In Which Ginny's Clumsiness Finally Pays Off

Chapter Five: In the Crystal Clear Truth

"What?!"

Ginny shrank from Colin´s loud and bemused voice, as he bellowed out his first comment after hearing all about her new theory: the Malfoy Revelations Theory.

People started to look at Colin with curious faces as he proceeded on making gagging sounds as if everything that he had just heard was too absurd to process inside his limp brain and thus was making him suffer. Ginny rolled her eyes and tutted loudly as Colin went on with his I-don´t-believe-Malfoy´s-a-nice-guy phase.

The two friends were walking towards Neville´s Charms class so that they can go to the Great Hall for lunch together. They had just escaped Professor Sinistra in Potions, the substitute teacher while Professor Snape was gone. If Potions was deadly and scary before, Ginny now considers Potions the second subject when it comes to the top ten most boring classes--right up there, after History of Magic. It even won over Divination--and that was saying something.

"Neville--come--you should hear this!" Colin cried out as soon as Neville came into view. He dragged Ginny towards a very flustered-looking Neville with burnt eyebrows (They both knew it wasn´t wise to ask Neville what happened at Charms). "Ginny, tell Neville all about your theory."

"Draco Malfoy is a nice guy."

Colin then had a fit of giggles right there while Neville´s eyes popped out of their sockets. Ginny sighed loudly as she waited for her best buddies to overcome their first initial shock of what she just had just thrown upon their faces.

"Ginny, you do know you´re talking about the person who practices the three unforgivable curses on me for fun, right?" asked Neville, his face full of concern--as if his best friend just experienced the reality of an alternate universe.

"Yes!" she exclaimed exasperatedly, tired of the stares her friends were giving her, "Look, I overheard Crabbe and Goyletalking at the shed this morning--"

"Of course," Neville interrupted, nodding his head as if he understood what she was saying, "Crabbe and Goyle. You know Gin, you shouldn´t believe every single world those two thugs come up with it because let´s face it--they´re thugs. No, that´s taking it mildly. They´re stupid, dumb--thugs."

"That´s not nice."

"Well, they weren´t very nice to me these past six years, so why should I be of any difference?"

"So no one believes me when I say Draco´s nice?"

"Oh so you´re in the first names now, eh?" Colin teased her, "First you surprise us with your belief about Malfoy being nice--now you´re calling him Draco? What, after an hour of spending with each other at the shed, you´re now officially best friends?"

"Colin, have you ever been in the shed?" Neville asked, wriggling his eyebrows.

"Yes--why?"

"Well, if you haven´t noticed the shed is incredibly dark--"

And Colin, getting the grip of what Neville was talking about cried out, "and incredibly cold--"

"And incredibly small..."

"And you two are incredibly dumb," Ginny sniffed, raising an eyebrow, "don´t even think about what I think you´re thinking."

"Repetition," Neville announced, grinning, "One popular evidence of being in love."

"Oh yeah--who knows what one hour can do to two different people inside the shed?" Colin piped in.

"Lots of things apparently," Neville answered cheerfully, "and do you remember our fair Ginny Weasley in our second year when she was narrating about her escapade in the Chamber of Secrets with her prince charming?"

"Oh yes, I remember it well," and here, Colin raised his tone a couple of octaves higher, imitating Ginny´s high-pitched voice, "And the only thought that kept me miserable was the thought that the whole school thought Harry was the heir of Slytherin."

"Where´s the repetition in that?" Ginny challenged stubbornly.

"I´ll give you a minute to figure it out," Neville answered, rolling his eyes.

"Oi, Neville!"

The three Gryffindors looked up to see Ron, waving a piece of parchment, hurrying towards them through the crowd. Behind him were Harry and Hermione, both looking very cantankerous indeed.

"Yes?" asked Neville inquisitively.

"Hermione and I were fighting over this a while ago--do you think I look like a pink sloth?"

Neville, Colin and Ginny stared at Ron as if he came from another planet.

"Oh, honestly, it´s Anemology--haven´t any of you ever heard of that?" Hermione demanded shrilly, obviously getting irritated by Ron´s attitude.

They shook their heads.

"Ron thinks he´s a blue fox," Harry explained kindly, though it was evident from the tired look in his face that he wasn´t enjoying the fact that his two best friends were fighting again, "Hermione thinks otherwise."

"Hermione thinks I´m a pink sloth, how can I be proud of that?"

"Well you definitely can´t be a blue fox because I´m the blue fox--"

"How do you know for sure Hermione that you´re a blue fox and he´s a pink sloth?" Ginny asked.

"I took the test," she said proudly, "I studied it all night and I ended up with the blue fox."

"Test where?"

"It´s in this stupid Teen Witch Weekly magazine," Ron answered, "here."

He then tossed a very worn-out looking copy of the said magazine, the piece of parchment he was waving earlier, towards Ginny. She caught it with her hands and began to scan through it quickly.

"What´s your favourite food? What´s the colour of your eyes--what´s this?" she asked, flipping through the pages furiously.

"It´s the test," answered Harry.

"Oh! Is it a personality test that ends with you being a blue fox?" she asked.

"No. It tells you what kind of animal you are," Ron replied.

"And this is the rave you´re talking about?"

"Ginny, it tells you who your soul mate is," Hermionewhispered in her ear, making sure Ron and Harry won´t hear, "Ron didn´t take the test yet, says he can predict who he is by not even looking at the test."

"Oh," Ginny nodded understandingly.

"I bet Ginny´s a red cat!" Colin suddenly cried out, who was reading behind her shoulder, "See here? A red cat is a shy, innocent person and will remain loyal to his or her object of affection unless the silver dragon comes along, who is the soul mate of the red cat!"

"Oh, this is stupid," Ginny said stiffly, tossing Colin the magazine, "besides I need to go and serve detention."

She waved good bye to her friends before running full-speed towards the Quidditch field, where the broom shed was.

"Hmm....silver dragon....makes you think, huh?" Harry asked Ron as they walked towards the Great Hall for their lunch, leaving Colin and Neville with the magazine at the Charms hallway.

"What do you mean Harry?"

"Let´s see, shall we?" Hermione piped in with a teasing tone in her voice, "Who´s the only person in Hogwarts who has the Latin name for dragon? Who´s the only person in Hogwarts who has silver hair?"

"Hermione, if you´re talking about Malfoy--"

"Oh, spotted."

"Malfoy--and Ginny? Are you two out of your minds?" Ron laughed out loud at this, as he slapped both of his friends in the back.

"Why not Ron? I mean, they are spending an awful lot of time together," Harry tormented.

"Aw, c´mon Harry--the only way I see Malfoy and Ginny getting together is when they´re stuck in a tiny and dark room, completely void of any human habitation, for one hour, with several piles of dirty broomsticks and a Teen Witch Weekly mag."

*.*

Far away in the Quidditch field, inside a tiny and dark room, which is very often called as the Slytherin broom shed, completely void of any human habitation, with several piles of dirty broomsticks inside, Malfoy was prancing around with a Teen Witch Weekly magazine while Ginny was stooped, scrubbing the floor wistfully.

"Tell me, Weasley, what do you think I do the moment I enter the common room?" Malfoy asked broodingly, as he waved an expensive looking feather quill under her nose.

"Well, from the five years that I´ve known you Malfoy, I´d say you bully your housemates into giving you homework," she answered, not really minding him and his cheery aura, when she had to make sure that the mud specks Slytherins have made over the centuries aren´t visible in Malfoy´s eyes.

"Ha, nice try, Weasley, I bet that´s not even one of the choices."

"What are the choices then?"

"A) greet your housemates a cheery hi and then give them a hug--eew, how good can you get? B) pass them as if you saw nothing but wallpaper, the same way they see you--tut, too pathetic. C) Scream and run away--ahoy, sounds like you Weasley--oooh dang, Weasley, that´s a very rude gesture when you think I´m not looking, put that finger down right this minute or I´ll tell your overgrown brother on you--D) bully your housemates into giving you home--haha, very funny Weasley, knock yourself out--I´m insulted."

Malfoy chose to ignore Ginny´s loud guffawing (which was unfortunately directed to him), as specks of soap started to bounce into her rosy cheeks. Ginny´s eyes leaked with tears by the time she stopped laughing. Malfoy was still prancing here and there with the quill in air.

"I say--A."

She sighed loudly.

"You!! Off my planet!!"

"Oh, don´t mind me, I´m just trying to imagine you with a personality--you know, besides crazy..."

"I´m not crazy; I´ve just been in a very bad mood for the past sixteen years."

"A? Greet your housemates with a hug? C´mon..."

"But A makes me seem nice."

"Of course, so you can end up being a purple worm--your choice."

"And your cry-baby whiny-whiny opinion will be?"

"D."

"Okay...I say...B!"

"What´s this??"

Ginny´s cry of surprise made Malfoy look up from his test. She was holding up a bent and enormous silver platter up in the air, showing it to him.

"Oh--that was the platter used to hold the roast mammoth at our first year, remember? No, you can´t, because you´re not in this school yet--anyway, that´s why it´s that big."

"Why is it here??"

"Crabbe and Goyle used to ride on it down the hills in winter--sort of like a--what do you call it--"

"A toboggan?"

"Yeah--that, my father never bought me one of those, he thinks they´re for kids. Of course now I agree with him, but back then I didn´t, so we came up with this. We only rode it once though. Once in our second year."

"Why didn´t you ride it again?"

"My father needs me in the mansion these days--what, with all the dark stuff going on around."

"Oh," Ginny thought once that the Malfoys were involved in the Death Eaters circle, and now Malfoy has just removed all of her doubts.

"Okay, let me see...tell me, Weasley, what kind of person do yousee in me after ten years?"

"A Death Eater?"

As soon as those words came out of Ginny´s mouth, Malfoy´s face darkened. Even Ginny was surprised by what she said.

"Ha, ha, a Death Eater, get it? I was kidding..." Ginny´s voice trailed off nervously.

"Oh now, I get you, but that was real lame Weasley," Malfoy commented haughtily, "Look at the time--lunch´s over. Come back here at four to finish the floor. Mind you, there´s a Quidditch practice going on, we might get dirty."

Ginny nodded as Malfoy disappeared behind the door, leaving behind his magazine. She picked it up, about to call Malfoy back, when something caught her eye. It was Question number 10.

10. What kind of person do you plan in seeing at yourself after ten years?

1. A junkie wasting your life away in front of the television.
2. A pre-occupied member in the Ministry of Magic, single and rich.
3. A popular character, where all the wizards and witches drool after you.
4. You don´t know yet, but definitely something nice.

"Malfoy!"

Malfoy turned around to see Ginny running towards him, a concerned look in her face.

"What--?"

"You forgot this," she said, handing Malfoy his copy.

"Oh--thank you."

"Look," Ginny avoided his eyes, as she tried to muster the courage to say the words.

"I´m looking."

"I´m sorry."

Malfoy looked at her as if for the first time, as if she wasn´t the Weasley he thought she was. His grey eyes bored on her brown pair, making her heart beat faster. His silver hair swayed to the wind. His eyebrows were furrowed in concentration as he stared at her, trying to figure her out, why she said sorry, and why she even cared.

"I got to go," she murmured, but she didn´t move. She stayed fixed on the spot, her legs trembling.

"Yeah..." It was his last word before he turned around and walked away.

It´s not because I like him of course, Ginny thought, I mean, I don´t even care. I just said sorry cause...

`Cause it was right...and because...

His grey eyes tell me so.