Monday morning
Professor Dumbledore used a Portkey to get Yr. 4 and 5 and the supervising Professors to the Evergreen Forest they would be camping in. The forest was so green of pine trees, full of birds chirping happily and animals scuttering around doing their tasks. It was lovely and no one else around. Dumbledore waved his wand in the air to put some spells around the area of the forest to protect it from Muggles.
"Okay students, everyone get into your groups. You will be in groups of four, one person from each house. You will have two leaders in your group who are the eldest, and have a great time in the wild!" Dumbledore spoke.
"I don't know which group I'm supposed to be in." Ginny said turning to Jade and the rest of the Gryffindor gang.
"Neither do I." replied Jade.
"We do!" Harry, Hermione and Ron beamed out.
Hermione continued, "The leaders of each group must find their other team mates. So if you excuse all of us we need to do some searching. See you in a few days." Hermione, Ron and Harry went off disappearing through the crowd of the other students.
"Jade? Jade Greenstone?" A girl shouts coming towards them.
"Here" Jade pipes out.
"Ah! I'm Bex from Ravenclaw. You are in my group. We better get going to set up our camp."
"I'll see you soon Ginny." Jade says hugging Ginny.
"See you in a few days Jade." Ginny says with sadness.
Ginny is left alone among the confusion of other students trying to find their team mates.
"Well, well, well. What have we here?" A voice says very close to her.
Ginny turns around instantly recognising the voice to be none other than Draco Malfoy.
"Yes Draco?" Ginny says strongly not afraid to say his forename, seeing no one can hear one another due to the confusion.
"You are in my group dearest Virginia." Draco says with a slight tone of mocking in his voice. He hands her a piece of parchment containing the names of the group members.
Leader, Draco Malfoy, Year 5, Slytherin.
Leader, Rose Thornbush, Year 5, Huffelpuff
Virginia Weasley, Year 4, Gryffindor
William Hawkle, Year 4, Ravenclaw
"So it seems." Ginny says while reading the piece of parchment. "Shall we go?" Ginny continues while handing back the parchment to Draco.
"Of course."
Draco and Ginny walk off with their rucksacks on their backs and meet the other team mates. Rose takes out of her rucksack, a map and a compass. "Right, we have to do some orienteering to find our specified camps site and then we will see from there. Urr...does anyone know how to work this thing? These instructions to figure a compass is useless!"
"I do." Ginny says.
Draco turns his head to her.
"You see this needle here, this is showing that we are going North." Ginny explains how to use a compass to her fellow companions.
"How do you know how to work it?" William enquires.
"My Dad loves Muggle things, so he taught me a few things when I was younger."
After a while of walking through the forest, they see a clearing which is marked specifically for them.
"At last! First things first." Draco says dumping his rucksack on the ground instantly and continues to issues his commands. "Rose and William set up camp and radio base camp we have arrived here. Ginny and I will collect firewood."
Before Ginny can even object or set her heavy rucksack down, Draco takes hold of her wrist and pulls her deep into the forest to collect firewood.
They had gone a fair way from camp and they both had a bundle of wood in their hands.
"You should have left your rucksack (backpack) at camp." Draco sneers.
"Whose fault is that? You dragged me here straight away, I didn't get a chance to! Its like you wanted me here to be with you immediately!" Ginny says trying to make Draco feel uncomfortable.
"Maybe I do." Draco says softly.
Ginny rolls her eyes. "We had better go back. It's getting dark." She takes out her torch (flashlight) and went their way back. They had been walking for a while in the direction they thought they had come from. They knew they should have reached the camp site by now. It had become night now and the stars were out, no cloud cover, which meant it would be a cold night.
"We are lost Weasley." Draco said her surname instead because he was getting irritated they had not reached camp yet.
"It's not my fault. You dragged me out here."
"You women have no navigational skills."
"I'll have you know that I am a good navigator. You on the other hand can not even use a compass!"
"So how come we are not at camp?"
"Like I said Draco, you swept me off here in such a hurry, I was not able to get the proper equipment like a map! It would assist the compass I have here. I can't use the compass alone!" Ginny shouted, then took a deep breath to calm herself. "Well, there's no point getting to camp now, it's useless in the dark."
"So what do we do?" Draco being naive here, not being used to this situation. The only situation he was used to was his Manor.
"We set up a camp of our own of course."
"What?!"
"C'mon, there is a nice clearing ahead, we'll use that. Put the wood in a pile in the middle." Ginny said taking charge.
Ginny set her rucksack down while Draco looked at her helplessly. Ginny was thoroughly organised and immediately retrieved matches from her bag and stroke them alight onto the wood. Soon enough a fire was burning.
Ginny realises Draco's meekness to the situation, so she begins to enjoy this and takes advantage of the dilemma.
"Come on Draco honey, we need to get my tent up." She says so sweetly.
Draco who doesn't know what is happening around him and feeling useless does not object at all. So Ginny and Draco work together to put the tent up.
"What about me?" Draco asks when they finished putting the tent up.
"The tents are designed for 1 person really." Ginny replies.
"So where do I sleep?"
"You sleep outside Draco honey." Ginny says enjoying every bit of this.
"I'll get cold!" Draco exclaims.
"Go next to the fire. Which reminds me I have to start cooking."
"You have food?"
"Of course I do. I am prepared for everything." Ginny states as a matter of fact. "However I must admit I could have brought flares, but then I did not think we would be in a situation like this." Ginny says out loud admitting to herself.
She puts a can of baked beans over the fire and a few other things, while Draco just watches. They sit on a log next to each other in front of the fire and in a few minutes they start eating the baked beans.
"This is actually really nice." Draco says with surprise.
"It may not be 'Duck le Orange' but it's food! And as for a treat..." Ginny goes into her tent to her rucksack and comes out with a bag.
"...We have marshmallows!!" She says full of glee and a big smile on her face.
"Wow!" Draco says.
Ginny puts a few marshmallows on a stick and gives it to Draco and does the same for herself and they heat it in the fire.
"We never do things like this at home." Draco says with regret.
"Oh really? That's a shame."
"We never do any family stuff."
"We do these things all the time at home. Especially barbecues!"
"What are barbecues?"
"Oh. We'll its cooking outdoors with lots of meat over a big grill and you have guests and its informal so you have lots of fun. You could have one at home now." Ginny says with optimism.
"What? and invite all the Deatheaters?" Draco says slightly joking.
"Heehee, we'll at least you could toast marshmallows with your Mum and Dad?"
"Not a chance. My Dad, is not the kind of person you can get close to. My Mum wont do anything, she lives in fear of him."
"I'm sorry." Ginny says quietly.
"Nah, don't be. Just as well, I'll become a Deatheater, like my Father. I don't want to. I can't stand to hurt innocent people. But there is no way out of it. If I run away, he will find me. He doesn't like the idea that he has been feeding me and teaching me these past years for nothing!" Draco says gloomily, then eats his marshmallow which cheers him up slightly. (Marshmallows cheers up anyone!). He looks up into the sky and sees the shinning stars.
"They are beautiful aren't they?" Ginny says to Draco looking at the stars herself.
"Yeah." Draco says softly.
"That one over there which is like a square and has three stars in a diagonal line is 'Orion'. And that one over there which looks like a saucepan is called 'The Great Bear'."
"What that one?" Draco points.
"No, that one."
"That one?"
"No! That one over there! Are you blind?" Ginny says taking her eyes away from the stars and looks to Draco. But he is already facing her. Their heads barely centimetres apart. Draco had moved extremely close to Ginny without her noticing.
"No, I'm not blind. I see the most prettiest star right here." He says softly, his grey eyes looking straight into her chocolate brown eyes.
Ginny blushes and looks down. Draco tilts her head up with his hand and then touches her cheek softly. He bends his head down and moves his head forward closing his eyes and his lips touches her lips ever so softly, making it the most gentle kiss. He breaks away thinking it was a mistake when Ginny did not reply to his kiss. But before he gets too far, Ginny quickly wraps her arms around his neck before he escapes and pulls him into a fierce kiss which completely surprises Draco. Draco thought she would have slapped him and he also thought she was a very innocent girl, and not capable of such an intense kiss, which really surprised him. Draco not objecting however instantly wraps his hands around Ginny's waist pulling her closer than ever. They're tongues playing and rolling around with each other. After about 5 minutes of kissing they finally broke apart. Ginny's lips sore and turning purple from the force of Draco's lips on hers.
Ginny's body shivers from the effect of Draco and also from the cold night air.
"Are you cold?" Draco asks full of concern.
"Yeah, a bit. Hold on, I'll get a blanket. I'll be back in a moment. Don't go anywhere."
"Wouldn't dream of it sweetie."
Ginny gets up from Draco's hold and walks to her tent, with her fingers feeling her lips checking if they were bleeding from Draco's kisses. She goes into her tent and searches for her thick blanket in her rucksack and also lipbalm!
Outside, Draco feeds more wood into the fire with a huge grin over his face. He was finally happy. At last, he finally knew what happiness felt like. He felt such a warm glow inside him now that he had Ginny.
Suddenly a dark hooded figure apparated on the opposite side of the fire. Before he could shout out, the dark figure waved its wand at Draco and he found that no sound came out of his mouth. The figure had used a silencing charm on Draco.
Ginny was still in the tent getting her blanket. (It was packed extremely well, it was hard to get out!) The dark figure swooped smoothly to Draco and spoke in whispers to him and then took off the silencing charm, Draco replied to the dark figure also in whispers. Ginny thought she heard voices and came out of the tent to investigate. She peeked out of the tent and saw the dark hooded figure talking to Draco. She was so shocked, it was a Deatheater.