She managed to put it out of her mind, more easily than she'd thought possible, for a very simple reason. For the first time all year, Ginny was having fun at school.
Jeremy was a constant bundle of energy, vibrating all over with ideas and mischief and too-quick words that sometimes stung, but never because he meant them to. Carmen had a mischievous streak of her own, but it was well-tempered by sturdy practicality and a perceptiveness that belonged to an older girl. Although she didn't realize it, Ginny rounded out their little trio with her healthy helping of daydreamy romanticism and the reemerging good humor that the previous months had all but buried.
In the girls' dormitory, she and Carmen talked far into the night, sharing confidances and moaning together about their respective figures. ("At least you've got a chance," Carmen grumbled when Ginny complained. "Look at your mum! Mine's as flat as a pancake, and so my dad's mum. Bloody genetics.") They whispered and passed notes in class, and made fun of Jeremy, who took it in stride and shoveled it back doubly.
She taught Carmen how to cheat at Exploding Snap, and Jeremy how to beat anybody in the world but her brother Ron and herself at chess. She ate with them, and when she did the minimal amount of studying necessary, it was with them. Her marks rose, but they couldn't have gone anywhere but up anyway.
Her obsession with Harry was looked on as fair game by Jeremy and sympathy area by Carmen. Ginny learned to deal with it, as long as they didn't say anything about it when he was actually around. Carmen, fortunately, was smart enough to do so, and saw to it that soon Jeremy was too.
To her own surprise, Ginny forgot to care about her brothers quite so much. They still teased and mocked her, but she'd somehow developed the thick skin that Percy had advised, and it mostly rolled off her back. What didn't, she could take to Carmen or Jeremy and soon be done with it. No longer did it fester just under her skin, making her sour and nasty.
She'd told herself she didn't care what her brothers said or did when she was only speaking to Tom, but that hadn't been true. Now it was. She actually had friends.
"Hey, Ginny?" Jeremy said one night a few weeks later.
"Hmm?" She was scowling at her Potions homework, which was an essay on the properties and uses of the common bezoar, at least four feet. Careful experimentation, and Jeremy's sabotage of Snape's ruler, had determined that they could get away with three feet, eleven and a half inches, but no less. Who said they didn't learn anything in Potions class?
Jeremy said, "Where's that diary you used to scribble in all the time?"
Ginny's hand jerked, and a huge blot appeared on her fourth inch. She hadn't thought about Tom--no, that wasn't right. She hadn't let herself think of Tom ever since the day she'd walked out of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. "Oh, th-that?" she asked, trying to sound casual. "Oh, I--lost it?"
Carmen looked up from her own essay, which was hardly farther along than Ginny's. "Did you?"
"Yes," she said firmly. "I lost it."
"When did you lose it?" Jeremy persisted.
She shrugged. "Who knows? Carmen, what have you got for this essay so far?"
She compared notes with Carmen for a moment, but just as she was starting to relax, Jeremy announced, "I like you better without it."
"Without--what? The diary?"
"Yeah. You come up for air every so often."
He didn't know the half of it.
Jeremy's mention of the diary made it sit in her mind like a poisonous toad all day the next day. She couldn't concentrate on her work at all, and when she barely cleared half her plate at lunch, Carmen asked if she was feeling all right. "Not like you not to eat, Ginny--"
Ginny's metabolism had become a joke amongst the three of them, but she couldn't smile at it. Seeing that, Carmen urged, "Go up to the infirmary, do--you've been off-color all morning."
Ginny blanched. She hated the infirmary, littered with the Petrified victims. Well--not littered exactly--but even one was too much. She would turn green with purple spots before she went up there. "No, that's fine." She jammed a forkful of mashed potatoes into her mouth and grinned horribly. "Shee? I hunguh." She swallowed and wiped her chin. Note to self: don't grin with mashed potatoes in your mouth. "Don't worry about me, Carmen. I was up--reading last night."
"No you weren't, you were out before I came to bed--"
"Did I say last night? I meant this morning."
"You've never woken up early as long as I've known you."
"I went back to sleep again."
"Uh-huh." But Carmen left it at that.
In Potions, Ginny was walking back from the student's cupboard, essence of lionfish in hand, when she saw Jeremy whispering to Carmen. "What's with her today?"
"Hush, Jere. It's nothing. Girls get moods."
"What for?"
"Once a month, and that's all I'm going to say."
"What? What do you mean, once a month? You get them a lot more than once a month--"
"Hsshhh!"
Ginny hadn't started that yet, but she'd take it as an excuse, if it would allay Carmen's suspicions.
Within the day, her bad mood truly had passed, and she was back to her old self again.
"Why don't you do something about it?"
It was a wintry-pale afternoon, early in February, when Jeremy got tired of Ginny's complaint that Harry didn't look at her, never had, never would, there was just no hope, and so on and so forth.
"Really!" Jeremy continued. "I mean, just so you'll stop whining."
"I do not whine," Ginny said with tremendous dignity. "And anyhow I wasn't talking to you."
"Might as well have been, you were that loud . . ."
Ginny gave Carmen a panicky look. Jeremy had been ten feet away, and Harry was just across the common room, hogging the chess board along with Ron. Carmen shook her head no; she hadn't been that loud. Jeremy just had sharp ears and enough knowledge of Ginny to make a good guess.
Jeremy flopped onto a couch and put his feet up on the table. "All I'm saying is, it gets old."
"Well what do you propose I do," Ginny retorted, "send him a valentine tomorrow?"
"If it'll help any--" Jeremy glanced over. "Oh, look, they've cleared off. Come on."
Jeremy almost beat her, but Ginny's mind wasn't on the game.
Maybe . . . a valentine would work . . . maybe a valentine would make him--
Oh, but she couldn't--it would be too embarassing--
But if she didn't sign it--then he wouldn't know--
But then he might look around to see who might have sent it, and then surely--he would see her--finally--
And even if he didn't, she would have shown him in some small way that there was someone out there who thought he was absolutely fantastic, who knew he was good and kind and sweet, and that no matter what anyone said, she always would.
She lay in bed that night, her mind aflame with possibility.
He's really divine--
Wish he was mine--
No, no, other way around.
It had to be perfect.
Carmen offered to put pink ribbons in Ginny's hair the next morning, but Ginny was not so lost to common sense as all that. She helped Carmen braid the dark pink ribbons into her own hair, however, and they showed up gorgeously against the smooth, glossy black.
After she had admired herself for a moment in front of the mirror, Carmen spun around. "Let me mess about with your hair, please? Oh, please?"
"We're going to be late to breakfast, Carmen! Besides--" Ginny was brushing her hair as quickly as she could, and her words were a little muffled behind it all. "What do you want to mess with my hair for?"
Carmen laughed at her. "Your hair is darling, Ginny--that pretty color, and it's really lovely and manageable. You can actually get a brush through it, not like mine--"
"Your hair at least stays in place," Ginny said, shaking the whole mess back and tying the front half back with an elastic band. It didn't matter how smooth she got it this morning--it was so fine that by lunchtime half of it would be sticking out around her head like a corona. "Come on, let's go!"
"What's the rush?"
"I'm hungry, that's all--"
"Right--"
When they met Jeremy in the common room, he said, "About time. What were you doing up there?"
Carmen and Ginny rolled their eyes at each other and preceded him out the portrait hole. As they made their way down the staircase, Ginny slipped her hand inside her robes and touched the folded bit of paper in her pocket. It seemed warm to the touch. She grinned to herself, almost dancing. Jeremy was actually right about this--it was high time she did something about Harry rather than just mooning and sighing all the time . . .
But what was she going to do about getting it to him? She couldn't walk right up and hand it to him--
"Oh. My. God." Jeremy had stopped in the door to the Great Hall.
Carmen pushed him in the small of the back. "Jeremy! Stop--oh."
Ginny's mouth fell open.
Flowers lined the walls, the size of dinner plates and the color of geraniums gone terribly, terribly wrong. Something fluttered constantly down from the ceiling, littering tables, floors, food . . . heart shaped confetti?
"Who--what?"
Ginny rolled her eyes. "Lockhart the Lunkhead."
"Bet you're right."
They sat down and Ginny poured herself some pumpkin juice. She had to strain confetti out of it first. Just as she'd cleared her eggs of their paper covering, Jeremy poked her.
"What?"
"Look, it's the lunkhead himself."
Ginny grimaced at Lockhart's robes, which were the same frightening shade of pink as the flowers on the walls. Carmen began to giggle. "Honestly, someone should teach him about style--"
"Happy Valentine's Day!" Lockhart trumpeted. "And may I thank the forty-six people who have so far sent me cards!"
"Forty-six?" Carmen and Ginny said in unison.
"Yes, I have taken the liberty of arranging this little surprise for you all--"
Jeremy laughed so hard he snorted pumpkin juice out his nose.
"And it doesn't end here!"
"Oh no," Carmen said.
"My friendly card-carrying Cupids! They'll be roving around the school today delivering your Valentines!" Lockhart nattered on, but Ginny didn't hear. She was staring at the dwarves.
They were the answer to her prayers.
After breakfast, Ginny pretended to forget her quills back at the table and ran back into the Great Hall. There was a dwarf stationed at the front of the Hall, sorting piles of valentines with a mulish look on his face. That should have been her first warning.
"Can you deliver this one, please?"
"'Arry Potter, eh?" he asked, looking at it with interest. "'E's in 'ere."
"Oh, not now!" She'd made the agonizing decision not to be on hand when the valentine was delivered. "Later, all right?"
"Later," he agreed, putting it on a pile.
She nibbled her nails. "It's very special--"
"Don't worry--we'll make it really special for you, miss. Seeing who it is and all."
Looking at Harry during lunch, she couldn't tell whether it had been delivered or not. Doubts were attacking her. What if he did figure out it was her? What if he made fun of her? (He wouldn't do that, he couldn't.) What if Ron got ahold of it? Or (horrors!) the twins?
Valentines were delivered all through the meal, and the dwarves were looking mulish and harassed as their approach sparked giggles and red faces.
As one Cupid tromped past, muttering under his breath, Carmen leaned over to Ginny. "They don't look too happy, eh? I pity the poor fool who gets one of their valentines."
Ginny could feel her ears turning red. Carmen's mouth fell open.
"Oh, Ginny, you didn't--" Jeremy said, and couldn't go on for laughing.
"Look," Ginny fired back, "you were the one who said I should do something about it, remember?"
"It was a joke, you nutter," Jeremy told her, grabbing at a passing platter. "A valentine?"
Ginny said defiantly, "It's just a little one--a very short poem--and I didn't sign it or anything, I'm not thick--"
"Yeah, but you are obvious," Jeremy said around a mouthful of bun.
Carmen kicked him. "Shut it, you."
"Well, she is," Jeremy retorted, rubbing his shin. "Looking after him with those great sheep eyes all the time--oohhhhh Harry--heroic Harry Potter--"
Carmen gave him a hard look and put a comforting arm around Ginny's shoulders. "You're not that obvious--really you aren't--"
"Oh, no, not at all," Jeremy mocked. "The other houses might not have cottoned on yet."
Carmen leaned across the table and stuffed an apple in his open mouth, and Ginny applied herself to her own meal, her entire face now aflame. She was starting to regret that valentine poem.
She regretted it even worse later in the day. She, Carmen, and Jeremy were headed for their class when a voice cut through the din.
"Oy, you! 'Arry Potter!"
It was the worst messenger of Cupid Ginny could have possibly gotten--a tough and crabby-looking dwarf, with a face you could break rocks on. Ginny could only blush and pray that it wasn't, after all, her valentine.
Harry glanced over his shoulder, turned bright red at the sight of the dwarf (whose looks were not improved by the addition of the halo and wings) and tried to make a break for it--but no luck.
"I've got a musical message to deliver to 'Arry Potter in person," growled the most unromantic cherub ever, kicking his way through the crowd.
Musical? Then it couldn't be hers, hers was just a short poem--but they'd said they'd make it really special--
"Not--here--" she thought she heard Harry hiss.
"Stay still!" The dwarf was holding him back by his bag as he struggled to get away.
"Lemme go!" The bag ripped right in half, and everything in it cascaded to the floor. An ink bottle exploded like a small bomb. Harry dove for the floor and fumbled to pick it all up.
"What's going on here?"
And she thought the whole episode couldn't get any worse--now that horrible Malfoy was going to sneer at Harry the way he did . . . Ginny moaned.
Percy shouted, "What's all this commotion?"
Yes, it could get worse.
"Right," the twisted Cupid told Harry, sitting on his ankles so he wouldn't get away. "Here is your singing valentine.
His hair is as dark as a blackboard.
I wish he was mine,
he's really divine,
The hero who conquered the Dark Lord."
He was trying to laugh, but Harry looked like he wanted to sink into the floor, and Ginny would have gladly joined him (and not only because they'd be alone together.) Where, oh where, had she gotten the brilliant idea to make toad rhyme with blackboard?
And just to make it that much worse--singing valentine! Oh, if she ever saw that head dwarf again she was going to throw his runty little body out the Astronomy tower! Special, indeed!
Percy, full of prefectness, was herding people off to class. "And you, Malfoy--"
Ginny glanced over involuntarily, and felt her entire body turn to stone. The valentine, the music, the dwarf, all were forgotten in the face of the horrible thing that confronted her.
Malfoy was holding the diary.
But what--? Where had he gotten it from? How could he have--? Oh god. Oh god. It hadn't been flushed at all. It wasn't in the lake. Someone had found it.
"Give that back," someone said, and it took Ginny a full minute to realize that it was Harry's voice, quiet and steely.
Malfoy ignored him, sniggering to his two hench-apes. "Wonder what Potter's written in this?"
Harry. Harry had found the diary.
Percy ordered, "Hand it over, Malfoy."
"When I've had a look," Malfoy sassed lazily, waving the diary to really rub it in.
Someone's hand closed around Ginny's. After a momnent, she realized it was Carmen's, and that she, Ginny, was breathing in quick, shallow, panicky pants.
"As a school prefect--" Percy began pompously, and if Ginny hadn't been in the grips of such belly-twisting terror, she would have really clocked him. Hadn't he figured out that didn't work?
"Expelliarmus!" Harry roared, and the diary soared from Malfoy's grasp. That didn't make it better, though, because it meant he now had it back, and Ginny moaned under her breath.
As if to make the whole thing that much worse, Ron caught it.
Percy was yammering something about magic in the corridors, but Ginny pushed through the crowd, wanting only to get away. As she passed Malfoy, looking sulky and malevolent, he turned on her and sneered, "I don't think Potter liked your valentine very much!"
It was the last straw. Ginny put her face in her hands and fled into the classroom.