So I'm reading chapter 5 of the changling. Wouldn't be sooooo funny if like Ginny went to find Ron to congratulate him. But overheard hermione talking about Felix felicies and like Harry sees her listening and they just argue in front of everyone. Cause Harry's gets her fired up everyone hears about the liquid luck. It turns into a ass whole situation
Look what you made me do. I futzed with the original HPB scene a bit to fit Ginny in, but I hope you’ll allow me that. :) Not so much a missing scene from The Changeling as much as a ‘well that would have gone a bit different if that happened’. Off the cuff and un-beta’d. Enjoy!
Having said goodbye to Fred and George, commiserated with her team over the loss, and had a quick shower and change, Ginny can no longer put off congratulating Ron on his win. And his frankly surprisingly impressive show as Keeper. She’s only a little mad at him for that.
She could probably wait until morning, but she figures if she goes now, Ron will probably be so distracted that he won’t be a complete git about the whole thing. And then she won’t have to deal with it tomorrow.
And so she climbs the stairs towards Gryffindor Tower, the noise only getting louder and louder as she gets closer, and those prats are either even louder than normal or they’ve spilled out of their common room into the halls. How they get away with half of the stunts they pull off, she will never know.
She’s finally in sight of the round portrait hole when it swings open, Harry stepping out into the hall, or being shoved rather, by an irate-looking Hermione. Her cheeks are flushed as she hisses something at Harry, but it’s not until the portrait hole closes behind them that she can make out any of the words.
“--you shouldn’t have done that, Harry! It’s illegal!”
Harry looks equally annoyed, face still a bit red and flush with victory, hair a wild mess. “Done what exactly?” he says in a tone seemingly perfectly designed to nettle Hermione.
“I saw you do it, Harry! I saw you put felix felicis in Ron’s pumpkin juice this morning!”
Ginny freezes, feeling like she’s just taken a quaffle to the solar plexus.
But rather than denying it, Harry just lets out a bark of laughter, turning around to face Hermione, but stopping as his eyes fall on Ginny standing motionless on the stairs. “Ginny,” he says, his face seeming to pale.
She turns on her heel, heading back down the stairs. Her head should be a riot of thoughts, of cheating and filthy rotten Gryffindor hyprocrites, and how awful Harry must think Ron is to do something like that, to his best sodding friend, and all the ways she is going to get back at them for this. For taking a victory from her like that after how hard she’s worked. How hard her team has worked.
But instead all she feels is this sickly swooping feeling in her stomach like she’s swallowed a writhing ocean, like gravity dragging her down roughly. It feels way, way, way too familiar, and she hates it.
“Ginny, wait!” Harry calls out after her, his feet pounding down the stairs as he follows her.
Somehow she manages to speak, still not looking back at him as she continues down the stairs. “Don’t worry. I’m not a tattler, remember?”
Tomorrow, when she has a calmer head, that is when she’ll decide exactly how to respond. Because she is going to do something about this. Oh, yes, she is. But telling Madam Hooch or McGonagall is not on her list.
“That’s not--” Harry sputters, still following her.
“I should have known you weren’t just being that helpful,” she says, more mad at herself for actually trusting, for actually believing--but she should know better than that. That he believed she could be a good captain, that he really wanted to help, when all along he was never going to give her a fair chance to try to prove it. “What an idiot I am.”
“Would you just stop?” Harry says, grabbing her arm.
Ginny spins around, pulling her wand, feeling red hot rage surge through her body, and she tells herself that is what is causing the humiliating prick of tears in her eyes. She is better than this, better than letting her temper push her into mindless, reactive revenge.
Harry’s eyes dart to her wand and back up to her face, but he doesn’t back away either, or look scared, and why can’t he find her terrifying at least once when it would be most convenient?
“I didn’t do it,” he says, slightly out of breath. Over his shoulder, Ginny can see that Hermione has followed them, looking between them with wide eyes.
“Oh, really,” Ginny says, not putting away her wand.
“I saw you do it, Harry,” Hermione says, apparently not above throwing him to the wolves.
“You think you did,” Harry says, shooting an annoyed glare back at her. “And so did Ron. That was the whole bloody point.”
Hermione frowns. “I don’t understand.”
But Harry doesn’t seem all that concerned with her understanding, turning back to Ginny. “Just let me show you,” he says, hand reaching into his pocket.
He pulls out a small glass vial full of golden liquid. He offers it, palm held out to Ginny.
“Take it,” he says, shoving it closer.
Stowing her wand, she reaches out and picks it up. It’s very obviously still sealed and full of liquid.
“I just...wanted Ron to stop stressing out so much for once, so he could see how good he is all on his own when he’s not being completely mental.”
Realization slowly dawns. “So you pretended to put it in when you knew he was watching,” Ginny says.
A perfectly executed gambit.
“Oh, Harry,” Hermione says, looking miserable and wringing her hands. “I’m sorry.” Ginny supposes she had threatened to go to McGonagall.
Harry doesn’t look at Hermione, still waiting for Ginny’s response. Only she isn’t at all sure what she feels.
Ginny swallows to clear her throat. “You’d better tell Ron. Or he’ll just end up feeling even worse about himself.” She looks over at Hermione, finding that easier to do at the moment. “I came to tell him congratulations.”
Hermione nods. “I’ll go get him, okay? Okay, Harry?”
She waits for him to nod his agreement, and with that, she turns, heading back up.
Ginny is left standing on the stairs with Harry, still feeling like an idiot, but maybe for an entirely different reason now. She hadn’t been wrong to be mad, when she thought it was true. To be mad at him for cheating.
Though that didn’t explain the yawning feeling of betrayal that had more to do with it being Harry who had done it than anything else.
For lack of anything else to do, she starts walking back towards the Gryffindor Common Room.
Harry lets out a breath of what sounds like relief. Probably that she isn’t threatening to hex him anymore.
"I’m sorry,” he says, walking up next to her.
She shakes her head. “Clearly you didn’t do anything wrong. I shouldn’t have--” She stops, not really sure what she shouldn’t have done. Jumped to conclusions? Been stupid enough to trust someone in the first place?
“I know how hard you’ve worked,” he says. “And you nearly got us as it was--”
She lifts her hand. “Let’s not with the platitudes right now.” The loss is still too raw.
“It’s not a--” He breaks off as Hermione comes darting past them down the stairs.
Ginny barely catches a glimpse of her face beneath the riot of bushy hair framing her face, but it’s enough to see the tears in her eyes.
She doesn’t stop or respond, Ginny sharing a worried glance with Harry. They both turn to look towards the open doorway just in time to see Ron wrapped around Lavender Brown in the middle of the common room, their faces stuck together. The door swings shut.
Harry has a bemused look of shock on his face at seeing his best mate sucking face with one of his housemates, only then he looks down the stairs after Hermione. “Oh, bollocks,” he says.
Oh, bollocks, indeed. Stupid, stupid Ron. “You’d better go after her,” Ginny says. She and Hermione are not all that close, besides which, a Weasley is probably the last thing she wants to see right now.
“Yeah,” Harry says, sounding pained. He starts down the stairs only to pause, looking back up at her. “Ginny.”
“Yeah?” she asks, prepared for him to try to pawn the unsavory task off on her.
His hand bumps against the railing. “I meant it, you know. I really did want to help.”
“Oh,” Ginny says, feeling warmth working up her neck as she realizes what she’d said earlier in her agitation. “It’s fine.”
He opens his mouth, like he wants to say more but isn’t really sure what to, or doesn’t have time to. He glances back down the stairs, looking cross and torn.
“Harry,” she says. “Just go. We can talk later.” Or hopefully just forget all about it.
He seems to perk up at this. “Can we?”
“Of course,” she says, her stomach feeling a bit funny at the thought.
He grins. “Okay. I’ll come find you. Tomorrow?”
Ginny hadn’t been expecting something so certain, or so soon. “Sure,” she says, feeling her heart pounding a little too strongly in her chest. “Tomorrow.”
“Great,” he says, nodding with a wide grin on his face. “Excellent.”
She’s beginning to feel a little like an emotional whirlwind at this point, finding herself rolling her eyes at him as he keeps standing there, but also with an answering smile on her face. “Harry.”
She points down the stairs. “Hermione?”
“Right. Bollocks. Gotta go.” And with that, he turns, finally thundering down the stairs in search of a heart-broken Hermione.
In a bit of a daze, Ginny wanders her way back down to her common room, trying not to think too hard on what tomorrow might bring.
