Hogwarts was once again teeming with pupils as early as that afternoon. Owls had been sent out early in the morning, before the arrival of the newspaper, instructing students who had gone home for the holiday to return to the safety of the castle, and the protection of Dumbledore. Ron, Harry, and Hermione had been one of first to arrive, having taken a portkey directly back from Grimmauld Place. They had immediately shut themselves off in the boys’ room, doing gods only knew what. Ginny had left soon after noticing the looks she was receiving from the other returning students. It appeared that they had not forgotten Ron’s little revelation before the holidays. And as Colin and Dennis had been called away by McGonagall, she did not want to test the restraints of her emotionally-worn housemates alone.
So Ginny currently found herself wandering around the castle, avoiding the more well-traveled corridors. She let her mind wander as her body automatically stayed in motion.
There had been so much death, and now there was so much despair.
Seven families…
Seven families and ten Hogwarts students; tortured, and either killed or left permanently damaged, all for Voldemort’s sick satisfaction: the Tates; the Newmans; the Langs; the Tsusoukis; the Finch-Fletchleys; the Nolsens; and the Thomases…
Perhaps there had been more: The Daily Prophet – which seemed to be making up for its blunder last year in not believing Harry when he had said that Voldemort had returned – had provided extensive, detailed coverage of the ‘New Year’s Massacre,’ as the night’s attacks were now referred to as. The newspaper had only named those families whose relatives inside the wizarding world had already been notified.
Ginny recited the painful facts in her mind as she continued to walk aimlessly.
Johanna Tate had been a third year Ravenclaw. Her mother had been a Muggle, who had been both raped, and tortured with the Cruciatus curse before her death. Reports said that Johanna’s wizard father had been made to watch the torture of his wife, before he himself was subjected to the killing curse. The body of the little girl had been found in her closet, where she must have attempted to hide from the attackers.
Felicia Newman had been a seventh year Hufflepuff, and her younger brother Taylor, a fourth year Gryffindor. Their bodies, as well as the bodies of their Muggle parents, had yet to be recovered from the charred remains of what used to be their home.
Krista Lang and her twin brother Jacob had both been second year Hufflepuffs. They had had a younger brother, Andrew, who was a first year Ravenclaw. Apparently their Muggle father had died of a disease called cancer two years before. But that did not stop the Death Eaters from killing them; nor did it spare their mother, a columnist for the Daily Prophet, or their four-year-old baby sister.
Niren Tsusouki had been a seventh year Ravenclaw, but his brother Thalin had been a first year Gryffindor. Ginny now recalled the little boy, shyly asking the fifth year prefect where he could find the Transfiguration classroom, only months before at the beginning of the school year. He was dead now, as were his Muggle mother and wizard father. The older boy, Niren, would be a permanent resident of St. Mungo’s.
Justin Finch-Fletchley was a Hufflepuff. Though he had been visiting his best friend, Ernie Macmillan, when the Death Eaters attacked – thereby escaping death – his Muggle parents had been slaughtered.
Amanda Nolsen had been a fifth year Gryffindor, and Ginny had known the girl since her first year. She, as well as her Muggle mother, father, sister, and brother had all been killed. Each one had been tortured with a different curse.
And Dean Thomas… Dean Thomas had been a Gryffindor sixth year, a huge football fan, and Ginny’s ex-boyfriend. His Muggle parents were locked away in some mental institution now, having gone crazy from the repeated casting of the Cruciatus curse, as well as from having had to watch their son be tortured before his eventual murder.
Ginny stumbled slightly, and had to stop her travels, suddenly feeling so tired. She leaned against the wall to her right, and felt the cool stone. She looked up, taking in her dim surroundings, and realized that she had wandered into the dungeons.
A part of her felt a great desire to seek out the Slytherin common room, to find Blaise. She needed someone to hold her right now.
Fleetingly, an image of a pale-faced blonde passed through her mind, but it left as quickly as it had come. Ginny mentally scoffed at even the passing notion that Draco Malfoy could be a comfort to her at this moment. Or at any time, really. But remnants of the image stayed with her as she attempted to trace her steps back, and out of the lower levels of the school.
She had been walking for about ten minutes, still unsure as to where exactly in the dungeons she was, when she heard voices. Ginny stiffened, pressing her back against the wall –as there seemed to be no adequate place to hide – and nervously fingered her wand. As the owners of the voices drew closer to where she stood, tensely hugging the cold stones, Ginny recognized one of the speakers. She relaxed slightly, and drew away from the wall to face the students who would be turning around the corner in a few moments.
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Draco and Blaise had been walking back from a quick trip outside on the grounds, to the Slytherin common rooms, when they saw her. She stood with her back poised, and her chin held high, but even in the dim torch light of the dungeons, Draco could see the pain and confusion in her dark coffee-colored eyes.
“Blaise, Malfoy,” she nodded in greeting to each of them, though Draco had more than a hunch that, had he not been present, such a formal and detached greeting would not have been delivered. Draco, too tired and concerned with other matters to go into his usual Weasley-trashing mode, simply nodded in return.
“’Lina,” came Blaise’s smooth tones. Draco saw her smile slightly, and he had to keep himself from punching a wall… or his best mate. He knew that she would never allow him to comfort her, or make her happy, the way Blaise seemed to be able to do with only a word. And that wasn’t even her name!
He did not stop to think why he would want to offer such comfort in the first place.
This time.
Blaise turned to Draco then, slightly raising an eyebrow. Draco understood the request, nodded curtly to the red head before him, and stalked off back to his common room.
He was seething by the time he entered the green and silver room. Though, if asked, he would not be able explain the origin of his anger. Too much had happened in the past twenty-four hours, and all of it was swimming around in his head, stirring emotions he had long sought to keep buried. Blaise’s interaction with the little Weasley was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
Why was he reacting this way? For years he had waited and hoped for the Dark Lord to rid their world of Muggle-borns and half-bloods. When Cedric Diggory, a Hufflepuff pureblood, had been killed by Voldemort at the end of Draco’s fourth year, he had been overjoyed. He had begged his father that summer to let him get the mark early, instead of having to wait until after his Hogwarts graduation. Lucius Malfoy had denied him his request, but proudly told his son that when the time was right, he would take his place beside his father as a Death Eater.
Then, one year later, his father had been sentenced to time in Azkaban. And after one summer spent alone with his mother, he was having doubts regarding whether the path leading to death and destruction at the hands of Voldemort was the right one. Were the vicious means employed by the Death Eaters justified by their noble end goal of a pure wizarding world, untainted by Muggles? Draco was no longer certain. Only one year ago, he would have rejoiced at the news of a massacre of the proportions of the one that had taken place the night before. But now, he could not rouse within him satisfaction at the deaths of those people, whose only crime had been not being born of the correct breeding.
“Draco,” a light touch on his arm roused him from his internal conflicts. “I wondered where you wandered off to. I returned an hour ago, and we simply must catch up,” Pansy simpered a bit. Draco knew this was only for the benefit of the other students lounging in the common room. He understood from the message in her eyes, behind her nonchalant words, that she had been worried about him, and she wanted to speak with him alone.
“Draco can catch up with you later,” came another feminine voice. Delilah Windholm sashayed over to the pair and placed a possessive hand on his other arm, sending Pansy a warning glare. Draco had to fight to keep himself from cringing at the younger girl’s touch. How had he ever put up with her? “Drakey,” she cooed, leaning forward. “Isn’t it wonderful… these fools are finally beginning to understand the power of the Dark Lord.” She smirked then. “Soon all will bow down to him, and we will be right by his side.” Draco felt slightly sick at her obvious pleasure over the deaths of their schoolmates and their families, but he kept his features blank and his eyes cold. He forced a weak smirk, and gave Pansy a look, indicating that they would have to talk later. She scowled slightly, but nodded curtly, before sending a potent glare in Delilah’s direction and making her way back over to where Millicent Bulstrode and Regina Moon were whispering in hushed tones.
“Delilah,” Draco said in a frigid voice, “when the Dark Lord does ascend to power,” here he forced himself not to shudder at the notion, as his mind firmly repeated the word if – not when – “I assure you that my position will in no way be of your concern.” He allowed a small sneer to grace his handsome face. She looked taken aback for a moment, but quickly recovered with a sneer of her own.
“Drakey, darling,” she stepped closer to him, lifting herself on her toes to whisper in his ear, “perhaps we should take this somewhere more private?” He pulled a way a bit to see her sneer replaced with a suspiciously placid smile. Draco simply turned and made his way up the stairs to his dorm, while Delilah followed.
Once the door to the room he shared with Blaise, Crabbe, Goyle, and Nott had been closed, he swiftly grabbed the younger girl and threw her against the nearest wall. She should not have pushed him in such a way. She should not have tried to manipulate him when he had other, more important, matters to deal with. He had known he would have to remind her of her place, but he had not expected to do so at a time when his emotions – usually well-hidden and buried deep within him – were in such a turmoil, cracking his customarily cool demeanor. His silver eyes darkened as he glared at Delilah, who was trying to wriggle out of his strong-hold on her. She had almost reached her wand when he summoned it to him with his own. He was about a head taller than her, and could easily overpower her physically without the use of magic. He leaned against her, pinning her body against the wall with his own lean, toned form. Her face was beginning to take on an unattractive reddish shade as his one-handed grip on her throat tightened.
“Windholm.” She shivered, his voice was so cold. “I do believe that you have forgotten your place…” he raised one eyebrow amusedly. “Do you want me to take the time to remind you that I am Draco Malfoy, son of Lucius Malfoy, and the sole heir to the noble line of the House of Malfoy?” He pushed even closer, but there was nothing sexual in the movement – his threatening demeanor had been cultivated by Lucius Malfoy himself, and it was nothing to be trifled with. “Or are you starting to understand just who I am?” He looked at her face to see that she was trying valiantly not to show any weakness, but the terror in her eyes betrayed her. Draco felt satisfaction come over him at the power he held over her. But that satisfaction was short-lived, as he was hit with the realization that this type of power, was exactly why the Death Eaters took such joy in carrying out the ‘cleansing’ of the wizarding world.
Draco stepped back, slightly sickened, but he took care to ensure that Delilah Windholm saw none of this, for it would be perceived as a weakness and would be used against him. He sneered at her then. “Run along now, Windholm. I have no more use for our little arrangement.” He smirked at her evilly as he opened the door, located a bit to the left of her still form, and motioned with one hand for her to take her leave. “Your services are no longer required here.”
He saw her eyes harden with loathing as she walked slowly out of the room. She was showing her defiance by taking her time. He had to admit that he had underestimated her nerve… or her stupidity – no one in the house wanted Draco as an enemy. He was their Prince, and she would realize that. She turned back once at the landing of the stairwell, reaching out her hand, open palm facing up. He negligently tossed her wand back to her, and gave her a mockingly sweet smile. She returned his smile with a hateful look, before turning away and disappearing downstairs into the common room.
Draco silently let out a sigh as he closed the dorm room door. In the back of his mind, he knew he would have to be careful of her – he could tell she had started plotting against him from the moment he had released her. She was a Slytherin, after all. Draco ambled over to his bed, graceful even in his emotionally exhausted state of being, as he laid himself on his bed.
He believed that purebloods were better than Muggle-borns and half-bloods, and that the Nobles were the most superior; that was true. He enjoyed wielding power, was a master manipulator, and would go to any lengths to get what he wanted; this was true as well. He was a Slytherin, through and through. But did that mean he was meant to be a Death Eater?
It had thrilled him to see Delilah Windholm bending to his will. But the fear in her eyes did not give him the usual gratification. Something within him had changed, shifted. Was this what it meant to intellectually mature? Just a few weeks ago, he had been ready to revel in Ginny Weasley’s apparent fear of him during their encounter at the entrance of the library. Now, the thought of the red head looking at him with the same terror in her eyes, as had been in Windholm’s a few minutes before, upset his already sensitive stomach, and forced a cringe that Draco could not hide.
The world around him was changing. He was changing. And he did not know where to go from here…
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Ginny leaned into Blaise as he held her comfortingly. She was not crying now. No, she did not think she had the tears left for it. She was empty, and her housemates’ treatment of her had left her feeling so alone. She could tell that Blaise had been livid when he learned of their reaction towards her – not by anything he had said, but by how silent he had become, and how fiercely angry his golden eyes had looked.
Ginny sighed and lifted her head up to look at her dear friend. She loved this boy, she knew. Not in the romantic sense, of course. In fact, Ginny was quite sure that Blaise was not interested in her, or any other girl, in that way. She was not daft, no matter what the Dream Team thought of her. She had seen the way Blaise’s eyes would soften ever so slightly, with a hint of… hunger, when Colin was around. When he looked at her, they held a similar softness, and there was something else in the golden orbs that she just could not identify, but it was definitely not the passion he seemed to feel where Colin was concerned. She also most certainly had not missed Colin’s own longing looks towards her dark-haired friend. One day – perhaps not soon – but one day, they would no longer be ignorant of the other’s interest. For now, she was content to be the bridge that allowed their friendship to grow. She loved them both, really, as she loved her brothers. But it was also different from that familial love, because they were her friends – she chose to associate with them. She did not get to choose her brothers, for if she had, she thought scornfully now, Ron would have been dropped off of the list ages ago. Her choice in the matter made these relationships that much more precious.
“Better, ‘Lina?” Blaise asked her in a quiet, gentle voice. She was in awe that this boy – almost a man – could be so sweet to her, and yet be feared for his dangerous coldness to others throughout the school. She gave him a little smirk – a bad habit that she had picked up from spending too much time with the older boy – and nodded her head slightly.
“I had better get back to Gryffindor Tower,” she returned, just as quietly. “I need to see if Colin is back from his meeting with McGonagall.” She was sure he could hear the worry in her tone.
“I am sure that Creevey is fine,” he assured her, but she could see the concern behind his wary eyes as well. Ginny just shrugged slightly, and rose from her place beside him in a corner of the kitchens, near the fireplace where, only last week, they had enjoyed hot chocolate after an innocent snowball fight. She realized now that the time of innocence was over.
“I’ll see you later?” she questioned, as he rose up as well, standing to his full height to tower over her 5’2” frame. He gave her a small smile, and leaned down to brush his lips over her forehead.
“Of course,” he said, as he backed away. She returned his smile, and they turned to make their way out of the kitchens, where the house elves seemed to be hard at work making dinner. They parted ways outside of the entrance, as he turned left to head to the dungeons, and she right, to Gryffindor Tower.
The walk back to her common room went more quickly than Ginny would have liked – she could not be sure that Colin and Dennis had returned from McGonagall’s office, and she had not seen Neville return from his stay with his grandmother earlier. She did not want to face her angry and quick-to-judge housemates alone.
Ginny took a deep breath when she reached the entrance to the common room, and exhaled slowly as the Fat Lady watched on curiously. When she felt prepared, she mumbled the password and entered Gryffindor Tower. Her arrival was a quiet one, so she did not initially gain that much attention. But those that had noticed her stopped what they were doing to glare hatefully in her direction, causing others to then notice her presence as well. Ginny quickly scanned the room for one of her friends – Neville or Colin, or even the Dream Team would have done – but none of them were present.
She was brought startlingly out of her desperate search by the loud noise of skin hitting against skin. Her eyes watered as she felt a pain in her left cheek. She looked up to see an angry and crying Parvati Patil standing over her with a hateful sneer that would not have been out of place on a Slytherin face. But this Gryffindor wore it well as she stepped threateningly toward the younger girl.
“You little bitch,” Parvati bit out through her tears of rage. Ginny was still stunned by the slap she had received from the sixth year, so she stood still as the dark-haired girl drew even closer. “How dare you show your face around here?” Ginny could see, out of the corner of her eye, others nodding in agreement with the distraught girl. She held back her tears – she would not let them see her cry. “You don’t belong in Gryffindor. You should be dead and Dean should be alive!” Ginny’s head snapped up then, and her eyes narrowed as she buried all of the pain and fostered the mounting rage. But Parvati continued on, undeterred. “You are a jealous little whore! He dumped you for me, so you went and got your master to kill him for you!” She was shouting by now.
Ginny took a step back as she reeled from the older girl’s words. It was true that Dean and she had broken up early in the semester because of his interest in the older girl. Ginny, at the time, had been certain that the only ‘interest’ he had had in Parvati had to do more with the assets she had developed over the summer than with the girl herself. While Ginny had never thought of Parvati as a bad person, she did find her a bit ditzy, a bit flaky, and very self-involved. But Dean and Ginny had never been too serious – she had liked the boy, but had really felt nothing more than friendly affection. When she mourned for his loss, she mourned for the boy who had told her jokes to make her laugh, who bored her with details of the muggle sport football, and who had very softly and very sweetly given her a kiss good-bye before they had boarded the Hogwarts Express at the beginning of last summer. How could anyone think that she had wished him dead? How could they all stand there and judge her based on events they did not understand – events that had scarred her, of which she still had nightmares about?
Ginny realized that everyone in the room seemed to believe the worst of her, as she saw them all watching the scene with what she could only define as satisfaction. She quickly noted that her surviving roommates, Theresa Kensington and Kari Wong, were huddled together in a corner, watching the exchange near the portrait hole closely along with the others. She recalled how quick the students had been to turn on Harry Potter, when it was revealed that he was a Parselmouth. They had thought that he was the Heir of Slytherin, and shunned him. He was the Boy Who Lived, the hero of the wizarding world… she was only the littlest Weasley. It had been all but confirmed that she was Slytherin’s heir, so what would they do to her? They had all been hurt – their friends, housemates, and classmates had been brutally murdered, and they needed someone to pay for the pain they were forced to endure.
Ginny refused to be the one they turned their anger on any longer. Her own fury had reached its boiling point, and as she saw Parvati raise her hand to slap her again, Ginny raised her wand and cast a spell that she had learned in her first year.
And as the screams of terror sounded around her, as the noble Gryffindors fell to their knees, Ginny simply turned and walked back out of the common room.
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She was perched on a ledge in the Astronomy Tower when Colin found her, an hour later. As he took a seat beside her, Ginny was vaguely reminded of her encounter with Blaise, after Ron had opened his over-large gob and spilled her biggest secret to all of Gryffindor house.
She looked at Colin now, this handsome boy who had changed so much from what he had been as an eleven-year-old. He looked back for a moment and smiled slightly. “That was quite a spell you used.” He was upset, she could tell, but she did not think it was her actions that he was upset about.
“Colin,” she started tentatively.
“How dare they treat you like that?” her friend cut in. His voice was quiet, but the anger in his tone was evident. “How dare they judge what they don’t even understand? How could they think you would do anything like that? That you would want innocent people dead?”
He was beginning to frighten her, with this calm rage of his.
“Colin,” she implored more firmly, “what happened with McGonagall?” He looked at her again, longer this time, and now she could see the pain and fear that he was trying to hide behind the anger he felt. Suddenly Ginny was very frightened. “What happened?” she repeated, a tense urgency tinting her voice.
He shook his head slightly, and reached over to pull her into his arms. “The Death Eaters attacked my parents’ house last night,” he revealed quietly. He hugged her so tightly that she could barely breathe, but she did not care. Her friend was in pain, her comfort was not important right now, not in the face of this news.
“Are they alright?” she asked in a muffled voice, her face buried in his chest. She stiffened slightly as he let out a hollow, bitter laugh.
“My parents are alive,” he answered shortly. “They were lucky enough to have gone out for the night with my aunt and uncle, who had come to stay for the holidays.” Ginny turned her face up to him – there was something else, something he was not telling her. He looked down then, into her sad, inquiring eyes and sighed slightly, letting the tears fall. “They had left my little sister and my cousin – my aunt and uncle’s son – at the house with a sitter.” It was only another moment before he broke down completely, and Ginny repositioned herself to hold the boy in her arms, squeezing tightly and trying to will the pain away. She had never met his sister, but knew from the way Colin spoke of her that she was the sun, the moon, and the stars to him. She had been born shortly after Colin had come to Hogwarts, and he had confided in Ginny about feeling guilty for being away for so much of his sister’s life. He had said that after he had finished school, he could make it up to her by staying with his parents for a year or two, before moving out on his own. From the sobs that racked his body, Ginny knew that his sister was dead now, and that there would be no later time to make up for what he had already missed. She could only pray that the little girl had not suffered torture at the hands of the Death Eaters before her murder.
Ginny rubbed Colin’s back with her hands, in an effort to soothe him. “I am so sorry, Colin.” She realized that she did not even know what to say. How could anything she said or did possibly help now? “I’m here, Colin, and I am not going anywhere.” He only held her tighter then. “I’m here…” she whispered as her own tears – ones she had been sure, only an hour ago, her empty vessel no longer contained – streamed down her paled cheeks.
She was never sure how long they sat there, holding each other. She only knew that by the time they stirred, night had fallen upon the castle, and dinner had long since passed.
“Come on,” she said, gently tugging on his arm. “I think some tea would do us both some good.” She saw Colin hesitate. “What is it?” she asked astutely, sensing that he had something else on his mind.
“Dennis.” He stated flatly, and Ginny could have cursed herself for having forgotten the young boy. He was only thirteen, he did not deserve to go through this. Actually, Ginny corrected herself, no one deserved this.
“Is he alright?” she asked, the concern obvious in her tone. Colin simply shook his head ‘no,’ and took a deep breath.
“He was so close to Jessica, and our cousin Seth, actually,” he admitted quietly. “Seth was an only child, and the same age as Jess, so we just looked after him like a little brother, you know?” Colin, she could see, was fighting another torrent of tears. He took a moment, rigidly straightened his back, and then lifted his chin as he forced his emotions back. “Dennis really liked being the big brother,” he shrugged. Ginny could see how Dennis would like looking after his little sister and cousin. Considering how he looked up to Colin, who was his big brother, she was not surprised by the fact that he would try to emulate him. “He thinks he failed them somehow.” Colin looked so defeated. “He doesn’t understand, that if anyone failed them, it was me.”
“Colin!” Ginny was appalled. He could not blame himself for this!
“What, Ginny? It’s the truth!” His cheeks were becoming flushed as he got into the argument. “I stayed here, safe and sound at Hogwarts, knowing the danger out there, while my family was attacked by dark wizards. How were they ever supposed to have protected themselves? I could have done something!”
“Colin,” she reached out a hand to touch his reddened cheek, but he pulled away before she could make contact. She retracted the hand and sighed quietly. “Colin, if you had been there, you would have died!” she tried to make him understand.
“Then I would have died protecting my family,” he returned resolutely. Ginny could not argue with that – it was what she would have preferred had she been in his position.
“That’s true.” She would not patronize him by lying to him now. “But you were not there, and you are alive.” She continued to speak, cutting off what looked to be a protest from him. “You are alive and here to fight another day.” She stepped towards him, and this time he did not back away as she laid her soft hand on his cheek. “You have no reason to feel guilt, but if I can not sway your belief of that, then I ask you to please use whatever plagues you to help ensure that such senseless violence at the hands of You-Know-Who and his Death Eaters does not occur again.”
Colin studied her for a moment, before slightly nodding in assent. She forced a small smile for him, and lifted her hand from his cheek. He grabbed it before she could pull it back to herself, and she looked at him confusedly. “His name is Voldemort.” He looked at her intently, willing her to say the word, to not give that creature power by fearing to say his name.
Ginny hesitated slightly. It was different for Colin, who had only learned about Voldemort a few years ago, when he had found out that he was a wizard. She had known about He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named her entire life, and she had been taught to fear him and his name for just as long. But, then again, to her knowledge, she had not lost any of her family to the Dark Lord or his Death Eaters; and Colin had just lost his little sister and cousin. She took a deep breath, and let the name that was feared throughout the wizarding world flow from her lips: “Voldemort.”
Colin released her hand and turned. “The kitchens, then?” he asked in an unemotional voice that caused Ginny to pause. She quickly recovered and followed her friend out of the Astronomy Tower. She could tell that the death of his sister had irrevocably changed him. The massacre of the night before had changed her as well. The world was going to Hades around them, and no one knew where this would all end…
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Draco stared into his cup of tea and, despite the wretched hangover he had suffered from just that morning, wished for something stronger. He looked up to find that, across from him, Blaise and Pansy seemed to be contemplating the same thing.
When Blaise had returned to the common room a few hours ago, he and Pansy had come up to haul Draco out of his melancholic musings, and his bed. After a strained and uneventful hour of pretending to be thrilled with the news of the Death Eaters’ attacks among the other Slytherins, Draco had been dragged to the kitchens for tea. By the fact that they had all been nursing their tea for over an hour now, Draco concluded that he was not the only one who found the joyous atmosphere of the green and silver common room beyond stifling.
They had not really said anything to each other. It seemed to be easier to avoid the glaringly obvious topic altogether. Finally, it seemed that Pansy could take the tense silence no longer.
“Have you heard from your father yet, Draco?” Well, she was certainly direct. Draco’s only response was to glare at her, to which she gulped slightly and turned away.
“Well, have you?” Blaise was unaffected by Draco’s look of death.
“No,” he returned shortly, not wanting to talk about this. He knew his father had been among the Death Eaters who had attacked those families last night. He most certainly did not want to speak to that man now. He wondered if Lucius had returned to the safety of Malfoy Manor, where he could be protected from searching aurors by the spells placed on the manor centuries ago by Malfoy Lords past. Draco was worried about his mother, if this was the case. Lucius could harm her – something Draco could not bear to have happen.
He was saved from wandering down a mental path of fear regarding his mother’s safety – as well as from any further questioning by Pansy and Blaise – by the entrance of two familiar fifth years. This is beginning to become a habit, meeting in the kitchens, Draco thought absent-mindedly. Then he smirked. Finally, here was something in this now-upside-down world that he could handle – predictable Gryffindors.
Creevey and Weasley paused upon catching sight of the Slytherin trio. Both of their eyes were red and puffy – Draco could tell they had been crying. There also appeared to be a bruise forming on Weasley’s left cheek. Something dark, deep within Draco, unfurled at the thought of anyone laying a hand on the girl. He almost snarled aloud at the thought of someone harming her, his already-tried emotional state leaving him vulnerable to these thoughts he would have dismissed as ridiculous only a few weeks ago. Trying to recover his role as the Prince of Slytherin, Draco pasted on a sneer, and before Blaise could say a word, greeted the newcomers.
“Weasel, Mudblood,” he drawled, with a nod to each. It happened so quickly, he had not even seen it coming. One moment Creevey had been standing beside the Weaslette, the next he was pinning Draco against one of the walls of the kitchens, gripping the Slytherin’s neck with both his hands – an ironic twist after Draco’s encounter with Windholm earlier. As his vision blurred from the loss of air, Draco vaguely made out Pansy and Blaise reaching for their wands, though Blaise seemed a bit hesitant. But it was Ginny Weasley who put a stop to the attack.
“Colin, please,” she said, struggling to tug the younger boy’s hands away from the other’s neck. “Colin, stop this right now. You won’t be able to do anything against the Death Eaters if you’re locked up in Azkaban! Draco Malfoy is not worth it!” She seemed to have finally gotten through to her friend, who released Draco and stepped away slowly. As Draco’s lungs gratefully took in the plentiful oxygen, the little weasel’s words rang over and over in his head. 'Draco Malfoy is not worth it! Draco Malfoy is not worth it! Draco Malfoy is not worth it!'
Hmph! What in Hades did she know, anyway? But that did nothing to ease the sudden pain he felt within him, and the heaviness of his heart. He looked up to find Creevey glaring at him with a hatred he had never seen in the boy’s eyes before. Weasley was looking at him in anger as well. But there also seemed to be something else in her lightened eyes… Pain, sadness, and… disappointment? Had he disappointed her? Had she expected him to live up to her Gryffindoric values? Draco sneered at the thought. He was cut off from putting the little Gryffs in their rightful place – far below him – by Blaise’s smooth voice.
“Would you like to join us for tea?” he asked the two younger students. He was replied with four incredulous gazes. “Very well, then,” he nodded. “Would you like to tell us what that was about, then?” he asked Creevey. “Draco’s mouth has always tended to run afoul, but I have never seen such a violent reaction before,” he commented casually, as one would on the weather.
“No,” came the curt reply, and, though he tried to hide it, Draco saw Blaise’s slight flinch at the cold tone of the younger boy’s voice, and the flash of pain in his golden eyes at the obvious rejection. Draco looked between the two young men, and finally the realization hit him. Blaise had never told him of his sexual preference, but he had never really been very interested in the girls around him. Draco had thought that Blaise had rejected the girls that had thrown themselves at him – and there were many – because he was not interested in flings. His association with Ginny Weasley seemed to support Draco’s conclusion that Blaise was very serious about his romantic relationships. However, now he realized that he had had it all wrong. Blaise seemed to be interested in Colin Creevey, not Ginny Weasley. For some reason, this relieved Draco greatly. He looked over to the little red head to see that she had obviously been aware of the connection between her two good male friends. While she did not seem upset about the apparent romantic feelings between the two boys, she did seem quite distressed by Creevey’s obvious snub of the dark-haired Slytherin.
“Colin,” she began tentatively.
“Ginny.” He cut her off, and gave her a pointed look, to which she just sighed sadly.
“Where did you get that bruise?” Blaise seemed to have recovered from his slight heartbreak, and was now staring intently at the little Weasley’s face. His golden eyes had darkened by degrees, and his voice had become frigid. She blushed slightly under his scrutiny, and looked away before answering.
“It’s nothing,” she said quickly. At Blaise’s insistent stare, she continued, “I took care of it.” Draco could not remember ever having seen Blaise so angry before. From the look on Pansy’s face, apparently neither had she.
“Who hit you?” If his tone had been cold before, it was nothing compared to the barely contained iced fury that laced his voice now. Weasley glanced nervously around a bit, probably wishing for a house-elf to conveniently turn up and take the attention away from her, but none arrived, and none of the other three students present in the room dared to defy Blaise in the state he was in.
“Blaise, umm… it’s really not that important…” she trailed off as he swiftly moved towards her. Creevey stepped in front of the girl – no doubt to protect her from the ‘big, bad Slytherin’ – but one pointed glare from Blaise removed that obstacle.
“Tell me.” Draco could feel the power radiating from his friend. His burning rage was in danger of resulting in accidental magic if he was not careful. With the amount of anger he seemed to be withholding, Draco felt it would be safe to assume that the entire corridor was vulnerable to collapse if the magic was not contained. Apparently, the little weasel could feel it too, for she decided then to tell the truth.
“The Gryffindors weren’t too happy to see me,” she said slowly. “Parvati Patil thinks I wanted Dean Thomas dead because he dumped me for her. She was simply letting out her anger,” she tried to excuse the older girl’s actions.
Pansy scoffed. “How in Hades does that boy’s death have anything to do with you – no matter whether you used to date him or not?” Draco’s chest tightened a bit at the thought of Ginny – Ginny? When had he started thinking of her as Ginny? – with someone other than him. But then the idea of Ginny with him shook him up enough to thrust him out of this line of thought.
“His death had nothing to do with her,” Creevey answered. “A few of the Gryffindors, in their oh-so-noble ways, decided to take it upon themselves to blame the attacks on her, for something her idiot brother let slip right before the holidays.” Creevey sounded incredibly scornful concerning his housemates.
“What was it that the Weasel let slip?” Draco arched one pale eyebrow in intrigue as Blaise, Ginny, and Creevey all stiffened simultaneously. He exchanged a curious glance with Pansy, who had also noted the reaction, before continuing. “What could have turned the goody-goody Gryffs against one of their own?”
“Enough, Draco.” Blaise’s rage had not decreased in the least. In fact, he only seemed to be growing more agitated now. Draco nodded slightly, willing to back off of the topic… for now. At this moment, he was most interested in easing his friend’s fury.
“That bitch Patil hit you?” At Ginny’s hesitant nod to his question, Blaise stalked over the portrait hole leading out of the kitchens. Before he could even open the doorway – presumably to stalk up to Gryffindor Tower to put those good-for-nothing nobodies in their place – he was hit with a charm, cast by one angry looking Weasley.
“Blaise,” she started slowly, controlling the temper that was obviously rising, if the flush in her cheeks was any indication. “I appreciate that you are upset on my behalf, but as I told you, I have already taken care of it.” She enunciated the last seven words slowly. Blaise turned to her, much more relaxed than he had been only a minute ago, and walked over to the small girl.
“What did you do to me?” It appeared that not all of his rage had left him. Ginny simply shrugged a bit.
“I cast a calming charm on you.” At his glare, she defended her actions: “Well, how else was I supposed to get you to stop and actually listen to me?’’ She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Although, I could have cast a Stupefy, and bound you to a chair before Ennervating you to make you listen, or Petrificus Totalis would have worked as well…” her musings trailed off as Blaise sighed, and crossed his arms to show his concession to her view.
“So what did you do to the little shits?” It was clear in his gaze that no punishment that he had not hand-delivered would be satisfying retribution for the Gryffindors’ crimes.
“I cast the Arachnihasa charm on everyone in the common room.” Blaise’s eyes widened slightly, while Pansy let out a light chuckle, and Draco stared in awe at the girl before him. The Arachnihasa charm was a seventh level charm, which produced hundreds of spiders to completely cover the victims of the spell. The spiders were not poisonous, and did nothing but cause mental anguish to those on the receiving end. More than one victim of the spell had come out from the experience arachnaphobic. Also, the spell could not be stopped by a simple Finite Incantantum; the precise counter-curse had to be employed.
Ginny smirked slightly, obviously pleased with their reactions to her revenge. “I learned the spell in my first year, one evening when I was especially irate with Ron.” At the questioning looks from Blaise, Pansy, and Draco, she elaborated. “Spiders are his greatest fear.” Draco had to suppress a smirk – this girl was amazing! He never knew she had it in her to be so… Slytherin.
“You should have seen Harry, Hermione, and McGonagall trying to undo the charm on twelve hysterical students, while Ron cowered at the top of the stairs,” Creevey cut in, obviously fond of the memory. Blaise looked sharply to Ginny, but said nothing.
“Wait one moment,” Pansy cut in. “You cast a NEWTs-level charm on twelve students at once?” That was an impressive feat for a fully-grown wizard; for a young witch, still in school, it was remarkable. Ginny just shrugged, and blushed slightly. Draco wondered, fleetingly, just how far down that blush traveled…
“We should get going,” Ginny said hastily, obviously not wanting to discuss her advanced magical ability. “We should probably find Dennis,” she said to Creevey quietly. The light in the younger boy’s eyes dimmed visibly at the reminder of his brother, for some reason, as Ginny grabbed his hand – Draco had to stop himself from attacking the Gryffindor boy right then and there – and they made their way out of the kitchens. Ginny turned back only once, to give a curt nod good-bye to Pansy and Draco, and share a long look with Blaise that Draco could not decipher. Creevey kept his head down, shoulders heavy, as he walked beside the petite red head.
Once the portrait hole closed behind the two, the three Slytherins turned to each other.
“I can see why you spend so much time with her, Blaise,” Pansy drawled musingly. “I do believe I underestimated the little Weasley girl.”
Draco scoffed, attempting to convince himself that she was just muggle-loving trash. It was much easier for his mind to condemn her when she was not standing right in front of him, confusing him. “She’s a Weasley,” he pointed out, as though that was all there was to be said. Pansy simply rolled her eyes, while Blaise glared at him. Draco glared back at his dark-haired friend and said in mock-sweetness, “Need another calming charm, Blaise? You look a little tense.” Draco smirked as Blaise scowled. The world had not changed so completely that he could not still properly rile up his best mate…
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It was almost curfew by the time Colin and Ginny returned to the Gryffindor common room, decidedly none the worse for not having gotten any tea from the kitchens. Once again, the Dream Team had stayed up to interrogate them.
“Ginevra Weasley!” Ron bellowed when he spotted her. Ginny saved Hermione the trouble by quickly casting the silencing charm herself this time. She did not put her wand away, but made sure that the Gryffindor trio saw it in her hand. Colin took his place beside her, his wand at the ready as well.
“Oh, this is ridiculous,” Hermione cried out. “Put those wands away,” she directed to Ginny and Colin. “And Ron,” she turned to the tall red head, “shut up. Your big mouth has already caused enough trouble,” she said scathingly, glaring at the boy. Ginny was shocked at Hermione’s angry tone against her own best friend. “How can we ever hope to have a chance against the Death Eaters if we are fighting amongst ourselves?”
Ginny considered the question, and then slowly lowered her wand. Hermione was right. Whatever differences she had with the Dream Team, it was best to settle them now, before they all had to face the real dangers of the wizarding world together. She felt Colin lower his wand beside her as well. “I’m listening,” was all she said. She was still angry with them, after all. She was just more willing to communicate with words now, rather than hexes.
Hermione frowned slightly and looked to Harry, who stepped forward. Both of them elbowed Ron when he opened his mouth to – no doubt – yell at Ginny again.
“A lot has happened in the past twenty-four hours, Ginny,” Harry began quietly. She simply looked at him, her face blanked of all emotion – a clever guise she had picked up from her dear friend Blaise. He coughed, stumbling over his words slightly at her unresponsiveness. “But that does not excuse your actions earlier. What were you thinking, attacking other Gryffindors?” Ginny said nothing. “The war is raging outside of the castle walls,” he continued on, undeterred. “You cannot act in such a manner against those on the same side. The danger is more real than it ever was before, and we” – here he gestured to Ron, Hermione, and himself – “need to fight against these evils. You don’t have that burden, Ginny. And we’re only trying to protect you…” he trailed off as he saw her face redden with anger. Ginny opened her mouth to deliver a scathing reply, but she was cut off by Colin.
“Does that include me, Potter?” he asked snidely. “Are you the only ones with reasons to fight?”
Harry looked a bit taken aback by Colin’s tone, and the use of only his last name. He shook his head slowly. “I never said that,” he responded slowly.
“No, but you are thinking it.” Colin sneered at Harry, something Ginny would never get used to seeing. “You think that your pain is worth more than ours. You think that Ginny’s possession by the younger Voldemort at the age of eleven – something she still has nightmares about regularly – does not entitle her to the same rights as you, or your lackeys, to seek justice.”
The trio looked to Ginny in shock, as the younger girl avoided their scrutinizing gazes. There were reasons for her not telling them about her nightmares...
“That just proves she shouldn’t be messing with these dark things that she can’t handle!” And that was the main one. Ron proved once again just how dense and predictable he could be. “What do you know, anyway, Creevey?” he blurted out, his face having turned maroon from having had to hold in his comments for so long. The trio obviously had not yet been informed of the attack on the Creevey residence…
Colin raised his wand to teach Ron exactly ‘what he knew,’ but did not bother casting a hex, as Ginny had beat him to it. Ron screamed as the spiders covered him completely, while Ginny stared on the scene coolly, unaffected by his terror. Hermione quickly and effectively cast the counter-curse, having gotten quite a bit of practice with it earlier that evening. She and Harry helped Ron up, who was trembling from the experience, and the three sixth years turned to Ginny, whose rage was now visible in her glinting honey eyes.
“How dare you?” she bit out slowly, her fury lacing each word. “How dare you presume to have the authority to judge Colin or me?” She calmed slightly as Colin laced his fingers through hers, offering her his strong support. “You have no idea what you are talking about,” she finished coldly.
“You say you only want to protect her?” Colin asked, his anger evident. “Then where the hell were you when she was being attacked in her own common room?” Harry, Hermione, and Ron glanced at each other, then looked away shamefully. “I have a good idea where you were,” he continued. “Locked away in a room somewhere, trying to solve all the problems of the world by yourselves.” He glared at them. “You don’t want to protect Ginny, you simply want her out of the way.”
Ginny kept her face blank. She knew all of this already, and she had accepted it. But to hear it stated so factually from her best friend hurt. She was not angry with Colin, though; only with herself, for still allowing the Dream Team to continue to affect her emotional state. Resolutely, she straightened her back, and faced her brother and his friends. “I have already taken it upon myself to keep away from the three of you and out of your business. The least you could do is return the same courtesy to me, and stay out of my life!” Her voice was not raised, but the tone was sharp, and the message clear. “We have already been over this – there is no reason for any of you now to worry about me,” she sneered at the word ‘worry.’ “If this evening’s events taught you nothing else, it should have made it clear that I can take care of myself. If I had to rely only on your protection, I probably would have died ages ago… You are after all the reason I was in danger earlier today in the first place!”
“You would have died in the Chamber if it hadn’t been for Harry and me!” Ron seemed to have regained a bit of his composure after the spider incident.
Ginny scoffed. “Please,” she replied scathingly, “you would have gone after anyone who was stuck in the Chamber. I think it’s that hero complex of yours…” She looked at them accusingly. “Had you truly been worried about me, you would have noticed months before-hand that something was wrong; that I had stopped eating, that I wasn’t sleeping well, and that I was constantly pale and sickly-looking! As it was, Percy was the only one – out of the four brothers at school with me – to notice that I was acting differently. Of course, he grossly misdiagnosed the cause, but it was nice to know that he, at least, cared. Unlike you, Ron, who were once my best friend, but couldn’t look past your own interests for five minutes to see how your little sister was handling her first year away from home.” Her eyes were bright and her voice frigid as she moved closer to her brother. “Your concern for me seems to come and go at your own whim. That does me no good, and I would prefer that either you care about my well-being all of the time – not just when it is convenient for you – or do as I asked, and stay away from me.”
She sent one last sneer towards the speechless trio, and pulled Colin along with their still-interlaced hands to the entrance to stairwell leading up to the boys’ dormitories. She dragged Colin up and into the fifth year’s dorm, and used her wand to ‘convince’ the other boys in the room to leave. Except for Dennis Creevey, who had apparently fallen asleep crying on Colin’s bed. She released Colin’s hand so he could go to his younger brother – the only sibling he had left now – while Ginny took a seat on what she assumed was Noah Van Clauspen’s bed, for the dark-haired fifth year had been sleeping in it when she and Colin had entered the room. She watched as Colin lifted and shifted his brother over on the bed – taking care not to disturb his sleep and wake him – before laying down on his back next to him. He sighed quietly and turned his face towards Ginny.
“I don’t want to wake him, he needs rest,” he whispered quietly. Ginny only nodded. Colin seemed to hesitate for a moment, before speaking again. “I’m sorry I told them about your nightmares,” and he did truly seem to regret his slip. Ginny simply shook her head and smiled slightly to indicate that she was not upset with him. “Are you okay?” he asked tentatively. She only shrugged, and Colin seemed to look worried that she had yet to say anything to him since they had come upstairs.
“I will be fine,” she assured him quietly. She looked over to Dennis, who was now tossing fitfully in his sleep. She walked over slowly and cast a light calming charm, followed by the Dormius charm – used to put receivers in a deep slumber – on the younger boy. “That should help him sleep through the night.” Colin gave her a small, grateful smile, and pulled her down onto the bed. Ginny found herself half lying on the small bit of mattress left by Dennis and Colin, and half on Colin himself. While it was not the most comfortable position, she rearranged herself a bit to make it bearable. There was nothing romantic or sexual in the arrangement – it was only for comfort. She understood Colin’s need not to be alone right now, so she laid her head on his chest, and quietly mouthed the Dormius charm once more. She listened to his heartbeat slow, and his breathing even, as he slowly drifted off.
Ginny kept close vigil on the sleeping brothers, and only moved from her awkward position when the sun began to rise. She then lifted herself up, slowly and carefully so as not to disturb the boys, and stretched to soothe her stiff muscles. She walked over to their window, and looked upon a different scene than the one she was used to. She could not see the lake from this section of Gryffindor Tower, but she had a perfect view of the dark Forbidden Forest. Even from this distance, the trees looked foreboding. She shifted her gaze to Hagrid’s hut, to dispel the uneasy feeling that the forest brought about in her, and saw smoke curling up from his chimney. She smiled at the thought of the half-giant, who had always been very sweet to her. She grew so lost in thought as she gazed unseeingly out onto the castle grounds that she did not notice Colin come up behind her.
“Thanks,” he said quietly, wrapping his arms around her in a hug. “You didn’t have to stay.”
“I know I didn’t have to stay, Colin,” she chided gently. He released his arms and dropped them to his sides as she turned to face him. “I chose to stay because you are one of my best friends, and I love you,” she said sincerely. He gave her a weak smile.
“I love you, too, Gin,” he whispered, bending his tall 6’2” frame to drop a small kiss on the top of her red head. She smiled softly in return as he pulled away, looking back to see his brother stirring. “You should go,” he said quietly, returning his gaze to the small girl. “I think Dennis and I need some time alone.” Ginny nodded, both in understanding and agreement, and – after one more quick hug – left the room. She arrived in the common room to see the other three fifth-year boys spread out on different couches, still sleeping. Thankfully, the Dream Team was nowhere in sight. Ginny swiftly made her way to her own dorm, her wand out just in case her roommates were awake. She entered the room quietly to find that the drapes of both girls’ beds were closed. She looked sadly at Amanda Nolsen’s bed, which still had her old stuffed teddy bear sitting on it. Ginny quickly gathered her things and decided this was a fine morning to take advantage of her position and use the Girls’ Prefect’s Bathroom.
After taking her time with her morning ritual, and then getting dressed, Ginny banished most of her things straight back to her trunk – sending the laundry to the house elves – and then decided to visit the kitchens for a quick breakfast, before she had to hole herself up in the library to work on her History of Magic essay, which she had put off after the first meeting with Blaise and Malfoy in the library.
Her plans were disrupted by one very irate Head of House.
“Ms. Weasley,” Professor McGonagall stated sternly. “Please come with me.” Ginny swallowed the last bit of toast she had received from the kind house elves, and hung her head a bit as she followed the formidable witch. They stopped in front of a stone gargoyle, which Ginny recognized from listening in on conversations between Harry, Ron, and Hermione in previous years as the entrance to Dumbledore’s office. Ginny was understandably nervous as she slowly climbed the spiral staircase, lagging a bit behind the Transfiguration Professor.
Professor McGonagall knocked on the wooden door at the top of the stairs, and entered upon hearing Dumbedore’s invitation. Ginny hesitantly followed her into the large, round office. She looked around a bit, as she had never been in this room before – after the Chamber, she had been taken straight to McGonagall’s office, and then to the Hospital Wing. She took in the fascinating knick-knacks on the shelves, and the portraits of the Headmasters past lining the walls.
“Ms. Weasley,” Professor Dumbledore’s voice brought her attention back to the old wizard, who was sitting behind a large mahogany desk. “Please have a seat,” he gestured to the chairs placed across from the desk, his face grave. Ginny carefully made her way over, the nervousness eating at her insides, as Professor McGonagall pursed her lips and took position beside Ginny’s intended seat. She sat down, staring at her shaking hands as they lay on her lap.
“Well, Ms. Weasley, what do you have to say for yourself?” Professor McGonagall was obviously not pleased. “Cursing your own housemates? That is conduct unbefitting of a Gryffindor!” Ginny looked up sharply, her eyes narrowing at her Head of House.
“And did my precious housemates tell you why I hexed them?” she shot back, disregarding the fact that this was her teacher and her elder, and she had been raised to show respect for such individuals.
“Ms. Weasley,” Professor Dumbledore cut in, looking quite unhappy with her. “Professor McGonagall and I would like to know exactly what happened in the Gryffindor common room yesterday evening. That is why we have called you here now. There are other matters of importance that we must also attend to, such as the security of this school in these dangerous times.” Ginny looked back down guiltily. “Please, help us understand what happened, so that we may take the proper steps to ensure the safety of our students – both from outside forces and their own classmates.”
Ginny lifted her chin slightly, focusing her bright eyes on Dumbledore’s face as she spoke. “My dearest brother,” she sneered slightly, “decided to announce to the Gryffindor table right before the holidays, that I was the one responsible for opening the Chamber of Secrets and letting the basilisk loose on the school in my first year.” She ignored Dumbledore’s growing grave look, and McGonagall’s small gasp, as she continued. “He failed to mention, however, that I had been possessed at the time, so the Gryffindors decided to form their own conclusions. Apparently, I am one of…” she forced out the name… “Voldemort’s closest supporters, and I helped choose the victims for the attacks two nights ago.” She said this all with a definite sardonic lilt. “My housemates decided that I was not worthy of being a Gryffindor. Parvati Patil decided to show me exactly what they thought of me,” here she gestured to the black and blue bruise on her left cheek that she had purposely left unhealed, “while the others stood back and silently cheered her on.” She looked directly into Dumbledore’s disappointed blue eyes now, void of their usual twinkle. She managed to stop herself before admitting, 'If being a Gryffindor means being judgmental and hypocritical, then I would rather not be one,' as the Weasley blood within her recoiled at just the thought. “I will not apologize for defending myself…” she carefully edited her dialogue once more by not adding, 'against those worthless ingrates.' “I know Slytherins with more sense and house loyalty than those mighty Gryffindors showed to me.” Ginny took a deep breath after her short speech. She knew she should not have been so unrepentant, but she refused to sit back and allow them to make her out to be the villain of the tale. Spending time with Blaise, she decided, had definitely had an effect on her. She was even starting to sneer the name ‘Gryffindor,’ just as he did…
“Ms. Weasley,” Professor McGonagall hissed, obviously appalled. “Now I know that your parents did not raise you to act this way… And you are a prefect!” Ginny stiffened and managed to stop herself from rolling her eyes in annoyance in front of the Headmaster and his Deputy Headmistress. She forced a slight shrug, and kept her eyes focused on the old wizard across from her.
“Ms. Weasley,” Dumbledore began, obviously disturbed by the situation, which slightly disturbed Ginny, who was used to seeing the greatest wizard of the age confident and happy. “The actions of your housemates, while disappointing, do not justify your curse on them. I will have to contact Molly and Arthur on this matter,” he stated. Ginny’s unemotional mask stayed in place as he continued. “As your actions were provoked, I will not stipulate a punishment too serious. Although,” he paused to look intently at the young girl before him, “your position as a Prefect is under debate.” Ginny froze, her heart dropping. She had earned that position, they could not take it away from her. She forced her features not to show the pain she was feeling, but she was sure that Dumbledore could probably see it anyway. The old wizard nodded slightly, as if finally understanding some complex puzzle, before stating that she would serve detention every weekday evening for the next two weeks with Professor McGonagall. Also, 75 points had been taken from Gryffindor House. Ginny could care less about the points. Right now, she would prefer that even Slytherin win the House Cup – any house but those traitorous Gryffindors.
Ginny nodded curtly, and stood to leave after her punishment had been stated. “Ms. Weasley,” Professor McGonagall’s voice stopped her from moving to the door. “Don’t you want to hear your housemates’ punishments?” she asked with a small, tight smile on her lips. Ginny looked at the older witch, allowing the surprise to show clearly on her face. She had thought that they were getting away with what they had done to her…
“Negative fifteen points, and three weeks of detention with Professor Snape, for each student present in the common room who stood by and watched a fellow housemate be attacked,” came Dumbledore’s voice. “And Ms. Patil will spend an eventful month of detention with Mr. Filch, after losing 100 points from the Gryffindor total.” Ginny looked at the two professors, both having been Gryffindors in their own school days, and understood what it meant for them to take so many points away from their old house. There was no way that Gryffindor would win the House Cup now – they had not been leading by more that twenty points at the beginning of the holidays. She smiled slightly at them both, realizing that they were just as disappointed in her housemates as they had shown to be in her. She knew that she could have just left the common room without having hexed its occupants, but she had chosen to cast that charm. She was willing to deal with the consequences now. She doubted her housemates would take the news of their punishments nearly as well…
“Good day, Professors,” she said softly as she turned and left Dumbledore’s office. Ginny went straight to the library, and began to look for sources for her History of Magic essay.
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Draco smirked slightly as he caught sight of a certain little red head while searching for a table in the back of the library. He was already in a better mood than he had been yesterday – a quick walk past the display of house points tallies near the entrance of the Great Hall had shown that Gryffindor was now down to 127 points, placing Slytherin in the lead with its 487 points. As he walked over to her, Draco surmised that the little Weaslette’s hex on her housemates the previous day, had probably had something to do with Slytherin’s new position as the leading contender for the House Cup.
“Weasley,” he drawled, placing himself languidly on the seat across from her. She looked up, then quickly looked back down to continue writing on her parchment, ignoring him. Now this was unacceptable, he decided. No one ignores Draco Malfoy. So he sneered slightly, and did something to get her attention – he grabbed the homework she was working on. He leaned back, reading the first few lines of her essay.
'Nimue, also known as Vivienne, Nineve, and Niniane, was a great witch of the early Middle Ages. She is best remembered for capturing the heart of the great wizard Merlin. But she was also his student, and learned to wield her power over magic just as well as she wielded her power over men. Daughter of a Muggle Duke and a Siren – an especially beautiful mermaid with an enchanting voice…'
That was as far as Draco got before the unfinished essay was ripped away from him by an irritated little weasel. “What do you want, Malfoy?” Her face was flushed, and Draco decided that it looked quite cute that way. That thought was only in his mind for a moment before he mentally slapped it away.
“Just to talk, Weaslette,” he responded snidely. When she turned back to her essay once more – most likely to continue ignoring him – he decided to take a different approach. “You know, I can heal that for you,” he said quietly, indicating the bruise on her cheek. She stiffened slightly and narrowed her eyes suspiciously at him.
“I can heal it myself, thank you,” she responded swiftly, before looking back down at her work. Draco sighed silently, before lifting his hand to her cheek, and gently laying it on her soft, warm skin as he whispered a healing charm. Ginny started at the touch, and then lifted her own hand to touch her once-again-pale cheek once he had moved his back. She fingered where the bruise had once been, and then looked at him as though she had never seen him before. “Thank you,” she said softly. Draco tried not to grin like an idiot at the sweet tone of her voice – directed at him – and rubbed his hand against his arm to get rid of the remnants of the intense tingle he had felt when touching her. She shook her head slightly, as though to rid herself of a daze, and then gave him a small smile. “Are you okay?” she asked, pointing vaguely to his neck, where Creevey had laid his hands the night before.
Draco sneered slightly at the memory of the attack, and of her words – 'Draco Malfoy is not worth it!' – and responded scathingly. “I’m fine, no thanks to Creevey.” Any previous softness in her gaze was quickly replaced with indignation as she retorted.
“You should not have called him what you did – that is such a vile term!” she hissed in anger, trying to stay quiet so as not to alert Madame Pince.
“I’ve called Granger that tons of times, but she never tried to strangle me,” he pointed out.
“That’s because Hermione’s little sister hadn’t just been murdered by Death Eaters!” Ginny looked ready to do some bodily harm to the blonde herself right now. Her glare faded, though, when she saw the shock clearly on the Slytherin’s face. “I’m sure the whole school will know by this afternoon,” she said quietly. “I’m not sure if you even care,” and she looked truly disgusted at that thought, “but she was only five years old. Colin had only learned about her death a few hours before we came across you, Blaise, and Parkinson.” She paused then, seeming to realize something. “Is Blaise alright?” she asked, her concern evident. “I know he was hurt by how Colin acted yesterday, but it was only because he was still in a total emotional mess.” She leaned in to Draco then. “I know that Colin does not hold any hard feelings against Blaise,” she whispered sadly. “He just couldn’t really deal with talking about what had happened yesterday.” She leaned back, and Draco could only nod slightly.
He did not know what to say. He was an only child, so he could not grasp the pain Creevey must have felt at losing a sibling. But an innocent little girl was dead. He had read about others’ deaths in the Prophet, but for some reason, this seemed so much more real, and so much worse. Seeing Ginny Weasley’s sad face, recalling her red puffy eyes from the night before, stirred an insurmountable anger within Draco. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly, looking down instead of at the other occupant of the table.
“Thank you,” she responded gently, “but I am not the person you should be apologizing to.” Draco’s head snapped up at her implied suggestion. Her gaze was surprisingly unreadable as she studied his face, presumably to see if he would take her advice.
“I’ll speak with Creevey,” he conceded. After all, if Blaise really cared about the younger boy, Draco might as well try to get along with him. It didn’t hurt that his agreement seemed to please Ginny Weasley, but he swiftly pushed that thought aside. He would apologize for Blaise’s sake, and that was it. His mind scoffed at his attempted self-disillusionment as his insides squirmed – they actually squirmed! – when Ginny smiled at him. Draco tried to smirk in response, but his muscles were not cooperating, and he had the suspicious feeling that he had actually smiled at her. “You know, Malfoy, you’re really not so bad,” she stated softly, not looking very surprised by the revelation.
Draco scoffed. “Of course I am!” He could not let his reputation as the Prince of Slytherin suffer. Ginny giggled slightly, and he sent her his best glare. She simply continued to smile at him, and leaned forward once more. Draco inhaled the uniquely sweet and spicy scent of her, and felt a shiver run up his spine.
“Whatever you say, Draco.” His name rolled off her tongue so smoothly, as though it had been devised specifically to be released from her sweet mouth. Draco stared at her pink lips for a few endless moments, before snapping out of the visual fantasy he had conjured of claiming them with his own. He quickly stood, needing to get away from the girl, before he did something extremely stupid, like kiss her. He saw Ginny watching him with an amused glint in her eyes, and a smile playing at her lips.
“Later, Weasley,” he said shortly, and turned to leave, hoping to make a quick exit.
“Ginny,” she stated flatly. He turned back with one questioning eyebrow raised. “My name,” she expanded. “My name is Ginny.” She arched her own eyebrow as his face relaxed to its customary smirk.
“Ginny,” he repeated, nodding. Then he turned away once more, and made his way through the library to the doors. “Ginny,” he whispered, once he was in the safety of an empty corridor. He shook his head slightly. He couldn’t even remember why he had gone to the library in the first place anymore. With a slight shrug and a satisfied smirk on his face, Draco made his way back to the Slytherin dungeons.
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Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all related characters and concepts are the property of J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Scholastic, and Warner Bros., among others. Only the plot and any unfamiliar characters are mine.
*Information about Nimue was found through various websites.
NOTE: Thanks for reading. Please review and let me know what you think.
So Ginny currently found herself wandering around the castle, avoiding the more well-traveled corridors. She let her mind wander as her body automatically stayed in motion.
There had been so much death, and now there was so much despair.
Seven families…
Seven families and ten Hogwarts students; tortured, and either killed or left permanently damaged, all for Voldemort’s sick satisfaction: the Tates; the Newmans; the Langs; the Tsusoukis; the Finch-Fletchleys; the Nolsens; and the Thomases…
Perhaps there had been more: The Daily Prophet – which seemed to be making up for its blunder last year in not believing Harry when he had said that Voldemort had returned – had provided extensive, detailed coverage of the ‘New Year’s Massacre,’ as the night’s attacks were now referred to as. The newspaper had only named those families whose relatives inside the wizarding world had already been notified.
Ginny recited the painful facts in her mind as she continued to walk aimlessly.
Johanna Tate had been a third year Ravenclaw. Her mother had been a Muggle, who had been both raped, and tortured with the Cruciatus curse before her death. Reports said that Johanna’s wizard father had been made to watch the torture of his wife, before he himself was subjected to the killing curse. The body of the little girl had been found in her closet, where she must have attempted to hide from the attackers.
Felicia Newman had been a seventh year Hufflepuff, and her younger brother Taylor, a fourth year Gryffindor. Their bodies, as well as the bodies of their Muggle parents, had yet to be recovered from the charred remains of what used to be their home.
Krista Lang and her twin brother Jacob had both been second year Hufflepuffs. They had had a younger brother, Andrew, who was a first year Ravenclaw. Apparently their Muggle father had died of a disease called cancer two years before. But that did not stop the Death Eaters from killing them; nor did it spare their mother, a columnist for the Daily Prophet, or their four-year-old baby sister.
Niren Tsusouki had been a seventh year Ravenclaw, but his brother Thalin had been a first year Gryffindor. Ginny now recalled the little boy, shyly asking the fifth year prefect where he could find the Transfiguration classroom, only months before at the beginning of the school year. He was dead now, as were his Muggle mother and wizard father. The older boy, Niren, would be a permanent resident of St. Mungo’s.
Justin Finch-Fletchley was a Hufflepuff. Though he had been visiting his best friend, Ernie Macmillan, when the Death Eaters attacked – thereby escaping death – his Muggle parents had been slaughtered.
Amanda Nolsen had been a fifth year Gryffindor, and Ginny had known the girl since her first year. She, as well as her Muggle mother, father, sister, and brother had all been killed. Each one had been tortured with a different curse.
And Dean Thomas… Dean Thomas had been a Gryffindor sixth year, a huge football fan, and Ginny’s ex-boyfriend. His Muggle parents were locked away in some mental institution now, having gone crazy from the repeated casting of the Cruciatus curse, as well as from having had to watch their son be tortured before his eventual murder.
Ginny stumbled slightly, and had to stop her travels, suddenly feeling so tired. She leaned against the wall to her right, and felt the cool stone. She looked up, taking in her dim surroundings, and realized that she had wandered into the dungeons.
A part of her felt a great desire to seek out the Slytherin common room, to find Blaise. She needed someone to hold her right now.
Fleetingly, an image of a pale-faced blonde passed through her mind, but it left as quickly as it had come. Ginny mentally scoffed at even the passing notion that Draco Malfoy could be a comfort to her at this moment. Or at any time, really. But remnants of the image stayed with her as she attempted to trace her steps back, and out of the lower levels of the school.
She had been walking for about ten minutes, still unsure as to where exactly in the dungeons she was, when she heard voices. Ginny stiffened, pressing her back against the wall –as there seemed to be no adequate place to hide – and nervously fingered her wand. As the owners of the voices drew closer to where she stood, tensely hugging the cold stones, Ginny recognized one of the speakers. She relaxed slightly, and drew away from the wall to face the students who would be turning around the corner in a few moments.
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Draco and Blaise had been walking back from a quick trip outside on the grounds, to the Slytherin common rooms, when they saw her. She stood with her back poised, and her chin held high, but even in the dim torch light of the dungeons, Draco could see the pain and confusion in her dark coffee-colored eyes.
“Blaise, Malfoy,” she nodded in greeting to each of them, though Draco had more than a hunch that, had he not been present, such a formal and detached greeting would not have been delivered. Draco, too tired and concerned with other matters to go into his usual Weasley-trashing mode, simply nodded in return.
“’Lina,” came Blaise’s smooth tones. Draco saw her smile slightly, and he had to keep himself from punching a wall… or his best mate. He knew that she would never allow him to comfort her, or make her happy, the way Blaise seemed to be able to do with only a word. And that wasn’t even her name!
He did not stop to think why he would want to offer such comfort in the first place.
This time.
Blaise turned to Draco then, slightly raising an eyebrow. Draco understood the request, nodded curtly to the red head before him, and stalked off back to his common room.
He was seething by the time he entered the green and silver room. Though, if asked, he would not be able explain the origin of his anger. Too much had happened in the past twenty-four hours, and all of it was swimming around in his head, stirring emotions he had long sought to keep buried. Blaise’s interaction with the little Weasley was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
Why was he reacting this way? For years he had waited and hoped for the Dark Lord to rid their world of Muggle-borns and half-bloods. When Cedric Diggory, a Hufflepuff pureblood, had been killed by Voldemort at the end of Draco’s fourth year, he had been overjoyed. He had begged his father that summer to let him get the mark early, instead of having to wait until after his Hogwarts graduation. Lucius Malfoy had denied him his request, but proudly told his son that when the time was right, he would take his place beside his father as a Death Eater.
Then, one year later, his father had been sentenced to time in Azkaban. And after one summer spent alone with his mother, he was having doubts regarding whether the path leading to death and destruction at the hands of Voldemort was the right one. Were the vicious means employed by the Death Eaters justified by their noble end goal of a pure wizarding world, untainted by Muggles? Draco was no longer certain. Only one year ago, he would have rejoiced at the news of a massacre of the proportions of the one that had taken place the night before. But now, he could not rouse within him satisfaction at the deaths of those people, whose only crime had been not being born of the correct breeding.
“Draco,” a light touch on his arm roused him from his internal conflicts. “I wondered where you wandered off to. I returned an hour ago, and we simply must catch up,” Pansy simpered a bit. Draco knew this was only for the benefit of the other students lounging in the common room. He understood from the message in her eyes, behind her nonchalant words, that she had been worried about him, and she wanted to speak with him alone.
“Draco can catch up with you later,” came another feminine voice. Delilah Windholm sashayed over to the pair and placed a possessive hand on his other arm, sending Pansy a warning glare. Draco had to fight to keep himself from cringing at the younger girl’s touch. How had he ever put up with her? “Drakey,” she cooed, leaning forward. “Isn’t it wonderful… these fools are finally beginning to understand the power of the Dark Lord.” She smirked then. “Soon all will bow down to him, and we will be right by his side.” Draco felt slightly sick at her obvious pleasure over the deaths of their schoolmates and their families, but he kept his features blank and his eyes cold. He forced a weak smirk, and gave Pansy a look, indicating that they would have to talk later. She scowled slightly, but nodded curtly, before sending a potent glare in Delilah’s direction and making her way back over to where Millicent Bulstrode and Regina Moon were whispering in hushed tones.
“Delilah,” Draco said in a frigid voice, “when the Dark Lord does ascend to power,” here he forced himself not to shudder at the notion, as his mind firmly repeated the word if – not when – “I assure you that my position will in no way be of your concern.” He allowed a small sneer to grace his handsome face. She looked taken aback for a moment, but quickly recovered with a sneer of her own.
“Drakey, darling,” she stepped closer to him, lifting herself on her toes to whisper in his ear, “perhaps we should take this somewhere more private?” He pulled a way a bit to see her sneer replaced with a suspiciously placid smile. Draco simply turned and made his way up the stairs to his dorm, while Delilah followed.
Once the door to the room he shared with Blaise, Crabbe, Goyle, and Nott had been closed, he swiftly grabbed the younger girl and threw her against the nearest wall. She should not have pushed him in such a way. She should not have tried to manipulate him when he had other, more important, matters to deal with. He had known he would have to remind her of her place, but he had not expected to do so at a time when his emotions – usually well-hidden and buried deep within him – were in such a turmoil, cracking his customarily cool demeanor. His silver eyes darkened as he glared at Delilah, who was trying to wriggle out of his strong-hold on her. She had almost reached her wand when he summoned it to him with his own. He was about a head taller than her, and could easily overpower her physically without the use of magic. He leaned against her, pinning her body against the wall with his own lean, toned form. Her face was beginning to take on an unattractive reddish shade as his one-handed grip on her throat tightened.
“Windholm.” She shivered, his voice was so cold. “I do believe that you have forgotten your place…” he raised one eyebrow amusedly. “Do you want me to take the time to remind you that I am Draco Malfoy, son of Lucius Malfoy, and the sole heir to the noble line of the House of Malfoy?” He pushed even closer, but there was nothing sexual in the movement – his threatening demeanor had been cultivated by Lucius Malfoy himself, and it was nothing to be trifled with. “Or are you starting to understand just who I am?” He looked at her face to see that she was trying valiantly not to show any weakness, but the terror in her eyes betrayed her. Draco felt satisfaction come over him at the power he held over her. But that satisfaction was short-lived, as he was hit with the realization that this type of power, was exactly why the Death Eaters took such joy in carrying out the ‘cleansing’ of the wizarding world.
Draco stepped back, slightly sickened, but he took care to ensure that Delilah Windholm saw none of this, for it would be perceived as a weakness and would be used against him. He sneered at her then. “Run along now, Windholm. I have no more use for our little arrangement.” He smirked at her evilly as he opened the door, located a bit to the left of her still form, and motioned with one hand for her to take her leave. “Your services are no longer required here.”
He saw her eyes harden with loathing as she walked slowly out of the room. She was showing her defiance by taking her time. He had to admit that he had underestimated her nerve… or her stupidity – no one in the house wanted Draco as an enemy. He was their Prince, and she would realize that. She turned back once at the landing of the stairwell, reaching out her hand, open palm facing up. He negligently tossed her wand back to her, and gave her a mockingly sweet smile. She returned his smile with a hateful look, before turning away and disappearing downstairs into the common room.
Draco silently let out a sigh as he closed the dorm room door. In the back of his mind, he knew he would have to be careful of her – he could tell she had started plotting against him from the moment he had released her. She was a Slytherin, after all. Draco ambled over to his bed, graceful even in his emotionally exhausted state of being, as he laid himself on his bed.
He believed that purebloods were better than Muggle-borns and half-bloods, and that the Nobles were the most superior; that was true. He enjoyed wielding power, was a master manipulator, and would go to any lengths to get what he wanted; this was true as well. He was a Slytherin, through and through. But did that mean he was meant to be a Death Eater?
It had thrilled him to see Delilah Windholm bending to his will. But the fear in her eyes did not give him the usual gratification. Something within him had changed, shifted. Was this what it meant to intellectually mature? Just a few weeks ago, he had been ready to revel in Ginny Weasley’s apparent fear of him during their encounter at the entrance of the library. Now, the thought of the red head looking at him with the same terror in her eyes, as had been in Windholm’s a few minutes before, upset his already sensitive stomach, and forced a cringe that Draco could not hide.
The world around him was changing. He was changing. And he did not know where to go from here…
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Ginny leaned into Blaise as he held her comfortingly. She was not crying now. No, she did not think she had the tears left for it. She was empty, and her housemates’ treatment of her had left her feeling so alone. She could tell that Blaise had been livid when he learned of their reaction towards her – not by anything he had said, but by how silent he had become, and how fiercely angry his golden eyes had looked.
Ginny sighed and lifted her head up to look at her dear friend. She loved this boy, she knew. Not in the romantic sense, of course. In fact, Ginny was quite sure that Blaise was not interested in her, or any other girl, in that way. She was not daft, no matter what the Dream Team thought of her. She had seen the way Blaise’s eyes would soften ever so slightly, with a hint of… hunger, when Colin was around. When he looked at her, they held a similar softness, and there was something else in the golden orbs that she just could not identify, but it was definitely not the passion he seemed to feel where Colin was concerned. She also most certainly had not missed Colin’s own longing looks towards her dark-haired friend. One day – perhaps not soon – but one day, they would no longer be ignorant of the other’s interest. For now, she was content to be the bridge that allowed their friendship to grow. She loved them both, really, as she loved her brothers. But it was also different from that familial love, because they were her friends – she chose to associate with them. She did not get to choose her brothers, for if she had, she thought scornfully now, Ron would have been dropped off of the list ages ago. Her choice in the matter made these relationships that much more precious.
“Better, ‘Lina?” Blaise asked her in a quiet, gentle voice. She was in awe that this boy – almost a man – could be so sweet to her, and yet be feared for his dangerous coldness to others throughout the school. She gave him a little smirk – a bad habit that she had picked up from spending too much time with the older boy – and nodded her head slightly.
“I had better get back to Gryffindor Tower,” she returned, just as quietly. “I need to see if Colin is back from his meeting with McGonagall.” She was sure he could hear the worry in her tone.
“I am sure that Creevey is fine,” he assured her, but she could see the concern behind his wary eyes as well. Ginny just shrugged slightly, and rose from her place beside him in a corner of the kitchens, near the fireplace where, only last week, they had enjoyed hot chocolate after an innocent snowball fight. She realized now that the time of innocence was over.
“I’ll see you later?” she questioned, as he rose up as well, standing to his full height to tower over her 5’2” frame. He gave her a small smile, and leaned down to brush his lips over her forehead.
“Of course,” he said, as he backed away. She returned his smile, and they turned to make their way out of the kitchens, where the house elves seemed to be hard at work making dinner. They parted ways outside of the entrance, as he turned left to head to the dungeons, and she right, to Gryffindor Tower.
The walk back to her common room went more quickly than Ginny would have liked – she could not be sure that Colin and Dennis had returned from McGonagall’s office, and she had not seen Neville return from his stay with his grandmother earlier. She did not want to face her angry and quick-to-judge housemates alone.
Ginny took a deep breath when she reached the entrance to the common room, and exhaled slowly as the Fat Lady watched on curiously. When she felt prepared, she mumbled the password and entered Gryffindor Tower. Her arrival was a quiet one, so she did not initially gain that much attention. But those that had noticed her stopped what they were doing to glare hatefully in her direction, causing others to then notice her presence as well. Ginny quickly scanned the room for one of her friends – Neville or Colin, or even the Dream Team would have done – but none of them were present.
She was brought startlingly out of her desperate search by the loud noise of skin hitting against skin. Her eyes watered as she felt a pain in her left cheek. She looked up to see an angry and crying Parvati Patil standing over her with a hateful sneer that would not have been out of place on a Slytherin face. But this Gryffindor wore it well as she stepped threateningly toward the younger girl.
“You little bitch,” Parvati bit out through her tears of rage. Ginny was still stunned by the slap she had received from the sixth year, so she stood still as the dark-haired girl drew even closer. “How dare you show your face around here?” Ginny could see, out of the corner of her eye, others nodding in agreement with the distraught girl. She held back her tears – she would not let them see her cry. “You don’t belong in Gryffindor. You should be dead and Dean should be alive!” Ginny’s head snapped up then, and her eyes narrowed as she buried all of the pain and fostered the mounting rage. But Parvati continued on, undeterred. “You are a jealous little whore! He dumped you for me, so you went and got your master to kill him for you!” She was shouting by now.
Ginny took a step back as she reeled from the older girl’s words. It was true that Dean and she had broken up early in the semester because of his interest in the older girl. Ginny, at the time, had been certain that the only ‘interest’ he had had in Parvati had to do more with the assets she had developed over the summer than with the girl herself. While Ginny had never thought of Parvati as a bad person, she did find her a bit ditzy, a bit flaky, and very self-involved. But Dean and Ginny had never been too serious – she had liked the boy, but had really felt nothing more than friendly affection. When she mourned for his loss, she mourned for the boy who had told her jokes to make her laugh, who bored her with details of the muggle sport football, and who had very softly and very sweetly given her a kiss good-bye before they had boarded the Hogwarts Express at the beginning of last summer. How could anyone think that she had wished him dead? How could they all stand there and judge her based on events they did not understand – events that had scarred her, of which she still had nightmares about?
Ginny realized that everyone in the room seemed to believe the worst of her, as she saw them all watching the scene with what she could only define as satisfaction. She quickly noted that her surviving roommates, Theresa Kensington and Kari Wong, were huddled together in a corner, watching the exchange near the portrait hole closely along with the others. She recalled how quick the students had been to turn on Harry Potter, when it was revealed that he was a Parselmouth. They had thought that he was the Heir of Slytherin, and shunned him. He was the Boy Who Lived, the hero of the wizarding world… she was only the littlest Weasley. It had been all but confirmed that she was Slytherin’s heir, so what would they do to her? They had all been hurt – their friends, housemates, and classmates had been brutally murdered, and they needed someone to pay for the pain they were forced to endure.
Ginny refused to be the one they turned their anger on any longer. Her own fury had reached its boiling point, and as she saw Parvati raise her hand to slap her again, Ginny raised her wand and cast a spell that she had learned in her first year.
And as the screams of terror sounded around her, as the noble Gryffindors fell to their knees, Ginny simply turned and walked back out of the common room.
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She was perched on a ledge in the Astronomy Tower when Colin found her, an hour later. As he took a seat beside her, Ginny was vaguely reminded of her encounter with Blaise, after Ron had opened his over-large gob and spilled her biggest secret to all of Gryffindor house.
She looked at Colin now, this handsome boy who had changed so much from what he had been as an eleven-year-old. He looked back for a moment and smiled slightly. “That was quite a spell you used.” He was upset, she could tell, but she did not think it was her actions that he was upset about.
“Colin,” she started tentatively.
“How dare they treat you like that?” her friend cut in. His voice was quiet, but the anger in his tone was evident. “How dare they judge what they don’t even understand? How could they think you would do anything like that? That you would want innocent people dead?”
He was beginning to frighten her, with this calm rage of his.
“Colin,” she implored more firmly, “what happened with McGonagall?” He looked at her again, longer this time, and now she could see the pain and fear that he was trying to hide behind the anger he felt. Suddenly Ginny was very frightened. “What happened?” she repeated, a tense urgency tinting her voice.
He shook his head slightly, and reached over to pull her into his arms. “The Death Eaters attacked my parents’ house last night,” he revealed quietly. He hugged her so tightly that she could barely breathe, but she did not care. Her friend was in pain, her comfort was not important right now, not in the face of this news.
“Are they alright?” she asked in a muffled voice, her face buried in his chest. She stiffened slightly as he let out a hollow, bitter laugh.
“My parents are alive,” he answered shortly. “They were lucky enough to have gone out for the night with my aunt and uncle, who had come to stay for the holidays.” Ginny turned her face up to him – there was something else, something he was not telling her. He looked down then, into her sad, inquiring eyes and sighed slightly, letting the tears fall. “They had left my little sister and my cousin – my aunt and uncle’s son – at the house with a sitter.” It was only another moment before he broke down completely, and Ginny repositioned herself to hold the boy in her arms, squeezing tightly and trying to will the pain away. She had never met his sister, but knew from the way Colin spoke of her that she was the sun, the moon, and the stars to him. She had been born shortly after Colin had come to Hogwarts, and he had confided in Ginny about feeling guilty for being away for so much of his sister’s life. He had said that after he had finished school, he could make it up to her by staying with his parents for a year or two, before moving out on his own. From the sobs that racked his body, Ginny knew that his sister was dead now, and that there would be no later time to make up for what he had already missed. She could only pray that the little girl had not suffered torture at the hands of the Death Eaters before her murder.
Ginny rubbed Colin’s back with her hands, in an effort to soothe him. “I am so sorry, Colin.” She realized that she did not even know what to say. How could anything she said or did possibly help now? “I’m here, Colin, and I am not going anywhere.” He only held her tighter then. “I’m here…” she whispered as her own tears – ones she had been sure, only an hour ago, her empty vessel no longer contained – streamed down her paled cheeks.
She was never sure how long they sat there, holding each other. She only knew that by the time they stirred, night had fallen upon the castle, and dinner had long since passed.
“Come on,” she said, gently tugging on his arm. “I think some tea would do us both some good.” She saw Colin hesitate. “What is it?” she asked astutely, sensing that he had something else on his mind.
“Dennis.” He stated flatly, and Ginny could have cursed herself for having forgotten the young boy. He was only thirteen, he did not deserve to go through this. Actually, Ginny corrected herself, no one deserved this.
“Is he alright?” she asked, the concern obvious in her tone. Colin simply shook his head ‘no,’ and took a deep breath.
“He was so close to Jessica, and our cousin Seth, actually,” he admitted quietly. “Seth was an only child, and the same age as Jess, so we just looked after him like a little brother, you know?” Colin, she could see, was fighting another torrent of tears. He took a moment, rigidly straightened his back, and then lifted his chin as he forced his emotions back. “Dennis really liked being the big brother,” he shrugged. Ginny could see how Dennis would like looking after his little sister and cousin. Considering how he looked up to Colin, who was his big brother, she was not surprised by the fact that he would try to emulate him. “He thinks he failed them somehow.” Colin looked so defeated. “He doesn’t understand, that if anyone failed them, it was me.”
“Colin!” Ginny was appalled. He could not blame himself for this!
“What, Ginny? It’s the truth!” His cheeks were becoming flushed as he got into the argument. “I stayed here, safe and sound at Hogwarts, knowing the danger out there, while my family was attacked by dark wizards. How were they ever supposed to have protected themselves? I could have done something!”
“Colin,” she reached out a hand to touch his reddened cheek, but he pulled away before she could make contact. She retracted the hand and sighed quietly. “Colin, if you had been there, you would have died!” she tried to make him understand.
“Then I would have died protecting my family,” he returned resolutely. Ginny could not argue with that – it was what she would have preferred had she been in his position.
“That’s true.” She would not patronize him by lying to him now. “But you were not there, and you are alive.” She continued to speak, cutting off what looked to be a protest from him. “You are alive and here to fight another day.” She stepped towards him, and this time he did not back away as she laid her soft hand on his cheek. “You have no reason to feel guilt, but if I can not sway your belief of that, then I ask you to please use whatever plagues you to help ensure that such senseless violence at the hands of You-Know-Who and his Death Eaters does not occur again.”
Colin studied her for a moment, before slightly nodding in assent. She forced a small smile for him, and lifted her hand from his cheek. He grabbed it before she could pull it back to herself, and she looked at him confusedly. “His name is Voldemort.” He looked at her intently, willing her to say the word, to not give that creature power by fearing to say his name.
Ginny hesitated slightly. It was different for Colin, who had only learned about Voldemort a few years ago, when he had found out that he was a wizard. She had known about He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named her entire life, and she had been taught to fear him and his name for just as long. But, then again, to her knowledge, she had not lost any of her family to the Dark Lord or his Death Eaters; and Colin had just lost his little sister and cousin. She took a deep breath, and let the name that was feared throughout the wizarding world flow from her lips: “Voldemort.”
Colin released her hand and turned. “The kitchens, then?” he asked in an unemotional voice that caused Ginny to pause. She quickly recovered and followed her friend out of the Astronomy Tower. She could tell that the death of his sister had irrevocably changed him. The massacre of the night before had changed her as well. The world was going to Hades around them, and no one knew where this would all end…
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Draco stared into his cup of tea and, despite the wretched hangover he had suffered from just that morning, wished for something stronger. He looked up to find that, across from him, Blaise and Pansy seemed to be contemplating the same thing.
When Blaise had returned to the common room a few hours ago, he and Pansy had come up to haul Draco out of his melancholic musings, and his bed. After a strained and uneventful hour of pretending to be thrilled with the news of the Death Eaters’ attacks among the other Slytherins, Draco had been dragged to the kitchens for tea. By the fact that they had all been nursing their tea for over an hour now, Draco concluded that he was not the only one who found the joyous atmosphere of the green and silver common room beyond stifling.
They had not really said anything to each other. It seemed to be easier to avoid the glaringly obvious topic altogether. Finally, it seemed that Pansy could take the tense silence no longer.
“Have you heard from your father yet, Draco?” Well, she was certainly direct. Draco’s only response was to glare at her, to which she gulped slightly and turned away.
“Well, have you?” Blaise was unaffected by Draco’s look of death.
“No,” he returned shortly, not wanting to talk about this. He knew his father had been among the Death Eaters who had attacked those families last night. He most certainly did not want to speak to that man now. He wondered if Lucius had returned to the safety of Malfoy Manor, where he could be protected from searching aurors by the spells placed on the manor centuries ago by Malfoy Lords past. Draco was worried about his mother, if this was the case. Lucius could harm her – something Draco could not bear to have happen.
He was saved from wandering down a mental path of fear regarding his mother’s safety – as well as from any further questioning by Pansy and Blaise – by the entrance of two familiar fifth years. This is beginning to become a habit, meeting in the kitchens, Draco thought absent-mindedly. Then he smirked. Finally, here was something in this now-upside-down world that he could handle – predictable Gryffindors.
Creevey and Weasley paused upon catching sight of the Slytherin trio. Both of their eyes were red and puffy – Draco could tell they had been crying. There also appeared to be a bruise forming on Weasley’s left cheek. Something dark, deep within Draco, unfurled at the thought of anyone laying a hand on the girl. He almost snarled aloud at the thought of someone harming her, his already-tried emotional state leaving him vulnerable to these thoughts he would have dismissed as ridiculous only a few weeks ago. Trying to recover his role as the Prince of Slytherin, Draco pasted on a sneer, and before Blaise could say a word, greeted the newcomers.
“Weasel, Mudblood,” he drawled, with a nod to each. It happened so quickly, he had not even seen it coming. One moment Creevey had been standing beside the Weaslette, the next he was pinning Draco against one of the walls of the kitchens, gripping the Slytherin’s neck with both his hands – an ironic twist after Draco’s encounter with Windholm earlier. As his vision blurred from the loss of air, Draco vaguely made out Pansy and Blaise reaching for their wands, though Blaise seemed a bit hesitant. But it was Ginny Weasley who put a stop to the attack.
“Colin, please,” she said, struggling to tug the younger boy’s hands away from the other’s neck. “Colin, stop this right now. You won’t be able to do anything against the Death Eaters if you’re locked up in Azkaban! Draco Malfoy is not worth it!” She seemed to have finally gotten through to her friend, who released Draco and stepped away slowly. As Draco’s lungs gratefully took in the plentiful oxygen, the little weasel’s words rang over and over in his head. 'Draco Malfoy is not worth it! Draco Malfoy is not worth it! Draco Malfoy is not worth it!'
Hmph! What in Hades did she know, anyway? But that did nothing to ease the sudden pain he felt within him, and the heaviness of his heart. He looked up to find Creevey glaring at him with a hatred he had never seen in the boy’s eyes before. Weasley was looking at him in anger as well. But there also seemed to be something else in her lightened eyes… Pain, sadness, and… disappointment? Had he disappointed her? Had she expected him to live up to her Gryffindoric values? Draco sneered at the thought. He was cut off from putting the little Gryffs in their rightful place – far below him – by Blaise’s smooth voice.
“Would you like to join us for tea?” he asked the two younger students. He was replied with four incredulous gazes. “Very well, then,” he nodded. “Would you like to tell us what that was about, then?” he asked Creevey. “Draco’s mouth has always tended to run afoul, but I have never seen such a violent reaction before,” he commented casually, as one would on the weather.
“No,” came the curt reply, and, though he tried to hide it, Draco saw Blaise’s slight flinch at the cold tone of the younger boy’s voice, and the flash of pain in his golden eyes at the obvious rejection. Draco looked between the two young men, and finally the realization hit him. Blaise had never told him of his sexual preference, but he had never really been very interested in the girls around him. Draco had thought that Blaise had rejected the girls that had thrown themselves at him – and there were many – because he was not interested in flings. His association with Ginny Weasley seemed to support Draco’s conclusion that Blaise was very serious about his romantic relationships. However, now he realized that he had had it all wrong. Blaise seemed to be interested in Colin Creevey, not Ginny Weasley. For some reason, this relieved Draco greatly. He looked over to the little red head to see that she had obviously been aware of the connection between her two good male friends. While she did not seem upset about the apparent romantic feelings between the two boys, she did seem quite distressed by Creevey’s obvious snub of the dark-haired Slytherin.
“Colin,” she began tentatively.
“Ginny.” He cut her off, and gave her a pointed look, to which she just sighed sadly.
“Where did you get that bruise?” Blaise seemed to have recovered from his slight heartbreak, and was now staring intently at the little Weasley’s face. His golden eyes had darkened by degrees, and his voice had become frigid. She blushed slightly under his scrutiny, and looked away before answering.
“It’s nothing,” she said quickly. At Blaise’s insistent stare, she continued, “I took care of it.” Draco could not remember ever having seen Blaise so angry before. From the look on Pansy’s face, apparently neither had she.
“Who hit you?” If his tone had been cold before, it was nothing compared to the barely contained iced fury that laced his voice now. Weasley glanced nervously around a bit, probably wishing for a house-elf to conveniently turn up and take the attention away from her, but none arrived, and none of the other three students present in the room dared to defy Blaise in the state he was in.
“Blaise, umm… it’s really not that important…” she trailed off as he swiftly moved towards her. Creevey stepped in front of the girl – no doubt to protect her from the ‘big, bad Slytherin’ – but one pointed glare from Blaise removed that obstacle.
“Tell me.” Draco could feel the power radiating from his friend. His burning rage was in danger of resulting in accidental magic if he was not careful. With the amount of anger he seemed to be withholding, Draco felt it would be safe to assume that the entire corridor was vulnerable to collapse if the magic was not contained. Apparently, the little weasel could feel it too, for she decided then to tell the truth.
“The Gryffindors weren’t too happy to see me,” she said slowly. “Parvati Patil thinks I wanted Dean Thomas dead because he dumped me for her. She was simply letting out her anger,” she tried to excuse the older girl’s actions.
Pansy scoffed. “How in Hades does that boy’s death have anything to do with you – no matter whether you used to date him or not?” Draco’s chest tightened a bit at the thought of Ginny – Ginny? When had he started thinking of her as Ginny? – with someone other than him. But then the idea of Ginny with him shook him up enough to thrust him out of this line of thought.
“His death had nothing to do with her,” Creevey answered. “A few of the Gryffindors, in their oh-so-noble ways, decided to take it upon themselves to blame the attacks on her, for something her idiot brother let slip right before the holidays.” Creevey sounded incredibly scornful concerning his housemates.
“What was it that the Weasel let slip?” Draco arched one pale eyebrow in intrigue as Blaise, Ginny, and Creevey all stiffened simultaneously. He exchanged a curious glance with Pansy, who had also noted the reaction, before continuing. “What could have turned the goody-goody Gryffs against one of their own?”
“Enough, Draco.” Blaise’s rage had not decreased in the least. In fact, he only seemed to be growing more agitated now. Draco nodded slightly, willing to back off of the topic… for now. At this moment, he was most interested in easing his friend’s fury.
“That bitch Patil hit you?” At Ginny’s hesitant nod to his question, Blaise stalked over the portrait hole leading out of the kitchens. Before he could even open the doorway – presumably to stalk up to Gryffindor Tower to put those good-for-nothing nobodies in their place – he was hit with a charm, cast by one angry looking Weasley.
“Blaise,” she started slowly, controlling the temper that was obviously rising, if the flush in her cheeks was any indication. “I appreciate that you are upset on my behalf, but as I told you, I have already taken care of it.” She enunciated the last seven words slowly. Blaise turned to her, much more relaxed than he had been only a minute ago, and walked over to the small girl.
“What did you do to me?” It appeared that not all of his rage had left him. Ginny simply shrugged a bit.
“I cast a calming charm on you.” At his glare, she defended her actions: “Well, how else was I supposed to get you to stop and actually listen to me?’’ She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Although, I could have cast a Stupefy, and bound you to a chair before Ennervating you to make you listen, or Petrificus Totalis would have worked as well…” her musings trailed off as Blaise sighed, and crossed his arms to show his concession to her view.
“So what did you do to the little shits?” It was clear in his gaze that no punishment that he had not hand-delivered would be satisfying retribution for the Gryffindors’ crimes.
“I cast the Arachnihasa charm on everyone in the common room.” Blaise’s eyes widened slightly, while Pansy let out a light chuckle, and Draco stared in awe at the girl before him. The Arachnihasa charm was a seventh level charm, which produced hundreds of spiders to completely cover the victims of the spell. The spiders were not poisonous, and did nothing but cause mental anguish to those on the receiving end. More than one victim of the spell had come out from the experience arachnaphobic. Also, the spell could not be stopped by a simple Finite Incantantum; the precise counter-curse had to be employed.
Ginny smirked slightly, obviously pleased with their reactions to her revenge. “I learned the spell in my first year, one evening when I was especially irate with Ron.” At the questioning looks from Blaise, Pansy, and Draco, she elaborated. “Spiders are his greatest fear.” Draco had to suppress a smirk – this girl was amazing! He never knew she had it in her to be so… Slytherin.
“You should have seen Harry, Hermione, and McGonagall trying to undo the charm on twelve hysterical students, while Ron cowered at the top of the stairs,” Creevey cut in, obviously fond of the memory. Blaise looked sharply to Ginny, but said nothing.
“Wait one moment,” Pansy cut in. “You cast a NEWTs-level charm on twelve students at once?” That was an impressive feat for a fully-grown wizard; for a young witch, still in school, it was remarkable. Ginny just shrugged, and blushed slightly. Draco wondered, fleetingly, just how far down that blush traveled…
“We should get going,” Ginny said hastily, obviously not wanting to discuss her advanced magical ability. “We should probably find Dennis,” she said to Creevey quietly. The light in the younger boy’s eyes dimmed visibly at the reminder of his brother, for some reason, as Ginny grabbed his hand – Draco had to stop himself from attacking the Gryffindor boy right then and there – and they made their way out of the kitchens. Ginny turned back only once, to give a curt nod good-bye to Pansy and Draco, and share a long look with Blaise that Draco could not decipher. Creevey kept his head down, shoulders heavy, as he walked beside the petite red head.
Once the portrait hole closed behind the two, the three Slytherins turned to each other.
“I can see why you spend so much time with her, Blaise,” Pansy drawled musingly. “I do believe I underestimated the little Weasley girl.”
Draco scoffed, attempting to convince himself that she was just muggle-loving trash. It was much easier for his mind to condemn her when she was not standing right in front of him, confusing him. “She’s a Weasley,” he pointed out, as though that was all there was to be said. Pansy simply rolled her eyes, while Blaise glared at him. Draco glared back at his dark-haired friend and said in mock-sweetness, “Need another calming charm, Blaise? You look a little tense.” Draco smirked as Blaise scowled. The world had not changed so completely that he could not still properly rile up his best mate…
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It was almost curfew by the time Colin and Ginny returned to the Gryffindor common room, decidedly none the worse for not having gotten any tea from the kitchens. Once again, the Dream Team had stayed up to interrogate them.
“Ginevra Weasley!” Ron bellowed when he spotted her. Ginny saved Hermione the trouble by quickly casting the silencing charm herself this time. She did not put her wand away, but made sure that the Gryffindor trio saw it in her hand. Colin took his place beside her, his wand at the ready as well.
“Oh, this is ridiculous,” Hermione cried out. “Put those wands away,” she directed to Ginny and Colin. “And Ron,” she turned to the tall red head, “shut up. Your big mouth has already caused enough trouble,” she said scathingly, glaring at the boy. Ginny was shocked at Hermione’s angry tone against her own best friend. “How can we ever hope to have a chance against the Death Eaters if we are fighting amongst ourselves?”
Ginny considered the question, and then slowly lowered her wand. Hermione was right. Whatever differences she had with the Dream Team, it was best to settle them now, before they all had to face the real dangers of the wizarding world together. She felt Colin lower his wand beside her as well. “I’m listening,” was all she said. She was still angry with them, after all. She was just more willing to communicate with words now, rather than hexes.
Hermione frowned slightly and looked to Harry, who stepped forward. Both of them elbowed Ron when he opened his mouth to – no doubt – yell at Ginny again.
“A lot has happened in the past twenty-four hours, Ginny,” Harry began quietly. She simply looked at him, her face blanked of all emotion – a clever guise she had picked up from her dear friend Blaise. He coughed, stumbling over his words slightly at her unresponsiveness. “But that does not excuse your actions earlier. What were you thinking, attacking other Gryffindors?” Ginny said nothing. “The war is raging outside of the castle walls,” he continued on, undeterred. “You cannot act in such a manner against those on the same side. The danger is more real than it ever was before, and we” – here he gestured to Ron, Hermione, and himself – “need to fight against these evils. You don’t have that burden, Ginny. And we’re only trying to protect you…” he trailed off as he saw her face redden with anger. Ginny opened her mouth to deliver a scathing reply, but she was cut off by Colin.
“Does that include me, Potter?” he asked snidely. “Are you the only ones with reasons to fight?”
Harry looked a bit taken aback by Colin’s tone, and the use of only his last name. He shook his head slowly. “I never said that,” he responded slowly.
“No, but you are thinking it.” Colin sneered at Harry, something Ginny would never get used to seeing. “You think that your pain is worth more than ours. You think that Ginny’s possession by the younger Voldemort at the age of eleven – something she still has nightmares about regularly – does not entitle her to the same rights as you, or your lackeys, to seek justice.”
The trio looked to Ginny in shock, as the younger girl avoided their scrutinizing gazes. There were reasons for her not telling them about her nightmares...
“That just proves she shouldn’t be messing with these dark things that she can’t handle!” And that was the main one. Ron proved once again just how dense and predictable he could be. “What do you know, anyway, Creevey?” he blurted out, his face having turned maroon from having had to hold in his comments for so long. The trio obviously had not yet been informed of the attack on the Creevey residence…
Colin raised his wand to teach Ron exactly ‘what he knew,’ but did not bother casting a hex, as Ginny had beat him to it. Ron screamed as the spiders covered him completely, while Ginny stared on the scene coolly, unaffected by his terror. Hermione quickly and effectively cast the counter-curse, having gotten quite a bit of practice with it earlier that evening. She and Harry helped Ron up, who was trembling from the experience, and the three sixth years turned to Ginny, whose rage was now visible in her glinting honey eyes.
“How dare you?” she bit out slowly, her fury lacing each word. “How dare you presume to have the authority to judge Colin or me?” She calmed slightly as Colin laced his fingers through hers, offering her his strong support. “You have no idea what you are talking about,” she finished coldly.
“You say you only want to protect her?” Colin asked, his anger evident. “Then where the hell were you when she was being attacked in her own common room?” Harry, Hermione, and Ron glanced at each other, then looked away shamefully. “I have a good idea where you were,” he continued. “Locked away in a room somewhere, trying to solve all the problems of the world by yourselves.” He glared at them. “You don’t want to protect Ginny, you simply want her out of the way.”
Ginny kept her face blank. She knew all of this already, and she had accepted it. But to hear it stated so factually from her best friend hurt. She was not angry with Colin, though; only with herself, for still allowing the Dream Team to continue to affect her emotional state. Resolutely, she straightened her back, and faced her brother and his friends. “I have already taken it upon myself to keep away from the three of you and out of your business. The least you could do is return the same courtesy to me, and stay out of my life!” Her voice was not raised, but the tone was sharp, and the message clear. “We have already been over this – there is no reason for any of you now to worry about me,” she sneered at the word ‘worry.’ “If this evening’s events taught you nothing else, it should have made it clear that I can take care of myself. If I had to rely only on your protection, I probably would have died ages ago… You are after all the reason I was in danger earlier today in the first place!”
“You would have died in the Chamber if it hadn’t been for Harry and me!” Ron seemed to have regained a bit of his composure after the spider incident.
Ginny scoffed. “Please,” she replied scathingly, “you would have gone after anyone who was stuck in the Chamber. I think it’s that hero complex of yours…” She looked at them accusingly. “Had you truly been worried about me, you would have noticed months before-hand that something was wrong; that I had stopped eating, that I wasn’t sleeping well, and that I was constantly pale and sickly-looking! As it was, Percy was the only one – out of the four brothers at school with me – to notice that I was acting differently. Of course, he grossly misdiagnosed the cause, but it was nice to know that he, at least, cared. Unlike you, Ron, who were once my best friend, but couldn’t look past your own interests for five minutes to see how your little sister was handling her first year away from home.” Her eyes were bright and her voice frigid as she moved closer to her brother. “Your concern for me seems to come and go at your own whim. That does me no good, and I would prefer that either you care about my well-being all of the time – not just when it is convenient for you – or do as I asked, and stay away from me.”
She sent one last sneer towards the speechless trio, and pulled Colin along with their still-interlaced hands to the entrance to stairwell leading up to the boys’ dormitories. She dragged Colin up and into the fifth year’s dorm, and used her wand to ‘convince’ the other boys in the room to leave. Except for Dennis Creevey, who had apparently fallen asleep crying on Colin’s bed. She released Colin’s hand so he could go to his younger brother – the only sibling he had left now – while Ginny took a seat on what she assumed was Noah Van Clauspen’s bed, for the dark-haired fifth year had been sleeping in it when she and Colin had entered the room. She watched as Colin lifted and shifted his brother over on the bed – taking care not to disturb his sleep and wake him – before laying down on his back next to him. He sighed quietly and turned his face towards Ginny.
“I don’t want to wake him, he needs rest,” he whispered quietly. Ginny only nodded. Colin seemed to hesitate for a moment, before speaking again. “I’m sorry I told them about your nightmares,” and he did truly seem to regret his slip. Ginny simply shook her head and smiled slightly to indicate that she was not upset with him. “Are you okay?” he asked tentatively. She only shrugged, and Colin seemed to look worried that she had yet to say anything to him since they had come upstairs.
“I will be fine,” she assured him quietly. She looked over to Dennis, who was now tossing fitfully in his sleep. She walked over slowly and cast a light calming charm, followed by the Dormius charm – used to put receivers in a deep slumber – on the younger boy. “That should help him sleep through the night.” Colin gave her a small, grateful smile, and pulled her down onto the bed. Ginny found herself half lying on the small bit of mattress left by Dennis and Colin, and half on Colin himself. While it was not the most comfortable position, she rearranged herself a bit to make it bearable. There was nothing romantic or sexual in the arrangement – it was only for comfort. She understood Colin’s need not to be alone right now, so she laid her head on his chest, and quietly mouthed the Dormius charm once more. She listened to his heartbeat slow, and his breathing even, as he slowly drifted off.
Ginny kept close vigil on the sleeping brothers, and only moved from her awkward position when the sun began to rise. She then lifted herself up, slowly and carefully so as not to disturb the boys, and stretched to soothe her stiff muscles. She walked over to their window, and looked upon a different scene than the one she was used to. She could not see the lake from this section of Gryffindor Tower, but she had a perfect view of the dark Forbidden Forest. Even from this distance, the trees looked foreboding. She shifted her gaze to Hagrid’s hut, to dispel the uneasy feeling that the forest brought about in her, and saw smoke curling up from his chimney. She smiled at the thought of the half-giant, who had always been very sweet to her. She grew so lost in thought as she gazed unseeingly out onto the castle grounds that she did not notice Colin come up behind her.
“Thanks,” he said quietly, wrapping his arms around her in a hug. “You didn’t have to stay.”
“I know I didn’t have to stay, Colin,” she chided gently. He released his arms and dropped them to his sides as she turned to face him. “I chose to stay because you are one of my best friends, and I love you,” she said sincerely. He gave her a weak smile.
“I love you, too, Gin,” he whispered, bending his tall 6’2” frame to drop a small kiss on the top of her red head. She smiled softly in return as he pulled away, looking back to see his brother stirring. “You should go,” he said quietly, returning his gaze to the small girl. “I think Dennis and I need some time alone.” Ginny nodded, both in understanding and agreement, and – after one more quick hug – left the room. She arrived in the common room to see the other three fifth-year boys spread out on different couches, still sleeping. Thankfully, the Dream Team was nowhere in sight. Ginny swiftly made her way to her own dorm, her wand out just in case her roommates were awake. She entered the room quietly to find that the drapes of both girls’ beds were closed. She looked sadly at Amanda Nolsen’s bed, which still had her old stuffed teddy bear sitting on it. Ginny quickly gathered her things and decided this was a fine morning to take advantage of her position and use the Girls’ Prefect’s Bathroom.
After taking her time with her morning ritual, and then getting dressed, Ginny banished most of her things straight back to her trunk – sending the laundry to the house elves – and then decided to visit the kitchens for a quick breakfast, before she had to hole herself up in the library to work on her History of Magic essay, which she had put off after the first meeting with Blaise and Malfoy in the library.
Her plans were disrupted by one very irate Head of House.
“Ms. Weasley,” Professor McGonagall stated sternly. “Please come with me.” Ginny swallowed the last bit of toast she had received from the kind house elves, and hung her head a bit as she followed the formidable witch. They stopped in front of a stone gargoyle, which Ginny recognized from listening in on conversations between Harry, Ron, and Hermione in previous years as the entrance to Dumbledore’s office. Ginny was understandably nervous as she slowly climbed the spiral staircase, lagging a bit behind the Transfiguration Professor.
Professor McGonagall knocked on the wooden door at the top of the stairs, and entered upon hearing Dumbedore’s invitation. Ginny hesitantly followed her into the large, round office. She looked around a bit, as she had never been in this room before – after the Chamber, she had been taken straight to McGonagall’s office, and then to the Hospital Wing. She took in the fascinating knick-knacks on the shelves, and the portraits of the Headmasters past lining the walls.
“Ms. Weasley,” Professor Dumbledore’s voice brought her attention back to the old wizard, who was sitting behind a large mahogany desk. “Please have a seat,” he gestured to the chairs placed across from the desk, his face grave. Ginny carefully made her way over, the nervousness eating at her insides, as Professor McGonagall pursed her lips and took position beside Ginny’s intended seat. She sat down, staring at her shaking hands as they lay on her lap.
“Well, Ms. Weasley, what do you have to say for yourself?” Professor McGonagall was obviously not pleased. “Cursing your own housemates? That is conduct unbefitting of a Gryffindor!” Ginny looked up sharply, her eyes narrowing at her Head of House.
“And did my precious housemates tell you why I hexed them?” she shot back, disregarding the fact that this was her teacher and her elder, and she had been raised to show respect for such individuals.
“Ms. Weasley,” Professor Dumbledore cut in, looking quite unhappy with her. “Professor McGonagall and I would like to know exactly what happened in the Gryffindor common room yesterday evening. That is why we have called you here now. There are other matters of importance that we must also attend to, such as the security of this school in these dangerous times.” Ginny looked back down guiltily. “Please, help us understand what happened, so that we may take the proper steps to ensure the safety of our students – both from outside forces and their own classmates.”
Ginny lifted her chin slightly, focusing her bright eyes on Dumbledore’s face as she spoke. “My dearest brother,” she sneered slightly, “decided to announce to the Gryffindor table right before the holidays, that I was the one responsible for opening the Chamber of Secrets and letting the basilisk loose on the school in my first year.” She ignored Dumbledore’s growing grave look, and McGonagall’s small gasp, as she continued. “He failed to mention, however, that I had been possessed at the time, so the Gryffindors decided to form their own conclusions. Apparently, I am one of…” she forced out the name… “Voldemort’s closest supporters, and I helped choose the victims for the attacks two nights ago.” She said this all with a definite sardonic lilt. “My housemates decided that I was not worthy of being a Gryffindor. Parvati Patil decided to show me exactly what they thought of me,” here she gestured to the black and blue bruise on her left cheek that she had purposely left unhealed, “while the others stood back and silently cheered her on.” She looked directly into Dumbledore’s disappointed blue eyes now, void of their usual twinkle. She managed to stop herself before admitting, 'If being a Gryffindor means being judgmental and hypocritical, then I would rather not be one,' as the Weasley blood within her recoiled at just the thought. “I will not apologize for defending myself…” she carefully edited her dialogue once more by not adding, 'against those worthless ingrates.' “I know Slytherins with more sense and house loyalty than those mighty Gryffindors showed to me.” Ginny took a deep breath after her short speech. She knew she should not have been so unrepentant, but she refused to sit back and allow them to make her out to be the villain of the tale. Spending time with Blaise, she decided, had definitely had an effect on her. She was even starting to sneer the name ‘Gryffindor,’ just as he did…
“Ms. Weasley,” Professor McGonagall hissed, obviously appalled. “Now I know that your parents did not raise you to act this way… And you are a prefect!” Ginny stiffened and managed to stop herself from rolling her eyes in annoyance in front of the Headmaster and his Deputy Headmistress. She forced a slight shrug, and kept her eyes focused on the old wizard across from her.
“Ms. Weasley,” Dumbledore began, obviously disturbed by the situation, which slightly disturbed Ginny, who was used to seeing the greatest wizard of the age confident and happy. “The actions of your housemates, while disappointing, do not justify your curse on them. I will have to contact Molly and Arthur on this matter,” he stated. Ginny’s unemotional mask stayed in place as he continued. “As your actions were provoked, I will not stipulate a punishment too serious. Although,” he paused to look intently at the young girl before him, “your position as a Prefect is under debate.” Ginny froze, her heart dropping. She had earned that position, they could not take it away from her. She forced her features not to show the pain she was feeling, but she was sure that Dumbledore could probably see it anyway. The old wizard nodded slightly, as if finally understanding some complex puzzle, before stating that she would serve detention every weekday evening for the next two weeks with Professor McGonagall. Also, 75 points had been taken from Gryffindor House. Ginny could care less about the points. Right now, she would prefer that even Slytherin win the House Cup – any house but those traitorous Gryffindors.
Ginny nodded curtly, and stood to leave after her punishment had been stated. “Ms. Weasley,” Professor McGonagall’s voice stopped her from moving to the door. “Don’t you want to hear your housemates’ punishments?” she asked with a small, tight smile on her lips. Ginny looked at the older witch, allowing the surprise to show clearly on her face. She had thought that they were getting away with what they had done to her…
“Negative fifteen points, and three weeks of detention with Professor Snape, for each student present in the common room who stood by and watched a fellow housemate be attacked,” came Dumbledore’s voice. “And Ms. Patil will spend an eventful month of detention with Mr. Filch, after losing 100 points from the Gryffindor total.” Ginny looked at the two professors, both having been Gryffindors in their own school days, and understood what it meant for them to take so many points away from their old house. There was no way that Gryffindor would win the House Cup now – they had not been leading by more that twenty points at the beginning of the holidays. She smiled slightly at them both, realizing that they were just as disappointed in her housemates as they had shown to be in her. She knew that she could have just left the common room without having hexed its occupants, but she had chosen to cast that charm. She was willing to deal with the consequences now. She doubted her housemates would take the news of their punishments nearly as well…
“Good day, Professors,” she said softly as she turned and left Dumbledore’s office. Ginny went straight to the library, and began to look for sources for her History of Magic essay.
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Draco smirked slightly as he caught sight of a certain little red head while searching for a table in the back of the library. He was already in a better mood than he had been yesterday – a quick walk past the display of house points tallies near the entrance of the Great Hall had shown that Gryffindor was now down to 127 points, placing Slytherin in the lead with its 487 points. As he walked over to her, Draco surmised that the little Weaslette’s hex on her housemates the previous day, had probably had something to do with Slytherin’s new position as the leading contender for the House Cup.
“Weasley,” he drawled, placing himself languidly on the seat across from her. She looked up, then quickly looked back down to continue writing on her parchment, ignoring him. Now this was unacceptable, he decided. No one ignores Draco Malfoy. So he sneered slightly, and did something to get her attention – he grabbed the homework she was working on. He leaned back, reading the first few lines of her essay.
'Nimue, also known as Vivienne, Nineve, and Niniane, was a great witch of the early Middle Ages. She is best remembered for capturing the heart of the great wizard Merlin. But she was also his student, and learned to wield her power over magic just as well as she wielded her power over men. Daughter of a Muggle Duke and a Siren – an especially beautiful mermaid with an enchanting voice…'
That was as far as Draco got before the unfinished essay was ripped away from him by an irritated little weasel. “What do you want, Malfoy?” Her face was flushed, and Draco decided that it looked quite cute that way. That thought was only in his mind for a moment before he mentally slapped it away.
“Just to talk, Weaslette,” he responded snidely. When she turned back to her essay once more – most likely to continue ignoring him – he decided to take a different approach. “You know, I can heal that for you,” he said quietly, indicating the bruise on her cheek. She stiffened slightly and narrowed her eyes suspiciously at him.
“I can heal it myself, thank you,” she responded swiftly, before looking back down at her work. Draco sighed silently, before lifting his hand to her cheek, and gently laying it on her soft, warm skin as he whispered a healing charm. Ginny started at the touch, and then lifted her own hand to touch her once-again-pale cheek once he had moved his back. She fingered where the bruise had once been, and then looked at him as though she had never seen him before. “Thank you,” she said softly. Draco tried not to grin like an idiot at the sweet tone of her voice – directed at him – and rubbed his hand against his arm to get rid of the remnants of the intense tingle he had felt when touching her. She shook her head slightly, as though to rid herself of a daze, and then gave him a small smile. “Are you okay?” she asked, pointing vaguely to his neck, where Creevey had laid his hands the night before.
Draco sneered slightly at the memory of the attack, and of her words – 'Draco Malfoy is not worth it!' – and responded scathingly. “I’m fine, no thanks to Creevey.” Any previous softness in her gaze was quickly replaced with indignation as she retorted.
“You should not have called him what you did – that is such a vile term!” she hissed in anger, trying to stay quiet so as not to alert Madame Pince.
“I’ve called Granger that tons of times, but she never tried to strangle me,” he pointed out.
“That’s because Hermione’s little sister hadn’t just been murdered by Death Eaters!” Ginny looked ready to do some bodily harm to the blonde herself right now. Her glare faded, though, when she saw the shock clearly on the Slytherin’s face. “I’m sure the whole school will know by this afternoon,” she said quietly. “I’m not sure if you even care,” and she looked truly disgusted at that thought, “but she was only five years old. Colin had only learned about her death a few hours before we came across you, Blaise, and Parkinson.” She paused then, seeming to realize something. “Is Blaise alright?” she asked, her concern evident. “I know he was hurt by how Colin acted yesterday, but it was only because he was still in a total emotional mess.” She leaned in to Draco then. “I know that Colin does not hold any hard feelings against Blaise,” she whispered sadly. “He just couldn’t really deal with talking about what had happened yesterday.” She leaned back, and Draco could only nod slightly.
He did not know what to say. He was an only child, so he could not grasp the pain Creevey must have felt at losing a sibling. But an innocent little girl was dead. He had read about others’ deaths in the Prophet, but for some reason, this seemed so much more real, and so much worse. Seeing Ginny Weasley’s sad face, recalling her red puffy eyes from the night before, stirred an insurmountable anger within Draco. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly, looking down instead of at the other occupant of the table.
“Thank you,” she responded gently, “but I am not the person you should be apologizing to.” Draco’s head snapped up at her implied suggestion. Her gaze was surprisingly unreadable as she studied his face, presumably to see if he would take her advice.
“I’ll speak with Creevey,” he conceded. After all, if Blaise really cared about the younger boy, Draco might as well try to get along with him. It didn’t hurt that his agreement seemed to please Ginny Weasley, but he swiftly pushed that thought aside. He would apologize for Blaise’s sake, and that was it. His mind scoffed at his attempted self-disillusionment as his insides squirmed – they actually squirmed! – when Ginny smiled at him. Draco tried to smirk in response, but his muscles were not cooperating, and he had the suspicious feeling that he had actually smiled at her. “You know, Malfoy, you’re really not so bad,” she stated softly, not looking very surprised by the revelation.
Draco scoffed. “Of course I am!” He could not let his reputation as the Prince of Slytherin suffer. Ginny giggled slightly, and he sent her his best glare. She simply continued to smile at him, and leaned forward once more. Draco inhaled the uniquely sweet and spicy scent of her, and felt a shiver run up his spine.
“Whatever you say, Draco.” His name rolled off her tongue so smoothly, as though it had been devised specifically to be released from her sweet mouth. Draco stared at her pink lips for a few endless moments, before snapping out of the visual fantasy he had conjured of claiming them with his own. He quickly stood, needing to get away from the girl, before he did something extremely stupid, like kiss her. He saw Ginny watching him with an amused glint in her eyes, and a smile playing at her lips.
“Later, Weasley,” he said shortly, and turned to leave, hoping to make a quick exit.
“Ginny,” she stated flatly. He turned back with one questioning eyebrow raised. “My name,” she expanded. “My name is Ginny.” She arched her own eyebrow as his face relaxed to its customary smirk.
“Ginny,” he repeated, nodding. Then he turned away once more, and made his way through the library to the doors. “Ginny,” he whispered, once he was in the safety of an empty corridor. He shook his head slightly. He couldn’t even remember why he had gone to the library in the first place anymore. With a slight shrug and a satisfied smirk on his face, Draco made his way back to the Slytherin dungeons.
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Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all related characters and concepts are the property of J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Scholastic, and Warner Bros., among others. Only the plot and any unfamiliar characters are mine.
*Information about Nimue was found through various websites.
NOTE: Thanks for reading. Please review and let me know what you think.
To Be Continued.
Rosa di Corte is the author of 1 other stories.
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