I can't believe I'm 3/4 away from a hindred reviews! That really blows my mind...and I still haven't come
up with new words to express how happy I am...but here's a huge thank you to all of you guys!
Gryphnwng (thanks for all you reviews), nitpiklock (thanks, I hope you really are still here), daWOODisONfire
(thanks for yet another review and I agree, I dislike Filch, too), Rambling Idiot (thanks! now you know what
happened to the kids out of "beddy by"), fyrechild (thanks for the well wishing), Lynn-chan (the evil part
of me apologizes), PATIENCE101 (sorry, I updated as soon as I could), Rebuky )I guess not many people are very happy
with Filch, are they?), Belladonna (thanks SO much for the compliment, your reviews mean so much!), animegirl-mika
(another one who doesn't like Filch!), Krista of StarTress (thanks so much for the story ideas, I'll definitely
keep them in mind), Fuschia (we should start a "We Hate Filch" club...hehehe) and finally KeeperOfTheMoon (I did!)

And a HUGE thanks to SaturnsHikari who was talking to me online while I wrote this chapter...you are ever so
much fun! And your cat is the funniest thing alive.

Whew!

Ok, here are a few notes...

Sorry about the late update, finals and Christmas were crazy, plus I just got a puppy who doesn't leave
me any free time (she's chewing on my toes as I write this). SO that's my excuse, don't take your wrath
out on me, take it out on the puppy...which I'm sure you won't.

I dislike stories in which Draco's the "misunderstood nice guy" and in which Ginny and Draco both jump
into a relationship for no apparent reason. I think it's very OOC...I've had a few reviews stating that
Draco's a bit OOC...I didn't reply to them because I know something they didn't...and you'll all find out
this chapter! Yay! But any of you who were hoping for some making out real soon are going to be disappointed.
Sorry! Ok, next update should be no later than Tuesday (as a Christmas present to my wonderful reviewers).
Updates should be coming more frequently as the holidays go on. Now, on with the show...

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If Argus Filch had been a more lyrical man, he would have compared the joy coursing through his
veins to the exhilaration of the first daffodil after a long winter. Unfortunately, as his vocabulary
consisted mainly of grunts and snarls, Filch was limited in his descriptive terms. Still, catching
students out of bed brought the primary joy in his life, enough so that Argus almost felt grateful
towards the little slimes, but not quite grateful enough to avoid punishing them to the ends of the
Earth.

He watched with an inarticulate pleasure as the color blanched from their young, fresh faces, saw
worry wrinkles bloom on unlined foreheads. Yes, this was what he lived each weary day for, the
power to intimidate real wizards although he was only a squib. Had he been paying attention, he
would have realized that his rusty old tear ducts had filled his eyes with moist happiness as he
opened his mouth to pronounce judgment.

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Ginny felt an hysterical laugh fighting to bubble out of her tightly clamped lips. This wasn't
happening. This absolutely, positively WAS NOT happening. She closed her eyes for a few moments,
still working double time to keep from appearing clinically insane. She willed herself back into
her nice, warm Gryffindor dorm where, if she were a normal sixteen year old girl, she would be
comfortably asleep in her bed. She opened her eyes a crack. Filch's twisted face leered down at her.
Stifling an even more hysterical yelp, she quickly decided that she preferred blindness to her
present situation and promptly covered her face with her hands. If she had been paying attention,
she would have known that her laughter had turned into an eerie moan which was escaping from her
throat in barely audible waves.

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Draco felt that, if he hung around Virginia Weasley any longer, his vocabulary of swears would
outnumber his everyday words. As it was, he was mentally referring to himself, Ginny and that
miserable squib Filch as every single foul name he could dredge up out of his mind. The list was
beginning to impress even himself. How could he have let himself do this? What the hell had come
over him these last few weeks? Chasing around carrot topped crazy girls, talking nicely to them,
saving their ungrateful little scrawny necks that should be wrung time and again, just on principle!
He had almost let her touch him! He felt a shudder coming on and quickly repressed it, but he couldn't
stop the undeniable rage that was filling his heart and mind. What the hell had he been thinking? Not
just tonight, not even the last few days. Ever since he had overheard that stupid conversation he had
been second guessing his values and everything he had ever been taught instead of doing what was only
right and made sense. If the Dark Lord thought Draco would betray him, well, instead of practically carry
out that prophesy, he'd just have to convince his Master that he was the most evil, most corrupted, darkest
and most powerful wizard to come along since...well...since himself. This entire thought process took place
in his head, but the sudden change was apparent in the way his face transformed into his father's. Set with
hard, cruel lines and a sadistic glint to the eye, Draco turned to a now gibbering and terrified Filch and said,
in the most deadly of venomous voices:

"I really doubt that you want to take that tone with me, Argus. You'll find I am a formidable foe."

With another quicksilver change, a slight smile quirked lips in a phenomenally disturbing manner and his voice
took on a velvet quality, too soft and sensual to really be uttering the words that Ginny heard. Locking eyes with
his red-headed companion he said:

"If you punish her severely I promise not to hurt you, Squib. And I do mean severely..."

Leaving that suggestion practically shimmering in the cold night air, Draco whipped his robe around and strode
away feeling enormously pleased with himself.


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Lucius Malfoy sat silently in his study, not even a breath of air disrupting his long black robe. The
room was lit dimly, just enough for his subconscious enjoyment of his flagrant oppulence. He sat bent
over a curiously designed chessboard, made of several levels, some accompanied by strange buildings or
monuments. The pieces were oddly designed works of pewter. One was contrived in the form of a paper thin
wraith, robes more substantial than body. Another was engraved in the likeness of the man in the moon, but
with an eerily human cast to his features. There were several other pieces, each in varying degrees
of detail and accuracy.

Lucius Malfoy sat completely still, wand poised over the board, unable to comprehend what had just occurred.
After all of his planning, each delicate step carried off flawlessly and with infuriating ease. He thought
his son had been made of stronger stuff than that. A bead of sweat on an otherwise expressionless face fell
with a tiny splash onto the surface beneath it, betraying both silence and lack of emotion alike.
He had made his first mistake in underestimating Draco's power of will. Ever since he had received his
instructions from the now bold and contemptuous Peter Pettigrew, Lucius had been working ever
so subtley towards his master's goal. With a delicately woven spell placed in a deft net around his
son's brain, Lucius had found himself able to achieve things that the Imperius curse had limited him
from. He could control the power that filled his son when he used magic, he could, with intense
concentration, watch through Draco's eyes as he astutely guided his will without him ever being aware.
As far as Draco knew, he was simply living through the tumultuous hormones that youth produces. Before tonight,
he hadn't guessed that his every interaction with and without the Weasley girl was meticulously planned
out by his sire.

But now...now all of his planning could be for naught if he couldn't find some new way to repair the hole Draco
had torn in their tenuous connection. Or...unless he could find a new spell that would hold faster than the last...

With that thought, Lucius sprang up in a startling burst of motion and attacked his private library with a
voracious appetite.

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The morning after her encounter with Filch dawned pale and cold, much as Ginny herself was feeling. She had never been
so grateful as when she realized that Filch was NOT going to take Malfoy's suggestion and was instead leading her straight
to McGonagall. She had been so anxious from the unspoken threat that, when she finally faced Dumbledore's second, she did
so in a state of trembling anxiety. She had stammered out that she didn't know why she was out of the castle while trying
to keep a firm hold on the emotions that were roiling in her belly. McGonagall, obviously slightly disturbed at seeing such
a pale, frightened Weasley, took pity on her and assigned
her detention with the easiest teacher- Hagrid. Unfortunately, this didn't do much to assuage Ginny's hurt and
confusion and she had had to fight hard to keep herself under control as Filch escorted her to the Fat Lady
portrait. Every time she felt his eyes on her she'd hunch down and move farther away from him until, finally, she
was scrambling along like a red haired crab hard against the cold stone wall. When she had finally reached her
bed, it had been cold and the moonlight turned the sheets into pale marble. No amount of body heat or huddling
had warmed her bedclothes last night, she hadn't felt any warmth at all since she had heard his voice as her brother
must hear it, cold and mocking and...and...evil. He was evil and rotten and a terrible person and he was hurtful and
spiteful and mean and not in the least attractive. She had repeated that over and over to herself all of last night
until it became her mantra. She could feel all the life that the encounters with him had granted her draining away.
She was cold. Cold and emotionless and she didn't care about anything or anyone at all, at all. She walked out of the
castle just as dawn was peaking over the mountains that framed Hogwarts. She walked in deliberate shadow, away from
the warmth and golden light of the sun in a silent stand against anything and everything because she didn't know how
else to heal this hurt. She knocked on the door to Hagrid's hut, at exactly the specified detention time, prepared to
devoid herself of emotion at the sight of his friendly face.

"Heya, Ginny! Ready ta' do a bit o' work?" He asked, no mention of punishment, as though Ginny had come to help him
voluntarily.

His wide grin and simple sweetness cracked her resolve with humiliating ease and Ginny felt that that was just too much
to bear. Adding insult to injury, the tears began to pour down her cheeks and onto Hagrid's front porch.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Draco slept better than he had in months.

The look of betrayal in the Weasel's eyes had invigorated him as it would have a year ago. His handling of Filch left
him feeling in charge of himself and everyone else around him. Still on this natural euphoria, he had swaggered almost
to the point of comedy back to his common room. Wanting to savor his first real entrance of the school year, he slipped
quietly around the perimeter of the room, unnoticed by his House mates. A taste for dramatic flair and the sight of the
large shadows the fire was casting resulted in a sly half smile and a wicked gleam in his grey eyes.

He stepped forward and simultaneously tossed his robe off of his broad shoulders, watching with a twisted enjoyment
as the shadow passed through the room and the fire made his outline appear to glow. He looked like a Holy Avenger, like
a statuesque Angel of Death and he knew it. He didn't utter a single word, just fixed every individual with an expressionless
stare holding their eyes until they felt the fear of mortality in their hearts and fled from the room. Eventually, only
Crabbe and Goyle were left and he dismissed them with a contemptuous sneer, dusting his hands off as though he had reached
into a midden heap. He stepped gracefully down from the raised platform and sauntered to a green, overstuffed couch, pausing
here and there to glance over what his classmates had left in their panicked wake. With an immensely self satisfied smile,
Draco reclined onto the soft material, feeling the warmth of the fire spread heat through his whole person. It had been
ages since he'd felt genuinely warm and the feeling was so enjoyable that he sank into a deep sleep.

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Ooh...the plot thickens! Review please and I'll review you! Let me know what you think about this recent turn of events and
I'll send you a *pony for Christmas!

*By ponies I mean...I'm not sending any ponies. Sorry, that was just an evil ploy to get you to review.