AN: So this fic might take a plunge into the darker side of Draco/Ginny later. I'm trying to keep it light in the first few chapters but the rating is high just in case (also because I have a potty mouth). Just heads up.

Dragon and Fair Maiden

And any time you feel the pain, hey, Jude, refrain
Don't carry the world upon your shoulders
Well don't you know that its a fool who plays it cool
By making his world a little colder

Hey, Jude! Don't let her down
You have found her, now go and get her
Remember, to let her into your heart
Then you can start to make it better.

August, 29, 1:23 (AM)/technically tomorrow, Bathroom at The Rogue New York City, horrible bridesmaid dresses: 1, dances with father: 1, enormous wedding rows: 1,

It's been a long time coming but I've finally decided to open another diary. I think this year will be a year of rebirth and my best at Hogwarts and that deserves a diary. This one hopefully will not be possessed by a younger version of some Dark Lord fellow. But here this now dear diary if you ever start acting up the way Tom did I will chuck you so fast you won't know what hit you and not down the lou either. It'll be straight to the fire with you!

No really...I mean it! Don't even think about it!

Woke up this morning with sunlight in my eyes, a horrible pain in my shoulder where I had slept on it funny and mum standing over me twittering gaily, "get up Ginny! It's The Big Day!" For a moment I thought that perhaps I had counted wrong and I was off to Hogwarts (a point of dual excitement and stomach dropping horror because I haven't packed one robe yet), but then I remembered--cousin Tracy's wedding. Now I don't want to be mean or anything but I don't know why everyone's going so ape shit about this wedding. I mean Tracy and Jeff have barely anything in common except a little mass of DNA growing in her stomach right now and the favorite month for divorce according to the running bet pool among my uncles is December.

But she's the first grandchild to be married on mum's side of the family and she's a very pleasant person really so everyone is just pretending that they're star-crossed lovers. I swear to god they were having this really nasty row last night at the top of their lungs in the restaurant and Tracy had just told Jeff that he was the most pompous arrogant, dickless fuckwit she'd ever had the misfortune to run across when my mom sighs, "ah young lovers."

Barbie smirked at me across the table and rolled her eyes.

Barbie is my only cousin close to my age. We aren't very close because she goes to Salem, lives in the states and she's beautiful and so bloody popular that she finally had to douse the fire last night because so many people kept flooing their heads in we couldn't bloody well sleep. This could easily be very detestable but she has a cardinal sense of fair play that she follows so unswervingly that you cannot help but respect her.

"Just leave her Aunt Molly." Barbie said from where she was applying make up in our bathroom (we always bunk together when we can at these family events). "I'll get her up, you just go get into that wonderful dress of yours. You look so very nice in it I'd love to see you in it."

"Okay well don't be late for the brunch!" Mum reminded us. I could practically hear her blush at Barbie's compliment. I buried my head under the pillow then so I didn't hear the rest of the conversation

"You can sleep for another five minutes Gin but then you've got to get up and get dressed or we really will be late." She said when mum had shut the door, coming to sit on my bed and rub my back gently to get my attention.

"No." I mumbled pushing the pillow off my head and swinging my legs over the side of the bed. "I'm up. Can you see my wand? I've got a really bad ache in my shoulder."

"Slept on it wrong?" She said sympathetically, producing her own wand and charming the pain out.

The day went by like a tectonic plate--sticking and slipping in little disasters and then long stretches between where nothing happened except a lot of reruns-- and then, very suddenly it seemed, Barbie and I were zipped into matching bridesmaid dresses (all the cousins too old to be flower girls are bridesmaids but of course Barbie is the only one that looks good in the dresses) and adjusting our dreadfully tight buns.

The bridesmaid's dresses are horrifying things. They're a weird off pink color that looks like salmon or throw up or thrown up salmon and there made out of what appears to be thousands and thousands of stitched together doilies. They also bulge in strange and terrifying places on people. Mine for examples puckers to make me look like I'm hiding the early stages of pregnancy. I can only assume they mixed my dress design with Tracy's.

I don't remember much about the ceremony, just mum sobbing all over me in very public manner and saying how she only hoped my wedding would be as lovely, but the rest of the night is seared into my memory with terrible permanence. It started out okay, as I recall, I had some chicken from the buffet and some cake and ice cream too and played a game of fairies under the table with a few of my younger cousins and was just beginning to have a good time when my dad asked me to dance.

"Come on Gin don't be a spoiled sport!" He said. "It's tradition for a father to dance with his daughter at a wedding!"

I am not a very good dancer (especially since I've gotten grown about five inches this summer) but the accident was dad's fault, not mine. I had just gotten the hang of the step when dad spun me out near the edge of the dance floor and I smacked right into Jeff (the Groom) as hard as I could. He was talking to Tracy and the punch he was holding went all over her wedding gown.

Everyone instantly went silent as Tracy's coloring began to get redder and redder until she was about the shade of the enormous stain on her dress. "Jeff you dumb shit look, just look, what you did!" She screeched. "You're so fucking useless! You couldn't have waited till after the wedding photos for this kind of stunt!"

I just stood there like an idiot, punch dripping down my back, my mouth open, staring aghast at the horrible thing I had just one. "I am so sorry." I started to say but they were already at it.

"Jesus Tracy your stupid cousin knocked into me." Jeff shouted. "If she'd been looking where she was going none of this would have happened." Any hope that my name would not forever be linked with the inevitable divorce evaporated.

Barbie broke away from one of the best men who had been trying to romance her in the corner and came to pull me away from the quarreling couple (I was still standing next to them with my mouth open like an idiot). "Come on Gin." She hissed. A little while later I slipped off to here to sulk and contemplate whether it's better for me if God exists and he's a big shithead or if everything is just a random collision of particles.

Have called Colin but got his very annoyed dad. Get the feeling Mr. and Mrs. Creevey might have been having sex. Have decided never to mention this to Colin out of the goodness of my heart.

More later. For now I've got to go out and face my aunts and uncles sometime. Might as well be now right?


August, 30, 2:45 (PM), muggle flying machine back to London, number of times punch has been brought up: 68, milk trays consumed: 5, fantasize about an engine going out and Harrison Ford and I parachuting onto a charming deserted tropical island in the middle of the ocean to be found months later looking like Tarzan in Jane and sporting remarkably smooth, even tans: 19, number of unfunny jokes about the punch: countless,

Have been in listless daze all day driven to the point of madness by my family and fear of sketchy muggle engineering going awry. Dad would insist on taking some insane invention like an "airoplain." And over a bloody ocean too!

Eventually a medium sized cousin was found that was just the right height to cover the punch stain but not intrude in the pictures and so the wedding photos went off all right but that has not seemed to buy me any slack in the torture/shame department. My only solace is that soon I will be home and will be allowed to disappear into my room (oh my own room! How I love you so much!).

"Wonderful," Dad keeps repeating next to me, "how wonderful." He is staring out the window like a mad man but he seems happy enough.

August, 31, 9:43 (PM), My Room, trunks packed: 1, times mum has asked about homework/packing: 14, times mum has tried to have serious discussion about drugs/drinking/premarital sex/boys: 18, times I've avoided serious discussion about drugs/drinking/premarital sex/boys: 17 and 1/2,

Colin came over today and we managed to escape for a couple hours into muggle London for a double feature of some muggle moving photograph (like a real photograph but with a plot) but it was only a brief respite in mum's nagging. I swear it's like she's got a certain amount of nagging she must do or bust and since there's only Ron and me left to nag now she's got to get it all out on the two of us. What will I do next year? She'll have to start weeks in advance to get it all in in time and by the time term starts I'll be stark raving mad.

I've been feeling oddly lately. This time last year I remember asking my mom about drugs/drinking/premarital sex/ boys and genuinely thinking she could tell me the answer but now I just want to be left alone. I'm so bloody irritable these days. Little things like mum's nagging or Ron talking about stupid things he'd never do have really started to get under my skin.

After the photograph I was reluctant to return home so Colin and I wondered into Diagon Alley looking for classmates or adventure. We found both.

We'd just bought ice creams and were wondering down toward the exotic pet shop where Colin likes to play with the baby Sphinxes and Chimeras when a toddler ripped her fist from her mother's hand and tore off down a back alley. "Virginia! Virginia come back here right now!" The mother shouted, snapping her up to keep her heaping pile of packages from toppling over.

I turned to answer my name just in time to see the little streak of girl-child vanish down a sinister looking turn off. I realized just then that this Virginia was a second cousin of mine, named after our common great grandmother. Her mother and my mother were good friends. "I got her." I yelled to Aunt Maxime and went after her almost before I knew what I was doing.

I had always been a fast runner (I might be cursed with being an unnaturally tall girl but it pays off in moments like this) but she was fast too and she had a considerable head start and so several twists and turns later before I had closed the gap. She darted off into another side street quickly and I had to break hard to make the turn.

I swear to god I thought the bottom of my stomach had fallen out when I saw him standing over little Virginia but probably out of horror. He smirked when he saw me and pushed back the comically deep hood of his cloak, revealing that his body wasn't the only thing that had changed over the summer. Under the designer cloak was a ratty pair of muggle blue jeans like Colin always wears and a white T-shirt. "Weaslette." He said, smirking lazily at me.

I gasped, only then realizing who he had to be. "Malfoy?" It was less of an accusation than I might have wished for, but it did convey the shocked horror that this, well, this is embarrassing but, this sexy man was the sniveling ex-ferret who had tormented Harry, Ron and me through school. I picked up Virginia, who had become silent as the grave thankfully, who tried to burrow into my shoulder to get away from Malfoy.

"None other." He said and then his eyes turned to the girl. "Already spawning a new generation of Weasleys then? This explains how you bloody Weasleys have so many offspring. Early start. Whose the father? Potter? What a naughty, naughty little boy-who-lived he's turning out to be."

I tossed my red hair defiantly. "She isn't mine." I said. "I was just doing something called a "good deed." You might have heard it mentioned once or twice."

He laughed and leaned in to whisper in the ear that Virginia wasn't currently occupying. "I'd be a lot nicer to me if I were you Weaslette, this isn't your neck of the woods and I would bet a hundred galleons you're lost as the first sheep."

I blushed, realizing simultaneously that he was right and that Virginia was chewing on a strand of my hair near my other ear. "All right Malfoy, you're right of course, pointing me in the right direction would be much appreciated." I groaned, resisting the urge to bury my face in the same way my namesake was doing in my now slobbery hair.

"Kitty." Virginia cooed in my ear.

He looked at me for a long moment taking in my wild hair, the worn spots on my cloak, the patch on my shoe and the little girl on my hip. I kicked my brain into overdrive, ready to snap back at any snide remark he was about to produce but it never came. "I'll walk you back to Diagon Alley." He said. "But next time you wonder into Knocturn Alley you might not be so lucky little Gryffindor. People here are just waiting for a cute little bit like you to wander by."

"Wander by! Wander by! Wander by!" Virginia chanted at him but fell into a shyly smiling silence when he actually returned her gaze.

Malfoy walked me in silence back to a point where I could see Diagon Alley rushing past. "Remember what I said Weaslette about coming down here." He said and then turned back, pulling his hood over his bright blond hair. I wanted to point out that I had hardly come down to Knockturn Alley of my own volition but it seemed rude considering he had maybe just saved my life.

"Wait Malfoy." I said.

"Yes?" He said turning around.

"Thanks a lot." I said sheepishly.

He didn't say anything in reply but simply turned back toward the dank alley.

Aunt Max was in a state when I got back but Colin had done a good job of talking her off a ledge. When Virginia and I reappeared she pounced on both of us, blessing both of us, scolding Virginia and crushing us in a hug all in the same move. I didn't tell Colin about my encounter with Malfoy down the alley for some reason.

It's weird but it's the same feeling I have about my period. I've always been very strange about my period and I gape openly at girls who can go on about cramps and heavy bleeding and the like in a public place. It wouldn't even occur to me to tell anyone about that sort of thing. Hell my mum only noticed I'd started when she realized that someone was taking sanitary napkins and the like out of her bathroom.

September, 1, 1:20 (PM), Hogwarts Train, disgusting Bertie Bot's consumed: 3 (2 sardine and a salt), theories on why the Quidditch World Cup went the way it did: 4, times we've dissected the last moments of the cup: 11, fantasize about Tommy Dublin (the most handsome sixth year) kicking in the door and kissing me in manner of Clark Gable in Gone with the Wind: 19, fights about Quidditch: 3, times I've tried to change the subject from Quidditch: 48, successful times I've tried to change the subject from Quidditch: 0,

I shall break down for you the personal theories on Quidditch of all four of my best friend because I have nothing else in the world to do.

Francis: (a French exchange student from second year who never went back and a Paris Flyers fan) The Flyers are to Quidditch what the Chicago Cubs are to American baseball. Because the fans show up, drink all the beer and buy all the stupid knickknacks and hotdogs whether or not the team is a winner there is no motive for the managers to ever make a winner so they've been doormats practically since the dawn of time. She probably has the most objective opinion, which is that the London Lightings were just a better team.

Quincy and Adam Johns: (a set of twins that might as well be the same person. They both go for the London Lightings) Q&A didn't say much except for smug moans of ecstasy the whole train ride. Like true winners they have withheld their opinions in a mockery of modesty to rub in just how thoroughly they trounced the other teams but it is clear that they believe that God has given their team a special place in His kingdom and ordained that they be winners.

Colin: (my best friend and a Ballycastle Bat's fan) Colin thinks that if for a little bit of luck the Bats would have swept the cup, the FA and the world series.

I have given myself a manicure and pedicure, put my hair up, sorted my socks and given Colin a pedicure. I wanted to give him a manicure too but he wouldn't let me. He said that there are still some people in the world who don't know he's homosexual and he doesn't want to shock them. "Everyone knows you're gay mate." Quincy said.

"You're joking yourself if you think otherwise." Adams added.

"No." Colin said. "I'm really quite a subtle gay."

"You know there's a reason your nickname is San Francisco." Francis pointed out.

"It's because of my great bone structure." Colin said but he was laughing. "It's like the great architectural marvels of San Francisco. The Golden Gate Bridge for example, that could be my nose." He turned to show us his profile. "See how nice my nose is."

"It won't be nice when I break it." Quincy said, making a punch at the air in front of Colin's nose.

Maybe I'll start reading my Transfiguration book to get ahead in class.

1:28 (PM),

I forgot how boring Transfiguration is. Maybe I'll wonder down the train and see if I can find anyone else I want to catch up with before the feast starts.

1:59 (PM),

Heard interesting gossip on the train. Very interesting gossip indeed. Draco Malfoy got kicked out of his house and disowned by his father over the summer and spent most of the summer living with his estranged uncle in muggle London. So that explains the clothes in Knockturn Alley.

Ron is crowing with delight at this fall from grace but I can't help but wonder if Ron won't be disappointed. Malfoy seemed the same smirking SOB he's always been in Knockturn Alley. I hardly think this term is going to mark a major shift in the power dynamic between him and Ron. I may be wrong but I don't think so. It seems somehow that Ron might never one up Malfoy in a completely satisfactory way.

AN: I've written a few more chapters but I haven't finished this story so feel free to write in and tell me what you think should happen. I can't promise it will be the kind of instant gratification you get from say chose-your-own-ending Goosebumps but I can promise I'll consider it seriously. Seriously, write in! Make a difference in your community! Oh yeah and give me constructive criticism/sycophantic flattery if you want more.