Author's Note: I don't own any of the characters or places or anything! J.K. gets all that credit and glory. :-)
~:Chapter 2:~
Lost
She arrived at the library and found an empty table next to the Restricted Section. She sat her stuff down and enlisted Madame Pince's help to find some books on cursed objects.
An hour later she got up from her seat, stretched, and packed her almost finished essay into her backpack along with several of the books. As she pushed her chair back under the table she had the strangest feeling that someone was watching her.
She did a three-sixty and scanned the library, but everyone else had their heads in books or on the parchment in front of them.
She still couldn't shake the feeling, but she shrugged it off. “It must have been my imagination,” she thought to herself before making her way to the double doors that marked the library entrance.
She didn't notice the pair of grey eyes following her every movement.
~:*:~
Ginny headed back to the Gryffindor common room clearly exhausted. The essay was more trouble than she had originally thought, so she left the rest of it for another time. For now she was going to change into something a bit more comfortable than her school uniform, and head down to eat.
She wasn't all that hungry, but she figured going down to dinner wouldn't be such a bad idea. She could stop in at the Ravenclaw table and say hello to Luna and a couple of her other Ravenclaw friends. She had failed to greet them during the Feast the previous evening.
On her way down, however, she ran into Ron.
"Hey Ginny!" exclaimed Ron, as he gave her a hug that was sure to have bruised a few of her ribs.
"Hey Ron," she replied, rubbing her sides. She was happy to finally see him alone after a summer away from home. "What's up with you and Hermione? I saw you guys holding hands earlier."
His face reddened significantly, "Oh, we're um.... sort of together..."
He looked down at his feet.
"Oh! That's great!" Ginny cried, "I'm so happy for both of you! It's about freakin' time!"
He frowned at her. "What do you mean, about time? Did everyone know about our feelings toward each other except us?"
"Yeah, pretty much." She shrugged and then smiled at her brother's look
of disdain.
"So, how was the Burrow without the youngest Weasley around?"
He gave her a quizzical look. "Oh," he shook his head, as if to clear it. "I didn't stay at home this past summer. I stayed at Grimmauld Place to help Harry. Mum let me move in there after the whole V-V-Voldemort, um.... thing. Why do you ask? You were there weren't you?"
"Oh," she sighed. Apparently her brother had not noticed that she had been missing the whole of the summer. "No, I wasn't. I stayed with Fred and George. I was really upset when Harry broke things off and they were the only two who noticed, besides Mum."
They were the only ones who seemed to care too, she thought to herself. She looked down toward her feet.
Ron seemed taken aback. "Ginny, I'm really sorry! I didn't mean that I didn't care, it's just that.... well, I was with Harry all summer. You know, helping him find the other Horcruxes and such... I guess home just slipped my mind..." He seemed conflicted before continuing.
"You know Harry really missed you all summer. He talked about you all the time. It was very agitating, actually. And he kept wanting to owl you or visit or something, but he didn't want anyone to know that he still cared for you. He was just protecting you."
"Like a brother," she replied, obviously agitated.
"No, that's not what I mean, Ginny, and you know it! He was worried for your safety!"
She looked back up at him, "Enough to go to Diagon Alley after the war with several girls hanging all over him? Come on Ron! Get serious! He just wanted to get rid of me, and used the war as an excuse. It's not like he ever really cared about me anyway."
"But!..."
She put her hand up to stop him from interrupting her.
"In fact, I think he might have just been dating me to make you and Mum and everyone else happy." She slumped her shoulders defeated.
"You know what Ron? It doesn't matter anymore. I'm over Harry, and he's obviously over me, so don't go trying to get us back together. I'm through falling head over heels for the infamous Boy-Who-Lived."
With that, she turned around and left. All plans of heading down to dinner were lost in her conflicted mind.
~:*:~
Who was he to say that Harry still cared about her? He broke-up with her for a lame reason and then showed up in Diagon Alley with a bunch of girls, in broad daylight! And he didn't owl her or anything! Not even after the war had ended. And that, she thought triumphantly, is proof-positive that he doesn't still care about me.
She smiled to herself as she walked down the hallway, which was suddenly unfamiliar territory.
Ginny started to panic. I don't recognize anything! Where am I? ... I couldn't have wandered that far away from where I saw Ron, could I?
She turned around and tried to remember just which way she had turned at every corner, and was soon even more lost than before.
I could really use Fred and George at a moment like this. I'll bet they'd know exactly where to go, she sighed inwardly.
Okay, calm down Ginny, she told herself. It's not like you're in Malfoy Manor, or the Chamber where someone is waiting around the corner to do you harm.
The thought then crossed her mind that being lost in Hogwarts could mean that there just might be something lurking around the next corner.
She slowed her steps and approached it slowly, careful to stay away from the corner itself, then she slowly peered out to see...
Nothing, just more hallway...
As she let out the breath she was holding, she didn't notice the figure creeping up behind her from the other direction.
"Boo!" it cried. Ginny, without looking back, screamed and ran down the hallway in front of her. She could hear someone or something running behind her, trying to catch up.
Oh God, let it be someone, not something she thought desperately to herself.
She turned another corner and was faced with a dead end. She stopped and spun around, only to collide with whoever had been chasing her.
As both bodies tumbled to the floor, Ginny panicked and started flailing her arms and legs about madly. Feeling her fisted hand connect with something that grunted she stopped flailing and screamed again.
"Who are you?! What do you want?!" she cried as she tried to free herself from its grasp.
“I was trying to stop you from running down corridors that you obviously do not know, and getting yourself more lost than you already were, Weasley," a smooth yet nasally voice answered back.
Ginny swallowed hard and thought to herself, That can't be him can it? Didn't he run after Snape after...? she stopped her thoughts there.
"Malfoy?" she asked, no longer pushing to be out from under his weight as he had lifted himself into a sitting position to nurse his nose, which seemed to be bleeding.
"Oh my gosh! Are you okay?" she asked. She remembered having hit something with her fist, and now she knew that it must have been his face.
She sat up next to him and pushed his head back.
He tugged away from her. "What are you doing Weasley? I can manage this myself!"
She scoffed at him. “No you can't. My mum always had to deal with this at home, considering the dangerous stunts the twins always pulled. Just.... let... it.... go!” She struggled with him. "I'll make the bleeding stop!"
"I'd rather bleed to death than let a Muggle-lover fix anything of mine, thanks."
She took in the state of the blood all over his robes, and now hers as well.
"Well, by the looks of it you're about to bleed to death! Now let me help you!"
"Ger-off!" was his reply.
He was being very uncooperative, batting her hands away and while at the same time searching for his wand. It must have rolled away from him when they fell.
Ginny, however, knew where her wand was and whipped it out.
"Stupefy!" she cried, exasperated.
He fell quiet and his body sagged against hers, pushing them both to the ground.
She struggled under his weight but managed to push him into a laying position with his head in her lap so that she could access the damage.
She had made a right mess of his nose, and looking at all of the blood it seemed that he might need a blood potion, although he seemed fine.
Ginny pointed her wand at his nose, but saw that the blood had stopped flowing, so instead of the charm her mother had taught her, she cleaned Draco's face and robes with a quick, "Scourgify," and a flick of the wrist. She then pointed her wand at her own robes and cleansed them as well.
"There," she murmured to herself. "All better. Ennervate."
Draco woke-up and looked about frantically. He was disoriented, probably from the loss of blood, but also partially because of the stupefy spell Ginny had thrown his way a few minutes before.
He realized that he was lying down with his head in someone's lap. He looked up to see Ginny's smiling face. His first thoughts were I must be dreaming, but he shook himself and realized that he wasn't when he saw her wand was at the ready.
He sat up rather quickly.
"Just what the hell do you think you're doing, Weasley?!" he practically yelled at her.
The smile she had been wearing quickly disappeared, and a frown and angry brow replaced it.
"Saving your bloody life, but look where that got me!" she huffed as she got to her feet.
"Honestly, you have no manners, what so ever! Here I am fixing your bloody nose, and you don't even have the common courtesy to say thank you?"
She threw a scowl his way that could have rivaled his own and started to turn away.
"I'd like to remind you that it was you who gave it to me in the first place, Ginevra!" he yelled right back at her.
She was a little taken aback that he would use her first name, let alone that he even knew her full first name, but she ignored it and whirled around.
She strode over to him, stopping several inches away from his face and poked a finger into his chest.
"Well, next time I'll just have to be sure that I break it, and then I'll leave you to yourself to bleed to death." She spun around and stalked off away from the dead end.
"Wait!" He ran and caught up with her. "You don't know where to go down here, you're in Slytherin Territory here in the dungeons, and could very well walk into a few of my... friends. And they would be more than happy to do all sorts of nasty things to you." He stopped and took a deep breath, letting his shoulders droop and his eyes fall to the floor. "They also wouldn't offer to bring you back to the Great Hall, as I am."
She glared at him for a moment. Where did this Malfoy come from? He seems to care...
She shook her head as if to rid herself of the thought and pointed a stiff arm down the hallway, still clearly agitated.
"Lead the way, oh ungrateful."
"Follow me, then."
They walked along in silence.
~:*:~
Author's Note: This is my first fanfic, so I'd really appreciate any input
that you might have! I promise to update again as soon as I can! I have
been studying for exams this week and was distracted from writing.
Reviews might help push me along though ;-)
Also a big THANK YOU goes out to the Cabal members for putting up with the multiple submissions, and many mistakes my fic had. :-) I ::heart:: you guys for making dracoandginny.com the best!
And a big thanks also goes out to my good friend Meghan for beta-ing for me for this chapter :-).
~:Chapter 2:~
Lost
She arrived at the library and found an empty table next to the Restricted Section. She sat her stuff down and enlisted Madame Pince's help to find some books on cursed objects.
An hour later she got up from her seat, stretched, and packed her almost finished essay into her backpack along with several of the books. As she pushed her chair back under the table she had the strangest feeling that someone was watching her.
She did a three-sixty and scanned the library, but everyone else had their heads in books or on the parchment in front of them.
She still couldn't shake the feeling, but she shrugged it off. “It must have been my imagination,” she thought to herself before making her way to the double doors that marked the library entrance.
She didn't notice the pair of grey eyes following her every movement.
~:*:~
Ginny headed back to the Gryffindor common room clearly exhausted. The essay was more trouble than she had originally thought, so she left the rest of it for another time. For now she was going to change into something a bit more comfortable than her school uniform, and head down to eat.
She wasn't all that hungry, but she figured going down to dinner wouldn't be such a bad idea. She could stop in at the Ravenclaw table and say hello to Luna and a couple of her other Ravenclaw friends. She had failed to greet them during the Feast the previous evening.
On her way down, however, she ran into Ron.
"Hey Ginny!" exclaimed Ron, as he gave her a hug that was sure to have bruised a few of her ribs.
"Hey Ron," she replied, rubbing her sides. She was happy to finally see him alone after a summer away from home. "What's up with you and Hermione? I saw you guys holding hands earlier."
His face reddened significantly, "Oh, we're um.... sort of together..."
He looked down at his feet.
"Oh! That's great!" Ginny cried, "I'm so happy for both of you! It's about freakin' time!"
He frowned at her. "What do you mean, about time? Did everyone know about our feelings toward each other except us?"
"Yeah, pretty much." She shrugged and then smiled at her brother's look
of disdain.
"So, how was the Burrow without the youngest Weasley around?"
He gave her a quizzical look. "Oh," he shook his head, as if to clear it. "I didn't stay at home this past summer. I stayed at Grimmauld Place to help Harry. Mum let me move in there after the whole V-V-Voldemort, um.... thing. Why do you ask? You were there weren't you?"
"Oh," she sighed. Apparently her brother had not noticed that she had been missing the whole of the summer. "No, I wasn't. I stayed with Fred and George. I was really upset when Harry broke things off and they were the only two who noticed, besides Mum."
They were the only ones who seemed to care too, she thought to herself. She looked down toward her feet.
Ron seemed taken aback. "Ginny, I'm really sorry! I didn't mean that I didn't care, it's just that.... well, I was with Harry all summer. You know, helping him find the other Horcruxes and such... I guess home just slipped my mind..." He seemed conflicted before continuing.
"You know Harry really missed you all summer. He talked about you all the time. It was very agitating, actually. And he kept wanting to owl you or visit or something, but he didn't want anyone to know that he still cared for you. He was just protecting you."
"Like a brother," she replied, obviously agitated.
"No, that's not what I mean, Ginny, and you know it! He was worried for your safety!"
She looked back up at him, "Enough to go to Diagon Alley after the war with several girls hanging all over him? Come on Ron! Get serious! He just wanted to get rid of me, and used the war as an excuse. It's not like he ever really cared about me anyway."
"But!..."
She put her hand up to stop him from interrupting her.
"In fact, I think he might have just been dating me to make you and Mum and everyone else happy." She slumped her shoulders defeated.
"You know what Ron? It doesn't matter anymore. I'm over Harry, and he's obviously over me, so don't go trying to get us back together. I'm through falling head over heels for the infamous Boy-Who-Lived."
With that, she turned around and left. All plans of heading down to dinner were lost in her conflicted mind.
~:*:~
Who was he to say that Harry still cared about her? He broke-up with her for a lame reason and then showed up in Diagon Alley with a bunch of girls, in broad daylight! And he didn't owl her or anything! Not even after the war had ended. And that, she thought triumphantly, is proof-positive that he doesn't still care about me.
She smiled to herself as she walked down the hallway, which was suddenly unfamiliar territory.
Ginny started to panic. I don't recognize anything! Where am I? ... I couldn't have wandered that far away from where I saw Ron, could I?
She turned around and tried to remember just which way she had turned at every corner, and was soon even more lost than before.
I could really use Fred and George at a moment like this. I'll bet they'd know exactly where to go, she sighed inwardly.
Okay, calm down Ginny, she told herself. It's not like you're in Malfoy Manor, or the Chamber where someone is waiting around the corner to do you harm.
The thought then crossed her mind that being lost in Hogwarts could mean that there just might be something lurking around the next corner.
She slowed her steps and approached it slowly, careful to stay away from the corner itself, then she slowly peered out to see...
Nothing, just more hallway...
As she let out the breath she was holding, she didn't notice the figure creeping up behind her from the other direction.
"Boo!" it cried. Ginny, without looking back, screamed and ran down the hallway in front of her. She could hear someone or something running behind her, trying to catch up.
Oh God, let it be someone, not something she thought desperately to herself.
She turned another corner and was faced with a dead end. She stopped and spun around, only to collide with whoever had been chasing her.
As both bodies tumbled to the floor, Ginny panicked and started flailing her arms and legs about madly. Feeling her fisted hand connect with something that grunted she stopped flailing and screamed again.
"Who are you?! What do you want?!" she cried as she tried to free herself from its grasp.
“I was trying to stop you from running down corridors that you obviously do not know, and getting yourself more lost than you already were, Weasley," a smooth yet nasally voice answered back.
Ginny swallowed hard and thought to herself, That can't be him can it? Didn't he run after Snape after...? she stopped her thoughts there.
"Malfoy?" she asked, no longer pushing to be out from under his weight as he had lifted himself into a sitting position to nurse his nose, which seemed to be bleeding.
"Oh my gosh! Are you okay?" she asked. She remembered having hit something with her fist, and now she knew that it must have been his face.
She sat up next to him and pushed his head back.
He tugged away from her. "What are you doing Weasley? I can manage this myself!"
She scoffed at him. “No you can't. My mum always had to deal with this at home, considering the dangerous stunts the twins always pulled. Just.... let... it.... go!” She struggled with him. "I'll make the bleeding stop!"
"I'd rather bleed to death than let a Muggle-lover fix anything of mine, thanks."
She took in the state of the blood all over his robes, and now hers as well.
"Well, by the looks of it you're about to bleed to death! Now let me help you!"
"Ger-off!" was his reply.
He was being very uncooperative, batting her hands away and while at the same time searching for his wand. It must have rolled away from him when they fell.
Ginny, however, knew where her wand was and whipped it out.
"Stupefy!" she cried, exasperated.
He fell quiet and his body sagged against hers, pushing them both to the ground.
She struggled under his weight but managed to push him into a laying position with his head in her lap so that she could access the damage.
She had made a right mess of his nose, and looking at all of the blood it seemed that he might need a blood potion, although he seemed fine.
Ginny pointed her wand at his nose, but saw that the blood had stopped flowing, so instead of the charm her mother had taught her, she cleaned Draco's face and robes with a quick, "Scourgify," and a flick of the wrist. She then pointed her wand at her own robes and cleansed them as well.
"There," she murmured to herself. "All better. Ennervate."
Draco woke-up and looked about frantically. He was disoriented, probably from the loss of blood, but also partially because of the stupefy spell Ginny had thrown his way a few minutes before.
He realized that he was lying down with his head in someone's lap. He looked up to see Ginny's smiling face. His first thoughts were I must be dreaming, but he shook himself and realized that he wasn't when he saw her wand was at the ready.
He sat up rather quickly.
"Just what the hell do you think you're doing, Weasley?!" he practically yelled at her.
The smile she had been wearing quickly disappeared, and a frown and angry brow replaced it.
"Saving your bloody life, but look where that got me!" she huffed as she got to her feet.
"Honestly, you have no manners, what so ever! Here I am fixing your bloody nose, and you don't even have the common courtesy to say thank you?"
She threw a scowl his way that could have rivaled his own and started to turn away.
"I'd like to remind you that it was you who gave it to me in the first place, Ginevra!" he yelled right back at her.
She was a little taken aback that he would use her first name, let alone that he even knew her full first name, but she ignored it and whirled around.
She strode over to him, stopping several inches away from his face and poked a finger into his chest.
"Well, next time I'll just have to be sure that I break it, and then I'll leave you to yourself to bleed to death." She spun around and stalked off away from the dead end.
"Wait!" He ran and caught up with her. "You don't know where to go down here, you're in Slytherin Territory here in the dungeons, and could very well walk into a few of my... friends. And they would be more than happy to do all sorts of nasty things to you." He stopped and took a deep breath, letting his shoulders droop and his eyes fall to the floor. "They also wouldn't offer to bring you back to the Great Hall, as I am."
She glared at him for a moment. Where did this Malfoy come from? He seems to care...
She shook her head as if to rid herself of the thought and pointed a stiff arm down the hallway, still clearly agitated.
"Lead the way, oh ungrateful."
"Follow me, then."
They walked along in silence.
~:*:~
Author's Note: This is my first fanfic, so I'd really appreciate any input
that you might have! I promise to update again as soon as I can! I have
been studying for exams this week and was distracted from writing.
Reviews might help push me along though ;-)
Also a big THANK YOU goes out to the Cabal members for putting up with the multiple submissions, and many mistakes my fic had. :-) I ::heart:: you guys for making dracoandginny.com the best!
And a big thanks also goes out to my good friend Meghan for beta-ing for me for this chapter :-).
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