A Pretty Good Dean/Ginny Fic

A Pretty Good Dean/Ginny Fic

"Right, class, you should be finishing up now," called dowdy old Professor Bovington from the front of the room.

Ginny Weasley looked rather forlornly at the still-life she was painting. She had never been superb at art, but she had been improving quite steadily ever since she had elected to take Professor Bovington's class at the start of the second term. In fact, she had even chosen a signature to make her paintings uniquely her own -- almost every one of them had a bright red background. Her red paint had taken to quivering with fear and attempting to hide itself on the bottom of her palette whenever it saw her worn, molting brush approaching, but she rather thought it was an interesting twist to give her work, which had progressed to such a level that its subjects actually showed signs of movement when she was finished -- without her having to bewitch them hastily while Professor Bovington's back was turned.

This painting, however, was rubbish. The hippogriff bones were too large, and didn't look as if they could have possibly rested against the table at that angle. The bowl of bowtruckle droppings was crooked, and the shading was all wrong on the pumpkins, squashes, and grapes. She sighed grumpily and backed up a few paces to see if it looked better from farther away -- it didn't, of course -- and to spy upon her neighbor Blaise Zabini's work, which wasn't much better than her own. She felt reassurred until she heard a voice from across the room. . . .

"Blimey, Professor Bovington, I can hardly get anything done on mine; it won't even hold still long enough for me to finish the sketch!"

Professor Bovington gazed upon her favorite student with a fondness so profound it was scarcely short of worship. "That's perfectly all right, Dean!" she said rapturously, running quickly to have a look at Dean Thomas's fairy painting -- as if she hadn't lingered there for half the class period. "That -- is -- brilliant, Dean, simply brilliant!" she breathed. "Your work has a breathtaking realism, yet a spontaneous deviation of color in its shadows that is almost -- playful. Twenty points to Gryffindor!"

"Twenty!" protested Blaise Zabini in disbelief. "For a painting?"

Professor Bovington took another critical glance at Dean's painting. "You're quite right, dear," she said. "I ought to make it at least thirty! Well," she said hurriedly to Dean, "do sign it, boy; I'll want everyone to know that you were my student when you're famous. And by the way," she added, "I absolutely love the way you've chosen to do all your latest paintings against the same hue of maroon. It reminds me rather forcibly of Picasso's blue period -- other Muggle-borns will know what I mean!" she said, winking.

Ginny stared at Professor Bovington and Dean in shock. Her indignation increased tenfold when Professor Bovington stopped in front of her own painting and said, "Ginny, dear, your painting isn't moving at all."

"But it's a still-life!" said Ginny.

"Is it?" said Professor Bovington, bending over and staring at Ginny's painting with her eyes squinted behind her horn-rimmed glasses. She turned her head first to one side, then the other. Then she shrugged, saying, "All right, then," in an airy voice before moving on to inspect Blaise's painting.

When the bell rang, Ginny flounced out of the room without speaking to anyone. She had been in a bad temper before class began -- had been, in fact, ever since her break-up with Michael, who was now making no secret of his feelings for Cho Chang. To make things worse, Cho seemed to be returning them. Ginny could forgive Michael easily; after all, it had been she who had done the breaking up, but Cho was another matter. Ginny had spent a good three years hopelessly infatuated with Harry Potter, and she couldn't help feeling slightly protective of him -- as well as incensed toward anyone who treated him as badly as, in her opinion, Cho had done.

She made her way stormily to the Gryffindor common room, other students literally scattering in her wake. Stopping in front of the Fat Lady, she muttered the password and started to jump through the portrait hole when something held her back. Her brow furrowed, she took a few steps back, as she had done in front of her own painting earlier, gazing at the Fat Lady intently.

"Well, what is it?" said the Fat Lady rather nervously. "Have I got something on my dress?"

But Ginny said nothing. She squinted, then stepped forward and put her face barely an inch from the Fat Lady's own, examining the use of color to convey the woman's porcelain-like complexion.

"This is rather uncomfortable, you know!" said the Fat Lady indignantly.

"Shhhh," said Ginny. "Hold still a moment, will you?" Other students already in the common room were congregating at the portrait hole to see what the hold-up was, but Ginny ignored them, continuing to study the Fat Lady. "Blues, greens, purples," she muttered as she gazed at the Fat Lady's dress. "Cool hues for the shadows, white highlights on the folds, red and brown on the dark bits -- that dress is anything but pink! And yet -- and yet --" She backed up once more. "Amazing," she said. She stood there, her eyes fixed rather dreamily upon the portrait, which was still wide open. Then, without a word, she turned around and made her way back down the corridor at top speed.

"Wait a minute!" the Fat Lady called after her. "Where do you think you're going?"

But Ginny was long gone, hurtling down the staircases; jumping a trick step; dodging Peeves as he neared her, holding an inkwell with a wicked grin; flying around a corner (Hmmph! She thought. Corner!); racing across the courtyard, where chattering students barely moved out of her way in time; sweeping across the castle toward the art room -

"Miss Weasley, what do you think you're doing?" said Professor McGonagall sharply, her nostrils flaring as Ginny barely escaped running headlong into her. "Do confine your pace to something less than breakneck! Five points from Gryffindor!"

"Yes, Professor," said Ginny, slowing to a walk, although it was with such large strides that she looked as though she were wearing stilts. At last, she reached the art room, with its enormous, glassless windows and long balcony. . . . She took a quick glance around before entering. Luckily, it was deserted -- although the easels were still set up, their canvases fluttering slightly in the warm breeze. She made her way toward her own painting, and stared at it critically. It looked, if anything, worse when she had to view it afresh. But she was determined to fix it. She would show Professor Bovington that she could do just as well as Dean Thomas.

* * *

"Oy! Ron!"

Sitting at dinner with Harry and Hermione, Ron heard someone calling his name. He looked up quickly, slopping pumpkin juice on himself. Hoping no one else had noticed this, he glanced quickly around the table, and found Seamus Finnigan waving to him. "What's up, Seamus?" he asked, wiping at his robes with his napkin.

"I just wanted to know where your sister was!" Seamus shouted across the distance. "Why isn't she here?"

"Huh?" Ron looked around toward the area where Ginny usually sat with her friends. She was gone. He turned back to Seamus, shrugging. "How should I know?" he called. "I'm not her bodyguard! I reckon she's doing homework or something!" He started to return to his pudding, but something caused him to look back at Seamus suspiciously. "Why?" he called.

"Just wondering," said Seamus, taking a bite of potatoes and quickly turning back to talk to his friend Dean.

Ron looked around at Harry, raising his eyebrows. "What right's he got to ask where Ginny is?" he said. "And then not to say why?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Honestly, Ron, is no one allowed to miss her? You didn't even realize she was gone."

"So?" said Ron. "What's it matter if I don't keep track of where she is all the time? Although," he added, "maybe that wouldn't be such a bad idea. . . ." He took a bite of pudding, his face brooding.

* * *

Ginny heard the school clock chiming eight. She continued to paint. She heard it chiming nine and grew worried -- it would be disastrous if she were discovered. But she had to keep working. . . . She murmured "Lumos!" and her wand hovered over her shoulder, giving light to her painting, on which she had been working since that afternoon.

On and on she painted, adding splashes of color to flat areas, straightening the bowl of bowtruckle droppings, revising the hippogriff bones so that they almost seemed to jump off the canvas - She heard the clock strike ten and smiled to herself with grim resignation. At this point, it no longer mattered. . . . She had been out too late for over an hour now, a couple more could do little more harm. . . .

After another hour or so of painting, she stood back and wiped her brow. She knew that she should have been in bed by now, but she could not stop. It was as though the painting was holding her prisoner, and she could not leave until she finished it. But there was little left now -- just the red background, which looked dreadfully flat, as she hadn't bothered to mix the color at all. "You can stop hiding," she said reprovingly to the bit of red paint on her palette, which had tried to blend into the orange. "I'm not going to hurt you, you know!"

"I'm sorry -- I didn't mean to bother you," said a voice so loud that Ginny dropped her palette and screamed. She seized her wand, whispered "Nox!" and tried to disappear behind her easel. Breathing very hard, she stared wide-eyed at the ceiling above her. Someone else was in here. How could she have been so careless? Why hadn't she gone to bed when she had the chance? What if she were expelled? What would her mother say? Trying to block out the grim scenarios that had suddenly flooded her mind, she peered cautiously around the edge of her easel toward the direction from which the voice had come.

"H-hello?" the voice called. "Are you there? Ginny?" It was a familiar voice -- but not one she knew well. She still said nothing, trying to breathe normally. Who was the intruder? At least it was a student, she realized, which was an immense relief, as it meant there was a chance she would not be expelled.

"Ginny!" he called again. "It's me -- Dean Thomas."

Ginny slowly stood up and stepped out from behind her easel. Her eyes had adjusted to the moonlight and she saw, quite clearly, the tall black boy who had so annoyed her earlier that day with his flawless talent. He was looking rather guilty for disturbing her, and all her animosity toward him vanished. "Oh Dean," she said, putting a hand to her chest, "you scared me. I'm so glad you're not a prefect, I'm sure Ron would have given me detention -- and after all the times he's been out late. . . ." She managed a nervous little laugh, and Dean smiled in return.

"Yeah, it was hard getting past him tonight," Dean said. "He's sitting up in the common room, waiting for you. . . . I think he's quite worried."

"Ron's . . . waiting for me?" said Ginny, to whom the thought had not once occurred. "But --" Her face darkened. "But what's he playing at? He knows I can look after myself!"

Dean shrugged, saying nothing. He walked toward his own easel and began to look through the paintings hanging on it quietly. Ginny watched him for awhile, curiosity starting to gnaw at her. "Well, what . . . what exactly . . . are you doing here, Dean?" she said, starting to make her way toward him so that she could see his paintings. "Don't tell me you thought yours needed remedial work."

Dean smiled at her, his dark eyes full of kind appreciation. "No," he said. "I just enjoy working alone."

"At midnight?"

"Away from prying eyes," he said, smiling at her again, and she felt an intense rush of liking. She'd been too busy sulking in envy to notice that he really was a nice person. Feeling a bit guilty for having ever resented him, she sidled up next to him, saying, "Do you mind if mine pry a bit?"

"Go right ahead," he said, moving over to give her room. "I think I'd rather like your opinion of it."

She moved to the front of the piece, surveying it with a fresh wave of jealousy. It was little wonder that Professor Bovington could not stop praising him. With all the hours of work that she had put into her still-life, even with the knowledge she'd gained from inspecting the Fat Lady, Ginny could never have created something this beautiful.

It was an elegant courtyard . . . not unlike the one at Hogwarts, full of strange plants and mysterious statues. A fountain chortled in the corner. She squinted at the statues, trying to make out what they were, but there was not enough light, so she lit her wand and pointed it at the canvas. Dean grabbed her hand and pulled it down quickly, whispering "No!" But it was too late; upon being hit by the light, the statues had shrieked and fled the painting, leaving the courtyard deserted but for a lone white figure.

"Oh, Dean, I'm so sorry!" she said. "I didn't know!"

But Dean was laughing. "It's all right," he said. "They'll come back. They always leave during the day-time anyway -- don't fancy it. They're vampires."

"Vampires?" said Ginny. She looked more closely at the painting. One figure was left, lying gracefully on one of the stone benches, in the very center of the picture. It was a young woman, with skin as white as parchment and long, curling red hair. . . . In fact, aside from some very exaggerated assets that she would have considered herself fortunate to possess, the figure looked startlingly like Ginny. "Who is that supposed to be?" she asked, looking at Dean. He said nothing, but took the painting off the easel, exposing another underneath it.

In this one, there was another pale, goddess-like figure, standing nude in a forest, and reaching for a clump of grapes that dangled just beyond her reach, her red hair streaming in clouds all about her. . . . And underneath that painting, a red-haired madonna figure who smiled at Ginny with such astonishing warmth and kindness, she felt tears beneath her eyes. The woman held, not a baby, but a poor, bleeding fox to her white breast, which sucked from her hungrily, even as it continued to die. . . .

"Oh God, Dean," Ginny whispered.

He lifted the madonna painting. There was a red-haired child playing with a toy broomstick. And then an old woman, whose white hair was still streaked with red, lying pensively on a quilted bed. Then a red-haired boy, and then a beautiful black girl who also had red hair. And then -

Dean showed her his last painting. It was simply Ginny, eating dinner next to Hermione and Ron, the laughter on her face so natural and happy that the real Ginny felt herself smiling in turn. Her painted self looked directly at her and waved, before turning back to laugh at Ron's joke.

Ginny turned to look at Dean. The painting was reflected in his eyes, which were shining with tears. "I've been on this one for awhile," he said to her. "You have such a wonderful smile. Every night at dinner, I've been. . . . Well . . . I've been watching you. You know, to etch it in my mind. I don't mean to be so blunt, but for ages I suppose I've worshipped you, in a way. When you weren't eating tonight, it was like the day had ended on a rotten note. But this more than makes up for it."

She didn't know what to say. She stared blankly as the painted Ginny helped herself to sausages, laughing. Something about it -- something Ginny could not put her finger on -- was wrong.

"That's not me, Dean," she said.

"What?" he said, moving in front of it. "'Course it's you. . . ."

"No," she said. "I mean, it's a wonderful likeness -- and it looks like me . . . but it isn't me. That's not me. I'm not -- I've never been -- that content."

Dean said nothing. He continued to gaze at the painting as though checking for some error in the blending technique. When he could not locate the problem, he looked back at her with some confusion. "That's exactly how I see you, Ginny."

"Well, you've got the wrong idea of me, then," Ginny answered. "I don't pretend to be tragic and suffering, but that's the face of a girl who has never known a moment of fear -- or grief -- in her life, and as I've known both quite readily. . . ."

The painted Ginny smiled at both of them, her eyes full of innocent joy.

"Here's the work I did today," said Dean, taking out another stack of canvases. "This is what I've been doing in art class. I don't think I'd fancy turning in the ones I just showed you to Professor Bovington -- they're a bit personal." Ginny laughed as he handed her a painting depicting the fairies he'd had in front of him during the lesson that day. Her smile faded, however, when she saw the maroon background.

"I got the idea from you," he said. "I hoped you wouldn't mind. . . . I used a more subdued red because it seemed more humble -- since this is just a tribute to your work."

Ginny didn't say what she was thinking: The dark color looked fathoms better than her screamingly flat shade of pure red. "It's nice," she said simply, handing it back to him. "And now, I don't think I'll ever show you anything I've done, ever again."

"Don't say that," said Dean. "I don't understand what intimidates people about skill. With art, it's the passion behind it that counts. May I see what you've been doing?"

"Well . . ." said Ginny. She didn't want to be a bad sport, but she couldn't help feeling self-concious. "It's not Picasso. . . ."

"Don't apologize," said Dean. "You've got nothing to apologize for. I just want to see what you've been doing with it, all this time." His eyes were sincere. He really wanted to see her work. . . . He wasn't just being nice. . . . Feeling heartened, Ginny agreed.

"All right," she said. "Maybe you could help me a bit. I've been experimenting with coloring techniques. . . ."

* * *

It was two o'clock in the morning, and Dean and Ginny were sitting on the balcony off the art room, looking out across the silvery grounds. Warm night air brought sweet scents to them, and tossed Ginny's hair back. She was feeling happier than she had done in ages as they talked, sharing stories, laughing. . . .

"My father would love you, Dean," she told him. "He loves anything to do with Muggles and Muggle-borns -- he'd absolutely bombard you with questions."

"My family's quite normal," Dean said, shrugging. "You're the fascinating one. What I'd give to be raised by wizards." There was a bit of silence, during which Ginny made a pretense of stretching in order to move closer to him. It was strange, she thought to herself. She'd been through all this with Michael, and more. . . . Yet the beginning was always the same. Nervousness. Every touch a thrill. . . .

"We should really think of heading back to the common room," Dean said without moving. "I usually don't stay out nearly this late."

"How do you manage it?" Ginny asked, remaining still herself. "Without being caught?"

Dean shrugged. "It's not too hard," he said. "You just have to stay clear of Filch and that bloody cat." They laughed, and he turned to her with the same kind smile he'd given her a few hours ago -- the one that caused her to like him so intensely. "I'm glad I ran into you tonight, Ginny."

She looked at his face. His smooth, dark skin; cheekbones; black eyes; full mouth; crooked teeth; and long, well-shaped neck . . . all of it was him, complete and beautiful. She reached up to touch the back of his head, brushing the curls there. He never looked away from her. "Me too," she whispered.

It was the perfect moment for a kiss. Had he been Vincent Crabbe, Ginny would have regretted it if she'd failed to seize the opportunity. . . . On a balcony overlooking the beautiful, moonlit mountains. . . . All their troubles so far away. . . .

"Meow."

Both Ginny and Dean whipped around. They could see the eyes of Mrs. Norris, glowing in the doorway of the art room, staring at them accusingly for a second or two. Then, the eyes were gone.

"Let's get out of here!" Dean hissed to Ginny, who did not need to be told. They hurtled out of the art room (accidentally knocking over Blaise Zabini's easel on the way) and bolted down the corridors, hand in hand. Despite herself, Ginny was trying not to laugh as she and Dean raced across the castle, all the time listening for Filch's steps behind them. . . .

They reached the seventh floor and paused, breathing heavily. Then they caught each other's eye and began to laugh. "That was close," whispered Ginny.

But then -

"Where are they, my sweet?" Fudge wheezed from a staircase nearby, his voice shaking with delight. "We'll catch them now! They can't be far. . . ."

Wide-eyed with disbelief, Dean and Ginny set off running again, looking for some means of escape. . . .

"In here!" Ginny hissed, pulling Dean inside a door. "He won't come in the ladies' bathroom!" And they stumbled inside, still panting and laughing as they fell to the floor inside one of the stalls. Dean began to laugh. "Shhhh!" whispered Ginny. "He's going by. . . ."

They heard Filch's heavy, uneven footsteps, clunking by the door. . . . His thick, irregular breathing slowly got softer and softer as he disappeared down the corridor.

Ginny turned to Dean, the smile on her face not unlike the one in his painting. "I haven't had that much fun all year!" she giggled.

"Nor have I," said Dean, laughing as well. Then their laughter died as they looked into each other's eyes once more.

"Well," said Ginny, "this isn't quite as romantic as the balcony, but where were we?" A grin spread across Dean's face. He took her by the waist, wrapping his hands in her hair. She put her arms around his shoulders and pressed her lips to his. He smelled slightly sweet . . . very clean. They kissed for quite awhile, and Ginny remembered thinking at some point during the kiss that she would always remember this bathroom as the place she kissed Dean Thomas for the first time. . . . And it was much, much nicer than the first time she'd kissed Michael Corner, which had been rather sloppy and uncomfortable, at the Yule Ball of all places. . . . Most of all, however, more than anything else, this felt different . . . more exciting, but at the same time, blissfully safe.

* * *

Dean had to give the Fat Lady the password, as she was still in rather a bad temper with Ginny. He looked tentatively inside, then breathed a sigh of relief. "It's all right," he told Ginny. "Fast asleep . . . poor bloke . . ."

Ron was indeed lying sprawled in an armchair by the fire, which had long since gone out, snoring deeply.

"I'll go on," said Dean. "You can wake him." He kissed her softly on the cheek and disappeared up the stairs to the boys' dormitory.

Ginny approached the moonlit form of her brother, wondering if it would be kinder just to let him sleep. Deciding that he'd be furious if he knew she'd come in and not woken him, she smiled to herself. One day, Ron would have to realize that she had grown up. She reached out to softly shake him awake.