Disclaimer: Still don't own Harry Potter. All rights belong to J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros.

Author's Note: Ok, I'm back!! It's been a two-week hiatus, but here's chapter ten! Thanks so much for the great response to chapter 9, and so without much further ado, here's chapter ten!

Review Responses:

Hp-girl4eva – Wow, right back at you! Thanks so much, I'm so surprised I could affect you that much. Keep reading and reviewing, here's chapter ten!

Kimberly Grace – Glad you like it! After a short hiatus, here's chapter 10!

Obsessed87 – Yes! Sorry about the wait, but here I am with the next chapter; glad you liked chapter 9!

MPPSexxySiriusJamesRemus – Aww I know… (no intentional self praising, I swear) – it was just such a cute moment in my head that I had to make it the end of a Chapter.

MPPSexxySiriusJamesRemus –Again! But seriously, doesn't she? Wish I had that skill… the knowing everything thing, that is.

Nessie8 – No, not the end of the story!! See, we're back with chapter 10. Just I was going out of town, so that was going to be the last chapter for a while. Don't worry, there's at least, probably… 4 chapters left. Thanks for reviewing!

BLuECoW219 – Glad you liked it so much! Here's chapter 10

Lizzie5555555- Aren't they? Thanks for the review.

Lyss – Yep, I have a personal preference towards cliffhangers or happy endings… ;-D. you can't make them all that way, but they're fun.

Aquaflower – Yeah, I thought of that too, the Ginny/Draco thing. I tried to resolve that bit in this chapter, and I need to maybe go back to change around some time things that I may not have specified before.

Raiining – Yeah, the Ron and Hermione part was fun too. Thanks for reviewing; here's chapter ten!

Carmel March –Haha, I just got back from vacation as well… which is why this chapter's been so long coming. Thanks for loving chapter 9!

As the twins' fireworks kept exploding over our heads, alarm bells began going off in my head. What the hell was I thinking? I just kissed Harry! Wait, no, a more accurate definition of what we'd just done was snogging. Yes, definitely snogging. I pulled back from him, a knot forming tightly in my stomach.

"Merlin, Harry, I…" I felt an all-too-familiar flush rise in my cheeks and thanked God, Merlin, and whatever other deities were listening that it was in fact very dark out.

"No need to praise me so highly, Gin," he teased. I gave a weak smile while feeling around for the box Harry had given me.

"I… I'm sorry, you know I just… I shouldn't have… I mean… I have to go," I finally spit out. Racing through my house to my room, I threw off my coat and boots without so much as pausing. Once I was sitting on my bed, necklace box beside me, I began to freak out ever so slightly. A little hyperventilation, but nothing major. What on earth had I just done? It was four days ago that I found out my ex-boyfriend was heating on me, and three that I cried on Harry's shoulder about it. it was four minutes ago that Harry had given me the most expensive, beautiful piece of jewelry I'd ever owned, and it was three minutes ago that, instead of saying "Thank you, I love it, it's gorgeous," I chose to snog him.

"There is clearly something wrong with me," I muttered aloud to myself. But honestly! The only girls I knew who did things like this were, frankly, slutty.

"And named Katie Manning," I remarked out loud again. After a moment's pause, I added, "Oh good- along with being crazy and slutty, I've now progressed to talking to myself!" I flopped backward onto my pillow. 'Maybe I'm over thinking this- there's got to be a rational reason I'm acting like a psychopath,' I thought. This, though, somehow seemed oxymoronic. I got up from my bed and pulled a small shoebox from beneath it. Adorned with stickers, glitter, lace, ribbons, and other various little girlish decorative things, I'd had the box since I was four. Mum had given it to me "for your special things," and for the past nine years I'd been collecting stuff in it. From my acceptance letter to Hogwarts, to the lipstick I'd been wearing when I'd had my first kiss (Michael Corner, 4th year, mistake), the box was getting pretty full, but that wasn't my concern at the moment. Whereas there were a lot of pictures of me and Dean and me and Michael, only one existed of me and Draco, at least that I knew about. I wasn't blind; Draco and I may've had a fine (or at least I thought) relationship, but it would've been beyond stupid to parade it to the school. Given this, you can imagine my surprise when, just a few weeks after I'd told her about us, Lia presented me with a candid picture she'd managed to get of the two of us messing around (not literally) on the grounds.

I studied the photo of us – who'd have thought it'd be like this, us having broken up catastrophically badly and my having hooked up with Harry. Harry! What in Merlin's name was I supposed to do about that anyway? I didn't even want to know what he was thinking right now. The best course of action, then, I decided, was to avoid him and skate the issue entirely.

"Ginny dear, come back downstairs!" Yelled Mum. Shit.

"For what?"

"Cookies and tea, you know that!" She yelled back, talking to me as if I were five. Grudgingly, I headed back downstairs for our other Christmas Eve tradition. Between eleven and midnight each night before Christmas, Mum serves her traditional cookies with peppermint-berry tea and we all sit around by the fire eating cookies and drinking tea. The purpose, according to Mum, was to bond as a family, but once we'd all gotten older and wiser we realized that the true intent was actually to tire us out so we wouldn't wake Mum and Dad before six on Christmas morning. Now, ordinarily, I love this tradition. Given the specific circumstances, though, I was altogether not looking forward to this.

I was hard-pressed to not notice that Harry was sitting in the corner of the room opposite me, talking in hushed tones with Hermione and looking anywhere but directly at me. meanwhile, Ron was talking to Bill and the twins, leaving me to sip my tea, much on cookies, and make small talk with Penelope and Bill's girlfriend du jour Audrey. He tends to have a different one each Christmas. Fortunately, about fifteen minutes later Hermione came over to rescue me from the deadly dull conversation we were having. Or, I realized, maybe not so fortunately since she'd just finished talking to Harry.

"So don't think for a second I didn't notice your snogfest with Harry. Now the question is, what do you plan to do about it?" I opened my mouth, but all I accomplished was to gape at her like a fish, so she plowed on forward.

"Listen, Ginny, I don't know if you're blind, deaf, dumb, or all three, but clearly you're the only one who doesn't realize this so allow me to spell it out for you – Harry really likes you. As in, more than platonically. Why else would he have given you that necklace and then happily kissed you back."

"Well I…" that Harry liked me was tricky to wrap my head around, but I'd get back to it later. " You know what, fine, but why's he avoiding me now?" I asked, looking at Harry who, despite being rather close to us, was still determinedly avoiding my eyeline.

"He's confused! And honestly, right now he thinks you're just screwing with him."

"I wouldn't do that!"

"Don't tell me! Tell him."

"What??"

"Tell him how you feel."

"Bugger, 'Mione, I don't know!"

"Do you like him?"

"I d-"

"Don't say you don't know; think and then answer!" So, shockingly, I did what I was told. And equally shockingly, as I thought of how I felt buying his present, getting mine from him; thinking of the feeling of his arms around me and his lips on mine, the answer was simple.

"Yes. Yes I do, are you happy now? But… I just broke up with Draco and so I shouldn't and what does this make me? And I can't… don't… what does that mean?"

"Is it possible you never completely gave up on Harry in the first place? not in the same puppy love type way, but you know, in the back of your mind as somebody you could see yourself with?"

"Can I just have some time to think this all over?" I asked pitifully. Silently she got up to go talk to – read: snog- Ron, and while, I was thinking, I actually ended up falling asleep. Ordinarily when I have this much to think about, I find it next to impossible to fall asleep, but all the things circling around in my head were giving me a headache and so I fell asleep after about fifteen minutes. Given that I'd fallen asleep, I was very surprised to wake up at 2 a.m. in my own bed, still dressed in my clothes. Suddenly the inspiration to talk to Harry I'd been lacking came to me. I changed into real pajamas, piled my hair into a bun on top of my head, and put on the necklace Harry'd given me. I grabbed his present, stuffed my feet into slippers, and then slowly and quietly tiptoed into Ron's room, where Harry was sleeping. Delicately, I sat on the edge of Harry's bed, very glad that my brother was snoring.

"Harry," I whispered, my heart beating louder than I was speaking. Miraculously, he woke up and wasn't too startled to see me.

"You're wearing my necklace," he noted sleepily.

"Look, I'm sorry I acted like such a… well, crazy person I guess. I wanted to give you this now, before everyone else is around." Trying to stay calm, I handed him the Memory Box. I watched as he opened it and read the card, and then was silent for a while.

"Do… d'you like it?" I asked timidly.

"It's… amazing. It's perfect," he replied, looking me in the eye. I took a deep breath seeing my change to talk to Harry right in front of me.

"Listen, the necklace, it's uh, I love it. And as for the k- other thing, I… I'm sorry I was being an idiot. I don't know what you're thinking about me but you have to know how I really feel. And that's that…" I couldn't say it, it was too nerve-wracking. So I kissed him instead. He pulled his head back a little, but I could tell he was smiling.

"For real?" He asked, though already sliding an arm around my back.

"You bet," I replied, relief flooding through me before I returned my lips to his.