Late November
Kind of ironic, last year this time she hadn’t wanted anything more than going home for Christmas break – this year she didn’t want anything more than to avoid it. Everything had felt wrong at Hogwarts since the Hufflepuff-game but going home felt even worse, the last thing she needed was more nagging about her house and house-mates. Groaning Ginny looked up from her letter that had informed her that her parents, after two years of traveling for Christmas, wanted a traditional family celebration so no – she could not bring Miss White home. Bringing Alex would have been a win-win, her family would have had to keep their negative Slytherin-talk to a minimum and she wouldn’t have had to feel bad about leaving her best friend alone in the castle.
“It’s ok,” Alex said with a small smile. It was not, Ginny felt, Harry had stayed at their house last summer and she knew her parents had wanted to invite him to their family-trip to Egypt until Dumbledore said no. And her other brothers’ friends had always been welcome. Though, they had been mostly made up of Gryffindors with the handful of Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs sprinkled in. And few with so notorious pureblood-names as ‘White’. Ginny’s bitterness must have been obvious to her cousin who spoke up.
“Why don’t you come visit me this break? Both of you,” Marley smiled at the younger girls. “We usually celebrate Yule with just grandmother and Aunt Liz, mum would love some more company!”
“And your dad?” Alex said hesitantly.
Marley shrugged, “he gets his traditions when we go to grandmother and grandfather to celebrate Christmas with his brother’s family.”
“I could write and ask,” Ginny said hesitantly, “but I don’t think they would say yes.”
“By Salazar Weasley, how did you ever get into Slytherin?” Hestia Carrow looked up from her notes.
“Don’t be mean Hestia,” Flora chastised without looking up from her own project.
“Let’s just not tell them,” Marley shrugged, “what is the worst that could happen?”
Ginny laughed without much humour, “Guess I will get another howler…”
“Then the question is if you think it’s is worth that price.” Hestia said matter-of-factly before going back to her project-notes.
Putting it that way, it was a no-brainer, spending the break with Alex and Marley was definitely worth a Howler. “Let’s do it,” Ginny smiled, “but I suck at lying.”
Before dinner was over Alex and Marley had helped her formulate a plan that involved letting everyone think she was going home. Then at the last minute she was going to let her parents know that she thought of what they said about how celebrating with family was important in a way that they would interpret as her wanting to stay with Ron. Technically it wouldn’t be lying as she would celebrate with family, just a bit more distant family.
A few hours later Ginny touched down on ground after Quidditch-practice next to Alex before they made their way over to the eleven boys already gathered around their Captain.
“Bole – what the hell was that? Make sure you and Derrick squeeze in an extra target-practice a week if that is how your aim is developing. O’Flathery, Lestrange, better but not good, join Bole and Derrick in their extra-sessions.” Ginny watched the beaters as Bole scowled at the captain while Lestrange eagerly gave up a ‘Yes, Captain.’, always excited at the prospect of more training. “Malfoy, good work with getting Davies up to speed. Montague, study those drills, I don’t ever want to see you hesitating again – those seconds can lose us a game! Weasley, White – good job on memorising the last batch of game-plans, and you two, stay after and get this stuff away,” Flint gestured towards the balls, dummies and the floating cones spread around the field.
“Yes, captain,” Ginny muttered before starting the tedious task of collecting everything with Alex. She didn’t miss the pointed glance Flint gave Warrington when she didn’t argue, neither the fact that Warrington had stayed. He was busying himself trying to balance two dummies on each shoulder while carrying them back to the shed. The rest of the team had behaved as if nothing was off since the Hufflepuff game but inside her stomach something had grown. Should she even be a part of this. Did the hat make a mistake placing her in Slytherin or was it she that was the odd one out.
“Weasley,” Ginny looked up from her thoughts, Warrington was watching her, “come, let’s take a walk.”
“But…” Ginny looked over at Alex, she could recognize a tactic of dividing and conquering when she saw it.
“White will be fine, come on,” without waiting for her reply Warrington walked towards the exit closest to the lake. Ginny threw a last glance at Alex who gave her a quick nod before she ran after Warrington to catch up. Neither said much as she followed him down on the path that led towards the other side of the lake.
“You been taking up running, have you?” Warrington suddenly asked.
“Yeah,” Ginny glanced at him, she had, since he the last time they took this path had pointed out that she did in fact perform worse the further into the practice they were.
“I’ve noticed,” he seemed to be thinking, “good.” After a pause of silence he continued, “for more result, one can run intervals as well.”
“Huh?” Ginny was a bit confused, not only about what he meant, but also about the conversation itself.
“Like jog a few minutes, then run as fast as you can for a minute or two, then jog slowly, stuff like that.”
“Okey,” Ginny noted that down in her head, if nothing less it would make her morning-jogs less monotonous she guessed. “Ain’t you angry?”
“Angry?” For the first time since leaving the pitch Warrington looked back at her, genuinely looking confounded.
“Me trying to get your spot,” Ginny had thought about it since they last had been in on this path, having a talk if you could call it that. A scolding might have been a better term. Thinking back, that time he had scolded her attitude, her variation of technique, her fitness, knowledge of the different plans and several other hard-truths – but he hadn’t even touched the subject that her getting first-line would mean him losing it. Warrington gave up a soft laugh.
“That is the order of things little snake,” he smirked at her, “what kind of Slytherin would you be without ambition?”
“But why are you helping me then?”
The sixteen-year-old shrugged, “Quidditch have never been my main ambition, but even if it had, you getting better will never make me any inferior. It will just make the game better. Besides, don’t underestimate the value of investing in others success.” They had gotten to the parts of the rocks where Warrington had thrown her in the lake during their last earnest conversation. After making sure Ginny followed him, Warrington climbed out on them and sat down on a lumpy part of the rock, gesturing at her to do the same. They sat quiet for a while, watching the castle and the pitch on the other side of the lake.
“So,” Ginny finally said, look over at the older boy,
“So…” Warrington looked hesitantly at her, “you have also gotten that temper under control?” Ginny didn’t answer, in a way he was right, she hadn’t argued with Flint since the Hufflepuff-game. “But that wouldn’t leave you without opinions or the ability to express them in a civil way.” Warrington stated. “So, I guess that means you’re holding your tongue because you’re scared?” Ginny hastily looked over at him.
“I’m not scared!” Ginny exclaimed, insulted over the suggestion. She was met with silence. “Maybe cautious,” she admitted after a couple of minutes of patient silence from her team-mate, “that kind of upped the game from a few laps for back-talking, didn’t it?” She hadn’t admitted it to anyone, not even Alex. But yeah, the uneasy after the game had been two-fold, both that the team behaved as if nothing was wrong, but also that coward feeling of not being sure of the stakes anymore.
“Markus would not hurt you like that, Ginny,” the boy across from her looked at her earnestly, “and even if he would, I would not let him.”
“Why?” Ginny asked, suddenly feeling the pent-up anger surfacing, “because I’m a girl? You let him hit Draco!” It was wrong, she knew, to put all the blame on the boy in front of her, but she had felt the disappointment over her misjudgement of her team-mates bubbling for a long time. She noticed Warrington flinching at her words.
“It wasn’t supposed to be that way,” he defended. “Malfoy deliberately provoked him to get him to lose control. You can’t blame me for that, I fucking stopped him as soon as Flint lost it.”
“No? How was it supposed to go then? I thought all was fair in Slytherins dealing with their own.”
“Not like that,” Warrington repeated, more calmly this time, “Malfoy knew that, he wanted Flint to lose his temper and deviate from the plan.”
“Blaming Draco, really?”
Warrington shrugged, “not blaming, just pointing it out. Malfoy was fully aware of where it was going, believe me – Flint had told him in detail after the fiasco with Potter in the Gryffindor-game last year.”
“So, what, the plan – the plan that you all were going to let Flint carry out – was so much worse that Draco preferred getting beaten to a plump?”
“Depends what you mean be worse,” Warrington shrugged again, “more humiliation, less bloody violence.” Ginny didn’t know what to say, this was crazy. Was all Slytherin this crazy? Were all teenagers? She couldn’t image this happen in Gryffindor, or, she scuffed, Hufflepuff. Then she remembered something.
“Alex called it ‘locker room culture’, said that muggles did this kind of hazing as well. Muggle Sport Teams, boys’ clubs at schools, places like that. That teenage-boys in groups never have been able to behave like civilized people.”
Warrington shrugged once again, “not sure what to tell you little snake, maybe you are right – we might not be any better than muggles with stuff like this. But as long as it works-”
Ginny scoffed “works, yeah – right, Malfoy will think twice before not focusing on the snitch during a game again, but within a few of years he will be the one taking out his frustrations on a third-year.”
“But you wouldn’t,” it wasn’t a question, Ginny realized so she just lifted her eyebrow. “That, is why, not because you’re a girl.” It was the answer to her original question, she realized.
“How do you know?” Her voice sounded small, “I’m a Slytherin, ain’t I?”
“What do that have to do with it?” Warrington looked at her with a thoughtful expression, “you know, you are so alike Markus, the temper, the ambition, the will to do anything to get to the goal, your built-in compasses of what you think is the right thing, the conviction that your way is the right way. I think that is why you two always clashes. But he was the first to admit, his methods would never work on you.”
“But he thinks they work on others?”
“They worked on him,” Warrington looked thoughtfully out over the lake towards the pitch, “and most of our team-mates don’t have a problem with them.”
“I think it’s wrong,” Ginny said determined.
“I know you do,” the older boy said matter-of-factly.
“When I take over the team, I will do it differently.”
They stayed in silence for a while.
“You know Gin, sometimes I think your prejudice against Slytherin makes you look for motives in the wrong places. Slytherin is just an opportunity to become who you can be, it does not define anyone.” Warrington looked almost sheepishly at her, as if he expected her to laugh.
“Deep, Cassius, deep,” she finally said after a small silence, smiling teasingly.
With a booming laugh he stood up and handed her his hand to pull her up.