Chapter 1: The Defining of Ginny Weasley
It was a cold night, the type that seemed to nip fiercely at your fingertips, until they were red from the abuse. From the very tops of the Astronomy Tower, it was probably even colder than the rest of the drafty castle known as Hogwarts, but the girl sitting by the window didn't seem to notice.
Hair normally the color of burnished copper was turned blood red in the midst of night, and the soft ringlets fell over her shoulders like a cloak of muted fire. She looked absentmindedly at the stars, vaguely appreciating their beauty, but in all honestly, she wasn't thinking about stars. She was thinking about Harry.
Not the Great Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived. No, her thoughts about the young man were reflected in the orbs the color of milk chocolate that were fixated on the stars above. Ginny was thinking of Just Plain Harry, and how much she despised him. She could never really despise The Boy Who Lived (he saved her life, after all), but she could despise Harry.
Most people believed that Virginia Weasley loved Harry, and as much as she cringed to admit it, she did. But that didn't make her despise him any less.
You see, that morning, Virginia - no, Ginny, admitted her long-harbored feelings for him. Needless to say, it didn't quite go as she planned.
It was only five in the morning when she walked into the common room, and as she entered, she found Harry, in his Quiddich robes, reading Quiddich, Through the Ages on the sofa. And after exchanging brief, and inconsequential greetings (the type you share with the little sister of your best friend) he went back to reading.
He looked so very adorable, lying on the sofa. So very Harry. His dark hair was badly mussed, falling over his forehead in a disarray. His glasses weren't exactly fashionable, but they only added to the appeal of his thoughtful green eyes.
So she had walked over to him, plopped down right next to him and told him very simply "I love you, Harry Potter." Oddly enough, she didn't feel embarrassed; just relieved.
She didn't need him to say it back, but she needed to say it. For years she's had this crush on Harry, and recently became convinced that this was the only way to get rid of it - because as grand as people thought love was, Ginny hated it. It made her humiliate herself daily, like some sort of dark, twisted torture. So she wanted to hear it. She wanted to hear him reject her. No, she needed to hear it, or else she would cling to the fantasy forever.
It had worked just as she thought it would. One of Harry's finer points was his dependability (predictability?).
Harry looked at her, completely flustered, with his face the color of her hair. It was ironic that they only time he ever got embarrassed by her was when she wasn't. "Ginny," He began slowly. "You know that I consider Ron a brother to me - your entire family has been great to me." He paused, and she waited for him to say what they both knew was coming. "It's just - I love you like a little sister, and a friend." He finally said, adjusting his glasses guiltily.
As if he'd done something wrong. As if he could have done something wrong. As if here weren't Harry Potter, Boy Wonder, who never did anything "wrong" in his entire existence. And instead of hurt, or anger, or even love, all Ginny felt towards Harry was disgust at his...perfectness. Perfectly handsome. Perfectly good. And perfectly noble. He wasn't her older brother. He wasn't even her friend. He was her older brother's friend, and that did not equal the other two.
So instead of sobbing hysterically (as Harry probably thought - no, expected - her to do), Ginny smiled politely at him, as if what he said was some type of common accurance. "That's very sweet of you, Harry. We all feel that you are almost a part of our family as well." She replied amiably, and walked back up to her room.
It probably wasn't very nice, but she didn't care, and she wasn't about to.
For the past fifteen years, Ginny Weasley had always been a shadow to her older brothers. There was Bill, the cool one, Charlie the fun and interesting one, Percy the smart one, Fred and George, the funny and mischiveous ones and Ron, the adventurous one. She used to be the innocent one, but even if the whole Chamber of Secrets thing hadn't happened, she would have lost her innocence eventually. So now she was just the little Weasley girl; sad as it was, that was what people thought of her as. Ginny, the girl. After "Ron the adventurous one" comes "Ginny the female one." It even sounded pathetic in her mind.
Her first five years at Hogwarts certainly didn't help matters. It seemed as if she couldn't even get her own friends - all her friends were only her friends because they knew one of her older brothers. Hermione, Angelina...the list could go on, and did.
All her life she had been defined by someone else. Well not anymore. Ginny thought decidedly to herself, as she drifted off to sleep. I will not be the little Weasley girl for the rest of my life.
*******
As a certain blond aristocrat dragged his feet through the halls of Hogwarts, students alternately gave him looks of disgust or admiration, depending on what House they were in.
The boy didn't seem to notice any of them.
Draco Malfoy couldn't remember the last time he felt so drained. He couldn't even sneer right. He had felt hurt and discomfort much worse than this, but he was never so tired. Draco was never what you might call a hard worker. Though he was intelligent and athletic, he usually depended on natural ability.
For the past year, he exerted his various natural abilities to a point of exhaustion, and had a bone weary suspicion that it was all in vain.
By the time he collapsed on his bed, he instantly fell in a deep, though not dreamless sleep.
Not long after, it came, just as it had for as long as he could remember.
Dragon kin... The Voice was soft, whispery. It didn't sound like a man or woman, it simply sounded of power. He knew the Voice, but he couldn't place it - or perhaps he just knew the power it held within its nuances.
"Hmn?" Draco murmured, drawn to it.
Follow the stars, faithless one... The Voice beckoned.
The Voice didn't have any true substance, but Draco reached out for it anyway.
The Key will be waiting for you...
*******
"Where the bloody hell is she?" Ronald Weasley raged, rumpling his already worn robes by twisting them with clenched hands.
The young man of sixteen would probably be pacing, or running around the castle if it weren't for the fact that his best friends put a curse on him so he couldn't get up from the Gryffindor common room couch. It seemed as though his younger sister had been missing since night before, and he wasn't exactly happy about it.
Hermione Granger, one of those best friends, glared at him. "Honestly, Ron, you aren't helping by yelling." She told him calmly, though she glanced worriedly to Harry (the other best friend) as she said this.
But for some reason, Harry didn't return her gaze. In fact, he looked almost...guilty. Now, Hermione would never prefer to be called screwed, but the look she gave him could certainly be put in that category. Straightening her shoulders, she refrained from demanding answers from Harry right then, simply because Ron was there. Ron Weasley wasn't exactly known for his even temperament and good judgment under pressure, especially when concerning his baby sister.
"Damn it, Hermione, let me up! What if she's hurt or something?" Ron growled, his hands knotted in his robes. "It's not like sitting here is helping anything much, either!"
She sighed softly. Pointing her wand at the boy, she muttered "Finite Incantatem."
Suddenly, the redheaded boy was up on his feet, and out the door, and Harry found himself alone, in a room with a very suspicious female who was eying him carefully.
"I should go help Ron," Harry said hopefully, trying to slink past two watchful brown eyes.
"Harry Potter, you stay right where you are." Hermione said, her hands on her hips. "What do you know about Ginny's disappearance?"
*******
When Ron ran out of the common room, he fully intended to go out to search in all of Ginny's usual places to find her. Around twenty feet away from the Fat Lady's Portrait, he realized that he didn't know what Ginny's usual places were.
If this were the Burrow, then he would have known to check the attic, right at the place where the ceiling and floor were closest together, where Fred and George once blew up a hole in the roof with one of their "experiments".
But at Hogwarts...where would she go? Though she had been at the school with him for five years, he honestly didn't have any idea where she went when she wasn't in the common room. In fact, he never really thought of her as anywhere but the common room, besides class that is.
She was his little sister after all. It was hard to think of her as having a life outside of his own.
It was two hours before he even thought to look in the Astronomy Tower.
*******
Many people would compare Draco Malfoy to a snake. He was considered cunning, quick and cold, which were attributes to snakes, but in truth, he was much more like a cat. Or at least he certainly looked like one as he stretched out his back in one, lazy motion, and ran his hands through slightly disheveled silver blond hair when he woke up that Saturday morning.
His pale blond eyelashes fluttered for a second, as his gray eyes tried in vain to adjust to the sunlight.
It was then that he realized two things. One, was that he wasn't in the boys dorm. One look at the high ceiling, and one touch of cool floor told him this. Two, was that he was lying next to someone. He distinctly felt the heat radiating off a body that wasn't quite touching him, but close enough.
After rolling over to discover who was next to him, he groaned when he saw it was. Because sleeping right next to him was Virginia Weasley.
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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.