Hermione's research was extensive. She had taken copious notes from several potions books and had narrowed the recipe for the potion down to a list of ingredients with one variable. After reading them, Draco had to wonder why no one had tried before. After attempting to make the potion, Draco found out. Their time was spent making the same ridiculously difficult potion over and over again, trying a different component at the same juncture each time.

They had been through three and a half very frustrating weeks of this. Normally, the cauldron would either melt or explode, causing pain or burns for the two students. They'd gotten a viable potion only once. The one time their solution had worked, they had given the potion to a test toad. It had not survived the killing curse.

Draco had been the one to do it, Ginny looking on, with a touch of anxiety marring her otherwise passive state. When the toad lay still, he put his wand in his robes and sat down heavily.

She moved to sit next to him. "Alright, Malfoy?"

He looked at her and his grey eyes were clouded with pain. He looked… oh, for Merlin's sake… he looked like he might cry. However, as soon as she had seen the emotion, it was gone.

She patted his arm. "It was just a toad, Malfoy."

He clenched his jaw, and she saw the muscles working in his face and neck. "I'd never done that before," he said.

She frowned at him. "Of course you hadn't. You're not a killer, Malfoy. You're better than that. But we have to try this dratted potion out on something, and as I'm not yet ready to test it on you, we'll stick with toads, eh?" She smiled at him. "Do you want me to try to do it next time?"

He sighed heavily, and his shoulders slumped, a distinct contrast to his normally perfect posture. "No, Ginny, I don't." He pointed his wand and muttered, "Evanesco!" and the toad vanished. "You wouldn't mean it. We'd think we'd succeeded, and it would just be your care and concern for the poor thing."

She stared at him, openmouthed. She was completely taken aback. "You…" she sputtered.

"I what? Well, I don't fancy killing a slew of toads, either, but as we have no real choice-

"No," she interrupted. "You called me by my given name."

He swore inwardly. "Did I?" he asked, the perfect picture of innocence.

"Draco Malfoy! You called me 'Ginny'! I'm beginning to think you don't hate me," she teased.

"I don't hate you."

Silence filled the room.

"Really," she said quietly, "that isn't the impression you give. It isn't necessarily the absolute contempt that you have for my brother, Hermione or Harry, it's more like… oh… quiet disdain. Or that maybe I make you uncomfortable."

Oh, hell. Did she want to talk about him, now?

"Quiet disdain?" He raised his eyebrows and barely smiled at her.

"That's what I said." She looked at him more closely and became wide-eyed. "Are you smiling? Oh, Merlin, I think Hell might have just frozen over."

He smirked, properly this time. She was amusing. "Hand me a cauldron? Let's begin again."

She floated a new cauldron off of the shelf. "Oh, no, 'Slytherin King'. First you use my name and now this? You don't get to smile at me and not tell me what it's all about."

He began adding ingredients to the pot, sprinkling, stirring, and adjusting the heat. She came up beside him and poked him in the arm. "Give over. Spill."

"Did…" Oh, shite. He might as well say it. "Did you ever think that I might be enjoying the pleasure of your company, Ginny?"

She looked at him, stunned. "No. Frankly, I didn't think that was a possibility. Not with whom my family is and who you are."

He pointed his wand to lower flames under the cauldron and asked softly, "Who am I?"

She stopped to consider, and then answered carefully. "Well, here's what I think. I think you've been two people, really. The one I've known for the past six years, the pompous git who snarled and sneered and was hateful to me, my friends, well everyone, really… the boy who joined the Death Eaters and who I hated for it --"

He drew in a sharp breath.

She continued smoothly. "But then there's the boy who showed up at Grimmauld Place and sat in the kitchen with me. The one I met aboard the Express on September first. Sad. Tired. Perhaps a little damaged--" Despite the seriousness of the situation, he couldn't help but raise his eyebrow at the absolutely tactful way she put that (which she ignored, of course, and continued) "—but not broken. He still has strength. And he's smart, and has a sense of humor, way, way, deep down, however sick and twisted, and he's brave to refute all he's been taught up to this point to make the right choices in life."

He continued stirring the cauldron. She touched his arm lightly. "Fair assessment?"

Draco continued to look at the simmering liquid. They'd spoken a little over the last three weeks since this project had begun. But they'd stayed to safe topics: Quidditch, classes, papers, magical theory, even. It had never been this personal. It was usually Ginny who did most of the talking. All he had to do was make a comment here and there and she could go on for hours. And he had really gotten himself into this. He had asked the question, and she'd answered honestly. The truth of it was that she wasn't too far off.

That didn't mean he knew how to respond. He resumed stirring.

She still had her hand on his arm. She reached over with her other hand and took the spoon from him and laid it on the table. Then she took his left arm and began unbuttoning the cuff. He jerked as if to move away, his face clouding over.

Ginny stopped him. "Don't," she said softly.

He wasn't sure what inside him made him acquiesce to her demand, but he stilled immediately.

She pulled at the button holes of his cuff and pushed his robes back on his arm. She carefully rolled the shirt up to the crook of his elbow and turned his hand over, palm up. She sighed and glanced at him. His eyes were… guarded? He was scared, she supposed. She looked back down at the black lines on his forearm and traced them lightly with her fingers.

"Sometimes, Draco, we need reminders in our lives that we are imperfect. Everyone makes mistakes. You must move forward from them, and remember to not make the same mistakes in the future." She bent her head down and gave his arm a chaste kiss, like a mother would to make a hurt better, and then she put his shirt back in place, moved to the adjacent table and began to cut more ingredients for the potion.

He was frozen, trying to process all that he'd just allowed to happen to him, all she'd said.

"You called me Draco."

She continued her task, not looking at him. "Mmm hmm."

"Thank you, Ginny."