CHAPTER FIFTEEN - Trustworthy
Once the words were out of his mouth, he wished he could take them back. Wished, in fact, he could Obliviate her so she wouldn't recall those words and possibly connect them to herself ever.
What was he thinking?
He looked at her, so close to being in his arms that all he had to do was raise them and wrap them around her, and he knew he wasn't thinking at all.
Blessedly-and oh, he could apply that word to so few aspects of his life at the moment-she did not seem to notice what he had said. If she did, she did a marvelous job of completely ignoring it, which only served to make him more irritated.
It was as though he had run totally mad, Draco thought. Foaming at the mouth mad.
Ginny stepped back from him, pressing her hands to her eyes. Oh heavens, had she really just done that? She'd fallen apart, shoved him around. She'd told him what had made her leave Harry.
She hadn't told anyone that.
"I-I need to leave. I should go." Humiliation branded her cheeks, guilt and terror. She was only here because of Harry, after all. She was only here because she'd needed some way to make Harry hate her, and Draco had seemed an easy way. As long as Harry hated her, he wouldn't hurt for her.
She didn't think it had worked. Oh, of course, Harry probably did hate her now. But he'd probably never hurt for her.
She turned away from Draco, feeling as though her head was being squeezed in a great, unwavering vice, as though she'd swallowed Pepper-Up Potion and corked her mouth and her ears so all the steam and heat boiled and bubbled in her stomach.
Jumper, skirt, shoes. She gathered them against her chest with one arm, swiping at her eyes with her other hand so she wouldn't be blinded by her own tears. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Confiding in Draco Malfoy was probably the dumbest thing she could imagine doing.
Other than confiding in Lord Voldemort. A hysterical little laugh left her lips and she turned to head for the door, ready to bolt-
And ran straight into him.
"Sorry," she said, keeping her head down. She'd probably made him hate her, as well. It wouldn't be much of a stretch, really-Malfoys had always hated Weasleys-and he was a smart man, certainly he could tell when he'd been used.
A hand grasped each of her forearms and she winced. "Dammit, that hurts," she spat, turning her eyes up to his. "I'm leaving, you don't have to manhandle me."
At the anger, he felt a surge of relief, ridiculous and sweet. He didn't think he liked watching her with her head bowed in shame. In shyness, perhaps-somehow that suited her-but shame? It made him sick to his stomach to watch her wiping her tears away and stumbling about his bedroom like a woman possessed.
Fucking Potter, Draco thought for what must have been the millionth time in his life. Stupid, fucking, scarred… Scarhead.
"That's better," Draco said, giving her a little shake. "You'll not leave. It's half two in the morning, and you're-" Upset. "Undressed," he said thoughtlessly, swallowing the lump in his throat.
Now that he'd said it, her state of undress was too prevalent to ignore, those long, freckled legs stretching below the hem of his shirt, her slightly knobby knees, the blue veins that ran haphazard over her pale feet.
"What on earth would you want to leave for?" he managed irritably, cursing himself for not providing her with a bloody robe or something. Hadn't she any shame? He wished she would grab a sheet off the bed and wrap it 'round herself, but she seemed unperturbed by her own nudity.
He wondered if she was ticklish behind her knees.
Upset woman! he reminded himself forcibly, snatching his hands away from her arms and stepping back as though burned. Not the time to be testing her funny spots. That little voice in his head sounded panicked, and he didn't like that one bit.
Ginny pushed her hair from her eyes and sighed. Of course he'd make her state it out boldfaced. A man like him wasn't satisfied with knowing he was in the right, he had to hear it. "Because I shouldn't be here, Draco. I wouldn't even have approached you if-if-"
Damn it all, she couldn't do it. She was afraid to hurt his feelings, and she thought about what he'd said earlier in the evening.
"Careful, Ginevra, if you're worried about offending me, you might actually end up liking me."
"If you hadn't been playing a part for Potter's sake?" He rolled his eyes and crossed to a bureau, opening a drawer without looking and throwing a pair of flannel pyjama bottoms at her. He watched her fumble the pants, nearly drop them, and turn big eyes up to him.
Damn her and those big eyes.
"You wouldn't have been here if I hadn't been looking for a bit of revenge against Potter myself," he said tightly, and he couldn't help wondering if he'd told her that to put her in her place, or if he'd told her that because those big doe eyes of hers made her feel like being honest. Truly, they made him feel a hell of a lot more than that.
Ginny rubbed the soft fabric between her hands unthinkingly-it would not occur to her until later that she was stroking an article of clothing that would ordinarily have been on his body-and stared past him at the bureau.
The bureau, the closet, the décor of the bedroom.
"This is your room," she said stupidly, balling the pants in her fists and tangling her fingers in the ties at the waist.
Draco imagined her tangling her fingers in those ties while he was wearing the bottoms and nearly threw her on the bed. His bed. "So?" His tone was a great deal more defensive than it would have been if she'd simply gone and covered her legs up.
When she continued to stare at him, all daft like the Weasley she was, he took her by the arm once more. "Come on," he said roughly. "You need a good stiff-" Snog? Shag? Fuck? "Drink," he croaked.
Dazed, Ginny leaned down and put on the pants one leg at a time, stumbling a little as he dragged her toward another room in the house. She hadn't precisely thought it through ahead of time, though having him look back while she was one-leg-in, one-leg-out of the pants wasn't exactly bolstering.
Now, he thought, he was in a good frame of mind to check out her knickers. Blue, he thought cheerily, grinding his teeth. Brilliant.
She seemed to hear his thoughts, her cheeks turning red again, and he turned away, releasing her and leading the way to his study without taking a single glance back at his unmade bed, the sheets rumpled from her body and from her sleep.
Damn it.
Ginny followed after him, trying to find the appropriate words. Nothing seemed appropriate. She'd nearly berated him all night, he'd stayed civil. She had more or less accused him of wanting nothing more than sex, and he'd offered her his room. She had fallen to pieces on his bathroom floor, and he offered her a drink.
Something was not quite on here.
Suddenly suspicious, she followed him into the study. Her suspicions were forgotten as she looked around the massive room and caught her breath.
There was a serpentine silver wine rack in one corner of the room, nearly two dozen identical bottles perched in its decorative grasp; the bookshelf beside it held ten pristine copies of Harlan Humdinger's Dirty Quidditch: A Guide to Bending the Rules (And Your Broom!). A long shelf along the wall held bottle after bottle of Fairywing Firewhisky, and below that, a multi-tiered broom rack displayed eight specimens of the same broom.
Her discomfort was forgotten in the face of her curiosity, and she couldn't help the openmouthed gape that came as she turned in a circle, taking in the room. "Draco?" she asked, his name drawn out curiously as she saw that each item was replicated.
Draco put a hand on his desk and sighed, closing his eyes. He was tired, damn it all, and he was more than a little frustrated. He hadn't exactly thought about the repercussions of bringing her here, to his space, about the questions. He was just so used to it. "It's nothing," he said tersely, pulling down a bottle of Firewhisky and wistfully wishing he could down the entire thing.
"Are you going to replace that tomorrow?" Ginny asked, partly curious and partly chiding. This was an idiosyncrasy if she'd ever seen one, and she'd never considered Draco Malfoy might have quirks aside from his general pratishness.
Somehow, it made him more human.
"Yes," he snapped, hitting the neck of the bottle more sharply against the glass than he'd intended. "I am. What of it?" As she crossed to him, he thrust the glass in her hand and poured himself one.
Ginny's brow furrowed and she tried to catch his eye, but to no avail. He tossed back his drink and looked expectantly at her. "You were the one with the delicate nerves, Weasley, the least you could do is make a token effort to dispel your nocturnal depression."
He felt like a fool when he saw her stricken expression, but she drank the inch in her glass in two steady swallows, and when she regarded him over her empty glass, her eyes were dry and steady.
"'Delicate nerves'?" she repeated. "More like…" She trailed off, uncertain of what she felt.
"Broken heart?" he snorted, debating on whether to pour another glass or not. "Surely leaving someone who was too foolish to trust you isn't worth all that. Worse, I should think, to stay with someone who doesn't trust you." Trustless relationships, he thought. The entire span of his youth had been spent on those sorts of relationships, and the world of business was no more earnest.
"No worse than conversing-or more-with someone who doesn't trust me," she said, looking at him pointedly. And whom I don't trust. She didn't say it, but it was easily implied.
"Who says I don't trust you?" Draco asked, sliding one leg onto his desk and looking as comfortable and commanding, Ginny thought, as he would have in dress robes.
His question made her want to squirm. She should have just run when she'd had the chance, and not looked back. There was something dangerous about this sort of conversation. Something more intimate than holding him between her thighs on her kitchen table.
He rocked the tumbler back and forth in one hand, watching the way the light caught it instead of watching her reaction. He didn't want to see her reaction.
He simply wanted her to see her precious Potter could be wrong.
"I've had few occasions in my life to know a trustworthy person," he said slowly, fighting the urge to look her in the eyes. "But I'd certainly say you qualify."
Her glass came into his field of vision as she set it atop the desk blotter, and when he finally looked up, her face was unreadable. "I think I can sleep now," Ginny said softly, pressing her lips together to keep from crying. Why cry? It felt foolish and ridiculous to be so upset.
She was bloody well tired of being upset.