Author's note: This story is rated PG-13 for strong language, violence, tension, and a very sad scene in the very end of this series. Oh, and by the way, I'm not J.K. Rowling, and I don't own the Harry Potter series. Lots of romance! Comments? IM me at Ripp my Heart OR movie of a dream on AIM.
"'Behold this misery,
For I am now one of the broken-hearted,
And woe is me for I hold the deepest pain,
Please kill me, for I loved in bittersweet vain.'"
Ginny looked up at Professor Teagen. Professor Teagen taught Literature class. This was a class that taught people how to make their own spells, and it also trained people to be journalists for newspapers like the Daily Prophet. It was available only to 6th and 7th years, and even then the two groups were taught together because not many people took the class. It was widely known as 'boring' and the professor had an awful temper, so people avoided taking it unless they needed it.
"Can anyone identify this poem's point?" Her dark eyes flashed to the corner. "Mr. Malfoy!" she boomed. "Why don't you answer this?"
The blonde, who had been leaning back in his chair and looking out the window, snapped to attention and stared at Professor Teagen. His eyes darted to his desk partner, Ginny, for help. She responded by giving him a could, smug look.
"Detention, Malfoy, for not paying attention." Said the dark professor. Ginny laughed outright at Malfoy's stunned face.
"Detention, Weasley, for laughing." Ginny stared at the professor in shock while Malfoy smirked. 'He never smiles,' she thought. 'He only smirks.'
After class, Professor Teagen held them back. "You will serve your detention in the Potions room tomorrow night at eight."
+
That night, Ginny woke up suddenly and listened. Faintly, just faintly, she heard voices from the common room. Getting up quietly, she walked down the dark stairs and hid behind a chair. There were two figures near the window, one sitting on the window seat looking at the sky.
"Ron…" the figure that wasn't sitting said.
"Yes, Hermione?"
"Ron, what is it? What… what do you see?" she asked, running her hands up and down her arms.
Ron only sighed and looked out the window again and patted the spot on the seat next to him. Hermione sat there, leaning against him.
They were silent for a while. Then, "Someone's going to die, 'Mione."
Hermione was silent for a while. "Who?"
"I'm not sure."
She didn't say anything. Just snuggled closer to him and rested her head on his shoulder and looked at the sky as he wrapped his arms around her.
That was love.
+
The next day, Ginny ran at top speed to detention. 'Please, please don't let him kill me!' she thought. She was late to detention by ten minutes, and everyone knew that Professor Snape didn't have any mercy to people who were late. When she got in, however, Professor Snape wasn't there. Only Draco was there, leaning on the professor's desk while playing with a round glass ball. His green eyes sparkled with mischief when he looked at her.
"Shut up," she said before he could speak.
"I wasn't going to say anything," he drawled, throwing the ball in the air and catching it once again. She rolled her eyes and stood impatiently by the door. Every moment with him was hell.
Suddenly, things began to move way too fast. Draco threw the glass ball, its pure, green-silver fog within catching the light so it blinded her, which was strange because it was fog. And then it was falling, falling. And in that sheer, thin second before the beautiful thing hit the ground, Ginny got a sudden, severe pain within herself, a pain so deep that she fell to her knees. The glass hit the ground, shattering, shattering. And Ginny fell, the Virgin's Tear burning at the base of her throat where it rested on a cool silver chain…
+++ The Past +++
Ginny was near death. In the corner of her mind that was not dying, she took note of Harry's voice yelling… Tom was laughing as she slowly slipped away, she would die any moment now. Her, in her first promising year of Hogwarts, dying, killing what she could have been.
And then came the woman, the woman who saved her. The Virgin. The woman reached out to Ginny's pale body and took a dried tearstain on her finger. In an instant it solidified, now a pure blue with silver around it in the shape of a tear.
'Virginia,' said the spirit. 'Virginia. Keep this with you always. It will save you in your darkest hour. It is your strength. I'm watching on you, my dear, my kin.'
Ginny took the tear and tucked it into her pocket. 'Why me?'
The Virgin said, 'Because you are the one Salazar put a curse on.'
+++The Present+++
"Is she okay?"
"Of course she is, I'm the one who bought her up here!"
"I swear, Draco, if you raped her or did anything of the sort—"
"That's enough, Ron, we're at Hogwarts for goodness sake!"
"But Professor Snape, she's so pale. How can she faint because of a glass ball?"
Ginny felt so dizzy…. If only they could just shut up and let her die. "Oh, Ron, shut up…" she said weakly. She opened her eyes reluctantly and saw the three gazing at her. Ron made a move to hug her but the professor held him back.
"Ronald, please leave." He said quietly. Ron, surprisingly, didn't object. The Professor looked at them both. "Draco tells me that he was playing with a glass ball of mine when you came in. He dropped it, and you went unconscious when it broke. He says he felt dizzy when it happened too but he was strong enough to carry you up here. Is all of this true?"
Ginny nodded. "There was fog in it. Green and silver fog." At this Snape stood, knocking his chair down.
"Interesting…" he said, looking back and forth between them, as if he was memorizing their faces for the first time. "Well, I shall inform Dumbledore about this. You will both serve your detentions next week." He left without waiting for a reply.
Ginny looked at Draco. "Malfoy, you idiot, you could have killed me!"
He looked down at her, his face holding no emotion when he looked into her eyes. "I felt pain too."
He left her.
_-_-_-_-_-
A note from the author: Sorry that this took so long! Everything in here's very important…yeah.