Chapter 10

Later that night Ginny excused herself from dinner and promised to meet Draco back in his Common Room in about an hour. She said she had something to care of.

As soon as she had made it to an obscure bathroom on the third floor she promptly made her way to a stall and slammed the wall with her fist.

"He's using me! For Merlin's sake, that slimy git is using me! What does he think he's doing? What is he doing?" Ginny walked to a mirror and looked at her stricken expression. There was rage written in her every feature, but there was pain in her eyes.

"Okay, stop and think, stop and think." She spent a moment remembering the conversation she had overheard. "Alright. He doesn't want Harry to find out because it would ruin the whole plan. What plan? It must have to do with Harry; and Voldemort because they know he knows about it…But Draco said he isn't on Voldemort's side anymore. Ahhh!"

She screeched in frustration and kept herself from smashing the mirror in front of her. Back and forth she paced willing a spark of intuition to come to her. She could hear the faucet dripping and her foot steps tapping, they were practically in sync with her heart thumping away relentlessly. Over and over again she thought 'not again, I won't let another boy betray me like this, not again!'

"So he lied, you knew that he might. You promised everyone that you would watch him, that you would be careful. Well, here you are, practically spying on your boyfriend who you thought you could trust. I can't believe he'd do this! This whole thing, he must have been engineering it from the very beginning. He's been manipulating me and distracting me and now he's using me!"

Ginny slumped against a wall. "Oh God, I'm so stupid I can't believe I fell for this." She closed here eyes. "Draco has a letter, Blaise asked him about a letter." She thought about that for a moment. "He doesn't want me to know about this, whatever it is. Maybe if I find out what he's doing while still making him think I trust him and love him, I can make this turn around and backfire on him."

"I just can't believe I let myself care about him this much when he obviously doesn't care at all," she said bitterly. "Perks, yup, what a perk. Malfoy gets to fool around with me while getting ready to do…to do…I don't even know! Something horrible, awful."

"I have to get that letter."

"Bezoar." Ginny said to the portrait of the old man with the wineglass. He still looked down at her and sniffed snootily when she approached him, as if he had the mind to forbid her to ever come back.

"Oh just open you stupid painting, you're bound by ancient magic, just get it over with." Ginny was feeling a little snappy and decided she needed to loose that quickly.

"Humph, never in my life have I met such an impudent little girl." But even as he said it he swung open so Ginny quelled her retort and stepped through.

She looked about and didn't see Draco, but Blaise was sitting by the fire with a book in his hands. Ginny was comfortable with Blaise being around because it seemed that where ever Draco was, Blaise could be found nearby. His dark bronze skin looked like burnished gold in the fire light and she vaguely wondered if he was reading about dark magic.

He never paid her much mind, except to respond when she spoke to him and sometimes she'd catch him looking at her with the strangest expressions, but that was it. It was almost like he didn't even know who she was.

"Hey Blaise," she said trying to sound cheerful. "Seen Draco?"

Blaise looked up at her and resisted a smirk as he always did, then he looked back at his book. "He's upstairs in his room, it's the first door on the left."

"I know, thanks."

"Yup."

Ginny tried not to scowl as at him as she passed and headed for the stairs. There were two sets of stairs like in the Gryffindor tower but there was only one floor of rooms. Ginny assumed that the boys had each chosen a room they liked and moved in, the rest of the dorms were empty.

She climbed the stone steps and reached the heavy oak door on the left. It was thick and silver inlay set in intricate patterns over the wood gave it an air of importance and stability. She knocked softly and waited while she heard some shuffling noises and a moment later the door opened.

Draco was still in his uniform but his tie was missing and his sleeves were rolled up revealing the subtle musculature of his lower arms. Ginny mentally beat down her first thought, yummy.

"Gin, I'm glad you're here, you got everything that you needed to do done?" He was smiling broadly and took her hand as they walked over to a small love seat set up in the corner.

"Yeah I did actually. It was nothing big; I just had to return some books to the Library and stuff like that." Ginny slowly relaxed into their usual routine and decided to pretend like everything was normal for now. Until she found out exactly what he was up to she would give him the benefit of the doubt. She was watching every move he made however.

Draco's room was spacious. He apparently had spent quite a bit of time rearranging it and moving furniture in and out until it suited him. He had a few ornate little carpets scattered over the stone floor, there was a big sherry wood desk in one corner, the brocade love seat they were sitting on, the big four poster bed that was always immaculately made with green satin, and oddly enough a muggle television which he claimed was under a spell that made it work without electricity.

That was another thing about Draco that surprised her; he had tons of muggle things. The T.V., of course his clothes, but also he had these tiny machines that were apparently games, an electric lamp, a muggle alarm clock, and muggle photos. She never asked him about it but she wondered about it every time she was in his room. Wasn't he one of those people that hated Muggles and everything about them? It seemed he was an anomaly unto his self.

Sometimes he turned on the T.V. and they watched old movies, this was one of those times. Ginny was relieved when he did that night because she really didn't feel like talking about anything, she didn't trust herself.

"Come on." Draco had stood up and tugged her up with him. They moved onto the bed and stretched out, Ginny instantly became wary. She'd only sat on his bed once and he had been sitting at the desk, but again she decided to just let it play out. She was going to fool him so well he'd only be even more convinced of her devotion to him.

There was a black and white film playing called Casa Blanca, Ginny thought it odd that some shows were colored and others weren't. Couldn't the Muggles figure out how to keep the colors fresh?

About twenty minutes into the movie Draco turned and propped himself up so his face was above hers. He hadn't put gel in hair since they started going out so the platinum strands were cutely mussed and sometimes fell into his face.

"I wanted to tell you something earlier today but you fell asleep and I didn't want to wake you." He said.

"Oh? And what might that be?" Ginny desperately cleared her mind of any mutinous thoughts and tried to focus on what she liked about Draco, not whatever evil scheming he was up to.

He sat up and pulled her up with him so he could look at her better. "You know, Blaise warned me about this a thousand times and I never listened to him. He always told me to watch my step and I didn't. I've completely fallen for you Ginny."

Ginny was struck silent; she searched his face for any sign of insincerity but couldn't find it. She did notice that he hadn't actually said he loved her; and she was glad.

She opened her mouth to say something but he placed a finger over her lips. "You don't have to say anything. I just wanted you to know."

She nodded and tried to marshal her chaotic thoughts into some sort of order. It was so unexpected, and she thought that he might have gone for a more planned out moment since he was evidently trying to manipulate her into something. Instead it was a simple whim that was more convincing than any candlelit room or seductive setting. She was surprised, just as she had been since that first day on the train.

Draco grinned and softly kissed her, placing his hand behind her neck and leaning back on the bed. In the last month the two had broken down a lot of the barriers couples go through, but Ginny still had rules, and Draco respected them.

On a normal night, Ginny might have let things go by this point, she certainly knew that Draco wanted her too; but on that particular evening, she just wasn't in the mood. She pulled away and smiled at him, but sat up against the head board and tried to watch the movie again. He looked at her with a puzzled frown for a moment but then he sat next to her and slipped his arm around her waist and she leaned against his shoulder.

The movie was a cute love story that made Ginny remember some of the things she'd done with Harry and then something flashed into her mind. An image of Harry clouded her vision. He was kneeling on the ground in front of her. His face was scratched, his hair was filthy and his robes were torn and speckled with blood. She could practically hear his voice over the dialogue in the film.

"Ginny, don't do it! Oh God Gin, please don't hurt me!" He was pleading with her, begging her. "Please don't do this." He sounded so afraid; she couldn't understand why he was so afraid.

The vision disappeared and Ginny gasped in horror and realized that she was crying. Draco glanced over but then instantly gave her his full attention.

"Ginny? Ginny what's wrong?" He brushed away some of her tears. "Why are you crying?" Draco was feeling a little panicked; did all girls do this sort of thing? What had he done wrong?

Ginny shook her head and hastily swiped at her eyes trying to get rid of the traitorous water. "Nothing, oh I'm sorry, it's really nothing. I, um, I," Ginny racked her brain for a good excuse and said the first thing that came to mind. "I got my period this morning, I'm completely unstable right now, you know PMS. I'm sorry Draco."

"Ah, okay." Draco nodded and put his arm around her again, letting it slide. The situation was entirely plausible seeing how last time she had her period Draco had watched her get in a fight with Colin over something totally ridiculous and end up throwing books at his head, screaming at the top of her lungs. He was completely willing to just humor her whenever her bloody friend came to pay a visit. Self interest and preservation was a fundamental part of Draco's personality.

When Ginny got back to her dorm that night she found Luna still awake. She was sitting on Ginny's bed reading a copy of The Quibbler. The spell hadn't worn off much except that now Ginny didn't find herself completely spellbound every time Luna opened her mouth.

"Hey Luna, you're up late." Ginny said and collapsed at the end of her bed.

"Hey Ginny, you're back late." Luna replied.

"Touché." She was debating whether or not to Luna what she had found out.

"I won't be surprised when you just stay the night there and don't come back to find me waiting for you." Luna was still staring quite intently at the magazine.

Ginny looked up at her. "Are you mad at me?"

"A little Ginny." Luna finally tossed down her magazine.

"Why?" Ginny was surprised. She was pretty sure she hadn't said anything offensive and she had been splitting her time rather evenly between Draco and her friends.

"Because I know that you're going to go home tomorrow and lie your ass off to everyone." She sounded agitated. "I understand wanting to get back at Harry, but what good does it do for you date someone behind his back? If you really wanted to get back at him you would have invited Draco to the Burrow and flaunted him all over the place."

"Luna I—" Ginny tried to protest but Luna cut her off.

"No, just stop and listen okay? I know you like him, but I also know that you're ashamed of it. If you try and convince your family, and Harry, that you aren't up to something and that you're totally fine you're going to lose it. Because guess what Ginny, you're not fine, not remotely."

"So what, do you want me to break up with him?" Ginny asked quietly.

"No, I want you to tell the bloody truth! If you're not going to tell Harry that you're seeing someone and you aren't going to tell Draco that you're using him, then yes, dump him. You've already been hurt; you're setting yourself up to get hurt again."

"Why are you making such a big deal out of this now? You haven't before."

"Honestly? I don't trust Draco, I never have. I didn't actually think that this would turn into a long term relationship."

Ginny was taken aback by this sudden attack, but she wasn't upset about it. She supposed she'd have to tell Luna what had happened.

"I didn't either, and anyway your misgivings were well placed. You think I'm using Draco, he's using me." Luna looked unsurprised. "Oh, don't give me that look! You were right, and I suck. Happy?"

Instead of answering to that she asked, "What's he doing?"

"I don't know, it has something to do with Harry and Voldemort but other than that I didn't really hear anything. I overheard Draco and Blaise fighting about me and whatever this plan is, they thought I was asleep." She described the conversation to Luna.

"So you're going to chuck him."

"No." Ginny looked helplessly at her friend. "Whatever he's up to, I'm the only one that can stop it. Isn't it ironic that now I'm trying to protect Harry when before I was trying to get back at him?"

"Yeah it is." Luna didn't seem to be any calmer then she had been a few moments earlier. "How are you going to do it?"

"First I have to find out what his plan his, so I have to get whatever that letter is that he was talking about. Then I'll go from there, but for now I'll have to play it by ear." She sighed and crossed her legs.

Luna flopped back onto the pillows and put her hands over her eyes. "So are you okay?"

Ginny laughed mirthlessly. "No, I don't think I am."

A/N And the story is finally getting somewhere! Yay! Review pretty please!