Chapter 31
"Ginny, do you happen to know... why your brother, along with his little friend, suddenly decided to engage so intensely in their own enlightenment?" with a crooked smile on my lips, I addressed the red-haired Gryffindor, trying not to make too much noise—after all, shouting in the library isn't pleasant, but I didn't deliberately lower my voice either, so that the pair of wannabe spies would definitely hear us.
"That's, well... Ron sometimes has spontaneous fits of inspiration," Ginny whispered as awkwardly and disjointedly as possible, throwing an angry look towards the youngest of her older brothers and immediately lowering her gaze to her own parchment... Recently—literally since the beginning of the week—the girl had begun to integrate even more actively into our modest collective. Which was why she now did her homework mostly in our company—pairing up with Luna to prepare reports and essays for the most difficult classes like Potions or Transfiguration.
"Fits of inspiration, huh? I didn't think such personalities ever had them," I snorted slightly mockingly, not even trying to make my taunt and provocation less obvious...
"What did you say!?" Ron Weasley swallowed the bait perfectly, finally stopping his unsuccessful attempts to pretend that he wasn't eavesdropping on us at all... And it was simply wonderful! Otherwise, my fists were already starting to itch from his intense and stubborn stares! My constantly progressing skills in mental magic over time only sharpened my sensitivity to the attention of others and, mmm... intention? It all felt dizzyingly strange and unusual right now—sometimes even pleasant and thrilling, but... Ron's attention only infuriated and irritated me, preventing me from concentrating on my reading.
"Exactly what you heard... you half-baked spy," I snorted, turning my chair with a light movement towards the already bristling red-haired blockhead. "Maybe you'll tell us what you want from us? Because I'm not particularly enticed by such intense attention to the back of my head... I hope you were only looking at the back of my head, right?" I shifted my gaze to Hermione Granger, who recently, in some completely unknown way to me, had taken up residence in the company of the red-haired Weasley.
"Out of desperation, most likely... No one else in the house really wants to hang out with her. Lions don't like nerds with a teacher syndrome," I recalled the not-so-pleasant reputation of this specific witch, who interested me only because of her belonging to the canonical "Golden Trio".
"We weren't looking, but..." the slightly disheveled Gryffindor became somehow lost from my pressure, feeling very awkward under the attention of our entire group... Not that there were many of us gathered at the table—Draco and his squires were currently at Quidditch practice, and Pansy and Astoria had stayed in the Slytherin common room—they would prefer to do their homework sometime later. For now, that pair, despite Daphne's urging, preferred to indulge in idleness in the company of fashion magazines or first-year girlfriends.
"Stop making excuses to him! Better let this freak answer what the hell he did to my sister!?" the youngest of the Weasley brothers actually shouted at us, interrupting and even offending his companion in a very rude manner.
"To Ginny?" I was genuinely surprised, even forgetting to react in any way to the insult thrown my way. "Did I do something to you?" I addressed the girl herself, who was all but hiding her face in her hands, experiencing burning shame for her older brother's antic.
"Yes, you did! Lately she walks around as if bewitched. And she runs after you like a tail all the time! It's definitely... well, what is it, Hermione, tell him," the red-haired and not particularly neat boy swore, turning to Granger for help in the same rude manner.
"Ahem, yes... We read here that such behavior is very similar to the effects of taking the Amortentia potion, so... well, Ron is worried about his sister," the bushy-haired brunette supplemented her friend's words a little timidly, as if apologizing to us...
"Just like a grey mouse, who has already been badgered by everyone so much that there's nowhere further to go... I don't remember her behaving like this in the movies," I noted a rather remarkable fact with the edge of my consciousness, in reality continuing to look more and more at Ginny and expecting some action from her side... And the girl ultimately did not disappoint me.
"Is that so, Amortentia then... Ron, come with me. I really, really want to tell you something about love potions and their use..." rising from her seat and looking at her brother like an absolute enraged fury, the only Gryffindor in our group almost hissed.
"Uh, Ginny, what are you doing?" Ron backed away somewhat apprehensively, but it was already too late. The red-haired valkyrie grabbed her brother by the collar and almost forcefully dragged him away out of the library—somewhere far away from our eyes. And from the wrath of the librarian, who was already just moving in our direction, but seeing that the main source of noise was leaving her abode anyway, did not make a scandal. She only threw her signature warning glare in our direction...
"Will he definitely be alright?" hiding a mockery quite obvious to all of us behind a decent facial expression, Daphne Greengrass decided to break the suddenly reigning silence.
"Ginny knows how to be terrifying in anger," Luna smiled simply and carelessly, not even thinking of tearing herself away from her homework. "Her brothers often used to get it if they tried to play some joke on her..."
"Excuse me, but... doesn't it bother you at all that... well, Ginny might be intoxicated by a love potion?" Hermione quietly addressed my friends, seemingly believing too much in her assumption and because of this glancing in my direction with outright apprehension. One didn't even have to be a mentalist here to understand the little girl's attitude towards my humble persona.
"If this Weasley is intoxicated by anything, it is only by her own emotions and feelings for Harry," the proud Slytherin snorted, now with much more obvious mockery. "And just so you know, no Amortentia potion works like that. Plus, it's expensive, not entirely legal—at least if an unmarried couple buys it—and its effects are quite easy to notice. If Ginny had really managed to gulp it down somewhere, the twins looking after her, I think, would have checked her with a special spell long ago. Every pureblood knows it... even ones like the Weasleys."
"That's... I read that there is such a spell, but why would George and Fred even worry about such a thing?" the obstinate Gryffindor did not want to give up so easily, who, however, unlike her little friend, at least did not try to raise her voice in the library. And even when I unobtrusively shifted, moving closer to Ginny's things, she didn't even think about giving up her seat at our table.
"Well, even if they don't look like it, the Weasley twins are quite caring older brothers... They were the ones who organized mine and Ginny's first date," I revealed a terrible secret, surprising Daphne among others, who until now knew nothing about such intricacies of my plan and was now... glancing at me with obvious surprise. Which was quickly replaced by something akin to amused respect...
"She's probably thinking again about how 'Slytherin-like' I'm acting by forcing the Weasley brothers to hand their younger sister right into my hands themselves," I saw someone else's thoughts as if in reality, understanding from Daphne's single glance exactly what she was thinking about me right now... Over the past year and a half, I had studied this snarky little devil too well to not notice moments like these. Although, I must admit honestly—learning to understand this girl had not been that simple.
"Uh, so the twins are aware of... your relationship? And... wait, you and Ginny had a date?" well, at least Hermione Granger was completely straightforward, sincere, and obvious in her reaction.
"Well, what's so strange about that?" I laughed slightly mockingly, not trying, however, to purposefully tease the girl. "She looked at me in such a way that it was clear even to a hedgehog what kind of feelings Ginny harbored for me... So I didn't put on an act, deciding that even if I didn't reciprocate her feelings, I would at least allow her to be in our company. And from there she settled in quite well with us on her own..."
"I was friends with her even before Hogwarts. We lived in the neighborhood," Luna chimed in quietly, seemingly noticing out of the corner of her eye that Hermione was in no hurry to believe my words...
"But how?.. it's so strange—for Ginny to just socialize so easily with Slytherins..." Hermione continued her argument for the sake of arguing, apparently simply not wanting to believe that such a thing was even possible.
"Well, to be fair, Malfoy told us the exact same thing, but in a much harsher tone... But his shock-elongated face was still worth it," I continued to amuse myself at someone else's expense, casually leaning my elbow on the wide table. "And by the way, out of the Slytherins, only Daphne is at our table right now. Luna and I are Ravenclaws... And you yourself, if you haven't noticed yet, have been communicating with us quite well for a few minutes now..."
"Um, almost like Ginny," the aforementioned Ravenclaw smiled slyly. And Daphne over there was smiling too, her behavior seemingly breaking the worldview of one specific witch a little... and enjoying it no less than I was.
Although in reality, of course, I was in no mood for laughing... While everyone was having fun and simply getting personally acquainted with Gryffindor's main nerd, I was participating in practically a personal spy thriller here, using wandless magic at the limit of my concentration and simply trying to track as accurately and sensitively as possible where the gazes and attention of all the girls at the table were currently directed.
And all for the sake of ultimately tossing one notable black notebook from Ginny's things into my own bag, and afterwards—pretending that this was how it had been all along... It turned out not bad! If I fail to settle down in the magical world, I can easily find myself in the role of a petty pickpocket. Well, if I ever become that desperate and prefer to continue turning a blind eye to the fact that Luna, it seems, still suspected me of something bad.
This strange girl with very unusual magical abilities almost certainly noticed how concentrated and tense I was from the exact moment Ginny left the library... But fortunately, she still didn't ask me anything. And she hardly noticed that I stole something from the youngest Weasley's bag.
I hadn't even hinted to anyone about my skills in wandless magic. And the witches surrounding me couldn't have noticed what was happening under the table during this conversation of ours... And therefore—I could be relatively calm, but... in the end, I still decided not to linger in the library longer than necessary.
There was a risk that Ginny, upon her return, would notice the disappearance of the cursed notebook... Which would be, if not critical—I definitely won't let anyone rummage through my bag, and no one would ask me to do such a thing either, but... I still preferred to leave under a plausible pretext—I just had a sports club session coming up soon—so as to definitely not tempt my own fate...
So, all that was left for me to do was finally verify the authenticity of someone else's horcrux, and then... it will be time to go to Professor Flitwick, and after that—to the Weasley twins. Because lately I just got a little idea on how not only to guarantee protection from possible troubles from their side, but also to drive this pair into some debts... But that's just in case my theft ever becomes known, or we just quarrel with Ginny, and she runs to complain to her older brothers. Such a variant also still remains quite realistic.
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