And here I am, begging you yet again to forgive me for taking an almost inhuman amount of time to update. I'm sooo sorry. I've been on vacation for the past two and a half weeks and before that I was swimming so I didn't have much time. And, not only that, but school starts in TWO days for us! But, I will nonetheless try and get a new chappie up as soon as possible.

Disclaimer: How many times must I say it? I don't own it-blah,blah,blah- no money-blah, blah, blah- don't sue me.

Ginny threw the door closed behind her and flung herself onto the bed. Then, almost as suddenly, she stood up. She was far too angry to stay still. Draco Malfoy was the world's biggest- something. She wasn't entirely sure what he was, but it was bad and he was most definitively it.

The problem with her room, she decided pacing, was that there was nothing to tear. At school, she had loads of old rolls of parchment filled with notes and papers and old exams that she didn't need anymore that would be wonderful to simply rip into shreds at a moment like this. However, here at the Burrow, her room was vary bare and there was nothing here she could destroy without later regretting. She settled on a pillow- it was old and flat and lumpy and she didn't use it anyway- and slashed it open with a letter opener. In large, angry fistfuls, she relieved the pillow of its feathery contents, which was not nearly as satisfying as she might have hoped. By the time she had finished, it looked as though she'd left her window open during a particularly heavy snowstorm. She then went to work on the case itself, which was much more gratifying. The resistance of the cloth and then the lovely rip as it finally gave in was a better way of allaying her anger.

The very idea! She'd shredded the pillow into bits too small to be ripped any more and she was still livid.

Where did he get the right to come up out of nowhere and kiss her like that? What could have possibly- possibly- make him think that it was his prerogative to just- Honestly! She didn't even know him.

Well, not to say she didn't know him, she knew him she, but she didn't know him. She wasn't entirely sure what the difference was, but it was certainly there. And if he thought he could just go about threatening half her friends and insulting the others (or, more likely, threatening and insulting them at the same time in that annoying, patronizing, sarcastic way of his) and then run off a few clever one-linners, and then everything would be okay between them, he certainly had another thing coming. She was still trying to decide whether or not she trusted him not to murder them all in their sleep, let alone kiss her.

But, of course, none of this mattered because the only reason he'd kissed her at all was because he was drunk. Ginny had never thought of herself as beautiful or anything, but she certainly hadn't thought a guy would have to get good and wasted just to give her the time of day.

She kicked the wall- something she'd seen Ron do countless times when he wanted to beat Malfoy to a bloody pulp- and immediately regretted it. Ron, she thought, biting her lip and nursing her foot, was a bleeding idiot.

Unable to think of anything else to do, she pulled her broom from where it sat in the corner propped up against the wall and began polishing it. Scrubbing until the wooden handle was hot with friction, she stopped and admired her own reflecting on its glossy, spotless surface. It was, perhaps, the cleanest her broom had ever been. She then walked upstairs into Ron's room- he and Harry were outside with Hermione- and began polishing there too, starting with Harry's already immaculately kept Firebolt and then moving on to Ron's dingy and somewhat mud-caked Cleansweep. By the time she'd removed the last bit of dirt from her brother's broom, she'd worked off some of her anger.

She turned, about to go to back to her room and maybe find a book or something when she saw him standing in the doorway.

"Ginny, I-" He started, but Ginny interrupted with a loud, half-screaming, half-growling sound that for a moment made him forget that he was half a foot taller than her. She reminded him very much of an incredibly angry cat about to pounce upon a particularly annoying mouse, and he decided, quite wisely, to very quickly back out of the room.

With all of her anger completely returned, Ginny stormed up to her room, slammed the door and spent the next hour destroying another pillow.

He'd had never really taken Ginny to be the type to hold grudges. For one of the few times in his life, Draco was beginning to believe he'd been wrong. The first day of silence had not shocked him. In fact, had she not been upset with him he would have been astounded. The second day, he was slightly aggravated, but not stunned. The third day, he was more than a little irritated, and just a bit surprised; he'd really expected she'd have been over it by then. By the fourth day, he was just annoyed. Honestly, how long did it take her to work through her anger or talk it out, or whatever other nonsense Gryffindors tried when they were angry? Count to ten and breath deep. Maybe she was just an extremely slow counter.

One thing he knew for sure, if she was waiting for him to apologize, she could bloody well just up and die already, because it wasn't going to happen. At least not in that lifetime. With the sole exception of his father, she was the only person in the world he had ever sincerely apologized to and she had dismissed it. And it wasn't as if he hadn't been trying. Honestly, Draco thought he'd been very patient with her. Not once had he lost his temper. He'd tried to be considerate of her. It wasn't as if he'd dragged her off into some dark corner and tried to force himself on her. He'd even been trying to be nice to her brothers, which was, as far as he was concerned, the equivalent of being continually forced to listen to bad folk music. The kind with banjos and singers who had no comprehension of the phrase "on key". But even that she had seemed completely unappreciative of. Her absolute lack of gratitude for his sacrifices was almost sickening.

And boring.

The worst part of her unexpectedly enduring silence was the boredom that had inevitably set in. Without her company, the house was surprisingly quiet and uneventful. The entire Weasley clan was scattered about the house, but they didn't seek him out, nor did he approach them. If they noticed the rift between the Slytherin and their sister, they didn't say anything. In four days alone, he had finished all three of his new books and was now left with absolutely nothing to entertain himself with. He could, he supposed, go and bother the Weasel and Co., but that could hardly be expected to improve his situation with Ginny.

With an irritated sigh, he sat and began composing a letter to his mother. He'd already written her twice that week- something that he really shouldn't have been doing, considering how suspicious his father probably was already. Draco had written him the morning holiday began to tell him that he'd changed his mind and thought he'd stay at Hogwarts for Christmas. If his father's rage had calmed enough that he could think clearly, Draco was probably under a huge amount of scrutiny. Scrutiny that no doubt would end with his father having someone go and visit him on school grounds only to find he wasn't there. Draco supposed he'd have to tell his father he'd spent Christmas with a girlfriend or something. But, in the mean time, he'd have to trust Snape to ensure his mother's safety. He hated that dependence, but he knew the Potion Master would be much more effective than he could ever dream to be. So, taking a small bit of impish pleasure at the thought of annoying Snape with yet another letter to occupy his owl's time, he finished and sealed the note.

He cautiously crossed the room to where the black and white owl sat perched contentedly on his trunk. He reached out hesitantly to attach the parchment to the creature's leg. Earlier, he had tried to put the bird into a cage and it had nearly taken his fingers off. Almost murderously annoyed, he had referred back to the note that Snape had sent with the owl and found, scribbled on the back of it an advisory against putting the bird in a cage and instructions to simply leave the window open so the bird might come and go as he pleased. He'd made a rude hand gesture at the thing, and it had tried to bite him again. This time, however, it stuck its leg out and waited obligingly for Draco to attach his letter and departed.

Frustrated, bored, he'd pulled out his copy of A Diviner's Companion: The Dictionary of Symbolism. It was one of the books he'd bought four days previously at Flourish and Blotts. He was immeasurably glad that Ginny had not seen it. If she had and inquired after the book, he probably could have explained it away as a class project. Except, of course, Draco wasn't taking divination and she probably knew that. Still, he would have been able to come up with some plausible reason as to why he needed it. Despite that, he was still glad she hadn't noticed.

He didn't need to read it; he had read and reread the passages so many times that he could basically recite it by heart, but nonetheless, he flipped open the book. The stiff new spine had creased, opening immediately to the page he'd been looking for. Visions, he knew, as opposed to dreams, were normally more literal than figurative. And while there were parts he suspected that were completely literal, there were other parts that he could find no other justification for except that they had some symbolic meaning. In his boredom, he'd had plenty of time to review the contents of the Pensieve. Watching it through several more times, he'd noticed several more details he hadn't seen the first time- a stewing cauldron behind the hooded figure, the woman standing behind Snape and his mother in a nurse's attire- that he had no explanation for. But none of those things seemed to lend themselves to any greater symbolically significant deeper meaning. The only thing that he was sure must have been figurative was the castle and it had been the first thing he'd looked up. His results, however, were not as beneficial as he might have hoped. Sylvia's foretelling seemed to hold conflicting meanings. According to the book, castles often symbolized feelings of protection or security, neither of which seemed to apply. The book went on to say that dark castles usually represented failure or distress, while light castles most often signified success. The location of the fortress was also significant: forests or valleys implied feelings of entrapment, while castles on hills or clearings showed enlightenment or sovereignty. The castle he'd seen in the Pensieve had been dark and on a hill. The only bit there that seemed to fit with the overall mood of the vision was distress, but if Ginny was currently in any distress, Draco couldn't see how. He couldn't find anything else that seemed symbolic. In something of a last attempt he'd even looked up the color green, but the most common meaning behind that was good luck, life, and prosperity, none of which seemed very relevant. Having found nothing else in the vision, he tried to recall every detail of the dreams to his mind to see, if perhaps, he could find something useful there. He looked up hood, then finding nothing on that, he tried mask, but that yielded no useful results. He looked up books, which was pointless, and lilacs, which turned out to be equally unconstructive. After nearly an hour of fruitless research, he closed the book and pushed it to the side.

He closed his eyes with the intention of taking a short nap, but found he couldn't banish thoughts of her dreams from his mind. For the first time in a long while, he allowed himself to focus on the dreams. Really, they were pathetically Gryffindor. Like Potter, her brother, and every other Gryffindor before them, Ginny had inherited a deep-rooted ability to say the wrong thing at the wrong time. The Gryffindor motto might as well have been, when in the face of danger, call it ugly to ensure that it's really mad before it kills you.

Things like, "I'll never join you!" and "I never want to see you again!" and ever other equally overused, trite, ending-in-an-exclamation-point phrases had been peppered throughout the dreams. Really, how clichéd could you get? But the fact that both Ginny and Tom spoke like characters from a poorly written romance novel didn't lessen the seriousness of the dreams. There was always the possibility that they were just nightmares, the feverish remembrance of bad memories. After all, she'd been a child when she'd first encountered Tom Riddle. But Draco couldn't bring himself to believe that. Especially now. There was just something so wrong about the way it felt, something so very un-dreamlike about it all. Any doubts that perhaps he was simply overreacting had been diminished- though not entirely eradicated- with his trip to Sylvia. Something bad was going on and he was willing to bet that those dreams had something to do with it.

With something closely akin to guilt he pulled the small gold ring out of his pocket. The ring and the necklace were connected, and he knew that simply refusing to use either of them was, perhaps, not the best course of action, but he hadn't been able to bring himself to use it again. For just a moment he paused, sickened with himself. Sylvia had been right; he was a coward, and he admitted it. Self-preservation was the backbone of Slytherin philosophy, and it had never failed him before, but now, he was beginning to think something more might be required in this particular situation. He fingered the ring, knowing that eventually, he'd have to force himself to use the necklace again. But not today. He put the band back in his pocket and laid down on the bed, still fully dressed, and closed his eyes. He'd been doing a lot of sleeping lately; it was better than the boredom. But even as he lie there with his eyes closed, he felt a pressure he hadn't felt before, as if some large, hulking creature sat on its haunches somewhere, stalking him, waiting to make its move. There was a dark, ominous feeling of certainty that came with that image. Somewhere, Draco Malfoy felt, there was an hourglass, and for him, time was running out.

When Draco woke again, the last red and gold traces of sunlight were dancing on the curtains covering his window. It had been early afternoon when he'd gone to sleep, and he'd missed lunch and probably dinner. Only vaguely annoyed, he wondered if anyone had tried to come and get him. Ginny wouldn't have, and she was the only one besides, perhaps, Mrs. Weasley who would have thought to wake him up. He felt fairly sure that the middle-aged witch would have noticed his absence at two meals, which meant she had probably seen him and thought it was better to let him sleep. Really, he was relieved; the less meals he had to spend with the Weasleys the better.

He'd woken up with the type of headache that followed too much sleep. Groggily, he rubbed his eyes and got out of the bed, trying to smooth his clothes before heading down stairs. From the kitchen, he grabbed two rolls and something to drink and started back up to his room. He paused when he heard Hermione, talking to Ron and Harry in a dreamy, almost wistful fashion.

"It's marvelous. I really admire Cassandra." Hermione said enthusiastically, waving a book in front of the boys' faces.

Ron's face screwed up in concentration. "Cassandra…but…isn't she Trelawney's great-great grandmother or something? I thought you said divination was bollocks?"

Hermione sighed like she'd said something that she now rather wished she hadn't. Draco leaned on the doorframe so he could now see the conversation as well.

"I did and it is. But there's a difference between true Seeing and divination. Anyone can use divination, or at least that half-baked bit of it Trelawney teaches. But real Seers- diviners- they actually have visions and see into the future. Simply using divination- even muggle 'fortune tellers' can do it to a degree." Hermione explained.

Harry looked confused. "But, Trelawney- she's had real prophesies."

"Yes." Hermione agreed. "But she had a bit of Cassandra's blood in her. And she can't really see anything. She didn't even know she'd made a prediction."

Ron grinned. "Finally got something right and she missed it. Kind of pathetic, really."

"As usual, Granger, you left out one important detail." Draco said, and for the first time, the three looked up at him, startled. "Real Seers are purebloods."

Ginny liked babies. She always had. It was regrettable, considering that fact, that she was the youngest in her family. It was one of the many good things about having her family come to visit that she got to play with the baby. Babies, she found, had a sort of soothing effect on a person. They were soft, and sweet, and had that fresh baby smell to them, and it was impossible to stay mad when they were around. Which was good, because lately Ginny found there weren't many other people in the house she could keep her temper with. In the past four days alone, she rowed three times with Ron, twice with her mother, and at least once with Harry, Hermione, Percy and the twins. Her mother and her got into minor but nearly constant arguments basically since she had hit puberty, and her brothers happily wrote it off as part of her time of the month. But still, she had to do a better job at not losing her temper or people would begin to suspect something was wrong, and then they'd assume it was Draco- which of course it was- and then she'd have to go through all those questions again, and she was horrible at keeping up pretenses when she was angry, so inevitably her brothers would find out something was going on, and then…it was just so much simpler to sit in the rocking chair and avoid all those things.

The only problem was Draco. He wasn't content to just let her be. He kept showing up everywhere, not saying anything, just waiting there like he expected her at any moment to start speaking to him again. And when he wasn't doing that, he was reading, or sleeping. He'd given all attempts to reconcile with her, which was disappointing because, pointless and ineffective as they may be, they had at least given her something to do. Now, she had just fallen into the quiet, boring pattern of quiet, uneventful days. But more than that, it was odd simply because she'd grown so accustomed to the Slytherin's presence that the lack of it was strangely disconcerting.

Ginny laid her cousin down in the crib and extinguished the lights. Opening the door, she was very nearly knocked to the ground as she and Charlie collided.

"Merlin, Charlie!" Ginny cried over Charlie's use of several more colorful words.

"Alright, Gin?" He asked, helping steady her.

"Fine." She answered as she straightened out and brushed herself off. "What are you doing?"

"Mum says dinner's ready."

"Oh, thanks, Charlie." She said and started down the stairs. He grabbed her arm, halting her before she'd even finished her step.

"Listen, Ginny, can we talk?"

Ginny frowned and gestured downstairs. "But dinner-"

"Malfoy's down there." Charlie said shortly. "You've been doing such a good job avoiding him, I'd hate to see you quit now."

Ginny bit her lip. "So you noticed."

"Of course I noticed." Charlie said, "I am the oldest, after all."

"You're not the oldest." She pointed out.

"Yes, well, I should be." He replied. Ginny went up the stairs leading to her room wordlessly and Charlie followed. Once she had firmly shut the door, she sat down on the bed and looked up at him, not knowing what to say. Charlie was twiddling his thumbs, and staring at the ground.

"So…" He said after a long pause.

Ginny stared at him and he let out a long, deep sigh. "What's going on Ginny?" She made a face and he hastened to add, "I know you said you can't tell me. But is it because you can't tell me or because you can't tell me?"

"I can't tell you, Charlie."

"I rather thought so. And you can't tell me why you can't tell me, can you?" He asked hopefully.

Ginny shook her head.

"Listen, Ginny, I know you can take care of yourself. But, I'm your brother and it's my job to worry. You'd let me know if you gotten in over your head, wouldn't you, Gin?"

She laughed at the earnest, serious expression on his face. "Charlie, nothing's wrong, I promise. Everyone's making such a big deal out of this, but I promise, after Christmas everything will go back to normal. In the mean time…Malfoy and I- he was just being himself."

"Arrogant, conceited, and stubborn?" Charlie said with a grin.

"Yeah, you forgot inconsiderate, sarcastic, and smug."

"I'll add those to the list. You're sure you're okay?"

"I'm sure."

He stood, patted her shoulder in a reassuring manner and turned to leave.

"Hey, Charlie?" He paused and turned back to her. "Do you think it's possible…for someone to change?"

"You mean Malfoy?" Her brother studied her a moment. "I suppose it's possible. I think you're good for him, Gin. Just be careful, okay?"

They hadn't met at their normal restaurant. Because of the holiday, Snape was only sporadically at the school and to travel all the way to Hogsmeade simply to meet was ridiculous. He had suggested the Leaky Cauldron, but honestly, the day Narcissa Black Malfoy stepped foot into a common pub was the day Voldemort played cricket with the Queen. So it was settled that they would meet an Italian restaurant in London. Muggle London. It was classy and clean, and neither of them had ever been there before. Despite that, Narcissa had preformed he usual glamour charms. Her hair, now a deep, chestnut brown, hung in tight curls around her shoulders. Honestly, it clashed horribly with her completion, but she didn't really care. She'd had a particularly hard time finding anything to wear, but had finally settled on a pretty, blue dress which she hoped wouldn't make her stand out too much amongst the muggles.

She'd been waiting only a few minutes when Severus entered. The host hesitantly asked him how many would be in his party and Snape glared and then proceeded to walk past the man and, after a brief search, caught Narcissa's eye. The host did nothing to stop him; intimidating under the best of circumstances, Snape seemed positively murderous.

He nearly knocked his chair over as he pulled it out, and then threw himself into, still looking irate. "The whole ministry is in Lucius's pocket. Kingsley was put on suspension today, and all the ministry would say as to why was something about missing paper work." He hissed.

Narcissa gasped quietly. "Kingsley?" Kingsley was an auror with considerable seniority and a not insignificant amount of pull within the ministry. If Lucius had truly gotten rid of him, the Order had lost a huge asset. "Has he filed for an appeal?"

"Of course not." Snape said, in the same low voice. "If he files for an appeal, the ministry will start poking around, and no doubt find something even more incriminating. You know Lucius never leaves loose ends; he's probably had something placed in Shacklebolt's files or desk for weeks, just in case anyone started asking around."

The waiter had arrived at their table, carrying a platter of food, which he unloaded at their table, before taking the bottle of champagne he'd been holding and pouring it carefully into the two ornate wineglasses. He replaced each glass with a flourish. "Is there anything I can get you?"

"No thank you." Narcissa said. The waiter left and she gracefully placed the cloth napkin in her lap. "I took the liberty of ordering for you. I hope you don't mind."

"Of course not."

"How is he, Severus?"

"Draco is fine."

She let out a deep sigh of relief. "I'm sorry to be so bothersome to you, but I get so worried about him. I haven't gotten a single letter from him this month. I just hate not knowing where he is. I'll be so glad when this whole holiday is over and I can be sure he's back and safe at Hogwarts."

"He'll be fine, Narcissa." Snape said. He never bothered to try and sound comforting, instead he settled for a very assured, matter of fact tone.

"Of course he will." She said, sounding very distant. "He's a Malfoy after all."

There was a long pause, which she interrupted a moment later with the rather unexpected remark of, "He wasn't always like this. Lucius…when we first got married…he-"

"We all make mistakes. There was no way you could have known what Lucius would turn out like."

"How consoling you sound, Severus." She was intently studying her napkin. "Don't lie. Of course I should have known, and then I should have left as soon as I realized. But Draco was so small then. Who knows what Lucius would have done." She looked up at him suddenly. "I thought I was protecting him."

Snape nodded. "I know."

"Don't think I'm any better than I am. I don't disagree with what their doing. I could care less about the muggleborns and their families. I just wanted to protect him."

Hesitantly, Snape touched her hand. "You have, Narcissa. Draco is fine."

"And Molly? Molly Weasley?"

"She's fine too. But-"

The waiter approached their table again. "Do you need anything?" He asked. "Dessert perhaps?"

"No thank you." Narcissa said, and then once he'd gone, "Severus, I just don't understand why they'd go after her of all people."

Snape shifted uncomfortably. "Perhaps they are simply trying to bait Potter. She has been a mother figure to him for the past several years. Or they know that being his best friends mother Potter will feel obligated to go after her. Or…are you-what I mean is- can you be absolutely sure they said Molly Weasley?"

"Of course." Narcissa said.

"You-you actually heard them say that name?"

"Yes." Narcissa narrowed her eyes. "What's going on?"

"Nothing." He said standing and brushing himself off. "I have to be going. Don't worry about, Draco."

Sorry about any errors, but like I said, I'm a really, really, REALLY, bad proofreader.

Thanks so much to my reviewers. I LLlllOOooooOOOOvvvvVVVEEEEeeee you. Which is so much better than just loving you, because it has capital letters.

Please review! They make me write faster.

(And by the way, just because I don't want anyone thinking it's a continuity(err...I can't spell, don't stone me) error (of which there are many, this just doesn't happen to be one of them) if something Narcissa said to Snape doesn't doesn't line up with something earlier in the chapter, there's a reason for that.)

P.S. Armadillos (will someday conquer the world)