A/N: Sorry that this has taken so long. Seriously. I'm working quickly now along with my other HSM story, so hopefully chapters will come out more quickly. Thanks for the support!

Dipping her hands into a bowl of water, Ginerva Weasley couldn't quite realize how one person could cover themselves in dirt so quickly. Or how it could contract itself into every pore in their body, as in Draco Malfoy's case. He scrubbed at his arms and legs along with her, sitting in a chair on the second floor of the family's joke shop. Ginny squeezed out her rag with water and soap, dipping it in the bowl again and rubbing harder at his left arm. Draco rolled his eyes as she dripped water onto his shirt.

"You're not my mum, you know," he mumbled, dejectedly. Ginny rolled her eyes and stuck up her nose, rubbing harder for comical effect.

"Well I'll be damned if my name's not Ginny Weasley and you're not bloody awful looking." She grinned, cheekily, as a slight blush crept up Draco's cheeks. "You don't have your own mum to take care of you like this, anyway."

Draco's face immediately lost its humor and Ginny regretted the words as soon as she said them, feeling bad for once in her life towards the anorexic-looking blonde in front of her. He scowled and turned away, the grey flecks in his eyes shimmering with pain.

They sat there in silence, together, neither knowing what to say for a few minutes. She cleared her throat and looked up at him, noticing a large, fresh scar below his jaw line. As she reached out to touch it, he turned his head away from her, fixing his eyes against the wall.

"What happened to you, Malfoy?" she gasped, her eyes widening vaguely in shock.

Draco shrugged in mock humor. "They missed." He laughed, a mocking, hollow sound as Ginny sighed in disgust, running a hand through her hair and glaring at him.

"I should know better than to try to get a straight answer out of you." She threw her wet rag at him and he dodged it artfully. The rag landed on the floor with a loud "PLOP!" and they both laughed, flicking water at each other with their fingers. Draco reached down to grab the rag as Ginny gasped in teasing horror, jumping up and dodging behind a chair. He threw the wet rag and missed (Ginny thought it was probably on purpose), sitting back down in the chair and relaxing. She picked up the rag and walked back up to him, kneeling down next to him and trying to rub off more of the dirt and dried blood.

To her surprise, Draco sighed and spoke up- "I don't know where she is."

"Excuse me?"

"I don't know where she is," he repeated, frowning as he thought about it. "She's not in the mansion, and she's not at our summer home in Lyon. I've checked both places. It's not as though I'm expecting her to be alive, though."

Ginny didn't know what to say and looked down, stroking his arm subconsciously before resuming her cleaning. He cleared his throat and continued. "We've been kicked out of the his inner circle, you know. All because I messed up. We can't live the way that we used to."

Stunned, Ginny let go of his arm. "Wait, what? What did you do wrong?"

Draco slouched, his posture matching his shaking voice and hands. "I had a task I was supposed to complete last summer that I didn't. I did everything else, and I volunteered to take it and I didn't… I just couldn't. I was such an idiot. I got scared at the last minute."

"What were you supposed to do?" Ginny didn't want to know the answer.

In fact, she was very scared to know, because part of her knew what the answer already was. She knew, and she didn't want to know. The phantom taste of a lemon drop filled her mouth and she felt like vomiting, spitting up her lungs and rebel-beating heart.

He opened his mouth to tell her and closed it again, resembling a gaping fish. Ginny's eyes filled with tears.

"I don't want you here."

"Excuse me?" he asked, startled. "Look, I thought you didn't have a problem with me like you used to, said I'd changed…"

"I SAID," she stammered, "I don't want you here. Leave. Even considering…"

"Well I DIDN'T!" Draco yelled, standing up and knocking over the chair in his anger. Ginny's eyes widened in fright as she fell onto her back, crawling backwards towards the wall as he stalked towards her. "And isn't that the point? That I wasn't the one who KILLED HIM?"

"Please, I didn't mean it like that!" she backed towards the wall, eyes widening. "I'm sorry, please."

"Oh, you didn't MEAN IT! I'm sure you didn't. Saying sorry's going to fix it, won't it? Here's the problem- apologizing can't bring back a DEAD MAN. But curses will, won't they? Killing someone else will. We've done it before, we'll do it again," he hissed, leaning dangerously close to her. She tried to push him away but he was too strong, trained in years of watching his father tear his mother into an emotional wreck. "No one's really dead in this world. No one's really evil. We're all just covering our own asses."

He stood up and dusted his clothes off calmly as Ginny cried, curled up against the wall. Putting on his coat, he headed towards the front door. He stopped near the door and turned towards her, taking in her shaken and scared appearance.

"And I didn't kill Albus Dumbledore. Not because I was scared, but because it felt wrong. He's the only one who ever stood up for what was really right."

Ginny rubbed her swollen eyes and sniffed, calming down enough to close her eyes and roll her head backwards. Things were always much more complicated than they seemed.

"Ex-CUSE me," Lavender Brown shrieked, sashaying between the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw tables in the Great Hall. Ron Weasley sighed as Hermione Granger hit him on the back of the head lightly.

"You idiot, Ron. She looks like a ruddy toad," Hermione laughed, "and I'd hope that your standards haven't fallen that low."

Ginny leaned towards Hermione conspiratorially, whispering loudly so Ron could hear. "Standards? My brother- standards? You've got to be kidding."

Ron's eyes darkened. "I'm not the one rubbing elbows with a Malfoy."

"I'm only doing it because Fred and George asked me to take care of him. I mean, I don't know why they care so much about what happens to the idiot- maybe they're planning some big prank on him or something," Ginny rolled her eyes and twisted her hair around her finger. Ron seemed to be satisfied with the response at the mention of a prank, leaning back to bicker with Hermione and to stare longingly at Miss Brown.

Truthfully, Ginny knew that wasn't the only reason she was taking care of Draco Malfoy. She was curious. Admittedly, being treated badly by him for the past six years of her life, she didn't exactly have the best opinion of him. However, she was curious. Beyond curious, actually. She was dying to know what was so wrong with him, why he wouldn't talk to anyone, why he spent most of his time staring out the windows with that detached look on his face. Why he felt guilty for something he wouldn't admit.

And whether, really, this was all part of a bigger, complicated plot that she shouldn't even jump into. But if there was one thing Ginerva Weasley prided herself on, it was her key intuition. She knew when something was up.

Hearing applause from the Great Hall, she raised her head and focused on the slender, tall witch walking towards the podium at the Head Table.

Hogwarts wasn't the same school it had been. Over the summer, the war had taken it's toll on the morale of witches and wizards all over Britain and many had moved to the muggle world for good, pulling their children out of Hogwarts. While Minerva McGonagall had taken over the post of Headmaster, many wondered whether she'd ever do the job as well as Dumbledore.

But for those who knew him well, Dumbledore had never left the school. Headmaster McGonagall frequently had chats with the grey-haired wizard in the portrait behind her desk in the office, staring longingly at her best friend of so many years. His presence was still felt clearly and lovingly through all the stone hallways and narrow corridors. His spirit would always be with the students in the place that he loved most, the place where he had chosen to be buried- Hogwarts.

Minerva McGonagall cleared her throat and tapped on the podium lightly with her wand. She smiled at the crowd of students sitting in the Great Hall, speaking eloquently and clearly.

"I'd like to welcome all of you to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

Walking back towards the Gryffindor Common Room stuffed full of food, Ginny spotted a shocking pink head of hair and ran to grab Nymphadora Tonks, wrapping her arms around her new professor's neck and giving her a large hug.

"Tonks! I'd heard in the opening speech that you were here teaching Defense Against The Dark Arts but I didn't see you at the Head Table..." Ginny exclaimed and hugged the slim woman close.

"I'm not here purely for teaching, you know," Tonks winked. "I've been walking around the grounds. Something came up at the Ministry and Kingsley had to go cover it, so I'm covering his shift for rounds."

Ginny stepped back. "It's true, then? Aurors stationed in the school?"

"It's not like the Ministry is affording to take any chances, dear." Sighing, Tonks ran a hand through her hair uneasily. "While we'd like to think Hogwarts is the safest place on earth, after what happened last year the ministry can't take any chances. It's a miracle that the school's still open. Harry sends his love, by the way."

Sighing audibly, Ginny grinned up at her mentor. "I haven't heard much from him. What has he been up to?"

"Well, there's all that secretive you-know-who business that the boy has to deal with. Admittedly, doesn't leave much time for his cute-as-a-button girlfriend." Tonks smiled at Ginny and hugged her again. "McGonagall wants to see you. Something about some teaching assistant who we're keeping here for protection..."

"Oh, GREAT. It's not enough that I'm forced to babysit him on the weekends," Ginny fixed her face into a pout and glared at Tonks.

"Maybe it'll turn out better than you think?"

Somehow, Ginerva Weasley wasn't so sure.

Deep in the halls of Malfoy Mansion, Narcissa Malfoy slammed the door of her vanity shut and took out a piece of paper, ignoring the painful screaming two doors down. Grabbing an inkwell, a quill and lighting a candle, she put it to paper.

Dear Draco,

A/N: Review! Reviews are nice. Everyone loves reviews.