Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter books or any of the characters in this story except for additional members of the Weasley family. So please don't sue, J.K. Rowling.
Note: I'M SORRY!!! I didn't mean to take this long writing this fanfic! Unfortunately, school and Christmas shopping always go first before fanfictions. In the future, don't hesitate to make one of those stop-being-a-lazy-bum-and-finish-the-#$ing-story comments. Well, I hope everyone had happy holidays and a happy new year!
Chapter 1
"Where are your servants now?" a voice jeered from above Harry, who lay between the gravestones of his parents. The young man moaned in pain as he felt something twist his insides like a carnival ride. "Where is your Mudblood and Weasley boy?" Harry attempted to stand, but collapsed onto the gravestone of James Potter, vomiting blood as he fell. "Dead, perhaps?" Voldemort continued.
"They've found the last Horcrux," the man rasped before coughing up more blood. "They found it and destroyed it." To Harry's surprise, the monster of a man who leered over him appeared to be slightly amused.
"You don't think I know that, boy? You don't think I know that the body I possess is the only one I have left?" Voldemort's mouth twitched into a crazed smile. "It's just you and me, Harry." The Dark Lord leaned so close to his enemy that Harry could smell the scent of a thousand rotting corpses combined with the undying lust of murder on his breath. Voldemort stared into Harry's eyes, trying to detect the slightest hint of terror, but found none. "You're a brave boy, Harry," he said as he drew his wand. "Tell Satan that Voldemort sent you."
"Avada Kedavra!"
"Harry!"
Harry Potter opened his eyes to find that instead of standing on a fluffy cloud with his parents and other relatives, he lay on a snowy cobblestone road. A woman with a flaming red mane of hair framing her freckled face hovered over him.
"You do this every year on the day He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named died," she said as she single-handedly pulled him to his feet.
Harry sighed. Would she ever learn to stop being such a coward and say the man's name?
"Call him 'Voldemort', will you? He's been dead for the past seven years, and I'm sure he won't mind if you call him by his name," he scolded. The redheaded woman gave a shiver that had little to do with the chilly winter air.
She considered saying "not everyone can be as courageous as the great Harry Potter", but that might just ruin their night together. Instead she settled on speaking calmly while holding his hand.
"I don't want to argue with you, Harry."
"Neither do I. It's just that I can't see why—"
"I only want to have a few drinks and have some fun with my boyfriend," she said as she pecked him on the lips. "Then later we could have a bit more fun, hmm?" He nodded and followed her into the Three Broomsticks.
The moment they entered, a wave of gasps erupted in the pub, followed by several, "Is that him?", "It's Harry Potter!" and "That Ginny Weasley is one lucky girl." The couple pretended that no one had said a word and sat at the bar next to a man who was too drunk to recognize them.
"Good afternoon," Madam Rosmerta, the curvaceous owner of the Three Broomsticks, greeted them. "What'll it be?" Harry made a mental note to thank Ginny for choosing a place where the owner didn't ask for his autograph.
"I'll have a sherry, thank you," the woman named Ginny responded.
"And some pumpkin juice," Harry added. Madam Rosmerta nodded and went to get their drinks.
"What do you reckon Hermione and Ron are up to?" Harry asked, trying to start a conversation and make up for their small argument outside the pub at the same time. Ginny, who realized what he was doing, couldn't help but laugh at his unintentional randiness of his statement.
"Do you think I would want to even know?"
Harry flushed before murmuring,
"You know what I was trying to do. I didn't mean for it to sound like that."
Ginny would have usually let this slide and changed the subject to something safe like Quidditch or the constant search for the Death Eater Bellatrix Lestrange. But this was simply too easy to have a bit of fun with. She laughed airily, as if she were about to let the topic go.
"I know exactly what you were talking about, Harry." She watched him sigh in relief before leaning in to whisper into his ear, "We both know you're a very dirty wizard, Harry." The man's face went from pigmy puff pink to Weasley red.
"I may not be one to judge, but I think you should be getting to a doctor, Harry," Madam Rosmerta said as she set their drinks on the table, worry lines etched across her now concerned face. "You're as red as a beet." Ginny shook her head.
"Oh, it's nothing like that. We were just sharing a good laugh," Ginny said coolly. Madam Rosmerta eyed Ginny curiously before going off to serve other customers.
Harry raised his eyebrows at her.
"'Having a good laugh'?" he said in disbelief. Ginny smiled and kissed him slowly, knowing this would always make any tension between them suddenly smooth out. Once they broke apart, Harry sighed and took a gulp of pumpkin juice. "Why do we do this?" he asked wearily. Ginny looked puzzled and sipped her sherry, a signal for him to continue. "We do this every year. You'll plan to take me to some pub in celebration of Voldemort's death. (Oh, Ginny, will you stop cringing?) Then we'll argue over something stupid, find ourselves having a boring time at the pub, then go back to your place for 'a bit of fun'. Can't we just—" Harry was no longer looking at his girlfriend. In fact, he seemed to be giving someone over her shoulder a cold glare. She whirled around to find the one person who could possibly make their night worse.
"Let him be," Ginny pleaded, clutching Harry's arm.
"Why?" Harry barked. Ginny immediately dropped his arm, astonished at his harsh tone. He's going to do it anyway, Ginny thought to herself. You always have to be the heroic Harry Potter who couldn't have a good date with his girlfriend if his life depended on it. Fine by me. Abso-fucking-lutely fine. She chose not to answer Harry and simply watch how things turned out. If the blonde man with sharp features and a drunken girlfriend who had just come in gave Harry a black eye and a nasty enlargement charm, so be it. He'd deserve it, anyway. It would give him a good opportunity for a well-deserved I-told-you-so.
"Long time no see, Potter," a sickeningly familiar voice drawled from behind them. "The last time I saw you, you were being hauled off to the Dark Lord by my aunt and your favorite potions teacher. Sometimes I even wonder today how you escaped." Draco chuckled. "He must have given you hell before his death, didn't he?" Pansy Parkinson giggled and hiccupped at his side. Harry turned to take a good look at his enemy.
Draco Malfoy looked less and less like his father with every passing year. Though he carried Lucius's trait of keeping a clean-shaven face, he still had a certain ruggedness about him that could only come from doing hard labor—something Draco's father had never gotten a taste of in his life. The man's grey eyes seemed sharper and more alert than his father's. Harry guessed that this came from working under both Snape and Voldemort, two men who would have definitely made a watch dog out of him. His body had grown more muscle from having to be quick on his feet in case of an attack from Aurors. However, what made Harry want to kill Draco on the spot was the smirk on his face that was far from his typical Malfoy smirk. This was the sort of expression a murderer gave their victim before slowly torturing them; the same look he saw the man give Hermione before putting the Cruciatus… Harry tucked that memory into the back of his mind before it began to replay in his brain, hoping that eventually he would forget it altogether.
"And I wonder how you managed to escape from Azkaban," he retorted.
Draco took a seat next to Harry and eyed his drink.
"Pumpkin juice?" he said incredulously. "You never were much of a man, Potter." He then set his pale eyes upon Ginny and gave her a look of utter disgust. "I don't see why you bother with him," he said to her in a voice that would have been more appropriate for the statement "you're too good for him, anyway".
"She bothers with me because she loves me," Harry snapped, pulling Ginny closer to him to prove his point. Do I? she wondered.
"Oi, Rosmerta! Two shots of rum," Draco ordered, slapping a Galleon on the table. Madam Rosmerta grumbled something about having manners as she poured their drinks. Once the woman set the two glasses on the table, Draco raised his for a toast. "To Potter and his apparently happy girl. I hope Weasley doesn't go mad from serving you." He downed his drink and found that Harry hadn't touched his rum. "Be a man, Potter."
"Do it," Pansy slurred. "You're embarrassing Weasley."
Harry looked at the pretty redhead he came in with only to find that she avoided his eyes, an expression of humiliation plastered on her face. Let him do it. Let him learn his lesson.
Harry, upon believing that he understood what she was thinking, gulped down the vulgar liquid. For a moment he looked as if he would vomit it back up, but his stomach gave him mercy.
"You're better than I expected, Potter. Care for a bit of a challenge?" Draco drawled. Harry seemed confused by his opponent's offer. "A drinking contest, dolt," he explained curtly.
"Fine," Harry said through clenched teeth, knowing that this was going to be a terrible mistake. Draco smiled and conjured more of what appeared to be rum in their shot glasses with his wand. "Cheers," Harry said, and downed his second shot.
Pansy retrieved a flask from her robes and offered it to Ginny.
"You won't even taste a thing," Pansy giggled. Ginny shook her head, but the other girl pressed on. "It tastes just like water once you get used to it." The pug-faced woman was now pushing the flask into Ginny's face and backing her into a corner. "It's only fun when we're all drunk."
Ginny felt Pansy wrench her head back. Though she resisted, Malfoy's date was simply too strong. A disgusting thick liquid was forced down her throat, which burned like fire as the substance oozed its way down. Pansy's satisfied face was the last thing she saw before blacking out.
--
Harry bolted upright in bed to a woman's piercing shriek.
"OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD!"
He whirled his head around and nearly fell out of bed when his eyes found the woman who had screamed. On the other side of the bed sat Pansy Parkinson, who looked as if she had just witnessed a nasty murder.
"Parkinson, what are you doing here?" Harry asked, still completely in shock.
"I don't know! I just remember going drinking with Draco and you and Weasley were there and…oh my God!" Pansy's eyes grew wider. "What if I'm pregnant? I can't be pregnant! Not with your baby."
Harry, who had become reasonably calm by Pansy's fourth oh my God, took a deep breath and spoke.
"You're not pregnant. At least not by me."
Pansy scooted further away from him and crossed her arms.
"How do you know?"
"Look at us. Do you think you could possibly get pregnant by me if we're both wearing clothes?" Harry said matter-of-factly. He watched the young woman sigh in relief and suddenly gasp.
"But if I'm waking up with you," she said slowly, like a child reading from her first book, "where do you suppose Weasley and Draco are?"
--
Ginny Weasley awoke to a ray of golden sunlight illuminating the unfamiliar room in which she lay. Stone walls, expensive furniture, and a red-brick fireplace with dying embers surrounded her. What brought more confusion to her tired state was the cold, strangely pale arm that wrapped itself around her unclothed body. It didn't take long for her to realize that the man she shared this bed with wore nothing as well.
Ginny rolled over and stared into the face of a man who was very far from Harry. Before she knew it, her body tensed in mortification, the once puzzled expression on her face quickly converted into one of utmost terror, and a sea of thoughts rushed into her horrified mind. However one word managed to escape her trembling lips.
"Shit."
She shut her eyes, praying that this was all one terrible nightmare. In thirty seconds she was going to wake up to the familiar home owned by Harry Potter, her beau wrapped lovingly around her, and she would release a bloodcurdling scream in response to her dream.
Thirty seconds passed.
Then a minute.
"Shit."
After several minutes of trying to wake up, Ginny simply gave up and faced her fears. Something was forced down her throat that made her pass out, and now she was in bed with Draco Malfoy. What made it all so extraordinarily disgusting was the undeniable fact that she slept with him the night before, seeing that neither of them wore a single article of clothing. The only way to escape this situation was to escape.Without thinking of how or what the consequences were if she failed to do this task, she reached behind herself and slowly separated Draco's arms from around the small of her back, giving her room to slither out and quickly place a pillow in her spot. If only she could move his arm just a little—
"Weasley?!"
Ginny took less than two seconds to rip the single bed sheet off of Draco to hastily wrap around herself as the two jumped out of bed in response to seeing each other. For a moment he stood naked before her, his face distorted with a mix of rage and humiliation.
"I don't know why all the girls at Hogwarts were after you if this is all you've got," Ginny said with a smirk. Draco tore a pillowcase from an especially long pillow and wrapped it around his waist.
"Don't smile like that. You look like a Malfoy," he snapped. Ginny crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow at him.
"I would never look like a Malfoy."
"Depressing idea, isn't it?"
"What about being raped by a Malfoy?" she sneered, pulling the sheets closer to her body. Draco's jaw momentarily dropped, but he was able to compose himself quickly enough for Ginny not to notice.
"Why would I want you?" he said conversationally. "It's more likely that you came onto me. After all, all the girls at Hogwarts were after me, aren't they?" Ginny rolled her eyes, trying to cover up the fact that Draco won their argument.
"I don't have time for this, Malfoy. Harry will be worried," she said as she picked up her robes. "Turn around," she ordered. "I'm going to get dressed."
"Why should I? I've already seen you naked." Ginny cringed as her rival turned to face the far wall. She dropped the sheets and began to pull on her undergarments. "You should keep the sheets," Draco commented. "I'm going to burn them if you don't."
"I guess you'll be putting that fireplace to good use, then."
"Say, Weasley, I was meaning to ask you something. Who's better in bed: me or Potter?" Ginny froze. How the hell did we get onto this topic? Why would he want to know that? "You heard me, Weasley."
"Harry," she said simply, hoping that she didn't sound as awkward as she felt.
"Is that so?" Ginny straightened her robes to make sure that nothing was out of place in her now clothed body.
"Yes, it is so." She spun around to stare angrily at what she thought would be the back of Draco's head. To her horror, he stood facing her, his face only inches from hers. "How long have you been standing—"
"I don't believe you." For a split second she had absolutely no idea what he was talking about, but soon enough, it came to her.
"I blacked out, so Harry wins."
A strange confidence shone in Draco's face that scared Ginny a bit.
"So no one knows for sure," he said with a smirk that could top Ginny's any day.
"And I'd like to keep it that way."
"But admit it; it would be fun to see our family's reactions if we did."
A perfect picture of a terrified Percy flashed across Ginny's eyes.
"It would be funny," she agreed before adding quickly, "but I would never do it."
"But just imagine the look on you're brothers' faces," he pressed. "It would be perfect revenge on anything and everything they've done to you. Or even better: the look on my mother's face if he finds out." Ginny scrunched up her nose.
"This is a game to you, isn't it?" she spat in disgust. "Just some sick way of getting back at your mother."
"There's no feelings involved," he reasoned. "I don't like you and you don't like me. That's it."
"I'm sure last night was enough of a mistake to anger Narcissa Malfoy."
Draco took a seat on the foot of the bed and sighed. Something about the way his eyes stared into hers while the rest of his face drooped into a depressing frown made her feel uncomfortable. Something about the way he looked so—she paused to think of the right word—honest made him almost unMalfoy. Without realizing it, she felt pity towards the man and kneeled down on the floor in front of him.
"What would you do," he asked slowly, "if I told you that I didn't care about my mother and I just wanted to see you?"
Ginny was stunned.
"Tomorrow at the Three Broomsticks." It sounded more like a demand than a request.
"Why would you want to see me again?" Ginny asked, finding her voice. Draco gave her a smile that sent chills up her arms.
"I'm sure you can think of a few reasons."
"You're doing this to get back at Harry, aren't you?"
"That's one of them."
"You're disgusting, Malfoy. Don't bother waiting for me tomorrow. I'm not going anywhere near you." She stalked out the room and stomped blindly through the house, trying to find the door out of the place. On several occasions, she found herself dramatically walking out of a room into a closet or one of the six other bedrooms. Once she arrived at the main door, she found Draco holding the door open in a way that might suggest that he was something of a gentleman. Without even glancing at him, she strode out of his vast home, hoping that she was more convincing than she felt.
"I'll be at your house by noon," he called, and shut the door after her.