Disclaimer: Characters from the Harry Potter novels obviously belong to J.K. Rowling. I own Arion (Professor Caelestis), Kiribati, Harrumph's Wizarding Dictionary, "fuckage", and Damascus.

REPOSTED WITH SLIGHT MODIFICATIONS

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Chapter 7: The Beginnings of an Unsuspecting Friendship

The scarlet train which was the Hogwarts Express emitted a long, loud toot and Ginny placed her hands over her ears, intent on having at least a moment's peace before the school year set in. Summer break was over. That is, a summer break where many things and nothing at all happened. For the first time she felt as though summer had been an unfinished novel, and hating unfinished things, Ginny sat alone in a tiny compartment near the back of the train wishing for closure.

She could hear students, first years mostly, she was sure, thumping along awing over small spells, congregating to decide who was most crushable amongst the older students. Ginny sat there contemplating the summer. The one thing she'd neglected for the two months was her power - the new and unexpected, unwelcome power that lent her her newfound confidence. The power which, she was alarmed to discover, allowed her mind to wander through history and do something quite remarkable altogether.

The discovery came the night before, effectively, at the Malfoy soiree. She'd enjoyed herself to begin with, but the more the colours swirled around her, the more she found herself handling the emotions of three very different, and very influential men. She'd left the party and strolled into what she later discovered was the Malfoy Mansion library. Who were these three men? Why, Draco Malfoy, Arion, and Harry Potter.

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Ginny shut the door silently behind her. Of all the doors in the damned mansion you'd think more than one out of fifty would be unlocked. Obviously that wasn't the case seeing as she'd wandered down more than two corridors and three suspicious looking passageways and was convinced she'd never find her way out again. Considering that it was, in fact, the Malfoy Mansion, she wasn't sure that was such a good thing. She had no idea where she was going but the important thing was to get away from them. Men::UGH: She'd never been more frustrated. All at once they came down upon her. Would she have a dance? A drink? A kiss? How about a tour of the bedrooms? She shook her head in disgust. And it wasn't only them either. They didn't make things easier. Bloody Slytherins. What on earth made that Malfoy boy think that Slytherins would mix well with a party of Gryffindor do-gooders.

Apart from the occupants of Grimmauld Place, it seemed that all of Gryffindor House and Hufflepuff… and Ravenclaw were there in addition to the Slytherins. The atmosphere was a distinctly tense one, very few broke the unspoken barrier between the dreaded Slyths and the rest of Hogwarts… other than Lavender Brown and what seemed to be a far slimmer Marcus Flint (who Ginny later learned was the latter's young brother, Derek Flint) who were more or less fornicating on the dance floor. Ginny shuddered. She could count the offers she'd received that night. Five? Six? Maybe seven if she included that painting of a black-haired man who looked distinctively Malfoy who'd told her outright that were he still corporeal he'd have his way with her. Ginny had smiled winningly and hurled her drink at him.

Now, enveloped in the dark of what seemed an overheated room, she paused to listen for footsteps. Sooner or later Malfoy or Arion or Harry would come looking for her and she'd have to make up some elaborate excuse about looking for the loo and ending up in this… this uh… what the hell was this place?

A fire cackled behind her and she stumbled back, cursing. She observed that it was, in fact, a very large room filled with rows upon rows of books reaching a high, vaulted ceiling which looked out into the night sky. The fire found its source in an enormous fireplace in the centre of the room surrounded by wide sofas and couches with comfortable looking cushions and little blankets draped on the arms. A ladder swung unattended between the shelves. Ginny was delighted. It seemed to be the library of her dreams: an old fashioned, tome-filled haven which had just the right atmosphere, and just the right light. Even the books seemed welcoming. Surprisingly titles that bore names such as Romeo and Juliet, The Tragedy of Hamlet, A Hundred Years of Solitude jumped out as she realized with quiet awe that Malfoy read Muggle literature.

A monumental floor to ceiling window looked out over vast green which melted away into the ocean beyond. The night sky, filled with the winking brilliance of the stars, blinked down at her and she wished beyond everything that time would just stop and she could soak up the wonder that was this place.

Ginny didn't know how long she lay there contently gazing at the moon. At length, she'd retrieved a large dusty book, The Weird of Fionavar, a collection of poems on a Faerie Queen when she began questioning the strange silence that adhered to the mansion. She wasn't expecting to hear the revelries, but the stillness had become unnatural, and the moon hadn't moved from the sky. "…you need not fear for pain or woe, Fionavar the road you go."

The looming clock carved in stone above the fireplace read half past midnight. But that surely had to be wrong it'd been half past midnight when she'd first arrived. "…you need not fear for pain or woe, Fionavar, the road you go." Ginny suddenly felt chilled.

Throwing the book back on the shelf, she observed that the flames were cackling once again. Had they been cackling the entire time? Ginny herself couldn't have said how she found her way back to the ballroom but she'd burst in through two side doors which she'd not noticed before to find the party still going and the dance floor the exact same as she'd left it.

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Three things happened that night. 1. A tentative truce was established between the occupants of Grimmauld Place and the youngest Malfoy, 2. Ginny had learned not to leave Damascus cooped up in a room for five hours without fresh air, and 3. Ginny had learned not to play with time.

Yes, yes, she'd frozen time, she realized later. It wasn't for more than half an hour, but it had frozen nonetheless and her heart pounded blood so vigorously to her mind from it that she'd fallen into bed and clutched the pillow hoping to stop the pressure in her temples.

Luckily and maybe unluckily, she wasn't alone to deal with the aftermath. When the house had fallen silent, light footsteps crept into her room and sat on her bed. Ginny opened one eye and found herself looking at the fuzzy pink nose of Damascus.

"Yelp!" she scrambled back into the headboard of the bed. "Damascus!" The little tiger looked very pleased with himself and he pawed at the blanket, creating a circular indent before settling himself in for a snooze. Ginny stared perplexed at the little cat, she'd let him out for the night… to play with Kreacher and whatnot.

"Yes, well he looked like he wanted to come in, and being the gentleman I am, I let him."

Ginny started under her blankets. There was Arion, leaning against the far post of her four-poster bed in his now signature white tee and dark green and blue plaid boxer shorts.

"Arion!"

"Yes, yes that's my name."

"What are you doing here!" she whispered in a strangled voice.

"Well, now that you've mentioned it, I supposed there're a couple of things we could talk about." He slid from the far side of the post to the foot of her bed. "Your headache… and me. Well, let's talk about me. See anything different?"

Indeed she had. In fact her eyes were bugging slightly from the man… uh… young man, who sat in front of her. "Guten tag! Ich bin Ian. Or, or, how about this… Salut, je m'appelle Louis-Christian, mais pour toi, ma cherie, Louis marche." The boy, for really, he looked about seventeen, had a huge grin – very uncharacteristic of Arion, plastered on his face, bouncing up and down slightly on her bed asking her genuinely which name suited him more.

"Who are you and what have you done to Arion?" Ginny whispered.

"I, Miss Ginny, am the new exchange student to Hogwarts. Now, choose for me, have I transferred here from Le fond de l'étang or from Schule Copernicuss von Magie?"

"The bottom of the barrel?"

"Indeed, you have to be creative with these names. I think I want to be Louis-Christian Pepinot. I love it. It's got such a nice ring to it, wouldn't you say?"

"Arion, what is going on!" The boy stopped in mid theatrics with a look of manicured surprised.

"Has no one told you? I'm playing double agent!"

"As a dingbat of a teenaged boy!" Ginny demanded.

"Now, now Miss Ginny, let us not be so hard-headed. I can do many things, I'm sure you know. My talents are being enlisted for this entire Dumbledore-Order debacle. He thinks I'm a faerie, and of course, faeries can be in multiple places at the same time. Isn't it convenient that I just happened to come along?"

"So he doesn't know what you really are." she remarked. "Well then, that's a good thing." Arion smiled winningly and threw himself at the pillow next to hers, stomach down, looking up at her with large, deep, adoring eyes. "Don't do that, you look about three."

"See, that's the plan, sweetheart."

"Let's get this straight. You're going to be this Professor Caelestis character as well as an exchange student –

"Louis-Christian Pepinot, ouai."

" – Louis-Christian Pepinot, at the same time."

"Exactement. I will have buckets of fun spying on the staff and the student body. I think I've been arranged to be put into Slytherin."

"…Ew." Arion pouted.

"Not ew, Gryffindor is ew. Gryffindor has a Hero Complex."

"And that's bad because?" Ginny demanded.

"Swollen heads, sensitive egos and an insatiable need for attention. It's so draining." Arion said with a flourish. Ginny looked him up and down. He was a little easier to look at without drooling now, though still… wonderfully beautiful. His face was a little less chiselled. His hair was longer and a very soft brown. He had Draco's build and the largest, chocolate brown eyes with the most amazing eyelashes. "I know I'm pretty, but please, I'm blushing." he said snarkily. Ginny raised one eyebrow.

Several moments passed. The younger Arion was still grinning at her, and she was thinking of a way to express her thoughts.

"Arion. Are you gay?"

:silence:

Suddenly, there were two of them. Ginny's eyes widened as the twenty-something Arion and the seventeen year old one both stared at her.

"Are we gay? Arion, are we gay?"

"Well, I don't know, are we?"

"We could always just tell her, but I think she'd rather experience it."

"How right you are, young me. How's about we do this?"

Suddenly, there was one of them… him… it? Ginny was still responding to Arion's multiplication subsequent unification that the kiss came so unexpectedly.

What the... oh.

He was wonderfully sensual. There was something very refreshing about that kiss. Ginny would reflect later on that it was the best kiss she'd ever had – not to mention the first. It was so soft, so pure… :sigh: Arion laid her gently against the pillows. She sat up a little while later, blinking her senses back. He was seventeen again.

"So no, I am not gay." he said frankly as though the entire demonstration was just that… a demonstration.

"A verbal answer would have sufficed you hormonal git. Get out, get out!"

Damascus woke from the screeching, the clawing and shoving and raised his head to see his young mistress manhandling the pretty boy. In fact, the boy didn't look all too bothered even if she had him by his lovely brown hair, slapping him the entire time while marching him out the door. The tiger buried his head into the sheets as the little harpy barrelled back into the room and threw herself at the pillows.

"Damascus… I hate him!"

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Ginny cringed at the memory of the night before. She'd not slept until around five in the morning and that proved completely futile as everyone woke at six not mention that her headache came right back the minute she began thinking about it again. As the Hogwarts Express sped through the mountainous and wooded landscape of Scotland she heaved a large sigh and rearranged Damascus on her lap.

She reckoned she'd have to report to the prefect's cabin soon… well, not until the First Years had shut up flashing heart eyes and giggles at the three preferred candidates. Those three gits. Who? Why, Draco Malfoy, Louis-Christian Pepinot, and Harry Potter.

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Notes:

Le fond de l'étang: Reference to the movie Les Choristes

Pepinot: Also from Les Choristes

The little part with Arion being gay: I had a similar conversation with a friend of mine. All of my best guy friends are gay, I love them. I thought I'd re-enact a part of it…

So… Is it Arion? Is it Harry? How about Draco? What's going on? OOOOOMMMMGGGGGGG.

Sorry about the long wait. Three words: I. Hate. School.