Author's Note: My apologies for the long wait. This isn't my best chapter, so apologies for that too. Well, read on, my people. Oh yes, due to personal circumstances, the characters of neither Dimaia Owens nor Scott Weasley will not appear in this story furthermore. This is a very short chapter, but it is just filler for the next.

Chapter Five:

Breakthrough

Ginny looked at herself reflected in the glass doors that were magicked for the Great Hall. She was wearing a long, airy, dark green dress; it was imperial cut with long sleeves that started at the shoulder and went down until they ended in a diamond shape on her hand, supported by a thin strap around her middle finger; the rest of the sleeve kept going on very long after that.

It had a single, black ribbon under her breast and a long slit on the left leg, letting to be seen her transparent heels. The Drop of Inroro lay on her neck; the black ribbon contrasting greatly with the green of the dress and the purple of the drop itself. She had tiny, silver dots as earrings. Her hair was up in a complicated kind of twist on the back of her head, a single ginger lock falling down the middle of her forehead whilst the rest was twisted back neatly; it was supported by two black Chinese-like sticks that prodded out the left side of her head with little plastic, thin tubes dangling down.

For make-up, she had two thin black lines on her eyes and eyelids; the lines were continued even after the eye had ended, giving her an Islamic look. Her lips were glossed, her rosy lips shining slightly. And there was just a tinge of blush on her cheeks.

Her arm was clutching Draco's and he looked so breathtaking too, this didn't help at all.

As they entered, she felt as every eye in the room fell upon them; some muttered under their breaths, but the attention was rapidly—and thankfully—withdrawn from them as the music blared louder and the nosy people began to dance again. Though, there were still a few that still had their impolite gazes upon the couple of very odd backgrounds that had come in. Then again, to see a Weasley and a Malfoy, arm in arm, was not a common sight.

"Stunning," she heard Malfoy say and looked up at him. However, he was not looking at her, but at Pansy Parkinson, who was now boring him to death. Perhaps he had wanted to be polite, because in Ginny's opinion, stunning wasn't the word she would have used to describe Parkinson. She wasn't completely unfortunate-looking, but it did not go that far.

She was sure however, that under the heavy make-up and everything of the sort, there was a fairly nice-looking girl. And she had just gone too far. She hated that revolving pug-faced bitch. She was loud-mouthed, aggressive and worse of all, a Slytherin. Egh, shudder, really.

Damn it, the ball was boring. She didn't even dance for the first quarter of it because Pansy was still engaging Draco in a conversation. Ginny sighed slightly frustrated and began to wonder why on earth Draco had invited her to the ball in the first place, if only for looks. Ginny knew she was not an ugly girl, but that she was far from it and was one of the girls more sought out in Hogwarts, all because of that goddamn red hair and those "adorable" freckles.

Draco chose that moment to prod her knee and she jumped lightly, looking at him, who was still completely absorbed in trying to find an imperfection in Pansy's nose, because she could tell he was not really paying attention to the boring talk about money that Pansy was directing towards him. Ginny caught the hint and nodded briefly, standing up from the chair and brushing off her dress, then she turned to Draco and Pansy.

"Excuse me," she said, as politely as possible. "May I dance with my date now?" Pansy looked at her with deep disgust and a sly smirk came upon her thin lips.

"No, we're talking here. High class, you know," she pointed out, smiling toothily and grabbing Draco's arm lightly. Draco scowled at her for a minute and then stood up.

"I would love nothing more," he said, leaving Pansy, mouth agape, looking after them with disdain; she then flipped her hair and turned to her date, who was practically drooling after her.

"Thank you," said Draco as he placed one hand on the small of her back and drew her close, while he took her hand with the other of his own.

"No problem," she said derisively, she was really not in the mood for chivalry at the moment.

They danced for a good half hour, until she complained about it being too stuffy inside the Great Hall and her need to just go outside and catch some air. Draco insisted in accompanying her and she didn't see why she should turn him down, so she agreed for him to be her company out. They were now walking along the edge of the lake. She had taken her shoes off, a simple gesture, but one that had been too endearing for his satisfaction.

He was finding the Weaselette attractive? Well, he already knew that.

She was pretty. She was a rough girl too, and he liked that. And, she was a pureblood. It wasn't as if like he was with Granger, you know, because that would be absolutely repulsive. He looked at her under the moonlight, her hair coming loose from her hairdo already and it was extremely adorable. What was he saying? It was extremely downright sexy.

They walked through a patch of trees and she stopped because one of her shoes had fallen, he bent down to pick it up and gave it to her, which earned him a skeptical smile, true, but a smile nonetheless. As he handed her the shoe, their fingers brushed.

They stared at each other and he caressed her lip with his finger. Her mouth parted slightly and his smirk became so much more evident at that. He enjoyed being under control. When he was leaning in, she turned her head and instead, he ended up kissing her cheek. He stared at her, dumbfounded.

"I'm sorry, Malfoy," she said quickly, taking several steps away from him. "I can't."

"You will never truly let him go, will you?" he asked, dropping his arms to his sides in frustration. Ginny did not say anything, but merely turned around. It wasn't as if it was in her power to let him go, especially now when he had come back.

Shaking her head, she gazed out at the lake which was utterly calm. In fact, with everybody inside, the evening was utterly calm as well. However, there wasn't even a sound, not even the wind was blowing and the usual twinkling winter night sky was as starless as she had ever seen it. She crossed her arms, still silent, not wanting to say anything that would jeopardize her position. Yet she knew she should say something.

"Just… let me make my own decisions, Malfoy." There they were; the words that would mark the beginning and end of another stage in her life. She just hoped that whatever it was she did, would be the right thing. Because if she didn't, if she made the tinniest mistake: the unfolding of it all would be terrible.

She turned to look at him and saw him as she could always remember him; cold and distant. Nothing would change that vision from her mind. Yet, there was something in him that she knew would take both of them further. She knew that no matter what she decided, what happened along the way, this night was not the ending of things between them two. She knew he would perhaps play the most important part in the whole scheme, and that was the part that frightened her more. Because, even though she wasn't as far as to wanting to protect him, she thought it would be most unfortunate for him to be affected by the series of events that would happen after.

Author's Note: Alright. Short and crappy chapter, I know, but after a year (or almost?) of not updating this, I needed to write crap so I could get the vibe of this story going again. There are only four more chapters after this, and two of them are already written. The ending is written and the chapter that comes after this one too. However, both the seventh and the eight, which I already know what will happen have yet to be developed, so it might take a while. I can't promise anything, but from now on the events happening will not be as pleasant as I would have liked them to be. I'm trying a different approach to the ending in this story so I apologize beforehand for the things I might concoct in the path to do so.

Don't forget to leave a review (if you'd be so kind) I've always liked the feedback.

-Blue