MetaFic

((A/N: This chapter will answer some questions that a number of people have been asking me.))

Chapter 10 - Mistakes and Corrections

Three days later, Ginny was starting to get really cranky from frustration. She and Harry had yet to sit down and really talk. Harry had found her alone for a few minutes the other day and asked his question. He had wanted to know if she was using her “other knowledge” when she had her talk with Dumbledore. She had told him that she had for a little of it, but not much. Before they could really discuss it, Ron came up and asked Harry to play chess, and their “talk time” was over.

In fact, she was getting so annoyed at their lack of privacy, she was considering doing something very unusual. Given the fact that this conversation could take several hours, and how unlikely it was they could talk that long without being interrupted, she went with her idea. That evening, instead of going straight to bed, she locked her door and pulled out her potions kit. Half an hour later, she had four doses of Pepperup potion.

The next day, she caught Harry alone for a minute and quietly told him, “We really need to talk about -- stuff.” He nodded and she was glad she could be vague. “Everyone is usually asleep by midnight. I’ll come to your room then and we can talk for as long as we need to. I’ve got enough Pepperup potion to get us through the next day, even if we never go to sleep.”

“You think it will take that long?” he asked incredulously.

“Probably not, but better safe than sorry.”

“OK. Say, you want to go flying? Maybe you can go now before your brothers stop you,” he suggested.

“Sure,” she readily agreed and led him out.

“I don’t understand why they give you such a hard time about flying. I mean, all of our chasers are girls, so that can’t be the reason why.” He looked at her.

She shrugged as they made it to the broom shed. “They’re just being older brothers, Harry. No big deal. I’ll show ‘em.”

Harry chuckled. “Yeah, I’m sure you will. Say, you want to ride my Nimbus?”

“Oh yeah, that would be great.” She quickly snatched it from him and took off. He laughed and followed. They both were laughing very hard half an hour later when her brothers came out and saw her flying as well as Harry could.

It seemed to take forever for midnight to come, but it finally did. The house was quiet, except for the occasional wind or a noise from the ghoul in the attic. Dressed in her normal clothes, she grabbed her potions and snuck into Harry’s room. He had one candle lit and was still awake, reading a Defense book.

Ginny closed the door behind her and then put silencing charms all over the room. “Here.” She gave him two of the phials and kept two on her.

“So, what do we need to talk about?” he asked shyly, and she understood. It was like they were breaking a bunch of rules or something, and as she thought about it, they sort of were. Getting caught like this by Mum or Dad would not be fun.

“Well, I need to tell you how things are now, what I’ve been doing, and what I think is left to do. Of course, if you have questions, I can try to answer those too.”

Harry looked a little hesitant, but he asked anyway. “OK. So what do I need to know?”

She took a deep breath, and using her Gryffindor courage, went for it. “Let’s start with a brief summary of relevant history.” He nodded. “Not long before you were born, a prophecy was made. It predicted that a person would have the power to vanquish the Dark Lord. While it did not say who, it told how to determine who the person was. Looking at the clues, Dumbledore had both your parents and Neville’s parents go into hiding. The Dark Lord found out about the first part of the prophecy and decided it applied to you, so he tried to kill you. He killed your parents and gave you that curse scar as he tried to kill you, but he also lost his body too. There was one other result, but we’ll get to that in a minute. With me so far?”

Harry looked a little peeved. “Yeah, this is what Dumbledore should have told me when I asked my question at the end of my first year, isn’t it?”

“Yes. As I told you before, his defense is that he wanted you to have a childhood, as he was afraid that once you heard this, you’d start to train for fighting, maybe even dropping out of school,” she explained.

“I can see that, but I think it should have been my choice.”

“I totally agree,” she told him, “but that didn’t happen. Just as in this timeline, Dumbledore put you at the Dursleys to keep you out of the Wizarding public’s eyes to attempt to give you a normal childhood. To help protect you, he put blood wards on your aunt’s house, since she shared blood with your mother. They work because of the sacrifice and some spell your mother used. In this timeline, I got you out of there by destroying the blood wards. Since they can’t be recreated without your mother’s blood, which no one has, you can stay anywhere that’s considered safe.”

He grinned. “Thanks! Good work!”

“You’re welcome,” she told him magnanimously and did a modified curtsy since she was sitting down. “Back to my old timeline, you came to Hogwarts and had numerous adventures. Your first year in both timelines was the same. In my old timeline, each year of school, there was another attack by Voldemort or one of his followers. At the end of your fourth year, Voldemort managed to get a body back and the second war against him began. It ended about eight years later at the cost of almost everyone who fought against him and most of the British Wizarding world.”

Harry gaped at her and moved his mouth, but nothing came out for a minute. He finally got, “Uh, wow…” out.

Ginny would have giggled at his response had she not been thinking about why she came back in time.

“So, that’s what happened and why I came back in time to change this. Obviously, I left a number of details out of that summary. There are a few we must discuss now. For example, one of the most important questions is: Why did Voldemort not die the night the Killing Curse rebounded on him? Once that is answered, and Dumbledore did in your sixth year, one can know how to kill the bastard. The answer to that question is that Voldemort, or Tom Riddle as he was called as a child, did a Dark ritual six times. He tried again the night he tried to kill you, and accidentally succeeded. Each of those rituals anchors him to this earth so that he can’t really die. Therefore, to kill him, we have to remove those anchors first, then you can kill him as the prophecy says you can.”

“Wait! Me, kill him?” Harry looked like he was panicking.

“Uh, yeah, sorry, I thought I said that when I mentioned the prophecy, but I guess I wasn’t clear. The exact wording isn’t important at the moment, but the focus of the prophecy is that you have kill him. We can help you, and I am by removing all of the anchors, but the final act must be yours,” she told him.

“But I’m still a student, I can’t kill him! Everyone’s scared of his name and he’s a lot older than me…” He was rambling in his worry.

“HARRY!” she shouted to get his attention. He stopped and looked at her, fear written large on his face.

“Good thing I put up those silencing charms,” she smirked.

He nervously laughed, but still looked scared, not that she could blame him.

“Now, it’s not as bad as it sounds thanks to me. In the old timeline, all the bad stuff you were thinking was true.” Actually more as Dumbledore died early, but no need to tell him that now. “But in this timeline, your friend Ginny has made it easy on you and you’ll probably never have to face him at all.”

“Probably?” he asked with concern, although he was starting to relax a little.

“Almost certainly,” she assured him with confidence. “If you want a completely honest answer, I have to allow for magic, which can allow for strange things to happen, even to the point of sending people back in time,” she finished with a smile.

He laughed nervously again. “Yeah, good one. So, what now?”

Here comes the hard parts, she thought. “Remember those anchors I mentioned?” He nodded. “There are three left, but I know where all three are and how to get rid of them. Let’s start with the easy ones first, OK?”

“Uh, sure.”

“All right. Back to the night Voldemort tried to kill you, he was able to find your family because of a traitor, one of your parents’ best friends. In a strange twist of fate, they told everyone that your father’s best friend and your godfather…”

“I have a godfather?” Harry was surprised.

“You do. Your father’s best friend, Sirius Black, was held up as their Secret Keeper, the person who held the key to the spell that hid their house. Unbeknownst to everyone, they switched and made another friend the Secret Keeper; his name is Peter Pettigrew. As the name implies, as long as the Secret Keeper kept the secret, they would be safe. Also unbeknownst to everyone, Peter Pettegrew was a Death Eater and betrayed them, leading Voldemort to their hidden house.”

“That bastard!” Harry snarled. “What happened to him?”

“Be patient, I’m getting to that.” He bristled a little, but did not say anything, so she continued her story. “Peter tried to get away and Sirius tracked him down to bring him in. Unfortunately, Peter managed to surprise Sirius, killed twelve Muggles and made it look like Peter died too, framing Sirius for all of it, including your parents. So at this moment, Sirius sits in Azkaban Prison for all the crimes. Peter is still alive and has been in hiding.”

Harry leaned forward, looking very intense. “Do you know where he is so we can get Sirius out?”

Here is where it gets really hard, she thought. “Harry, I’m truly sorry, but I’m going to have to pull a Dumbledore on you.”

He sat back up in surprise. “Huh?”

She sighed. “Yes, I do know, but we must leave him there for a few months longer.”

“What?!” he exploded, and again she was thankful for the silencing charms. “Are you insane! Damnit! How can you do that?”

Ginny held up her hand, and miraculously, he stopped shouting. She leaned forward, and as seriously as she could, she slowly said, “Harry, as hard as it is, if we don’t make this small sacrifice, we may lose the war.” He gulped. “I know it’s hard, but this is where my foreknowledge is extremely important.”

“Why?” His voice was weak, as if he knew he would not like the answer.

“Because I can’t risk you going after him early as there is an event we must let happen. If you try to capture Pettigrew and fail, Sirius will be stuck in prison and we may not be able to remove all of the anchors before Voldemort gets a real body back. Remember that I told you that Voldemort tried to make an anchor and accidentally succeeded?” He nodded. “A piece of his soul went into you, Harry, into your scar. That’s why you had so much pain there when you were fighting Quirrell in your first year.” She remembered the memory her Harry had showed her of that fight.

He reached up and gingerly touched his scar. “I have a part of him? In me?” He looked scared and Ginny could not blame him.

“Yeah, but it will not hurt you unless you are near him again, and that won’t happen; we’ll see to that.” He nodded and she was grateful that he believed her. “You see, something will happen this summer, and will cause Sirius to escape from prison. Because he escapes, the Minister puts creatures called Dementors around the school to supposedly protect us from Sirius. We need you to come in contact with a Dementor so it can suck the soul part of Voldemort out of you.”

Harry turned a little green. “I don’t know what that entails, but it doesn’t sound good.”

She gave him a grim smile. “Well put, but I shall be there to protect you. You just have to get your forehead to its mouth, and it will do the right thing. After that, I will cast a spell to destroy the Dementor to ensure that soul fragment is destroyed.” She paused and gave him a grin. “The amusing part to me is that it was your future self that developed the spell that destroys Dementors; so you’re really helping yourself here.”

He laughed weakly. “Right. So what happens to make Sirius escape now and why not right after he went to prison?”

“Sirius said that the reason he escaped is because Minister Fudge gave him a copy of the Daily Prophet and a picture in it motivated him to escape,” she calmly explained. “I need to make sure that picture gets in the newspaper again, but that shouldn’t be too hard.”

Harry looked confused. “But Ginny, Fudge isn’t Minister anymore, Bones is.”

Ginny suddenly felt horror as she realized what had been nagging her at the back of her mind. “Holy bloody hell!” she swore as she smacked the sides of her head with both hands. “I’ve really messed this up.”

“So it’s not going the way you planned?” Harry asked timidly.

She counted to five slowly before she answered. There was no need to take out the anger she felt towards herself on Harry. “No. I have royally bungled it. I forgot I needed Fudge in office to do stupid things at this point in time. I sent the letters to Bones too soon. Damn!”

There was silence for a few seconds. “You’re the one that told Bones about the Death Eaters, aren’t you?” Harry asked.

“Yes,” Ginny admitted. “The Director exceeded my expectations by getting rid of so many corrupt people at once, but it’s all still my fault. Worse still, if I had recognized my mistake sooner, we could have gotten Sirius released six months ago.” She banged her head on the palm of her hand. She started to do it again, but felt Harry pull her hand away so she missed. Looking up to glare at him to interrupting her self-torture, she stopped when she saw the compassionate look on his face.

“You told Dumbledore that no one is perfect and that everyone makes mistakes. That includes you too, Ginny. I wished your plan had worked or that Sirius had been let out sooner, but at least you had a plan and you were trying your best to help me.” He looked down for a moment before he softly said, “I can’t say that about anyone else.”

She could not stop herself and moved over to him as she said, “Oh, Harry.” Ginny wrapped him in a hug and held him tightly for a moment. “There’s always a plan B, we’ll just have to find it.” Letting him go, she moved back just slightly so she could think better, not being influenced by her joy of holding him.

“How did you destroy it, you know, the thing in me, the last time?”

“Hermione found an exorcism ritual that did it. The problem there is that it took a half a dozen people searching full-time for the ingredients nearly a year to find them, and it was very expensive. In fact, it was more expensive then everything you have in your trust vault at the moment. To top it off, it took four of us to do the ritual on you and I don’t want to tell that many others about all of this. So I needed to find another way, and I thought the Dementor idea would work.” Ginny sighed and mentally cursed her stupidity again.

“You said there were other things, Horcruxes. How did you destroy them and can you do that to me too?”

A smile came over Ginny. Harry never gave up and that was one of things she liked about him. “One of them got destroyed with fire. That’s how I’ve destroyed the others in this timeline, but that would have fatal consequences for you.”

Harry gulped and she chuckled.

“The Sword of Gryffindor was also used. The magic in the sword seemed to be up to the task. Hmm…”

“Maybe you could just poke the end of it into my scar?” Harry asked.

She nodded. “That’s what I was wondering. That might be the safest. On the other hand, getting the sword will not be easy as it’s presently hiding in the Sorting Hat in the Headmaster’s office, AND I think it requires great need to get it out.”

“I have a great need,” Harry said seriously.

“I meant great need in the form of save your life while battling evil or die trying,” she told him with a smirk.

Harry gulped again.

“Still, it is an idea and if we can talk to the Hat we can find out if it will help us. If not, then we really haven’t lost much. The hardest part will be getting access to the hat.” Ginny contemplated that.

“During a meal would be easiest time,” Harry volunteered.

“True,” she agreed, “but if he has alarms on his office, and I’m sure he does, he would immediately come. It would be best to do when he’s not in the castle.”

“What about over the summer?”

Ginny considered that seriously, because it did have real merit. She finally shook her head. “I like it, but I don’t know how to tell if he’s there or not, as he lives in the castle year around. We’d have to know he was away doing Mugwump things or something. I know how to get into the school, but his door will probably be locked too.” She sighed yet again. “I think that will have to be plan C.”

“OK, how else did you destroy them?”

“You destroyed one using a basilisk fang, or more accurately the venom in the fang. That might be possible,” she mused, trying to think it through.

“We can get that, but wouldn’t that kill me?” Harry asked with big eyes, as if afraid of the answer.

Ginny mentally went back on forth on whether to tell him or not. Her mischievous side finally won. “In your second year at Hogwarts, in the other timeline,” she quickly added, “you killed the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets with the Sword of Gryffindor and a little help from Fawkes, Dumbledore’s phoenix.”

“No bloody way!” Harry was incredulous, even his body posture seemed to rebel.

“Your older self showed me the Pensieve memory and I’ll say it was incredible,” she said wistfully.

“But why would I do something like that?”

“Because the diary that Lucius Malfoy gave me was a Horcrux and allowed a sixteen year-old version of Voldemort to possess me. At the end of the year, it took me to the Chamber to kill me and you found out and rescued me, fighting the basilisk and killing it.”

Harry looked amazed, but he did not say anything.

“As you killed the basilisk, it bit you. Fortunately, Fawkes was still there and healed you. Then just before I would have died, you took the fang that bit you and stabbed the diary that was Voldemort, killing him.” Ginny looked at him with profound gratitude. “You saved my life that day.” And you were my knight in shining armor, she added to herself.

Harry blushed for a moment. “So if we had a fang, we could stab my scar with it and then use phoenix tears to heal me.”

Ginny thought about that. It sounded so simple and easy, but would it work? She hoped it did, but if not, she might have to involve Dumbledore and she desperately did not want to do that. “We’ll have to break into the Chamber of Secrets where the unsold parts are stored to get a fang. I’m reasonably sure there are some left. As for the tears of a phoenix, those will be hard. I’d love to have Fawkes help us, but again, it would probably involve telling Dumbledore to get his cooperation.”

“I agree, I’d prefer to do this without Dumbledore,” Harry said. “Can you buy them? I do have money.”

“Yes, but they’re rare and will be expensive. Still, it is guaranteed to get some that way and we both have money.” She smiled and looked at him. “I think that is the new plan B.”

Harry smiled. “Yes! We’re back on track. What else?”

“Well, now that we don’t have to wait, there’s no reason not to get Sirius out of prison either tomorrow or the next day.”

“How do we do that?” Harry asked eagerly.

Ginny thought about that. She was going to unmask the man, so to speak, at school in front of a lot of witnesses to make sure he did not disappear. But with Bones in office and Shacklebolt as the head of the MLE, she did not really have that worry anymore. She looked at Harry. “In your picture album, is there a picture of Peter Pettigrew?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Because that’s who betrayed your parents. So when I force him out of hiding, you’re going to need to make a noise about that man being Peter Pettigrew when the Aurors are here to arrest him for breaking into our house. The story of your parents’ death is famous enough they will know who he is and that will start the process of freeing your godfather.”

Harry was smiling and happy. “I’m looking forward to it. Then what?”

“Then, after Sirius is out of prison, we’ll need to talk to him alone and take him into our confidence. He is the only other person I’ve planned to tell my secret to, as we’ll need his help getting the last two Horcruxes. Once we have those, I’ll help you to destroy them and then Voldemort should be gone for good.”

Harry sat there for a long moment thinking. Ginny joined him in considering a war-free world. It was a wonderful thought.

“Do you think he’ll want to know me?” Harry finally asked, breaking the silence. “I mean, he’s been in prison. Maybe he’s forgotten about me.”

Ginny was not surprised he was thinking about his godfather and almost laughed, but held it in. “Oh Harry, if you only knew how much Sirius wants to be with you. Don’t worry, just hang on and you can find out for yourself. In the other timeline, Sirius enjoyed every minute he got to spend with you.”

“Really?” Harry looked like he did not believe her, even though his body language said that he wanted to believe her.

She nodded quickly. “Really and truly.” He accepted that and leaned back with a goofy smile on his face. This Harry and her Harry were very much alike on the subject of Sirius.

“So you see, Harry,” she continued her explanation, “once you destroy the last of the Horcruxes, then Voldemort will have nothing holding him to this earth any longer. In theory, he should just leave on his own, assuming he’s floating around. It’s possible that he’s possessing some animal, trying to stay alive. If that’s true, then when the animal dies, he should leave this earth then. The great thing, is that you’ll never have to fight him one on one.” She smiled at her logic and it was contagious, as he broadly smiled back.

“Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant!”

“Thanks!” she beamed at him, enjoying his praise. “Of course, there are all kinds of things that can go wrong, and we’ll have to make adjustments for, but I think we can do this.”

“That will be so great,” he said with a yawn.

“Yes it will.” She looked at her watch and saw that it was after one. “Unless you have any more questions, I think we should call it a night.”

“Yeah, probably so. It will be a long day tomorrow now,” he told her.

“Use the potion I gave you, a couple of sips at a time, but go to the bathroom to take it. It usually causes smoke to come out of your ears, so you need to be somewhere private for a few minutes,” she instructed him.

“Right, thanks. And thanks for telling me the rest, Ginny. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your help,” he told her sincerely.

She smirked as a tease presented itself. “You don’t have to tell me, Harry, just show me.”

“Huh?”

“Stand up,” she commanded him as she stood. Shrugging, he stood. Ginny wrapped her arms around him in a hug. “Show me,” she whispered intimately into his ear. As she felt his arms go around her, that warm and safe feeling came over her -- again. “Anytime you feel appreciative, feel free to show me.” Ginny reluctantly let go. As she felt him let go, she stepped back, sure she was blushing at least a little. While he was blushing too, to her surprise, he was also grinning.

“There is one other small thing you can do for me,” she told him with an impish grin, “but we’ll discuss that some other time, like next summer.”

He looked puzzled. “Next summer? Why then?”

Ginny sighed. He was such a boy still. “I think that would work better, but,” her impish grin came back, “if you figure it out on your own before then, that’s fine with me. Good-night, Harry.” She winked at him before she turned around and removed her spells and left. She was not sure if he would figure it out or not, or if he did, what he would do.

The thought of snogging Harry filled her thoughts as she stepped into her room and closed the door. As she turned around to get her pyjamas, she suddenly saw a person in the chair at her desk, illuminated in the pale moonlight. Gasping at the surprise, she recognized her father. “Dad?” she weakly queried.

He pulled out his wand and whispered a silencing spell towards the door, lit the candle by her bed, then he put the wand away. “Ginny, have a seat,” he said in a very controlled tone of voice as he pointed to the bed; she meekly complied. “I’m very curious about something and I’m sure you can help me by answering a few questions.”

Dread filled her as she sat. How long had he been sitting there?

“While not as often as I’d like, I do check on my children from time to time, making sure everything is all right. There’s something about seeing them sleep that is soothing to me; perhaps it’s the nostalgic moments from when they were babies.”

His casualness and quiet voice made the situation worse for her.

“Therefore, I’m sure you can understand that when I find one of my children not in their bed late at night, that I become concerned. Usually, this happens with the twins.” He shrugged as if it was a matter of no importance, or else easily dealt with. “But when I find my daughter missing for over half an hour, and the only room I can’t easily check is the bedroom of a boy who is our guest, and said bedroom has silencing spells on it, I’m sure you can understand how I might be concerned about that, and I might be inclined to jump to conclusions that are not good for anyone. So, Ginevra…”

Oh Merlin, she thought, I am in deep shit now.

“I’d like to know exactly why this situation has come up, and I’d like the complete truth.”

His voice was still calm after all of that, and she was practically shaking, despite her mental age. “Well, Dad, I, uh, I do have a good reason -- really.”

“The truth, Ginny.” His look said nothing less would be acceptable. Her easy-going father was nowhere to be found.

She nodded and left her head bowed, not wanting to see disappointment on his face. “I needed to talk with Harry, well, we both needed someone to talk to, but probably him more than me. And you see, we had to do it now as that was the only time we could.” She was not sure that made sense, but she really needed to keep the details to herself.

“So you thought that the middle of the night would be a good time to talk?” He sounded like he did not believe her.

“Well, the only time really,” she told him. “We can’t talk during the day because there’s no privacy. Even during the day when you’re at work, there’s five other people in the house, and they’re always around us. Or if we go outside, someone always seems to come find us a few minutes later to go flying, play chess, do chores, or just hang around. And if we were to try to send them away, they would tease us about it.” She looked up at him. “So this is the only time we can talk about serious things.”

“And what would be so serious that you would need privacy to discuss?”

Ginny knew she had to say something; refusal would only make things worse. “Mostly about his relatives, but about his family too. I also explain things about the Wizarding world because he doesn’t understand why some things happen, and well, it would be embarrassing for him to talk about a lot of this stuff in front of Ron. And the twins, they would probably make fun of him.”

“But he can talk about all of that with you?” She nodded. “The girl who loved the Harry Potter story and had a crush on him since she was five?”

She could not help the blush she could feel. “Dad! I’m only twelve and he’s only thirteen. Nothing like that is happening.”

“Like what, Ginny?”

Her eyes snapped to his face, searching. He was either totally serious or hiding the tease really well. “Nothing, Dad, you have nothing to be concerned about. Harry and I are just friends, nothing more.”

He sat there and looked at her for a moment. “I do understand your problem, Ginny. I’ve always liked having a large family, but I do recognize that privacy can be hard to come by here. Still, I do not believe you made a good decision. What do you think your mother’s reaction would be if she had been the one to find you?”

Ginny lost her blush quickly and then some, going white. That was a disturbing thought. The entire house would know about this, even if it was the middle of the night.

“I see by your expression that you have a good idea what would happen.” He paused for a moment. “I think I need you to make a promise, Ginny.”

“What?” There were several things he could ask her for, and she wondered which it would be.

He leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees, looking at her even more seriously, which she thought would not have been possible. “I want you to promise me that in this house, you will not be with Harry behind a closed door, regardless of the time.”

Ginny was not happy about that, but he could have sent Harry away.

“If you need to have a private conversation, try asking your mother to spell off part of the living room, or go outside and sit on the garden bench where no one can hide near you. As for your brothers, I’ll handle their teasing. While your mother and I think of Harry as an honorary Weasley, we know that he is not really one, and therefore, he might have secrets that are not our secrets, and he might choose to share with someone for a second opinion. Will that do?”

She nodded. “I promise, no closed doors for us in the house.” Then she grinned and added, “Unless we’re married someday.”

Her father just looked at her for a moment, his serious expression intact, until it slowly faded into a wry grin. “Should you manage to capture his heart and his wedding ring, my daughter, then I will release you from this promise. But until then…”

“Until then,” Ginny softly echoed him.

“You’re a good girl at heart, Ginny. I do believe Harry needs all the true friends he can get.” He got up and walked over and planted a light kiss on her forehead. “Good-night, Ginny.”

“Good-night, Dad. Oh wait!” She suddenly remembered she had something for him. Digging in her book bag from school, she pulled out a bank draft and handed it to him. “I forgot that Professor Dumbledore gave this to me just before I left school. I should have given it to you a few days ago, I’m sorry.”

He smiled. “No real harm done, since this is extra to us. Hmm, another fifty-one hundred Galleons. Thank you, Ginny. You’re a real Weasley, thinking of our family like this.” He took his spell down and told her good-night again.

Alone in her room, Ginny changed and crawled into bed a littler after half one in the morning, very relieved that a crisis had been averted. Pushing that thought away, she turned to her favorite thoughts to go to bed with: Harry. She was soon fast asleep with a smile on her face.

The next morning, Ginny was bleary-eyed as she came down to breakfast. A weary-looking Harry was already there sitting at the table and barely eating. While she did not want to, Ginny decided she was going to have to take at least a little of her potion. She looked at Harry and mimed drinking. He got the idea and nodded. They finished breakfast about the same time and both went upstairs.

Ginny drank one of her potions and felt a lot better as the energy spread through her body. Looking into the mirror, she saw the last of the smoke come out of her ears. Feeling much more normal, she started to leave her room and go back downstairs when Ron passed her going down to eat his breakfast. That gave her an idea.

She went to Harry’s room and softly knocked on the door; he opened it. “I think now’s a good time to ‘find’ someone.” He nodded and followed her as she left for the stairs. They both went up to Ron’s room.

“Why are we here? I though you’d have to go out and find him,” he whispered.

Ginny pulled her wand and shot a Stunning spell at Ron’s rat.

“What are you doing?”

She dumped the rat onto the floor and shot a spell at it. The rat turned into a man.

“Wh--“

Ginny clamped a hand over his mouth. “Not yet,” she whispered. “And sorry, I should have warned you.”

“That’s Pettigrew.”

“I know.”

“And he’s been here… I’ve slept with him in my dorm room.”

“I’m sorry, but I couldn’t tell you, Harry. You can yell at me later. Now, I’m going to stand him up and I want you to hit him. I’ll let him fall against the wall. When we’re asked, we can say that we heard a noise, came up here and found him when you hit him and he knocked himself out when he hit his head. The Aurors will get called and then you can say his name and ask how he’s alive. All right?”

He still looked a little upset and now nervous, but he nodded.

Ginny waved her wand and Pettigrew rose up to an approximation of standing, despite the fact that he was slumped over. “OK, I’m going to scream like a little girl while you hit him.” He grinned at that. “Feel free to yell like you would if you were surprised. Do your best acting, Harry.”

Harry briskly nodded and pulled his arm back. As he let the punch go, Ginny screamed, twice and cast a compulsion to tell the truth on him before she put her wand away. Thunderous footsteps could be heard on the stairs by the time Pettigrew lay motionless on the floor.

Percy was the first there, wand in hand.

Ginny ran to him and threw her arms around him. “There’s a strange man up here.”

Percy looked at the man that was under Harry murderous looking glare with disbelief. “How?”

“I don’t know. We heard a noise and came to look. Harry hit him to save me.” That might have been slightly overboard, but Ginny thought making Harry look like her savior would have benefits -- for her.

More people came up to the top floor: the twins first, then Ron, and finally her mother. They all gaped at the strange man.

“Who is he and what’s he doing here?” the mother finally asked, pulling her wand out of her apron.

“That’s Peter Pettigrew; I recognize him from the pictures in my family album,” Harry said venomously. “Since he’s not dead, he must have been the one to have betrayed my family.” He then viciously kicked the man in the ribs.

Ginny thought that was a bit over the top too, but perhaps not for Harry after she thought about it.

“Percy, go downstairs and contact your father at the Ministry. Tell him he needs to come home and bring some Aurors with him.” She took Ginny from her brother. Ginny wrapped her arms around her mother’s waist.

They all stood there for next few minutes and just looked at the man. He was like an accident: you just could not look away even if you wanted to.

Voices eventually came up the stairs, along with hurried footsteps. Her father led the two Aurors and her brother.

“Where did he come from?” her father asked.

When no one said anything, Ginny said in a quiet voice, “Ron’s rat is missing and they told us in school that some people can become animals…” Both Ron and Percy looked slightly ill at that statement.

One of the Aurors pulled out some manacles and put them on the man. “I don’t who this is, but we’ll get to the bottom of it.”

“It’s Peter Pettigrew; I recognize him from the pictures in my family album,” Harry said. “He’s not really dead, so maybe my godfather is really innocent.”

That caused a stir and all the adults started talking. Ginny got an idea and leaned over to whisper in Harry’s ear. He gave her a questioning look, but when she nodded at him, he nodded back.

As the chaos finally died down, the Aurors searched Pettigrew and pulled out two wands.

“Hey, one of those looks like my wand,” Harry exclaimed and pointed.

The Auror holding the wand looked at him. “You sure, lad?”

“Can I hold it and wave it to make sure?”

The two Aurors looked at each other. The second shrugged, so the one with the wand handed it to Harry. Harry waved it and a fountain of maroon and gold sparks came out of it.

“It feels like my wand, but it’s not,” Harry said.

“If that wand isn’t his, it’s the most compatible wand I’ve ever seen,” the Auror said. “What’s your name?”

“Harry, Harry Potter.”

“THE Harry Potter?”

“Yes, sir. It’s not my wand, but can you make the wand reveal what it last did?”

The Auror looked at the other and they seemed to have a short but silent conversation. “It won’t hurt,” one said and pulled his wand out. Doing a Priori Incantatum, everyone but Ginny was shocked to see the image of a Killing Curse and a red-haired woman come out of the wand.

“My mother…” Harry whispered in the silence.

“That’s You-Know-Who’s wand!” the Auror said. The other Auror pulled up the left sleeve of Pettigrew and everyone saw a faded looking Dark Mark. “I bet that gets his Order of Merlin taken away.” The other Auror nodded.

The Auror looked at a Harry. “We’ll also need a statement from you since you found him.”

“Ginny was with me when we walked into the room.”

“Right. We’ll need a statement from you too, miss.”

“Perhaps you could take Pettigrew in and then come back for the statements?” Mr Weasley suggested.

“Certainly,” the second Auror said. “There is no need to have him here. We’ll be back in a few minutes, maybe even with the Director.”

“We’ll all go down and wait in the living room.” Mr Weasley let the Aurors take Pettigrew down and then herded his family down into the living room.

Ginny was pleased that no one seriously questioned their story, not even Director Shacklebolt, who came to hear the statements. Apparently, Pettigrew had awakened when they put him into his cell and when asked, he confirmed that he was a rat Animagus. He also confessed to being a Death Eater and the one to kill all the Muggles when he was fighting Sirius.

Sirius was sure to be released. The only question now was how he would react when she told him her story.

((A/N: Yes, the average Auror is basically a sheep, a smarter sheep, but still easily led when handed certain “observations” by “known trustworthy people”.))

I've finally addressed what some of you have been asking about in the reviews: Didn't Ginny changes create problems, especially in getting rid of Fudge so early? As I've pointed out in this chapter, the answer is yes. Ginny is smart and her foreknowledge is extremely useful, but that foreknowledge becomes less useful as more changes are made, and Ginny is no Hermione when it comes to planning. Still, her main goal is closer than ever before.

The observant will notice that Ginny left 1 very important detail out of her conversation with Harry. The usual question applies: Will that come back to bite her?))