Chapter 1:
Falling in love was easy and Ginny Weasley knew that for a fact. It was falling back out that was the tricky part.
Ginny had loved for as long as she had known Harry Potter, and she could no longer remember what it had been like before he walked into her life in such a heart-stopping fashion.
Watching him sleeping on the train back to Hogwarts, she was struck yet again by the rugged appeal of his features. While none could exactly call him handsome, there was just something about him that drew admiration.
For Ginny, it was the deep green of his eyes, the way his messy hair fell into them, the golden tone of his skin, his large, square, capable hands made her shiver.
She had tried to date others in the previous year, such as Michael Corner, and Dean Thomas, but honestly, they were very poor substitutes for the object of her affection.
Harry murmured in his sleep, throwing his arm over his forehead, and Ginny stared at him wistfully. The urge to run her fingers through his thick hair causing her to clench her fingers tightly into a fist.
Hermione Granger watched her younger friend over the top of her book, a pitying look gracing her features. Ginny had been pining over Harry for so long, and in such an obvious way, that it was a mild running joke at Hogwarts.
Knowing that nothing would probably ever come of her crush, Ginny leaned her head back against the wall, and sighed deeply. Her brother was asleep at her side, and he snorted, and leaned his head against her shoulder. She glanced at him, and realized that was the most action she had gotten from any male in over six months.
Shoving him off, Ginny jumped out of her seat, with a "I have to go to the bathroom" to her brother who yelped as he fell off the seat, and Hermione who lowered her book to see what the commotion was. Harry, turned in his sleep, which was a little anti-climactic.
Ginny dragged her brush through her hair in the bathroom, trying to spend as much time grooming to avoid going back to the cabin simply to be ignored by her love. Never mind that he was asleep, he still seemed to be able to spurn her.
She looked at herself in the mirror, and sighed. Nothing to write home about, really. Her hair was long, almost to her waist, but it was straight as a pin, and an indeterminate colour between orange and blood red, with a few blonde highlights thrown in from her time around the lake during the summer.
Speaking of her summer spent in the bright sunlight, even her Mum's sun-protection spells hadn't saved her skin from the fate of having her freckles multiply to a strange nut-brown covering.
She also seemed to take after her Dad's side of the family, as opposed to her Mum's curves, and she was approaching five foot ten with astonishing speed, and her chest seemed to have stopped growing outward at the grand old age of twelve. It was a little depressing.
Thinking about her boobs, Ginny cupped them through her school uniform blouse and vest, trying to gauge whether they'd decided to grow at all. Nothing. Maybe next year. Maybe never. Gods, now she was really depressed.
Piling her hair on top of her head, she turned sideways to see if that made a difference. Well, now she looked even taller. Wonderful. Pouting her lips at her reflection, she let her hair go, watching it fall back into the exact same place where it had started.
Sighing, she shoved her black headband back into place to keep the silk heaviness off her face, and turned around to see if her skirt was riding up in the back. At least her butt was nice, well, at least according to the muggle construction workers that she had passed on a visit to London in July.
Exiting the bathroom reluctantly, Ginny walked down the cramped hallway, pausing every few meters in order to prolong the experience.
Noticing a spot on her otherwise shining mary-janes, polished to within an inch of their already second-hand lives, Ginny bent over at her waist to rub at the water mark with the handkerchief that her mother insisted she keep on her person at all times, despite the unhygienic nature of the practice that turned her stomache.
"Very nice, Weasley." A low drawl sounded from behind her. She yelped, and spun around to see Draco Malfoy leaning against the wall, his arms folded across his chest as he watched her with a smirk across her face.
"Malfoy," She growled in response, her hands fisting at her sides, "Hasn't anyone put back the rock from which you crawled out from under as yet?"
"Nice try." If anything, his smirk grew wider, though his stance didn't suggest anything more than amused boredom.
"Well, this little exchange was…" She trailed off, trying to think of an adjective that aptly described it, finally settling upon, "horrifying. But I really must dash."
"Why? Have some more desperate pining for a male who by all accounts is so bent that he couldn't see a woman if she stripped naked, flung herself at him, and wanted to ride his broomstick."
Ginny gaped at the pale, blonde male, never before having heard him say that much in her presence at one time. "What the… Wait a minute, Harry's not gay!"
"You sure about that, love?" He pushed himself away from the wall, and sauntered past her, causing her to step back so that they wouldn't touch.
"Git." Ginny muttered to herself, upset that she hadn't thought of a good comeback in time to get the last word.
Forgetting about the albino Slytherin, Ginny continued on through the corridor, rushing quickly past the closed door where the golden trio still lounged, to the compartment that housed Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood.
Neville looked up at her with a smile, his gentle face welcoming her, and putting her at ease, whereas Luna waggled her upside-down copy of The Quibbler in her direction.
Ginny sat down beside the older Gryffindor, and gave him a quick hug with one arm as she started rooting around in her shoulder bag for the chocolate frogs she had smuggled past her mother's watchful eye as she left the house earlier that day.
"How was your summer?" Neville asked quietly, snagging the leg of the frog that she offered to him.
"It was ok. I spent a lot of time at the lake near our house, which is fun." Ginny shrugged, feeling there was nothing that special about the almost three months she had been out of Hogwarts.
"Was probably better than mine," Neville stated morosely, "Gran decided that we haven't spent enough time with my uncle Irwin who is almost eighty, so we went to stay with him for more of the summer. It would have been okay, except for a few key points. He's incontinent, and somehow confused me with a women he knew in his prime, and pinched my arse."
"Ouch." Ginny patted his hand in sympathy, trying not to laugh, but losing the battle. She quickly turned away from him, knowing that if she didn't, she would hurt his feelings.
"That's rather amusing." Luna smiled dreamily, and went back to her paper, not noticing Neville's downcast expression.
The carriage ride up to the castle was spent in uncomfortable silence after Ron came to find her, with Hermione reading… something, Ginny really hadn't gathered enough interest to ask what, and Harry contemplating the Forbidden forest out the window to his left. Ron had fallen asleep again.
Ginny whistled lightly under her breath, playing with the hem of her vest, which had a thread hanging from it. She had come to the realization over the summer that she really didn't have that many of her own friends… meaning, that she had the trio, and their friends. It was high time to change that.
The problem was, was that most of the girls her year in Gryffindor… well, they irritated her. She really liked to think that she had more important things to do than giggle vacuously at… well, the most random things. Yes, she knew how irritating she was to many of her classmates about her obsession with Harry, but still… well, obviously she lived for the double standard, and was surprisingly okay with it.
"Ginny?" Hermione raised a dark eyebrow as she looked up from her book. Ginny bristled at her supercilious tone, but strove for politeness, "Yes Hermione?"
"Could you stop please?" She enunciated each word carefully, as if speaking to a five year old.
"Oh, so sorry." Ginny stopped her whistling and stared out of the opposite window to Harry.
Hermione occasionally got under her skin, and it took a great deal of patience to be around her at times. She was just so smart and such a perfectionist, that when people did not measure up to her own personal standards, she tended to regard them as lesser and acted appropriately.
Ginny knew all of this, and yet, still, her fingers sometimes itched to get into a fist and find their way to her chin.
The welcoming feast seemed to drag on forever. Ginny stared at her fork, wondering if she jabbed it into the back of her hand it would get the right amount of attention to get out of there, or cause her to bleed to death. As she was undecided on this matter, she chose to do nothing.
"And it is with great pleasure that I welcome you all back to another fine year here at Hogwarts School." Dumbledore finished his speech, and sat down with a wave of his hand to indicate that the students should start eating. He was quickly immersed in a discussion with Professor McGonagall to his right.
Ginny turned away from the head table to look at the other houses, noticing Luna sitting by herself, looking quite content to be stringing butterbeer corks onto a new necklace for herself.
Her gaze shifted to the Slytherin table, spotting Draco Malfoy's platinum hair shining in the candlelight of the Great Hall. Narrowing her eyes, Ginny watched as he laughed at something Crabbe had said. What a ponce.
Dismissing him without a second glance, Ginny turned to see Harry Potter sitting beside Hermione, across from Ron, talking to Dean Thomas. She smiled dreamily, seeing his bright green eyes sparkle behind the, admittedly, nerdy black glasses. When he finally came to his senses and asked her out, she was definitely going to talk him into a new pair of frames.
Her hair was going to drive her crazy, was the next thought that flitted through her mind. It was tickling her arms and neck, and she deftly twisted it up, back, and stuck the handle of her spoon in it to hold the heavy tendrils in place.
Seamus Finnegan glanced over, and his lips curved into a smile at that, "Hey Ginny, getting creative with the cutlery again?"
Grinning at his playful Irish charm, Ginny leaned over to him, "Just so we can have these moments sweetheart."
"Gods, I do love those redheads!" Seamus shouted with laughter. Ron glanced over at him with a visible shudder, "Oh, not you Ronnie baby. I meant your luscious little sis."
Ginny laughed, which had been Seamus' goal all along, and Hermione reached over to shove Ron back into his seat. "Sit down, Ronald, you look like a fool."
Ron muttered to himself and took a big bite of the pudding that appeared in the middle of the Gryffindor table, slightly mollified by the trifle.
Yawning widely, Ginny smiled at Seamus who was still hovering over her like the man-whore he was, "That's it, I'm off to bed."
"Well, this is all very sudden Ms. Weasley, but only if you promise me breakfast in the morning." Seamus stood up too, slinging an arm around her shoulders, which was quite the feat, considering she was about an inch taller than him.
"Geroff you great Irish lag." Ginny shouldered him off and waved goodnight to the trio, squinting her eyes to see if Harry had possible seen Seamus' antics and gotten wildly jealous. No such luck.
Shoulders slumping slightly, she walked out of the Great Hall, trying to remember if she had been told the new password to the tower room.
In fact, she was pondering this so hard, that she wasn't watching where she was going, and smashed into something solid, and went skidding on her arse across the stone floor.
"Bugger!" She cried out, looking up to glare at her attacker who had not had the decency of getting out of her way… or falling down too.
Ginny looked straight into the steel grey helmet of a suit of armour strategically positioned along the hallway. It wasn't even on the corner or anything… if she hadn't missed that, she would have walked into the wall, which was a little embarrassing.
"Good Gods, Weasley, that's the second time today I've seen your knickers." A smooth drawl sounded from beside her, and she turned her head to see Draco Malfoy looking down at her with mocking amusement showing on his otherwise expressionless face.
Ginny glared as she picked herself off the floor, thankful that the contents of her bag hadn't gone flying in all directions, her hair falling down her back, and around her shoulders in wild disarray. "Malfoy, stop being a pervert."
"Hey, did I pull up your skirt to look? I believe you were the one who flashed me." If anything, his smirk widened, a lock of pale hair falling into his flashing eyes.
"You're a git." Summing up her feelings, she turned to head to the tower, trying to ignore his mocking laughter which seemed to follow her, speeding up as he called mockingly, "You forgot your spoon!"
When she got to the portrait of the fat lady, Ginny realized that she had indeed, not gotten told the password, and had to wait, and then suffer through the indignity of a group of second years letting her in.
Classes for about the first month flew by in a stream of monotonous lectures, gossiping classmates, and wishing that she was elsewhere. She just couldn't seem to get into her studies this year, she just wasn't interested.
It didn't help either, that the trio were cutting themselves off more and more from not only her, but everyone else in Gryffindor. It seemed like they were absorbing into each other, and Ginny could do nothing else but watch helplessly, and accept an invitation from Colin to go to Hogsmeade, and then to the Halloween dance.
The only thing that seemed to unsettle the ordinary was Ginny's run-ins with Draco Malfoy. His spitefulness seemed to be a constant, and that in and of itself was oddly reassuring.
The day after the dance, she had been sitting with her feet in the lake, wondering what had possessed her to wear the high heels the night before. Staring at a particularly angry red blister through the shimmering water, Ginny leaned forward with her elbows on her knees, when her silence had been interrupted.
"Weasley. What an… unpleasant surprise." Draco's voice sounded from behind her. Ginny sighed and hung her head, "If I tell you to take a flying leap, will it actually accomplish anything?"
"You've got balls, I'll give you that." He sank down on his haunches beside her, staring off into the distance.
"I don't want anything to do with your balls, thank you very much." She turned her head away, thinking glumly of the fact that Harry had ignored her again for the majority of the night before.
"You're thinking about the git again, aren't you?" Startled, Ginny turned to look at him, catching his silvery eyes in the sunlight, noticing just how pale he truly was.
"What git?" She shook her head, "Actually, I don't care. Go away."
"Potter." He spat out, with more than a touch of venom lacing his voice.
"Oh my Gods, go away!" She yelled, pointing toward the school.
"No." He answered succinctly, sitting down beside her, seemingly uncaring of the fact that the dirt might get on his black trousers.
"Great Galloping Merlin, you're irritating."
"Great Galloping Merlin? Weasley, you do have a way with words. And as to the irritating comment, I've been told."