Ginevra Weasley

Ginevra Molly "Ginny" Potter (née Weasley) (born August 11, 1981) is a character from the Harry Potter series. First making a brief cameo in the scene where Harry Potter boards the Hogwarts Express with her brother Ron at the start of their first year at Hogwarts, she eventually makes her official debut in the series as the damsel in distress and false main antagonist of Chamber of Secrets before going 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 chamber's secret weapon that feeds on living aura and causes petrification or death to anyone near it via direct eye contact) living inside. 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 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 school 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. It wasn't until during the Halloween celebrations that Riddle was able to take full control of they beautiful witch, using her to re-open the Chamber of Secrets and release the Basilisk, which then went loose and petrified the school caretaker Argus Filch's pet cat Mrs. Norris at the diary's command, thus putting all the other students (particularly the Muggle-borns) in great danger.

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.

Ginny tried to tell Harry and Ron what was going on but 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 the school at the request of of its other eleven governors (minus Malfoy), did not place the blame on her, saying that older and wiser wizards had been duped by Lord Voldemort, and he 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 asked Cho Chang to the ball

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