you can't change the music of your soul

CHARACTER NAME —

Ginevra “Ginny” Molly Potter (nee Weasley) — the youngest Weasley and the girl that her mother had dreamed of for so long, Ginny was named for two strong women — her grandmother Ginevra and her mother Molly. In her name, she carried a heritage of Prewett and Weasley. Making the decision to give up her maiden name (especially after she was already a successful and well-known Quidditch player) wasn’t as difficult as Ginny had always imagined it would be — Harry deserved to have someone he loved who was alive share his last name.

BLOOD STATUS —

pureblood — blood status has never been something that Ginny cared or noticed about her own life; she was proud to be considered a blood traitor. There was definitely a certain privilege that Ginny had and continues to have in her blood status that she can tend to be blind to.

BIRTHDAY —

11 august 1981 — a happy day for the Weasley family; finally a baby girl to fulfill all of her mother’s dreams of pink and frills, though it became quite clear by the time she was a toddler that Ginny was more like her brothers than the stereotypical girl Molly had dreamed of. Still, a daughter was a gift, and Molly didn’t mind that Ginny cared more for playing in the mud than playing house.

GENDER & SEXUALITY —

cis-female (she/her), pansexual — gender has never been something that Ginny really pays that much attention to. To her, it’s all about personality and heart. She falls in love with people – the fact that all of her serious relationships are with men is purely coincidental.

FORMER HOUSE —

Gryffindor — there was never another option for a Weasley, nor for one with the firecracker and stubborn personality that Ginny had. She was proud to join the rest of her siblings in Gryffindor house, and it was clear from the start that she belonged there.

INFECTION —

No, at least to start out. I’m completely open to see what develops and whether that might include Ginny becoming infected.

OCCUPATION  —

During her time at Hogwarts, Ginny didn’t think very much about life after school. Sure, she had dreams and passions, but her family was pulled into a war when she was fourteen, and from then on, her main focus (outside of typical teenage woes and worries) was preparing for the fight. But when the war was over and Ginny returned to Hogwarts for her final year and wore the badge of Gryffindor Captain, she was free to dream, and all of her dreams included Quidditch. Upon leaving Hogwarts, she was recruited to the Holyhead Harpies and played for them for many years, even through her three pregnancies, eventually even making team Captain. Upon nearing her 35th birthday, a terrible injury to her rotator cuff pulled her out of the action, but her love for Quidditch was too strong for her to walk away from the sport, so she took on a position as coach, which she still holds to this day.

MARITAL STATUS/SHIPS  —

Married to Harry James Potter. I definitely super ship hinny. I think they’re perfect for each other — Ginny is warmth and love that Harry grew up longing for; Harry is steady and rational where Ginny is fiery and headstrong; Ginny is laughter and light where Harry has known so much darkness and terror. Harry is home for Ginny who has always known what home felt like and Ginny is home for Harry in a way he’s never experienced. In all, Ginny is made of the sort of strong stuff you need to be married to the Chosen One.

FAMILY —

Ginny was born the youngest of the Weasley family, and the only girl. As much as her parents delighted in her birth and her family was tight-knit and warm, Ginny’s childhood wasn’t perfect. Their poverty made all of their children uncomfortably aware of a kind of stress that those with wealth never encounter, and it manifested in each of them in different ways. Ginny wasn’t ashamed of her second-hand possessions, and she never went hungry, but she knew what it was like to hide her desire for something because she didn’t want to upset her parents who could never afford it. A watchful child, Ginny saw early on what this poverty did to her brothers – Charlie and Bill were always so much older and already off at Hogwarts that it didn’t seem to affect them that much, but Ginny saw the greed and shame in Percy, Fred, George, and Ron’s eyes, a fact that only grew as time went on.

It was also hard to be the only girl and the youngest child – Ginny sometimes felt that she was always running behind her brothers, unable to keep up with their antics, unable to convince them to slow down so that she could be a part of the fun too. They saw her as the pesky, annoying sister, which meant that a good portion of her childhood was spent alone. But instead of making Ginny into a shy soul, these periods of isolation made her strong. She had a thirst to prove herself and a nerve that meant she always succeeded, whether it was climbing to the highest part of the tree to beat Ron or breaking into the broom shed to steal Fred’s broom when he wasn’t looking. She devoured books and longed for adventure, and got herself into many scrapes with her parents with her tendency to wander off and explore the world of Ottery St. Catchpole outside of the Burrow.

Charlie and Bill were the brothers she looked up to the most, Fred and George were her favorites, and Percy had a way of tenderness about him that was reserved just for her, but Ron was her closest companion. They bickered and fought, played pranks on one another and got into trouble when they took turns tattling to their parents, but Ron was always there, and close enough in age that he couldn’t force her away from his plans like the rest of them did. Ginny knew his heart better than anyone, saw his desire to be different, unique, special, and tried to prove to him that he was enough for her. Her parents were happily married and in love with each other and each of their children, and though Molly had a fiery temper (that Ginny inherited) and Aruthur a few odd quirks, Ginny couldn’t have wished for better parents. Though they were poor in resources, they were rich in love, and Ginny learned the lessons that her brothers failed to see — money doesn’t bring happiness, people do.

HOGWARTS & CHILDHOOD —

Going off to Hogwarts was a dream come true for Ginny. Every couple of years, she saw another brother (or two) sent off to Hogwarts without her, until finally it was just her alone at home. She loved her parents, but the Burrow was always eerily quiet without her brothers stomping down the stairs or bickering with one another. The year between when Ron left and it was Ginny’s turn was the loneliest year of her life, and she reread all of her brothers’ letters home until the pages were soft and worn, longing for the day when it would be her turn.

When it finally was Ginny’s turn to go to Hogwarts, she was ecstatic. Proud in a different way than her brothers, Ginny didn’t care that her belongings were all second-hand, and the way she carried herself dared anyone to mock her for her family’s poverty. Ginny had such a vivacious and open personality that it should have been the best year of her life, but a last minute switch on the part of Lucius Malfoy turned Ginny’s dream into a nightmare. The year passed faster than any other ever had, with large chunks of it missing, and Ginny turned in on herself, becoming pale and quiet. Her brothers should have noticed that more was going on, but they were all too wrapped up in their own pursuits to see that their sister had disappeared, to be replaced with someone who was meek and fearful. Instead of making a close group of friends around her, Ginny isolated more and more, until that fateful night when Tom Riddle made her lock herself in the Chamber of Secrets.

When Harry destroyed the diary, Ginny was free, and that summer, she began to regain more and more of her typical personality (though for a couple more years, she reverted back to shy and quaking in the presence of Harry). The next few years were the dream that Ginny had always imagined Hogwarts to be — she excelled in her classes, made an excellent group of friends, found that she was quite popular with the boys, and even made the Quidditch squad, proving to all of her brothers that she was made of more mettle than they gave her credit for. She took the brewing war and darkness seriously, but it didn’t make her turn overly serious, and she faced the future with a grim knowledge that she would fight until they won or she died. Once she had that knowledge, she didn’t obsess over it, accepting it with her matter-of-fact personality.

What Ginny didn’t plan on was falling in love with Harry, this time for real. The few weeks that they spent together were the happiest of her life — it finally felt that someone knew all of her and understood her in a way that went deeper than anything verbal. When he broke things off with her after Dumbledore’s death, she faced it with the same determination she faced everything else in life — she would always love Harry, but they each had their role to play in the war, and some things were just bigger than love.

Ginny fought every way she could in the year that followed — joining Neville and Luna in sowing dissension to Snape and the Carrows’ reign, protecting more vulnerable students when she could, rebelling against the darkness other classmates seemed to thrive in. When the battle was finally upon them, Ginny followed the rest of her family to Hogwarts, unable to stay behind and wait while they all flung themselves into danger. Ginny’s quick thinking and bold fearlessness kept her safe throughout the battle, but the horrors she saw that night changed her for good. After losing Fred, there was a seriousness about Ginny that she had lacked before, one that only comes from knowing deep sorrow. In the months that followed, Ginny did everything she could to hold her family together in the midst of their grief. She returned to Hogwarts because she knew she owed it to her parents to finish her education, and she enjoyed her last year of school, but not with the same carelessness that she had once known.

POST HOGWARTS —

DISCLAIMER — I’m keeping some things a little vague because I don’t know where the harry player stands; I’ll definitely flush it more out later at least for myself

It was a relief for Ginny to leave Hogwarts, to be able to be with her family again and learn what it meant to live in a world with no Dark Lord. Light entered back into her world, but it wasn’t the same untainted light that she had once known, and Ginny knew that she would always carry with her the horrors of that battle. Even if she could choose to wipe them from  her memory, she wouldn’t — it would be a dishonor to Fred’s memory.

Still, Ginny experienced much light and joy in these next years of her life. She was recruited to play for her favorite team, she grew ever closer to her family, her world began to fill with nieces and nephews, and she fell back in love (as if she had ever fallen out of it) with the man she wanted to walk beside forever. Eventually, she and Harry were married and started a family of their own. While Ginny kept doing the job that she loved, she found a part of herself that she didn’t know existed in becoming a mother. Her fiery temper and reckless streak didn’t disappear, but were partnered with a tenderness and sense of fear that became constant companions. She discovered that dueling Bellatrix Lestrange wasn’t half so frightening as having your heart walk outside of your body, which was what motherhood felt like for her.

The Potter family settled into a happy little life, finally free from darkness and fear, full of light and life and love. Little did they know what was coming to threaten all of that.

Current:

Ginny was like any child raised in the wizarding world — excitedly fascinated with the idea of vampires, but not really that fearful. They were so rare that they were almost like a fairytale. She never imagined that they would be something that would haunt her adult life, or that her idyllic life would once again be disrupted by darkness, this time a much more unknown and therefore terrifying one.

Ginny is fiercely protective of those she loves and desperate to keep darkness from spreading back into their world — she still feels so keenly what darkness cost her family once before, and she’s determined that there will be no more casualties or suffering among the Potter/Weasley clan. She knows and understands very little about the pandemic that is striking her world, but she desperate to keep it from spilling over, and ready to fight if that’s what it takes to protect the ones who are dear to her.

Plots

— MORE THAN JUST A SCARY STORY — It’s really exciting to explore what Ginny’s feelings are on vampires. There’s so little that’s known or understood about them and I can tell that the plot is very mysterious on purpose, and I’m just really PUMPED to see how Ginny reacts to the darkness converging on the world once more. Obviously she’s going to go into mama bear mode and want to do everything she can to eradicate the darkness, but what does it look like to go up against a threat you don’t understand? This kind of conflict makes blood purity look completely black and white, and how will Ginny fare in a darkness that’s more shades of grey?

— CASUALTIES OF WAR — I would LOVE to explore what would happen in Ginny’s heart and world if one of her family members was infected (which, considering how many of them there are, seems likely). Ginny long ago took it upon herself to be the glue that held her family together, especially after Fred’s death, and she loves her family with a fierce determination not to lose anyone else. What will happen when another Weasley/Potter family member becomes a casualty of a darkness that is somehow more terrifying than the one Ginny has known before?

— SOFTENING THE HEART — I’d also love to see how Ginny’s view on the threat of vampires would change if she came to know one who was good. This is not the same as Death Eaters vs Order members, and not everyone who’s infected has a choice in the matter. Are vampires really that much of a threat, or is the world just afraid of that which it doesn’t understand? What might change in Ginny’s heart with a little understanding?

— THE INFECTION SPREADS — OMG not entirely sure whether this is a set plot I want someday, but what would happen if Ginny is infected in some way? Ginny has definitely got some serious issues when it comes to control — she’s the one who wants to be in control of her life and she thrives in that ability; what angst would it be for her to lose some of that control from an infection she didn’t ask for? Or what if something changes Ginny’s mind and she does seek it out? What would have to happen for that to be the case?

— THE SAME SIDE — I’d love to explore what it might look like if fighting against this darkness puts Ginny on the same side as someone she used to consider an enemy. Will she join Draco in becoming a vampire hunter in an attempt to protect the people she loves? What would it look like for her to put old grudges aside and learn to forgive for the sake of fighting against the darkness? Ginny has some real self-righteousness when it comes to those who fought on the side of the dark — what will her response be to them fighting for the “light”?

— FAMILY DYNAMICS — this is a more lighthearted one, but I’m excited to explore the weasley/potter dynamics at this point in these characters’ lives. Certainly the last 20+ years haven’t been all sunshine and daisies, there had to be a fair bit of suffering and conflict because that’s life, especially in a big family. Which relationships have healed over and which are threatening to break apart? What does Ginny’s marriage with Harry look like, especially now that darkness is threatening their world once more?

OTHER

✨Ginny has a notorious sweet tooth; she needs to eat something sweet at least once a day ✨ Harry does most of the cooking, but Ginny has mastered the art of baking bread, and the smell lingers around their house because of how often she has to stick a new loaf in the oven after her family devours the latest one ✨ If Ginny had her way, she would go barefoot all the time, but since she can’t, she wears sandals whenever she gets the chance ✨ Ginny prefers muggle jeans to wizarding robes, and now that she doesn’t have to basically live in her quidditch robes, she’s most often found in jeans, a sweater, and her birkenstocks – with or without socks (she’s very hip in muggle fashion) ✨ Ginny is not a morning person. Harry has to lure her out of bed with the smell of freshly brewed coffee. When she has to be out of the house really early for morning practices, Harry wakes up to brew her coffee and then goes back to bed once she’s up ✨ Ginny doesn’t really drink. When she was pregnant with Albus, she realized that she actually preferred butterbeer anyway, so she sticks to that. ✨ Ginny has one on one tea with her mum every week, and always stops by her father’s work shed on the way out to see his latest project. ✨ Ginny convinced Harry to let them get a cat, and she promptly named it Minnie (after Minerva McGonagall, of course. Minnie’s become another member of the family. ✨ Ginny loves the ocean, and spent as much time as she could at shell cottage when the kids were all young. Now she makes the family go on vacation to the coast every summer. ✨ Ginny found that after Albus was born, she wanted a daughter just as much as her own mother had wanted her. When Lily was young, Ginny would dress them up in matching outfits and stick her tongue out at Harry whenever he made fun of her for it.