A Woman's Intuition by J&amp;M Ink.

Rating: PG13
Genres: Romance
Relationships: Draco & Ginny
Book: Draco & Ginny, Books 1 - 6
Published: 29/11/2006
Last Updated: 29/11/2006
Status: In Progress

A challenge from english_rose. In a world gone to war, a little faith and the right connections
to the Potions cabinet can go a long way...




1. Chapter the Only
-------------------

Disclaimer: Not mine. Get over yourself.

Note: A response to a challenge I found in the forums. It’s short and sweet and to the point.
Enjoy!

He raised the cup of coffee to his sculpted lips and took a scalding sip. His silver blond hair
gleamed in the artificial sunlight, and his indecipherable eyes looked ahead without really seeing.
On the other side of the hall, she stared at him without even noticing, just as she had every
morning since school had commenced. She sighed, convinced she was thinking of her Herbology
homework and not completely aware that she had just been caught red handed.

“It’s rude to stare, Ginny,” said a soft voice to her right. It barely carried over the din made
by the rest of the breakfasters in the Great Hall, but it startled Ginny nonetheless. Fervently
urging her face not to blush, she turned and found herself being scrutinized by the omniscient eyes
of Hermione Granger.

Ginny blinked to clear her head, for she knew that to confront Hermione in a battle of wits, she
would require complete coherency. “I wasn’t staring,” she said. “I was thinking about the Herbology
report I have to start tonight.” Which, when you get down to the thick of it, was partially true.
“Besides,” she added as and afterthought, “who in the name of Merlin would I waste the time to look
at in here?”

Hermione’s eyes flicked over to the Slytherin table and then back to Ginny. She scanned Ginny’s
face for any hint of falsehood and then, with a sigh, averted her attention to her plate. It was
all Ginny could do to not show her relief. She glanced at Hermione again to make sure her inquiring
mind was aptly subdued, and suddenly noticed how tired her friend looked. She hunched her shoulders
as she read her issue of the *Daily Prophet*, her eyes looked like they could hardly stay
open, and she barely touched her food. As curious as Ginny was, she wasn’t very keen on having
Hermione’s focus directed toward her again and thus chalked her fatigue up to an overabundant
workload, which Hermione was accustomed to committing herself to.

For the duration of the week, Ginny watched herself very carefully so as to avoid being caught
again, but all thoughts of not thinking went out the window Monday morning.

She had noticed that he wasn’t in his usual seat when she had tucked into her food, and she had
tried to not pay it much mind. She had thought she was doing rather well, thankyouverymuch…until he
walked in, of course. She had been conveniently looking up when his handsome form came through the
doors. Immediately she noticed that he lacked his usual swagger as he made his way to his table. He
looked utterly exhausted, and before she could stop herself, she was entertaining ingenious ideas
of how she could manage to wake him up. She was absently twirling a lock of hair around her finger,
her eyes trained on him with a hold that was seemingly unwavering…until a very exasperated Hermione
appeared in front of her.

Ginny jumped as she plummeted back to reality. She opened her mouth to explain, but Hermione
held up her hand and spoke first.

“I don’t want to hear it,” she whispered in a voice that betrayed more concern than anger. She
took a seat next to Ginny and turned their chairs so that they were facing each other and so that
Ginny had no option to look anywhere else. Hermione laid a copy of the *Daily Prophet* in
Ginny’s lap and said firmly, but gently, “Read.”

Ginny looked down at the paper in her lap. On the front page was a picture of the Dark Mark
hovering above a forest, a picture not unknown to accompany the *Prophet’s* cover stories in
the past three years. Ginny skimmed the article; it was written exactly like so many before it.
Death Eaters had ravaged a Muggle town the night before and left six dead in their wake. These
stories were published in such abundance that most had come to only look for the identities of the
victims and then react accordingly. The rest was irrelevant.

Recognizing no names, Ginny looked up at Hermione again, confused.

“I was there last night,” Hermione said wearily, “along with Ron and Harry. We saw the Death
Eaters, Ginny. I think he was one of them.” She looked across the Great Hall, but Ginny didn’t
budge.

“Not Draco,” she whispered. Hermione looked back at her and raised a skeptical eyebrow, but
Ginny was vehemently shaking her head. “Not Draco. He wouldn’t, Hermione, he’s different,
he’s--”

“How are you sure?” Hermione demanded.

Ginny opened her mouth to respond that she just knew, but she stopped herself. Hermione was
right without even saying anything; the war was beginning to crescendo and would soon reach a
climax that promised to be bloodier than any other was. The world had reached a point where running
on instinct and “just knowing” simply wasn’t good enough, and even though she very much wanted him
to not be, Ginny knew it was highly probably that Draco wasn’t on her side of the fence.

She closed her mouth and glared at Hermione, furious with her for being right and shattering her
hopes. In one fluid motion, she scooped up her books and stood and stormed from the Great Hall,
vowing to prove Hermione Granger wrong by any means necessary. After all, she couldn’t
*always* be right.

***

Twilight dusted the sky in pinks and lavenders that night as Ginny lay on her bed, alone in her
dormitory. She hugged her pillow tight to her chest for comfort and thought about Hermione’s
accusation and the feelings that had erupted within her as a result. She realized that, despite the
numerous excuses she had made over the past months, she had become infatuated with someone she was
sworn to hate. She never even *spoke* to Draco to feel like she did about him, and yet here
she was, skulking in her room because he was possibly a Death Eater. She should be out with the
intrepid trio trying to vanquish him and his kind! And yet…and yet…she just couldn’t bring her
heart to believe he was evil.

Even since the incident with the diary and Tom’s possession of her body, Ginny had acquired an
acute awareness of all things bad. Yes, she had always despised Draco, but he didn’t necessarily
set off red flags and alarms in her head. Ginny sighed and turned on her side, looking out at the
window and sun slowly surrendered the sky to the clutches of night. Her eyebrows came together in a
decisive glare. There was only one way to find out if she was right.

***

“Ginny, I have homework to do. Is this going to take long?” Hermione whispered anxiously as
Ginny pulled her by the arm through the library.

“Hermione,” Ginny said, exasperated, “all of your homework for the next two weeks is completely
caught up. You can spare me five minutes for this.”

Ginny stopped them at a round table nestled between two imposing bookshelves. Hermione took a
seat at the table while Ginny peaked around the corner created by one of the bookshelves. They
waited like that in the silence for two minutes. Hermione had begun impatiently drumming her
fingers on the table when Ginny turned back to her to whisper excitedly, “He’s here, come on!”

“Who’s here?” Hermione demanded, but Ginny had pulled her to her feet and they were catapulting
around the bookshelf and into the chairs of another table. Draco Malfoy looked up at them in
surprise.

“Can I…help you?” He asked, looking at the girls in utter perplexity.

“Have you ever killed anyone, Draco?” Ginny asked abruptly. Hermione turned to look at her in
shock, her eyes wide in disbelief that Ginny would be audacious enough to ask an obvious Death
Eater if he had ever –

“No,” Draco said almost instantaneously, although he looked like he wasn’t sure why he was
saying what he was saying. Ginny turned proudly to Hermione.

“See?”

“How can we believe him?” Hermione demanded.

“He can’t lie to me…” Ginny started.

“Gin, I know you trust him, but…”

“No, he CAN’T lie! I slipped some Veritaserum in his coffee…”

“You WHAT?” Hermione and Draco demanded in unison. Hermione instantly clapped her hands over her
mouth at her sudden outburst and looked around in horror for Madame Pince. Draco was looking at
Ginny with the oddest combination of confusion and admiration, and it emboldened her to
continue.

“Draco, are you a Death Eater?” She asked.

“Merlin, no. I would never subject myself to someone else like that,” he said, clearly repulsed
by the thought. Ginny turned to beam at Hermione. The older girl rolled her eyes.

“Yes, yes, you told me so, congratulations. You stay here and ruin your record with Madame Pince
if you’d like, but I’m not going to be removed from here,” she said in a rush, and left them as
quickly as she had spoken.

“You slipped Veritaserum in my coffee?” Draco said softly. Ginny turned back to him, and her
heart skipped a beat when she realized they were the only two in the vicinity, and she was the one
he was looking at that way. For the first time, she wasn’t so sure about herself.

“Well, you see…I’d heard you might be on the Dark Side, and I didn’t want to believe it, because
that would’ve been terrible, so I had to find out, but I knew you would’ve said something about me
minding my own secondhand business if I asked you, so this was the only way,” she said before she
could stop herself. Realizing that she was all but wearing her heart on her sleeve, she bit her lip
and looked at him hopelessly.

“Wait, how would that have been terrible? What are you saying?” He looked more confused than he
had to begin with.

Ginny contemplated her options for a moment, and in a sudden burst of courage, said, “Draco, do
you love me?”

“No,” he said simply, and Ginny’s entire body slumped. “But…I could, I think,” he added. She
looked up, hopeful. He smiled and reached out to touch her hand across the table. She smiled back
and turned her hand into his. The bells and whistles that went off in her head in that moment,
along with the fireworks down in her stomach, proved better than any Veritaserum could that it was
still possible to “just know” and, most importantly, that Hermione had been wrong.



