Hello to the three people that are reading this! How are you? I know the last chapter was disgustingly short, but I can't write the whole story in one chapter. I have to make it suspenseful… anyway, here's the next one. Dig in.

After the frightening scene in the great hall on Monday, things went back to normal and ran surprisingly smoothly. Normal, of course, meaning that Draco and Ginny were still pretending to be together and everyone was buying it. It was kind of sad on their part, actually.

On Friday, as Ginny was walking to Herbology after lunch, she saw Draco up ahead. And Snape. Snape was giving Draco an embarrassingly stern lecture over something having to do with "respecting the Slytherin house" and making Draco look stupid.

When Draco caught sight of Ginny, he threw her a pleading look. Ginny was caught off guard. Since when did he send her pleading looks? She didn't know what she should do anyway, seeing as Snape would not pass up the opportunity to write her up for interrupting his lecture.

Ginny compromised by slowing her pace of walking to stall for time and waiting to see what would happen.

Just as she was passing the pair, she heard Snape finish his monologue with "And don't make me feel the need to come talk to you again!"

Then he stormed down the hallway toward the dungeons. Draco rushed up to Ginny.

"I need to talk to you," he said. There was an unfamiliar urgency in his voice and in his eyes.

"What? What is it?" Ginny asked.

"Well—"

Just then, they heard a shriek from down the hallway and they broke eye contact to look. The shriek had come from Valentine. She had shrieked because she was against a wall and there was a wand pointed at her throat. The wand belonged to Hermione. Ron was standing behind her, looking about ready to explode.

There was a moment in which nobody knew what to do, then Draco ran toward the pair. Ginny stood at a loss for what to do. Draco intended to disarm Hermione, but because she was unaware of the attacker, she was knocked off of her feet. Ron, Hermione, and Valentine all looked at Draco, completely surprised. Ron's surprise flared into anger as he picked up Hermione and Draco hurried over to comfort Valentine.

Ginny took a hesitant step toward the foursome, but she didn't know whether to stop Ron from killing Draco or help him kill Draco. She slowly kept on walking as the scene became more and more intensified by lack of action. Finally, Ron drew his wand and advanced on Draco, who didn't see him, as he was too busy cradling Valentine.

Ginny knew that Ron was angry enough to attack Draco while he was unarmed and he had taken aim when she lost control of her body and it threw itself in front of Draco.

At first, Ron paused and kept staring daggers at a point on Ginny's forehead where Draco's heart had once been, then he slowly brought his gaze down to meet Ginny's.

"What are you doing?" he said slowly, without lowering his wand.

Ginny had no idea what she was doing.

"I'm keeping you from doing something stupid, you idiot." Someone said, using Ginny's voice to say it.

Ron slowly lowered his wand. The look he gave Ginny was the saddest thing she had ever seen. He was hurt.

"Since when did you stop your brother from giving some Slytherin git what he deserves?" Ron spat.

"Since it saved your ass to do so," Ginny responded, softening her voice.

"Well, I'd love to witness this entire heartwarming conversation, but I really must be on my way," Draco sneered, Valentine hanging off his right side like some kind of hip and happening accessory. Valentine gave Ginny a hearty smirk, then snuggled against Draco's arm.

They waltzed away entangled in each other.

Ron threw Ginny one last pained look, then put his arm around Hermione and walked away in the opposite direction.

"Some bet," Hermione said over her shoulder.

After Herbology, Ginny remembered that Draco had initially pulled her aside to tell her something. After her last class, she thought about going to find him and ask him about it, but she didn't know where he would be, so she decided she should drop her stuff off before going off to look for him.

After doing this, she headed for the library. She sometimes saw him in there, sitting by himself and looking at a book but not actually reading it.

A few staircases below Gryffindor tower, she entered the library but she didn't see Draco. He wasn't hiding in any of the tables at the back either.

She had no idea where else to look. She rarely saw him outside of class time except in passing and didn't know where normal Slytherin boys hung out after classes. She thought she might as well take a look outside. Maybe he was sitting by the lake or under a tree somewhere.

After many scans of the grounds, she decided he must be holed up in his room, but as she was walking back up to the castle, she thought she saw someone standing at the lake's shore a few hundred yards away. Even if it wasn't Draco, she wondered who had wandered so far from the castle.

She began walking toward the person, and it indeed turned out to be the blonde Slytherin we all love so much. He didn't seem to notice Ginny coming. She walked right up to him and stood in front of him, looking up at his face. He still didn't seem to notice her. He was staring at some distant point above her head. She waved her arms in front of his face and he blinked, but he didn't break eye contact with whatever it was that he was looking at.

"Draco!" she called to his blank face.

He blinked again and looked down, surprised to see Ginny standing right in front of him.

"Oh, hullo," he said blankly, "How long have you been here?"

"Just a couple of minutes. What were you so intently staring at?" She asked, turning around to look for something worth looking at that wasn't just the endless trees and mountains.

"Nothing in particular," Draco shrugged.

He rested his head on top of Ginny's and they stared out into nothing for a minute. Then Ginny spontaneously became aware that she could smell Draco's cologne. She closed her eyes and breathed it in. It was lovely. It smelled like seventeen-year-old boy.

At the same time, Draco spontaneously became aware that he could smell Ginny's shampoo. It was lovely. It smelled like flowers after the thunderstorm. He closed his eyes.

Ginny suddenly felt like she was made of something soft and shimmery and could feel herself leaning back…

Draco put his arms around Ginny as she leaned back into him and buried his face in her hair, taking in the smell. The smell of both girl and woman at the same time.

Both Ginny and Draco's heartbeats quickened and Ginny turned around in his arms and their lips met. Ginny's hands came out of her pockets where they had been hiding from the cold and slid their way up Draco's body to his hair and Draco pulled her closer to him and then…

They were both so wrapped up that neither of them realized that Ginny was leaning her full weight on Draco and he suddenly lost balance and fell back with Ginny on top of him.

Their eyes snapped open during the sudden change of altitude and the magical strands of desire where severed.

Ginny quickly rolled off of Draco and stood up.

"Sorry," she said, "I've pushed you over."

She held out her hand and pulled him up. He muttered something sounded similar to 'no problem'.

They both pretended that nothing had happened and took up the staring at the mountains across the lake again.

After several minutes of both of them waiting for the other to say something, they said in unison, "Well," and stopped when they heard that the other had spoken as well.

"Go ahead," Draco resigned.

"Hum… well, it's late, so I'd better get back…" Ginny said awkwardly.

"Yeah," was all Draco said as Ginny turned and walked away.

Ginny stopped after a few steps and turned back to Draco.

"Oh, I came out here to ask you what you were going to tell me earlier." She remembered.

"Oh, that was nothing," Draco said dismissively.

Ginny was taken aback, but was also slightly glad that she didn't have to stick around any longer.

As soon as she was back inside the castle, she let out a huge sigh. What was that whole thing all about? Why had Draco's cologne disarmed her like that? And, most of all, why did Draco kiss her? Where did all these random affectionate feelings come from? Was this why she stopped Ron from hurting Draco earlier?

Ginny had no idea what was going on with her.

Draco had no idea what was wrong with him. There was a glitch somewhere in his perfect Slytherin mind, and (he told himself) he was too lazy to track it down and fix it.

Kay, so you finally got some fluff, mmmm? Since you love me for delivering the fluff, maybe you should review… because a little birdie told me that there MIGHT be some fluff in the next chapter…