Title: Damn

Pen name: Karen Scollins
Author email: KuteKaren66@yahoo.com
Genre: Romance
Rating: PG-13 (For sexual references)
Summary: It's Christmas Eve, the worst time to fight with your fiancé, but that's exactly what happens to Harry and Ginny. she turns and finds a pair of startling gray eyes to help her get over Harry and to let herself have a merry Christmas.
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Author notes: This is something that was meant for Christmas. It should have been posted a week ago or more, but well, I forgot. So, this is more of a belated Christmas present, I suppose. Happy Holidays! Big thanks to Skippy for editing for me!

****

There you go again,
 
When you rub up against my skin,
 
I have to catch my breath.
 
I begin to sweat.
 
Oh, lips tracing down my neck.
 
And it's scaring me to death.
 
How'd you learn to draw me to the cliff?
 
Just to push me off. 
 
Just to push me off the edge.
 
 
Damn, I hate the way you know me.
 
And, damn, you kill me when you hold me.
 
Like I'm your world, like this won't hurt.
 
Like a favorite curse, hitting every nerve.
 
Damn, I'm fighting, and I'm loosing, 
 
And, damn you, you're pulling,
 
And I'm pushing. I'm wrestling with.
 
I toss and twist.
 
'Till I finally give in. Damn.

-Damn, Leann Rhymes

The moment I open to the door, I meet a rush of freezing arctic air. Goosebumps jump up onto my arms as I try to yank gloves onto my hands franticly. 

"Come on," I urge myself, knowing that I have only seconds until Harry appears behind me. I desperately pull at my left glove, knowing my hands will freeze if I don't wear it. As I pull, my engagement ring gets caught, and the glove rips.

"Damn," I curse, "Damn, damn, damn!"

"Ginny."

His voice surprises me, and I jump, ripping my knitted glove on my ring as I do. His face is redder then usual, and I'm worried for a minute that he's actually going to push me out of his doorway since he must still be angry.

"Don't go." I'm surprised at how soft his voice is, how soothing. My body is tugging at me to just jump into his arms and let him hold me while I cry my eyes out.

"I can't stay, Harry," I squeak unconvincingly. I hiccup from crying before.

I remind myself that he's a terrible person and force myself to picture what he's done. I want to stay mad at him. He's scum. He's mucus. He's…Oh God, this isn't working.

"Let me help you," Harry offers, taking my hand in his, and he unravels my ring from the glove. My nose fills with his musky smell of his aftershave. His body is so close to mine, and I feel my knees go slightly weak.

"There," he says. He hands me my destroyed glove and fingers the engagement ring he gave me three months ago.

I stare at the ring and then at him. He holds the ring out toward me, but my arm is clutched firmly at my side.

"I-I can't." Hot tears rush behind my eyes. I really don't want to cry in front of him. Again.

"Ginny, take it. It's your ring. I gave it to you."

I feel tears coming back to my eyes and look guiltily at the ground. "I don't think I want it anymore."

"Look, Gin, I'm sorry. I don't think I've been more sorry in my life. Just please take the ring back. Don't be a baby about this."

My head snaps up at his last sentence. I am the baby?

"What did you say?" My voice no longer sounds high-pitched and timid, but it's now coated with silky anger and rage. "I am acting like a baby?"

"I didn't mean that. It's just you are being so difficult."

"I'm being difficult!" I shout, clenching my fists at my sides. "Well, sorry that my being difficult go to be such a big deal that you had to go sleep with that bloody pimp!" 

"How many times do I have to say I'm sorry to get the point across, Ginny?" He's yelling now too. Fury bubbles inside me, threatening to spill over. I have half the urge to smack him across the face.

"You can say it all you want, Harry Potter, but it won't make a difference to me!"

"This is why I think you're a baby, Ginny! You just run away from problems instead of trying to solve them." He doesn't seem hesitant about insulting me anymore. My hand is itching to slap him, but I hold back.

I laugh. "That's rich, coming from the boy who has never faced the problems that we've been having for the past month. Instead, he finds some whore to solve them with instead of his ex-fiancé! Hello, kettle, I do believe you are black!"

I take the ring from his hand and throw it at his face with all my might, then turn around and try to stomp off. I hope it hit him in the eye, and he goes blind for the rest of his life.

Harry runs in front me and blocks me.  I try to go the other way, but he follows me. I feel like I'm ten years old, and my older brothers don't want me to see the girl they have up in their rooms.

"Move," I order, hoping I sound as irate as I feel.

"No. Not until we can talk."

"We have nothing to say!"

"Yes, we do."

"No, we don't!"

"Yes, we do!"

I'm getting fed up with this argument already, so I take my opportunity. I kick him in the shin as hard as I can and dart down the pathway before he can stop me. I make it halfway down the block before I turn around. I see that Harry isn't going to come after me.   

****

Finally, after at least a half an hour of searching, I find a bar, G-Spot. I push the door open and find myself in a whirl of men, drinking and dancing.  The song "I'm too Sexy" meets my ears. Apparently, the first bar I am to find is a gay bar.

No matter. A bar is a bar, a place to drink, nonetheless. I sit down on a stool and order a gin and tonic from a bartender, who seems to be the only female in the room.

I try not to hate her. She has blonde hair (that's obviously fake), and she is showing way too much cleavage. 

I try to wiggle my left hand, which feels like it's been frozen, defrosted, and frozen again. I'm in a muggle bar, so I don't dare try to cast a warming spell, instead I try blowing on it, which doesn't help.

I look at it closer and see that my hand is not a normal color. It's more along the lines of a red, and I may be crazy or extremely hysterical, but it's looking a little blue too.

"Here you go," the bartender says, placing my drink in front of me and smiling. I want to throw it in her face; she's too cheerful for me. I resist the urge of throwing my gin and tonic in her face. After all, a drink is a drink, not to be wasted but to get us wasted.

"Thanks," I mumble and chug the drink. The liquid seeping into my stomach makes me feel better, somehow. I make no hesitation and order another.

There's a wisp of cold air rushing inside as someone new enters the bar.

"Why, would you look who is here. And on Christmas Eve, too. What's a matter? Your family too holly and jolly for you?"

I recognize the voice instantly. I had heard it plenty of times when I was younger, though it was rarely directed at me. I turn around and see Draco Malfoy taking off his cloak. He hangs it on the back of his chair next to me.

He's taller then I remember him as in Hogwarts, but he basically looks the same. He has the same blonde hair (and probably the same haircut too, but I try not to notice). He's wearing the same smirk that seemed to be glued like plaster to his face 24 hours, seven days a week at school all those years ago. I do realize, though, that he has gray eyes. I never noticed before on him or anyone else. He's wearing a green sweater and black pants. His hands are stuffed in his pockets and he looks bored almost as he stares down at me.

"What are you doing here?" I gape. He's the last person I wanted to see tonight, besides Harry, that is.

"The same you are, Weasley. I wanted a drink." He turns to the bartender. "I'll have what she's having."

I'm surprised at his forwardness. I'm also surprised that he's in a gay bar. Hell, I am surprised I'm in a gay bar.

He sits down next to me, and I quickly drain the rest of my first drink. I half mind to ask him what he's doing, sitting near me and talking to me. We didn't know each other back in school, and if we did, we wouldn't have been friends.

"Another," Draco demands at the bartender, and I notice he's already finished his drink.

We sit in a long awkward silence, but I am not even sure we're having an awkward silence because we didn't come here together and we don't really know each other. It's an awkward silence in an awkward situation. The worst kind there is.

"I'm surprised your Potter isn't here with you," he says. His voice is calm and cool with the slight edge that sounds like he's trying to get to me. But I won't let him. 

He looks at me, expecting a reply, but I am not sure what to say to him. "Yes, well, I'm not because he's a wanker, and I don't plan to every lay eyes on him again" sounds like a very appealing option, though.

I shrug and take a sip of my drink. He doesn't accept this as an answer, and I feel his eyes still on me and I huddle over my drink. I don't look up, but I know he's still staring at me. God, this is like an interrogation!

"He's not here with you either," I find myself blurting out pathetically. Draco's eyebrows furrow. He looks amused, almost.

"Well, I am not President of Potter's fan club like you are," he says coolly, sipping his drink. I've heard this before. It's an insult I remember from when we were back in school. Apparently, he's loosing his touch.

"No, you're just historian," I snap back reflexively. My insults are a little rusty since I haven't used them in so many years, or more likely, I haven't heard Ron or my brothers use them in so many years.

He makes something that sounds like a snort into his drink but quickly regains his composure. My remark must have caught him by surprise. He looks at me, and his face reads, "You are a weirdo, Weasley." He doesn't stop looking at me. I squirm slightly in my seat.

To distract myself, I look out at the dance floor to avoid Draco's gaze. There's a brunette out on the floor that's looking this way. I catch his eye contact for a minute, and he grins. Someone pats him on the back, and he walks toward the bar. He looks like he's a man on a mission, but I notice it's not me he's looking at.

"Would you like to dance?" the man asks when he reaches us- I mean me and the bloke who happens to be sitting next to me. We aren't "us".

I almost spit out my drink. I fight not to laugh as Draco turns to look at me, looking uncharacteristically indifferent when a man has asked him to dance. He raises his eyebrows at me.

"Well, are you going to answer him or not?" he asks me.

I let out a giggle now, sounding very much like a young girl that should still be wearing pigtails with pink bows.  "I would, but...see, he's talking to you."

Draco just looks at me, confused. Then his eyes widen slightly in realization. He looks slightly sheepish, and I try very hard not to giggle. He spins to face to man and opens his mouth to speak, but gargles. I chuckle again.

The man clears his throat, looking slightly disappointed. "I take it that this is a no." He walks away with Draco still goggling at where he was standing.

"What kind of bar are you drinking at, Weasley?" Draco splutters, turning around.

"A gay bar?" I suggest.

He forces his eyes to go back to regular size and his face to return to his smirk. "What the bloody hell are you doing at a gay bar?"

"A person can't go to a gay bar just to have drinks anymore?" I ask.

He shrugs, ordering another drink. "Well, sure they can. But this is a men's gay bar. And, well, I hate to disappoint you, but you are not a man." He pauses. "Well, actually, I am not hating disappointing you."

I suddenly realize why he's here. I feel unbelievably stupid. "Oh. Right, it is. Another gin and tonic, please."

We sit in silence again for a while. My thoughts drift back to Harry, and I wonder what he's doing right now. Half of me wants him to be out looking for me, but the other half is praying that he never finds me because I don't want to face him right now.

God, I really don't want to think about Harry. I feel like I will start crying all over again, which I would do, but not with Draco Malfoy breathing down my neck.

I hunch over my drink to hide my face and a sob escapes my lips. Draco looks up at me again. I quickly make it sound like I'm coughing, and I end up choking on my drink when I inhale.

I really need to get out of here, but I don't want to go back outside since it's freezing and because I have nowhere to go. I wonder if they have a women's bathroom here where I can hide out for the rest of the night. Before I can make up an excuse, I'm startled by Draco's voice.

"You aren't wearing your ring tonight. Trying to pick up men? You've come to the wrong bar."

It takes me a moment to realize that he's talking to me. I blink. "What? How did you know I was-"

He smirks. "Engaged? God, Weasley, you are denser then I thought. You and Potter were plastered all over the tabloids when he asked you to bloody marry him. I would have to be an illiterate fool not to have noticed."

A remark about poor, illiterate children being human beings lies on my tongue, but I withhold from saying it by taking another drink. Draco obviously does not see that I do not want to talk about Harry tonight. I would rather get drunk.

"Having a lover's spat then, are you?" he asks.

What? Am I that readable?

"You have it all written all over your face. The all around good-guy-Potter has done something to make Weasel upset." Somehow, I get the feeling that he's not feeling sympathetic.

"No," I lie through clenched teeth, "we're fine."

I am not expecting what happens next. Draco laughs. He actually laughs. No snickers, smirks, or sneers. He laughs at me. Not with me because I am not laughing. At me.

"You don't believe me?" I ask, appalled. How dare he not believe what I say! He doesn't know that I'm lying. The bartender hands me another drink.

"Of course I don't. I already know that you and Potter have problems."

Once again that night, Draco surprises me. He knows? Or he just thinks he knows? He can't really know.

"You don't know our problems," I declare.

"Of course I do. Potter was having hot, passionate, animal sex with someone other then you," he states coolly.

I gasp without meaning to. How does he bloody know? He doesn't know what Harry did. Unless…

He looks at me for a minute. "What? The Boy who Lived turned out to be The Boy who Cheated? I won't even bother to act surprised."

He's not surprised!?

"What?" I say in a much louder voice then I intended. No doubt that I'm pissed now. "He cheated on me with you?"

The person I saw Harry with did have blonde hair, and it was short. I never got a proper look, I suppose. I was too busy realizing what was happening and trying to find the door to storm out. 

A few heads turn our way from adjacent tables. Draco looks at me, slightly horrified and- well, mostly horrified.

"Me and Potter?" he hisses under his breath but still very loudly since we've both had a lot to drink. "Do I have to word 'gay' tattooed on my forehead or something? First, I'm hit on by a man, and then you accuse me of sleeping with your bloody fiancé- who is also male!"

The man who asked Draco to dance looks indignant. He says something to the man next to him, waving his arms as he gestures toward Draco.

"You don't need him, sweetie!" someone tells me from a table by the bar.

"You are in a gay bar!" I cry, throwing my arms in the air. "What am I supposed to think?"

"You are in a gay bar too!"

Is he a moron? We've already discussed why I'm in this bar!  "So? I'm not gay!"

"And I am?" Draco demands.

I hold out my arms and shake my head vigorously. "Yes!"

"No, I'm not!"

"Oh!" I yell. Then I comprehend what he's said. "Oh."

He rolls his eyes and takes a drink. I feel my cheeks flame. Whoops.

****

An hour or so later, we're even more pissed then we were before, if it's possible.

"What is it about me that projects the vibe of gay?" he poses, holding his glass above his mouth and shaking it to get every last drop of his drink. He looks perfectly balanced on his stool, while my legs are God knows where, and I have to hold the bar to keep myself from loosing control of the chair and falling. God, even when he's drunk he keeps composure.

"Well, you have a…quality," I answer as I finish off another drink, waving my arm as I try to think of why he's gay. "That, and you're wearing a turtleneck."

"So are you," he points out.

Am I? I look down. Why I am! How queer.

"Well, your haircut doesn't help your case either," I say.

He looks like he's been insulted. "What's wrong with my haircut?"

I shrug, and as I do, I fall out of my chair and giggle. I clutch onto the bar to hoist myself back up, but it doesn't go well.  I'm back on the floor. The height of my boots is too much for me to handle in my current state. I let my feet leave my stool. Draco appears next to me.

"Something wrong?"

I smile, shaking my head overenthusiastically. "Nope. I am a-okaaaaaay!"

I realize how close he is to me on the floor. He smells slightly of mint, tobacco, and alcohol. Basically, he smells like the bar, but since I'm completely smashed, the smell is intoxicating, though I don't need to be intoxicated anymore.

It's nothing like being this close to Harry. My heart isn't going pitter-patter; it's thumping steadily. I can't decide whether I like it or not.

His hand reaches up to my face, rubbing my cheek. I don't know why, but I close my eyes. When I do, I feel exhausted. I half mind to just fall asleep right there in the bar, but Draco shakes me out of my thoughts.

"Let me prove to you that I'm not gay," I hear him say. My eyes flutter back open, and his lips are on mine. We're kissing.

He pushes me back into the bar, running his hand through my hair as far as he can go. We're both unsteady since we're drunk so much.

His tongue enters my mouth, caressing my tongue. I moan in his mouth and lean into him. He gently sucks my lower lip as my fingernails dig into his back. God, this…

"Excuse me…um, excuse me, but you need to pay the bill," the bartender is poking Draco in the back.

I pull away, but Draco's arm is still firmly wrapped around me, pulling me toward him. I now notice that his breath, and mine, really smell like alcohol. Draco reaches into his jacket and throws some muggle bills at the bartender and kisses me again.

This is nothing at all like kissing Harry. It's ten thousand times better, I think.

****

Sunlight pouring through an open window is what wakes me the next morning. I blink, but my eyes seem to be stuck together. My head feels like someone is smashing it over and over and over with a hammer.

Sheets are wrapped around my body. As the room comes into focus, I realize I have no utter idea where I am. I sit up, immediately regretting it. I heave, feeling like I am going to be sick soon.

It looks like I am in a hotel room. I blink again, and realize I'm in one of the rooms in the Leaky Cauldron. I begin to get out of bed, but I realize that I'm not wearing any clothes.

Oh, damn.

Did Harry and I…after he…Oh God, damn it!

I grab a robe that is on a chair and quickly wrap it around my body. As I am picking up my clothes that seem to be all around the room, I hear water running in the next room.

I dress quickly, wishing I could shower before I leave, but I really don't want to talk to Harry today. I really just want to leave, maybe go home for- Oh God!

I look outside, and I see Christmas decorations with flakes of snow on them. It is Christmas day, and I am in some hotel room, avoiding my fiancé, who I slept with last night. What a merry Christmas!

Perhaps I came go home and salvage what's left of the holidays before I have to go back to work again. And I can forget about Harry. I can. Look, I'm doing it already!

I'm searching for my jacket when the door of the bathroom opens behind me. I freeze.

I don't move, hoping that he hasn't seen me.

"Well, merry Christmas."

Now I really feel like I am going to vomit. The voice is not Harry's. I turn around and see Draco Malfoy standing in the doorway of the bathroom and towel wrapped around him.

"Merry Christmas," I say in a raspy voice.

Oh, damn.

Fin.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed. I had fun writing it. By the by, the bar I used is inspired from a place I actually saw one day. Never went inside, though. Maybe if I did, this would happen. I always thought I was a little psychic. Probably not. Anyway, I'm babbling. Sorry, the song at the top wouldn't go into ff.net the way I wanted, so it might be all in one paragraph.

Review, and I will love you forever! Flames will be used to warm my now bitter and cold hands until our heat works!