Chapter 2 - Girls Just Want to Have Fun… Playing Quidditch?

Sitting at the Gryffindor table in the great hall, Ginny was discussing the upcoming Quidditch tryouts with her brother and Harry. She was thankful that they had not questioned her whereabouts on the train and had just ignored her absence. Normally it would have bothered her to be unnoticed, but she had come to the point where she did not need constant recognition by her brother and his friends. She was finally her own person, and not just the youngest Weasley.

Over the summer, Ginny had done quite a lot of soul-searching, after having been dumped by the Boy-Who-Lived. At first, she had been depressed, but after three solid days locked in her room at The Burrow, she had concluded that Harry just was not the right boy for her and that though she was hurt, she was not broken. She would move on and grow out of her obsession, as she had been told to do many times before.

She had attended her eldest brother's wedding, and had been so happy for Bill and Fleur. The half-Veela had found her way into Ginny's heart and home and by the end of the summer, she had become fast friends with the blonde Parisian. They had had long discussions on girl issues, and Fleur had become like an older sister to her. Fleur Delacour had helped to empower her and she was forever grateful to the elder witch.

"No Ronald, I do not want to just sit around doing nothing this year, I want to play Quidditch just like the lot of you!" They had been having this argument throughout dinner, and she was fuming over the possibility of missing her dessert. Growing girls do need their desserts, no matter what elder brothers did to bother them.

Harry had accepted the Quidditch Captain position, but had forfeited his position as seeker for the Gryffindor team. He knew he had an arduous task ahead of him finding the remaining horcruxes and defeating Lord Voldemort, but he still wanted to have some semblance of a normal life at Hogwarts. He had appointed Ron as his deputy coach, to take over for him when it was time to leave on his search.

The Quidditch season would start next week, and Ginny was planning to keep her Chaser position she had held the year before. However, Ron was trying his hardest to dissuade Ginny from staying on the team for the coming year.

"Oi, Gin, you know why I don't want you to stay on the team! Those Slytherin gits don't play fair, and I don't want to see you get hurt. It was bad enough watching you play last year, and I don't want this year to be hard on you. As your older brother, and the deputy coach, II forbid you to be on the team!"

"Ronald Weasley you are such a prat! Mum said it was okay for me to stay on the team as long as I could focus on my grades, and that was the one and only condition, so why don't you just bugger off before I set a Bat Bogey hex on your sorry arse! Remember how bad I hit Malfoy with it last year? You had better watch your back, brother dearest."

With that, Ginny stormed off and left the great hall. She had missed her dessert as she had been afraid of doing and was thoroughly pissed off at her brother.

Merlin, what's got her knickers in a twist? thought Ron. I'm just looking out for my baby sister. There is a war coming up; I just wanted to be sure that she would be ready and able to help when the time comes. If she's too busy with Quidditch, how will she be able to cope? She's lucky I even want her to stay at Hogwarts during the war, she could be sitting at home knitting with mum if I wanted her to. Despite his reasons for 'protecting' his sister, he was being hypocritical. He had every intention to play on the Quidditch team and help his friend in the battle against the Dark Lord and his minions.

Ron turned back to Harry and continued their discussion. Somewhere in the middle of their conversation, Hermione had joined in and quickly turned it into hushed whisperings about the horcruxes and their whereabouts. They all knew that the time would come when they would have to step up and lead the wizarding world into battle. Before that, they would need to find and destroy the remainder of Lord Voldemort's horcruxes.

Ginny was curled up in a chair in front of her common room's fireplace. She calmed down a bit, but was still annoyed with her brother. Even worse, she was annoyed with Harry for not even bothering to stand up for her. This as just one more reason why she knew they could never be together. All he would ever see her as was Ron's baby sister. Nothing more.

Her thoughts eventually drifted to the train ride. She still wondered why Malfoy had been hiding under an invisibility cloak, and why he had not tried kicking her out of his compartment. Something wasn't right, but she really didn't care what was wrong with the boy. He had always had it out for her and her family so there was no point in bothering when it came to Malfoy's feelings or mannerisms.

"Still," she wondered aloud, "why would he be like that?"

She shook thoughts of Malfoy out of her head and summoned her bag from her dorm room.

She took out her journal and started writing away about her day's occurrences.

For a long while after the events of the Chamber of Secrets, she had been afraid of writing her deepest thoughts and feelings in any journal, magical or otherwise plain. However, over the course of the following years in school, she had since calmed down and learned to trust again, even if it was only inanimate objects that she started trusting. She still didn't trust people, yet, not fully, anyway. That would come with time, how much time she did not know.

She was so engrossed in her journal writing that had not even noticed that her housemates had returned from dinner and were settling into their rooms or the night.

She fell asleep in her chair, and had a dream-filled sleep throughout the night.