[A/N: I own nothing, but the plot of this fic I do own. Here's a long one to tide you over. I hope Draco sounds sexy XD]

.:IX:. Saving The World is Dull Work

Ginny could feel the blast of cold wind grip her to the core before anything else as she was revived. Never having being stunned before, she wondered why none of the curse's victims didn't complain of an enormous headache she had acquired. Vaguely aware of the numbness in her elbows and the strong scent of pine as she pulled herself up, shook the ache from her head and opened her eyes.

Malfoy was tucking away his wand into his robes. He looked like he just took a wild trip through the Forbidden Forest: his blond head was no longer a sight for suave perfection but windswept, tangled and full of stray twigs and snow, he had some how acquired many scratches along his neck and face not to mention the nasty gash on the bridge of his pointed nose.

"It wasn't just a stunning spell then," he said, breaking the silence. "She's been struck dumb by a Confundus Charm,"

"Oh, shut up," she said as she tried to stand up, but some how could not manage it. Pain splintered her left ankle leaving her to drop down on the ground again.

"And I was just getting used to the New Weasley that actually shuts up," he sneered.

"Very witty. What happened?" she asked, finally taking in their surroundings: they were being sheltered by a very thick pine tree that looked very tall from where she was sitting.

"Well," he said, wiping a few offending blond strands away from his face. "I couldn't very well wake you up while the Ministry wizards were chasing us; besides it looks like you sprained your ankle on your way down off that banister,"

"I think you're right," she said, raising her left leg a bit, it was swelling through her sock. "The best thing to do right now, would be to stay here until the Ministry clears off and the storm clears up,"

"So you mean actually sleep here," Malfoy said looking dumbstruck and appalled. "Outside?"

"Oh come, on Muggles do it all the time and we don't have to sleep," she said, with fixed sweetness. "We could always talk,"

"You know, the pine needles suddenly look very comfortable," he said rather sarcastically.

"Thought so," mumbled Ginny, wrapping her cloak about her when something finally caught her realization: he could have just left her to the Ministry and gone on by himself, but he didn't. He carried her along with him. What did that mean then?

"Weasley," he called suddenly from the other side of the tree.

"What?" the redhead called back.

"Let me have a look at that ankle of yours,"

"Why—?" Too late for questions, as he had already grabbed her foot and pulled it forcefully towards him.

"Ouch!" Ginny whined, as he pulled her towards him. "That really hurt,"

"Oh get over it," he snapped, taking off one of her Mary Janes and exposing her socked foot to the cold night air. He slowly removed the gray sock from her foot, the sprain looked a lot worse than she expected. It was now almost twice the size of her other ankle.

"I am afraid I'm going to have to cut it of," Draco said solemnly.

"What?" Ginny gasped. But Malfoy couldn't hold the severe look and his lips twitched to a malicious grin.

"I'm just joking," he laughed, holding her freckled heel in the palm of his hand. "It's just a sprain, it should heal over night, if we're lucky. But for now..."

He pointed his wand at her discolored ankle and muttered something. And with that, white bandages shot out from his wand and wrapped themselves around the ankle and tightened to some degree.

"Better?" he asked.

"Much," she replied. He handed her the sock and the Mary Jane. She had almost started to pull her sock back on when something caught her eye.

"Malfoy, what's..." Draco made a move to retreat is arm but she was too quick for him. With he hand wrapped tightly around his wrist she turn over the arm and pushed up the sleeve. It wasn't the Dark Mark etched onto his skin like she had suspected, but a nasty burn that climbed up his arm. She could feel his pulse racing under her fingers. She looked up to his face. There she saw shame and anger like she'd never seen before. Practically yanking away his arm from her grasp, he turned away to the other side of the tree.

She followed and sat beside him. Before she could say anything, he cut in.

"Don't waste your breath, Weasley," he snarled. Ginny moved a bit closer to him so they were sitting side-by-side against the tree.

"But couldn't I—"

"You better put your sock back or your foot will freeze," he interrupted.

She did so along with her shoe, though it wasn't any warmer since her sock had been in the snow.

"But what if I—"

"What if you what, Weasley," he sneered at the last word. "Merlin, can't you just leave it be? This is my problem, I'll fix it."

"My ankle was my problem and you didn't let me fix it," she shot, quite annoyed with him at this point.

"That's different, you didn't know what to do," Draco reasoned.

"Perhaps I did, you helped me and I didn't ask," Ginny retorted.

"Well don't expect the same treatment in the future," he snarled, his cheeks flushing and narrowing his eyes.

"That's not what I meant," Ginny snapped, this wasn't like any argument she'd ever had.

"Just go to sleep, Weasley," Draco said, dismissing the subject.

"But—"

"Goodnight,"

Ginny sighed and carefully lay her head on his shoulder, very determined not to give up on this.

$

Sleep didn't come to either of our young heroes that night. Ginny and Draco basked in each other's silence until morning dawned through the gaps between the pine needles into their hide-away.

Dragging the ice block she had for feet through the snow they slowly departed from the sunbathed forest noting many footprints of various sizes in the snow. Ginny insisted they find a better place to Disapparate. It angered her to the core that Malfoy wouldn't tell her what was going on. It was hard for Ginny to keep up with Malfoy's long strides as her ankle still pained her. He had eventually given in and helped her along the way, complaining she was slowing them down.

Her insides squirmed as he helped her over the rather large ditch half covered in ice. The anger in her head muddled her thought so she kept tripping over unexposed roots whenever Draco warned her to watch out. Her hand kept going to the inside pocket of her robes for reassurance. Within the wooly confines of that pocket was what she held more dear to her than any ring Harry could give her; it was the tiny makeshift snitch she had caught when she played against Harry during the summer before her Fifth Year. He had given it to her the summer after when they were already eight months into their relationship, before he had to go off to the War. It had looked something weighed heavy on his mind that day he told her he loved her, his eyes had narrowed in concentration, like it did so often after Sirius died, as if deciding against it. Instead he gave her the little silver sphere.

Ginny held it up to the sunlight, vaguely wondering how Harry had acquired it in the first place when it was suddenly snatched away from her cupped hands in a flash.

"Is this what has been keeping you back," he asked irritably. Apparently she had stopped in mid-stride looking at the peculiar orb.

"Give it back, Malfoy," Ginny seethed. He always had to ruin everything.

"I just want to see it," he said as she grabbed for his hand in vain. The look of malice drained from his face as he held up to orb to his eyes.

"It couldn't be..." The blond one pulled out a crumpled piece of parchment from his robes and studied it.

"What are you—" Ginny started but was cut off by a rather rude "Sshh!" from Malfoy.

"I can't believe you've had it all this time," he finally said, it looked like the fury he felt had evaporated.

"What?" she snapped, growing impatient. "Had what all this time?"

"The object, you ninny," he exclaimed, as if he hadn't seen anything easier to comprehend. "I've been searching for it for ages and here you are with it all this time!" It looked like he didn't know whether to be betrayed or utterly happy.

"Come on," he said pulling her along.

"Wait, wait! Where are we going?" she panted from trying to keep while he ran.

He stopped in mid-trot looking like he almost forgot something. She looked into his eyes expecting to see utter loathing but the smoky orbs deceived her yet again. His eyes, blank as fresh parchment, gave nothing away as if holding something back. He wasn't blinking.

"Now listen, Gin – Weasley," Draco said blankly. "You come with me and there's no going back. This is your last chance to go home." His tone was definite, like he was stating a business proposal.

This boy made her only home away from home a living hell. He tried to get Hagrid sacked on a number of occasions. He cheated. He lied. He deceived. This blond nightmare was the most despicable person she had ever had the misfortune of coming across. Yet this is what intrigued her so. He was like book you couldn't put down, every page just as shocking and mysterious as the next.

And this was why she didn't leave him that day in the forest clearing as many wondered years after. In the good and bad days that followed she wondered again and again why she couldn't go back home. She pondered this while she stood in line at the food market and told the pimply cashier that she was a little short got all the groceries for free.

It was mid February and the two of them had made a nice home, if not a hideout, in the highest room of an abandoned church long since inhabited by any human life. Draco usually kept inside making plans with countless complicated maps and charts spread across the kitchen table. They had long since agreed not to snap at each other or make rude comments now that they were business associates.

Ginny would bring up the burn now and then but it usually turned into another row so she left it be...for now.

The redhead had taken to cutting out articles from the Daily Prophet they received every night so they could avoid attention from the town's people. She would take the pages that said anything about her disappearance or the status of Harry right now, as some writers had taken a liking to the poor hero that lost someone else, though Ginny knew they were prone to over exaggerate, and Sellotape them to the wall beside the stained glass window next to the mattress Draco would sleep on and Ginny would just rest her head on the mattress. He would always sleep in his robes and Ginny didn't dare to ask if he could share the mattress so she could have something soft to sleep on.

Draco said this was a stupid waste of time but she had caught him a few times reading one of the articles. He had also made a habit of changing in the small restroom near the front entrance; did he perhaps have more burns like the one on his arm?

But the one thing that always put Draco in a foul mood was that he couldn't use magic. It was true, if they used too much magic in one spot, there was a chance the remaining Death Eaters might find them. Due to that inconvenience, Draco couldn't magic away his five o' clock shadow he would scratch at irritably every time he was really concentrating on something rather difficult to get past. Not to mention his hair had grown to fall past his eyes and rather long, almost past his collar. In the first few days he almost kept itching with discomfort but eventually stopped when she told him one day that she liked his new rugged look.

"You want help with that?" Draco said snapping Ginny out her daze at the doorway.

"Uh, sure," she mumbled, watching him toss the hair away from his eyes and take a couple of the paper bags she had been carrying. A few uneventful minutes later, the food was away in various cupboards and the old refrigerator Ginny had managed to fix.

When they had finished Draco was leaning against the counter, grinning at her.

"What?" she finally asked.

"I figured out how to get into Malfoy Manor," he announced with smugness. He said it like he hadn't lived there for the last sixteen years. "It's so easy, all we have to do is disable the wards and we're in. And there are only three rooms that have wards inside the house so—" he pointed to one of the rooms on one of the many complicated maps. "—At least one of them has whatever is going to destroy the weapon,"

Over the past fortnight Draco had taken to calling that silver sphere 'the weapon' as if it was something to be feared. And even so, Ginny had noted that Draco hadn't made an ill comment towards her for almost four days, not that she was counting. Draco also refused to go outside to the muggle town and consort with them. So he stayed inside all day, and she vaguely wondered if he was using magic to wipe his face clean of the stubble he would attain at the end of each day, as she was becoming very much aware as the time passed between them.

On the first day they arrived in their small home Draco explained the weapon had to be destroyed before Lucius got his hands on it. The younger Malfoy didn't say much about it, only it had ruined many lives.

"But there's one problem," he went on.

"What is it?" Ginny inquired.
The blond one sighed heavily almost embarrassed to reveal what the little hitch in their plan was.

"We don't have any money," he stated at last. Ginny was almost relieved.

"Is that it? We don't need money to go through with this," she said, waving away the problem.

"Yes, we do," he snapped as-a-matter-of-factly. "I've looked into it; we're going to need a number of potion ingredients for this,"

"But why?" she asked, utterly bewildered.

"I haven't told you, have I?" he said, pulling an envelope with a very loopy script on the front.

"Told me what?" she questioned reproachfully.

"We are going to a ball,"

$

Where did Draco attain such information? Why didn't Ginny have to pay at the check-out line? Where did Draco receive the mysterious burn from? Lucius? Perhaps when the train collapsed? And why is Ginny so determined to find out how he got it? How did Harry get the weapon in the first place? Where exactly are they staying now?

Tune in next time to The Wrath of Ginevra wherever Internet may be available.

$

And here it is your moment of Zen:

"I figured out how to get the canoe down the mountain. All I need is your snow-blower and a lot of butter." – Kelso, That 70's Show.