Ginevra Weasley

Ginevra Molly "Ginny" Potter (née Weasley) (born August 11, 1981) is one of the main protagonists from the Harry Potter series. First making a minor appearance in Philospher's Stone, she made her official debut in the series as the scapegoat antagonist of Chamber of Secrets, and went on to become a supporting character until her marriage to Harry somewhere in between Deathly Hallows and Cursed Child.

She is portrayed by Bonnie Wright.

Early Life
Ginerva Molly "Ginny" Weasley was born on August 11th, 1981 in a Devon County village in England called Ottery St. Catchpole to a family of wizards with extended wealth, and raised in the watchful eyes of her father Arthur Weasley, the head of the Misuse of Muggle (non-magical) Artifacts Office in the British Ministry of Magic, her mother Molly Prewett-Weasley, an overprotective housewife, and six older brothers Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred, George and Ron. At the time, the magical community she grew up in was nearing the end of a long conflict against the tyrannical rise of the psychopathic dark wizard Lord Voldemort, who aimed to take over the wizarding world and shape it in his supremacist views with the aid of an army of followers which he named Death Eaters, in which her maternal uncles Gideon and Fabian were murdered. After Voldemort met his defeat on Halloween two months later at the hands of Harry Potter (who was then a year old), the young witch became inspired by what miracle a child would make at such a young age, developing a tomboyish outlook by decorating her room at the Weasley family home, the Borrow, with posters of wizarding singing sensations like the Weird Sisters and Gwenog Jones.

Despite the majority of her brothers being keen players of broomstick riding wizard sport Quidditch, Ginny was not allowed to play with them as a child. By age 6, however, she began a habit of breaking into the family broom shed and taking each of their brooms out in turn. She was never caught, yet it only came to light eight years later. At one time, she claimed to have looked forward to attending the major wizarding school up in Scotland, called Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, since Bill started there, but because she would only have been a year old at the time, it was entirely possible that she was exaggerating. Bill tried to scare her and Ron from attending by telling them the story of a legendary hidden chamber built in the Hogwarts sewer system by Hogwarts founder Salazar Slytherin known the Chamber of Secrets, which only Slytherin's true heir could open and purge the school of all Muggle-born students using the Basilisk (a giant serpent used as the chamber's secret weapon that feeds on living aura and causes petrification or death to anyone near it via direct eye contact) living inside.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Ginny got the opportunity to see what going to Hogwarts was like at age 10, when she accompanied her mother to King's Cross Station to see off her brothers as they departed for Hogwarts. Despite being too young to attend the school, she still begged her mother to let her go with them. While saying goodbye to her brothers, including Ron, who was just starting his first year at the school, the gullible young witch learned that Harry Potter himself was on train and tried to get her mother to let her go on and see him. However, the train was already pulled out and Ginny began to cry, despite her brothers promising to send her back loads of owls and (jokingly) a Hogwarts toilet seat.

When the Hogwarts Express returned at the end of the school year, Ginny went with her mother to welcome back her brothers was again. She was excited to see Harry as he, Ron and their Muggle-born friend Hermione Granger got off the train to greet the family, and with them, the trio went back through the gateway to the Muggle world and told her about the first adventure they had at the school.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Ever since meeting Harry for the first to times surrounding his first year at Hogwarts, Ginny began developing feelings for him and talked about him all summer. When Harry arrived at the Burrow after being rescued from his Muggle aunt and uncle, Vernon and Petunia Dursley, by Ron, Fred and George, she became extremely shy in his presence after coming down for breakfast to find him sitting at the table. Startled, the young witch retreated back to her room and stared at Harry as he passed her bedroom on his way to Ron's. Ginny became extremely clumsy around the boy and had a habit of knocking things over when he entered a room.

On the day her Hogwarts acceptance letter arrived, she knocked over a porridge bowl with a loud clatter and put her elbow in the butter dish when Harry asked her if she was really starting at Hogwarts. Ginny traveled with her family to buy her school supplies, and her excitement at finally going was tempered by the fact that, due to the Weasleys' financial situation, she would have to make do with a lot of second-hand products, including her robes and books. At the welcome party of celebrity author Gilderoy Lockhart, who was appointed the school's new Defense Against the Dark Arts proffesor, in the Flourish and Blotts book store, however, she became the owner of a brand new set of Lockhart's collected works when Harry, who had just been given them by Lockhart himself as a publicity stunt, gave them to her since he could afford a set of his own. With this act of kindness and recognition, Ginny finally spoke in front of Harry, standing up to his Hogwarts rival Draco Malfoy when the latter started to insult them. Unknown to any of the Weasleys, this mocking gave Draco's father Lucius, a Hogwarts governor and former Death Eater who was a rival to Ginny's father at the Ministry of Magic, to slip an old school diary once owned by Voldemort during his Hogwarts years into Ginny's shopping cauldron, replacing her battered second-hand copy of ''A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration. ''

Ginny began her first year at Hogwarts after being sorted (like the majority of his family who went there) into Gryffindor, in which her brothers and Harry had also been sorted into, due to her shown courage in standing up for her loved ones. By the time she discovered the Voldemort's old diary amongst her school things, she began writing in it, unaware of who the book once belonged to. To her amazement, the hidden sentient memory of the dark wizard's true identity (a former Slytherin prefect later revealed to be the heir of Salazar Slytherin himself named Tom Marvolo Riddle) wrote back, and she started to confide in him, writing about how her brothers teased her, how she had to come to school with second-hand robes and books, and how she thought that Harry would never like her. She poured her heart out to the diary, and told Riddle all about Harry's story. At least once, the clumsy girl went down toward Hogwarts gamekeeper Rubeus Hagrid's hut on the school grounds, hoping to see Harry there. In confiding in the diary her deepest fears and secrets, she became increasingly vulnerable to Riddle's memory, which began to pour a little of his own soul back into her and slowly started to influence her. By the start of October, signs of the influence began to show on Ginny. She started to look peaky, but a spate of colds in the school covered up the true nature of her condition, so Percy forced her to take Pepperup Potion to get her over it. But the effect of her the Halloween celebrations that Riddle was able to take full control of the beautiful witch, using her to re-open the Chamber of Secrets and set the Basilisk loose into petrifying the school caretaker Argus Filch's pet cat Mrs. Norris at the diary's command. This prompted the entire Hogwarts staff to send all the students back to their dormitories and put almost the entire school on lockdown overnight in fear of the threat against them regarding the Chamber's reopening which Riddle had Ginny write on the school wall with her own blood, while Harry was briefly blamed for the attack due to being found already at the scene with Ron and Hermione.

Ginny became very upset over the attack, and her brothers put it down to the fact that she was a cat-lover. She opened the Chamber of Secrets two more times, resulting in the petrification of Colin Creevey and Justin Finch-Fletchley. She became more visibly upset, and again, her brothers put it down that she sat next to Colin in Charms, and that she was worried that Ron might be expelled if he and Harry got into trouble. Fred and George attempted to cheer her up, but went about it the wrong way by leaping out at her from behind statues covered in fur or boils. Along with her brothers, Ginny remained at Hogwarts over Christmas instead of going to visit Bill in Egypt with her parents. She started to become suspicious of the diary, and attempted to get rid of it by throwing it down a toilet in the girls' bathroom several weeks afterwards. Once free of the diary, Ginny sent Harry an anonymous Singing Valentine during the Valentin's Day celebrations. He received it in front of her as she was going into a Charms lesson, when he was accosted by the dwarf assigned to deliver it. During the delivery, Harry's bag was torn and the contents were dropped onto the floor. To Ginny's horror, among the items dropped was the diary, and to make matters worse, Draco implied that she must've sent Harry the Singing Valentine in front of everyone. Fearful that Harry would discover her secrets and her role in the attacks, she waited until the boys' dormitory was empty, then ransacked Harry's belongings to recover the diary. Retrieving it, Ginny was once more overcome by Riddle's memory and opened the Chamber again, this time petrifying Hermione and Ravenclaw prefect Penelope Clearwater, who she caught kissing Percy in an empty classroom earlier that day and was forced by her brother to swear not to tell anyone. The continuing chaos eventually became enough for Malfoy and Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge to sack Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore for the supposed poor running of the school and arrest Hagrid, who Riddle framed for opening the Chamber fifty years prior.

As she tried to tell Harry and Ron what was going on, Ginny could not get the words out, and she was interrupted by Percy. This made Riddle furious, however, as he had been planning on taking on Harry himself after learning his story and tie to the former's warmonger alter ego. Realizing that Harry would come to save the troubled girl, Ginny was forced to write a farewell on a corridor wall and bring herself down to the Chamber of Secrets, where she was sentenced to be sacrificed to the Basilisk as soon as her life-force faded completely. She had poured so much of her life into the diary that she could not fight Riddle's control of her, and as Voldemort started returning to full strength through the sentient memory of his old self that came out of the diary before her, the life in Ginny faded away (but not completely) until she slipped into an unconscious state. Alarmed by her supposed abduction by the Basilisk itself, the Hogwarts staff were ordered by Malfoy and his eleven colleagues on the Hogwarts board of governors to evacuate the school. However, Potions professor Severus Snape convinced them to task Lockhart, who had recently claimed to have known the location of the Chamber's entrance all along, with fighting the Basilisk and saving its hostage so that the former professor could wrongly expose her as the culprit behind the attacks and get her expelled for Harry's safety. Unbeknownst to anyone, though, Harry and Ron went to rescue Ginny themselves after learning about her predicament and discovering Lockhart was a fraud. Leaving the author suffering from his own rebounded Memory Charm at the chamber entrance with Ron, Harry soon found Ginny's unconscious body, and went to her defense when Riddle set set the Basilisk on him. Luckily, thanks to Dumbledore's pet phoenix Fawkes swooping in and giving him the sword of Hogwarts founder Godric Gryffindor, Harry killed the serpent by stabbing in the head and destroyed Riddle's diary by piercing it three times with one of its fangs, eliminating the manifestation of its owner and the dark power growing from Ginny's writing.

The vitality fading away within Ginny was thus restored, and she awoke in the Chamber with Harry kneeling by her side. Tearful and scared, the relieved young witch revealed what had happened to him and was sure she was going to be expelled from school. After she, along with Harry, Ron and the amnesic Lockhart left the Chamber with the aid of Dumbledore's pet phoenix Fawkes, the young Weasley was reunited with her parents in Dumbledore's office. Despite her fears, Dumbledore, who returned to the school at the request of its board of governors (minus Malfoy), did not place the blame on her, saying that older and wiser wizards had been duped by Voldemort once before in their life, and sent her to the hospital wing to recover from her ordeal with a mug of hot chocolate. Following this traumatic experience, Ginny returned to normal and was happy and relaxed for the rest of the school term. At the end of the school year, she traveled back to King's Cross with her brothers, Harry, and Hermione on the Hogwarts Express, playing Exploding Snap. She also mentioned Percy's relationship with Clearwater, and begged her other brothers not to tease him about it.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Before the start of her second year, Ginny traveled to Egypt with the rest of her family to visit Bill after her father won seven hundred Galleons in the annual Daily Prophet Grand Prize Galleon Draw. She visited various tombs, but her mother would not allow her to go in the last one because of all the mutant skeletons. When they returned from the vacation, the Weasleys found most of the wizarding community on high alert after Harry's notorious godfather Sirius Black escaped from the wizard prison Azkaban in their absense, having been sent there after being accused (wrongly, as it later turned out) for selling out Harry's parents to Voldemort and killing 12 Muggles on a crowded London street with a single Blasting Curse. Ginny and her family stayed at the Leaky Cauldron with Harry himself for several nights before setting off to start her second year at Hogwarts. She was even more embarrassed in front of the young Potter than usual, muttering a hello but not looking at him.

The next day, on Platform 9¾, she did meet his eyes as they shared a laugh over Percy's behavior when trying to impress Penelope Clearwater. On the Hogwarts Express, Ginny was separated from her brothers until the train stopped to let aboard the Dementors sent by the Ministry to search for Black on it. Even in the dark, she found her way into the compartment containing Harry, Ron, Hermione and the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher Remus Lupin, and was one of the worst affected the Dementor's depressing aura besides Harry, as it gave her horrible experiences with Riddle's diary the year prior. She went very pale and shook like mad, eventually sobbing and having to be comforted by Hermione while Lupin drove the Dementor away. During a Quidditch match between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff in the midst of a storm at some point after Halloween, Harry fell from his broomstick due to passing out from a Dementor invasion of the field. Ginny visited him in the hospital wing, making a get well card that sang shrilly when opened and presented it to him while blushing furiously.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Before the start of her third year, Ginny spent a lot of time with Hermione while the latter was staying at the Burrow before the 422nd Quidditch World Cup.They shared Ginny's room together and solidified their growing friendship. Aware of her interest in Harry, Hermione advised Ginny to relax around him more and show him what she was really like, since she could barely talk if he was in the same room as her. She even suggested that Ginny start going out with other people. Although she was still shy around Harry, who was also staying at The Burrow, Ginny took Hermione's advice and was much more relaxed and spent time with him, Ron, and Hermione. She attended the World Cup with the majority of her family, with Harry and Hermione tagging along, yet was shaken by the unexpected attack on the camping grounds orchestrated by the group of pardoned Death Eaters under Lucius Malfoy's shortly after the game.

Ginny returned to Hogwarts with her brothers and Harry as the school began hosting the Triwizard Tournament (a legendary tournament between Hogwarts and two rival wizarding schools, Beauxbatons Academy of Magic in France and Durmstrang Institute of the Dark Arts in Scandinavia), in which she rooted for Harry after he was unexpectedly named an extra champion for the British school itself alongside already-named Hogwarts champion Cedric Diggory. She still maintained her relationship with Hermione, who confided in her when Durmstrang champion Viktor Krum to the Yule Ball. But as a third year, Ginny was not allowed to attend the ball unless asked by an older student. Ron suggested that Harry take her to the ball since he did not have a date, but she was displeased to hear that he had already asked fellow Gryffindor Parvati Patil to the ball after Ravenclaw Quidditch captain Cho Chang declined his offer since she had accepted to go with Diggory. Struggling with the idea that she could have gone with Harry, Ginny nonetheless remained loyal to her agreement his and Ron's Gryffindor classmate Neville Longbottom, who asked her to go with him when Hermione turned him down (having already accepted Krum's offer). While at the ball with Neville that Christmas, the young witch met fellow Ravenclaw classmate Micheal Corner, who she began dating by the end of the year, thus taking Hermione's advice to distance herself from Harry.

But, to show that her feelings for the scarred young wizard never truly died, Ginny continued to be encouraging to Harry through the rest of the tournament. She was even among the closest friends he had who comforted over having getting Diggory killed when the act of winning the third and final task together successfully ensnared both champions into the real reason the Death Eaters had for Harry that got him entered into the tournament in the first place: so that Voldemort could take a sample of the boy's blood to return to full strength.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
With the revelation of Voldemort's return being denied by the Ministry of Magic, who began discrediting Dumbledore for believing it and attempting alongside Harry to expose the announcement, Ginny's parents (having been great supporters of Dumbledore) became active members of the reconstituted Order of the Phoenix, a secret society originally founded by the old wizard oppose Voldemort's first rise to power, at some point over the summer of her fourth year. As a result of being counted among whom Harry considered family, the Weasleys were relocated to the Order's headquarters at apartment number 12 of Grimmauld Place in London, which was originally home to the pure-blood ideological Black family (from which Ginny's paternal grandmother Cedrulla was disowned), now inherited at Dumbledore's persuasion not only to descendants of the Blacks like her father, but also to the last Black in the latter family's male line: Sirius Black himself, who, in addition to his role as Harry's godfather, was offered to serve as an active original member of the Order but not an active role due to his fugitive status. Another Order member, Nymphadora Tonks, acted like a big sister towards both Ginny and Hermione, and Ginny often laughed at the faces Tonks made due to the latter witch being a Metamorphmagus (a witch or wizard with the ability to change any physical appearance on their at will).

When Harry arrived at the apartment, Ginny was pleased to see him and, due to her taking Hermione's advice and her relationship with Micheal Corner, was relaxed and composed in his presence, showing none of the embarrassment and shyness towards him that she had shown during previous meetings. Due to her age, the calmed girl was never allowed into the Order meetings like the rest of the kids, and when Black insisted on filling Harry in on the Order and Voldemort, she was the only one banished from the meeting by her mother. However, Hermione (who was allowed to hear) told her everything anyway. When Harry was vindicated at his hearing for using magic to save himself and his Muggle cousin Dudley Dursley from two Dementors who attacked them while under age, she was extremely pleased and sang with Fred and George shouting " He got off, he got off, he got off ...!". Ginny returned with her brothers and Harry for her fourth year at Hogwarts, and while on the Hogwarts Express, introduced Harry and Neville to Luna Lovegood, a Ravenclaw in her year. With the arrival of Ministry official Doleres Umbrige as new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher and a theory-based course, Harry, Ron, and Hermione decided to form a study group to teach practical defense spells. Ginny joined the group, bringing Michael with her, and several other Ravenclaws. They all met in the Hog's Head where Ginny first demonstrated her sense of humour by mimicking Umbridge's cough. During the first official meeting of the group, she came up with the name for the group - Dumbledore's Army.

During her time in the D.A, Ginny's talent for defensive magic was shown as she had swift reflexes with the Disarming Charm and considerable power with the Reductor Curse, the latter of which highly impressed Harry (much to Ginny's delight) and made her brothers jealous. Toward the end of the fall, Harry, along with Fred and George, received a lifelong Quidditch ban from Umbridge for attacking Draco Malfoy after their game against Slytherin. Ginny tried out for the team and became the new Seeker, but later admitted that Harry was a better Seeker than her, and preferred playing as a Chaser and scoring goals. What should have been a happy time for the young witch was marred by a vision Harry had of an attack on her father carried out by Voldemort's pet snake Nagini in the Ministry of Magic's Department of Mysteries just prior to Christmas. Along with her brothers and Harry, she was instantly sent back to 12 Grimmauld Place by a portkey to await news. Relieved to find out he was all right, Ginny saw him the next day in St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries and hugged him immediately. Following the visit, she noticed that Harry started to distance himself from everyone, refusing to speak to anyone in the house. After Hermione skipped a skiing trip with her parents to come to the house, she talked Harry out of hiding in Buckbeak's room, leading him to Ginny and Ron. Learning that Harry had convinced himself that he had been possessed by Voldemort into attacking her father, Ginny railed on him for not seeking advice from the one person who had definitely been possessed by the Dark Lord. She expressed her soft spot for her childhood crush, quieting his fears by relaying her experiences to him and admitted that she had never truly gotten over it either. Ginny spent Christmas at Grimmauld Place and visited her father again on Christmas Day. During this visit along with Ron and Hermione, she found out the truth about Neville's parents, and how they were into insanity by a few Death Eaters led by Barty Crouch Jr and Black's cousin Bellatrix Lestrange using the Cruciatus Curse at the end of the fist conflict against Voldemort's rise to power.

Returning to Hogwarts after Christmas, the young witch played her first game for the Gryffindor Quidditch team against Hufflepuff. Despite losing the match, she captured the Golden Snitch, at first downplaying the achievement by saying it was not a fast Snitch and that the opposing Seeker, Summerby, had a cold. Probably as a result of her being more confident and relaxed in front of Harry, her willingness to stand up to him, and their shared experiences of being a Seeker, Harry and Ginny grew closer. The group name Ginny came up with for the D.A. eventually saved Harry from expulsion at the Ministry's hands when Cho's best friend Marietta Edgecombe betrayed the group to Umbridge, since the name gave Dumbledore a way to take the fall for the D.A.'s formation by reminding Minister Fudge of saying that the group named themselves "Dumbledore's Army, not Potter's". This forced Dumbledore to then escape the castle with Fawkes' help in order to evade arrest, leaving Umbridge herself to replace him as school head. Around Easter, the two had their first real one on one conversation in the library, during which they ate Easter eggs together. Harry confided in her that he needed to his godfather, and she encouraged him to do so, even insisting that she might be able to help. It's around this time that Ginny started to speak to Harry like a friend, and Harry in turn began to enjoy her company, although the action of her bringing chocolate into the library infuriated the librarian to the point of violently chasing her and Harry out. Ginny then went to Fred and George, and asked them to find a way for Harry to speak to Black. She played her second Quidditch game for the Gryffindor team against Ravenclaw shortly afterwards and managed to capture the Golden Snitch, beating Cho Chang and securing the Quidditch Cup for Gryffindor. In the aftermath of the victory, Michael became very moody and sulked about the result, forcing Ginny to dump him because of his attitude.

When Harry experienced another vision this time of his godfather being tortured in the Department of Mysteries by Voldemort, he informed Ron and Hermione. The latter convinced Harry to check to see if Black was at Grimmauld Place before rushing off to rescue him, and Ginny and Luna came to their assistance. With Harry and Hermione breaking into Umbridge's office, and Ron distracting the professor with news that Peeves was wreaking havoc, Ginny and Luna stopped people from entering the corridor leading to the office by saying that someone had flooded it with Garrotting Gas. Unfortunately for them, Umbridge saw through their ruse since she knew of Peeves's true location and ordered her Inquisitorial Squad to round them up. Ginny was captured by Cassius Warrington, and when Neville saw what was happening and tried to help, he was caught as well. Umbridge threatened to use the Cruciatus Curse on Harry to make him tell her what he was doing, Hermione faked a breakdown and told a lie about a weapon that Dumbledore told them to make. She and Harry lured Umbridge into the Forbidden Forest, leaving Ginny, Ron, Luna, and Neville alone with the Inquisitorial Squad. They managed to break free using skills that they had acquired in their D.A. sessions; Ginny hit Draco Malfoy with the Bat-Bogey Hex, then regrouped with Harry and Hermione, who had left Umbridge with a group of enraged centaurs. But Harry was still convinced that Black was in mortal danger since the Black family house-elf Kreacher answered his message instead and lied that his master had already left, and resolved to travel to London and rescue him. Although he tried to prevent Ginny, Neville, and Luna from accompanying him, Ron and Hermione eventually persuaded otherwise. They flew Thestrals to London, and entered the Ministry of Magic using the visitor's entrance and headed for the Department of Mysteries. In the Hall of Prophecy, they found no sign of Black, but Ron found a prophecy concerning Harry and Voldemort. As Harry removed it from the shelf, the group was surrounded by Death Eaters led by Lucius Malfoy and learned that Voldemort had used the connection between himself and Harry to lure him there to remove the prophecy. Ginny was sadistically threatened with torture by Bellatrix Lestrange, who wanted to use the Cruciatus Curse on her to force Harry to hand over the prophecy, thus hoping to avoid the inevitable fight that would breakout.

At Harry's signal, all six D.A. members fired Reductor Curses at the shelves to distract the Death Eaters and began running. Ginny, along with Luna and Ron, were separated from the other three being chased by Malfoy, Crabbe and Bellatrix's brother-in-law Rabastan through the Time Chamber, and were chased through the opposite direction by Bellatrix, her husband Rodolphus and several of their Death Eater comrades. In the Space Chamber, one of the Death Eaters grabbed Ginny by the ankle, twisting and breaking it. But luckily for the the injured redhead, Luna cast a Reductor Curse on a model of Pluto in the captor's face (blinding him with the following explosion) and managed to get her and Ron (who was also disabled) to safety, despite Ginny's broken ankle immobilizing and restricting her ability to help in the battle. She grew distraught when Ron came under attack by the brains in the Brain Room, and was knocked unconscious by a Stunning Spell by Travers. Luckily, the Death Eaters were focused on the prophecy and Harry was able to lead them away from Ginny and the other vulnerable students. The young witch regained consciousness by the time he was pursuing Bellatrix out of the Death Chamber, but he ignored her questions and raced past her to help Dumbledore in his duel with an arrived Voldemort in the Ministry atrium with the entire Ministry of Magic arriving to watch, thus forcing them into admitting to the wizarding community that the warmonger wizard had indeed returned. Following the battle, Ginny recovered in the hospital wing at Hogwarts for the remainder of the year and had her ankle fixed in a trice. On the train ride back to London, she admitted ditching Michael, who had moved on to dating Cho Chang who had just recently dumped Harry in order to stand up for her friend Marietta Enchcombe after the latter Ravenclaw girl's betrayal of Dumbledore's Army to Umbridge) while Ginny herself had moved on to fellow Gryffindor Dean Thomas, much to Ron's horror. But to show that she still never gave up on Harry, she comforted over the loss of his godfather, who was pushed right through the veil in the Death Chamber separating the world of the living from that of the dead by his own cousin.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Ginny spent the summer of her fifth year at the Burrow with her brothers and Hermione at the Burrow as the wizarding community was placed in a state vigilance worse than ever in response to Voldemort's and his Death Eaters' re-emergence into the open. Despite having to put up with her brother Bill's new fiancée, Fluer Delacore (whom she nicknamed "Phlegm" and strongly disliked), she had a good summer practising Quidditch and planning to try out for the House team as a Chaser. When Harry was dropped off at the Burrow by Dumbledore at some point when the summer holidays were coming to a close, Ginny was delighted and took a trip and him, Hermione some of the other Weasleys to Diagon Alley to purchase needed school supplies. While at the new shop Fred and George had recently opened up there, called Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, she bought her first pet, a purple Pygmy Puff that she named Arnold.

On Platform 9¾ a few days afterwards, Ginny left Harry's side to meet up with Dean Thomas on the Hogwarts Express, but was interrupted by classmate Zacharias Smith, who attempted to get information out of her regarding what had happened that night in the Department of Mysteries. Tired of his continued questioning, she cursed him with the Bat-Bogey Hex, which was was seen by veteran Potions professor Horace Slughorn, who was returning to his old post that year while Snape was filling in the job of new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. Ginny feared detention, but Slughorn was so impressed with the hex that he invited her to take lunch with him as part of a select group of students he hoped to cultivate and induct into his Slug Club, with Harry, Ron and Neville already counted in. As term started, the young redhead witch rejoined as a Chaser on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, of which Harry had been made the Captain. She and was given a spot on the roster. Following one Quidditch practice, she and Dean were caught kissing by Harry and Ron. She and Ron had a blazing argument over kissing in public, but Ginny countered that him only saw it as being wrong because he had never kissed anyone before. Harry, on the other hand, began realizing The argument led to a frosty relationship between the two siblings which lasted quite some time. During the first Quidditch match of the season against Slytherin, Ginny scored several goals to help the team to victory. Following the match, she purposely crashed her broomstick into the commentary box because Smith, who was placed as the commentator, had been making disparaging remarks about the Gryffindor team. Her feud with Ron over his attitude towards her and Dean was worsened when, in the aftermath of the victory, he began going out with Lavender Brown, who he often snogged in public. Ginny branded her brother a "filthy hypocrite" for his actions, but more less seemed to be over the row they previously shared.

Before the holiday break, the young witch attended Slughorn's Christmas party with Dean, and spent Christmas at the Burrow with her family and Harry. When she returned to Hogwarts, she seemed unenthusiastic about meeting up with Dean, and started to wish that she could spend more time with Harry. After Ron was accidentally poisoned on his birthday, Ginny visited him in the hospital wing, and they seemingly forgave each other. She and Harry discussed what had happened to Ron endlessly, trying to come up with an explanation for what had happened. Ginny later played in the Quidditch match against Hufflepuff, where Ron's bedridden status forced Harry to play the reserve Keeper Cormac McLaggen. During the match, McLaggen took one of the Beater's bats and pelted a bludger directly at Harry, who was knocked unconscious and suffered a fractured skull. Dean, who had been playing as reserve Chaser in place of Katie Bell, laughed about the incident with his friend Seamus Finnegan, but Ginny felt hurt of Harry to have a row. she subsequently visited Harry in the hospital wing as though.