Chapter 28
"Luna, tell me, you know Ginny Weasley, right?" I addressed my petite friend, thoughtfully hypnotizing my own mug of hot tea, vaguely remembering the connection between the two witches from my past life and having recently noticed that they at least greeted each other when they met.
"Mhm, we lived in the same neighborhood since childhood and used to play together often. But after coming to Hogwarts, we hardly talked," the blonde girl easily confirmed my thoughts, wrinkling her nose slightly thoughtfully, not particularly worrying about how I could even know about her friendship with Ginny. "Do you need something from her?"
"Not exactly need, but... her stares make me somewhat nervous," I smiled sparsely, having frequently noticed the girl's attention on my humble persona since the very beginning of the school year. But at the same time, she doesn't make contact—she gets embarrassed to the extreme and literally freezes like a paralyzed rabbit when we meet in person. During our last such encounter, even the Weasley twins got on my case, thinking I was bothering their little sister...
"She's broken," Luna Lovegood assured me with absolute certainty. "Her Wrackspurts just go crazy in your presence. They swell up and fuss around, liquefying Ginny's brain."
"Is that so?.. You mean she only behaves so strangely in my presence?" I clarified, hoping to understand the situation a little better, but mentally already figuring out how I could use Ginny's infatuation in the current situation. And I was one hundred percent sure that this girl was... somehow very strangely in love with me. Here, knowledge from my past life combined painfully well with my own observations.
"Not entirely, but... Ginny breaks completely exactly in your presence," Luna smiled slightly, seemingly finding her former friend's behavior quite amusing. "Does something about her bother you?"
"I'm not sure I want to talk about it, but... I need to speak with her," I stretched my lips into a thin and unpleasant smile. The idea that arose in my head smacked of a certain wrongness and even immorality... I never thought I would seriously consider purposefully using a teenage girl's first crush in my own plans.
Playing with such tender feelings of a girl who, although indifferent to me, was still almost an ordinary girl—was not very right. My conscience was against such a thing, but... the risk that this underage fool would kill someone outweighed any attempts of conscience to drown out the arguments of reason. It's better that I be a beast and a scumbag even in my own eyes, rather than someone dying or getting seriously hurt because of my inaction.
"If you want, I can call her. I think you might be able to fix her... even if not immediately," Luna meanwhile thoughtfully suggested to me, seemingly worrying just a tiny bit for her old friend and not completely understanding her infatuation.
"That's not a bad option, but... I'm afraid if something goes wrong, I'll have to deal with all the older Weasleys at once, who will definitely try to take revenge on me for their offended sister," I shook my head, not that I was really fearing for my own hide, but I didn't want to make unnecessary enemies in the castle either. I still have to study here for too long to turn my relationship with the most numerous family at Hogwarts into a real war.
"Mhm, they care about Ginny. Even Ron," Luna easily agreed with me, immediately thinking about what else she could offer me... "Maybe you could just ask them to bring her to you themselves?"
"Bring her themselves, huh?" I pondered slightly, having never looked at the problem from that angle, but... quickly finding this option quite attractive and simple to execute. If I needed to somehow take the dark lord's notebook from Ginny, possibly turning her head and breaking this Gryffindor's heart in the process, then...
"So that in the future her older brothers won't cause me problems—let them organize all this themselves," I smirked cockily, thanking my ward for the thrown idea and finding the Weasley twins for a private conversation the very next day. With which, admittedly, some problems also arose, but... I was able to convince them of the necessity of a specifically private conversation.
"So, Mr. Potter, what could a diligent Ravenclaw student possibly need from the pair of main pranksters and jokers in this castle? / You just say the word and any of our fakes will be yours by the nearest weekend... for an appropriate fee, of course," the pair of absolutely identical guys addressed me speaking over one another, seemingly having decided that I needed something from their so-called joke shop...
"An interesting offer, of course, but that's not why I'm here... I came to talk about your younger sister and her blatant obsession with my ass," I began my speech with distinct displeasure in my voice, forcing the red-haired wizards to hastily exchange glances and immediately become slightly more serious.
"It seems our little hero has already noticed our sister's attention, George," one of the twins drawled almost in a sing-song voice, looking at his brother with a certain thrill.
"Spot on, Fred, the famous Potter justifies his fame," the second red-haired mage nodded in a demonstratively theatrical manner.
"And what are we to do with this now?" the twins continued synchronously, casually looming over me and thereby demonstrating their own strength. Not that it was too successful, but it would have definitely worked on ordinary kids.
"For starters—stop acting like clowns. And after that... I can offer you to play the role of good and caring brothers for your sister," I snorted, looking without much excitement at the pair of wizards, who visibly soured, having failed to achieve the desired effect.
"And what are you / Mr. Harry Potter / trying to tell us with this?" alternating fragments of the phrase between themselves, Fred and George Weasley glanced at me with slight interest, stepping back a little at the same time. They were no longer in a hurry to openly pressure me, very keenly realizing that it wouldn't work just like that.
"I'll tell you straight—I don't care about your sister, I haven't spoken to her even once, but... her stares are infuriating and unnerving. In the beginning, I even thought she was offended by me for something and was looking for a chance to quietly strangle me in the nearest alley," I snorted, making the twins smile in amusement and exchange quick glances. "However, now I see that's not the case, but the situation hasn't changed much, and therefore... organize a date for her and me."
"Eh? Are you serious right now? / Little Potter is asking us to organize a date for him with our sister?" the twins were a little lost. They even started interrupting each other, instantly losing most of their artistry.
"Your hearing is not failing you," I laughed quietly, partly even enjoying the expression on their faces. This surprise, misunderstanding, and even shock truly looked quite funny.
"Ahem, well, this is definitely strange / But if Monsieur Potter wants it so badly, the twins can help him with this... completely non-trivial task," the craziest of the Weasleys quickly pulled themselves together, immediately supplementing their previous speech with a synchronous question. "Just tell us for goodness's sake first—what's in it for us?"
"You can present a date with me as a slightly unusual gift to your sister," I simply shrugged, mentally thanking Luna for the idea to present my request under exactly such a sauce. Only in her bright little head could such ideas arise at all... "And you will simply save Ginny from an overly harsh response and a broken heart."
"It sounds like / as if you are going to reject / our beloved sister anyway," the twins pushed the speech over one another again, seemingly intending to play on my nerves to the bitter end. And yet before this, during our previous meetings, they had communicated almost normally.
"That's as it may go. Right now it seems to me that Ginny is just... too much of a fangirl. And if, upon meeting me personally, she stops seeing me as that hero from children's fairy tales, all the unnecessary nonsense will leave her head on its own," I shrugged, sincerely hoping that in reality everything would turn out exactly like that.
"Sounds not too bad," Fred nodded thoughtfully... well, or whichever of the red-haired blockheads had been called by that name earlier.
"But what will you do if Ginny's feelings still don't disappear?" George immediately clarified, who, along with his twin, had begun to express himself in a calmer and more comfortable manner for me.
"I still hope for the first option," I shrugged, absolutely not seeing any kind of relationship with my current peers and girls even a year younger. "But in extreme cases, I'll just continue communicating... Maybe I'll even come up with a way to bully Malfoy at the expense of your sister..."
"...We should curse you for such words / but your idea sounds fun," the red-haired scoundrels drawled one after another, only to immediately finish their speech in one voice. "So for now, we agree to just see what comes out of it... Especially since Mother will be pleased in any case if we show such tender care for our younger sister / maybe they will even expand our pocket money budget for next month."
"Well, then we have a deal... let me know when everything is ready," I shook my head at their antics, immediately preparing to walk away. Communicating with these twins really is exhausting.
"Hey! What's this, you won't even ask what we will prepare for you?" George tried to stop me slightly out of place.
"I'm sure you know much better than me what your sister will expect from a date. So just tell me what you've plotted right before the date itself," I shook my head, in reality having a very faint idea of how one could organize anything romantic at all within the walls of the castle... and for a Hogwarts first-year learning magic in this castle, at that.
So yes, the idea of simply dumping all the possible preparation onto the Weasleys appealed to me quite a bit. And I didn't worry that they might come up with something not too pleasant for me—it's unlikely these guys would want to ruin their sister's first date. Especially since this date would supposedly be presented as their own gift...
And even if they did come up with something extraordinary—nothing terrible would happen. In Ginny's case, as I felt, I would rather have to make an effort to ruin the impression of myself, rather than the other way around. And even without that, I didn't exactly doubt my ability to worm my way into the little Gryffindor's confidence, especially since it would be enough for me if Ginny simply showed me "her diary."
And from there... I would find a way to take it away one way or another and take it to the Headmaster, McGonagall, or Flitwick. Let them deal with this problem themselves. Hopefully, this year the school administration will show themselves at least a little bit better than last year. Not that I had high hopes for this, but I didn't have much of a choice anyway.
To independently destroy the dark lord's horcrux... as far as I knew, only Fiendfyre or a Basilisk fang was capable of that. Perhaps there are some other methods, but they are unknown to me, and the first two are stupidly inaccessible, so... I'll have to count on the fact that, having received the horcrux in their hands, the school staff will cope with the rest.
Well, they can't seriously do nothing with a blatantly dark artifact, can they?.. And even if the Headmaster gets the urge to hush up this situation—at least he wouldn't return the diary to Ginny. And that's already something... Although it would be better, if possible, to give the horcrux itself exactly to my Head of House. Flitwick is the most likely not to allow such a dangerous situation to be hushed up so easily. Or at least, I could hope for that...
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