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polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup · 11 months ago

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what would megumi’s life have been if he was actually raised by the zenin from day one? like either gojo lost the custody battle or they were able to scoop him up before gojo ever reached them. i doubt they would want to keep tsumiki with them so she’s not there for little baby megs.

i think it would be really cool to see a zenin raised megumi interacting with his fellow classmates when he attends the school, not to mention the contrast between him and gojo. like on paper they both should have gotten the same treatment-being pampered and spoiled rotten but we also know that the zenin think that hurting little kids makes them stronger so it would be super interesting to see megumi realise that the stuff that happened to him wasn’t normal and for gojo to have a guilt trip bc he wasn’t able to help megumi when he needed someone to help him the most.

So I have a fanfic that I’ve half written (no idea if I’ll ever finish it—I’d love to, it’s just hard to find the time) about EXACTLY THAT that I talked about in this post for an ask game.

That being said, that entire thing happens from Tsumiki’s perspective, and I agree with you—I don’t think the Zenin would have ever actually taken her too. They don’t want her. She’s not Zenin. She’s not a sorcerer. They only bought Megumi. For the most part, Megumi is absent from that post, and you asked about Megumi. So this is what I think would happen on Megumi's side of that post I linked.

It comes down to two things:

1. He is never, ever happy with the Zenin.

2. He never lets go of his sister.

Megumi’s old enough to remember Tsumiki when the Zenin take him away. He's old enough to love her. And I think that Megumi loves very quietly, but he also loves very violently. He wouldn't let his sister hold his hand on the walk to school, but he would sacrifice himself for her future.

I think the Zenin took him from his sister, and I think he kicked and screamed and wasn't strong enough. I think they thought he would forget her eventually.

And then I think he bit most of the Zenin Clan.

At the end of the day, what Megumi wanted was the one thing the Zenin were not willing to give him. They were never like the Gojo clan, they were never going to pamper him, but there are a great many things in this world that they would give the Ten Shadows finally returned to them. But they would not give him a non-sorcerer, non-Zenin sister who would only be a weakness to him. They refused to let him have any contact with his sister, and that was the source of a lot of what soured.

Any Megumi that was taken in by the Zenin would have been taken in to Naobito's household directly. He would be announced as the one who finally inherited their most cherished technique, and he would be declared heir, and the Zenin would call him beloved for it.

They would keep him in a room that was large and empty and almost always dark, and he wouldn't be allowed to decide when he slept or woke, and the door would always be locked from the outside. They would give him a wardrobe of expensive clothes that he hated, and he would never get to pick which of them he wore.

Megumi would hate them. He would hate all of them.

He's just not the type to be comfortable with or enjoy the adoration of others--especially when it's not backed up by genuine love. Megumi is someone who very much values sincerity and depth to emotion--it's one of the reasons why he seems to respect Yuuji so much. Yuuji is a good person who follows through with what he says. He's not just going to talk about wanting to save people--he's there making the sacrifices as he does it.

The Zenin do not actually love him. And he knows it. He's experienced love before, and this isn't it.

They love the idea of him. The fantasy of him that lives in their heads. He has no interest in being their little god prince to contend with the Gojo's own. He knows who he is, and it's not this. He wants to go home. He wants to find his sister again. He doesn't want to do this anymore.

And I think that's a feeling Megumi never escape: he just didn't want to do this anymore.

Megumi would feel like a bug pinned beneath glass in the Zenin compound. He would constantly have people managing him--when he ate, what he ate, what he wore, when he slept, when he woke, when he trained, what he did. Having to become a jujutsu sorcerer signified an inherent loss of control, but it's nothing compared to the sheer objectification that he goes through when the Zenin have exclusive control over him.

He has no power of what clothes he wears. How his hair is styled. His schedule, his diet, the people he speaks too--he's suffocating and the Zenin are just increasing pressure on him.

I don't think Gojo ever thought that would be Megumi's life.

We’re gonna just have this imagining exist in the same world as the Tsumiki centric fic described in the linked post, and in that, the reason why Gojo never took him in was because he didn’t know Megumi had a sister. He showed up, saw the divine dogs, realized Megumi had the Ten Shadows, and decided he couldn’t do this. He was a mess. He was grieving Suguru and Haibara. Megumi looked just like the man who killed Riko, and apparently inherited the fucking Ten Shadows of all the goddamn things. The Zenin would lose their shit, and Gojo didn’t have the energy to fight and told himself he didn’t need to, because if Megumi was the Ten Shadows he’d be cared for like a prince with the Zenin. He turned around and left and spent the rest of his life with Megumi in the back of his mind, always nagging him with whether he made the right decision. It wasn’t until Maki got there and made a few worrisome references to Megumi's standard of living that he started to really worry that he had made the wrong one, and it wasn't until he found out about Tsumiki that he knew it was the wrong decision.

It's like this: The Zenin hurt Megumi in every world.

It would be bad no matter what, but it really gets bad because Megumi refuses to stop trying to get back to Tsumiki. She's his sister. They didn't have anyone or anything in this world, but they had each other, and he couldn't let these people just take her away. He’s feral about it. He refuses to fit the mold they keep trying to cram him in. He’s trying to scale the walls to escape. He’s increasingly desperate and angry and the Zenin are getting more and more frustrated the longer he fights them. He’s the heir to the clan, and he can’t stop trying to leave it to get back to some random girl who isn’t his real sister and isn’t someone they’ll ever allow him to have.

It gets bad.

They put him under increasingly strict levels of control. He’s constantly being trained, which means he's constantly being hurt. He’s not allowed to speak to anyone without the clan head’s approval. He is under absolutely constant guard after he manages to get over the wall and halfway to his old neighborhood before they catch him again. Tsumiki’s name is not allowed to be said aloud, or his old name. He forgets his name used to be Fushiguro, but he doesn’t forget Tsumiki. He doesn’t let himself.

I think it escalates until it hits a breaking point. Megumi becomes increasingly self-destructive and non-responsive to everything they try. They push him to extremes that start risking permanent damage.

I think Megumi would try to hurt himself, eventually.

He wouldn't be in his right mind. He's in the most shit situation possible. He's undergoing pretty severe abuse. He'd be at the end of his rope from the lack of control over his own life, and he'd be spiteful as hell towards the Zenin. And the only thing he has to hurt them with is himself.

As a character, Megumi has always considered his own sacrifice as an acceptable means to the end of getting back at someone. Mahoraga, intrinsically, requires him killing himself as a way of killing someone else. He'd hurt himself if it was the only way he had of hurting them.

Naobito would cover it up. He'd never, ever want the rest of the clan to find out that it happened. It was already bad enough that Megumi openly hated them--he couldn't have the Zenin seeing any vulnerability in what was meant to be their most powerful member. He'd put Megumi in total lockdown until he could make it all go away.

Then they'd make a deal.

A binding vow. Megumi could never purposefully hurt himself again. He could never again try to leverage his own safety against the clan.

And in exchange, Tsumiki would be taken care of.

The last time Megumi saw his sister, she was on a sinking ship. They were running out of food, money, options--he doesn't know if she even has food anymore. He doesn't know if she lost the apartment or if there's still running water.

They're not letting him see her. But they are letting him take care of her. He can sacrifice another piece of control over himself, and she'll never have to worry about money again. They'll pay for her housing, her food, her education, for her every desire for as long as she lives. The trust the Zenin set up for her will be a generous one, and it will be managed meticulously by a trustee who can make sure she'll be provided for until she's old and grey. And Naobito will vow to never hurt her or send someone else to hurt her. She'll be safe. She'll be taken care of.

Megumi makes the deal.

In the end, the deal's what sort of breaks him.

Because he doesn't promise to stop looking for her, but the Zenin manage to make it a part of the terms anyway. When they approach Tsumiki's mother with the offer to be her family's beneficiary, they include a requirement that Tsumiki be moved to another city entirely with no forwarding address given. She needs to be somewhere that Megumi can never find her again.

The Zenin keep the old apartment. They pay the rent every month. And the next time Megumi manages to make it off compound, they let him make it all the way there before dragging him home. They let him see the empty apartment with all its empty rooms.

Naobito wants him to know that Tsumiki's gone. He wants him to know that he'll never find her again.

He tries to run a few more times after that, but he never makes it very far. He doesn't have anywhere to go.

In the linked post, Megumi finds Tsumiki, just once. She's on a class trip. He's on one of his very few and far between allowed excursions off the compound grounds, and he sees her in the crowd and recognizes her, and he ducks away from his escort before anyone can stop him.

She remembers him. He didn't think she would do that.

She tries to save him. He didn't think she would do that either.

She still loves him. And he was always too afraid to hope she would do that.

It goes the same way it did the first time. There's a car, and the Zenin shove him in it. She's on the outside, and he's trapped within, and he wishes she didn't scream so loudly when it happens. The sound never seems to leave his dreams.

His sister still loves him. Naoya hits him in the back of the head. He wakes up, and it was like she was never there at all.

But they hit him harder, after. Like they're trying to beat the memory of her out of him. He has even less freedom, when he already had next to none at all.

But he still has a sister. He has a place to go that isn't here. He just has to figure out where that is.

He wouldn't really have anyone in the Zenin clan. Most people are just... weird about him. Naoya's violently abusive. Naobito's weird and violently abusive. Everyone wants him to be someone he's not.

Maki would be his favorite.

He doesn't care about whether she's got cursed energy--his sister didn't have any. And she's obviously strong. She doesn't treat him like a divine blessing or try to force him to act a certain way. I think they would have genuinely liked each other, but kept each other at a distance. They're both trapped in an abusive situation and keep themselves safe by keeping everyone else at arm's length.

He would have been happy to see her get out, though. He would have told her that she could have his spot as heir or head or whatever when she came back if she wanted it. She would have told him that if he ever got out... well, fuck it. They could be something then. Family. Whatever the fuck they weren't allowed to be here.

She would have told him she's sorry, and she would have meant it. The only one she she regretted more than Megumi was Maki. He would have told her not to be, that if she dared to be sorry for getting out that he would never forgive her, and he would have meant that too.

I think his relationship with his own techinque would be very different in a world where the Zenin raised him. In canon, his issue is that he doesn't view himself as someone who could be powerful or win in the long run, but in this world, all he ever hears is how powerful he is. Pride of the fucking Zenin. The most powerful of them in centuries. Meant to rival Gojo fucking Satoru himself.

I think his real issue would be controlling it.

His technique would be a source of negative associations for him. It's the reason why the Zenin took him away. Most of his interactions with it have involved getting beaten and hurt by either his family or a high-level curse they shoved him in front of. I think he'd have a lot more firepower under his belt than at the start of canon, but he'd have less of a fine tuned control over it.

He lost control over his own life because of his shadows. It think that would manifest in struggling to control his own shikigami at times. he's not as in-sync with them as he is in canon.

Eventually, he'd go to Jujutsu High. He would be the only one in the first year class at the beginning, just like in canon. And he'd finally meet Gojo Satoru, the man he's supposed to topple.

He looks at Megumi really goddamn weird.

He's... enthusiastic. About. Teaching. He guesses. And constantly asking prying questions about the Zenin, but not in the sort of way he'd expect from a rival. In the sort of way he'd expect from someone concerned about him. Which is stupid. And annoying. And weird. He keeps a distance from everyone. They've all heard about the Zenin clan heir, and he has no interest in having to fit or break whatever mold they've already cast him in. He's better off on his own.

Maki's there. She's cordial where other people can see it, and in private, she takes care of him in a way that's terrifyingly close to familial. He's not sure if he likes it. He's not Mai, and she's not Tsumiki, and they both want someone they can't have.

She isn't sorry she left. She is sorry she left him. He can hate her for it all he goddamn pleases.

Of course, if this is in the same world as the linked post, Megumi finds Tsumiki again. He finds her in Sendai.

He gets to keep her, this time.

Gojo Satoru, of all the goddamn people, intervenes and becomes his sister's benefactor. It's super fucking weird. He won't stop looking at Megumi strangely. He won't stop insisting that he didn't know he had a sister, like that matters.

That would sort of be the first time in a long time that life actually gets better for Megumi.

I think he would ask to go by Fushiguro again, once he asks Tsumiki what his name used to be. He'd ask her if she minded it, him taking the name again, and he'd ask the rest of the school to call him Fushiguro instead of Zenin.

Predictably enough, Naobito loses his shit when he finds out, but it's not nearly as big of a pain in the ass as he thinks it is? Because Gojo intervenes.

Gojo keeps intervening.

It drives Megumi nuts, because if anyone was supposed to hate him, it was this guy. If anyone was supposed to be against him, it was this guy. This is the guy he was supposed to rival. This is the guy who killed his shitheel bio dad.

Gojo's just... good to him. He keeps him safe. He keeps him safe from his own goddamn family, and that's--no one's ever done that. No one's ever protected him from the Zenin.

The Zenin try to remove him from the Tokyo campus and move him to Kyoto the second they find out Tsumiki's there, and Gojo just... says no. It causes an uproar, and he doesn't fucking budge. It's treading dangerously close to him kidnapping the Zenin clan heir, his refusal to let them remove him from the Tokyo campus, and he doesn't care about whatever problems it causes him.

Megumi's his student. He doesn't want to leave. So Gojo won't let them take him.

He personally goes to Kyoto and collects him, the one time the Zenin force him into a car and move him when Gojo's off on a mission. He tells the higher ups to get fucked. He changes Megumi's student I.D. to read Fushiguro, and he causes problems for Yaga and the assistants until they start calling him Fushiguro as well.

Megumi's different with the other students once his sister is there.

He's more connected with them. He becomes best friends with Kugisaki and Itadori. He gets closer with the second years. He's visibly happier, and it sort of casts in sharp contrast how unhappy he was before this.

And Gojo? Gojo's so goddamn sorry. He didn't know megumi had a sister.

The thing is that now that both Tsumiki and Megumi are on campus, it sort of haunts Gojo with what could have been. They're both fantastic kids--funny, smart, resourceful. And it's painful watching them try to rebuild what was taken from them. And it could have just. never happened. Because he could have saved them both. He could have been their family.

It's sort of painfully obvious the Zenin abused Megumi, and it fucking haunts him. He doesn't even have to read into Megumi's behavior--he sees it happen, right in front of him, with how they try to control him and push him around. He wants to kill them for it. He wants to hate himself for it. He could have saved Megumi and he just. He didn't.

He wishes he did.

#jjk #fushiguro megumi #fushiguro tsumiki #gojo satoru #zenin clan #zenin maki #also featuring in this au: itadori absolutely torn because his best friend's long lost brother is extremely pretty and he HAS to be in #violation of some kind of bro code. the boy is in crisis. there he is. enrolled in fucking wizard school. his best friend tsumiki finally #found her long lost brother. said long lost brother proceeds to give him his gay awakening. he's fucking sweating. kugisaki stop laughing #gojos latent desire for fatherhood has been violently awakened in this and no one is safe. he's everyone's dad now. no one wants this.#yuuta in africa: sensei it's three am why are you calling is everyone oka--what do you mean what color do I want you to paint my room. what #room. what are you talking about.#yuuta keeps getting the weirdest goddamn updates from japan and he thinks he's having a stroke. what do you mean zenin-kun is fushiguro-kun #and he has a fucking long lost sister and gojos possibly going to gently kidnap him. is it kidnapping if he wants it too but the people who #has custody of him doesn't. what do you mean he needs to come back and help maki kill her entire family. maki explain your words explain #yes word of god megumi is also yuutas boy in this one i decide this for no other reasons than i want this #it's not the same way as in sea glass gardens. Maki just said some worrying things when yuuta first met him and he decided to keep an eye #out for him. he didn't seem all that happy. and he seemed alone. yuuta didn't want him to be.#megumi's sort of blindsided because he went from being raised in a clan where he was barely a person to having a bunch of medically insane #people decide that his wellbeing was their personal crusade. like. no one ever cared about /him/ before this. they just wanted their idea #but not who he really was. he felt like he was screaming and no one could hear it. then suddenly these people he barely knows are like #okay so we're going to punch your shitty bio uncle and also set his car on fire. yes we will call you by the name that makes you most #comfortable. yes we will help you get a new wardrobe full of clothes you're actually comfortable in.#he hadn't heard his own name in years. he's just been the ten shadows. never fushiguro. only rarely megumi.#everyone calls him fushgiuro at the school. his sister calls him megumi. he sort of wants to cry about it but he doesn't.#his shitty uncle shows up and makes a big stink about him being called zenin and inumaki and panda keyed his car. is this what love is.#is it a keyed car.#Low key he does NOT know what's going to happen the first time the school goes on break because gojo keeps making comments about how #megumi's not going back to the zenin compound and he says it like a joke but. he may not be joking. is he not joking. is. is megumi being #kidnapped. again. this is getting statistically improbable. did gojo just. decide. to keep him. when did that happen.

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carewyncromwell · 1 year ago

Text

Ginny 🤝 Carewyn

1994 was an incredibly eventful year in the Wizarding World. Although yes, one could've surmised as much in response to the terrifying Death Eater attack after the Quidditch World Cup Final between Bulgaria and Ireland, no one outside of the Ministry really knew just how much was planned for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry until the term started. One hint, however, could be found in the students' list of necessary school supplies for the year ahead -- new to the list this year were a proper set of dress robes, appropriate to a formal event. And upon receiving her list of school supplies, Ginny Weasley was delighted to learn from her mother that her oldest and favorite brother Bill's best friend, Carewyn Cromwell, had volunteered to help her shop for some dress robes.

"Now, Carewyn said she might not be able to buy you whatever you want," Mrs. Weasley said bracingly. "You know she doesn't earn any more than your father...and while renting a flat in London, no less! But she thought that some new robes, even on clearance, might be a nice belated birthday gift..."

Ginny wasn't the least bit unhappy by this. Not only had she assumed she'd have to wear something of her mum or aunt's, but the thought of going out shopping with Carewyn was enough to make the thirteen-year-old bounce with glee. She always liked it whenever Carewyn visited the Burrow as it was, but being able to spend some private "girl's time" with Bill's best friend was beyond exciting.

And so a few days before term started, the youngest Weasley dressed in her favorite dress, jumper, tights, and boots, and then thundered downstairs to the fire. She even ended up running into Ron and Harry on the stairs, and -- after biting back her blush as best she could -- she darted away toward the kitchen before Ron could make too much fun of her for it. Once it was 10 o'clock, Mrs. Weasley walked Ginny over to the fireplace so she could send her on her way to the Leaky Cauldron, where Carewyn would be meeting her. Bill and Charlie were both there to see her off too.

"Tell Carey we said hi," Bill told his sister with a smile.

"Better yet, force her to come back to the Burrow with you when you're done," Charlie added more forcefully.

"Oh, Charlie," Mrs. Weasley scolded, lightly batting him on the arm. Once she had, though, she said as an aside to Ginny, "Do try to invite Carewyn back over for a visit, though, Ginny dear -- while your brothers are still here..."

Ginny couldn't help but grin. "Okay."

And with this, she grabbed some Floo Powder, tossed it at her feet, very clearly shouted, "DIAGON ALLEY!", and disappeared with a flash of green flame and smoke.

When Ginny climbed out of the Leaky Cauldron's Floo grate a few seconds later, she immediately found Carewyn standing there waiting on the other side of the grate. The ginger-haired lawyer was as pretty as always with her trademark bright red lipstick, dressed in a crisp, white collared shirt, thigh-length black skirt and a tailored black waistcoat.

At the sight of Carewyn, Ginny's brown eyes lit up like miniature suns.

"CAREY!"

Carewyn had to open her arms quickly so as to catch the smaller girl as she threw her arms around her, squeezing tight.

"Hi, Ginny," Carewyn couldn't bite back a full, amused smile.

Ginny looked up at Carewyn, unable to keep the huge, giddy grin off her flushed, sooty, freckled face.

"Bill, Charlie, and Mum say hi," she said at once.

Carewyn's blue eyes sparkled knowingly. "Is that all they said?"

"Well, Charlie also told me to force you to come back with me to the Burrow," Ginny said through her giggles. "Mum wants you there too."

Carewyn rolled her eyes up toward the ceiling as she sighed. "I'm sure she does...for very different reasons than Charlie, I'm quite sure..."

She took out a handkerchief and set about wiping the soot from Ginny's face.

"Yeah..." Ginny laughed a bit uncomfortably, "Mum just hasn't gotten it through her head that Charlie's not into dating. But well, it wouldn't be so bad if you and Bill dated, right? You're already best friends! And if you marry Bill, then he could come home and take a desk job at Gringotts, and you could both live in London together!"

Carewyn tried to smile instead of cringe, but the effect was weakened by just how much she avoided Ginny's eyes. "Ginny, I love Bill only as a friend...and the feeling is more than mutual on his end. I have little interest in marrying anyone as it is. And even if I didn't, Bill and I couldn't be more different, in what we'd want in a romantic relationship."

Giving birth to a lot of kids, for one -- talk about the last thing I'd want to do...

Ginny deflated, clearly a bit disappointed.

"If you say so. ...I still think you'd make a brilliant Weasley, though," she said with a grin.

Carewyn smiled wryly. "Well, fortunately, your brothers have treated me like one for quite a while now."

Tucking her handkerchief back into the inside of her jacket, she then turned on her heel, glancing back over her shoulder at Ginny.

"Well, come on, then," she said stridently. "I thought Madame Malkin's would be the best place to start. Twilfitt and Tatting's supply is very pretty, but we're less likely to get as much for our money there. And remember, we can always modify what we find, if it's not a perfect fit...I'm sure your mother would be happy to help with that..."

Ginny eagerly followed along after Carewyn out of the pub and into the rest of Diagon Alley.

The two gingers headed to the famous robe shop, where they immediately moved to the clearance racks at the back of the room. Ginny was actually really happy to see just how much Carewyn and she were able to pick out from that rack that they both liked and Carewyn could afford -- even those ensembles that were three times the amount of Ginny's second-hand school robes weren't out of reach, which made it so that Ginny ended up having a stack of eighteen pretty, affordable dresses in her size that she could try on. Some of them didn't suit Ginny -- the flashy, patterned purple, gold, and green one overpowered her small frame, while the cream-colored one completely washed her out. Others were made of uncomfortable materials, were too revealing, or required a larger bust size to look right.

Eventually, though, Carewyn helped Ginny pick out a golden yellow dress with wide bell-shaped sleeves and navy-blue and burgundy panels on the skirt. Carewyn had originally thought to go for something more delicate, but upon seeing how easy it was for Ginny to move in it and how happy she was twirling the skirt around, Carewyn decided it ultimately was the best choice.

"Do you think it'll do?" Ginny asked a bit more self consciously, as she looked at Carewyn's reflection in the mirror.

"Of course it will," Carewyn said gently, as she took a mint-green dress with pastel pink details she hadn't liked very much out of the stack and returned it to the rack. "Even if it's cotton instead of velvet or silk, it's cut flowingly, and the colors are much brighter than standard robes."

Ginny held the skirt out, sweeping it back and forth as she considered her reflection. Noticing the younger girl's hesitation, Carewyn came back over to stand behind her, smiling at her in the mirror as she talked to her.

"Most importantly, you're comfortable in it," she said with a small smile. "We always look our most beautiful when we're comfortable and having fun...and in dress robes this comfortable, I would think dancing the night away would be very easy to do."

Ginny looked up at Carewyn's reflection, startled.

"Did you say dance -- ?"

"I suppose Bill didn't mention the time he stopped by briefly to the Celestial Ball, in my fourth year," Carewyn said airily. "A shame -- he did quite a nice job fixing up his own dress robes, for that party..."

Ginny's face was flushed with excitement as Carewyn gave her shoulder a light squeeze.

"Dress robes are only worn for formal events, Ginny, I haven't said anything that shocking," she said in a rather droll voice. "It's only sensible to presume that an event of that nature would involve dancing."

Despite saying this, her blue eyes twinkled with amusement. It made Ginny grin from ear to ear.

"Suuuure," she said sarcastically, before bursting into giggles. Carewyn herself only smiled more wryly.

"Well, then, have you decided on those?"

"Yeah!" said Ginny.

"Good -- let's get them bought and paid for. Then I can buy you some ice cream before sending you home."

Ginny had gone behind the curtain to change -- when she'd pulled the robes up and over her head and could peek around the curtain properly, she looked a bit disappointed.

"So you're not coming back home with me?" she asked.

Carewyn offered Ginny a sad, sympathetic smile. "I'm sorry, Ginny, I have work in less than an hour. The Minister has requested my professional opinion on the validity of possible libel charges against Rita Skeeter..."

"Libel charges?" Ginny frowned.

"Put simply, Fudge didn't like Rita Skeeter trash-talking the Ministry's response to the attack at the World Cup and wants to know if there's any way he can make her shut up," Carewyn said very coolly.

Ginny couldn't help but scoff around her smile as she went back behind the curtain. "I bet Dad wishes she would too, after all the fuss she made. Reckon there's any chance Fudge could do it?"

"No -- her words in that article are protected under current law, given that she framed the more sensational comments as rumors or speculation from unnamed witnesses. Not to mention that Fudge going after Rita Skeeter would only give her and her writing more attention in the press, not less."

Ginny gave another low scoff from behind the screen. "I guess it's like Dad says: bullies love playing the victim -- then they can act like all their rotten actions are justified..."

The youngest Weasley came back out from behind the curtain, holding her new robes under her left arm and taking hold of Carewyn's arm with her free right hand.

"Well, you'd better write a proper apology to Bill and Charlie for not coming back with me," Ginny said pointedly. "I know Charlie will be mighty disappointed. Mum too."

"I will try very hard to get together with both Bill and Charlie before they leave Britain," Carewyn said levelly. "After all, I've missed them too."

Ginny grinned again, clearly pleased by this. Once Carewyn took the robes from Ginny and paid for them at the desk, she handed the bag holding the robes back to Ginny and the two gingers headed out of the shop.

"Carey?"

"Yes?"

Ginny gave Carewyn the biggest side-hug she could muster with only one arm completely free.

"Thank you," she said, beaming. "Shopping with you was so much fun. And my robes...you were right before, they are perfect! I can't wait to dance in them! Maybe I'll even get to dance with...well...somebody cool..."

She blushed a bit, clearly a bit self-conscious at this thought. Carewyn's eyes softened as she brought the smaller girl up against her side affectionately.

"I'm glad you like them," she said gently.

Ginny gave Carewyn another squeeze as she grinned up at her through her ruby red blush.

"...Say, Carey, did you and Bill dance at that Ball? The one you mentioned earlier?"

Carewyn cocked her eyebrows. "No, we did not. My date for that Ball was Andre Egwu, actually."

Ginny's mouth dropped open in disbelief. "The Keeper for Pride of Portree? But -- but I thought he liked blokes -- "

"Primarily," Carewyn said with a dry smile. "And I primarily like my independence -- hence why we didn't last."

Bringing a hand down onto Ginny's shoulder, Carewyn then started off down the street, coaxing her along behind.

"Now come on -- I said I'd get you some ice cream, and I only have a half hour before I'm supposed to clock in."

Friendship Drabble Prompt!

#hphm #hogwarts mystery #ginny weasley #carewyn cromwell #bill weasley #charlie weasley #molly weasley #cornelius fudge #rita skeeter #my writing #friendship drabbles #yes I decided carewyn didn't get those fugly mint green and pink dress robes ginny wears in the film #we get no description of ginny's dress robes in the book because harry honestly didn't pay any attention to her at that time #but no way would carewyn have let ginny dress in something that washes her out that much :I #ginny needs COLOR damn it #her book self is so very colorful she deserves it #and no offense to bonnie wright but she doesn't capture that partly because the writers gave her almost nothing to work with #...damn it now ron's the only weasley I haven't done for these friendship drabbles #how is it that one of my favorite weasleys ended up being last??#luck of the draw I guess #last but not least I guess could apply though??

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