Another short little chappie, just some little photographs as it were. I know I promised that the characters wouldn't get out of hand this time: I lied. They are completely out of control. Still, I don't see this running more than about ten chapters (of course, that's what I said about the Tonks fic) but this time I really mean it. So, I'm going to try and finish this quickly so Draco and Ginny will just leave me alone and I can get back to my other things.

Over the years and through his many visits to the hospital wing, Harry had learned to differentiate between Madame Pomfrey's different tutting sounds. There was the one where she was annoyed with the school for subjecting its students to something dangerous. He'd heard that one several times over the course of his fourth year, as she mopped up the various competitors in the Triwizard Tournament. There was the one when she was feeling sorry for someone. That one he'd mostly encountered in his first two years, before Madame P began to regard him as something of a regular visitor.

And then there was the one you got when she thought you were being absolutely and incurably stupid, and she wasn't sure she ought to fix you up, but would rather leave you to suffer so you'd learn your lesson. That's the one he was getting now, as she looked over him, Ron and Malfoy.

"Miss Granger, just what were you thinking, inviting these three to a picnic together?" The matron made it sound rather like the girl had thought inviting a pack of demons to a picnic would be a lark. "They tell me you're a surpassingly intelligent young woman, but all I'm seeing is an incredible lack of foresight."

"I'm sorry, Madame Pomfrey," Hermione mumbled. Harry tried to smile at her, but the rising bruise on his jaw made the attempt rather painful.

"Your Heads of Houses will hear about this, I promise you. At least Mr. Zabini and Miss Weasley weren't fool enough to get involved."

No, Harry thought bitterly. Ginny had been chatting quite companionably with the Slytherin boy, never giving a thought to what associating with him would do to her reputation in Gryffindor. Whereas it was obvious Malfoy was holding something over Hermione, making her go through all this (although she didn't seem to be fighting him too hard), Ginny was happily dragging her name and the pride of Gryffindor through the mud. And despite the huge fight, and Hermione dragging them all back to the castle to the infirmary, the girl was still happily chatting to the Slytherin as though nothing had happened. It was infuriating, that's what it was.

And, worse, he suspected she was just doing it to annoy him. He'd always liked that yellow dress, and now he found himself loving it, and loving her, and she wouldn't even look at him. It was worse than all those years he'd spent infatuated with Cho: then, he'd just thought Cho was unattainable. But Ginny had had a crush on him for years, and now that he was in love with her, she seemed to take a perverse pleasure in crushing his heart under one delicate foot.

There she was, flirting with Zabini, who was practically drooling over her, while he sat covered in bruises. And she didn't even care. Something was going to have to be done.

Hermione had the dorm to herself for now, and she was very glad. She didn't want the other girls to see her like this: red eyed, red cheeked, and prone to start sobbing again every time she remembered the look Ron had sent her after Madame Pomfrey had let them out of the infirmary. He'd been mad at her before, but now she was positive he would never speak to her again.

How could she have ever thought this was the way to get him to admit his feelings for her? Things were just getting worse, and there was no way she could set this right. She'd just have to make Malfoy see what a mistake this was. But even as she resolved that, she was very afraid that the worse things got for her, the happier Malfoy was.

Draco had been in the library, hiding from Crabbe and Goyle. Never mind that all of Slytherin House knew about the deal he'd made with the Mudblood, some of them had decided that his decision to go to a picnic was entirely suspect. But now it was getting on towards dinner time, and he was hungry. Besides, if he didn't face them soon, people might think he had something to hide.

He saw a flash of red through the bookshelves and, without quite realizing what he was doing, made his way through the library to where Ginny was bent over some homework. He paused behind her, debating which acid comment to make. There were so many one could make about the littlest Weasley, although if he went too far there was always the possibility of one of those brothers coming after him. Weasel didn't scare him, but he'd passed two of the bigger ones in Diagon Alley over the summer, and they might have been able to bodily rip him apart before he could so much as reach for his wand.

"No, Malfoy, I won't go out with you," she said, not turning around. She hadn't seen him come up behind her, had she?

"What makes you think I was going to ask, Weasley?" he demanded, surprise making him forget all the cruel comments that had been just on the tip of his tongue.

Now she finally did look at him, twisting in her chair and giving him such a look of scorn that, if it weren't for a thousand years of Malfoy pride bred into him, he might have fainted on the spot. "I have to assume your actions lately are a result of being dropped on your hear. You're dating a muggle-born, what's to say you won't ask a Weasley out next? Only, I'm not interested, although Percy might be. Although he doesn't normally go for the albino ferret type." She gave him one last sneer and turned back to her homework, leaving him pole-axed. Had she just…? She had, too. Many of his most common insults, thrown back in his face like they didn't matter. And now she was ignoring him. He, Draco Malfoy, was being ignored.

I'm not doing this, he told himself fiercely as he walked around the table and took a seat across from her. Again, she didn't even glance at him. "Go away, boy. I'd fall for Voldemort before I fell for you."

"And I'd date a mudblood before I'd date you," he retorted, realizing too late what he'd said.

She shot him an amused glance. "Malfoy, you have as much chance with me as Snape does with Sinistra." She said is so matter-of-factly that for a moment he was taken aback.

"You know about that? But Snape doesn't even like you."

"No, he doesn't," she agreed, "but he at least respects me. Now go away, I'm working."

He wasn't running away from her, he told himself as he made his way out of the library. It was just that nothing had come out the way he had intended, and sometimes the key to winning was knowing when to fall back and regroup. Yes, that's what this was: a strategetic retreat. It was only after the library door was closed firmly behind him that he realized that he hadn't even managed to insult her once.

"Bugger."