Author's Notes: Much appreciation to Marcia for the beta and everything else. Thanks to asmartperfectionist, yiota, moogle, seegrim and nicolepotter86 for the wonderful reviews. Now on with our story... -fallenwitch
Chapter 6
Is It A Duck?
"Oh, stop it, Harry," she hissed, knocking the war hero in the side with her elegantly clad elbow. Harry's brilliant green eyes lit up as he threw an arm around her waist and drew her next to his lean frame.
"What will all the Weasley boys say when I tell them their little sister is running around town with Blaise Zabini?" Ginny reached up and tweaked Harry's ear, hard.
"Don't you dare."
He gave her hand a swat and stood by her side, arm still tucked around her, watching the sea of witches and wizards dancing and mingling in slow moving waves.
"Honestly, Gin, I had no idea your taste ran so low."
She flashed her furious eyes at him. "I shagged you, didn't I?"
Harry threw a closed fist over his chest. "You wound me." When she ignored his theatrics, he released his hold on her. "Seriously, Ginny, what's with the get up and the pureblooded arse over there?"
"It's my job, Harry, that's all. You know that, so stop being such a git."
"Fraternizing with the boss is part of your job?"
"He needed someone from the company to escort him, that's all."
Harry nodded in an understanding manner. "Yeah, it looks like he's really hurting for female company, doesn't it?"
Ginny followed his line of sight to her boss being accosted by an eager young witch falling out of her robes over him. "That's because this isn't a date, Harry. It's business."
"Right, forgot about that." He cleared his throat. "Hey, Gin, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, is it a duck?"
"Is this some sort of stupid Muggle joke?" He shook his head.
"Well, then it's a duck, of course."
"Exactly. If it looks like a date and smells like a date, it must be a date." Harry leaned over and kissed Ginny on the cheek. "Be careful, Gin. Send up a signal if you need help."
Ginny rolled her eyes at him and went to give him a swift kick in the shin, but Harry, being Harry, deftly dodged it and sent her stumbling. His Seeker's hands caught her just before she landed on her undignified Weasley bum.
"I had no idea you'd be needing me this soon. Should I stay?" Ginny felt his steadying arms putting her back on her feet.
Once safely upright, she whispered in his ear, "No thanks, Harry." Then she kicked his shin as hard as she could, using her hands on his shoulders as leverage.
"Ouch! Merlin, Ginny, is that what I get for saving your arse?"
"If it weren't for you, my arse wouldn't need saving," she hissed back, irritated.
"Ginny?"
She spun around, coming face to face with her boss. Flushing pink, she pulled her remaining hand off of Harry's left shoulder and put on a dazzling smile. "Hullo, Harry was just leaving. Weren't you, Harry?"
"Right, just leaving." He bent down and kissed her on the side of her neck. "See you, Gin." Straightening, he looked up and nodded. "Zabini."
"Potter."
Blaise glanced over at Harry walking across the floor, attempting to circumvent his usual mob of adoring witches. "I didn't know you two were dating again."
Ginny snorted at this. "That's because we're not."
Blaise studied her, curious. "Shall we?" He gestured to the Minister of Magic. Ginny nodded and crossed the floor with Blaise. As they stepped up to speak with the Minister, Ginny glanced over her shoulder and saw Harry's eyes on Blaise.
----- ----- -----
Draco sat up in bed, cursing. He needed some goddamn relief from the nightmares, waking and sleeping, and the anxiety attacks and the constant feelings of impending doom. Rolling out of bed, he stomped to the bathroom and began riffling through his drawer of potions. He was psychotically sleep deprived and irritable, resenting the unrelenting symptoms that were pushing him to the brink of madness.
He stopped riffling and slammed the drawer closed, rattling the countertop. Forget a fucking potion. He was pissing them out as fast as he was sucking them in, and they weren't doing a goddamn thing for him. He should have blown his head off with a curse years ago. Either that or summoned a bloody Dementor and kissed the wretched thing. If the answer to his dilemma couldn't be found in a seductive potion or an alcohol filled bottle, then he was screwed, royally screwed.
The Slytherin was losing his mind, one magical neuron at a time. The tenuous grip he had on reality was failing and he felt himself slipping. His life was a jumbled mix of times and places and colliding realities. He was bloody nutters was what he was.
Draco walked out into the moonlit sitting room and collapsed onto the sofa, running a tired hand over his face before staring out into nothing. She knew. She didn't know what or why, but she knew something was wrong with him. He could see it in her eyes and hear it in her voice. He didn't need her goddamn pity. He just needed her.
What else could he do? If he slit his throat or spent the rest of his life dancing with Dementors in Azkaban, it wouldn't bring a goddamn person back to life. Yes, Draco had tried and failed to intellectualize his way out of the crippling guilt he had carried for many years, but he couldn't change his past. He was paralyzed by all the desires in his heart and all the have-nots in his head. He closed his suicidal eyes. Screw it.
"Draco?"
He startled and looked up, eyes wide and dilated. Merlin, where the hell had she come from? He didn't even hear the crack of her Apparation into his flat.
She was sitting by his side, putting her arms around him. "What's wrong? Can't sleep again?" He nodded and looked at her. She was spectacular in the moonlight, the most magnificent creature he had ever had the misfortune of stumbling across and into. Then he noticed her shimmering gossamer silk dress robes, the silver clasp in her hair and her heels.
"Where've you been?"
She smiled and shook her head. "No place." He raised an eyebrow at this as her hand ran through his platinum locks, pushing them out of his eyes.
"Really?" He took the silver clasp from her hair and watched her tresses cascade in a tumble down the side of her face.
She laughed, "No place interesting."
"Hmm…" he muttered as she kicked off her heels, crawled up on the sofa next to him and began nibbling on his neck, landing soft biting kisses down the length of his throat before stopping to rest her forehead on his chin. He watched as she snaked her arms around his neck, turned her brilliant dark eyes up at his and landed her soft, urging lips on his while brushing her elegantly clad breasts against his bare chest, the weight of her desire pressed up against him.
She tugged on his neck and whispered against his lips, "Draco." But he shook his head, turning away from the stunned witch. Was he teasing her? Ginny made a second grab for him, but he gently stayed her hand while staring her down.
When she looked up confused, he spoke, "Not until you tell me where you've been." He had no idea she even owned a set of robes of that quality. Where did she get the Galleons to buy it?
After a silent moment or two, Ginny pulled away and stared at him, surprised. "Draco, you're jealous. Aren't you?"
He snorted at her suggestion, "Don't be ridiculous." Of course he was jealous. He was out of his tenuous mind with jealousy. No, they had never said anything outright about it, but he assumed a certain exclusivity existed between the two of them. Was he mistaken? "Wherever it was, it couldn't have been much if you're here."
"It wasn't. I went to the Ministry's winter ball with Blaise. That's all."
"Zabini?" Since when had she even spoken to that rat, much less gone out on a bloody date with his former housemate?
"It wasn't a date, Draco. It was part of my job."
Really? He didn't realize the typical junior associate's job description included social activities with the company vice president.
"I didn't realize Zabini Enterprises had that kind of an entertainment budget," he murmured looking at her dress.
"Oh, you mean this thing?" she said, picking up her robes. "Blaise got this for me. He said he didn't want me to embarrass him, that's all." Wasn't that interesting? The witch had no idea she was wearing a thousand Galleon set of robes or a five hundred Galleon pair of shoes, the ones she had kicked off and tossed aside. "Yes, the shoes as well, okay?"
Draco stood in disgust and headed back to his bedroom.
"Where are you going?" she called out to his back.
"To bed."
"I thought you said you couldn't sleep."
"I can't."
Seeing her like that wasn't helping a goddamn thing. Zabini wanted to get her in the sack; either that or he wanted something worse, a relationship. He knew that rat well enough to know he would never put down that kind of money for anything else.
Ginny rushed after Draco, watching him crawl back into bed and pull up the bedcovers, facing away from her and out the window. She threw off her clothes and climbed into bed next to him, wearing nothing but her knickers.
"Draco," she pleaded softly, putting her arms around him and pulling her body flush against his, her breasts on his back, her leg in between his two. "Don't be mad. It wasn't a date, honestly. I would have told you if it was anything more than work. You know that."
"I'm not mad, Ginny. You're free to do as you like."
Over his dead and rotting corpse. No, he didn't respond to her physical gestures or her attempts to manipulate him. Draco held his body firmly in check before it burst open, sending bits and pieces of his furious flesh everywhere. What the hell could he do or say to her? Not a damn thing, that's what. He couldn't take her anywhere or give her anything or offer her a future or a family or a home. He could only live with her in the nonexistence world that ran between the edges of the Muggle and wizarding worlds. His love was a joke, his life a nightmare. With half the wizarding world out to kill him, having her in his bed wasn't the smartest idea he'd ever had.
The thought of someone like Zabini coming along and sweeping her away was more than he could tolerate. Was he going to be sick? If not Zabini, then it would be some other wizard. A witch of her quality didn't go unnoticed.
"Draco," she was leaning over him, whispering into his ear, "I love you. You know that, don't you?" He sighed as his aching heart tumbled over in a ridiculous teenage somersault. He turned over onto his back, pulling her to him.
"I know." He kissed her softly and stared at the ceiling of his torture chamber. Ginny snuggled closer to her glorious wizard and laid her head on his chest, listening to the erratic beating of his heart.
"Ginny?"
"Yes?"
"The next time you need dress robes and shoes, ask me, will you?"
He was perfectly capable of clothing his own goddamn witch, thank you very much. He didn't need Zabini buying her anything. No, he wasn't completely impotent. Just damn close.
"Of course, Draco."
"Ginny?"
"Yes?"
"The next time you need anything, ask me, alright?"
"Alright." She kissed his chin and wiggled closer.
"Draco?"
"Yes?"
"I need you."
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