Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns all. Though if she wants to give me Harry or Draco for Christmas I wouldn't object.
Summary: It would be so much easier if he'd disappeared forever. H/G, D/G
If there was one thing Virginia Weasley had learnt in her twenty-three years on this Earth it was that she was completely incapable of making a decent soufflé. Ginny stared at the deflated dessert mournfully. She'd tried everything to make it work. Her grandmother's recipe, her mother's improved spells, even Muggle methods of baking. Nothing worked and now she was stood in a devastated kitchen wondering whether she had any ice cream left in the freezer. The doorbell rang shrilly in the silent flat causing Ginny to stare at the clock on the cooker in horror, her groan accompanying the second ring of the bell. And now Harry was here.
Praying that she didn't have flour all over her face Ginny raced down the tiny hallway to the faded front door. Doggedly dragging her hands through her long, red hair Ginny yanked the door open and plastered on a smile. Presented with the sight of an attractively, and most likely intentionally, rumpled Harry Potter confidently leaning against the wall, casually cradling a bottle of white wine, Ginny felt the accustomed weakness in her knees.
Harry's eyebrows raised until they nearly touched his messy black fringe at the sight of Ginny clothed in an apron and a smear of flour highlighting her cheekbone like some very pale blusher. "You said seven right?" he asked, shifting his weight so that he could gently wipe the flour off her cheek.
A blush replaced the white powder on her cheeks as she glanced down at her clothes. "Yes, I said seven." Ginny started, a wry smile touching her lips. "But I baked." Harry's face lit up in a grin and he quickly dodged round the petite woman in the doorway to stride into her cramped kitchen.
"A soufflé?" laughed Harry, dropping the wine onto the table and turning back to Ginny as she emerged from the hallway. "Gin." he humorously admonished her. Ginny glared at him for a moment before Harry's infectious smile corrupted her and a slow grin spread across her face.
"I never learn do I?" She giggled, covering her face with her hands. Harry laughed along with her, coming forward to drop his hands on her shoulders.
"No, Miss Weasley," he said, in his best impression of a strict school teacher, "what you do is never give up." Ginny dropped her hands and looked up at him, amusement dancing in her brown eyes.
"Well, I hope I give up sometime soon, otherwise there is a very real possibility that I'm going to burn down my kitchen."
Harry glanced around the tiny kitchen, moving his hands to gently rest on her hips as he did so. "Wouldn't take much would it?" he said gently, glancing back at Ginny.
"Harry." Ginny said, her voice holding a distinct warning. She moved his hands away from her body and began to clear the table free of her disastrous cooking attempt, avoiding his eyes.
"I'm just saying." Harry said defensively, raising his hands in mock surrender. She turned to glower at him, her arms full of a pot and a palette knife. "The offer stands you know." Harry casually murmured, as he moved to divest Ginny of the pile in her arms. She glanced up at him and turned back to the table, scrubbing it down with unnecessary force. Harry dropped the pot and knife in the sink and gently rested a hand on Ginny's bare forearm. "Ginny."
"I made pasta." she said, dropping the rag she'd been cleaning with and turning back to Harry, forceful cheer evident in her tone.
"Ginny."
"Okay, so I ordered pasta from the Italian place down the street."
"Ginny."
"All right, so mum made it. But, you saw the soufflé you want to trust me with other cooking respon…."
"Ginny!" Harry finally yelled in desperation. Ginny stared at him for a moment looking defeated.
"I made pasta." she said, her voice small. Harry stared back at her for a moment and then turned away. Ginny quickly moved forward to grip his arm but was stopped by him twisting back around, brandishing a corkscrew.
He moved to the wine bottle on the table, pulling the cork out with unnecessary vehemence. He poured a glass for Ginny and turned to give it her, before dropping his hands onto the table. He leaned against it as Ginny stood behind him, hovering, unsure of what to do.
Harry shifted his hands from the table to steadily pour himself a large glass of the wine. He turned to look at her then, his green eyes inscrutable in his handsome face.
"Harry," Ginny started, moving forward so that she was inches away from him. He watched her for a moment longer and then set his wine glass on the table behind him and gently lifted Ginny's to the place next to it. She watched him for a moment and then he moved his arms to cup her face, drawing her to him as he kissed her searchingly and so passionately that Ginny's hands flailed for purchase on the waistband of his jeans as she fell against him.
He pulled away then, breathing heavily, resting his forehead against hers. He moved back in to quickly brush her lips with his and then he loosened his grip on her face to reach for the wine glass on the table, moving it between their faces.
"Harry," Ginny started again, her voice breathless.
"Shush." whispered Harry, using the wine glass to brush her lips. "Let's just eat some pasta, okay?"
*
There wasn't much about Ibiza that Draco Malfoy liked. He'd never been one for lazing around in the sand, finding that the grainy substance always found it's way into the most uncomfortable places that Draco really didn't want to share with it. While some of the history of the place was vaguely interesting Draco had long ago given up caring about the past of the places he visited. The only other thing that Draco found even vaguely redeeming about the tiny island was it's ability to allow young English people to become falling down drunk for a fraction of the cost it took them to engage in the same debauchery back home.
As Draco often felt himself much older than his twenty-four years, this wasn't particularly helpful to him. Except for those nights, where he felt the memories becoming a little too clear, when a flash of red in a crowd had him halfway across the street before common sense caught up. On those nights the cheap double whiskey with a free tequila shot was very welcome.
Lying spread-eagled across a cheap hotel bed, the television blaring in the background Draco watched the web of cracks across the ceiling in deep concentration. Slowly letting his eyes roam over them his mind wandered. He was bored of this tiny island with it's tourist traps and rolling countryside. He wanted, needed, somewhere new. Draco rolled lazily onto his side, his bleached white hair flopping into his eyes reminding him that he needed a haircut. Dangling off the end of the bed he dragged the heavy leather suitcase out from beneath it. Flipping the lid off he frowned worriedly at the sight he was presented with.
Piles of wizard money were haphazardly strewn over one side of the case, magicked to be triple the size it appeared. The silver sickles glinting amongst the heaps of gold betraying the fact that they were far outnumbered by the more valuable Galleon. But they weren't what worried Draco. He had enough wizard money to last for years but he also had no way to spend it. He cursed inwardly, this self-induced isolation from the magic community was playing hell on his finances. He glanced back mournfully, fingering the too few wads of Muggle notes with distaste, his lip curled in it's familiar sneer.
He was either going to have to spend a few more weeks working in the bar that had finally hired him or he was just going to have to island hop to somewhere probably so indistinguishable from Ibiza that he would end ripping out all his hair in frustration. Draco's cool grey eyes closed irritably.
He'd really set his heart on Amsterdam. The heat was becoming too oppressive on the Mediterranean beaches he frequented and Draco fancied some urban normalcy in his life. He'd found himself in Amsterdam on the first summer after he'd left and Draco had found lots to do in the bustling streets that took his mind off the place he's left.
Draco opened his eyes and turned his attention back to the jumble of money. Running his fingers through the pile of coins, letting them clink together, he sighed. His mind drifted back to the last time he was in Amsterdam remembering that young witch he'd met in one of the small coffee shops that cluttered the town. Letting a Galleon fall to the floor through his pale fingers, Draco deftly snatched a small bronze Knut from following the same path. Later in the musty hotel room she told him she'd recognised him and suddenly she hadn't seemed so appealing. She'd screamed at him as he'd told her to leave, her brown eyes flashing as she stormed out, a trail of red hair following her. It was after that that Draco had realised it was going to be harder to hide than he'd originally thought.
And that was why he had a pile of wizard money that he dragged along with him, in an obstinate refusal to completely give up his old life. Draco dug his hand down deeper in the case, letting the cool coins envelop his hand. His long fingers closed round a thin piece of wood and with a heave Draco pulled it from it's metal confines. A few coins skittered to the floor as Draco critically examined his wand.
Though he hadn't touched it in over four years the wood felt achingly familiar against his now roughened palm. A few years of manual work had robbed Draco of smooth palms and pale skin but the wand didn't feel any different as it had when his father had taken him to buy it twelve years ago.
Draco glanced around the room, the shabby interior irking him as much as it always did. His gaze fell on the coins scattered in the case. A flick of his wrist and he could be in London. A well placed hood and he could have wads of Muggle notes without anyone knowing he was there. Draco shrugged on a shirt, not letting go of his wand as though it were seared to his flesh.
He kicked the lid of the case closed and with a worried glance around the room and a quick prayer that half of him didn't end up in Moscow he flicked his wrist, feeling the familiar sensation of being yanked back to somewhere he really didn't want to go to.