Anthend : Chapter Three
Ginny was diligently copying Colin's homework when Harry came in. She looked up and allowed her heart to flutter sweetly. He looked so Harryish that she wished that she could get up and throw her arms around him and kiss him and whisper her love for him into his ear. She wished that if she did, he would look at her in that special Harry way of his and whisper his love back to her.
Ginny sighed, and looked at him wistfully. He looked so Harry standing there in the doorway, scanning the room, as if looking for someone. If only she were that someone...
His gaze landed on her, and she allowed herself to hope.
He held her eye and started to walk over. And contrarily, her heart began to thump nervously.
As he came closer, she realized that he didn't look quite that Harryish after all. His eyes were bright and hot, almost feverish looking, and his hair looked as if it had sweated profusely and then dried into great salty clumps. Not that it looked bad. It looked gross, but it didn't look bad. Nothing looked bad on Harry.
Well, not to her, anyway.
He sat down next to her and looked at her work. Ginny shoved Colin's homework under her parchment and smiled weakly. She tried to exude the I-wasn't-really-copying vibe as she straightened in her chair, pulled her robe out over her knees, and smiled again. "Hey." She said.
Harry grinned at her, but he still looked a bit wild around the edges. "Hey, funny-face."
Ginny almost sighed out loud. She wanted to lean into the curve of his arm and kiss him and say, Hey yourself, green-eyes.
"Hey." She echoed. She frowned, slightly, then stopped. Nothing looked more unattractive than a frown. "Is something wrong? You look a bit - worried."
Harry shook his head. "Nothing's wrong!" he said. He turned red. "Well. I got into a bit of a fight with Malfoy. The stupid git is -" he stopped. Ginny guessed that he'd been about to curse, then stopped himself. She almost sighed again. What a gentleman.
"What did you er - quarrel about?" Ginny asked.
"He was saying foul things." Harry said angrily. "Disgusting things."
Ginny assumed they had been about Hermione. "Did Ron hear?" she asked worriedly. Ron was always so protective of Hermione...
Harry threw her a look. "No, Ron didn't hear." He said slowly.
"He hates it when Malfoy insults Hermione." Ginny said, almost to herself. "You can't get him to calm down for ages..."
Harry threw her a startled look. Ginny didn't know what it meant, so she forgot about it. "So." She said lamely, turning bright red. "Are you going off to Quidditch practice?"
Harry glanced at the grandfather clock that stood stolidly in the corner of the common room and groaned. "Yes, I am." He swung himself off the chair and stood for a moment, looking down at her clumsily. Ginny looked up at him, green eyes meeting. She felt, suddenly, that she wanted to reach up and touch his cheek and soothe away whatever was making him look so troubled...
"I better go." Harry mumbled, giving her a half-grin, turning away.
He was always turning away from her...
_____
Harry cursed himself all the way to the Quidditch field. How could he ever have thought that Ginny - well, Ginny... and Malfoy. He felt deeply ashamed of himself for half-believing Malfoy's lies.
If they are lies...
Of course they were lies. Ginny would never hook up with Malfoy. It simply wasn't possible. Not Ginny. He remembered the way she had looked up at him, her eyes soft and smiling, the epitome of girlish innocence.
He knew that she still had a crush on him, of course. He'd known it for years. He'd never said anything, knowing it would embarrass her, and he didn't want to do that. Not to Ginny.
Part of him admitted that he liked having this little girl worship him, having her believe that he was a hero who could stop Voldemort single-handedly and then have time for a cup of tea. Part of him liked the fact that she looked up to him, thought that he was almost perfect.
He supposed that he might have felt the same way about his little sister, if he had had one. He would have shown off to her, bragged about his exploits at school, made her say in reverent tones, "My older brother" and then dismiss her as easily as he dismissed the fact that he hadn't washed his socks in weeks.
Bitterness surged through him for one brief moment. But he didn't have a little sister.
He didn't have anyone.
Harry brushed away the bitterness. He seldom allowed himself to think about Voldemort and what he had stolen from him. If he did, the rage would become unbearable, all the more so because he could do nothing about it.
Harry reached the field and shaded his eyes, catching his teammates' eyes. He motioned them to go onto the pitch without him, gesturing to his robes to say that he had to change. He watched them get up and mount their broomsticks before turning to jog lightly back to the locker room.
A lone figure in the stands stopped him. He squinted into the bright sky, trying to make out who it was. The figure turned to face him and he blinked, surprised, almost shocked.
The figure started to come down the stands, feet light and movements graceful. He knew those movements, had dreamed about them at night, fantasized about them in the dark, wanted to fetter them with his touch.
She reached him, and a smile broke onto her face. She had a very pretty face, he'd always thought so.
"Hi Harry." She said laughingly.
He looked at her for a while, measuring his reaction, not allowing her to see that his heart was beating fast, controlling the breath that wanted to heave in and out. Finally he spoke, his voice controlled and quiet. "Hello, Cho."
_____
"Why are we doing this?" Ginny asked pitifully, moving silently behind Colin, who was creeping along the wall behind Hannah.
"We're doing this because Snape took a hundred points from Gryffindor and he deserves to be pranked." Hannah replied, peering down at the map she held. She motioned to Colin. "Get a little light on this map, would you?"
Colin obligingly tipped the torch he held forward, closer to the map.
Too close.
The map caught on fire. Ginny slapped at it frantically, trying to put out the surprisingly strong flames. Hannah swatted the parchment at the wall, and it crumbled into black ashes. All three of them stared at the map.
"Fuck." Hannah swore, staring at it.
"How are we supposed to do this without a map?' Colin asked, rubbing his hands on his robes, leaving sooty streaks on the cotton.
"We'll have to do it without." Hannah replied, not losing her enthusiasm for the prank. "Look, it won't be that hard. We kind of know where Snape's chamber is. I think I remember the way."
"Of course you do." Ginny said darkly.
Hannah ignored her.
"Positive thinking, Weasley." Colin told her, eyeing Hannah with some skepticism. "But not too positive." He added, as an afterthought.
Hannah ignored him as well. "Come on. I'll lead the way."
"That makes me feel so much better." Ginny said sweetly.
"Do you still have the potion, Colin?"
"No, I lost it in the fourteen feet we have traveled from our common room. Of course I have it."
"It was a valid question." Hannah replied, walking forward cautiously. "Now come on, and be quiet."
They were quiet, following Hannah obediently. Ginny jabbed Colin in the back. "You owe me big, Creevey. Real big."
"Don't be so negative. Hannah knows what she's doing. " Ginny didn't miss the slight worry in his glance at Hannah.
"You're only saying that because you think she's hot." Ginny hissed.
"And so she is." Colin replied appreciatively. Ginny followed Colin's gaze to Hannah's bouncing backside as the girl trotted down the hall. Colin added, "It's just a prank. And you can't say that Snape doesn't deserve it."
Ginny gave up and followed in silence. They reached a chamber, and Hannah cautiously pushed the door open, stepping inside.
A moment later she was out, her face red. "What?" Ginny asked.
"Not Snape's room." She said briefly, and moved on, stopping briefly. "Don't look inside!" she hissed.
They followed her, exchanging brief glances.
They went into Snape's chamber, finally, closing the door behind them so as not to attract a passing teacher's interest.
"God, this guy is a loser." Colin muttered, flicking an eye over the magazines by the potion teacher's bedside. "He must really want the Defence Against the Dark Arts job... Defence : New Techniques and Developments, The New Defence Times, Defence Against the Dark Arts Illustrated, Your Guide to Defending Yourself..."
Ginny winced at the sight of Gilderoy Lockhart's face on a dartboard. Two darts rested expertly in both his eyes, and one on his foremost incisor. "He's definitely got issues." She agreed.
Hannah snapped, "Stop messing around and help me!"
Ginny tore her eyes away from the picture of Harry on the face of Snape's wall clock. The hands were daggers, so it looked like Harry was being stabbed in different places continuously. "What are you looking for?"
"Something to put the potion in." Hannah said, still hunting feverishly through Snape's cupboard.
"You're not going to find it rooting around his underwear drawer." Ginny remarked. She took a look in his bathroom and recoiled immediately. Foul! She choked out, "In there -"
Hannah popped her head in the bathroom and her eyes lit up. "You're a true witch, Ginny."
"I always thought so." Ginny replied. She looked around quickly. "Go on, be a bit quicker about it."
"Yeah." Colin agreed. "The Snape vibe might rub off on me."
Hannah unscrewed the lid of mouthwash that lay by the sink. Double strength! The label proclaimed. Gargle and swallow, for better breath, every day. She poured the contents of the bottle Colin handed her in swiftly, hastily recapping it. She grinned.
"Let's go."
_____
"You're kidding!" Hermione exclaimed.
Harry didn't look up, staring at the fire. "No."
Ron whistled. "Well - that's quite a load."
"What's she doing back?" Hermione asked, her eyes wide. "Didn't she graduate last year?"
"She did." Harry said, lifting his head. "She's taking a teaching course at The Wizard's Institution for Higher Education, and they sent her back here to do an independent study."
Ron snuck a look at Harry, trying to gauge his reaction to this. Harry had grown so. . . good at hiding his feelings since Cedric's death. Harry simply looked at the fire, and he couldn't read anything off his best friend's face. It worried him, Harry's quiet moods.
He knew that Harry had been heavily crushing on Cho when she left. Things might have gone somewhere eventually, if they had had more time. But they hadn’t, and had parted vague friends, vague flirtation partners. He had no doubt that Cho knew that Harry had liked - or is it still likes? - her; everyone had. Even Ginny, and Ginny had a genius for going into denial when it came to Harry.
"So..." Ron trailed enticingly, hoping that Harry would pick up.
Harry threw him a shrewd look.
"Do you still..." It was Hermione's turn. "Still...you know...like her?"
Harry sighed heavily and tried to think. It was hard, as it always had been when Cho was around. But Cho wasn't around now, and he was still having trouble. Did that mean he still liked her? He was kidding himself, of course he did. He liked everything about her, everything except the fact that she didn't like him back.
That was always the fucking problem.
"Yes." He said finally, answering Hermione's question. "Yes, I still like her." He could have added, But I don't want to. It was true. He didn't want to. He'd closed that chapter of his life on her graduation day, and he didn't want it reopened.
But it's never about what we want.
Ginny came in then, with her two friends, the clever Hannah and the cheerfully inefficient Colin. Harry welcomed the distraction she brought. She came over to them, giggling with her two friends.
"You'll never guess what we did." Ginny told her brother, her face flushed.
"What?" Harry asked.
Hannah grinned. "We put Polyjuice Potion into Snape's mouthwash."
"You're kidding." Hermione said, for the second time in five minutes. "Who's he going to turn into?"
Hannah howled with laughter. "Dobby."
Harry looked at Ron and they both burst into laughter. Picturing Snape as the diminutive house-elf was hilarious.
When Ron stopped laughing, he regained his composure and remembered his elder brother role. "Ginny! You're going to get into a lot of trouble -"
"He'll never know." Ginny assured him, hurriedly backing away. "Come on, Colin, let's go."
Before Ron could issue a lecture, Ginny and her friends had disappeared. Harry had to grin, faintly, at Ginny's adroitness at avoiding issues she didn't want to face. The grin faded from his face when he thought, suddenly of Ginny finding out that Cho had come back -
The thought disturbed him.
_____
Ginny found out the next day.
She stopped Ron at the mouth of the Gryffindor common room. Ron was busy tying his shoelace, so at first he didn't see her face.
"Ron, why is Cho back?"
Ron looked up straight away, sensing trouble. One look at Ginny's face and he winced. "Ginny -"
"Why is she back?"
Ron knew that when Ginny was in this sort of mood it was better just to give her what she wanted. But she wants Harry. He couldn't give her that, and a part of him felt heavy regret that he couldn't give his little sister the thing she had wanted so badly since her first year at Hogwarts. So he gave her what he could give, the straight answer she needed.
"She's doing an independent study."
Ginny looked at him for a while longer, and took in his troubled face. She smiled faintly, at this brother of hers. The smile seemed to reassure him, and she was glad. "Don't look so tragic, Ron." She wanted to say, but knew that would be throwing his sympathy back in his face. Rudely. So she simply said, "All right." She motioned for him to go in without her, which he did.
Ginny wandered down the Hogwarts halls, wallowing in self-pity. Cho Chang was back, that was all right. It was all right that she was older and more sophisticated and had shiny black hair and bright eyes. It was all right that Harry had been crushing on her since year four, it was even all right that he was probably going to resume crushing on her.
Everything was fucking all right.
Ginny took a silent breath and brushed away the stinging tears that doused her eyes. She leaned against a wall, and rubbed her eyes furiously. She loved Harry, and because she did, it was all right that he loved someone else.
No, it's not.
Who was she kidding? She was as selfish as anyone else, and she wanted Harry all to herself, and she wanted Cho Chang to do her independent study somewhere else. Bulgaria was nice at this time of year. She wanted so many things, and lately she'd allowed herself to hope - as I've always hoped - to hope without feeling the vague sense of guilt and despair she had had when Cho was still a student. And now -
Fucking Cho fucking Chang.
Ginny gulped back a sob, and pressed her palms against her eyes desperately. She wanted the tears to stop, she wanted her heart to stop telling her that she loved Harry, she wanted so many things -
"Don't tell me you're sobbing over Potter." A disgusted voice said.
Ginny slashed her hands across her eyes and looked straight into Draco Malfoy's gray eyes.
Such beautiful eyes.
They were beautiful - cold, it was true, but that only enhanced their clear, cleanly cut grayness. She wanted to glare at him, but she couldn't, she was too lost in her own misery to care about hating Malfoy. She lowered her eyes and burst out crying again.
She heard an obnoxious, fed-up snort, and felt the slight thump as Malfoy slumped against the wall next to her.
She could feel his mocking before he started in.
"This wouldn't happen to be about a black-haired Ravenclawer, would it?" he paused, as if to savor the rightness of his taunt, then added, "Because if it is, you're correct to be crying. Potter will go back to ignoring you and drooling over her... "
Ginny shoved herself off the wall, tears still coming down her face, her misery making her face tired and wet. "Leave me alone, Malfoy." She said quietly.
Malfoy just laughed, and came off the wall, leaning over her, his lean frame making swift swadows on the wall behind him, shadows that stretched down the corridor. "Do you really want me to?" he teased mockingly, cruelly. "I mean, Potter's not going to want you around - "
Ginny slapped him, her hand ringing from the unexpected pain.
Malfoy just laughed harder. He didn't look shocked, his head didn't move, there was only a slight reddening of his pale cheek. "Well, my mother always said that if a girl slaps you, kiss her." He remarked, before shoving his hand out and grabbing her chin, holding it roughly in place as his mouth came down hard on hers.
He kissed her.
An overwhelming sense of loss - my first kiss is for Harry.
Humiliation - I hate you.
Pain - He's strong.
A melding of life's breath. I know you - I know who you are -
He thrust her chin away from him, breathing hard, his gray eyes hot and confused.
Ginny could only stare at him, trembling. I know you.
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Draco and Ginny belong to JK Rowling, Bloomsbury, Scholastic, Warner Bros and various other corporations. They are being used here without permission and/or affiliation with the above. None of the authors listed here make any profit from these stories.