Anthend
Chapter Eight : Suspicion and Snogging and Suspicious Snogging
Even in adversity, Hannah was magnificent.
She stood, straight and proud, slightly away from Colin, her eyes open and her hair tossed back over her shoulder. She didn’t deny the charges, she didn’t admit them, she simply said nothing, staring straight back at Ron’s horror-filled eyes.
It was, perhaps, the best thing she could have done.
Her gift of reducing the melodramatic to the trivial stood her in good stead then, as she stood there before their accusing eyes. With every second that passed, Ron’s accusation sounded hollower and hollower.
Ginny wondered vaguely why she didn’t feel disbelief, didn’t feel like this was all a dream. It was all so strangely real, so normal, so matter-of-fact, as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. She kept on looking at Hannah, and realized that it was due to Hannah that it seemed so ordinary.
Hannah, who had always stood larger than life, vibrantly alive, looking at people from her own lofty peak, who had always seemed so much more than other people - she had a way of making people seem more ordinary than they perhaps were. She had a way of keeping things in perspective instead of dramatizing them.
It was a little bit, Ginny thought, like having a sleepover and then starting to tell scary stories. People usually, in that kind of atmosphere, forgot themselves and got caught up in the eeriness, the strangeness of dark shadows and awkward words that came out from the storyteller’s mouth. If Hannah came in while you were telling scary stories, it would be like suddenly waking up in a bright morning with birds chirping - the stories sounded ridiculous and laughable rather than frightening.
That was Hannah’s gift.
The silence grew.
Then Ron spoke, again, "It was her voice!"
Curiously enough, it was Ron’s steadiness, his self-assurance, that convinced Ginny. If Ron had sounded unsure, convinced by the normality of Hannah, Ginny wouldn’t have believed him. Ron was by nature a suggestible person.
The very fact that he remained unconvinced - Ginny knew that her brother was correct in his accusation.
She looked at Harry - how dear his face looked! He didn’t look lost anymore, he looked strong and sure. She thought, almost irrelevantly, that he was strangely like Hannah in some ways. He was at his best in adversity. She watched, bittersweet emotion at the fact that she could predict the tightening of his boyish mouth, that she was familiar with the slightly ungainly swing of his not fully developed limbs as he moved swiftly to the door, as if to prevent Hannah from leaving suddenly.
Finally, almost reluctantly, her gaze swung to the one person she dreaded to look at.
Colin.
He looked so young as he stood there, fair hair ruffled and standing on end, face white and confused. As she watched him, though, he seemed to stand straighter and he took a step closer to Hannah, and that was like a flag for Ginny to read, telling her where he stood.
First, last and always, his loyalties would lie with Hannah.
Ginny well knew how loyal Colin was. He was still devoted to Harry - although not quite so obviously now. It had been a bond between them in the beginning, before mutual obsession had softened into devotion to Harry and friendship between them. Slowly the bond had grown into something not so much about Harry and more about the two of them. Then in their third year Hannah had blown into their lives.
Despite Colin’s subsequent crush on Hannah and his shifting devotion to her, Ginny’s mild fears that it would cause a rift between them proved groundless. Colin remained her staunch friend - despite the frequency of his trips to the bathroom.
Hannah still said nothing, and Ginny sensed a difference between her previous silence and the one that was pervading the room now. She could almost feel Hannah’s faltering ground - unsure how to handle Ron’s confidence and the slight hardening of emotion against her. She shifted her weight on her feet - nothing could have been worse. It proclaimed to the room her nervousness.
Ginny didn’t miss the way Hannah leaned slightly towards Colin and how Colin took a confident, sure step forward, as if to buffer Hannah’s flagging strength.
"Miss Smirten - perhaps if we could adjourn to my room?" Dumbledore suggested.
Ginny looked sharply at him and at the way his countenance was as quietly calm as ever.
"Shall I go?" Ginny asked, momentarily confused at her role then. Hannah’s accuser, Hannah’s friend - she didn’t know which one to choose, and why she had to choose at all . . .
"Alone, perhaps, would be wiser, Miss Weasley - "
"I’m coming." Colin said, in a tone that suggested he was prepared to fight.
Dumbledore swept a swift glance over the young figure and his eyes darkened slightly, in a way Ginny didn’t understand. "Alone." He repeated, gently.
Hannah threw Ginny a glance as she walked out of the room, but she didn’t look at Colin, and Ginny wondered why she felt as if she had fallen in Hannah’s esteem.
And why it mattered - if Hannah was the one who had betrayed them all.
_____
Draco couldn’t stop smirking.
The look, the look, the absolute hilarity of the look on Potter’s face when he realized that the Hufflepuff Seeker - what was his name again? Wilkers? Whiskers? Whatever - had gotten the Snitch!
He could live on that for days!
He could rub that in Potter’s face from now until Kingdom Come! Potter would never live that down! Poor Potter! Poor Snitch-deprived Potter.
The jokes at his expense, the marvelous Slytherin gloating that was already at full-blast . . .
Draco would have heaved a contented sigh if he had been capable of doing something so hopelessly mundane.
Crabbe and Goyle were getting drunk on some smuggled in alcohol. Draco waved them away impatiently as they came by, proffering goblets. He wasn’t averse to a few goblets of vintage wine, but he detested the cheap alcohol to be got at the nearby village.
Particularly as he enjoyed his victories sober.
Especially a victory as marvelously stupendous as this!
Draco sat by himself, shamelessly gloating over the look on Potter’s face as he watched the festivities. Although not great fans of Hufflepuff house, the Slytherins, one and all detested Harry Potter, as was evidenced by the many defaced posters of Harry Potter hanging on the banners.
"Enjoying yourself?" a sultry female voice asked, as an equally sultry female body draped herself artistically over the arm of his armchair.
Draco looked indifferently into the smoky gray eyes of Blaise Zabini. "Like you wouldn’t believe." He drawled coolly.
Blaise threw her head back and laughed, a theatrical, dramatic move that Draco found oddly transparent despite its questionable attractiveness. He wondered idly if she was looking to repeat the somewhat - heated - experience they had shared a month earlier in Blaise’s room.
And wondered if he would oblige her if she was.
"I find that statement particularly hard to believe." Blaise replied, her pink tongue darting out to lick her lips, red with a combination of punch and lipstick. She lowered her gaze and stared meaningfully at him.
"I’ve been meaning to catch you alone." Blaise continued, slipping easily into his lap.
Draco looked at her with no little contempt. "Is that so?" He glanced up and saw Pansy Parkinson staring at the both of them with dark eyes.
"That’s so."
"In that case," Draco drawled, standing and pulling her to her feet, "let’s go up to your room."
As they made their way past a multitude of drunken Slytherins and the dark stare of Pansy Parkinson as well as several other hopefuls, Draco pushed away the thought that he’d have preferred red hair on his pillow and wide green eyes that didn’t falter -
_____
"I can’t stand this waiting!" Ginny burst out, jumping to her feet and looking at the door to Dumbledore’s office. The Headmaster and Hannah had been in the room for half an hour, and there was no sign of any emergence from either of them. She looked, frustrated, at Colin, who sat calmly flipping through a photography magazine. Ron had been forced to stay in the infirmary by the enraged Madam Pomfrey, and Harry had stayed with him after calling Hermione down as well.
"Well, she didn’t do it, so what’s the problem?" Colin asked.
Ginny sat again and looked at her best friend. "Ron recognized her voice." She pointed out hollowly.
Colin didn’t blink. "People have been wrong before."
"You don’t really believe that." Ginny said flatly. "If you did, you’d be furious with me for believing that Hannah did it."
Colin lowered his eyes and sighed. "You believe she did it, Ginny."
"What’s that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing. It means nothing."
"Colin - "
"Look, you believe she did it. It’s all black and white with you - either she did it or she didn’t. I’m not like that, Ginny. There are all sorts of things to take into account. Why would she do it? I can’t think of any reason why Hannah would do it. How could she have done it, and why didn’t she do it another time? She hasn’t learned those curses yet, and she’s never shown any signs of being that powerful. Look -" Colin sighed again. "I don’t know, all right. Hannah’s my friend."
Ginny stared at Colin. "And you like her."
"That has nothing to do with it, you know that."
"Yes, I know that." Ginny paused. "I’m sorry. But Hannah’s my friend too. And - I don’t know. I feel guilty for thinking it’s her and guilty for thinking it’s not her."
She jumped to her feet again, pushing back tendrils of bright red hair. "Look, I’m going to go for a walk, all right? Call me if Dumbledore comes out."
Ginny didn’t wait for Colin’s reply, but walked quickly down the hall, wanting to get away from that stifling, dark place where Colin was sitting placidly and everything around her was still, while inside she couldn’t stop thinking.
That was probably why Dumbledore had a Pensieve, Ginny thought, agitated. Because he couldn’t stand having all these thoughts running around, never able to catch hold of any and getting more frustrated and panicky when you couldn’t -
Ginny went down the stairs and out into the corridor, turning the corner and bumping right into Draco Malfoy.
He hadn’t been walking, she saw. He wasn’t even affected by her running into him. He merely shifted his weight, gave her a cold look and went on smoking his cigarette.
"Are you allowed to do that in school?" Ginny asked, not even accusingly, surprisingly enough. It was pure curiousity, and he seemed to sense that, because he answered straightforwardly enough, no Malfoy spite and snap.
"Fuck off, Weasley, of course not."
That was the thing about Draco, Ginny thought, almost idly. He could sense your every thought and move. He wasn’t like Harry, who was real and straightforward and honest and didn’t understand anything that wasn’t obvious and hammered at him. Draco was subtle and swift, and read your emotions like people read books.
And if he used that gift like a dagger, then that was just what Draco did.
Ginny realized, dimly, that she felt no more animosity toward Draco, and wondered where all the dislike had gone. She just wanted to look at him, and drink in every bit of him, even the bits that weren’t perfect - like the skeletal hands that were still beautiful, the scar on his earlobe. She wanted to spend hours just standing there in that curious limbo-state that always existed when she was alone with him - as if everything else would keep on happening around them.
"Do you have something to say to me, Weasley?" Draco asked with exaggerated politeness. "Or are you standing there like an idiot because that’s what Weasleys do?"
Ginny watched as he inhaled, almost surprised at the anger she felt at his words. "Are you smoking because you have a death wish or is it just because Malfoys are stupid?"
Something flared in Draco’s eyes and died down quickly. No, not died down, Ginny thought, more like was squashed quickly and efficiently, and she wanted, suddenly, to see what would happened if it flared out of control . . .
_____
Colin sat outside Professor Dumbledore’s room, outwardly very very calm. If one had looked closer, however, one would have seen a curious tightness about the calm, a very taut control that was being exercised over the entire body.
Colin wanted very badly to know what was happening inside the room.
He wanted to know if Dumbledore believed that Hannah was capable of doing such a thing.
The door opened suddenly and Dumbledore stood in the doorway. Behind him, Colin could see Hannah, sitting in a chair, her head uncharacteristically bowed, her pose exhausted.
"Ah, Mister Creevey." Dumbledore said in the mildest tones. Anger flared in Colin’s eyes at his placidity. "Would you mind summoning Professor McGonagall for me?"
"No." Colin said stonily, getting up. "What for?"
"Tell her to bring along Professor Snape and the strongest truth potion he has."
Colin nodded. "All right."
_____
Harry left Ron’s room and breathed a sigh of frustration. For a moment he leaned his forehead against the cool stone wall, wishing the coolness on his whole body.
He hated this. He hated knowing that Ron had been under a curse and Ginny had too, and that another person he knew had been accused of it.
He hated Voldemort.
He wanted, very badly, to just lie down where he stood and let the whole world pass peacefully around him. He wanted peace and quiet and normal happiness and grief and annoyances.
He didn’t want to always be averting Voldemort’s work and always on his toes and always in mortal danger or always seeing his friends hurt.
A great weariness lay on Harry and he slid down the wall, resting his head on his knees. Dimly, as if from very far away, he could hear the low, quiet murmurs as Hermione and Ron spoke to each other.
Harry suddenly felt very lonely.
He wanted someone like Hermione was to Ron - someone who loved him unconditionally and would listen to him, or simply sat with him and understood and was quiet and supported him.
He thought of Cho, and thought of how it was she who was supposed to be that to him, and the weariness seemed to deepen; the loneliness grew heavier. Cho couldn’t be that for him, he knew, and it was surprising how he felt, as if he had always known that. Cho was lust and bright happiness and shallow affection.
Strangely enough he thought of Ginny. Ginny - who had always been devoted to him and had always liked him. He wouldn’t call it love, no, or friendship even.
But it could grow into both, and Harry wanted that very badly just then.
He got up.
_____
Ginny wondered what eventually pushed Draco over the edge. They’d been staring at each other for some minutes, Draco taking long, deep inhalations of cigarette smoke and her very still, just looking at him, taking him in.
"Well which is it, Malfoy?" Ginny finally asked, breaking the silence, wondering when she’d stopped thinking of him as Malfoy and started thinking of him as Draco. Draco Malfoy - a nasty horrible git. Malfoy - a nasty evil git hated universally. "Death wish or stupidity?"
The something flared up again in Draco’s eyes and he casually, carelessly, dropped the cigarette the ground. "It must be stupidity." He said, almost reflectively, as he reached roughly for her. "Or I wouldn’t be doing - this."
Then his mouth was on hers and the built up frustration Ginny was feeling melted away and she lost herself.
She was nobody, nothing, just a heated body of hot sensation, with hands that winded themselves around his neck and held on, desperately grasping the warm neck, the roughly silky texture of white-gold hair she wasn’t looking at.
And his hands, his large thin hands which held her waist tightly and gave her such a warm feeling of security, of rightness - hands which didn’t move at all, simply clasped her waist as if claiming what was his.
And all the while they kissed.
It was like drowning, like being drowned, being soaked in hot, hot water, boiling away Weasley and Malfoy and leaving nothing behind, nothing but the two of them kissing.
And when they pulled away from each other, it was like being taken out of the hot water into the cold air.
Ginny looked at Draco, looked at him and saw his eyes and the quiet desperation and frustration in them.
A silence stretched between them, and the strange bond between them was there, almost visible, and Ginny almost cried out.
Finally Draco spoke. "So what happens now?"
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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.