Chapter Text
Ginny was in the garden getting a much needed break from her mum when she heard her grandparents arrive. And by heard she meant her mothers furious screams and her grandmother's responding snarky comments.
Perhaps if she stayed still then she wouldn’t be noticed.
She heard the backdoor open and close. So much for going unnoticed.
“I see we’ve decided to hide in the garden this time around. Good spot, I much preferred the hidey hole in the old cottonwood tree down south of the pond though. Can’t hear as much screaming down there.” Her grandfather said nonchalantly.
“Thanks, I’ll try to remember that for Christmas break, something tells me I'll need it.” Ginny responded and her grandfather snorted.
“There's mage lights in the attic that should still work. I’ll give you one of the blankets from the manor that has a runic array for warmth stitched into it.”
Unfortunately their conversation was cut short when her grandma screeched out the door, “Septimus, Ginavera! Come along! We've got shopping to do!” You could barely hear it over her mum's own protests.
“Well, you heard the lady! Come on, up ya get! We’ve some school shopping to do! You’ll love it, I promise ya dear!” Her grandfather said and Ginny felt her mouth quirk up into a smile.
“Can we get ice cream?” She asked.
“Of course, dearie! Shopping wouldn’t be complete without it!”
~
This was not school shopping, Ginny thought as she stared up at the intimidating form of Lady Malfoy.
“Narcissa, dear! How are you?” Her grandmother greeted with a smile.
“Simply lovely, Cedrella, simply lovely.” She said before glancing down to Ginny, “And who’s this?”
“This is my granddaughter, Ginavera. Ginny, dear, say hello.” Her grandmother introduced and Ginny hesitantly smiled and uttered a hello.
Lady Malfoy tittered, a gleam in her eye that Ginny really didn’t like, “Oh what a charmer! Just like her brothers. Dear, you don’t need to be afraid of me. We will be best friends by the end of your first year, I assure you!”
She just gave her another hesitant smile. Lady Malfoy didn’t seem dissuaded by it at all. Perhaps if she did something particularly gross then she wouldn’t have to be taught extra things by Lady Malfoy.
As if hearing her inner thoughts, her grandmother briefly shot a glare at her. Ginny glared back. Lady Malfoy's smile widened ever so slightly and her grandfather nervously shuffled his feet for a moment.
“Well, shall we?” Her grandmother prompted and Lady Malfoy nodded and they all started walking. To where, she had no idea. She hadn’t been paying attention to her grandparents or their plans since they arrived in the country her brothers went to school in. There were far too many dragons and cool things to see.
“We will have to put a schedule together, especially for when classes begin. Perhaps Sunday mornings for the first two years and then we can reevaluate once things start to get harder at school?” Lady Malfoy said.
Her grandmother made a sound of agreement, “Sunday mornings definitely, I will endeavor to visit when I can and when Ginny has time. Summer semester is more open time wise-” and Ginny tuned her out. Not like her opinion would matter anyway- and oh, what's this? A whole store dedicated to swords!
She tugged on her grandfather's hand to get his attention and pointed at the store. He chuckled at her. “We can go in after lunch, but you wont need those till your summer of third year.”
“What was that dear?” Her grandmother asked.
“Oh, Ginny here wanted to check out the sword store, I told her we could after lunch.”
Her grandmother smiled, “I think you’ll much prefer knives, dear. It’s much easier to hide those in clothing.”
Wait, what was that?
“You see this, this is why you scare me to this day,” her grandfather was saying with a smile but Ginny’s mind had gone into shock. Oh she knew on some level that everyone in her family was a little unhinged and prone to violence but having literal weapons concealed on your was an entirely different thing.
It was wicked cool though and Ginny mentally gave her grandmother some more points in the favorites column. Sorry gramps, but you simply can't compete with someone that hides literal knives on their person.
She’d have to see if she could get her grandmother to buy her some. To hell with waiting for third year, she wanted to stab people now.
She still wanted to visit the sword shop though, they had some in different colors- and was that a whole battle axe strapped to some older students back?!
Her grandfather was definitely dragging her by the hand now but oh my gods that was so cool! She wanted a battle axe! Imagine how cool she would look with one of those! Ron was going to be so jealous. She got to shopping and look at cool dangerous weapons and he had to sit in class back in Britain and repeat the levitation spell over and over again. He was going to fail one of his classes this semester, she just knew it.
They quickly got to the restaurant they were going to have lunch at and Ginny was not sorry at all for dragging her feet the entire way there. There were too many cool things to look at.
Ginny spent the majority of lunch staring out the window at the people passing by. Some people were dressed in clothes Ginny knew she would never be able to afford, some people had custom armor, some had cool weapons on them, and some people had a combination of all three. Almost everyone had jewelry on them. The only people that didn’t were kids that looked to be her age or younger.
She did tune into the conversation when Lady Malfoy or someone else had asked her a question or said her name but she mostly ignored them otherwise. They didn’t seem to care that she wasn’t paying them any attention either. Just more amused then anything else. Which was a welcome change because her mum would have already started screaming at her for not paying attention to the conversation that was going on. Even if it was about corruption in the ministry or her dad’s job.
Lunch sped by and soon they said goodbye to Lady Malfoy. Apparently her own son attended school here and Ginny made the mental note to stay the f*ck away from him. She didn’t want more Malfoy’s in her life, she was already stuck with one now.
“Can we go to the sword shop now?!” She asked, turning to her grandparents with a pleading expression. Her grandfather gave a booming laugh.
“You would have been a shoo in for Gryffindor lassie! I can’t wait to see what kind of hell you raise when you start school here!” He said and her grandmother lightly slapped him on the arm.
“Septimus! Language!”
“What?! It’s not like she doesn’t already know every curse word under the sun! She has six older brothers!”
“That’s no excuse for bad language!” Her grandmother admonished but she had a smile on her face as she said it.
“Oh hogwash, Cedrella! Those kids haven’t heard a curse free sentence in their life! It’s ingrained into their sentence structure, it's only natural at this point. No need to filter when they’ve already heard it!” Ginny sensed they were talking about a specific person but she didn’t know exactly who as her grandparents were doing that polite adult thing where they talk about someone without actually saying the person's name.
Either way, Ginny didn’t care. All she cared about was that they were headed in the direction of the cool sword store they passed earlier.
Oh! Maybe if she convinced her grandma to get her the knives she was talking about earlier then she could go over to Luna’s and show her!
