Ginny sighed, staring down at the book in her lap. She glanced up, peering across the room at Harry, Ron, Hermione, Lavender, Seamus, Dean, and Parvati. The Beautiful People. The Popular people...and she would never be one of them. Staring gloomily into the fire, she began to develop that unfocused stare that Seamus said made her look crazy. It was bad enough she had to go to school with these people, it was worse that one of them was her own brother... Ginny cast one more glance at the Beautiful People, then went up to her dormitory, hoping no one would be there. As luck would have it, the dormitory was deserted. Ginny went over to her dresser, and sat down, staring into the mirror. Her red hair, unbrushed since morning, flowed over her shoulders. Her skin was pale white, her eyes, a sparkling honey gold. She had a delicately modeled, almost chiseled face. But Ginny paid no attention to all this. She only thought of her freckles of her straight, boring nose, her flaming red
hair....... Why the hell hadn't she been given the "beautiful" genes of her brothers... it had never seemed fair. Unwanted, a mental image of Harry, goofing around with Hermione, Lavender and Parvati came to her eyes. Harry.

Harry.

Harry was the reason she got up in the morning, the reason she ate, the reason she did her homework, the reason she went to bed at night, and brushed her teeth, and so many other things... But Ginny could never have Harry. She was too ugly. Too shy to even come within five feet of him without blushing and doing something stupid, ...Let alone talk to him. Ginny looked back up at her reflection again. Her eyes were swollen with unshed tears and, unwillingly, the tears came down. Ginny put her head on her arms and cried miserably. She didn't care...She didn't care about anyone any more. The dormitory was empty. No one cared. She could cry all she wanted to, but no one would come. She didn't matter enough to anyone to see if she was all right, why she had left the common room so suddenly. Ginny cried for what seemed like hours...the same thought kept running through her head. "No one cares. No one wants me. If I died right now, people would be shocked, everyone who had a faint
idea that I existed. Most people would look at each other and say "Who is that?" Over and over and over again. Then she felt a light touch on her shoulder. "Umm, Ginny?" an uncertain sounding voice said. "Are you- are you all right?" Ginny slowly turned around to reveal Jesse Capehart. Jesse was in the same year as Ginny, and just as quiet. Ginny had nurtured hopes of the two being friendly towards each other. "You left really suddenly." Jesse said. "I sat there for a bit, wondering if I ought to come up and see if everything is okay...and then I came up." Ginny felt a stab of happiness. "You did? Thanks...." Blushing. "How long has it been?" Jesse shrugged, and checked her watch. "I don't know. About ten or fifteen minutes, maybe. Are you all right?" Ginny shrugged. "I don't know." She said simply. And it was the truth. Jesse nodded. "I understand." She said. "I was just on the verge of storming out myself. The Beautiful People were starting to get on my nerves." Ginny
giggled suddenly. Oh, but it felt nice to be sitting here with another girl, possibly a friend...laughing together. It had been so long... "You call them that too?" Ginny asked. "Of course... that and preps....my arch enemies..." Ginny smiled slightly "I take it you don't like preps" Jesse scoffed "Of course not..." then Jesse remembered that Ginny's brother Ron was in the group... "Oh, sorry" Jesse said, sounding embarrassed. "Some can still be saved. Ron was nice enough to lend me a quill last night." Ginny smiled. This was really nice, just sitting with Jesse...talking together....Ginny thought that Jesse was "okay looking" Jesse had really incredibly bushy hair, reddish colored, the black of her robes contrasting her hair, making it all the redder, and her skin looked pale, and between the clothes she had to wear and her dark hair, she looked like a ghost child. The only especially nice feature Ginny could pick out were her dark, exotic eyes, dark brown, almost to the
point of black, you could hardly see her pupils. There was a Hogsmeade trip the next day, and Ginny and Jesse went to Hogsmeade. Previously Jesse and Ginny both had hated Hogsmeade, because they hadn't any friends to sit and enjoy a butterbeer with, or compare candy purchases at Honeydukes...but now they did. And both of them discovered this fun thing called life that day.