A/N: I've had multiple requests to write the backstory of Initiate. Never let it be said that I don't listen to my readers. *winks* As always, much love to Thalia, Kirixchi, and Mynuet, who always have time for reading and making helpful suggestions.

Disclaimer: I didn't find Draco under my Christmas tree this year. He and the rest of his fellow characters still belong securely to the lovely Ms. Rowling.

~*~

Ginny Weasley was not having a good day.

Her problems had actually begun the night before. She had been assigned to Prefect duty, drawing the 10 PM - 1 AM patrol with Hannah Abbott, one of the seventh-year Hufflepuff Prefects. Staying up past midnight the night before she had Advanced Herbology - a double class - at 9 AM always led to a very grouchy Ginny. The fact that she'd had to spend three hours making small talk with a person who shared absolutely none of her interests had led to Ginny waking up with the Weasley temper in fine form.

She'd made it through breakfast without slaying any of her fellow Gryffindors and struggled to pay attention through the entire two hours of Herbology without daydreaming about hexing, cursing, or otherwise maligning one of her less able classmates. It was inevitable, therefore, that she would lose her patience with somebody on the way to her study period in the library.

A hapless Hufflepuff fourth-year named Owen Cauldwell was the catalyst for the incident in question. Cauldwell's ancient bookbag finally reached the end of its useful book-carrying career in a spectacular fashion while he was attempting to traverse the moving staircases. While the consequent disruption was unfortunate, this was not the cause of Ginny's meltdown. The unfortunate recipient of a full serving of Angry Ginny was instead Ernie MacMillan, the other seventh-year Hufflepuff Prefect, who felt that Ginny had not been understanding enough with his housemate, and threatened to take his disagreement over Ginny's discipline of Cauldwell to Minerva McGonagall.

Ginny had realized early on in her career as a Prefect that she was easily agitated and had less control of her temper than she probably should. One of the things Ginny prided herself on being, therefore, was a just authority figure. If she was in a position where she needed to take House points, by Merlin's blood, she was going to be in the right of it. Ginny found Ernie's insinuation that she was being unfair by docking Hufflepuff five points for the massive disruption utterly infuriating.

The Weasley temper came out to play, with a vengeance. In short order she'd very efficiently backed Ernie down from going to McGonagall, and convinced him that were she ever in a position to be taking points from Ernie himself she wouldn't be nearly as generous as she had been with the poor prat that had kept half the school's population from making their way to class for a full five minutes.

She stood in the same spot long after MacMillan had fled the scene, a stony expression on her face as she watched the student body make its way to its next class. When the hallway was finally silent of footsteps, she turned and headed for McGonagall's office.

If the Deputy Headmistress was going to hear about this incident - and the way news spread through the school, Minerva McGonagall was going to hear of it - she was going to hear it from Ginny herself.

~*~

The interview with the Deputy Headmistress kept Ginny past the end of her study period in the library. By the time Ginny made her way to the Great Hall for lunch, the rest of the school had settled into its chicken pot pie and quiet conversations.

"Ginny!" Colin Creevey called from his position one-third of the way down the table. He gestured to the empty space next to him. She gave him a grateful smile and sank to the bench. Moments later, she had a portion of pie on her plate and a full goblet of pumpkin juice at her right hand. She took a deep breath, savoring the comforting aroma.

Her first bite of lunch was interrupted by, of all people, her brother.

"I heard about the little fracas in the stairway," Ron remarked loudly from his position five or six seats away. "You know, it was just an accident. You really shouldn't have gotten all chuffed about it."

The temper she'd spent all morning trying to calm returned with a vengeance. "Thank you, Ron," she said acidly, loud enough for her brother (and indeed, half of the Gryffindor table) to hear. "I know, of course, that you are a paragon of virtue. You would never have lost your temper with a Prefect from another house or found it necessary to take a minimal amount of points for an incident that caused several students to be late for second block."

All along the table, snickers indicated how well their sources remembered Ron's own tendency to temper and illogic. His face flushed and his eyes narrowed; his mouth opened, evidently in the beginning stages of proving said tendency. But his sister had the final word.

"Ron," she snapped in exasperation, "shut up and eat your lunch. I don't really want to hear it."

~*~

After the Relaxing Lunch that Wasn't, Ginny found herself making her way to her afternoon class - NEWT-level Potions.

She expected no less of a trial in that class than she'd been blessed with over and over on this god-forsaken day. As her legs carried her toward the dungeons and Snape's classroom, she rued the day she'd decided to attempt NEWT Potions and found herself sharing a worktable with Pansy Parkinson, Princess of Slytherin House.

It had been a rough start to the term, certainly. It was difficult enough to leave behind the comfort of classes isolated by year and step into the post-OWL NEWT preparatory classes that combined the sixth and seventh year students. Ginny's added suffering was due, in no small portion, to the fact that the seventh years in question had been feuding for their entire Hogwarts career, and she was somewhat unprepared for the intensity of their antagonism.

Ginny had never been one to make denigrating remarks about other students' Houses; Pansy had never been one to keep her thoughts to herself, especially regarding her views of Gryffindor House in particular. The first two weeks of the term were especially difficult; Ginny had spent more time in class sparring with Pansy than she had paying attention to Snape's lessons.

And if Ginny had learned anything in her first five years at Hogwarts, she had learned that it was not wise to cross Severus Snape. At any time.

Ginny entered the Potions classroom and sat down at her worktable. The Slytherin delegation had not yet arrived at class, and she sat in her seat for a few moments wondering who would emerge victorious from today's battle of wits before it was made perfectly clear that today's worst troubles wouldn't be coming from Pansy Parkinson.

Because the next person to walk through the classroom door was Justin Finch-Fletchley, seventh-year Hufflepuff. He'd heard from MacMillan about the insult to Hufflepuff House. And he was bloody brassed off.

He crossed to his own worktable, but instead of sitting down at it remained standing and turned to face Ginny, his arms crossed forbiddingly across his chest. "So. The perfect and just Miss Weasley felt the need to take points for an accident. Don't you think that's a little unfair?"

Ginny didn't even attempt to check her temper, letting it fuel a blossom of crimson across her cheeks as she herself stood up and placed her hands on the table in front of her, the cool contact distracting her enough to refrain from picking up her closest book and flinging it like a Quaffle in the direction of his head.

"Mmm. The last time I checked, Mister Finch-Fletchley, I was a Prefect, which gives me the authority to take points in whatever manner I deem appropriate." She heard a small crowd of students enter the classroom, but trained her stormy eyes on the Hufflepuff standing across the room from her. "I have already spoken with the Deputy Headmistress at length regarding this situation; she found my reasoning sound, and has determined that the penalty will stand." Her voice raised slightly. "I. Will. Not. Discuss. This. Again."

"Very noble of you, Miss Weasley." The cutting voice from the front of the classroom indicated that Professor Snape had entered the classroom and had leaned against his desk, taking in the scene before him. "This, however, is a Potions class and not a Prefect's meeting. Please recite for the class the list of reagents for the brewing of a Dreamless Sleep Potion."

Ginny assumed the most neutral facial expression she could manage under extreme duress and spun on her heel to face the Potions Master. She gave the recitation, taking great care to be thorough, and when she closed her mouth at the end of it the professor's expression relaxed slightly. "Very good, Miss Weasley. You will please be seated, and see me after class."

Ginny sunk to the bench, and leaned forward enough to rest her forehead on the tabletop. This day was only getting worse and worse. And any minute Parkinson was going to start in on something - the weaknesses of Gryffindor's Quidditch team, the shabbiness of Ginny's personal belongings, or the unattractiveness of her Weasley-red hair.

But nothing came from the direction of her tablemate for the remainder of the period. It turned out to be a theory day for the class, in which Snape lectured about the properties of poppy leaves: what uses they had in other potions besides Dreamless Sleep, and the proper methods of obtaining and storing them until ready for use. It wasn't until the end of the period, when the students were packing their books away and Ginny was stalling for time before she went up to Professor Snape's desk, that Parkinson finally spoke.

"Hey, Weasley," Pansy said, as she slipped her Potions notebook into her sleek leather bookpack. "I saw the little altercation with MacMillan in the stair this morning."

Ginny looked at her suspiciously out of the corner of her eye. "So did half the school. Your point?"

Pansy regarded her tablemate with a look Ginny hadn't seen on her face before. She couldn't identify it; all she could say definitively was that it wasn't the usual look of Slytherin superiority. "It was bloody brilliant, the way you backed him down. He's had it coming ever since he was made a Prefect, the pretentious bastard."

Ginny fought well to maintain the look of slight suspicion on her face. After all, it was either that, or a most inelegant jaw drop, and narrowed eyes were the lesser of the two evils.

"I thought it bore mentioning, is all. See you tomorrow." With that, Pansy swept her bookpack over her arm, and walked out of the classroom with Malfoy and Zabini. Ginny took up her own bookbag and made her way to the front of the classroom, wondering as she navigated worktables and benches if a truce had just been declared in the Parkinson-Weasley War.

A/N: Thanks to Rainpuddle, Slythhearted, and Scarlett for their quick readthroughs of this chapter! *glomps*

~*~

Ginny soon discovered that she and Pansy made an excellent team when they weren't attempting to sabotage each other's efforts.

Ginny's impatience with people, for example, didn't extend to potion ingredients. She found it easy to concentrate on shredding, slicing, or skinning whatever roots, wings, or leaves were needed for the day's assignment with precision. By the same token, Pansy's strength was remembering the order in which ingredients were added or solutions were stirred. Ginny's obsessiveness in preparation rubbed off on Pansy, while Ginny found herself thankful on more than one occasion that her tablemate caught her before she skipped an important step and melted her cauldron in the best Neville Longbottom tradition.

One afternoon, as Pansy was taking turns stirring that day's potion, she noticed Ginny slipping a deep-red book out of her ancient bookbag and began to scribble in it. "Diary?" Pansy queried, her eyes on the shimmering green solution in the cauldron, and the figure-eight pattern she drew in it with the stirrer.

Ginny's mouth curled into a smirk. It was not quite the trademark Malfoy smirk with its insinuations of distasteful superiority. All the same, it was shocking to see such a sarcastic expression cross the face of a soft-hearted Weasley, and Pansy told her so.

This elicited a chuckle from Ginny, and the smirk was gone. "I think I may be the least soft of the Weasley clan. Anyway," Ginny's voice softened a little bit, "I haven't kept a journal since I was eleven." She looked down at the deep-red book in her hands, hyper-aware of her immediate surroundings, ignoring the feeling that the pair of grey eyes that belonged to one of the students at the table behind her had left his own work and was regarding her intently after her last comment.

She set the book down on the table, and offered to take her turn stirring the potion. "You can look at it, if you want," Ginny offered. "It's just Potions notes."

Pansy picked the book up, and ran a hand across the cover, feeling the texture of the material before lifting the front cover with one well-manicured finger. "This isn't just Potions notes, Weasley," she said, a hint of awe in her voice. "Unless I'm mistaken, which I doubt, this is the instructions for all the potions we've been taught since first year!"

Ginny nodded silently as she stirred.

"Why?" Pansy pressed.

"I intend to sit the Mastery exam in Potions after I graduate. I thought that a compilation of what we've covered might be helpful to have."

Pansy regarded the book, page after page filled with careful, flowing script, and contemplated the girl next to her. Other than the fact that she was a Gryffindor and a Weasley - neither of which she had any control over - what did she know about the girl she worked with in Potions? That she played a vicious game of Quidditch, and that she gave as good as she got during any match, especially against Slytherin. That along with the Weasley temper she had nerve and confidence at her full command. That she enjoyed Potions and respected the Head of Slytherin House, a failing for which the spirit of Godric Gryffindor should have struck her down long before now. That she could be snarky and sarcastic .. granted, she wasn't at the level of any Slytherin, but she also hadn't spent six years in the Slytherin dungeons with plentiful opportunity to refine the art.

It was the smirk that sealed the deal. Any Gryffindor who could smirk like that was worth knowing, Pansy decided.

~*~

It goes without saying that a friendship between Gryffindor and Slytherin would be sorely tested. The rivalry between the Houses was simply too strong for it to be otherwise.

Just before All Hallows', Professor Snape announced the biannual long-term research project. Students worked in groups of four, and were required to thoroughly investigate a potion of Snape's choosing. Their final report was to include a study on each component and what effect its inclusion had on the potion, as well as a properly-brewed vial of the potion itself. It promised to be a lot of work, and he was giving the students what he considered to be a generous amount of class time in which to do research, obtain the necessary ingredients, and create the potion.

After making the announcement, Snape turned to the chalkboard in order to put up that day's potion instructions. Pansy and Ginny looked at each other, a silent agreement to work together passing between them. Pansy took up her notebook and quill, scratched a few words out in the margins of a page, and showed it to Ginny.

I'm going to invite Draco and Blaise to work with us. All right?

Ginny nodded almost imperceptibly, her attention returning to the blackboard immediately. To her mind, it didn't matter with whom she and Pansy worked; her Slytherin friend certainly wasn't going to agree to working with any of the other Gryffindors, and why would they select anyone from Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff when Pansy's own friends from Slytherin filled out their group of four neatly?

When class was over, Pansy leaned over to speak directly into Ginny's ear. "I'll talk it over with them at dinner tonight, but I can't imagine them not wanting to work with us."

Ginny smiled to herself, and wondered what contortions Pansy would have to go through to get Malfoy and Zabini to see that some Gryffs were not as bad as all that. She didn't know Blaise Zabini at all, and thought that the raven-haired boy might give her a chance without requiring too much convincing. But she knew without a doubt that six years of constant competition between Malfoy and another red-haired Weasley was bound to make Pansy's job much more difficult.

She had dinner to eat and a Quidditch practice to attend, so she didn't give the issue further thought that night. The next morning, when she looked over at the Slytherin table, Pansy caught her eye and gave her a grin that Ginny interpreted to mean that Zabini and Malfoy had been amenable to their group's fourth member.

All was smooth sailing until the next Potions class.

The first project assignment that Professor Snape requested from the students was a list of who was participating in each group, so that he might assign appropriate potions to each. Pansy took the list for their group up to Snape's desk. After all of the lists had been received and the professor examined each one, he stood and spoke. "It appears that we have a problem. One of the students in this class is named on two separate lists."

In an instant, Ginny knew what had happened, and buried her head in her hands. Snape saw the movement out of the corner of his eye, and instead of questioning her, turned on Harry.

"Tell me, Mr Potter. Did you consult all of the students on your list before you wrote their names down?"

Confused, Harry turned to Ron. "Ron said he'd speak to .. Ron. You didn't ask her, did you?"

Ron's face flamed. "Who else would Ginny work with?" He turned to look at his sister, who lifted her head to glare back at him.

"Thank you for asking, Ron, but I already have a group to work with." Ginny was too busy attempting to remain calm in the face of her brother's inconsideration to register the hurt look on his face, or the sour expressions that Harry and Hermione wore. If she'd turned around she'd have seen three identical expressions on her groupmates' faces, not bothering to hide their pleasure at making the Golden Gryff Trio's lives more complicated without any effort of their own.

"Five points from Gryffindor, for not being properly prepared," Professor Snape snapped. "Mr. Longbottom, you will take Miss Weasley's place in Potter's group."

"Y-yes, Professor," Neville replied. For all of the work he'd done in improving his Potions acumen, he was still petrified of the Potions Master.

Snape waved his wand at the blackboard, and a set of instructions appeared. The classroom fell silent as its students began their work. For the next hour, all was harmonious except for the uncomfortable glances that passed constantly between the Weasley siblings.

The moment class was over, Ron sprang from his seat to confront his sister. "What the bloody hell are you on about?" he demanded.

Ginny frowned at him in irritation. "It's incredibly simple. Pansy asked me if I wanted to work with her. No one else had asked me, so I told her I would."

He rounded on Pansy. "You did this just to cause problems, didn't you, Parkinson?"

Pansy sneered. "No, Weasel King. I asked your sister to work with us because she's very good at Potions. Unlike certain prat Gryffindors I could name."

"Merlin forbid I should be wanted on my own merits, and not as a pawn, Ronald," Ginny added quietly. She turned to the worktable to put her books away, leaving Pansy and her brother to glare silently at each other while she tried to convince herself that her brother's probably-unintentional slur against her abilities didn't sting horribly.

When she trusted her own emotions enough to look up from her bag, the room was empty save for the Potions Master, who sat at his desk, regarding her with a contemplative expression. It was a departure from the severe look of displeasure that Snape reserved especially for Gryffindors.

He watched her leave his classroom, silently resolving to keep an eye on the youngest Weasley.

~*~

Late that night, Ginny climbed through the portrait hole to the Gryffindor common room on her way directly to bed. The day had been long, and trying in so many different ways; in addition to the problems in Potions class, she had had a full slate of classes, had a two-scroll essay assigned in History of Magic which was due the next day, and a Quidditch practice in which her brother - who'd been named Captain of the Gryffindor team - had shared his bad mood by running drill after drill, until all of the Gryffindor players were ready to drop from exhaustion. Between practice, several hours spent in the library working on Binns' essay, and a hastily-consumed dinner, she was more than ready to put the day to bed, and hope for better when she woke up.

She was halfway across the common room when she heard it, another thing gone wrong with the day cleverly disguised as Hermione's voice. "Ginny?"

"Hermione." She turned to face her friend, displaying her fatigue in her facial expression. "I'd love to chat, but I'm really tired. Can this wait until tomorrow?"

"No, it can't," the Head Girl replied. "Gin, I know that I've been busy since the start of the term with classes and meetings and rounds, and I haven't been .. available for you much. I'm sorry."

"I understand."

"I'm just surprised .. are you really friends with Pansy?"

Ginny contemplated her answer before replying. "Well, it's not like we spend all of our free time hanging out, but we have a friendly working relationship in class. And the few times that we've spoken outside of class, our senses of humour have really complemented each other. So yes, I really am friends with Pansy."

"It's just that she's always been so hateful.."

"Hermione, let me ask you a question. If you weren't my brother's best friend, would you and I be friends right now?"

Hermione looked at Ginny with a strange expression. "What does this have to do with Pansy?"

"Answer the question. If my brother didn't go to school here, if you didn't spend weeks at a time at the Burrow every summer, would we have become friends?"

"I don't know," she answered honestly. "I would guess yes, but I can't answer the question absolutely."

"See? Our friendship's existence can probably be attributed, in some small way, to my brother. With Pansy, our congeniality exists in spite of my brother .. which tells me absolutely that if she thinks of me as a friend, it's entirely my own doing."

Hermione opened her mouth to say something, then thought for a minute. "There's something to your reasoning," she admitted. "All the same, I know that your acquaintance with the Slytherins is driving your brother crazy, and as a result, he's driving the rest of us nutters."

"A pleasant side benefit," Ginny teased.

Hermione gave her a small smile. "You know, Ginny, maybe when you're not at practice this weekend, we could slip down to Hogsmeade. Just for a little bit?"

Ginny recognized the effort to reclaim her friendship, and returned the smile. "Sure, Hermione. That sounds like fun."

A/N: My thanks this time to Mynuet, who did a final sanity-check readthrough for me, and Thalia, who convinced me that taking a couple of days off would give me perspective. (Incidentally, she was right.)

~*~

The Advanced Potions class was unusually talkative for a Monday afternoon. Not even the Hogsmeade visit just passed would normally be enough to make Severus Snape's classroom sound like anything livelier than a crypt; yet, his students were unexplainably chattering amongst themselves, clearly taken leave of their senses, until he spoke four words that changed everything.

"Shall I take points?"

The classroom fell silent as Professor Snape walked around the worktables. His robes swirled around his legs as he turned back and forth, slapping parchments onto desks with one sallow hand. His expression was stormy as he dropped the parchment containing the members of the Gryffindor trio's project group and the potion they were to study in front of Hermione.

"Wolfsbane ... we got assigned Wolfsbane," she reported to her groupmates in a tone that was clearly meant to be heard only by them, but failed. "That's supposed to be one of the hardest potions to make correctly!"

Ginny thought about Hermione's comment for a second before the Potions Master held her own group's list and assignment out to her. She scanned the parchment for a moment before handing the sheet over to Pansy for her own perusal.

Her mind was a jumbled mess. Bloody Veritaserum. They'd been assigned Veritaserum. What was the Potion Master playing at, assigning a Ministry-controlled substance as a school project?

The sharp breath she heard Pansy draw, then the low chuckle she heard a moment later, told her that her groupmates weren't bothered by the thought at all.

"Settle down, class," Snape said idly. "I've assigned potions to groups according to your abilities and talents. The assignments are non-negotiable, and will be due on the last day of class before the Christmas holiday begins."

A large portion of the room groaned.

"Today we discuss the uses of dittany in potions.." For the next hour, the only sounds to be heard in the Potions classroom were the silky darkness of the Potions Master's voice and the scratch of quill on parchment, punctuated by Hermione's occasional answer to a question.

At the end of the lecture, Pansy turned to the boys at the worktable behind her. "So when are we going to start working on our project?"

Zabini looked at his tablemate for a moment. "Do we have Quidditch practice tonight, Malfoy?"

"No," the blond replied.

Ginny raised her head from her bookbag, where she'd been arranging her class materials, and frowned as she turned to face the two boys. "I do," she said.

"What do Gryffindors need to practice Quidditch for? They have blessed Saint Potter to catch the snitch for them."

"Sod off, Malfoy," Ginny snapped, before her brain could save her from the certain heartache that would come from snapping at the Head Boy.

"He could take five points for that," Zabini chuckled.

Ginny glared at the Slytherin Seeker, even as she directed her comment to the raven-haired boy next to him. "He should feel free. I'll just make them up on Saturday," she retorted, as she slung her bookbag across her shoulders in one vicious movement. "I'll be in the library when we're done with practice."

"Touchy," Zabini commented, once Ginny was safely out of the room.

"You two WERE baiting her," Pansy replied.

"What, Pans? Standing up for your pet Gryff now?" Malfoy asked.

"So what if I am? She certainly doesn't get much consideration from either of you, or even her own Housemates. And I find her refreshing to be around after six years of Slytherin .. er, confidantes."

"You're mad, Pans," Zabini said affectionately, as the three Slytherins departed the Potions classroom. "Old Salazar will strike you down for certain, for consorting with a Gryff."

~*~

Pull yourself together.

Ginny was standing outside the doors to the library, one hand brushing the cool oak as if prepared to push the door open. The chill puddle of dread in her stomach said otherwise.

She'd rushed through the practice drills with the Chaser squad, hoping to earn a couple extra minutes to spend in the locker room, returning herself to a presentable state of dress before she met her Potions groupmates in the library. She'd woven her auburn hair into a braid and arranged her school uniform in its usual neat lines. Truthfully, she looked no different than she did during class, and yet as she stood at the door to the library she couldn't help thinking of the three Slytherins she was expected to meet, and felt like a straggly wet puppy.

Courage, girl. When did the opinions of Slytherin gits ever matter to you before?

Something inside her pushed that door open.

Ginny surveyed the room. Aside from Madam Pince, sitting at her desk, and a group of fifth-year Ravenclaws taking up the majority of one table not far from the door, the room was empty of patrons. She walked quietly over to the table closest to the door to the Restricted Section, and set down her bag in one chair.

She pulled her red Potions book and a quill. Where to start? She'd wager that any book with the instructions to create a Ministry-controlled substance would be filed in the Restricted Section, but perhaps there was more general information to be had in non-restricted texts. She regretted having given the assignment sheet over to Pansy; without some scrap of supporting evidence, Madam Pince was unlikely to believe Ginny's story that she'd been assigned to research Veritaserum .. even if the story were completely true.

She grabbed the library copy of Most Potente Potions, as well as a thin tome she located on Truth Serums. She found it strange that these books were not covered in dust like many of their shelf-neighbors, but filed that bit of information away in her mind for contemplation later. She returned to her table and was riffling through the index of Most Potente Potions when the doors to the library opened again to reveal Pansy and Zabini.

They crossed the room to join her at the back. "Good evening, Weasley," Pansy greeted her.

"Parkinson," Ginny replied. She looked up from Most Potente Potions, and her brow furrowed. "Where's Malfoy?"

"Head Boy duties," Zabini said. "He's going to meet us up here when he's done. We weren't expecting you to have finished practice yet."

"We got done a little early," Ginny said, keeping her tone of voice light as unease began swirling around the bottom of her stomach. She'd been dreading the inevitable questions about practice since she, Colin, and Kirsten Bundy had flown out onto the pitch. Would it be Pansy and Zabini attempting to be polite (not that the Ferret had ever lost sleep over that particular problem), or would they be trying to procure tactical information about Gryffindor's position to be used to Slytherin's advantage?

You always had to worry about that, when dealing with Slytherins. Even Slytherins that had become your friend.

"How did it go?" Zabini asked.

"You'll forgive me if I don't answer that," Ginny said, having settled on a course of action. "I'll be happy to talk Quidditch with you for hours on end .. after Saturday."

"Oooh, nice evasion of the subject," he replied, smirking. "Very Slytherin of you."

Ginny flushed, hearing echoes of words said to her first by the Sorting Hat five years earlier .. words that had made her uncomfortable then, and still unsettled her now.

Pansy gave her a small smile. "While I'm certainly going to support Slytherin this weekend, and curse any other Gryffindor player, I'll certainly hope for a good showing for you."

Ginny gave a half-hearted smile in return. "That's more than I could wish for. I'd just hoped that you wouldn't cheer too loudly if a Slytherin player should knock me off my broom."

"Oh, I'll still cheer loudly, but I'll hex him if he gives you a concussion," Pansy was quick to reassure her.

"Oh you will?" said a voice at the end of the table. The three groupmates looked up to discover that the Slytherin Quidditch captain had entered the library at some point during their discussion .. judging from the look on his face, in plenty of time to hear the entire Quidditch conversation.

Bugger.

~*~

Ginny's week only got worse from that moment.

The comments began circulating around the Gryffindor common room the next day. Someone - she couldn't be certain who, but it might have been Lavender or Parvati - had mentioned in a tone just barely loud enough for Ginny to hear as she entered the portrait hole how very interesting it was that she had befriended some of the evil Slytherin horde, and wondered if she would still be able to score goals on the Slytherin rings on Saturday.

The first time she heard it, she pushed it aside. The second time she heard it, she pushed it aside.

And then she overheard a crowd of fourth-year Gryffindors as they made their way up to the North Tower on Wednesday morning, obviously headed for Professor Trelawney's classroom. One among them commented that her time in the Chamber of Secrets must be the cause for her Slytherin sympathies.

This was much harder to push aside. Fourth years! Insolent little brats who weren't even students at the time of her experiences with the Chamber. She desperately wanted to take the lot of them aside and make known a few essential truths, but the fact remained that she was about to be late for Advanced Charms, and in this case, she knew she could not be trusted with her temper.

She spent the remainder of her day in classrooms, ducking to the kitchens to get a snack from Dobby so that she wouldn't have to appear in the Great Hall. She managed to successfully avoid any unpleasant Gryffindor confrontations until after dinnertime, when Ginny had to return to the common room to prepare for that night's Quidditch practice.

"Are you really going to let her play, Ron?" she heard a plaintive voice wail as she made her way down from the sixth-year girls dormitory, in Quidditch kit with broom in hand.

"Of course I am going to let her play. She's the best Chaser we have .. and I, for one, don't question her loyalty to Gryffindor House!"

Ginny let a tiny sigh of relief escape her lips as she passed from the stair into the Common Room. Ron greeted his sister with a smile, and held an arm out to her. "Shall we away to practice, dear sister?"

"Please," she affirmed, more than ready to get out of the Tower, hoping that her teammates would at least know her well enough to give her the benefit of the doubt.

This hope lasted exactly three minutes and fourteen seconds.

At the exact moment that their feet crossed the threshold of the castle and stepped onto the grass, Ron turned to his sister. "You .. are going to be all right on Saturday, aren't you?" he asked.

"Oh, NO. Not you. It's bad enough that I must endure the slams of every resident of Gryffindor Tower, must I suffer the mistrust of my own brother, too?" Ginny said angrily by way of reply, pulling away from him and rushing toward where the rest of the team awaited their arrival.

She played harder than she'd ever practiced Quidditch before, hoping that her non-verbal reply would at least reassure her own teammates of her House loyalty. It managed to do more than that, as each of her teammates reported her hard work and drive to their friends. The day before the match, Ginny was once again back in the good graces of the majority of her Housemates.

It wasn't a moment too soon. She'd grown tired of expending energy attempting to avoid the people she was expected to spend her entire waking day with. She was therefore very happy to be sitting in the Great Hall between Colin and Kirsten, eating the usual lunch of sandwiches and pumpkin juice and discussing last-minute Chaser strategies.

"Big plans for this evening?" Colin asked.

Ginny sighed. "Indeed not. I'm supposed to meet the Evil Empire to work on our Potions project."

Colin looked at her, the concern evident in his eyes. "Are you sure that's a wise idea? Considering the uproar that you've just gotten through dealing with?"

She sighed. "Colin, I have little choice. As important as Quidditch is, the fact remains that I am ultimately here at this school to get some sort of education, and the remainder of my Potions group wants to have a quick meeting tonight to assign duties for the weekend."

"I just hope it doesn't blow up in your face, Gin," he replied quietly.

That comment floated in and out of her mind all afternoon. She found herself thinking it over as she waited for Professor Sprout to arrive at Greenhouse Two for Herbology. She found herself hoping that the library was completely empty while she met with Pansy, Zabini and the ferret, so that no one could read something ridiculous into their meeting and bring the news back into the Gryffindor Common Room.

By the time she was expected to report to the Great Hall for dinner, her stomach was in such knots that there was no way she could sit through a meal with her boisterous Housemates. She headed instead for the library, where she could at least have quiet.

She spread out her project notes and texts - she'd checked out Truth Serums and returned Moste Potente Potions to its shelf, heartily unsurprised to hear that their illustrious Head Boy owned a copy of that text. She sat in silence, the fingers of one hand idly drumming against the study table's smooth surface while the fingers of the other turned pages in the aging library book. Truth be told, her mind was much closer to the Quidditch pitch than the Potions classroom.

She was startled away from her thoughts when the library doors swung open and her groupmates entered the room.

"Hi," Ginny said with a tremor in her voice.

Pansy looked carefully at her for a moment. "Are you quite all right, Weasley?" She looked fine, but she sounded terrible.

"I'm fine," she replied, convincing no one. "If it's all the same, I'd like to get my portion of the project work and escape back to the common room before the damned Inquisition shows up."

"What inquisition?" Zabini questioned.

"Don't ask." Ginny pushed the questions aside. "Do we want to start with researching the potion ingredients?"

Zabini and Malfoy exchanged glances, privately assessing the advantage of pressing the issue, but Pansy had already answered her, and the window of opportunity passed.

They discussed work assignments for the group project for a quarter-hour, Ginny continually glancing up at the doors as though expecting a boggart, a troll, or the Dark Lord to stroll through them at any time. After the seventh glance upward, she picked up her papers and shoved them roughly into her bookbag.

"I've got to go," she said hurriedly, as she pushed her chair away from the table, grabbed her bag, and dashed to the exit. Any reply, question, or farewell that the three remaining wished to make was cut off by the howls of an angry librarian.

"No running in the Library, Miss Weasley!"

~*~

The next time Pansy saw Ginny, she was in for a severe shock.

Ginny was sitting at the end of the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, as far from her brother and his friends as she could possibly manage. She was flanked by Colin and Neville and sat across from Colin's brother Dennis. At least five seats separated their small group from the next closest Gryffindor.

Ginny's face was a mess of negative emotion. The scowl on her lips clashed incongruously with the sadness reflected in her eyes. The deep purple shadows under them told Pansy that if Ginny had slept the previous night, it wasn't for long. She appeared to be eating; or rather, a bit of toast disappeared from her plate each time Neville nudged her arm.

Curiosity overwhelmed Pansy into rushing her own meal, so that she could stop by the Gryffindor table on her way out of the Hall. She excused herself to her tablemates, and crossed to where Ginny held court. "Good morning, Weasley."

Ginny took a bite of toast, something harsh and vindictive in the way she did it. "Parkinson."

Moody Gryffindors. "I thought it would be prudent to wish you luck for the match."

Ginny looked up at the girl standing over her, and Pansy could see that Ginny looked even worse - more fatigued, sadder, and decidedly angrier - up close. "Oh, I'm sorry. News mustn't have spread down to the dungeons yet.

"I've been benched."

A/N: Thanks for this chapter must go to Thalia and Kirixchi, for tolerating my assault by ficbits, and Thalia again for doing a sanity-check beta when she had homework to do. Loff you both!

~*~

Ginny sat in front of the fireplace in the Gryffindor common room, staring as though mesmerized by the dancing flames. The rest of the school was out at the Quidditch pitch, standing in the crisp November air, watching some boy take her rightful place against Zabini and Malfoy and all their gitty teammates. She wiped a sleeve across her eyes as she wished Colin and Kirsten joy of them; she knew personally how trying they could be.

She knew that at some point, be it minutes or hours from now, the residents of Gryffindor Tower would return. They would exude either exultant certainty that Ron had done the right thing, or irrational anger at her, for getting benched. Until that moment, however, she was perfectly within her rights to sit in front of this fire and indulge in moping, crying, or any other behaviour she wouldn't have ever exhibited in front of any of her Housemates.

Quidditch. Of all the pastimes of a youth spent at the Burrow, Quidditch was the one she fought hardest to be part of. She gladly would have traded her dolls, fairy tale books, and even her charmed plush kneazle to be included in pickup games; later she'd learned a few of the twins' tricks to get access to the broom shed, but even then her brothers looked at her condescendingly, as though doubtful that Ginny could do anything more with a broom and a Quaffle than injure herself grievously.

And now her overprotective prat brother had taken away something she'd loved, all in the name of "keeping her safe". Which was ridiculous, she knew it was, because he certainly hadn't been interested in looking out for her her first year, and she hadn't garnered much of his attention since then. His newfound concern for her well-being would have been touching, if she didn't think it was a poor excuse to avoid telling his sister what he was really thinking the moment he took her out of the match.

She was working up a full clip of self-righteous anger when the portrait swung open, and Neville stepped through.

"Oh. Hello, Neville," Ginny said flatly. "I expected you to be at the match."

"Is that a not-so-subtle hint that my presence isn't wanted?" he asked quietly, crossing the room to stand over her.

Ginny looked up, and regarded him for several moments before answering. "No," she said finally, in a slightly softer voice.

"I noticed that you weren't at the pitch, and thought you might want some company." He smoothed his hands over his robes before taking the chair next to Ginny's own. "Want to talk about it?"

"No," she replied, but she didn't have conviction in her voice. "Maybe." It wasn't her prat brother, or Hermione or Harry who could be trusted to take Ron's side in most arguments. It was Neville, who was just as much her friend as anyone else's, and he'd sought her out.

"You looked miserable when I came in," he began.

"I feel miserable." She vacillated for a moment before deciding that telling Neville wouldn't do any harm. "Quidditch is one of my favourite things in the world, and my bloody brother took it away from me, because he doesn't like my choice of study partners. Maybe it was his revenge for making him look stupid during group selection," she mused, letting her misery-fueled imagination run rampant.

"Ginny, I think he's worried about you," he offered.

She turned to him, an unmistakable expression of disbelief on her face. "And he has such a proven track record of looking out for me," she replied, her tone heavy with sarcasm.

"His baby sister has never taken up with the Junior Death Eater League before."

No, she just had the Dark Lord running rampant in her head for ten months.

"Ginny, your brother was thirteen ... before. Thirteen-year-old boys don't often see much past the end of their own noses. I know, having been one." Ginny smiled, and Neville risked continuing. "It's different at eighteen, when your sweet sixteen-year-old sister is becoming friends with people who've proven themselves untrustworthy in the past."

She started to protest, but he stopped her. "Keep in mind that whatever your experiences have been in the last few weeks, the only Malfoy your brother knows is one that wouldn't hesitate to send Crabbe and Goyle after you with Bludgers because you weren't expecting them to foul you."

Ginny sighed. The drama was beginning to be tiresome .. even more so than her lack of sleep the night before. "I guess it feels worse to me, somehow, because he knows what lengths I had to go to to play Quidditch in the first place. Mum and Dad denied it to me for so long, and now I've had it taken away from me by my brother. I didn't think that he would do that to me.. it feels like I've been betrayed, somehow."

"Well, this isn't exactly the House best known for its loyalty, Ginny," Neville replied, in a tone that carried a certain playful condescension. "Keep in mind that he really was trying to look out for you, before you take up another Gryff trait and eat our Quidditch captain alive, please."

Ginny turned to face him, a dark expression simmering in her eyes. "Did Ron put you up to this?" she demanded.

"No, he didn't. Living in the same room as our illustrious leader has given me some insight to his motivations. I guessed that you might be able to listen to them if they came from a neutral party."

Nodding slightly, she turned back to watch the fire. They sat in companionable silence as Ginny gave thought to what he had said.

~*~

As Slytherin Quidditch captain, Draco had rushed his breakfast in order to get to the pitch early. As a result, he'd missed Pansy's scene at the Gryffindor table. It wasn't until Blaise entered the Slytherin locker room in an unexpected hurry that he got his first clue that that day's match might be in any way unusual.

"Zabini, is there a problem?" he snapped. He did not need his players acting erratically at any time, and especially not during the Gryffindor/Slytherin match.

"Developments," Blaise replied. His breathing was ragged, as though he'd run to the locker room all the way from the Great Hall. "I just heard that the idiot Weasley benched his sister."

"Indeed?" Draco wore the expression of a small boy on Christmas morning. "This is better news than I'd dare dream of." He dropped his voice before continuing, "Whoever they replace the little Weasley with is going to be a weak link. I want you to exploit it."

"Of course," he replied, his tone a bit more clipped than usual. "I'll make sure that Lizzie and Baddock know who to concentrate on."

Blaise turned toward his own locker, to dress for the game. Draco grabbed his arm to hold him back. "Zabini, why such the long face? The Weasel King has practically giftwrapped this match and put it into our hands .. I'd expect you to be estatic."

"Oh, this WILL be a grand day for Slytherin, no doubt," he said carefully. "And of course I'll do everything I can to ensure it. To be benched after training so hard, though .. of course you would have no idea what that feels like, as no one would have dared bench you."

"Of course not." Draco inclined his head toward his friend. "But what's this I hear in your voice? Surely you're not harboring some sort of .. affection for the little Weasley, are you?"

"No one needs to know," Blaise said shortly.

"Decidedly not. Your father would have a fit if he heard."

"You know, not all Slytherin families hold to the same exacting standards as the Malfoys. Ginny is a pureblood."

"And a blood-traitor," Draco retorted.

Blaise leveled a glance full of icy resolve at his dormmate, team captain and - whatever the word truly meant in the Slytherin common room - friend. He didn't want to have this conversation, definitely not now, possibly not ever. "We can take this issue up again later. Right now, we have a match to win."

The emotional remnants of their highly-charged conversation hung in the air as the rest of the Slytherin team entered the locker room and prepared for the match. All was silence until Draco looked at the clock and said, "All right, it's time."

The team began to enliven as they crossed the pitch. Draco heard Blaise somewhere behind him, pointing out the reserve Chaser that would be their priority to Lizzie Goyle and Baddock, the other Slytherin Chasers, and Greg Goyle and Crabbe. The closer he got to midfield, where Madam Hooch waited with the Weasel King, the louder he wanted to yell like a boy on his first broom.

This will be our day!

The moment he stood toe-to-toe with the gangly, red-headed Gryffindor captain, he couldn't hold back a cutting comment. "You're missing someone."

The Weasel's expression hardened. "I refuse to let my sister expose herself to unexpected attacks from smarmy gits she mistakenly considers friends."

"Tell me, Weasel King. Under what sort of intoxicating influence does it seem to be a good idea to sit your most experienced and most talented Chaser? Because I assure you, such a late substitution can only be a detriment to your cause." An ugly smile crossed Draco's face. "Surely you must know enough about strategy to realize that."

As Ron flushed an ugly shade of red, Draco turned to Madam Hooch. "The Slytherin team is ready to play."

Ron growled something menacing in its incoherence before the fourteen players mounted their brooms and took to the air. Draco watched from his usual position high above the pitch and the players as Madam Hooch released the Bludgers and the Snitch, and tossed the Quaffle into the air. His eyes roamed the pitch, always looking for the Snitch to make itself known, but also noticing how well the Slytherin players worked together, and that on this day, the Gryffindor team did not.

Euan Abercrombie, the tiny Gryff third-year they'd scavenged up, was a poor replacement for the little Weasley. While the poor kid could sit a broom well enough, and even maintained decent control of it, he knew nothing of Chasing. He was a very poor fit for the formations that were a staple of the Gryffindor offensive strategy. He was easily shaken by the fact that the Slytherin Beaters seemed to ignore nearly every other Gryffindor player on the pitch. He'd fumbled his first real scoring chance on the Slytherin hoops with a misdirected throw during an attempted Porskoff Ploy.

Zabini didn't even have to risk calling a foul on Slytherin. The Gryffindors were causing enough havoc of their own! Sure, the other two Chasers were up to their usual standard, their Beaters were all right .. Saint Potter was his usual attentive Seeker. But Abercrombie was definitely a distraction. A very welcome distraction, as far has he was concerned.

Draco began to actively seek the Snitch, his eyes scanning the pitch as he flew high enough above the rest of the field to avoid an unfortunate or embarrassing run-in with other players. His eyes took in a great deal as he approached mid-field. The Ravenclaw stands - the elder Creepy and Weasley's replacement, struggling with their brooms' tangled footrests.

He swerved to avoid the Bludger sent his way by an angry Kirke or Sloper, whichever of them were glaring in his direction. His eyes returned to their watch - Saint Potter, distracted by the Chaser fracas - the Slytherin stands - the Slytherin goal hoops.

And there, hovering halfway between the center hoop and the ground, a tell-tale flash of gold.

Draco flattened himself against his Firebolt and urged it forward. He couldn't risk a glance behind him to see if Scarhead had seen the Snitch, or if he'd even managed to tear his attention away from the Gryffindor Chaser squad. He hoped for as much of a head start on the other Seeker as possible .. but nothing mattered other than getting the damn Snitch.

Just as he approached the goal, getting close enough to it that he could hear the mechanical clicking of its wing mechanism, the Snitch dove down toward the ground. He followed, making a sharp turn downward and traveling a course parallel to the goalpost.

Once the Snitch reached the ground, it tore off across the grass headed for the other end of the pitch. Another dangerous high-speed maneuver later, he was following the golden blur, its mechanical song of whirrs and clicks echoing in his ears.

Where was Potter? He couldn't risk taking his eyes off of his prey, but he found it curious that he hadn't had any sign of the Gryff. "Get .. back here .. little bastard," he muttered to the Snitch.

"Bloody hell!" Well, that answers that question. Draco didn't know how far behind him Saint Potter was, only that he could hear his spoken curse clearly. And was that slight wobble caused by fingers tugging on his broom-tail? He reached one arm out toward the ball that now flew just a few feet in front of him.

He felt fingers scrabbling against his Quidditch robe .. against his arm guard ..

.. and then the Snitch was cradled securely in his fingers, and none of it mattered. Its wings beat futilely against the fingers that held it captive, and he held it aloft. He heard Potty exclaim in disgust as he darted out of the way of six Slytherins, nearly mad with glee that for the first time in their Hogwarts years, they had gone into a confrontation with Gryffindor and emerged triumphant.

It was not as if they'd celebrated wins before, but this one was more potent simply because Gryffindor was the team walking off the pitch with faces shrouded in sadness and disgust. The screaming, back-slapping, and in certain acceptable cases such as Frizzy Lizzie's, hugs seemed to go on for days .. and by the time that the seven euphoric teammates reached the ground and began their trek back to the locker rooms, the rest of the school had returned to the castle.

Draco hung back for a moment. He needed to have a few words with Madam Hooch.

~*~

"Draco darling!"

His hand closed around the Snitch he'd talked Madam Hooch into letting him keep as a souvenir of the win against Gryffindor, and stuffed it into a pocket of his robes before slowing his progress toward the dungeon. The voice that called him was familiar, very much so.

"Mum."

Narcissa Malfoy walked up to her son and put her elegantly-clad arms around him. "I was at the game, sweeting. I am so very proud of you!"

"I gathered that from your badge, Mum," he replied as he hesitantly returned the gesture of affection. Hugs just didn't go with the public image he'd carefully cultivated for himself, Pansy's overly affectionate gestures notwithstanding. He knew, however, if he didn't return the hug his mum would throw a fit worthy of a Black, and draw even more attention to himself.

"Did you have to?" he asked as he pulled back, gesturing to the button his mother had affixed to her traveling cloak. It bore the legend, "Draco's Proud Mum".

"Of course I did, darling," replied Narcissa haughtily. "If it was worth the effort to make the trip to Scotland to watch you play a game I have tenuous interest in at best, it is worth letting everyone know how proud I am of you."

"Would you still be wearing it if Saint Potter caught the Snitch?" he asked cheekily.

Narcissa swatted her son's arm gently. "How dare you doubt your own mother like that?" The look in her eye softened a bit as she continued, "I have to return home, as there are some .. issues that need attending to. I wanted to see you before I went, to congratulate you. My little boy .." She dabbed at her eyes with an immaculately-pressed handkerchief.

"Oh, mum. Don't get emotional, it's just a game," her son said in a tone distressingly similar to a plea. "Aren't you supposed to save that sort of thing for the day I marry and the birth of your grandchildren?"

"Ungrateful boy," she said indulgently, swiping the handkerchief once more over her eyes. "Give Mummy a kiss, sweeting, and go celebrate with your teammates .. I am sure they're waiting for you."

"Thanks, mum," he whispered as he kissed her cheek. She watched him turn and head for the dungeons, his white-blond hair a stark contrast against the darkness of the castle walls.

~*~

Ginny knew that something was wrong the moment that the first Gryffindors began returning from the pitch. Without fail, each returning Housemate either glared in her direction or avoided eye contact with her as they stepped through the portrait hole. A few of them then congregated on the opposite side of the common room, but most went directly to their dormitories.

It wasn't until a half-hour later, when her team-mates returned from the locker room, that her guess was confirmed. They gathered around the large table that was central to the common room, and looked at each other with glum expressions.

"We lost," Ginny finally supplied, more a statement than a question. "How bad was it?"

"Game was about even when the bloody ferret caught the Snitch," Ron growled.

Ginny's eyes darted to where Harry sat scowling at the table. It was probably the most confirmation she would receive from him; she certainly didn't want to risk that incendiary gaze turned upon herself. She turned to her brother instead, and was almost as shocked to see the defiance clearly visible upon his features.

"I'd do it again, you know," Ron said. "You just don't know what trouble you'd get into. They'd take advantage of your trust to knock you off your broom while your guard was down."

Heat sprang to her tone and spread across her cheeks. "It sounds like they took advantage of my absence, instead." When Ron remained silent, she continued, "So all that the Hat said about uniting and working together in fourth year should be ignored?"

"It's a ruddy HAT," Ron began. "It doesn't know bugger about bloody Malfoy and Parkinson -"

"No, but it's Sorted more violent and evil people in its history," Ginny interrupted. "And I don't remember it saying to work with Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs, but not Slytherins."

Chocolate gazes locked over the table in a battle of wills. The room fell eerily silent as the remaining six watched the siblings carefully. They waited several moments before Ron spluttered. "Ginny, you're more vulnerable than most to their wiles. I couldn't have them putting you in Hospital Wing or worse, just because you thought you were friends."

"You can't be there to save me for the rest of my life," she replied, sadness overtaking anger's presence in her voice. "I'm sixteen years old. Do you think perhaps I might be able to start thinking for myself?"

Ron stared at his sister for a long moment before the righteous anger faded from his expression, leaving only fatigue behind. "Look, Ginny," he said, his tone sulky, "I'm not sorry that I tried to protect you from those sneaky bastards. But," he held up a hand to forestall the angry interruption he saw cross his sister's face, "I do promise to try thinking of you as sixteen, and not eleven."

"I suppose that's the best I can expect," she said crossly.

"It's the best I can offer," her brother replied.

Ginny made her way around the table, to stand next to Ron's chair. Holding out a hand, she said, "I'll take it. Do me one favour?"

"What's that?"

"Don't kick me off the Quidditch team again. Else I'll wear Slytherin colours to their next match."

Ginny had been in this place before.

Once again, she found herself standing in the stair, watching students travel from first block to second block. This day, however, no unfortunate incidents hampered their progress, Ginny had not been kept up half the night before with Prefect rounds, and she was clad in the new school sweater and robe that her mother had sent her - required by certain physical developments she at once welcomed and despaired of. Her arms wrapped around her waist, she was free to contemplate her fellow students in cozy comfort.

A group of first-years passed under her gaze - Ravenclaws and Gryffindors, she noted. Must have just gotten out of a class together. Their group could easily be dissected into two smaller groups, with how closely together the students of identical ties walked. It was evident to the sixth year that for these firsties, Hogwarts was still new enough that their House affiliation made up a large portion of their individual identities. So new, too, that the Ravenclaws saw the prefect badge pinned to Ginny's robe and walked even more primly.

To a student, the whole group of Gryffindors, knowing exactly who Ginny was thanks to the Quidditch quarrel, narrowed their eyes at her. Ginny, for her own part, valiantly fought to keep from sticking her tongue out at the lot of them. Once they had scampered up the staircase she kept watch from, she shook her head, letting her irritation go.

They were just ickle firsties, after all.

Next to push past her, obviously headed down to their common rooms, was a large portion of Hufflepuff House. Fourth years, she guessed; not one tie that was not black and gold, but they moved and joked with each other in a manner that spoke of a few years' comfortable acquaintance. A couple of them had those blushing expressions that spoke of early teenage crushes, although they weren't likely to be caught holding hands, or worse, by a Prefect from another house.

Unlike the seventh-years, who were traveling the staircase in the opposite direction. They had no inhibitions with gadding about as though they owned this school, right down to the very staircase that Ginny stood on, in multi-House groups - well, the three non-Slytherin Houses, anyway. No less than a full Professor (and even then, it depended on the professor) could get them to stop holding hands - certainly a fifth- or sixth-year Prefect was within her rights to demand cessation of the forbidden behaviour, but the flagrant disobedience that inevitably followed would be a huge loss of face for the Prefect in question.

She would prefer to avoid such occurrences. Especially after the past few weeks.

Funny, though. The Slytherins have always acted like they owned the school. And they've always isolated themselves from the rest of Hogwarts. As a matter of fact, I can't think of a situation where they've drawn an outsider into the Slytherin circle. Except, of course, this one..

She realized how her friendship with Pansy must appear to everyone else. Slytherins, creatures of habit they were, never opened themselves up to others. What did it mean that Pansy had brought a Gryffindor of shady history into her circle of influence? And why would anyone choose to believe little Ginny Weasley's word against years of Slytherin tendencies?

She raised her chin a notch. Bugger Slytherin tendencies. Bugger Gryffindor mistrust. She wasn't going to let people's insecurities get in the way of what could be a perfectly decent friendship.

"Weasley!" The voice that called her name summoned a smirk to her lips. She turned to greet it.

"Hullo, Parkinson." Taking in Pansy's companions, she added with a nod, "Zabini. Malfoy."

"Where are you off to?" the Slytherin girl questioned.

Ginny smiled. "Free block. I have a date in the library with a scroll for Flitwick."

Pansy grasped her elbow and tugged at her arm. "I have a better idea instead. Seeing as those of us who don't have second block free are determined to skive off -" at this, she glared at the two boys accompanying her - "let's go somewhere quiet and discuss our Potions project." She pulled Ginny in the direction they had been traveling at the time of their encounter.

"Wait. Shouldn't we be going upstairs, if we're going to the library?"

"My dear Weasley, certainly you wouldn't want to discuss the creation of a Ministry-controlled substance in such a public place," Pansy replied condescendingly. Ginny froze at her next words.

"I thought we'd go to Slytherin commons."

~*~

Ten minutes later, Ginny was standing stock-still in the middle of the Slytherin common room in awe.

It hadn't been an easy journey. Malfoy had objected - loudly - to the idea of a Weasley in Slytherin House. When Pansy had challenged him to find a location in the school that would offer them the same sort of privacy - and no, the Potions classroom was right out, because the second years were in session - his mouth had snapped shut, and he'd glared at Pansy's smug expression.

Ginny had briefly considered suggesting the Room of Requirement, until she recognized how very amusing it was to see the Head Boy backed down .. and realized that she might learn many potentially-useful things during her visit. She followed the rest of the group down the stairs, past the Great Hall, and into the dungeons barely able to conceal the excited expression of a small child on a grand adventure.

When they finally reached the entrance to Slytherin House, Zabini turned to her and covered her ears with his hands. "Can't have you hearing the password, can we?" he smiled at her.

Just before the Head Boy cuffed him on the back of the head.

"Hands off the Gryff, prat," he snapped. "Won't do any good, seeing as she's a bloody Prefect and already knows it. Don't you, little Weasley?"

Ginny smirked at him. "Want proof?" She turned to the portal and opened her mouth as if to say the password, but Pansy cut her off.

"Not a good idea, Ginny. The portal's cursed to raise an alarm all through Slytherin House should any non-Slytherin open it." Pansy spoke the password quietly, and explained, "While the alarm certainly has its .. purposes, in this case we DON'T want to alert the rest of Slytherin to your presence. Right?"

"Fair enough," she'd replied. As she stood in the middle of the empty common room, taking in the feel of the room, the art on the walls, the chill in the air screaming cunning, duplicity, stealth, a tiny voice in the back of her mind made itself known.

Comfortable here, girl? This would have been yours, you know, had you only said the word.

Ginny pushed the little voice out of her consciousness and spoke aloud. "So, Potions."

Pansy led the way to a small table off to the side of the common room, pulled four armchairs around it and sat down, spreading her books about on the flat surface. Noticing that the other three still stood, she looked up with an expression of irritation. "Well?" she snapped. "Don't just stand there."

"If you were worried about alerting the rest of Slytherin to my presence, isn't there a .. less obvious place to sit?" Ginny gestured around the room.

Pansy waved a hand negligently. "Most of the House IS in class at present .. and should someone so foolishly attempt to give us trouble, Draco can try out the overgrown bat routine he's picked up from Professor Snape. Now, sit."

They sat. Several moments and some rummaging around bookbags later, they looked down upon three different methods for brewing truth serum - the proceeds of two weeks' research.

"This one," Malfoy said, pale fingers reaching out to pull the parchment closer, "is the Ministry-preferred standard. The components, while slightly unusual, aren't anything we couldn't find in Snape's stores. This, of the three, would be the easiest to produce and the one we're probably expected to use.

"I'd like to avoid it, for that reason."

Showoff, Ginny thought contemptuously.

"The second," he said, fingers skittering across the table to the next piece of parchment, "is a little more complex. The majority of the ingredients for this one would have to come from Hogsmeade. And since the next weekend visit isn't for two weeks we'd either have to wait until then to start brewing, which puts our finishing date much closer to the end of term than I'd like, or get Professor Snape to get permission to go sooner. I could theoretically manage that, but it would mean using influence I'd rather save for a more critical occasion."

Ginny noted the looks that Pansy and Zabini gave the Head Boy, and wondered just what sort of influence he meant. A little chill ran down her spine, and she pushed those thoughts away.

"All the same, a good find. Yours, Zabini?" The boy's onyx tresses shook as he nodded his head, obviously pleased by the compliment.

"And then we have the entry from Gryffindor House." Steely eyes turned to Ginny as he picked up her parchment. "This method is the most exotic of the three; the majority of the ingredients commonplace, but there are a couple we wouldn't find outside of Knockturn Alley. I'd ask you where you got this, little Weasley, but I'm not sure I even want to know, and I'm certain that you don't want to tell me." His lips turned up into their well-known smirk. "You will have to tell me, if you propose we make the truth serum with your instructions. How are we to get our hands on doxy venom?"

"I have means," Ginny replied shortly.

"Indeed?" The unspoken challenge, leveled in a manner to irritate the girl further.

"I can owl my .. sources .. at lunchtime, and have an answer in two days. If they can procure it for me, I should have it by the beginning of next week. If they can't, we have plenty of time to choose one of the other methods." She leveled a glare at the blond boy. "If that's acceptable."

"Quite," he replied. He was content to let the little Weasel do all the work; if she got caught, there would be no negative repercussions upon himself, and in the meantime it provided plenty of opportunity to irritate the girl further. "Why don't you send that owl now? Good to know that we'll need to make alternate plans early."

"You watch me, Malfoy," she retorted, her brown eyes flashing. "You'll eat those words. Or maybe even some doxy venom."

"Come on, Weasley," Zabini said, rising. "I'll make sure you make it out of Slytherin dungeon without meeting a dark fate."

"Speaking of that, I was wondering why I hadn't seen the hags, banshees, vampires, ghouls and other nasties that are reputed to live here," Ginny replied, as she packed her Potions materials away. "Oh, wait. He's sitting right in front of me."

"Oh, my wounded pride! Ten points from Gryffindor, for insolence to the Head Boy." The smirk grew smug.

"Best ten points I've ever lost," she said frostily, before leaving the common room in Zabini's company.

"You enjoyed that far too much," Pansy remarked off-handedly, as she watched the Gryffindor disappear through the entrance to Slytherin House.

"Don't even think it, Parkinson," Malfoy retorted. "I assure you, I do not suffer from the same debilitation of intelligence that seems to have infected our friend Zabini."

~*~

Ginny felt slightly uncomfortable at the presence of the dark-haired boy walking next to her. She'd expected him to abandon her at the entrance to the dungeons, but instead he'd followed her up the moving staircases, past the library and the classrooms all the way to the Owlery, nattering on about the Quidditch game she'd missed, how disappointed he was not to play against the only good Chaser on the Gryffindor team, and how exciting it was to be assigned a Potions project that had real-world applicability.

Ginny barely heard any of it. She was too busy staring at the floor meters ahead, attempting to locate the source of her unease. Was it simply the fact that Zabini was a Slytherin, and was expected to be untrustworthy? Was it the fact that he'd just given her an unexpected compliment?

Or was it the fact that while his black hair was long enough to fall into his face at inopportune moments, it was nonetheless a subtle reminder of another Slytherin boy of her "acquaintance"?

She shivered for a moment at that thought.

As they crossed the threshold of the Owlery, she turned to her unexpected companion. "Did Malfoy put you up to this?" she asked, a frown twisting her usually sunny expression. "Did he want to make sure I got that owl sent out? Wanted to ensure another opportunity to cast aspersions on me and my House?"

"No, Ginny." His eyes, with irises so dark they looked black at a glance, were glittering at her, and her name - always Weasley before, never Ginny - sounded like a midnight breeze rustling through grass. "I'm here because I wish to be."

She looked up at him with concern in her eyes. This was Blaise Zabini, Slytherin playboy, breaker of hearts. Absolutely no good at all could come of him wanting to be alone in the Owlery with her. "Why?" she demanded.

"Because," said the voice of darkness and velvet, "I determined after the Quidditch match that I was going to ask you to accompany me on the next Hogsmeade weekend. Seeing as it was announced this morning, I wanted to make sure I did so before some other prat won your favour."

Ginny stared at him, a look of disbelief spreading across her face. "You do remember," she said slowly, "that I am a Gryffindor and a Weasley, which makes me poor, homely, and a disgrace to the name of Wizard?"

Blaise stepped closer to her, those eyes focused intently on her alone, and cupped her face in his hands. "You are the most beautiful witch at this school," he said in a low voice that was almost a growl, "and the rest of that is also rot."

Her eyes took in his hair, his eyes, the set of his jaw, and her thoughts grew jumbled. She opened her mouth to speak, knowing she should say something. "Er .. okay," she said, her voice sounding more affected than she'd like.

"Okay what?"

"Okay, I'll go with you."

And suddenly she couldn't think at all, because his lips had pressed forcefully against hers. Soft and warm, like the hands that touched her face except they weren't there anymore, they were tangled in her hair at the base of her neck and why hadn't Michael or Dean kissed like this?

And then Ginny's mind managed to push one thought into her consciousness - it's the middle of the day, and you're in a well-traveled part of the school - and she stiffened. It was enough to break contact, but Blaise merely brushed her lips with his thumb before murmuring "I'll see you in Potions," and disappearing through the archway.

She sank down on a nearby bench, attempting to straighten out her thoughts before starting her letter to the twins. "Dear Fred and George, you wouldn't believe the kiss I just got," she giggled to herself, before another, more sobering thought crashed down around her ears.

Ron is going to have a fit.

The thought that she had two weeks to find some way of telling him provided only minimal comfort as she reached into her bag for a parchment and quill.

~*~

She dreamed that night. Not the usual variety of dream, where she found herself sitting naked in Charms class, or overslept the night before the Quidditch match and awoke to discover it over.

She was sitting on a stool, in front of the four House tables, the entire staff, and all of Hogwarts' students. Professor McGonagall was placing the Sorting Hat upon her head, and a voice she remembered poured into her ear.

"Ahh, a redheaded Weasley. Another Gr-" The Hat was about to shout the word "GRYFFINDOR!" to the assembled room when it stopped abruptly. "One moment, what's this?"

Ginny felt the frozen chill of dread fall from her throat to her stomach, as if one of the ghosts had waved their arm through her body. "You, dear girl, are quite unlike every other Weasley I've sat upon. Yes, there is courage in you, but .. there's something else at play as well."

Her stomach clenched. Gryffindor, she thought, just name me Gryffindor and we can get on with it.

"You're hiding something, girl. That's why you so desperately want me to Sort you Gryffindor, because you're afraid of it coming out should you belong to .. another House. You realize that, in addition to your predilection to complication, proves you to be suited for Slytherin above all, do you not, Miss Weasley?"

I'll make just as good a Gryffindor as the rest of my family. Please, Sort me Gryffindor!

"I'm terribly sorry, dear girl. I must listen to my instinct, and my instinct tells me that you belong in ... SLYTHERIN!"

Ginny bolted upright, her pulse pounding, echoes of a cacophony in her ears: her family's protestations, the Gryffindors' gasps of disbelief, and her own horrified shriek.

She pushed aside the veil of sleep to discover herself shaking from chill, her thin nightclothes drenched in sweat. It's just a dream. Just a dream, she told herself, reclining slowly until her head reached the soft pillows, and her hand tugged the soft coverlet up under her chin, to ward against the cold. You're safe in the sixth-year Gryffindor dormitory.

The Hat did listen to you.

A/N: Thanks for beta services to Thalia and Scarlett. This chapter is dedicated to Tanya, Heather, Karey, and everyone else who knew me from before I became a hack fanfic writer .. and has followed me into this chapter of my life.

~*~

Dear Gred and Forge:

I am writing because your favourite sister needs some help in a time of need.

I've been assigned a Potions project, for which it would be incredibly helpful to procure a bit of doxy venom. About a vial's worth would do, I believe. Did you ever manage to extract it from the doxies you pulled out of 12 Grimmauld the summer before your seventh year, and can I count on you to send me some?

All in the name of advancing your sister's education, I swear!

Ginny

~*~

Virginia Weasley! Mum would have a fit if she knew what you were up to at school.

Having said that, expect a delivery by owl sometime this weekend.

Come to think of it, WE don't even know what you're up to at school! With any luck, you've found a way to poison old Filch. Please tell us that you've at least not turned into an ickle Percy-doppelganger; one of them is frightening enough!

Your favourite brothers

~*~

The twins made good on their word. That Saturday morning, Ginny was surprised by the arrival of a good-sized owl bearing a rather substantial package. She happily surrendered part of a toast point to the bird, and worked her small fingers through the knots in the string and wrapping paper as it flew away.

"Oi, Gin! What's that?" Ron said loudly from his own plate several seats down.

She opened the flaps of the box, and smirked. Holding up the box for the table to see, she announced, "A care package. From the twins." She delighted in seeing many of her housemates stop chewing the bites of breakfast in their mouths, some paling visibly.

Setting the box down again carefully, she slipped one hand inside. Pushing the various-coloured sweets in their white paper wrappers aside, she felt at the bottom of the parcel for the one thing she truly cared about. Something long and slender, carefully wrapped .. it had to be the vial of doxy venom.

She sent a carefully-controlled look of smug victory over to where at least two of her groupmates were watching. Pushing the rest of her breakfast aside, she collected the box and its discarded wrappings and got up from her seat. Against her better judgement, her feet walked her over to where her groupmates sat, in the middle of Slytherin table.

"Weasley," Pansy said congenially, to the horror of most of her tablemates.

"Parkinson," Ginny returned. She shook the box gently, eliciting a small rustle. "I got it." She aimed a nasty little smile directly at the Head Boy. "As I said I would." When the blond leveled a glare at her, she took one of the twins' concotions out of the box and tossed it at him. "A toffee. To wipe that ugly look off your face."

Privately chuckling over the look of alarm that generated, she left the Great Hall.

~*~

Ginny -

We've managed to secure use of Professor Snape's Potions workroom for brewing our project potion. Meet us in front of the Potions classroom after dinner tonight.

Blaise.

PS - What WAS in that toffee, anyway? Malfoy gave it to Crabbe, who is STILL in the hospital wing.

~*~

Ginny pocketed the note from Zabini without much thought. Her mind was distracted by thoughts of Quidditch practice later that morning; Ron had been reading strategy books again, and had a "few ideas" he wanted the Chaser corps to try out.

Ginny had suggested that since Gryffindor didn't play again until February, perhaps they could take a bit of a breather. Her brother looked at her as though she'd turned into a canary, and proclaimed her "completely nutters". As Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw were preparing for their own November match, however, Ron found his ability to book the Quidditch pitch limited to one long session on Sunday mornings.

Ginny dreaded them already. She knew her brother; she knew he was still upset over their loss to Slytherin, and she knew that he was going to drive them to exhaustion practicing maneuvers that would just be lost amongst the countless bits of knowledge their teachers would fill their brains with during the intervening week between practices. She knew he was unlikely to see reason - especially where Quidditch was concerned.

She resigned herself to three hours of torture at the hands of her brother and his friend as she grabbed her broom and Quidditch kit and headed for Gryffindor locker room.

An hour and a half later, as she was practicing full-speed quaffle passes with Colin and Kirsten, she remembered that she still hadn't warned her brother about her upcoming .. date, she supposed she should call it .. with Blaise Zabini.

"Ginny, what was that?" Colin shouted, as she spectacularly missed a pass that she could have, and should have, caught at any other time. "Are you quite all right?"

"Fine," she grumbled. "Just .. distracted." Distracted not exactly being the word. Try "anticipating death by Beater's bat at the hands of my brother when he finds out I'm going to Hogsmeade with a Slytherin Quidditch player."

Colin looked at her with concern. "Are you sure, Gin? If you're not feeling well, you should go have Pomfrey take a look."

Ginny shook her head in alarm. The last thing she needed was for Ron to catch wind of this conversation. "Colin, I appreciate your concern, but I'll be fine. Really."

Until a hand clapped her on the shoulder, and its owner's voice said "What's this about Pomfrey? Is ickle sister unwell?"

I will be, before the end of the week.

Ginny contemplated her dilemma while she sat in Hospital Wing, wearing her Quidditch kit and an unhappy expression as she waited for the mediwitch to finish administering Skele-gro to an unlucky first-year flying student. She contemplated it further sitting in Advanced DADA with Neville, who'd cornered her in the common room and wheedled her into confessing her problem after being sworn to secrecy and pain of death should the covenant be broken. (Neville, having neither siblings nor a Slytherin sweetheart, could give her only general sympathy, not solid advice.)

She contemplated sending her brother an owl while sitting in Potions that Thursday afternoon, but realized that even if she sent it Saturday morning she would still suffer the problem of returning to the castle afterwards. In no way would she be able to make her brother see reason, she concluded, and so sending an owl would only delay her humiliation and suffering at her brother's hands (or, more likely, his loud mouth).

On the other hand, if she told him in person, she might not even get to Hogsmeade. While she knew that her brother would never hurt her, he might just resort to a well-placed Stupefy or Petrificus Totalus to keep her behind. That would not do at all.

~*~

Darling brother you irritating git,

I thought it best that I inform you of this by owl, as I do not wish you to do something stupid rash that would interfere with my plans for Hogsmeade today. I have the horrific pleasant duty of informing you that I will be attending with someone from my Potions group a friend from class Blaise Zabini.

I do not intend to visit the Astronomy Tower with him, elope, or join the Death Eaters. It is just a trip to Hogsmeade. I thought that you might wish to hear it from me beforehand instead of discovering it in town.

Nothing you do short of Petrificus Totalus is going to change my mind. Don't even think about it.

Your sister

~*~

Blaise,

I just notified my brother of our plans for Hogmeade tomorrow. You may wish to consider eating breakfast early, as I do. I'm afraid I can't be held responsible for any rash behaviour he may choose to express.

Ginny

~*~

Ginny awoke early, her usual weekday hour for rising. On any other Saturday, she would pull the covers back over her head and go back to sleep .. but not this day.

Creeping over to the wardrobe, she pulled the doors open and considered its contents for a moment, drumming the fingers of one hand against her lips. What to wear? She was about to go to Hogsmeade with a boy who had, if perhaps not as much wealth as the Malfoys, at least a well-defined sense of style.

What business had she, little Ginny Weasley, accepting his invitation? She rested her head against the cool wood of the cabinet in front of her, and sighed. He must have been able to look past her worn uniforms if he could get to the point of asking her out on a date, she reasoned. Summon your Gryffindor courage, girl.

She squared her shoulders and reached into the wardrobe, selecting her least-disreputable pair of jeans. Her fingers skimmed over a pile of jumpers, silently cringing at the thought of meeting her date at the front doors of Hogwarts wearing a jumper of atrocious colour with a large G on front. She'd rather wear a uniform oxford than suffer that!

After some thought she selected one of her newer shirts, an ivory knit that was a birthday gift from Bill the year he'd returned from Egypt. Having made her selections, she took them and her bathing things and padded down to the Gryffindor girls' bath. She was exceedingly pleased to notice that only a few other people were up at this hour on a Saturday morning, and none of them were named Potter or Weasley.

Some time later, her skin scrubbed and her hair washed, she exited Gryffindor Tower, her winter cloak draped over her arm. After all her preparations, she felt as though she looked presentable enough for a day in Hogsmeade - even a day in Hogsmeade spent with a Slytherin. She made her way to the Great Hall in the company of a few of the younger Gryffindors.

Breakfast was an uneventful affair. The rest of the school began to trickle in, humming with excitement over a Hogsmeade day. Ginny had spent a few minutes sharing her experience with OWLs with an overeager fifth year, only to look up from her bacon and toast to see Blaise sitting directly across from her at the Slytherin table. She favoured him with a secretive little smile before turning her attentions back to the fifth year.

They talked for a few more minutes before the girl's friend turned to Ginny. "That arse Zabini is staring at you," she said quietly.

"Oh, is he?" Ginny replied, her tone unconcerned. "You know that Slytherins obsess about the most ridiculous things. He's probably thinking right now how idiotic I look with my red hair and my faded clothes. But you know what?" She dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "They're just Slytherins."

The girl gave her a grin.

Ginny looked down at her watch, to discover that it was time for Filch to take his place in the Entrance Hall with his scowl and his list of students eligible for a Hogsmeade visit. Taking one final bite of toast, she bid the fifth-years a pleasant day, picked her cloak up from its resting place on the bench, and made her way out to the front doors.

The moment Ginny had received her Prefect's badge, she'd resolved to become able to converse with persons of authority who irritated, intimidated, or just plain scared her. So when her date finally joined her at the doors, she was engaged in polite conversation with Filch, having enquired about Mrs. Norris' health.

She felt a hand on her arm, and she turned her head to meet Blaise's dark eyes. "Ready to go?" he asked smoothly. Smirking, Ginny nodded, and said her goodbyes to the stern, cranky man before her.

Her companion waited until they were a good distance from the castle before saying, "I'll have you know I was thinking no such thing."

Ginny gave a little chuckle. "I realize that," she replied. "I rather thought that confessing our date to an unknown individual might put our .. enjoyment of the day in jeopardy, should that person make the news known to my brother."

"Indeed," he agreed. He covered the gloved fingers tucked into the crook of his arm with his own hand.

"So instead I fed her some stereotypical line about Slytherins, to mislead her, and leave the identity of my companion undiscovered." She smirked, as though she would have expected one with such an education in cunning as himself to understand this without explanation.

Blaise's eyebrows raised in mock surprise. "My dear Miss Weasley, there is something entirely not Gryff about the way your mind works," he said lightly.

"Oh, I'm aware of that." Ginny's face was serious, but her eyes glinted with mischief. "I believe you'll find me to be most unlike any other Weasley you may have encountered before."

He lowered his lips to her ear. "That's part of the reason that I asked you to accompany me today," he whispered, before brushing a kiss across it. He felt her shiver under the contact, and the corner of his mouth quirked upward into a smirk. He was completely enamoured of this girl, forbidden by her name and her House - perhaps that very restriction was part of her charm. Even so, she was vivacious and intelligent, not nearly as shallow as most sixteen-year-old witches intent only on Witch Weekly and snogs in Astronomy Tower. She loved quidditch - was as fierce a competitor as bloody Malfoy, and that was saying something - and her passion for the game in particular and life in general excused a good many shortcomings.

"So what does Miss Ginny Weasley do when she normally visits Hogsmeade?" he
asked lightly, effectively shielding the extremely serious nature of his previous thought. He had no wish to scare this spirited girl off.

"Normally I'd be here with Luna or Neville, and attempting to avoid my prat brother," she replied, her tone matching the Slytherin boy's. "Not so different from today."

"You wound me, Ginny," he smirked. "And here I was thinking today would be unlike any other."

"There's still the chance," she commented archly.

Blaise looked at her face, and noted the mischief there. "You little minx," he said with humour in his voice. Slipping an arm about her shoulders, a smile gracing his fetures, he asked, "So where shall we go today?"

Ginny thought for a moment. "I need to go by the scrivener's shop, as my quills are a mess. Other than that .." she looked at her companion. "I'm open to suggestion."

"Are you, now." The smile on his face turned predatory. "Let's see what sort of trouble we can get into."

The arm around her shoulders tightened as they walked into Hogsmeade. They stopped in front of Quality Quidditch Supplies, where Blaise ogled the new Nimbus model for a moment before saying, "We'll come back. First, your quills."

It was several doors down at Papyrus, Hogsmeade's premier outlet for quills and
scrolls, that Blaise and Ginny got into their first argument. He delighted in watching her browse in the store - he'd always enjoyed spending his father's innumerable Galleons on pretty girls, and Ginny Weasley was prettier than most. He felt an urge to buy whatever caused that expression to cross her face, but decided that might be a little excessive on the first date. Instead, when she approached the storekeeper, her hand clasped around a number of plain brown and black pheasant quill, he put his hand over hers, and gently removed them.

"What are you doing?" Ginny queried, her brown eyes dark.

"Buying your quills," Blaise replied nonchalantly.

"I can pay for those myself," she retorted.

He gave a little chuckle. "Sure thing, sweet." He turned to face the clerk again.

"No, Blaise," she said slowly. "I can pay for them."

Her pressing the issue again startled him. He stared at her a moment, his confusion evident on his face. "Excuse us a moment," he said to the clerk at the counter. Tugging Ginny's arm, he pulled her aside. "What's the matter?" he asked, frustration evident in his tone.

"I don't need your help!" the Gryffindor replied hotly.

Blaise looked at Ginny as though she'd sprouted wings. After a few moments, the problem became clear.

"Ginny," his voice gentle now," I know you don't. Are you afraid this is about your family? It's not, you know." Taking her face between his hands, he looked at her seriously and continued, "I have been dying for the opportunity to spoil a pretty girl shamelessly for months, and you are far more beautiful than I could have imagined."

Her face pinked and she nodded, looking at the floor. "I .. see."

Blaise turned back to the shopkeeper and paid for the quills. Taking the bag that was handed to him, he took Ginny's hand in his own and guided her out of the shop. "All right?" he queried, slipping his arm around her.

"I'm such an idiot," she said quietly.

"You are no such thing," he replied. "I don't date girls unless they have exceptional minds, I'll have you know." He punctuated his statement with a gentle kiss to her cheek, and tightened his arm around her shoulders.

They stopped in several other shops, where Blaise further decimated his father's Gringotts account purchasing a winter cloak for himself and a pair of warm black gloves for Ginny - secretly ordering a beautiful green winter cloak for her to be sent up to Hogwarts and kept until Christmas. They spent a good deal of time in Honeydukes, where they purchased a ridiculous number of Chocolate Frogs between them - and more time than Blaise would have liked in Zonko's, because Ginny simply had to take the opportunity to do some market research for her brothers. After yet more time spent at the Quidditch shop, in which Blaise further considered his need for the Nimbus X-2, they found themselves sitting in Madam Puddifoot's, sipping at hot chocolates between glances at the other.

"I was surprised that you didn't try to bankrupt your father by buying me a broom," she said cheekily, the sting of her experience at the scrivener's having eased.

"Now that I couldn't abide, sweet," he replied. "I couldn't do anything to give Gryffindor an advantage, not with Slytherin in such a good position for the Quidditch Cup." He smirked. "Besides, it's not as if you weren't already a menace on the broom you have."

"Good man," a voice from behind Ginny commented. Turning, she saw Draco bloody Malfoy and Pansy standing there, matched smirks under shining blond hair. "Are you trying to sabotage my Chaser, girl Weasel?"

"Of course not, Mal-ferret," she retorted. "Rest assured that I'd taint your pumpkin juice before Blaise's."

"Of course," he said, raising one eyebrow. "And what possessed you to come .. here?" he indicated the surroundings. "Certainly not a place for Slytherins."

"That's it exactly," Ginny replied. "I knew we wouldn't be bothered by the likes of you. How would you ever convince a girl to join you here?"

"What am I, kneazle food?" Pansy said in jest.

"No, but you told me some time ago that you'd never date this gold-plated git, so you don't count in this regard."

Draco's pale face darkened slightly, as though he were about to tell Ginny where she could stick the "gold-plated git" remark, if not for an interruption with bright red hair and a redder face.

"GINNY WEASLEY!"

Ron.

A/N: Thanks for their beta services this installment to Thalia and Scarlett - and a special nod to Mynuet, who gave me a priceless line between the Weasel Girl and the Ferret Boy. Loff to all three of you!

~*~

"Ginny Molly Weasley, what do you think you're doing?!"

The subject of that exclamation covered her face with her hands. "Dying of embarrassment at my brother's treatment of me," she said slowly and clearly. "And Merlin and Morgana as my witness, if you .. EVER .. use my middle name in public again, I'll string your entrails from Astronomy Tower."

Ron turned his indignance elsewhere. "What are you on about, Malfoy?" Ginny was startled that Ron had turned on bloody Malfoy when Blaise should have been the villain of the piece, until she turned around and saw the glee on the Head Boy's face. His amusement was infectious, and she felt the corner of her mouth quirk upward as the Ferret confronted her rapidly-reddening brother.

"King Weasel, I'd rather think you'd be spouting inanities at the person actually dating your sister, instead of an innocent bystander," he drawled.

"You are NEVER an innocent bystander, Ferret!" Ron replied hotly. "And my sister does not date Slytherins!"

"I beg to differ," Blaise commented. The tone of his voice was calm, but Ginny heard the irritation. He looked at the Gryffindor girl, and she was struck by the darkness in his eyes. "She accepted my request for her company today of her own free will. I dare say she does indeed date Slytherins." He gave her a sardonic smile. "Shows remarkably good taste on her part."

Ron looked at the dark haired boy, finally realizing the truth of the situation. He placed one hand on his sister's arm. "Let's go, Ginny."

She looked down, dumbstruck. Her brother's fingers pressed into her own pale skin, and she couldn't believe she'd heard what he had just said. Before she could stammer out a denial, another hand clapped down on Ron's arm. "I suggest you accept your sister's decision," Blaise said quietly, the anger now evident in his voice. He began to remove Ron's fingers from Ginny's arm.

"Get your slimy Slytherin hands off of me!" Ron howled.

"Feeling threatened, Weaselgit?" Malfoy drawled. "Afraid your sister grows weary of your tiresome company? I couldn't fault her for that, even if she is a Gryff.. and a Weasley." His voice sounded eerily similar to his father's, during another discussion of Weasleys that day in Flourish and Blotts so many years before.

"Sod off, Malfoy!" Ron growled. His voice dripped venom.

But Draco was enjoying watching the Weasel King turn purple, and continued with glee. "And you think that's an adequate reply? Shame. You know, for a Weasel, your sister isn't bad-looking. I might even deign to date her, if it wasn't for the exceedingly distasteful circumstances of her birth.."

The very idea of his sister dating Draco Malfoy, junior Death Eater and Prince of Slimy Slytherin Gits, erased any remaining possibility of rational thought. Ron launched himself at Malfoy, as Ginny, Blaise and Pansy watched in fascinated horror.

~*~

Ginny couldn't tear her eyes away for several moments; her brother and the Head Boy had been at each other's throats for so long that a confrontation was inevitable. But this .. the scene before her was entirely not what she'd expected. And she feared that a couple years of Defense Association meetings was no match for someone who'd been exposed, on some level, to the dark arts since childhood.

Bringing an end to the spectacle as early as possible seemed the best course of action. She pulled her wand from its pocket and shouted "Petrificus Totalus!" at the combatants - and was startled to realize her voice wasn't alone. She looked over at Pansy, who had her own wand out, and who shrugged as the dust began to settle.

"Seemed prudent," Pansy said offhandedly. "Draco is quite particular about his appearance, and yet his glamours are not as strong as his hexes."

"Git," Ginny said by way of reply. She knelt next to her brother and began cataloguing the extent of his injuries. An impressive bruise was blossoming across his left cheek, and he had a few superficial scratches.

"They probably haven't done permanent damage," Pansy replied, "but all the same it's probably best to let Madam Pomfrey determine that."

Ginny looked at the older girl for a moment. "I doubt it's entirely necessary," she said.

Pansy pulled her aside. "Let me put it this way," she said quietly. "Do you want them to return to their facilities here, where there's nothing stopping them from resuming hostilities, or would you rather they are in a place with someone fully-qualified .. in keeping order?"

Ginny looked at the Slytherin Prefect for a long moment. "You make a good point," she said finally. "I'll go first." She turned to Blaise. "I'm sorry our day is ruined."

"It's all right, sweet. He'll make it up to us some other time." His voice was quiet, but there was something hard to it that was unsettling. She gave him a long look before she waved her wand again and muttered, "Mobilicorpus."

It was a long walk to the castle with a motionless and speechless companion. Ginny thought that it was rather to be preferred than the alternative; this way she could give him a piece of her mind without him arguing with her.

"Look at you," she said just loud enough for her brother to hear. "Gryffindor Prefect, captain of Quidditch, making a complete ARSE of himself with someone whose only claim to it was that his name is Draco bloody Malfoy."

Isn't that enough? she could hear the response he would have given in her mind.

"He's not the one who asked me to Hogsmeade, nor did he lay a finger on me - not that a Malfoy would ever touch a Weasley. He made a comment not worthy of a response in order to brass you off, and you took the bait. I'm honoured that you would fight for me, Ron, really I am. But honestly! Didn't you learn anything from our playing Quidditch at home? I am more than able to pick my own fights." She reached over to tousle his hair in the way she knew irritated him especially, before she navigated their way through Hogwarts' front gates.

She surprised Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick having a conversation in the Entrance Hall. "Merciful Circe!" the Transfiguration professor exclaimed. "Miss Weasley, can you explain what has occurred?"

"My brother and the Head Boy got into a difference of opinion in Hogsmeade," she replied quickly. "Pansy Parkinson and I managed to stop them before they could do permanent damage to themselves." She paused for a few seconds, considering. "The Petrificus should be wearing off at any moment."

Professor McGonagall's eyes widened. "Filius, forgive me, but we'll have to cut our chat short. Miss Weasley, you will accompany myself and your brother up to the Hospital Wing, where you can tell me EXACTLY -" Ginny shivered at the emphasis placed on the word -"what transpired."

"Of course," the younger Gryffindor said, mortified. She watched as her Head of House took over the transportation of her still-motionless brother, and followed her mutely down the hall, up two sets of moving staircases (which, happily, remained stationary for the transfer), and into Madam Pomfrey's domain.

That good lady took one look at the small party entering the wing and exclaimed loudly. "Oi! What have we here?"

"An unfortunate disagreement between students," McGonagall replied crisply.

"Let's put Mr. Weasley over here," the mediwitch said, gesturing to a bed at the end of the ward. "It wouldn't be a proper school year if I didn't have a Weasley in my care at some time or another."

Ginny watched as her brother was situated, and then Professor McGonagall turned back to her. "Now, would you kindly inform me as to the reason that your brother is lying in the hospital wing?"

"A severe case of the Weasley temper," Ginny volunteered. At her professor's dark look, she began a summary of the salient points of the tale, including how she'd owled her brother with her intentions in fear of his over-reaction, but leaving out the more personal details of her conversations with her Slytherin date. When she got to the scene in the Three Broomsticks, she was surprised at the intensity of the displeasure that crossed McGonagall's face.

"Unprecedented," the older witch said, a note of frustration in her voice. "A Gryffindor Prefect in an altercation with the Head Boy in a public place! I'm sure that Professor Snape will address the situation with Mr. Malfoy, but for my own part I expect better from my own House's Prefects."

Ginny privately thought that the professor's estimation of the Slytherin Head of House's willingness to reprimand the young Malfoy was more generous than realism called for, but said nothing. At that moment, both witches were distracted from their own conversation by Pansy and Malfoy's own entrance into the Hospital Wing.

The two witches watched as the entrance of the incapacitated Head Boy got a similarly loud response from Madam Pomfrey, followed by a prolonged episode of tutting as she oversaw his transfer to a bed several cots away from his Gryffindor opponent. Pansy brushed some fallen blond locks solicitously away from his face as the mediwitch catalogued the injuries done to his person.

After several long moments, Pomfrey turned to the Head of Gryffindor. "They certainly had the capability to do much greater damage," she commented frankly. "All the same, I'd like to keep them for a bit.. give them some time to consider their actions today while I monitor for any ill-effects from their restraint."

"It is probably testament to our quick-thinking Prefects that they did not get the opportunity to do so, Poppy," McGonagall replied. "Miss Parkinson, I'd like to hear your version of events."

"Of course," Pansy said. Her manner was quick, businesslike - Ginny guessed that her usual distaste for things Gryffindor was warring with the need to look good in the eyes of the Deputy Headmistress. As Pansy and McGonagall were retreating to the same corner of the room Ginny had suffered her interview in, a loud groan was heard from the cot where her brother lay.

She crossed the distance between them to stand next to his bed as his eyelids fluttered, the first movement he'd exhibited in at least an hour. "Did you have to hit me with Petrificus, Gin?" he mumbled. "Couldn't you have just, y'know .. held me back or something?"

"I thought you'd promised to treat me like I was sixteen and not eleven," she said quietly.

"That was before you exhibited extremely poor judgement and agreed to go to Hogsmeade on a date with a Slytherin."

His voice was still rough from the experience of fighting and then being magically restrained, but Ginny did not find it endearing. It sounded angry, and her own emotions fed off the sound. "Funny that you didn't mention that limitation when you made the promise, Ron!" she snapped, louder than was appropriate for the hospital wing.

"Do you think you could keep the family row to yourselves?"

"Sod off, Ferret," Ginny said angrily to the other boy, who'd evidently regained his own senses. Turning back to her brother, she continued the diatribe. "You spent your first four years at school almost completely unaware of my life, and from all accounts quite happy to let it be that way. Things may have been slightly better since then, but I refuse to let you set restrictions on me, always rushing in to save me from myself! You don't know me well enough to have earned that right!"

"Ginny -" her brother interjected, but she refused to give him the chance to get another word in.

"I'm not listening to another word from you right now, Ron. If you're lucky, I'll be speaking to you again by the time you get out of hospital wing." She turned to go .. but on a whim, stopped as she passed by the spot where the Head Boy was holding his head in his hands, as though it would split in two otherwise. "Oh, Ferret, about what you said in the Three Broomsticks? I'm touched. And if you were slightly better looking, I might even say the same about you." Seeing the startled expression on the Slytherin's face, she turned back to see her brother's countenance darkening before removing from the confines of the ward.

~*~

The common room was quiet when she returned to Gryffindor tower, as the majority of her house - excluding the "short people", as her brother so charmingly called them at the beginning of her fourth year - was in Hogsmeade enjoying the rest of their day. She retreated to the sixth-year girls' dorm briefly to get the book she'd checked out of the library, a treatise on Wizarding involvement in the Crusades.

She settled into one of the window-seats in the common room with her book and cracked it open to the page she'd stopped at, but realized when she'd read the same paragraph three times in the course of an hour that her mind wasn't on History of Magic. She gazed out the window while she let her thoughts drift back towards what had transpired that day.

Apart from their tense few moments in the scrivener's shop, she and Blaise had made an enjoyable morning of things. He was courteous and attentive .. one of the more handsome young wizards in seventh-year, even with the hair and eyes that reminded her of another Slytherin of her acquaintance. And he'd murmured a few things to her that she'd not be sharing with her prat brother anytime soon.

Or anyone else, for that matter.

Had he really said she was beautiful? Her mum had said the words on a few occasions, like the morning she'd gotten ready to board the Express for the first time and Molly Weasley had gushed over her appearance. But that instance paled in comparison to having an eighteen-year-old male say the words - with something interesting going on in his eyes that indicated he meant what he said.

And then there was the way she'd felt when he'd put his arm around her shoulders and kissed her. He'd walked with her from the castle, all over town, and it had always been at her pace -- she'd never once felt like the inferior member of their pair. The way he'd called her "sweet," the way he'd soothed her feelings in the scrivener's after she felt thoroughly embarrassed. She'd caught herself thinking, again, that her experiences with other boys hadn't prepared her for it, at all.

Up until that moment she'd never wanted to be treated like something delicate, but in the space of a few seconds she realized that she'd enjoyed the attentions that Blaise had paid her that morning. It was a novel sensation, and she wasn't about to let her brother's tendency to headstrong impulsiveness bollocks it up.

The portrait swung open at that moment, and Ginny's hands flew to the edges of the book. Her brother and Hermione were returning to the common room. She rose from her seat, closing the book's pages in the process, and turned to go.

"So have you decided whether or not you're speaking to me yet?" His voice was stronger now, but still carried a note of fatigue. It caused a tiny well of regret to bubble up in Ginny's heart, which she contained as quickly as possible. He had been the arse, after all.

"I'm quite ready to say a few things to you, brother mine," she said seriously. "The real question is, are you ready to listen to them?"

Brother and sister exchanged glances, and he finally motioned to one of the sofas in front of the fireplace. Taking the gesture as tacit agreement to hear her out, Ginny settled on the cushions and watched her brother do the same. Hermione sat on a stuffed chair not far away, and the younger Weasley could sense that she was ready to play referee if necessary.

Before she could take her brother to task for promising to think of her as sixteen and not eleven and then breaking his word in such a public manner, Ron spoke first. "When I made that promise, Ginny, I didn't think of you dating."

She looked over at him, her eyebrows furrowed. "You were aware that I dated Michael Corner and Dean Thomas," she said, mystified. "Did you think after Dean and I ended things that I'd never go out with another boy?"

"I could hope," Ron muttered.

"Well, it wasn't a very realistic hope," Ginny replied. "I rather enjoyed myself today, before certain individuals managed to make an arse of things."

Her brother's face flushed, and she could see in his expression that he was ready to trot out the old "you don't know the Slytherins like I do" rhetoric. She attempted to reroute it. "Before you start in, Ron, let me tell you a few things. Blaise was a perfect gentleman this morning - he didn't try to injure, hex, abduct, or use Unforgivables on me. We talked about Quidditch, House stereotypes, my exceptional mind, and the Nimbus X-2."

"Ginny, hear me out." Ron's voice was earnest, and the expression on his face was exuding concern. "What if - just what if - he was being so nice simply to lull you into a false sense of security?"

Ginny looked blankly at her brother for a moment before shaking her head. "I don't see it."

"You wouldn't," he said quickly. "You don't have the proper perspective -"

"And neither do you!" Ginny replied hotly. "You've spent so long hating Slytherins that you can't see past your own prejudices!"

Hermione leaned forward. "Ron -- Ginny --"

But all three were interrupted by a call from the portrait hole. "Gin," Colin called from the archway, where he was just stepping through on his own return from Hogsmeade. "You have a visitor."

"EXCUSE me," she said forcefully to her brother and his girlfriend, before rising from her seat and crossing the room. Colin gave her a small smile as she passed him, and stepped out of the archway .. to discover Blaise waiting outside.

"Hi, Blaise," she said, pitching her voice just loudly enough for her brother to hear. She hadn't lived with Weasley boys for sixteen years not to know that he'd be eavesdropping on her conversation.

"Ginny," he said congenially. "I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"

She shook her head. "Nothing that can't be continued later."

The dark-haired Slytherin gave her a smirk. "I wanted to bring your quills by," he said. "You forgot them at Madam Puddifoot's."

Ginny looked down at the bag Blaise held out. "I did, didn't I." She took the bag in one hand, and looked back up. "I was a bit distracted."

"I did have a good time, until we were so rudely interrupted," he said softly. He glanced through the portrait hole; seeing Ron watching, he leaned forward and kissed Ginny on the cheek. "Good evening, Ginny. I'll see you in class."

The Gryffindor girl turned to watch the Slytherin head toward the stair that would carry him toward more friendly territory. As he disappeared around the corner, she sighed and walked once more through the portrait hole. As she expected, her brother had seen the kiss, and turned a horrible shade of red. Hermione had put an arm around his shoulder, in an effort to restrain him from repeating his earlier exertions.

"I have no intention of ending this .. whatever this is," Ginny said to her brother. "Not all of us are so lucky to meet our soulmates at age eleven, you know." And stopping only to pick up her book, she swept through the archway that led to the stairs to the girls' dormitory, and solitude.