A/N: Thanks to all readers and reviewers, especially R3.0 and PlutoniumBunny! :)
Okay, I'm used to answering reviews on FIA, so that's what I'm going to do here too. ;) I'm not sure EXACTLY sure why I set this in the Forbidden Forest, but I think it had a lot to do with trying to think about how mistletoe could be a natural part of the fic. And it does grow on really ancient oaks, and was sacred to the Druids. And that camp sounds like a lot of fun. :)
As far as Draco's motivations... I think that he isn't exactly sure himself what they all are. The way I see Draco at this point is that in some ways, he's wise far beyond his years- he's had a certain upbringing as a Malfoy that has never really allowed him to be a normal child or teenager, he's always had the weight of expectations on him, and the events of his sixth year are devastating. But OTOH, in some ways, he's very much a teenage boy- and he has Ginny alone with him in a secluded lodge in the forest. So his hormones are taking over too. I think it's very complex.
And if anybody hasn't read previous Anisefics... the Crystal Palace pureblood initiation referred to is Anisecanon. ;) BTW, just so everyone knows, this chapter doesn't get beyond a PG rating, but some things are referred to, let's just say...
CHAPTER FOUR
They had kissed before, of course, every time they'd managed to meet in secret. But those kisses had been secret and hurried, with never enough time to begin to savor them.
This one was different. They had all the time in the world, and because of it, nothing was the same.
Draco pressed his lips to Ginny's, softly, teasingly, no need to rush. She started to make little impatient sounds and moved her neck forward, her head towards his.
"Ah, ah," he chided in a whisper, and he continued the light, tender kisses, like the wings of tiny butterflies around her lips. Finally, she growled and almost lunged towards him, her mouth powerful and fiery, demanding response. His control slipped away swiftly, and he kissed her harder, deeper, his breath coming harsher, rolling from his side so that he was lying half on top of her, clutching her hands in his.
There was nothing outside this room, this afternoon, the sanctuary of the dark red curtains drawn around them, the place that was perhaps not quite in the same time and space as the world outside the walls of the lodge. There was only this bed where Ginny Weasley lay in his arms, kissing him, being kissed by him, all without the fear that they might be discovered. In that moment, Draco had no fears at all.
He could enjoy the sensations of merely being a sixteen-year-old boy with a pretty girl in his arms. He almost never felt like he supposed a teenager ought to feel, young and careless and carefree. His classmates often seemed like children to him; he was weighed down by responsibilities that even other Slytherins could not understand, torn by currents and cross currents of conflicting loyalties. He felt older than his father, older than the Dark Lord. As old as his grandfather, when Abraxas Malfoy had whispered in his ear to trust no-one… except, perhaps, Ginny Weasley.
And now she was here with him, and he did not care, in that moment, if he was anywhere else ever again.
Her hands went over, up, around his back, holding his waist and then sliding down to his hips, over his trousers. The urge to touch her in return was so powerful that Draco could not have resisted if he'd tried. The deep curve of her waist, then moving around to the front, feeling her taut abdomen under her blouse, then moving up, up, and feeling the luscious curves of her breasts on his fingertips, in another moment he would move his hands up further still and get that blouse off her and then—
Ginny stiffened.
Draco stopped, knowing that he had to do so, no matter how impossible it seemed. For a few moments, he couldn't speak, his hands knotting into fists on either side where he had been supporting his weight just above Ginny's body. They'd somehow shifted position so that he was lying fully on top of her, and he'd been nudging her legs apart with one knee without even realizing he was doing it. When he looked down at her face, her eyes were wide, and her gaze was flicking up and down.
He'd moved too fast, and he'd frightened her. Draco closed his eyes and took deep breaths.
"Do you want me to stop?" he asked, choking on the words.
"I don't know. Not exactly, but… " Ginny looked troubled.
He could take that uncertain, guarded look off her face, he knew, if he could just convince her to give him a chance; he could replace it with nothing but pleasure... but first, he would need to persuade her. He knew that if he simply started groping at her in places where they'd never ventured before, she would not accept his actions.
"I mean, I'm not saying no, Draco, I'm really not. But…" She seemed to be gathering her thoughts.
It would be best to say nothing, to let her work it out by herself, he realized. He slid a little bit away from her, moving back onto his side so that they were very closer but he was no longer on top of her.
"It's just that we've never done that before," said Ginny, sighing. She rolled onto her side so that she faced him. "I mean, not really. The last time we met, I suppose we did start, but there wasn't really time."
"And it wasn't the place," said Draco.
"No, it certainly wasn't. Anybody could've found us. We're just lucky that nobody did."
"That won't happen now, though," said Draco. "We're alone, and no-one even knows where are."
Her face grew more troubled, and he suddenly knew what to say.
"Ginny, we don't need to go a bit further," said Draco, forcing himself to stay still with what felt like unbearable effort, making no move towards touching her at all. "We'll stop now and simply lie here until the storm dies down, if you'd like."
"I didn't say I wanted *that*." Ginny shook her head. The tension was leaving her body; her shoulders were relaxing. Draco understand that what he had said was exactly what she needed to hear.
"We'll only do what you like," he whispered. "No more. But you'd love this."
"What do you mean by 'this', exactly?" she asked.
Was there a slight smile on her face? Yes, he decided. There was.
He reached up to stroke the base of her neck, his hand moving down, his fingers resting on the top of the thin blouse she wore beneath her green jumper. It had somehow come off in the middle of their passionate kissing and lay behind her on the bed in a tangle. "Let me see you," he murmured. "Let me touch you, Ginny."
She was silent for a moment, and then she said one of the last things he would have expected. "You're rather experienced, aren't you? It's all right. You can tell me. I just want to know."
Draco squirmed uncomfortably, caught off guard by her honesty. "Er…" He had no idea how much he ought to say, or to admit, or to conceal, when it came to this point. What Ginny had said was more than true, and yet, from a certain point of view, it wasn't the case at all.
"Come on, Draco; tell me. Are you some sort of expert?" she asked, giving him a sideways glance.
"I don't know about that, but, yes, I'd say that I've had some experience."
"So you know what you're doing?"
"I do," Draco said truthfully.
"Mmm." There was definitely a smile curving her lips now. "I do want you to show me some things, Draco… Just touching, though. And looking. You can look, too. But that's all. For now."
*For now.* Those words sent a bolt of sensation through his entire body. "Of course," he said.
Draco took her other hand in his, tracing her palm with a fingernail. His other hand lingered at the top of her blouse. "You've wanted these… *things*, Ginny," he said, deliberately keeping his words vague, just as she had. 'You've wanted to do more than we have done so far. Right?"
She nodded, a faint pink stain spreading over her cheeks. "I don't know how much, though," she mumbled.
"I can show you as much as you like." Draco moved back towards her, kissing her neck, moving his lips up to tease under her ear in a spot that he knew was particularly sensitive. "Do you like that?"
"Yes," she said, letting her eyes close.
He would have to move carefully with her now, he knew. He felt her nervousness, her unease. He was much more experienced than she was, and even if she actually wanted everything that he did, he would need to move slowly. Draco had no idea how far he could go with her, how much she would accept. Or much he had the right to take, the voice of his conscience whispered to him. Draco was able to keep that voice silent most of the time, but it always seemed to grow louder when he was near Ginny, uncomfortably so.
As he kissed her, Draco made little circles on the skin of her upper chest with his fingers, moving downward, reaching for the top button of her blouse and slipping it through the buttonhole. The fabric gaped at her neck a few inches. He undid the second button, and the third. Ginny made a small, startled noise, but she made no move to stop him, and he waited for a moment. He could see a tantalizing glimpse of lace and silky cloth if he peered down the blouse now. How could she afford such pretty lingerie, he wondered, in an attempt, to keep his mind from unravelling completely, which it was threatening to do. Had she gone to the trouble of borrowing it so that he could see it? The thought was exciting, but then, everything was exciting. Her soft caught breathing, her nearness, her warmth, her openness to him, all of it.
"This is all right?" he murmured, keeping his hands where they were.
"Yes…" sighed Ginny.
Draco went on to undo the next button, and the next, and finally the blouse fell completely open. He saw the blue silk bra trimmed with lace, the swell of her breasts spilling over the lace trim. The sight of the soft, freckled mounds was devastating. He wanted, *needed* to see more, to touch her, to—
Ginny's breathing became louder, shallow and too fast, and Draco fought to pull back, to regain control.
"This is still all right?" he asked.
She nodded wordlessly.
Draco moved closer, one hand stroking her shoulder, pushing the blouse back and down her arms. He traced the lines of her bare back, the dip of her slender waist, the curve of her hip. "Do you like this?" he murmured in her ear.
"Yes," she whispered.
"We'll only do what you like, remember," he whispered back. "No more than that."
He mapped out the curves of her back and waist and shoulders for a long time, his fingers lingering on the back hooks of the brassiere. The temptation to flick them open and draw down the straps, to see her bare breasts, to hold them in his hands; the pull was almost unbearable, but he knew that he had to control it. Doing that much would only frighten her now, and she'd likely want him to stop.
Ginny was smiling and beginning to relax in his arms; he knew that she was letting her guard down. Probably never a wise move around me, he could not help thinking. He didn't want to manipulate Ginny now. Or more accurately, he *wanted* to not want that. But he couldn't quite help it…
Draco bent forward and kissed her slowly, gently, as if trying to make up for the thoughts he could not help having.
"I didn't know it would be like this," murmured Ginny.
"Like what?" He moved down to kiss her jaw. She shivered.
"Oooh… you're making it hard to think, you know… I didn't know you would go so slowly. That you'd be so patient."
"Of course I am," said Draco. "That's what you like, isn't it? What you need?"
"Yes, it is, Draco, but… I didn't think… well, all the girls say that…"
He grinned. "Which girls, exactly? And what do they say?"
"You know." She squirmed. "The girls I know who've had sex. They say that boys just take what they want, that it's over in a few minutes and that's fine with them. They don't want to take time."
"I'm not like that," murmured Draco. He wanted badly to return to running his hands along her back and then slowly start moving them around to the front, but this seemed like a bad moment to start again. She seemed to be impressed with his control, after all.
"I should have known," said Ginny, smiling at him. "I mean, you had that pureblood initiation this summer, right?"
He almost choked. "I… you… Ginny, how do you know anything about that?"
She giggled. "Girls talk about those things, or weren't you listening to what I just said? Everyone says that you're practically the only boy who had one last summer, that the old tradition is almost never followed anymore. So is it true?"
"Er.. yes, it's true," he mumbled, not quite able to look at her for the moment. The month-long initiation into all the sensual arts at the infamous Crystal Palace, the oldest house of pleasure in the wizarding world, had once been a very long-standing tradition for sixteen-year-old pureblood boys. But like many other traditions, it had fallen away, until the Malfoys were one of the few families who still followed it.
"So you did have it," said Ginny, her voice delighted. "What exactly did you learn?"
Draco closed his eyes tightly for a second as the sense-memory of everything he had learned rushed through his head like a dark, powerful river. "Ah… quite a lot."
"Did you have an expert courtesan picked out just for you? And did she really stay with you for a month?"
"Yes, and yes," said Draco, deciding that honesty was the best policy here.
A satisfied smile spread across her face. "Pretty much all the girls at Hogwarts would kill to know that for sure."
"Well, you're the only one who does know," said Draco.
She raised a dark red eyebrow. "Oh? I would've thought all the Slytherin girls would know by now, through first hand experience."
Did he hear a trace of jealousy in her voice? Draco hoped so.
"No," said Draco. "They wouldn't."
"But haven't you had sex with loads of other girls by now?" asked Ginny. Her voice seemed to hold no more than simple curiousity.
"I wasn't allowed to touch a girl before the initiation," he said, feeling his way, unsure of exactly where all of this curiosity was leading or how to turn it to his own advantage. "Only a bit of snogging."
"All right, but what about afterwards?" She rolled her eyes. "I'm sure every girl at school, well, the Slytherins, anyway, wanted to find out what you'd be like in bed after all that experience."
"They did," Draco said truthfully. "But I wasn't about to share it with them." He stroked the side of her face. "I only wanted you."
Her golden eyes widened. He knew instantly that he was on the right track.
"You mean that after we… uh, after we started, well, things.." Her voice trailed off.
"I haven't touched any other girl," he said, and again, he told the truth.
Tears glistened in the corners of her eyes. "I didn't know."
"Well, now you do. There's been only that one woman in my initiation. I've never chosen anyone else."
He had said exactly the right thing; he knew it at once by the softened, almost awed look on her face. She believed that he had waited for her. And that fact, he realized, just might mean that she would want to give him *everything* he'd waited for. That he'd be able to convince her to do it. He hadn't dreamed he'd get an opening like this.
But, wait…
Hadn't he in fact waited for her, without even realizing it? Draco had had more than enough chances to expand his experience at school; Ginny was certainly right when she said that the Slytherin girls had all been intrigued by the fact that he'd undergone the legendary initiation, and they weren't the only ones. Yet somehow, he'd never taken advantage of any of those chances. He'd certainly planned to do it, and Pansy Parkinson had been waiting for him on the night when he'd run into Ginny outside the Room of Requirement. But then this strange, indefinable thing had sprung up between them, and there had only been Ginny, and no time or opportunity to do almost anything with her that he so desperately wanted to do.
Draco no longer understood his own motivations, struggling to sort out manipulation from desire from that soft, tender feeling that tore through his chest whenever he looked at Ginny's face. The sort of feeling that he could not afford to have, not during that terrible year.
Ginny was tracing small circles on his chest with her forefinger. "Well—I haven't either," she said, her head bent.
"You haven't…" began Draco. "Do you mean—"
"I mean that you've still done quite a bit more than I have," said Ginny, brushing the smooth planes of his lean muscles.
"You're still a virgin?" he asked.
She looked aside, blushing slightly. "Yes."
He put a finger under her chin, tipping her head up. "I'm glad." And he was, glad and perhaps even a bit surprised. Many Slytherin girls were already rather experienced by her age. But Ginny had waited, and in some part of himself, he believed that she had waited for him, although he would never ask.
She reached up and drew his head down to hers, kissing him again, and he slid into the sweetness of her lips, the sheer pleasure of savoring her, of not needing to rush. Something had changed between them, some indefinable thing, and she seemed more soft and open and ready than she ever had done to him. And he couldn't think in a calculating way of how much easier it would be now to manipulate her into having sex with him, even though he'd been considering that very idea not long before. It seemed a little cold and repulsive now.
TBC...