Unofficial Portkey Archive

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Chapter Nine- Activation

Ginny was sick of shelving. It was her third day of detention, and she was finally finishing her stacks of books. She scowled. Draco had finished his detention hours before her because of his sorting spell, and she was missing her Quidditch practice.

She paused, a book in her hand. It hadn't been all bad, she had to admit. One good thing about Ginny's detentions was that they gave her time to think. For the past couple days, seeing Seamus was…boring. She didn't know quite what had happened, but everything just seemed dull around him. The two of them would sit with Dean and Lavender at mealtimes or to study, but they never had anything to talk about, and Seamus always seemed to be thinking of something else. Then again, Ginny usually let her mind wander too.

She looked at the amulet that had been tucked under her sweater. Another problem that was preoccupying her. It had changed again. Wednesday it had been a yellowish gold color, and Thursday it was a mix of orange and bronze. Now, it was red. A deep, scarlet red with bronze flecks left over from the day before.

It was almost mesmerizing to look at its swirling stone. It seemed to have more depth than was possible for a stone of its size, which made it seem all the more magical. Ginny tilted it back and forth in her hand. She had noticed over the past few days that the colors seemed to be changing in a pattern. Purple, blue, green, gold, orange, red… What worried her was that the colors had seemed to be counting down to something. She had assumed red would be the last color, but nothing had happened. Ginny looked at it again. Maybe the colors didn't count down to anything. Maybe they just changed to be pretty. She frowned. No, Malfoy wouldn't want it back so badly if all it did was be pretty.

So what was it?

Ginny sighed and slipped the pendant back under her sweater. She hurried to finish shelving the last couple of books before she missed more of the Quidditch practice. Placing Finding Fungi between The Herbalist's Guide to Paprika and Horrible Maladies and How to Cure Them, she dusted off her skirt. Ginnypicked up her broom and her bag and ran to the Quidditch pitch.

Draco was worried. It had been almost a week since Ginny had started carrying around the pendant, and he knew time was running thin. Why was she being so stupid? Why couldn't she have just returned it to him in the beginning and avoided all this trouble?

He snorted. She was a Weasley, through and through. Always getting in the way. He didn't know how, but he had get it back or at least find out how much time he had before it would activate.

He checked his watch. He'd been sitting by the Quidditch pitch for almost an hour now. He was concealed from Ginny's view, but he could watch her as she flew back and forth, practicing her scoring. He had also stopped by the night before at the team practice, but he had been kicked out for "spying on an opposing team". It was amazing that Draco was up before breakfast and out waiting for a Weasley to stop practicing. He yawned and checked the skies again. She was gone.

"Malfoy!"

Draco's head snapped up and he turned around. Ginny had landed and walked up behind him. She had her hands on her hips, and her hair and Quidditch robe were in disarray.

"What are you doing here? The nerve of you, coming back to spy on my practice after being kicked out yesterday!" Ginny's eyes gleamed fiercely.

"I'm not out to spy on your silly practice. Get a clue, Weasley," Draco countered easily. "I need the amulet back."

Ginny looked exasperated. "Again with the stupid pendant? What's the big deal anyway? It only changes color."

Draco narrowed his eyes at her.

Hermione had been up for hours, searching the library. Ginny's amulet problem had begun to worry her, and though she didn't know why, the worry had only made her search more thoroughly.

She finally found something, a bit of information, in a large, dusty tome. She read it as quickly as she could, and felt her chest tighten with every word. Pointed in the right direction by several sleepy Gryffindors, Hermione ran to find Ginny.

"Fine. Whatever. Can I have it back now?"

Draco and Ginny had argued for over ten minutes. He held out his hand. Worn down, Ginny retrieved it from under her sweater. A pearly-white center glistened inside the silver setting. Pulling it over her head, she unfastened it from her chain and looked at it quizzically. It wasn't white before, she thought. Shrugging off her concerns, Ginny held out her hand, letting the amulet slide into Draco's.

"Ginny," Hermione shouted as she ran toward the Quidditch pitch. "Ginny!"

Ginny turned. Just slightly, Draco's hand touched her own as Ginny let go of the amulet. In that instant, a huge flash of white blinded all vision. Hermione ran unseeing into where Ginny should have been. Her eyes recovered slowly. The amulet had fallen to the ground, and Ginny and Draco had disappeared.

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