How Do You Choose Between What is Right and What is Easy?

Chapter 14

Not long after, they were leaving the Slytherin common room behind and were on their way. They were quite an impressive group, too, as they traveled through the halls and corridors of Hogwarts. The total of the group numbered thirteen. There was Draco, Ginny, Crabbe, Goyle, Marcus Flint, Blaise Zabini, Pansy Parkinson, and the six Slytherin girls that Pansy had managed to round up. Five of the girls Ginny didn't know, but the one she did was Millicent Bulstrode.

It took them a good twenty or twenty-five minutes to get to the Gryffindor common room. When they arrived, Ginny heaved a great sigh and turned to face the small group.

"I think it would probably be best if I went in alone at first," she said, looking around at them. They each stared back at her in turn. "You guys can follow in a couple of minutes."

"No way!" Draco exclaimed, taking a step towards her. "I'm not letting you go in there by yourself."

"He's not going to hurt me, or anything," Ginny said, sounding quite exasperated.

"I wouldn't be on that," he countered, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "Besides, I have a few words to say to that son of a bitch, and I don't want him running off anywhere."

"Where's he gonna go?" Ginny asked, the exasperation not leaving her voice or her face.

"No where, as a couple of these guys are going to stand guard on both the inside and outside of this portrait hole."

"Fine, whatever," Ginny said. "I just didn't want to cause a big scene or anything."

"But that's our favorite activity, as Slytherins, causing big scenes." He sent his trademark smirk her way.

She giggled. That look from him usually seemed to render that reaction from her.

Draco turned to the rest of the group while Ginny stood in front of the portrait hole, surveying him. While Draco went over the plan they'd discussed, the Fat Lady in the portrait spoke.

"You know I'm not supposed to let students from other houses in here, don't you?" She had her arms crossed in the painting, and was surveying Ginny intently.

"For one," Ginny said in a low tone, being polite but firm, "I won't be staying in here anymore, and I've just come to collect my belongings. And for two, we have the password so you have to let us in."

"I don't have to do anything," the Fat Lady said, starting to get visibly annoyed.

"Well..." Ginny said, folding her arms in front of her chest, "would you like me to tell Dumbledore that you're not doing your job, and it's in my personal opinion that you should get replaced?" The Fat Lady was silent, saying nothing in reply. She only glared down at Ginny, her face full of contempt.

Draco turned and said, "All right. Everybody's clear on the plan, so we should get going."

Ginny gave the Fat Lady one last smirk, said, "Pig Snout," and stood there while the portrait hold opened before them. Crabbe and Goyle took their positions on either side of the outside of the portrait hole, while the rest of them entered. Ginny went first, followed by Draco. Marcus and Blaise came after, manning their stations on either side of the inside of the portrait hole. Pansy and her gang of girls came in last.

"The girls' dormitories are on the right," Ginny said to the girls. "When you go into the sixth-year dormitory, my bed is the third one on the left. All my stuff is around it. Most of it's already put away, so it won't be too difficult to get everything." She paused for a moment. "Thanks, guys."

"It's no problem," Pansy said, as the six other girls headed upstairs. She placed her hand on Ginny's shoulder, and said, "Like I told you before - you're family now." She smiled at Ginny, before heading upstairs to the girls' dormitory as well.

After the girls had gone upstairs and disappeared, it was only Blaise, Marcus, Draco, and Ginny in the room.

Or so they thought.

As they stood around, waiting for the girls to come down with Ginny's stuff, the room got eerily quiet, except for the crackling of the fire in the fireplace. All of a sudden, there was a squeak from one of the armchairs by the fire. It was turned around to face the roaring flames, so they couldn't see who was in it.

Draco charged across the room, his footsteps muffled by the carpet underneath his feet. He stopped at the chair and spun it around to face him. Before he could even take another breath, however, he was knocked to the floor by the blow to the head by way of a very thick piece of wood. He was out cold. Harry Potter stood over him.

"Draco!!" Ginny exclaimed, horrified. She tried to move her legs, tried to get her body to respond to her brain so she could run across the room to see if Draco was okay. But she was frozen to the spot. Her body almost seized up, as if someone had put a hex on her. She couldn't move. She could only stand there, motionless, as Draco lay helpless on the floor.

Draco wasn't moving. Blood was seeping from the wound on his head.

A stream of tears started coming from Ginny's eyes, but still she couldn't move. Blaise and Marcus seemed to be frozen in their spots as well. They both had very horrified looks on their faces.

The next few moments happened so fast that Ginny had no chance of registering what had happened until it was over.

Harry threw the piece of wood down on the floor, where it landed next to Draco's body. From one of the back pockets of his jeans, he pulled two wands. Ginny recognized one as Harry's own, and the other as Ron's second wand that he had received in his third year. Harry pointed one of the wands at Marcus and the other at Blaise. Without saying anything at all, a jet of red light shot out of each of the wands, hitting them both square in the chest. They were lifted right off the ground, and blasted very forcefully into the wall behind them. They slid down the wall and fell into a heap on the floor.

A trickle of blood slid down each of their faces. Neither of them stirred.

Harry put Ron's wand in the back pocket of his jeans, but kept his own in his right hand, twirling it between his fingers. Ginny was frozen in shock. Harry, however, was smiling.

"So, little, Ginevra... looks like it's just you and me. A couple of my friends are upstairs in the girls' dormitory. I invited them up there earlier so they wouldn't flip the sliding stairs on. They'll have apprehended your... little buddies by now. Other than that, there's no one else here. I made quite sure of that. So you can make all the noise you want. Nobody that can help you is going to hear your screams."

Ginny wasn't quite sure of much of anything that had happened in the last few minutes, but of one thing she was very sure. Harry had planned the whole thing... and she had no idea how.