Invalid Intentions
Draco Malfoy had been trying to read.
The summer assignment that was due at the end was quite a hassle. He needn't wait until the end to dwindle on homework. He wanted to do it beforehand, and have the rest of his time to dwell on other things. Other, important things. Except, he had no other important things. Oh hell, he scoffed to himself. I just want to sleep all summer.
So that night, he settled into the warmth of his usual armchair, picking up the thick book and forcing himself to drown into the words.
'This sucks' kept frequently going through his mind, but he managed to block this thoughts out. The progress of reading a book about famous witches that he could care less about was turning dull and dead-prone. He felt himself almost doze off, his eyes stuck on the same sentence it had been for quite a while.
Come on, come on, his mind snapped at him. Stay awake. He blinked his eyes, sighing exasperatedly.
He widened his eyes to keep them from closing, and with a look of concentration and determination, his eyes began to wander some of the words. This is interesting, he tried to convince himself, even though all he wanted to do with the book right then was slit his throat with the spine of it, if it was possible.
Then something happened that made him pay attention to his surroundings. A sound of splatter, something dripping reached his eardrums - he ignored it. He heard several creaks at once. He ignored it.
He heard a shriek of resepetion. He ignored it, dismissing it as something from their basement. Perhaps one of the ghosts, or the house-elves. He absorbed himself in the book.
He heard something crumble out from his fireplace. He ignored it for moments.
He heard a girl cough. He turned to his right, and found the book he was reading had fallen out of his hands. Numbing surprise and startleness had mingled inside him. It was a small, thin girl, about the age of fourteen, fifteen or sixteen. She was covered in a mass of soot and ashes, coughing as if she would throw up any moment. She looked up and her coughing turned into a gasp.
Draco collected himself, urging a faint smirk into his lips, almost invisible but still present, and shoved away a strand of his wet locks of silver-blonde, and looked down in recgonization.
It was Ginny Weasley. With a duffel bag that hung over her neck.
And only one shoe.
"God damnit, Weasley, what the hell are you doing here at this time, and where the hell is your other shoe?"
***
It was a peculiar question to Ginny until she looked down and saw that her bare foot was stained with both blood and ashes. She whimpered, struggling to stand up. Draco looked at her, slightly more than miffed.
"I must've gotten off the wrong fireplace!" she said, groaning.
"Weasley, you idiot! Why would you try to use floo powder at this hour?" Draco spat at her statistically.
"None of your business," Ginny quickly answered. "Will you at least help me up, you bastard?"
"That's a polite way to ask, what's the magic word?" Draco drawled sarcastically.
Ginny opened her mouth to speak - but then Draco jerked his head to his left, and that's when she heard it - footsteps.
"Draco?" a voice barked from the top of the stairs, which was proceeding down.
"Oh God," Draco moaned in agony, glancing at Ginny and back to the stairs, then grabbing hold of her arm tightly.
"What the hell - mmmfg!" Ginny's mouth was concealed by Draco's hand. The sudden sensation of his hot palm made her grimace. He motioned her to go forward, and she did, her duffel bag falling out of her grasp and onto the floor. She looked at it, but Draco pushed her aside into a door, in which she smashed into and fell inside the room with a large thump, in which she was almost accurately sure that she had broken her ribs.
Lucius Malfoy came slowly down the stairs, smiling grimly at the duffel bag.
***
A/N: This fic is posted on portkey.org too, so if ff.net goes haywire (ah, how often it happens), it's under the pen name Devilzzz.