Hermione was reading over her Potions notes, trying to figure out where exactly she'd gone wrong, when Ginny sat down beside her looking grumpy. She heaved a melodramatic sigh, and Hermione eyed her thoughtfully. Even though Harry had beaten her in class today – basically by cheating – she'd still noticed Ginny's reaction to his new Potions book.
As she'd often lamented, Ginny was naturally fair skinned – it went with her red hair – but ever since dinner that afternoon she'd looked unusually pale, even for her. She said nothing about this however, and merely lugged a large textbook onto the table and said, "I'm going to fail my Transfiguration OWL."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "You are not going to fail. All you have to do is…"
"Magically gain complete knowledge of all aspects of the Transfiguration of objects within the next month?"
Hermione looked at her severely. "Don't be ridiculous. What did McGonagall say?"
Ginny slumped in her seat. "She said…she said I'm sloppy; I don't concentrate enough on what I'm trying to do."
She looked dispirited, and Hermione tried to sound comforting. "Well," she said, "All you have to do is put some work into it, and then you'll be fine."
"Sure," Ginny said sarcastically, "And every time a Weasley passes Transfiguration a House-Elf gets its clothes."
"What?" Hermione said pointedly.
Ginny glanced at her startled, and then attempted to backpedal. "It's just…it's just a saying, Hermione, it's not…I mean, I agree with you about the House-Elves, you know that, right? I mean, if we treated them better, we mightn't have so many freaks like Kreacher, I mean…. Please don't yell at me."
She really did look tired, and so Hermione decided to let it slide and said, "Is no one in your family good at Transfiguration?"
Ginny shrugged, flipping through her textbook disconsolately. "I reckon the twins are pretty good – they'd have to be, wouldn't they? – and Bill was pretty good, but then Bill's good at everything. And then there's…Percy. Mum says it's because I'm like Dad – he's useless at it too."
Feeling even more curious, Hermione said, "What is it about Transfiguration that you find so difficult, exactly?"
Ginny looked slightly helpless. "It's…I can do it, Hermione, if I…if I really work at it, but…it seems to take three times as much work to do well in Transfiguration as every other subject. I'm always exhausted after I've done the homework."
"But you can do it?" Hermione said significantly.
"Yeah," Ginny said, shrugging her shoulders.
"Well," Hermione said, "Maybe it's that…you're just not used to having to work so hard at something."
Ginny raised her eyebrows questioningly, and Hermione continued. "I mean, Charms and Defence and Astronomy all come to you fairly easily, don't they?" Ginny nodded – they both knew which were her best subjects. "And you don't really find Potions or Herbology difficult…"
"Herbology's dead boring, if that's what you mean." Ginny said.
"Yeah, you've said that," Hermione answered, "But you don't have to work at it too hard, do you?"
"No," Ginny said, starting to see her point. "Care isn't too bad either – I'm even better at Runes, though it takes ages."
"Well there you are," Hermione said, satisfied, "You're just not used to having to really struggle with something."
Ginny shrugged again. "This isn't doing much for my stress levels, Hermione."
"Oh," she said, "But…at least you know that…that there's nothing wrong with finding it so difficult."
"Yeah," Ginny said, "You're probably right. I'll have to do something though – McGonagall had that look in her eye today."
"What look?" Hermione said, amused.
Ginny stared at her. "That look. You know the one."
This was unanswerable, and so Hermione let her continue. "Anyway, Dean said he'd help with Transfiguration if I need it." Ginny paused, and then added impishly, "Of course I'm not sure he's actually any good at it, but…he looked so sweet when he offered, Hermione."
"So I take it everything's going well then?"
"Well…we've only been back a day, so…maybe a week from now I'll discover he likes fluffy handcuffs or something, but…Dean doesn't strike me as a deep, dark secrets kind of guy."
Ginny was now chewing on a sugar quill and staring into space absently, and so she didn't see Hermione start at her final words. Her phrasing was so odd that for a moment Hermione thought she was trying to make a point, but a moment later she continued. "Did Harry explain what happened to his face?"
"Yeah," Hermione said, "He said…" Her voice trailed off uncertainly. She was far from sure Harry would want her to spread the details of Draco Malfoy's attack around – the circumstances had been so humiliating – but at the same time, every time she had to lie to Ginny, or at least conceal the truth from her, it felt more and more uncomfortable.
"I don't think he'd want me to talk about it, Ginny," she said at long last.
Ginny rolled her eyes. "Come on, Hermione, it's perfectly obvious Malfoy did it – Harry disappearing into his compartment and all that – I'm just surprised he could get the jump on. I know for a fact he's not that quick with a wand."
"I know…I just…" Hermione felt rather unhappy at the direction this conversation had taken – she knew Harry wouldn't want her to reveal the details, not even to Ginny, and yet…
"Oh…just forget I asked." Ginny said irritably. She opened her book with a thump, and settled down to read a chapter on Vanishing frogs.
For several minutes Hermione tried to think of something to say, and finally she settled on asking the question that had been bothering her since dinner. "Ginny? Are you okay?"
Without raising her eyes from her book, Ginny said, "Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?"
"It's just earlier…when Harry was talking about that stupid book, you seemed…" It was hard to decide how to end this sentence. Upset – disturbed – frightened – they were all words that would fit Ginny's feelings, and yet they were also words that were almost bound to alienate her.
"Honestly, Hermione, I'm fine."
Hermione didn't believe her for an instant. That she still hadn't looked up from her book was a dead give away that she was lying – and even if Hermione had been willing to distrust her own perceptions, that Harry had been so determined to bring Ginny out of herself at dinner, served to confirm her opinion that something was definitely wrong.
"Look, Ginny, you know you can always…you can always talk to me about this stuff. I mean, it makes perfect sense that…"
Ginny looked at her suddenly. "Maybe," she said, "I don't want to talk about it! I'm fine – I keep telling you all I'm fine, and none of you believe me. Maybe I'm just sick of people looking at me like I'm some stupid little girl who doesn't know any better. Maybe I'm over it, even if none of you are!"
"Ginny…what?"
But Ginny had evidently said her piece, and she closed her book with a clap, saying, "I'm going to go sit with Dean. At least he trusts me."
And before Hermione could even open her mouth, she was gone. Hermione saw her sit beside Dean, and suddenly Ginny was smiling, giggling and sitting as close to him as humanly possible. It didn't make any sense – none of it made any sense at all, not a single, solitary thing Ginny had said – and so, utterly baffled, Hermione turned back to her Potions notes.
It wasn't long though before she was interrupted – and when Ron sat beside her, and slid his leg against hers under the table, and it was all she could do to keep her shivers and hopes and moments of delight hidden, she had no more thoughts left to spend on Ginny.
Author's NoteThe inspiration for Ginny's struggles with Transfiguration was, I must admit, my own terrible difficulties with Higher Level Maths – so I can promise you, her frustration is very real!
Secondly, it may have become apparent in this chapter that I am taking this story in a particular direction – which might not be quite what was expected. It's my opinion however, that in Half-Blood Prince, a lot of things came home to roost for Ginny and Hermione – and in my 'verse', that includes (but is not limited to) certain strains in their friendship. Hopefully these have been sufficiently hinted at in preceding chapters, because from here on out, those issues are going to be front and centre. It's not all going to be sweet, fluffy friendship, but…well I hope you'll all agree with me that, once we get to the end, all the struggle (and it's a hard year, in many ways, for both girls) will have been worth it.
(What a long Author's Note! I promise I won't inflict such another on you again.)