Fantasy Fudge

where_is_truth

Rating: NC17
Genres: Drama
Relationships: Draco & Ginny
Book: Draco & Ginny, Books 1 - 5
Published: 27/09/2004
Last Updated: 19/10/2004
Status: completed

When Halloween comes, the weirdest of things can happen. For Draco and Ginny, the weirdest-- and most forbidden- things involve one another. A P-With-P, if you can believe that.

Chapters

1. Trick or Treat

2. Sweet Dreams

3. Fact or Fantasy

4. Behold the Usual Suspects

5. A Game Well-Played

6. Saturday Supper

7. In the Room of the Dragon

8. Overnight

9. The Way to a Man's Heart

1. Trick or Treat

**Author’s Note: This fic is for those of you who have missed D/G in my recent (and still a few upcoming) days of Ron/Luna cuteness. I’d call it PWP if I hadn’t worked so darned hard on getting the angles down. This first chapter’s a bit longer than the rest are likely to be. Now… go enjoy. Review and be merry. Unbetaed but read by a few, I hope you like it.**

CHAPTER ONE- Trick or Treat

“I’ve always said the old man was dotty—”

“Bloody hilarious, though, you have to admit that—”

“Well, yes, but this is a bit beyond his usual dottiness. It almost shows—”

“Poor judgment,” Fred and George Weasley said in unison as they walked through their shop, plucking things off the shelves at random.

“I wonder if he told Snape?” George snickered, scrutinizing a chocolate that would make the witch or wizard who ate it turn pea-green all over for an hour. With a shrug, he threw it into a box, pointed his wand, and immediately the box was filled with the candies.

Fred rolled his eyes and tossed a few mixed candies into his own box. “George, seriously, how many times do I have to tell you that buggers up inventory?” He managed to keep the straight face for only a moment before dissolving into laughter, charming his own box to be full.

It took them the better part of an hour to fill all the boxes, then to separate the candies and (relatively) harmless toys into bags that would bite an intruder’s hand if it was so much as a minute before Halloween.

The twins weren’t the type to look a gift horse in the mouth—even if that gift horse happened to be Albus Dumbledore and his Halloween bash. Merlin only knew why he’d chosen the twins to outfit the whole of Hogwarts with bags of candy and less-than-innocent hijinks, but he had… after making them solemnly swear not to hand out anything harmful, anything with effects longer than an hour, or anything capable of using to skive off classes.

And though those two things were a bit of a restriction, Fred and George figured they could handle it quite well with no mishaps.

After all, they had promised.

~~~

It was positively frustrating, nigh to infuriating.

There was just no upward mobility in Ginny Weasley’s life; no, none at all. Not even within her own family could she make her mark among the ranks. Each of her older brothers had something to distinguish them. Bill was the cool one, Charlie the daredevil, Percy was the smart one, the twins were… well, the twins… and Ron was part of the Terrific Trio.

Granted, Ginny thought, shredding a piece of scrap parchment to bits at her seat in the Great Hall, she’d done more than her fair share of things to help the cause, to be a part of things. It just seemed none of that mattered.

And perhaps none of it did, she thought sulkily, shooting another covert glance at Harry.

The prat.

She rolled her eyes and gave him a nasty look, knowing he wouldn’t notice. He was mooning over Hermione so hard it nearly made Ginny sick…

But just nearly.

She was happy for Hermione, truly—it would just be much easier to be happy for Hermione, if only Hermione realized what she had right in front of her, appreciated the man who was so clearly in love with her and had been for years now.

Well, Ginny thought, shoving aside her pile of parchment and sending the pieces blowing with a sigh. This is their last year here. Surely they’ll figure it out before they leave.

It only added insult to injury that Ginny had to watch the entire Great Hall have an absolute blast with her brothers’ creations. Yes, she was proud of them, too, in the same way she was happy for Hermione.

It just… seemed as though everything good happened to everyone else.

“Everything all right, Gin?” Neville sat down next to her, carefully placing his unopened bag in front of him. For some awful reason, his had kept biting him even though October 31st had already come.

It was just his luck, he figured.

Ginny looked up at Neville and felt her heart soften just a bit. It was impossible to be bitter around someone who had lost so much but remained so sweet. “Fine, Neville. Just thinking a bit, that’s all.” She smiled at him reassuringly and cocked an eyebrow at his Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes bag. “Something wrong with it?”

Neville’s cheeks flushed a mottled red and he mumbled something so lowly, Ginny didn’t catch what he’d said. When asked to repeat it, he batted the bag toward her with his hand and said more clearly, “It bit me!”

And as much as she hated it, Ginny couldn’t keep from giggling just a little at the forlorn expression on his face. “Here,” she said, swapping bags with him. “I know how these bags work.” She shook the bag a little, murmured something under her breath, then looked apologetically at Neville as the bag opened easily. “You just have to tell them what day it is, you know.”

He laughed but cast a nervous eye to the bag, from which Ginny had dumped half the contents. “Now there’s an interesting one,” he said, pointing to a candy wrapped in garish purple wrapping with red stripes running through it.

Ginny shrugged and offered it to Neville. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust her brothers, but she’d seen a first year grow a spectacular-looking but disturbing unicorn horn just a moment ago. Making herself look like a fool wasn’t something she particularly cared to do. When Neville looked hesitant to take it, she pushed it toward him insistently. “You know, that was technically your bag, Neville, you ought to have it.”

When he took the candy without further complaint, lovely, compliant bloke that he was, Ginny sighed and plucked a plain-wrapped fudge piece from the bag and popped it in her mouth.

No harm ever came of chocolate, at any rate.

~~~

“What in the bloody hell is all this?” Draco stood in the entrance of the Great Hall, his nose turned up in a manner so eerily similar to his father that both Crabbe and Goyle shrunk back a little.

“Halloween,” Crabbe answered warily, holding out the bag he’d gotten only moments before.

Draco looked down his nose and rolled his eyes. “Crabbe, what are you holding in front of me? Does that say what I think it says?” Before Crabbe could answer him, Draco flapped his hand in censure. “Don’t bother, Crabbe, I haven’t got the time to listen to you sound it out.”

Why Goyle snickered at that, Draco would never know. It wasn’t as though he was any better.

“Why are you holding a bag of Weasel Wares?” he asked wearily, wondering for a bleak moment if he was to be cursed with the lot of babysitting these imbeciles forever. It seemed of late they had precious few uses.

Though they always did make Draco feel much better about his own level of intelligence, and their incompetence never failed to amuse him.

“That’s what they gave us,” Goyle said. “One of them gave me a pig’s snout earlier.”

Draco closed his eyes, rubbed the bridge of his nose, and prayed for the urge to pass. He wouldn’t stoop to the easy insult that came to his lips. He wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t—

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, give me that,” he said angrily, yanking the bag away from Goyle and prodding through it with careless fingers. He finally settled on a tame-looking piece that looked as though it might have come from Honeyduke’s rather than the Weasels and popped it in his mouth.

When nothing happened, he nodded stiffly and walked along into the Great Hall to watch the celebrating masses of students.

Idiots.

~~~

Ginny started to say something to Neville, who was currently trying to keep his newly double-jointed elbows under control until the candy he’d eaten wore off. But whatever reassuring words she’d had prepared dissipated when she saw that blond, smarmy git and his ever-present goon squad traipse by.

“What I wouldn’t give to force-feed that… that ferret an entire bag of this candy,” Ginny said, her fingers itching to pick up her wand and take aim. Something about him… everything about him just rubbed her the wrong way, and of course he had to turn his head and give her that look, that infuriating, superior, smug, condescending, just begging to be hexed look.

Neville’s only response was a slightly worried countenance that actually went along rather humorously with his flopping arms, and Ginny was almost placated; her eyes, however, were drawn back to the Head Boy.

She shoves him into a wall in the dungeons, already threatening him with her wand, and before he can take points or assign punishment, she’s stepped nose-to-nose with him, chin tilted back so she can actually look into those weird eyes of his, eyes like moonlit fog and heavy chains, and before he can do anything, she has her hands on his stomach, on his chest, on his shoulders, testing muscle through fine, heavy cloth, her lips on his, her peasant’s lips tasting aristocracy and hatred and a bitter, addictive lust, and as she takes that one tiny step she has afforded herself, she feels him hot and hard and heavy through his robes, desperate as she is desperate, hating her just as much as she hates him, but with a want that borders on need. They don’t wait, they don’t speak, they unfasten hidden catches in one another’s robes and she’s taken him into her before he fully realizes it, both of them still in their robes, thrusting with a give and take motion that’s unmistakable even here, standing up.

Ginny shook herself with a gasp, her cheeks flaming under the freckles, and she was startled, absolutely mortified to feel that pull between her legs, that twinge, that heat and dampness that meant only one thing.

“I… I have to go,” she told Neville, finally tearing her eyes away from Malfoy with the fervent hope he hadn’t noticed her gawking at him like some sort of ill-cursed first-year.

~~~

For a moment, he’d felt the back of his neck itch as though someone were watching him, and then the moment had passed, eerie and suspicious, and Draco whipped around to make sure no one—least of all that dangerous Weaselette—was holding a wand to his back, ready to inflame or enlarge or do anything else of the sort to any of his parts. But the redheaded bint had snatched up her ridiculous Halloween bag and was all but running from the Great Hall without so much as a glance his way.

He wants to make her notice, make her look at him, so he slinks up the stairs after her, using all the side corridors and secret passages, and when she gets to the deathly silent Gryffindor common room, he’s already there, his Head Boy’s password letting him into the tower, albeit a little reluctantly. Her eyes are wide on his as she sees him, and though she reaches for her wand, she cannot quite seem to gain the coordination to pluck it up and point it at him. He pushes her hard, as he’s always wanted to, sending her spilling on the settee and sending her breath whooshing from her in a big, gasping gust, and he’s calling her names, telling her exactly what he thinks of her, and the more those wide eyes are on him, the more her breath accelerates, the harder he gets, and he can feel himself ready beneath his robes and slacks, the long muscles in his thighs already tensing and relaxing as he tells her in an odd, dulcet voice to lift her robes and her skirts, and amazingly enough, as though entranced, as though cursed, she does so and he sees a flash of auburn curls, no knickers, and he moans and nearly comes in his pants at the sight of her.

“Bugger!” Draco yelped, flinging a hand up as though to cover his eyes and squarely smacking Crabbe mid-chest instead.

Where in Merlin’s dungeon had that come from?

~~~

Ginny slammed the door to her room and locked it, laying her forehead to the wood with a shaky sound that was half-laugh, half-moan. Her legs had barely carried her there; the fantasy she’d briefly (insanely) woven had nearly brought her to climax in her seat at the Great Hall, rendering her knees wobbly and her thighs weak.

She wanted to be disgusted; her lips parted to form the single syllable of ‘Ew!’, but instead what wavered out was another moan, another confused, still aroused whimper as she thought of them fully dressed and taking one another wordlessly.

Still leaning against the door, her left hand planted to the cool wood alongside her forehead, Ginny thrust her hips, sending the slight mound between her thighs bumping against the hard surface, and she gasped and closed her eyes, her right hand shaking its way down between her thighs, expertly finding the part in her robes. She rubbed herself through the threadbare material of her skirt, the barest contact sending heat spearing up through her stomach.

He does this to her from time to time, seeks her out in the dark corners of the school and touches her fleetingly through her clothes, tweaking nipples through the starched white shirt, chafing tartan against her knickers, and her knickers into the oversensitive folds beneath, and he never needs to move anything aside to bring her to completion, never needs to penetrate or even touch her skin-to-skin, never needs to dirty those pretty, cruel, long fingers to make her shudder, and she can’t stand so she clings to his neck, her breath heating a spot of unblemished skin near his throat as she moans and wetness floods through the fabric he rubs, giving him something to smirk at, something to be smug over, and he whispers to her that next time, he’ll be inside her, and next time, it will be his pleasure and hers instead of just hers, and she can feel him pressing into her urgently, but this time, he doesn’t take her, but next time…

Her hips bucked forward sharply, her hipbones smacking into the textured wood of the door, the pain of the blow lost in the power of her orgasm, her fingers still rubbing frantically through cloth to wring out the last of this sick, strange feeling, this overpowering, blinding feeling. Her knees buckled and she knelt on the floor, her eyes standing wide, her hand trapped between her fluttering thighs, her head throbbing with the suddenness of the action.

What was this?

Certainly she had an active imagination; how could she not, being who she was, being a Weasley? She’d led an active life of fantasy and had indulged herself in more than her fair share of lurid imaginings about Harry, but they’d all been sweet and safe and slow. In her mind, he’d always professed his love for her and taken her slowly, whispering in her ear and carrying her softly into the heights of climax.

Never had it been like this, so dark and animalistic and frankly, bloody amazing.

She didn’t know whether to regret that or be grateful for it, but grateful was sounding like a fabulous choice; the small, secret part of Ginny that absolutely cherished her femininity—her only outstanding characteristic as a Weasley—brought a smile spreading over her face as she rested her palm on her stomach, a contented sigh slipping from her lips.

Perhaps Malfoy was good for something after all.

~~~
He was trying to control himself, really he was, but as Draco sat in the Great Hall, drumming his fingers against the wood of the table, he felt himself breaking out in a cold sweat and trying to keep all the pretty (horrible, they’re terrible) mental pictures at bay.

He stood up so quickly he barked his thighs on the edge of the table, and his first few steps backward were stumbling and awkward. “This place makes me feel filthy,” he lied, a bit less easily than usual. “I believe I’ll go have a soak.” If his voice was uncertain, his eyes faraway, neither Crabbe nor Goyle noticed, stuffing their faces as they were.

He walked out of the Great Hall and had to really and truly discipline himself against going up the stairs and to Gryffindor to see what the sneaky, hexing wench was doing (and wearing, his mind supplied cheerily, I wonder what she’s wearing).

He didn’t really think he could make it up that many steps, and his brain was so befuddled and so completely at odds with itself, he’d never be able to remember the password. So he did as he’d claimed he would and headed for the luxuries of the prefects’ bathroom, needing somewhere to make his feet carry him to.

It really wasn’t all that bad an idea, he tried to reason with himself as he locked the door of the bathroom behind him and strode into the resplendence. Using the Weasley for sex might actually have other uses than, well, sex.

He couldn’t really think of any of those uses at the moment, and just thinking about using her for sex had his brain reeling back into fiction, into ridiculous fantasy.

The tips of her hair are wet and curling, her arms spread at her sides, holding her up in the massive tub, and the coquette, the tease, won’t raise herself out of the scented, steaming water far enough for him to spot any more than the pale tops of the breasts he knows are just under the waterline. He knows they fit perfectly in his hands, that the nipples are a dusky, surprising strawberry instead of the cinnamon color of her freckles, and that they’d peak at the slightest of touches, that they seemed to yearn for him even when she was pulling away. He knows all these things but can not see them because she refuses to rise to him, refuses to give him any more than that sly, seductive smile. He kneels beside her, ready to slide his hands under her arms (perhaps taking a detour underneath the surface of the water just to see how those breasts feel when slick and wet), but before he can haul her out of the water and lay her on the tile floor, she’s lazily extended one arm and unerringly found him with that tiny, clever hand, closing over him through his slacks and bringing whimpers from his lips. She strokes, she pulls, she’s rough and gentle and maddening and sane, and he’s about to tell her to come out (beg, he’s about to beg) and then she raises her eyes to his and ever-so-slowly licks her lips, those lips the same color of the nipples she’s hidden, and with a shocked shout, he does something he hasn’t done since his first hectic, feverish, adolescent years—

Draco dropped his head back to the tiled wall of the bathroom and felt his groin tighten with the anticipation of release as he moved his fist one more time from root to tip through his boxers, and he came before he could even free himself from the expensive silk of his underwear, the discomfort of it somehow exquisite, the sheer filth of it somehow exciting; thinking of her making him make such a juvenile, inexperienced mess brought one more jerk, one more spurt jetting from him, and Draco felt his chest rise and fall as he tried to catch his breath.

He’d restricted his conquests to Slytherin, an action he’d always considered a necessity, and a necessity he’d often rued. But now, as he scrabbled with one hand for his wand to clean up the mess he’d made of himself and staggered toward the tub, tossing clothing left and right like so much rubbish, he wondered if that had perhaps been a mistake.

He was Draco Malfoy, after all, and he could have anything he wanted—anyone.

Even if they were inappropriate.

2. Sweet Dreams

CHAPTER TWO- Sweet Dreams

She simply needed some sleep.

At least that’s what Ginny Weasley was telling herself as she crept, knock-kneed, toward the showers, her towel and robe clutched in her hands, her eyes darting about covertly. The last thing she wanted or needed was one of her housemates to waylay her and ask her why she wasn’t downstairs at the party.

After her vivid (disturbing, she tried to insist to herself) fantasy about Malfoy, she’d had to sit still, catch her breath, regain her wits. It had been exhilarating, certainly, and she’d never felt so compelled to satisfy herself before. But as the afterglow of the bizarre, consuming orgasm faded, she started to feel more than a bit disconcerted.

Had he hexed her? She wouldn’t put it past him to point a hex at her back like the ferrety coward that he was.

She tried to push it out of her mind as she jumped into the shower and turned the water to its coldest setting, simultaneously punishing and controlling herself. Draco Malfoy, indeed. Why, he’d just as likely bite her before kissing her, and he’d probably push her off a cliff before he touched her—

She shut the water off with a decisive turn of the wrist, shivering and scrubbing dry with the nubby towel she’d grabbed.

A fast shower was best, she told herself firmly, rushing back to her room. After all, she didn’t want to give everyone enough time to notice she was gone and come up to check on her. She just wanted to go to bed and sleep off whatever ridiculous curse had been cast on her.

But when she climbed into her bed and closed the curtains, she couldn’t rationalize it, couldn’t think of a single reason why he would hex her in such an ignominious manner. The last thing he would want was a Weasley fantasizing about him, having such striking images.

If it was a hex, it was a damned good one, she admitted grudgingly, tossing and turning and finally ending up flat on her back, her damp hair spread out over her pillow. They hadn’t even been like daydreams—they’d been more like breaks from reality, swift forays into another world where she was actually doing what she was seeing.

She started to doze, and in dozing, let her guard down.

He lay face to face with her, his head propped up on one hand, his elbow seated firmly in the middle of his pillow, selfishly taking up most of it. He’s trying to bait her, just like he always is, bait her into losing control before he does. He’s shirtless, and she knows he took the shirt off himself. He’s vain of that torso, of his arms so developed from gripping a broom, of his broad chest and muscled stomach, of the arrow of dark golden hair that extends from his navel down into the waistband of his ridiculously expensive pajamas.

He slides his leg between hers, teasing her already swollen lips with his thigh, making her breath short and her eyes narrow in frustration.

She knows he likes her angry, so she tries to rein in her temper.

She slides down, being careful not to show him how much the movement pleasures her, how much she likes the feel of his leg clamped between hers, how much she likes knowing she’s soiling him with her wetness. But of course he can tell.

He always can.

She has a goal in mind, no matter how much he’s trying to distract her, and as she tests each and every ridge of his stomach, Ginny sights in on the one thing he might be most vain about.

The tattoo of the Welsh Green curls just underneath his left nipple, its face fierce and its wings raised. A flume of fire spouts from its mouth, red and orange and beautifully dangerous.

It is there she plants her lips, sucking blood to the surface, knowing it will make the flames redder, make them look hotter and more real. And every time she does this, he moans and thrusts against her mindlessly.

It doesn’t matter how many times she’s done this, she always elicits the same reaction, and this time is no different. She trails open-mouthed kisses over his chest, scrapes her teeth over his already hardened nipples, but it is when she returns to the dragon, tracing her tongue over fire, wing, and tail, that he grips her hips and thrusts into her.

A moan escaped her lips and she jerked, now wide-awake. She could feel him, dammit, feel her lips on his skin, feel him buried deep inside her, pulsing, pushing. If she closed her eyes, she could feel him watching, could project him right there beside her, and in the dark, with her eyes tightly closed, Ginny pressed one slim-fingered hand tight between her legs and let out a shuddering breath.

It felt like he was watching her even then, as she stroked herself in desperation and need and confusion. The rush, the heady high of the feeling of being watched spun through her, like running down the hallways at night, like riding a broom for the very first time, like…

Like getting fucked with the whole world watching?

It was his voice, sinister and seductive right in her ear, and with a thin scream, Ginny jerked her hand away from under her knickers guiltily, her eyes wide, her breath tearing through her in wild gasps.

Where was he? She jerked back the curtains, uncomfortably aware of the sensation between her thighs, her folds chafing together as she rose to her knees in the bed to look around the room.

It may have been dark, but she could tell one thing for certain. Draco Malfoy was nowhere in the room. Her fantasy was twining itself into reality, inserting pieces of itself into her senses, infiltrating her private moments.

She slid back under the covers, pulling the curtains tightly shut and raising her comforter to her chin.

Though she wouldn’t remember it the next morning, wouldn’t let herself remember it, she dreamed of him when at long last she fell asleep.

~~~

The advantage of having a bedroom of your own was being able to freely pace when you needed to.

He rarely needed to, rarely allowed himself that show of weakness. A Malfoy was contained, controlled, and certainly never conflicted. There was no need to pace; on the contrary, a Malfoy could spend long hours in contented stillness, staring down a restless opponent.

And when an opponent got restless, that was the perfect time to strike.

But tonight, it was he who was restless, his long legs carrying him back and forth across the Head Boy’s chamber, his bare feet making no sound against the cool stone.

She’d done something to him, bewitched him somehow, hexed him yet again. The thought doubled the speed of his steps, carrying him from side to side and corner to corner. He knew better than that, though. She may have been a proven sneaky hexer, but this was no hex he’d ever heard of, so he knew the goody-two-shoes Weasley couldn’t have heard of it.

He shoved a hand through his hair and stopped in the middle of the room, his eyes lighting on his bed.

She’s kneeling there, waiting for him, her knees planted firmly in the softness of his bed. She’s taken his shirt again, liking the smell of him around her, liking him without the shirt, and he’s not about to complain. She looks a hell of a lot better in it than he does, which is saying a lot. It’s unbuttoned, hanging around her several sizes too large, and she’s wearing nothing under it, nothing at all but freckles and pale skin and a thatch of curly red hair, and he feels his pulse double and redouble.

The shirt is covering her breasts, but he’s not about to pretend he can’t see her nipples poking at the expensive material, casting the slightest shadow behind the white linen, and as she moves her arms, he feels a surge of hope. But the shirt continues to conceal her, shifting slightly, exposing only the inner swells of her breasts. When he sees what she’s doing, he stifles a groan.

He mustn’t look too needy. It’s not becoming to look so needy.

She’s draping his tie around her neck, the green and silver looking dark against her skin, the ends dangling between her breasts and brushing against her in a way that makes him, for a frenzied moment, completely envious.

She looks hungry, predatory almost, and he’s almost as proud as he is turned on by that look on her face, the look he taught her, and he slides onto the bed behind her, laying flat on his back with his hands behind his head. It’s awkward for him to lay back, to play submissive, but he wants to know if he taught her well.

As she turns to face him, still on her knees, and straddles him, planting her hands in the middle of his chest, tensing her hands into potentially harmful claws, he hisses in a breath and suspects he’s taught her a bit too well.

He tries to draw back, tries to set some part of the pace, but she’s on him like a wildcat, snagging his silk pajama pants with her fingernails as she pushes them down just enough to get at what she wants, and before he even has time to register the sensation of her hands competently drawing him out—when did she get so damned good at this?!—she has impaled herself on him and is moving up and down, flexing and relaxing those beautiful thighs of hers, sending him in and out of her in short, tight strokes, panting in terse bursts of exhalation as her breasts bounce under that damned shirt of his—

His knees buckled just a bit, one of them jostling the bed and bringing him to. When had he even gotten close to the bed? He’d be buggered if he could remember. One minute he’d been pacing, and the next minute he’d been—

Fucking? she suggested coyly from just behind him, from just beneath him, in his ear, whispered in his mouth, from above him—

From inside him, he finally judged, scrubbing a shaking hand over his face. He was fucking imagining her voice now, husky and amused and more wicked than he’d ever guess her capable of. But he knew it was her voice, just as he knew what her nipples looked like, just as he knew that tiny birthmark under her right breast, just as he knew somehow.

Just as he knew he was going completely fucking mad.

He wasn’t willing to take chances. No, Draco Malfoy definitely didn’t play to leaving things up to fate. He shoved aside rows of shirts hanging in his bureau, finally withdrawing a glossy ebony box from the back and flipping it open.

No chances at all, he thought as he drained the sleeping draught in one swallow.

He wouldn’t be vulnerable to that bint.

~~~

She awoke in degrees, stretching catlike in the bed, raising her arms above her head and grazing her fingertips over the headboard. A small smile lifted the corners of her lips as she thought of how she’d spent the previous night—

She is still straddling him, and he is still buried deep inside her, both of them spent and relishing the twinges, the aftershocks of their climaxes. Her hair hangs down, tickling his cheeks and throwing a fiery curtain around his face as she presses her forehead to his.

They are sated, and well they should be, as this isn’t the first time in the night, as she lost count of her orgasms after the first three. She’s never felt so good, or so completely smug. She lowers her head to his ear and whispers “It doesn’t look like either of us will be getting much sleep.”

And when he looks at her like that, with silver eyes surrounded by golden, half-lowered lashes, and he tilts his lips in that smirk, she doesn’t want to sleep ever again, she wants to stay—

Awake. It only took an instant for her to be completely awake, sitting bolt upright in bed, her arms crossed over her chest.

Apparently whatever occurrence had sent her scampering to bed the evening before still sat with her, ruining her leisurely Saturday morning wakening ritual. For a moment, she’d felt—

Well and truly used?

Not his voice this time, but hers, satisfied as a cat with cream. Ginny shivered and, looking out the window at the pale early dawn light, tugged on the sky-blue satin kimono Hermione had gotten her for Christmas last. As she crept out of her bed, drawing back the curtains and smiling wistfully at her fast-sleeping roommates (each with candy wrappers scattered around their beds), she kept her movements ghostly silent, drawing in a hiss as her feet touched the cold stone floor.

The room had been warm the night before, too warm for an October night, and Ginny guessed it was as much a product of her heated thoughts than any sort of heating charm her mates had been kind enough to cast on the room. Shifting her weight from foot to foot to avoid freezing her toes off, she wondered how she’d managed to get to sleep wearing only a camisole and shorts.

If it were up to me, you’d be wearing much less, she heard him in her mind, and she bit her lip as she ducked out of the portrait hole.

He had to have done something, she’d finally decided, and she damned well wanted to know what it was.

If she were a true Weasley—and by Merlin, she was—she could certainly find a way to sneak into the library for a bit of weekend research.

~~~

He hovered in that half-asleep state where thoughts and memories mixed easily with dreams, where it was just as easy to slip back into sleep as it was to ascend into wakefulness. He’d slept hard, had barely moved all night, and though he’d taken the full vial of sleeping draught, he didn’t feel logy as he’d expected. In fact—

He turns, ready to go back to sleep, and pulls her next to him, her hair brushing over his chest and her head coming to rest just beneath his chin. Her bottom cozies between his thighs, and he can feel at least one part of him waking up a bit more. That part of him certainly has no need for more sleep, and he rubs himself against the cleft of her buttocks, feeling her respond even in her sleep, the slight mewling noise coming from between her lips waking him up—

Completely. There was already a curse on his lips as he sat up in bed, rock hard with a sheen of sweat on his brow.

Had he dreamed of her? Had he done anything in his sleep? Mortified as he hadn’t been for years, Draco threw back his black linen sheets and breathed a sigh of relief. For a moment, he’d been afraid he’d been… indiscreet… in his dreams.

It never occurred to him that he could have uttered a simple cleaning spell in the midst of his fantasies.

“Fucking weasel,” he ground out between his teeth, beyond livid. A hex that lasted more than eight hours? Someone had been doing their bloody homework, he reckoned, and he intended to put a stop to it. This particular Gryffindor gag was going to be over, and in Draco’s opinion, none too soon.

He snatched his black knit jumper off his bedpost and tugged it on with a few rough, economical movements, his head popping out the top, his face already arranged in a scowl.

It was never too early in the morning to start taking points, and if he could find the dirty little Weaselette, he was bloody well going to start.

3. Fact or Fantasy

**Author’s Note: I’m really glad everyone seems to be enjoying the story… it’s so much fun to write. It’s definitely longer than I ever intended to be, so look forward to quite a few more chapters to this smutbunny. Now read, and give feedback if you so desire.**

CHAPTER THREE- Fact and Fantasy

One, two, three, four…

Ginny’s reddish-bronze eyebrows drew together in concentration, the tip of her tongue caught between her teeth as she tried to lengthen her paces to what the twins’ would have been.

Five, six, seven…

She turned a sharp left as her memory told her to—why hadn’t she listened more to the twins when they were blathering on about these things?—already off-balance because of the awkward length of her strides, and when she plowed into something in the dim early light, she thought nothing of it.

A suit of armor, perhaps. A wall. She could very well have miscounted—after all, when George and Fred had talked about sneaking into the restricted section of the library just to look up bawdier tomes from eras past, she hadn’t given them much attention.

And then the suit of armor, such as it was, grabbed her.

She would have screamed but for the hand covering her mouth, and as she nipped sharp teeth into a slightly calloused palm, she thought she knew that taste, that smell. She’d been steeped in it all night, surrounded in it for hours, wanted to devour it and be it and pull it inside her—

And then he released her, jarring her to rights, and as her eyes adjusted to the gloom, they spoke simultaneously.

“What hex this time, Weasley?”

“What the fuck have you done to me, Malfoy?”

And though his sleek, pale brows shot up at her use of profanity, Draco recovered first, quick to respond, unable to stop the words from tumbling from his lips.

“Not nearly as much as I’d like to.”

He was quicker than she was prepared for, jerking her in a semi-circle to position her back to the wall, and he pushed her into it, jolting her head a bit, sending long red strands scattering into scowling eyes.

“Get your hands off me,” she said through her teeth. “I didn’t do a bloody thing to you.”

Or had she? The fantasies were getting a bit hard to distinguish from reality, with him standing before her in a pair of green pajama pants and a sweater that fit just a bit too well for her liking.

She should have stayed in bed.

It’s this bed he never comes to, never can come to, thanks to the myriad charms that keep the boys from the girls’ dormitories, and it is this she talks to him about. As she lays in his bed, sliding one foot up his muscled calf, she tells him what she does in her own bed when she thinks of him, the moments she sneaks between classes, the meals she cuts short to slip into her bed and satisfy herself, relieve herself from the heat that has built up all day long thinking about him, and she tells him every little detail, she loves to make him suffer—

He watched her eyes focus on him for a split second, and for a moment she’d looked ready to spit on him, then she… glazed over.

Draco smirked, figuring she’d gone into some slack-jawed survival mode common to Muggle-loving plebes. It was probably like playing dead, he reckoned, only playing idiot.

Peering more closely, he determined she didn’t have to play idiot. She was a Weasley, so she had been born into that particular mishap.

And then a smile slipped over her lips, twisting them with an air of feminine mystique, a haughty smirk accompanied by a shuddering, whimpering moan.

She keeps her lips close to his ear while she rides him, her hips moving in rhythmic, torturous jerks. She keeps her lips there because she knows he loves to hear her, loves the sounds she makes, loves how she lets herself go even when he doesn’t feel he can, and now, at this moment, she’s panting in time with her movements, and with every breath she draws in, he can feel himself moving closer and closer to the edge, his brain filled with the sound of her, and he’ll be hearing her all day—

She gasped in his ear and he shook his head, trying to figure out where the hell he was, what the hell was going on. His hands were pressed painfully into the stones just above her shoulders, and her hands rested on his hips. His chin nearly set atop her shoulder, and when he shifted, he felt her lips on his ear, her breath hot and moist and coming in quick, sharp pants with just the hint of vocalization, just the whisper of a promise of a moan later on.

“You sneaky fucking witch,” he growled, angry at her for being here, crazed with what she was doing to him, and frustrated with himself for being so bloody fucking helpless against whatever she’d done.

But frustrated or no, he removed one hand from the wall and pressed it to the curve of her left breast, biting his tongue as he felt her heart beat, as he felt what he already knew, the softness, shape, size of her, the way she immediately responded to him, the feel of her nipple against his palm. He pulled his hand away from her, meaning to do it quickly but instead doing so with reluctance, and she thrust her hips into him, the slick satin covering her hips sliding slick over his pants with a hushed, secretive sound.

“Filthy… bloody… Malfoy,” she said, leaning her head back and rapping it smartly against the stone. It was an Imperius, of course, it had to be. The smarmy little git just couldn’t muster one powerful enough to make her do everything under his power. “Can’t even curse me well enough to keep me quiet, eh?”

“Why would I want to?” he spoke as soon as he thought the words. “That dirty little mouth of yours is all part of the fun.” He contemplated pulling the sash of that ridiculous little robe she wore, and instead raked his nails up her thigh, starting just above her knee and ending at the hems of her very brief shorts.

He wonders sometimes why she even bothers with wearing anything to bed. He’s going to rid her of them eventually, anyway, but he knows she finds that part of the fun. He’s come close to ruining her clothes more than once, but won’t quite do it—he’s not ready to start replacing what he damages, not ready to start buying her things.

But every time he works one of those silly, miniscule pairs of shorts down her long, long legs, he knows it would be money well spent, and he has just the thing in mind, black lace and satin and—

He could smell her, hot and sweet and dear Merlin, he was kneeling before her with those shorts in his hands, and how the hell did he get here?!

She tangled one hand in his hair, her teeth clenched, trying to find the words, the curses, the defenses she needed to get him the bloody fuck off of her but she couldn’t concentrate for more than a minute or two, because every time she tried, she slipped back into something else, thinking of him—

Just there, it’s one of her favorite spots to put him, and she keeps her fingers in that silky, pampered hair of his, a little envious of the shade, of the texture. After all, her own locks are so wavy, so thick and unmistakably red, and this is so different, so pale and shocking and lovely, and so she loves him here, where she can feel his hair under her fingers and his tongue deep inside her, and she knows he’ll stay there as long as she holds him there, because he can undo her this way, he can make her come completely unhinged, he can make her say his name in reverent tones and in disrespectable screams, and he bites the inside of her thigh—

She came even as he stood, no hands on her, only his eyes, and he watched transfixed as she started to shake, his name spilling from her lips in a repetitive, engaging, addictive chant.

“Draco, yes, Draco, please…”

He could take no more, and with her shorts balled in his fist, his knuckles turning white as the material he held, he stepped into her and let her do her work, let those fingers he’d felt in his mind close around him, let her shove his pants down his narrow hips, and he braced one hand to the wall and drove into her, his pants still most of the way up, his pullover still on; she was still dressed, that little robe still belted and clinging to her curves, one hand now gripped into the material of his sweater, and he didn’t think a whit about the cost of the cloth she was stretching out of shape, all he could think about was how she felt surrounding him, wet and hot and tight and clenching in arrhythmic, fluttering pulses from the climax she’d just had.

She pressed her face into his shoulder as he canted his hips up, grazing some spot in her that felt like bursts of light behind her eyes, ringing in her ears, water in her knees. His face was a study in concentration, in intensity, and he looked almost grim as he set the rhythm and kept to it unfailingly. Ginny shut her eyes, horrified at what she was doing, and—

He’s looking down at her, the challenge clear in his eyes as he keeps her pinned to the cabinets in the Quidditch shower rooms. He still has his uniform on, the leather of his gloves warm and somehow impersonal against her breast, rough and formed to fit a Snitch, perfect just where he’s cupping her nipple—

“Fuck!” she yelps as he hits that spot again, harder, and she opens her eyes, unable to keep them closed, perturbed and perversely pleased about the dual effect that was happening. She could feel him here, inside her physically, and in her mind, she could also feel him there, driving inside her in the same rhythm, but in another place, in another situation, with another attitude. “You’re everywhere,” she breathed, and it should have been incomprehensible, but he knew, he let his eyes close, his jaw clench, and he—

Pushes her up against the mirror, knowing it must be cold against her back and buttocks, seeing the gooseflesh break out over her, feeling her nipples harden against his chest, and he does it anyway, loving the reflection of all that smooth, freckled skin, the number of freckles now doubled and he has put his lips on every one, has felt each spot fevered under his lips until she was writhing beneath him and begging like she should, and only then, only when she begs does he give her leave and give her relief—

Her cry was muffled against his sweater, but nothing could check the way she was shaking against him, and nothing could stop the way her thighs flexed around his, her muscles holding him at the point of deepest penetration, and he opened his eyes as he spilled into her, a helpless, uncharacteristic, (and in hindsight, completely undignified) moan shaking loose from his throat.

His breathing was hoarse, untoward even, and hers was no better, unladylike pants that wracked her whole body, her breasts raising and dropping with each cycle, her kimono slipping into a state of disarray, hanging off one shoulder, covered only with the inadequate strap of a camisole.

Ginny looked at him with wide eyes, slowly forcing herself to loose the vice grip of her thighs, to take her sore fingers out of his sweater—they were cramped now, in that clawing, desperate position—and she didn’t take her eyes off him, afraid he’d manage to curse her again.

She still hadn’t determined how he’d done it in the first place.

He still had one hand braced against the cold stone wall, but he could see her more clearly now, the ambiguous half-light of pre-dawn giving way to a clearer light that bounced down the hallways, illuminating everything but the corners with a faint, cheerful glow. Draco looked down at her face—bloody Weasley—and found he could easily call it up beside him in bed, as though they were already there.

Whatever had happened, it wasn’t through with yet, and he bared his teeth in negation of the fact.

He didn’t even realize he was still buried in her, but when she moved, shifted away from that feral growl he was giving her, the sensation nearly killed him, the still-slick feel of her clinging to the tip of him as though unwilling to let go, the feel of her curls against his sensitive shaft, and the arm bracing him against the wall gave in, the elbow bending and sending his chin bumping into her head, hisses and cursing coming from both of them.

“Watch what in Merlin’s dungeon you’re doing,” Ginny said crossly, her voice a whisper. She didn’t think she could muster more, really. Every ounce of energy she had was being channeled into merely standing. Speaking above a whisper hardly seemed an option right this second. “I think you’ve done quite enough without breaking my skull with your pointy chin.”

“I’ve done enough?” he asked in disbelief, jerking his pants up, his eyes nearly crossing. He wasn’t quite ready to start scraping cloth over himself, not with the vigorous shagging he’d just had—with a Weasley, no less—but he’d be damned if he let her upbraid him while he stood there with his wanker waving in the wind.

So to speak.

“I think you did just as much, if not more, oh delicate flower,” he bit out, still close enough to smell her, his own voice pitched low.

He’d probably go mad if he talked any louder, because heavens knew that would seem just a bit too real.

“Well,” she hissed back, yanking her shorts back from him and refusing to be embarrassed about it—when the hell had he taken them off her?!—“I know this isn’t my imagination, because at least in my imagination you have to good sense—ha!—to keep your mouth shut.”

He gaped at her for a moment, truly at a loss for words at her stunning display of ironic hypocrisy. “Well, at least in my imagination you don’t turn into a shrieking harpy post-coitus!”

“Isn’t that an awfully sophisticated term for you to utilize, Malfoy?” Ginny retorted, stepping into her shorts with a little wince.

She was going to be sore, no doubt about it.

He started to respond, though only Merlin knew why he’d even bother rising to the bait—I’d rise to a hell of a lot more, too, the gleeful, fantasizing bastard in his head spoke up—and was thankfully interrupted by a pair of chartreuse eyes peering at them from the half-lit corridor.

The expression on his face would have been comical, Ginny thought, if she hadn’t been so bloody shellshocked. His eyes popped wide open, and he looked downright frightened. Quite unlike a Malfoy, she thought.

And then he started to speak, over-enunciating in a ridiculously loud voice, shooting glances toward that devil’s spawn of a cat. “And don’t let me catch you in the halls after hours again, Weasley. I’ll deduct points if I so much as think you’re up to no good.”

She snorted, and then the tart who had taken up residence in her brain tittered Actually, I was up to a whole lot of good, and she decided retreat was perhaps the best option.

“Fine,” she said loudly, playing his game with twenty kinds of embarrassment. “I’ll do my studying elsewhere, you ferrety git!”

Apparently satisfied with the exchange, the thrice-cursed cat trotted off, leaving two bewildered students staring at one another.

“So help me Merlin,” Ginny said, pointing a shaking finger at him as she walked backwards, never once thinking to draw out her wand, “This had better be over. I want—I mean, I don’t want another repeat.”

Draco Malfoy never thought he’d be in agreement with a Weasley, but he was—right down to the stammer.

4. Behold the Usual Suspects

CHAPTER FOUR- Behold the Usual Suspects

“Fred?” George’s voice floated from the back of the store, a foreign note of uncertainty creeping into it. He was dreading what his brother would say when he saw the state of the stockroom, but he was dreading even more what his brother would say when he told him exactly why everything was turned over.

For the first time in the history of the intrepid jesters’ joint business, something was missing from their vast inventory.

Something very dangerous.

“I need a bit of help back here, Fred, if you don’t mind.”

“I was hexing a letter to send to Perce—” Fred’s voice trailed off as he looked at the disaster area in the back of the store, and then he started to laugh. “What’d you blow up this time, brother?”

George snickered despite himself; the thought hadn’t even occurred to him, for once. He quickly sobered, however, at the thought of Albus Dumbledore turning them into croaking frogs, or more likely, braying asses. “Listen, you remember we gave Dumbledore our promise that nothing we delivered on Halloween would be harmful or… out there?” Fred arched a usually wickedly peaked eyebrow, waiting for the conclusion of the sentence. “Well, it seems we’re… ah… missing something.”

Fred’s eyes widened and he had to hold back a laugh. It really was a bit amusing to think of one of those fool first-years turning themselves into a fish, or growing extra arms and legs. “What are we missing? Should we go find a Hufflepuff who’s started to have allergic reactions to homework?”

George shook his head and wordlessly handed his twin an empty tin, its lid dented, a sloppily handwritten label pasted across the front that said “IN TESTING—DO NOT USE.”

The tin was unrecognizable; they’d dented it in their hurry to slap the few remaining candies away from their reach—and anyone else’s.

They’d been attempting to concoct a Cheering Chew, a candy that would make the consumer immediately happy, as though they’d cast a Cheering Charm. It would be easier, they reckoned, and a great deal easier to use in plain sight of Muggles or in quiet places. If they’d had any success with this particular confection, they’d have tried to sell it at St. Mungo’s for the more tired, more disheartened relatives.

What they’d turned out with definitely wouldn’t have been appropriate in the wizarding hospital.

Every confident in their own work, Fred and George had simultaneously eaten one of the fudge pieces, nodding and making agreeable noises at the taste—they’d certainly learned a spot or two of cooking from Molly, whether she believed it or not—and then they’d waited for the cheering to begin.

“You know,” Fred said consideringly, “Perhaps we’re not the best test subjects for this. We’re already—”

“Such sociable chaps,” George finished, hopping onto the counter of the deserted store and swinging his legs. “This is true, but we can better judge side effects—”

“If we’re not distracted by the untoward cheeriness,” Fred finished. “Good show—”

He stopped talking, looked for a moment like he had forgotten what he was saying, and then his eyes glazed over completely.

“Fred? Fred, mate, what’s the matter? I need to write it down.” George had reached for a clipboard and—

When they each came to a few moments after that first sample, they were looking at each other with a mixture of horror and ecstasy.

“Great Merlin’s—”

“Lacy knickers,” George finished. “Did you just—”

“Like a wet dream,” Fred finished. “Only without the wet.” He looked down at his crotch and grimaced uncomfortably. “But just barely.”

Completely at ease with telling his brother everything, George put his forehead to the heels of his hands and said, “I’ll tell you one thing, whatever just happened, I’m never looking at Hermione Granger the same way again.”

Fred burst into laughter—a not entirely sane-sounding outburst—and ended the jag on a craggy little sigh. “Ah… well, you know, you’ll have to tell me about that sometime.” He, on the other hand, seemed very reluctant to bare all, and knowing the sheer power of the mental picture he’d just had, George wasn’t about to let this particular detail go.

By the time he finally edged it out of his brother that his particular poison had been about Angelina, Alicia, and what had sounded like a muttered Oliver, they were both reeling again, thrown into a daydream so strong it blacked out their reality, if only for a few moments.

The remaining few pieces of the fudge had been thrown into the battered tin after the twins had spent a considerable amount of time trying to rid themselves of their… visions… and the side effects of said visions. They’d taken one piece from the remaining store to split into small pieces and try to decipher exactly what it was doing to them.

After a little experimentation and a hasty calling-off of that particular business venture, the brothers vowed never to distribute the fudge… but neither of them could bear to part with it.

And now… the tin they’d stowed it in was empty, and George was all too afraid he knew where their sweetest sweets had gone.

“Fred, mate, tell me you took it. Please. I’m fair begging.” George watched his brother with restless eyes, watched him turn the tin over and over and over with long fingers, then watched Fred give him that wicked, conspiratorial look.

“Did you hide it just to take the mickey out of me, George? ‘Cause if you did, it’s been a damned good lark so far… otherwise, Professor Dumbledore’s going to absolutely kill us if we have a couple of kids—”

“Running around with absolutely no inhibitions whatsoever.” Fred sat heavily on the floor and looked up at George. “Well, I suppose in a roundabout sort of way, whoever ate those really will be cheerful.”

George couldn’t help but smirk at the thought of a hapless little Hufflepuff thinking naughty thoughts about heavens knew who—the possibilities were endless. “We’ll have to ask Ginny to keep an eye for us,” he said finally. “You’ll have to swear her to secrecy, Fred,” he said absently. “She trusts you more than me, and if she tells Mum, the only fantasy we’ll be having is of not being ghosts in this drafty store.”

Fred nodded and started halfheartedly levitating candies and gadgets to their proper spots on the shelf, thinking it didn’t really say much that his sister trusted him more than his twin.

She hoped the unctuous bastard fell.

In fact, she hoped he fell, knocked out a few other players on the way down, and then landed on his face.

In fact—

Ginny was running out of wishes for the Slytherin Seeker, and she was running out of good reasons why she would be so intently watching a Quidditch match between Slytherin and Ravenclaw.

She had nearly forgotten about the match in all of the… distractions of the morning, but Hermione had been more than happy to remind her of the upcoming match, in one way or another.

“I suppose you’ll be going to the Quidditch match today,” she’d said over breakfast, a note of displeasure in her voice. “It’s all Harry can talk about. It isn’t enough that he plays, you know, he also has to watch every opportunity he gets. I think he’s watching Draco Malfoy, you know, to see how he plays. Though I can’t imagine why anyone in their right mind would want to spend that much time looking at Draco Malfoy.”

Ginny jerked, spilling her hot tea over her hand, and looked at Hermione with wide eyes. “What? No, of course I wouldn’t want to watch Malfoy. Why would you think I would?”

At the exceedingly odd look Hermione gave her, Ginny replayed the comment in her mind and flushed guiltily. “I mean, no, I can’t see how he manages to watch him for that long, either.” She looked down at her plate and worried at her lip.

It had been the word Quidditch, damn it, and she’d had a flash of those long fingers and leather gloves and sweaty Quidditch uniforms.

Damn it.

Hermione had seemed not to notice, however, so upset was she over Harry’s inattentiveness. She vowed to spend the day doing homework just to spite him, sniffing that she didn’t have any yen at all to watch Draco Malfoy spend an hour flaunting his daddy’s wealth and his mediocre talent.

Oh, but Ginny had that yen, and so she found herself sitting in the stands apart from her peers, watching the sky as though waiting for something to happen, and she was waiting for something to happen, she reasoned. She was waiting for him to plummet from his broom and fall face-first onto—

The Quidditch pitch is their forbidden place, their little secret. It is here they come when they feel most dangerous, most daring, and most damaged. They come here in the hopes they’ll get caught, in the knowledge they could, and in the fear that they might. This is the third time they’ve been out here, the Head Boy and a Gryffindor prefect, sneaking around the grounds, stopping every five feet to kiss in the dark, fevered despite the cool winds, hot hands slipping under robes, a low, teasing laugh slipping from lips—his? Hers? It doesn’t matter, what matters is the way he takes her shoulders in his hands and tosses her to the grass under the sky he dominates with every game, and he’ll dominate here, too, as he pins her wrists to the dewy grass and brackets her hips with his knees, grinding himself into her as she bucks her hips and bites his lips—

“Hey, little sister.”

No three words could have killed the fantasy quite as effectively, and Ginny didn’t know whether to be grateful or be disappointed that it had been interrupted.

After all, the encounter of that morning already seemed so far away—

Cold stones against her back, hard heat driving into her—

Perhaps not so far away, after all.

She blinked several times to clear her eyes and smiled at the twins, wondering if her cheeks were as red if they felt, if they could see her hands shaking. “What on earth are you two doing here?” she asked, her surprise somewhat dampened by her apprehension.

If anyone would recognize mischief, it was these two.

But the twins had worries of their own. They’d spent the better part of an hour debating on how, exactly, they were going to ask her if she’d seen anything amiss around the castle without giving themselves away.

“You know,” George had finally said, “As odd an idea as it sounds, perhaps we should just come clean and tell her what’s going on.”

It really was an odd idea—the twins never ‘fessed up unless coerced, and that usually only happened under Molly’s stern hand, anyway. But for once, they were in a bind, and any way out was a good way out.

“We just came to watch the game!” Fred said, wincing when George elbowed him. “Well, not exactly.”

Bloody hell, she was having a hard time taking her eyes off the game. “Hmm… what? I’m sorry, I was watching… the game.”

All three siblings shifted uncomfortable, and none noticed the others’ discomfort.

“Listen, Gin, we need your help,” George said. “And you have to swear you won’t mention to anyone, or—”

“We’ll be turned into goats,” Fred finished.

“Have you noticed anyone acting strangely?” George burst out.

That had her attention. Had she noticed anyone acting strangely?

Well, she thought of saying, I’ve been lusting after Malfoy for the past twelve hours or so, and he’s apparently not averse to it, as he shagged me up against a wall in the corridor—

“It’s a school of magic, loves, of course people have been acting strangely,” she said, struggling to sound lighthearted instead of… strangled.

The look the twins exchanged would have been comical, Gin thought, if it didn’t so closely mirror the unease she was feeling.

“There isn’t time to sit and spell it out,” Fred said firmly. “Gin, we made a mistake with the Halloween bags, and we need you to keep an eye out for anyone—”

“Acting unusually amorous,” George cut in. “We’re missing things from the store, and we’ve an idea where they went—”

Now she was positively riveted, her jaw gaping open.

Unusually amorous?

“What… have you done?” she said slowly, feeling as though her joints were rusting to a creak, starting with her gaping jaw.

Unusually amorous?!?!!??!!?!?!

Ginny thought she might be two brothers lighter by the close of the day.

“Er…” Fred had been ready to spill it all, but Gin had sounded a great deal like his Mum, and the thought of having one of his ears twisted off didn’t seem particularly appetizing. “Well, there’s something we’re experimenting with—”

“Were experimenting,” George corrected with a stern look. “But we stopped. It was a fudge. Well, two. Look, we just need you to make sure there aren’t any little first years trying to corner professors after classes—”

“Are you all right?” Fred asked suddenly. All the color had positively drained from Gin’s face. “Oooh, has someone done that? Capital idea, George. Maybe a Hufflepuff is after Snape,” he snickered despite himself.

“No!” she said firmly, standing and trying to catch her breath. She was going to faint. She was going to kill them.

She was going to kiss them.

For Merlin’s sake, she couldn’t even think straight.

“I haven’t noticed anything,” she said dully, the sounds of the crowd receding to a buzz in her ears. She’d shagged Malfoy, and it was because… her brothers had slipped her something?

She turned her eyes to the sky once more, one hand pressed to her chest, the other dangling at her side, and she watched the Slytherin Seeker take a victory lap around the posts, the Snitch grasped in his fingers.

He puts his hands over hers on the broom, his lips at the nape of her neck as he urges the broom into the sky. Laden with their combined weight, the broom still moved like lightning, and he takes them into a dive first, the force of the dive pressing him fully into her back, and her moan is lost in the rushing wind as he pulls back, the broomstick pressing relentlessly into her—

“I’m sure no one important got them,” she said finally, placing her hands on her brothers’ shoulders as much for support as for the affectionate contact. “I—I should go.”

She wanted to be angry, but now that the game was over, all she could think of was him, him in those damnable gloves, sweaty and victorious.

“If I think someone’s had it, should I tell them?” she asked suddenly, feeling deliciously wicked and shockingly unconflicted.

And just as she’d hoped, her darling brothers looked shocked.

“No!” they said in unison, and Fred finished the statement. “Just… make sure they’re not into trouble.”

They meant to tell her how long the fudge would last, but their baby sister was off like a Snitch released from its case.

“You reckon we ought to have told her how long it would last?” George asked, staring thoughtfully after his sister and wondering if this meant they were no longer responsible.

“Eh,” Fred said noncommittally, wondering the same thing. “It’s hardly relevant. After all, we don’t know when some poor bastard’s actually going to pop that candy into his mouth.”

In unison, the two thought of a Hufflepuff cornering the Potions professor, and they both burst into laughter.

5. A Game Well-Played

CHAPTER FIVE –A Game Well-Played

She lurked. She spied. She’d even dare to say she stalked.

It felt very nice to have an advantage over Draco Malfoy, and Ginny intended to use it to her advantage.

There was a certain amount of guiltlessness she associated with her actions now; after all, it was beyond her control.

Being out of control wasn’t necessarily her cup of tea; after all, the last time it had happened had yielded dangerous results, indeed. But this, she warranted, was a sight better than rifling through Harry’s things or painting threatening messages on the wall.

And besides, she thought smugly, watching the next to last Slytherin Quidditch player slip out of the shower room, she would remember this.

But she wouldn’t say no to a souvenir. Perhaps a lock of that—

Silky hair slips between her fingers, but this time she is face to face with him, looking at those hateful silver eyes, baleful and belligerent and berating, and she jerks his head backward, and he really is looking down his nose at her now, his lip curled back in a sneer, and she bares her teeth at him, feeling wild.

That’s how he makes her feel. Wild, like an animal, completely irrational. And if she’s going to give into this—and oh, Merlin, is she ever—she’s going to give into it completely.

She thinks her Animagus form might be a she-panther, so fierce are her feelings, and she keeps her eyes on his as long as she can as she ducks her head and scrapes her tongue flat over his Adam’s apple, giving it an extra, fluttering lap when she feels the stutter of his swallow under her tongue.

She chases the lick with her teeth, nipping and for a moment wanting to taste his blood, and she feels his groan before she hears it, and she feels triumphant, victorious.

She seeks to conquer, and as she releases her hair and slides down his body, licking her lips, she can see the flash of fear in his eyes, for she’s not safe like this, but he can’t tell her no, and he won’t tell her no, and he can’t find words at all as she scrapes that half-feline tongue down the underside of his erection, from tip to base in one possessive, preparatory movement—

Draco stood in the doorway and watched with a mix of detached amusement and sheer, stark want as the Weaselette stood only meters from him, licking her lips like a cat in a bowl of cream.

Or, he thought, shifting as his blood started to stir, a cat about to pounce.

He’d nearly fallen off his broom more times than he cared to count during the match, so often had he been assailed with flashes of her. Most of them had been mercifully short, but the last one—involving him riding her with much the same skill he used with his broom—had swamped him completely. He was too proud to admit it was luck rather than talent that had saved him from spilling his broom entirely, but when he’d come to and spotted the Snitch, he didn’t prolong the match.

He’d needed to get the hell out of the sky as long as his mind was buried deep inside her.

“Come to tell me how well I played, Weasley?” he asked, his calm tone belying the tension in his body, the errant adrenaline leftover from the match, the heady rush that came only when doing two things.

Flying and fucking.

He’d just finished his flying for the day.

Ginny looked at him slowly, up through her lashes, unintentionally coy as she identified her location and time—it was all too easy to forget where and when she was. She rather enjoyed the visual—and the audio—of him giving himself over to her.

She thought she might just have to try that.

“What if I came to tell you how worthless you are, Malfoy?” she asked mockingly, but she felt her stomach give a lurch when she saw what he was wearing.

He hadn’t gotten out of his Quidditch togs yet.

He stepped closer to her and watched her eyes skitter over his gloves to his face, and he heard her breathing accelerate, turn into something close to quiet little pants.

“Why haven’t you showered?” she asked, stepping back and sounding more than a bit cross. Damn it, she was the one in charge here.

He shouldn’t be able to look at her like that just to make her weak-kneed and scatterbrained. He was a Malfoy, for Merlin’s sake, and it was just a bloody piece of candy.

And she caught herself licking her lips again.

“Why shower here when I can do it in private?” he asked, taking another step toward her.

He slides his hands over her hips, admiring the way the water slicks down the middle of her back and funnels to the cleft of her buttocks, the way it turns her hair into thick, red ropes, the way the steam makes it hard for him to breathe, and she makes it even harder. He moves his hands up, feeling them slide easily over her ribs and breasts, lifting her arms above her head as he curves his hands up her arms, reaching for the ceiling and slapping her hands against the wet wall in front of her. The spray of the water is between them now, on her back and his chest, and as he slides into her from behind, the water sprays just over the point where they’re joined, making both of them gasp—

“Something on your mind?” she asked, though the manufactured shyness was gone, replaced by a breathless, anticipatory edge.

“You’re a mouthy little bint, you know that?” he grated out, simultaneously annoyed with her gall and enraged that she’d interrupted a perfectly good—

Memory? Hallucination? Fantasy?

It almost felt too real to be fantasy…

He grabbed her by the arms, shaking with the force of the game and the force of his visions and the force of wanting her, and he shook her, sending her head snapping back, her hair—

Wet and pouring down her back—

Shaking back and down and covering his hands. “You know what’s on my mind, don’t you? Probably the same buggering thing that’s on yours, you little Muggle-loving sneak.” He turned and pushed her through the door, sending her into the wide, slate-tiled room that smelled of sweat and leather and hot water, damp tilework.

There was no room for fantasy here, Ginny thought, not with those leather gloves pressing into her arms, the heavy robes and the smell of sweat, the way his hair, always so perfect, was in disarray, mussed as though she’d already had her hands in it—

Wanted a lock of it, didn’t you?

And she laughed, a long, low peal as he kissed her, no teeth, no bruising despite his rush, just hot, forceful tongue and firm, unyielding lips, and even when she scraped her teeth over his tongue, he did not retaliate, only grabbed her hands and nearly crushed them with his own, his long fingers convulsing around hers in a single, helpless movement.

He shed his robes, walking backwards now with her hands in his, and sat on a bench, knowing his knees wouldn’t hold him any longer.

He shook his head like an animal who has been hit, once, twice, trying to clear the hazes, but it was no use. She was already in his lap, her lips fastened on his neck, and her round bottom was pressing quite insistently into his crotch.

She kept putting her hands in his way, stopping him from taking off the gauntlets and the fingerless gloves that made his hands feel as though they were on fire, and he couldn’t understand it, but he bent to her will—

Just this once—

And he began to undress her instead, stripping her down to the waist and watching her with hooded eyes.

He’d been right about her nipples, about the pink tint of them, the bright color a shock against her pale skin, against her russet freckles, and he took one into his mouth, wanting to taste her, to know he’d been right about that, as well. He slid his fingers underneath her right breast, teasing his tongue over her nipple, and his fingers stopped as though by instinct.

Ginny moaned at the cessation, trying to remember what she’d thought of that morning, how it had been, how she’d thought of him in this place, in this uniform, but she couldn’t concentrate with the devil’s silver tongue circling around her breast, with those long, beautiful fingers sliding under her breasts, and when he stopped, she thought she’d go mad with the want.

She couldn’t concentrate enough to see the look of recognition on his face as he saw the tiny birthmark under her breast, and he ran his tongue over it, thinking that madness wasn’t so bad, after all.

“Up,” she finally managed, linking her arms around his neck and tugging the hair at the back of his head. “Please.”

He could deny her nothing like this, and he knew his arms wouldn’t hold her atop his lap for long. He knelt and pressed her against the cabinets, brushing the palm of his gloved hand over her peaked nipple, damp from his mouth, and at her response—a long moan that neared a scream—he felt himself jerk, felt the wetness start to seep from the head of his erection, a precursor to what would surely follow.

Ginny linked her ankles behind his back, releasing his belt and tossing it aside, laughing again as he stumbled on his knees, sitting hard on the floor and cushioning her fall , her legs still wrapped around him. Her back pressed into the cabinets as she sat on his lap and reached her arms up, up, thrusting her breasts out to him and wrapping her fingers into the handles, pulling herself up and then sinking down on him, drawing him inside her fully and using the rapidly waning strength in her arms to slide up and down his length, the angle driving him deep.

He wasn’t ready for her, just as he hadn’t been ready for her that morning, wasn’t prepared for the heat, the smell, the sight, the sound, the sheer fit of her, and he’d expected her to be wearing knickers instead of going without, but he knew—

He knows sometimes she goes without if he’s been particularly good to her the night before, or that morning—

He finally managed to get one gloved arm around her, between her back and the cabinets, pressing her to him as he touched his exposed fingertips to the dip between her breasts, damp with sweat and knocking with the force of her heartbeat.

She knew her arms would give out soon, but there was something glorious about living this out, about doing what she’d seen in her mind that morning, and Ginny Weasley wasn’t a quitter.

Besides, she didn’t think the whole of her body would last that much longer without flying to pieces.

She turned nearly blind eyes to him, letting one arm drop limply from the cabinet handle to grasp at the hand he pressed between her breasts, marveling at the gloves, how they looked on him, those magnificent, long fingers partially hidden by leather, and as she pulled herself up once more, tightening her muscles and memorizing the feel of him there, she brought his hand to her lips and slid one finger into her mouth, tasting sweat and leather and grass.

As she touched the tip of her tongue to his fingertip and heard him curse in low, definitely uncultured tones, she thought of that fingertip pressed into the curls between her thighs, sliding over swollen flesh and sensitive nerves unerringly; her other hand slid off the cabinet, scratching fruitlessly through his Quidditch jumper, pulling him to her, the rough weave pressed against the hard points of her nipples, her heels pressing convulsively into his back.

He thought he could last longer, regain the upper hand, get some control over the situation she had ruthlessly steered them both into, but when Draco felt one of her heels—still shod in an innocent oxford—dig into the base of his back, the pain sent his hips up in a jerk, jarring her awkwardly, crushing his arm against the door, his finger sliding over her bottom teeth in a graceless wrench, and instead of a moan, this time he finished with a hissed intake of breath, a speechless, soundless gasp through closed teeth as his entire body was wracked with the force of it.

He was trembling so badly he almost didn’t feel her, didn’t feel the renewed slickness around him, the tightening and loosening of muscles, the long, gusty sigh that she used instead of words.

They stayed that way for a long moment, his arm trapped behind her, his hand on her shoulder, wet from her tongue, her arms lying limply at her sides, her shoes digging uncomfortably into his back.

And though there were no fantasies, and hadn’t been the whole time, neither noticed, and neither wanted to move.

Finally, Ginny spoke, leaning her head against the cabinet and refusing to think about how she liked the solid feel of his arm behind her. “No wonder you didn’t shower.”

“What?” He’d mean to snap at her, but the word came out of his mouth in a drowsy half-slur.

He could probably die right here and be all right, provided she moved. Lucius would be a very unhappy man if his son died flaccid inside a Weasley.

Thinking that, he eased her off his lap, unable to resist reaching down and brushing the back of his hand over her and watching her draw in a shuddering breath.

The recovery time of a truly fiery woman was a wonderful thing, Draco was starting to think.

“I said,” she repeated, stumbling away from him on legs that felt fairly worthless, “It’s a wonder you didn’t shower. You would have just had to shower once more.”

She walked out, and the only think she could think of, her mind otherwise wiped clear form the encounter, was that her brothers made mighty good fudge.

Draco was left standing with his robes puddled on the floor, knowing he’d never quite look at his gloves the same way again.

6. Saturday Supper

CHAPTER SIX – Saturday Supper

One of the many, many upsides to being a Slytherin, Draco supposed, was how wide open it left one to be completely and unabashedly hedonistic.

Yes, he’d shagged a Weasley. Twice, in point of fact. But he’d done it well—of course he had, Malfoys did everything exceptionally—and he’d rather enjoyed it.

And if he was enjoying something, he’d keep enjoying it until he got bored with it or it stopped being shiny.

He’d taken a long shower after the dotty beggar had all but tackled him—a hot shower, because he hadn’t any real reason to show restraint—and he’d given more thought to how it had all come about. But the thoughts were detached, disjointed, because the truth of the matter was, Draco Malfoy really didn’t care how he’d came to shag Ginny Weasley. He cared that she was bloody magnificent about it, and that she wasn’t likely to say a word of it to anybody.

Malfoys may have been far removed from Weasleys, but Draco had a suspicion her brood and brethren would react in the same manner his family would if they’d been informed of the day’s… distractions.

He strode into the Great Hall for supper fashionably late, as always, with Crabbe and Goyle trailing behind him. They hadn’t noticed he was more relaxed, prowling instead of prancing, languid instead of leering. He’d had a successful day, and he didn’t intend to behave in any other way.

He glanced sidelong at the Gryffindor table, his eyebrow lifting only slightly, his only change in expression. He could feel her eyes on him, and—

He’s told her many times he’d take her right there on one of the ridiculously long tables, right in front of all her idiot cronies, and he’s just told her this not hours ago, whispering in her ear that he’d love to see her laid out like the main course, would love to let them all watch and envy while he concentrated solely on her. “Perhaps Scarhead could learn a few things,” he whispered to her just before she rolled away from him, and now he’s watching her from across the room with that look, that smirk, because he knows she’s thinking about him and her and that table, and she shifts and looks nervous and cuts her eyes at him in a censuring gesture, but he refuses to look away, and finally she can take it no longer. She makes her excuses and stumbles a little rising from the table, makes her way blindly to a bathroom, and he’s there so quickly it’s almost as though he’s beaten her there, and he pulls her into a stall and onto his lap and she shoves her feet against the door as he lifts up her skirt, pushing back into him and onto him, and they don’t care how much their grunts and pants and moans echo off the stones—

He sat down with an ungainly plop, swallowing hard.

It didn’t do well to be so cocky.

With such errant thoughts, he concluded it would be best just to keep things as simple as possible.

He wanted her, for whatever reason.

He’d leave it at that.

~~~

She saw him out of the corner of her eye, the negligent, sweeping glance, the arched aristocratic eyebrow, and she had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling.

It was funny, in a way—her friends didn’t know what they were doing, he himself (his Highness, she thought snidely) didn’t know what was going on, and for the moment, no matter how brief, she was the one with the knowledge.

It wasn’t only the Muggle world which lived by the adage knowledge is power. Witches and wizards certainly took that to heart.

But her conscience was going to be a bit of a problem. No matter how much it tickled her to be able to get away with something, she didn’t fully trust herself with having a secret. She may not have talked much about Tom Riddle and his doomed diary, but he was always present in her mind.

If a girl only got one big secret a lifetime, she figured she’d already had hers.

And so, as much as she wanted to get up and follow him, Ginny continued eating her meal and talking to her friends, trying not to watch him—

As he watches her. This is the first time he’s watched her, sat across the room in that big plush chair of his, his arms draped on the armrest, his long fingers dangling over, and she knows it should seem bizarre, this pretense of a king on his throne, considering he’s completely unclothed, but he seems perfectly at home, his eyes clothing him even though he’s bare. She’s not free to look at his body because he has her pinned with his eyes, and commands as much with them as he does with his voice, telling her what to do to herself, where to touch, where not to touch, what she’s allowed to do, hinting as to what he’ll do in return, and it never feels powerless as it should, because she can see in his eyes that he needs her, no matter whether he’s controlling her or not, and so it is his eyes she looks at as she cups her breasts in her hands, and he’s not even watching her, because he’s looking at her eyes—

“Did you all like the bags the twins put together?” she asked faintly in a desperate attempt to rouse herself. It was so damned easy to slip into these forays; no wonder the twins had come looking for their fudge.

It was hazardous stuff. Lovely, really.

Harry shared a glance with Ron and they both burst out laughing. “We traded off a bunch of the stuff we knew was chancy to Dean and Seamus. I think that was the best part of all of it.”

Ron’s laugh obscured the first part of his sentence, but he picked up Harry’s comment and began to tell of Dean’s and Seamus’s trials, running about the room with differently colored hair, or patches of fur. The best one, in Ron’s opinion, had been the peppermint that had made Dean’s hair grow ten times longer than its normal length, forming a comical cloud around his shocked face.

“I’m surprised they were allowed to bring those sorts of things,” Hermione said primly. She’d tried one candy, which had made her see everything in shades of rose for an hour, and had given the rest to a passing first year. “No matter how harmless they seemed, some of those… treats could have caused serious harm.”

Ginny choked on her pumpkin juice and sat it aside as Hermione looked at her solicitously. “Are you all right, Ginny?”

“Quite,” she said, rubbing her throat. “Swallowed a bit too quick is all, getting tickled about Dean and all that hair.”

Hermione thought that was harmful? She hadn’t the iota of a notion.

~~~

“For Merlin’s sake, you’re going to have to get over it eventually, you know.” The voice, one Draco had hoped he’d eventually become accustomed to rather than reacting with a cringe every single time, pierced his thoughts as effectively as a sharpened quill, and he forced himself not to look at Pansy with all the distaste he felt.

He was startled at her proclamation, but refused to show it. Instead, he stabbed a bit of beef with his fork and held it up, looking over it at her as though completely unconcerned. “Your cryptic comments are, despite what I’m sure is your fervent belief, neither fascinating nor entertaining. Spit it out, Pansy. What, pray tell, am I going to have to get over… eventually?”

She worked hard to control the flush that wanted to redden her features; Pansy Parkinson would be damned if she allowed him to get the best of her, ever. He was convinced, she was sure, that she was pining away for him. It was a ridiculous idea—but wasn’t she allowed to worry about him even if she had absolutely no urge to spend the rest of her life popping out his little Death Eaterlings?

“Harry Potter,” she said through clenched teeth, then let her anger cool and her snarl melt into a disbelievingly saccharine smile. “Short of a minor catastrophe—or miracle—you’re stuck with Dumbledore’s Darling for the rest of the school term. So really,” she said condescendingly, “You could quit ogling him like a ponce and converse intelligently, because among you, Crabbe, and Goyle, you’re really my only choice for said intelligent conversation.” She finished her speech with a disgusting little bat of her eyelashes, and neither Crabbe nor Goyle had followed a single word she’d said.

“I’m over it,” Draco spat back, satisfied that she’d misidentified the target of his stare.

It had only been hours, and already he wanted her again.

But he’d not ask her. He was too proud for that. Besides, she’d come to him willingly—more than willingly earlier that day.

She could do so again.

“I need a bit of fresh air,” he said, standing and staring down at the assembled Slytherins. “Without someone breathing down my neck.” While Pansy took the hint with a roll of her eyes, Crabbe and Goyle stood along with him, oblivious to what he had said.

“Sit down, trolls,” she said, sounding bored. “He’s going without you. I know that’s quite a few syllables for you, but it’s manageable, yes?”

They exchanged a look even Draco had to admit was comical and sat down as he mouthed “Thank you” at the young woman who had annoyed him on more than one occasion but watched his back on just as many.

~~~

“Oh!” The single, startled syllable made everyone at the table jump and look at Ginny expectantly.

She’d just seen him walk out, headed outdoors. There wasn’t much time left at all before curfew, but hardly anyone would go looking for the Head Boy and a Prefect.

She wanted not to follow him, wanted to be in better control of herself than that, but surely she’d be able to control herself this once, just go out there, make a comment or two, maybe snog once, and then go inside.

She’d make it back in before curfew, she vowed.

“Yeeees?” Ron drew out the word, still watching her, and she kicked him under the table, trying to maintain a show of normalcy.

“Don’t be an arse, Ron, I was thinking.”

“He can hardly help it,” Harry laughed. “It’s his nature.”

Ginny found she wasn’t half as jealous this time when Hermione gave Harry an indulgent smile.

“Madam Pomfrey asked me to get a plant from the grounds and I’d totally forgotten. I’ll have to do it tomorrow before our lessons.” It was an easy enough excuse—none of the others were taking any courses in healing, so she could really spin whatever tale she liked. And she was comforted, also, in knowing none of them would venture out with her. Ron feared the spiders lurking in the flora around the castle, and Harry and Hermione weren’t likely to separate.

She slipped out before there could be any offers of company, no matter how reluctant, and thought about how she’d spent the whole of supper hungry for something else. That was exactly the sensation, like starvation, drought, pure, mindless need.

It was disconcerting.

But here she was, seeking him out, trying to meet him for what would be the third time that day (like meals, she thought, but we missed our teatime). Just to talk, she wanted to insist, but couldn’t, even to herself.

And when she saw the moonlight beaming off that bright head of hair, she didn’t want to insist it at all.

“Come to relive the glory of your win?” she asked, but there was neither hate nor heat behind the comment. No, here was the one place (outside her fantasies, at least) where he looked human, where he looked pitiable and understandable at the same time. His hands were thrust into the pockets of his coat and he looked up at with the air of a man who knows, while there is no mystery in the skies, there is always adventure.

“No,” he said. “I came to get a breath of fresh air and to see if you’d follow me.” Truth from the lips of a Slytherin—it was ironic enough to please him and odd enough to take her by surprise. “It seems I was right.”

Had he noticed ever before how she looked? How in her years at Hogwarts, she’d managed to go from a gangling, barely female version of Ron to a leggy, peculiar sort of appeal? Her top lip was a bit too full, her nose too freckled, her eyes set just a bit too far apart with their long eyelashes. Her hair should have been hideous, and her forthright, boyish way of staring should have been unsettling.

But La Weasley was the closest thing he’d ever had to an equal in Gryffindor. Potter was a joke unless surrounded by his friends, and Ron Weasley was a bumbling, hopeless mess. But this one had always stood toe-to-toe with him.

“It’s a bit late to be staring at me,” Ginny said, uncomfortable with the sudden attention. Shouldn’t he have slipped into some sort of otherwordly fantasy by now? Shouldn’t she? “You’ve already seen it all, there’s not much else to look at.”

“You’ve a foul mouth,” he said, but sounded more admiring than censuring.

“You’ve a pointy nose,” she retorted, but she’d gone breathless. The proximity alone made her lightheaded, and she stepped into him, knowing she’d need him to—

Support her when she falls, as her knees always go weak when he does anything, when he suckles at her earlobe, when he suggests things in her ear, crazy things, dirty things, completely improper things, when he rubs himself against her and walks around her in a circle as though sizing her up, and oh, how she sometimes wants to take him home to the bed she’s known for years and years just to bring things full circle, and how she wants him to take her to his home so she can fuck him in his home where his father would stamp and likely tear himself to shreds if he knew what his son was doing, but instead they find their private places and say private things and perform private actions with the loudest of sounds, and she wonders how she’ll live without it once they’re found out and separated, once they’re likely locked away—

She put her lips to his ear and suppressed the grieving shudder that wanted to pass through her. What in Merlin’s dungeon had that been? Hardly a fantasy, but more like a nightmare, that melancholy feeling. “Curfew is soon and we’ll be caught,” she whispered, tugging at his earlobe with her teeth and feeling satisfaction start to run through her.

Hunger.

Thirst.

She would sate them both, and so would he.

They moved slowly, as though their thoughts were miles away, and though both thought the other deep in fantasy, they were both concentrating on the task at hand, breathing deeply the smell of fresh grass and dew, inhaling each other’s scent as lips roamed over face and neck and lips.

Draco traced her lips with his tongue, catching that top lip between his teeth and relishing the cry, pain and arousal, that slipped from her lips.

He wondered if she knew how bad she really was.

Perhaps she should have been a Slytherin.

She stood on his toes, making him hiss in pain, and rubbed up against him, his hardness rubbing her through his clothes and hers, and she wondered how it could be so immediate, like a summoned fire, and then he was pinching her breasts through her thick jumper and she laughed, a jagged sound bordering too closely on hysteria, and thrust a hand down his pants, whispering “Let me” over and over in some weird sort of mantra, the words slowing as she started to stroke, concentrating on him and him alone, on relieving what she had wrought, and watching his face carefully.

He tilted his head back and she could see each swallow run the line of his throat. His eyes were half-closed, only slivers of pewter visible and unfocused as moisture slid from the head of his erection and over her fist and fingers as he pulsed beneath her. His lips were parted, and for once, he was blessedly silent.

He hadn’t planned on this, hadn’t planned on letting her touch him, but he wanted it, needed it.

It humbled him to need something, for a Malfoy was never at a loss for anything. And this wasn’t gold, wasn’t silver, it was nothing but a beggar adorned with copper, with her hand drawing down him in slow, deliberate movements. He should tell her to stop; pride told him that much. But he wanted what was happening, relished knowing she’d stroke him to climax and let him spill over her hand and not demand him inside her. He wanted to slide his fingers into her, knew she was wet just by the burning in her eyes, but he was selfish for now, selfish and concentrating on the fingertips sliding over the slit at the tip of his head, the near-scream that built in the back of his throat, and he fancied he could feel the ridges of her fingerprints passing over the flesh there, and that thought had him done for, had him pressing down on her shoulders so hard she cried out as every muscle in him strung tight on the pitch under the stars, under the sky he’d spent the morning conquering, and he moaned, long and loose and unguarded as he came in her hand.

Ginny was rising to her toes with the peak of each thrust, and with that last one, she stood shaking on her toes, on the verge of something, watching him tremble from the top of his pale head to his toes, and when she felt heat and stickiness on her fingers, she cried out, levels beneath his moan, and felt her knickers grow hot and damp in contrast. Her insistent “let me” had died on her lips several strokes back, and she felt her knees buckle as she moved back from him, both grateful and disappointed when he murmured a cleaning spell—thrice it took him to get it right—as she withdrew her hands from his pants, a deep line drawn across her wrist where his waistband had cut in.

It was like they were a couple of adolescents instead of nearly adults, she thought, bringing wide, wet eyes to him. And Merlin, how good it felt.

She wasn’t planning on anything, wasn’t even thinking clearly, but her reflex was to turn and run back to the castle. He didn’t afford her the opportunity, however, catching her by the bottom of her jumper, one knitted seam stretching with a dull pop that was more felt than heard, and he hauled her up to him, sliding his hand between her thighs and pressing the fabric of her skirt against her knickers, an awkward bundle of tartan now shoved against her as he pressed upward with enough force to bring her to her toes and overbalancing, stumbling against him.

She tried to kiss him as he lowered his lips to hers, but her lips fumbled open in a half-pant, half-moan as he completed the climax her mind had started when he came, and she slumped weakly into his arms, breathing harshly and rather unattractively into his ear.

He slid his hand from between her legs with a trace of smugness—that had been rather easy—and did the unthinkable.

Draco wrapped his arms around her, supporting her even as he felt himself stir again. She was quite an armful, tall as she was, but her curves felt nice, and the way her entire body was heaving—well, added asset, he figured.

He might slightly regret when this whole farcical curse was over. He was getting more arse than a professional Quidditch player in a girls’ dormitory.

Ginny tried to find the guilt, tried to feel dirty or used or stupid or bad. But she just felt…

Weak-kneed. And oddly, she felt safe. She realized she was in his arms and tried to move back.

Pointy he might be, but he was a strong bastard. It didn’t really surprise her— after all, considering the actions of the past twenty-four hours. In fact, Ginny thought, nothing would ever shock her again.

“Come back to my room with me,” he said clearly, looking down at her. “I’m getting bloody sick and tired of all this standing up.”

It turned out she could still be shocked, after all.

7. In the Room of the Dragon

CHAPTER SEVEN- In the Room of the Dragon

Were there any two—aside from the twins—better suited to sneaking around the whole of Hogwarts unseen? They slunk around corners with their illicit intentions, sliding soundlessly into corridors too narrow to be believed, the tight spaces making them both breathless and restless and heady with the thrill of it.

He didn’t touch her as he led her, merely felt her presence behind him, smelled her, the mix of some faint perfume—he thought snidely, unable to help himself, that someone else must have bought it for her—and the humid essence of the hurried orgasm he’d brought her to.

“Merlin, are we taking the long way or something?” she whispered, but Ginny couldn’t quite make herself sound cross. No, there seemed to be just a bit of humor in that voice, but the actual sound was near-hysterical levels of anticipation.

His room. She’d seen it before, and could see it again if she closed her eyes, looked at something other than the back of his head leading her through slim passages. If she closed her eyes, she could call up a perfect picture of that room, of—

Him crawling across the bed toward her like some weird albino panther, muscles tensed, eyes gleaming, and she knows what will happen, knows he’ll attack with no warning, and even that knowledge brings no relief, only he will bring relief, and when he does, it will be fast, blinding, shameful and shameless.

She ran right into him, her nose bumping painfully between his shoulder blades, and he looked at her over his shoulder, his eyebrow raised.

“We’re here, as long as you can stop your nattering for a moment.” She’d been lost, thinking about him, he was certain of it.

And a good thing it was—he was starting to think she was completely unaffected by the whole affair.

He leaned, pushing open a door she hadn’t even seen, sending flickering firelight washing back over them. In that wash of light, she saw him smirk, and then slip into his room, clearly expecting her to follow of her own will.

Of course she did—even if she didn’t want him past the point of reason (well past the point of reason, her mind amended), she’d have followed him just to see what the great Malfoy’s room looked like.

When she finally saw what it looked like, she was both surprised—and not. The front of her mind was surprised that it wasn’t more ostentatious, that the furniture was antique but not invaluable, that the stone floor had a large green-and-black rug tossed over it instead of silk and velvet, that his bed was neatly made.

But the back of her mind knew this place, knew it better than she knew her own room and knew it as well as she knew her own heart. The back of her mind knew the feel of those neatly-made sheets, and the back of her mind also knew he made that bed himself, not trusting the House Elves to do it the way he liked it.

She turned to him, trying not to show that recognition in her eyes, trying not to be so desperate and needy and feeling, because really, who needed feelings here, with him?

He meant to say something, either welcoming or waspish, but looking at her, found himself taking a step back.

She’d been here before, in this room.

Of course she had, she—

Is spread out on his bed, one hand resting lazily on her stomach. It’s hard for him to look at her without a little pride, a little smugness, because he knows he put that tired, sated look in her eyes. She’s watching him with something akin to adoration, and though it should be ludicrous, it feels damned good. Her eyes flicker down to his chest and he traps a chuckle in his lungs. It wouldn’t do to laugh at her, but she loves that damned tattoo of his so much he’s starting to think it’s her sole motivation for being here. “You should get one,” he says, and is it an old game between them? It feels like it is, as he picks up a quill from his nightstand, an errant one so nice Ginny never would have lost it, and he thinks first of sketching a weasel just there where her hand rests, but he moves to the smooth spot of pale skin between her hipbone and the bronze curls between her thighs, and with quick, competent strokes, he painlessly draws a hand holding a burst of flames.

Because that’s what she feels like to him, like holding onto a fire, and later, when he grips her hips and drives into her, his thumb will smudge the ink and make a mess, marking her as his—

He moved quickly, his hands finding her hips even as his mind was still fighting its way out of fantasy. “I can’t believe you came with me,” he breathed, pivoting so her back is to the bed. “They said Gryffindors were brave, but I’m starting to think maybe you’re just not smart enough to know better.” But he laughed as he looked down at her, and wondered how he could want her again already.

This day could never be over and he wouldn’t mind too terribly.

“Perhaps it was stupid of you to bring me here,” she said, and wondered where the heat was, where the bite was? She wanted to pick up her wand and hex him into the next millennium with it, the smug bastard. But she knew she wouldn’t, because for now, she had an itch, and she needed him to scratch it.

That was all it was.

He leaned, pressing the backs of her knees against the edge of the bed, and was pleased when she pressed into him rather than sitting down. Draco kissed her slowly, trying to think if he’d done so before, if he’d really put the effort into it to knock her socks off with his technique.

He slid his tongue over hers, featherlight over the bottom from root to tip, and listening to her moan, decided he hadn’t taken the proper time. “You’ve been here before,” he whispered thoughtlessly, and only later would he remember saying it.

Ginny mourned within herself, just a little, at how little it took for him to have his hands on her. She’d watched the transition this time, had seen his eyes drift faraway and then sharpen into a predatory, present hunger just before his hands were on her. She’d seen that look multiple times today, but this time—

This time was different. It didn’t matter that they should have been sated, that they’d already been at one another an unreasonable amount of times, this still had mystery, but she’d be damned if she knew how or why.

Ginny took his hands away from her hips, splaying her fingers and forcing him to spread his, marveling at the differences, the size, the feel, the pampered look of his fingernails and the rough feel of his palms. Her own fingernails were bitten ragged, her hands freckled from years in the sun.

She blushed as she remembered where those fingers had been, between her lips, between her thighs, and as she remembered, there were others—

His fingers sifting through her hair, massaging her scalp, scratching down her back in long, intentional runners, sometimes pinching and sometimes petting—

But those weren’t real—

They felt so real.

She stepped into him, laying his hands to her shoulders, suddenly and inexplicably nervous.

There was nothing she could do that he hadn’t already thought of, of that she was certain, and for an odd, powerful moment, she was completely jealous of herself, of the Ginny that resided only in his fantasies.

But she could take it slow, and she was sure that was something he’d never fantasize about.

He kept his hands to her shoulders, but Draco could feel his control slipping, some part of him snapping and biting against the restrictions he’d imposed on himself. Her eyes stuttered up to his and he felt the stutter all the way to his toes, in tiny flexures of muscle down his chest, his abdomen, his thighs, making his toes stiffen just a bit in their proper, polished shoes.

She finished unbuttoning and tugged the shirt off, allowing him to finish the process, and though it was the last thing he wanted to do, he knew somehow to return his hands to where they were. Ginny rewarded him for it, brown eyes mating with silver as she took his hands and slid them over her bra straps, nudging the tired elastic straps down her shoulders.

It didn’t surprise her a bit that he had the catch unfastened in the blink of an eye.

Malfoy had very talented hands.

Ginny took those talented hands once more in hers, guiding them to her breasts and finally casting her eyes down. She couldn’t look at him while she moved his hands in circular motions over her, chafing her already oversensitive nipples with the palms of his hands. She’d loved the feel of his leather gauntlets, but this was hers, his skin, his touch, the feel of his hands. She stopped the circular motion and pressed down on his fingers, finally letting loose a moan as he complied and squeezed.

It was his forte, and he should have been completely comfortable, but as Draco palmed the undersides of her breasts, he let out a tense, hissing breath.

He had expected for—no, depended on—his fantasies to take over for him, for the pictures to flash through his mind, but for now, the only thing was her, here.

Ginny tilted her head back, letting the ends of her hair tickle her back and trail down toward the waistband of her skirt, tiny little moans and sighs alternating from between her lips. His hands strayed down, stroking over her ribs and back up, and she gasped.

Draco jumped when her left hand closed over his right wrist, and the look he gave her would have been comical in any other situation—Draco Malfoy was afraid he’d done something wrong.

“There,” she said, taking a deep breath and making her breasts rise. That, he thought, made it a little hard for him to concentrate on what she was saying. “You have a marking there, don’t you? A dragon?”

He tried to remember—had he taken his shirt off for her yet? Had they made it to that point? They hadn’t, but they had, many times, in many ways. He couldn’t concentrate long enough to determine fact from fiction, and the hell of it was, he no longer really cared to.

“Yes,” he answered. “But you already knew that.”

At his affirmation, her head snapped up, her eyes bright, and he drew back almost imperceptibly, suddenly afraid.

Great Merlin, the hellcat’s going to tear me apart, he thought, and she nearly did, checking herself just before she ripped the buttons off his shirt. Instead, she hurried through them, scraping her jagged nails over his skin in her haste, and when he finally shrugged the shirt off—(the look in his eyes looking eerily similar to the one he had when he feared she would hex him)—she let out a soft, subvocal ahh of approval.

There was her dragon, both he and his tattoo.

She wanted to touch, but she wanted to marvel, wanted to take her time with his smooth skin, with the flat, tan nipples fairy dusted with golden hair, with the clear demarcation of muscles, the line down the middle of his stomach, a shadow that gave way to light as the golden hair picked back up again, sliding in a thin, direct line that disappeared beneath his waistline.

And the beautifully drawn dragon, its figure surpassing pride and boasting right into hauteur, the sight of it enough to have heat pooling in her center, long lazy pulses that made her want his hands on her—

Just not as much as she wanted hers on him.

Ginny placed her hands to his chest, pleased when he mirrored her movements, and as he busied himself nipping his teeth into the soft skin of her neck, she brushed her fingers over his nipples, pinching them lightly between her fingers before touching reverent fingertips to the fierce green creature painted on his body.

She leaned forward, unable to help herself, tracing the lines of the dragon with the tip of her tongue, fancying she felt more heat just under the flames he breathed; her position allowed Draco to easily unsnap her skirt, sending it falling unheeded down her legs.

His hands descended down her back, intending to go much lower, when she hooked her fingertips in his waistband for leverage, placed a teasing, wet kiss on his chest, and then began sucking at the skin under his nipple.

He yelped, unable to help himself, and pushed at her head.

Unsurprisingly, pushing at the head of La Weasley was like pushing on a bloody rock.

The blood rushed from his head and completely past the point of her attentions, and he let out a growl. “Weasley, will you bloody wait a second?”

The good thing was, in this state, she never even noticed when he rid her of her knickers; in fact, she stepped right out of them without so much as a peep.

In the meanwhile, he was fairly sure he was dying.

Possession. It was all she could think of, all she could attempt, just to possess him and this moment, and with a fierce territorialism, she wanted to keep him out of fantasy.

She’d think about why later.

She started to kneel, her lips skimming downward; so absorbed was she in her task that she didn’t see what he was about to do—she shrieked in surprise when he hauled her up with his hands under her arms and dumped her rather unceremoniously on the bed.

The shriek was just on the verge of becoming a squall of disapproval when he got on his knees between her legs, pushing his thighs under hers and sending her knees toward her shoulders.

Draco groaned as he saw he’d forgotten—perhaps intentionally—a few small details, like her kneesocks and shoes.

Now he was absolutely sure he was dying.

But the minute he was over her, one hand working at his belt buckle, her saw her eyes refocus on the damned tattoo.

He was getting it taken off if she couldn’t pay attention to him. She reached up a hand to touch it again and he put his hands to her knees, spreading them quickly enough to make her cry out, and before she could move or protest or touch that thrice-damned dragon… why in the hell had he gotten that again?—he was holding her legs open, his thumbs pressing insistently into the soft flesh of her thighs. He didn’t hesitate, didn’t give her any warning, but instead thrust his tongue into her, feeling her draw tight underneath him.

Maybe she’d stopped looking at the fucking dragon now.

Her hands floundered above her body for a moment, in the spot he’d just vacated, just where she would have been stroking his chest, and she wanted to reprimand him (What, the infinitesimal rational part of her brain piped up, Did he take away your pretty toy?)

And then there were no words, no words at all as her thighs were spread to the point of discomfort and he worked to accomplish with his lips and tongue what he’d already accomplished with other endowments that day.

She locked her feet over his shoulder blades, one sensible black shoe crossing over the other, and her hands finally found a place to light, tangling in the silk of his hair and tugging mercilessly.

No words, only ringing in her ears and red bursts behind her eyes, squeezing shut in great, extended blinks, and the feel of his tongue seeking out one particular spot, just one particular spot, and her heels digging into his back, the look of him propped up on one elbow, the other hand loosening his pants and she couldn’t see, but she knew his fingers had to be grazing over the hot, damp silk of his boxers, and she wanted to touch, to taste, to possess—

Ginny’s head pressed a shallow divot into the mattress as she screamed wordlessly.

“Paying attention now?” Draco asked, raising his head and licking his lips, shaking now with barely restrained lust, rage, want, need. “Are you paying attention?”

Her moans were better than an affirmative.

He moved under her legs, letting her keep them locked around him—there was something about the feel of those schoolgirl kneesocks against his sweaty back that made him crazed (more crazed) and he pushed his boxers down with little difficulty.

His dexterity came in handy for more than Quidditch, it seemed. Miss Weasley was putting him through all the paces.

Draco wanted to tease her, didn’t know if he could, wanted to punish her for all the teasing she’d done in his mind over the last twenty-four hours, wanting to pay her back, and he slid his length over her swollen, slick flesh, not coming close to penetrating, just covering himself in the wet heat of her, feeling very faintly her tremors along the veins of his shaft, and he wondered momentarily if he could make her beg.

But proud as he was, arrogance though he had, Draco knew if he tried to make her beg, they’d both end up begging, and he refused to do it.

He waited until her eyes were on his, big and brown and wet, her breath coming in short, sharp pants, those eyes completely aware, not lost in fantasy, not looking at his tattoo, but looking into his eyes, and he fit himself into her, stopping for a moment as his hips pressed to hers, laying his forehead against hers as he took a deep breath.

Once he set the rhythm, it seemed inevitable, a matter of time, but they were both stubborn, neither wanting to give into the other. The heels of Ginny’s shoes sent long, wide scrapes down Draco’s back even as he bruised her hips with his fingertips, but the pace was slow, leisurely, torturous.

He came when she reared up and took his earlobe between her teeth, pausing to flick her tongue into the shell of his ear, and he thought he heard her growl in triumph, a bitch vixen with prize game.

But his finish triggered hers, and as her climax squeezed every bit of his, Draco felt he’d had the last word.

8. Overnight

CHAPTER EIGHT - Overnight

It should have been unbearably uncomfortable.

His sheets were sticking to her back, adhered from her perspiration and shoved into wrinkles by his ministrations. Her lips were pressed to his neck, where she could feel his pulse beating there, and her nose was just a bit squashed into his ear. Her legs were still wrapped around him, and for the second time that day, she found her shoes leaving marks on his back.

She rather liked the idea of leaving footprints on him.

And though Draco Malfoy might have been graceful in his stride and graceful in his flight, he was certainly lacking grace post-coitus, as he’d collapsed, still seated inside her, his chest crushing her breasts flat, rendering his tattoo invisible.

Damn it.

“Putting on a few pounds, Malfoy?” she asked, unable to keep the jibe to herself. His weight wasn’t all that unpleasant—it was more comical, really—but the moment was too intimate, too close, too weird.

He could have fallen asleep—he’d had a tiring day, by Merlin—and then she’d opened her mouth.

Draco decided it was only fair that he bite her for her impudence.

Ginny took in a great, gasping breath, letting it out in a pained yowl as she shoved him off her. The bastard had actually used his teeth on her—well, in an unpleasant fashion. He’d bitten her, right above the concavity between her breasts.

He tumbled to one side of the bed, hanging onto the sheets for dear life and laughing as he did so.

Bastard.

“You’re a real prince, you know that?” she said, turning her back to him but looking over her shoulder to make certain he wasn’t doing anything untoward.

Like breathing.

He’d been ready to say something, to snipe back at her even though he wasn’t feeling particularly like fighting. He’d been thoroughly shagged, and there were few things that put him in such good spirits. But he felt a retort was necessary, and so was preparing one when she turned and gave him that arch look of warning.

His breath backed up in his lungs as her hair slid, tresses over tresses, over her shoulder and back and clinging in spots to her neck, her bare back completely presented to him, lines impressed on it from his sheets, scrapes from what they’d done—which time? It was impossible to tell.

Without taking his eyes from her, he reached behind him, scrabbled on his nightstand for—

A quill from his nightstand, and he thinks first of sketching a weasel just there where her hand rests—

Ginny would have noticed his movement—really, she would have—if he hadn’t allowed her another look at that tattoo. She didn’t know why she fancied it so, it was just so taboo and so unknown, so foreign. And she knew somehow, just as she had known he had it, that she was the only woman who had seen it.

“You should get one,” he said in a low voice, a rasp that was not quite a whisper, and the sound of it sent a runner of anticipation up her spine. It sounded, oddly enough, like he was talking to himself, or…

Speaking from memory. It irked her on a level she refused to acknowledge just at that moment, underneath the afterglow and the lust and the sheer appreciation of looking at him stretched out nude on the bed, his muscles long and his skin tastefully flawless.

She didn’t want him to remember her in a way she wasn’t even there.

The point of the quill pressed into her skin and she let out a wavering cross between a gasp and a moan, and he shushed her immediately, calming sibilant noises he surely didn’t know he was making.

As he sketched a phoenix on one side of the small of her back, she had no way of knowing he was breaking his fantasy for reality.

And he didn’t know why he was doing it.

It struck him, bothered him more than a bit to act independently of those urges, of those pictures. It was easier to think of it as a disturbing and involuntary—if pleasant—side trip, a malfunction borne of someone’s else’s malice and someone else’s imagination.

It did not to do pepper someone else’s hex with one’s own original thoughts.

Thinking such, goaded into mocking himself and her and the whole preposterous situation, he put the finishing touches on the phoenix, pressing just a whit too hard and feeling his libido peak at the sound of that moan once more. “Now you have your own little drawing to look at when you decide to call this whole foolish hex to a halt.”

His vocalization had her ire leaping to the surface, away from her subconscious and overpowering everything else.

Ginny slapped the quill out of his hand and sat up, unconsciously careful not to smear the small work of art he’d just done. She ran her hands through the wild tangle of her hair and stood before he could grab her, touch her, change her mind with those fucking hands of his.

She whirled, all too conscious of her nudity—You have socks, her mind reminded her cheerily. So you’re not totally naked—and pointed a finger at him. “You think I lied to you when I said I didn’t do it, Malfoy? If you think I’d go out of my way—risk expulsion, even—to have a shag with you, even as a joke, then you’re even thicker than everyone wagers you are.”

He was stricken speechless and she barreled ahead, more and more insults occurring to her.

He’d been fucking a fantasy all this time, damn it, well, she’d give him a little taste of reality.

“I’ll say it only once more, you pointy, slimy, underhanded bastard, I didn’t do it. I mean, how was I to know you can’t perform without a spell to get the cauldron bubbling? Get the wand sparking?” She was edging up on hysterical now, she knew it, but she couldn’t stop herself.

She was horrified at all she’d done that day, but what was more, she was horrified at her own duplicitous emotions. What did it matter if he’d shagged a fantasy? Hadn’t she, as well?

Wasn’t it all just a really complicated form of indigestion?

His eyes burned dangerously, but he moved slowly, his mouth clamped in a tight line, for the moment, completely silent.

If she’d known him better—and in some corner of her mind, she did, she did, oh, did she ever—she would have known his silence was like a warning bell.

He slid off the bed and stood, never taking his eyes from her, and his hands clenched and unclenched at his sides.

And was he aroused?

Of course he was, and when it came down to it, wasn’t she?

She couldn’t help but see that he was already recovering, already hardening a bit as he watched her with a look that had to be guarded rage.

She felt no fear.

In fact, what she felt was a peculiar, intense need to make him angrier.

Anger was at least a step up from mindless lust.

“You want to know who did it, Malfoy? I mean, you know, as long as we’re both the victims, I guess I could tell you.” She was walking backwards, away from him; she didn’t even realize she’d been moving until her heels struck cold iron and her buttocks touched upon cool glass.

She’d ran into a full-length cheval glass and had no place to go.

“You had better talk fast, Weasel, because you asked me to prove myself to you. You’re just begging for it, aren’t you?” He was shaking in his anger and in her excitement—he’d have been blind not to see her lick her lips, her glance darting down to his erection and back up to his impersonal stare.

And did she really know who’d done this to them?

Oh, he thought she did.

“Why?” Ginny asked, tossing her hair back and sliding her fingertips from her thighs up to her hips and back down, an unintentional little gesture meant to seek relief.

It only inflamed him more.

“Are you looking for someone to blame for your day’s play?” she asked, facing him unflinchingly as he moved one hand up to tighten in a fist in her hair. “Or are you looking for someone to thank for the one day in your life when you were actually good at sex?”

He pulled her hair hard enough to make her stop talking, and he wondered why he really wanted to know. Was he really going to punish someone for this? She had already shagged him raw for the day, and he knew he’d given just as good as he’d received, but he was ready to go just one last round, just one more time, because she was like a fucking fever, an addiction, a compulsion, she was like the devil.

He wondered how a man had ever had as much power over other men as Voldemort had, when clearly women were so much more powerful.

She should have been a Slytherin, he thought as he kicked her feet to make her part her legs and pressed his mouth between her shoulder and her neck, sucking blood to the surface to obliterate just one patch of freckles.

He met his reflection’s eyes over the expanse of freckled skin that was pressed against the mirror, and he slid into her gingerly, just barely penetrating, discovering he could go no farther, needed to go no farther, wincing at the pain of it—Merlin, he was sore, so sore, but somehow he belonged here.

In that precarious position, Ginny’s back pressed long into the mirror, her eyes fixed forward, her breath coming in short, sharp hisses, Draco teasing himself and her with the shallow trembles, not quite strokes, he asked what he didn’t need to know.

“Who did this?”

She couldn’t feel anymore. Her body simply couldn’t take another onslaught, and her mind was tired, so tired.

It had been running at twice its speed since the night before—since she’d eaten that damned fudge—and trying to keep up with him wasn’t helping any. Her rationale had been tested by intense, ultra-real fantasies and her sanity had been pushed by intense, hyper-real encounters with this… this…

Malfoy.

But just as surely as she knew she would come once more, no matter how improbable, she knew she wouldn’t regret it, wouldn’t trade it, wouldn’t change it. He was addictive in a way she’d never expected.

As he tugged her hair once more, forcing her to look up at him, she thought perhaps she had expected it.

What other reason had she for targeting him so, for hating him so?

So, dredging up just a taste of that hatred, she narrowed her eyes and managed a conniving smile her brothers would have been proud of, even though her whole body cried out for rest, respite, relief. She trembled on the edge of something she’d already achieved, her body straining to achieve it once more before toppling from the brink of exhaustion.

“My brothers,” she answered, wanting to watch the reaction on his face, needing to see the loathing she was so accustomed to.

Merlin knew she needed something to bring her back ‘round to reality, because this man, this leering, hair-pulling, insensitive man wasn’t real.

He couldn’t be real.

“My brothers’ Halloween candy,” she elaborated, her smile breaking open into an open-mouthed moan as he jerked, his rhythm and control lost in her revelation, penetrating her fully and making them both hurt.

Draco stayed right where he was, his hips pressed just above hers, his breath fogging the mirror she leaned against, leaned just too far for her to see his eyes.

He’d hoped she didn’t really know who or what had done it, had hoped it had all been some sort of mistake, had hoped she’d done it herself in a fit of pique, out of sheer, brainless lust.

He’d hoped it had been her choice.

“Well, Malfoy?” she asked, and from his stance he couldn’t see the tears gather at the corners of her eyes. He was hurting her in more ways than one.

This was reality, whether she liked it or not, and she had an idea it was about to turn a lot less fantastical.

His breathing grew harsh, the hand in her hair relaxed, and he stopped moving altogether, his body perfectly still against hers, painting the perfect picture of lovers, no pain, no animosity, no hatred.

She didn’t realize he’d came until he started to withdraw, and she couldn’t help the whimper of discomfort that slipped from her lips

He pushed away from her, his hands now planted flat on the mirror, and he refused to look at the reflection.

Was it him who had done all those things, or was it that reflection, the crafty-looking, slightly sweaty, very rumpled young man in the mirror?

It wasn’t him, that was for certain, and it wasn’t him, either, who had the urge to apologize to her as he heard her whimper, apologize for the suspicious wetness in her eyes, for the big dark circles under them.

“I can do it quite satisfactorily without your brothers’ ridiculous tricks,” he finally said at length, his voice hoarse and his brain spinning with the implications of what she’d told him and of what he was saying. “And I’m certain I can prove it.”

Draco stepped back from her, not quite certain he trusted his knees to be steady, even after that grim excuse for an orgasm. He hadn’t quite realized how tired he was, but he knew he was too tired for this exchange, too tired to be mad at her, and too tired to admit he’d been bamboozled by a little fucking sugar in a pretty wrapper.

And would that have been her or the candy?

Well, not too tired to be sarcastic, it seemed, even internally.

Wanting—needing—to take some control of the situation, Ginny stepped away from the mirror, a shiver wracking her as it struck her just how cold that glass had been, and forced a light note into her voice. “Well, what if I hold you to that? What if I say I won’t believe you until you prove it to me?”

He stared at her for a long moment, and what was that she saw in his eyes? Surely it wasn’t relief.

“I don’t care what you say,” he said testily, feeling more than a bit foolish. He was sore, he was tired, he was confused, and what was more, he was sick and tired of Weasleys getting the better of him, one way or another. “How long does this last?”

She goggled at him for a moment, not surprised at the question, exactly—it was a reasonable query—but surprised that she hadn’t even thought to ask.

“I don’t know…” she said honestly, wincing at the look of complete and utter disgust on his face. “I was too bloody busy thinking about you, git!” she said defensively, walking over to his bed in slow, measured steps.

It hurt to walk, she couldn’t even imagine how bad it was going to be to put her clothes on and go back to her room.

He had no immediate retort for her—the bottom line was, whether she’d chosen to or not, it was damned flattering that she was so obviously hung up.

But Draco Malfoy didn’t like being coerced, and he didn’t need a fucking trick to get shagged.

What he needed was a little normalcy and a little fucking free will.

“Do you want to stay the night?” he asked abruptly, forcibly going against every candy-tainted instinct he had.

“What?” Ginny looked up at him, dropping the knickers she’d just barely managed to snag. One of her kneesocks had fallen down around her ankle, but she wasn’t about to even try to get that just now. “Have you run completely mad? Of course I don’t want to stay the night with you!” She eyed him with nothing short of mistrust, her elbows resting on her knees, her hair draping down to cover her breasts.

She felt a little silly, being mostly naked as she was, but she was just too damned tired and sore and confused to bother with covering herself up.

And he’d asked her to spend the night. It didn’t sound terrible, really, being as she was probably incapable of making it up to her room, but… he couldn’t want her to stay. Not after what she’d just told him.

“So you’ll stay then,” he said with finality, as though that really settled things.

“I’ll stay,” she heard herself saying, and even the words themselves were tinged with horror.

Compared to everything else she’d done that day, staying the night seemed like child’s play.

He eyed her critically, picked up his wand, and aimed a scourgify at each of them. Ginny bit back the ready comment that wanted to rise to her lips about his mommy teaching him to clean up after himself; she was already longing for one of those overstuffed pillows she spied under the sheets, and for just one night, they could spare the argument, couldn’t they?

“I didn’t fantasize about this,” he said petulantly, sliding in under the sheets just as she did and aligning himself along her back, cupping one hand comfortably over her breast even as he pushed her socks and shoes off with one of his feet. “Just so you know.”

“Of course,” Ginny said thickly, pulling his other arm around her. “What self-respecting Slytherin would ever fantasize about this?”

He didn’t answer, for he’d already fallen asleep, and it hardly mattered—as she had slipped into dreams, as well.

9. The Way to a Man's Heart

**Author’s Note: I regret to inform you *cringe* This is the last chapter of Fantasy Fudge. Writing this was tremendous fun, and the response I’ve gotten has been nothing short of phenomenal. Big thanks and schnoogles to each and every one of you who reviewed. I hope you liked it and had fun with it!! Now… happy fudging ;-)**

CHAPTER NINE- The Way to a Man’s Heart

Hands roam up her body in the dawn dark, strong knees pressing into the soft concavities at the bends of her knees. His fingers dip fleetingly into her navel as his tongue traces from the nape of her neck down her spine—

Ginny awoke with a moan on her lips, disappointment already arrowing through her. Only a dream, another bloody fantasy. Then she registered the feeling of those hands, those fingers caressing the creases where her hips met her thighs.

Not a fantasy after all.

She looked around her as best she could without moving, noting with a wince the clothes strewn over the floor, the wands lying criss-crossed on the floor. Not surprisingly, she’d been shoved to the edge of the bed, held there only by the arms and hands which now brought her breathing to a peak.

She was in Draco Malfoy’s bed.

And unless she was very mistaken, he was holding her… well, doing a bit more than that.

Another wave of disappointment washed over her as she realized what was happening.

She might not be fantasizing, but he most surely was.

“Malfoy,” she whispered, her voice guttering as he unerringly guided a fingertip to the sensitive bundle of nerves at her center.

No response. Of… bloody… course.

“Draco!” she whispered more loudly.

His tongue stopped just between her shoulder blades, cool air hitting the path he’d made and making her shiver. He rested his chin on her shoulder, sucked her earlobe between his lips, and said around it, “Shh… I’m busy.”

Teasing his fingers gently around her sensitive folds, he felt her heat, ready and welcoming, and he smiled against the cup of her ear.

“Are you awa-ake?” Ginny asked, her voice full-out breaking as he angled one finger into her.

“I’m doing something here, could you let me concentrate?” he asked crossly, assuring her it was, indeed, Draco, and he was, indeed, awake.

He never sounded like such a prissy arse when she was imagining him.

A second finger joined the first, and he raised his free hand to sweep a few tresses of hair from her cheek.

Ginny had suddenly lost any urge she’d had to actually discuss the topic.

He was awake, she was definitely awake, and things were…

Stopping.

He stopped the movement of his hand, stilling the motion of her hips with his free hand. “I have a favor to ask you,” he said in her ear, his breath hot and his voice unwavering.

She swallowed hard, shook her head as though trying to clear it. He’d taken her from sleep to peak in less than a few minutes, and it was taking its toll on her train of thought. Especially, she thought with a whimper, since he’d stopped.

“Anything,” she said, startling herself. She’d meant to say What is it?

Damn him.

She could hear his grin, the smugness audible in his voice as he withdrew his fingers part of the way and thrust them into her with a firm, careful stroke, the conceit covering even her long, loud moan.

“Find out how long the fudge lasts,” he said, keeping his fingers as deep inside her as he could as she came around him, the morning surreally still around them. He curved his fingers once more, milking out the last of her orgasm.

Draco bit his lip as she tightened around him one last time, feeling one smooth curve of buttock seat firmly right into his erection. He wanted her, though he hadn’t the slightest clue how—last night he’d been ready to weep at the thought of another go-round, and now—

Well, now was going to have to take some self-control. He could beat this thing, if he really wanted to, and until he could fully be under his own will, he wanted to.

He moved away from her, though he was reluctant, and stood at the side of the bed, stretching as he did every morning, unable to do differently simply because someone was watching him.

Well, now was going to have to take some self-control. He could beat this thing, if he really wanted to, and until he could fully be under his own will, he wanted to.

He rolled away from her, forcing himself to repeat as a mantra She’s a Weasley, she’s a Weasley, she’s a Weasley even as he mourned the loss of warmth and the lack of soft, smooth skin pressed against his chest.

Plus she made truly fetching noises as she slept, though he’d carve a scar on his head and call himself Harry Potter before he actually told her that.

He laid on his back, his hands behind his head, and listened to her rapid, hard breathing ease, then he spoke, trying as hard as he could to keep his voice flat.

“You should go back to your room before the rest of the castle gets up and about.” And before I grab you and give you the hardest—

He cleared his throat, trying to block out that randy, annoying, insatiable inner voice.

Libidinous bastard.

He just couldn’t trust himself until he knew how long he’d be sniffing after her like a mangy cur. And if there was anything his father had taught him, it was to have self-control. Well, he’d had her fill of her the day before (hardly, piped Libidinous Bastard), and now he was exerting some self-control.

Ginny rolled onto her back, flinching as the long muscles in her back and thighs tried to tell the story of the previous evening’s actions. She knew damned good and well what she’d done, she didn’t need some sort of musculatory reminder, blast it all. What she didn’t know is why he’d jerked her out of sleep just to use those devilish hands on her, and then dismiss her like chattel.

He’s right, though. You really can’t stay here until actual morning.

Right or no, she felt more than a bit like a fool. What was she, some sort of crazed succubae he thought he had to appease with sex before sending home to her own bed? All he’d really needed to do was wake her and tell her it was time to go.

Besides, he wanted her just as badly as he had the night before. Ginny Weasley may have felt humiliated, but she certainly didn’t feel daft enough to think his wand had been pressing into her back just moments ago.

Bastard.

She thought on it for a few moments, on the night before, on his actions and request of just moments ago, of his nonchalant attitude now.

She wanted to know when the fudge wore off, as well, and the way things were going, she hoped the sooner the better. Things had already been twisted for over thirty hours—far outlasting any of the twins’ other Halloween gags.

Surely they couldn’t last much longer.

Smirking in the dark, Ginny slid to her stomach and slinked her way across the sheets, planting her hands on his chest as leverage to pull herself up his body, sliding her sweat-dampened body up his before parting her knees and sitting astride him.

Her conviction wavered, quaked, and nearly toppled at the feel of his hardness pressing into her.

Be strong, she told herself sternly.

“Draco,” she said, intentionally keeping her voice at a hoarse, seductive half-moan as she leaned down and flicked her tongue over his lips. “I just wanted to say…” She arched her spine, pressing her breasts against him and listened to his breath catch.

Perfect.

With no small amount of regret but a big head of steam building, Ginny moved one hand to his face, squeezed his cheeks together roughly, and leaned back, looking at him critically, lust erased from her face and replaced by a hard, matter-of-fact look that made Draco…

More turned on.

“You’re an arse,” she finally completed her sentence, swinging one leg over and standing up, clearly seeing in the grayish light how aroused he was. “You’d better take care of that before my brothers’ cooking wears off,” she said snidely, holding back a sigh. “Who knows how long it will be before you’ll have that sort of ability again.”

She pulled on her clothes in a few economical motions, the haste of a girl who has had to share a washroom for many, many years, and was out of his room before he could think of a suitable retort.

And curse the Libidinous Bastard, for Draco thought of her as he stroked himself, thinking—and only narrowly avoiding moaning— her name as the sun began to rise.

~~~

My darling, trouble-making, thoughtless brothers,

It seems I have yet to find either of your hapless, helpless victims here at Hogwarts.

Ginny worried at her lip as she wrote the lie, but really, what was she to tell them? That they’d coerced her into shagging Malfoy? Hardly true. Ginny suspected you fantasized about whomever your mind really wanted to fantasize about.

In hindsight, she figured that was probably okay. Fantasy sex with Harry had been dead boring.

My curiosity is how long I have to keep covering for you great twits. How long does this candy of yours last, anyway? I can hardly be expected to check every nook and cranny of the castle for unlikely snoggers, can I?

I wonder if I could get anything out of this… you know, in exchange for not telling Mum.

She smirked and glanced around the empty common room, knowing blackmail was just the sort of thing the twins would have tried themselves.

Regardless, loves, owl me back as soon as you can. I’ve been afraid of what—or whom!-- I might find on my rounds. Put my mind at ease and at least give me some sort of indication of when I can stop!

Love,

Gin

As she sent the school owl off with the craftily cheerful message, Ginny wondered what she really wanted the response to be.

Soon… or never?

~~~

He stood in the shower with his head against the tile, one hand reaching out every so often to nudge the water hotter. He wanted to soak out his muscles’ memories of her, wanted to wash them down the drain. He needed to sanitize, for Merlin’s sake, he’d been with a Weasley. He’d been with a Weasley who had either lied to him, or who really had become appealing only because he’d eaten one stupid piece of candy.

One way really didn’t play better than the other, he’d decided. Either she was a liar or he was an idiot, and he wasn’t suited to either.

Perhaps he was showering in a steaming shower, much hotter than usual, because he was cold, missing her warmth the minute she’d left his room in more than a bit of a mysterious snit.

But surely that wasn’t it.

Draco turned off the water and forced himself to stand still, hands braced on the tile on either side of his head.

He just needed to think…

And found he could think of nothing but her.

Bloody stupid fudge. He’d never eat another bite of any of it, as long as he lived.

Which, he contemplated, might not be much longer if he kept needing—wanting—her like this.

~~~

taptaptaptaptaptaptap

taptaptapTAPTAPTAPTAP!

“Whaathebloodyfuck?” George threw an arm up over his face, trying to block the noise that was jarring him from a really pleasant sleep. “Cut it out, Fred!” he yelled, though he hadn’t the slightest what Fred would be doing to make that noise, especially so bloody early on a Sunday morning.

“Fuggoff!” Fred mumbled in retort from his room in the flat. “’S not me, you big wanker.”

Both of them got out of their beds, stumbling toward the common room of their apartment, running smack into each other.

“Sorry,” was the simultaneous reaction just before they helped one another open the window to admit the annoying owl that had been rapping its useless beak against the glass.

Many curse words, a few ruffled feathers, a nip in the hand, and a nearly broken window later, George opened the message. “Don’t know who needs to send a message this time in the morning, anyway,” he said, an uncharacteristic glower stamped on his face.

“It’s Ginny,” Fred said. “Hush and read it.” He listened as George read it out loud, at least a bit of the sleep clearing from his brain. “It sounds off,” he judged when his brother finished reading. “Doesn’t it sound off to you?”

“It sounds off,” George said slowly, “Because we’re bleedin’ tired. And because she threatened blackmail.” But even he couldn’t keep from smiling at her audacity. “Let’s jot her a quick response so she can leave us be for the day. I’ve plans to sleep and be generally lazy.”

He ignored Fred’s comment about how those actions didn’t differ from weekdays in the least, and once the owl was gone, the brothers promptly forgot all about it.

~~~

He was an obvious git.

It was a conclusion she’d come to after sending the owl to her brothers, taking a quick shower, and catching nearly twenty minutes of sleep before dragging herself down to the Great Hall for breakfast.

She’d felt at least a little bad about being rude to him as she’d scrubbed off in the shower, her head craned to see his artwork of the night before go swirling down the drain in a mixture of ink and soapy water.

But now, while she was trying to converse with her housemates and have a spot of breakfast, he was staring at her like some sort of lunatic and being absolutely obvious.

Prat, prat, prat.

It would have helped, she thought, if he didn’t look like his customary million Galleons, polished and perfect and gorgeous like he hadn’t been up all night the night before. And he had been up all night, she thought crossly, stabbing a bit of egg with her fork. He’d been up and she’d been with him.

The fudge was making her crazy.

She was searching the table for something to throw at the nancing prat—not that she’d actually do it, but the search itself was rather cathartic—when an owl dropped a small letter right in the middle of her eggs.

And everyone at the table turned to look at her.

“That’s rather odd,” Hermione said, tilting her head and assuming her dratted “I know everything” pose. “No one usually sends owls out on Sundays. You know, even owls deserve a bit of a rest. Of course, house elves do, as well, but you’ve seen how well everyone listens to me on that—”

“Bloody hell, Hermione, not the bloody elf thing again—” Ron started, only to be overridden by Harry.

“Don’t, Ron, it’ll never stop—”

“This is exactly what I mean,” Hermione railed, pitching her voice above theirs. “It’s as though you’ve taken it for granted. You’ve absolutely no regard for anything other than your—”

“Weasley.” The voice was cool and brooked no argument, and the Gryffindors turned from voluble to volatile once they detected aSlytherin in their midst, and a Malfoy, no less.

“What, Malfoy?” Ginny asked, well and truly exasperated. Clearly she had her hands full, was now really a good time?

He merely raised an eyebrow, tugging all the way to the bottom of her stomach with the simple movement, that facial expression which indicated he was up to no good, up to all sorts of mischief, and was that mischief for her?

She thought it might be.

I need to go to St. Mungo’s, she decided as she stood and stared him in the eye.

He’d been watching her, wondering if she’d sent her brothers a message, wondering if she’d remembered the favor he asked of her. Now, as she stood before him with a message clasped in her hand, he hoped against hope she’d gotten an answer.

All he wanted, he insisted, was a little peace.

Or was that a little piece?

“Come with me, Weasley. It’s highly irregular to be receiving post on a Sunday. I’ll have to confiscate that and ensure its safety.” At the slight murmurs from the Gryffindor table, he looked past her at them. “Points may be taken away if I hear any dissent. That includes from you, Mud—Granger,” he amended, considering his authority as Head Boy. “Even Head Girl can’t supercede another Head’s authority.”

“No, but someone can knock Head Boy’s head clean off,” Ron muttered into his plate.

Draco didn’t even need to attack the idiot, for Granger did it for him, turning on Ron with such vehemence Draco was able to stride away with Ginny without any other protest. He ducked into the first room he found, locking the classroom door behind him with his wand.

“Did you have to do that?” she asked, yanking her arm away from him and smacking his hand away. “I mean, getting kicked out of your bed this morning wasn’t enough to display your continuing hatred of me, you have to take me away from breakfast with my friends?” She put her hands on her hips, reminding a slightly frightened Draco of her mother, a frightful woman he’d only barely glimpsed a few times. “Friends, in case you don’t know the word, aren’t familiar with it, are people with hearts. Of course you’re not familiar with it.” It felt good to be angry at him. A bit a cross-purposes, perhaps, considering how her mind kept tracking back to the tattoo he had under the jumper and robes, but still good.

Not as good as other things, but still good.

“Is that from your brothers, you ninny?” he asked, gesturing toward the parchment. “Great Merlin, Weasley, I could care less if you got a bloody dung bomb dropped in the middle of your breakfast—”

She snorted in agreement at his statement, knowing full well it was true.

“—but if you asked those wankers how long this blasted fucking fudge lasts, I want to know.” He didn’t realize until the words were out of his mouth that he really and truly believed what she’d said about the fudge.

“It had better not be one more minute,” Ginny said through clenched teeth. “Because right now, fantasy or no, I’m having a hard time standing the sight of you.”

“You’re a deplorably poor liar,” he said mildly, enjoying the flush that colored her cheeks, rocking back on his heels and grinning as she took her only remaining course of action and opened the letter. Before she could read past the opening lines, he had taken it out of her hands and laid it on the desk in front of them. “Together,” he said, turning his head to look at her, a lock of fair hair falling into his eyes. “We read it together.”

And just because the image was in her mind—the fudge putting it there, of course—just because she couldn’t help herself, Ginny sighed and darted forward for one quick kiss. “Okay,” she said, rolling her eyes to try and save face.

Gin,

You shouldn’t be finding snoggers all over Hogwarts, you know. It was only two pieces, and no matter how powerful the stuff is, we doubt anyone ever really fantasizes about someone they’re able to get.

Draco and Ginny exchanged an uneasy look.

Anyway, it depends on when they ate the candy, but unless Hogwarts is a completely different place from our tenure there, you have nothing else to worry about. After all, almost everyone eats every piece of candy they have right on the spot, and the fudge—

Ginny uttered a cry as her knees turned to water and dumped her gracelessly onto the floor.

Draco took his eyes away from the letter with an exasperated sigh. “What now, Weasley?” She was milk-pale and wide-eyed, and the only answer she gave him was a thin, freakish laugh. “Lunatics, all of you,” he muttered, turning back to the parchment and eagerly reading the rest of the sentence.

… the fudge never lasts more than8 hours.

EPILOGUE

The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.

Her family has never been able to judge why Ginny has stitched samplers bearing this adage decked by little embroidered candies all over her house, but then again, they’ve never quite been able to figure out how they ended up with Draco Malfoy as an in-law, either.

It’s all a bit too weird for them to figure out, but they’d decided long ago that if their princess was happy—and her father-in-law stayed imprisoned or dead or wherever he’d gone—then they’d not say another word about it.

Only Fred and George seemed to ponder overly long on those samplers, identical eyes narrowed, identical gears turning in their red heads.

And once every year or so, upon looking at these specimens of handiwork, the lovely, flowing script, the detail put into the tiny wrapped fudge pieces bordering the piece, one twin would look at another and say in hushed, guilty tones, “Surely you don’t think…”