Chapter 1
Ginny found herself in Diagon Alley standing in Flourish and Blotts, alone. She was looking through the wizard romance novels when a commotion outside caught her attention. Her brother Ron and his two best friends Harry Potter and Hermione Granger were holding a reunion in the middle of the street. Her mother, father and two brothers, Fred and George, were in on it too. "Gods, you would think they all hadn't seen or talked to each other for years" she mumbled to herself as she began to unconsciously wander around the shop, romance books in hand.
She continued to look backwards out window watching as the three best friends made their way over to Florean Forescue's ice cream shop. All Ginny wanted was people to care for her. She wanted the type of friendship she saw out the window and the romance in the novels she read. She was so lost in these thoughts that she wasn't paying attention to where she was going. Suddenly she bumped into something strong, hard and obviously human.
The word "bump" was an understatement of what she actually did. In fact if a pair of strong arms hadn't grabbed hold of her waist she would have fallen in the same unceremonious way her books had.
The arms that were holding her let go quickly as if she were some disease. She looked up slowly and met the unscrupulous smirk of Draco Malfoy.
"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" Malfoy drawled in his cold, bored tone.
Gods, he even sounds disgusted with me, she thought, dismayed. But what should she care, at least he was paying attention to her! Not many people seemed to want to do that lately.
"I've overestimated your family little Weasley, not only could they not afford your books, clothes and food", he said this last word with a quick glance down her slim body "but they could also not afford to pay enough attention to you when you were a child in order to teach you how to walk."
By now Ginny was fuming! No one talked to her like that! Well.not many people seemed to want to talk to her anyway. She was not going to let him get the last word in! But being stuck on her low self-esteem, she couldn't think of a comment to sting him back with. She opened her mouth but no words came out.
"Close your mouth Weasley, it's not very attractive" he spat before sauntering away.
All she could do was stand there. So many thoughts were running through her head.
Why is my family such a disgrace to people like him? My father works hard and we eat well! Wearing old clothing shouldn't be anybody else's business but our own, Ginny thought.
That's when his leaving words hit her: I really am unattractive aren't I, she thought before bending down to pick up the books she had dropped. Tears blinded her vision as she walked up to pay for her purchases. The saleslady asked her kindly if she were alright and Ginny stonily said yes and quickly wiped her tears away.
She walked out of the shop and toward her family, who were with the "Dream Team" at the ice cream bar.
"There she is," Mr. Weasley stated as he worked his way through the crowd toward her.
"Hullo Ginny!" Harry exclaimed as he and Hermione stood to hug her.
"Hiya Harry, Hermione! How are you?" Ginny put her cheerful mask back on and walked over to give each of them a hug.
"Sit down and have some ice cream with us, Gin," Ron said.
A waitress came and took her order while the dream team lapsed back into there own world.
"So Ginny, what were you doing in the bookstore for so long" George questioned.
"Oh, just buying a few of my schoolbooks", Ginny lied,"that is why we're here isn't it?"
"Ginny! You should have waited for us, some of the schoolbooks that are on that list are ones we already have at home!" her mother scolded.
Great more hand-me-downs! That'll really give Malfoy something to talk about the next time we meet up! she thought in mock enthusiasm.
"Quit worrying mum! When I got in there I realized that I didn't have any money for books, so I'll have to go back with all of you later anyway." She was grateful that she had thought to stash the books she had just bought in the bag she was carrying. The sight of the romance novels would probably have just lead to more questions and more teases from her brothers. She had been picked on enough today and right now she was rather grateful that her parents had gone back to talking with the trio and the twins. She sat by herself, ignored again.
"Ginny! Ginny wait up!"
Ginny stopped in the middle of the street and turned around looking for the owner of the voice. Her and her family had just finished collecting some money from their vault at Gringotts and they were walking back to Flourish and Blotts when she heard her name being called. She let her family walk ahead of her. They won't even notice I'm gone, she thought bitterly as she stopped and waited for her friends Lily and Sarah.
"Omygod", Sarah said in a rush as she came up and hugged Ginny tightly.
"You will never guess who we just saw!"
"Who", Ginny asked unenthusiastically.
"Draco Malfoy", Lily and Sarah squealed at the same time.
The name alone brought a shudder to Ginny and her mind had already begun to think of ways to get him back for how he had humiliated her earlier.
"Have you seen him lately?" "Oh, I know!" "Those eyes." ".and that body!" "And his hair, can't forget that!" "Ooh! I know! He let it grow out!"
Ginny drifted away from her two overly giggly friends. She had to admit though, Malfoy the ferret had grown up quite a bit in the past year. What are you saying Ginny! You practically just called Draco hot! If he knew what I, Ron Weasley's little sister, just called him, his head would become so big that he wouldn't be able to fit through the entrance to the castle! This thought made her giggle as an image of an overly large-headed Draco becoming stuck in the castle's grand doorways entered her head.
"Gin? Ginny what are you laughing about?" Lily asked, clearly missing the jokes swirling around Ginny's head.
"Nothing", she stated as they continued on toward Flourish and Blotts, "Nothing at all".
Three days later Ginny found herself standing on platform 9 and ¾ waiting for her parents to finish their goodbyes.
".and make sure not to get caught on moving staircases or disappearing hallways! Oh and be sure not to get into trouble, I don't want to be getting anymore owls saying that we have another jokester in the family", she stated looking pointedly at Fred and George who had also come to see them off. "Oh, and be sure to-"
"Mum! I got it! I'll be alright! Quit worrying!" Ginny finally cut in, exasperated by her mother's overprotective nature.
As she walked toward the train to find a compartment she heard Fred and George yell "Bye Ginny! Be sure to give ol' Snape hell from us!"
She waved back and boarded the train with Ron, Harry and Hermione in step behind her. They headed right and she headed left just as the train started to pull out of the station.
She walked down the aisle and looked in compartment after compartment, but all were full. Almost every student had found a compartment but her.
It was nice of my so-called "friends" to save me a compartment so I'm not stuck wandering around aimlessly!
She was about to turn around and try the other direction when the compartment door next to her slid open and who should walk out but Draco Malfoy.
Great, she thought, here we go again.
"What's this", he asked looking down at her small build from his tall one, "a lost little weasel who can't find her friends? I have a newsflash for you little one, maybe you can't find them, because they don't exist." He leaned closer to her as he said this last part, and whispered it like it was a secret.
Just then, his to cronies Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle came out of the compartment behind him. They stepped up and flanked him on either side.
"At least the people I hang out with have a brain and can carry on a semi- intelligent conversation where-as your two flunkies here can barely talk. And when they do talk," Ginny continued with renewed courage due to the struck look on his face, "their mouths are so full that you can't understand what their saying!"
"Or maybe you just hang out with them to make yourself look smarter?" She said this as she breezed passed them humming the tune "If I Only Had a Brain" from the Wizard of Oz (one of her father's most prized muggle movies).
She quickly slipped into the nearest compartment, not checking to see who was in it, and rested her forehead against the door. Her breathing was rushed from the exhilaration of telling Malfoy off.
"Hello Ginny! How are you", a male voice behind her asked.
She turned slowly and came face to face with Colin Creevey, a friend the same age as her. The once tiny photographer that had idolized Harry Potter for so long had grown up. He had shot up to a good six feet, which was tall, but still not as tall as Draco.
There I go again, Ginny thought, complimenting Malfoy.
"Looking for a compartment", he asked.
"How could you tell" Ginny replied half-sarcastically.
"It may have been you pacing up and down the halls looking in each window that lead me to that conclusion," he joked.
Ginny sat down cross from Colin and stared out the window. She still had a smile on her face left over from her triumph over Malfoy.
"What's the smile for?"
Ginny looked to Colin and would have normally said "nothing" but something about the boy made her want to talk. She told him the whole story, starting with the incident in Flourish and Blotts and ending up right outside the compartment.
"Wow", Colin said. "You do know that Lily and Sarah would flip out of they knew you had talked to him, right?"
"Yes, which is why you can't tell them."
After a long and sad pause Ginny revealed to him, her thoughts on the matter. "They've changed Colin. They're not the same playful girls I knew last year. Now they're all into boys and Malfoy. They've completely forgotten that we hate Malfoy! It's frustrating."
"I know what you mean, but you can't change the way they turned out," Colin replied.
"You're right Colin", she said looking him in the eye, "but I wish I could change the way I've turned out."
Ginny found herself in Diagon Alley standing in Flourish and Blotts, alone. She was looking through the wizard romance novels when a commotion outside caught her attention. Her brother Ron and his two best friends Harry Potter and Hermione Granger were holding a reunion in the middle of the street. Her mother, father and two brothers, Fred and George, were in on it too. "Gods, you would think they all hadn't seen or talked to each other for years" she mumbled to herself as she began to unconsciously wander around the shop, romance books in hand.
She continued to look backwards out window watching as the three best friends made their way over to Florean Forescue's ice cream shop. All Ginny wanted was people to care for her. She wanted the type of friendship she saw out the window and the romance in the novels she read. She was so lost in these thoughts that she wasn't paying attention to where she was going. Suddenly she bumped into something strong, hard and obviously human.
The word "bump" was an understatement of what she actually did. In fact if a pair of strong arms hadn't grabbed hold of her waist she would have fallen in the same unceremonious way her books had.
The arms that were holding her let go quickly as if she were some disease. She looked up slowly and met the unscrupulous smirk of Draco Malfoy.
"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" Malfoy drawled in his cold, bored tone.
Gods, he even sounds disgusted with me, she thought, dismayed. But what should she care, at least he was paying attention to her! Not many people seemed to want to do that lately.
"I've overestimated your family little Weasley, not only could they not afford your books, clothes and food", he said this last word with a quick glance down her slim body "but they could also not afford to pay enough attention to you when you were a child in order to teach you how to walk."
By now Ginny was fuming! No one talked to her like that! Well.not many people seemed to want to talk to her anyway. She was not going to let him get the last word in! But being stuck on her low self-esteem, she couldn't think of a comment to sting him back with. She opened her mouth but no words came out.
"Close your mouth Weasley, it's not very attractive" he spat before sauntering away.
All she could do was stand there. So many thoughts were running through her head.
Why is my family such a disgrace to people like him? My father works hard and we eat well! Wearing old clothing shouldn't be anybody else's business but our own, Ginny thought.
That's when his leaving words hit her: I really am unattractive aren't I, she thought before bending down to pick up the books she had dropped. Tears blinded her vision as she walked up to pay for her purchases. The saleslady asked her kindly if she were alright and Ginny stonily said yes and quickly wiped her tears away.
She walked out of the shop and toward her family, who were with the "Dream Team" at the ice cream bar.
"There she is," Mr. Weasley stated as he worked his way through the crowd toward her.
"Hullo Ginny!" Harry exclaimed as he and Hermione stood to hug her.
"Hiya Harry, Hermione! How are you?" Ginny put her cheerful mask back on and walked over to give each of them a hug.
"Sit down and have some ice cream with us, Gin," Ron said.
A waitress came and took her order while the dream team lapsed back into there own world.
"So Ginny, what were you doing in the bookstore for so long" George questioned.
"Oh, just buying a few of my schoolbooks", Ginny lied,"that is why we're here isn't it?"
"Ginny! You should have waited for us, some of the schoolbooks that are on that list are ones we already have at home!" her mother scolded.
Great more hand-me-downs! That'll really give Malfoy something to talk about the next time we meet up! she thought in mock enthusiasm.
"Quit worrying mum! When I got in there I realized that I didn't have any money for books, so I'll have to go back with all of you later anyway." She was grateful that she had thought to stash the books she had just bought in the bag she was carrying. The sight of the romance novels would probably have just lead to more questions and more teases from her brothers. She had been picked on enough today and right now she was rather grateful that her parents had gone back to talking with the trio and the twins. She sat by herself, ignored again.
"Ginny! Ginny wait up!"
Ginny stopped in the middle of the street and turned around looking for the owner of the voice. Her and her family had just finished collecting some money from their vault at Gringotts and they were walking back to Flourish and Blotts when she heard her name being called. She let her family walk ahead of her. They won't even notice I'm gone, she thought bitterly as she stopped and waited for her friends Lily and Sarah.
"Omygod", Sarah said in a rush as she came up and hugged Ginny tightly.
"You will never guess who we just saw!"
"Who", Ginny asked unenthusiastically.
"Draco Malfoy", Lily and Sarah squealed at the same time.
The name alone brought a shudder to Ginny and her mind had already begun to think of ways to get him back for how he had humiliated her earlier.
"Have you seen him lately?" "Oh, I know!" "Those eyes." ".and that body!" "And his hair, can't forget that!" "Ooh! I know! He let it grow out!"
Ginny drifted away from her two overly giggly friends. She had to admit though, Malfoy the ferret had grown up quite a bit in the past year. What are you saying Ginny! You practically just called Draco hot! If he knew what I, Ron Weasley's little sister, just called him, his head would become so big that he wouldn't be able to fit through the entrance to the castle! This thought made her giggle as an image of an overly large-headed Draco becoming stuck in the castle's grand doorways entered her head.
"Gin? Ginny what are you laughing about?" Lily asked, clearly missing the jokes swirling around Ginny's head.
"Nothing", she stated as they continued on toward Flourish and Blotts, "Nothing at all".
Three days later Ginny found herself standing on platform 9 and ¾ waiting for her parents to finish their goodbyes.
".and make sure not to get caught on moving staircases or disappearing hallways! Oh and be sure not to get into trouble, I don't want to be getting anymore owls saying that we have another jokester in the family", she stated looking pointedly at Fred and George who had also come to see them off. "Oh, and be sure to-"
"Mum! I got it! I'll be alright! Quit worrying!" Ginny finally cut in, exasperated by her mother's overprotective nature.
As she walked toward the train to find a compartment she heard Fred and George yell "Bye Ginny! Be sure to give ol' Snape hell from us!"
She waved back and boarded the train with Ron, Harry and Hermione in step behind her. They headed right and she headed left just as the train started to pull out of the station.
She walked down the aisle and looked in compartment after compartment, but all were full. Almost every student had found a compartment but her.
It was nice of my so-called "friends" to save me a compartment so I'm not stuck wandering around aimlessly!
She was about to turn around and try the other direction when the compartment door next to her slid open and who should walk out but Draco Malfoy.
Great, she thought, here we go again.
"What's this", he asked looking down at her small build from his tall one, "a lost little weasel who can't find her friends? I have a newsflash for you little one, maybe you can't find them, because they don't exist." He leaned closer to her as he said this last part, and whispered it like it was a secret.
Just then, his to cronies Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle came out of the compartment behind him. They stepped up and flanked him on either side.
"At least the people I hang out with have a brain and can carry on a semi- intelligent conversation where-as your two flunkies here can barely talk. And when they do talk," Ginny continued with renewed courage due to the struck look on his face, "their mouths are so full that you can't understand what their saying!"
"Or maybe you just hang out with them to make yourself look smarter?" She said this as she breezed passed them humming the tune "If I Only Had a Brain" from the Wizard of Oz (one of her father's most prized muggle movies).
She quickly slipped into the nearest compartment, not checking to see who was in it, and rested her forehead against the door. Her breathing was rushed from the exhilaration of telling Malfoy off.
"Hello Ginny! How are you", a male voice behind her asked.
She turned slowly and came face to face with Colin Creevey, a friend the same age as her. The once tiny photographer that had idolized Harry Potter for so long had grown up. He had shot up to a good six feet, which was tall, but still not as tall as Draco.
There I go again, Ginny thought, complimenting Malfoy.
"Looking for a compartment", he asked.
"How could you tell" Ginny replied half-sarcastically.
"It may have been you pacing up and down the halls looking in each window that lead me to that conclusion," he joked.
Ginny sat down cross from Colin and stared out the window. She still had a smile on her face left over from her triumph over Malfoy.
"What's the smile for?"
Ginny looked to Colin and would have normally said "nothing" but something about the boy made her want to talk. She told him the whole story, starting with the incident in Flourish and Blotts and ending up right outside the compartment.
"Wow", Colin said. "You do know that Lily and Sarah would flip out of they knew you had talked to him, right?"
"Yes, which is why you can't tell them."
After a long and sad pause Ginny revealed to him, her thoughts on the matter. "They've changed Colin. They're not the same playful girls I knew last year. Now they're all into boys and Malfoy. They've completely forgotten that we hate Malfoy! It's frustrating."
"I know what you mean, but you can't change the way they turned out," Colin replied.
"You're right Colin", she said looking him in the eye, "but I wish I could change the way I've turned out."