**Author's Note: Just a few small editorial comments to make before I make with the Draco/Ginny love. First is that this story is very likely to be longer than the other two, and the song lyrics more sparsely placed throughout. I'm sure you can all live with that. Second is this: While I'm ordinarily a Ron/Hermione 'shipper, I'm not intending to 'ship with this story. In fact, by the time this story is over, I intend to be hinting at relationships more closely following the rules of the site. HOWEVER-if R/Hr bother you, I ask patience… they're a bit rocky right now, but their relationship, no matter how rocky, is a major plot device at the moment. Thanks for the patience, and… HAPPY READING!**
CHAPTER TWO
They don't care where they kick
Just as long as they hurt you
There are thieves in the temple tonight
They had been underground, living in extensive tunnels and networks used by their parents years ago, networks used by Death Eaters long past. Their eyes became accustomed to perpetual dark, their ears accustomed to whispers fed to them from above. They saw nothing and heard everything.
"He's back," one of them hissed to another, voice androgynous in the damp. "He has been returned to us."
"Just like the Dark Lord," another voice agreed eagerly.
"Contact can be made soon," the last voice joined, a bit more intelligently than the others. "Surely he knows his destiny."
And in the dark, the three bowed their heads, wands at the ready.
All things come full circle.
~~~
She was awakened by the feel of his lips brushing over her earlobe, his voice sliding low and silky through her dreams
and into her consciousness.
Just as well, she thought, she'd been dreaming of him anyway.
"You should go home, Ginny," he said, but his hands slid over the black satin of his sheets to brush over the smoothness of her shoulders, her breasts, her hips. She had fallen asleep facing him, as she usually did, one leg snaked cozily between his.
"It's still dark," she answered, gasping as his hands sought various places in the total lightlessness of the room. Stretching one hand above her head, she wrapped her small fingers around the wrought iron headboard, arching her back to push herself flush against the long lines of his body.
He was already hard and had wakened so, the smell of her permeating his sleep and tweaking him into arousal, the warm, spicy sent of her constantly covering him. But rather than answering the demand she gave with her body, he untangled his legs from hers, cupping his hands to her face.
How long had it been since he'd taken any time at all with her?
Had he ever?
He dipped his head low, kissing her with his lips only, drawing back when she sought him with her tongue. Without answering her wordless pleas, he moved down slightly to flick his tongue along the most vulnerable part of her throat, feeling her pulse jitter under his tongue and pausing to let his match hers. Once his heartbeat raced along with hers, he offered up a tiny little bite and moved still farther down, his hands covering inch by inch.
He grazed his left hand down in the darkness of the room to slide over her, stopping to flick the pad of his thumb over a spot he knew well by memory, where a beauty mark nestled just below her breast.
"Right there," he whispered, ducking to press his lips chastely to the remembered mark. He could feel confusion coming off her in waves, and so caging her ribs with his hand, he drew a slick, hot line up the sensitive underside of her firm breast with his tongue, covering the tautness of her nipple with his lips when he reached it. With his right hand he mimicked the movements of his mouth, skimming up her breast and then cupping it.
Her body was moving in tight circles beneath him, drawn tight like a bow as she pulled against the iron of his bed.
"Draco," she managed the word though every second she lost more breath.
"Shh," he hushed her insistently, letting the smooth warmth of her slip from his mouth.
Every inch of him felt as though it were throbbing, the deep ache centering at his arousal, pounding through him like a primal drum, and still he ignored what he wanted, what he needed. He took a deep breath, resting his head between her breasts to focus himself, trying to keep himself from ending the encounter before it really began.
Ginny's hand slid weakly from the posts of the headboard as he trailed his tongue with excruciating slowness down her body, stopping to flutter lightly, stopping to do things she couldn't see but could certainly feel. He'd gone mad, she thought, and was determined to take her with him. But in the total, encompassing dark of the room, the madness felt good, and she was more than ready to welcome it. Sex for them had always been a bit of a race, even occasionally a game of torture, but it had never been leisurely.
So what had changed?
His teeth closed gently over her hipbone without warning and she clutched the sheets in her hands, reflexively spreading her legs to their ultimate width, opening herself to him as she had many times before.
But Draco ignored what he was offered in the dark, though the smell of her own arousal, dark and heady, told him exactly what she wanted from him. Instead he moved himself to the foot of the giant bed, gently cupping her right calf, pressing a kiss to her knee and sliding his tongue around to the sensitive, ticklish backside of it. She jerked in his hands and moaned, the long sound of desperation marked with tiny giggles as he laved the back of the joint with his tongue. He repeated the movement on her other leg, then settled himself between her knees with a smirk on his face.
He moved both hands back up, to the tops of her thighs, letting his long thumbs brush the already damp insides of them as he kneaded soft skin and jumping muscles, being sure to brush the backs of his hands over the apex of her, feeling the heat, warmth, and dampness sliding over his long fingers. With every "accidental" brush, she strained closer and closer to him, but he evaded her.
She was sweating, beads rolling off her forehead and trickling into her hairline as she pressed her head into the pillow, her eyes rolling back as he played his fingers over the tight curls at the juncture of her thighs. Both hands clutched the pillow behind her head, though if she'd had the strength, Ginny was fairly certain she'd have boxed the game-playing little cretin in the ear and had her way with him.
And then he was gone, his weight still on the bed, but his hands gone from her body, her flesh absent of his touch. She started to sit up, cursing the burdensome dark, and then his mouth slid over her, his tongue finding her tight center unerringly with the first stroke, and a shocked sob burst out of her as she came, unwinding the tension even as it started to ravel itself up again.
"Oh, Merlin," she said, though her voice was nearly inaudible through the gasps and groans that escaped her.
She was bloody well going to kill him when he was done… only she definitely wanted him to finish first.
He rose from her with a self-satisfied grin on his face, knowing she'd never leave him as long as he made her need him. He placed a hand on either side of her head, the muscles of his arms bunching as he lowered himself to kiss her, letting her taste herself on his lips.
"Now," he finally said, sliding into her and feeling her muscles contract and relax around him.
Now.
~~~
He laid atop her, unable to move for long moments after their simultaneous climax. Upon catching his breath, he laid one kiss upon her brow and finally rolled over, his arms still around her, the room lightening rapidly with the near daybreak.
"Time to get along, Ginny," he said reluctantly, taking in the sheer peace on her face. It had been a marvel to him for the months they'd been together-no matter what was going on, no matter how vehemently they'd fought or voraciously he'd taken her, she always looked peaceful afterwards.
For the first time in his life, Draco loathed to disturb the peace.
She propped herself up on her elbow, her hair spilling over her arm and across her chest. "I'm not going home."
His face clouded immediately at her insurrection and he let her go, standing from the bed completely unclothed, unembarrassed by his nudity. "Go you bloody well will," he spat, shoving a hand through the disheveled mass of platinum atop his head.
It was her turn to stand then, but she dragged the sheet with her, tucking it around her with her arms and mirroring his gesture by shoving her hand through her fiery hair. It was unclear who, exactly, had picked up the gesture from whom, but it was one they now shared.
"I won't hide this!" she proclaimed, her voice strenuous. "It isn't as though everyone hasn't figured it out already, you sodding idiot!"
He was at her side with only a few strides, his hands gripping her shoulders even as part of him protested the movement.
"I know what it's like to have a parent who hates you. You don't want that. Now go home." He gave her a little shake for emphasis then released her, stooping to pick up her robes and tossing them to her.
She caught them reflexively, dropping the sheet and tugging the robe over her head in a few furious jerks. She grabbed her wand, prepared herself to Disapparate, then pointed the tip of it at Draco's nose.
"I've hexed you before, you pale git. Don't think I won't do it again." And before he could respond to her threat, she Disapparated.
And in her wake, he smiled at her audacity.
~~~
She was home before anyone else was up, but she was far from satisfied with it. She didn't particularly want to be home in a houseful of resentment, a houseful of people who wouldn't even listen to her. She Apparated straightaway back into her bed, resenting the coolness of the sheets, the simple cotton she lay on, and wishing for more.
Wishing for him.
With a yearning sigh, she closed her eyes and dreamed of what she could not have.