A/N: Ahhh. Chapter, finally. Quickly coded. Notify me of errors. Need sleep now. As Ginny would say, mmfngrgns. Ahem. For some reason the HTML is getting screwed up on this. I've checked and rechecked it and there is NOTHING WRONG. FF.net hates me.
~clockwisevenus

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"Nng," Ginny said, pulling a pillow over her head at the invasive sound of the knock on the door. When it decided to continue, she reluctantly slid out of bed and threw a robe around her shoulders. She opened the door with a yawn, rubbing the back of her neck. "What?" she asked, peeking out.

"Happy Christmas!" George yelled exultantly.

"Belated, of course," Fred said with a decisive nod.

Draco grumbled a bit, rolling over in his sleep. Ginny screamed and slammed the door, rushing over to the bed. "Up!" she hissed, shaking him awake. "Up! You've got to leave--"

"What?" he asked, sitting up and looking about. "Are you mad?"

"My brothers are here," she said, pulling him onto his feet and throwing clothes at him. "Take this, and this, and--God, Apparate and I'll owl you when everything's clear--"

He nodded frantically, grasping the situation. After giving her a quick kiss he closed his eyes and disappeared with a small pop.

Ginny took a deep breath and opened the door again, faced by a very confused Fred and George.

"Um," George said. "Who was that?"

"I'm not sure," Ginny said, her cheeks flushing nervously as she tried to keep from wringing her hands. "Some French bloke--didn't speak any English."

Fred stared at her. "So you just shacked up with him for the night, did you?"

Ginny blinked. "Er, yes? Happy late Christmas--um, come in."

"Well," Fred said, "we've got absolutely smashing news for you. Ron and Hermione are coming to wish you a Happy Christmas too--don't know when they'll be here--Harry said he didn't want to come, you know." He said the last bit a little uneasily. "There are a few people from school that are going to pop by as well."

"You've got food, haven't you?" George asked, heading for her fridge.

"I've got loads of leftover take-out," Ginny supplied, succumbing to the urge to wring her hands.

George grinned at the contents of her refrigerator. "And loads of booze. Excellent!"

"Have I?" she asked, feeling a bit weak in the knees. There were going to be people--in her flat?

Then the doorbell was ringing and people were flooding in and she was swept away in a wave of people she didn't even know. Squeezing through the people, Ginny made her way to the door, stumbling outside and gasping for breath.

"All right there?" Hermione said sympathetically, catching the younger girl and setting her on her feet. "How are you holding up?"

"Gah!" Ginny yelled, grasping at Hermione's robes. "Help! There are too many people, and it's past Christmas already, and--they haven't even brought me presents," she realized abruptly, feeling suddenly irritated.

Hermione smiled, holding out a basket wrapped in pink, sparkling cellophane. "I brought you some Muggle chocolates. I figured you'd need it. Actually," she admitted, turning a bit pink, "Ron figured you'd need a little picker-upper. I just came up with the chocolate bit." She gestured to Ginny's brother, who was standing with his thumbs hooked in the loops of his robes. He looked a bit embarrassed.

"Happy late Christmas," he said. "How are you? I mean, after the Christmas party disaster," he specified unhelpfully.

"I was lovely until just a few minutes ago," she sighed. "I wasn't exactly prepared for a Christmas party."

"How so?" Hermione asked. "I mean, other than the obvious Harry thing."

Ginny poked Ron gently in the ribs. "Ronnie, could you be an excellent big brother and go inside? 'Mione and I've got a little girl talk to attend to."

He sighed. "I suppose. I'll try to keep them from destroying your flat."

"Hermione," Ginny said after Ron had shut the door behind him, "what would you say if I had a boyfriend?"

"I'd tell you that it's excellent and that I'm absolutely thrilled for you," Hermione smiled. "Have you got one? And when are you going to break the news to Harry?"

Ginny shook her head, rubbing the back of her neck nervously. "That's the very thing--he already knows. Sort of--I mean, he's seen us together. A while ago--before the Christmas party at home."

Hermione swayed on her feet. "But you can't have known him long, you just moved here recently..." She rubbed the bridge of her nose with her thumb. "This is so terribly confusing that it makes me feel a bit ill."

"What I'm about to tell you is probably going to make you feel more ill," Ginny said, swallowing nervously, her throat constricting with nerves. "But you can't tell anyone--especially Ron, do you understand?" At Hermione's wary nod, she continued, leaning forward and speaking in a soft voice, although there was no one else around. "It's Draco."

There was a short pause. Hermione's mouth twisted up briefly and then went straight again, a short laugh escaping her lips before she turned serious again. "You're kidding. Draco Malfoy? Horrible rat-faced Draco Malfoy?"

"He's not rat-faced!" Ginny protested indignantly. "Look, I--oh, here," she said, reaching into her pocket. "I've even got a picture. He brought over this cute little camera the other day and--here."

Hermione took the photograph from Ginny's fingers, watching a miniature and rather shirtless (noticeable by his bare shoulders) version of Draco kiss an equally bare-shouldered and tiny Ginny on the cheek. She looked to be almost tearful with laughter until he pulled her mouth up to meet his and then broke away briefly to waggle his eyebrows suggestively at the viewer and then roll them both out of the frame for some privacy.

"See?" Ginny said, pointing. "He's simply gorgeous. And he's got lovely eyes, don't you think?"

"That's impossible," Hermione goggled. "He--Gin, he's not allowed to be that attractive. You know that, don't you? He's supposed to be horrid and disgusting with one of those upturned noses and a terribly high forehead--oh, God! And what were you doing after this picture was taken, anyway?"

Ginny flushed. "You can't expect us to hang about in the picture all day, can you?" She sniffed to cover her embarrassment. "Voyeur."

"I am not!" Hermione laughed, shoving the photograph back at her.

Someone leaned out of the doorway, although Hermione and Ginny couldn't tell who it was because of the lampshade hanging over his eyes. "H'py Chrism's," he grunted, before slamming the door again.

Ginny sighed. "Sometimes I really hate the twins."

***

"How was the surprise party?" Draco asked, shutting the door behind him.

"Terrible," Ginny sighed, leaning haphazardly back in her chair and sloshing a wine glass around. She groaned. "Look at all this cake. I have to eat all the cake. Terrible," she repeated, "just terrible. That's a lovely purse," she added, pointing to the plastic bags from an Italian restaurant that were hanging over his arm.

"You're completely smashed," he said, opening the refrigerator and throwing the food in.

She groaned again, poking at a huge chocolate cake in front of her. "Mahogany," she said decisively. "That's what the lady at the shop called it. I'd call it more of a...what's the word?"

"Chocolate?" he supplied, sitting down across the table from her.

"That's it. Chocolate. Not mahogany at all. Will came by after everyone else left," she proclaimed sorrowfully. "Very, very sad. It was sad."

Draco tried not to laugh. "What'd he do?"

"Kissed me," she moaned. "I think he called me a tramp. Not so sure now, feel very groggy. Horrible colour, mahogany, it's absolutely dreadful. Do you know," she said, looking up at him as if making a divine revelation, "if I were a colour, I would kick mahogany's arse."

With that profound statement, she fainted into her cake.

***

"Where's my headache?" Ginny said confusedly, sitting up in bed. "And where the hell are my clothes? Draco, you didn't--"

He glared at her from the side of the bed. "Of course not--I'm fully clothed, if you hadn't notice, and well-trimmed, at that. Even I'm not vile enough to do that. I gave you a bath to get the icing out of your hair. I presumed you'd rather not have sopping wet clothes." He smiled benignly. "Was I incorrect in that assumption?"

"Er, no," she said, embarrassed. "Sorry," she added as a lame afterthought.

Draco shrugged it off. "I wouldn't worry about it--" he began.

"But you don't worry about anything," she frowned. "You always say you wouldn't worry and it's true because you don't."

"I worry about things."

"What things?"

"Things."

Ginny made a general grumble of displeasure that sounded somewhat like "mmfngrgns."

"Indubitably," he agreed. "In response to your first question, it was just a spell." Draco shrugged. "Now that you're sober, care to tell me what happened with Will?"

"Mmfngrgns," Ginny said, curling up against his chest, her eyes sliding shut.

"You said that already," he admonished her.

She sighed. "He knocked on the door and I let him in, and almost before I had closed the door he had kissed me. I was surprised, of course, and I guess I shoved him away. I asked him what the hell he thought he was doing--probably not the nicest thing in the situation, but--"

"I think it was perfectly appropriate," Draco said, kicking off his shoes and sliding under the covers next to her, a yawn escaping his lips.

Ginny gave a slight shrug, scooting closer to him. "Then he said, 'I just wanted to see if you'd kiss anyone that says he loves you,' and I sort of stared at him, and he got this angry look on his face and asked me 'how many times.' I was very confused by that point and asked him what he meant by that, and he just seemed very hacked off and pushed past me out the door. End."

"Odd," he said noncommittally. "How did you end up dating Potter?"

"Pardon?"

"I've just been wondering for a while, and it's the best way to change the subject, as Potter is a rather universal subject."

"Er," Ginny said. "The summer before my sixth year, he and Ron had just gotten back from some Quidditch match and Ron was doing last-minute schoolwork--he's terrible about things like that. Harry and I were sitting on the sofa downstairs and he had his Omnioculars--you know, the ones that you get--"

"I know."

She flushed. "Um. And we were looking at them, and I thought my heart was about to explode because I was in such close proximity to him, and he looked at me a bit sideways and--don't laugh," she said, looking up at him suddenly.

Draco arched an eyebrow at her. "Why would I laugh?"

"It's a bit silly, now that I look back on it. You promise not to laugh?"

"I'm more likely to become bitter and horrible for the rest of my life."

"Good. Anyway, Harry asked if I had ever been to a movie, like Muggles go to, and I told him no--my dad's insane about Muggle things but Mum's never allowed him to go to a place like that because he'd probably wreak havoc and be totally oblivious to it. He gave me this funny look--not like a 'what's wrong with you' look but a sort of, 'damn' one--and he said, 'Well, at a movie, it's customary for the boy to put his arm around the girl's shoulders,' and he, um, did."

"Put his arm around your shoulders?"

"Yes. And I thought he was just kidding around, so I--the Omnioculars were practically forgotten at this point--said, 'Oh, and then I'm supposed to lean my head on your shoulder, right?' And I did, and then he cleared his throat and swallowed, and said, 'And this is the part where I'm supposed to kiss you.'

"I looked up and he was staring straight ahead like he was afraid to look at me, and his face was this bright shade of red. I didn't know what to say, so I mumbled God knows what, and he looked down and I was looking up and it was kind of...perfect. And it was just understood after that. Sorry," she said, turning rather pink. "That was a bit long. How about you? I mean--how many girlfriends have you had?"

Draco stared at her and then burst into laughter. "You must be joking."

"What's so funny about it?" she asked indignantly, propping herself up on an elbow.

"I haven't had any." He shook his head. "That's not true. There have been girls that I've dated, but nobody that I was so deeply involved with that I would call her a girlfriend. Except you, that is, and you already know how we got together."

"Could you tell it anyway? I do so love the story."

He smiled, crooking his pointer finger, and tilted her chin up. "I asked for a goodnight kiss..."

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OBLIGATORY QUOTE BOX: "If I were a colour, I'd kick mahogany's arse" is something a dear friend of mine said at lunch. "Arse," of course, was "ass." Humour me.