A/N: Sorry it's taken so long again. College. Stuff. I love you all. Don't hate me.
Chapter VI: Colin Creevey
For some reason, Ginny awoke at an unearthly early hour and was unable to fall back asleep. She stared at the clock in annoyance. 6:13 am.
She quietly got out of bed—Romilda, Lilac, Natalie, and Tina were all fast asleep, Lilac snoring like a little truck—as they very well should be, thought Ginny, jerkily pulling her uniform on in frustration. If she couldn't sleep, she might as well do something productive with her time. She tiptoed downstairs to the common room.
Only Hermione Granger was in the common room, her nose buried a textbook.
"What're you doing up so early?" asked Ginny, making Hermione jump violently into the air and slam her book shut. Ginny glanced at the cover. Voyaging With Vampires, by Gilderoy Lockhart.
"Merlin, Ginny, you terrified me. Whoever in their right mind would be up at such an hour, honestly."
"You're the one to talk," scoffed Ginny, settling herself into the squashy armchair by the fire.
Hermione rolled her eyes as she opened the book again to find her page. "Lavender Brown is a right awful snorer. I couldn't stay asleep."
Ginny giggled. "Her sister's in my year and has earthquake-inducing snores as well. Perhaps it runs in the family."
Hermione laughed. "You're the one to talk about things running in the family, freckled-feisty-red-head! Which Weasley am I talking about? Oh, I don't know, maybe because all of those traits run in your family!"
Ginny grinned but it was her turn to jump violently when she heard a little squeaky voice call her name.
"Hey, Ginny!"
She whipped around, hitting Hermione with her hair (and making her squawk and spit out said hair), only to see Colin Creevey, the tiny first-year with the camera who had shared the boat with her.
"Hey, Colin. What're you up for?"
"I'm just too excited to sleep anymore! My dad's a milkman, you know, and I never knew magic was a thing before, but it actually makes a whole lot of sense! Weird things have always happened to me, like when these bullies cornered me in primary school the next thing I knew I was up onto the roof! The teacher got right mad at me, too, thinking I'd climbed the building, but look at me! You think a scrawny little kid like me could've climbed a wall? I can hardly walk straight without knocking into something!"
However could a person be so perky at 6:30 in the morning? Hermione and Ginny exchanged a half-amused, half-irritated look.
"What's primary school?" asked Ginny, mystified. "What's a milkman?"
Hermione and Colin, both being Muggle-borns, laughed, and Ginny felt put off. "What?" she asked defensively.
Hermione put the book on her lap and grinned. "They're Muggle things. A milkman is a bloke who delivers bottles of milk to the door, and primary school is schooling for people who are about 5 to 10 years old. I think you wizards call it 'foundation school' when little kids from wizarding families learn all the basic things like reading and writing and spelling."
"Oh," remarked Ginny. "The milk just gets magicked to our house, and I know what foundation school is. Luna and I—she's a Ravenclaw in my year and happens to be my best friend and closest neighbor—we went to the same one."
"Say," Colin said to Hermione after a pause, "aren't you Harry Potter's best friend?"
Hermione nodded, picking up the book again. "Ever since he and Ginny's brother Ron saved me from a mountain troll last Halloween."
"I heard all about Harry Potter from my dormmates! He saved the world from You-Know-Who twice and once last year! He seems amazing, doesn't he?"
"Well he did have help," said Hermione, nettled. "I was quite a large part in that, thank you very much. And Ron, too."
"But Harry Potter was the one who faced You-Know-Who at the end and killed him again! Right? He must be one of the coolest people on the planet!"
Ginny winced slightly. Was this how she sounded when she talked about Harry in front of her brothers? Merlin, no wonder they'd been taking the mickey out of her all summer. Colin sounded absolutely ridiculous. She glanced over at Hermione, who had escalated from being nettled to being irritated. She had buried her nose in her book once again, avoiding the Harry-centric conversation.
Colin still was talking about Harry when Romilda Vane, one of Ginny's housemates, arrived. "Ooh, is someone talking about Harry Potter? Isn't he cute? I think I'd like to start a Harry Potter Fan Club of sorts—"
She was interrupted by a hysterical snort from Hermione, followed by a scornful laughing fit. "A fan club—for Harry? The boy who agreed to duel with M—with Malfoy—and got caught in a trap—" She couldn't even finish her sentence because she was laughing too hard.
Romilda looked slightly put off, but Colin looked extremely interested in the prospect of a Harry Potter club. Ginny did not want any part in it, but she inwardly groaned because she knew she'd be roped into it somehow.
All too soon, it was time for breakfast. Ginny sat next to Colin and Hermione, who was reading Voyages With Vampires propped upon the milk jug. Colin was talking at breakneck speed to Ginny, but she was paying attention to what Harry and her brother were doing. Hermione was still angry with them for flying the car to school and was very aloof towards them.
Just then, the mail arrived. Something large and grey catapulted down into Hermione's jug of milk, spraying everyone nearby with milk and feathers.
"Errol!" said Ron, as he grabbed the poor owl's legs and yanked it out of the jar. Errol slumped onto the table with a red envelope in his beak. Ginny's eyes grew wide with horror, and she glanced at Ron, who seemed to have noticed the same thing.
"Oh, no—" Ron gasped.
"It's all right, he's still alive," said Hermione, prodding Errol gently with her finger.
"It's not that—it's that," said Ron, pointing at the red envelope.
Ron, Neville, and Ginny were looking at it like it was about to explode. Harry looked bewildered. "What's the matter?" he asked.
"She's—she's sent me a Howler!" said Ron faintly.
"You'd better open it, Ron, it'll be worse if you don't. My Gran sent me one once, and I ignored it and"—Neville gulped— "it was horrible."
Harry looked from one petrified face to another. "What's a Howler?" he asked.
The letter had begun to smoke at the corners.
"Open it, it'll all be over in a few minutes—" Neville urged.
Ron quickly opened it. Ginny and Neville stuffed their fingers in their ears. A roar of sound filled the Great Hall.
"HOW DARE YOU? STEALING THE CAR, I WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN SURPRISED IF THEY EXPELLED YOU, YOU WAIT TILL I GET HOLD OF YOU, I DON'T SUPPOSE YOU STOPPED TO THINK WHAT YOUR FATHER AND I WENT THROUGH WHEN WE SAW IT WAS GONE! WE GOT A LETTER FROM DUMBLEDORE LAST NIGHT, I THOUGHT YOUR FATHER WOULD DIE OF SHAME, YOU AND HARRY COULD HAVE BOTH DIED, I AM ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTED! YOUR FATHER'S FACING AN INQUIRY AT WORK, IT'S ENTIRELY YOUR FAULT, AND IF YOU PUT ANOTHER TOE OUT OF LINE WE'LL BRING YOU STRAIGHT BACK HOME."
The entire Great Hall was staring in silence at Ron and Harry, who were both beetroot-red. The red envelope burst into flames and curled into ashes. Errol seemed dazed.
Slowly, people resumed their general activities, but Hermione closed her book and looked down at the crimson thing that was Ron's head.
"Well, I don't know what you expected, Ron, but you—"
"Don't tell me I deserved it," he snapped.
Harry pushed his porridge away, barely having eaten anything. He looked rather ill.
At that moment, Professor McGonagall, who had been distributing timetables, handed Ginny hers. She saw that she had History of Magic with the Hufflepuffs first.
Ginny remembered Ron telling her that their professor was a ghost, but she had forgotten the description of exactly how boring he was. Ginny took some notes about Emeric the Evil and Uric the Oddball, while Colin doodled on his parchment.
At the end of the hour Professor Binns gave them a foot-long essay about Regnart the Revengeful and were supposed to hand it in the next week.
Ginny wanted to be productive, so she headed up to the common room to begin writing her essay. She had just started when Hermione arrived, her arms laden with books and a smug expression on her face.
"What's got you so happy?" asked Ginny, amused by Hermione's expression.
"I love going to class. Especially when it's not with Professor Snape, but don't tell Harry and Ron I told you that. I just really love getting the right answers. I've already earned 40 points for Gryffindor today!"
"However did you do that?" Ginny said, impressed in spite of herself.
"Well today's lesson was on Mandrakes, which are a powerful restorative. They're used to return people who've been transfigured or cursed to their original state. So when Sprout asked the class what a Mandrake was, of course, I was the only one who got the answer right. I was actually the only one who even raised their hand. She gave me 20 points for that! And then, she asked us why Mandrakes were dangerous. I was the only one who raised their hand again, and I got 20 more points for saying that Mandrake cries are fatal to anyone who hears them. But the Mandrakes we're working with are babies, so they'd just knock you out for a couple of hours. We got to use earmuffs! It reminded me a bit of holidaying in France during the winter."
Ginny glanced at Hermione, torn between amusement and annoyance at this long-winded explanation of her Herbology lesson, but Hermione just looked so happy when she got answers right. Ginny thought that perhaps it stemmed from being a Muggle-born, but also, Hermione just liked learning things, and who was she to take away her pleasure?
"We took the mandrakes out of their pots and put them in larger pots, you know, so they'd have more room to stretch their tiny little legs and grow more. Ron was so surprised that there were little muddy babies instead of roots that he dropped one on my foot and it bit me! Luckily I was wearing boots, so the damage was minimal…"
By the time the bell rang for Charms, Ginny had only finished one foot of her History of Magic essay. She supposed she could have done more without Hermione talking so much in her ear.
The Charms professor, Flitwick, also gave them homework—practice the "swish and flick" wand movement, and to name five other wand movements. The lesson had been extremely interesting, especially because she remembered when she read Ron's letters to Ginny about how he had had such trouble with the spell, but finally got it right to save Hermione. The spell hadn't seemed very difficult to Ginny.
After Charms was lunch break. Ginny headed down to the Great Hall, accompanied by Luna, who had been in Charms with her. The two friends parted ways after reaching the entrance, Luna to join the Ravenclaws and Ginny to join the Gryffindors.
Ginny seated herself between Ron and Fred. She waved at Colin, who was sitting nearby, taking photographs of his food with a large camera. Ron seemed to be extremely grumpy about something.
"Ron, what's—"
"What've we got this afternoon?" asked Harry, interrupting Ginny as if he had not heard her. She would have lashed out and called out anyone else who dared interrupt, but it was Harry. She didn't mind too much, and even wished she knew the answer so she could tell him.
Hermione replied at once. "Defense Against the Dark Arts."
"Why," demanded Ron, "have you outlined all Lockhart's lessons in little hearts?"
Hermione blushed furiously and grabbed the schedule back. Ginny raised an eyebrow at Hermione, who just shook her head, still scarlet, and followed Harry and Ron out of the Great Hall.
More to change the subject than anything else, Ginny asked Colin, "What have we got this afternoon?"
Colin replied, "Transfiguration with the Ravenclaws. One second—I'm going to ask Harry something—"
Ginny felt herself filling to the brim with dread. She had an extremely bad feeling about this. Colin grabbed his camera and caught up with Harry.
"All right, Harry? I'm—I'm Colin Creevey! I'm in Gryffindor, too! D'you think—would it be all right if— can I have a picture?" he said, raising his camera hopefully.
"A picture?" Harry repeated blankly.
"So I can prove I've met you! I know all about you. Everyone's told me. About how you survived when You-Know-Who tried to kill you and how he disappeared and everything and how you still got a lightening scar on your forehead and a boy in my dormitory said if I develop the film in the right potion, the pictures will move! It's amazing here, isn't it? I never knew all the odd stuff I could do was magic till I got the letter from Hogwarts. My dad's a milkman, he couldn't believe it either! So I'm taking loads of pictures so I can send them home to him and it'll be really good if I could get one of you, maybe your friend could take it and I could stand next to you? And then, could you sign it?"
"Signed photos? You're giving out signed photos, Potter?" echoed the scathing voice of Draco Malfoy. "Everyone line up! Harry Potter is giving out signed photos!"
Harry, clenching his fists, said, "No I'm not. Shut up, Malfoy."
"You're just jealous!" said Colin. Ginny slapped her forehead. This was looking uncomfortably familiar.
"Jealous? Of what? I don't want a foul scar right across my head, thanks. I don't think that getting my head cut open makes you that special, myself."
Ron said, furiously, "Eat slugs, Malfoy."
"Be careful, Weasley. You don't want to start any trouble or your Mummy'll have to come and take you away from school! If you put another toe out of line—Weasley would like a signed photo, Potter. It'd be worth more than his family's whole house—"
Ginny was furious. Insulting my mum, how DARE he? WHO does he think he is?
Before Ginny could get at him, Lockhart came up, as if he had heard the words "signed photos" from miles away. Colin eagerly took a picture of both Lockhart and Harry. He seemed to be really excited that he had taken a double photo of two internationally famous wizards, while Ginny was seething. Why did Malfoy keep targeting their family? And why was Colin so stupid?
The bell for Transfiguration rang at that moment. Eager Colin dragged an angry Ginny into the Transfiguration classroom.
Professor McGonagall gave them assigned seats. Ginny's heart danced as she got to sit next to Luna Lovegood. Colin was assigned to sit next to Romilda Vane. She whispered excitedly to him, and Ginny had a sinking feeling that the two of them were talking about the stupid Harry Potter Fan Club idea.
When Professor McGonagall began speaking, the entire room became silent.
"Transfiguration is one of the most dangerous and complex form of magic you will learn at Hogwarts. Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned."
Everyone was extremely impressed when Professor McGonagall changed her desk to a pig and back. No one could wait to get started but they soon realized that they would not be changing furniture into animals for a very long time. After taking a lot of complicated notes, they were each given a match and were told to turn it into a needle.
By the end of the lesson, Ginny had managed to change half of her matchstick into half of a needle, and McGonagall gave her a rare smile.
The next lesson was Herbology with the Hufflepuffs, and Hermione had been right—they were learning about Mandrakes.
"Listen up everybody," said Professor Sprout. "Now, since you're all first-years, you should be down in Greenhouse One. But I have an inkling that these Mandrakes are ready to be potted, and it's important we finish. Now, who can tell me about Mandrakes?"
Seeing as nobody seemed to know the answer—or want to speak up in class—Ginny raised her hand, having been lectured in depth by Hermione earlier in the day.
"A Mandrake is used to return people who've been paralyzed or cursed to their regular state."
"Excellent! Ten points to Gryffindor. The Mandrake does indeed form an essential part of most antidotes. But the Mandrake is also dangerous. Can anyone tell me why?"
Again, no one raised their hand, so Ginny raised hers.
"But of course, Miss Weasley can."
"The cry of the Mandrake is fatal to anyone who hears it."
"Exactly! You remind me of Hermione Granger, you know that?"
"She was the one who told me this, Professor," laughed Ginny.
Professor Sprout said, "Well, of course. Take another ten points to Gryffindor. Now the Mandrakes we have here are very young. Usually I don't cover Mandrakes until third year, but my second sense is telling me that we will need all the help with Mandrakes that we can get. Okay, now, do it!"
Their lesson happened almost exactly like Hermione described it (except, of course, without Ron dropping a Mandrake on her foot) and they were all muddy and sweaty when they tramped up to the castle.
She was finished with classes, so Ginny took a quick shower and then went to her room to extract her diary and write in it. She decided to take it to the common room. There were not many people there, except Fred and George, cracking jokes to each other by the fireplace. She went up to them and poked Fred.
"Oi, what was that for? Oh, it's you, Ginny. How was your first day?"
"It was pretty normal, except for working with Mandrakes, which I guess first years normally don't do."
"Yeah, that's usually a third-year thing, isn't it?" mused George. "Well, I guess Sprout's feeling strongly about them this year."
The two of them were some of the most secretive people about their inner kindness. When Ginny would come home crying after being bullied in school, Bill and Charlie and Percy—oh, Percy was the worst culprit of all—would baby her and give her candy. Somehow it just didn't sit right with her, and Fred and George would give her the inspiration to be the strongest version of herself she could be. "Anything's possible if you've got enough nerve," they'd always say.
She never really had to say much, she contented herself with sitting and listening to the things they'd say. She did the same for a little while until the two decided to go down for dinner, and they invited her.
After a delicious meal and after meeting Lee Jordan again, and being introduced to some members of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, including Angelina Johnson, Alicia Spinett, and Katie Bell. Ginny enjoyed looking at Oliver Wood, the Quidditch team captain, but sternly told herself that he was too old for her, and besides, she always had loved the Quidditch uniform. And anyway, Harry had one.
That night, in the common room, Ginny wrote in her diary again.
Dear diary,
Hello, Ginevra.
Oh! With all the excitement of the first day of classes I'd completely forgotten you wrote back! How have you been doing?
Quite boring, in actuality. I have no physical form, I just occupy this diary and write back to whomsoever desires to write to me to while away the time.
Oh, that does sound rather dull. Not to sound rude or anything, but whatever you did to get stuck in a diary, you probably deserve being bored.
You can certainly put it that way.
How come you call me Ginevra?
I think it's rather special, isn't it? You did say no one else called you by your given name.
That's quite true, actually. I think it's growing on me. Keep calling me Ginevra, Tom, I think I quite like it.
Of course.
I met this rather annoying boy today. His name is Colin Creevey and he follows Harry around taking pictures of him. He created quite a fuss today, and got Harry into a fight. I only wish that he had kept his nose out of his business, for Agrippa's sake.
He seems rather irritating. You should not waste your time with people as daft as him.
He's well meaning, I suppose. And harmless. He's nice enough, Tom. He and Hermione had a sort of bonding experience earlier today when they both laughed about some Muggle thing I didn't know.
They're Muggles, are they?
Yes, Muggle-borns, both of them. Do you know whatever on earth a milkman is?
Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. I was a half-blood who grew up in a Muggle orphanage, of which I do believe I've informed you before.
You told me you grew up in an orphanage before Hogwarts, but not a MUGGLE one! Merlin, Tom, that must have been horrible. I'm sorry.
It had its ups and downs.
I suppose that's a cheery way of looking at it. You seem like you'd have been one of my good friends here. I think you've got a good outlook on life.
Why, that's quite a compliment.
I feel like it's important to tell people exactly what's on your mind, whether it's good or bad. So far, I quite like you.
I'm pleased.
Merlin—I've been writing in you for nearly half an hour. I'm tired out, I think I'm going to bed. Good night, Tom, I'll talk to you later.
Sweet dreams.
Unfortunately, her dreams were plagued with images of roosters. Not as sweet as she would have liked.
A/N: FORESHADOWING! This chapter was very difficult to write and I think it shows. If you read and review I'll know exactly how to improve so please do that I love you all!