Harry Potter: The Witch of the Red

Ginny sent the fourth triumphant look Hermione’s way when she received five points for a Lapifors that she got on her ‘two’ tries. This girl had been giving her smug looks for weeks because she could not compare her speed in raising her hand to answer questions! But, finally, the classes shifted more towards practical application of spells - no matter how good Hermione was at answering questions, she could not compete with her in practical magic. So, now, it was time for some sweet, sweet revenge!

Did she feel bad for taking petty revenge on a 13 year old? Nope! With extra pop on the ‘P’!

Her rival just rolled her eyes, looking like she didn’t care. But Ginny knew better - she was merely pretending to not care. She was definitely burning with a fierce competitive spirit inside.

Just as she was feeling smug, McGonagall decided that Ginny was having too much fun and tasked her with turning her rabbits into different breeds - which was unexpectedly challenging, being part of the O.W.L. year.

After failing to transfigure the rabbit into a Jersey Wooly instead of the standard Mountain Hare for the fifth time, she was about to consult Riddle’s expertise on the subject when she heard McGongall say, “You’re not putting enough force of will into it, Miss Weasley. The incantation and the wand movements of the spell gives the general direction of the spell, but using your willpower, you can slightly change the results.” She said, aiming her wand at one of the statues on Ginny’s table and casting a Lapifors, turning it into a perfect Mini Lop. “Willpower is essential to Transfiguration, and magic in general, Miss Weasley. Never forget that.”

Then, she stalked away in her brisk gait.

-x-x-x-

The first Hogsmeade weekend was announced that day, causing the third-years much excitement. Unfortunately, she had nothing to do with it. McGonagall had made it very clear that she would only be able to go next year onwards - when she had the signed form.

‘Tsk. Minny is always so inflexible!’ she thought.

Then she spotted her roommates. Lips stretching into a smile, she decided that only by teasing them would she be able to be happy again. 

“Ginny!” Gwen patted the seat next to her. “Are you going to Hogsmeade?”

“Nah, apparently you need to be thirteen to go. Codswallop, I tell you…”

After a short while of banter and a blissful time stretching Aileen’s cheeks - which had, thanks to her efforts, become slightly more plump - into all sorts of shapes, her mood had improved immensely. 

“What? A gobstone tournament? We have a Gobstones tournament? And since when did you play Gobstones?” Ginny was baffled. She’d never known such a thing even existed in Hogwarts! The Tournament, she learned, was a surprisingly well-organised event that had different tournament levels: in-House Championships, inter-House Championship, under 15, under 17 and pan-Hogwarts Championships. She was dumbfounded. There wasn’t even a Chess tournament for goodness’ sake! If there was, Ron would be much more popular than he is now - his mastery of chess was such bullshit that she had to use hyper-cognition to match and win him!

Anyway, Gobstones, in her eyes, were at most a somewhat enjoyable pastime when you had absolutely nothing else to do. That wizards would make a tournament out of it was frankly hard to wrap her mind around. Once again, she chalked it up to wizardsense.

“You’d know if you didn’t keep disappearing every evening to who-knows-where.” Aileen rolled her eyes. 

“Oh my, is someone missing me?” Ginny, as a veteran in teasing little girls, immediately caught on to an opportunity like a shark that smelled blood.

After another round of teasing, the topic finally came back to Gobstones Tournament. “So, are you going to come?” Gwen asked excitedly. 

“Nah, you guys go, I still have stuff I need to look up in the library.” She felt Gwen was pointlessly excited about some mundane tournament that had no meaning. Then again, she was only 12. 

“Anyway, I gotta go. I have to get stuff done. See you guys at dinner!” she waved them goodbye, not noticing Gwen’s disappointed look.

-x-x-x-

Ginny was excitedly making her way back to Room of Requirement. McGonagall’s comment about willpower had enlightened her, like the first ray of dawn, cutting through the darkness of her confusion.

‘As expected, my Minny is the best!’ 

She had realised why she kept failing to cast the spell. She had not been putting enough willpower into it! When casting the spell, she understood what the spell was supposed to do: bending the light around her. But she had not explicitly tried to will it into doing so. 

Normal casting of magic did not require such powerful force of will from the user at all. The normally generated will from just chanting the incantation and the wand movements would generate enough ‘willpower’ to accomplish the goal. But when it came to obscure and powerful Magicks like the Invisibility Charm, it required one to understand what the spell was doing and explicitly will their magic into doing their bidding. This level of magic was nowhere to be seen in the O.W.L.s, even the N.E.W.T. syllabus only mentioned it briefly, it was something ordinary wizards don’t bother to learn because of how difficult it was. And they won’t need it either as most of them have jobs that don’t require them at all - enchanting Ministry documents into paper aeroplanes was hardly difficult magic.

But, jobs like Aurors, Hit-wizards, Dragon-tamers and other high-end magical jobs required proficiency in such Magicks to be worth anything more than a grunt. And if one wanted to be truly valuable in such magical jobs, one would require tremendous expertise in such magic.

Upon reaching the RoR, she conveyed her desire for a place to practise magic, which the room acknowledged and presented her with a room full of dummies and other props for practice.

In the centre of the room, she made a casual gesture, making her wand suddenly appear in her hand. This was thanks to the rather awesome release mechanism of the wand holster - which she had paid a pretty penny for. She was very satisfied. 

‘5 star review!’ she nodded appreciatively. Getting 5 stars from her was not so easy y’know!

Ginny raised her wand and chanted: ``Invisibilis Anima`` normally without any modification like the many times before. And as expected, the spell did not work. But she did realise what the spell was doing: it conjured a sort of magical field around her that bent the light around that would otherwise intersect with her. At least that was what it was supposed to do. The field she conjured did absolutely nothing; it just sat there like a lazy bum.

Taking a deep breath she closed her eyes and imagined the rays of light being produced by the sources of light in the room, travelling towards her, the walls, the ceiling, the floor and the dummies and other objects in the room. They reflected off of her and travelled away from her. They reflected off of them and travelled back to her eyes. The cornea of her eyes focused the light, which her lenses fine tuned and focused onto her retina, which converted the light into electrical signals interpreted by the brain.

Her focus lay on the rays of light whose paths directly intersected with her volume. She imagined an inch thick field around her skin and clothes. She imagined it bending the light away from her, and then around her, before releasing it - no different from how the path would be if she was not there.

She chanted: ``Invisibilis Anima!``

A strange feeling washed over her, like there was something more around her, but also something less.

She opened her eyes. 

“Oooohh~! I’m a ghost now!” She had become slightly translucent. “Perhaps, I can tease Luna now!” Her eyes lit up! 

She started sniggering as she began to think up ways to tease her mysterious and strange friend. Somewhere on the Other Side, Rowena cried herself to sleep.

-x-x-x-

On her way back after a rather intensive practice session - which she had made a little progress in, becoming slightly less opaque - Ginny wondered why she had not perused Riddle’s memories of the subject. He would definitely have insight into the whole will power thing, and would allow her to very quickly realise what she was missing.

But she didn’t. She was scared of going through Riddle’s memories - almost irrationally fearful that she might change if she did. She might have inherited his memories, but they were stored differently - almost like an external drive. So while she had access to them, they did not affect her.

While she understood that her ability had mostly likely completely removed the possibility of such an influence, she was still very afraid.

‘I have to go through them sooner or later,’ she sighed to herself. ‘Might as well get it done as soon as possible.’

Thus, Ginny added one more task to her daily schedule.

-x-x-x-

Once again, in the Room of Requirements, Ginny groaned and looked up at the ceiling. 

It had finally happened. The thing she knew was going to happen but she tried her best to ignore it.

Puberty.

She had noticed that she’d begun to… grow. No, in fact she’d noticed it much earlier - she just chose to be an ostrich, chose to ignore it as much as possible. But now it was far too noticeable for her to brush it off. 

When bathing, using the loo, dressing and all that, she had let the original Ginny’s instincts takeover as much as possible; so that she didn’t have to be too conscious about what she was doing. She even went as far as to use Mind Arts and Hyper-Cognition to pull out the original’s memories and instincts and put her body into a sort of autopilot state; all to avoid what she was dreading.

But she could not do that anymore, as her growth had become way too noticeable: her hips had widened enough that her gait changed, her chest had swollen, her other parts showed signs of maturity. In fact, to most people this change would not be very noticeable. She noticed because of her enhanced perception and heightened control over her body. Her body changing meant that her instincts had to re-adjust slightly so that she could maintain her physical capability, and in doing so it was made that much more noticeable to her that her body was maturing.

All this caused a sort of war of morality in her head. She was left feeling like she suddenly had become a schizophrenic or perhaps gained a few extra personalities.

‘Wow, you pervert, you should be ashamed for having such thoughts. She’s 12 for goodness’ sake! You disgusting paedophile!!’  The more moral part of her told her she was a disgusting pervert that oughta be sent to jail. Immediately. 

‘Bullshit! This is our body, not anyone else’s. And this growth is something we cannot stop without dire consequences. It’s simple biology! Go back to school if you can’t wrap your tiny brain around it!’ The more rational part of her argued that this was an inevitable change and they should in fact be happy about it, as that meant their abilities grew as well.

‘Hehe… isn’t this our body? Hehe, we can-!’ Needless to say, this thought was forcefully stomped, squashed and tossed into the depths of her mind, hopefully forever incarcerated. 

Her hand, somewhat tremblingly, brushed across her chest, feeling the otherwise unnoticeable bump that had appeared. Embarrassment, fear, guilt, shame, anxiety and various other emotions mixed into a terrific cocktail of emotions that whirled in her mind, nearly overwhelming her.

She had tried many ways to distract herself, unsuccessfully. 

Even hanging out with her roommates didn’t help. When she hung out with Gwen and Aileen she noticed that their questions often drifted to… ‘girl stuff’ -  as they too were starting to grow. Both of them obviously were rather embarrassed about it, talking in allusions rather than directly, making the whole ordeal even more torturous for her who in her past life was a… well, a relatively healthy male who had access to the internet. So, she started to avoid spending too much time with them.

Even hanging out with the Golden Trio did not help as Hermione was no different. In fact, she was worse! Her friends added up to a grand total of three: Ginny, Ron and Harry. So, when she finally had a female friend she could finally talk about all the things she could not with Ron and Harry, she blabbered. A lot. It was one of the most stressful situations she had faced since her transmigration and was only topped by the encounters with Dumbledore and the Boggart.

Luna was the only one she found solace in, but she was strangely difficult to find. So most of the time she was left alone with her thoughts and feelings - which was honestly not a very good thing.

Bathing, going to the loo, changing had become a torture for her. Ginny had basically stopped taking baths for a week now, making do with spells - which actually worked as well, if not better than bathing normally. Loos were easier, because she could still continue to follow the original’s instincts for a while. While changing, she let magic do the entire thing. She knew this was not sustainable however.

In short, Ginny Weasley’s life had gotten much more complicated.

-x-x-x-

In her attempt to cosplay an ostrich - more vehemently than an actual ostrich - she found herself in the RoR, practising magic with all her might. 

Her advancement in the Invisibility Charm had slowed down to a crawl and the best she could do was cosplay a ghost for now - and not very well. It was not that she was missing something critical, but that such powerful magic was just that difficult to learn. Even for her. Even for Riddle.

Such Magicks are not something that can be learnt casually and majority of the wizards take three to four years to learn such magic. And that was when they were well into adulthood - well past their penultimate magical maturity at 21.

So she had, once again, turned her attention to other things. It was something called Contiguous Spell Chain. It was one of the several requirements for a trainee Auror to graduate. A Contiguous Spell Chain was just a spell chain that was… contiguous. 

It was self-explanatory really: Instead of stopping at a finite number of spells, the wizard continuously casts spells one after another. Which might seem like an easy thing to do - but it was not. Which Ginny now understood.

And Riddle’s tremendous expertise in it was not something she could use; he had honed himself - his Spirit, Body and Magic in a way to best suit his discipline - the Dark Arts, which her ability deemed as something that could affect her and removed it, leaving nothing but the vaguest direction for her to walk in.

Breaking out of her musings, Ginny took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, letting herself calm down. She released her Magical Perception in its entirety, allowing it to expand outward like ripples in a pond, before slowly pulling it back around herself in a spherical field. As she did so, her perception of Magic became clearer and clearer. She could perceive the rise and fall of its energy, its omnipresent rhythmic beat that pulsed through all things, its mesmerising melody, its harmonious interaction with the world and other objects, yet that was not what she was looking for, no.

She was looking for her own magic. Her own melody. 

And there it was. Blazing. Beating calmly, but strongly, full of vitality. 

Yet, there was also a dissonance, something unnatural -  a note out of place, like it was fighting against itself. Clashing against itself. It was as if opposing forces battled for dominance, creating a dichotomy within herself that was only getting more and more pronounced - much like the conflict with her own identity as a girl.

And deeper within, there was a subdued monotone that dulled the brilliance of her magic, like a splash of grey on a colourful painting.

However, therapy was not what she was doing this for. So, after a while of perceiving the rhythms of her magic and getting used to it, she shifted her mind away and raised her wand at a dummy. Taking another deep breath, she chanted:

“Stupefy!” 

Immediately, the rhythm of her magic shifted, the beat suddenly grew stronger and deeper, like a low gong. It felt like being hit over the head with a baseball bat when compared to the normal rhythm of her magic. However, before she could perceive it any further, her magic had snapped back into place, no different from before.

She tried again: concentrating her mind she pointed her wand at the dummy, which now sported a dark mark from her previous Stunner.

“Stupefy!” Once again, her magic shifted, did that weird beat like being sucker punched - this time Ginny tried to ‘stretch out’ the beat and cast another Stunner:

“Stupefy!”

And it worked marvellously. Another stunner was produced, and slammed into the dummy, pushing it backwards, adding the third mark on it.

She tried three at once. And succeeded again.

However, when she tried the four at once, her normally rather obedient magic simply did not listen to her at all, snapping back into place almost immediately causing the fourth “Stupefy!” to produce nothing but a spark that travelled a mere 4 inches from her wand before fizzling out.

Frowning, she tried again, carefully sensing what her magic was doing. 

As she cast the 2nd and 3rd stunners, she discovered something odd. The metaphorical ‘gong’ was relative to the current state of her magic, meaning every time she cast the stunner, the ‘gong’ was twice as ‘loud’ as before, relative to the normal state of her magic. And the third stunner was thrice as ‘loud’. By the fourth time, however, her magic simply snapped back into its normal state.

“The fuck?” she asked out loud.