Swordless Battles

Chapter Two

Sneak the Head Girl

Ginny parted with the Ravenclaws by the oak door, and disentangled herself from the crowd inside the Entrance Hall. As she hurried up the marble staircase and towards the meeting room, she couldn't stop herself from looking over her shoulder. 'I will kill you..." The words rang in her head, and the more she thought about it, the more she was beginning to believe it. Maybe Malfoy really was capable of hurting her.

She pushed the thought from her head as she reached the second landing and turned left past a statue of a slightly plump but clever-looking witch. If Malfoy was ready to kill her... well, there was nothing she could do about it. And Malfoy would find killing her hard. She remembered last year, when she hit him with her favorite Bat Bogey hex, thus shattering the unity and confidence of the other Slytherins present. Ginny smiled to herself as she ran up a narrow staircase.

The Prefects had a room for themselves, officially called the "Meeting Room of the Student Staff", but Fred and George had renamed it "Indispensable Cabin for Unmerciful Prefects", which they abbreviated as "I. C. U. P." Now, it was still known and referred to by the student body as "the Cabin".

Ginny rushed into the Cabin, flushed and out-of-breath. There were a few people in there already, including Marietta Edgecombe, who was talking to a seventh-year Hufflepuff and fell silent abruptly when Ginny walked in, pulling out a notebook and pretending to be invisible.

Ginny decided that feeling guilty was enough of a punishment for the other girl, and sat down on a chair at the other end of the room, leaving Marietta breathing space. No one from DA knew about this, but after Dumbledore had been forced to escape from Hogwarts last year, Ginny had tracked Marietta down and screamed herself hoarse on her - words like "traitor" and "sold out" came up. Since then, Marietta had been avoiding Ginny whenever she could.

Ginny watched the Cabin, having never been there. It was a nice room, cozy but elegant, with embroidered tapestries on the walls and an ornament carpet on the floor. Inside were comfortable chairs and carved wooden desks, all facing the wall opposite from the doors, where a dais stood, with the Hogwarts coat-of-arms hanging on the tapestry behind it. Ginny liked the room, partially because it was neither too comfortable nor too stringent.

She focused on the Hogwarts coat-of-arms. The top half of it, that is.

Ginny waited for the room to fill up. Colin Creevey sat down next to her, and they begun talking about summer, but Ginny kept an eye on the door of the Cabin, and watched people arrive - Ron and Hermione hadn't noticed Ginny and sat down close to Ernie and Hannah; Pansy and Draco arrived in an aristocratic fashion and occupied seats somewhere further behind Ginny. She just happened to have a vivid image of Malfoy sending the Killing Curse her way at the same time - it wasn't exactly what you'd call comforting. She watched Malfoy intently, trying to read his mind, but she saw nothing but pride and egoism. He noticed her watching, and for a moment scowled, but otherwise ignored her. Ginny turned back to face Colin.

It took only a few minutes for the room to fill up, and when all the twenty-six chairs were filled, Marietta and her Hufflepuff friend stood up and walked over to the dais.

Oh no, thought Ginny, let this not be what I think it is.

'Okay,' said Marietta, looking around the room nervously. 'As some of you might have guessed, Steve and I had been made Head Boy and Girl.' Silence followed the statement, and Marietta gave the crowd a nervous smile. Ginny stared at her in disbelief. How could Dumbledore make this person a Head Girl?

'I'm Marietta Edgecombe, and this is Steven Bryce,' continued Marietta. 'Steve is in Hufflepuff, and I'm a Ravenclaw.' She cleared her throat nervously, and looked around the room again, as if looking for help.

A hand shot up somewhere to Ginny's right. John Norton, a fifth-year Ravenclaw, stood up and asked in a clear voice: 'So, as prefects, what are we supposed to do?'

It was clear to Ginny he did so only to encourage his housemate on the dais, but it seemed to worked, because Marietta smiled at him, drew breath, and begun speaking in a loud and more confident voice: 'Your prefect duties include helping out students in need and breaking up arguments in the corridors, making sure all rules of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry are followed. You have the right to give punishments to students who break the rules, and the headmaster, deputy headmistress, and the four heads of the houses have the right to cancel or amend the punishments. You do not have the right to abduct points, but you may propose so to a teacher, if you have proof of the breaking of a rule. The complete rulebook of Hogwarts may be viewed in the trophy room.'

Ginny wondered if Marietta had learned the speech by heart. It sounded rather dull, but not from lack of information included.

'Also, this year, the student faculty will be in charge of organizing any events or activities. We are meant to be here to help out, and Professor Dumbledore wants us all to create an atmosphere of trust and friendship. Inter-house friendship is a big-time.' Marietta allowed herself a small smile, and Ginny was a bit disappointed that the Head Girl seemed to gain her confidence with each word. 'I don't want any arguments of that sort among the student faculty. Remember, we are meant to set an example.'

And selling your friends out to the ministry is setting an example, isn't it, though Ginny wryly.

'Please keep a list of anything you do as a prefect, including punishments you assign, or conflicts you resolve. Also, feel free to use this room whenever you need to, to organize prefect meetings in smaller groups. Do you have anything to add, Steve?'

'Yeah,' said Steve, who had been standing in the background so far. He looked quite handsome and intelligent, Ginny reflected. 'You each have a little mailbox in your dormitory by your bed, and you will receive notes in case there is a change in meeting times or any urgent news. Please check them every morning, that way we can get information to everyone in time.'

Marietta and Steve exchanged a look, and then Marietta smiled uncertainly at the room around her and said: 'Well, let's see if we can catch the last bit of the sorting.'

They didn't.

...

'So, now that you're all fully fed and watered, let's get to the speech-making,' announced Dumbledore. Ginny looked up from Colin Creevey's face and focused on the headmaster instead. He looked tired - his face was weary and a bit more wrinkled than usually. The frown marks stood out, especially, making his face look a bit sinister in the candlelight.

Ginny sat in the Great Hall, surrounded by the Creevey brothers. She was completely full of food and felt rather sleepy, and the last thing she wanted to do was listen to Dumbledore. She had already been to the Prefect meeting, and she rather doubted Dumbledore would tell her something she didn't already know.

'Firstly, I am very pleased to announce that the empty post of Defense Against the Dark Arts had been filled by none other than Nymphadora Tonks, an Auror who had been sent here to protect the castle and it's inhabitants and agreed to take a teaching job at the same time.'

Now this woke Ginny up from her stupor. She started, and then burst out into tremendous applause.

'You know her?' asked Colin in surprise.

Ginny bit her lip. She had no excuse for knowing Tonks, since Colin didn't know about the Order. 'No, I just read all about her. She's sort-of my big example. Oh, I can't believe she's actually coming to teach...' One lie out of three statements, not bad, thought Ginny. She smiled a genuine smile as it finally hit her that it really was Tonks out there - her hair was long and dark brown and she looked much more lady-like than usually, but it was still Tonks.

The applause died away, and Dumbledore continued: 'Secondly, I would like to tell all of you that this castle is vast and very safe - if any of you have relatives who would rather live here, protected by Hogwarts in this time of Lord Voldemort's rise, we could make arrangements. This especially applies to Muggle-born students.'

Ginny's eyes, now serious, flicked onto Colin, who suddenly looked worried and pensive. All of sudden, she was glad her parents were wizards.

'Thirdly, I do not want to see inter-house quarrels at Hogwarts. It is very important that we unite while we still can.'

Dumbledore paused after the moment, as if thinking if he should pursue the matter, and clearly he decided he shouldn't. Ginny was glad he didn't, in fact. It the dream of United Hogwarts included Ginny getting matey with people who threatened to kill her, that it was certainly only a dream.

'I would like for all of you to be aware that the student faculty is there to help you. Over the last few years, the role of Prefects and Head By and Girl had been dropping, but with the current events taken into consideration, these students will have to bear more responsibility than before.'

Ginny thought about that. What sort of responsibility could Dumbledore be talking about? There were the meetings, of course, and patrolling the corridors and helping out younger students find their way around the castle, but otherwise, she couldn't see what was so hard about being a Prefect.

'And finally, I would like to welcome several new students at Hogwarts. In Gryffindor, we have Alex Brokov, fifth year, from Durmstrang; and in Slytherin there are two fourth-years, Selene Cathering from Beaubatons and Omega Falcon, who had been in Durmstrang for two years as an exchange student. Please make them feel welcome.'

Ginny applauded with the rest of the Hall. So Selene had been in Beaubatons. Ginny knew transfer students didn't get sorted - they could choose what house they wanted to go into. Perhaps Selene didn't belong in Slytherin, after all.

As Ginny got up to lead the first-years into the Gryffindor tower ('First-years, please follow me... don't push each other... get in a line, try not to get lost'), she caught the eye of the blonde girl. Her eyes slid onto Malfoy, who sat a few seats away, and it struck her now, from distance, how much they looked alike. It was whitish blonde hair, the pale face, but also some sort of pride with which Selene held her head high as she talked with her neighbor.

Selene noticed Ginny looking, and she smiled widely, waving in Ginny's direction. Ginny waved back, and realized that no matter how much Selene resembled Malfoy, she was in a way a complete opposite of him.

And she turned out to be right.

...

Ginny was walking through the Cabin door... inside was Selene, sitting on the floor, humming, and watching the ceiling. She looked rather insane. Except... it was Marietta now, and she was whimpering, cowering in a heap in front of Ginny... and Ginny approached her, and drew her wand... and suddenly, it was Malfoy, who got up and watched Ginny, his eyes gleaming with hatred and fury and malice... and he drew his wand, disarming Ginny. He walked closer to her, but as he approached, his hair grew darker and his eyes became shadowed. It wasn't Malfoy any more. 'Avada Kedavra!' hissed Tom Riddle, and Ginny woke up, screaming.

'Nice to know you have other dreams than those where you end up yelling "harder, harder!" loud enough to wake the whole dorm.'

It took Ginny a few moments of disoriented blinking and gasps to actually catch what her roommate, Tiger 'Tessa' Burns, had said, and she blushed furiously. It had been a bit of a standing joke in their dorm since Ginny's first year, when she had that rather stupid dream about being on a swing, with Ron pushing her, and she ended up talking in her sleep, saying things that were misinterpreted by the rest of the dorm and drove the other at-that-time eleven-year-old girls into an everlasting fit of blushing giggles.

Ginny had been rather glad it wasn't her class that had to practice on the Bogart in her second year. She could vividly imagine the thing turning into Tessa, telling the room excitedly: 'You know, Harry, Ginny keeps dreaming about you every night. She's been talking in her sleep, saying... you know... naughty things, like-'

Ginny sighed. The dream... it had been so real. Tom... Ginny closed her eyes, not daring herself to think about it, to remember. Malfoy turning into Riddle... both of them wanting to kill her... And the look of hatred in his eyes, the look she will never forget.

Ginny buried her face in her hands and lay awake for hours, unable to fall asleep, unable to do anything, trying not to remember...