Author's Notes: As stated previously, this story was originally titled Defense for Two and was adopted from Perspicacity's Detention In Defense with permission. I note this because this chapter and a portion of the next is almost wholly taken from the original. It is an admittedly short chapter, so I will post Chapter 3 next weekend, though after that expect chapters every two weeks.
Second, I've posted responses to reviews from Chapter One in my forums here on ff dot net. I specifically addressed what people can expect. While it starts out innocently enough, please be aware that this story contains a great deal of violence as the characters get older.
Finally, thanks to Mihir and my Yahoo group for beta reading!
Chapter Two: On the Hogwarts Express
"Can I sit here with you, Luna?" Ginny Weasley asked. Her petite frame made a silhouette in the cabin doorway. A long, low whistle sounded as the Hogwarts Express readied its departure. This was her last hope—the twins were in a crowded cabin that could not possibly hold her, Percy was with the other prefects, and Ron had told her to scram to make room for his friends; Hermione and him.
"Of course, Ginevra," Luna said. She looked up from her half-finished cryptogram puzzle in The Quibbler and stared quizzically at her freckled friend. Ginny took a seat in the following silence, aware of the stare. She began fidgeting under Luna's large, unblinking eyes.
Finally the scrutiny ended and Luna returned her attention to the puzzle.
Ginny sighed in relief and looked out of the window as the train started to move out of the station. She lost track of time when, out of the blue, Luna said, "Are there two 'L's or three in tallyluber?" The blonde waif of a girl did not even bother looking up.
"Um, I don't know."
"Oh. Well, did you have toast for breakfast?"
Ginny blinked in confusion and suddenly remembered why she and Luna had stopped spending so much time together as girls. "Well, yes, I suppose I did."
"Okay, it must be three then. Thanks!" Luna hastily scribbled something onto the page before finally looking up at the redhead. "Is something the matter, Ginevra?" Her stare was more intense than before.
Ginny blinked in surprise. A small part of her mind—the part that constantly laughed at herself for her many foibles, wondered why Luna made her blink so much more than normal. Perhaps the unyielding stare made her eyes dry in sympathy. "No. Yes. " She sighed. "I don't know."
"That about covers it," Luna said happily as she stared out the window at the passing scenery. Terraced houses passed as the train streaked through northern London.
Ginny said, quietly, "It's just that I've met someone I like and I don't really know what his feelings are yet." She clenched her hands together on her lap and girded herself, about to discuss her feelings with her friend. "Or mine–I know I'm too young to have thoughts about boys yet, but somehow I do. It's Harry Potter. Harry's best mates with Ron and gets on with the twins and he was at the Burrow for the end of the summer." She noticed that Luna is now listening intently. "I think I'm going barmy, but I've caught him staring at me from time to time. I'm starting to think–and this is going to sound crazy–but I'm starting to think that he might like me."
"That would be fitting, Ginevra, since you are married after all. I understand that people who are married often are 'in like' with each other."
Ginny's mouth dropped open.
"I remember when we were six I was your bridesmaid the first time you married Harry Potter." Luna put her fingers on her temple, thinking. "Or maybe it was your dolly, who I remember was also named Harry Potter. It's all so confusing."
Ginny groaned, recalling the memory.
Her companion, though, ignored her embarrassment and continued in a dreamy voice. "I seem to remember you married him several times–once you even had a rather long honeymoon. I did have to ask Mummy afterward about what couples do on honeymoons." She blinked, lost in her thoughts. "It was one of the last conversations we had before Mummy died. She told me about sex. And chocolate. Sex sounds messy, so I think I'd prefer chocolate. Did you have sex with your Harry Potter dolly? Or with Harry Potter?" She blinked her wide, blue eyes innocently.
Ginny coughed, her face a furious blush. "Um, no, I didn't even know about sex then and… no, Harry and I haven't had sex." She considered whether she should tell Luna more, but decided that, despite the weirdness, she liked having a confidant. "He has been looking at me from time to time–especially since after we went together to Diagon Alley. He hasn't been hanging around Ron as much and has been spending more time near me. What? Do you think I'm crazy?"
Luna stifled her giggles enough to say: "No, silly. It's just that I'm not fond of the colour turquoise. Oh, and Harry is right over there." She pointed over toward the doorway, where a black-haired boy wearing ragged clothing and spectacles stood with a shocked expression and cheeks as red as the Express.
"Meep," Ginny said eloquently, her blush showing no inclination to abate.
"Er, hi Ginny. Who's, uh, your friend," Harry asked, his eyes cast downward.
"Uh, h-hi Harry, th…this is Luna. Luna, this is Harry Potter." Harry stepped toward the blonde witch, who quickly scrambled to her feet and shook his hand.
"Nice to meet you Harry Potter. Ginevra and I were just talking about having sex with you." She ignored Harry's sharp intake of breath as she continued to hold his hand, not releasing it. She peered down at his slender, bony fingers. "That's a very nice repelling charm you're wearing. Did you know that it makes me feel very uncomfortable–like there's nargles crawling around on my body?"
"Nargles? Repelling charm?" he squeaked. "Sex?"
That sarcastic corner of Ginny's mind noted with some amusement that she had never heard a boy's voice reach that particular pitch before—except that one time when one of Bill's ex-girlfriends grabbed his bits outside the Burrow. They broke up shortly thereafter.
"It's quite well done," Luna continued in a strangely happy tone—as if the thought of being made uncomfortable were a remarkable and enjoyable experience. "Whoever cast it is an artisan. Now, I must be going, Harry Potter–it would be a shame to waste a charm like that." She steps outside the cabin. "Ah, I feel better already." She winks at Ginny and skipped, barefoot, down the corridor.
Harry slid the metal door closed and looked at Ginny, who by this time had buried her face in her hands. He saw that the back of her neck and ears are bright red. He slid onto the bench opposite the red-haired witch.
Taking a deep breath, he said, "Ginny?" at the same time she said, "Harry?"
They shared an awkward glance. "You go first, Ginevra."
"Ginny. Only Luna calls me Ginevra."
"Well, I knew it wasn't Ickle Gin-Gin. Ginevra's a pretty name, but so is Ginny." He smiled sheepishly, their eyes meeting. "Ron made a point of not letting me talk to you at all this summer."
"I'm sure I didn't make it easier either," she admitted. "Although…at least I stopped hiding so much after our shopping trip."
"Yeah," Harry breathed. "It was neat seeing your dad hit Malfoy's dad like that."
Ginny nodded, suddenly enthused. "I thought Mum would tear into him, but I think she was as proud of him as we were."
The moment passed quickly. She forced a weak, sickly smile. "Um, Harry, how…how much did you hear?"
Harry ran a hand through his hair and blushed brilliantly again. She liked how the blush started high and then seemed to sink down his neck into his shirt. "Do you really have a Harry Potter doll?"
"Prat," Her own blush returned with a vengeance, "Only me and half the girls in the magical world. There was a series of adventure books that told of all the adventures of Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived. Dad would read them to me every night. You've fought vampires and werewolves and have saved a Veela Princess and the queen of the Merpeople." She grinned wryly. "I'm quite sure I'm not the only one to have married Harry Potter as a little girl."
Harry coughed uncomfortably. "Yeah, you're probably right. I looked at some of those books last year. While the Boy Who Lived was saving the Veela Princess, I was in the cupboard under my relative's stairs nursing a broken arm my uncle gave me."
The blush faded with a gasp of dismay. "What?"
This time it was Harry's turn to blush. "Er, never mind, not quite sure why I said that."
"Harry, if they…"
"Never mind!" he said, speaking sharply for the first time she could remember in the weeks he'd been around her.
"Okay," she said meekly. It was the same tone she adopted when Mum was yelling at her. She mollified her mother with the good little girl act, and then did what she wanted anyway the moment her mother was gone.
This time, though, she saw a flash of something in his eyes she wasn't sure she wanted to explore. She decided to change the subject. "So, why are you here instead of with my brother and Hermione?"
The brief spark faded back into a slightly embarrassed smile. "Well, um, they were acting strange. They wouldn't look at me and kept moving around. I checked to see if I smelled or was hit with one of the Twins curses, but now I'm beginning to think Luna might be right about the repelling charm. But how would she be able to know about something like that?"
Ginny shrugged. "Luna has always been strange, though it got a lot worse after her mother died. Her Mum was in the Department of Mysteries. Even before then she'd see things nobody else did. It used to drive Ron mental. The twins would play along until he'd start crying because he thought they were keeping something from him." She looks down at her hands. "I don't feel repelled though," she said, marvelling at what was, by far, the longest conversation she'd ever had with Harry.
He snorted. "You're the only one then—I've been to three other cabins and didn't feel right in any of them. Neville actually got sick a little. Threw up a chocolate frog," He stretched out on the seat across from Ginny. "But I actually do feel comfortable here. Very much so," He winked at her. "If I didn't know better, Ginevra, I'd think maybe you did the charm yourself to get me alone…."
"It's Ginny. And in your dreams, Potter," she replied hotly, mock-insulted.
"Or yours," he jested.
She blushed, both surprised and exhilarated by the playful banter. For the first time since they first ran into each other last year on the train platform, she lost a little bit of her paralyzing timidity around him and looked at him as a boy she could actually talk to, rather than the hero of all her childhood bedtime stories.
"Maybe so," she said with a blushing smile. She sat up and gave her best Weasley smile. "So, tell me, how long have you been infatuated with me?"
Harry's eyes widened. He opened his mouth to answer but then suddenly started coughing when his words caught in his throat. He sat up, flushing brilliant red as he tried to clear his throat.
"Sorry," Ginny said, slipping back into her old smile.
He then shocked them both when he said, "It was after we got back from Diagon Alley."
She blinked, he blinked back, and the two simply stared at each other for the longest time. "I was joking, I think," Ginny said.
"Er, I…I don't think I was," Harry said. He looked around the little cabin before giving his head a shake. "I can't explain it, Ginny. But since I walked in here it feels like I can't lie about anything. Are you sure you didn't put any charms on the room?"
"I didn't, really!" she said. "I haven't even started Hogwarts and Mum won't let us practice magic before school. How could I even know any charms? Well, okay, I know one hex my brother Bill taught me, but I got in a lot of trouble for using it."
Harry stared at her for a long time. "Who's your favourite brother?"
"Bill," Ginny said before she could think about it.
"Who's your least favourite?"
"Ron, but Percy is close."
"Why do you like me?"
She felt a fire in her cheeks, but found herself answering anyway. "Because the little boy who asked for help on the station last year was so much nicer and cuter than the hero who saved the Veela Princess," she blurted.
He reared back as if stunned.
"Why do you like me?" she demanded.
"Because the little girl who helped me on the station was the first person who was nice to me for the sake of being nice ... I just wished you talked to me more over the summer."
"I was shy and stupid," Ginny said. She peered at Harry. "Do you like Hermione more than Ron?"
"Not more. But definitely as much; I like them different, though."
"What do you mean?"
Whether it was the strange compulsion that was affecting them both, or just because it was the first time asked, Harry had to think about his relationship with them. "I guess its need versus want. I need Hermione as my friend. She made us study last year. She gave us the help we needed to get through the year and in the end she was the one who solved the potion puzzle that got me to Voldemort. She was the first person to ever hug me."
Ginny gasped. She had never heard the whole story of what happened last year. So Harry told her all about it. She listened raptly, enthralled. At one point or another—neither were even aware of when—she moved to the same bench as him and the two sat cross-legged across from each other as Harry told her for the first time about their adventures in their first year. From Hagrid to the troll, from his hexed broom to Fluffy. From the mirror to Voldemort.
When he was done, Ginny sighed. "I never knew Ron could be brave. Is that why you like him?"
"No, I like him because he, like you, was one of the first kids I met in the wizarding world who was nice to me. Because he taught me about wizarding chess and chocolate frogs, Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans and Quidditch. In a way he was my first teacher. I…he taught me how to laugh and tell jokes."
"He doesn't tell very good jokes, Harry."
"That's okay; I didn't know how to tell them at all. I never had friends before. I need Hermione so bad she's a part of me, but I want to be friends with Ron so bad it's almost like a need. So, I don't like one more than the other. I need them both."
She looked down at her hands. "Think when you're older you'll date Hermione?"
"Date? You mean like a girlfriend?" The question obviously surprised him. "Why on Earth would I do that?"
"You don't like her like that? She's rather cute."
"Well, yes, I suppose she is. But I don't look at her like that. She's just Hermione."
"Like a sister?"
"Well, yes, I suppose. Like a sister." He leaned back against the inner wall of the cabin in thought. "That's a good way to say it. She's like a sister I never had. And Ron's like a brother."
"What does that make me?"
"A distant cousin?" Harry asked.
"Prat," she said, breathing in relief. He did not think of her as a sister. "Do you think this room is charmed to make us talk like this?"
"Would you have talked to me like this otherwise?"
"Never," Ginny admitted. "You?"
"I didn't even know I could talk like this."
"Harry…I…Fred and George said there were bars on your windows."
His smile died again, and once again she saw his expression close off and his eyes go distant. It was all the confirmation she needed. So, instead of saying anything else, she slowly reached out and took his hand. His hands were bony and thin—much thinner than any of her brother's hands. If not for the strength she could feel in those fingers, she would think them effeminate.
"I'm sorry," she said simply. "If you do ever want to talk about it…"
"I don't," he said. "No charm will change that."
"Okay."
Suddenly his fingers closed on her hand, reversing their roles abruptly. "I will tell you this," he said. "You have a brilliant family, Ginny."
"We're poor," she confessed. "I didn't even get my own wand. This wand belonged to my Great Aunt Lucrecia." She held up the rather archaic-looking wand.
His grip on her hand didn't slacken. She found herself drawn to his gaze. She saw earnestness there—an honesty so brilliant and open it hurt a little to look at it. "You have a brilliant family, Gin," he said again. "I would give every ounce of gold in my vault to have a family like yours, even for just one day."
"Harry…." She stuttered a moment, before she said simply, "we are your family now. Didn't you realize that when you came over?"
"I thought your mum did that for everybody."
"Did you see anybody else there besides you?" Ginny asked.
He ducked his head and broke their hand-holding to run his fingers through that rakish hair of his. "Well, they're brilliant regardless," he said. "Your Mum and Dad are great. And a house full of brothers…"
"Has frustrations of its own," she assured him. More softly, she added, "But I wouldn't trade any of them for anything. I think I know what you're trying to say. And I appreciate it."
Suddenly the door of the cabin slammed open. "Oi, Harry, what are you doing in here with Ginny?"
Beside him Hermione rolled her eyes. "Honestly, Ron, they're talking, what did you think was going on?"
"How was I supposed to know?" Ron said.
"I promise I was not snogging your eleven-year-old sister, Ron," Harry said. "And if you remember, you guys kicked me out."
"Did not," Ron said.
Hermione had the grace to blush. Ginny said quickly, "My friend Luna said there was a repelling charm on Harry."
"Really?" Hermione asked. She stepped forward and grabbed one his hands. "Well," she said, "whatever it was is gone now. I'll admit it felt almost like I had ants crawling over me while you were in our cabin. I'm sorry for the way we acted. It must have made you feel awful."
Harry shrugged. "Glad it's just a repelling charm," he said with a wry smile. "I was beginning to think I had really bad breath."
"No," Ginny said, "that's Ron."
"Hey!" Ron said, flushing brilliantly.
Hermione though smiled approvingly at Ginny. "You and I are going to be friends," she declared.
"Why do you say that?" Harry asked.
"Because maybe between the two of us we can get Ron to start brushing those horrid teeth of his!" Ginny said.
"I use breath freshening charms!"
"Which does nothing to clean your teeth," Hermione snapped.
Ron looked at Harry for help, but Harry just shook his head. "No way am I getting between these two witches. And I happen to brush my teeth."
Ron whimpered in surrender. Only then did Harry realize that the train had stopped. He and Ginny had spent the entire day together talking. He looked back at her and realized with a start that whatever charm was on the cabin was gone now. Still, when he looked at her he felt a strange link—a familiarity. She was his friend now, and it didn't matter if the charm was gone or not. The friendship remained.
"Thank you for letting me sit with you," he said softly, for her alone.
"You're welcome," she told him. Their eyes met, and he could see in her the same knowledge. They were definitely friends.
The four left the cabin and started toward the entrance. Once they were off the car, a thin waif of a girl with blonde hair and large silver-blue eyes stepped back into the cabin. She hummed to herself as she removed her wand, tapped it against each bench, and said, "Finite Incantatem."
