“Of all the seven deadly sins, only Envy is no fun at all” – Joseph Epstein

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Ginny is –green.

Well, it’s not quite that simple. You see, the truth of the matter is that Ginny is actually –well, she’s green.

No, on second thought perhaps there is no way out of this.

Ginny is green in more senses than one and she is cold and Draco Malfoy is laughing at her and Astoria Greengrass is entirely too smug.

Green – because she is covered in paint, you see, and the paint just so happens to be this vividly awful sort of chartreuse, which by the way is a hideously unflattering colour for anyone, let alone a redhead. Let alone a Weasley, who are really a whole new category of redheads.

Her flush must look strange, under the bright paint.

“Don’t you dare,” she snaps, shaking her hands in one sharp movement that sends paint splattering off her fingers in ten bright arcing points.

Draco Malfoy leans over the banister a little farther and chokes slightly as Ginny tries to stand only to slip in the far-too-gooey paint on the ground. He actually looks rather pained trying to hold his laughter back, and Ginny hopes he hurts himself.

His eyes are bright and mirthful, though, and Astoria’s hand is curled comfortably into the crook of his arm.

Finally (finally) Ginny gets her hands on her wand and Scourgifys to the best of her abilities until the worst of it is gone. She’ll have to wash extra-carefully tonight to get the smaller bits off, and maybe she’ll steal into Hermione’s Prefect bathroom. It’s way too good for any one person, anyway.

Astoria is a very beautiful girl, and she looks like a fairytale princess. The line of her neck is smooth and pale, unmarred by any (freckles) imperfections. Also, her dress is actually tasteful, and yet still revealing enough that when she leans over the banister to call down to Ginny, both Ginny and Draco get a very generous view of her very generous chest.

She sounds happy, which Ginny really ought to hate the bitch for, seeing as she’s suffering down here. But it’s not Draco’s mocking sort of happy, and the bitch is actually rather nice once you get past the fact that she gets everything she ever bloody wants – oh, and that she’s ridiculously beautiful and younger than Ginny anyway and why is she the one up there on the banister with her hand curled into the crook of Draco Malfoy’s arm?

Ginny blames feeling green on the paint, and it’s interesting that she could conceivably say ‘I’m glad that someone dumped a bucket of unflattering green paint all over me in front of Draco Malfoy’ and actually sort of mean it.

The thing was, there was a time when Astoria wasn’t pretty yet, but she was small and adorable and completely ignored by her big sister (who, by the way, was one of Pansy’s lot and had absolutely no redeeming qualities). Ginny had never been as hung up on the House rivalry as her brothers and she had a bit of a thing about saving first-years (still does). So that’s her friend up there, her stupid cow of a friend who doesn’t look nearly as much like a cow as she by all rights should.

Draco opens his mouth to say something, but Astoria’s not a bad friend so she tightens her hand around his arm in warning, and he pauses.

He doesn’t do that for just anybody – there’s no way he’d do it for a Weasley. Draco Malfoy won’t pause for someone unless they’re special. Like if they’re a breathtakingly beautiful girl with long dark curly hair and wide eyes and pale skin and an affectionate disposition and a very generous chest.

Ginny thinks she will never speak to her friend ever again, and that makes sense.

“Well, Weasley,” Draco says, and then follows up with something that no doubt is witty and insults her heritage. Ginny is a bit too busy shoving herself to her feet stiffly and trying not to shiver in the cold wind to listen.

Honestly, she is going to have to talk to the twins (at great length) about limits. Especially when she’s their only family member who will knowingly help them test products.

Astoria’s a bunch of lovely things to be sure, but she’s also a bit docile and she wouldn’t interrupt Malfoy if her life depended on it, so he goes on and on in that sneering voice of his.

She’ll bore him, a nasty little voice in Ginny’s head whispers, and she doesn’t quite shush it as fast as she really should do: and then what good is her stupid hair going to do her?

Ginny has no compunctions about interrupting anyone, least of all gits. Malfoy, as the Crown Prince of Gits (Percy is King, at least until he actually answers one of her owls) is a fair target, and so she interrupts him right in the middle of “bloody kyphorrhinos, the lot of you” (which makes her wish she had been listening, because what do bumpy noses have to do with anything?).

“Shut up Malfoy,” Ginny says on reflex, then addresses Astoria through teeth that are only gritted just a bit, honest. “You forgot your money-bag at the Three Broomsticks. I came to return it.”

Her nose isn’t bumpy. Maybe Ron’s is, a little. Or Charlie’s. But hers certainly isn’t, and she doesn’t need to touch it to make sure because that would be silly.

Astoria’s nose is actually a little bumpy. Not like it’s been broken, but it has a natural bump that Ginny can notice from a floor below her out in the cold. Not enough to counteract her hair of course, but enough to make Ginny think ha, and feel vaguely victorious.

“Oh,” Astoria smiles, “You’re a great friend, thanks Ginny.”

Ginny would feel guilty for mentally stabbing her in the back if Draco hadn’t snorted like that. Maybe.

In any case, she just wants to escape, and so she tosses the bag up in the air. It almost hits Astoria in the face, but Draco stops it with a quick Wingardium Leviosa, for which Ginny is genuinely glad.

She doesn’t want to cause Astoria unending pain. No way.

“Bye then,” Ginny says, as she turns and darts away, left foot sinking into a clump of snow and getting all wet and cold and generally icky. “Have fun on your date.”

Astoria’s face lights up at the last word, and Draco’s jaw clenches. Then he pauses, as if reevaluating his companion, and smirks lasciviously.

The prat.

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It’s only much later, after the twins have given her many free things in apology and she’s trudged back up to the castle to use some of them on Ron, that Ginny feels a bit better. She’s still had an awful day though, and she doesn’t think she will be able to talk to Astoria for a while without wanting to test some products out on her as well.

Or maybe just become her, because for all her troubles in those early days, everyone certainly acknowledges her now and she has a very simple, uncomplicated life. Ginny sort of wants that, if only for a day or two. Just long enough that she can smile at professors and actually look innocent, or eat whatever she wants without worrying about her figure, or get dates with boys two years older than her when most girls even just one year down are completely overlooked.

And then she could go out with them in nice warm flattering clothes that are not in any way threadbare, and she could stand on balconies with a hand tucked into the crook of their arm and watch other girls make fools of themselves in the snow. And she could smile at them, and look them right in the eyes, and no one would see anything wrong with that, least of all the older boy in question.

So Ginny is afraid that she’ll have to end the day with a sigh and a sad feeling, again. And she would if it weren’t for the accidental discovery that apparently paint made by the twins (of which there is still some in her hair) glows in the dark.

She’s got them to thank for the quick laugh, but even so as she crawls into bed Ginny can’t help but rub her (un-bumpy) nose and wish that her hair was a little longer and a little blacker, and that her freckles were just a little completely gone.