The sun was streaming through the library window illuminating the dozen of books spread out on to the table at the very back of the room

The sun was streaming through the library window illuminating the dozens of books spread out on the table at the very back of the room.  He was hidden from view of the other students studying, but they were still within his sight.  Draco was apprehensive of being bothered while studying, while still being very self protecting.  A figure suddenly blocked the light from coming through the window, and as he turned to see what it was, a groan escaped from his throat.

There, bobbing up and down outside the window was the littlest Weasley on her broom.  A steady grin spread across her face as she waved frantically at him.  She started making faces at him, causing a grimace to come across his face.

“Abominable twit,” he snarled under his breath as he turned back around to face his books.

Draco was sitting there in silence, cramming worthless knowledge into his head, while she was outside having fun.  It still boggled him as to how she even made Hogwarts Wizarding Knowledge Team since she never seemed to study for it.

He was just beginning to fall back into the history of the headmasters when he heard a steady pelting on the window behind him.  As much as he tried to ignore the sound, he just couldn’t.  Giving up on his great discipline, he turned quickly around to the window to see Ginny waving again at him.

The chair slammed violently into the wall as he stood up quickly from his spot.  The glass quivered in its frame as he threw the windows open. 

“What do you want, you stupid harpy?” he screamed directly into her face.

Ginny sat on her broom unaffected by his outburst and smiled at him.  “I just wanted to say hello to you.  Hello.”

His hands began to shake with fury.  “Good, you’ve said it, now go away,” he said, his words pressed through clenched teeth.

“Why are you hiding out in here? It’s pretty outside.” Her head cocked to the side, causing her long hair to cascade down her arm.  “Come fly with me,” she added, with a spin of her broom.

“No!” Draco bit out as he started closing the window.  But the window was caught on something, and as he looked to see what was hindering his dramatic exit, he saw it was Ginny herself.

She tilted her head to the side again with the look of an innocent doe crossing her face.  “Do you need some help? You look stressed out.”

He was shaking again as she stepped through the window and brushed past him.  His usual pale pallor was beginning to take on a red blotchy color.  “What would I do with your help? You’re more worthless than Crabbe and Goyle put together.  At least they’re big bodyguards; you just flit around and get in peoples’ way.”

Ginny tossed her head back and gave a twinkling laugh.  “I’ve beat you in battle before so obviously it’s you who’s worthless.  Also, the fact that you need bodyguards shows that you truly are rubbish.”  

Draco felt his lip twitching in anger at her comments.  “I was distracted when you attacked me; it wasn’t a noble fight!”

“You make up excuses for everything that doesn’t go your way.  You’re always off guard when girls beat you, or unprepared when they get better marks in class.”

“I do not,” he said as he plopped back into his chair after recovering it from the other side of the room.  “I could battle you and Granger at the same time and would conquer.”

“I highly doubt that.” Ginny giggled as she sat down in the chair across from Draco, making herself comfortable.  “Look at you-with your head in a dozen books getting ready for tomorrow’s competition while I play all day.”

Draco began to slam his books shut and put them on shelves where they didn’t belong.  “There, and I will still do better than you tomorrow.”

“That’s going to bother you that they aren’t in the right place,” she stated with a smile as she pointed at the books.

His lip quivered, just barely.  “No, it won’t.  I don’t care about books.”

Ginny smiled as she put her feet up on the table.  “Yes, you do. You love order, like you above me, and that’s how it’s supposed to be in your mind.”

Draco crossed his arms across his chest and stared her down before storming away.  He was angrier than he could remember as he heard her laughing behind him.  Stupid blood traitor, he thought as he passed swiftly through the hallways to the Slytherin common room.  The password to the common room slipped through his lips habitually, and he stormed down to the sixth year boys’ dormitory.

The room was empty except for the four beds arranged around the room and the boys’ possessions.  Draco walked past three of the beds before flinging himself onto his large canopied bed on the left.  It was positioned next to a window that was charmed to show images of the outside so that he could look out of it during nights when he couldn’t sleep, due to his constant worrying.  At this time, though, he lay on his back and stared at the green material hanging over top of him.  Out of habit, he started sifting through facts in his head that he had studied in the library.  Years that headmasters had served flew through his mind, as well as their different successes.  Various animals and their special abilities galloped beside their origins, never leaving his mind at peace.  While he was reciting through the knowledge he had acquired there were certain words piercing his mind.  You make up excuses for everything that doesn’t go your way.  A werewolf has several distinguishing characteristics from a regular wolf; the pupils of their eyes, the shape of their snout, and the tuft of their tale.   You love order, like you above me. 

Draco immediately shook his head, trying, for once, to empty it of all things that had gotten stuck in there.  When all that resulted was red hair sweeping across an elbow, as the figure climbed through the window towards him, he flipped dramatically onto his side and pushed the pillow over his head.  He tried to think of a way to eliminate the torturous thoughts drifting around him.  Suddenly, he got up off of his bed and retrieved his broom from the armoire stationed at the end of the room. 

 He was out of the common room and climbing the stairs quickly while focusing on things like the dripping of water in the hallway, before another foul image could come into his mind.  It was a gorgeous day outside, which made sense that almost every student was outside doing some activity or another.  When his foot hit the lawn he quickly threw his right leg over the broom and kicked off into the air, letting the air push every thought out of his mind.  He had no idea where he would fly to and didn’t care at that point.  All that mattered was sorting his mind the way Snape had taught him to do.

After flying for an hour he had little drawers shut in his mind with labels on them stating “Never open again,” and, “For studying purposes only.”  He had filed Ginny into the former one and tried to lock it with a key.  Draco still couldn’t figure out how she had come to the conclusion that they could be acquaintances just because they were both on the Knowledge Team.  One day he had been insulting her to the point that she started crying, and the next she was telling him hello in the hallway and throwing insults back, but in a playful manner. 

“Oh good, you finally listened to something I told you.  I wish you would have told me you were going flying so that I may have joined you,” her voice chimed from behind him.

Draco turned his broom around and glared at Ginny, as was habit whenever he heard her voice.  “I didn’t listen to your advice.  I am capable of having my own thoughts and following them.”

She snorted in a very unladylike manner and started flying circles around him.  “Look at me, I’m Draco Malfoy and anything that anyone says I ignore because I’m better than them,” she said in a deeper voice.  Ginny tilted her head back and laughed at her own mockery.  “You are such a prat sometimes.”

“All the time, Weaselette, not just sometimes.  It seems everyone else has caught on to the fact, but you keep resisting.  I don’t know how you can absorb any knowledge since you aren’t perceptive in the least bit,” he stated back at her.  He kept looking straight forward and ignored the pattern she was flying around him. 

“Most people don’t brag about being a prat, or a spoiled arse, but you go around telling everyone you are one,” she said as she stopped flying and cocked her head at him.  “I just don’t get why you are so angry at everyone.  I’m assuming that it’s because you are angry at situations at home, and that you like to have control because of that.  It’s just a little theory I have, though.”

Draco watched his hands start shaking on the handle of his broom as she talked about him like he was an object to study.  “I am not mental!” he yelled at her, his face flushing instantly.

Ginny arched an eyebrow at his outburst and then started giggling.  “You are so sensitive, which just proves my point.”  Then she turned her broom and flew away towards the entrance way of the school.

It took him a second to realize that she had won their little battle again and he looked like a moron with his mouth gaping at her audacity.  Instead of letting her get away with it he gathered his pride from where it was strewn about, and flew after her.  He reached her when she was ten feet from landing and pulled out in front of her.  Obviously, she was flying a hand-me-down broom and his was a brand new model, which accounted for his win.  His feet touched the ground and he was through the door before she had even realized what had happened.

His feet started taking him down the steps towards the dungeons when he heard footsteps following him.  She was running fast, but was still trying to be careful in the slick hallways.  Her caution was giving him the advantage that he needed, and as he turned through a door, a smirk crossed his face.  Within seconds she had turned into the room that he had chosen. 

Draco had her pinned into the corner of the broom closet before she could let out a gasp of surprise.  Her warmth radiated onto him in their close proximity, and he could even smell the lilac flavor of her hair.  His eyes pressed closed tightly trying to push all of the sensations out of his mind while he tried to remember why he had trapped her in here.  The plan had been to scare her away from him, but instead he just wanted her closer.  His palms started sweating with anticipation of touching her skin, and his lips tingled at the thought of kissing her.

A Basilisk’s mortal weakness is the crowing of the rooster.  They feed off vertebrate animals and can live up to 900 years, he thought, trying to get his body to calm down and stop reacting the way it was.  Dilys Derwent was headmistress for Hogwarts between 1741 and 1768.  Before that she was a Healer at St. Mungo’s. 

His eyes slipped back open after he took a deep breath to make sure he was absolutely calmed down.  Ginny was still there though, and her smell was overtaking every one of his senses, causing the hair on his arms to stand on end.  A small shiver went through him as she looked up at him with hooded eyes.  Before anything happened his hand was opening the door and he was escaping into the hallway. 

Ginny didn’t follow him as he went back to his dorm to get his books together to study in the library.

********************

            Her mind was racing a kilometer a second after Draco left her alone in the closet.  What had happened between them?  Had they almost kissed?  She could still feel his presence engulfing every one of her senses.  The goosebumps were rising up on her arms, and his cologne pierced her nose.  What had started as her just having fun and getting a rise out of her teammate, had proved to hold other excitement for her, from him.

            After standing alone in the dark space for a while she finally realized that she had to go back to her room to study.  She padded along blindly through the corridors up to her dormitory.  When she entered, she opened her trunk to reveal the hundreds of books that Hermione had magicked to fit into it.  She grabbed Hogwarts: A History and started reading it for the hundredth time even though it was more like reciting it from memory.  Ginny thought it was funny that everyone assumed that she was a slacker and naturally smart when she was the most learned one of the bunch.

            For the next few days she spent most of her time locked up in her room studying, only coming out for meals and classes.  Every time she passed Draco in the hallway he would quickly look up at her and go off in the opposite direction.  Ginny could have accepted it if he had continued mocking her or telling her that she wasn’t as good as him, but the total lack of response to her boggled her mind.  She had been in awkward situations with Harry before, but he hadn’t reacted the way Draco was.

            The day before the next Knowledge meet was supposed to take place, Ginny could be found wandering through the corridors.  It was pouring outside, making Ginny feel trapped inside the enormous castle.  She couldn’t stand spending hours studying anymore and had to get out and stretch her legs.  Her wandering took her toward the dungeons, where she walked past the closet that Draco and she had been closely pressed together in just a week before.  The events kept flashing across the back of her eyelids no matter how hard she tried to push them out.  She couldn’t forget the smell of him and the feel of him. It was torturing her so much that the distance that had evolved between them was making her whole body ache.

            “You’re not supposed to be down here, Weasel,” a voice boomed behind her making her jump a foot in the air.  “If a Gryffindor is found in Slytherin territory it can’t be held against the finder what he will do to the said Gryffindor.”

            She whipped around to face the person that had intruded on her private sulking.  Her wand was immediately pointing at Crabbe in a defensive manner, making him take a step back.  “Don’t mess with me today.  I am not in the mood for your exploitation.”

            Crabbe’s big hulking figure moved closer in a clumsy suggestive manner.  His eyes held a dangerous glare in them as he looked Ginny up and down.  “You are not one to tell me what to do, little Gryffindor.  As you can see we are alone in this corridor and none of the other Slytherins would care if you screamed.”

            The hairs on the back of her neck started sticking up as she realized he was right, that no one would care if he attacked her.  She went through every defensive hex she knew before selecting the Bat Bogey one and sending it flying at him.  It caught him off guard and sent him into the wall while bats started flying out of his nose.  He recovered in a heartbeat and started charging at her even with the stampede attacking his face.  A wayward hand hit her hard, knocking her against the wall.

            Her head was spinning, but she still noticed that there was someone else in the corridor with them and he was yelling at Crabbe.  His arms were flailing about wildly, but she couldn’t focus on anything but the ringing bell in her head.  The sound wasn’t like a bell that someone hit with a small mallet, but more like a bell rung to call everyone to supper.  Ginny closed her eyes because the bell was starting to ring in time with the motion of his arms.  She didn’t know how long her eyes were closed until she was in someone’s arms being carried away. 

            They hadn’t gone far, she concluded, since she had only counted about ten rings of the bell in her ears.  When she opened her eyes she was lying on a green canopied bed that had the curtains drawn closed around her and Draco.  She probably would have jumped back at the fact that his face was about fifteen centimeters away from hers, but she was reclined firmly against the pillows. 

            “Are you alright?” Draco asked with slight concern lacing his eyes.  It caused a little wrinkle to show around them illustrating that he didn’t lay this look on people often.  “I don’t think he’ll be able to walk right for a week with the curse I threw at him.”

            Ginny’s head had stopped its impression of a top, but every word that she heard was laced by that damned ringing.  “I’m fine, I think.  There’s a ringing in my head that hasn’t stopped since my head hit that wall.”

            His hands were cold as he carefully checked her head.  It caused the spinning to start all over again making her shut her eyes before she embarrassed herself by getting excited over his touch.  He carefully brushed his fingers over the sensitive part of her skull making her inhale deeply.

            “I am very happy that I caught his pants on fire,” he gritted through his teeth.

            This caused her eyes to snap open instantaneously.  “You caught his pants on fire?”

            “When I came down the hallway you were laying on the ground with your eyes closed and completely motionless while he stood over you with bats flying out of his nose and a hungry look in his eyes.”  He shivered a little at the last observation.  “The first thing that came to mind was setting his pants on fire so he could never use his prick to think again.”

            Everything was flying through her mind so fast.  His scent was right there all around her, and his heroic words against one of his closest mates pressed against her ears, with that damned bell reverberating between each word he spoke.  She wanted the bell to stop ringing so that she could fully appreciate the single moment that Draco was being kind to her, but it wasn’t stopping. 

            “Merlin, make it stop!” she yelled as she flopped onto her stomach and threw the pillow over her head. 

            Even with her head securely under the pillow and no other noises penetrating the barrier the ringing persisted.  She did realize that the figure that was sitting on the bed with her was very stiff at that moment.  Carefully, she poked one eye out to look at him while trying to keep her ears under the padding.  It must have looked very awkward to Draco, but she noticed how gauche he looked already.  He was sitting very still with his back stiff and he was looking straight down his nose at her.  The veil was over his face again and a small sneer was tugging at his lips.

            “Well, if you are fine like you say you are it is time for you to leave.  Next time I catch someone attacking you I will leave you to fend for yourself,” he said very stiffly.

            “What just happened in the split second that I put my head under the pillow and now to make you look like a wand is up your arse?”

            Draco’s perfect eyebrow rose causing the slight sneer to blossom into a full one.  “I do not have a wand up my arse!  I was going to ask you the same thing.  I stop a big goon from doing horrible things to you, and you tell me to make it stop?  You Gryffindors are the dumbest people I know.”

            Ginny started laughing slightly through her nose even though it caused the ringing to escalate in volume.  “I want the ringing in my head to stop, not you.”

            Understanding spread over his face causing the sneer to drop a little, but his pride would not let it drop all the way.  Malfoys understood everything, and this couldn’t be proven wrong by the Weaselette, no matter how cute she looked with her hair rumpled.

            She nodded when she saw that he wouldn’t be giving in and apologizing for the misunderstanding.  Trying not to move too fast, she started to maneuver off the bed and away from this boy that was wreaking havoc on everything she had believed in her life.  These things included things like: Malfoys only care about themselves, Malfoys do not have a nice bone in their body, and they especially don’t flirt with Weasleys.

            Her feet touched the ground and she stood up to find her head not spinning in the least bit.  Considering that she was fine and couldn’t put up with Malfoy’s irrational behavior she started heading towards the door.  She could feel her temper rising as she tried to think about how he felt.  When it came to reading males’ intentions she was quite good at it since she lived with seven of them, but Draco was a totally different case.  One second he’s about to snog her in a broom closet, and the next he’s ignoring her.  He saved her in the hallway from things she didn’t even want to imagine and then goes all iceman on her. 

            She had almost reached the door to leave his dormitory when she felt his hand land on her shoulder.  Almost every single part of her wanted to shrug it off, except for one small voice that told her to see it out.

            “Perhaps I should walk you out,” he said from behind her.  His words tickled her ear, making her shudder.

            Ginny coaxed herself into staying together.  “I’m perfectly capable of walking myself back to my room,” she hissed as she whirled around to face him.  She pushed her chin up in the air defiantly and settled her eyes fiercely on his.  The corner of her mouth tugged a bit with a fraction of a sneer.

            Were there stars in those pale gray eyes of his?  From Ginny’s point of view she could see something dancing in the depths of those eyes that she had never noticed before.  Usually he was sneering and growling at everyone around him, but at that split second there were sparkles in his eyes.

            “It’s not safe for you to go into the Slytherin common room by yourself.  Even if most of the others are in class or the library, some spend all their time in there, and they’re not the nicest some.”

            Instead of responding in a vocal way, she scrunched her face into a confused expression.  Her eyebrows puckered and her lips pursed as she blinked at him, lost for words. 

            “Are you having a stroke?”  Draco pondered as he lightly brushed his hand against the top of her arm.

            That light touch brought her out of her reverie.  She jumped away from his hand that was still suspended in the air and knocked her back into the door.  “I don’t understand you!” she finally yelled with an upset look falling over her face.  “One second you hate me and are insulting me at every turn, and the other you’re saving my life and lightly touching me.  What is wrong with you?  Do you suffer from dual personalities or something?”

            Draco laughed at that, or laughed as much as Draco was capable of laughing.  It was almost like a scoff, but the twinkle was back in his eyes which caused Ginny to stand there in awe at how beautiful the boy was.  His blond hair hung lightly over his right eye so that his eyes were clearly seen.  His jaw tightened as he began to wear a light smile on his face.  Everything about him was transforming right in front of Ginny’s eyes.  Draco was becoming a slightly annoying, nice friend as opposed to the horrible Death Eater wannabe she had always known him to be.

            Her legs took her to the chair that was positioned a meter away from the door and she sat down with a plop.  The ringing still hadn’t stopped and all the changes that were happening with Draco made her start to believe that she was having a dream.  “That’s it! I’m dreaming!  I was knocked unconscious by the wall, and now I’m having a dream.”

            “Do most of your dreams involve me?  Particularly, me and you in my room?” he asked with a subtle smile.

            Ginny looked at him with a doubtful air to her.  “No, you are not in any of my dreams, but since the other day in the closet, you were on my mind.  Thus, I believe that this is a dream because I was thinking about you when I was attacked.”

            It was amazing that there was still enough air in the room for them to breath as his ego expanded in front of her eyes.  “Is that why you were walking through the dungeons?  You were hoping to run into me.”

            “No, I wasn’t hoping to run into you,” she said exasperatedly.  “I was stretching my legs and happened to walk down the same corridor that we were in the other day.  It was all a coincidence, this whole entire day was.”

            Draco decided it better to not keep teasing her about looking for him and settled into the chair next to her.  He noticed that her color was still off, much too pale, even for her.  It looked like her freckles were about to fall right off of her face.  “Are you sure you’re alright?  You still look very pale.”

            “I’m in shock,” she bit out at him as she looked away from his concerned expression.  He was starting to weasel, or ferret, his way into her little world and she wasn’t comfortable with it.  “Everything has been way too weird today.  Aren’t you supposed to be studying for tomorrow or something?  Why are you spending so much time on me?”

            He smiled slightly again as he waved to the books sitting on the coffee table in front of him that she hadn’t noticed before.  “I was coming back from the library when I stumbled upon you.  You distracted me a bit, and I figured that if I brought you back, and you were in sufficient health, I could make you study.”

            She nodded her head slowly as she tried to process what he was saying.  Nodding didn’t help the ringing bell, but it did give her some time to answer.  “You are that worried about our team winning tomorrow that you’d force me to study in front of you?”  She furrowed her eyebrows at him.  “You are so strange.”

            Draco grabbed a book and handed it to her.  “I just want to make sure that we’ve done everything we could to win.  That’s not strange to me; it’s just the way I was born to deal with competitions.”

            “I don’t need to study, Malfoy.  Everything I need to know is already up here,” Ginny stated and patted her head gently.  “I don’t like to study when I could be doing other things, or sleeping.”

            He threw his hands up in the air in exasperation and let them fall down loudly onto his thighs.  “You won’t even try to study?  What is so horrible about reading books and getting ready for a huge competition?  Does winning mean nothing to you?” he all but yelled at her.

            She couldn’t help but start laughing at him.  It wasn’t a proper little giggle either, but an outright guffaw at his outrage with her.  “I just don’t see the point in reading about stuff I already know,” she stated in between huffs of laughter and ringing bells. 

            “Could you care a little less? I'm not sure you're giving apathy your all,” he asked as he ran his hand through his hair in frustration.  “For us to win, the whole team has to care about it.”

            His words hit her harder than she expected and her laughter stopped.  “You’re just being nice to me in the team’s best interest?”

            In a second it seemed like hundreds of emotions flashed through his eyes, but it was over as fast as it had started.  He kept his eyes locked on hers as he stood directly in front of her chair.  Before she could understand what was going on she was out of the chair with his hands bracing her upper arms.  His eyes penetrated hers with such intensity that she felt her heart actually shudder inside of her chest.  It seemed like there were so many emotions battling inside of him and he had no idea which one to side with. 

            A tear slid down her cheek from the beauty of both of their pain.  His fingers were digging into her arms, but she didn’t feel that it hurt, just that he was touching her.  She couldn’t imagine what kind of fray was happening inside of him if she was feeling so much in such a small movement, such a small frame of time.  If they continued with the path they were on, they could lose everything they had fought so hard to establish.  All their friends would fight against the bond that had been formed, and she couldn’t even think of her family. 

            He must have decided the same thing at roughly the same time as her.  They would dash what everyone else thought of it, and not care about anything other than the emotions they were feeling at that precise moment.  It would be considered a crime, and a great self sacrifice, to ignore the enormity of this connection.

            His lips crashed roughly against hers as his fingers dug harder into her arms.  Their lips fit together perfectly, like a blanket wrapped around a body.  His tongue sought permission to access her mouth and she greedily accepted it.  He moved his hands from the tight grasp on her arms to holding her lower back tightly, pressing her hard against him.  It felt like they couldn’t get closer to each other, the need was boiling their blood.  Every hair was standing straight up on his body, crying to touch the soft alabaster of her skin.  For the first time in his life, he felt like he belonged right where he was, at that exact moment.

            Ginny stretched onto her toes and wrapped her arms tightly around his neck.  Her fingers reached up to entwine in his hair and she pulled on it lightly.  Her teeth bit lightly at his lip as they sought for dominance in each other’s mouths.  The bell in her head chimed so loudly at that moment that she couldn’t hear anything except it and their rasping breath.   Everything around them seemed to drop away and all that mattered was them finally coming together.  All of the turmoil she had been feeling inside of her the past week was solving itself in a split second. 

            Draco’s hand moved from her back to settle onto her cheek as his tongue danced delicately with hers.  He could finally understand all of the novels he had read about love, and belonging with someone, because his heart was swelling so much.  His thumb stroked away the tears that were falling from her eyes as the kiss became gentler.  It eased into soft pecks on her lips then moved to her checks and forehead and then her eyes. 

Slowly, he eased away from her and looked back into her eyes as they fluttered open.  Her chestnut eyes were glowing with flakes of gold as her tears glistened in the light of the room.  He felt his heart slowly break at how beautiful she looked when she was being vulnerable, and it was all for him.  Never before had a girl opened herself so much to him with just one kiss.  He felt that she had put her heart into his hands and that he could break it with just one flinch of his fingers.

            Draco felt his feet back away from her as his hands dropped from her body.  He lowered his head as he said the words, “I think you should go now.”  He didn’t look back up as he heard her hesitate a moment before leaving his room without a word.  But he did know that understanding novels and feeling like he belonged with someone wasn’t worth the danger that was now laid out in front of them.

********************

            Ginny woke from a fitful sleep feeling exhausted.  She had gone to bed early the night before since all her mind wanted to do was replay every event that had happened the day before.  At that moment she was cursing her photographic memory.  While it did help her study and remember things better than other people, it also made her remember every detail about Draco, especially the way he said goodbye.  It hadn’t helped that when she had left his dormitory and went into the common room Pansy Parkinson had been there.  Pansy had laughed at Ginny’s blank expression and called her many disgusting names that had never previously been attached to Ginny’s description.  The rest of the classes she was supposed to attend that day were skipped and she spent the time lying in bed staring at the wall.  It seemed that if she concentrated on the bell sound close enough that she would go into a trance and nothing else would penetrate that hypnosis. 

            She struggled out of bed and thanked all the Gods that the ringing had finally stopped.  Her body followed the typical motions through her morning routine and she was down to breakfast before anyone else was there, except for one.  Of course Draco would be there sitting at his table with his back facing hers.  It didn’t escape her observation that his shoulders were slouching more than normal, and that his back was even beautiful through that sweater he was wearing.  Ginny shook her head and looked away from him to go sit down at her house table with her back to him.  She didn’t taste a piece of the food she put into her mouth as she thought through facts that she needed to know for the competition that day.

            When enough time had passed for a typical breakfast, Ginny stood up and started to walk to the exit of the Great Hall.  She could feel his eyes on her as she walked, and it took every muscle in her body to resist looking right back at him with an evil look.  Inside she knew that if she looked at him her eyes would reveal the crushed hope she had held onto.

            The rest of the morning passed pretty quickly for her and she was very grateful for that.  She spent it in the library looking at different books, but never actually reading them.  In her head she was revising every question that could be thrown at her that afternoon.  She would prove to everyone that she wasn’t the slacker they thought her to be, but a brilliant witch.

            When the clock struck one, she headed down to the Great Hall where all the tables had been pushed aside except for three.  On the right side of the room was a table with a banner positioned on the wall behind it with their team name of Antipodean Opaleye painted on it.  The letters were a glittering red and had been charmed to glitter with a pearl-like effect. On the opposite side of the room sat another table with the other team already sitting at it.  They had named their team the Swedish Short-Snouts and consisted of Romilda Vance, Neville Longbottom, Susan Bones, and Tracey Davis.

            The whole competition had started as an attempt by Dumbledore to create house unity.  By assembling some of the school’s brightest students on teams to compete against each other they were actually working with other houses to accomplish it.  Ginny thought it was a pretty bright idea, but still felt that a lot of the students didn’t work together even if they were on the same team. 

            As she started walking towards her table she noticed that she wasn’t the first one to arrive.  There, just coming up from under the table, was Luna Lovegood.  She planted her pale blue eyes on Ginny and waved at her.

            “Hey, Luna,” Ginny greeted her teammate as she settled down into her seat next to her.

            “Hello, Ginny.  How are you today?” Luna asked with her dreamy voice.

            Planting a smile on her face Ginny answered Luna.  “I’m good.  I just want to kick their arses with our knowledge, of course.”

            Luna chuckled at Ginny since they said the same thing to each other at every competition.  It seemed to be working since they hadn’t lost one meet, but those meets weren’t bogged down with horrible inner turmoil like Ginny was feeling that day. 

            Ginny settled her eyes on her hands and started fidgeting with her nails.  She knew that any minute Draco would be coming through those doors and all hell would break loose inside of her.  For hours, she had been wondering about what he could possibly say to her to make up for the night before.  Besides the obvious apologies that normal people would use she couldn’t come up with anything that Draco would say to her.

            The chair next to her suddenly pulled out and she heard someone sit down in it.  She took a deep steadying breath before looking up to see that it was their other teammate, Kevin Whitby.  He was a Hufflepuff and the youngest person competing on any of the teams.  Not only was he a brilliant lad, but he was also starting to grow into a handsome one too.  He wasn’t too much of a common sense person, but his book smarts and his brown hair and blue eyes wooed the girls quite easily.  When he noticed Ginny looking at him, he threw her a full toothed smile that she tried to return, but she wound up just looking like she were in pain.

            “Alright there, Ginny?” Kevin asked in his Yorkshire accent.

            Ginny nodded solemnly at him.  “I’m fine.  Just a little anxious.”

            “There’s nothing to be anxious about, though.  We’re going to blow this team out of the water,” he stated with amazing confidence.

            “Of course, I don’t know what I was worrying about.” Ginny decided to give in and hoped that his common sense was really that dense.

            Kevin answered her hope by slapping her on the back in a supportive gesture.  “It’s normal for everyone to get nervous, I think.”

            She nodded again in response and went back to inspecting her fingernails.  She heard the chairs filling with students who had come to watch the competition and the voices from the judges that were sitting at the table in between the teams.  It was sort of nice having a lot of noise to drown out her thoughts again.  Surprisingly, she missed the bell ringing in her head. 

            “Sorry I’m late,” said the voice Ginny was waiting the most to hear.

            Ginny swung her head up quickly to look at him, but he wasn’t looking back at her.  His focus was on the other table where he was waving to Tracey Davis in a bored behavior.  At least he’s not excited to see her, she thought to herself.  But he’s not excited to see me either.

            She wasn’t left to drown in her own pool of self pity for long, being as Dumbledore was standing up at his table introducing the judges. 

            “We have all the heads of houses judging with me today.  Professor McGonagall, Professor Snape, Professor Flitwick, and Professor Sprout will all be asking questions of the teams.  I will then check it against the answer that we have written down and make sure that they are awarded the points they deserve,” Dumbledore spoke in his commanding voice.  His eyes settled on each of the team members before continuing.  “This competition is about bringing students from different houses together to find a common interest, which is knowledge.  Without further ado we will start the meet.”

            Dumbledore took his seat in the middle of the teachers and waved his wand in front of him.  Out of his wand sparked the words Round One in the air over their heads so that everyone could see the words. 

            “As determined by the coin toss before the meet, between the two teams, the Antipodean Opaleye’s will go first in this round.  This first question will be answered by the team in the allotted time,” Professor McGonagall informed the audience.  “If they cannot answer the question sufficiently it will be passed to the Swedish Short-Snouts’ who will get the chance to answer it.  For every correct answer, the team will be given ten points, for every wrong answer, five are deducted.  We wish both teams good luck.”

            Professor Snape was the first to ask the question.  His dark eyes rested on Draco with a look that could almost be taken for pride, but it quickly vanished as he looked at the rest of the team members.  “This wizard founded the Nimbus Racing Broom Company in 1967 and is known to have revolutionized Quidditch.  Name this wizard.” 

            Upon hearing Snape start reading the question, Ginny cast everything out of her mind.  It was only during the meets that nothing else in the world mattered to her except for winning.  She could study as much as she wanted, but she would be eternally distracted.  When it came to a meet, though, nothing could break her concentration.

            She bent her head down to whisper the answer to her teammates at the same time that Draco said the same one.  “Devlin Whitehorn.”  Her eyes met his over Kevin’s head, but she quickly turned to look to Luna.  “Do you guys agree?”

            Kevin and Luna both nodded in agreement to her so she announced the answer aloud to the judges.  “Devlin Whitehorn is the answer.”

            “That is correct.  Ten points to team Antipodean Opaleye,” Snape said as his eyes settled on Ginny with a strong message in them.  He had underestimated her, as had everyone else at that point.

            The other team got their first question wrong about who the “Dangerous” Dai Commemorative Medal was named after.  Ginny had leaned over quickly and whispered the answer of “Dangerous” Dai Llewellyn to her teammates for another ten points.  This continued for the entire first round, Ginny knowing every single answer. 

            She kept finding Draco’s eyes searching for hers, but she was in her zone and couldn’t be sidetracked by his gorgeous orbs.  After the first round was over and her team was up by ten points, and the other team had only missed the first question, there was an intermission.  The teams weren’t allowed to interact with the audience, just among themselves in the staff room located at the very back of the Great Hall.  Ginny purposefully stayed close to Luna’s side and listened to her drone on about the Wrackspurts that had been flying about before the competition.  She kept her eyes on the ground or directly on Luna hoping that Draco wouldn’t intrude.  Too bad today wasn’t her lucky day.

            “You know you could give the other team members a chance to answer the questions, little weasel, instead of trying to show off,” Draco’s silky voice stated from behind her.

            When she turned around to look at him and bite out a sarcastic remark her breath caught just for a second.  His eyes were sparkling again as he looked at her.  He obviously wasn’t put off by the fact that she was answering all the questions.  “Well, Malfoy, I didn’t think that you had put enough time in studying last night and wanted to be sure I could make up for your slack,” she said quickly after composing herself again.

            She had caught him off guard with that remark, but he slapped a smirk on his face and lifted his chin a little bit.  “This is coming from someone who probably can’t even read since you’ve never been seen with a book in your hands.  I’ll let the next charity I sponsor be for weasels that can’t read.”

            Ginny had to give it to him, he could think on his toes, but she wasn’t backing down.  She geared herself to shoot another smart comment at him, but the bell rang for the next round to start.  There was a little inner turmoil on whether she should throw a remark at him or just take the high road, so she took the high road.

            The next round was no different than the first, in the sense that Ginny was answering every question thrown at them, but the other team was staying very close at their heels.  The score was 100-80 and it was Antipodean Opaleyes turn to answer their question.  If they got the question right, the meet was theirs. If not, than the Swedish Short Snouts had a shot at winning.  It was McGonagall’s turn to ask the question so she looked directly at Ginny with delight twinkling in her eyes before looking at the rest of the team and then read her question.  “If you have twenty three Galleons, twenty eight Sickles, and forty seven Knuts and you spend 2,047 Knuts on an item, how many Knuts would there be left?”

            Ginny sat there stunned by the question.  Never before had a math question been asked during a Knowledge meet and she was no good at math in any form of it.  Plus, she would never admit it; she wasn’t good at managing money and what it all meant.  They only had thirty seconds to answer the question before it was passed over to the other team, and she didn’t want it to come to that.  She picked up her quill and started scribbling on the parchment that was provided to all of them.  When she was done the math she looked to her other teammates to see them looking expectantly at her. 

            “Um, I got 954 Knuts,” Ginny stated hesitantly to the others.  “I don’t think that’s right though.”

            Kevin and Luna looked at her with hopeless expressions, then shook their heads at her signaling that they had no idea either.

            “Team Antipodean Opaleye we’re waiting for your answer,” Professor McGonagall asked the team with an anxious look.

            Ginny stuck all of her pride in her back pocket and looked over at Draco hoping that he had the answer.  It turned out he was already looking at her with a smug look on his face.  Upon seeing that she had looked to him for the answer he looked up at Professor McGonagall and stated, “You would have 10,151 Knuts left over.”

            There was a pause as Professor McGonagall looked at Ginny for a second and then at the answer on the parchment in front of her.  “That is correct, Mr. Malfoy, Antipodean Opaleye wins the meet at 110-80.  Congratulations.”  Although she was a moderator, Professor McGonagall looked very excited that they had won the tournament for their fourth straight win in a row.

            Ginny stood up with the rest of the team and walked over to the Swedish Short-Snouts to shake their hands.  She tried to keep a humble look on her face, but her stomach was doing flips at how well she had done.  Every single question she had had an answer to, except for the math one, but who needed to know math anymore?  After they were done shaking hands the team went back over to their table to gather their belongings.  Ginny lifted her head to look at who was in the audience when she found Draco standing directly in front of her.

            “What can I do for you, Malfoy?” she asked, trying to sound as confident as possible.  She was finding it hard with the way her stomach was still doing somersaults at the win, and his closeness.  It bugged her that just his smell sent every one of her senses wild. 

            “I wanted to congratulate you, Weasel, for not being as dimwitted as I thought you were,” Draco said, but that spark was back in his eye.

            Ginny inhaled and let the insult hit her hard before opening her mouth.  “How very big of you.”  Before she could let it show that the insult had hurt her she started to walk away from him.  She had made it halfway through the audience when she felt her arm being pulled.  “What?” she practically yelled as she turned around.

            His face was right there again, and his eyes held almost as much hurt as she was feeling at that moment.  The turmoil that had been happening before inside of him was back in a raging quarrel.  He looked around them before putting his eyes back on her, but this time they held determination.  In just that split second he had gathered all of the fortitude he needed as he pulled her close to him again.  His right arm slithered around her waist to settle on her hip as his left slipped up into her hair.  He only let her take one breath before capturing her lips in another searing kiss like the night before.       

            Everything became very still around them as Ginny kissed him back in a crowded auditorium, but she didn’t care.  Every bone in her body was singing with glee about the fact that he wasn’t hiding anymore, from anything.  She never thought that her annoying him in the library would turn into him snogging her, full force, in front of hundreds of their schoolmates, but it was happening at that moment. 

            Many minutes might have passed, but they weren’t counting.  When they finally pulled away from each other they looked around at the crowd surrounding them. All she could she were so many faces standing there boggled or whispering to one another.  She looked back to him and let a smile fall over her face.

            “You’re loony, you know that?  Why would you change your mind?” she asked with genuine curiosity.

            Draco pushed a strand of hair that had fallen in her face behind her ear before answering.  “I’ve read a lot of books that talked about this kind of thing, and it seemed to work in them.”

            Ginny looked at him confused before it dawned on her.  In all romantic stories the male usually does a grand gesture that makes the woman fall head over heals for him.  As she looked around her again and noticed that this was as big of a gesture that he could make she planted another kiss on his lips and let it all happen.