A/N: Hola all! Thanks for reading as usual. Thank you Swimfan, and iLuvHawkeye.

His tired eyes slowly opened and his stream of consciousness resumed again. His room was kept dark, no natural light was allowed in. He had black velvet curtains and midnight blue walls. His carpet was black fur. He had a luxurious bed made out of the finest mahogany wood available. Of course snakes were engraved into the bed posts. He lifted his goose feather blanket off to the floor. He practically slid out of the black satin sheets. He was mumbling something about how bloody early it was. Then he realized that the way he sleeps it wouldn't have matter how early or late it was. From there he mumbled about how he hated correcting himself. "It's all father's fault."

Ever since a little child Draco had been groomed to be perfect, and of course he was, in his eyes anyway. But it took some serious mental scarring to get there. As a little kid he never could say, 'ain't' or 'havta' or that sort of thing. It was always proper grammar, proper vocabulary, proper this, that and the other thing. Now, as a young adult, he hated proper. He still acted proper because Merlin forbid someone should find him out. Perhaps that is why he liked the littlest Weasely so much. She wasn't proper at all. She could speak correctly but she didn't own proper clothing, she didn't eat proper food, nor did she come from a proper family.

He liked to think that he wasn't that shallow, to just like someone for being anti-proper. But he liked her for other reasons as well. There was nothing to complain about when it came to her physique, it was almost as perfect as his, almost. Her hair, as had been admiring the day before, was of outstanding quality. It was smooth and silky but not thin, and the color was just like fire. Then her eyes, he originally assumed them to be brown like her brothers, but no. They were hazel and had green specks dotting around the pupil. And then he thought of her lovely skin, sure it was freckled but in a sexy sort of way.

Realizing how much time he had just spent thinking about her surprised him. He didn't think of anything or anyone for any lengthy period. Indeed the thought surprised but it didn't scare him. He would only be scared if he loved her, which he didn't. Not to say that she wasn't worthy of love and more importantly of his love. Draco was guarded and at this point hollow and devoid of almost all feelings.

There was one feeling that he knew very well. One that he could never outrun or outdo. It haunted his thoughts, his words, and his sleep. To say that emotion was hate would be incorrect. Because, though he didn't know it or didn't want to admit it, it was a hate that was etched with fear. He hated his father but he feared him as well. His father was a representation of what Draco could become. He was frightful of that fact. Nothing else of his father scared him. Or at least at this time nothing else did.

Having showered and completing his other mandatory bathroom tasks, Draco went to celebrate Christmas. And by that he meant he was going to read the letter he mother may have sent and eat his breakfast. Because his father had sent away the house elves anytime that Draco was present, he had to make his own breakfast. It was small, plain eggs and a glass of water. He looked around the room to see if his mother did send him a note. "Skunked again," he stated sitting back down on the hard wood chair. This was the third year in a row that his mother had forgotten to acknowledge that Draco existed at all. (She had left the house 5 years ago.) It was probably better that she forgot him; he didn't want to be remembered anyway. Just as that depressing thought struck him a letter came fluttering down to the table. Draco snapped his head up to look out the window opposite him and there he saw an owl flying off in the distance. (He suspecting it was either stupid or drunk by its flying pattern).

His name was written neatly on the front in a handwriting he didn't recognize. Curiosity got the best of him as he leaned over the table for the letter. He opened it carefully.

Draco,

I never did get around to sincerely wishing you a Happy Christmas. I hope that Break has gotten a little less boring for you. If it makes you feel any better mine isn't all that exciting either. (Except for my encounter with you, wink) Anyway, I just thought you'd liked to be remembered. See you soon!

Ginerva

Draco decided it was nice to be remembered.

"Ginny!" Ron shouted up to his sister.

She was in her room, music blasting, trying to complete her homework. "Yeah!"

"Where's my owl!"

"I sent a letter to Tara!" she shouted back to her brother as a smile appeared on her face.

"Okay!" Knowing that Tara lived far away, Ron understood why he hadn't seen the little guy since Christmas. That and he knew that he probably got lost and then had to figure out where he was.

Ginny had gotten an owl of her own but it met with an unfortunate end thanks for Fred and George. Looking back, it was actually pretty funny. Ginny used her innate skill for bullshitting to complete her homework. She was done within 3 hours. When finished she realized that she had the whole rest of the day to herself. She couldn't find anything better to do than to pack up her clothes and books and such. She was going back to school tomorrow. Luckily, her parents bought her a new (new as in used) trunk. It locked and everything, Ginny was very excited. Ron got her nice hairclips. And Harry got her a red and gold tie for school. She laughed realizing that he was mocking the practicality of socks she bought him.

When she was done with the trunk she heard something pecking at the window. She turned expecting to see Ron's genius of an owl but saw quite a different one. It proved to be a complete contrast to Ron's actually. She opened the window and the owl dropped the letter into her hand and flew off. The envelope was green, "Oh, I wonder," she said sarcastically. She opened it and read the letter (which was written in perfect handwriting it seemed.)

I was surprised by your letter but it was appreciated. Indeed, things are still boring here but I shall see you on train. Perhaps we will have another encounter (wink). Before we can enjoy ourselves I need to talk to you. I shall elaborate further when I see you which, by the time this reaches you, will be tomorrow. See you shortly…

Draco

Short and intriguing! "What does he need to talk about," she wondered aloud. Just as the words left her mouth someone knocked on her door. She threw the letter somewhere behind her and hurriedly said, "Come in."

The door slowly opened and then, once it had reached at certain point, it flung open. Harry stood there wearing a shirt that was faded orange, jeans, and the ratty black shoes. Due to the weather his hair was particularly wild today and his face was red. "Good, I didn't want to disturb you if you were studying or something." He walked further into the room.

Ginny gave him a quizzical look, "You were worried about me studying?" She put her arms across her chest and shifted her weight to one leg.

"Stranger things have happened," he stated shrugging his shoulders.

She just shook her head. "Were you outside?"

"Yeah, me and Ron were practicing." He fell down onto her bed feigning exhaustion.

"In this weather?" Harry nodded. "Boys are silly."

"This room is really cool. How did you make the walls change color?"

"Percy did it. It changes according to my mood," Ginny said proudly.

"Brilliant." Harry leaned over, half his body off the bed digging through a pile of stuff that he must've found interesting for one reason or another. He was acting like her brothers, it was odd but it was easier. Ginny plopped down at the other end of her bed, where Mary had slept a couple of nights ago. Mary was supposed to stay until the end of Break but something had come up at her house and she left the day after she had arrived. It sucked, Ginny dealt with it.

"What are you doing?" Ginny lied down and stared up at the ceiling which was acting funny again.

"I dunno." Harry kept digging.

"If tell you to stop, will you?" She turned her head towards him.

He looked up from his work and then shook his head, "no," and continued.

She sighed. Boys are stupid, she thought. Her thoughts were interrupted.

"Oh! Well looky here!" Harry jolted up from the bed with a piece of parchment in his hand. Ginny's eyes bugged out of her head when she realized what he had. She, too, rose from the bed and tried to grab it from his grip.

"Give that back Harry!"

"Aw, you're adorable when you're angry," he said in a high pitch voice mocking her.

"That's what they all say, until I should inflict pain upon them." Andthen she dove at him.

Harry was taken aback and nearly fell on his ass by Ginny's intense tackle. "Calm down! It's just a bloody letter! Ow!" She had scratched him! Who scratches people these days? Really? Ginny took back the letter while Harry lamented over his slightly bleeding wrist.

"I barely touched you," she replied and walked over to her desk to put the letter away. "Besides it was my letter."

"But you scratched me!"

"Get over it, you baby."

Tomorrow would be long day. He could feel it. He rolled over to his right side and faced the wall. The wall annoyed him somehow so he turned to his left which faced the door. The light in the hallway was on so it gleamed through the frame of the doorframe. It looked like some freaky portal and for some reason he couldn't look away from it. While looking at it he remembered what was behind that door. It was something that had been happily haunting his thoughts and dreams. He took some sort of sick solace in the facts of the situation. It was something to distract him from the depressing thoughts of normality.

He couldn't figure himself out. Everything was different and he couldn't place how or why it was. He could barely tie his shoes without hesitating to remember which string to loop first. Something was not right in his mind; he felt that maybe someone had slipped him something. He also felt he was getting more paranoid by the day. He probably was. Concluding his thoughts on that note his eyes slowly closed but the image of the door was burned into his mind. He couldn't escape the confusion even in his sleep! It would be a long day…

"GET UP BUTT FACE!"

Ron jolted up at the insult knowing immediately who screamed it out. He grabbed pants, shirt, and shoes but forgot socks. Due to his lateness he decided to grab some out his trunk while on the train. "I'M COMING!"

He scrambled down the stairs with his suit case levitating close behind. His mom and dad, Ginny and Harry were waiting at the car all with the same look: it was something like agitation mixed with exhaustion. "Well, what are you all waiting for?"

"Arg," Ginny groaned moodily and got into the car. Harry went in after her.

"What? What did I do?" Ron asked Harry.

"Let it go, mate."

So they drove to platform 9 ¾ in silence. It was a slushy, all around yucky day. Ginny didn't care though; she was going to find out what Draco had to talk about. Yay! When they finally arrived at the station Molly and Arthur said goodbye to all them (they figured they'd let them run to get their train by themselves). Ginny grabbed a cart and threw her trunk in. Harry and Ron both followed after her. They had a weird look in their eyes. For a minute Harry was walking faster than Ron so he sped up, then Ron was faster than Ginny so she sped up. This went out for a couple of minutes until an all out race broke out in the middle of the crowded train station. The three of them were whizzing past all kinds of people, adults, kids and the like. After a while the station cops were shouting at them to slow down, and then they called for them to stop completely. Soon after the cops were chasing after Ron, Harry and Ginny. Normally people would stop but not these three daredevils. Ron pushed the limit by taunting them.

"Had too many doughnuts today, eh?" he shouted back at them.

"You best be stopping boy!" the portly man called out, his face red, his voice enraged.

"Fat chance!"

They all dove at the column and came through to the other side leaving behind very confused, disappointed cops. They all walked serenely as if nothing had happened. Ron, Harry and Ginny fell in step with each other and they exchanged looks of a faux pompous nature, then they broke out in laughter. They weren't that late and so they found a compartment for themselves. Though, Ginny wasn't planning on staying long. Ron made up some malarkey excuse and left. He was really going to make out with Mary. Why didn't he realize that everyone knew they weren't an innocent couple?

"I wonder if Tara ever got my letter." Ginny questioned aloud.

Harry looked over at her, "I didn't know you sent her one."

"I'm going to find her." Ginny got up but Harry grabbed her arm.

"You're really going to leave me to my own devices?"

"Yes."

Realizing he wouldn't win that way he put on a cute puppy dog look. And damn him because he could pull it off really well. "Please."

Internally Ginny was thinking, "aww!" but on the outside she rolled her eyes and sat down. "Fine. So what now?"

"What?"

"I'm bored."

"It hasn't even been 2 minutes!"

"Short attention span." She shrugged her shoulders.

"Clearly."

Ginny responded by smacking his shoulder. She sat in silence, staring out the window. She watched as objects that were out of focus enter and leave her sight. The snowy slush that was falling looked like raindrops on the window. She became bored with the window and looked at the door. It was then that she noticed a person walk past her compartment. A couple of minutes later the same person walked past again. She knew who it was.

"Look Harry I really need to talk to her." Ginny got up and before he could protest she was out the door. He may have a cute puppy look but she was fast. Outside the door was Draco who was silently waiting down the hall. She smiled at him and for some reason a feeling overwhelmed her. She was a sort of happy but the happiness was marred by fear. Why was scared? He was gracefully approaching her and she was mimicking him. They met and softly kissed. Ginny broke it off far too early but she remembered that they were in the open. He understood, took her hand, and led her down the corridor to his compartment. As soon as the door had softly clicked closed he grabbed her and kissed her passionately. Upon her release she commented, "To think it hasn't even been a week!" He laughed.

"Hello," he said smoothly.

"Hi." She sat down across from him in almost a business sort of way. "So what was it you needed to speak with me about?"

Draco situated himself on the cushion of the compartment and looked straight into her eyes. "I need to ask you something."

"Go ahead," she replied excitedly.

"I need to ask you to keep our 'encounters,' as you like to call it, secret. In public, as in school, you must act as you usually would." His voice seemed somewhat detached, as if he was merely reading a script.

"Not that I had any drive to put our relationship on a billboard, but why?" Her brown eyes were curious and a little saddened. She knew she had to keep everything secret, but it hurt to hear it said aloud.

He took in a breath. "I am working for the Ministry on a temporary basis. I am helping to track my father and his Death Eater idiots. If anyone tipped him off about us then he would know that something was not right. We'd loose everything," he said in a hushed, heated voice.

"How?" She asked in a whisper as the gravity of the information sunk in. To tell the truth she was a little surprised the he was working for the ministry but she felt it better to not say so aloud.

"He would find out. About this, about us, about everything. Father always had a way of finding out," he added darkly.

Ginny was nervous that this would turn into another Tom Riddle fiasco. This sort of seriousness was like listening to nails on a chalkboard. Some part of her wanted her to break it off with Draco and run away from that cabin to never deal with him again. She didn't want any lime light, she didn't want adventure and she most certainly didn't want to be muddling in anything dangerous. However, she had learned from the best how to hide emotions.

Her quietness gave her away. "Are you alright?" He knew her answer already.

"Fine." She straightened her self and gave him a reassuring smile. Just as the words left her lips the train came to an extremely hard stop. She was thrown forward and her skull made severe contact with the blunt front of the cushion opposite her.

Draco's first thought: shit! The second: double shit! The third through fiftieth resembled these two as well. It took him a considerable amount of time to control his emotions and once that was achieved he could finally think clearly enough to come up with coherent thoughts that didn't involve (too much) cursing. He had knelt down next to Ginny to find her unconscious.

The stop threw him as well but he caught himself by grabbing on to the bars that kept the luggage from falling out of the overhead cubby. She was lying face down and looking at her was difficult. She seemed such a pitiful sight like this. Again, he was loosing control of himself. He pushed down his panic and inspected her. She was fortunate that nothing had broken. However, a large bruise marred her face. He sat back a minute wondering what to do. He didn't carry smelling salts with him on a usual basis and he really didn't think throwing water on her would help any. He figured all he could do was wait. But waiting posed a serious threat. What if she was still unconscious when the train arrives at school? How would he carry her out without anyone noticing? He wasn't about to leave her there either.

"Damn it." He picked her up and left the compartment.

Harry had been asleep. He was lying on the left cushion until the train stopped and he was thrown to the right one. He was very lucky because hitting thecushions wasn't terriblybad.But he was mostly annoyed because he had been sleeping well. Another annoyance followed when he heard a brusque knock on the door. He thought it was Ron. Shaking his head he opened the door, "Ron I kno-," and then he stopped. He wasn't talking to Ron. "What are you doing here?" Then he noticed what he was holding, "What happened!"

Draco walked into the compartment and explainedthe situationto Harry in a hurried manner. Harry couldn't help but have his doubts about the story. They both put Ginny down on a cushion. "Oy! That is a big bloody bruise."

"I know," Draco said almost defensively. "She'll probably be out for a while. That is why I brought her here."

"What was she doing with you anyway?" Harry kept his eyes of Ginny face. He could feel the look that Draco was giving him now. "Never mind." There was a silence and then Harry finally put two and two together (naps made him sluggish). "Did you tell her?"

"Yes."

"Everything?"

"No."

"When will you do that?" Harry asked in alightly complaining tone.

"The parts I didn't disclose aren't my responsibility to tell. She will be told soon, though." Draco had to get back before people started to move about. "You can handle this, right?" He asked on his way out.

"Yeah," Harry said in a low voice staring down at her, still amazed by Ginny's bruise.

Harry was glad Ron wasn't here to see his sister. He would kill someone. Harry didn't know any healing charms that could apply to the current situation. So, he sat on the opposite cushion and looked dumbly out the window. The train was still stopped. Many students were out of the compartments now, asking everyone what was going on. No one knew. Harry didn't care to know. What difference would it make for him to know why they were stopped? He noticed that as the years went by, the less curiosity he had. He was ripped from his thoughts when he heard a groan. Ginny had come to.

"Oh dear Merlin! What in the hell happened? My head is pounding!" She grabbed her head and felt the lump.

"You hit yourself pretty hard."

That wasn't Draco. "Harry?" See leaned up and opened her eyes. "Why, err, how did I get here?" She said in a breathy voice.

"Malfoy didn't know how long you were going to be out, he said something about how it would be better for you if you woke up here in case you were still unconscious when we arrived," he lied but only partly. The basic idea was true. "Due to your bruise I'll save the question of why you were with Malfoy for a different time." Again, a lie.

She tried to sit up but got dizzy and fell back. "Whoa."

Harry got up immediately and propped her up with a pillow. "You should stay lying down. Judging by that beauty, I'd say you have a concussion. Trust me, movement makes it worse."

"Damn. Isn't a concussion when you have to stay awake and all that?"

"Yeah," he answered knowing how crappy she was feeling now.

"Brilliant." She sat back down with a pout. Harry told her that they were still stopped and that he didn't know what was going on. In efforts to keep her awake they started talking. It was a boring conversation. Not at all like the one she had before. She wished she could've said goodbye to Draco in a proper way. School was going to suck, she would have to deal with it.

"You're fine dear," Madame Pomfrey said warmly. "You can go back to your room."

"Thanks, Good night!" Ginny left the infirmary. As soon as she arrived she went to the infirmary to make sure she didn't have a concussion or anything. Pomfrey got the swelling down but her upper forehead was still discolored.

It turns out that the train came to a crashing halt because the conductor had slipped on water (some suspect less innocent drinks were involved) and on his way down he grabbed hold of a level so he wouldn't break his ass. He didn't but the lever he pulled was the emergency break. It would have been a more comical story had she not been hurt and others like her.

They train arrived2 hours late but Ginny didn't care. School was never something she was rushing back to. It was pretty late but no teachers were out patrolling, or so she saw. Good, because if she had another detention with Snape she just might knock herself out. She was walking in a lazy pattern until she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"Miss Weasely. I'm sorry about your fall."

She turned to see Professor Dumbledore standing behind her. This was strange. "Good evening Professor."

"I understand it's a little late but would you please come with me?" He didn't wait for her answer and began to walk down the opposite end of the corridor.

He led her to his office where he whispered a pass code and the stairs were revealed. It was a pretty awesome sight. They walked up and entered. It was a magnificent room with tons of do dads and gadgets assorted about his desk and mantle. She also saw all the old Headmasters, they were asleep (some were very loud about it too). But no sight was as unexpected as that of Draco's. He was sitting in one of the three brown leather chairs located on the opposite side of Dumbledore's desk. She looked down at him in wonder. "What's this all about Professor?"

"You should sit," Draco stated.

A/N: Sorry for the lateness but I warned. My internet was broken for a week after my tests and then I got all caught up in school (I know: excuses!) Anyway, who say Star Wars Episode 3! I did! IT ROCKED. You must see it. Review please.