A/N: Alright since I've been more than a few times now, I can't ignore it any longer. Instead of short chapters I'm posting this uh…longer one which I would have originally posted as four or five chapters. Enjoy J
Draco was pacing back and forth in front of the Great Hall as the plethora of students made their ways in for dinner that evening. The little Weaselette was supposed to meet him and give him a copy of that accursed notebook. He turned and nearly tripped stepping on the lower edge of his cloak when he heard her call out to him. Draco turned to watch the jean clad witch walk towards him, notebook in hand. She reached out to hand it to him and he couldn't help but notice the slightest tremor that vibrated through her outstretched arm, making her slim fingers tremble. Grasping the notebook he found himself searching her pale hazel eyes.
"Was the kiss really that bad?" he had to ask before she got a chance to flee once more.
Ginny let go of her end of the notebook and took a step back, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear almost nervously. "Yes, it was," she finally relented before walking into the Great Hall to join her housemates for their evening meal. Draco watched after her a moment before heading back to his dorm room without bothering with supper that night.
Hermione was sitting across from her two best mates at the Gryffindor table later that night but both were ignoring her as they argued over who would win the Quidditch game next week between Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw when an owl flew in unexpectedly. It wasn't mail time so the young witch frowned as she took the letter and packages from the unknown owl. Unwrapping them she found a box of her favorite chocolates and a book on the history of writing medicinal spells. The note that was attached to the gifts was unsigned and simply read: 'Should have gone with us. We saw you looking anyways.'
The bushy haired witch smiled and looked up at the two boys she knew had to have been the ones to send the gifts and note. Fred winked at her and George gave her a friendly grin as she blushed and mouthed 'thank you.' Quickly hiding the gifts and her secret smile she went back to eating her dinner.
The next afternoon both witches sat together alone in the library working on their homework and studying vigilantly. Hermione looked up from the middle of her Potions essay to stare at her best female friend. Ginny's long red hair hung down around her as she finished something for Charms the next day. Taking a deep breath the older girl decided she'd try to talk about what was bothering her in the very least.
"Ginny?" she began, "have you ever found yourself liking someone rather unexpectedly?"
Without looking up the other witch's face flamed in embarrassment before she answered in a quiet whisper, "well I did kiss Malfoy."
Before the youngest Weasley could say or do anything else the other girl had gripped her sleeve in a near death grip and was dragging her off to a more secluded section of the library. Once they were in the back corner where not even , the staunchy old librarian, would hear them and she was sure they were alone Hermione turned on her friend. "What?"
Ginny looked at her friend and sighed, leaning back against the nearest shelf as she recounted that horrid evening. "Well since first finding those stories I'd been… jumpy around him and Malfoy took notice. He confronted me about it Friday night and I had to tell him about the notebook, because no way was about to let ferret-face think I had some silly crush on him. Then he decided we should confront Lavender and the others about it to make them stop."
"Who are the other girls?" Hermione cut her off in interest.
"Romilda Vane, Susan Bones, Hannah Abbott, the Patil twins, and Cho freaking Chang," Ginny listed off the names on her fingers in annoyance. Those gossip mongers were the bane of her existence. "Anyway the girls didn't take very well to Malfoy's semi-threatening offer to make their lives hell… Not that I can blame them on that end of things. But then Romilda was all 'you two should kiss, that way we'll think you're a couple and can't write about you anymore.'"
The bushy haired brunette looked shocked, "so you two kissed?"
"Not quite," the other girl groaned. "He started it actually. Just grabbed me out of no where and laid one on me."
"Well then… you didn't kiss him," Hermione decided in an effort to comfort her friend.
Ginny's hazel eyes met Hermione's light brown gaze. "Except I kind of kissed him back, so technically I did…"
"Oh," the witch sighed. Then seeming to perk up she asked, "what was it like?" The youngest Weasley gave her curious friend a horrified looked. "What?" Hermione defended, "he's attractive for a ferret." At that both girls broke into a quiet round of giggles.
On the next aisle Blaise Zabini was smirking to himself, the book he'd been searching for momentarily forgotten in his mirth. So that was why Draco was acting so incredibly strange, he'd kissed the Weaselette. Blaise waited until he was certain the girls were gone back to their work before he emerged and left the library. He had a fellow Slytherin he needed to tease terribly.
The blonde Slytherin was himself lounging in their common room reading through the notebook as new stories had been pouring in for the last several days. He was sprawled out in his favorite chair in front of the blazing hearth when Blaise came sauntering in and promptly stole the notebook right out of his hands. Draco looked up as his supposed friend plopped down on the couch across from him.
"What's this?" the darkly handsome boy teased. "I didn't know you kept a journal Draco? Then again I never knew you'd kiss the Weaselette either.. Guess you're just full of surprises now aren't you?"
Draco's pale cheeks flared with a pale pink while Pansy's head whipped up from where she'd been studying a few feet away. She got up, with a slight laugh hanging on her lips, to talk to the two boys. "You did WHAT Draco?" the Slytherin girl inquired amazed at her exes behavior. For someone who claimed not to even like the girl or think she was pretty, he sure hadn't paused in snogging the red haired witch.
The still blushing boy looked at his friends in embarrassed disbelief, "I was trying to get those stories to stop. A bunch of girls and Merlin knows who else has been writing a bunch of smutty nonsense about the Weaselette and I. Its quite disturbing actually. And when we went to confront those stupid little bints they tricked us into kissing for their bloody amusement."
Pansy asked the same thing that Hermione had asked Ginny in the library about who these 'bints' were but it was Blaise that answered. Looking up from a rather steamy story about himself and his lovely Luna, he looked bored as he listed the girls off. "Vane, Bones, Abbot, the Patils, Brown, and Chang."
"How do you know that?" Draco blustered sitting up further in his chair.
Going back to the story that was his most alluring fantasies put into words Blaise barely thought about it as he answered. "I overheard the she-Weasel telling the mudblood about it in the library. How'd you think I knew about that snogging session of yours?"
Draco miraculously paled even further while Pansy began laughing even more at his put off expression. That was she laughed until he looked at her pointedly and somehow managed to make the sound freeze in her throat with dread. "Laugh all you like Parkinson," he purred maliciously. "There's stuff in there about you and Longbottom too."
Pansy's dark eyes grew large in horror and outrage, "WHAT?"
At breakfast the next morning the three Slytherins sat together at their table in the Great Hall, watching the Gryffindor table. Draco with anticipation to see the witch that was quickly taking up far too many of his thought, Pansy with trepidation as she watched Neville Longbottom munch on his food, and Blaise in utter amusement.
Across the room Ron had slowly stopped stuffing his mouth full of food and taken notice of the staring trio. He leaned towards Harry who was also watching the Slytherin table, worry etching his features. "What do you figure those three are up too?"
Harry shook his head slowly, "I don't know but it can't be good."
Neville leaned over on Ron's other side to join in the conversation, "why does Pansy Parkinson keep looking at me like that?" In that moment the three boys looked over just in time to see the girls' cheeks tinge with pink before she ducked her head down and looked away.
Ginny and Hermione were making their way into the Great Hall at that moment when Ginny finally remembered the beginning of the conversation that had led to her confession the night before. "So 'Mione, you never did tell me who it was you liked last night?"
The other witch's eyes caught sight of her friend's twin brothers and she tried very hard not to blush. "I'm really not ready to say yet," she answered quietly as they continued on past.
The red head studied her friend for a moment before nodding slowly, not bothering to comment on the way her older brothers' eyes tracked her friends movements too. "Alright, I'm around if you want to talk then."
"Thanks," Hermione answered, grateful for the reprieve.
When the two girls finally arrived with their friends they took the two unoccupied seats across from the trio of boys. Their backs were to the Slytherin's table so neither understood the frowns marring all three of the boys faces. "What's wrong?" Hermione asked in worry.
Harry nodded towards the table behind them, "Malfoy and his friends are staring."
The older witch looked at the red head beside her and muttered that she wondered why, mirth barely concealed in her tone. Lavender heard the comment as she came up behind her 'Ronnikins' and glared at the two girls. "I'm sure Ginny knows."
Ron looked stupidly between his girlfriend and his sister, his confusion and growing anger because it of making his face puff up and go quite red. "What's she mean?" he asked his sister shortly.
The youngest Weasley glared at the blonde tramp behind her sibling, "nothing Ronald. He just knows about the notebook's nasty subject matter your girlfriend and her gutter-minded friends have been writing."
Lavender huffed and stomped off at the younger girl's rudeness, hands clenched into fist at her sides. Ron looked at his sister then at his enraged girlfriend's backside before bolting from the table to chase down the latter.
Harry turned his own concerned big-brother-ish look on the younger witch. "Are you sure everything's okay then Gin?"
"Yeah," she answered shortly, spooning her now cold porridge.
Hermione looked up from where she'd been eating and ignoring that shrewish Lavender Brown and noticed Cho Chang headed towards her other best mate. "Harry, Cho's coming," she mentioned quietly and he immediately perked up forgetting the previous conversation.
Blaise, Pansy, and Draco were once again contemplating the notebook after classes got out that afternoon. Lounging around the inner pillars leading to the courtyard the three of them were trying to figure out what could be done about the whole mess. Blaise was once again flipping through the pages and chuckled as he found the story depicting elicit scenes between that oaf Ronald Weasley and a bunch of spiders.
Pansy looked at the wizard in utter exasperation, it seemed Zabini could find amusement anywhere. "Stop laughing, this is serious! What are we gonna do?"
The dark haired boy rolled his equally dark eyes, "why don't you just go out with Neville?" He drawled the other boys name, "and then break up with him? Then they couldn't write about you anymore."
Pansy only looked dubious at this contemptuous suggestion, "I guess. But then I'd be dating Neville Longbottom."
"Go for it Pans, its not like he'll turn you down," Blaise rolled his eyes.
"Of course not," she replied haughtily and stomped off to do just that.
Looking annoyed at the blonde's presence the other wizard asked, "why are you still here?"
Draco raised a smirking brow at his friend, "it wouldn't do any good to date the Weaselette, besides what would Father say? Once we stopped dating they'd know it was a ploy and just start writing about us again anyway."
"First just tell your Father you're using her and intend to hurt and humiliate her, he'll encourage it no doubt. Secondly, if you find all the writers before you 'break up' and threaten to take their names and the notebook to the headmaster they'll be forced to stop."
"You're so brilliant I could kiss you," Draco teased as he nodded his agreement, smirk still firmly in place.
"Save it for Ginny," the dark boy dead-panned.
The blond turned back in shock, "what?"
"Well its one thing to say you're dating but unless you act like it… Besides from the sounds coming from your bed at night since it happened, I'd say the kiss can't have been that bad."
Draco blushed straight out and nodded wondering off. "Right…." Blaise heard him muttering as he left.
Grinning the remaining Slytherin turned his attention to the figure on the other side of the pillar. "Hello, Miss Lovegood," he called out to her in a welcoming tone. He'd always been quite enchanted by the young Ravenclaw, there was something so ethereal and clever about her that just fascinated him.
Luna stepped out where he could now see her, radish earrings and big sunglasses making her seem even more enchanting in his eyes. "It is, isn't it?" she cooed in that soft lilting voice of hers. "I found Nargles, and a rare breed at that; they're spotted!"
Blaise flashed her a brilliant and strangely sincere smile, "lovely. Perhaps you could show me?"
Immediately she grabbed his sleeve and jerked him around to the other side of the pillar where she'd been lingering. Pointing up to its top crevice she began to explain while he only nodded and smiled, content to just be in the dreamy girls presence. Mmm, he thought, she smells of geraniums and mossweed.
Pansy adjusted her top to show more of her barely there cleavage and approached Longbottom where he was talking to Thomas and Finnigan in the third floor corridor. Seamus looked up at the unexpected girl in curiosity and slight irritation. "Something we can help you with Parkinson?" he drawled in his slight Irish accent.
She ignored the boy, he was barely more than a mere squib and completely beneath her notice after all. Instead she focused her steady dark gaze on the very nervous Neville. "Longb-… Neville," she tried to sound sultry as she addressed him. "I was just wondering if you wanted to study with me after dinner tonight?"
Neville looked back at the two Gryffindor boys in confusion and amazement before turning his bewildered gaze back on the girl. Seamus and Dean were sniggering behind him and he couldn't quite understand why. "Uh, no thanks.. Uh… Pansy. I don't really have anything I need to do tonight…."
Pansy looked at him in utter confusion and amazement, had he really just said no to her? "What?" she stuttered at a loss, this had never happened before.
Again Longbottom stuttered out an answer, "uh… Sorry I've got to go now so.. Bye." He walked off leaving her watching after him in utter astonishment.
Draco found Ginny sitting with the Golden Trio studying in the library together. Harry and Ron gave him and extremely dubious and unwelcoming look as he came to sit with them. Hermione however just raised a brow and smirked at him, forcing him to bite his tongue to keep from snapping at the filthy mudblood. Ginny however didn't bother acknowledging him at all, making him aware of just how affected by his kiss she really had been. "What are you doing here Malfoy?" she finally asked him quietly, still seeming to focus on her homework.
Draco smirked at the red head, "it just happens I have a proposition for you Ginerva."
Ron blustered and looked at him incredulously, "you're seriously thinking you can 'proposition' my sister, especially right in front of me Malfoy? Piss off."
Harry narrowed his eyes at the other boy himself, "yeah. Ginny'd never want anything to do with you so sod off."
"I hardly think either of you would have a clue as to what Ginerva wants," Draco drawled.
Ginny finally looked up her hazel eyes, meeting Draco's pale mercurial blues. "First," she began. "Don't call me that Ferret," he scowled at the nickname but she continued regardless. "Second, what is it that you think you have that I would want?"
The Slytherin Prince grinned flirtatiously, "besides my body, money, power and prestige? I have a way to make the stories to stop." With that he got up and left Ginny staring after him with dumbfounded shock marring her face. Hermione look thoughtful while Harry and Ron both wanted to know just what Malfoy thought he was on about.
Earlier that morning Hermione had promised to help Ron with his potions since Snape had given he yet another detention for his idiocy in class. But low and behold despite his begging he had once again ditched her after dinner to go snog that slattern, Lavender. Hermione folded herself down into an empty corner of the Gryffindor upset and just wanting to be left alone at this point. Foolishly she'd been looking forward to spending the time alone with Ron, her affections for him still not completely gone.
Trying not to let the tears fall as she sulked there alone not at all sure why she even bothered with him anymore. She was better than this, she just knew she was. Fred and George knew it too as they watched the girl they so adored and desired sat sad and alone once more. They went to sit on either side of her on the couch she'd ensconced for herself.
George noticed the way her arms crossed and she sniffed discreetly. "Our idiot brother stood you up again," he observed.
Fred shook his head, "what an idiot."
Hermione tried very hard to not let it effect her, "who cares? Its his own fault if her fails."
"Its not the studying that makes him and idiot Hermione," Fred pointed out in his blunt way. He tilted her chin up and stared into her tear laden eyes, his own bright brown eyes sparkling with his admiration of her.
"I don't know why I let him treat me this way," she confessed in a tear filled voice as she turned further towards Fred.
George wrapped his arms around her waist from behind and gently kissed her shoulder making an appreciative shudder ripple through her petite frame. "He doesn't deserve you. You're brilliant, and beautiful, and powerful. And when you're ready we'll be here to show that not all Weasley men are complete fools."
Fred brushed his lips against hers in a light kiss, making her sigh softly as George pressed yet another to the back of her neck. Both pulled back after that not wanting to take advantage of the young girl in her state of upset and tried not to balk as they heard her last broken confession. "I just… can't…," she whimpered.
Ginny finally managed to catch up with Draco alone in the halls after dinner that evening. "What did you mean?" she called after him, out of breath from racing to catch up with his longer strides. "When you said you could make it stop?"
Draco stopped finally and jerked the young girl down an abandoned corridor so that they wouldn't be overheard or disturbed. "Well as the insipid tarts writing that filth pointed out before, they can't write about us if we're a couple."
The Weaselette looked utterly disgusted, "so what? You want to date me?"
He rolled his pale eyes, "no I want to pretend to date you while we hunt down all the people writing this rubbish and blackmail them into quitting."
"Oh," she uttered the single syllable in sudden understanding of what possibilities of could be done about this whole mess. "How can we be sure it'll even work though? They also said they'd stop after that kiss and look what's happened. Four more stories and it hasn't even been a week."
Malfoy looked annoyed as he agreed, "I know but Blaise and Pansy looked at the notebook and they both think its spelled to prevent any of the writers from breaking the rules."
Ginny pointed out logically, "then won't it know we're just faking it?"
He nodded, "the notebook might but the people writing in it won't, so they won't even try."
"That's brilliant," she conceded but still paused unsure of his plan.
"Come on Weasley," he cajoled her. "Wouldn't you rather pretend to date me then have to read about having sex with me?"
She looked like she was finally beginning to see logic even if she didn't exactly like the results. "Actually both make me nauseous," the red head pointed out making the older boy scowl deeply. "But then again it'll be you my brother kills…" she grinned. "I'm in. What do we do?"