The Gifted Amissio

Chapter One

Rainstorms and Red Heads

There were exactly seven hours left until he would leave for the train that would take him back to Hogwarts. He knew this for a fact because, for the past four days, he had been anxiously counting the hours down, desperate to get back to school. This realization amused him. With the constant steam of arrogantly proud comments about his luxurious Mansion and the snide remarks about Hogwarts being "a shit hole" compared to it, most were doubtful that he would return year after year.

Well, it was year six.

You'd think that people would have just given it a rest and admitted to themselves that they would have to put up with Draco Malfoy until graduation.

Rain started to spatter against the balcony rail on which Draco sat. Almost instantaneously the rain picked up into pounding droplets, which pummeled the elegant stone tiles and beat down heavily on the green vines that twisted their way up the tall walls of Malfoy Manor. It flattened Draco's loose sliver-blonde hair to his forehead and caused his trousers to stick themselves up against his legs like a second skin.

However, despite the seemingly uncomfortable position, Draco Malfoy did not move an inch. The condition of his trousers - and his hair - may have been unpleasant, but the ice-cold water running down his bare back was instantly soothing the most recent of Lucius's scars.

* * *

Seven hours.

Oh crap, only seven hours...

Where the fuck did I put my robes?!

Ginny paced around her bedroom. Nocturnal by choice, she had only begun packing about twenty minutes ago, and now, at 2 a.m., she was growing frantic. It seemed that she had been quite wrong when she had assured her mother she was well organized; she was, in fact, completely and utterly unprepared for school.

She stood back and looked at the room. In her search, she had only accomplished upgrading the room's normal state of disarray into a full-blown massacre.

Crap.

She went through her drawers.

Nothing...nothing...ooh, the black lace ones!...nothing...

Sighing, she tossed the lace panties into her trunk, which, so far, only contained a growing mountain of underwear.

It was only then that she realized just how extensive her dirty underwear collection was for a fifteen year old.

* * *

Ron and Harry sat in Ron's obnoxious yellow room, discussing quidditch, school, and girls (especially, in Ron's case, Hermione, which to Harry confirmed his prior suspicions about Ron's true feelings towards her.) They were then forced to pause for the umpteenth time that night when a slightly muffled BANG! Shook the wall nearest to Ron's bed.

"Don't you think we ought to help her out?" Harry asked.

"Nah," replied Ron, a mouth now full of chocolate, "you really don't wan' do that. Pure suicide, getting' in the way o' that," he finished, jerking his head towards the adjacent room.

But Harry had already started thinking about the girl who was punching the wall in frustration just one door over.

Ginny...

When Harry had first arrived for his summer stay at the Burrow, he had expected to see a small, shy little girl, sitting cross-legged in the squashy green chair reading a book. He would walk in; she would look up. He would say, " 'Lo." She would turn scarlet and resume reading, although flipping the pages a bit too quickly to actually be processing any of the words on the page. That's how it always was when he visited.

But he had not discovered Ginny there.

Actually, he had not discovered any of the Weasley children anywhere. So he had stood there for a good five minutes feeling like an arse while Mrs.Weasley busied herself in the kitchen.

Then a very sweaty Ron had entered the living room, clutching a muddy (and presumably swollen) elbow. He explained to Harry that everyone was out back playing quidditch, and Harry had followed him outside.

All he had been able to see were several blurs of bright red hair as they zoomed from one end of the yard to the other. One of the blurs, he had noticed, was in much larger quantities; he supposed this to be Ginny, although the Ginny he remembered would have been absolutely dwarfed by the amount of hair this Ginny had.

Then, when a bludger had come to within a foot of Harry's nose, he had seen the supposed Ginny-blur up close as she hit it off towards another reddish blob Harry thought to be Fred (his evidence was the long stream of profanities that had issued from the blob's mouth accusing Ginny of trying to assassinate him.)

She had then proceeded to land and greet Harry, panting, but with a mischievous grin plastered to her face that would normally have belonged on Fred or George's.

He had been captivated by her ever since. Her hair had darkened and grown into a wild red lake of loose waves that cascaded down to the small of her back. Perfect pink lips that would often arrange themselves into the most mesmerizing of pouts; big, bright hazel eyes...she had grown up. And she was gorgeous.

Snapping back into reality, Harry found himself back in the atrocious canary room, with Ron talking candidly about his immense love for cheese.

* * *

It was still raining.

The Malfoys sat in the car (a ridiculously lavish one, of course), speeding through the downpour to King's Cross Station. Lucius had begun another tirade about using muggle transportation; Narcissa turned and flashed a secretive smile at Draco.

Thank god for her, he thought; if it wasn't for his mother he would not be going back to Hogwarts, much less be alive. She held the entire family together. Narcissa convinced Lucius to postpone branding Draco with the Mark, at least for a little while, and had insisted he go back to Hogwarts to receive proper education that he could "put into his future services for the Dark Lord". This, of course, was a blatant lie; neither Narcissa nor her son were interested in serving Voldemort.

Draco personally thought that Voldemort was the biggest motherfucking idiot known to the world, whether it be the human race or even the animal kingdom.

Unlike her husband, Narcissa cared for Draco and did everything in her best power to prevent his father from personally murdering him. Mind you, Lucius would still torture him, whether with the cane, the whip, spells or down in the dungeons; Draco often wished he would just throw him into a pen full of dragons. Despite the fact that a dragon's main emotion is rage, Draco got along surprisingly well with them.

He paused.

This statement really didn't reflect well on his personality.

But eventually Lucius would force the world of Dark Arts upon him. Draco thought that spending all of your past time assisting some moron try to conquer the globe or getting beaten into a bloody pulp wasn't a very knowledgeable choice for a future career. He had not always thought this way, but recently he had discovered he actually had a brain that he could actually use for himself and realized what a complete imbecile his father was.

Of course if Lucius ever heard of Draco's refusal to join the ranks of the Dark Lord, Draco's neck would be snapped in half within seconds. So he kept up his "ass façade&rdqu;, as he liked to call it, at school; the other Slytherins (all except for Blaise, who agreed with him wholeheartedly that Voldemort could go suck it) still had the expectation that Draco would one day be Voldie's most loyal sidekick.

He often wondered if Crabbe or Goyle's stupidity had somehow managed to seep its way into the brains of everyone who had been constantly exposed to them. It was the only explanation for the incredible ignorance and gullibility that the Slytherin house held.

* * *

"Ginny, dear, hurry on, let's go..."

"Harry...Ron...Ron, for god's sake, where is your other shoe?"

"George turned it into a cream puff and ate it for dessert last night."

Mrs. Weasley was doing her best to usher the three children out of the car and onto the platform at King's Cross. The clock now showed "10:56am".

With hurried goodbyes from each of them, Ron, Harry and Ginny ran through the brick barrier and onto platform 9 ¾, where the scarlet train was preparing to embark on the long trip to Hogwarts School.

Handing their trunks to a burly man in a scarlet uniform, they headed towards the nearest door. Ginny turned as she climbed up into the train just in time to see a toad hopping along side the train.

Oh, Neville, she thought, every year...

They found the compartment that contained Hermione; Ron, rather quickly, Ginny thought, took the seat next to her as Ginny slid into the seat opposite Hermione, Harry at her side.

They launched into conversation about their summers and such; Ginny turned and looked out the window. She knew there was no point in trying to get involved in the conversation; those three formed a tightly knit circle in which no one could penetrate. Then, just as the train started rolling lazily across the tracks, Ginny heard her name.

"What?" she asked, oblivious to anything they had been talking about for the past three minutes. She only noticed by looking around the compartment that Harry was blushing madly and Hermione had evidently smacked her own forehead and was muttering something that sounded an awful lot like "Ron, you sodding twit."

"I said," said Ron (gnawing on more chocolate; Ginny briefly mused at how much that boy ate), "that Harry was staying with us for a month, and that you especially must have liked that."

There was a brief pause of bafflement at how thick Ron could get.

"What?" she said again, in a slow voice.

"Well, you know, Harry staying with us, and we all know you really like him, so I--"

"RON..." she said in a low voice; those experienced knew that the first phase in a Weasley temper explosion was a deepening of their tone.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

Hermione was now anxiously looking from Ginny to Ron in pure fear. Ginny had the infamous Weasley temper, which was fearsome to more or less everyone, including other Weasleys. A year ago when Ron had shut himself off in his room (the Weasley children all believed the reason to be something concerning Hermione), Ginny had been the one who had eventually not-so-gently coaxed him out. The house had trembled with her rant about "getting his fat arse down the fucking stairs because no one cares about your bloody girl problems so just fucking deal with it like everyone else does". He was seen downstairs in the kitchen about two minutes later. Ginny herself was quite proud of her accomplishment, even though later she would be forced to "admit" that he did not have a fat arse, but instead a very well-rounded rump capable of wooing women of all ages with its hypnotizing cuteness.

"Oh, come off it Gin! It's obvious you fancy him, I mean you haven't even gotten yourself a boyfriend yet, you're holding out for him!"

Ginny stood up.

When she spoke next, it was in even-measured tones and a freakishly calm voice.

"Fuck you, Ron."

And she left.