Disclaimer: I don't own anything pertaining to Harry Potter
Spoilers: Just general knowledge of the books and characters
Pairing: Ginny/Draco
Rating: PG-13 to be on the safe side
Summary: Ginny, Draco, a secret room and a whole lot of snark, what more could you ask for?
A/N: Well, I wrote this quite a while ago for a Secret Santa exchange. It's much fluffier then I usually like my Draco/Ginny, but there's lots of snark and who doesn't love the snark?
A/N 2: I'm also not sure if it's finished or not. I like ambiguous endings, but if I get the urge I may continue in the future. Who knows?
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"Weasel, is that you?" Draco asked. He poked his head around the door and saw the redheaded girl leaning over a roll of parchment. Her hair fell over her face and one strand was dangerously close to dipping into her inkwell.
"No, sorry, Ginny isn't in today. I'm her evil twin. I'll be forwarding all her messages."
"Haha, funny. What on earth are you doing down here."
"Studying."
"In the dungeons? Are you trying to piss off the entire Slytherin house?"
"You don't own the dungeons. I'm nowhere near your dormitory or the potions classroom. No one even comes down here…usually."
"I'm down here." Draco walked up behind her and peered over her shoulder at what she was writing. It was almost definitely not homework.
"Yeah, that's pretty much what I was referring to when I said usually." Ginny glanced back at him and quickly flipped the parchment over.
"What is that?"
"None of your business. What do you want Malfoy?"
"Well, now that's none of your business." Draco wandered around the empty classroom looking at some of the extra textbooks and old furniture that was stored in the corners of the classroom. "Do you always come down here?"
"I like it down here. It's quiet or it always has been before." Ginny rolled up her parchment and stuck it into her bag. The last thing she needed was Draco commenting on her homework. "Is there something you need or are you just planning on annoying me to death?"
Draco was running his hands over a section of the stone wall. He was pushing and knocking on the stones as if they were going to open for him. He didn't bother answering Ginny, but instead threw her a smirk and continued his search.
"There's a bookshelf behind you. Try pulling the books out." Ginny said.
"Shut up. There's a secret room back here somewhere and if you help me look I'll let you use it whenever you want."
"How do you know there's a room back there?" Ginny asked. Her voice held the slightest tinge of interest and she slowly made her way over to stand near him.
"Blaise's older sister heard it from their uncle. She told Blaise and Blaise told me. It was supposedly a secret getaway for some old potions professor and his mistress."
"Eeeww," Ginny said. She pulled her hand back from the wall where she was searching as if something had bit her. "I don't want to find some pervy old professor's love nest."
"Even if that pervy old professor left his journal full of potions and spells…illegal potions and spells."
"What makes you think I care two bits about potions? I hate potions. And if they're illegal then we should tell Dumbledore about them."
"You hate Snape. You don't hate potions. If you did you wouldn't have such high marks."
"How do you know what my marks are?" Ginny asked. She reluctantly went back to knocking on the wall listening for a hollow sound. Draco had stopped his search for the moment and was sitting on top of a desk twirling a piece of chalk in his fingers. He stared intensely at his fingers as if concentrating on not dropping the chalk but every so often he would look over at Ginny knocking on walls and pulling books off bookshelves and if Ginny had been inclined to glance back at him she would have been shocked by his expression. Instead of disgust or hatred his look was one of interest and confusion. The hostility was just an afterthought.
"Malfoy, I asked you a question."
"You're brother told me. He seems to think I care that you do well in potions. I've never met anyone who can turn something into a competition as well as that brother of yours."
"And this coming from Draco Malfoy, the most competitive person alive." Ginny had finished with the bookshelf by this time and was now trying to push it away from the wall to see what was behind it.
"I'm not competitive." Draco actually sounded a bit offended but Ginny just snorted.
"Yeah, right."
"I'm not. I could care less what kind of marks you or anybody gets. I'm not competitive. My father is."
"And you don't care one bit?"
"No, not really. Do you want me to help you move that or do you enjoy straining your back like that?"
Draco smirked his patented smirk at her and took out his wand. He swished, flicked, and the shelf was in the middle of the room.
"See what happens when you hang out with muggles for too long. You forget you're a wizard."
"Sod off, Malfoy. You're not as mean as you think you are." Ginny growled before attacking the wall with the same gusto she had attacked the bookshelf.
"Yes, I am." Draco said before going back to searching for the hidden room. He was starting to think that the bloody room wasn't worth it. Who needed even more potions to memorize? Didn't he have enough studying to do without adding more?
"So is your dad really strict on things like school?" Ginny asked after a few minutes of silence.
"What?"
"Well, you said that he was really competitive. I was just wondering if he was really strict about stuff like having good marks. I know my parents are."
"Weasel, I don't know what gave you the impression that this is share time but I'm not going to pour out my deepest darkest secret about how my parents don't love me."
"Your parents don't love you?" Ginny asked but there was a smile in her voice. They weren't giving away secrets or talking about their lives. This weird closeness they were feeling did not lend itself to pouring their hearts out.
"Shut up and get back to work."
"Yes, sir!" Ginny saluted him from the floor where she was examining the floorboards.
"Now that's what I want to hear coming out of your mouth. Can you call me master?"
"Yeah, sure as soon as you confess you're…Hey, what's this writing?"
"What writing?" Draco asked. He abandoned his search and came to see Ginny stroking the floor in front of her where it met the floorboards.
"This writing. It doesn't look English, or Latin."
Draco brushed her hand away and studied the writing. It wasn't even written in the Latin alphabet. It was a fancy calligraphic script and the characters most definitely represented letters but it was from an alphabet he'd never seen before.
"I don't know. It's not like any language I've ever seen but it must be how to get into the secret room.
"Or maybe it's just graffiti from old students."
"Written in some obscure language?" Draco scoffed. "Are your parents so poor they couldn't afford to buy you a brain?"
"Did you ever think that maybe it was a made up language? My brothers and I used to do it all the time. It's kind of like Pig-Latin."
"What in the bloody hell is Pig-Latin?" Draco asked. He was still examining the floor and attempting to sound out the letters even though he had no idea what kind of sounds they made.
"It's this made-up language kid muggles use. Hermione taught me. It's really easy. All you do is drop the first letter or sound of a word, like the d in dog or the ch in child…" Ginny crossed her legs and leaned toward Draco as she talked. They're heads were almost touching as they examined the weird writing on the floor.
"I really could care less about some stupid muggle language."
"English is a muggle language."
"It most certainly is not." Draco said. He sounded so offended at the thought that Ginny couldn't help but giggle. It was exactly the voice Ron made when anyone gave Slytherin credit for anything.
"Muggles speak it." Ginny said after she successfully choked her giggle back down her throat.
"They might speak it but it's a commonly known fact that English was invented by wizards."
"Yeah, right. You made that up. If that was true I'm sure Hermione would have mentioned it before."
"You don't believe me?" Draco asked. He turned his head; surprised that she didn't believe him. When his head came up it rose right into her hair and he was covered in strawberry red hair. It smelled like strawberries too. He'd never smelled anything so good. Draco quickly pulled his face free from her hair and berated himself for getting so lost in something as useless and pathetic as a girl's hair.
"No, I try to make it a habit of not believing a word…" Ginny had turned her head and caught a very un-Draco like expression covering the boys face. He looked vaguely uncomfortable and surprised. He looked as if he had just had a revelation. Ginny's heart sped up. She wasn't sure what his expression meant but she knew it was significant.
"Draco?" She asked. He didn't answer her. Instead he tilted his head and just like that they were kissing. His lips were warm and soft. She could feel them just barely touching hers and she wanted more. Ginny forgot that only moments before they had been sniping at each other. She forgot that he was supposed to be her worst enemy. She forgot everything except that his lips were warm and the hand he had brought up to grasp her shoulder was strong and steady. Ignoring all rational thought Ginny pressed herself closer to him.
When Draco felt Ginny respond to his kiss he moved his lips; deepening the barely there kiss. Then she parted her lips and his tongue darted into her mouth. She tasted like heaven. She was the first girl he'd ever kissed without thinking of the political ramifications. He forgot she was a muggle-lover. He forgot she was poor. He forgot she was a Weasley. For that moment in time Draco forgot everything except that she tasted like heaven.
As they kissed their hands inched closer together until they were laying side my side on top of the strange writing they had found. When their hands finally stopped they were resting side by side, barely touching each other. Then Ginny lifted her hand and placed it directly on top of Draco's squeezing his fingers.
Just then a dull thud sounded next to them and they jumped apart. They both breathed heavily as they stared at each other and then at the door that was now obviously sitting in the wall next to where they were sitting. Apparently speaking the words did not activate them. Making out on top of them was the key to this spell and the old professor was getting pervier by the minute.
"If we go in there and some dead pervy professor is still there I swear I'll get Hermione to hex you." Ginny said, her sarcastic barrier falling smoothly into place as if she hadn't just snogged Draco Malfoy on the floor of an empty classroom.
"Shut up, Ginny. Let's go see what's through that door."
"What did you say?"
"I told you to shut up."
"No, you called me Ginny."
"So?" Draco asked. He looked at her like she'd lost her mind. "That is your name right?"
"Yeah, I just didn't think you knew it."
"Well, surprise. I do. Come on!" Draco said. He grabbed Ginny's hand and pulled her down the short corridor that the door had revealed and into the hidden room.
It was a bedroom no doubt. Draco could just make out the bed but he doubted anyone had ever used it for sex. It was drowning in books. In fact, the entire room was drowning in books. Three of the walls were covered in wall to ceiling bookshelves that were filled to the brim and spilling over onto the floor, chairs, the bed stand and finally the bed. The books were old. Older then Draco had ever seen and his father had some ancient books. Mesmerized by the chaotic little room Draco dropped Ginny's hand and stepped into the room. He chose a book at random from the first shelf and pulled it out. It was covered in dust and he sneezed. From behind him he heard Ginny whisper a simple cleaning spell and the dust disappeared but he was too enthralled to say thank you. Not that he would have anyway. The book must have been 500 years old at least.
"This place is amazing." Ginny said. Draco glanced toward her and saw that she had made herself home on the floor surrounded by stacks of books. "Hermione would just die in here."
"You can't tell her about this. You can't tell anyone. It's got to be our secret."
"Why? Shouldn't everyone know about this?"
Draco gently put the book he was holding back in its place and sank down to sit in front of Ginny. He pushed a stack of books out of the way and took her hand.
"If anyone finds out Dumbledore will have these books taken out of here and sent to get analyzed and tested. We'll never see them again. You don't know what could be in here. If we let someone else take away our discovery then we loose everything we could gain."
"Like what?" Ginny asked. She was barely paying attention to his words. The fact that he was holding her hand had captured all of her attention. She wasn't sure if she was thrilled or disgusted but either way Draco Malfoy holding her hand was distracting.
"Fame, money, power beyond anything either of us has."
"Draco, I think you're getting ahead of yourself. A minute ago you thought it was some old professor's secret getaway with a few illegal spells thrown in for good measure. Now you think you're going to get rich and famous, or richer and famous, off of it?"
"Something's in here. I can feel it. Can't you."
"I guess. Mostly the only thing I can feel right now is your hand holding mine." Ginny mentally kicked herself as soon as the words left her mouth. However he took that comment she was screwed. Then Draco smirked and the smirk softened into a very unsure smile.
"Do you want me to let go?"
"I…don't know."