Uninvited

ANGEL
Spend all your time waiting/for that second chance/for a break that would make it okay/there's always one reason/to feel not good enough/and it's hard at the end of the day/I need some distraction/oh beautiful release/memory seeps from my veins.../in the arms of an angel/fly away from here/from this dark cold hotel room/and the endlessness that you fear/you are pulled from the wreckage/of your silent reverie/you're in the arms of the angel/may you find some comfort there

Ginny stared hard at her reflection, looking for a change. She felt changed. Halloween was approaching and she and Hermione were going to Hogsmeade. She'd gotten up at 5:00 am so that she could have the bathroom to herself, figuring she might as well try to look nice.

But hard as she stared she saw nothing about her changed. Same unruly red hair and blue eyes, same pale skin with a few freckles, faded from lack of sun. Same small waist and unfortunately the same slight lack of chest. Not that she was underdeveloped or anything, but she wasn't exactly... She pushed the thought away.

Draco thinks your pretty, she thought to herself, spelling away the bags under her eyes, Of course he's not bad himself. What with the whole brooding thing and the hair...He has very nice hair. A lot like Lux's. Very fine and silvery. She must be Snape's niece by marriage somehow. But that means...ugh. That's the only explanation. Although Lucius Malfoy is hideous but Draco is...Draco.

She continued thinking about Draco as she showered and dried herself off. She was so immersed in thought, she didn't hear Hermione's warning that she was coming into the bathroom.

"Oh Gin," she cried as she turned around, "You didn't say anything when I called so-"

"Yeah, could you just possibly close the door?"

"Oh," she complied.

Ginny was dressed in a minute and turned the bathroom over to Hermione, who would not stop uttering apologies. Ginny had naturally already forgiven her, simply reminding herself that Hermione didn't have to share her room. In fact, she wondered why Hermione hadn't kept the privacy of having her own room with no disturbances. After all, then she could have had a place to...entertain Dean.

Draco has his own room, she thought, You could always-she stopped, ending her disturbing thought process. No, you don't like him and anyway it would never work out. She liked talking to herself in second person. It made her feel like she had friends. Hermione could be considered a friend, but she always felt the only reason Hermione even talked to her was because she was Ron's little sister. Like it was some kind of job, making sure Ginny had "friends" and that she "fit in." Not that Ginny minded. She had long ago convinced herself that she enjoyed being alone.

***

"Hey Herm," Ginny said, pointing out of the window and across the street, "I haven't seen that robe boutique before, have you?"

"No," Hermione was sipping a butterbeer. "We should go take a look when we're finished eating."

"Yeah, that's close enough to my thought process."

"What?"

"Never mind," she flipped her long hair over her shoulder. "So anyway, you said that Harry visited you last night."

"Mmhmm," she stared thoughtfully into her mug. "It was strange. He acted like...well, desperate...in a determined way. And I got the feeling that this wasn't the first time he'd come. As if he's been coming each night all year to watch me sleep or something. So I asked him where he'd been and his only reply was that he had to go. And then he kissed me. Full on the lips. As though it were the normal thing to do. And... it felt like it was. Strange, no?"

"Not really," Ginny said, trying to mock Lux's cocked head, "I mean to you it is. But not to me. Last year, I could tell he'd um...well I can't tell you without betraying his trust. But you know his entire life situation is desperate, Herm. And the ban on Quidditch and the fact that he just disappeared. And especially the fact that nobody seems surprised about that. Things are pretty desperate." She smiled mischievously. "So, what was it like to kiss The Boy Who Lived?"

"Oh," Hermione sighed, melting back into her chair, "Imagine drowning in a fire... that never burns...only pulses warmth throughout your whole body...and at the same time-" she paused, trying to pull words out of her sea of vocabulary, "At the same time it was nothing like that at all." She sighed again and closed her eyes. "I don't know. But it was nothing like Dean. It was better and it was worse. Intense and light. God, I don't know."

"You seem to dwell a lot on what you don't know," Ginny observed knowingly.

"Oh yes. I do tend to dwell on all knowledge, either gained or fleeting."

***

"Hey Ginny," Seamus said softly as he sat beside her. "Is Malfoy still bothering you?"

"Hm," she was used to this line and she hated it, "Not that it's any of your business but no," she lied, as rudely as possible. She moved around the food on her plate. At one time, it felt so long ago; she had loved eating in the great hall.

"Oh," he seemed almost abashed.

Ron and Hermione soon joined them at the table, astoundingly sitting right across from Ginny. They acted like it was a regular occurrence for her to be seated by so many people.

"Pass the potatoes, Ginny," Ron said, already munching on a drumstick.

"Ron, eat some vegetables too," Hermione scolded him as she put some on his plate.

"Yes Mum," he replied in mock sullenness. Dean came over and sat by Hermione, not even acknowledging Ginny's present, which made her feel that at least not the whole world had started to run backwards. Unfortunately, that feeling diminished as Lavender Brown sat right beside her, greeting her as an old friend.

"Alright," Ginny finally said, exasperated, "'What is this, national Feel Sorry for Virginia Weasley Day?'"

"You mean why are we all sitting with you?" Lavender queried, oblivious to the hateful stares she gained from her peers. "Well, Hermione found all those poems Malfoy's been sending you and she got worried, so she showed them to Ron. And Ron got quite red in the face and started yelling about how Malfoy is poison and that he better not get any ideas. And he figured that group support might help you to stay away from him."

"Well," her voice took on an acid quality, "Thank you for this loving compassion but really," she stood up, "I can take care of myself efficiently, Ron. I have for sixteen years. And if I want to, I can hold my own with Draco Malfoy too." She began to walk away but turned back. "And what in hell makes you so sure that his feelings are not reciprocated?" Seeing his horrified features, she ran from the great hall.

"Doesn't take to kindly to group support, does she?" Lavender had still not quite caught on.

***

"It's Halloween," Lux called from her perch on the windowsill. "Why aren't you with your fellow students in that very good hall of yours?"

"Oh," Ginny replied as she collapsed on her bed, weary from lack of food and lost sleep, "They don't like me very much. And it's the Great Hall."

"So it will just be you and me tonight?"

"Yes."

"Fabulous."

"Unless Hermione and Dean decide to have sex up here instead of his room."

"What?" Lux said, crossing the room to Hermione's vanity mirror. "They have not had sex.

"How do you know?"

"Do you think I just sit around here all day while you attend your classes. I tour the school and watch the people. I have seen those two together, and they have not had sex."

"How can you tell?"

"The way they act around each other. The awkward, sexual tension that has built up for months. Just like I know you like your privacy. You don't like people involving themselves in your life and you know, generally caring about you."

"How do you know about that?"

"I am camped out on your floor." At Ginny's puzzled expression, she added," You talk in your sleep."

"Oh, sorry."

"No, don't be," she replied, walking back across the room and sitting beside her. "It's cute. Besides, you could be letting me sleep with Severus." They had talked earlier about her dislike of her uncle.

Ginny could not fathom then, nor explain years after, just why it happened. She simply remembered kissing her counterpart softly on the mouth and Lux returning it, just as gently. She remembered the sheepish grin just before a more intense kiss. And she remembered wondering what Ron would say if he ever found out.