Draco Malfoy hated waking up on Monday mornings.
In his opinion, there was nothing more terrible than having to get up after a relaxing weekend, only to realize that there were still five more days to go until Saturday.
To make it worse, he'd had a terrible weekend, so he couldn't even reminisce fondly during History of Magic. The object of his fantasies had been suspiciously missing for the entirety of it, and his temper had been slowly building every time he looked across the hall and failed to find his redhead.
"Conditions look ideal for Quidditch," Blaise Zabini remarked casually at the breakfast table, and it was all Draco could do to keep himself from snarling at Blaise's chipper voice. No one should be allowed to sound so happy while he was in such a terrible mood.
"I don't know. I heard it's going to get quite windy later in the week," Adrian Pucey said dubiously. "We could get blown off course."
"Well, if anything happened to me, I'll just nip right on down to the Hospital Wing," Blaise shrugged. "I heard there's a pretty redhead playing nurse there. I could do with a bit of female love."
The boys all chuckled, with the exception of Draco, who was now silently seething at Blaise's words.
So that was where the littlest Weasley was spending all her time. With sick people who didn't deserve her at all. In fact, she was probably at the Hospital Wing right now, dressed in a skimpy nurse's outfit, holding the water cup to the lips of some undeserving idiot.
He was so angry that he almost missed Nott's next words.
"I don't know, Zabini. Last I saw, she had her hands full with Potter. The git somehow managed to get hit by a Bludger during Quidditch practice."
Draco clenched his fists under the table at that, even though he would've welcomed the knowledge of Potter's pain if he hadn't been so incensed. But this, this was truly the last straw. He wasn't going to sit around idly while the female Weasley fluffed Potter's pillows and smoothed his mop of hair.
He stood up.
"Crabbe, I need to speak with you about something urgent," he told his friend, who was in the middle of shoveling something yellow down his throat.
"Uh," the Slytherin asked forlornly, staring down at his breakfast. "Can it wait?"
"No. It can not," Draco said curtly, ignoring the stares of the other Slytherins.
Saying so, he turned on his heel, and exited the Great Hall, knowing from the sound of Crabbe's heavy footfalls that his friend was following him.
He stopped in front of the Charms classroom and turned around. Looking at the bulky boy, he felt something akin to apprehension knawing away on the inside.
Was he really going to do this?
After all, Crabbe was not known for his brilliant spell-work. Draco supposed he could've asked Zabini or Nott, but they would've inevitably asked questions that he was not willing to answer.
No, it had to be Crabbe. At least it was better than Goyle, he told himself half-heartedly.
"I need you to do me a favor," he told the big Slytherin.
Crabbe looked at him dumbly, and Draco felt another wave of unease.
Was she really worth it?
He thought about her crimson hair and her caramel eyes, and concentrated deeply on how her tiny hands would look when they were fluffing his pillows and soothing his blond hair.
Yes, he decided, she was worth it.
"I need you to cast a Bruising Jinx, on me," Draco sighed, waving his own wand in indication of what Crabbe needed to do. Bruising Jinxes weren't terribly complicated. Surely Crabbe could do at least that.
Crabbe's thick eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "But why?"
"It doesn't matter. Just do it," he snapped. Since when had Crabbe earned the right to ask him all these questions, anyway?
"Are you sure?" Crabbe asked, clumsily fishing out his wand from his inner pocket.
"Wait!" Draco hissed when he saw that, and pulled the two of them into an abandoned corridor. "Not yet. Now, remember, as soon as you cast the spell, you are going to run to the Hospital Wing, and tell Ginny Weasley that I was viciously attacked by an unknown assailer. You wandered by, saw me lying there, and brought me to the hospital wing for critical attention from Nurse Weasley."
"Ginny Weasley? The pretty redhead?" Crabbe smiled oafishly.
Draco gnashed his teeth together unbecomingly. "Yes, Crabbe. That would be the one," Draco confirmed tightly. Even if Crabbe did resemble an over-stuffed gorilla, he still didn't want him thinking about his Weasley that way.
"You're sure about this?" Crabbe raised his arm, so that Draco was looking at the business end of it.
"Just do it before I change my mind," Draco closed his eyes tightly in anticipation, and heard a murmured incantation.
Then, before his brain could even register what was happening, he found himself thrust onto the cold, stone floor, convulsing painfully.
There was something terribly wrong. The charm was only supposed to cause a couple of bruises. Instead, angry, red cuts were appearing all over his body, and contusions were forming by the dozen.
He gritted his teeth in pain as a particularly vicious cut formed itself over his stomach.
"Crabbe, what the hell did you do?" he yelled out, thrashing from side to side painfully.
"I don't know," Crabbed said pathetically, eyes wide with panic. "Bloody hell, go get someone, and bring me to the Hospital Wing," Draco clutched his side, feeling his vision getting fuzzier from his head's impact with the floor.
Crabbe nodded frantically at Draco, and lumbered away as fast as he could.
Draco let his head sink to the floor, feeling himself grow weaker and weaker.
"Hey, Vin," a voice called out down the Charms corridor. "Theo says he's found a way to get some extra pumpkin pastries from the kitchen. Want to come?"
Merlin, it was Goyle.
"Pumpkin pastries?" Crabbe said joyously, having forgotten completely about Draco at the mere mention of food.
"No!" Draco cried out hoarsely when he heard that, but it was two late. He could already hear his faithless friend plodding away in the other direction, leaving Draco to die in a pool of his own blood.
He tried opening his mouth and yelling until all the Hogwarts teachers came running, but his vision swam in front of him, and he passed out before he could even open his mouth.
*
When Draco came to again, he was in the Hospital Wing, and could feel his back pressing into a warm, soft bed. In the back of his brain, he vaguely remembered something about falling onto the stone floor in pain.
With a jolt, his mind came to, remembering everything that'd gone wrong. Underneath his head, he could feel someone's arms adjusting his pillows. With a sense of satisfaction, he realized that it was Ginny's. She seemed to be finally reevaluating her priorities. It almost made the ordeal he'd just went through seem worth it.
"Mm," he said, pressing his face upwards into her bosom, and nuzzling it affectionately. "It's about time."
"Why, Mr. Malfoy, I never!" came an outraged voice.
Draco quickly pulled back, and opened his eyes, staring into the furious eyes of someone who was distinctly not his missing Weaslette.
"You're not Ginny Weasley," he said stupidly, and it seemed to only make the owner of the voice even angrier.
"Of course I'm not Ms. Weasley," Madame Pomfrey said in disgust, crossing her arms indignantly.
Draco dropped his eyes to her chest, which was now heaving from the force of her words.
His bloody face had been in that...thing.
Suddenly, Draco wanted to throw up.
This was turning out to be the worst Monday ever.
*
It was some time later when Draco finally heard the voice he'd been waiting for, from the person who'd gotten him into this bloody mess in the first place.
"Are you sure he's okay?" he heard Ginny's voice asked anxiously.
"No, I'm not okay," he opened his eyes and glared at Ginny Weasley. Out of his peripheral vision, he saw Madame Pomfrey exiting the room as fast as she could. "Took you bloody long enough. I could've died in the Hospital Wing, and you wouldn't have even known, because you couldn't even bother to visit me once."
Her face, which had been initially joyful upon his awakening, hardened with each word.
"For your information, Draco Malfoy, I've been sitting here every single free moment I'd had for the entire day, waiting for your ungrateful arse to get better. So before you go around accusing me, you might want to first get your facts straight," she hissed, smacking him on the arm.
He yelped in pain when her palm connected with a particularly nasty bruise, and she immediately looked horrified. "Oh, I forgot. Sorry," she whispered, gnawing at her bottom lip in guilt as he glared at her, her former ire forgotten.
"So, how did you end up like this, anyway?" she asked, quickly changing the subject.
He exhaled noisily. He supposed that he could've stayed mad until she left in frustration, but decided that he rather enjoyed her undivided attention.
"Come on. Don't you want to use this opportunity to get some attention?" she nudged his shoulder blade playfully.
He gave a loud sigh, as if she were requesting a huge burden from him, but was secretly contented to play the familiar role of the victim.
"Well, if you must know, I was walking down the corridors, looking for certain Weasley," he paused to give her a pointed look before continuing, "when I wandered down a deserted corridor."
Draco checked to see whether or not she was paying attention. She was.
"Suddenly, I felt someone attack me from behind, and I fell to the ground from the pain when—"
Here, she interrupted him. "Wait. You got beat up from behind by a faceless attacker?" she asked incredulously, raising an eyebrow doubtingly.
"No," Draco enunciated, feeling foolish now that he realized how much of a wimp he'd just made himself sound like. "It turned out that there was a group of them, and they were all wielding clubs. I'm pretty sure the one that attacked me from behind was carrying a knife, too."
"Which group of people hates you enough to gang up on you?" Ginny suddenly crinkled her button nose at an internal thought "Wait, actually, don't answer that. I think I have a feeling I know what you're going to say."
"Your brother and his Gryffs would be my first guess," Draco muttered contemptuously. If he were ever truly attacked, they'd probably be number one on his suspects list.
"I knew it," Ginny muttered. "Well, Ron was Quidditch practice this morning, so somebody else out there must really hate you."
"Are you going to let me finish telling the story or not?" Draco snapped ill-temperedly. She was supposed to be sympathizing and pampering him, something he had yet to see evidence of.
"Fine. Go on," she said, waving an airy hand as a sign for him to continue.
He took a deep breath. The situation was still salvageable, he told himself assuredly. "Well, I managed to get back on my feet, and fight off a couple of them before I was clubbed in the head. And when I came to, they were already gone, and I was in the Hospital Wing."
"So, did you get a good look at your attackers while you were fighting them off?" Ginny asked, and Draco felt like strangling her by the strands of her red hair. Why did she always feel the need to ask questions? His story might have had some gaping holes, but he was still woozy from his knockout. He was allowed leverage on things like this.
Fortunately, he was saved from answering by the arrival of one of his friends. Normally, it would've made him feel relieved, if it hadn't been the only thing that could've made the situation even worse than it already was.
"Draco, I'm sorry!" Draco heard Crabbe's blubbery voice from the doorway.
"What are you doing here?" Draco asked in a panic, as the big Slytherin waddled into the room nervously.
"I told you not to ask me to jinx you," Crabbe ignored him, oblivious to Draco's rising distress. "And, I asked you if you were sure, remember?"
"No, I don't," Draco snapped meanly, not liking the shrewd look in Ginny's eyes.
"What are you talking about?" Ginny asked Crabbe carefully, even though Draco was pretty sure she'd already pieced everything together.
"I cast a Bruising Jinx on him, so that I could bring him to the Hospital Wing to get checked out, but only because he asked me to! I swear I—"
"Get out!" Draco ordered furiously, knowing that Crabbe had just ruined everything.
"But—"
"Leave," Draco snarled. "We'll talk more about following directions properly once I'm well enough to return to the Slytherin Common Room."
Crabbe threw one last look at Draco's glowering face, and backed out of the room as fast as he could, slamming the door shut behind him.
"So. A group of faceless attackers wielding clubs did this to you, eh?" Ginny pursed her lips tightly to keep from laughing out loud.
"Yes, well, if it weren't for the fact that my girlfriend was too busy playing nurse to Potter to even see me, I wouldn't have had to resort to such drastic measures," Draco sneered.
Her eyes, which had previously been filled with silent laughter, were slowly narrowing in confusion at his words. "Wait. What does Harry have to do with any of this?"
"Someone saw to two of you tending to Potter," he snarled at the recollection. If there was one thing in the world he hated, it was the thought of Potter and Ginny together. "What did you expect me to do?"
"Draco, are you quite sure you didn't hit your head too hard?" she asked skeptically. "Because I've been down in an abandoned dungeon all weekend, trying to finish Snape's Potions Project. I can assure you I haven't been playing nurse with anyone."
"What?" Draco could feel a rush of blood going to his head. "But, Blaise said that there was a pretty redhead down at the Hospital Wing, nursing that scar-headed freak."
"Are you sure he wasn't talking about Natalie McDonald? She's Madame Pomfrey's new aide, and she has red hair, too." Ginny asked him, frowning in thought.
Draco looked at her silently for a moment before he realized just how much had gone wrong. Now that he thought about it, he realized that he'd never bothered to clarify with Zabini who the pretty redhead had been. "You mean, I could've saved myself from all this?" he asked in outrage, breaking the silence; he raised a bandaged forearm in example.
"You mean, you though that I was Natalie McDonald, and so you purposely got yourself jinxed so that you could come down to the Hospital Wing?"
When he didn't answer, she took his silence for an affirmative.
"Oh, Draco," Ginny choked out through her mirth, once she realized that he wasn't lying. "Surely...Did you really...I mean, what'd you expect from Crabbe...and me, a healer...you know I'm shite with healing spells...Merlin..."
Draco turned away from her irately. That was certainly the last time Draco Malfoy ever tried to do anything for love.
"You can stop now," he said coldly when she failed to stop giggling at his failure. So much for "O" for effort.
"Sorry," she said with a smile, quieting down once she realized that he didn't find the situation as funny as she did.
When he didn't respond, she sighed.
"Hey," she said kindly, grabbing his chin and turning it towards her. "You may have managed to completely mess up, but you can still try to take advantage of your state, you know, and ask me to help heal you."
"I thought you just said you were shite at healing spells?" he asked, suspicion clouding his gray eyes.
"I am," Ginny said, playing with the palm of his left hand. "But I can think of more creative ways to make you feel better. Just tell me where it hurts."
Saying so, she placed a tiny kiss on the mottled bruise near his collarbone.
His eyes lit up and his frown slowly disappeared as he watched her press her deliciously pink mouth along his arm.
"Everywhere. It hurts everywhere, Gin," he told her excitedly when she slid a warm hand underneath his shirt and ran it up and down his abdomen softly and soothingly.
"In that case, I think I better fully examine the damage," she said. She locked the door behind her with her wand and climbed on top of him on all fours, unbuttoning his shirt slowly.
"Aye, aye, Healer Weasley," he told her huskily, relaxing against the soft pillows contentedly as he watched his girlfriend maneuver herself around his body.
Draco Malfoy loved Mondays.
A/N: So, this is quite different from Lady of the House. I wanted to try writing something a little lighter. I normally write Draco meaner and colder, and I've never written Crabbe before, so I already realize he probably sounds OOC here. Anyways, I hoped you liked it. Please read and review? Constructive criticism always welcome.