“So, Ms. Weasley,” Madame Bones said, “What caused you to stand up just before the chaos began?”

“Well, I saw… a little drop of something go in Jack’s drink. And into one of my roommate's drinks too. I warned them but none of them believed me. I wanted to tell everybody just in case, but… well I didn’t have any proof…”

“Hm. Did you see anything suspicious? Anything out of place, someone casting a spell nearby?”

Ginny hesitated, “Eric Potter,” She said, “He was smiling and winked at me when I started panicking. I think it was him.”

“How would he accomplish that? Witnesses vouch that he wasn’t holding his wand and his hands were visible around the time you claim your friend's drink was spiked.”

“I… I don’t know. But I’m sure that it was him.”

“We’ll take that into consideration. You’re free to leave, and come and report if you remember anything else that you think might be important.”

“Okay, Madame Bones.”

Ginny stood and walked out of the abandoned classroom that the Aurors had turned into their interrogation room. They were interviewing everybody to find the culprit behind what happened at the great feast. Ginny was frustrated. She knew exactly how Eric had done it. She had seen him doing it. But he had made sure his hands were visibly not near his wand so no one would ever believe her if she actually accused him of anything.

Most of the people had been healed from their injuries and released in less than a day after the feast. Only Neville and a few others were still being treated three days later for their more serious injuries and curses.

Part of the reason the drugged crowd had gone so crazy was because stray spells had hit Neville and thrown the rest into a rage to punish whoever dared to hurt their precious Neville.

As Ginny was walking back to Ravenclaw tower, she suddenly stopped as she spotted Eric Potter turning the corner in front of her. She jogged forward and carefully peered around to see him walking alone down the hallway. He rounded the corner, and after a moment of indecision, Ginny followed after him. What would he be doing all alone out here? He was walking with purpose, as if going somewhere important. Maybe she could catch him in the act of something.

She followed after him, carefully creeping and peeking around corners to follow after him. As they moved they went to one of the abandoned sections of the castle that almost no one ever visited. Ginny peered around the corner and didn’t spot Eric this time. Where had he gone?

She walked down the hallway, peering around the corners of the turns trying to figure out which way he could have gone. Her magic sense was blunted by the Hogwarts wards, so she couldn’t just sense him from far away like she usually could in an open area.

“Heya, Ginny,” Eric’s voice suddenly said from behind her. She whirled around and saw the boy standing there next to the open door of one of the abandoned classrooms lining the sides of the hallways.

Eric’s form erupted into a cloud of magic tendrils that shot out and struck like a thousand needles to pierce into her. Her feet were lifted a couple inches off the ground as the tendrils embedded in her skin lifted. Eric took out his wand and casually waved it a couple times, pulsing his magic into it. A long stream of white cloth shot out of it and wrapped around Ginny’s ankles.

Ginny tried to use her own magic tendrils to push out, to strike back, but Eric’s own smaller cloud tangled them and twisted them in knots so she couldn’t manage to have her tendrils escape the shell and strike at the boy.

Eric’s little tendrils grabbed her arms and with hard jerks, forced them in and to form an x shape crossed over her chest. Ginny thrashed and shouted, but Eric just stood there smiling.

“I knew it!” Eric said, “It is you. Wow, back as a girl huh. That must have been a shock.”

Eric’s tendrils grabbed Ginny’s floating body and started spinning her around fast. The world swam around her as she felt Eric’s summoned white cloth wrapping up her legs and crawling up her body and wrapping her up like a mummy.

She tried to use her magic tendrils to escape, withdrawing them and striking out as quickly as she could. But Eric locked her down effortlessly. She got nauseous and her concentration was shot as she spun around faster and faster, Her body now wrapped up to her stomach.

She kept struggling, but in only a few seconds, she was wrapped up like a fly in a web all the way up to the neck, only her head left exposed.

She suddenly stopped spinning and felt sick. As she recovered and tried to push past her swimming head, she felt herself float into the abandoned classroom and Eric to close the door behind them. His tendrils lowered her onto a chair sitting there and Eric sat opposite of her.

His magic tendrils withdrew from holding her and her weight was pressed onto the chair.

Ginny moved and fell onto the floor with a crash. She tried to roll towards the door, but the stiff cloth made her barely able to shift herself an inch. Eric just watched her for a second before waving his wand and the door locked with a loud click. He cast another spell and the air was shrouded with magic.

“There,” Eric said, “Now we won’t be interrupted anymore. No sound will exit this room, so no use in calling for help.”

Ginny stopped moving and squirming as she lay there on the floor and glared at him.

“Aw, C’mon,” Eric said, “Despite what it looks like, I’m not going to hurt you. I just need to make sure you don’t attack me while we discuss what we’re going to do about each other.”

Ginny didn’t say anything and kept glaring at him while inching towards the door as best as she could.

Eric sighed, “Look, I just want to talk alright? I get you’re angry, but we’re two birds of a feather aren’t we? Since you’re here in that body then you must have made the same choice as I did. Left the real Ginny behind in that hell. So don’t get all high and mighty on me for how I betrayed you.”

Ginny froze. What was Eric talking about? Huh?

“Are you ready to talk now, Harry?” Eric said.

“Harry’s dead,” She replied.

“Semantics. You’re alive now, aren’t you?” Eric said as he used his magic tendrils to lift Ginny’s bound form and place her back sitting on the chair. She didn’t struggle and push herself off of it this time.

Did… Did Eric think that Harry had done the same thing as he had? Tricked the old Ginny into accepting the crown so he could escape Teregatt? That she was Harry still?

“What do you want?” Ginny asked sullenly. It wasn’t like she had much of a choice. Eric had overpowered her easily. She’d have to hope that he really just wanted to talk.

“First off, Harry,” Eric said, “It wasn’t personal, what I did. Really, if there was another way then I wouldn’t have done it. I even got your revenge for you. Your Aunt and Uncle should be in an Asylum right about now, with Dudley shuffled off to his relatives if he has any.”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“What did you do to them?” Ginny asked, aching to know now that Eric had mentioned it. It had always sat at the back of her mind now that her memories from Harry had returned.

“Nothing much,” Eric said with an easy smile, “Just a quick mind spell, led to them acting rather erratic and paranoid. It should have worn off in a couple of months. But once proven insane, there’s little you can do after to prove otherwise… So I’m guessing that they’re still going to be in there for a while still. If you do some research I'm sure you can find where they are so you can taunt them a little.”

Ginny thought about it. She didn’t want to be the kind of person to gloat in someone else’s suffering. And she never wanted to see them again. But… Just for the Dursleys…

“Okay,” She said, calming a little, “I’m okay with that. Thanks, I guess.”

“Hm. Yes. You’ve got terrible eyesight by the way. Literally unfixable by magic. And I’ve researched it quite a bit. How’s the eyesight on your new body?”

Ginny felt disgusted that Eric thought that they were anything alike. But she couldn’t show it, she had to play along to see where things would go.

“Fine,” She said, “Don’t need glasses anymore.”

“So… A girl,” Eric said, “Have to admit, I didn’t see that coming. What’s it like, Harry?”

“Different…” Ginny said, “Haven’t really thought about it too much.”

She had access to Harry’s memories in his male body. But they were distant and not grounded. She was Ginny, a girl. Harry was another person than she was. Despite how she needed to convince Eric now that she was still Harry.

“Huh. Okay, fair enough,” Eric said, “Well, down to business then. I’ve shown how much more powerful and skilled at our special brand at magic I am. I could easily kill you and hide the body right now.”

Ginny’s breathing hitched and her heart started beating fast.

Eric saw her expression and chuckled, “C’mon! Don’t look at me like that! I actually like you, Harry. I won’t do that unless I really have to. But I could. If I really needed to. You clearly had much less time in that Hell than me to learn your magic. You’ll never catch up to me now that we’ve left that place forever.”

Ginny realized with a jolt that Eric had no way of knowing that Harry had actually become the inheritor of Teregatt. He didn’t know that she could spend time there and learn more and improve her magic! He thought he could overpower her forever with his skill. But if Ginny just delayed and kept learning, then some day she’d be able to match him…

“Fine,” She said, “What’s your point?”

“My point. Is that why do we have to be enemies? You don’t like me, that’s fine. I get that. How about we just avoid each other, not get in each other’s business as best as we can? Live our own lives, and then we can both be happy. No threats or this revenge that I’m sure you were cooking up before.”

“And… And what about you spiking everyone’s potions?” Ginny said, “How am I supposed to stay out of your way if you’re doing things like that? People could have died! My friends could have died! You did all of that to poor Neville who you knew was shy and never did anything to you. I’m supposed to just stand by and let you get away with it?”

Eric nodded and frowned, “Yes. It did sound much better in my own head. I didn’t realize things would get that chaotic… Especially that Slytherin that cast that killing curse at our precious headmaster. That was a surprise.”

“You seemed to be having fun while you were fighting!” Ginny said with a glare.

Eric shrugged, “Hey, I was enjoying the moment. Everybody was already fighting, may as well join in on the fun, right?”

Seeing Ginny’s glare, Eric swiftly kept speaking.

“But you’re right, that one went a bit too far. Now the Aurors will be all over me if I try anything else. Such mood killers, those ones. Tell me who's the real criminal here with how stiff they are about everything? But I’ll tell you what. I won’t spike anyone else’s drinks in the future while we’re at Hogwarts. I’ll go with the more traditional pranks like Ginny’s twin brothers do. All you have to do in return is not go on some quest to prove that I’m the Mad Potioner or to attack me out of revenge for what happened in Teregatt. How does that sound?”

“And you’ll leave my friends alone. No messing with them, even for pranks or indirectly,” Ginny said.

“Fine. That’s fair,” Eric easily agreed, “So do you agree? Leave each other be, put the past behind us? We’ve got brand new lives to enjoy here. It’ll be such a pain if we’ve got to deal with all of this hatred and revenge and whatnot all the time, wouldn’t it?”

“Alright,” Ginny said reluctantly, “We’ll leave each other alone. As long as you never do anything like the Halloween feast ever again.”

“Great!”

Eric was smiling again and waved his wand and the cloth wrapping around Ginny disappeared all at once. Her crossed arms fell down to her sides and she took a deep breath after shooting to her feet up from the chair. She had the sudden overwhelming urge to attack Eric, and just barely managed to hold herself back in time.

The boy eyed her, waiting to see what she would do. He stood as well and held out his hand and took a step towards her.

“Shake on it?” He said with a grin. Ginny reluctantly shook his hand, the other boy’s grip surprisingly firm on her own.

“Your hands are soft,” Eric said, “I have to say, if you’re going to end up being a girl, then at least you ended up in the body of a pretty one.”

Ginny withdrew her hand and scrunched up her nose in disgust, “Gross. Now, are we done? Can I go?”

Eric nodded and waved his wand at the door which unlocked itself. He gave a small bow and gestured towards the door. “Ladies first, Harry.”

“It’s Ginny now,” She said, hearing Eric saying Harry’s name irritating her.

“Of course, of course Milady…” Eric said mockingly.

Ginny opened the door and walked away. She resisted the urge to run, she didn’t want to show weakness as she felt the prickle of Eric’s eyes following her as she walked away.

Her thoughts roiled in turmoil as she went over what had just happened. But Ginny knew one thing. She just had to buy more time for herself. Balthazar would train her in her magic in Teregatt. It was only a matter of time before she would be on the same level as Eric.

She could decide what she wanted to do about him when she actually had the power to do anything about it. Until then it was best to just try to not think about it.

— — —

Somehow, the Ministry ended up blaming Peter Pettigrew for the Halloween feast of all people. The event was all over the papers, people painting it as another attack by the deranged maniac.

Things were tense in the school for a while, and almost half of the school came up to apologize to Neville in the aftermath in the following weeks. Everybody remembered what they had done, even if they knew they were under the influence of the love potions.

The Slytherin that cast the killing curse at the Headmaster had been expelled from the school, but not arrested for the attack. Even the excuse of the love potion could only carry him so far in using the killing curse.

No one else was punished for the incident, and by the end of October things had settled back to a somewhat more normal state. There were only a few changes that permeated the culture of the school.

First, everyone almost obsessively checks their food and drinks for poisons now. It was to the point where a new club was formed that was solely devoted to teaching people how to cast various spells to check for poisons and the limitations and uses for each one. There wasn’t one single spell for it, but many each with their own strengths and weaknesses. The club was incredibly popular even if Snape was their teacher monitor. The older students now often would cast some of their more advanced poison checking spells for the younger years before the meals began.

The second change was that the pranking had dropped to almost nothing ever since Halloween. It was considered in poor taste, and even Fred and George held back from doing much after they observed the blatant hostility directed at them by the rest of the students after their first attempt after the Halloween feast.

Things were slowly relaxing, but for now at least the pranks had dropped to nearly nothing around the school.

Finally, there was the newfound awe and respect the students had for their teachers and Dumbledore. They had all known that the professors were powerful and skilled witches and wizards. But McGonagall, Snape, and Flitwick had fought off nearly half of the student body practically by themselves. Dumbledore had put the whole school, even the teachers, to sleep with a single spell.

Even the unpleasant Snape was looked upon with a sort of quiet awe and fear now that everyone had seen them act in combat. The teachers seemed disconcerted by many students suddenly hanging on their every word during classes and asking all sorts of questions about the spells they had used during the battle at the Halloween feast.

Eric and Ginny avoided each other, and the Mad Potioner didn’t strike again it that time. It seems the two of them were at an odd standoff. Well, Ginny was. Eric seemed to consider the matter resolved and was back to his normal self.

Ginny kept learning in Teregatt each night, but Balthazar told her flatly that she was nowhere near ready to take on Eric from what she described to him.

It seems it would be a while before their little truce would be threatened. Ginny would be forced to accept it for now. As long as Eric didn’t break it first.