Finding Time at Bamburgh View for Paradise_loved

December 11th, 2008

• Title: Finding Time at Bamburgh View
• Rating: R
• Possible Spoilers/Warnings: Up to and including DH, EWE
• Author's Notes: Thank you to my wonderful last-minute beta, who will get properly credited after the reveal. If even half the typos that you picked up on had got through I would have been horribly embarrassed.
• Summary: It sounded like the beginning of a mystery novel: reclusive old woman dies, leaving her entire fortune to a beautiful young witch.

Finding Time at Bamburgh View

Our forbearers believed time was cyclical; that what had happened before must happen again. In this they have been proved wise, though for decidedly different reasons than first suspected.
An Introduction to the History of Time-Turner by Iona Applegate

- - -

The air exploded from Ginny's body as she hit the ground, cutting off the scream that had swelled inside of her. Her vision blurred as pain swept through her. Unconsciousness pressed insistently at the edges of her mind. She fought to keep her eyes open, even as she longed to close them. She did not dare to.

She was not sure that there would be any coming back if she did.

A horrified cry split the air.

ONE

Forty-eight hours ago, if someone had asked Ginny Weasley where she would be spending her morning off from work, the last place that she would have said was a cemetery.

While, in comparison to the multitude of strange things that she had experienced in her life, standing in a cemetery at any time of day should not have seemed all that odd, it was made infinitely more so by the fact that the funeral that she was attending was for someone that she had never even met. Indeed, she had never even spoken to the newly interred occupant of the grave before her. It was only through a brief sequence of similarly peculiar events that she had ended up in the cool, lonely graveyard that October morning.

On the evidence of the crowd attending the service, Miss Edwina Smythe, 137, from Northumberland, had not been a particularly popular witch. Besides Ginny, there were only three other mourners present. One was a small, plump old woman with purple-grey hair; another was a rather bored looking mousey young woman with thick rimmed glasses who was attempting to hide the notebook that she was holding in one hand. Finally, there was a gangly middle-aged man who Ginny was willing to bet was the reason behind why she was there that day. Ginny eyed him with a mixture of anticipation and mistrust. She had yet to properly form an opinion.

The service concluded with little fanfare. A single handful of dirt was cast into the open grave to strike the lid of the coffin with uncomfortable noisiness before the watchers began to move away. Ginny followed, though she eventually paused beneath a towering elm to wait for the man that she had identified earlier.

Edward Foster was everything that might be expected from a man of his profession - that is to say, a solicitor. Though, as he approached, Ginny noticed that he also possessed a pair of unusually kind blue eyes which brightened on seeing her, along with the rest of his face. Ginny immediately found herself responding in kind. If her smile was a little less enthusiastic, it was only because of the oddity of her situation.

"Miss Weasley," he said, holding out his hand. "Edward Foster, the executor of Miss Smythe's estate. I'm so pleased that you could come. When I did not hear from you, I was concerned that perhaps you would not."

Ginny felt her cheeks colour slightly. "I wasn't certain that I was going to be able to," she said, neatly sidestepping the truth of the matter which lay more along the lines of not knowing whether she was going to bother to attend at all. As Ron had so neatly put it, she didn't have a bloody clue who Foster was. Curiosity had won out in the end, however.

Foster nodded. "Perfectly understandable," he said. "It was rather short notice. Now, if you'd allow me to Apparate us there, let's go to my office. I'm sure you have many questions you'd like answered."

Ginny hesitated, her hand hovering over his arm for a moment before descending. She could almost feel her heart skipping a beat as she did.

- - -

It started with a letter that had arrived in a crisp, official looking envelope the previous Tuesday morning - just as Ginny was devouring the single dry piece of toast that had composed her breakfast. The unfamiliar owl had watched her carefully as she had read over the contents, waiting for a reply that it had taken Ginny several minutes to write. Truthfully, sitting in the little kitchen of her London flat, she had been rather baffled as to what to write. It was not everyday that a girl learned that she had been made the beneficiary of a will.

Now, as she settled into the seat that Foster offered her, Ginny found that she was once again lost for words. She was thankful for the coffee that his secretary brought in while he dug out a thick stack of papers. Sipping from her cup filled the silence and warmed her through again. The sober yet stylish robes that she had worn to the funeral had not exactly stood up to the seeping autumnal weather.

When Foster turned around and took his seat behind the suitably imposing desk, there was a triumphant smile on his face. "Here we go," he said, patting the thick folder in an almost fatherly manner.

The chair that Ginny was seated on creaked as she shifted her weight, despite the fact that the movement was barely perceptible. The furnishings in Foster's office suited the building. Heavy and dark, they lent an air of authority to what had proved to be a surprisingly small set of offices. When Ginny had first received the letter from him, she had pictured something much larger. She had imagined something like the grand offices of Lester, Malfoy, and Hume which stood across the street. Now she found that she was oddly reassured that Foster did not work for a firm of that size.

"I won't waste any time getting to the heart of the matter, Miss Weasley. Despite the size of this file, Miss Smythe's instructions are refreshingly simple. She left virtually her entire estate to you."

Ginny gasped, her eyes widening. "No," she said. "That can't be right."

"I assure you that it is," Foster said. "I, myself, drew up Miss Smythe's arrangements when she contacted me after being admitted to St Mungo's. She had been ill for some time, you see, and I believe she suspected that her time was drawing to a close."

"No, that isn't what I meant. Well, it is but… Mr Foster, I didn't even know her. Are you sure that you haven't got the wrong person?"

Foster smiled and leaned forwards, his forearms resting on the edge of his desk. "I am quite certain. You are a notable public figure, and - even if you were not - I doubt that there is another Ginevra Molly Weasley. Besides, I know for a fact that Miss Smythe was a great fan of your work. She was something of a mystery buff."

Ginny felt her cheeks darken slightly. Her talent for writing mysteries had been unexpected and surprising. She still had not quite managed to get used to the fame that had accompanied the success of the radio serial that she worked on. It was odd to be known for being something other than yet another Weasley child or Harry Potter's girlfriend, even though it had been some time since she had been classed as the latter.

Still, she did not think that she was good.

"Miss Smythe's estate is not insubstantial. The bulk of it, however, consists of her cottage in Northumberland, situated on the coast a little way from Bamburgh Castle, and her account at Gringotts'. There are some other, smaller holdings, but for the moment we need not trouble ourselves with those. I understand that this must all be a bit of a shock…"

"That's an understatement!" Ginny blurted out before she could stop herself. Her mind was reeling from what he had already told her. After sucking in a deep breath, she added, "Didn't she have any relatives? What about friends?"

"I asked her much the same question," Foster admitted. "As her solicitor, I believed it was my duty to ensure that she was certain of what she was doing. She informed me quite succinctly that most of her close friends had already departed from this world, and that she had only a few, distant relatives. From what I understand, they were not close. There had been a disagreement in the past and, as you saw yourself today, they did not attend the service."

Ginny's chest tightened, her eyes dipping slightly. It was so sad. She could not imagine being in such a position.

"Provision has been made for one of them - a cousin - to take one item of their choosing from the cottage. You need not concern yourself with that unless you wish to though. I can make arrangements for them to visit the cottage and then provide you with an itemised list of the contents."

She nodded absently, knowing instinctively that she would not want to meet the cousin. It would be uncomfortable, to say the least.

In the background she heard a scraping sound as Foster pulled out his desk draw, then a rattling as he withdrew something. When his hand reappeared, there was a set of keys dangling from his fingers. These he held out to Ginny.

"There is not much more to say, Miss Weasley. Only, Miss Smythe was a wonderful character - a true individual. I trust her judgement in acting as she did implicitly. As it is, if you have any further questions, I shall be happy to answer them for you."

- - -

On Saturday morning, an owl arrived from Foster carrying a Portkey that was charmed to carry her to Edwina Smythe's cottage. Ginny eyed it with a distinct air of trepidation. She trusted Foster, but the fact remained that she still knew next to nothing about the woman behind her newly acquired fortune. Foster had been understandably careful about how he had answered her questions.

Ginny discovered that she half wished that she had asked Hermione or Harry to see what they could find out about the woman after all. Working at the Ministry, both had far better resources than she could even dream of. She had been reluctant to disturb Hermione, though, who seemed to be perpetually busy with one thing or another. Her reluctance to contact Harry had been even greater though. Things had remained awkward between them, despite the amicableness of their break up earlier that year.

In the end, she reassured herself that Foster had impressed her as a thoroughly respectable member of his profession and set about preparing for the day ahead, and her trip to Edwina's cottage.

She dressed carefully, in casual clothes that would be suitable if she happened to run into anyone, but which she would not mind getting a little dirty if she needed to. She had no idea what state the cottage was in, after all, since Foster had informed her that Edwina had been in St Mungo's for some time before she had passed away. Mention had also been made of a pet that a neighbour - the elderly woman that Ginny had seen at the funeral service - had been taking care of. The pet in question had apparently been unceremoniously returned once it had become known that Edwina had left nothing in her will for its temporary care giver.

So it was that Ginny found herself dressed in jeans and a pale blue sweatshirt, standing at the end of a long path that was barely more than a dirt track. A sweeping, bone-chilling wind assaulted her the moment that the residual energy from the Portkey faded, and not for the first time Ginny cursed the fact that the cottage had been blocked off from the Floo network while her benefactress had been ill.

"A necessary precaution, you understand," Foster had told her. "Such properties are often targeted by criminal types when it becomes known that their occupants are in hospital or have passed away."

Ginny suspected such precautions were par for the course with Edwina Smythe. The woman's interest in mystery stories had seeped into her every day life, leading her to install some fairly nasty anti-Apparation wards and several other security measures. Foster had told her that she may have to bring in a specialist if she wanted to disarm them on a permanent basis. Ginny was thinking of asking Bill if he would take a look at them in his spare time. Her big brother liked a challenge.

The cottage was far more isolated than she had expected it would be. A patchwork of fields surrounded it on three sides, flat at first and then rising into gentle rolling hills. Dry stone walls divided the otherwise open expanse into rough pockets, attempting to tame the countryside. Ginny was shocked by the size of it.

To her back was the sea. Ginny spun around to stare at it, shifting the rucksack that she had slung over one shoulder as she did so, and battling with her hair as it whipped around her. At this time of year the broad sandy beach seemed bleached of colour; the water beyond it was a grey, trembling mass. It was raw, and it was beautiful. For a heartbeat, as the wind tugged at her, Ginny almost felt as if she was flying again.

Shivering, she dragged herself from the view and began to make her way up the path towards the house. The closer she drew, the more excited she became. From the outside the cottage appeared almost Spartan with its rough hewn grey walls. Green-brown lichen clung to the individual stones, colouring and texturing them, as if it had been placed there purposely. The white painted window frames looked almost unnaturally bright in the dull landscape.

By the time she had reached the sturdy stone wall that provided a protective barrier for the cottage's garden against the elements, her heart was thudding nosily in her chest. She tried to take her time - to look around and study the garden. By the gate there was a simple plaque that read 'Bamburgh View'. The wind pressed her on insistently, however, and she hurried towards the front door. It was finding out what the interior of the cottage was like that really excited her anyway. There would be plenty of time to explore the exterior later.

Cheeks flushed and eyes bright, she very nearly fell into the cottage once she had managed to dig the key out of her bag. Quickly closing the door, she sucked in a much needed lungful of air and closed her eyes. Already she could feel some of the cold leaching from her body.

"Morning, Ginny."

She swore.

Loudly.


TWO


It was not the first time Ginny had run into Draco Malfoy since the end of the war. It was not even the hundredth time that she had run into him.

Over the last couple years Draco had, unfortunately, made comparatively regular appearances in her life. There was even a part of her that was not even particularly surprised to discover that he was the long lost cousin that Edwina had provided for in her legacy. It made a sort of perverse sense, in the wider scheme of her life.

Draco worked in - among other things - copyrighting, having taken up a position in a division that was an offshoot of his father's law firm. The latter fact was hardly important. He could have worked anywhere he wanted to - he had worked anywhere. His career had begun in New York where he had anonymously worked his way up through the ranks. At twenty-eight, he had already proved himself to be a rare talent. From conversations with friends, Ginny knew that he could have stayed abroad as well, if he had wished to, and stayed away from the constant gossip that still pursued his family. Precisely why he had chosen to return was still a bit of mystery. Under pressure, Ginny would even have admitted that it was a mystery that she was somewhat intrigued by.

Their first encounter had occurred not long after he had moved back. Encouraged by one of her friends at The Daily Prophet, Ginny had been tentatively attempting to take up writing. She had already produced a few sports columns for the newspaper after the editor had expressed an interest in having an ex-player on their staff. It had not taken her long to realise that sports journalism was never going to be her great passion, however. Not when her career with the Harpies had been cut short. Her career-ending accident on the team's training ground had been well publicised.

Her first attempt had been rather pitiful - even Ginny would admit as much. It had also brought her to the attention of a rather unscrupulous middle-aged witch who had concluded with amazing inaccuracy that being Harry Potter's girlfriend meant that Ginny had access to Harry Potter's fortune. She had sued, claiming that Ginny had based her story on the woman's life without permission. To Ginny's horror, it had been Draco - hired by her agent - who had ridden to the rescue in the mess that had ensued. He had coolly, surgically, dismissed the woman's claim. For a while, she had even harboured the beginnings of a thoroughly undesired crush on him. Only the beginnings of one though. She had rapidly gotten over it once it had become apparent that he seemed determined not to let her forget the fact that she owed him. It was one of his favourite topics of conversation whenever she had the misfortune of running into him. Still, there was no denying that Draco Malfoy was an impressive sight when in full flow.

"Tea," he said, placing a cup down on the table in front of her. After the initial round of questioning on Ginny's part, they had moved into the cottage's quaint little kitchen. It reminded Ginny of her mother's domain at The Burrow, though on a much smaller scale.

"That's all there is, I'm afraid. She had about a hundred different varieties and not much else. I hope that you brought a pack up with you or we'll probably starve."

As Draco took the seat adjacent, Ginny glared at him with an odd mixture of anger and resignation. The back of her head was still hurting from where it had impacted with the door as a consequence of his sudden appearance, and she was vaguely aware that she probably bore a close resemblance to a scarecrow from the wind outside.

Why that should matter was something that she was not willing to examine too closely.

She blinked as she realised what he had just said. "You're not staying," she said, unable to hide her astonishment.

Draco smirked, though his heart did not seem to be in it. "Ginny, we're both staying."

"You're not staying," she repeated. "You're getting whatever it is that you came for and then you're leaving. Mr Foster told me that I had to let you take one thing so I will, but other than that there is absolutely no reason for you the hang around."

The smirk grew more pronounced. "Listen very carefully," he said, leaning back in his chair. His legs brushed against hers under the table as he stretched them out. "We're both staying whether we want to or not. Try the door."

Ginny looked in the direction that he had gestured, towards the back door of the cottage. It was a stable door with a small, curtain covered window in the top half. Half fearing some trick, she pushed herself to her feet and walked over to it. Draco's expression was static.

Reaching for the handle, she turned, twisted and tugged. It did not open though. It did not move in the slightest. Ginny turned her eyes upwards and then downwards, looking for a bolt that might be holding it in place. There was nothing. Taking out her wand, she pointed it and said, "Alohomora!"

A startled cry promptly erupted from between her lips as a spark leapt from the door handle to her hand. In the background, Ginny thought that she heard Draco snigger.

"You could have warned me," she complained, cradling her hand.

"Now, where would be the fun in that?"

"Prat."

"Idiot."

"Inbred."

"Harpy."

"Ex-Harpy, actually," she countered, moving back over to the table. "Are they all like that? The windows too?"

"Well, I didn't exactly go around waving my wand at all of them, but they won't open by hand. Feel free to try them yourself though, if you want to."

Ginny opened her mouth to reply and then slammed it shut. Even without asking, she knew that the Floo would still be blocked off, just as Foster had told her it would be. She was not foolish enough to believe that attempting to Apparate from the cottage would be a good idea, either - not after experiencing what trying to open the door would do.

She scowled. Edwina had been even more security conscious than anyone had realised. At least, she hoped that Foster had not known about the added extras. She did not like the idea that he might have known and neglected to mention them to her. Of course there was another option. Draco might have had something to do with their predicament. She dismissed the notion almost as quickly as she thought of it. Despite his calm exterior, Ginny suspected that he was no more pleased with their situation than she was.

"So…" Draco began speculatively. "Did you bring any food with you?"

- - -

In the end it had taken nearly three hours for the tingling sensation in Ginny's wand hand to fade away completely. The redhead had used the time thoroughly. She had attempted every means that she could think of to contact the world outside the cottage - even going so far as to conjure her Patronus. The shimmering equine had charged the walls and doors for nearly half an hour before stomping into the kitchen where it had glared at her almost reproachfully.

"About as stubborn as you are," Draco observed from his spot by the kitchen door. There was no missing the amused expression on his face. Before she could reply, he had returned to his exploration of the house.

Ginny had reluctantly decided to do the same. It appeared that they were just going to have to wait until someone noticed that they were missing or until Foster decided to pay her a visit. The lawyer had suggested that he might.

She left Draco to whatever it was he was doing, reasoning that there was no way that he would get up to anything too bad while stuck in the cottage together. He certainly would not do anything to endanger his own skin, so she was reasonably certain that he would not set anything on fire. Not on purpose, anyway. She did not put Draco past doing anything by accident.

The cottage was split over two levels. On the ground floor there was the kitchen, a cosy living room and snug study that had probably once been quite large until it was filled with books. Upstairs there was a single, spacey bedroom with low windows cut into the eaves and a bathroom. Ginny imagined that the latter had taken the place of what had once been a second bedroom since the building itself was obviously too old to have been built with indoor facilities.

She decided that she liked the place. The entire cottage had a lived in feel, and yet it was clear that it had been cared for. There was not a single mark on the woodwork, or stain anywhere to be seen. The curtains looked brand new and the colour of the carpets was bright. Ginny supposed that she should not be surprised - not after learning how much Edwina had left in her account at Gringotts'. Somehow, though, she had pictured a much sadder setting for the life of a woman who had apparently been all alone.

By the time that she was done exploring, it was already lunchtime and hunger had begun to nag at her. Ginny padded back downstairs and into the kitchen where she had left her bag. It sat, apparently undisturbed, on the table. Of Draco, there was no sign.

She checked the cupboards first but - just as her unwelcome guest had claimed - there was nothing edible. Well, that was not strictly true. She found a single can of oxtail soup gathering dust at the back of one of the cupboards. It looked nearly as old as she was. Perhaps Edwina's neighbour had cleared out the perishable items when it had become clear that she would be spending quite some time in hospital.

The soup could wait, she decided, and dug out the pack up box that she had stuffed into her bag after realising that she had no idea whether there would be anywhere to eat close to her destination. Reluctantly, she fixed a plate for Draco as well.

She found him in the study, seated behind Edwina's surprisingly grand desk. Or, rather, seated with his feet on Edwina's desk. Resting on his stomach was a thick, leather bound book which he was reading while sporting a delighted look. It was only then that Ginny realised that he had been suspiciously quiet for the last hour or so.

She coughed to grab his attention and failed miserably.

Stepping forwards she set the plate down on the desk noisily. Draco's silvery eyes rolled up to look at her.

"What are you reading?" she asked abruptly.

"Nothing."

Ginny narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Malfoy…"

"Ginevra," he countered swiftly, causing the redhead to bristle. She hated it when he called her that. There was something far too intimate about the way that he said it - about the way that it rolled off his tongue. When they had been young it had never been 'Ginny'. It had certainly never been 'Ginevra'.

She stuck out a hand for the book.

Draco shook his head.

"Oh come on. It can't be that interesting."

"You'd be surprised," he answered. "Cousin Edwina was apparently a woman of many secrets."

Ginny blinked. "That's a diary? That's her diary? Malfoy! You can't read that."

"Why not? She's dead - she's hardly going to care."

"That's… not the point."

Draco looked sceptical. "So what you're telling me is that you wouldn't have read it if you had found it first? Not even just a page or two?" He smirked. "That's what I thought. Now, thank you for the lunch, but I'd like to get back to my reading now." He leaned forwards, grabbed the plate that she had set down, and then settled back into his relaxed pose.

Ginny stared at him. "It can't be that interesting."

Draco picked up one of the sandwiches and took a healthy sized bite, his eyes remaining fixed on the page before him.

He was goading her - or trying to. That much was obvious. Ginny shifted her weight from one foot to the other. She knew that she should not rise to the bait and yet gracefully backing out of the room was abruptly too hard.

With considerable effort, she turned and began to walk towards the door.

"Did you know that she lived in South America for nearly twenty years? And that she worked in the Department of Mysteries briefly? She tried writing, as well. Retirement did not sit well with her. I've only been flicking through but it seems that she was quite the adventurer of a different sort too. There are several different men and women mentioned in here."

Ginny started, her curiosity stirred. The diary had looked thick but it had not appeared that thick. "That's all in there?" she asked, looking back over her shoulder him. "It doesn't look big enough."

Draco nodded. "Everlast Company," he said, naming the well known wizarding stationary company.

Ginny turned around and stepped back towards the desk. She bit her lip lightly. It would be impossible to ever speak to her benefactress but there, clutched lightly in Draco's hands, was a chance to discover more about her anyway.

"Did you know her?" she asked.

"Edwina? No. She was not exactly on the family Christmas card list when I was growing up - or even before that actually. I don't think I ever met her."

Ginny frowned. She wanted to him that she was sorry, or that it was sad that he had not known her. Somehow she did not think that it would be appreciated though.

Instead, she said, "Are you angry about what she did?"

Draco finally looked at her again. "You mean about her leaving everything to you?"

Ginny nodded, her cheeks darkening.

"Believe it or not, whatever Edwina left you will not be missed when we tot up at the end of the year."

Feeling oddly irritated with him, Ginny fell silent. Outside the cottage, the wind continued to scour the landscape. It had not died down in the least since Ginny had arrived.

Finally, she said, "What are you doing here, Malfoy? You obviously couldn't have cared less about her. Don't you have some lackey who could have done this for you?"

"Of course I do. But then I would have missed out on the pleasure of your company and your sparkling conversation."

"Well, you know me," Ginny replied dryly. "I'm fabulous company."

Draco smirked. "To be honest with you, my options were rather limited for this weekend what with Miranda being away."

"You couldn't find some other floozy to hang around with?"

"Now, Ginny, that's no way to talk about her. Your little radio show just wouldn't be the same without her, would it?"

Grudgingly, Ginny admitted to herself that he had a point. Getting Miranda Welling to take on the role of the lead character in the latest mystery radio play that she had written had been something of a lucky fluke for the producers. Until Miranda had decided to get on board there had been doubts as to whether the project would get off the ground, despite the success of her previous ventures. Whatever Ginny happened to think of the flighty, undoubtedly promiscuous woman did not really matter. Where it counted, Miranda was entirely professional.

"Besides," Draco continued, heedless of Ginny's thoughts. "I thought that I was hanging out with one."

Ginny's hand twitched towards her wand - or towards where it should have been. Draco interrupted just as she remembered that she had left it in her bag. "I wouldn't, if I was you. Who knows what might happen considering the other extents that Edwina took security to."

"You're an arse," Ginny said, forcing her hand to relax.

Draco shrugged. "If it's any consolation, I actually agree with you about Miranda."

She blinked, a little shocked. "Oh?"

"Well, her little business trip this weekend isn't going to involve many meetings. Well, not of the sort that it's supposed to anyway."

"I'm sorry," Ginny said, awkwardly, not quite knowing what else to say. Even with someone like Draco, it was not something that she could joke about as much as she might want to.

Draco shifted, lifting his feet down from their position on the desk. "Don't be."

"But…"

"It wasn't serious - just a little fun while I bided my time waiting for the right girl to come along."

Ginny flinched. Draco eyes had hardened as he spoke. He was not exactly looking her direction. In her head, she totted up how long they had been together. It had to have been well over a year - perhaps as long as two.

"I wanted to have a good look around anyway. Who knows what she may have left hanging around after all her adventures."

For a second, the abrupt change in subject threw Ginny off balance. "I thought that you didn't care about her leaving me everything."

"I don't."

"Then…" She trailed off, catching sight of his face. "Oh, never mind. Why do you think she did it?"

"I'm not the best person to ask, remember? I didn't know her."

"You've still got an advantage on me. I'd never even heard of her before," Ginny countered. "Come on - you must have some idea."

"I don't! Well, maybe. She does appear to have been a big fan. She has a signed photo and everything."

"She does?" Ginny exclaimed, unable to keep the surprise out of her voice.

He nodded. "I've no idea why…" He smirked again. "Look, maybe she just wanted to piss off my father. They didn't get along from what I've been able to gather and you know how he feels about Weasleys."

Ginny pursed her lips. The idea was far from preposterous, as much as she might not like it. Lucius Malfoy might once again be playing the part of the respectable member of society after wheedling his way out of trouble, but that did not mean that he had actually changed. She knew for a fact that there had been several tense confrontations with her father in the last year alone.

It was a rather disappointing conclusion to come to. Ginny would have thought that stuck in the middle of one family feud would have filled her quotient for a lifetime - she did not exactly need to add the Malfoy family infighting to the balance as well.

"Or," Draco said, breaking her out of her thoughts while gesturing towards the diary. "Maybe she just fancied you."


THREE


Foster did not try to contact her that afternoon. Or, if he did try, he could not reach her. Whatever enchantments that Edwina had placed on the cottage held firm. Outside, the weather continued to worsen, until Ginny could no longer so much as glance out of the window without feeling a dull sense of panic begin to stir. The thought of being stuck in the cottage with Draco was many things, but appealing was not one of them. Or, perhaps, the problem was the idea did appeal to her.

She paused, staring at the small, oddly carved figurine that she had picked up to look at more closely. Pottering around the living room, studying the seemingly endless collection of knickknacks that Edwina had collected on her travels, it had still proved difficult to distract her thoughts from the fact that Draco was elsewhere in the house.

Irritated, she clumsily put the figurine back down. The only problem with Draco Malfoy was that he knew precisely how to press her buttons. She remembered his reaction to her astonishment over his final suggestion for why Edwina had left her everything. His amusement had been almost unfettered and Ginny had forced herself to leave the room soon after. She might not have had her wand with her, but that did not mean that she did not have other resources. Still, she was not particularly eager to find out how the wards would respond to her punching him in the nose, so she had left the room, frustrated with herself and her inability to control her temper around him. Acknowledging the fact that she would not be escaping the cottage at least for a little while, she had resolved to keep away from him as much as she possibly could.

Unfortunately, considering the size of the building that was easier said than done. It did not matter that she could not see him, Ginny was still far too aware of his presence. Occasional, sudden sounds would make her start and look towards the door or upwards, towards the ceiling. She heard him creeping up and down the stairs. She heard him slam the study door. Once, she had even ventured to find him after a particularly violent clatter. To her amusement, it had turned out that he had simply hit his head on the ceiling while attempting to negotiate his way around the bathroom. It had been an accident that had been precipitated by the discovery of Edwina's pet, which had been conspicuously absent up until that moment, and which turned out to be a rather large iguana bearing a novelty collar that read 'Lucy'.

It had been at that moment that Ginny had come to a conclusion: Draco was up to something.

In life, there were certain things that Ginny felt that she understood perfectly. She might falter where relationships were concerned, and she might have stumbled through life before arriving at her present choice of career, but Malfoys were no mystery to her. Draco Malfoy particularly was no mystery to her. It was for that reason she was certain that there was more to why Draco had decided to visit the cottage that Saturday. Precisely why he would have felt compelled to visit the home of an old woman who had apparently meant nothing to him was something that Ginny could not figure out, however.

"Ginny? Where are you?" The call came out of nowhere, making the redhead jump. She consulted her watch and sighed. It was nearly seven; Draco's stomach must be rumbling again.

"Living room!" she shouted back, only briefly playing with the idea of not replying.

Draco's head appeared around the door. The rest of him, however, remained hidden. Ginny narrowed her eyes, immediately suspicious. As she watched, he grinned broadly at her.

"Good news," he said.

"You've found a way out."

"Sadly, no," he replied, shaking his head. "I have, however, figured out a way to make the time pass a little quicker."

Ginny raised an eyebrow and turned fully to face the door, at which point Draco stepped fully into the room and held aloft a pair of Firewhiskey bottles.

"I was going to keep them to myself but then I remembered that you might turn into less of a hag with a drink inside of you."

Ginny folded her arms and fixed him with a hard look. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means that I remember Jasper Dunwoody's last New Year's party with perfect clarity. You, however, probably don't."

Blood flooded to her cheeks. Blurry memories from the party in question had teased her for nearly a week after New Year's Eve. Few of them had been good. The ones involving Draco had definitely not been good. Even now she could remember the dry, amused expression on Draco's face as he had helped her through the Floo to her apartment. All the while his arm had been fixed firmly around her waist, ensuring that she did not end up careening into a stranger's home. It had been more than simply embarrassing to learn that she had accepted help from him - it had been mortifying. She was certain that he had only done it so that he could hold one more thing over her.

"Where did you find them?" she asked, changing the subject. Stepping forwards, she took one of the bottles from him. It was a good brand - well aged too.

"At the back of her wardrobe."

Ginny looked up at him in surprise. "What were you doing in there?" she exclaimed.

He took the bottle back from her, and said, "You can find out a lot from a woman's wardrobe."

"The woman was one-hundred and thirty-seven!"

"And?"

Ginny opened her mouth and then slammed it shut again. Obviously, he had no idea of how inappropriate it was for him to be pawing through a dead woman's clothes.

He waved the bottle again. "Now, be honest. Don't tell me you're not pleased. Even you couldn't get that much fun from poking around this place all day."

"That's what you've been doing," Ginny pointed out.

"Yes, but I have to pick something to take with me when I leave. You have a lifetime to sort through things."

"I wouldn't have thought that there would be anything that you wanted," she replied. A smirk curved her lips, and she added slyly, "Unless that was the reason that you were really in her closet. Does Draco Malfoy have a little fetish he wants to tell me about?"

Draco returned her smirk with interest. Inclining his head towards her slightly, he said, "None that you need to know about, Ginevra."

To her irritation, Ginny felt herself blush. She grabbed the bottle off him again, hoping that he would not notice her reaction. She suspected that she did not do so quickly enough.

Maybe a drink was not such a bad idea after all.

- - -

Firewhiskey was not normally Ginny's drink of choice. Indeed, the last time she had sat down with a bottle of the potent drink, it had been shortly after her training ground accident with the Harpies. Then she had drunk herself into an oblivion, ending up so inebriated that Harry had Apparated her to St Mungo's. Waking up the next morning had been one of the more embarrassing experiences of her life to date. It had taken her a long time to convince her then-boyfriend that she was not planning on travelling the road to ruin. Harry's subsequent protectiveness had always proved to be a bone of contention between them, however. It had not helped that his initial suspicions had later proved a little too close to the truth.

That, however, had little to do with the reason that she avoided the drink. The fact was that she would rather have a glass of wine. In a fix, Firewhiskey would do, however. It was certainly turning out to be just what she needed at the moment.

Once, the notion of sitting around and enjoying a drink with Draco would have seemed so preposterous that Ginny would have laughed at even the suggestion of it. Curled on the overstuffed couch, the tips of her toes positioned barely a hair's width from the blond man's thigh, Ginny realised to her quiet astonishment that she was actually quite at ease around him.

Of course it was easier when he kept his mouth closed.

With some effort, she had persuaded him that drinking on an empty stomach was a bad idea and had dug out what had remained of her pack up. It had filled the hole in her stomach - though only just. Draco had looked similarly unsatisfied. Ginny dreaded to think what he would be like in the morning. She only prayed that someone realised that they were missing soon.

After eating, they had settled on the couch. To her surprise, Draco had built a fire in the grate while she had been tidying up the kitchen. Crisp, golden warmth had surrounded her the moment that she had entered the room.

Draco had already been seated, long legs stretched out in front of him. She had, as surreptitiously as she could manage, observed him for a while before taking the seat next to him. She had immediately been struck by how tired he had looked. The lines of his face had been tense, his jaw set. Ginny would not have been surprised to discover that he was grinding his teeth. It had all seemed rather at odds with the glib, annoyingly confident way that he had been carrying on all day.

The diary had been resting on his stomach. It had not escaped Ginny's noticed that he had taken it everywhere with him since she had found him reading it in the study. His actions had only served to convince her further that he was up to something, though what that could possibly be was beyond her. There was no denying that Edwina had led an exciting life - the evidence was all around them in the form of knickknacks and souvenirs. Draco, however, had already professed to not really caring about the woman. No, there was something about the diary that was important to him. Ginny had spent no small amount of time straining to read the pages spread out before him. She still had not given up completely.

In the background, Edwina's old gramophone played one of the records that Ginny had dug out before sitting down. The mechanism was undoubtedly older than her and Draco combined but it sounded surprisingly good. It filled the room, easing what was proving to be a halting conversation.

"You broke up with Potter."

Ginny jumped. She had, she realised to her embarrassment, been staring at him while lost in thought. Recovering quickly, she said, "Yes, Malfoy, I did. He… he broke up with me about eight months ago, in fact."

Draco did a quick bit of mental arithmetic, and unfortunately deduced the correct answer.

"Not on Valentine's," he said, disbelief evident not only in his voice but in his expression. "I don't know whether to applaud the idiot for his timing or commiserate."

"Do both if you want to. I won't hold it against you."

He smirked. "Honestly, though, I never would have thought him capable of it. Were you heartbroken?"

Ginny shifted uneasily. "It wasn't like that. We both knew that things had run their course. They just sort of came to a head."

He nodded sagely.

"Still…"

"Draco! Enough!"

"Very well, it's clear that it's still a bit of a sore point."

Ginny narrowed her eyes, not bothering to correct him. She suddenly felt the need to focus her anger on something - on someone. "You don't need to look so smug about it," she accused.

"Oh I'm not - not about that anyway."

She frowned. "What?"

"You don't know?" His smirked widened. "Ginny, it only took me two - no, three years but I've finally managed to get you to call me by my first name."

Ginny pressed herself back against the arm of the couch. To her astonishment, she realised that he was right. "Don't worry - it won't happen again."

"Contrary to whatever you may choose to believe, I don't actually dislike you. Well, not anymore, anyway. I actually respect you - at least in some regards."

Ginny stared at him, understandably agog. Those were words that she had never expected to hear come out of his mouth. From the way that said mouth had thinned down to nothing and his brow had creased, Ginny did not think that he had ever expected to say them either.

She snorted and raised her glass to her lips. It seemed like the only sensible response.

A second later, she nearly spat out the mouthful that she had taken as Draco awkwardly placed a hand on her raised knee. It sat there, seemingly without purpose until he said, "I'm serious. You've managed to crack a tough business. (I) should know - I'm part of the reason that it's so tough."

Ginny reached out and knocked his hand from her knee. "Careful - next you'll be declaring your undying love for me. Then the world as we know it will be forced to end."

"Ginevra, I adore you. Didn't you know that already?"

"Whatever would Miranda say?" she joked back.

"She'd probably wish us the best of luck and say that there were no hard feelings. Have you never noticed that she talks in sound bites?"

Ginny shook her head, repressing the urge to smile at him. "You're odd. I mean, I always thought that you were but nowadays… Do you even like her?"

Draco peered at her out of the corner of his suddenly liquid silver eye. His lips twitched. "Did you know dear old cousin Edwina indulged in a bit of time travelling when she was younger?"

"Malfoy!" Ginny exclaimed, exasperated. She jabbed her big toe once into his thigh and then shuffled around until she was sitting up. Once there, she pushed herself into a standing position. It was only then that she realised how unsteady she was on her feet. Draco had not been slow at refilling her glass.

Leaving him seated on the couch, she went over to the gramophone. Beside it there was a stack of records that she idly began to sort through. It was hardly the most modern collection. She paused at one, shifting her glass in her had so that she could pick it up properly.

"Ugh. Please, not that one. My mother listens to that all of the time. It's dreadful."

Ginny spun around sharply, the record clutched tightly against her chest. Her heart was pounding unevenly.

Draco reached out and gently took the record from her hands. Ginny was too shocked after discovering how close he was standing to resist. The record made a soft slap as it landed on the table top.

"I'd sooner listen to Celestina Warbeck," Draco said, though in truth Ginny barely heard him. Indeed, if it had not been for the fact that his lips had moved as she studied them, then she would not have known that he had spoken at all. Women raved about those lips, she knew - even before they had experienced them.

"How's your head?"

Ginny blinked and dragged her eyes away from his mouth. "What?" she asked.

"Your head, Ginevra. You were starting to look rather vacant again. Granted, it's not a massive change from usual but you are carrying a sizeable lump on your skull."

"I'm fine," she said, attempting to move to the side. "And don't call me that."

Draco immediately moved to intercept her. "Are you're sure you're okay?"

"Yes!" She felt her cheeks begin to darken. She had, she realised, managed to forget how good he smelled - fresh and exciting, and yet decidedly masculine at the same time. It was like nothing else that she had come across before. Back when she had been nursing her crush, she had often gone out of her way to stand closer to him than necessary just to smell it. Subconsciously, she inclined her head slightly; her heartbeat quickened. The glass of Firewhiskey shook in her hand.

Draco took it from her, setting it down on top of the offensive record.

"Maybe I should take a closer look."

Ginny narrowed her eyes at him. "You're flirting with me - or attempting to, anyway."

He smirked.

"Stop it."

He shook his head.

"You're only doing it to irritate me - to make me uncomfortable. You're bored and you're looking for some way to amuse yourself."

"I'm sure that I don't know what you mean."

Ginny tilted her head slightly to one side, her jaw jutting out determinedly. "Maybe I remember more of about Jasper Dunwoody's party than you think. Maybe I remember a certain blond pain in the backside telling me that he approved of my knickers. That's hardly normal conversation."

"Well, if you flash them at me…"

"I fell over!"

The smirk that he was sporting widened, becoming a full-fledged grin. His eyes danced. "I don't suppose I can hope that you're wearing the same pair now? No, I suppose not. They were a bit fancy for poking around a dead woman's house."

Ginny slapped a hand on his chest and pushed him away.

"Admit it, Malfoy," she said as she stalked past him. "You, you're nothing but an opportunist - and a horny one at that."

She was not entirely surprised when he grabbed hold of her and spun her around again. Unbalanced, Ginny teeth gritted as he neatly steadied her as she stumbled.

"I think I have identified a quintessential problem with our relationship."

Ginny arched an eyebrow at him, still quietly fuming. She wanted him to let go. The heat of the room and the alcohol had finally gotten to her - there could be no other explanation for the effect that his proximity was having on her. There were pinpricks of light dancing over the fine hairs of her arms.

"You're rather narrow-minded. I, on the other had, am not."

An explosive snort escaped her. "Putting aside the fact that your family are the very pinnacle of narrow-mindedness, you've got no chance of convincing me to play along by calling me chicken."

"How would I manage it then?"

Ginny laughed, unable to contain the sound at the suddenly interested look on his face. The carefully constructed façade he had been maintaining briefly seemed more genuine. "If you don't have the imagination to come up with it by yourself, then I'm certainly not going to tell you. Needless to say that I think it's beyond you."

"You may not have heard this about me but I'm a bit of a workaholic. I stick at things until they're done."

"Give up, Malfoy. Once things might have been different, but the fact is that you missed your chance with me a long time ago." She stopped abruptly, realising that the confident expression had slipped from his face. He looked far from uncertain, however. He almost looked irritated.

"When?"

"What?"

Draco stepped closer. "When did I miss my chance?"

For what felt like the millionth time that evening, Ginny felt her cheeks fill with blood. The filter between her brain and her mouth seemed to have thinned momentarily. Now she found that she could barely bring herself to force out any words.

"It doesn't matter," she said finally.

He looked like he wanted to argue with her. His fingers flexed on her arms, tightening and loosening rhythmically. Then he abruptly let go.

"I didn't know."

Ginny made a non-committed sound and retrieved her glass.


FOUR


She was falling, tunnelling through the air with such force that the air was being punched from her lungs. Each breath she did manage was cruelly robbed from her as sped towards the approaching ground.

There was no element of confusion - no doubt over what had happened. With almost startling clarity Ginny recalled precisely what had happened. The moment that the Bludger had impacted with her broom she had known that it would not survive the impact, even in spite of the expensive charms that had been laced into its grain. Splitters of wood had filled the air as she had been thrown clear by the impact. The Quaffle had fallen from her hands, speeding ahead to plot her course downwards.

"Weasley!" someone screamed. Then there was nothing.

- - -

Ginny came awake with a start, a sharp cry bursting from between her lips before her hand slammed into position over her mouth, muffling the sound. Her palm was cold and clammy as she shakily breathed into it. After exerting considering effort, she succeeded in forcing her body to relax enough to stiffly lean back against the arm of the couch. Slowly, she became aware of precisely how cold she was.

A shiver ran through her and she grabbed at the blanket that had slipped down to bunch in her lap. Behind her was the plump, soft feather-filled pillow that she had stolen from upstairs. She quickly pulled her feet across the cushioned surface, pushing away the last vestiges of her nightmare. It had been months since she had last experienced one.

The room really was cold.

Any hopes that she had been harbouring that Draco might cede her the cottage's only bed had been cruelly dashed when he had announced that he was heading upstairs.

"I'm a foot taller than you, and I have no intentions of attempting any sort of magic that isn't completely necessary in this house. You're welcome to join me, if you'd like to."

The last had obviously been an afterthought, and had been said with no hint of suggestiveness. Draco had been shaken by their earlier conversation - more than Ginny could have imagined he would be. After all, their strange little relationship was nothing more than a complex game - a challenge - to him with one particular outcome in mind.

Well, he had certainly managed to embarrass her this time. Or, rather, he had let her embarrass herself. That, too, was a talent of his.

Most people would have known what to blame the strange and unnatural crush that she had developed on. The solution was obvious; it was presented in full bloody red colour. Her accident had sent her into freefall, no matter how brief. She had made more than one inappropriate move during that time. By the time that Draco had come along, however, Ginny knew that she had been well on the way to recovery.

She groaned, realising that she had given him yet another thing to tease her about. No doubt by the time that he managed to fall out of his nice, warm bed, he would have a barrage of sly comments ready.

She shivered again and glared balefully at the fireplace. They were rationing wood, though that had not stopped Draco from taking a stack upstairs with him. The ever present diary had gone with him, as well.

Ginny's curiosity spiked whenever she thought of it. Even if they were only half as extraordinary as they seemed to be, Edwina's adventures were apparently addictive. She wanted to get her hands on it - to read it for herself instead of hearing everything second hand from Draco. His version was not necessarily to be trusted. Besides, he might find a way to ferret it out of the cottage before she managed to have a closer look.

A thought suddenly occurred to her. Abruptly, she realised that she might well be missing her chance to read it, and perhaps to find out what Draco was up to at the same time. That was unless he had gone to sleep hugging the damn thing.

- - -

Ginny was halfway up the staircase when she stopped and bent to remove her shoes. In the near perfect quiet of the cottage, the sound that they made had seemed absurdly loud. It made little difference. She clutched at the handrail and cursed quietly under her breath. As soon as she was far enough up, she paused again and peered through the spindles at the closed bedroom door. Movement in the corner of her eye made her jerk her head towards the door to the as yet unexplored attic. The door had remained stubbornly closed all day. Now Lucy stood in front of it, watching Ginny in an unnaturally suspicious way. Elsewhere in the cottage, a clock struck the hour. It was two o'clock in the morning.

Her heart was in her mouth as she opened the bedroom door. Against form, it did not creak, but instead opened easily. Ginny slipped inside just as silently. The sight within nearly sent her scurrying back out again.

The room was swelteringly hot; the fire that Draco had built himself was still going strong in the small grate. Draco himself was clearly enjoying the close atmosphere. Stripped to the waist, he lay on his stomach with the bedding only just managing to cover his backside. In the golden light, Ginny was grateful to see a thin line of darker material, suggesting that he had not stripped completely before climbing into bed.

She sucked in a deep breath and tore her eyes away from the distracting sight. She had a job to do.

From where she was standing she could not see the distinctive shape of the diary. Moving deftly, Ginny edged her way around the foot of the bed to check the other side. Still, she could not see it. Had Draco been devious enough to have hidden it?

She just managed to stifle the snort that threatened. Of course he was. That did not mean that he had, however.

Ginny's eyes danced around the room once more as she tried to dare herself to look through some of the drawers. The idea was not an appealing one. She opted to start under the bed instead.

She had dropped to her knees and was bending forwards to peer into the darkness when it dawned on her that the atmosphere in the room had changed subtly. She froze; already aware of what she would discover when she sat up.

Sure enough, there was a pair of lazy silver-grey eyes watching her.

"What are you doing?"

Ginny scrambled for an answer - preferably one that would not involve telling anything even vaguely resembling the truth.

"Looking for a blanket," she blurted out. "It's bloody freezing downstairs."

Draco frowned slightly and then shuffled to one side. "Get in," he told her, casually throwing back the covers.

"I…"

"There aren't anymore blanket, so unless you want to freeze you'll get in. Don't worry - I'll keep my hands to myself."

"I'll be fine," Ginny said, shaking her head emphatically. She began to walk towards the edge of the bed.

"Get in the bloody bed."

"No."

Draco's eyes flashed as he limberly slipped from between the sheets. Ginny's breath caught for a second as she was rudely confronted with a lot of carefully sculptured flesh interrupted only by a pair of snug boxer shorts. She quickly averted her eyes, even as he moved to stand in front of the door.

"Malfoy!"

"Stop being so stubborn. Every moment that you keep me freezing my arse off is not going to make me any cheerier. I understand that you're probably not too comfortable around me at the moment…"

"You're not exactly helping!"

"But don't martyr yourself over it."

Ginny scowled at him, unable to think of a decent retort. He had her trapped - literally.

She angrily dragged her sweatshirt over her head.

"There's a good girl."

"I hate you," she snapped.

"I think we've already established that is not entirely true."

Ginny hit him squarely in the face with her shirt.

- - -

"Ginny."

"Ginny - wake up."

A whimper rippled up from her throat, followed in short fashion by a violent shiver. Her head turned to one side, towards the source of the low, concerned voice that she could hear calling her name. The owner remained invisible as her eyes scanned the bodies surrounding her.

"Ginny!"

A hand clasped her shoulder and shook her gently, dragging her up and out of the dream.

"Wake up!"

Her eyes flew open sharply, and for a moment she was utterly disorientated. Then her spine arched as she tried to break free of the hands that was gripping her, pushing her down, making her fall. She whipped one hand up to strike at the figure hovering above her only to end up gripping his shoulder. Draco's eyes were wide and frightened in the gloom.

He breathed a heavy sigh of relief on seeing a flicker of recognition, and then let out a startled gasp as she sat up and she flung her arms around his neck. Awkwardly, he resettled his weight so that he could slip his around her in return. Ginny buried her face against his shoulder, letting him anchor her to the ground.

"What the hell was that?" he asked, in what seemed to be a purposefully gentle voice.

Ginny let out a short, muffled bark of laughter at the odd contradiction. She was all too aware that she was trembling, and furthermore that Draco's hand was rubbing a small circle on her back. It was entirely too comforting. She made herself pull away, though not completely.

"Ginny."

She looked up at him and felt her resolve weaken. "Nothing."

He snorted. "You're normally a better actress than that. Don't lie."

"It was just a nightmare."

His hand flew to her cheek to stop her from looking away from him. "That much I could guess."

Ginny lowered her eyes, staring into the shadows between them. The light from the fire danced around the edges of her vision, emphasising the tension riddling Draco's frame. His hand dropped from her face.

"It's a recurring nightmare," she clarified. "About the accident that I had while playing for the Harpies and… what happened after that."

"Oh." He leaned back slightly, suddenly look uncomfortable. "From what I hear it was pretty bad."

Ginny nodded. "I was pretty high up when the Bludger hit my broom, and there was no one around with a wand so I ended up falling a long way. I broke my back in two places, my leg, my pelvis was smashed. I dislocated my shoulder..." She broke off, dragging in a deep, almost painful breath. "There were complications when they tried to fix me up. The usual treatments weren't working, so they decided to start again from scratch. I was put in a harness so that they could remove the bones that were giving them problems, and then the Skele-Gro didn't work properly…"

She trailed off, biting down on her lower lip. Even now, years later, she could remember how painful it had been. Before she had been allowed to leave St Mungo's, she had been warned that her bones would always be more fragile. It had been that which had finished off her Quidditch career. No team had been willing to take a risk on a player who might end up spending more time injured than on the pitch. Not even a player who had as much promise and passion for the game as she had shown.

"I walked in front of a cab my second week in New York. I spent a week in a Muggle hospital with amnesia and broken ankle." His nose wrinkled in disgust. "The food was truly revolting."

Ginny laughed out loud, prompting Draco to smile broadly at her in response. The sight made her shake her head and glance away. When she looked back, he appeared serious once more. A moment later, his lips were pressed fast against hers, stealing the air from her lungs.

His arms curled around her, dragging her against him with such ferocity that Ginny was virtually lifted from the bed. Instinctively, hers flew around him as she feared that they would overbalance. Draco immediately took encouragement from the movement, his long-boned hands wandering and his tongue beginning to probe. Ginny was not surprised when he peeled her t-shirt up and dragged it over her head with very little ceremony. Her hair danced around her, forming a static-charged cloud, as the material disappeared from in front of her eyes and he came back into view.

There was nothing to impede Draco's progress as he lowered his head and skimmed his lips over the freshly exposed flesh. She had dispensed with her bra before climbing into bed and attempting to fall asleep again. When his teeth caught against one sensitive, swollen nipple, she groaned and rocked her pelvis against him, feeling a flood of warmth gathering between her thighs. The movement elicited a hoarse swear from Draco, and a second later Ginny squeaked as she suddenly found herself being propelled onto her back.

Her eyes widened as she watched him shed his underwear.

There was no time for gentleness, or even to conduct a closer study of his body. They came together in a rush, fingers clutching almost desperately at heated skin. Any doubts that might have stirred in Ginny's mind were drowned out by the swelling wave of pleasure that she could sense approaching. It was the first of many.

- - -

Ginny woke to a morning sky that was grey and overcast. Thin light seeped in through the low window, leaving the room feeling cool. A glance towards the brass alarm clock by the side of the bed showed that it was nearly nine o'clock. Squeezing her eyes shut, she rolled over and dragged the covers up higher, seeking out the last remnants of warmth that clung to them. It was only as she did so that she realised that she was alone in the bed.

She poked her head out from under the bedding and sleepily peered around. Draco had fallen asleep with his head resting heavy on her breast and his arms lightly enclosing her. Now he was nowhere to be seen. A frown slipped over her face as she sat up, hugging the bedding around her. Where was he? She doubted that he was the type to make a girl breakfast the morning after.

Her eyes skipped towards the closed bedroom door.

She clambered out of bed, dragging her clothes on quickly as the cold air surrounded her. The fire in the hearth had long since died down to nothing. Her body ached softly as she moved, and she realised that she had at least one pressing concern before she could turn her attention to tracking Draco down. A groan followed swiftly as she realised that the chances of Edwina having a supply of morning after potion were virtually zero. Protection against an unwanted pregnancy had been the last thing on her mind the night before. She wondered whether it had crossed Draco's at all. Probably not, considering the speed with which events had moved once they had begun.

Head down, Ginny hurried across the cottage's small landing to the tiny bathroom. When she emerged, having washed and used the facilities, she stopped mid-step as her eyes landed on the attic door. Her lips parted in surprise. It was standing open.

For a moment she could do nothing but stare. Yesterday, she had spent entirely too long tugging at it, shaking the handle, and trying every key she had been able to find in the cottage in an effort to make it open. She had resigned herself to having to wait until the various wards had been removed from the cottage so that she would be able to use her wand. Yet Draco somehow managed to get it to open. At least she hoped that it had been Draco who had done it. There was no other explanation unless the cottage had decided to allow someone else to enter.

The stairs leading upwards were narrow and steep. Ginny grabbed the handrail as she began to climb them. Before she was halfway up, she knew that the attic must have been a later addition to the cottage. The height of the ceiling rising above her head was all wrong. She had been expecting a low, cramped room. She now realised that the space was almost certainly going to be large.

"Draco?" she called as she neared the top.

There was a rustle of movement and then Draco appeared from behind an old, green and blue folded screen. As Ginny watched, his jaw flexed and his mouth tightened. The sight made her halt at the head of the stairs, suddenly uncertain as to how to proceed. He looked less than pleased to see her. Ginny's chest tightened.

Then his lips curved into a warm smile.

"Morning," she said, her voice coming out softly and not nearly as shakily as she had thought that it would do.

He stepped around a box on the floor, around the scattered items that surrounded it. Ginny glanced at them, feeling her curiosity flare. Her eyes were dragged upwards as Draco slipped something into his pocket, too quickly for her to see precisely what it was. Then he was standing in front of her, his fingers pressing into her hips as he leaned in to pull her gaze up to meet his.

"Morning," he drawled, and brushed his lips over hers. "Are you always so slow to get up?"

Ginny shook her head, instinctively mimicking his smile. "Not normally. What are you doing up here? How did you get up here? I tried the door yesterday and…"

"Later," he told her, dipping his head to kiss her again. Ginny gave in to the urge to lean against him. She ran her hands up his arms to his shoulders. Slipping one behind his neck, she deepened the kiss. Draco responded by cupping her backside.

When she pulled back, she was pleased to see that there was a slightly dazed expression on his face. "Stop trying to distract me," she said. "How did you get up here? And…and what is that I can feel pressing into me?"

Draco smirked. "Ginny, I shouldn't need to tell you that - not after last night, anyway."

"Cute." She gently slapped him on the chest and spun away. Her eyes immediately landed on a dressmaker's dummy, and then on a large mirror that was partially covered by a length of cloth. Through it, Ginny could see them both, and the room beyond. It really was a treasure trove, as far as she could see.

"Now tell me the truth."

Draco slipped his arms around her from behind. "It was luck. I tripped over Lucy and fell into the door. I must have jarred it loose." He nuzzled her neck, and murmured, "Question time over."

She pulled away again, still smiling. "Not quite. What did you find?"

Draco raised his eyebrows, effecting a surprisingly innocent expression.

"I'm not blind. I saw you put something in your pocket."

"Oh, that's nothing."

"Can I see it?"

"It's nothing."

Ginny cocked her head to one side, starting to become mildly irritated. Suspicions were beginning to form at the back of her mind as to why he was being so evasive. There was no good reason that she could think of. "Then let me have a look at it," she said, smiling sweetly and holding out a hand. "Come on, Draco."

The look that he gave her was a long, almost calculating one. It seemed to go on for an age. Ginny felt the spark of irritation she had been feeling grow, increasingly exponentially the longer that he remained silent. Eventually, however, he responded by shaking his head and turning away from her. As he did so, Ginny caught a glimpse of something long and golden hanging from his pocket. It was, unmistakeably, a chain of some sort.

Without thinking, she reached out and grasped the end of it. A gentle tug combined with Draco's continued movement was all that it took to cause the chain to unravel between them. It was not until the full, impressive length had been exposed that Draco realised what she had done. He spun around, his expression a mixture of shock and anger. One hand shot out to grab the chain but not soon enough. A large, bright trinket attached to the end of the chain had already slipped from his pocket. Ginny only just stopped it from falling to the floor.

She gasped.

Hanging between them was, quite unmistakeably, a Time Turner.

"I'm sorry."

Ginny looked up sharply at the sound of his voice only to find herself confronted with the tip of his wand.

"What are you doing?" she exclaimed in disbelief.

Draco held out his hand. "I need it back, Ginny."

"Use your head. If you try to cast a spell up here, we're likely to get blown to smithereens!" she continued, ignoring him.

"It will probably hurt like hell, but I doubt that Edwina actually set wards strong enough to kill anyone. Please, just give me the Time Turner."

Ginny's fingers tightened around the chain, turning white as she stared at him. Her suspicions from the day before returned with such force that she almost took a step backwards, away from him. Her eyes began to sting. "This is what you've been after all along, isn't it?" she asked. "Merlin! How could I have been so stupid? You kept talking about it, but I just thought that you were trying to distract me."

"I couldn't find it," Draco said. "I needed to know whether you knew anything."

"I can't give it to you," she said.

"I'm allowed to take one thing from this cottage," Draco reminded her.

"It's not that and you know it. All Time Turners have to be given to the Ministry nowadays."

He snorted. "What the Ministry says is often different from what it does. That has always been the case and it always will be. You know that. Besides, they don't even know that one exists and they won't unless you tell them." A flicker of desperation appeared on his face. He straightened his wand arm. "Don't make me test out those wards."

Ginny shook her head.

"Listen, Edward Foster will be here soon…"

"What?" she exclaimed.

"He managed to get a message through the Floo network this morning."

"Why didn't you wake me?"

"I was a little busy," he said, gesturing around them with the tip of his wand. "I wanted to make sure that I found the Time Turner before he showed up. After all, I didn't know how you would be feeling about me this morning. You might have decided that you wanted to throw me out."

He took a small step forwards, forcing Ginny to back up. She swiftly calculated the distance between herself and the stairs at her back. Perhaps, if she was quick, then she would be able to make it down them before he could stop her. There was always a chance that the door would stick again if she shut it.

She sucked in a deep breath and darted to one side. It was only as she did so that she realised she had been standing far closer to the stairs than she had initially anticipated. Her foot slipped, even as she saw Draco dart towards her. Then she was falling, tumbling head over heel until she hit the landing. Pain flooded her body.

In the confusion, she heard someone cry out her name.

Then the world slipped away, even as she fought to stay awake.


FIVE




Ginny breathed deeply as she exited the office, tears of frustration already threatening to spill from her eyes. Five appointments and three different Mediwizards later she was still no closer to discovering why, even after being given a clean bill of health on being discharged from St Mungo's, her body still ached on a daily - almost hourly - basis. The latest physician had turned out to be no different from the rest, even going so far as to suggest that she was imagining the pain.

"It's simply a matter of time, Miss Weasley," he had said, peering over the tops of his thin framed glasses at her. Combined with his neatly styled silver-grey hair and expensive robes, they had given him an air of complete authority. "What you're feeling are phantom pains. In time they will fade and then disappear entirely."

Ginny had barely been able to suppress a snarl as she listened. It had been over two months since her undesired stay at the cottage - since the morning when she had fallen down the attic stairs and crashed into the spindles of the banister guarding the route to the ground floor. The force of the impact had been more than enough to leave her with a broken bone or two.

Or four, as the tests had shown later.

Personally, Ginny thought that two months was more than enough time. She was getting tired of hobbling, and of having to keep an extending cane in her bag just in case she felt like she needed it. And she did, in spite of what the assorted members of the medical profession claimed.

Turning sharply, she started to walk away down the green tiled corridor only to stop suddenly. Standing only a few feet away - leaning casually against the wall and dressed in a crisp tailored set of robes - was the last person that she wanted to see.

He straightened up on seeing her, his expression carefully schooled.

"Hello, Draco," she said with a weary sigh.

- - -

There was little more than a blur where her memories of that morning at the cottage should have been. What she did recall was confused and tainted by those memories from her fall while playing with the Harpies. It was worse at night, when she was trying to sleep. The nightmares that had begun to plague her back in October had now returned completely, fiercer than ever.

She did remember Draco shouting her name, and the way that he had hovered over her with a horrified look on his face. She remembered him crouching by her side as he spoke in a deceptively calm voice, though what he said was lost forever. From what she had been told, Foster had arrived soon after, a trained Curse Breaker with him. They had not so much dismantled the wards as destroyed them. The solicitor had been quite distressed when he had attempted to contact her the evening before, and had discovered that she was unreachable. Her next memory, however, was from waking in the all too familiar surroundings of a private room in St Mungo's with her mother slumped in a chair by her bed. For a moment, she had thought that she was dreaming.

Draco had been nowhere to be seen. Indeed, he had not visited her once while she had been in hospital, or while she was recuperating at The Burrow. There was no reason that he should have, of course. No doubt whatever plan he had been following had played out, even if it had not ended quite as he had intended it to. Besides, she knew from the newspapers that he had problems enough of his own. Foster had been rightly sceptical as to how she had fallen, and it had only taken one word from him to give Harry and her family the excuse that they needed to pursue him. Draco had ended up spending the greater part of the weekend at Auror headquarters being questioned. It had taken Ginny several frustrating and - quite frankly - embarrassing conversations to convince everyone that it had indeed been an accident. The Aurors had been to the cottage, after all. They could not have missed the rumpled bed.

That had not stopped the gossip rags from speculating about precisely what had gone on. Neither of them had particularly come out of the mess with glowing reputations. More than one reporter had enjoyed rehashing his past, and hers. They had even reprinted some of the more intrusive photographs of her previous injuries. Ginny had long since grown tired of accidentally catching sight of pictures of her bone popping out of her leg as she struggled to stay conscious.

If they had confined their interest to such articles Ginny would have been irritated but, at the same time, relieved. Unfortunately, they had not. In the space of a few sentences, she had been reduced from a successful, independent woman to Harry Potter's ex-girlfriend, and from there things had only become worse still. The tabloids had fallen like hungry dragons on the idea that she could be having an affair with Draco. The fact that he was dating their current favourite starlet and the star of Ginny's radio show had only made the story even tastier. Or that he had been dating her. Miranda had made short work of breaking up with Draco once the stories had started to leach out. Ginny had never realised what a talent the actress had for manipulating the press.

By the time that she was through, Ginny had come out of it sounding like a determined seductress. Draco had faired only slightly better.

On more than one occasion, Ginny had allowed herself to toy with the idea that it was for that reason, and that reason alone, that he had stayed away while she was convalescing. That, she knew, had been a foolish thing to do.

They left the hospital and walked to a small, nearby café in silence. Winter had well and truly descended on London, leaving the skies grey and overcast. There had even been a brief fall of snow earlier that day. Draco had asked her if she would have lunch with him; Ginny had agreed despite the flurry of reservations that had come to mind. She wanted to know what had finally brought him scurrying out from whatever stone he had been hiding under.

As they had moved down the street Ginny had sensed Draco glancing towards the cane that she had purposefully pulled from her bag. At the conflicted, almost pained look on his face she had been unable to suppress an admittedly petty feeling of triumph. She wanted him to feel guilty.

That would make two of them.

They drew some curious looks when they first entered the café. Ginny glared at one particularly obvious offender until she looked away. Then she settled into the chair opposite the one that Draco had taken, glad to be off her feet. He had chosen a table towards the back of the café, half hidden by a flourishing potted palm that had tinsel draped over it. Christmas was fast approaching. Most importantly, though, they were seated well away from the windows. Ginny decided that she was not the only one who wanted to avoid being noticed.

She sipped the coffee that he had bought her, watching him over the rim of the mug as she did so. The liquid was dark and rich. It set Ginny's stomach to rumbling far more than the thought of the sandwich she had ordered at the counter.

At first Draco appeared reluctant to speak. He did not look away from her though, as he might have done. Instead, he steadily returned her gaze. It was almost as if he was challenging himself to do so. Then he gave a short, tired-sounding laugh. Leaning his head back, he looked heavenward, and said, "I suspect that this is going to be the most awkward conversation that I ever have in my entire life."

Ginny remained silent. She did not think that she could contradict him. Not while she suspected the same thing, anyway.

"Thank you for not hexing me."

"Don't thank me yet," she replied swiftly, earning herself an amused look.

"And thank you for not letting Potter cart me off to Azkaban."

"You're lucky I was in a good mood that day."

"Somehow I doubt that, so thank you again."

Ginny rolled her eyes at him. "I didn't do it for you."

This time the look he gave her was a sceptical one.

"You know, I think you just apologised more in the last minute than you have in your entire life," she said, irritated that she had been read quite so easily. It was an unnerving habit of his.

"Probably," he admitted. "It doesn't mean that I'm not being sincere though."

"Try to say that without looking like you're about to choke and maybe I'll believe you."

Draco sighed and leaned back, stretching out his legs under the table. They brushed against Ginny's - whether inadvertently or not - and she felt a shiver go through her at the unexpected contact. That, too, left her feeling irritated.

"If you think I'm going to make things easy on you then you're mistaken."

"I wouldn't expect anything else."

"And stop that - stop agreeing with everything I say. It's bloody irritating."

"No doubt."

Ginny opened her mouth to snap at him and then slammed it shut again. She closed her eyes and counted to ten, breathing deeply while telling herself that getting angry was pointless.

"How did you know where I was going to be today?" she asked finally. When he did not reply, she added, "Come on - it's a simple enough question."

He raised one blond eyebrow. "Things are never simple where you are concerned," he replied cryptically. "That much is becoming increasingly, unerringly apparent."

Ginny set down her coffee. "Malfoy, do you actually want me to hex you? Just let me know if you do and I'll be glad to do it. I don't even think I would get into that much trouble."

"I'm not trying to be evasive. It's just not very easy to explain." His lips twitched. "Fear not, Ginny. I've not been stalking you - or paying anyone to follow you. I'll admit to keeping an eye on you…"

"Oh really?" she asked, unable to keep the disbelief out of her voice.

"Well, I had to do it from a distance. Your family is disgustingly protective."

Ginny frowned. "Not lying to me would be an excellent way of starting to regain my trust."

"They didn't tell you that I called?" He snorted. "I suppose that I shouldn't be surprised. Potter was less than cooperative…"

"Harry?" she asked. "What does he have to do with anything?"

Draco's lip curled. "Nothing except for the fact that he made it abundantly apparent that I was not to step within ten miles of you. I'm taking quite a risk right now."

It took all Ginny's willpower not to wince. Ever since the accident, Harry had been unusually present in her life. He had visited everyday while she was recuperating at The Burrow - often with a mournful look on his face. In the space of a few hours, he had regressed to a state of self blame so wholly like the one after she had been injured playing Quidditch that Ginny had occasionally wondered whether any time had passed at all. His reaction to the stories in the newspapers had been fierce and almost frightening. In fact, in her opinion, Draco should count himself lucky that he was still standing.

Of course, Draco did not need to know that.

"Then shouldn't you hurry up?"

For a moment he just continued to look at her, his gaze heavy. Then he leaned over and reached into the pocket of the long dark woollen coat that he had removed on sitting down. From it he took a small packet wrapped in brown paper that he placed on the table between them. Ginny stared at it with undisguised interest. Wordlessly, he pushed it towards her with the tips of his fingers.

She raised a questioning eyebrow and then her mouth dropped open as he casually placed the Time Turner down on top of it.

Ginny snatched it up, hiding it in the palm of her hand while hissing, "What are you doing? Are you an idiot?" She looked around to check that no one has spotted what he had passed her.

"Let me ask you something," he said, seemingly ignoring her. Gesturing to her tightly closed fist, he continued, "If you could use that to change one thing what would it be?"

She smirked. "Do you really want me to answer that?"

Draco shot her a half smile. "Don't be so hasty. I know what I would do. I know precisely what I would do. Don't look so surprised."

"I'm not," Ginny protested. "I knew that you were up to something all along. I just couldn't figure out what you were up to. When we…" she hesitated, feeling heat rush to her cheeks. She could not pretend that what had happened between them had ever ventured far from her mind. But thinking about it was one thing, talking about it was another. The silence grew longer as she tried to force the words from where they had stuck in her throat under his watchful eyes. He was actually going to make her say them as well.

She glared at him. "I started to think that I might have been wrong. You were decidedly… un-Malfoy-like."

His eyebrows rose. "How so?"

"Well, for one thing you didn't take advantage of me while I was being weak. Or at least I didn't think that was what you were doing. Obviously I know differently now."

He shook his head quickly. "It wasn't like that."

"If it wasn't like that then what was that performance in the sitting room about? Are you honestly telling me that you weren't trying to get into my knickers so that I wouldn't notice what you were up to? If you are, then I've got to say that I really don't believe you. Admit it - you decided that the best way to distract me was to get me in bed."

"That wasn't why I slept with you," he ground out. Reaching across the table and covered her hand with his. The Time Turner felt hot inside their twin fists. Ginny tried to pull back, shocked by the severity of the look on his face. Draco's grip remained firm however. "You never asked me what I'd change."

Ginny blinked, thrown by the sudden change in subject. "What?"

"Ask me," he insisted.

She hesitated briefly before doing so. "Okay - what would you change?"

"Us."

Shaking her head in response, Ginny said, "I don't understand."

"About this time three years ago, while I was still living in New York, a series of letters started being delivered to me. They were all from different locations, written on different paper, and dated oddly. They were, however, in two distinctly familiar hands."

Ginny's breath caught in her throat. Knowing what he wanted from her, she asked, "Whose?"

Draco's lips curled up at one side, his expression suddenly tinged with amusement. "Yours, Ginny."

"You're mistaken," she said, adding triumphantly, "I've never written to you. I certainly wasn't writing to you three years ago."

His smile did not falter. "I know. Be patient. At first I thought that you had gone crackers. The letters were bizarre and more often than not confusing as well. They were filled with anecdotes of things that had never happened - that would never happen in a sane world. Then the other letters started arriving and I thought that I was the one who had gone mad."

"You were writing to yourself?" Ginny guessed.

With a nod, he said, "Of course I didn't remember doing it - and the things that were written were fantastical. I performed every spell I could think of to figure out who was really writing them, but the result was always the same. We wrote those letters. Or rather we will write them."

Ginny frowned. "That doesn't make any sense," she said, and then stopped. Her eyes widened and her fingers flexed. "The Time Turner - you use it."

"I might be the one who uses it," he confirmed. "Or you could, I suppose. Either way, one of us goes back to make sure that I get those letters."

The doubt she felt was obvious when she next spoke. "Say that you're right - it doesn't seem like it would be worth the risk. Changing the past is likely to get you thrown into Azkaban."

"It's no more illegal than what my father probably had in mind when he sent me to the cottage to retrieve the Time Turner. Apparently Edwina was crazy enough to dangle the fact that she had one in front of his face a few times over the years. They really did not like each other. He doesn't know that I have it yet, by the way. I didn't tell him that I found it."

"Is that why he's contesting the will?" Ginny asked. Only a few days after her accident, Foster had turned up with the news that Lucius Malfoy had decided that he was going to challenge the legality of Edwina's will. "He knows that I'd never let you back into the cottage without someone there to watch you every step of the way."

Draco winced. "Yes. Well, that and the fact that I may have mentioned a few of the other things that I spotted. I had to. He was questioning me endlessly about what had happened between us. As far as he knows, you had your accident before I could thoroughly search the cottage."

Lowering her eyes, Ginny thought over what he had said. "This still doesn't make much sense. Why would you want to send a bunch of letters to yourself?"

"Because of what's in them, of course. They're the reason that I decided to move back to England. I was happy where I was - I don't want to give you the impression otherwise. There was something missing, though. It wasn't until the letters started to arrive that I even realised that. To begin with I did not want to take them seriously - even when I had accepted them for what they were. You can stop glaring at me now, if you'd like."

"I wish you would get to the point," Ginny told him impatiently. "What was so important about some letters?"

For a moment he once again seemed reluctant to talk. When he did, the words came out uncharacteristically uncertain. "They're important because they are about you and me." He pointed to the packet on the table. "You can see for yourself. Just don't let Potter get his hands on them. He's not only a prat but a bit of a terrier as well."

She reached out and picked up the package. It was surprisingly weighty.

Draco stood, surprising her in the process. She had been staring intently at the package, wondering whether she could trust him. It might contain anything. Now she jerked her eyes up towards him.

"I'll leave you to it. Enjoy lunch, Ginny."

"Wait," she said as he turned to leave.

He shook his head. "I can't. I've got a meeting to get to. Send me an owl when you're done reading and we'll talk about it."

He was halfway to the door before Ginny decided to act. Climbing to her feet, she hurried after him, catching her thigh on the back of someone's chair as she did. She hissed as pain blossomed out from the spot and quickly put a hand out to stop herself from falling. The woman seated on the chair gave her a rather affronted look, but Ginny barely noticed. She was much too concerned with catching up with Draco.

"Malfoy," she called as she reached the door. He was already on the street, walking away from her with irritatingly long strides. "Draco, wait!"

Her hand twitched towards her wand as she hurried to follow him. The git knew that she would not be able to keep up. Her leg was screaming, whether from where she had just hit it or from her previous injury she did not know.

"Stop right there or I swear I'll throw those letters in the nearest bin!" she shouted after him.

That did it. Draco stopped and turned to look at her, his expression slightly incredulous. He rolled his eyes skywards and then walked back down the street towards her, his coat flaring around him.

"You're attracting quite an audience."

The redhead looked around and winced as she realised that he was right. They were being watched carefully by a couple on the other side of the street, and a group further along it. She drew her shoulders back, determined to appear confident. "I don't care. You can't walk away from me like that."

He sighed, his breath clouding in the cold December air between them. "You're not going to believe anything that I tell you now. You don't want to believe it. You'd rather that I was some monster out to get you when that is the furthest thing from the truth."

Ginny pursed her lips, uncomfortably aware of how close to the truth he was. "You can't expect me to just take you at your word. What did you mean when you said that they're about us?"

"You didn't understand?" He looked genuinely surprised. Stepping nearer to her, he said, "I suppose I just naturally assumed that you would do, considering what you told me about how you felt."

"That is in the past."

"Not so much so, I think," he replied, obviously amused. "Will you just read the letters? They explain things better than I could anyway."

Ginny grabbed his arm as he tried to move away. "Don't you want the Time Turner back?"

"Later."

"There probably won't be a later. We're not exactly going to start having regular lunch dates."

"You're always so determined about everything," he said, still smiling. "I think it's one of the things that I like best about you. It can be utterly infuriating, and yet at the same time it can be so much fun convincing you that you're wrong."

The fabric of his coat folded around her fingers as he turned towards her fully, standing so close that Ginny felt a desire to take a step back. Before she could, however, he had curled an arm around her middle. The kiss that he pressed against her mouth was hard and insistent, and seemingly inevitable. Ginny was caught between wanting to bite down on his lip and dragging him closer. She could hardly see through her confusion when he pulled back.

"I have done many things in life that I regret. Most of which you are no doubt fully acquainted with. The thing that I regret the most, though, is the fact that once again I seem to have completely messed things up between us."

"Again?" she asked, her voice straining to be above a whisper.

"Again. You'll come back to me though. I know you will." Draco leaned closer, his mouth hovering over hers. When he spoke, there was a knowing tone to this voice that sent a shiver up her spine. "We've tried every way we can, you and me, Ginny. Each time something slightly different changes, and each time we end up just a little bit closer. You'll be amazed by some of the stories."

Ginny could not suppress the sceptical look that threatened to sweep over her features. The packet of letters nestling in her pocket suddenly seemed far heavier than they should have done. "This is crazy," she told him. "You'll be telling me next that all my future happiness hangs on this."

From Draco's knowing smirk, Ginny knew she had guessed correctly.

THE END

ORIGINAL REQUEST:
• Briefly describe what you'd like to receive in your fic
  Something where the ends justify the means. I would prefer it to be appropriately dark. Obviously not ridiculously angsty, but a little bit more on the darker side of things. Black humor is a must! I would love to see Ginny struggling as a result of their competition. She's always on top in these D/G fics, but she should take her place to Draco.
• The tone/mood of the fic: A little sarcastic. You, as the writer, should almost be laughing at the situation, but still acknowledging the dark tones of it.
• An element/line of dialogue/object you would like in your fic: A time travel reference/element could be cool but not at all necessary.
• Preferred rating of the fic you want: PG13 and up. Smut is okay, but don't make the whole fic about it.
• Canon or AU? Either.
• Deal Breakers (anything you don't want?): Snape or Dumbledore.

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