ACT 2

Scene 4

Ginny's flat. September 18, 2002. 5:53 AM

Draco had been up for about an hour. Usually he woke up around eleven to find himself spreadeagled and groggy but last night had been a very different story.

He'd woken up wondering if Zabini had slipped something in his tea last night and he'd consequently had a very lucid dream about practically begging to sleep with Ginny Weasley. Unfortunately, upon being woken up by a ridiculously fluffy mattress and opening his eyes to find himself nose-to-nose with Weasley, he had realized his situation was very, very real.

He had not moved an inch since, faced with the intimidating threat of Weasley waking up and throwing him out for taking advantage of her and making his way into her bed in her clearly unbalanced, tea-soaked state.

Why else would she have offered Draco the spot next to her, in her bed (the bed part could not be emphasized enough)? He was more often than not terribly rude and demanding towards her during most of their interactions, and, apart from a couple civil book discussions, they shared nothing similar to the camaraderie she and Zabini had developed over the week.

Draco pushed his confusing thoughts away — it was mental torture to try to comprehend a Weasley's actions anyway — and instead examined the woman asleep centimeters away from him.

Ginny's freckles dotted her nose and climbed up to her forehead, framing dark brows and thick lashes that rested on top of protruding, round cheekbones. She had the face of a child, something he'd found endlessly amusing and annoying in equal parts as he'd watched her scream, stomp, and smirk at him for years — all passion that seemed immature when worn by her. Now, hours after seeing her awkward and friendly and so clearly nervous, Ginny Weasley seemed a different person, a real person, whose cheeks went red and whose eyes fell to her feet and who spilled tea on herself and who held onto your hand and who looked up wide-eyed and expectant with her bottom lip worried between her teeth.

An innocent Gryffindor, Weasley, with only noble intentions when she came into a mansion of snakes, he thought, as he watched her nostrils flare slightly, the only disruption in her serene expression.

Draco felt, for perhaps the first time in his life since he was seventeen years old and watched life as he knew it burn, a twinge of regret. The feeling started low in his stomach and scalded its way up to his throat until he couldn't stay in this warm bed full of vulnerable Ginny Weasley anymore.

He roughly pushed back the covers she'd covered him with at some point last night and then, heart thudding, glanced over at his still-asleep bedmate, breath returning as he realized he didn't have to face her just yet. The room was still dark, windowless as it was, but Draco knew exactly where to find Weasley's small balcony from when he'd scoured the flat for all possible escapes last night. He'd assumed even then that his decision to come here would bite him in the ass in the morning, and he wasn't wrong.

Naturally, he knew in his now mostly rested, conscious mind that his only plausible exit from Weasley's flat in the middle of Muggle London was Flooing out, but still his legs walked him steadily to the balcony doors and his hands decisively but gently opened them, and he slipped through, not comfortable alone with Ginny in this state but not ready to face anyone else yet.

He took the two steps across the minuscule balcony to the railing and shoved a hand through his hair. Beneath him, London roared with the shouts of the people, the whirs of the automobiles, the noises of life.

Good gods, how was he ever going to explain where he was last night to Zabini? To his mother?

Draco exhaled and leaned on the railing, low enough that his entire torso leaned comfortably over the edge. He frowned; if Weasley weren't so short, this would be a serious safety hazard. If he factored in the terrible clumsiness that she'd displayed over the past few days, the witch probably did not stand a chance out here.

He nearly bowled over the balcony himself when he felt a sudden, heavy tap on his shoulder. Grabbing a hold of the thin railing and maneuvering himself upright and around, he found a sheepish Ginny holding two mugs of coffee.

"Ah fuc— fudge. Sorry, Malfoy."

He chose to accept one of the mugs — lime green, dinosaurs that looked as if they were drawn by a five-year-old chasing each other across it — instead of responding. He took a long sip — black but with several spoonfuls of sugar beyond the accepted norm. It was his coffee, the way he always drank, and he was surprised she'd figured it out. The only person in the world who knew how Draco liked his coffee was Milly, and he knew he hadn't allowed her to train Ginny in the kitchen, for fear of Ginny giving him another of her rants on sexism in society.

The witch in question seemed to relax a bit at him drinking the coffee but still clutched her mug — neon pink, daffodils twined around each other — between two sweater-clad palms and continued to stare at him with woeful round eyes underneath the very sooty lashes he'd been observing earlier.

Uncomfortable with the thought of her bottomless brown eyes seeing so much more than he'd anticipated, Draco cleared his throat. "It's fine, Weasley."

Her body loosened and she took a step closer, and Draco heard a faint ringing as they now stood almost as close as they did last night. "I'm glad," she murmured with the bitter, coffee-soaked whisper of someone not used to being up this early, "You catapulting over my balcony would have ruined all my plans to kill you by torture."

Despite all his internal strife, Draco couldn't help half a smile from appearing on his face. "Weasley, the day you manage to overpower me is the day I compliment your piano skills."

Ginny sniffed indignantly and stepped next to him, dropping her elbows to the railing and expertly sliding a long, pale leg between its little poles and up her other leg, which she balanced on comfortably as she downed the rest of her coffee.

Draco raised a perfectly shaped brow. Perhaps he had underestimated Weasley's sense of balance.

"So…," Ginny began, still looking out over the bustling city, "Is your mum really that bad?"

"Worse than you could possibly imagine," Draco confirmed, sipping the last of his coffee.

She grinned at up at him then and he was sure they must have been quite a sight to the Muggles below - him with his almost white-blond hair, sticking up in tufts everywhere, and clad in his robes from last night as he towered over her with her wild tangle of orange hair and goddamn tube socks and with eyes twinkling so bright they must have blinded everyone, not just him.