A/N My first long term story since the "First Kiss" debacle. I'd like to think I've progressed as a writer since then.

Chapter 1: One Floo Over the Cuckoo's Nest

"Ah! We'll need to get a little more," Mrs. Weasley sighed woefully as she shook the last of the floo powder into her daughter's upturned hand, "Could you pick me up some while you're there dear?"

"Sure, mum." Ginny swung her backpack onto her shoulder, leaning down to close the considerable distance between she and her mother, and planted a peck on her mother's cheek before casting the meager handful of floo powder into the fire place, "Seeya soon mum. Weasley's Wizard Wheezes!"

In a moment, she was gone from the cozy kitchen of the Burrow and spiraling through the Floo Network™, leaving Mrs. Weasley working her hands worriedly.

"Oh, dear," she sighed, furrowing her brow at the spot where her daughter had just left, "I hope she's packed enough under things…"

Ginny sneezed, disturbing an oddly thick layer of dust that surrounded her. Bloody fireplaces, she thought with a scowl. Generally, Ginny did not like floo powder, preferring one of the many other wizardly modes of travel (save for magic carpets, which gave her the willies), but unless she wanted to haul her butt from Little Whinging to Diagon Alley at the crack of dawn on a Monday morning, she would need to suck it up.

During one of their weekly trips to the Burrow that weekend, Fred and George had come to her on bended (and highly sarcastic) knee, begging her (sort of) to stand in for their usual counter-girl, who had apparently taken badly to an especially potent batch of Fainting Fancies and had collapsed face first into a display of Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder.

"Simply awful!"

"Terrible!"

"Had to shut down the shop for the rest o' the day!"

"So please, can you please, please, please, please cover for us?"

"We'll give you anything!" This is where the twins had dropped to their knees, gazing up with their best puppy eyes (which were complete shite in Ginny's opinion).

"Can I get paid?" They twins shared a thoughtful glance.

"Minimally."

"Can I get out of the Burrow?"

"Sure. We've got an extra room."

"Done."

So here she was…er… Where was she? Ginny started to rise, bumping her head unceremoniously on a low ceiling. That's odd, Ginny reflected, Wizard Wheezes has a pretty tall fireplace. Where the hell am I?

Ginny crawled cautiously forward, sweeping the ash in front of her with her hands to avoid any surprises. After a few moments, she came to a busted up wrought iron grill, a thin strip of light shining through the thin seam where the doors met. Shimmying backwards a little, Ginny landed a square kick on said seam, letting in a flood of musty gray light. As her eyes readjusted to the light, a flat, decaying smell hit her nose.

"What the bloody hell is that!" Ginny's hand flew to cover her nose and mouth as the answer became abundantly clear.

Before her, on the lower level of dusty glass display case, sat a shriveled head. Its (or her, rather, judging by the tautly tied bun sprouting grotesquely from the back of the head) eyelids hung down over murky black eyes and thin, cracked lips hung open, pulling at paper-thin skin in such a way that the head rasped, "What are you doing here?"

"Miss," a voice repeated, "What are you doing back here…?" It wasn't the talking head at all, but instead a hunched old man who stood above her, rubbing his hands together with a soft scratching sound.

" I…er…not enough floo powder…ended up…" She refused the gnarled, calloused hand the old man offered and opted instead to wobble to her feet, shaking away the dust and floo stupor that seemed to have claimed her linguistic skills. " I'm sorry. I'll be going now." The old man withdrew his hand (looking just the tiniest bit sour), but acted as if he hadn't heard her at all.

"I see you have found Madame Grondcoric. She one our…mmm… prizes." The shopkeeper gestured to the shrunken head, giving it a slight pat. "Promised us her head years before she passed on. What a lovely woman…"

With this he wandered away, stopping ever so often to caress one of the grotesque oddities that filled the shelves. Alone again, Ginny hurried towards the front of the shop, trying hard to ignore the tinkling scream that accompanied her exit, as well as the shopkeeper's hoarse, "Come again!"

Ginny wandered into the street, shading her eyes in the daylight. She turned to read the shop's sign.

" Borgin and Burkes," she wondered aloud.

"Oh yes," came a voice close to her ear, "Quite the establishment…"

" Er, what?" Ginny turned to see a very tall witch with very long hair that looked as if it was made up of various textures and colors, as if she had taken someone else's hair and attached it to her own.

"Nothing, nothing my pet," the witch said with a virtually toothless smile, reaching out to with a single crooked finger to lightly prod at a curl in Ginny's hair, "Such red hair! Never seen such red hair!"

"Must be going," Ginny laughed nervously, backing away slowly.

Once she was a safe distance from the muttering woman, Ginny shouldered her backpack and gazed at the street around her.

Most of the shops looked shady and grubby, with crumbling gold lettering above their doors. On the street there were few clumps of people, the trend seemed to be of solitary figures trying hard not to be recognized. Although it was relatively warm outside, Ginny shivered as her eyes fell upon a street sign hanging high up on a rusted pole.

"Now what is a Weasel doing in Knockturn Alley?" Ginny could recognize that voice anywhere; silky, arrogant, and laced with ill-disguised contempt. "Filthier than usual it seems." Malfoy planted himself in front of the red head, crossing his arms and setting a look of smug amusement on his face.

" Not like you own it, Ferret." Angry as she was, Ginny couldn't help but redden just the tiniest bit. She really was covered almost head to toe in soot and cobwebs. Ginny wiped her dirty hands uselessly on her equally grime covered jeans.

"Actually, my father does." He languidly tossed his arm out, indicating a row of cleaner looking shops.

"Well, that isn't you is it? Tell me, when are you going to stop riding your father's coat tails and grow a pair of your own?"

Malfoy's sneer sagged, but any response was cut off by a distant, but equally silky and smug, voice that called, "Stop harassing the plebian Draco, even if it is a Weasley."

The last word was spat with such venom that both teens cringed a little (Draco recognized the poisonous tone as one that often rendered his name into a pile of animal excrement), but Malfoy withdrew with a final twitchy smirk.

"So long, Weaslette."

Ginny waited until the father and son had sauntered away before hurrying towards the mouth of the street that fed into the significantly brighter Diagon Alley. As she passed the familiar sights of Gringott's, Madame Malkin's and finally the shimmering windows of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, Ginny was so relieved to see the inviting shop front that she didn't even bother to contemplate the fact that she had just been referred to as a plebian.