Later that night, Ginny lay in bed, staring at her bedroom ceiling, and listening for the tell-tale lack of sound that would indicate her parents had turned in. When she was sure they'd fallen asleep, she quietly slipped out of bed and got back dressed, pulling on the rag-tag assortment of muggle and wizarding clothes, which she charitably called her duelling outfit. Tonight, she swore, Luna was going down.
She opened her bedroom door without a creak. The landing was silent. Ginny knew all the stairs by heart and her descent was as quiet as her stride. She padded over to the back door, carefully raised the latch, and slipped outside.
The night was black. Clouds blocked the moon from lighting the path and Ginny spent a few moments letting her eyes get used to the darkness.
The path was a mixture of gravel, broken up by the occasional oddly shaped paving stone. Ginny hopped from stone to stone, always careful to keep her feet from making any sounds. She reached the end of the path.
"Lumos!" Ginny's heart leapt into her throat. She swung around and flinched away from the light that washed over her.
"Ginny! What are you doing?!" her mother's voice shouted, shrill and angry.
Ginny's stomach dropped.
Oooooooh bugger.
"And then she gave me an earful for over an hour!" Ginny threw her hands up and paced up and down in front of where Harry sat on the bottom steps of a huge Aztec pyramid in the middle of a dreamscape jungle. Everywhere around them, the sounds of a thousand tropical birds squawked, trilled, warbled, and chirped.
Harry grimaced. "Yeah, that didn't sound too good." "I just don't get how they caught me! I swear I made no noise. They were asleep! I'm sure of it."
Harry looked thoughtful. "They've probably put detection wards around the doors and windows."
Ginny felt her stomach slowly sink. "Bill." Harry nodded. "Not unlikely."
"Then what do we do now?" Harry's eyes gleamed. "First, we teach you to feel magic. You ready for that?" She nodded firmly.
"Right, this will not be easy. Come and sit here." He patted the spot between his legs. Ginny hesitated for only a moment before nodding, walking over, and plopping herself down with her back to him.
Harry leaned over and took her arms in his. Something washed through her. She gasped. "Did you feel that?" "Merlin, Harry, I'd have to be dead not to feel that."
"That was me flaring my magic. Now, I'm going to do the same thing, but less so."
The same feeling as before washed through her. She let out a long breath and leaned back into him. "I still felt it."
Silence descended for a few moments. "Did you feel that?" Harry asked.
Ginny's brow furrowed. "No."
"Right. How about this?" "Still no."
"Close your eyes."
She closed her eyes.
"Go into your occlumency."
She did so.
"Imagine a sea of water flowing around you, through you, feel it on your skin, in your veins."
Silence "Did you feel that?" Ginny frowned "No."
"How about that?" "No."
"Or that?" "No."
"Well, then, How about…"
"And once you're done with that there's a packet of peanuts to be shelled over there." Molly Weasley left Ginny to her tasks and went off to inspect the chickens.
Ginny frowned over her pile of unpeeled potatoes. A few feet from her, a large wooden spoon magically mixed bread dough in a large porcelain bowl.
Ginny shot the door a quick look, put down her peeler, and stepped over to the bowl. She closed her eyes, reached out her hands towards the bowl and tried to feel the magic.
She tried to imagine water flowing over senses, tried to imagine the flow of magic around her like a tide, like a river, like a trickle in a mountain stream.
She scowled.
… Nothing.
Ginny sat in Harry's lap for the sixth time in two weeks, this time at the top of the Aztec pyramid. "Form a stunner on your finger tips." Harry's firm but gentle voice pierced through the murkiness of her own occlumency induced fuzziness.
She felt the ever familiar magic pour through her body and into her finger tips, but she didn't let the spell escape.
"Draw it back into yourself."
She let the stunner fade away, feeling the extra magic pool and flow around her body, a slight pressure under her skin.
"Do it again."
She felt the stunner build up, felt it flow away. She felt Harry's finger tips press lightly to her own. "And again."
She built up the stunner, drew the magic back into herself, and gasped when she felt something else, something foreign, flow down her fingers. She snapped her eyes open and saw Harry's own fingertips all red-lit.
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