Malice Part 1

[black_hat]

 

Okay. So 

gunderpants

 wanted something based on the song A Town Called Malice by the Jam. 

So I thought about malice, and I thought about both small and large acts of cruelty, unknown or intentional. Which is worse depends on the person, though I'd go with intentional. So... CoS AU. Small/large acts of malice  and  hopefully a silver lining...and I leave it title-less because I think calling it Malice in Wonderland is going a bit too far. 

“Hello.”

 
Rubeus Hagrid glanced up at the small voice and saw an equally small girl, standing at the edge of the chicken coop with her hands held awkwardly in front of her.

 

“Can I help?” she asked, pointing at the chicken feed in his hand. “I know how. We have chickens at home, and it’s my job to take care of them.”

 

All this was said very fast with a hint of childhish bravado, and Hagrid couldn’t help but feel charmed.

 

“Yeah, if yeh don’ mind being mobbed,’ Hagrid said, handing the girl, a Gryffindor he noticed, the bag of feed. The chickens had already begun to gather near the fence, clucking in unison.

 

“Oh, they are so sweet,” the girl said dottingly, reaching out to pet a few of the birds, and to his surprise, they allowed her.

 

“Yeh must have a way with animals. I always ge’ pecked, even when I’m feedin’ them. What’s yer name?”

 

“Ginny,” she said brightly, casting a curious look at his cabin. “I was looking for my brother, Ron. He told me he visited you with his friends.”

 

“Oh, yer a Weasley, then,” he chuckled. “Well, I haven’t seen yer brother today.”

 

“Any of his friends? I mean, I was just wondering-er, you know. I…I know a few of his friends too, they’re nice,” she said, flushing suddenly.

 

“They may be runnin’ about today. But they do stop by. Usually around noon, thoug’. I make plent’ o’ tea for everyone at that time. At noon.” He winked.

 

Ginny smiled, her eyes glowing richly with happiness, and he figured that when she grew older, she would be considered a pretty girl. And he wouldn’t be surprised, not one bit, when Ron’s friend would take noticed of her.

 

“Yep, I’d be glad to see yeh then. And so will the chickens. They seem to have taken a likin’ to yeh.”

 

“Thanks. It was very nice to meet you, sir.”

 

“Call me Hagrid. Sir makes me feel borin’.”

 

She nodded and waved as she went along the path, and he remembered briefly being young and of the opinion that the world was forever bright and that every person was inherently kind and good.

 

He would only have to look at the broken pieces of his wand to remember that underneath the surface of kindess, there might as well be something downright evil.

 

As he continued about his work on the grounds, he hoped with all his heart that young Miss Weasley would never have to learn that lesson.

 

 

 

It’s a nice night for a stroll, isn’t it?

 

Ginny sat near the windows of her eyes and watched, attentive and a bit amazed. Never had a dream been so vivid as this one, her thoughts spoke timidly. Ginny agreed and nodded, sipping her mother’s hot chocalate from memory.

 

It was exactly like being within a moving house on the clouds, like in the fairytales. Or a train, for her breaths made the air all foggy around her as if she were breathing fire. Her head felt as thought she had caught a nasty cold.

 

When the grass tickled her feet, Ginny’s thoughts declared it odd indeed to be barefoot in October, and Ginny nodded and sipped, forgetting. The chicken coop was quite plain but nicer than the one at home. Ginny remembered when it was her responsibility to feed the birds in the coop, and she loved it when they trusted her enough to eat directly from her palm.

 

She saw her hand extend and the birds rush forward, heads bobbing in a fury to be the first to greet her. Ginny wondered if animals could feel love. They could trust, she was sure of it. She could see it in their eyes, really, if she looked hard enough.

 

Indeed they do. They can also feel pain, did you know.

 

And her hand, her own hand, seized one of the roosters and rung his colorful neck only to end in a swift snap like one of Zonko’s Filibusters. She felt the bones underneath her palm break, all in angles, and somewhere there was a rush of-

 

Ginny leapt up, in her mind, whereever she was and closed the curtains…afraid, oh afraid. Then she turned to hide somewhere within when she noticed that someone had already been here.

 

All the pictures of her memories had been curiously re-positioned. The pictures of her family had been moved to the left side of the wall when it had been on the right side. The small difference made waves of hot and cold rush over her. Ginny wanted to run but where could she go?

 

Instead she stood in the middle of her home with that sudden intuition that she wasn’t alone.

 

Not alone at all.

 

 

 

 

Ginny sighed and opened Tom’s diary as soon as she left the Quidditch pitch. Her first flying lesson had been, in short, a disaster.

 

Everyone just stared at her, or she had felt someone’s eyes bearing right between her shoulder blades the entire time. Like those eyes had affected her walking, they equally affected her flying performance. After all those times she had practiced, she had wanted to be really impressive on her first flying lesson. Instead, she had barely managed to get off the ground.

 

She had just started to write, with the diary balanced on the palm of her hand, when someone called out to her.

 

“Hello.”

 

Ginny glanced down and nearly screamed. There was a bright, yellow something, akin to a blob, right near the base of a tree. And it could bloody talk.

 

“Er, hello there,” she said cautiously, not wanting to offend the blob if it, by chance, prefer eating people to eating leaves.

 

“It’s a nice day, isn’t it?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“A little on the chilly side though. My name is Luna. But I don’t know who you are.”

 

“Ginny,” she replied and knelt to peer under the corner of the yellow dome. There was a human girl under there!  “What is this thing?” she inquired.

 

“It’s an umbrella.”

 

“I’ve seen umbrellas before. This is not an umbrella.”

 

Luna examined the yellow dome thoughtfully. “You know, you might be right.”

 

“So…” Ginny began. “Luna. It was nice to meet you but I-”

 

“Oh, I’m sorry. You look like you were about to sit down,” Luna said and moved over a bit. Ginny considered correcting her but she couldn’t help but be curious. She had never really see someone who wore socks on their ears before. So she crawled inside the dome with her diary clutched to her chest and her bag making a horrible squelching noise against the side of the thing. All during her struggle, the girl continued to stare.

 

“Would  you care for some tea?” the girl offered as Ginny placed her bag near the entrance of the odd dome.

 

“You have tea in here?”

 

The girl pointed at a tea kettle and indeed, there were cups of tea already neatly placed. There was something else Ginny noticed…most of the things she personally would  have preferred to keep in  her dorm were in here as well: a pillow, a picture of a rather lovely woman in a silver frame, several books onto of some clothes, and finally a trunk.

 

“I’ve  had several visitors today but you’re the first to come in,” Luna said, handing her a cup. Ginny wondered at the wisdom of drinking the beverage and decided to pretend to take little sips. “Everyone here is rather strange, actually.”

 

“Oh,” Ginny replied carefully.

 

“Yes, very odd. I had some fellow poke at the umbrella with a stick. I asked him to please stop, you know, in case it deflated. I really didn’t have any plans to go flying today. He ran away screaming, I think. Do you like my things?”

 

The Ravenclaw motioned to the assortment of dorm items, and Ginny nodded quickly.

 

“I do too. Other people do as well apparently. They like them so much that they borrow them from me.”

 

“Borrow? Do they…er, ask your permission first?”

 

The girl shook her head. “Then that’s stealing.”

 

“I thought so. I just wanted to be sure.” Luna paused, looking a bit sad.

 

“Don’t worry, you’re not the only one having a hard time. My housemates put a whole bunch of feathers in my bed while I was sleeping,” she said, trying to be comforting. “T-a friend of mine said that they were probably just home-sick too. They’ll get bored after awhile.”

 

Luna grew thoughtful. “That does make sense. I would get a bit bored stealing someone’s socks, or plucking a bird to get the feathers…”

 

“I hope they didn’t go that far. That’s just cruel.”

 

“You have a friend, though. I don’t.”

 

Well, Ginny thought. How awkward could this possibly get?

 

“Well…perhaps…um.” Luna stared and Ginny wanted the ground to open up so she could disappear in the chasm. “Well, if you see me around, you know, I’d be happy to talk to you. I don’t know that many people here, just my friend and my brothers.”

 

“Oh, you have brothers too! I almost had a brother once. My mother was pregnate when she died, though.”

 

Ginny’s insides withered. “I’m really sorry to hear that.”

 

“Why?” Luna asked, sounding surprised. “You didn’t know my mother, did you?”

 

“No…”

 

“Then why would you be sorry?”

 

“You know, I think I’m probably late for class. So I’d better go,” Ginny stammered, feeling her face turning red.

 

“I didn’t go to class today. It’s a bit silly to tell people that they have to think a certain thing at a certain time,” Luna declared, becoming very animated. Ginny pressed against the corner, using Tom’s diary as a shield as the girl crept closer. “You’re turning red. I’ve never seen anyone turn red before.”

 

Luna reached out suddenly as if to touch her face and Ginny cringed. The  girl looked puzzled then withdrew, continuing, “Anyway, that’s what Daddy calls the thought-police, and I didn’t think that Hogwarts would have thought-police. I don’t care for the walls either because you can only walk in one direction and at our house, we didn’t do that. Also I’m very tired of the colors influencing me. You do know that colors can influence you…you just don’t know that you know it.”

 

“…All right. Yes, those darn colors, I totally agree. Um.”

 

“Do you really? You are quite easy to influence.”

 

“Excuse me?!” Ginny cried, feeling insulted. “I most certainly am not—influencial, or-.”

 

“Well, you’re not influencial either. By the way, you didn’t want to sit down. I made you.” The girl looked rather smug about her experiment.

 

“For your information, I was curious about what kind of person would live in a blob, okay! Hah.”

 

“So the blob influenced you? You’re openly admitting it?”

 

“No!” Ginny yelled. “Oh, come on, it’s impossible not to be influenced somehow. You’re influenced by your father’s thought-police idea. You are out here because people are bullying you. So there.”

 

Luna contimplated Ginny’s outburst then nodded. “But I choose who I am influenced by. And I’m really not influenced by amorphous shapes…oh, that’s very telling, Ginny. A-mor-phous,” the girl sounded out, her eyes lighting up. “You are absolutely nebulous.”

 

“You take that back,” Ginny said, gritting her teeth. She wasn’t about to be bullied by this person.

 

“Why? It’s the truth,” Luna said. “You even drank tea for me, and I strongly suspect that you’re a tea-hater.”

 

“Hah, I pretended! I pretended to drink it!” Ginny crowed, trying to work her way to the entrance of the dome. “And I love tea by the way.”

 

“I influenced you to say that,” Luna said happily, looking as if her birthday had come a day early.

 

“And to do this,” Ginny said before she pushed the dome over, complete with Luna inside of it.

 

“And I—regretably influenced by my position—must ask: what is going on here?”

 

Ginny’s heart stopped and she turned slowly, quickly stuffing Tom’s diary into her bag.  

 

“Hello, Headmaster Dumbledore,” Luna’s sing-voice chirped from the up-side down blob.

 

“Sir, it’s not what you think,” Ginny both started and finished weakly, peering up at the older man in nothing short of horror.

 

“You did not push Miss  Lovegood’s tent over, then?” Dumbledore inquired, looking over his moon-shaped glasses. Luna crawled out from under the tent and shook her head as if suddenly dizzy. Ginny thought it was highly dramatic of her.

 

“Well…yes but she was being very mean to me.”

 

“Oh.” Dumbledore glanced at Luna. Ginny turned to stare as well. Luna was currently staring at the clouds in fascination. “I see,” he muttered.

 

“She called me names,” Ginny said in frustration.

 

“Miss Lovegood, if you will…”

 

“I didn’t think you ever left your office, sir,” Luna said, wandering over. “I suspected that you smelt terrible due to your beard but you don’t smell terrible right now.”

 

Ginny gasped.

 

“Alas, my beard impairs my walking,” Dumbledore said, winking at Lovegood. “And I’ve discovered that when one is around an odor at all times, one begins not to take notice. However, I have yet to hear a complaint from the portraits in my office. Now, did you call Miss Weasley names?”

 

“No,” Luna said, smiling up at him.

 

“Wait a minute, that’s not at all—,” Ginny stammered. “She told me that I was easily influenced.”

 

Dumbledore looked at the destroyed tent and she felt herself blush again. “Sir,” Lovegood opined. “I think Ginny may be turning into a tomato. I’ve heard of that disease before. It’s called Freckled-”

 

“Now, there’s--.” Dumbledore had to pause and it looked as though he was holding back a burst of laughter. “There’s no need for concern. Miss Weasley is perfectly all right. I believe what has transpired here is a communication difficulty. A linguistic barrier of sorts.”

 

“No, don’t let her-that’s not what happened,” Ginny said, feeling dangerously near tears.  

 

 “She’s speaking English, not Mermish. I’m studying Mermish, you know.”

 

“A noble endevour but there is more to words than being grammatically correct. Words have the power to invoke emotions as well. They can both help and harm.”

 

Luna looked between Dumbledore and Ginny in confusion, and then something-a realization- clicked sharply for Ginny.

 

“I’m very late to class,” she muttered, her grip tightening on her bag.

 

“You may go, Miss Weasley.”

 

She hurried away and in the end, was too upset to go to any class.