**Author's Note: This originally started out as a songfic, and was posted as one in its beginning stages. If it looks familiar, you may have seen it before. This is Sick's first run here at Portkey, however. The song this was inspired by was Matchbox20's "Disease." Now… go read. Enjoy!**
CHAPTER ONE - Dancing
"I feel obligated to point out how ridiculous this is." The room was packed from side to side with people in all states of dress and condition, ranging from stone cold sober to just plain stoned.
In Draco's opinion, they didn't know a damned thing about how to have a good time, and they wouldn't know class if it bit them in the arse.
His "date" was no exception.
"And I feel just as obligated to point out it's your party." Pansy Parkinson sipped a concoction that was an unlikely shade of pink and raised her eyebrow. "What's the matter, darling, don't like mixing with the ministry?" She snickered and shook her dark, sleek bob of hair back from her face.
He didn't even look down at her, because he knew those blue eyes would be widened in a sickening pretense of guilelessness. She was so very predictable. "I'm not like you, Pansy, I don't like 'mixing' with anything on two legs." But the truth of the matter was, Draco didn't like having to kiss the Ministry's arse at the direction of his board.
He didn't like having his hands tied by his father's reputation. Being an heir was supposed to be about wealth, not ill will.
His insult, veiled or no, didn't bother Pansy in the least. They each were the closest thing the other had to family, and she'd have been mightily worried if he'd not been snarking about something. Besides, he'd spoken no more than the truth.
"At least the music's good, love." She tucked her arm through Draco's as the music slid higher in volume, the heated guitar licks making people unconsciously move before the rest of the line kicked in.
"It's too fucking loud," he groused, though his words were swallows up in the drums and the bass and the anticipatory rhythm leading in for the singer. A split second before the wizard's voice flooded the room, however, there was something else-a set of murmurs, shocked whispers, gasps, clucking tongues.
It was a combination Draco had heard only once before-a year before, the first time he'd entered a room as the only remnant of a powerful pureblood family, the twenty-year-old sole legacy of a much hated empire of sorts.
The murmurs made him uncomfortable, and in his discomfort, he quickly sought out the source of the sound.
"Oh, yum," Pansy drawled, licking the rim of her glass none too subtly.
"Oh, fuck," Draco breathed.
~~~
She'd always wondered what it would be like to make this sort of entrance. The song was perfect, spicy, hot, sinuous. A week ago, she'd have seen the announcement for the Malfoy/Ministry mixer and deemed it ridiculous.
Now, however, it suited her and her purpose just fine.
She took a bright red drink off the tray of a Malfoy intern who was not passing-he'd merely stopped and stared at her, mouth agape.
And as she pursed painted red lips to the rim of her glass and tilted the whole thing back, Ginny Weasley winked.
~~~
"What is that doing here?" Draco's voice was stiff as he watched her set down the empty glass and start to move in time with the music, the sin-red dress she wore clinging to her curves, hardly covering her breasts and back, stopping in asymmetrical jags well above her knees.
If Draco Malfoy had had a real nemesis and not just the fame-ridden sham of Harry Potter, it had been this woman.
Her hair, he thought nastily, clashed with her dress.
"She does work for the Ministry," Pansy noted, rubbing her leg against Draco's to give herself some sort of contact. "Though she has to be Potterless or she wouldn't be here."
The obviously randy tone in Pansy's voice, the purr, made Draco smirk. "Pansy, my dear, did you break up the betrothed prince and princess?" He couldn't take his eyes off her-she most assuredly had to be without-permanently without- her high-profile fiancé, he thought, watching the way she cozied into some Ministry hack's arms, rubbing her back against his chest.
Pansy tilted her head consideringly and put her lips to the host's ear. "Nonsense, love. I wouldn't know been able to choose which of them to seduce."
~~~
It was good, Ginny thought, throwing her head back and laughing as one of Malfoy's employees-recognizable by his
green silk tie and handkerchief-pulled her away from poor Thaddeus Fletcher.
But not good enough.
"Be a love, would you?" she spoke into the Malfoy representative's ear, moving her lips just close enough to leave wicked little lipstick marks on his earlobe. "Take me to thank the host."
~~~
"The closer she gets, the better she looks," Pansy noted, and it wasn't just envy in her voice.
No, Draco thought, she'd lust after anything that triggered her animal instincts, and for some reason, her lack of discernment was bothering him this evening. That could simply be because he couldn't disagree with her. The youngest Weasley looked positively evil, and it suited her. The red dress was a poor choice, a scandalous choice, and she was currently about to send one of his employees running to the loo with an embarrassing condition.
Interesting, he thought. He'd even go so far as to say intriguing.
She already had her hand out as she approached him, fingers limp, nails painted the same red as her dress. "Wonderful party," she said, her voice too husky to carry well over the music.
She was bloody obscene, he thought, taking her hand and pressing sneering lips to it. If her mother had been anything like her, it was no wonder there were so damned many of them.
"I'm not surprised you like it," he said back, holding onto her hand simply to see if she would pull back.
She didn't.
He'd changed, she was thinking. Not a great deal, just enough to make a difference. The thuggish, mindless insulting was gone, replaced by a sly look in his eye that made you think he knew more about you than he really did, the robes were gone, replaced by a simple pair of slacks and a dove-gray shirt.
Arrogant of him, she thought, to dress so casually when every one of his employees was dressed in suits.
Even if it did suit him. That had never been his problem, she reckoned, mentally calculating the seconds passing as he held onto her fingers.
A few more seconds would make just the right impression. She ticked off exactly two and then pulled her hand back slightly.
"Pansy, isn't it?" she asked, turning to the other Slytherin graduate and smiling.
"Fabulous dress," Pansy said without answering her, using the garment as an excuse to look Ginny completely up and down.
Weasley or no, the girl had put some curves on her skinny body, and her legs made Pansy nothing short of jealous.
Well, a little licentious, perhaps, but still jealous.
Ginny smiled and shook her hair back from her face, breathing deeply and feeling the dress cut into the tops of her breasts dangerously. It hadn't been that low-cut to begin with… but then again, it hadn't been that color to begin with, either.
"Thanks," she said, her grin crooked and impish. "It was going to be my wedding dress."
That managed to shock even Pansy, but Draco kept his expression still.
"Potter's head finally get too large for the two of you to share a flat?" he asked, signaling one of his interns to bring him a drink.
Talking about Perfect Potter always made him feel like getting a little tilted.
Ginny laughed, surprising him into jerking his drink just a little. "I decided I didn't want him," she said sharply, and something in her tone made the hair rise on the back of Draco's neck. She took another one of the clear crimson drinks from a tray and looked at him over it.
"I'm sure he's broken-hearted," Pansy said, eyes glinting greedily. It was good gossip, and the more singles floating around, the better for her.
"I'm sure he is," Ginny agreed, fighting the urge to roll her shoulders. This was harder than she thought it would be, picking up a life without Harry. But the reaction she was getting was just too perfect.
This was the right place to start, and she wouldn't turn back.
As she struggled with what to do next, secretly very out of her element, Draco watched her, her still face belying none of the turmoil beneath, and he started to think ahead, as he always did. Careful planners made for good businessmen, and Draco's mind was already on the future.
Not Harry Potter's castoff in front of him, but Harry Potter's rejecter.
So he spoke.
"Care to dance?"