I don't own the Dido lyrics I use in here, not like you thought I did or anything. For Apopilis, my bestbud since forever, who so kindly betaed... For Jake, who was killed in a car accident July 22nd, 2001, who I will miss; and for Lee, for being a terrific friend, even though I feel guilty for missing her more while she was away at camp than I will Jake.]
Her blissful experience, however, was eventually ruined.
"What," snarled a menacing voice, "the devil are you doing in my chair?"
She'd know that voice anywhere.
Annoyed, Ginny memorized the page number and set Jane Eyre down in her lap. "I'm attempting to read, Malfoy," she replied. "And I must have missed your name and crest inscribed in blood on the arm."
Draco Malfoy glared at her. "Everyone knows this is mine. I order you to vacate immediately."
She pretended to consider this. "Hmm.... No."
"No?" he repeated. His temper continued to flare. "Listen, Weasley, I eat girls with attitude problems for breakfast."
"No," she retorted, "you fuck girls with attitude problems for breakfast."
"Now, there," he replied thoughtfully, "lot of the same things in eating and fucking. Biting, licking..."
She rolled her eyes. "It's not as if you actually ingest-" She stopped and her cheeks flamed wildly. She coughed and tried to gather her composure. Intelligent comment, reclaim dignity, she chanted in her head. "You can't make me move," she said lamely.
"Can so," he said petulantly. "Move!"
"No." She lifted her book again and pretended to immerse herself in it.
He leaned over and snatched her arms. "No one says no to me. Especially not girls."
His face was mere centimeters from hers, and his body- his body was practically pressing up against her. She swallowed. "My," she got out, somehow managing a lofty tone, "but you're a randy bastard."
He seemed to have no reply for that, but leered suggestively at her.
The librarian came hurtling at them at the speed of light. She stomped to little effect. "Mr. Malfoy, Ms. Weasley," she began haughtily, "this behavior is entirely inappropriate for a library!"
"I must agree," Ginny said, throwing a pointed look at him.
"I must insist you get off her at once," continued Madam Pince.
"Yeah," Ginny said, measuring out each syllable. "Get. off."
Sulkily he retreated. "My father will hear of this," he threatened.
"Seventh years," sniffed the librarian, "should not be still running to daddy."
Madam Pince, Ginny thought, had uncommon good sense.
"Shove it, Greggy," Draco said darkly, not even bothering to open his eyes. At this point he'd retreated to the Slytherin commons and sought solace in another of his favored nesting spots- a large green davenport. Naps, on the whole, made everything better.
"Word is that you were trying to get under Weasley's robes," snickered Crabbe.
That sent him jolting upright. "If I'd wanted under her robes," he informed them, "I'd be there."
"That's not the way I heard it," Goyle said.
Draco folded his arms and sent them both a look of disgust. "She was in my goddamn chair, and I was doing a nice job of overpowering her senses when Pince banished me from the library." His long fingers brushed off a bit of imaginary dust on his dark green collar. "Not like you two have room to talk. Even Pansy won't touch you."
Pansy Parkinson had an established reputation of lack of reservation in such matters.
Crabbe started laughing and pointing at Goyle, but stopped when he realized the insult had been directed at himself as well.
I really need to get better goons, he thought deprecatingly. This day just gets worse and worse. That Weasley brat doesn't know what she's got herself into.
I'll just have to seduce her.
"For you," drawled the odious creature, waving the fine literature in front of her face.
"Thanks," she muttered, taking it from him and struggling to restrain her arm from connecting with his face.
"It's good," Draco offered.
"You've read it?" she asked with a suspicious eye. "Who's the main character?"
"Peter?"
"Peter?" she repeated.
"St. Peter, that is," he amended without skipping a beat. "After all, he's in all of us, in a way."
"Didn't know you were religious," she said before she went back to the chair.
She went directly to bed, waving absently to Ron and Hermione on the way. "Hi, Ginny," the prefect and her friend "Letitia" chorused. "Letitia" had decided she was unsatisfied with her birth name during the second term of fifth year, and had changed it almost fortnightly since then. Ginny gave them a sidelong look, but then saw what had them intrigued.
On her bed lay a pair of blood red roses and several sheets of paper.
And she knew, she knew who had sent them.
"What," she asked in a dangerous tone, "are these?"
"Look at it," urged Letitia with a giggle.
She leaned down and picked up the paper. "Poetry," she said in disgust. What an annoying toad. What does he think he's doing?
"It's perfectly lovely stuff," sighed the prefect wistfully.
Draco's signature graced approximately half of the last page, effectively confirming her suspicions.
"How did these get here?" she demanded.
"He must have dropped them off," Letitia said, bobbing her head in spasmodic motions.
Ginny ground her teeth. "And how did he get the password?"
The prefect looked guiltily at the hem of her robes.
"You didn't tell him, did you?"
"It was romantic," said the prefect in a small voice. "It wasn't like he was going to do anything wrong."
"He's Draco Malfoy, for pungsakes!" Ginny cried, flinging the poetry halfway across the room. "Not an innocent admirer!"
The two other girls gasped.
"I can't believe you just did that," Letitia said with a sniffle. "You're so ungrateful."
They scrambled to recover the unbidden scripts.
"You two are bloody mental," she said in resignation, and pushed the roses off as she crawled into bed.
Ginny looked about nervously, then answered, "Chocolates."
"Chocolates?"
"Everyday, he manages to slip some chocolate into my lunch."
"Are they any good?"
"Hell if I know," Ginny shrugged. "Chocolate makes me break out something fierce. I feed it to Pig." Then she paused. "Any reason you'd like to know?"
Hermione shook her head. "Reckon he'd be the type to have fancy chocolates."
They sat in silence. A Hufflepuff Chaser was called on blagging, so Ginny rose to get a better look at the bloke. She wasn't quite sure who it was even though his name had been announced three or four times. Her eyes wandered over to a tree at the edge of the pitch, and that's when she saw him.
"He's staring at me," she hissed to Hermione.
"What's that?" said her distracted friend.
"Malfoy is over there," she said impatiently. "Staring at me."
Hermione spotted him after a moment. "Maybe he's not staring at you," she suggested. "Perhaps he's staring at that ominous-looking raincloud."
"This is Britain, for pungsakes," Ginny said, shaking her head. "A raincloud is not so extraordinary that one would stare at it."
"It's not an ordinary raincloud," Hermione pressed on. "It's dark as dickens. Look."
Ginny directed her gaze heavenward. "Alright," she conceded. "Perhaps he could be staring at the raincloud. But in all honesty, do you think he is?"
"Not really," Hermione admitted.
A raindrop plopped inelegantly on Ginny's nose. "I think it might be raining."
"I think you're right," her friend said, as several more droplets hit her hair.
The rain became a steady sprinkle, but quickly progressed to a heavy downpour. A bolt of lightning split the sky in the distance, and thunder cracked a bit later.
The announcers quickly decreed the match cancelled, and the masses began to retreat back to the castle.
But he was still standing there. She could feel his eyes boring into her.
"'Mione," Ginny said, placing a hand on her shoulder. "I'll catch up with you, okay?"
Hermione blinked. "Okay."
Damp hair flounced against her neck as she dashed to confront him. She probably needn't have dashed, since it became apparent that even in the atmospheric deluge he had no intention of moving.
"Why are you stalking me?" she exploded.
Draco arched an eyebrow. "Stalking? What would make you think I'm doing that?"
"Maybe because you're following me?"
"If you know I'm following you," he replied easily, "then why did you ask?"
"I didn't ask if you were stalking me, I asked why." She shoved him to punctuate her point.
"Maybe I'm just lavishing my attention on you," he suggested with a wink.
"Maybe you're after something," she shot.
"Well, there was never any question of that."
Angry, she shoved him with much more energy than she had before.
It probably wasn't a good idea.
He caught her arms, spun her around and pinned her to the tree with his elbows. "Much better," he said amiably.
She became aware of the fact that she was soaked, and that her clothes were practically plastered to her body. And that his thigh was against hers.
"Holy shit," she began to say, but his mouth covered hers and took full advantage of the opening. His tongue made quick caresses mirroring those of his hands down her breasts, and every contact point felt as if it was on fire.
She brought her hands up to push him away, but betrayed herself when instead they nudged his green robes to the ground. The motion left him in trousers and a fetching polo shirt. His breath quickened in surprise and responded by broadening the strokes of his tongue.
She softened beneath him, twining her arms around his neck and sighing into his breaths. He was everywhere, touching everywhere. Whatever distance had been between them had closed.
With a loud rumble of thunder, he wrenched away. "Not here."
"What?" she said in utter confusion, dropping her arms.
"I'm not doing this outside," he clarified. "Let's go finish this out of the rain."
"I certainly have no intention of doing so!" she said hotly, as if she had been no party to what had just happened.
"Mind seems pretty quick to deny your body."
"As it rightly should. God, I must look a mess."
"A masterfully mussed mess," he agreed with a grin.
"I'll blame it on the rain," she mused.
"Blame it on whatever you want, but it still happened," Draco said, gathering his muddied robe and starting back to the castle.
"It won't happen again, I assure you," she said between clenched teeth.
He shrugged and left her.
There was, however, no avoiding Letitia.
"Hi, Ginny!" she exclaimed. "Have you been out in the rain all this time?"
"Obviously," Ginny said dryly.
"Letty, shut it," said a girl grumpily from the other side of the room. Ginny couldn't place which one of the girls was speaking. "We're trying to sleep."
Letitia harrumphed. "How rude. Can't you at least stand for a bit of gossip?"
"In the morning, Letty," yawned another.
"You've been good and thoroughly kissed," Letitia beamed, once again focusing on Ginny.
She froze. "How- er, what on earth gave you that impression?" she said weakly.
"Swollen lips," Letty proclaimed. "And I bet I know who it was."
"And I bet if you tell," Ginny said in lowered tones, "I'll tell a certain someone who's been tampering with his love letters."
"You wouldn't!" she burst.
"She would," assured the sleepy girls.
"Oh, fiddlesticks," Letitia sniffed. "This name hasn't been very lucky at all. I think it's time for a change."
"Absolutely nothing," she said vehemently. "I swear, Snape just hates me. I barely walk in the classroom and he wonks up his nose and says, 'Detention, Ms. Weasley.'"
"You must have done something," Hermione said reasonably.
"I didn't even blow anything up," protested Ginny.
"Maybe he's just in a bad mood," Harry offered.
Ginny glared at him. "Yeah? So I'm supposed to be punished for his lack of endorphins?"
"What do you have to do?" Ron asked.
"Probably scrub extra cauldrons and clean the storage room like last time," she sighed. "He told me to meet him in the classroom after dinner."
"Might as well catch some zeds until then," Hermione advised. "You'll probably be working late."
"I am a bit tired," Ginny said wryly. "Don't know why, Letitia wasn't even babbling all night. But a quick kip will be nice." She rested her head on the back of the sofa. "Wake me when it's time to go, eh?"
"You can't mean to sleep here?" Ron questioned.
"Don't see why not," she said with a yawn, and closed her eyes.
"Professor Snape?" she called, brushing the door open to stand in the puddle of darkness. She attempted to make her way through the room, but bumped into something. "Shit," she muttered. "Lumos."
A shadow loomed behind the desk.
"Professor?" she said hopefully.
The figure tilted forward into the small spot of light she'd created, crisp white-blonde hair becoming visible.
"Nice to see you made it, Weasley," he smirked. He murmured a similar spell, and the entire room was lit.
"What the hell are you doing here?" she spat. "I'm supposed to be serving my detention."
"Ah, but you are," he grinned. "Just with me."
Ginny was getting an overall bad feeling.
"How many strings did you pull for this?"
"Not too many, actually," he said contemplatively. "Snape owed me a favor or two, so I requested he give you detention, and let me handle it."
"Dare I ask why?"
"Because," he drawled, "we weren't done."
He crossed the room with a sort of smoldering grace that all at once made him sexy and her jealous. She was inordinately clumsy and never made it anywhere without a few scrapes or bruises. She was still brooding over her lack of inner balance when with a definitive clink, he shut the door and turned the lock.
"Was this all a big ploy to get me in your bed?" she asked, drawing upon some forgotten source within for her calm.
He seemed to consider the question, but answered, "Pretty much."
"And if I won't cooperate?"
Draco looked startled, as if the thought had not occurred to him that she wouldn't be willing. "I suppose you could tidy the storage room for four or five hours," he acknowledged, turning his voice silky, "but that's entirely up to you." He bent his head and briefly grazed her lips. "Now then," he said softly, "what's it to be- me, or the bottoms of the spare cauldrons?"
Defiantly she headed for the storage room.
Something inside him broke, and he yanked her back towards him. He gripped her shoulders with great fervor and captured her mouth, relentlessly ravaging. His hands threaded her hair and, staggering, he managed to crush her against the wall.
He lifted his face off a breathwidth and stared hard into her eyes. "I offer you the choice again."
The distance between them was so slight that she could barely tell that there was any at all. Her heart pounded in her chest, and she could feel his shoulders rising with each ragged breath. Even his gaze seemed to drain her energy. But somewhere, somehow, someplace she found the energy to speak.
"You."
She could scarcely believe that husky tone was her own voice, scarcely believe that she'd said that. Draco, however, wasted no time, and he swiftly began to undress her. Seconds later their clothing pooled at their feet.
His kisses were hot, searing her bare skin, burning every square millimeter of her. Her knees quivered and her arms clasped around his neck. And now, it was infinitely more intimate than before- flesh against flesh.
Desperately he rained his kisses along her collarbone, nudging her thighs apart with one of his. She moaned when he entered. A small expression of surprise flickered across his face when he realized she wasn't a virgin, but it wasn't enough to make him pull out. Instead he slammed into her, over and over, until he poured himself into her.
When he was finally capable of speech, he leaned his head back. "God," he breathed. "Where have you been?"
"Not with you, that's for sure," she replied abstractly. It seemed difficult to focus, but she collected her clothing and dressed haphazardly. "This won't happen again."
"Whatever you say," he said, his own efforts to redress going smoother.
"I mean it," she said sternly. "Never again."
He raised an eyebrow. "Whatever you say."
She attempted to fix her hair but had little success. Draco rolled his eyes, muttered something about helpless females, and braided it with efficiency. After he had finished, he brought his lips down to her ear, and said lightly, "Next Friday?"
"Definitely," she said without thinking.
He shut the entrance.
"Listen," she spoke up nervously, "I really don't think I want to-"
She stopped speaking as his breeches hit the floor.
"Shit," she said in admiration, and kissed him.
His eyes gleamed, and the course was irrevocably set.
It was fast and furious. After, she relaxed next to him. A week's worth of need had definitely culminated into a satisfying experience.
"I'm dying to know," Draco said languidly, an arm still draped across her stomach. "Who was your first?"
"Ah," she said, a sheepish look on her face. "Well, it wasn't anything special. It was right after Harry had publicly declared that he had no interest in me whatsoever. I threw myself at Neville Longbottom, and after an embarrassing fumble, we were done and I still wasn't happy. You?"
"Pansy."
No explanation was needed.
"When can we do this again?" he inquired, nipping at her shoulder.
"During the Quidditch game... Ravenclaw versus Hufflepuff, I'm pretty sure."
"Splendid," he drawled. He continued to nibble down her arm.
"God, you're a lecher," she laughed, pushing him away. "I've got three inches of a scroll left for McGonagall, I don't have time for this."
He folded his arms and pouted.
"Next week," she assured him.