Disclaimer: Still not mine!

A/N: Well, after the very angsty "Memory, A Blessing" (still more apologies to those who were disappointed!), I thought I'd write something lighter and more cheerful. So, here we go! One-shot about something Ginny gets for Christmas – a teensy little bit of Draco/Ginny goodness.

Ginny's Present

"Wake up!" a shrill voice screeched, painfully close to my ears. I opened my eyes groggily before realising what day it was, and throwing off the covers.

"Merry Christmas!" Eva yelled. (She never seemed to be able to say anything quietly.) The other two girls in our dormitory were also sitting up. Beth was grinning at the sight of the little bundles at the end of our beds and grabbed her nearest one, but Lynn rolled her eyes, taking a large parcel from her pile calmly.

"Honestly, guys, we're in second year. It's not very mature to be screaming about presents."

"You sound like Hermione," I smirked, ripping open a bag of sugar quills from Ron. Yet another fake wand from Fred and George was already squawking on the bed.

"Hermione?" Lynn was neatly unwrapping her presents as wrapping paper from Beth and Eva's beds flew everywhere.

"Granger."

"Yeah, well, she's about the only sane person in this school." Lynn stuck her tongue out very maturely. "Except for that house-elf obsession."

I laughed, and the next few minutes were silent apart from the occasional exclamation of delight from one of us. Mum and dad had sent me a tin of minced pies and a jumper as usual; green this time with a small embroidered feather on one corner. Bill and Charlie had bought me a brilliant volume of useful little spells, and Hermione, a large jar of broomstick polish. Even Percy had remembered to get me the few potion ingredients that I had been missing.

Eva and Beth, both half-bloods, had given me a box of assorted Muggle sweets that looked extremely interesting, and Lynn had got me a new quill, very elegant and designed to withstand at least another two years of scratching. In a great mood, I picked up the last, very tightly wrapped parcel, wondering absently who else usually sent me Christmas presents.

Beth was hovering near the door. "Come on, breakfast!"

"Ginny, poor girl, has such a big family," Eva laughed.

I was struggling with the tightly wrapped present. "No, I don't think this one's from anyone in my – AARGH!"

I screamed, dropping the thing that had slid into my hands onto the floor, panting hard, my hands shaking. Immediately curious, Eva picked it up, and then cuffed me around the head with it good-naturedly.

"What's the big deal? It's just a diary."

Just a diary indeed. It was small, thin, and black, and looked horribly familiar, apart from the fact that there were no initials on the cover. Lynn took one look at it and crossed the room, and patted me on the shoulder comfortingly without saying anything. I had only told her about the incident in my first year, knowing she could be trusted with the secret.

"Ginny, what's the big deal?" Eva persisted.

"N – nothing." My voice wasn't quite steady, and I couldn't meet her eyes. "I just – just thought it was something... else."

"Breakfast, guys!" said Beth again.

I stayed sitting on the bed, mumbling something about not being hungry. Eva dropped the diary onto my bed gave me an exasperated look. The other three left for breakfast, Lynn giving me a small smile before she left. I nodded, trying to slow my thudding heart.

Just a diary, I kept telling myself, feeling very exposed as I dressed hastily. I had never really got over what had happened in my first year, and certainly never kept a diary anymore. So the present was either from some random person who didn't know, or somebody who had heard about my fear and wanted to give me the fright of my life.

Knowing that the latter was more likely, I picked up the diary, gritting my teeth, and left the dormitory determinedly. I kicked a stray bauble across the common room in frustration at myself, breathing hard.

They had succeeded in scaring me, and I wasn't going to take it lying down.

------------------

I spent the next few days watching the people around me suspiciously. Whoever had sent the present could have gone home for Christmas, but somehow a little feeling in my gut told me that they were in the castle, and I kept wondering, because when I was six a little feeling had told me not to go up to my room alone, but I had. There had been a large infestation of Doxys that had migrated from the attic, and I had taken quite a few severe bites before mum managed to freeze them and give me the antidote.

So I had learned to listen carefully to my instincts, because those Doxy bites had been very bloody painful indeed.

I was in the Library just before lunch one day still looking around, when somebody called,

"Hey, Weasley!"

I turned. A small, chubby Slytherin boy was beckoning to me. I went to the boy, who I realised I didn't know at all. I smiled brightly.

"Hi, who are you?"

He raised his eyebrows but didn't answer. "You're Ginny, right?"

"Uh... yeah..."

"Were you sent a diary?"

My eyes widened. A Slytherin. Typical. "Did you give me that?" I demanded, pulling him into the corridor. "Who the hell are you? Why –"

"I didn't!" he yelped, wrenching his arm from my grasp and rubbing it, looking at me angrily. "I'm just the messenger, alright?"

I gave him a pointed look. He rolled his eyes and sighed deeply, and I would have laughed at how silly the little boy looked, acting all high-and-mighty, if he had not reminded so much of Percy. He looked at me through a thick fringe of brown hair.

"I know who did send it, because I heard him talking about it after."

"Well, who?"

He leaned up to my ear conspiratorially, grinning, and whispered two words. My anger faded a little, and I simply felt bewildered.

"Are you sure?"

"Duh."

"What's the point of telling me?"

"I just thought you might be interested. After I heard him, I asked around, and you had a little run-in with something unpleasant last year, didn't you?"

Without answering, and trying to ignore the burning feeling growing in my face – how did it get around the school like that? – I left the smirking little boy and ran up to my dormitory, grabbing the still unused diary. Lunch had already begun, and I strode up to the Slytherins, right to a certain tall, blond boy. When I slammed the diary down in front of him, he choked on his soup in shock. We started at each other.

"What the bloody hell do you think you're playing at, Malfoy?"

My voice, unusually shrill, seemed to carry halfway across the Hall. Heads turned in our direction as Draco Malfoy picked up the diary, rose from his seat, and pulled me out into the Entrance Hall.

"Well?"

He raised an eyebrow, and handed the diary back to me. "Well what?"

"Oh, don't pull that with me, you know what I'm talking about. You've just given me a diary, and I just happen to know that your father put – put that one in my cauldron in first year. And if that's your idea of a joke–"

"I'm trying to help."

Much to my annoyance, he put an arm around me and casually steered me out into the grounds. I shook him off, looking around to check if anybody had seen us. Thankfully, there was nobody else around. My head snapped back to the thirteen-year-old boy standing in front of me with an unreadable look on his face.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I'm actually trying to help you, alright?"

It must have been something in his expression just then that made my boiling anger calm down a little to a simmer. I looked at him, suspicious.

"Why would you help me?"

"Because you're the best of them," he said simply. "You're probably the least annoying out of all your family."

"Oh, thanks," I said sarcastically.

He smirked. "No problem. And I don't know, the Dark Lord must have seen something in you, because he did choose you to –"

There was some sort of explosion in my ears as my anger swelled again at top speed, and I slapped him as hard as I could before I had even thought about it. There was silence for a few seconds, and stupid and cheesy as it sounds, I could definitely hear the birds chirping in the background. Then, rubbing his cheek which had begun to turn a little pink, Malfoy turned back to face me, his mouth open slightly in shock.

"Hey –"

I just folded my arms, and grinned inwardly at the thought of what Ron would say if he heard about this. To my family I generally appeared as a chatty, but a rather timid person when I wasn't with them. Yeah, right.

"You're sick, Malfoy. Sick, and twisted, and very, very stupid if you think you're helping me right now. Tom – Tom Riddle used me because I was a stupid little girl, plus being the only one around, and I am not proud of it."

"Good to know." He sighed. "Look, I'm just saying. It's about time you stopped being so scared and paranoid about things like this."

"And why do you care?"

He opened his mouth, but didn't say anything. I suddenly felt very confused, and – was that a slight pink tinge in both his cheeks now? Giving myself a little shake, I forced my anger to dissipate. The problem about being 'cute little Ginny' to the family was that when I got angry, it always came in large bursts. I thrust the diary at Draco – Malfoy, I mean.

"Alright, you've made your point. Now you can take it back."

But he didn't take it. He looked me right in the eye for the first time, and gently brushed a strand of hair away from my face. Then he dropped his hand abruptly.

"Just try it. Write in it, and get over this whole fear thing."

Why had my head suddenly started thumping so hard? Being really, truly mad at somebody had probably drained me a little.

"Yeah, whatever." But I paused, and reluctantly took the diary. "Fine, I'll use it. But if this is cursed, I swear I'll –"

"It's not," he said quickly. Then he smiled. It was the first time I had seen a half-decent expression on his face, and I was surprised at how much warmth appeared when he did it. He nodded at me.

"I'll see you around, Ginny."

I started dumbly after him as he walked back to the castle. Then my brain belatedly registered something he had said.

"It is not a 'fear thing'!" I yelled.

I thought I heard him laugh. I also thought that some of what he had said had made a little sense. Maybe it was about time I stopped being silly and paranoid. I don't know. I started walking back up to the castle, very slowly. Maybe it was just my hunger talking.