Sympathy for the Devil
"Hey there Ginny!"
"Um, hi." Ginny waved a little and watched as the enthusiastic boy—whom she didn't know—walked past her with something close to the star-struck look she used to give Harry. Ginny shook off the strange, foreboding feeling she was getting and continued on her way to lunch.
"Hey Ginny!" A boy who was standing amidst a group of boys waved at her and they all turned around.
"Hey!"
"Hello!"
"How's it going?"
"Um…hi." Ginny waved at them and shot them a weak smiled before increasing the speed at which she was walking. This was getting very unnerving.
"Ginny." Ginny looked up and spotted a lone, and rather smug looking, Cho Chang. "I tried to warn you. Now you've got admirers."
"This is going to ruin my ploy, how do I make them go away." Ginny said quietly and Cho shook her head.
"Not a way that I can think of." Cho admitted and clapped a hand onto Ginny's shoulder.
"Can't I just ignore them?" Ginny asked as another group of clueless guys walked by with sloppy smiles plastered across their faces.
"You can try, they'd probably just think you're too shy and humble to accept their affection." Cho smirked. "Here we are!" Cho announced as they stood before the doors that led into the Great Hall.
"What?" Ginny asked and stared at the doors. All of a sudden she was filled with a sense of immense dread.
"Have fun in there Ginny—girl." Cho clicked her tongue once and walked off with a smirk worthy of Draco Malfoy.
Ginny stared at the doors uneasily and finally walked through into the crowded Great Hall. At first no one noticed her and she let out a sigh of relief—Cho was just playing with her mind—but then someone at the Gryffindor table stood up and waved at her. It took a cumulative total of about five seconds for Ginny's hopes of eating a quiet lunch to crumble. The first second, boys turned around and looked at Dean who was waving at Ginny with a smile on his face, the second all of them looked at the door, the third they all started whispering to their buddies, the fourth a few more waved and the fifth they all just started watching her. This was very unnerving. Ginny was tempted to just turn around and run.
What gave Ginny confidence enough to cross the room and sit down were the pained looks that Angelina, Alicia, and Katie were giving her as well. Rather than stand there being watched Ginny quickly walked over to the Gryffindor table (most likely propagating the 'shy' factor that Cho had spoken of) and sat down amidst the rest of the Quidditch team.
"Good work Dean." Angelina hissed at him and he blinked at her dumbly.
"What?" He asked. Both Katie and Alicia grabbed him by the robes, sat him down, and gave him very stern looks.
"What in the world is going on here?" Ginny asked the three girls and they all looked at her uneasily.
"It's all Creevey's fault." Katie muttered.
"What's all Creevey's fault?" Ginny asked and Angelina reached into her bag. Angelina pulled out what looked like—no what most definitely was—a calendar. She reached across the table and handed it to Ginny with a bit of a wince. Ginny paled considerably.
The calendar, across the cover, read in big, bold, black letters as such:
Creeveys' Calendars
For The True Quidditch Fans In All Of Us
A Whole Year's Worth of Quality Quidditch Moments!
Between the two lines of text there was a large, color, moving picture of Ginny from the first Quidditch practice the Gryffindor team had. She was flying upside-down with the Quaffle and above her were Angelina and Alicia looking quite shocked.
Ginny's jaw dropped slightly as she stared down at the picture. She opened up the calendar and her eyes widened. Not only were there large moving shots of the Gryffindor team (well the girls) on some of the months, but also there were small pictures of individual players next to each week. Ginny dropped the calendar and stared up at the other three pained girls.
"How many?" Ginny asked without elaboration.
"About two hundred. Dennis is working on an expanded edition…with our personal lives and information on us." Katie responded.
"Ten galleons says we get mugged for autographs when we leave the Hall." Alicia muttered.
"I don't take bets on sure things." Angelina added and all four of them slumped forward on the table—distraught.
Lunch ended after a painfully long amount of time and the Great Hall slowly cleared out. Ginny contemplated leaping out the window to avoid the crowd of boys that would, most likely, jump Alicia, Katie, Angelina, and her when they left—but the cliffs were a deterrent. The older girls went first, a sort of shield, and Ginny followed after them. The moment they exited the doors, sure enough, there was a mob of guys with calendars and quills practically jumping all over them requesting signatures.
"Angelina, sign here please!"
"Alicia, can you make that out to Danny?"
"This picture is better, can you sign there?"
"Look, guys, there's Ginny!"
Ginny watched with pity as Alicia, Angelina, and Katie were swallowed into the crowd. Ginny tried to move along the wall towards the stairs, but she was caught as one boy noticed her flaming red hair. The mob moved to swallow her and she broke into a run. She threw open the door to the dungeons, ran down the stairs, and was pulled off her feet as she rounded a corner. She was pulled into a closet and the last two things she saw before the door snapped shut were the mob of boys that had been following her and a shining light down at the other end of the corridor.
"What in the—Mphh!" Ginny tried to shout but a hand clamped over her mouth.
"Lumos." The small broom closet was lit up by the white light and Ginny saw the reassuring face of the boy who'd rescued her from the pack. Anthony Goldstein.
Anthony took his hand off her mouth, made a 'shh' motion, and went silent as the clattering of footsteps grew louder. A few boys asked quiet questions and the footsteps faded down the hall. They sounded like they'd traveled around the bend at the end of the hall but then there was a great, loud commotion. There were a few moments of near silence then the whistling of spells and a loud crack. The footsteps came running down the hall and up the stairs with a sort of panicked sound about them. Ginny and Anthony shared looks and opened the closet door.
"What in the—?" Anthony whispered harshly and waved his hand in front of his face. The hall was flooded with smoke.
"I don't know." Ginny coughed and the both of them walked up the stairs cautiously.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
"I've got her confused…good job." Draco congratulated himself as Ginny left the Hospital Wing. He sat back, pondering what to request of her when the door to the wing opened again. He didn't really have time to assume it was anyone in particular because they spoke up right away.
"You look horrible, Draco dear." Tracey commented smoothly as she walked over to his bed. "Lucky."
"What do you want from me today, Davis?" Draco asked flatly and glanced up at the black clad, palely made up girl. She was holding a rolled up stack op paper in her hand, and looked mildly amused.
"Oh just here as the Devil's advocate." Tracey sat down in the chair Ginny had been in, much to Draco's dismay, and handed him the rolled up stack of papers. "You might find this interesting." Tracey commented offhand and Draco unfurled the package.
"Creeveys' Calendars?" Draco asked and cocked an eyebrow as he opened it up. At first he had no expression, but slowly something started to creep over him—his face didn't really change, but the air around him seemed to get darker and a tad heavier.
"To make matters worse, Draco dear, the brothers Creevey have sold copies to nearly every male in school and they all intend on getting them signed—if not 'scoring dates' with the girls of their latent dreams." Tracey said as she examined her fingernails.
"Are they then?" Draco asked in a calm, dangerous tone that was, most definitely, acquired from his father.
"I was just in the Great Hall, the chatter about that Weasley girl is astonishing." Tracey blew on her fingernails. "You'd think she was gilded." Draco was tempted to remark that she probably was, but he held his tongue. "If you've still got a tête-à-tête going with her you might want to take some action." Tracey looked up at him and could have sworn she saw a dangerous glint of jealousy in his eyes.
"For once, Davis, I think I agree fully." Draco sat up and ignored the lightheaded sensation that came with it. Draco stood up; an act rather dramatically amplified by his swooshing over-robes, and cracked the knuckles in his hands ominously. "Cover for me." Draco commanded offhand know that, eventually, he'd have to repay her for distracting Pomfrey.
"Right oh, darling." Tracey stood up and flopped down on Draco's hospital bed. She waved her wand in the air; cast a few charms, and the curtains magically slipped shut after Draco was out the door.
"Weasley has admirers, aye?" Draco asked quietly and drew his wand as he crept through the empty halls cautiously. If anyone caught him up they might ask questions.
"What in the world?" Draco turned to see a shocked and reasonably angered Fred and George clutching parts of what used to be a Creevey Calendar.
"I wouldn't think he'd be conscious yet." One of them commented (Fred, not that Draco could tell the difference).
"I take it you've seen the Creevey brothers' creation." Draco said smoothly and locked eyes with the Weasley twins.
"What are you planning?" They asked in unison and smirked.
"Just a bit of an anonymous threat," Draco smirked as well, "Do you have any Smoking Snappers?" Fred and George shared a look and tuned back to him, maniacal grins in place.
"Regular?" George asked.
"Or twisted?" Fred added.
"I'll leave it up to your preference." Draco finished and looked down the hall. "You two meet at the corner of the dungeon halls where the way splits—off to the left—I'll draw them near." Draco grinned and walked away from the malicious twins.
Draco practically jogged down the hall, wand in hand, and bandages slipping from his head. He stopped as he reached the stairs, peered down to see of the coast was clear, and started down. He heard a good deal of commotion from behind the doors to the Great Hall and looked for a place to hide. If Pomfrey caught him he'd be toast. He jumped up, slid down the banister, and ducked into the doors that led down into the dungeons. He watched, through a crack in the door, as the girls on the Gryffindor team came out of the Great Hall, surrounded by a mob of lovesick admirers. Draco was tempted to wretch as he heard one of them go on about how wholesome and loving the girl in the middle (whom he'd obviously never met as she'd just clocked a guy and shouted at him) was.
"Malfoy." Draco jumped a bit and turned to see Fred and George, engulfed in the shadows. The two of them resembled the Cheshire cat in that he could only really see the glint off their twisted smiles and the rather large arm-fulls of Smoking Snappers they were holding.
"Down the hall, it shouldn't be long." Draco looked back out the door and jumped back into the shadows as he spotted Anthony Goldstein walking away from the group and towards the door.
The door creaked open and, being slightly unaware of everything—as Anthony was, Anthony started down the hall. Draco swung the door shut, and looked down the hall where Anthony was walking—fortunately it seemed the Hufflepuff didn't spot the blur of robes that was Fred and George as they rounded the corner in accordance to the plan. Draco heard a great deal of yelling as he was about to move to drag Anthony down the hall and the door to the dungeons was thrown open. Goldstein spun around and caught Ginny as she slammed into him. In one quick move he picked her up and pulled her into the closet.
Draco didn't have time to watch this as the mob was just behind. The plan had to start now if it was going to work. He leapt down the stairs and, with a wave of his wand, cast a dimly glowing image of Ginny Weasley in the air. Normally it wouldn't have fooled anyone, it was so far off base, but it was dark and these were hormonally driven teenage boys that had been chasing after their new 'unattainable beauty' so it worked like a charm (which it was ironically). Draco ran along the wall and was hardly noticed as he turned the corner and caused the image of Ginny Weasley to follow.
"Now?" Fred and George, who were eagerly awaiting instructions as they stood with nearly forty Smoking Snappers, asked in unison.
"Now." Draco said and the fake Ginny disappeared as she ran around the corner. A moment later the Smoking Snappers went off and the mob of boys turned the corner.
"What's going on?"
"Where'd Ginny go?"
"I can't breathe!"
The boys were plunged into confusion just long enough for Fred and George to move around to the back and prevent anyone who got the bright idea to flee. A few of them tried, in fact, but the screams they let out when they met up with the maleficent Fred and George discouraged the rest of them. They were all nearly shocked out of their wits when a dark shadow lifted out of the smog in front of them and stood, leaning against the wall. (Later on they'd recall they saw a pair of glowing red eyes…but that was just embellishment…we think.)
"W-who are you?" One of the boys managed to stutter as he backed up.
"Me?" Draco asked in a very raspy, threatening voice. "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste." Draco stared at them and a shaft of light from the windows managed to pierce the cloud of smoke around them. It cast a sort of eerie shadow over him that matched his mood and made everyone the jumpier.
"I've been around for a long year, I was around when Saint Potter had his moments of doubt and pain. Made damn sure the Minister washed his hands and sealed his fate." Draco stood up and ran his hand back over his smoothed platinum blonde hair. "Pleased to meet you, hope you've guessed my name." He took a step forward and the light was at his back, putting him into an outlined darkness.
"But what's confusing you is the nature of my game." Draco grabbed the closest boy by his collar and snatched the calendar that he'd intended to get signed by Ginny out of his hands. He looked at it and made sure that the boy got the idea before tossing it back to Fred and George. A few of the boys in the back moved towards the center of the group, uneasily. They were between a Malfoy and the Weasley twins—this was very bad for them.
"Just as every cop's a criminal—." Draco started.
"And all the sinners saints." Fred added, followed by George.
"As heads is tails."
"Just call me Lucifer, 'cause we're in need of some restraints." Draco finished and lifted the third year off the ground by his collar.
"So if you meet me, have some courtesy, have some sympathy, and some taste." Draco eyed them all and they stared, wide-eyed, back at him. "Use all your well earned politesse or I'll lay your soul to waste."
Draco dropped the third year and looked up at Fred and George. The twins nodded and tossed up a few more Smoking Snappers that went off with a bang and left the whole hall in smoke. Draco ducked as a flurry of sparks rushed past him—he wasn't sure, but it seemed that the Weasley twins were now either hexing everyone in range or firing off fireworks—he wouldn't have put either past them. The mob shouted and ran back out towards the door as quickly as they could manage. Once they'd all filtered out, Draco turned and started down the hall. He could go up a flight of stairs near Snape's room and be back in the Hospital wing before the smoke even cleared.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Author's Notes: Well here we go! Sympathy for the Devil. These song chapters are starting to seem hokey-er and hokey-er. Oh well. I had to have Draco say that. Well tell me how stupid I am, praise me, or ask what the heck I was on—just review.
Probably two more chapters till the ball, and then two chapters of the ball. Oh how I'll miss this story...yeah.