Disclaimer - Same old. Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling

A/N - Ummmm, chapter two. I quite like this one. The ending is a litte fubbed but still. It's what you get when you write it at night, after hours of revision. Slightly more violence, slightly less swearing. Slightly. looks around. Still M

Ginny studied the figure in front of her carefully as she concentrated on her breathing. A car flew past on the deserted road, and she knew the nearest person more miles – Muggle or other – had just disappeared around the corner very rather noisily.

"Who the hell are you?" she demanded.

A pause. "Who the hell do you think?"

She swallowed. There was blood trickling down his forehead, making tracks over his eyebrows and falling into and into his eye. She seemed to be the only one who noticed though. Unshakable, his wand remained pointed roughly above her heart. He looked back at her blankly and she searched his face, scanning his features for something she could recognise. But it was so dark – the pinkish yellow glow of the recently lit streetlight barely reached this part of the field. The clouds rolled above silently, like benign purple blankets.

His hood was down, and his mask nowhere to be seen. Ginny was slightly unnerved to see him so… unguarded. A shock of light hair but the rest of his face was in shade, the intensity of darkness only varying where the blood crawled down his face.

She could feel him studying her and she rearranged the grip on her wand.

Whoever he was, he licked his lips before speaking, moving his head to the side. "It looks like we have a slight problem here."

Maybe it was the intensity of the situation, but all Ginny Weasley wanted to do then was laugh hysterically. Instead, she answered, "Yeah, you and you're friends are trying to kill me. That safely enters my dictionary of problems."

A slight smirk appeared on his face, illuminating some of his cheek in the ghostly light. "Oh excellent. A comedian."

Her wand was feeling decidedly sticky. A trickle of cold sweat meandered down the small of her back as she quickly did some maths in her head… the person pursuing her up in the sky couldn't have been the person standing in front of her now. Ginny didn't know why she thought this – perhaps it was because he was standing tall and without various bits of debris in his clothes and hair. Unlike herself, she suspected. So that meant there were at least two Deatheaters wandering around this little, empty, exposed field… and she thought she saw at two or three up in the air…

Oh holy mother of Merlin…

This delicate stalemate, what little chance she had of getting out of this alive was slowly beginning to dry up…

Her face must have also slipped out of concentration for a second, and he moved his foot slightly, snapping a reaction out her.

"Don't move," she whispered, moving her wand up to his eye level. "Were are your friends now?"

He seemed to have no answer to this, and his only response was to stand up a little taller.

She smirked.

"Isn't that interesting. The way I see it, you son of a bitch, is that-"

"It doesn't actually matter what you think-" he interrupted, his voice cutting through her speech like a cold metal, his wand now pointed at her face, "because for all you know, they're could be a whole pack of my friends waiting behind you. You move, I'll kill you. What will you do to me? Stun me?"

Ginny felt disgust and anger rise up, starting to push away the forced calm, at the sound of the arrogance in his voice.

"Do you want me to kill you?" she asked quietly, then, when she didn't get a reply, "What is this, a game to you?"

If Hearne weren't already dead, Draco'd kill him. Maybe he could be brought back to life… just so Draco could kill him himself. Possibly in a very painful and slow way involving matches and whiskey.

Draco looked at the girl in front of him, glaring at him in the uncomplimentary coarse yellow light of the lamp somewhere behind him. She didn't take her eyes off him for a second, and she looked annoyingly alert, biting his head off even when he rearranged his footing. But he could wait. He'd have to wait.

She'd examined him for a while and he'd stared back, trying not to shudder as warm sticky blood wound down his face, reaching all the sensitive parts of his skin. So he'd concentrated on her. Longish curly hair (with an assortment of unwanted objects in it), quite tall and – considering she had just been chased down by a Deatheater with a possible broom fetish – she looked rather, and unnervingly, good. Standard, if slightly messed up, Ministry robes covered a fairly uninspiring selection of jeans and a jumper. She didn't look anything special for her job's sake, and he didn't recognise her from anywhere in his life… Draco began to wonder why exactly anyone would want her dead. But, as he had been told so many times before, these things weren't for him to know. What if he was captured? What if they got a warrant for Veritaserum session? And anyone who sneezed at the wrong time was given a healthy dosage these days.

"…What is this, a game to you?" she breathed, looking at him with an odd expression.

He smiled, finally realising that she couldn't see his face. "It seems more like we're dancing at the moment, don't you think?"

She stayed quiet, obviously contemplating something.

And then it hit him.

Weasley

But before he could think anything through, or say anything for himself, she was already talking-

"What do you want?"

She has got to be joking…Oh I just popped in for a cup of tea – the Dark Lord secretly covets your recipe for ginger biscuits…

"You," he answered simply, unable to keep the incredulous tone out of his voice. "Dead."

It was then, with no small amount of satisfaction that he sensed that the wand in front of his eyes was shaking.

This was the little Weasel he was dealing with, the one he'd sneered at, put down all those years ago. He knew she'd grown up, he'd seen her playing silly buggers with the DA, noticed her laughing in the courtyards and corridors with her brother and his friends. This was the girl he'd seen crying in an empty classroom, the girl he embarrassed, the girl who wore handed down robes that were too long… Oh yes, Draco Malfoy could deal with her now.

But she was still taking in the information he has so freely supplied. You. Dead. He watched it echo around her little red head.

"Why?"

Shrug. "Orders."

Sounded better than "Well I don't know, do I?"

They lapsed into silence again for a few minutes. He continued to watch her, still waiting. She was looking right back at him, her momentary hiccup in confidence had vanished and she was staring at him with shrewd hatred. Still repressing shudders, he felt the blood dry on his face, the cut somewhere just short of his forehead thumping a dull rhythm of pain on the inside of the his skull. His arm was beginning to ache, but he simply shifted the position of his shoulders and consoled himself with the thought of what her arms must be going through.

He decided to break the stillness once more.

Think, Think, Think

But only one word came to mind: Bastard.

She was more than a little concerned with what she was going to do, and whatever she did; it would have to be quick… Wherever the rest of her welcome party were they weren't going to hang around and let her fight her way out of it. And they were bound to appear eventually… she'd be none the wiser even in her last breath.

Ginny took several deep breaths. She could withstand hunger, pain, cold and anything life and the Order had thrown at her. Everything except sleep deprivation. Just thinking about it, made her stifle a huge yawn. And even with adrenaline pumping through her system, she could still feel the tendrils of sleep creeping into her mind…

Think, think, think

For what happened next, Ginny could only thank her lifetime with a houseful of brothers, growing up with the twins, and a year with the DA.

His wand twitched, and she instinctively threw up a shield and threw herself to the side, dodging, in time to watch him leap out of the way as his own nasty looking curse ripping through the field and flitting off into the darkness.

She threw a spell at him automatically, and wasn't altogether sure what it was. It didn't matter; it flew into the night sky as some force pushed her arm up. Ginny threw herself flat on the floor as a wide and varied selection of curses lunged at her, missing her by inches until she pulled his feet out from under him.

But he was already recovered by the time she had barely gotten to her knees.

They both opened their mouths

"Expelliarmus!"

"St-!"

His wand soared through the night and he dived after it instantly, and into her before she had time to respond. Her body softened the blow of his shoulder as he crashed to the ground, landing heavily on top of her.

The wind had left her body with a strangled scream. Something hard went into her stomach. Her wand was firing off every charm, spell and curse that ran through her mind. But they soared away like psychotic fireworks and she found her arm pinned by the figure scrambling over her. Without thinking she started wiggling like an eel, and grabbed his belt, yanking him back down, before hitting and kicking with her spare limbs.

It didn't make a difference, except for a grunt. Then his face was over hers, his hair just barely brushing hers, his weight making it hard to breathe and a malicious grin glaring down at her. One of his forearms was now being pressed down on her neck.

"Move, and it'll be a fucking painful end for you."

He started leaning over her, swearing, searching for his missing wand, his hand switching between checking the ground and holding it upwards, screaming into the night:

"Accio! Accio wand! Bloody accio!"

She felt herself gagging, breath catching in her throat and she tried to find a way out of the dead weight on top of her… From somewhere she found the strength to push him half off her, aided by her fist landing somewhere soft in his mid-drift.

A snarl and he pinned her back down on the ground, holding the top of her arms and pressing her into the rough earth.

He started to say something; a malevolent smirk ingrained already…

But the shift in position freed her trapped hand; the spells echoing through her mind woke her up. She jabbed her wand into his side, a flash of blue light and he was off her, suddenly unable to touch her.

Ginny sprung to her feet, quicker than he could react, training her wand on him instinctively. With a rock in his hand and blood now pouring out his nose, he glared at her with something that wasn't quite human. She slowly began to catch her breath back, swaying as the blood rushed to her head.

It was then, basked in the reappeared moonlight and severe yellow of the street light, that she recognised him.

"Draco Malfoy?"

He wiped his nose on his sleeve and smirked, a glare of uttermost loathing returning him to humanity. "Took you long enough, didn't it Weasley."

She looked down at him as she walked closer. He was just sitting there, his hands resting idly on his knees as if dogfights in the middle of half frozen fields at night were the norm. And, perhaps the scariest thing, was that he looked so peaceful… still. Inside, she was shaking with mental exhaustion, the adrenaline finally leaving her system, only to be replaced by the steady beat of her heart as it ricocheted in her head.

But this was by no means the first time she'd been in a fight to save her life. When his arms began to go loose and sneak down his sides surreptitiously, she fixed her most professional glower on him.

"Hand's where I can see them, git," she ordered in an equally professional tone that did little to hide the hot emotions that were bubbling behind her wand.

Very slowly, and never letting his eyes leave her face, he turned his palms up to the heavens, that little smirk still on his face, years after he strutted around corridors and classrooms.

Ginny watched him like a hawk, resisting the urge to hit him with the strongest Bat Bogey curse she had…just for irony's sake.

Malfoy uttered something so quietly it was almost whipped away with the breeze. "What's stopping you?"

She did nothing, wondering what in the hell he was talking about. Somehow he picked up on her uncertainty and rolled his eyes.

"Why," he said very slowly, as if talking to a mixture of a young child and deaf old man. "Are. You. Not-"

Quite unable to listen to his voice – despite getting deeper, it was still just as a grating as ever at this present moment in time – she put a silencing charm on him, smirking at the momentary indignant face he pulled before returning to his sullen hatred.

She allowed herself a small smile, feeling slightly more relaxed. "Now that's better… Accio wand!"

Not taking her eyes or wand off him for a second, she sensed, rather than saw, the object fly towards her and land somewhere softly around her feet with dignity. She bent down and picked it up, knowing not the snap it. The amount of younger members of her department she'd witnessed getting a rollicking for destroying wands – and crucial linking evidence – surpassed the point where she could forget.

Ginny was also reminded of the various raids she had experienced, heard and read about, that had all gone terribly wrong.

"Petrificus corpus," she whispered, enjoying the look on her victims face as his body froze. Unable to resist, she removed the silencing charm…

But no string of threats or cussing left his lips. He just glowered at her as she bent down to his level.

His voice croaked into life. "Why don't you just-"

"Bat Bogey you?" she finished, watching blood trickle into his mouth and into his hair at the same time. "Trust me Malfoy, it is tempting. But I think a visit through the fair halls of Ministry justice is better for you."

Even talking to a Deatheater, especially one that deserved everything he got, she was unable to keep the bitter sarcasm out of her voice. He'd get everything he deserved. If cover jobs weren't a necessity for the Order, she'd be out of that accursed Ministry building so fast…

"I'm sure this is a contradiction of your Wizard Right's Act-"

"Oh shut up," she muttered, standing up and kicking him so he rolled onto his back. She couldn't stand to look at his sanguine face or hear his stupid remarks any longer. She didn't even bother to point out the various – known, never mind suspected - violations he alone had committed. Looking around the field, she felt a scoff rising in her throat…

For the third time since crash landing, she felt like her stomach had been dipped into the Hogwarts Lake at Christmas. There, drenched in the surreal light that lit this nightmare, Ginny saw a pale figure on the ground.

"Lumos."

Unwillingly she walked over and found a man lying on his side, his neck and back at the all the wrong angles. A pale young face was looking at her feet, a thin trickle of blood winding down from his opened mouth. She willed herself closer, not seeing the absorbing black clothes until she concentrated on them. All she needed was his left arm to be exposed in a dramatically cinematic pose and she'd be set up…

Too used to Deatheaters and the dead to be affected by a dead Deatheater, she returned cautiously to Malfoy. He was right where she left him, not even attempting to move. Or at least, she didn't see any efforts…

"W-What's the name of that man over there?"

Draco was silent for a moment. "Take the bind off me then."

"Say please."

"Now."

"Fine then. Who's you're friend, git?" she asked, her full annoyance and anger returning. Her mind suddenly grasped something… that man… he was the one chasing her in the air, he was the one who had tried to kill her in the sky. Draco was merely the pick up boy, here in case things had gone wrong - Ginny failed to see how they could more wrong – and to keep a look out… There were no more of them. She could take her time. Nothing would be missed and no one followed up for a while… she had time… time to think…

"Maybe I don't want to say… Maybe his family will be incriminated…"

Ginny stepped closer and jabbed her wand in his cheek. "And maybe it's that time of the month, I'm the mood for losing my job and going a bit crazy feels like the right thing to do."

Draco looked at her. Right in the eye, his own eyes reflecting the sky above. "I'm not telling you, even if you try and intimidate me with your female mumbo-jumbo. You haven't seen crazy, my girl."

"You'd be surprised."

But he didn't seem to listening to her. A frown had appeared on his face. "And maybe his family deserve some pain. Perhaps they deserve not knowing where their son is."

It was then that Ginny really felt sick… Charlie…

"You're a bastard, Malfoy. You really are…"

She hadn't meant for her voice to catch and collapse beneath her, but it did. So she shut up, hoping that she could outstare him with itchy eyes.

A smirk. "Comes with the territory. If it helps, you're a bit of an prissy bitch…"

But she wasn't paying attention. She was tired of his games… There was a way of alerting the Order but she needed a fireplace. She could fire out an emergency distress signal but considering she had the situation "under control" she'd be up to her armpits in Magic In An Exposed Muggle Area fines until the next blue moon.

His voice, again, interrupted her jolting thoughts…

"As far as I'm aware, saving you're life makes you in my debt…"

At this point, Ginny did actually laugh.

Draco waited patiently for her to finish, and answered her gasped question. "Yes, I did. Your quick thinking didn't conjure that blanket spell…"

Her amusement was pulled from beneath her like a rug. "It was you?"

His eyes flicked over to the general direction of their deceased counterpart for a second. "I tried to get both of you. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I chose you first and got him too late."

Ginny swallowed and glanced over at John Doe… She didn't even feel one jot of regret or guilt, just the enormity of a feeling – one she couldn't name – that had landed in her chest when she realised that Draco Malfoy, Draco Malfoy, had saved her life. Inadvertently, yes. Unwillingly, yes. But saved it he had. She stared down at him, his irritating smile, and knew what she'd have to do.

Silently, she stood up removed the body bind.

"Can I have my wand back?" he asked, staring up at her like a child.

"Only if you promise not to use it," she answered sarcastically, rolling her eyes. "Bugger off. Malfoy. I really wouldn't recommend pushing me at the moment." She paused, feeling something not unlike empathy twinge in her chest. Thankfully, it was nothing to do with the excuse for a human being in front of her. But at the same time the stress that had balled up in her mind seemed to expand, pushing against her head. She pinched the bridge of her nose and flexed her fingers. "I'll let you go, if that's what you want, despite the shit storm that is hovering above my head. But I have one demand."

He stood up and made no attempt tidy himself. A slight scowl appeared on his face. "I hardly feel you're in a position to-"

"Shut the fuck up, Malfoy. Trust me when I say I will hand you, and all your friends, over without any remorse, to hell with debts."

Draco Malfoy shut up, gritted his teeth and spoke civilly. "What, then?"

"Take you're little friend with you."

He stared at the body, and then at her, with equal disdain. "I'm not touching that little tosser. I wouldn't touch him in life, you reckon I'm going to when he's dead… like that?"

"To be honest with you, I don't give a monkey's what you think. Just take him with you."

Something that Ginny didn't like one bit appeared in Draco's eyes. "Why are you bothered?"

She bristled at the breathed question, and the logical part of the her brain told her that she didn't care what this low life piece of scum thought – "Many reasons, Malfoy. Mainly I don't want to deal with the paper work."

Yeah, that would be a real bitch, actually.

"Just a shame that wasn't the real reason, eh Weasel?" He was informed that he didn't know what he was talking about, and should shut up unless he wanted a wand entering a random orifice, magic or no magic. This simply widened the fledgling smile on his face. "Soft spot?" he whispered, "Heaven forbid that something should have happened to one of you're litter…"

Ginny made the decision to not rise to it… But it took a lot of effort. He was looking right at her and she knew, finally, what he was pulling on her…Legilimency. The immortal words of her brother had come back to haunt her.

The only way to play with these wankers is to dish out exactly what they give to you. Don't even think about it, you can be sure that they don't think twice about hitting you with everything they've got – all curses under the sun and anything else you wish to imagine. If you're lucky, you'll get one that likes the feel of his own wand, but, if, god help you, you get a clever one… even when they're disarmed and staring capture right in the face they can find a way of wiggling out of it and practically make you hand their wands back over to them…

"…So I was right. Hmm, but which one? I hope it's Ronald-"

"I don't recognise him," she murmured, suddenly, taking herself (as she didn't know where she would go with this) and Malfoy by surprise. Not giving him the opportunity to speak, she continued, desperately thinking of the next word to say. She knew that breaking eye contact and not keeping an eye on him would be just as deadly as watching him without resistance… Keep talking… "I mean, I recognised you, but not him. He looks pretty young. What's an old hand at this doing with wet fish's like him?"

No smart arse reply or cocky comments. Silence. The hedges surrounding the field rippled in the breeze, applauding. She'd found her ace.

"How many years has it been? Six? Seven? They must go so slowly doing all that grunt work. No respect at all-"

"You've made you're point," he growled. "I'll do it."

She gave him the most acidic smile her arsenal. "Great. Walk over there. Hands on your head…"

He complied, only a half hearted – "Do you want me to pat it and rub my tummy at the same time?" – in the way of complaints.

With her eyes on him all the while, Draco bent down and gingerly picked up his comrade's wrist. Neither of them recoiled when and odd noise emanated from the body as Draco stood up, slightly dislodging… something. Personally, Ginny felt a cold shudder spiral up her back. Draco's lip just curled and he looked down at his associate, and he muttered something darkly under his breath, that didn't sound unlike – Just my fucking luck

"Right," Ginny said with more finality than she felt. She was at a loss suddenly at what to say, and suddenly unsure if Malfoy didn't have some huge trick up his sleeve, and she'd soon find herself with everyone she'd lost…

"Don't take this personally, but I'll be glad if I never saw you again."

A smile flickered. "Trust me, the feeling is entirely mutual."

And then he disappeared. Ginny watched the spot where he had stood. The ground showed not the faintest sign that a murderer has ever touched it, as if no body had lain there – and it simply absorbed all her fear and anger, leaving her in numb shock.

She didn't leave the field for the longest time and made no moves to, except when her knees turned to water.

Draco knew he shouldn't have apparated out of there, but he did. He should have stayed, perhaps fighting to the death – or, oh no, another body bind – and gone down in a blaze of glory…

Or in a prison cell.

As soon as he felt sweet, soft flooring beneath his feet he let go of his passenger. He looked down at him for a second, wondering vaguely what would happen if the carpet was ruined – lord knew, he hadn't the faintest clue how the get blood out of fabrics. Images of levitating the body up to the table made him shudder… he didn't know what to do with this… body… this body of a human being lying at all the wrong angles on the carpet of his study.

Then he sighed and really looked at Hearne.

Perhaps I'm going soft…

He wiped his face, wincing, and then stared at the blood on his hands, unsure whether it was his, Hearne's or maybe Weasley's.

Then a voice at the door dragged him away from a possible deep thought. "Draco is that-" A heavy pause. "Holy shit… what happened?" He watched them in the doorway, the blinding light of the hall behind the figure made him squint. Their expression was hidden from him. "Is that Hearne? Oh my god, have you contacted the Medics? Is that blood on the carpet?"

Draco ran his hand through his hair and stared down at Hearne. If Ginny Weasley thought she had a shit storm about to descend on her, she really had no idea.