A/N: I know I should be working on My Husband, My Enemy or Something To Talk About right now (because I have abandoned them for far too long. But don't worry because I've finished one chapter of MHME and another one of STTA is on the way) but I just got this silly little idea and I couldn't let go of it.
Forgive the title. I know it's lame.
and the story is horribly sweet. i think. haha!
SOULMATES
Saturday afternoon found Ginny Weasley lying on her bed, reading the latest issue of Witch Weekly (which she had found on Parvati's bed) instead of reading her Potions text book. Or perhaps dealing with her issues.
She chewed on her thumb as she read a particularly amusing article about soulmates. Deciding she had used up her daily quota of utter girlishness, Ginny closed the magazine and laid it down. She found herself engaging in a staring contest with the cover girl of that month's issue, a pretty blond witch (the type he would normally date) she didn't recognize.
Tearing her gaze away, Ginny got up and walked over to the full length mirror in their room. Despite it being one in the afternoon, Ginny was still in her pink cotton nightgown. Being up all night was bad for her, she decided. She looked horrible; all pale and pasty. She quite liked her hair in the morning though. It looked soft and silky, despite being unruly.
"I am completely over yesterday." She told her reflection firmly, voicing out the thoughts that had been running through her mind the whole night. "In fact, I am so over yesterday that I am going to…" Ginny paused, and her eyes landed on the copy of Witch Weekly that lay on her bed.
"Find my soulmate today!" She paused, and giggled at herself. She knew the whole concept of having a soulmate was ridiculous, but "finding" one might prove to be some source of amusement for her that afternoon.
"The second guy I see after I count fourteen suits of armor will be my soulmate."
She quickly changed into a black jumper which she immediately recognized to be Harry's the moment she put it on, and a crimson skirt which fell about three inches above her knees. She hummed to herself as she brushed her rib length auburn hair, then cast glamour charms on the dark rings under her eyes to hide them. She slicked on a coat of grape lip gloss, and smiled at her reflection. . She wanted to look decent for her "soulmate" after all. Ten minutes later and she was wandering aimlessly around Hogwarts, counting the suits of armor.
"Thirteen…fourteen." She held her breath giddily as she rounded the corner, and found Colin Creevey running down the hallway clumsily and nearly bumping into her.
"Sorry Gin! Bye Gin!"
"Umm, okay." Ginny stood, staring bemusedly at the boy's retreating form, silently thanking the gods that he wasn't her soulmate.
She'd had enough of blond boys as it was.
"You're very good at making yourself scarce when you're needed, Weasley." A deep voice drawled from behind her.
"Oh Merlin." She muttered to herself, trying not to look at him, because that would make him her soulmate. She shuddered at the thought. He had done enough damage as it was.
"Oh hello, Malfoy." She replied cheerfully to the suit of armor. "Whatever do you mean?"
"We need to talk. And I'm over here Weasley." Draco's flat tone penetrated her ear drums.
"I'm well aware of that, Malfoy. However," She was cut off by the sound of Malfoy moving towards her. He seemed to be moving to speak to her face to face. She quickly turned around. "However, I don't want to ruin both our days by having the displeasure of seeing each other's faces. And see, I believe we're already talking. So, I must be off now. Bye!"
Before she could make a run for it, the dratted blond god, er…ferret, easily caught her wrist in his hands. His nice, warm hands.
"Look at me, Weasley."
"Do I have to?" She all but whined. She didn't like the sound of his deep voice. Not one bit.
His silence was enough to nag at her insides, and she was visibly struggling between looking at him, and avoiding his gaze.
She settled for facing him, but keeping her eyes squeezed shut. She spent quite some time in that position, too.
She heard him huff in impatience, and felt it too, fanning her face in one warm gust of air. She could also smell it, minty and…nice.
"Why are your eyes closed, Weasley?"
"I erm…accidentally glued them shut this morning?"
"For Merlin's sake Weasley! Open your eyes!"
"Why do I have to look at you anyway?"
A pregnant pause.
"I understand that looking at my godlike appearance may knock the wind out of you, but etiquette dictates that one must look at who they're conversing with in the eye. Especially when they've got important matters to discuss."
Ginny was sure that if her eyes were open, she would've rolled them. She huffed in annoyance instead.
"I don't know what you're talking about." She said lightly.
"Weasley…" Draco began threateningly.
"Fine." She snarled. Determining her soulmate based on one experiment was clearly inadequate anyway. She needed to do several experiments to yield more precise results. Yes, that made sense. This was just the first experiment. She just knew that Draco wouldn't turn out to be her soulmate in the rest of her experiments.
One deep breath, and she opened one eye, peering at Draco curiously. She saw his grey eyes practically piercing through her. She opened her other eye and stood properly. (She hadn't noticed that she was a bit bent over. She might've appeared to be cowering)
"I'm looking at you now. Happy?"
Draco just stared at her in reply. Ginny cleared her throat, planning a quick getaway.
"I'd love to stay and chat, Malfoy, but I really must be off now. Several experiments to conduct, things to determine, lost minds to be found, and so on. Goodbye!"
This time she was able to escape without getting any nice, warm hands clamped over her wrist.
Once she was in the library, she tried to take deep breaths to calm the erratic beating of her heart. What in the world was wrong with her? Ever since that little…episode with Malfoy the other day, talking to him was practically painful. And he just had to be the second guy she saw after the fourteenth suit of armor.
She took out a quill and some parchment (because she just felt like writing something down) and began to write carefully, in her best cursive:
The third guy I bump into will be my soulmate.
She looked at her handwriting, admired it for a while, then giggled softly to herself. She was ridiculous.
She folded the parchment and tucked it in one of the books on her table. She figured that maybe one day someone would find it, read it, and the same ridiculous, girly spirit that possessed her would possess that person as well, and the person would try the experiment too.
She got up and strolled towards the doors of the library. Once she opened it, she bumped into Snape. Oh dear Merlin. Was she ever thankful she decided that the third guy would be her soulmate, and not the first.
"S-sorry professor." She stammered, avoiding his gaze, before dashing outside.
"Phew." She sighed, releasing a breath she didn't know she was holding, as she threw a glance at the already closed library doors. She then found herself walking into something. Or someone.
"Oof!" She bounced back, not quite falling on her ass. Was it just her or did her propensity to bump into people increase after deciding what her second experiment would be?
"Sorry." She muttered, then looked up to check who the second person was. It was some Hufflepuff boy she didn't know. He was probably in his 5th year.
"No problem." He grinned at her, not bothering to help her up.
She blinked up at him, wondering why he just stood there grinning at her, and if he was planning to help her up anytime soon.
"You look nice."
"Er, okay. Thank you but…I'm just going to…" She started scrambling to her feet "Go."
She found herself nearly running away, then bumping into someone else.
"Eek!" She screeched as she crashed onto the floor. Yep, drawing up an experiment that summoned her clumsiness definitely made her clumsier.
Holy potatocakes! This was the third guy! Assuming this was a guy that she bumped into. Who could her soulmate be?
She opened her eyes and her jaw dropped open in shock.
"How many times must I tell you? Stop ogling, Weasley. It isn't very ladylike." He said a bit impatiently, gray eyes pinning her down for the second time that day. Was someone playing a cruel joke on her?
"Malfoy." She nearly choked his name out.
"We need to talk, Weasley."
"Whatever do we have to talk about, Malfoy?" She was well aware that her voice came out a few octaves higher. "Nothing at all! Ha, ha, ha." She laughed nervously and ran away.
There must be some mistake here. Surely the third experiment won't yield the same result! She thought frantically to herself, chewing on her bottom lip in manic anxiety. She paced around the hallway, thinking of a third experiment.
The first guy walking behind the ninth couple I see will be my soulmate.
She headed for the courtyard, knowing that most couples hung out there on Saturday afternoons.
"One, two, three…" Ginny mumbled as she spotted couples engaging in public displays of affection. "Bloody fools can't get their hands off each other."
"Four, five, six, seven, eight…"
She started to turn back inside the castle, and nearly bumped into the ninth couple.
"Nine…"
My soulmate better be good this time. Ginny thought heatedly to herself, as if the intensity of her fury could somehow affect the outcome of her experiment.
She froze in her tracks.
"Are you stalking me?" She growled at him accusingly.
Draco blinked attractively at her. "What is up with you today?"
She gave a little shriek of annoyance before stomping off. After reaching a considerable distance from Malfoy, Ginny plopped down on a huge windowsill and muttered to herself, "the seventh guy to pass by, heading towards my right will be my soulmate."
She stared at the ground beneath her and watched girls and boys passing her by. When she saw that the seventh head bobbing past her, towards her right, was blond, she nearly fell off the ledge.
Okay, this will be the last experiment I'm going to conduct. If it isstill Malfoy, then clearly there is no such thing as soulmates. She told herself vehemently.
She stalked over to the broom shed, took out a dusty Cleansweep and mounted it, thrusting almost violently into the air. She started circling around the Quidditch pitch as she told herself in a clear voice, "The second guy I see during my fifteenth lap around the pitch will be my soulmate." She gripped her broom tightly as she began her first lap.
"And if it's Malfoy, I'm going to drive my broom into the Whomping Willow." She muttered to herself.
This day was stressing her out.
She was already in her thirteenth lap when she began to calm down, but once she got to her fifteenth lap she started tensing up again. She scanned the pitch and saw no one.
Then she spotted someone walking towards the castle. Ginny nearly gagged. It was Filch. Everyone knew he was in love with Mrs. Norris anyway. And if she ever had the bad taste of finding Filch attractive, she wouldn't want to compete for his attention with a cat.
Second guy, second guy, second guy…
She averted her gaze and found herself staring at the locker room's doors, willing someone to come out before the object of her aggravations showed up again.
But the universe seemed to be conspiring against her.
Right before she finished her fifteenth lap, someone flew over and blocked her way. Someone blond, handsome and incredibly sexy, erm, annoying, rather.
"Malfoy." Ginny shut her eyes as she whined. This was not happening.
"Ginny, what is up with you today?"
"What is up with me, you ask?" Ginny repeated irately. "You are! I just can't get away from you can I? You just had to be the second guy I saw after I counted fourteen suits of armor. And the third guy I bumped into, the first guy behind the ninth couple I saw, the seventh guy to pass by, towards my right?And the second guy I saw during my fifteenth lap around the Quidditch pitch. It just had to be YOU."
Draco just stared at her, with a half bewildered, and half amused expression on his face.
"I hope you know" he inclined his head to the right as he studied her, "that you aren't making any sense."
Ginny shook her head in disbelief. "I've gone mad."
"Quite possibly." Draco nodded in agreement. "Or you may have inherited your crazy genes from your parents."
Ginny shot him a withering glare. Unfortunately, he may be the only living being in the planet that was unfazed by this. He didn't, for example, cower at the sight of her fury.
"Why you? WHY?"
"Why me what? Weasley, are you planning on making any sense any time soon? We still have to talk." He added seriously.
"Why. You."
"What? Frankly Weasley, you've been acting strange since, hmm." Draco paused to think.
"Since when Malfoy?" She snapped at him, her hands on her hips.
"I suppose the root of this behavior could be traced back to that time last year we started exchanging things other than insults. But then your strange behavior just escalated yesterday…" Draco trailed off thoughtfully. "Tell me why you've been avoiding me, Weasley." He demanded. "And what is with the suits of armor and counting couples and whatnot?"
"It was just wrong, Malfoy. Wrongwrongwrongwrong!! I cannot even begin to explain how wrong it was."
"How wrong what was?" Draco through his hands up in exasperation.
Ginny silently cursed his balancing skills. Why didn't he just fall off his broom already? And why was he sostupid? He was Head Boy! He was supposed to be smart and perceptive!
"Look Malfoy. After you kissed me yesterday, which was just wrong by the way, I decided to do a few experiments, which were VERY ridiculous and NOT accurate in any way at all, to determine who my soulmate is. AND IT JUST HAD TO BE YOU. CLEARLY, THE EXPERIMENTS ARE UNRELIABLE, AND THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SOULMATES, AND I HAVE BEEN CURSED. DAMNED. BLIGHTED. ANATHEMATIZED! BECAUSE I MUST BE OUT OF MY MIND IF I FANCY MYSELF IN LOVE WITH YOU!!" She finished her speech, huffing violently and glaring at him. "Plus, you're quite impossible. And it would never work out. Your stupid kiss kept me up all night, you…you…you ferret!"
Draco just stared at her with an unreadable expression on his face. He silently flew closer to her, until his face was just a few inches away from hers.
"Erm, what are you doing?" She gulped visibly.
"You seem to have a very unusual definition of 'wrong', Weasley." He drawled. There his breath was again, fanning her face and overwhelming her senses.
She shut her eyes to keep herself from staring at his eyes, or his lips…just him, in general.
"Malfoy…" She meant to be threatening, but her voice came out as a faltering whisper. "You're such a prat."
"A prat you happen to be in love with."
"I was joking?"
"You can't take it back now, Weasley."
Before she could reply, he swooped down and captured her lips.
"I love you too, you silly little bint." He muttered against her lips.
She pulled away a few minutes after, breathing heavily. "The last guy I kiss today will be my soulmate." She declared with a grin.
"That better be me, Weasley." Draco Malfoy growled, as he moved to kiss her again.