Seven Minutes In Heaven
Chapter VII - Need
By Anti Darth Ani
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Lavender tapped her pen on the top of the table, a quick beat that annoyed not only herself, but all the others sitting in the common room as well. She swallowed and forced herself to stop moving the pen. After all, the movement was making her a little bit nauseous and the last thing she needed was to get sick. She'd managed to stay collected for the past two hours, so long as you disregarded the time she had spent up in the dormitory. As soon as she'd picked herself up off the floor and gathered her thoughts, she had headed straight for the library, where she'd found Colin Creevey sitting at one of the back tables.
She'd seen the picture of Ginny he'd quickly shoved under his folder when he saw her approaching, but she was too bothered to question him about such petty things. She sat down next to him, leaned in and started whispering rapidly about the letter that had lit itself on fire. He was just as surprised as she had been, but he promised not to utter a single word to their friend until they'd talked to Harry and Hermione about it. They didn't want to worry her if she hadn't already read the letter. And if she had, they wanted to know if she'd told Harry and Hermione about it already. But they certainly didn't want to get Ronald mixed up in the whole ordeal, because Lavender knew he tended to have a bit of a temper when it came to affairs dealing with his little sister.
Lavender looked down at the sentence she'd written on the piece of parchment in front of her. She just didn't know how to put into words what she now knew. That someone, someone they weren't aware of yet, wasn't threatening Ginny and planning to kill her. And that sounded quite bad to Lavender. But how could she say that to Harry and Hermione, who were like extended family to Ginny? Surely they would try to intervene, and Lavender didn't know if that was safe at the moment. If they tried to help her, it might make whoever was writing the letter pissed, and that would only make matters worse for Ginny.
She debated with herself whether or not to actually go through with telling Harry and Hermione. Maybe she should just talk it over with Colin again, and make sure it was the right idea. But every second they wasted, another moment closer Ginny could be to her death. Lavender groaned, setting down her pen to prevent herself from making any more noise than she absolutely had to. It would be wrong to keep such a secret to just herself and Colin, but then again she knew very little about what the actual letter meant. Perhaps someone was simply playing a prank on Ginny, trying to get her all worried and upset. Lavender didn't know who would ever want to do that, but Lavender knew that some of the Slytherins would do almost anything to some of the Gryffindors.
Lavender reached forward and snatched up the piece of parchment. She quickly crumpled it up and sighed. Throwing it into the large fireplace, she watched as the flames engulfed the paper and burnt it up until she saw no remainders. Then Lavender quickly shoved all of her books and parchment into her bag. She debated leaving the bag there, but she didn't trust some of the first and second years in Gryffindor quite yet, so she picked up the bag and stood up. She was going to find Ginny and confront her about the letter. Ginny was her best friend and Lavender had the right to know if her friend was in danger. She saw no need to worry Harry or Hermione yet.
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They waited until steam covered the majority of the large room before moving towards the shower. Ginny shivered uncontrollably as her lips chattered while he kissed her shoulder and neck. Why had he insisted on flying in the snow? Quite a ridiculous idea, now that she thought about it. No one ever wanted to fly in the snow. It was how even the best Quidditch players fell ill right before the most important matches of their lives. Playing in the freezing temperatures and then, if they were like Draco and Ginny, making out in the locker room until all the snow melted and froze them half to death.
Draco took a step back under the scalding water, feeling the heat immediately as the water fell on the couple, both fully clad in all their clothes except for their robes, which were pitched over one of the wooden benches on the other side of the Slytherin locker room. Ginny let out a low hiss and closed her eyes as the steamy water cascaded into her face. She leaned her head forward, closer to Draco's, to keep the majority of the water out of her eyes. She knew it hadn't been smart to wear a white shirt under her robes when she got dressed this morning, but for some reason she'd gone ahead and put it on anyway. Now, she knew her shirt was see through and that Draco was seeing a little more than she'd intended for him to see.
She didn't say a word as he turned them around and pushed her back up against the closest wall of the shower. What would she even begin to say? `Oh, sure go ahead, burn us to death to try to rid us of the hypothermia. And, while we're in this shower alone in the locker room, go ahead and shag me silly, I don't mind.' For some reason, Ginny didn't think that saying this to Draco at the time being would be such a smart idea, so she opted to just keep her mouth shut. Well, not literally. Because if she actually shut her mouth, then he wouldn't be able to do that thing with his tongue that he was really good at doing with hers. And preventing that wouldn't be fair to either one of them.
Ginny leaned in against Draco, pushing up onto the tips of her toes in order to find his mouth with hers once again. The water was so hot, it sent a chill down her back, causing her to slightly shiver. Draco must have assumed that she was still cold because he pulled her flush up against him. He nipped her bottom lip, not hard enough to draw blood but enough to make her feel it. Ginny, in turn, moaned against his mouth. His hands gripped at her waist, almost painfully, grinding her hips in an extremely unsubtle way. She could feel how excited he was, even through their layers of clothing. She really couldn't blame him, because she was feeling something of the same way. But she didn't think she'd be able to handle the situation calmly if he continued at the same pace. She was working herself up to an all-time high, and it would only be moments before she came crashing back into reality- that he was Draco Malfoy, said enemy of all she loved and admired.
Reality came sooner than she'd expected, when his hands traveled up the bottom fold of her soaking t-shirt. Except for where his hands were traveling, the shirt clung to every curve of her body, allowing Draco to view just how skinny and well shaped Ginny had become since the last school year. Between the water collecting on her skin and the water collecting on his body, his fingers slid right across her skin, climbing quickly up her sides. His fingers pulled the shirt up with his needy fingers when he was too impatient to try to pull the shirt away from her slick skin. She knew she had to stop him before he managed to pull the shirt off of her body and toss it aside. Her shirt was one of the only boundaries she had from him. Ginny wasn't ready to handle being with him yet, not in this way. Not when she knew that no one would approve when they found out.
"Draco," she gasped as she pulled her mouth away from his. Opening her eyes, she looked up into his, trying to catch her breath. "Please stop," she asked softly, barely heard over the sound of the water hitting the confines of the shower walls. She stilled his hands with her own, pulling them back down, along with her shirt. She knew he would be frustrated with her and she didn't blame him, but things were just happening too fast for her to handle and Ginny didn't like not being in control.
"Gin... I can't," he whispered, his hands reaching again, needing to have some kind of contact with her skin. He had to make sure that she was real, that she wasn't just another hallucination he had made up. "I need you," his voice pleaded with her, tickling her ear as he rested his lips on the side of her head. He couldn't believe he was begging a Weasley, but if that was what it was going to take, so be it. He hadn't had much pride since he'd discovered that she was the girl he'd been in the broom closet with.
Ginny forced herself to calm her breathing. She wasn't cold anymore. Instead, she was feeling hotter than she wanted to. Yet, he had her pined to the wall, which he seemed to be doing a lot lately, so she couldn't get out of the shower. His fingers were inching back up her sides, against her protest. She knew what he had to be feeling like, but Ginny wouldn't let herself give in. Not now, and not to Draco Malfoy. "We can't do this," she told him, shifting against him, trying to get him to face her again. "At least not right now. I need to get back to school, or my friends are going to start looking for me."
Draco ignored what she was saying, dropping his lips to her shoulder to kiss her there. Ginny wanted to cry, knowing that he was just as stubborn as she was. She wasn't going to get anywhere just talking to him. Draco didn't listen to people, especially when they were saying things he didn't want to hear. Pushing him off of her, Ginny quickly slipped out of the shower before he could pull her back to him. She grabbed the first towel that she saw hanging against the wall, wrapping it around herself quickly so that she didn't have time to get cold again.
Draco turned off the water and stepped out of the shower himself, heading straight over to Ginny. She turned around to face him as he was closing in on her. He reached out for her, but Ginny slapped his hand away. "Don't do anything you're going to regret, Malfoy," she warned him. She didn't want to argue with him, not after the amazing ride he'd given her on his broom. But her voice took on an icy tone as she talked with him now, afraid of caving into him, allowing him to take her in the Quidditch locker room for his house.
"Why are you fighting me, Ginny?" he shot back, pinning her shoulders against the wall. He liked to have her cornered, with no where to run to. He liked knowing that she had to give him the answers he wanted before he'd let her escape. "You and I both know that you want this," he didn't try to kiss her again because he didn't want to upset her more than he already had. He just wanted some bloody answers was all.
"We can't always have what we want, Draco," she told him sternly, and he knew that she was implying her statement for other meanings as well. "Now please let me go." How were they going to work something out between them when they both went from hot to cold in just a matter of seconds? Ginny feared she'd never be able to figure Draco out, and that no matter how much he said he needed her, it was only a matter of time before he found someone else, someone else who wasn't afraid to be with him.
She felt the tears coming and she let out one choked sob, reaching out and running a hand through his hair. "You'll never understand," she told him, her voice shaking. "You couldn't possibly understand what it's like to want something all your life and never manage to get it." He wasn't sure what she was talking about, if it had anything to do with him or not. He hated to see girls cry, and watching Ginny fight back her emotions caused a small pain in his stomach.
Before he could reply, she slid under his arm, like she always did, and exited the locker room, heading back for the school. "GINNY!" he called out after her, but she didn't answer. Draco sighed, banging his head once against the wall. She was just so... complicated. Maybe that's why he was so drawn to her. Draco pulled on his robe and picked up her's that she'd left behind, heading out of the locker room behind her, not caring that he was still soaking wet.
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