NOVEL NEXT Chapter 4: Harry's Letter
The Weasley's had just finished dinner that evening, and Ginny ascended the stairs to her bedroom. She was not having a very pleasant summer thus far.
She had lost a man who, while she had only met him just a year ago (and prior to that thought him to be an escaped lunatic murderer), had quickly turned into a favorite uncle-like figure. He was an adult, technically speaking, but he was so full of life and mischief that it was hard not to see him as a friend first and an adult second.
She knew that her feelings of loss were nothing compared to Harry's. Sirius had been the closest thing to a father that he'd ever known. Harry had been in such bad shape when they parted ways several days ago. He had almost seemed devoid of all emotion. Only his eyes betrayed the true depth of his pain.
She knew this had to be weighing heavily on him, and he was probably blaming himself for the whole thing, the noble git. Not that she could really blame him for it; hadn't she, after the incident with the Chamber of Secrets her first year, done the exact same thing? She had been manipulated by Tom Riddle, otherwise known as Voldemort, same as Harry.
Her brother, Ron, who also happened to be a complete git although for entirely different and much less flattering reasons, was not helping matters at all either. Ever since she'd mentioned she was seeing Dean Thomas on the train ride home he had not shut up about the subject. After living with the guy at school for five years without any problems, all of a sudden Dean Thomas is a right prat completely unworthy of me.
Right! And to top it all off, he had refused to send her letter to Harry with his, claiming that Harry needed his space right now and didn't need to listen to another girl go on and on about feelings and emotions. 'If he keeps this up Ron'll be having a big prank coming his way before long,' Ginny thought while grinning ruefully.
Just as she started to contemplate the different ways she could exact her revenge on her dear brother, she was pulled out of her thoughts by a tap-tap-tap coming from her window.
She jumped two feet into the air, startled out of her reverie. As she glanced over, she saw something she had not been expecting: a beautiful snowy white owl with a letter trying to get in her window. She unlatched the window and opened it up. "Hedwig? You know Ron's room is on the top floor. Why…?"
She was interrupted by an indignant hoot from the owl in question. Hedwig held her leg out impatiently while glaring at the red-haired female who dared to question her ability to deliver a letter to its correct recipient. She did not deliver to the wrong person, and she delivered her mail with dignity, unlike another owl she had the displeasure of knowing that belonged to a different red-haired somebody.
Sufficiently cowed by Hedwig's response to her questioning, Ginny shrugged and took the proffered letter. She scrounged up a bowl and filled it with water offering it to the owl as a peace offering.
While Hedwig hooted gratefully and helped herself to a drink, Ginny looked down at the envelope in her hands and sure enough, the envelope had her name on it. The first thing she noticed as she held the envelope was its weight and clunkiness. She ripped it open to find several gold coins contained within along with two pieces of parchment, one full sized, the other a torn scrap. 'Now that's odd,' Ginny thought to herself before pulling out the full sized letter and beginning to read.