CHAPTER THREE
It was three days after the Slytherin common room had been defaced, and Ginny was down in the dungeons again, staring at the wall.
The paint was gone now, the red paint that had scrawled the crude message, “GO HOME, SLYTHERINS.” There was not a smidge of it left, staining the stone walls. In fact, Ginny was not even sure she was in the right place, standing opposite the right expanse of wall that concealed the entry into the common room. She had never been down here until a few days ago, and the walled corridors all looked the same to her. She had the right corridor, she thought, but where exactly the door was, she didn’t know.
She couldn’t suppress a shudder as she turned away. Seeing it the other night—not the common room, but the wall outside it, the stone wall, graffitied with that dripping, red message—had taken her right back to her first year at Hogwarts. To the Chamber of Secrets, to the first attack after the Halloween feast, finding Filch’s cat hanging from the wall and that other, different message scrawled in red over her—the message that Ginny herself had written, even if she had no memory of doing it. To this day.
She knew that was in the past now. Tom Riddle was gone; he was not possessing her or anyone else, and even if he was, he would hardly write threatening messages to the Slytherins. It was not as though she feared she had done it, mucked up the common room without remembering it. That was ridiculous.
But seeing it upset her all the same. And she could not shake it.
“I’m telling you, I can’t do it, not anymore—!”
“Would you keep it down, everyone in the castle can hear you! Look—come this way—”
Ginny frowned, perking up at the sound of raised voices down the corridor. She couldn’t see anyone, as she peered into the gloom, but this corridor wound round and round, so it was possible whoever was speaking was just out of sight. Ginny picked up her pace, half-trotting down the corridor, and just when she thought she must’ve missed the speakers, she caught a flash of blond hair vanishing into a small alcove off the main corridor.
Ginny slowed just enough to make sure her feet didn’t make a sound as she approached the alcove. Two large pillars blocked it off from the main corridor, so she hurried up behind one, pressing her back into the smooth, curving surface as she listened to the hushed conversation just a few feet away. It should have been none of her business, she supposed, but those few words sounded odd—“I can’t do it, not anymore”—and after all, a common room had just been attacked down the hall from here…
“—know that things have a been a bit nerve-wracking lately,” a girl was saying. Ginny didn’t recognize the voice at all.
“A bit!” came another girl’s voice. “A bit! The common room was broken into, for Merlin’s sake, which is why we’re having this conversation out here and not in there! There’s no telling who can get in. We’re not safe, Daphne!”
Ginny edged her head out from behind the pillar, craning her neck to get a glimpse of the two girls. One of them was just out of sight, but the other Ginny recognized—Millicent Bulstrode. She was in Hermione’s year, one of the “old” seventh years in Slytherins who had returned.
“Look, I know, all right?” This was not Bulstrode speaking, but the other girl, and though Ginny couldn’t see her, she thought she must also be from Hermione’s year, another Slytherin—Ginny was pretty sure one of them had a name like Daphne…what was it…Greengrass, that was it. Daphne Greengrass. “But we can’t just leave school.”
“Speak for yourself,” Bulstrode said gruffly. “I can scrape by a few N.E.W.T.s with what I’ve got, that’s all I need. My dad’s got a job lined up for me anyway—”
“So you’re just going to give in?” Daphne sounded incredulous. “To whoever broke into the common room and wrote that message? “Go home, Slytherins,” that’s what it said, and you’re just going to do it? Where’s your House pride?”
“I’d rather be alive than proud, Daphne.”
“Okay, yes, but—” Daphne sighed. “Look, go, if you want, I guess. But I can’t. I’m staying.”
“Why?” Bulstrode argued. “I don’t understand why finishing out the year is so important to you. You convinced me to come back, and I agreed, even though I didn’t want to. You can probably scrape through with more N.E.W.T.s than me, that’s for sure, so why stay?”
There was a long silence. Ginny resisted the urge to shift her weight as she waited for an answer, an answer she was eager to know herself. Then, finally, Daphne said—
“Because of my sister, all right?” Her voice was so low Ginny almost couldn’t hear her. “Astoria didn’t want to come back without me. I mean, after last year and all—and she just wanted me to come back, and I said I would. And it’s not like she can leave, she’s got to take O.W.L.s this year, properly, I mean, so—so that’s it. That’s why I can’t leave.”
Ginny swallowed, pressing her hands back into the pillar. She was not sure what she had expected to hear—that Daphne had returned for some nefarious Slytherin plot, she supposed—but she certainly hadn’t expected this. This…well, this very normal, understandable reason.
“So, I guess, go, if you want.” Daphne’s voice was louder now, and surer. “I can’t stop you. But if you go, what’re Davis and I going to do without you?”
“You had to go and bring Davis into it,” Bulstrode grumbled. “Now you’re playing dirty.”
“Well, I know you don’t care about me, but you don’t want to leave her behind, do you?”
“Oh, fine, shut up, already,” Bulstrode groused. “I’ll stay, all right? But if anything else happens, Daphne, I swear—”
“I know, I get it.” Daphne laughed, and the pealing sound echoed into the alcove, startling Ginny. “Oh, I’m just glad you’re staying. Look, the year’ll be over before we know it, all right? It’s already almost Christmas hols, only a few weeks away—”
“A good month away, still—”
“Oh, Millie, why do you have to be so negative about everything…”
Ginny inched around the pillar as the girls emerged from the alcove, their voices disappearing down the corridor. She waited for several seconds before peeking her head out from behind the pillar to make sure they were well and truly gone. The corridor stretched before her, dim and empty. Letting out a long exhale, Ginny sagged in relief.
“Hullo, Ginny.”
“Merlin!” Ginny jumped a foot in the air, looking around. “Luna!”
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Luna said serenely.
“You didn’t—I mean—” Ginny gulped a new breath of air. “I’m fine. Sorry, Luna.” She tucked her hair behind her ear. “What’re you doing down here?”
“I left my jumper in Slughorn’s classroom this morning,” Luna said. “It got so hot in there working on the Calming Draughts, which is odd, when you think about it…what are you doing down here?”
Ginny bit the inside of her cheek. Luna was one of her best friends, but she wasn’t sure if she wanted to confide in anyone about how she’d felt when they found the common room trashed, and that message on the wall…and anyway, her head was full of other things now. Like the conversation she’d just overheard, between two Slytherin girls, two completely normal teenage girls who were just worried about their own safety.
She had not thought much about how the Slytherins must feel, having their common broken into and defaced. If she was honest with herself, she had tried not to think about it, and besides, she’d been too focused on her own feelings, thinking about the Chamber of Secrets…but the two were not really connected, were they, what had happened back then and what was happening now…or maybe they were, in ways Ginny didn’t want to admit…
“Luna,” Ginny said slowly, “do you think I’m…prejudiced?”
Luna blinked owlishly at her. “Against the Slytherins, you mean?”
Ginny nodded. Her throat felt tight, as though some part of her didn’t want to get the words out. “It’s just…” She couldn’t shake seeing that message, how it reminded her of first year, but maybe it was really Malfoy she couldn’t shake. What he’d said to her in the hospital wing. That she couldn’t fathom a Gryffindor might do something so underhanded. That she couldn’t fathom that, maybe, the Slytherins had been wronged.
It wasn’t like she believed all Slytherins were evil. But…neither did she really think of them as…well, as people like she had just seen in Bulstrode and Daphne Greengrass, two people who were just scared and concerned about their family and friends.
“I don’t know about being prejudiced,” Luna said, “but I think you’re very angry.”
Ginny realized she was fidgeting with her fingers and forced herself to stop. “Angry?” She couldn’t deny that. Especially not after the way she’d gone off on Malfoy a few nights ago.
“Yes,” said Luna. “And that’s perfectly understandable, after everything you’ve been through. But I don’t think it’s the Slytherins you’re really mad at. They’re not really to blame for Voldemort or the Death Eaters, are they?”
Ginny felt like there was a knot in her chest. She could hear Malfoy in the back of her head. You don’t have to fight us. We’re not the enemy. But who else was there left to fight?
“Come on,” Ginny heard herself say, her mind working furiously through an idea—one that frightened her a little. But when had she ever backed down from something just because it was frightening? “Let’s get to dinner. I’m starving.”
Hermione and Parvati sat on her left at dinner, their conversation a muddle of what might come up on their Herbology exam and what new fashion of robes had been featured in Witch Weekly. Conversations between Hermione and Parvati were often like this, yet somehow they managed—since Parvati had lost her best friend and Hermione’s friends had not come back to school. On Ginny’s right, Demelza, Dean, Seamus, and Ritchie Cootes talked Quidditch, discussing which teams in the league might be best next year. Normally, Ginny would have participated in this kind of talk, but she was only half-listening as she scarfed down her shepherd’s pie, her eyes glued to the entrance of the hall. She was just beginning to think that Malfoy was not going to turn up for dinner when he finally appeared in the doorway, coming in and heading for the Slytherin table.
“Excuse me,” Ginny said vaguely, and she was not sure if she was talking to Hermione or Dean, since they were both in mid-sentence about something. “I’ll be right back.”
She stood abruptly, leaving her shepherd’s pie half-finished, and strode across the hall, weaving around to the far end of the Slytherin table, where Malfoy had just sat down. There were few people near him—a group of first or second years a little ways down on his right, and far, far down on the left, sat Harper and Vaisey. Still, it was a little unsettling, marching right up to the Slytherin table, but that’s what Ginny did.
“Malfoy,” she said, and her voice sounded louder, more combative, than she meant it to. She winced as she noticed Harper and Vaisey look over at her.
Malfoy did not look up, though he’d obviously heard her. For half a second, he seemed frozen, and then, quite calmly, he began piling roast beef onto his plate. “What do you want, Weasley?”
She remembered what he’d said the other day, about not wanting to walk up to the Gryffindor table in the middle of dinner. “I’m walking up to the Slytherin table,” she said, wondering if her light-hearted tone sounded a little too anxious. “In the middle of dinner. See how easy it is?”
“Is that the only reason you came over here?” he drawled. He still was not looking at her.
“No, you prat.” Not liking the feel of eyes on her, Ginny plopped down onto the bench opposite him. Which, of course, only drew more eyes. Including Malfoy’s.
“What are you doing?” he hissed. “You can’t sit here!”
Ginny rolled her eyes. “What are they going to do, give me detention?” It wasn’t a written-in-stone rule, that you couldn’t sit at other House tables. It was just, you didn’t sit at other House tables. “No one cares.” That was obviously not true, judging by some of the scowls she was getting from Slytherins down the table, but she looked back at Malfoy and tried to ignore them.
“What do you want, then?” he asked gruffly.
Ginny wedged her hands under her legs so that she wouldn’t fidget. “You said the Slytherins were being targeted. I want to know how.”
“You saw the common room, Weasley.”
“Yes, but you told me that before that happened. So? What exactly did you mean? How are the Slytherins being targeted, aside from your common room being defaced?”
Malfoy snuck a glance at her as he tucked into his pudding. Now that she was under his gaze, she felt just as uncomfortable as he had looked a few seconds before, and not just because she was sitting at the Slytherin table, putting her pride aside and talking to Malfoy like a normal person. It was because she could not stop thinking of the last time they’d spoken. She could not stop remembering everything she’d said to him. And while she was not sure that he didn’t deserve it all, she couldn’t forget the look on his face either, and the way he’d fled from her after she’d said it.
“Why do you want to know?” Malfoy finally asked.
Ginny shrugged. “Because,” she said, forcing the words out, “if it’s really happening, maybe…something needs to be done about it.”
Malfoy’s eyebrows shot up. “You mean you want to help?”
“I don’t know, Malfoy,” Ginny said, irritated. She didn’t know. All she knew was, if the only reason she wanted to fight the Slytherins was because she needed to have someone to fight—as she had shamefully admitted to Malfoy three nights ago—then she needed to establish if they were actually deserving of her enmity. Because if they weren’t, then, well….
She had gone off on Malfoy that night because she was already rattled, and it had felt good, to throw it all back at him, especially since he probably did deserve it. But that last thing she’d said—that she couldn’t stop fighting—that had spilled out from someplace inside of her that Ginny didn’t even know existed, and it frightened her. It meant that maybe Hermione was right, and she’d been looking for fights. And now, after what happened to the Slytherin common room, it was starting to seem like she’d been looking in the wrong place.
“Look, I don’t even know what’s going on,” Ginny said. “What you meant, when you said the Slytherins were being targeted. So will you just tell me?”
Draco narrowed his eyes at her. He shoveled another forkful of pudding into his mouth and chewed, studying her all the while. Ginny tried to remain calm as he stared at her.
Then he said, “I can do better than that. I can show you.”
“Show me?” That sounded rather dire. “What do you mean?”
Draco took a long sip of pumpkin juice and said, “Just meet me up on the seventh floor tomorrow night, after dinner. All right?”
“No, not all right,” Ginny said in exasperation. “Meet you for what, Malfoy?”
Malfoy smirked at her, and though it was such a familiar expression, Ginny realized she hadn’t seen it from him since he’d come back to Hogwarts. “Scared, Weasley?”
“Don’t be stupid.”
“Then meet me. And you can learn all about how we poor Slytherins are being targeted. Deal?”
Ginny twisted her lips, feeling as though she’d eaten something sour. If he was planning something nasty for her, she’d walked right into it. “Fine, Malfoy. I’ll meet you. But if you try anything—” She leaned across the table, summoning her most savage glare “—don’t you forget that Bat-Bogey Hex I used on you in Umbridge’s office two years ago.”
Malfoy looked alarmed, but then he waved his fork at her in a most blasé gesture. “Don’t worry, Weasley. I’ve never forgotten that.”
And so, twenty-four hours later, on Saturday evening, Ginny traipsed up the stairs of the castle to the seventh floor. She’d slept in late that morning and spent most of the day doing homework, partly because she had fallen behind and partly because it kept her distracted from thinking about meeting Malfoy that evening. Now, though, as she emerged onto the seventh floor, she could hardly think of anything else. She double-checked that she had her wand tucked up the sleeve of her jumper.
“You’re late, Weasley.”
Ginny looked around. There was Malfoy, lounging against the wall not five feet from her. He looked…odd…and it was a moment before Ginny realized it was because he was wearing black slacks and a dark green t-shirt. She had never seen him in a simple t-shirt in, well, ever.
“How can I be late,” she said, trying to get past this disconcerting sight of him, so dressed-down. “You said after dinner. I just finished eating.”
“Well, you took your time about it.” Malfoy straightened, flicking his head to indicate she should follow him. “Everyone else is probably already there.”
“What do you mean, everyone else? Where are we going, Malfoy?” Ginny demanded, as she half-trotted to catch up to him.
“Don’t you trust me, Weasley?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, of course I don’t trust you.”
When Malfoy stopped in front of a blank stretch of wall, Ginny could have kicked herself. She glanced at the tapestry behind her, the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy and his dancing trolls. Of course. She should have realized. But… “I thought this place was destroyed last year.” Because of your pal Crabbe, she resisted from adding.
“A little singed, is all,” Draco said in an abstracted tone. “I don’t think anything can actually destroy this place. Now be quiet, Weasley, I need to concentrate.”
Ginny bit her tongue, once again feeling for her wand. The Room of Requirement. It didn’t matter that Ginny had used the room frequently, mostly to meet with the D.A. or to hide out last year. The room could be anything, and that meant Malfoy could be taking her into anything.
After a few seconds, a door appeared in the wall. With one last enigmatic glance at her, Malfoy pulled open the door and walked inside. Ginny followed, slightly mollified that he’d gone first.
Once she was inside, Ginny blinked several times, her eyes adjusting to the dimness. There were lamps lit all around the large room, but their light had been dampened to a low, cozy glow. The next thing she had to adjust to was the assault of green and silver around her—from the banners hanging on the walls to the cushions set in the numerous armchairs and sofas to the rugs covering the stone floors. There were some bookshelves and a few well-placed desks as well, all in ebony wood, and in the very back of the room, a fire crackled in a large fireplace.
“It’s…the Slytherin common room,” Ginny said, who recognized it despite only seeing a defaced version of it.
“Not quite,” said a blond girl, sitting in the armchair nearest the entrance. Ginny recognized her—Daphne Greengrass. “We haven’t got the lake.”
For that was the other thing about the room. In addition to all the decor, the room was full of Slytherins—near everyone from Slytherin House, from what Ginny could tell. Sitting in armchairs, bunched together on sofas, a few sitting at the desks, and others who were just standing about, leaning against the bookcases and the walls.
“What the hell, Malfoy?” This came from Dustin Vaisey, who sat on a sofa with Harper in the center of the room, opposite a large, ornate coffee table. “What did you bring her here for? The whole idea of this place was that no one could get in but us!”
“Not one can get in but us,” Malfoy said dismissively. “Weasley only got in because she came with me.”
“But she could get in on her own now, couldn’t she? And she could bring a whole pack of Gryffindors with her, all her bloody D.A. friends!”
“She can’t bring anyone in here who isn’t a Slytherin.” Malfoy descended the two short, shallows steps into the room, but Ginny stayed where she was by the door. “That’s how the room works.”
“Doesn’t answer the question,” said Harper quietly. “Why’d you bring her in the first place? This was supposed to be a meeting about what happened to the common room. And what we’re going to do about it.”
“Yes,” said Daphne, “that’s what Tracey told me. But whose idea was it to call this meeting in the first place?”
Malfoy put on a confident expression—something almost like the swaggering look he always used to wear, only now, it looked a little tenuous, as though he couldn’t quite remember how to summon it. “I did, of course.”
Judging by the general reaction of dismay and displeasure at this pronouncement, Ginny judged that most of the Slytherins hadn’t realized this. Harper’s head snapped up in shock, Daphne’s jaw dropped open, another seventh year girl groaned audibly, and Vaisey was quickly turning purple with outrage.
At the back of the room, Blaise Zabini straightened where he stood. “You didn’t mention that when you told me about this meeting, Draco. You just said you’d heard it was going to happen.”
“Yes.” Malfoy smiled evenly, not quite a smirk. “Because I knew you wouldn’t spread the word if I said it was my idea.”
“And why is that, Draco?” another girl snapped. She was sitting in an armchair opposite Daphne Greengrass, and Ginny guessed she must be her sister, because she had the same ashy blond hair. “Maybe because the whole reason we’re so hated now, the whole reason our common room was trashed, was because of you! After all, no one else here was ever a Death Eater, were they?”
“Yeah,” said Vaisey, an ugly look on his face, “and you weren’t even very good at that, from what I hear.”
Ginny looked at Malfoy, edging to the right to get a glimpse of his face. He looked a little pale—paler than usual, anyway—but when he spoke, he sounded a bit like his old self.
“I’m hardly the first or only Death Eater to come out of this House,” he drawled. “Laying all the blame on me for what the rest of the students think of us is a little harsh, don’t you think, Astoria?” He looked at the girl who had accused him of just that.
“No, you’re right.” Her blue-green eyes were as hard and cold as chips of ice. “That bloody bint of yours is just as much to blame, Parkinson, for panicking when Voldemort turned up last year and demanded Potter.” Then she startled Ginny by looking right at her. “We didn’t all want to hand him over to save our own skins, you know.”
“Which is exactly the point I wanted to make,” Draco said smoothly.
“I still haven’t heard any reason to care about anything you have to say, Malfoy,” Vaisey sneered.
Malfoy’s eyes flashed. Ginny remembered how he’d said he didn’t care what Vaisey thought of him, but now she wondered how true that was, as Draco turned to face him head-on.
“You should care, Vaisey, because I’m the only one here who is proposing we do something about these attacks on us.” There was a bit of a snarl to his words, marring his calm appearance. “I’m the one who’s got a solution, so I suggest you hear me out.” His gaze swept the room. “Unless anyone else has some idea how to protect ourselves?”
“I have an idea,” said Harper sharply. “Find out whoever’s targeting us in the first place.”
“And then what?” Malfoy said, skipping over the question of how they would find out who was targeting them, which Ginny thought the more important question. “Confront them?”
“Punish them,” Vaisey growled. “But without getting caught. Steal Veritaserum from Slughorn, use it to find out their common room passwords, and muck up their private space.”
“Spike their pumpkin juice with a Forgetfulness Potion so they think they’re going mad,” suggested Daphne Greengrass.
“Spread some nasty rumors about them,” said Blaise Zabini, who looked quite thoughtful as he leaned against a bookcase.
“Ask the Bloody Baron to haunt them until they wet themselves,” muttered a dark-haired boy on Ginny’s left.
“You people are bloody terrifying,” Ginny announced. Several Slytherins shot surprised looks her way, as though they’d forgotten she was there, hovering behind Malfoy. She took another step forward, coming abreast of him, and glanced his way. “This is how you convince me the “poor Slytherins” need help?”
“Oh, please, Weasley, don’t tell me you were actually put off by that feeble load of drivel.” Malfoy’s voice dripped scorn. “That was pathetic. I could come up with five better ideas in my sleep.”
Ginny privately agreed with this, but she was hardly going to admit so out loud.
“I should’ve guessed.” Vaisey shook his head, his lip curling. “This is why you brought Weasley here? This is your grand solution? You actually think she’s going to help us?”
“I might, Vaisey.” Ginny planted her feet firmly and faced him. “If I hear a good reason why I should. Which has yet to happen.”
“My reason wasn’t good enough for you?” Astoria Greengrass demanded. Her eyes blazed as she twisted around in her chair to face Ginny. “Well, how about this, Weasley—not only did many of us not agree with that cow Parkinson when she wanted to turn Potter over, but some of us would have liked to have stayed and fought with the rest of the students. Does that make us good enough for you?”
Ginny gaped at her, and she wasn’t the only one. Daphne looked aghast. “You wouldn’t really have stayed.”
Harper added scornfully, “You weren’t even of age.”
“So what, Cole? Neither was Colin Creevey,” Astoria said, her furious tone dying down into a quiet one, “but he snuck back anyway. And died for it.”
The sharp retort on Ginny’s mind—that Astoria was full of shit, basically, because it was easy to say that now, that she would have fought—died on her tongue. She didn’t know why it shocked her, but it did—that Astoria even knew Colin’s name. That she knew who he was, what he’d done, and that he’d died.
Somehow, that opened up a crack in Ginny’s resolve. In the idea that the Slytherins were all the same—and not worth it.
“You did ask me, Weasley,” Malfoy said grimly, “where the Slytherins were during the battle last year. There’s your answer. McGonagall didn’t give any of them the chance to stay.”
“And what about the rest of the year, Malfoy?” Ginny demanded. “Where were you all when the rest of us were living under the Carrows’ thumb?”
It was Harper who answered then, his voice so soft that it was a moment before Ginny realized he was the one speaking. “We were in the same place you were, Weasley.” His eyes were fixed on the dark table in front of him. “Living in the same hell.”
Ginny folded her arms over her chest. She told herself it was so she might look imposing, but she couldn’t help but feel that it was to guard herself instead. “That’s rich, coming from you.”
“Why?” He jerked his head up. “Because I did what Carrow made me do, and cast the Cruciatus Curse on you?”
“Oh, right.” A dry, disbelieving laugh escaped Ginny’s lips. “He made you do it, and you didn’t enjoy a single part of it—”
“I didn’t!” Harper was on his feet in an instant, his dark eyes glimmering with fury. “Is that what you think?” Now he was the one to laugh, and Ginny wondered if her own laugh had sounded so hollow, so dead. “Merlin, it must be so nice to be you, Weasley. Ginny Weasley, champion of the people, rebelling against the Death Eaters. It must have been so easy for you, defying Carrow at every turn, refusing his orders, even when it meant more pain, even when it meant risking your safety, your family’s safety—”
“It wasn’t,” Ginny whispered. He was so wrong about that, and yet, for some reason, his description of her stung. “It was never easy.”
“Neither was what I did.” Harper was trembling, though with what—anger, fear, shame?—Ginny couldn’t guess. “But I didn’t feel like I had a choice. I didn’t know how to be a bloody hero like you. I was—I was scared—not just that day, but every second of every bloody day last year. I didn’t enjoy it, Weasley. Not ever.”
Ginny tightened her arms across her chest until she was practically hugging herself. So he had been scared, so what? It was over now for him, just like it was for Malfoy, just like it was for all of them— “I still have nightmares about that day,” she said, and her voice was thicker than she liked.
Harper met her gaze, and she was startled to see the wetness glistening in his eyes. “So do I, Weasley.”
Malfoy said, “He was just a kid, Weasley. Just like you.”
Ginny turned on him angrily. “I didn’t feel much like a kid, Malfoy.”
“Yeah, well,” Harper said, his voice hoarse, “neither did I.”
Ginny turned on her heel to face him again. She wanted to call this a load of dung too, only, standing there, with his fists clenched by his sides and defiant tears in his eyes, Harper had never looked more like a kid. A scared kid, just like he said. One who, like Ginny, was maybe still scared.
Ginny unfolded her arms long enough to run a shaky hand through her hair, mussing it thoroughly. She drew in a slow, silent breath, trying to steady herself, wondering when she had lost control here. Maybe she’d never had it to begin with.
She turned away, hoping she didn’t look as brittle as she felt. Her buckling knees barely held her up long enough to get to the steps behind her, where she sat, pulling one leg up to her chest. She set her quivering chin on her knee and clenched her jaw, determined not to move until she felt more stable. She could feel eyes on her, all their eyes, and it burned.
Then Malfoy was there, right in front of her, blocking out all the eyes. All she could see were his knees.
“Look, Weasley,” he said, and if his voice was not exactly contrite, it was at least impassive. “I didn’t bring you here to attack you.”
Slowly, Ginny raised her head to look him in the face. About ten different retorts sprang to mind, most of which expressed that, yes, she did feel under attack, and how could she not, one Gryffindor alone with the rest of Slytherin House. But she swallowed all this, her mouth twisting bitterly at him in silence.
“Forget me,” he said bluntly. “Forget Harper, even. We’re not all of Slytherin House.” He raised an arm, gesturing to all the others behind him. “What about the Muggleborns?”
“Muggleborns?” Ginny echoed.
“There are Muggleborns in Slytherin, you know.” Draco turned and pointed out a mousy girl who was sitting at one of the desks, alongside Millicent Bulstrode. “Like Tracey Davis over there. She’s Muggleborn, aren’t you, Davis?”
“Yeah.” Tracey Davis raised her arm in a disgruntled wave. “Hi.”
“Though it is rare,” Malfoy admitted.
Tracey huffed. “Not so rare as you’d probably like, Draco.”
Malfoy widened his eyes innocently. “I’m not saying a word against you, Trace.”
“But you have before. Many times.” The Davis girl eyed the Greengrass sisters. “And you aren’t the only one.”
“Tracey!” Daphne protested. She straightened in her chair and gestured towards Ginny. “We’re supposed to be convincing Weasley we’re worth helping!”
“Well, I am,” Tracey grumbled.
Daphne sighed. “Tracey had us all fooled into thinking she was half-blood until fourth year,” she said to Ginny. “Which is quite brilliant, actually. But then Pansy found out and, well, we all turned on her.”
“Nice,” Ginny said dryly.
“At first,” Daphne hastened to add. “But eventually, I decided that my sister was right and that Pansy was a cow and that, well, I didn’t care what she thought. And we were friends again then, weren’t we, Trace?”
Tracey added resentfully, “In secret, anyway.”
“Yes, well.” Daphne actually had the grace to look abashed. “Look, I’m not proud of it. But Pansy is gone now, and good riddance. Because I really don’t care who’s Muggleborn and who’s pureblood and who’s not, and I’m not the only one here that thinks that either, Weasley.”
Ginny only nodded, too exhausted to make another response. The truth was, it wasn’t so hard to accept that some of the Slytherins didn’t share the Death Eaters’ prejudices. Certainly it was easier to accept than the idea of Harper being just as much a victim as she was.
“Of course,” and it was Millicent Bulstrode who spoke now, “Davis being Muggleborn didn’t stop a pack of Ravenclaw girls from bullying us in the library. They even called Davis a Muggle-hater.”
Ginny frowned. “What Ravenclaw girls? And why would they do that?”
“We didn’t ask their names, Weasley,” Daphne said primly. “We got out of there as soon as we could. It’s no good picking fights with Ravenclaws, they have too many tricks up their sleeves. And as for why they did it, no idea. I swear we didn’t do anything to provoke them. They were glaring murder at us the minute we walked into the library, like we didn’t belong there. And then when Tracey got up to put up a pile of books, one of them shoved her from behind and another slapped all the books out of her hands and called her a Muggle-hater.”
Ginny squinted. “For no reason?”
“Yes, Weasley, for no reason.” Daphne threw her arms up, exasperated.
“It’s true.” Ginny lifted her head as Blaise Zabini spoke up. He’d been so still and quiet in the back that she’d nearly forgotten he was there. “I was there, I saw it all. And as for me, I’ve definitely been getting a lot more “accidental” shoves in the corridors lately.”
“We all have,” Harper said sourly. He was seated again, on the sofa, and he gestured to Vaisey beside him.
“That’s nothing. Dustin got ambushed by a couple of blokes on the way to Quidditch practice one morning. They stuffed him in a closet and broke his wand. He was locked in there for hours before anyone found him.”
Ginny looked at Vaisey, who was scowling at the coffee table. He said nothing to confirm or deny this story, possibly because he was too embarrassed to admit it was true. Ginny had no problem believing that it was, but…
“And before you ask, Weasley,” Harper said icily, reading her mind, “no, he didn’t do anything to provoke them. Just like we didn’t do anything to provoke Thomas and Finnegan after the Quidditch match last week when they tried to pick a fight with us.”
“What?” Ginny sat up straight, a new flare of indignation washing some of her weariness away. “You two started that, not them!”
Harper glowered. “How would you know, Weasley? You weren’t there, were you, you were in the changing rooms. You came out into the middle of it.”
Ginny already had her mouth open to argue this point when she realized he was right. Demelza had come in and said “Harper and Vaisey,” and that was all. By the time Ginny had gotten outside, Vaisey was slinging insults…but, she admitted grudgingly, that didn’t mean the Slytherin boys had started it. Still… “I can’t believe Dean tried to pick a fight with you. He wouldn’t do that.”
“He didn’t seem too happy about it, I’ll give you that,” Harper admitted. But Finnegan? He was spoiling for a fight. All Dustin and I were doing was going back to the castle, and he stopped us. We didn’t start it, Weasley.”
Ginny didn’t like to believe this, but unfortunately, it was all too believable. Seamus had always been a bit of a hothead, and then…well. It was all too possible. Especially when she considered that Dean had returned to the castle alone a little while later, even though she could’ve sworn that Seamus had stayed behind to wait for him…
“And Goyle,” Malfoy spoke up suddenly. “He got jumped like I did. Well, they didn’t beat on him, like me, it was only a sucker-punch. But they split his lip open. Some Hufflepuff kid, wasn’t it?”
Goyle stood in the back of the room near Blaise Zabini. He’d been silent as usual, and his face was sullen as he muttered, “Thought you weren’t going to tell anyone about that, Draco.”
“Why would you think that?” Draco made a face. “I never said anything of the sort.”
Goyle’s voice was a low growl. “Just thought I could trust you, is all.”
Draco paled at that, but Ginny didn’t think anyone noticed except her, because Astoria had begun speaking, waving a dismissive hand. “It’s not just the seventh years, either. I’ve been putting up with all sorts of rubbish since term started. A lot of it is piddly kid stuff, like Geoffrey Hooper tossing a dung beetle into my perfect Draught of Peace and ruining it, or some of the others ganging up to hex me while we’re practicing in Defense Against the Dark Arts. But then there was the time—” Her eyes darkened “—when Romilda Vane pushed me into the lake while I was studying there. Ruined my Herbology assignment and everything, and I completely lost my essay for Ancient Runes.”
“But—look—” Ginny rubbed a hand over one eye. “I mean, why don’t you all just tell someone about this, a teacher—”
“Tell them what?” Astoria scoffed. “That we’re being picked on?”
“I think Slughorn has a good idea what’s going on, actually,” Harper said, “but there’s only so much he can do. I mean, if he sees something, he can put a stop to it, give detention, but…” He shrugged.
“And yet you think I can do something about it.” Ginny looked at Draco now. He stood in the center of the room, arms crossed over his chest, and he actually looked lost in thought until Ginny pinned him with her gaze. “Which is what, exactly? I mean, if I see something, I can try and stop it, but…”
“That’s exactly it, Weasley,” Malfoy said, a little impatiently, as though he couldn’t believe she was too stupid to understand this. “Don’t you get it? Look, revenge is all well and good—” He looked around at the rest of the room as he said this “—but it will only get us so far. They hit us, we hit them, and it never stops. But if you stick up for us, Weasley—if you put a stop to it when you see it, if you support us—if you’re even just seen talking to some of us—”
“But—” Ginny climbed to her feet. “I’m just one person, Malfoy. What makes you think everyone will just follow my example, just like that?”
“Oh, please.” This exclamation came from Zabini, and Ginny looked around at him as he straightened and looked right at her. “Don’t act as though you don’t know. Cole said it all—you’re Ginny Weasley. Defender of Hogwarts, hero and rebel, you and Longbottom practically led the whole school against the Carrows last year. And to top it off, you’re the girlfriend of the bloody Chosen One—”
“I’m not,” Ginny said, and the words were out before she could stop them.
“Not what?” Zabini arched an eyebrow. “A rebel? A hero?”
Daphne’s jaw dropped open. “Not Potter’s girlfriend? No! Since when?”
“I—” Ginny felt her cheeks growing warm. “That’s not…relevant.”
“It bloody well is,” Daphne replied. “If Potter is single, interested parties want to know.”
Now Astoria was the one to look aghast at her sister.
“Look, enough about Potter,” Draco snapped, drawing all eyes back to him. “Weasley’s right, he doesn’t matter, because he’s not here. She is, though.” He fixed Ginny with a pointed expression. “So? I think we’ve pretty well lined it all out for you, Weasley. If you don’t believe us about what’s been going on, well, I don’t know what else to say to convince you. But if you do…. Will you help us? Fight for us, instead of against us?”
Ginny flexed her fingers, struggling to conceal her hesitation. Perhaps Harry was relevant, because they had essentially ended things over a disagreement about Malfoy…a disagreement that came about because Harry had done what Malfoy was asking her to do here. But then, it wasn’t exactly the same. Harry had vouched for Malfoy, and Ginny still wasn’t sure that Malfoy deserved that. But he wasn’t the only one here. This was all of Slytherin House, and the fact was, after what had happened to the common room, it wasn’t difficult to believe everything they were saying.
She didn’t have to fight for Malfoy. Nor, even, for Harper. Just for some of these others. And wasn’t that something, something real to fight?
So she heaved a breath, shoved a hand back through her hair, and said, “Look…I’ll do what I can.” It wasn’t an impassioned vow, it wasn’t a grand declaration of commitment. But it was all she could promise for now.
It was three days after the Slytherin common room had been defaced, and Ginny was down in the dungeons again, staring at the wall.
The paint was gone now, the red paint that had scrawled the crude message, “GO HOME, SLYTHERINS.” There was not a smidge of it left, staining the stone walls. In fact, Ginny was not even sure she was in the right place, standing opposite the right expanse of wall that concealed the entry into the common room. She had never been down here until a few days ago, and the walled corridors all looked the same to her. She had the right corridor, she thought, but where exactly the door was, she didn’t know.
She couldn’t suppress a shudder as she turned away. Seeing it the other night—not the common room, but the wall outside it, the stone wall, graffitied with that dripping, red message—had taken her right back to her first year at Hogwarts. To the Chamber of Secrets, to the first attack after the Halloween feast, finding Filch’s cat hanging from the wall and that other, different message scrawled in red over her—the message that Ginny herself had written, even if she had no memory of doing it. To this day.
She knew that was in the past now. Tom Riddle was gone; he was not possessing her or anyone else, and even if he was, he would hardly write threatening messages to the Slytherins. It was not as though she feared she had done it, mucked up the common room without remembering it. That was ridiculous.
But seeing it upset her all the same. And she could not shake it.
“I’m telling you, I can’t do it, not anymore—!”
“Would you keep it down, everyone in the castle can hear you! Look—come this way—”
Ginny frowned, perking up at the sound of raised voices down the corridor. She couldn’t see anyone, as she peered into the gloom, but this corridor wound round and round, so it was possible whoever was speaking was just out of sight. Ginny picked up her pace, half-trotting down the corridor, and just when she thought she must’ve missed the speakers, she caught a flash of blond hair vanishing into a small alcove off the main corridor.
Ginny slowed just enough to make sure her feet didn’t make a sound as she approached the alcove. Two large pillars blocked it off from the main corridor, so she hurried up behind one, pressing her back into the smooth, curving surface as she listened to the hushed conversation just a few feet away. It should have been none of her business, she supposed, but those few words sounded odd—“I can’t do it, not anymore”—and after all, a common room had just been attacked down the hall from here…
“—know that things have a been a bit nerve-wracking lately,” a girl was saying. Ginny didn’t recognize the voice at all.
“A bit!” came another girl’s voice. “A bit! The common room was broken into, for Merlin’s sake, which is why we’re having this conversation out here and not in there! There’s no telling who can get in. We’re not safe, Daphne!”
Ginny edged her head out from behind the pillar, craning her neck to get a glimpse of the two girls. One of them was just out of sight, but the other Ginny recognized—Millicent Bulstrode. She was in Hermione’s year, one of the “old” seventh years in Slytherins who had returned.
“Look, I know, all right?” This was not Bulstrode speaking, but the other girl, and though Ginny couldn’t see her, she thought she must also be from Hermione’s year, another Slytherin—Ginny was pretty sure one of them had a name like Daphne…what was it…Greengrass, that was it. Daphne Greengrass. “But we can’t just leave school.”
“Speak for yourself,” Bulstrode said gruffly. “I can scrape by a few N.E.W.T.s with what I’ve got, that’s all I need. My dad’s got a job lined up for me anyway—”
“So you’re just going to give in?” Daphne sounded incredulous. “To whoever broke into the common room and wrote that message? “Go home, Slytherins,” that’s what it said, and you’re just going to do it? Where’s your House pride?”
“I’d rather be alive than proud, Daphne.”
“Okay, yes, but—” Daphne sighed. “Look, go, if you want, I guess. But I can’t. I’m staying.”
“Why?” Bulstrode argued. “I don’t understand why finishing out the year is so important to you. You convinced me to come back, and I agreed, even though I didn’t want to. You can probably scrape through with more N.E.W.T.s than me, that’s for sure, so why stay?”
There was a long silence. Ginny resisted the urge to shift her weight as she waited for an answer, an answer she was eager to know herself. Then, finally, Daphne said—
“Because of my sister, all right?” Her voice was so low Ginny almost couldn’t hear her. “Astoria didn’t want to come back without me. I mean, after last year and all—and she just wanted me to come back, and I said I would. And it’s not like she can leave, she’s got to take O.W.L.s this year, properly, I mean, so—so that’s it. That’s why I can’t leave.”
Ginny swallowed, pressing her hands back into the pillar. She was not sure what she had expected to hear—that Daphne had returned for some nefarious Slytherin plot, she supposed—but she certainly hadn’t expected this. This…well, this very normal, understandable reason.
“So, I guess, go, if you want.” Daphne’s voice was louder now, and surer. “I can’t stop you. But if you go, what’re Davis and I going to do without you?”
“You had to go and bring Davis into it,” Bulstrode grumbled. “Now you’re playing dirty.”
“Well, I know you don’t care about me, but you don’t want to leave her behind, do you?”
“Oh, fine, shut up, already,” Bulstrode groused. “I’ll stay, all right? But if anything else happens, Daphne, I swear—”
“I know, I get it.” Daphne laughed, and the pealing sound echoed into the alcove, startling Ginny. “Oh, I’m just glad you’re staying. Look, the year’ll be over before we know it, all right? It’s already almost Christmas hols, only a few weeks away—”
“A good month away, still—”
“Oh, Millie, why do you have to be so negative about everything…”
Ginny inched around the pillar as the girls emerged from the alcove, their voices disappearing down the corridor. She waited for several seconds before peeking her head out from behind the pillar to make sure they were well and truly gone. The corridor stretched before her, dim and empty. Letting out a long exhale, Ginny sagged in relief.
“Hullo, Ginny.”
“Merlin!” Ginny jumped a foot in the air, looking around. “Luna!”
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Luna said serenely.
“You didn’t—I mean—” Ginny gulped a new breath of air. “I’m fine. Sorry, Luna.” She tucked her hair behind her ear. “What’re you doing down here?”
“I left my jumper in Slughorn’s classroom this morning,” Luna said. “It got so hot in there working on the Calming Draughts, which is odd, when you think about it…what are you doing down here?”
Ginny bit the inside of her cheek. Luna was one of her best friends, but she wasn’t sure if she wanted to confide in anyone about how she’d felt when they found the common room trashed, and that message on the wall…and anyway, her head was full of other things now. Like the conversation she’d just overheard, between two Slytherin girls, two completely normal teenage girls who were just worried about their own safety.
She had not thought much about how the Slytherins must feel, having their common broken into and defaced. If she was honest with herself, she had tried not to think about it, and besides, she’d been too focused on her own feelings, thinking about the Chamber of Secrets…but the two were not really connected, were they, what had happened back then and what was happening now…or maybe they were, in ways Ginny didn’t want to admit…
“Luna,” Ginny said slowly, “do you think I’m…prejudiced?”
Luna blinked owlishly at her. “Against the Slytherins, you mean?”
Ginny nodded. Her throat felt tight, as though some part of her didn’t want to get the words out. “It’s just…” She couldn’t shake seeing that message, how it reminded her of first year, but maybe it was really Malfoy she couldn’t shake. What he’d said to her in the hospital wing. That she couldn’t fathom a Gryffindor might do something so underhanded. That she couldn’t fathom that, maybe, the Slytherins had been wronged.
It wasn’t like she believed all Slytherins were evil. But…neither did she really think of them as…well, as people like she had just seen in Bulstrode and Daphne Greengrass, two people who were just scared and concerned about their family and friends.
“I don’t know about being prejudiced,” Luna said, “but I think you’re very angry.”
Ginny realized she was fidgeting with her fingers and forced herself to stop. “Angry?” She couldn’t deny that. Especially not after the way she’d gone off on Malfoy a few nights ago.
“Yes,” said Luna. “And that’s perfectly understandable, after everything you’ve been through. But I don’t think it’s the Slytherins you’re really mad at. They’re not really to blame for Voldemort or the Death Eaters, are they?”
Ginny felt like there was a knot in her chest. She could hear Malfoy in the back of her head. You don’t have to fight us. We’re not the enemy. But who else was there left to fight?
“Come on,” Ginny heard herself say, her mind working furiously through an idea—one that frightened her a little. But when had she ever backed down from something just because it was frightening? “Let’s get to dinner. I’m starving.”
Hermione and Parvati sat on her left at dinner, their conversation a muddle of what might come up on their Herbology exam and what new fashion of robes had been featured in Witch Weekly. Conversations between Hermione and Parvati were often like this, yet somehow they managed—since Parvati had lost her best friend and Hermione’s friends had not come back to school. On Ginny’s right, Demelza, Dean, Seamus, and Ritchie Cootes talked Quidditch, discussing which teams in the league might be best next year. Normally, Ginny would have participated in this kind of talk, but she was only half-listening as she scarfed down her shepherd’s pie, her eyes glued to the entrance of the hall. She was just beginning to think that Malfoy was not going to turn up for dinner when he finally appeared in the doorway, coming in and heading for the Slytherin table.
“Excuse me,” Ginny said vaguely, and she was not sure if she was talking to Hermione or Dean, since they were both in mid-sentence about something. “I’ll be right back.”
She stood abruptly, leaving her shepherd’s pie half-finished, and strode across the hall, weaving around to the far end of the Slytherin table, where Malfoy had just sat down. There were few people near him—a group of first or second years a little ways down on his right, and far, far down on the left, sat Harper and Vaisey. Still, it was a little unsettling, marching right up to the Slytherin table, but that’s what Ginny did.
“Malfoy,” she said, and her voice sounded louder, more combative, than she meant it to. She winced as she noticed Harper and Vaisey look over at her.
Malfoy did not look up, though he’d obviously heard her. For half a second, he seemed frozen, and then, quite calmly, he began piling roast beef onto his plate. “What do you want, Weasley?”
She remembered what he’d said the other day, about not wanting to walk up to the Gryffindor table in the middle of dinner. “I’m walking up to the Slytherin table,” she said, wondering if her light-hearted tone sounded a little too anxious. “In the middle of dinner. See how easy it is?”
“Is that the only reason you came over here?” he drawled. He still was not looking at her.
“No, you prat.” Not liking the feel of eyes on her, Ginny plopped down onto the bench opposite him. Which, of course, only drew more eyes. Including Malfoy’s.
“What are you doing?” he hissed. “You can’t sit here!”
Ginny rolled her eyes. “What are they going to do, give me detention?” It wasn’t a written-in-stone rule, that you couldn’t sit at other House tables. It was just, you didn’t sit at other House tables. “No one cares.” That was obviously not true, judging by some of the scowls she was getting from Slytherins down the table, but she looked back at Malfoy and tried to ignore them.
“What do you want, then?” he asked gruffly.
Ginny wedged her hands under her legs so that she wouldn’t fidget. “You said the Slytherins were being targeted. I want to know how.”
“You saw the common room, Weasley.”
“Yes, but you told me that before that happened. So? What exactly did you mean? How are the Slytherins being targeted, aside from your common room being defaced?”
Malfoy snuck a glance at her as he tucked into his pudding. Now that she was under his gaze, she felt just as uncomfortable as he had looked a few seconds before, and not just because she was sitting at the Slytherin table, putting her pride aside and talking to Malfoy like a normal person. It was because she could not stop thinking of the last time they’d spoken. She could not stop remembering everything she’d said to him. And while she was not sure that he didn’t deserve it all, she couldn’t forget the look on his face either, and the way he’d fled from her after she’d said it.
“Why do you want to know?” Malfoy finally asked.
Ginny shrugged. “Because,” she said, forcing the words out, “if it’s really happening, maybe…something needs to be done about it.”
Malfoy’s eyebrows shot up. “You mean you want to help?”
“I don’t know, Malfoy,” Ginny said, irritated. She didn’t know. All she knew was, if the only reason she wanted to fight the Slytherins was because she needed to have someone to fight—as she had shamefully admitted to Malfoy three nights ago—then she needed to establish if they were actually deserving of her enmity. Because if they weren’t, then, well….
She had gone off on Malfoy that night because she was already rattled, and it had felt good, to throw it all back at him, especially since he probably did deserve it. But that last thing she’d said—that she couldn’t stop fighting—that had spilled out from someplace inside of her that Ginny didn’t even know existed, and it frightened her. It meant that maybe Hermione was right, and she’d been looking for fights. And now, after what happened to the Slytherin common room, it was starting to seem like she’d been looking in the wrong place.
“Look, I don’t even know what’s going on,” Ginny said. “What you meant, when you said the Slytherins were being targeted. So will you just tell me?”
Draco narrowed his eyes at her. He shoveled another forkful of pudding into his mouth and chewed, studying her all the while. Ginny tried to remain calm as he stared at her.
Then he said, “I can do better than that. I can show you.”
“Show me?” That sounded rather dire. “What do you mean?”
Draco took a long sip of pumpkin juice and said, “Just meet me up on the seventh floor tomorrow night, after dinner. All right?”
“No, not all right,” Ginny said in exasperation. “Meet you for what, Malfoy?”
Malfoy smirked at her, and though it was such a familiar expression, Ginny realized she hadn’t seen it from him since he’d come back to Hogwarts. “Scared, Weasley?”
“Don’t be stupid.”
“Then meet me. And you can learn all about how we poor Slytherins are being targeted. Deal?”
Ginny twisted her lips, feeling as though she’d eaten something sour. If he was planning something nasty for her, she’d walked right into it. “Fine, Malfoy. I’ll meet you. But if you try anything—” She leaned across the table, summoning her most savage glare “—don’t you forget that Bat-Bogey Hex I used on you in Umbridge’s office two years ago.”
Malfoy looked alarmed, but then he waved his fork at her in a most blasé gesture. “Don’t worry, Weasley. I’ve never forgotten that.”
And so, twenty-four hours later, on Saturday evening, Ginny traipsed up the stairs of the castle to the seventh floor. She’d slept in late that morning and spent most of the day doing homework, partly because she had fallen behind and partly because it kept her distracted from thinking about meeting Malfoy that evening. Now, though, as she emerged onto the seventh floor, she could hardly think of anything else. She double-checked that she had her wand tucked up the sleeve of her jumper.
“You’re late, Weasley.”
Ginny looked around. There was Malfoy, lounging against the wall not five feet from her. He looked…odd…and it was a moment before Ginny realized it was because he was wearing black slacks and a dark green t-shirt. She had never seen him in a simple t-shirt in, well, ever.
“How can I be late,” she said, trying to get past this disconcerting sight of him, so dressed-down. “You said after dinner. I just finished eating.”
“Well, you took your time about it.” Malfoy straightened, flicking his head to indicate she should follow him. “Everyone else is probably already there.”
“What do you mean, everyone else? Where are we going, Malfoy?” Ginny demanded, as she half-trotted to catch up to him.
“Don’t you trust me, Weasley?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, of course I don’t trust you.”
When Malfoy stopped in front of a blank stretch of wall, Ginny could have kicked herself. She glanced at the tapestry behind her, the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy and his dancing trolls. Of course. She should have realized. But… “I thought this place was destroyed last year.” Because of your pal Crabbe, she resisted from adding.
“A little singed, is all,” Draco said in an abstracted tone. “I don’t think anything can actually destroy this place. Now be quiet, Weasley, I need to concentrate.”
Ginny bit her tongue, once again feeling for her wand. The Room of Requirement. It didn’t matter that Ginny had used the room frequently, mostly to meet with the D.A. or to hide out last year. The room could be anything, and that meant Malfoy could be taking her into anything.
After a few seconds, a door appeared in the wall. With one last enigmatic glance at her, Malfoy pulled open the door and walked inside. Ginny followed, slightly mollified that he’d gone first.
Once she was inside, Ginny blinked several times, her eyes adjusting to the dimness. There were lamps lit all around the large room, but their light had been dampened to a low, cozy glow. The next thing she had to adjust to was the assault of green and silver around her—from the banners hanging on the walls to the cushions set in the numerous armchairs and sofas to the rugs covering the stone floors. There were some bookshelves and a few well-placed desks as well, all in ebony wood, and in the very back of the room, a fire crackled in a large fireplace.
“It’s…the Slytherin common room,” Ginny said, who recognized it despite only seeing a defaced version of it.
“Not quite,” said a blond girl, sitting in the armchair nearest the entrance. Ginny recognized her—Daphne Greengrass. “We haven’t got the lake.”
For that was the other thing about the room. In addition to all the decor, the room was full of Slytherins—near everyone from Slytherin House, from what Ginny could tell. Sitting in armchairs, bunched together on sofas, a few sitting at the desks, and others who were just standing about, leaning against the bookcases and the walls.
“What the hell, Malfoy?” This came from Dustin Vaisey, who sat on a sofa with Harper in the center of the room, opposite a large, ornate coffee table. “What did you bring her here for? The whole idea of this place was that no one could get in but us!”
“Not one can get in but us,” Malfoy said dismissively. “Weasley only got in because she came with me.”
“But she could get in on her own now, couldn’t she? And she could bring a whole pack of Gryffindors with her, all her bloody D.A. friends!”
“She can’t bring anyone in here who isn’t a Slytherin.” Malfoy descended the two short, shallows steps into the room, but Ginny stayed where she was by the door. “That’s how the room works.”
“Doesn’t answer the question,” said Harper quietly. “Why’d you bring her in the first place? This was supposed to be a meeting about what happened to the common room. And what we’re going to do about it.”
“Yes,” said Daphne, “that’s what Tracey told me. But whose idea was it to call this meeting in the first place?”
Malfoy put on a confident expression—something almost like the swaggering look he always used to wear, only now, it looked a little tenuous, as though he couldn’t quite remember how to summon it. “I did, of course.”
Judging by the general reaction of dismay and displeasure at this pronouncement, Ginny judged that most of the Slytherins hadn’t realized this. Harper’s head snapped up in shock, Daphne’s jaw dropped open, another seventh year girl groaned audibly, and Vaisey was quickly turning purple with outrage.
At the back of the room, Blaise Zabini straightened where he stood. “You didn’t mention that when you told me about this meeting, Draco. You just said you’d heard it was going to happen.”
“Yes.” Malfoy smiled evenly, not quite a smirk. “Because I knew you wouldn’t spread the word if I said it was my idea.”
“And why is that, Draco?” another girl snapped. She was sitting in an armchair opposite Daphne Greengrass, and Ginny guessed she must be her sister, because she had the same ashy blond hair. “Maybe because the whole reason we’re so hated now, the whole reason our common room was trashed, was because of you! After all, no one else here was ever a Death Eater, were they?”
“Yeah,” said Vaisey, an ugly look on his face, “and you weren’t even very good at that, from what I hear.”
Ginny looked at Malfoy, edging to the right to get a glimpse of his face. He looked a little pale—paler than usual, anyway—but when he spoke, he sounded a bit like his old self.
“I’m hardly the first or only Death Eater to come out of this House,” he drawled. “Laying all the blame on me for what the rest of the students think of us is a little harsh, don’t you think, Astoria?” He looked at the girl who had accused him of just that.
“No, you’re right.” Her blue-green eyes were as hard and cold as chips of ice. “That bloody bint of yours is just as much to blame, Parkinson, for panicking when Voldemort turned up last year and demanded Potter.” Then she startled Ginny by looking right at her. “We didn’t all want to hand him over to save our own skins, you know.”
“Which is exactly the point I wanted to make,” Draco said smoothly.
“I still haven’t heard any reason to care about anything you have to say, Malfoy,” Vaisey sneered.
Malfoy’s eyes flashed. Ginny remembered how he’d said he didn’t care what Vaisey thought of him, but now she wondered how true that was, as Draco turned to face him head-on.
“You should care, Vaisey, because I’m the only one here who is proposing we do something about these attacks on us.” There was a bit of a snarl to his words, marring his calm appearance. “I’m the one who’s got a solution, so I suggest you hear me out.” His gaze swept the room. “Unless anyone else has some idea how to protect ourselves?”
“I have an idea,” said Harper sharply. “Find out whoever’s targeting us in the first place.”
“And then what?” Malfoy said, skipping over the question of how they would find out who was targeting them, which Ginny thought the more important question. “Confront them?”
“Punish them,” Vaisey growled. “But without getting caught. Steal Veritaserum from Slughorn, use it to find out their common room passwords, and muck up their private space.”
“Spike their pumpkin juice with a Forgetfulness Potion so they think they’re going mad,” suggested Daphne Greengrass.
“Spread some nasty rumors about them,” said Blaise Zabini, who looked quite thoughtful as he leaned against a bookcase.
“Ask the Bloody Baron to haunt them until they wet themselves,” muttered a dark-haired boy on Ginny’s left.
“You people are bloody terrifying,” Ginny announced. Several Slytherins shot surprised looks her way, as though they’d forgotten she was there, hovering behind Malfoy. She took another step forward, coming abreast of him, and glanced his way. “This is how you convince me the “poor Slytherins” need help?”
“Oh, please, Weasley, don’t tell me you were actually put off by that feeble load of drivel.” Malfoy’s voice dripped scorn. “That was pathetic. I could come up with five better ideas in my sleep.”
Ginny privately agreed with this, but she was hardly going to admit so out loud.
“I should’ve guessed.” Vaisey shook his head, his lip curling. “This is why you brought Weasley here? This is your grand solution? You actually think she’s going to help us?”
“I might, Vaisey.” Ginny planted her feet firmly and faced him. “If I hear a good reason why I should. Which has yet to happen.”
“My reason wasn’t good enough for you?” Astoria Greengrass demanded. Her eyes blazed as she twisted around in her chair to face Ginny. “Well, how about this, Weasley—not only did many of us not agree with that cow Parkinson when she wanted to turn Potter over, but some of us would have liked to have stayed and fought with the rest of the students. Does that make us good enough for you?”
Ginny gaped at her, and she wasn’t the only one. Daphne looked aghast. “You wouldn’t really have stayed.”
Harper added scornfully, “You weren’t even of age.”
“So what, Cole? Neither was Colin Creevey,” Astoria said, her furious tone dying down into a quiet one, “but he snuck back anyway. And died for it.”
The sharp retort on Ginny’s mind—that Astoria was full of shit, basically, because it was easy to say that now, that she would have fought—died on her tongue. She didn’t know why it shocked her, but it did—that Astoria even knew Colin’s name. That she knew who he was, what he’d done, and that he’d died.
Somehow, that opened up a crack in Ginny’s resolve. In the idea that the Slytherins were all the same—and not worth it.
“You did ask me, Weasley,” Malfoy said grimly, “where the Slytherins were during the battle last year. There’s your answer. McGonagall didn’t give any of them the chance to stay.”
“And what about the rest of the year, Malfoy?” Ginny demanded. “Where were you all when the rest of us were living under the Carrows’ thumb?”
It was Harper who answered then, his voice so soft that it was a moment before Ginny realized he was the one speaking. “We were in the same place you were, Weasley.” His eyes were fixed on the dark table in front of him. “Living in the same hell.”
Ginny folded her arms over her chest. She told herself it was so she might look imposing, but she couldn’t help but feel that it was to guard herself instead. “That’s rich, coming from you.”
“Why?” He jerked his head up. “Because I did what Carrow made me do, and cast the Cruciatus Curse on you?”
“Oh, right.” A dry, disbelieving laugh escaped Ginny’s lips. “He made you do it, and you didn’t enjoy a single part of it—”
“I didn’t!” Harper was on his feet in an instant, his dark eyes glimmering with fury. “Is that what you think?” Now he was the one to laugh, and Ginny wondered if her own laugh had sounded so hollow, so dead. “Merlin, it must be so nice to be you, Weasley. Ginny Weasley, champion of the people, rebelling against the Death Eaters. It must have been so easy for you, defying Carrow at every turn, refusing his orders, even when it meant more pain, even when it meant risking your safety, your family’s safety—”
“It wasn’t,” Ginny whispered. He was so wrong about that, and yet, for some reason, his description of her stung. “It was never easy.”
“Neither was what I did.” Harper was trembling, though with what—anger, fear, shame?—Ginny couldn’t guess. “But I didn’t feel like I had a choice. I didn’t know how to be a bloody hero like you. I was—I was scared—not just that day, but every second of every bloody day last year. I didn’t enjoy it, Weasley. Not ever.”
Ginny tightened her arms across her chest until she was practically hugging herself. So he had been scared, so what? It was over now for him, just like it was for Malfoy, just like it was for all of them— “I still have nightmares about that day,” she said, and her voice was thicker than she liked.
Harper met her gaze, and she was startled to see the wetness glistening in his eyes. “So do I, Weasley.”
Malfoy said, “He was just a kid, Weasley. Just like you.”
Ginny turned on him angrily. “I didn’t feel much like a kid, Malfoy.”
“Yeah, well,” Harper said, his voice hoarse, “neither did I.”
Ginny turned on her heel to face him again. She wanted to call this a load of dung too, only, standing there, with his fists clenched by his sides and defiant tears in his eyes, Harper had never looked more like a kid. A scared kid, just like he said. One who, like Ginny, was maybe still scared.
Ginny unfolded her arms long enough to run a shaky hand through her hair, mussing it thoroughly. She drew in a slow, silent breath, trying to steady herself, wondering when she had lost control here. Maybe she’d never had it to begin with.
She turned away, hoping she didn’t look as brittle as she felt. Her buckling knees barely held her up long enough to get to the steps behind her, where she sat, pulling one leg up to her chest. She set her quivering chin on her knee and clenched her jaw, determined not to move until she felt more stable. She could feel eyes on her, all their eyes, and it burned.
Then Malfoy was there, right in front of her, blocking out all the eyes. All she could see were his knees.
“Look, Weasley,” he said, and if his voice was not exactly contrite, it was at least impassive. “I didn’t bring you here to attack you.”
Slowly, Ginny raised her head to look him in the face. About ten different retorts sprang to mind, most of which expressed that, yes, she did feel under attack, and how could she not, one Gryffindor alone with the rest of Slytherin House. But she swallowed all this, her mouth twisting bitterly at him in silence.
“Forget me,” he said bluntly. “Forget Harper, even. We’re not all of Slytherin House.” He raised an arm, gesturing to all the others behind him. “What about the Muggleborns?”
“Muggleborns?” Ginny echoed.
“There are Muggleborns in Slytherin, you know.” Draco turned and pointed out a mousy girl who was sitting at one of the desks, alongside Millicent Bulstrode. “Like Tracey Davis over there. She’s Muggleborn, aren’t you, Davis?”
“Yeah.” Tracey Davis raised her arm in a disgruntled wave. “Hi.”
“Though it is rare,” Malfoy admitted.
Tracey huffed. “Not so rare as you’d probably like, Draco.”
Malfoy widened his eyes innocently. “I’m not saying a word against you, Trace.”
“But you have before. Many times.” The Davis girl eyed the Greengrass sisters. “And you aren’t the only one.”
“Tracey!” Daphne protested. She straightened in her chair and gestured towards Ginny. “We’re supposed to be convincing Weasley we’re worth helping!”
“Well, I am,” Tracey grumbled.
Daphne sighed. “Tracey had us all fooled into thinking she was half-blood until fourth year,” she said to Ginny. “Which is quite brilliant, actually. But then Pansy found out and, well, we all turned on her.”
“Nice,” Ginny said dryly.
“At first,” Daphne hastened to add. “But eventually, I decided that my sister was right and that Pansy was a cow and that, well, I didn’t care what she thought. And we were friends again then, weren’t we, Trace?”
Tracey added resentfully, “In secret, anyway.”
“Yes, well.” Daphne actually had the grace to look abashed. “Look, I’m not proud of it. But Pansy is gone now, and good riddance. Because I really don’t care who’s Muggleborn and who’s pureblood and who’s not, and I’m not the only one here that thinks that either, Weasley.”
Ginny only nodded, too exhausted to make another response. The truth was, it wasn’t so hard to accept that some of the Slytherins didn’t share the Death Eaters’ prejudices. Certainly it was easier to accept than the idea of Harper being just as much a victim as she was.
“Of course,” and it was Millicent Bulstrode who spoke now, “Davis being Muggleborn didn’t stop a pack of Ravenclaw girls from bullying us in the library. They even called Davis a Muggle-hater.”
Ginny frowned. “What Ravenclaw girls? And why would they do that?”
“We didn’t ask their names, Weasley,” Daphne said primly. “We got out of there as soon as we could. It’s no good picking fights with Ravenclaws, they have too many tricks up their sleeves. And as for why they did it, no idea. I swear we didn’t do anything to provoke them. They were glaring murder at us the minute we walked into the library, like we didn’t belong there. And then when Tracey got up to put up a pile of books, one of them shoved her from behind and another slapped all the books out of her hands and called her a Muggle-hater.”
Ginny squinted. “For no reason?”
“Yes, Weasley, for no reason.” Daphne threw her arms up, exasperated.
“It’s true.” Ginny lifted her head as Blaise Zabini spoke up. He’d been so still and quiet in the back that she’d nearly forgotten he was there. “I was there, I saw it all. And as for me, I’ve definitely been getting a lot more “accidental” shoves in the corridors lately.”
“We all have,” Harper said sourly. He was seated again, on the sofa, and he gestured to Vaisey beside him.
“That’s nothing. Dustin got ambushed by a couple of blokes on the way to Quidditch practice one morning. They stuffed him in a closet and broke his wand. He was locked in there for hours before anyone found him.”
Ginny looked at Vaisey, who was scowling at the coffee table. He said nothing to confirm or deny this story, possibly because he was too embarrassed to admit it was true. Ginny had no problem believing that it was, but…
“And before you ask, Weasley,” Harper said icily, reading her mind, “no, he didn’t do anything to provoke them. Just like we didn’t do anything to provoke Thomas and Finnegan after the Quidditch match last week when they tried to pick a fight with us.”
“What?” Ginny sat up straight, a new flare of indignation washing some of her weariness away. “You two started that, not them!”
Harper glowered. “How would you know, Weasley? You weren’t there, were you, you were in the changing rooms. You came out into the middle of it.”
Ginny already had her mouth open to argue this point when she realized he was right. Demelza had come in and said “Harper and Vaisey,” and that was all. By the time Ginny had gotten outside, Vaisey was slinging insults…but, she admitted grudgingly, that didn’t mean the Slytherin boys had started it. Still… “I can’t believe Dean tried to pick a fight with you. He wouldn’t do that.”
“He didn’t seem too happy about it, I’ll give you that,” Harper admitted. But Finnegan? He was spoiling for a fight. All Dustin and I were doing was going back to the castle, and he stopped us. We didn’t start it, Weasley.”
Ginny didn’t like to believe this, but unfortunately, it was all too believable. Seamus had always been a bit of a hothead, and then…well. It was all too possible. Especially when she considered that Dean had returned to the castle alone a little while later, even though she could’ve sworn that Seamus had stayed behind to wait for him…
“And Goyle,” Malfoy spoke up suddenly. “He got jumped like I did. Well, they didn’t beat on him, like me, it was only a sucker-punch. But they split his lip open. Some Hufflepuff kid, wasn’t it?”
Goyle stood in the back of the room near Blaise Zabini. He’d been silent as usual, and his face was sullen as he muttered, “Thought you weren’t going to tell anyone about that, Draco.”
“Why would you think that?” Draco made a face. “I never said anything of the sort.”
Goyle’s voice was a low growl. “Just thought I could trust you, is all.”
Draco paled at that, but Ginny didn’t think anyone noticed except her, because Astoria had begun speaking, waving a dismissive hand. “It’s not just the seventh years, either. I’ve been putting up with all sorts of rubbish since term started. A lot of it is piddly kid stuff, like Geoffrey Hooper tossing a dung beetle into my perfect Draught of Peace and ruining it, or some of the others ganging up to hex me while we’re practicing in Defense Against the Dark Arts. But then there was the time—” Her eyes darkened “—when Romilda Vane pushed me into the lake while I was studying there. Ruined my Herbology assignment and everything, and I completely lost my essay for Ancient Runes.”
“But—look—” Ginny rubbed a hand over one eye. “I mean, why don’t you all just tell someone about this, a teacher—”
“Tell them what?” Astoria scoffed. “That we’re being picked on?”
“I think Slughorn has a good idea what’s going on, actually,” Harper said, “but there’s only so much he can do. I mean, if he sees something, he can put a stop to it, give detention, but…” He shrugged.
“And yet you think I can do something about it.” Ginny looked at Draco now. He stood in the center of the room, arms crossed over his chest, and he actually looked lost in thought until Ginny pinned him with her gaze. “Which is what, exactly? I mean, if I see something, I can try and stop it, but…”
“That’s exactly it, Weasley,” Malfoy said, a little impatiently, as though he couldn’t believe she was too stupid to understand this. “Don’t you get it? Look, revenge is all well and good—” He looked around at the rest of the room as he said this “—but it will only get us so far. They hit us, we hit them, and it never stops. But if you stick up for us, Weasley—if you put a stop to it when you see it, if you support us—if you’re even just seen talking to some of us—”
“But—” Ginny climbed to her feet. “I’m just one person, Malfoy. What makes you think everyone will just follow my example, just like that?”
“Oh, please.” This exclamation came from Zabini, and Ginny looked around at him as he straightened and looked right at her. “Don’t act as though you don’t know. Cole said it all—you’re Ginny Weasley. Defender of Hogwarts, hero and rebel, you and Longbottom practically led the whole school against the Carrows last year. And to top it off, you’re the girlfriend of the bloody Chosen One—”
“I’m not,” Ginny said, and the words were out before she could stop them.
“Not what?” Zabini arched an eyebrow. “A rebel? A hero?”
Daphne’s jaw dropped open. “Not Potter’s girlfriend? No! Since when?”
“I—” Ginny felt her cheeks growing warm. “That’s not…relevant.”
“It bloody well is,” Daphne replied. “If Potter is single, interested parties want to know.”
Now Astoria was the one to look aghast at her sister.
“Look, enough about Potter,” Draco snapped, drawing all eyes back to him. “Weasley’s right, he doesn’t matter, because he’s not here. She is, though.” He fixed Ginny with a pointed expression. “So? I think we’ve pretty well lined it all out for you, Weasley. If you don’t believe us about what’s been going on, well, I don’t know what else to say to convince you. But if you do…. Will you help us? Fight for us, instead of against us?”
Ginny flexed her fingers, struggling to conceal her hesitation. Perhaps Harry was relevant, because they had essentially ended things over a disagreement about Malfoy…a disagreement that came about because Harry had done what Malfoy was asking her to do here. But then, it wasn’t exactly the same. Harry had vouched for Malfoy, and Ginny still wasn’t sure that Malfoy deserved that. But he wasn’t the only one here. This was all of Slytherin House, and the fact was, after what had happened to the common room, it wasn’t difficult to believe everything they were saying.
She didn’t have to fight for Malfoy. Nor, even, for Harper. Just for some of these others. And wasn’t that something, something real to fight?
So she heaved a breath, shoved a hand back through her hair, and said, “Look…I’ll do what I can.” It wasn’t an impassioned vow, it wasn’t a grand declaration of commitment. But it was all she could promise for now.
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