Disclaimer: We've gone over this already. I'm a rich British person!!!! And I can manipulate the world by what I write in my books! But, wait, if I get money off of writing books, then why am I writing fanfiction? Oh well!!

Chapter 4 (Explosion)

The day started off smoothly. In their first class, Herbology, Ginny had to explain to Ron why she was in the seventh year class, but other than that, she was feeling quite happy. Despite the fact that she had to be in a class with the Dream Team, she was still with her best friend, and she had also shown the Hermit Crab that Ginny was smarter than her. Needless to say, everyone was surprised that Ginny and Amy had been offered the chance to move up a grade, while the Hermit Crab wasn't. That didn't faze Ginny. Ginny knew she had always been smarter than Hermit Crab. It was just that no one else knew it. Except for Amy. Amy had always known, always believed in Ginny, and the same vise versa. They loved each other like the sisters neither of them had ever had.

Their next class was History of Magic, followed by Divination, and finally, Double Potions (evil laughs and scary music).

Potions, for once, actually started out pretty well. Snape had only taken 5 points from Longbottom and 5 from the hermit crab for being such a bloody know it all. 'Serves her right,' Ginny thought when Snape took away the points. 'She shouldn't think she's the bloody queen of the freakin' world just because she knows the right ingredients and can follow directions written on the board. I actually appreciate potions. Everything about them, actually.'

Ginny noticed she had on a very Slytherin-like smirk on at the same time she felt a pair of eyes on the back of her neck. She was facing towards the back of the room, looking at hermit crab, turned around to look straight into the eyes of Draco Malfoy, who was smirking like he thought the points getting deducted meant something to her.

She raised an eyebrow as if to say, 'What, you think I care?' and smirked back. Malfoy was taken aback by her sudden smirk that perfectly matched a Slytherin's. Ginny silently laughed and whispered something in Amy's ear. Amy looked up at Malfoy and smirked herself. It too matched a Slytherin's. Malfoy turned back around and whispered something to Zabini. Zabini whispered back, then looked back at the two now laughing girls. They both tried to smirk at him too, but ended up laughing too hard to actually look serious.

Through all of this, Snape never seemed to really notice the students. Ginny looked back at the hermit crab, who had an indignant look on her face (she noticed the four smirking and laughing at each other. She also noticed the fact that they didn't get any points taken off when, if it were her, she would have had points taken away from her house immediately. Well, it serves her right!), and smirked yet again. She then turned back around to finish her potion.

Ginny and Amy of the first two to finish their potions. Ginny got up to take the samples of their potions (Amy had appointed her the potions transporter for the day), and as she passed by Malfoy and Zabini's table, Malfoy suddenly stood up (just as she walked by! I think he had this all planned!), and knocked Ginny over, causing both of the potion samples to fly out of her hand and into Neville Longbottom's cauldron. And his potion was already a mess. Now, with a sudden mix of the RIGHT potion, it caused a big explosion.

Ginny was knocked over backwards onto the floor. She could feel a weight pressing on her from both on top of her and behind her, but she could not comprehend what they were, as she was, at the moment, nearly unconscious. Ginny tried to fight for consciousness, and when she finally won, she realized that at her back was the floor, and at her front was none other than Draco Malfoy. She looked into his eyes, and said as loud as she could (which actually turned out to be only a whisper because she couldn't breath! Hey, you wouldn't be able to breathe either if you had 100 somethin' pounds of hot, muscular Draco on you! Oh, sorry, I'm rambling, aren't I? Well then, on to the story!), "Get off me!"

"What?" Malfoy asked.

"Get off!" Ginny said, a little louder this time.

Malfoy finally got the message and rolled over off of her. She took a deep breath, which caused a sharp pain in her ribs.

Ginny saw Snape making his way over towards her, a look of concern actually on his face! When he reached her, he said in an icy calm voice, "Malfoy, please take Miss Weasley here to the hospital wing. It seems as if she has a few broken ribs and a concussion, and Lord knows what else."

When Ginny heard this, she immediately tried to sit up, to prove she could walk to the hospital wing on her own. She felt two iron-hard arms on her shoulders, pushing her back down. She heard Malfoy's voice tell her to lie down while he brought up a stretcher. She fought back even more at these words. She was not helpless!

Ginny heard Snape tell Malfoy he should probably just carry her, because she would probably jump off the stretcher and walk herself, and she wasn't in a good shape to walk.

Ginny was suddenly lifted off the cold, hard stone floor of the dungeons by the same two iron-hard arms that had held her down before. She fought with all her might to escape, but when they were half way to the hospital wing, she just gave up. As they were leaving the potions room, she caught a glimpse of Amy fighting with Snape to go with her, but it seemed she would lose this fight. Ginny also noticed the pride in Amy's face when her friend looked over at Ginny fighting Malfoy with all her might. Amy had been the one who had taught her that she should never give up, and to fight with all her strength.

At remembering this, Ginny shook her head. Amy could be so weird at times, and yet, so cool too! Ginny then looked up at Malfoy's face, and was instantly confused. She actually saw a concerned look on his face! Was it concern for her? No, it couldn't be. Could it?

As soon as Malfoy noticed Ginny looking up at him, he wiped his face clear of all emotions and smirked at her. "Quite a fighter there, now aren't we?" he said. Ginny tried to jerk out of his arms, but found he was clutching tightly to her aching form. "Just give it up," he said. "You may be quite strong for a girl your age and size, but I'm still twice as strong as you. Don't even try to fight me. You could just as easily save your strength."

"Why won't you just let me walk there? According to you, I'm nothing but dirt, and I'm obviously dirtying your robes in your little fantasy world. So why don't you just let me walk the rest of the bloody way there?" Ginny said.

"Because if I did that, you would probably faint just walking two steps. So either way, I have to carry you to the hospital wing, and people tend to weigh more when they're unconscious."

Ginny rolled her eyes. "One, I would NOT faint if you let me walk and two, I thought you were strong and could lift, oh, now what was it? 150?" she said, recalling that day in the corridors when he was bragging to his group of friends about how much weight he could lift.

"So," he challenged. "If I set you down and let you walk on your own, you wouldn't faint at all?"

"No."

"Okay then, let's see it." He set her feet on the ground and kept his arm around her waist to support her until she found her balance. Then, when he felt her put pressure on her feet, he released her to walk on her own. Draco walked directly behind her so he could catch her if she fell.

Ginny started walking. She took one step and thought, 'Ha, see, I don't feel woozy at all!' She walked about a yard until the edges of her vision started turning black. Suddenly, she was falling, falling. Expecting to hit the ground, Ginny was surprised when she felt two strong arms wrap around her, finding herself falling into Draco's strong and warm chest instead of the cold stone floor. The last thing she heard before the darkness enveloped her was from Draco saying, "You really should have listened to me you know," and then all was dark.

Draco rolled his eyes at the foolish girl and carried her the rest of the long way to the hospital wing.

When he finally reached the wing, Draco's arms were tired and about to fall asleep. He set Ginny on an unoccupied bed and looked around for Madame Pomfrey. He noticed there were many occupied beds filled with students who had been affected by the explosion.

Draco spotted Madame Pomfrey tending to Longbottom, who had had the worst of the explosion, seeing as how it was his cauldron that exploded. Draco sat down next to Ginny on the bed while waiting for the matron to notice them.

When Ginny finally awoke from the darkness, she was in the hospital wing. She sat up and looked around, but before she could even really look, she was pushed back down by someone sitting next to her on her bed. Ginny glanced over and saw none other than the same guy who carried her here.

"Fine," she said. "You win! Just stop smirking at me like that! Sheesh!"

She smiled a contagious smile, and soon Draco was smiling too. Not smirking, and not a small little smile either. It was as true, genuine smile. This made Ginny smile even more, and soon they were both laughing for no apparent reason at all.

They obviously grabbed the matron's attention (finally. Poor Draco had been waiting like forever!), because she came over and said, "The explosion?" Draco nodded and Madame Pomfrey bustled off to her cabinet and brought out a potion, then walked over to the two and handed it to Draco. "I'm too busy right now with these other students, so could you give her two tablespoons of it. And I want you to do it, not her. She's too weak right now to give herself the medicine."

Ginny opened her mouth to protest, but before she could speak, Draco shoved a tablespoon of the potion into her mouth so she couldn't speak. Ginny almost spat it back out, but somehow kept it down. She gave Draco a death glare, while he measured out another tablespoon of medicine out, smirking at her. He shoved the other one in her mouth, and soon she was unconscious.

Draco held her in his arms for a while. He lied to himself, saying he was just trying to skip class, but the real reason why he was holding her was because he was addicted to the feel of her skin, the warmth of her body. He just couldn't get enough of her.

Suddenly, Draco looked at her arm and saw a patch of red marks on her forearm. He brought it closer for inspection, pulling up her sleeve even farther so he could observe the rest of her arm too. He was thoroughly shocked to find the red lines on her arm were cuts, all up and down her arm. He looked at her other arm and saw the same display. He couldn't believe someone so innocent and pure could bring harm to herself like that.

Just then a thought came to him. 'What if Potter caused her to do this? What if it is his fault she cuts herself?' He knew what he would do. Draco would kill Potter.

Draco then noticed Madame Pomfrey bustling over and rolled down Ginny's sleeves to cover up the cuts. He was quite sure Ginny didn't want anyone to know she cuts herself.

"Is she asleep?" asked the matron. Draco nodded. "Good. Now go and let her get some sleep. Go on, shoo!" she said, waving him away. Draco stood up and walked away, stopping at the door to take a quick glance back at Ginny before leaving the wing.