Caught In The Middle

Chapter 3 - Everybody Has Secrets

Draco opened the door she pointed to, walked in a step, and then froze.

What the...? This couldn't be it!

His thoughts were cut short when Ginny who was walking in after him, with his bags in hand bumped straight into him. Draco tensed up as Ginny's body collided with his; sending shots of warmth up his back. Her arms stayed around him only for a few moments, but to him it seemed like forever.

She quickly dropped her arms and screeched, "Why the hell did you do that, Malfoy?"

Draco brushed himself off in a vain attempt to rid himself of the strange feeling Ginny had left on him. Her skin had been so...so warm; he had never felt anything like it. He almost yearned to feel it again...

No! Of course I don't want that Weasley wench's arms around me...I just wasn't thinking straight! I'm a Malfoy dammit!

Suddenly remembering that Ginny was still behind him, Draco pushed his thoughts away.

"I didn't do anything, Weasley. I simply stopped and you weren't watching where you were going," he said coolly as he turned around to face her

Ginny rolled her eyes. "Why did you stop in the first place?"

"Because, you seem to have taken me to the wrong room," said Draco, not attempting to remove the traces of annoyance creeping into his voice.

"No...this is the room you're going to stay in," she stated flatly.

Draco's confident expression faltered and he frowned, "But...this, this is a girl's room!"

Ginny laughed, "Oh grow up, Malfoy!"

"I can't stay in here! I'm a Malfoy!" he spluttered incredulously.

"Oh and is little baby Malfoy not used to not getting what he wants?" questioned Ginny with a satisfied smirk on her face.

Draco glared at her menacingly, "Fine! But, get out and tell your mum that I won't be down for dinner."

He heard her mutter something to the gist of, "What a loss," as she turned on her heels. Feeling suddenly venomous, he rapidly slammed the door behind her back, causing it to hit her on the heels. It must've hurt her. Well, he didn't care!

Ginny cursed Draco as she sat down on the floor and massaged her bruised heels.

"Bastard," she muttered under her breath. She suddenly recalled how his skin had felt against her own and shivered violently. She had never known that someone could feel so cold and so stiff. He had almost felt inhuman. And the sharpness of his shoulder blades! She brought her hand up to her cheek and rubbed it softly.

"Oy Ginny!" said Fred emerging from their room, "What're you doing on the floor?"

"Nothing," she mumbled, getting up and brushing herself off.

"Malfoy's being a git?" he asked her with a sympathetic grin.

"As always," she told him as the two of them walked down to the kitchen for dinner.

Draco stood in the middle of Ginny's pitiful room. He couldn't believe he had let Dumbledore go through with the plan. He was staying in probably the smallest room in a shack in the middle of nowhere.

As if to confirm how pitiful the room was, a poster that had been pathetically tacked at the back of the door came flying down and landed at Draco's feet when he slammed the door on Ginny. Draco cursed his bad luck and picked something up - he didn't even know what it was - from Ginny's table and threw it. The object hit the opposite wall and shattered.

Draco flopped onto a cheap wicker chair on the bedside and buried his face in his hands. Everything was going wrong. Wasn't it supposed to be all happy-go-lucky on this side? Then why did he have a bad feeling of it all? Draco's thoughts were interrupted by a loud growl from his stomach. He cursed aloud - he hadn't eaten since the previous night.

Should he go down and have dinner? Of course not. He didn't want to fraternise with that lot - scarhead Potter and mudblood know-it-all Granger, and the rest of the freckled freaks. The loony muggle-loving father, the creepy older brother, the twin maniacs who had a thing for blowing everything up, Potter's pathetic sidekick, the sugary sweet mother, not to mention scarhead's fangirl - Ginny... Nope, thank you very much. I'd rather starve than go eat with that lot in that hellhole. His stomach let out another loud roar. Maybe he would sneak out to the kitchen at night when they were all sleeping.

A knock at the door sent Draco flying back into reality.

"Mal--uh, Draco?" said the clear voice of the youngest Weasley.

That stupid Weasel! Who does she think she is? Calling me 'Draco' as if I'm her equal!

Draco pulled the door open, grabbed the girl, dragged her in, and slammed the door back shut.

"What did you say?" he snarled dangerously.

"I just said your name - it's not a crime is it?" she snapped, her eyes flaring with anger.

He didn't reply and had a sudden urge to violently shake the girl. He wanted to hurt her, to make her feel pain that she had been guarded from since her precious childhood years.

Instead he gripped her wrist tighter, digging his nails into her delicate skin, hoping to draw blood. Amazingly, she somehow managed to wriggle free, and except for some minor scratches, she was unharmed.

The anger he had felt so passionately a few moments ago was suddenly gone and he felt tired. As if he hadn't slept in years...

"Never let me hear my name come out of your filthy mouth again," he spat in disgust.

She clenched her small fists and pursed her lips, obviously trying to restrain herself.

It didn't work.

"Now I'm not even good enough to say your bloody name? I don't believe you, Malfoy!" she hissed, "You are the biggest - "

"Why the hell are you here in the first place?" he questioned cutting her off.

She glared at him momentarily and then spat, "To bring you your flipping food!" She walked outside and brought in a tray with a scant amount of food on it.

She shoved the tray at him and said, "There wasn't much left, but that's your fault."

He yanked the tray from her and carelessly rammed it onto the table. He turned around to see her staring at something on the table in a fearful manner. Her brown eyes were opened wide, and her mouth was slightly opened.

"What?" he barked.

"Nothing..." she said slowly as she retreated from the room, walking backwards. She bumped into the wall and then quickly fled the room.

Draco sat down and was about to begin eating when the object of Ginny's distress caught his attention. He picked it up and at first thought it was a diary, but after flipping through it for a while he found it to be more of a collective of different works - quite obviously Ginny's. The thing contained everything from sketches, to poems, original lyrics, short stories, and all sorts of other nonsense.

There was one page that specifically caught his attention - it contained the lyrics to some song titled 'Unworthy'. The words were very powerful, very...touching...

"I may be a child

Haunted by bad memories

Living in fear constantly

But, that doesn't mean that you may

Deem me unworthy.

So, don't you go and shatter me.

Don't deem me unworthy...

Don't deem me unworthy."

He read the words over and over again. Unworthy. How many times had he thought the same thing about himself? Unworthy. Unworthy of bearing the Malfoy name. Unworthy of being his father's son. Unworthy because he had questions, questions that made his father call him weak... questions that disappointed his father...

It was all too painful to think of. And why had the silly little Weasley girl written this down in her diary? Was it because she simply liked the song? Or maybe...maybe she understood...maybe she felt like that too...

No. It was too absurd. No one could feel like the way he did. No one could understand. And certainly not a Weasley.

Draco closed his eyes and cleared his mind of all the anger. After he had released all the anger and frustration from his system he went back to the book. He flipped back and forth through the pages, but always seemed to find himself back at that same page reading the lyrics over and over again.

Draco tore his eyes away from the page and looked up in time to see the door swing open. Ginny Weasley stood there looking extremely annoyed.

"Have you ever heard of knocking, Weasley?" he asked coldly.

Ginny smirked but didn't answer his question, "My mum is forcing me to ask you if you want to play quidditch with the rest of us...so, do you?"

"Of course I don't!"

"Good choice - I do the same if I were you, wouldn't want to be whooped by Harry for the millionth time," she replied. Her face fell when she saw her book lying open on his lap. Draco suddenly felt abashed, as if he had been caught eavesdropping.

"Give. ME. Back. My. Book. NOW!" She said, her voice filled with rage.

He could feel the anger surge again. Towards her - why did she have to leave that book there, where anybody could read it? And towards himself. Why did he have to feel so guilty? It wasn't as if he had committed a crime!

"FINE!" He retorted, and threw the book towards her. Who wanted that stupid little book anyway? It landed with a heavy thud at her feet. She bent down and picked the book up, possessively wrapping her arms around it. "Now get the hell out of here," he barked.

With one last venomous glare she whipped around and stormed out of the room, slamming the door loudly.

Draco breathed in heavily. That Weasley girl was beginning to become quite a nuisance. He turned to his food that lay forgotten at the side of the table. Stirring the soup, he hungrily began slurping it up in a very un-Malfoyish manner, liking it better than he would admit.

It was nearly midnight and Ginny was making herself some toast in the kitchen. She hadn't been able to sleep because her stomach was aching from lack of food. She had eaten almost nothing at dinner because her mind was on other things, such as Draco Malfoy staying in her room for the entire summer. She picked up her plate of toast and made her way to the kitchen table.

A loud crash and an equally loud curse almost made her drop the plate.

"What the..." Ginny dropped the plate onto the table and rushed over to where the noise had come from - the bottom of the stairs. She found a very disgruntled looking Malfoy sprawled on the floor rubbing his elbow. As soon as he caught sight of her, he jumped up.

"Doesn't your family ever put things away? I practically died when I tripped down the stairs!" hissed Malfoy.

Ginny peered behind him to see what he had tripped over - there wasn't a thing in sight.

"You didn't trip over anything! There's nothing there!" she exclaimed, but then her face fell, "Oh..." she had suddenly remembered something.

Ginny ran her finger down the stairs...where was it? She reached the second to last stair and was about to give up when her hand struck something. She couldn't see it, but she was positive that she had felt something. She carefully wrapped her fingers around the invisible object and walked down the stairs. She whispered something under her breath and suddenly she was holding a red, square-shaped piece of metal.

"Fred and George's latest invention," she told him, "Tripping Tantrums...invisible to all except the one it belongs to. I've tripped over at least five of these so far," she looked up to see Malfoy staring at her oddly, "What?"

"You have, by far, the strangest family in the world!"

"So, I've been told," she said as she made her way back to the kitchen table. She flopped down on a wooden chair and was annoyed to see Draco take the chair opposite of her.

"What d'you want, Malfoy?" she asked coldly. He threw her his famous smirk and picked up a toast. "Hey! That's mine!" In response he bit into the toast and chewed slowly. "You jerk!" Ginny glared at him and reached for the other piece of toast. They ate in utter silence.

Draco got up and walked over to the window. He drew the curtains and stared at the night sky, "Did you write it? Those lyrics...?" he suddenly asked.

Ginny was startled by the sudden question, but then she realised what he was talking about and her anger flared. She jumped out of her seat and walked towards him. She grabbed his arm and turned him around, "Look, Malfoy, I don't like you reading my private things..." she stopped. Malfoy was staring at her and it was really rather annoying. His cold grey eyes seemed to pierce through her and see her very soul. She shifted nervously.

"It's hard to believe you wrote it," he whispered. His breath gently caressed her skin and Ginny suddenly became aware of how close they were to each other, but she made no effort to move.

"Why...? Why is it hard to believe?" she questioned in a hushed voice.

He didn't reply immediately, but instead looked at her in a way that disturbed her. She stared back at him and for the first time she didn't see the arrogant, spoiled, Draco Malfoy she had always known. No...there was something different about him...it was as if she was staring at an entirely different person. His icy grey eyes seem to have melted, no longer possessing the element of intimidation that had always frightened her. His white-blonde hair was a mess of tangles and sticky gel and his skin...his skin... it was an unhealthy pale, almost a sickly colour but it seemed incredibly soft. And she had a sudden urge to caress his cheek. But, she resisted the urge and went back to studying his face. As soon as she laid eyes on his lips she envied him. They weren't coarse and dry like hers. But, were smooth, soft, and just the perfect shade of pale pink. They were almost feminine - lips she should have had!

"You don't seem like a person who could write those words," he finally answered, interrupting her thoughts.

Ginny frowned and licked her lips - a nervous habit she had never been able to get rid of. She stood on the tip of her toes and brought her lips to his ears, "Everyone has secrets..." she whispered softly.

She jerked her head back, "Even you have secrets Malfoy...I thought I had you all figured out, but I don't - you're not the person I thought you were," she looked at him with wide eyes for a moment and then quickly turned around and fled up the stairs leaving Draco gaping at her retreating figure.