Rumors
"Everyone settle down!" Cho spoke loudly and was very thankful that the meeting had been placed under silence spell—Madam Pince would be on them in a second if she heard them. "Please settle down!"
The group of twenty or so students refused to quiet. They were talking, arguing, and sending nervous looks at the bookracks all around them. The club had never held a meeting during daylight hours. It was unheard of to gather in the Library when there was a chance they'd be caught. In fact, it was this chance that kept nearly half the club members from showing up in person. Ginny, whom most of the members were meeting for the first time, stood up and stepped in front of Cho.
"Yall', shut up!" Ginny bellowed and everyone fell silent. It was quite strange to hear the word 'Yall' in a British accent—most of them wondered where she'd heard it.
"Thank you," the exasperated Cho Chang said and looked out at the group. "Everyone rise for the oath." Cho gave them a stern look and they all stood up. They knew the drill.
"We do hereby swear to uphold the good name of all things Ploy. In doing this we will aid our fellow players, be they jess or jasper, hit their marks and work them over, we will keep up face even in the face of danger, never show what's really up our sleeves, but mostly we will never close a show or cut scene on another movement."
Everyone announced in unison and once they were done one of the girls in the back raised her hand.
"Yes?" Cho pointed to her and she stood up.
"I've been meaning to ask," she started and put her hands on her hips. "What in the world is all that supposed to mean?"
"Oh, you're new aren't you?" Cho eyed her and she nodded. "Right.
"This oath was written out in the original chapter of 'The Players Club' over in America. It was put into the first ploy book by the club's most valued member, Frank D' Abignale—formerly 'Stripes.'" Cho held up the book she was holding and motioned to the author. "Since this book was written about sixty years ago, and in New York, the slang is a bit outlandish."
Cho opened up the book, flipped to the oath page, and started translating.
"I'm sure you all know what a ploy is." Cho eyed them and they all shot her wry looks. "Right. Players were a colloquial for actors during this time period. Actors, or players, were required to hit a mark. Our mark is whoever we happen to be working-over or the center of our ploy. A Jess—female—or a Jasper—male—was an out-of-towner, a blow-in, or a tourist. In this case it refers to the players." Cho looked up from her book and blinked.
"Any questions so far?"
No one raised their hand.
"Good." Cho continued reading. "Keeping up face is just remembering not to let down your act. Close a show or Cut scene on another movement both refer to messing up someone else's ploy. There, now can we continue?" Cho eyed the girl who'd asked and she nodded. "Ginny, you have the floor."
"Hello everyone," Ginny stood in front of the tightly packed assembly of the best actors in all of Hogwarts. The shy, the geeky, the clumsy, the outcasts, only now they were all poised, graceful, and outspoken—in other words they were all out of character. "Some of you may not know me. My name is Virginia Weasley, Ginny."
"Hello Ginny." The group chorused and Ginny sent them all a flat look that silenced them.
"This is not an A.A. meeting, you don't need to welcome me." Ginny started and then remembered why she was there. "Everyone I've called this meeting—."
"You mean you called this bloody meeting?"
"You're the prat who hauled me down here from the Astronomy Tower?"
"Oh be quiet for a moment!" Ginny threw her arms up. "This isn't just a meeting to I can say 'Hello'! I'm here because I want to organize something big."
The group fell deathly silent and then a few members started whispering. After all, nothing big had been pulled in a while, not since the Tri-Wizard Tournament. Ginny put her arms down and set her hands on her hips before continuing.
"The first stage of my plan will only require the girls."
"What's the plan? Who's the mark?" Laura Madley interrupted Ginny and Ginny smirked.
"The mark is Draco Malfoy." Ginny said proudly and everyone in the room shared a worried looks. "Don't worry, this isn't a direct shot."
"Direct shot?"
"It means she doesn't want us all to actually go up to him."
"Oh."
"The plan is the best kind, twisted, unnecessarily complex on the outside while painfully simple on the inside, and it will require all of us together to pull it off." Ginny smiled at the group and all the girls stood up.
"What do you need us to do?" Cho asked and Ginny smirked. She was about to answer when Megan Jones cut her off.
"What did he do?" Megan asked and Ginny frowned.
"He gave me a once over and laughed." Ginny replied flatly and the group shared the same sentiment. Every one of the boys started snickering, not a Ginny—no—but at the fate poor Mr. Malfoy was going to have. Every one of the girls took on a very cold and grim expression while Ginny described what she needed them to do. Once her explanation was complete the girls nodded and left the Library with a purpose.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
"What in the name of Merlin is going on around here?" Draco growled under his breath. Crabbe and Goyle would have replied had their brains not been working to comprehend the meaning of the word 'what.'
Draco's day had started out reasonably well, then he remembered his Weasley Dilemma. It seemed that little bit of information was the only real damper on his day—until he spotted the group of Slytherins gathered around the object of his downfall. He dispersed them before they could pry any information from her or vice versa, but then everything had started on a downward spiral. The comment he'd spat back at her, on reflex, didn't seem quite as bad while it was still in his head but the moment it had passed his lips he was proven wrong.
It was worse, far worse, than it had sounded in his head.
He shrugged off her insult, thinking it hollow, and went about his daily routine. Only an hour after he'd insulted Ginny Weasley things started to change, drastically. At first girls in the halls, of all ages and houses, started giving him dirty looks. This wasn't too uncommon; it was just the scale of it that seemed a bit off. Swiftly, as if the looks of distaste were just embers that someone had decided to go and pour gasoline on, the dirty looks turned to quite comments and girls avoiding him as if he was a leper.
Then it got really bad.
He'd just stopped outside a classroom and asked a girl if he might borrow a quill, just for a moment. He'd been perfectly polite and had every intention of giving the blasted thing back but she reacted extremely. She'd screeched something about 'Never you filthy, sadistic, male chauvinist pig!' Draco stared at her as she walked off swiftly with her friends and decided to try asking a different girl. The next girl he asked reacted along the same lines—'What do you want it for? Womanizing! Maybe so you can write your name on my forehead like a cattle brand! I think not!'—As did the next—'Get away from me! Louse! Unclean! Unclean!'—However the fourth girl reacted slightly differently, as if the rumor had suddenly changed. ('You disgust me…can't you even see that those poor things have feelings! Of course you can't. You're just so full of hate and pride that you'd even stoop that low.')
Draco was left standing in a hall filled only with Crabbe, Goyle, himself, and what few confused male students remained.
"All I bloody wanted was a quill!" He shouted and roughly shoved the parchment he'd needed to fill out back in his bag.
"Malfoy."
Malfoy turned to see Tracey Davis leaning against the wall, holding out a quill. Something was wrong here. Her tone had been dangerously low, she'd not called him by either his first name or a term of endearment, and she was currently dissecting him with her eyes.
"Thank you," Draco said cautiously and took the quill from her. "By the way, why are you looking at me like that?" Draco asked slowly and Tracey cocked an eyebrow.
"As if you didn't know." She glared at him and frowned.
"If you haven't noticed, Davis, I don't know." Draco said quietly and Tracey looked shocked.
"Goth almighty!" Tracey's eyes went wide and she could almost feel her creepy calm slipping away. "You don't know…you admitted it aloud…." Tracey paled considerably and looked like she was going to faint.
"Honestly." Draco sneered and Tracey regained some of her composure.
"Oh I'm sorry I ever thought naught of you, darling Draco!" Tracey almost looked as if she was about to hug him, almost.
"What?" Draco stared at her and she suddenly looked very nervous.
"There's a terrible set of rumors going around, spreading like wildfire—they even have supposed witnesses." Tracey whispered and motioned for Draco to come closer. Normally he would have simply backed away but he had to know what the rumors were. He leaned forward, against his better judgment, and Tracey whispered the terrible things in his ear. At first Draco was simply angry, then he was irate, after that he progressed to homicidal.
"Who told you these things?" Draco grabbed Tracey by the collar of her robes and growled through his teeth.
"I heard it from a Ravenclaw by the name of Sarah Fawcett," Tracey replied and tried not to shrink from Draco's dangerous gaze.
He released her promptly and went off in search of Sarah Fawcett. Nearly fifteen minutes of searching through the halls and the crowds of disgusted girls produced quite acceptable results. He'd managed to catch Sarah Fawcett coming out of a bathroom on the second floor. She'd taken off running when she spotted him, but he overtook her before she got very far.
"You!" He seethed and forced her to back into a corner. She looked around, swore under her breath, and paled considerably as she saw the look in Malfoy's eyes. "You started these…these…vile rumors! Didn't you?"
Sarah looked torn. She was scared out of her mind but she couldn't, in good conscience, ruin Ginny's ploy. After all she had her dignity as a club member.
"Answer me," He hissed and drew his wand on her. She 'eep-ed.'
"I didn't start them!" She cried and threw her arms up to shield her face.
"Who did?" Draco asked in a very low, very infuriated tone.
"I can't say…." She choked out and Draco narrowed his eyes at her.
Draco Malfoy was not, by nature, a very patient person. The fact that he'd heard rumors about himself, a blast-ended skrewt, and a few other unmentionable things just made him less patient. He swished his wand at her and cast a simple hex before stalking off to find the culprit.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
"This is working better than I could have ever hoped." Ginny walked down the hall with Colin and listened to the hushed conversations concerning the rumors they'd only started to spread half an hour ago.
"I think a few of the girls embellished a bit," Colin commented and furrowed his brow slightly. "After all, I don't recall the original story involving any flobber-worms…."
"Embellishment is just another form of ad-lib, and to ad-lib is every player's right." Ginny shook her finger at Colin and he shrugged.
"True, true," Colin agreed and the two of them continued walking. They'd just turned a corner when they were nearly run down by Megan Jones.
"Oh my Ginny!" Megan whined and Ginny pulled her off to the side. She was breaking character in front of a large crowd; this was totally astounding coming from a player of her quality. Luckily the crowd was too busy with bigger, nastier rumors and they ignored the three.
"What?" Ginny asked swiftly and Megan's eyes went wide.
"He's taking out the players! One by one!" Megan spoke weakly and Ginny paled.
"Where are they?" Colin asked before Ginny could.
"P-Pomfrey's!" Megan shouted.
Both Ginny and Colin abandoned the shaky Megan instantly and ran as fast as their legs would carry them. Draco was picking out the players, and with that rumor there was no telling what he'd do to them. They cut through the crowd, ran down the stairs so fast they nearly stumbled, and wheeled around the corners at top speed by swinging around on whatever they could use to reorient themselves. The two of them practically broke down the door as they threw it open and halted in the infirmary.
"For the love of all that's good! You two are lucky Pomfrey left!"
Ginny froze and looked at the beds that had been filled with Player's Club members. Only three of them looked unscathed, but they were all sitting next to the member that had gotten the bad end of the stick, so to speak. Laura Madley was seated next to Kevin Whitby, who'd been turned blue and was holding his arm like it was broken, Michael Corner was standing over Sally-Ann Perks who's hair had become a set of rather vicious snakes, and Orla Quirke was trying to comfort the fox-like Su Li who'd been muzzled by Madam Pomfrey.
"Can 'us 'ome 'unnin' in 'ere 'ike 'a."
Everyone heard Sarah, apparently she'd tried to say 'Can't just come running in here like that,' but she was interrupted halfway through her warning.
Ginny walked into the room and stared at Sarah Fawcett who looked like she'd gotten the worst of all the hexing. She was clutching a bucket and couldn't speak any hard letters because there seemed a never-ending stream of slugs pouring out of her mouth. That wasn't the worst she'd gotten though. Not only had she been cursed to spit up slugs for Merlin knows how long, but her skin now vaguely resembled that of an iguana and her hair had turned bright magenta.
"I'm so sorry!" Ginny cried and stared at them. She'd expected Draco to get mad, but not this mad.
"Perfectly fine, Ginny," Kevin said and waved his electric blue hand at her. The others let out groans and grumbles that repeated and agreed with his statement.
"But you do realize you owe us all now, right?" Laura eyed her and looked down at Kevin sympathetically.
"Of course," Ginny replied and bowed courteously to all of them.
"Do you want us to stage two?" Michael Corner asked apprehensively and Ginny put on a stern expression.
"I'll start stage two, I'll just need Colin and Cho for this bit." Ginny grinned evilly and all the players smiled.
Author's Notes: Well, here we are, chapter seven. I hope this story isn't getting too strange. The good news is we're slowly getting closer and closer to true romance! The next few chapters will have quite a bit of Draco/Ginny, and perhaps a few more romantic moments. Hurrah.
Many thanks to those of you who review!
Many jeers to the lawyers that force me to use this.
Disclaimer: Not Rowling. The end.