Fawkes. Hope I see you soon!”

Fawkes off the chair onto the ground again and burst into a big roaring ball of flame and disappeared. The floor was left spotless and unburned in his wake.

Ginny turned to her parents, feeling much better than before.

“See? He’s an intelligent person, not just an animal!” She said, “Those Ministry people don’t know what they’re talking about.”

Dad rubbed his chin thoughtfully and looked at the spot where Fawkes had disappeared from.

“Perhaps not, perhaps not…”

With dinner finished, they put away the dishes in the sink and went to bed. Ginny settled under the covers and used her magic sense to observe the enchanted tools in the sink wash and clean the dirty dishes.

There really were enchantments for everything in this place…