A/N: Yes, I did the unthinkable. I'm sorry. I started another fic, one that I like better than this one, and have been working on it nonstop.

At night it's like my mind goes on autopilot; I can't sleep because I just get attacked by plot bunnies. Hehe. Anyway I have an announcement:

I started a new fic called "Our Little Secret", and in my opinion it is very good.

Anyway, I would be ever so gracious if you readers would step back into my ffn account and check out that story… there aren't many reviews yet and it makes me sad.

Anyway, on with chapter 17-

~*~

"That was some lesson we had today."

Draco was casually leaning against the wall on his bed, Ginny sitting next to him. Blaise was busying herself in the other room, like usual, and Harry was tinkering around on the computer again. He looked up at Draco's comment.

"I couldn't do it. I suppose I just wasn't concentrating hard enough."

Ginny shrugged, trying to act modestly that she'd been able to do it. In fact, she wasn't even sure how she'd done it. She had never been the most talented witch in her year, so it wasn't based on skill. "Maybe you weren't imagining the best part of your life. Dumbledore never said how selective we had to be with our memories."

Harry shrugged back, obviously not too upset about his lack of impressive wizarding skills for the day.

The room was quiet for a while, as Ginny stared out the window as though deep in thought. Draco was gazing thoughtfully at her, losing himself through his eyes in her mass of sleek red hair.

It pained him to think once again of what he'd overheard about them when he was sick. And, it pained him even further now that he'd decided to keep it from Ginny.

But the grin on her face, radiating contentment and joy, was too bright to make him want to cloud her face with worry and fear.

"It's the Fire and Ice prophecy, and you can bet my favorite earmuffs that Voldemort is furious."

The sounds of Dumbledore's worried voice echoed soundly in Draco's mind, blocking it from anything Ginny was saying to him right now. Finally, as the pressure became too much, Draco grabbed Ginny's hand with an unnecessary amount of force.

"Yes Draco?" she asked in her curious manner, trying to find out what was going on simply through the look in Draco's eyes. She saw nothing but worried anticipation, which confused her, since he'd been in such a pleasant mood earlier.

"Ginny, let's go for a walk, I need to tell you something," he said, firmly making up his mind that she indeed needed to know if there was any sort of danger they might be in.

Scrunching up her eyes and nodding firmly, she stood from the bed and held on to his hand with an even firmer grasp. Draco placed his cloak around Ginny's shoulders, too set in his decision to waste time going back to her cabin room to retrieve a cloak of her own.

Harry watched the couple in interest, surprised at Draco's sudden urgent manner. Ever since he had started trusting the blond, he had begun to notice more peculiar things about him. Such as how gentle he was with Ginny, as opposed to how he regarded nearly every other thing in his life with a rough proximity and a sneer.

Within minutes, the couple had left; Ginny trailing curiously behind an imperative Draco out the front door.

Hearing them leave from the other room, Blaise decided she wondered what they were up to and had to go find out. Standing, she saved the document she'd been typing and closed the laptop gingerly before heading toward the door.

Despite everything she'd been going after all week, Blaise poked her head into Harry's room questioningly. "Where are they off to in such a rush?"

Not knowing the answer to her question and desperately wishing he did, so that he'd have a reason to speak with her, Harry shrugged his shoulders.

Blaise stared openly at him for a moment. This made Harry very uncomfortable, and he almost squirmed under her gaze. He felt the need to say something, anything.

"They were just sitting in here, and then Draco got a bit skittish and suddenly needed desperately to go with Ginny on a walk. I really don't know where to."

Blaise's brow furrowed, as though she were thinking. "Is that so? I bet they just needed to get away for a good snog."

Pondering the idea, he shook his head. "No, he seemed serious about it. As though something were wrong."

"Yeah, Harry, there was something wrong. They have the decency to not go at it in your presence. We all know you're warming up to Draco, but they also know that you're not prone to that specific sight yet."

This stunned Harry; it almost sounded as if Blaise were trying to be friendly. As if she were trying to start up conversation! Try as he might, however, he couldn't think of a cause for this change of heart. He turned his gaze away from Blaise, and mumbled, "You Slytherins, barking mad, that's what you are."

He meant it as a joke, he really and truly did. Because she was right, if Ginny and Malfoy were to suddenly have a snogfest in his cabin, he would probably have to wash his eyes out with twelve different types of scented soaps. But the twisted look of confusion, and then surprisingly, embarrassment dawned on Blaise's face as she suddenly snapped, "Oh, Slytherins again, are we? Well Potter, I guess that's that. I'll be leaving now, back to my nice Slytherin side of the cabin, don't want to be dirtying up your nice Gryffindor section now, do I?"

She snapped around, making her sleek black hair whip against the door, and Harry cursed himself. Whatever momentary good luck he'd been granted, was in a shambles at his feet now. Why on earth had he insulted her and her friends? For Merlin's sake, he was acting more like Draco used to, it was almost as though they had fleetingly switched roles.

Even though it was only one sentence, only eight words of an insult, Harry was not taking it lightly. He felt like a major git, especially since he had driven away the girl he cared about with such a tiny sentence. Even though she obviously didn't care about him in return.

But then, Harry thought, if such a small sentence could drive her away that quickly, then maybe, perhaps, and even shorter one could make her forgive him. Maybe not like him, maybe not even want to tolerate him, but the least he could do was apologize, because he felt terrible for making her angry. Especially when it seemed as though this was the first time in days that'd she regarded him in anything besides a cold manner; ever since their kiss, Harry thought to himself.

Jumping up from the bed, and shutting the laptop firmly, he cautiously meandered his way over to the girls' side of the cabin, or in Blaise's terms, the 'Slytherin side'. Which is absolute rubbish, Harry thought, since he was obviously friendly with Draco, more or less, who was also a Slytherin. He sleeps in the same room as me, Harry added as an afterthought.

He leaned against the doorframe, to see Blaise, yet again typing in a rage on her own personal computer.

She was thinking to herself that she had made a fool of herself, trying to be friendly and maybe even give Harry a chance, but he had made it perfectly clear to her that he wasn't interested. It took her a few moments before a few of the hairs pricked up on the back of her neck, and she looked up to see Harry watching her from his casual position against the entryway.

"Here with another clever way to upset me?" she asked, not bothering to hide her vehemence. She knew she was overreacting, but still. This was the first time since her dream that she'd coaxed herself into giving Harry a chance, but his ruthless comment, though childish, had broken her will.

It wasn't easy for her to open herself up to someone, and no one understood. Blaise had not even explained to Ginny why she was so moody and ambivalent lately, because it hurt her too much to talk about it. And every time she thought to herself that maybe Harry could be the one to break this terrible blight on her, she chickened out and found another silly reason to keep living in fear, by herself.

"Actually, no. Oh- I've almost overshot my word quota. What was that now, twelve? Thirteen? I only meant to come over here and say two."

Blaise coughed unnaturally, not quite sure how to respond to such a statement. "And those two words are? You stink? I'm Stupid? Good Bye?" She listed off possible two word combinations relentlessly.

"Although some of those would be sufficient for me to say, such as 'I'm Stupid', you actually forgot a rather large one." Was that a smirk she saw on Harry's face? A smirk? Who was he to make fun of her for being in Slytherin?

"Well? Out with it, I've got things to do!" Blaise was rather skilled at throwing emotions into her voice, and this time she threw in a hint of annoyance.

There were a few moments of silence before Harry spoke.

"I'm sorry."

~*~

"Draco, where exactly are you taking me?" Ginny's voice had a spot of inquisitiveness floating around it as she questioned his motives on this late night walk. It was growing darker by the minute as they walked farther away from camp, and Ginny noticed with unease that Draco kept looking over his shoulder. It was a cool night; a breeze was going past, nipping at Ginny's bare skin, and she pulled Draco's slightly too-large cloaked tighter around her body.

Ignoring her question, Draco continued walking until he thought they were far enough from the camp to completely ensure that they were out of earshot. He saw that she was shivering and pulled her close to his own body, rubbing her arms with his hands to warm her up.

"Sorry, Ginny," he whispered in her ear, before finally pulling her away from him, to hold her at arms length. "I was worried. I need to tell you about something."

She gaze him an equally worried look. "What is it?"

"Something I overheard."

He tried to recall exactly that he'd heard the Professors say, and then summed it up into one quick story, choosing his words carefully. "Ginny, when I was hurt by that Sphinx, well, you remember right?"

She nodded insistently, urging him to go on.

He did. "Well, I was woken up by something, and I heard Dumbledore and McGonagall… discussing some things."

Ginny gave an exasperated sigh and exclaimed, "Are you going to tell me or aren't you?"

"Right, sorry. So I woke up and I heard these hushed voices from the other side of the room, talking about some people who might be in danger. Even though they are here."

Her face clouded over, just as he'd expected it would. He was saddened at how her eyes had lost the sparkle he'd admired only minutes before. "You don't mean… us, do you?" she whispered.

He didn't know what else to say than 'yes', even though they had only said Ginny was in danger. But they had said that it was because of 'the death of the boy's father', which he assumed was his own. Therefore he had put her in danger, and he considered it just as much his own fault, so yes, they were both in danger.

"Wait. So what exactly did they say, Draco?" She sounded strangely calm, as if she dealt with dark wizards wanting to get at her all the time, and just wanted to find an untailored reason for what he'd overheard. Granted, he didn't know about the Chamber of Secrets; he didn't know that Ginny had come face to face with Voldemort before. So he had every reason to be more worried than she.

She had overcome him then, and even though he most likely wasn't the charming sixteen year old she'd met in her first year, she knew that everything would be all right for some reason, even though it quite possibly might not be.

"Well, they said he knows you're here, and now that- that my father is dead, he'll want to get at… us even more." He couldn't bring himself to tell her that Voldemort only wanted her- based off of what the Professors had said.

Ginny looked confused. She could understand why Tom, or Voldemort, she corrected herself, might want to get at her, but she didn't understand how Draco's father might fit into the whole thing. Or what Voldemort might possibly want with her after all these years.

"You don't seem very upset," Draco said flatly, noting her lack of response.

She eyed him carefully, not wanting to discuss the Chamber of Secrets with him, or bring up uncomfortable conversation. "Well, I just find it highly unlikely that anything could happen here, under Dumbledore's watch."

"Ginny, are you listening to me? Dumbledore was the one who said he was worried. What's with you? You act like you've met Voldemort himself already!" Draco automatically recoiled, almost ashamed of saying his name in front of Ginny, but she didn't even flinch.

Instead, she had to distinctly hide the look aching to appear on her face. She'd have to talk to Draco about it sometime, and he probably already knew, since his father was the one who had given her the diary. "Maybe I have." She said simply, walking forward a ways so that she wouldn't have to see the look on Draco's face in return to her icy comment.

With a mere three steps, she felt as though she had hit an invisible barrier, which threw her back a bit when she hit it. "What the-?" she questioned, stepping up again reaching her hand through the barrier another time. It was hard, but not completely solid, and she could push through it with enough force. Curiosity was getting the best of her, and she suddenly needed to see what was outside of it. She pushed her head through, and within moments she had the upper half of her body through it.

However, as soon as her upper torso crossed through, she got a jolt of pain, straight into the center of her chest. It was so excruciatingly unbearable, that after a moment her body was heaved backwards at an alarming rate.

The world spun around her for a few seconds before she was sprung back by Draco shaking her, asking desperately if she was all right. She nodded, still dizzy and lightheaded, and realized she was clutching the necklace that Draco had given her, which was snapped at the clasp and hanging limply from her grasp.

"What…?" Ginny asked, and Draco hugged her quickly and then answered her question.

"I don't know what you were trying to do, Ginny, but suddenly you cried out in pain and were thrown back, and you ripped the necklace I gave you off your neck." He sounded a tiny bit hurt, although he tried to hide it.

Ginny picked up on it, however, and stared at the necklace in disbelief. What was that thing that she'd walked through, and why had she been hurt so badly for trying to get through it? She felt terrible for breaking the necklace, but perhaps she had been in such an amount of pain that she needed to take it out on something, and the dainty piece of jewelry was the first thing she'd grabbed?

"I'm sorry, Draco! I don't know what on earth happened! It was a wretched thing to do, and I wasn't really all there, and-"

He cut her off by pulling her close, to show her that he wasn't angry. Placing a consoling hand on her shoulder, he guided her back to the cabins. "We can finish this conversation later. Let's get you to bed, that was a really bizarre thing that just happened."

She nodded, in instant agreement. "Maybe we should even talk to Dumbledore, I don't know if that was… natural. I thought it was perhaps one of his barriers, but I don't think he would keep us safe by barbequing us if we tried to go outside the walls."

With a smile, Draco acknowledged that he thought the same. "Right. Tomorrow morning then."

~*~

A/N: It's a bit short but it's the best I could do for this chapter. Some crazy stuff happens next time so don't give up on me now!

By the way, I have a NEW FIC called OUR LITTLE SECRET [as stated above] and not many people have read and reviewed yet…

So everyone go and read it, and leave me nice long wonderful reviews, spread the word. And then, and only then, will I update this fic again.

So yes, I am blackmailing you. ^_^