Killer Queen

Chapter 2: Stuck In A Rut

When Ginny woke up on Friday morning, she decided she was irrevocably, irretrievably mad.
All of her friends warned her that her Malfoy project, which they preferred to refer to as her insane obsessive vendetta, was no good for her, and that it would lead her into madness.
And they were right. Killing him, that she expected. But shagging him, and making some kind of weird agreement that she could come and kill him on any given Thursday as long as she shagged him, first?
Insanity! What the hell could provoke her to do something like that?
It was a good thing it was Friday, as Friday was Harry’s most favourite day to raise hell.
She was looking forward to an evening of dubious fun and games with Harry all day long, and half the evening, waiting fully dressed under her blankets for 9:30 bed check to be over, and that all-too familiar invitation, seemingly from thin air.
“C’mon, Ginny. Today is a good day to die.”
Ginny pulled up Harry’s Invisibility Cloak and got under it with him.
“For some other punters, it fucking well is. Let’s go.” She enthused.
The Marauder’s Map conducted them as far as Hogsmeade, and to the public apparition point, where they both illegally apparated to Knockturn Alley. It was illegal, of course, for Harry to get potted in any of the local bars, but, in Knockturn Alley, nobody was worried about anything like that. As long as your money was silver or gold and shiny, it was good to buy whatever you wanted.
For starters, all Harry wanted in his favourite hangout, the Horntail’s Lair, was a bottle of Hell’s Horntail.
He lit up an English Oval and asked the bartender to leave the bottle.
One shot down, smoke out his nose, and another shot down.
Smoke out his nose and his mouth.
Smoke rings, actually.
Harry poured another glass and lifted it to Ginny.
“Happy days, Ginny, luv.” He said, winking wryly.
Ginny picked up her glass of butterbeer and clinked it with Harry’s shot glass.
“Happy days, Harry.” She replied.
***
It was a fairly quiet night. Ginny sat there, watching Harry get pissed, and politely declined the bump of coke he offered her.
None of the regulars fucked about with Harry, or Ginny. Professor Snape repeatedly told Harry that when you were 15, you were a man, and with Harry, it at least looked to be true. At 16, he was six foot one, and though he was the long-limbed and lanky type, he had broad shoulders and flat, wiry muscles in which was coiled a great deal of strength. Ginny was pretty much his female equivalent, though she was five feet four, and they both had the constitution of an Ox.
Harry and Ginny, in her lioness form or out of it, had laid waste to the Horntail’s Nest and its inhabitants a few times, enough times for the regulars to give the two teenagers a wide berth.
Not everyone who came in, however, especially on a Friday night, was a regular.
It was close to closing time when a tall, stringy-haired strung-out looking wizard came in with his equally tall and strung out looking girlfriend, and another wizard, who was squat, fat, and square, with blue hair and a bunch of jailhouse tattoos.
Though you couldn’t see it on them, the smell of blood and the stink of death clung to all three of them. It was quite fresh, too; they were coming to the Nest to commemorate murdering someone.
“Finish your drink and let’s get the fuck out of ‘ere, Harry.” Ginny said, anxiously.
“Why? Is it that lot?” Harry asked.
“Yeah. I’ll explain later.”
Of course, it was already too late.
They were halfway to the door when the fat one stepped out in front of them.
“Ain’t yer ‘Arry Potter?” he asked.
“Sure, mate. S’cuse me.” Harry said.
“You’re out to kill the Dark Lord, ain’t yer, Potter?”
“I’m out to kill a lot of blokes. But right now, I’m drunk, and I just wanna go ‘ome.” Harry replied.
The skinny one joined him.
He smiled yellowy with a mouth full of cracked and rotten junkie teeth.
“You ain’t gonna make it.” He said.
Harry broke the skinny one’s nose, then he grabbed him by the throat and started choking him.
Ginny headed his girlfriend off at the pass, shouting “Expelliarmus!” , and following it with a punch.
The fat one hit Harry over the back of the head with a chair, but Harry kept choking the skinny one; cursing him and shaking him like a rag doll.
“I wanna go home, you skinny fuck!” was the most coherent thing he said.
The girl and the fat bastard just stood there, mouths agape in shock. They were terrified that Harry was going to kill the skinny one, but they were just as terrified that if they moved, Ginny was going to kill them.
This wasn’t just their usual fight; Ginny realised that Harry was going to kill this bloke.
Clearly, these people weren’t hardened murderers
The fat one took out his wnad and raised both his arms in the air.
“I won’t do nuffin! He’s gonna kill me brother! Do summat!” he entreated Ginny.
Ginny thought about it. Maybe it was an animal they killed. Maybe they smelled of blood and death because they were just a bunch of pathetic junkies on their last legs trying to get a drink or two in. No matter the circumstances, it wasn’t up to Harry to decide to kill any of them.
“Harry, are you mad! Fucking let him go!” Ginny yelled.
Harry wasn’t listening. He was swearing, horribly, incoherently, and Skinny Junkie’s eyes were beginning to bulge out.
Insanity on top of insanity. First Malfoy and now this. Where was it going to end?
It was times like this that Ginny wished she was the girl she wrote her mother about, a nice, quiet, studious girl who got into a few fights on occasion, played Quidditch and went quite virginally steady with a cleaned-up version of Harry Potter.
Ginny abruptly transformed, her clothes tearing into pieces.
She grabbed Harry by the back of his jacket in her mouth and hauled him off of Skinny Junkie. Then, she stood between the three and Harry, roaring with all her might.
Fat Fuck and Junkie Girlfriend were too busy attending to Skinny Junkie to worry about Harry.
Ginny tossed him onto her back, and made for the door.
She ran, and she kept running until they reached the public apparition point.
Harry took off his coat.
“Here, put this on. I’m sorry, Ginny. I dunno what come over me. I just wanted that fuck to get out of me way so I could go ‘ome an’ go to bed.” Harry admitted.
Ginny changed back and put Harry’s coat on. It was almost as long as her robes, and could have been mistaken for same from afar.
“You almost killed him. Helluva Friday night, Harry, you crazy motherfucker.” She said.
Harry laughed nervously, lit up, and they apparated back to Hogsmeade.

***
Saturday was a repeat of Friday, except Harry didn’t get into a fight, and she had to half-carry him back to Hogwarts and have Ron help her put him to bed. She spent most of Sunday doing homework, and on Monday, she and Hermione studied together. On Tuesday, she met one of her Quidditch groupies in the course of having an illicit butterbeer at the Hog’s Head, and had a quick knee-trembler beside Aberforth Dumbledore’s goat sheds. It wasn’t very interesting, and she came sort of half-heartedly, with the goats regarding the whole affair with sympathy.
On Wednesday, Harry had sufficiently recovered from the weekend’s debauches to sally forth to the Horntail’s Nest, again, as opposed to getting high and pissed and doing his shagging on school grounds.
Ginny began to feel as if she was stuck in a rut. Her life was an endless hamster wheel of studying, plotting, nursemaiding Harry and anonymous and commonly uninteresting knee tremblers with wizards she wouldn’t want to have a cup of tea with under any other circumstances.
For lack of anything better to do, she kept her appointment at Malfoy Manor.
***
Ginny tried not to look like a gobsmacked rube as a house-elf led her through the Malfoy’s immense ancestral estate. It was an actual fucking castle, not quite as big as Hogwarts, but there were only three people and an army of house elves living in it.
He led her up what seemed like at least ten different flights of stairs, and then into a room at the top of a tower.
It was about as big as the Gryffindor common room, and contained the biggest bed she had ever seen, and also a table and two chairs, among other things, at which Malfoy, that is, Luke, sat.
“Come in, Poppy. Are you hungry?”
“Starving. I studied through dinner. And lunch.”
“What would you like to eat?”
Ginny thought about it.
“Well, I wouldn’t mind macaroni cheese and a nice bit of Shepherd’s Pie.” She said.
“You heard the lady, Keegan.”
“Yes, Master!” the house elf squeaked.
He left and closed the door, and Ginny went and sat down in the chair opposite Malfoy.
He was dressed far more casually than he had been at their first meeting, in a dressing gown with Slytherin colours.
“Tea?”
“Yes, please.”
Ginny had winced when she sat down, and she winced when she reached for the tea.
“Are you hurt?” Malfoy asked.
“Not too badly. Just a few broken knuckles, sprained shoulder, bruised ribs, a few other lumps and bumps.” Ginny said, dismissively.
“What do you consider hurt badly? Missing limbs?”
“Something like that. Between Quidditch, animagus studies, and adventures with Harry, I get banged around a lot. You learn to live with pain, after a while.” Ginny said.
“Poppy, you are only 16. And you’re not even five and a half feet tall, and I doubt if you even weigh ten stone. You shouldn’t be getting banged around at all.” Malfoy replied.
Keegan returned with the food, and Ginny started shovelling it in.
She was really hungry.
“Why are you missing meals? Is the food going off? If it is, those house elves will rue the day they joined that ridiculous SPEW.”
“I sleep through lunch, and study through dinner. Then I grab something at night after I’ve seen Harry to bed.” Ginny explained.
Malfoy was beginning to look upon his young and newly-minted mistress in his professional capacity. He was high up in the Ministry’s Child and Adolescent Welfare Department, ironically enough.
The shred of decency left in Lucius Malfoy wanted to make sure that what had happened to him when he was a boy would not happen to other young witches and wizards. Even Mudbloods didn’t deserve to be exploited and abused.
“If you keep on like this, something horrible is going to happen to you.” He warned her.
This was ridiculous. Why should he care about the welfare of this Gryffindor chit who had become a passing obsession of his. Professional curiosity? Suicidal tendencies? Guilt because it was his actions that led her astray?
A combination of the three. Damn that shred of decency, he had to start drinking more.
“I know it. I feel like I’m stuck in a rut. On the fucking hamster wheel to nowhere. I mean all the fights and the studying and the late nights and the anonymous shagging, it’s all just become a blur. I want to get off this fucking merry-go-round of shit, but I’m fucked if I know how to do it.” Ginny replied.
Malfoy was about to ask her where the fuck her parents were in all this, and then he thought of Arthur Weasley in his office spending three days trying to work a simple telephone, and Molly Weasley home in her sunny cottage amongst the gently green and rolling hills of Devonshire, in her little world of children and grandchildren and biscuits in the kitchen. They were involved in the war, but they had no idea what a filthy war it was and weren’t close enough to it to get as dirty as their daughter had. Especially spending so much time with Potter, who was positively radioactive with fallout from this dirty little war. The Weasleys not only had no idea what their youngest child was up to, if they had known they’d be totally out of their depth.
“May I make an few suggestions, before you do away with me?” Malfoy asked, drily.
“Why not?”
“First, you should consider taking on lovers instead of fucking any wizard who comes along when you’re feeling fruity. Contraceptive charms and devices are not foolproof, and rubbers, even the magical kind, can’t protect you every time from every STD. You don’t have to get involved, or fall in love, just make sure the wizard is someone you either trust implicitly or can’t trust at all, so that you know where you stand. And make sure he’s a man, stop fucking boys, they’ll ruin you. Second, quit using force when you should be using magic. You’re a witch, not a prize fighter. And finally, it sounds to me like Mr. Potter needs more help than you can give him. I know it goes against everything a Gryffindor stands for, but snitch to Snape. He’ll help you look after Potter, and he won’t go telling tales that will get either of you expelled. And, by the Mother and the Horned King, and the burning eye of Balor, stay out of Knockturn Alley! Let Potter drink at the school, or at the Hog’s Head, Aberforth will serve anyone with money. You think you can handle Knockturn Alley but you can’t. Not with an army of lionesses. They will kill both of you, and your families won’t even get to bury your bodies. I was sold on those streets when I was your age, I should know.” He said.
Ginny looked at Lucius Malfoy like she had never seen him before in her life.
“Why do you care?” she asked.
“Selfish reasons. I don’t want anyone to spoil you for me.” He replied.
She could believe that.
***
In an undisclosed location, where even the many eyes and ears of Tom Riddle could neither see nor hear them, two old friends met in secret to discuss matters of state.
“So, I hear you’ve been shagging the Weasley girl. You’re a real pervert, you know that, Luke?” Snape marvelled.
He and Malfoy both lit up.
“I’m just trying to finish the educational process I started, Sev. Did a little bird named Granger tell you that?”
“I refuse to disclose my sources.”
“Well, I refuse to disclose mine as well, but I have something to tell you about Potter that you’re not going to like. I know that you…”
Malfoy paused. He stopped himself from saying what he was going to say, and chose his words more carefully.
“…that you feel some obligation regarding his welfare, considering your relationship with his mother.”
Snape raised an eyebrow.
“How bad is it?”
“Worse. He’s been knocking about in Knockturn Alley, frequenting the Horntail’s Lair. And my brave but extremely stupid little Gryffindor lioness had been accompanying him. It’s not good, Severus. I haven’t seen Potter, but the last time I saw her she had bruises all over her body and she could hardly lift a teacup. I had my personal medi-wizard come and look after her. She was badly hurt, several broken bones. Some of which had already healed on their own. Badly. He had to break her arm again and repair it so that the pain to her shoulder every time she grasps something in her left hand would stop. She didn’t make a sound. Still, someone is going to kill both of them. Or wosre for the girl. Now, I could owl the Weasleys in my official capacity and I’m sure they would see to it that their little girl was safe, even if they had to home school her and chain her up in her bedroom and ward the whole house. But no one gives a fuck about young Potter. His relatives would just as well see him dead, and they expect him to come to no good. I’ll leave it to you, then, Severus.” Malfoy replied.
Snape looked furious, and he said, “Thank you, Luke, I’ll see to it this little game of Potter’s is over right away.” through clenched teeth, and apparated back to Hogwarts without saying goodbye.
Malfoy finished his cigarette, thinking that if it wasn’t for what he and Narcissa went through to protect Draco, that his son would probably be in the same spot as Harry Potter.
Lord Malfoy hurried home, with the intention to contact his master, and beg him one more time to stop using Draco as a pusher at Hogwarts.
Even though he knew it could have been worse.
Much worse.
***
A burst of wind and soot and green smoke actually blew forcefully out of the hearth in the Gryffindor common room before Snape emerged from the hearth, with a black, angry look on his face, like he was the Devil himself.
“Potter! You’re coming with me! You too, Weasley. Not you, Mr. Weasley. Your sister.” Snape snapped.
“She didn’t do anything wrong, P-P-P-Professor. Don’t hurt her. Take me, instead. I did it.” Ron volunteered.
“Mr. Weasley, I am not going to do anything to hurt your sister. Even though she is not in my house, she is my student, and it is my responsibility to see to it no one harms her. Especially your friend, Potter, here.” Snape snarled.
Harry was half-crocked, as usual.
“I didn’t do nothin’ to harm Ginny, yuh wicked-“
Snape cut off Harry’s bravado by grabbing him by his tee shirt and lifting him up in the air.
“You shut your pie hole, boy, or by Christ, I’ll shut it for you!” he threatened.
Harry was surprised that Snape could lift him into the air with one arm, casually, like he was a rag doll, and surprised to hear Snape invoke the god of the good old C of E in which they were both raised.
He shut his pie hole.
Snape ushered both of his students into the hearth, and flooed to his office in a flash of green.
“What was he so mad about?” Ron asked Hermione.
Hermione decided to tell Ron the truth. Maybe he could get it through Harry’s head that he was being a real toerag.
“Harry’s been going to Knockturn Alley on a regular basis. Ginny’s afraid when he’s drunk and out of it someone will rob him or hurt him, or something, so she goes with him to watch his back. Don’t tell your parents, Ron. I’m sure the school will take care of it.” Hermione added, hastily at the end.
“The school and my parents my arse! I’m telling George and Fred and we’ll take care of it! Has Harry lost his mind?” Ron replied.
“I think so.” Hermione answered.
***
Ginny and Harry found themselves in Snape’s office. He closed, locked and warded the doors, and then double-checked everything.
When Snape turned around, Harry and Ginny were both sitting quietly in the two chairs opposite his desk.
Snape had the sudden impulse to knock Potter out of the chair and scream at him, to try and beat some sense into him. That, however was the approach Tobias always used with him, and it never worked. Instead, Snape sat down in his chair on the opposite side of the desk.
“Let’s get right to the point. Potter, I know that you have been sneaking off school grounds late at night. I know you’ve been illegally apparating from Hogsmeade to Knockturn Alley, and I know you have been throwing Miss Weasley’s weight around at the Horntail’s Nest. I’m not going to ask you what you were thinking, because I know that you are too much of a drunken, self-centred, narcissistic little shit to think. I am not surprised that you have no regard for your own life. I am surprised, however that you have no regard for Miss Weasley’s life. Before you get upset with me, Miss Weasley, I am not saying this because you are a woman and fully half Potter’s size. I believe that you can hold your own in most situations. No witch, or wizard, for that matter, however should be asked to single-handedly face down the kind of degenerate human scum that inhabit Knockturn Alley, and certainly not on a regular basis. It is not fair to Miss Weasley, Potter, to have to put her life and her bodily integrity at risk in order for you to get pissed, play the big man, and shag disreputable Potter groupies in unmentionably filthy circumstances. You should be ashamed of yourself to place a witch you call your friend in such circumstances.”
Ginny wasn’t too fond of Snape, but when he said what he said she could have kissed him.
“Awww, I’m not puttin’ Ginny in harm’s way.” Harry protested.
“Really? I have here a parchment written up by a medi-wizard that says otherwise. He recently treated Miss Weasley for five broken knuckles and a torn-out fingernail, three cracked ribs, a dislocated shoulder, assorted contusions and abrasions, and a large gash to the side of the mouth, commensurate with being punched repeatedly in the face. He also had to re-break her left arm, a previous fracture in it had healed disastrously wring, so that Miss Weasley could not use that arm or her left hand without considerable pain. She didn’t dare go to the infirmary, for fear that Madame Pomfrey would question her, and that you would get in trouble. I would say you are putting Miss Weasley in the way of a great deal of harm.” Snape informed him.
Harry looked shocked.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were hurt that bad?” he asked Ginny.
“It’s not in me nature to complain.” She replied.
“If only you could be so noble and stoic, Potter. Unfortunately, you have decided on whiny and drunk, instead. You will be doing a special detention with me from midnight until 2AM every night, until the end of the school year. I will be personally checking your bed at four and six, and you had better be in it. For the rest of the school year, you may not leave this campus unless someone in your family dies or you need to go to St. Mungo’s, unless you are in the company of a faculty member. I realise you will find some way to get into trouble despite these rules, but at least you will not be doing so in Knockturn Alley. I have just as may eyes and ears there as Lord Voldemort does, and if I hear that you have been back to your old haunts, I’ll add two hours after school detention per day to your punishments. One hundred points from Gryffindor.”
“It’s a fair cop.” Harry commented, the wheels in his mind already turning.
“Yes, it is. You may both go back to your Common Room, now.” Snape finished.
“Aren’t you going to punish me, Professor?” Ginny asked.
“For doing your sworn duty as a soldier in Dumbledore’s Army? Certainly not.” Snape replied.
***
Time passed, quickly.
Harry didn’t stop boozing, balling or getting high. He just stopped doing it in Knockturn Alley, which was a great relief to Ginny.
He tried to go back, but Snape had been there ahead of him and put the word out that no one was to so much as sell a straight cigarette to Harry Potter in Knockturn Alley, and the habitués thereof were frightened enough of the wizard who was reported to be both Albus Dumbledore’s and Tom Riddle’s right hand man to listen to him.
Snape found out about Harry’s return trip, and his two extra hours of detention kicked in.
Two more blessed hours that Ginny didn’t have to worry about Harry.
She began sleeping through the night, eating regular meals and studying at regular times. Her injuries healed, and Harry’s new rules seemed to be doing him some good; he didn’t seem quite as drunk and out of control as before.
They still made secret forays out of Hogwarts under his Invisibility Cloak, but only to the Hog’s Head, and Aberforth Dumbledore was only willing to sell him stout and beer, no hard liquor, so Ginny actually began having a worry-free and pleasant good time when she and Harry went out for their illicit nights on the town.
She did not kill Malfoy, who became Luke somewhere along the line. She decided that, at some point, if he really started pissing her off, or if she caught him plotting anything truly heinous, then she’d kill him.
In the mean time, Ginny was getting used to shagging in a bed, staying overnight, and actually having conversations with the person she was fucking. Not to mention coming back more than once. Luke’s feelings about her were thankfully free of the sort of sloshy sentiments Ginny liked to avoid, and he was generally less snarky and hard to get along with than Snape, although certainly he was crazy as a shithouse rat.
Ginny mulled over candidates for other partners to fill up her dance card, and passed on what little war-related information she got from Luke to Hermione, who passed it onto Snape.
Indeed, her life settled down enough that she really began to enjoy it, and, as All Hallows Eve approached, she made plans to invite another rooster into the henhouse. She already had a man she knew she couldn’t trust, now it was time for one she could trust, implicitly.
It was October, and the night of the full harvest moon was almost upon her.