Potter and the Queen

Chapter 1: Harry and the Con-Artist

The lawn by the Hogwarts lake had seen several students sit on it, run on it, and even get detention on it. It had seen the great Albus Dumbledore, the Marauders, and even a young Lord Voldemort. But no one was as important, it seemed, then the tousle-haired boy and the redhead girl. The girl said to the boy, "So, why am I here?"

The boy shouted back, "Because I need to know what you know!"

"Harry James Potter! I have enough standardized tests done back in there," the girl jutted her thumb towards the Hogwarts castle. Her deep, russet eyes were filled with rage directed towards the boy known as "Harry James Potter". "I don't understand. I've had the same teachers as you--in Defence Against the Dark Arts, you know--, yet you still won't trust me. I swear, you're impossible."

"Well, Virginia Mary Weasley," Harry said, half-haughtily, half-mockingly, green eyes playing, "we haven't had the same teachers--"

"Oh, yes, Quirrel made a world of difference. What'd he teach you, how to spot a stuttering fool who's possessed by You-Know-Who," the girl known as "Virginia Mary Weasley" or "Ginny" commented, cynically.

"I learned that two years in a row, didn't I?" Harry said, smirking devilishly. This grin was supposed to ease the inevitable pain, but it did no such thing.

"Har - ry!" Ginny choked on the name. "You - you - vile creature!"

"Gin--," Harry began to plead, but Ginny cut him short.

"It was horrible being possessed by You-Know-Who--"

"Just say Volde--"

"Don't you interrupt me!" Ginny shouted back to Harry. Harry decided not to mention how much Ginny resembled her mother, Mrs Weasley, or the irony in this statement, seeing as this would most likely inflict more of Ginny's wrath upon him. "It was like...stealing cookies out of the cookie jar. You know it's bad...but you can't help liking it. And this feeling tears you up and ruins your life. Then, on top of that, you're in love with your older brother's best friend, and even though you know that on a scale from one through ten, the chance of him returning the feeling is a negative nine, it just happens," and Ginny was then overtaken by sobs.

"Oh, Gin," Harry felt the need to put his arms around Ginny and pat her back. But obviously Ginny didn't want comfort.

"Just...," Ginny started, wiping a tear away from her freckled cheek, "don't test me. I'm as good as any of you sixth-years, and that's that. Also, don't mention the Tom Riddle thing anymore. It's not exactly behind me."

There was something in Ginny's tone that demanded respect and Harry obeyed it. It sounded almost mean, like that if Harry didn't bend to it, she would kick his arse. Harry nodded and Ginny grinned.

"Right, then. About your day."

~

"Harry, you are an idiot," Ron Weasley, Ginny's older brother and Harry's best friend, said, later that night in the Gryffindor Common Room. The flames licked at each other in the fireplace and sometimes Harry could see Sirius's face in the fireplace...but then he remembered that Sirius was dead, gone, and never coming back.

"How am I an idiot?" Harry asked Ron.

"Ginny's a bloody con-artist, Harry! She conned you!"

Harry took a second to think this over. Yes, she had been acting. She had pulled the "I've-Been-Possessed-By-Voldemort-Oh-Boo-Hoo" card on him. Harry mentally swore some and then went back to his conversation with Ron.

"But...she was going to...kick my arse," Harry tried to explain his actions.

"She's a metre and a half tall," Hermione Granger, Harry's other best friend, reasoned. "Be honest."

"Fine. She conned me. I'm a big fat loser because she conned me, okay? Now leave me alone."