There are some things that are constants in the universe. They are the things that never seem to change, and by their stable nature, they make a person feel safe and secure in their life and their environment. Things that just will be, simply because that is how they have always been.
Such things are usually simple things. For example, one can always know that the sun will rise every morning and that it will always rise in the east and set in the west. Flowers will bloom in spring. Water will always be wet. The grocery will always have chocolate when one is depressed and in need of comfort food. Things of that nature.
Ginny Weasley had always relied on such things, although she'd never put much thought into them. The universe had an order to it that did not need to be questioned. Or at least that's what she had always assumed until the day she returned home after nearly a year away, only to find that the rules of the universe had apparently changed in her absence.
For the average person, the change that vexed her so thoroughly would likely be considered inconsequential to most people. But to Ginny and the world which she'd known all her nineteen years, it was a travesty of epic proportions.
She returned home, after her first season with the HolyHead Harpies to find that Ronald Weasley and Draco Malfoy had become the best of friends.
Now, to most, that might not seem to be an entirely earth-shattering revelation, but in Ginny Weasley's well-ordered universe, there were certain things that she had come to expect. For example, she expected to return home to have her mother dote on her and cook dinner, the twins would pull a never-ending array of pranks, Percy would lecture about mundane Ministry laws, Ron's best friends would be Harry Potter and Hermione Granger, and any mention of the name Malfoy would include an assorted colorful insult, such as Git, Ferret, or the like.
True, she'd been away for a long time, and some change could be expected, but change of such drastic nature should take millenia, not months, in her opinion.
Seeing the pair together was not only wrong, but the very idea vexed her to the very core of her being. The moment couldn't have been more shocking. She'd been sitting in the kitchen, helping her mother prepare the aforementioned dinner, when the pair saunter in together, laughing and joking as if they were best mates. For a moment, she thought that she was imagining things. Then, she concluded that George had probably polyjuiced himself and was playing a prank on her. After she'd found out that, indeed, it was not a prank, nor was she hallucinating, she started thinking that Ron had lost his mind. That seemed the most reasonable explanation.
What made the situation seem even more implausible was that everyone at the dinner table seemed to think that it was perfectly normal for the pair to just pop in, talking about girls and food and Quidditch as if it was something that normal people did.
In fact, the concept was so completely ludicrous that she started to think that, perhaps, most of her family had gone utterly and completely mad. Unfortunately, all her efforts to point out that obvious fact fell on deaf ears.
But, if Ginny knew one thing that was constant about herself, was that she was loyal and loved Ron dearly, so she immediately set her stubborn sights on setting her poor, obviously Confunded brother back on the right path. After deciding on taking a direct approach, since Ron was notoriously thick when it came to any type of subtle hint, she pulled him aside after dinner and presented a long, relatively calm and persuasive argument in which she pointed out every Malfoy fault in the history of her once-stable universe.
When she finished, she breathed a long sigh of relief to see that Ron didn't seem to be losing his temper in the slightest. In fact, he looked at her with affection, and she fully expected that he was going to thank her for setting him straight. She smiled back at him with equal affection. That was when it became worse, if that was at all possible.
He threw an arm over her shoulder and responded in a tone that was just a bit too relaxed and cheerful to sound like her brother, “I want you to get to know him, Gin. He's really not a bad guy.”
She pulled away, glaring at him angrily. “Have you gone completely bonkers?” She waved her arm frantically in the direction that the blond had just left. “He's Malfoy, Ron. The biggest git ever to walk the halls of Hogwarts! What would Harry say? How does Hermione feel about this?”
Ron's cheerful expression immediately changed to anger, and a touch of hurt. “Harry has been locked away in Auror training and hasn't written since July. Hermione couldn't wait to start work on her University studies over the summer and her letters only tell me how worried she is about her next exam.”
Ginny's anger dissipated, if only for a moment, and she felt some sympathy for her brother. His friends had become completely preoccupied with pursuing their new careers, leaving poor Ron alone and confused. “Have you even told them?” she asked.
“That I've got a new best mate?” Ron shook his head dismissively. “None of their business, I suspect.”
She stared at him in disbelief. “I can't believe this. You are mad at the two of them for going off to school to work on their careers, so you decided to get back at them by befriending their worst enemy?”
His face reddened with anger. “You're one to talk, Gin. You've been off with the Harpies training for the past six months and you haven't even bothered to send an owl. All I got to see of you was when you waved to the crowd after a match.”
“So, you are doing this to get back at all of us, Ron? How could you?”
He crossed his arms and glared at her. “I'm free to see whoever I please.”
Matching his stance, she crossed her arms and glared back. “Well, I don't have to be nice to him.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
x – x - x
And that was how it started. But Ginny knew that she was nothing if not stubborn and determined. Her next plan of action was to threaten Ron by telling him that she was going to write to Harry and Hermione, and she did, although she elected to only state that they needed to pay more attention to Ron, because she didn't quite know how to put frighteningly bad news into words.
She did get a polite letter back from Hermione a few days later that expressed sympathy that Ron was being his usual self, and how sorry she was that she couldn't be around to help. The next two pages were filled with advice to Ginny about how to deal with Ron's personality type, a list of books on family interrelationships, and a quiz that might help with building conversation between Ginny and her brother.
Harry's letter was a bit shorter, although he did express profound apologies for not writing to her more frequently and, based on the tone of his letter, he considered all her complaints about Ron to be some sort of joke that was intended to keep his spirits up.
She tossed both letters on her desk, then dropped down on her bed, giving a dramatic sigh. It was no wonder that Ron had turned his attention elsewhere.
But still, she wondered, couldn't he find a better companion than The Great Blond Git?
She blamed herself, of course. Perhaps, if she'd made more time to see her family since finishing school, she might have prevented this travesty, but she'd been so enthralled with getting a contract with the Harpies that she'd gotten a bit carried away with her new career playing professional Quidditch. She'd run off and started training with the team immediately after leaving Hogwarts.
Clearly, she had been remiss in her family duties, specifically, the part where she was supposed to keep Ron out of trouble. During all those years in Hogwarts, everyone thought it was the other way around, but really, she knew that Ron was socially hopeless without her or his friends.
But Ginny was nothing if not loyal.
Obviously, whatever had happened to her brother was a horrible mistake. Now that the cold weather had arrived and the Quidditch season was over, she had a full four months of time to set things straight.
Unfortunately, over the following few days, her muttering and ranting about the house did her no good. Her mother had actually taken a liking to the aforementioned Git. The Weasley matriarch soon demanded that Ginny stop her endless complaining about the “situation,” as Ginny now called Ron's unusual friendship, and declared that Ginny needed to get out of the house. In a tone that left no room for argument, Ginny was ordered to get herself a job to occupy herself during the Quidditch off-season and get her mind onto something other than her brother's social life.
“Hmmph,” was Ginny's exasperated reply as she turned, her ponytail swinging behind her as she stomped up the stairs, feeling much like she'd just been scolded like a belligerent eight-year-old.
The day after her mother's orders, Ginny found herself in her brothers' joke shop, stocking shelves for the Christmas season and attempting to avoid being used as a test subject for the foul-smelling potion that they had brewing in the back room.
While the concern about the potion did have some distracting benefits, Ginny still found herself thinking far too much about the mental health of her brother. The fact that he had gone out with “the Git” the previous evening and had returned home, slightly intoxicated and mumbling to Malfoy, who was also intoxicated, about some pretty blond girl that they'd encountered, had left her fuming. She couldn't help herself. They'd stumbled in together, arms about each other's shoulders, just a bit too jovially.
The bell to the shop tinkled, signaling the entrance of another customer. She ignored the sound and continued with her stacking, since the twins had requested that Ginny leave the customer interaction to them, and they were quite blunt about telling her that they didn't want her unusually cranky attitude to frighten anybody off. Of course, she'd denied the accusation vehemently, but it did no good and the twins merely laughed, ruffled her hair and sent her to the stockroom.
It was just another reason for her to feel all the more cranky and irritated over it all.
It was a never-ending downward spiral. And it was all Malfoy's fault.
Giving yet another huff of annoyance, she climbed up a few steps of her ladder and shoved a box of Super-exploding snap cards onto the shelf and looked about to see what other items in that section needed restocking. That's when she heard Ron's laugh come from the far side of the store, making her pause and wrinkle her brow in frustration. He was always laughing, it seemed. In fact, she'd never known him to be so carefree and happy. The twins even seemed to be much more happy to have him around.
Her brow wrinkled further.
Now that she thought back on it. In the past, the twins had always enjoyed having Ginny stop by the shop, and they'd joke and laugh with her, usually while Ron was off on the side grumbling about something or other. A horrifying epiphany then occurred to her: Ron and she had switched places as the twins' favorite little sibling!
She gripped the handrail of the ladder with unnecessary force and fumed.
Then, she felt a prickle on the back of her neck, as if she was being watched. Turning slowly and looking down, she saw the “Git” looking up at her with a rather too-broad smile on his face.
“Need a hand, little Weasley?” he said in a friendly manner.
That tone was just wrong, coming from his mouth.
And, had he just been ogling her backside?
Stepping down off the ladder, she grabbed another few boxes from her cart and turned back to the ladder, hesitating about climbing up again and giving the Git another view of her bum.
“I'm doing quite well on my own,” she said snappily, before swallowing her pride and climbing up the ladder, angrily shoving the boxes into their proper locations with a bit too much enthusiasm. In fact, she rammed the third box into place with so much force that she tumbled back on the narrow ladder, losing her footing on the thing. With her left arm holding the extra boxes and her right arm still holding the item that she was shoving onto the shelf, she had nothing left to hold onto the ladder and the force of her shove pushed her body backwards.
She tumbled off the ladder, arms flailing, boxes flying haphazardly in every direction, all while giving a loud, involuntary shriek, alerting the entire store to her predicament. The spare boxes in her left arm flew out across the aisle and she gave an impressive curse as she fell free of the ladder, expecting her bum to contact the ground in an extremely unpleasant manner. Granted, it was only a few feet, but it was high enough to promise a painful landing, nonetheless.
The hard impact failed to occur, however, because someone seemed to reach out of nowhere, catching her before she hit the ground. She found herself in a rather nice, strong pair of arms, holding her bridal style, and she instinctively turned, wrapping her arms around the shoulders of her rescuer.
It only took a moment to realize that her hero was none other than the Git who had caused her mishap in the first place. Looking up, she saw a pair of intense gray eyes staring back at her. He was smiling, and the laughter reached those eyes, making them shine with a quicksilver intensity.
“Good heavens, Weasley, with grace like that, how do you manage to keep on a broom during a match?”
She wanted to strike him, except both her arms were wrapped around his shoulders. Rather broad shoulders, she noted. She felt her chest heave and felt her breath quicken, part of it from the adrenaline of her near accident and part from simple fury, although if it was from his remark, the fact that he made her fall or that he had the gall to be holding her in this rather suggestive and inappropriate manner, she could not tell.
“Put me down!” she stated, somewhat inelegantly.
At that moment, her three brothers arrived to see about the commotion.
“Look what Malfoy caught!” Fred remarked with an annoyingly impish grin.
Ginny seethed. Giving her brother a glare, she then turned to the blond who was holding her. “You can put me down now,” she commanded.
Nodding his head graciously, he complied giving her a grin that was just a tad too cheerful.
As soon as her feet touched the floor, she stepped away from her rescuer as if he was something distasteful and brushed her clothing off, as if it had been dirtied by coming in contact with him.
Ron clapped his friend on the back. “Good job, mate,” he said. “If she got injured, Mum never would have let us hear the end of it.”
She scowled at her brothers over the remark, not failing to observe that they had completely ignored her discomfort over the situation.
Later that evening, the story of Ginny's near accident and her “gallant” rescuer did reach her mother's ears, of course, and Ginny had to spend most of dinner hearing the boys recount it. As was their usual style, the twins embellished it a bit and Malfoy got himself an extra large helping of dessert.
Knowing she wasn't going to win any argument, Ginny simply leaned forward, put her elbow on the table in a stereotypical sulking position, and pouted while she ate her meal. If this continued, she was going to have a very long four months.
Such things are usually simple things. For example, one can always know that the sun will rise every morning and that it will always rise in the east and set in the west. Flowers will bloom in spring. Water will always be wet. The grocery will always have chocolate when one is depressed and in need of comfort food. Things of that nature.
Ginny Weasley had always relied on such things, although she'd never put much thought into them. The universe had an order to it that did not need to be questioned. Or at least that's what she had always assumed until the day she returned home after nearly a year away, only to find that the rules of the universe had apparently changed in her absence.
For the average person, the change that vexed her so thoroughly would likely be considered inconsequential to most people. But to Ginny and the world which she'd known all her nineteen years, it was a travesty of epic proportions.
She returned home, after her first season with the HolyHead Harpies to find that Ronald Weasley and Draco Malfoy had become the best of friends.
Now, to most, that might not seem to be an entirely earth-shattering revelation, but in Ginny Weasley's well-ordered universe, there were certain things that she had come to expect. For example, she expected to return home to have her mother dote on her and cook dinner, the twins would pull a never-ending array of pranks, Percy would lecture about mundane Ministry laws, Ron's best friends would be Harry Potter and Hermione Granger, and any mention of the name Malfoy would include an assorted colorful insult, such as Git, Ferret, or the like.
True, she'd been away for a long time, and some change could be expected, but change of such drastic nature should take millenia, not months, in her opinion.
Seeing the pair together was not only wrong, but the very idea vexed her to the very core of her being. The moment couldn't have been more shocking. She'd been sitting in the kitchen, helping her mother prepare the aforementioned dinner, when the pair saunter in together, laughing and joking as if they were best mates. For a moment, she thought that she was imagining things. Then, she concluded that George had probably polyjuiced himself and was playing a prank on her. After she'd found out that, indeed, it was not a prank, nor was she hallucinating, she started thinking that Ron had lost his mind. That seemed the most reasonable explanation.
What made the situation seem even more implausible was that everyone at the dinner table seemed to think that it was perfectly normal for the pair to just pop in, talking about girls and food and Quidditch as if it was something that normal people did.
In fact, the concept was so completely ludicrous that she started to think that, perhaps, most of her family had gone utterly and completely mad. Unfortunately, all her efforts to point out that obvious fact fell on deaf ears.
But, if Ginny knew one thing that was constant about herself, was that she was loyal and loved Ron dearly, so she immediately set her stubborn sights on setting her poor, obviously Confunded brother back on the right path. After deciding on taking a direct approach, since Ron was notoriously thick when it came to any type of subtle hint, she pulled him aside after dinner and presented a long, relatively calm and persuasive argument in which she pointed out every Malfoy fault in the history of her once-stable universe.
When she finished, she breathed a long sigh of relief to see that Ron didn't seem to be losing his temper in the slightest. In fact, he looked at her with affection, and she fully expected that he was going to thank her for setting him straight. She smiled back at him with equal affection. That was when it became worse, if that was at all possible.
He threw an arm over her shoulder and responded in a tone that was just a bit too relaxed and cheerful to sound like her brother, “I want you to get to know him, Gin. He's really not a bad guy.”
She pulled away, glaring at him angrily. “Have you gone completely bonkers?” She waved her arm frantically in the direction that the blond had just left. “He's Malfoy, Ron. The biggest git ever to walk the halls of Hogwarts! What would Harry say? How does Hermione feel about this?”
Ron's cheerful expression immediately changed to anger, and a touch of hurt. “Harry has been locked away in Auror training and hasn't written since July. Hermione couldn't wait to start work on her University studies over the summer and her letters only tell me how worried she is about her next exam.”
Ginny's anger dissipated, if only for a moment, and she felt some sympathy for her brother. His friends had become completely preoccupied with pursuing their new careers, leaving poor Ron alone and confused. “Have you even told them?” she asked.
“That I've got a new best mate?” Ron shook his head dismissively. “None of their business, I suspect.”
She stared at him in disbelief. “I can't believe this. You are mad at the two of them for going off to school to work on their careers, so you decided to get back at them by befriending their worst enemy?”
His face reddened with anger. “You're one to talk, Gin. You've been off with the Harpies training for the past six months and you haven't even bothered to send an owl. All I got to see of you was when you waved to the crowd after a match.”
“So, you are doing this to get back at all of us, Ron? How could you?”
He crossed his arms and glared at her. “I'm free to see whoever I please.”
Matching his stance, she crossed her arms and glared back. “Well, I don't have to be nice to him.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
x – x - x
And that was how it started. But Ginny knew that she was nothing if not stubborn and determined. Her next plan of action was to threaten Ron by telling him that she was going to write to Harry and Hermione, and she did, although she elected to only state that they needed to pay more attention to Ron, because she didn't quite know how to put frighteningly bad news into words.
She did get a polite letter back from Hermione a few days later that expressed sympathy that Ron was being his usual self, and how sorry she was that she couldn't be around to help. The next two pages were filled with advice to Ginny about how to deal with Ron's personality type, a list of books on family interrelationships, and a quiz that might help with building conversation between Ginny and her brother.
Harry's letter was a bit shorter, although he did express profound apologies for not writing to her more frequently and, based on the tone of his letter, he considered all her complaints about Ron to be some sort of joke that was intended to keep his spirits up.
She tossed both letters on her desk, then dropped down on her bed, giving a dramatic sigh. It was no wonder that Ron had turned his attention elsewhere.
But still, she wondered, couldn't he find a better companion than The Great Blond Git?
She blamed herself, of course. Perhaps, if she'd made more time to see her family since finishing school, she might have prevented this travesty, but she'd been so enthralled with getting a contract with the Harpies that she'd gotten a bit carried away with her new career playing professional Quidditch. She'd run off and started training with the team immediately after leaving Hogwarts.
Clearly, she had been remiss in her family duties, specifically, the part where she was supposed to keep Ron out of trouble. During all those years in Hogwarts, everyone thought it was the other way around, but really, she knew that Ron was socially hopeless without her or his friends.
But Ginny was nothing if not loyal.
Obviously, whatever had happened to her brother was a horrible mistake. Now that the cold weather had arrived and the Quidditch season was over, she had a full four months of time to set things straight.
Unfortunately, over the following few days, her muttering and ranting about the house did her no good. Her mother had actually taken a liking to the aforementioned Git. The Weasley matriarch soon demanded that Ginny stop her endless complaining about the “situation,” as Ginny now called Ron's unusual friendship, and declared that Ginny needed to get out of the house. In a tone that left no room for argument, Ginny was ordered to get herself a job to occupy herself during the Quidditch off-season and get her mind onto something other than her brother's social life.
“Hmmph,” was Ginny's exasperated reply as she turned, her ponytail swinging behind her as she stomped up the stairs, feeling much like she'd just been scolded like a belligerent eight-year-old.
The day after her mother's orders, Ginny found herself in her brothers' joke shop, stocking shelves for the Christmas season and attempting to avoid being used as a test subject for the foul-smelling potion that they had brewing in the back room.
While the concern about the potion did have some distracting benefits, Ginny still found herself thinking far too much about the mental health of her brother. The fact that he had gone out with “the Git” the previous evening and had returned home, slightly intoxicated and mumbling to Malfoy, who was also intoxicated, about some pretty blond girl that they'd encountered, had left her fuming. She couldn't help herself. They'd stumbled in together, arms about each other's shoulders, just a bit too jovially.
The bell to the shop tinkled, signaling the entrance of another customer. She ignored the sound and continued with her stacking, since the twins had requested that Ginny leave the customer interaction to them, and they were quite blunt about telling her that they didn't want her unusually cranky attitude to frighten anybody off. Of course, she'd denied the accusation vehemently, but it did no good and the twins merely laughed, ruffled her hair and sent her to the stockroom.
It was just another reason for her to feel all the more cranky and irritated over it all.
It was a never-ending downward spiral. And it was all Malfoy's fault.
Giving yet another huff of annoyance, she climbed up a few steps of her ladder and shoved a box of Super-exploding snap cards onto the shelf and looked about to see what other items in that section needed restocking. That's when she heard Ron's laugh come from the far side of the store, making her pause and wrinkle her brow in frustration. He was always laughing, it seemed. In fact, she'd never known him to be so carefree and happy. The twins even seemed to be much more happy to have him around.
Her brow wrinkled further.
Now that she thought back on it. In the past, the twins had always enjoyed having Ginny stop by the shop, and they'd joke and laugh with her, usually while Ron was off on the side grumbling about something or other. A horrifying epiphany then occurred to her: Ron and she had switched places as the twins' favorite little sibling!
She gripped the handrail of the ladder with unnecessary force and fumed.
Then, she felt a prickle on the back of her neck, as if she was being watched. Turning slowly and looking down, she saw the “Git” looking up at her with a rather too-broad smile on his face.
“Need a hand, little Weasley?” he said in a friendly manner.
That tone was just wrong, coming from his mouth.
And, had he just been ogling her backside?
Stepping down off the ladder, she grabbed another few boxes from her cart and turned back to the ladder, hesitating about climbing up again and giving the Git another view of her bum.
“I'm doing quite well on my own,” she said snappily, before swallowing her pride and climbing up the ladder, angrily shoving the boxes into their proper locations with a bit too much enthusiasm. In fact, she rammed the third box into place with so much force that she tumbled back on the narrow ladder, losing her footing on the thing. With her left arm holding the extra boxes and her right arm still holding the item that she was shoving onto the shelf, she had nothing left to hold onto the ladder and the force of her shove pushed her body backwards.
She tumbled off the ladder, arms flailing, boxes flying haphazardly in every direction, all while giving a loud, involuntary shriek, alerting the entire store to her predicament. The spare boxes in her left arm flew out across the aisle and she gave an impressive curse as she fell free of the ladder, expecting her bum to contact the ground in an extremely unpleasant manner. Granted, it was only a few feet, but it was high enough to promise a painful landing, nonetheless.
The hard impact failed to occur, however, because someone seemed to reach out of nowhere, catching her before she hit the ground. She found herself in a rather nice, strong pair of arms, holding her bridal style, and she instinctively turned, wrapping her arms around the shoulders of her rescuer.
It only took a moment to realize that her hero was none other than the Git who had caused her mishap in the first place. Looking up, she saw a pair of intense gray eyes staring back at her. He was smiling, and the laughter reached those eyes, making them shine with a quicksilver intensity.
“Good heavens, Weasley, with grace like that, how do you manage to keep on a broom during a match?”
She wanted to strike him, except both her arms were wrapped around his shoulders. Rather broad shoulders, she noted. She felt her chest heave and felt her breath quicken, part of it from the adrenaline of her near accident and part from simple fury, although if it was from his remark, the fact that he made her fall or that he had the gall to be holding her in this rather suggestive and inappropriate manner, she could not tell.
“Put me down!” she stated, somewhat inelegantly.
At that moment, her three brothers arrived to see about the commotion.
“Look what Malfoy caught!” Fred remarked with an annoyingly impish grin.
Ginny seethed. Giving her brother a glare, she then turned to the blond who was holding her. “You can put me down now,” she commanded.
Nodding his head graciously, he complied giving her a grin that was just a tad too cheerful.
As soon as her feet touched the floor, she stepped away from her rescuer as if he was something distasteful and brushed her clothing off, as if it had been dirtied by coming in contact with him.
Ron clapped his friend on the back. “Good job, mate,” he said. “If she got injured, Mum never would have let us hear the end of it.”
She scowled at her brothers over the remark, not failing to observe that they had completely ignored her discomfort over the situation.
Later that evening, the story of Ginny's near accident and her “gallant” rescuer did reach her mother's ears, of course, and Ginny had to spend most of dinner hearing the boys recount it. As was their usual style, the twins embellished it a bit and Malfoy got himself an extra large helping of dessert.
Knowing she wasn't going to win any argument, Ginny simply leaned forward, put her elbow on the table in a stereotypical sulking position, and pouted while she ate her meal. If this continued, she was going to have a very long four months.
Author notes: For those of you wondering about the status of "H &H" - because I know some of you will ask - the story has not been abandoned. It's just that the story got a bit longer and more complex than I planned.
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