Ginny was angry. She was sitting in Snape's Potions class, fuming because she'd just been given detention. Why? She hadn't kept her mouth shut when Snape had made a disparaging comment about how she was just as horrible at Potions as the rest of her family. Why on the earth did I answer him? Ginny wondered to herself, staring at her cauldron as if she would melt it. Why did I tell him that he was everything my brothers had said about him and more?

Her potion partner (who just happened to be a Slytherin, of all people) was laughing at her. Ginny waited until Snape's back was to her, then turned and snarled at the Slytherin girl. The girl looked slightly surprised, but smiled triumphantly at Ginny, tossing her dark hair.

"If you're not careful," Ginny murmured to the girl (her name was Reyalalie Riker), "I'm going to hex you when we get out of here." The girl's eyes widened, and Ginny nodded. "I don't appreciate irritating girls."

"You can't!" the girl said, trying to laugh a little. "You don't know—"

Ginny leaned closer to the other girl and whispered, "Yes, I do know enough hexes to put you out of commission for the next two or three weeks, Riker. But if you'll stop annoying me except to save face in front of your housemates, I'll leave you alone as well."

The girl scowled. "You are bluffing, Weasley," she hissed in a low voice. "You can't do anything you're threatening to do, and I don't have to put up with an ignorant Gryffindor like you!" Riker turned her head away from Ginny, leaning forward to put an ingredient into the cauldron.

Ginny noticed that the Slytherin girl had around three times as much of the ingredient as she needed and quickly leaned forward, yanking the other girl back from the cauldron before she could ruin the potion.

The Charleston twins noticed Ginny's problem, and decided to distract Snape from Ginny and Reyalalie by annoying two of Ginny's dorm mates. When the two other Gryffindor girls snapped back at the Charleston twins, Snape looked up at them and calmly took points away from Gryffindor.

"What do you think you're doing?" Riker snarled at Ginny, ignoring the twins and Kefira and Karidia (the Gryffindor girls).

"You were going to put too much of that—" said Ginny, indicating the root in the Slytherin girl's hand, "—into the cauldron. This potion only needs—"

Riker stared at Ginny in amazement when the red-haired girl smiled in amusement as Gryffindor lost House points. "Are you insane?" Riker whispered. "Your house just lost points and you're smiling?"

Ginny turned to look at the Slytherin girl. "Just put one-third of the roots in the potion," she said to Riker. "Carefully too, or else—don't—!"

The Slytherin girl had spitefully moved toward the cauldron to go ahead with all the roots she had had in the first place! Ginny looked at her in horror, then dashed up to Snape's desk to grab the counter-reactive ingredient. Just as Riker put in the roots, Ginny felt the vibes in the room change, and knew that she might be too late to keep the potion from exploding. She whirled around and threw the antidote across the room, where it landed in the potion, turning it a greyish color, making it unusable.

The other first-years stared at Ginny in amazement, and Snape too was shocked for an instant. Ginny crept back to her place beside her cauldron, preparing to throw out the ruined potion and begin again. Riker was furious, and glared at her.

Professor Snape stepped forward and looked at Ginny with his cold, black eyes. She stood watching him, unmoved as he walked up to her. She stood there, watching him as he blamed her for not realizing what was happening with the potion. He took points away from Gryffindor, making her smile again. He demanded to know what was so amusing, and she replied, "Nothing, professor. I was just smiling."

His scowl deepened, and he snarled, "Detention, Weasley!" and Ginny nodded. He drew his wand and pointed it at the cauldron and the ruined potion. "Evanesco! Scurgify!" He glared at her before returning to his desk.

"Professor," began Kefira (who was a little braver than the rest of her dorm mates, except Ginny), "Ginny saved the—"

Ginny looked quickly over at Kefira and held up her hand, giving the girl a sharp look. Kefira stopped speaking immediately, and disappeared behind her cauldron. When the other students looked at her, Ginny shrugged and busied herself in re-brewing the potion.

When class was dismissed, Riker bottled up the potion and Ginny cleaned out the cauldron before packing her supplies away into it. "I'll make you a deal," Ginny said to her potion partner. "You gather the ingredients, I'll make the potion, you bottle it up, and I'll pack up the supplies. That way, even if we insult each other the whole class period, we can still get something done. Deal?"

Riker looked wary. "That is very un-Gryffindor of you—in fact, it is very un-Weasley of you," said the Slytherin girl quietly.

Ginny shrugged. "How could it be un-Weasley of me?" she asked. "None of my brothers have ever had Slytherin potions partners, so I have no example before me. I'm not your stereotypical Gryffindor, Riker," Ginny replied calmly. "Deal, or no deal?"

"Deal. But out of class, watch your back." Riker left the room quickly.

"Will do," muttered Ginny, following the girl out of the room. Thank you for your training, Tom.

Tom smiled to himself. Well done, Ginny, he told her. However, be on the lookout for trouble from her and her friends. She's going to try to get back at you for whatever it is she thinks you did.

Ginny laughed to herself as she walked down the dungeon halls, hurrying toward her next class, Defense Against the Dark Arts. Thanks for letting me know: I meant what I said to her about the hexes. You taught me them, you know.

Tom laughed inside Ginny's head. Yes, I did, and I know you'll do those hexes justice. He smiled, and contented himself with watching Lockhart make himself look like the idiot he was.

Karidia leaned over to Ginny during part of it, ignoring Lockhart's bragging. "Ginny, you stood up to Professor Snape so well! And you saved that horrible Riker girl!"

"Ah." Ginny shrugged. "She's not so bad. Not if you understand her. Anyway, it's all right now: she's going to come after me with some of her friends or something."

"How will their coming after you make everything all right?" asked Karidia. "Ginny, we're talking Slytherins here!"

Ginny nodded. "Karidia, I have known the Charleston twins (two of the Slytherin girls) since we were five years old. They are not bad, even if they are rather callous sometimes. Riker is a first-year, just like us. Do you really think that they can do anything really, really bad to me?"

Karidia shrugged, and Ginny added, "Besides, I know an extremely nasty hex that would make her face look like it had blistered, then been rubbed with sandpaper. Don't worry about her."

The girls giggled together, and Tom shook his head in amusement. "Girls," Lockhart interjected brightly, "are you paying attention?"

Ginny looked up with an adoring smile on her face and smoothly replied, "I'm sorry, Professor. I was telling my friend how the next chapter ends because I was excited for her to know!"

Lockhart smiled, and Ginny felt inwardly sick. "Ah, very good, Ms. Weasley. Then please tell us how it ends."

Alarmed, but not showing anything, Ginny stood, wondering what to do. She had no idea how it ended. Tom gave her an idea, and she took a deep breath and smiled, reaching her left hand into her pocket and picking up the piece of candy that she had taken from her brother's room.

Ginny quietly unwrapped it inside her pocket and put it in her mouth, pretending that she was wiping her hand across her face. She instantly felt sick (not the kind of sick Lockhart made her) and began, "Oh, well, I was very impressed with how you did it! When you—"

Her eyes became very wide, and she got very sick in the middle of the classroom. All the other students in the room, jumping away from her and screaming, "Ew! Gross!" Ginny clapped her hand over her mouth and dashed out of the room, running for the Hospital Wing without waiting for permission to leave the classroom.


Other than being very, very sick until Madam Pomfrey gave her the antidote to the piece of candy her brothers had made, Ginny was absolutely thrilled at leaving her D.A.D.A. class. She relaxed in the Hospital Wing for about two hours until she was released. Kefira and Karidia came and marched her up to the Gryffindor Common Room.

"Ginny, how did you do that?" Kefira gasped. "That was absolutely disgusting! I don't even think Lockhart knew how to deal with your 'issue'!"

Ginny laughed happily, but Karidia protested, "Oh, he was just surprised at Ginny because he's used to much greater things!"

With a sigh, the red-haired girl retorted, "He can't deal with something a first-year comes up with? Sorry excuse for a Hogwarts professor! Now, thank you for bringing me up here, you two, but I must ask you to leave me to my homework." Ginny's friends left, and Ginny settled into a chair and pulled out her books.

She noticed that Ron and his friends weren't there yet. Ginny smiled to herself for some reason. She was just finishing up her essay for Charms class when she looked up and saw Harry, Ron, and Hermione come in. She saw that Hermione and Ron seemed to be annoyed with each other. Ginny decided to listen to Ron's mind to find out what the three of them were up to.

Stupid girl, thought Ginny's brother to himself. She spends way too much time in the library. She's going to end up with books coming out of her ears. His mind kept on sputtering and Ginny let him go on sputtering.

Ginny realized that they weren't thinking about anything important, and left them alone. This is just wrong, she thought to herself. I can go into other peoples' minds; I can take things from my brothers and use them to fool Lockhart. I'm too good!

Tom laughed. Enjoy yourself, Ginny. But be good.

I will, replied Ginny happily. Thank you so much, Tom!


Ginny went to her brothers, Fred and George, and told them about what she had done with the candy she had taken from their room in the Burrow (of course, she did not mention Tom or his cousin). They were very excited about the effect of their newest creation, but told Ginny to be very careful with the things that they had made, as not all of them had been tested.

"Yeah," said George. "We knew it would most likely make anyone who ate it sick."

"But," Fred continued, "we weren't sure how sick it would make them. Thanks for testing it for us, Gin. It saved us from forcing you to try it." The twins laughed together, and Ginny's mouth twisted into a smile. Fred gave her a strange look, and she realized that she must be copying the look she'd seen on Tom's face quite a few times.

Ginny gave her brothers her normal smile and replied, "If you have any other things that can keep me out of Lockhart's class, I would be fine with testing them as well."

They snorted in reply, and told Ginny that they would keep that in mind. "By the way, Ginny," said Fred, "you'd better get better rest: you look rather pale."

"Are you sure you aren't going to faint, Ginny?" asked George.

Ginny scowled, but replied, "Thank you for your concern, but I'll be perfectly all right! There is nothing wrong with me: I only feel a bit tired!"

The twins glanced at each other, and George told Ginny, "All right, but stay away from Percy: he'll march you down to the Hospital Wing as quick as anything if he sees you like that!"

Unfortunately, at that moment, Percy (who was a sixth year prefect at the time) came into the room to check on Fred and George. When he saw Ginny in the boys' dorm, he was shocked, then asked, "What are you doing in here, Ginny? Don't you know you're not a boy?"

Fred and George grinned at each other, and Fred defended Ginny: "How do we know she's not a boy? Mum could have just disguised her as a girl because she's always wanted one so badly!"

Percy shot Ginny a strange look, and Ginny felt like he was considering her as someone other than his sister! Finally, however, the look left his face and he said, "Well, get along, Ginny. Don't come back to the boys' dorm ever again, do you hear?"

Don't you worry your big head, Ginny snapped at Percy in her mind. I'll go wherever I please, including to the Chamber of Secrets! I'll come back here if I wish to!

Percy saw the upset look on Ginny's face and noticed (almost at the same time) that she was pale, and seemed quite tired. "Ginny," he began, and the twins sighed in sarcastic exasperation. He shot them a dirty look, then continued, "come with me down to the Hospital Wing. You seem to be tired, and perhaps Madam Pomphrey's potion will keep you from becoming sick."

Ginny stared at her brother in extreme annoyance. Every part of her being rebelled against her brother, but Tom said to her, Perhaps you should go just to passify him. Breathing fury and embarressment at being led around like an animal on a leash, Ginny followed Percy angrily, not resisting her urge to slam the dormitory door.

Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan, two of Harry and Ron's dorm mates stared at Percy and Ginny as they left Fred and George's dorm room. Ginny smirked to herself and held her head high as she passed them, knowing that they were shocked at her display of temper. What do you expect from a red-haired Weasley? Ginny ridiculed them.

Tom laughed to himself, and Ginny sighed, still following her brother to the Hospital Wing. Percy chided her, "You shouldn't give in to your temper, Ginevra, especially in front of the other students here."

"Oh, shut up," Ginny replied irritantly. "I'm not the one who's trying for the Head Boy position next year, and you're just worried that if I misstep than you're finished. Just shut up. I don't care if I get sick! In fact, I was sick yesterday in Defense! So you're too late anyway!"

Percy did not turn aside, but colored violently, and Ginny knew she'd read her brother right.


Percy did force Ginny to take the potion, and she was so embarrassed about it that she hid in her dormitory room for the rest of the evening. Ginny's dorm mates, Kefira, Karidia, Maryanne, and Marlene, yanked open her bedcurtains to find her.

Ginny yelled at them, and they pointed at her, laughing. Yes, smoke was coming out of her ears: the potion caused that, and Ginny was hiding for that reason. Marlene and Maryanne pointed at her, calling her "fire-head" and other things. Ginny angrily drew her wand and blasted them away from her bed, causing them to end up on the floor, staring at her in disbelief.

She then turned her wand on their beds and turned their bedsheets from red and gold to green and silver, the colors of Slytherin House. They all shrieked in horror, and yelled at Ginny to turn them back, but she refused. Ginny's dorm mates went and got the seventh year Gryffindor girl prefect to come change the bedsheets back to their original colors.

The prefect told Ginny that she derserved to serve detention for such a naughty prank, and Ginny retorted that her brothers did things like that all the time. "Nothing is thought of what they do," she told the girl, "and it's not my fault that the bedsheets changed color. It might have had something to do with my mood, though. They [motioning to her dorm mates] were annoying me when I was trying to study in peace on my bed. I must finish my homework now, or I won't have time. Please allow me to continue studying."

The seventh year agreed, and Ginny shut her bedcurtains, fuming.

Ginny, Tom said to her, you don't have to be so furious with the prefect.

Ginny turned on him in her anger. You shut up! she railed at him. You taught me how to do that, and they were annoying me. The prefect was only an extension of their annoyance to me, so I had to deal with her as well.

Do not speak to me that way, Ginevra, Tom said dangerously. I want you to be a responsible witch, not one who abuses her powers.

Absolutely furious with Tom, Ginny blocked him out of her mind. Tom tried and tried, but he could not get back into her mind. Weak as he was, his cousin took him over, and did not leave him for a very long time.