Allegiance

The Beginning Cont.

The next morning, Ginny woke early. She tucked a quill and her diary into the pocket of her coat and made her way quietly out of the Burrow. On the way, she grabbed a glass jar from the kitchen. She headed straight into the forest, scowling in the direction of the pond. The leaves were still dewy around her, making the cobwebs easy to spot. She plucked any spiders she saw gingerly off their webs and dropped them into the jar.

Half an hour later, she'd collected two dozen fat arachnids, and she looked at them gleefully, tapping the glass with her fingertip. She screwed the lid on and headed home.

She kept the jar concealed in her top dresser drawer for the rest of the day, but after dinner, she made her move. Ron and Harry were playing chess in the living room, and George was sitting nearby, yelling taunts at the irate chessmen. The sound of the shower filtered down from upstairs. Fred must be in there: perfect. Percy was nowhere to be seen - probably studying in his room, as always. Her parents were busy cleaning up the dinner things. The coast was clear.

When no one was looking, she slipped up the stairs and straight into Fred and George's room. It was an unmitigated disaster zone. Their belongings were strewn everywhere - the actual carpet was hardly visible through the mess - and there were some suspicious-smelling potions bubbling on the corner of George's nightstand. Crossing the room on tiptoe, Ginny went to Fred's dresser. In a moment, she located his wand and pocketed it.

On the way back down the hall, she passed the bathroom and paused to press her ear against the door. Fred was singing a bawdy song inside and the shower was still running full force.

She retrieved the jar of spiders and climbed the stairs to Ron's bedroom. Inside, she skirted Harry's camp bed to get to Ron's bed. She unscrewed the lid and pointed Fred's wand at the eight-legged buggers. A whispered charm immobilized them, and another spell put a timer on the removal of the immobilization. At precisely eleven o'clock this evening, the arachnids would be able to crawl about again. A brilliant piece of magic, that second bit. Tom had given her the idea.

With a quick shake of the wrist, she emptied the jar out into Ron's bed and pulled the garish orange sheets over them. She carefully replaced the wand in Fred's room before bounding back downstairs.

"Going well, Ron?" she said, smiling brightly at her brother as she crossed the room and ensconced herself in the big armchair with a book.

He looked at her oddly, then shrugged. "Pretty well," he replied, "Harry's rubbish at chess."

"Hey!" his opponent protested. Ginny lifted her book high to cover her face as they continued their game. She was really going to enjoy this.

Several hours later, she lay on her back in her bed, staring up at the ceiling. The clock on her wall quietly chimed eleven, and she strained her ears to hear. Two minutes later, she heard Ron's panicked yell of fear and Harry's accompanying shout. The light went on in the hall, and she heard her parents' frantic voices.

Then her mother's screech of fury. "FRED! GEORGE!"

"Wha-? What's going on?"

"Whatever it was, we didn't do it!"

"WHO ELSE WOULD'VE PUT SPIDERS IN RON'S BED?"

"We don't know who it was, but it wasn't us!"

Her father's calmer, deeper voice cut into the fray. "Well there's an easy way to check. I'll write to the Ministry and get their record of underage magic done in this house tonight. That should solve matters." Ginny smirked to herself as they all traipsed down to the kitchen.

There was silence throughout the house as they waited for the Ministry to respond, and Ginny just stared at the strip of light filtering in under her doorway. She knew what the record would say.