Two

Everybody knew. Ginny didn't know how exactly, although maybe Parkinson was behind it, but still, everybody knew. When she'd got back to the common room that evening, everything had been fine, well not fine, but manageable. She'd sat in the arm chair, just thinking to herself about why she'd done it, and about how she could avoid anything like it again. Mostly she wondered what Harry, who was sat on the other side of the room would think, or at least she did until Ron stormed into the common room, looking a little bit like a red haired thundercloud, and she got the chance to find out exactly what Harry would think.

"MALFOY!" Ron bellowed, glaring down at Ginny. "MALFOY! GINNY, ARE YOU MENTAL? WHAT THE HELL POSSESED YOU?"

Ginny looked up at Ron, but she couldn't find any words. She stared at Harry across the room and bit back tears. Harry met her eyes, looking vaguely confused.

"LOOK AT ME!" yelled Ron and his voice was already beginning to go hoarse. "WELL? IS IT TRUE OR WHAT?"

"Is what true?" chimed Fred as he climbed through the portrait hole,

"Yeah, come on. You might as well tell us all, you can hear the yelling from all the way down the corridor," said George.

Harry had gotten up off the chair on the other side of the room and joined the group and Hermione slammed down the book she had been reading and walked over. The group of five loomed over Ginny, looking down at her.

"I – um," she began, but couldn't continue for fear of bursting into tears. She had never imagined that Ron would react this badly.

Unfortunately, she didn't need to finish her sentence, as Ron told the group for her. "Malfoy," he said dejectedly, as if that explained everything, but then realising that it didn't really explain very much he expanded on his point, "She snogged Malfoy. My little sister had her mouth all over that filthy ferret."

There was a silence that lasted for a good few minutes until Fred laughed nervously.

"Blimey Ginny, I knew you were desperate, but come on…" he said, trying to break the atmosphere a little.

George joined in. "Yeah, we know you're ugly, but you don't have to sink that low, there's always Neville."

That did it. When Fred and George started making comments that nobody laughed at, well you knew the situation was dire, thought Ginny, and burst into tears. As the tears cascaded down her face she couldn't help peeking up to see how Harry was taking it. Quite frankly, she thought, he looked stunned. At least there wasn't disgust written across his face, not yet anyway, there might be after he'd let it sink in. Ron however, looked disgusted, furious and disappointed all at once.

"Why?" he demanded. "And for goodness sake stop crying."

Ginny swallowed deeply, but the tears kept on running, "I don't know," she muttered and looked down.

Harry, apparently feeling pity for her turned to Ron, "Come on, it's not her fault. Go and take it out on Malfoy, he's the oldest of the pair, and you know what he's like, he probably only did it to upset you, Ron."

Ginny felt like she'd been stabbed, had Malfoy really just kissed her to get at Ron? It was the sort of thing he'd do, maybe he'd had it all planned out with Pansy. And yet – she thought – he had looked sincerely scared when Pansy had caught them. No one could act that well. No, Malfoy hadn't planned it out, but that didn't mean that he wasn't going to use it to his advantage now – maybe he was the one who had told, making it sound like he'd done it to get at Ron and the other Weasley's would be a good way of keeping his pride intact.

It surprised Ginny that she was more upset about the idea of this than she was glad that Harry had stood up for her, however she was distracted from this thought when Ron, having made up his mind, gave Ginny one last glare, said, "Fine. I will" and stormed out of the common room, with Fred and George, to look for Malfoy.

Harry hurried after him, yelling "I didn't mean you should take it out on him right now!" and almost tripped over the portrait hole in his hurry to catch up to Ron.

"Harry!" Hermione implored, "It's after hours, you can't just go wandering around the castle, the twins will convince Ron to come back!" Harry however took no notice of her and Hermione sinking onto the armchair next to Ginny shook her head. "Boys," she muttered.

Ginny smiled weakly, "Tell me about it. But Harry's right to go after them you know, Fred and George won't try to stop Ron, they'll just encourage him."

Hermione grimaced. "I know, but maybe Ron's got the right idea. How could Malfoy just take advantage of you like that?"

"He didn't take advantage of me!" Ginny said defensively.

"Then what did happen?" Hermione asked gently, and Ginny knew that she'd reacted exactly as Hermione had wanted. Feeling like she had no choice, Ginny told Hermione the whole story, from being upset about Harry, to Malfoy threatening Pansy. When she had finished she saw sympathy in Hermione's eyes.

"Maybe you should just keep your distance from Malfoy for a while," she suggested.

Ginny nodded. "Or forever, maybe. I'm such an idiot."

Hermione got up to go to bed a few minutes later, saying that she needed an early night. Ginny waited alone in the common room for one of the boys to appear, which they did, looking thoroughly miserable, an hour later.

"What happened?" she asked, pleading with her eyes for George to tell her something, but Harry was the one who answered.

"Snape," he said bitterly.

"Filthy, slimy git," said Ron throwing himself down into a chair.

"You actually attacked Malfoy?" Ginny said looking horrified, but Ron shook his head.

"I wish," he said, "We didn't get chance to get near him."

Despite looking really miserable, Ginny noted that Ron had calmed down a lot, however instead of asking him to expand, she looked at her other brothers for an explanation.

"We were just heading towards the dungeons-" said Fred

"Looking for Malfoy," continued George,

"And then Snape appeared out of nowhere," they finished together.

"So he did this lecture about being out of bed after hours, and gave us all a week's worth detention," sighed Harry.

"AND he took fifty points," Ron mourned.

"Fifty?" Ginny exclaimed, "Surely all those detentions are enough. I mean a week, that's ridiculous."

"That's what we said." Fred and George grimaced. "Got an extra night of detention for 'cheek'."

Ginny sighed, remembering that she was the reason that they'd all been out in the first place.

"I'm sorry," she said.

That evening after they'd all gone to bed, Ginny made a decision. She would have this out with Malfoy tomorrow, it was his fault.

Spreading it around the school, so that it made it look like he'd kissed her on purpose to upset the Wesley's' was smart, but Ginny was going to make sure he payed for it. He'd made her look like an idiot, and he'd managed to get Harry, Ron, Fred and George ridiculous numbers of detentions.

Of course there was the small chance that someone else had spread the information, but seriously, even Pansy wasn't that dumb and nobody else knew about the kiss, so she put this possibility out of her mind and started thinking up ways of getting back at Malfoy.