Ginny opened her eyes and looked down. Fawkes was resting next to her on the bed, looking like he was asleep. She was in the hospital again, the whole place dark and quiet. It must be night time. She looked up as she saw a reddish portal twice the size of her fist open up just above her. The bone necklace with the red gem that Balthazar showed her before fell through and dropped towards her, the portal closing behind it just after it went through. She reached out and caught it before it hit her. She glanced at Fawkes, but he didn’t move.

She stared at the massive red gem with darkness swirling inside of it. The large teeth and bone strung along the exterior of the silver chain. Was she really going to put it on? Wear it forever? But then she remembered losing control of herself, and decided to go through with it. She injected her magic into the red gym and lifted the necklace and after sitting up put it over her head.

Her long red hair was caught under the chain and she reached out to pull her hair out and over it so the chain would rest against the back of her neck. The gem hung down and sat heavy on her chest as the bone bits poked her skin and caught on her hospital gown.

Hadn’t Balthazar said that there would be…

Her magic was flowing through the necklace and suddenly there was a click in Ginny’s mind and she could feel the necklace like it was a part of her. Just like how the crown had felt while she was in Balthazar’s realm.

She explored the feeling of the necklace. With a flicker of her will, the necklace shimmered and slowly disappeared from sight, the bright red gem by her chest disappearing last. The bony bits were still uncomfortable, and Ginny activated the second enchantment and over the course of the next minute the necklace suddenly shifted and moved until it felt weightless, only the tiniest amount of pressure on her skin where it sat. She reached up and grabbed where she could feel and her hand passed through the place where she knew the necklace’s chain sat. It was intangible.

She let out a sigh of relief as the necklace gently hummed with magic, sitting there protecting her. Now all she had to do was keep it on forever or some unspecified super horrible thing might happen to her. No problem at all.

The door opened and a man in healer’s robes poked his head in, looking like he was trying to be quiet about it. Ginny met his look as he was startled as he saw that she was awake.

“Hello,” Ginny whispered so she wouldn’t wake up Fawkes, “I’m awake now.”

The man nodded, seeming stunned and closed the door again. He went outside and Ginny heard some whispering outside as he spoke with someone else that was walking by. Over the next five minutes or so, Ginny watched through her magic sense as the healers started moving quicker and moving about more as news seemed to spread that she was awake.

An hour later, her family arrived all at once through the floo. They immediately came up and entered her room. They were all rather emotional and happy that she was awake and seemed fine. They did wake up Fawkes from his sleep though with all of their noise. After his initial excitement at seeing that Ginny was awake again, he curled back up again and fell right back asleep, ignoring the noise around him as Ginny talked with her family. It was the night of three days. They told Ginny about all sorts of things about the man that had attacked her. Peter Pettigrew.

Everyone thought that he was on the run, just barely escaping after losing his wand after getting blasted by her accidental magic. Ginny knew that Balthazar and her other… subject? Soldier? Had actually captured him and threw him through the portal to the other realm. She could probably convince everyone that Balthazar and the other realm were real at this point. She had the necklace that she could show them, and all of her freeform magic that she apparently shouldn’t be able to use so easily.

But did she want to? Maybe it would just be best to keep it to herself for now. It was good that the government was looking for Pettigrew. Maybe they could find out why he had attacked her and if he was working with anybody.

When the Aurors came she just claimed to not remember much besides the words that Pettigrew had said and that he had turned himself into a rat to sneak in. The Aurors got very excited when she told them that, apparently it wasn’t something they had known. Turning into animals was very hard apparently. Animagus? That’s what they called people who could do it. They guessed that Peter must have replaced the real Scabbers sometime after Ron left the Hogwarts express train at King’s cross Station in order to sneak into their house through the wards.

Ginny had to talk around why she had thought that Peter was a magic rat without actually telling the Aurors about her magic sense. But the Aurors didn’t seem too suspicious and accepted her disjointed bumbling explanation at face value of just having a vague ‘feeling’ that she didn’t have any reason for the feeling at all.

The Aurors left and Ginny spent more time with her family.

— — —

“Surely she can wait until she’s old enough to be responsible? Be reasonable Arthur, I doubt you wish to be responsible for caring for a phoenix as well as your other children.”

“Dumbledore, you know how much I respect you. But I can’t budge on this. You’ve forced us to this point. All she wants is to spend time with Fawkes, all this talk of ownership and custody… She doesn’t care, and frankly I don’t either so long as the Phoenix can visit her as he wishes to. Why can’t you budge on this point? It would resolve all of this in an instant.”

Dumbledore frowned at Arthur, “That phoenix is dangerous. It’s irresponsible for the bird to be around a child without me there to restrain him in the case of an incident. As I’ve said before, I’d allow visits with written permission from myself for her. But I can’t allow her to summon my phoenix from my own study whenever she is in the mood to do so.”

“And what about Pettigrew!” Arthur snapped, “Ginny almost died, even with Fawkes there to protect her! If you had your way, then Ginny would be dead. You told us all that that man was dead, and he was alive this whole time? An animagus? Why should my daughter have to ask your permission to see her friend?”

“You overstate things. She will be disappointed, but will recover when given something new to focus on.”

“It’s you that’s wrong Dumbledore. You haven’t seen them, she’s more attached to that bird then she is to anyone else in our family. Including me.”

Dumbledore blinked, seemingly stunned by Arthur’s admission.

“Truly? That much?”

“Yes. Must we proceed with this court case then? Can’t we come to a reasonable agreement?”

Dumbledore stood there for a moment, stroking his beard before nodding to himself.

“Very well,” He said, “I will sell the Phoenix to you. I bought him for eight hundred galleons, so I expect the same price for him in exchange.”

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Arthur stiffened. How dare he? He knew their financial situation, they barely had enough money for tuition and school supplies let alone anything like that.

Dumbledore noticed his glare, “Now, don’t think me cruel. I will accept a loan. A no interest loan even. I will give you the phoenix up front, and you will pay me back where you can until you have reached the full amount.”

Arthur puffed up to protest and even raised a finger to point at Dumbledore, before pausing and considering the deal. That was more money than their family had seen in years. But didn’t he owe Ginny at least this much after everything they had let happen to her? Memories erased from who knows what happened to her down in the Chamber of Secrets, the attack by Pettigrew… Arthur didn’t like being in Dumbledore’s debt. But it was probably the best deal he was going to get.

He sighed and lowered his finger, “Very well,” He found himself saying, “I suppose that would be acceptable.”

“Excellent. I will have my lawyers draw up the contract and we can put this nastiness behind us.”

“Yes.”

Dumbledore walked off and Arthur watched him leave. He was under no illusions of what the debt meant even if it was technically ‘interest free’. In the Ministry he would have no choice but to bend to Dumbledore’s whims or risk being forced to make an ‘early payment’ of his debts. He had worked for Dumbledore and his goals out of his own convictions before, but… now he knew that no matter what he believed there would no longer be any disagreement. Not for as long as the debt was hanging over his head.

Arthur snorted slightly. All his political positions would remain the same, it’s just now he knew that Dumbledore was not the benevolent old man that Arthur had thought him to be. What was he complaining for? He had worked with Lucius Malfoy of all people to push through this court case to the point where Dumbledore had felt threatened enough to offer that compromise to him.

He could deal with working with people he disliked. Even if he had hoped that Dumbledore wouldn’t be one of them. Arthur received the contract from Dumbledore’s lawyers a few hours later and had his own look it over. It was clean, exactly what he had discussed with Dumbledore with no loopholes.

Arthur worried about how they would afford to feed the voracious phoenix when they were so poor already… But then had a thought and asked his lawyers to check his idea. They came back and seemed slightly amazed that he was correct. Arthur smiled and signed the contract. Seems that true familiars were given special consideration in the Hogwarts charter. When Ginny went to school in the fall… It was required that her familiar be housed and fed to its satisfaction while she was learning there.

His family could afford to buy a little extra food over the summer. It left his mind clear as he handed the contract over his lawyers to notarize. He was just glad this was all over for now.

Speaking of which, it was already nearly the end of July. They would have to decide what was to be done about Ginny’s schooling. Despite everything, it was a discussion that must be had with Dumbledore as the Hogwarts Headmaster… He’d give it a week to settle before the contract was signed to let some of the bad feelings bleed away before scheduling the meeting. And he’d have to get Ginny her wand, he was sure she’d be excited to be able to do some proper magic for the first time in her few months of memory.

— — —

Ginny scrunched her nose as the old man Olivander put wand after wand in her hands. He muttered and seemed quite confused as she didn’t respond to any of the wands he had available.

Eventually he stopped and stood there, rubbing his chin and looking her over thoughtfully.

“Hmmm. A difficult one,” He eventually said, “First one in five years that hasn’t responded at all to any of my normal wands.”

Ginny spoke up, “I heard that there are wands made of phoenix’s feathers, right? I’m Ginny Weasley, the girl who had the phoenix familiar. Do you think it’s… because of that? Does my wand have to be made out of his feathers?”

Olivander snapped his fingers and his eyes lit up, “Ms. Weasley, that’s exactly it! I knew, but overlooked it. Ah, I was overcomplicating it of course. Your idea makes sense. If you bring a feather he willingly gives to you, then I can quickly make a custom wand for it to be housed in.”

“Will this be expensive?” Dad asked from behind her nervously.

Olivander waved him off, “Ah, not at all. Standard price is seven galleons as you know. Point of pride, you know. Not many other wandmakers can compete with my prices. Since you’re providing the main core material, I’ll consider it even with the extra work I’ll do to create it. The core material, such as unicorn hair, phoenix feathers and the like are the most expensive parts. When it’s ready, the price will still be seven galleons.”

Dad let out a sigh of relief, “Well, that’s a relief.”

Olivander nodded, “Well, after you have the feather, simply come back while the shop is open to give it to me. It should take about a week after that before the wand is ready. I’ve already determined your wood and wand length from how the other wands have responded so far. Far too weak for any of them to act as a true wand for you, but enough to determine your magic’s preferences…”

“Thank you, sir,” Ginny said.

“You're most welcome, Ms. Weasley. See you soon.”

— — —

Ginny stared at her new wand as Molly and Dad waited with her in front of the family fireplace. She had gone to visit Balthazar when she slept nearly every day now. They hadn’t done too much, mostly just more telepathy practice with the room with the floating metal balls. Balthazar was gradually speeding up his throws and getting her to deflect multiple at once. It was harder than controlling the leaves had been since she had to create a magic tendril, grab the ball, then push it away gently in a short time, which took a lot of focus.

The leaves she had just held in place with her magic tendrils and moved around herself, so it had been a little easier. But Ginny was improving slowly under Balthazar’s guidance. Balthazar had been very dismissive of her using a wand, but grudgingly admitted that she could be using one so long as she didn’t become too reliant on it.

The fireplace in front of them lit up with green flames and the three walked through and entered Headmaster Dumbledore’s office. Ginny didn’t like him very much, but Fawkes was living with them full time now so maybe he wasn’t all bad… She should try to be polite since he was the Headmaster of the school she would be going to soon. Or that’s what her parents kept saying before they had come here.

“Ah, Arthur, Molly. Molly, it’s been a long time since we’ve spoken…” Dumbledore began after the three of them sat opposite of his giant desk in the cluttered office. The adults continued politely discussing their lives and how they were doing as if Dad and Dumbledore hadn’t just been in a big legal battle less than a month ago. But eventually, Dumbledore turned to her.

“How about you, Ms. Weasley? Are you enjoying having Fawkes staying with you?”

“Yes, it’s good,” Ginny said a little reluctantly, “We got Fawkes a perch in my room. He sleeps in there with me all the time. It’s nice, he’s like a heater keeping things nice and toasty.”

Dumbledore chuckled politely and glanced at her parents, “I suppose he does have that purpose, I did have to have some cooling enchantments on my office while he was here so my possessions wouldn’t be so damaged by him…”

Ginny frowned, but Dumbledore quickly moved on without stopping.

“But we are not here to talk about the past, but the future,” Dumbledore finished.

“Now,” Dumbledore said, “Technically you have already been through your first year of Hogwarts, despite your memory loss. Before we begin I’d like to ask what you think, Ms. Weasley. Would you like to return to this school as a second year? Or start anew as a first year?”

Ginny held up her wand that was in her hand. “But I don’t know how to cast spells through a wand yet. Wouldn’t I be behind everyone else?”

Dumbledore nodded, “You would. I do not recommend it, but it is possible if you work hard to catch up before the end of your school year. I am required to give you the option, the rules did not account for a situation quite as severe as yours.”

“I’d rather be a first year,” Ginny said honestly, “Everything’s new to me either way. ”

“Very well. You’ll be resorted during the opening ceremony and be admitted as a new student to our school. Good luck on the new beginning of your magical education.”

There was a moment of silence as no one said anything.

“Ah, I am not used to meetings this short,” Dumbledore said cheerfully, “A breath of fresh air, in fact. Is that all, or is there anything you’d wish to discuss? Molly, Arthur?”

Her parents shook their heads, “No, thank you Headmaster Dumbledore,” Dad said, “We appreciate the help.”

Dumbledore’s easy smile dipped fractionally, but he nodded back at Arthur.

“Not at all, not at all…”

The three of them walked back to the fireplace and after a few more steps were back home. The green flames in the fireplace shut down behind them.