Osiris Curse

Quietly, the two Hogwarts students walked out of the building, side by side. The late November, soon to be early December air caused their robes to billow out and for the red leaves at their feet to stir. Overcast skies looked down upon them, as they slowly made their way around the lake.

Ginny Weasley walked a bit stiffly, uncomfortable at the silence that pressed down around them. Stealing a look at the blonde Slytherin standing next to her she noticed he too seemed to be tense.

"He has no reason to though," she thought, "he asked me to come out here. He's not the one who is waiting for something surprising to pop out at him."

Finally she couldn't hold it in any more; she stopped to face him and burst out,

"Why did you kiss me last night? Why did you bring me out here?"

Draco continued to walk on slowly as if not hearing her, leaving a very disgruntled redhead behind him.

She immediately jogged after him, determined to get an answer.

"Don't ignore me Draco Malfoy! You can't expect to just kiss me or start being nice to me without me wondering why! I want an answer!"

"My actions don't have to be explained," he said simply.

She grabbed his arm and spun him to face her. His face still showed no emotion, it was a mask of indifference compared to hers which was crimson and dead set in a dangerously angry expression.

"Yes they do! They do when they concern me! I want to know! I refuse to just play dumb and let you have your way! There are things you aren't telling me and I want to know what they are!"

"Maybe if you took a moment to think, you'd realize that I have reasons for not telling you certain things."

With that he turned and kept walking, leaving Ginny sputtering indignantly.

"Fine. FINE! I'll find out what he's hiding. In the mean time, he's going to find out he messed with the wrong girl," she thought to herself and gracefully made her way back to the Slytherin's side.

"So, Draco," Ginny said, "tell me, what classes are you missing now?"

Blonde eyebrows rose slightly and eyes widened a smidge to show surprise at the turn of Ginny's emotions. Looking slightly suspicious, he responded,

"Only Astronomy and Care of Magical Creatures, nothing important."

"You mean you don't enjoy Care of Magical Creatures?" she asked, feigning curiosity.

"With that great oaf pathetically trying to teach? Who could?" he asked, disgusted.

With much effort to not yell in defense of Hagrid, Ginny decided to see if she could find a nerve,

"I think that you say that just because you father does."

"How do you mean?"

"Well it seems that all you do is what your father expects. What your father wants is the right thing. You seem to have no personality of your own. It's all about 'Daddy Dearest;' what about you? What about Draco Malfoy, rather than Lucius Malfoy's son?"

Ginny could tell she'd hit a nerve, since Malfoy's normally pallid cheeks adopted a pink tinge, and his gray eyes narrowed slightly.

"I make my own decisions!" he retorted, defensively.

"Of course you do," she responded sweetly.

Whether or not he noticed that she was patronizing, she couldn't tell, so she continued.

"Now, really, do you really look up to your father, or was your impression of him pounded into you at a young age? Or is it all the expensive stuff he buys you? Because those all sounds a bit superficial. Or is that fake sob story, "I'm a prat because my father was never there for me?"

"My father is a great father! My father is a great father and great man!"

"Oh, yeah, because giving little girls an evil diary is definitely a sign of a good man!"

"Oh God! That came out of nowhere! Why did I say that? WHY?" Ginny thought, "Why did I go and blurt that out? I have to learn more control over my mouth! And to all people, him! Now he's going to think I'm some weak little girl who sleeps with night terrors! That's not what I was going for!"

Trying to guard her face, she looked over at Draco to see a smirk on his face.

"I said he was a great man, not good. And if you were stupid enough to use the diary for that long...

Ginny could feel the emotional outburst bubbling up inside of her, but she tried to contain herself from shouting.

"Stupid enough indeed! Evil little bastard!" She thought to herself.

Face tight, she tried to relax again.

"So, Draco, I'd say a class period has finished by now, wouldn't you say?" she asked, voice a bit tight as she wrapped her right arm around his left.

He stiffened, noticeably.

"I really don't think so," Draco said in an uncomfortable tone of voice.

"How long do you think we've been out here?" she asked, digging her nails into his arm, wildly thinking he was a bit scared of her.

Draco didn't answer. Rather he looked nervously around, then at her hand that was touching her arm, and grabbed her shoulders and kissed her.

"Didn't think it'd be this easy," Ginny thought with an inward smirk.

He pulled away suddenly, smirking and looking relieved at the same time.

"I believe Potter has been left in the dust?" he drawled.

Potter. That was Harry Potter - The Boy Who Lived, the boy she'd been in love with since she was ten and had obsessed and cried over, the one who suddenly didn't matter.

"You could say that,"

"Wonderful," he practically purred, and went in for another kiss.

~*~

"Ginny!"

"Hmm?"

Colin Creevey came running over to Ginny as she stepped through the doorway to the Gryffindor common room.

"How come you didn't make it to the last two classes? I took notes for you, in case you got sick or something!"

"Oh, thanks Colin," she said as she reached out to get the parchments the energetic boy held.

"I'll tell you why she missed class," Kat giggled from a big squashy chair from the right, Celeste and Elaine giggling right along with her.

Ginny stiffened, one hand with a firm grasp on the notes and the other in a fist at her side.

"She was off snogging by the lake, with..." Kat paused for dramatic effect then in a hushed voice continued, "Draco Malfoy!"

Colin stood agape for a second then laughed.

"Yea, right. Like Ginny would be off snogging Draco Malfoy!"

"What makes you think I wouldn't?" Ginny snapped.

"You mean... you did?" Colin asked. "But, but, we all heard you tell Ron that the last time Malfoy Imperio'd you into doing it! Did he do that again? Cos if he did, you could tell Ron and Harry! They'd take care of him again!"

"Colin," she said in a patronizing voice, "Did it ever occur to you, that maybe I, hmm, lied?"

Colin stood there sputtering, "But, but, don't you like Harry?"

Ignoring him, Ginny turned to Kat, Celeste, and Elaine which were evolving each day to become more and more like Parvati and Lavendar, and were now watching Ginny with interest. Maybe there was some unwritten law that every year had to have their own set of bubbly, too-nosy-for-their-own-good gossipers.

"So, how did you know?"

"We saw you! The window in Binn's class! So how was it?"

"Do you know how many people saw?" she asked, disregarding Kat's question.

"Only us, we were closest to the window and everyone else was pretty much asleep," Kat said speaking for the whole group as usual.

Ginny thanked them, and Colin's notes in hand headed off to her dormitory.

She was about to start going up the stairs when she was headed off by Ron and Hermione, and surprisingly Harry was no where to be seen.

Ron's face was purple, his freckles hidden, as he seemed to be trying to talk but couldn't get the words out.

Hermione spoke first, looking quite uncomfortable,

"We, uh, heard what your, er, 'friends' said over there and we were hoping you'd to explain."

"What's there to say? I'd say that conversation pretty much summed it up."

Hermione tried again, at a loss for finding a tactful way to put it,

"So you're saying, that you, well you won't deny, that you -"

"YOU BLOODY SNOGGED DRACO MALFOY?! AND YOU LIED TO ME ABOUT BEFORE?" Ron broke in, outraged.

"Right-in-one brother, very good, full marks," Ginny replied, irritated. "Though maybe next time you'll want to say it a bit louder, in case the other three houses didn't hear. Make it come from the gut," she added smacking his stomach.

Ron looked on the verge of exploding, looking as if he desperately needed to punch something, preferably Draco Malfoy.

"I can't talk to you," he managed to get out before storming off. Hermione threw a weak smile at her before jogging off. At least Hermione would trust her, even if she frowned upon it. That was something, though Ginny had already resolved she didn't need it.

By this time, the rest of the people in the common room were staring at Ginny as if she'd grown two heads.

Quite pleased that this Draco Malfoy situation seemed to have taken the direction she wanted Ginny turned to make her towards her dormitory, and then changed her mind.

No, that was what people expected. What everyone at Hogwarts needed right now was to be thrown off kilter. Everyone has an exact measurement of the people around them. Harry was the all around hero and wonder-boy, Ron was the untactful hothead yet lovable sweetie, Hermione was the bossy bookworm and Ginny... Ginny was the Harry obsessed, shy little girl.

"Not a very flattering title, if I may say so," she thought to herself.

Well this will certainly cause a big uproar with the school. Hufflepuffs, Gryffindors, and Ravenclaws alike would be disgusted and shocked with her, and mainly shocked with Draco, they were already disgusted with him. As for the Slytherin House.... well, they'd see Ginny as Gryffindor garbage that soiled their prince. They'd probably cast Draco out of the social elite team; since they considered her only a touch better than a mudblood.

And this fact bothered her.

Draco knew this, he wouldn't risk this ever. She'd be the cause of losing his precious rank, money, and pride. He was too much the brat to give that up. There was something puzzling about all this. Whatever, she would find out when the time came. Or else, she'd make it come.

She stood in the Gryffindor Common room stupidly, as she realized that she felt like going somewhere, she had no idea where to go.

She could always go back to her room and read as she finished all her homework, but she had already read everything she owned, and she didn't feeling like re-reading them as she like being surprised by new plot points. The library it was then, she wouldn't be bothered by anyone then.

Ignoring the poorly masked looks thrown her way, she walked through the ominous looking hallways of Hogwarts, thinking of the recent events in her life. She hadn't even thought about the fact that people might not only wonder about the fact that she had snogged Draco Malfoy, but she had snogged Draco Malfoy, the infamous (at least in Hogwarts) Celestine Warbeck karaoke singer. In all honesty, she had forgotten all that happened with him, the music, and the now over bargain.

She strode into the library, knowing all well that hardly anyone would be in there, not even Hermione who right now would probably be scolding Ron to stop being such a prat. Hermione was too nice for her own good; she could see where that would lead to her downfall. Not that Ginny was all of a sudden planning Hermione's ultimate demise, but if Hermione was going to survive in a world with the elitist style of the wizarding world regarding purity of blood, she was going to have to be a bit more cautious and not assume that reasons for doing seemingly bad things were done with the best of intentions. Though, Hermione would learn this eventually, even if it would probably follow something of a great personal loss.

Ginny strode into the library, jaw clenched somewhat in an effort to steel herself up for a barrage of belittling faces she half expected in a paranoid sort of way from any student she would pass.

She supposed she would go look to see what kind of muggle studies related books the library had, though she doubted there were many.

Muggle Studies had actually gone uphill from the first day of class. While at first the class mainly focused on the way muggle ideas and beliefs affected the wizarding world and vice versa, now they were actually getting into the modern appliances and other things that helped muggles out rather than magic. Since Ginny had already taken Muggle Studies she knew most of the material covered. Unlike other classes, the subject material didn't become more difficult than the previous year since it tended to only be taken once. The education of muggles was of course very rudimentary since unless one was muggleborn, there was no backing for the education and no interest, let alone use for the course. Honestly, who would go about doing something that took hours the muggle way, when it took two seconds the magical way? Also, since the Headmaster had scheduled it last minute that everyone should take muggle studies, the classes varied with years and houses since the class had to be fit around not only a new course schedule, but after school activities such as Quidditch.

Scanning the shelves for an interesting looking book, Ginny walked through all the aisles. Had she been Hermione, she might have known the certain ways the books were catalogued and gone straight to the sections that would most probably contain the books she was looking for. Had she been Ron or Harry, she probably wouldn't be in here at all. As she walked by an empty table, she realized there was a stack of unused books piled by the edge. This was actually a very unusual sight. Madam Pince normally made sure that all the books were always in their proper place, so much so that she tended to glare at anyone who made use of her precious books, afraid that they would ruin it. The moment someone was done with a book she usually made sure they placed it back in the proper shelf, or she'd do it herself and revoke your library privileges for a week, which rather damaged your work for the stricter teachers such as McGonagall or Snape. Not only that, but the books were dangerously near the edge and piled rather high.

The only other explanation was someone was compiling a bunch of books for a certain project and was off getting yet another. Ginny couldn't remember seeing anyone else in the library as she was exploring the giant bookcases, but then again the library was enormous and had many sections she still hadn't passed yet.

Interested, she made her way to the books to see what subjects the books covered. Oddly enough, they were mainly about muggles.

"Well, they won't miss it if I take just one," she thought to herself making to grab one.

"Not enough money in the Weasley education fund that you must resort to nicking off others?" Draco's voice shot out from somewhere behind her, causing her fingers to jump back from the rather large tome.

"I was not stealing, I was merely borrowing it," she retorted. "And what on earth happened to being a gentleman with your girlfriend?"

"Borrowing without permission is the exact same thing as stealing, and back in better times, I could have had your hand chopped off for it. And also, when did we become a couple?"

"Borrowing without permission still implies that I would have returned it eventually, which is quite different from stealing. As for better times, you would have probably been wearing stuffy lacy dress robes resembling my brother's from last year, and you would probably not have as efficient charms and such as nowadays, especially the hygienic ones. Also, life expectancy would've have been a mere 80 rather than 130 as it is now. And I assumed we were a couple considering practically every time you see me now, you kiss me like the world is going to end tomorrow!"

"Even if you were meaning to return something you 'borrowed without permission' the fact that I have no knowledge of it makes it stealing. As for snogging with you, we never made it official that we were a couple. As of now it's classified as 'casual' meaning I could go snog the pants off any other girl I passed and it wouldn't count against me," he drawled, seemingly trying to get her worked up.

"Made it official?! What do we have to sign a contract in blood? Goodness, you make everything so damn complicated. 'Classified as casual' my arse! Do you keep everything in your life in separate files that you can refer back to in case of court trial?" she asked.

"You Gryffindors can be so exaggerated. I simply meant that until we established the fact that we are in Laymen's Terms, 'going steady,' that we have no true responsibility to each other," he said as if she was so stupid that she hadn't already known his twisted, illogical views on relationships.

"'Going steady?' I'm sorry I hadn't realized we'd gone back in time to the fifties!" she snapped, quite annoyed.

"Oh shut it, you got my point," he retorted.

"Well then fine! Are we going to 'establish the fact that we are going steady?'" she asked sarcastically.

"No need to get your knickers worked up into a bunch," he said, amusement evident in his face.

"I am NOT working my knickers up into a bunch!" she hissed, glad that there was no one in the library. He opened his mouth to make another comment, and she cut him off demanding that he answer her question.

"Well I suppose we are hosting a certain 'couple' style relationship already," he began.

"Excuse me? You 'suppose we are hosting a certain 'couple' style relationship?' What the hell does that mean? Not everything can be thrown into fancy little categories!"

"Would you let me finish?" he asked, exasperated.

Ginny glared at him, but let him continue.

"As I was saying, I think we could give 'us' a try, in a 'mutually exclusive' way."

"Fine, but I have a few questions and ground rules we need to go over first," she said.

"And I am the one turning this relationship into some type of blood contract?" he asked slightly annoyed.

"Do not try to use my nonsensical logic against me, it makes you look stupid and me look cute," she snapped, and ignored the snort that came from Draco afterwards.

"As for my questions, first, why do you like me?"

"Oh don't ask those questions! Those are stupid little questions that come from simpering girls like Pansy, the questions like 'Am I fat?' If I say because you're pretty, I'll be accused of being shallow, and if I say because you're intelligent, you'll tell me there are girls more intelligent than you. If I say because you're a pureblood, you'll point out that you're also a Gryffindor and a Weasley and that there are more 'suitable purebloods for me' in Slytherin. Any other trait I point out, you'll say that I don't even really know considering that I haven't gotten to know you until recently. So on those grounds, I refuse to answer the question," he stated looking like a stubborn little boy as he crossed his arms across his chest.

"I believe that somewhere in that longwinded speech you answered the question anyway," Ginny pointed out, smirking at the frown that came over his face as he reviewed his answer in his head.

"Next question: what about people's opinions on 'us?' For example, your house, wouldn't they basically consider you less of what you are? Like, would they consider you to be a traitor consorting with the 'Gryffindor scum?'"

"First off, if people can't understand my reasoning," he sneered, with an odd inflection on the word reasoning, "then their opinions are worthless. As for a 'traitor consorting with Gryffindor scum,' I am too important to be lowered so much." Ginny rolled her eyes at his undying narcissism for himself. "And what about you?" he countered.

"What about me?" Ginny asked somewhat defensively.

"Well are you suddenly going to flip out when our peers criticize you once too many about your choice in boyfriends and call it quits?" he asked, his face unreadable.

"No! I can handle our peers just as well as you can!" she said, annoyed that he could get her to snap constantly.

"Good, very good, now what other questions or rules do you have?" he asked, making the fact that she had questions or rules seem childish.

"Well, for one, at the risk of sounding exactly as I did about 5 months ago I want the insults of my family and me to stop. And, I expect you to treat me as an actual girlfriend now that we're 'mutually exclusive,'" she drawled.

"If you expect flowers or poems or other nonsense you'll be waiting for quite awhile," he sneered, clearly disgusted at the thought.

"No, I would never expect that from you, I meant you treat me nicely, with the hand holding, and I don't know a surprise kiss in the hallways or something. Maybe this is too much for you, but I want you to be nice," she responded seriously.

"I am nice," he protested, but without much effort.

"Being nice does not mean you tell the house-elves that they have an extra day to finish cleaning your clothes before you threaten them with clothes; being nice means you actually think of someone else other than yourself," she countered.

"And giving house-elves a longer period to finish a task isn't nice?" he asked.

"No Draco," she sighed, "not when you do it. Now would you please stop trying to argue everything I say just for the sake of arguing?"

"Ah, but it's so much fun," he teased. "Besides, you can be quite contrary yourself you know."

"Me? Never!" she said, with a mock look of shock on her face.

"And a liar too, you've got so much running for you," he teased and cut her off when she went to protest his comments. "But that's why I like you, because you'd make a fine Slytherin."

"And here I thought it was because I was pretty, intelligent, and pureblooded, along with the fact that I can stand your presence for more than an hour."

"Well we've been here for about twenty minutes, so I have at least another forty left. How do you say we spend that time?" he asked with a mischievous gleam in his eye.

"Well, I'm sure we could think of something," she said slowly.

And with that she went in for a kiss.