Disclaimer: I do not own anything from the amazing world of Harry Potter

Chapter 7: You See Me

"So what did your mum want?" Draco asked as he exited the bathroom once again squeaky clean. Ginny was curled up on the couch staring into the fire.

"Well actually," she sighed as she looked up at him. "She wanted to tell me that she finally got an owl from Ron, Harry and Hermione."

Draco took a seat beside her on the couch as she went on. "It was nothing special, just a quickly scribbled note saying they were fine. But hey, any news is good right?"

"Mhm."

"I'm sorry," she began to blush. "I know you don't care, are you ready to go." She quickly stood up and began to slowly walk towards the kitchen. "Come on. The cookies are ready."

Draco started to protest her statement before hanging his head in resignation. No matter what he said it wouldn't be right just then. She would be able to see through a lie and wouldn't believe the truth that he did care. He was glad the golden trio was ok. The longer they stayed that way the more chance his new allies would have to take down the dark lord. That was good for him.

Curiously though, Malfoy was not just concerned about his life but also his first thought after hearing about the note was praying that his three former enemies were alive for the sake of Ginny. "Well, I believe we already established that I have a profound love of cookies."

Ginny held out her hand to him, he took it, and the two walked to the kitchen to pack their lunch.

"Hey, stand up, I want to try something."

They had spread out a blanket beneath one of the trees to eat their picnic and now were just relaxing in the cool October afternoon. Draco was leaning against the tree with legs stretched out in front of him; arms crossed across his chest making his light grey jumper stretch across his torso and accentuate his toned muscles. Ginny lay on the ground beside him her arms tucked under her head as a pillow.

"Ugh Draco, I don't want to move." She flung an arm over her eyes in a vain attempt to get him to give up.

"Seriously Ginny," he stood up and then turned, offered his hands to her and easily pulled her straight of the ground. "Ok, start to walk away from me."

"Draco, what is wrong with you? This is pointless; we already know that I will just slingshot back at you once we are three metres apart."

"Just do it Weasley!" he sighed and shook his head, exasperated with her protests. She just crossed her arms and cocked an eyebrow in response, looking scarily like her mother, "I'm sorry Ginny. Please just humor me."

She let out a sound of annoyance before turning and walking straight away from him. At three metres she stopped and turned to look at him. "Do I have to keep going?"

"It really isn't there." He shook his platinum blond head in disbelief.

"What isn't there?" Ginny was quickly tiring of whatever experiment Draco was running, especially because her wouldn't tell her what it was.

"The tug. That pull that we feel when we get to far apart isn't there. I don't know about you but I normally feel it at about two and a half meters and here we are three metres apart and nothing. I noticed it this morning when you were sitting at the window seat but brushed it off as the after affects of sleep, but now it seems I was right."

"Mon dieu, you're right. I don't feel it either. I wonder how far apart we can go." She began to slowly back away from him waiting for the feeling to take hold of her. At about three and a half metres the tugging feeling reappeared but Ginny decided to test it to see exactly how far apart they could go. Less than half a metre later the feeling was over powering and when she hit four metres away her body flew back across the field, narrowly avoiding a tree to where she slammed into Draco. The two fell backwards onto the ground, Ginny on top of Draco.

Ginny immediately rolled to the ground off, assuming that she had squished him, and sat up to gauge the damage. "Oh gods, Draco are you ok?" she was surprised to see the bugger was laughing. "What is wrong with you?"

"The look on your face was priceless." He sat up and repositioned himself to once again be leaning against the tree.

"Agh! You are such an arse." She flung herself back onto the ground with her back to him.

"I wonder why we are able to move farther apart now."

"I don't know." She mumbled in response.

Draco just shook his head at her reply and began rummaging in the picnic basket. "Aha! I found them!" he triumphantly pulled the tin of cookies out of the basket, opened them, and waved them tauntingly in front of Ginny's face. "You want one?"

Her hand darted out and snatched a cookie.

"Yay, I win." He smirked down at her, looking so thoroughly proud of himself she couldn't help but giggle.

"So I guess according to the rules of our game that it is now my turn to tell you a secret, right?" she rolled over onto her back to stare up at him.

Draco shook his head slightly and gave a tiny chuckle at her words. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to Ginny." He said as he stared down at her.

"Wow. Well you are probably the first person in my entire life who has ever said that to me." She marveled at the sincerity with which he said that.

"Yeah, knowing you family I probably am." He smirked at her and she reached out at swatted him lightly.

"Okay, well we both know that I have been avoiding the subject of the Wonder Trio."

"You call them that too?"

"Of course they may be my best friends but the 'whole holier than thou, we're going to save the world' crap is highly annoying."

"Don't you sound Slytherin?" he smirked at her.

"Again with the smirking? Doesn't your face know how to portray any emotion other than that one incredibly annoying, sarcastic look?" she huffed at him.

"I have been told I do bored effectively as well."

"That is so true, you do. Anyways, back to the point, you shared about your past, now I think I will give you some insight onto my thoughts on Harry, Ron and 'Mione." She paused and looked at him as if to seek his approval on her plan. He gave her one short nod and she continued. "Ok, well, obviously they are my best friends. I love all three of them to death, and who wouldn't?"

He looked at her with one eyebrow raised. "I mean besides you." She once again smacked him on the arm. "Stop with the evil looks and snide comments or I won't tell you anything!"

She pulled herself into a sitting position and started to stand when his long arms snaked out and pulled back against him. "I'll behave I promise. Please go on."

She twisted her next to look in his eyes and could only see clear silver sincerity in them. "Alright." She twisted back around and lay her head on his shoulder as he adjusted his arms to make her more comfortable. "Anyways, everyone loves them. Mione is smart, Ron is funny, and Harry is the nicest person you will ever meet. Together they balance each other out and separately they all have something that makes them stand out in a crowd. It is these same attributes though, that make me absolutely hate them."

"What?" that was the one comment that he had not expected to ever hear little Ginny Weasley say about the savior of the wizarding world and his sidekicks.

"I know, I know, you don't believe me. You're thinking that there is no way the littlest weasel could ever hate the golden boy, and I guess you're right. I guess its not that I hate them, but more that I hate how they treat me."

Ginny paused to take a deep breath and try to calm herself. This subject always made her completely furious. "I have always been the little sister and they can't see me any other way. I am not Ginny, I am Ron's little sister, Hermione's friend, or that little girl who was in love with Harry Potter, although sometimes the past tense was dropped, like whenever you felt the need to mess with me." Draco shifted uncomfortably at her last statement. "Not that I hold it against you," she reassured him. "Actually, being treated like that just fuelled me to try and establish myself separately from them. After the Department of Mysteries incident I pretty much wanted nothing to do with them because I was the only one of us not credited with being there. I was 'too young to deal with all of it' which is such bullshit, Luna and I are the exact same age but she wasn't left out, only me. That was the end of my hero worship of those three and when I let go of my obsession with Harry Potter for good."

She couldn't handle being restrained by Draco anymore. She wiggled free of his arms, stood up and began pacing. "I get so tired of being considered the little one that they need to protect. I am a powerful and skilled witch but will never get the opportunity to show that because all my family and friends are convinced that I am going to get hurt even though I am the one that has saved their arses on more than one occasion."

Draco watched the little fireball pace and rant with a mixture of fascination and fear. She was terrifying. Her red hair was a wild tangled mane that created a halo of fire all around her little face that was flushed with anger and frustration creating a multi-tonal masterpiece of cream and pink. All of this was in stark contrast with the forest green jumper that hugged her curves and rode up slightly with the force of her gestures. He was having a hard time following all of the rant with the distraction of her body in front of him.

"Hermione and Ron are always trying to hold me back; I secretly think it is because they are both afraid that I will show them up with my skills. And Harry is a fucking idiot. I was so in love with him for YEARS, followed him around, worshiped him, would do anything for him but the only bloody person who ever noticed that was the one person I truly hated, you." She came to a sudden halt and faced him. "How is it that you were so perceptive even though you didn't know anything about me?" she asked sadly, switching in an instant from a fiery woman on a rampage to a confused little girl who just wanted to understand.

Draco was dumbstruck by transition. "Uh, umm, well, I really don't know."

Ginny shook her head and gave a small sad little laugh. She walked back over to Draco and sat down it the spot she had previously occupied. Wrapping his arms back around her she said, "I am sorry the whole subject just upsets me." She laid her head back on his shoulder. "Although, I think I just did raise a very good point. I don't know why but for some reason you have always seen me, the real me. When we were at school you would call me names, make fun of my family, and ridicule my friends, but despite all that not once did you ever call me Ron's little sister. In calling me the littlest weasel or the weaselette you gave me my own identity for the first time."

"Of course you have your own identity Ginny. How could you not? There is no way to group you with anyone else; you are completely different from anyone I have ever known. You stand out in a crowd. Even when we hated each other your passion for life and the inner vibrancy that you give off makes you impossible to overlook." He paused and leaned his forehead against hers. They were so close that their noses were almost touching. "Honestly, despite our differences I always felt like I knew you. I loved to watch you, you expressions and emotions, everything you thought and felt right there out on your sleeve. You fascinated me, Ginny, and still do."

"Thank you Draco." She whispered.

"For what?" he asked, leaning back to see her properly.

"For being the only person to ever truly see me." She reached her hand up and placed it softly on his cheek. Then she leaned in and gave him one small soft kiss on the lips. "Well, I guess we should be heading back now mum should be back from headquarters and dinner will be ready soon." She pulled away and stood up.

"Headquarters?" he questioned trying to shake away the barely a kiss a focus on her words.

"Ugh, Draco, one difficult question per day. We can talk about that another time. Come on lets go back to the house." And with a quick wave of her wand all the remnants of their lunch disappeared and the two slowly walked back arm and arm, lost in their own separate thoughts.

YAY!!!! Chapter seven is finally done. Sorry it took so long. I am trying my best but unfortunately I has a lot going on in my life with school, but it is X-MAS break so everything is ok. I will try to get another chapter up before I go back to school.

Thanks so much to all those that reviewed the last chapter, KEEP REVIEWING!!!! I don't care what you have to say just tell me something!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!!!!

XOXO!!!!!!

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