The three Ginnys discuss the Ferret

The third Ginny blearily woke up, reached for a robe, did the routine that she had to do in order to catch breakfast. The two Ginnys were also unfortunately awake and limbering up for the next phase of major war. "What will everyone think of me in these scruffy robes? " thought hysterical Ginny. "Stop worrying about the robes, you idiot!" shouted anally retentive Ginny. "Who's going to notice you anyway? Except Snape when he takes points from Gryffindor when he hears you breathing? No boy is going to take a second look, so forget your misbegotten appearance right now." Hysterical Ginny panicked at the thought of the unending routine of the day: classes where she couldn't concentrate, homework that she tried to put off, jokes which she wasn't privy to. And this was before the day had properly started, before the third Ginny had even begun brushing her teeth! "These two disembodied bitches might as well persuade me to shoot myself in the foot just before I go for a ten-mile walk." she thought sourly.

She looked at Malfoy in the Great Hall. Properly, for the first time. Before then he had always been a silver-green blur in the corridors and a stifling evil presence in her dreams. For a monster, he looked very human. By any conventional standards, he had striking looks and a powerful presence. What is it, mused the third Ginny, that makes humans into saints or monsters? What is it that makes that Malfoy resemble an impenetrable wall, that makes him so powerful and so...non-human? She did not doubt that he was evil. Neville had said that he was born evil and couldn't change. What would she change about Malfoy to make him human?

He would have to be humbled, she thought. All three Ginnys were now speaking in unison, amazingly enough. He would have to suffer and be utterly at the mercy of a Muggle before that arrogance of his crumbled. Someone would have to break him again and again until he was torn apart. Perhaps a normal human being - frightened, hunted, prone to self-doubt, to weakness, to fear - could be put together from the pieces.She came back to herself with a start. Her own vehemence surprised her. It had not gone unnoticed by Ron either - he was staring at her mashed-up piece of toast. She glared at him and he looked away, they had not been on good terms since the last huge row about how he spied on her for the rest of the family. Ever since the Chamber, she had felt far from grateful to Harry and far from comfortable with Ron.

Malfoy ate calmly, making some remark now and again with an annoyingly superior look on his face. She looked carefully at him again. He seemed capable of only two expressions - a smug superior smile and a frown of irritation. A wave of rage washed over her and she suddenly had rapid, multiple, highly-coloured visions - slapping him so hard that she heard his jaw crack, shooting him and seeing him open his mouth in shock, seeing the teeth and tongue stained with blood, seeing blood drooling down that chin and onto his robes....Malfoy calmly finished a piece of toast and rose from the table, swinging a long leg over the seat. Ginny blinked. She wasn't shocked at her visions, she had had murderous images in her mind for quite some time now. Neither of the two Ginnys inside her knew where they came from. Perhaps there was a pool of anger and violence inside her, she thought. Perhaps it would come out at some point. It gave her a strange exhilaration and, more importantly, the energy to get to class on time.

Over the next few days Ginny thought obsessively of Malfoy without keeping conscious track of her thoughts. She had visions of Malfoy being killed in various ways. She wondered what made him the monster he was. She wondered how such an evil as the Malfoy family had flourished on the planet, why they were tolerated, why they were not removed, hunted down, exterminated. She imagined an earthquake ravaging his house, a Hippogriff mangling his body, a stake being driven through his heart so that the earth would be left clean again. It seemed a refreshing antidote to the Nevillian philosophy of hypnotising oneself into accepting shit treatment everyday. It was after two days of intermittent mental violence (the two Ginnys had formed a remarkable truce whenever the blood and gore emerged) that Ginny realised how ironic it was. He was her greatest enemy and she hated him. But she spent more time thinking about him, obsessing about hurting him, than she spent thinking about Harry, Ron, Hermione, her other brothers, her parents, or any of her friends.

"I'm carrying Malfoy around with me all day," she thought. "Like I once did Harry. Only I thought I loved him, but I loathe Malfoy." Or maybe she only thought she loathed Malfoy, just as she had once thought she loved Harry. Maybe he had become a potent evil in her mind because she didn't know anything about him, just as he didn't know anything about Muggles. Maybe she only hated the Malfoy-exaggeration she had produced. For the first time it struck her that he might not know anything about his father's involvement with the Chamber. But no, she thought, that's just as likely as the two harpies inside my head disappearing into thin air. Malfoy knows. And he couldn't care less. But the question of why she carried him around with her wasn't resolved. She began to think of him as a statue, a mini- Malfoy on her left shoulder, much as Neville carried Trevor around.

When she passed him in a corridor at lunch, she slowed down and looked at him again. Get to know the evil you're carrying around with you, she thought. All three Ginnys looked at him, glad that the corridor was wide enough for him not to notice. His robes were expensive. He walked jauntily, confidently, head held high, his expression alternating between superior and irate. He looked invulnerable. She tried to imagine him tripping and falling, books spilling out of his bag, dust on his robes, a crowd of students laughing at him. She couldn't. But she could all too easily imagine blood blossoming on the fair hair, running down his temples, blinding his sight. The human traffic pushed her on her way and the two Ginnys began to bicker about homework, the state of her quill, her grades, while the third Ginny tried to puzzle out a way to Transfiguration.

"Move, Creevey!" said Snape. "The copper cauldrons in the bottom of the store cupboard. Haul out thirty, enough for the Slytherins and the rest of you Gryffindor lot." Colin looked mutinous but stood up immediately. Ginny gave Snape a look, wondering if she could produce some violent images about him dying in an explosion of blood. He noticed it. "You too, Miss Weasley. Let's hope that will stop you gaping like a goldfish." Yes, she could definitely envisage him in a crumpled heap, neatly brained by a heavy copper cauldron. But somehow it was much more satisfying with Malfoy.

The store cupboard was in Snape's office. She was surprised to see it bright today, full of air and sunlight. She walked through the door and saw Malfoy. He was brewing a potion with his back to the door. She didn't look at him, but she got the impression that as far as he was concerned, she and Colin might as well have been house-elves. A brief, stony look to see what they were up to, and he went back to the potion. They started the noisy, unwieldy business of lugging out copper cauldrons, groaning under their weight, trying hard to avoid the scattered array of glassware and stop their robes from trying to trip them up. Ginny-at-the-helm tried hard to concentrate on the task, but her eyes kept sliding sideways to the pale evil brewing the potion. Know thy enemy, she thought. As she bent to drag more cauldrons out she caught sight of his shoes. Black, beautiful, leather, highly polished, clearly expensive.

When she got back to her own potion (Snape was not allowing her extra time to brew it and kept hurrying her up) she paused for a moment. His shoes. She had felt an extraordinary prickling up her spine, a strange restlessness, when she saw his shoes. It wasn't fear, she knew. It wasn't loathing, it had nothing to do with the two Ginnys and they were temporarily shell-shocked enough to have shut up completely. What it is, Weasel, she told herself, what it is is sexual tension and you know it perfectly well.

The anally-retentive Ginny had recovered enough to start preaching. "You have to concentrate in class, idiot. Do you think Snape's going to give you points for messing up that potion? And you're thinking about shoes? What on earth is the matter with you, well, over and above the usual?" Some other part of Ginny, though, felt a sinful pleasure at the thought of..Malfoy's shoes. The image stayed with her throughout the brewing, and to be sure, she did mess up the potion.

Snape roared, hysterical Ginny quailed and whimpered, anally-retentive Ginny waited to pounce after Snape had finished. Ginny-at-the-helm was pretty exhausted after all the fuss. But at the end of the day, lying in bed, she thought. Malfoy's shoes. What the fuck was going on with her? No, really. What part of her was it that liked Malfoy's shoes? Did she like the shoes because she had a general shoe-fetish? Would she feel the shoe- induced thrill if Harry wore them? Something told her it was the shoes all right, but only because they were connected to the pale evil. Am I evil? she wondered. I thought I was only capable of low-grade screw-ups, no discipline/stamina/talent for major evildoing. Unless, a little voice whispered, unless Tom was involved. What if it was Malfoy who was involved? Especially with that perfect black polished pair of leather...?