Title: The New Ginny Weasley
Author: Jaylana88
Pairing: Ginny/Draco, mostly. Will be some Ron/Lavender, and Harry/Hermione sprinkled in.
Rating: R, for language and some explicit content that would probably traumatize young ones
A/N: The usual author's noteà I do not intend to copy, infringe upon, or abuse the characters I have borrowed from J.K. Rowling, but if someone thinks I am, try not to sue. I have no money.
The New Ginny Weasley
Chapter 8 (c.9 on the drop bar on ff.net): Play With Fire
One by one, students filtered out of the Great Hall, new schedules in one hand, book bags in the other.
"What've ya'll got first?" drawled Lorey, looking at her schedule with a perplexed expresssion.
"Uhm…Defense Against the Dark Arts. With…Gryffindors, I think," Lex dug around in the bag slung over her shoulder as the four girls, Colin, and the Slytherins, paused to the side of the doorway leading to the Great Hall.
"You've got class with me then!" exclaimed Ginny.
"Yes! If we have all our classes with Gin, we won't have to worry about anything!" said Kay excitedly.
"Why won't we have to worry about anything?" asked Lex, curiously.
"Cuz' Ginny's disgustingly smart," Kay stated matter-of-factly. "That means if we get stupid in class, Gin will be able to help us out, yah?"
"Oh yeaaaah…." Lorey said, eyes lighting up.
"Hey, you guys! You're supposed to actually learn stuff while you're here!" Ginny said, throwing her hands up in exasperation. "Besides," she added after a moment, "I'm not going to have all my classes with you….I'm getting transferred to Advanced Trans and Potions…." She mumbled, trailing off slightly embarrassed.
Draco, Blaise and Pansy stopped suddenly, and Colin, who noticed this, stopped as well and looked at them as if to say "What?", while the other girls, who already knew about Ginny's other classes, kept walking.
"Oh that's right, nice on that Gin!" said Kay, congratulating her friend again with an arm slung over her shoulders.
"Dammit! That means I won't be able to bug you in class all the time!" Lex pouted.
Ginny grinned at this, then stopped when she realized that they had left a group of startled Slytherins behind.
Bewildered, all three Slytherins had raised their eyebrows abnormally high, the only sign of their surprise. Rolling his eyes at them, Colin turned to Ginny and said, "They didn't know you were taking classes with them."
"You're going to be in our classes this year??" asked Blaise curiously.
"Well, yes…but just two of them. So you won't have to deal with me all the time," Ginny said sheepishly, looking down at her feet nervously. 'I didn't count on the fact that they might not want me in their classes….' She thought sadly.
"Do you know how COOL this is!?!" Pansy suddenly shrieked, arms waving wildly. "All I ever do in class is piss Draco and Blaise off cuz there's no one else to talk to! Now I get a GIRL!" Pansy, eyes bulging, swept down on a stunned Ginny and gave her a quick peck on the cheek, before whirling at Draco and saying, "Do you have any idea how much more interesting this will make McGonagall's and Snape's!?!"
"I gather it'll be much more interesting," Draco said, his eyes glittering promisingly, and slightly maliciously, as Pansy snapped him out of the wild thoughts running through his head. 'Ginny, in my class, sitting near me…a WHOLE CLASS!?! How am I going to get through that!?!'
Ginny felt a shiver go up her spine at Draco's suggestive tone. 'Oh wonderful….now you're freaking out just because Draco is going to be in two of your classes. TWO of them. Get a grip, Ginny!' she thought wildly. A high, maniacal giggle interrupted her train of thought, and she glanced at her three American friends suspiciously, who were staring at her, and then at Draco, with looks of comprehension and amusement. 'And,' Ginny thought darkly, 'they look insane. Which means only one thing….' Ginny's brow furrowed, as she finished, 'they're plotting something, and it's not going to be good.'
"Well we'd better get going," Colin said, the hallways beginning to clear as students ambled off to their classes. Kay, Lorey, Lex, Draco, Ginny and Pansy all started off for their first classes, with Colin and Blaise following behind them.
"Are you taking any advanced classes like Ginny?" Blaise asked Colin, keeping pace with the younger boy as they all walked quickly.
"Nope," said Colin, avoiding Blaise's eyes. A slight flush tainted his cheeks, and Blaise smirked.
"That's too bad," the Slytherin said mischievously, "It would have been nice to have something fit to look at while McGonagall drones on…and on…." Blaise sidled up to Colin's side when the Gryffindor stopped abruptly, and he grinned. Suddenly, though, Blaise's trademark Slytherin smirk disappeared, replaced by a slightly apprehensive frown as Colin whirled on him suddenly and backed him into the wall. Blaise glanced over to the rest of their group with his back resting against the wood, but Lex was talking animatedly about something and had captured everyone's attention, ensuring that no one had noticed that the two boys had trailed behind.
"You know, constantly flirting with me is going to get you in trouble," said Colin softly, staring into Blaise's blue eyes through his lashes. "I mean, what if I'm not into that type of thing? You don't know if I'm…." Colin trailed off, and Blaise's eyes widened.
"You mean you aren't…." the taller, older boy started to stammer, but was cut off when Colin leaned in and put his hands up to brace himself on either side of Blaise's hand, nuzzling his nose against the skin of his neck, closing his eyes and breathing in the clean, fresh scent that wafted towards him. Colin stepped in a bit more, and said lowly into Blaise's ear, "Aren't what? Attracted to boys?" Colin moved his mouth back down and brushed against Blaise's neck, causing him to stiffen and hold his breath tightly. Flicking out his tongue once, and then moving his mouth back up to Blaise's ear, he whispered, "I think I'm attracted to this boy, right here…" Not one to be outdone, however, Blaise brought his hand up to place it on the small of Colin's back, and took a step sideways and flipped their positions, with Colin now pressed against the wall. Startled, Colin's eyes flew open and he gasped. He gazed into Blaise's eyes, who gazed back with a twinkle of something akin to mischief. Leaning down, Blaise brushed his lips against slightly parted lips, and then pressed Colin to the wall harder with the entire length of him for a moment, and then stepped back. "And I'm attracted to this boy right here….on the wall, looking good enough to eat…" Blaise's gaze traveled downwards suggestively, and Colin flushed slightly.
"But we've got class. See you, Gryff," said Blaise flippantly, and then turned on his heel to get to class, leaving Colin with his hands pressed against the wall, slightly pink, and very turned on.
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"Hey you guys, I need to walk this way, so I'll see you after first class, alright?" Ginny asked her three slightly nervous friends.
"Where do you hafta go? You're not gunna go off and do Draco somewhere in a classroom are you? Cuz that would be naughty naughty…" Kay said in a rush, almost too fast to be intelligible, her nervousness making her ramble incessantly.
"Kay…" Ginny sighed. "I have to go see Professor Dumbledore about something. Draco needs to walk this way, because his class is down the hall from Dumbledore's office," Ginny explained, hanging an arm around her friend's shoulders. Kay may be insane sometimes, and tended to act like nothing could get her down, but when it came to meeting groups of new people head on, she got nervous without anyone to help her out.
"Don't worry about it girl, we're all going in at the same time. At worst, they'll throw shit at us…" Lorey smiled helpfully, though she was looking a little hesitant as well.
"Go on, you guys'll be fine. AND you'll be together. Tell the new professor that I'll be late because Dumbledore requested to see me about my schedule," Ginny gestured to the door, and Kay, after looking at Lorey, and then Lex, pushed open the door determinedly and walked in. The other two followed her, after glancing at Ginny for a last reassuring smile.
Letting out a sigh of relief, Ginny turned and walked quickly down the hall towards the great statue of a phoenix. Draco, catching up to her quickly, said, "You know, we could always try that "doing me in a classroom" bit sometime…." He trailed off, looking at her for a reaction.
Ginny smirked, glancing up at him out of the corner of her eye, and said, "Definitely not," paused, and then added, "But I'd do you in a bedroom. With a nice, springy bed…."
Draco's eyes widened and he stopped abruptly, and Ginny halted as well, looking at him with one eyebrow raised. She grinned, and bit her lip, approaching him with a slink in her step.
'Oh, Merlin…" Draco thought, blanking out as he looked down and his eyes zoned in on Ginny's full lips, and almost groaned when her tongue darted out to wet them.
"Since my bed in Gryffindor isn't anywhere near as nice as a 7th year's, though, I suppose you'll have to get me into the Slytherin Dormitory…." After saying this, Ginny turned around and walked towards the phoenix statue hiding the entrance to Dumbledore's offices. Opting for one last glance at him, she called out.
"But until you get me in there, I suppose you'll just have to make do somehow…" With a little wave goodbye, she turned once more and said, "Lemon drop" in a soft voice, and stepped onto the rotating stairs without a glance back.
For the third time since encountering Ginny yesterday, Draco was speechless.
And for the second time since encountering the attractive girl, Draco's only thought was….
'Whoa.'
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"Serves him right for trying to play with me," thought Blaise with a smirk so broad it was almost a grin. And a happy grin, at that. 'I almost kissed him…I could have kissed him…' he thought giddily, striding down the hall quickly towards his first class, History of Magic. Rounding the corner, he picked up his pace to jog when he saw Draco standing in front of that huge statue of a phoenix.
"Drake, hey Drake!" Draco jerked out of his thoughts as Blaise came up to him. "We're late for class you know."
"Yeah…" Draco muttered, his mind still preoccupied with thoughts of springy beds and sexy redheads.
"Draco…."
"Yeah…"
"DRACO!!!"
Finally, Draco turned to Blaise and said, calmly, as if Blaise hadn't been repeating his name and waving his arms about like an idiot, "Yes, you great prat?"
"You're standing in front of the damn door." Blaise stated, gesturing to the door on Draco's left that, he really had been standing in front of for Merlin how long.
"I knew that," Draco said abruptly. "I was just collecting my thoughts…remembering the summer reading, and all that," Draco muttered, while turning the knob and walking into the classroom as discreetly as possible.
"Yeah sure…" Blaise muttered back, before they took their seats at the back of the class. The professor, without glancing up from what he was writing on the board, said, "Ah, Misters Malfoy and Zabini, I presume? Thank you for taking the time to join us. Take out your books, we're starting on page 37, where you should have left off after your summer reading that was assigned to you…."
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Waiting to reach the top, Ginny attempted to get all thoughts of beds and criminally hot Draco Malfoy out of her mind and tried to focus on what Dumbledore would want to ask. Collecting her thoughts as the moving stairwell came to a slow, grinding halt, she took a deep breath before walking up to the door, knocking twice and pulling it open slowly.
As she stepped in, a long, thin, inhuman-sounding note sounded, and Ginny suddenly found herself surrounded by huge, red feathers swirling about her. 'It's a phoenix,' Ginny thought dazedly, as she caught a glimpse of bright black eyes and enormous, swishing tail feathers. Fawkes flew around her once more in a whirl, then fluttered above her head a moment, and then perching on the top shelf of a bookcase.
"Well, Fawkes seems to remember you well enough," said a gentle voice quietly. Eyes wide, Ginny's memory flashed, images of Harry and the Chamber of Secrets and Tom, and then of safety and red feathers.
"Fawkes…" Ginny whispered, looking up at the bird who had swept her from the chamber all those years ago. The phoenix gave a small cooing noise in the back of its throat, and Ginny smiled. Feeling more confident suddenly, Ginny turned to face Dumbledore, who was sitting calmly in front of her behind his large desk, hands clasped on an intricately designed open book.
"Hello Ginny," said Dumbledore with a smile, looking over the rims of his half-moon spectacles at her, "care for a lemon drop?"
"No thank you, Headmaster, sir," said Ginny politely.
"I asked you to come up here after breakfast for a reason, my dear," Dumbledore started, "do you know what that is?"
"Because of that stunt I pulled in the Great Hall today, with Ron," Ginny said bluntly.
Looking at Dumbledore square in the eye, she walked over to him and sat down after he gestured for her to do so, saying, "I've no idea how I did it, Professor, honest. I just got so angry, I couldn't think, and then all of a sudden this great big ball popped out of my fingers, and then I threw it at him without even knowing I threw it at him, really, and…"
"My dear, it was, quite obvious, I must say, that you were not quite yourself. That is not why you are here, however."
"It's not, sir?" said Ginny, some of her confidence fading away and being replaced by a slight tremor in her stomach, the beginnings of fear.
"No, Ginny, it's not. I know that you do not know how you did it, or even entirely why. The only thing I want to know is if you, when you began to first show signs of magical ability, if you ever did anything with fire, similar to the ball you produced in the Great Hall at breakfast, this morning."
"What?" said Ginny, stumped.
Eyes crinkling a bit before Dumbledore's face turned calm once again, the Headmaster said, another time, "When you first started to reveal yourself to your family as a magically gifted girl, what kind of things happened?"
"Well…." Ginny started, uncertain as to where this would go, "I did manage to make a pile of laundry burst into flame once, but that was harmless because it was outside. Oh, and then there was that one time when Mum couldn't get the fire going because she was busy in the kitchen, and all the boys were complaining that it was cold, so I made a fire…but that's all just normal stuff, right? Everyone does those things when they're first growing into their magic…." Ginny trailed off after finishing, looking at Dumbledore curiously.
"Yes, Ginny, it is true that most wizards and witches go through periods where their magic is just beginning to develop, and is highly unmanageable. But it is incredibly rare for those young wizards and witches to produce fire the first time around. Typically, only with practice and a wand, are people able to produce fire. It is so with the other natural elements as well. Fire, water, earth and air, or wind, are all enormously difficult for anyone to produce without a wand. Which is why I asked you if you had made fire before," finished Dumbledore, looking at Ginny.
"Oh," was all that came out of Ginny's mouth. Thinking, she tried to process that bit of information. 'So I did something that most people don't do….that's not so bad. At least, she didn't think so….' "Professor, what does that mean? Am I getting…expelled??" Ginny asked, slightly afraid of the answer.
Instead, Dumbledore let out a soft chuckle.
"Of course not, my dear. But, instead of expulsion, I would like you to listen to a theory of mine on your ability to produce fire." Nodding, Ginny leaned back in her chair to listen.
"Well, as I have just told you, witches, and yes, they are always witches, that produce fire without the necessity of a wand are incredibly rare. So rare, in fact, that there have only been two other recorded in history. I also told you that the other three elements of water, earth and air are all difficult to produce as well. I have reason to believe, Ginny that you are an Elemental."
Ginny, completely nonplussed, sat staring at Dumbledore numbly until he continued.
"Elementals are witches who have control over an element. In your case, I believe it is fire, what with your little display in the Great Hall this morning," Dumbledore said this as gently as possible, but Ginny could do nothing to respond.
"The development of an Elemental witch is typical of yours, Ginny. Magical abilities appear at the normal age, as everyone else's does. But those abilities are characterized with an odd ability to produce the element that has chosen them. It is said that sometime around the teenage years, their actual powers begin to manifest themselves as outlets for extreme emotion: happiness, sadness, anger…." Dumbledore trailed off, letting the information sink in.
"All four types of Elemental witches are born at the same time," he continued. "Births of Elementals are supposed to occur every 400 years, but the last recorded set was in the Middle Ages. A very long time ago, as you can imagine. Around that same time, when the Elemental witch controlling fire died, she left us with something of a prophecy. It's written here, in this book," Dumbledore pushed the book he had open on his desk towards Ginny. After a moment of staring, she shook her head and pulled the book off the desk and onto her lap.
"When the natural order of things is threatened, the greatest of all Elementals will emerge when night finally falls, and the fruition of all Elemental power will come to pass, in order to secure the balance of the world for the rest of time. She will possess the combined might of all four elements, and will be capable of controlling the element of the Spirit. And she will be the last."
The passage she had just read shocked Ginny out of her daze. 'So I guess I'm not really that special. Just because I'm supposed to be able to control fire doesn't mean all that much. At least I'm not that chick that can mess with EVERYTHING' she thought weakly. 'Controlling fire is enough for me, thanks. Water? Air? Forget it!'
"I'm sorry Ginny, but I thought it best if you knew everything right away," said Dumbledore, looking at her apologetically. "I didn't mean for it to give you a shock. In the long run, it really doesn't change all that much about you. Now that your abilities have manifested themselves, you should have an easy time of controlling them. They won't explode out of you, like this morning."
Ginny nodded, as things finally began to sink in, and she began to sort through everything once more, just as she had done before she had walked into Professor Dumbledore's office.
"Well, I suppose it's a better explanation than I was expecting. I thought I was a freak…" Ginny muttered, standing up finally.
"But you're not, Ginny. You are merely gifted," said Dumbledore, smiling now.
"I suppose I should be getting to my classes now…." She trailed off, and looked around the room once more, eyes landing on Fawkes the phoenix. Walking to the door, she pushed it open, and said, politely, if a little vaguely, "Thank you, Headmaster," and, with a final goodbye wave to Fawkes, Ginny disappeared out of Dumbledore's Office.
"Well that was interesting…" Ginny said dazedly, stumbling off the rotating stairwell blindly. "Now what am I going to do?" she said quietly, the unanswerable question hanging in the silent hallway.
AN: Perhaps this story should have gone into the Romance/Drama section. It would have done better there, I think. Sorry there was so much information in this one chapter. Revelations, however, are necessary, in order for the plot to run along smoothly. It'll all play out in the end. Anyone that has doubts, stop reading now. For everyone else who wants to stay on board, and is interested in this story and where it's going to go, stay with it, because it'll turn out well. Promise. (Haven't I said that before, in a similar author's note?) Review this chapter, please! My one shout out for tonight is here:
Trephinia Caelyn: Thank you for your deliriously long review. First off, do you think I'm done with this story or something? Obviously, I can't very well resolve the story and explain everything straight up in, what, eight fucken chapters? Secondly, since when are Slytherins supposed to be evil to the extent that they go around killing people!? Slytherins are characterized, as stated by the Sorting Hat, as people who are cunning, and achieve their goals through whatever means necessary. Perhaps you should take into account the fact that J.K. Rowling has done well to exclude any overt supporting evidence of the "All Slytherins are evil! Let's hope they keel over before they cause any more damage!" brainwashing theory in her books thus far. And I AM AN AMERICAN, for fuck's sake; I can characterize "my fellow citizens" however I please. Kay, Lorey and Lex are not ditzy, superficial, or any other stereotypical bullshit that was probably running through your mind while you reviewed my story. As for the slut part? Did you manage to read the rest of the LINE before going off to explore the positive qualities of unbased flaming? Ginny got mad because Ron was being an idiot, trying to force her to do something she didn't want to do, which was "going back to where she belongs." If she reacted badly to being called a slut, then she'd be OOC. But she didn't. She reacted to what I wanted her to, which is what I thought the Ginny that grew up would react to as well. I prefer and admire the capacity for change within each individual, ESPECIALLY someone like Ginny. The physical and mental changes she went through are entirely plausible; even if she hadn't gone to camp, she could very well have changed randomly over the summer all on her own, just because she thought she needed a makeover. But I DIDN'T DO THAT, because that's just not RIGHT. Obviously, I should have stuck with the shittier, pointless, generic version of this story, because then that would have justified and proven the comments you included in your review. But I didn't, so now you're stuck with a review that you submitted that really pissed me off because 1. Why would you read this if you didn't even think the plot was all that good?, 2. You missed the entire point of my story, and 3. I don't know WHERE you get off!!!
On a happier note, thank you for at least taking the time to read my "OOC" story, though I've no idea why you bothered. And, to add to my tirade, I don't use spell check. Computerized spell checking is for idiots, because it messes with the context. Thanks for the compliment on my "description, diction and organization," as well.
Something to think about: It says on the bottom of the review box that constructive criticism is helpful. Maybe you should take that to heart.
**To all others who have helped me immensely with their comments, I thank you. Check back for a chapter update soon.**
-Jaylana