A Girl's Best Friend, Part VI - Jadeite
"Morsels of jadeite bring luck to the household."
Lao Xin Yen. "Stones of Yulong Mountain".
China. XXth century A.D.
There was something profoundly soothing, Ginny noted, about letting your hands dig into a vat and emerge, streaming with pearls of all colours and sizes. She had always liked to keep them gathered together rather than categorized by their shape or provenance, as though their common mineralogical make-up could overcome their differences in appearance. She ambled through her workshop, well aware of all the work she had but unwilling to get around to it. Though the blue lighting of the room appeased her, her restlessness would not entirely vanish.
"Oh, hell," she berated herself one last time and finally sat down in front of her workbench.
She summoned her sketches for Hermione's new bracelet. After learning that Hermione was yet again pregnant, Ron had asked Ginny for a worthy piece of jewellery to celebrate the arrival of the fifth child; she had been more than happy to oblige, especially given how generous he and Hermione were when it came to sharing their children, and had declined any form of monetary compensation. Catalina Zabini alone could have supported Ginny's industry, and since the last Weasley's reputation as jeweller had been growing, she had more than enough to spend on her beloved family. Thus she often chose to spoil her nieces and nephews, in a not so covert attempt to make up for her own lack of children.
Ginny thought of the way in which Hermione led her family, setting up all sorts of rules but getting a devious pleasure of breaking them to make any of her children smile. She also knew that her friend secretly loved her jewellery, but never made a show of it so as to prevent Ron from calling in old family favours. She decided she would make something that did not look expensive, so that Hermione could guiltily give in and allow herself some indulgent pleasure.
Hundreds of glass globes were magically suspended from the ceiling. With a swish of her wand, Ginny called forth several of these globes, at the bottom of which lay precious stones, semi-precious stones, and scraps of metal. From one of the globes she took several cabochons of pale green jadeite from Birmania; from another, a handful of red tourmalines a correspondent in Madagascar regularly provided her with. She selected about as many chrysolites, the vivid, apple green of their carved facets shining in the palm of her hand, and small spheres of Namibian thulite. Together, the stones would be beautiful enough that the jewellery would make Hermione happy, but the hues discrete enough that she would never suspect its price.
Ginny thought long and hard about what metal to use, knowing full well that yellow gold would work best. For her sister-in-law's sake, however, she picked a large band of white gold, intending to shape it for Hermione's slender wrist. She was about to cast the spell when her defence wards started flashing brightly. Immediately Ginny cast the gold aside and got up, her wand firmly held, to check the various quartz crystals hanging at the side of the entrance door. As expected, a dark shape was struggling against the wards she had set up, visible from different angles in the pieces of quartz.
"Who are you and what do you want?" she asked sharply.
"Merlin's beard, Weasley, cut off your wards, will you?" came Draco's decomposed voice, shortly followed by an, "Argh!"
"Finite Incantatem," she murmured several times, tapping different crystals with her wand as she did so.
As she touched the final one, she heard a slight "bump" against her door. She opened immediately, half expecting Draco to be leaning against the door, but he stood there, straight as a stick, his hair tousled and his robes slightly out of place.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" he growled.
"I'm a jeweller, Malfoy, not a hostess," she explained testily as she showed him in. "I wouldn't have a gem on my hands if these wards couldn't keep you- or anyone else, for that matter- out of my workshop."
He glared at her but she stared straight back, an eyebrow lifted daintily. At last he relented and allowed himself a small smile, still preoccupied by the petrifying thoughts and sensations communicated by the wards.
"Those were nasty spells, by the way. Are you sure they're legal?"
"Bill helped me with them, so yes," she said, adding evilly, "although there are a few variations of which I didn't see fit to inform him." She grinned. "Cup of tea?"
"Yes, please. Anything to make all of this feel normal."
In a few, expert gestures, Ginny had two cups of freshly brewed tea ready for them- Molly Weasley had taught her daughter well. She quickly transfigured two of her metallic stools into armchairs and invited him to sit, which he did.
"So," he began after a few sips, "this is where you work."
"Yes," she said, feeling oddly vulnerable after the initial commotion of his arrival.
Few people ever came to her workshop; of those, the vast majority had red hair; and of all of them, none were customers. This was her safe-haven, so much in fact that even the Weasleys had to be announced if they wanted to enter the workshop unscathed. For Draco Malfoy, in person, to be sitting there drinking tea was beyond the realm of rational possibilities, and yet here he was.
"It doesn't really look like the image I had of a… forge, as you put it," he went on, looking all too at ease for Ginny's taste.
"I use spells to do all the heavy-duty forging work, so I don't really need large furnaces and pools of ice-cold water. Or the big, heavy, macho metallic tools that usually come with."
"Or the billowing clouds of smoke, judging by the spotlessness of your walls and ceiling."
Ginny's walls were indeed of an immaculate white. She had liked the idea of dealing with gems, which are inherently minerals of light, in a bright and clean environment, so she had kept the decoration to a minimum: a few workbenches, metallic stools, glass bubbles hanging from the ceiling, and some white cupboards, were all she needed to work. It gave her a freedom of movement she had never had either at the Burrow or at Hogwarts, and allowed her to spread stones, metals, paper, wand, utensils, and anything else she pleased, across working surfaces and floor alike.
"The tea is delicious, by the way," Draco pointed out politely, interrupting the peripheral look Ginny was casting at her workplace.
"I got it from some Pakistani merchants selling me topazes," she responded automatically.
"It's true that you have quite a fortune up there," he said, and nodded to the glass bubbles.
"Did you come here to steal it?"
She grinned wickedly and he hesitated to answer that he had come to steal something much more precious than that. Astoria would have loved such a remark, he thought ironically, and probably even completed it with a delightful, "My heart?" He could tell that Ginny Weasley was not one to be charmed by such a romantic platitude, so he did not even bother with it, but instead gave her a smouldering look.
"No. Actually, I-" He let his word trail and when he saw how she briefly glanced at his mouth, a minuscule feeling of victory pooled inside his chest, "-found these in my library and thought of you."
Ginny gave no sign of being disappointed, but berated herself for having hoped for something else- Draco had just broken up with a long-term girlfriend, and even if that had not been the case, she was in a good position not to expect much of men, and a Slytherin more so than others. She quelled her thoughts of hands brushing against each other and the near kiss in the field of sunflowers, knowing full well it would do her no good to let her guard down.
"Really? Thank you. What are they?" she asked evenly.
"Mayan, Babylonian, and Japanese manuscripts on the properties of minerals. I'm not sure why we would have such works under the Malfoy roof, which is why I brought them here. I cross-referenced them with the Dumbledore Library and they don't own any copies, so hopefully this will be a valuable addition to your usual set of sources."
Ginny simply gaped at him as he handed her the scrolls.
"Do you have any idea how valuable these-"
"Of course I do, Gin," he replied smoothly, using his strong hands to close her unwilling fingers gently around the scrolls. "However, they are of no use whatsoever to me and my family, and I wanted you to have them. Not to mention, they are significantly lighter than the books you made me carry last week."
Ginny grinned unrepentantly then became serious again.
"Thank you. These are very precious, and I am indebted to you for-"
"Then make it up to me by accepting my invitation to dinner."
The words were out of his mouth before he could stop himself, but, being Draco Malfoy, he did not stop to regret them or find them inappropriate at all. Ginny did, though, and eyed him quizzically. They stared at each other for a few seconds, he amused by the growing awkwardness, she envisioning all the possible meanings for his invitation.
"My mother's birthday is coming up," he lied at last.
Immediately, Ginny switched back into her professional mode, one she was grateful to return to after the oddity of the moment with Draco. She decided she liked things better this way, clear-cut and emotionally un-invested.
"What are you thinking of?" she asked.
"I'm not sure yet, which is another reason why I wanted to see you here. Perhaps seeing you work will let me get a taste of what my mother could appreciate."
It was the first time any of her clients had expressed an interest in the process of jewellery creation, and Ginny felt both flattered and shy. These were not feelings to which she was accustomed, especially since the rational part of her knew full well she was the best in her trade; for someone whose knowledge in the matter was as limited as was Draco's, any part of the process would probably feel spectacular.
"I'm actually forging a bracelet for Hermione, so you're welcome to take a look if you want," she said, rising.
He assented and followed her to the workstation, where she transfigured the armchairs back into metallic stools. Ginny then muttered an incantation under her breath, and a thick-skinned, transparent bubble started forming around the jewels she had set aside for Hermione's bracelet. The bubble grew to be the size of a large beach ball and hovered, mid-air, right in front of Ginny. Without thinking about it twice, she pushed her arms straight into the bubble. As she did so, the membrane extended to form gloves around her forearms and hands, protecting her from whatever handiwork she planned to do.
"Ebullio," she said, touching the pieces of white gold with the tip of her magic-coated hand.
The gold curled onto itself, and then a few bubbles erupted from the solid mass and popped. Draco understood the metal was boiling. It formed a perfect sphere the size of a golf ball.
"It has reached about one thousand, six hundred, sixty five degrees Celsius," Ginny explained casually, and then prodded the ball with her finger, failing to see Draco's wince as she did so. "The other gems are unaffected because the magic inside this sphere is very selective. It's also what allows me to do this," she seized the pale sphere between four fingers and stretched it easily, "without getting my fingers burned to ashes."
In a few, agile movements, Ginny manipulated the gold to acquire the shape of a thick bracelet. She kept a very small portion of the gold on the side, and started placing the gems where she wanted them on the gold. Draco watched, fascinated by the malleability afforded by the forging sphere. He noted that the muscles in Ginny's arms flexed and bulged as she kept working the metals and precious stones, revealing that though the task appeared easy, it was far from being effortless. Part of him was also thrilled by the unsuspected strength of her limbs, envisioning how the lithe musculature he now discovered could be put to more interesting use.
"Bhendhi," Ginny added at last, and the piece of gold she had set aside turned into a very long and thin ribbon.
She extracted her hands from the bubble with some effort and exhaled. Though the work often left her tired, she rarely felt as alive as she did following the completion of the manual work leading to the finished jewellery. She loved sensing the resistance of the metal against her will, loved making it twist and bend with a joint push from her mind and hands. That satisfaction showed, making her cheeks glow with a healthy fire. Draco was amused to find that though her surroundings were the epitome of control and modernity, there was something very savage and natural about Ginny at that moment.
"The rest isn't as intensive," she said, interrupting his thoughts. Her voice was hoarse. "The sphere simply transfers my will to the ribbon of gold, but because it's so thin, I don't get tired."
To illustrate her words, she once again set her fingers against the walls of the bubble. The golden ribbon started breaking into smaller pieces that then wrapped around some precious stones or coiled into floral arabesques, linking some of the gems with leaves and exotic flowers. At last, Ginny murmured a final incantation, and removed her hands from the surface of the bubble.
"I just let it cool down at a natural pace," she told Draco, "so that the attachments are more solid."
"It really is an impressive process," he said calmly, satisfied by the blush that suddenly tinged her cheeks with pink.
"Oh, not really. Once you get the hang of it, it's not nearly as difficult as it may appear at first."
Yet he could tell that she was pleased by the compliment- women usually are. She, on the other hand, was annoyed to find herself blushing like a schoolgirl in front of a man who, but a few weeks prior, would not have elicited more than a polite "Mr. Malfoy" from her lips. And though his charm was obviously to blame for the ease with which he had eased into her life, she faulted herself for her eagerness to believe his flattery. The feeling was simply too pleasant. She had not felt that thrilled, that interested in someone else's proximity to her in a very long time.
Draco hopped onto a stool and leaned forward, looking keenly into her wide eyes.
"Would you be willing to do the same for my mother?" he asked. "For a price, of course."
She shook her head.
"I would never `do the same', as you put it, and the documents you just gave me are worth more than-"
"Please," he said, interrupting her with a gesture of his aristocratic hand. "I thought we'd agreed to dinner in exchange for the documents?"
She gave him a look indicating clearly that she still thought he was joking, but the winsome smile he sent her way promptly convinced her otherwise.
"Very well," she conceded at last, barely aware of how close their bodies stood when she took a seat on the neighbouring stool. "Where will you take me?"
"That is for me to know and you to find out," he replied mysteriously.
Ginny gave him a heartfelt smile, excited at the prospect, and wondered how best to get him out of her workshop before she accepted any other offers he had to make.
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