'You'll give me a big head, talking like that.'
'I'm serious. What happened?'
'Neville Longbottom,' said Draco, enunciating very clearly, 'hit me in the eye with his Remembrall.' He rubbed at the aforementioned eye ruefully, then glanced over at her bed. 'Can I sit down?' he asked, and proceeded to flop down on the flowered coverlet without waiting for her to answer. She had, she had to admit, had several fantasies which involved Draco being in her bedroom, but she had never stopped to consider how very out of place Draco in leather trousers actually looked against the backdrop of floral wallpaper, fuzzy white rug, and battered old stuffed animals.
Draco raised an eyebrow. 'I'm glad you think my black eye is amusing.'
Ginny stopped smiling. 'I don't. Well, maybe a little bit. Neville Longbottom? How on earth…?'
'I got this idea in my head,' said Draco, gesturing eloquently with one lazy hand. 'That I should go around and sort of…apologize to the people I've wronged. I'm not sure why exactly. Sometimes I get these ideas and they always seem quite silly in retrospect, but anyway I got it in my head that I wanted to make amends. So I made a list of the people that I've wronged, and it was really, really long, so I threw it away and made a shorter list of people I've really wronged, who also happen to live not too far away. And Neville was first.'
'So why did he hit you with the Remembrall? What did you do to him?'
Draco looked injured. 'Nothing! I got to his house, rang the doorbell, Neville took one look at me and launched the Remembrall at my head. Hit me in the eye. I suppose I should just be happy he wasn't toting around a pair of hedge clippers or he'd have taken my ears off and kept them as a trophy.'
'Did you get a chance to apologize to him?'
'Nah, I just left, but you know, I get the impression Neville feels better now so it wasn't an entirely wasted afternoon.' Draco looked pained. 'Now, Hagrid was next on my list. He's a lot bigger than Longbottom,' he added thoughtfully, 'but I'm faster than him. I figure I should have just enough time to run up, apologize to him, and make a clean getaway before he gets the chance to stomp me into the consistency of instant porridge mix.'
Ginny realized that she was struggling not to laugh. This is so unfair, she thought irritably. A year ago, if someone had asked her for three words that described Draco Malfoy, she would have chosen 'complete' 'utter' and 'bastard.' Now words like 'engaging' and 'funny' and even 'charming' kept popping into her head.
'What's wrong? You look like you're getting a headache,' asked Draco.
'I just realized why you came here,' she announced, putting her hands on her hips and fixing him with a glare that she didn't really mean. 'You want me to fix your eye, don't you? Like I'm some sort of municipal Malfoy emergency room. I've already splinted your leg and fixed your bite marks and now — '
'That's not why I came,' he interrupted her, amusement quickening his voice. 'I told you. I'm trying to make amends.'
That brought her up short. 'You came here to apologize to me?'
Now he looked slightly abashed. 'Well, no,' he admitted. 'Actually I thought you could tell Harry something for me.'
Ginny shook her head, her braids snapping back and forth. 'No way.
Tell him yourself.'
'I can't,' said Draco, a slight edge to his voice.
'Why not?'
'I can't. You'll just have to trust me on that.'
'No,' said Ginny.
'What?'
'No,' she said again, and went over to sit down next to him on the bed. He was still looking at her disbelievingly. 'I don't trust you.
Why should I? You've never given me any reason to. I like you, but I don't trust you. And after what you did yesterday, Mr. I'm-Going-To-Run-Off-By-Myself-And-Not-Even-Tell-Anyone-Where-I'm-Going-'
'Yeah,' he interrupted her, with a faint smile, 'you know, I'm just going by 'Draco' now.'
Ginny pressed her mouth into a thin line. 'Whatever. Look, I'm not going to tell Harry anything for you. You should tell him yourself.
He's worried about you, anyway. I bet he'd be glad to see you.'
'He'll have a lot more to worry about if he does see me,' said Draco, but seemed dislinclined to elaborate. He leaned back against the wall. 'I guess you wouldn't be inclined to tell Hermione anything for me either-'
'Certainly not.'
'Or Sirius?'
'I said no.'
'This is proving to be an entirely unrewarding visit.'
Ginny narrowed her eyes at him. 'You're a bastard sometimes, aren't you?'
He actually looked contrite. 'Oh, God. Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it that way.' He looked at her earnestly, or at least as earnestly as he ever looked. 'It's been a very strange past few days,' he said slowly.
'I'm not thinking all that straight right now. My father — ' he waved away her expression of sympathy — 'No, don't look like that, I'm not sorry, why should you be? The whole love potion thing, and not being able to tell Harry, fighting with Sirius, lots of nightmares, two confusing snog sessions, you know it's all just very-' He broke off, seeming to realize that Ginny was staring at him with a very odd expression. 'What?'
'Two confusing snog sessions? Did you snog Hermione again?
Harry's going to kill you, you know.'
