When Ginny emerged from Gringotts Bank with Hailey and Petunia… she immediately recognized the sound of her mother’s voice, still yelling at the twins, and raised an eyebrow.
Hailey seemed to recognize it too. “Isn’t that your mom?” she asked, tilting her head.
“Sounds like it,” Ginny agreed. “I’m wondering what the Twins did this time.”
Then she paused, listening to the sound for a minute. She could sort-of make out the words in the distance.
“You know, I think she’s still at it from earlier,” Hailey said suddenly. “She must have been furious.”
“It’s been almost two hours,” Petunia observed blankly.
Ginny rubbed her chin. “Hmm… Wouldn’t be the first time. Mind if we break them up real quick?” She looked up at Petunia.
“Probably a good idea,” Petunia agreed. “I wouldn’t want her to scar her sons in your place.”
“They’re thirteen,” Ginny informed her dismissively, then tilted her head. “Though it’s true, that does not make them old enough to take it in stride.” She sighed, then led the way towards the yelling.
When they arrived, the twins had color in their faces once again… and actually seemed to be taking it in stride. Perhaps their personalities were strong enough that they could take it in stride early?
Ginny jogged up behind her mother, then reached up and tugged on Molly’s robes.
She got whacked across the face for her trouble, as Molly shook her off without looking or interrupting her spiel… which told her it was going to take something much more dramatic to get her to stop.
So she stood back up again, after sitting down hard from the blow, then sighed, psionically healed her bloody nose (it hadn’t broken, just bled) but didn’t clean it up, and walked away… before turning to face again. She then made a running jump, up as high as she could with only the tiniest of psionic boosts- and wrapped both her arms around her mother’s neck from behind.
“Mom!” she yelled, straight into Molly’s ear.
Molly choked, stumbled, and fell forwards, landing on her hands and knees in front of the Twins.
Ginny then rolled quickly off of her, taking advantage of Molly’s gasping for breath to move in front of her, and put her hands on her hips. “It’s been two hours,” she told her. “Don’t you think you’ve yelled at them enough?”
“Two hours?” Fred asked.
“New record!” George cried, sticking a fist in the air.
So it was a game to them.
She gave George a back kick to the groin. Even with her overall weakness and pulling the blow, it was still enough to make him sink to the ground in pain. She still had the wrath of Lord Voldemort to feed them both later, but she didn’t quite want to castrate them.
“That is not an acceptable way to set new getting-shouted-at records,” she remanded over her shoulder. “Stuff like that can cause permanent damage to people as young as us.”
Fred knelt down next to George, putting an arm across his shoulders with a pained expression; the two twins had so strong of a brotherly bond that hurting one hurt the other as well, albeit not physically. The effect was so acute that Ginny frequently wondered if they were actually entangled souls.
“G-Ginny!” Molly gasped, finally recovering from her brief stranglehold and looking up at her. “Wha- Why is your nose bleeding? Who hit you?”
Ginny folded her arms. “You did.” She didn’t like hurting her mother like that, but it was the truth- and since Molly hadn’t realized it herself, that meant it was probably going to be the shock necessary to return her mother’s brain to normal, logical operation.
There was silence for nearly five seconds.
Then Molly leaned forwards and hugged her. “S-sorry,” she cried. “I was just so worried-!”
“Sometimes I think you worry a bit too much,” Ginny informed her, ‘gently’ pushing her off with her muscles psionically enhanced to the point that she could overpower her mother.
Molly sighed, then finally rose back to her feet. “Y-Yeah, I suppose, but… But I just worry!”
She sighed. “So… why didn’t you set any yelling records when they got Ron lost out here for an hour last year?”
“I, ahh…” Molly muttered, evidently trying to remember.
“Oh that’s easy,” Hailey chuckled, jogging up next to Ginny. “He’s not the baby of the family.”
Ginny blushed at being labeled the ‘baby of the family’... but it was true. She was the youngest.
Molly, on the other hand, blushed far darker than she, and covered her face with her hands. “O-Oops,” she squeaked.
Ginny laughed. “Hey, it’s okay,” she said, capturing and patting her mother’s elbow.
Ten feet to the side, where he was sitting next to Percy on a bench, Ron laughed as well. Percy didn’t, but her psionic senses told her he wanted to.
“It’s okay,” Ginny repeated. “We’ll live. Just, ahh… Try not to go quite so crazy over me? It’s… Well, crazy.” She glanced back at the twins, causing them to jolt backwards against the wall- even though George was still clutching at his groin. “And record-setting,” she added darkly.
“Oh? Is she done yelling?” It was Madam Malkin, presumably, as Hailey, Ginny, and Petunia walked into Madam Malkin’s Robes for All Occasions.
“Who?” Hailey asked curiously.
“Mrs. Weasley,” Malkin continued. “She’s been yelling at her sons for quite a while now. Something about being mean to their sister.”
Ginny blushed. “Yeah… She’s done now.”
Hailey chuckled softly. Just that morning, when she’d walked into the Leaky Cauldron with Petunia, she hadn’t expected to feel Ginny calling out for help… somehow, because it definitely wasn’t verbal. She’d answered that call- surprisingly effectively- and when they had finally found her mother… Ginny had immediately identified the ones that had gotten her lost to be a couple of her older brothers, and gotten the next best thing to a confession out of them.
So Hailey had taken over, with the express purpose of allowing Ginny to… stabilize her mother while she dealt with the Twins; she could somehow feel that the woman had been on the verge of losing her mind from worry.
Unfortunately, she’d been unsuccessful. When she had weaponized her memory of Ginny’s reaction against the twins, their mother had heard it… and lost her mind to rage. Unsure of how best to solve the problem, and unwilling to put herself between a raging mother and the target of her ire, Hailey had allowed herself to be herded out of the way by said mother; hopefully, she would be able to get it out of her system fairly quickly, without giving the boys too unfair of a talking to.
Petunia had evidently come to the same conclusion, and the three of them had headed towards Gringotts. Ginny had joined them again, after the invitations; apparently, Petunia had been worried about just how few friends Hailey had at school (flat zero, nobody seemed to like dealing with her for long) and Ginny’s mother was worried about Ginny’s… shyness…
The girl hadn’t seemed to be shy at all as far as Hailey could tell, except for those times when she blushed at the goblins’ questions, though that was probably just because they were very personal questions.
They had been enough, though. Hailey had found out that the girl was actually a reincarnation- specifically, a grown adult in the body of a young child. It had made it strange how she’d reacted so much like a child sometimes… But also explained quite a lot of her far more reasoned reactions.
Hailey was well aware that she was mature for her age, possibly because she feared her own strength… but she wasn’t sure if she was as mature as Ginny was. Or what sort of impact her young brain was having on her experienced mind- because it was obviously having some, or she wouldn’t have broken down- and lost her mind- in the Leaky Cauldron.
But then they’d returned to the streets… to find that Hailey had been wrong about Ginny’s mother: She hadn’t gotten all the rage out of her system and recovered on her own, which suggested that she had a lot of pent-up rage towards the two boys.
So she had gone with Ginny’s suggestion of breaking them up… and had allowed Ginny to use her knowledge to wake her mother up. She’d then stood back and watched until the woman had actually recovered before allowing herself to make any comments.
Finally, they’d had a decent, low-stress (at least, when compared to the first one) meeting, and Petunia and Molly had decided that they were going to let Ginny stay with Hailey anyways. Hailey wasn’t sure what was doing it, but Ginny did seem to be a bit clingy towards her. It couldn’t have been the reincarnation thing, could it? If anything, that was what she’d expect her to do if she wasn’t a reincarnation- because then, she could reasonably have expected the girl to view her as her savior!
And now, they had entered Madam Malkin’s Robes for All Occasions to get Hailey’s new Hogwarts uniform- ‘three sets plain work robes (black); one plain pointed hat (black) for day wear; one pair of protective gloves (dragon hide or similar); one winter cloak (black, silver fastenings)’, according to the shopping list. She still wasn’t quite sure why the pointed hat was specified for day wear; it wasn’t like she was going to be sleeping while wearing a pointed hat, was it?
Madam Malkin chuckled at Ginny’s response as well. “She really cares about her daughter, doesn’t she?” She sighed. “Hogwarts, dears?”
Ginny blushed very brightly and hid behind Hailey- perhaps one of the first shy things she’d done around her.
“Uh- Yes,” Hailey told Malkin. “For me, at least. Ginny isn’t of age yet.”
“Ginny, huh? Oddly normal name for a colorhead.” She let out a soft chuckle. “Right over here please, miss.” She gestured Hailey towards a small stool, plucking a robe off a rack as she went.
“Colorhead?” Hailey inquired, as she moved to obey; Ginny tried to hide behind Petunia, but when Petunia sat down on a bench to wait, she was forced to sit next to her instead.
“Hmm? Oh, it’s a name the nobles have applied to all the funny-haired students running around, as of a few days ago.” She offered the robe to Hailey to slip on over her head.
“What, never heard of a colorhead?”
Hailey glanced over as she slipped the robe on. What looked like a shop assistant was working with a blonde boy’s robes, pinning them to length. The boy had a kind of slow, drawling kind of voice that sounded distinctly disinterested.
Then it struck her. She knew exactly how Ginny had called out to her- and how this boy was calling out to her as well, both of them without realizing or meaning to, she was pretty sure.
It was the black. Well… it technically wasn’t black, as it wasn’t really a color, even if that seemed to be the best way to describe it- perhaps it was something to do with a magic aura or the sort? Back when she’d met her, Ginny’d had what felt like a transient black- something that had instantly informed Hailey that she was absolutely panicked. That black had vanished very quickly as she’d comforted her.
This boy… it was a different sort of black. Well… sort of. It definitely wasn’t going to vanish as quickly or easily, and also delivered a very different message to her.
Whereas Ginny had felt helpless and trapped in the moment, and as such had panicked… this boy felt like he had no control over his life whatsoever. Like he was trapped by his life, not his circumstances, and helpless as a result.
This wasn’t the kind of thing she’d be able to fix in an afternoon… but somehow, she knew just how to start.
“I have now,” she told him calmly.
Then his eyes fell on Petunia. “Oh, you’re a mudblood, aren’t- Ow!”
The word had obviously been intended as an insult- and the reactions were very strong across Madam Malkin, her assistant, and Ginny. Madam Malkin had given him a death glare, her assistant had let out a hiss and just slightly mis-applied the pin she was working on so that it poked him- and Ginny, all shyness forgotten, practically flew off the bench, her face contorted with rage… It looked like she was biting it back, though.
Hailey decided to take the term literally. “No,” she told him. “I’m not some strange species of human that has a mixture of water and dirt in place of blood.”
Then Ginny arrived, and stopped just far enough away from the boy to not get in Malkin’s assistant’s way. “Draco Malfoy, are you not?” she asked.
He looked at her. “Yes… How did you know, colorhead?”
“Your family has been leeching off their distant ancestors for generations,” she informed him, completely ignoring his question- possibly because he was using the term ‘colorhead’ as an insult as well. “Despite not having any income to speak of. Even the lowliest Hufflepuff wouldn’t do that if given the opportunity- they’ll actually work for a change. And of course, your family has been one of the worst offenders in the gradual polarization of the political climate into pure-blood supremacists and ‘others’ that the first claim shouldn’t be allowed, hasn’t it?”
He stared at her. Hailey could tell that he was trying- and failing- to come up with a response. He evidently didn’t know much about the specifics she’d decided to pull up.
So she asked the question he no doubt wanted to ask. “What are you talking about?” Hailey asked her.
Ginny looked at her, jarred out of her rage. “Um,” she began, and paused, evidently re-processing her argument.
“How about this,” Hailey decided for her. “He’s eleven.” Very specifically he, because she was mature for her age and Ginny was definitely not mentally eleven.
“So?” Ginny asked.
“So don’t bully him for his parents’ decisions,” she remanded. “He doesn’t have a choice, does he? Just like we don’t either, do we?”
“But calling you a-! A-!” Ginny evidently couldn’t bring herself to repeat the word.
“Doesn’t matter,” Hailey told her. “It’s wrong anyways. I’m wizard-born.” She couldn’t explain how she knew what the vulgar term was referring to, but she did, and she was going to take advantage of that. “So why bully him for his parents’ actions?”
Ginny glanced sideways at Draco. “Uh-!” she began, then paused. “Um… Sorry.” She turned her back and returned to the bench, looking flustered. Once there, she set one leg overtop the other, braced her elbow on the higher one, and put her chin in the palm of her hand, wearing an expression of deep thought.
Draco stared at her for a second, then looked at Hailey. “H-How?” he asked. “Who are you?”
In that instant, as Hailey sensed his wonder and curiosity, she knew how she was going to clean up the black in his… aura. It wasn’t going to be simple… which made it fairly important that she stay mysterious to him, for now at least. The stronger his curiosity got today, the easier it was going to be down the road.
Ginny looked up at her, but seemed to have already decided to let her answer rather than answering for her.
“A girl that believes we should all have a chance to prove ourselves, no matter what our parents or past selves may or may not have done,” she told him.
Ginny blushed- just like all the previous times, it was so adorable- and averted her eyes at Hailey’s comment. Did that mean that she disapproved of something her past self did? Probably a question that was best left unasked. The girl might’ve fully healed from her terror that morning, and had no black whatsoever in her aura, but Hailey didn’t want to risk making an enemy out of her. Especially when the girl had so quickly become her friend- she’d never had as nice of a friend as Ginny… and somehow knew that, out of the many acquaintances she’d had, Ginny would be the first one to stay with her for the long haul.
Draco scowled. “That’s not what I asked,” he told her.
“I know,” she answered promptly.
He stared at her for several seconds, wonder and irritation warring with each other on his face. Eventually, his curiosity won. “How would we ‘prove ourselves’ when our parents…?” He trailed off, evidently unsure of how to phrase it.
“A very good question,” Hailey told him. “I imagine that one way would be by contributing towards a peaceful society, though that can be… difficult at our age. And it probably also includes avoiding whatever supremacism she was talking about- that kind of stuff started all the wars in the history books.” She nodded towards Ginny, who blushed even redder.
He stared at her again. “Who are you?”
“A girl that believes that our worth should be defined by the future we create, not the past we’re leaving behind or the amount of gold in our Gringotts vaults.”
Ginny blushed so red it looked like she could start a fire and put her face in her hands. Hailey wasn’t sure what it was this time- she couldn’t think of anything that would cause that statement to be embarrassing.
“By the future we create?” he asked, speaking mostly to himself, then looked up at her again. “But how would you know what future we would create?”
“By their fruits ye shall know them,” Hailey answered, “to quote the Bible. Simply put, we won’t know until you create it.”
“But then it’ll be the past,” he observed.
“Yes, it would be,” she agreed. “An interesting paradox, isn’t it?”
He scowled. “But then, wouldn’t you have to make an assumption?”
“Yes, you would,” Hailey agreed. “Even though, when you assume, you make an ass out of you and me.”
“What?” he asked, looking dumbfounded.
“Well, ‘assume’ is spelled A S S, U, and M E, isn’t it?”
He stared at her.
She giggled. “The easiest way to avoid making the wrong assumption in treatment would be to simply treat everyone the same- whether they be of high, low, or indeterminate worth.” She smiled. “That also handily removes the need to empirically define the worth of a person to begin with.”
“But that doesn’t… Purebloods are better, aren’t they?”
“Are they?” Hailey asked seriously. “Why? How? What makes them better?” She paused, studying his expression. “Or is it instead a misperception or even, heavens forbid, an assumption made by our ancestors?”
Ginny put her face in her hands again.
“Uh… My father is,” Draco muttered. “He’s better than a lot of other purebloods.”
“Is he?” Hailey asked, observing the darkening of Draco’s immediate aura, for lack of a better term, as he spoke. He evidently wasn’t too enthusiastic about his father, and bringing said father’s ‘betterness’ into question felt like a good way to clean that up. “How so?”
He blinked, taken aback. “Uh- Um…” He paused. “He talks to the Minister for Magic a lot,” he muttered. “He can make the Ministry do basically whatever he wants. And he controls the Hogwarts School Board.”
“Alright,” Hailey nodded. “He’s clearly a decent politician.”
Draco laughed. Madam Malkin’s assistant had to pause to let him control his laughter before she could continue pinning up his sleeves. Ginny giggled as well, her face still scarlet but no longer hidden behind her hands.
“Decent,” Draco chuckled. “Yeah, I’d say he’s a decent politician.”
Hailey chuckled as well, careful to hold still so Madam Malkin wouldn’t have to interrupt her work as well. “You know what they say about politicians, right?”
He looked at her. “What?”
“There’s no such thing as an honest politician,” she told him calmly. “But that’s an occupational hazard, isn’t it?” She chuckled softly. “But that merely answers the question of his job. So… how is he better than everyone else?”
He stared blankly at the floor in front of him while Malkin’s assistant moved to his other sleeve. It seemed that Madam Malkin was faster. “I don’t know,” he muttered slowly.
“Then there’s possibly the most important question of all,” Hailey told him. “How do you know?”
He looked at her, then at the floor, and finally at her again. “Who are you?”
“A girl that asks why,” she answered instantly.
He gave her a deadpan look. “No, what’s your name?”
“Unimportant,” she informed him.
Madam Malkin let out a snort of laughter, and Hailey felt the point of a pin graze against her skin. It didn’t hurt, though- it wasn’t able to penetrate her skin.
He stared at her. “But- But your family-?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Hailey told him. “Who are you?”
“I am Draco Malfoy,” he told her calmly.
“You’re a boy standing on a stool in a robe shop,” Hailey corrected. “So who are you?”
“I-! I-!” He paused. “I am a Malfoy,” he muttered.
“Not your name,” Hailey informed him. “Who are you, behind the name?”
He stared at her. “I…” He paused. “I am…” He paused again. “I am a Malfoy.”
“That’s… all you could come up with?” Hailey asked gently.
He nodded, averting his eyes.
“Sounds like you’ve got some self-discovery to do. Because your name does not define you- you define it.”
He removed his robe in response to Malkin’s assistant’s silent gesture, revealing crisp green robes underneath. “I suppose,” he muttered, then looked at her. “So who are you?”
“A girl that likes to help,” she smiled. “You?”
“A boy that…” He paused. “A boy that…” He sighed. “A boy that has much to learn, I expect.”
Ginny laughed outright, and Draco quickly joined her.
“A girl that cares,” Hailey told him, once the laughing had drawn to a close.
He shook his head. “That’s all I’ve got.”
“Here you go,” Madam Malkin’s assistant injected suddenly, handing Draco a brown paper package. Presumably, his parents had paid in advance.
“I’ll see you at Hogwarts,” Hailey told him cheerfully, before removing her robe in response to Madam Malkin’s signal. Draco smiled back at her, and waved as he headed for the door. “Yeah, see you at Hogwarts!”
Then he was gone.
“So how did you do that?” Ginny asked, the moment the door landed shut behind him.
“Do what?” Hailey answered.
“You got a Malfoy to admit that he has much to learn.”
“You were listening, weren’t you?” Hailey asked.
“Uh- Yes,” Ginny admitted.
“Then you already know, right?” She grinned. “Who are you?”
“Huh? Uh-!” She paused, looking confused.
“Because your name doesn’t define you, does it?”
“Um-!” Ginny began, then paused again. “I am… a very curious girl.”