Picking Flowers
| II | Things That Go 'Bump' in the Night
Ginny drummed her fingers against the table, listening intently to the soft sound of them hitting the wood. She was willing to listen to anything at the moment as long as it was not the rushing sound in her head. After Dumbledore's announcement earlier that evening, Hogwarts and its students had fallen into a spiritless mood. Those who had found the news too unbearable had retired to their dorms to cry on the shoulders of their friends or into their pillows, and those who were on less than friendly terms with Malfoy had simply slunk off to quiet corners where their indifference wouldn't be too obvious. Most of Ginny's friends were in the last group, but she had feigned incomplete homework and found herself, as she had many times that last week, in the library.
It was a peaceful place to be, considering the quiet discontent occuring outside its walls. The many towering shelves of books and bright, flickering candles came together to create Ginny's ideal haven--a place where she could work or think, whichever needed to be more urgently addressed. She decided that this evening was one that required her to think. After dinner, she had found a muted sort of shock settling over her body, a great, empty numbness that both scared and relieved her. Hadn't it only been a day ago that she'd watched Malfoy race through the clouds, displaying an articulate flurry of skills for his young female viewers? It would be...strange not having him around.
She bit the inside of her cheek. It was not like she liked Malfoy or anything, but this was the sort of tragedy that everyone had to take some pain from. She remembered the first time she'd spoken to him, back at the beginning of second year. She felt the weight of those four years very heavily now, as she recalled the event--an ego-bruising exchange that had left her teary-eyed and sniffling. It had been on the Hogwarts Express--she had just changed into her robes, and had been feeling remarkably self-conscious about herself. The Tom Riddle incident had been resolved perhaps three months prior, and she hadn't wanted to be blamed for or reminded of it. Tripping due to an especially violent lurch of the train and falling directly onto Malfoy had been the worse thing she could have imagined.
He'd not been kind to her then, and he had never been since. He had made some comment about Weasels picking up things that did not belong to them, and some arrogant snipe about the color of her hair and Blast-Ended Skrewts--and that had left her as miserable as anything. She pressed her lips together thoughtfully. She had been so naive as a child, and so very sensitive. She remembered with some amusement the look on his face when he'd seen her tears--a fascinating combination of surprise and awkwardness. He probably hadn't expected to make her cry, and he'd left quickly after that.
It hadn't been their last exchange, for sure, though she had to admit that he bothered her far less than he did her brother and Harry. It probably wasn't because he'd despised her any less than them. She'd reasoned that it was caused by his general desire to poke and prod at people who were more likely to gather him some attention. By her third year, she had been absolutely sure that Malfoy did about three quarters of the things he did for attention. His hair, for example. Up until his fourth year he had kept it slicked back into a shiny, platinum helmet--but in his fourth year, that had fallen out of popularity with the girls. So he'd stopped gelling it. She recalled her thirteen year old self seeing him with his hair loose around his forehead for the first time. She had stopped in the middle of a hallway and gaped at him until he'd made some rude comment, and then she'd hustled away. The girls in her year had not stopped talking about his hair for a very, very long time.
She chuckled softly. She hadn't truly grown much of a backbone until last year, her fifth year and his sixth. She had avoided him like the plague for her entire fourth year; now that she was older, she could admit that it was because she'd been afflicted with an awful case of acne, as many teenage girls often were. She'd just known that he would have battered her tender body image had she gone near him. Growing up had been hard on her, Ginny knew, but it had definitely appeared to go easy on him. Not once had she ever seen Draco Malfoy's skin with a single blemish. He had never passed through that awkward, lanky stage that all of her brothers had undergone, and not once had she heard his voice crack. It seemed as though it had gone from young and boyish to masculine and refined overnight.
They'd exchanged many more snipes during her fifth year, but Ginny had never really concerned herself with him. They'd maintained their distances, and for most of the time she had lived as though he did not even exist. That was how life was, she supposed, leaning an elbow on the table in front of her and cupping her chin with her hand. She knew many people, perhaps had even spoken to them, and it was not really until something happened to them that their existences truly became real in her mind.
She thought back to very recently, to the beginning of her sixth year. It had been only about a month since the first time she had seen Malfoy against the sky, at times racing at breakneck speeds, at others sailing across the horizon without a care in the world. Of course, she had watched him before at Quidditch games, but there was something different about watching him fly simply for the sake of it. She covered her throat abruptly, feeling as though she had a lump in it. Her eyes stung, and she blinked rapidly. She had not even liked the bastard! Heck, she had wished that something would happen to him so that she could have her Quidditch pitch back, but now that something actually had...She and Malfoy had had nothing in common whatsoever, except for the fact that they both loved to fly. Now...now she didn't know if she'd ever be able to fly without thinking of him.
She covered her eyes with her hand, surprised to find herself choking back tears. There should be no reason for her to feel like this. Slowly, as though her joints had stiffened while she sat, Ginny rose from her seat. She would go back to her Dormitory and get a good night's sleep. It was the stress of the entire week coupled with such a big event that was making her this emotional. All she needed was her soft, warm four-poster bed to make her feel better.
The halls were quiet and dimly lit as she made her way through them. Every now and then she stopped, thinking back to a time when she'd seen Malfoy standing just there, or right over there. It was ridiculous, she reasoned, thinking about him so much. Perhaps she was just in shock. It was not every day that something like this happened. She would have to ask Luna to slap her back down to earth and away from thoughts of Malfoy. But for now bed would have to do. Sleep would have to do.
When she'd reached the room she shared with three other girls in her year, she'd had to be very quiet. Ginny had become very good at sneaking into bed at late hours, but tonight she seemed prone to bad luck. She stubbed her toe on the side of her trunk, and it was all she could do to suppress her groan of pain as a white-hot flash of agony spread up her leg. She swore quietly under her breath. After pulling her favorite pair of pajamas out of her trunk, she fell over--loudly--as she attempted to tug them on. One of her roommates shushed her irritably from behind the curtains of a four-poster, and Ginny coloured in frustration.
By the time she'd finished her nightly routine--which, tonight, consisted of spilling toothpaste all over herself, running out of toilet paper at an inoppurtune moment and breaking her brush as she combed it through her hair--her bed seemed like a very welcome refuge. She practically lunged onto it, relishing the feel of the cotton sheets and pulling the curtains around so that she was the center of a sea of fabric. Snuggling beneath the thick blankets had never felt so good to her; as she lay there, splayed out on her bed, she felt most of the tension she'd been carrying around melt out of her limbs. Sleep seemed like it would come for her very quickly--that was, until she heard the noises.
It started out as a slight rustling sound, quiet and not really audible in the dim silence of the room. She thought it could be one of her roommates shifting in their sleep, until it begun to get louder. She'd frowned, her eyes already half lidded with sleep. Perhaps it was the wind through the trees beyond the window beside her bed? Her eyes opened wide and her heart clenched with fear when she heard the footsteps. They seemed to be getting louder and louder, as though they were approaching her bed, and then they stopped. For a few moments, it appeared as though the noises had ceased. That was right. It was all her imagination. There were charms set up to prevent intruders, and so she had just been imagining it all.
And then Ginny felt the blood run cold in her veins. Something--someone was pulling back the curtains of her four-poster.
She hastily turned the other way, her back to the intruder, and squeezed her eyes shut. If she just pretended it wasn't there, then maybe it would go away and she would be able to get some sleep. Right now, all she was experiencing was the result of her stressed out brain. It was playing tricks on her, and that was the full explanation. If she just kept her eyes closed tight and pretended nothing was...
"Open your eyes, Ginevra."
Her eyes snapped open immediately. A hand clasped over her mouth kept her scream from waking the entire castle.
She was staring right into the silver-grey eyes of Draco Malfoy.
Author's Note: Yey, another chapter. Hope you guys enjoyed this one, though I'll admit that it was kind of uneventful. The next chapter is where the real action begins for this story, so stay tuned. Thanks to those who reviewed--and remember to review again!