Realizing that she was being overly self-centered, she turned to the blonde beside her, trying to see his reaction.  What she saw startled her.  The usual apathetic mask that he always wore was nowhere to be seen.  What she could see, however, was a look of worry and uncertainty on the man's face.  It was then that Ginny realized that something was very wrong.  Something was very, terribly wrong.  When Malfoy showed expressions like that there was something definitely wrong with the world. 

            "Ah, I see you weren't exactly expecting him then?" Hermione asked with a bored tone, looking at her fingernails.  "Pity."  She dropped her hand and crossed her legs, leaning further back in her grand chair.  "But I will assure you Draco, that it will be a wonderful family reunion."  She grinned wickedly at him and Ginny couldn't help but shudder. 

            "I don't believe you," Malfoy said quietly from beside her, his eyes never leaving the bushy haired woman's.  "There is no way he can be here as well."

            "Oh?" the Queen of the Chipmunks asked with mock surprise.  "Are you sure about that?"  She leaned forward.  "Are you absolutely sure that there is no way?"

            "There isn't," he replied sternly, shaking his head. 

            Ginny could tell by the way his body was so stiff that he didn't completely believe what he was saying.  He was doubting himself.  Ginny had known him long enough, before their distancing, to know the sings to tell what he was thinking.  She also knew that he was close to losing control.

            Hermione stared at him, completely ignoring Ginny.  It was as if she was trying to figure something out by reading it through Malfoy's skull.  Then she spoke: "Well then, I suppose I will just have to prove to you that it is true."  She broke eye contact and turned to a set of ornately dressed chipmunks that were resting on a small table beside her.  "Kindly collect these two and bring them to the dungeons," she told them, and with a nod, the chipmunks began their chatter, apparently telling the others what to do to carry out their queen's orders.

            Ginny looked around, feeling her stomach drop.  All of the chipmunks were now chattering to each other, more than half of them standing up and moving forward slightly.  Ginny turned her attention to the queen to see that she was once again relaxing, watching her with a slight smirk that sent chills down her spine.  Like the real Hermione could ever smirk like that.  Right?

            She felt a hand clamp onto her right arm and turned to see Malfoy looking at her with slight panic in his eyes, his impassive mask half in place.  It was then that Ginny realized that the chipmunks were moving towards them.  Evil little grins on their fuzzy faces.  She got a terrible feeling of deja vu. 

            "Don't just stand there Weasley," Malfoy hissed, backing up a few steps and forcing her along with him.  "Run!"

            With this, he turned around, forcing her to turn as well, and bolted towards the door that was a mere ten feet away.  It was at this moment that the chipmunks, whose chatter had now begun to sound like a Muggle airplane, leapt into motion, charging towards them.  Their duty?  To bring the two of them down to the dungeons where they would apparently be meeting the man Ginny never wanted to see again. 

            "Run faster!" Malfoy bellowed above the chattering, pulling on her arm as he forced her towards the doors, dragging her out of the way of a small herd that had moved into the path they were running on.

            "No really?" Ginny demanded, as they ran into the double doors.  Throwing herself against them, Malfoy right beside her, they forced them open and hurried out into the Entrance Hall.  She began to slow down, figuring that they were just like everything else they had encountered and the chattering minions could not leave the room.  Malfoy seemed to be thinking the same thing as he had let go of her hand.  A glance behind told her how very wrong she was.

            "Malfoy!" she heard herself shriek as the chipmunks poured out of the door and pooled around it, seeming to wait until their mass was assembled before they began their second attack.

            Without a word, Malfoy had her hand in his and he was running down the hall, her in tow.  Ginny did not need much encouragement to follow him as swiftly as she could.  The sound of thousands of little clawed feet seemed to be all the encouragement she needed really.  Then she remembered that the stupid things could jump.  Unlike the ferret army, these minions would not need to be launched by their peers.  They could launch themselves.

            Malfoy tore down on of the main halls then turned a sharp left, causing Ginny to spin out, her arm feeling like it was about to be ripped off as the blonde before her continued to run, not letting go of her hand.  Cursing, she turned her head about just in time to see the horde of minions rounding the very same corner, seeming to be like a wave as they skittered across the tile, their claws making an unpleasant screeching noise. 

            "We have to get through a door," Malfoy panted back at her, and Ginny found herself casting her eyes about frantically for one. 

            But there were none in the hall. 

            Another corner and all they found was a flight of stairs.  Malfoy kept right on running towards it, not even pausing to think of where it might lead them.  Not that it really mattered.

            "It figures!" Ginny hissed, leaping up the stairs two at a time, silently glad that she was no longer wearing her wretched heels.  "There are doors all over the place when we don't want them and when we just need one, just one, there are no fucking doors to be found!"

            "Shut up and run!" Malfoy sneered back at her, looking over his shoulder to the wave of minions who were now oozing onto the second floor.  He pulled her hand a bit harder, making Ginny think that she as going to lose her arm before this was all over.

            "There!" she cried, her eyes suddenly falling on a solitary door, at the end of the hall.  A hall that was a dead end it seemed. 

            Malfoy seemed to have seen it before she had, for he put on an extra burst of speed, forcing her to take that lung aching speed as well.  They slammed to a stop in front of the door and Malfoy pulled on the handle.  Ginny could just feel her heart sinking.  It was probably locked.  It was probably locked and then they would be washed away in the sea of minions.  But the door opened.

            "In!" Malfoy shouted, grabbing her by the shoulder and roughly shoving her through the door.  Ginny stumbled into the darkness, her arms flailing for something to grab hold of.  Finding none, she crashed to the ground. 

            Malfoy slammed the door shut, switching the lock.  A second later the sound of thousands of furry bodies colliding with the think wood resonated through the darkness.  She heard something slam and Ginny started, but relaxed slightly when she realized it had been a slab of wood that helped bar the door.  She could still hear the minions and Malfoy's ragged breaths amongst her own.

            "Will it hold?" she whispered, feeling that if she said the words too loud the door would get ideas. 

            "I don't know," the blonde replied uncertainly.  She peered through the darkness, but could see nothing.  She slowly pulled herself into a sitting position, wrapping her arms around her legs.  "Where are you?" Malfoy asked after a moment.  She could hear him shuffling across the floor.  She wondered what would happen if she didn't say anything.  What would happen if she sat there quietly for the rest of eternity in an apparently empty room in Malfoy's head.  She could get her revenge on the Order then.  And Malfoy. 

            A hand fumbling over the top of her head crushed these thoughts.  Little jolts of remembrance flashed through her body from where his fingertips were now lightly brushing over her hair and to her shoulders, were they finally slid down to the tops of her arms.  With what seemed to be little effort, Malfoy had pulled her into a standing position, his hands still on her arms.  After a moment she realized that he was moving his thumbs in the way he used to.

            "Malfoy," she began, a part of her wanting him to stop what he was doing.  Another part, a part that she thought had died about five years ago, wanted him to never let go of her again.  She silently hissed at this part of herself. 

            "Ginny-," he interrupted, but she never did find out what he was going to say as there was a horrible sound of cracking wood behind her.  She felt the man before her stiffen and a second later she felt herself being pulled towards his well toned chest.  She knew it was just a subconscious reaction.  Or was it?  It didn't really matter though, the chipmunks were breaking through.

            "How can they be doing this?" she heard herself ask in alarm, not even realizing she had voiced her silent question.  She also did not completely realize that she was now clutching onto Malfoy's robes.  "Why didn't they just disappeared after we closed the door like all the other fragments?"

            "I don't know," he replied, his grip on her arms tightening briefly.  "But I don't like it..."

            "I would be worried if you did," Ginny snorted, glancing through the darkness towards the direction of the door.  The sound of splintering wood sounded again.  "We should get moving."

            "To where?" the man holding her asked, and she looked blindly around the room.  She couldn't see anything, but if her eyes weren't playing tricks on her, she could have sworn that the darkness in front of her, facing away from the door, wasn't quite so dark. 

            Ginny pulled away from him, but he grabbed onto her hand.  Ginny had to use all her self control not to gasp at the contact.  She wasn't quite sure why though.  'Pull yourself together, girl,' she hissed at herself, then took a tentative step forward, away from the chipmunks and their work on the door.

            After a few bleak moments, in which Ginny thought that she was going to run into something terrible, regardless of whose hand she was holding, they stumbled across a small, narrow staircase that led down.  They stopped at the mouth.  Ginny could feel a cool breeze rustling her hair.

            "Should we go down?" she asked quietly, looking through the darkness to where she thought Malfoy would be.  She couldn't see him.

            Behind them the loudest splintering yet sounded, and a crack of light showed through.  They were almost through.  "We don't have a choice," Malfoy hissed, and with that he started down the narrow little steps, taking her with him.  The stones were uncomfortably cold on her bare feet but she forced herself not to think about it. 

            His pace was quick and Ginny had this terrible feeling that one of them was going to lose their balance and take the other down with them.  She wondered what would happen if they got knocked unconscious in his mind.  Would it be like last time and she would pull him into her own head?  Then what?  They would have to escape her mind only to wake up and find themselves in his once more.  She shuddered at the thought.

            "Cold?" Malfoy asked her over his shoulder, still pulling her down the stairs. 

            "No," she lied.  She was a little on the chilly side, now that he mentioned it, but she wasn't about to admit it to him.  Even if he wasn't acting like a total ass at the moment.  It wouldn't last.  She knew it wouldn't.  Or at least, that was what she was telling herself.  She heard him snort and she glared at him.  She would have said something snide in return but it was them that the stairs fell away and they stumbled onto flat ground.  Relief filled Ginny but it was short lived as the sound of a door crashing to the ground above them echoed down the stairwell.

            "They got through!" Ginny gasped, her heart leaping. 

            "Come on," Malfoy said, pulling her hand and forcing her forward once more.  The ground was flat, but it was still pitch black in the new hall.  She could hear him patting the stone wall.  She could also hear thousands of tiny feet scratching across the stone, down towards them.  She felt panic rising in her again.  What was wrong with these things?  Couldn't they just leave them alone?  She was suddenly very thankful that the stupid ferrets hadn't been as persistent. 

            She felt Draco pull her to the right and a moment later, Ginny was blinking furiously, here eyes not accustomed to the bright light that had suddenly appeared in this new hall.  A hall filled with archaic looking old doors.  They were in the dungeons.  Her eyes had barley adjusted to the new surroundings when Malfoy was once again pulling her along at his quick pace.

            "Which door?" he asked, looking around in what seemed to be frantic panic.  Now Ginny was really starting to panic herself.  If Malfoy was worried then there was definitely good reason to panic too.  There was a terrible scrapping of claws, and Ginny turned to see the wave of chipmunks making their way around the corner.  Ginny felt her eyes grow wide. 

            "This one!" she cried, pulling him with her to the nearest door, and pulling on it.  But it didn't open.  "Or not," she muttered, then desperately moved to the next one.  It didn't open either.  Her panic rose even further.  "There's something wrong!"

            Malfoy said nothing to this, and she chanced a look at him. His hair was in his face again, blocking out his eyes, but she could tell by the set of his lips that he was worried.  This made her even more afraid than the chipmunks made her.  He spun to the other side of the hall and dragged her towards another door.  He jerked on it and somehow, miraculously, it opened for him.  And it was a good thing too, for the chipmunks, who had been gathering their forces, chose that moment to charge.

            "In!" he cried, again flinging her through the threshold and, following her closely, slammed the door behind them.  The furry demons were on the door a moment later, already beginning their frantic clawing. 

            "Ow," Ginny moaned from her unladylike position on the floor.  "I am getting really sick of this."

            "Well I have never seen this before," an unfamiliar voice muttered from the opposite end of the room she had been ungracefully flung into.  She scrambled to her feet, staring around the room and taking in the clocks of all sorts that were all over the room.  There were even a few that were literally dripping off their shelf, reminding her of a Muggle painting she had seen once.  Malfoy stood beside her silently, panting slightly as she was.  "No one has visited me in ages."

            Her eyes finally fell on the individual speaking and let out a gasp.  "Viktor Krum?" she asked in surprise, staring at Hermione, the real one's, former boyfriend.  Then she felt her eyes narrow.  "Why are you dressed like that?"

            Well, it was a valid question.  The stooped man was wearing a worn work apron, equipped with an assortment of tools hooked into a large, leather belt.  The funniest object was the odd glasses he was wearing, sending his hair in all directions.  They stuck out of his head by about ten inches.  He turned his head up to stare at her, lifting the odd glasses off his face and placing them on the top of his head.  Now they looked like ears.

            "Because I am a horologist," he said simply, looking from both her and Malfoy.  "I thought that would be quite obvious."  He gestured towards all the clocks.

            Ginny turned and glared at Malfoy.  "Do I even want to know why this is in your head?" she sneered, turning her glare into a look of distaste.  Her worries about the rodents trying to break down the door behind her were momentarily forgotten.