Written for Hogwarts' Sex Ed Assignment: Task 1 - Write about someone being faced with the possibility of sex for the first time.

Also for the Auction Challenge: (trope) omegaverse, the Writing Club - Character Appreciation: (relationship) Siblings, Emy's Emporium: The hunt - write about a coming of age ritual, Cocktail Corner: Pomegranate - Character: Ginny Weasley.

Word count: 951

never see you coming

Ginny doesn't remember the day she manifested an Omega. Tom had been thorough in hiding it — Merlin forbid the girl he was possessing be some 'weak' omega instead of an alpha, apparently, and Ginny would laugh at the prejudice that shows if it didn't make her feel so sick.

(Tom had been an Alpha. Mrs. Pomphrey told her this, just before she explained to Ginny how the possession had screwed with her system and how it might take a while for her hormones to settle in their proper levels.

"But I'm an Omega? For sure?" Ginny had asked, hating how small her voice sounded.

"Yes," Mrs Pomphrey had replied, kind but firm. "You are."

Her mother had celebrated, of course. As soon as she knew and Ginny was back from Hogwarts, she cooked all of Ginny's favorite meals, and Ginny had smiled a smile so fake all evening that her cheeks were still hurting the next day.)

She doesn't want to be an Omega. She wants to be an Alpha, or perhaps a Beta like her brothers. Anything but an Omega.

But she doesn't have a choice, does she?

.

Of all the people she expects to try to talk to her about the Omega thing, Percy is the last one she'd thought she'd have to deal with.

And yet, here her brother is, standing in her doorway, looking awkward with his fist still raised to knock, even though said door is open.

"Go away," Ginny mumbles rom her bed. She's collapsed face down on her covers, and her head is buried in her pillow, but somehow she thinks her brother doesn't need her to be intelligible to understand what she means.

Percy ditters for a minute, but then his footsteps come closer, not further, and Ginny sits up, scowling.

"I said go away."

"I'm sorry, but no," Percy replies. He pulls a chair closer to her bed and sits on it. He doesn't look any less awkward than before, but it makes Ginny smile briefly. "I thought… I think we need to talk."

"Nothing to talk about," Ginny replies crossly. "I'm fine, you're fine, everyone's fine."

Percy continues to talk like he didn't hear her. "I know being an Omega wasn't what you wanted, but it's really not that bad." His voice softens, and something in his eyes makes him look like their father, when he's trying to console his children. "You will get through this."

"And how would you know that?" she spits back.

Because this isn't like that time she borrowed her brother's broom, went flying and fell, and Bill helped her hide it, or even like she just got her first period.

This is so much worse, so much more life defining. This is…

She'll have to find an Alpha. Omegas do that, don't they? She'll have to find an Alpha, and hopefully he'll be a good one and let her be, but she'll always be looked down for it, in a way that she wasn't before, not even for being a girl.

She'll have to have sex one day, and she knew that before, but she didn't know. It's so much realer now, and she feels herself start to panic.

Percy's voice cuts through the noise in her head.

"I know," he says, "I know because… I'm an Omega too." He smiles down at her, apologetic. "i'm sorry. I wanted to tell you, but…"

"It's hard," Ginny finishes for him, suddenly overcome by a wave of relief — here is someone who knows, someone who can understand her. "Does…"

"Mum and Dad know." Percy nods, no doubt feeling what she was about to ask. "But you're the first person I told."

"Oh. Thank you." And then, because now she can, she blurts out, "I don't want to have sex. Or… Or…"

Her mind swims with all the things she's heard about Omegas — consequence of growing up with six big brothers, who all have or are going through puberty and don't always know when to censor themselves, amongst other things — but she doesn't want any of them.

She doesn't feel like any of them should apply to her. She's not some meek damsel in distress waiting for an Alpha to rescue her, or a passive woman who wants to stay home to raise a bunch of kids. Maybe her mother liked it, but Ginny wants more out of her life.

She wants everything.

Percy smiles at her again. "Hey, Ginny, you don't have to do anything you don't want to." And then he smirks, an expression that would be more at home on the twins' faces than his, and yet, one that fits him like a glove.

"Besides, do you want to know the one good thing about being an Omega?"

Ginny nods eagerly.

"It's that no one will ever see you coming. You can take this world by the storm, and they won't even realize they have to fight back until it's too light and you've already won."

And Ginny thinks about her brother's ambition, his drive, and suddenly she sees him in a different light.

It's different for him, of course. Nobody knows he's an Omega and he's still a boy. But he's also aiming for the Ministry, and Ginny suddenly can't wait to see her brother rise through the ranks there, and everyone's faces when they realize what he is.

It'll been a prank even the twins would be proud of, she thinks, except that they, too, won't ever see it coming.

Percy nods and takes his leave, but just as he's about to cross her doorway again, Ginny finds her voice. "Thanks, Percy."

"Anytime, Ginny. Anytime."