Chapter 5 Rage of the Red Heads
The dark shadows of the Slytherin common room made it impossible for
Ginny to see anything. Professor McGonagall had forced her to tutor
Draco Malfoy in Transfigurations. He was failing. Big surprise, Ginny
had thought to herself. She was often referred to as the "Granger
Protégé", and as a result, was at the top of her class. She may as
well have been in her brother Ron's class, but the change had never
been made official. Instead, she got stuck tutoring conceited,
arrogant, pompous, rich, slimy, repulsive, and rarely attractive
seventh year students whose greatest talent was distinguishing between
mudbloods and purebloods... Like THAT was something to be proud of?
Ginny thought. Because, you know, that always turns me on. She
continued. She snorted at this, an unfortunate and embarrassing
trademark of the Weasley women (of which she could count on one hand,
but that's a different story).
"Something funny, Weasel?" Malfoy hissed at her, as a shock of greasy
blonde hair fell out of his perfectly constructed masterpiece into his
eyes. He rolled his eyes and reached in his robe pockets. He pulled
out a jar of grease, literally, and artistically created his signature
hair again.
"No, not at all." She said, trying to contain herself, as a huge grin
spread across her face at the sight of his vanity.
"Didn't think so."
"Er—alright then, why don't we begin with a review of the bas-" Ginny started.
"Look-", Draco stopped searching for the right way to go about getting
his way, "Ginny." He took a step towards her and flashed a half smile
at her, revealing perfectly straight, brilliant white teeth. "We
really don't have to do this. I, personally, can think of a much
better way to spend my time, rather than choking on air contaminated
by a – what I mean is..."
"Save your breath, Malfoy. Listen, I have NO desire to spend MY
precious time teaching a dim wit like you how to do spells we learned
in first year. It's not my fault you and Pansy what's-her-face spend
the whole time choking on each other's forked tongues rather than
paying attention. And I'm sure that when you go whining to Daddy he
would just LOVE to hear about how you spend your time outside of class
fucking, rather than doing your homework. And I'd just LOVE to hear
how that goes, but I really don't have the time to deal with screw
ups", she gave a light laugh, "like you", she stuck her forefinger in his face, "So don't tell ME that YOU don't have to study, and that you didn't screw up, and don't make ME
waste my time. You better make these sessions worth your while,
because if you don't there's going to be mayhem with the Malfoys", she waved her hands frantically in the air," you mark my words! Just remember that the next time you think with another part of your anatomy, rather than your brain!" She smiled and tilted
her head. Her face just as red as her hair. "Alright then, what do you
say we begin?"
Ginny's asthma began to kick in due to her, shall we say, difficulties
with anger management, as red heads often do. She breathed heavily and
her lungs tightened as she inhaled frozen air. In an attempt to get
out of tutoring via flirting, Draco had come quite a bit closer to
Ginny than he had thought. They were standing just inches apart. He
became quite aware of this when he felt Ginny exhale warm air onto his
cheek. He had never noticed the constellation of perfectly arranged
freckles on the bridge of her nose. He had never noticed the wisps of
red hair that fell down around her eyes. He had never noticed the rose
lips whose thorns had, just moments ago, stung him with an awful
amount of insults.
What was he thinking? Was he falling for... he gulped...a, a, WEASLEY?
"I don't get you, Harry? How could do that, to my sister, no less?
Did you think I would LET you break Ginny's heart? Did you think I'd
support you running with that", his eyes went blank, a wistful look
took over his face, "that, er, that, well, umm..." Ron's face flushed
a bright pink. "Well, umm, I, I", his face brightened, "I would have
FULLY resented you for having such an affair with such a gorgeous
girl! And then, then my friend, I would have yelled at you for
thinking with another part of your anatomy rather than your brain!" He
smirked at this. Whenever Ginny got really mad at any of them (he and
his brothers that is) she would blame it on that. He continued,
"Honestly, Harry! I just don't understand how you can do that Ginny?
She's liked you since the summer before second year. Now I must admit
if thousands of girls, mostly very attractive girls, were attacking me
with love letters and such, just because of a SCAR on my forehead",
Ron said this through gritted teeth. Throughout their friendship he
had never been jealous of Harry, with one exception: the girls. "Well,
I would get caught up in the moment too. I mean, I suppose I'd have to
be a gentleman and all and at least give them a sympathy date, maybe
two if need be...if they were THAT desperate, you know."
"Sorry for that." Harry interrupted, "It's just that, there's
something about Eden that I've never felt before, not even with Cho!"
Ron sat down on the windowsill, tucking his knees up close to his
chest. He hit his head on the stone as he climbed in. "Ouch!" He
rubbed his head with his hand. This HAD to be serious. Harry liked
somebody MORE THAN CHO? He knew now that Harry had NO control over the
situation, but still Ginny would hurt more than ever.
"It's just her voice and those-"
"I know, they're amazingly-"
"Ron, I was talking about her eyes?"
"O, yea, of course, right yea they're so...."
"Blue?" Harry prompted.
"Yea, yea, YEA, blue, that's it alright!"
Harry laughed, and Ron covered his face with his hands.
"Look, Harry, I know you really like Eden, but I don't know how
Ginny's going to handle this, I mean..."
"I know. I'll do it right, I know the perfect way to do it!"
"Alright then. Just be careful, Harry. She's my kid sister."
"No worries." Harry smiled. With Eden everything felt so right, it was
like she was the missing piece to the puzzle. Now, if he could just
think of a way to tell Ginny...