Beyond Therapy

Karen Noelle

Rating: PG13
Genres: Romance, Humor
Relationships: Draco & Ginny
Book: Draco & Ginny, Books 1 - 5
Published: 10/08/2004
Last Updated: 07/10/2004
Status: in_progress

One unforeseen incident brings Draco and Ginny into each other’s lives. They meet, they bicker, they hex and they try to uncross their paths but more incidents abound. Misunderstandings, duels, pranks, detentions. And therapy sessions with Professor Trelawney. Will they eventually learn to manage their anger and stop making each other’s life miserable? Or will they discover something more? Features sixthyear!Draco, feisty!Ginny, curious!Hermione and cheeky!Blaise. And a whole lot more about growing up, change, and discovering the true self.

Chapters

1. Slytherin Pride

2. Unforeseen Circumstances

3. Benefit of the Doubt

4. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

5. Between Strangers

1. Slytherin Pride

Chapter One – Slytherin Pride

It has always been said that someone Up There has a very weird sense of humour.

Draco Malfoy certainly thought so. If the current development of his life was any indication, he was absolutely sure that someone Up There did not like him very much. He must have been screwing with his records, whoever He was. And not just a mingling-around-because-He-was-bored style of screwing with his records. It was poking-with-a-pitchfork-and-then-giving-it-several-deadly-twists-before-burning-it-in-Hell kind of screwing. If not, then he didn't know how else he would be able to explain why he had to be sitting down here writing a letter to none other than Ginny Weasley.

If anyone had told him yesterday that this was what would happen to him today, he would have jabbed his broom into the fellow's mouth and shoved it down his throat. Or perhaps, he would have killed himself before it happened. The preservation of a Malfoy's dignity was certainly worth going to such extremes. Alas, there was just no point in multiplying the pain by rubbing in all the 'would haves'.

It was ten minutes past midnight and Draco was making no progress on the task at hand. He had already drafted several letters, but none of them had been to his liking. It had to be flawless, perfect to precision the level of politeness that would give it the resemblance of a thank you note while maintaining the stab of Slytherin viciousness he should portray as The Enemy because in all honesty, he knew she hated him, just as he hated her. But a wizard debt was a wizard debt, not that she could claim to have saved him. At least not in the strictest sense of the definition. In spite of this, the incident continued to haunt Draco in a way he had not expected and thus he decided that, perhaps, there were appropriate manners to which one should respond to someone who had offered a helping hand and herein laid the strength he'd drawn on in order to complete the matter.

Dear Ginny Dear Weasley To Ginny

Weasley,

"Better," Draco murmured to himself. He stared down at the parchment, squinted in concentration, and frowned. He has no idea what to write to Ginny Weasley. He crushed the piece of parchment, threw it behind him and started on a new one.

Weasley,

thank you

What you did today was

I just want to say...

"Argh!" Draco exclaimed in frustration, crushed the piece of parchment and sent it flying backwards to join its counterparts on the polished wooden floor of his room. Then, he started to pace.

It was not in his nature to feel thankful towards anybody, much less a Gryffindor. Much less a Weasley. So why was he feeling that now? Surely it was biologically impossible for him to feel such a need to express his gratitude for what she had done for him. No, he wasn't feeling thankful, he told himself. He only wanted her to bloody keep it a secret and not tell any other soul about it. But if that was the case, he should not be haunted by the flipping images of The Incident. He should not be thinking about how disturbingly generous it was that she had not hesitated to help him when he was in trouble, despite the fact that he was a supposed enemy. He should not be thinking about how he had knocked into her when he lost his balance and if he had hurt her when he fell against her ...

But here he was thinking about every one of these things. His thoughts came to a halt suddenly as he rechecked himself.

Fucking hell, who cares if she was hurt or not? It's her own fault that she was nosy. She asked for it.

He re-ran that revised piece of thought in his head again and nodded. That's right. That should be the way -- the Malfoy way of assessing the situation. Ginny Weasley was a filthy, low-class, bloody nosy Weasley.

With that, Draco turned sharply back to his desk and settled down to write the letter.

Weasley,

Thought I should mention my surprise at your display of competence this afternoon, albeit it was the lowest level of what I could have expected from a pureblood witch like you. I would have considered a gesture of appreciation if you didn't drop me to the floor, and thanks to you, the left side of my head is swelling to the size of a Quaffle. Even the fact that you did provide a lot of comfort by staying with me and holding me up cannot in any way compensate for the fact that I am now possibly suffering from a concussion.

"And the fact that you did provide a lot of comfort by staying with me and holding me up does not in any way compensate for the fact that I am now possibly suffering from a concussion?" Draco's eyes traced back and forth that last line repeatedly before he crushed the third piece of parchment he was working on.

What in Merlin's beard was I thinking?

He picked up a fourth piece of parchment and tried writing again.

Weasley,

Thought I should mention my surprise at your display of competence this afternoon, albeit it was the lowest level of what I could have expected from a pureblood witch like you. I would have considered a gesture of appreciation if you didn't drop me to the floor, though to be fair, I think I did knock into the side of your face when I fell back and I hope I didn't bruise you too badly. I'm sorry about that, and thanks for ...

"ARGH!"

~*~

For starters, wizards were not supposed to have asthma. That was a disgustingly plebeian Muggle disease to have been marked in existence in the wizarding world. It was even more absurd that it should be recorded alongside Draco Malfoy's name in his medical records.

No one was able to explain why a pureblood like him could not have gotten a more sophisticated disease that might match his status as the heir to one of the richest wizarding family in England. A touch of extra limbs would have been better than a dose of asthma any day. At least that sounded something like a wizard might have. Or perhaps not, he thought later. That would have spoiled the overall intricate design of his handsome frame. That would be a crime.

For sixteen years now, Draco had been forced to rely on Muggle medication for his asthma. This arrangement, albeit abhorrent to the Malfoys, was inevitable simply because no one else in the wizarding world had ever been diagnosed with such a Muggle-fixated illness. It stood to reason that there was no magical means of dealing with it because there was no need to deal with it in the first place. No wizard doctor knew a thing about it. No healer had even heard about it. Nada. Willing or not, Draco had to accept the inhaler as his best friend.

That was what precipitated it all. Because he really hadn't managed to truly appreciate the importance of his inhaler, even after sixteen years.

And that spelled trouble.

~*~

It was mid-afternoon. When the sun shone through the canopy of leaves, it did so fitfully, as one would notice it emerging from blanks of wispy clouds, tinting the young leaves on the trees and making them glow a vivid, almost virulent green.

Draco, on the other hand, was glowing evidently green too.

"I think I'm going to faint."

Catching Draco in his arms, Blaise stiffened and wrinkled his nose, surveying the blond boy who had -- rather theatrically -- swung and knocked into him suddenly.

"Oh, Merlin! Mr. Dramatic over here. I'm not carrying you!"

"I'm not asking you to carry me!" Draco hissed and glowered. He wasn't sure what he was feeling angry about: the walking existence of half-breed morons around him, or the fact that he was barely able to stand upright without the support of the wall. He felt dizzy and was wheezing badly. The prospect of felling weak here, in the public eyes, angered him to no end.

"All right, all right, no need to get agitated and kill yourself faster than you have to," Blaise said as he slung his arm through Draco's, pulling him to the isolated corner of the hallway. He did not want to attract too much attention because god-knows Draco would be damned if anyone found out about his Muggle-centric handicap. "Okay, where the hell is that - err, what is it called again? Inhibiter? ... retractor ... inhaler!"

Draco dug into his pockets, fumbled about, found nothing and felt a dreadful sense of amnesia and deja vu at the same time.

I think I've forgotten this before, he thought wistfully.

Blaise took a look at his friend's face and knew that they were damned.

"Fantastic. You're brilliant, you know? Fancy you to spark up an attack the day you forget the inhaler. And a long way away from the Slytherin dungeon at that. Can you walk? Wait, are you even breathing because I mean ... Draco!" he said and grabbed on to Draco who was losing his footing. Blaise looked around quickly, trying to figure out a solution to the problem.

"Students...students ... wall ... ah, good, the bathroom! Off we go, then." He continued to help Draco to the restroom, half-dragging and half-carrying the blond boy. Pushing open the door with his shoulder, he pushed Draco inside.

"WHAT? Blaise, this is the toilet!"

"Well done! That it is," Blaise answered cheerfully. "Or would you rather I carry you like a new bride back to the Slytherin common room?"

"Grrr ..."

"Stop talking, concentrate on breathing. I'm going to go get your inhaler, all right? It would be faster than dragging you back to the dungeon. You just wait here." He went over to the sink and ran a piece of cloth he tore from his robes under the water before passing it to Draco. "Hold this over your mouth, just a bit away. Um, it's supposed to help the breathing, or something. Hell, I don't know about that, you figure something out. You stop breathing, and I'm going to kick your pale ass to the grave."

"Convenient, really. Because I think I am on my way there."

"Didn't I tell you to shut up?"

"Why should I listen to you? Nobody tells me to shut up!" Draco glared.

Blaise leaned against the wall, "Why should you listen to me? Well, let's ponder this for a moment ...You are having an asthma attack, you're in the toilet, and I'm the only one who knows you're here, knows your condition, and is willing and able to help you. If I say shut up, you should probably do just that."

Draco ground his teeth grudgingly, "Then why are you still standing here?"

"Because you're still talking when you should be -- you know what? Never mind. Shut up, and breathe."

He gave Draco a grin, and opened the door, "Be back in a second," he said, and hurried out the door.

~*~

Ginny watched as Blaise ran out of the bathroom, looking panicked.

What was he so concerned about? Was there some sort of dangerous creature lurking in a toilet that had decapitated Malfoy?

She snickered at the thought, and as her curiosity got the better of her, she walked into the bathroom.

Draco was facedown on the toilet floor, struggling to breathe. She gasped with surprise at the sight and tapped him with her foot.

"What's wrong with you?" she asked, unsure of how she should react in such a situation. It was only when Draco responded with painful wheezing that Ginny realized he was having trouble breathing. Without a minute hesitation, she kneeled down and flipped Draco over so that he wouldn't be struggling with his face against the floor.

"Hey," she said as she tapped his cheek lightly. "Are you okay? What's wrong with you?" When he did not answer, she slapped his cheek a little harder, and then harder, until she was sure that if he didn't answer her soon, she would be leaving a palm print on his face.

Draco squinted through his slightly blurred vision but could see nothing much except for a blob of fiery red. He frowned, and even in his confused state of mind, he was very sure that Blaise had not been contemplating red hair any time soon, so the most obvious answer escaped his lips.

"WEASLEY?"

Ginny glared. Even on the verge of death, Malfoy was still unpleasant. "Yes, it's Ginny Weasley, and I'm going to try and help you so just shut up and don't complain."

"Don't tou-ch-ch me, Weasley!" Draco managed.

"You want to die then?"

"I would --" Draco coughed again, " -- rather die than be saved by a Weasley," Draco hissed with his last remaining strength. "Get out of here, Weasley. I'm warning you."

"You dumb arse, just for that remark, I'm going to stay." She tugged at his arm and after one hard pull, she succeeded in helping Draco sit up. It would have been easier if he weren't trying to struggle away from her.

Draco tried to jerk away again, at least that was what he intended to do before he realized that sitting up had indeed eased his breathing a bit. He glowered at the thought of having to agree with a Weasley, and decided the least he could do to safeguard the last trace of his dignity was to sit up by himself without having to rely on Ginny. With that goal in mind, he placed his right hand on the floor and tried to push himself up, but he had no enough strength to hold his own weight. Unexpectedly, with a sudden faint spell, he lost balance and fell back against Ginny.

"Gaah! Just sit still!" Ginny said angrily, struggling under his weight.

"Just let go of me -- "

"Stop it! Don't - Oh dear, are you okay? Hey," she asked as she lightly slapped the side of his face again when Draco did not answer. Not that he was in any condition to form one complete sentence. Doubling over, he looked as if he was choking on his own throat and was gasping frantically for air, all while trying to get away from Ginny Weasley.

"Malfoy! Stop moving! You are making it worse," Ginny reprimanded. "There's no need to get yourself killed faster by getting unnecessarily overexcited."

"Overexcited?" he finally managed to say. "No, I'm not getting overexcited. I'm just getting calmly worried that I might just die any moment now. And worse, in the hands of a Weasley. Bet you're enjoying this ..." His last words trailed off like a Wizard Wireless losing the connection.

She frowned as she shifted the back of Draco's head against her shoulder, trying not to be distracted by the close view of his long, dense eyelashes, his artfully chiseled cheeks and the well-defined jaw line. It wasn't fair, she thought, that someone as nasty as Draco Malfoy should be born with near-perfect construction. How dare he possess longer eyelashes than she had? And that chin. Merlin, she should be given that chin. Life was so unfair, she thought again. Just as her inner voice of grievances was going on about the list of things that were unfair in life, another voice of reason stepped in and reminded her that it was not the best choice of timing to be holding a comparative beauty pageant when the boy in question was in a state of mortal peril.

"So, uh, Zabini was going to get help, right? You -- you can just nod."

Draco nodded. In his current state of trailing in and out of semi-consciousness, he no longer had the strength to care that he was leaning against Ginny Weasley, nor was he aware of the fact that she was prying his fingers open to get the piece of wet cloth Blaise had given to him. As he felt another sharp spasm at his chest, he wheezed and coughed, turning his face towards the hollow of Ginny's neck. She smelled of tea rose and berries, a very sweet and soothing smell that caused Draco to relax against her. He did not struggle anymore when Ginny placed the wet towel gently on his face and he breathed in deeply, which helped eased his lungs just a little bit.

Ginny looked down at the boy's painful expression and thought that she should perhaps say something, anything that would help to comfort Draco in a life-and-death situation. Because as much as he was an irritating, whining ferret most of the time, Ginny firmly believed that you could not possibly snarl at a dying person.

"When was Blaise going to get here? Try to calm down, Malfoy. Erm," she said uncertainly. "Just -- concentrate on not dying, alright?"

He closed his eyes and shifted slightly to make himself more comfortable in their current position without another word.

Ginny brushed the hair out of Draco's eyes, then flinched when she realized what she'd just done. Draco turned and peered as he felt the soft touch of her hand. It was a very reassuring gesture and it made him feel safe. He sneaked another peek at Ginny when she absentmindedly stroked his hair again and could not help but notice that she really was quite a pretty girl. Just as he was starting to enjoy the moment (though he would never admit it), he heard the sounds of running footsteps outside the toilet.

Draco started. He jerked upright momentarily, forgetting that he still didn't quite have the strength to sit up by himself for more than ten seconds. His heart hammered against his ribs as he imagine how it would be if Blaise were to dash in and see him leaning against, of all people, Ginny Weasley.

Holy crap.

At the same time, Ginny was entertaining similar thoughts. If Zabini were to dash in and see Malfoy leaning against her, no doubt Harry would find out, and that would be horrible. She didn't want to have to explain herself to him, or worse, to her brother.

Without thinking, she stood up quickly, dropping Draco to the cold, tiled floor.

"OUCH!" Draco half-yelled as he fell back hard onto the toilet floor. He put his hand to the back of his head and rubbed the swelling spot. "You could have given me some prior warning!" he hissed.

"Sorry, Malfoy, I -- I've got to hide, alright? He'll help you, and don't you dare tell anyone I'm here!" she warned as she made her way around the toilet, trying to figure out a way to get away without being seen.

"I wouldn't dream of it, Weasley. Who would want to be seen with you?"

"More people that'd want to be seen with you," she replied, staring daggers at the Malfoy.

Draco tilted his head backward, glaring at the upside down image of Ginny Weasley.

"Dream on, Weasley. That's about the only way that it would come true. In your dreams."

And as he watched Ginny hide behind the third cubicle door, he added, "Merlin beard, step on the toilet lid, will you, Weasley? Even a blind troll can see the feet that size," he groaned, pointing at Ginny's visible feet at the bottom of the cubicle door.

Ginny let out a small "Eep!" before she jumped up on the toilet lid as Draco suggested.

~*~

Blaise swung open the wooden door and skidded into the toilet to find Draco shivering on the tile like a fish on the end of the line.

"Draco?"

"About time," Draco heaved a sigh of relief, ""And yes, it's still Draco."

"Oh, good, you're still alive," Blaise said. Blaise leaned down behind Draco, and hauled him up into a sitting position before handing his friend the inhaler. The asthmatic boy grasped on to the inhaler like a gift of elixir and breathed from it.

"Oei, you all right now, mate?" Blaise asked as he gave his friend a light shove by the shoulder.

"Yeah, I guess so."

"Merlin, don't ever do that again. I mean, just what am I supposed to tell your parents if you died? Oh, he couldn't breathe, I left him in a toilet and he choked on the sewage pipe? Ew, forget that, that's gross."

Draco wrinkled his eyebrows as he looked at Blaise, disgusted.

"I wish you could be less vocal with your version of the reality."

"Whatever," Blaise replied as he leant Draco a hand, "Can you stand up?"

"Yeah, just ... give me a moment," Draco replied.

Blaise hooked his arm through Draco's, and tried to tug his friend up when a 'bam' was heard coming from one of the cubicles. It sounded as if the flap of the toilet bowl had just fallen off, slamming onto the toilet seat.

"Who's there?" Blaise called out automatically, feeling cautious. He was about to let go of Draco to investigate the cubicle in question when he felt the boy grabbing onto his sleeves.

"There's no one in here," Draco said, pulling at his friend's sleeves and refusing to let go.

Blaise looked at Draco, his expression quizzical at the boy's strange overreaction, and back at the cubicle again.

"But there's the noise ..."

"There is no one!" Draco said loudly and made a sudden grab at the front of Blaise's robe. Blaise jumped in surprise. "Just get me out of here," Draco said, impatient.

"All right, all right," Blaise replied, puzzled but he did not question, and returned to the task at hand. He reached his arm round Draco's back and pulled the boy upright, steadying him before he dared to let go of his hold.

"All right standing by yourself? You're not going to faint on me again, are you?"

"No," Draco replied shortly. "Let's go back to the dormitory, I need to lie down," he said and steered Blaise towards the door.

When they were about to step out, Draco turned and glanced at the third cubicle intently before turning towards the hallway.

~*~

Mention it to anyone and I swear I will hex you into a pile of dust.

Ginny read the note once and crushed it into a tight ball before throwing it aside at the breakfast table. Ungrateful bastard, she thought. But then again, what more could she expect from him? He was a Malfoy after all. And Malfoys were supposed to be unquestionably detestable. Just like the half-done yolks of fried eggs.

She shrugged and went back to her eggs and toast, unaware of the pair of silver-grey eyes observing her from across the Great Hall. She poked at the eggs and grimaced inwardly when a yolk burst and spread around her plate in thick, sticky, yellowish goo. Ew. Quickly, she picked up the piece of toast that was untouched by the yolk, and proceeded to nimble on it. Her brother and Hermione were sitting with Harry some distance away from her. Glancing down, she could see the animated conversation going on among the trio and felt the familiar stab of envy that sliced through her like a blade. It wasn't that she was still harbouring any thoughts about Harry. Of course not. No one in their right mind would carry a blazing crush on the same boy for more than four years, she told herself.

She sighed as she turned back to her breakfast and sipped her cup of tea.

~*~

"Draco!"

"Huh?" the blond boy replied, distracted, as he turned to Blaise.

"Merlin, I called you three times!"

"Well, that's it, isn't it? I'm not named Merlin, of course I won't answer you."

Blaise rolled his eyes as he continued with what he'd intended to say.

"In any case, Mr. Malfoy, I think it's time you stop poking at my balls."

"Whaat?" Draco spluttered, choking on his tea. He would have grown bright red in the face too, if he were capable of it. But his well-trained cold-blooded public persona did not facilitate such a response. Instead, all you could catch of a tell tale sign of the embarrassment was a slight tinge of pink rising from the nape of his neck and at the base of his ears.

"I said, get your fucking hand off my meat balls," Blaise announced loudly with deliberation.

Draco retracted his fork from Blaise's plate, but not without sending the boy a death glare first. Turning back to his own plate, he poked his fork at the yolk of his egg purposefully and watched with satisfaction how the sunny up burst and sent a flow of sweet smelling smooth sauce on his plate. Then, he picked up a roll of bread, broke it, and smeared a piece with the thick yellow yolk gravy before popping the bread into his mouth.

Mmmm. That should be the correct way to enjoy breakfast. Bread dipped in half-done egg yolks. Anyone else who didn't agree with him was probably mad.

~*~

Three days after The Incident and nothing peculiar had taken place at Hogwarts. Draco went on with his own business, taunting the trio, doing homework and maintaining his quota for most number of insults thrown at members of the other Houses. Ginny, on the other hand, went on with her own business as well, attending lessons, doing homework and maintaining her quota for most number of shots thrown during Quidditch trainings.

Everything was normal and peaceful and as it should be.

But don't let the calm before the storm gives you any false sense of security. Just because nothing has happened over the last three days doesn't mean that nothing will happen on the fourth day onwards. Something will always happen. That's Murphy's Law for you: Anything that can go wrong will go wrong in this story. That's the whole point after all.

~*~

"Weasley!"

Ginny picked up her pace when she recognized the voice that was calling her. She hurried through the afternoon crowds, squeezing through clusters and clusters of students mingling in the hallways until she reached the stairs leading up to the Gryffindor Tower. Thinking she had lost him, she stopped for a while to catch her breath before she took a step on the first flight of stairs. But she was hindered from doing so by a strong arm grabbing her waist from behind.

She screamed. That was a natural response to the situation. He clasped a hand over her mouth. That was also a natural response to his situation. Then, clamping her struggling form in his arms, he dragged her off the stairs and into a secluded gap in the walls, which they barely fitted in together. The place had them both covered from the public eye with a row of tall display plants set for the purpose of Herbology Awareness Week.

Ginny glared at him with her big, dark eyes, still trying to struggle away. But that was before she realized that struggling in such a confined area only served to increase the amount of body contact. Then, she stopped moving.

"Shush!" he hissed at her once she stopped struggling. "You don't want the whole world to hear us."

"Then don't act like a sneaky Slytherin and grab me in such a manner! For a moment there I thought you were Malfoy!" she snapped.

The boy snorted at the mention of the name.

"Why would Malfoy want to grab and corner you up a wall?" the tall boy asked with a chuckle. "No offence, Ginny. But I don't think that guy will be falling at your feet anytime now. We all know how he's like. He's only into in-breeding among his own kind."

"And God bless all of us for that," she said dramatically. "Why are you sticking me into this wall, anyway?"

"Well, I just thought it would be a fun thing to do. I'd been wondering if this gap can fit two people. As it turns out, it does."

"By dragon eggs, Michael, this is so immature," she replied as she inched out of the gap.

"Wait." He reached out to stop her.

"What?"

"I was wondering if you would like to come with me this Hogsmeade weekend."

Ginny paused and surveyed the boy standing in front of her. Granted, Michael Corner was a handsome boy. He was also a good Quidditch player. And he was smart, or else he would not have been sorted into Ravenclaw. But he was also too chauvinistic for his own good.

Not to mention, as a general rule, you do not go out with the same boy twice.

"Thanks for asking, Michael, but I'm afraid the answer is no."

"Aw, it's just a friendly lunch. Nothing more, I promise."

"No."

"Well," the boy shrugged, "Just thought I'd try asking," he said as he made room for Ginny to wriggle out of the small space.

"And sorry if I've gave you a fright," he said as he watched her walk away.

"Don't worry about it," she replied over her shoulder. "Nothing ever really scares me. That's why I'm in Gryffindor."

~*~

Once in her dormitory, she removed her school robes and hung them over the back of her chair. The copies of books from the library were scattered all over her table, together with half-written parchments of essays and a large row of graphs drawn for Arithmancy.

She sighed at the sight of the mess and sat down on her bed, whacking her foot idly against the leg of her chair like a pendulum on full swing. She was contemplating the list of things that had to be done by nightfall, and in what order they should be done when the door clicked open again. A dainty redhead walked into the room.

"Hey, Hermione," the redhead chirped.

"Hey," the older girl replied, twirling a strand of her dark hair around her fingers.

"Tired?" Ginny asked as she shrugged off her own robes and removed her red-and-gold tie. "You look tired."

Hermione sighed before she nodded her head slightly.

"There's just so much to do. I don't know where to start."

"Well, you just have to start somewhere and work from there. Then at least some things will get done eventually."

"I guess you are right," Hermione smiled. "And oh, I think this came for you," she said and handed a piece of folded parchment to the other girl.

"Must be from my parents," Ginny said, though she was not quite sure of that. The letters from her parents were usually crumpled with creases and decorated with ink blotches. This letter was placed in an envelope made of bright white parchment, no creases or ink blotches in sight, and the material felt heavy in her hand. Her family never bothered with envelopes. The letter was also sealed, which was a first because her parents never bothered to seal their letters to her and her brothers. It's not as if they haboured some great state secret that would bring about Armageddon if they didn't seal their letters.

She flipped the envelope over and stared at the neat, slanted script that spelled her name. It was not a handwriting she could recognize, at least not at first glance, and she tore the envelope open immediately, curious to find out who the sender of the letter was. When she realized who the letter was from, she wished that she had never opened the envelope.

Meet me in the Quidditch shed tomorrow night. Eight.

Signed,

Draco Malfoy

~*~

Author’s Notes:

Finally, Beyond Therapy has made it to Portkey.

I hope you have enjoyed it thus far. This is a light-hearted romance fanfic, so it’s definitely AU, and not to mention, has a tendency to go totally screwball in future for my own entertainment. If you do not like screwball comedy type stuff, you may not want to subject yourself to more torture from my fic. ;D Plot-wise, canon events will not be followed strictly, but I will do my best for canonic characterizations. Blaise in this fic is a guy. He is set as Draco’s close friend for the purpose of this fic.

Also, Beyond Therapy will contain some RPGs done in torpg on Livejournal but mostly they will be rewritten to fit the context of the fic. This fic has its own flow and does not have any particular bearing to the storylines in torpg, nor does the RPG has specific bearing to the fic.

Next chapter:

Blaise meets Hermione. Hermione meets Blaise. Why does Draco want to meet Ginny? Why are the Malfoys and the Weasleys in deep rivalries? What happen in the shed? Did they snog? Well, I can tell you they definitely hex quite a bit. But snogging? Hmm… *whistles*

Some games, a fight (maybe two), a locked-in, an extra Draco and one orchestral performance. Much bodily harm inflicted. And Murphy’s Law continues to triumph. Egg yolks continue to make their appearances too. Yar. XD

References and Credits

Draco dug into his pockets, fumbled about, found nothing and felt a dreadful sense of amnesia and deja vu at the same time.

I think I've forgotten this before, he thought wistfully.

-- Stephen Wright

“There’s no need to get yourself killed faster by getting unnecessarily overexcited.”

“Overexcited?” he finally managed to say. “No, I’m not getting overexcited. I’m just getting calmly worried that I might just die any moment now.”

-- Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has not read it. It is very funny and wise.

Blaise Zabini’s characterization is inspired by Day for her portrayal of said character in torpg. Her Blaise is so spiffy we all fall in love with that darn guy even when he’s a very bad boy. I like her Blaise so much that I want to write about him but I mellow him down quite a bit and put in some alterations to his character to fit him into my ideal of the Blaise in my fic. So in some way he’s mine and in some ways not mine. Go figure.

The asthma situation is a plot played out in torpg but has been rewritten to fix the context of this fic. Some lines belong to the original players though, so credits where it’s due to Day and Rachael.

2. Unforeseen Circumstances

Chapter Two - Unforeseen Circumstances

~*~

They had it in for us, didn’t they?

Right from the beginning.

Who’d have thought that we were so important?

-- Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

~*~

Draco was not amused.

He first heard of it from a group of first year Slytherin girls, who were always giggling whenever he walked passed. He would always smile back engagingly because he thought they were cute little things and you never know which one of them would blossom and become a fine young thing in about three or four years time. So, to him, it never hurt to start establishing contact early. He saw it as an advance investment of sorts.

But that day, he felt his smile eroding when one of them asked him a strange question.

“Are you alright?”

She was sweet about it, and truly concerned because she had always hoped that young Malfoy might take a liking to her. This was a great opportunity to show some concern, and to shower him with some attention so that he might notice her back. That was why she asked him the question in the first place.

But Draco did not quite take it the same way.

Frowning and feeling truly puzzled, he asked her, “What is that question about?”

The girl looked as if she was taken aback by the less-than-friendly reply but marched on with her agenda nonetheless.

“You had an asthma attack the other day, didn’t you? We all heard about it. I don’t know much about it but it must be dreadful … I do hope you are fine now.”

Dreadful. Of course it was dreadful. And it was even more dreadful now that the entire Hogwarts population seemed to have heard of his Muggle-centric disease.

Thinking about the humiliation only served to make him angrier as he went from class to class. He felt his fingers digging into his palms when he thought about it, felt the sharp pain in his jaw where he had bitten his teeth together too hard, and the blood in his system boiled as if to lit each of his finger tips aflame, so that when he landed his hand on that darn Ginny Weasley, she could be sure that he would make her very sorry indeed.

~*~

It was well known that the Weasleys and the Malfoys had a long and extensive history of family rivalries, filled with verbal and physical abuse reciprocated through the ages. It all begun in 700 B.C. when a Malfoy ancestor accidentally chopped off the head of another Weasley ancestor in a fit of anger at losing a game of Charade. Therein started the long tradition of mutual slaughtering between the two families, unrestricted by the vast distances from villages to villages and continents to continents. The entire network of the family trees actively engaged in this tradition in varying creativity, from slicing, to chopping, to stabbing, and most memorably, the one incident in 632 B.C. when a Weasley dyed a Malfoy’s hair red before sending him to burn in Hell. It was not until 620 B.C. when a certain Draco of Athens, who finally having realized the idiocy of the vicious cycle, enacted a number of legal reforms in his capacity as a prosecutor and put a stop to the previous justice system of ‘you killed one of ours; we kill one of yours’. This Draco moved to make the state, instead of families and kin, the judicial agent in cases of murder and wrongful death. Also, he was credited with encoding the legal distinction between murder -- killing with what lawyers today call mens rea, or wicked intent -- and other sorts of deaths: manslaughter, culpable but unintentional killing, legitimate self-defense and so forth. This Draco was a distant great-great-great-great grand cousin, thrice removed, of our Draco’s great grandfather. His name was Draco, son of Hector, otherwise referred to at that time as the ‘sensible mind’.

If Draco, son of Hector, the ‘sensible mind’, thought that his introduction of the new judicial system was going to improve the situation, he was gravely mistaken. Long years of discords continued to triumph over harmonious co-existence. After all, no one could expect a tradition established through more than a century of violence to cease overnight just because a law came into being. No, the essence of tradition was continuity and it did just so, dutifully, for the next millennium.

~*~

No one noticed them leaving.

The Gryffindor common room was filled with life, as it always had been. Ron and Harry were in an intense game of wizard chess. Hermione was discussing the better uses of tealeaves in medicine as opposed to Divination with Parvati and Lavender. Dean was trying to poke at the fire grate and see if it would retaliate, and the rest of the House were just engaged in an all round euphoria because it was Friday.

The Slytherin common room was filled with life as well. There was the usual ritual of trial necromancy at the dark corner of the dungeon, and it never really worked. In the center of the room, Blaise was sitting among a circle of sixth years playing strip poker. Millicent was petting her cat, and Montague was devising a new plan to dissect animals for sacrifice rituals without soiling the coffee table top with blood. Those stains could be tricky to remove, and the sight of the blood got on Draco’s nerves.

Unbeknownst to them both, the blond boy and the redhead had slipped out of their dormitories at the exact same time and were moving towards each other’s direction from the opposite ends of the castle. They stopped at different sets of staircases and while Ginny was traveling down the steps, Draco was traveling up. He reached the castle door first.

The moonlight beamed down from the night sky, pouring onto the school ground, bright and mesmerizing. It was a beautiful night. Beautiful, and eerily ominous.

The trouble with trying to keep yourself out of sight under a twinkling night sky shining over a wide, smooth plane of an empty Qudditch field was that you sure as hell couldn’t.

Draco pulled his hood up and strode down the path without stopping, except when he had to hide behind a wagon containing Hogwarts newly arrived winter supplies to avoid a singing Hagrid returning from his work at the storage room. Draco waited for a while to be sure that the school caretaker was gone before making a beeline for the Qudditch shed at the other end of the pitch and hoping against all hope that he would not be caught.

~*~

Brushing stray strands of her hair to one side, Ginny wrapped her cloak around her as she neared the castle door and stopped. She could see the tall form of Draco Malfoy moving down the path leading to their meeting place. She frowned and tapped her foot impatiently as she tried thinking of another way to go to the shed.

There was no other way.

So she waited until Draco was nothing but a small moving dot from where she was standing before she started out on her own. She kept close to the shades provided by the trees, which were not much, and quickly turned into the changing room, which was next to the shed.

In less than five minutes, they were standing there looking at each other, their arms crossed.

“So,” Ginny asked as she fingered the wand she had in her pocket, “what is this meeting about?”

He eyed her cautiously as he spoke. “You stinking piece of troll dunk. You told everyone what happened!”

“What?” she responded, confused. She honestly had no idea what he was talking about.

“You,” he said as he slid a hand into his left pocket, gripping hold of his wand. “You didn’t keep to your words. Not that I expected you to, of course. Because even Gryffindors are lying spawns of the devil at the best of time. I wouldn’t put it pass you to give up a chance to get back at me,” he continued, his mouth beginning to screw into a sneer. “Well done, Ginny Weasley. But you will have to pay for it.” He finished his vituperative speech and in one swift movement, pointed his wand at the girl and murmured the hex under his breath.

Ginny drew out her own wand immediately, but was not fast enough to duck the hex Draco had hurled at her. She took the blow and fell backward against the wooden wall of the shed with a loud thud before she managed to gather herself together and threw a hex at Draco in return. He ducked and she threw another one, and another one in quick succession done so rapidly that he had no time to hide. Two of the five hexes she threw hit Draco at the stomach and he doubled over on the floor, dropping his wand, but not before he managed to disarm her and snapped her wand into halves.

“Ungrateful bastard!” Ginny swore loudly at the blond boy at her feet before she picked up the broom left lying against the cupboard and swung it full-forced downwards, aiming for Draco’s head. He looked up in time and whitened. He rolled over, standing up quickly as Ginny pointed the broom at him in a rage of madness. He took a step back away from her, noting that she had also broken his wand into halves when she swung the broom hard against it on the floor.

“What the hell are you – ”

CRASH!!

He paused and spun around immediately, looking at the direction of the noise. At first glance, nothing peculiar seemed to have happened and he turned back, catching the sight of Ginny looking at him, her eyes wide.

"What the bloody hell did you do, Weasley?"

Ginny’s eyes narrowed and she glared at him.

"Oh, really nice of you to ask, Malfoy. I didn't do anything!"

Draco rushed to the door, where the noise came from and tried to jerk it open. It did not oblige. Ginny came along at his side and shoved his hand off the doorknob. She rattled the knob, pulling and turning it to no avail. It was clear that something had jammed the doorknob at the other side of it.

Draco tried to peer through the gaps in the door to figure out what was happening and saw a huge wagon piled with tons of heavy wooden chest, thrown right in front of the door. He then tried to push the door again but it was futile. The door was not only blocked by the large Roman edifice of a doorstopper, it was also old and stuck and in a state of decrepitude, as tested and proven when the knob fell off at Draco’s manhandling.

“Malfoy!” Ginny gasped in horror as she looked from the knob in Draco’s hand to the now properly damaged door.

"Bloody hell," Draco swore.

"YEEEEEEEE HAAAAAAA!!!!" a familiar shrilly voice called out.

Peeves.

"BLOODY FUCKING HELL!" Draco yelled skyward in irritation, and tried pulling at the knob. Except there was no longer a knob to be pulled. In a moment of anguish, Draco started kicking and banging on the door.

By his side, Ginny muttered a stream of profanity under her breath, and glared at her feet, blinking in disbelief at the plausibility of having to be stuck in the same room with Draco Malfoy for an extended period of time.

Draco was horrified at the same thought too. He tried to pull the door open instead of pushing it but in either way, it was still stuck. He placed his right foot on the wall beside the door and pulled as he might, the door refused to open.

He turned and glared at Ginny.

"You! It's always you!" he spat, growing evidently mad.

"Oi, last time you were with me, I helped save your life, alright? But trust me, it won't happen again,” Ginny said and shot him a dirty look.

"Wouldn't dream of it!" Draco hissed at her face, and after giving the door one last kick, he strode to one side of the shed, sat down and looked daggers at Ginny. "Next time it happens, I would rather die than to be stuck with you in this bloody place."

Ginny sighed, and matched him glare for glare while she sat at the opposite side of the shed.

Draco drew his knees up, hung his arms over them and started plucking at the pile of broom twigs on the floor.

No one said anything for a long time.

~*~

Back in the Slytherin common room, Blaise had just ended his game of strip poker after Malcolm stripped to his birthday suit. It was a disappointment really because he did not stay in the game for two hours just to watch Malcolm lose every round with deliberation so that he could get the chance to pole-dance along the leather sofa in front of the fireplace.

Tired and deprived of the actual show he had been expecting, he looked around the dungeon for Draco, thinking that they might be able to get some homework done together. Doing Divination homework alone was utterly boring. Not to mention, you ran out of ideas fast when there was no other person to help feed your creative mill. But Draco was nowhere to be found.

Blowing out a breath of irritation, Blaise went back to the common room, stood for a moment contemplating a castle-wide search for his friend before he shrugged and sat down for another game of strip poker, this time without Malcolm.

And if you were wondering what Hermione was doing in the Gryffindor Tower, well, she’s still arguing with Parvati and Lavender over the tealeaves.

There was indeed some truth when they said Slytherin had more fun.

~*~

Evil never sleeps, and virtue is ever vigilant.

Ginny dared not nod off to sleep, not when she was stuck within proximity of a Slytherin. Especially a Slytherin with Malfoy as his last name. You never know what they could be up to. And she would never trust him more than she could throw him and that wouldn’t be far.

As the clock ticked, she started absentmindedly picking at the twigs of the broom she had laid on her lap. It was the same broom she tried to hit Draco with and she was keeping it near her just in case Draco was to try anything funny. But after two hours of being stuck in the same room together, he still did not seem like he was making any devious plans against her and she was fast getting bored.

Frowning a bit, she pulled out a bunch of twigs and began chucking them at Draco.

"Ugh," Draco swept the flying twigs away from his face and stared at Ginny. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"If I'm going to be stuck in here with you,” she said and shrugged, “I might as well give you a hard time."

He continued glaring at Ginny while he reached behind his back and grabbed a handful of twigs.

"Very well then, Weasley."

"You wouldn't dare..."

And with that, Draco chunked the handful of twigs back at Ginny.

"You did! You're going down, Malfoy!"

Ginny gathered the pile of fallen twigs off the floor, walked over to Draco, and scattered them in his hair.

"What the --"

"Not so pretty now, are you?"

Draco scowled, picked up the chunk of twigs and flung it upwards at Ginny.

Ginny chuckled as she blocked the attack of the twigs. "That’s not very effective. You don’t seem to be really interested in beating me at the game … Wait a minute," she said, glaring again, "I'm supposed to be mad at you."

"Really? That makes two of us," Draco sniggered, reached out and caught Ginny's hands before she could have the chance to chunk another handful of twigs down his head. He pulled her down with him and threw another handful of twigs down her head before she could retaliate.

"Hey!" Ginny shouted indignantly, brushing straws off of herself.

Draco laughed out loud at the sight of twig-covered Ginny while she glared threateningly at him. Without warning, she shoved a clump of straws in his face, snickering.

Caught by surprise, he heaved and coughed out some of the straws that got into his mouth.

"You! You -- " he coughed and pointed at the redhead accusingly, in a not-so-nasty manner.

“You, you, you what?” the redhead mocked.

Draco glared and coughed in an uncontrollable manner, spitting out pieces of straws from his mouth. He wanted to swear at the redhead but could not manage it while he was coughing. As a result, he settled for the internationally recognized form of wild finger pointing.

" ... Malfoy?” Ginny asked and disregard the rude gestures as she started to get worried. “Oh, you're asthmatic ... I forgot ..."

Draco continued coughing hard, with his face down, ignoring Ginny.

"I haven't gone and killed you, have I?" Ginny asked and started smacking him on the back with perhaps a bit more force than necessary.

"Ugh - gentler, can-you-Weas-ley?" Draco managed between coughs.

"Oh, err ..." Ginny had the grace to look contrite and patted his back lightly this time.

When Draco finally finished coughing and sat upright again, Ginny still had her hand awkwardly placed on his back, not quite knowing what to do, and out of nowhere, he muttered something under his breath that sounded disbelievingly like thanks.

Ginny raised her eyebrow at him in surprise.

"Not 'get off me!'?" she asked and stared at him, then realized where her hand was and promptly took her hand off his back.

Draco glared. "Take it or leave it, Weasley. I'm not saying it again."

Ginny rolled her eyes in response. "That's the Malfoy I know."

Draco ignored Ginny, stood up and started walking round the shed, looking for an alternative way out of the place. His eyes roamed the room and landed on a small window at the high end of the wall. He could not fathom why he had never noticed that before. Stepping up on the bench, then the shelves and finally standing on the top of a cupboard, he reached up and tried to push the window up, but it resisted. He jerked it forcefully for a while before the window suddenly slid up in one smooth, if not loud, movement, revealing a small opening that was as big (or as small) as Hagrid’s shoebox.

Ginny jumped at the loud bang, and her eyes followed Draco’s every move.

"You think we can fit in and get out through there?"

He turned and did a sweeping glance at Ginny.

"I know it's kind of hard to believe that a troll-sized witch like you can squeeze through this thing," he said and pointed at the opening, "but I guess we can always try."

"You little bastard..."

Draco did not wait for Ginny to finish. He took a leap up and with his Seeker reflex, disappeared through the opening before Ginny could bat her eye.

"Hey! I'm shorter ... I can't get up there! Come back!” she started screaming. “If you leave me here, I swear I’ll mess you up so badly your mother wouldn’t recognize you!"

There was no response.

~*~

Ginny stomp her foot and sat down on her legs, sniffing a bit. She looked around the shed, took in the quiet, dust-ridden atmosphere and shuddered. It was late, and dark outside and there was not a single soul in the vicinity that could offer her any help. No one, except Draco, who had disappeared without caring if a wild beast were to charge in and tear the young girl asunder.

"Life’s lesson number one. Even if he's nice for a split second there, Malfoy is, and always will be, a total arsehole!” she screamed at the top of her lungs.

"Ahem!"

She turned quickly at the sound of another person and saw Draco pop his head in at the opening.

"I heard you."

Ginny tilted her head up to look at him, astonished.

"You know, precisely because you're shorter, I don't think you'll stand a chance jumping off here at this height," he said with his finger pointing downwards, signaling the height of the window to the ground. "Besides, you're wearing a skirt."

"Oh," Ginny said, looking at her feet.

"Now come on, it's late and I want to get back to bed," Draco said impatiently as he turned to check if anyone was around. He did not wish to be caught with Ginny Weasley, wandering outside the castle after curfew. He turned back again, saw Ginny still standing at the same spot and asked, "Or do you need help getting up here?"

"Well ... I can't exactly reach...”

Draco pulled himself further in through the window but kept half his body hanging outside and held out his hand. "Get on the bench for a start, and I'll get you once you are nearer the cupboard," he said and yawned nonchalantly.

She stood on the bench, and jumped, grabbing onto the shelves with her hands, dangling there for a bit, trying to pull herself up. Draco reached out further and grabbed Ginny by her left hand.

"Now, careful with your right foot.”

Ginny climbed up, stepping on the tall pile of crates and finally succeeded in getting on the shelves with Draco's help.

"One more step. The cupboard. Get up here and I'll get you out."

Ginny climbed up on the cupboard and crouched under the ceiling.

Draco reached out his other hand to balance Ginny by the shoulder when he saw her standing unsteadily on the wobbly cupboard. "Stay still," he said. "I need to move out a little to help you out here." He lifted his hand from her shoulder and asked, "Can you stand still? I’m not going to carry you if you fell and broke a leg. Stay still. I'm going to let go of your hand now."

"Yeah..." Ginny said, raising her eyebrow at him.

Why was he being so nice all of a sudden?

Draco did not take notice of Ginny's raised eyebrow, and proceeded to pull out of the window. She tilted her head to one side, watching him as he moved out easily. He seemed to be standing on something because she could still see his face outside the window.

When he beckoned her to move, Ginny carefully reached for the opening, trying not to fall off the cupboard. She was about to lift her leg over the window ledge when she stopped suddenly, biting her lower lip.

"Right then..." Ginny hesitated to take Draco's hand. "I'm, err...”

Draco looked at Ginny's distressed expression and remembered she was wearing a skirt. He took one of her hands into his and made a hundred and eighty degree turn facing away from the window. "Climb now, Weasley. And be quick."

Ginny obeyed, taking Draco’s hand and held on like grim death, feeling glad that he was not looking up her skirt.

Draco stood there, blindly figuring the way to help Ginny out of the window. Eventually, he gave up and decided that she could figure out how to grab him wherever it was needed, and so he left both his arms swung upwards and backwards, and adjusted it in whichever way Ginny was holding on to him.

Just as Ginny thought that she was getting the hang of it and easing her way out of the window, she lost her footing and knocked right into Draco. She grabbed on to him by reflex and they fell from the stack of crates Draco was standing on.

"Ugh poof!" Ginny fell on top of the boy and knocked the air out of his lungs as they both landed on the ground prematurely.

"Gerroff!" Draco managed to force the words out of his throat.

"Gaah!" Ginny exclaimed and scrambled up, putting a distance of a few feet between them, with one hand on her wrist where she had twisted it when she fell.

Draco was rubbing his chest to try to ease the sharp pain caused by the fall. Ginny Weasley wasn't heavy -- in fact she was quite light -- but falling at such a height had caused an impact big enough to induce pain anyway. He winced as he moved and realized that he had also hit his back during the fall and thought.

Damn it. I must be looking like a human question mark now.

He could not have been more accurate with his assessment. He was certainly bent, but not at all curious.

“Are – are you alright?” Ginny asked tentatively from where she was standing.

If Draco hadn’t known better, he would have thought that Ginny sounded pretty concerned. But if truth be told, Draco really didn’t know any better. Ginny was being genuinely concerned, but a Slytherin would never take that without a pinch of scepticism.

“You broke my spine,” he said accusingly. “After you tarnished my reputation, you rotting little piece of --.”

“I did not tell anyone about what happened!” she answered, indignant that her credibility should be in question.

“You did! Everyone in Hogwarts knows about my asthma now. You are the only one who was there!”

“No, Zabini was there too!”

“He wouldn’t tell! He knew it for over ten years now and he never told anyone!”

“Well, then, err,” Ginny fumbled around for explanations. “I can’t be the only one who saw what happened! There were people around! I don’t know why everyone knows now but I didn’t tell anyone!” she launched into full-swing self-defence of her integrity, with hands waving about and huge blinking eyes and probably a halo over her head, if she could manage.

Draco watched her, and for some strange reason, he believed her. He gave up trying to make her confess to the crime and shifted his elbow, trying to get himself up from the grass and failed. He fell back on the grass and lay there tiredly, looking up at the vast night sky. He was beginning to count the myriad of stars when a freckled fair face popped into view, looking down at him. He looked back and wondered why she was still there and had not yet turn to go back to her dormitory but the curiosity did not linger on because pain generally demanded for more attention. Pain only concentrated on itself, and it did not give a damn about the rest of the world, and certainly not why the irritating someone was still hanging around.

He watched as she kneeled down beside him quietly. Surely she did not think that it was fun to stay around and poke fun at his current state of spinal agony? Because if she did, he would be sure as hell to get his exquisitely manicured hands on her throat.

“Hey,” she said and jabbed her index finger into his shoulder. “Why aren’t you moving? You’re not paralyzed, are you?” she asked, a guilty expression fluttered across her face and then came back and pitched its headquarters there.

“Well, what are you going to do if I tell you that I am?”

~*~

If the long line of Malfoy descendants before Draco had known what was actually going to happen on a bright and cheerful Saturday morning, in the impeccably clean Hogwarts infirmary years down the road, they would be rolling in their graves, tunneling their way out of the hardened soil and trying everything within their power to stop it from happening, except they were not in any feasible position to do so.

Draco looked around the infirmary and noticed with dismay that it was filled with nothing but beds, trays, dull-looking utensils and the smell of burning herbs. It was only fifteen minutes since he had woken up in the unfamiliar bed -- with sheets that smelled of antiseptic, and dressed in possibly the most repulsive flannel pyjamas of blue and white stripes ever to be sewn -- and he was already in an agony of ennui. The fact that Ginny Weasley was in the bed opposite him did not, in any way, serve to ameliorate his misery.

He sat up on his bed, staring blankly at the open copy of the Daily Prophet that hid his face from the girl opposite, and recalled how they had managed to make it to the infirmary the night before. He remembered being dragged upright by the Weasley girl (who had no regard for his pains at all) and supported by her small weight all the way back into the castle and up the infirmary. She had unhesitatingly dropped him onto the nearest bed by the infirmary door (again no regard for his pains at all) and was about to turn and leave when Madam Pomfrey summoned her back for an explanation.

As it turned out, Draco was not the only victim of their grand episode. Ginny had a broken bone at her wrist and another nasty bruise at the end of her skull where she had hit against the wall when she fell back from the impact of Draco’s hex. Madam Pomfrey had insisted that she stay in the infirmary as well, much to Draco’s horror, and try as she might, Ginny was not able to escape. The school nurse would not take no for an answer and had promptly marched her to a bed and proceeded to regrow the broken wrist bone.

After Madam Pomfrey had fixed the both of them up properly, Ginny had asked for the curtains to be drawn around her, as if he would try to pounce on her if the curtains weren’t blocking her out of his view. In return to such a gesture, Draco had also requested for his curtains to be drawn to give himself the privacy to rest. Privacy, until at least when Madam Pomfrey woke them up at eight and took away the dividers. Then, she had left them both in the infirmary as she went off to the Greenhouse to stock up the supply of Etunnop – nasty flesh-eating plant but very effective in killing bacteria.

So, for the rest of the morning, they hid behind their copies of the Daily Prophet until the sounds of a wheeling trolley announced the arrival of their breakfast.

“Thank you,” Ginny said to the house elf that had delivered the food tray to her bedside table.

Draco, on the other hand, did not even acknowledge the presence of the house elf when it laid his tray cautiously on the table before scampering away with fear. Draco frowned at the eccentricity of the servant before turning back to his breakfast. The first thing he did before he started his food was to turn the cup into its correct position, with the handle of the cup facing left because he was left-handed. Then, he stirred in the milk and two cubes of sugar. It was a moment before he realized that the furious tinkling in the infirmary was not entirely from his own preparation of his morning tea. Ginny Weasley was stirring her cup of tea cheerfully, with perhaps a little too much energy than was required for the task.

“Quiet, can you, Weasley? That is very irritating,” he said without looking at her.

“Oh, really?” Ginny answered brightly and continued stirring her cup of tea with more enthusiasm, the sound of the contact between metal and glass echoed loudly in the infirmary.

In return, Draco jammed his teaspoon hard into the cup and started stirring the tea with vim. There were many things in life that he simply could not stand and being deemed the less irritating party was one of them.

Before they knew it, the two were engaged in a collaboration of a symphony you wished you would never have to listen to, consisting of only the percussions. Draco flicked his wrist at high speed, hitting the side of his ceramic cup with much force, glaring at the Weasley girl opposite him, ever determined not to lose out in their competition, whichever form they might take.

But after a minute or two, Ginny suddenly decided that she had generated enough foam in her tea and stopped. Picking up her cup, and looking unruffled, she took a slow sip of tea, glancing coolly at Draco over the rim of her cup.

“That was so immature,” she commented with an air of superiority as she lowered her cup.

Draco shot her a death glare.

“It takes one to know one,” he answered and stopped stirring his own tea, feeling strangely deflated from the sudden halt of the competition.

Dropping the spoon on his tray, he ignored Ginny and picked up the fork by the plate to poke at the yellow spheroidal mass of the eggs, spreading the half-done yolk all over the plate. Then, he took a piece of bread, broke it and swiped the smaller piece with the yolk.

“Ewww, that is so disgusting,” Ginny remarked, pulling her face

“This,” he said after he swallowed, “is the correct way to enjoy eggs and bread.”

“Ugh!” Ginny’s face crumpled at the sight of Draco having his breakfast. “Why do I have to be stuck in a place with you?” she lamented.

“You sounded as if I’d like to be stuck in the same place with you.”

“Most people would rather stick their face in a dragon’s arse than spend a moment with you!” she snapped at him.

“Well, you are spending the morning with me now,” he answered after a sip of tea. “Oh, and throw in last night too. Now go and stick your freckled face into a dragon’s arse while I am still here to witness it.”

"Ew, stop that! You are the most foul-mouthed and detestable person I've ever met!"

"Yeah, well,” he answered, unperturbed, “you forgot good looking. And charming, and talented and clever and handsome and I think I said the last one before, but it’s worth repeating the truth."

“Argh!” Ginny looked as if she was on the verge of pulling off all her hair. She glared at the blond boy opposite her and continued, "I have a very strong urge now to shove your face into and through a shredder. I thought you should know that."

"I don't care about your hobbies, Weasley. Just do it in your own time, and do it quietly," he answered and did a deliberately elaborated swipe of his bread in the yolk because it seemed to irritate her so much.

“You are absolutely horrid!” she snarled and started cutting her bacon with the knife in a way that looked as if she was sharpening it. “I cannot believe that for a moment last night, I thought you were at least a teeny weeny bit sincere about thanking me!”

Draco raised his eyebrow and leaned forward with his right elbow against the edge of the table.

“I was raised to be charming, not sincere, Weasley,” he said before he sat back again and pierce a piece of sausage with his fork. “You can forget about me ever thanking you, because now all thanks to you, I am lying in the bloody infirmary waiting to be bored to death. If anything, you should be the one thanking me. I got you out of the shed.”

“I don’t have to thank you for anything. You owed me that one,” she replied as she chewed on her bacon and pointed her fork at him. “If I knew this day would come, believe me, I would have left you to die in the toilet!”

“Sometimes, I wished you did too. Then I wouldn’t have to be here with you in the first place.”

Ginny snorted inelegantly. “You didn’t seem that smug when you were dying the other day.”

“Are you suggesting that I am afraid to die?” Draco asked as he bit on his toast. “Well, it's not that actually. I'm not afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens.”

Ginny laughed sardonically in return. “Bullshit, Malfoy. That is the same thing. Bet you are afraid of dying because you know you will end up in Hell.”

“You sound as if Hell was a bad place. Come on, obviously some people have to go to Hell. You don’t want to cause overcrowding in Heaven, do you? And if you and Potter and Co. are going to be there, I wouldn’t ever want to set foot in Heaven,” he answered.

“Good. At least that is something I can look forward to. A time when you will be completely out of my world. I will start praying to God that I will not see you when I go to Heaven.”

“So sure that you will end up in Heaven? Saint, aren’t you?” he said.

“Definitely not as wicked as you are, Malfoy,” she spat his name out.

“You know, wickedness is nothing but a myth invented by good people, for a lack of a better word, to account for the curious attractiveness of others.”

“Are you trying to tell me that you are attractive?” Ginny made an action as if to gag. “You are nowhere near attractive. In fact, you are such a cause for a sore eye I won’t even grace you with more than ten seconds of my attention span!”

“Ah,” he said, “but I did get the first ten seconds, didn’t I?”

“My foot!” she replied and fumbled over her words for a moment. “I bet the ten seconds were spent glaring at you and hoping that looks can kill because … because god knows I’ll be saving all the small defenceless animals you’ve been killing and decapitating as a hobby!”

“Oooo, I love defenceless animals. Especially when served with a nice plate of sizzling pepper sauce sprinkled with rosemary,” he answered with a wave of his fork. “Not that I expect you to appreciate the art of fine cuisines. Your family probably had trouble finding some tapioca to eat. Now, you reminded me of that baby rabbit in mushroom sauce I ate in …”

“You are sick,” she hissed and threw him a dirty look. “It’s people like you who’re messing up the world and killing innocent people at the expense of fulfilling your megalomania pure breed utopia.”

“Uh uh,” he replied and shook his head. “We are trailing into the realm of futile political debate. The bottom line is, the war doesn't determine who's right, just who's left,” he answered matter-of-factly. “The strongest shall rule and the weak shall serve. That is the way the world works. Deal with it.”

“Rubbish! If only I could wipe that stupid ideology of yours off the face of the earth, we would all be able to live in harmonious peace!”

“Listen, Weasley,” he said as he put down his fork. “Nobody in their right mind would want world peace because there is no such thing. Picture this, if we could just get everyone on this planet to close their eyes and visualize world peace for an hour, to imagine how serene and quiet everything is, I am sure we will all be in a paradise of bliss until somebody gets bored to death! Then we can all panic.”

"What a load of bullshit! It’s people like you who cause all the troubles we are having now. Think of all the troubles caused by you lot of selfish, evil dark wizards. Name one that isn't caused by the dark wizards."

"Witches?"

“Argh! You are impossible!” Ginny screeched and threw her pillow at Draco.

He took the whack straight in the face, smiling, feeling the warm satisfaction of a job well done.

“Thank you, thank you,” he said as if he had been addressing a Ministry election. “I’ll take that as a compliment, Weasley.”

“You think you are so smart with your stupid mouth when you are actually nothing! I’ll tell you, Malfoy, you are nothing but a shit load of - ”

“Tsk tsk tsk, you’ve got to stop indulging in your sanctimoniousness. You Gryffindors think that you are so perfect. Let me tell you this, people who think they're perfect are very annoying to those of us who really are.”

“Bastard.”

“Now, now, no need to get agitated,” he drawled, obviously enjoying the morning now. “Here, how about a piece of bread?” he said rather than asked and waved the piece of bread he had dipped in yolk.

~*~

They conducted their conversations as though one was standing on the tip of Mount Everest and the other person who was talking was on the coast of Pearl Harbour. Their loud squabble not only exemplified a measurable distance between them, geographically and communicatively; he was also sure that culture shock figured somewhere in the equation.

Blaise stood where he was, observing the duo’s bickering and chuckled softly under his breath. He did not know if the two were aware that their conversations were silly and somewhat entertaining to a bystander. Clearly, Draco wasn’t in need of his company, he thought. Still laughing softly under his breath, he stepped back slowly, careful not to give away his presence in the infirmary. Just as he was about to turn and leave the two at it, the infirmary door clicked open and a girl with bushy brown hair walked in.

She paused when she saw him, her eyes filled with suspicion, before she nodded and looked away. He found that gesture strangely intriguing and definitively rude, but he decided to let it go.

She cleared her throat once, still not looking at him, and that was when he realized that he was blocking her way. The front of the infirmary was narrow, not because it was built that way but because of all the old, discarded sheets and pillows Madam Pomfrey had stacked near the entrance. They tried to move out of each other’s way and it was awkward because all they managed to achieve was to block each other’s route in various new ways. Finally, Blaise could not suppress his silence anymore and spoke.

“Look, maybe we should both head out.”

She raised her head to look at him and she sounded cautious when she replied him.

“I’m here to see Ginny if you don’t mind.”

“She’s not awake yet,” he lied. When she glanced at him, her expression was doubtful. He explained, “I came to see Draco and they are both still in bed. Pomfrey says they will be up only at noon. Side-effects of the medication procedures.”

She tried to tip toe then, to look over his towering frame and steal a peek at the inside because she was sure that she could hear voices. But he shifted deliberately to block her view and she gave up, sighing. She looked at her watch, then back at the infirmary before giving the dark boy another suspicious look.

“Somewhere else to be, Granger?” he asked, genuinely curious.

She did have somewhere else to be. She was running late for her prefect meeting but she wanted to make sure that the younger girl was alright. Besides, she promised Ron that she would help check on his sister on his behalf because he was held back in a morning session of detention.

As if he had read her mind, Blaise said, “She’s fine. I’m sure it will be just the same to come back later when they are awake.”

Blaise had no idea why he was lying to Hermione about the two being asleep. It just seemed like a better idea than having her barged in and put a stop to the bickering inside. He was a boy who often worked on his instinct, and his instinct was telling him to get Hermione out of the infirmary. So he moved forward slightly and made as if to leave, which forced Hermione to back step out of the door.

Once outside, he turned and closed the door lightly. When he looked up, Hermione was already walking away. He watched the girl as she walked further and further away, and wondered why people were always so quick to judge members of the other Houses even before proper introductions. Shrugging inwardly, he pushed the musing aside and started off to the Great Hall for breakfast.

~*~

Hermione jogged down the staircase hurriedly, rushing round the corner in a desperate race of time. When she reached the classroom where the meeting was held, she paused to compose herself, thinking about how weird the meeting with Blaise was before she knocked on the door twice and entered.

She knew who he was. His name was Blaise Zabini, the Chaser on the Slytherin team. She saw him at the matches. He was in the same year and always seen around with Draco Malfoy. She heard that they were childhood friends. And no doubt they were. He sent off the same dangerous vibes, just as Draco Malfoy did. Pureblood wizards in the same league, she thought. Must be another in-breed moron, though perhaps not as irritating an in-breed moron as Draco Malfoy. In Hermione’s memory, she had never saw nor heard Blaise utter the same bigoted rubbish Draco was often vocal about. In fact, he never seemed to say anything at all. Not that she knew of anyway. Not that it mattered.

Nonetheless, that boy made her acutely uncomfortable. He might be dark, and tall, and handsome, but he was all that in an annoying sort of way and so she hoped, as she sat down at the table, that she would never had to encounter him again. Something at the back of her brain told that it would not be a good idea at all.

~*~

“Aw, come on, just eat the bloody piece of bread.”

“Stop that this instance!” she shrieked as she tried her best to push the boy’s hand away.

Draco sniggered. He was having the time of his life trying to shove the piece of bread, soaked with egg yolk, down Ginny Weasley’s throat. The sight of her crumpling face and desperate resistance was indeed invaluable. He was sure that if he could manage to get the bread in her mouth, she would present him with an expression so painful that it would never be forgotten. He would then immediately imprint the moment in his memory and made it a family joke to be passed down the succeeding generations of Malfoys. His ancestors would be proud of him, he thought. Another gold star for striking down a Weasley.

“Draco Malfoy, I’m warning you! Get AWAY FROM ME!” she screeched the last part, hitting a high pitch so sharp that Draco winced, feeling a nasty throbbing in his head.

“Stop screaming, and -- ARGH, what the fucking hell are you doing! Get off me!” he yelled when Ginny, in a fit of anger, sank her teeth into his wrist. His fingers snapped open wide from the pain and the soggy piece of bread dropped to the floor, forgotten. He frantically tried to shake her bite off his flesh, but Ginny was not going to let him off all that easily.

“Argh, argh, arghhhhhhh! Weasley, let go! You idiot!” he screamed.

Apparently, yelling and jerking his arm about was not the best way to shake Ginny off. The redhead had a death grip on his arm and bit even harder as he struggled.

“Ahhhh, help! Somebody HELP ME!” he yelled again as he tried to pull away. “Mad woman! Mad woman in here!”

“Who are you calling a mad woman?” she let go of him finally and asked, her eyes blazing. “I’m not the insane person trying to force a bread down someone’s throat in the first place!”

“Ugh,” he took a step back, shaking his arm. There were not one but several rows of teeth mark on his flesh, and they were steadily darkening in a rainbow of purple and red in varying shades. She had also managed to tear off a piece of his skin with her teeth that left the small flap of almost transparent skin hanging limply on his arm. Grimacing in pain, he snatched a wet towel off the bedside table and pressed it over his wounds.

Ginny, on the other hand, did not look the least bit sorry for what she had done. Instead, she was feeling a strong sense of achievement that usually only comes when one were to be given an opportunity to receive an award for outstanding public service. As far as she was concerned, biting and ridding the world of the young Malfoy was as close as a public service could get. She never knew that hurting someone could feel so darn satisfying. Perhaps, being a Slytherin was not all that bad, especially if it meant biting Draco Malfoy to death for the rest of the century. If only she could just be allowed to do that, she would die a happy girl.

Draco bit his lip as he tried to will the pain to subside. His head snapped up, and he clenched his fist in rage, glaring at the redhead before spitting out his words.

“Bitch!”

Ginny looked wrathful at the greeting.

“Who are you calling a bitch? Bastard!”

“Shut up or I swear I will – ”

“You will what?” Ginny retorted, but was cut off when Draco made a sudden lunge at her, aiming for a hold of her throat. She clipped her arms together and struggled, trying hard to block and shove off Draco’s attack.

“What are you -- ! Stop it!” she screamed and scattered backwards in her bed.

Draco’s face was flushed from fiery and he cursed at her, looking completely mad. He tumbled back a little when she gave him a hard shove but was determined to get back at her for biting him. She might have saved his life once, but he had returned that favour when he helped her out of the shed, so everything was fair and square now. They could go back to hating each other properly.

But events had a strange way of working themselves out.

He took a quick step forward, prepared to strangle the Weasley girl to death when he stepped on the soggy piece of bread he had dropped on the floor.

And slipped.

Ginny gasped as she watched him fall forward towards her. Momentarily, she did not feel like she could move or duck and there was no time for that anyway. Later, she wished so very much that she would have at least tried shifting an inch because even the slightest change in angle might have prevented what was going to happen.

He knocked right into Ginny and landed in her bed, stretched out on top of her body. His face looking down at hers. His lips on her lips.

Draco’s eyes widen as he realized what had happened. His natural instinct would be to spring off of her and proceed to disinfect his mouth with multiple brands of detergent and detoxicating agents. But natural instinct seemed to have run away from home at that moment. It was as if they had barged into another world together, a world that blocked out the current one and nothing made sense anymore. All that made sense was the spark he felt, the slight shiver down the spine, the quickening heartbeat He did not move, could not move. And she did not move either. As if his organs had a mind of their own, he pressed his lips on hers, just for a split second, as he wondered how it would be like to kiss Ginny Weasley. Why was he wondering about that, he could not fathom. Maybe he thought that would be the ultimate way to piss her off. Which was reasonable to a certain extent, if that was what he really meant to do.

Ginny stared at him, eyes wide with shock and at a loss of what to do. Push him off! she told herself but the mind had a way of making their own decision. She remained completely still and she let him kissed her. Not that it could be considered as a proper kiss per se. It was really just a peck, but all the same, it had the unexpected effect of making her confused and incapable of reacting in the appropriate fashion immediately. She should shove him off and slap him. Failing to respond in the manner that she thought she would make her panic. Frustrated to the point of tears, she squeezed her eyes shut, taking in a shuddering breath before she could gather all her strength to react the way she wanted to. She placed both her hands on his chest, her mind resolute, and gave him a hard push.

He snapped out of his outlandish moment when they lost their lips contact. He fell back and tripped over his foot, falling hard against the next bed, his shoulder hitting the metal rail of the bed with a loud thump.

She gasped again, and covered her mouth with her hand, appalled to see that she had pushed him a little harder than she had intended. She watched him as he flinched and groaned in pain, struggling to get up. For a second, she leaned over her bed and made as if to help him but she hesitated and then retracted that thought. Sitting on her bed, she shut her eyes as a sense of nausea overcame her and she physically retched without meaning to.

Draco looked scandalized. His eyes darted to one side and with one hand rubbing his sore shoulder, he slowly stood up and leaned against the bed. At the moment, he pretended to be very interested in rubbing his shoulder into dust, as if the amount of dust generated, if any, would form a screen smoky enough to blur out what had just happened.

Ginny continued to look miserable, which would have elated Draco if he had been aiming at achieving that. Well, he had been aiming towards making her miserable, but certainly not in the way that it had just taken place. Nervously, he cleared his throat loudly to break the uncomfortable silence that was fast stretching too long for his comfort.

She looked up at him, her expression dilemmatic at first. Then the confusion was wiped off her face, and was replaced with a look of utter disgust.

“Get lost!” she spat at him, her eyes narrowed with anger.

“Why? Did that get to you successfully?” Draco answered nastily, picking up the Slytherin momentum again.

“GET OUT!” she screamed at him.

For reasons that he would never understand, he obliged. Without a word, he strode off and it was not until he reached the door that he turned back and told her.

“This is my infirmary as much as it’s yours,” he said loudly, still in the spiteful tone. “I’m leaving now only because I can’t stand the sight of you. Just so you know.” And with that, he turned again and walked out of the infirmary.

~*~

Draco walked down the hallway, still rubbing the ache in his shoulder and grimaced. Why the hell did he do that? He had to ask himself. He should have removed himself immediately, he thought. Feeling utterly downcast, he shuffled along the corridor for a while before leaning his forehead on the wall, knocking against it twice. If there were any means to tunnel into the ground, he would do it without a second hesitation and make sure to cement the surface so that he would never have to face the world again.

That was the part that he could not understand. Why was he feeling embarrassed over something as trivial as this? It was just an accident. It was not even a great deal. But it was not only the embarrassment. There was something else, something he could not put his finger on. The closest he had come to understanding it was to compare it to the way he thought he would feel if the Falmouth Falcons were to decide to drop out of the Qudditch League without his consent: feelings of utmost misery, bitter loss and unexplainable betrayal. Which did not make sense at all. Shouldn’t he be gloating now that he had managed to get to her in such an ingenious manner? No, it wasn’t planned that way. Though that was the only ironic consolation -- that he should have had gotten to her all the same. And he supposed whichever way it was, the end justified the means, even when the means was not intended.

Turning around again, he wanted to go to the Great Hall, be in some crowd, engage in some interesting conversation that would take his mind off the frightful feeling he was having. But that was before he realized that he was still in his flannel pyjamas. Cursing under his breath, he loitered along the deserted corridor before he decided that he had no other choice but to head back to the infirmary, especially since he thought Madam Pomfrey might be expecting to see him there when she got back. Dragging his feet, he forced himself to walk back to the infirmary despite just being out of the place for barely a while, or at least it felt that way.

He tried to eradicate that terrible feeling of guilt, in which laid another set of dreadfulness of an entirely different nature. It was awful really. Since when did he grow an extra set of conscience? It was starting to make him anxious. He wasn’t supposed to have any conscience, and if anything he should be glad that Ginny Weasley was feeling miserable now. He tried to search within himself for the usual disdain he had towards her but all he got was a running sense of confusion. Why did he return to help her anyway? It was such a good opportunity to leave her there, make her go through the stillness of the night alone or perhaps even set some wild snakes into the shed to spice things up a little. But he did not do any of that. And he did not know why. That was the devil of it.

He paused at the door for a while before he braved forward, striding into the room, making sure that his footsteps were loud and clear, announcing his re-entrance as if to prove a point. But if he had previously been worried about the prospect of seeing Ginny Weasley after their bizarre interlude, his fear was found to be quite unnecessary. Her bed was empty and she was nowhere to be seen in the infirmary.

Madam Pomfrey raised her head when she saw the Slytherin boy.

“Where have you been?” she asked sharply, her hands at her waist, looking threatening in every way in her capacity as the school nurse.

Draco did not answer her. He was still glancing at the empty bed, puzzled. Surely he would have seen her leave when she left the darn place. But then again, he mused, he did not see Madam Pomfrey coming back to the infirmary either. They both must have used the other hallway that linked to the infirmary.

The nurse frowned when her question was ignored.

“Ginny Weasley has been discharged earlier,” she said. “Now if you would just stay in your bed and not move around anymore, I would be able to attend to you shortly and you would be discharged if I were to find your recovery satisfactory. So why don’t you move along to your bed now, Mr Malfoy?”

~*~

Lucius Malfoy had his own idea on how this world functioned. And that idea he never failed to impose upon his only son. Right from his conception, Draco had been listening to all the preaching about power, and triumph of those who knew to seize an opportunity when they see it. Lucius, it seemed, held an advanced view that proper education should start right from the beginning and for all the good it did, he repeated the same speeches every night to his wife’s blooming stomach.

It seemed to work though. Draco did grow up to be a very calculative person. Like his father, he believed in the strength that came with power, as it were, and saw the importance of being a proper wizard who knew what was good for him. What was not good enough could be dispensed without regard. The world was divided in that way, his father always said, in a way that housed two camps and you were either on one side or the other and Draco was born to be on the powerful side. There would be great things destined for him if he knew the way to get there. And if that meant that he had to be what other people called it, evil, then so be it. At the very end of it all, evil was just an adjective. It did not have any meaning at all, and if it ever bothered him, he supposed he could always give it a new name and call it Catherine.

So Draco grew up in this way, where he was told to be evil because that was the way to gain power and so forth. It was a very straightforward formula for young Draco, and he believed so very strongly in it because he had listened to it all his life.

The only problem was -- Draco’s formulaic evil, as he called it, had always fallen short of its authenticity. Evil, to him, functioned in such a way that would make the Dark Lord cringe: Spot target, throw cruel words, bully by setting the target up and generally make their lives miserable until they professed ‘all hail Draco Malfoy’. Which explained why he never was exceedingly good at being evil. You can see it in the activities he engaged in. His idea of evil was to throw insults at poor unfortunate soul in moving train carriages, mock at the state of people’s teeth, write in regularly to the gossip column and throw a few jelly-legs hexes because you know, jelly-legs hexes are so evil. Just like how he seemed to think that shoving bread soaked in egg yolk down someone’s throat would be such an evil deed to do.

~*~

The next time they met, it was about detention.

Thus far, she had managed not to appear within three miles radius of a pole or anywhere near Draco Malfoy after that incident. Never would she have expected to receive the detention note two days after the last incident. Well, maybe she should have expected that but she was hoping it would not come to that. Apparently, Madam Pomfrey had reported their case to their Heads of Houses and now they would have to pay for it. To be fair though, she was the one who let slipped that they had been hexing each other and that the wound at the end of her skull was the result of it. She remembered the nurse pursing her lips disapprovingly, but she had never expected the nurse to report them. Had they not paid for their expedition by suffering the aftermath of it? In her opinion, she had paid much more than necessary for it. That mishap in the infirmary, she would never be able to forget it.

She was on her way to Professor McGonagall’s office to receive instructions for her detention. She sulked and grumbled under her breath and wondered why bad things seemed to all happen at the same time. As if what happened hadn’t been enough, honestly!

Knocking on the Professor’s door, she prayed hard that the other boy would not be around and that they would not be set together for the detention.

“Come in,” the professor’s voice rang.

Taking a deep breath, she turned the knob and entered.

And knew that some things were just too good to be true.

There he was, the very same Draco Malfoy, looking tall, impeccable, and still very blond. The very same who had helped her out of the shed, the very same who had stood against her every beliefs and the very same who had fallen and landed his lips on hers.

He raised his head then, took a look at her, and turned his head away without so much as an acknowledgement.

Ginny, on her part, granted the blond boy a long glare, and if looks could kill, he would be dead and resurrected and still dead many times over. Beside the Slytherin boy was his Head of House, dressed in his usual flowing black robe that never failed to remind Ginny of a very big and very spacious garbage bag. Professor Snape cut his eyes sideway at her and smirked, looking smug at the prospect of witnessing the sentencing of a Gryffindor. Someone should probably remind him that his favourite student was there to be prosecuted too, she thought.

She took another step in and closed the door behind her carefully. Turning back, she greeted her own Head of House.

“Good day, Professor McGonagall,” she said, giving the lady a polite smile before turning to Professor Snape. “And good day to you too, Professor.”

“Well,” Professor Snape drawled, “I suppose today is as good a day as any, wouldn’t you agree, Miss Weasley?” He had his hands clasped together at first before loosening them and twirling his fingers, looking every bit like a cunning old fox. “Now, Minerva, what shall we do with them?”

“Dueling outside of class is absolutely unacceptable in this school,” she replied, giving both students a stern look. “And dueling outside curfew is certainly not tolerated.”

“Of course, not to mention,” Snape added, “that Miss Weasley had managed to inflict bodily harm on another student – ”

“I beg your pardon, Severus,” Professor McGonagall cut in. “From what I understand from the school nurse, the account has it that they were both hurt from this incident. Surely, you would not place blame on one without placing blame on the other.”

“Oh, no, no, that’s not what I meant of course,” Professor Snape answered, keeping his tone civil. “I supposed Mr. Malfoy was at fault too, to a certain extent but – ”

“And he committed damage to school properties too,” McGonagall cut in again. “The door knob, I recalled, was ripped off by – ”

“The knob fell off by itself, Professor.”

Professor McGonagall gave the blond boy a hard look

“Very well,” she finally said when she spoke. “I think detention is in order, Severus?”

The potion master nodded curtly without further comments.

Professor McGonagall nodded in return and went back to the parchments she had on her table.

Pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose, she looked up over at the two students and said, “You will attend detention together tomorrow evening at the Great Hall, after dinner. I will be expecting to see the place cleared and scrubbed clean by nine-thirty. Without magic.” She sighed and added, “Goodness knows the house elves could do with some time off.”

Draco looked as if his eyeballs were about to popped out. Ginny had half the heart to walk over with her palms open to catch them when they fell. Except she was not feeling in a good mood to gloat either. Admittedly, she had done her fair share of cleaning at home but the Burrow was nowhere comparable to Hogwarts. And if she had thought that it was bad enough to clear up a house with about nine diners, she did not want to imagine how it would be like to clear up a great dining hall that accommodated over a few hundred students. Worst of all, she did not think Draco Malfoy would be that much of a helper at all.

~*~

Cleaning up the Great Hall after dinner? What the fuck?

The line echoed in Draco’s head. He continued cursing and talking to himself as he walked back to the Slytherin dungeon. He had gotten quite a telling off by his own Head of House, which spoke pretty much seeing as he was the Professor’s favourite student. Grumpy and weary, he leaned against the dungeon wall as he murmured the password to his dormitory.

“Slytherin Pride.”

The picture frame swung open to reveal the students inside. Pansy, Millicent, Crabbe and Goyle were in a tight circle near the fireplace doing god-knows-what and he certainly wasn’t interested to find out. He had been glad when Crabbe and Goyle decided to stop stalking him around like a pair of very unattractive display ornaments and get some lives of their own, though Draco did not particularly agree with their choice of hobby. Cooking and baking were in no way appropriate for a man. But to each his own, he shrugged it off. In terms of shelf display, he was sure that he and Blaise formed a more appealing duo and would certainly made very good representatives of their House in terms of physical appeal. Moreover, he and Blaise had been childhood friends and his company would win over Crabbe and Goyle’s any day. Looking at the way the two goons were sniggering now, Draco could certainly see why Blaise had plainly refused to be seen with him when the two were trailing his steps. It certainly sucked out a lot from the otherwise handsome picture they would present.

He stepped in the dungeon and headed straight to his room. Blaise was inside, laying on his bed with his copy of Unveil Your Inner Psychic Today – by Gonerill Gordon. Blaise looked up when Draco walked in, and he did not speak at first. The dark boy waited for Draco to pace around the room for a moment to work off the ire before he finally put his book aside and sat up.

… five … four … three … two … one.

As expected, Draco suddenly stopped pacing and turned to his friend.

“They are making me clean the Great Hall after dinner!”

If Draco had been expecting from Blaise sympathy of any sorts, he was duly disappointed. Slytherins rarely sympathized and Blaise was no exception. Not to mention, it was not anything worth sympathizing. The boy had burst out laughing at first, conjuring up a mental picture of Draco working in the Great Hall like a house elf, clearing his plates. Then he rolled to his side gingerly as he tried to muffle his laughter against his blanket but his shoulders were shaking so much that his amusement was difficult to conceal.

“Bloody hell,” Draco swore and sat down on his own bed, which was beside Blaise’s.

“Oh, heavens above, Draco Malfoy is going to clean the Great Hall!” Blaise announced to the ceiling and suffered a smack on the face from the Potions textbook Draco sent flying across the space between them.

“Ouch!” he yelled but still chuckling. “But really, Draco, oh my fucking god. I can sell tickets for your detention. It’s a historicaaa – AHH!!!” He was cut off as a windstorm of books and shoes were Banished by Draco, hitting him all over. “Okay, okay, stop now, please,” he laughed until he fell weak on his bed, uninterested in ducking the flying objects. “Anyway,” he said, “you got to clean up all by your own or is the Weaslet going to be with you?”

“Yes, that’s the worst part. I’ve got to do this detention with her,” Draco answered, snarling.

“You didn’t seem to mind her all that much in the infirmary,” Blaise mused.

Draco jumped. What did Blaise just say? But it couldn’t be. Blaise couldn’t have seen …

“I went to see you in the morning,” Blaise went on and wrinkled his brows, noting the change in Draco’s expression. “You two were bickering like old married couple.”

“Old married couple?” Draco positively retched. “We were arguing for god’s sake.”

“Well, arguing is all part of being – ”

“I can’t believe you have that idea – ”

“You won’t believe the amount of sexual tension I felt radiating from you two, just by standing there watching the two of you.”

“What? Sexual tension?” Draco’s face was screwed up in disgust.

“Yeah,” Blaise answered, unaffected. “’Cos you know, all that arguments are part of getting to know each other better. If you weren’t interested, I’m sure you wouldn’t even bother saying anything at all.”

“That’s not true,” Draco retorted. “I can’t sit there and let her – ”

“It’s like how I used to pull at Pansy’s ponytail every time we play at your place,” Blaise reasoned. “I had a crush on her then, and I couldn’t help but want to irritate her. Now I know better. You don’t get the girls that way.”

“No, that is different – ”

“Nah, no need to explain yourself,” Blaise waved him off. “That’s my conclusion and I’m sticking to it. Let’s just wait and see if I’m right,” he said. “And you know I’m always right.”

“Why?” Draco argued. “Just because you are reading that copy of rubbish? Unveil your inner psychic indeed. I think it’d rather unveil your inner insanity.”

“Whatever you say,” Blaise chimed. “Whatever you say.”

~*~

“I can’t believe I’m going to have to clean the Great Hall with him!”

Hermione looked at the distressed redhead, feeling warmly sympathetic.

“Oh, Ginny, I’m know it’s awful but look at it this way,” Hermione said and attempted to comfort the younger girl. “It’s just one detention. And you get to see him clean! Draco Malfoy is clearing people’s dishes!”

Ginny could not help but break a smile at that. That much was true. It would be a once in a lifetime opportunity to witness the great heir of the Malfoy family do what they deemed the servants’ job. The thought of how much this would torment him was more than enough to compensate for the pain she felt at having to suffer alongside with him. Maybe she could even taunt him a bit, make him feel even more miserable or something.

Hermione smiled and patted Ginny’s hand fondly, every bit the big sister she was to her since they met.

“Now,” Hermione said, “maybe you should rest early. You would need that for tomorrow. The Great Hall! I never thought Professor McGonagall would be so harsh.”

“I know,” Ginny sighed, looking down at her hands. “God only knows what more would be in store for me. Everything is just going so wrong. Sometimes I feel like I am jinxed or something.”

“I’m sure you aren’t,” Hermione replied comfortingly.

“I hope so,” Ginny replied. “Because if anything bad should happen, Draco Malfoy should be the first person to get it. I bet his bad karma must be piling up as high as the Gryffindor Tower.”

Hermione nodded, agreeing to every word Ginny had said.

“I’m sure that things would go well for you,” Hermione said to her and smiled, “As for him, what is it that people always say? Oh, what goes around comes around. He will taste a dose of his own medicine one day.”

~*~

“What goes around and comes around usually gets dizzy and falls over,” Draco replied the redhead standing opposite him.

“Your attempt to be witty is exceedingly pathetic, Malfoy,” she said.

They were at it again, arguing the moment they saw each other. They had eaten their dinner quickly and left to wait outside the Great Hall for their instructions. Professor McGonagall had left instructions to the kitchen house elves to bring them the necessary equipment to do their Muggle-style cleaning. They were to wait outside the Great Hall until all the students had filed out before they could start cleaning and they were expected to finish in two hours.

They stood leaning against the walls at opposite ends, glaring at each other disdainfully through the shifting gaps among the clusters of students. Ron and Harry walked passed and paused at Ginny’s side.

“Hey, Gin,” Harry said and gave her a small smile, seeming to show his empathy for her situation. She smiled back at him before turning to her brother who had started speaking to her.

“You going to be alright?” her brother asked.

“I’m going to have to be alright, haven’t I?” she replied in a foul mood. “But don’t worry,” she continued, “I’ll fare better than that slime ball of a ferret,” she said as she narrowed her eyes at Draco.

Draco, at the other end of the door, could not hear the conversation going on with the three, but he caught the exchange between Harry and Ginny and had promptly snorted in disgust. He tried to look elsewhere instead of looking at the three Gryffindors but found it to be difficult. He wanted to know what they were saying, though by the look of Ginny Weasley shooting him a death glare, he bet they weren’t exchanging recipes. Feeling irritated, he started tapping his foot on the stone-paved corridor, trying to act nonchalant.

“Way to go,” Ron had replied, giving his sister a light pat on the shoulder. “But,” he continued, “I really don’t like the idea of you being alone with that slimy git.”

“Oh, believe me when I say I’m not looking forward to it particularly either,” she said and rolled her eyes.

“Just … be careful, alright?” Ron said, concerned.

Ginny’s eyes softened at the concern showered on her. She smiled and gave her brother a small hug. “I’ll be fine,” she said softly.

Ron smiled, and Harry, who was standing at one side witnessing the picture of familial exchanges, could not help but smiled too.

“I’ll come around to pick you up later,” Ron told her sister. When she looked miffed, he put up a hand to stop her retort. “It’s going to be quite late when you’re done, so I’m going to have to come pick you up. No arguments.”

Ginny slumped, but was nonetheless pleased at her brother’s concern. “Alright then,” she answered and smiled. “Better than walking back alone. I can do with some chatting company.”

“I’ll see you later then,” her brother answered as he started to walk.

“See you,” Harry smiled and waved.

Ginny waved at the two of them, feeling a sense of blissful contentment, but only for a little while. When she turned back, she found Draco, unsurprisingly, staring at her.

“Done with the sappy family episode?” he said loudly.

Ginny scoffed and ignored him, which gave him much displeasure. Draco did not like being ignored.

“Still in love with Potteritis, aren’t you?” he continued to provoke. “That is so pathetic.”

Ginny’s eyes cut at him coldly as she ground her teeth. Draco saw the anger rising in the younger girl as she clenched her small fists at her side, and it gave him a perverse sense of delight. It made him feel like the sole reason of his existence was to agitate Ginny Weasley. He smirked before he commented again.

“Hit a nerve, haven’t I?”

“Not at all,” she answered through her teeth.

“Tsk tsk tsk,” Draco responded. “How long has it been?” he asked and made as if to count with his fingers. “Five, six years? Oh my, that is long. Unrequited all these years, must be painful, I’ll bet.”

“I do not still like Harry!” she answered loudly.

“You don’t?” Draco asked, raising an eyebrow in doubt.

“I don’t see why it is your business, Malfoy.”

“Well,” Draco was caught speechless for a second, “it is my business, of course …” he insisted.

“And why is that so? Unless you are interested in Harry, or I don’t see why …”

“Me, interested in Potter?” Draco repeated, appalled. He made as if to puke before he straightened up. “I have taste, Weasley.”

“Oh, really? I wouldn’t put my money on your taste.”

“Well, you really wouldn’t know me well enough to know my taste.”

“Believe me, Malfoy. I don’t ever want to know you at all!”

“And you think I want to know you? Don’t think so much of yourself.”

“I don’t!”

“Don’t think much of yourself? Esteem problems somewhere?”

“Just shut up!”

Draco opened his mouth to reply but was cut off when Blaise stepped between them. There was a look of amusement on Blaise’s face as he put his closed fist at his mouth and gave a few slight cough before speaking.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Blaise said to no one in particular. Turning to Draco, he gave the blond boy a light slap on the arm and said, “Good luck. And … enjoy.” He finished and smiled playfully, walking away quickly before his friend could inflict any physical harm to him. Blaise turned around at a distance, and gave the two a feeble wave before putting two fingers at his temple and giving them a mock salute.

“God damn you!” Draco and Ginny both swore at Blaise at the same time, their combined volume echoed their words in great volume across the hallway.

Blaise raised his eyebrows, looking completely amused at the shared outrage. Draco and Ginny turned to stare at each other in shock, their mouth gaping, and their faces flushing with slight embarrassment that they should have agreed on something in public, and in the same words at that. Blaise looked at them from where he stood just as Hermione stepped out of the Great Hall.

Hermione paused in her steps when she felt the unusual sense of tension in the air, as if she had just walk through a security ward. She looked from Ginny to Draco, quizzical at their expressions and silence. Then she looked up straight and saw Blaise, who was also looking back at Draco and Ginny. Their eyes met for a moment and Blaise winked at her. She stared at him as he turned swiftly to leave. Surely her eyes were playing tricks on her. Did he just wink at her?

She turned to Ginny, shaking the thought out of her head.

“You alright?” she asked the redhead.

“Yes, of course!” Ginny answered, her voice a pitch higher than she had intended.

Hermione nodded slightly and held the other girl’s hand for a while. “Be careful,” she told Ginny before she started on her heels and left.

~*~

The beginning of it was not as bad as she had thought. The house elves had been kind and had given them each a moving trolley with two compartments, one to dispose of leftover food and another to put the utensils in. They had also given them each a pair of gloves so that they did not have to dirty their hands.

At first, a small group of house elves lingered and stood at the corner of the Great Hall, watching them mournfully, as if they had been robbed of their exclusive privileges. Ginny felt extraordinarily awkward at their reactions and she could see that Draco felt equally uneasy. But she betted it was more of the unease of being in a servant domain more so than anything else in his case.

They had each taken one side of the Great Hall: Ginny taking charge of the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables and Draco taking charge of the Slytherin and the Ravenclaw tables. They worked quietly as they cleared up all the dishes, which had surprised Ginny. She had half expected them to hurl plates at each other, to create a wave of flying saucers in the air and turning the Great Hall into one great extraterrestrial demonstration. But their previous argument had just died down and evaporated away without a trace. Perhaps, that was a good thing because she thought flying plates would not go very well with the house elves. They probably would get upset over broken dishes, as she had seen their grave expressions when Draco broke the first one or two plates he was clearing. Other than that, Ginny thought that he was doing quite well, mainly because it was really easy.

When they finished collecting the dirty dishes, the house elves merrily thanked them and trotted off with the trolleys. Ginny was quietly glad that they were not expected to wash the dishes. After a short wait, four of them returned with two buckets of soapy water and two cleaning rags. And they went on to wipe the tables and benches clean, first with the soapy water, then with another fresh pail of water. She looked up once in a while to see what Draco was doing, and she noted with amusement that he had taken off his school tie and black robe, and had also unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled up his sleeves, looking in every way as harried as he had ever been.

After they were done with cleaning the tables and benches, the house elves fetched them two brooms, and two mops in a bucket of water and they started their work without a minute hesitation. They both wanted to get it over and done with so that they could return early and clean themselves up. Eventually, everything was done and the house elves seemed pleased with the clean dining hall.

“Mr Malfoy and Miss Weasley is doing good with cleaning!” the house elf at the head of the group nodded approvingly.

Ginny blushed slightly at the compliment whereas Draco only scoffed under his breath.

“Dinky never think Hogwarts students can do cleaning but they can!” another house elf proclaimed excitedly, pointing at the tables and benches.

“Yes, yes, they can. Hogwarts students is clever after all,” the first house elf nodded again. “Miss Weasley and Mr Malfoy has do cleaning for us and we house elves is thanking you. What can we do for you?”

“Oh, bloody hell, get McGonagall here so that we can all just scram,” Draco said, feeling tired and irritable.

The house elves looked taken aback at his reply and Ginny cut her eyes sideways at him disapprovingly.

“They are just being nice!” she reprimanded him.

“Yeah,” he replied sarcastically. “So nice.”

Ginny rolled her eyes at him before turning to the house elves, looking apologetic.

“We has been sending Bubbles to Professor McGonagall. She is doing work but should be coming fast. But,” the house elf said, “maybe we can get Mr Malfoy and Miss Weasley some food to eat? Something to drink? Supper?”

Draco seemed to welcome that idea. She saw a different light in his eyes when food was mentioned. Sitting down at the nearest table, he nodded at the house elf.

“Yes, food. Now,” he said. “And coffee.”

The house elf looked elated at the prospect of having something to do at last. It turned to Ginny, its eyes blinking wide.

“Miss Weasley?”

“Er,” Ginny hesitated, “well, I’ll eat something too, I guess. Since there’s nothing to do anyway.”

The house elves grinned at the two of them before scampering off in a mass of frenzy. They came back with bread and some soup, biscuits and cakes and a pot of tea and coffee each.

Because the house elves had laid the food on the same table, Ginny had no choice but to sit with Draco to eat. He did not seem to mind too much, or at least he did not object to her sitting down with him at the same table. She sat down opposite him and took one of the plates first since Draco was preoccupied with preparing his coffee. She took some biscuits off the plate and pushed the plate towards Draco, showing that the rest were his and he took it without a word. When he was finished with one biscuit, he reached for the bread and the soup. Instinctively, he also took the second bowl of soup and placed it in front of Ginny. She looked up in surprise, but he did not seem to have notice anything wrong.

Ginny pulled the bowl of soup towards her with a little nod but Draco did not seem to acknowledge it at all. Feeling uncomfortable with the silence, yet not knowing what to say, she lowered her face at the bowl, only looking up a few times. She had noticed, during their brief shared moment that Draco had very good table manners. His elbows were constantly off of the table and he sat in such a straight manner that made her wonder if his back would snap when he finally stood up. He also had a very discreet way of chewing his food, unlike her brothers who were all prone to shoving their food into their mouth in big portions so much so that both sides of their cheeks puffed up like a squirrel. Draco did not do that. He ate in small servings and the way he put his food into his mouth was so subtle that she almost did not see him open it.

He looked up suddenly and raised an eyebrow at her. She flushed and quickly lowered her head again to finish her soup.

“Why are you looking at me?” he asked with a hint of exhaustion, not sounding all that interested with her answer.

She looked up, taking a piece of serviette to wipe her mouth. “I’m not looking at you.”

“Yes, you are.”

“Well, there’s no one else to look at anyway. I can’t keep staring at the table top,” she reasoned.

“I seem to recall that you said you won’t even spare me ten seconds of your attention span,” he smirked. “That was more than ten second, I wager.”

“Egomaniac.”

“But you were looking at me, weren’t you?” he said, looking smug.

“Only because you are hogging the tea pot!” she replied, point at the pot of tea near Draco.

“I’m not even drinking tea,” he answered offhandedly, and took the pot, putting it on the middle of the table.

Ginny reached for the pot, glad that the conversation was closing and poured herself a fresh cup of tea.

They sat in silence for a while to wait for the professor, who came slightly after they had finished the supper. She gave the two students a nod of acknowledgement and dismissed them to go back to their dormitory.

“I believe your brother is waiting for you,” Professor McGonagall told Ginny.

She smiled back at her professor then, when Draco had already walked out of the Great Hall. She followed after him and saw her brother staring at the blond boy.

Ron turned away from Draco when he sensed his sister’s presence.

“You ready to go?” he asked her.

Ginny nodded and quickly went to her brother side, tugging his hand, beckoning him to walk back to the Gryffindor Tower. Her brother followed her as she started to walk and after a few steps, she had turned back to look but Draco was gone.

~*~

Author’s Notes:

Ah, I forgot to thank my betas in the last chapter. *poke eyes out*

Many many thanks to plotbeta!silverfangs and britpicker!Laucia Siandel.

I hope you like this chapter too. Reviews are always welcome because writers honestly do strive on reviews. ^__^

Draco of Athens from 620 B.C. is believed to be a real person and is historically accurate, as far as I know. I made up his whole name though. I read about him in Philosophy class and thought it funny, so I wrote him into this story as part of the fictional Malfoy history. As far as accuracy goes, Draco of Athens did encode the distinction in different sorts of murders to put an end to the practice of "you killed one of ours, we kill one of yours".

This chapter again included a plot done in torpg. It's the part where Draco and Ginny are trapped in the shed. I rewrote most of it though, to fit it into the context of the fic but some lines are still Rachael's. So credits to her as well.

"It's not that I'm afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens."

-- Woody Allen, Without Feathers

"Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of others."

-- Oscar Wilde, Phrases and Philosophy for the Use of the Young

"What comes around, and goes around usually gets dizzy and falls over."

-- from somewhere, I wager.

"I was raised to be charming, not sincere."

-- From "Into The Woods"

3. Benefit of the Doubt

Chapter Three

Benefit of the Doubt

While their last encounter had left Ginny wondering if she should perhaps alter her perception of the Malfoy boy a little, for he had after all helped her out of the shed, and had been, by his standards, civil during their shared supper, he had on the other hand taken care that it was a matter rendered impossible. The very next day saw the immediate return to his impossibly snotty, detestable disposition, magnified by at least tenfold, and after a particularly ugly scene at the Quidditch pitch where the Gryffindors and the Slytherins had nearly fought over the training ground, Ginny was resolved that she must have suffered temporary insanity to have once considered the notion that Draco Malfoy could, in any way, be tolerable.

And indeed, any inclination on Ginny’s part to revise her impression of Draco was gone when the latter marched on the pitch with his team-mates that evening and demanded that the Gryffindor team switch their scheduled training with Slytherin, just because one of his new chasers could not make it any other day due to detentions. To expect Malfoy to be polite in his request would be madness, but the utter lack of civility on his part, and the provocative manner in which he had waved the note of authorization from his Head of House in front of Harry’s face (the new captain for Gryffindor), had made the situation nothing short of a confrontation of epic proportions. Harry had been incensed and had every right to be, and Ginny was none too surprised when her brother lunged at Draco in an attempt to pluck his obnoxious smirk right out of his face with his whole head attached. Harry had grabbed Ron by the elbow and tugged him back, much to everyone’s relief. The atmosphere at the training ground, however, continued to thicken as the tension soared, radiating an aura of something that was archetypically masculine.

“What is it? Scared of getting into trouble, Potter?” Draco continued to taunt, his face turning into a wicked sneer.

“Not so much afraid of getting into trouble,” Harry replied, his eyes narrowing at the Draco. “I just don’t think you are worth getting into trouble for.”

Draco whitened: slightly thrown off, and angry at the demeaning implication of his worth. Caught without any retort to shoot back at the Boy Who Lived, the silence stretched on. Blaise was beginning to worry that any misjudgement on his captain’s part might land the entire team in trouble, and for one who had already served one detention within the first month of school, any discipline-related trouble should be steered clear of, especially when Draco was also a prefect, of all things. To his distress however, Crabbe and Goyle had chosen to be the morons he knew they were, and went up to Draco’s side, posing like a pair of marble pillars, encouraging further the fight that was likely to ensue. It left Blaise with no choice other than to walk up as well and stayed close behind Draco as well, but he had none of the same purpose as Crabbe and Goyle.

Ron looked pleased with a tongue-tied Malfoy. The corner of his mouth curved as he folded his arms, his broom tucked at the hollow of his elbow, his nose sticking a little higher in the air than it usually did.

“What is it, Malfoy? Cat got your tongue?”

Crabbe and Goyle growled and glared at Ron, but the Gryffindor stood his ground. He took a step forward to meet the two, who took a step towards him as well, and he stared down at them as if daring them to start a fight, causing the tension in the air to momentarily spiral to a peak.

Ginny was, for a moment, worried that a fight was going to break out and though she was no novice to the scene of boys tumbling over one another trying to knock the other’s teeth out, she was not entirely sure she wanted that to happen in such a public domain. But it seemed inevitable, and she knew well enough that there was something in males that is so stupid and so unreconstructed but powerful nonetheless that simply refused to tolerate anything that might be construed as weakness.

She was therefore glad when Blaise Zabini, unable to restrain his interference any longer, pulled the two goons by the back of their robes, each by one hand, and held them back.

“That’s quite enough,” Blaise said in a tone that allowed for no objection, just loud enough to not be overheard.

Draco turned sharply to face Blaise, who in turn gave him a warning look. For a moment, Blaise was almost afraid that Draco would ignore him, but at long last, the captain turned to the Gryffindor captain, and with a resolute countenance, repeated Professor Snape’s instruction that Slytherin would have the pitch now and declared the matter closed for discussion. Harry, left with no other choice if he were to prevent bloodshed, or worse, a possible suspension from the tournament for fighting, promptly ordered his team to follow him. The Gryffindor training was then taken to the lake as Harry would not hear of cancelling the session, and so Ginny and her team spent the better part of the evening running round the lake while cursing the Slytherins the worst of all ills at the top of their lungs.

~*~

Every object of the next day fared better for Ginny, and her spirits were in a state for enjoyment. Her brothers, Fred and George, had risen to the occasion magnificently by sending her a new wand after she had appealed to them for help. She had also successfully sworn the twins, Ron, and Harry into secrecy about the event with Draco Malfoy which had resulted in the detention -- which her parents were informed of by the school, though not of all its details. Her letter to her mother explained the incident in the most evasive manner possible, stating that she was merely caught in a moment of insensibility, that it was nothing to call for any worries, and that it would not be repeated again in the course of the school year, taking care not to let loose any slips about the hexing, the infirmary (and she involuntarily coloured at that thought) and her getting trapped in a shed for several hours with a boy of seventeen in the middle of the night. Her mother seemed satisfied with her explanation, for no Howler had made an appearance, and this morning, she had received a letter, with nothing more than a stern advice (not reprimand!) to behave appropriately, which made it all the more a day to be celebrated. Detention served, her wand replaced, and her parents appeased, she was all ready for a fresh beginning devoid of any more misfortune.

The rest of the day proceeded much as she had expected -- splendidly. Classes were great fun if she overlooked the part about homework and upcoming quizzes; Quidditch training was uninterrupted, and the camaraderie of the Gryffindor team (with more than half of the team made up of new players) was found not only to be pronounced, but excellent to the point of instinctive coordination. That allowed one worry to be done away with. She had been concerned with the prospect of having to adapt to the new Chasers and Beaters by their first match, which did not provide as ample amount of time as she would like. But she had found it very easy to work with Andrew Kirke and Jack Sloper (both Beaters before, but found to be more suitable for the Chaser position), and the Creevey brothers (who were the new Beaters), who have the same zest her twin brothers had, though none of their suicidal or homicidal tendencies.

And as she had promised herself that it was a day to call for some sort of celebration, she had the Gryffindor girls to stay up late with her when night fell, and over no less than two bottles of Butterbeer each, they bonded over various topics adolescent girls indulged in: gossips, boys, fashion, gossips, and more gossips. Ginny had only had to suffer the one affliction: that Draco Malfoy was a recurring topic amongst a few of her mates, much to her bafflement, but she was otherwise contend to think that the world could not be a better place to live in at the moment and she wished very much that it would continue to be so. With that, she tucked herself into bed, and told herself, with confidence, that nothing would ever get in her way again.

That was, so long as Draco Malfoy stayed well out of her life.

~*~

Perhaps she had wished it a little too well because the next day called for an event so unprecedented she could not be sure if she could ever comprehend it properly without wondering if it might be her own wild imagination.

She was walking along the corridor with her classmates when a call of her name halted her footsteps, and she turned and saw, with surprise, that it was Harry Potter rushing down the corridor towards her. He was in his school robe, his Gryffindor tie skewed after half a day of hectic lessons, his hair in the usual fashion of cowlicks sticking all over the place. He smiled and paused for a while, raking his hair self-consciously before he spoke again.

“Hey, I saw your Muggle Studies project on display in class today,” he said as they walked on, Ginny’s friends moving a little ahead of them. “The professor said it was a creative work of art, and I think so too.”

“Thank you. It’s really nice of you to say so,” Ginny replied with a smile, and could not help feeling very pleased with herself.

“I didn’t know you could draw so well.”

“Nah, you gave me too much credit, Harry,” she said, “I just like to draw that’s all, can’t say I’m at all good at it.”

“It’s really good, Gin,” Harry insisted. “And before I forget, know that we have another training session tomorrow afternoon. I managed to snag another booking for the pitch before Malfoy did.”

At the news, Ginny paused and took a sharp turn towards her captain, her face tipped up to his, her finger poking at his chest in mocked annoyance.

“You are really ready to train us half to death, aren’t you? We had training only yesterday!” Ginny teased.

“No!” Harry cried, and then realising that Ginny was joking, elbowed her. “If you only knew how Oliver was like, you won’t be so quick to make a tyrant out of me.”

“That is not for you to decide. I am determined to think that you are trying to enslave us all in your quest for the best Quidditch team of the century.”

“Indeed I am,” Harry replied, his hand in his pocket, smiling so that one side of his mouth was higher than the other. “How bright our Miss Weasley is, I must say, to have seen through my cunning plot.”

“Cunning? Hallo, you were never cunning and can never hope to be. And trust me,” Ginny said as she pointed to herself, “I know cunning when I see it. I’ve lived with cunning for the past fifteen years.”

“Fred and George.”

“You are quite bright yourself, Mr Potter,” she replied as they walked on again. “Anyway, where’re you heading?”

“Nowhere in particular,” Harry started, then paused. “I’ll just walk with you if you don’t mind. You are not heading to the bathroom, are you?”

“No,” she said, amused. “Pray tell though, to what do I owe the honour?”

“Oh, er, it’s just…well, it’s just, you know…”

“Er, I know?”

She watched Harry quizzically as he rubbed the back of his neck, looking slightly uncomfortable. Then, he chuckled and they ended up laughing at the awkwardness. The way Harry chuckled. It was very cute.

“So…” he said when the laughter finally subsided. “I have been meaning to ask you. About Hogsmeade.”

“Hogsmeade?” Ginny repeated, confused. “The Hogsmeade weekend just passed, didn’t it? I missed it because I was in the infirmary, and then I was in trouble with Malfoy, remember?”

“Yeah, I know,” Harry answered patiently.

“Then what about Hogsmeade?”

“Right,” he said, more to himself than anyone else. “I know this is a bit early, but I thought I should ask now before someone else does. I thought, maybe, if you don’t have other engagements…and if you don’t mind, we can hang out together for the next Hogsmeade weekend.”

“Oh,” was all Ginny could manage to say as colour was starting to show on her fair skin.

“I mean…” Harry fumbled, “I, erm, I wanted some help, you know, to, err … picka presentforyourmother,” he finally finished saying.

“Present for my mother?”

“Yes. Present for your mother,” Harry answered, his embarrassment evident in his discomposure. “I mean, your mother has been very kind to me and I haven’t gotten her anything really nice for the past Christmases and I thought it would be good if you are with me to help me pick something, you being her daughter and all.”

“Christmas present? In September? Isn’t that a bit early?”

“Well…”

“All right then,” Ginny answered, deciding not to torment the poor boy any longer. If he said it was just to pick a present for her mother, then so be it.

“Great,” he said, breaking into a grin again. “All right then, I just recalled that I have promised Ron to help him train right about now,” he said and touched her shoulder lightly. “I’ll see you later.” And in a movement so fast and surprising that Ginny had no time to react, he bent down and kissed her cheek quickly before he started a run off to the pitch.

Ginny’s mouth was gapping in surprise as she reached a hand to touch where Harry had kissed her.

Now, what was that all about?

~*~

There seemed to be some universal truth that when one part of your life started getting better, another part of your life would start to fall spectacularly apart.

Draco had been most relieved that the Weasley Incident was over, and could not wait to move on from that, but the incident in the infirmary had proved quite difficult to forget, and every time he saw Ginny Weasley in the Great Hall, he would have trouble stopping the scene from resurfacing in his mind’s eye. And every time it did, it still felt bizarre, and if he were to be honest enough to admit it, a little embarrassing, but it was not entirely a very bad experience in itself. This was easily solved by sitting with his back facing the rest of the Great Hall during meals, and really, it was the least of his worries now.

Apparently, according to his spies, the new Gryffindor team was a very strong one. This had taken him by surprise, seeing that the Gryffindor team, like the Slytherin, with most of the players graduating last year, had half of their team formed by inexperienced players, which was bound to result in some major structural changes, and those were hardly favourable conditions. He had yet to witness it himself, and neither had he need to, since he was expecting Harry Potter to have the same problems he had with his team, but now it seemed inevitable. He had to see it for himself, and the main question was, how?

There was no written rule that spying was not allowed, but the general consensus almost forbid it as a crime tenable to breaking a school rule. It was like a moral code of conduct, but more in the style of the Gryffindorish fairness, the Hufflepuffish dumbness, the Ravenclawish no-mind-of-their-owness, and none of the Slytheriness. His team-mates were more than ready to break this unwritten rule, but it would not be advisable to set themselves against the other three Houses too explicitly. A careful plan was in order. One that would not be found out, and if the plan permitted, it would be a bonus to throw in some sabotage in the midst of spying too.

It was for this reason that Draco had deliberately lost the race against Harry Potter to Madam Hooch’s office for the booking of the pitch. As usual, they had hurried out of the Potions class they shared, for the sixth consecutive year, and broken into a run once they reached the main corridor. Students who had witnessed their first scramble for the booking record book had learnt to get out of their way, opening an aisle in the middle of the noisy lunch crowd to let them through if they did not want to be collided into. Draco had been leading at first, then after a turn, Harry caught up with him and they were neck to neck. To avoid any suspicions Harry might have had -- not that Draco ever thought the boy smart enough to spot a plot dancing right in front of his face singing Hallelujah -- he made sure to keep up with the Gryffindor captain until the very last moment when he slowed down a little after they made a dash into the office and allowed the other to make a quick grab for the record book. Harry had been smug and did not waste any time signing his name for the earliest available slot for the very next day, which Draco had known he would. Little did Harry know that it would also provide Draco with the earliest spying opportunity available.

After Harry left the office, Draco took his own sweet time signing for his team’s training sessions, all the while memorizing the dates the Gryffindors would be down for training. The next step would be a finalization of the operation with the rest of his team-mates and making sure that Crabbe and Goyle would not be around to mess anything up.

~*~

“Hey Gin, over here!” Jack yelled before he tossed the Quaffle over, ducking a Bludger at the same time.

“Did you leave your eyes back at home, Creevey?” Harry, who was observing from the sideline, yelled out.

“Sorry, captain!” the older Creevey answered, and as eager to please as he was before, sped off after Ginny Weasley immediately.

“If I didn’t know you better, Harry,” Jack yelled jokingly as he flew low and swept past above Harry’s head, “I would think you were trying to instigate murder!” The captain laughed and with his right hand, patted his hair where Jack had taken the opportunity to mess it up, before turning to observe Ginny, who was about to throw another goal.

“WOOHOO!” Dennis Creevey cheered, waving his bat in the air when Ginny’s throw went through the hoop. “Good job!” he went on to said as he hit a high five with the redhead.

“Five more minutes, guy! Buck up!” Harry called.

The team bellowed their response and the game returned to its intense, competitive atmosphere.

Perhaps they were too engrossed in their game, because none of them had noticed the figure standing on the edge of the pitch, silhouetted against a row of trees near the Quidditch shed, watching them with an intent interest.

“They are good,” a voice commented from behind the door of the shed, out of sight, where another figure was observing the Gryffindor team through the gap in the frame, and using the very door whose knob Draco had torn off some time before to conceal his position.

“Shut up, they are not,” Draco answered.

“You. Shut up. They are. And come back here. Unless you want to be found out,” Blaise answered.

“They won’t. Unless Potter’s got an eye on his arse.”

“Are you looking at his arse?”

“Hell, no. Shut up, Zabini.”

“Are you sure you are looking carefully enough at his arse? Because for all we know, he might have. He had a scar on his forehead, having an extra eye on the arse wouldn’t be too out of the ordinary.”

“It would be out of the ordinary, Blaise,” Pansy said, coming close behind him, her hands resting on his back for support, trying to lean in for a better look.

“That’s his style then, isn’t it?” Blaise turned and replied before he turned again and said, “He’s not supposed to be ordinary. Now Draco, look carefully at his arse …”

“Enough about his arse!”

“Shuuuuuuuuuush!” Pansy and Blaise warned in unison.

“Urgh,” Draco grunted and turned at them, sending them a death glare.

Blaise shrugged and went back into the shed where the rest of the Slytherin team except Crabbe and Goyle were, and sat with them on the bench. Pansy took his place, and Draco remained where he was, utterly occupied.

Ginny flew recklessly in the sky, speeding up to intercept the Quaffle currently held by Andrew. It was a three-on-three and there were no Seekers or Keepers. Five more minutes and the time would be up. The game now stood at 200:220 to Ginny's team. She picked up speed again and was side by side with Andrew, who was in turn about to make his last shoot through the hoop. Ginny reached out to intercept the Quaffle but was interrupted by an approaching Bludger. Both of them were forced off their trail and Andrew dropped the Quaffle to Ron. Ginny dived straight down without consideration for the dangerous angle she was in, in an attempt to grab hold of the Quaffle again, lest the other team should make a last minute goal. Andrew and Ron sped up behind her and when Ginny got hold of the Quaffle again and shot back up, her brother followed closely behind her. They flew like shooting arrows arcing in the sky, speeding towards the right side of the pitch.

I am going to win this game, Ginny thought to herself as she flew, the cool wind whipping fiercely across her face. As she neared the goal post, her mouth curved as she felt a surge of victorious satisfaction, but the sensation was shortly interrupted when her opponents did a Parkin’s Pincer, charging at her from two different directions. Ginny swerved sharply sideways and dipped, before making a roundabout turn to shake Andrew off her trail. Andrew ducked the broom tail just in time but was subsequently threw off course, watching Ginny head for the post. Her brother continued to race her, and Dennis, anxious to clear the way for his Chaser, hit a Bludger towards Ron but missed. The Bludger went for Ginny instead.

She was ready to throw her last shot, her hand pulled back and with her concentration only on the goal post, and she did not realize the Bludger was heading for her until it hit her broom tail and sent her swirling out of control. She dropped the Quaffle to hold on to her broom but it was no use. She was spinning too quickly. She could vaguely hear her team-mate’s panic, and briefly recalled seeing her brother anxiously reaching for her before she lost her grip, and with a sharp jolt in her stomach, realized that she was falling.

Draco’s eyes widened as he witnessed the scene before him. By instinct, he took out his wand, although he was not sure what he wanted to do with it. The rest of his team rushed to the door at the sound of the commotion outside but only Blaise took a few steps beyond of the safety of the hiding place to stand beside Draco. Everything was happening very quickly and with the wand still in his hand, Draco was out of ideas for a moment before a cursory glance noted that there was also a wand in Harry Potter’s hand.

The first logical conclusion was that Harry Potter was going to stop the fall, or at the very least, slow the fall down to reduce the impact. The successive thoughts that rapidly flitted through Draco’s mind were a little more complicated. First was the conclusion that if Ginny Weasley were to fall directly from the skies to the ground, she would most definitely be splat on the grass like a bloody Impressionist painting. Second came the verdict that Ginny Weasley was the best Chaser in her team. Connecting the two points led to the third point: If Ginny Weasley fell, Gryffindor would need a new Chaser and that would indubitably give Slytherin an advantage. So did he want to see her become a creative artwork?

Maybe that would be a little too much. Damn the conscience.

As he snapped out of his reverie and returned his attention to the pitch all in the manner of that few seconds, he saw that Potter had already cast the spell to slow down the Weasley’s fall. Her team-mates seemed to be relief that the spell had worked and were gathering near the point where she would land.

Draco held on to his wand tightly. The best course of action, he knew, had to be decided instantly, and once concluded, had to be executed without hesitation or the moment would be lost. He twisted his rigid wrist and gnawed his inner cheek as he struggled with the formation of the mental plan that was conceiving itself in his head faster than he could follow. She was about twenty feet from the ground, Draco calculated in his mind as he pointed his wand at the girl. And then eighteen, fifteen …

“Finite Incantatum.”

The spell that Harry cast became abruptly undone.

~*~

“Ginny!”

The collective clamour of voices calling her name was the last thing she heard before her world started whirling in a mess of blue and green once again. She was at a loss as to what was happening. She thought she was going to be all right when she felt a weightlessness sensation overcome her in mid-fall, and knew that she was no longer falling as fast as she was before. But all of a sudden, the charm wore off and she started plunging again. She vaguely registered the fear in her team-mates’ cries and could almost imagine their frenetic desperation to do something to help her. The situation felt so surreal, and it was nauseating.

She waited. The end of the fall never seemed to come. She briefly wondered if she was going to die. But she did not want to die this way. She always thought that when she died, it would be of old age, or even from some sort of ailment, and in whichever case, she would die whole, and would have been prepared for whatever comes after death. Never had she thought that she might die losing any limbs, or having brains oozing out of her head, which was what she imagined would happen to her now. It was not fair. She was not prepared to die. Please, she prayed to whatever deity was there to hear her, please don’t let me die. And she shut her eyes tightly, her fists clenched against her chest and she waited.

The moment came fast enough and when it did, it was nothing like she had expected. There was no pain and no fear, just a thud, a loud crack and the next moment was darkness.

~*~

“Ouch!” Blaise winced as he heard the loud thud when Ginny Weasley hit the ground. He was not expecting Draco to execute something like this, and when it happened, there was no way to undo it. Not even the famous Harry Potter was able to react fast enough to the sudden turn of events. Blaise did not blame him. Who would have expected an evil psychopathic maniac to be lurking around undoing other people’s spells when they were trying to stop an accident from happening? He certainly would not have. And poor Weasley, the fall was going to cause her at least a broken limb or two.

He turned to Draco and was about to give him a piece of his mind but shut his mouth when he took in Draco’s appearance. His captain had paled significantly, and was breaking into cold sweat. Blaise was glad to know that his friend was not exactly unfeeling. In fact, he was surprised that Draco had acted so swiftly to the opportunity that had presented itself. While Blaise was not sure if he agreed to such a plan, he had to admit that, from the Slytherin point of view, it was one hell of a strategic move, and was probably the best Draco had ever performed in the course of his career as the resident evil-doer.

Now that the trouble was sown, Blaise wondered what the next step should be. He waited for a second more and when Draco still did not move an inch, he reached over and tapped his captain on the shoulder.

“Draco…”

“Shush! Don’t say anything.”

The rest of their team-mates stood rooted to the ground with open-mouth expressions. “Oh Merlin … is she dead?” Pansy asked.

“The way you said it,” Blaise answered, an eyebrow raised, “I couldn’t decide if you’re going to be pleased or upset when I tell you that she is --”

“Shush,” Draco warned again.

“Anyway, that’s not what we should be worried about. Draco…we have to…” Blaise started.

“Shush!”

And Blaise did, standing quietly beside his friend, witnessing the chaotic situation playing before them.

On the other side of the field, the Gryffindor boys were rushing towards the unconscious Ginny Weasley.

“Ginny!”

“Is she all right? Is she breathing? Check her pulse, Ron!”

“Yes, but it’s weak. We need to carry her to the infirmary now!”

“No! Don’t touch her!”

“What!”

“You don’t know if she’s broken anything!”

“Of course she’s broken something. It was at least fifteen feet!”

“Then the more you shouldn’t move her, idiot!”

“I’ll get Madam Pomfrey!”

Dennis turned and broke into a run. And then he stopped. Squinting his eyes into the distance, his expression went through a change from that of anxiety to murderous agitation.

“Draco…” Blaise said again upon recognizing that they had been discovered. “Can we run now?”

He did not wait for Draco to answer. With one quick pull, he dragged Draco with him and beckoned the others to run. The others did not need to be told twice and had already scuttled via the denser part of the route, through the trees and up the greenhouse. Blaise and Draco had more trouble. They had already been seen, and it was not wise that they all run in the same direction. Blaise and Draco made a sprint for the main path that led to the castle gate from the pitch. They could not have cared less that the path was too open to the public eye, nor did it matter that it was a much longer route compared to any other. They ran at full pelt all the way to the castle entrance, bolted for the staircase down to the dungeon and did not stop except to call the password. Blaise could not imagine how they managed not to tumble down the stairs in that frenzy, but they did. When the Slytherin door clicked shut, they dashed directly for their dormitory, ignoring the strange stares they were getting in the common room. They slammed the door shut and locked it, turning around only to find the rest of the team already assembled in their room.

“Holy cow, that was close,” Montague commented, breaking the silence in the room.

“Did they see you two?” Pansy asked.

“They … they … they …”

“They what? Did they see you or not?” Pansy asked again.

“Give … me … one … minute,” Blaise said, pointing one finger at Pansy.

Draco did not bother to answer. He leaned his entire weight against his bedroom door, panting, and after a while, slid down the door to sit on the floor.

Blaise turned to Draco, his eyes intent on the blond boy. Perspiration was fast forming at his temples, with beads rolling along the skin there. Some were caught at his eyelashes, and when he blinked, they irritated his eyes. He dragged the back of his hand against the side of his eye, wiping them off.

“Draco, your wand, give it here.”

“What?” Draco snapped back at his friend. He had both his arms supported on his knees, his pulse yet to return to its usual rhythm.

“Your wand, Draco, just give it here.”

The blond conceded, even though he did not know why Blaise would want his wand. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled it out and with a quick hand, tossed it over to Blaise.

Blaise caught it and flicked it once in the air.

“Lumos.”

“What are you doing?”

“Nox,” Blaise continued before answering Draco. “Destroying evidence.”

“Please,” Draco responded impatiently. “Finite Incantatum is a common enough spell.”

“You don’t want any unnecessary nitty-gritty against you now,” Blaise replied. “Finite Incantatum is common enough, true, but wouldn’t it be strange that the last spell left in your wand happens to be that one, hours after lessons? Think.”

“Blaise’s right,” Warrington said and stood from the trunk he had been sitting on. “It would be too suspicious for you to have last used that particular spell. Knowing you, Malfoy, you would have used it to pack your bag, smooth your hair or even Summon something by now.”

“Oh, yes, Summon,” Blaise mumbled to himself. “Accio broom. Accio kit. Accio parchments. Accio quill.” With all the items to juggle in his arms, anyone else would have looked silly, Blaise managed to perform it with style. After he was satisfied the number of items Summoned was enough to make as if Draco had been polishing his broom and writing a letter since lessons ended, he Banished the items back to their original positions.

Pansy nodded in affirmation. “It would be less suspicious if the wand could indicate some form of common activity after lessons. After all, we almost only use Finite Incantatum in class.”

“Okay, fine,” Draco said, and finally gathered himself together. “Pansy,” he called and pointed, “you, Montague, and Warrington had been studying together all afternoon, all right?”

The three members nodded their agreement.

“Blaise, we can’t deny that we were near the pitch just now, since Creevey had already seen us. Do you think the other twits saw us too?”

Blaise shook his head.

“I don’t think so. They were all absorbed with Weasley.”

“Okay, good,” Draco heaved a sigh of relief. “Then we can say that we were there to pick up something. Hand guards we left in the shed after our last training.”

“But why would you two be running away when he saw you?” Pansy asked. “Everyone in the common room will say that they saw you two dashing in when the professors question them.”

“Fuck,” Draco swore, and ran a hand through his hair before hitting his fist on the floor loudly.

“Blaise,” Pansy turned to the dark boy, her eyebrow arched questioningly.

Blaise shrugged. “We were playing catching?”

Pansy snorted. “Okay, look. Say you are late for something.”

“Late for what?” Draco asked obnoxiously. “What can you be late for after school hours?”

“Dinner? No, it’s hardly dinnertime yet…”

“Girls,” Draco said suddenly. “We were late for our dates with girls.”

“Ah, Pansy,” Blaise addressed quickly. “I’m so regretfully sorry that I was late for our date.”

“Hey,” Draco protested.

“Nah uh, too late, mate. I don’t want to end up dating Montague or Warrington here.”

“You will have to ask someone else to be an alibi for you, if you don’t want Warrington or Montague,” Pansy said. “Ask Millicent. She will agree.”

“Millicent?”

“You can’t afford to be picky now.”

“I am a Malfoy,” Draco said, “There’s nothing I can’t afford, if I do say so myself.”

“All right then, buy yourself an alibi, or you will have to make do with Warrington or Montague.”

“I’ll ask Daphne. She’s safe enough,” Draco said, ignoring the sarcasm from Pansy.

“Okay, now all settled?” Blaise asked. “We are all occupied all afternoon and know none of what happened at the pitch.”

Everyone in the room nodded and muttered their response.

“Good, now out of the room,” Draco said. “I’m tired.”

All of them, save for Blaise, exited the room. When the door was closed again, Draco looked at his friend and asked.

“Do you think she’s all right?”

“Isn’t it a bit late to be worried about her well-being?”

“I’m not worried about her well-being. What I did, it was precisely to make sure that she would not be well enough to play in the game.”

“Then I suppose it worked. That was a loud thud I heard.”

Draco winced involuntarily.

“Will she die from it?”

“Isn’t this a question you should have asked before you undid Potter’s spell?”

“There wasn’t time to think,” Draco insisted. “It came up after I saw her fall.”

“You are always a careless one with details. To think that you stood there all that time. We should have left as soon as you cast Finite Incantatum.”

“I wanted to see if she made it.”

“She’ll make it. It’s fifteen feet, not fifty.”

“Did she fall on her head or her side?”

“Side, I think. Doesn’t mean it didn’t hit her head.”

“Are you trying to scare me?”

“Yes. If she becomes a moron due to some head injury or other, you will have to be responsible for her for the rest of your life.”

“I am not going to be responsible for anything.”

“Then what are you worried about now?”

“Nothing. I worry about nothing.”

Blaise flopped down on his bed and watched as the other boy paced about the room.

“It’s quite an … uncalled for thing to do, seeing as she once helped you,” Blaise finally said, correctly interpreting part of the unmentioned tension hanging over Draco.

“She didn’t.”

“She did. It may not seem a big deal, but to think that a girl her size took the trouble to drag you to the infirmary when she’s not obliged to do so, that’s quite something,” Blaise said. “Actually, come to think of it, maybe she felt obliged. It’s the strange Gryffindor psyche. I can safely say that if it’s any other person, say, Pansy, she’ll leave you there to rot.”

Oh, that, Draco thought. For a moment, he forgot that Blaise was not aware of what happened before the second incident. Damn, so now Ginny Weasley had helped him twice. Draco refused to let that thought get to him.

“Okay, so she did. But I got her out of the bloody shed. We’re square.”

“It’s not …”

“It’s not what? Not nice? I don’t care about nice, and I don’t care that she didn’t deserve it. I don’t care if she’s helped me before and frankly, it doesn’t matter. I just don’t care. Since when do we care about what’s right and what’s wrong?”

“Well, officially speaking, we don’t. But we do care about the state of our physical and mental health. It is lamentable that conscience isn’t sold separately when we are made, or you may have requested to come to this world without any. You are feeling bad about it, aren’t you?”

“No.”

Blaise sighed. “Come on, you obviously are getting your knickers in a twist about it. Maybe you wanted to sabotage Gryffindor, and that was a good sabotage, by the way. But you regret it. You didn’t think it would seriously harm her, but then you misjudge. You misjudge all the time. Look at what happened to Potter third year.”

“You said fifteen feet isn’t going to kill her.”

“Maybe, maybe not. It’s not an easy calculation to make. Fifteen feet can break someone’s skull too if they fall headfirst.”

“She didn’t fall headfirst.”

“I don’t think she did.”

“Maybe she only broke her arm, or her leg …”

“Or both?”

“In any case, it’s not fatal.”

“That settles it. Does that make you feel better?”

“I am not … Okay, end of conversation. I’m going to take a shower.”

“And I’m going to date Pansy now.”

“Good, go ahead.”

“Remember your date with Daphne.”

“Mmm,” Draco replied before leaving the room with his towel and change of clothes.

~*~

“What do you mean Malfoy? What Malfoy?”

“Malfoy, Ron,” Dennis repeated with exasperation. “Tall, blond, obnoxious, kind of evil … always laughs at your hair?”

“I know who Malfoy is, you prick!” Ron answered agitatedly. “I mean, what do you mean Malfoy was there? What was he doing there?”

“I wish I knew!” Dennis replied. “But he’s definitely up to something. He ran the moment he realized I saw him. And that Zabini. They ran for the hills when they saw me.”

“Why didn’t you say so earlier? Why didn’t you tell us!” Ron ranted. “We could have gotten him then. I would have shoved the Quaffle down his throat!”

“Ron! Your sister was in danger! Which is more important? Save your sister, or kill Malfoy?”

“How about both?”

“Hey, hey,” Harry was separating the two boys, trying to instil some sort of order in the waiting area. “Stop it now, please. We don’t need more noise than there already is. It’s driving me nuts.”

“But …” Ron turned to his friend. “Dennis said Malfoy …”

“He was probably there to spy on our training.”

“And to kill my sister,” Ron added.

“Probably,” Harry sighed, running both hands through his hair, making it messier than it was before.

“That’s it,” Andrew suddenly said. “That’s why the spell didn’t work. It worked for a moment, then it …”

“It wore off,” Harry continued. “Maybe it just wasn’t strong enough, or I didn’t do it right…”

“Or Malfoy undid it,” Jack finished the statement.

“I am going to kill him,” Ron roared and took a leap for the door. But it opened before he touched the knob.

“How is she?” Hermione asked breathlessly, as if she had been running. “I heard that Gin … oh, tell me she’s all right.”

“She is,” Harry said calmly. “It looked ugly at first, but she’s okay. She broke her arm and had some scratches here and there. Otherwise …”

“Nothing that can’t be fixed,” Andrew continued and smiled.

Hermione sighed gratefully, letting out the breath she had been holding since she heard the news.

“Is she still inside?” she asked.

“Madam Pomfrey won’t let us in,” Colin said.

“Does your parents know?” Hermione turned to ask Ron.

“Not yet, I haven’t had the time to write.”

“I’ll do it then,” Hermione replied. “I’ll write to the twins too.”

Ron nodded. “Thank you, Hermione,” he said and touched her shoulder lightly.

“Don’t mention it,” she replied as she turned to leave. “Let Ginny know that I will come by later, after I send the letters.”

“I will.”

Hermione nodded and turned to the door that Ron had opened for her.

She was jogging down the corridor towards the stairs leading to Gryffindor Tower when suddenly a tall figure rounded at the corner and ran into her.

“Oh, sorry!” Hermione exclaimed, her face colouring when she realized that she was face to chest with the other person.

“I’m sorry, Granger. Didn’t see you there,” the other voice said with a hint of amusement.

She tipped her face up and with a start, tried to back away but could not move far. The other boy had his hands at her elbows and had not quite let go.

“Whoa, steady, Granger,” Blaise said lightly. “I didn’t know I looked that repulsive,” he said as he finally let go of the girl.

“I’m sorry,” Hermione responded, and then wondered what she was sorry for.

“Where are you hurrying to?” Blaise asked casually, with one hand in his pocket. “I saw you coming from the infirmary. Is somebody hurt? A friend of yours?”

Hermione looked at him in surprise and could not help feeling a slight suspicion about the boy even though he had not given her any reason to feel that way.

“You ask a lot of questions,” she finally said.

He smiled and leaned against the wall, his arms folded, looking at her from under his lashes.

“Just curious,” he said with a light shrug. “You are not up to no good with your friends again, are you? You are a prefect.”

“I know perfectly well that I am a prefect,” she answered.

“So,” he continued slowly, “You came from the infirmary. Either Potter’s fallen off his broom again or the Weasley did. Or were you there to get something from Madam Pomfrey?” he asked, arching one eyebrow.

“No!” she replied, the colour in her face rising once more when she realized what the other boy was implying.

He chuckled.

“Relax, Granger. Are you usually this uptight?”

Hermione pursed her lips, annoyed. Then she wondered why she was still standing there exposing herself to such teasing from someone she hardly knew.

“I’m going now,” she said and side stepped to walk away.

Blaise moved accordingly and blocked Hermione’s route. When she moved further to the side, he followed.

“What do you want?” she asked, irritated.

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“I don’t see a need to.”

“You will see a need to now, if you want to pass.”

She glared. He was unaffected. After a few more tries to manoeuvre her way pass the Slytherin boy, which failed, she became exasperated. Silently disgruntled about the way her petite frame always seemed to short-change her in a situation with the other boy, she folded her arms and gave in.

“One of our housemates had an accident during training.”

“Ouch, I’m sorry to hear that.”

Hermione was so surprised at the cordiality she was receiving from the Slytherin boy that she did not quite know how to respond.

“Well, she’s fine, I’m told.”

“Really?” the boy asked, a sparkle in his eyes animating his face. If Hermione had found his reaction strange, she did not show it, nor did she question the boy about it outright.

“She broke her arm, and there are some cuts, I think, but otherwise she is not in danger,” Hermione could not help saying. Supplying more information was the only way she knew how to react in the situation since there was really nothing else to say.

“That’s great,” Blaise said.

“Yes, it is,” Hermione replied, keeping her tone neutral. “I am going to write to her family. Can I pass now?”

“Oh sure, I shouldn’t be bothering you then,” he said pleasantly, almost bouncing on his feet, and moved aside. He let her walk along first, following behind. It was not until they reached the stairs did they depart with a nod and Blaise rushed down the stairs back to the Slytherin dungeon, itching to inform his housemates of the news.

The exchange with Blaise plagued Hermione like a burdensome allergy: You don’t pay it any attention until it hits you, and each time it happens, it never ceases to be momentarily, inexorably pressing on the mind. She was not sure what she should think about the boy. Blaise Zabini was certainly strange, and one of the most impenetrable personalities she had ever encountered. He was not distinctly nefarious but she would not rule out the possibility of him being machiavellian. In fact, he seemed pleasant most of the time it did not inspire trust at all. He was in no way as loathsome as his friend, but Hermione was sure that there was something to be said about someone who attached himself to a questionable character such as Draco Malfoy.

Despite all this, Hermione could not help wondering if she might be wrong. Could she have been unfairly prejudiced against Blaise Zabini because of the House hecame from? She had often pride herself for being freed of such narrow-mindedness, so to think that she could fall into such a trap of misjudgement bothered her. Maybe, she thought to herself as she muttered the password to the Fat Lady, she should give the boy a benefit of the doubt.

Maybe, Slytherins were not all that bad.

~*~

Many thanks to plotbeta!silverfangs, grammarnazi!Chresimos and britpicker!Laucia Siandel.

Next chapter:

Did Draco get away with what he did to Ginny? More interestingly, would Ginny let him off easily after he had almost killed her? In the next chapter, a mad vengeful Ginny Weasly went on a quest to hunt Draco Malfoy down all over Hogwarts. Expect more verbal abuses, ugly scenes, and evil plans from Draco Malfoy that promise to disturb the peace at Hogwarts in more ways than you can imagine.

4. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Chapter Four

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

She was wrong.

Slytherins were, without a doubt, the worst kind of filth that ever existed.

Hermione could not believe she had allowed herself to be some kind of an information feeder to that Blaise Zabini. It felt traitorous. It was unforgivable. He was not genuinely concerned about her Housemate who got into an accident. As a matter of fact, he knew about the accident.

Not accident, Hermione corrected herself. It was clearly planned. If Dennis’ account was any indication, Ginny’s plight was definitely the result of the Slytherins’ well drawn out operation to sabotage the Gryffindor Quidditch team. They were there at the Gryffindor training. They wanted to injure the Gryffindor players so that the Slytherins would have an advantage during the tournament and so they …

Those filthy little cockroaches!

But it did not add up, Hermione grudgingly admitted after she had calmed herself down. No matter how good they were, they could not have predicted the human error, and according to the boys, Dennis did hit the Bludger towards Ginny by mistake. Unless the Slytherins had a resident Seer, the incident could only be concluded as an accident. That was, of course, assuming that Dennis Creevey was not bought over. Of course he wasn’t, she scolded herself.

One should always be clear about who the enemy was. She knew something was amiss with Blaise Zabini. He was too eager to be nice, and far too interested in Gryffindor’s affair. She was just not fast enough to link up the connections. She could not believe that Hermione Granger, the smartest witch in Hogwarts, was outwitted by that filthy, despicable --

“SON OF A BITCH!”

Hermione winced at the outcry.

She had wanted to say ‘filthy, despicable, little cockroach’ again but decided that Ginny Weasley had articulated the point better than she ever could. Even in the privacy of her mental occupation, under the influence of overwhelming anger, Hermione Granger could not bring herself to be vulgar. Besides, Hermione thought it was a tad unfair to be insulting the culprits’ mothers when it was the culprits who truly deserved to be struck by lightning into a pile of very fine ash.

Ginny Weasley, on the other hand, did not seem to have this problem; she was sprouting all sorts of profanity Hermione did not even know existed. Surely she was hearing things wrong, she thought to herself as she peered at the youngest Weasley girl: small heart-shaped face, a light dust of freckles over the bridge of her nose, angelic eyes and cupid bow lips – by all appearance the image of a sweet country girl, kind and warm-hearted, and the anti-thesis of the livid mad woman (there was no other word for it) Hermione was looking at now, who looked like she was going to chop an unfaithful spouse into the consistency of instant oatmeal and finish him off for supper.

Just when Hermione thought Ginny was finally going to stop her string of expletives (surely she would be running out of vulgarities by this time), the latter, looking frustrated that she was starting to fumble over her words, clenched the blanket tightly in her hands before pounding her little fists on the mattress.

“ARGHHHHHHHHHH UGH!”

Everyone in the infirmary flinched when Ginny hit a high note. All the boys, save Harry, had their palms firmly pressed against their ears in a flash. Harry was vaguely reminded of the Herbology class about the Mandrakes as he poked a long finger into his ear to check if the eardrums still worked. As far as he was concerned, Ginny could very well matched up against the Mandrakes. Good grief.

Ron watched his sister’s eloquent display of outrage, dumbfounded. It took him a while to realise why he had felt petrified by his sister; she had never resembled their formidable mother as much as she did now.

“Ginny,” Ron started to say as he inched slowly back to his sister’s bedside.

“WHAT?” she snapped.

Ron paused in mid-movement, then took a step away from his sister for good measure.

“Gin … Gin, calm down,” Ron pacified, moving his hands to pat on his sister’s head, the way he used to do for her when she was still drinking milk from a bottle. His teammates observed the siblings’ exchange with interest, noting the irony that before Ginny Weasley had awoken, Ron was the one who was ranting about pulling Draco Malfoy’s head out of his neck. Now he actually looked like he was trying to save Draco Malfoy’s life.

“Ron,” Ginny asked in a voice that was spooking even Hermione, “when can I get out of the infirmary?”

“In a day or two, if Madam Pomfrey thinks your recovery is satisfactory,” Ron replied and carefully closed the gap between Ginny and himself to sit at the side of her bed. “I think you should stay longer though. Get some good rest. That’ll do you good,” he said gently, patting his little sister’s still tight fist.

“Yes,” Ginny agreed, to the surprise of everyone. “I’ll make sure I get lots of rest.”

“Good!” Ron replied and broke into a grin that soon faded away when he noted the maniacal sparkle in his sister’s eyes.

“I need to get my strength back. When I get out of here, I am going to kill him,” Ginny said matter-of-factly.

“Mmm,” Harry hummed noncommittally only because the silence that followed was getting too awkward for him to bear.

No one in the infirmary dared object Ginny Weasley’s announcement. Eventually, after what seemed like hours, Ron swallowed a dry throat and patted his sister’s hand again absentmindedly.

“Yes, you do that.”

~*~

“Mr. Malfoy.”

Draco did not hear the professor at first. It was seven o’clock in the morning, he had a bad night that added up to zero hours of sleep and he was barely suppressing his craving for a cup of coffee to calm his nerves.

“Mr. Malfoy!”

The prefect badge he was fiddling with dropped to the floor with a soft, clear thud as he jerked to alertness, his hands clutching the arms of his chair.

“Sorry, Professor,” Draco mumbled when he recollected himself, and bent down quickly to pick up his prefect badge.

Professor McGonagall pursed her lips impatiently and adjusted her glasses on the bridge of her nose.

“I hope you will learn to treat your role as a prefect more seriously, Mr. Malfoy,” the professor said curtly, her head tilted slightly to one side. “A prefect badge is hardly a toy to fiddle with. Please pin it to your uniform now.”

Draco obeyed the professor quietly, pinning the badge on his robes in as smooth a motion as he could manage. He willed his hands not to tremble under the professor’s scrutiny, and when he was done, he looked up to find the professor tapping her fingers on the tabletop, and looking at him over her glasses. The professor’s dark eyes were feline and wide-set, a feature that had never failed to unsettle Draco. They were alert as they glanced at him as if to pierce through him to the core of his essence, to crawl off his deceitful surfaces to expose the shell of lies within. Momentarily, Draco was taken aback by how much the Gryffindor Head of House reminded him of his father. They exuded the same aura of the omnipotence, rendering Draco helpless and feeling like a six-year-old over again.

He clasped his hands together and tried to assume a relaxed position. The professors had already gone through a round of questioning with the Slytherin team. Their statements had been flawlessly coordinated, their alibis proven, and their wands examined. Nothing had been found to be out of order. There was no reason to be nervous.

He knew that somewhere else in the castle, Professor Snape was questioning Blaise, and he quietly resented the arrangement, wishing for their positions to be swapped. Draco had no doubt that they were nailed because they were named by Dennise Bloody Creevey. Blaise had been largely nonchalant about the whole incident, and for good reason. He was not the one who sowed the seeds of trouble to begin with. He did not have any rivalry with the Gryffindors, and he was mostly known as the quiet, model of exemplary smartarse student ranking second behind Hermione Mudblood Granger for the past five academic years, and the closest resemblance of a decent person from Slytherin. Of course he had nothing to worry about.

“I hope you realise the seriousness of the matter, Mr. Malfoy.”

“Of course, professor,” Draco answered.

“And I hope that you have been entirely honest in your reiteration of the events on the day of Ginny Weasley’s accident.”

“Of course, professor,” Draco repeated.

Professor McGonagall was silent as she pursed her lips into a thin line again. As the seconds stretched between them, Draco was agonizingly aware of the slow passing of time, a psychological torture made more difficult to bear by the tickling of the grandfather clock at the corner of the room. The rhythmic tick-tocks punctuated the silence in time with the throbbing in his head. Draco was almost sure if this silent treatment were to continue any longer, he would splinter under the mounting pressure in the office and own up to every crime he had committed since he entered Hogwarts.

At long last, the silence was broken, and Draco’s battle was won.

“Very well. Run along now if you do not want to miss your breakfast.”

~*~

To his dismay, Draco soon found out that the atmosphere in the Great Hall was no better than that in McGonagall’s office.

No fewer than a dozen pair of eyes watched him as he entered. Ignoring the stares was a feat, especially when he could not shake off the feeling that there were more than one person in the Great Hall trying to stare a hole through the back of his head by sheer determination. All around him, the air sang revenge. When he finally made it to the Slytherin table, it took him all the strength he could muster to not sit at his usual place, and instead picked a seat that allowed him to face the accusing eyes. Most of them were the Gryffindors, but there were also some from the other Houses. The news must have spread then, he thought. Bloody hell.

It was not unfamiliar ground though, and no way in hell was Draco going to cower under the pressure. Draco was used to being stared at, and the whole business of staring back the stares was nothing he could not handle. If anything, he was an expert on it. He would show the world that he craved on attention. That was the only way he knew to retaliate.

Draco was so intent on out-staring his peers that it took him longer than it should have to notice that the dream team and Ginny Weasley were absent. Upon closer look, Draco realised that the entire Gryffindor Quidditch team was missing. Against his will, he felt a rising curiosity for Ginny Weasley’s well being.

Thwack. A hand slapped on his shoulder and Draco jumped. For a wild moment, he thought his heart might have jumped out of his throat.

But it was only Blaise.

“You alright?” Blaise asked as he sat down beside Draco. “You seem … a little jumpy.”

“Anyone would be jumpy when they get hit out of the blue,” Draco replied shortly as he rubbed his face roughly with his right hand, his left hand picking up his coffee at the same time.

Blaise’s lips were pressed into a tight lopsided smile, his eyes expressing bitter amusement.

“But I always hit you like that,” Blaise commented, and in a backhanded manner, added, “and I thought I told you the Weaslet’s alright.”

When Draco did not answer, Blaise continued while munching his chicken pie.

“Besides, we are all clear. Everything went according to plan. You should be happy that we …”

“Shhhhh,” Draco warned out of the corner of his mouth.

“Why, do you need the toilet or something?” Blaise continued without missing a beat.

“Tell me,” Draco said, irritated, “why do I ever bother talking to you? You have no idea how tiring it is.”

“I’ll tell you why, Draco, my friend,” Blaise said, dragging his words in a deliberate manner. “It’s because I’m the only one who can stand you. In exchange, you have to put up with me because I’m the only person available for you to put up with. In this world, we give and take. Can’t have everything, you know.”

Draco snorted. “I don’t want to talk to you ever,” he answered and returned his attention to the food in front of him in a determined fashion.

The two boys ate breakfast in silence until Blaise started to whistle softly. When Draco did not react, Blaise dropped his cutlery dramatically only to pick them up again, and drop them again. Draco resisted the urge to tell him to cut it off.

“Come on, you can’t stand not talking to me. I know that,” Blaise said and elbowed Draco. And Draco tried his hardest not to indulge Blaise in his playful mood. He continued to act as if Blaise was not there, and concentrated his effort in staring back at the people who were still glaring at him. Good Salazar, don’t these people ever get tired of staring?

“Hmm, the Gryffindor team’s not here,” Blaise commented as he scanned the Great Hall in a casual manner. “Wonder why.”

“Probably visiting Weasley,” Draco replied, then paused and mentally slapped himself.

“Ah ha! You talked.”

“I don’t know how you can have everyone thinking that you are the quiet goody two shoes of the Slytherin House when you are obviously up against Colin Creevey for the Most Irritating Bastard In Hogwarts,” Draco huffed.

“My parents were married,” Blaise replied and pulled a face. “Does that mean that I may get disqualified for the title?” he whined.

“Urgh,” Draco swore, “fuck me.”

“Right now?”

“Arghhhhhhhh.” Draco was in obvious agony.

Blaise grinned.

“Do you talk to Professor Snape like that?” Draco asked, pained. “Does anyone else even know you could talk like that?”

“No, and no,” Blaise replied thoughtfully. “I think he likes me best when I am at my most studious. You know, all earnest and innocent and vulnerable. I think it turns him on.”

“Oh god, no,” Draco lamented as Blaise conjured the frightful mental image. “I just ate.”

“Seriously though, he was quite pissed off about the whole thing,” Blaise said, suddenly business-like.

Not for the first time, Draco had to ask himself how it was ever possible for Blaise to be completely incapable of being serious for one moment and be completely serious in the next. The rapidity in which Blaise moved from one mood into another was something that Draco had never, having known him all his life, managed to understand. It never failed to disorientate him.

“Can you not spring things on me like that?” Draco groaned, feeling out of sync with the conversation.

“What?”

“You,” Draco said in an accusatory tone. “One second you are all cheery and irritating, and then you suddenly turn serious. I can’t keep up with you like that. It’s like trying to pluck dust from the air and arrange them in alphabetical order. Try being more consistent. It’s the way normal people behave.”

“What?” Blaise said again and left his defence at that. “I just want to let you know that Professor Snape is angry with this continuous trouble with the Gryffindors.”

“What continuous trouble with Gryffindors? We always have trouble with Gryffindors. It’s a tradition. They are our rival House. They took away our Quidditch Cup. They took away our House Cup. They took away our glory, our honour, our…”

“Glory, honour,” Blaise echoed, tossing out the words like discarded apple pits. “He’s not referring to all that. House rivalry is fine. Personal rivalry, that’s not fine.”

“Personal rivalry?” Draco repeated. “I have had personal rivalry with the Gryffindors for the longest time. I don’t see what you mean.”

“It’s this thing you had with Ginny Weasley,” Blaise explained. “First you two had each other end up in the infirmary. Then you have her end up in the infirmary. And take my word for it, when she’s up and running, you are going to end up in the infirmary. And the cycle continues. It’s past petty feuds you had with her brother and Harry Potter. It’s too public. Too attention-seeking. See what I mean now? He thinks you should keep yourself in check.”

“Keep myself in check?” Draco was outraged at the idea. What was his professor thinking?

“Yes, tone yourself down. You are a prefect, Draco,” Blaise said. “This thing with Ginny Weasley is getting you into too much trouble. Not worth your while. I expect he will be speaking to you soon. I only know to tell you this because he was mumbling to himself angrily all the time he was questioning me.”

“You must be hallucinating,” Draco said, shaking his head. “The professor hates Gryffindors too.”

“But the business with Ginny Weasley is too much,” Blaise reasoned patiently. “Like I’ve said, it’s all laid out in the spotlight. Everyone knows what happened. He had to answer to the Headmaster. Count your lucky stars Professor Dumbledore is away at the Ministry.”

“Count my lucky stars, my arse…”

“Take my words. Keep low if you don’t want to end up in the infirmary.”

“What makes you think that I am going to end up in the infirmary?”

“When Ginny Weasley gets out, she is going to hunt you down and tear you strip by strip for what happened. Don’t assume she doesn’t know. They more or less got the picture.”

“Then it’s not my problem,” Draco said stubbornly. “I can try not to look for trouble but I can’t stop trouble looking for me. And don’t ever think I’ll be a sitting target and let her hex the heck out of me. I’m not going to let her make me look stupid.”

Blaise had to hammer down the urge to say that messing with Ginny Weasley was the most direct route to looking stupid.

“Keep out of her way is all I’m saying. Lie low for a few weeks, and she should have work off all the ire,” Blaise said. “Of course it’s entirely up to you. You are the one who has been on the receiving end of her hostility, not me. So you should know better. Try convincing me it’s a good idea to continue antagonising Ginny Weasley.”

Recollecting how Ginny Weasley was like when she swung a broomstick at him, Draco knew that Blaise had a point but he was not ready to accept the idea without a little resistance.

“It’s only Ginny Weasley,” Draco said.

“Of course. Only Ginny Weasley,” Blaise echoed. “Only Ginny Weasley who has six brothers, two of whom were the legendary troublemakers of Hogwarts. Only Ginny Weasley who had hexed you all the way to the infirmary on two occasions. Only Ginny Weasley who has hexed the balls off Michael Corner, and I mean that literally. Only Gin –“

“She what?”

“What?”

“What you said,” Draco said in awe. “What did she do to what’s his name?”

“Oh,” Blaise replied. “She hexed the balls off Michael Corner. Her ex-boyfriend. The whole school knows. He tried to …”

“She did what?”

“Where have you been?” Blaise asked disdainfully. “Under the carpet in Timbuktoo? Or is it not really you who was here the whole of the last school term? Hired a polyjuice stand-in, didn’t you? I knew it.”

“There is no need to be so sarcastic.”

“Your lack of awareness is appalling, Draco.”

“I am just not as nosy as the lot of you are,” Draco insisted, and tried to divert the subject. “That Michael what’s his name is a bastard anyway. Stupid Ravenclaw who thinks he’s so smart and holier-than-thou…”

“Right,” Blaise agreed sarcastically and nodded. “He’s holier-than-thou, unlike you, the emblem of humility. Perhaps Ginny Weasley will not hunt you down after all. Heaven knows we can’t do without you.”

“As if she can.”

“Just don’t come running to me when she breaks your legs,” Blaise replied, and Draco, his sense of humour running thin, decided that the best course of action perhaps, was to not talk to Blaise Zabini anymore. He had more important things to do. Like wondering when those people would stop glaring at him, and how to evade Ginny Weasley.

~*~

As it turned out, Operation Avoid Ginny Weasley was not difficult at all. For the past three days, he had scarcely seen a strand of the girl’s red hair. And the only redhead he had been near proximity to was hardly paying him any attention. This had come as a big surprise bigger than the size of England. Surely this was not normal. Did Ronald Weasley hit his head and finally awaken the retardant genes that had lain dormant up to this day, or something?

The lack of action from the rival House had every inch of Draco screaming “False sense of security! Constant vigilance!”.

The more he thought about it, the more amiss things seemed to be. Ginny Weasley would not make things so easy for him, would she? Judging by her temperament, she would have hurled angry words at him by now, if not chop him into pieces with the butter knife at breakfast. Thinking of which, the strange thing was, he had not run into her at all in the Great Hall, though that might not be her lack of trying as much as it was Draco’s conscientious effort to avoid dinning in the Great Hall whenever possible. He even had her timetable handy, courtesy of Blaise and his meticulous planning. And as much as it was against his will, Draco had taken care to avoid using hallways that his nemesis might use when he went for classes.

“Earth to Draco, earth to Draco, you’re going to cut your fingers off if you continue staring off into space,” Blaise whispered out of the corner of his mouth.

Blaise’s words jolted Draco out of his reverie and he shook his head to clear his mind before focusing on his work again. Looking down at the worktable, he saw what Blaise meant. One more cut of the knife and he would be getting more than chopped asphodel for his Draught of the Living Death. Intellectual curiosity had him, for a moment, wondering what the effect on the draught would be if he were to add in some human flesh and blood. Probably would do nothing more than enhancing the taste of the draught. He would ask Blaise what he thought about his hypothesis after class.

Advanced Potions was held in another dungeon located at the far end of the underground. The class was smaller and the work area more compact than the one Draco was used to in previous years. Unlike past years’ arrangements, which had the tables arranged in rows and columns, the work stations in this classroom were arranged to form a circle, the edge of one table touching the other. As a result, every student would be standing next to one another while they were at work, and this had the unfortunate effect of placing Draco next to Ronald Weasley. His other side was Blaise, who shared the same table with him, and next to Blaise was Harry Potter. Professor Snape had personally seen to it that the duo be separated and placed far away from Hermione Granger at the same time. She was directly opposite them in the circle, partnered with Su Li, a quiet Ravenclaw with short black hair and a very small face.

The composition of the class was mostly Ravenclaws, which came to Draco as no surprise. It was not easy to be in an Advanced Potions class. It has a quota of twelve students for every intake. Apart from Blaise and himself, the only other Slytherin was Theodore Nott, who was paired up with Kevin Entwhistle, another Ravenclaw. The trio were the only Gryffindors, a fact that still remained a mystery to Draco. He could expect Hermione Granger to be in Advanced Potions, seeing as she was probably in every other Advanced Magic classes, but Ronald Weasley and Harry Potter? Hogwarts Scandal of the Century.

His eyes swept along the circle as he stirred the potion brewing in the cauldron, nothing the other students in class: Mandy Brocklehurst, Michael what’s his name, Padma Patil, Terry Boot – all Ravenclaws. There were no Hufflepuffs, which was only to be expected.

Pop! The professor suddenly appeared in the centre of the room inside the circle of tables and the students immediately became more subdued, the quiet chatters drained away, the only noise in the classroom the sounds of knife chopping ingredients and rod stirring potions. Without a word, Professor Snape made his round, dragging a hand on the tabletop as he went along, drumming his fingers loudly against the tables at regular intervals, stopping only once at Ron Weasley’s table to tell him off for not wiping the edge of his cauldron dry when the potion bubbled out of it.

Draco suppressed an insane urge to cackle, and concentrated on his draught.

One swirl clockwise, half a swirl anti-clockwise, repeat until the infusion of wormwood turns green. Set flame low to boil gently. Add ginger, daisy roots, and essence of belladonna. Switch to glass rod. Maintain rapid stirring motion until…

“Very good, Draco,” a deep voice commented and he lifted his head to acknowledge the professor. “Have you added the chopped asphodel?”

“No, sir,” Draco replied assuredly. “Asphodel loses its effect when the temperature is high, and should be added only after the concoction has cooled.”

“Excellent. Twenty points to Slytherin,” the professor drawled. “I hope you have paid attention to that, Mr. Weasley.”

Draco was certain that he could hear the grinding of teeth from his neighbour, and cut his eyes sideway. Ronald Weasley caught his eyes and glared. Draco smirked and haughtily checked his neighbour’s table. No chopped asphodel in sight. Must be in the cauldron already then. Ha. He was going to have to stay back after class to redo his work.

The professor walked passed Draco, went on to check on Blaise, gave an approving nod, and walked on to check on the others.

Maintain rapid stirring motion until, ah, colour drained away.

Draco put the flame out with a swish of his wand and carefully transferred the potion from the cauldron into a clear bowl to cool quickly.

“You should have obtain the basic mixture by now!” the professor bellowed from the other side of the classroom. Draco looked up and saw that the professor was glaring daggers at Michael what’s his name. Draco could not help the compulsion to gloat, especially when he saw the look on Harry Potter’s face, his mouth opened wide, shifty eyes betraying a hint of panic. His mouth quickly closed again when he caught Draco looking. “Most incompetent,” the professor continued to scold. “It’s a wonder none of you have blown up my dungeon yet. And let me assure you that I will be most unhappy to have my dungeon walls splattered with your blood. Very tedious to clean. Please spare a thought for our poor house elves,” he said and looked at Hermione briefly, a fickle of bitter amusement evident in his eyes. “So,” he started again, folding his arms in the way that made his large sleeves hang like curtains down his front, “the last ingredient.”

“Er, professor, please,” Hermione Granger said, putting her hand up. “The last ingredient…”

“Mr. Zabini,” Professor Snape called, ignoring Hermione as if she had not spoken a word. Hermione’s hand went down but she continued to look at the professor determinedly.

“Yes, sir,” Blaise answered, his hands placed behind him, his posture quietly confident.

“Name the last ingredient.”

“Bezoar.”

“How much?”

“In equal part with the essence of belladonna.”

“Elaborate.”

“Bezoar, which comes from the stomach of a goat, neutralises all poison. Adding it last to the potion nullifies the poison in the essence of belladonna to make the draught safe for human consumption.”

“Commendable, Mr. Zabini. Another twenty points to Slytherin,” the professor said and whirled around, his robe billowing as he turned to address the rest of the class. “All of you,” he said with narrowed eyes, “except … Mr. Zabini, Mr. Malfoy … and … Miss. Granger. In other words, the rest of you who obviously have failed to work out the answer … I expect a detailed write-up about the Draught of the Living Death to be on my desk. Today. Before dinner,” he warned. “Your due punishment.”

Quiet resentful grunts rippled throughout the room. A detailed write-up about the potion to be done before dinner meant that there would be no lunch break for those affected. And for those who had to redo their brew, it would be a long night camping out in the dungeon. Draco was silently glad he was among the intellectually superior.

“Seal the draught for my inspection when you’ve finished,” the professor said and Apparated, appearing at the door with a pop. “Class dismissed.”

~*~

Hermione glared hard and long at the dark boy opposite, not quite able to live down yet another humiliating dismissal from the potion master. She knew the answer to the question and was positive that she could provide a better explanation than Blaise Zabini had. How dare he came off as being smarter than she was, she grumbled bitterly.

Blaise added the final ingredient to the draught and watched the bezoar sizzle and disappeared into the colourless concoction. He picked up a glass rod and gave the potion a slight stir. Without turning his head, he reached out his left hand to pick up the funnel he knew should be there. When his hand felt the empty tabletop, he turned to find Draco already a step ahead of him, holding the funnel they shared in his hand but not using it yet. He was about to reason with Draco when he paused, noticing that Hermione was glaring at him. She had been glaring at him on and off for the entire lesson. He wondered what he had done to offend the Gryffindor prefect, but drew a blank. Shrugging it off, he took a step towards Draco and plucked the funnel out of his hand.

“Hey, I got it first,” Draco protested.

“You are not using it, prick,” Blaise said and then gaped at Draco indignantly when the other boy snatched the funnel back.

“I am going to,” Draco said.

“You are not,” Blaise replied and snagged the funnel, but Draco reached out in time and they were in a tug of war. They pulled at the funnel, dragging it to and fro along the tabletop, neither willing to give in.

Great Salazar, this is childish, Blaise thought. But hell, he wants the funnel and he is going to get it. Holding a firm grip on the funnel as he was jerked sideway by Draco’s pull on it, he reached around with his other hand and felt about the table blindly. Quills, parchments, dropper, rods, sweet wrappers … ah, the knife, and … the pestle. Hmm, pestle or the knife?

Hermione watched the two Slytherins with dry incredulity. Good gracious! What are they doing? She looked around the room, seeking affirmation, but no one seemed to notice what they were doing.

Blaise’s hand closed on the handle of the knife, brought it gliding through the air and made a stab for Draco’s hand. Draco gasped and withdrew his hand immediately.

Blaise took the opportunity, grabbed the funnel, and with swift, sure movements, empty the contents into the vessel with the label for the draught before tossing the funnel back to Draco. Draco caught it by reflex, and stared at Blaise.

“You tried to stab me,” Draco said.

Hermione’s eyes went wide and nearly screamed if she could find her voice. The Slytherins have no morals at all, Hermione thought to herself. Then she wondered why she was worrying herself over Draco Malfoy’s hand. But still, the thing remained to be said was, the Slytherins were a weird bunch of immoral people.

“I was just trying to divert your attention,” Blaise replied, sealing off the vessel. He brought the vessel up to his eye level, inspecting it closely before shaking the contents smilingly. “Done.”

“You tried to stab me,” Draco said again, his voice coming out in a squeak.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Blaise said, narrowing his eyes with mirth, and walked off to the back of the room, slotted his vessel into the compartment in the crate that bore his name, and returned to his seat. He picked up the sweet wrappers, stuffed them into his pocket, and cleared up the cluttered table, packing his belongings at the same time.

“Hurry up, won’t you?” he said to Draco, shooing him in the direction of the crate. “I’m famished.” He swung his bag over his shoulder and walked off to the door. He pulled the heavy dungeon door open -- it emitted a noisy creak the sound of rusting metal, and the thick chains scratched the stone floor, ringing -- only to close it again. Draco looked at Blaise, puzzled when he saw him calmly turned and leaned against the door, looking at Draco with a strange expression on his face. Draco picked up his bag and walked up to Blaise.

“What?”

“Your friend is waiting for you outside.”

Draco arched one eyebrow, question marks running through his head. “What friend, who?”

“There’s someone outside who looks like she is really going to stab you,” Blaise said.

“You mean…”

“Hang on a minute,” Blaise said and dragged the door open to peer out at the corridor. Draco saw him frown, and waited nervously. “Weird. She was there a minute ago.”

“So she’s not there now?” Draco asked hopefully and leaned close to look. There is no one in the corridor. Is Blaise playing a trick on him?

“Hmm,” Blaise hummed and stepped out of the dungeon. “I am sure I saw her.”

“Maybe you saw it wrong,” Draco said and followed, pulling the door close. “She shouldn’t even be here. No one comes here except students in Advanced Potions.”

“Her brother’s in Advanced Potions,” Blaise replied. “You are in Advanced Potions,” he added.

Draco laughed nervously. “You can’t be suggesting that she … Ha, as if she can get me. She’s just a little – ” Weasley girl. The sentence broke off abruptly when Ginny Weasley suddenly appeared at the end of the corridor, holding a wand, and looking absolutely murderous.

Draco knew he was going to hate himself for it later but he could not help it. He turned and bolted in the opposite direction.

“Draco Malfoy!” He heard her screeched. It was the last thing he heard before he took off in a flash up the staircases.

~*~

“Draco Malfoy!”

Ginny broke into a run, determined to get hold of her nemesis.

Blaise went forward quickly and planted himself in her way. She swerved and continued briskly, her Chaser agility evident in her moves. Blaise turned to check on Draco, noted that he had fled to the other exit, and heaved a sigh of relief. Now all he had to do was buy his friend some time. Without hesitation, Blaise moved and collided into Ginny Weasley. The impact knocked them off each other, and Blaise deliberately let his bag fell, his belongings scattering on the stone floor in a mess.

“Whoops, I’m sorry,” Blaise said, and meant it in more ways than one.

“Get out of my way!” Ginny screamed, and screamed again when she tripped over the items scattered on the stone floor.

“Careful,” he said as he broke her fall.

“Let go of me, you bastard!” Ginny swore and struggled to stand properly while trying to shake Blaise off.

Wow, Blaise thought. First meeting, we haven’t been introduced and she’s already calling me bastard.

“Did you hear what I said? I said get OUT OF MY WAY!” she screamed again and shoved him off. Then, she looked torn between picking up her belongings and running after Draco.

“Let me help you with those,” Blaise said and smiled inwardly. He bent down to pick up the girl’s bag, books, quills, and parchments when she unexpectedly swept the things out of his hands. The stationery and books settled on the floor with a clatter.

“You did that on purpose!” Ginny yelled. “You are helping him!”

“I don’t know what you are saying. Who are you referring to?”

“Listen,” Ginny said and seized the front of his robes. “Don’t act stupid with me, Blaise Zabini. I know you are best friend with Draco Malfoy.”

“Whoa, calm down, lady,” Blaise said, barely masking his surprise at the girl’s directness. If she weren’t so small in stature, she would have made a formidable sparring partner.

“Calm down, my arse,” Ginny swore again, and Blaise thought distractedly that he had heard something similar not so long ago. Oh, he suddenly made the connection. She sounded like Draco. They swore the same way.

“Look, Miss, get your hands off me first, then we can talk like civilised people,” Blaise said and tried to pry her fists off his robes but she had freakish strength for a girl. “Ouch!” Blaise yelped when Ginny dug her fingernails into his hand as they struggled with each other.

They were so absorbed in each other that they did not hear the massive dungeon door creaked open and closed again. Hermione stood rooted at the door, shocked at what she was seeing.

“What is going on?” Hermione demanded and rushed to Ginny’s aid. “What do you want, Blaise Zabini?” she shouted, her voice laced with rancour.

“I knocked into her is all,” Blaise explained plainly.

Hermione was overcome with dry incredulity for the second time in a day.

“You don’t believe me,” Blaise said.

“Don’t listen to him, Hermione,” Ginny said. “He’s with Draco Malfoy!”

“You let go of her,” Hermione said to Blaise and joined in the tussle.

“Hey, I’ll be more than happy to let go of her,” Blaise said, exasperated, and pulled at both Ginny and Hermione’s hands, “if she would just let go of me.”

“Stop twisting the facts, Blaise Zabini. I had enough of your rubbish,” Hermione said and pulled at Blaise’s hands, which were pulling at Ginny’s hands.

I can’t believe I’m stuck in a fight with two women, Blaise thought as he was overpowered by the two girls, not so much by their joint power, but rather by his reluctance to use force on the girls. They are females, after all.

“Okay, look, just let go, and … hey!” Blaise tried to reason. “You are ruining my shirt.”

“Shut up!” Ginny screamed.

“Yeah, you filthy little cockroach!” Hermione joined in, getting a little affected by Ginny.

Good lord, Blaise thought. What a kinky situation, two girls pressing themselves on me. And filthy little cockroach? Hmm … who says that?

“Right, I’m sorry, but I had to …” Blaise trailed off as he used more strength on the girls. He took hold of Hermione’s wrist and twisted it slightly, enough to induce pain so that she would let go but not too much to cause injury.

“Ouch,” Hermione complained and saw red. She struggled with Blaise’s grip as she tried her best to defend her friend. “You don’t touch her!” she screamed.

Blaise ignored Hermione and with one hand holding her off, he tried to detach Ginny from himself.

“Don’t you touch her!” Hermione screamed like a mad woman.

“I’m not touching her!” Blaise screamed back.

“Let go of me! Let go!” Hermione flailed her hands about to fight off Blaise Zabini. The situation became a wild thrusting of limbs that threatened to poke his eyes out.

“Fucking lord of hell, can you just stay still and not –”

A hand sailed through the air.

Slap.

And hit Blaise across the cheek. The sound of the slap echoed along the corridor. Suddenly, everything came to a standstill. Ginny let go of Blaise and looked as if she was the one who had been slapped to her senses.

“Oh, no” Hermione said weakly, her hands flew to her mouth in shock. I’ve hit him, she thought, and was washed over with guilt. “I’m … I’m so …”

She never had the chance to say she was sorry because Blaise shook both of them off roughly and stood up. He looked very angry. It was the first time Hermione had ever seen him angry, and it made him looked like a different person altogether.

She stood up as well and was determined to apologise but the boy threw them a dirty look and strode off in a huff, leaving his things behind.

~*~

BANG!

The dormitory door slammed close and Draco watched Blaise marched into their room in angry strides. He went directly to his trunk, kicked it open as he shrugged off his robes violently, yanked off his tie, and flung them across the room.

“What…”

“Honestly, the things I do for you!” Blaise bellowed, and Draco shut his mouth. What the hell did Ginny Weasley do? Draco wondered.

He sat on his bed and continued to watch Blaise as he stormed about, kicking off his shoes, rummaged through his trunk before slamming it shut again without taking anything from it. Draco had never seen Blaise in a rage in a very long time. The last time it happened, Draco recollected, Blaise threw a bedside table off the fourth storey of his mansion. He was fourteen, and his parents were going through a separation. Draco darted his eyes around the room. Okay, no windows in the dungeon.

He peered at Blaise who was tugging at the buttons on his shirt, fumbled with the last one, and with one furious pull, tore the button off. The button flew through the air and hit Draco on his face.

“Ow,” Draco said and pressed his hand to his forehead.

“Fucking fuck it off to fucking hell.” Blaise continued storming in circles, working on his cufflinks and threw them at Draco. The metal articles hit Draco again: one got his right eye; the other got the side of his mouth.

Draco felt violated, but reasoned that Blaise had every right to abuse him in exchange for getting abused by Ginny Weasley. He pulled a face at Blaise, attempting rapport, but the boy was not looking at him. He had stopped pacing about, and was standing in the centre of their room, the front of his shirt opened and tucked out, his hands rigidly rested at his sides, breathing heavily. His chest rose and fell in time with the stir of his long fringe, which moved with the angry breaths he was expelling. He blinked angrily and stared at Draco, a scornful look unhidden on his face.

“For all your trouble,” Blaise spat with venom, “I get all the abuses.”

Draco lowered his eyes and felt deeply apologetic. He was suddenly very small, and Blaise, like an elder sibling waving a very big stick, towered over his very insignificant existence.

“I’m sorry,” Draco said, sounding the most earnest he had ever been.

“Sorry?” Blaise repeated, and the word sounded like ridiculous muck rolling off his tongue. “Sorry?” he said again and shook his head. Draco dared a look at him and saw the marks on his hands: red scratches, the imprints of Ginny Weasley’s nails.

Blaise saw what Draco was looking at, and thrust his hands at his face. “This is not all. This,” he said and pointed at the side of his face, still slightly red from the slap, “this …” Blaise did not look like he could continue.

“She slapped you?” Draco asked dreamily. “That bitch actually hit you? But she was after me.”

“No,” Blaise laughed without mirth. “Not Ginny Weasley. Hermione Granger.”

“Mudblood Granger?” Draco echoed. This was getting more and more complicated. What was Granger doing in the picture?

“Long story,” Blaise said and took a few steps again to work off his ire. “Actually, not a very long story,” he said later. “She saw me holding off Ginny Weasley, and for some bizarre reason, thought I was trying to harm her. The ridiculous imagination of the female mind, encoded into the combination of double x-chromosomes.”

Draco listened and looked blank. Blaise sighed with feeling and explained with academic professionalism. “X-chromosomes,” he said. “Medical Magic, last year, chapter one.” And when Draco continued to look confused, Blaise scolded, “The first chapter! Basic understanding of the human body, the scientific perspective! The x-chromosomes, rod-like structure in living cells containing the chemical patterns … oh what’s the use,” he said and threw his arms in the air dramatically. “Anyway, it was a confusing situation.”

“Yes, it is. You can’t blame me for not remembering what the x-chromo-what is.”

“No! I’m not talking about the,” Blaise said and took a deep breath.

Draco had the grace to look sheepish.

“Weasley was grabbing at my shirt,” Blaise continued. “I think she was just venting her anger on me because I helped you get away. There was some misunderstanding. Granger thought, wait, I already told you that. In a nutshell, I got slapped in the midst of it.”

“That Mudblood!” Draco cursed.

“It has nothing to do with pureblood or not,” Blaise said coolly.

“Whatever,” Draco said and stood up. “Listen, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have run, but I can’t help it. I don’t know what came over me.” Draco shut his eyes, pained. “Merlin, it is humiliating.”

Blaise looked at Draco and crossed his arms over his chest.

“No, it’s a smart thing,” Blaise said. “Ginny Weasley is a nut case. I’ll run for the hills the next time I see her.”

“You know, I won’t be able to live this down. I ran away at the sight of a girl a year younger than me who barely reached my shoulder. Oh gods.” Draco buried his face in his hands.

“Well, we are never known to be brave,” Blaise said reasonably. “Or we would be in Gryffindor. We have sharp survival instinct though.” He shrugged off his shirt, seeming less angry than before, and pulled a fresh, dark blue jersey on. The back of the long-sleeved shirt read “10”, “Mullet Goodwin”, and “Puddlemere United” in white, and there was a picture of two crossed gold bulrushes enchanted to fade in and out with the words at alternative intervals.

Draco blinked and looked confused again.

“Why are you changing out of your uniform?” he asked.

“I’m skipping class,” Blaise said and flopped onto his bed, a hand behind his head, and started to read a book. Draco could not see what book it was, but could tell from the constellation design on the cover that it had something to do with Divination. It could not be Astronomy. Blaise always fell asleep on his telescope during Astronomy.

“I’m going to class alone?”

Blaise looked at Draco over the top of his book.

“Draco, you are old enough to go to class without my escorting you.”

“You said you are hungry,” Draco said.

“Not anymore,” Blaise said and turned a page. “Very full with rage now.”

“Come on,” Draco urged, “I want to eat lunch. I’m hungry.”

“Then go eat,” Blaise spoke from behind his book.

“Come oooooooooon,” Draco wailed.

Blaise put down his book but did not sit up.

“Look, I can’t go to the Great Hall like this,” he said and spread his arms wide for effect. “It just screams ‘I am going to skip class today’.”

“But I don’t want to eat alone.”

“Don’t be silly. There are cartloads of people eating in the Great Hall now. You won’t be eating alone Draco Prince of Slytherin,” Blaise said, and Draco was resentful at the slight sarcasm.

“Yes, I know,” Draco replied. “Cartloads of people … like, Ginny Weasley.” He immediately regretted saying the last bit. Oh gods, he had sunk so low.

He had gone through a gloomy introspection of the event when he was alone in his room, and knew that what happened was not because he was afraid of Ginny Weasley. Okay, maybe that played a small part, but it was not the whole story. He was sorry for what he did to her, that much he would readily admit, only to himself. He was not sure if he wanted to be forced into a situation where he had to exchange hexes with the girl again. Either way he would lose out: fight back, get into more trouble and risk his prefect badge (the acting Headmistress had made that point clear) or refused to fight and be hexed into oblivion.

“She won’t pounce on you in public,” Blaise said, though he did not sound convinced.

“Do you think I should risk that?” Draco asked.

Blaise looked calculative, gazing at the ceiling of his bed. Then he chortled at the image of Ginny Weasley crawling over the lunch on their House table to reach for Draco’s neck. He looked over at Draco and shook his head slightly.

“No. Better not.”

“Ah,” Draco reacted. “Shall I just live on chewing wood off the bedpost then?” he asked and knocked the bedpost three times.

“It is a feasible plan,” Blaise commented, glancing at Draco’s bed. “Sturdy craftsmanship. Good quality oak. Will last till seventh year. Might chip off your teeth though.”

“Be serious now, can you?” Draco said. “I’m really hungry, and I need to eat.”

“Why don’t you ask someone to get the food out of the Great Hall?”

“Why not go straight to the kitchens?”

“Good thinking. You do that,” Blaise said and went back to his book.

“You really don’t want food?” Draco asked, sounding hopeful.

Blaise’s stomach growled, and he slapped the book, still opened, on his abdomen.

Draco grinned.

“Get up,” he said to Blaise, and proceeded to pull him up, throwing his book carelessly aside. “We can bring some food for Theodore, and we’ll eat in the classroom. No Ginny Weasley there.”

“Are you really afraid of Ginny Weasley?” Blaise asked as he swung his legs over the bed to put on his shoes.

Draco glanced at Blaise briefly, vacillating between pride and the urge to confess.

“Between you, me and the bedpost … yes. I am afraid of Ginny Weasley,” Draco answered and glanced abstractly upward. “Just … a little bit.”

~*~

“Oh, Harry, it’s roots of asphodel, not aconite,” Hermione sighed and quickly stopped Harry before he chopped and wasted the wrong ingredient.

“Can’t tell the difference,” Ron said. Harry gave a wry smile and took the correct ingredient Hermione passed to him.

“Ron, honestly,” Hermione scolded, “if you want to get out of this classroom before nightfall, you had better … RON! Don’t eat with your hands when you are brewing potions!”

“Oh gracious,” Ginny said from where she was seated, swinging her legs from side to side, “how stupid can you get, eating with the hands you use to touch the ingredients? Essence of belladonna is poisonous, you know? So is aconite.”

Harry hurriedly retracted his hand from the plate of sandwiches.

“Yeah, right,” Ron retorted. “Since when did you learn to sound all smartarsey like …” He broke off at the look on Hermione’s face. “I’m not talking about you!” he defended himself.

“Come, here,” Hermione said, and held the sandwich for Ron, of which he dutifully took a bite. “Now you, Harry,” she said, and fed Harry the same sandwich. “I don’t want any one of you poisoned to death in my presence.”

“We’re not stupid, you know,” Ron said as he munched his food. “I use the left hand to do work and the right hand to eat.”

“Really?” Ginny asked. “How did you chop the asphodel then? I didn’t know mum gave you an extra limb.”

The siblings broke into a friendly banter. Hermione sighed and brushed away the stray strands of hair that had escaped from the bun she had tightly screwed at the back of her head with a quill. As she did so, she turned slightly, and her eyes fell on the dark grey bag lying on an empty table.

She had picked up Blaise’s belongings after he marched off. Ginny had wanted to help, feeling as guilty as Hermione had been, but she shooed her off to get some food for Harry and Ron, both of whom had to miss lunch to finish their work.

She wondered about the things she had learnt from assembling his possessions. Most items were common enough: quills new and old, unused parchments neatly rolled and fastened together with a black velvet string that had a single bead knotted in the middle (unusual for a boy), textbooks that had seen loads of readings, pages dog-eared and scribbled (would be unpopular with Madam Pinch), a bag of sherbet lemons (either sweet-tooth or fell asleep easily), a locked diary, and bits and pieces of paper.

Hermione had not meant to peek, but it was hard to miss the big scrawls on the upper right side of the sheets. 120. Ancient Runes. 120. Advanced Transfiguration (Hermione always thought she was the only one getting 120 from Professor McGonagall). 120. Muggle Studies.

Intrigued, she had flipped the paper over to look at his attempted thesis.

Investigating Muggle and Magical Medical Procedures

-- Assimilating Approaches.

Focused subject: Respiratory Ailments.

The theory was quite carefully worked out -- impressive. She had wanted to read more but it did not seem the right thing to do without the writer’s permission. Not that she was expecting to have a chance anyway, after what had happened. Reluctantly, Hermione had arranged the papers neatly before slotting them into the bag along with the other items.

One of the items that had surprised Hermione the most was a stack of index cards, cut out from parchments, bound together with a detachable ring, the type commonly used in the Muggle world. Hermione could not remember seeing anyone use it in the Wizarding world, not even the Muggle-borns in Hogwarts. Where did Blaise Zabini get hold of one of these?

Then, there were pencils and an eraser. Wizards do not use pencils and erasers when they can remove ink mistakes easily with a flick of the wand.

He is very strange for a Slytherin, Hermione thought; and as if he had heard her thinking about him, he walked into the classroom, chattering noisily with a companion.

Hermione sat up straight, self-conscious in his presence. She felt a need to look occupied, and quickly busied herself with the crushing of scarab beetles, even though they were not needed for the Draught of the Living Death.

Blaise paused when he saw the group of Gryffindors. Draco knocked into him from behind and stood shell-shocked.

Ginny Weasley.

Okay, don’t panic, he told himself. You’ve run away once, you’re not going to do it again. Not twice in one day. Not in front of Potty and Weasel.

Shoring up his courage, he walked round Blaise and hurried to Theodore’s table, avoiding the eyes of anyone else in the room. Blaise followed, and sat down at the table with Theodore, who had gratefully taken the lunch they brought for him. He scanned the classroom briefly, taking in the students at work.

Other than the Gryffindors, there were four other Ravenclaws. Su Li’s head was bent over her parchment, writing away studiously. The table next to hers was empty except for … his bag. Blaise looked briefly at Hermione, who avoided his eyes. He turned his attention away. Kevin Entwhistle, Theodore’s partner, was also writing his essay. Padma Patil, the pretty Indian girl, was still working on her brew. Michael Corner, technically in the room, his presence marked only by his brewing cauldron; the boy himself was nowhere to be seen.

“Kevin, have some of these,” Blaise said and tossed a packed sandwich to the boy. It fell in front of him.

“Thanks,” Kevin replied, and removed the cling film, taking a bite of the food. “A lot,” he said with food in his mouth. Theodore laughed.

Blaise shrugged one shoulder and smiled, a gesture that Hermione registered. She had never noticed before, but Blaise shared an easy camaraderie with other people. And apparently, so did Draco Malfoy. The boys had settled into a light chatter.

For Draco, the chitchat helped distract him from Ginny Weasley. He was relieved that he had made it to one side of the classroom safely, but was still aware of her staring at him from across the room. He refused to look in her direction.

“Psst,” Blaise leaned over and whispered in his ear. “I thought the plan was to run for the hills?”

“Change of plan,” Draco whispered back. “No hills to run to.”

“Ah,” Blaise answered knowingly. “But it’s rather dangerous here, don’t you think? Knives and pestles. Imagine if she threw the mortar over.”

Draco shook his head. “No, too heavy.”

“Look, she reaching for the knife.”

Draco looked over nervously and saw what she was doing. She took the knife and some daisy roots, her glare on him unbroken. She lifted the knife and pointed at him deliberately before she brought it down with a thud, chopping the daisy roots with vim. Draco swallowed a dry throat.

“Nut case,” Blaise whispered. “You can see what she is thinking. Draco Malfoy, chop, chop. Draco Malfoy, chop, chop. She thinks she’s chopping your vital organs for supper.”

“She wouldn’t do anything here,” Draco hissed. “This is a classroom.”

“Snape keeps a bottle of Mrs. Scower’s Magical Mess Removal in the cabinet. Comes in handy during murders. Effectively removes blood.”

CHOP. Ginny Weasley delivered another merciless cut on the chopping board. It felt like a blow to his stomach by the end of a log. Draco had the inclination to run again.

CHOP. CHOP. CHOP.

Blaise started whistling, uneasy, and drummed his fingers on the table to a random tune -- ‘Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf’.

“Who’s afraid of the bad big wolf, the big bad wolf, the big bad wolf,” Kevin sang softly as he writes. “Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf? Tra la la la la.”

Draco wanted to stuff the cauldron into his mouth.

“Long ago there were three pigs. Little handsome piggy-wigs. For the big, bad very big very bad wolf. They didn't give three figs,” Kevin continued.

“Number one was very gay. And he built his house of hay. With a hey hey toot. He blew on his flute. And he played around all day,” Blaise joined in, still drumming the beat on the tabletop. “Number two was fond of jigs. And so he built his house with twigs. Heigh diddle-diddle. He played on his fiddle. And danced with lady pigs.”

“Number three said ‘Nix on tricks. I will build my house with bricks’. He had no chance. To sing and dance. 'Cause work and play don't mix. Ha ha ha! The two little pigs just winked and laugh, ha ha!”

Blaise cut in again mischievously.

“Who's afraid of the chop, chop, chop, the chop, chop, chop, the chop, chop, chop? Who's afraid of the chop, chop, chop? Tra la la la la!”

Theodore and Kevin joined Blaise in the revised lyrics, singing louder and louder.

“Who's afraid of the chop, chop, chop, the chop, chop, chop, the chop, chop, chop? Who's afraid of the chop, chop, chop? Tra la la la la!”

Su Li and Padma were looking at them, smiling.

“It will sound better on the piano,” Blaise told them.

“You don’t sound too bad,” Padma replied, giggling.

Blaise did a mock bow from where he was seated.

“And that’s so funny. Chop, chop, chop. That’s not the original, is it?”

“Nope, it’s not.”

“How does the rest of it go?” Su Li asked, curious.

“You’ve never heard of the story of the three little pigs?” Kevin asked.

Su Li shook her head. Kevin beckoned her over. Padma went over too. The larger group surrounded the table, and to Draco’s distress, continued the rest of the song together. All Draco could hear was ‘chop, chop, chop, the chop, chop, chop, the chop, chop, chop’ in his head for the rest of the day.

~*~

Chop, chop, chop. Chop, chop, chop. Ginny had to suppress the compulsion to giggle when she was chopping the daisy roots. She was boiling with steam coming out of her ears when she saw Draco Malfoy. And she took great delight in pointing the knife at him and witnessing the colour drained out of his face, but Blaise Zabini was too much; too funny. Who’s Afraid of the Chop, Chop, Chop. She almost sang along with them.

Thinking of Blaise Zabini made her feel awful. She didn’t know what came over her. Fury had blinded her. Now that she was less agitated, she realised she should not have abused Blaise Zabini when her real target was Draco Malfoy. True, he got into her way, but he was helping his friend. It did not matter that his friend was Draco Malfoy. Ginny Weasley admired a person for going all out for his friend.

She stopped chopping the daisy roots and put down the knife. With a deep breath, she pushed herself off the stool and walked towards the empty table. She had time to note that Draco Malfoy was looking at her with suspicion, and she took the opportunity to throw him a dirty look while she picked up the bag and continued her way to the group of people gathered at Kevin Entwhistle’s table. Everyone at the table stopped their chatter and looked at her. Blaise Zabini eyed her cautiously, looking at the bag and back to her again.

She stopped in front of Blaise (and a feet away from Draco), took another deep breath and braced herself before she thrust the bag at Blaise.

“Look,” she said and gestured for Blaise to take the bag, “I apologise for what happened just now. Don’t blame Hermione. She didn’t know. I was the mad woman.”

Blaise had to hand it to her. She was forthright in a way Blaise had hitherto only associated to the male way of communication. Draco looked gobsmacked. The rest were merely confused.

“What happened just now?” Kevin asked, curious.

Ginny ignored Kevin’s question and looked directly at Blaise. He looked back, his face devoid of expression. When he still did not reach for the bag, Ginny licked her lips nervously and bit her lower lip.

“Listen,” she went on to say, “I may be mad, and I was mad at you, but it didn’t justify my behaviour. You were civil enough …” she trailed off, thinking before she continued. “Like I said, I apologise. Here’s your bag.” And she looked at him again, her eyes pleading him to take the bag.

She looked so sincere Blaise decided that the bag probably did not hold any explosives (not that he would not check).

. Ginny released the breath she had been holding.

Blaise checked his bag briefly, confirmed that there were no sabotages and turned to Ginny.

“You tore my shirt collar,” he said to her.

“I’ll pay for a new one.”

He smiled, but was still guarded. “That would not be necessary. I have plenty of shirts,” he said, his earlier resentment diminished. “And thank you,” he gestured with the bag.

“No, it wasn’t me. It was Hermione,” Ginny said and waved a hand in Hermione’s direction. Blaise followed the line of her hand and looked across the room, caught Hermione’s eyes but did not get to say anything because Ginny motioned for his attention, and he turned back to her.

“I don’t like to owe other people anything, so I’ll offer you a deal,” Ginny said in a tone that told Blaise this was the way she was used to talking to her brothers. It explained her unusual hint of boyishness. “I’ll let him off for today,” she said and jabbed a finger at Draco, two millimetres away from his nose, “on your account. But tomorrow, I’ll play the game my way. It’s between him and me, you understand.”

Blaise was amused, and exchanged a glance with Draco.

He nodded. “Fair enough.”

Ginny held out a hand, business-like, and Blaise took it. They shook hands formally and she took a step back.

“Well, that’s all I have to say,” she said and turned to walk away.

Blaise looked at her retreating back admiringly, and finally understood why Ginny Weasley had half the boys in Hogwarts arse backward infatuated with her.

“That is one hell of a girl,” he said to Draco. “Nut case, but still, one hell of a girl.”

~*~

“What happened?” Ron asked, his brows furrowed. He looked very unhappy to hear there had been something going on between his sister and the Slytherins that he was unaware of. The last time it happened, his sister killed chickens, Petrified students, and nearly died.

He remembered his promise to his sister. “Leave Draco Malfoy to me,” she had said, “And mind your own business.” It was impossible to reason with her when she had her mind set on something. It did not mean he had to like it though.

It was on occasions like this that he wished he had listened to his mother. “Be a good boy. Set a good example for your sister,” his mother always said. If he had taken heed, he would not be finding himself in a position where his sister could override his arguments by citing his past antics. An elder brother without authority. Nothing could be worse than that.

“Ginny,” Ron said again when Ginny seated herself, “what happened?”

Ginny waved a dismissive hand. “Nothing of interest to you,” she said.

“Who are you to decide if it would interest me or not?” Ron said hotly.

Ginny’s eyes widened, sensing her brother’s sudden change of mood. This was delicate ground. She had to tread carefully.

Hermione shot her a look, and shook her head slightly, a desperate look in her eyes. The last thing she needed was for Ron and Harry to know that she had acted like a crazy woman without their help. They would not leave her alone about it if they knew.

Ginny returned the gesture with subtle eye movements, and turned to her brother, placing her hands on his arm, assumed her innocent little sister persona, before she looked up at him.

“It’s …” she started and her mind searched for ideas, “… really nothing interesting,” she said lamely.

Holy cow, you have to do better than this, Ginny Weasley.

“Nothing?” Ron repeated. “You expect me to believe that?” he said fiercely.

Ginny’s hands on her brother tightened involuntarily at that. Catching herself, she released her grip and switched tact, patting her brother’s arm in a childlike manner.

“I, er,” she paused, found inspiration to be lacking, and decided to be spontaneous. “I came to see you,” she lied, “and I was waiting outside the dungeon, and … oh, before I forget, there was this huge mouse running around, it was disgusting! Remind me to ask Hermione the spell to make the mice go away. And, also remind me Seamus wanted me to find Harry because there was something wrong with his broom and did I mention that Seamus had a brilliant idea for the team? It’s so brilliant, you have to hear it. And oh, where was I? Oh, back to the story, I was just walking along the corridor and Blaise Zabini came out of the classroom and dropped his bag, just like that! And I, er …” She lost track of her ramble. “The things flew all over! There were so many things! Quills, books, parchments everywhere! It’s so bizarre, I threw some tantrums, said he was stupid, and I had to apologise to him. No big deal.”

Ron went cross-eyed as he listened, and was not sure if he had caught the entire picture -- it was very messy, like an Impressionist painting, quite impossible to understand.

“Can you,” Ron said, “Can you repeat yourself?”

“Urgh,” Ginny said, and continued to ramble her way. “Why are you always like this? You are always like this! You all are the same, always treat me like this!”

“Like what?” Ron reacted, indignant.

“Like this! You never listen to me carefully when I talk. I hate you, I hate you!”

“Ginny, don’t think you can –”

“What, now it is my fault?” Ginny wailed and blinked her huge eyes at Ron. “It’s not fair. You all always take advantage of me because I am the youngest! I am going to tell mum and dad, and you are going to be sorry for this!”

“Ginny …”

“Don’t Ginny-Ginny me!” she continued wailing. “I am not going to be afraid of you!”

Ron was certain that the person being taken advantage of here was he himself. Ginny’s habit of rambling herself out of trouble had to be curbed.

“Ginny …” he warned. “Stop …”

“Wahhhhhhh,” she announced dramatically. “I’m not going to talk to you,” she said and quickly grabbed her bag. “I don’t want to talk to you ever again!” she said, turned, and flounced off, leaving her brother in the room.

Harry watched the siblings with interest. “Does she always do that?” he asked, amused.

“All the bloody time,” Ron replied.

Hermione was flabbergasted. Ginny was … There was no word invented to describe her feat. Ginny was just fantastically impossible.

“Don’t you have anything to say to that?” Ron said to Hermione. “You girls hang around so much, she’s half yours. Take her in hand, won’t you?”

“She’s your sister,” Hermione replied, suppressing the desire to giggle as she thought back on what had taken place.

“It’s ridiculous she got out of responsibility like that all the time,” Ron complained as he chopped the ginger roots. “It’s just like what Fred and George do, only more absurd, less logical, and completely without consistency. No one knows what she was going on about when she does that.”

“Runs in the family?” Harry asked.

“ From my dad’s side, mum always says,” Ron replied. “Not true, if you asked me. Maybe Bill can be like that, but at least he speaks like a normal person,” he said, drawing circles in the air with his knife, “Charlie, very rarely, Percy not at all, Fred and George do it the most. And Ginny? Learned it all from them.”

“You forgot to mention yourself,” Hermione said.

“I’m not like that!” Ron retorted. “Hey, don’t give me that look,” he said and pointed his knife at Hermione. “I’m not!”

Harry’s shoulders were shaking with suppressed laughter, and he turned his face to one side. Hermione lifted her eyebrows, looking unimpressed.

“Fine,” Ron said. “So I do … sometimes. But at least, my story fits. Any one of you understood what she was going on just now? I bet you don’t. I can’t even remember anything except it being a very weak excuse. It’s a swiss-cheese excuse full of holes I can drive a cart through.”

“Maybe you can coach her on it then,” Hermione said airily. “Give her some pointers.”

“I’m not going to …” Ron said and stopped. “Anyway, what’s the next step?” he asked, closing off the subject.

Hermione leaned over the table to check on the cauldron. She sighed.

“The next step,” she said as she took the cauldron off the fire and emptied it despite Ron’s protest, “is to start over. I told you not to add the asphodel before the mixture is cooled.” She plonked the cauldron over the stand again. “Honestly!”

~*~

“So what are you going to do?” Blaise asked Draco when they were alone again, walking back to their dormitory after dinner. True to her words, Ginny Weasley had not given Draco any trouble for the rest of the day. She did not even look at him again. It was like he had never existed.

“I don’t know,” Draco said as they waited for the moving staircases. “Nothing, I suppose.”

The truth was, even as the weight of the day receded with the setting of the sun, Draco’s heart remained heavy with dread. The game starts tomorrow, he thought, and looked out of the castle windows they passed along the walk. The sky was burnished silver-blue, the night silent and unmoving beneath its horizontal collapse of skyline. A sill of silver had begun to push above the horizon. Everything was deceptively peaceful and in distinct contrast to the way he was feeling inside.

It was as if he had been climbing a dangerous peak he should not have ventured, and now he was stuck in between the climb, neither moving upward nor moving downward. He could feel the precarious hold his feet had on the rocky slope as he tried to plan the next step. A careless slip, and he would fall to his death. That was how it was with Ginny Weasley.

But he couldn’t back out now, could he? To stay in place was to give her the wand to Avada Kedavra him. To continue on would mean to fall deeper into this trouble pit that he could see no end of. To back down, no, that had already proven itself to be too hard to bear. He was doomed. There was no way out of the situation.

“A galleon for your thoughts?”

Draco turned and shrugged.

“No plans at all?” Blaise questioned, eyebrow arched. “Unusual for a Slytherin, isn’t it?”

“Too many kinks to iron out,” Draco said.

“Indeed,” Blaise answered. “Very stubborn kinks. Very tricky.”

“We will see how it goes tomorrow,” Draco replied, and tried not to sound too bothered.

“We?” Blaise echoed. “Not we. You. You’ll see how it goes tomorrow.”

“Deserting me already?” Draco asked.

“It’s between you and she,” Blaise said. “I gave my word.”

“Very noble of you,” Draco said acidly.

“Hey,” Blaise replied, “I already took a slap for you. What more do you want?”

Draco growled inwardly, and then halted in his step, his forehead creased with concentration.

“What?” Blaise asked as he observed Draco. He looked like he was in a trance. Then he turned his head slowly to look at Blaise, and broke into a gradual grin that made Blaise want to run away from him. “What?” Blaise asked again with a feeling of foreboding.

“There is something else you can do for me.”

“What? A slap is not enough for you?”

“No, I don’t mean that. But if you had already come this far, you might as well help me once more. Just one more time,” Draco said.

Blaise looked sceptical. “Can you just spit out what it is you are thinking? It’s making me nervous,” he said and then held off Draco when the latter opened his mouth. “Let us get one thing clear before you speak. If your idea has anything to do with me having to go back on my word and get involved the next time she chases you down the hallway, then perhaps it’s better you don’t tell me.”

“No, no,” Draco replied immediately, “… well, not exactly.”

“What is it then?”

“Do you think she’s a pretty girl?” Draco asked, and caught Blaise by surprise.

“What has this got to do with …”

“Just answer me.”

“Well, she is,” Blaise said hesitantly, unsure where this conversation was heading.

“Don’t you think she rather likes you?” Draco probed.

“You will have to ask her that,” Blaise replied, raising an eyebrow.

“I think she does,” Draco answered confidently.

“So what if she does?” Blaise questioned, pretending not to know where this was heading.

“Say you’ll do this for me,” Draco said, sounding desperate. “It might be the only thing that will work.”

“No!” Blaise exclaimed. “Whatever it is, my answer is no.”

“You don’t even know what it is,” Draco said, injured.

“Okay, what is it?”

“Say you’ll do it first,” Draco said. “Please.”

“What?” Blaise asked, properly alarmed now. “What is it?”

“Say you’ll do it!”

“Okay, okay, I’ll do it!” Blaise finally conceded. “Can you tell me what it is now?”

Draco grinned, and Blaise immediately regretted going against his Slytherin instinct.

“I want you to make Ginny Weasley your new girlfriend.”

~*~

Author’s Notes

Many thanks to my new wonderful beta Fabio. J Extra love to plotbeta!Laura for putting up with my constant whining.

I hope that you guys enjoyed the chapter. I know I have did it again; this chapter took almost two months because (1) life has been very hectic, (2) I got into a bit of writer’s block and words refused to come even though I had most of the details worked out. I had to leave it for a while to rest my brain. Thankfully, a few days back, I went into hyper-productive mode and had two chapters written. So, the good news is, the next chapter should be coming very soon.

To enhance your enjoyment for the ‘Chop, chop, chop’ sequence, let me point you to the website that plays the song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf". The song is so cute it never gets old.

As usual, please read and review. I would really like to have more feedback, particularly your reaction to the characters, the way I’ve portrayed them etc.. I’ll have you know that I’m a very insecure writer who is prone to paranoia (just ask my plot!beta Laura), so if I don’t get feedback about the specifics, I will tend to think that I am doing something wrong. :P

5. Between Strangers

Note: I said in the last chapter that Chapter Five would come soon after BT4. I really meant it at the time because I have sent it off for beta, and have expected it to come back in no more than two days. But for some reason, I haven’t heard from my beta, and I am feeling guilty because of all the emails asking me when the chapter is coming. So, I’ve decided to post this un-betaed version anyway. I apologise in advance for any bad writing in this. It will be edited when I get the betaed version.

Beyond Therapy

Chapter Five -- Between Strangers

“I want you to make Ginny Weasley your new girlfriend.”

Blaise froze, and looked at Draco as if he was mad.

“You think she would forget about the whole thing if I were dating her?”

“Why not? Love is blind.”

“My love happens to have perfect eyesight,” Blaise replied. “And so does hers, I believe.”

“Perfect eyesight, do you? Draco said. “You dated Pansy.”

“Pansy dated you.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what you meant to mean.”

“You said you would do it.”

“I’m duped into it,” Blaise said and started walking away. “It doesn’t count.”

“Hey, you promised!” Draco said and went after Blaise.

“Promises are meant to be broken anyway.”

“That wasn’t what you said when you were safeguarding your promise to Ginny Weasley,” Draco retorted, incredulous. “You are siding her at my expense. Where’s the logic in that?”

“I should be the one asking that question,” Blaise said as he walked briskly, turning to face Draco once in a while as they talked.

“It’s perfectly logical,” Draco insisted and reached to get a hold of Blaise’s arm, stopping his getting away. “If she’s your girlfriend, you can tell her to stop bothering me.”

“Ho, ho,” Blaise laughed without mirth. “Which century are you living in, Draco? You think she will stop hunting you just because I tell her to? For your information, your type of chauvinism has ran out of vogue a long time ago.”

“Come on,” Draco continued to persuade, “you are not opening your mind to this. If you would only stop for a second to think about it. She likes you. It’s as clear as dancing pixies. And don’t think I didn’t notice the way you look at her.”

“What?” Blaise reacted loudly. “What about the way I look at her?”

“That ‘oh, she’s one hell of a girl’,” Draco imitated. “You said so yourself.”

“Well, she is!” Blaise answered. “I also said she is a nut case. And for the record, I still think she is.”

“But she’s a pretty girl!” Draco persisted. “Tiny, adorable, sweet, nice arse, small waist, angelic face, good at Quidditch, what more can you ask for?”

Blaise arched an eyebrow, snorted, and crossed his arms.

“She’s also bad-tempered, unpredictable, prone to violence and potentially dangerous, ever thought about that?” Blaise argued. “Look, since you think so highly of her, why not you go woo her? Now, that’s the ultimate solution. No one hunt their own boyfriend.”

“Not a chance!” Draco exclaimed and made a face. “Look. Just once. For me.”

“I’m not sure I’m ready to be masochistic for your sake.”

“I’m not asking you to marry her,” Draco argued heatedly. “Just date her for a while and get me off the hook. Then you can dump her. I have no qualms about it.”

“What makes you think it’ll even work?” Blaise countered.

“You’ll never know until you try,” Draco reasoned.

“This is crazy,” Blaise mumbled. “You are crazy. Look, I’m just not going to do it. You can stab me and throw me into the lake, feed me to the giant squid, but I’m not going to do it, and that’s the end of this conversation,” he finished and quickly made a run for it.

“Blaise! You can’t do this to me!”

“Oh, believe me,” Blaise shouted without turning, “I can so do this to you.”

“Blaiseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

“I can’t hear you.”

“You won’t leave me in the shit hole, would you?” Draco wailed. “I befriended you when you were still sleeping in a cot!”

“Yes, and that’s incredibly noble of you to do so because no one wanted to be my friend,” Blaise replied sarcastically. “I had no control over who my mother chose to put my cot next to. If I knew this day would come, I would have stop her from bringing me to your house or allowing her to let you into mine.”

“We grew up together,” Draco continued. “We ate together, we studied together, we even learnt the piano together!”

“Great, remind me of the senile old man who called me Draco and you Blaise. I think that’s why I always get reprimanded for upsetting the great master with ‘my’ wonky skills. The things I endure for you, honestly.”

“Forget that already!” Draco replied.

“Why don’t you just get this once and for all,” Blaise turned and said. “I’m not going to do it. Which part of that do you not understand?”

“Please.”

“Over my dead body.”

“Please.”

“No.”

“Not even for me?”

“Especially not for you.”

“Blaise …”

“Goodnight.”

~*~

Soft puffs of morning breeze blew, caressing the curtains gently and sent them floating in the air, rippling as it moved and fell still again until another breeze comes. Ginny stirred in her bed, cracked an eye opened and peered out of the window from under her blanket. Through the curtains, she saw the faint image of the sun rising, staining the skies over the sunrise horizon with fine brushstrokes of feathery yellow and golden peach colours. The colours gradually spread and rolled, like a single thread unravelling its way across the broad expanse of the sky and towards the castle.

It was a beautiful morning.

Ginny sat up on her bed lazily and glanced at the clock on her bedside table. Seven o’clock sharp. She looked around the room. The other beds were empty -- the signs of activity marked only by rumpled bed sheets and opened trunks. She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand as she swung her legs over the bed, slipping on her slippers. Carelessly, she dragged her feet to her trunk placed near the window to retrieve her uniform. She hugged her robes, blouse and skirt to her chest, and was about to stand up again when something fell through the window and landed under her nose. She looked up through blurry eyes, and all she could see was a furry image swooping away.

She looked down again to find an expensive-looking box: dark blue, and beautifully tied with lacy silver ribbons enchanted to sparkle under the lights.

She picked it up and stood, turning the gift box in her hand to inspect. A card dropped out of it and ended up on the floor.

For Ginny Weasley, it read. And that was it.

She quickly untied the ribbons and opened the box.

Chocolates!

“Ginny,” a voice suddenly called out from behind her. “Are you awake?”

Ginny turned and found Hermione, already dressed, appearing at their dormitory door.

“I have chocolates,” Ginny said and gestured with the box.

“Where did you get it?” Hermione asked, her brows creasing with curiosity.

“I don’t know,” Ginny replied, shrugging. “It fell through the window,” she said and took a piece of chocolate from the box, popping it into her mouth.

“You don’t know who it’s from and you are still eating it?”

“Why not?” Ginny answered, her voice muffled. “It’s for me.”

“But you don’t know who it’s from,” Hermione reasoned patiently.

“I honestly don’t care,” Ginny said, her speech clear again after she had swallowed the chocolate. “You want one?”

“No, thank you,” Hermione replied. “I don’t quite trust things from unknown sources.”

“Oh, come on, Hermione,” Ginny said. “It’s not like I’m some royalty or any important person from the Ministry. No one will want to assassinate me.”

“I don’t mean that, of course,” Hermione said. “Though it never hurt to be careful. Besides, what if the chocolates are from someone you hated? You can’t return it now that you’ve started eating them.”

“From someone I hated?” Ginny echoed Hermione’s word thoughtfully. “Then the more I should finish them. Why return a good box of chocolates? Here, try one. It’s really good.”

Hermione waved off the offer and smiled.

“Come on, you have to hurry. Breakfast’s already started.”

“Mmmmph,” Ginny replied through chocolate-filled mouth and quickly gathered her things before traipsing across the room to the door.

“Wait,” Hermione said and pointed at the window when Ginny was halfway to the door. Ginny turned. “Looks like you’ve got another owl.”

Ginny groaned despite her own curiosity about who the sender was.

“At this rate, I’ll never make it to the bathroom. Don’t people have the courtesy to send things only after seven o’clock?”

“It is seven o’clock, dear,” Hermione corrected her gently.

“I mean, you know,” Ginny said and waved her hand weakly, “after people have brushed their teeth. Or better still, send it in the afternoon when I’m wide awake.”

“You are so hard to please,” Hermione teased.

Ginny giggled despite herself, and dragged her feet to the window. She beckoned the owl over and took the roll of parchment from it. It was not an owl she recognised specifically, and it looked just like any other owl that might have been from the school owlery.

“Weird,” she commented to Hermione as she unrolled the note. “Whoever send notes this early in the morning?”

Hermione shrugged and then felt her heart caught at her throat when she saw the ribbon that was used to tie the note: a familiar black velvet ribbon with a single bead knotted in the middle.

She looked at Ginny, and saw the girl’s eyes widened as she scanned the note. When she finally allowed her eyes to leave the parchment, Ginny stared at Hermione, her mouth half opened in shock.

Hermione knew before Ginny told her who the chocolates were from.

“It’s Blaise,” Ginny said. “Blaise Zabini.”

~*~

“Blaise, you gave me a fright.”

“I gave you a fright?” Blaise repeated disbelievingly. “What were you doing? Up to no good?”

“Of course not,” Draco answered quickly.

“Good,” Blaise replied. “Good to know that you have your senses back. Aren’t you going to change? It’s almost seven.”

“Doesn’t matter it’s almost seven,” Draco said. “I’m avoiding public places today anyway.”

“Oh, yes, that,” Blaise said with feeling. “I almost forgot.”

“You run along,” Draco said, waving his hand at the door.

“What would you like? I’ll get the food, we’ll eat in the classroom.”

“Coffee,” Draco replied. “And pancakes. You know the routine.”

“Got it,” Blaise said with a mock salute before turning to walk off.

Phew. Almost got caught. Holy shit, I didn’t get to sign his name on the card.

Draco pulled another parchment from his bag and copied the draft he had prepared during the wee hours of the morning when he could not sleep. Then turning to check that he was alone, he crept to Blaise’s bedside table and tested the top drawer. It was not locked. Fantastic.

He slid the drawer open and carefully searched through the contents, taking care not to leave any signs of disturbance. When he found what he was looking for, he replaced the contents to their rightful places, and closed the drawer. Without wasting time, he rolled the note, tied it, and sent it off with the school owl Crabbe had been using since losing his own.

A smile broke and threatened to split his face into halves. He watched the owl circle the room before it flew out. He followed it out of the door, saw it swoop the corner of the corridor and thought to himself smugly.

I am a genius.

~*~

Flip-flop.

Ginny’s heart did a friendly somersault when she saw Blaise Zabini in the Great Hall. He was talking to Pansy and some other Slytherin girls whom Ginny did not know.

She walked down the aisle, and continued watching the Slytherin table, hoping to catch his eye. As if he had felt her looking at him, he lifted his eyes at her and smiled slightly, giving her a nod of acknowledgement. She smiled back and continued to her House table.

Harry and her brother were already finishing their breakfast when she sat down opposite them. Hermione sat down beside her.

“Good morning,” Harry said, and passed the two girls their plates of pancakes.

“Good morning to you too,” Ginny replied, her spirits fluttering high.

Ron looked at her strangely, poked his fork upright in his pancake, twirling it on the plate as he thought to himself.

“You look disgustingly cheerful today,” Ron commented as he took a mouthful of pancake.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Ginny replied, pouring a glass of pumpkin juice. “I am cheery everyday,” she sang.

“Not lately,” Ron said. “Just yesterday, you were going rawr rawr rawr.”

Ginny pulled a face. “What rawr rawr rawr? You make it sounds like I was really an unattractive sight.”

Ron gave her a lopsided grin and shook his head.

“The volatility of the female mood,” he said to Harry. “I can never hope to understand.”

“Then don’t,” Ginny said. “We are not meant to be understood anyway. Women are meant to be loved.”

“And from whom did you hear these from?”

“How about I made up my own?”

“Something’s happened again,” Ron said and eyed his sister suspiciously. “You are really disgusting today.”

Ginny threw her napkin at Ron and moved her foot to step on his. He lifted his feet expertly, dodging the attack. When she missed, she glared at her brother.

“Can’t you say something nice to me for a change?” she complained. “It’s early in the morning.”

“Okay,” Ron answered and looked as if he was thinking hard for something nice to say to his sister. Then a Hufflepuff walked passed and looked like he could not stop staring at Ginny.

“Hey,” Ron called out loudly at the boy and pointed his knife at him. “Go away. She’s my sister.”

The poor boy hurried away with haste.

Ginny glared at her brother.

“Is it really so hard to be nice to me?” she wailed.

“Give me some time,” Ron replied, and sliced up another piece of pancake. “It’s a difficult concept.”

Harry laughed along with the rest sitting at the table, then looked at Ron with a strange expression on his face before he turned to Ginny.

Flip-flop. There goes her disobedient little heart again. She smiled at Harry, and he looked like he had something to say. Ginny waited quizzically but he did not say anything, and instead went back to eating his breakfast. She felt a tiny stab of disappointment, but did not let it show.

A roar of laughter exploded at the other side of the hall. Everyone turned and Ginny saw a group of Slytherins, joined by some Ravenclaws, laughing their hearts out about something. Blaise was among them. He had thrown his head back, laughing without restraint. Ginny felt the smile on her own face, one side of her pressed lips curling higher than the other. When he sat upright again, his head slightly bent to listen to a Ravenclaw, his long fringe got caught at the side of his mouth. Ginny had the insane urge to help him push it aside and was relieved when she saw him rake his hair, effectively pushing the strands of hair away from his face.

In a bizarre moment, she thought irrelevantly of Blaise in comparison to Harry, and realised that they were more alike than most people would think. They were both tall, had dark hair, and were boyishly good-looking. Both were Quidditch enthusiasts, and both were the more quiet kind of boys who were often also elusive. They also shared this easy disposition – but you would only find out about that when you get to know them better. The only two differences Ginny could think of – apart from the fact that one was Gryffindor and the other was Slytherin – was the fact that Blaise was easily the smarter one between the two. In that respect, he was very like Hermione. Then, there was the obvious difference in their image. Harry had short hair that leaned toward the schoolboy look. Blaise sported longer hair, and had a more mischievous air about him. Ginny could not decide who the better-looking one was, and neither did she feel a need to do so.

She looked away and ate her breakfast silently, thinking about the note, and smiling to herself.

Miss Weasley,

It just occurred to me that I have accepted your deal, but have not told you that I’ve accepted your apology. It was impolite and I seek to rectify that now. Rest assured I’ve forgotten about the whole incident, and will not hold anything against you when we next meet. Take the chocolates as my offer of friendship.

It was sensational meeting you yesterday, by the way.

Yours sincerely,

Blaise Zabini

~*~

It was sensational meeting you.

Draco could not stop marvelling at his own brilliance. It was exactly the kind of thing Blaise would say. And the note was perfect: a nice touch of formality within informality, not flirtatious, and just enough to show interest. Exactly the kind of mixed messages girls like to dismantle and analyse. Draco laughed inwardly at this naivety. There were never mixed messages where men were concerned. When would they learn?

~*~

He checked the time and realised with a jolt that he had stayed in the Great Hall longer than he had intended. Politely excusing himself, he packed the food and stood up, ready to leave.

“Where are you headed?” Pansy asked curiously when he started to walk away.

“Draco,” he said, shaking the bag of food in his hand.

Pansy frowned. “Why isn’t he here to eat? He’s acting so strange lately.”

“Beats me,” Blaise answered and waved. “I’ll see you at Charms.”

“Look forward to Charms,” Pansy said playfully, waving her fork.

Blaise’s mouth curled at the corner as he turned towards the door. Small groups of student had started filing out, but Blaise knew it was early yet. He waited for some first year Hufflepuffs who were chattering among themselves worriedly to pass before he moved on, wondering how it was possible that these Hufflepuffs were still getting lost in the castle after being here for more than a month. Unable to restraint himself, he cut into their conversation and told them helpfully that the Transfiguration classroom was the one next to a row of armours on the third floor, not the one next to the portrait of Sir Cadogan on the seventh floor landing. That one was a deserted toilet nobody goes to.

When he finished, he was surprised to hear someone giggling next to him. He turned to find Ginny Weasley beside him, looking at him, her brown eyes dancing.

“Did they really think the seventh floor toilet is a classroom?” she asked Blaise.

He lowered his voice and bent down a little to her. “Unfortunately,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper, “they did.”

Ginny giggled again and he could almost feel her body vibrating from the effort to contain the loud sniggers that were threatening to escape. She was biting her bottom lip hard, and looked at him, helpless. Blaise had to admit that Draco was right on one account; Ginny Weasley was adorable when she was not mad.

“It’s so awful, to be laughing at them,” she told him.

“But they don’t know,” he said, feeling the effect of her infectious mood, “so it’s okay. What they don’t know won’t hurt.”

“Indeed,” she replied. “By the way, I wanted to say thank you. You’ve been very kind.”

If Blaise was surprised, he didn’t show it. He nodded vaguely, and answered, “You’re welcome.” And then there was silent, so he continued, “So, how are you today?”

“Oh, great,” she replied smilingly. “Today’s a beautiful day.”

“Good for you,” he said. “You know, I don’t think we have been formally introduced. Unless you count yesterday’s incident as some unconventional form of introduction.”

Ginny felt the colour rising on her cheeks, and she laughed, feeling a little embarrassed about the episode. “I’m really sorry about that.”

“No, no, don’t be,” Blaise answered and meant it. It was Hermione he was still unhappy with. She was the one who slapped him, and she had not apologised. “You were very impressive. Very strong, very … macho.”

“Oh, god, please don’t say that,” Ginny said and covered her face with her hand. “I know I’ve been ridiculous, don’t remind me.”

“No, really,” Blaise said, and tugged her hand gently off her face. “I was surprised at you. One wouldn’t tell from your stature that you make quite a fighter. You almost tore my shirt off,” he said, and then realising how that had sounded, added. “Wait, that didn’t come out right.”

Ginny laughed, shaking her head, then composed herself.

“Anyhow, that comes from years of training, believe me,” Ginny said, finding it incredibly easy to talk to Blaise. “I have to fight six brothers to get things my way.”

“That must be tough,” Blaise commented, “being the only girl with so many brothers.”

“Tell me about it.”

“But something good came out of it,” Blaise said, smiling. “You managed to tackle me, and I’m almost twice your size. Looks like I can only hope to be half the man you are.”

“Don’t say that!” she said and laughed, feeling embarrassed once more.

“Hey, don’t feel embarrassed about it,” Blaise said. “I meant it as a compliment.”

“How can that ever be a compliment,” Ginny replied. “I am like a wild child. And I blame my brothers for it.”

“It must be fun too, having so many brothers.”

“Well, sometimes,” Ginny said, “and then, there are the other times.”

“I have a sister too, you know.”

“You do?” Ginny echoed with interest.

“Yes, I do.”

“I bet she’s not as wild as I am.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Blaise answered. “She shows great potential when she throws her rubber duck at my face. She might give you a run for your money, mind you.”

“Really?” Ginny replied, digesting the information. “She’s not here yet then, is she?”

“Nope, thank Merlin, no,” Blaise said jokingly. When their laughter subsided, he clarified, “No, she’s not here yet. Too young.” And might not be magical. That, he left out of the conversation.

“I see,” Ginny said. “No wonder.”

“So, as I was saying, we haven’t been properly introduced.”

“Yes, let’s do it without the whole my trying to strangle you part this time.”

“Blaise Zabini, Slytherin, sixth year,” Blaise said and stretched out a hand.

Ginny took it, and said, “Ginny Weasley, Gryffindor, fifth year. Very nice to finally know you.”

“Yes,” Blaise agreed. “Sensational meeting you.”

“Ha, I know.”

“Alright, look, I really have to run,” Blaise said as he glanced at the big clock over the door of the Great Hall.

“Sure,” Ginny said. “Go ahead, don’t let me keep you.”

“Have a great day,” Blaise said pleasantly, waving goodbye.

As he rounded a corner, heading to the classroom, he genuinely prayed that Ginny Weasley would have a great day. That would be the only thing Draco could count on for his own great day.

~*~

“What took you so long?” Draco wailed like a child.

“Oh, please, don’t complain,” Blaise replied, tossing Draco the bag containing the food and the coffee.

“Argh, hot!” Draco exclaimed when the bag landed on his lap.

“There’s coffee, what do you expect?” Blaise said. “Besides, you are supposed to catch it. Not my fault.”

“Hey, if anything happened to me, you will have to answer to my parents. I’m the only son.”

“Has anything happened to you yet? No. And not to worry, I’ll handle it when the day comes. So just quit it, and eat your breakfast,” Blaise replied, checking the clock in the classroom. “You have ten minutes.”

“All thanks to you,” Draco said dryly. “I take it you’ve eaten.”

“Mmmm,” Blaise said as he walked about the classroom.

“So, there you were in the Great Hall, enjoying the scrumptious spread under the warm sunshine chatting girls up, never mind I’m starving to death here, decaying into bones.”

“I’m sorry,” Blaise said loudly. “I forgot the time.”

Draco snorted. “Yeah, you forgot the time. How comforting to know just how much I really mean to you.”

“Oh, you mean the world to me, Draco, darling,” Blaise replied. “I wouldn’t be bothered to bring you food otherwise.”

“You are absolutely disgusting,” Draco said, pulling his face, and quickly ate his breakfast before Blaise said something that would make him empty his stomach.

“You are so difficult to please,” Blaise said, sitting down beside Draco, and rocking his chair on two legs. “Anyway, I think today may be your lucky day. Ginny Weasley seems like she’s in this great mood, so it’s not likely she’ll go crazy on you. She didn’t even ask about you. Not once. It’s quite strange, come to think of it.”

“How do you know that?” Draco asked, intrigued, wondering if it was because of the chocolates. If chocolate did do wonders, then he would have to send more, and more often.

“We talked a bit just now, in the Great Hall.”

“Oh,” Draco reacted. “You talked to her?”

“Sort of,” Blaise answered. “She talked to me, and then, you know, we talked. She’s quite nice actually, when she’s not acting crazy.”

“So, did she mention anything special?” Draco asked.

“Special?” Blaise echoed, looking puzzled. “What’s special?”

“Nothing,” Draco replied, then wondered if he had been too obvious. Damn it. “So, what did you two talk about?”

“Just polite exchanges, nothing particularly interesting,” Blaise said, picking a loose thread on his robes, “She apologised again, and we made a fresh and less violent introduction, and I told her it was sensational meeting her …”

“Ha!”

Blaise narrowed his eyes. “What ha?”

“Er, nothing.”

“You are really strange today,” Blaise asked, rocking his chair slowly. “Why is that?”

“Blaise, you didn’t put sugar in my coffee!” Draco complained out of the blue.

“Draco …” Blaise drawled and leaned over, sliding his arm along the back of Draco’s chair. “What is it?”

“Nothing!” Draco tried to feign innocent. “Why do you keep thinking something’s up?”

“You tell me,” Blaise said, still leaning close, trying to make Draco uncomfortable. “You are the one who’s acting all weird and … up to no good.”

Draco laughed nervously and inched further away to his right. “Stop it,” he said to Blaise.

“Stop it?” Blaise said against Draco’s ear, then reached a finger to feel along Draco’s other ear, “I’ll stop it if you own up whatever it is you are hiding from me.”

“Blaise,” Draco warned, feeling goosebumps all over. “Don’t think you can –”

The classroom door suddenly creaked open, and they turned to find Hermione at the door, looking at them with an unreadable expression. The two boys jumped in their seats and repelled. In the frenzy, Blaise lost his balance and his chair fell backwards, pulling him along with it.

Thud! Blaise landed with a hard knock against the stone floor, falling out of his chair.

“Ow,” Blaise groaned loudly, rubbing the bump at the back of his head.

“Did you break your skull?” Draco asked.

“Ow.”

“Get up,” Draco said and reached to pull Blaise up before picking up the overturned chair.

Hermione continued standing, motionless, taking in the scene in front of her, dumbfounded.

“What are you staring at, Granger?” Draco asked testily.

“It was … erm,” she said, torn between stepping into the classroom and turning to hide herself somewhere.

“Look, Granger –”

“Step aside, won’t you?” someone else said from outside the door. “You are blocking the bloody way,” the voice rang loudly in an unfriendly manner. Draco and Blaise recognised the voice: Pansy.

Hermione moved quickly as a small flow of students started filing in, and made her way to the seat in front of the class. She sat down and breathed in heavily, nursing the shock she had received when she walked in on Draco and Blaise. She had wanted to come to class earlier, knowing that she would find Blaise there, and apologise. But as it turned out, she would have to find some other time to do that. Now apart from having to apologise to Blaise for slapping him, she would have to apologise for this awkward encounter as she had obviously interrupted something.

Nervously, she dug into her bag to retrieve her books and stationery, feeling strangely disturbed. It was not that she was uncomfortable with what she saw. Not exactly. She had her share of friends who were like Draco and Blaise. She just did not expect Blaise to be … with Draco Malfoy.

With hindsight, she realised she should have seen it before. The two boys were almost inseparable, like Harry and Ron. Not that Harry and Ron had anything going on between them. The point was, the sign had been as clear as daylight and she had missed it.

She was not sure if she was upset for not seeing it before or for something else.

~*~

“I bet you all my galleons that we are going to receive tonnes of flowers tomorrow,” Blaise joked at lunch.

“Great, now apart from having to deal with Ginny Weasley, I have to deal with influx of gifts from admirers of the gay community.”

“The alternative dating scene,” Blaise corrected diplomatically.

“You sound pretty alright about that,” Draco commented dryly, sweeping his hair out of his eyes with an impatient hand. The wind blew again, and he raked his hair, irritated, staring across the lake angrily as if it were its fault that his hair kept getting messed up.

“It’s not a bad thing,” Blaise replied. “We can explore our options.”

Draco lifted an eyebrow and looked at Blaise disbelievingly.

“It’s true,” Blaise insisted. “You are just being homophobic.”

“No. I’m not,” Draco replied. “I just don’t like to think that there are other males looking at me that way.”

“That’s homophobic,” Blaise said plainly. “It’s always like this. People who don’t swing that way make such a fuss about it until someone they know tell them they are gay. Then all of a sudden, it’s perfectly normal to be gay.”

“What do you mean?”

“Say, what if I were to tell you that I like boys?”

Draco’s eyes widened at Blaise.

“I mean, hypothetically,” Blaise said. “Come on, work with me, this is interesting.”

“Well,” Draco replied carefully. “If you are gay, then I suppose, right …”

“And you will be alright with it?”

“I don’t see why not,” Draco answered. “Look, I’m not going to throw you into the lake when I find out you are gay.”

“See, this is what I was talking about. One moment you are all discriminating, but when you find out a close friend is a homosexual, you turn your views around. This is such a hypocritical world,” Blaise concluded. “It’s not okay for other people’s children or friends or siblings to be homosexual, but it’s okay for your own family and friends to be homosexual. Of course, that’s putting a lot of faith in assuming that people even love other people enough to overlook the unorthodox.”

“Are you trying to tell me something?” Draco asked carefully.

“If I were gay, don’t you think you would have found out about it already?” Blaise answered, exasperated. “I couldn’t be straighter if you run me over with a horse carriage and iron me with starch.”

“Okay,” Draco said.

“But that’s of course assuming that I even know for sure,” Blaise said with a wonder of academicism. “The truth is, you’ll never know until you meet the right woman, or the right man.”

“You just want to sweep up all the fish in the ocean, don’t you?”

“I’m just considering the possibilities,” Blaise answered. “And when you think about it, what we’ve just done applies to the blood purity fanaticism. You hate Granger, but you don’t hate my sister,” he said, then paused. “Or do you?”

“No.”

“Good, because if I find out about that, I’m going to throttle you into minced meat and feed you to the giant squid.” And as if it had heard him mention it, the giant squid popped its tentacles to the surface of the lake and noisily splashed about.

“Your sister is adorable,” Draco said, scratching his ear, frowning. “Granger is not. There is a very big difference, you realise?”

“Yes, she is, isn’t she?” Blaise said softly, looking down on the grass. “I’ve often wondered if I would have looked at Muggles differently if my mother hasn’t remarried. On that end, I’m as hypocritical as anyone else.”

“Not as much as I am,” Draco said proudly.

“Ah, that, I agree.”

“It’s hot today, isn’t it? I’m roasting,” Draco complained suddenly, loosening his tie and scratching his neck at the same time.

“Hot?” Blaise echoed, crinkling his eyebrows. “No, it’s not. It’s quite windy, in fact. Are you okay?”

“Of course, I am,” Draco replied impatiently, his voice hoarse. “It’s just the weather today. A little too warm.”

“No, it’s not.”

“You never get hot, do you?”

“No,” Blaise answered, looking mischievous, “though I’ll never say never.”

“Argh,” Draco replied, unbuttoning the top two buttons. “You want another piece of scandal to top off the first one?”

Blaise had wanted to reply that it would not matter since they already looked like they were having a picnic date by the lake, but paused instead and looked at Draco, frowning.

“Draco,” Blaise said and leaned over. “Are you sure you are okay? Your neck’s all red.”

“What?” Draco said loudly, covering a hand over his neck.

“Here,” Blaise pulled at Draco’s collar with a finger. “You look like someone fed you hot coals. Why are you sweating so much?”

Draco hit Blaise’s hand away, conscious of the attention and resenting it.

“I’m okay,” he repeated.

“Maybe you should go let Pomfrey have a look at you,” Blaise said.

“No,” Draco answered stubbornly. He had always been sensitive about his weak constitution, and did not like people to fuss over him. “Maybe it’s the coffee.”

“Coffee?” Blaise echoed, puzzled. “What about the coffee?”

“It tasted weird,” Draco said. “A little bitter.”

“Coffee is bitter when you don’t put enough sugar.”

“Whatever,” Draco waved a dismissive hand and made to stand up, but fell back on the grass, clutching his chest and drawing sharp breaths.

“Draco!” Blaise reached over and pulled him upright.

Draco groaned painfully, feeling the rushing tightness in his chest, and panicked. He looked at Blaise with wild eyes and grabbed his friend’s sleeve. He could see Blaise talking to him, could see the other boy’s worried glances, but he could not hear anything. There was an impending sense of doom, and for a wild moment, he thought about death and he didn’t want to die. He wanted to scream but his throat tightened and he doubled over, vomited, and then, everything went black.

~*~

“Anaphylaxis shock,” the doctor said when he straightened up. He was a tall man in his early forties, broad-shouldered and blond.

“You mean allergic reaction?” Blaise asked.

“Severe allergic reaction,” the man corrected Blaise without turning, rummaging his medicine box. “I’ve given him epinephrine,” he continued to say, turning to Blaise and Draco’s parents. “That’s adrenaline in simpler terms.”

“Whatever that is,” Lucius Malfoy said unpleasantly, eyeing the doctor with contempt. “How is my son?”

“The drug worked beautifully and he should come round in an hour or so. It depends,” the man replied.

“Oh, thank goodness,” Narcissa whispered to herself and slumped against her husband. Lucius placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, but continued to eye the doctor suspiciously.

“It was very dangerous,” the man continued to say. “He could have died. What was he doing when it happened?”

“We were having lunch,” Blaise replied quietly.

“What did he have?” the man asked, looking at Blaise kindly.

“Sandwiches, and coffee,” Blaise answered, digging his memory. “There’s ham in the sandwiches, and mushrooms, lettuce, and …”

“Any nuts?”

“No,” Blaise answered. “No nuts. Draco knows he’s allergic to nuts.”

The doctor nodded, and continued to probe gently. “Were there anything else? What did he have for breakfast? Allergic reaction can take hours to manifest, and sometimes the symptoms are mild, and may resolve before recurring again. Did Draco complain about chest pains, itch, swelling, or sensation of uncomfortable warmth before this?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Blaise replied calmly. “He only started complaining minutes before he blacked out, and he puked all over my robes.”

The doctor suppressed a smile at the last bit, and made as if to pat on Blaise’s shoulder but thought better of it. Instead, he paused mid-motion and swept his hand through the air to place it behind his back.

“So, is there anything else?”

“He had pancakes and coffee for breakfast,” Blaise answered, and thought hard. “Last night we had chicken, and corn beef, and … I’m sure he didn’t eat anything he knew would kill him. He’s not suicidal.”

The doctor nodded, and sighed.

“It’s very hard to determine why he had a sudden attack,” he said, looking at them gravely. “Since young Mr. Malfoy has been able to play Quidditch without problems, I’ve eliminated the possibilities of vigorous exercises and irritants in the outdoors causing this attack. There are also no signs of insect bites that may have caused the reactions, and neither are there signs of flu or other viral infections. My best guess is that he had consumed something that triggered his immune system to produce the antibody Immunoglobulin E, or IgE that is responsible for the adverse reactions in people with allergies,” he paused and addressed Blaise specifically. “You remember what Immunoglobulin is?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” the doctor said, and noted that the Malfoys were getting impatient with his medical talk. “I’ll count on you to explain to Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy here what I’ve said. I believe you’ve recently acquired adequate medical knowledge to do so.”

“Yes,” Blaise replied plainly.

The doctor nodded and sat down to scribble in his notebook.

“I’ll need to know in details what he had eaten. For today and the past few days, just to be sure,” he said.

“I can write you a list later.”

“Very good, that will help a lot.”

As the doctor continue to make his records, Blaise looked on, frowning, struggling inwardly whether or not to mention what Draco had said last before he passed out. Some parts of him told him it was ridiculous, that all coffee tasted bitter, but he could not suppress the hunch tugging within him, telling him that it might provide some clues.

Before he could come to a decision, the doctor called him, and he lifted his face to see the man looking at him strangely.

“Is there anything you want to tell me?” the doctor asked.

Blaise struggled for a second before he said, “Yes,” and paused, afraid that the man would think him stupid to even suggest the coffee as a possible answer to Draco’s attack. Draco was not allergic to coffee. Draco drank coffee all the time, but …

“Yes?” the doctor prompted.

“There was something he said before he passed out,” Blaise said quickly before he changed his mind. “He said the coffee tasted funny.”

“Did it?”

“I don’t know,” Blaise answered. “I didn’t drink the coffee.”

“Do you still have the coffee he drank?” the doctor pressed on. “Or did he finish them all?”

“There’s some left in the flask,” Blaise said, releasing the breath he was not aware he was holding. The doctor did not think he was stupid; he was going to investigate it.

The doctor nodded, and noted the information down.

“I will do a test on the coffee, and see if there’s anything that might point us in the right direction. Meanwhile, don’t worry yourselves about it. It’s probably an isolated case.”

“Do you mean he would not have an attack again?” Narcissa asked, her voice tight.

“Yes,” the doctor said. “Your son have not had any attacks since he started school. His condition has been stabilised …”

“Actually,” Blaise interrupted, and the adults in the infirmary turned to look at him. “There was this time. About two weeks ago.”

“I didn’t hear about it,” the doctor said.

“He didn’t want anyone to know,” Blaise continue to say, and avoided the Malfoys’ eyes. “And it wasn’t too serious. He was alright after that.”

The doctor looked calculative for a moment, and then scribbled something in his notebook. Blaise had an intense curiosity to know what it was.

“I doubt the cases are related,” the doctor said to them, but Blaise thought he did not sound convinced.

“Are we done then,” Lucius Malfoy said suddenly, and waved his cane toward the door. “If there is nothing else, you may make your leave, Mr. Wright.”

The doctor packed his things and stood. With a slight nod to the Malfoys, he turned to leave.

“I’ll see the doctor out of the castle,” Blaise said, and followed the doctor.

~*~

When they were out of the door, Dr. John Wright turned to Blaise, long-faced.

“They are still not very receptive of people like me, are they?” he asked.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“It must have been fifteen years or so,” John Wright said.

“Never mind that. Muggles are Muggles. Draco’s parents do not like Muggles,” Blaise replied, and switched subject. “How is my mother?”

“Very well,” John said with a smile. “How are you?”

“Fine,” Blaise said, and paused before continuing, “thank you.”

“How’s the essay?”

“It’s fine too,” Blaise answered, and added, “Thank you for your help.”

“You’re welcome,” he replied and looked at Blaise. “If there’s anything else I can do to help with the essay, you can write to me directly. I hope you know I will be glad to help.”

“Okay,” Blaise said and was subdued.

“Blaise,” the older man said, stopping at the moving staircases. “I think we have both passed the age where we need to pass notes through someone else.”

“I was just writing to my mother,” Blaise said without looking at the man. “I thought I would just mention it to her.”

“I hope that’s true,” the man said and stepped on the staircase that had swung into place in front of them. “I think we are both mature enough to handle a direct correspondence. And I couldn’t be happier that you are interested in non-magical medicine.”

“How is Gwendolyn?” Blaise suddenly asked.

The older man beamed at the mention of the name, a glow of pride unhidden on his face. “Good, she’s good. Up to all sort of tricks, driving Caroline crazy.”

Blaise could not help a smile at that, even though he was gnawing his inner cheeks in an attempt to suppress it.

“Your mother mentions you a lot, especially when Gwendolyn does something to drive us mad. She said you were playful but never gave her so much trouble. She said you were very obedient as a child.”

“And so I am.”

“Will you be coming to visit in December?” the man asked.

Blaise paused to consider and was hesitant to give a reply. “I’ll see,” he said finally and led the doctor to the gate. There was a carriage waiting outside the castle, instructed to bring the doctor to the station where he could take the train back to London.

“I hope you will come,” the man said to Blaise before he boarded the carriage. “Your mother misses you very much. And so does Gwendolyn.”

“I will think about it.”

“And about Draco,” the man said from the carriage, “I have to admit that I am puzzled with what happened. His condition has been very stable after he turned ten, and his yearly check-up shows that he is in clean bill of health. Quite strong really, with his regular exercise. There’s no reason for him to have two attacks within such a short frame of time, and with no apparent triggers.”

“Are you suspecting something, Sir?”

“No, no, of course not,” John replied. “It’s just a little strange is all. Look after him, will you?”

Blaise nodded and pushed the carriage door close.

“Tell my mother I wish her well,” Blaise said before the carriage started moving slowly. “And Gwendolyn too.”

“I will. You take care of yourself,” the man said and waved from the carriage window.

Blaise waved back and stood, watching the carriage move off towards the sunset on the horizon.

~*~

GOAL! GOAL! GOAL! IT’S A … no, there’s no goal. Jane Wiper has intercepted the Quaffle, speeding toward the other side of the pitch. The Puddlemere United Chasers are right behind, clearly enjoying a clear view of Wiper’s sexy long legs. Speaking of best legs, the title still goes to Holyhead Harpies captain Gwenog Jones. Jones is shooting towards the Puddlemere Chasers at top speed, her breasts jiggling tantalisingly, and she hits the Bludger, and she … missed. Jones is looking absolutely livid now, shaking her fist in the air, and boy, do that look …

“Why are we listening to this channel?” Blaise complained as he buried his head into the pillow.

“It’s the best available,” Draco said, enjoying the broadcast of the match.

“You are only listening to this match because it’s Holyhead Harpies,” Blaise pouted. “I can understand the appeal of an all-women Quidditch team, but I want to listen to good, old, traditional broadcast of my team’s match, a broadcast that actually focus on the game, not the women. Change the channel.”

“No.”

“Change the channel.”

“No.”

“Give it here,” Blaise said and tried to pluck the radio out of Draco’s grasp.

“No!” Draco yelled and the two boys were tumbling over each other, trying to take over the radio when a fierce voice rang from behind them.

“Mr. Zabini! If you do not restraint yourself, I will have to ask you to leave!” the nurse scolded. “Please do not excite the patient.”

“That’s exactly what I’m thought too, Madam,” Blaise replied, looking at the nurse earnestly. “The last thing Draco needs is to be excited by the … dshakfjhasfhfkhkjh!”

Draco pressed his hand firmly over Blaise’s mouth, effectively stopping him from saying more. “I will ask him to behave himself, Madam. I promise.”

“Hmph,” the nurse said and turned to go back to her office.

“Do you want her to throw you out or something? After all the time you spend on charming her to let you in here?” Draco hissed.

“If I don’t get to listen to proper reporting of my team’s match, I will walk out of here myself.”

“Why do you have to do this?” Draco replied, feigning a pitiful face. “This is the only entertainment I have here.”

“This is just so pathetic,” Blaise said and sat back down on his chair. “You realise you are resorting to cheap, audio pornography for entertainment? It’s not even proper pornography. I don’t know what it is.”

“Fine, take the radio,” Draco said and threw the radio at Blaise, who caught it. “Take away the only joy of my life in this pathetic place.”

Blaise took the radio happily and adjusted the frequency.

Draco’s face fell. “You are not doing this to me.”

Blaise looked up, grinning ear to ear as he searched for his usual radio channel for Quidditch news. “You told me to take it.”

“You are supposed to say no. You are supposed to say ‘Poor Draco, I’m sorry I’m so mean to you. Now have the radio back. Do whatever you want.’ Not take the radio and happily tune away my favourite channel,” Draco wailed.

… That’s all, folks. It was an exciting game and we thank you for sharing your excitement with us. The next game broadcast will be on …

“What? The game ended?” Blaise shouted at the radio, shaking it. “I don’t even know who won! You can’t do this to me! Bloody hell, tell me who won!”

Draco leaned back against the pillow, picking his fingernails nonchalantly. Blaise glared at him before throwing the radio at his head.

“Hey, watch it!” Draco said and ducked the radio. “I’m the patient here.”

“You goblin fucker, now I don’t know if Puddlemere won!”

“If you didn’t insist on tuning away, you would have known who won.”

“Argh!” Blaise exclaimed, fuming. “I saved your life! I called your doctor! I owled your parents! And I fucking carried you to the infirmary after you vomited all over my robes. The least you can do is let me listen to my team’s match and find out if they won!”

“Mr. Zabini!” The nurse came in again. “Mr. Zabini, if you do not …”

“I don’t know who won,” Blaise complained to the nurse pitifully. “The game ended and I don’t know who won!”

“Don’t mind him, Madam,” Draco said to the nurse. “He’s highly distressed.”

“Boys,” the nurse huffed and pressed her lips together, shaking her head. “He will have to go soon, Mr. Malfoy. It’s nearly eleven. You need to rest.”

“But I just woke up two hours ago.”

“You are a patient, and you need to rest!” Madam Pomfrey scolded. “If there were anyone else in the infirmary, I would not have let him stay. It’s past visiting hours!”

“We know that, Madam, and we appreciated your kindness in bending the rule,” Draco said pitifully. “It’s lonely being alone here, and I am afraid of the dark …”

“Do not say anymore, Mr. Malfoy,” Madam Pomfrey said, stopping him with a firm wave of her hand. Five more minutes, and that’s it,” the nurse struck the final bargain, and left the infirmary.

“I still don’t know who won,” Blaise continued to lament, hitting his head against the pillow.

“You will know when you get the Daily Prophet tomorrow morning,” Draco said, placing the radio on the bedside table.

“That’s like eight hours from now!”

“So how is Dr. Wright?” Draco asked, diverting the topic.

“He looks the same.”

“You talked to him?”

“Yes, I talked to him,” Blaise replied. “I even saw him to the castle gate.”

“I still have problem thinking of him as a Muggle. I always had. It’s just so strange,” Draco said. “A Muggle whose ancestor created the Golden Snitch. I think that’s why my father is able to tolerate him as my doctor. Muggle, yes, but a Muggle with some magical family history makes it less painful for us. He’s like a wizard who has misplaced his wand.”

“I know what you mean,” Blaise replied, hugging the pillow. “Remember the essay I wrote for our governess when I was eight? Famous People I Admire? I wrote about Bowman Wright.”

“Because he invented the Golden Snitch?”

“Yeah, what else?” Blaise answered, putting his feet on the edge of the chair, hugging them and leaning into the pillow in his arms. “Never would have thought that his descendent would become my mother’s Muggle husband.” Draco noted the way Blaise had referred to the doctor. His mother’s husband. Blaise never referred to him as his stepfather. As far as Blaise was concerned, there was and always would be only one father.

“Who did you write about?” Blaise continued. “Roderick Plumpton?”

“The guy who held the record for fastest capture of the Snitch?” Draco asked, thinking. “No.”

“Adalbert Waffling? Bridget Wenlock?” Blaise continued to guess. “Salazar Slytherin? The Dark Lord?”

Draco shook his head, and Blaise frowned.

“Who is it then?”

“Gaspard Shingleton,” Draco replied. “He invented the Self-Stirring Cauldron, and is therefore my ultimate hero.”

Blaise nearly fell off his chair.

“Self-Stirring Cauldrons?”

“What is that tone supposed to mean? Self-Stirring Cauldron is a great invention to an eight year old. I admire the man whose invention makes my life easier. Pity we can’t use them in school.”

“Good to know that you enjoy the fine things in life,” Blaise replied dryly. Then, he turned his eyes to the parchment lying on the bedside table, and reached over for it.

“We had better finish this one now,” he said and gestured the parchment at Draco. “What else did you eat yesterday?”

Draco groaned and sank deeper into his pillows. “How would I know? You can’t expect me to remember what I ate yesterday. I can’t even remember what I ate just now!”

“You had two bowls of potatoes, ham, and mushrooms and a jar of plain water just now,” Blaise read from the parchment.

“That’s not the point!” Draco said loudly. “I just can’t remember what I ate!”

“You are supposed to be conscious of what you eat everyday,” Blaise said. “I thought it was trained into you from the time you started putting things into your mouth.”

“I just don’t remember!”

Blaise sighed and looked at the list. So far, they only have three items: Breakfast, lunch and dinner for today. And all of them were filled up by Blaise.

“We need to at least have some records for up to the day before,” Blaise said, and looked at Draco sternly. “Dr. Wright said it’s important. We need to find out the cause of the attack.”

“You can just tell him I ate things normal people eat,” Draco said pitifully. “Why would I feed myself nuts and fish when I know they will kill me?”

“Someone may have accidentally put those food into your meal, not knowing that they will cause you to have adverse reactions,” Blaise reasoned. “And when you eat without looking at what you are eating, which by the way, is just the way you eat, you are going to swallow them without knowing.”

“I will know when I chew my food,” Draco answered.

“How are you supposed to know?” Blaise asked, his brows drew together. “You wouldn’t even know how they taste like. You haven’t had them for years.”

“Well … I just know.”

“Draco …”

“Mr. Zabini,” the nurse’s voice rang and cut them off.

“Please, Madam …”

“No …”

“Just five more minutes …”

“Out!”

~*~

8th October 1996, Friday, 4.34A.M.

Never understood why it is compulsory to take A. Astronomy with A. Divination. Never see a bloody thing with the telescope anyway. And if I can’t see anything in the skies, I don’t know why Trelawney expects me to read any predictions there. I doubt the old bat can see anything with those glasses of hers. Honestly, Divination should be made inter-disciplinary with Arithmancy. Now that would make much more sense. I’m convinced that there must be some relation between numbers and the things that happens around everyday. Even random coincidences are patterns. Yes, Arithmancy and Divination makes much more sense together.

I must find a way to get out of A. Astronomy. If I do, I will no longer have to creep up to the Astronomy Tower to finish the useless assignment amongst snogging lust-crazed teenagers just because I missed class today. It was bloody distracting, and then, I nearly got caught by Granger. She patrols like she’s at war. And you can’t blame me for getting a fright from her; anything with long wild hair hanging around in the middle of the night like she’s out to get you will scare the living nightlights out of anyone.

And now I can’t sleep because of that fright, and have to resort to listening to Glenda Chittock on the W.W.N.. The Witching Hour is quite interesting actually, all talks about Wizards as useless bastards and should be thrown into the abyss yet there are all these floo calls about relationships and how to get their Wizards back. Witches are the weirdest things ever created. But while the program has its admirable entertainment value, I kept thinking about Puddlemere and if they won. Blasted Draco. Hope he gets strangled by the bedpost.

Argh. I need to sleep. Maybe I will count sheep. That may work. Right. I will count sheep now.

~*~

Dear Diary,

Today has been good if a little weird. I walked in on Draco Malfoy and Blaise Zabini early in the morning. It was bizarre. He was stroking Malfoy’s ear and whispering in his other ear, and it actually looked quite sweet except that I couldn’t get round the fact that they are together. Never would have thought Malfoy swings that way. He dated that pug-nose girl in his House just a year before. They repelled the moment they saw me, which made me feel a little guilty. It’s like I’ve interrupted a private moment and oh, I feel so awful.

I still haven’t apologised to the Zabini boy yet, which makes me feel even more awful. I can’t sleep with it hanging over me. I don’t know what went over me to go all crazy with Ginny, but it was an accident really. I only wanted to get him to let Ginny off, though it turned out that Ginny was the one who pounced on him, as she told me later. A little too late really, but it’s my own fault that I jumped to conclusions…

~*~

… Counting sheep is the stupidest idea ever, probably conceived by the shepherd boy who didn’t have any friends because he cried wolf one time too many and was thus bored out of his lying wits. Sheep-counting didn’t work because by the time I reached my 666th something sheep, I realised two things: (1) I’ve lost count, and (2) I think I can’t sleep now because I am hungry …

~*~

… I think I saw him just now near the Astronomy Tower, but I let it passed because I sort of owed him something and I know I shouldn’t have abused my power as a prefect but I couldn’t get myself to face him after today morning and I didn’t want him to think that I am going all out to get him on purpose.

Oh my god, the Witching Hour is the most awful radio program ever created. Why do witches listen to it? I can’t believe it’s the most popular program on the W.W.N.. The Glenda Chittock witch ought to be shot. What a disgrace to us witches …

~*~

… Blasted. Should not have tried Muscle Relaxant Potion because I’ve run out of Sleeping Draught. They lull your body into a dreamy state of being, but they don’t do the same for your brain. Which is hell now because I’m lying here, fully aware that I’m listening to the Witching Hour, which is really starting to sound particularly nasty, and I’m immobile, completely powerless to switch it off. Where is Draco when you need him?

~*~

… There’s this other thing. G is being unusually cheerful today she even forgot about her plans for M. I suspect it’s got to do with the chocolates she got from B. I wonder why he sent her chocolates. They were talking rather pleasantly in the Great Hall today and Ron nearly threw his plate over if I hadn’t stopped him. It didn’t make any sense to think that B is showing interest in Ginny because now I know he’s with D but … G doesn’t know about it and I’m not sure if I should tell. It doesn’t seem the right thing to do, to tell on someone else’s personal life. That’s Parvati and Lavender’s job, not mine. Don’t want to turn into resident Rita Skeeter.

Maybe he is interested in G … can’t be at all sure he’s not bisexual. He does look the adventurous type …

~*~

“OPEN your inner eye! Grasp the gift of the knowledge! Savour in the unknown!” Professor Trelawney declared in a voice that alternated between a bellow and a whisper as if she could not decide whether or not to spread a highly classified cosmic secret.

The effect of the professor’s speech pattern had Blaise jolting in and out of his consciousness in jerky movements he was sure would cut his life span by half. Surely it was not healthy to have his heart thumped against his ribcage every five seconds.

“You have to reach into your inner eye! Find the core that is the haven of all answers to the world,” she continued with an elaborated sweeping motion of her hand, looking as if she was sprinkling tiny specks of her Divination talent on her students. “Look at Mr. Zabini! He is doing so well. Look at his unfocused eyes! The trance!”

Blaise jolted again when he heard his name called, and quickly made as if to look into his basin. All he could see with his drooping eyes was the bottom of the basin through clear spring water. The classroom was almost dark except for the flickering small candles used for Scrying.

“See how he is doing it?” the professor continued excitedly, directing the class’s attention to Blaise by wiggling her fingers at his table. “The glazed expression! The still eyes! That is what all of you should be aiming for. Breathe deeply, steadily, immerse yourself into the state of the subconscious, and look into the water! Only then can you get the answers you seek for!”

The professor’s speech was interrupted by Draco with quiet periodic snorts and soft sarcastic queries made for the entertainment of those sitting in the vicinity.

“Yes, let us all learn from the great Blaise Zabini,” Draco said, careful not to let the professor hear him, “who is falling asleep at two o’clock in the afternoon.”

“I’m falling into the state of subconscious to seek for my answers,” Blaise mumbled.

“Unconsciousness more like it,” Draco replied. “What were you doing last night? Raiding Gringotts? You are falling asleep in every class. And here I thought I am the one who could do with more rest.”

“I was up all night worrying about you. Don’t be ungrateful,” Blaise said in a low, hoarse voice, like there was something stuck in his throat.

“Right,” Draco said and snorted loudly at the other boy who was fast falling asleep again. Draco poked him awake with the edge of the basin lying between them.

“Come on, what were you doing last night?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” Blaise replied and yawned. “So I did my Astronomy homework, read Advanced Transfiguration, listened to the Witching Hour, wrote my diary, counted sheep, and drank Potion that rendered me immobile for two hours listening to dreadful radio broadcast where witches bitch together.”

“Witches bitch together?”

“Yes,” Blaise answered. “You should try listening to the Witching Hour. You might change your mind about being gay.”

“That bad?” Draco replied, arching an eyebrow.

“Bad is an understatement.”

“So, what is it that –”

“AH!” A voice rang suddenly and the boys jumped in their seats, nearly knocking over their basin of water if Draco had not caught it in time. “Everyone looked over here at Miss Brown and Miss Patil. They have seen the Knowledge! They have done it! Go on, girls, tell us what you have seen?”

“Oh, professor!” the girls said at the same time before Lavender continued by herself, “There are sparks of lights, and they became foggy for a while, but when I concentrate, the images became clearer and I think I saw who is going to win the coming Quidditch match!”

The coming Quidditch match. Draco straightened and stared at Lavender. The coming match was Slytherin against Ravenclaw. The first match of the season.

There was a pause for effect. The atmosphere in the classroom surged.

“Don’t pay them too much attention, Draco,” Blaise whispered with one side of his face on the table. “They are never very accurate. Images can be interpreted wrong, and there is always a space in time where things can be altered to go either way.”

Lavender was still pausing for effect. It was starting to get on Draco’s nerves.

“We shouldn’t listen to this,” Blaise said and poked his fingers into his ears. “It won’t be good either way. We either get complacent or we get discouraged.”

Draco knew that Blaise was right, but it was hard to suppress the curiosity now that Lavender had planted it. He had to know.

“It is …” Lavender started in a secretive tone. “It is …”

“Shhh! Don’t tell!” someone in the classroom yelled. “What’s there to watch if you tell us?”

“That’s a very good point,” Blaise said loudly, supporting whoever the person was. It sounded suspiciously like Ronald Weasley.

“Shut up, Blaise,” Draco warned.

“Trust me,” Blaise said. “This is all for the best.”

“But … but …” Lavender sounded like she was bursting to tell what she saw.

The rest of the class read the warning sign. “Don’t say anything!” More voices joined in, and they were mostly males. “We still want to watch the match!”

“But, professor,” Lavender turned to the professor for support.

“Nooo! Don’t tell!” The voices insisted, and they were growing rowdier.

The professor sighed. “I’m afraid we’ll have to go with the flow, my dear,” Professor Trelawney finally said. “But you can tell me, and I will personally verified if you had been accurate.”

Lavender heaved a very loud sigh. An even louder sigh of relief rippled through the classroom.

Draco slumped into his seat, pulling a long face. Blaise peered at his friend from under his eyelashes, his bottom lip sticking out.

“Don’t look like that,” Blaise soothed and made to peek into the water over the edge of the basin. He crinkled his brows in concentration, and then widened his eyes dramatically, blinking once. Draco looked at him curiously.

“What is it?” Draco could not help but asked.

“I saw …”

“What?”

“I think I saw …”

“WHAT?”

Blaise paused for effect, and straightened up very slowly, still looking at Draco with his wide eyes. Draco felt building excitement, his skin tingling with anticipation, his pulse pumping.

“I think I saw,” Blaise said and swallowed, his face filled with exaggerated wonderment. “… it is time.”

“It is time?”

“Yes, it is time,” Blaise said and nodded, still keeping a straight face, “to go. Lesson has just ended, Draco.”

Draco grabbed the nearest thing he could land his hand on -- a big candlestick, unused, laying on the table -- and swung it at Blaise. Blaise ducked under the table, and snatched up his bag, ready to run off, but Draco was a step ahead. He moved the table, and when Blaise got up, he hit his head against the underside of it, hard.

“OW!” Blaise exclaimed and squatted down again, holding his head with both hands, bright lights dancing in front of his eyes.

“This is what you get for messing with me,” Draco said smugly, picked up his bag and left Blaise squatting under the table in pain. He smirked, following the line of students heading out of the classroom. At the door, he turned back and called Blaise.

“Hey, I’ll not wait for you if you don’t hurry,” Draco said, watching Blaise stood up slowly and pointed a middle finger at him. Draco scooped the empty air with his hand, and made as if to put the rude sign into his pocket.

Blaise fumed as he watched Draco turn to step out of the door. Then, for some reason, Draco staggered backward, his hand clutching at the frame of the door. Blaise broke into a run for the door, but before he could figure out what was going on, a spell was hurled.

“Furnunculus!”

~*~

Author’s Notes

I tried a few new things for this chapter and I hope they work out well for you. Same routine applies: please read and review.

A big shout out to all who reviewed BT4. Thank you so much. Your feedback has been most helpful. My plotbeta and I have been discussing about BT!Blaise and the possibility of me getting flames from Draco fangirls for the last chapter. There ain’t any, by the way. I for one am most surprised at the amount of fangirl love Blaise is getting. So just for curiosity sake, tell me, how many of you are now converted Blaise fangirls? And how many of you secretly hate me for writing BT!Draco the way I did? Don’t be shy. I’ve asked for it. :P

I would also like to take this chance to find some new betas. I actually do have a few betas but some of them are very busy recently, so I thought it would be spiffy if I can have more betas at the ready. If you are interested, please email me: karenchia@gmail.com. Of course, if anyone is kind enough to draw me stuff, you can send it my way too. J

References

Just in case some of you are interested in the other names mentioned in Blaise and Draco’s conversation, Adalbert Waffling is the famous magical theoretician. This famous thinker wrote all about magic. Every modern witch and wizard has learned from his writings. Bridget Wenlock is a famous Arithmancer and is the first to establish the magical properties of the number seven. Information obtained from the Harry Potter Lexicon.

Ron’s line, “Give me some time. It’s a difficult concept” is from Foxtrot.

Blaise’s line, “You were very impressive, very strong, very macho” is from the fabulous Something’s Gotta Give.

Blaise’s lines about counting sheep etc. are bits of what I read from a very funny column in the 8 Days magazine.

The information about Anaphylaxis shock is obtained from Internet research. I hope they are accurate.

Next chapter

You will find out what has happened at the end of this chapter, that’s for sure. We will meet Dr. John Wright again, and learn more about the doctor. Hogwarts library is in peril and if everything goes according to plan, there will be a Quidditch match. And loads of detentions too.