Title: As Time Goes By

Disclaimer: Don't own anything

Chapter 2

The trouble with Watching

She smiled reminiscently as she let the colors before her eyes blur out of the Hogwarts Express window. Her mother smiled fondly and her dad was waving energetically at the platform. Mrs. Weasley had a firm grip on her husband as not to let him topple into the train.

Soon the homely villages rolled into springy hills and grass and golden sunsets. Her eyes lingered on the compartments inhabitants. Harry Potter, swiped at the messy black hair in front of his eyes so he could sit mesmerized at how easily the gangly youth with freckles before him had beaten him at wizards chess.

"Harry, you can't be so surprised. I don't think you've ever won against Ron," Hermione said, her chocolate eyes observed skeptically.

"Yeah, well, there was that one time…" his brow furrowed.

"And what time would that be?" she retorted.

Ron grinned smugly.

It's always the same, thought Ginny. Still there was a security, a warmth within the three of them. She smiled bitterly. There was something between them. There always was. A panal, a wall, a screen. Something she could see through but never be apart of.

Harry's emerald eyes flickered toward her, concerned.

Damn, caught again.

She was always caught staring. People seemed to think that made her interested. She was, but not in that way. She could tell a lot about a person just by looking. She could tell that Harry was softening toward her, something she regretted immensely because of that stupid glass panal separating them. She knew that Hermione had suffered quite a blow when Viktor Krum broke up with her this last summer. Nobody else knew they were going out or that they broke up but she did. She could see the older girls eyes light up with the mail. She knew where Hermione spent her vacations when she wasn't at the burrow. She knew Ron inside and out. She knew that he was well in love with Hermione but too wrapped up in life that he hadn't realized it. She knew. And she knew because she saw.

Some people just didn't have enough sense to know what they were looking at.

There was a shattering of glass and an outraged and surprised yelp a little down the corridor. They could hear the china break soft and delicate as raindrops.

"What the.."

"Ron!" Hermione protested.

Soon enough, Draco Malfoy and Blaise Zambini strolled into their compartment like the pompous king of the worlds they imagined themselves. Ginny caught a glance at the frazzled trolley witch trying to upright her food cart.

"Now that wasn't nice," she said complacently, " I was hungry."

The trio stared blankly at her. They had rashly jumped to their feet and had their wands ready to attack.

Draco looked amusedly at the littlest Weasley who was sitting ever so nonchalantly with her head cocked to one side like a puppy swinging her feet off of the red seat.

She was petite enough that only the tips of her toes brushed the carpet.

Draco was taken aback at the expectant look in her eyes. Where was the fire? Where was her spirit. That was all the fun in it, to get her riled up to see her splutter and cheeks redden. Now she, she just…she just sat there expecting his comments and accepting them with that pitying look. Who was she to pity him?

Ginny could see, she could see that he had free reign on his life now, now that the Dark Lord was killed and by no one less than Harry himself. Still the Death Eaters were angry. There were still uprisings and scuffles but now that they had no leader they had nobody to bow down to.

Yes, Draco Malfoy was no death Eater. But he was still a Slytherin.

And the hex he aimed at their luggage making it fall and tumble and break haphazardly around them as he swept elegantly out of the room was enough to make her see that he didn't know what to do with himself.

Because for once in his life he was free. He could make his own choices without fear.

But Draco Malfoy was still a Slytherin. And for Harry Potter that was reason enough to despise him.

Draco Malfoy was a Slytherin. And for Ginny Weasley, that reason didn't matter to her at all. At least anymore.