A/N Please note I've changed the rating to Mature. The snogging session got a bit out of hand ;)

Draco

He finds her mouth, and he feels himself grow hard. His mind spins with the taste of her, the heat of her body against his. Her hand is flat against his chest, and he is on top of her on the old, rickety bed, the sagging mattress, and her brown eyes are dark with desire.

He takes off her jumper, her t-shirt. Her bra is pale yellow, her freckles run down her chest and brush the ivory swell of her breasts. He unhooks the bra, and pulls it away, discards it on the floor.

He freezes for a moment, staring at her bare breasts, the nipples pink and peaked in the cool air. He brings his face down to her chest, inhales her, sucks and nips gently. Ginny is groaning, her back arching. She grips his shoulders, forcing him to face her.

"Tell me you want me," she whispers.

"I want you," he says hoarsely. His heart is pounding, and his erection is between them, his thoughts beginning to blur around the edges with desire.

Ginny pauses for a beat, and something flickers in her expression. "Tell me you love me. Tell me you love me, Draco."

He stares into her dark eyes, shocked, his heart pounding, his breathing erratic. He's always loved her. She's the only one he's ever loved. He bends down and catches her lower lip in his teeth. He's grinding against her, against her stomach.

She lifts her hips. "Don't stop," she hisses. "I want this."

"I want you," he breathes against her cheek, his face hot against hers.

Her hands search for his trousers, unfastening them, pulling them down.

His own hands fumble with her jeans, trying to slide them past her hips. Things are moving too quickly. In his haze, he forces himself to slow down, forces his scrambling fingers to still. "Wait. Are you a...I mean, have you ever...?"

"Just, uh, hurry!" She growls, her voice low with desire. She grabs his backside with both hands and pushes him hard against her in frustration.

Draco groans, his mind blanking, grinding against her.

A sudden, searing pain ripples up his arm. It brings him back to sharp focus.

He jerks away, jumps up from the bed, grabbing his arm with his other hand.

"What? What's happening?" Ginny sits up quickly. She scrambles behind him, places a hand on his bare shoulder, but he can barely feel it for the pain pulsing up and down his left arm.

Draco looks at the Dark Mark. It looks the same, inky and raw against his pale skin. But it burns. He can feel it pulsing, throbbing. He hisses, closing his eyes.

"What is it?" she asks again.

He turns to look at her, and her expression reflects his own horror. "It hurts." He closes his eyes, tries to temper the pain. "Something has happened. I think he knows something. I think he's angry with me."

Ginny is on her feet, grabbing her yellow bra off the floor. Draco blinks. The colours in the room seem brighter than usual: her red hair, the yellow cotton against her skin, goose bumps erupting all down her milky arm. He breathes deeply, and the pain begins to fade.

Ginny pulls on her jumper. He feels for his shirt, clutches it in his right hand but feels too woozy to put it on. "It's going away," he whispers.

"We have to tell someone," she says.

Draco begins to shake his head, but she kneels in front of him, puts her hands on both his cheeks and draws his face up to look into her eyes. They are full of fire, warm embers. "You're going to listen to me, Draco. This time, you're going to listen to me. You're not doing this on your own again."

He releases a breath he's been holding and slowly nods.

She drops her hands to her lap. "Okay, then."

He looks down at the top of her head, at the curve of her shoulders brushed with faint freckles, and a wave of affection comes over him. "Hey," he says quietly. "I do..." his voice wavers, his momentary courage leaving him, but he holds on to it. "I do love you. You know that?"

"Oh, you don't have to say that. It was just the heat of the moment. We barely even know each other. I shouldn't have said that." She sounds embarrassed.

"But I do," he insists. He's never said it before; he's never felt it before, like a clean, solid white light piercing across the darkness of his life.

She moves to sit beside him on the bed, wrapping her arms around his bare shoulders, pressing her face against his chest. "I love you too," she breaths against his skin.

He smiles, gathers her into him. He finds her lips and kisses her gently. "Really?" he whispers against her lips, pulling away to look at her wide brown eyes.

"Yeah, really. I don't always like you, Draco. But I think I might love you."

They sit quietly for an indefinite moment. Noise floats in from the open window, disembodied voices and a burst of music, high-pitched children's laughter. His arm still aches, a low, persistent throb.

His heart still thuds dully in his chest, unable to settle down.

"What about Potter?" he asks, quietly. He tries to keep the venom from his voice, but it sounds strained even to his own ears.

Ginny looks up at him. "Harry is...I love Harry too. I love Harry as a friend." She smiles at him, sadly. Then she tilts her chin, and finds his mouth again.

Draco closes his eyes, trying to focus on the feel of her lips, but there is a shard of doubt in his heart.

Downstairs, they hear the creak of the kitchen door, and footsteps stomping into the foyer.

"Come on," she says, standing up. "Let's go talk to them."

"You'll come with me?" he asks.

She helps him put his arm through the shirt, and begins to loop the buttons back through their holes. "Of course I will."

Ginny

"I don't understand why you were up there with him in the first place." Ron's voice is plaintive.

Ginny wants to smack him upside the head. "I was just checking up on him. He's lonely up there, alone in his room all day. He's been here for days with no one to talk to."

"Yeah, but so what? He's a git, isn't it? What's there to talk about anyways?"

"Mum told me to keep him company!" Ginny throws up her arms. She hopes the hotness in her cheeks will be interpreted as anger.

Draco is in the kitchens with Moody, Lupin, Tonks and her parents. The "children" have been removed from the kitchen. Harry is pacing the outer hall, frustrated.

"Do you think he's keeping something from us?" he demands, not for the first time.

Ginny has quit answering. She's already told them what happened, mostly. Omitting some key details. She brings her hand to her mouth, chews a fingernail. She catches Hermione's sideways glance.

"You okay, Ginny?" she asks.

"Yeah. Sure. Why wouldn't I be?"

The other girl seems to be eyeing her curiously. Ginny shrugs. She tries to catch the drift of voices from the kitchen, but they are too muffled.

When she and Draco came downstairs, his fingers were almost brushing her hand. She saw Harry and Ron at the foot of the stairs, and she hurried ahead, her face flushed, leaving Draco a few steps behind.

Draco followed, lingering behind her. Ginny did the talking. She burst into the kitchen and told them about Draco's Dark Mark burning. He stood behind her, heat coming off of him. Her heart was pounding the whole time.

She was ushered out before she could say much more, before she could think clearly.

Ginny chews a fingernail, her anxiety bubbling up. She told him she loved him. She'd been about to have sex with him, for Merlin's sake, but she still can't take his hand, can't come clean in front of Ron, Harry and Hermione. Ginny feels the swirls of shame in the pit of her stomach.

She brushes past Ron to step outside. It's late afternoon. They sky is grey, but it's not raining yet. She can smell lightning in the air. There's a Muggle woman in an adjacent doorway, in her dressing gown, smoking a cigarette. The street is otherwise deserted.

Ginny paces up and down the entrance way, breathing in the fresh air, looking at the gathering clouds. She starts when she sees Hermione on the doorstep.

"Is everything alright, Ginny?" she asks, coming down the steps to meet her.

"Oh yeah. It's fine. I was just spooked when Dra – when Malfoy's arm started burning." She shoves her hands in her pockets, frowning. She feels under interrogation, and she resents Hermione for coming out here. Where is Draco, anyway?

Hermione takes a few steps towards Ginny, looks at her with that curious quirk to her lips. "I talked with Malfoy the other day. You know, he hardly seems to have changed."

"Oh?"

"He called me a Mudblood."

"He did?" her heart sinks.

"I mean, I think he didn't mean it as much as before. I don't know, Ginny. I can't figure out why he switched sides. He seems to be just as prejudiced and rude as he ever was." She's frowning, like Ginny holds the answer.

"Well, don't ask me," she says.

But Hermione keeps looking at her like she knows something. Like she knows. Ginny feels the same squirm of guilt in her stomach. Why can't she just tell Hermione the truth? It's because she's ashamed of what the older girl will say. She'll think Ginny's being stupid, that Malfoy's got her fooled, that he's using her.

But no. He's changed, or at least he's changing. He came here, didn't he? He didn't run with Snape, he held back. That must have taken a lot of guts.

And still...he can't hold her hand. Or maybe she can't hold his.

"I don't know, Hermione. Do you think they're done talking with him? Let's go in." Ginny pushes past the other girl, back into the dimness of Grimmauld Place.

She walks through the door just as Mad Eye clunks out of the kitchen, followed by Tonks and Lupin, then her parents. Finally, Draco trails behind them. He catches her eyes, then looks down. He looks sad. He looks alone.

"Are you alright?" she asks in a small voice. Still, it seems to loud. It feels like everyone turns to look at her. She can feel her mother's eyes, her piercing stare. She looks down at her feet.

"I'm fine," says Draco. He turns around and stomps up the staircase.

"We should go," says her mother. "Come on Ginny."

"Why just me?" Ginny demands.

"Not just you, honey. I mean all of us, of course. Ron? Harry? Hermione, you too. Come on. The portkey's outside. Before it gets dark. Come on."

"What did he say about the Dark Mark? Do you know why it's burning like that?" Ginny asks her mother as they huddle around the portkey.

"Don't you worry about it, Ginny. It's nothing to do with you. Dark Marks, terrible things. You just don't worry about it, Ginny."

There's a hook in her stomach that yanks her forward into the nauseating ether, and abruptly she's in a field outside the Burrow. The sky is darkening to dusk.

Thanks for reading...please review!