Ill Met

ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT

Chapter One- Façades

Peering over the top of her book, Ginny scowled darkly at the trio sitting and chatting in front of the fire. When they failed to take any notice of her glare, she sunk deeper into the squashy red armchair and tried to concentrate on Flying With the Holyhead Harpies, which was replaying the famous 1953 match with the Heidelburg Harriers. A particularly loud burst of laughter from Ron caused her to look up in annoyance just as the Harpies’ Seeker made a stunning capture of the Snitch. Irritated, Ginny slammed the book shut and stared menacingly at her brother, who was now positively rolling on the rug with mirth.

“...... and the look on your face when you came out, Hermione! Pure horror! Even through all that fur....” His words were overcome with more laughter as the hilarity of the memory came back to him in full. Hermione was trying very hard to look angry with him, but not quite succeeding as the corners of her mouth twitched with a suppressed grin.

“If I remember correctly, Ron, you were quite as horrified as I was. In fact, you almost tripped over a sink trying to get farther away from me!”

“Yeah, well, at least we used the right kind of hair in our potion, didn’t we!”

“Load of good it did you! You almost got yourself caught by Malfoy, which I would never have been thick enough to do!”

“Nice try, Hermione! Even you wouldn’t have been able to stop yourself from taking a swing at the filthy git when he started talking, with that evil smirk on his pointy little ferret face! Besides, you’re the one who flew off the handle third year and slapped him, aren’t you!”

Harry was grinning slightly as he watched his two best friends bickering good-naturedly. A few months ago he would have been joking along with them, or perhaps trying to shut them up. Now the sadness of Sirius’s death hung over him like a dark cloud, and he was slow to emerge from the fog of anger and depression the loss of his godfather had plunged him into, though being around his friends always helped. Ginny stared at him for a moment out of old habit, looking at the firelight gleaming on his glasses and dark hair. Then she shook herself, jerking her mind back to the irritation the trio was causing her tonight.

Not just tonight, she reminded herself. Every night. It’s not even something they’re doing. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Despite the fact that Ginny had finally taken part in one of their famous adventures the year before and battled horrors that few girls her age could even imagine, Harry, Hermione, and Ron had gone right back to treating her as their baby sister. It wasn’t that they were trying to exclude her: they didn’t seem to even notice she was there.

I guess I’m just not worth noticing to them, she fumed to herself. I’m not worth anything to those three. Not even to my own brother! When his other friends weren’t around, Ron was quick enough to seek her out. Once Harry or Hermione showed up though, Ginny was delegated back to her former solitude.

And Ron thought it was bad having to live up to Bill and Charlie and the twins! she thought bitterly. At least they weren’t best friends with a celebrity and a know-it-all!

Usually, Ginny was quite fond of her brother and his friends, but tonight her feelings of abandonment and resentment had come to a head. She slammed her book down on the table next to her chair and stormed through the common room and up the stairs to her dormitory. Just before she turned the corner onto the stairs, she threw a last sidelong look at the laughing trio in front of the fire. None of them had even looked up as she left.
============

As she stared at the red curtains that surrounded her bed, Ginny’s mind was racing. The anger which had flooded so violently through her veins was quickly being replaced with something stronger and deeper: determination.

What I need, she thought desperately, is a way to prove myself to them. I mean, sure I did some stuff at the Ministry, but so did Neville. And Luna. And Harry and Ron and Hermione. It was nothing different. It was nothing special.

For a moment, she was horrified by the selfish, cruel thoughts that were running through her mind. What they had done that night at the Ministry hadn’t been some quest for glory: they had been trying to save an innocent man from the Dark Lord! As for the trio, they had never asked for their fame. In fact, they suffered for their bravery, especially Harry. They were just trying to help. How could she forget that they had once saved her? She sounded like a Slytherin, despising her own housemates like this.

Ginny shoved these thoughts away roughly. She didn’t want fame. She just wanted them to notice her for once, instead of thinking she was part of the decor. Them? asked a cold voice in her head, or Harry?

All three of them, she thought firmly. I don’t feel that way about Harry anymore.

Her thoughts went back to the discussion the three had been having in the common room, about one of their infamous escapades, no doubt. But which one? “Fur,” Ron had laughed. “You almost got caught by Malfoy,” Hermione had said. Ginny sneered. Oh yes, the Polyjuice Potion fiasco. Harry and Ron had managed to sneak into the Slytherin common room disguised as Crabbe and Goyle. Hermione had sat the adventure out, due to a potion that went rather wrong. As far as Ginny knew, her brother and The Boy Who Lived were the only two Gryffindors who had ever managed to infiltrate the heart of Slytherin House. Not even Fred and George....

Ginny sat bolt upright. That was it! Sure, Harry and Ron had done it, but they had had to keep it a secret. If she managed it.... well, if one of the Slytherins caught her, she’d probably lose points. But breaking the rules had never stopped Ron, Hermione, and Harry, Fred and George, or even Bill and Charlie! In fact, rule breaking was in the Weasley blood, with the notable except of Percy. Ginny shuddered. She didn’t want to be a Percy.

Quickly she thought through her options for sneaking into the Slytherin’s common room. The Polyjuice Potion was definitely out. She seriously doubted she would be able to obtain the necessary ingredients or get the book out of the Restricted Section. Besides, it took a month to brew and she didn’t want to wait that long. Transfiguring herself into something else wasn’t completely off limits, but there were a lot of ways it could go wrong. It wasn’t worth the risk of remaining half Transfigured into a mouse or something for the rest of her life. If only they’d learned Disillusionment Charms! Unfortunately, Disillusioning was N.E.W.T. level magic, and Charms had never been her strongest subject. Ginny sighed. This was leading somewhere she didn’t really like, but if she managed to pull this off, then no one would ever need to know.

============

Ginny stuck her head carefully out of her dormitory. There was no one on the stairs and the common room was quiet. The stone was freezing against her bare feet, but her footsteps made no sound as she ascended the stairs to the 6th year boys’ room. Her heart was pounding so hard in her chest that her whole body was shaking with it. She breathed a quiet breath of relief when she saw that the door to their dormitory was slightly open. She nudged it lightly, just hard enough that she could slip in sideways, her nightgown brushing the edges of the door.

Moonlight illuminated the small room in which the quiet, steady breathing of five sleeping boys could dimly be heard. It glinted off Dean Thomas’ old West Ham soccer poster, Harry’s glasses on his bedside table and the trunks at the foot of each boy’s bed.

Ginny slid quietly over to Harry’s trunk. Her steps were silent. With her white nightgown and a face pale with nervousness and excitement, she looked more like a ghost than a fifteen year old girl, except for her brilliant red hair. Unaware of her unearthly appearance, she knelt and opened the trunk, sucking in her breath when the hinges creaked slightly. None of the boys even stirred. Right on top was Harry’s greatest treasure, his Firebolt. Ginny lifted it cautiously out and put it to the side. She carefully shifted spellbooks, spare robes and a stack of Which Broomstick magazines. Then her hand brushed against something silky. She gently tugged it out, smothering a gasp as her hand momentarily disappeared under it. She knew what an Invisibility cloak did, of course.

The sight of her wrist with nothing at the end was still unnerving.

=======

The next day, Ginny was a complete nervous wreck. She had told herself over and over again the night before as she tried to fall asleep that she had to act absolutely normal. As a result, she nearly had a heart attack when the mail came, looked nervously over her shoulder whenever she heard the word “Slytherin” or “invisibility”, and jumped every time a teacher called on her.

By lunch, things were going downhill rapidly. When Ron tapped her on the shoulder to pass her a bowl of mashed potatoes, she jerked so violently that her knee flew up and hit the bottom of the table, knocking over her goblet of iced pumpkin juice.

“Erm, Gin?” said Ron quietly, attempting to mop up the spill with Hermione’s napkin.

“Yeah?” she replied, sounding unnaturally high pitched, even to herself.

“Are you all right? I mean I haven’t seen you this jumpy since Harry came to stay at our house that first summer, you know, when you had a crush on him and you were always....”

“Yes, Ron, I know what I was always doing,” she replied acidly, pleased that her voice was at least back in its normal octave, even if she did sound cranky. “Thanks so very much for mentioning it.” He looked rather taken aback at her attitude.

“Well, honestly, Ginny, I was just wondering if you were....”

“I’m fine, thank you!” She slammed her goblet upright on the table, got up, and fairly stormed away from the table.

“There’s no need to bite my head off!” he yelled after her. She sprinted out of the Great Hall, ignoring the snickers behind her and wishing desperately that the day would just end so she could get this stupid adventure over with.

Despite her distraction, Ginny worked feverishly during class, trying to finish her homework early so she could take as much time as necessary on her mission. The work for O.W.L.S. was hard, but not nearly the terror that her brother had warned her of. Maybe it’s the fact that I didn’t spend my first four years here trying to save the world, she thought wryly, pushing the memory of her nightmarish first year firmly out of her mind. It was something that hovered almost constantly on the edge of her awareness, the horror dulled only slightly by the intervening years.
Thinking about that is the very last thing in I need to be doing right now, she told herself and turned back to her Potions essay, trying to ignore the images flickering madly through her mind, her body shuddering...

....The black book, looking innocent with its black cover, black like night, black like empty pits, the words oozing out of the paper, kind, comforting, understanding words, her new friend, Tom..... Tom smiling, Tom speaking quietly to her, Tom standing by her, standing as she fell, fell through blackness, fell and fell and fell forever, never landing, always falling, screaming with terror, terror that was never going to end, but would go on forever, her helpless screams mingling with his laughter, cold, high laughter, mocking her, snatching away her hope, her happiness, her life.....

“NO!” Her shout echoed through the cold, silent dungeon. The entire class turned and stared at her. Snape looked up from his desk, his cold eyes boring through her.

“Is there a problem, Miss Weasley?” His words cut like knives, cruel and uncaring.

“Um, um, I... blotted my parchment, Professor.” A long dubious silence followed this pathetic excuse. Ginny gulped and awaited her sentence. Snape arched an eyebrow at her.

“Very well, Weasley. Twenty points for disrupting my class. Back to work.”

She let out a relieved breath. Twenty was a ridiculous amount of points for “disrupting class”, but at least he hadn’t pressed her for the truth.

Potions was her last class of the day. She sat in silence through dinner, not eating, just waiting. She knew she was going to have to follow a Slytherin to find their common room. First, however, she had to retrieve the Invisibility cloak from where it was hidden in her own trunk. After fifteen agonizing minutes, she slipped quietly out of the hall and up to her dormitory.

============

If seeing your hand disappear was unnerving, then standing next to the Slytherin table, completely invisible, but feeling like you were in plain sight, was downright surreal. Any second Ginny expected one of them to stand up and demand why she was there.

Why am I doing this again? Ginny asked herself silently. Oh yeah, to prove that I’m as good as the rest of them. Good lord, where did I get such a stupid idea? At the same time, however, the adrenaline pouring through her veins was making it feel like the most exciting thing in the world. This is going to be so great!

Without warning, a whole group of the Slytherins stood up. Graham Prichard, Blaise Zabini, and Millicent Bulstrode all headed down the hall toward the dungeons. Trying to slow her pounding heart and keep her breathing quiet, Ginny hurried after them.

They walked for about five minutes, going past the Potions classroom and stopping suddenly at an empty stretch of stone wall.

“Oye, Graham, did you get the new password from Draco?” asked Blaise.

“Nah, Pansy told me. Serpensortia!”

A hidden door slowly emerged from the rock wall, then swung open. The three Slytherins passed through, followed closely by Ginny. The door swung shut again and disappeared. As it melted back into the wall, a terrible thought occurred to her: she didn’t know how to reactivate the door spell! It might even require another password. What if no one else went out tonight? She might not be able to get out again till morning. Turning to face the grim, stark common room, Ginny shuddered. This was enemy territory. This was not somewhere she wanted to spend the night.

The only light in the room, besides the fire, came from eerie greenish lamps that hung from the low ceiling. The stone walls were mostly bare, making the room seem colder than it actually was. Instead of the squashy red armchairs of Gryffindor Tower, there were high backed chairs of black leather, which looked quite uncomfortable. The result was a stiff, formal, though rather elegant sort of old-fashioned sitting room. Ginny was horrified.

All right, she thought, trying to pull herself together, Now I need something to prove I was actually here. A sudden, rather wicked thought made her grin. It meant waiting longer, of course, probably until most of the Slytherins were asleep, which greatly reduced the chances of her getting back out again that night. But if she managed to pull it off.... She grinned again and carefully settled herself into a corner to wait. She remembered what she had told Harry just last year.

“The thing about growing up with Fred and George,” she had said thoughtfully, “is that you sort of start thinking anything’s possible if you’ve got enough nerve.”

==============

The ornate grandfather clock in the corner read the hour as 11:30. It had been nearly two and a half hours since a Slytherin had come into the common room and the last one had gone to bed an hour before. Ginny’s legs were prickling all over from remaining in the same uncomfortable crouch for so long. She slowly stood up, leaning against the wall to keep her knees from collapsing, then tiptoed to the nearest dormitory door.

Ginny eased the door open, mentally thanking the house-elves for keeping the castle doors so well oiled. Pansy Parkinson’s ugly face was on the nearest bed, filling the room with snuffling snores. Definitely the wrong room. She pull the door shut again and slid into the next room along. Sneaking quietly through the stone chamber, she saw several sleeping boys: Blaise Zabini, muttering to himself in his sleep, two snoring lumps (Crabbe and Goyle), a small ratfaced boy named Theodore Nott, and one other, his eyes still open. Ginny froze. Draco Malfoy was not asleep.

Damn, she thought, turning away with disappointment. It was something of his she was after, his Nimbus 2001 to be exact. If she brought that back to the Gryffindor common room, no one would doubt her story. Only the Slytherin Quidditch team played on Nimbus 2001’s. But there was no way she was going to be able to open Malfoy’s trunk and waltz off with his broomstick while he was awake, invisible or not. No, she’d just have to sit in here and wait till he fell asleep and then hope that....

Ginny stopped dead in her tracks with disbelief. What she was hearing all of the sudden... it was impossible. Not just impossible: it was totally incomprehensible. Quietly she stepped back over to his bed, peering at his face. Her mouth dropped open.

Draco Malfoy was crying.

==========