Title: Ginny From the Block
Chapter Twelve
Disclaimer: Still don't own them.
Note: SORRY it took me so long. I'm trying to get back sped up on this, but I'm just getting killed by RL and other projects. Hope you enjoy!
Chapter Summary: Ginny and Dawn still have more music to face and more secrets to reveal…how will the professors and Malfoy take it?
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Thank you for commenting on my story. I hope you continue to enjoy it and continue to give me comments. I enjoy reading them and knowing what you think of them.
Saintly Smile: Sorry that I was wrong. Where I live the schools start in August and I didn't know that English schools started later than that, but thanks for the comments anyways.
Krisa: Don't worry, there will be much more Draco action…hehehe… thanks for your comments on my story.
Chanita: Thanks for commenting. Sometimes I wonder if I portray them all right or if there personality is off.
Forestfire: um… no… hehehe…not sure I get the Independence Day reference, sorry.
Johanna: Yeah, there really isn't too much to crossover there, but I would see a problem with having HP and LOTRs crossover. I really don't know how I would pull that one off… hehehe… thanks for the comments.
sammy_237 : Yeah, I'm sad that Buffy ended too. It really was an awesome show. I've been watching since the beginning. I don't know if my story is good enough to be published, but thanks for the comments… hehehe…I hope you continue to enjoy it.
Ice Queen: I always try to keep the characters true to themselves. I may change them or have them change over time, but never just a full turn around change. In other words, Spike will be Spike… not a puppy…hehehe…thanks for giving me some feedback…
Now, onto the story…
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Chapter Twelve: Facing the Music
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Location: Dumbledore's Office
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Date: August 26th, 2003 (Tuesday)
Time: 7:50 a.m.
"We are expected to believe…" Snape's sneering voice filled the stunned silence, "that you spent the last year working alongside the Slayer? That you slayed vampires and demons and helped to save the world on a weekly basis?"
"Basically." Dawn nodded. "Well, actually longer than last year for me and we faced more Uber-vamps and Bringers than actual vampires last year, but you get the point."
"Uber-vamps?" McGonagall squeaked.
"Turok-Hans." Ginny explained. "Ancient equivalent of vampires. Much stronger than the average vamp, but lacking in brains, creativity, and very easily spotted in a crowd."
"They basically kicked the shit out of us for a while." Dawn continued. "Then Buffy found out head-chopping was a weakness and we got better."
Sirius Black looked to Ginny in amazement. "You fought these creatures?"
Ginny shrugged awkwardly. "What Dawn said. Once Buffy found out about beheading we got really good with aiming a severing charm at their necks."
"Now we have wicked aim." Dawn nodded in agreement. "We'd miss every once and a while and take off an arm or cut them in half, but it usually distracted them enough for another quick charm to finish them off."
"And yet one simple vampire almost finished you off last night." Snape mocked.
Dawn's eyes narrowed menacingly and Ginny sighed. These two were going to end up killing each other. The brunette glared at the greasy professor. "One simple vampire is all it takes to kill any person, especially if you're distracted or don't take them seriously. We were talking to Malfoy when the vamp rose. We were distracted and we were facing a vampire for the first time without Buffy within screaming distance. We panicked and we screwed up." She turned her head to grin at Ginny. "Then Ginny snapped into Slayer Mode and saved my ass."
For a moment the two girls just smiled at each other and seemed to forget they weren't alone in the room. It was like that sometimes. They could just exist in their own little best friend world. It was also rather unnerving for people to witness.
"BLOODY HELL!" Malfoy broke the silence quite effectively as he yelled out his favorite profanity. He spoke to Dawn, but his eyes locked on Ginny. Shock and another emotion Ginny couldn't begin to name raced through the gray depths. "You're not saying Gin's a Slayer?"
Ginny snorted. "Could you look a bit more horrified if you tried?"
"Nope." Dawn shook her head and corrected his misassumption. "Ginny's not the Slayer. There's only supposed to be one Slayer at a time, but a quirk of fate left us with two at the moment. One's my sister Buffy and the other is Faith." She looked back to Dumbledore solemnly. "Faith's a little messed up. That's why I didn't suggest calling her. She's on the road to redemption and getting better, but the general consensus is that she still needs a good long time to heal properly. Besides, we don't exactly know where she is right now anyway. Buffy could find her, but she won't. Faith's not ready to handle full time slayage again yet."
"You said 'Slayer Mode' a moment ago, Summers." Malfoy pointed out. "And you were referring to Gi…" He seemed to realize he was being too familiar with Ginny's first name, "Red."
Dawn rolled her eyes, both at his question and the obvious name-change tactic. "I just meant that she slipped into the groove. Warriors in dangerous situations tend to enter a zone all their own. It's when they usually start kicking butt and taking names. Buffy coined the phrase so it's called 'Slayer Mode'." She directed this explanation to a still twinkling Dumbledore. "Ginny is not the Slayer." The all-too-knowing Headmaster only lifted one brow before Dawn sighed. "At least not yet."
"DAWN!" Ginny screeched as she glared at her best friend for revealing yet another of their secrets. "Feel free NOT to share!"
Though looking a bit shocked himself, Snape still had the pure meanness to smirk at Ginny before looking back to Dawn. "Miss Summers? You were saying?"
"Uh…umm…" Dawn shot Ginny a remorseful wince before she looked back to the intense stares of the professors and broke, "it's just a potential thing, okay? Gin's just a slayer-in-training. It doesn't mean she's going to actually be the Slayer or anything, only that it's possible she'll be called if the current Slayer dies. It's not that big a deal."
Clearly neither the professors nor Malfoy shared her opinion. The professors began to mutter amongst themselves and Malfoy just took the opportunity to curse rather vehemently under his breath. Ginny turned her attention to glaring down Dawn for all she was worth.
Scrambling under her best friend's glare and trying to fix the situation somehow, Dawn tried to reassure the concerned adults. "No! You guys, it really isn't that big a deal. There could be hundreds of potentials, thousands, millions!" Dumbledore hit her again with his lie-detector look. "Okay twelve…but we're all betting on Kennedy!"
"DAWN!"
Dawn's eyes snapped frantically to Ginny's "Oops?"
"A potential Slayer at Hogwarts." Sirius Black's voice sounded out with more than a little disbelief. "Bet that's never happened before."
"It has." Snape snarled at Black while reveling in the opportunity to prove the other man wrong. "It happened once before; some four decades ago…"
"Albus, doesn't a Slayer or potential Slayer need one of those Watcher fellows following her about? Should we contact them?" McGonagall added her two cents.
"I'm afraid they're rather out of business at the moment." Sirius explained calmly. "Unfortunate explosion last year at their headquarters. I believe it was attributed to a severe gas leak."
Ginny couldn't help but snort at that. Thankfully the professors were too busy rambling to each other to notice the sound from her. She shot a glance at Dawn. The brunette looked both horrified and amused. Ginny wanted to hit her…hard. Dawn just couldn't keep that mouth shut, could she?
"What really happened to the blokes?"
Taken aback, Ginny turned startled eyes on Malfoy and blocked out the other conversations taking place around her. "Excuse me?"
"I didn't miss the snort, Red. What really happened to the Watching place?"
"Watchers' Council Headquarters, Malfoy." Ginny corrected him automatically and then frowned over her answer to his question. "It was bombed while the Council was in session. Almost the entire Council was lost in the explosion along with a rather extensive and irreplaceable library on the occult."
Blowing out a breath, Malfoy shook his head in disbelief. "And I suppose you know who was responsible?"
"Doesn't matter now." Ginny explained. "They're dead."
"How though? What happened…"
"They're dead." Ginny repeated and her tone made it clear the subject was closed.
"What have you gotten yourself into, Red?" Malfoy questioned almost to himself.
Ginny's eyes turned deadly serious as shadows of things seen and done shifted through them. "Don't ask questions you don't want the answers to, Draco. Take my advice and leave it alone."
"Too late." Malfoy's eyes turned serious as well. "I'm a part of this now, Ginny, and you can't get rid of me that easily. I can be bloody annoying and persistent when I want to."
"Or just when you breathe." Ginny smirked.
That familiar Malfoy smirk curved his lips. "A gift, that."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa…" Dawn's voice snapped Ginny back to the other main conversation taking place, "what if we do the 'two birds, one stone' deal?"
"What is she talking about, Albus?" McGonagall sounded flustered. "Do these children speak English?"
"Of course not," Snape sneered, "they're Americans."
Dawn snorted. "You, Creepy Guy, need to yank that pike out of your arse and loosen up a bit, as Spike would say."
Snape's mouth fell open is disbelief. His mind clearly could not process that a student, a young girl at that, had actually spoken to him thus.
Ginny felt a giggle escape her throat and slapped her hand over her mouth to hold it back. Thankfully a full-out chuckle from Sirius' position and a mysteriously awkward cough from Malfoy covered it up.
"As I was saying," Dawn completely ignored the chaos her comment caused to the professors before her and drew back to the point, "If you're so worried about Gin having a Watcher then let Spike and Willow cover it. They're both qualified. Spike's more equipped to protect Ginny than anyone save Buffy, and Giles was actually going to recommend for Willow join the Watchers' Council at one point." She threw up her hands dramatically. "See? Spike and Willow help patrol and take out the vamps; Spike and Willow watch over your favorite little potential Slayer Ginny. Two birds, one stone."
"An excellent argument, Miss Summers." Professor Dumbledore finally spoke up and everyone else fell silent to hear what the final decision would be.
That was the way it worked, really. Discussions and arguments were held, any opinion could be heard, and then Dumbledore spoke and everyone else followed his orders.
"I believe, Miss Summers and Miss Weasley have the right of it." Dumbledore addressed both his professors and students. "They have clearly dealt with such situations before and I must agree that calling for reinforcements seems wise. If Miss Summers and her sister, the Slayer, can vouch for these two friends then I see no reason we cannot trust them." His eyes were almost alarmingly solemn as they landed on Snape. "They're help can hardly worsen the situation at any rate. We knew that something must be done."
"I still believe the Slayer…"
"Cannot come, Severus." Dumbledore cut him off. "You heard, Miss Summers, and I hardly believe she would lie about something so easily proven false. I must speak with her sister before approaching her friends at any rate. A lie on Dawn's part would be pointless. The girl has a job that she must do and a Hellmouth that she must guard."
"Of course, Albus." Snape sighed in defeat.
"Now," Dumbledore's eyes began to twinkle once again and Ginny noticed that that twinkle sent a surge of relief through her, "you three may take your leave and hurry along to your first class. I shall handle the rest personally."
Dawn's eyes went wide as she realized what that might entail. "Professor? Do…do you mean calling my sister? I could do that for you, you know. It wouldn't be any trouble at all."
"I'm sure, it would not." Dumbledore sent her an amused smile. "But I shall handle it nonetheless."
With a comical wince, Dawn forced a smile of acceptance to her face and pushed herself to her feet. "Of course, Professor Dumbledore."
Ginny smirked and stood as well. She saw and felt Malfoy follow suit. The fact that she actually felt him beside her was not reassuring. What was wrong with her? Why was she so attuned to his every move, his every word, his every thing?
She'd noticed the faint scent of whatever cologne he wore. She even knew that it was the same one from the last two days, but different from the scent he'd preferred a year ago. She'd noticed that although he still slicked back his hair, as always, somehow it looked less severe this year. It made her wonder. What would it look like loose? How long was it exactly? She'd noticed that he'd grown at least four inches and filled out to match his height. Ron didn't have much on him now and Ginny wondered vaguely if that annoyed her brother.
Ginny couldn't help but notice all these things. Malfoy was growing into a very good-looking man, and Ginny couldn't seem to stop noticing. Why couldn't she just not notice him? What the bloody hell was wrong with her?
Forcing all of this away, Ginny nodded once more to the professors and turned with her two companions to leave. She was still so caught up in her own thoughts, her own issues, that it took a moment to realize what Dawn was groaning as they left. With a flicker of interest, Ginny leaned in closer to her friend.
"I am so dead. I am so dead. I am so…so…so…very dead." Dawn groaned this phrase over and over again. She seemed to be caught in her very own feedback loop.
For a moment Ginny felt sorry for her best friend and the imminent arrival of Hurricane Buffy that Dawn was destined to suffer. Then she remembered that the professors now knew she was a potential Slayer and that she had Dawn to thank for it. A contented smile curved Ginny's lips. She even flashed it at a slightly confused Malfoy as she hummed a little happy song under her breath and made her way down the staircase and out past the statue of the gargoyle.
Sometimes, Ginny realized, life was fair.
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Location: Great Hall
Date: August 26th, 2003
Time: 12:10 p.m.
"Okay, is it always that bad? Cause if so…Tuesdays are becoming my least favorite day of the week." Dawn grumbled to Ginny as they took their seats at the Sunstone table for lunch. They'd just left their first dose of Potions and Advanced Transfiguration back to back. It was not a pleasant four-hour block, and both girls seriously doubted their ability to pull passing grades. Was it too late for a schedule change?
Ginny snorted as she rested her head on her crossed arms. "Sorry to break it to you, but we have the same thing on Thursdays, and we aren't quite through yet. We've still got Herbology this afternoon."
"Oh goody!"
"Not to mention the imminent arrival of hell when Dumbledore gets through chatting with your sister."
"Thanks much for the reminder."
"And the possibility of more of the undead population dropping in for a visit tonight."
"You're just a sweetheart." Dawn shot Ginny a pointed look. "Are you ever going to forgive me for slipping?"
"Slipping is telling someone my latest crush, which you've already done by the way. Slipping is not telling the Headmaster of my school that I'm a potential Slayer. That's diving headfirst into destroying my life. You're lucky I'm speaking to you."
"A potential what? I thought there could be only one."
With identical groans, Ginny and Dawn spun to face their trio of Seventh Year friends again. Dawn shot Ginny a rueful grin. "Why do we keep doing this?"
"At least it wasn't your mouth this time." Ginny grumbled to her with another dark frown. Putting on her most mocking expression, Ginny looked to Dare. "That's Highlander, dear. I have no intention of going about chopping off heads."
"Well, technically…"
"Human heads." Ginny cut her off with a glare. She looked back to Dare. "There is only one Slayer at a time and I'm certainly not her. Let's please choose another subject to butcher, shall we?"
"What subject?" Hunter shrugged unconcerned as he took his open seat next to Ginny. She couldn't help but sigh to herself as she scanned his appearance. His robes were hung open to reveal a form-fitting baby blue shirt snug against sculpted abs and a pair navy blue jeans just tight enough to bring out his killer butt. He looked just scrumptious.
A goofy grin curved Ginny's lips and she completely lost her train of thought.
Noticing Ginny's distraction, Chris rolled her eyes in disgust and moved around the end of the table to sit facing them. Dare took his seat by Dawn. "You were saying?" The blonde Keeper finally spoke up.
"Oh…" Ginny bit her lip. "Umm…" She looked desperately to Dawn. "I was saying?"
"Not much of anything, Gin, unless looks can talk and then Hunter would be blushing right now." Dawn smirked.
Ginny felt her face heat up as if to prove her friend's assumption. She narrowed her eyes on the brunette. "You aren't helping your case any, missy."
"Okay, now you're even talking like Willow. It's getting scary."
"Anyway…" Ginny rolled her eyes. "How were your classes this morning?"
Chris shrugged. "Pretty much the norm." Her eyes lit up. "Oh, but your boy the Ferret lost twenty points for Slytherin in Sixth and Seventh Year DADA for being late to class. He walked in at the same time as the teacher and they were both ten minutes late."
"But he was with us!" Dawn's eyes went big as she shot Ginny an outraged look. "We were all in a meeting with the Headmaster, and the DADA teacher was there too. That's not fair!"
Ginny shrugged unconcerned. "Sirius and Draco have issues." She frowned. "Come to think of it, just about everyone and Draco have issues."
"Ah…so it's Draco now, is it?" Amusement sparked in Chris' eyes. "When did that happen?"
'Good bloody question,' Ginny thought to herself, but tried to shrug the question away. "Just a name. Malfoy, Draco, Ferret, Mal-Ferret, Stupid Git…they're just names."
"Of course." Chris nodded unconvinced.
"Don't worry about the Ferret too much, Dawn." Dare cut in. "The Potions professor gave Slytherin fifty points in class today and managed to weasel us out of another twenty for no apparent reason."
"We lost five, Slytherin got fifteen." Ginny filled them in. "Thankfully we beat Snape to class so he couldn't deduct points for being late." She looked to Dawn. "I told you he's always like that."
"Damn." Dawn grumbled. "Creepy Guy IS worse than Rudley."
The five quickly decided to drop the deep conversations and focus on food. They chatted lightly about classwork, homework, teachers, and other students as they filled their plates and then proceeded to empty them.
Hunter and Ginny talked Quidditch. They discussed their first practices, their first official match some month and a half away, and the new players. Chris threw in her ideas for a few new strategies she'd worked on over the summer and possibilities for new formations that might work with Dawn as a Chaser. Ginny shot down a few that sounded too complex or confusing, but quickly pulled out her Quidditch notepad to jot down the rest.
Hunter asked their opinion on building team unity, which couldn't be easy with Langford on the team. Chris voted for a party, but Ginny thought a prank war might be something they could all dive into. What better bonding experience than embarrassing other people together? She pushed away any twinges of guilt and promised herself she'd steer the group away from Gryffindor.
"So, why hasn't your brother come storming over demanding the details of last night yet, Gin?" Dawn questioned once they finished eating. The group was moving back onto more serious subjects. Not that Quidditch didn't classify as serious, but near-death experiences ranked slightly higher for most everyone save Langford.
Ginny shrugged at the question. She was a little mystified herself. She'd expected the Weasley third degree by now. "I suppose he hasn't heard yet. With any luck, he won't hear at all."
"Oh, I know…"
"BIT! MINI-RED!" The loud accented voice cut through the room like butter. Conversations instantly died and every head turned in the direction of the main doors.
"I KNOW you didn't just say that." Dawn finished on a sigh.
The owner of that unmistakable voice literally growled as he stormed forward towards the two familiar heads he'd picked out on the far table. Silence reigned as the students of Hogwarts waited to see what happened next. Few people even registered the petite redhead following calmly behind the growling man with a smirk curving her lips. She shrugged her apology to anyone looking and tried to keep up pace with the enraged creature.
"I'm going to kill you! I REALLY BLOODY AM!" His intended targets winced at his tone and his eyes flashed with satisfaction at their expressions. Things were moving along nicely. "I'm going to rip you apart limb from limb, suck you completely dry, and use your baby toe bones as toothpicks!" He paused thoughtfully about five meters from the table. "Though, probably not in that order."
Ginny and Dawn gulped and looked to each other. "We can explain!"
The unassuming redhead now stormed up beside the furious male. She crossed her arms over her chest, tapped her foot, and shot the two girls a pointed look. "Well then you just better get hoppin' missies. See this?" She pointed to her face. "This is the 'Resolve Face' and I want some answers now!"
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End of Chapter
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Well? Hope you liked it! Hopefully it was slightly worth the wait. PLEASE let me know if you like it! I'd love any suggestions or comments you can throw my way!
Hope to hear from some of you soon!
PLEASE R&R!!!
Catch you later,
Jade Elise
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Next Chapter: Ginny and Dawn have to deal with the two new Hogwarts guests and are still trying to hide the full extent of their past exploits from the Dream Team. They won't be able to keep hiding it for long…especially when the vamps claim another victim…
