Chapter Four
Monday came around far too quickly. Ginny awoke that morning with a feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach. It wasn't until after breakfast, as she was heading towards charms, that she realized exactly what that feeling was referring to. Charms tutoring, that night with none other than Blaise Zabini, whom she had saved from one of her brother's prank candies. Oh man this was going to be bad.
Ginny became even more nervous as the day went by. She wasn't sure what she should expect out of these tutor sessions, especially seeing as they were often with Slytherins. How should she act, what should she bring? All of these worries and more started to plague Ginny as dinner grew nearer and nearer. Eventually her friends noticed.
"Gin, what's with you today? You seem… antsy." Colin commented during dinner.
"Um, nothing really Colin," Ginny replied.
"Whatever. I can tell you obviously don't want to talk about it. Did you hear what happened with Lavender and Seamus?" Colin asked.
"No!" Ginny replied, glad that they topic had been changed.
"So I walked into the common room today right after lunch right, and there are Lavender and Seamus in the middle of a huge row. It was classic. Anyways, it turns out that in charms class today Seamus was his usual horrible self, really must be something wrong with his wand, and he put some sort of spell on Dean, accidentally of course. Well, you know how Dean and Lavender are going out now, right? Right, so Seamus caused Dean to, well I think it was some sort of age spell or something because Dean is upstairs right now screaming about cooties and that girls are icky and is randomly telling bathroom jokes. It's almost like he lost, like 10 years in maturity!" Colin told Ginny, who was laughing hysterically.
"More like 3 years," Ginny managed to say through her laughter.
"Hey! We men aren't that immature," Ginny just kept laughing at that. "Fine, we can be a bit hard to put up with at times," Colin amended.
Ginny snorted in reply.
By the end of dinner, Ginny had managed to relax somewhat, thanks mostly to the constant chatter of a certain Colin. Although Colin knew that something was bothering Ginny, he didn't push her into telling him, simply tried to take whatever troubled her off of her mind. For that, Ginny was grateful. She got the feeling that this prophecy that she was now a part of was not something she should talk about.
Dinner's end could not be avoided forever and it eventually came. Ginny left the Great Hall feeling lighter hearted than she had all day. There was something about Colin that made any day better. She was still grinning from the stories Colin told her when she walked into the Room of Requirement for the first of her daily tutor sessions.
"So glad that you decided to join me, Weaselette," came Blaise's voice the moment Ginny closed the portrait hole.
"Anything to please you, Almighty Slytherin," was Ginny's sarcastic reply.
Blaise smirked. "I'm sure," she drawled. "Let's get started. The sooner we start the sooner I can wash away Gryffindor cooties."
"Ah, resorting back to first year humor I see. Not that I expected any better from a Slytherin, but honestly, cooties?"
Blaise settled for glaring at that comment and pulled out her charms textbook, both fifth and sixth year. "What are you learning right now in charms?" Blaise asked. And that was how Ginny's charm tutoring began. The entire session was spent on testing what Ginny knew so Blaise would have a better idea on what she had to teach her. It was 2 hours later before Blaise deemed that she knew enough.
"Okay, so you're pretty good at the typical prank charms, mostly illusions. I trust you got that from your idiotic twin brothers. Anyways, we're going to have to work on the more practical stuff, like accio and banishing charms and stuff. Now get out of here and go to the library or something; you still have an hour until curfew and I don't want Dumbledore to think I'm doing this job half assed. I want you to look up these two charms," here Blaise handed Ginny a scrap of paper with the two charms on them. "We'll work on them next week."
Ginny groaned softly. She didn't think that she would actually get homework as well from these classes. The next couple of years were going to be a nightmare, getting double the load of homework and less time to do it in. Knowing better than to complain to Blaise, Ginny reluctantly left for the library, throwing a half-hearted glare over her shoulder as she did so. It was when she got to the library that she realized her motivation. She had been cursing what had gotten her into this mess when she realized that it was Voldemort himself, or a younger version of him. Putting two and two together, Ginny realized that by doing this extra work, she would be that much closer to putting an end to Voldemort. With this in mind, Ginny threw herself into the work as soon as walked through the library doors; studying with such intensity as to rival Hermione at her best. Before long she had charms textbooks spread out all over the table and was intensely taking notes. She was so into studying that she didn't notice when the annoying chime went off in the library, announcing that there was ten minutes left before curfew.
"Miss Weasley…. Miss Weasley!" A hand reached out and shook Ginny's shoulder. "Miss Weasley! You have five minutes until curfew! I suggest that you hustle back to Gryffindor before I take points!" Madam Pince's voice called out.
Ginny's head snapped up and she glanced at the clock in the library. It was indeed five until 10 and she was going to have to book it to get back to the tower in five minutes. "Thanks Madam Pince," Ginny commented as she stuffed some books in her bag and took off out of the library.
With thirty seconds left until curfew, Ginny found herself in front of the entrance to Gryffindor tower. She was out of breath and couldn't feel her legs because of the speed she forced herself to in order to make it back. Ginny glanced behind her to make sure nobody was there; she was pretty sure that Filch and Mrs. Norris had followed her out of the library, hoping that they would catch her breaking curfew. Satisfied that nobody was behind her, she gasped out the password and climbed in.
"Where were you?" came Ron's voice as soon as Ginny appeared in the Common Room. "I've been looking all over for you!"
Ginny held up a finger, signaling that she still needed a moment to catch her breath. Ron stood beside her, impatiently tapping his foot as he awaited her excuse.
"Can't a girl study anymore without informing the whole world where she will be?" Ginny finally managed.
"I'm not the whole bloody world," Ron said. "I'm your brother and it's my job to worry about you."
"So go worry someplace else; you're annoying me!"
"I'm annoying you? I'm annoying you!! I'll have you know missy that I have been worried sick about you for the last 2 hours! Where have you been?"
"Did it ever occur to you that I'm a big girl now and can do as I please without asking permission?"
"You're not a big girl, you're fifteen and therefore, as your only family member here, it is my responsibility to take care of you."
"Ron, you know what you were doing at my age? Coming up with the DA, playing Quidditch, fighting Death Eaters and did you ever ask permission to do these things, with the exception of Quidditch of course?"
"Are you mad? Do you think mum would ever allow me to do any of that if I asked her?"
"Why don't you think on what you just said. I'm tired and I'm going to bed." Ginny left Ron standing near the portrait hole with a confused expression on his face and went up to her dormitories. Once there, she took out the books that she grabbed from the library and started practicing some of the easier charms, making pillows and other objects fly across the room, float to the ceiling, etc.
"I'll show them," she muttered to herself. "Those Slytherins won't get the best of me! They want perfect? I'll show them perfect! Let's see what they say when we're through!"
Needless to say, Ginny was really getting into the competitive spirit. It's amazing what traits Slytherins will bring out in Gryffindors.
Meanwhile in the Slytherin Common Room…
"So, Zabini, how'd it go? You give the Weasel a verbal lashing or what?" Draco asked.
"Actually no; I'm testing her."
"And how exactly are you doing that? Please answer the why too while you're at it."
"Well, I started our little verbal lashing out on her today. Just easy stuff to see how she would respond…" Blaise stopped.
"And…?" Draco prompted.
"Well, she shot that down, so we don't have to worry about her crying if anyone takes a look at her face and runs away."
"That's comforting."
"Yeah well, I need to see what we're paired up with. If we're supposed to save the wizarding world from the evilness that we're supposed to be apart of, then I need to see if it's worth it. I mean, suppose this little Weasley was a crybaby and more of an idiot than Longbottom." Draco snorted when he heard that. "Well, what if huh? Would it be worth it to try and train her to defeat Voldemort then?"
"I suppose not. I guess you've got a point. Just one question Zabini, why would it matter if one of us is a sniveling coward? I mean the others could just take their part of Voldemort and finish the job without them right?"
"That's the point Draco. One of us is going to take everyone else's parts of Voldemort and defeat him. One of us is going to become essentially a copy of Voldemort. Don't you remember the bloody prophecy? It said, 'the four who must, in time be one.' Now think about it Draco, who is the only one of us who cannot give up their part of Voldemort?"
"Weasley," Draco said softly, realization dawning on his face.
"That's right, you get a gold star. Nobody can give up a soul that isn't theirs. Blood can be taken, power given, the mind transferred, but the soul is permanent. Ginny is going to be the one to defeat Voldemort and I want to see if she's worthy."
* * * * *
Hey all, Irish here! I'm sorry for any grammar or spelling or other mistakes I may have made in this chapter. I was so excited to finally have finished another chapter that I wanted to post it right away. Terribly sorry that it took so long for me to get this chapter up! My Research Paper was going on and man was that a killer! You'd think that after 3 years of doing them the night before it's due, I would finally realize that procrastinating isn't the way to go! Yeah…
Anyway the real reason I got this up today is because I need some help! You see, I'm supposed to give this speech in two days… I'm the campaign manager for my friend who's running for Study Body Treasurer at our school and I have no idea what to say in this speech! I don't want it to be boring and stuff, meaning just listing her accomplishments and why she is qualified and stuff! So what should I say? I kinda want it to be humorous and stuff… but I'm not very creative! So HELP! Thanks a lot guys!
~Irish