Lady Lily spotted her and gave her a cheerful smile. "Good Morning, Ginny. How are you? Did you enjoy your summer?"
Ginny regarded the woman who'd both ditched Harry with those horrible people and then didn't so much as lift a finger to stop him being thrown in Azkaban with guarded eyes. "Bits of it could have been better, Lady Lily."
"Ah, yes." Lady Lily hesitated. "Well, you know your parents are just worried for you, don't you?"
"Yes. I know."
Lady Lily frowned, concern creasing her brow. "You can always come to me if you're having any problems…"
"Thank you, Lady Lily."
"…Even if you feel you can't talk about them with your parents. You don't have to face things alone."
Ginny felt anger flash through her, but she clamped it down. She bit her tongue and said nothing.
Evidently some of Ginny's emotions showed in her face, because Lady Lily took a step backwards and showed a brief look of sadness, before straightening up and adopting a far more formal air. "Well, Miss Weasley, class is starting soon. You'd better get in." She indicated the open door beside her. Ginny nodded and ducked inside. She sat by the windows towards the back of the room, which over looked the Potter Manor quidditch pitch. Around twenty other children, aged six to ten, sat around, reading, working on worksheets, or chatting among themselves, showing each other pictures from their summer holidays and comparing souvenirs, accompanied by the occasional loud squeal or shout.
Soon the class got underway and Ginny fell back into her old routine of compartmentalising everything she didn't already know in her occlumency library while thinking of other things and occasionally letting her magic seep out of her fingers to help train her toxin resilience on top of her occlumency.
That was, until Lady Lily brought out a black stick with a ring attached to the end and waved it around.
Ginny perked up.
"Who can tell me what this is?" Lady Lily asked.
A figure on the opposite side of the back row raised its hand.
"Yes, Miss Black?" "It's a dark magic detection device. My father sometimes gives them to people in his job." Ginny's hand trailed to her necklace, almost without thinking.
"Excellent, well done." Lady Lily waved the device again. "The DMLE uses these to check muggle places for magical items that have been created with the purpose of causing harm. Now, why would this help with that?"
A boy in the front row raised his hand.
"Yes, Mister Hargreaves?"
"Dark magic is magic cast with the intent to cause harm."
"Exactly. That is what we call the magical definition of dark magic, as opposed to the legal definition. It is the responsibility of everyone in the magical world—that includes all you children—to ensure no bad magical items end up in the hands of muggles."
A girl in middle raised her hand.
"Yes, Miss Fawcett?"
"What about normal magical items? Isn't it bad if the muggles find them?" Lady Lily put down the dark magic detector and treated Miss Fawcett to the smile teachers give students who've just given them a perfect subject transition opportunity. "Yes, and it's important to keep magical items out of the hands of muggles, but most of the time, it isn't crime to let a muggle get a hold of one. Much like the entrances to the magical world, like Platform 9 and 3/4 and the Leaky Cauldron, wizards who make magical items, like chocolate frogs and gob-stones, are required to build in anti-muggle magics into them that only run out when the magic in the product itself does."
She turned and wrote on the board. "THE PLACE OF THE WIZARDING WORLD IN THE GREATER MUGGLE WORLD."
They spent the next half hour discussing how the magical world kept itself secret and how they were expected to help ensure it remained so. The general message was that everything was a-okay and that the magical world was totally on top of everything.
Ginny eyes, though, kept straying back to the dark magic detection device on the table. She just couldn't help it.
Eventually, Lady Lily asked them if they had any questions before mid morning break.
Ginny raised her hand.
Lady Lily looked mildly surprised. "Yes, Miss Weasley?"
"If something was originally charmed with intent to cause harm, but then someone else used the thing with intent to help or cause good, would the thing still read as dark magic?"
Lady Lily bit her lip. "A very good question." She looked thoughtful. "I'm not sure, but I suspect it would depend on where the magic came from. If the magic came from a plant, it probably would. But if it was channelled through the wizards own magic, it probably wouldn't. But, on the other hand…"—She tapped the desk with her chalk—"If the item was parasitic, and used the magic of someone other than the 'user', then I don't know. It would probably change on a case by case basis, depending on…" She paused and seemed to realise she was rambling. "Well, anyway." She put the chalk down and shuffled parchments. "It might. Thank you for the question. See you all after the break in twenty minutes."
The class got up and made its way out of the classroom. Ginny made to follow them too, but not before catching the eye of a certain Black heiress, who quickly averted her eyes and pretended that she hadn't been staring at her.
Ginny arrived back home later that afternoon to another pile of chores courtesy of a small group of cows who'd wandered onto Burrow land. Damn them. She'd just finished forking the resultant harvest into the now steaming compost heap when her mum called her into dinner with orders to wash her hands no more than three times.
Straight after dinner, her mum handed her a shaft of wood with a sweep-bent bunch of twigs at the bottom and the news that today was floor sweeping day.
Ginny fought back a scowl. Was she trying to mock her? What followed was definitely the most boring hour with a broom she'd ever had, and it wasn't only last night's all-night session with Harry that caused her to catch a nap straight after.
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