Unexpected Relationship

I thought about it for a couple of days but I couldn't come to a decision about what to do. I don't think I cried as much in my life as I have done lately. It didn't help that every time we were in a room together I could feel him watching me. He even tried to talk to me a couple of times but I just walked away from him. So he stopped trying and ignored me instead. After a couple of weeks I even managed to stop thinking of him constantly and naively thought that it meant that I was getting over him, that what I felt wasn't love, just lust.

This of course only lasted until I came across him sitting talking to Tallah in the gardens this morning. They looked very cosy. This is all it took to set me off. I started running, not caring where I was heading, not that I could see anyway because I'd started bawling. As luck would have it, it was in this current state that I ran into, literally, wait for it, Snape. I was down in the dungeons.

"Miss Weasley, watch where you're going next time. 10 points from Gryffindor" he glowered at me.

"Sorry Professor," I hiccupped tears running down my face.

"I know I'm going to regret this," I heard him whisper to himself, "What are you blubbering about Weasley?" he asked.

"Nothing Professor." Like I was going to tell him what I was crying about.

"And to think I always thought you were better than the rest of the females in this school that start crying at a moments notice. Apparently I was wrong."

What did he mean by that, was he comparing me to the snivelling witches that cry over a broken nails. That got to me and I was about to tell him off when I heard voices coming down the hallway, HIS voice. I must have started to look panicky because he did something I never thought he would do. He helped me.

"I suggest Weasley, that if you do not wish to see him that you should probably get into my office now," he said gesturing to the door behind me.

Without thinking that's exactly what I did. It wasn't until I was in there that I began to wonder why he helped me. I heard voices outside but I couldn't hear what was being said, but when he walked in a couple of minutes later he was alone. He walked to his desk and sat down, clasped his hands together on the desk and looked at me. By this time I'd managed to stop crying.

"Not that I particularly care, but what did he do to make you cry this time?" he asked after a few minutes of silence.

" What makes you think it was him that made me cry?" I asked back warily.

" Miss Weasley, I have been a teacher here for twenty years, I've seen many pathetic girls bawl over boys, it's not a new scenario."

Snape had just called me pathetic, and I couldn't get up enough anger to retort to it, because I was. I used to make fun of the girls in my dorm when they started crying when the boys they liked started up with someone else. I mean it wasn't as if they had been dumped or anything. Now I was doing it. Whether or not given time we may have become a couple, we weren't and this extreme reaction I've been having was pathetic. I needed to talk to him once and for all or just get over him.

This conclusion took me a couple of minutes to come to and Snape was still looking at me silently. Then he began to speak.

"I don't know what he did Miss Weasley, and knowing him I'm sure you actually do have a reason to be upset with him, but your making yourself and him miserable not talking to each other about it."

" He doesn't seem too miserable to me," I said thinking back to him and Tallah in the garden.

"He's a Malfoy, he's been taught not to show his feelings to outsiders. Feelings are classed as a weakness," Snape snapped back, "Now I have work to do so get out." He finished and turned his back on me. So I left.

I went to the prefect bathrooms to wash away the traces of my tears before the prefect meeting after lunch. But before that I wanted to talk to Hermione. That's what girlfriends are for. I found her with Ron of course, you can barely ever find one without the other since they FINALLY got together. Did either of them thank me, no, but that may have more to do with the fact that they have been tip toeing around me since you know what. While I'm really happy to see them together, seeing them suck face is not really an appealing sight. So I managed to drag Hermione away from Ron to talk to her.

"I've just had the most peculiar morning," I told her explaining about the morning's events with Draco and Snape and that I had decided to talk to Draco, "But how should I approach him Mione?"

"Are you sure about this Ginny?"

"Yes, I'm sure, I can't stay in limbo like this any longer."

"Well, the money you raised with the Slave for a day needs to be distributed, I was going to have some other prefects do it but if you want to talk to Malfoy I could assign it to you both," she said. It was a good idea.

" Thanks Mione," I said hugging her, "Just don't tell Ron about it, I really don't want to hear his opinion at the moment. Or possibly ever."

So it was all set. We went to the prefects meetings where Hermione announced the assignment. Draco just sat there stunned. I don't think he thought Hermione would ever pair us up again. After the prefect meeting broke up I stayed where I was and so did Draco while we waited for the room to empty.

"When do you want to meet to do this?" he asked me after a couple minutes of silence.

" Unless you have something else planned we can do it now, but we need to go somewhere more private," I said hoping he'd get the message. He did.

"Do you have anywhere in mind?"

"Yes actually I do. Come with me." I said as I started out of the room, making for the Room of Requirement. I couldn't help wondering what the room would appear as when we walked in. I needn't have worried, it looked just like a plain living room in a house.

"What is this place?" he asked looking around.

"The Room of Requirement, it changes depending of what the rooms' occupants are after, in our case a comfortable place to talk," I answered him.

I walked to one of the lounges and sat down, tucking my feet up and got comfortable. Draco decided to sit next to me though he didn't look anywhere near as comfortable. I sat there waiting, he was the one who had to explain to me and I wasn't going to start first.

"What made you decide to talk to me, I didn't think you would," was the first thing he asked.

"I decided I disliked myself for what I was doing to myself and decided this was the best option," I answered back. A few minutes passed when I decided I didn't want to sit back and wait for him to speak so I spoke first.

"Do you like me Draco, because to tell you the truth I can't really tell since you're so hot and cold all the time?" It was the first thing I needed to know because if the answer was no there was no use continuing.

"Yes Ginny, I do and that's the problem, it's always been the problem."

"How is it a problem, you had to know after the way we kissed that I liked you too."

"Ginny," he started then paused, "for you this is a new feeling, for me it's not, I've been wanting you for a good two years now." I was about to say something resembling 'what' when he continued.

"You can't believe how it was for me when I realised that every time I entered the Great Hall I scanned it for you and if you weren't there I'd wonder where you were. And if you were there I'd notice everything about you, your hair, your smile, your eyes until I caught myself doing it and got angry with myself for it. You were a Gryffindor AND a Weasley for god's sake, I couldn't understand what I was thinking. Then you'd go and hug Potter and I'd get so furious that I'd have to leave the hall or try to hex him. I told myself that I'd get over it, it was just hormones and you're a pretty girl even if you are a Weasley. Then everything changed one day. I bumped into you in a corridor and became angry when just the smell of you was enough to turn me on. I became really nasty and I said some things to you like that there wasn't much difference between Voldemort and Dumbledore, they both did whatever necessary to get ahead but what you said in response stayed with me later that night and made all the difference." Draco paused.

"What did I say," I prompted wanting to hear the rest of this.

"You said there was a very big difference, Dumbledore would always give you the choice of making your own decisions, to choose what you wanted or didn't want to do, Voldemort just had puppets that he pulled the strings for, if you didn't do what he wanted you were dead. Later that day Lucius decided it was time for me to meet Voldemort. I went to that meeting and what I saw went against everything I had believed in. I had been taught from birth that Malfoy's were the best and should answer to no one but themselves, yet I watched my father get to his knees and kiss the feet of this animal like creature. Saw him receive the torture curse because Voldemort felt like it. I realised that the promises of power that Voldemort had used to get the Death Eaters to his side were empty promises because this creature was never going to share his power. They were just to stupid to see it. But I wasn't. When I got back that night I remembered your words about Dumbledore and decided to trust your judgement of him. I went and talked to him and things got better. I kept up appearance so my loyalties were never questioned, more information can be gleaned like that. Through all this I still watched you, wishing that you would throw one of your smiles my way. You never did." He ran out of words then and I sat stunned.

"Well maybe if you had ever been nice to me I might have smiled at you, you never were." I couldn't think of anything else to say.

"When I saw that Death Eater point his wand at you I swear my heart stopped beating, I had never felt so scared in my entire life, I just reacted," he bought up out of the blue.

"If you liked me that much, why, when we were finally starting to get it together, did you kiss Tallah, Draco? It doesn't make sense." This was the final hurdle. I had to hear his explanation. He looked at me for a minute before he started.

"Did you know that Tallah likes Harry?" he asked me.

"Yeah, I figured that out, so what?"

"Tallah figured out last year how I felt about you and she told me she liked Harry. We commiserated together because we both believed you two were a couple. What you saw in the classroom was us turning to one another for comfort in a way. I know it sounds funny and unbelievable but until Snape told me later that you were looking for me, I believed that whatever was between us was over once Ron found us, and Tallah had a run in with Potter. We were talking about how much easier it would have been if we could have liked one another instead of Gryffindors. We understand each other so much better. Then we decided to test that theory. It didn't work since it felt like what I think kissing a sister would be like. There was nothing there. All we are is best friends."

You know what, I believed him. He just sat there looking at his hands in his lap, looking more nervous then I'd expected to ever see him. He looked so adorable and I forgave him. But I wasn't letting him off that easily. I stood up from the couch and walked to the window.

"My brothers tend to express their views on my life very loudly and sometimes even with fists. It doesn't mean I listen to them the majority of the time. But you have to understand I'm their little sister, they'll do everything in their power to protect me," I turned to him then wanting to see his expression when I said the next part, "so you have a big job ahead of you, making them believe you're good enough for me," I finished smiling. He stood up and smiled back.

"I'm a Malfoy, I don't have to prove anything," he answered back cockily while walking over to me and grabbing my hand.

"Oh 'cause that name is going to bring happiness and gladness into their hearts, did you forget that our families have been warring for a couple hundred years."

"At the moment I don't care, all I want is to kiss you," he whispered in my ear.

"What are you waiting for then?" So he did.

We stayed there for the rest of the afternoon, kissing and talking and more kissing until it was curfew. We're going to tell the brothers tomorrow about us. That should be interesting.