A/N: Voila. Chaptoire Dix-Seis. I don't know what chapter is in French, so I made it up. Oh well. Draco and Ginny fight.

Disclaimer: I am not lucky enough to as smart as to invent these characters myself. They are not mine. Too bad. –pout-

The Stone Speaks

Sixteen: Game For Two

DRACO

Everyone noticed a difference in Ginny. Whispers around the school that were more like shouts told Draco that only her boyfriend, her best friend, and her brother knew why. She tells the weak, arrogant hero, Potter – but not me, Draco thought darkly as he dressed one morning. The cold was truly settling in, and anyone who wasn't partially insane wouldn't be caught without a scarf – school crest, or otherwise.

Draco had wanted to ask Ginny how she was doing, but every time he drew close enough to the sixth-year he was frightened away by her suddenly-fearful eyes with a deer-caught-in-headlights expression. Today, he decided, that would change.

Pulling on dark-green gloves, he left the Slytherin dungeons, his school bag bouncing on his waist. Draco knew that Ginny generally came down to breakfast late, and so had timed his leaving the dungeons so that he would probably meet her in the Entrance Hall. He imagined bumping into her: "Oh, Ginny, what a surprise to see you here, at this time!" Hehe.

Draco wasn't sure if he actually expected for it to work, and so when he emerged from the dungeons' side-door and saw a sleepy female Weasley descending the main stairs, he was quite astonished at his own cleverness.

"Oh, hey Ginny," Draco called up the steps, raising one hand in a half-wave.

Ginny stopped, and looked at him, hard. "Hey," she said, but there was no friendly manner in her voice or her face. She continued down a few more paces, but then paused again. Draco quickly calculated the number of steps between them – twenty-four. Is this a simple problem, like everyone thinks, or is she actually having a trust issue?

"Are you okay, Ginny?" Draco asked, forcing the syllables past his reluctant tongue and out into the ill-at-ease air between the two students. "You've been sort of -"

"Will people just asking me if I'm okay?!" Ginny snapped. "I – am – fine! Get it into your head, everyone!" she glared defiantly down at Draco, twenty-four steps down.

Unsure of whether this was a good or a bad move, Draco took a step up the stairs. Instantly he knew which it was: Ginny flinched and moved back three stairs, nearly stumbling over each stride of her hasty retreat.

"Ginny!" Draco exclaimed. "What is wrong?" he hated every inch of his brain for letting his do this, but he let concern into his face, and was suddenly near-drowned in emotions, so that he nearly fell down the one step he stood on.

Ginny's face blazed. "I'm sorry if some parts of my life don't include you!" she yelled. Then, she plunged into quietness, stared at her feet, and Draco saw a million feelings swirling through her eyes.

"Why do you hate me now?" Draco asked, feeling his eyes bite with tears that he bluntly refused to give way to. "Have you gone to everyone else's side?"

Ginny looked up, and said in a voice so soft that it was barely audible, "I don't hate you, and I'm not angry at you." She moved down several steps until she was almost level with Draco's blue eyes. "I'm scared for you."

The seventeen-year-old only just caught her words. When he stepped forwards to ask her why, Ginny brushed past him, a thousand words unspoken, and carried on to the Great Hall. Draco was left confused and hurt, not understanding what was going on and why it was. He heaved a sigh, and resumed his journey to breakfast, alone.

Draco saw her across the four house tables, talking quietly to Granger. She seemed so wary, like a hare that's ready to run away at the slightest noise. Today her hair was in a low ponytail, strands of shorter red hair falling into her face, and Draco felt angrier than ever.

I have no friends except for Ginny and Myrtle. And now I only have Myrtle, because Ginny's throwing a Potter by being grumpy and annoyed and arrogant, he thought to himself, cramming bacon into his mouth, as if he was thinking that if he could stuff enough pork products into his mouth, Ginny might come over an apologize. However, this idea went down dismally as she finished her breakfast before he did, and flounced from the hall dramatically, leaving a stunned Gryffindor table in her wake.

Draco groaned and slumped forwards, resting his pale chin on the wooden table. Great. That left him with only one friend. Myrtle. He peered at his watch to check that he had enough time in his first free period, then finished his breakfast and headed towards the abandoned girls' bathroom on the second floor.

Selecting to go the long way, as opposed you using a collection of secret walkways, Draco headed around past the Defence Against the Dark Arts block and –

Draco's heart squashed itself flat and dived down until he couldn't work out where it had gone, it must have left his body –

Ginny. And. Harry. Kissing.

Draco tried to say something, but couldn't… and then he noticed that Ginny's hair had darkened to brunette and curled; she had grown taller and chunkier and – Granger. Potter and Granger, standing together, pressed against the wall, kissing heatedly as if there was no tomorrow.

Then a thought struck Draco. But Potter's going out with Ginny! Maybe that was why she was suddenly so angry and withdrawn. "Myrtle," he muttered, needing someone to talk to about all of his ideas, and he ran down the corridor, past the oblivious snogging Gryffindors, and into the girls' toilets.

"Myrtle!" Draco gasped out, slamming the door behind him. "I need to talk to you!" There was a silence as Myrtle floated to the top of the toilet cubicle, peering curiously at the Slytherin in front of her.

"What's wrong, Draco?" Myrtle asked, frowning at his desperate, angry, sad, confused face. "Are you alright?"

"You know how I was saying how Ginny's gone totally weird and reserved and no-one can get through to her?" Draco said, crossing the bathroom to Myrtle and looking up into lifeless grey eyes. "I think I've found out why."

Myrtle tilted her head, interested. "I'm listening," she said, dropping out of sight, unlocking the cubicle door and floating out, towards Draco.

"Well, I just saw -"

"This should be fascinating, I'm sure," cut in a calm female voice. Draco spun to see Ginny, leaning against the door, tapping her feet impatiently on the broken blue tiles that made up the bathroom floor. "Tell me more."

Draco paled slightly, before turning faintly pink. "Nothing," he said quickly, "I mean, I – never mind." He cast a glance sideways at Myrtle, then locking his gaze back onto the beautiful, angry, dangerous features of young Ms. Weasley.

"Tell me. What did you see?" asked Ginny, her voice low, and lethally quiet, eyes scorching in her face. Draco saw the Stone around her neck, burning with an intense heat that radiated her fury.

"Nothing!" Draco snapped. "If you don't want to tell me anything, I won't tell you anything!"

Ginny's look of hostility and anger slipped for a moment, replaced by wounded sadness, but then disappeared again to her rage.

"Yes, Ginevra, I think you'll find that two can play at that game, and I think you'll also find that I'm a damn good player, too," Draco snarled. "Now, what's your business is yours, and what's mine is mine. Neither concerns the other, and they need never meet." With a flourish of his cloak, Draco stepped past her, and strode moodily from the bathroom, wondering where that fabulous speech had come from.