Chapter six: Scandals
Blaise yawned exhaustedly as he slid into a seat next to Draco at the Slytherin table, in the great hall.
Draco raised an eyebrow at his friends drawn face.
"Late night?" he chuckled in bemusement as Blaise glowered at him, pulling a plate of sausages towards him.
"Who was it this time?" Draco inquired in his lazy drawl, making Blaise choke on his breakfast.
"What?" he spluttered, gulping down some pumpkin juice hastily.
Draco stared incredulously at him.
"The girl you were with last night – Crabbe said you didn't return to the Slytherin dormitory last night?"
Blaise shrugged.
"No one special" he replied and felt an uneasiness in the pit of his stomach. The feeling he got when he'd lied about something important. But he wasn't lying now was he. He'd been with granger, and then he'd walked round the Hogwarts grounds until early that morning, before slipping into the prefect's bathroom for a shower. He'd not been doing anything particularly meaningful, had he?
He looked up trying to catch a glimpse of Hermione. To make sure she'd recovered from the amount of alcohol they'd drunk last night. He had a feeling she'd never been drunk let alone on a spirit!
However, it was not Hermione's eye he caught, but Daphne Greengrass'. Blaise had noticed Daphne a few times before. It was hard not to, with her striking green eyes and long honey blonde hair; she was easily the prettiest girl in Slytherin.
Blaise glanced away from her green eyes, then back again, and was surprised when Daphne smiled alluringly at him. Blaise gave her a brief nod in return before turning his attention back to the Gryffindor table.
Ginny laughed as Harry fed her a piece of hot buttered toast, missing her mouth and spattering butter across her cheek.
"Hey!"
Her boyfriend yelped as she flicked pumpkin juice at him in response, and then kissed her passionately. Capturing her lips and then kissing the butter from her cheek, making her laugh again.
"Please stop it! You're making me nauseous!" Ron moaned from his seat opposite the happy couple, from where it was difficult to look anywhere but the sickening antics of his best friend and baby sister.
"That is my little sister you're drooling all over remember Harry?" Ron glowered suddenly, flexing his fingers into a fist, "I should have punched you one ages ago"
"Oh Ronald. Shut up!" Ginny silenced her overprotective brother, before feeding Harry some of the grapes from the breakfast table.
"Anyway, dear bother of mine, shouldn't you be working at your own love life?" Ginny added innocently, kicking her brother under the table and nodding towards the door of the great hall, where Hermione had just entered.
Ron blushed a deep puce and kicked Ginny back.
"I haven't a clue what you're talking about" he muttered.
"No change there then" Harry snorted and Ginny burst into fresh peels of laughter.
Hermione approached the threesome and smiled sleepily.
Harry grinned at her, indicating for her to sit and pouring her a cup of tea. Ginny tensed in his arms slightly at this sight. It was little things like pouring cups of tea with the right amount of sugar and knowing what to say or what to do, like wrapping an arm around Mione's shoulder at the right time, was what made Ginny wildly jealous of the older girls' relationship with Ron and Harry. It was stupid she knew. I mean she was Harry's girlfriend now and Hermione was no threat she knew, its just she so desperately wanted to be part of that crowd. The intricately woven friendship of three. The golden trio.
Ginny tuned back into the conversation.
"Mione you look different" she heard Harry comment as he peered at her closely.
Hermione blushed.
"Okay, but you can't tell Parvati or lavender" she squirmed.
"I was feeling unwell this morning so I used a couple of glamour spells..." she groaned as Harry and Ron started to laugh. Ginny frowned in confusion.
"So what, I use them every morning" she said, unsure. Harry smiled.
"Ah yes, but mione here has proclaimed a universal dislike for glamour spells and any other form of artificial enhancement" he explained, "how ironic!" he grinned wickedly.
Ginny stared at Hermione.
"So you've never used make up or anything?" she now felt her envy swell a little. How could a girl who used nothing to enhance her looks be the apple of two of the best looking boys at Hogwarts eyes? She herself had to use concealers, mascara, and hair taming lotions just to look reasonable! Ginny took a deep breath. It wasn't that she didn't like mione – on the contrary she was a great friend – it was just everything came so easily to her.
"I like it" declared Ron finally, after he'd finished gaping at Hermione.
Hermione blushed slightly. Sometimes she wondered if any of the feelings she'd once harboured for Ron in her fourth year still existed somewhere below the surface. It would be so easy to date him, she sighed, as she twiddled a strand of her now shiny soft hair round her middle finger.
Blaise caught sight of Hermione as she entered the hall. She looked different he thought for a moment. Not like she was nursing a hangover at all. That was just as well he determined, as if she had looked quite as ghastly as himself, he would have bet good money on Draco putting two and two together.
"the mudblood looks a damn sight better, then she did earlier" commented Draco, making Blaise choke for a second time that morning.
"What?" he stammered, gawking at the blonde boy. Draco smirked.
"I do believe the bookworm is having a touch of trouble with coping with her responsibilities. I found an empty bottle of whisky in the common room this morning and a rather bedraggled looking granger" he crowed delightedly.
Blaise gulped and stood up hastily.
"I gotta go" he stammered, "herbology – miles away"
Draco stared after the other boy in mystification. He'd defiantly gotten stranger that's for sure.
Blaise slumped back against the cool outside wall of the castle and closed his eyes tightly. What the hell was happening to him, he wondered hysterically. How had he gotten into a situation involving a mudblood. His parents would kill him if they found out.
He took a few deep calming breaths of the chilly November air and felt himself relax mentally and physically.
There wasn't really anything to find if he was being honest. They were unwilling potions partners and had maybe had a few drinks one afternoon and that was all. It wasn't like he was parading her round Hogsmede or anything, was it.
"I was wondering if you wanted to go to Hogsmede with me on Saturday."
Blaise shrieked girlishly at the soft sound of a girl's voice.
Don't be granger, please don't be granger…. He prayed as he reluctantly opened one eye, to distinguish the owner of the voice.
An English rose complexion and a lot of silky ash hair came into focus.
"Daphne" he acknowledged the pretty girl in front of him. He couldn't help but notice the perfectly blended air of innocence and seduction on her china doll features. His cobalt eyes drifted down her figure, taking in her ample curves and he raising an eyebrow in bravado, he smirked up at Daphne.
"Im sorry, what did you say?" Blaise implored politely, flashing her his most charismatic smile. Daphne blushed attractively.
"I was wondering if you would take me to Hogsmede this weekend?" she simpered. Blaise's eyes glinted.
"I would be delighted to Miss Greengrass" he replied heroically, proffering his arm, which she took, in order to escort her to herbology.
After a long, tender goodbye to Harry, Ginny found herself alone in her advanced muggle studies classroom. It was her first class, as they happened on a fortnightly basis, due to lack of interest from students as well as lack of intellect for studying the finer aspects of muggle life. Muggleborn wizards found little need to attend this class and many pureblood were frustrated by the complexity that a lack of magic had on everyday tasks, and so had dropped the class in their sixth year.
It was a shame as Ginny had made many good friends in this class and had found it enjoyable to be able to show those less knowledgeable how something like a plug for instance worked.
She sighed dramatically, and swung her legs back and forth, from her position on the table top.
She'd discovered that there were only two students in her class, including herself and was curious to know which other student was interested enough in muggles to take the advanced class. Ginny's love of all things muggle had come partly from her father, who was always tinkling with something in the garage of the burrow. And partly from Harry, who always had some peculiar muggle contraption on his person when he came to visit.
He had for instance spent a fair amount of time teaching her how to play space invaders on what he called a sp2. Or was a ps2?
Oomph!
Ginny was unexpectedly thrown to the floor in astonishment as the classroom room door banged crashed wide open and in stomped Draco Malfoy, looking completely furious with life, the universe and everything.
"Ferret boy – im not quite sure what the door did to you, but I'm sure it apologizes" Ginny sulked sarcastically from the hard stone floor.
Draco shot her a contemptuous look and swept past her, to take a seat at the back of the classroom.
Ginny jumped to her feet, brushing the dust from her robes as best she could.
"I wouldn't bother Weasley, no one expects you to have clean robes" Draco's trademark drawl, caused Ginny's shoulders to tense and skin to pickle with contempt.
"Shut up Malfoy!" she hissed. "At least imp not a slimy death eater's son!" she retorted, her milky cheeks now sporting two angry red patches.
"My my weaslette, I seem to have insulted you" Draco continued, watching the youngest Weasley getting increasingly riled up.
"But its not as if I've spoken any untruth now is it?" he provoked.
Ginny grabbed her wand, ready to shout her famous bat bogey curse at the blonde boy, when her wand flew out of her grasp and into his, as the word "expelliarmus" were emitted lazily in Draco's deep voice.
"Hey! Not fair!" Ginny cried. Draco raised an eyebrow.
"Oh yes, and cursing me at random is the height of modern morality" he mocked.
Ginny stood hands on hips as Draco walked idly towards her. He stopped when they were inches apart and inclined forward so he was whispering in her ear.
"Never ever try to curse me again Ginny, it may just be the last thing you ever do" There was such a dangerous undertone in his words that made Ginny shudder involuntarily.
"Such a shame that would be for such a pretty little thing, hmmm?"
Ginny glared up at Draco and then quick as a flash stomped down hard on his toe, before flouncing past him and out of the room.
"Tell Professor Vetris im sick" she commanded haughtily over her shoulder. Draco, who was rubbing his foot desperately, appeared not to have heard her.
"Ginny? GINNY?" Harry shook his girlfriend gently, trying to wake her. They were sat by the dying fire of the Gryffindor common room, Ginny with her head in Harry's lap, as he read the latest edition of "Quidditch Monthly". She had dozed off just as he was reading aloud the interview with England's newest beater, Derek Lewton.
The man's a genius thought Harry. Perhaps the English team might have a chance this season. Especially with Wood as the captain and keeper.
Oliver Wood had succeeded in making it big in the quidditch league – his life's dream.
Ginny stirred slightly and Harry tapped her a little more forcefully on the shoulder.
"Argh! I do!" she cried, bolting upright and smacking her head on Harry's nose.
"Ahh!" Harry yelped in agony as her forehead made contact with the bridge of his nose.
Ginny cringed, embarrassedly.
"Sorry Harry" she squeaked, grabbing her wand and muttering a pain relief spell. The redness of Harry's nose rapidly ebbed away.
"By the way gin – what is it you do?" he asked curiously, causing Ginny to gaze at him in perplexity.
"Huh?" Harry grinned.
"When you woke, you cried "I do!" what on earth were you dreaming about?" he chortled.
Ginny brushed it off hastily. There was no way on earth she was going to divulge to Harry, that she had been in the middle of proclaiming to love, honour and obey him, in sickness and in health etc etc etc, when he'd woken her.
Still blushing faintly, she sat up, leaning in against Harry's shoulder.
"Sorry, why did you wake me?" she inquired kindly.
Harry ran a hand through his hair, leaving it messier then normal, and yawned sleepily.
"I was wondering, well hoping if…" he was stopped by Ginny.
"Why don't I get us some coffee from the kitchens, then well talk, okay?"
He grinned and nodded, as she placed a kiss on his forehead and left.
Ginny drummed her fingers on the smooth wooden surface of the table she was sat at in the kitchens. House elves scurried around, offering her plates of cookies as they went, which she declined.
Just as the house elf who'd taken her request appearing with a flask of coffee and a bag containing a chocolate chip and a blueberry muffin, a familiar, and unwelcome figure entered the kitchen; ducking under the low overhead beams.
"Malfoy" spat Ginny. "What do you want?"
Draco looked around curiously, before replying smoothly.
"I didn't know they were hiring down here Weasley. You're about the right size, but your waitress manner is appalling!"
Ginny blushed. "Shut up Malfoy" she muttered pushing past him.
Draco stepped in front of her, blocking her way.
"Move" she said flatly.
"No" he shook his head. Ginny glared mutinously up at him.
"Why don't you stay for a drink?" Draco pressed. Ginny's eyes widen in disbelief and then narrowed in suspicion.
"And why would you want me to do that?" she retorted, hiding her confusion in her vicious tone.
Draco shrugged.
"I need to fill you in on our muggle studies project" he replied and Ginny didn't know why this made her feel disappointed somehow.
"Plus of course, you've gotta a lot of spunk – you say what you think and I admire that" Draco finished, leaving the red head gawping at him.
"So, what's your poison?"
And Ginny had no choice but to follow him back into the kitchens and take a seat opposite him.
By the time Ginny returned to the common room, Harry was sleeping heavily on the sofa where she'd left him.
She suddenly felt like the adulterous one in a relationship, creeping in late from a secret tryst with a lover. Except it had been Draco - Malfoy she corrected. And it had been hot chocolate in the kitchens, not a romantic tryst. Heaven forbid she have a secret tryst with a Slytherin, although, she brooded, Draco – Malfoy! - wasn't bad looking.
She shook herself mentally for a second, before curling up on the couch next to Harry.
This was where she belonged. With Harry. The boy she'd been in love with since she was ten years old. Harry.
She brushed a lock of his hair out of his eyes and unwillingly found herself wondering what it would feel like to touch Draco's ash blonde hair.
She sighed, uneasily. She was being ridiculous. She just needed some sleep.
A/N: Oooooh! How exciting! What developments! Harry and Ginny are dating, but Ginny's thinking about Draco. Blaise is taking Daphne to Hogsmede, when you all thought he was gonna kiss Hermione! Fooled you! Ha ha! So with Blaisey, Drakie, Ginny, and Hazzer all tied up, whose gonna move in on our mione? Huh?
It's such a soap opera.
Oh and don't think I've forgotten Blaise's letter, Harry's impromptu although depressing trip to his parents graves and house or the potions project. The next chapter should deal with them all and introduce some new dilemmas! Happy reading!
REVIEW!