Fanfic / Ginny Weasley: Double Life

Cover art by oderperv; used with permission.

Ginny Weasley: Double Life by Angel the Wizard is a Harry Potter fic set around a decade after the Battle of Hogwarts. Returning home after a busy day at the Daily Prophet, Ginny discovers Milikan, a talking serpent, who hypnotises Ginny to remember Milikan as a childhood friend. With Ginny now regarding Milikan as her best friend and Mistress, the fic explores how Ginny’s new life unfolds as she tries to keep her family unaware of Milikan’s presence while enjoying the ‘return’ of her ‘childhood companion’.

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The author has also written The Tales of Milikan, a series of one-shots or three-parters looking at alternate realities where Milikan and other hypnotic snakes met Ginny and other characters under different circumstances, ranging from a more 'standard' AU where they meet earlier or later to more drastic crossovers or greater alternate realities.

Ginny Weasley: Double Life contains examples of:

• Baby's First Words: Chapter 8 sees Lily's first words as she calls Harry and Ginny 'Dada' and 'Mama'.
• Bad Powers, Good People: Milikan’s hypnosis superficially appears like a more villainous power, but she only ever uses it to help others or make friends. Even when she hypnotises Ginny to see Milikan as her Mistress, the snake avoids doing anything that would compromise Ginny’s existing life.
• Bedtime Brainwashing: Milikan planted the general details of her false history with Ginny during their initial encounter, but the full details of those false memories are only ‘integrated’ into Ginny’s mind when she falls asleep a few days later (all her previous sleeps between their first meeting and this rest being hypnotically induced by Milikan and hence deeper than a standard rest), during which she dreams about her and Milikan’s alleged friendship when Ginny was only seven years old.
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• Broken Pedestal: Brief but significant; Milikan is shaken to learn that her father and brother believed in the idea of making humans slaves rather than servants.
• Canon Character All Along: The 'radical' snakes (snakes like Milikan who favour making humans slaves over servants) mention "the first radical" living in India, who is soon revealed to be Kaa (The Jungle Book (1967)).
• Children Are Innocent: Invoked when Milikan is 'introduced' to an infant Lily and is touched that Lily shows no sign of being afraid of her.
• The Dreaded: Milikan is quietly terrified when she realises that her old foe Simora might be in the area.
• Dreaming of Things to Come: During her and Ginny's honeymoon, Milikan experiences a dream where the spirit of Simora warns her of the coming of the Baron Lord (a villain who debuted in the spin-off The Tales of Milikan).
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• Erotic Eating: At one point Ginny spreads the remains of a cake over her body so that Milikan can eat it off her.
• Even Evil Has Standards: While the other radicals are willing to avenge Simora's death, many of them feel that his views on humans were too extreme, some preferring to only eat old humans and content to let their human slaves go free after a certain time.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Simora is another of Milikan’s kind, but he and others like him cannot understand why Milikan would keep Ginny as a servant rather than eat her or make her a permanent slave.
• Evil Counterpart: Simora is a dark contrast to Milikan, regarding humans as slaves at best and food at worst.
• Eye Scream: Kallous loses an eye to a feral bear.
• Fake Memories: Milikan’s hypnosis implants false memories that she and Ginny were friends when Ginny was a little girl, the two meeting when Ginny was seven years old until Milikan vanished when Ginny was nine.
• Feather Boa Constrictor: When they’re alone, Ginny will sometimes ‘wear’ Milikan, either draped over her body or coiled around her.
• Forgotten First Meeting: Milikan eventually remembers that she genuinely did see a younger Ginny when she arrived at Hogwarts in time to witness the end of the final battle against Voldemort, but although the teenage Ginny attracted her interest Milikan chose to leave her alone at the time so that Ginny could have a full life without her hypnotic influence.
• Getting Smilies Painted on Your Soul: It is made repeatedly clear that Ginny is genuinely happy to be Milikan’s ‘servant’, with her only fear being the possibility of letting her mistress down or being forced to choose between Milikan or Harry, as she doesn’t want to give up either. The hypnosis also makes Ginny feel more genuinely happy overall, to the extent that she is noted as always being slightly horny whenever she thinks about Harry while under its influence or when in Milikan’s direct presence.
• Glad-to-Be-Alive Sex: Ginny and Milikan have this after they survive a fight with a feral bear.
• Happily Married: Even under Milikan’s hypnosis, Ginny still loves and treasures her relationship with Harry and her children. Chapter 13 also reveals that the nature of her and Milikan's bond means that Ginny and Milikan are essentially married as well, Ginny happily accepting this twist in their relationship.
• Happiness in Mind Control: Milikan’s hypnosis basically programs Ginny to regard Milikan as both her Mistress and her best friend. However, it should be noted that Milikan leaves most of Ginny’s original personality alone, as Ginny remains in love with Harry and devoted to her children.
• Hero of Another Story: The chef on a ship travelling to and from India is mentioned as being an undercover auror tracking escaped Death Eaters.
• Honorary Aunt: When Milikan joins Ginny while Ginny's feeding the infant Lily, Ginny 'introduces' her Mistress to her daughter as 'Auntie Milikan' and Milikan is touched at the title.
• Hypnotic Eyes: Milikan’s main power, outside of being able to talk to humans.
• In Spite of a Nail: Flashbacks reveal that Harry and Ginny started dating earlier than they did in canon in this world, but although Sirius was saved from his death in the Department of Mysteries, he died in the final Battle of Hogwarts instead.
• Incapable of Disobeying: The only clear rule Milikan insists Ginny ‘must’ obey is not to tell anyone else about Milikan’s presence in her life, but she otherwise makes it clear that Ginny is always free to tell her ‘no’, and understands when Ginny makes it clear she wouldn’t leave her family even if Milikan ordered her.
• Interspecies Romance: Basically defied at first; even when Milikan recalls past male partners, she acknowledges that she’s incapable of thinking about doing anything sexual with them. She has enough understanding of human sexuality to respect Ginny imposing certain boundaries on what parts of her body Milikan can touch when Ginny’s naked in her presence, but Ginny 'relaxes' this rule after she and Milikan reach a new stage of their bond where they realise that they love each other.
• Mind-Control Eyes: After she falls under Milikan’s influence, Ginny’s eyes become a swirl of colours, but when she is with others her eyes return to normal, and she can’t see the spirals when she looks in mirrors even when she’s on her own.
• The Mole: Chapter 12 reveals that the radicals had a mole in the form of Salazar, who pretended to share their beliefs about humans so that he could stop the other radicals going too far until someone, such as Ginny, was in a position to take action against them.
• More Than Mind Control: A somewhat positive example of this; when Milikan hears Ginny whisper that she loves Milikan while she's in a natural sleep, without any prompting from the snake, it is proof that, in whatever part of her mind is unaffected by the hypnosis, some part of Ginny's un-hypnotised self truly loves Milikan on her own.
• Nipple and Dimed: Not literally, but while Ginny has no problem being naked around Milikan, even under hypnosis she initially makes it clear to her Mistress that certain parts of her body are ‘reserved’ for Harry, although Milikan can help her wash those parts when they’re showering together (although Ginny soon relaxes this rule).
• Parental Substitute: Milikan’s flashbacks reveal that she took on a parental role for one of her past servants while the girl’s parents were on holiday and her only guardians were an aunt and uncle who occasionally visited. Milikan’s influence compelled the girl to become less of a rebellious brat, lose some weight and be more polite to her parents even after Milikan left.
• Picky People Eater: While renegades of Milikan's species are willing to eat humans, even some of the renegades have various rules about it, such as some preferring not to eat young humans with their full lives ahead of them. They also have to take details such as size into account; Milikan's old foe Simora was unable to eat Ginny when he briefly captured her because her breasts were too large for him to properly swallow her.
• Playing Doctor: This could basically describe why Ginny is so comfortable being naked around Milikan, as she remembers them meeting when she was seven years old and even sharing baths together.
• Public Bathhouse Scene: Ginny has no problem sharing a shower or a bath with Milikan, although obviously Milikan never wears clothes in the first place.
• Ship Sinking: Dean Thomas has been married to Cho Chang for a couple of years when the fic begins, but they divorce because Dean realises that Cho still isn't over her obsession with Harry.
• Shout-Out: At one point Ginny and Milikan watch the original Star Wars trilogy, Ginny having watched the prequels in the cinema with Harry. The two are such fans of the films that they later do a role-playing session with Ginny as Leia and Milikan as an alien ambassador.
• Skinny Dipping: Some of Ginny and Milikan’s bonding moments occur when they’re swimming together, Ginny stripping down rather than bringing a swimsuit so long as they’re alone.
• Snakes Are Sexy: Basically applies as Ginny is ‘attracted’ to Milikan, although there is a slight question about whether this is purely because of Milikan's hypnosis or if Ginny would consider her appealing on her own.
• Subordinate Excuse: From Ginny’s perspective, her false memories include how she started calling Milikan 'Mistress' as a joke before she decided that Milikan was more than a best friend, was too exceptional to be a pet, and she enjoyed the sensation she felt when Milikan gave her an order. In Ginny's false memories, Milikan accepted Ginny's offer to be her servant, but assured Ginny in turn that she would be a treasured and valued servant, promising that Milikan would always accept Ginny's rejection if she asked Ginny to do something she didn't want to do. Even when Milikan tells Ginny that she doesn't have to call her "Mistress" any more after they're 'officially' married, Ginny assures Milikan that she likes using the title, even if she observes that she'll alternate between the title and the name, as she knows that she always has a choice in whether or not to obey Milikan's orders.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: While Ginny and Milikan each enjoyed the idea of role-playing on their honeymoon, their initial attempt failed because they didn't have a good backstory for the scenario (Ginny as a mermaid-turned-human who falls for a snake); when they next attempt role-play, they perform a more detailed scenario with Ginny as a variation of Princess Leia to give them a character and history to build on.
• Take a Third Option: Despite the obvious ‘risk’ of such a scenario, Milikan makes it clear from the beginning that she only asks Ginny to keep her existence secret, and assures Ginny that she will not have to choose between her husband (Harry) or her mistress (Milikan).
• Talking Animal: Milikan is fully capable of talking to humans without the need for Parseltongue.
• This Is My Human: Milikan is the Mistress where Ginny freely considers herself the snake’s servant.
• To Serve Man: Some of the renegades of Milikan's species enjoy eating humans.
• Took a Level in Kindness: While Kaa still holds his more radical views, he has become a guardian for a human girl who ran away from her abusive stepmother when she was a child; while Kaa has now made her his slave, his thoughts reflect that she was happy to be with him even without that level of control, and he has no intention of eating her.
• Underestimating Badassery: Kallous, the leader of the radical snakes and Simora's brother, attempts to attack Ginny in revenge for Simora's death, but Ginny manages to successfully fight him off without using magic and only some assistance from another snake.
• Weak-Willed: Defied; some of Milikan’s past servants succumbed to her fairly quickly, but it took some time for Milikan to properly hypnotise Ginny in their first meeting, and Milikan reflects more than once that she admires Ginny’s strength of character, such as how Ginny retains her love for her family.