Disclaimer: Not mine. No copyright infringement is intended. This will be true for the rest of the story.
A/N: So, this fic is somewhat AU, as you shall soon discover. Some people who died in canon are not dead, &c. However, besides the differences that will become clear as you read, it is safe to assume that the Battle for Hogwarts and everything that came before it follows canon. Enjoy!
Ch 1: Innocent Son
Ginny watched with heavy-lidded eyes as the English countryside whirled past the windows of her train. She could hardly believe that she was, once again, riding on the Hogwarts Express—for the last time. It felt both comfortable and strange.
She stuck her hands in her pockets and heard, to her surprise, the faint rustling of paper. After some digging, she pulled out a thin envelope, labeled with the words To: Ginny, From: Harry (in hastily scribbled black ink).
Ginny's eyes clouded over for a moment as she thought back to that morning, in her bedroom. Harry, standing by her window, the sunlight illuminating his messy black hair so that it stood out like a dark halo around his head, her stomach knotting uncomfortably at the knowledge that he hadn't come to tell her anything except "Goodbye" . . .
Ginny took a deep breath and opened the envelope.
Dear Ginny,
I hope you have a great year at Hogwarts.
Love,
Harry
Behind the note, there were two photographs. They were both from Ginny's seventeenth birthday party. The first one showed everyone who had come to dinner that night at the Burrow: Lupin and Tonks, baby Theodore balanced between them, his hair an obnoxious shade of green; George, arm around Angelina, his long, shaggy hair covering the scar where his ear used to be; Percy, standing next to Arthur and Molly, all three of them laughing a little; Ginny in the middle, grinning, with her arm slung over Ron's shoulders; Hermione, holding Ron's hand, and then Harry, smiling shyly; Charlie; Bill, holding Victoire, who was crying, and Fleur on the end, looking exasperatedly happy in the way that only a young mother could look.
Ginny smiled to herself, remembering that night. It had certainly been the happiest evening of the summer. Molly cooked a delicious meal, and everyone sat outside in the warmth of the summer evening, talking and laughing until dusk. Just as Teddy and Victoire had been taken inside and laid down to sleep, Ron started up a game of Quidditch in the dark, and he even managed to convince Hermione and Percy to join in. Everyone in the Weasley family had smiled more in that one evening than Ginny had seen them smile in the past four months, and they weren't just smiling for her because it was her birthday and they had to pretend. They were smiling because they were happy.
Well, most of them, Ginny thought. But then, she wondered if George would smile—really smile—ever again.
Ginny's contentedness disappeared. She moved on to the second photo.
She was surprised to see herself and Harry—she hadn't noticed the photo being taken at the time. The Quidditch game had just ended. Harry had caught the Snitch, of course, but Charlie had given him a good run for his money. Ginny, refusing to admit defeat, had flown over to Harry and tugged him mercilessly to the ground, struggling to wrestle the little snitch from his fingers and laughing the whole time. In the photo, they were both laughing, their hair wild from flying and their party clothes disheveled. Ginny was barefoot, having kicked off her nice shoes to fly.
I don't remember being that happy, Ginny thought. She figured that Harry had probably thought the same thing, and that's why he'd given her the picture.
Standing up in her empty compartment, Ginny stuffed the pictures and the note back in their envelope and placed it in her school bag. Then she rummaged around for her book. Just as she'd settled back down and begun to read, the compartment door opened.
Ginny looked up, a little disappointed, but her disappointment evaporated when she saw the girl entering the compartment.
"Luna!" Ginny cried, throwing aside the book so she could jump up and hug the other girl.
Luna seemed caught off-guard by this sudden show of affection, but after a moment of hesitation, she was hugging Ginny back with equal fierceness.
"Ginny," she said, her voice twinkling. "I'm sorry I missed your birthday party."
Ginny let go of the girl and they both sat down. "It's fine," replied the redhead. "Ron told me that you were in France?"
Luna nodded. "Daddy wanted to get away from England for a while," she said. "You know, after . . . everything."
Ginny managed to keep her face blank. "Everything" could hardly sum up how Xenophilius Lovegood must have felt when Death Eaters kidnapped his daughter. "I understand," said Ginny.
"I'm so glad you're coming back, too!" said Luna. "I haven't seen many people I recognize, but I know that Dean's here—you know, his mum sent him back since he was on the run for most of last year—and Neville, too."
"Neville?" Ginny cried. "But he had school last year . . . "
"As if that counts," said Luna. "We didn't learn much, except how to be dark wizards, or how to get tortured by dark wizards, depending on which house you were in. But anyway, he's not here for school."
Ginny looked confused. "So he's teaching, or what?"
Luna nodded. "Herbology. He's going to be apprentice to Professor Sprout so he can replace her when she retires. He's got the first and second years."
"Wow. Good for him!" said Ginny. "Anyone else?"
Luns shrugged. "I think I saw Dennis Creevey . . . " Her voice trailed off. Luna was thinking about Colin. Ginny started to think about Colin, but her thoughts wandered, because whenever she thought about that battle, she remembered—
"Oh," Luna added, interrupting Ginny's thoughts. "I forgot. I also saw Draco Malfoy and Blaise Zabini."
"What?" said Ginny. "But they were seventh years! Why would they come back?"
Luna shrugged. "They didn't exactly learn much last year, did they? And they certainly never took NEWTs. Besides, it's not like they're the most popular people in the wizarding world right now, with their family . . . history."
"So?" said Ginny, her voice bitter. "Family history" was one way of putting it. Lucius Malfoy would only be seeing sunlight through the cracks in the walls of his cell in Azkaban.
Luna shot her friend a sympathetic look, but Ginny was staring out the window wearing a sour expression. "Well," said the Ravenclaw, slow enough as if she were speaking against her better judgment, "you know. If they're here, at least they're trying—"
Just then, the compartment door slid open again.
"Dean!" said Luna, interrupting herself. "I found Ginny."
Dean Thomas walked in, leaving the compartment door slightly open, and sat down next to Luna, across from Ginny. It was strange—looking at him, Ginny could hardly tell that he was the same person she'd dated two years prior. He was even taller now, and he looked much older. He had a very odd expression on his face, as if he were embarrassed, and she hoped it wasn't because of what had gone on between them in her fifth year. That had been so long ago that Ginny felt as if it had happened to someone else, some other girl.
"Heya, Dean," she said, smiling, trying to put him at ease.
"Hi, Ginny," he replied. "Good to see you." He shifted a little, and then he reached behind his back and pulled out the book that she had thrown aside when Luna came in.
"Oh! Sorry, that's mine," she explained, holding out a hand for it.
"'Hamlet, by William Shakespeare'?" Dean read from the cover. He looked curiously at Ginny. "I didn't know you read Muggle stuff, Gin."
Ginny was surprised at first that he recognized it; then she remembered that Dean was a Muggleborn. "Yeah, I don't know," she said, embarrassed for some reason that she could not explain. "I just like . . . you know . . . the stuff they come up with."
Dean tossed it over to her. "I understand. Muggles are the best writers." He smiled at her, and she smiled tentatively back.
Luna cleared her throat, and looked as if she were about to say something, when suddenly, the compartment door, which had been left ajar, banged open.
"I beg to differ," said Blaise Zabini, leaning casually against the doorframe. "Clearly you've never read A Tale of Two Mudbloods by Clifford Dickson or Pride and Pureblood by Jezebel Ogden."
Ginny was on her feet in a second, followed closely by Luna and Dean.
"Zabini," she spat, as if his name were the worst insult she could think of. "What are you doing here?"
He smirked at her. "It is my unfortunate duty to collect you, Weasle." He turned around. "Come on."
Ginny stood where she was, narrowing her eyes. "Who sent you?"
Blaise glanced back over his shoulder. "Honestly. Gryffindors," he muttered. Then, more loudly, he said, "Slughorn," and started walking down the corridor without bothering to wait.
Ginny sighed. "I guess I should go," she said to Luna and Dean. Luna nodded and Dean, for some reason, looked somewhat nervous again. Before Ginny could puzzle it out, she realized that Blaise had disappeared into the next car, so she sped off after him.
A minute later, she caught up, and a few minutes after that, they arrived at Slughorn's compartment, having been, of course, completely silent in the interim period. Blaise knocked on the compartment door, and when Slughorn's pleasant-sounding "come in" drifted out to them, he swept in and tried to shut the door in Ginny's face.
She had been expecting something of the sort, so she was on her guard. She stuck her foot in the doorway and pressed it open with her hand, smiling as if she hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary.
"Good afternoon, Professor," she said.
Slughorn was already making decent progress through his first box of crystallized pineapple. "Young Miss Weasley! Do come in and sit, yes, wonderful. Well done, Zabini."
Blaise smirked across the room at her. She tried to ignore him and mostly succeeded.
After she sat down, she had a chance to look about the room. She saw with an unpleasant shock that Pansy Parkinson was lounging at Blaise's left, looking bored—and, Ginny realized, her stomach knotting, Draco Malfoy was on his right, his eyes narrowed directly at her. She looked away, and her gaze landed instead on Neville, who was sitting next to Slughorn and grinning at her. She grinned back. There were four other students there—a Gryffindor girl from Ginny's class named Alice Tolipan; a boy with hair as black as Harry's, from Ravenclaw; and two petite, pleasant-faced Hufflepuffs, a boy and a girl who looked like twins.
"Right," said Slughorn. He was still looking at Ginny. "Are Thomas and Lovegood on their way?"
Ginny blinked at him. Then she shot a nasty look at Blaise. "I think Zabini forgot to mention that they were invited."
He feigned a look of surprise. "Did I? Oh—my mistake. Sorry, professor . . . I thought you just said Weasle. I mean, Weasley," he corrected himself pointedly, smirking again. Ginny fumed.
Slughorn waved it away. "Yes, well, no matter. You're going back to them, I presume?" he asked Ginny.
"Yes, sir."
"Well, you can just give them their badges, then." Slughorn took another bite of pineapple.
"Badges—right," said Neville. "So. As you all know, preparing Hogwarts for classes this fall took a little more time and energy than it usually does, and because of that, Prefects were not appointed." Ginny looked over at the Slytherins, but Pansy was pretending to be asleep on Blaise's shoulder, and Draco was staring at Neville with a completely blank expression. "That's why," Neville finished, "Professor Slughorn and I are doing it now."
Ginny tensed. A nervous, unpleasant feeling began in her stomach and made its way up to her throat.
"Right, so, Zabini and Parkinson, you're the prefects for Slytherin," Slughorn said, flicking his wand and sending two badges zooming across the room. Pansy perked up immediately and snatched them both from the air, handing one to her housemate with a cold smile. "Baker and Baker—well, Silas and Sedanthe, for Hufflepuff"—the Hufflepuff badges flew over to the petite twins, who both began pinning them on each other, looking delighted. "Bardot and Lovegood for Ravenclaw." One badge flew to the boy Ginny didn't know; the other flew into Ginny's lap. "And," finished Slughorn, "Thomas and Tolipan for Gryffindor." Ginny watched the other Gryffindor girl catch her badge as Dean's landed gently next to Luna's.
Two for each house, thought Ginny. But if that's the case, what am I?
"And now, Head Boy and Head Girl," said Neville, looking proudly at Ginny.
Oh no, she thought. Oh, Merlin, no . . .
But there was nothing she could do to stop that moment from happening.
"Weasley, congratulations," said Slughorn, grinning at her. "And Malfoy, from my own house."
Ginny felt her own badge land in her hand at the exact moment that Draco Malfoy caught his gleaming silver badge in his long, thin fingers.
(&)
"I can't believe this," Ginny said for the twentieth time that evening. "I just can't believe it."
Dean gave her a sad smile. "We can't be too surprised about Malfoy and the others. I mean, with Snape as Headmaster now—"
"Just because he's some great war hero doesn't mean I have to like him," said Ginny, somewhat quicker than she meant to. "In fact," she grumbled, now feeling a bit childish but unable to stop herself, "I reckon double agents are even less trustworthy. Means they're really good at lying, doesn't it?"
Dean raised an eyebrow at her.
Just how Snape had been cleared of all charges after he was wounded in the Battle for Hogwarts was still a bit unclear to the majority of wizarding Britain. As always, facts had been exaggerated, but what had leaked from his top-security trial maintained an essential core of truth: Snape had been double agent the whole time, and he had only killed Dumbledore because the old man had made Snape promise to do so. Harry, of course, had testified at the trial, disclosing the circumstances of how Snape had passed his memories on to Harry after his injury from Voldemort's snake, Nagini. Just what had motivated Snape to put his life at such intense risk was never discussed, at Snape's request—and Ginny knew this because Harry had told her. She knew the truth, along with Ron and Hermione: that Snape had been in love with Harry's mother, and he did it all to avenge her death.
She supposed she should feel sorry for him. In fact, she did feel a sharp twist of compassion for Snape's desperate sort of love. His life, she thought, must be one of the loneliest in existence. But she tried not to dwell on that too much. He was, after all, still a right git.
"At least Shacklebolt will be keeping a close watch on Hogwarts this year," Dean told Ginny, breaking her from her reverie.
She stabbed a piece of pot roast. "Yeah. But still . . . Malfoy . . ."
"You know why they did it," interrupted Luna, catching the drift of their conversation as she squeezed in beside Ginny at the Gryffindor table. When Dean and Ginny gave her blank looks, she said, "Well, I thought it would be obvious. It's a big show of unity, isn't it? Moving forward, and all that. A Gryffindor and a Slytherin, Head Boy and Girl."
Ginny rolled her eyes, but Dean turned serious. "She's right," he said, his voice quiet. "It's a good way to show how Hogwarts hasn't changed. All are welcome, regardless . . ."
"Regardless of which side they were on," Ginny grumbled.
"Come on," said Dean, seemingly as much to himself as to her. "Focus on the good stuff. You're Head Girl."
Ginny went a little red at that, and finally managed to smile. "Yeah, all right. Thanks, Dean. And you're Prefects!"
Luna touched her badge self-consciously. "I've got to write to Dad. I never expected this."
Ginny pushed her food around some more. She had never expected this, either. Why her? She certainly wasn't Snape's idea of a shining student. She glanced up at the Head Table, and was surprised to see that Snape was deep in conversation (albeit unwillingly, judging by the expression on his face) with Remus Lupin.
"Hey, look!" she said to Dean and Luna, nodding up at the Head Table. "It's Lupin!"
Dean grinned. "Nice! Reckon he's back to teach Defense?"
Ginny's brow furrowed. "Dunno," she said. "He didn't mention it. I saw him just a couple of weeks ago, at my birthday party."
"Maybe he just didn't know about it yet," said Luna, sucking on a chunk of Honeyduke's chocolate. Dessert had just appeared on the tables.
"Are you allowed to be here, stealing the Gryffindor chocolate?" Ginny asked the blonde girl, mock-glaring.
Luna shrugged. "Prefect," she reminded Ginny. Dean chuckled.
Suddenly, the amplified sound of Snape clearing his throat echoed throughout the hall, and everyone fell silent.
"Welcome," he said, somehow managing the make the word sound completely un-welcoming, "to another year at Hogwarts. Now that the feast is over, I would like to make a few announcements.
"First, I have the distinct pleasure of introducing one of your Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers, Remus Lupin," he spat, sounding as if he'd rather be drinking Essence of Flobberworm.
Ginny raised an eyebrow. "Teachers?" she mouthed silently, but Dean and Luna merely shrugged.
"Also, please welcome Professor Longbottom, who will be teaching Herbology to the first and second years as an assistant to Professor Sprout." Snape turned his infamous glare on Neville, who, Ginny was shocked to see, didn't seem phased at all. He waved cheerfully at the House Tables, all four of which burst into scattered applause (even Slytherin—less uproariously than the others, but still). A lot has changed, thought Ginny, and for once, the idea didn't make her feel desolate. She grinned up at Neville, and he caught her eye and winked.
"Now," said Snape, after the applause had died down, "Prefects and Head Boy and Girl, see me." Then he sat down, and everyone started talking again, even more loudly than before.
Ginny looked across the table at Dean, who shrugged again before he stood up. "Probably the passwords, so we can lead the ickle firsties."
He was right. After he and Luna had heard all that they needed to hear, they went back to their House tables, but not before Luna had squeezed Ginny's shoulder and whispered, "Good luck."
Ginny stood up a bit straighter and looked Snape directly in the eye. "Well?" she asked. "What about me?"
Draco was still making his way over from the Slytherin table. Ginny could see his smirk from across the hall. She knew he was being slow on purpose, making her wait. Git.
"Patience, Weasley," Snape said, and she thought she saw a glint of dark amusement in his eyes.
She held the tip of her tongue between her teeth, not looking him in the eye. Her gaze fell instead on the series of scars that pockmarked his neck, not quite hidden by the high, black collar of his robes. She knew the red, uneven circles were places where the fangs had pierced him. Looking at the messy constellation they made of his candlewax skin, it was hard to believe he'd survived at all. If not for Hermione's quick application of dittany—
Ginny's eyes slipped to the floor. Lots of wizards and witches in this hall wore a few new scars, though not all of them were visible.
"Sorry, Headmaster," Draco said, drawing up beside Ginny. She bristled and took a step away from him. He noticed, and his smirk grew wider.
"Not a problem, Malfoy," Snape replied. "Now. Are you aware of the Head Dormitories?"
Ginny froze, clenching her fists with sudden shock. She stopped listening. This wasn't happening. This was not happening.
" – somewhere beyond the statue of Fflewdur Fflam?" Draco was saying.
Snape nodded. "There is a tapestry of a woman and a unicorn. The password is Lux. You share a common room, in which Prefect meetings are to be held weekly. It is up to you two to determine the day and time for said meetings. I expect you to do so by the end of this week.
"The password for the Prefects' Bathroom is Mediterranean. You will distribute this password to the other Prefects at the first of the aforementioned meetings. Understood?"
"Yes, Professor," said Draco. Ginny didn't move.
"Miss Weasley?" Snape narrowed his eyes at her. "Any questions?"
She shook her head. She seemed to be staring at a point on the wall behind Snape's back.
"Very well, then," Snape said. "That is all." He started to turn away. So did Draco.
"Wait, Professor," said Ginny. He was already walking back to a side door that led out of the Great Hall. "Headmaster," she said, forced to raise her voice so it would carry over the sound of students plodding from the hall. He paused, but he didn't turn around.
She went up to his side. Draco hadn't moved. He was clearly eavesdropping on whatever she had to say next. She sent him a death glare that only made him smirk more.
"Professor," she murmured, trying to lower her voice so that Draco couldn't hear, "I can't live with him. I refuse."
Snape's eyes narrowed. Ginny realized belatedly that refusing point-blank was not the best way to get on Snape's good side. Then again, she'd never been one for subtlety.
"What was that, Miss Weasley?" he said, although she knew by the look in his eyes that he'd heard fine. He was punishing her.
"I said," she repeated, more loudly, which meant that Draco was sure to overhear, "I can't live with him."
He'd definitely overheard. He looked as if he would die of smugness. Ginny's fingers twitched as she fought down the urge to grab her wand.
Snape gave her a frozen smile. "That's a pity, Miss Weasley, because I am the authority in this school, not you. It looks like you're going to have to do it whether you want to or not."
Ginny felt the acrid taste of dislike rise in her throat. She thought of a million things to say to him, none of which would make the following year easier for her and a few of which might get her expelled.
"Yes, Professor," she managed to grind out through clenched teeth.
His black eyes glinted. "Headmaster," he corrected, and he hesitated as if he might almost take a couple of points from Gryffindor. Ginny's hands curved into fists at her sides, and he nodded once before he turned and swept away.
Ginny turned back toward the Entrance Hall, feeling empty-headed. Glaring at Malfoy, who looked determined to enjoy the moment for as long as possible, Ginny strode past him, hitting him with her shoulder as she passed. Even though it hurt rather more than she was expecting it to, it felt extremely validating.
(&)
A/N: Please review! ^_^