“Ginny? We have some visitors. Your brothers, they’re here to see you,” Arthur said gently.
“I have brothers?” Ginny asked, “How many?”
Arthur waited for a moment to compose himself before speaking again, “Six. But only four of them are here today. Bill and Charlie are older and are abroad.”
“Six? That seems like a lot. How old are they?”
“They… Well, you’re the youngest,” Arthur said, “Your brother Percy is seven years older, Fred and George are four years older, and Ron is only a single year older than you.”
“And how old am I?”
“You’re… You’re eleven. You’ll be twelve over the summer.”
Arthur turned around and didn’t speak for a moment. His expression was rather stiff when he was looking at her again.
“I’ll go fetch them.”
He walked outside and there was some muttered discussion for a few minutes before the door opened again and four boys shuffled in, all with red hair. They were all staring at her silently as they gathered around the bed. Ginny looked between the two identical boys standing there.
“Are you two twins?” She asked, “Fred and George?”
“Y-Yeah. It’s us, Ginny,” one of them said, “Don’t you remember us? We put a dungbomb right outside your room last summer. You were furious with us…”
Ginny tried to think, but it all came back blank. She shook her head, “Sorry. I don’t… I can’t remember anything at all.”
“What about me?”
The youngest boy said, stepping forward. He only looked a little older than her.
“Are you Ron?” She guessed.
His eyes lit up and he looked excited and he turned to Arthur, “See, Dad. She does remember something! She knows my name!”
Ginny squirmed under the sheets. This was so awkward, all these strangers thinking she should recognize them. Shouldn’t she feel something, some faint sense of familiarity, some small detail that she remembered? But there was nothing.
Arthur shook his head sadly.
“Ginny, do you remember him? Or did you just guess?”
She shrunk under the covers a little as everyone started staring at her again, “Just guessed,” She said. All the boys looked disappointed at her confession.
Uncomfortable, she pulsed out her magic sense to scan her surroundings. She had been doing that to help her relax when people pressured her to remember things over the last day. She absentmindedly saw the varying level of magic in all of her family members. She knew it was true even if she didn’t remember any of them. Her dad had the most of course as an adult. The amount mostly corresponded with age, but surprisingly the twins Fred and George had far more magic available to them than Percy, the oldest one there.
Their magic flowed and swirled into each other, even as she observed she saw a tendril of magic swirl off one the surface of one of their skin and twirl off before landing back on the other. Was it because they were twins? It was so relaxing to watch…
“We’re here to tell you about yourself, in hopes that you’ll start remembering,” Percy said in a stiff tone, even if there was a slight tremble in it. Ginny was shocked out of her daze and looked at the older boy.
“Okay,” She said, “That makes sense.”
They pulled up chairs and started telling Ginny about herself. It was all very interesting, and she tried hard to dredge up a sense of familiarity as they spoke about everything she’d done and said. Facts about her brothers and parents. But nothing came to her. Everything was distant, like they were talking about someone else that was a stranger.
All of them seemed rather depressed as nothing happened after multiple hours of all of them taking turns telling her things. Some of them had to leave several times after getting upset that nothing they said was bringing back any of her memories.
It was Ron’s turn, he was talking about Hogwarts and his friends. Her family seemed to have run out of things to say about Ginny directly, so they had reverted to discussing their own lives and what they were like.
“...So then Eric said…”
Ginny stiffened and focused on Ron, “Eric?” She asked, “Who’s that? It sounds familiar…”
Everyone paused and looked at each other. “You remember something?” Ron said excitedly, “You remember something about Eric? You had a massive crush on him over the summer. Maybe that’s why?”
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Ginny furrowed her brow as the memories swirled just out of reach, “Eric… Smith? That’s his name, right?”
“Smith?” Ron asked in confusion, “No. He’s Eric Potter. Technically Harry Potter, but everyone just calls him Eric.”
“Harry Potter…” Ginny said as the swirling memories started rising faster, “I remember that… there was a cupboard, darkness. Black mud and red skies. A crown of bone… A black tower piercing the heavens…”
Everyone was staring at her like she was crazy and she flinched and the memories fled her again. She tried to grab them, to bring them back to the surface, but they slipped through her grip and sank back into the depths.
“GAH!” She screamed and everyone jumped, “I had it. There was something there, I was so close! But it just slipped away again…” She sat there and sulked, annoyed that she had almost gotten it. It was right there, but now she had no idea what any of it meant. Just vague impressions and images left behind.
“We’ll bring Eric here!” Ron said, “Maybe if you see him then you’ll remember! Dad, can we? She really remembered something. This could be how we get her memories back!”
“It’s worth a shot,” Arthur said, “You stay here with her. I’ll see what I can do.”
The man left.
— — —
An hour or two later, Arthur came back.
“He’s here,” Arthur said, “We’re coming in now,”
“So she’s lost all her memories?” A nauseating familiar voice said from the other side of the door, “What about magic? Is she still able to do that?”
“You can ask her yourself,” Arthur said with a curt tone as the door opened.
Ginny stiffened as he saw the smirking face of the boy standing there with Arthur Weasley behind him. Harry Potter. Eric Smith. Familiar green eyes and a lightning scar greeted her, yet it was so wrong as she looked at it.
She felt suddenly sick and her vision swam and something ugly bubbled within her the longer she looked at the boy walking inside.
“Ginny, right?” the imposter said, “Ron’s sister, ay? How ya feeling? Heard your friends with a phoenix now? That’s pretty awesome.”
“Eric…” Ginny said as she realized the thing churning in her gut was anger.
“YOU TRAITOR YOU LEFT ME BEHIND!”
Eric stiffened and looked around in a panic, “W- What are you talking about? Haha. Don’t know what you—”
“YOU LEFT ME IN HELL! I’ll— I’ll— Left me— behind… hell…”
Ginny’s heart was beating fast, and everything was spinning around her as she felt nauseous. Memories roiled and bubbled in her mind and her heart beat faster and faster until it felt like it would beat out of her chest. She started sweating and feeling weak as her magic began to churn. She fell back on the bed and began breathing heavily as her magic churned faster and faster.
“Help—” She managed to say weakly as she clutched her chest as her heart started pounding so fast she felt it start to stutter and could almost hear it groan under the pressure.
“Help—”
There was shouting all around her, but Ginny felt her chaotic magic swirling like a storm around her sparing nothing around her as it randomly lashed out against whatever she could detect through the swirling mass of pain and confusion she had become.
There was a girl screaming that carried through the shouting. If Ginny was able to string a coherent thought together, she might have realized that it was her.
Just when Ginny thought that she would really die, she felt a sudden ball of comforting warmth bathe her in its glow. She cried in relief as the flame descended from above her to settle down on her and began to comfort her. Her arms wrapped around it and a tendril of magic reached out and probed the ball of flame she was hugging. After hesitating for a long moment, the ball of flame opened itself to the magic and a cord was woven between the girl and phoenix.
Ginny’s magic calmed down, soothed by the presence of Fawkes. Ginny’s heartbeat began to slow down and seconds later she passed out from pure exhaustion as the strain of everything hit her all at once like a bag of sand that knocked her out in an instant.
— — —
In a realm of red skies, Balthazar let out a proud smile as he observed the unconscious figure composed of black mud lying on the floor in front of the doorway he had been watching. The same one that Harry Potter, or the creature he had become, had dived through to leave this place. He had worried the true king would not return to itself, would lose its mind forever due to Fate’s heavy hand in meddling with it. Yet here it was, in little time at all. Couldn’t have been more than a few years passing in that reality it had been drawn to by the chains of fate.
Yes, practically nothing.
The figure of mud opened its bright green eyes after a few minutes and stared at Balthazar in confusion. The crown of bone manifested on its head as it looked around the room.
Balthazar gave a refined bow towards the figure, “Congratulations on managing to return, King. True king of the realm. If you desire, it would be my privilege to begin your true magical education now that you have passed the initial inheritance test.”
The mud figure stood to its feet and stared at Balthazar for a long time.
“What’s happening?” it asked, “Where am I?”
Ah. It seems that the true king had not fully recovered itself or its memories yet.
“Don’t worry about that just now,” Balthazar transitioned smoothly, “Just follow me and I shall teach you of magic. Whenever you wish to leave you may simply step back through that doorway to return to your body.”
The king looked between the doorway and Balthazar, “I can leave anytime I want?”
“You can now. Come along now. You may as well practice some magic, recovering your memories is something that will take time. It is not something I can assist you with, the one who removed them is a far more powerful being than me. Only from internal resistance can bindings that tight be broken.”
The king considered for a few seconds, tilting its head to the side as it thought.
“Okay,” it said, “I’ll learn magic. Do we need a wand to do it? Everyone seemed to use them around me when I was at the hospital.”
Balthazar felt his lips curl into a sneer. Weaklings if they used magical foci so often that the king thought that they were so essential.
“No, no magical foci will be used,” Balthazar said imperiously, “I think I am a better teacher than that. Now come along, we have much to do and little time to do it.”
Balthazar left the room and after a moment of hesitation, the true king followed him. Balthazar grinned as he moved towards the training room. Things would change around this place indeed. Just a little more instruction and guidance for the last king and everything would change around this place…