The Disturbance

Author’s Note:

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Chapter Three

The Disturbance

Ginny was patrolling the halls at Hogwarts. It was late at night, and she was alone. Draco had failed to show up for his shift for the second time this week. She made a mental note to herself to report Draco to Dumbledore as soon as she got the chance.

Ginny had been back at Hogwarts for a week now. Out of this week, Malfoy had been on time, if he showed up at all, to only one prefect duty. He usually had a lame excuse as to why he did not show up on time. Ginny had heard everything from the halfway believable, “I was sick”, to the completely outrageous, “I was helping a second year who tripped on the vanishing step”. Of course, there was those couple of times when Malfoy had no excuse or explanation on where he was.

Probably out screwing some girl or another, Ginny thought to herself. She still had not gotten over what happened on the train. She had come to the conclusion from that experience that Malfoy was nothing more than a sleazy pervert, and she felt that description fit him perfectly.

Ginny walked around the deserted corridor, coming up with no less than twenty other names for Malfoy when she decided she needed to get out of the castle. She needed some time to clear her head. Plus she only had twenty minutes until the end of her shift, and the chances of something happening in that time that would require her there was below zero.

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The soft wind blew in Draco’s hair as he walked along the quiet grounds. He was walking along the edge of the Forbidden Forest, listening to the sounds of rare and exotic animals that lurked inside. He felt more relaxed than he had in a long time. He did not think life could get any better than this until...

“Hey you, over there! What are you doing out this late? Who are you?” an oddly familiar voice called out to him.

What in the world, who is that? Is that... no it can’t be. She is supposed to be on duty still, but it sounded a lot like Weasley, Draco thought to himself. A cloud moved away from the moon, allowing light to shine on the angry figure now stalking toward Draco. Oh, you have got to be kidding me! It is Weasley! Ugh, what the hell does that blood traitor want now?

“Malfoy?” Ginny asked with shock and, wait, was that fear in her voice? Draco considered Ginny for a moment, wondering why she would be so afraid until she continued.

“What the hell are you doing out here, Malfoy? Why weren’t you at prefect duty tonight?” Ginny asked angrily. Any previous trace of fear was now gone in her voice.

“While we are interrogating people here, I have a question for you,” Draco said, trying to change the subject. “Why are you still not at duty? Your shift is not over yet.”

The truth was, Draco had been avoiding prefect duty since the incident on the train. He would go just enough times to keep McGonagall off his back, but no more than that. He could not stop thinking about what had gone on between him and Ginny in the corridors. At first, he brushed his feelings off as a moment of insanity. But they kept getting stronger every time he saw her, especially when she was angry. It confused him more than anything else. He was Draco Malfoy, for goodness sake. She was a blood traitor! And a Malfoy did not fall in love with a blood traitor.

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Malfoy snapped out of his thoughts to realize Ginny had been ranting and raving at him the entire time. How long had it been? Five minutes? An hour? He didn’t know.

Why am I sitting here listening to this? She isn’t a bloody professor! Draco began to walk away, cutting Ginny off in midsentence.

“Malfoy! Where are you going? I’m not done talking to you!” Ginny called after him, but to no avail. Draco kept walking. She ran after him, eventually catching up to him at the front doors of the castle.

“What the hell do you think you are doing, just walking off like that? Do you---,” Ginny stopped dead in her tracks when she realized what was waiting for them at the front door.

“Follow me,” Professor McGonagall said. Ginny was shocked. She did not have her usual stern voice. She almost worried about something. What has happened? Ginny wondered as she followed McGonagall down the corridor. She soon realized she was being led straight to the spot she was on duty at earlier that night.

When the three of them got there, they were met by Dumbledore and the Minister of Magic, as well as several aurors.

“Well now,” McGonagall began, her voice back to its normal strict tone. “I’ll have you know that while the two of you were out on a little rendezvous, someone was busy breaking into the castle! Lucky for you, they did not get far, thanks to the high-security the headmaster placed on the school a few years ago. But the two of you should be ashamed of yourselves! Fifty points will be taken from each of your houses! And you should count your lucky stars tonight that the headmaster has not decided to bestow more harsh punishments on you! If it was my choice, your rights as prefects would be taken away from you in an instant!”

“But, alas, it is not up to you, Professor McGonagall,” Dumbledore interjected, having been listening to the conversation the entire time. He raised his hand for silence when McGonagall tried to say something. “Mr. Malfoy, you are excused to your dormitory. Ms. Weasley, if you would come with me.”

Ginny followed the headmaster to his office where he had her sit down in one of his squishy armchairs. She felt her face grow red in shame. How could she be so stupid and leave her shift? This was Hogwarts; something was bound to happen!

“Ginevra, I hope that my light punishment has not given you the false idea that this is not a very serious matter.” Dumbledore began. Ginny tried to say something, but he stopped her.

“Please, let me continue,” he said. “As I was saying, this is a very serious matter, indeed. I would have hoped after what happened last summer that you would be more cautious this year. Don’t take Voldemort’s (Ginny winced at the name) fall for granted. There are still people out there that want to continue his plans of making an all pureblood wizarding world.

“Death Eaters are still out there. They see you, and they see someone who caused the fall of two of the strongest Death Eaters there ever were: Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange. I know you don’t like to talk about this, but it must be said. You have got to be more careful! I hope you can understand that because of this, we are tightening security on the school and on you.”

Ginny, who had been staring at her feet the entire time, looked up when he said this. Add more security on her? Does this mean everyone is going to know what happened? What was she going to do? All of her hard work of making sure no one knew, and now this was happening!

“With that being said, I bid you goodnight Ms. Weasley,” Dumbledore said, excusing her from his office.

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Author’s Note: YAY! This chapter is finally done! It took me much longer to write this than I expected, and it has a lot more information that I was planning to give at first, but overall, I am pretty happy with the way it turned out. Thank you for reading and please, please, please review!