A/N - My apologies for keeping this story offline for so long. It was rewritten as an original story and nearly got itself published. However, the rewrite really doesn't look at all like this anymore, so I figure it is safe to go back online. Enjoy.

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Ginny Weasley found herself grateful that the halls of the school were quiet for the moment as she raced down another hallway, desperate to escape from, well, everyone.

Ducking around a corner, she paused to catch her breath before peeking out to verify that she wasn't being followed. Seeing that the hallway was empty, she tried to calm her racing heart but the feeling of panic remained. As she recounted the events of the last few minutes, it was becoming even more apparent that her situation was truly hopeless.

She leaned back against the cool stone wall and closed her eyes tightly, hoping it would make the image in her mind go away. It didn't work. Instead, the entire incident replayed over again inside her head with vivid clarity, and she found herself trying to determine where it had all gone wrong.

Recounting the memory invariably led to her thinking about what was going to happen tomorrow, when the gossip about her stupidity spread throughout the school and, possibly, the entire Wizarding world.

The more she thought about her situation, the worse it became because there was nothing, absolutely nothing she could do that would fix this. Her body shuddered at the realization that, at fifteen, her life was effectively over.

There was no way she could possibly ever be seen in public again after what she'd just done.

She'd just kissed Draco Malfoy.

There was no question that there would be jokes, humiliation and endless taunts, and that would only be from Malfoy and his friends. After Ron got hold of the information, she'd be subjected to ranting, lectures, and goodness knew what else for years to come.

The more she thought about it, the faster she hurried away from the scene of the crime, feeling her blush deepen even further. This was serious. Her entire life could possibly hinge on how she handled the situation over the next few hours. She closed her eyes and took a deep, cleansing breath. She needed to think.

It had been an accident. A horrible, horrible accident. Yet, looking back on it, she had to reluctantly admit that she'd rather enjoyed it, right up until she recognized who she'd been kissing. Nevertheless, the look of shock she'd seen on the blond boy's face immediately after the deed was done told her that, under no circumstances, was she going to survive.

As she continued her rapid retreat to her dormitory, she recounted the sequence of events that led up to that terrible moment, hoping to find some small detail that might help minimize the damage.

It had all started out so very harmlessly. It was just a dare - a simple, harmless bit of fun between herself and her friends. Something intended to distract Ginny from her recent break-up with Michael Corner and, maybe even something to work to her advantage.

In return for her completing the dare, Amanda Wilkes was going to let her borrow her infamous black leather skirt for the upcoming Hogsmeade weekend. Ginny had hoped to scope out potential replacements and subsequently make her now ex-boyfriend jealous. The skirt would easily accomplish both tasks, but Amanda had been somewhat unwilling to part with the item. Hence, the dare.

All Ginny had been required to do was snog the next boy to walk into the library while Madam Pince wasn't looking. It seemed simple enough, or so she'd thought.

Having accepted the challenge, she took every precaution. In fact, she had even managed to steal a quick glance down the hallway just before Madam Pince began move away from her desk. If Ginny had seen anyone undesirable coming toward the library at that moment, she certainly would have taken the opportunity to back out of the dare.

But no. Her quick peek had clearly shown the fair-haired Seamus Finnegan walking toward her. He was the perfect candidate for the plan and she proceeded with her challenge without question because, well, Seamus was a friend who was also well known for being a shameless flirt. She had little doubt that he would take the snog in stride. In fact, she'd happily be able to share a good laugh with him about the incident after.

She had no idea what happened to ruin her plan but, only a few moments later, the library door opened. In that instant, Ginny looked away from the open door to verify that Madam Pince was out of sight, busy re-shelving a cartload of books. Feeling confident that she wouldn't be caught, she then turned her attention back to her mission. She only glanced at her target long enough to catch a flash of blond hair, then closed her eyes, grabbed the unsuspecting boy and latched her lips onto his.

She silently cursed Finnegan for being blond, because if he'd had any other hair color, this never would have happened.

When she wrapped her arms around her victim, there was a moment of resistance, which was to be expected, but he yielded somewhat easily. In fact, as soon as her target concluded that it was a rather amorous female that had wrapped her arms around his neck, he rapidly became quite willing. She vaguely registered the sound of his satchel of books dropping to the floor as his arms reached around her in return.

It was at that moment that she realized that her victim was not Seamus. He was a bit too tall and had a leaner build than her Irish friend.

Analyzing the situation quickly, she thought he had a rather good build and that he smelled rather nice, meaning that he likely wasn't a total troll, so she quickly decided to continue. She didn't open her eyes, being somewhat terrified of losing her nerve to complete her task, but her determination spurred her onward. She tightened her hold around the boy's neck.

A moment after that, he seemed to be returning the kiss with eager enthusiasm.

The dare stated that the snog needed to last a full minute in order for Ginny to win custody of the skirt for the full day. With that in mind, Ginny let herself enjoy the moment and seemed to be aware of her partner doing the same.

As it turned out, he was quite a good kisser. His lips were soft and responsive, but not mushy. His hands felt wonderfully comfortable around her waist, and he tasted sweet, as if he'd just had candy. In fact, as the interlude progressed, she started to wonder who it might be, since she was currently between boyfriends and found that she wouldn't object to having another go at this. Before long, he'd quite taken charge of the kiss, running his tongue along her lips, tasting her in return.

The sound of whistles and gasps behind her brought her back to her senses as other students in the library became aware of the rather wanton display she was exhibiting. That was when she realized that her time was up. The charm she'd put on her watch was causing it to vibrate, reminding her that her minute was over, and that she was indeed in the library, and, at any moment, Madam Pince would likely return and issue detention if she caught them.

Pulling away reluctantly, she gave a small sigh and felt a rather happy smile come to her well-kissed lips. Then, she opened her eyes.

Instead of seeing the dream-like vision that she'd imagined during the kiss, she saw Malfoy standing in front of her.

Her jaw dropped open in shock.

He smirked at her. "Was it everything you expected, Weaselette?"

She wanted to die.

Unable to speak, she brought her hand up to touch her lips, still feeling the echo of the kiss. Then, she looked over at Amanda, whose eyes were wide with surprise. Apparently, her friend hadn't thought that Ginny would succeed, and certainly not in such a blatantly scandalous manner.

Malfoy continued to stand in front of her, and she could feel his gaze burning into her. However, she was unable to look back up at his face. Instead, she simply stared at his chest for a long moment, biting her lip while her mind furiously tried to process what she should do next. He said nothing, then reached down and grabbed his satchel.

She took that moment of distraction and ran. Literally.

Which was how she found herself sneaking her way back up to Gryffindor Tower, trying to figure out how she might retrieve her books from the library without ever setting foot outside of her dorm room for the rest of her life.

It was about an hour before curfew, so she had a small amount of time to figure that out. She needed to think. This was the kind of thing that would ruin her. Not only could she never be seen in public ever again, but it was likely that her brother would kill her, or disown her, or both.

Oh, she would give anything to take back that moment so that it never existed. Why did she agree to the dare? She didn't really need to borrow the skirt, regardless of how fetching she thought she looked in it. And why, oh why did it have to be Malfoy? And worst of all, why did she have to enjoy it so much?

She reached the common room and slumped in one of the chair as she tried to come to terms with her situation.

The library had been relatively quiet while she and Amanda had been there, so there were only a few witnesses. Fortunately, Amanda and her friends were in Hufflepuff and Ginny recognized the girls at the table next to them as younger Ravenclaws. This hopefully meant that she might have the night to plan some sort of damage control before her housemates began to hear about it.

Her fingers began drumming nervously on the arm of the chair as she desperately tried to think of what could possibly help her out of this mess.

The first thing that game to mind was to Obliviate all the witnesses. She'd never performed the spell before, but she figured that it couldn't be that hard, after all, Gilderoy Lockhart had done quite well using it for a good many years before it backfired on him. Unfortunately, she wasn't sure she could account for everyone who'd seen the fiasco, and it was entirely likely that Malfoy had already started to gloat to all his cohorts.

"Is everything all right, Ginny?" she heard.

The abrupt question snapped Ginny out of her thoughts of Obliviation.

Hermione, who had been seated on the couch opposite from her, was looking at her, an open book in her lap. For a moment, Ginny debated about confiding to the older girl, who was possibly clever enough to help her out but she quickly dismissed the idea. Hermione appeared a bit concerned but, mostly, Ginny thought that the other girl was merely annoyed that Ginny's fidgeting was distracting her from her reading. Also, Ginny quickly deduced that telling one of her brother's closest friends was probably not a good idea.

Ginny nodded slightly, trying to appear to not be distressed. "Yes, fine. Just thinking."

"All right then," Hermione responded with a bit of irritation, turning back to her book.

Ginny rolled her eyes in response, although the other girl didn't notice. And that's when Ginny saw it. The glimpse of silver chain around Hermione's neck caught the firelight and flickered enticingly.

Yes.

A normal teenager would have to live with the consequences of her actions. Except, she wasn't a normal teenager. She was a witch who had a friend with a highly controversial object known as a Time-Turner. She felt a small, wicked smile come to her lips.

Sitting back, she attempted to appear that she was just relaxing while she unobtrusively verified that Hermione did indeed still possess the object that she and Harry had used three years ago. The older girl was more discreet about using it now than she'd been then, but it made sense that it was the way Hermione managed so many classes.

Ginny bit her lip, looked around and decided that "borrowing" the object might be completely understandable in this particular situation.