The Many Faces Of Ginny Weasley

The Many Faces Of Ginny Weasley.

or

Poor, Naïve Harry.

'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.'

William Congreve.

Ginny Weasley huddled under her cloak and furtively checked around the cold corridor for any sign of life. There was no one. And the silence was deafening to her nervous ears. She didn't usually get this nervous, but tonight was a big night for her. She knew it already, even if it hadn't happened yet. She had known for a while, because it was playing out exactly like she had wanted it to play out.

As she hurried past a painting of a man snoring loudly as his hat slid further and further down his nose, she sent a look back over her shoulder, sensing a noise. There was a distinct sound of footfall and she dived behind a huge statue of a wizard with an appalling cold. Just as Professor McGonagall walked around the corner at the end of the hallway.

Ginny held her breath as the tall and horrifically strict Professor came past her hiding-place. She was wearing a pair of tartan slippers and a long black cloak over her night attire, and Ginny almost giggled at the sight of her ankles, encased in bright green ankle socks that were pulled up as far as they would go. She reminded herself that she would be in detention until she was fifty if she was found here, and suddenly the socks weren't that funny anymore.

Ginny let out her breath in a rush as the professor rounded the corner and was out of sight. She collapsed back against a wall for a moment and then realised where she was going, and why. Pushing herself away from the rough grey stone, Ginny tugged her red cloak around her more tightly and veered off the hallway up a steep staircase.

The Astronomy Tower. Frequented by troublemakers, horny teenagers, and the occasional, very confused, stargazer who hasn't caught on to the fact that the tower was not used for astronomy, despite its somewhat misleading name.

At this particular time, however, it was empty. Except for one person immersed in shadow, who immediately brought a smile to Ginny's face as she pushed the door closed behind her and dropped her cloak in one easy movement. She leaned back against the heavy oak as the man on the opposite side of the room, himself leaning against the wall, smiled slowly.

"Evening," he said silkily.

"Yes, it is." She let a lopsided smile surface and he stepped clear of the wall and out of the shadows. The phosphorescent moonlight streaming through the window lit up his features and brought out the silvery highlights in his pale hair. She raised her chin half an inch as she took a deep breath, and he stepped closer to her, his own, dark green, cloak in a pile on the floor in the corner.

"Draco," she muttered. He was still coming closer to her, and he tipped his head to the side slightly.

"What?" he whispered, as his hand raised her face up to look at him.

"Nothing," she breathed. And his mouth swooped down and claimed hers with a harsh kiss. As he broke away for half a second, she snatched the opportunity to stop and look up at his eyes. They were shining brightly with expectation, lust, and, most shockingly, love. She drew in her breath.

"Did you have any problems getting here?" She shook her head.

"Nearly ran into McGonagall, but nothing major. I got a charm, by the way."

"Perfect," he whispered, and leaned down to kiss her again.

Ginny clung onto him tightly as his hands slid over her back and lower down her body. Draco summoned his cloak from the far wall and it slid onto the floor below them. He lowered her down onto it gently and Ginny deepened the kiss as she stroked her hands up under his shirt and over his smooth, pale back. She was still kissing him as she began to undo the buttons of the black shirt, and Draco pulled back a little.

"Are you sure this is okay?"

"It's fine, I promise." She kissed his lips once and pulled back again. "I want you to be my first, Draco, I don't want to wait anymore." He nodded and captured her mouth again, clearing their heads of anything that wasn't related to each other's lips.

*^*

Ginny sat down next to two of her best friends, Katie and Emma, and grabbed a piece of buttered toast off Emma's plate. She set about pouring herself a glass of orange juice and then turned to her other friends, Jack and Andrew.

"Hey!" Emma's voice rang out. "That's mine," she whined, just as Ginny sank her teeth into the piece of toast. Ginny shrugged, and smiled sweetly as she chewed. When she had washed it down with some juice, she finally spoke. Turning to Jack and Andrew, she smiled widely.

"Pay up," she said simply. Jack frowned and then shook his head, his mouth dropping open.

"No. Fucking. Way." Ginny nodded. Andrew's eyebrows hit his hairline.

"You did it?" asked Katie. "You actually managed it?"

"Didn't I say I would?"

"Yeah, but-."

"But what? I said I would, and I have. So pay up. Twenty Galleons, wasn't it?" They all nodded, but they were still staring at her in surprise.

"When?"

"Last night," she answered, her mouth curved into a smirk.

"Did you use the charm?"

"Of course."

"And it worked?"

"Yes, and of course it worked, Katie. It worked like a...well...like a charm."

"What charm?" asked Emma.

"The Virginus charm, Ems, it makes you a virgin all over again. Or at least it makes whoever you're screwing think so anyway." Ginny grinned at her and Emma's jaw dropped.

"So that's how you got him."

Ginny's grin didn't falter.

*^*

She wandered along the corridor on her way back from lunch, dawdling a little as her friends walked on ahead. She felt like a bit of time on her own, so she pulled further back, took a left turn, and went down a spiral staircase so that she could walk alone. She did this often, almost once a day now. She loved her friends, they had always allowed her to be whatever she wanted, but there were times when her roommates, Katie Allanson and Emma Watt, with their loud-mouthed opinions of everything and everyone, were just too much too handle.

Especially since Ginny had fallen in love with Harry Potter and had her heart trampled on.

She hadn't believed it when he had told her how he felt about her. After she had finally, after four years of knowing him, let him know that she loved him with all her heart. All through growing up she had known who he was, (after all, who hadn't?) and when Ron had come home and started talking about who he had made friends with at Hogwarts, the whole family had been thrilled. Their boy, friends with Harry Potter? What could be better? And Ginny, having seen all the pictures and read all the stories, had developed a highly childish crush on The Boy Who Lived.

Over the years she had actually got to know Harry as a person, beyond all the newspaper stories and the grand adventures. He was decent and brave and good-hearted, and he always had time for her. He helped her with some of her potions homework on several occasions, and always let her win when they played chess. But the thing that had always drawn her to him, the feature of his personality that made him, in her eyes, irresistible, was the way he was so unaffected by his fame.

Even though women flocked to him because of who he was, he was constantly unaware of the moony-eyed glances, of the fan mail that dropped onto his plate every morning, and of the way girls who approached him at school were not that interested in Quidditch.

They had been sitting in the common room one evening, with the fire burning down low and the cosy room almost empty, when Ginny had challenged him to a game of chess. Ron and Hermione had already gone to bed and, by the time they were halfway through a game, everyone else had left for their dormitories as well. They were talking softly, so as not to disturb anyone, and their conversation was barely memorable to Ginny as she stalked the corridors of Hogwarts a year later.

All she could remember was Harry looking over at her and of her heart fluttering as he smiled.

"Your go, Gin," he had said gently, nodding towards the board.

"Thanks," she had replied, frowning down at the pieces. And chess was the last thing on her mind as she stared down. Harry, however, wasn't. Which was why, when she finally looked up, all she said was: "I think I'm in love with you."

Looking back at that moment, Ginny shook her head and smiled wryly at her naivety, her idiocy and, most importantly, her complete and utter lack of subtlety. She hadn't been the best at words back then, despite the long conversations her and Harry had started having about two months before her proclamation of love.

She had gotten good at words since, especially in the last six months, her friends and her pride had seen to that. Still, back then she may have been naïve and overly young, but that didn't mean he had had to do what he had done. To lean over the chessboard and kiss her like that had been cruel, particularly if he had known what he was going to 'have to do' a month later.

After their late night kissing session, Ginny had just fallen deeper in love with her raven-haired hero, and could be found, without fail, at his side every spare moment she had. For an entire month anyone who asked where Ginny was was given the same answer: 'Harry's over there'. She hadn't cared a bit.

Their relationship was deep and founded on friendship, and Ginny often felt like she could drown in what she felt for him, but Harry never pushed her to go farther than she wanted, and she had loved that back then. His patience just reassured her trust that she was the one for him.

She, apparently, was very, very wrong.

Exactly a month and three days after their first kiss, in the middle of a freezing cold December day, Harry took a deep breath as they stood on the shores of the lake and told her why he couldn't be with her anymore. Ginny had stood and taken it in, her mouth almost dropping open as he explained how he 'had been forced to do this by his own sense of decency' and how he 'just couldn't bring himself to love her like that'. The words ran over her like water and, after a few minutes, she couldn't even hear him anymore. What he was saying was immaterial; the words were unimportant. The fact was, he didn't love her.

He didn't love her.

And so she had turned and run away from him. Away from his gently affectionate eyes and his useless words, and she ran until she couldn't hear him calling after her to come back.

Stopping in her tracks, Ginny leaned against a wall and took a deep breath. Her memories of Harry were still hard to take sometimes. But she reminded herself that he was hers now, and that he was in for an unpleasant surprise soon. Just like she had had that nasty surprise a year ago.

Cho Chang. Two words that, uttered near Ginny, could bring a flood of acid soaring off her tongue. Harry had told Ginny they had broken up because 'he had discovered that he was someone different' and because he 'couldn't stand to see her deceived or hurt'. In reality, it was because Cho Chang had finally taken off her mourning robes, joined the real world again and realised that Harry Potter really was a catch and a half. And Harry, his fourth year crush still fresh in his mind, had leapt at the chance to be with the girl he had desired for so long. Even if he did crush Ginny's heart and soul to pieces in the process.

Unfortunately for Harry, Cho was a fickle woman, and she couldn't decide whether it was worth dating someone in the year below, even for the reputation it gave her of dating The Boy Who Lived. They went out for five months, Cho finally breaking up with him at the end of June. She sent her owl to Privet Drive with a letter.

Ginny could remember the way Harry and Ron had holed themselves up in Ron's room when Harry had come to stay that summer holiday, and the memory of listening through the door to what they were saying still made her laugh.

Poor, naïve Harry. It really hurts when someone you love turns round and tells you everything is over doesn't it? Ginny grinned as she pushed away from the wall and kept walking.

When Harry had come to her in October and apologised for what he put her through, Ginny had bitten back her newly acquired sarcasm and smiled sweetly at him, just like she used to. And she had listened, just like she used to. Although how she sat through that god-awful whinging marathon she would never know. She had comforted him as a friend, and as more, and he, of course, believed every word she said as she told him how hurt healed over time, and how her love for him had never died.

Poor, naïve Harry.

"Ginny!" She turned away from the windowsill she was leaning against and smiled as Emma ran up to her, her blond hair flapping behind her. "Hey, girl. We were just talking about the bet. You did it, and it took you a lot, so we're definitely going to pay you. How does Friday sound for the whole lot?"

"It sounds perfect," Ginny answered with a smile.

"Great! Are you coming? We're going to have a chess tournament and Harry and Ron are going to play...maybe you and Harry could make a few lovey-dovey eyes over the pieces? Taunt him a little bit more?" She mirrored Ginny's grin.

"I'll be right there. I might have a little chat with him anyway. It's time everyone saw who I really am, Emma, isn't it?"

"Yes, Gin, it is. And, fuck me, I'm so glad. This whole 'Ginny is a virginal saint' thing is really beginning to piss me off."

"Me too, Ems." She laughed suddenly. "God, who's going to believe it? Ginny Weasley, perfect baby Weasley sister, has bedded the two most sought-after guys at Hogwarts."

"I know. They are all going to get such a kick up the arse." She flicked her hair back and looked at her best friend. "You're sure Malfoy bought it? You're sure the charm worked?"

"It worked. The jumped-up little shit thinks I'm his angelic little girlfriend. This is Malfoy we're talking about after all. He's so arrogant, Ems, of course he believes I'd deign to let him take my virginity. He would never think I'd pay him back for all the shit he's put Ron and me through over the years. And now he's my little pawn, just like Harry is. And it will be a double shock to Harry's system when it comes out that I've had his worst enemy as well. Two birds with one stone, as they say." Ginny realised that she was ranting. She smiled at Emma. "Trust me, the charm is fantastic." Emma nodded and turned to leave. "I'll be there in half a minute," Ginny called after her.

Yes, she thought, the Virginus charm most certainly worked. After all, it worked perfectly on Harry last month.

With a grin, Ginny sauntered towards the Gryffindor common room to shake her life up a bit. She started to laugh out loud.

Poor, naïve Harry.