Chapter Twelve: Resolution, Mate

"Mates."

"Yes."

"Mates."

"… Yes. Mates."

"… Mates."

"Dammit, Diana, yes I said mates! If I said yes the first ten times to 'mates' why the bloody hell would the eleventh time be any different?"

"I'm sorry Ginny, I just… and you're sure he meant friendly mates? Not like…"

"Diana you pervert… really, come on now." Ginny rolled her eyes at the girl as they lay on Ginny's bed. Diana was pressed up against the headboard, one hand painting shimmering toe-nail polish onto Ginny's toenails as Ginny was pressed against the footboard, doing the same to one of Diana's feet. It had previously crossed their minds how completely stereotypical this must have looked but they squashed it with a quick joke and some sweets.

"I'm just saying Gins, if he wants to mate you, you'll need the proper-" Before Diana could continue her sentence she burst out with laughter as Ginny began an onslaught of tickling on the poor girl's foot.

Yelling over the noise Ginny retorted, "Say something now Diana! Come on then! Spit it out!"

After some time of screaming and Ginny getting kicked in the stomach, Diana having toenail polish smeared across the bottom of her foot, the girls calmed and settled to a mild sharing of mindless banter and girl talk.

After deciding that Ron was completing stupid for liking the Chudley Canons, they soon fell to sleep in their beds, lights off and curtains pulled back from their windows to let the moonlight filter in over their faces and still forms.

During this time of peaceful silence, the youngest Weasley, deep in her dream and obviously wrought with some sort of struggle, flailed about in her bed so much she fell to the ground with a thud.

Diana her bunk mate, not hearing this remained asleep, hand tossed precariously over her head, leg hanging off the side of the bed frame, sheets thrown askew as if a tornado had flown by.

Ginny, waking when her body met the cold chill of the wooden floors and the harshness of her land-shook herself awake. Looking around the room and finding her self the only one aware of her embarrassing flight, she stood and placed her bed clothes in their rightful place imitating a made bed. Checking the window to see if she might decipher the time by the position of the moon or some sign of light, the furthest she could tell was that the moon was up, the stars were out, and she was now perfectly awake.

Walking to gather up her clothes she decided her pajamas were appropriate attire for the time and made her way out into the commons and into the corridors outside. In the nighttime the corridors were lit by the torches against the walls, each lighting when she turned down to their way. She didn't quite know what it was she felt like doing in the middle of the night, wandering around the castle as she had finally realized she was doing, but she knew she was going to either head in one way or the other and to her it seemed as if they would yield the same results.

Taking off down one particular corridor, down a flight of stairs and onto the story below (in her sleep haze that persisted despite her striking awakening she could not comprehend where she quite was) she turned and found herself facing the Headmaster of Hogwarts Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Blushing, she nodded her head in respect to the elderly man. His beard had grown so long now that in her small position to him it seemed as if it brushed the ground as he stood before her. He was dressed in a robe, cream in color and left open to reveal a sleeping outfit, white and comfortable looking. His smile was spread across his lips in a warm fashion, not as if in a malicious pleasure in catching a student out of bed. In one hand he held a cup of what smelt like hot tea and in the other a thin stack of papers. His eyes, sparkling even behind his glasses took in the image of the girl before him. "I shall assume that your head of house or prefect allowed you to wander the halls of our school, Ms. Weasley?"

His question was not meant to trap her, but was merely the way in which he communicated with the students and none felt threatened by this. Smiling, eyes on the stones before her then flitting up to his face to catch him chuckle, she grasped her hands behind her back and pointed her toe into the ground. "I suppose you might say that could be true." She laughed herself and in moments found herself sitting in a comfortable chair across from him in his office sipping down a mug of green tea and eating sweet lemon drops from an antique dish with spiraling decorations around its exterior.

"Professor?" She asked, the raising of his eyebrows and smile on his face indicated he was listening, "Have you ever been put in an awkward situation? Not as if you were in trouble per say, not anything with something who was higher than you or below you but more so on your level. It's not as if it's uncomfortable outside the fact that's it's awkward and such?"

Dumbledore, considering the question for a moment, set down his quail and removed his glasses the sit on his desk. Behind him Fawkes was curled up on his stand in a sleep. Folding his hands against his lap, fingers laced, he smiled wider. "I do believe that in the years you experience between the young age of maturity and the older age of independence we are all met with those awkward situations. I in fact remember a time when my friend Charles, he was a headmaster for another school, a good man and very wise but terrible at the game of chess, we had both taught together on these traveling lectures over the summer term. One day I found out that the whole time we were together I had been calling him by the wrong last name. It wasn't as if it were too far off, his name was Shimmington and I was calling him Chillingtown, but it was a peculiar situation to know that for multiple weeks I had addressed him in front of others as such and embarrassed myself greatly, although now we share a good laugh between us with it."

His eyes glazed over as if he had floated back into time to grasp with his heart the memory before the shimmering orbs cleared once more and the present time continued in the office which seemed so far separated from reality.

"I think I'm sort of having the same problem. But in a little bit of a different way." Ginny, not meaning to but chewing on her lip as she did in all situations in which she felt nervous, was staring down at her knee as her foot was propped up on the edge of the chair on which she sat, arms wrapped about it.

"I do believe, Ms. Weasley, that you have something on your mind you would like to share?" He offered his ears and soon Ginny delved into her details of Draco Malfoy.

"It started on the train… well I suppose it really started my first year. As you know, me being a Gryffindor and poor, he teased me a lot and we never got along very well at all." Dumbledore nodded in understanding and she continued. "Well since then of course I've never had much trust in him. It was just unheard of. He was too much of a jerk." Dumbledore let out a chuckle and smiling, motioned for her to continue. "Well on the train ride here I accidentally walked into his room that he was sleeping in cause I thought it was empty. I mean I knocked and all but I didn't hear anything. Well he's furious and shoves me out, yelling and such. But it wasn't the regular Draco. Something was different." She paused to regain control of her own thoughts. She was now beginning to wonder if she could figure out the mystery behind his actions while speaking to Dumbledore.

"Well then we have Potions together a few days cause Snape called him to help and he says this one comment…" She trailed off, not wanting to say it as it was really none of the Dumbledore's need to hear it… "Well I forgot what it was but it made me feel awfully awkward. It was almost a compliment I suppose. But it was random. And then he was mean again. And then in the corridor I stayed in late at the library and ran into him and Pansy and she wanted to keep me from getting in by curfew and he told her just to leave me alone. Then I was in the Great Hall alone and he walks up and starts talking to me all chummy like and of course I'm looking for Crabbe and Goyle to be laughing in a corner somewhere… but I could never find them.

"And then, ontop of all that, Diana and I make this pact to avoid him-childish I know but I was desperate- and we're running around the school trying NOT to run into him and we bump into him everywhere! Finally I get so frustrated I stomp my foot and yell and he yells and we both yell and then we're standing there alone in the hallway and he apologizes for everything terrible he's ever done to me and it threw me off and now I'm just so confused because he asked if we could be mates. Naturally of course I thought he meant… well…" A red tint covered her cheeks as she saw the red apples of Dumbledore's poke out, his smile so large it could not be contained. He was obviously very amused.

"Well he meant friends at any means. And now things are just very… strange."

Taking a breath she watched the man as he took in the whole story, ran it through in his brain, most likely laughed at it, then sat forward in his chair. "I do believe Ms. Weasley, that Draco is a young man who is realizing that he does in fact of a kindness in him as we all do and are all born with. His father's family and so forth have for many years been strict on the company they keep and it is no surprise that he should follow the lesson set forth for him. It is only natural. However, in this environment, he may see that it might not be at all a bad decision to converse with those of usually unacceptable sorts. I say see this as an opportunity, be kind, be open-minded, and be willing to find the goodness that exists in Draco's heart for it is there." The wisdom which spilled forth from Dumbledore's mouth startled Ginny at first but after a while of sinking in she decided to take the advice and was on her way to the commons, two hours having passed by like nothing and the sun beginning to crawl over the hills of the grounds.

She realized that she could be civil to Malfoy and not think twice about it. She could have common conversation with him, not stutter in his presence, not despise each breath he made in front of his cruel friends, and not be considered quite friends with him. She decided acquaintances would far better suite their situation and so as she made her way back to her bed to crawl beneath its warmth for the remaining time she had she made a resolution to do so- she would be civil to Draco Malfoy in any way she could and only hoped that it was returned from him.

With that problem resolved, her mind settled and her body eager for that last two or so hours of sleep, she crawled beneath those warm sheets and promptly fell asleep.

((AN: So I tried a new writing style… Like it any? And as if you couldn't tell I DID NOT KILL DUMBLEDORE! ))