A/N: Okeleydokeley, here's the next chapter. My belly hurts. But that has nothing to do with this chapter, so ignore me. Dum-dee-dum… read and review, if you please.
Disclaimer: I don't own Ginny or Tom or Hogwarts or the Wizarding World or Dippet or Dumbledore or Flitwick or Slughorn. However, I do quite a lot of other characters, as I made them up, and the plot is entirely mine.
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Chapter Fourteen: Blackmail Bears and Bacon, Oh My!
"I… I was given an assignment to do by Mr. Flourish, to go and get some books from someone there… and I was still… still distressed… and I-I-" he tried to speak, his voice strangled. Tom heaved a sigh, looking up at the ceiling. "I'm not going to give you details, but…" He swallowed. "…but…" He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "…but twenty-five people are dead now."
"Goodnight," Ginny mumbled sleepily. "I do have to warn you, though, I'm a snuggly sort of person." She gestured towards the pillow, currently cradled tightly in her arms. "If I invade your personal space, just push me off the edge of the bed. I don't really mind." Just before her eyes fluttered closed, she swore she heard, 'I love you', but she was already half-asleep, so it might have been part of a dream starting early.
xxx
When she woke up, Ginny was embarrassed to find that she'd rolled over two thirds of the mattress, squished herself up against the sleeping Tom, and cuddled his elbow tightly. Smiling sheepishly, she untangled herself from him and edged away.
He was still snoring quietly, and he looked so peaceful sprawled out, without a care in the world under those sleeping eyelids, so Ginny didn't disturb him. She rolled off the bed and trotted quietly through to the living room.
It was as perfectly tidy as it had been last evening. She decided that he must be obsessive-compulsive about having things neat and perfect, because otherwise it was quite unnatural.
She routed through the kitchen cupboards to find something for her complaining stomach; she found the cheese knife, and shame fired through her, remembering how she'd plunged it into his knee only a couple of days ago. Fairly quickly, she located a box of cornflakes and picked her way through them without trying to find any milk. This kitchen was too complicated for her.
Just as she was thinking, I should probably stop eating these, I've had loads, her fingers brushed the bottom of the box. She gave a guilty start, and then looked up to notice Tom emerging through the door across the apartment.
'Morning, sunshine,' she said brightly. "Cornflakes?" She held up the box, even though there was hardly anything left in it. The pitiful quantity of cornflakes left inside shook, letting him know how much of a pig she'd been before he'd woken up.
"Did you eat all of those?" Tom frowned incredulously.
Ginny peered into the packet. "No… there's about ten left."
He sighed, and moved to burrow around in his kitchen for his own food. As he did this, Ginny hopped out of her stool and moved to hunt around the apartment. In the hallway, by the door, was a copy of the Daily Prophet. She picked it up and glanced at the front page.
TWENTY-FIVE MUGGLES KILELD IN LONDON – WIZARD SUSPECTED RESPONSIBLE
At about three o'clock yesterday, twenty-five Muggles were brutally murdered in Camden, London, in the middle of the market. No-one was at the scene, though Muggle autopsies have suggested that no weapon was used. This implies that a wizard or witch is responsible, as a Muggle would not have been able to disappear so quickly. The Ministry of Magic has taken control of the situation, but is refusing to say anything. None of the Ministry authorities have agreed to say anything at present about the case, but we do have statements from some of -- continued page 5
She tried to get rid of the newspaper, but she didn't have her wand with her – it was on the coffee table. She moved towards her wand, hoping to either Banish or simply set fire to the Prophet, but as she came into view of the kitchen, Tom noticed her.
"What are you doing?"
Ginny swallowed. "Nothing," she said cheerily, tucking the paper behind her back.
"What's that?" Tom called, closing a cupboard door. "Let me see."
Desperately, she reached out for her wand, but she hadn't taken into account how fast he walked, and before her fingers had even closed on the wood, the newspaper was snatched away. "Hey!" she protested, trying to grab it back, but he held it above his head.
She hated being short.
Tom unfolded the Daily Prophet, still holding it too high for her to get it back, and she had to watch, cringing, as his face fell. "Oh." He stared at the headline for a couple of seconds. Then he dropped it on the floor, not bothering to pick it up, and walked swiftly back into the kitchen. She heard the thump as he kicked a wall.
I shouldn't have even picked the stupid newspaper up.
"You okay?" she asked softly, following him to where he was leaning on a counter and glaring darkly at the floor.
"No."
"Okay. Me neither, really. I don't feel very well. Maybe I had too many cornflakes." An idea hit her. "Hey, I'll make you the damn most cheerful breakfast you've ever seen, to make you feel better. How does that sound? And if it's poisonous, you can't complain, because I never said that the food would be edible, did I?" she teased.
As she bustled around attempting to fry bacon and eggs, she told him to go and sit down so that he wasn't in the way. He sat in the living-room, absent-mindedly drumming a rhythm on the coffee table with his fingertips.
Ginny took great pride in arranging sloppy fried eggs as eyes, and then she headed for the frying bacon to make them into a smiling mouth, They looked a bit burnt when she poked them with her spatula, but she was sure that it would be fine-
BANG.
The front door was flung off its hinges, splinters flying in all directions, and Aurors swarmed through the hallway.
It was so sudden, so alarming, that Ginny was standing in the kitchen, frozen, clutching a frying pan and a spatula, staring in shock at the Aurors now crowding into the living room, wands pointed. Then she kicked into action.
"Tom!" she cried, dropping the frying pan with a clatter. Burnt bacon slid across the floor, leaving trails of sunflower oil behind them. She leapt over the bacon and pan and rushed towards where members of the Ministry of Magic were grabbing a stunned Tom and wrestling him to the ground.
"Tom Marvolo Riddle, you are under arrest by the Ministry of Magic for the vicious murder of twenty-five presently un-named Muggles. You have the right to remain silent; anything you say and do can be used against you in court," one of them barked, evidently having said these words a thousand times.
"Tom!" she yelled, running across towards him, but a broad-shouldered Auror grabbed her and held her back.
"I'm sorry, but the Ministry forbids you from behind any more involved in this situation," he grunted.
She twisted away. "TOM!"
At the sound of his voice, Tom looked up at her from where he was squashed to the floor. His face was smooth, as though he really couldn't give a damn for being arrested and taken away, but his eyes screamed defeat and fear. Then a crack filled the air as he, and the five Aurors pinning him down, Apparated away.
"NO – you stupid, unfair, morons!" Ginny hollered. The broad Auror finally let her go, gave her an apologetic sort of look, and then he, too, Apparated.
She slumped to the ground, staring at the spot where her boyfriend had just been.
Maybe if she stayed here long enough, totally motionless, then nothing would have happened. Tom would still be sitting on the sofa, waiting for his 'cheerful' breakfast. The bacon would still be burning in the pan, as opposed to on the floor. And she wouldn't feel this burning emptiness now that he was going to be tried in court for murder.
However, the floor grew cold, and she stood. She cleaned up the mess in the kitchen, gave one last sad look at the empty apartment, and then took a handful of Floo powder from beside the small fire-grate, transporting herself quickly back to the Slytherin common room.
It was mostly empty, apart from a couple of startled-looking third-years.
"Sorry," she told them, and stumbled away to the seventh-year girls' dormitory, where she could curl up and stare bleakly at the wall, listening to her breathing against the still silence of the unoccupied room.
Grace and Flora came back to the dormitory about forty-five minutes later, chatting at length about something trivial. Flora noticed the redhead first. She gasped, "Ginny!", totally cutting off her and Grace's conversation.
"Ginny," Grace exclaimed, swooping across the room like an oversized, clumsy bird. She sat on the edge of her bed. "Ohmigod, Slughorn practically flipped when he thought you were gone, but we managed to persuade him that you were in the bath and just taking ages because you were brushing your eyebrows or something-"
"Thanks," Ginny muttered.
"-and then this morning, he went ape again, because I tried to tell him that you were in the bath again, and he went, "again?" and I went, "uh, yeah, she's really big on hygiene and stuff" but he totally didn't believe me, so I gave this big sigh and went, "okay, sir, I confess, she's not in the bath, she's out seeing some guy from Gryffindor which I totally don't approve of, but anyway she went out about ten minutes ago to snog him somewhere" and you could tell, in his head, he was like, whoa, way too much information, but he didn't ask anything else, he just sort of grunted and left." Grace finished this babbled explanation with a whoosh of breath taken in, having not breathed for the whole of her speech. "So yeah."
"Where were you?" Flora asked curiously, sitting on her own bed and picking up a glossy magazine. "We have five minutes until Transfiguration, by the way, so you'd better get your stuff."
"Family stuff," Ginny lied, reluctantly getting up and collecting together her schoolbooks.
Flora frowned. "I thought that all of your family was… um… you know. Dead."
A lie quickly formed in Ginny's brain. "Exactly." She gave the blonde an oh my God how could you be so insensitive look, before giving a big sniff and saying, "My brother's body was recovered from the Irish Sea."
"Oh." She went pink. "I'm really sorry."
"Yeah, well so am I." Ginny slung her schoolbag onto her shoulder. "Let's go."
Flora, obviously feeling embarrassed, hurried ahead to talk to one of her friends from Ravenclaw, Elizabeth. Grace then turned to Ginny, eyebrows raised.
"So," she said, stretching the word into three syllables. "What's up?"
Ginny didn't answer. She hugged herself tightly, scratching vaguely at her schoolbag strap where it was digging into her shoulder with the weight of her books. "Um."
For some wonderful reason, Grace seemed to realise that she didn't wanted to say anything. "If you don't want to tell me, that's fine," she said kindly.
Good, she thought to herself. She couldn't explain the emptiness she felt.
Transfiguration was taken with the Hufflepuffs. Antonia Durrell, a girl from that House that Ginny was quite good friends with, smiled from across the room and gestured for the redhead to join her. Antonia and Ginny had been Prefects together last year.
"Hey," Antonia said. "I haven't talked to you since school started – how are you doing?"
"I'm okay," Ginny said slowly, unpacking the books that she would need. "How about you?"
"Urgh, same as always. Little sister misbehaving, trying to get a guy to notice that I exist, failing Divination – nothing new." She grimaced. "What's up? Quidditch doing alright? How's Riddle – I heard you were still together."
"Please open your books to page three-hundred-and-twenty-one," said Dumbledore, scratching out letters on the blackboard.
Ginny flipped through the pages. "Alden's little brother was hit by a Bludger, so we're postponing the next match to see if he's going to get better within two months… and if not, then we'll have to replace him," she said, her eyes flicking across the page they were set to see what they'd be studying.
More human-Transfiguration.
"And… yeah, I'm still with Tom. He's – he's okay." Ginny chewed the tip of her quill.
"What's happening with you and Scott?" she wiggled her eyebrows. "I hear things."
Sighing, Ginny felt an urge to tell the truth. "Scott thinks that he's in love with me, and he's being really stubborn about trying to get me to admit I like him too, which obviously isn't working, because I don't… a sixth-year, Bernard Terby, made a move on me, and Scott was watching… he sent the memory of me and Terby to Tom, because he thought that it would break us up-"
Antonia winced.
"-and though it didn't work, Tom's not really the happiest person right now," she finished wearily.
"Ouch," said Antonia sympathetically. "Oh! I know. Why don't you-"
"Miss Durrell – Miss Peregrine – the exercise began five minutes ago and I haven't seen you do a single thing yet," Dumbledore called sternly from the front of the classroom.
"Sorry, sir," the two girls chorused, and got to work.
The task set was to Transfigure other people. They were working now on becoming animals – only temporarily, however, instead of being Animagi. Ginny's memory flashed back to the Sorting of Minerva McGonagall, and smiled.
Everyone else was focusing on growing fur, or claws, and roaring at each other playfully like monsters. Ginny couldn't think of what animal to attempt. Antonia was trying to become a bear. What should she do? A fox, like her Patronus? No.
An image came to her head.
An eagle, the most magnificent and massive eagle the world had ever seen. It flew out of the window, across lakes and mountains, to the Ministry of Magic… swooped down, smashed down walls and gates with its mighty wings… snatched up Tom… and flew away into the sunrise…
That was stupid, though, because even if she did become a bird, then she wouldn't be able to fly, much less carry Tom away. However, her decision had been made, and she made it a personal project to learn how to become a bird.
xxx
She was walking away from Arithmancy where he cornered her.
"Hey!" Ginny yelped as Bernard grabbed her arms, twisted her through a tapestry, and pushed her into a corner where she couldn't escape. Instantly, she grabbed her wand and pointed it between his eyes. "Don't you dare try any funny business."
"Funny?" Bernard smiled suavely. "How's this for funny, doll? I have a deal to make you."
"I'm listening." Ginny didn't lower her wand, nor did she relax her grip on it. She kept the words vermus nez at the front of her mind – the incantation for her infamous Bat-Bogey Hex.
"Okay, I was thinkin'… that if you agreed, voluntarily, o' course, to go out with me…" Bernard said softly, maliciously, "then maybe I wouldn' tell the world what your pathetic lil' boyfriend is."
She stared at him in disgust. "And to think that I used to like you," she spat. "You know what the only thing is that's stopping me from hexing the inside of your nose to attack you? The fact that I want to tell you something very important… almost always, the way to get a girl to like you isn't blackmail. Whereas, if you'd asked me out, maybe a year ago, when I was still single and I still foolishly thought that you were decent, I might have agreed. But now," she jabbed her wand-tip into the bridge of his nose, "I'm taken, and I just think you're a freak!"
"You don' mean that, darlin'," Bernard drawled.
"Oh, yeah, I think I do," Ginny said fiercely. "And if you want to keep the more delicate regions of your anatomy intact, then I suggest you never come anywhere near me again."
Bernard stepped closer, gently pushing her wand aside so that it didn't hit him in the face. "I don' believe that I'll be able to do that, doll," he breathed.
"VERMUS NEZ!" Ginny yelled, whipping her wand back around.
Bright green light lit the dark secret-tunnel that they were standing, burning the image of Bernard onto her retinas for a couple of seconds before she regained her sense and fled the scene where a sixth-year was holding his face and writhing in pain.
Whatever happened to roses and chocolates, Ginny thought sadly as she made her way towards Muggle Studies – but that reminded her of yellow primroses and poems and other silly romantic things that had happened last year, and that made her the hole in her heart swell and sting.
xxx
A/N: What I found hilarious for the last chapter was how in a review, storm-brain wrote ninety-three 'crap's after she saw the preview. XD Yes, I counted. No, I don't really have a life. And also, I'm going to be pathetic and try to get you to read my song parodies fic, as I've done one for Voldie and Evil!Tom. Teehee. I'm so transparent. Please review!
Next Time:
Ginny knew what was wrong the instant that she stepped into the Great Hall the next morning for breakfast.
Everyone – and she meant everyone – including teachers – turned to stare at her in shock and disbelief. And everyone was clutching an issue of the Daily Prophet.
xxx
OOH. Scandalous.
I love that word.
SCANDAL! Hahaha. Sorry, I'm being childish.
SCANDAL!
HAHAHAHHAHA.