A/N: Thanks to all readers and reviewers! 😊 I know, I can't even believe it, but another chapter is UP. Enjoy.

Draco just might have been right, thought Ginny.

How many times had he chided her about idiotic Gryffindor bravery, about leaping before she looked? How often had he told her that the clever way was to stop and think before plunging in ahead? Slytherins aren't cowards, he had said. But we don't bash on regardless of life and limb. That's not courage, Ginny, not really. It's called acting like a fool. How they'd fought over that one.

But maybe he was right all along, she thought. I did act like a fool, and now, I'm going to pay for it.

This wasn't a gentle snowfall, and it wasn't a moderate storm. No, it was a howling, raging monster, seizing the breath from her lungs, the strength from her body. And she had run out into it without thinking. Her mother had known this as well, and had tried to stop her.

Ginny struggled to stand upright, bent almost double against the savage wind. Grimly, she forced her legs to move, staggering on, headed towards the direction where she heard Draco's voice. If only she could hear him calling to her again! But she wasn't even sure, now, that she had heard him the first time.

She heard another voice, not a real one, but still carried in the wind, eddying into her head. The echo of her mother's voice. It had been so much easier to ignore when she was safely tucked inside the back hall, warm and dry. In the immensity of the storm, it whispered to her and would not go away.

Are you sure that you know what Draco Malfoy feels for you?

"I'm sure," she said aloud, through gritted teeth. She pulled the muffler down and squinted into the whirling snow. There were vague shapes somewhere in the distance, the frenzied branches of a tree whipping back and forth, a hillock covered in snow, but nothing looked familiar. Nothing in the landscape matched the area that actually surrounded the Burrow. It must be because of that damn Runcible house thing, she thought. It's affected the land as well.

Are you sure you mean more to him than any of the Weasley women have ever meant to any of the Malfoy men? The voice persisted.

"Of course I am," she whispered. "Of course I do."

Really? The voice in her head was taking over, but it wasn't just her mother's voice anymore. No, it was the one that whispered to her sometimes, like after that night of sinfully delicious passion only two days ago, the one that left both her and Draco breathless and sweaty and trembling. She'd seen wonder and delight cross his face at the moments of greatest pleasure, as if for all his greater experience, he was as astonished as she, as unsure, as surprised by the joy they had found in each other. At those moments, he, who was never at a loss for words, was wordless. Then he looked into her eyes for a long time, playing with a strand of her hair, and the very next words seemed to tremble in the air. I love you, Ginny. He never said them.

Ginny had awakened in the small hours of the morning, staring at the ceiling, Draco slumbering next to her. He'd told her that he had a great deal of trouble sleeping on his own, but never when she was there. His lips were curved up in a smile. Despite their almost-fight earlier, the night had ended so well. He was happy with her, and she with him. But oddly, this had been the moment when the small voice whispered to her the most insistently.

But he's never really told you how much you mean to him. He hasn't said that he loves you. Does he care? What do you mean to him, Ginny?

"I…" She shut her lips tightly and started towards the top of a rise in the distance. Maybe she'd be able to see more from there. The wind whipped through the scarf wound tightly around her cheeks in a sudden, vicious gust, carrying another disturbing whisper from the recent past. She didn't hear Draco's voice in the moment, but it was clear in her memory, all right.

My father wanted me to marry Astoria. If he'd lived, I might have even done it. The marriage would have earned his approval, which was a feat I never really managed, and never would have done, I'm sure. My father believed that Astoria was well-bred and pretty and pleasant, and that she knew how to behave as befits a Malfoy wife. And he was right.

If Astoria Greengrass was the woman who was really right for him, then what was she?

The whisper of her mother's voice seemed to eddy in the roaring wind, an undertone to the fierce howl of the storm. The point is that it never ends happily. I wouldn't like to say that the women have never been more than playthings for them, because that's something I don't know one way or the other. But the relationships never turn out well. They're certainly never permanent.

"It's not true," Ginny whispered, but her words were torn away by the wind.

She stopped, scanning the white whirlwind around her. The hillock was on the left again. She must have turned in a complete circle.

I'm lost, she realized. Hopelessly lost. Stay calm, Ginny. Breathe in and out. Think. Did she even have her wand? Or had she left it in the pocket of her other coat? She tried to force her numbed fingers to her waist, but they wouldn't move. I am in real trouble. Nobody knows where I am. This is one of the worst storms I've ever seen. I could freeze to death before anyone finds me.

Have you met his mother, Ginny? The voice went on, the poisonous whisper of doubt in her own head. Has he ever really spoken to you about his father, or any of his family? Have you even met any of his friends?

Yes, she tried to answer it, but there was no conviction. She had spoken to Blaise Zabini exactly once, when they had run across him by accident when they were out at an upscale Muggle restaurant eating dinner. . He was the only one of Draco's friends or acquaintances who knew about their relationship. And his eyebrows had come close to hitting his hairline the entire time they'd spoken, as if he simply could not believe that he saw this sort of overlap between Weasley and Malfoy, as if it were a fleeting illusion, a soap bubble doomed to dash to earth at any moment. Draco had always taken her to restaurants in the Muggle world, she realized, or theaters, or nightclubs. She'd thought it was remarkable tolerance on Draco's part, and that the time they spent in that other world meant that he was losing his old prejudices

But that's not what it meant at all, was it? No. It meant he was hiding you, the voice said.

"It's not true…" she tried to say.

The voice gave a metaphorical shrug. But then, if you never find Draco, it won't matter at all. Nothing will.

"Ginny…"

She stood still. That voice was real. It had to be. And it belonged to Draco.

"Ginny. I love you."

Her eyes flew open wide, and she shielded her face against the stinging sleet with one hand. She had heard those words. But how was it possible that Draco Malfoy had actually spoken them? No matter what, she now knew that she had to solve that mystery. Even if I end up freezing to death in this storm, I'll find him first, she vowed. One way or the other know, I've got to know! She set out again, heading towards the hillock, the only thing she could see clearly in the storm.

A/N: So what do you think? Did Draco actually say that he loved Ginny, is she hallucinating the entire thing from being caught in the storm? In the next chapter, we'll find out. 😉

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