"Relashio," Ginny said, as she sent a silent red Trip Jinx together with the purple Revulsion Jinx. It was barely noticeable that they were actually two spells.
"Protego!" Harry shouted - why was he shouting?
The two interwoven spells hit his shield and broke it after a moment. Harry's shield charm still wasn't strong enough to withstand two spells at the same time.
Harry let go of his wand. Apparently, the shield hadn't stopped the Revulsion Jinx…
"Locomotor Wibbly," Ginny said calmly, aiming at her boyfriend.
But Harry managed not only to grab his wand, but also to roll away from her jinx while firing a white Stinging Jinx at her.
What?
She thought about raising a shield, but there wasn't enough time, so she decided to jump aside instead. But Harry's jinx still hit her mid-jump, as she felt a stinging sensation from her shoulder.
"Ah, sorry, Ginny! I thought you wouldn't be hit by that…" Harry said awkwardly, rubbing the back of his head.
What was that supposed to mean!? Was Harry seriously holding back against her?
"It's okay, Harry. Maybe we should stop here."
Ginny rubbed her shoulder. The sting hurt less than the irritation curling in her stomach.
They had been training to fight in the Room of Requirement from time to time since their encounter with Macnair. And frustratingly enough, Ginny had realised that she really wasn't good at duelling at all, despite having Tom Riddle's memories…
Forget fighting against Voldemort or Dumbledore, or some elite Aurors. She couldn't even count on beating Harry… Well, if she used all the magic she knew - not just harmless spells - then it might be different, but still…
Harry really was nimbler and had better spatial awareness than her - probably because of Quidditch.
She remembered her fights against Croaker and Macnair… Both times, her victory had been more luck than she liked to admit.
She excelled at rituals, potions and occlumency, fields that rewarded preparation, logic and magical knowledge. But reacting fast in the moment, anticipating the path of spells and knowing where her body needed to be to not be hit… that was difficult!
She looked at the already swelling scorch mark on her shoulder under her robe and sighed.
Why were reincarnated people in stories always absurdly powerful fighters while she struggled against a boy only one year older?
"Are you really alright, Ginny? Should we go to the Hospital Wing?" Harry asked worriedly.
"No, Harry," she answered exasperated. "I won't go to Madam Pomfrey because of a Stinging Jinx."
He was way too overprotective at times.
"Let's go back to the common room. It's getting late." Ginny picked up her bag and headed for the door, Harry quickly following behind.
The Gryffindor common room was unfortunately quiet full when they arrived - it was almost curfew, so it wasn't that surprising.
"There is an empty seat!" Ginny said, pointing at a corner. She then pulled her boyfriend along, despite his reservations.
"It's just a single seat, Ginny."
"No problem." Ginny grinned. "Sit down," she ordered.
"No, you should sit down, Ginny. I can stand," Harry said, trying to be a gentleman. But Ginny ignored his words. Instead, she pushed him down and Harry didn't resist.
"Don't move, Harry," Ginny whispered into his ear, enjoying how he blushed slightly. Then she sat down on her boyfriend's lap without further ado.
"Ginny!" he whisper-shouted, clearly flustered. "What if Professor McGonagall sees us like this?"
He was clearly embarrassed, looking around. But the other Gryffindors around them paid them no mind.
Ginny, on the other hand, just closed her eyes and leaned her head against him.
It felt peaceful and… normal - if that made sense.
Harry was probably very self-conscious of her body pressed against his, but he still hugged her from behind anyway after a while, letting her enjoy his company.
She sometimes wondered why she acted and felt like this… There seemed to be some kind of dissonance between who her past life's memories insisted she was and what she actually felt. Maybe this was the interaction between soul and body that those soul magic books had talked about?
Well… she also had the memories of the original Ginny, but she didn't think those were influencing her too much. Right?
Maybe a little bit…
She remembered Alexander being trapped inside Tom's diary for decades, slowly going insane and becoming obsessed with being Ginny. She also remembered the original Ginny's innocence and crush on the famous Harry Potter from the book she had read. And she remembered her current life after taking over this body…
Was she just Alexander in the body of Ginny? But the original girl's brain and memories were clearly influencing her, weren't they?
She kind of liked the idea of being something new and different from Alexander.
She wanted so badly to be real. To be Ginny, not merely someone pretending to be her. But a voice in the back of her mind told her that she would never be the real Ginny. That she would always be an imposter. That Harry would be disgusted if he ever found out…
She felt a tear run down her cheek - her eyes still closed.
"Ginny…" she heard Harry's gentle voice as he wiped away the tear. "Are you alright?"
She shook her head, not saying anything.
Why was this so complicated? Why couldn't she just be normal? Just a normal girl with a normal school life?
"Would you still love me if I were someone completely different in a different body?" she whispered, more to herself than to Harry. But he still heard her and chuckled.
"Of course, though you wouldn't fit on my lap if you turned into a troll or something like that," Harry joked, while Ginny pouted. Stupid boy.
"I love you, Ginny Weasley," he continued more seriously, whispering the words in her ear. "You're the one person who stayed with me after Hermione died. I don't think I could stop loving you just because something about you was different. You'd still be you after all."
Her stomach felt fluttery at Harry's words…
"A bit of a short answer. I give it an Acceptable," Ginny answered with a small smile, snuggling closer to him.
"Fine… You are the most beautiful, amazing, intelligent and brave person I have ever met - even if you are sometimes a bit spoiled," Harry said half-jokingly, his arms tightening around her. "And… I love you - more than I could ever put into words. Enough for an Exceeds Expectations now?"
She wished so much that this feeling was real. That it wasn't just some leftover emotions of the original Ginny Weasley. That it wasn't her brain and that stupid second puberty tricking her into believing a lie.
"Maybe…" she hummed.
Real happiness… She kind of wanted to know whether magic considered her feelings real.
Without a second thought, she took out her wand. The wand that, more than anything else, symbolised her. A new core in the shell of the former girl, linked to death - yew and Thestral tail hair, thirteen inches long.
"Expecto Patronum," she cast the spell and opened her eyes.
Silver mist spilled from her wand, taking shape until a fully formed Patronus stood before her.
A Thestral.
It stood there, looking at her, slightly tilting its head and moving its body just like a real Thestral would.
Then she heard whispering around her and realised where she was and how much attention she had drawn to herself. Half the common room was staring.
"Ginny, what kind of spell is this?" Harry asked, but another voice interrupted them before she could answer.
"Miss Weasley!" Professor McGonagall called as she walked over to their corner - she seemed more surprised than angry. "Since when have you been able to produce a corporeal Patronus?"
Ginny decided to pretend to be shy and looked down, fiddling with her wand.
"This was the first time… I just felt happy and wanted to try it," she answered, trying to get on McGonagall's soft side.
For a moment, Ginny caught a small smile on Professor McGonagall's face before her usual stern expression returned.
"Well, as impressive as it is for a second-year student to cast a corporeal Patronus, spellcasting is still forbidden in the common room without permission, so five points from Gryffindor."
"What!?" Ginny exclaimed, having to pretend she cared about house points.
"Oh, and kindly remove yourself from Mr Potter's lap before I deduct further points. I would suggest going to your dormitory - it is almost bedtime," Professor McGonagall said, turning around, having said her piece.
She let the Patronus dissipate.
'Such a spoil-sport!'
Ginny pouted but still did stand up and turn to Harry.
'So magic really does consider what I feel real, while it doesn't accept Alexander's memories of happiness for a Patronus…' she thought, looking at her boyfriend. 'But I shouldn't overinterpret this,' she concluded, ignoring the fluttering feeling in her stomach as she looked into his green eyes.
Ginny talked some more with Harry while sitting on the armrest of his chair. From time to time, older students would interrupt them to ask about her Patronus, asking how she had managed to cast one at her age. It seemed that her reputation as a magical genius would soon spread even more.
Later, she said goodnight to Harry and made her way up to the Girls' Dormitory, where her roommates were already waiting for her.
"Ginny!" Emily greeted her enthusiastically when she entered their shared room.
"That silvery mist horse looked amazing! Mira told us it was some super advanced magic," she continued.
Meanwhile, Daisy was sitting on her bed, hugging her pillow, already in her pyjamas, while Mira sat at her desk with a book, seemingly trying to ignore her roommates.
Ever since Ginny and Harry officially became a couple, Mira had seemed quieter than usual, though she clearly tried not to show it. It didn't help that their roommate Emily was always very eager to discuss love and Ginny having a boyfriend. Daisy was also very interested, despite being easily embarrassed by such topics.
They hadn't realised yet that Mira had a crush on Ginny, despite the Boggart revelation that Mira was a witch's witch at the beginning of the year.
"Yeah, it's called the Patronus Spell," Ginny confirmed, trying to be humble, even though she was kind of proud of her achievement. It had been spur-of-the-moment, but Ginny did enjoy being the centre of attention and admired by others.
"A corporeal Patronus in second year is impressive," Mira said without looking up from her book.
"So which memory did you use, Ginny?" Emily asked curiously. "Mira said you needed a strong happy memory to cast the spell."
"Uhm…" Ginny hesitated, wondering if she should explain that it was also possible to use the pure feeling instead of a memory - it also helped when you were talented at Occlumency.
"It was a memory about Harry, wasn't it?" Emily said shrewdly, probably misinterpreting Ginny's hesitation as shyness. But Ginny decided to play along – she wasn't totally wrong after all.
So Ginny just nodded, pretending to be embarrassed, while Emily giggled and Daisy blushed, hiding her face behind the cushion even more.
They heard the bathroom door click shut and Ginny realised that Mira had left the room. She decided to leave her be, since Emily and Daisy had chosen to ignore Mira's strange behaviour. Mira would eventually have to accept that Ginny had a boyfriend.
"So tell us, how is it going with Harry? Did you spend the whole afternoon snogging Harry in a broom cupboard? We couldn't find you anywhere," Emily continued, while pulling Ginny towards the bed where Daisy was already sitting, listening eagerly.
"No… we were just practising duelling in an empty classroom, nothing more," Ginny told them.
"Boo! That's boring, Ginny. You should do something romantic with him!" Emily said, while Ginny rolled her eyes.
They spent the next few hours talking and laughing about all kinds of things until a female prefect opened the door and told them to go to sleep. At some point, Mira had returned and quietly went to bed without Ginny noticing.
It was already late, so they did as the older girl ordered.
The next morning at breakfast, Ginny noticed a familiar face staring back at her from the front page of the Daily Prophet Mira was reading. It was Bertram Aubrey - Ginny recognised him from the Three Broomsticks a few days earlier.
"Can I take a look at the front page?" Ginny asked, interested.
"Sure," Mira answered, handing her the paper. "I've already read it. Apparently, they caught Black's murderer."
'AZKABAN GUARD ARRESTED IN SIRIUS BLACK MURDER!'
The lead article was about how the Aurors had arrested Aubrey under suspicion of killing Sirius Black. Naturally, there was no mention of the anonymous memories she had sent. But Ginny was glad that Madam Bones had taken her letter seriously, unlike her previous tip about Barty Crouch Junior.
She looked down at the second article and froze.
'WALDEN MACNAIR ESCAPES AUROR CAPTURE!'
Oh, come on!
They had tried to arrest Macnair for a litany of crimes - though the article did not go into detail - but he had managed to escape. The Ministry warned that he was dangerous and urged people to contact the British Auror Office if they saw him. The article continued on page three, but Ginny didn't feel like reading the rest. The Ministry was so useless. Couldn't they do anything properly?
There were also articles about Fudge trying to shift the blame and what the Ministry was doing to catch Macnair, but Ginny simply handed the paper back to Mira.
Not her problem. She had done what she could. She should focus on her classes, friends and her new boyfriend, not criminals on the run - surely the adults would handle it for once… Whatever.
After breakfast, they had History of Magic.
Ginny had recently discovered scholarly journals in the Hogwarts library and started bringing copies to Binns' lessons to make them more bearable.
"What's that?" Emily asked curiously when Ginny took out a magazine to read during the class.
Ginny had used the Duplication Charm, Geminio, on some of the magazines in the library. She suspected that the library versions were special, since normally it was impossible to magically duplicate magical magazines, even if those copies only existed for a short while.
"It's 'Challenges in Charming' - it's about new discoveries in charms," Ginny explained.
She especially liked 'Transfiguration Today' and 'Challenges in Charming'. She hadn't found any good journals about potions or other fields of magic yet.
"You're such a swotter, Ginny. At least read 'Witch Weekly' or something…"
"Some people enjoy learning things, Emily," Mira said in the patient tone of someone explaining the obvious to someone rather dim.
"What's that supposed to mean?!" Emily replied, but Ginny ignored them.
It was the newest edition, so she first looked at the contents:
'Magical Resonance and Wand Compatibility'… 'Why Household Charms Fail Under Emotional Distress'… 'The Limits of Silent Casting in Adolescent Witches and Wizards'…
Maybe that would be interesting. Ginny had realised that she had some difficulty casting many different kinds of spells silently at the same time - even Tom Riddle had the same problem to some degree when he was still her age.
'Osteomantic Dating of Human Remains' by Nefir al-Masri
She immediately thought of Bill. It was strange how quickly she had liked him when she first saw him over Christmas. This was the first time she really considered that the former Ginny's memories were influencing her.
Binns began reading the chapter about the International Warlock Convention of 1289 while Ginny opened the page about the new bone-dating spell.
Binns' lectures would be slightly more interesting if Ginny hadn't had memories of Tom Riddle listening to the same lecture, word for word. Ghosts really should not be teachers.
Fortunately, she had brought her academic journal.
It was a surprisingly interesting spell, even if Ginny could not see herself ever needing it. It used the still-present magic in the bones to accurately measure the time of death of a person to the exact minute. It didn't work on Muggles, but it would be very useful for magical archaeologists.
So Ginny kept reading different charm papers while ignoring Binns.
It was nice. Peaceful.
Hopefully it would stay like this.