A/N: And so, here it is at last. I'm sorry, I know it's not actually that long and I know it's not worth … god, has it nearly been a year?? I'm terribly sorry. This is, I have to confess, a transitional chapter. I looked at this piece today and thought, "God almighty, this is going nowhere!" Many of you have pointed out that there is no Ginny/Draco yet. There WILL be, I swear, but if I rush it, it'll suck. It's very subtle right now, but soon, my friends, very soon! Anyway, I decided today to go ahead and post this chapter and let the real serious development happen during the next chapter, which I've already begun and which should be well underway soon. I won't make promises, but my goal for that chapter is the end of the break. I also have to say a big fatty thank you to my very patient fans and all the kind offers I've received for betas. You're too generous and loving for your own good, faithful readers. I love you all!!!!
P.S. Also, mad author props to whoever can find the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" reference. It's vague, but I definitely disclaim it. I love you, Douglas Adams!!
P.P.S. As usual, I edited myself and therefore, there are typos. I figured you'd be more interested in reading this than worrying about little errors, so here it is, in all its glorious error-ridden glory
)BW(
Chapter 10 (or so)
)BW(
"A letter from home?" Draco said. He blinked at her, wondering if he'd heard correctly and not knowing what to think.
"From my mum, actually," Ginny said quietly, her eyes still glued to the parchment.
Draco waited, but she didn't elaborate. "And?" he said at length. "What does it say, Weasley?"
Ginny looked at him with a crooked smile, the tension easing around her eyes. "I'm scared to open it."
"Because?" Draco demanded. "You already aren't allowed on the team, what's it going to say that's worse than that?"
"Well, let's see," Ginny said sardonically, holding up a hand. "I'm still doing everything with the team except flying." She ticked off one finger. "I'm practicing with Zabini almost every day of the week and I can't see that's it's all that much of a secret." She ticked of a second finger. "And – well, I haven't exactly been writing to any of the family lately." She winced. "I've been sulking at them since I left the team."
Draco bit his lip. She made fair points. Suppose her mum was writing to tell her not to come anywhere near the team? Suppose she was writing because Ginny's git brother had squealed about practice with Blaise? Suppose she was writing simply to yell at Ginny for, as Ginny put it, "sulking"? Draco snorted. He couldn't deny that she was quite the holder of a grudge.
"Well, let's see it anyway," he said boldly. "If she says you aren't to practice with Zabini, it's not a matter you of stopping; just a matter of finding a more secretive place to practice."
Ginny's lip twitched in a weak smile. She trailed her fingers along the edge of the roll of parchment, pausing over the twine.
"Go on, Weasley, I haven't got all day," Draco said sharply, reaching out to take it from her.
She narrowed a glare at him and moved the parchment out his reach. She was facing almost directly away from him now, and though he couldn't see the parchment anymore, he could tell by the angle of her arm that she was working at the twine knot. Moments later, it fluttered to the grass and he heard a rustle of parchment. He watched Ginny's head, bent over the parchment and nodding as she read.
After a minute's silence, Draco lost patience again.
"Well?" he demanded, moving at last to face her again and trying to casually catch a look at Mrs. Weasley's scrawl.
Ginny shrugged, her expression bemused, and handed it to him. Draco smoothed the parchment and read it quickly through.
Dear Ginny,
I hope you're doing well. Your father and I are a bit worried, not having heard from you in a bit. I know you are probably upset, dear, because of the line we've taken about Quidditch, and even though I stand by that decision (for the moment) I hope you know that your father and I are only trying to do what we feel is best for you. You're young, and you are in school. Perhaps your brothers (and I mean the twins and Ron) haven't set the best example for you, but you can't know how important a strong education is for your future.
Having said all that, dear, your father and I have talked and we feel that perhaps we were a bit hasty in simply dismissing the idea of you and Quidditch. Your brothers didn't seem to think it was a good idea, and we thought they would know. But I thought a lot about it and your father agrees that perhaps it is only fair to hear what you have to say about the team. You have played before, although on a temporary basis. Even if we still say no, we always want to know what you are up to and what your interests are. So tell us about the team. Who's on it? When does it meet? Is the Malfoy boy a good coach? Has the team had any matches? What is the mascot and what are the colors?
Anything you'd like to say, dear. Remember that I am your mother and I want to know everything.
All our very best love,
Mum (and Dad and Bill and Charlie)
Draco finished reading and looked up at Ginny. She wore a guarded expression and a raised eyebrow.
"Well?" she said. "What do you think?"
Draco felt something stir in his chest. Something dangerous and sentimental and terribly sincere. He cleared his throat.
"Weasley," he said. "Take this parchment and go to your room. Write the best damned letter you've ever written. Make it a bleeding thirteen-inch essay about the greatness of Quidditch. I don't care. You are going to convince your mum and dad to let you on this team even if this letter is all you work on for a week. Do I make myself crystal clear?"
The dam broke; Ginny let forth with the biggest, brightest smile Draco had ever seen. She almost squealed.
"Yes, coach," she said breathlessly, before turning and darting back to the castle.
)BW(
Ginny bolted across the front lawn, feeling the sharp wind through her hair, the cold sunlight in her eyes. She was trying very, very hard not to get her hopes up. It was just a letter. She didn't even know what had changed her parents' minds.
Not changed their minds. Just … given them pause for thought.
Ginny bit her lip. She didn't believe for an instant they had "thought a lot about it". Her mother was the most stubborn woman Ginny knew. Her mind wouldn't have been changed by long, hard thought, but by some manner of miracle. Could Bill or, more likely, Charlie have changed their minds and talked to their parents on her behalf? Molly and Arthur would know that no letters home from their youngest child meant that Ginny was in a serious strop. Perhaps her father had had a change of heart? Or perhaps Charlie had. She and Charlie shared a love of Quidditch that probably surpassed that of any other Weasley.
Ginny skipped up the front steps, trying to wear her hope out by means of exhaustion. She staggered into the entrance hall, but kept running. Her momentum carried her up the first flight of stairs to the third floor corridor, where she nearly collided with a lone figure who was storming along in the opposite direction.
"Parkinson?" Ginny gasped in surprise, stepping back so that she could see the other more clearly and trying to catch her breath. She was startled to see blatant fury in the other's dark eyes.
"Get out of my way if you want to live, Weasley," Pansy snarled.
Far from fearing the anger of others, Ginny understood it better than almost any other emotion.
"What the hell happened to you?" she asked, standing her ground and crossing her arms over her chest.
"Oh, nothing!" Pansy raged. "Not a fucking thing. I'm a bleeding laugh riot!" To Ginny bewilderment, she began to pace. Just as quickly, she turned to face Ginny and stabbed a finger at her. "They're a job lot, Weasley. Don't you trust them or they'll go for your fucking throat."
"What are you on about, Parkinson?" Ginny demanded, eyeing the finger waving dangerously in front of her and noticing with some amusement that Pansy's fingernails, usually so carefully manicured, were chewed down so that no white half-moons were to be seen.
"You know damned well! He's your brother's friend, maybe you know what's going on in his twisted little brain," Pansy snapped, removing the finger and beginning to chew at a hangnail as she took to pacing again. She paused, a skittish, angry smirk making a brief appearance as she added, "I take it back. I doubt whatever it is doesn't qualify as a brain. Probably a misplaced, dyspeptic liver or something. Bastard."
Ginny was totally lost. Pansy didn't give her a chance to catch up, but took advantage of Ginny's moment of bemusement and dove around her, stomping away down the stairs. Ginny let her go and began moving again, trying to make sense of what the blazes had just happened. Pansy had been raving about a boy; that much was obvious. But which boy? Ginny supposed that her teammate was referring to a Gryffindor, who apparently was Ron's friend. Well, that was hardly a narrower alley. Ron was a git at times, but he was fairly popular within Gryffindor house.
Have I seen her with any of the seventh year boys? Ginny wondered absently, sliding through a hidden door behind a tapestry and coming out in the seventh floor corridor.
Torn between confusion over Pansy's violent behavior and anxiety about her letter to her parents, Ginny found herself in her dormitory without any clear idea of how she got there. She shook herself, remembering the letter from home and, with a heart full of trepidation and unwilling hope, she sat down with parchment and quill, and began to write.
)BW(
Two hours later, Ginny made a strangled noise and tossed a twentieth letter attempt to the floor, where it joined its unfortunate compatriots in a riotous mess.
"Work for Snape?" one of her dorm mates asked cautiously.
"I wish!" Ginny snapped. She could hear the girl jump.
"Ginny, what are you yelling about …?" Hermione's voice trailed off. Ginny turned and saw her bushy-haired friend and Parvati framed in the doorway, both eyeing the mess in wonder. Hermione's eyes were wide with admiration. "I've never known you to get this worked up over homework, Ginny," she said at length. "Perhaps you should try color-coded charts. I've always found them to be quite –"
"It's not homework," Ginny sighed, the wind leaving her frustrated sails in a rush. She noted with mildly relieving amusement that her dorm mates had deliberately turned their backs when Parvati and Hermione had entered the room. "Come in," Ginny invited the seventh years loudly. She was feeling perverse.
"If not homework, what is this mess?" Parvati asked, wading her way to Ginny's bed and stretching out on her stomach.
"Well …" Ginny felt some of her earlier giddiness return. Without a word, she handed the much-read letter to her friend and sat back in her desk chair.
Hermione perched beside Parvati and began reading over her shoulder.
"Well," she said when she had finished it, and she and Parvati were looking in bewilderment at Ginny. "I always suspected that Ron had stuck his fat nose where it wasn't wanted. I mean, it was probably Ron who told your parents it was dangerous and rubbish …"
"Typical," Parvati scoffed. She eyed the paper-stroon floor again. "Let me guess. You're writing back?"
"Trying," Ginny said, blowing out a long breath. "I feel like if I don't get it just right they'll go back to thinking that Ron and Charlie are right about me playing Quidditch."
"Charlie wouldn't stop you," Hermione said with finality.
"If not him, it's Bill," Ginny said. "Mum wouldn't take Fred or George seriously about it and I think they like the idea that I'm up to mischief. And Ron's word isn't law with them – he's too close to my age and gets into too much trouble himself. And Percy … well, I doubt he gives a damn what I do."
"Does it matter?" Parvati demanded, a gleam in her eye. "Ginny, you're getting back on the team! Who cares about anything else?"
"Except the small matter of convincing Mum and Dad," Ginny retorted.
"Gin, it's not like the perfect letter is what your parents are looking for," Hermione said. She thought for a moment, then said, "Tell me about playing on the team."
"What?" Ginny said, thrown by the sudden switch in topic.
"Tell me about it," Hermione repeated. "Tell me about what we do and what it's like to be Chaser and about our team mates. Just pretend I've never heard of the team. No, wait! I have a better idea! Just stay right here."
She jumped off the bed and all but fled the dormitory.
"Reckon she's off to get a book?" Parvati asked, as mystified as Ginny.
Five minutes later, Hermione was back. She was surprisingly bookless.
"Come on, quick!" she said, motioning Ginny and Parvati toward the door.
"Where're we going?" Parvati demanded, scrambling off the bed and following Ginny through the door of the sixth year dormitory.
"I've found someone for Ginny to talk to," Hermione said as she led them down the winding staircase.
"Hermione, I don't get it!" Ginny said in annoyance. "How is this going to help me figure out what to write home?"
"Come on!" Hermione said, diving into the common room and then, to Ginny and Parvati's surprise, up the boys' dormitory staircase. Ginny and Parvati followed with difficulty – Hermione was a speedy girl when she was overwrought or excited. She seemed to be a little bit of both at the moment.
"Oh, no …" Ginny began, pausing as Hermione reached the seventh-year boys' dormitory.
"Go on, Gin," Hermione said, pushing her through the door. Parvati followed.
Harry sat on the edge of bed, doubled up in laughter. The source of his amusement was evident the moment Ginny stepped fully into the room. Ron hung suspected in air, and as if by marionette strings, his arms and legs were held gently but apparently solidly against his sides.
"I'll kill you, Hermione!" Ron bellowed, his face purple. "No. I'll dismember you. Then I'll bat-bogey you. Then I'll –"
"Wish you'd never been born when I give you detention and an everlasting nosebleed?" Hermione retorted.
Ron lapsed into a sulky silence, which made Harry hiccup helplessly. Parvati went and patted him soothingly on the back.
"If you want to come down from there, you're going to listen to your sister," Hermione said calmly. "If not, you're going to stay up there and have to eat whatever Harry is willing to feed you by hand." She turned to Harry, who was purple in the face for different reasons. "And you may want to get a bedpan from Madam Pomphrey."
Harry went silent and tears began coursing down his cheeks. Ginny reflected that she hadn't seen him laugh that hard … well, ever.
"Look, Ron," Hermione said reasonably. "All you have to do is listen. In fact, vocalis evictus. There, now you can listen properly." Ron gave her an unfriendly look as he opened his mouth and nothing came out. Hermione relented a little. "Five minutes, Ron."
"Hermione," Ginny said out of the corner of her mouth. "I don't want to talk to him."
"Too bad," Hermione said stoutly. "You need inspiration for your letter. In fact – Harry, can you get Ginny parchment, ink, and quill, and leave them on your desk so that she can write her letter after she's done speaking to Ron?"
Harry was returning from purple to red and with Parvati's help he made his way to his desk, very deliberately not looking at his suspended best friend as he passed.
"Now then," Hermione said. "We'll just leave you two alone. Ginny, he's someone who doesn't understand the team or its importance to you. Tell him about it. He has to listen and he can't interrupt. He's the perfect candidate for listener. Come on, everyone."
Hermione led Parvati and Harry, who was still leaning on her, out of the room and Ginny found herself alone with her brother. They hadn't spoken without yelling at each other since their fight and, despite the fact that Ron couldn't speak, Ginny felt defensive.
Talk to him, Hermione had said. Fine. She would.
In five minutes, Ginny had told him everything and had begun to cry.
)BW(
No one was more surprised than Draco to see Ginny and her git brother walk arm-in-arm into dinner that evening. Weasley was glaring at Granger in a murderous sort of way, but when Ginny spoke to him with a smile, his face relaxed and he ruffled her hair. Walking beside Granger, Potter burst out laughing for absolutely no reason at all.
"Typical," Pansy growled. "Bloody typical."
"What?" Draco said distractedly, craning his neck to see where Ginny was sitting. He needed to be able to catch up with her when she left dinner to find out if she'd written her letter home yet. By the look of it, he thought darkly, she had just been bumming around with her git brother.
"Oh, nothing," Pansy snapped loudly. "Nothing at bloody all. Giggling bastard. I hate men. Argh!"
"The hell is up with her?" Draco hissed into Millicent's ear.
"No idea, but I've offered to trade her out to Hufflepuff for Zacharias Smith and Eloise Midgeon," Millicent said irritably. "She won't stop. I can't figure out who she's going on about, but I really wish whoever it was would shag her so she'd shut up."
"Oh, that's right, Granger," Pansy was muttering into her potatoes. "Just go on smiling and being all pretty."
"That's the first sensible thing she's said all day," Blaise put in from Draco's other side.
"Don't you start," Draco said, holding up a warning hand. What was it with Gryffindors? Daft as bats, and as mad. And yet, they had this hypnotic pull on Slytherins.
What's their trick? Draco wondered, watching Ginny slide into a seat beside her brother and begin loading up her plate with everything in sight.
Come to that, what was wrong with Gryffindors' appetites? Surely that was enough gravy to drown a small country.
"No matter how long you stare at her, she's still going to be there," Blaise murmured. He tilted his head to the side. "That is an ungodly amount of gravy."
Draco sank quickly back in his seat and treated his friend to an unimpressed look. "That's so rich coming from you."
"What, the gravy or the staring?" the imperturbable Blaise asked, grinning.
Blaise left Draco mercifully alone for the rest of the meal, but Draco was restless. Possibly he was absorbing restless vibes from Pansy, or perhaps he was chomping at the bit to know what Ginny had written back to her parents – if she had written. Either way, by the end of the meal, he had made an executive decision.
"Night practice at nine," he said to Pansy and Millicent. Millie looked taken aback, while Pansy was actually distracted from his vicious tirade on people who were too much like prats to notice anything that went on around them.
"What? Tonight?" she said blankly.
"No, a year from tonight," Draco said sardonically. "Pass it on," he added over his shoulder, standing up and heading for the door of the Great Hall. A good session of strategizing and yelling at his team would surely clear his head.
)BW(
Ginny's eyebrows shot up when Susie Bones told the Gryffindor girls about night practice, and Ginny had a moment of worry about her Potions homework. She did have a disgustingly massive written exam the next day. NEWT-level Potions was about the most awful thing Ginny had foolishly been suckered into via flattery of her Head of Head.
"I don't know what he's playing at," Hermione was saying in a nervous murmur to Parvati. "We've a Charms quiz tomorrow and a huge project due in Transfiguration."
"Since when have you let school interfere with important stuff?" Parvati asked sardonically.
"Since I wanted to graduate, obviously," Hermione huffed.
"Give me a break," Parvati snorted. "You could probably pass the NEWTS now if you wanted."
Hermione when pink and beamed, ducking her head. Ginny noticed Lavender watching them with a scowl and reckoned that Hermione was, in her own unique way, captivating Parvati in the same way Lavender once had. The difference was that Hermione shared Quidditch with Parvati, a substantially deeper subject than the latest fashion in robes.
"Still, I worry a bit," Hermione said. "I really hadn't meant Quidditch to be so time-consuming."
"None of us really means for that to happen," Harry put in, surprising the girls. He quirked an eyebrow at Hermione. "Is it wrong to say 'I told you so'?"
She made a face at him. "Shut up, Harry."
Hermione's point about homework removed the Gryffindor girls from the Great Hall sooner than usual and by the end of a couple of hours of Potions notes, Ginny was more than willing to attend a late-night practice. She seriously needed to burn off steam.
"Just one more sentence," Hermione begged, as they dragged her bodily from her sheaf of color coded Arithmancy notes at 8:45.
"Don't start," Natalie McDonald said, using Beater strength to pull the seventh year through the doorway. "We all know that one sentence for you means –"
"An entire roll of parchment," Ginny and Parvati chorused. They laughed and even Hermione let out a reluctant grin.
When they entered the common room, they came face to face with Ron, who stood blocking the portrait hole, his arms crossed over his chest. Harry was sitting by the fire, studiously reading. Ginny braced herself and felt Hermione's arm stiffen under her fingers.
"What is it, Ron?" Ginny asked cautiously. "We're late."
Ron swallowed and alternately took a deep breath. It didn't help that suddenly the eyes of most of the common room were on him.
"Er – Ginny," he said. He glanced at Harry. Ginny followed his gaze and caught Harry raising warning eyebrows. Ron's expression puckered. "And Hermione," he grunted.
"What, Ronald?" Hermione asked, her arm still tense.
"I just wanted to say," Ron said, and it looked as though he were speaking through mud. "I just wanted to say … have fun at practice."
They all stared at him, mouths agape. With a sudden cry of, "Oh, Ron!", Hermione threw her arms around his neck and burst into tears. Ron's eyes widened in horror and Ginny thought he looked very much like a man cornered by Screwts. Ginny wondered if he might start saying, "Back, Mione, back!"
"I – Hermione," he said helplessly. Ginny looked at the other girls and grinned. She couldn't help it. Poor Ron!
"Come on, Hermione," Ginny said, prising her friend off her brother with some effort. She noted that he looked considerably relieved, and although she felt the impulse herself, she refrained from repeating Hermione's performance. She looked into her brother's eyes and smiled her brightest. Leaning around Hermione, so as not to cause him further humiliation, she said quietly, "You don't know what this means to me, Ron. Thank you. Very much." Her throat tightened a bit and she pulled back hastily.
"I know what it means to Hermione," he said, still looking edgy.
"Go have a nice lie-down by the fire; you'll get over it," Natalie suggested.
"Ginny, please get me out of here," Hermione whispered, hiccupping. "I feel like an absolute prat right now."
"Right, we're off!" Ginny said loudly. "Good day, all. Nice chatting, Ron."
"Never again," he said fervently, beating a hasty retreat to Harry's couch and glowering at Harry, who was almost as purple with mirth as he had been when Ron had been upside down by the ankles earlier that day.
Ginny, Natalie, and Parvati frog-marched Hermione from Gryffindor Tower with some difficulty, but by the third floor, she was calm enough to begin ranting about how silly she had been and why couldn't she behave as level-headedly as Ginny.
"Please," Ginny scoffed. "You know me better than that."
"Better than what?" a voice came from the staircase below theirs.
Ginny saw Pansy leading the Millicent and Blaise down from the second floor.
"Nothing," Ginny said. "What's you all doing up here?"
"Looking for Draco –" Pansy began.
"Ginny!"
Ginny turned and looked back up the stairs. Harry was galloping down to them, something clutched in his hand.
"Harry, what're you doing?" Parvati asked, laughter in her eyes.
"Gin, you dropped this when you were dragging Mione away," Harry panted, handing her one of her old dragon hide gloves. She had been bringing them down after necessary mending.
"Thanks, Harry," she said, smiling and accepting her gear back. "I could have lived without it, you know. I don't even know if I'll be flying tonight."
"Whatever." Harry waved this aside, eyeing his best friend. "Mione, you going to be okay?"
"I'm fine," she told him, swiping at her cheeks in mild annoyance.
"How magnanimous you are, Potter," Pansy cut in. Ginny glanced down at the landing on which the Slytherins had stopped. Her eyebrows shot up. Pansy was almost sneering at Harry, who met her gaze coolly.
"Only toward ladies," he retorted. Ginny stared at him. Harry had only ever really lashed out at Draco with his admittedly cynical side. Now here he was, basely insulting Pansy for no reason Ginny could see. Since fifth year, Harry had perfected the art of ignoring the spite of others. What was happening?
"You wouldn't know a lady if she bit you, Potter," the brunette hissed, stomping passed her fellow Slytherins and down the steps.
"What was that about, Harry?" Hermione began, but Harry was already retreating back up the steps to Gryffindor.
"Blimy," Natalie said, her eyes wide.
"Practice," Parvati reminded them, shaking her head after Harry and leading the way down the steps.
"The hell?" Millicent said, arching an eyebrow at them as they leveled with her and Blaise.
"No idea at all," Hermione said, watching Harry disappear onto a landing above.
"Something's up," Parvati said, "but I defy even Ron or you, Hermione, to get it out of him. He has that look."
All the Gryffindors nodded, rolling their eyes.
"What's that look?" Blaise asked, falling into step beside Hermione.
"It's the look Harry has when something really big is going on and damned if he's going to let anyone in on it," Ginny told him.
"Except this time I don't think it has anything to do with You-Know-Who," Parvati said conspiratorially.
"No, I think this is a lot worse than You-Know-Who," Natalie said, cottoning on.
"What can be worse than You-Know-Who?" Blaise wanted to know. Ginny noticed that this question, like the last, appeared to be directed at Hermione.
"Girls," Hermione said, with a smile. "And Pansy's wrong. Harry can spot a 'lady', if you will, from at least a hundred paces. He's made it a habit to avoid them."
"And this doesn't bother you, Weasley?" Blaise asked, speaking directly to Ginny for the first time.
She stopped and turned right around to stare at him. "Why should it bother me?"
"Pickled toads ring any bells?" Millicent put in, smirking.
"Hello? I was eleven," Ginny pointed out calmly.
A slow smile spread across Blaise's face.
"What?" Ginny demanded.
"Nothing," Blaise said. "Come on, you lot'll be late if you shuffle around any longer."
"What're you doing here, Zabini?" Hermione asked, skipping lightly down the steps behind Ginny.
"Gonna work with Weasley and Millicent tonight while you lot are officially practicing, aren't I?" Blaise said in surprise, as though this were obvious. "And what had you all hot and bothered earlier?"
"Excuse me?" Ginny could just imagine her friends face and as she crossed the entrance hall and pushed open the front doors, she reflected that she was extremely grateful to be in front of Hermione.
"You were all teary eyed for some reason," Blaise clarified. "And Potter asked if you were all right."
"Harry's my friend; friends do that," she returned easily. "And I had something in my eye."
"Sure you did."
They met the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws of the team on the front lawn and the whole flock entered the lockers at once. Ginny glanced around for the coach and saw him straddling a bench and scribbling furiously on a long roll of parchment. He was seated beside her locker (which had never been removed, in spite of her official hiatus from the team).
"All right, coach?" she asked, whispering her locker combination and standing back as it popped open.
"Did you write that letter, Weasley?" he asked, without looking up from the parchment.
"Sent it," she said, pulling her sweatpants and trainers from the locker.
Draco looked up at last. "You sent it?"
"It's what you do with mail, see." Ginny pulled her shirt over her head, trading it for a sport's bra and untangling her normal bra from underneath with the ease of a practiced athlete.
"Don't try my nerves, Weasel," he said. "You sent it without letting me see?"
"None of your business," she retorted, trading stockings and pleated skirt for sweats. "It was my letter and –"
"Don't be profoundly absurd!" he cut her off sternly. "You are a Gryffindor and a Weasley and therefore have no concept of what it means to be sly!"
Ginny felt anger rise within her and she had half a mind to slap his face, as Hermione had done years ago. A giggle interrupted her internal tirade and to her amazement, she saw Hermione clamping a hand over her mouth in horror.
"I'm sorry, Ginny," she said around another giggle. "It's just – well."
"He's right, yeah yeah." Ginny sat down in a huff, the wind once again out of her sails, and sulked. She was sulking mostly because she couldn't be angry now. In the old days, Draco had taunted Ron and occasionally Ginny herself about their poor, pathetic family. He had also given them a hard time for simply being Gryffindor, making it sound like the worst possible thing you could be. But what he had just said, she knew, had not been intended that way. Whatever Draco's personal issues were concerning Ginny's family or other Houses, he had clearly put them aside for the purpose of his team. In all the time they had practiced under Draco's supervision, he had never once held a single one of the girls accountable for their blood or their House.
"But it's no business of yours what was in that letter," Ginny resumed at last, looking up at him. "I know my family a million ways you don't and I know what to say to them." She smiled. "Ron reminded me of that, actually. So," she said a bit gleefully. "If I do make it back on the team, you pretty much have him to thank for it." And tying up her trainers, she grabbed her broom and guards and flounced out of the lockers behind Parvati and Patrice Patil.
"She's got you again, Draco," she heard Blaise say, to her immense satisfaction.
"A hundred laps, Weasley!" Draco bellowed.
"Sorry, what was that, coach?" she called back over her shoulder. "I thought I heard you say I had a hundred laps and that's not right because Blaise is in charge of my training now."
"Stop it, Gin, you're getting him all wound up," Susie whispered, with a poorly suppressed giggle.
Ginny laughed outright as her caught up with Millicent.
"Fifty laps, Weasley," Blaise said, materializing beside her, and she had to stop laughing to glare at him properly. He shrugged and grinned as Millicent laughed at her indignant expression. "Hey, I'm going easy. Just wait till you're back on Draco's team again."
Despite her fifty laps, Ginny did feel a huge sense of accomplishment after practice was over and she was showered and heading for the castle. She felt every single muscle as though it were filled with lead and her Achilles heels were tight as bow strings.
But still, what a practice! Millicent was arguably the most physically powerful Beater on the team – she was large and stocky, and had gone to great lengths to build up the necessary strength for the position. Ginny had thus far only practiced with another Chaser, but with a Beater playing against her, she found her challenges greater and her small successes (chiefly, as usual, where scoring was concerned) very rewarding. They lost Millicent halfway through practice to Draco's insistence that she was needed for a team match, but Ginny felt like a new Chaser and felt more determined than ever to come back to Draco's team.
And when exactly had it become Draco's team? she wondered as she followed the others up the steps and through the entrance hall.
Since he had given them something they'd never had before – a real team, real competition, and a real chance to pursue a dream.
She slowed as something else struck her forcibly for the first time. He had also given them unity. Not merely the unity to fly cohesively, but the unity to fight House segregation and the unity to fight the minority of women in Quidditch. Along with those went larger themes – overcoming their differences and uniting as a team, uniting against a world divided by bloodism and close-mindedness, and uniting as a group of women, determined to be respected and valued for pursuing what they loved.
"Gin?" Natalie was staring at her and Ginny realized that she had come to a complete halt. "You okay?"
"I just realized," she murmured, staring around at Natalie, Parvati, and Hermione, who were all that remained of the team in the entrance hall. Ginny thought she could hear echoes of laughter down the dungeon staircase, shadows of smiles down the fourth floor corridor, and the ringing of cheerful voices off the entrance hall itself.
"Realized what?" Hermione asked, watching Ginny with some concern as she gazed around the empty hall.
Ginny looked around at her friends, her teammates, her allies; and smiled. "This is bigger than Quidditch, isn't it?"
The other girls looked at each other.
"Yeah," Parvati said at last, returning Ginny's smile. "Yeah. It's bigger than Quidditch."
The door of the entrance hall swung open again and Blaise came through, followed by a tired, but obviously satisfied Draco. Without thinking, Ginny went to them as another piece of the puzzle fell into place.
"Zabini," she said, and both boys turned to look at her in surprise. She kept her eyes on Blaise. She saw what she wanted to see. She saw the look that had once confused her; she saw his purpose. She didn't know how, but she saw it all there.
"I once asked you why you bothered with us, and you told me that if I didn't know, then you weren't going to tell me," she said in a rush. "Well, I know. It's because it's more, isn't it?"
"More?" Draco demanded. "Weasley, what the deuce are you on about?"
"That's right," Blaise said, ignoring his friend and offering Ginny an impressed smile. "Way to cotton on, Weasley."
"And you're doing it for D –"
"Tut, tut, little Ginny," Blaise said, shaking a finger at her. "Slytherin code: don't show all your cards before they've been dealt."
"But you're doing it for Dr –?"
"Yeah, for Druh, and for Huh."
Ginny's eyes widened and she clamped a hand over her mouth, only just managing not to turn around and gape. "Huh – really?"
"Really." Blaise gave her a gentle shove. "Now run along. Your friends think you've gone mad and you're being entirely too smart for your own good."
"I definitely think you both have," Draco said irritably. "Gone mad, I mean."
Ginny looked at him, and for the first time, saw what Blaise was trying to protect. She couldn't put it into words, but she saw in Draco, for the first time, something.
"Thanks, coach," she said quietly, before turning back to her friends.
"Barking," she heard Draco say to his best friend as they descended the dungeon steps together.
"No." Ginny heard admiration in Blaise's retreating tone. "Just very, very clever."
)BW(
TBC