Author's Note:

I am so, so sorry. I think I may have broken my own lateness records (Heh. With this fic, anyway.) The only excuse I have to offer is that my friends and I have been working really hard on our pop fiction book review site. But Wordcandy is up and humming now, so from here on out- no excuses! From now on, if I'm writing slower than your average glacier, well, it's just because I'm being lazy, and you have every right to send me scathing personal e-mails.

Please note that this story is NOT Order of the Phoenix-compatible.

Chapter Twelve

It was the haircut that finally broke him, but there were plenty of little insults to be endured first. He didn't know whom Ginny Weasley thought she was ignoring, but Draco Malfoy wasn't putting up with it. Not for one moment longer.

Rising from his chair with more speed than grace, Draco crossed the Great Hall as rapidly as dignity would allow, striding after the redhead he'd just watched disappear through the enormous doors. He paused when he reached the corridor, and, finding that his quarry had already disappeared, headed after the sound of distant footsteps.

It really hadn't been his best week, Draco thought peevishly. He didn't know why, exactly, but nothing had been quite right since he returned to Hogwarts. It wasn't that there had been any difficulty over his absence- Draco was of age, and Snape would never dream of questioning him over so petty an offense as missing a few days of classes anyway- and it wasn't that the boy Draco had memory-charmed said anything, either. The boy was either still bespelled or simply too scared to say anything. Draco neither knew nor cared which, so long as the kid kept his mouth shut. Damn it, he didn't know what it was. By rights, everything should be going swimmingly. He had broken things off with Letty, and the hell-raising scene she'd made at high noon in Hogwart's busiest corridor had been very gratifying, as well as adding to his well-established reputation as the resident Hogwarts ladies' man. (The only disappointment had been that Ginny Weasley hadn't been there to witness it, but Draco comforted himself with the hope that Letty's hysterical sobs over losing him would keep her redheaded fellow Gryffindor awake at night.) He had received his monthly allowance, his various plots were progressing as planned, and they had killed Ravenclaw in the last match.

But somehow, despite the allowance and Letty's tears and the Quidditch win and the lack of questioning, Draco just wasn't as happy as he should be, and he placed the blame squarely on Ginny Weasley's skinny, freckled shoulders.

She hadn't so much as glanced at him since their return to Hogwarts. It wasn't that Draco wanted her to, naturally. He didn't, he assured himself. It was the strangeness of the situation that was bothering him. After all, Letty was still sobbing over losing him- why wasn't the little Weasel more upset? She should be pining- she, who had spent a full week in his company! They had cooked together! (Well, she had cooked. He had stirred.) Shopped! (Although it hadn't been his usual take-a-girl-shopping expedition, Draco was forced to admit. It had been less of a debonair jewelry/clothing/flowers shopping spree and more of a tinned vegetables and toilet paper-type outing.) But they had done other things- things that had necessitated the removal of clothing! (There would have been more clothing removed, too, if it hadn't been for that fucking omelet, Draco thought darkly. He still couldn't look at a plate of eggs without wanting to kick something.) And yet she didn't seem to miss him at all!

But the breaking point had come this evening, when Ginny had strolled into the dining hall, bold as brass, with at least eight inches of her hair chopped off. And it hadn't looked like a tragedy haircut, either. (He would have been comforted to see her with one of those lopsided cuts that said clearly "I'm upset, and my hair reflects that pain." In a school with several hundred teenagers, those were a common sight.) No, this had looked like a normal haircut. Weasley's hair had swung below her chin in a wavy copper-colored bob. It was rather flattering, actually. She would never be a great beauty, but now her features were no longer competing with a mass of hair.

After all, thought Draco sulkily, just because he had made it clear that he didn't want to speak to her in public was no excuse for ignoring him, and it was time that he made that clear to little Miss Weasley. When he rounded the corner he was rewarded by the sight of a small redheaded figure halfway down the corridor exchanging pleasantries with a portrait. Eyes narrowing, Draco zeroed in for the kill.

Ginny's week, on the other hand, had gone surprisingly well.

Ginny couldn't deny that there had been a few tears shed over Draco Malfoy, although they were, thankfully, tears of rage and humiliation rather than sadness. How could she have been so idiotic? Letting him kiss her? Touch her? Wondering if he "like-liked" her, like a Hufflepuff third year with a crush?! She must have been stark raving mad! Draco-no, Malfoy, her mind corrected itself- had been a complete bastard from the beginning, and she was a perfect fool for thinking otherwise, even for a moment.

But after three days of self-reproach, Ginny forgave herself. Nobody had died, after all, and when your personal moral yardstick ranges all the way from "Helping the Dark Lord return to power" to "Sneaking food into the library", it was really pretty easy to forgive yourself for stupidly having your head turned by the attentions of a boy as pretty as Draco Malfoy. So while she still blushed fiercely whenever she thought about the time she had spent thinking about the pale-haired Slytherin, it didn't take long for Ginny's life to return to its normal routine.

She felt a little different, though.

Happier, somehow.

Ginny couldn't put her finger on it, but something had changed since her strange adventure with Draco Malfoy, and that change was for the better. She was still quiet, but she had begun taking the most direct pathway to her classes, even if it meant walking through the most crowded corridors, something she had previously avoided. She had survived Draco Malfoy- why should she worry about the opinion of a bunch of Ravenclaws? And when Harry had sat down next to her in the Gryffindor common room, she had calmly finished her homework, instead of wasting half an hour stewing with impotent irritation over what she privately thought of as his regularly scheduled "throw Ginny a bone" time. Harry wasn't a bad guy, but her idiocy with Malfoy had proven that she really was over him. It was a very liberating feeling.

It was also the first time that she had ever had any spending money to speak of, thanks to the sizable sum Malfoy had paid her for spying for him. Ginny spent all of it the weekend after their return buying herself a pair of new boots- the first pair she had ever owned that wasn't a hand-me-down from her brothers and didn't shriek "I've survived major combat". Wandering around Hogsmede by herself, smiling a little whenever she caught sight of her feet in low shop windows, she spent the rest on books and candy, totally failing to notice the tall blond boy scowling at her from a table in the window of the Three Broomsticks. Ginny enjoyed the experience of having (and wasting) money so much that she wrote to Fred and George to inquire if they needed any help in their shop during the summer (as anything other than a guinea pig).

She was in such a good mood, in fact, that when she dozed off late one night in front of the Gryffindor fireplace and a stray spark set her hair on fire, Ginny took it philosophically, rather than sending a hysterical owl to her mum requesting a year's worth of bags for her head. When a warning shriek from a portrait awakened her, she simply put out the fire, surveyed the damage in the mirror above the mantelpiece and marched up to the seventh-year dormitory. Lavender Brown and Parvarti Patil, Gryffindor's resident beauty experts, took one look at the ragged, reeking mess atop Ginny's head and leapt into action. An hour later Ginny went off to bed, her newly shortened hair swinging in loose waves slightly below her jaw. Her reflection still came as a bit of a shock, but she was adjusting.

She overslept the next morning- missing breakfast, rushing to get ready, and still ending up late for Potions. The lateness earned her a lunchtime detention, so Ginny hightailed it to dinner the moment it was served. She was so intent on her food that she handled the scattered compliments on her new haircut with more than her usual composure, just smiling a little awkwardly and mumbling a "thanks" around a huge mouthful of potato. Seamus goofily wiggled his brows at her, and though Ginny blushed like a tomato she couldn't help being pleased at the attention.

A certain pair of grey eyes across the hall narrowed, but thanks to her face-saving "Draco Malfoy? Sorry. Never heard of him." policy, it totally failed to register on Ginny's radar.

Ginny finally ate her fill and pushed away from the table, folding her napkin neatly. Sticking her hands in her pockets, she walked through the doors at the end of the hall, humming a little, idly wondering what the twins would say in response to her owl, and if they said yes, whether or not she should ask for hazard pay.

She had just paused to say hello to a painting of an extremely distant relative when her arm was seized. Ginny spun around, hand instinctively groping for her wand, and found herself, yet again, face-to-face with a very irritable-looking Draco Malfoy.

"And what the hell," hissed Draco, "Do you think you're playing at?"

TBC

Next chapter:

They fight. And then they make up. Well, not so much "make up" as "get distracted". And then they fight some more!