Revenge

Revenge

Chapter One: Precedent

Death was imminent.

The very thrum of it could be felt beating to the exact tempo of Ginevra Weasley's footsteps as she marched down the hallway, raging fury emanating from her amber eyes like an unstoppable fire. Her hair crackled and sparked with electricity and her robes billowed behind her in a fashion that was usually associated with either a Slimy Potions Master, or the Headmaster. It was as if robes were aware of who held power; they remained tepid and limp on everyone else. Ginny's robes fairly flew.

The surrounding students all knew exactly why she was angry, of course. Secrets rarely, if ever, lasted in Hogwarts. There were too many gossips, too many eyes and ears. Even the walls could be traitors.

Ginny's boyfriend had cheated on her, with one, rightfully terrified, Daphne Greengrass.

Daphne was safely -or as safely as possible, when one was dealing with an angry Ginny- ensconced in the Slytherin dungeons, protected by those of her friends who had not yet abandoned her out of terror and the viable fear that they would be marked as enemies of the Weasley girl through their association. But Ginny was not concerned with the whereabouts of Daphne for now. Right now, she wanted revenge on him.

She snarled viciously as she stalked down the hallway, her hand fisted over her wand and her other hand squeezed so tightly into a ball that her fingernails drew little crescent moons of blood from her palm.

How dare he? Her nostrils flared, and she took on an uncanny resemblance to a wolf. Her eyes narrowed into slits and she inhaled sharply through her nose, almost as if she was testing the air for his scent. As she spun into the next corridor, her pace quickened and her feet started to slap the floor loudly, like she was trying to call as much attention to herself as she could. She wanted people to see this.

Finally, she ended up in the Great Hall, and found it scattered with students, all of whom looked up anxiously at her entrance. She made her way to the Gryffindor table, shoving a petulant third year out of her way as she zoned in on her quarry.

Ron, her traitorous brother, stood up with his hands held out in a motion of surrender. He moved his hands through the air, towards her shoulders, like he wanted to restrain her. He wasn't surrendering, he wanted to placate her.

“Ginny,” he began, using his most authoritative tone, “let's just calm down for a minute-”

“Get out of the way.” she snapped, impatient. She made to move past him, but his hands found her upper arms and he gripped her hard.

“Gin, listen,” he tried again, his voice sounding strained. She yanked her arms from his grip, almost hitting him in the nose with her elbow.

“Get out of my way!”

Over his shoulder, she could see the black hair and the glint of glasses of the boy who had so completely duped her. Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Was-About-To-Be-Killed-By-A-Seventeen-Year-Old-Female.

Hermione, equally traitorous in her act of protection, had her one hand resting firmly on Ron's shoulder, and the other lightly reassuring Harry. Ginny began to see red.

She had only found out about his 'indescretion' all of seven minutes ago, and already it seemed like the Harry Potter she had been in love with had never existed. The Trio she had never truly been a part of had become, almost instantaneously, a cement wall against her. Impenetrable, implacable, immovable. They were a separate entity that would never be a part of her, a single being that was untouchable, and something that she didn't really want to explore any longer.

She forced her way past Ron and found herself at last in front of Harry. He looked up at her with an expression she knew all too well. The kind of patronizing regret she had always hated; the kind of look she used to get from her older brothers when they would tell her that, no, she couldn't come play quidditch, because, yes, she was too little. She was too young to understand.

It was the look that set her apart from them as the girl who was to be loved and coddled but never included.

Well, she would show them. She would make them regret ever having excluded her. They would regret treating her as though she was too dumb to understand.

They would rue the day that they had shunned Ginevra Molly Weasley.

She didn't even need her wand to send them the most powerful Bat Bogey Hex any of them had ever seen. Had she used her wand, and spoken the incantation out loud, there would probably be no Trio left. As it was, even without the incantation and the wand channel, they were buried so deeply beneath a pile of slimy, fluttery bat bogeys that it would take at least a week for them to recover.

She spat on the pile, as if it would make them any filthier, and turned on her heel. The entire way back to her dorm room she was muttering under her breath, sending mutinous glares at any who dared ask her if she was alright, or, heaven forbid, actually reach out a hand to stop her for any unbeknown reason.



Once firmly locked in the dorm room, she began to seethe openly, flinging her robe across the room, kicking her bed, pummeling her pillow with her fists, and sending such a vicious blow with her foot to her trunk, the big box flipped over and the contents sprawled onto the floor. What had been the at the bottom of the trunk was now near the top, and Ginny found herself face to face with a top which had been severely grown out of, and a brilliant idea popped into her head.

It was time for a makeover.

She grinned manically. When her dorm mate, Sterling, came in a moment later, she stopped at the door with an expression of pure shock.

“Ginny! What are you doing?”

Her clothes were now strew across the bed, and Ginny was taking her wand to them methodically, shrinking and cutting and adjusting each article to be smaller and tighter. She transfigured several skirts into sheath skirts and a blouse into a dress so formfitting that there would be absolutely nothing left to the imagination when Ginny wore it.

Sterling sat dumbly on her bed. Perhaps she should get help?

Ginny had certainly never had a meltdown before, but she supposed there was a first time for everything. Was this the end of Ginny Weasley? Was this foreign girl here to stay? A strip of fabric flew across the air and the smell of burning cotton reached her nose.

This wasn't going to be pretty.




Sterling was wrong. It was going to be marvelous. It was going to be shocking.

When Ginny unveiled her first step in absolutely getting over the Golden Trio the next morning, there was a feeling of jaw dropping awe throughout the Great Hall.

She looked amazing.

She had done her hair in big waves that fell well past her shoulder blades to the tucked in waist which was now accentuated more than it had been before. Her crisp white blouse was tucked in to a high waist skirt that sculpted its way around the soft flare of her hips and down to the narrowing of her silhouette just below her mid thigh. She had somehow managed to get hold of a brilliant, thick black belt with a shiny oversized buckle and it made her waist seem like it wasn't even there. Her legs seemed to be miles long. Her neck was elegant and pretty, and her dewy skin was pale and pinkened with the attention currently being sent her direction.

Somehow, no one had noticed just how slim and fit she was. Somehow, the male population had failed to see just how tall and luxe and glamorous she was, when she had just been the hanger on to the Trio, and under the protection of Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. But now that she had been so obviously shunned and cast aside, every single male had his eyes fixed firmly on Ginny Weasley.

And the eyes which held the most interest, the most hunger, belonged to Draco Malfoy.




Just when had the little Weasley grown so- so gorgeous? He licked his lips. Suddenly his mouth felt very dry.

He was attracted. He was drawn, like she was the only pool of water for miles and miles. From her hesitant place near the door, she glanced towards his table, and saw him looking at her. Her cheeks flushed a pretty pink, and her delectable mouth quirked into a half smile. He moved down the bench and motioned to the room he had just made. She raised her eyebrow and he grinned salaciously. She shrugged her delicate shoulders almost imperceptibly and made her way over to his part of the table.

A hush fell over the room, and each of her footfalls were audible on the cold stone floor. She seemed to grow more confident with the pressure of everyone watching her. Her shoulders drew back and her spine straightened. She smirked.

“Hello, Malfoy,” she said when she reached him. She placed a fine boned hand on his shoulder and used him to sit down. Her skirt was too tight to get her legs over the bench, so she didn't try. She sat with her back to the table, and the rest of the school, and faced him, folding one knee over the other.

Instantly, the hush dissipated and an excited murmur shot through the students.

“Hello, Weasley,” Draco said. He pulled her hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles, every inch the aristocratic gentleman he was bred to be. Suave to the core.

She inclined her head, not out of submission, but out of mockery.

She leaned in, and he could hear her breaths, smell her perfume. “So,” she breathed. “Would you like to make Harry Potter angry?”

“Are you part of the bargain?” said Draco, drawling his words just enough that he sounded more seductive than he felt. She smiled, and her eyes sparked with humor and mischief.

“I might be.” she told him.

“Then definitely.” he put a hand on her thigh; low enough that she wouldn't feel uncomfortable, but high enough that the rest of the people in the hall saw the possessiveness of his action. She put a hand over his and squeezed it.

“Good.” She looked in his eyes. “Kiss me.”

And so, never one to refuse such a direct order from a lady, he did.



Death could wait. She had never felt this thrill of exhilaration before. She had never been this brazen; this shameless. She could practically hear the condemning looks that she knew Harry and Ron and Hermione were sending her. And she didn't care.

The freedom was intoxicating. His hands on her were intoxicating. His other hand ran in lazy circles over her back and her neck and then to the side of her face, tangling in her hair and his thumb brushing her jaw bone so softly that she had to arch her neck to feel any contact between their skin. '

He was clearly a master at this. Draco Malfoy. Sex God. Sexy, sexy beast.

His eyes, when she had caught his gaze- they had sent shivers down her spine like someone had dropped an ice cube down her shirt. Cold grey, molten steel illuminated by desire. Her belly had tightened convulsively and she had had to squeeze her hands into fists again to retain a reasonable train of thought.

His tongue slipped between her lips and traced the rim. He came up for air and breathed heavily against her cheek, “Go to Hogsmeade with me?”

“Absolutely,” she breathed back. And then he was kissing her again, devouring her, tasting her lips, her skin, her tongue. She could smell the fresh scent of mint and lemon on his skin, invigorating.

Finally, they broke apart. Their lips were swollen and her hair was tangled and knotted. His shirt was crinkled.

She wiped the back of her hand as nonchalantly as she was able across her mouth, dragging the now nearly rubbed off lipstick she had applied so carefully that morning with it.

She gave him a saucy wink and snatched a piece of bacon from his plate. Standing, she turned to look at him once more, and just before she bit into the meat, she said, “Hogsmeade. See you around, Draco.”

And then she left.

One glance over the rest of the hall told her that her work here was finished. The Trio's mouths were hanging open like a giant, collective fish, and Ron's dangerous shade of puce meant that she had no more than ten minutes to escape and barricade herself in her bedroom. Harry was an unusual shade of mottled pink that she had not seen him wear before, and she guessed that he would be joining Ron in their attempted hassling. Hermione looked equal parts disgusted and intrigued.

Ginny blew a kiss in their direction, and then left the hall.

Damn, she was good

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Revenge

Chapter Two: Dangerous

He wandered the corridors for over an hour before he remembered that he was supposed to be in Transfiguration. His lips still retained the almost painful feeling reminiscent of hot coals, tingling and shooting off sparks when he thought of their kiss. Everywhere her hands had met his skin - his neck, his back, his arms - cool shivers and goose bumps. It was a peculiar feeling. Even after seventeen years, Draco had never before found anyone irresistible enough to feel so needy.

Although her taint regarding making Potter angry had been the sole thought in his mind when he had decided to kiss her, the instant their skin connected, his thoughts mercifully died a quick death, and there had been no lingering thoughts of the Boy Who Sucked running rampant through his brain. No, she had been like a drug, wiping him blank but for pure bliss and unadulterated joy.

Of course, when the other Slytherin's came asking, which they were sure to do, in about twenty minutes, to be precise, making the Chosen Boy's life a little bit more awful by stealing his girlfriend would be the first thing to escape his lips.

Lips.

Oh, God, her velvety soft lips, so sweet in their caress-

He sounded like a swot.

But her drug like effects seemed to be holding. For over an hour, not one memory of the war came upon him unannounced, and for once, he was able to concentrate. On absolutely nothing at all. And it was marvellous.

***

Ginny had rather shocked herself.

She had always recognized that there was a glimmer of the brazen in her; a light reminder of her year with Tom. She had used to be afraid of that part of herself; had been for many years. Partly because to some extent there was a war going on inside her, between the sweet little innocent part of her, and the darker, more sinful side. But mostly because of her family- because as much as she knew her family loved her, she wasn't sure just how they would take to having a daughter filled with thoughts and ideas and desires inspired by the only very recently dead Lord Voldemort.

It wasn't as though she was going to become the next Dark Lord (or Lady, as it were) or anything; of course not. But she couldn't deny that while before Tom she had been innocent, subtle as a kettle, and dumb as a post, she was now in possession of the sly, intelligent qualities that tom had taught her through misfortunate experience.

Simply put, Ginny, like Tom, was dangerous to any who crossed her, albeit in a slightly different way. For example, Harry Potter and his dim-witted followers (perhaps Hermione was not so dim-witted as the others, but she was far too `good' and `pure' to expect anything.) they would do well to watch themselves, and not to underestimate Ginny.

So, to really test her newfound comfort with her `Dark Side', she was planning a little exhibitionism in the Great Hall during dinner.

As it was Friday, uniforms were not necessary after the final class of the day. She had already slightly broken the rule by wearing a muggle outfit to breakfast that morning, the school was simply too shocked to call her on it. And when a prefect had come up afterwards to deduct points, Ginny had run away before she'd had the chance.

The muggleborn students had been using the weekends as a letdown time and to wear their `muggle clothes' for eons, often to the shock of the traditional pureblood families, who, before integration with their fellow students, had never even heard of `trousers'.

With the help of Sterling and some of her less flashy fashion magazines, Ginny had managed to throw together a sexy new wardrobe that based on his reaction to her earlier, more conservative outfit, Draco would truly appreciate. This, of course, was her goal.

She had known Harry for six years, and she had known him well, through Ron's experience of him as well as her own. She knew that he would never regret something lost unless it was lost to someone he couldn't stand: Voldemort, Snape, Lucius, Draco…

And so, as she had decided that morning on a whim, she was going to make Harry regret his actions, and even more, the loss of her friendship. And she was going to use Draco to do it. She would win this war.

After all, it wasn't as if Draco would object.

***

Damn, he hoped she'd do it again, Draco thought idly, as he ran his fingers over his lips for the seventy-ninth time that afternoon, as distracted as he had been all day.

***

For the second time that day, Sterling stood in the dormitory she shared with Ginny and watched with equal parts fascination and concern as her friend rampaged around the room.

“I told you you should wear the green dress already,” Sterling pointed out as another outfit flew across the room to land in a careless heap on her bed.

“I know, but-,” Ginny panted as she struggled to remove a pair of skin tight jeans, “-it didn't feel dramatic enough!”

“Dramatic enough? What exactly are you hoping for? You're already going to Hogsmeade with him tomorrow, isn't that Drama enough for the Trio? They won't know whether to strangle and disown you or follow you!”

“I know, but the dress didn't feel like it was living up to the precedent of the skirt.”

“Ginny, you can't have a precedent already; it's only been eight hours!”

“Whatever,” Ginny said stubbornly.

“Fine,” Sterling sighed with aggravation, “wear this.”

She went to Ginny's closet and hauled out a pair of high waist pin trousers and a daring little gold blouse with flared sleeves and a collar that dipped low enough to reveal the very tips of Ginny's lacy black bra, without being overly trashy. She tossed out a pair of pumps and some dangly earrings and scowled fiercely until Ginny put them on.

The overall effect was posh elegance, which Sterling privately thought Draco would appreciate more than the trashy glam look Ginny seemed to be leaning towards. It was always better to ooze class than easiness, as Sterling's mother had always said. At least, she had until she'd run off with the bin man.

Perhaps it was better not to dwell on such things.

When Ginny finished her hair and Sterling pulled on her own clothes, they went to the common room, intending only to pass through and continue down to the Great Hall. But Sterling ran smack into the back of one rather large and imposing Harry Potter.

“Sorry,” she muttered quickly, trying to escape before he saw Ginny but it was too late. He turned around to apologize but saw his ex-girlfriend standing a little bit behind her. Sterling watched with light amusement as his eyes widened and his pupils dilated to the point that the emerald of his eyes was largely disappeared. While she was waiting for the drool to start dripping from his lips Ron noticed his friends gaze and turned to follow it, seeing Ginny.

Please don't make a scene, Sterling thought fervently, save it-.

“Ginny!” Ron exclaimed, anger flushing around his collar, “What the hell are you wearing?”

The common room, predictably, went quiet. Fights were a commonly watched and eagerly awaited thing around Hogwarts, and Weasley fights were the best. Sterling would have rolled her eyes at the predictability of the stupid Gryffindor's, but held in the urge.

“Nothing; shut up Ronald,” said Ginny, her voice clipped. She marched off in the direction of the portrait hole, looking every inch the blithely unconcerned female, but Sterling could see the girls tightly clenched fists at her side.

“I know it's nothing! Ginny, go change, or- or-; I'll write to mum!” Ron continued on, gaining pomp as he went. “And about that Malfoy thing! That was just disgusting, I'll bet she'd love to hear about that, now wouldn't she?”

Ginny slowly turned around, a tiny smile playing about her lips. “She already knows,” she said simply, and then she continued her exit of the common room.

Ron gaped and deflated like a freshly popped balloon, recognizing that, if Mum already knew, he had nothing left to use as leverage.

Sterling did roll her eyes, and then followed the youngest Weasley ever to snog a Malfoy to the Great Hall.

***

“It was bound to happen sometime,” Sterling told her. “You share a common room, you can't just not see him ever!”

“I can avoid them,” Ginny insisted, growing annoyed. She emphasized the word `them', lest Sterling think she was hung up on Harry and a mess because of it. Because she wasn't.

Quite the opposite. Even in the space of a day, she had gone from being outraged and rightly furious to highly annoyed, yet lightly amused.

It stung that he should think so lowly of her friendship to do such a thing as kiss Daphne Greengrass (or at least, that's what she assumed they did, she wasn't quite sure quite how far they got.), and then lie. It hurt that while she had been serious about their relationship, he obviously hadn't shared her respect. It cut her that even when he was in the wrong, he still patronized her.

But she didn't feel like killing him anymore. She just wanted to hurt him a little, like he had hurt her. She wanted him to feel used and dirty. She wanted to make him sad.

But she would never be able to go through with it. She could thrust the knife in Harry's chest, but when it came right down to it, she couldn't twist it. She couldn't make him scream with agony.

Not because she loved him.

But because she didn't.

He never broke her heart, but she knew exactly how to crush his. She knew exactly what to say, exactly what to tell him to make sure he would never be quite the same again. And a lesser, more spiteful girl would do it. But Ginny wasn't spiteful, or hateful. She was vengeful, but she wasn't cruel.

And so she would let him go, because he hadn't really damaged her. She would let him off with just a little revenge.

“Ginny?” Sterling said, hesitancy in her voice. Ginny looked up and realized that Sterling had been prodding her for some time now.

“Sorry,” she mumbled. “Daydreaming.” She looked around and realized that Sterling had hauled her off into an old empty classroom near the Great Hall.

“What exactly is your plan?” Sterling said, rolling her eyes.

“Plan?”

“Yes, plan. Plan - what is your plan?” She snapped her fingers in front of Ginny's face.

“Oh. Well, I was just going to wing it.”

“Wing it?” Sterling demanded incredulously. “Don't you even have some sort of basic outline down?”

“A bit. Go in, sit with Malfoy, snog him, renew plans for Hogsmeade,” Ginny said.

Sterling let out a strangled cough.

“You will never be any good at subterfuge. I don't think being an auror is the best career choice for you.”

Ginny shrugged.

“At least make it look like the Trio made you do it,” she said, shaking her head.

“I can do that,” Ginny said, and then she giggled.

***

The effect of Ginny's entrance on the male population of Hogwarts was much the same as that morning, except for the fact that this time they were somewhat more prepared to be shocked.

They had been used to skirts on girls, as they had essentially been wearing very long skirts themselves over pants for centuries. Witches, however, at least from traditional Pureblood families, had been living in a pre-WW1 muggle clothing era for centuries. Pants on a woman were shocking.

Jeans, the students of Hogwarts had almost managed to handle on girls. Almost. A boy still occasionally got hot `round the collar when a muggleborn girl strolled by, much to the entertainment of the muggleborn boys, but, in general, the fainting spells had passed.

But never before had any of those boys who had been so shocked seen anything like Ginny Weasleys legs sheathed by a pair of trousers like these.

Mile high slim legs.

Fantasies abounded.

One young Hufflepuff even brought back the fainting.

Ginny Weasley was in the building.

***

Harry had often thought about what life would feel like if he weren't himself; the savior of the Wizarding World. Would it be better, or worse? Perhaps his relationships would go easier.

But, it was pointless to digress and try to fool himself into thinking that his status would be changing any time soon. He was who he was, and he would never, short of a dangerous spell or two, be anyone different. And as his life went on, he was finding that he was alright with it.

But when Ginny walked into the Great Hall that evening, he had a taste of what his life would be like if he were someone lesser. Someone invisible.

She laughed her way over to the Gryffindor table, brushing off comments and lascivious attempts at flirting from some of the braver boys, making her way to where the Trio sat. She did not glance at Harry. Not even once.

“Hello, Hermione,” she said, her smile like a small sun in his line of vision. His heart clenched and he was reminded why he had fallen for her to begin with. Why he had fallen in love with her.

Hermione was confused, Harry could see, unsure what to do. Stay loyal to Ron and Harry and say nothing, or give in to common courtesy's demands and say hello back? Her inherent genius had not prepared her for this stupid feud.

And it was stupid.

Finally, Hermione gave in and smiled back, a small smile, but a smile nonetheless. Ron looked furious.

He interrupted, just as Hermione was about to say hello back and invite Ginny to sit with them. Harry was glad he did.

“Go away, Ginny. You can't sit here until you apologize.” Ron said, his fists clenched on the table.

“Oh?” Ginny said, her smile fading a little into one more bitter and annoyed. “And is this opinion shared by the lot of you?” she asked, her voice light despite the tense words.

“Yes,” Ron said tightly. Hermione looked rather shocked at him, and Harry felt a little bit annoyed himself with Ron, for an inexplicable reason. Which was ridiculous, because he had no claim on Ginny anymore. He had given her up, hadn't he?

“Alright then.” Ginny smiled again. “It was nice chatting with you, Hermione.” She waved and looked towards the Slytherin table, where Draco looked at her with welcoming lust in his eyes. Harry found his own hands hardening into fists. Draco sodding Malfoy.

She waltzed down the hallway with very little care for what everyone around her was saying and made her way to the far table, where Draco was again budging up to make room for her.

Unlike this morning she was not wearing overly restrictive clothing, and so instead of sitting with her back to Harry and Ron and Hermione, she straddled the bench so the three of them could see the side of her smiling face as she leaned in to receive a peck on her cheek by the Slytherin Bugger.

Harry knew then exactly what it would be like to be treated as someone normal, someone mundane. He had been thrown over, by the very girl he had cheated on to encourage interest.

His stupid plan had blown up in his face.

And, he thought with sickness churning in his belly as Ginny moved in for a good snog, Draco Malfoy was reaping the benefits.

How could she?

Draco Sodding Malfoy.

Harry threw up in his Shepherds Pie.

How was that for mundane?

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Revenge

Chapter Three: Action

“I can not believe you just did that…” Hermione said, looking ill.

“Yeah,” Ron seconded, “That's even more disgusting than Ginny snogging the Greasy Slimeball in front of the whole school.”

Harry swallowed down another of his stomachs attempts to embarrass him. As he slapped a hand over his mouth Hermione whacked Ron on the arm with a monstrosity of a textbook that probably weighed a good twenty pounds.

“What?!” Ron demanded.

She hit him again. “That's what made him sick in the first place, you dolt!”

Ron suddenly cottoned on. “OH!” he exclaimed. “So I shouldn't tell him that Draco has his hands in my sister's -" Ron suddenly turned almost as green as Harry and spun in his seat so that his back faced the entire scene. He buried his face in his hands and struggled, as Harry was doing, not to return the contents of his stomach to the his plate. Hermione rolled her eyes.

“Honestly.” She sniped. “Obviously she's just trying to get back at you Harry, by putting her hands all over Malfo - er, well. Don't look, Ronald.”

“Obviously,” replied Harry, ignoring her last remark. “I think it might be working. I feel awful.”

“No, you feel ill. If you felt awful, you would apologize.” Hermione corrected him primly. “And it's just as well that you feel sick. Anyone would, if they were you. It was a very low thing you did, Harry.”

Ron snorted. “As low as snogging Malfoy?”

“I would never snog Malfoy.” Harry said automatically.

“I should bloody well hope not!”

Harry turned pink.

“You have! Haven't you?!” Ron burst out, triumphant and disgusted at the same time.

“What? No!” Harry yelled, quite a bit louder than he had intended to. A friend of Ginny's with long white blonde hair turned and looked at him with an expression of bewildered amusement. Harry tried to sneer, but without the practice that Malfoy had, it looked more like he had smelled something awful than anything frightening.

“Well, what did you blush for then?” Ron whispered fiercely, and then looked at Harry curiously, taking on an uncanny resemblance to a detective, seeing him for the first time. “You aren't a poofter, are you?”

“No, I am not a poofter!” Again, Harry had not intended to make his voice quite so loud. Ron raised an eyebrow at him, not entirely convinced.

“If you're sure,” he said. And then he went back to eating the mountain of scrambled eggs he still had on his plate.

Harry groaned and threw his head into his folded arms. This was definitely not his favourite day.

***

“Is he watching?” Ginny whispered in Draco's ear, just before nibbling on his earlobe. As soon as she caught his skin with her teeth he shivered violently. She tried not to giggle. It was quite a power rush, making the Slytherin Sex God anything less than completely composed.

“Yes. He's watching. Wait, no- he's turned around. Oh my God that's revolting!” he spat. She had just traced the outer ridge of his ear with the tip of her tongue, and a deep blush crept over her collarbone. She had gone too far, too soon. Now what? What -

His hands pushed her back a little bit and he whispered into her ear. “Don't look now, but the Boy Wonder just got sick all over the Gryffindor table. I think it's working.” He nipped her ear like she had done his.

She shivered just as violently as he had, before his words registered and her head whipped around before she could stop herself. “What did you say?”

Harry was sitting forlornly at the table, staring at his plate - and mess - while everyone in the immediate area were leaping to their feet and trying to escape as fast as they could. Once everyone was far enough to be out of scent range, Hermione crawled onto the table and cast a quick scourgify, her nose held closed with her fingers for good measure. After deeming it safe, the rest of them slowly crept back to their seats, throwing very dirty looks at Harry the whole while.

Ginny couldn't help it. She tried valiantly not to laugh, but there was no stopping the massive, diaphragm wracking urge that was creeping up her throat. She laughed until the beginnings of tears formed in the corners of her eyes, resting her forehead against Draco's collarbone to keep herself up. She could feel a light laugh emanating from his torso as well, but he didn't find it nearly so amusing as she did. When her sides were hurting too much to laugh any more, she sat up straight and looked at Draco again. His eyebrows were raised into a mocking gesture reminiscent of arrogance, but he didn't look put off by her, which was a relief. She had feared she had overdone it a little bit, but growing up with the twins had meant that her ability to laugh loud and long was untainted and completely fresh.

She suspected that Draco didn't laugh enough.

“Sorry. Is he looking again” she asked.

He glanced out of the corner of his eye and nodded very slightly.

“Oh. Okay then.” She pushed herself closer to him on the bench and grabbed a fistful of his hair, twining her fingers through it, overjoyed that it was long enough to do this, and pulled his face closer to her own. His hands travelled slowly up her arms, one slipping beneath her elbow to snake around her back and trace her spine and the other reaching her neck and rubbing small circles lightly into her skin. When her lips caught his, a feverish burning began in the pit of her belly and spread over her like she was being submersed in a river of floo fire and she loved it.

His tongue swept expertly around the outline of her mouth, darting closer and closer to the crease and then finally his fingers left her neck and he used a thumb to prod her mouth open. She had never had a boy do this before, and found that instead of finding it too much, she quite liked it. She nipped at his thumb but let it stay, flicking it with her tongue when his own retreated for a second.

Her hand other than the one in his hair came from the bench and grabbed at the hand he held to her face, clenching it and placing it at the base of her throat, spreading his fingers until they covered almost her whole shoulder and part of her chest. His hands were huge!

A few frenzied minutes later, she remembered that while she wanted Harry to be distraught, she did not want to go at it with Draco Malfoy on the Slytherin table in the Great Hall. Actually, she was surprised that no teachers had noticed yet. She came up for another breath.

“Draco,” she said, shivering again when he moved his hungry mouth down her cheek to her jaw, and from her jaw to the hollow just below her ear.

“Draco,” she said again, trying to push him away. He ignored her, moving down her neck to her collar bone.

“Draco!” She said, a little bit louder. She slapped his hands away and grabbed a bunch of his hair again to move his head back to her eyelevel.

“Draco, that's enough for one day, I think.” She told him sternly, smiling at his almost crestfallen face.

“You think? There's always room to change your mind,” he smirked, leaning in again. One of his hands traveled down her spine to the start of her waistband.

“No, Draco.” She swatted his hand away. “Besides, you get as much snogging as you want tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Hogsmeade,” she reminded him.

“Oh. Right.” He grinned, the most lascivious grin she had ever seen, sending a chill from the nape of her neck to the tips of her toes. “Good. Snogging.”

She held in the eye rolling. “Well, I'll see you tomorrow, Draco. And thanks.” She winked as she swung her leg over the bench. As she was walking away she muttered to herself. Oh my God, I am such a hussy.

But then she smiled. Being a hussy wasn't always a bad thing, was it?

***

The next morning

The first Hogsmeade morning of the year dawned as crisp and beautiful as it ever had, a cool breeze gently blowing the autumn leaves to rest on the ground in a display of color rivalled only by the brightly pigmented paint on an artist's palate. Ginny looked out of her dormitory window and noticed none of this, seeing only the very tips of the Hogsmeade house spires in the distance over the tops of the unforbidden forest across the lake, and feeling something vaguely resembling nervousness somewhere in the region of her chest.

Of course, it was absolutely pointless to be nervous. Of course nothing was going to happen. Of course, Ginny had never gone on a date with someone she hadn't been friends with for a good long while first. Of course, what she and Draco were doing had absolutely nothing to do with friendship, and so of course she was a bit nervous.

Anything could happen.

She shook her head to clear it. It was time to get ready.

While she had never been the sort of girl to care overly much about how she looked, she found that she was slowly sinking into the stereotypical half of girls who lay awake the night before a particular event agonizing over the perfect outfit for said event.

She had gotten almost no sleep, completely torn between jeans or a cute skirt. Looking out the window helped none, because while it was perfectly warm enough to warrant showing a little bit more skin, it was also cool enough to wear jeans.

A noise of disgust escaped her throat and she spun from the window in frustration.

“Jeans!” she said finally, making up her mind. She nodded to herself. “Jeans are good. Those nice ones I made…” she turned towards the showers. “ But a skirt would be really cute. Especially that little black one - with a nice sweater…” She balled her hands into fists in her hair. “But what if we want to do some walking or something? Jeans!” She nodded again. “Especially as it's Draco. Wouldn't trust him `round a skirt even if he were twenty feet away. Probably spell it off or something,” she mumbled. “Jeans.”

“Are you alright, Ginny?” Sterling called groggily from her bed.

“Yeah, go back to sleep.”

She gathered her shower things and headed off to the sixth year showers, passing the sleeping forms of the rest of her dorm mates.

As she showered she considered just what she had gotten herself into. A mess, obviously. But truly, she thought, this mess contained lots and lots of really fantastic snogging.

She hadn't really thought about how important snogging was to a relationship. As Harry had been awful at it, she supposed she hadn't missed anything. But after snogging Draco Malfoy, and in front of the whole school, no less, she could understand how it would cement the attraction and feelings of two people otherwise only halfway inclined. And how snogging could bring about confusing feelings from a person who before said snogging had absolutely no inclination towards the other person. Like her confusing thoughts of Draco Malfoy.

Which brought about another potential problem. If she had already snogged the best snogger around, who was left to snog? She puzzled over that as she conditioned her hair.

If when she was with Harry, she simply hadn't known what she was missing, well that was one thing. But if she now knew exactly what she had been missing because of snogging that to which all other snogs would now be compared, how exactly would she ever be able to go through with another relationship and not be completely dissatisfied everytime the poor bloke leaned in for a kiss? What could she do?

Obliviation was one option. Once the whole debacle with Draco was finally over and Harry had justly received his dues, she could memory charm away all memories of the absolutely delightful snogs she had received via Draco Malfoy.

But memory charms were well known to be fragile and even at the best of times difficult. She could end up like Gilderoy Lockhart and stuck inside a mind that she didn't recognize. No, obliviation was best left to professionals. And she didn't think `the snogs were too good' would be reason enough for a professional to lend his services.

She could search for a better snog. She could go around or set up a kissing booth or something disguised as a charity thing and rope in the boy who had the best kisser. Or she could simply wear a sign round her neck saying `free snogs!' and go with the boy who was the best.

But no, she was already getting labelled `easy' and `hussy', and if the best snogger out there had any morals to speak of, he wouldn't be caught dating a bimbo. No, that wouldn't work either.

She refused to live life knowing what the best felt like and not having it.

She turned off the shower.

No.

She would simply have to keep Malfoy.

***

An hour or so later a small eagle owl came to peck at Ginny's window, a small note in its beak. After letting it in and giving it a treat, she tore open the note, which she found was from Draco.

Good morning, Miss Weasley.

What time should you like to meet at the Entrance? I await your pleasure.

And your mouth.

Draco Malfoy.

She nearly choked but saved herself. Good Lord, he was a snarky bastard, wasn't he?

She folded the note over and pulled a quill from her school bag.

Half nine, Mr. Malfoy.

I will see your snogging appendage at the stairs.

She gave it to the owl and sent him off, before hurrying to haul on her jeans. They were frightfully tight but they made her bum look good, and so she didn't mind overly much.

She had just finished her hair when the owl appeared at her window again, the same note in his beak.

His reply was written underneath her own in his elegant scrawl.

My appendage awaits.

She snorted.

Keep your pecker in your pants, Malfoy. Snogging only.

She sent it back to him, and with a light spritz of some perfume she was ready. She grabbed her purse and she made her way to the entrance. At the top of the stairs stood her `date', dressed to be dashing and rakish in a pair of charcoal grey trousers and a cream coloured shirt, his hair tousled and lightly curling over the collar of his black jacket.

“Miss Weasley,” he said, holding out his hand when he saw her.

“Mr. Malfoy.” She giggled. He took her hand and kissed her knuckles, somehow managing to extract the same amount of shivery goose bumps from the simple graze of his lips across her knuckles as he did from snogging her senseless.

Oh yes, Draco Malfoy wasn't going anywhere.

-->

It was quickly evident that Draco's legs were much longer than Ginny's. It was also discovered that he was the sort of odious person who, if going somewhere, sees no point in not getting there as quickly as possible. Clearly, “strolling” was not in his vocabulary.

Ginny began to forsee the difficulties almost as soon as they left the steps of the castle entrance, whereupon his long legs ate up the ground, his robes billowing around his legs and flipiong past her own ankles as she struggled to keep up with him. She was forced to do a sort of half jog just to match his stride, and even then, the whole ordeal was so awkward, she had to grab his sleeve and haul him back to a normal speed after three minutes. He looked aggreived, but relented.

The walk to Hogsmeade was not so very far - only a half hour with evenly paced steps, and twenty minutes if one was in a hurry. The trail was wide and led around the Black Lake, through a small corner of the Black Forest, and over a hill drenched with scottish grass, scraggly bushes and clusters of grey rock. It appeared to Ginny, as one of the first of the school year to make use of it, that the path had recently undergone a transformation. Someone had weeded the little road and had spread a fine layer of wood chips over it, scenting the air with newly cut cedar and creating a pleasant little area for students to walk safely beneath the boughs of trees, away from dangerous plants, or the small twigs that liked to claw at children's feet as they walked through the territory of the forest.

She found herself eminently glad that she had chosen to wear jeans, however, no matter how tight they were, as the chill in the air was biting and not nearly so friendly as it had appeared from her dormitory window. The sun did not quite strain all the way through the thickly entertwined branches over their heads, and the shadows brought an instinctive chill which could not be spelled away or chased off with more layers of clothing. Ginny found herself inching closer and closer to Draco's arm, trying to steal some heat away from his body even though she was a foot away, ignoring the fact that she knew very well the cold was all in her head, and that the actual atmosphere was only a degree or so colder than it was in the sunshine. Oppressive, long endured shadow, though, was hard to shake off, and Draco's arm looked more and more inviting as the path wore on.

Finally, after many ill fated attempts at subtlety, Draco grumbled and reached over, hauling her to his side and wrapping his arm tightly around her shoulders, slowing his furious pace to her own speed. “Are you warm now?” he demanded, ignoring the gross misplacement of his manners and glaring. At her surprised eyes he softened his tone. “You could have just said that you were cold, you know. You didn't have to try and be all sneaky and get closer and closer without actually -”

He grumbled again and looked ahead, leaving Ginny to figure out what on earth he was talking about. She shook her head and decided to leave his confusing statements behind, instead reaching around and grabbing the length of his thick black cloak, pulling it around own body, over his arm, so that it covered the both of them sufficiently. She stuck the end of the fabric in his empty hand for him to hold and looked at him archly. “I'm cold.” she announced. He raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

Walking in such a way soon became awkward, as she was leaning into him when her arm was in the way, so to remedy it, she saw no other option - short of getting cold again - but to wrap her arm around his waist, so that their hips brushed as they went along and she was close enough to feel his warmth radiate from his skin. He looked at her oddly again but, again, said nothing.

Eventually, they reached the village. They were among the first to arrive and the town was almost entirely devoid of students, instead deriving the bustle of activity from villagers and tourists from out of the area. Soon enough, a steady trickle of black cloaks would eclipse the hill and the regular shoppers would take shelter in their homes, well used to the usual devastation upon the collective psyche of the small town after the Hogwarts students traipsed through their usually calm, collected streets.

“Where would you like to go first?” Draco asked, as they passed underneath the wrought iron sign that proclaimed their official entry into the village.

“Well,” she said, “I could use a visit to Quality Quidditch. I need some new gloves. Mine are ghastly.” She laughed under her breath - as if Draco would even know what she was talking about, he hadn't owned an article of ratty clothing in his entire life. In fact, she was willing to bet that, since the Malfoys had re-won their fortune, Draco had not worn any of his clothing more than once. She would even go so far as to say that he burned it after wearing it, so as to prevent anyone from copying or stealing his style ideas.

Ginny looked at her own transfigured clothes, refusing to feel embarassed that, underneath a tightly woven layer of magic, she was in fact earing a ragged old pyjama top and a pair of ratty shorts grown out of two years prior. She was quite proud of her handiwork, but was not very endeared to Draco's state of monetary affluence and limitlessness, unless, of course, he was prepared to ignore it and join her in her quest for quidditch gloves without a single mention of money.

“I could use some seeker gloves, actually.” he said. “Let's go.” He held out his arm for her and she took it, careful not to dwell on the fact that his bicep was bulging beneath her fingertips, or that he now had a sort of strutting stride, holding his head up straight and his spine stiff like he was a peacock. And, if he was the peacock, she was the feathers. She laughed again under her breath.

They crossed the street, his grip unyielding but gentle. She could very well see why so many of the other girls in her year found him so devastating - his firmnes was enough to make her feel lightly presured but not in the usual, brusque way of so many boys her age. He was soft enough that her stomach could flutter without her brain telling her to stop being an idiot.

They stepped over the cobblestones, to where the gleaming Quality Quidditch stood as a dark, polished mahogony front amongst cheery, bright colored stores. The window was gleaming and the store name was printed onto the window with gold leaf and again, smaller, over the door. A bell rung when the entered, and instantly, a slimy looking shopkeeper made his presence known. They tried to avoid him and just go straight to the glove shelf, but he followed them and cleared his throat until they were forced to acknowledge him. They were the only customers in the store, and Ginny began to regret not waiting for more people to go in with them, so that the shopkeepers undivided attention would not be focussed entirely on the two of them.

“Madam,” he said, inclining his head. Draco had ducked somewhere behind the shelf and was busy laughing silently at her from the ground. “Are you finding everything to your liking?”

“Quite,” Ginny drawled, in a pretty good impression of Draco.

“Do you require any assistance?” he enquired. Ginny didn't miss the slightly patronizing tone.

“No,” she said, growing annoyed. She had always hated salespeople. And, usually, the feeling was mutual, since she so very rarely had any money.

He bowed and clicked his heels together.

He was about to return to his desk when Draco straightened from where he had crouched behind the shelf, looking at a pair of dragonhide seeker gloves with much more attention than they merited, as they were outrageously overpriced - especially considering that they were fingerless.

“Oh! Mr. Malfoy! I had not noticed you!” Ginny snorted as the shopkeepers oily face brightened with false effusiveness. “My dear sir, is there anything at all I might assist you with?”

Draco shook his head. “No, thank you,” he said, drawling his words.

“Yes sir, but, please - I beg of you to ask for help should you need it.” He smiled, somewhat remeniscent of Percy, Ginny thought, and looked again to Ginny, noticing how close they stood together and finally realizing they were together. “And you as well, madam.”

Ginny almost rolled her eyes. She inclined her head. Draco said nothing. Finally, the shopkeeper turned and left them alone.

“I don't really think I need gloves that badly,” she told Draco when the man was well out of hearing range.

“Why?”

“I don't like any of these.” She waved her hand at the assortment. The shop keeper harrumphed softly across the store and Ginny wondered if he was evesdropping.

“Don't be stupid,” Draco said. “These are the best chaser gloves on the market.”

“Well - yes, but - “ Ginny suddenly got uncomfortable. “They're also rather overpriced.” she said. “I could get these for four galleons in Diagon Alley, but here they're seven!”

“So?” he asked. Ginny sighed.

“So, I would rather just order from Diagon Alley. Or I could send my mum some of my pin money and she could send me a pair.”

Draco snorted dismissively. “That'll take weeks. Your next game is saturday. Which pair do you want?”

“None,” she said stubbornly.

“Seriously, Ginny. I can afford it. Which ones do you want?” At her stony face, he reminded her, “This is supposed to be a date, you know. I have to buy you something.”

She stared at him. He grumbled something about “stubborn” and “bloody” and “just money”.

“Fine,” he said. “I'll even let you pay me back.”

She looked back at the rack of gloves. She still looked indecisive, so he added, touching her arm lightly, “With interest.” In spite of herself, she giggled.

“Oh, alright,” she said finally. She picked the cheapest pair - even if she was paying him back, she felt guilty about going for the most expensive pair. Draco grinned at her and brought his own purchases up to the front with her gloves.

After the transaction, he asked her to wait for him outside for a moment, he had one more thing. She shrugged but did so, and he joined her a moment later. He had no new packages, so she wondered what he had been doing, but the prospect of warm butterbeer made her forget all about it.

They went to Honeydukes next.

.

They didn't run into Harry, Ron and Hermione until the afternoon. Ginny and Draco were trying to get out of the cheese shop after a snack as the trio were trying to get in. Hermione didn't say anything, only looking at them curiously - Ron looked immediately furious, and Harry looked green.

“Oh, hello you three,” Ginny said brightly.

“Fancy seeing you here,” Harry mumbled. Hermione groaned behind him and rubbed her temples through her pretty white gloves.

Ginny made a show of taking Draco's hand and twininghis fingers around her own, googly-eyeing him the whole while. His grey eyes were amused and Ginny could feel her own humor trying to escape her chest as loud raucous laughter.

However, with Harry refusing to speak and Ron too angry to remember how, the whole scene quickly fell flat. Hermione took control of the situation, and cleared her throat loudly. Ginny reminded herself to forgive the other girl for being friends with such dunderheads and be friends with her again.

“Alright then, I could really use a drink.” She gave a little false laugh and gathered the boys in her arms when the two of them didn't respond to her anvil sized hint. “Have a lovely rest of the afternoon, Ginny, Draco! See you later!” She tugged on Harry's sleeve and shoved Ron into the stoor as soon as Ginny and Draco were out of the way. Before disappearing into the shop herself, she turned back to Ginny and winked. Ginny smiled back.

“Would you like to go for a butterbeer?” Draco asked her. He was behind her, his hands on her shoulders, and his breath tickling her ear. He brushed his nose against her cheek as he bent to graze her skin with a kiss, and her stomach dropped through her like the floor had just disappeared.

Goodness. She really was going to have to keep him.

“Yes,” she managed to choke out. He came back beside her and rested his arm on her shoulders. It was heavy and seemed to push her into the ground, even though she knew his arm wasn't really that heavy at all. His mere presence seemed to weigh her down, while simultaneously causing her to float like a bubble.

“Good,” he smirked. “Because I could really use something to drink right now.”

Ginny agreed. Her mouth was dry and sticky and she wanted to wash down the remnants of the chocolate frog she'd eaten earlier from her tongue.

They went to the Hogs Head, and Aberforth was, as usual, cleaning his dirty mugs with an equally dirty rag. It never failed to make Ginny feel exasperated, because now that she and Aberforth were on good terms, she longed for him to put down the bloody rag and shoddy business practices and take advantage of the new opportunity to make Hogs Head successul.

When they were seated, they neither of them had much to say, and they ended up discussing the weather and their favorite Quidditch temas before running out of things to argue about. They both wanted to speak, but neither had anything to say - or rather, neither of them knew the other well enough to say what they wanted to say without being accidentally offensive.

“So, how much longer do you think it will take for Potter to pop completely off his head?” Draco asked finally.

He was leaning back in his chair with his hands cradling his butterbeer on his belly. His hair looekd silver in the dim light of the room and Ginny thought that if only he had some pointy ears he might look like an elf.

“I don't know, perhaps a week? He isn't very used to containing his emotions - probably not much longer.”

Draco smirked. “No, that's one thing he definitely did not learn to do - contain himself.”

“I suppose he might have been better had we actually told him off when he did a bunk,” she mused. “But then, we rather needed a sane savior of the wizarding world, and so we may have let him off a little bit too lightly most of the time.”

“You think?” Draco intoned with a sardonic tint.

“Yes, I think,” Ginny sniped.

“Is that why you dated him in the first place? You must have known he'd go and-”

“Cheat on me? No, I did not know he would cheat on me,” she growled. “I never would have willingly set myself up for failure...”

“No, I suppose not. Although dating him to begin with might have been a testament to the contrary...”

Ginny began to giggle. She couldn't help it.

“You should have just told him to sod off when he came sniffing at your shorts,” he said. “It would have saved you the trouble, and you could have saved him from getting a massive head - the speccy git.”

“How exactly are you sure that I wasn't the one doing the sniffing?”

Draco suddenly looked rather green himself.

***

The rest of the day, they amused themselves by following the Trio around and snogging madly everytime one of them turned around. Ginny was having a great deal of fun and she could tell that Draco was enjoying himself as well.

They followed the Trio up and down Main Street, sat accross from them in the Three Broomsticks, and giggled their way through various doorways and onto benches.

Hermione started to laugh every time she saw them, and she obviously had no problems with what they were doing. Ginny was beginning to regret judging Hermione so hastily as she had for protecting Harry from her wrath two days earlier. She was coming to realize that, just because Hermione didn't want blood to spill in the Great Hall, didn't mean that Hermione approved of Harry's actions any more than Ginny did. Ginny decided that she would make ammends with her friend when they got back to the castle that night.

Harry, however, was looking more and more agitated as the day wore on, jerking his head over his shoulder every few feet as if he were just waiting for a Dragon to pop out of nowhere and pluck him from out of the sky.

***

Every time he turned around, there they she (they) was.

In the shops, in the windows, on the benches, in the doors, the reflections in the glass, and the booth accross from him in the Three Broomsticks, where morbid curiosity eventually took over and he watched them try to choke eachother with their tongues for about twenty minutes - without a breathing break.

Were they using some sort of bubblehead charm?

It was like she was haunting him, only she wasn't dead, and she didn't have her apparating license, so it wasn't as if she was just popping in front of him with Draco in tow and then starting to snog the living daylights out of eachother before Harry could know what was going on and avert his eyes.

No, it was much more likely that he was just losing his mind.

He hoped that going to Zonko's might have cheered him up a little bit, maybe make him feel less like he was a lamb awaiting a very painful and very imminent slaughter at the hands of his own conscience. However, it was not to be.

This experience would teach him never to not trust Hermione again. Hadn't she warned him something like this would happen? Hadn't she told him that flying off the handle and doing something rash like snogging Daphne Greeengrass in the sixth floor broom cupboard under the watchful eye of the Troll of Golgormeth was a bad idea?

Harry groaned as Daphne herself wandered in front of him in the dungbombs aisle. She was actually quite pretty, in an obvious, in-your-face sort of way, with butter blonde hair and cold blue, icy eyes. She did have the most adorable mouth, a full pout, pink lips, and a red tongue that darted out every so often to moisten her lips. Harry's gut tightened. Stop that, he told himself.

“Oh, hello Harry,” she said. He noticed that she looked almost nervous, her eyes flicking behind him and down the other side of the aisle before settling back on his face. “How have you been?”

“Oh, Great,” he said, trying to grin.

“Really?” Daphne asked. Harry didn't appreciate the utterly dubious tone. “I thought Ginny was doing her best to make your life miserable.”

“Oh, that,” he said, trying to sound dismissive. “Piffle.” His bravado faltered when, over Daphne's pretty, angular shoulder he caught sight of Draco and Ginny falling over eachother and stumbling into the end of his aisle with a crash and a good deal of laughter.

Daphne looked over and Harry saw her eyes widen.

She hurriedly said goodbye and made excuses for leaving.

“See you later, Harry,” she muttered. Before she quite made it around the corner, Harry grabbed her wrist.

“Wait, Daphne, I - um, I was wondering,” he choked in his rush to speak and sound smooth at the same time. “Could I take you out sometime?”

She stared at him dumbly for a second before looking over his shoulder to Ginny. “So you can throw me over for another girl in two weeks? No thanks,” she smiled maliciously before twisting out of his grasp and walking away, her heels clicking smartly on the tiled floor and her hips swaying in the enticing sort of way he had never quite been able to resist.

It took him a moment to realize that he'd just been turned down.

Harry Potter, Savior of the Wizarding World, turned down because of one little, teensy weensy, itty-bitty mishap in a closet? It was preposterous. He snorted.

He'd never liked Daphne anyways.

He turned back to the Dungbombs, and was quite immersed for all of ten seconds until he heard a feverish whispering and the unmistakable sound of smacking lips.

“Oi!” he yelled, annoyed, “Get a room!”

Ginny looked over.

“YOU get a room!” she yelled back.

“I've got one!” he yelled again. For some reason he could not decipher, Ginny was making him very angry.

“Though apparently you haven't got anyone to share it with!” she shot at him.

He snapped.

He sent a tickling jinx at her, but she already had her wand out and sent the jinx flying straight back at him. He doubled over, the feeling of a thousand fingers prodding his sides too much to take like a man. To add insult to injury, she sent a tricky little jinx that made his legs move in a high speed scottish dance all on their own. Before he could stop himself, he was dancing and jerking into the shelves, knocking thousands of dungbombs onto the floor, where he stomped on them, exploding them all over himself.

In the end, he lost a hundred galleons on the ruined merchandise, and he smelled embarassingly of dung.

Hermione and Ron wouldn't even go near him.

And so, he was left to walk back to the castle alone. He would never snog anyone in the Troll Cupboard again.

-->

Revenge

Chapter Five: Spin

The moment she stepped inside her dormitory, bone-tired and hungry, longing only for rest and the chance to silently reminisce about her relatively wonderful (but for a few snags) day, Sterling pounced. Ginny sighed and waved away her dreams, wishing for a less curious friend, and got around to the telling of the day's events. Ginny tried to remember everything, though pointedly leaving out some of the more private details of the many, many amorous embraces she'd shared with Draco throughout the day, and believed at the end of her recounting that she had more or less shared everything pertinent that Sterling would be desirous of hearing. And when she was finally able to relax on her bed without fear of Sterling becoming agitated and pouty, Sterling seemed to be in a better mood, pleased at Ginny's day. Ginny resisted the urge to grumble into her pillow. Sterling was her best friend, and she might as well have gotten used to her rather more pushy tendencies, but somehow, whenever they arose for something to do with her own life, her friend was a thousand times more difficult to deal with.

“So it went well then?” Sterling asked, for probably the fifth time that evening.

“Yes.” Ginny growled. Sterling remained unperturbed, well used to Ginny and her occasional grumpy moods.

“So where are the gloves, then?” Sterling asked, turning her great, moon-like eyes on Ginny expectantly. Ginny swore, only just remembering.

“Draco still has them, I forgot to get them back from him when we came in.” She pulled a sheet of parchment from her desk, which was situated directly beside her four poster bed and littered with vast amounts of incomplete homework and textbooks she never bothered to read. She flicked papers in all directions and rummaged for her quill and ink but couldn't find either, only succeeding in sending more and more garbage to the floor, where she stepped on it, wrinkled it, and made it illegible. Sterling threw something at her.

“Here,” the blond said, and Ginny looked down in her lap to find the muggle pen Sterling always offered to lend out but no one trusted enough to borrow. Ginny looked at it suspiciously.

“What do I have to do?” she asked, peering at it from as far a distance she could whilst still keeping the thing in her hands.

Sterling just shook her head and sighed, as she always did when her classmates acted overly doubtful.

“Just use it like a quill.”

“But where's the ink?”

“It's already inside the pen, see?” Sterling snatched it back out of Ginny's hands and made a squiggle in the corner of the parchment.

Ginny glared at this new bit of equipment but set to writing the letter anyways, absolutely convinced that the ink would need replenishing before her note was through. And when it did not, she was doubly convinced that there was some sort of replenishing charm on the thing, and did not believe Sterling when the girl swore on her grandmother's grave that it was not so - Ginny wasn't sure that Sterling's grandmother was actually dead, after all.

Draco,

Send me my gloves, I'll pay you back when I can. Sorry I forgot them, see you tomorrow.

GW.

Ginny borrowed Sterling's owl, Scruffy, and sent off the note. She hoped the bird would go quickly. For all she knew, the muggle ink might disappear or slide off the page before the note ever reached the recipient. She supposed she would have to wait and see.

***

“Oh, he didn't,” said Ginny in a mortified tone that rather confused Sterling, who was peering over her friend's shoulder expectantly at the unveiling of Ginny's new gloves, which had arrived by post not five minutes before.

“Did what?”

“These aren't the gloves he bought me,” the redhead said, staring down at the offending items in her hands with abject loathing. They were sitting at the dinner table and Ginny's brother Ron was growing curious, despite himself. Sterling whispered softly into Ginny's ear.

“Put them away, your brother is looking.”

Ginny did as Sterling suggested and stuffed the gift inside her bag at her feet, leaving them there until an hour later, when Sterling was waiting for Ginny to change into her Quidditch gear and leave so that she might have the dormitory to herself and lie down for a nap. “So tell me again what's wrong with these?” Sterling asked tiredly, wondering why in the matters of sports, she was such a simpleton, not for the first time. Ginny glared at her from over the wrapping.

“Because these are the most expensive gloves on the market, that's why. I know for a fact that these aren't the ones Draco bought me, because I was right there. I watched him put them in the bag, and then, - Oh, that cheeky bastard!” Her face suddenly turned all sorts of interesting shades of red and Sterling rather wondered how one person could look like so many breeds of tomato at once. “He exchanged them when I wasn't looking!”

“And this is a problem, why?”

“Because I said I'd pay him back!”

“Maybe he intended the difference to be a gift,” Sterling suggested. Ginny didn't bite.

“No, he pities me, that's what. He's insinuating that - that I'm poor!” Ginny slapped the gloves into the palm of her hand and began pacing around the room, only to stub her toe on the fire grate and scream in frustration as she launched herself back onto her bed. Sterling shook her head.

“Sweetheart, you are poor.”

“So? He doesn't have to remind me!”

“What if he's just being nice?”

Ginny shot her a baleful glare. “This is Draco Malfoy we're talking about, Sterling. Not Harry - never mind.”

Sterling winced. “Ginny, I know Harry hurt you, but-”

“He didn't hurt me!” Ginny growled fiercely, squeezing her fists around her new gloves without seeming to realize it. Sterling got off her bed and crossed over to sit at Ginny's feet, reaching out to lay a hand on the redhead's shin.

“Ginny, Draco and Harry aren't the same people. Who knows, Draco could be good for you!”

Ginny looked at her and Sterling could see the fierce determination in the other girl's brown eyes, glittering with intensity. Sterling recognized that look. It was Ginny's obstinate, determined, stubborn look. Nothing Sterling said tonight would make any difference. She sighed and said softly, trying not to sound pushy, “Ginny, just let the gloves go. Think of them as an investment.”

“How so?” Ginny said suspiciously.

“Well, Draco is on the opposing team, right?” Ginny nodded slowly. “So when Gryffindor wins, you can say it's because the opposition financed your new gear. Draco Malfoy just gave you the tools to beat him!” Ginny started to, reluctantly, grin, and Sterling knew the worst was over as the brute obstinacy receded from her still glittering eyes. She got off the bed. “Now finish getting dressed and go and try them out.”

Ginny grinned for real this time and hugged Sterling hard. Sterling hugged her back happily.

Sometimes, Ginny was a strong, mature, independent young woman. And other times, Ginny was like a little child who wanted but couldn't have candy. Sterling quite frankly wondered how on earth Ginny would ever survive without her there to calm and guide her along.

***

She had now been running for about an hour, with no warm-up, in the suddenly blisteringly cold and windy weather, the threat of rain hanging heavy over the pitch. She could have stopped long ago, probably fifty minutes ago, if she hadn't minded the smug grin of an idiot boy who knows he's won - but she couldn't, and so was still running, jogging, limping, whatever. The rest of the team was sludging along behind her, joining her in their suffering, but whereas she was fueling her successive laps around the pitch with blinding determination and pride, her team was following her now out of blind hatred and the burning desire that she trip in a hole and find herself incapable of continuing.

The practice had not been a particularly foreboding one to start, but shortly after the boys changed and exited their locker room, Ron had spotted his sisters new gloves, and recognized, regrettably, the make, brand, and price. And as Ron very well knew the contents of his sister's coffers, he also knew that there was no way Ginny could have afforded them on her own, and had promptly begun yelling at her, demanding to know what 'services' she had exchanged to get them, and then had quickly cottoned on that it had been Draco Malfoy who'd been her benefactor. Harry had heard the heated argument, and wanting to get his practice started sooner rather than later, had come over to break up the commotion. But upon seeing the source with his own eyes, Harry had become so irrationally angry that he'd scrapped his original practice plan and assigned a run around the pitch - to last as long as Ginny could run. Of course, Ginny had taken this as a direct insult and challenge, because it had been issued as one, and was absolutely furious.

And so, she was still running.

Her inside hip was aching, her arms numb and cold in the wind, her cheeks frozen like her nose and ears. Her hair was plastered to her neck, her shirt stuck to her back, and her legs, bare in her running shorts, were beet red and refusing to work properly. But still, Ginny kept going, if only to infuriate her brother (who was following at the back of the pack) and Harry (who was growing ever more annoyed sitting on his broom, realizing that Ginny wasn't going to break as fast as he thought she was, and that his practice was getting destroyed). And she was succeeding too. She heard the team muttering behind her in laboured, panicked breaths about just jinxing her already so they could stop, but all had left their wands on the benches to keep free of unnecessary obstructions. None had expected to be without them this long.

Her chest burning with pain like the Cruciatus Curse, she doubled around through the middle of the pitch to change direction to ease her aching inside hip, to give her left hip a chance to bear the majority of the weight. She pushed on for another indeterminate amount of time. She slipped in a corner and twisted her ankle, and it quickly began to swell, and so she limped in a sort of half run, half skip. Her knee on the hopping leg bearing the weight felt like it would snap after another three laps, and she realized that she was going slow enough that someone could easily walk beside her at a leisurely pace and not strain himself. But she kept running, even when it started to rain.

The wind was howling now, raking through her ears, whistling past her skin, chapping her dry, parched lips and tongue, and she opened her mouth to catch even faint droplets of rain.

Finally, just as frustrated, angry tears began to release themselves from her eyelashes and burn their way down her frozen cheeks, mixing with the drops of rain on her skin, Harry blew his whistle. But stopping was almost as painful as running. As they turned into the center to get dismissed, her chest felt like it was going to implode, and her insides, intestines, stomach, all twisted together to form a giant, roiling knot, stuck fast and painfully, like her skin was being pulled inside out. Her ankle was now the size of a grapefruit. She bent down to peel her sock over the skin, off her foot, but she ended up wimpering with pain. She covered it back up, ignored the sickly coloring, and dragged herself on her mostly good leg to hear Harry's condemnation.

But she wasn't there for long.

“Ginny, go back to the castle. You're done,” Harry spat at her, his words like venom and refreshing lemonade at the same time. She nodded, not caring that he was furious, and passed the stands on her way back to grab her wand, holstering it to her forearm as she limped away. The wind snatched away the remnants of Harry's voice, and her only companion back to the castle was the fearsome weather. She liked it better that way.

She was in no mood to speak with anyone.

By the time she reached the castle steps, she found that she could not raise her foot to step up. She tried and tried, for what seemed like long, frustrating hours, to lift her good foot and raise it to the next step. It was impossible to stand with her weight on her swollen ankle, and so she tried to step with her bad ankle, and almost made it, but then found that when the time came to hoist herself with the swollen joint, she couldn't do it. A sharp flash of pain jolted up her leg to her spine, and she fell sideways, crashing her bones against the sharp stone steps. Finally, she gave up. She refused to crawl.

She lay on her back in the cold, staring up at the dark, stormy sky, watching raindrops fall from a certain height, always the same, above her head, only to see them disappear in the corners of her vision. Heavy, pebble like droplets, light grey against the clouds, always avoiding her eyes but not her cheeks, her forehead, her mouth. She opened her lips to catch some of the water, but as soon as she did, it seemed the raindrops averted, falling everywhere but in her thirsty lips.

She didn't know how long she laid there. Surely the practice hadn't gone on that long after she'd left. Everyone would be changing now, out of their running clothes and into their warm cloaks. She wished she had thought to do that before leaving. She had been too intent on getting away from Harry. How she longed for a hot shower, a bath, a hot drink!

She was so intent on imagining everything warm she would enjoy when she finally made it up the steps, she didn't even notice when she fell asleep.

.

.

.

Like she didn't notice or remember falling asleep, she also could not precisely put a time to the moment she woke. She didn't open her eyes at first. She first focused on becoming aware of her surroundings; the scratchy sheets, the warm pillow beneath her right cheek and ear, her hair tied on top of her head and out of the way of resting, her feet encased in warm, woollen socks. She could feel the faint, aftereffects of the throbbing pain in her ankle, the memory of feeling. Her bones felt warm and her blood was moving freely. She almost couldn't recall that she had been freezing only a short time before.

When she opened her eyes, she realized she was in the Infirmary, with its high arched ceiling, creaky iron beds, hospital bedclothes and blankets, and the ever-present scent of potions and spilled fluids. She turned her head to the bedside table after another long period of undetermined time, and noticed a note, folded into a triangular shape, so that it stood on its own, displaying the message for her without the need for her to reach out and grab it. When she read it, the most incredible jot of happiness coursed through her, starting in her belly and pulling the rest of her gut with it to her throat.

Ginny,

I don't know how much you remember, but I have permission from Madame Pomfrey, and I plan to visit you in the morning, as she wouldn't let me stay with you tonight. It doesn't really matter if you find this or not, I suppose, because I'm coming whether you're still asleep or not. If I can, I shall bring you a snack from the Kitchens - Granger told me you like chocolate. Expect some.

Anyways, get some sleep, Dear One, and I'll see you in the morning. Feel better,

Yours,

DM.

And tucked beneath it, through the hole of the triangle, was a single, long-stemmed daisy.

***

He waited in the corridor between the Great Hall and the North West wing, which was the corridor that all Gryffindor's needed to pass through in order to get to breakfast. He was hiding inconspicuously behind the Statue of the Flying pig, with his hood pulled snugly over his head to hide his bright hair. The corridor was almost silent, there having been only three or four students passing through in the whole half hour he'd been there waiting, and he was beginning to doubt himself and wonder whether his prey had not already snuck past him on his way to breakfast, or that the person he was waiting for had not been in a different part of the castle to begin with and so would not need to pass through this way. But Draco was a boy of determination and he trusted his gut - as well as the information that had cost him a galleon which told him that Harry had indeed gone straight to the Gryffindor boy's showers directly after returning from Hogsmeade - and so Draco stuck to his plan, and remained crouched behind a giant, stone pig-gargoyle, his knees aching painfully on the hard ground.

Ten minutes and seven rowdy students later, his grit paid off. Granger and the elder Weasely marched resolutely down the corridor, unknowingly past Draco, with no third wheel in sight. They were whispering feverishly to each other, brushing hands every few steps in their closeness, their heads almost knocking together in their need to convey information over as short a distance as possible. Any closer, Draco thought with disgust, and their lips would be touching, leaving them to communicate in Morse code through their slimy, unclean tongues. Draco turned back to the corridor as they passed by him.

And then, there, dawdling, absent-minded, and depressed, was his prey. Harry Potter. After double checking that there was no one else around to hear any loud noises, Draco stepped out from his hiding place and into the light.

“Potter,” he said, curling his lips over his teeth in a well-practiced sneer. Potter stopped dead, startled, his eyes nearly as wide as the rims of his round glasses. After regaining his bearings, Potter attempted his own snarl, but without the practice of a Slytherin, it fell flat, like he had simply smelled something putrid (which, if Draco's sources were correct, the boy probably had - himself) rather than forming an expression of malice. Draco sniggered.

“What do you want?” Potter gritted, clenching his fists. Draco tsk'd and stepped forwards, lowering his hood with his left hand and then raking his fingers through his shaggy white-blond hair.

“I wanted to speak with you,” he said, stepping closer still.

“About?” Potter snapped, striving for a tone of impatience.

“Ginny.” Draco pulled out his wand from his sleeve an inch or so under the pretense of scratching his wrist. “And about your manners.”

“My manners? Go-” --he said a dirty, plebeian word-- “-yourself, Malfoy.”

“Yes. Your manners. And especially regarding your treatment of Miss Weasley.”

“What do you care, Malfoy? You might be snogging her, but you've got no claims. She's got family, you know.”

“Yes, well, her family doesn't seem to be doing much in the way of protecting her innocence. I'm stepping in.” He smirked a little before resuming in a clipped, emphatic tone. “To warn you.”

“Warn me? Get lost, Malfoy.” Potter tried to laugh with casual uncaring, but his anger was overtaking him slowly, probably like a poison, and getting the better of him.

“You did a very dirty thing, Potter,” Draco continued, blithely ignoring him. He began to slowly make his way around Potter in a circle, large enough to easily avoid a stray fist. “And I'm afraid that, since Weasley has his head too far up his arse in love with Granger to notice a thing about what's going on around him, it's been left up to me to dole out the punishment. As such, the self-appointed protector of Ginny's modesty, I must inform you of the charges brought against you. Any particular order in which you'd care to hear them?” He paused for merely a second before interrupting Potter as he opened his mouth to snap back. “Good. First, you cheated on her. This alone would warrant castration, were you a Pureblood, but as you are not, I'm afraid my honor code will not do. I've had to come up with something a little more - creative, I suppose you could say. Secondly, you snubbed her at breakfast two days ago, leaving her with no alternative but to sit with someone else. For that, would you be a Pureblood, even though you were no longer dating at the time, you would be delivered to the Stocks for three days without food. Again, I've come up with something better.” Draco continued on, secretly amused, as the whites of Potter's eyes got progressively more visible as the boy grew more and more worried. “Thirdly, whilst in the presence of your ex-girlfriend, one Ginny Weasley, you attempted to re-kindle a romance with the admittedly beautiful, but incredibly silly Daphne Greengrass. This is low class.”

“-But I didn't-”

“-Know that Ginny was nearby? No matter, as you cheated with her, you are honor-bound to leave at least a third of the time you were involved with Ginny to lapse before attempting another relationship. Again, you are not a Pureblood, and cannot be justly sentenced to forty-five lashes, but as Ginny is a Pureblood, and I am, (obviously), I am entitled to do something. And finally, and perhaps most despicable of all, the events of last night, during your so-called 'Quidditch Practice'. Do you recall? I rather thought not. Let me tell you what happened,” Draco said, openly sneering now. “You quite literally ran Ginny into the ground.”

“I did not, she could have stopped any time-”

“Are you talking about the same Ginny I am? I think you might be stupid, Potter. You insulted her and challenged her, what did you expect? That she would laugh it off and stop?” Draco laughed hollowly. He was beginning to remind himself of his father, a thought that both thrilled and terrified him.

“If you hadn't bought her those gloves -”

“The gloves? What about the gloves?”

Potter seemed to preen under the chance to finally speak for himself. “The gloves you bought for her. What, don't remember, Malfoy?” he snarled, his voice just as ugly as Draco knew his could be. “What, you think we don't know that you had to buy yourself a girlfriend, because you just couldn't get any by yourself?”

Something within Draco tightened, like a heavily twisted cable, beginning to fray under too much pressure. “Are you accusing Ginny of being bought?”

“I don't know,” Potter said obstinately, “Did you need to purchase her affections?”

“Are you calling Ginny a whore?”

Suddenly Potter looked confused. “No,” he said, frowning.

“Really? Because that's what it sounds like to me,” Draco said, his lips curling this time of their own volition.

“No, I wasn't insulting Ginny, I was talking about you-”

“Well,” Draco said tightly, feeling another part of his inner chord snap with a final sounding ping,

“Maybe you should have thought of that before you started throwing out insults.” Draco allowed his lips to curve into a smile. “Too bad,” he said, and Potter raised an eyebrow, trying to return to his badly affected nonchalance, “Wee little Potter just can't grow up and play with the big-boys, can he?”

He stepped further around Potter, keeping the boy in his line of vision.

“But back to what I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted - I have come upon a punishment which will nicely cover all of your offences. Any last words?” Draco pulled out his wand the rest of the way from his sleeve, and extended his arm into the classic duelling position. Potter, to his credit, did not piddle in his pants, but looked terrified, fumbling for his wand. Draco snickered inwardly. How the swot had managed to defeat the Dark Lord was completely beyond him.

“Good. Recolitus Morbus!” He straightened himself again and tucked his wand back into his sleeve and started to walk away, a wide grin plastered across his face.

“I don't think it worked!” Potter called, his tone jubilant. Draco ducked when he heard a retaliation curse heading his way and cast a shield just in time to avoid the graze of the Petrificus jinx.

“Oh, it worked all right. You just wait.” And with a final laugh, Draco sprinted out of the corridor and back to the Great Hall.

Just you wait, he thought to himself, happier than he'd been in weeks. Why he hadn't thought of this years ago, he had no idea. Although, if he were now intending to see Ginny regularly, it was probably better that he hadn't. Especially if Potter and Ginny had, well, he wasn't going to think about that.

Too disturbing.

-->

It was three hours later that he began to notice it. It was slight, at first, merely a barely-there tingle, not entirely pleasant. It lasted for a moment, ebbed, and then receded, leaving Harry unbothered and allowing him to continue about his business. He had forgotten all about it when the feeling came back, more intense, but again, not enough of a bother to actually worry, or pay it any attention. It fluttered with his pulse, a mild burning flare, and then it too went away. It was the third time which finally brought Harry to the suspicion that something might be wrong.

His nether regions were on fire.

Not literally, perhaps, but quite intensely, and for all intents and purposes, on fire. Burning. Submerged in fiery hot water. Lava. There was a raging inferno in his trousers, and it wasn't because Daphne Greengrass had rounded the corner with her little hip-jiggling sashay, which so brightened his day. No, his - parts - were being tormented by some as of yet unidentified acid.

He was sitting at the table in the Great Hall at lunch, at the time, and something must have showed on his face, because Hermione and Ron were nudging each other and staring in his direction. Harry swallowed feverishly and pretended not to notice, an intention short lived when Ron spoke up and asked him directly, “What's the matter with you? Are you ill?” Hermione cocked her head to the side and seconded Ron, her eyes all at once concerned and intrigued when Harry was unable to speak properly. His hand moved slowly, pulled towards his thigh with a sort of gravitational drag. He tucked his hand under his robe, and carefully prodded himself, attempting to maneuver himself into a less painful position, and after a moment of intense concentration, the burning stopped, and he could once again concentrate on something above the level of his waistband, like the concerned faces on Ron and Hermione. Guiltily, he rose his hand again to the table and he cleared his throat.

“Sorry, headache,” he said. This appeared to be the wrong thing to say. Hermione instantly snapped her head up and began pelting him with questions.

“Headache? What sort of headache? Is it your scar? Visions? Burning? Fever? Are-”

“No, Hermione, just a headache.” He busied himself scooping heavy spoonfuls of mashed potatoes on his plate.

“If you're sure,” she said, sounding like she didn't believe him. But as his lower end started to tingle again, he found that he didn't much care.

****

He pulled a comfortable chair over to the empty place beside her bed and made himself at home, sprawling his legs out so they hung over the padded arms, and set himself to waiting for her to wake up. He had breakfast for her waiting on a tray under a heavy silver lid, and he had cast a stasis charm and a cooling charm on it so that it would be cold and ready for her to eat as soon as she woke. He had overheard Madame Pomfrey say she would need heavy fluids and easy to digest, light foods when she woke, as she would be suffering from heavy dehydration and not much hunger. So he had asked the elves to blend together some fruit and milk together into some substance he had heard called a smoothie, by one of the healthier nuts wandering around in Slytherin. He had tried it, and it had tasted a rather lot like ice cream and was, quite frankly, delicious. He might need to get himself another one one day.

He had also brought her a pitcher of ice cold water and an apple, and a bar of dark belgium-made chocolate.

Twenty minutes or so later, after he had quite intensely mapped out her face with his eyes, examining every freckle, plane and shadow on her face, her eyelids fluttered open and she stared glassily out at nothing in particular before focusing and honing in her gaze at him. He felt the most delightful quiver in his gut when she smiled at him, upon realizing who he was.

“Draco,” she said croakily, and she cleared her throat. “I didn't expect you to be here this early... What time is it?”

“Breakfast time,” he said cheerfully, and he levitated her tray over her lap as she readjusted her position. He cranked the post on her bed to raise it into a half-sitting position, and got up to fluff her pillows behind her head as she lifted the lid to the tray.

“What is this?” she asked, curiously.

“A smoothie,” he answered, as he trailed his fingers gently along her spine while she sat forward so that he could reach the pillows under her back. She shivered, and Draco felt oddly gratified in having elicited some sort of physical response. He restrained himself from making a suave comment about it, wisely deciding that Ginny was not the sort of girl who would appreciate it.

“I've never tried one.” She sipped a mouthful through a straw and she grinned widely. “It's delicious! Wow, why haven't I ever had one of these before?!” She looked at him. “Wherever did you get it?”

“I called in a favor with Dobby. He owed me for sending him along his stamp collection from the Manor when he moved to Hogwarts.”

“Have you tried it?”

“Yeah, he made me one too. Better than pumpkin juice...” He shuddered.

She at in silence for a while, and Draco noticed that in her sleep she had kicked the covers off her feet, and he saw her swollen, black and blue ankle again. His stomach tightened and he felt another surge of hatred towards Potter. She noticed him looking.

“I fell,” she said.

“I know.” He looked at her seriously, and felt through the covers for her other ankle. Her eyes widened as he started to massage it softly, but the glowing blush on her cheeks emboldened him to continue.

“Do you remember much about last night?”

She shrugged her small shoulders and grinned. “I know I whooped Harry's arse,” she said.

“Harry wasn't running with you,” Draco pointed out.

“I know,” she said, “Lazy git. But now he knows not to challenge me to a foot race!”

“Do you remember passing out?”

“Not when, but yeah, I suppose. I fell asleep on the Castle steps. Do you know who found me?” she asked.

“Your brother did. He punched Potter in the face.”

“Good.” Ginny said. Draco didn't think a punch in the nose was nearly enough to punish Potter, but now that he had taken matters into his own hands, Draco was feeling much better about the whole affair and was willing to give Weasley his due for taking someinitiative, at least. He moved his hands to Ginny's little toes and began smooshing them in his fingers and rubbing some warmth back into them. She sighed, probably despite herself. Draco kept his smirk to himself. “I would have kept running, you know,” she said quietly after a moment of silence, almost sad. Like she was ashamed of herself - of her pride. “But he stopped the practice. I don't think I would have stopped.”

“I know.” He put her foot down for the moment and scooted closer to her after covering the limb back up with the blanket and tucking the edges under. He ignored her soft whimper of complaint at his neglecting her feet and gathered up her hands. He began to play with her fingers whilst studiously ignoring her eyes. “Ginny, I know I don't know you very well... But, the past few days I've been getting to know you better, and not just the snogging...” --her fingers clenched against his-- “But I think I know you well enough now to tell you that - that I'm proud of you.” He kept not looking at her face and studied her lean, graceful hands. “Some people, your family I'll bet, have probably told you that your stubbornness isn't a good trait, or that you're too pig-headed and obstinate, but I just wanted to tell you something -” He cleared his throat and her fingers spasmed against his again. “Your stubbornness, and your drive and your pride are some of your best qualities. They're what I like best about you. Ginny, I've been raised to believe I'm the best because of things I never did, and for reasons that don't make any sense. I've got tons of pride for the both of us, but it's not the same as you. Your pride is out of a strong will to prove yourself, to show yourself that you can be something bigger than what your brothers have done, or what you've been told. You're going to make something of yourself. Your stubbornness is out of a passion to stick to your beliefs, and its probably what got you through the war.” He looked at her then, and realized her chin was clenched and she was trying not to wobble. “Ginny, you're amazing. You're strong. I've only known you a week and I can already tell you're one of the strongest people I know. You're confident, and honest and determined and refreshing... And I like you Ginny. I know you're going to be something great. Granger is brilliant, and Potter is famous... But they aren't like you. They don't have the same inner strength as you. Granger will probably discover tons of important scientific knowledge and make a name for herself... Potter will probably do an incredibly successful Nude Calendar called The-Man-Who-Lives-For-Ladies-And-Tequila. But you - you're something special. I can tell. Ginny, don't you ever change. And don't you dare be ashamed of yourself.”

There was a flurry of bed covers and suddenly, his face was being squished between two clammy hands while his own hands were left empty, and his lips were covered with Ginny's warm, banana flavored mouth. He raised his left hand to cup her cheek while he joined her in the fevered kissing, and while he nibbled on her lip, he realized that, instead of being embarrassed at having spilled his thoughts about her like he had (he'd told her he liked her, which he had never, ever told any girl, ever...) he was happy. He was happy that he'd made her happy. With that thought, he abandoned all thought altogether and started exploring her mouth.

He felt her heart beating in the pulse of her neck, and he pressed his fingers to the hollow of her throat so that he could feel her vibrant liveliness beat a tempo against his fingertips. He buried his other hand in her hair and tried not to pull any of it out as he tangled it and reveled in the silky texture of it. Her teeth were clacking against his, but he didn't much mind, and the force of her lips mashing against his felt wonderful. Something about the sweet smell of her, the dewy texture of her skin, the throbbing pulse of her heart... It was like coming home.

“I see the patient has awakened,” said an old voice in an amused, semi-delighted tone. The two of them sprang apart and looked around guiltily until the both of them found, unerringly, the tall, thin form of a twinkly-eyed Professor Dumbledore.

“Professor! We didn't see you -”

“No doubt,” he said, but he didn't sound angry.

“I'm very sorry, Professor, it won't happen again...” Draco said, lying through his teeth. It was going to happen again, alright, just not in Dumbledore's presence.

“I don't expect you to quit your amorous adventures on my account, my dear boy,” he said, chuckling to himself. “No, I have taught young people for far, far too many years to be quite so naive. I merely wished to inquire as to the state of Miss Weasley's recovery.” He turned to Ginny, who was a vibrant shade of red. “I trust you are feeling better?” Draco swore that behind Dumbledore's twitching white beard, there was a grin.

“Much better, sir, thank you.”

“I am much relieved to hear it.” His eyes crinkled as the old man smiled. “But if I am not much mistaken, which I rarely am, Mr. Malfoy, classes are starting in five minutes. So if you please, I will allow you to say your goodbyes but I expect you to be on time and prepared for your first class... Potions, I believe?”

“Yes, sir, I will.” Regretfully, but seeing no alternative other than suddenly coming down with a very violent case of the flu, he squeezed Ginny's hand and leaned in for a quick peck on her cheek, Dumbledore be damned. “See you later, Ginny.”

“Bye,” she said, too embarassed to say any more.

Draco hoisted his book bag onto his shoulder and exited the room, cursing Dumbledore all the way.

***

Harry was anxious, there was no doubt about it. His nether regions had been growing progressively worse all day, and he was close to chopping them off with frustration. He had tried to urinate after dinner, but the pain had been so intense he'd had to forgo the idea. He had briefly entertained the idea of telling Ron, but Ron would be no use at all, and that idea also had been shut down.

No, he was going to have to go to Madame Pomfrey.

As embarrassing as the thought was, Madame Pomfrey, he was fairly sure, had seen him in his entirety before, considering the numerous times he had been knocked out cold for days in her care. He just hoped that she could wave her wand with a diagnostic spell and then there would be no need for further embarassment.

“What seems to be the problem, Potter?” she asked him, after he had finally worked up the courage to go down to the hospital wing. Ginny was nowhere to be seen, for which he was grateful, and he supposed that she had been discharged earlier.

“Could I speak to you, in private, please?” he asked, his tone desperate. Her eyes widened and she urged him into her office.

“Whats this all about then,” she asked, sitting behind her desk. Harry sat nervously in a chair.

“I've been having some pain...” he began, his cheeks flaming. Out with it! he told himself angrily.

“Down there,” he finished lamely.

“I see,” she said, her eyebrows raised to epic proportions. “On the bed, then, if you please.”

Harry gulped. He sat on the black doctors bed which was covered with tissue paper. He laid down and folded his arms over his stomach, staring very awkwardly at the ceiling while she pelted him with questions and busied herself with her wand, waving it like one of those censors one had be checked with in airports.

“What sort of pain?”

“Burning.”

“When did it start?”

“This morning.”

“Is it constant or does it come and go?”

“It comes and goes.”

“Has it gotten progressively more intense or always the same.”

“More intense.”

“And are you having problems urinating?”

“Yes.”

She muttered a spell and muttered to herself, before telling him he could sit up again.

“Sit in the chair, Potter.”

He sat.

“So tell me, Potter, how long you've been sexually active,” she said in a disapproving tone.

“WHAT?!” he spat, choked, and had a mild heart attack all in the same instant. “Whatdoyoumean, sexually active!”

“How many sexual partners have you had?”

“None!”

She huffed. “Don't lie to me, Potter. I need to know.”

“None! None!”

“I know you aren't being truthful, Potter. I don't need to know their names, yet. Just tell me how many!”

“None! I swear!”

“Potter, you have a venereal disease, so I know you're lying. I need to know if there's possibility of spread, so I can administer the proper antidotes!”

“Whats a venereal disease?” Harry whimpered.

“A sexually transmitted infection. So obviously, you've had sex. Don't be ashamed, Potter. You came to me with a problem, and now I'm fixing it!”

A sexually transmitted infection...

Oh, God.

“Draco,” he growled furiously, cottoning on.

“Malfoy was your partner? Oh dear...”

And so it was that Harry, for the second time that week, threw up his dinner.

Madame Pomfrey was less than pleased.

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A/N: As you can see, Dear Readers, Draco is quite vindictive. :) I hope you enjoyed the chapter, please review! And I told you there would be snogging, didn't I!?

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