"What's wrong with her!" Malfoy questioned, pacing back and forth.

"She's a Gryffindor." Blaise offered up.

"Yes, yes I suppose…" Draco muttered. "But she just completely…spazzed!"

"She's a Weasley." Xavier explained.

Malfoy stopped pacing and stared at the drummer for a full minute in silence before nodding in agreement. "Yes…she's that…"

"Maybe you should go talk to her?" Blaise suggested.

"I don't know where she's at, and anyways I don't fancy being alone with a Weasley in a mood such as that."

"I have an idea!" Darnel exclaimed.

Blaise and Draco turned to their companion.

"Let's go back to our dorms and sleep!"

There was silence as Blaise and Draco stared at Xavier, waiting for additional sentences. None came.

"…That was it…I want to sleep."

A bed popped up in front of Darnel and he fell onto it on his stomach, succumbing to the will of the Sand Man.

Blaise shook his head and turned to Draco. Talk to her tomorrow, in between classes or something."

Malfoy shook his head. "No…I'm gonna go find her." With this, he left.

Blaise requested another bed and he too went to sleep.


It seemed Malfoy had walked for ages with no sign of the temperamental redhead. A glance to his watch showed him three o'clock in the morning. He was about to give up and go to bed when his ears detected a set of footsteps.

"Weasley?" he questioned hopefully, turning into the nearest corridor.

"Just me." Came the voice of Xavier Darnel. "No luck then?"

"Obviously not, if I'm still looking." Malfoy snapped at him.

"Woah!" Xavier held up his hands in mock surrender. "Calm down there, mate."

Malfoy sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Sorry…I'm quite tired."

"Go to sleep, find the Weaslette tomorrow."

"Yeah…okay." Draco turned and shuffled towards the Slytherin Common Rooms. He was dead tired. Oh lucky me…I only have to go down four flights of stairs, minimum

He stopped and turned to Darnel. "Aren't you coming?"

"Nah, not tired. Hungry—going to the kitchens."

"Right, later then."

"Night."


Xavier had been walking in the direction of the kitchens for nearly twenty minutes when he felt someone watching him. He spun around and smirked at his emissary.

"Well, well, well. Out past curfew. Tell me, what brings wee Granger out of bed so early in the morning?"

Hermione was about to scold the boy in front of her, but stopped herself, realizing that she was also breaking the rules. She took a casual stance and Darnel approached her. "Hungry." She shrugged. "Yourself?"

"The same. On your way to the kitchens, are you?"

Hermione nodded and continued walking, running a hand through her hair. "I couldn't sleep."

"Seems everyone's having that problem tonight…" Xavier muttered.

"Hmm?" Hermione turned to him. "Who?"

"Your Weasley friend for one. Pity too, with that temper it should seem she really needs the sleep."

"Ginny? Why were you with…oh…" Hermione paused with realization. "You must be in the band too then, correct?"

"Band?"

"Ginny told me."

Darnel smirked. "Did she?"

"Mhmm."

Malfoy will be plenty pleased to hear that… Xavier chuckled.

"Tell me something—" Hermione started.

"Depends." Xavier interrupted.

"Is she…I mean…Ginny and Malfoy…are they…?"

"Shagging?" Darnel offered.

Hermione winced at the thought. "Er…yes, that."

The drummer nearly collapsed from his fit of laughter.

"I take it that's a no?" Hermione asked hopefully.

"Love, that's a hell no." he laughed.

"Ok…It's just…Ginny always gets strange when we talk about him and—"

"You always talk about him?"

"No, no, we don't always talk about him, but when we do talk about girl stuff like how he looks or his latest conquest—"

"So you want him to shag you? Is that why you wanted to know?"

"NO! No, no." Hermione was getting flustered. "No, it's just Ginny—"

"Ah, so the Weaslette wants to shag him?"

"No! Merlin, you're putting words in my mouth!"

"So just come out and say it, then I can't put words in."

"I think Ginny fancies Malfoy!" The words bounced down the corridor and back to them, and Hermione clapped a hand over her mouth.

Xavier's smirk grew. "I thought it might be something such as that."

"No, no, it's just the way she acts and…well her having to join the band—"

"Having?" Xavier scoffed.

"Yes. Well…that's what she told me."

"Hmm…last I recall she searched out Malfoy asking for another chance."

"Another…another chance?" Hermione stopped in her tracks and stared that the drummer.

"Yes, because she laughed at him when he offered the first time and—"

"Wait, wait." Hermione stopped him. "I think we're on different levels of intelligence here."

"Well obviously."

Hermione kept walking, trying to think through all she was hearing when she ran into something rather solid. She looked up as Darnel was tickling the pear. She hadn't even realized they were that close to the kitchens.

They entered to find only three house elves in the kitchen, one cleaning a stove, another washing dishes and the third seemed to be making something delicious-looking for breakfast that must have taken a long time to bake.

The shortest house elf abandoned his dishes and took Hermione and Xavier's orders. They sat at a table.

"Okay, why don't you tell me exactly what's been going on these past few days?"


No one likes making decisions. For most people, being stuck between a rock and a hard place was utter Hell. For Ginny, however, it was being sandwiched between the wall and Malfoy's anger that concerned her.

"You told Granger." He hissed the second she walked in the door, automatically pinning her up against the wall by her throat via his hand.

"What? No, I didn't! What are you talking about?" Ginny played the ignorance card.

"Enough with the lies, Weasley, I already told you, you're no good." He countered, releasing her by pushing her into the wall even more. "Why?"

"I…she wanted to know where I was going. She wouldn't let me leave—how did you find out?"

"Granger's head is so full of information—seems she leaked a bit of it to Xave. What did I tell you about telling anyone?"

"Umm…" Ginny shifted her weight uncomfortably, tearing her gaze from Malfoy's molten eyes, which seemed to be boiling with anger. "Don't?"

Malfoy narrowed his eyes slightly. "Don't try to play cute and innocent either, that's also something you suck at."

"I'm not playing anything!" Ginny fumed. There was a moment of silence where Ginny looked down to the ground and back to Malfoy's eyes, barely moving her head. "Look…I'm sorry, okay? I just…I needed to talk to her into calming Ron and Harry down, to get them off my back. They were getting suspicious—no thanks to you, just walking up to me like that—what were you thinking!"

"I…well I just thought…" Now it was Malfoy's turn to fidget. "Whatever, never mind. Don't let it happen again." He spoke the words but his voice barely enforced the command.

Ginny nodded and turned away, smirking. Way to play the innocence! Score one for Gin!


They had gone on playing as usual, not letting Hermione's knowledge or Ginny's freak out the other night get in the way. Ginny had been thoroughly relieved that Malfoy hadn't pursued that subject, and was beginning to wonder just when exactly it was going to come up. She didn't have to wonder long.

Blaise and Xavier and long since gone, retreating back to the Slytherin Common room, but Malfoy and Ginny had remained, talking into the night about a few of Draco's songs, and eventually Ginny's.

She knew the second he began questioning her songs he would come around to it, eventually. And she was trying to make the decision to change the subject or just answer the question when he spoke.

"The other night…that song, Angels, who…who was it about?"

Ginny sat in silence, staring to the floor, trying to make the decision quick. "Does it matter?" she asked in as much of a nonchalant voice she could muster.

"I suppose not…" he shrugged elegantly. How one shrugs elegantly was beyond Ginny, but she knew that's how you would have to describe a Malfoy: arrogant and elegant. "It's just…I don't know, you seemed kind of…affected by it…like it brought something up."

Ginny's turn to shrug. "Maybe it did."

"And then you kind of just bolted so…"

"I didn't want to talk…sorry about that."

"Eh…" Malfoy waved his hand, pushing the apology away like a fly. "Nothing to be sorry about."

There was more silence when he questioned her again. "So are you going to tell me?"

Ginny smiled. "You'll think it's silly. A stupid reason to cry."

"Try me."

Ginny sighed. Malfoy obviously wasn't going to give up. Might as well…at least it'll save my ears from his bitching.

"It…Tom." She finally answered.

Malfoy quirked an eyebrow, not recognizing the name.

"Tom Riddle…it was the memory of Voldemort…I guess your father never explained that."

"Lucius never told me anything, and I was grateful for it. Was this…in second year?"

"You're second, my first." Ginny knew that her eyes should be blinded with tears by now. She should have been of the brink of a break down. She should have run, giving Malfoy no more explanations.

But Ginny could see perfectly. She felt just as she had thirty minutes before. And leaving the room, and therein leaving Malfoy, was the last thing on Ginny's mind.

"I see…and this…upset you?"

"I thought I was in love with him."

"Well…" Malfoy laughed. "That much would upset anyone."

Ginny smiled and gave in to a chuckle. "Not Voldemort. Tom, pre-evilness. Well…sort of."

"But he didn't love you?"

"He was just interested in getting to Harry."

"Seems everyone is interested in that these days."

"With good reason, I wager." Ginny laughed.

Malfoy sniggered at this and looked at Ginny. "With very good reason, love."

There was a stretch of silence that was soon broken by a tap at the window.

Malfoy, almost as if expecting this, quickly opened the window and took a piece of parchment from the owl.

As he scanned it his smirk grew, and by the time he looked up from it, it had spread from ear to ear.

Ginny frowned. "What's it say?"

"See for yourself." He replied, dropping the letter into her lap as he collapsed beside her.

As Ginny scanned the note, her frown continued to deepen. Her eyes became narrow slits and by the time she put it down she was ready to hang the tart who wrote it with her own innards.

"Well…" she started, wiping her expression blank as she looked up to the boy next to her. "Do you uhh, do—do you know who wrote this?"

Malfoy smirked and looked to the ceiling. I might have some idea…why? Jealous?"

Ginny snorted. "Jealous? Of the poor sod that wants you? Ha, right. You wish, Malfoy." ARG! I NEED to find out who wrote this!

Malfoy smirked at the expression on Ginny's face. "I think you are jealous."

Ginny glanced away from Malfoy's eyes, which seemed to be burning through her, looking for the truth. She wouldn't let him see it.

A glance down into her hands and to the floor, the quickly to her hands again. "What the—"

Under the last sentence of the letter a signature was slowly appearing. She had needed the answer, and now she had it.

"Malfoy." Ginny hissed.

"Yes, love?"

"That was low."

"But now I know the truth."

Ginny's jaw dropped as she stared at Malfoy. "The truth?"

"You fancy me." He smiled. "It's okay." He added to her astonished face. "A lot of people do."

"I don't fancy you, Malfoy. I hardly know you."

"That doesn't mean anything." Malfoy's mouth resumed his usual smirk as he stepped towards Ginny. "I can't say I'd be utterly disgusted, anyways."

He can't seriously believe I fancy him! Ha! Ginny closed her mouth. "You can't…what?"

Malfoy's smirk was growing by the second, and the space between them was quickly diminishing. "I said," he took another step forward. "that I wouldn't be utterly disgusted. In fact, I don't find the reverse being all that absurd."

"Malfoy…" Ginny closed her eyes and shook her head. "You're not making any sense."

"Fools rarely do." He whispered, stepping closer yet.

Did he just insult himself? "…Did you just insult yourself?"

"I don't know…" he had Ginny up against the wall now, and his sweet lips were dangerously close to her own. "I seem to lose my thoughts when I'm around you. Does that ever happen to you?"

"More so my mind than anything." She replied, hoping to deny him without having to actually do it. It didn't work.

Malfoy went in for the kill, taking Ginny's mouth with his own in a swift, though not too chaste, kiss. When he pulled away Ginny found herself having to concentrate solely on breathing and circulating blood to vital organs. Everything in her seemed to stop and ache with need all at the same time.

Disobedient, Ginny's blood flowed up to her cheeks instead, giving her quite a blush.

"You'll find, Weaslette, that things in the real world don't have to be as complicated as you think they do. It all boils down to three steps: See." He pressed his forehead to her own so he was staring her directly in the eyes. "Want." A hand found her cheek and trailed down her collar bone. Ginny shivered. "Take." He whispered, and with that he captured her mouth in another kiss.

"Malfoy." Ginny broke away. "This…it's all…very flattering it's just…a bit sudden…"

Malfoy nodded and smirked, showing no sign of disappointment. "You want to wait?" he chuckled. "I've got all the time in the world, kitten."

With nothing more, he left, leaving Ginny in state of confusion.

Malfoy just hit on me…no, no. Malfoy just had his tongue down my throat. Something's got to be wrong with that boy…

When Ginny eventually made it to her bed, she had no trouble falling asleep that night. What she did have trouble with, was her dreams.


There…there's a little D/G interaction for ya…but beware: things are going to get VERY complicated soon! XD

Thanks for the idea Miss Ebony! (And Featherhead, sorry, I can't remember if you helped or not, lol)