Chapter Nine

Draco strode out of the Infirmary, feeling the cut on his forehead.

Ginny. It was all he could think, breathe, live and know.

"You know, I went out with her right?" said Harry quietly, relaxing in a chair.

"Uh? Who?" grunted Draco distractedly, trying to heal his cut with his wand, but missing blindly since he didn't have a mirror.

Harry sighed, got up and walked to Draco. "Don't hurt yourself there tiger," mused Harry. And with that he healed Draco's cut instantly.

"Yeah thanks," said Draco. He looked at Harry closely, examining his lines and reading the tell-tale signs on his face that he's been having a rough time. "How, are you, really? Don't give me the 'yeah I'm fine' bullshit alright."

Harry paused and sighed before answering, "I'm holding up, just, holding up. Getting a lot of shit from the Death Eaters cause of my most fashionable scar. Plus the fact I'm Harry Potter."

"Well that's expected," smiled Draco, leaning on the wall. Harry followed in suit.

"Yeah," trailed off Harry.

"Tell me," growled Draco.

"It's, it's, its just been so hard. So much more difficult than I expected. I'm only 23 years old! Fuck's sake Draco, I feel so old! I don't know how much longer I can keep this up!" yelled Harry. Draco only listened sadly.

"It's fatigue Harry. I can feel it too. Two months un-interrupted rest will do you good. But Harry, this is the final battle, you know you can keep this up. I'm sorry to say, but you are destined. As much shit as you have gone through, after you kill the bastard your life will be worth it. Prove it to yourself. I know it's hard on you but you have to," muttered Draco, lightly punching Harry on the arm.

Harry immediately felt better. He was tired, but after hearing what Draco said, he knew he had to keep going. This is what he valued in Draco, depending on him to say the right thing at the right time. Being serious when he needed him to set him straight, being a complete idiot when he needed a laugh. It was hard for Harry to imagine him being a complete bastard back at Hogwarts.

"I've signed you and Ginny in with Manny," said Harry, and Draco nodded. The two of them decided to go find a room. "Dibs on the top bunk!" yelled Harry, dropping his bags and racing to the top bunk like a kid who had just consumed too much sugar when they found a vacant room. It was small but it was comfy.

"Uh huh, well you'll have to keep climbing up and down in the mornings while I can just fall into bed," smirked Draco.

"Whatever, you're still jealous," came a voice above Draco somewhere.

The two of them lay on their soft mattresses, savouring the luxury in silence until Draco asked, "who did you go out with again? I wasn't listening properly."

"Oh," came Harry's hesitant voice, "I went out with Ginny in my sixth year. I don't know if you can remember."

Draco's throat went dry.

"I broke up with her later on, we both loved each other but the feeling was more of mutual friendship, plus I realized how much of a sister she was to me, and how selfish I was by keeping her to myself," continued Harry. He gave Draco some time to let it all sink in.

'Ginny went out with Harry. Harry must have kissed Ginny. Harry must have touched Ginny at some point,' lots of thoughts like that were running through Draco's mind. He was pissed off at Harry and felt extremely protective of Ginny.

"Draco," came Harry's voice softly, "that was years ago. I know you love her. I knew you would love her and I want you to personally know that I'm going to be thrilled when you guys get together."

More silence. Harry knew Draco would take some time trying to think through the revelation, but he would come through when he was ready. So Harry decided to take the silence as a chance to get some proper shut-eye, something he hasn't had in six months.

I think about your face

And how I fall into your eyes

The outline that I trace

Around the one that I call mine

A time that called for space

Unclear where you drew the line

I don't need to solve this case

And I don't need to look behind

Colin dashed through the entrance of the safe-house, swearing under his breath with his partner Felicity.

"You okay?" muttered Colin, catching his breath.

"Yeah, could be better but thankfully not worse," replied Felicity, also catching her breath. "Hey Colin, you'll be okay on your own for a bit right? I just really need some time to myself," she continued, while stretching out her muscles.

"Of course, I'll just sign our name up," said Colin, jerking his thumb towards Manny who was asleep on a chair, her clipboard was threatening to slide out of her limp fingers.

With that Felicity left by herself and Colin woke up Manny and signed both his and Felicity's name. Noticing Ginny's name on the list, he asked Manny where she was. Manny only sighed and told him she was in the Infirmary, sleeping.

With that, Colin strode to the direction of the Infirmary and quickly sought out Ginny's deep and vibrant red hair. When he got to her bed he noticed the bottle of skele-gro and Ginny's newly healed wound.

'Oh Merlin, I hope you're okay,' thought Colin, pulling up a chair and settling onto it. Soon his chin nodded down onto his chest and he dreamed of Ginny's hair disappearing around places, objects, about the sneering Dark Lord and his parent's screams, their last breath.

The clock on the Infirmary wall said 5 o'clock PM when Ginny opened her eyes. Her shoulder was aching a bit but the pain was definitely bearable.

"Draco," came the single name from Ginny's lips. Tensing her stomach muscles, Ginny pulled herself up and rubbed her face with her hands. She kept reminding herself she was in the Infirmary, and that she was safe. She hadn't yet noticed Colin and when he moaned in his sleep Ginny nearly jumped a foot into the air and cricked her neck from the speed she turned it.

"No, leave them alone, NO TAKE ME!" screamed Colin. "STUPEFY, STUPEFY, OH STOP IT! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" screamed Colin some more. This time he was flailing his arms around wildly, his fist just missing Ginny's nose by a few millimeters.

Ginny quickly swept her legs over the bed, groaning as she did so and grabbed Colin's forearms. "Colin, Colin, wake up, wake up! It's me Ginny, you wake up, he's not here, wake up it's a bad dream," came Ginny's soft but commanding voice, immediately calming down Colin.

His left eye cracked open a bit, and then his right. Ginny couldn't help but find this extremely adorable.

"Ginny? Is that you?" asked Colin groggily.

"Yeah, yeah it's me! Are you okay? Was it, was it about your parents?" said Ginny.

Colin only sighed. Ginny knew the answer to her own question. Instead she asked "how long have you been here?"

"Oh, an hour or so, I've missed you so much!" said Colin suddenly, on a much brighter note.

"Me too!" said Ginny, straightening up to hug her best friend properly.

After a long conversation about what the two of them had been doing the two decided to go get some food. One thing was bothering Ginny though. She couldn't seem to tell her best friend of eleven years about Draco. She kept trying to, whenever Draco's name was mentioned but it was like all the warning signs in her body were telling her! No! Don't! It's a bad decision! Over the years, Ginny trusted her warning signs.

After consulting Manny, they discovered the dining mess was near all the lecture halls, they couldn't miss it because it was so big. And so the two friends went, muttering about what they had just been through.

Draco silently mulled over what Harry had said. He was pissed off that he went out with Ginny, but realized Harry didn't belong to her, and she didn't belong to him. Draco never felt so, complete, and wholesome with anyone before. He was determined to make Ginny his, and being pissed off with Harry, who was innocent would not help.

A few moments later, Draco looked at his watch and noticed it was 5:15 pm, deciding he needed Harry to talk to, and he was hungry, he twanged Harry on the ear to wake him up.

"Dinner, in the mess hall."

"Urgahgh.."

"Sorry, didn't quite catch that," laughed Draco. Harry only smiled to himself, Draco getting over what he just told him didn't actually take that long. Maybe the young lad was finally growing up.

"Yeah, let's go."

And with that, the two men strode out of their little dorm and into the brightly torch lit corridors that snaked through the safe-house.

"Hey Harry," murmured Draco as he rounded a corner, "what was it like, you know, with Ginny?

"The best relationship I've ever had. Considering I've only had three," replied Harry softly. For the next few moments Draco wondered about this new information, until, speak of the devil his eyes fell onto Ginny. She was seated in the dining mess pointing at General Hot-Diggity who had just arrived at the mess, looking very disheveled.

Draco's heart started pounding very hard. It was like the old situations. Just him and Harry, Ginny across the room looking as beautiful as always, with her best friend Colin. How free she looked, from all the shit that seemed to be splattered over Draco's life.

He observed her listening to Colin, and then she turned around to the entrance way where he and Harry were standing. As Ginny's eyes met his, Draco's heart seemed to stop. The whole world seemed to stop, the whole world seemed to fade away and it was only Ginny and him.

Only Ginny and him until Harry's voice interrupted. "Oi Draco, check out Diggity, he's pulling potatoes out of his pocket!" He obviously hadn't noticed Ginny yet. But, this news was quite random and Draco couldn't help but look up at their General, who was indeed pulling out a lot of potatoes from his pocket.

(A/N I LOVE RANDOM SHIT! (LIKE THIS!))!))) (Okay back to the love story.)

"Ginny, Ginny? Helloooo, are you listening?" came the voice of Colin, but to Ginny, it sounded extremely distant. Colin had just told her Harry had walked in, so when she turned around to wave her eyes settled on Draco's now familiar blue and grey ones. Her breath caught, and the sight of him suddenly brought back all those memories of nights huddled in a tent trying to keep quiet while surrounded by Merlin knows what. The way he subtly opened up to her, how he told her stories of his childhood. Some funny, though most sad. All touched her heart in some way.

"Ginny! Look, Hot-Diggity is pulling potatoes from his pockets!" with that Ginny jerked back to reality. She definitely needed to tell her best friend about Draco. She twisted her neck around to the front of the hall to watch the General indeed pull out mounds of potatoes from his pockets. Listening to Colin chuckle with laughter, she smiled at his amazing ability to find the simplest things extremely amusing.

Ginny sighed and picked at her food. She had fallen, bad. Draco, Draco Malfoy was all she could think about. Ginny Malfoy. Ginerva Jessica Malfoy. She had even tried out her full name! Mentally, she slapped herself for getting so far ahead of herself. Goodness sakes, he had only kissed her on the cheek. Didn't really mean anything. Right? Merlin, Ginny hoped it did.

Colin's suddenly serious voice caught Ginny's attention.

"There's something you need to tell me. I can tell, by the way you look so dreamy."

Ginny only gasped.

"I'm willing to understand it's something big, and you're afraid of telling me because it's rather, unusual, you could say."

Ginny could only try to get her voice box sounding while she continued to look like a gaping fish.

"But it couldn't be as bad as lets say, you hooking up with Malfoy over there," finished Colin, poking his fork in the direction of Draco, who was heading towards the food tables on the other side of the hall. Ginny balked.

It was now or never, thought Ginny. "Colin, it's bad. You're going to be really, really upset with me."

Colin only shook his head and gave Ginny a warm smile while he reached out to hold Ginny's hand. "It's going to be fine, Gin, you know you can always tell me everything."

Ginny decided it was time to tell him. "I'minlovewithMalfoy," she blurted.

Colin only leant his head in and said intelligently, "huh, whazzat?"

"I'm in love with Draco Malfoy."

Silence, only broken by a pile of potatoes falling off a table and General Hot-Diggity trying to stop them.

Ginny thought Colin would understand, but since he wasn't saying anything she knew he was angry. She just couldn't bring herself to look at him, instead she looked at the drying gravy in the corner of her plate.

Finally, Colin said "how did this happen? This is Malfoy!"

"Oh Colin! You think I haven't thought that ever since I've realized? Please, you've got to understand, I just can't help it," said Ginny, tears beginning to form. She just couldn't bare having Colin angry at her.

"I've got to think about it," muttered Colin, eyeing Harry and Draco sitting down a few tables away. "I'll see you around, dorm 36." Then he left. Ginny wasn't angry at him though, she understood how shocked and angry he must be. Tears silently leaked from her eyes and rolled down her cheek.

Shit. Why did things have to be so complicated?

"Draco, look there's Gin, and she's alone," said Harry after they had settled down at a table.

Draco knew this already. He had been sneaking glances at her throughout the whole time they were in the dining mess.

"Why don't you go over to see her?" suggested Harry, tucking into his dinner.

"Yeah, I think I will. But what will you do? Without me, you're a complete loner," joked Draco, flicking a piece of pasta at Harry.

Harry simply opened his mouth and caught the pasta. "I'll go talk to Amanda."

Draco nodded, picked up his dinner tray and walked briskly over to Ginny. As he neared her, Draco noticed she was sitting unusually still. He slid into the chair in front of her and murmured "hey Ginny."

Slowly, Ginny's head raised and Draco was shocked to see the tears cascading from her eyes.

"Ginny, what's the matter?"

"Nothing," she replied. Wiping tears away from her eyes.

"C'mon, I've seen you get stabbed in the leg and you not even bat an eyelash. Please, tell me what's wrong?" pressed on Draco concernedly.

Ginny couldn't help but cry even more. Why did he care so much?

"Draco, I love you," she blurted out, dissolving into even more tears. Draco only sat there stunned, she loved him too! Suddenly he felt like dancing on the table top singing at the top of his voice, but he refrained.

Still a bit breathless, Draco said "Ginny, I love you too!"

Now the tears started to subside a bit, and Ginny calmed down. She stared straight at Draco's face and before she knew it, they were kissing.

How can you see into my eyes like open doors

Leading you down into my core

Where I've become so numb

Without a soul

My spirit's sleeping somewhere cold

Until you find it there and lead it back home

Hey, another chapter. Isn't it sweet? I think potatoes will be on the menu. .' Okay, lyrics near the top of this chapter are from the song Echo by Trapt. The lyrics at the end of this chapter are from the song Bring Me To Life by Evanescence. Review ;)