The Land of Make Believe

Chapter Two: You Might Be Wrong.

Ginny had chosen Divination because she couldn't stand the idea of Arithmancy, despite Hermione singing it's praises and insisting that it was incredibly interesting. However, Harry and Ron had also been right when they'd told her that Divination was a big piece of piss. Literally, you stared at crystal balls and tea leaves and made stuff up. The more tragic, the better. However, Professor Trelawney, the Divination teacher, had decided to give the class a project: divining predictions from the stars themselves, and not star charts as they had previously used. Each student (there were only ten) had been given a different time slot between Tuesday night (the assignment was set in the lesson on Tuesday) and Friday morning. Due to her alphabetical positioning, Ginny had been given 2am-4am on Friday morning, the last time slot.

She was telling Harry about it as they made their way down to the Quidditch pitch for practise on Wednesday evening. The air had grown chillier during the week.

"Honestly, Gin, take a look for five minutes, then go to sleep," Harry said. "Or, alternatively, you know what the Astronomy Tower is usually used for... you could take a friend."

"Harry Potter, you cheeky sod," Ginny said, laughing. "Who do you suggest?"

"Well..." Harry said, clearly trying not to laugh as she glared at him, daring him to name names. "C'mon, Gin, half the blokes in school follow you around with their tongues hanging out!"

Ginny gasped indignantly, "They bloody well do not. Well, maybe the little ones do, but I'm not interested."

"In anyone?" Harry asked incredulously.

Ginny clammed up suddenly; knowing the only person she was interested in was strictly off limits.

Harry's face grew into a wide grin as Ginny began to blush. "There is someone! Ginny fancies someone!" he yelled.

"Fuck off," she said, glaring at him, a smile playing at the corners of her full lips.

Ron had heard Harry's yell. "What? Who is he, Ginny? Where is he so I can kill him?"

"Ron, don't be a twat," Ginny said. "There's no one special, and even if there was, it'd be entirely none of your business. So there."

"Virginia Weasley, as your only brother still at this school, I feel it is my duty to protect you from teenage boys," Ron said solemnly, swinging his arm around his little sister's shoulders. "I know what they're like. I am one."

Ginny laughed. "Ron, dearest, darlingest big brother," she said sweetly. "I can handle myself with boys. And anyone else. Six brothers taught me how to do that."

"Still..." Ron began.

"Stop it, Ronald," she said firmly.

"Come on," Harry said. "Let's get on with it."

Draco had not had the best week so far. In fact, it had sucked like a Dementor let loose in a high security prison. He'd barely slept every night, and when he had, bloody Weasley had been there, calling him a child of the devil, and taunting him with her firm, ripe body, just out of his reach. It had made him so angry he'd been unable to go to sleep. His bad mood had resulted in him being rude to almost everyone. Well, he was usually rude to most people, as he considered the majority to be socially and intellectually lower than himself, but so far this week he'd even yelled at the Bloody Baron, Slytherin Houses' resident ghost.

He hadn't seen Ginny since Saturday, apart from brief glimpses during meals, which, the way he was going, wasn't enough. What placed him in an even worse mood was that he had never experienced feeling like this before. He'd always gotten exactly what he wanted. Always.

Draco was making his way to Potions, his best subject, with Crabbe and Goyle. He'd been a bastard to them, too, but they never needed apologising to as they were, as their fathers were to his father, in awe of him, and took whatever he threw at them. It made him respect them and like them even less. He wanted someone to stand up to him, like Weasley had. Then it hit him. Potter. He almost always had a go back, and he would be in Potions.

A smile of pure malice lit his strikingly handsome face. "We're going to have some fun with Potter," he said in a low voice. On cue, Crabbe and Goyle sniggered with delight.

Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle took seats directly behind Harry, Hermione and Ron. Malfoy prepared for assault.

"Crabbe," he said loudly, "can you imagine just how awful it must be to swap bodily fluids with a Mudblood? I mean, how do you know where a Mudblood's been?"

"Shut it, Malfoy, you rat," Ron snarled.

"Ferret, actually, Weasley," Draco said, remembering an event in his forth year when Professor 'Mad Eye' Moody had turned him into a ferret. "Glad to see your mother got rid of the family pet to dress you. Really, I'm sure pig skin is high fashion this season."

"Don't you have to be somewhere that's else, Malfoy?" Hermione said, colour high on her cheeks.

"No, Granger, he doesn't," Professor Snape, in all his greasy glory, announced, emerging from his office at the back of the classroom and hearing her words. "Kindly decline from attempting to get students to leave my class."

Draco felt instantly better at seeing the malicious expression on Snape's face. The lesson got better as a total of thirty points was taken from Gryffindor, 10 for Neville Longbottom not knowing the use of powdered bat wings in levitation potions, another ten for Potter being caught talking during mixing his levitation potion and finally, Draco's personal favourite, ten for Weasley for calling Snape a 'big greasy git' too loudly. Weasley also got detention. Draco left his Potions lesson happier than he had been all week.

Ginny hated Thursdays with a passion: it ended with double Potions with Snape and the Slytherins. She entered the Great Hall for dinner looking a little washed out and tired. Hermione looked at her with concern.

"Ginny? Are you okay?" she asked as the younger girl thumped onto the chair opposite.

Ginny looked up and smiled weakly. "Bloody double bloody Potions," she swore. "Bloody Snape."

Hermione tried not to laugh. Ginny stared at the table and selected a large jacket potato, a heap of carrots and three sausages. "I'm starving," she said defensively as Colin Creevey, sitting next to her, gawped at her full plate.

He looked away from her fiery expression. "Sorry Ginny," he said.

"I'm sorry, Colin, I didn't mean to snap," she said. "Long day, you know?"

Colin nodded in understanding, and Ginny looked ahead. Between Hermione and Ron's head she could see Draco Malfoy tucking into a large steak. Probably only waved in the general direction of the heat, she thought, grimacing. In fact, it's probably raw. She shook the thought from her mind and tucked into her own food, not noticing that she had narrowly missed Malfoy looking at her, thoughtfully.

After dinner, Ginny and the others returned to Gryffindor tower and Ginny changed out of her robes into jeans and an oversized dark blue Weasley jumper that had been knitted for her older brother, Percy, that had a large P on the front in yellow wool. Ginny's mother had announced that it could stand for Prefect this year. Ginny frankly didn't care as long as she was warm. She common room was quite quiet as everyone got sucked into their homework. Ginny had a nasty Potions essay to start, and lost herself in it for a few hours. When she was half way through she decided to stop for the night, and played a few games of Exploding Snap with Harry who was as bored as she was.

At midnight, people had begun to go to bed. "There really doesn't seem to be much point in going to bed," Ginny announced, lazing back on the sofa, her jumper sleeves covering her small, slender hands. "I have to go to the Astronomy Tower at 2 am."

Seamus's ears pricked up. "Who you meeting, Ginny?" he asked quickly, a dirty glint in his eyes.

"The constellations," she said, a sad tone in her voice. "No one else wants to meet me at the top of the Astronomy Tower, do they, Harry?"

Harry started to go bright red until he realised she was winding him up. "I would, Ginny dear, but Hermione will kill me. And then she'll kill you. It'll be quite messy. Best not to, really."

Ginny laughed, throwing her head back, her soft hair swinging back. "True. More trouble than it's worth. Don't suppose many would be happy if the Boy Who Lived became the Boy Who was Beaten to Death with a Spoon." She sighed and lent forwards, picking up a book from the table in front of her. The Founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry by Endenberry Gothwick. "Who's is this?" she asked, already suspecting the answer.

"I got it out for a bit of light reading," Hermione said. It was certainly light compared to most of the books Hermione read: it was on A5 size paper, and quite thin.

"Can I borrow it? I need to keep awake somehow," Ginny said.

"Course you can."

Within the next hour, everyone had gone to bed apart from Ginny, who sat in the common room for another hour before gathering everything she needed and making her way up to the Astronomy Tower. The school caretaker, Filch, had been closely patrolling the Astronomy Tower for the last few nights, so it was deserted when Ginny arrived, apart from Anna Turnbull, a Hufflepuff who had been appointed the shift prior to Ginny's. When Anna had left, Ginny settled herself in a window seat on the left hand side of the tower, and started observing the sky.

Draco couldn't sleep again. He'd also grown so sick of the four walls around him that he had to get out of his room. Anywhere.

He got out of bed and pulled on his warm black chenille robe and left his room. The Slytherin common room with its stonewalls didn't look any more enticing then his room had. With barely a look around him, Draco left the Slytherin dungeons and, being careful and very alert, decided to take the stairs and see where he ended up.

Tired, but listless, Draco roamed the castle until he found himself somewhere he'd had quite a good time in on previous occasions. Of course, then he hadn't been alone. But, as he opened the door to the Astronomy Tower, he realised he wasn't alone this time, either.

Ginny Weasley sat upon a window seat, leaning against the side, with her legs bent up in front of her, parchments spread over her knees, but quite asleep.

A slow, lazy smile spread across Draco's face.

Ginny wasn't asleep, just resting her eyes. It's all very well, this infinite space out there, but it never bloody changes, does it? She thought to herself. Then, the door opened. Reacting slowly, Ginny waited until the door shut softly and then opened her eyes.

She had expected to see Professor Trelawney, or possibly Filch. She did not expect to see Draco Malfoy, looking disgustingly gorgeous in his black dressing gown.

"What are you doing here, Malfoy?" she asked, not paying much attention to the smile that dropped from his face.

"Free country," he snapped.

"Not at half past two in the morning at Hogwarts, its not," she said, not much energy in her voice. She didn't even care when he chose to sit on the same window seat as her.

"True. But you won't say anything, will you." He sounded so supremely confident that he shocked himself.

"Give me one good reason why not," she said sharply.

"Because you're here too and you shouldn't be," he said.

"Well, that's where you don't know everything, Malfoy. Divination project. I'm here until four am. What's your excuse?"

Draco sighed and lent back against the window, his long legs stretched out in front of him. "Can't sleep."

She couldn't stop her feelings of concern. "Bad dreams?"

He snorted. "Only when I get to sleep," he said, bitterness cutting his voice.

"How long has it been going on?" she asked whilst telling herself that she didn't care.

"Since I came back here," he said, wondering why he was saying it.

"That's nearly a month!" she cried. "You should see Madam Pomfrey, she'll give you something. There's a potion that'll give you dreamless sleep, I know there is."

He observed her with his cold silver-grey eyes. "How do you know? When has your life ever been troubled by bad dreams?"

Ginny chuckled softly. "I thought we decided on Saturday that there was very little we knew about each other."

"That's why I'm asking," he said, his voice lacking its previous scorn.

She looked up at him, somewhat shocked. "In my first year, after the whole Chamber of Secrets thing. I had awful nightmares."

"Can't have been nice, being dragged down into a cave by a big monster when you're eleven," Draco said.

"Oh, there's more to it than that," she said. Looking into his eyes, she found herself telling him the whole story: the diary, Tom Riddle, writing messages in blood on school walls, and finally being rescued by Harry who killed the basilisk controlled by the Heir of Slytherin.

Draco stared at her in shock. "My father caused that, didn't he? The diary, it sounds just like something I saw in his study once, years ago."

"He slid it into my cauldron in Flourish and Blotts, the day Gilderoy Lockhart was signing books and we met both of you there," she said, staring into space. "Wanker. Sorry, because he's your father, but what a wanker."

"He is," Draco said quietly, leaning his head back, his face lost in thought.

Ginny swung around on the window seat so that her feet were on the floor and stood up, scattering her stuff everywhere. She crossed the tower and stared out of the far window, seeing the hut of Hagrid, Hogwarts game keeper and Care of Magical Creatures teacher. It was in front of the Forbidden Forest. She lent her forehead against the window, her brain a tumult of thoughts. What was she doing here with Draco Malfoy? Why did she wish he was next to her?

Almost as if he heard her wishes, Draco stood up and crossed to the window, standing just behind her. He said nothing.

"Draco," she said quietly, using his first name for the first time.

"Ginny," he said, using hers too.

She turned to look at him. "What's going-"

"Ssh," he said. "Sometimes it's better not to question things. Just act on what you want."

Knowing exactly what she wanted at that point in time, Ginny turned her face up to his as his face moved down to hers. As her eyes fluttered shut, his lips met hers. They were soft and gentle, exploring her own lips with great care. As the kiss deepened, she opened her mouth to his and melted into him. She had kissed boys before, but never had she burned in quite the way she was doing now. One of Draco's hands was in the small of her back, holding her close; the other was in her hair, tangling it around his fingers. Ginny wound her arms around his neck, pulling him closer. Draco broke away from her lips; scattering little kisses along her jawbone and down the side of her neck. He heard a tiny groan come from the back of the throat which encouraged him. He traced around her throat and back up the other side of her jawbone, and back to her lips. His hand on the small of her back, travelled downwards to gently caress one side of her bottom.

Ginny gasped against his mouth, the feelings flooding through her completely new. When she heard Draco moan, she thought she'd gone to heaven. His hand travelled from the back of her neck to her waist, and then under the jumper she was wearing. His hands were soft and warm and she didn't mind in the slightest as her gently cupped her left breast. He turned her gently and pressed her back against the windowpane. As she lent back against the window, her left leg decided to wrap itself around Draco's, she had no idea what she was doing.

Draco had both hands inside her bra, and was still kissing her deeply when they were rudely interrupted.

"Students snogging in the Astronomy Tower!" Peeves the Poltergeist screeched.

Draco leapt backwards from Ginny, his normally very pale, calm face flushed.

"Students snogging in the Astronomy Tower!" Peeves yelled again and again. They could hear Filch's footsteps pounding up the stairs, the only entrance or exit.

"Shit," Ginny said quietly. She glanced at Draco, suddenly coming back to reality. What had she been doing, snogging Draco Malfoy? She straightened her clothes and dove for her Divination work just as Filch entered the Astronomy Tower, and gleeful look on his face.

"You're gonna be in trouble for this!" Peeves cried joyfully.