The Castle in the Sky

The Castle in the Sky

Chapter 2

"The art of life lies in a constant readjustment to our surroundings."-- Okakura Kakuzo

It was raining as Ginny climbed out of the carriage, and began to ascend the front steps of Hogwarts. It was the first day of September and the bite of autumn was slowly beginning to creep into the air, making Ginny draw her cloak tighter around herself.

She hadn't set foot on these stone steps in eight years, and she never truly thought that she would ever again. But here she was, standing before the great oak front doors like a weary traveller, waiting for them to open.

The great doors creaked open and Ginny stepped into the warm, dry entrance hall. She couldn't help but smile: everything was exactly as she remembered it. There was commotion coming from the Great Hall to her left; the Welcome feast had obviously begun.

Ginny didn't know what exactly to do with herself so she sat on her trunk outside the entrance to the Great Hall. She knew that she should probably go in and have something to eat, but the butterflies in her nervous stomach seemed to have chased away all premonitions of hunger she may have had.

She didn't have to wait long however, until Dumbledore whisked out of the doors of the Great Hall and stopped abruptly in front of her, as if expecting her to be there.

"Why, Miss Weasley," he said, smiling in his kind, Dumbledore-like way. "How nice it is to see you after so many years. I am truly grateful for your decision to take Madam Pomfrey's position. Let's go to my office and have a chat. Don't worry about your luggage; it will be taken up to your private quarters very soon."

Ginny nodded, and followed him up the marble staircase. Within minutes they were standing in front of the gargoyle that would take them up a revolving staircase into Dumbledore's office.

Once inside, Ginny looked around. It was just as she remembered it from the few times she had been in there before. Fawkes the Phoenix, sitting on his golden perch, the paintings of the old heads feigning sleep, and the rubies in the hilt of the sword of Gryffindor winking ominously at her from the glass case behind Dumbledore's desk.

Walking back into Hogwarts again after all these years to find things virtually unchanged was, for Ginny, like stepping back into her childhood - something that she dearly wished that she could revisit and change a few things. Like deciding to write in that diary. She shuddered and Dumbledore motioned for her to sit down in the chair opposite his desk.

"Well Miss Weasley, I am glad that you accepted my job offer. But let us skip that pointless chitchat and get to the point, here..." and Dumbledore went on to explain basically what she would be responsible for while she was in apprenticeship to Madam Pomfrey. He told her that first thing tomorrow morning she was to go to the hospital wing and meet with Madam Pomfrey. From there, she was told that she would be taught the certain procedures that are followed in the hospital wing, as well as where all the supplies are.

After that, Ginny was supposed to pretty much sit back and watch, occasionally helping if Madam Pomfrey needed it.

"Now Ginny," Dumbledore concluded, standing up, motioning for Ginny to do the same as well. "You may retire to your private quarters in the hospital wing. You have a busy day tomorrow; I suggest you get a lot of sleep. There will be a plate of food waiting for you in your chambers, as you did not eat dinner..."

And so Ginny got up and wandered the halls of Hogwarts for a while, lost in memories that she didn't even know that her brain contained anymore. She passed the Gryffindor portrait hole, and the fat lady stared at her, as if trying to remember where she had seen her face before. Ginny only paused a minute to remember all the good times she had had behind the fat lady's canvas, before moving on down the hall, trailing one hand on the stone wall and humming absently to herself.

She wasn't paying much attention, and as she rounded a corner, she smacked into something solid and warm. She stumbled backwards a bit, mumbling apologies.

"Watch where you're going!" the person snapped. Ginny's head looked up into the familiar face of her brother's arch-nemesis: Draco Malfoy. She gasped a little. He had certainly changed a lot. While his white-blonde hair and cool grey eyes were the same, he had gained an aura of masculinity and maturity that he had never had during his time at Hogwarts.

He didn't seem to recognize her at all, however. "Ten points from whatever godforsaken house you're in. Now get back to your dormitory, or it'll be detention for a week!" and he brushed past her briskly, and continued down the hall.

Ginny couldn't help it...she had to laugh. He turned around sharply and strode back towards her, giving her a truly menacing glare that she was sure would have terrified her had she been thirteen years old again. However, she was a grown woman. She just laughed harder.

"You dare mock me?" he asked, incredulous.

"You really don't recognize me do you?" she asked, still giggling. "Well, there really wouldn't be any specific reason for you to remember me after all..." she trailed of pensively.

He looked at her for a minute and then said, in a resigned voice, "You do look rather familiar. Red hair. Freckles. No tatty robes though, so you can't be a Weasley..." he said, and Ginny was sure that had he had a goatee, he would have been stroking it right about then.

Her eyes glittered with mirth. "Oh, but I am a Weasley," she said. "And you're Draco Malfoy."

Recognition dawned on his face, as he looked her up and down with a kind of hunger in his eyes. "You're the youngest one! You were always so small and frail looking. But I see that even the ugly ones can sometimes turn out all right in the end," he said indifferently.

Ginny opened her mouth to say something, but she was cut off once again - it was becoming rather part of her life now. She couldn't seem to say anything to anyone without being cut off at least once.

"Sorry, but I really don't have time to fraternize or reminisce with a Weasley, so run along now," he said rather contemptuously, continuing his walk down the hall. He didn't look back.

Ginny watched him until he turned the corner again, and then she let her shoulders sag. If Malfoy worked here as well - at least, she assumed he worked here, seeing as he threatened to dock points - she was in for an interesting year.

She had no idea just how interesting things could get.

* * *

It was the first day of term and Ginny had been up since the crack of dawn. She had shoved some toast and eggs down her throat and was now in a starched white uniform with black Hogwarts robes standing next to a quite irritable Madam Pomfrey. She had informed Ginny that it was not her decision to retire, and she felt as though Dumbledore was firing her.

Ginny tried to reassure her the best that she could, until Madam Pomfrey glared at her and told her to keep her mouth shut so that she could get on with showing her what to do. Ginny obediently shut her mouth and followed Madam Pomfrey around the infirmary, watching and listening as she explained where all the supplies were, what they were used for (though Ginny knew all this, she didn't interrupt), and so on.

Around midday, right before lunch, a third year Hufflepuff named Conrad Peters came in sporting a bloody nose and twitching ears. Ginny couldn't help but laugh a little; though she quickly turned her giggle into a hacking cough after the look that Madam Pomfrey gave her.

Madam Pomfrey told Ginny to sit back and watch how things were done. Ginny's focus, she was told, was not to be on the patient, but on Madam Pomfrey, studying her every move and noting where things were stored. So Ginny observed for forty-five minutes while Madam Pomfrey interrogated Conrad Peters, made his ears stop twitching, and then watched still more as she cleaned up his bloody nose.

After Madam Pomfrey had reprimanded her for laughing, Ginny was told that she could go to lunch.

Ginny walked into the Great Hall and smiled. It too looked just as she remembered. The large wooden House tables were laden with food...practically groaning under the weight of the golden baked hams, the bowls of steak and kidney pudding, the endless supply of sandwiches, and the mounds of fluffy mashed potatoes.

She walked aimlessly up to the staff table, scanning for an empty seat, or where ever she was supposed to sit. She made eye contact with Dumbledore and he gestured to a seat right next to none other than Malfoy himself. Ginny groaned inwardly. She just decided that she wouldn't talk to him. She should have known how difficult that would be.

She strode over stiffly and sank into the chair, not even glancing in Malfoy's direction, and began to load her plate with food - she had just realized how hungry she was. She stopped abruptly however, when she felt eyes boring into the side of her head. She sighed and put down her plate.

"And what, may I ask, are you staring at?" she inquired snidely.

"I seem to think that I see a Weasley sitting at the Hogwarts staff table, as if she thinks that she actually works here," he said, just as snidely, his lips twisted in a smirk. "However, I can't make any sort of guess at who is it because their face is so covered in freckles that it's next to impossible to make out any other facial features."

Ginny blushed. She said nothing and went back to her plate of food, shovelling some mashed potatoes onto it now. When she could still feel his eyes drilling holes in her face, she turned to him again. "Do you mind? Didn't your mother teach you that it's not polite to stare?" she asked coldly. "But then again," she went on, tipping her face to the enchanted ceiling as if lost in thought, "she probably wasn't around long enough to teach you much of anything."

"Don't you insult my mother, Weasley. I've seen your mother. She's a real porker, that's for sure. Has she slimmed up at all over these past years? Probably not...the older you get, the fatter you get, and it's been proven. I bet by now you had to sell almost everything you own to build another wing on that pathetic house of yours because her bulk makes the place seem ten times smaller."

Ginny closed her eyes, fighting the bubbles of rage that were boiling up into her chest, starting to restrict her breathing. She silently prayed to whatever gods were up in the heavens to grant her the power to restrain herself. She must not have prayed hard enough though, because he had just opened up his mouth to say something more when Ginny took up her plate of food and whipped it at his head. He fell backwards over his chair with bits of ham and mashed potatoes on the front of his shirt and smeared all down his face. He also was developing a large red lump in the middle of his forehead.

Ginny looked at him and instantly felt extremely guilty. She had behaved like a child. How could she prove to Dumbledore that she deserved this job if she acted no more mature than the students here? The Hall had become suddenly quiet as everyone was staring at her and Draco. The students were whispering behind their hands, amused looks upon their faces.

Ginny blushed crimson, but she knew it was still from the anger burning its way through her veins as well as complete and utter embarrassment at having been caught in a fit of childish rage. She made her way out of the Great Hall, and slumped against the wall in the entrance hall. A few moments after she left, Draco must have finally sat up because the whole Hall broke into raucous laughter.

Draco came tumbling out of the Hall, his face flushed red from anger and embarrassment, pieces of ham still falling off of his robes as he moved. Lucky for Ginny he didn't see her, and he half stumbled half ran down the stone steps that led to dungeons and the Slytherin common room.

Ginny rose wearily to her feet, and decided to go back to her quarters before returning to the hospital wing and being under the irritable eye of Madam Pomfrey. She also did not wish to be found sitting in the entrance hall when people started leaving lunch.

When she returned to her room, she flopped back onto her four-poster bed, which was quite like the one she had slept in almost every night for seven years when she had been a student at Hogwarts. She stared morosely at the ceiling, thinking about her situation with Malfoy.

How would she ever be able to concentrate on her job with that lousy git throwing insults at her every time he set eyes on her? Why couldn't they just act like the adults that they were? She heaved a frustrated sigh and covered her face with her hands. And then a sudden thought struck her: What exactly did Draco do at Hogwarts? Was he some kind of teacher? What did he teach? She made a mental note to herself to find out...without asking him directly of course. She couldn't let him know that she was even the slightest bit interested in, or curious about him. Not that she was interested in him. Certainly not.

She was just being nosy...that didn't show any sort of real interest at all. She decided to head back to the hospital wing to ask Madam Pomfrey about it.

She walked into the blindingly white infirmary to notice the older woman sitting placidly at a desk, filling out some forms. Ginny decided that once she took over this place, she would have to do something about all the white. She could physically feel her corneas burning out of her head.

Madam Pomfrey looked up and gave Ginny a disapproving scowl.

"That was quite some display you put on at lunch," she said shortly. Ginny blushed.

"I'm really sorry about that," she said in earnest. But in reality, she would shove that plate of food in Malfoy's face all over again, should she be given such an opportunity.

"I'm not the one who needs apologizing to," she said. "Professor Malfoy is the one you have harmed here."

Ginny scoffed. "Professor? What does he teach?"

Madam Pomfrey regarded her with deepest annoyance. "He is the new Potions Master, Miss Weasley."

Ginny frowned thoughtfully. What happened to Professor Snape? "I didn't know Snape was..."

"Dead, yes," said Madam Pomfrey lightly, returning to her paperwork.

Ginny decided to drop the subject and move on. "Well, I'm not apologizing to him," she said stubbornly.

Madam Pomfrey eyed her warily.

"I won't!" Ginny said. "He was insulting me, and I'll only apologize to him if he apologizes to me as well. And even then the apologies won't be sincere...we both meant every word that we said."

Madam Pomfrey just shook her head and huffed as if Ginny were a disobedient child that she was tired of reprimanding. "You can get to work on disinfecting the bedpans, please. They haven't had a good scrub since the end of last term," she said sharply, not looking up from her paperwork.

Ginny scowled and set to work on her chore.

It was nearly two hours before she was done with the bedpans. By that point, Madam Pomfrey had a list of about twenty other things that she wanted done. Ginny sighed angrily and snatched the list from her hand and walked off grumbling.

It was another three hours still before she was done with the rest of things on Madam Pomfrey's list. Her stomach was grumbling uncomfortably, as she hadn't gotten to eat much lunch.

She looked out the infirmary window to see the sun setting placidly in the west, melting into the treetops of the Forbidden Forest, and so gilding them a rich golden colour. Ginny sighed. She loved sunsets.

Madam Pomfrey snapped her out of her reverie by curtly clearing her throat. Ginny looked over from her place in front of the window to see the older woman standing by the double doors to the infirmary.

"You may leave for dinner now," she said, and turned on her heel through the doors.

Ginny groaned. She did not want to show face in the Great Hall again today. She decided that dinner would be an affair that she would skip all together. Her stomach rumbled hungrily again and she chose to ignore it.

As she walked down the corridor to her private quarters, Madam Pomfrey's suggestion of apologizing to Draco came back to her. She decided that if she were ever going to be able to work at Hogwarts with him around, she would have to work out some kind of small peace treaty. She decided that she might as well apologize to him as well. You know, not like she cared or anything...she just wanted to be the bigger person.

So, not even thinking that he was going to dinner, she strolled down to the dungeons to where she guessed he would have taken over Snape's old classroom and office. The dungeons always creeped her out, and she shuddered involuntarily as she descended the stone stairwell into the bowels of Hogwarts.

Just as she remembered from the times she had been down there for Potions classes, torches on brackets lined the walls, but they were few and far between, and half of the time Ginny was walking along the stone corridors in almost complete darkness. She didn't understand how the Slytherins could stand it.

Ginny was just trying to remember where Snape's office had been, when, as if on cue, a door halfway down the corridor creaked a bit on its hinges from the small draft. Chills shot up Ginny's spine as she made her way toward the door.

She pushed it open hesitantly to find it almost as dark as the corridor outside. The only source of light in the small office was that of a huge fireplace. There was a large, cluttered wooden desk against one wall, with a rigid wooden chair pushed into the space underneath it. The walls were lined with shelves that no longer contained jars of unidentifiable objects, but hundreds upon hundreds of books. Potions books, she guessed.

The only other piece of furniture in the slightly bare room was a huge armchair sitting before the fire. And in it sat Draco Malfoy. She could only see the top of his head, but she was sure it was he: the firelight danced off of his white-blonde hair like sunshine dancing on a cool lake in the summertime.

Ginny cleared her throat and shifted nervously from foot to foot.

"What do you want?" came a sullen reply from behind the chair.

"It's just...Malfoy...it's Ginny, Ginny Weasley..." she started, unsure of what to say. The head peeking from above the chair didn't move.

"Go away," he said, his voice devoid of any emotion. Ginny was becoming impatient.

"No, I will not go away. I came here to talk to you about some things, and we are going to talk," she said firmly, pulling the wooden chair from the desk and setting it between Draco's chair and the fire.

He stared at her blankly, a bottle of some magical alcohol clutched in his hand. He raised it to his mouth to take another sip, but Ginny pulled it from his grasp. Finally, he showed some emotion.

"Hey!" he shouted, his face contorting in anger. "Give that back!" he demanded like a spoiled child.

"No," Ginny said, smashing the bottle on the floor.

"Don't push my buttons right now, Weasley," he said calmly, although it was easy to tell he was well on his way to being infuriated. "Who invited you to my office, anyway?" he added as an afterthought.

Ginny ignored his last question.

"We need to work something out. It's not going to be good for either one of us to be shouting insults at each other for as long as we both work here. I don't know about you, but I want to keep my job. I came here to take on a responsible job, and act like the adult that I am. I didn't come here to fight with you like I was fifteen years old again, ok? If you want to carry on being an immature fool, by all means continue! You'll be embarrassing no one but yourself with your immature actions and insults," she said, leaning forward, and crossing her arms. "Oh, and I'm terribly sorry for shoving my plate in your face at lunch today." When he was silent, she said, "You deserved it."

Ginny could be quite convincing when she wanted to. Sometimes her brothers teased her about being the spitting image of her mother (personality-wise of course).

Draco snorted, crossing his arms as well. He didn't seem to have anything to say to that. "Is that so?" he said lamely.

"It is," Ginny said, a note of utter finality in her voice.

"Well, what to you propose we do?" he asked, his voice returning to the dull dreaminess of before.

"Ignore each other," she said simply, leaning back into the chair. "Deal?" she asked, extending her hand. She wasn't in the least unnerved that he hadn't apologized to her as well. She hadn't expected him to.

Draco considered for a moment, studying the proffered hand. He finally gave in however and extended his own, clasping Ginny's hand in a firm, yet short handshake.

"Deal," he said.