Hehehe...fun with the necklace...hehehehe. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I own nothing you reconize from the Harry Potter books. No money is being made from this.
Flying always helped clear her mind. Practice wasn't for another half an hour and until then the pitch was all her's. She flew upwards, loving the way the wind felt in her unbound hair. She gained speed, and then very suddenly she turned downward in a mad dive toward the ground.
"Weasley sees the Snitch." She whispered trying to do her best Lee Jordan impression and keep her head tucked at the same time. "She's gaining speed. Five feet from the Snitch and only twenty feet from the ground. Go Ginny, go!"
She extended her arm to grab the imaginary ball. She was only ten feet from the ground now, still rapidly gaining speed. Closer, she propelled herself forward in a final burst of speed bringing her only a foot from the ground. At the last second, she pulled her broom skyward, and began her slow ascent, holding the invisible ball in her hands and waving it in triumph.
"And Weasley's done it! She's caught the Snitch!" From below her she heard clapping. The noise almost knocked her off her broom in surprise. She caught the handle, sliding into an uncomfortable sideways poison in the seat of her broom. Beneath her she heard a few of her fans snicker. She looked down to see the whole Slytherin team loudly clapping and cheering in a show of mock support. At the front of the pack was Malfoy.
"Thanks for that little performance, Weasley. I really enjoyed it. However, I was a little disappointed by the ending. I was so hopping you'd fall. Would've been much more realistic, but I guess you were just saving that for the game."
"Sod off, Malfoy." His team stopped their mock cheering.
"Love to, Weasley, but we have practice."
"Gryffindor booked the field for the day, so bugger off."
"Well, they're not here, now are they?"
"They'll be here soon."
"Well, you're welcome to stay around and wait for them. But we're using the pitch until they show up."
"Fine. They'll be here any minute."
"Whatever."
Half an hour later found Ginny sitting in the stands. The Slytherins had been practicing for nearly forty minutes (she allowed a self-satisfied smirk to grace her face realizing that apart from a few players the team stunk). Where the heck was her team? Fuming she stood up, grabbed her broom and flew out towards the pitch. A few members of the team gave her odd looks. The majority of them, however, ignored her completely and continued as if they didn't see her.
They accomplished this so well that for a minute Draco had to wonder if they really didn't see her.
With that hair, not likely. He thought, allowing the shadow of a smirk to light his face.
"Malfoy!" She called out. He was perched on his broom observing, nearly fifty feet above the rest of the team, his keen eyes darting around looking for the Snitch. Ginny was reminded of a huge bird of prey, hunting its ignorant victim.
For a second she was sure he saw her, but he was still nearly thirty feet above her and she couldn't be sure. If he did, he chose to ignore her, flying even higher.
"Malfoy!"
He looked down at her briefly, the picture of irritation. "Are you still here, Weasley?" He taunted. "I'd thought you'd have given up by now."
"Malfoy, what do you know that I don't?"
"Well, a lot of things. Would you like a list?" She glared. "How about the fact that you must be failing all your classes."
"And how did you ever come to that completely misguided conclusion?"
"Simply the fact that you must never go to the library. Because if you did, you would have seen the notice that's been up for two days that Gryffindor practice has been canceled."
She felt her face burning in a mixture of humiliation and anger. "And you didn't feel the need to tell me that forty minutes ago?"
"No. It was much more fun to watch you sit there like a well-trained puppy for an hour. Maybe if you're good Potter will give you a treat later." He said, raising an eyebrow suggestively.
"Bugger off." She snapped and flew hastily back down to the ground. One thing was for sure; when she got back to the tower Ron and Harry were going to have some explaining to do.
"Harry just back away slowly. At least one of us deserves to live and considering you're the one who has to save the world, I think it should be you."
"Ron, I'm not leaving you." Harry replied, rolling his eyes.
"Just run for goodness sakes! I'll hold her off!"
"Ron. It is only Ginny."
"But you don't know her like I know her. You see the normal, sweet, innocent Ginny. I know her for what she is; evil, demented, psychopath Ginny."
The person in question smiled sweetly, "You have no idea how much that means coming from you, brother dearest." She said, "It almost makes me regret that I'm about to kill you."
Hermione entered the room looking startled. "Err… as Head Girl I really don't think I'm allowed to let you kill anyone…" She said, observing the two panicked boys and Ginny.
"Can't you let it slid just this once?" Ginny pleaded.
"What did they do?"
"Practice was canceled and-"
"You didn't forget, did you?" Hermione scolded. The boys looked down. "I told to tell her!"
"We forgot!"
"And you hung me out to dry! Malfoy was there. Malfoy for goodness sakes! I sat there like an idiot for almost an hour before he finally said something. I embarrassed myself in front of the whole Slytherin team!"
"You shouldn't care so much of what other's think." Ron informed her smartly. Her glare intensified. "But…I..errr..now's not the best time for that, is it?"
Harry nodded sadly. "Sorry, Gin. We didn't mean to forget you."
She didn't move.
Ron shuffled his feet, "Sorry Ginny."
"Forgive us?" Harry asked, jutting out his lower lip in the most pathetic puppy dog face she had ever seen.
"Not a chance."
Harry grinned. "You can't stay mad at me forever."
"Wanna bet."
"Sure." He said, his eyes glinting mischievously. He held his hands up threateningly.
"You wouldn't."
"Oh yes, I really would." With that he lunged towards her. She tried to dodge but he grabbed her wrist and pulled her back. Then laughing insanely, he began tickling her stomach.
"Stop that I'm-I'm…" She couldn't restrain her laughter.
"What was that? Couldn't quite hear you."
"No..fair…" Ginny jumped over the couch away from him. "No fair."
Harry drew closer to her while Ron cut her off from the rear. His grin, a mirror image of Harry's, widened. "What do you think, Potter? I hold her and you tickle?"
"I don't think so." She said, brandishing a pillow. Laughing wickedly she dove at Harry, swinging the pillow wildly.
From behind her she heard Ron groan. Hermione dissolved into a fit of giggles as Ginny raised her eyebrow to the older girl who had also grabbed a pillow.
Indignant, Ron asked, "What was that for?"
"For forgetting me." Ginny informed him. "We girls have to stick together, right Herms?"
She nodded as she continued to whack Ron across the head with her pillow. Harry, taking advantage of Ginny's distraction, was once again beside her, tickling.
"Potterlaughing if you don'tlaughing stoplaughing…"
"What was that? Don't stop? Okay then."
"Stop!"
"Truce?"
"Never!"
"Truce?"
"I'd rather die!"
"Considering how red your face is I'd say you're not far from it."
"That's not funny."
"Then why are you laughing?" He said, smiling, but never stopping.
"Because you're tickling me you freaking moron!"
"Ahem… Am I…interrupting something?"
The four teens stopped immediately and turned, red-faced, to see a very disgruntled Professor McGonagall.
"Er.. no, Professor." Hermione said, face burning, while trying to smooth her hair, "Nothing at all."
His plan had been to corner her in the hall so they could talk, but she seemed to always be surrounded, mostly by males. Right now was no exception. Her normal crowd-Luna, Colin, and Neville- was there along with the unexpected addition of Finnigan.
She was only about five feet away from Draco; just enough to make it look like an accident. Besides, even if it did look like he had done it on purpose people would just assume it was due to the old Weasley-Malfoy animosity.
He quickened his pace slightly, catching up with her almost immediately. She was in the center of the group, Colin's arm slung lazily around her shoulders. He noticed Seamus, on the Weaselette's other side, looked slightly perturbed. He kept glancing irritably in Colin's direction. Draco cut right into the middle of their group, purposely knocking the girls shoulder as he walked by. Caught off guard, she fell.
He didn't turn. Didn't appear to have even noticed that he had hit her.
"Watch were I'm going, Weasley."
"Hey, Ferret Boy, if you're looking for a fight, you're barking up the wrong tree," Seamus said.
"Oh now I understand. You've got yourself a girlfriend, have you? You must be getting pretty desperate."
"Back off, Malfoy or so help me…"
"Oh, boy. I'm scared now."
"Malfoy-"
"Seamus." Ginny said soothingly. Colin had helped her up from her place on the floor. She now had placed a placating, if not restraining, hand on his shoulder. Her voice was silky smooth, but behind its velvety front he heard a slight edge. She was issuing a command and she expected it to be followed. "Don't." She said softly, and began to lead him away.
Draco sneered. "That's it Finnigan. Run away, I'm sure that'll impress her."
Seamus started to turn, but Ginny's restraining hand kept pushing him forward.
"I hate homework, a horrid affair really. You see all the teachers are plotting our demise. I can see it now, Death by Overexertion."
"Really Ginny. You're so dramatic." Hermione said, her nose fixed in a rather large book.
"No really, it's true. Why do you think they invented the O.W.L.S.? They want us all to die. Hey-what's this?"
A white envelope drifted noiselessly to the floor. Curious, she picked it up. She gasped. The seal was of green wax, a great M entangled with two serpents. Malfoy.
"Hmmm…?" Hermione asked, still engrossed in her book.
"Oh-ah- nothing."
She glanced quickly at her friend to reassure herself that she was too enthralled with her book to notice Ginny's action. Assured, she hastily broke the seal. Malfoy's small, neat script sprawled across the page in green ink.
Meet me at C'est La Vie this Hogsmeade weekend. We need to discuss our little secret.
Involuntarily, her hand went to her neck where the necklace hung. Malfoy expected her to really meet him? Well, she'd show him; she simply wouldn't show up.
"Ginny, what's wrong. You look white."
"Nothing Hermione."
A book. Small, black, and seemingly meaningless. So Weasley dreamed about books? He expected this from Granger, but Weasley? He didn't know that she was THAT boring.
Suddenly the girl emerged, seemingly out of nothing. Dressed in a white dressing gown she appeared even paler then normal, her freckles glaringly obvious against her snowy complexion. Her gaze darted from him to the book, her eyes glazed with fear.
The girl backed away slowly then, her pace quickening, she turned and ran. So Weasley was afraid of books? No, that didn't make sense either. He sighed; he hadn't been expecting this to be work. He ran after her.
A wall.
She couldn't get past, couldn't escape. She appeared to him as caged animal. Her eyes burned with the need to escape, to flee to freedom. The emotion or perhaps maybe it was simply the spell that bonded them, was so intense that he himself could feel the panic burning in his heart.
Her need to survive pushed her into a final desperate attempt. She beat the wall with her fists, kicking desperately.
Her inner reservoirs of strength exhausted, the spell pasted. She sunk to the ground against the wall, pulling her knees close to her body. Her body shaking in bouts of uncontrollable and unconcealed silent sobs.
He was struck. What in the Weasley's sheltered life could possibly bring her such unbridled fear? What could possibly cause her such terror?
Before his eyes she seemed to grow younger. Her hair brightened to the bright apple-red of her past. Her freckles grew in number, if it was even possible. When she looked up at him through tear-filled eyes, they, too, had changed manifesting before him as the eyes of a very young girl. Most disturbing of all was the vacancy they had acquired, as if she was looking through him. Perhaps, he realized, she was. Perhaps she couldn't see him. After all, he'd never tried this before and the details of the enchantment eluded him. Startled at the thought, he looked behind him to see what the girl was looking at. Nothing. Perhaps, then, he was wrong again.
"He's here." She whispered. Her eyes suddenly fixed upon him. He saw something there he had never seen in waking: fear. Her eyes were haunted. "He's always here."
"Hello Ginny, love. I told you I'd return." An unknown voice hissed. The effect was like being struck by lightning, the pain that streamed through his body was hot and intense. The girl screeched in pain and fear accompanied by another voice. It wasn't until the scene had faded that he realized it was his own.
When he awoke the scream sounded strange and foreign to his ears. He saw a flash of red and gold. His whole body felt warm, much warmer then could normally be achieved in the drafty dungeons.
"Draco?" It was Blaise's voice, distant and groggy. Oddly enough he couldn't see Blaise. The dorm room looked strange and new to his eyes, even ill-adjusted to the light as they were. He blinked. Suddenly he felt very cold.
He was not in his bed, but in the wooden chair. Just as he had been when he had gone to sleep. He looked around. Nothing red, nothing gold, only the same, familiar green and silver. Shaking his head, he decided he must have been seeing things, as people were keen to do in the first moments of waking.
"Draco?" He saw Blaise now. He was out of bed and walking towards him. He must have woken him up. "Draco, are you okay?"
"Yeah, fine."
"Another nightmare?"
He let an ironic smirk touch his face; even when he escaped his dreams he couldn't escape the nightmares.
"Something like that."
Forgive me if there are spelling errors...I reread it like ten times but I'm so tired that I'm sure I missed some. Sorry! Now, go down to that pretty little button that says 'submit reveiw' and click it!