~*~

Disclaimer: I own nothing!

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(A/N: I kinda' borrowed one of Ron's lines from the CoS trailer, hee. I'm such a dork…::shakes head:: Warning: Pointless angsty chappy ahead. See if you can pick out the other bit I 'borrowed' form GoF. Twisted to meet my own needs, of course. Evil, evil. Tsk, tsk. ^_~ A lyric free zone. It's a miracle!)

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6. What Fools…

~*~

Ginny arrived at lunch later with an aching head and ears ringing from the verbal lashing which Snape had offered up as 'constructive criticism'. In passing out, she'd managed to ruin at least three of the other students' potions, and the Professor had been very unhappy with her, to say the least.

She wrinkled her nose as she looked at several sticky strands of hair and caught the scent of the cold, congealed potion still clinging in patches to her robes. She hadn't taken the time to clean up – she was in too much of a hurry to get to the others and tell them what had happened.

Mostly she just wanted them to tell her she was crazy and offer up some kind of explanation about why she'd seen what she had.

Unfortunately she didn't think it would be anywhere near that simple.

Ginny discovered as she walked into the Great Hall, that she felt a bit lost without Draco walking by her side. He had left her with barely a word as they passed the library, just after she'd reluctantly explained to him about the vision. She hadn't wanted to tell him about  His face had gone blank, and he walked off into the library with some terse excuse about an assignment. She couldn't blame him for wanting to be alone.

Harry looked up at her briefly as she approached the Gryffindor table, and then dropped his eyes to his lunch, which looked untouched.

Ginny sat down across from him, next to Ron. She knew everyone in the hall was watching, but she didn't care. It wasn't anyone's business but her own where she sat during meals.

She was about to speak when someone down from them let out a yelp, and she turned her head just in time to see Hermione duck – and a large brown ball of feathers flew right into her face.

Ginny winced away, and when she opened her eyes, she saw with surprise that it was the family owl. The poor bird was laying in the center of a dessert platter, his feet straight up in the air, one clutching a white envelope. To any who weren't familiar with the bird's tendencies to collapse after even a short distance, the bird looked like it had dropped dead right in the middle of Ron's favorite jelly filled pastries.

"Why it's Errol!" She exclaimed. The ancient owl had finally passed on early in her Seventh Year, and she was happy to see him again.

"Bloody bird's a menace," Ron growled in disgust as he reached for the letter.

"What is it?" Ginny asked as she watched him open the envelope.

"Nothing. Just Mom asking how we are…" his eyes skimmed the parchment and he looked around it to grin at her. "You're looking a bit rough – expecting a Howler, were you?"

"No," Ginny denied grouchily, rubbing her temples. "If I'm looking rough, it's because Snape had us inhaling potion fumes all morning – and then I had a lovely herbal bath." She plucked at her stringy hair ruefully.

"Are you all right?" Harry asked suddenly, his voice sounding urgent.

Ginny looked up at him quickly, and saw his cheeks turning pink. "I'm fine, thanks," she told him quickly.

Harry pushed his glasses up on his nose and she looked away before she could smile at the familiar sight.

"Listen, I – I need to talk to you all about something. It's about Draco – "

Ron snorted. "Big frigging surprise there," he grumbled. "What? You finally decide to marry the git or something?"

Harry snorted and then coughed, choking on his juice, and Hermione rolled her eyes. Ginny frowned impatiently.

"Ron – I saw a Grim." Ginny stated in a harsh whisper.

She watched her brother go pale, and reach up to tug nervously at the knot in his tie.

"A-a Grim?"

"You couldn't have," Hermione announced matter-of-factly. "They don't exist."

"What's it got to do with Malfoy?" Harry asked coolly, "And why should we care? Besides, what if you just saw – er…Snuffles?" He blinked then, as another thought occurred. "It wasn't shadowing you, was it?"

Ginny shook her head slowly, unsurprised by Harry's reaction. "No. I don't think so. There was no way it was Snuffles – believe me, Snuffles has nothing on this thing." She stared at Harry for a long moment to make sure he understood how serious she was.

He stared back and then looked away.

"If it's something that might affect Draco, it could very well affect the rest of you as well. I don't think I saw everything I was supposed to in that vision – "

"Vision?" Hermione frowned thoughtfully. "What do you mean, exactly?"

Ginny swiftly explained about the Clairvoyance potion.

"Clairvoyance potion? Professor Trelawney?" Hermione sounded disgusted. "Ginny I'm sorry, but there's your explanation - "

"Can we just talk about this somewhere else?" Ginny asked pleadingly as her headache escalated.

"You sure you're all right, Gin?"

She looked at her brother and felt her felt her expression soften. "Of course I am. But I can't lose you  – any of you." Ginny chanced a look at Harry, pushing her hair out of her eyes. "Not again."

~*~

Ginny rubbed her eyes. The light streaming into the room was aggravating her already massive headache.

At least she was clean again…

"Ginny, what the hell did you see?"  Ron paced in front of her, running his hands through his hair, which was already tangled and mussed.

"I told you, I don't know, Ron – I mean, it's hard to tell – it could have been something from my future – or the new future – either way, I didn't like the looks of it!" Ginny said tiredly.

She, Draco, Harry, Ron and Hermione were sitting in the deserted Transfigurations classroom out of a need for privacy.

"That's the bloody understatement of the year," Draco muttered moodily from where he stood apart from the rest of them, leaning against the wall.

"I have to say, you're taking it pretty well, Malfoy," Ron announced from Ginny's side. "Considering that screaming episode you had back in first year – "

"Ron, stop it," Hermione said insistently, tugging on his robe sleeve. "Now isn't the time – but I don't really see why the rest of you are so worried about this. Grim's are just a silly superstition – "

"Go have yourself a good look at one, and tell me they're just a silly superstition, Granger," Draco snapped crossly, flinging his hair out of his eyes. "Ginny saw one, and I was standing in its bloody shadow – tell me that's not a portent of death!"

"She was inhaling herbal vapors – there's no telling – she could have been seeing the result of some kind of chemical reaction –" Hermione argued.

"We have to get more of that potion to make sure – " Ginny cut in, but no one seemed to be listening. She sighed with annoyance and rubbed one throbbing temple.

Harry made a valiant effort on her behalf to stop the inevitable argument on the rise, but he found himself completely ignored as well.

"Leave it to a mudblood to write off a prophecy of death as being some kind of scientific anomaly!" Draco was sneering.

"Ron, stop!" Ginny saw Ron move, tried to grab at her brother's robes to no avail – he had his hands on Draco in an instant, and slammed him against the wall.

"Call her that again, Malfoy," Ron said in a soft snarl. "Go on. I'll save whatever it is after you the trouble of finishing you. I've been looking for an excuse for a long time - "

"What? Going to make me burp slugs for a week, Weasley?" Draco smirked nastily.

"Ron, this isn't helping anything," Harry commented in a strained voice over his friends shoulder, although he too looked as if he'd like nothing more than participate in Draco's demise. Ginny had to admire his show of restraint.

"Im not taking anymore crap from you, Malfoy!" Ron growled, his blue eyes furious.

"You'd better get on with it then, because I'm promising you, right now, there's nothing left to keep me from burying you if you back off," Draco snarled back, his eyes lit with promise.

"Stop it right now!" Ginny stalked forward, and reached up, flinging her brothers arms away with supreme effort. "Knock it off!"

"And you!" She turned on Draco with narrowed eyes, but he was already walking away from her. Furious, Ginny ignored the bewildered, angry looks from those behind her and followed right after him.

When they got out into the hall, it was thankfully empty. "Draco, stop – stop,  please!"

The tall blond paused, but kept his back to her. She approached him angrily, but felt it drain away as she noted the trembling stiffness of his back.

Ginny sighed, and stepped around to face him, putting hesitant hands on his arms. He refused to look at her.

"You just have to keep taking bites out of people, don't you?"

"Bite them until they bleed from it,' Draco said coolly in agreement, sounding very much as if were quoting someone.

"I can understand you have every right to be upset – "

"Upset?" He laughed softly, and she could feel it in her stomach.

Ginny wanted to tell him it was all right to be scared – he had to be, who wouldn't - but she didn't think he would appreciate it much.  He ran a hand through his hair, and she caught a flicker of fear in his eyes before he again turned away from her.

She couldn't get over how young he looked, how suddenly vulnerable – how young they looked. She'd been very surprised by the changes in her own face when she'd looked all into the mirror that morning. The lines of her face were softer, slightly more rounded, and the dark circles and hollows that had come to shadow her face were gone.

It had been her eyes that had truly looked out of place though – the same clear shade of brown, but older, and wiser. It was to be expected, though. After all, she'd been eighteen before she'd come back – and she'd been nearly the epitome of innocence at fifteen, even though she'd thought she'd experienced the worst that life could throw at her…

"Don't worry – we'll find out exactly what it was I saw – we'll repeat the potion,' she told him impulsively, in an effort to make him feel better. "I won't let anything happen to you – "

He cut her off with a short, derisive laugh. "You think I'm scared, do you? Scared, " he scoffed. "You think I'm scared of dying?"

"It's not wrong to be afraid, Draco," she told him gently, and he looked at her in disbelief.

"I'm not afraid of dying, Ginny." Draco said smoothly, as if her were talking about the days weather. "I'll admit, your little - revelation last night threw me. Noone wants to hear they're going to be dead and flat out before they even reach their majority, but I've lived with death my whole life. You said it yourself – having a Death Eater for a father exposed me to my own mortality early. So it wasn't entirely unexpected…and this. Well – there's no point in worrying just yet, is there? What will come will come – and I'll have to meet it when it does."

He looked down at her from beneath her lashes, his eyes flashing like moonstones in dimly lit corridor. "It's not the cursed Grim I'm worried about, anyway," Draco told her in an uncharacteristically placid way.

"No?"

"No. If I'm 'scared' of anything…it's that I won't have the chance to show you what you were obviously missing with Potter."

Ginny rolled her eyes – how had she forgotten about the sheer size of his ego? "Can we not talk about this right now?"

"What's wrong? Am I embarrassing you, Gin?" He took several lazy steps away from the wall towards her, and she took a reflexive step back. He hovered over her until she felt her cheeks pinken.

Draco lowered his head until his lips nearly touched her ear. "You're blushing, you know," he murmured. "It makes me wonder…Potter hasn't touched you, has he? You made it sound as if he had…I wanted to rip his head off with my own hands. Do you have any idea how long I laid awake last night, wondering…but he never took you, did he?"

Ginny swallowed, and drew in a shaky breath as an icy-hot shiver went up her spine. "I – leave it to you to sound so dramatic. Anyway, it's none of your business…we shouldn't even be talking about this." Her tone became mocking. "Don't you think you're a little…young?"

His hands captured her wrists as he brushed his cheek against hers. It was so quiet in the hall, all she could hear was their breathing – and it made her nerves stretch taut.

"You made it my business when you insinuated that you'd let him touch you," Draco growled dangerously in her ear. "Don't even bother  to try pulling that age nonsense with me. Tell me the truth."

Ginny bit the inside of her cheek, and he released one wrist to raise his hand and brush her hair away from her neck.

"Tell me." His breath fanned warmly against the sensitive skin beneath her ear, and she felt her tongue tie itself into knots.

"Er…we…uh…" Ginny caught her own breath as his lips skimmed the side of her neck. "Draco…stop." This was insane. She had more sense than this, more control – but though Draco may have looked younger, he still seemed wise beyond his years. In more ways than one.

"What's wrong? Can't take what you were giving me last night?" He asked mockingly. His lips opened against her skin then, and she gasped and jerked away from him.

"Sorry? You were saying…?" A sly smirk emerged on his lips.

"All right!" She exclaimed breathlessly. "Harry and I never actually…did it."

"I knew it," Draco drawled calmly, quirking an eyebrow, though his own breathing sounded less than even. "He probably didn't even know what to do with you once he finally got hold of you."

Ginny felt her temper rise swiftly, and narrowed her eyes. "I never said we didn't do anything," she snapped in angry retaliation, feeling awful even as she said it. "We were waiting."

"Waiting for what? Until you got married, I suppose, like good little Gryffindors," he spat sardonically.

Ginny gave a short nod. "Five points to Slytherin," she returned just as sarcastically. "Got it in one."

"What the – " He stared at her incredulously. "You're telling me you were bloody engaged to him?" Draco roared loudly.

She winced. His pale features had turned an alarming shade of purple. "Draco - calm down – "

"Calm down?" He roared again, and began to pace before her. "This can't be happening," he was snarled beneath his breath. "Why would you even think about….I can't believe…affianced to that bloody four-eyed git – "

"Yes, well – it's all over now, isn't it?"

He looked over at her abruptly at the bitter finality in her voice. "You still love him," he said accusingly.

"You don't just stop loving someone, Draco," she told him miserably, and watched the anger drain from his expression. "It was difficult, towards…towards the end. We weren't getting on well,  and then Sirius was taken, and he had to – " Ginny stopped and blinked rapidly against tears. You have to understand. We were together for over three years, Draco. We knew each other better than we knew anyone, nearly. I know it wasn't meant to be, now. It's been a year, for me…but seeing him again, now…"

"What are you feeling for me, then?' He asked her tonelessly, pushing a hand through his hair and fisting it. "You say you can't just stop loving someone… how do you think I must have felt when you ran off to Potter, Gin?"

Ginny raised her chin a notch and fixed him with a glare. "You didn't care – you just went off bragging about how you'd gotten what you were after, and how bored you were with me," she finished bitterly.

Something like regret appeared in his eyes before he shook his head. "What did you expect from me, really, Ginny?"

"If only – " she clamped her mouth shut and turned to walk away but he followed her.

"'If only', what, Gin?"

She ignored him, reaching for the door leading back into the Transfigurations room. He caught her shoulder, and she turned back to face him with a sigh.

"Do you love me?" He asked this as if he were doing something as mundane as checking the time.

"Yes." She said without hesitation. "I …missed you," she heard herself blurt out honestly. "I missed you even after Harry and I started going out. You nearly drove me mad making me jealous, pointing out what I'd given up – and you loved every bloody minute of it. You enjoyed making me as miserable as possible."

"Were you really that surprised?"

"I…cared about you, you know…and I almost told you, then..."

He watched her boredly, but there was sharpness in his eyes that told her she'd gotten his attention. "Why didn't you?'

"It doesn't really matter now – " she began, angry with herself for saying what she had. "I can't keep going on about it."

"Tell me."

Ginny blinked and looked down at her hands ruefully. "What is it about you that always makes me talk as if I don't have a brain in my head?"

"The same thing about you that makes me think things I shouldn't," he responded in a too casual voice.

She closed her eyes and murmured, "I remember…you told me once, 'Don't trust anything I say. I don't care if I tell you the sky is blue, it'll end up being green.'"

"Good advice," Draco stated in a low, soft tone above her.

"Good advice I didn't take," she told him flatly.

After a long silence, Draco asked emotionlessly, "So what'd I do?"

Ginny raised her head to look at him with a bitter smile and a shrug. "What do you think? You got pissed at me for liking Harry and retaliated."

Draco crossed his arms. "Let me guess. I besmirched your 'good' name, as you said.."

"I suppose you could say that. It wasn't anything you hadn't done before – except that I was stupid enough to let myself care that time." Ginny took a deep breath, and brushed her curls behind her ear.

" – and so you ran off to Potter," Draco said disdainfully. "I knew you'd do it. Eventually. When you got tired of playing."

"Playing? Is that really what you think I was doing?" Of course she knew now that was exactly what she'd been doing – but she wasn't ready yet to admit it to him.

"Wasn't it?" He moved to lean against the wall and stared straight ahead, his face showing no emotion. "You really think I don't know that you considered me second best? That you still do?"

"I never thought of you as being second best!" Ginny said fiercely, trying to forestall the tirade she was sure was coming.

"Didn't you? I'll tell you exactly what you thought, what you're thinking right now, in fact. You discovered you couldn't have a future with Potter, so you automatically turn to me. Second best – and you know what, Gin? I won't ever be anybody's second choice!"

Ginny could only stare at him, seeing right through the anger he was using to hide the intense pain and sorrow he was feeling.

He went on mercilessly, his jaw muscles jumping wildly. "Did my 'death' even mean anything to you, Gin?"

Stricken by the inference that she hadn't mourned him, she lost her breath as if he'd struck her a blow in the stomach. The cruelty of his words stunned her. "I'd say I can't believe you just said that, but…" Ginny trailed off as she tried to deal with her emotional confusion. "You just keep getting worse and worse," she said finally. "You're even more hateful than I remember, if that's even a possibility."

Draco reached out and grabbed her shoulders, lowering his head to stare hard right into her eyes.

"You're wrong. I can be worse than I have been – much worse. Didn't I prove myself to you in your future, Ginny? Everything I touch goes bad…want me to prove it to you again?"

"I care about you," she said impulsively. "There's nothing bad about that."

 Something vague moved across his eyes, and then he turned and walked away.

"Draco – meet me in the library after classes. We'll…we'll figure something out," she called after his retreating figure.

He didn't bother to answer.

~*~

TBC

(Next: Ginny gets terribly clever – resulting in? Furious Faeries!!! Eeep! ^_^)