Island Banishment

Ginny stumbled. She clutched her stomach, her breath shallow.

"We don't see nearly enough of you now you're off working all over the place."

She dropped to her knees, the warm sand rough under her hands.

"I have to leave now, Mum. I'm making a long distance apparition, I need to give myself enough time."

She wretched but nothing came up. Her eyes were blurred and she was seeing everything in double vision.

"Use floo, please. Ginny, dear, you have to stay for dinner."

She began to become aware of her surroundings. Sand. Sun. The sound of waves in the background.

"Oh my goodness, I'm going to be so late."

She clenched her fists, grasping a handful of sand.

"Say it carefully, dear. Don't rush!"

She rubbed her eyes and lifted her head. The nausea was passing and she realised that she was definitely not in the right place.

"Paradise Island!"

She looked up, but could only see a blindingly blue sky that was completely devoid of clouds. She had no idea how she had got there.

Ginny got shakily to her feet. She must have said something wrong when she flooed. She should have been in the fire place in the entrance of the Paradise Island hotel in the states. But she wasn't. She didn't know where she was but she knew for certain that she wasn't supposed to be here.

She turned slowly, taking in her surroundings. Palm trees. Rocks. The sea lapping at the glittering sand, perfect white horses breaking on the beach.

And then she spotted it. The green fire, flickering in the corner of her eye. She turned slightly until she could see the camp fire and the man sitting beside it, leaning his head close to the flames.

It was a magical fire. Which meant that the man must be a wizard. Perhaps he would know how she had got here, maybe he would know how she could get back.

She hurried over, her feet tripping on the soft sand. But as she got closer she realised that the man was having a blazing row with a face in the flickering flames.

"I don't see how this will help anything, father!" the man yelled.

"It will teach you a lesson," replied a silky voice. "A much needed lesson, I must add."

"It's stupid and unfair and pointless!"

"You always were very immature," said the face in the fire. "You must learn your lesson. You can't get away with anything you want, so this week you won't get away with anything. I'm leaving now. I hope when it's time for you to return you will have learnt how to control your temper. We do have a reputation to keep up after all."

The green fire flickered out and the colourful flames returned to a bright orange. The man groaned, dropping his head to his chest and clenching his fists.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid," he muttered angrily.

"Excuse me," called Ginny. She hurried over, stopping a couple of paces away from the man.

"What do you want?" he snapped, before his head snapped up and he took in the figure before him. "Wait, how are you here? Who the hell are you?"

"Um-" Ginny was taken aback.

"No, let me guess," said the man with a smirk. "I know who you are. You're a Weasley, you look like them. But how are you here?"

"I have no idea," snapped Ginny, annoyed by his unpleasant manner. "I was hoping that you could explain that to me."

"You fell out of my fire, woman. I have no idea how you did it."

"Fell out of- Is this place called Paradise Island?"

"Oh, don't tell me you made a floo mistake?" asked the man, a glint in his eye. "I always knew that hanging out with muggles and mudbloods made you soft. That's a novice's mistake, Weasley."

"It would have worked if you hadn't had an unregistered floo passage open," Ginny shot back. "If it wasn't for you I would be sat in beautiful bedroom at a hotel in California, sipping a cocktail and wondering whether I had time to take a dip in the pool before my meeting started."

"Yeah, and if it wasn't for my father I wouldn't be here at all."

"Was that who you were talking to?" Ginny asked.

"No, I was talking to the Minister for Magic," said the man sarcastically. "Of course it was my father, who else would send me to a desert island?"

"How would I know?" Ginny asked. She could feel a strong dislike for this man beginning to grow.

"I'm a Malfoy. My father is in charge of everything," said the man.

"Malfoy?" Ginny said with surprise. "Draco?"

"Of course," said Draco Malfoy, glaring at the stupid woman standing before him. "Who else would I be?"

Ginny rolled her eyes. She should have recognised the pointed face and the immaculately groomed blonde hair. Of all the people to be stuck on an island with, she had ended up with Draco Malfoy. She really was unlucky.

"So can you send me back?" she asked. "Make the fire come back and let me go home?"

"Sorry, love," said Draco with a sly smile. "You've been exiled, just like me."

"Exiled? I can't get home? But I have a business meeting! I need this job!" Ginny exclaimed, a panicked tone in her voice.

"Calm down. Your voice is really starting to annoying me."

"Apparate. I'll apparate. Stupid me," muttered Ginny, patting her robes and searching for her wand.

"You can't," said Draco smugly.

"Can't?" Ginny asked, still searching for her wand. "What the hell do you mean, can't?"

"You can't use your wand, so there's no point searching for it. I'm in exile, Weasley, and so are you."

Ginny sat down.

"So what now?" she asked. "What do I do now?"

"You wait out the week with me," Draco replied. "Unfortunately."

Ten minutes later the silence was beginning to annoy Ginny.

"So what do we do now, Mr Malfoy?" she asked. "Collect food? Firewood? Build a shelter?"

Draco stood up and glared at Ginny.

"I've never been trapped on an island before, Weasley. I have no idea what to do."

Ginny reached into her pocket and pulled out her wand.

"Accio driftwood," she said confidently. Nothing happened.

Draco laughed meanly. "So you're the dumbest Weasley, I take?" he asked. "I've already told you that your wand won't work. You're going to have to do this the hard way."

"I am?" asked Ginny. "What about you?"

"Why should I?" Draco said with a smirk. "After all, you're here." Then he walked away, kicking up the sand as he did.

Ginny stared at his retreating back and frowned. She should have been receiving the business deal of her life right now but instead she was stuck here with the worst person she could have imagined. Shouldn't have stayed for dinner, she thought to herself.

She looked around. Well, if Draco didn't want to help out then he would get none of the comfort. She spotted a palm tree and ran over to it. She could build against this, couldn't she? She propped a fallen branch against the trunk but it just fell to the ground, narrowly missing her toe. She glared at it but seeing as that didn't really help she moved on to a different idea.

She began to pace the island, keeping her eyes open for anything useful. Everything she spotted she dragged back over to her palm tree.

Draco watched her, smirking with amusement. Oh, his father would be annoyed when he got home without having learnt a lesson, but really, he was a Malfoy and he did what he pleased.

After a while, Ginny stood back and surveyed her collection. She had a couple of planks that had washed up on the beach, an entire palm trunk which had taken an awful lot of effort to bring back to the palm tree, a whole bunch of palm fronds, some rope, some vines and a couple of branches. She had also managed to collect a small pile of driftwood which would be good for a fire, a small plastic crate which was a little battered but might still come in handy and a coconut.

Draco wandered over to find Ginny tying a bunch of palm fronds together.

"Wow, you really are useful," he said, his eyes lighting up. "Having a woman around the place will make this so much easier."

Ginny put her hands on her hips.

"I'm building this for me, Malfoy," she said angrily. "Get out of here and build your own shelter."

Draco shrugged and rolled his eyes.

"Tonight you'll be begging for me to sleep in there with you," he said, a familiar smirk gracing his face again.

"You wish!" shouted Ginny as he wandered off to the other side of the island.

xXx

It was getting dark by the time Ginny had managed to build up her shelter. She stepped back and surveyed her work, immensely proud of herself. She now had somewhere substantial to stay the night, unless it rained. If it rained she would be soaked. But one glance up at the still cloudless sky told her that she would be safe. She smiled and dragged the plastic crate over to the entrance of her shelter. It looked strong enough to sit down on so she did just that. Then she realised with dismay that Draco had let his fire die out.

"Stupid man," she muttered, before gathering up her own driftwood and fruitlessly attempting to strike to sticks together. But she couldn't get a single spark.

"You're not going to get very far doing that," said Draco, smirking.

Ginny looked up in shock. She hadn't heard the man come over.

"Well at least I'm trying. You had a fire and you let it go out, you idiot."

"Pass those here," said Draco, ignoring her insult. He held his hand out and Ginny passed him the sticks, glaring all the while.

"There you go," she said angrily. "Let's see you do better."

"Doing better than you won't be hard," Draco retorted. He started rubbing the sticks together violently, faster and faster, but nothing happened.

"Ha!" exclaimed Ginny. "You're useless. You can't do anything."

"Oh really?" asked Draco. He stalked over to the embers of the old fire and blew softly on the ashes.

"What on earth are you doing?" asked Ginny, confused. She got up from her crate, rubbing her backside where the plastic had left imprints, and followed him over to the old fire.

"Watch and learn, princess," replied Draco. He cupped his hands and blew softly through them and a flicker of a flame licked up from the fire. Ginny watched, amazed, as Draco slowly brought life back to the fire. But, only moments before a compliment slipped out of her mouth, he jumped backwards. "Agh!" he exclaimed.

Ginny giggled, keeping the almost compliment to herself.

"What have you done?" she asked, trying and failing to keep a straight face.

"It burnt me!"

"Told you that you were useless," said Ginny smugly.

But at least the fire was going now and Ginny fed some more wood to it, glad for the warmth. The sky was midnight black now and the stars were bursting into view. And the temperature had dropped by an incredible amount. Ginny huddled close to the flames, gripping her knees with her arms and shivering from the chill air. Draco dropped down beside her.

"Got any food?" he asked.

Ginny glared at him. "No I haven't," she said angrily. "And even if I did it wouldn't be for you."

"That's a moot point seeing as we'll both be going hungry anyway," said Draco. He was taking pleasure from Ginny's discomfort and Ginny knew that, which made her even angrier.

"Go away," she said, sticking her tongue out at his irritatingly perfect face. "Leave me alone."

Draco chuckled. "You have no idea how childish you sound," he said, but he got up and walked away. He stopped just outside of the light cast by the fire and picked something up off the ground.

Ginny strained her eyes to see what it was, but she couldn't make it out. He had chosen his spot well, in enough light to fuel her curiosity, but just hidden enough she wouldn't be able to see without getting up and crossing over to him. Well, she wasn't going to do that, not after she had told him to leave. She stared into the fire, trying to ignore his shadowy shape moving around in the distance.

Draco was busy. The things he needed weren't that hard to find but putting them together in a reasonable way was. He had never been that great at tying knots and he wasn't that creative, so his creation ended up being a little lopsided, but it would have to do.

Ginny was hungry. Really hungry. She gazed longingly at a nearby coconut, sitting on the sand, tempting her. But she had no idea how to get into it, not without magic. She crawled over, sand filling her trousers and scraping on her legs, and reached out her hand. Her fingers closed around the heavy globe. It was... hairy. She picked it up, weighing it in her hands. Perhaps she could find something to smash it on? There had to be a rock around here somewhere...

There was a rock. And Draco was sitting on it, chatting away to the thing he had made.

Ginny gave up. She was so hungry that even her dignity didn't matter anymore. She got to her feet and made her way over to where Draco was sitting.

"Can I borrow that rock?" she asked.

"And really, this was the last thing I needed. I mean, I was actually getting somewhere in my life with the business and then bam, all of a sudden my father decides I'm not gentlemanly enough to be heir to the Manor. I mean... No, I agree, it's completely unfair."

Ginny stared at Draco, confused.

"Are you talking to me?" she asked eventually.

Draco's head whipped round.

"No! Of course I'm not! What do you want?" he exclaimed, trying to hide the thing he was holding.

"I wanted to use the rock," Ginny said. "Wait, what's that you're holding?"

Draco hid the thing behind his back.

"Nothing," he said.

"That's a lie," replied Ginny, darting around behind him before he had the chance to stop her. She gasped when she saw what he had made.

"There's nothing wrong with him," snapped Draco, cradling the coconut headed doll in his arms.

"You're talking to a coconut!" shouted Ginny. "You're insane!"

"It's better than talking to you," said Draco, propping the doll up next to him on the sand.

"Humph," said Ginny, almost throwing the coconut she was holding at Draco's head. "Get off that rock, I need it."

Draco stood up. "What are you doing?" he asked.

"Making dinner," said Ginny, holding the coconut high above her head.

Draco realised what she was about to do and covered up his doll's eyes protectively.

Ginny smashed the coconut down onto the rock and it split open into two pieces. She kept the bigger one for herself and handed Draco the smaller one. If he noticed he didn't say anything about it.

"You've scarred Milky Joe for life," said Draco, his mouth full of coconut flesh.

"Milky Joe- You've named the thing?" exclaimed Ginny. "You really are nuts."

She made her way back over to the camp and Draco followed, cradling Milky Joe in his arms.

"He's more intelligent than you," he said, sitting down next to the fire and finishing his coconut.

That night, Draco slept outside in the cold. By morning he was freezing, damp and very, very angry.

"I'm sleeping with you tomorrow," he said bitterly.

Ginny smiled at him. She felt well rested and was ready for a morning swim.

"We'll see about that," she said, skipping off down to the shore. When she got there she stripped out of her clothes and entered the water in her underwear. Draco made a disgusted sound and turned away.

xXx

The rest of the week followed with pretty much the same routine. Ginny would wake up each morning feeling like a new person. She would bathe and then sunbathe while Draco alternately glared at her and hid his eyes. Sometimes he just stared, but that would mean getting a smaller portion of coconut at meal times, so he didn't often do that.

"This feels like a wonderful holiday," she said on the evening of the fifth day.

"It might feel like that to her but it feels like hell to me," Draco muttered to Milky Joe. He was looking more and more dishevelled as the days went by and he had stopped talking to Ginny altogether.

Ginny stretched out on the sand and began eating the inside of another coconut. She had discovered that they were abundant on the island if you knew the right places to look.

"We're having something different for dinner tonight," she told Draco, watching his face to see if his expression would change.

It did, morphing from boredom and pain to curiosity.

"How? What?" he asked.

Ginny tutted, looking at his face. He hadn't shaved for five days and was beginning to grow a rather unimpressive blonde beard.

"Go clean yourself up a bit and I'll prepare it," she said, sounding much nicer than she had before.

Draco didn't argue. He was sick of eating coconuts. So sick that he was willing to do whatever Ginny said so long as she gave him food.

Ginny smiled to herself. She had become quite attached to Draco over the past few days. Perhaps it was something to do with listening in on his meaningful conversations with the coconut doll, but she had begun to feel like she really knew the man. And it was nice being able to boss him around a bit. She began to cook over the fire, roasting the few small fish that she had managed to catch with a roughly put together net in the shallow water at the edge of the island. She had a few other ingredients as well and she was feeling extremely proud of herself.

Draco appeared beside the fire.

"Ahem," he said, catching Ginny's attention.

She looked up and giggled. Draco had attempted to shave, probably using a razor shell, they were the sharpest on the island. He hadn't done a very good job if it; clumps of beard were still sticking off his chin in tufts and he had gained a few nicks and scratches in the process.

"Don't laugh at me," he growled, glaring, which only made Ginny lose control completely. She rolled on the floor, her eyes filling with tears of laughter.

Finally she sat up.

"Well done," she said, attempting to keep a straight face. "Now sit down."

Draco sat, looking rather disgruntled. His expression changed, however, when Ginny handed him a large shell. Nestled in the centre of its curved body lay a small fish, gutted and roasted, surrounded by seaweed that had been cooked over the fire until it was crispy instead of slimy.

"Eat up," said Ginny, piling greens on top of her own fish.

Draco did as he was told happily. For once, Milky Joe was forgotten and he actually felt slightly like the old Draco, back before he was banished. Wow, it was hard to believe that only six days ago he had been sat in Malfoy Manor feeling like a prince.

That night, much to Draco's surprise, Ginny let Draco share the camp with her.

"If you want," she added, after offering him some space in her den. "If you don't think it's too... weird."

"I'd rather be in there with you than outside in the freezing night," said Draco.

"Thanks, I guess," replied Ginny, wondering if that had been a veiled insult. She decided to let it pass, however.

When darkness arrived, they both curled up inside the shelter. At first they lay head to feet, side by side, but the position was cramped and the night was cold and by morning they had ended up with Ginny lying on her back with Draco's head face down on her chest and his legs sprawled across her body.

xXx

Back at the Burrow, Molly was worried.

"I haven't heard from Ginny," she told Harry, who had stopped by for a slice of cake and a large plate of sausages. "She was supposed to be back here yesterday and she hasn't turned up."

"I'll see what I can do," said Harry, his mouth full of crumbs. He wiped his hands on his jeans and left the house after a hurried thank you. It didn't take him long to go to his office in the Ministry of Magic and track Ginny using certain privileges he had from being one of the best aurors the Ministry had.

Which was how, on that sixth day, he flew by broomstick to the island and stumbled across Draco and Ginny's accidental embrace.

"What on earth is going on here?" he exclaimed.

Ginny woke up suddenly to find Harry staring at the scene in front of him incredulously. She tried to get up but realised that Draco was trapping her.

"It's not what it looks like," she said feebly, punching the man who was crushing her.

Draco jolted awake, realised the position he was lying in and jumped up, putting his head through the shelter's ceiling. Then he noticed Harry and sat down again, his head in his hands. He had lost the last scrap of dignity he had had left.

"So I ended up here with him," finished Ginny, after she had attempted to explain the situation to a rather bemused looking Harry. "And it was cold, so we shared the shelter. I'm not sure how we ended up like that; we went to sleep lying separate."

"I'm not even going to try to understand," said Harry, his head spinning. "But Mrs Weasley was worried about you so I have to bring you home."

"That's fine by me," said Ginny, happily.

"How about you, Malfoy?" asked Harry. "Need a lift?"

"I... I'm fine here, thanks," said Draco.

"He has to stay here until his daddy decides he can go home," said Ginny, teasingly. "But Draco, when you are let off the island, how about you send me an owl? It's been a lot of fun."

Harry and Ginny waded into the water, trying to get far enough out for the magic to kick in and the broomstick to fly. It took them a few moments, but eventually they managed to take off, and Draco watched them until they were no more than a speck in the distance.

He stared into the fire, wondering if Ginny had meant the last words she had said. Maybe he would send her an owl. She was an interesting girl, and very attractive. Despite her red hair.

Draco sighed and picked up Milky Joe from where he had been discarded last night.

"Just you and me, buddy," he said sadly.

The End

Britt's Prompt #3

Basic Premise: Draco and Ginny are stuck on either a desert island, in the middle of a snowstorm, or in the middle of just plain no where, for a week. They have to learn to cope with their wands disappearing and them being a mile a way from any wizarding population.

Must Haves: Harry catching them in a less than proper position. Post-Hogwarts fic. Humorous and snarky with non OCC Draco and Ginny. Draco sharing his feelings with a coconut/volleyball (oh how I love Castaway)

No-no's Draco and Ginny having any prior relationship. Smut. Sailor-cursing Draco or Ginny. Ginny/Harry, Draco/Astoria

Rating Range: K-T

Bonus Points:

-Ginny arriving in her PJ's

-Draco burning himself while trying to light a fire

-Ginny and Draco having to share a bed/sleeping quarters