.~.

January, 1998

Forgiveness and apology were hard for Ginny.

She'd never been one to shrug off the hurtful words or actions by others, especially when her temper had been riled. And she'd always had a problem admitting when she was wrong. This time, though, she swallowed her pride a bit.

Despite the fact she'd been disappointed in his revelation that he wouldn't be lifting a hand to fight against Voldemort, for the past month and some change since then, he'd continued in whatever way he could to help her stir up trouble within the castle. Making Snape, Filch, and the Carrows miserable was something he could do without breaking his Slytherin vow to 'do no deathly harm' to his fellow Housemates and their alumni. It wasn't enough as far as she was concerned, but it wasn't nothing, either.

The fact was Zabini wasn't the enemy right now and he'd proved it in his willingness to help in small ways. She could forgive him for the failure to meet her expectations just for the efforts he was making for her cause, the same as she'd forgiven Harry finally for the same thing.

"I'm sorry," she offered.

There was an awkward moment where she and Zabini simply stared at the other, trying to figure shite out, but walking the Grand Stairs on patrol wasn't the best place for such a conversation, honestly. The portraits may not be helping Snape, per se, but they were a nosy, gossipy bunch.

He made the first move, a light shrug of his thick shoulders.

"You were right about not fighting. Nothing I can do about it, but you weren't wrong in your assessment."

He moved on down the stairs to head back to the dungeons.

Ginny intercepted him about half way there.

"I think I was," she argued, grabbing hold of his elbow and stopping him on the third floor landing. "A real coward wouldn't have helped me out twice now."

"Three times, technically," he corrected her with a wry grin. "Once from the Slicing hex, once at the wedding, and in November, I corrected your lovely wall graffiti. Recruitment has an 'i' in it, for the record."

"Ah, see! That, right there, is why I can't decide whether I want to punch you or…or…"

"Kiss me?" he dared.

"Or punch you," she repeated, thinking it so relevant it needed to be said twice. "You're so infuriatingly blasé about this whole war I'm not sure which side you're really on!"

"Can I say I'm on your side, even if you didn't pick me?"

Was he flirting to distract her, or because he meant it?

She wasn't sure which one was the more frightening thought, actually.

"Why are you like this?" she huffed, drawing him into the third floor corridor, into a darkened nook where she'd often caught lovebirds exchanging tonsils in the past. "I can't figure you out. You spend years hating on me, and then this last year you're all…all…" She waved her hands at him. "This! Charming and smooth, helpful even."

He pursed his lips, drawing her attention to their perfection. Like his hands, his mouth was made for extraordinary things… Her lips tingled as the surprising thought crossed her mind of what his kiss might taste like.

"I never actually hated on you," he admitted. "Misdirection is a useful tool. And some of us Slytherins aren't actually zombies with black holes for hearts and an insatiable desire for global domination, you know. In general, we can be quite charming and smooth, and most extraordinarily helpful–" He gave her a rather pointed look. "–when it's in our interest."

"I…I'm with Harry," she lied automatically, seeking to draw that cloak of protection around her from the dare in his eyes.

He stepped closer to her, a causal adjustment that left her pressed against the wall when she attempted to put space between them.

"You're fibbing to me again, Ginevra. But even so…I don't see him here."

"I'm–"

"Always running after him, hoping he'll give you a sniff of his time and interest."

That got her back up.

"That's not true anymore!"

"Isn't it?" he insisted, never raising his voice above that low and confident, insidious whisper. "Tell me you didn't run away the last time we hit this same wall then, because you knew it was going to force you to confront some ugly things about your boy hero. Tell me you're not wanting to rabbit right now for the same reason."

She opened her mouth, wanting this fight with all her soul…but it never came. There was no fire in her mouth, and no denials or refusals to listen to him tear down her childhood dreams one brick at a time. Not anymore.

-Because he was right. Again.

Even with Harry gone, despite the fact he'd hurt her so callously with his rejection after she'd given him the most important moment of her young life, a childish, idiotic side of her still wanted to run to his side and assure him that he wasn't alone anymore. That little girl with the big fancy just wanted to cuddle the abused orphan who'd saved them all by some fluke of ancient magic and a heart of gold, and tell him he wasn't going to stand against the darkness on his own ever again. But the fact was that if Harry had actually wanted her to be his shield maiden, like in the ancient tales, he'd have taken her along with him when he'd disappeared in August. He'd have never dumped her in June. He'd have kept her as close as Hermione, relied upon her strength to support him in his time of need as he did Ron.

He hadn't done any of that, though. Instead, he'd leaned upon her brother for help…and another witch.

That wasn't to say Ginny resented Ron or Hermione for winning Harry's eternal friendship, as they'd deserved a spot at his side, but there were times she wished she'd been included in that circle, too. As Blaise had so spectacularly pointed out last year, she wasn't friend 'enough' as far as that trio was concerned, and none of them respected her as their equal.

She dashed at the hateful tears that filled her eyes.

"I hate you sometimes," she hissed at him.

He sighed and with a slow, careful hand, wiped the tears from her cheeks.

"Misdirection." He tilted her chin up so they were eye-to-eye. "I'm not the only one who uses that tool to keep others at bay, Red."

"I don't…I'm not…"

"Ready, I know," he gently agreed and released her. "We'll start as friends then, and see where it goes."

Giving her space allowed her to breathe, to think. Her nerves were a wreck; she was primed for action like she would be before a battle. Her heart was a war drum in her chest and her hands shook with the palsy of an unwanted attraction.

"Apology accepted," he told her and inched backwards, towards the landing so he could give her the time she so desperately needed to work things out in her head…and heart. "Friends don't hold grudges, right?"

No, they didn't.

"You'll have to teach me," he said with a wry smile. "Seems I'm terrible at keeping friends this year. They've mostly abandoned me, even Malfoy…and he's on everyone's shit list."

"It's your deplorable personality," she called back, feeling a bit more even keeled with him several feet away and retreating.

He laughed.

"You may be right."

By the time he'd turned and headed away, Ginny had regained some of her confidence.

Friends.

Maybe she could do that with a Slytherin.

Maybe.

It was two weeks later that Ginny approached Zabini again, after their agreement to try for a friendship had been made. She was taking the initiative this time, since he'd been the one to suggest such a wild idea in the first place.

"Can I show you something later?" she offered.

Those dark, mysterious eyes snapped to her, curious intelligence weighing the intent and sincerity of her proposal.

"What time and where?"

Ginny let out the tiny breath she'd unconsciously held.

"Astronomy Tower, eleven o'clock. We'll meet at the stairs leading down to the dungeon from the Entrance Hall."

"That's past curfew…and a forbidden area without authorization."

She stood and gave him her infamous Weasley wink.

"Trust me."

He nodded his assent and she was off to continue her own studies for the few hours between now and then. Inside her satchel, she patted the closed Marauder's Map, Harry's final gift to her this last summer, before all hell had broken loose at Bill's wedding. At the time, he'd said he wouldn't need it again, and she'd understood his unspoken declaration of intended to go it alone as he'd handed it to her. It was his apology for mistreating her so badly.

She'd taken it, but hadn't fully forgiven him at the time.

In all honestly, she still struggled with that.

This year, though, while living under Snape, Harry's kind offer had been put to frequent and good use for the Order's rebellion inside the castle. It was almost enough for her to finally give Potter a pass.

Tonight, the map would see a different kind of troublemaking.

"I can't believe something this complex was invented by a group of teenagers no older than we are now," Zabini said, turning over and over the Marauder's Map and studying it by the moonlight. "It's an ambitious piece of magic."

He handed the map back to her.

"I'd expect something like this from Slytherins, not Gryffindors, to be fair."

Ginny shrugged.

"You've met my brothers, right? Fred and George, the kings of all pranksters."

"Point taken."

After rechecking the map to assure they were undetected by the staff, Ginny left it open on her lap as she and Zabini sat side by side in silence for a long while and looked out at the midnight sky with its twinkling stars. It was cold in the tower this high up, especially in mid-January, but Ginny had cast a warming charm about them that held up even against the chill breezes blowing in through the open tower's sides.

"What did you want me to see?" he finally asked, and she could feel his dark gaze assessing her profile, "aside from how the moonlight does you no justice."

She gasped at the insult and side-eye glared at him.

"You're a creature of the light," he explained quickly, before she took further offence. "The sun loves you. It makes your hair shine like spun red gold. The moonlight can't compare. It dulls you out, keeps you from sparkling."

Now she was gaping for an entirely different reason as his strangely romantic sentiment did things to her insides that should be illegal.

"Did…did you just compliment me in some weird Slytherin manner?"

His lips twitched with amusement.

"I thought girls liked poetic-sounding admiration from boys."

She huffed, trying to get her heart back under control; it was beating faster than a pair of Flooper's wings.

"Only if we're being wooed by them," she replied in an off-hand manner.

"Wooed?" He sounded legitimately inspired by the thought. "Is that what you'd like, Ginevra, to be courted?"

The heat to her face was like a furnace on full-blast.

Was he implying he'd give such a thing a whirl if she was favourable? He'd certainly made it clear that what he wanted from her started at friends. Where it ended would be up to her.

Where did she want it to go?

"I suppose, someday."

He hazarded a glance at her. "And Potter?"

"You were right," she finally admitted, although it killed her to do it. She'd spent the last fourteen days thinking hard about everything he'd ever said about her relationship with Harry…and she concluded that he'd been right. Whatever had evolved between her and Potter had existed because she'd run after him and made herself accessible, but the hard fact was they'd only ever been fair-weather friends, not real ones, as Blaise had pointed out. "I am finally tired of running. It's time to stop chasing that Snitch."

"Ah."

"Doesn't mean I'm in the market for something new, though."

"I see."

"You and me… We're just friends, right?"

"Right."

"New friends."

"Working on it."

"You're very accommodating."

He shrugged. "I try to be for the right people."

The giggle erupted from her mouth, despite her best attempts to keep a straight face.

"Seriously, I just thought you deserved a reward for risking your neck for me a few times now. Think of it as my way of saying thanks," she told him in answer to his original question. "Besides, when's the last time you actually just stopped running and breathed in the night air, and didn't worry?"

He tilted his head as if to say, "a long time".

"Yeah, me, too," she admitted. "So, even if it makes me ugly, I'm going to enjoy the moonlight while I can, because who knows what tomorrow will bring?"

Zabini was silent at her side for a long while after that. They each stared at the stars in personal contemplation, watching as they occasionally fell from the heavens in a flash that disappeared almost as soon as it was spotted, and they watched the moon crawl across the expanse of midnight blue until it reached the horizon.

Only then, after a quick check at the map, did they finally decide the risk was becoming too great to continue and called it a night. They left the Astronomy Tower the same way they'd arrived.

As she turned to leave him back at the dungeon stairs in the Entrance Hall, he stopped her with the strangest comment.

"Hey, Red?"

"Yeah?"

"…I never said the moonlight made you ugly. Nothing can do that."

He was gone in a quick blur of black robes before she could react to that comment.

Everything changed between them after that, and slowly, Ginny's former dreams of green eyes and messy mahogany hair disappeared, replaced by fantasies of a sinful nature, featuring a tall, icy boy with perfect hands and a wicked serpent's smile.

TO BE CONTINUED...