Chapter Five: Over the Sea to Skye
Ginny instinctively clapped a hand over the alarm clock before it rang. She had no desire to explain what she was doing up at five o'clock in the morning to her roommates. Dressing hastily in her old black robes, she grabbed up a new set of silver ones and dumped them, with her lot of fifth-year books, into her cauldron before tiptoeing out of the dormitory.
The castle's corridors were silent and empty as she jogged down to the dungeons. Even Peeves had to sleep sometimes. But although Ginny had no reservations about being outside the castle when she should be in bed, something about being inside jangled her nerves. It was probably the nightmarish idea of Filch lurking behind statues, reaching a bony hand out of the darkness to grab at her wrist, making her bones crack as his grimy fingernails dug into her skin...
Picking up her pace, Ginny rounded the corner to the Potions classroom. Someone grabbed her arm, and she swung her cauldron in an arc to hit the shadowed figure in the stomach, knocking it down.
"Oof. Whatja do that for, Ginny?" moaned Neville petulantly. He sat up, fumbling in the near dark for his wand. Ginny lit her own and helped him up.
"You, uh, startled me. Sorry. What are you doing here?"
"Potions, more potions with Snape. You too?" Neville looked like he was facing a march to the guillotine instead of a tutoring session.
"Me too," said a voice in the darkness. Ginny lifted her wand higher to see Cho walking toward them, her robes immaculate and straight, shiny hair perfectly combed. She looked like she had been awake for hours, and Ginny fought down a swell of envy. "I failed my end-of-year exam," Cho admitted, without embarrassment.
Ginny felt the tiniest bit better, at least until she remembered why Cho was here in the first place. Cedric. He had found Ginny crying behind greenhouse six her first year, just after she realized that she was the one killing the roosters.
***
"Hey, Susan, what's wrong?" Cedric Diggory knew the name of every student in his house, and his open nature made each one of them feel at ease in his presence. It was precisely this quality that had made him Hufflepuff prefect in his fifth year, an honor Professor Sprout usually reserved for seventh and, in rare cases, sixth year students. He pulled her hands away from her face, which revealed the girl's Gryffindor patch and tie. "Oh, sorry. Er, are you," he searched his memory, "a Weasley?"
A very blotchy and tear-stained girl was staring at him, still sobbing breathily with each inhalation. He decided she must be a first year, she was so tiny. But, maybe he just had that impression because she was swimming in an overlarge, threadbare set of robes. Hand-me-down robes. She must be a Weasley. Georgia? Valerie? "Virginia," he decided.
He must have been right. She looked surprised. "How do you know me?"
Cedric cracked his most gallant grin. "I am Lord Cedric, Master of All Names, here to rescue you from a fate of puffy eyes." She wasn't crying anymore. That was the trick; she had amusing brothers and would be wanting a bit of fun to cheer up. "C'mon, it can't be that bad. The grass is green, the sun is shining, and you’re not a Death Eater.” She didn’t laugh.
Cedric felt awkward. He didn’t like it when people cried, and he liked it less when they were silent. He tried again. “Er, You-Know-Who walks into a pub, and the bartender says to him, we don’t serve your kind here...” If anything, she was looking worse now. He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his robes, rocking back on his heels.
He was in luck. No one could cry about chocolate. He handed her a Chocolate Frog, fished from the depths of a fold. She accepted it with a smile that didn’t reach the corners of her mouth, but he would take what he could get. “Go on, you’re going to miss lunch.”
He watched her from the corner of the greenhouse until she disappeared into the castle.
***
Cho was lighting the torches when Snape swept in, demanding to know why they hadn’t set up their cauldrons already. Neville made a noise that sounded suspiciously like ‘eep’ and hurried toward the shelves where the extras were kept, bumping into two chairs as he went.
Neville's skill at Potions, or to be more accurate, lack thereof, was legendary. Had it not been for the presence of Snape and Cho, Ginny would have felt honored to have the chance to see him in action. To be safe, though, she set up her cauldron as far away as possible without seeming rude. She noticed Cho did the same on the opposite side of Neville.
Ginny twisted her unbrushed hair up into a loose bun to keep it out of harm's way while Snape rummaged in his office for supplies. Neville, at the next table, was shaking like a leaf. "It'll be okay, Neville. Just take a deep breath." He didn't look reassured.
"Gin, you don't understand. I can never think straight when I'm in class. Everything gets mixed-up in my head, and then I start dropping things...." Neville noticed that Cho was watching him, and he hung his head.
Professor Snape returned carrying a shallow tray. He began the lesson in his usual manner, holding up a potion for them to scrutinize. Ginny could see that it was a virulent yellow with greyish bits settling at the bottom. Uncorking the vial, he asked "Can one of you tell me what this might be?"
Cho raised her hand. Of course she'd remember, she took this class last year, Ginny thought, unreasonably annoyed. Snape nodded that she should answer, but Neville was already speaking.
"Oh, a Memory Potion," he blurted. Snape stared at Neville, a look of disbelief on his face. It occurred to Ginny that Neville probably didn't speak up in Potions very often.
Neville looked just as horrified as Snape, but couldn't seem to stop talking. "Well, maybe, because it has bits of Elephantree bark in it, I can smell it. Professor Sprout had me repot one once and she said you can use it to help you remember what you've forgotten in the last day or so. It did something else, too, but I can't remember the rest...I guess you probably showed me this last year." He finally clapped a hand over his mouth, eyes as big as saucers.
Snape shook his head, as if to clear it. Finally, he recorked the vial. "You're... not as wrong as usual, Mr. Longbottom. Elephantree bark is one ingredient in Conversation Potion. If taken before one begins talking with someone, one can remember what was said, word for word." He pointed one long finger at the tray of supplies. "The ingredients are here. The instructions can be found in Magical Drafts and Potions, Volume Five, page 112."
Snape glared at each of them in turn, but at Neville the longest, before stalking back to his office.
***
"Neville, wait!" Cho hissed. He was tilting a cup of water over his cauldron, but paused to look over at her. "You've already put in the water, remember? If you put in more, it’ll be too runny. Jobberknoll feathers are next."
Ginny wondered how Cho could prepare her potion with the precision of a master chef while still watching Neville like a hawk. She had prevented disaster three times by Ginny's reckoning, and she didn't count the way Cho kept rearranging the jars of ingredients so that the one Neville would need next would be nearest his groping fingers. Ginny was having her own difficulties managing the timing for the addition of components, which had to be calculated according to how long it took for the potion to boil, one's year of birth, and the day of the week.
When they had each taken a draft of their own potions and recited the lines from Beowulf that Snape read aloud, word for word, he dismissed them with a "hmph" and a wave of his hand.
***
Neville, flushed with success, had been blabbering all the way up to breakfast. He almost skipped the last few steps to the table, sliding to a halt to sit next to Dean Thomas (who was dressed in the navy blue robes of the Defense Against the Dark Arts class). Ginny herself was so bemused with Neville's behavior that she nearly sat down across from Ron before she caught his sulky glare. Turning on her heels, she walked down several places to sit next to the Creevey brothers instead. She decided to ignore Hermione, who was creating a buffer between Harry and Ron and trying to catch her eye.
Colin ogled her robes, which were still folded in her cauldron, with interest. "Silver, huh? Aren't they going to give you patches?" Ginny gave him a confused look. "You're supposed to have a Specialization color, and patches for the other classes you are taking. Look -- there's navy for Defense, purple for Transfiguration, light blue for Charms, light green for Muggle Studies, and dark grey for Potions. Professor Dumbledore said I could take pictures of everybody this morning, with their classes.”
Sure enough, after a quarter of an hour the black-robed students trickled out of the hall, and students began to congregate on the steps leading to the High Tables. There was at least one student from every house represented in each Specialization, a mark of the many variables that could be used to divide and categorize the school.
Dumbledore himself stood with them all as a group picture was taken, and directed each Specialization to a different part of the room for a class photo before dismissing them. The Integrated Magic class was last to leave again.
If his purpose was subterfuge, Dumbledore had underestimated the time it would take for the hallways to clear. Students were gathered in multicolored groups, gossiping amongst themselves as they moved slowly in the general direction of their classes.
Ginny wrapped herself back up in the black robe she had put on for her tutoring session, and it afforded her a degree of invisibility now as she threaded her way through the crowd. She caught snatches of conversation here and there. “Well, they can’t be very bright, most of them are in Gryffindor, and half are Weasleys, they’re never serious about lessons... I hear Chang failed... Slytherin hoodlums, the both of them... don't know... what about that Granger? She gets good marks... maybe couldn't pick a subject... felt sorry for Harry...always together...says she's only a fourth-year...”
She didn’t change her robe until she got to class.
***
After several weeks in the Integrated Magic classroom, Ginny had fallen in love with the great round table that was placed in the back of the room under the window depicting a mouse removing a thorn from a lion's paw. It was carved of a single piece of pale wood with thin lines of inlaid gold that radiated from the center to divide the circle into eighths. The rippling grain had been worn smooth, but the tabletop was polished to a high sheen. Embedded in the center of the table was a small, cloudy crystal dome, dimpled like the head of a Kappa and ringed with stones of ruby, emerald, sapphire, and topaz.
The window was open to take advantage of a light breeze blowing off the lake on what was turning out to be an unseasonably warm autumn afternoon. With the sun shining in, the table resembled nothing more than an enormous, glowing sunburst.
Right now, it was strewn with junk. Professor Perks had spent a morning giving notes on Muggle clothing, how to catch a bus, using Muggle money, and the purpose of crosswalks. He had also been pleased to have Harry, Hermione and Justin help with an explanation about how to use a telephone (Hermione was particularly concerned with something she referred to as telephone etiquette), although for some reason Harry had declined to participate when they were asked to act out a phone call. Ron whispered something about Lockhart that made Seamus snicker and Hermione roll her eyes.
Professor Perks had just dumped a sack of rubbish onto the table, passing a piece to each partnership when Professor McGonagall came in, tucking a necklace under her robes before shooing him from the room. She launched immediately into an interminable lecture on the importance of accuracy in Transfiguration. Most of the class sat quietly, taking a few notes here and there and flipping through their books when she mentioned a particular chapter, but Hermione and Ginny scribbled notes as if their lives depended on it -- Ginny trying to puzzle out why anyone would want to turn a teapot into a tortoise. Or vice versa. Eventually, her hand cramped and she dropped her quill in frustration.
McGonagall didn’t give any sign that she had noticed, but broke off her lecture abruptly. Turning toward the doors, she raised her hands. “Accio!” Not long after, each pair of students was taking a small, silvery ball from the jar McGonagall passed around the table.
“Miss Brown, would you please describe the object in front of you for the class?” she requested.
“It’s a marble.”
“Go on, Miss Brown.”
Lavender looked at her dubiously. “Uh, and it’s silver.” Professor McGonagall remained silent. “And it is round.”
Fred raised his hand. “It’s a sphere, made of metal, and heavy for its size... smooth, shiny... reflects light, and us too.” He picked it up and held it before his nose. “Not as flattering as my mirror at home.”
George picked up the thread. “It’ll be easy to Transfigure this into that shiny little saucer with the hole in the middle, and not too difficult to make it look like that funny spoon-fork thing. The paper scraps will be trickier, I imagine.”
“Excellent analysis,” McGonagall said, in the same crisp tone she used to use when she said “ten points to Gryffindor,” making Ginny wonder if anyone was still keeping track.
“Where in our books is this found?” Hermione was flipping through the indices of the books still open before her. She hadn’t even looked up from her notes. “I don’t see anything about it in our sixth year book, or seventh...I thought we were to meant to finish our books first,” she said uncertainly.
“Well, we must finish them, if we are going to get past the Ministry's requirements." McGonagall paused, noticing the definite lack of interest in educational policy. "I wish I didn’t have to worry you with what I had planned... but, if Professor Dumbledore can tell you about the Catapultus Charm six weeks early, I suppose I can move ahead a few weeks as well. Most of you should have had another three years of Transfiguration Theory and Practice...” McGonagall shook her head, “but we are sorely lacking in time.”
Businesslike again, she set them to comparing and contrasting their pieces of rubbish and their spheres, repeating from her lecture notes that one must note the differences and exploit the similarities when attempting Transfiguration.
“I’ll write,” Ginny said, as Draco hadn’t once offered during all the classes they had spent side by side. He did, however, mutter his share of answers when they had to collaborate on assignments. That was the only time he spoke to her, or to anyone, except when asked a question directly.
“No, I’ll write.” He plucked the quill out of her fingers irritably. “You’ll just make a blotchy mess with that hand of yours.”
Ginny decided to be grateful.
***
They were supposed to be examining and passing around the Muggle artifacts until Professor Flitwick came in. For a time, a plastic wrapper with the words Jelly Beans held the group’s attention ("What’s the fun in these flavors?" George scoffed), as did a straw that could be bent near one end. Instead, they were discussing Quidditch. Well, not everyone. Fred, George, and Justin were positing theories on which countries were likely to be at the forefront in the battle for the World Cup. Harry and Seamus were boring Hermione with the technical details of their broomsticks; Ron had discovered that Susan Bones was, to an extent, a fan of the Chudley Cannons.
In contrast, Parvati and Lavender had taken a copy of Witch Weekly to within arm's reach of the blackboard which they had charmed to alternately flash with their initials, hearts, and names from the article entitled "Wizarding's Ten Sexiest Men." Padma had made an attempt to engage Blaise in conversation, but Blaise replied in monosyllables until she gave up. Neville and Cho were talking together in undertones.
Ginny, feeling awkward, turned to Draco. "Um, what should we go over tonight?" This was purely a rhetorical question; they were supposed to report what they planned to revise in the evening to Professor Flitwick at the end of classes each day. Flitwick kept a record, but for what purpose Ginny couldn't fathom -- especially since she usually picked several chapters randomly from a book when asked about their plans, and no one had come to the Integrated Magic Classroom to see if they actually showed up after the evening meal. She was also pretty sure that they had "revised" some of the chapters more than once. It didn't matter, anyway, since Draco always leafed through his books silently until she returned to her common room.
Draco shrugged, not lifting his eyes from an ancient copy of Magical Geography of the United Kingdom that he was always carrying with him. Ginny hadn't seen him turn a page in the last ten minutes.
Luckily, when Flitwick came in everyone happened to be in their seats. He began checking off pairs and dismissing them to dinner. As usual, she and Draco were the last to approach the front desk.
"We won't be revising at all tonight," Ginny announced. Professor Flitwick tilted his little head up in puzzlement. "We'll be working on our Catapultus Charm instead. Eight o'clock, down by the lake." Ginny ducked out through the door before either Flitwick or Draco could object.
***
Hermione found Ginny curled up on a sofa in the common room. "You're missing dinner," she said, handing her an apple and sitting down next to her feet.
Ginny took a bite of the apple, chewing as slowly as possible to avoid replying. Hermione finally got impatient. "Can't you just make it up with Ron? This is ridiculous, the two of you, pretending like the other doesn't exist. You're family."
"What would you know about it?" Ginny heard herself say coldly, as if from a distance.
Hermione took a different tactic. "It's this whole situation. Your Dragonriders Society membership was such a shock, and you know how he looks up to Charlie. I think it brings back bad memories of last year when he thought Harry put his own name forward for the Triwizard Cup. Ron wouldn't talk to him for almost a month, and I thought Harry would come apart --"
Ginny cut in. "Are you here about Ron or Harry?"
"They are my best friends, and they are fighting about you," Hermione said in a soft voice. "Ron thinks that you work with Malfoy to annoy him on purpose, and then Harry sticks up for you, saying that you're only doing it because Dumbledore asked you to. Ron has the idea that you've been dishonest with him and that, oh, I don't know, you're constructing an evil plot or something."
Ginny threw her hands into the air. "Malfoy and I were forced to be class partners, just like Ron was assigned to Susan Bones. We can't get out of it, Seamus already tried asking McGonagall. I don't like it either." She broke off her tirade, realizing that her cheeks felt uncommonly warm.
"Harry and Ron need each other, Gin," Hermione continued. "I don't want to be stuck between them forever." She leaned forward, straightening the perfect folds of her socks. "Will you let him say he's sorry?"
"There's only one thing I want to hear from him, and he'll never say it." Ginny stood up and left Hermione sitting alone in the twilight.
***
She didn't see Draco until she was marching back to the castle. Ginny had waited at the very edge of the lake, slapping at midges for half an hour until the damp fog rolling off the water had her hatching a plan to send off a Howler addressed to Draco Malfoy, His Royal Lateness. She nearly stepped on him where he lay sprawled with one arm behind his head, not ten yards from where she had been standing.
"Oh," she squawked, hopping into the air at the last second in an attempt to avoid him. It hadn't worked; she had tripped over her own feet in mid-jump to land to one side, rolling off her hands.
After a second in which she imagined (and then discarded as not nearly unpleasant enough) a dozen ideas for revenge, Ginny sat up to look at Draco and couldn't immediately find him. He had raised his arms over his head, covering the pale outline of his face. She saw, then, why he had been nearly invisible. Draco's Quidditch practice robes covered him from neck to ankle in a green as deep as the grass under the night sky. "How long have you been there?" Ginny railed as she crawled toward him on her knees.
Draco drew his arms down. "Not as long as you've been amusing yourself with the insects, obviously. Should have been occupying your time with a spot of ballet instead. Who knows, with enough years of practice you might acquire enough grace to become an alternate-alternate-alternate reserve Quidditch player for Gryffindor."
"Then I'll leave off with the dancing. I'd rather be in the stands any day, thank you very much." Ginny rolled her eyes as she blew on her sore palms. "You're obviously obsessed, to be at practicing so late."
"You haven't seen my team yet." Draco sat up, grabbing her by an arm. Ginny pulled back, but he held on. "Let me see," he said roughly, running his hands down her arms to seize her wrists. "No lasting damage, " he said after a long moment, then caught the hem of his robe and wiped the grass stains from her hands.
Draco's back was to the castle, so the dim light from the far away torches only served to show her his dark silhouette. She held on to his hands before he could draw them away.
"Malfoy, did you ever tell anyone at all about her? Your mother, I mean." No sudden movement, no tremor in his hands or jerk of his head revealed that he had even heard her. They sat alone in the thickening fog that pressed in from all sides, and Ginny had all but given up on ever hearing an answer when he responded.
"Snape knows, and Dumbledore. That's enough. No one else needs to know, and you're not going to tell them," he said in tired tones.
"Maybe you could talk to a friend about it. I don't know, maybe you could write Crabbe or Goyle," Ginny ventured.
Draco snorted. "Only one of them can read, and I can't remember which. I don't know how you even knew about it."
Ginny decided to sidestep the half-question. "But, wouldn't it be better to let it out? So you don't have to keep it from everyone anymore? Surely someone will read about it in the Daily Prophet, or --"
"There'll be no announcement, and I'm warning you, Weasley, to keep your mouth shut," Draco spat forcefully, as he dropped her hands into her lap.
"I just don't understand why--" Ginny tried again.
"You'll just have to trust me, all right?" he exploded.
"I don't have to trust you," she said, getting to her feet. "But I'll trade you for it. We did come here for a reason after all."
Ginny stood with her legs braced and her arms outstretched, unsure why she wanted him to let her work the Catapultus Charm so much. To her amazement, his shadow rose and halted before her. But instead of feeling his palms on hers, he closed her hands inside his fists.
"There are some things you don't need to understand." She saw his shadow lean in, felt his breath against her cheek, and then he disappeared into the mist.
***
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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.