For two days, Ginny sulked, suffering from far too much enthusiastic ribbing from the twins as she worked. They had the gall to insinuate that she'd enjoyed her little mishap with Malfoy, and it took all her will to not hex them – only because, if she did, her mother would have a royal fit.
With no support in her quest to eradicate the Malfoy from her family's lives, she had no choice but to pretend to acquiesce. It wasn't easy. Mostly, it involved hiding whenever Ron and the Git were in the area, but she was well-aware that she couldn't avoid her brother forever.
The problem was that she just couldn't come to terms with how much her brother had changed in the past year. She understood that Ron had probably needed companionship while his best friends were preoccupied. What she couldn't understand was why he hadn't found someone more suitable than Malfoy to share his interests.
After sulking and considering things for a few days, the Ministry Christmas Party or, more precisely, the morning after the Christmas Party, presented her with the ideal opportunity to once again try to come to some sort of truce with her brother.
Ginny took a peek out the window to see Ron sitting on the front porch and returned to the simmering cauldron on the stove. After adding the last few ingredients, and verifying that it had turned the proper color, she poured a measured amount into a chipped coffee mug.
Carrying the cup out to the porch, she sat down wearily next to her brother, who currently had his face buried in his hands.
“Must you sit down so loudly?” he whined.
He was pathetic, and it was definitely one of his more endearing traits. She chuckled softly. “Oh, shush and drink this,” she said, smiling and handing him the cup.
He sniffed the contents with obvious revulsion. “Are you trying to kill me?”
She shrugged. The thought had crossed her mind over the past few days, but even she couldn't be quite so vengeful. “Hangover remedy,” she responded. “Best recipe ever. The whole team swears by it.”
He looked at her, obviously dubious. “You drink this stuff?”
“Only when I have to,” she replied with a small blush of embarrassment. “The Harpies had quite a binge right after beating Puddlemere in the first round of the finals. None of us would have made it to practice the next day if it wasn't for that stuff.”
He nodded, considered the cup for a moment, then put his hand to his head. Looking at the cup again, he apparently decided that any help for the hangover was worth the risk. “Well, then, I guess it's worth a try,” he muttered before taking a deep breath and swallowing the contents in one large gulp. “Yuck!” he exclaimed, contorting his face in an expression of obvious disgust. “That better work, or I'd guess that you're pulling the most horrible prank ever.”
She laughed. “I wish I had a camera right now. The expression on your face is priceless.”
He groaned and buried his head in his hands. Then, he lifted his head, looked around and blinked. “Merlin's pants, Gin. I think it worked. I feel a lot better already.”
A huge grin spread over her face. “Always listen to your sister.”
“How's Malfoy doing?” he asked.
Her grin dropped noticeably. “Better than you, apparently. He seemed perfectly fine when he dropped you off last night. He said goodnight to Mum and left by floo right after we hauled you upstairs.”
Ron appeared not to notice her reaction to the mention of Malfoy. “Annoying git,” he said with affection. “He always could drink more than me. Goads me into having more, too, then usually makes sure to call me early the day after to laugh at my pain. I've yet to see him completely pissed. The twins think it's hilarious.”
“Ron...” she said, her voice giving a hint of getting ready for a lecture, then she paused.
“Gin...” he echoed.
She took a deep breath. “Why Ron? Why do you hang out with him?”
He paused, appearing contrite, as he pondered her question. “I dunno. He just sort of grew on me.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Sure, he grows on you. Maybe like a fungus.” she said, only half-joking. “Seriously, Ron, how did this happen?”
He sighed and looked out over the frozen garden, apparently reluctant to answer her question. “It's a long story.”
“Well, I'm listening.”
He was quiet for a moment, gathering his thoughts. Then he turned to her, his expression open and honest. “It was pretty quiet here all last winter,” he said slowly. “With Harry and Hermione off studying all the time, and you gone, and everyone else moved away, and work and all.”
Ginny remembered when Ron had elected not to finish his seventh year at Hogwarts, and she had returned to complete her schooling alone. At the time, Ron had claimed that going back at the age of nineteen just seemed too strange but, secretly, Ginny had always suspected that the real reason her brother didn't finish school was because he didn't want to be there without his two best friends.
Ron had spent that year working as an intern at the Ministry, helping to file and clean up much of the administrative mess that had been left after Voldemort's regime fell. Harry and Hermione had chosen to study independently to finish their NEWTs, so Ron had been left much on his own for quite a long time.
Ron looked off into the distance, seeming a bit sad. “Then, Harry and Hermione each went off to school to focus on their careers, and everything seemed so different.”
She nodded, trying to understand. Ron likely had likely never been alone at the Burrow in his life and she felt bad that she hadn't been more attentive while she'd been off at school. Then, after she'd joined the Harpies, she'd barely had any contact with anyone in her family because she was so engrossed in her new, exciting life. She sighed. “You missed them. I'm so sorry.”
Ron shrugged and looked at his hands. “It was that, a little. I mean it's the best for them, both going off to follow their dreams and all. I just didn't have any plans, so it felt a bit out of place to bother them all the time while they were busy.” He turned to her. “Then, when you got the contract with the Harpies, I was so happy for you, Gin.” He smiled at her then, and his expression was so full of love and pride that she felt herself get warm, despite the chilly winter air.
“Thanks, Ron.”
“I went to your first match, you know,” he said with a sly smile, nudging her shoulder with his own.
“You did? Why didn't you tell me? I could have gotten you a seat for free!”
He shook his head, turning and looking out over the garden, slightly embarrassed. “I didn't want you to know I was there. Was worried that you'd get nervous or that I'd jinx you somehow.”
She laughed again. It warmed her heart to know that someone who cared about her had been there. “We lost that match, Ron.”
“Yeah, but you scored sixty points, Gin. Sixty! I've never been so proud of you in my entire life.”
She blushed a bit more under her beloved brother's praise. “Well I'm glad I didn't disappoint.”
“No, not at all. I had one of the best seats in the house for it, too. That's how I met up with Malfoy,” he said.
Her joy fell just a bit. Really. “Malfoy was there?”
“Oi, yeah,” he said, a fond smile coming to his face. “We both happened to be up in the box seats, right at the center of the pitch. I wasn't happy to see him, of course, but I didn't want to get into an argument. I'd just spent a huge amount of money for the ticket and the last thing I wanted was to get tossed out and miss seeing you play. So, I kind of ignored him. I was pretty shocked when he brought me an ale and thanked me for Harry and me saving his sorry arse during the battle.”
“He thanked you?”
“Shocked me so much that I almost forgot to watch the start of the match!” he said with a smile. “He didn't talk after that, which was all right by me, and I sort of tried to forget he was there for a bit.” Then, he looked at her a bit sheepishly. “We eventually started making comments about the match. He even complimented you playing, Then, we bought each other a few more rounds and, by the end of the match, we were almost civil to each other.”
She frowned again. Of all the things. No wonder he hadn't told her about being there.
“I thought that would be the end of it,” he said. “But, then, a few days later I ran into him in front of the Quidditch Supply store and we started grumbling to each other about how we never got to play anymore, what with you gone, Harry gone, and Fred and George preoccupied with the shop, I hadn't had a chance to really fly for months. He invited me to practice some one-on-one after work and I thought it might be fun to beat on him a bit.”
Ginny said nothing, just nodded for him to continue.
“Well, he showed up, didn't talk much, and we had an all right time of it. So, I asked him if he might want to play once or twice a week and, after a week or two, we started talking about trivial things after we were done.”
Ron gave a grin, thinking of the memory. “Then, next thing you know, he came here for a Sunday scrimmage with the twins and Mum invited him to stay for dinner. I was surprised when he accepted. Figured he was going to make some sort of insulting comment about Mum or her cooking, but he was fine. The only thing I found odd was that he didn't talk about anything at Hogwarts when Mum brought it up. He just looked kind of sad.”
Ginny gave her brother a dubious look. “So, he was like a lost puppy that you all took in?”
Ron shrugged. “I suppose. Well, the four of us started playing a scrimmage game once a week. The twins kind of took a liking to him, and he even started to laugh a bit. We were both working at the Ministry, so then it just seemed normal to go out after work once in a while, have some laughs, you know?”
His expression turned thoughtful, and he looked at his sister seriously. “He was different, Gin. More quiet. We talked about a lot of things, mostly work and such, but he'd make remarks once in a while about regrets he had in his past. He stayed away from saying anything bad about Harry and Hermione too, until I was grumbling about them one day for being so absorbed in their own little worlds that they've forgotten about all of us here.”
Ginny raised an eyebrow. “What did he say?”
“He said that Harry needs to step back and see the big picture. The world isn't always black and white.”
She watched her brother chuckle and realized that he really did seem to trust his former adversary. It still bothered her, but she had to trust that her brother had his reasons. She kept quiet and continued to listen.
“We had a good talk that day, over a few pints, and I finally learned a bit about why he hated Harry so much in school. When you look at how Harry was seen from outside of Gryffindor, he really did seem like he was treated special. Dumbledore really did bend quite a few rules for Harry and me and Hermione over the years.”
“It doesn't explain why he hated you and every other Weasley he came across, though.”
Ron shrugged. “No, it doesn't. But, as Mum and Dad said, you can't put blame on things people do as children. He was echoing what he heard his father say at home. Eventually, he started to realize that his father wasn't always right, especially about Voldemort.”
“But, why you, Ron? Why is he attaching himself to you? Don't you think he could find someone else to pal around with?”
“I don't think so, Gin. He's in an awkward spot, with a lot of his former friends spending time in Azkaban now. I don't think he trusts many people after everything that's happened. Mum says he and I have been a good influence on each other.”
It was difficult to argue. Malfoy had been around for months, and Ron seemed to be completely loyal to him. If her mother approved, then at least Ginny had some assurance that Ron wasn't being taken in. She worried that Malfoy was using her brother, but she understood that it was unlikely that Malfoy had completely fooled her mother and the twins, who also seemed to be taken with the blond. She decided not to press the matter further and let the situation play out. The best thing she could do was keep on her guard and watch out for her brother in case things turned out badly.
She stood up. “Well, I better be going. The train from Hogwarts got in two days ago for the Christmas hols, so the shop is even busier than usual. Fred and George will hang me if get in to work late.”
Ron grinned. “That's why I'm glad I have the position at the Ministry. The twins are slave drivers, I tell you.”
She nodded and raced off to grab her cloak, happy that, although she and Ron might not be entirely in agreement, at least they'd reached some sort of understanding.
X
While Ginny had extended the olive branch of peace to her beloved brother, she still felt a compulsive urge to not extend any indication of friendship toward Ron's new best mate. It was just wrong at the most basic of levels.
When Malfoy came about, the best she could do was try to ignore him. Unfortunately, he seemed to take great delight in testing her resolve. It was a constant battle of wills which the rest of the family seemed to find amusing.
What annoyed Ginny the most, however, was the blond's unending cheerful demeanor. It just wasn't right to see her brother's former adversary so very happy – in her own home, no less. Worse, it seemed he was at the Weasley home far too often.
And, to her great dismay, he somehow managed to appear on their doorstep on Christmas morning, holding a bottle of wine and a beautifully wrapped package for Molly Weasley. It was simple bribery, in Ginny's view, but before she could properly protest – and she had already taken a lungful of air and opened her mouth in preparation to do so - a heavy hand descended on her shoulder. She looked up to see her father, giving her a stern expression that he usually only reserved for the twins.
“Doesn't he have his own home to go to?” she whispered to Ron with irritation after Malfoy managed to slip a joke cracker in her stocking, which exploded in her face, covering her with an extensive amount of glitter.
Ron stopped laughing to lean over, his voice dropping to a low tone so that the conversation remained private. “His parents are traveling. After spending time in Azkaban, his father prefers to be in warmer climates, and his mother feels that being on extended holiday makes it easier for the both of them to stay out of the public eye,” he informed her. “When Mum found out that Malfoy was going to be alone on Christmas, she insisted he come over.”
Ginny scowled, her fingers tugging vast amounts of glitter from her hair. “But does he have to be so... annoying?”
Ron chuckled. “C'mon, Gin. It's no worse than anything the twins have pulled in the past. Maybe he likes you.”
“He likes seeing me humiliated. And, for the record, the twins always pulled this kind of stuff on Percy, or you. I was always the one who was sitting on the side having a good laugh.”
She looked over to see George clapping Malfoy on the shoulder, both still in the midst of merriment over Ginny's misfortune. “Good one, mate!” he said. “Simple, but effective.”
Malfoy, still laughing, looked up at her, joy sparkling in his eyes, although, to his credit, he did shrug slightly and give her an apologetic look. She scowled at him, but the venom that she wanted to convey in the glance somehow fell short. It was impossible to truly be angry with him when the look of happiness on his face was so apparent. In that moment, she found him to be quite handsome, a thought which bothered her greatly.
Feeling the need to exit the area, she stood and brushed herself off, grateful that she had an excuse to leave before the bothersome feeling of attraction took hold. “Well, I've got to clean up now, and I suppose I'll help Mum in the kitchen.” Turning to the twins, she added, “Please don't blow anything up this year. I hate having to clean up after you.”
As she turned to step out of the room, Ron asked hopefully, “Backyard Quidditch after dinner, Sis?”
Immediately, thoughts of using her skills to humble Malfoy brought an evil gleam to her eye. “Only if I get Bill on my team,” she replied.
In the end, Ginny's Christmas was a total failure when she, Bill, Fleur and Charley lost soundly to Ron, Malfoy and the twins. She wondered if her ego was ever going to recover.
With no support in her quest to eradicate the Malfoy from her family's lives, she had no choice but to pretend to acquiesce. It wasn't easy. Mostly, it involved hiding whenever Ron and the Git were in the area, but she was well-aware that she couldn't avoid her brother forever.
The problem was that she just couldn't come to terms with how much her brother had changed in the past year. She understood that Ron had probably needed companionship while his best friends were preoccupied. What she couldn't understand was why he hadn't found someone more suitable than Malfoy to share his interests.
After sulking and considering things for a few days, the Ministry Christmas Party or, more precisely, the morning after the Christmas Party, presented her with the ideal opportunity to once again try to come to some sort of truce with her brother.
Ginny took a peek out the window to see Ron sitting on the front porch and returned to the simmering cauldron on the stove. After adding the last few ingredients, and verifying that it had turned the proper color, she poured a measured amount into a chipped coffee mug.
Carrying the cup out to the porch, she sat down wearily next to her brother, who currently had his face buried in his hands.
“Must you sit down so loudly?” he whined.
He was pathetic, and it was definitely one of his more endearing traits. She chuckled softly. “Oh, shush and drink this,” she said, smiling and handing him the cup.
He sniffed the contents with obvious revulsion. “Are you trying to kill me?”
She shrugged. The thought had crossed her mind over the past few days, but even she couldn't be quite so vengeful. “Hangover remedy,” she responded. “Best recipe ever. The whole team swears by it.”
He looked at her, obviously dubious. “You drink this stuff?”
“Only when I have to,” she replied with a small blush of embarrassment. “The Harpies had quite a binge right after beating Puddlemere in the first round of the finals. None of us would have made it to practice the next day if it wasn't for that stuff.”
He nodded, considered the cup for a moment, then put his hand to his head. Looking at the cup again, he apparently decided that any help for the hangover was worth the risk. “Well, then, I guess it's worth a try,” he muttered before taking a deep breath and swallowing the contents in one large gulp. “Yuck!” he exclaimed, contorting his face in an expression of obvious disgust. “That better work, or I'd guess that you're pulling the most horrible prank ever.”
She laughed. “I wish I had a camera right now. The expression on your face is priceless.”
He groaned and buried his head in his hands. Then, he lifted his head, looked around and blinked. “Merlin's pants, Gin. I think it worked. I feel a lot better already.”
A huge grin spread over her face. “Always listen to your sister.”
“How's Malfoy doing?” he asked.
Her grin dropped noticeably. “Better than you, apparently. He seemed perfectly fine when he dropped you off last night. He said goodnight to Mum and left by floo right after we hauled you upstairs.”
Ron appeared not to notice her reaction to the mention of Malfoy. “Annoying git,” he said with affection. “He always could drink more than me. Goads me into having more, too, then usually makes sure to call me early the day after to laugh at my pain. I've yet to see him completely pissed. The twins think it's hilarious.”
“Ron...” she said, her voice giving a hint of getting ready for a lecture, then she paused.
“Gin...” he echoed.
She took a deep breath. “Why Ron? Why do you hang out with him?”
He paused, appearing contrite, as he pondered her question. “I dunno. He just sort of grew on me.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Sure, he grows on you. Maybe like a fungus.” she said, only half-joking. “Seriously, Ron, how did this happen?”
He sighed and looked out over the frozen garden, apparently reluctant to answer her question. “It's a long story.”
“Well, I'm listening.”
He was quiet for a moment, gathering his thoughts. Then he turned to her, his expression open and honest. “It was pretty quiet here all last winter,” he said slowly. “With Harry and Hermione off studying all the time, and you gone, and everyone else moved away, and work and all.”
Ginny remembered when Ron had elected not to finish his seventh year at Hogwarts, and she had returned to complete her schooling alone. At the time, Ron had claimed that going back at the age of nineteen just seemed too strange but, secretly, Ginny had always suspected that the real reason her brother didn't finish school was because he didn't want to be there without his two best friends.
Ron had spent that year working as an intern at the Ministry, helping to file and clean up much of the administrative mess that had been left after Voldemort's regime fell. Harry and Hermione had chosen to study independently to finish their NEWTs, so Ron had been left much on his own for quite a long time.
Ron looked off into the distance, seeming a bit sad. “Then, Harry and Hermione each went off to school to focus on their careers, and everything seemed so different.”
She nodded, trying to understand. Ron likely had likely never been alone at the Burrow in his life and she felt bad that she hadn't been more attentive while she'd been off at school. Then, after she'd joined the Harpies, she'd barely had any contact with anyone in her family because she was so engrossed in her new, exciting life. She sighed. “You missed them. I'm so sorry.”
Ron shrugged and looked at his hands. “It was that, a little. I mean it's the best for them, both going off to follow their dreams and all. I just didn't have any plans, so it felt a bit out of place to bother them all the time while they were busy.” He turned to her. “Then, when you got the contract with the Harpies, I was so happy for you, Gin.” He smiled at her then, and his expression was so full of love and pride that she felt herself get warm, despite the chilly winter air.
“Thanks, Ron.”
“I went to your first match, you know,” he said with a sly smile, nudging her shoulder with his own.
“You did? Why didn't you tell me? I could have gotten you a seat for free!”
He shook his head, turning and looking out over the garden, slightly embarrassed. “I didn't want you to know I was there. Was worried that you'd get nervous or that I'd jinx you somehow.”
She laughed again. It warmed her heart to know that someone who cared about her had been there. “We lost that match, Ron.”
“Yeah, but you scored sixty points, Gin. Sixty! I've never been so proud of you in my entire life.”
She blushed a bit more under her beloved brother's praise. “Well I'm glad I didn't disappoint.”
“No, not at all. I had one of the best seats in the house for it, too. That's how I met up with Malfoy,” he said.
Her joy fell just a bit. Really. “Malfoy was there?”
“Oi, yeah,” he said, a fond smile coming to his face. “We both happened to be up in the box seats, right at the center of the pitch. I wasn't happy to see him, of course, but I didn't want to get into an argument. I'd just spent a huge amount of money for the ticket and the last thing I wanted was to get tossed out and miss seeing you play. So, I kind of ignored him. I was pretty shocked when he brought me an ale and thanked me for Harry and me saving his sorry arse during the battle.”
“He thanked you?”
“Shocked me so much that I almost forgot to watch the start of the match!” he said with a smile. “He didn't talk after that, which was all right by me, and I sort of tried to forget he was there for a bit.” Then, he looked at her a bit sheepishly. “We eventually started making comments about the match. He even complimented you playing, Then, we bought each other a few more rounds and, by the end of the match, we were almost civil to each other.”
She frowned again. Of all the things. No wonder he hadn't told her about being there.
“I thought that would be the end of it,” he said. “But, then, a few days later I ran into him in front of the Quidditch Supply store and we started grumbling to each other about how we never got to play anymore, what with you gone, Harry gone, and Fred and George preoccupied with the shop, I hadn't had a chance to really fly for months. He invited me to practice some one-on-one after work and I thought it might be fun to beat on him a bit.”
Ginny said nothing, just nodded for him to continue.
“Well, he showed up, didn't talk much, and we had an all right time of it. So, I asked him if he might want to play once or twice a week and, after a week or two, we started talking about trivial things after we were done.”
Ron gave a grin, thinking of the memory. “Then, next thing you know, he came here for a Sunday scrimmage with the twins and Mum invited him to stay for dinner. I was surprised when he accepted. Figured he was going to make some sort of insulting comment about Mum or her cooking, but he was fine. The only thing I found odd was that he didn't talk about anything at Hogwarts when Mum brought it up. He just looked kind of sad.”
Ginny gave her brother a dubious look. “So, he was like a lost puppy that you all took in?”
Ron shrugged. “I suppose. Well, the four of us started playing a scrimmage game once a week. The twins kind of took a liking to him, and he even started to laugh a bit. We were both working at the Ministry, so then it just seemed normal to go out after work once in a while, have some laughs, you know?”
His expression turned thoughtful, and he looked at his sister seriously. “He was different, Gin. More quiet. We talked about a lot of things, mostly work and such, but he'd make remarks once in a while about regrets he had in his past. He stayed away from saying anything bad about Harry and Hermione too, until I was grumbling about them one day for being so absorbed in their own little worlds that they've forgotten about all of us here.”
Ginny raised an eyebrow. “What did he say?”
“He said that Harry needs to step back and see the big picture. The world isn't always black and white.”
She watched her brother chuckle and realized that he really did seem to trust his former adversary. It still bothered her, but she had to trust that her brother had his reasons. She kept quiet and continued to listen.
“We had a good talk that day, over a few pints, and I finally learned a bit about why he hated Harry so much in school. When you look at how Harry was seen from outside of Gryffindor, he really did seem like he was treated special. Dumbledore really did bend quite a few rules for Harry and me and Hermione over the years.”
“It doesn't explain why he hated you and every other Weasley he came across, though.”
Ron shrugged. “No, it doesn't. But, as Mum and Dad said, you can't put blame on things people do as children. He was echoing what he heard his father say at home. Eventually, he started to realize that his father wasn't always right, especially about Voldemort.”
“But, why you, Ron? Why is he attaching himself to you? Don't you think he could find someone else to pal around with?”
“I don't think so, Gin. He's in an awkward spot, with a lot of his former friends spending time in Azkaban now. I don't think he trusts many people after everything that's happened. Mum says he and I have been a good influence on each other.”
It was difficult to argue. Malfoy had been around for months, and Ron seemed to be completely loyal to him. If her mother approved, then at least Ginny had some assurance that Ron wasn't being taken in. She worried that Malfoy was using her brother, but she understood that it was unlikely that Malfoy had completely fooled her mother and the twins, who also seemed to be taken with the blond. She decided not to press the matter further and let the situation play out. The best thing she could do was keep on her guard and watch out for her brother in case things turned out badly.
She stood up. “Well, I better be going. The train from Hogwarts got in two days ago for the Christmas hols, so the shop is even busier than usual. Fred and George will hang me if get in to work late.”
Ron grinned. “That's why I'm glad I have the position at the Ministry. The twins are slave drivers, I tell you.”
She nodded and raced off to grab her cloak, happy that, although she and Ron might not be entirely in agreement, at least they'd reached some sort of understanding.
X
While Ginny had extended the olive branch of peace to her beloved brother, she still felt a compulsive urge to not extend any indication of friendship toward Ron's new best mate. It was just wrong at the most basic of levels.
When Malfoy came about, the best she could do was try to ignore him. Unfortunately, he seemed to take great delight in testing her resolve. It was a constant battle of wills which the rest of the family seemed to find amusing.
What annoyed Ginny the most, however, was the blond's unending cheerful demeanor. It just wasn't right to see her brother's former adversary so very happy – in her own home, no less. Worse, it seemed he was at the Weasley home far too often.
And, to her great dismay, he somehow managed to appear on their doorstep on Christmas morning, holding a bottle of wine and a beautifully wrapped package for Molly Weasley. It was simple bribery, in Ginny's view, but before she could properly protest – and she had already taken a lungful of air and opened her mouth in preparation to do so - a heavy hand descended on her shoulder. She looked up to see her father, giving her a stern expression that he usually only reserved for the twins.
“Doesn't he have his own home to go to?” she whispered to Ron with irritation after Malfoy managed to slip a joke cracker in her stocking, which exploded in her face, covering her with an extensive amount of glitter.
Ron stopped laughing to lean over, his voice dropping to a low tone so that the conversation remained private. “His parents are traveling. After spending time in Azkaban, his father prefers to be in warmer climates, and his mother feels that being on extended holiday makes it easier for the both of them to stay out of the public eye,” he informed her. “When Mum found out that Malfoy was going to be alone on Christmas, she insisted he come over.”
Ginny scowled, her fingers tugging vast amounts of glitter from her hair. “But does he have to be so... annoying?”
Ron chuckled. “C'mon, Gin. It's no worse than anything the twins have pulled in the past. Maybe he likes you.”
“He likes seeing me humiliated. And, for the record, the twins always pulled this kind of stuff on Percy, or you. I was always the one who was sitting on the side having a good laugh.”
She looked over to see George clapping Malfoy on the shoulder, both still in the midst of merriment over Ginny's misfortune. “Good one, mate!” he said. “Simple, but effective.”
Malfoy, still laughing, looked up at her, joy sparkling in his eyes, although, to his credit, he did shrug slightly and give her an apologetic look. She scowled at him, but the venom that she wanted to convey in the glance somehow fell short. It was impossible to truly be angry with him when the look of happiness on his face was so apparent. In that moment, she found him to be quite handsome, a thought which bothered her greatly.
Feeling the need to exit the area, she stood and brushed herself off, grateful that she had an excuse to leave before the bothersome feeling of attraction took hold. “Well, I've got to clean up now, and I suppose I'll help Mum in the kitchen.” Turning to the twins, she added, “Please don't blow anything up this year. I hate having to clean up after you.”
As she turned to step out of the room, Ron asked hopefully, “Backyard Quidditch after dinner, Sis?”
Immediately, thoughts of using her skills to humble Malfoy brought an evil gleam to her eye. “Only if I get Bill on my team,” she replied.
In the end, Ginny's Christmas was a total failure when she, Bill, Fleur and Charley lost soundly to Ron, Malfoy and the twins. She wondered if her ego was ever going to recover.
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