A/N: don't own don't sue

The lyrics at the beginning are from 'Out Of My Mind' by James Blunt (I recently bought his album and am in love with it so expect a lot more)

Enjoy my quick updates while you can now my inspiration's back, if it goes again you'll have to keep waiting again. I'm contemplating going to Waterstone's to the midnight releasing of Harry Potter but my friend's all think I'm crazy and way too obsessed ah well never mind. Thanks to all reviewers, they're answered at the end as usual enjoy.

Chapter Nine – Out Of My Mind

Judging by the look on the organ-grinder
He'll judge me by the fact that my face don't fit
It's touching that the monkey sits on my shoulder
He's waiting for the day when he gets me
But I don't need no alibi – I'm a puppet on a string
I just need this stage to be seen
We all need a pantomime to remind us what is real
Hold my eye and know what it means
I'm out of my mind
Judging by the look on the organ-grinder
He'll judge me by the fact that my face don't fit
It's touching that the monkey sits on my shoulder
He's waiting for the day when he gets me
But I won't be your concubine – I'm a puppet not a whore
I just need this stage to be seen
Won't you be a friend of mine to remind me what is real?
Hold my heart and see that it bleeds
I'm out of my mind

"I want out."

Crystianna blinked and cocked her head to the side curiously, lifting the delicate china cup to her lips to take a sip of her tea.

"Excuse me?"

Ginny sighed and ran a hand back through her hair, most of it was tied back loosely in a long plait but wisps still fell into her eyes making her look enchantingly pretty.

"I don't want to do this anymore."

Crystianna surveyed her in silence for a moment, uncrossing her long legs then crossing them again the opposite way. The silence seemed to last forever before she finally spoke;

"And why would you want to do that?"

Ginny bit her lip, a habit she had used a lot recently, and fixed her gaze on her tightly interlocked hands resting in her lap.

"Has something happened?"

Images flickered through Ginny's mind; a blissful face framed by silver hair pressed against hers… hands shaky so badly with need they ripped her knickers away… her own long legs wrapped around a strong back… her hands digging into his back with need… him inside of her.

"Yes it has..."

She opened her mouth to tell Crystianna exactly what had happened but for some reason she couldn't. Her mouth refused to let the words perched on her tongue tumble out and she found herself saying something totally different.

"I was attacked a few nights ago at a party." Crystianna froze in her chair, her fingers tightening their grip on her cup as she nodded for her to continue. "They used your name, they thought I was you and they were going to rape me!"

The fear from the events of that night and her confusion from the events of the last night were causing her voice to rise rather hysterically, especially when Crystianna merely sat there impassively not offering a word of explanation.

"Ginny darling, what did you think I was running away from?"

Ginny gaped at her.

"I'm sorry?"

Crystianna afforded her a rather cool glance.

"When I told you I had to leave town, why did you think I had to leave?"

Ginny's mind seemed to have been frozen as it slowly clicked over what Crystianna was implying.

"I assumed you were going on holiday or something."

Crystianna let out a little laugh and raised an eyebrow at her, her elbow resting on the arm of her chair meaning her hand was held high next to her face as she gestured.

"If I was merely going on holiday would I really need you to take my place?"

Numbness seeped into Ginny's bones, freezing her to her chair and refusing her brain permission to piece together what she was being told so she stared dumbly at her companion.

"I needed someone that could pass as me to be me for a while, until the danger passed."

Anger flooded into Ginny restoring her brain to working order and allowing her tongue freedom to move of its own accord again.

"So wait a moment, you knew these people might come after me."

Crystianna nodded.

"And you didn't think I needed to know about this?"

Crystianna shook her head.

"And you were just going to what? Wait it out til the heat cooled off or if I was killed make your life somewhere else!"

Crystianna nodded;

"That's about the sum of it. You're quite a clever girl you know."

Shaking with anger Ginny made to get to her feet but Crystianna gestured imperiously for her to sit back down again.

"Well who are these nutters you now have after me?"

Crystianna tilted her head to the side and considered her for a moment before sighing and leaning back in her chair, taking another sip of her drink.

"A job gone wrong. We invaded someone's territory that we shouldn't have and they were none too pleased to learn about it on the national news in both the Muggle and the Wizarding world."

Ginny's eyes widened; it must have been something huge to affect both worlds;

"What did you do?"

Sighing Crystianna waved an unconcerned hand in the air and continued to stare up at the ceiling as if totally uninterested in what she was saying.

"We stumbled upon, and threatened to expose by doing so, a conspiracy of the most powerful men in our world to place the leaders of the Muggle world under the Imperious and control them. Of course the Muggles painted it as some terrorists' conspiracy or something." She snorted with laughter. "As if we'd want anything they have to offer. Anyway they decided we had to be threatened to keep our mouths shut and well… I think you can work out the rest."

Ginny was reeling.

"Does Malfoy know about any of this?"

Crystianna shook her head, noting with amusement the use of his last name.

"No he never received any threats, for some reason they thought I was more likely to blab." She smiled wickedly as though she had no idea what gave them that idea. "And anyway his father was one of the men so they didn't think they had anything to worry about there."

Ginny lapsed into silence and sat back in her chair, taking a sip of her rather tepid tea but not even noticing the bad taste as she swallowed. She wanted to get out of this deal, now more than ever, but what if Malfoy was in danger and he didn't know it? There was nothing for it, she'd have to tell him and then get the hell out of there as fast as she could.

"I'm guessing you still want out?"

Ginny stared at Crystianna blankly for a moment, her mind upside down and her emotions in roughly the same state.

"I can see it's difficult for you dear." Ginny could only stare at Crystianna as she patted her hand patronizingly. "How about you stay for now and let me know? Unless I get bored and decide to come back that is."

Ginny still couldn't remember how she had ended up being ushered out of the café and into a cab even as she was now paying the driver and making her way towards her room still deep in thought. By the time she had let herself into her room she had already formed half her speech to tell Draco who she really was.

That was until she opened her door and found him sitting on her bed.

Coming face to face to him made it so much harder for her newly formed resolve to survive. She needed more time to work out what to do and what to say, she couldn't face him yet. He seemed to sense something was wrong when she remained immobile in her doorway with her keys limp in her hand at her side and her eyes fixed on him full of terror and sadness. Getting to his feet he crossed the room quickly and took her face into his hands, his thumbs smoothing over her trembling bottom lip as she stared up at him with tearful eyes.

"What's wrong?"

Now was her time to tell him. Now. She opened her mouth to speak, the words forming on her tongue as concern darkened his silver eyes. No. She shut her mouth and shook her head. A tendril of wavy red hair fell forwards over her nose and he gently tucked it behind her ear and kissed the tip of her nose where it had been.

"Sure?"

She nodded, ashamed at herself for taking the coward's way out. He smiled at her and she knew he didn't believe her even as he dropped his head down to kiss her tenderly on the mouth.

Soaking in the bathtub hours later she was mentally kicking herself once again; how could she have said no! She had just thrown away her chance to tell him, now she'd have to bring it up in the middle of the conversation and it would be even more awkward.

"Yeah my day's been good how about yours? Oh by the way I've only been posing as your best friend I'm really the only sister of your sworn enemy's best friend. Fancy catching a movie tonight?"

She snorted and clutched her head in despair. Damn Crystianna! Damn her to the depths of whatever hell she had retreated to these past six months. Ginny let her head drop back against the tub and sank down a little in the water, the bubbles so thick she couldn't see any of the water that swirled around her at all.

Her mind flickered to the night of the ball.

Oh Christ that just made it even worse! Why couldn't she have just kept her legs closed it would have been so much easier to walk away. But no she had to jump on him like a bitch in heat. Groaning she shut her eyes tight and sank down under the water. Images flickered through her mind; all the times over the past six months she'd laughed at one of his jokes, the amount of times they'd spent hours together just talking and talking occasionally flirting but mostly just at home in each other's company. She imagined Crystianna in her place which, she reasoned, would have to happen sooner or later.

Throwing herself upright so most of the water splashed over the edge of the bath and onto the tiled floor she narrowed her eyes and quickly jumped out of the tub. Before she could change her mind she threw on a huge sloppy jumper that fell off one shoulder and left her midriff bare and struggled into a pair of black jeans. Cursing her still wet legs for making her dressing progress slow she tugged open her door and raced down the corridor towards Draco's room.

Pounding on the door she managed to attract everyone's attention but his. A dozen doors opened down both sides of the corridor with ruffled, irritable sleepy heads poking out to glare at her for waking them. She ignored them and banged on the door once again until it opened to reveal one very irritable Draco Malfoy in a pair of perilously low black slacks with his chest laid bare for all to see. Ginny realised he must have been sleeping but she didn't care.

"Malfoy I need to talk to you!"

He raised an eyebrow at her and ushered her in, quietly closing the door on the gawping faces outside and locking it out of habit.

"I need to talk to you…"

Now she was here Ginny felt very ridiculous and began to fiddle with the sleeves of her top as she sank down onto the very edge of his chair near the fire. He lay down on his back on his bed with one leg raised, propped up by one elbow.

"Well I assumed you wanted to do something with me, even if it is only talking." Ginny blushed. "I didn't really think you'd be waking up the entire college at the crack of dawn just to wave at me then go back to sleep."

His humour at her situation stiffened her resolve and she sat up a little straighter in her chair, her eyes staring fixedly at the headboard of his bed to avoid eye contact.

"There's something I have to tell you."

She bit her lip and lowered her eyes to the floor; it was so much harder than she had thought especially when he looked so damn desirable sprawled so wantonly on his bed and half-naked to boot. He sat up slowly at the look on her face;

"What's wrong Crys?"

At the sound of the name that wasn't hers she let out a sob and buried her face in her hands. He slowly knelt before her and tried to move her hands but she wouldn't let him; the strength of her sobs had her body shuddering backwards and forwards. As she cried she suddenly realised why she felt such a strong sense of déjà vu; they had been in this position once before not so long ago only she knew this time would end differently.

There was a loud crack and Ginny dropped her hands in surprise, her heart and contracting with foreboding when she caught sight of who had just Apparated into the room. Draco was also goggling quite openly at the figure clad in a slinky black dress and shawl standing in the centre of his room smirking.

"Hello Draco darling."

Her purring voice made Ginny's stomach turn and she clenched her hands on the arms of the chair with enough force to leave nail marks in them forever.

"What… what are you doing here?" She finally managed to croak out her question and Draco's eyes snapped back to her.

"I was so bored of being away I decided I just had to come back." She smiled cruelly at Ginny before wandering over to where Draco was still kneeling before her.

She ran her long-nailed hand through his hair affectionately, her nails scratching at his scalp until Ginny winced.

"Well I have to hand it to you dear, you've done a better job than I expected. It doesn't look like he had any clue who you really were."

Ginny flinched and averted her gaze when Draco turned to look at her with curiously hollow eyes.

"Who… she is?"

His voice was strangely cold and empty and Ginny leant back against the chair trying to make herself as small against it as possible. Her heart was pounding bruisingly hard against her ribs and her lips were dry even a she licked them desperately.

"Haven't you figured it out dear?"

Crystianna seemed to be finding it all very amusing as she settled herself quite comfortably into the chair opposite the two of them, her long legs crossed elegantly and one long finger twirling a strand of perfectly curled red hair around it.

"I thought you were smarter than that Draco darling, if I'm Crystianna Marlow then who is she? You and I both know that there's only one person who could ever pass as me, you mistook us on the first meeting don't you remember telling me?"

Draco turned to look at Ginny and the dark emptiness in his eyes burned into as he looked her over from her still wet hair hanging over her face and shoulders to her wet jumper sticking to her and the jeans clinging to her legs with damp. Draco felt the now familiar stirrings of lust within him but now there was also confusion. What had he done? He had thought beginning to fall for his best friend was the worst thing he could have done, to ruin their friendship would have broken him. But to instead fall for his enemy?

Ginny's heart, which had been about to break through her chest with its ferocious pounding moments ago, seemed to have disappeared altogether now. It felt to her like it had stopped beating as the two held each other's gaze for interminable moments until anger filtered into Draco's eyes as he realised how she had tricked him and she cowered back.

"That's it; you're piecing it together now aren't you? Good boy."

The amusement in Crystianna's voice sent shocks of momentary anger and hate racing through Ginny's body but they were gone almost as soon as they had appeared when Draco slowly slumped into a sitting position on the floor before her. His eyes caught hers once again and she just couldn't take it. Leaping to her feet she raced across the room towards the door, her damp hands scrabbling against the brass key and lock as she fought to unlock it until finally she flung it open and was racing down the hall away from the horror behind her. Crystianna's mocking laughter still ringing in her ears as she burst into her room, threw her clothes haphazardly into her bag and ran about the room wildly trying to find everything through the veil of tears clouding her vision.

She felt as if her heart was breaking but it couldn't possibly be could it? It was ridiculous; how could she have fallen in love with her enemy, especially after only six months with him. Her sobs doubled as memories raced across her mind so fast she could barely catch onto them before they were gone. She was just returning from her wardrobe with a handful of brightly coloured dresses and ball gowns that seemed, in their brightness, to be scorning her current state of desolation and confusion when she heard the door open and she turned slowly.

im no muggle – now I've finished college for the summer I've got much more time to write and my inspiration seems to have returned D I've been sat for weeks staring at my screen trying to think what to write but now my wild imagination is back hurrah

tkdchick28 – thank you I hope this is quick enough for you

Krystal Klear – I know I love Ginny she ties with Draco as my favourite character but don't worry as much as she gets hurt in this and the next chapter she gets happiness in the end trust me )

Angel Tears Fall – I'm glad you like it enjoy Crystianna's appearance

Calla-ForEvEa – here's your answer lol enjoy

Chantal J – here you go one update for you