Disclaimer: I wish I owned it… but I don't.
Author's Note: One more oneshot. It inspired by a textbook of mine. I hope you enjoy it.
Outwitted "He drew a circle that shut me out-Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in."
Edwin Markham
Ginny Weasley was sitting in the stands, watching Harry and his team play quiddich. Unlike many of the other girls in Hogwarts, she liked the game, not just the players. She had dated Harry for a little while and it had not worked out after all. Now she simply watched her friend and her brother play.
The crowds rose to their feet around her, screaming at the famous Harry Potter as he dove for the ever-elusive golden snitch, Draco Malfoy, Slytherin's seeker, tearing after him.
The snitch was indeed elusive, she thought to herself as she watched both seekers pull up, looking disappointed. It had escaped again. She smiled softly as Ron, her brother, blocked yet another quaffle attempting to move through the hoop. Anyone who thought the boy could not play quiddich had clearly never seen him play at the Burrow.
This, in turn, led her to think about the rest of her family. Her brother, Bill, who was a curse breaker for Gringotts in Egypt. Then there was her brother, Charlie, who was single now and probably always would be. He was breaking his mother's heart. At least Bill was seeing people.
The twins with their joke shop had been far less of a disappointment than their mother had anticipated. They had raked in the galleons with their very own business. The bright magenta robes they and their employees wore clashed with their bright red hair, making them clearly visible from anywhere within the mile.
Ron was the one out there on the quiddich field. He and Hermione had finally started seeing each other and this was the first game that Ginny had ever seen the older girl pay the least bit of attention to since Ginny's second year, when Harry had fallen from his broom.
Ginny was the youngest and the only girl. She was her mother's daughter; instinctively mothering anyone she felt needed it. Heaven forbid that anyone should point this out to her, however. She did not want to be like her mother, who tended to stifle people whilst she loved them. No one resented her for it, but it was very challenging to live with sometimes.
The youngest Weasley snapped out of her reverie as she heard the Gryffindors roar. She rose to her feet to see what was going on. It seemed that Malfoy had fallen from his broom and Harry had caught the snitch. The game was over and Gryffindor had won. Shocking.
She headed out of the stands with everyone else and smiled at Harry, who flew at her with a huge hug while Ron did the same to Hermione. Everyone was so happy.
Everyone except…
------------
Draco Malfoy awoke in the hospital wing several hours. The grounds were silent, as night had fallen. He decided to break all of the rules and attempt to climb out of his bed. He flinched and fell back onto the mattress, nearly whimpering in pain before he caught himself.
Malfoys did not whimper. They did not show any weakness at all, actually. This was how he had been raised.
There was a time when he had not remembered that, when he had been small. His father had beaten him to a bloody pile of pulp while his mother merely stood by, watching. It was a harsh way to grow up, he reflected.
His musings were interrupted by the creak of the hospital wing door opening. Someone was there after curfew and if it was someone he did not like, he would not hesitate to call for Madam Pomfrey, the Mediwitch.
He smirked.
------------
Ginny had tossed and turned in her bed, unable to sleep. On the backs of her betraying eyelids all she could see was Malfoys crumpled form on the ground. Who was she to argue with her own eyelids? She knew she would get no sleep until she had seen that he was alright with her own two eyes. Then maybe her body would allow her to rest.
She smirked as she reached over to her bedside table. There, conveniently enough, was the Marauder's Map, ready to safely guide her through the corridors of the school and then back to her nice warm bed.
Now that she thought about it, Ginny was not entirely sure that she did want to leave the warmth and security of her four poster bed with it's red curtains. In fact, she was even less sure that she wanted to do so in order to see someone who hated her and, if awake, would undoubtedly report her. At that point, even Harry's invisibility cloak wouldn't be able to save her, and that particular item was not conveniently on hand.
She set the map down on her bedside table again and settled back into her bed. There was no way she was going to do this.
Ten minutes later she was mocking herself with those exact words as she moved through the halls, her wand illuminating both the map and her path through the many corridors. She could not believe that she was doing this just to ensure that the albino ferret hadn't hurt his pretty albino head when he hit the ground.
Pretty?
Never mind that! The door to the hospital wing was in sight! She was so close she could nearly see his sleeping form with her minds eye. Soon she would be back on her way to her nice warm bed.
------------
"Weaslette?" a slightly gravely voice asked incredulously.
"Ferret," was her one word response. What in the name of Merlin was she supposed to say to him? 'Oh, I just wanted to make sure you didn't break that beautiful arse of yours' was simply not going to cut it.
Beautiful arse? What was wrong with her tonight?
"What are you doing here?" Draco asked, his sneer lost to the exhaustion he was feeling. He studied her with honest and open curiosity.
Shoot. The one question she wasn't sure how to answer.
She took a deep breath and, without planning a single word of her response, blurted out, "I wanted to make sure you were okay." She winced. That was not even remotely close to what she:
A. should have said ('I wanted to finish the job') or
B. wanted to say (to make sure you didn't harm a single hair on that perfect head of yours).
She felt her eye twitch in response to that one, but it seemed that her mind had given up arguing with her about whether or not he was perfect. It stayed eerily silent.
He blinked at her once. And again. Did her eye just twitch?
"Say what?" he asked. Even in his exhausted state, he knew that weasels and ferrets were not a good mix, especially when said creatures each had a wand.
Her eye really did twitch this time and he felt a small smirk pull at the corners of his mouth. "I wanted to make sure you were okay. You took a really nasty tumble out there earlier," she finally said. It was as close to the truth as she would get.
"Um, why?" he said, honestly confused. All traces of the former smirk were gone and his swirling grey eyes held nothing but confusion.
Her hazel eyes dropped form his and she finally decided to come clean. May be it was the full moon she could see through the window, or the fact that Malfoy was being particularly amiable, but she decided to go for it.
"Because I was worried about you." There. She said it.
"Well, gee, Weaslette. I never knew you people could pity higher beings," he sneered. Malfoys were pitied about as often as they whimpered, you see.
Those hazel eyes met his again and she said, with no malice whatsoever, "Bugger off, Malfoy."
His smirk grew. He had her now! "I am not allowed to leave this bed. You, however, are out of bed after hours and fully capable of leaving this room whenever you wish."
"And," she added with a smirk that rivalled his own, "I know that, which means that I simply don't want to leave, just in case you missed that little hidden meaning. After all, I don't think ferrets are very bright."
He scowled and said nothing for a long moment. He was trying to push her away. He had to save her from himself. She, however, was not cooperating.
"Weasley," he started.
"Don't," was her abrupt response. "You're just going to try to push me away. That's how you do things. I see with the others. It will not work, Malfoy. You might as well just give up."
Malfoys never gave up, either.
"Ginny, I can't," he tried, thinking that maybe if he used her given name, she would see how genuine and sincere he was being.
"Draco. You have never tried. Your father is in Azkaban and I have heard you tell Zabini that your mother does not care what you do."
Apparently she merely took his use of her given name as permission to use his. Merlin, the girl was impossible.
He turned to look at her again. Those beautiful eyes, swirling with something he had never seen before.
He had seen hatred, desperation, anger, and infatuation. He had never had someone who actually cared for him before. This was all new. No Malfoy had ever been cared for before.
Ginny smiled warmly and sat on the side of his bed. "So tell me. What actually happened out there on the quiddich pitch?"
Draco scowled at the memory. "I fell and Wonder Boy caught the snitch. What did you think happened?"
She smiled even wider and said, "I think it's one of the best things that has happened to either on of us."
------------
Author's Note: I hope to have the next chapter of Corsa di Tempo up soon. I just want it done so I can stop worrying about it. In the meantime, I have a poem to use for a oneshot. It's in the same textbook as the basis for this one is. It will probably be out soon, too.
-Jenn