Chapter Two
Ginny's POV
After all the laughter at breakfast, all my classes seemed boring. Even my favourite class, transfiguration. By the last class of the day, I was terribly bored. Luckily it was magical medicine, which never fails to be interesting. Early in the class, a potion exploded in the dungeons, causing the whole class to be sent to the medical wing. The whole magical medicine class was bustling around, helping with whatever they could. It got so hectic, that Madam Pomfrey finally had to put her foot down.
"Enough! Each student of my class will be assigned to a specific person of the other class. Line up!" She yelled. Everyone got into a waving line. Madam Pomfrey just walked though the room pointing to a bed and shouting a name. Then she bustled back to Blaise Zabini, a Slytherin, who had been in the potions room and had come down with boils and infections, just like the rest of them.
I hurried towards a bed at the back of the room. The bed I had been assigned to. I walked around the corner of the curtain, starting to say 'How can I help you?' but the words died on my lips. Of all the people.
"Afternoon Weasley" Draco said, seeming to know that now was not the time to piss me off.
"Malfoy." I looked him up and down. There didn't seem to be anything wrong with him. Although gods he was gorgeous, at least when he wasn't sneering at everyone. His pale looks were quite stunning. I shook my head, realizing I had been staring.
"See something you like Weasley?" his sneer was back.
"Wondering why you're here. You don't seem to be injured." I answered, trying to keep my mind in a perfect balance. Not angry and sneering, not in the gutter either. It really wasn't working that well.
"Precautionary actions. I was no where near the exploding potion." I raised my eyebrows at that.
"Then where were you?"
"Not that it's any of your business Weasley, but I was under the table, retrieving an ingredient." His said my name like a snark and I couldn't help but bite back. Wonderful way of hiding hurt.
"What was the ingredient? Pansy Parkinson's tongue?" I shot at him. He glared at me, I glared back. I looked back out at the other students. Maybe I can switch with Amy. That wouldn't be to terrible.
"Want to get rid of me already Weasley?" Draco shot in my direction. I must have been thinking out loud again.
"Not in the slightest." I pulled up a chair and sat down by the bed he was lazing on top of. "Do you need anything?" I sighed.
"Well interesting company would be nice." He sniped at me.
"Don't make one more rude comment or I will put Pansy's boils on you." I threatened. His eyes widened. "Do not test me on this one Draco."
"You called me Draco." he sounded surprised.
"That is your name isn't it?"
"You've never used my first name before."
"There's a first time for everything." he scoffed at that.
"Sure, everything." He sniped. I pulled out my wand and pointed it at Pansy across the way.
"Wait! Wait! Wait!" he yelled at me. I turned and gave him my most evil smile. Then cast the spell.
Harry's POV
After potions I hurried back to the common room. I wanted to talk to Hermione before she could find some way to avoid me again. We hadn't talked since before Herbology. Maybe I had done something wrong. She just got flustered around me today.
All these thoughts ran through my mind as I rushed up the stairs and through the portrait door. I barely had the thought to yell,
"Quiffle" before barrelling straight through the door. I came in right as Hermione was heading up the stairs to the girl's dormitories. I rushed over to her.
"Hey Hermione. What's up?" after that giggling round this morning, I wasn't quite sure how to start the conversation.
"Oh, hello Harry. I was just going to go put some books away." she gave me a small smile and walked up the stairs. I sat down in a chair that faced the stairs, and was by the doors. Ginny came in a bit later.
"Oh! Ginny! Do you know what's going on with Hermione?" I asked.
"Oh, yes. Where is she?"
"In her dormitory."
"Ok. Thanks Harry." she said as she rushed up the stairs too.
"Wait! Ginny!" I called after her. No use, she didn't come back down. I had to sit and wait her out to. After a while Ginny came back downstairs. She tried to sneak past me to get to a couple of her friends by the window. How on earth could she think I would miss her bright red hair?
"Ginny" I pulled her aside "What is going on with Hermione? Is everything ok?"
"It's sweet that you care Harry, it really is, but I'm just not sure that you can help her right now. She is trying to process. And avoid Julia. But who doesn't do that?" She tried to get my mind off the subject. It didn't work.
"Ginny." I said more forcefully.
"Harry." she quipped right back. I stared at her. She glanced at me then turned back to her friends. I made a decision. I walked right up to Julia McBrewin, the biggest gossip in the school, and asked if I could go up to her dorm room. She raised her eyebrows a bit.
"Oh I need to talk to Hermione! And if you spread one word of this, you will start having problems!" I said probably a little more forcefully than I needed to.
"Go right up. Nobody is up there but her." I nodded and walked right up the stairs. I kept walking until I found the sign that said 'Sixth Years' then I knocked I walked inside. Hermione was saying something along the lines of 'Ginny I am perfectly fine, you can go talk to Natalie and your other friends now'.
"Hate to break it to you, but Natalie isn't really my friend." Hermione jerked up from her bed as I said that, dropping one of her books on the floor. She was so flustered that she didn't even pick it up.
"You aren't supposed to be in here Harry." she said as she slowly backed up.
"Sorry, but I needed to know if something was wrong. Is everything ok? Since that giggle fit at breakfast, you haven't been talking to me. You're making me worried." she backed herself into the bathroom as I slowly followed her.
"Harry you can't come in here." she said as I took a cautious step in to the girls washroom.
"Why not? Does it make you nervous? Because we have been in a bathroom together before, remember? Fighting a troll as first years." I don't know what had come over me.
"That was different Harry."
"How was that any different from right here, right now?" I had backed her against a wall. What had come over me? I tucked a piece of hair behind her ear.
"Harry..."
Draco's POV
Ugh. Madam Pomfrey had taken away the boils and blisters, but man that spell hit hard. I am going to get that girl back. No, no,no. That was the old way. Disowned by parents, no evil magic, no revenge. That was my new motto.
I was the only one left on the medical wing. Everyone else had been dismissed earlier, but that stupid girl had done her magic well. He had to stay overnight 'just in case' anything else happened. What else could possibly happen? Ginny Weasley had done a stupid charm, then acted like she didn't know a thing. What other random things could possibly happen today? Or rather, tonight as it was well past curfew.
An almost silent footstep drew him out of his thoughts. It couldn't be the Slytherins, they brought him his stuff ages ago. Who was it? I flopped back into my pillows, trying to act asleep, incase it was a teacher. The footsteps stopped at the end of his bed.
"Draco are you awake?" the voice whispered timidly. I recognized that voice.
"Ginny?" I said as I sat up.
"You've never used my first name before." she did an expert job at imitating me. She even had the smirk down too.
"Why are you here? Shouldn't you be enjoying my hospital stay from the comforts of your common room?"
"I came to apologize for hexing you. I didn't mean to get that angry at the time." she said in a practiced monotone.
"Thank you for that moving apology."
"Oh sod off Malfoy. I came all the way down here to apologize to you, could you be a little more grateful!" she glared daggers at him. I sized her up quickly, seeing if I could beat her in a fight if need be. But then I realized, she was in her pyjamas. All she was wearing was crop top and a pair of- were those boxers? When I finally dragged my eyes back up to her freckled face, her cheeks were red and her eyebrows were raised.
"See something you like Malfoy?" she was copying him again. It was scary how easily she could turn into him. But this time her voice was softer, less harsh. I looked her up and down again, taking my time, seeing everything there was too see. She had curves underneath the baggy clothes she wore. She was athletic, had beautiful brown eyes, and the red hair. Especially the red hair.
"Hmmm. Possibilities, possibilities." I realized that I wasn't sneering when I said it. Great I was improving. Perfect! I accidentally said the last bit out loud and Ginny looked at me with this odd look on her face.
"So how long are you staying in here?" she asked, scanning him up and down. Maybe she was just looking for injuries, I chided myself.
"Hopefully just tonight. Why? Planning to sneak out to see more often?" I said as she positioned herself at the end of my bed.
"Only if I don't have anything better to do." she looked thoughtfully around the room, seeming like she was already looking for something better to do.
"Like what? Sleeping?" before she could answer a noise sounded from Madam Pomfrey's office. Ginny looked at me.
"Sorry again." She whispered to me, then hopped off my bed silently and hurried out of the hospital wing. I watched her go until Madam Pomfrey came out of her office. I laid back down on my pillows and tried to put the Weasley girl out of my mind.
Ron's POV
I still had bruises from falling down the stairs. But somehow Luna still bounced and skipped all the way to the Ravenclaw table. I sighed into my toast.
"What's wrong Ron?" Ginny asked when she sat down to breakfast.
"Nothing. Just thinking."
"I didn't know you could think." Ginny teased, acting surprised.
"Sod off Ginny."
"What did Ginny do?" Harry asked as he sat down
"Nothing." Ginny said at the same time I said "Everything." Harry laughed at us.
"Stupid git." I said in his general direction. That made Ginny smile too. Then Hermione sat down between Ginny and Natalie McDonald, who was on the quidditch team. They started into a round of girl talk, and I couldn't help but look at Luna.
"What are you looking at?" Harry asked, glancing around.
"Nothing!" I quickly tore my eyes off of Luna, laughing with her friends, and faced Harry. Harry was looking at the Ravenclaw table. Darn. I looked away a little to late.
"Who were you looking at?" he said as he scanned the Ravenclaw table. His gaze stopped by the end where Luna was sitting, and where I had been looking. He scanned the people by that end. His gaze finally stopping on Luna.
"LUNA?!" he said quite loudly, almost everyone around us looked up from the breakfasts.
"Shut up Harry!" I glanced around at the people who had looked up. We had even attracted some Hufflepuffs.
"So it is Luna?" he said much more quietly.
"Sod off Harry."
"Oh. I think I know what's got your wand in a twist."
"Sod OFF Harry."
"Hey Ginny! Guess what?" Harry called to the girls across the table, causing all three of them to look up from their conversation.
"Shut up Harry!"
"What's got your wand in a twist?" Ginny asked.
"Oh, this girl from Rav-" I cut Harry off.
"Nothing Ginny. None of your business."
"Oh but your my brother, so it is my business." she was using the same speech he used on her last year!
"Oh sod off Ginny!"
"Come on Ron! You have to tell us something now!" Hermione piped up.
"I don't have to tell you anything!"
"Oh come on Ron. Please!" Natalie batted her eyelashes at me.
"No! Sod off!" Harry was laughing at the argument as I stared at him.
"Please!" all three girls said at once. I shook my head and stood up. Their laughter followed him as he left the great hall.
"Is everything ok? There was yelling." Luna emerged from around a corner with her familiar head tilt.
"Everything's just fine." I could feel my face flush. She walked right up too me. Too close. She was tiny next to my hulking form. She kept walking until she was a pace from having her head in my chest.
"I don't think so." she said quietly.
Hermione's POV
I tried not to talk at breakfast. After last night I didn't know what to say. I closed my eyes and let the memories watch over me. Harry cornered me in the girls bathroom. Asking me all sorts of questions. Gods he made me nervous. He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. I couldn't stop myself in time. I moaned his name quietly. There was no one else in the room, and the sound echoed. Or maybe it was just in my head. I could feel his heart beating against mine. His breath met mine. He leaned his forehead on mine. I just had to answer his last question. It wasn't a want, it was a need
"Everything is different Harry." I whispered the last word "Everything." His breath came faster until he was almost panting. I couldn't hear anything but his heart beats and his breath. He slowly released me, almost reluctantly.
"So... everything's ok?" he asked quietly. I nodded and we hadn't talked since. This time he seemed to be the one avoiding me.
Now I was in a double potions block, and all I could think about was Harry's breath mixing with mine. I glanced over at him. He was working with Ron. They were laughing up a storm, but I couldn't tell what they were talking about. I was working with Julia McBrewin, she was actually fairly good at potions, but she talked my ears off. I eventually had to tune her out and focus on the work. Every so often I would glance over at Harry and Ron, but they never seemed to be doing anything different.
At the end of the class I had to stay behind. Julia had spilled the potion and her head had swollen to twice its size. She was rushed to the medical wing, and I was left with the mess. Now I was in an almost empty classroom, missing my lunch to clean up spilled potions. Now that the classroom was empty I started talking to myself.
"Stupid girl. Couldn't get her head swollen up to four times it's size? For her that would be more like two times it's size. Her head is already so swollen. All her gossip and big-mouthed idiocy." I kept mumbling insults and profanities under my breath.
"Having fun?" a voice said from behind me. I jumped. Harry was leaning against the desk behind mine.
"Uhh." Oh god, I can't even form full sentences. Come on! "You know, cleaning, my speciality." Couldn't I come up with something better than that? I looked down as I tried to scrub some newt eye juice off the floor.
"Need some help?" Harry asked.
"Uh, sure." He grabbed some rags from the pile and started mopping and scrubbing with me.
"Shouldn't you be at lunch?"
"I wanted to make sure you could eat too. Didn't want you to be starving in your next block." He sounded so worried. Best friend, best friend. I just have to keep reminding myself that he worries because he is my best friend. Just my best friend. Best friend, best friend, best friend... He interrupted my thoughts.
"Almost done. Then we can eat!" he sounded so excited. I hurried to wipe up the last of the muddy yellow potion. It really didn't take that long to clean up with two people. We quickly put all the rags in the bin in the corner, hurrying to lunch.
The quickest route was up a very skinny staircase. We didn't even seem to talk to each other. We just suddenly decided to take that staircase, together, as if our minds were linked. I was walking slightly in front of him, meaning that I had to go first. Two people couldn't fit up the staircase at the same time. I was worried that he might see up my skirt as we ascended, which was making me very flustered and distracted. I wasn't thinking about were I was going and I missed a step. I started to tumble backwards. Before I could even scream, I stopped falling. My feet weren't on the ground, but I wasn't moving either. I glanced around and found my self in someone's arms. I looked up into Harry's brilliant green eyes.
