Sorry for making yall wait! Alright, so Harry's secret is revealed in this chapter cause I figured yall had waited long enough :) Also, Filch appears in this one, and I wasn't too sure how to do him, so he might be a little OOC or something. Sorry about that.
To OnMyHighHorse: if I told you exactly what they're saying, then that would completely ruin the effect don't you think? hehe, sorry ;) Use your imagination! And thanks for all your wonderful reviews!
To The Other Side of Sanity: Thanks for review! Again, sorry for making yall wait
Another thing, I'm gonna have to update every other day instead of every day. I've been put on babysitting duty, so I won't be able to work as much. That means that I won't be able to update until Wednesday instead of tomorrow. Just a little heads up. Anyways, enjoy chapter 13! :)
Ginny squinted her chocolate brown eyes against the intrusive glare of light streaming from the window slit in the wall and grumbled something about adoption again. The other sixth year girls exchanged half amused and half exasperated glances with one another at the sight of Ginny rolling over in her bed and snuggling back under the covers.
One of the girls suddenly darted forward and snatched the covers off the red haired girl's bed with a soft giggle. The intense intrusion of draftiness shocked Ginny into consciousness. "Hey, what was that for?" she demanded as she grudgingly sat up and swung her pajama clad legs over the side of the bed with a wide yawn.
Hailey Anderson rolled her sapphire blue eyes at her friend. "It's almost time for breakfast, Ginny! Come on, you don't want to miss it. You know how much of a grouch you can be when you go without your food," the blond teased with a friendly grin.
Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, Ginny nodded drowsily and slowly put her uniform on. Between Quidditch practices (the only time she could fly, unfortunately), homework, helping out Professor Flitwick, and working off her detentions with Malfoy, Ginny was feeling the toll of too much to do in too little time.
A few minutes later, all the girls found themselves sitting at the Gryffindor table with their house mates. Ginny casually glanced around the table and was curious at the fact that Harry was not there yet. Oh well. Maybe he just slept in or something, she thought to herself with an unconcerned shrug. After all, he wasn't her problem anymore. A fact that she was very glad for.
The delicious smell of blueberry pancakes drifted up from her golden plate, tossing all thoughts of Harry out of her mind. She hungrily licked her lips before tucking in. Mmmhhh. Soooooo good.
After she was done eating, Ginny glanced down for her bag, but didn't see it anywhere. Where did I leave it now? Hmm. Was it in my room? she mused, pursing her lips in thought. She finally shrugged before standing up and heading back to the Gryffindor tower to search the girl's dorms for her book bag.
When she stepped through the portrait and into the Gryffindor common room, the sight that greeted her almost made her laugh out loud at the sheer repulsiveness.
Harry and Cho Chang were sitting on the couch, practically sucking each other's faces off. Hmm, that couch seems to be getting a lot of action these days, Ginny mused to herself with a grin. Something occurred to the red haired teenager, and the past few days suddenly made sense.
The other day Ginny had overheard a group of fourth year Hufflepuff girls gossiping about Cho Chang finally getting her boyfriend back. They must have been talking about Harry.
She didn't know who to sympathize with more. Cho for getting stuck with clueless Harry or Harry for getting stuck with crybaby Cho.
Now that she was thinking about strange behavior, she remembered how Harry had been acting towards her since school started, all awkward like. Then there was the conversation she had overheard between Ron and Harry almost a week ago. It all clicked. This was Harry's big secret? He wanted to break up with me so he could get with Chang again?
To be honest, Ginny was slightly disappointed. Not that Harry had wanted to dump her. No, that was a mutual sentiment. The thing that disappointed her the most was the fact that he didn't have a better secret. Like, that he was secretly in love with his imaginary friend or something. Now that would have been a little disturbing. Ah well, life certainly has gotten duller when it comes to Harry, Ginny thought with a light shrug.
She must have made some sort of noise, because Harry and Cho suddenly broke apart, gasping for breath. Or maybe it was just the fact that they had been under for five whole minutes with no air. Yeah, that might have something to do with it.
Harry glanced up and saw Ginny standing there doing her best not to burst out laughing. He misinterpreted her quivering form as being distressed and half stood up to comfort her. The effort to hold it in became too much, and the dam broke. Ginny leaned against the wall, laughing her head off, causing Cho to turn her nose up at her in disgust.
"Come on, Harry. Let's go somewhere more private," she told him pointedly glaring at Ginny. Harry glanced from Ginny to Cho and back again. "Umm," he mumbled. Shaking her head in amusement and still chuckling, the red haired teenager stumbled past the dumbfounded couple and up the stairs to the girl's dorms to retrieve her bag. Coming back down, she had to wipe a few tears of mirth from her eyes again.
Later that day, Ginny found herself once again staying late to help Professor Flitwick put together a lesson plan for the first years for the next day. "So, if they're studying the Wingardium Leviosa spell, then why don't you have them to see if they can move the feather from here and into the hat? The ones who perform the spell the best could get a night free of homework," she suggested with a smile at the short teacher.
He twirled a long finger in his mustache before exclaiming in surprise. "Why that's perfect! This will give them the perfect incentive to practice their spellwork. Well done Ms. Weasley, your help has certainly been invaluable this year!" Flitwick squeaked out from his spot atop a large stack of books behind his desk.
Ginny merely shook her head. "It's been really fun working for you. I'm glad you picked me," she replied with a charming grin. Soon, they were finished with all the lesson plans, and Flitwick was waving goodbye to the young woman. "Thank you Ms. Weasley!" he piped up as she was walking through the door. After a final wave, the teenager glided out of the room and on down the hall to Filch's office, a gloomy grimace appearing on her face.
It was only her fifth night of detention, but she was already feeling the strain. Staying late helping Flitwick, and then going straight to three hours of detention was wearing her out. Plus, she still had to finish an essay for Professor Slughorn for Potions class. Honestly, a three foot essay with Christmas break only a week away? Who was going to be thinking about salamander hearts and troll eyes at this time?
Ginny was really looking forward to the Christmas break because it meant that she didn't have to do any detentions for two whole weeks. Of course, as soon as the holiday break was over, she had to finish working the rest of her detentions off, but Ginny didn't exactly care to dwell on that fact right now. Her day to day life was depressing as it was.
Another benefit of the holiday break was the fact that she wouldn't have to see a certain blond teenager every evening for two whole weeks. She could label that under the no detention part, but not seeing him for that long was just too good of a thing that she simply had to think of it as a completely different benefit. Ah, the joys of Ginevra Weasley's mind.
And speaking of platinum blonds. . . .
Malfoy was already waiting for her outside of Filch's office, a bored look on his striking face. He pushed off from the wall he had been leaning on and unfolded his sinewy arms. "About time you got here," he drawled. The young man arched a perfectly sculpted eyebrow at the irate glower she shot him in response to his comment.
"Ohh, touchy are we? What's got your knickers in a twist?" he asked, leaning in close to peer at her. "Bug off Malfoy," she snapped, roughly pushing past him to pound on Filch's door.
The door was yanked open revealing a shriveled old man bent nearly double with age. A small, scraggly cat poked its head around the door and hissed threateningly at the two students. Filch bent down, his joints creaking dangerously, and patted the ugly cat gently on the head.
"It's alright Mrs. Norris. I won't let these miscreants hurt you. Nooo, no I won't," he cooed soothingly to the cat, who still eyed Ginny and Malfoy with narrowed eyes. "More likely that she would hurt us," Malfoy muttered under his breath to Ginny who barely managed to suppress a smile.
Filch straightened up with some difficulty and glared at the two teenagers. "In the good ole days, the Headmaster was strict on misbehavior. Let me tie 'em up by their toes, he did. These days, kids get by with anything. No punishment whatsoever," he croaked as he reluctantly let them into his precious office. "The detention slips are there. Sort 'em and file 'em," he growled at them before shuffling off to do his rounds with Mrs. Norris.
Malfoy and Ginny exchanged a glance before bursting into low snickers. "Shouldn't that cat be dead by now?" Malfoy complained with a scowl towards the closed door that the odd couple had just walked through. Ginny snorted in response to his comment.
"You wish," she replied, gracefully sinking to the floor to start on filing all the detention slips. Malfoy rolled his silver eyes at her. "Me and the rest of the school," he muttered under his breath before reluctantly joining her on the floor.
"You know Malfoy, only a year ago you would have been pitching a fit about having to do actual work. The whole, Malfoys don't do house-elf jobs thing," she commented casually, keeping her brown eyes on the slips in front of her.
Malfoy glanced up at her and a vaguely amused expression flitted across his pale face before he composed himself. Those were almost his exact thoughts on their first night of detention when they had been forced to clean all of the trophies. It was scary how similar their minds worked.
"The war changed everyone I guess," he replied carefully, remembering that her brother Fred had been killed during the war.
There was silence once more for a little while before Ginny finally replied. "I guess you're right," she whispered softly. They both looked up at the same time and simply gazed into each other's eyes as if trying to read their soul. Malfoy was the first to break away, jerking his silver eyes back to the detention slips on the floor in front of him.
"Enough talk. I don't fancy having to come back tomorrow night to finish this," he said sharply with a dark glare, pointedly ignoring Ginny's soft sigh of disappointment at his abrupt subject change.
So, what yall think?