Heroes at Hogwarts

eleven | breakups and boys

ginny

"Come on, Gin, just try." Dean motioned to the cup with his wand.

After growing up with the twins, I knew how to spot a prank. I smiled at him.

"I forgot how, Dean," I complained. "Why don't you demonstrate?"

His face dropped. "I forgot you totally knew how to avoid these." He picked up the joke transfigure. "Piece of junk anyway."

I laughed. "You dork."

"Oh, yeah, sure. Laugh. Don't worry, I'm going to find one you can't see past," he promised.

Neville and Jason Grace popped their heads into the library, looked around, spotted the two, and left again.

Ginny frowned. She didn't like how much her friends and family trusted these American wizards. She certainly didn't trust them. The way their eyes searched for escape routes in every classroom, the way everyone at Hogwarts, even the professors, gravitated towards them like flies and fruit.

Although he was a fellow Gryffindor, Jason Grace regarded everyone with a steely gaze that made Ginny regard him with the same uneasiness. It was obvious that he didn't trust anyone in the room with him, unless Percy or Frank were at his side. If he was alone in the classroom, he sat as close to the door as he could and kept his mouth shut and his head down, like he was afraid someone would pick him out of the crowd. He may have treated Hazel like a little sister, but the way that Jason Grace watched Will out of the corner of his eye made it obvious he didn't quite trust the guy, just like all the other wizards in Hogwarts. Ginny found it unnerving that anyone could carry that much anxiety about the people around them.

Frank Zhang was kind enough, and like Neville, he made her wonder if he really belonged in Hufflepuff, with his girlfriend. But he held his head high in a crowd and kept his eyes sharp, it was obvious to Ginny that he was made to lead. The scars along his arm proved he'd been through the same war that made Jason shake when he sat for too long and Hazel's eyes dart to the origin of every noise. There was one that looked like an 'x', like the ending of a map, and Frank was always scratching at it, raking the scar tissue. Ginny figured the reason he seemed like a Hufflepuff was because there was so much weariness and nervousness built up inside him that it snuffed out his outgoing personality.

Hazel Levesque was one of Ginny's main worries. She was sweet and pretty, almost too pretty, and her eyes looked like liquid gold (But only half the time. Sometimes, when Ginny met her in the hallway early in the morning, they resembled sapphires or emeralds). She smiled at everyone and never laughed to loudly, like she didn't want to attract too much attention. She eyed the gemstones in the hourglasses too often, like they were weapons, and when Ginny mentioned their home, she ran too quickly. She's a Hufflepuff, Ginny had to remind herself, she's not going to break out with a dagger and run for the stones.

Ginny hadn't spent much time with Will Solace, the other Hufflepuff, but when she did seem him his eyes were dragging across faces and windows and doors, as if mapping out a floorplan and looking for a way out. He didn't talk much, unless they were in Potions, but when he did his voice unnerved her. He sat next to Michael Yew when they were all together, and the resemblance made her so uneasy that she couldn't look at the two next to each other. The way he stared at the Gryffindor boy, like they knew each other in a different life, made Ginny shiver.

And then there was the boy in green, Percy Jackson, the Slytherin. He was the one that disturbed her most. In her opinion, anyone that sat four chairs away from Draco Malfoy was not someone that she wanted hanging around her brother, or Harry. But Percy went from the Slytherin table to sitting with Harry and Ron in various classes. If he wasn't attempting to cast a spell, his hand was jammed in his robes pockets or fiddling with the pen he always seemed to have. He kept his head high no matter what and navigated the school no problem. He'd received enough Hogsmead invitations to last him the whole year, but he had politely declined each one with a smile. All in all, he was kind and charming in a group, but when he turned away from crowds his smile disappears and he got a sick look on his face.