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Thank you Yas and Roofuls for all your help.
Ending the war was supposed to fix things. Voldemort was dead, along with many of his followers. Harry was alive, along with many of his friends. Ginny knew she was supposed to be grateful.
Now that she was done fearing for her life, she felt too tired to be grateful. Her seventh year at Hogwarts was a mess. The professors were exhausted, the students shell-shocked, and most days Ginny wanted to take her Head Girl badge and fling it off the Astronomy Tower.
Instead of celebrating a joyous Christmas, the Weasleys sat around a prank-free tree and felt the gaping hole Fred had left behind in their family. Instead of preparing for exams, Ginny found herself wandering Hogwarts' halls.
It was hard to feel like something as silly as NEWTs mattered when the nation was still busy piecing itself together again, building new foundations on so many tombstones.
She found herself in front of the Room of Requirement, asking the same question she was always asking: Had it all been worth it? On his darkest days, Tom Riddle had written into his diary, "Sometimes, I wish I'd never been born."
A door appeared opposite the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy. It was made of heavy iron, engraved with a hovering hummingbird.
On a pedestal in the middle of the windowless room sat a Time-Turner. She picked it up before she'd even noticed having walked inside. The hummingbird on the door looked like it was laughing at her, mocking her.
Tom Riddle had told her about being born in an orphanage, and Harry had taken her to a graveyard and talked about a girl named Merope who had fallen in love with the wrong man.
She put the golden chain around her neck, like a hangman's noose. She took the hourglass in her hands, closed her eyes, and spun .
.oOo.
She was still in the same room when she opened her eyes. On the same pedestal sat a newspaper, the date reading May 15th, 1925.
Ginny sat down on the floor, her heart feeling constricted by her chest. Seventy-four years. It was hard to believe it had worked. Before, she had felt helpless because there was nothing she could do, but now there was so much she could do that she felt paralysed.
Tom wouldn't be born yet. She could find him in that orphanage and raise him with love. Or, she could find that baby and smother it with a pillow.
Alternatively, she could find Merope Gaunt and make sure she never married Tom Riddle or got pregnant at all.
Standing, Ginny tucked the Time-Turner under her robes. "I need a way to Hogsmeade," she told the Room of Requirement. She gave Hogwarts' walls a final fond pat as she stepped through the door into a world where Lord Voldemort hadn't ever existed.
.oOo.
"We have a record of magic being performed in this area," said the man. He was wearing a one-piece bathing suit and was sweating under his felt cap. "I'm Bob Odgen, Department of Magical Law Enforcement." He kissed the back of her hand, then dropped it just as quickly.
Ginny wiped her sweaty palms and smiled at him. "I was in the area, visiting."
"I have it on good authority that you cast magic in a muggle home. We've been watching the Riddle family extra carefully, Miss. What did you say your name was, again?"
"Ginevra. I'm…er," she glanced into the woods behind her, "related to the Gaunts." Her smile felt increasingly strained. "I assure you, Mister Odgen, I did no harm to Tom Riddle. He had been cursed with hives, see, and when they mistook me for a healer I went in and fixed him up real quick. They think I used an herbal paste, you can ask them. I didn't break the Statute at all."
He looked at her, his frown deepening. "I'll be checking on that. You will remain in the area, Miss Gaunt. Remember, we can trace your magic."
Ginny felt the knots in her stomach untangling themselves. "Of course, Mister Odgen. I'm just here visiting my niece." She tried to make her face look a bit vacant, like she was just some girl who didn't know anything. She didn't point out that even in 1999, the best that the Aurors could do was trace magic that had been cast in a certain area, like apparating in when Morsmordre was cast at the Quidditch World Cup.
That already felt like it'd been a lifetime ago. Once Odgen started walking away, Ginny rubbed her face and turned towards the woods. She knew the Gaunt shack was in there somewhere, and if she played her cards right there'd never be a Dark Mark, a Dark Lord, and for all she knew the 422nd Quidditch World Cup would be hosted in Portugal instead.
.oOo.
"Who are you?"
Ginny winced. Merope had every right to be suspicious. A random woman arriving right after her family had been arrested was suspicious.
She hadn't dared to approach sooner, though. She'd snuck into Little Hangleton's only inn and slept there, but her days had been spent just outside the Gaunt Shack, watching and waiting for her moment.
"My name is Ginny. I'm here to help." She held out her hands palms up. "I saw what happened with your father and brother. It isn't fair, how they were treating you."
"They're my family." Merope's scowl made her face look fierce. Her bared teeth were crooked and stained. It was very clear that she wasn't going to let Ginny into her home.
"I'm your family too, of sorts." Ginny crossed her toes in her boots, deciding to go with the same excuse she'd cooked up for Odgen. "Your Grandpa, Marvolo's father, he remarried much later in life and had me."
"You're lying," Merope hissed.
Ginny should have been expecting that. She wouldn't have believed herself either, and she hadn't lived a life as hard and painful as Merope's must have been. "You said that in Parseltongue," Ginny said. "I understood it well enough. I can't speak it though."
"Why not?" Merope's face hid nothing. Her wariness was practically written on her forehead.
Ginny shrugged, offering the excuse she thought Merope might find easiest to believe. "It's probably because my blood isn't as pure as yours. We're both descended from Slytherin, but my dad was very old when he had me."
"Huh."
"I have food," Ginny said, reaching into her pocket. "Maybe we can eat together, and then we'll figure everything else out tomorrow." Trees and bushes grew right up to the house, and Ginny didn't want to be outside once it got dark.
"How do I know you're not poisoning me?" But Merope's wide eyes had given her away. She was practically drooling as she watched Ginny unwrap a large pie.
"I'll eat my share first, then." Ginny made a show of it, licking the bits of chicken and pastry from her fingers once she'd finished half. The baker had been good on his word, handing over three rich pies in return for a bit of magic to deep-clean his house.
Merope ate like a bird, chewing each tiny bite carefully before swallowing. "This is good," she said. Ginny could see her ribs through her grimy smock, but the young woman couldn't manage more than a third of the pie before being full. "What now?" Merope asked once she was done.
"I'll come back tomorrow with more food," Ginny decided, setting down her second pie and keeping the third for later. "Morfin and Marvolo aren't going to be here for a long time after attacking Ministry officials like that, so we might as well fix the place up a bit for you in the meantime."
"You're just a girl."
Ginny grinned, taking out her wand. She held it between her index fingers, pushing a little magic into the wood to make it glow. "I'm a witch, Merope, just like you. A few cleaning and repair charms will do this place a world of good."
There was wariness in Merope's eyes. She was leaning away from Ginny's wand as if it might hurt her. "Okay," she said all the same.
For the first time in this new, old world, Ginny felt a genuine smile spreading across her face. "Merope, my dear, you would have made for an excellent Gryffindor."
.oOo.
It didn't even take a fortnight. That was the saddest part of all, Ginny often caught herself thinking. Two wand-carrying wizards in the house, and they never invested the time to turn their hovel into a home.
The roof held out the rain. The sink drained into a self-vanishing bucket. The privy no longer stank like fermenting piss. It was, all around, a success.
"We could do the garden next," Merope said, staring up at the house with something like wonder in her eyes.
"We could take the day off and go into town. If we can scrounge up some money, I'll bring you to a shop where we can buy you some magical books of your own." She held out her hand for Merope to take.
"The people in town are dangerous. They'll find out we're witches and burn us at the stake, but not before they torture us first."
Ginny stopped, walking back to where Merope was still standing. "I promise you, nobody in town has tortured me yet. Let's give it a try, and if you don't like it we'll head right back home."
Merope was frowning, but she reached out and took Ginny's hand all the same. "If I get burnt to death, I'm coming back to haunt you as a ghost."
"If you get burnt to death, I'll be right there burning next to you," Ginny said, almost reflexively. It was how she'd spent her sixth year at Hogwarts, after all. It was the kind of Gryffindor she had always prided herself on being.
"Proper witches like you don't die." Merope's smile was sad, but it made her face look pretty in the midday sun. "Everyone knows that people with magic might live forever."
.oOo.
In the end, it was Riddle Manor that gave them both the jobs they needed. Merope, in the kitchens, where Ginny was sure she'd quickly prove herself a sure hand that was steady as stone under pressure. Ginny's job as a household maid meant running around cleaning, fetching things, and responding whenever one of the Riddles rang a bell like some kind of trained dog. Worst of all, she couldn't even use magic, because the Ministry's wards were still up.
They spent their first pay in a larger-on-the-inside second-hand shop off Knockturn Alley. Ginny bought mostly Herbology and Potions books, because that was what would be useful to Merope until she could afford to buy a wand. They set up a little brewing station in the corner of their living room, with Ginny casting all the ventilation charms Snape had drilled into her, and got to work making the likes of Herbicide Potion and Swelling Solution to sell back to the apothecary they'd bought the ingredients from.
It wasn't much, but for a start, it was enough.
.oOo.
"I've never gotten a letter before," Merope said, holding the envelope with a kind of reverence. She raised it to the charmed light Ginny had hung over the kitchen table. "It looks very fancy."
Ginny sat on her hands, trying not to fidget. The only Ministry owls she'd ever received had brought bad news. "Aren't you going to open it?"
"Oh." Merope's eyes were wide with surprise. "Do you think I should?"
"Your reading has gotten much better already. Go on."
While Merope struggled to sound out each letter like usual, Ginny read over her shoulder. Apparently, Marvolo had been sentenced to six months in Azkaban, Morfin to three years.
"What's Azkaban?"
"It's a terrible, terrible place. Even when people come back, they leave all of the best parts of themselves behind.
"What does that mean for people who didn't have any good parts to begin with?"
Ginny wrapped Merope in a hug. "It means that we have until Christmas to find somewhere else to live, because this place can't be your home when your father comes back."
"Where will we go?"
"I don't know." Ginny hugged Merope tighter. "But we're both clever enough. We'll think of something."
.oOo.
Ginny found out about it while eavesdropping on the Riddles at dinner. An old hut they'd used for hunting, but had abandoned now that the stream had shifted the main watering hole farther into the forest.
"It's hideous," Merope had declared when they stepped foot in it the first time, wrinkling her nose at the smell of mould and rotting wood.
"Admittedly, it needs a bit of work." Ginny could already picture it. The sink in the corner, the stove in the middle for cooking and heating, and the beds up in the rafters once they'd added a chimney. The next book they were buying would be on construction spells. "Still, this'll be something all our own. We can set up your brewing station over there, and plant an herb garden outside."
"That does sound nice." Merope leaned over to look out the window. "The view is lovely," she said. "Like a falcon watching over its lands. Maybe, the snakes will even come visit."
.oOo.
In time, they fixed up their new home. They worked for the Riddle family, spending their meagre earnings on potions books and ingredients for Merope. Their herb garden grew, bloomed, then waned as the leaves turned red and dead in winter.
Ginny cast a lot of heating charms as the date of Marvolo's release from Azkaban drew ever closer.
Then, on the day after Tom Riddle's birthday, Ginny sat down, pulled the Time-Turner out from under her worn robes, and took both of Merope's hands in her own.
"I have something I need to tell you," Ginny said. "It's a secret, and you can't tell anybody else."
"Is it that you're not actually my aunt? Because I knew that already."
"What?"
"Your hair." Merope took a lock and curled it around her finger. "There's no gingers in my family. That's not how blood works. I don't know why you can understand Parseltongue, but it's not because my grandpa's blood was weak."
"Oh." Ginny felt like her stomach had dropped right out of her chest. "Oh," she said again. "Well, that's not quite what I'd meant to tell you. A part of it, for sure. I'm sorry I've been lying to you."
Merope shrugged. "People lie to me all the time. I wasn't expecting any different."
"Oh." Ginny squeezed Merope's hand. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. The thing is, I'm from the future. This is a Time-Turner, which is what took me back seven decades to be here with you."
"It's okay, you don't need to keep lying to me." Merope's smile wasn't even sad, just accepting. "Actually, I've been lying to you too. You know I fancy Tom Riddle?"
"No, no," Ginny pulled back, tugging at her own hair. "I came back from the future because I needed to prevent something terrible from happening—"
"Well," Merope continued, as if she hadn't heard Ginny at all, "he asked me to go for a walk with him today. Through the cemetery. He even gifted me a holly sprig, see?"
Ginny stared at it in horror. She'd noticed it pinned to Merope's apron but hadn't thought twice about how it had gotten there.
"This is the part where you say 'Congratulations, Merope. I'm so happy for you!'"
The best Ginny could manage was a strained, painful smile. "Congratulations, Merope," she said, her voice barely a whisper. "Please, tell me you didn't use a love potion."
Merope crossed her arms, crushing the red berry like blood against her chest. "Why should I tell you anything, if you'll never believe me anyway?"
"Please."
"No."
"No, you didn't use a love potion? Or no, you won't tell me?" Ginny tried to take Merope's hands again, but her friend refused. Ginny left her hands there anyway, lying palm-up on the table, a mockery of the moment when they'd first met. "Please, Merope. This is important. I came back seventy four years to make things better, not so that you could hurtle head first down this path towards…everything."
"If you didn't want me brewing potions, why did you even show me those books? Why buy the ingredients and the cauldron at all?"
"I don't know," Ginny whispered. She put her hand in her pocket, fingering her wand. She'd come here for a reason, and now everything she'd done had made things worse. There was one more thing she could do, of course. If Merope or Tom didn't exist, then Tom Marvolo Riddle never would either.
"You know, I thought you made for a terrible fake aunt, but for a while there I actually believed you were my friend."
Ginny put her empty hands back on the table. "You're right," she said. She had been a hat-stall, because the Sorting Hat hadn't been able to decide if she belonged in Gryffindor or Slytherin. "You're right, and I swear I'll do better." She took Merope's hands, and this time the woman let her. "Congratulations, Merope. I'm happy for you. I hope you and Tom Riddle can grow something real and beautiful."
"Thank you," Merope said. Her smile was a bit too bright as she blinked back the tears from her eyes. "I hope so, too. I love him so much, you see."
"I know." Ginny said, because she did. "I believe you."
A small plot bunny I'm considering growing into a full fic, if you like it. As usual, bookmark/subscribe/kudos/comment to let me know if you're interested.
I've been doing a lot of fest writing these past months. There's more Ginny Weasley one-shots, a trans!Percy Weasley fic, and two fics coming in May for a Snarry fest.
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