Gwen suggested that they should head over to Charms early. Aileen agreed, while Ginny, who felt that there was not much she could do in 15 minutes also nodded too.
Finding the classroom open, the trio went in. Unlike McGonagall, Flitwick did not assign them seats, so they sat together.
Gwen and Aileen chatted about quidditch. Aileen was apparently a quidditch nut and a fanatic supporter of the Tutshill Tornados. While Gwen was not the biggest fan of quidditch, she still liked it as much as the average witch; which meant enough to talk about it for hours on end. The original Ginny would have fit right in with these two, she herself being just as fanatic about the game.
The new Ginny just marvelled at how similar these witches and wizards were to muggles in their fanatic interest in the pointlessly dangerous game. Besides, the whole game seemed nonsensical to her: the Snitch held way too much weight in the game, almost completely breaking the balance. If the Seeker caught the snitch fast enough, the other players won’t matter at all. They might as well make it competition to catch the snitch.
While she quite liked sports, she just couldn’t bring herself to like quidditch.
On the other hand duelling interested her quite a bit; it was the Wizarding equivalent of Boxing and other martial art championships.
There were national under 17 and even under 15 duelling championships one could apply to participate in. And the rewards were not bad at all: 250 Galleons for the winner, 50 for the Runner-up, 25 for the third and 10 Galleons for the rest of the top-5. And that was for the Under 15. Under 17s got 500. While the one for all ages got a whopping 900 Galleons! Then there were Continental and World Championships!
It was a pretty darn good way to earn some money, while doing practically no work at all. Riddle’s mastery of the Art of Duelling had been another thing she inherited after the assimilation of his diary horcrux.
The next National Championship would be held during Summer Break and she decided that she would apply. She was just wondering how she would convince Arthur and Molly.
While Ginny was hatching plans to earn more money, the students had started trickling in.
A tiny little Professor by the name Filius Flitwick, had at some point, appeared in the classroom.
After the students had settled down, Flitwick stepped forward and greeted in his squeaky voice, “Good Morning!”
““Good Morning, Professor!”” the students chanted in unison.
“Good to see you all so cheery!” the part-goblin professor grinned. “To those of you who don’t know me, I am Filius Flitwick, your professor for Charms for the duration of your schooling in Hogwarts!”
The professor paused before continuing, “Charms or Enchantment is a Magick that is quite easy to get started in and relatively easy to become proficient in; evidenced by the fact that a large number of Wizards make their living as Enchanters of some sort.
“However, to truly master this field is something few have ever achieved. The best of Enchanters may not qualify as a Master. Even fewer could have claimed to have mastered the Art of Enchantment.
“I myself cannot claim to have mastered the art despite having dedicated nearly 40 years of my life to it.
“Oh, I might be a Charms Master, but have I truly mastered it?” He shook his head vehemently, “Not at all!”
After another short pause, “The point of this small speech of mine is, despite Charms being generally seen as an easier subject, it is just as difficult to become truly good at it. Therefore, you should take the subject of Charms a bit more seriously.”
Flitwick clapped once.
“Now that the boring part is done with, let’s do some magic!” His excitement was contagious as many a student could feel a smile forming on their face.
“Today, we will be learning the Wand-Lighting charm! Arguably one of the easiest spells known to wizardkind…”
For the next 10 minutes he went on to explain the wand-movements and the incantations, after which he instructed them to actually cast the spell.
Ginny once again got it on her first try and was rewarded with 5 points and was instructed by the professor to help out her fellow students, earning herself another 10 points for successfully helping Aileen and Gwen in their practise.
-x-x-x-
On the way to the Great Hall, Gwen looked around in confusion, “Where did Ginny go?”
“Huh?” Aileen also looked around, unable to find a single trace of the redhead in question.
They never found Ginny throughout lunch.
-x-x-x-
“Ginny, where were you?! We’d been looking for you everywhere!” Gwen looked at her worriedly, “Also, you didn’t have lunch, did you? Aren’t you hungry?”
“Oh, don’t worry about it. I had too much for breakfast and didn’t feel like eating again. I’ll probably skip dinner too.”
Gwen wanted to question her further, but was interrupted by Madam Hooch stomping in briskly, her yellow hawk-like piercing eyes sweeping over every single student.
“Good Afternoon! I am Rolanda Hooch, your instructor for flying on a broomstick. Be warned, however, that if I catch any of you doing anything beyond my explicit instruction, I will ensure you will never touch a broomstick within Hogwarts’ grounds.”
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Quite obviously, Hooch was still pissed about last year.
“Now, all of you, go stand next to a broom.”
The students did so. After which she instructed them to yell up and whatnot. Ginny was absent-minded throughout the whole thing, as she didn’t really care for quidditch.
“Up.” she said lazily to the broom, not even expecting a reaction. The broom however seemed like it was bent on proving her wrong as it almost eagerly jumped into her hand.
‘The original was quite talented at quidditch, I remember.’ she mused, ‘Did I perhaps inherit that talent as well?’
“Well done, Ms.Weasley.”
After about 20 minutes, all of the students had brooms in their hands, quite excited to finally be able to fly.
“On your brooms!”
“Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground, hard. Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, and then come straight back down by leaning forward slightly. On my whistle - three - two - one - *wheet!*”
Pushing off the ground beneath her, Ginny flew up into the air steadily, her body instinctively balancing itself on the broom. The ease with which she could fly was marvellous as it was surprising. Especially when compared to others, who were wobbling around at best.
Before she could marvel in the feeling of flying, Madam Hooch’s whistle sounded, signalling it was time to land; which she did just as effortlessly.
After praising her a bit more, Hooch had them fly a few more rounds before it was the end of Flying Lessons.
“You’re so good at flying Ginny! D’you think you’ll make it to the team next year? Or even this year? I heard Harry Potter got selected for the position of Seeker in his first year!” Aileen, when it came to quidditch, was an absolute chatterbox.
“Nah, I’m not that good. My brother Charlie was the Seeker and Captain for the Gryffindor and Fred and Gerorge are the Beaters currently. So I just learnt a bit from them.” which was not complete bullshit, as they really did teach her how to fly and even let her play with them - even if it was only after she threw a tantrum and had Arthur step in and force them to include her. The other times she had to sneak out the broomsticks herself to play.
They chatted about quidditch on the way to the History of Magic.
-x-x-x-
Ginny was currently feeling awed. Awed at the fact that Binns had somehow managed to reduce the bloody, intense wars wizards waged against the goblinkind to the most boring and bland word vomit.
‘Well, at least I can finish off my homework during this period.’
“That was the most boring history class I’ve ever attended!” Aileen had a look of disgust on her face.
Gwen looked at her strangely, “You speak as if you have attended history classes before?”
“Umm… My dad’s a muggleborn, so he insisted that I attend school for muggles. The-”
“Wait, wait, wait, muggles go to school before eleven? “ Gwen being a pureblood like Ginny, was incredibly surprised.
“Yeah, I heard that apparently, muggles go to school from when they are six.” Ginny supplied.
“Six?! They go to school when they are six?!” Gwen looked positively horrified. And she was quite justified in her horror. As magical children, they were not required to go to school up till they were eleven. So life before then was quite carefree for them.
“Not only that, most of them go on to study even after they are done with senior high, which is like N.E.W.T.s for but for muggles. They call it university, I believe.” Ginny once again found pleasure in teasing (read terrifying) the innocent Gwen.
“There’s more?!” poor Gwen was already dizzy. She had never even imagined studying beyond 7 years.
While the Wizarding World did have studies beyond N.E.W.T.s, they still followed the primitive Master-Apprentice style. Besides, most wizards did not care for studies beyond what they have learnt in the seven years of schooling. Most of the skills they require would be learnt while on the job or the organisation they join would have them go through specialised training courses: a good example was Gringotts and their curse-breakers. But as mentioned before, only a very small fraction of the Wizarding population continued their studies and some of them did not even know that there was more opportunity to study further.
Still not quite able to wrap her head around the fact, she could only stammer, “M-Muggles are quite intense… ”
Ginny snorted, “Intense, really?” She turned to the Fat Lady, “Wattlebird”
“What else can I say? They school from when they are six all the way to 24! That’s almost thrice the amount of time we go to school! If I were not trying to be polite I would say they were mental!” Gwen exclaimed.
“Speaking of mental, some parents even put their children into schools before five, it was called kindergarten, I think? Oh! Oh! I also heard some of them even study after university! It’s called Master’s, I believe.”
“Those muggles are mental! The lot of them!” Gwen’s high-pitched voice echoed through the Common Room which they had just entered, causing the whole room to fall silent. Gwen, realising what she’d done, was so embarrassed that her ears turned red!
Unable to bear the pressure of being stared at by half the House, she fled into the dormitory. Just as Ginny was about to chase after her to tell her all about Doctorates, she was stopped by her brothers.
“Well, well.”
“If it isn’t our dear sister-”
“The one we thought was so innocent-”
“But who knew? Who knew that, all along, she was just like us-”
““A True Gryffindor!”” Fred and George popped out of nowhere like ghosts. The silent Common Room once again became noisy, with many people coming up to her and congratulating her, telling her that she was more deserving of being in Gryffindor than any of them.
Understandably, Ginny was very confused. It was not before she was pulled aside by Hermione that she finally knew what was going on.
“Did you really… pet Prof. McGonagall? And even scratched behind the ears? And under the chin?”
“Err… yes.” she nodded.
“And you knew that it was Prof. McGonagall?”
“... yes?”
“That was bloody brilliant!”
“No Ron it was not! It was incredibly…”
“Brave?” supplied the Boy-Who-Lived.
“Yes! I mean, no! That was not brave, that was reckless! Monumentally so! It is the finest definition of seeking death! Not to mention it's also really rude…”
“But she looked so cute, Hermione! All stiff and stern, looking around so strictly she might start to lecture the table…
“‘Sides, don’t tell me you’ve never wanted to pet her? I know you like cats. Isn’t the professor’s cat form just so adorable? Just imagine running your hands through her soft, silky fur; her swishing fluffy tail, her heart-melting purrs of contentment, her little paws…” her voice was soft, with a mesmerising lilt, almost like a demon’s whispers…
Just like a helpless maiden under the demon’s seduction, Hermione’s defences were broken one after another and soon she completely surrendered herself to the demon's claws.
“Now, what do you say? Do you want to pet Prof. McGonagall?”
“Yes!” Hermione squeaked out, her face flushed. Upon realising what she’d just said her flush turned deeper and she too, like Gwen scurried off into the dormitory.
‘Dark Side +1!
‘Hmm, I would make a great living if there was a job that specialised in teasing little girls.’ Ginny mused to herself, completely unaware how weird that sounded.
She turned to Ron, “Why are you looking at me as if I grew a second head?”
“He would be less surprised if you’d actually grown one, dear sister. After all-”
“You just tamed Mini-McGonagall!” Fred and George looked at their sister in a completely new light.
“Hmm.” she shrugged noncommittally, “She’s always had it in her. I just had to bring it out.”
After chatting with them for a while, she skipped away to the dormitory.
After she was gone, three Weasley’s and one Potter looked at each other. “She’s changed, she has.”
“Yeah, she isn’t as nervous around Harry as before.”
“No, she wasn’t nervous at all.”
“Something happened that day that she’s not telling us.”
The four of them fell silent. After a short while of silence, Ron spoke up, “At least she’s not as silent as before.”
All four of them nodded in agreement. Fred looked at the others, “Should we tell mum? Or dad?”
“She’ll tell us when she’s ready, I think. We should just wait for her to tell us by herself. Till then we’ll support her from the side. We should tell mum, though.”
“Agreed.” The others nodded.
While a certain boy-who-lived felt warmth in his heart, knowing that despite not being their family by blood, the fact they included him in this discussion meant that they considered him nothing less than family.
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