Cast Away
Chapter 7 ~ Contest
The next morning, Ginny and Sigma woke up early to prevent any run ins with Maria, Julia and Cassandra.
'I don't think they'll wake up until eight, I mean, they did have a late night last night.' Ginny told her friend. Sigma nodded, and they walked out of the bedroom and down the stairs into the common room.
Hermione, Harry and Ron were sitting in their chairs at the fireplace not saying anything.
'Good morning Ginny, Sigma,' Hermione said brightly. 'You two certainly are up early this morning, excited about classes?'
'Not really, we were just getting out of our room before Maria, Julia and Cassandra wake up.' Ginny told her.
'Maria? She's the Gryffindor prefect, she is a nice girl,' Hermione replied. Nice? I don't think so… Ginny thought to herself.
'Shall we head down to breakfast, Ginny?' Sigma asked softly.
'Sure, Hermione, Ron, Harry, I'll see you guys later,' Ginny waved goodbye and went with Sigma.
'Bye Gin.'
'Seeya Ginny,'
'I'll see you down at breakfast.' Came the three farewells as Ginny and Sigma left.
'Why do they never talk to you, Sigma?' Ginny asked as soon as they were out of earshot. Sigma shrugged.
'It could be because I do not talk that much.' She answered.
'Maybe, I'm not sure, but I don't see anything wrong with you!' Ginny said, and the two headed off to the Great Hall for breakfast, even though it was half an hour before breakfast actually started.
In the Great Hall, there was a large crowd surrounding the Slytherin table. This is weird, Slytherins usually don't like having people around them? Ginny thought, so the two friends went to check it out. They pushed their way to the front of all the people, and saw two guys standing on the Slytherin table. Blaise Zabini, and none other than Draco Malfoy himself. Sitting inbetween the boys were two large barrels.
Ginny looked around the Great Hall, trying to spot a teacher somewhere, however, no teachers were around. A lot of whispering was going on around them, people were wondering what was going on. Leanne Brayshaw, a fifth year Slytherin, got up onto the table. She was very skinny, very pretty, very mean and very popular. Leanne wore tight fitting jeans and a small white singlet top. Some cheers rose from the male population as Leanne got up. She smiled, and started her announcement.
'With the help of some fellow Slytherins, I have organised a contest!' Another loud cheer. 'In each of these barrels is five litres of cold, hard coleslaw!' Some murmurs could be heard, people were wondering what the contest would be on. 'Let me introduce the contestants! Here is the smartest, most popular, amazing, spunky Slytherin, Draco Malfoy! The challenger today, is none other than Blaise Zabini! Second to Draco in everything, but he's back to prove that wrong!' Leanne paused after the introduction of her contenders.
'An eating contest?' Ginny whispered to Sigma.
'Whoever gets their slaw down first is the winner! No throwing up, no cheating!' Leanne announced. 'Barrels ready! GO!'
Draco and Blaise both lifted their barrels to their mouths and started to slurp down the slaw. Some people looked away in disgust, Ginny was one of those people, but she slowly started to get drawn back to the contest. Blaise started to struggle, almost throwing up, but Draco was going strong. He stopped only to breathe. Sigma looked on in amazement, while most of the people in the audience were highly amused.
'Only fools would do something like this!' Ginny said to her friend. Draco looked as if he had almost finished, but Blaise was certainly making a challenge out of himself. After a few more minutes, Draco was successful in defeating Blaise, and getting all his slaw down. Draco showed Leanne and the audience his mouth to prove that he had swallowed all of it, and a huge cheer broke out. Blaise set his barrel down, clearly disappointed in his efforts.
Leanne clapped her hands two times, and a small house elf rushed out with two large glasses filled with a sticky brown paste. Leanne took the glasses from the elf, and it scurried off.
'These glasses contain slaw, Hippogriff slop, raw octopus, clams, tomato paste, raw flour, raw eggs and one sardine, all blended in together! Can we have a challenger from the audience to take on our winner, Draco Malfoy?' Leanne announced.
Ginny thought about this, she had never had problems with eating disgusting foods, her fellow Gryffindors always used to dare her to eat various things to be accepted into their circle of friends. No one else looked like they were up for the challenge, some people even turned a bit green.
'No takers?' Leanne asked once more. Ginny put her hand in the air.
'I'll take it on.' She said bravely, and everyone turned to see who had accepted the challenge.
'Weasley?' Draco spat, stifling a laugh, however, Ginny bravely left Sigma's side and stepped up onto the table. Some Slytherins jeered at her, but the other three houses cheered her on, hoping that she would beat Draco. Leanne handed a glass to Draco, and one to Ginny.
'Shake hands!' Leanne said happily. Draco stuck his hand out, not wanting to be a bad sport, and Ginny took it. 'Contestants ready? On my go, three, two, one, GO!'
Ginny got straight into her mixture, holding her nose and chucking the gross drink down. She didn't even taste it as the mix slipped down her throat. She paused for a second to let the stuff that she had already swallowed settle down in her stomach, before getting straight back into it. Ginny forgot that she was even in a competition, she just focused on getting that mixture down as soon as possible. At last, Ginny got to the last mouthful, remembered where she was, and showed everyone her mouth to prove she had swallowed it all.
'We have a winner!' Leanne cried, and she held Ginny's hand up. Draco glared over at Ginny, he still had half of his mixture to go. Applause broke out from the large crowd as Ginny broke into a smile. Draco scowled. Ginny jumped down from the Slytherin table, and rejoined Sigma.
'That was amazing, I never knew you were capable of something like that!' Sigma congratulated her.
'Thanks Sigma.' Ginny replied.
~***~
After the incident at breakfast a few days ago, Ginny had found she had gained a new level of respect from her fellow students. Everyone seemed to know who she was, the girl who beat Draco Malfoy. Ginny received many congratulations from most students, and many glares from Draco and his fan club.
'Great way to start off the school year, Ginny, we're all proud of you!' A seventh year Hufflepuff said to Ginny as he passed her in the corridor on her way to class.
'You're popular Ginny, maybe doing that contest was the best thing that you could have done.' Sigma said to her as they entered Transfiguration that morning.
'Imagine if I'd lost though.' Ginny thought aloud.
'But you didn't,' Sigma replied.
'Miss Weasley, detention, my office, tonight eight PM sharp.' Professor McGonagall said sternly.
'What did I do, Professor?' Ginny asked innocently.
'I heard about that incident at breakfast, Mister Malfoy will also be receiving detention. That is against the school rules. Twenty points from Gryffindor for your behaviour.' Ginny and Sigma took their seats, Ginny looking like she could burst into tears at any moment.
'I've never lost Gryffindor any points before!' Ginny complained. 'And I've never broken the school rules… if I'd known that was breaking the rules, I would never have done it! What if they send a letter home to my parents?'
'Calm down Ginny, you showed up Draco Malfoy, isn't that great? That is more important to Gryffindor than twenty points, you know.' Sigma said, making Ginny feel ten times better.
'You're right, thanks Sigma. I'll just go tonight, and accept my punishment.' Ginny replied with a smile on her face.
~***~
At a quarter to eight, Ginny said goodbye to Sigma and made her way to Professor McGonagall's office. She saw that Draco was waiting outside, leaning against a wall.
'She's not here yet.' He growled.
'Why isn't Leanne getting punished? She organised the whole thing.' Ginny asked, outraged.
'The person who squealed didn't dob in Leanne, I think the guy has a crush on her or something.' Draco replied.
'Who told?' Ginny asked.
'I don't know, but I suspect Zabini, he doesn't like losing.' Draco replied.
'Neither do you, as it appears.' Ginny smirked. Draco punched the wall rather hard.
'Next time, it'll be your face.' He growled. Ginny shut her mouth immediately, and stood patiently, waiting for Professor McGonagall to show up.
Eight PM came, and went, and still no sign of McGonagall. Ginny leant against the wall, and lowered herself onto the ground. She sat with her back against the wall, not daring to say another word until Professor McGonagall arrived. Soon, Draco did the same thing, sitting directly opposite to Ginny. They both stared at eachother, hatred in their eyes, neither one looking away, or blinking.
When it pushed on ten o'clock, an owl arrived. It landed on Draco's shoulder, and he opened the envelope. He read it out to Ginny, seeing that it wasn't a personal letter.
'Mister Malfoy and Miss Weasley,
I thank you for your patience, you may now head back to your common rooms, your detention has been served.
Minerva McGonagall'
'That was it?' Ginny asked, 'Spending two hours with you? I would have rather cleaned Hippogriff pens.' Draco glared at her.
'And you think it was fun for me, Weasley?' Draco stood up, and walked downstairs, in the direction of the Slytherin dungeons. Ginny soon followed, but she went upstairs to the Gryffindor tower.
When she got up there, Sigma was sitting in an armchair, waiting for Ginny to come back. All the lights were out, along with the fire place, and Sigma was sitting in only the candle light from one of her many candles.
'Ginny, how was your detention?' Sigma asked wispily. Ginny sighed.
'More horrible than you could imagine. McGonagall didn't even turn up, and I had to sit with Draco for over two hours waiting for her to come, and then she finally sent us an owl saying that our detention was over, and we could go back to our common rooms.' Ginny explained.
'Oh, what an awful night for you,' Sigma said, being quite sympathetic of her friend.
'Yeah, I know, I just want to get to bed now, so I'll see you in the morning.' Ginny said, and headed up the stairs to her dorms.
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Serpent of Light ~ Don't worry I'll still update fast once this fiction is caught up to all the others. Did you like this chapter? Thank you for reading and reviewing.
SexySlytherinChick ~ Draco is here! Lol. Did you like the way I introduced him in this chapter? I don't know about having Ginny punch Ron, maybe a slap across the face later on? Thank you for reading and reviewing.
Tylah ~ Sorry about not putting an answer to your review in the last chapter! I didn't see your review on the page until after I had the chapter posted… Guy must have been the best seeing as he won Idol! I'm trying to make Sigma interesting, she's not a normal person, we'll find out why along the track, wink wink. Did you like how I made Draco show up? I had fun writing this chapter! I hope you liked it.
kura52 ~ I thought you might be happy about Sigma, did you like how I made Draco appear? This was one of my favourite chapters that I've written, I had fun writing it! Yes, Ginny's fellow Gryffindor 5th years aren't very nice to her… but that's okay because she has Sigma! I hope you liked this chapter.
HarryzBabe ~ I like the name Ptolemy too, I found it while I was looking up constellations and stuff like that. I hope you liked this chapter, I enjoyed writing it, and it's longer than the last one! Just as I said it would be!
purfectchild ~ Ginny will be standing up for herself a lot more after this chapter, she has gained a lot of respect by beating Draco, and a lot more self esteem. This is the start of Ginny and Draco getting together, but it will be a long and bumpy road. Them getting together will not be easy at all! They do still hate eachother. I hope you liked this chapter!
rose petel ~ Ginny does seem unloved, doesn't she! That's how I wanted her to seem in those first few chapters, but now, she has more respect and dignity. Thank you for reading and reviewing, I hope you liked this chapter.