Dear Ginny. July 6.

Dear Ginny,

You’ve been looking at old pictures. Good grief. My hair. Your freckles! I hope you don’t cover them up for Bill and Fleur’s wedding. They’re so cute. Besides, Harry thinks you have nice skin.

What has Ron been up to? Last week, he wrote me a letter about how he was having tea with the ghoul in the attic every afternoon. Making it Earl Gray. I mean, really. I suppose he’s trying to mysterious or something equally insipid and idiotic, but brewing loose-leaf Earl Grey for a ghoul?

Just hang on five more days, and I’ll come to the Burrow. I plan on having all my projects done before then so I can spend all my time helping you and your mum get ready for the wedding. And yes, I’ll play quidditch with you. You can show me how to do that turn-upside-down-and-hang-on-the-broom-with-one-hand-to-avoid-the-bludger move without actually falling off. Who knows? If we sneak out at night when your mum hasn’t come up for any more chores for us to do yet, we might get to play a lot—so much that maybe by the time Harry comes next month, I’ll be so good and that he and I will beat you and Ron! It’ll be like last summer….never mind. We can’t really get last summer back. But it’ll still be good.

Just think—you could be quidditch captain in the fall. The first female Gryffindor captain in history! Or maybe I’ve got it wrong…hold on, I’ll look in Quidditch Through the Ages….

Huh. It’s not in there. But I did find the name of that move…the “sloth grip roll.”

Don’t shortchange your experience with the basilisk. It wasn’t minor; it was very traumatizing for everyone involved, especially for you. And it ought have traumatized you. If a twelve-year-old kid came out of that completely nonplussed, there’d be something wrong.

And don’t spend too much time alone. We need to stick together, now more than ever.

Five days! Five days!

With love,
Hermione

P.S. I don’t know which is worse, either. But he loves you, Ginny, I swear. That’s a fact.

P.P.S. So when are Lupin and Tonks getting married?!? Different Order members tell me different things!!

P. P. S. S. Don’t forget that since I won’t be at Hogwarts this year, we have to do something fun for both of our birthdays this summer. Put on your thinking cap of mellifluous jollity. Oh dear, that’s not how one should use “mellifluous.” Oh well. It sounds nice.