Chapter 3: Futile Attempts at Civility
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Disclaimer: Oh, you know the only thing I own of this is the plot. There, I admit it. The rest belongs to the lovely J.K., of course!
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A/N: Firstly, a thanks to my wonderful beta!
Now…well, it has been a little while…longer than I expected, but the wait isn’t the only thing longer than expected: the chapter is, too! So there’s your compensation! Seriously, this is the longest chapter that I’ve ever written, and it’s also the first that completely ignored me to when I told it to hurry up and get finished, already! It was content to drag on for twelve full pages…and for me, that’s a lot. I’m so proud of this accomplishment!
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Ginny bounded noisily up the stairs, though she was not, for once, being intentionally loud; she herself didn’t want to be disturbed. She was sick of fighting, sick of yelling herself hoarse, and sick of this wretched summer! Between what she had to put up with from the Order and Malfoy, Ginny was all set to go back to Hogwarts and would happily face her stressful O.W.L. year. But the furthest away from this whole mess she could get at the moment was the solitude of the room she shared with Hermione. She sighed thankfully as she reached the door, and put her hand on the handle to open it…
…And promptly snatched her hand back, remembering that she couldn’t go in there. Unless, of course, she wanted to her nostrils to be assailed by the pungent smell of decay. A rather large bindimun had holed itself up in there yesterday; she had gone into a room further down the corridor to decontaminate it and the thing had taken off, later to be discovered in her room.
Annoyed, she reset her course for Harry and Ron’s room and upon reaching it yanked the door open. She barely took a step forward before she flopped face-first onto the bright orange Chudley Cannons comforter spread over Ron’s bed.
She felt absolutely spent after the argument she’d just had with Malfoy. Suddenly realizing that she’d forsaken the Slytherin on his “tour,” she sniggered meanly. She’d led him down one of the house’s lesser-used passages, so she figured it would probably be awhile before either someone found him or he found his way back. Although she hadn’t taken him very far, she had managed to make a number of turns along the way.
Ginny toyed with a loose string on the bedspread, and vaguely hoped that Draco managed to stumble into a room full of doxies or something else even more unpleasant.
Rolling onto her back, Ginny groaned, “Ugh, this sucks,” in reference to her entire situation. There were two soft thuds as she expertly slipped off her sneakers without even bothering to untie them, and they dropped to the floor. She closed her eyes and the sea of orange surrounding her disappeared, replaced by the soothing blankness of the backs of her eyelids. Sliding the tips of her sock-clad feet back and forth over the smooth wood floor, Ginny hummed the Weird Sisters’ latest tune and tried to clear her mind.
“This isn’t your room,” a snide voice cut into her thoughts (or lack thereof), and for a brief, terrible moment Ginny thought it was Malfoy. Startled, her eyes flew open, but she quickly realized that nobody had entered the room. She propped herself up on her elbow so as to get a better look about, scanning the room for an intruder. She saw there was no one else in there but herself, and was confused as to where the noise had come from until her gaze fell upon a portrait of a pointy bearded man on the wall.
“Oh who cares?” she asked in a long-suffering tone. “Can’t I go anywhere without someone getting snippy?”
“I was merely saying,” he returned lazily, “and if anyone’s getting snippy it sounds like it is you.”
Ginny, after glaring at the portrait, allowed the arm supporting her to give way and collapsed onto the bed yet again. “Just leave me be!” she demanded irritably.
“I’d be more than happy to,” the man said, turning up his nose at her. “I have no interest in speaking to silly little girls - ”
Sitting bolt upright at this remark, Ginny interrupted snappishly, “I’m not silly or a little girl!”
“Rather snippy though, aren’t you?” he inquired sarcastically.
Ginny narrowed her eyes at the man, who she noticed was decked out in green and silver. It would figure he was wearing those colors, wouldn’t it?
“Could you tell me,” she asked, annoyed, “whether Slytherins are capable of having a civilized conversation?”
The man in the portrait bristled, looking highly affronted. “As Slytherin is the most civilized of the four houses, I should say so!” he proclaimed, though he did not look at her but instead inspected his silken-gloved hand.
Ginny rolled her eyes. “If by ‘civilized’ you mean ‘full of themselves,’ then sure,” she muttered dryly under her breath. More loudly, she said, “Why is it, then, that every time I try to talk to one I end up getting in a row with them?”
The man looked at her now with mild distaste. “You must be a Gryffindor,” he sneered matter-of-factly.
“Well, yeah!” Ginny exclaimed defensively. “But that’s no answer!”
She was given a look from the man that obviously meant he thought she was being thick. “Everyone knows that Gryffindors have too much ‘pride,’” he said this last word mockingly, and probably would have used air quotes for it had he not thought himself above such things, “to associate with Slytherins. So I doubt you’ve ever actually tried to talk to one. And there’s no way a civilized conversation could arise between the two of you when you’ve got that kind of attitude.”
Ginny couldn’t believe her ears. He thought she had an attitude? “Maybe I’d be more inclined to talk with a Slytherin if they were, oh, I don’t know, polite?” she suggested snottily.
“This,” he said haughtily, waving a hand at her, “is exactly what I mean. And I have better things to do than put up with it,” he declared as he swept out of the frame, still mumbling to himself.
For the third time, Ginny fell back onto the bed, letting out a lengthy sigh. Mostly she wanted to think about nothing at all, but bitter thoughts about Slytherins (as a whole) kept invading her mind. And besides that a little voice might have said, ‘maybe that portrait does have a point,’ but if it did Ginny didn’t hear it.
Aside from her feelings of irritation directed towards the man, Ginny also couldn’t shake off a feeling of deja vu. It seemed like she’d seen him somewhere, she just couldn’t put her finger on it. It was odd; that nasally voice was one she should have easily been able to recognize.
She let her thoughts drift for a while, when suddenly it hit her. It was no wonder she could hardly remember him as the only time she’d glimpsed him was very unclear in her memory. Still, she could recollect seeing his other picture, as if through a haze, and hear his thin, snobbish voice dimly; the moment she could pinpoint to the night of her father’s attack, and the place in Dumbledore’s office. And as much as her mind was on other things that night, she could still recall the vague feeling of dislike she had felt for him even then. Ginny believed that this first impression was quite reliable.
Feeling that settled it, she decided to fully disregard everything he had said to her. And really, as if she’d take advice from such an arrogant git!
Suddenly, the door creaked open and Ron poked his head in. “Oh, you’re in here,” he said, as if he had been looking all over for her. Well, he probably had.
“I would have gone to my room, but with the bindimun in there I rethought that one,” Ginny replied without even so much as looking up.
Probably wondering why she hadn’t just cleared it off herself he asked bewilderedly, “You know you can just use a scouring charm to get rid of those, right?”
“Yeah, but it’s a pretty big one, and you know I’m just about as good at those as Tonks is,” she responded. “I was just planning on letting mum take care of it, but she still hasn’t gotten around to it.”
“Didn’t have to wander into my personal space just because you can’t use your room,” he muttered.
Ginny pushed herself up into a sitting position, her feet still dangling over the edge of the bed. “Oh yes I did,” she said crossly, folding her arms. “Malfoy’s down there, and I’d really like to do what I can to avoid him.”
Ron turned red at the mention of his enemy’s name, but didn’t look at all sheepish that he hadn’t bothered to caution Ginny of Malfoy’s imminent arrival. “I can’t believe Dumbledore actually recommended that he stay here. I mean, it was his idea! And for the whole fucking summer!”
“Ron, language,” she reprimanded teasingly, mentally echoing his sentiments. “I can’t believe you didn’t warn me, though!” she said more harshly, sounding a little hurt.
“Gin, you know I’m not allowed to tell you anything at all! I mean, I would if I could, even if it would be just to shut you up,” he said, flashing her an apologetic grin.
Normally Ginny would have yelled at him in spite of his perfectly good reasons to be withholding information from her, and the fact that he even had the decency to feel guilty about it. She had already decided that she’d had enough of the yelling for the day, though, and instead forced herself to pursue a polite conversation. “Didn’t count on me running into Malfoy right as he walked through the door, did you?” she asked lightly.
Now Ron did look sheepish. “Well, no,” he admitted, the tips of his ears slightly pink. He cleared his throat unnecessarily and, looking at the ground, asked, “How’d the tour go?”
“Do you even have to ask that?” Ginny returned with a wry smile. “It didn’t go. He started being a git and after awhile I just couldn’t take it anymore.” Unconsciously, she began to pick at the knot in her shirt. “Was it Snape who told you about the tour?” she asked curiously.
“Nah, mum. She wasn’t too pleased with you, you know.”
Ginny snorted. “Yeah, well…I wasn’t too pleased with her, either. Leaving me out of everything, and letting me get stuck with a nothing but a bunch of Slytherins for company!”
Ron looked puzzled. “Who else besides Malfoy are you stuck with?”
Holding up her hand, Ginny began to count people off on her fingers. “Well, I had a lovely chat with Snape today, and Mrs. Black is always blaring loud enough so that I can hear her - ”
“You’re the one who always sets her off!” Ron cut in.
“ - and then there’s what’s-his-name from the portrait in your room,” she continued, gesturing to the empty frame. “That’s really about it, but I think you’ll agree it’s basically the worst group I could have to hang out with over the hols.”
“Hey, you’ve still got the three of us – me, Harry, and Hermione, that is,” Ron offered consolingly. “And, er, maybe Malfoy’s really not that bad…” he trailed off, immediately looking appalled at his own words. “No, never mind, he really is that bad,” he amended; he only wanted to make Ginny feel better, not to lie to her.
“Don’t I know it,” Ginny said. “Hey, are you ever planning on telling me what you came up here for?” she suddenly asked.
“It is my room,” he said defensively.
“You were looking for me,” she pointed out.
Ron shrugged and then nodded. “Yeah, okay, actually, I was. Mum wanted me to tell you that dinner was ready. You and our favorite Slytherin, too…would you happen to know where he is?”
Ginny laughed (it was more of a cackle, really) with genuine glee. “Nowhere he wants to be,” she announced happily.
“That’s real specific,” Ron replied, rolling his eyes. “This whole house is nowhere he wants to be.”
“It’s nowhere I want to be either, to tell you the truth,” Ginny said. “But I led him a ways down that passage to the right of the entrance hall. I just kind of left him there, too…he’s probably wandered off by now,” she answered.
Ron eyed her warily. “There’s spiders down that way,” he said uneasily. “Look, I don’t really want to ask you to do this, but could you go and find him?” he asked pleadingly. “I mean, I’d go with you, but you know how I am about those awful, eight-legged…ugh, things,” he finished with a fairly violent shudder.
He still wasn’t her favorite person at the moment, but Ginny managed to fight the urge to make her brother come along with her and shove him into the first cobweb they came across. With a grimace on her face, she nodded in consent.
“Yay,” she muttered unenthusiastically as Ron walked away. “I get to be the search party for Malfoy.”
Amazingly, Ginny found as she turned the corner, the prat was right where she had left him. He was sitting on the floor with his knees drawn up to his chest, apparently resigned to the fact that he had no idea where he was. He was sulking, as he was wont to do when things weren’t going exactly as he wanted them to, and looked rather pathetic in Ginny’s opinion. The sight of him almost made her laugh.
Draco’s head suddenly snapped around towards her when he became aware of her presence. “Come back for me, have you, Weasel?” he sneered.
Ginny swallowed the giggle she was repressing and put a sneer to match his on her face. “Against my own will, I’m afraid,” she said curtly, moving up next to his side to glower down at his sitting form.
Draco’s eyes widened and his mouth dropped open as he feigned surprise. “Really? You aren’t here because you actually want to see me?” he said sarcastically.
In response, Ginny gave him a swift kick in the region of his upper leg. She doubted it hurt, as she wasn’t even wearing shoes. “That’s enough of your being an arse,” she declared.
“That’s enough of your touching my arse,” he shot back, looking at the spot she’d struck him, revolted. He was probably thinking about how she’d managed to transfer some of her ‘Weasley germs’ onto him.
Ginny almost wanted to protest that it was actually his leg she’d kicked, thank you very much.
Instead, she decided just to get to the point. “I hope you show some semblance of manners in front of the adults,” she admonished him with a scowl. “Dinner’s ready, and you’ve got to come eat it. So get up.”
The Slytherin didn’t budge. “I think I’ll pass on your gruel, thanks,” he scoffed, having paid no heed to anything Ginny said to him and still being his usual arse-y self.
“I’ll have you know that my mum’s cooking is probably the best you would ever taste,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “But if you want to go to bed starving, that’s your loss. And you can stay right here for the rest of the summer, too, for all I care,” she told him, turning around and starting to walk away. “Good luck finding your way out of this maze of hallways!” she called over her shoulder.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Draco stand up reluctantly but gracefully; keeping his distance, he followed her out of the passage, sulking the whole way. Neither of them said a word until they reached the kitchen.
“This is where the food is,” Ginny informed him rudely, pausing outside. She didn’t know why she was even bothering to tell him, though, as the distinctive and delicious smell wafting through the door spoke for itself. “I don’t know what you’re going to do, but I’m going to go eat,” she said, reaching for the handle.
The door swung open before she grasped the knob, however. Snape strode out, but he only took a couple of steps before stopping in his tracks as he caught sight of them. He spared the two of them a sweeping, sour look and turned back toward the open door to speak with someone out of sight. “Never mind, Molly, they seem to have found their way here on their own,” he announced dryly. “It took you long enough,” he said to Ginny, whom he regarded coldly as he beckoned her and Draco into the room.
The latter entered the kitchen grudgingly. He hovered doubtfully around Snape, who Ginny noticed seemed to have decided to stay for dinner for the first time ever. She supposed he was there to give Malfoy moral support or something.
While Draco looked as if he would rather stuff a dirty sock in his mouth than eat the food on the table, Ginny was starving and didn’t waste a second in filling her plate.
“Well, my summer’s ruined,” she declared as she plopped down in her usual seat between Tonks and Hermione, giving Malfoy an resentful look. “Not that it was great already, but…” she trailed off as she popped a potato into her mouth.
“You’re right, it does kind of put a damper on things,” Hermione said darkly, glaring across the table at the blonde.
Ginny cocked her head to the side. “It puts a damper on what things? Things like happiness…or something else?” she asked, giving Hermione a very prying look.
“I’m talking about happiness, yes,” Hermione said briskly, picking at her peas uneasily.
“Liar…there’s things you aren’t telling me,” she muttered, violently stabbing a potato with her fork. However, in the spirit of courtesy, she chose not to push the subject.
“Ooh, Tonks, that shade of red is really your color!” she exclaimed good-naturedly, spotting the Auror’s newly crimson locks.
“Thanks!” Tonks said brightly, running a hand through her hair. “I don’t know how long it’ll last before I get tired of it, though.”
The three girls lapsed into pleasant conversation as they finished their meals, surrounded by a bubble of cheerfulness for which Ginny was eternally grateful. She was beginning to feel much better; her “cooling off” process was coming along quite smoothly. And Tonks could always make her laugh hysterically…in the middle of one such giggle she felt Hermione poke her about ten times before she was able to settle down.
“Ow, stop that!” Ginny whined at Hermione between big gasps for air, rubbing her shoulder.
“Don’t look at me,” Hermione replied, holding up her hands innocently. She leaned back in her chair so that the person sitting on her other side was in Ginny’s clear line of vision, and jerked her head in their direction.
Ginny saw that it was Bill; he grinned and waved to her.
Ginny did not return the gesture. “What was that for?” she asked him with a slight pout.
Bill shrugged casually, the corners of his mouth quirking up even more. “You know I never tire of hearing your melodious laughter…it’s like the tinkling of pretty little bells…” he began jokingly, but Ginny could tell from the look in his eyes that he was actually about to turn serious on her.
“You always say that I laugh like an ostrich,” she interjected, surveying him shrewdly. “And perhaps someday I’ll find out where you’ve ever heard an ostrich laugh,” she added under her breath.
Her brother chortled, stretching languidly and tilting his chair back so that only the back legs were still touching the floor. He was now gazing, calmly, straight ahead. “That Malfoy character is staring at you…well, glaring daggers, more like,” he said abruptly. “I don’t like it,” he concluded, turning back to her with a concerned expression.
Ginny scanned the room for Draco and found him near Snape, leaning sullenly against the wall. Sure enough, he had fixed her with a very penetrating and threatening look; it was so intense that Ginny couldn’t figure how she hadn’t detected it herself. She was so taken aback by the sheer force he had put into that gaze that she couldn’t help flinching. Though it was hardly perceptible, Malfoy was unfortunately very observant when it came to things like that. She couldn’t believe that she’d actually allowed herself to give him exactly the kind of reaction he wanted.
Now that he’d caught her eye, Draco’s eyes brightened to reflect smugness rather than sullenness, but they remained locked with Ginny’s as firmly as ever. He didn’t say anything, and Ginny didn’t expect him to. He relied so heavily on the power of those kind of looks, the terribly unnerving ones, that he didn’t need words to convey his meaning.
“What’s he looking at you that way for?” a new voice asked curiously. Ginny forced herself to tear her gaze away from Draco to look at Harry, who had pulled up the seat across the table from her.
“Well, we do hate each other,” Ginny pointed out.
“Yeah, but I thought I was the one who was his arch nemesis and all that. You’d think he’d be trying to glare me to death, not you,” Harry clarified, looking at Ginny for an explanation.
As if Ginny were supposed to know why it was she who ranked number one on Draco Malfoy’s “most hated” list.
There had always been a very strong mutual hate between the two of them; she figured they had probably loathed each other before they even had met.
As for why he was giving her such a fierce look right now, Ginny figured it was that their last fight was probably still fresh in his mind. She really didn’t feel like rehashing that for Harry, though.
“I don’t know, maybe he still hasn’t gotten over that Bat-Bogey Hex,” she responded evasively. It was lame, it was an excuse, and it wasn’t true, but it was all she could come up with.
The glare Ginny could peg to their quarrel, but the hate between them was more complicated.
After all, it wasn’t as if today’s fight had been the first. Ginny ran into Malfoy in corridors at Hogwarts often enough, and they would nearly always have a go at each other then. It had never gotten this heated before, however, Ginny had to admit.
Still, Draco had been brought up to detest her for who she was; Ginny knew that. But in that regard she wasn’t the only one. So why was it that it was she who he abhorred the most?
The common thread of hatred could easily be traced back to Lucius Malfoy, and it was tied securely around his pure-blooded pinky. He was the reason that Ginny hated the Malfoys so much. He was the reason Draco hated.
“Are you sure, Gin?” Hermione asked softly, disrupting Ginny’s thoughts. Worry was etched plainly across her face. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look like that…”
Next to Harry, Ron nodded in agreement…Ginny hadn’t even noticed that he’d come over until just now.
“Well, now, getting hit with one of those things can scar you for life. Just ask Fred and George,” Bill told Hermione of the Bat-Bogey Hex. Even though he was defending her pathetic excuse, Ginny could tell he didn’t believe it. Hermione wasn’t buying it, either.
Ginny chanced another glance at Malfoy (his expression remained unchanged), and sighed. “Look, I know you’re his bitter enemies and all, but I’m – er – bitterer enemies with him, I suppose. Unlike you, I can’t avoid him or ignore him…I just tell him off a lot, and he doesn’t like it.”
Harry understood; Ginny was an instigator. But Draco continued to glare at Ginny, and he wasn’t the only one who it was making very uncomfortable. It was equally disturbing that the Slytherin was being so quiet, so Harry decided to fix that.
“I’ll tell him off,” he growled, shoving his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Oy, Malfoy!” he called in an angry-big-brother tone of voice. He was about to yell, “Quit staring at Ginny like that!” when the girl in question socked him in the arm. “What?” he asked, temporarily abandoning his internal debate of whether to call Malfoy a git, bastard, or prick.
“Leave off, I can handle this myself,” she told him out of the corner of her mouth.
Malfoy abandoned his position against the wall and strutted toward their group, presumably because he didn’t want any of the adults to overhear whatever “conversation” they were about to strike up.
“Defending your girlfriend’s honor?” he drawled, smirking at Harry.
“No,” Ginny answered sharply as Harry simultaneously responded, “What girlfriend?”
Ginny found it highly ironic that Harry’s comment, which would once have made her stomach sink miserably through the floor, didn’t bother her in the least.
“I would appreciate it if you’d stop trying to bore a hole through my head with your eyes,” Ginny informed Draco calmly.
“I can look wherever I want,” Draco replied, his lip curling.
“And you chose at me? Why, Malfoy, I’m flattered,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
Draco’s features contorted into a more pronounced grimace. “If I wanted to stare at red hair and freckles I could have looked anywhere around the room,” he shot back. “But,” he said in a low voice, “it was you I was trying to get a message across to.” His gray eyes were still trained on her with unblinking coldness.
“Wouldn’t it just have been easier to walk over and say, ‘I hate you’?” Ginny snarled, standing up and leaning aggressively toward Malfoy, her palms flat on the table.
“I think this did the job better,” he leered, leaning right back in Ginny’s face.
“All it did was make me and everyone else think that you have some twisted obsession with me,” she spat, her voice escalating.
Draco looked appalled. “You’re not worth that,” he returned quietly.
Ginny looked ready to explode. Her face had turned a deep shade of red, and her hands were gripping the edge of the table so hard that her knuckles were white. It took every ounce of energy within Ginny to restrain herself from shouting out a string of expletives at Malfoy. “Just – leave – me – alone,” she hissed in a dangerously soft voice.
“Leave you alone?” Draco scoffed. “That would make for a boring summer, wouldn’t it?”
“You’re such a child, entertaining yourself by seeing if you can get a rise out of someone!” Hermione snapped, unable to sit by silently and watch any longer.
“Stay out of this, Mudblood!” Draco retorted, not even sparing her a glance. He and Ginny remained engaged in the murderous stare-down they were having over the dinner table.
There was an instant uproar. Ron wore an expression akin to the one he’d worn the day he belched slugs, the first time he’d heard Malfoy use that insult. Harry’s mouth dropped open in outrage, and from Hermione there was a sharp intake of breath. Tonks, who had been quiet thus far, shrieked, “How dare you!” while Bill stood swiftly up from his seat and looked ready for a fight.
Ginny was ahead of him, though. The foul word had hardly left Draco’s mouth before she lunged at him, knocking the bowl of pudding off the table as she did so.
“That’s enough!” Mrs. Weasley suddenly bellowed, and there was an immediate hush. Ginny froze with her hands halfway to Draco’s throat and her knee in the butter dish. “I think it’s time we get to bed,” her mother announced firmly.
Naturally, no one was about to argue with her.
“I’ll show Mr. Malfoy to his room,” Snape offered. He was never too keen on hanging around longer than he needed to, and took this as his cue to leave. Draco followed him out of the kitchen, managing to limit himself to only one nasty look thrown over his shoulder as he left.
Ginny, still trembling with anger, climbed off of the table and attempted to compose herself. “Well, to bed, then,” she told them all in what she hoped was a controlled voice. “Oh, speaking of,” she said, turning to Hermione, “do you know where we’re supposed to be sleeping tonight?”
“The room Fred and George used to have, I think,” Hermione answered.
“No,” Ron butted in urgently, “that one isn’t yours, that’s the room that Malfoy’s going to be staying in.”
Ginny, while amazed that her brother had been capable of remembering this information, was also none to happy that Hermione had mixed it up. “You’re supposed to be the one to know those things!” she cried, rounding on Hermione with an incredulous look on her face. “What if Ron hadn’t known and we’d gone up there, and wandered in only to find ourselves face to face with Malfoy again!”
Hermione appeared more miffed about the fact that she’d actually been wrong about something than at Ginny’s furious exclamation. Pulling a notebook out of her robes, she riffled through it until she found the page she was looking for. “Oh, and I even wrote it down!” she lamented, tapping her finger on what apparently was the spot she had made a note of Draco’s sleeping quarters. “Don’t worry, I wrote us down, too,” she assured Ginny as she snapped the note pad shut. “We’re taking the room next to Tonks’.”
The two girls bid the others goodnight, and tramped off to bed. Thankfully, their things had already been moved to their temporary bedroom, so neither of them had to brave the bindimun’s smell to retrieve their pajamas.
“What was up with you and Malfoy?” Hermione inquired conversationally after she had returned from brushing her teeth.
“What do you mean?” Ginny asked, genuinely confused. “Hateful behavior and fights are nothing out of the ordinary when he’s concerned.”
Hermione sat down cross-legged on her bed, facing Ginny. “I know,” she conceded, chewing her bottom lip thoughtfully. “But there were more than just words exchanged between the two of you. Between Harry and Ron, I’ve had to witness a number of fights involving Malfoy, but somehow I got the feeling that there was something I didn’t know about going on here,” she said slowly.
“It was just an argument!” Ginny countered quickly – perhaps a bit too quickly to be convincing. Ginny was no stranger to the argument, especially when it was with Malfoy, but she couldn’t deny that those disputes tended to be more heated and passionate. She couldn’t explain why; there had always been a spark that had fueled the hatred between the pair more than what was on the surface, and more than Lucius had, even.
Hermione just studied her worriedly, but seemed to have decided it wouldn’t be wise to push the subject. “If you say so,” she said uneasily.
“Well, I do,” Ginny replied rather more forcefully than she had intended. Trust Hermione to make her question the hateful relationship she had with Draco Malfoy, which she had been perfectly content with up until right then.
“Well, good night, then,” Hermione said from the next bed.
“Yeah, g’night,” Ginny returned in a rather distant voice. There was something deeper between herself and Draco, something deeper than the arch-rival type of dislike that the trio had with him. Maybe it was more than just hate…but what could be deeper than hate?
She was so lost in thought that she didn’t even notice Hermione turn off the light.
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I was planning to give an explanation as to why the trio is allowed into the Order, and Ginny isn’t, and why they’re not allowed to tell her anything (and actually go by that rule) during this last conversation of Hermione and Ginny’s. But it just didn’t fit…maybe I’ll find somewhere to put it in later, or maybe I’ll just post it separately if there really is nowhere to put it. But if that’s been bothering you, just know that there is a plausible reason!
As always, I will take this time to remind you to review! And to thank everyone who reviewed for the last chapter!
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Disclaimer: Oh, you know the only thing I own of this is the plot. There, I admit it. The rest belongs to the lovely J.K., of course!
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A/N: Firstly, a thanks to my wonderful beta!
Now…well, it has been a little while…longer than I expected, but the wait isn’t the only thing longer than expected: the chapter is, too! So there’s your compensation! Seriously, this is the longest chapter that I’ve ever written, and it’s also the first that completely ignored me to when I told it to hurry up and get finished, already! It was content to drag on for twelve full pages…and for me, that’s a lot. I’m so proud of this accomplishment!
~*~
Ginny bounded noisily up the stairs, though she was not, for once, being intentionally loud; she herself didn’t want to be disturbed. She was sick of fighting, sick of yelling herself hoarse, and sick of this wretched summer! Between what she had to put up with from the Order and Malfoy, Ginny was all set to go back to Hogwarts and would happily face her stressful O.W.L. year. But the furthest away from this whole mess she could get at the moment was the solitude of the room she shared with Hermione. She sighed thankfully as she reached the door, and put her hand on the handle to open it…
…And promptly snatched her hand back, remembering that she couldn’t go in there. Unless, of course, she wanted to her nostrils to be assailed by the pungent smell of decay. A rather large bindimun had holed itself up in there yesterday; she had gone into a room further down the corridor to decontaminate it and the thing had taken off, later to be discovered in her room.
Annoyed, she reset her course for Harry and Ron’s room and upon reaching it yanked the door open. She barely took a step forward before she flopped face-first onto the bright orange Chudley Cannons comforter spread over Ron’s bed.
She felt absolutely spent after the argument she’d just had with Malfoy. Suddenly realizing that she’d forsaken the Slytherin on his “tour,” she sniggered meanly. She’d led him down one of the house’s lesser-used passages, so she figured it would probably be awhile before either someone found him or he found his way back. Although she hadn’t taken him very far, she had managed to make a number of turns along the way.
Ginny toyed with a loose string on the bedspread, and vaguely hoped that Draco managed to stumble into a room full of doxies or something else even more unpleasant.
Rolling onto her back, Ginny groaned, “Ugh, this sucks,” in reference to her entire situation. There were two soft thuds as she expertly slipped off her sneakers without even bothering to untie them, and they dropped to the floor. She closed her eyes and the sea of orange surrounding her disappeared, replaced by the soothing blankness of the backs of her eyelids. Sliding the tips of her sock-clad feet back and forth over the smooth wood floor, Ginny hummed the Weird Sisters’ latest tune and tried to clear her mind.
“This isn’t your room,” a snide voice cut into her thoughts (or lack thereof), and for a brief, terrible moment Ginny thought it was Malfoy. Startled, her eyes flew open, but she quickly realized that nobody had entered the room. She propped herself up on her elbow so as to get a better look about, scanning the room for an intruder. She saw there was no one else in there but herself, and was confused as to where the noise had come from until her gaze fell upon a portrait of a pointy bearded man on the wall.
“Oh who cares?” she asked in a long-suffering tone. “Can’t I go anywhere without someone getting snippy?”
“I was merely saying,” he returned lazily, “and if anyone’s getting snippy it sounds like it is you.”
Ginny, after glaring at the portrait, allowed the arm supporting her to give way and collapsed onto the bed yet again. “Just leave me be!” she demanded irritably.
“I’d be more than happy to,” the man said, turning up his nose at her. “I have no interest in speaking to silly little girls - ”
Sitting bolt upright at this remark, Ginny interrupted snappishly, “I’m not silly or a little girl!”
“Rather snippy though, aren’t you?” he inquired sarcastically.
Ginny narrowed her eyes at the man, who she noticed was decked out in green and silver. It would figure he was wearing those colors, wouldn’t it?
“Could you tell me,” she asked, annoyed, “whether Slytherins are capable of having a civilized conversation?”
The man in the portrait bristled, looking highly affronted. “As Slytherin is the most civilized of the four houses, I should say so!” he proclaimed, though he did not look at her but instead inspected his silken-gloved hand.
Ginny rolled her eyes. “If by ‘civilized’ you mean ‘full of themselves,’ then sure,” she muttered dryly under her breath. More loudly, she said, “Why is it, then, that every time I try to talk to one I end up getting in a row with them?”
The man looked at her now with mild distaste. “You must be a Gryffindor,” he sneered matter-of-factly.
“Well, yeah!” Ginny exclaimed defensively. “But that’s no answer!”
She was given a look from the man that obviously meant he thought she was being thick. “Everyone knows that Gryffindors have too much ‘pride,’” he said this last word mockingly, and probably would have used air quotes for it had he not thought himself above such things, “to associate with Slytherins. So I doubt you’ve ever actually tried to talk to one. And there’s no way a civilized conversation could arise between the two of you when you’ve got that kind of attitude.”
Ginny couldn’t believe her ears. He thought she had an attitude? “Maybe I’d be more inclined to talk with a Slytherin if they were, oh, I don’t know, polite?” she suggested snottily.
“This,” he said haughtily, waving a hand at her, “is exactly what I mean. And I have better things to do than put up with it,” he declared as he swept out of the frame, still mumbling to himself.
For the third time, Ginny fell back onto the bed, letting out a lengthy sigh. Mostly she wanted to think about nothing at all, but bitter thoughts about Slytherins (as a whole) kept invading her mind. And besides that a little voice might have said, ‘maybe that portrait does have a point,’ but if it did Ginny didn’t hear it.
Aside from her feelings of irritation directed towards the man, Ginny also couldn’t shake off a feeling of deja vu. It seemed like she’d seen him somewhere, she just couldn’t put her finger on it. It was odd; that nasally voice was one she should have easily been able to recognize.
She let her thoughts drift for a while, when suddenly it hit her. It was no wonder she could hardly remember him as the only time she’d glimpsed him was very unclear in her memory. Still, she could recollect seeing his other picture, as if through a haze, and hear his thin, snobbish voice dimly; the moment she could pinpoint to the night of her father’s attack, and the place in Dumbledore’s office. And as much as her mind was on other things that night, she could still recall the vague feeling of dislike she had felt for him even then. Ginny believed that this first impression was quite reliable.
Feeling that settled it, she decided to fully disregard everything he had said to her. And really, as if she’d take advice from such an arrogant git!
Suddenly, the door creaked open and Ron poked his head in. “Oh, you’re in here,” he said, as if he had been looking all over for her. Well, he probably had.
“I would have gone to my room, but with the bindimun in there I rethought that one,” Ginny replied without even so much as looking up.
Probably wondering why she hadn’t just cleared it off herself he asked bewilderedly, “You know you can just use a scouring charm to get rid of those, right?”
“Yeah, but it’s a pretty big one, and you know I’m just about as good at those as Tonks is,” she responded. “I was just planning on letting mum take care of it, but she still hasn’t gotten around to it.”
“Didn’t have to wander into my personal space just because you can’t use your room,” he muttered.
Ginny pushed herself up into a sitting position, her feet still dangling over the edge of the bed. “Oh yes I did,” she said crossly, folding her arms. “Malfoy’s down there, and I’d really like to do what I can to avoid him.”
Ron turned red at the mention of his enemy’s name, but didn’t look at all sheepish that he hadn’t bothered to caution Ginny of Malfoy’s imminent arrival. “I can’t believe Dumbledore actually recommended that he stay here. I mean, it was his idea! And for the whole fucking summer!”
“Ron, language,” she reprimanded teasingly, mentally echoing his sentiments. “I can’t believe you didn’t warn me, though!” she said more harshly, sounding a little hurt.
“Gin, you know I’m not allowed to tell you anything at all! I mean, I would if I could, even if it would be just to shut you up,” he said, flashing her an apologetic grin.
Normally Ginny would have yelled at him in spite of his perfectly good reasons to be withholding information from her, and the fact that he even had the decency to feel guilty about it. She had already decided that she’d had enough of the yelling for the day, though, and instead forced herself to pursue a polite conversation. “Didn’t count on me running into Malfoy right as he walked through the door, did you?” she asked lightly.
Now Ron did look sheepish. “Well, no,” he admitted, the tips of his ears slightly pink. He cleared his throat unnecessarily and, looking at the ground, asked, “How’d the tour go?”
“Do you even have to ask that?” Ginny returned with a wry smile. “It didn’t go. He started being a git and after awhile I just couldn’t take it anymore.” Unconsciously, she began to pick at the knot in her shirt. “Was it Snape who told you about the tour?” she asked curiously.
“Nah, mum. She wasn’t too pleased with you, you know.”
Ginny snorted. “Yeah, well…I wasn’t too pleased with her, either. Leaving me out of everything, and letting me get stuck with a nothing but a bunch of Slytherins for company!”
Ron looked puzzled. “Who else besides Malfoy are you stuck with?”
Holding up her hand, Ginny began to count people off on her fingers. “Well, I had a lovely chat with Snape today, and Mrs. Black is always blaring loud enough so that I can hear her - ”
“You’re the one who always sets her off!” Ron cut in.
“ - and then there’s what’s-his-name from the portrait in your room,” she continued, gesturing to the empty frame. “That’s really about it, but I think you’ll agree it’s basically the worst group I could have to hang out with over the hols.”
“Hey, you’ve still got the three of us – me, Harry, and Hermione, that is,” Ron offered consolingly. “And, er, maybe Malfoy’s really not that bad…” he trailed off, immediately looking appalled at his own words. “No, never mind, he really is that bad,” he amended; he only wanted to make Ginny feel better, not to lie to her.
“Don’t I know it,” Ginny said. “Hey, are you ever planning on telling me what you came up here for?” she suddenly asked.
“It is my room,” he said defensively.
“You were looking for me,” she pointed out.
Ron shrugged and then nodded. “Yeah, okay, actually, I was. Mum wanted me to tell you that dinner was ready. You and our favorite Slytherin, too…would you happen to know where he is?”
Ginny laughed (it was more of a cackle, really) with genuine glee. “Nowhere he wants to be,” she announced happily.
“That’s real specific,” Ron replied, rolling his eyes. “This whole house is nowhere he wants to be.”
“It’s nowhere I want to be either, to tell you the truth,” Ginny said. “But I led him a ways down that passage to the right of the entrance hall. I just kind of left him there, too…he’s probably wandered off by now,” she answered.
Ron eyed her warily. “There’s spiders down that way,” he said uneasily. “Look, I don’t really want to ask you to do this, but could you go and find him?” he asked pleadingly. “I mean, I’d go with you, but you know how I am about those awful, eight-legged…ugh, things,” he finished with a fairly violent shudder.
He still wasn’t her favorite person at the moment, but Ginny managed to fight the urge to make her brother come along with her and shove him into the first cobweb they came across. With a grimace on her face, she nodded in consent.
“Yay,” she muttered unenthusiastically as Ron walked away. “I get to be the search party for Malfoy.”
Amazingly, Ginny found as she turned the corner, the prat was right where she had left him. He was sitting on the floor with his knees drawn up to his chest, apparently resigned to the fact that he had no idea where he was. He was sulking, as he was wont to do when things weren’t going exactly as he wanted them to, and looked rather pathetic in Ginny’s opinion. The sight of him almost made her laugh.
Draco’s head suddenly snapped around towards her when he became aware of her presence. “Come back for me, have you, Weasel?” he sneered.
Ginny swallowed the giggle she was repressing and put a sneer to match his on her face. “Against my own will, I’m afraid,” she said curtly, moving up next to his side to glower down at his sitting form.
Draco’s eyes widened and his mouth dropped open as he feigned surprise. “Really? You aren’t here because you actually want to see me?” he said sarcastically.
In response, Ginny gave him a swift kick in the region of his upper leg. She doubted it hurt, as she wasn’t even wearing shoes. “That’s enough of your being an arse,” she declared.
“That’s enough of your touching my arse,” he shot back, looking at the spot she’d struck him, revolted. He was probably thinking about how she’d managed to transfer some of her ‘Weasley germs’ onto him.
Ginny almost wanted to protest that it was actually his leg she’d kicked, thank you very much.
Instead, she decided just to get to the point. “I hope you show some semblance of manners in front of the adults,” she admonished him with a scowl. “Dinner’s ready, and you’ve got to come eat it. So get up.”
The Slytherin didn’t budge. “I think I’ll pass on your gruel, thanks,” he scoffed, having paid no heed to anything Ginny said to him and still being his usual arse-y self.
“I’ll have you know that my mum’s cooking is probably the best you would ever taste,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “But if you want to go to bed starving, that’s your loss. And you can stay right here for the rest of the summer, too, for all I care,” she told him, turning around and starting to walk away. “Good luck finding your way out of this maze of hallways!” she called over her shoulder.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Draco stand up reluctantly but gracefully; keeping his distance, he followed her out of the passage, sulking the whole way. Neither of them said a word until they reached the kitchen.
“This is where the food is,” Ginny informed him rudely, pausing outside. She didn’t know why she was even bothering to tell him, though, as the distinctive and delicious smell wafting through the door spoke for itself. “I don’t know what you’re going to do, but I’m going to go eat,” she said, reaching for the handle.
The door swung open before she grasped the knob, however. Snape strode out, but he only took a couple of steps before stopping in his tracks as he caught sight of them. He spared the two of them a sweeping, sour look and turned back toward the open door to speak with someone out of sight. “Never mind, Molly, they seem to have found their way here on their own,” he announced dryly. “It took you long enough,” he said to Ginny, whom he regarded coldly as he beckoned her and Draco into the room.
The latter entered the kitchen grudgingly. He hovered doubtfully around Snape, who Ginny noticed seemed to have decided to stay for dinner for the first time ever. She supposed he was there to give Malfoy moral support or something.
While Draco looked as if he would rather stuff a dirty sock in his mouth than eat the food on the table, Ginny was starving and didn’t waste a second in filling her plate.
“Well, my summer’s ruined,” she declared as she plopped down in her usual seat between Tonks and Hermione, giving Malfoy an resentful look. “Not that it was great already, but…” she trailed off as she popped a potato into her mouth.
“You’re right, it does kind of put a damper on things,” Hermione said darkly, glaring across the table at the blonde.
Ginny cocked her head to the side. “It puts a damper on what things? Things like happiness…or something else?” she asked, giving Hermione a very prying look.
“I’m talking about happiness, yes,” Hermione said briskly, picking at her peas uneasily.
“Liar…there’s things you aren’t telling me,” she muttered, violently stabbing a potato with her fork. However, in the spirit of courtesy, she chose not to push the subject.
“Ooh, Tonks, that shade of red is really your color!” she exclaimed good-naturedly, spotting the Auror’s newly crimson locks.
“Thanks!” Tonks said brightly, running a hand through her hair. “I don’t know how long it’ll last before I get tired of it, though.”
The three girls lapsed into pleasant conversation as they finished their meals, surrounded by a bubble of cheerfulness for which Ginny was eternally grateful. She was beginning to feel much better; her “cooling off” process was coming along quite smoothly. And Tonks could always make her laugh hysterically…in the middle of one such giggle she felt Hermione poke her about ten times before she was able to settle down.
“Ow, stop that!” Ginny whined at Hermione between big gasps for air, rubbing her shoulder.
“Don’t look at me,” Hermione replied, holding up her hands innocently. She leaned back in her chair so that the person sitting on her other side was in Ginny’s clear line of vision, and jerked her head in their direction.
Ginny saw that it was Bill; he grinned and waved to her.
Ginny did not return the gesture. “What was that for?” she asked him with a slight pout.
Bill shrugged casually, the corners of his mouth quirking up even more. “You know I never tire of hearing your melodious laughter…it’s like the tinkling of pretty little bells…” he began jokingly, but Ginny could tell from the look in his eyes that he was actually about to turn serious on her.
“You always say that I laugh like an ostrich,” she interjected, surveying him shrewdly. “And perhaps someday I’ll find out where you’ve ever heard an ostrich laugh,” she added under her breath.
Her brother chortled, stretching languidly and tilting his chair back so that only the back legs were still touching the floor. He was now gazing, calmly, straight ahead. “That Malfoy character is staring at you…well, glaring daggers, more like,” he said abruptly. “I don’t like it,” he concluded, turning back to her with a concerned expression.
Ginny scanned the room for Draco and found him near Snape, leaning sullenly against the wall. Sure enough, he had fixed her with a very penetrating and threatening look; it was so intense that Ginny couldn’t figure how she hadn’t detected it herself. She was so taken aback by the sheer force he had put into that gaze that she couldn’t help flinching. Though it was hardly perceptible, Malfoy was unfortunately very observant when it came to things like that. She couldn’t believe that she’d actually allowed herself to give him exactly the kind of reaction he wanted.
Now that he’d caught her eye, Draco’s eyes brightened to reflect smugness rather than sullenness, but they remained locked with Ginny’s as firmly as ever. He didn’t say anything, and Ginny didn’t expect him to. He relied so heavily on the power of those kind of looks, the terribly unnerving ones, that he didn’t need words to convey his meaning.
“What’s he looking at you that way for?” a new voice asked curiously. Ginny forced herself to tear her gaze away from Draco to look at Harry, who had pulled up the seat across the table from her.
“Well, we do hate each other,” Ginny pointed out.
“Yeah, but I thought I was the one who was his arch nemesis and all that. You’d think he’d be trying to glare me to death, not you,” Harry clarified, looking at Ginny for an explanation.
As if Ginny were supposed to know why it was she who ranked number one on Draco Malfoy’s “most hated” list.
There had always been a very strong mutual hate between the two of them; she figured they had probably loathed each other before they even had met.
As for why he was giving her such a fierce look right now, Ginny figured it was that their last fight was probably still fresh in his mind. She really didn’t feel like rehashing that for Harry, though.
“I don’t know, maybe he still hasn’t gotten over that Bat-Bogey Hex,” she responded evasively. It was lame, it was an excuse, and it wasn’t true, but it was all she could come up with.
The glare Ginny could peg to their quarrel, but the hate between them was more complicated.
After all, it wasn’t as if today’s fight had been the first. Ginny ran into Malfoy in corridors at Hogwarts often enough, and they would nearly always have a go at each other then. It had never gotten this heated before, however, Ginny had to admit.
Still, Draco had been brought up to detest her for who she was; Ginny knew that. But in that regard she wasn’t the only one. So why was it that it was she who he abhorred the most?
The common thread of hatred could easily be traced back to Lucius Malfoy, and it was tied securely around his pure-blooded pinky. He was the reason that Ginny hated the Malfoys so much. He was the reason Draco hated.
“Are you sure, Gin?” Hermione asked softly, disrupting Ginny’s thoughts. Worry was etched plainly across her face. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look like that…”
Next to Harry, Ron nodded in agreement…Ginny hadn’t even noticed that he’d come over until just now.
“Well, now, getting hit with one of those things can scar you for life. Just ask Fred and George,” Bill told Hermione of the Bat-Bogey Hex. Even though he was defending her pathetic excuse, Ginny could tell he didn’t believe it. Hermione wasn’t buying it, either.
Ginny chanced another glance at Malfoy (his expression remained unchanged), and sighed. “Look, I know you’re his bitter enemies and all, but I’m – er – bitterer enemies with him, I suppose. Unlike you, I can’t avoid him or ignore him…I just tell him off a lot, and he doesn’t like it.”
Harry understood; Ginny was an instigator. But Draco continued to glare at Ginny, and he wasn’t the only one who it was making very uncomfortable. It was equally disturbing that the Slytherin was being so quiet, so Harry decided to fix that.
“I’ll tell him off,” he growled, shoving his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Oy, Malfoy!” he called in an angry-big-brother tone of voice. He was about to yell, “Quit staring at Ginny like that!” when the girl in question socked him in the arm. “What?” he asked, temporarily abandoning his internal debate of whether to call Malfoy a git, bastard, or prick.
“Leave off, I can handle this myself,” she told him out of the corner of her mouth.
Malfoy abandoned his position against the wall and strutted toward their group, presumably because he didn’t want any of the adults to overhear whatever “conversation” they were about to strike up.
“Defending your girlfriend’s honor?” he drawled, smirking at Harry.
“No,” Ginny answered sharply as Harry simultaneously responded, “What girlfriend?”
Ginny found it highly ironic that Harry’s comment, which would once have made her stomach sink miserably through the floor, didn’t bother her in the least.
“I would appreciate it if you’d stop trying to bore a hole through my head with your eyes,” Ginny informed Draco calmly.
“I can look wherever I want,” Draco replied, his lip curling.
“And you chose at me? Why, Malfoy, I’m flattered,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
Draco’s features contorted into a more pronounced grimace. “If I wanted to stare at red hair and freckles I could have looked anywhere around the room,” he shot back. “But,” he said in a low voice, “it was you I was trying to get a message across to.” His gray eyes were still trained on her with unblinking coldness.
“Wouldn’t it just have been easier to walk over and say, ‘I hate you’?” Ginny snarled, standing up and leaning aggressively toward Malfoy, her palms flat on the table.
“I think this did the job better,” he leered, leaning right back in Ginny’s face.
“All it did was make me and everyone else think that you have some twisted obsession with me,” she spat, her voice escalating.
Draco looked appalled. “You’re not worth that,” he returned quietly.
Ginny looked ready to explode. Her face had turned a deep shade of red, and her hands were gripping the edge of the table so hard that her knuckles were white. It took every ounce of energy within Ginny to restrain herself from shouting out a string of expletives at Malfoy. “Just – leave – me – alone,” she hissed in a dangerously soft voice.
“Leave you alone?” Draco scoffed. “That would make for a boring summer, wouldn’t it?”
“You’re such a child, entertaining yourself by seeing if you can get a rise out of someone!” Hermione snapped, unable to sit by silently and watch any longer.
“Stay out of this, Mudblood!” Draco retorted, not even sparing her a glance. He and Ginny remained engaged in the murderous stare-down they were having over the dinner table.
There was an instant uproar. Ron wore an expression akin to the one he’d worn the day he belched slugs, the first time he’d heard Malfoy use that insult. Harry’s mouth dropped open in outrage, and from Hermione there was a sharp intake of breath. Tonks, who had been quiet thus far, shrieked, “How dare you!” while Bill stood swiftly up from his seat and looked ready for a fight.
Ginny was ahead of him, though. The foul word had hardly left Draco’s mouth before she lunged at him, knocking the bowl of pudding off the table as she did so.
“That’s enough!” Mrs. Weasley suddenly bellowed, and there was an immediate hush. Ginny froze with her hands halfway to Draco’s throat and her knee in the butter dish. “I think it’s time we get to bed,” her mother announced firmly.
Naturally, no one was about to argue with her.
“I’ll show Mr. Malfoy to his room,” Snape offered. He was never too keen on hanging around longer than he needed to, and took this as his cue to leave. Draco followed him out of the kitchen, managing to limit himself to only one nasty look thrown over his shoulder as he left.
Ginny, still trembling with anger, climbed off of the table and attempted to compose herself. “Well, to bed, then,” she told them all in what she hoped was a controlled voice. “Oh, speaking of,” she said, turning to Hermione, “do you know where we’re supposed to be sleeping tonight?”
“The room Fred and George used to have, I think,” Hermione answered.
“No,” Ron butted in urgently, “that one isn’t yours, that’s the room that Malfoy’s going to be staying in.”
Ginny, while amazed that her brother had been capable of remembering this information, was also none to happy that Hermione had mixed it up. “You’re supposed to be the one to know those things!” she cried, rounding on Hermione with an incredulous look on her face. “What if Ron hadn’t known and we’d gone up there, and wandered in only to find ourselves face to face with Malfoy again!”
Hermione appeared more miffed about the fact that she’d actually been wrong about something than at Ginny’s furious exclamation. Pulling a notebook out of her robes, she riffled through it until she found the page she was looking for. “Oh, and I even wrote it down!” she lamented, tapping her finger on what apparently was the spot she had made a note of Draco’s sleeping quarters. “Don’t worry, I wrote us down, too,” she assured Ginny as she snapped the note pad shut. “We’re taking the room next to Tonks’.”
The two girls bid the others goodnight, and tramped off to bed. Thankfully, their things had already been moved to their temporary bedroom, so neither of them had to brave the bindimun’s smell to retrieve their pajamas.
“What was up with you and Malfoy?” Hermione inquired conversationally after she had returned from brushing her teeth.
“What do you mean?” Ginny asked, genuinely confused. “Hateful behavior and fights are nothing out of the ordinary when he’s concerned.”
Hermione sat down cross-legged on her bed, facing Ginny. “I know,” she conceded, chewing her bottom lip thoughtfully. “But there were more than just words exchanged between the two of you. Between Harry and Ron, I’ve had to witness a number of fights involving Malfoy, but somehow I got the feeling that there was something I didn’t know about going on here,” she said slowly.
“It was just an argument!” Ginny countered quickly – perhaps a bit too quickly to be convincing. Ginny was no stranger to the argument, especially when it was with Malfoy, but she couldn’t deny that those disputes tended to be more heated and passionate. She couldn’t explain why; there had always been a spark that had fueled the hatred between the pair more than what was on the surface, and more than Lucius had, even.
Hermione just studied her worriedly, but seemed to have decided it wouldn’t be wise to push the subject. “If you say so,” she said uneasily.
“Well, I do,” Ginny replied rather more forcefully than she had intended. Trust Hermione to make her question the hateful relationship she had with Draco Malfoy, which she had been perfectly content with up until right then.
“Well, good night, then,” Hermione said from the next bed.
“Yeah, g’night,” Ginny returned in a rather distant voice. There was something deeper between herself and Draco, something deeper than the arch-rival type of dislike that the trio had with him. Maybe it was more than just hate…but what could be deeper than hate?
She was so lost in thought that she didn’t even notice Hermione turn off the light.
~*~
I was planning to give an explanation as to why the trio is allowed into the Order, and Ginny isn’t, and why they’re not allowed to tell her anything (and actually go by that rule) during this last conversation of Hermione and Ginny’s. But it just didn’t fit…maybe I’ll find somewhere to put it in later, or maybe I’ll just post it separately if there really is nowhere to put it. But if that’s been bothering you, just know that there is a plausible reason!
As always, I will take this time to remind you to review! And to thank everyone who reviewed for the last chapter!
To Be Continued.
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