Draco sat on the edge of his bed. He had been very bored for the past 2 hours. Crabbe and Goyle were sleeping, he had Pansy were fighting, and it was too late to go to the library. He did not remember ever feeling so restless. Deciding a trip to the school kitchen was in order, he threw his robe around his bare shoulders and made his way across the cold stone floor.

Today had been pretty much boring. The magnificent trio had barely made an appearance all day. Other than Quidditich practice, the only thing to interest him was the sight of Ginny flinging a snowball in the direction of Neville, which instead landed on Potter.

Though he knew that it was not intentional, it gave him great pleasure to know that Potter had been clobbered by a girl.

The school halls were empty, even though it was not that late. Draco checked his watch. It was 10 minutes to 10. Draco wondered what to do. He did not feel all that hungry either. He decided to risk the library anyway. Maybe by some fluke of a chance, he would find something of interest. 'Preferably Ginny.' His mind thought. 'Where did that come from?" he thought again, slapping himself mentally.

To his surprise, the door of the room was unlocked. Thinking Ginny was inside; he burst in with a loud noise. To his even greater astonishment, Professor Vector was sitting alone reading the papers. Draco's face turned red with embarrassment, although it was not visible in the darkness of the room.

"Good evening, Draco" she said. "I will get straight to the point. I am amazed at the amount of progress that the two of you have achieved. Unfortunately I am feeling too tired to examine all your work tonight. I will make sure I go through every aspect of it tomorrow. But I am very, very excited. This is a mark of greatness, which will go down in history. Why, you both will be famous! And I of course will get some of the credit. After all it was me who introduced you to all of this. Yes, yes ........." saying this, she swept her robes of the ground and left the room.

Draco instantly became tired. He was not expecting all this. Admittedly he was excited when he had discovered the code, but he had still not told his father about this joint venture, with a Weasley, no less.

Once again, he felt overwhelmed. A tiny corner of himself was regretting ever taking part in this venture at all. But most of time, he felt pleased with himself. This was something he enjoyed. This was something that took his mind of his father.

'And the added bonus of Ginny, as well.' He thought to himself. For once, he allowed himself to think about her. In his mind's eye, he saw her long red hair, her milky white skin and her warm brown eyes. He recalled with fondness the way she had laughed when he had once told a joke.

'Is this the way I am going to have to continue for the rest of the night'? He said aloud.

Ginny sat up and rubbed her eyes for what seemed like the umpteenth time that night. She had fallen behind in her school work because of the project and quidditch practice.

And to make things worse, she had a potions test tomorrow. Although she was good in potions, she was having a hard time keeping up with the class. With any luck she would get at least an E tomorrow.

To add to her misery, most of the common room was up as well. They had come back from their classes and were sitting up for the past 2 hours talking about how they spent their time there. Between conversations, Ginny was able to memorize the 15 uses of mildew and understand the basic composition of Holman's draught. She had managed to accomplish this feat in 2 hours.

Not much, considering it took up not even half the page of her 30 page lesson.

She groaned and turned to her side. The crowd showed no signs of thinning. On the contrary, it seemed to be growing much nosier. Ginny flipped through the pages of her text listlessly. There were still about 10 concepts which she needed to understand. The red water effect and the silver mirror effect did not make any sense to her. Nor did the Benedict's poison or Coker's experiment.

Ginny thought for a while. Deciding she would be better off studying in the library, she packed her quills and parchments and went off.

Once outside the common room, she heaved a sigh of relief at the lack of noise. She looked around. There was nobody around. She made her way towards her special room in the library.

On opening the door, she was relieved that no one was there. She put her books on one side of the table and resigned herself to study, when she heard a voice from the rear of the room.

"Evening, Weasley" said a Malfoy, scaring the wit out of her. "Couldn't stand the company of your stinking house-mates?" he said in a voice, heavy with sarcasm. 'What am I doing?' he thought silently.

Ginny was too shocked too respond. "Go away." she said, too tired to think of a suitable response.

Even from the other end of the room Draco could see the desperation in her face. He came over to where she was sitting. Her hair was swept up all over her face. There were plenty of dark circles under her eyes and robes hung loosely over her body. She looked like shit.

"What's up" he said in I-don't give-a-damn kind of voice.

"I've got a major test in potions tomorrow. And I have barely finished studying even a quarter of the portion which is included in the test." She groaned.

"Do you want me to help you?" Draco asked, surprising himself as well as Ginny. The look of astonishment on her face was more then evidence.

"Sure, if you don't mind."

"Okay. Which chapter are you having the test on?"

"Poisons and related experiments"

"Umm........ Should I explain the whole chapter to you? Basically it is all related. I think it will be easier that way."

"Sure, what ever you like."

Draco was surprised at his own behavior. It wasn't like him to be so spontaneous. He usually thought hard before speaking.

Ginny took a seat on the couch. The table was still full of papers. Deciding he would tell her about professor Vector's visit later, he sat next to her.

"First of all, understand that you are a Weasley and that I, as a Malfoy, am under no obligation to instruct you on anything." 'That's much better' Draco thought. Then on seeing the hurt expression on Ginny's face, he apologized in an indistinct manner.

Within two hours, he had managed to explain most the concepts. He was aided by the fact that Ginny was actually quite smart. And he was surprised at how much fun he was having, although he would never admit it to himself or anyone else. She would laugh pleasantly at his jokes and would occasionally wipe her hair away from her face. Maybe he was becoming a bit loose in the head, but he was starting to find red hair extremely sexy.

She was becoming visibly very tired. But they still had a lot more to go, even though they had covered the major portions. Her eyes kept on dropping every 10 minutes as it was nearly 2 in the morning.

"Paraitre caffeine" Draco said in a low voice. Two small cups of espresso appeared on the table. Handing one to Ginny and telling to a take a small break, he proceeded to take small sips of the bitter liquid.

"What's this?" came Ginny's weary voice.

"It's a muggle drink. Muggles drink it to keep them awake. It's effective only for a short period of time. They drink it during conferences to help them stay awake."

Ginny took a sip of the hot liquid. As it slipped down her throat, she was reminded exactly how hungry she was. She could have sworn that she heard the coffee swirling around in her stomach.

Draco apparently had noticed her discomfort. He had conjured a plate of éclairs, which he kept on the table. Ginny arose from the couch and took a seat at the table, at which Draco was already seated.

As she walked, the first 2 buttons of her robe had come undone. Fortunately for her, she had taken to wearing muggle clothing under the robe, as they were more comfortable. Unfortunately, she had chosen this particular day to wear a tank top. With a rather deep neck.

Draco gulped. His testosterone fuelled mind was taking a course of its own. Looking away, he continued to eat his éclair. Ginny came and sat next to him. In spite of the coffee, Ginny still looked very drowsy. He took a moment to study her features. She had small, nicely rounded curves which could not be seen clearly through the robe. Her nose was small and sharp. Her red hair was still swirling in her face every now and then.

'Bet I am taller then her' Draco thought silently. At 6 feet 2" he was taller then most people. In fact he made Ginny look extremely minute.

"Shall we go to coker's experiment then?" Ginny said. She looked a little better after eating the éclair.

'How about I show it to you? It would be easier that way." Draco said in stroke of genius. Suddenly he remembered that he had the key to the dungeons. All slytherin prefects did.

"I have the key to the dungeon." He said whipping it out of his robe pocket in a flourish.

"And that occurred to you just now?" said Ginny in a sarcastic voice.

"Look, I am just helping." The word 'helping' sounded strange in his mouth. "You don't have to bite my head of. It is not as if I am doing ........." he was cut short by Ginny's waving hand.

"I am sorry. My nerves are a bit uptight. Must be that coffee." She mumbled.

"It's ok. Come on. Leave your stuff here. I'll show the three experiments and that's it."

Ginny threw a grateful glance in his direction. 'Thanks, malfoy. I really appreciate this."

"Just remember you owe me a favor" Draco snarled back. It was always nice to know that a Weasley was in debt with a Malfoy.

'He does blow hot and cold doesn't he?' Ginny thought with a little smile. Still there was no escaping the fact that he was exceedingly handsome. And ever so muscular.

In the dungeons...

"Take the last cauldron and use the necessary materials, Weasley."

Ginny did the same. After the 2nd experiment, Ginny was starting to feel drowsy again. Her hair was sticking to the back of her neck. The dungeon was starting to feel hot because of the fire under the cauldron.

Meanwhile, random thoughts were running through her head. 'Why is he doing this?' 'Why is he helping me?' 'Why is he so cute?' 'aarghhhh'

Her head was starting to feel dizzy. Through the haze of misty smoke from her cauldron, he could see Malfoy going through her textbook. She called out to him once.

Malfoy heard her. 'Is it my imagination, or his Malfoy running towards me?' she thought with a slight smirk.

'Idiot girl, you used too much dragon dung. Are you feeling light headed? Come on lie down' Draco said, putting of the fire.

'On the ground?' Ginny asked in that same light headed voice.

'No, on my head, stupid. Obviously on the ground. You don't see a bed here, do you? He said as he pushed her on the damp floor of the dungeon.

"Ow Malfoy. You are hurting me. Why can't you conjure up a bed, like you did with the food? Could you get my teddy bear, too? I think it is on my bed. And my night gown. I think I will go to sleep now." With a soft sigh, she fell asleep on Draco's lap.

He was shocked. Putting away all the cauldrons, he carried her back to the library. He reasoned at how light she was. He couldn't very well take her to the Slytherin or Gryffindor common rooms.

He placed her on the couch. She woke the moment he placed her there.

'Malfoy, get your hand of me. What do you think you are doing?" she said in a half hearted manner.

The combined use of caffeine and a long night coupled along with rich chocolate and his hormones gave in to the bait. He began screaming like a lunatic.

"I save your life from that mess of you potion which you make, help you to study something that I learned last year at ONE in the night and have to live with the knowledge that we may never be together."

"What?" came Ginny's tired voice.

Draco tsk-tsked before he kissed her on the mouth.

Hey people! I know it has been a long time. Please tell me how you like this fic and also whether I should continue. My exams are coming up and I don't think I want to continue it if it is not worthwhile.

And feel free to express your opinion. Where I stay, it is a free country.

Btw any one knows what a beta reader is?