May 3, 1999
"Luna, I don't care if the moon is in Sagittarius right now. I'm not going swimming in the Black Lake in my dress from the Anniversary Ball after sunset tonight."
"That's fine, Ginny. Neville and Parvarti are already coming and it's really better if there's a group of three. I just thought you might like to come along since it's a cleansing ritual."
Ginny rolled her eyes as Luna turned towards Ravenclaw Tower and bid her farewell. As soon as Luna was gone, a pale hand reached out from the broom closet in the entryway and tugged the only Weasley daughter into it.
She attempted to cry out as a hand covered her mouth and she realized she was face-to-face with the Malfoy heir. He put one finger up to his mouth and only let his guard down when she nodded her head in agreement.
"What the hell, Malfoy." Ginny hissed through clenched teeth. "I don't know what you heard about Gryffindor girls, but I'm not down for whatever shenanigans you and Hermione got into in your broom closet incident."
Draco's lip curled as his entire face let her know exactly what he was thinking before he said, "Don't flatter yourself."
"Then I'm gonna need you to enlighten me on what this is because this meeting is not in my schedule for after Hagrid's class."
Draco leaned against a shelf in the back as he said with an air of indifference, "You kept going with Care of Magical Creatures? I don't know why you bother studying for your NEWTs when you clearly have no interest in subjects that actually further your education."
"Speaking of NEWTs, I was trying to go get cleaned up so I can go study if you'll just excuse me," she turned to leave the broom closet and quickly found her way blocked by the tall, impossibly blonde man.
Ginny's shock was evident in her eyes as she cried, "How do you do that?"
"Have you told anyone?"
"Have I told anyone what?"
"Oh fuck off, I know you know. Have you told anyone?" Draco rolled his shoulders and looked off into the space behind Ginny. "Harry's a real piece of work for telling you in the first place, I told Granger she should do a contract like she did with Dumbledore's Army but no. She told me we could trust The Chosen One."
"Oh, don't blame Harry. I've been asking him for nearly two months to fess up. He only cracked because I used unfair questioning tactics."
"Veritaserum?"
"You don't need Veritaserum when you have your own broom closet tricks," Ginny grinned devilishly as she thought of how she and Harry celebrated their anniversary the night before. It really hadn't been fair to Harry that Hogwarts had thrown a ball to celebrate the anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts which happened to be the same date as their dating anniversary. She'd known exactly what she was doing when she'd put on that gold number that covered just enough and not enough at the same.
Draco flinched in disgust. "We're having this conversation because you offered your boyfriend sex? Salazar, this does not get smarter the longer it goes on."
"You can't exactly blame me for doing what I needed to do to figure out what's going on with a friend that is clearly struggling." Ginny's unapologetic nature clearly irked Draco which she quite enjoyed. "My entire motivation here is worry, so no, I haven't told anyone else. Theo made it very clear that I needed to keep this to myself."
"I miss the days when Gryffindors and Slytherins weren't friends."
"I don't know if you're in a position to make comments like that."
"I wanted to talk to Hermione before I told anyone else anything but I can't even find her today. Is she okay?"
"She's fine," he muttered nonchalantly. "Her absence is cleared with McGonagall."
"Where is she?"
"It doesn't matter, you can't tell her that you know."
Ginny blanched. "Why is any of this a secret in the first place? You're both absurdly smart so you know this would fix a lot of your problems. Why aren't you two telling people?"
"That is not the point of this conversation. I know Gryffindors can be a bit thick, so I just want to make sure you understand that you can't tell anyone else what you learned last night. As far as I know, only you, Harry and Theo know. That's already too many people."
"I'll feel a lot better about not sharing this information with, I don't know, Professor McGonagall if you'd just level with me."
The silence that followed her statement was broken by Draco cracking his knuckles one by one before he finally spoke again. "I actually don't know why we're keeping secrets anymore. We were supposed to come clean after Easter, but she wouldn't have it. We fought for a full week over it before I gave in. I'll just revisit the conversation after NEWTs, I guess. I could never be the reason she didn't do her best."
The softness in his voice as he spoke of her best friend wasn't lost on Ginny.
"Is she at least talking to you about whatever is bothering her? She's been scaring me recently."
"It's been less and less," he said gruffly as he seemed to remember himself.
"She seemed fine when we came back at first, did something new happen?"
Draco's eyes widened and flared with anger in such a way that Ginny was taken aback. "Did something new happen? Was the trauma we experienced throughout the past two years not enough?"
"You can't keep this quiet much longer. I'm shocked you've made it this long. My mom is on a warpath to figure out what's been going on since Hermione skipped out on Easter."
"I already told you we were supposed to fess up after Easter, she changed her mind."
"Did you two end up staying in your room at The Hog's Head the whole break? Tell me you didn't take her to Malfoy Manor." Draco's movements stilled and he looked Ginny in the eye for the first time since he drug her from the main entryway.
"How do you know about The Hog's Head?"
"My best friend has been missing from her bed since right after Christmas. I did some investigative work."
"You can just say Theo told you." Draco's familiar sneer finally joined the conversation, "I swear I love him but he is a complete fucking nightmare most of the time. He ended up staying at the Manor with my mom without me for Easter and the letters I received from both of them were intolerable."
"And where were you when these letters reached you?" Ginny made a second valiant attempt to get some new information.
"I'm actually a little scared to go home after graduation at this point."
Ginny chuckled, "I would be terrified if I were you and I'm in Gryffindor. I'd never have the guts to do what you did."
Draco's snort echoed off the walls as he said, "There's no guts here. That's why everything is still a secret."
He stood up to leave before he said, "Are we good here? You won't tell anyone, especially Granger?"
"I hate that I don't know why I'm keeping this secret, but yeah, I'll keep it for now," Ginny looked up at the ceiling as though praying she was making the right decision. "Are you sure your mom doesn't already know? Theo knew and you never told him."
"Nah, he told me how he found out. My mom would never do that. Theo's a fucking genius, it's a shame he refuses to use his powers for good."
