A/N: This is a Drinny piece that takes place during HBP. I had abandoned this fic as basically complete, but recently had the urge to continue for a few more chapters. Thanks to everyone who's reviewed! I appreciate the feedback :) I've gone back and edited the first few chapters to clean them up a bit, and I've added chapter names to make it easier to navigate. I don't know if anyone out there is still reading HP fanfiction in 2019, but I know I am!

Chapter 1: Hallway Run-Ins

Ginny

Ginny hurries down the corridor, already late for Transfiguration. This stretch of hallway feels unnaturally still after the disjointed clamour of voices in the Great Hall. Lunch has only just ended, yet it feels like everybody is already in their places: in the classrooms, or outside in the early-spring sunshine, or in their common rooms. Or maybe snogging in dark crannies behind the coats of armour. She thinks briefly of Dean, the last boy she'd snogged, but her mind doesn't linger.

She hears shuffling of footsteps and erratic breathing, and before Ginny can lift her eyes, someone bumps into her.

Malfoy. He grunts in surprise and drops his books as Ginny regains her balance.

"Watch it, will you?" he snaps, his voice hoarse, and bends low to gather his things.

"You ran into me, you git."

He looks odd. She watches him jerk his books back into his arms, and his blond hair is falling all over his face instead of slicked back as usual. His face is splotchy, red around the eyes. He looks, Ginny realizes with a shock, like he's been crying.

He's also alone, and Ginny never sees him alone like this. "What are you doing?" she asks, suspicious now.

"Get out of my way, Weasley." He shoves past her and hurries down the corridor in the opposite direction.

He is never alone, Ginny thinks again. Whenever she sees Malfoy, he is with his cronies, or with a band of Slytherins, or with his Quidditch mates. She wonders if she ought to follow him, but he is already far down the long corridor, turning a corner.

A few nights ago in the common room, sitting around the low-burning fire, Harry, Ron and Hermione were mulling over the necklace that attacked Katie Bell. Harry kept insisting that Malfoy was behind it. Harry seems obsessed with Malfoy this year, convinced he is up to something.

Ginny didn't believe it then. Whatever Malfoy is up to, it's never anything that matters. Bullying first-years, abusing his prefect status, and sneering all over the Gryffindors is basically what Malfoy is up to. And also saying, "My father this, and My father that."

Except now, of course, Lucius Malfoy is in Azkaban and Malfoy doesn't bring him up so much anymore.

Ginny fiddles with the hilt of her wand, undecided. Should she follow him? His eyes were red, and he looked anxious … She just knows he'd been crying. Maybe Harry is right to be suspicious. She is not exactly part of the trio-detective squad, but she is part of Dumbledore's Army, and she is already so late for Transfiguration that she may as well miss it altogether. Her friends will worry, but she'll make something up when she sees them later in the Gryffindor common room. Maybe she'll even have news for Harry by then.

Ginny hurries down the corridor after Malfoy. She sprints forward, and when she catches sight of his blond head in the distance, she slows down and proceeds more cautiously. They pass a group of Ravenclaws and then turn a corner to head down the main staircase. He's probably going back to his common room, which Ginny knows is in the dungeons somewhere. She follows him down another, smaller set of stairs, and it feels colder down here and more deserted. The corridor narrows and begins to branch off. Malfoy takes a sharp left. She keeps her distance behind him, hiding behind corners and casting a muffling spell to obscure her steps, but Malfoy is not looking around.

He seems all in his head, walking forward with his schoolbooks crushed against his chest.

Lamps have been lit all along the corridor even though it is daytime, and they cast rippling shadows along the stone walls. Ginny thinks that he's bound to go into his common room at any second. She won't be able to follow him there, of course. So she won't have found out anything after all.

Malfoy slows down. Ginny takes a few cautious steps forward, thinking they've reached the entrance, but suddenly he whirls to face her directly. His eyes are fiercely narrowed, but his pale face is still splotchy-looking.

"You're following me!" he says angrily. "I saw you, Weasley. I saw your shadow behind me. What do you think you're doing?" He's reaching for his wand.

Ginny makes a rash decision. She draws her own wand and shouts "Expelliarmus!"

Malfoy's wand flies out of his grasp. Ginny advances on him. "I wasn't following you, Malfoy. I was just going this way. Don't be paranoid."

He looks livid at having lost his wand, which is lying on the floor below a painting of a dour-looking witch with large spectacles. He's breathing hard and the colour is rising in his cheeks.

"You're lying, obviously. Did Potter send you?" Malfoy's grey eyes are wide and shot with red. "You don't have any business here. You don't have any classes in the dungeons, Weasley, except Potions, and we're nowhere near the Potions classroom." He advances on her suddenly, and he is surprisingly tall, and uncomfortably close. He steps right up to her face and grips her wrist at the wand-arm. His grip is strong, his breath coming fast. "You shouldn't have disarmed me, Weasley," he hisses.

Ginny is momentarily shaken, but she recovers. Living with five older brothers, she's used to boys using height and bravado to make up for a general lack of skill. She barrels into Malfoy with her left shoulder, loosening his grip on her arm, and cries "Flipendo!"

He flies backwards and lands on his arse. He scampers to his feet while Ginny raises her wand again, a broad smile on her face.

"Dueling in the hallways!" Filch has materialized from nowhere. "Well, well…Weasley and Malfoy, and you a prefect at that." Filch leers at Malfoy and draws out his words like he's savouring the sweet taste of justice. "A pair of delinquents, hmm Mrs. Norris?" The scraggly cat is picking its way between his legs. Filch turns to them. "What do you think you're doing running about the hallways, causing mayhem. Casting dangerous spells."

"They're not dangerous," Ginny begins to protest, but Filch scowls at her.

"What is going on here?" Snape's voice carries down the corridor. He swoops in like a greasy, oversized bat, and he sounds pleasantly surprised. Ginny looks up at the Potions Master. He has a nasty smirk on his sallow face. Funny how much they all love catching Gryffindors in some wrongdoing. Snape is practically giddy.

Then, he notices Malfoy bending down to retrieve his wand, and a flicker of concern darts across his features.

Ginny has detention. So does Malfoy. Tomorrow night. Snape would have let Malfoy off the hook if it weren't for Filch, who insisted on placing the blame for misdemeanors on both of them. Filch would never let a detention slip by. He gets off on each one, as if frustrating the student body is his only and greatest pleasure. The git.

Ginny charges back to the Gryffindor Common Room. She stomps on each one of the steps leading up to the tower. She's fuming by the time the portrait of the fat lady swings open.

Dean is sitting on the saggy couch in front of the fireplace. She looks at the back of his head, and takes a deep breath. They are broken up, aren't they? Are they? They had a row, in any case, and Ginny isn't really interested in mending their relationship.

She hurries past him, up to the girl's dormitory, before he can start a conversation. She feels all worked up. It's the middle of the day and the dorms are empty. She should be in Transfiguration. What was she thinking?

Ginny paces around the small room twice, then collapses onto her bed. She thinks of Harry. He's the reason she followed Malfoy in the first place – Harry was so sure that he was up to something.

She thought maybe she'd catch Malfoy in the act, in some illicit act. But that was stupid. Whatever he'd been doing, it was all finished by the time he ran into her. At least he has detention as well, and if nothing else, she's made Malfoy's life a bit more unpleasant. Serves him right for being an evil prat.

Ginny closes her eyes. She has Quidditch practice in an hour. It will be nice to fly around the pitch, to sweat out some of her frustration. To throw some Quaffles hard against the icy wind.

Harry's face swims into her mind. Harry the captain, the Boy Who Lived. Harry and his bright green eyes, and his mess of black hair, and his crooked grin. Harry used to be in her head always.

In her second year, Harry Potter consumed Ginny, burned through all of her thoughts. Until her diary began to speak to her. That was a bad year, obviously. She cares about Harry now, as a good friend, as an ally, but the intensity she felt for him has died down, burnt itself out after the debacle with Tom Riddle's diary.

But this year something has changed. Harry is noticing her. All of a sudden, now that she's moved on, Harry is looking at her. She sees the way he stares at her in the hallways, in the common room. At Slughorn's little gatherings. He's nervous, and she feels his nervousness, and she feels his gaze flitting away when she turns to catch his eye.

The first time she ever saw him, he was so ruffled and funny-looking with his lopsided glasses and his black hair sticking out in all directions. He was famous, but he didn't even know it, didn't understand anything about the Wizarding world. He was so handsome, too. Funny-looking, but handsome. How was that possible? Ginny can still see the eleven-year-old Harry in her mind.

But it's been so many years, and so much has happened since then. That initial childish obsession has been diluted and strained, and it's all but gone.

Lying on the bed with the wind rattling the shutters, Ginny slips a little towards sleep. She thinks unexpectedly of Malfoy's cool grip on her wrist. Malfoy smelled like sweat and leather and expensive cologne.

Ginny's never been so close to him, to somebody like him. The Weasleys didn't run in the same circles as the old, wealthy Wizarding families. Malfoy is richer than half the student body combined, and he knows it. He's an arrogant wanker, always perfectly put together, always sneering down on people like her. Today, though, his green Slytherin tie was askew, and he was wearing a crumpled button-down shirt beneath his Hogwarts' robes. Why had he been crying? What did he care about so much that he would cry?

Probably himself.