AN: Oh look at this. Remember this? Thank you Gemini Peverell, Krysania, Martel, J.F.C, Dreamwalker, Karerik, OneTooManyHeadAches, bubbles523, gegege900, panda1222, Slytherin Sora, , chuckiechunder and Jenaminya, I love you all.
:::
One of the little instruments on his desk has stopped spinning. It sat alone and miserable, and it made pitiful warbling noises when the Headmaster picked it up.
"Is there a problem?" Albus Dumbledore asked the ward. It rocked on its hind legs and opened a mirror displaying the second floor girl's toilet. "Ah. Thank you for telling me."
He walked down to the bathroom and knocked on the door. It echoed down the corridor, and a few figures stirred and moved around in their portraits; they opened a bleary eye and went back to sleep as soon as they noticed the Headmaster. No one answered. Feeling that he gave enough notice, he pulled the door and walked in.
"Forgive an old man for intruding," Dumbledore started. "I have been trying to find you – but you can be a little elusive these days."
The youngest Weasley, Ms. Ginevra, was sitting cross-legged and pensive on the bathroom floor. She had a heavy textbook opened across her lap, but when he had come in, her eyes were in the distance, and not on the book. She was facing a sink. The sink, if he remembered correctly, the one with a little snake on the bottom. Aside from the book in her lap, there were other books spread around her, but her quills were tucked away and the seal on her ink-pot was intact.
"Is it curfew already?" She asked, closing her book with her head still bowed. "I didn't realise. I must've lost track of the time. I'll go straight to my dorm, I promise."
He walked over to her and placed one hand on her shoulder. That was all it took for her to still; unfortunately, she was in the process of standing up and when she froze, she overbalanced, tried to compensate, and tripped over her bag. Dumbledore caught her easily, but her books and papers tumbled from her grasp.
"Easy there," he chuckled. "You're not in trouble, Ms Weasley."
"I made a mess," she rushed. "I'm so sorry, I'll get going straight away." What he could see of her face was flushed red. It clashed vibrantly with her hair, and she couldn't seem to look him in the eyes.
"No, don't leave yet. I've been meaning to speak to you."
He had been meaning to speak with her since the conclusion of the last school year. He meant to give her closure on the events that occurred in the chamber. She deserved to know who Tom Riddle was, and what he had been doing for the last year. It was his duty to right his wrongs
Dumbledore pulled the Elder Wand from its holster. It was easy enough to spell her parchments and books so that they would stack neatly on top one another, and with another spell, he transfigured two wooden chairs from the thin night air. But once the chairs were forming, Dumbledore thought; 'a bathroom atmosphere isn't the most appropriate for a private talk', and because he could, he transformed the chairs into armchairs, even as the tiles underneath their feet transfigured to clean carpet and tapestries fell from the ceiling to cover the toilet cells.
Within a moment, except for the monument of sinks at the centre of the room, the girl's bathroom was barely recognisable. Dumbledore walked over the rugs at his feet, and sat in an armchair. He wanted ones that the girl would see as comfortable and familiar, so he made the transfigured chairs exact replicas of the ones in the Gryffindor dorms.
He gestured at Ginevra to take the other chair. She sat down with some tentativeness, but he told himself not to take it to heart. A little bit of tentativeness was expected when a student met with the Headmaster. Moreso, when the Headmaster could not protect the students of his school.
There was no way of gentling into this conversation. It needed to be had.
"The last year has been harrowing and difficult for everyone. Having said that, I believe the difficulties your fellow students faced would be nothing compared to what you have withstood. A student should feel safe in a school. I feel as though I have failed you."
Ginevra's eyes were wide open. "Not at all," she replied. "I know you were busy with other concerns, and I am only one student in the school. I'm well. Please don't worry about me." It was a relief to hear. Dumbledore began to smile, and he planned on sharing a smile with the girl, but when he looked her in the eyes from above his eye-glasses, Ginevra's eyes slid away from his face again. The smile froze on his face.
It wasn't the end of the trouble then. He had feared so; no victim returns to the scene of a crime unless they are confronting their fears, or feeding into them.
"I cannot help but worry about you. It is both my prerogative and duty as your teacher. You look well, and you seem well, but I know the boy you talked to. I knew the man he grew to be, and I know he is capable of more damage than you would believe."
Ginevra recoiled, raising her chin in the air. "Is that what I am then? Damaged?"
"No," Dumbledore said, emphatically. "I only mean to ask you how you have been. I mean to say that I understand the situation that you are going through more than anyone, and that it is not a fault to ask for assistance."
The girl only looked off to one side again, casually dismissive. "And I would tell you if there was a problem. But really, I feel fine. I'm over it, and I'd like to get on with my life."
Dumbledore sat back in his chair with a sense of resignation. This was a trust issue then. It was to be expected; it would be hard for the girl to trust anyone for a while. The only way to heal that would be time. Dumbledore could begin the stages of recovery now though, and he decided that he would. One small step at a time.
"Do you truly have no questions at all? Is there nothing that you want to ask about Tom Riddle? Which of his words were true, and which words were intended to deceive you?"
He settled back into the chair.
"If there is anything I can do for you," he spread his hands. "Ask."
The girl stirred, and began to play with her hair. Her eyebrows were furrowed in thought.
"I do want to know what you know about Tom Riddle. It's just – I've been doing my research, professor, but I can barely comprehend his transformation from the boy I knew to the Dark Lord described in my history books."
"You see, he talked to me about joining the Ministry of Magic. About travelling the world over, and delving into the deeper magics. I know he was interested in the Department ofMysteries. And then at other times, he said that he could barely stand the thought of leaving Hogwarts. I know the DADA professor at the time was thinking about retiring, and he thought if she did, then he could take over."
"Did he now?" Most of it was news to Dumbledore.
"I find it so frustrating that I can't find any information past his Hogwarts graduation. I find this – transformation, this mutation – hard to believe, and I wondered if you had any additional information. Anything that isn't released to the public."
"Tom Riddle was as brilliant as he was charming," Dumbledore replied, going back into his memories. "Many of the professors thought that he would go far. However, he made the wrong choices, and walked down a bad path. I'm afraid I don't have any other information for you," Dumbledore replied. Although he had his suspicions.
Ginny looked away again, and let their conversation lapse into silence. The air grew deep and pensive, and yet Dumbledore was reluctant to end their meeting on such a grey note.
"Men can be charming," Dumbledore thought to conclude. "Grindelwald was much the same way."
He had only meant it as a throw-away comment; something like 'better men than you have been fooled by a magnetic Dark Lord and their beautiful exteriors' – but Ginny frowned at the words.
"Why would you compare my obsession with Tom Riddle to yours with Grindelwald?" she asked. "I believed I was in love with him, I would have done anything for him. It isn't the same as your fight against Grindelwald. Unless…" she drew out the last word, and looked up at him with something like speculation on her face. "Did Grindelwald charm you as well?"
Dumbledore smiled gently at her. He didn't say anything; it was beneath his dignity to confirm it, and beneath Grindelwald's to deny it. Privately, he wondered how much her encounter with the boy had changed her.
"I was alone in this blank expanse of emptiness," Ginny said, now that he was ready to end the conversation. "And he was the only one who spoke to me. I'm sure we were friends. I think… we were both looking for a way out of the darkness."
"Do not mourn him."
"I'm not. Obviously only one of us could survive. I'm glad it was me."
The conversation had taken a strange turn. It left Dumbledore with an odd taste in his mouth. Not bad, just odd. He didn't think Ginevra was the type of girl to spread news, and he wouldn't have minded if she'd had, but Dumbledore had hoped that they would be chatting about light things.
Either way, it was obvious that no one had anything more to say. "The bathroom on the third floor is perfectly serviceable," Dumbledore said before he left. "I don't believe you should come back here again."
"I understand," she nodded. It was a shame he had left early, because he missed the way she looked at the snake under the sink.
:::
"It has been such a horrible and rotten morning. Don't even talk to me about it," Hermione groused as she entered the common room during the lunch period. Harry and Ron had only come up to grab their DADA books, and Hermione had been with them for a bit, and then disappeared, and now reappeared. She was popping up everywhere unexpectedly these days.
Ginny looked up from Adscele's treatise on the individual qualities of modern herbs. She didn't have anything until late afternoon, the lucky girl. "I ought not to, if you've requested so, but I generally understand that a matter shared is a matter halved…"
Hermione threw her hands up in the air and stormed into her dorm.
"… I suppose I can't ask her then. Ronald, do you know why she's in such a foul mood?"
Ron gave her an odd look for using his full name. Not even his father called him Ronald. His mother might have, but only when he was very deep in trouble, and she always added his middle name. He shrugged it off. "We have all the reasons in the world," he replied, kicking his feet onto an ottoman. "Snape's being an asshole and Malfoy is trying to get Buckbeak killed."
"Professor Snape has always been kind to me. I find him fair. As for the other issue; I don't understand why she's so upset. If an animal attacks a human, it's perfectly within the human's right to have it put down."
Harry however, disagreed. The creature had done nothing wrong – it merely reacted on instinct. It was somewhat personal for him, because he remembered what his hands had done to Professor Quirrel, and it was nothing that he had intended.
"We shouldn't kill something just because – nothing deserves death. … It didn't understand what it was doing."
"Is the creature in question a Griffin, or in the Griffin family?" Ginny asked. Harry nodded. Hippogriffs were produced when a horse was crossbred with a griffin. "Then your argument is negated. Griffins are sentient. Your Buckbeak was perfectly aware of what it was doing, and chose to do it anyway," she said with a finality. The case was closed in her eyes.
Ron scowled. He didn't actually care all that much about Buckbeak, but he was upset at the implication that Buckbeak's impending death wasn't a valid complaint for a bad day. He might have also been upset at how Ginny didn't validate his complaints.
Ginny, on the other hand, didn't miss a beat. "I'm not sure about having strange beasts in the castle," she said loudly and pointedly, before anyone could say another word. If Ron had been thinking about saying something before, her words cut him off right from the root. He shut up straight away, and Harry, who hadn't even said anything incriminating, fumbled with his gloves.
"Look, I," Ron tried. He failed. "Just don't talk to Hermione about this," he said instead, because that would've been a disaster. Ginny turned her back, signalling the end of the conversation, and the boys went back down for class.
:::
Ron's shit day was quickly buoyed by the end of DADA. "Snape in women's clothes, what a way to make my day," he cried out enthusiastically to anyone who would listen. Neville had managed two minutes in the Gryffindor common room, blushing bright red from his ears to his neck. Just two. He broke the third minute; ran upstairs and holed himself in his bed.
"Careful how you phrase that. People'll get ideas," Harry idly commented.
His best friend shoved him. "Bugger off, you liked it too," – "Not in the same you did," – "I saw you smiling, smiling means you liked it"—
"Looks like you boys are having fun," Hermione said, joining them.
"We were talking about Professor Lupin's class again," Harry replied. "I wish we'd both been able to take turns with the boggart – no, Ron, no comments, please –"
It was too late. Hermione was very serious about equality in the Wizarding World, and her sense of justice, along with her Gryffindor nature, meant that she could be very outspoken when the situation called for it. It almost meant that - sometimes it was very hard to get her to STOP talking once she had gotten started. She began: "Yes, the professor should've really let you both have a go –"
"Ron!" both voices cried out at once.
"Changing the subject," Hermione interjected, "At least we all know why everyone's been keeping mum on the lesson plans. It would've been less exciting if we'd known about it beforehand."
Dinner was steak and vegetables and some apple slices for Harry. It was also Ron's turn for Gin-watch, so he looked around the table, hoping to find his sister.
"Huh, she isn't here." Percy was though, and he'd brought Ron's rat down with him.
"What're you doing with Scabbers," Ron stated. "And d'ya know where Gin's at? We saw her at lunch in the common rooms."
Percy replied, frowning somewhat imperiously at Ron. "I picked Scabbers up from the floor. Have you been taking care of him properly? He hasn't been the same since I gave him to you."
Ron scowled. "I take care of him fine, if he wants any food he scabs it." The rat was looking pretty miserable lying across Percy's napkins. Percy tried to encourage the rat to take an extra bite of turkey, but it was listless.
"Ginny had DADA right after you, she might still be there. You need to look after Scabbers a bit more – I've had him since I was five, you know, he's getting old. I can't pass him over to you if you're not going to be responsible."
"Yeah yeah, I know," Ron waved his brother off. As far as he was concerned, if ol' Perce wanted his pet back, he could have it. "Hope Ginny had fun with the boggarts then."
A moment passed, and then two, and then both Harry and Ron were running out of the Great Hall.
"Merlin! Why didn't you remind me to tell her about the boggart!" Ron shouted, huffing and puffing as they pushed, shoved and tumbled past the other students trying to get into the hall for dinner.
Harry was equally red in the face. "Merlin yourself! She's your sister, I can't be looking after her all the time!"
"Yeah, but you're her big bloody hero," Ron grumbled. He was in slightly better shape than Harry simply because he ate more during the summer, and so he reached the DADA classroom first. The redhead slammed against the door with his body, recovered awkwardly from the rebound, and then began pounding on the door again.
"Professor Lupin! This is an emergency; you need to let us in!" He yelled at the door. Harry, who had learnt from Hermione's example, let him continue his yelling and cast a quick Alohomora.
The door opened and Ron fell through the doorway. He got up, determined to interrogate the Professor about what had happened to his sister, only to find the Professor calmly sitting at his desk, looking mildly surprised at Ron's un-invited and sudden invasion of his classroom. He looked as though he'd been in mid-conversation with Ginny, sitting on the other side of the table, and staring back at her brother incredulously.
"What's wrong," Professor Lupin got up, face all business. "Did someone get hurt?"
"Not exactly," Harry said, taking over when Ron didn't say anything. He'd run into the room and stopped only scant seconds after Ron. Now, he pulled on Ron's arm, indicating that they probably should go before Professor Lupin took off points for one reason or another. "Ron was just a bit worried about his sister. We didn't see her at dinner, and we thought we'd check the classroom. We just got a bit dramatic with it."
Ginny, who had been unresponsive until she understood exactly what had happened, rolled her eyes.
"I am not a blushing maiden or a baby doll," she said in a flat tone. Before anyone could do anything, she had strolled off to the cupboard containing the boggart and pulled the door open.
"GINNY!" Ron yelled in dismay. Professor Lupin frowned, but since no one appeared to be in any danger, he left Ginny to her devices.
The boggart was taking form. Harry took a shaky breath and braced himself for Tom Riddle's shadowy spectre; his skin grew cold remembering the older boy all over again, his wavy hair and cold stare, remembering the man he grew into.
It never eventuated. The boggart lengthened, turned into something black and shadowy, like a man with a ragged hood, and then shrunk into something smaller, with straighter lines. It turned into grey stone, and vines crept around it as the stone chipped, until the vines stopped moving, leaving the whole scene silent and static in place.
It was a grave stone. The words on it had faded with time, and nothing shifted or stirred around it.
"It doesn't even move," Ginny said, breaking the silence. "It's not going to kill me."
"I'm sorry," Harry said.
"Well, I'm not. I'm sick of people telling me that they're sorry. Riddikulus."
Ron shrieked a bit when a pale arm shot up from the grave dirt and reached for the sky. Ginny only stood, smiling as though she was well-satisfied.
:::
After that incident, class and life went on as usual. Professor Lupin continued to be awesome, Professor Snape seemed to up his surliness as if to compensate, and both Professor Trelawny and Hagrid were boring.
The trio left up a little on Gin-watch, partly in the face of Ginny's apparent decision to self-determinate, and partly due to Ginny's new-found ability to lose her watchers at a moment's notice. It wasn't because they were pointless; it was more due to the fact that Ginny had taken something of a shine to Hermione, and could often be found in her presence.
("I wanted to say thank you for all the advice you've been giving me recently," she'd said to Hermione one day. "Harry says you're the smartest witch in your year." Harry didn't remember saying anything of the sort to Ginny, but he wasn't going to say anything when Hermione preened, clearly flattered that multiple people appreciated her intelligence.
"Oh, it was no trouble, really. I know you've got to be struggling with class – if you ever need help with anything, you can come and ask me. Anytime!" Hermione offered.)
Since Ginny had taken Hermione's words for granted, the two became something between academic buddies and friends, and Hermione often took over for Harry's and Ron's shifts.
Hermione had discussed dropping Gin-watch altogether, for a number of reasons such as 'she seems fine' and 'she hasn't gotten into trouble or had any sort of break down', which both Harry and Ron could agree with academically – but since neither boy nor Hermione could shake the feeling that there was something wrong, the watches continued. It seemed as though Ginny's good behaviour was actually puzzling her brother.
The trio couldn't actually justify continuing Gin-watch because of an unsettling feeling however. The official rationale for not dropping Gin-watch was then 'because she has no friends.'
Ginny came downstairs one morning to much snickering and lowered whispers. Harry found it odd because the whispering had mostly left off once Ginny proved that she was utterly unconcerned about hearsay, and he thought for a moment that the Hogwart's rumour mill was churning it's way back to her.
"Do you think she looks a bit different this morning?" Ron asked him. Harry looked at her face and tried to compare the shade of her face today to the shade it was yesterday. Was she more pale than normal? Were the bags under her eyes deeper?
"I can't tell. 'Mione, do you think she looks different today?"
Hermione was half-asleep from another night researching Buckbeak's predicament. She took a brief, cursory glance at Ginny, went back to her breakfast, and then did a double-take. "Oh no, she didn't!" Hermione said, eyes suddenly wide awake.
"Did something happen?" Hermione didn't answer him; instead, she pushed past the boys and walked briskly in Ginny's direction. Ginny seemed calm when Hermione approached her; that quickly changed when Hermione grabbed Ginny by the arm and pulled her off her chair and out of the Great Hall. Alarmed, both the boys forwent their breakfast and followed the girls out.
The girls were marching at a furious pace, and Ginny's eyes were dark enough for murder, but every time she tried to pull away, Hermione pulled her back. It was very strange behaviour for Hermione, Harry thought, but he wasn't sure if he should run up to them and interfere either, because if Hermione had wanted their help, she would've said. Hermione eventually stopped in an empty alcove – Ron made to follow them, but Harry nudged him and pointed to another space where they could hide and listen in.
When Hermione was satisfied that no one was around, she turned around and started the conversation, straight-forward and very, very blunt.
"There is no excuse for not wearing a bra."
("Right," Ron muttered under his breath. "I'm going back to breakfast." Unfortunately, the only way out was through Harry, who was blocking the exit. "Harry, move out."
"No," Harry said. "They're going to see me if I move out, and I'm not going to deal with that."
Ron stared at him. "You're seriously going to stay here."
Harry shrugged and looked back at him with steady eyes. "You cannot imagine the conversation your sister and I had in the boy's room.")
Meanwhile, Ginny was composing herself. "Ah. I had a bit of an accident. Don't have any, anymore." She hooked a finger in her neckline and looked down. "Is it really that noticeable?"
"Yes. It really is," Hermione said firmly.
("I don't feel comfortable listening to this," Ron tried. Harry was unsympathetic.)
"It's not like I've got anything to put into one of those," Ginny countered.
"Be as that may, you still can't go walking around with your chest showing through your shirt!"
("No, no, my brain," Ron bemoaned. "I'm sorry for making you talk to her, I'm on my knees begging forgiveness, spare me already!")
"Look, you can borrow a few of mine. They're pretty plain though – I've only got white, but they're self-adjusting so they should fit."
"If I had to wear one, those would be my preferences, actually," Ginny smiled. "But no, I'm happier this way. Keep them."
Ron made a truly despairing noise. At this point, Harry thought that yes, maybe he had tortured Ron enough, and that yes, maybe Harry regretted everything, just a little. They made a break for it. Both of the girls' heads snapped in their direction at the sound, and Harry knew that they had spotted them, but he also rationalised that as long as he wasn't around, he could avoid the awkward conversation about what he was doing there.
It was at times like these when Harry really appreciated his choice to pick Divination as a third-year elective – Hermione wasn't in that class anymore. Hopefully her Arithmanctic equations would be distracting enough for Hermione to forget about everything before lunch.
:::
Her arithmantic equations weren't sufficiently distracting. Harry looked entirely miserable when Hermione had approached him after lunch, but strangely enough, the encounter didn't go the way he had expected at all. It was very odd, but Hermione seemed to have decided that since Harry had accompanied Ginny after the bathroom event and sat through a discussion of feminine issues, that it would be alright for her to spew all the Ginny-problems she was facing at the poor boy.
'I have never met anyone more in denial than that girl,' Hermione was ranting. 'I told her, it's fine if she's got gender dysphoria, and perhaps, would she like to talk to Madam Pomfrey about it, but she's still going to have to find a way to deal with her breasts - unless she wants to wear a binder twenty-four seven! Try showering with that on!'
Crookshanks made an unexpected attempt to eat Scabbers, and so, Ron avoided the whole thing simply through fighting and not talking to Hermione. Harry secretly thought it was hilarious, considering Ron's complete unconcern for Scabbers' fate when Percy was threatening to take his rat back.
The dark glee he derived from this sense of irony deflated quickly once Harry realised that McGonagall couldn't be sweet-talked into signing his Hogsmeade form.
:::
Harry woke up on Halloween morning. He had reached a new level of depression. Hermione and Ron had tried to assure him that really, there was nothing special about Hogsmeade, it was all a load of rubbish. Then they moved on to 'hey, the Halloween feast is on tonight and that's always good'.
"I know," Harry said, smiling brightly. "Have fun at Hogsmeade!"
Ron and Hermione only looked more worried. They reassured him that they would bring back lots of sweets. He walked them all the way to the entrance hall, ignored Malfoy 'scared of passing the dementors?' and in a fit of masochism, watched his whole cohort walk away.
It was to Harry's surprise that he noticed Ginny then, walking from the direction of the Forbidden Forest. He began to tail her; after so many days of Gin-watch, it was almost an automatic response, and right now he needed something else to concentrate on rather than how if his parents hadn't died, he might be at Hogsmeade right now.
She entered the school. Turned the corner. Harry turned the same corner and felt three consecutive spells blast into his chest in quick succession. He hit the wall hard. It felt like someone had poured gasoline over his insides and lit a match, and he was screaming, but there was no sound.
"Ginny's a helpless little girl," the second year was saying, with smoke drifting from her wand. "We can't let her face the boggarts."
By the time the pain had stopped, her wand was under his neck. "Still think I'm weak?" she asked, tracing the edge of his collar bones with it. Holly, like his. 8.5 inches. Unicorn hair.
Harry was normally a very calm and pleasant person. Maybe Ginny had been surprised. Maybe she was lashing out. But whatever she hit him with had hurt a lot, and Harry was just the tiniest bit unhappy about all of it. Ginny and he were friends, and what friends did was call out to you from across the hall and ask questions NICELY.
"I'm having a really bad day," he told her, with eyes that were as hard as diamonds. There were tear tracks on his face. "And I know you don't know. But there is nothing I hate more than having a wand in my face."
A minute passed. Two. Ginny's smile was about every bit as real as a mannequin's.
"I had one really, really bad year," she said. "I lived. No hard feelings."
She slipped her wand back into her sleeve. Bent down on her knees and removed his glasses. With the edge of her jumper, she wiped methodically at the water on his face. "Yeah sure," Harry replied slowly, closing one eye when her sleeve went over it, and then the other. "No hard feelings." It was Ron's baby sister. What could he do? She would have had to do something extremely ugly and cruel before Harry could justify hurting his best friend's sister.
"So mind telling me why you and your friends have been following me around?"
"Next time," he grumbled. "Try 'hi Harry, it's nice to see you.' Ask questions first, hex later."
Ginny was utterly unconcerned. "If I did that, you would never learn."
"Your brother worries himself sick over you. And I just saw you walk away from the Forbidden Forest," Harry replied in a soft voice. "What have you been up to?"
She hummed. Patted the area under his rib cage where her spell had hit – and ohGodric, that hurt, he would not be surprised if it bruised. "I should keep your glasses," she said. "You look much better without them."
"Harry?" A new voice said. Ginny straightened and passed his glasses over. He put them back on, glad to be looking away from her. It was Professor Lupin, who seemed to be having a bit of a stroll around the castle. "Where are Ron and Hermione?"
"Hogsmeade," Harry replied in a voice that was as casual as he could make it.
"Ah," Professor Lupin said, looking between him and Ginny. "They've delivered the Grindylow for our next lesson. Why don't you both come and see it?"
:::
Ginny refused the tea and sat herself next to the tank with the Grindylow. It seemed as thought she was absolutely fascinated with the water demon. It gave Harry and Professor Lupin the illusion of privacy.
"I wasn't thinking of Voldemort," he admitted to his professor. Ginny didn't jump. Either she was one of those rare few who were now unafraid of his name, or she wasn't listening. "I remembered those dementors."
"That suggests that what you fear most of all is fear itself," Professor Lupin was saying. "I'm impressed. So you've been thinking that I didn't believe you capable of fighting the boggart?"
Harry didn't say anything, but he felt a little bit happier. It was, of course, ruined by Professor Snape. He walked in and placed a goblet on Professor Lupin's desk.
"I was just showing Harry and Ginny my grindylow," Professor Lupin told him. At the sound of her name, Ginny turned back around.
"That smells like – " she began, and stopped. "Oh," she said, when she saw the potion. Looked back up at Snape and Lupin with wide eyes. For the first time, Snape grinned; a shark's smile, before they ate their prey. "Aren't you a clever little cat," he said.
Professor Lupin was blasé. "It's a pity sugar makes it tasteless," making a toast before he drank from the goblet. It went down all at once. "Lily was always good at Potions."
"My mother?" Harry asked, wondering what he was missing. "You knew my mother?"
"We both did," Proffessor Lupin continued, when it became clear Snape wasn't going to say anything. "I wonder…"
"No," Snape said. "Potter and Lily fought like cats and dogs."
"If we swapped Ginny's hazel for Harry's green," Lupin said. "Can you see that? Ghosts, coming back to haunt us on their death-day."
Professor Snape stormed out. Professor Lupin sent a rueful smile at his coworker's back. "I should be getting back to work," he told Harry and Ginny, who looked like she was biting back on her words, hard. "I'll see you at the feast." It took no time at all for Ginny to grab Harry's arm and drag them both out of the office. She was furious.
"I should tell the school board," she was saying. "I should tell the newspapers!"
"Tell them what?" Harry replied, sounding alarmed.
"That Dumbledore favours his old Gryffindors," Ginny replied, almost bitterly. "There was no way any Slytherin was ever going to get the DADA professorship."
It wasn't a secret that Professor Snape wanted the Defense position, and for a brief moment in Lupin's office, Harry had wondered if Snape was trying to poison the other man. If Ginny had recognised the potion and if Lupin was happy to drink Snape's potion though – the odds of it being poison were unlikely.
"I'm sure Professor Lupin got the job because he was more qualified for it than Snape," he replied, utterly bewildered.
Ginny stopped dead in her tracks. "No, not yet," she said with a touch of something in her voice. She turned to Harry then, and stroked the back of his fingers. "You asked before what I was doing in the Forbidden Forest." Her eyes grew darker.
"Let me show you."
:::
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