This starts during HBP, in Ginny's POV, so the D/G action will be awhile coming. I've tried not to use the exact scenes in the book, but in a couple places it's unavoidable, so apologies to all who have read it and are bored for a bit. My first D/G, hope you enjoy! Please tell me if I missed anything.

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Ginny climbed the steps to the infirmary, carefully holding onto the vase of flowers so as not to drop them when Pansy Parkinson barreled her way down the stair well, a tragic and tear-streaked expression on her face. She shoved past Ginny and nearly sent the slighter-built redhead bouncing off the opposite wall. Ginny muttered a few choice words about insufferable Slytherins with token Gryffindor loathing and readjusted the flowers.

Reaching the top of the steps, she walked through the sunny ward down to the bed where Neville was lying, hand bandaged tightly after being bitten by a very temperamental, rare, and not to mention extremely poisonous, plant. He gave her a wry grin and waved at her as she approached. Ginny stopped at the foot of his bed and looked from him to the flowers in pretend apprehension.

"Well, I thought I should bring you flowers, but I wasn't sure what your feelings are about plants right now..." Neville laughed and shook his head.

"Get bitten by one plant..."

"Only Neville Longbottom could find a way to get a plant to bite him." Ginny said decisively and Neville smiled sheepishly.

"It was my own fault. Went to grab a Spotted Strangler Fig and got a handful of a Venomous Polka-Dot Mousetrap instead." Ginny grimaced at him and put the flowers on the bedside table.

"What's Pansy having a fit about, Neville? She nearly flattened me all over the wall on her way out."

"Oh, it's just Malfoy," Neville said, making his face as dark as he could manage. "She comes up here to fawn over him at least four times a day now. Woke me up last night so early in the morning I could still see the stars through the window. He's been here for two days now." He jerked his head towards the bed nearest to the stairwell Ginny had come up.

"He's probably faking it," Ginny said scathingly, unwilling to believe Harry's curse had caused that much damage. But Neville shook his head.

"I dunno. He isn't awake much. Blood all over him when he came in. Harry got him good." He gave a guilty smile. "Anyway, I'd pretend to be asleep, too if Pansy was visiting me and not you."

"Simpering little hanger-on," Ginny said, determined that at least one Slytherin would suffer abuse in the course of the conversation. "Bet he loves it, being worshipped like that." Neville fidgeted a bit.

"I think she just does it when someone's there to see it. I mean, I pretend to be asleep when I hear her coming, not that it makes her any quieter with the 'Draco, darling!' and 'won't my sleeping prince wake up?'" But if I'm asleep she isn't here five minutes, and when Snape and Mrs. Malfoy came in to see him, she draped herself all over him until they as much as told her to get out. Can't say much for his mother, looked at him, saw he should live, then made a snippy comment about how his father would be ashamed of him. Then she left," Neville said in a low voice.

"Neville, are you feeling sorry for Malfoy?" Ginny asked with mock incredulity in her voice. Neville was a lot more sensitive than the typical Gryffindor, and it didn't really surprise her. Malfoy did hang around with a pretty terrible lot, or rather, they hung all over him. Neville shrugged.

"I guess. I almost feel guilty when you lot come up here with chocolate frogs and flowers and talk to me and he's just lying there looking like he's dead. I mean, all that happened to me was being bit by a stupid plant..."

"Yeah, why ARE you still here, Neville? They don't usually make Professor Sprout's victims spend the night."

"I TOLD Madame Pomfrey that, but she insists I've got to stay here and rest unless I want to be covered in purple spots the rest of my life. Then I said if that's all that happens how does the bloody thing eat mice then? Bites one and then waits for it to die of humiliation?" Ginny didn't hear the last part, she was falling over with hysterical laughter at the thought of Neville being permanently covered in purple spots. When she recovered enough to speak she gasped out, "Well I guess you better stay here then, Neville! Look, I've got to be off, Hermione won't stop bugging Harry about the Prince, and he'll go positively blithering if I don't go distract her. We'll be up again to see you tonight if you're not out by then." She said goodbye to Neville and turned to leave, but as she walked towards the stairs she caught sight of the pitiful, frail boy frowning even in his sleep. Sighing, she took a few steps back and pulled one of Neville's flowers out of the vase. Neville grinned at her and she rolled her eyes, waving goodbye. On her way back, she set the flower on the night table and gave a pitying smile to the sleeping boy before she left.

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Ginny didn't think about Malfoy again until Saturday night, after the temporary Gryffindor Seeker had won more than just the Quidditch Match. Ginny and Harry finally came up for air after an hour of post-game and, for Harry, post-detention snogging. Ginny tore her eyes off Harry's brilliant, beautiful green ones and looked out over the Quidditch field, still brightly lit with the afternoon sun. She turned back to look at him. Harry grinned in a way that reminded her distinctly of Lockhart's expression after his explosively failed memory spell. He continued to grin a little lopsidedly at her, an impression only increased by the fact that his glasses were now extremely crooked. She smiled.

"Harry?"

"Wazzat?" His mind slowly slid back into his head from the air above where it had been enjoying the scenery.

"You look as if you've been hit with a Bludger." They both laughed, and she wriggled a little closer to him, if there was any space left to wiggle into. She put her head on his shoulder and he stroked her hair silently for a few minutes.

"I haven't been up to see Neville today," he said guiltily after a while.

"Don't worry about it, the whole Gryffindor pack visited him after the game, all roaring and shouting. Ron would have had them all reenact a life-size blow-by-blow match if Madame Pomfrey hadn't gone absolutely starkers and actually threatened the lot of us with detention." Harry laughed. "Besides," Ginny continued, "your best pal in the world is still up there, and feeling chipper enough to scowl at the whole gang of us as if he could light us on fire with angsty-ness."

"Malfoy," Harry groaned and put his free hand over his eyes. Ginny bit her lip and hesitated. The Sectumsempra incident was clearly bothering him, but maybe it would help if he talked to someone who wouldn't tell him he was "brilliant" or yell at him for using unknown spells.

"Harry, what on earth was Malfoy doing in Myrtle's bathroom that night anyway?" Harry flinched, and Ginny instantly regretted asking but felt a twinge of jealousy. This was the sort of thing he only told Ron and Hermione. He seemed to reach the same conclusion, looking at the expression on her face. He sighed.

"He was crying."

"WHAT!" Ginny's eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. Harry almost decided to kiss it and the hell with Malfoy but he kept going, glad to talk to someone whose reaction wasn't quite so predictable.

"Yep. Sobbing his bloody eyes out. Moaning Myrtle couldn't have done better," he said with a degree of satisfaction.

"What for?"

"Something about someone going to kill him, and not being able to do something." The memory of what Neville had told her about Narcissa flashed in her mind, but she dismissed it as ridiculous. Other, more obvious things came immediately to mind, though...

"It's... Voldemort. Isn't it?" Ginny found she was having less trouble saying the name after her experience in her first year. Not surprisingly, being around Harry seemed to help. Harry nodded.

"We think so. He was pretty miffed that I'd seen him. I swear, Ginny, I'd never have hit him with that if he hadn't been going to use Cruciatus on me..." he began, sounding a little desperate to have her believe he wasn't a monster. She put a hand on his mouth, thought better of it, and replaced the hand with her own mouth. After a few minutes relieved snogging, she pulled away for a moment and looked him in the eye.

"I believe you. And I think that's enough about Malfoy."

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Ginny hardly saw Harry after that; her O.W.L.s loomed in the distance, and Harry's detentions with Snape seemed to drag on longer than the eternity that they had felt like before. Despite how little time they had together (always punctuated by Ron's groanings) Ginny was glowing with happiness, and enjoying herself so much that Malfoy didn't even approach her thoughts. Neville was long since out of the hospital ward, and, not that she'd noticed, Draco hardly ever frequented the Great Hall anymore.

Ginny completely forgot about the ferret until a breathless Ron and Hermione dashed into the library where she had been studying. Both of them came to a screeching halt when they found her, Ron nearly knocking Hermione down as he slammed into her, and Hermione clutching at her chest. Ginny wasn't sure if she should be alarmed or amused.

"Honestly, you two, if you make much more noise Madame Pince'll have me thrown out…" Ron made a strangled noise that sounded like he was attempting to speak without any air in his lungs, but Hermione cut him off.

"It's Harry…" she gasped for air in between words. "He's gone off….." Ginny paled. "With Dumbledore…" Ginny relaxed. "For the next Horcrux…." She paled again, and felt a stab of fear but tried to sound unconcerned.

"Well, good for Harry. So what's …."

"He said Malfoy…. finished….whatever it is he's doing. He's done it and Dumbledore will be gone and that unspeakable git will have free roam of the castle," Hermione finished in one breath.
Ron continued to nod vigorously behind her until Ginny said, "Well why in Merlin's name are you lot still here! Who's watching Draco?" Ron's mouth dropped open and Hermione sputtered, but Ginny just grabbed her by the robes and spun her around as she ran past her, leaving all her books behind. Ron followed her, Hermione staggering to keep her feet as Ginny dragged her, red hair whipping out behind her as she ran.

"Have you got the map?" she yelled back to Ron as she ran out of the library and across the Great Hall.

"Yeah, Malfoy's in the Room of Requirement." Ron shouted back.

"Who is?" Neville asked confusedly as they ran past.

"Excellent! Neville!" Ron gasped out as he ran by, seizing the perplexed boy in much the same manner that Ginny had grabbed Hermione.

"It's only a few minutes to curfew, where are we going?" stuttered Neville.

"Explain…when we get there!" Ron forced out. When they finally reached the seventh floor corridor where the Room of Requirement was, they crashed to a stop in a heap of black robes and looked around anxiously, panting. Whatever they had been expecting (perhaps Malfoy, standing in the middle of the hallway and strongly resembling Voldemort, laughing maniacally), was obviously not this rather anticlimactic empty hallway.

"Isn't?… Where's…" Ron choked and hauled out the Marauder's Map with effort. Sure enough, the little dot Draco Malfoy was in the room. And then it disappeared. "What?" Ron yelped. Hermione yanked the map from Ron's confused hands and perused it.

"He's not here, he must've gotten out already." Ron shook his head firmly.

"No, he was there, right there, then he disappeared." Hermione looked at him in disbelief.

"He can't have, no one can Disapparate here."

"Is he somewhere else on the map?" asked Ginny impatiently, craning her neck to look.

"I didn't SAY he Disapparated, did I? He just…. ruddy….disappeared!" Ron protested, enunciating each word clearly. Hermione glared at the map again, and indeed, Malfoy had "just disappeared." Neville made a confused noise behind Hermione, and she turned towards him.

"Oh, sorry Neville. Look…." Hermione went into the most detailed explanation she could come up with, given the level of tension around them. Ginny felt it wasn't really helping; he looked more befuddled than ever. When she had finished, Ginny got Neville by the arm.

"Malfoy is up to something evil, we need to watch him. Harry thinks Snape's in on it; do NOT roll your eyes like that, Hermione, Harry thinks Snape's in on it and we need to watch him, too. Harry can't be here because he's on an important mission with Dumbledore." A little comprehension showed on Neville's face. Hermione looked hurt.

"Oh."

"Sorry, 'Mione, it's just the short version is so much simpler…"Ginny consoled.

"What are you doing outside so late, Neville?" Ron asked.

"Trevor," Neville said miserably. "He's gone off again."

"Well good luck that, or we wouldn't have run into you…" Ginny began when Hermione interrupted.

"Oh I'm such an idiot! Harry even told us to use them, where is it….Aha!" Hermione pounced on something in her pocket, poked her wand at it and muttered something.

"Ow!" yelled Ron, grabbing at his pocket.

"Honestly, Ron, they're not THAT warm," Hermione said as she pocketed the charmed Galleon. "I don't know if anyone will come, it's after curfew, and people may have forgotten about them. And speaking of Harry and luck, d'you still have the Felix potion, Ron?"

"Blimey, I'd forgot all about that! Here you lot, take a swig and pass it on. Cheers!" Ron took a small gulp and handed it around the circle.

"Well, shouldn't someone be watching Snape?" Ginny said exasperatedly.

"Yeah, well I guess I will," began Ron.

"No," interrupted Ginny. "I'm going. You need to watch Malfoy."

"Malfoy's not even here! Besides, I won't have my baby sister around that traitorous, overgrown git —"

"Oh, so you'd rather I be here with Malfoy around!" Ron turned fuchsia.

"Of course not–"

"Oh, for heaven's sake, I'LL go." Hermione said.

"You, alone, to watch Snape? Not bloody likely!" Ron interjected.

"Are we having the meeting in the hallway, then?" a dreamy voice asked behind them.

"Luna! Oh good. Look you three, I'll go with Luna and explain on the way to Snape's office." With that, Hermione took Luna (who seemed completely unperturbed to be wandering in the halls past curfew with a group of noisily bickering people) and walked off down the hall.

"Great, now she's DEFINITELY safe," Ron muttered. "Be careful!" he shouted after the two girls in an abnormally high-pitched voice, and immediately he flushed red. "I mean, Snape, he's a slimy dangerous git…" Ginny smirked and Neville continued to look slightly clueless. "How come Crabbe and Goyle aren't lurking around?" said Ron, desperately trying to change the subject and looking about wildly as if the totally empty hallway was about to spawn Crabbe and Goyle forms.

"It's almost ten after curfew, Ron," Ginny said, pointing at the clock on the wall. "Even Crabbe and Goyle can't threaten McGonagall out of giving them a detention." Neville blanched.

"McGonagall? What if she finds us here?"

" We'll just tell her Crookshanks chased Trevor down here and we followed him," Ginny said brusquely, clearly trying to sound unconcerned. "Compared with whatever Malfoy must be doing in there, McGonagall is the least of our worries. Besides, we've got the Felix." Neville didn't look reassured, but he kept quiet.

"So now what do we do? Hang around and guard an empty room until Malfoy leaps out from somewhere and jinxes us?" Ron asked.

"Now," Ginny said calmly, "we wait." She folded her arms and leaned back against the wall opposite the Room of Requirement.

"Wait? For what?" Ron said, looking puzzled.

"For the albino ferret to finish whatever it is that he's doing in there so I can hex him into bits when he comes out," she said as if it were obvious. Neville grinned a little.

"Oh. All right then." Ron sounded rather satisfied with the answer. He crossed the hall to wait next to Ginny and Neville against the opposite wall.
Five minutes passed. Ron fidgeted a little. Ten minutes passed. Neville began to look around a little nervously and Ron tapped his foot. One minute passed, and Ginny snapped at Ron to stop tapping his foot. Ron snapped back, and they were right in the middle of a nervous quarrel when the door to the Room of Requirement swung open and Draco Malfoy stared at them.

Ron and Ginny were too stunned for a second to do anything, and so, apparently was Malfoy, because the customary sneer had hardly come across his face before he ducked to avoid Neville's hex. He yelled in surprise, and so did the Death Eater directly behind him when Neville's spell soared over Malfoy's head and hit him square in the face. There was a moment's confused scuffling where the shadowy figures behind Draco pulled him back, Ron and Ginny whipped out their wands alongside Neville's, and the door banged shut again. Ron cursed.

"Wow, Neville, lucky shot!" Ron exclaimed in admiration. They could hear angry mutterings getting louder from inside the door. Ginny did her best to put a barrier charm on the door, but she heard the muffled cry Reducto! from inside the door just in time to shove Neville to the floor and save him from being skewered by shards of door. Malfoy stepped through the ruins clutching a grotesque severed arm in his hand, and tossed something into the air.

Ron howled in surprise and Ginny shouted; the hallway had gone completely and instantly black. The three groped their way around in the darkness as the sound of laughing Death Eaters passed by them. Neville screamed in alarm as a cold hand with sharp nails grabbed his ankle and began to haul him backward.

"Fenrir!" a massive voice boomed out threateningly. The hand on Neville's ankles abruptly released its grip.

"Lumos! LUMOS!" shouted Ron and Ginny at the top of their lungs. The laughter redoubled at their efforts. "Incendio! Flammia! Lumos!" No charm brought light to the impenetrable darkness, and the sounds of the Death Eaters began to grow fainter down the corridor. The witch and wizards began to feel around for each other.

"Ron!"

"Ginny!"

"Ron! Neville! Are you all right?"

"Fine, keep going, he can't have made the whole castle dark…" Gripping each other's hands with Neville in the middle and Ron and Ginny with one hand each on the walls, they felt out in front of them. They shuffled what seemed like miles, waiting to fall down an unseen staircase or be grabbed out of the darkness by a Death Eater rearguard. Finally, they stumbled blinking into the light of the stairwell. Ron looked confused.

"They didn't even leave someone behind to…take care of us," he said, bewildered. Ginny tossed her head angrily.

"We're just kids," she said with venom. Then she grinned. "Very lucky kids…C'mon, we've got to tell someone, we have to find the Aurors." She dashed down the stairs and was almost around the corner before Neville and Ron caught up with her.

"Where are they!" Ron yelled, frustrated as they rounded another corner.

"They were all over the castle be--oof!" Ginny ran headfirst into her second oldest brother. "Bill!"

"What are you lot doing out so late?" Tonks said from behind Bill and Lupin.

"Death Eaters! In the castle!" Neville squeaked.

"Where?" Lupin rushed forward.

"The map, Ron!" Ginny yelled, grabbing it from him. "There!" she said, stabbing a finger at a hallway on the map not very far from where they stood. "Headed for the tower!" They all heard a massive crash and frightened shouting from the direction she had indicated. Bill grabbed the map and started running towards it.

"Come on, Remus! You three stay with Tonks!" Bill's cry was met with angry protests.

"We are NOT staying here!"

"You don't even know how many Death Eaters there are out there!"

"Not going to just sit here and do nothing -"

"QUIET!" Lupin yelled at the top of his lungs. They were all instantly silent. None of them could ever remember Lupin having yelled at anyone. "We can't be worrying about you in the middle of a battle with a bunch of Death Eaters. This is not like it was at the Ministry, there are people here to protect you. Stay here with Tonks." He glanced at her for a moment and Ginny thought Tonks looked at him like she was going to cry. Then he turned silently and ran forward, followed by Bill. Ginny felt mad with helplessness watching her brother run towards a fight that could very well kill him. Tonks slumped against the wall, watching them go.

"He's absolutely right, we need to stay here, or find someplace safer," she said morosely.

"Hermione!" Ron said suddenly.

"And Luna!" Neville said, his eyes wide.

"Tonks, we've got to go find Hermione, she was watching Snape's office with Luna, the Death Eater
s may have sent someone to get Snape!" Ron glanced sideways at Ginny, but she refused to look at him. Tonks looked uncomfortable.

"All right then. He's in the dungeons, though, I doubt they'd go out of their way to find him," she replied.

"All the same, we've got to get Hermione and Luna, it's not safe out here." Tonks chewed on her bottom lip and Ginny was uncomfortably reminded of just how pale and troubled she looked.

"Ok. But stay behind me!" Tonks turned abruptly and strode off towards the dungeons, wand drawn and held out in front of her. Ginny, Ron and Neville ran to keep up. The noises behind them seemed to intensify, even as they got further away from the commotion. Shouts and screams echoed around the stone hallways. The walk to the dungeon seemed to be taking forever, even at the furious pace Tonks was setting.

Finally they arrived in the chilly dungeon corridor where Snape's office was, but there was no Hermione or Luna in sight. Ron began to walk even faster and started to run past Tonks, but she swept her arm out to the side of her and hit him in the chest as he came alongside.

"Stay behind me," she hissed quietly. She turned to face them several yards from the door to Snape's office and stabbed her finger pointedly at the point where they stood. Cowed, they remained where they were as she crept noiselessly towards the open door. She paused for a second, just a few feet from the door, then she straightened up and motioned them forward before walking into his office. Ron heard startled female voices from inside. One of them was Hermione, sounding shocked and frightened.

"Tonks, thank Merlin. Professor Flitwick ran by us to see Snape, he was yelling about Death Eaters and nearly out of his head. We heard a loud thump, Snape came out, told us Flitwick had fainted and we should take care of him. He went off up the stairs and didn't come back. We didn't know what to do, we haven't been able to wake him up." Ron and Ginny ran into the office and hugged Hermione fiercely. Neville followed, looking apprehensive and stood sheepishly by the door. Luna smiled vaguely at him and gave him a hug. She looked back at Ron, Ginny and Hermione with an amused expression.

"Seems to be the thing to do…"she said, and looked over to where Tonks was trying to revive a stunned Flitwick. She gave up trying after a few minutes and stood up.

"We'll come back with Madame Pomfrey later, as it is he's probably safer here right now, you lot stay with him. I've got to find Remus…" Looking more disturbed than she had all year, Tonks swept out of the room and ran for the stairs. The five friends stood watching her back for a second. Then Ginny spoke.

"Well, bollocks to this." She picked up her wand from the floor next to Flitwick and ran out the door. For a moment no one said anything, they were too busy gaping. Luna was the first to speak.

"Oughtn't we go after her?" she said casually. All four of them, even Hermione, raced after Ginny without another word, leaving poor Professor Flitwick on the cold stone floor of Professor Snape's office.

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Upstairs the battle was going badly. Tonks reached the top of the stairs to the room below the tower just in time to see Lupin dive to the floor avoiding a hex from a short, lumpy Death Eater who was cackling with perverse laughter. She shot one back at him and his laughter stopped short, but her curse missed and he snarled at her with broken, yellowed teeth. He raised his wand and she ducked for cover as a jet of deadly green light went flashing over her.

It's hardly fair, she thought. We're trying to stun them and they're trying to kill us.

She aimed a haphazard curse to afford herself some cover over the desk she hid behind, then lunged out from the other side to the column Remus was bracing himself against. She whipped both legs out of sight behind the column just before a massive curse rebounded off the wall next to her, showering both her and Remus with stone dust and chunks.

"Are you all right?" She had to shout over the noise of the Death Eaters howling curses at the top of their lungs.

"Hard to say," Lupin said humorlessly. She looked at him more closely and saw a thin trickle of blood dripping from under his gray-streaked hair. Her face flushed red and she stood upright, took a deep breath and started flinging curses at every Death Eater she could see.

"Where's Snape?" she yelled over to Lupin. He stood up again and resumed hexing people from the other side of the column. An enormous blond death eater howled in pain as one of her hexes caught his leg.

"No idea! Bill's pinned down behind the statue over there!" he yelled back, jerking his head towards a statue of a befuddled looking wizard missing large chunks of marble and standing in front of an alcove. "McGonagall's holding the fort down behind the other column!" A shower of pebbles from the ceiling fell over them both.

"REDUCTO!" came a fierce howl, Lupin and Tonks ducked back again, and the pillar they stood behind shook ominously. They could hear the Death Eaters by one of the stairwells laughing. McGonagall's voice was barely audible from behind the column shouting "Impedimentia!"

"Crucio!" screamed one of the black robed figures, and the Head of Gryffindor's screams filled the room. Lupin lunged out of hiding and barely avoided being hit with a killing curse before diving behind the pillar again, swearing under his breath. McGonagall's screams stopped, they couldn't hear any sound from her.

"Where is everybody! Where are all the other teachers!" Lupin growled between his teeth.

"Come out! Or we'll do it again. Either way, we win..." More laughter came from the deranged pack. Bill yelled from behind the statue.

"One of em's coming down the tower stairs!" Tonks met Lupin's eyes, and she understood what they were going to do. To his intense surprise, she grabbed the front of his robes and kissed him fiercely, letting him go almost immediately and leaping out from behind the column, bellowing hexes as she went.

He followed a split second later and tried to give her some decent covering fire as she rushed the group of Death Eaters holding Minerva McGonagall. He felt a rush of elation, they were backing down in front of her, they were letting McGonagall go...Then he saw the huge blond Death Eater jump out from behind her as she ran forward.

"AVADA KEDAVRA!" he howled in triumph, aiming directly at Tonks' back.

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Okay, so it's not really a cliff hanger because we all know what happens (sort of), but I had to pick a good spot to end the chapter. The next one is going to be the battle proper. As always, the timing and choreography is really tricky, so please let me know if I've overlooked something.