Chapter 3

She had been trying to think of possible reasons for Draco to be crying in the girl's lavatory, while she was falling asleep that night and only came up with one possible scenario. Maybe he had found out he was muggle born, she thought recalling how much he teased Hermione about it, and with that last thought she fell asleep.

She was now on her way to the room of requirements. It was Saturday and she had been missing the D.A. meetings that they use to have last year, so she figured she should go and practice by herself. She had thought about inviting Luna, but had decided not to because she hadn't practiced some of her spells in a while and didn't want to accidentally hit Luna with a leg locking curse!

She had finally gotten to the hallway in which the room of requirements was situated, and spotted the tapestry that hung across from it. She began to think of the type of room she needed in her mind. A place to practice spells, a place to practice spells… she thought while walking back and forth in front of where the door should be. She walked back and forth two more times and a door seemed to materialize right where she had remembered it. She pulled it open and walked in. It was nothing like the way it was when she was in the D.A. Back then it was about the size of the Gryffindor common room and was emptied of all but a few pillows, bookcases and a table. However as she walked into the room now, it was entirely different. The main differences were that the room was much darker, with a lot more stuff in it. Also it looked like someone had been there recently because there were papers and books scattered all over the floor. Ginny decided it would be a good idea to clean up the mess a bit before she started practicing, so she bent down to pick up a book that was lying at her feet. She flipped the book over in her hands and read the title on the cover The Insides to The Unforgivable Spells. Ginny wondering who could possibly be reading such a book suddenly heard footsteps from behind, what appeared to be, an armoire in the far corner of the room. Ginny not knowing what else to do turned around and ran out of the room as quickly as possible and not even paying attention to where she was going knocked, into an unfamiliar first year who was right outside the door. Ginny apologized hastily and continued running until she got to the end of the hall and turned the corner. It was then that she realized she was still grasping the book she had picked up off the floor. She went to open it to see if she could figure out to whom the book belonged to when she heard footsteps running up from the hall she had just come from. She tucked the book under her arm as quickly as possible and ran to the stairs that lay before her, slid down the banister and jumbled herself in with a bunch of first year girls that were talking at the foot of the stairs on their way to the great hall. She wanted to stop and look up to see who had been in the room of requirements but felt it would be too obvious if she did so. Instead she followed the group of first years to the great hall where she found Harry, Hermione and Ron all sitting and eating lunch. She sat down beside them and wondered whether she should show them the book she had found, which was still tucked under her arm.

"Are you ok Ginny? You look like you just ran the entire Quidditch field" said Harry in a concerned voice.

"No I'm fine," replied Ginny. "I was just practicing for Quidditch" she said stealing Harry's idea. She thought for another moment whether or not to tell them about the book and decided they might be able to help figure out whose it was so she laid it out on the table in front of her. Hermione looked at the book for a second and gasped. Ron now looked up and realized that Ginny had joined them. He hadn't noticed because he was playing Wizards chess and eating, he now looked at the tattered book too and let food fall out of his mouth as he stared at the title of the book.

"Where did you get that?" asked Hermione in complete shock as Harry turned to look at the book for the first time. He had also been distracted due to the fact that Ron's knight had just obliterated his queen.

"I found it…" Ginny trailed off not knowing if she was willing to tell them that she went in the room of requirements to practice. Just like they used to when they were in the D.A.

"Yes…?" asked Ron who was now so interested to know why his little sister had a book about the unforgivable curses that he didn't even realize that Harry had just ordered his bishop to kill Ron's queen.

"I found it in the room of requirements" said Ginny not being able to think of another place this book would go unnoticed.

"What were you doing in there?" asked Ron with an eyebrow-raised curiously while waiting for a good explanation.

"Well…" began Ginny when she was cut off by the familiar voice of Neville Longbottom and turned around quickly to see how close he was.

"Hello!" said Neville "can I sit down?" Ginny turned back to the table and went to try and hide the book from Neville as quickly as possible, knowing what happened to Neville's parents, but the book was not in front of her anymore. She looked around wildly and saw Harry flash her a quick wink. She then realized that Harry had quickly stashed it under the table when she turned around. Hermione invited him to sit down and Neville squeezed in next to her. They all gave Neville fake smiles as if nothing had happened but he was to busy looking at what ever was left of the Wizards chess that Harry and Ron had abandoned, to notice anything was wrong.

They all finished lunch while Harry and Ron finished their game of chess and Neville watched. Then Neville left, saying he was going to get a book from Professor Sprout about some sort of man-eating plant and they all said they would catch up with him later. They watched as he left the great hall and as soon as he disappeared through the Giant doorway on the far end of the great hall Harry took out the book he had stashed under the table.

"So what were you doing in the room of requirements?" said Ron picking up right were they had left off. Ginny was glad when Neville interrupted the question before but she had still not thought of an answer so she told them the truth.

"I went to practice spells from the D.A. that I was a bit rusty at but when I got there and thought of a place to practice spells, it didn't look anything like it had when we were there last year."

"Well it picks its appearance based on your needs sooooo… maybe it got confused and thought you wanted a place to practice dark arts rather then defense against the dark arts." Said Ron trying to sound convincing but doing a very bad job of it.

"I don't think so," said Hermione "the room of requirements is a very powerful thing. I don't think it would mess up like that."

"Well how else do you explain it?" Ron asked trying to see if he might have actually had a good idea and Hermione just didn't want to admit that he might be right.

"I don't know but if it has knowledge about how to do unforgivable curses I think we should tell Professor Dumbledore."

"NO!" screamed Harry Ron and Ginny all at once.

"Fine but when someone gets hit with an unforgivable curse don't come running to me" and with that Hermione collected her books and stormed out of the great hall.

"Well I'm going to go to I have a 3 roles of parchment to write for potions and I figure I should get it done today rather then wait till tomorrow so I'll be taking that book back."

Harry shoved the book across the table to Ginny and she picked it up and went to leave but Harry grabbed her by the wrist.

"Er… I don't think it's a great idea carrying that around for everyone to see maybe you should put it in your book bag?"

"Ohh right" replied Ginny who hadn't even thought that someone might see it and think she was a raving loon.

"Ohh and Ginny make sure you put it back in the room of requirements when your done trying to figure out who it belongs to" said Ron collecting his broken chess pieces and repairing them one by one for another game.

"I didn't say I was going to figure out who it belongs to," said Ginny now curious whose the book was and wondering if it had belonged to the person who chased her out of the room of requirements and down the hallway.

"Well I would want to know who was looking to kill people," said Ron lazily setting up his game pieces for another game.

"Right well if I have enough time after my potions paper I'll think about it" and with that Ginny put the book in her book bag and left Harry and Ron to start yet another game of Wizards Chess.