Alright people. I like the color pink. Obviously. Yes, yes, yes, I am aware that H/Hr are supposed to be a couple (oh please no) and rest assured, they'll get around to that. On a lighter note, I had absolutely no idea what Draco should wear to the ball, so I thought about the yummiest thing I could come up with and this was it. However, I'm not sure my description did it any justice, so use your imagination! I love y'all!
CHAPTER 6 The Yule Ball
Ginny decided secretly that she like Draco's dress robes this year much better than the ones from two years previous. They were black of course, and made of a thick, muted satin or silk, Ginny wasn't sure. She was reminded of the few photos she had seen in Muggle studies of Muggle cowboys from the century before, and as ludicrous as it was to think of Draco as a Muggle cowboy from the Wild West, a strange tingling was spreading through her legs, making them weak. They hung straight, all the way to his ankles and she thought that if he brought out a bolo tie or a cowboy hat, she would positively faint dead away.
She had agreed to wear Hermione's robes, but only after charming them to a more suitable shade of pink for her hair. Hermione had gone for a new set of light green robes that were a bit more modest than the pink ones.
The new tables in the Great Hall were small, most holding about a dozen, and Ginny suddenly grew nervous. What if they had to share a table with Crabbe and Goyle? Or Pansy and her date? Or worse, Ron and Hermione, or Harry and- Ginny scanned the room. She had no idea who Harry's date was. To her relief, she saw him and Teraysa already sharing a table with Ron and Hermione, who had stopped arguing long enough to go to the ball together.
"Did I tell you that you look absolutely gorgeous?" Draco asked quietly, his breath heavy and warm against Ginny's exposed neck.
"Thank you," she smiled, swallowing the butterflies that had surged up in her throat. "You look nice too."
Ginny's nerves began to die down as they shared a table with Luna, Neville, Colin and Zoë, and several couples from Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw whom she did not know and who were far to interested in each other to notice anyone around them.
"Come with me," Draco tugged on the sleeve of her pink robe after they had danced to several songs.
"Where are we going?" she asked apprehensively. She had heard far too many rumors about students getting carried away and getting caught at previous Balls.
"Just to talk," he answered, a slight smirk on his face. "Worried you won't be able to resist me?"
"Hardly," she retorted, doubting her own words as Draco laced his fingers through hers. The moon was high above them, so with the help of the tiny fairies in the bushes, the night was well lit. The moonlight didn't bounce off Draco's hair the way she would have expected though, it seemed to be absorbed into in, making it darker, and making his features more shadowed and more exotic. He was absolutely, positively, deliciously gorgeous, and right then Ginny decided she had fallen head first for him. Or at least her hormones had. But wait, her reasonable voice persisted. Who is this person? You don't know him! The Malfoy you know is nothing like this. This is all an act.
"Here," Draco sat down on one of the stone benches that had been placed in the rose garden. It was plenty well hidden from the main path, but not so secretive they could be accused of anything. He sat with his back against the left arm rest and stretched his legs across the seat. "Sit here."
Gingerly, Ginny eased herself down on his lap, feeling stiff and uncomfortable until Draco pulled her head towards his and kissed her. Ginny didn't know exactly how much time had passed by the time she came up for air, but was certain that the moon had shifted.
"I have something to tell you," Draco said finally. "Several things, actually."
"Yeah?" Ginny could unconsciously feel herself holding her breath; she always felt like this around Draco, as if she was waiting for the punch line or the explosion. Around Draco, nothing was comfortable.
"Do you remember what Dumbledore has been telling us all year?" His arms were still wrapped tightly around her waist, and their faces were pressed side by side.
"About uniting?"
"Uh huh. And what the Sorting Hat sang this year? And last year?" His arms tensed at her side.
"I remember."
"Did you ever get the feeling that they were referring to me and Potter?"
Ginny remained momentarily silent. She had thought that. So had Hermione. Probably a lot of other people had also. But really, who could imagine that Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter would be able to tolerate each other long enough to defeat You Know Who? Ginny wished with all her heart that there was no threat of evil, no Death Eaters, no war, no fights. She wished she could just curl up in Draco's lap and stay that way. Draco may have kept her nerves standing on end, but she couldn't deny how addicting his physical touch was. "Yeah," she finally answered.
"It's going to be soon," Draco told her. "Really soon."
"What is?" she asked, confused.
"The end. Of one of them."
"How do you know?" Ginny asked forcing her voice into neutrality.
"My father." His silver eyes were glowing dark.
"Maybe you should talk to Harry."
Draco snorted. "Right."
Ginny was confused. Did Draco want to help Harry? Did he want You Know Who to lose? Everyone automatically assumed Draco was practically a Death Eater in training, although his outburst on Wednesday seemed to prove otherwise.
"I won't be like my father," he said quietly, reading Ginny's mind. "But I don't know if I can bring myself to side with effing Potter."
Ginny spoke slowly. "Maybe if you don't side with effing Potter, you'll have no other choice."
Draco went silent, and leaned forward to kiss her lips, long and hard. "There was one other thing."
Ginny opened her eyes, and let her fingers remain at his collar.
"Mr. Malfoy, Ms. Weasley."
Ginny jumped and looked up. Snape's dark form was looming over them. "Did you not hear the clock?"
Ginny shook her head weakly.
"No sir," Draco spoke up. "We didn't."
"It is after 12. After curfew. I'll have to take points for this," Snape told them crossly.
Ginny stood up quickly and smoothed the front of her robes. "I'm sorry, sir."
She and Draco followed him back into the castle. In the entrance hall, McGonagall and several other professors were still talking. "Ms. Weasley," McGonagall sputtered.
"I have already taken away points," Snape informed her coolly. "And they actually were just talking."
"Goodnight," Draco whispered in her ear, leaning close and daring to kiss her cheek before turning to the stairs that lead down to the Slytherin dorms.
***
Draco ignored the looks of his fellow house mates and headed straight up the stairs to his room. He heard Crabbe and Goyle following behind him, so when he entered the room, he quickly pulled off his dress robes and slipped on his flannel night pants. "I'm tired," he told them flatly. He climbed into his bed and pulled the emerald curtains around him.
He wasn't tired though. His head was crammed with thoughts and emotions running unruly across his brain. Ginny. Voldemort. Ginny. Death Eaters. His father. Ginny. Sex. Red hair. Death. Ginny. The way Ginny had looked in her pink robes with her smooth chest exposed and just the very top imaginary hint of cleavage uncovered. The firm way her body had pressed into his, fitting nicely, when she sat in his lap. Ginny. Death Eaters. Ginny. The way her lips just begged to be kissed and how her chocolate colored eyes could flutter upwards when he drew his finger down her neck from her ear to her shoulder. Sex with Ginny.
For more than a year he had been plagued with the nagging feeling that the Sorting Hat had been referring to him and Harry, and then when Dumbledore began giving the speeches, Draco knew without a doubt they meant him. But what was he supposed to do? That's where he was confused. When his father had broken out of Azkaban the previous summer he had went on and on about Draco's duty to the family and the Dark Lord. Draco hadn't said it out loud, but he knew that his duty was only to himself, not to some mental Dark Lord. There was no way he was going to be a slave to someone else the way his father was. His goal in life was not to become a replica of Peter Pettigrew. He couldn't figure out for the life of him why his father was so eager to head up Muggle torture for the Dark Lord, when the loon was half Muggle himself.
And then there was Ginny. Ginny Weasley. The other Slytherin's talked about her a lot, at least the males did. She was stunning with her flaming red hair and attitude to match. But she was a Weasley, so naturally he refused to be interested. Then, just the year before, on the train ride home from Hogwarts, she had taken all the hexes off him that he had received on the train. And it was true, he had deserved each and every one, but Ginny had walked by the luggage compartment, done a double take, and then removed his hexes. Before he could ask her why, she had walked off.
Her face had haunted him all summer, as well as several other features of her body. He refused to let himself believe that he actually liked her; he wrote it off as thinking with something other than his brain, but she still didn't leave his head. Even as recently as that morning he was still trying to convince himself that he was only interested in what she could offer him physically. Deep beneath his façade, the real Draco Malfoy was laughing at him, telling him he was going to be one sad person if he let Ginny get away.
With a groan, Draco rolled out of his bed and pulled on a thin undershirt. He crept down the stairs and found the common room empty and growing chilly. He edged quietly out of the dungeon, up several flights of stairs, and down a hall until he was standing in front of a large portrait of a fat lady, snoring heavily. He took a deep breath and hoped Pansy had been right when she said the Gryffindor password was Yuletide Greetings.
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