lionhearted girl ;;

For a while, the youngest Weasley sat impassive on her bed as she studied the clipping from Witch Weekly---a not unsubstantial feature on her boyfriend, her brother and one of her best friends that Molly had attached with this weeks letter, circling the paragraph in which Ginny herself was mentioned. Which she wouldn’t have minded as much, if it weren’t for the fact that the whole thing was about the ‘looks’ and ‘charisma’ of ‘Harry Potter’s girlfriend’ and hadn’t even bothered to mention her by name.

With an aggravated expression, she crumpled the article in her hand and dropped it onto the floor, running her fingers through her hair as she sighed. She didn’t want to care, but she could no longer pretend that she didn’t. Ginny didn’t necessarily want to be famous, but if she was going to be, she would like it to be for more than who she was dating.

But as lonely as she felt, she also recognised that everyone felt that way; and that it fell to her, as Head Girl and Quidditch Captain and co-leader of the Duelling Club, to set an example for the other students when it came to school spirit. With a warm smile on her face, she flitted from clique to clique and from table to table, mostly between courses, sometimes during them, slipping witty quips into conversation and making jokes whenever she could.

“I’m just saying, someone had to call him out on it, and you seemed too busy to do it,” Ginny chirped to a housemate with whom she was engaged in a lively debate, before turning to greet whoever was passing by. “Hi. How are you doing?”

Ginny Weasley: Hogwarts ReOpening Dinner Party

Check in? With … her? Ginny Weasley was checking in. With her. Ginny Weasley checking in with her. Mia’s brain blanked out for a moment, as she processed this. Who was she to Ginny Weasley, of all people? Mia hadn’t even known the other knew of her existence, except, perhaps, on the Quidditch pitch. But it wasn’t like Mia was captain or anything. She was just a Beater. She guessed there was also the fact that she was a Prefect, but so where dozens of others. What made her so special to Ginny Weasley?

She sat up a little straighter. It was almost instinctive. She wasn’t entirely sure how to reply, though. Did she tell the truth to someone who might not actually care and just be doing her Head Girl duties? Or did she lie and say everything was fine as to not bother the other when surely Ginny had her own problems to deal with?

“Um,” she said, to stall, chewing on her lip, as her fingers twisted together in her lap. “Fine … I guess?” Not the complete truth, but vague enough that it wasn’t a complete lie.

In response to the other sitting up a little straighter, Ginny’s smile widened and she leaned forward with a casual kind of grace, an earnest and expectant look upon her face. Even if she didn’t always feel relaxed, she tried her best to always look relaxed; partially in order to project calm as a leader, and partially because at her core, she was still just a girl attending her final year at Hogwarts. She didn’t really want to be treated any differently to anyone else. As it turned out, being confident and laidback in the hopes that others would relax in her presence was a strategy that had mixed results.

“Okay,” the Head Girl replied simply, seeming for a second as if she were prepared to take her leave again, before a thoughtful expression crossed her face. “You know, it’s all right if you’re not. Fine, that is. I don’t think anyone here is really fine yet.”

Mia inhaled a little sharply when Ginny Weasley herself walked into the classroom. The older girl was basically legendary around Hogwarts, for her own feats and because of who she was dating, and Mia couldn’t help but feel somewhat like a celebrity had walked into the room. She tried not to think of her as such, though. It was easier to look at her and see a Qudditch rival. Mia had plenty of those.

She pulled her legs up to cross them beneath her, tapping the sheet music in her hand absently against her knee. “Um. It’s going,” she said, then frowned slightly. “What are you doing here?” She realized how rude a question it was afterwards, but it was too late now. She’d already said it.

At this point, Ginny was practically immune to attention, or at the very least she tried to be. She understood the fame that her friends and loved ones carried with them; in fact, not only did she understand it, but for many years, she had felt that same awe in their presence. And, to a lesser but still noticeable extent, she understood the fame that she herself carried with her. Many things had changed who Ginny Weasley was. She tried not to make that one of them.

Her eyebrows shot up at the question, and her instinct was to fire back with a snarky response until she reminded herself that there were people in the world who deserved to be snarked at, and Mia York was not one of them. “Nothing in particular,” she said instead, shaking her mane of flaming red hair out of her face. “Just wanted to check in. How are you doing?”

Flora, aimlessly minding her own business, started walking down a path toward her room. She walked slowly, grasping her book with one hand, using the other to turn the pages. She was engrossed in the story placed out in front of her, losing herself in the words. She could usually do this for hours, but she did not have time tonight. Hours of studying awaited her once she got to her room; that’s why she was trying to squeeze in a few more pages before she got there.

Suddenly, she felt herself run into something solid. She stumbled back, dropping her book. “Oh my gosh,” she stammered, embarrassed. “I am so so sorry.” Flora pleaded, looking up at the person she just hit. 

Ginny had been halfway through a conversation with a fellow Gryffindor when she suddenly found herself mid-collision with another student. Her first instinct was toward mild annoyance, but when she quickly gathered her bearings and saw who it was, that feeling was quickly replaced by something bittersweet and infinitely more conflicted. It was hard for her not to react viscerally to the sight of a Carrow, but the red-haired girl reminded herself that the war, for better and for worse, had made survivors of everyone.

“It’s all right,” she replied with a composed expression, watching out of the corner of her eye as her dorm mate disappeared around the corner without a word. Turning her attention back to Flora (it had to be Flora, Hestia would never apologise), Ginny smiled and slipped effortlessly into her Head Girl persona. “Can I help you with anything?”

Mia was in the music room practicing. Despite not really feeling in the mood for singing, she was a part of the Frog Choir, and therefore had a performance coming up during the dinner party. She sat on the raised dais at the end of the room, music sheets in hand. She kicked her legs back and forth absently as she sang the part to herself. She grimaced, not liking how despondent she sounded. It was supposed to be an upbeat and exciting song, in order to lift people’s spirits. But she just wasn’t feeling it.

Sighing, she lowered the music to her lap, flopping over to lay on her back, staring up at the ceiling. Softly, she began to sing the Fugee’s “Killing Me Softly with His Song,” thinking that was sufficiently melancholy and fit her mood better. She cut herself off, though, when she thought she heard a noise. Sitting up quickly, and looking toward the door of the classroom. “Hello? Who’s there?” she called, her heart pounding.

Ginny was trying to keep herself busy. She was always trying to keep herself bus these days; whether she was studying, or tending to Head Girl duties, or thinking of things to teach at Duelling Club, or coming up with strategies for the Quidditch team, it seemed that she was always doing something. Living a fast-paced life was all she had known in the past years, and it was really the only thing she knew how to do in the face of the restlessness that she felt at the fact that her life, for the most part, was now outside these castle walls.

She hadn’t meant to startle anyone, quick to announce herself as she slipped into the room with a catlike agility and a soft, warm smile on her face. “Just me,” the redhead quipped before taking a seat. “How’s practice going?”