Chapter 7

Ginny crossed her arms. Draco crossed his. And for the next five minutes, they entertained themselves by glaring at each other, perfectly satisfied.

But even they couldn't keep that up forever.

It wasn't long before they grew bored of it, and Ginny found that her face was starting to hurt from holding such an angry expression so long. Draco didn't seem uncomfortable in the least.

"You wouldn't," she muttered under her breath at last, dropping her arms and leaning back in her seat, her gaze averted.

"Wouldn't what?" Draco replied, who had leaned back in his own seat and dropped the challenging posture, as if he had only been waiting for her to quit first.

Which he probably had been.

"Nothing," she replied sulkily, facing the window.

"Didn't sound like nothing. It sounded like you said-"

"If you knew what I said, why did you ask?" she interrupted scathingly.

Draco shrugged. Then a grin lit his face, the same one he had used on her earlier in the week.

Ginny felt her heart speed up, and she knew that her anger was fast evaporating. Resolutely, she turned even farther away from him, determined not to let him get to her.

"Ginny…" he called playfully. His own anger and bad temper seeming completely vanished, as if they had never been there. "Ginny…"

"Shut up!" she ordered fiercely, knowing he was just trying to bait her but unable to resist.

"Ginny…"

"What?!" she finally cried in exasperation. Did he have a passion for tormenting her?

"Nothing."

"It didn't sound like-" she began, then realized where she'd heard those words before.

"I know."

Ginny had never heard anyone sound so smug in their life.

"You- you, stinking, evil, conniving little bastard." she threw at him. "

Her fury had blazed back to life full force, and she felt she could have done a lot more than smash the git's wand right then and there.

"I," Draco reminded her haughtily, "do not stink."

Ginny didn't get a chance to reply. She had just noticed that the carriage was moving downwards. Coming in for a landing.

Excited, she peered out the window, the argument with Draco momentarily forgotten.

And what a sight. They seemed to be coming down near a small village high in the peaks of the Carpathian Mountains. Quite an odd place to stop, by anyone's standards Ginny would have thought.

But stopping they were.

The carriage came to rest at the outskirts of the village, and Ginny heard the opening of the main door in the other compartment, then the sounds of feet moving around the other room.

Their door stayed closed.

"McGonagall's as good as her word," Ginny heard Draco mutter as the sound of the door closing behind the other students died away.

"Uh hu." She couldn't think of anything else to say. It looked like they were going to be here awhile.

So they waited.

And waited.

And waited.

In that small, closed compartment, the minutes seemed to drag by like hours, and it was Ginny who gave in to desire first.

Jumping up as if a snake had bitten her, she tried the door handle.

Nothing. It didn't even wobble.

Disappointed, she sank back down on the seat. McGonagall really had locked them in.

Draco watched her through hooded eyes, and sighed as he registered the defeat in her face.

"We can get out you know," he told her matter of factly.

"Umm, the door's locked, or didn't you know?" Ginny asked sarcastically, peeved that he could act so completely calm and collected when she was about to die from inactivity.

Draco ignored her tone of voice, and pointed towards the carpeted floor instead.

Ginny followed with her eyes, but could see nothing out of the ordinary. Certainly no means to get out of the carriage.

Draco rolled his eyes. "Under the carpet, Weasle."

Ginny looked at him strangely, and Draco suddenly realized what she must be thinking.

"No, I don't have X-ray vision." He rolled his eyes again, a favorite habit. "I just know how these things are built, all right?"

When Ginny didn't say anything, or even question him, he went on. "There's a trapdoor under the carpet, there always is. It's in case there's an emergency and people have to get out real fast."

Ginny looked at him disbelievingly. "So, what, to escape a fire they throw themselves out into thin air?"

Didn't sound like a very good emergency escape plan to her.

Draco shrugged. "That's what I always thought too, but now it might come in handy."

Reaching into his pocket automatically, he started in surprise when he came up empty handed.

"Can I use your wand?" he asked quietly, an obvious amount of control evident in his voice.

Ginny couldn't hardly blame him. She didn't want to imagine what it felt like to be with out her wand. It would be like losing her right hand.

Compulsively, Ginny gave hers to him. She wasn't sure if it was a very smart thing to do, but she wanted out of that compartment so bad she would probably have given her eyes for it. Letting someone, even Draco, borrow her wand seemed insignificant by comparison.

Draco took it, a funny look on his face as if he couldn't quite believe she'd given it to him. Then he mumbled a spell, and the carpet rolled back.

A small, square outline of a door could be seen underneath, exactly as he had predicted.

Reaching down, Draco tugged upwards on the brass handle and gave the wand back to Ginny. The door opened, and the two of them found themselves looking down on a grassy piece of turf about three feet below them. Draco jumped down, as light and graceful as a cat.

He smirked again, but it had more of a smile in it this time, and held out his hand to her. "Care to join me, Milady?" he asked gallantly, the perfect example of a glorious white knight in shining armor. Except Ginny knew this knight was not at all "white".

She grinned anyway. She couldn't help herself. The way he was looking at her filled her with warmth, and she couldn't even begin to contemplate why. It just did. Was this really the same boy she had argued and fought with not more than ten minutes ago?

It was hard to believe.

But why waste time debating it? she hushed herself. Grinning from ear to ear, she slowly reached out and placed her hand in his. "I'd be delighted."

A/N: So, as we see, more D/G on love hate stuff happening and coming up. I just love doing it like that. To me, it makes perfect sense that one moment you can be getting along fine with someone, and the next you're fighting again. Especially in their case. Their both so caught up in trying to rationalize and deny what they're feeling, they get mad at each other.

Anyway, hope you all liked this chapter, and BIG thanks to my loyal reviewers! You guys have been with me since the beginning, and hopefully till the end:

tRuth- Thanks! I finally found someone who likes my cliffhangers instead of wanting to murder me, lol.

Aidenfire- Yep. Small compartment, unsupervised…so why were they fighting again!

Hallee87- You thought it was funny? Thanks! That's really good, because I wasn't sure how good my sense of humor was to you guys.

Forbidden- You laughed too! Wow! I'm feeling very flattered.

Slytherins_angel- Have I got another person hooked?!!!