a/n: Check my website for Part II.
The Incorrigible Dared
"Bloody holy shit, it's cold."
Ginny stood at the top of the Astronomy Tower, in a blistering wind, wearing nothing but her most flimsy lingerie. Black, lacey, and utterly un-insulated. Five minutes, thirteen seconds down, nine minutes forty-seven seconds to go.
And it's all Draco Malfoy's fault.
She's already sprouted the familiar goose bumps; so plentiful they outnumber her freckles. Really, Ginny puts her skin through undo amounts of torture for something so delicate. Battered with cold, with hot, and with just plain stupid. But it's hers, goddammit, and if someone wants to dare her to put her skin on the line, just to prove she's not scared of sneaking into the library at one in the morning to pinch a book from the restricted section, then let them. The truth is, Ginny's been possessed since the age of eleven and never looks back. She figures if she can live through that, she can live through anything.
Invincible.
It's no wonder, then, that he would want to test her. He's learned, from bitter experience, that you can only push a person so far. Nobody's rubber, we've all got the potential for a really bad break.
""'
It started when he sauntered up to her in the Great Hall. He'd heard about her of course, though he knows you can't trust everything you hear. Sure, Gryffindors are supposedly brave, though if you have ever met Neville Longbottom, you would take that trait with a grain of Scylla's Skeptical Salt. The stories sparked some interest, whether or not this saucy girl could live up to her firm reputation for unequaled daring. Draco wanted to approach her, flared up with a mix of curiosity, malice, and anticipation for a really good game. He demanded that Pansy point out the impertinent little witch, because the most entertaining ones possess the strongest wills.
"Oh, you mean the girl who jumped in the lake from twenty feet in the air and treaded water for one day straight, while cursing out the Giant Squid at the top of her lungs?"
"Maybe," said Draco, "but surely there's more than one person who's done that."
"Surely," said Pansy, in her best Draco mocking tone, "You could've lasted for two days."
"Damn straight, and with more colorful language besides."
Pansy sighed.
"It's her," said Pansy, pointing a blood red nail toward a strikingly small sixth year, with unruly orange hair.
"A Weasley? Delicious."
""'
It's hard to pick which was worse.
For the sake of perspective, Ginny practically enjoyed lasting fifteen minutes in a bitterly cold wind while only half dressed. No problem. Sure, she caught a nasty case of pneumonia that persisted for two and a half weeks and broached on critical condition. Also, Madame Pomfrey subjected her to an hour-long lecture on the merits of wearing clothing, including, but not limited to, the sordid tale of Isak Ockenballz of Surrey, who, thanks to a penchant for streaking, some highly polished tubas, and one deranged Guinny Hen, could never again think of having children.
Still, she'd put up with five weeks of pneumonia for the look on Draco's face when she returned, frozen blue with success. Besides, that ordeal wasn't even half bad compared to the other things he'd put her through.
""'
After the first week, Draco accepted the Gryffindor would be harder to crack than he'd thought. Ginny barely batted an eyelash at fear, scandal, misdemeanors, and immorality. He'd tried almost everything. Everything, that is, except this. And he couldn't believe she was doing it.
Ginny was all too accustomed to the sick feeling in her stomach, the nerves as jittery as if she'd just downed five pots of coffee. The most painful part was being perfectly aware of excessively pushing her hair behind her ears, but nervous habits are hard to break.
But this time, just like any other, she gritted her teeth and marched on.
"I must be borderline psychotic," Ginny whispered, brushing her hair back for the hundredth time that hour. "I'm even talking to myself."
But she'd managed to stare up at his sneering face and declare, loud enough for the whole attentive Great Hall to hear, "Professor Snape, I must confess how ardently I admire and love you."
Not even the resounding cackles that followed could block out the blood rushing in her ears.
So this was all well and good, and would've been like any other time, if it weren't for the look on Snape's face. Not embarrassment, no. Not even close. From his pinched lips to the scorn in his eyes, his expression was written in disgust. He'd known people like her, and the motivation revolted him. Like something vile encrusted on the bottom of his shoes.
Ginny couldn't hold that look. She wanted to slink away, maybe halfheartedly rub her victory in Malfoy's face, but then Snape managed to cut her with one last remark.
"You would do well to remember, Miss Weasley, 'it is very often nothing but our own vanity that deceives us. Women fancy admiration means more than it does.'"
Ginny spent the whole night thinking of revenge.
""'
"Tonight during dinner, you have to sing "My Cherona" on top of the Gryffindor table," Ginny challenged in the hallway after breakfast. And just before walking away from a dumbfounded Draco, she tossed over her shoulder. "Oh, and you might want to work on your dance moves."
"You insult me," Draco tossed back. "I was born to dance."
For every time Malfoy thought he had pushed her too hard, Ginny pushed back even harder.
Still, after his delightful cover of The Knack, Ginny was less than satisfied. She accused him of enjoying it too much.
""'
Then there was the time he dared her to procure a pair of stainless steel handcuffs from Filch's office. Stealing, nothing new. From pumpkin pasties to blood flavored ring pops, she'd done it a million times. A lot of his ideas put her in a criminal position. Like he was trying to corrupt her.
"And what do you need them for?"
Draco smirked, giving her a thoroughly unsettling look. "Wouldn't you like to know?"
"Actually, yes," Ginny held the look, despite the creepiness. Like being given the once over by a dirty old man. But worse.
"Maybe I'll show you sometime."
"Like I'd let you."
But she went through with it anyway, and blamed him for what happened.
She got caught.
It was carelessness mostly. A stream of consciousness distraction as she thought of handcuffs, and utility, and Draco, and futility, and what the hell was he after anyway, while she padded softly through the dark common room to the portrait hole.
"Where are you going?"
He was sitting in an armchair in front of the fire.
"Harry? God, you scared me."
How could she forget to check?
He finally got the story, or at least the version where she was stealing back something of hers, a confiscated deck of exploding Snap.
"It's not worth it, Ginny." Harry stood between her and the way out. "You could get caught."
"You're one to talk. You sneak out all the time."
"How do you...?"
"Ron's my brother."
"Yeah, ok, but I have..." he stopped. "I don't get caught."
"And neither will I," she moved to step around him, this black haired cat crossing her path. "Do you mind?"
But he did mind. He put both hands on her shoulders and told her to stay put until he got back. His heavy hands seeped hot glue.
She was still there a few minutes later.
"Here, take this."
He held out a cloak, shimmering in the moonlight like woven water between her fingertips.
"He won't see you. Put this on, and you'll disappear."
Ginny cursed herself, her dependent self, for it later. He wanted to help her.
And she let him.
She snuck the fact by Draco at breakfast the next morning though, dropping the handcuffs next to his plate with a clatter like the herald of success.
But she felt like a failure, and that's why she kept the keys.
""'
Ginny told him he could pick the lock if he wanted, or, if he dared, fetch the keys from the branches of the Whomping Willow. She'd dropped them from her broomstick.
"Clumsy me."
She pouted a bit, but snatched her lip back between her teeth when she realized how that must look.
"I'll bet."
She regretted it later, forgetting Draco was far too Slytherin to think like a Ravenclaw. He'd tried to use a summoning charm on the keys, but they were caught around a branch. He just needed to step a bit closer for the right angle, anything for a little more power. A bit closer and a bit closer until a branch came cutting through the air right into his chest. Then the whiplash of a second before he could stumble away, the teeth of the keys digging sweetly into his hand. The damage? Two cracked ribs and a bloody temple.
Ginny lay awake that whole night. He wasn't supposed to get hurt.
And that's exactly what Draco thought too, his sore skin chaffing against starchy infirmary room pillows and the drumbeat of a splitting headache competing with the cutting pain of each and every breath. At that point, he seriously thought of turning back.
But they were even. Draco couldn't let it end like that.
""'
"One night in the forbidden forest. You can even sleep through it if you like. I consider that a fairly cushy offer after what you put me through."
She accepted, of course, without a single thought to personal safety. From dusk until midnight, and she had to be alone.
"Can I bring a pillow?"
He smirked.
"I'll even let you borrow mine."
Ginny couldn't help but think no one should be allowed to smirk like that. Why, it's practically indecent.
She picked a spot in the forest where she could watch the last rays of the sunset, on a rock in the middle of the clearing they used for Care of Magical Creatures. She lay down on her back, head on a feather pillow that smelled decidedly unfamiliar, like leather and expensive cigars. She wondered whether Draco smoked.
Ginny felt fine until after dusk. In those first minutes when she could barely make out the trees, the noises started. Rustles, flutters, scuttles, and one decidedly inhuman shriek.
Her fingers tightened around the hard wood of her wand as she listened, then realized she wasn't breathing.
She had the presence of mind to mutter "lumos", but that barely helped uncurl the clench in her stomach. Especially when the glow of her wand started to attract unsavory attention. Insects, moths, and pixies swarmed around the soft light. She extinguished the wand after one particularly large, purple winged thing bit her on the neck.
Surrounded by darkness, Ginny fingered the bite and found it had swelled. After a while, the throbbing started to persuade her into the unthinkable. Heading back. A voice sounding curiously like her mother kept saying Madame Pomfrey should have a look, in the safe confines of the infirmary. What if you're poisoned, Miss Weasley?
In the end, the choice was either suck it up and face Draco with defeat, or die.
She stayed.
As for Draco, he was staked out with a small group of fellow spectators, waiting patiently for the moment when Ginny would come streaking out through the trees, screaming bloody murder with a baby Puffskein on her heels.
But by the time midnight rolled around, she still hadn't cracked. That disappointed Draco, but he was already concocting a new task, something even more trying, more horrifying than anything before. He just needed Ginny to return so he could tell her about it.
But the next time he checked, his watch read 12:15. Then 12:30. At a quarter to one in the morning, he was pacing back and forth just outside the forest and muttering to himself.
"Do you think I can get expelled for promoting acts of recklessness in others?"
He wasn't about to wait for the answer.
Leaves and twigs obligingly made way for Draco's hasty descent into the forest. He was over halfway to the clearing when he realized he hadn't brought anyone with him.
Suddenly those twigs looked a lot more menacing.
He proceeded with enhanced paranoia until finally finding Ginny still in the clearing.
She was lying on a rock. Asleep.
Ginny had every right to gloat about her victory, basking in the admiration of her fabulous talents of not getting eaten. She'd spent the whole night in the Forbidden Forest, and her only physical injury was the swollen bite to the neck, which left an absurdly hickey-like bruise. But there was one reason that ruined everything, that made this one of the worst dares of her life.
Because Draco was worried.
The nerve.
""'
Her next idea came out of spite more than anything. Maybe she'd get him expelled.
But for Draco, it proved almost too simple.
He waited until eleven in the evening, when the kitchens closed down, then rang his preferred house-elf, Rufus, who had yet to meet a request he deemed too obscure, outrageous, or for that matter, lawless.
Seven minutes later, Draco held a large flask of Black Label Smerlinoff in his hand without ever lifting a finger. Now all he had to do was show Ginny.
""'
"Really, Malfoy, this is too easy, " slurred Ginny, after knocking back her thirteenth shot. She giggled. "Haven't you got anything more difficult?"
He took the bottle out of her hands clumsily, pouring himself number thirteen. He knocked it back like fire down his throat, sending a jolt of inspiration in the form of a really devilish idea.
"Cheat," he suggested locking eyes with her across the table.
"At what?" she tilted her head, pushing loose hair out of her face.
"On, not at. On your boyfriend." Draco's eyes gleamed with that particular light. The one that's sparked by more than plain mischief.
"Who?" asked Ginny, knitting her brows and pouring herself another shot.
"Dean, or course." Draco couldn't be more exasperated. "You're so ditsy when you're drunk."
"Oh, him," she nodded, pushing the bottle back at Draco. "And I thought you'd give me a real challenge. So who's it gonna be with?"
"Anyone you want."
She cocked one eyebrow at him, while he resolutely held her gaze. He even resisted the urge to look down her shirt when she leaned across the table, grabbed his tie, and pulled him close enough to taste the alcohol on her breath. She kissed him, messy but thorough. Leaning into it too hard, she wavered a bit pulling back, her hand still gripping his tie with white knuckles.
"I...I want you," she said, speaking the lines of a dominatrix with the shaky voice of a near child. She didn't feel the need to mention she broke up with Dean weeks ago.
Draco pulled her around the table and rested his hands on her hips. Their lips collided with hot breath and sticky liquor. Ginny fell into him and Draco held her instinctively and tight.. He set her softly down on the table, cushioning the one girl he could never break, sliding his hands over her skin, and whispering in her ear.
"I dare you."