-1Disclaimer: I don't own this, you all know that!
If someone told Ginny Weasley that her summer would turn out the way it had before the summer began, she would have laughed in their face. She knew that Ron, Harry, and Hermione were planning something, but she never imagined that that would actually consider going off and skipping their seventh year to look for Horcruxes. Really, they should have taken me if they were going to go, Ginny thought, punching her schoolbag moodily. Sometime over her abandonment of being the only person not of age at Grimmauld Place, Ginny realized that it really was for the best, not being with Harry. Sure, she still had feelings for him and he was still her friend, but she just couldn't think of him as a boyfriend. He was too flighty, too moody, too brooding for her. She needed someone she didn't feel like she had to handle with kid gloves. She hoped for both of their sakes that he wasn't thinking that she was going to wait for him to come back and sweep her off her feet.
Another shock to Ginny's summer was the relationship that blossomed between her best friend Luna and Neville. Luna had come to visit her a few times over the summer, so Ginny knew all about how Neville had stuttering and stumblingly asked Luna out. Though she loved both of her friends dearly, she couldn't stand to spend the entire ride to Hogwarts watching them be all lovey-dovey. She'd chosen an empty compartment near the back of the train, where she could think and muse over her life and write. She was already wearing her school robes, and she pulled out a thread on her ragged sleeve. The fact that she was dressed in threadbare, hand-me-down robes did nothing to hide her beauty; if anything, it made it all the more visible. Her trademark Weasley hair fell in wild, loose curls around her tiny face, her tiny upturned nose buried in a book and her sparkling brown eyes scanning the pages. She was the kind of beauty that didn't realize she was beautiful, and that made her all the more appealing.
When the compartment door slid open, Ginny automatically assumed it was the sweets trolley. She dug in her pocket for a moment, looking for enough change for one Chocolate Frog before she looked up and saw that it wasn't the sweets trolley at all. There in her doorway stood Draco Malfoy, in all his ferrety glory. The swagger he'd seemed to hold at the beginning of the previous year had faded, and he looked tired. He was paler than usual, which was saying something, and there were grey shadows under his eyes, which had lost their malicious glint. His hair was not in its immaculate state, and it hung loose around his thin face. He had not yet raised his eyes to see Ginny.
"Do you mind if I sit here?" His voice had lost its edge of superiority, and it sounded just as tired as the rest of him looked. Ginny's mouth hung slightly agape; she had expected a snarky comment, or for him to at least take a jab at her because Harry had broken up with her.
"No, I don't mind." These words shocked Ginny just as much as Draco's words had shocked her, but she tried to hide it. I'm just as good at schooling my features as he is, she thought smugly. Draco did not say anything after Ginny, he just threw his bag haphazardly on the floor near the seat in front of her and sat down, stretching his legs out and rolling his shoulders as if to try and release some of the tension there. He pulled a quill and book out of his bag and started writing, oblivious to the fact that Ginny was watching him intently. She looked down at the book in her hand and then looked at the book balanced on his knee; they looked very much the same. Ginny wondered why in the world he hadn't said anything insulting yet.
Ginny opened her mouth to ask what the hell was wrong with Draco, but the door to the compartment was opened by the kindly old lady with the snack trolley. Ginny dug out exactly enough change for one Chocolate Frog, but Draco just shook his head. She sat back down and unwrapped the frog, grabbing it quickly before it could get loose and hop around the compartment. She bit into it, savoring the flavour of the bittersweet chocolate invading her mouth. She could feel Draco's eyes watching her, and she shocked herself and held out he hand to offer him the rest of her frog. She felt oddly compelled to echo his display of civility. He looked at the chocolate in her hand for a moment, and she was almost sure he was going to say something rude to the nature of not wanting to catch her poorness or something like that, but he took it after a few seconds with a half-murmured "thank you".
The rest of the train ride passed fairly quickly. Both of them sat there in silence, musing and writing. If anyone would have walked by, they would have thought they were hallucinating, seeing a Malfoy and a Weasley in the same room and not trying to hex each other to death. Both of them could appreciate the wonders of silence, neither wanting to break the spell with mindless chatter.
When the train slowed and stopped, Ginny stepped out into the corridor first. Draco was behind her, and it seemed like everyone who saw him stopped to whisper, boo, hiss, and throw threats his way. Ginny was shocked, but she knew the feeling; her second year, it seemed all the other people in the school were looking and pointing at her. One of the older year Hufflepuffs had called her the evil incarnate. She'd spent many a night her second year crying herself to sleep, but she couldn't just sit by and allow someone else to feel that. Draco's face was set in a mask of cool indifference, but Ginny knew that it must be affecting him.
In an instant, Ginny had made up her mind. She reached back and took hold of Draco's hand, leading him out of the line of fire and over toward where Luna and Neville stood. She looked back and looked at Draco, who nodded almost imperceptibly. Neville's mouth stood agape, but Luna just smiled serenely.
The last rays of dying sunshine were casting long lines over the ground as the four of them got into a carriage, Luna and Neville first and Ginny and Draco after. The two couples sat across from each other, and Luna and Neville chatted together for the majority of the ride. Ginny and Draco sat silently, their hands clasped and their legs touching. There was no need for words; Draco knew that Ginny had gone through the same thing and Ginny knew that if she drew attention to the fact then he would pull away from her, insisting that he didn't need her help and that he was strong enough to handle whatever life and the other Hogwarts students threw at him on his own. A secret smile was playing on Ginny's lips, and neither she nor Draco noticed the identical smile playing on Luna's lips. It was going to be an interesting year.
A.N.: I'm rewriting the first few chapters of this, at least the ones that are written in first person and maybe some of the other ones too. Let me know what you think!