Heart of Glass

Chapter Two

Ginny woke up in mid-afternoon, yellow sunshine dripping hazily through the lacy curtains hanging over the window in her cubicle. "Lovely day out," Madam Pomfrey commented, bustling through the curtains shielding Ginny from the other sick students. "Drink this," she instructed cheerily. "It will make you feel much better."

"I feel fine," she said, trying to ignore the searing pain coursing through her body.

"You do not. Drink up." Ginny took the cup and downed the disgusting substance. "There we go. You'll have visitors soon, no doubt. They keep checking in to see if you're awake."

"I don't want any visitors," she muttered.

"Not feeling up to it? That's fine. I'd rather not have visitors, myself. All right. I'll send them away if they come."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome." And with that, Madam Pomfrey bustled back out through the curtains. Ginny indeed felt physically better after drinking the potion, but at the same time felt spiritually worse. She was alive.

'Great,' she thought sourly.

~

In the beginning of the school year, things had been somewhat fine for Ginny. She was keeping up her grades, still popular amongst friends, and almost as happy as usual. Over the summer, Ginny had experienced one or two intense migraines which she kept secret from her family. She figured they were stress-related, and tried to forget them after they passed. The last thing she needed was her family obsessing over nothing but a bad headache.

A few weeks after she had returned to school in the fall, she experienced another migraine. It was on a cool September night, when everyone else was asleep. Ginny woke up with her temples throbbing, and a cold sweat dripping from her brow. She lay silently, and perfectly still, cradling her pounding head. After it passed, she tried to forget it, but something about that migraine was... different.

The following day she awoke a little scatterbrained. In a mad dash to get ready for classes, she left her Divination book on her nightstand. She was running down the steps with her friends when she remembered it. "Oh hell," she said, stopping in the middle of the staircase.

"What is it, Gin?"

"I left my Divination book upstairs. I'll just run up and grab it."

"Want us to wait?"

"No, no. You guys go on, I'll catch up." She raced back up the stairs and into the commons where Hermione had her nose stuffed into a book.

"Running late, Ginny?" she smiled as Ginny dashed past. With book in tow, she raced back out the portrait hole, said a quick goodbye to Hermione and was on her way. Unfortunately, when she arrived at the usual staircase she and the girls took, she noticed it had changed directions from North to East.

"This isn't my day!" she groaned, running down a hall, thinking madly of another quick way to get there. It was then she noticed a staircase leading downwards, quite the opposite direction of where she wanted to end up. "But," she said aloud, "if this has an underground connector, it should go straight up to the spiral staircase, leading to the tower!" She raced down the stairs and round a corner and smack into Draco Malfoy.

"Watch it!" he spat.

"Sorry, Malfoy. In a hurry," she said, trying to dodge past him.

"Oh, are we?" he asked with a wicked grin.

"Yes, please move out of the way," she said, now growing angry. The corridor was quite narrow, and he could easily block it.

"I don't think so."

"Malfoy!" she cried, and then, suddenly, her head exploded with pain. She let out a small shriek and doubled over. "Ow, ow, ow!" she cried, holding her head.

"Well that's a clever tactic," he commented, "or it would be if it were someone who cared if you were pain or not." Her books were all over the floor, her ink broken and her quills scattered. She finally fell to the floor, holding her head completely with her arms, trying to block out the light. It hurt to even think. "Well, you do that," Draco said lamely, realizing she wasn't faking and not wanting to get the rap for injuring her. "I've got to get to breakfast..." he said before stepping over her and running around the corner.

Ginny lay in agony, with her eyes squeezed shut and her arms cradling her head. Tears streamed from her eyes and she whimpered quietly. 'Someone's got to come along and find me soon,' she thought desperately. But no one came. It was then evident to her that this corridor was deserted nowadays, with other easier ways to get places available.

Just as her migraine was beginning to let up, and she felt she could open her eyes once more, the same strangeness that had accompanied the last one fell over her. She felt scared, as if someone was watching her. She sat up and looked around, her tear stained cheeks glistened as they reflected the candlelight illuminating the underground throughway.

"Who's there?" she asked shakily, looking down the long corridor. "Hullo?"

"Ginny..." someone whispered back.

~

Ginny lay in the hospital bed completely bored out of her mind. She tapped her fingers soundlessly on the quilt that was covering her. She plucked all the petals off the daises that someone had put on her night table. She braided her hair into two pigtails. Suddenly, her doldrums were interrupted by the explosion of noise coming from somewhere near the front of the hospital wing.

The next thing she knew, her peaceful environment was greatly disturbed by the presence of Hermione, Ron and Harry. "Ginny!" Ron exclaimed happily, running to his sister and sitting by her knee. "Ginny! What happened last night? Where were you? Why have you been skipping class?!"

"Mr Weasley!" Madam Pomfrey exclaimed. "Keep your voice down and don't ask your poor sister so many questions! She's been through a traumatic experience! Have some sympathy!"

"I'm sorry," Ron said half-heartedly. "So, Gin, what happened?"

"Uh," she said, caught off guard. "I'm not sure."

"What do you mean?!" he demanded.

"Ron, take it easy," Harry said.

"Yes Ron, please," Hermione agreed. "Ginny, you don't have to talk about it if you don't want to." Ginny simply shrugged her shoulders.

"We're glad you're okay, Ginny," Harry said with a small smile.

"Yes," Hermione said with the same smile.

"Stop feeling bad for me," Ginny said with annoyance. "I don't feel bad for me. A lot worse has happened to us all. It's not like I haven't almost died before."

"Ginny!" Ron gasped, aghast.

"Ron!" Ginny mocked. "Look, I'm not in the mood for company."

"We'll leave then," said Harry, standing up and heading for the exit. Hermione set her scarf down and leaned in to hug Ginny.

"Feel better," she said. Ron patted her knee and the three left the cubicle.

~

Ginny lay motionless in the hall. "Sorry, who's there?" she said.

"Ginny," the voice said again. Thoroughly spooked, Ginny snatched up her books and ran back up the stairs, deciding to skip Divination and meet her friends in Defence Against the Dark Arts.

She didn't know what compelled her to do so, after being so frightened the day before, but she went down the corridor early the next morning. Much to her surprise, Draco was there. "Back again to have another panic attack?" he asked, annoyed.

"No."

"Why are you here, then? Other than to bother me."

"Why are you here?"

"That is none of your damn business."

"Why are you even talking to me?" she half-muttered, peering down the corridor for the voice she had heard the day before. Draco's lip curled.

"Looking for someone?"

"That is none of your damn business."

"Oh, your words sting," he said, grasping at his chest in mockery. "Get out of my corridor."

"Your corridor?" she asked sceptically.

"Yes, my corridor. I found it. It's mine. Now buggar off. Go swoon over Potter, or something."

"It's not your corridor."

"Leave now or your will surely regret it."

"Fine," she hissed. "But it's not yours." She rounded the corner to the stairwell and sat down where Draco couldn't see her.

"I know you're still there," he called. She kept perfectly still. He couldn't know. "Weasley, Weasley, Weasley... what do you take me for?" came his snarky voice. She sat perfectly silent. There was no way he could know she hadn't left, unless he physically got up from the place he had been sitting and looked around the corner.

After a few minutes of silence, she heard a small chuckle. "I wonder if she really was there or if I was just talking to myself," she heard him chortle. "Stupid girl. I wonder why she's snooping around down here..."

'Got nothing to do with you,' she thought, opening her ears for the voice to return. If she heard it again, and if she truly was terrified, (and only if she was terrified), she could always run to Malfoy in hopes for some sort of protection. However after a half an hour or so of nothing but Malfoy muttering to himself, she went up the stairs and back to the commons to collect her books for class.

~

"Oh, darn," Hermione said, stopping in her tracks.

"What?" Ron asked, turning to face her.

"I forgot my scarf."

"D'you want us to wait for you?" Harry asked, checking his watch. They were going to be late for Potions if they didn't hurry.

"No, go on. I'll be there shortly." The boys left and Hermione hurried back to Ginny's cubicle.

"I figured on seeing you again," Ginny said, dangling the scarf in the air. "I was almost tempted to tell you you'd left it on my bed, but you did such a horrible job of pretending you didn't mean to leave it that I felt bad for you."

"What has gotten into you?" Hermione asked snatching the scarf away.

"Who, is the question," Ginny said, smirking evilly.

"I found your note, in your cloak," Hermione said cautiously, pulling the scrunched paper out of her pocket. "I took it before anyone else had a chance to go through your things. Something told me it was private. I didn't read it." Ginny took the note gingerly from Hermione and tucked it under her pillow.

"Thank you, Hermione," she said weakly.

"What did you say to me, last night?"

"What? When?"

"When I found you - before Ron came."

"Honestly Hermione, I barely remember a thing."

"It sounded like you said, 'Please just leave me here.' Why would you say that?"

"Maybe I said, 'He just left me here,' or, 'She just left me here.'"

"Maybe..." said Hermione, unconvinced. "What's the note?" she asked, brushing the subject at hand away.

"Why do you ask?"

"Well, I mean, how private is it? Is it intended for your eyes only? A love letter kind of deal?"

"It was intended for everyone's eyes."

"Pardon?"

"It's private now... it wasn't meant to be... but that's all irrelevant, for the time being..."

"What do you mean?"

"Maybe you'll get to read it one day soon, Hermione. You should go now. I'm tired, and you're late, if I'm not mistaken."

"Right-o," Hermione said absentmindedly. Her thoughts were focused on the note buried deep under Ginny's pillow.

Ginny watched Hermione leave, and she knew the wheels were spinning madly under that mass of bushy brown hair. She took the paper out from under her pillow a reread it to herself. If anyone read that while she was still alive, she was sunk.

~

Ginny fell asleep with her hand wrapped tightly around the parchment, which she had stuffed backed under her pillow for the time being. She was woken rather abruptly by someone shaking her knee around. "What? Who is it? Who's there?" she asked groggily, rubbing her eyes and stretching.

"Where's that letter?"

"What?" she said, still half-asleep. She struggled to sit up and see in who was bothering her in the dead of the night.

"Well seeing as you survived, the very last thing I need right now is someone reading that bloody letter. In fact, it's the last thing I need whether you're alive or dead. Where is it?"

"Draco?" she said, squinting through the darkness.

"You are awfully slow!" he spat angrily.

"I put it under my pillow," she yawned.

"Move," he instructed, pushing her out of the way and digging around.

"Ow," she groaned, shuffling forward as he shoved her.

"Sorry," he muttered. She cocked an eyebrow at the remark, but didn't know if she felt annoying and arrogant enough to comment on it. "It's not here," he said impatiently, stepping away.

"It has to be," she insisted, turning around and looking for herself. "Or not," she concluded. "Oh well, s'pose you'll have to do me in right now. Go on. Make it look like I died of natural causes."

"Shut up!" he hissed. "You're getting loud! Who would've taken it?"

"Don't know."

"Well you'd better find out!"

"Or what?" she asked smugly.

"Or I won't kill you!"

"Oh don't say such horrid things!" she said sadly. "You don't have to be so mean. Look, I've been thinking," she began, but suddenly doubled over.

"Having an attack?" he asked casually.

"Shh," she said. He wasn't sure if the shush was directed at him. She began muttering incoherently then suddenly sat up and said, "Oh please, make it stop..."

"Are you talking to me?" he asked disinterestedly. He suspected she wasn't.

"Yes," she breathed. "Help me."

"Why would I want to?"

"Just... please..." She began to cry. "Just do something please... please..."

"You're getting loud again..."

"Please!" she shrieked.

"Oh! You! Little bitch!" he managed to choke out before ducking behind a curtain. Madam Pomfrey burst onto the scene and Ginny did her best 'I just woke up from a nightmare' impression.

"What are you yelling about?!" she demanded sleepily.

"I had a bad dream... and now I have this..." she stopped, clutching her temples, "horrible... headache..."

"Oh, all right, hush up. I'll be right back with something for that." As Madam Pomfrey bumbled back out into the dark Ginny heard Draco whispering from his hiding spot.

"Why did you have to yell? I was only teasing you. I don't know if I believe you half the time, anyway. I think you're just doing it - "

"Shut up!" she yelled, cutting him off. "You! Draco! Shut up!"

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" he whisper-screamed.

"Yelling again, Miss Weasley?" Madam Pomfrey tsked at her. "What about this time?"

"The pain..."

"Well here, swallow this pill." She handed her a small tablet and a glass of water. "I'll see you in the morning. And please try to keep it down. Other students are trying to sleep." She turned and left. Ginny hastily swallowed the pill and after a few minutes Draco emerged, looking frazzled.

"Wait a minute," she said desperately, "it's going away..."

"Don't you do that ever again!"

"Don't you accuse me of lying ever again! I told you everything - "

"Not because I asked..."

"Stop being so infuriating!"

"I could say the same to you." She placed the water down on her nightstand and lay back.

"I bet Hermione took the letter back," she said thoughtfully after a few moments silence.

"There are too many things wrong with that sentence..." he said, panicked. He sat down on the edge of her bed, shoving her legs out of the way as he did so. "First of all, what makes you think she took it, and second of all, what do you mean back?"

"Well, she found it in my robes, and took it before anyone else had the chance. She said she didn't read it, but when she returned it, I might've said some things that sparked her interest."

"Why?! Why?! Why?!" was all he managed to spit out.

"I don't care anymore! That's why, why, why! And my head still hurts, you know."

"Oh do shut up about your head."

"That's the whole damn reason all this happened!"

"I know that, you idiot! But for now, we have to worry about getting that letter back." Silence suddenly filled the space between them. Ginny's eyes had adjusted enough so that she could see Draco's face. He was worried. His cool demeanour was gone. He was biting his nail, which would've been endearing, if it wasn't him.

"Why did you kiss me back?" she asked quietly.

"I'm sorry?"

"Yesterday. You kissed me back."

"I did not," he said, repulsed.

"Oh, just for a moment please," she said exasperatedly, "just stop being Malfoy."

"I'm sorry, that is impossible."

"It isn't."

"It is."

"It isn't, or you wouldn't have kissed me back."

"Well why do you insist on kissing me all the bloody time?"

"I have this death wish... I don't know if you noticed."

"How can you expect me to answer honestly if you won't?"

"I kiss you because I like to."

"That's a lie."

"If things were different I would love you."

"I thought you did."

"I think that's a lie."

"What?"

"I should've written I lust you."

"I am quite a catch, that way."

"Are you glad I don't love you?"

He hesitated. "No."

"Do you wish I did?"

Again, he hesitated. "I don't know. No," he added quickly. "If... no."

"What were you going to say?"

"Nothing."

"Why didn't you kill me?"

"I couldn't..." he said, stumbling over the last word. She giggled slightly.

"Why not?"

"Stop it! I'm leaving!" he stood up angrily.

"As always," she sighed.

"The problem with you is..."

"... I'm a Weasley?" she offered.

"... Exactly," he said, with the faintest note of sadness. He leaned in towards her and kissed her, then turned and left without another word.