Saint-Seducing Gold

Chapter Six: In Confusion

"I have been feasting with mine enemy; where, on a sudden, one hath wounded me that's by me wounded."

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Hermione knew when Ginny entered the Great Hall the next morning that something was wrong. The poor girl bore such a weary look of emotional and physical exhaustion that Hermione wondered whether she'd taken a brief trip to Azkaban. Her roommates, however, seemed ignorant of Ginny's state. They bobbed about her like antsy two year-olds, giggling and chattering away as she trudged over to the Gryffindor table.

As the youngest Weasley sank into a seat beside her seventh-year friends, her roommates settling themselves about her, Hermione offered her a look of concern.

"What's going on, Gin?" Ron had the grace to ask his sister from around a mouthful of toast. Harry, his expression unusually tense, watched Ginny without touching his breakfast at all.

Ginny turned a glazed look upon all three of them and made a vague gesture that was difficult to interpret. Hermione frowned.

"I'll tell you what's going on," one of her roommates proposed silkily. Aubrey absently twirled a lock of her honey hair as she said, "Ginny had a visitor last night."

Catherine sniggered and propped her elbows up on the table. Leaning forward with a smile she elaborated upon Aubrey's statement. "A midnight visitor."

"Who left his robes!" The story was completed by a conspiratorial whisper from Miranda, a fiery-haired girl who was wearing a pair of fake diamond earrings that flashed every time she moved her head. Hermione frowned at the younger girl and thoughtfully fingered her Head Girl's badge.

"A what who left his what!?" Ron spluttered, choking on his toast. Ginny made a soft moaning sound as she slid down her seat and disappeared behind her hands, a red flush creeping up her collar. The usually quiet Ella looked up from an essay she was writing and patted Ginny's shoulder, glancing at Hermione. Hermione was startled for a moment - she hardly knew Ella at all - but she soon recognized the depth of concern in the other girl's eyes.

As Harry was busy hitting Ron on the back and the other girls were all laughing at Ron's outrage, Ella dipped her quill into her ink bottle and scratched out a note on a piece of her essay parchment. Ginny slipped further down in her seat, almost vanishing beneath the table, and Ella bit her lip, looking undecided about something. Then she pushed the piece of parchment across the table. Hermione took the paper hesitantly, ignoring Ron, who had finally regained control of himself and was trying to interrogate his uncooperative sister.

Hermione, the robes were from a Slytherin. And Ginny cried herself to sleep last night. Please help her. She's been ignoring us so much lately, and I think there's something really wrong.

"Would you please leave me alone?" Ginny was shouting at Ron when Hermione looked up from Ella's note. Hermione flashed Ella a brief nod, and then took over the situation.

"Ron, stop it this instant."

"But, Hermione... She's really gone too far... Didn't you hear...? At midnight...!" Ron was still sputtering, no matter the lack of toast in his mouth. Beside him, Harry looked at Ginny miserably.

"I heard, yes. Why don't you let me talk to her?"

Ginny, however, had her arms tightly crossed and was scowling furiously at Hermione. "As if you've any more right to chew me out for this, Hermione," she snapped.

Affronted, Hermione realized that perhaps Ella was all too right to worry. In her experience, Ginny was nearly always happy to exchange Ron's noisy outrage for Hermione's calm reasoning.

"Why can't you all just leave me alone?" the redhead raged further as she stood up and threw her book bag over her shoulder. Giving them a glare that encompassed all except Ella, she swept off to sit with the first years at the end of the table. Hermione watched, as open-mouthed as her companions, as the startled eleven year-olds made room for the irate stranger.

"Well," Aubrey said at last with some finality to her tone.

Miranda almost immediately began to giggle again. "Just shows that she's got something to hide," she said, laying a knowing finger against her nose. Catherine shook her head and smiled, but Ella gave Hermione another anxious look as she sipped her orange juice.

"Ron, Harry, maybe we should go..." Hermione began, putting her hands on her usual stack of books.

Ron shot her a look. "You mean, to tell Ginny that she'd better--"

"I mean, we'd better go," she said firmly, nodding at the door. "There's something in the library I think we should check out."

Reluctantly, Ron got up to join her. Harry rose behind him and jammed his hands in his pockets as he followed them outside.

"All right," Hermione said, as soon as they were out of the Great Hall. "First things first. Ginny's obviously upset about something quite personal. It won't be solved by badgering." She glared at Ron.

His ears turned red. 'Look, I'm only worried that she might--"

"Stop worrying. I intend to find out what's wrong with her. Second of all, Harry, what is bothering you?"

Harry, surprised that someone had noticed his lack of participation in the morning's activities, shuffled his feet. "What? Nothing's bothering me..."

Ron darted a startled look at his friend. He hadn't noticed anything wrong.

Hermione sighed. "Harry, you're not good at lying. Please tell us what's wrong?"

Harry froze a moment before answering. As he spoke, his face turned almost as red as Ron's ears. "I think that I might be in love with Ginny," he mumbled.

Ron stared at Harry and then let out a whoop of excitement. Harry gave him a frightened glance as he began to do a little victory dance. "This is awesome, mate!" Ron exclaimed, grabbing Hermione's hands and making her dance with him. He continued to speak to Harry over his shoulder as he twirled the unsuspecting Head Girl about. "Now you can marry my sister and I can marry Hermione and we'll all be one happy family!"

He stopped quite suddenly and his eyes widened at what he had just let slip out of his mouth. "That is..." Harry grinned, his Ginny problem momentarily forgotten; he had waited a long time for this moment.

"Umm... Flattered as I am..." Hermione stuttered, trying to think of something to say.

Ron backpedaled desperately. "What I meant was, if Hermione will come to the Yule Ball with me, then we can all go together and have... the time of our lives..." He trailed off, looking at Hermione with fearful hope in his eyes.

"Ron, you idiot!" Hermione said, flinging her arms around the astonished boy and kissing his cheek. "Why didn't you just ask?"

Harry quietly slipped away from them, the smile on his face fading. He was happy for them, he had wanted to see them together for a long while, but he couldn't help feeling a bit thankful that they were too preoccupied to think much about his confession. It was all well and good for them to go to the Ball together, but his wish to go with Ginny didn't look like it was going to come true anytime soon. This morning had shown that she already had someone to go with... Someone who would scale towers on her behalf... He kicked the wall in his frustration and spent the rest of the day wallowing in pain and misery.

-----

Back in the Great Hall, Ginny was carefully shredding pieces of toast and trying very hard to keep her mutterings from escaping her mouth. She couldn't remember a time in her life when more emotions had swirled through her than now. Snatching the last piece of toast away from a meek little first year who gave her a frightened look, she sighed rather forcefully. Last night... No, she did not want to think about last night.

Automatically, as though just thinking about him had made her do it, she looked over to the Slytherin table. As always, Draco was seated amidst a fawning group of his housemates. But this morning, instead of commanding their attention with peremptory conversation, he had his eyes fixed on his breakfast plate as though vaguely wondering what he was supposed to do with it. Blaise Zabini and Grahm Pritchard seemed to be trying to ask him what was wrong and Pansy Parkinson had taken up the duty of getting him to eat. She slid various plates of food or pitchers of drink in front of him, with no response. This useless display of friendship had gone on for nearly ten minutes when Draco abruptly got to his feet, made a quiet announcement that he had a class to get to, and left.

Ginny's eyes sank to the plate of shredded toast in front of her. It was the first time in two months that Draco had not noticed her look and looked back. She suddenly felt very alone.

If only (Ginny watched in morose silence as students began to leave the Great Hall for class) Draco didn't feel that way about her! Then they could still be the best friends they were without this whole disaster hanging between them. As it stood... She didn't think Draco would ever talk to her again. Last night she had shot him down without any explanation, doing the one thing they had promised each other they would never do to another person. It didn't help that he had startled her beyond belief. The last thing she had expected out of Draco was for him to kiss her. Again.

She shook her head, feeling the same confusion rush back from last night. It was the confusion that had haunted her from that night in Hogsmeade... Everything came back to that. She couldn't say that she hadn't liked Draco kissing her then without lying, but she had been hurt then. She had needed that external comfort, even if it happened to come from someone who was searching for the same thing. If only...

Her thoughts went on in this vein for several minutes, and so engrossed was she in her internal conflicts that she didn't notice that everyone had left. It was not until the school bell rang that Ginny finally looked around.

Feeling somewhat bitter that none of her friends had seen fit to wake her from her thoughts, Ginny gathered up her things and slowly made her way to Charms. She was still caught up in thoughts of Draco and the mess that suddenly seemed to be her life, and didn't care much that she was late to class.

"Well, well, what have we here?" a snide voice interrupted her progress. Ginny glanced up to find the dark form of Draco's friend, Blaise, standing directly in front of her. Panicking suddenly at the thought that he somehow knew about her connection to Draco, she took a quick step backward.

"I never meant to hurt him," she said defensively, clutching her bag nervously.

"Who do you think you could hurt, little lion?" Blaise sneered, the light of malice in his eyes. Ginny was used to the tall Slytherin prowling the halls and spoiling for a fight, but she hadn't thought him capable of attacking any random Gryffindor he came across.

"I..." Confused, she whirled around, meaning to run back the way she came, and found the thick bodies of Crabbe and Goyle blocking her way. Crabbe cracked his knuckles in a menacing manner and Goyle's mouth twisted into what was probably supposed to be a smirk like Blaise's.

Turning back around, she found Blaise standing mere inches away. "You're the Weasel's little sister," he mused, reaching out to touch her red hair. Ginny froze, terrified. Classes had started and there was no one else in the hallway to stop the Slytherins if they tried to do anything to her. She drew her hand back to her side and clenched it into a fist. She could feel Crabbe and Goyle breathing on either side of her. "I don't like little lions," Blaise went on, dropping her hair. "But I like little weasels even less."

He moved to grab his wand from his pocket but Ginny let fly her fist directly into his stomach. It wasn't enough to do much damage to the Quidditch-hardened seventh year, but it shocked him and gave Ginny time to dart around him. She pelted down the corridor, away from the shouting Slytherins and felt tears of anger and fear stinging her eyes.

Running wildly, without the slightest clue as to where she was going, she rounded a corner and ran smack into another student. Upon collision, the boy instinctively wrapped his arms around her so that she wouldn't fall backwards. They staggered a few feet together and then he let go, reaching up with both hands to dust off his robes. Ginny felt a blush burning in her face as she settled her bag on her shoulder, and then looked at the boy to apologize. Her mouth fell open.

"Watch where you're going," Draco said coldly, avoiding her eyes.

Ginny blushed further. "I'm sorry, Draco. I just--"

"You think I care, Weasley?" Draco hissed beneath his breath. This time he did meet her eyes and Ginny drew back from the injury that shone there. "You made your decision." He looked her over quickly, and then stalked away, his robes billowing out behind him.

"Draco!" Ginny called after him, a new confusion rising to replace the old one. "Draco, wait!"

But the blonde walked on, impervious to Ginny's pleading, and she was left alone once again.