CHAPTER TWO - Drawing Attention
The smirk she leveled at him made him uncomfortable; he was acutely aware she'd been on the receiving end of a few of those smirks from him… too acutely aware.
"I'm obviously not finished with my drink," she said offhandedly, and Pansy bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing at the expression on Draco's face-anyone who knew him less wouldn't have seen the exasperation, the disbelief, the confusion.
Poor baby hardly ever got turned down, Pansy thought. "I'd dance with you, Draco," she said loudly, sliding her eyes sidelong to Ginny. "But you never touch me how I like to be touched."
Ginny almost spit her drink back into her glass, exceedingly relieved when she managed to keep the fruity liquid in her mouth.
"Shame on you, Malfoy," Ginny said when she was sure she wouldn't choke on her words, her laughter, and her drink.
Annoyed-and wondering more than a bit if the smallest Weasley was going to continue to allow Pansy to peddle her wares in front of her-Draco took Ginny by the arm and out to the floor.
Pansy let her laughter bubble out, not caring whether they heard her or not. He was so obvious, so obviously turned on not by Ginny Weasley, but by her actions, by her casual shunting of all Draco had ever envied.
Revenge might be a dish best served cold, Pansy thought, but she wondered if anyone had told Draco this particular vengeance had already gone stale.
He was touching that woman for all the wrong reasons, and Pansy sighed in disappointment. It didn't matter how many times she tried to teach him, he never learned.
"Ah-ah-ah, where do you think you're going?" Pansy asked, literally grabbing the Malfoy rep by the collar. Poor git had lipstick all over his ear. Pansy figured, all things considered, she could even things out for him a little.
"Grabby, aren't we?" Ginny kept her voice level and the hand holding her drink outstretched, away from both of them. She had a feeling she was going to need every drop of what was left in the glass if she was going to survive the rest of the evening.
Draco put one hand to the bare small of her back and rested the other on her hip, using the pose as an excuse to get within talking distance. As she placed one hand to his chest and kept the other wrapped firmly around her drink, he spoke in her ear. "What are you really doing here, Ginevra? Feeling your oats now that He Who Lived is out of the picture?"
He expected something-a shudder, a shake, a glare, a curse-but instead she tilted her head back to look at him with dry, assessing eyes.
Her entire body had broken into gooseflesh when he'd said her name like that, whispering and insinuating and devious, but she wasn't about to let on. "I don't suppose that's too far from the truth," she said, wondering if the itch at her back meant people were staring.
Let them stare. She welcomed it.
"Besides," she added, curving her arm to take another sip, leaving her eyes on him, "No one else from the Ministry Medical Office was coming, and I was wondering what had become of you. No lasting scars from any of my curses, I see." She smiled then, catlike and cunning. "Pity."
"Are you sure you're not just here trying to make Potter jealous?" He watched her eyes to see if the barb hit home and saw that it didn't. She rolled her eyes and stepped closer to him.
"Perhaps you're as poor a listener now as you were back at school, Malfoy. I called things off. It would hardly make sense for me to want to make him jealous."
And that was most of the truth, she thought. But it worried her to know Malfoy smelled a rat, as it were, that he had figured out her intentions were not completely innocent.
Just this night, she thought. Just this one night, even if it meant listening to the blond-haired brat try to pump her for information on Harry with little finesse. She was a Weasley and had never been any more than trash to this man and his ilk, and she doubted a fancy dress and a new set of knockers did a hell of a lot to change his mind on that.
No, his eyes had gone from warning to welcome when he'd heard she'd dumped Harry. She wasn't fool enough to believe otherwise.
But it didn't change things a bit, didn't change the way his long fingers were mindlessly kneading her hip, the way his eyes were focused on hers.
She'd have been a fool if she thought his attention was genuine, but she'd have been dead if she hadn't found him attractive.
"Manners, manners, Miss Weasley. You're a grownup now, a representative of the Ministry, after all, it will hardly do for you to insult me." He grinned against her ear and looked down, down the pale expanse of her bare back, and raised his eyebrow. "Something tells me Potter's going to be jealous, anyway."
Because he couldn't see her, Ginny allowed her eyes to slip shut, just for a moment, for the façade to falter. Only a moment, only a matter of seconds, and then she stepped back, raising her glass in a jaunty, irreverent salute. "Well, how unfortunate for him, eh? Shall we drink to Potter's jealousy?"
What had changed? Draco felt her stiffen in his arms just a second before she pulled away from him, some change in her demeanor.
Suspicious, suspicious, and all the better for him to reap the rewards.
"The song isn't over," he noted, curling his fingers easily around the wrist holding the drink and holding her still. She wouldn't make this easy for him, of course, wouldn't make it easy for him to get the only thing Potter had been unable to obtain and keep.
Potter had failed to find the Snitch, and Draco was more than prepared to end the game with the points.
"Malfoy, you're so obvious," Ginny said, forcing the laughter into her voice and wondering if perhaps she'd gone a little too quickly, stricken a little too deeply on this first foray. "Still a Slytherin to the very core, aren't you?"
They were attracting an audience, the only two people on the floor standing still, moon-white and flame-bright, bitter enemies now face to face. Hungry for scandal, the onlookers drank in all the details-Draco's bemused expression, the way his thumb was caressing the underside of her wrist, the tiniest tremble of the drink in her hand, the prurient dress.
Though Rita Skeeter was long since gone to America with a gaggle of others who'd been too afraid to commit to a side in the war, her spirit was alive and well. Gossip survived all situations.
"People are staring," he noted pleasantly, but far enough under his breath that only she could hear. Now and only now he let his eyes travel down, dip into her décolletage hungrily, then back to her eyes. "Not that they can be blamed."
The song came to its final strains even as he stood eating her alive with that glance, that silver stare no different than if he'd been looking at an object.
Her smile now hard and glittering rather than warm and inviting, Ginny tightened her fingers on the glass and let it tilt, its contents spilling out of the glass and onto Draco's shirt.
Escape was all she could think of, survival. Escape had been too much of a driving force in Ginny Weasley's life to ignore. She'd escaped Tom Riddle-only by the grace of Harry-she'd escaped the mediocrity of her family with a knack for healing and a position at the Ministry. She'd escaped loneliness by the grace of Harry, as well.
And most recently, she'd escaped Harry and everything he meant.
And this party, this fete? Her dress, her attitude, her looks?
Well, Ginny supposed she was escaping herself.
Draco jerked back, but not nearly quickly enough; his reflexes had been dampened by that look in her eyes, that desperate, faraway look, trying to calculate what it meant for him and for his plans.
A splash of red soaked quickly into his shirt, drawing forth a gasp from the gathered crowd and a muttered curse from him. He looked up, saw all of them staring, and waved his arm irritably. "What in the bloody hell are all of you staring at?" he asked. "Is this so incredibly boring that you've taken a vested interest in my laundry?"
He'd released her wrist as soon as he'd seen her intent; now, he snatched the drink away from her and thrust it at a young waitwitch passing with a tray. "Take that," he directed at the witch just before reclaiming Ginny's wrist. "Old times' sake?" he asked with false sweetness, taking her chin in his hand and tilting her head back. "Didn't have enough of playing foolish tricks at Hogwarts?"
And oh, that stung him to think of her then, to think of how she'd bested him more than once, the scrawny little gadabout she'd been completely different from this sleek, poised woman.
A good means for revenge she might be, but she'd certainly caused him plenty of misery herself once upon a time. It was easy, all too easy to remember her brand of superiority, morality.
As though he'd been any more able to change his birthright than she'd been to alter hers.
"It was an accident," Ginny said stiffly. "If you're feeling particularly handy, Draco, soda water does wonders. If you're not, I'd certainly think you were still capable of a scourgifyng spell." She hadn't counted on him grabbing her again before she could dart away, and she wished for anyone-hell, even Pansy Parkinson-to interrupt this little tête-à-tête. Determined, she used her free hand to finger the material of his shirt, purring slightly under her breath. "You know, it's not nearly as hard to get out of that material as, say, lipstick."
"I have more shirts," he said, letting his temper bump back down in time with his pulse. Who was playing the game here, him or her?
He was certain she thought she was, and he was certain he knew he was.
"Shame," she said. "I was rather hoping you'd take that one off." The tone was loud, and those who had turned away guiltily at Draco's earlier outburst heard her with startling clarity.
The Weasley girl had really changed, and when had that happened?
The timing couldn't have been more perfect; the moment couldn't have been more opportune. A flashbulb went off, the crowd tittered madly, and an overeager young photographer waved his camera madly, babbling about how perfect of a picture it was, the unification of Malfoy, Ltd. and the Ministry of Magic.
"It looks as though you've had a little accident there, Mr. Malfoy," the young wizard said, his big ears turning red with the excitement of his first big event.
Ginny wanted to twist his ears until he yowled, the little brat, but at least he'd gotten Draco to release her.
"It's no matter at all," Draco said easily, putting his hand lightly to Ginny's back to play to the camera and to seal in what he was about to say. "Miss Weasley has so kindly invited me for dinner one evening this week to make it up to me."