Disclaimer: The Harry Potter characters, settings, and time lines do not belong to me. Harry Potter is in fact owned by the goddess of children's literature herself: J. K. Rowling. And if you didn't know that, you've been living under a rock, and need to join that support group that meets over there in the corner by the water cooler.
Chapter One: I'm Not Scared
A woman enters through the curtain at the back of the stage. She is dressed in a completely black ensemble. She steps to the middle of the stage and begins to address the audience in a voice that is soft but somehow carries to the very last seat in the auditorium.
"Have you ever met someone that you know you can't ever be with and then discover that you can't live without them? You both resist, fight with everything you have, let people tell you lies. Then you give in. After that it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. You fight for each other, sneak around, tell the whole world to go to hell, even defy your family. You've fallen in love and that person is the only one in the world who matters. Then the one thing that could tear you apart happens. You feel betrayed, your heart is broken, you hate whatever tore you apart. You wish for everything to be the way it was before. You begin to hate the person you loved most. You resent the world. Then everything suddenly comes back to you at once. But you wonder if you should even attempt it again. The first cut is the deepest after all... Maybe you should do what you can to protect your self from getting hurt again..."
With that ominous, forbidding speech, the woman fades back into the shadows of the stage and then through the curtain. The lights in the house go down completely. The audience is left in darkness for only one minute. When the lights come back up, focused on the stage the curtains are parted completely and we seem to be on the shores of a lake. There is a sole figure on the stage: A pretty, petite, redheaded girl. She is crying quietly as she looks at the lake. She seems to be furious at someone or something. We then notice a black cloaked figure in the shadows of a tree, watching her silently.
The figure in the shadows suddenly has had enough of watching the girl cry. He comes out of the shadow and crosses to where the young woman is kneeling beside the lake.
"What happened to you Weasley? Did big brother tell you to get lost again? Or perhaps the Mudblood just got to be too much for you to stand to be around? Or was it your precious Potter?" Draco Malfoy spit the last word of this out like it was poison.
"Go away Malfoy." The girl said.
"What, can't come up with any snappy comebacks at the moment? Come now, I'll sit here until you can compose yourself enough to throw one back, Weasley." As if to prove this point, he sit down promptly on the ground beside her.
"What do you want Malfoy? Why are you over here? Can't you go torture some first years and leave me to my misery so I can get over it and get revenge? Or do you just like to kick people when they're down? How very un-Malfoyish of you!"
"That's a bit better. Now if you would just stop crying..."
"Will it make you go away?"
"Eventually."
"Well then!" she managed to stop crying. We see her face for the first time. She's something of a startling beauty.
"Better, much better. Now what happened to you?"
"Your third guess was correct. Harry fucking Potter. Again. Now will you go away?"
"Nope!" he said cheerfully, as if he was fully enjoying torturing the girl. This might have had something to do with her being Ginerva Weasley. "Now, what did he do to you? And don't lie."
"What are you going to do if I don't tell you?" The girl called Ginny flung out.
"Follow you around until you do. We wouldn't want that now would we?"
"No" she replied crossly. "He used me to get Hermione back. I caught them making out just now. Are you happy, Malfoy?" She began to cry again, then changed her mind and looked ready to kill.
"No I'm not happy. How are you going to get revenge? No murders please. You're the only girl in a pureblood family, we can't have you locked up forever. We have to keep our traditions going."
"I have no bloody idea. Well none that will work anyway."
"There must be one that will work. What is it?"
"Dating one of his worst enemies. That only narrows it down to about 5,000 people! Oh..."
"What's 'Oh...'?" Draco asked curiously.
"How much do you hate Harry Potter? What would you do to mess with his mind?" Ginny sought answers eagerly.
"Do you even have to ask that question? Enough to... I don't think there's anything to compare it too. Anything that doesn't involve being naked in the Great Hall." He answered both of her questions at once.
Ginny let out a laugh at that. "Enough to... say... date the little Weasley girl?"
"Are you serious?"
"Completely. I want revenge. You want to mess with Potter. It seems like the perfect solution to me. Bit odd, has a lot of holes, but it is a plan."
"Do you know what could happen if this went wrong?"
"No, why don't you educate me?"
"Your brother would go insane. Your mother would come down to the school and personally talk me out of it. The older two would come down here and help those twins kill me. My mother would never cease the howlers. My father would kill us both... What wouldn't happen?"
"Uh... happily ever after?"
"Yeah that's about it! Are you crazy enough to do this?"
"I'm not crazy, I'm pissed. And I'm going to be that way for a while."
"If you say you're not crazy then you have to be! Good Merlin. He must have hurt you bad. I'm the last person you would have even spoken to half an hour ago. And you're calm. Why?"
"I'm not scared."
"Why?"
"Because, I'm too damn angry to be scared. Is that an agreement?"
"Only if you really aren't scared."
"I'm not scared. Are you?"
"Nope. Are you sure?"
"I'm not scared."
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End of Chapter One.
a/n: A less than admirable beginning, but then, what beginnings –are- admirable? What beginnings indeed. Please read and review, so I know whether to continue this.