After Ginny was awoken by the owl and sent her answer, she couldn't fall back asleep.

In fact, she was almost restless. She lay there with her eyes closed, thinking about the incident in the library. He almost kissed her!

Ginny frowned. She'd been kissed loads of times, by Colin and Seamus and Dean and Michael Corner. So why was she obsessing over the-kiss-that-wasn't from Draco Malfoy, of all people?

Maybe it was that he had something about him that was undeniably attractive, Ginny thought vaguely.

Once again, she shook herself from her stupor. Draco Malfoy hadn't even kissed her, and she if she had anything to do with it, he never would. She wasn't going to snog Draco Malfoy, inviting as it was. He was just another scummy Slytherin that she wasn't going to concern herself with.

Triumphant, Ginny fell back asleep.

"Ginny! Get up or you're going to be late for breakfast." Hermione shook Ginny awake.

Ginny continued to snooze blissfully.

"Ginny!" Irritated, Hermione returned to shaking her with even more fervor. Her efforts were not in vain, as she successfully roused the redhead.

"5 more minutes, 5 more, please." Ginny murmured and rolled over onto her side.

Why was Hermione waking her up? Usually she would be at breakfast with Ron and Harry, thankfully leaving her alone. It seemed she wasn't as lucky today.

Ginny didn't ponder long on that subject, though, for the older girl had thrown off her covers, and walked out of the 6th year dormitory, letting Ginny shiver.

After a few minutes of unsuccessfully trying to sleep, Ginny rose irritably, smiting Hermione under her breath.

Rifling haphazardly through her dresser, she found a worn but infinitely comfortable pair of blue jeans Bill had brought her. They were faded with age and a little too long, but Ginny loved them. Sifting through another drawer full of shirts, Ginny looked for a nice, clean shirt to wear. Merlin, I have to do my laundry, she thought as she viewed the fairly limited selection of freshly washed clothes. Settling on a plain tight brown shirt, Ginny stared at herself critically in the mirror.

Well, her hair seemed to be cooperating this morning, she thought with relief, giving her waves a jaunty bounce with a rising feeling of satisfaction. She applied her moisturizing charm, turned to the side, and sucked in her stomach.

Oh, she was skinny enough, but her chest lacked the endowments she wished for often. Still, she couldn't complain, especially because she was in danger of missing breakfast and she had Double Charms with Flitwick right after.

Throwing on her black Hogwarts robe (finally, finally her mother had agreed to get her a new set of school robes), and pinning her shiny Gryffindor lion badge to the right, Ginny turned on her heel and ran out of the dormitory.

Ginny was accosted by Hermione in the Gryffindor Common Room. When she saw Ginny's robe and the bottoms of her jeans, she frowned.

"The Quidditch match is coming up. Why aren't you wearing red to show your support?"

Ginny looked at Hermione in confusion. "Why? I don't even play Quidditch."

Hermione suddenly looked sour. "Well, you should still show your support," she said snootily.

Ginny felt even more lost, if that was possible. "For who? Ron knows I support him."

Hermione threw her hands up in exasperation. "For Harry, of course! If you even want to try to get his attention, you have to show that you're interested in him!"

Aha. Ginny rolled her eyes at the Head Girl. "Hermione, you know I'm not interested in Harry."

"Oh, yes you are!" Hermione was practically foaming at the mouth. "You had me fooled for a while, you did. But now I can see right through your little…facade. You are hopelessly in love with Harry Potter!"

Bloody, bloody hell. Ginny wished the ground would open and swallow her whole. She hadn't fancied Harry since the end of 3rd year, and she had made that perfectly clear to Hermione a year ago. Apparently Hermione refused to let up.

"You are stark, raving mad, you know that?" Ginny said disdainfully to Hermione. Hermione's mouth opened in a combination of shock and anger.

Ginny continued, "I dated 4 boys in the past one year, and yet you still think I like Harry? Let me make this clear to you, as much as you worship and idolize Harry Potter, he remains a good friend to me. If you're that desperate to pair him off, find some other bloody chit to lick his shoes for him. At least then you'll have a companion!"

And she stormed away from the shell-shocked, red-faced Hermione and out of the Common Room, feeling infinitely pleased with herself for doing what she'd planned for years and finally telling Hermione Granger off. It was a joyous day.

The morning had been unusually hectic. Ginny, who admittedly wasn't a morning person, had found it difficult to concentrate on her schoolwork. She couldn't help but wonder about Malfoy's owl. Why could he possibly want to meet her? Ginny wasn't sure if she wanted to know the answer.

After Double Charms, which was disastrous because of Ginny's lack of focus that morning, it was time for Defense against the Dark Arts.

She was walking toward the classroom, which was conveniently all the way across the castle from the Charms classroom, when suddenly 2mysterious hans grabbed her arm and yanked her into the shadows behind a large square column. It all happened so quickly Ginny had barely any time to scream.

She whirled on her attackers, her hand going to her robes to grab her wand, but stopped abruptly when she saw who they were.

Her friends faces smirked at her in apparent amusement at her panic.

"Well," Christina Gold, also referred to as Chris, commented. "Someone's a tad jumpy today." Colin Creevey, who stood at her side, grinned.

Ginny stared at her best friends in obvious bewilderment. "Was there any need to jump me in the middle of a deserted hallway, or could this have been done a little less stalkerishly?" she demanded.

Chris grinned, blue eyes sparkling, and swished her straight brown hair around a little before replying. "Well, seeing as it was a bit of an emergency, we took liberties," she explained.

Colin rolled his eyes. "Because losing your favorite pair of shoes definitely qualifies as an 'emergency," he said sarcastically.

Ginny's eyes immediately became the size of saucers. "The gold satiny ones?" she asked, disbelief coloring her voice.

"Yes," Chris replied, in equal distress, while Colin adjoined in a mocking falsetto, "And they were so expensive, too!"

The two girls shot him identical venomous looks, and took off down the hallway toward the Gryffindor dorms. The tall boy sauntered down the hallway after them. Girls were very confusing creatures.

Nearly 3 hours later, after overturning every piece of furniture in the room (magically, of course), completely emptying Chris's overflowing closet, and scouring the contents under the bed, the precious shoes had been found and returned to their secure place on Chris's shoe rack. They were equally dear to Ginny too, because she had rights to borrow them at any time she wanted.

Colin, who had had little to do with the rescue of the shoes, sat leisurely in one of Ginny's chairs and flipped through a fashion magazine, looking appreciatively at the swimsuit models winking and blowing kisses at him.

When the room had returned to order and was passably clean once again, Colin spoke.

"You guys have been at this for more than 3 hours. Missed lunch, too," he said dolefully. Colin loved food.

Ginny's stomach flipped over. If she had missed lunch by nearly an hour and a half, that could only mean one thing: she had stood Malfoy up at the library.

Oh, shit.