Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter (nor any of the other characters, sadly. Wouldn't mind a Draco!) Please don't sue me. I have nothing of value anyway.
Rating: T for now but will change to M later. Right now T is for language and suggestiveness.
Spoilers: DH compliant, except epilogue. All seven books are fair game!
Pairing: Draco x Ginny.
Author's Note: Here's Chapter 11! See? I knew drinking that much was a bad idea! Raise your hands if you want Harry to be an ass some more! Okay, you got it! As always, please be kind and please enjoy! =)
The Name of the Game
Chapter 11: Show Them How It's Done
The first thing Ginny became aware of as she woke was a pounding headache, the second, the blinding rays of the morning sun streaming through the window. Though she hadn't actually opened her eyes, the light still seemed to drill through her eyelids, magnifying the pain in her head to an unbearable intensity.
Only seconds later, an uncomfortable upset in her stomach made itself known, a queasiness that demanded that she lie as still as possible for fear of provoking it. The sick feeling was not helped in the slightest by the dryness in her mouth, which was somehow sticky and cottony at the same time, and tasted quite foul. She had no choice but to remain quietly motionless, burying her face into the warm thing on which she lay in order to hide from the light…
Wait… 'warm thing'? What on earth?
Her face was indeed pressed against something warm and fleshy, though quite firm rather than soft, something that smelled of sweat and skin and… Malfoy…
"Weasley," a carefully modulated voice mumbled from beneath her, "please get off of me, but do it slowly. You're too warm, but if you shake the bed too much I may vomit."
Her eyes sprang open as she recoiled from the voice, shoving off of her unexpected bedfellow quite roughly. Through the blinding sunlight she saw that her face had been plastered to his naked back, but she hardly had time to care, for at that moment her stomach let her know exactly how unhappy it was with her sudden movement. She launched herself violently from the bed and bolted to the bathroom, not even having time to close the door before she fell to her knees and made use of the toilet.
She heard, in a vague and distant fashion, a rather foul expletive followed by the equally foul sound of someone else throwing up as well.
Her raging stomach finally quieted long after she was empty. She sat gasping next to the toilet, swearing profoundly in her head that she would never drink so much as long as she lived. Momentarily, a bleary-eyed and severely cranky-looking Malfoy staggered into the room, clad only in a pair of boxers, a very ill-used wastebasket clutched in his arm. Setting it down, he began poking through the bathroom cupboard while Ginny gagged and tried to ignore the wastebasket's horrible smell.
"Here," he said, handing her a pair of potion bottles, one green and one blue. "Green one first, wait five minutes, then the blue one, or else you'll puke the blue one up before it can do you any good."
He slid down the wall across from her and took the first step of his own advice, downing the first of a similar pair of potions. Ginny followed suit, and her stomach began to calm almost immediately.
"Why'd you have to bring that in here?" she asked finally, eyeing the wastebasket distastefully.
"To dump it in the toilet, obviously, except I can't tell if you're done with it yet. It's your fault anyway, Weasley, you just couldn't close the door, could you? And didn't I tell you not to shake the bloody bed?" he grumbled, his tone somewhat listless where it could have been scathing. "I meant to Vanish it, but I can't seem to find my wand at the moment. Must be somewhere in my clothes."
Ginny's eyes widened as her brain finally processed his state of undress. Boxers only, his pale skin and lean form exposed, a state in which he seemed perfectly comfortable. A downward glance informed her that she, too, had lost some clothing somewhere along the way, for she was dressed only in panties and the slip she'd worn beneath her dress. Her brassiere was conspicuously missing.
"Oh, bloody Merlin's ghost!" she cried, causing Malfoy to wince in pain and knock back the blue potion. "We didn't… we couldn't have…"
But… possibly they had done… something… for as she struggled to remember, she found that much of her memory of the night before was a blur or completely absent. Ginny fought against the panic that rose within her.
"No," Malfoy replied calmly, "I don't think we did."
"But you don't remember?" she asked, glaring at him sourly.
"No. I remember dancing, drinking, and you nearly being run over by the Knight Bus. I suppose anything's possible, but I'm wearing my underwear and they aren't on inside-out or backwards, so odds are at least three-to-one against that I ever took them off."
Ginny found that as he mentioned it, she could vaguely recall the Knight Bus in all its careening purple glory, honking madly as it just missed running her down.
"I remember almost everything up to the Knight Bus, but that's the end of it. And… my bra is gone," she said, flushing with embarrassment.
"So I noticed. Maybe you just didn't want to sleep in it," he replied. "Look, I'm reasonably certain we did nothing more than fall into bed and pass out. If I really thought we'd done anything more, I'd have given you a contraceptive potion as well."
"But how can you know?" she cried desperately.
"I suspect I was too drunk to manage," he said finally, "and if I'm to be completely frank, I think you'd be able to tell."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"You'd be sore, Weasley," he replied, smirking at her infuriatingly. "I don't mean to brag or anything, but… you get the idea. And I'm not very tame in bed either."
Ginny felt her face reddening horribly, and she briefly wondered if there was space enough behind the toilet to crawl back there and hide. And dear Merlin, she really wished Malfoy was wearing more clothing…
"If you're really worried, you can take the potion anyway. It's the purple one on the top shelf. But I'm telling you, it didn't happen," he said with certainty. "In any case, don't forget the headache potion. And be sure to do something for the dehydration, as well."
"Oh, have you got something for that?" she asked.
"Yes, Weasley," he replied, his smirk widening. "It's called water."
"Ass," she growled, glaring as he stifled a small laugh at her expense.
She drank the blue potion and thought about the purple one in the cabinet. Yes, she'd woken up wearing far less than she could last recall, and the night before was something of a blur, but… Malfoy was right. Even if his self-aggrandizing claims were untrue, she didn't really feel as if anything had happened. As the headache potion took effect and she found some clarity, she found she could vaguely recall that he had fallen asleep before she'd even gotten her dress all the way off. So… nothing had happened. Ginny sighed in relief, both as her concerns ebbed and as the headache potion started to take effect, releasing her skull from the viselike grip of pain. Suddenly, she gasped in alarm.
"Oh, Merlin, what time is it?"
"Hm?" Malfoy muttered, reaching up to fumble for the small clock he kept on the bathroom shelf. "Oh, bollocks. We're late for practice."
xxxxx
The one advantage of being late was that there was no one left in the dorm to spot Ginny as she dashed across the hall to her own room, her dress hastily pulled on for the sake of decency and the rest of her things clutched in her arms. Once there, she had taken the briefest shower of her life, almost more of a rinse, but necessary to rid her of the smell of alcohol and sweat. After that, she'd thrown on her training uniform and grabbed her broom, not even bothering to use a drying charm on her hastily pony-tailed hair because in the flustered hurry of collecting her clothes, her wand had failed to turn up.
She arrived on the practice pitch only moments after Malfoy and took her place next to him, joining in the warm-up session as the other trainees snickered around her. Her face flamed red; she knew what it had to look like to everyone here. Hell, that's what it had looked like to her, at first. Nonetheless, she wasn't going to let their amusement prevent her from giving training everything she had.
"Good to see our remaining Seekers could be bothered to join us," Gwenog Jones announced as the warm-up session finished, to the great and continuing amusement of the rest of the group. "I'd come up with some punishment for you, but you both look as if you've punished yourselves more than effectively."
It was true; Malfoy was paler than usual, with dark bags under his eyes, and his hair wasn't quite in order although since it was short it had already dried. She knew from her own hurried glance in the mirror that she looked similarly awful, and furthermore, the potions they'd both taken did not manage to rid her completely of either her headache or stomach upset. Both sensations lingered faintly, not strong enough to be incapacitating but decidedly uncomfortable nevertheless. If Malfoy's occasional squinting against the sunlight or idle rub at his stomach were any indication, he felt much the same.
"Today is going to be an especially important day for you Seekers," Gwenog continued. "We've had a last-minute addition to the coaching staff; one of the star Seekers of the British-Irish Quidditch League has volunteered himself to aid in your training periodically, starting today."
Ginny had a sinking feeling, and a sideways glance at Malfoy told her that he shared her dreadful suspicion. His mouth was set in a grim line, his forehead just barely wrinkled in consternation.
"The extraordinary skills of this Seeker, in addition to the benefit of his experience in playing at a professional level, will be an immense asset to your training," Gwenog concluded. "Please welcome to the pitch… Mr. Harry Potter."
The gathered trainees burst into headache-goading applause around Ginny as Harry Potter himself strode forward from the sidelines where he'd gone unnoticed by her due to her late arrival. The dark-haired man cast her a smug glance before glaring darkly at Malfoy, though both expressions were so fleeting that they went unnoticed by the excited throng of admirers. They hadn't gone unnoticed by Malfoy, however, who was now glaring back at Harry with poisonous hatred.
"Glad to be here," Harry replied to Gwenog's welcome, practically oozing the cocky arrogance that was so often his trademark. "It's my belief that my training regimen will aid in refining your skills… and in weeding out those who don't have the ability to go all the way at a professional level."
At his last comment, Harry glanced at Malfoy again. Malfoy's grip tightened on his broom until his knuckles had gone white. To her observing eye, he was seriously angry, but he met Harry's glance with an arrogant, cocky smirk of his own.
Talk about fighting fire with fire, Ginny thought, fighting the urge to roll her eyes. She had a feeling this was going to get ugly… but she knew she wanted Malfoy to come out on top. Harry was just meddling in her life way too much. She had no doubts that he was there because of the previous night's incident.
The trainees divided by class, the other Seekers hurrying over to Harry while Ginny and Malfoy reluctantly brought up the rear. She listened tiredly as Harry gave what the others took for a rallying speech about how Seekers are born, not made, about how it was in the blood, blah, blah, blah, his words blurring into a droning noise that seemed to bore into her head. It wasn't anything she hadn't heard from him on a dozen other occasions; he's been recycling the same tired lines since he'd been captain of the Gryffindor team at Hogwarts.
"Why don't you demonstrate, Ginny?" Harry asked suddenly. "I'd be happy to offer criticism and refine your technique."
"What?" she asked blankly, for she'd been tuning Harry out for the past few minutes.
"Weren't you listening?" Harry blinked, surprised at her indifference.
"Not really, no. I'm a bit tired, actually," she answered honestly, with no malice in her voice. The other Seekers tittered at her response.
"Rough night?" Harry growled with growing irritation and another angry glance at Malfoy, whose expression betrayed nothing. "Well, I'm afraid I can't make exceptions for your irresponsibility just because we used to date."
Ginny felt herself go red in the face. How dare he say such a thing? She was just about to tell him as much, her potential Quidditch career be damned, when Malfoy spoke up.
"Come off it, Potter," he drawled. "It's not her fault that her dinner didn't sit well. If you're that desperate to have someone show you how to do a Wronski Feint, I'll do it."
"Oh yeah? Well why don't you show us, then? I could use a laugh," Harry replied.
"No," Ginny interrupted the exchange. "I'll do it. I only didn't hear what you asked. It's not as if I can't do it."
"Show us what you've got, Weasley," Malfoy said, his tone reserved but his smirk encouraging. She offered him a small smile, her grip tightening on her broom.
At Harry's begrudging nod, she took to the air. Hovering above the other Seekers, she closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she had the image of a Quidditch match in full play fixed in her mind. She imagined the constant movement, the ever-changing, barely ordered chaos that was the game, visualized an imaginary Seeker, her opponent…
Then, she was diving, the ground rushing to meet her at a terrifying pace as she pursued a Snitch that was imaginary even to her imaginary scenario. She pulled up hard, turning away from the ground in a heart-stopping instant during which she could see individual blades of grass as they rippled in her wake, and then she was headed skyward once more.
As she returned to a normal speed, the maneuver complete, she returned to the ground and dismounted. She was greeted at first by stunned silence, and then by uproarious cheering from her fellow Seekers and, to her surprise, from other players all across the pitch. Even Gwenog Jones was applauding from her vantage point with the Beaters.
Malfoy watched silently, giving her a satisfied smile.
"Couldn't have done it better myself," he murmured for only her to hear once she was close enough.
"Er… yes, well, that's the Wronski Feint," Harry stated, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck. "Now, while it was quite well executed, there were some flaws to which we could call attention. The descent lacked follow-through, so it can't be assured that the opponent would actually crash…"
"Are you joking?" Malfoy called out, looking rather irritated. "I couldn't have pulled out of that drop in time. Neither could you."
Ginny felt rather disgusted with Harry, but as she looked around the group, she noticed that the other Seekers were all eyeing the dark-haired man with nervous uncertainty. It seemed they didn't believe her Wronski Feint had been flawed, either, but were unwilling to challenge Harry directly.
"Yes, well… be that as it may…" Harry cleared his throat, obviously aware of the eyes that were upon him. "Let's move on with the lesson. Divide into pairs and practice, one observing and critiquing while the other performs the maneuver, and trading off. And no actual crashing, please."
The day wore on as Harry corrected form and timing, neither of which Ginny much needed, but Harry kept at it with her particularly. Unsurprisingly, Malfoy needed little correction either, but that didn't stop Harry from occasionally sniping at his old school rival. Though Malfoy's exterior remained collected, Ginny could tell he was beginning to feel frazzled by the end of the day.
"Honestly," he grumbled when they hovered near each other for a moment, Harry having just delivered yet another unfounded criticism, "it's not as if someone can be expected to be perfect all the time."
"Says the person who hasn't made an actual mistake all day," Ginny pointed out. "Don't let him get to you. You're a cocky bastard, remember?"
"Too right, Weasley," he replied, flashing her a grin.
Later, as everyone was packing it in for the day, Oliver Wood came over to Ginny and congratulated her on her performance. Malfoy lingered a short distance away, waiting for her to catch up.
"Shades of Charlie Weasley," he was telling her enthusiastically, when Harry approached them.
"I'd like a moment with Ginny if that's alright," Harry said to Oliver, who nodded.
"I've got some details to go over with Jones, anyway," Oliver said, excusing himself. "Great flying today, Ginny."
"Thank you, Oliver," she replied, smiling. Her smile vanished as she turned to Harry, unhappy that he'd managed to ambush her into a conversation. "What is it, Harry?"
"I want to know exactly what you think you're doing, trying out for Quidditch," he replied.
"Excuse me?" she replied, uncertain what he meant by such a thing.
From where he was watching, Malfoy registered the tension visible in Ginny's frame with mounting irritation. Whatever Potter was saying, his words weren't being received well. He sidled closer, intent on hearing what was being said. Never mind why he was interested; that question could wait until later.
"I mean," Harry stated, his tone blunt, "that trying out for Quidditch just to get my attention makes you seem a bit desperate."
Ginny gaped at him. He really thought this was all about him?
"Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that you've got my attention now, so you can drop the act," he continued. "Really, you as a professional Seeker is just silly. Now, if you want, I might be able to get Oliver to put you on the Puddlemere United team as a reserve Chaser. That suits you better, don't you think?"
"Hey, Weasley," Malfoy called as he sauntered over, having heard the whole thing. "Oh, am I interrupting something, Potter? I just had something to tell Weasley, you see."
"Well, get on with it," Harry snapped, "and go away."
"I just thought you'd like to know that I found your wand," he said to Ginny.
"Oh? Where was it?" she asked distractedly, still blindsided by what Harry had said to her.
"It was under my bed," Malfoy replied as he fixed Harry with a pointed stare, his smirk dripping with malice for Ginny's ex-boyfriend. "I suppose it rolled under there last night."
Now it was Harry's turn to gape, spluttering in a way that Ginny had until that moment thought only Ron was able.
"Oh, thank you, Malfoy," she said calmly, her rage at Harry seeming to flow away. "I'll just go with you to get it from your room then, shall I?"
She turned to Harry.
"Just so you know, Harry, my trying out for Quidditch has nothing to do with you. And I like being a Seeker just fine."
Ginny walked away, not looking back even once. She didn't need to look back to know that Malfoy was right behind her; she knew that he was there, and that knowledge made her walk just a little taller as she left the training pitch.
A/N: No, Malfoy's not territorial at aaaallll... yes he is! And I love it. =P
My thanks to darinmeg, shana rose, Nutmeg44, and Princess Phoenix Tears for their awesome reviews since last time! If you liked this chapter (or any other chapter, for that matter), please show your love and review! =D
