Sometimes It Be That Way

The Plan

*

What do we do now?

That's a good question, and there's a good answer. But at the moment, Ginny was too busy trying to have as normal a life she could get to even answer that question. She had her diet to think about--like what food she should be eating-- and she had to keep her stress level down to a minimum and not be so stressed about things. At least, that's what they told her: to not care too much if she got a bad mark in Potions because it might harm the baby.

The 'they' she's referring to: yeah, that would be the many teachers and adults constantly worrying about her and telling her to do this and to do that. They were like a storm of bees when they saw her. The teachers would leave any students they were talking to at the moment and immediately travel to her side, asking her how she was and if her course load was too heavy. Many of the abandoned students would give her odd looks, and she would feel out of place; her pregnant and a bunch of teachers worrying about her and not any other students. Honestly, she had gotten enough of that from her mother and Hermione, she just wanted some peace to figure things out.

Then, there was Harry. The commonly thought 'angel' by many of the students at the school simply for him being the only person who could ever give the Wizarding World a chance of defeating Lord Voldemort. And when the last link he had to finding out how his father had lived suddenly is murdered, he goes and looks for solitude. What he finds is a girl willing enough to look the other way in order for him to find peace and they have sex. Then, they have a baby. Alright, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Soap Opera Number 1.

*

Ginny rushed down the corridor to her next class, a load of books stacked in her arms. She could not believe that she was going to be late again. Every single day it seemed like, she was late for Potions. Every single day. And it was starting to annoy her because, pregnant or not, Snape was going to give her another detention just out of spite. She just knew that he would do that. But every single day...

Dodging a couple of boys playing with a ball on the steps down to the dudgeons, she walked as quickly as she could to her Potions classroom. The cold dampness of the dungeons seeped into her clothes and she shivered, hoping the classroom would be warm today. But it was not to be a good day at all for her. No sooner had she adjusted her books and tugged her robes closer to her body than she bumped into a seeming brick wall and all of her books scattered all over the floor.

"Oh, crap!" she muttered. She bent down to retrieve her books and order them into a neat pile when she noticed that the wall was not a wall at all; it had feet. Her eyes travelled upwards as she slowly pulled herself up and she found that those feet belonged to a body which belonged to none other than Draco Malfoy. Just her luck. "What?" she asked crossly.

"Just wondering what a piece of trash like you is doing down here," he said smoothly, folding his arms. "I'd better be careful if I were you. Wouldn't want you to be walking into actual walls next time."

"Oh, bugger off, Malfoy," she sneered, her patience lessening. She tried to side-step him but he slid into her way. "What now?"

He looked like he wanted to say something badly, but closed his mouth. "Watch where you're going next time," he just said before suddenly sidling off.

She turned to watch him leave, very confused and very startled. After shaking her head, she gathered herself and started down the corridor again towards her classroom. As soon as she got closer, she could see the outline of Snape standing in the doorway, his arms folded and his lips pressed firmly together, a knit in his brow. She made her face look passive and tried to feign innocence. "Sorry," was all that she said, and she walked past him into the class, feeling the tension rise just a bit further between him. She knew he really wanted to give her a detention, but of course, she was pregnant, and he had been told to leave her alone.

She took her place between two girls from her grade and the lesson began. Throughout, she tried to stay on focus, but she found Snape a little boring that day and always found herself thinking about her meeting in the corridor with Malfoy. A very odd occurence, if she had to say so. Absentmindedly, she wrote down what Snape was writing on the blackboard and hardly concentrated on it. By the end of the lesson, she had learned nothing and had been assigned a 6 inch essay due in 10 days about some subject she had not paid attention to.

Later on, as she walked towards the Great Hall, she saw Malfoy's blonde head in the crowd and wondered why he had toned his little speech down at the end. He never looked her way for the rest of the day though, and she chalked it up to some odd thing that would never be questioned again.

For dinner, she sat with Hermione and the gang, patiently listening to the boys' squabbles over Quidditch. It was awhile before she had a chance to speak with Hermione alone and out of earshot of anyone else. The two journeyed up to the common room, and she could have sworn that Harry had been watching her leave the Great Hall. As they walked up to the common room, the two of them made small talk.

"How are you doing?" Hermione asked.

"Considering I ate two times as much food as I normally eat," Ginny started, "pretty well actually. I mean, those potatoes were great. Did you try the potatoes?"

"I tried the potatoes," Hermione answered. "Do not dodge the subject. Really, how are you doing? We haven't talked very much since Ron spilled pumpkin juice on himself at Halloween."

"Good, I guess," Ginny replied, not wanting to be too open. "Look, I don't really like... never mind."

"No, really, what were you going to say?" Hermione asked.

"Oh, I don't know," Ginny started, dithering on answering. "I just haven't been myself since I got--you know--and I'm not too excited about sharing my feelings."

"Hey, I don't know what's going on with you: you do," Hermione told her. "Now, tell me. Who are you?"

"A very confused person," Ginny replied quietly. She sighed and said nothing more, waiting for Hermione to pick up the fact that she didn't really want to talk about her life.

The two walked up a short staircase before Hermione finally said something. "Nothing else?"

A moment from before Potions class entered her mind and she asked, "Do you think Malfoy knows?"

"What?" Hermione asked her incredulously. "How could he know? He's only a prefect."

"Yeah, but things get discovered pretty fast around here, and news flies around the school like wild fire," Ginny told her. "It's hard to keep any secrets in this place."

"That's not true," Hermione scoffed.

"Alright, give me an example," Ginny dared her.

It was a couple of moments before Hermione finally answered, almost joyfully. "Dumbledore's Army."

"Nope," Ginny immediately said. "I'm ashamed of you, Hermione. You forgot that Umbridge and Malfoy's gang found us." The pair ended up in a long corridor filled with moonlight and with many tapestries on the wall, all showing pictures of exquisite scenery and no people, most likely because the subjects had ran away to join another tapestry playing poker in another area of the school. "Can we stop here? I'm getting really tired."

"Sure," Hermione said, nonchalantly. The two sat down underneath a window and Hermione shook her head. "There's got to be something that the school hasn't known about."

"I don't know," Ginny said slowly. She sat up and said, "Plus, we've been here for over two months already. And I've been thrust into the entire student body and a bunch of teachers who constantly keep watch on me. Someone's gonna know at some point that I'm--"

"Shh!" Hermione nearly yelled. "No mention of anything starting with a 'P' and that relates to that subject. We are sitting in enemy territory!"

Ginny analysed her best friend's face and the amount of determination she saw in it before deciding something. "You've been watching way too much American television. You're starting to sound like someone from the O.C."

Hermione only rolled her eyes in reply. "So, you really think that Malfoy knows about you?"

"Either that, or he suspects it," Ginny answered. "Or at least suspects something. No matter how many times we condemn him in private for being a total jackass, he's not stupid. He'll figure it out eventually."

"And a sad day that'll be," Hermione muttered. "Perhaps we should watch him to make sure that he knows at least something."

"Hmm," Ginny mumbled. "Do you think we'll be able to keep watch on him without him knowing about it? Again, he's not stupid."

"Well, do you have any better ideas?" Hermione asked her. Ginny shook her head. "Then, this is the plan. Now..."

The pair stayed in that corridor for another fifteen mintues, discussing their plans before finally getting up to continue on to the common room. By the time they finally reached it, the boys had already settled down in a couple of armchairs by the fire and were playing chess. They gestured the pair over to watch the game and nothing more was spoken on the subject of Ginny's pregnancy or on the plan to stalk Malfoy.