A/N: Been a while, hasn't it?
Llama: We have not, I repeat, have NOT forgotten this story. We've actually been writing more! Actually!
Dolly: But unfortunately, forces beyond our control-
Llama: Global warming.
Dolly: -have made it difficult for us to sit on our butts and type up the chapters!
Llama: So, if the polar ice caps stop melting and the O-Zone layer stops deteriorating, surely there will be faster updates!
Dolly: Definitely! So, stop using hair spray, start carpooling, buy a hybrid, and ride your bike instead of driving!
Llama: And you, Cow. You need to stop farting.
Cow: Moo. (Translation: *fart*)
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
As Ginny ran towards the Great Hall for lunch, she heard someone call her name from behind her. Turning around, she saw Hermione slowly advancing towards her.
"Hey Hermione," Ginny said.
"Hello Ginny," Hermione answered with a tone of suspicion, "Where are you off to?"
"You know, just going to eat lunch…"
"Uh, huh… Ginny, you've been acting very disturbing lately and I wanted to tell you that you can always talk to me; I'd love to hear about what's going on with you."
"Uh, why would anything be going on?" Ginny asked, her stomach rumbling in protest at the diversion from lunch.
"Your clothes… running off after dinner so many times a week… the list goes on, Ginny, and I don't think Slytherins are the best lot for you to be hanging out with."
"S-Slytherins? Who said I was hanging out with Slytherins?" Ginny snorted, trying to cover the fact that she was taken aback.
"You're wearing a Slytherin robe!"
"Oh, this old thing? This is just-"
"And everyone saw you being dragged out of the Great Hall by Draco Malfoy this morning!"
"Well that was-" Ginny tried to explain.
"Are you thinking of becoming a Death Eater, Ginny?" Hermione asked suddenly with ferociously squinted eyes.
"Hermione!" Ginny cried, "What are you thinking?"
"I don't understand how Harry can be okay with you hanging around V-Voldemort... But I tell you, Ginny, it's just not right!"
"You-Know-Who? Hermione, what the heck gave you the idea that I would even know how to get in contact with that guy?"
"I heard… I heard Harry telling Neville that he's happy you're with V-Voldemort because at least he's better than Neville!"
"Hermione," Ginny stepped back, shaking her head, "you're crazy."
"And you've been hanging out with Malfoy and his weird little friend, surely Death Eaters!"
"Hermione! I am not a Death Eater!" Ginny protested.
"Let me see your forearm," Hermione instructed.
"Are you joking?" Ginny stared at the formerly sane girl.
"Let me see it, Ginny!"
"You're mad!"
"GINNY, I AM HEAD GIRL AND I DEMAND TO SEE YOUR FOREARM!" Hermione shrieked, looking quite deranged.
Ginny pulled up her sleeves and as soon as Hermione has rubbed her skin to make sure there was no makeup covering the non-existent Dark Mark, she was finally satisfied.
"I don't understand what Harry was saying, though. Ginny, I was sure he said better his worst enemy than Neville!" Hermione frowned, the once so put-together girl completely disturbed beyond her last restraints.
"Okay, Hermione. What Harry meant is…I'm going out with Draco," Ginny confessed, too hungry and annoyed to stand there and speak to Hermione any longer.
"You're-what? Ginny!" Hermione screamed, looking even more scandalized than she already was.
"Yes, I'm dating Draco Malfoy. Just-Hermione, please don't tell Ron."
"Well," Hermione huffed, "I'm sure that after that scene at breakfast he'll be looking for you at any rate. He'll find out what's going on, soon enough." She then turned on her heel and stalked off to somewhere Ginny didn't know or care. Probably the library to try and look up a way to prove Draco Malfoy was Tom Riddle was Lord Voldemort. Typical Hermione.
Ginny ran to the kitchens, knowing that if she saw Ron in the Great Hall, by the end of lunch, one of them would be dead on the floor.
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Sure enough, as Ron burst into the Great Hall he screamed, "WHERE'S GINNY?"
He then proceeded to run laps around each of the house tables looking for her, arms spread like an eagle's wings. After that failed, he found Draco instead and began screaming at the top of his lungs at the annoyed and confused Slytherin.
"WHERE IS SHE? WHERE'D YOU TAKE HER? WHERE'D YOU HIDE HER?" he shrieked, red in the hair and face.
Draco turned in his seat and looked up calmly, "Where's who?"
"MY SISTER!" Ron bellowed.
"Which one?" Draco smirked.
"I ONLY HAVE ONE!" Ron screeched.
"You only have one what?" Draco asked with a tilted head.
"WHERE IS GINNY?" Ron yelled, arms flailing about.
Draco then gave Ron a look that made him crumple to the floor. Stepping over the twitching boy he exited the Great Hall to get ready for his next class.
After twitching on the floor in front of the laughing Slytherins for ten minutes, Ron crawled to the Gryffindor table and heaved himself upon it, lying down in front of Harry and using the turkey as a pillow. Harry stared for a moment and then joined him. They both slept there peacefully as the rest of the Gryffindors continued with their lunch as if nothing had happened.
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After hiding out in the kitchens during both lunch and dinner, Ginny headed towards Draco's room for another tutoring session.
"Hello boys," she said as she climbed through the portrait hole.
"Hey Gin," Draco answered.
"Whassap Ginnay?" Blaise called out, bobbing his head and throwing up a peace sign.
"How you like my bling-blingin?" he asked, pointing to a chain on his neck, from which a huge shiny platypus hung next to a banana.
"Uhm… It's great," she replied, setting her things on the table.
"Word, G Money!" Blaise exclaimed, then instantly changed his wide, manic smile into a facial expression in which his eyebrows furrowed, lips jut out, and he looked as if he was eating something sour.
"So… Yeah. Where's Neville?" Ginny asked quickly, changing the subject.
"Pshhh, who giva care where that fool be?" Blaise said, throwing back his head, the purple bandana he had on falling off of it.
At that moment, Neville came in through the portrait hole apologizing for his lateness.
"Let's just get started," Ginny said. "I feel like I haven't taught you all anything. We're completely behind schedule."
"I wonder why that is," Neville mumbled as he set up his cauldron. Draco, who was quiet this whole time, narrowed his eyes.
An hour later…
"Everything was going just the way I planned, the broccoli was done!" Blaise sang as he stirred the contents of his cauldron.
"Broccoli? You're making broccoli?" Draco asked with a raised eyebrow.
"No, silly! I'm making Naughty Nuffler, of course!"
"Blaise, It's called Nasty Nunga," Draco corrected him.
"You're both wrong," Neville piped up, "It's called Nocturn Sector."
"Oh yeah?" Blaise shot back, clenching his stirring stick in his right fist and twirling his purple bandana in his left.
Ginny rolled her eyes. "You're all idiots; It's called Nocturnal Nector, for the billionth time."
"Oh yeah?" Blaise yelled, turning toward her and twirling his bandana even faster.
"Yes," Ginny answered with squinted eyes.
"Okay!" Blaise smiled and turned back to his potion.
"Oops!" Draco chimed as he "accidentally" elbowed powdered beetles into Neville's cauldron, causing it to erupt like a volcano, spewing green and purple goo all over Neville. Blaise shrieked with the giggles.
"That's it!" Neville spat, spraying Draco with the slime.
"Expecto Patronum!" he cried with extreme concentration.
As a faint glow came and left, Ginny, Draco, and Blaise all stared in confusion before the two boys started laughing out of control while Ginny shuffled her feet uncomfortably.
Neville's bottom lip trembled and then all of a sudden he lunged at Draco with all of his might, knocking him off of his feet. In a fury of punches and kicks, they rolled on the floor, knocking cauldrons full of unfinished potion all over the pair of them. Blaise screamed like the virgin of a horror movie, grabbed a cauldron and threw it at the fighting boys before yodeling at the top of his lungs and jumping in to help Draco.
"Stop!" Ginny cried helplessly, fumbling with her wand. "Stop it! Petrificus totalus!"
The boys became stiff as boards and Ginny didn't take the spell off of them until she separated them to different parts of the room. Draco sat on his bead rubbing his bitten arm and scowling with a cut lip, Neville at the table with a blackening eye and some of his hair ripped out, and Blaise sat near the portrait hole with a chunk of hair in his hand and a manic grin on his bruised and scratched face.
"What is the matter with all of you?" Ginny cried, exasperated.
"He started it," Draco scowled, jerking his head toward Neville.
"I did not!" Neville yelled indignantly.
"He's right!" Blaise called, cackling madly, "I started it!"
"Get out of here! All of you!" Ginny screamed, stomping her foot.
"Oy! This is my room, princess," Draco pointed out.
"I don't care. You're all going to the Hospital Wing right now. Don't make me drag you there!"
"But Ginny-" Neville began.
"Out!" She screamed, pointing to the portrait hole.
"Fine," said Draco as they exited, "but if anything is out of place when I come back there will be trouble. So, don't go through my stuff."
"Is that so, Draco? Hiding something from your girlfriend, are you?" Ginny asked with narrowed eyes.
"Always, of course," the blonde boy answered with a smirk as he left.
At any other time Ginny would have torn the room apart looking for anything suspicious, but the boys were so tiring that she threw herself on the bed and fell asleep at once.
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"Ginny…" someone called from far away.
"Ginny dear, wake up," the voice softly called.
"Wake up, Ginny… Ginny… Ginevra… Wake up…Wake up you bloody bint!"
Ginny awoke to Draco shaking her and calling her name.
"What-what do you want?" she yawned, rubbing her eyes. "What are you doing in my room?" she suddenly shrieked.
"You're in my room, idiot. And you're going to be late for McGonagall."
"What?! Why am I here? What happened? Nothing happened, right?" Ginny panicked, pulling the covers up to her ears and looking at him suspiciously.
"Calm down, Ginny. We only slept together."
"Sle… Slept… WHAT?!" Ginny screamed, slapping and punching Draco wherever she could make contact.
"No, no! Ginny, STOP!" Draco said, trying to pry her off of him. "I mean in the same bed, you lunatic!"
"Oh… Oh, gosh. Draco," Ginny calmed down, "Sorry."
"Yeah, I bet you are."
"Oh, God! I'm late!" Ginny ran out.
The moment she left the room, Draco snickered and got into bed. Outside, Ginny was halfway up the stairs toward the North Tower for class, when she noticed that the few dawdlers who were usually running late for their classes were nowhere in sight. She fumed as realization dawned.
Sprinting back to where she came from, she knocked the hell out of Draco's bedroom entrance. After a full three minutes, a groggy looking Draco appeared in front of her, a smug smirk plastered on his face.
"And what are you doing here so late? Do you realize that if Filch catches you at this time of night…" Draco trailed off. "Wait, I get it. You woke up missing me, didn't you? Couldn't control yourself, could you? You just had to-"
Ginny pushed Draco roughly aside and marched into his room. She was seething when she spun around to face him.
"It's midnight! How could you trick me like that?" Ginny screamed, breathing hard, when, "Are you laughing at me, Malfoy?"
"Just a little bit…"
"Draco! I can't believe you would-"
"Relax, red. I just came back from the Hospital Wing to find you in my bed and decided to have some fun… Well, the kind of fun you wouldn't murder me for," he winked. "After all, you did kick me out of my own room."
"Are you trying to say-"
"Would you to stop bickering long enough for me to get some beauty sleep?" Blaise spoke up as he crawled out from under Draco's king-sized bed.
"What the f-" Draco managed to say when Ginny suddenly cut him off.
"How the bloody hell did you get in here?"
"I have my ways…" Blaise answered mysteriously, brushing the imaginary lint off of his Pokémon pajamas.
"Get the hell out of here, you crazy fool!" Draco yelled.
"Fine!" Blaise shot back as he retreated back under the bed.
"Blaise!" Draco warned as he crouched down, intending to pull him out, when he straightened up and said in wonder, "He's gone."
Ginny shook her head with a mixed sense of awe and hopelessness.
After that awkward moment passed, Draco spoke up.
"I guess you should go back to your room, Gin. That is, unless…" Draco sat on the bed and patted a spot next to him, winking.
"You wish," Ginny scowled.
"Alas, I do," Draco sighed," So, get out of here and stop teasing me."
"Goodnight then," Ginny said and turned on her heel to leave.
"No goodnight kiss? Great girlfriend you've turned out to be…" Draco murmured.
"Oh," Ginny giggled. "Of course. Sorry, I forgot."
She walked over, gave him a peck on the lips and was about to turn and walk away when he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tightly.
"Goodnight Ginny," he whispered into her hair.
"Goodnight Draco," Ginny answered with a smile and left.
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Blaise chased his platypus and banana necklace around and around the Whomping Willow as he dodged branches and was chased by a giant rabbit wearing sunglasses.
"You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man!" he cried as he leaped out of a branch's way and
turned into a flying gingerbread boy in midair with a poof of purple smoke.
The Whomping Willow began to sway back and forth and sing "Hopelessly Devoted" from the hit musical Grease. The scene faded into black and a pasty white face with gleaming red eyes stared out from the darkness.
"Draco…" the face hissed.
"Draco, it is almost time…"
"Time for what? Draco's own amplified voice called back.
The face cackled and turned into Blaise.
"Time to buy Ginny's Valentine's Day gift, silly!"
Draco shot up in his bed drenched in a cold sweat. This was not the first time he'd dreamt of that white face, and it wouldn't be the last.
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