Disclaimer: All characters belong to JK Rowling

A/N: I'm telling you, people, if you don't review then these chapters don't come out as quickly! PLEASE REVIEW!!! Oh, well, maybe I should put this at the end of the chapter, huh? I'll just go to the story now.

Chapter Three

Locator Rings

Draco stabbed at the chicken with his fork the night after his mother had read Ginny's letter. His mother had attempted to cook dinner, and she'd managed to turn the chicken breast the color of two-week-old hard-boiled eggs. If he hadn't been hungry before, then he definitely wasn't anymore.

Narcissa Malfoy cleared her throat, trying to get Draco's attention.

"What?" he asked wearily, not bothering to look up.

They were sitting at their dining room table, each at different ends, and it seemed ridiculous to try and talk. The table ends were ten seats apart on each side, so it was like Draco felt he had to shout to be heard by someone on the opposite end.

"I have something for you," Narcissa said softly.

Intrigued, Draco couldn't help but glance at her. She never had anything for him, not since she stopped sending him food with an average fifty grams of fat per bite during sixth year.

She was smiling gently at him, Draco could see even from the distance.

"If you're finished why don't you come down here," she suggested.

Noisily, Draco slammed down his fork and it rattled the china plate. He shoved the chair back from the table and was at her end in three strides. Arms crossed, staring down at her icily, he waited.

She looked up at him sadly. "You look so much like your father when you do that," she said wistfully.

Draco only hardened his look. He wasn't sure if she was sad because she missed Lucius or because she didn't want Draco turning out like his father.

"There was one time when Lucius really did love me," she said, looking back down at her plate. "It was a long time ago, but it happened."

"Fascinating story, really, it is. But I have much better things to do –"

He turned to go, but to his surprise, Narcissa grabbed his arm to prevent him from leaving.

"Draco, please," she said. She was sharp, but she was also pleading him. "I want to give you something and I'm trying to let you know the story behind it."

Draco stared down at her for a moment, into her eyes so much like his, and debated it. While he didn't want to spend any quality time with his mother, he was a little curious on what she was trying to give him.

Without a word, he sat in the chair beside her.

Narcissa's face relaxed into a small smile. "Over the years," she said, obviously continuing her tale, "we grew apart. Even when you were born we weren't getting along."

"Is there a point to this?" Draco interrupted.

"Yes," Narcissa said, and reached out her closed fist onto the table. She opened her hand to reveal two silver rings, each with a rather large circular green stone. Draco stared at them for a moment, uninterested. His mother noticed and explained. "They're made of white gold. They both have a real emerald, see? Your father gave me one when I was seventeen, just after we graduated from Hogwarts."

Draco sneered. The rings were very feminine. "What did he do with the other one? Wear it?"

"No, he wore it on a chain around his neck," she replied. "These aren't just normal rings, Draco."

"Let me guess. When they're joined they can defeat the most powerful man in the world?"

Narcissa frowned. "That's not funny."

"Was it supposed to be?"

She gave him a look for a moment, then continued. "They're locator rings, Draco. When I wore mine, your father could find me anytime he wanted. We both had to be wearing it or else it didn't work."

"How did they work?" Draco demanded sharply. The truth was, he could've cared less about the rings. But he felt he'd humor his mother by not standing up and walking away.

"The emerald is divided into sections."

Draco picked one of the rings up and inspected the gem. "I don't see any sections," he snapped.

Narcissa ignored him and went on with her explanation. "If I wanted to find your father, all I had to do was think about him. Then I'd look at the ring and the sections would light up. It's sort of divided into four parts. If your father were north of me, the top half of the emerald would start to blink. Sort of like a flame of a candle. If he were south, the bottom half would blink. East, the right half. West, the left half. Do you understand?"

"Why do I need to?" he asked irritably.

"You could give them to this Ginny of yours," Narcissa said with a rare genuine smile.

Draco stood up quickly and stared down heatedly at his mother. "You don't know anything about her. How do you know I even like her? She wrote me letter, but that doesn't mean I'm in love with her. Lots of girls write me letters like that. Why the hell would I want to give her those ugly chunky rings?"

Surprisingly, Narcissa did not appear to be hurt. Instead, she just smiled lazily, her eyes laughing at him. "I'm your mother, Draco. I've heard you talk about girls. But you never talk as angrily and as defensively about other girls like you do Ginny Weasley."

"And enlighten me . . . how would this make you think I like her? Most normal people would realize that I don't."

Narcissa laughed. She had the weirdest laugh, and it literally sounded like she was saying, "Ha, ha, ha, ha". It was annoying to Draco, and he struggled to control his anger.

"Take the rings, Draco," she said firmly. "I don't want them anymore. Maybe you can pawn them."

"I don't need any more money," Draco said coldly. He spun and left the dining room, angry that his mother could read him so well.

At first, Ginny wasn't sure if she'd come out of consciousness or not. Her head pounded but at least her whole body didn't ache.

She heard a moan, and it took her a while to realize it was her who had made the noise. Her eyelids felt like they weighed a thousand pounds, but she forced them open.

She felt before she saw anything. Her back was supported by a soft mattress, covers pulled up to her chin and tucked around her. She was in bed – in her bed.

Slowly, her vision came back. A blurry figure swam before her eyes, and after she blinked a few times, she realized it was Harry.

She squinted. Then everything came rushing back to her. Falling into the water, hitting her head on a rock of some sort. To the tell truth, she actually thought she was dead for a minute. Her head had slammed onto the sharp edge of the rock pretty hard.

Then a different possibility occurred to her. What if she was alive, but crippled? What if she couldn't walk?

She was still exhausted, but she had to know. To her relief, she wiggled her toes and felt them respond, brushing against the sheets covering her.

"Ginny . . ."

Harry was talking to her, trying to ask her how she felt. She still felt half asleep. Satisfied that she could walk, and that she was neither dead nor brain-dead, she fell back onto her pillow. Doing so she hit the back of her head on the soft down pillow, and it sent a fresh wave of pain through her body.

"It hurts," she moaned. Where was her mother? Why wasn't she there?

The pain began to diminish, but Ginny realized it was because she was falling back asleep. She was so out of it she barely felt the brush of Harry's lips on hers, and then she fell out of consciousness.

When she woke up next, she woke up faster and knowing everything that had happened instantly. She sat up, and saw that instead of Harry beside her, it was Hermione.

"Hey, you're up!" Hermione cried, and dashed to the door. "She's up!" she yelled out into the hall, and then returned to the chair beside Ginny's bed.

Only seconds had passed before Ginny's parents, brothers, and Harry all hurried in and gathered around her.

"How long have I been out?" she croaked, her throat dry. Her mother handed her a glass of water.

"About twenty-four hours," Mr. Weasley answered, smiling at her. "We've been worried out of our minds."

Ginny reached up and felt the back of her head. She felt a long scratch, but it felt as if it had already been stitched up.

"We called the doctor and he came by to look at you," Mrs. Weasley explained. "He said you didn't need to be awake and just fixed you right up. Said we can take the stitches out for you in a week or so."

Ginny thought for a moment. "What did I cut my head on?"

Everyone was quiet. Then Fred spoke up. "That's the weird thing, Ginny. Me and George –"

"George and I," Mrs. Weasley corrected.

" – went back to remove the rock you hurt yourself on, and there was nothing there," Fred continued. "Nothing. There wasn't a rock on even the bottom close to where you landed. Even if it had been on the bottom, there's no way you could've hit it – you hit something only a bit below the surface."

Ginny blinked. "I had to have hit something," she said.

"Let's not worry about it," Mr. Weasley said, reaching over and taking her hand. "From now on that pond is off limits, all right?"

No one disagreed.

Ginny really needed a shower, so the first thing she did was take one. After she got out, she sat at her desk wrapped in a towel and wrote Draco a letter quickly explaining what had happened.

She sent it off with Pidwidgeon (A/N: is that how you spell it? I'm too lazy to look it up) and got dressed. She found that Draco had not responded to her first letter. It disappointed her, but she tried to think nothing of it and sat at the kitchen table while her mother fixed her something to eat. She'd barely been awake an hour, but she felt tired once again.

"You should be back to normal in a day or so," Mrs. Weasley assured her.

When Draco woke up the next morning, he went over to his desk to see if there were any more letters from Ginny. For some reason, he just hadn't wrote to her yet. He just didn't want to. He didn't want to communicate through letters, he wanted to see her in person.

There was a letter from her, much to his surprise. She's been writing me everyday.

He picked up the parchment, but something caught his eye before he could read it. Glancing down at his desk, he saw two things on top of his pile of school papers.

The two white-gold locator rings sat there, reflecting what dull light there was in the room. Angrily, he snatched them up and looked for a place to put them.

It took him a while to find one, but he ended up shoving them to the bottom of a drawer full of clothes he'd never worn. By then, the butler came up and announced that it was time for breakfast.

Ginny's letter lay forgotten on his desk.

A day later, Ginny was feeling better. Whenever she ran up the stairs too fast, she'd get dizzy, and she still had a long cut along the back of her head that stung whenever she washed her wavy hair. But other than she felt fine.

I'm really lucky, Ginny figured. I could be dead or crippled, but I ended up all right.

At sunset after dinner, Ginny excused herself to go to her room. Draco still hadn't answered her letters and she was starting to get upset.

Maybe he really doesn't want me the way that I want him, she worried, but tried to think positive.

There could be trouble with owl post or something. Or maybe he just hasn't had the chance.

She was bored. Ron's room was below hers, and she could – unfortunately – picture what he and Hermione were doing in there. Harry was outside with the twins playing Quidditch (how they played Quidditch with only three people, Ginny did not know) and her parents were probably listening to one of their radio talk shows.

What a wonderful vacation this is, she thought sarcastically, throwing herself stomach down onto the bed. I'm just having so much fun. First, my family goes ballistic at the mention of my boyfriend. Then a huge cut in the back of my head nearly kills me. Not to mention Draco hasn't written to me even once, not even letting me know if he's alive or not. What a joy this is.

Sighing, Ginny grabbed a pillow and wrapped her arms around it, dropping her face into it. Doing so, she could've sworn she heard a tap. She lay still for a moment and listened, but didn't hear anything else.

Breathing into the pillow was not easy, so she sat up and sighed again. Then she heard the tapping noise.

Startled, she looked around her room. Her eyes fell on the window. And she nearly jumped ten feet in the air from both shock and happiness.

Draco Malfoy was hovering on his broom outside her window, half-smirking, half-grinning at her.

Ginny's face broke out into a huge smile and crossed the room. She pulled open the window. It took all of her self-control to not grab him by the collar and kiss him hungrily.

"Can I come in?" he asked pleasantly.

A/N: All right, this is going very slowly, I know. It takes a little while to build the plot.To tell the truth, I'm even getting bored writing it! But just have patience, it will turn more exciting soon. Most likely in the next chapter. So review, or else you'll be stuck with these three boring chapters for a while!