A/N. I have a new beta-reader, and you can be sure that she is the most amazing beta that I could ever imagine to find! She is nice, patient and... oh, thanks Kryska! *makes the happy dance* This chapter is for you all that reviewed, and for who asked the fainting!Ron, he's here and its all yours ^_~

Chapter 7: Worst than Detention itself

It was almost midnight when Ginny entered the portrait hole, her fingers hot and painful from all the writing she had done at the library.

She was remembering all those huge books, and walking across the empty common room.

"Where were you, Ginny?" asked Ron, slowly and painfully calm. "Were you in detention?"

"I... I was." Ginny answered, in shock. The room hadn't been empty, after all. From the shadows near the fireplace, Harry and Hermione came over to Ron.

"So it's true that you're dating Malfoy?" Ron asked again, walking nearer and nearer.

"I, I..." She muttered, scared to the bones.

"You...?" Harry added, looking into her eyes.

"Yes."

"Yes what?" muttered Ron, between his teeth.

"I am ... Draco's girlfriend." She said in a hurry, before she lost her courage.

Ron twisted on his feet, but he didn't leave the room, as Ginny had thought. He fainted.
Hermione went down on her knees, slapping Ron's face gently.

"How could you do this to us?" she asked, very angrily.

"He tried to kill us a dozen times!" Harry cried, while Ron woke up and sat on the ground.

"He wanted Dad to get fired!" Ron said, with half his normal voice.

"Malfoy cheats every time he can, what do you think he wants with you if it isn't to hurt us?" Hermione asked, with fiery eyes.

"He loves me!" Ginny screamed as loud as she could.

"Ginny, you just... you're a shame to Gryffindor!" Ron cried, getting to his feet. "You disgrace the Weasleys!"

Ginny felt her face burning. Her eyes were full of tears and her throat was so tight that she couldn't say a thing. Hermione muttered something to Ron and walked to her dorm. The boys glanced with what seemed a mix of pity and disgust at Ginny and walked to their dorm too.

The girl felt so lonely, so tired, so small. Now I know how Draco fells when his father tells him that he doesn't deserve to be a Malfoy. It's just like the world emptied, and you can't do anything about it because you aren't good enough for what you practiced for all your life.

***

Draco entered the Slytherin dungeons at almost one in the morning. He was even more pale than usual, and so tense that every sound of the night made him jump.
For God's sake! I know that I didn't see any ghosts, but those voices whispering at my ear and the cold wind weren't any better than staring at the Bloody Baron.

Draco remembered the hoarse voice that muttered that Draco looked so much like his hangman, and shivered.

He was almost on the dorm's door when he saw two huge shadows standing at the entrance stairs. With a closer look, he could see that the shadows were nothing but Crabbe and Goyle.

"Draco," Crabbe started to talk, looking nervous. "They're saying..."

"... They're saying that you..." Goyle tried to help.

Draco glanced at the boys, who couldn't another word. He was shooing them away from the door, so he could pass, but a cold voice made him stop, mid-act.

"What those stupid gits want to say is that there are rumours that you're the boyfriend of the Weasley girl."

He glanced to his back and saw Pansy Parkinson. And she was not alone.

"That I am what?" He said it in a whisper.

Pansy walked out of the shadows into the moonlight that entered by the windows. After her, Violet Parkinson, Pansy's sister and Prefect of Slytherin, walked closer him too. Violet had the cruelest eyes he'd ever seen.

"The whole school is talking about it." Violet said, with a controlled voice. "They're saying that you, Draco Malfoy, who would be the next Slytherin Prefect, are the silly boyfriend of Ginny Weasley, the most poor, boring and Potter Lover girl from Gryffindor".

The way she said Gryffindor would make even Godrid Gryffindor ashamed of his name.

"Well, I..." Draco said, without daring to look into the girl's eyes.

"Are you her boyfriend or aren't you, Draco?" Pansy cried.

"Yes, I am Ginny's boyfriend."

Crabbe and Goyle looked like they had just discovered that they weren't who they'd always thought they were, Violet just looked disgusted, and Pansy covered her face with her hands and ran into the girls dorm, crying.

"I never thought that you," Violet said, very seriously, "that you would be such a shame to our House. I'll have to communicate these... events to your father, right now, and you know it."

Crabbe pulled Goyle by the hem of his robes and they walked into their dorm. Violet whistled and a brown owl appeared from a dark corridor, and perched on her shoulder.

"You can go to sleep, Draco." Violet said, without feeling. "I really don't envy your position when your father finds out that you're a disgrace to Slytherin."

Draco turned his back on Violet and walked into the dorm. Crabbe and Goyle were with in bed, faces buried into the pillows, faking sleep. Pathetic, he thought, walking to his bed, at the very end of the room.

If the whole school knows, the Gryffindors know too! Oh God, Ginny!

Snap.

Draco, Draco!

What happened, Ginny?

They know! They know it!

I know that they do! The Slytherins know too! How they can know?

I don't know! They were waiting for me in the common room... It was awful! Ron screamed at me and he said I disgraced the Weasleys!

They were waiting for me too, and they did almost the same thing. Violet, the Prefect, sent an owl to my father!

Your father?

Yes! I don't want to think about it...

Oh, Draco, why does this have to be so hard?

I don't know, Ginny, but people say that what comes hard is better...

She smiled, her eyes closed and his face printed on her eyelids. He smiled too, and had an idea.

Ginny, if everybody already knows, do you... Do you want to see me in public? And to talk to me?

Sure! I've always wanted it!

And do you want to see me right now?

I want! In the Winter Room?

Yes!

Snap.

In both Slytherin and Gryffindor dorms, one would hear hurried steps and muttering in the darkness. In both common rooms echoed the sound of robes rustling against the furniture. In the corridors, portraits woke up and swore at two teenagers. In the winter room, at the same time, from different doors, at the unearthly time of two o' clock AM, Draco Malfoy and Ginny Weasley met.