I know I said I was going to finish the others, but then I decided I wanted a Draco-Ginny fic, and I just don't have the patience to wade through all the angst that would be necessary to build that ship out of "Think My Name's Funny, Do You," and so this was born. I actually have a plan this time, I promise, so it shouldn't be too long. No more characters escaping and running amok in my stories, I promise.
Disclaimer: if you recognize it, it isn't mine. That's why this is a fanfic.
The sun was its own height above the horizon, still wreathed about with the last clouds from the rain storm the night before. The bird's dawn chorus was fading away, leaving the happy tranquility of a late summer morning.
While all was peaceful outside, inside the Burrow a storm raged in the form of one very irate Ginny Weasley. "You what?" she demanded, turning from her pacing to glare at the girl who sat, meekly cross-legged, on her bed.
"Please, Ginny, it's not that big of a deal," she pleaded, warily eyeing the younger girl. She like Ginny, and even repected her when she forgot that Ginny was a little girl that needed looking-after. She didn't have a lot of girls to talk to, and that Ginny had always been there for her - if grudgingly at times - meant a lot.
"Not that… Hermione! You do know who we're talking about, don't you?"
"Oh please, Gin, I'm sorry I can't explain it. Just please don't tell Ron." She looked beseechingly at the little redhead who had resumed her pacing around the confines of the small room.
Ginny threw a glare over her shoulder at the other girl. "No chance of that. He has a shoot-the-messenger policy, you know. You can take all the flak for this idiocy yourself."
"Just give him a chance, Gin. I'm not asking you to like him, just don't attack him on sight. He's really very sweet, deep down." Had Ginny been any less angry, she might have noticed the slight hesitation when Hermione said the last part. As it was, she was too distracted to notice, let alone wonder about it.
"Ron and Harry are going to be pissed, you know. There is no way you are going to be able to explain this one away."
"Ron and Harry," Hermione returned, showing backbone for the first time in the conversation, "will just have to deal with it."
"Hermione, how did this happen? He doesn't even like you!"
Hermione flinched away from the other girl's gaze. Between the heat of her anger and the sun's reflection off her bright red hair, her eyes seemed to turn a very angry and disturbing red. They seemed to bore into her, and she was well aware that nothing she could say would bring Ginny around to her side. Besides, the younger girl was right: he didn't like her at all, and she hardly liked him any better.
"Please Ginny," she tried again, even as her hope that the girl would be her ally when it came to facing Ron and Harry crumbled. "Just try to be understanding."
Ginny's eyes burned with a cold fire. She looked every inch the Gryffindor, with the same light that turned her eyes scarlet tinting her skin an amber gold. Despite the warmth of her appearance, her words dripped with ice. "There's a lot of things I could forgive you for Hermione. Almost anything, in fact. But dating Draco Malfoy isn't one of them."