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."
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."
Leave a Review