A/N: Thanks to all readers and reviewers, especially the wonderful R3.0! BTW, the original prompt asked for Hogwarts-era, so this is set during Draco's sixth year. I'm not completely sure exactly when various events took place, so this is basically set right around the winter holidays, either a little before or a little after. It's before Ginny started dating Harry. I can't spell out anything else, because that would give too much away! ;)

"Now, that's a question you've never asked me before," said Ginny at last. She raised her head, and the shadow was gone, or at least beaten back. Draco decided to believe that it had never been there at all.

"No, I suppose I haven't," said Draco.

No, he hadn't, because there had never been time. There was a bit of time now, and he realized that he wanted to use it in this way, at least at the beginning.

Afterwards, he would try to remember exactly what she had said, and what he had answered He never could. But he remembered the play of the firelight on her hair, the dark auburn lashes shadowing her cheekbones, the way the tips of her white front teeth showed when she spoke. And how much pleasure he took in simply talking to her, and listening to her. That, he did remember.

"So then what happened?" Draco asked, after a particularly amusing story about Gryffindor girls concocting love potions to snare Harry Potter.

"They went on and on about it for at least an hour, and then I was looking for Ron, because I had a question about a Quidditch feint he used to use, and I wanted him to show it to me. But…" A shadow passed briefly over her face.

Draco felt a chill that had nothing to do with the room. She can't know, he assured himself. She can't have any idea. Well, unless it reached someone whom she knew… but that's ridiculous. Slughorn undoubtedly ended up with it, exactly as I thought he'd do, and it's a good job I was out of the castle at the time.

A savage gust of wind suddenly lashed the sides of the lodge. An icy blast roared down the chimney, and the fire sputtered, shrank, and died. A cloud of smoke eddied into the room. Draco yanked Ginny back from the rug, and they both stumbled to their feet.

"Ugh. I was afraid that would happen." Ginny glared at the cold hearth. The air in the front room was already growing icy. "And the storm's worse than ever. We can't go out…" She glanced at the two doors on the other walls. "There must be other rooms. Do you think any of them have a fireplace? Maybe they weren't all affected."

"This sort of lodge always has other rooms, and I'd imagine that they do have fireplaces," Draco said in a neutral tone. But wait—would that kind of tone arouse her suspicions even more? It was damned inconvenient to be around someone who could read him as easily as Ginny Weasley could do.

"There's no time like the present to find out, then." Ginny grabbed a red and green plaid quilt from the couch and tied it around herself so that she looked like a badly wrapped Christmas package.

"Er—" Draco followed her, unsure which room she should be steered towards, or if he knew enough to make a good choice. He *thought* that he remembered the layout of the lodge as his grandfather had described it, but for all he knew, he hadn't been told everything. *Dear gods, please don't let her find one of the house-elf dungeons.* Malfoy Manor had several of those, so there was no telling what they might encounter here.

The door that Ginny opened led to a small, dark kitchen with one window over a sink. Draco felt relief until he saw that the hearth in the corner was boarded up. *Lovely,* he thought, heart sinking. *What if that's true of the bedroom as well?*

"This doesn't look very hopeful," said Ginny. She began opening and closing cupboards, moving along the wall and then under the sink.

"Er… what are you doing?" Draco ventured to ask. The Manor had many storage rooms, and some of them still held antiquated house-elf torture equipment. It hadn't been used in over a hundred years to his knowledge, and it all should have been got rid of, but magical items had a disconcerting way of disappearing and reappearing without notice. He couldn't rule out the possibility that the same thing might happen at the lodge, which was, after all, another piece of Malfoy property. There were certainly many things at the Manor that he never would have wanted Ginny to see or know about.

"Looking for some sort of other heating source," said Ginny. "Magic doesn't work at this lodge, which means that whoever built it might have included an alternate one, in case the fireplaces failed. Maybe a kerosene heater…"

Draco couldn't help smirking. "Do you really see fairies using a kerosene heater?"

"I haven't thought that part through yet," she admitted. "And how do you know this was built by fairies?"

"I don't," he said, honestly enough.

"Maybe it was a hunter who wanted to hide the lodge from Muggles," said Ginny, her head and shoulders buried in a cupboard and her voice muffled. "Parts of the forest are right up against Muggle land, you know."

"That's very possible," said Draco, happy that she seemed to be headed on the wrong tack entirely. He started rummaging in cupboards too, not holding out much hope that he'd find anything useful. But the activity gave him a few moments to think.

The other door had to lead to a bedroom, which was perfect, as far as he was concerned. But what would they do if the fireplace in the bedroom didn't work? Neither one of them had been able to cast a Warming charm. He was fairly certain that he'd read something once about how Muggles kept warm in emergency situations in the wilderness, though. It had involved naked bodies and all available blankets, as he recalled, and the idea held some interesting possibilities…

His hand touched something cold and metal, and he drew it out of the cupboard and peered closely in the faint gray light from the window. It was a silver hip flask with the Malfoy crest engraved on its surface. Firewhisky, it had to be; he would have bet on it.

Ginny sat back on her heels and gave a discouraged sigh. "There isn't anything."

"That's all right," said Draco, giving her his hand to help her up. "There's at least one more room. Something tells me that we'll get lucky."

There was no such thing as luck, as far as Draco was concerned. If there were, then he never would have got caught up in the events of his sixth year, or trapped into the terrible promises he had been forced to make. The universe was a blind and pitiless place, in his opinion. But there were moments when the indifference of chance happened to align with human desires. When he opened the door to the second room, he knew that this was just such a moment, and that it might as well be called luck, after all.

It was a small bedroom, almost completely filled by a huge canopy bed of dark walnut draped with thick red curtains. There was a fireplace in the wall at the foot of the bed. And best of all, a fire was already lit, the flames crackling and sending out faint tendrils of warmth into the room.

Ginny frowned. "Did you light that, Draco?"

"Of course I didn't," he said, quite truthfully. "I've been with you every moment, Ginny."

"Hmmph," said Ginny, the corners of her mouth turning up in the way he liked best. "Well, there's so much magic in this forest that nobody understands, I suppose."

"Let's not look a gift hippogriff in the mouth," said Draco. He moved to the end of the bed, wondering exactly how to handle the next few moments. There clearly wasn't anywhere to go besides the bed, and after a short hesitation, Ginny sat down on the end. She scooted up slightly, gathering the thick red coverlets around herself.

"These are like ice!" She shuddered. "That fire looks pretty, but I don't know if it's putting out any heat at all."

He moved up next to her, half-sitting and half-lying, taking her hands in his and rubbing them.

"Your fingers are so cold," he said.

She looked down at him with a sort of suspicious half-smile. "You're getting ideas, aren't you?"

"Only good ones." Draco moved on to rubbing her forearms, pulling her closer by doing so.

"All right. I'm only interested in not freezing to death, Draco. You needn't think this means you can try anything," Ginny said primly.

Draco had already known that he shouldn't assume any such thing, because Ginny would not be so easily had.

"I'll treat you like my maiden great-aunt, if you like," he said, sliding up in the bed so that he could stretch out full length, opening the covers and holding them wide.

Ginny rolled her eyes. "It doesn't need to be quite *that* extreme. Do you actually have a maiden great-aunt? You've probably made her up."

"You cast doubts upon my honesty, and that cuts me to the quick," said Draco in an overly prim voice of his own. "I do, I assure you." She slid under the blankets; he felt the warmth of her body at once, seeping into the cold bed. She was not quite touching him at any point, but her body was millimeters away from his. He tried to keep his voice even.

"Great-aunt Walpurgis Malfoy turned one hundred and twenty-three last month," he said. "I distinctly remember every detail of her birthday party. She was wearing a magenta robe trimmed with bright green lace, her wig was piled on her head in a giant pompadour, and her laugh sounded as much like a whooping crane with chest congestion as ever. She wasn't satisfied with the way that we all had sung 'Happy Birthday' to her, so she spent most of the evening singing it herself to various accompaniments. She forced house-elves to play on piano, harpsichord, and finally flugelhorn, if I recall correctly."

"You're lying," said Ginny. "And it's freezing." She moved so that she was facing him. "And this still doesn't mean anything, so you'd better not think it does, Draco Malfoy."

Draco felt his heart pounding faster. "I wouldn't dream of it. Then she insisted on kissing all the males in the room—I got one on the cheek, by the way, and it brought a Suction hex to mind—and spent the rest of the evening sitting in the corner in a rather passionate tete a tete with her lesbian lover."

"I don't believe a word you say," said Ginny.

"You should," said Draco. "Every word is true." As indeed, it was. He liked being able to tell the truth whenever possible, at any point except when they touched on the topic of the thing he was trying hardest to conceal. He wasn't even sure, himself, of exactly what the central secret was in this situation, and the question consumed him. Was it that he'd brought her here and yet had no intention of admitting it was anything other than an accident? Was it that he was fumbling towards some kind of test of what his grandfather had told him, the idea of bringing Ginny Weasley here in order to learn if he could trust her, even though he didn't know what that test might be? Or was it simply that he wanted more from her than she'd yet given him? And if so, what was that?

He certainly knew one thing he wanted from her. He was a sixteen- year-old-boy who had had a prolonged taste of passionate fulfillment over the summer at the Crystal Palace and then denied himself ever since. She was a pretty girl in bed with him, one he'd met in secret for many weeks by now, one he'd kissed and touched only minutes earlier. Of course he'd want to go much further than that, to go as far as she would allow him to do. But that was only natural.

So did he want more than that? Was this elusive, undefined thing what he really wanted more than anything else?

Ginny finally dropped her eyes from his, and he realized just how intently he had been staring at her, and for how long. She pulled the coverlets so that they were closely draped around them both. "It's still freezing. Is that even a real fire?"

"I really don't know," said Draco, and indeed he did not.

She moved further towards him and laid her head on his chest. He saw by the faint orange firelight that she was smirking. She'd certainly heard his heart thump hard enough to feel as if it might burst out of his chest at any moment.

Slowly, Draco reached up and caressed her cheek. She closed her eyes, and he trailed his fingers down her neck.

"Warmer?" he whispered.

"A little," she whispered back, eyes still closed. "I wish I had something warm to drink."

That was an opening if there had ever been one. "I've got something, actually," said Draco. "It was in one of the cupboards."

"Really? What?"

"Firewhisky, I think. Maybe you'd better not—"

"I've had it before," Ginny interrupted him. "I'll be fine. Give it to me, please."

Draco nodded and handed her the silver flask. She raised her head slightly, took a swig, and gasped, almost choking.

"Are you all right?" asked Draco, slightly alarmed. For all he knew, the Firewhisky that had been left in a Malfoy hunting lodge might be considerably more powerful than normal.

"I… yes, it's okay. Just give me a second." She ran her hand along the back of her mouth and took a deep breath. Then she took a more cautious sip. "I tried Firewhisky at an illegal party in Hogsmeade last month… I don't remember it being as strong as this, though."

She was looking at the flask, and if she turned it around, she would see the Malfoy crest on the other side, Draco realized with considerable alarm. There was no reason why she should recognize it even if she did, of course—except for the fact that the name was emblazoned at the top. But the light in the bedroom was so faint that he himself would never have guessed what the crest was if he hadn't noticed it in the kitchen. The bedcurtains were mostly shut, and the window was heavily draped, so there was only the flickering firelight. The etching was faint too, worn away by age. Surely she couldn't read his name on the crest. And he wasn't about to find out.

"Let me try it, then," said Draco, taking the flask away from her. She shrugged, and he relaxed, deciding to think no more about the possibility. He had nothing against Ginny lowering her inhibitions a bit, all right; more than a bit, but he certainly didn't want her drunk. Whatever happened between them tonight- and he himself was still far from sure what that could or would be—he wanted her fully aware.

He took a long drink of the Firewhisky, savoring the smoky, complex flavor. The colors in the room were sharper, the fire warmer, and Ginny's hair brighter and richer where it fell across his chest, her skin more fragrant. He could almost tease out the scent of flowers on her neck. Everything was heightened, but he felt no loss of control, which was exactly how he wanted it.

Ginny sipped at the flask again, and he felt a bit uneasy. He took the flask by its neck, feeling her warm fingers under his. "That's enough, Ginny. You don't want to get drunk, do you?"

She gave a strange little laugh. "Maybe I do. Maybe I would like it."

He took the flask away from her, capped it, and laid it on the bedside table. "Well, I wouldn't."

She looked up at him. "I suppose I wouldn't either. I want to remember every minute of this, Draco, and when people drink, they seem to forget things."

"What do you want to remember, Ginny?" His hand reached out to her head, stroking behind her ears.

"This time, here," she said.

"This time with me?" His fingers trailed down, lingering at the spot where neck met collarbone.

"Yes," she whispered. "This time with you."

Draco's fingers traced the line where her smooth skin met the collar of her sweater and blouse, wondering what to do next. Neither one of them had yet removed a bit of clothing, although her cloak had fallen back and become entangled with the red coverlet. The top button of her blouse was such a tiny distance from his hand. He could reach over and undo that first button, and then his fingers could slip inside. They had groped each other just a bit the last time they had met, but there had been time for no more. Now, there was. The storm was still building strength. They had all the time in the world, and he could faintly feel her warm skin under her blouse. If she would let him undo her buttons, he could feel her bare flesh at last.

Their eyes met for a long moment. Ginny reached up for the clasp of his cloak, pulling it open, and then she winced.

"What?" murmured Draco, feeling a surge of excitement that quickly turned to concern.

Ginny held up her hand. Her forefinger had a drop of blood. "I don't know. I pricked myself on something… I think it was in your pocket."

Draco reached down, and as soon as he touched the prickly thing he'd been carrying, he remembered what it was. He held out the green sprig with its red berries.

"Mistletoe," said Ginny. "It was from the oak outside, wasn't it?"

Draco nodded.

"You thought you'd get me to kiss you by holding it over my head?"

"Er…" Draco wasn't quite sure what to say.

"You don't expect me to wait around, do you?" She took it from his hand, keeping her eyes on his. Then she raised her own arm, dangling it over his head. "There. Now I've done it. So you don't need to decide whether or not you will."

Her face was beautiful in the firelight, her skin creamy and soft, dappled with light and darkness, her eyes dark and deep. The mistletoe, that most pagan of all plants, hung suspended over her head. So he leaned in and kissed her, knowing it was what he wanted to do more than anything else in the world.