The Dragon Rebels
(A/N: So sorry about the wait everyone. Again, my excuse – which you have doubtless heard me use time and time again – yes, that's the one – the very RUDE, very unwelcome intrusion of that VERY ugly, nasty, dull thing called :gasp: REALITY :theme from The Exorcist plays:
Okay, so, I have been doing A LOT of things lately, including teaming up with the very talented, incredibly clever Jedi Tess of Gryffindor (I SO love her) to write a D/G, H/OC fic, aptly titled "Potter vs. Malfoy: War's End". It should be rather interesting…J.T. of G. has busted her poor butt getting the first post re-formatted, just in case you noticed the oopsies earlier. We both apologize for the wonkiness – something just went wacky. Check it out, give us your opinions!
Lastly, wanted to warn you guys this chapter is a bit different from the others – it digs a bit into Draco's sexual history, so nobody freak out and say he's too young or whatever – it's just the way I see him in this particular character. He is supposed to be kinda' world weary, you know what I mean? Expect the next chapter sometime tomorrow, or A.S.A.P., whatever comes first. It'll be better than this one, I'm just easing back into it, promise.
Thanks for reading! You are VERY much appreciated!
Lee)
Chapter Fourteen -Manly Men, Doing Manly Things
"I love you so much, Draco," Ginny mimicked to herself as she slammed the door shut behind her and leaned up against it, breathing hard. "Ginny Weasley, don't you have any pride? God…"
She squeezed her eyes shut for a long moment, fighting to slow her breathing, her cheeks feeling hot and tingly as she forced herself to think about what she had just said.
She could hear her voice in her mind, saying it over and over again, until she felt so humiliated she wanted to go knock herself over the head with something heavy – and preferably large, so as to do the most possible damage!
'Am I ever going to grow a brain?' She mentally asked the ceiling when she finally opened her eyes. 'Maybe even just a half of one?'
Sweet Merlin, why had she said that? There was no way she could still love him, after what he'd done. He'd used her! They weren't even 'friends'!
She just felt sorry for him…and then of course there was the fact that she was just a big, fat, hopeless liar!
Draco wouldn't love her. He couldn't, he'd said. If he ever did claim to love her, she'd have to start keeping an eye out for red horns, and a forked tongue to go with the 'fangs' he already sported!
"Oi, there you are, Gin!"
Inward groan. She looked down slightly to see Fred and George standing near, wearing identical knowing grins as they surveyed her reddened, windblown look.
"Been outside, 'checking on the gnomes', eh?" George said, elbowing his brother knowingly.
Fred cocked his head and studied her flushed face intently. "Looks like one of the gnomes got a bit excited out there – or maybe it was a ferret. Where is Malfoy, by the way?"
"Shove off," Ginny muttered sourly, and stepped away from the door, unwinding her scarf from her neck. She tugged off her gloves, toed off her shoes, and walked past them with a sigh. "What did Mum want?"
"I – uh…I think she wants to give you…the 'talk'." George's voice choked off suspiciously at the end.
Ginny froze and turned slightly, a horrified expression dawning on her face.
The twins were turning red from holding in their laughter.
"No."
George gave her what may have been a look of pity had he not been grinning so wide.
"Please, please, please tell me you're kidding," she groaned, dropping her head into her hands.
"Nope!" Her brother said with demonic glee.
"Don't go thinking you're getting out of it, either," Fred added, confirming her doom. "The lot of us had to go through it, too, so it's only fair." He winked at her, crossing his arms. "Bet you forgot all about it, eh?"
"This is so not fair!" Ginny barely managed to keep from stomping her foot in frustrated anger. She was sixteen years old! She did not need the 'talk'!
"Yeah, well, you shoulda' thought about this before you invited the dispossessed little Malfoy lord-ling to spend Christmas," George pointed out.
"Don't worry, Gin. It'll be over soon…and if it makes you feel any better…" Fred exchanged a glance with his brother, and reached for the doorknob, "you're not the only one."
Ginny could have shrieked in mortification as Fred joyfully leaned out the door and bellowed, "Oi, Malfoy! Get yer arse in here!"
She felt awful. She'd taken the cowards way out, and left Draco in her brothers clutches, instead of facing him, apologizing profusely, and giving him fair warning about her father…
"We're just, er - acquaintances, Mum," Ginny tried to tell her mother for the hundredth time.
"I saw the way you two were looking at each other, Ginevera Weasley! Don't be trying to tell me the two of you are 'just friends'."
'I didn't say we were 'friends',' Ginny thought to herself peevishly. She supposed she should feel lucky her mother had finally stopped talking about the 'birds' and the 'bees'. She shuddered.
"You think I didn't hear what he did at that silly Quidditch match when you nearly killed yourself off? A boy that pays that much attention to a girl when she's been hurt is far more than a friend."
"What exactly did you hear, Mum?" Ginny asked suspiciously.
"That the moment you were hit by that horrid blooder, he raced down to the field to get to you – heard he jumped the last twelve feet from the stands in one go, and then didn't leave your side until Poppy made him. Had to throw the poor boy out, she did." Molly clucked her tongue as she frowned down at a spot on one of her embroidered pillow cases.
Ginny swallowed, and then – "Mom, they're called 'bludgers' these days."
"I don't care what they are! They're right nasty little buggers…don't see why you had to fall into that awful sport – always taking after your brothers…stubborn thing…"
Molly pointed her wand and directed a pile of neatly folded towels into the linen cupboard nearby. She turned to Ginny with eyes that suddenly, disturbingly resembled a hawks in their sharpness. "I don't want to see any crossing of the hall tonight, you understand? And your father is at this moment informing Draco of the same, so don't be getting it into your head that he'll be paying you a visit, either!"
Ginny felt her cheeks flame and her jaw drop. "Mother!"
"Don't you 'mother' me, Ginevera! When you're graduated and married, you can do whatever you want, but right now you're sixteen and in no need of – "
"Mum! Please!" Ginny covered her ears. "I'm not stupid!"
"I didn't say you were, dearest," Molly said more gently, "but that boy has a way about him that – "
"Mum! I know, I know!" She squeezed her eyes shut. She did not want to hear her mother's opinion on Draco's sex appeal! The whole day was swiftly turning into The Nightmare Before Christmas!
"Well, just so long as you understand – you can go off now, I can see you're wanting to."
Ginny breathed a huge sigh of relief as she moved back down the upstairs hallway, rounding a corner and reaching blindly for the door to her room.
" – first that Krum bloke, and now my own bloody brother?"
"Just shut-up Ron! There isn't anything going on between Fred and I, and you know it! This isn't about Fred!"
Ginny paused with her hand above the door knob. Her eyes widened as she heard the raised voices coming from inside her room.
"Fred isn't the Weasley I'm in love with!"
She felt her jaw drop for the second time in five minutes. Hermione had told Ron she liked him! And from the frustrated, over-stressed sound of Hermione's voice, they'd been talking in there for quite some time.
"'Mione, I – "
"Don't you think I know you resent me for just jumping in and telling you the truth? Well, someone was going to have to take the initiative, and the odds are, by the time you ever got around to it, we'd both be old and silver-haired!"
"Hermione – "
"I know, I know! You don't want our friendship to change! I don't either! But I can't just stop having feelings for you – and…a-and I know you feel something for me too!"
Complete silence. Ginny rolled her eyes – she wanted to go and strangle her brother. Couldn't he see Hermione was insanely, madly in love with him? And that he felt the same way about her? All he did over the summer was talk about Hermione, even more so than he talked about Harry!
"Ron, I – you are 'fond' of me, aren't you? I mean, everything we say, all the ways we act around each other, it all points to one thing, doesn't it? It makes perfect sense. There's something between us, something connecting us besides Harry – right?"
"Er – but, Hermione…we…no point…what kind of future…You-Know-Who - " Ron stuttered weakly, his gruff voice pitched so low and soft Ginny could barely catch words here and there.
Hermione, clearly at the end of her tether, finally snapped, "Fine – don't admit that you have feelings for me! Just know that we don't have nine lives, Ron, and the threat of Voldemort – "
"Don't say his name!"
" – VOLDEMORT, is probably going to be hanging over our heads for the rest of our lives, and you can't be afraid to live the one life you do have!" Hermione all but shouted, and Ginny winced as she heard the other girl stomp across the room toward the door.
That hadn't gone well at all…
To her surprise, when the door opened, it wasn't Hermione who came trudging out, it was a red-faced, bewildered looking Ron.
The door slammed hard on his heels.
Ginny took a step back, crossed her arms, and looked up at her older brother with a raised brow. "I bet you're happy now you've made a proper ass out of yourself in front of poor Hermione again."
Ron growled something that sounded remotely like, "Shove off," and shouldered past her, walking into his room and slamming the door shut even harder and louder than
Hermione had, as if to prove a point.
Ginny sniffed and knocked hesitantly on her bedroom door. "Hermione?"
For a moment she was sure the other girl wasn't going to answer. Then there was a miserable sounding, "What?"
She bit her lip, feeling bad that she'd been eavesdropping. "Are you all right?"
"Yes, why wouldn't I be?" Hermione responded in an angry tone.
Ginny sighed. "As much as I'd like to tell you Ron's dreadfully thick – "
A loud snort came from the direction of Ron's room. "Eavesdropper."
" – and to just forget all about him, I think the little sod really does love you, and that you should talk this out."
Hermione made a loud, garbled snarl.
"Please?" Ginny asked in a tiny voice. "And I'm not eavesdropping, Ron! You can't eavesdrop in your own bloody house!"
"I'd rather chew glass!" The older girl snapped, making sure her response was loud enough for Ron to hear.
Ron was wise enough not to respond. He did stomp around an awful lot, and then something heavy crashed against the wall. Ginny winced, hoping whatever it had been didn't belong to Draco.
"Oi, Ginny! Ask Ron and Hermione if they wanna play a game of poker!" Charlie called up the stairs.
"NO!"
Ginny found herself nearly deafened by the denials shouted in unanimity.
Well, at least they were agreeing on something.
"Ron, what did you do now?" Charlie shouted back, his voice teasing.
Ears ringing, Ginny was very thankful when her mother finally yelled over everyone to stop shouting. She looked between the two rooms, decided she wasn't going to get anywhere with either one of them tonight, and plodded downstairs to her certain doom.
After the scene outside, and the excruciatingly embarrassing fact that her father was no doubt warning Draco off, she didn't think she'd ever be able to look him in the eye again!
"Ah, the prisoners have been released from the tower," Charlie said with a smile as he looked up from his cards and witnessed the seemingly simultaneous arrival of Draco and Ginny in the opposite entrances to the crowded, comfortably cluttered living room.
Ginny wanted very badly to disappear in that moment – or go and find a small, dark hole to crawl into and die of humiliation. She carefully kept her eyes averted.
"You two playing?" Bill asked as he dealt out cards to Fred and George, Harry and Charlie.
Ginny gave her head a shake, and wandered over to the pillows before the fireplace to take up the book she'd been reading earlier.
She saw a pair of lean, black denim clad legs walk past out of the corner of her eye, and heard Draco's low voice as he settled himself at the table.
She was trying to focus on the book when she heard him speak directly to her.
"Sure you don't want to play, Gin?"
Her tongue twisted on her reply. "Er, no thanks. This book is, uh, really interesting." She still refused to look at him. Just listening to his voice was making her practically melt into a messy puddle at his feet.
Draco's tone turned silky in an instant. "It must be – you are, after all, attempting to read it upside-down…"
"Bloody hell!" Fred threw his cards down with a scowl. "Why couldn't we have just played go-fish? I'm unbeatable at that!"
"Yeah, because you cheat," George supplied helpfully.
"I do not! How can you cheat at Go-Fish?"
"You used to cheat at Old-Maid, too," Charlie added dryly.
"I do not cheat! There's a good bloody reason I was put into Gryffindor, you know!"
"He bribed the Sorting Hat," George hissed in a mock whisper.
Ginny, snuggled deeply into the pillows on the floor before the fire, giggled softly to herself. She tugged the worn green chenille throw tossed over her closer to her chin and tried to pretend she was well hidden from Draco's eyes.
She'd given up on the book long ago, and contented herself with closing her eyes, and pretending to fall asleep, just so she could lay still and have the luxury of listening to Draco's voice as he bantered coolly with her brothers and Harry across the table.
Warm, sleepy, and incredibly comfortable, she was dozing off when she felt a tug on her ankle.
"Go 'way," Ginny murmured, a slight frown creasing her forehead.
The tug came again.
"Please stop, I'm so comfy," she protested softly.
"Come on, Gin – you'll rest better in bed."
"No – want to stay here." She gave the warm throw being slowly pulled from her grasp a protesting yank.
"Ginny," the voice came again, arrogant, but soft, and gently coaxing.
She sighed and stubbornly refused to answer.
After a long moment, in which she managed to slip back to sleep, Ginny felt a pair of hands slip under her back and knees, and then she was being lifted against something far warmer then the pillows she'd been resting on.
"Ain't that sweet – he's acting all Prince Charming like," she heard Fred mutter laughingly from somewhere.
"She looks really heavy – why don't you let me have her?" Charlie offered.
Ginny frowned harder and turned her face away. She wasn't fat!
"I think I can handle her," she heard someone drawl above her in amusement.
A strong thudding sounded beneath her ear, like that of a heart-beat, and Ginny smiled briefly in contentment as she drifted off.
Her blissful sleep was soon interrupted by the fell of cold sheets against her skin.
She gave a shiver as chilly feeling linens were drawn swiftly over her, and buried her nose in her pillow – it smelled like Draco's cologne, and she remembered vaguely that he'd been lying across her bed earlier.
"Goodnight, Gin," came a warm whisper just over her ear, and she felt a pair of warm fingertips brush across her cheek, before the door clicked shut, and muffled voices faded outside in the hall.
"G'night," she managed to mumble before hugging her pillow and falling into a much needed deep sleep.
Draco closed the door quietly behind him, and turned to see Harry standing behind him, his green eyes narrowed behind his specs.
"What's wrong, Potter? Still sore about losing those ten galleons?"
"What are you trying to pull, Malfoy? Carrying Ginny up to bed, like she bloody belongs to you or something – "
"As far as you're concerned, Potter, she does belong to me," Draco responded tightly. "Don't think I haven't noticed you watching her all year."
"Ginny and I are just friends – "
"Yes, you are 'just friends', Potter, and you'd better keep it that way."
Harry's jaw tightened visibly. "You don't have any kind of claim on her, Malfoy – and if you do anything to hurt her, the Weasley's are going to be the least of your worries."
Draco was prevented from responding as Arthur Weasley appeared at the top of the stairs.
"Well, good night, boys – going to bed, are you?"
He looked as if he hadn't heard a word the two of them had exchanged.
"Yes, sir," they both muttered tensely, eyes shooting daggers at each other.
"All right, then. See you in the morning," the older man said cheerily, and headed back down the stairs.
"I'm warning you, Malfoy – " Harry began shortly.
"What Potter? Going to turn me out? Oh, I forgot – this isn't your house, is it?"
Draco shook his head tiredly and deliberately turned his back. "If you'll excuse me – I have to go get in line to use the frigging bathroom."
Ron's room was already dark when Draco returned.
"I sincerely hope you don't snore, Weasley," he couldn't keep from digging as he made a swift check of his bed to make sure there were no pranks present.
"Shut-up, Malfoy – I'm in no mood to deal with you," Ron growled from his bed.
Draco smirked as he crawled beneath his covers, wincing a bit at the quality of the sheets. They felt like they had far less than the 350 and over thread count he was accustomed to…
"How can you sleep in here, Weasley? It's dark and the walls are still practically glowing," he prodded out of habit. "What possessed you to paint the place that god-awful orange?"
"Sod off, Malfoy. I bet your room looks like Salazar Slytherin threw up all over it!" Ron shot back defensively.
"It does," Draco agreed amiably enough. "But I can't really call it 'my' room anymore, now, can I?"
Ron seemed to fall into a guilty sort of silence.
"Just go to sleep, Draco," Harry said from his side of the room. "We need our rest – we've still got to put up with you for two more weeks."
"Longer, maybe, if that blizzard sets in," Ron added crossly.
Draco rolled onto his back and stared up at the cracked plaster ceiling – even in the darkness he could tell it was painted bright orange as well. He was feeling too restless to just lie there and wait to go to sleep. The fact that Ginny, warm and unbelievably soft, was laying less than twenty feet from him was driving his senses crazy. Unwillingly, he turned his head towards the door.
"Don't even think about it, Malfoy," Ron said from his bed.
A wry smile twisted his lips. "Don't worry about it, Weasley. I already received the lecture from your father."
Ron surprised him by laughing out loud. "Don't tell me my Dad gave you the 'talk'!"
"If what you mean by the 'talk' is a red-faced stammering rendition of the birds and the bee's, then, yes," Draco answered dryly. "Followed up by a stern admonition that I'll have my fingers hexed off if I lay one hand on your sister, of course."
Harry made a rusty sounding chuckle. "I'd have loved to have been there."
"You probably just would have been confused, Potter," Draco murmured tauntingly, raising a hand to push through his hair.
Ron amazed him by laughing again.
"Like you know everything," Harry answered angrily.
"I'd be very surprised if there's anything I don't know," Draco replied with smug confidence.
After a long silence, Ron asked in a hushed voice. "Malfoy, you're so full of it. You trying to tell me you've – done it, before?"
"Yes, that's exactly what I'm telling you, Weasley. You haven't? I can't say I'm surprised." Draco closed his eyes and crossed his arms behind his head.
"With who?" Harry asked challengingly.
"A gentleman never names names," he said arrogantly.
"Who ever accused you of being a bloody gentleman? Lyin' sod," Ron snorted, throwing a pillow at him.
"Being able to keep your gob shut about what you do in private is what makes the difference between a boy and a man,"Draco drawled in annoyance, lobbing the pillow back at its owner.
"Oh, woo-hoo! Malfoy is getting all honorable on us, Harry! The apocalypse must be coming. Quick look outside – is the sky raining fire?"
"I'm going to sleep," Harry grumbled.
Draco shrugged. "All right then. I'll tell you this much, Potter. One."
Ron sat up in his bed, staring across the room at him in the darkness. "One what? One time? You've done it one time, and you're acting like you've shagged every female on the bloody planet?"
Harry made a sound of abject disgust.
"Actually it's more like – twenty-one," Draco corrected quietly. "Though I haven't exactly been keeping count – "
"You're full of it!" Ron exclaimed. "twenty girls – "
"Women," Draco interjected.
" – no bloody way! You can't have been with that many women – you're still in school, you great lying prat!"
"I've spent my summer holidays in London the past few years, not that it's any of your business, Weasley. And you two aren't the only one's who know of the many different ways out of Hogwarts. You forget who my parents are – were. There was always some family friend with bored, more than willing daughters visiting the manor, during the summer, and staying at the townhouse when we chanced to spend the holidays in town. Like this past summer - I didn't even bother coming home most nights – not that my parents even noticed," he finished bitterly. "You'd be surprised how many older women just love thinking they're 'deflowering' a teenage boy."
"That's sick!" The red head shakily announced.
"You wouldn't think that if you could have seen those women, Weasley," Draco told him knowingly. "Well built, spoilt and pampered to within an inch of their lives. Of course it helped, the fact that I am disgustingly wealthy – "
"Was," Harry mentioned.
"Am, Potter." Draco didn't bother to elaborate.
"Still, doesn't it bug you that all those women were just attracted to you because of your money?" Ron asked him seriously.
"Not at all. Every woman I've been with had understood its just sex. Emotion doesn't enter into it. Everyone in the real world uses each other, Weasley, to achieve their own ends. And it's not just my money they were after, you know. I am wickedly good-looking, and a fantastic lay if I do say so myself."
"Good-looking like the rear end of a Hippogriff," Harry said under his breath.
"Fancy that – Draco Malfoy, Hogwarts' resident man-whore!" Ron sniggered.
"You're only a whore if you get paid for it," said Draco mildly.
"And this is just another of the many, many reasons why you're never resting a hand on my sister," said Ron threateningly, and Draco heard him crack his knuckles.
"I think that's her decision."
"Right. Like she'd want to touch you if she knew what you just told us! Twenty women…and before you even turned eighteen, at that."
"Wouldn't she? I, for one would think it would be far more comforting, and gratifying to be with someone who knows what the hell they're about. Why? Jealous, Weasley?"
"Extremely – but that's not the point," Ron said, not missing a beat.
Draco laughed shortly. "Remind me to take you out with me one night. Although you'd probably get eaten alive by the sort of company I've been keeping."
"No thanks, Malfoy. Hermione would murder me."
"That girl has you whipped already, and doesn't even know it," Draco told him with distaste. "You aren't even going out. Hell, you aren't even talking! What kind of hold has she got over you, then? Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't that the two of you I heard screaming the house down earlier?"
"I wasn't screaming, I was shouting. Bellowing, even. In a very manly way," Ron protested.
"If you're done 'entertaining' us with tales of your prowess…" Harry said, sounding very tired, and very annoyed.
Draco sent an amused look over towards Harry and again closed his eyes. He couldn't fall asleep, though. Something had begun tugging at him, making his abdomen twist with unease.
After many long, uncomfortable minutes, and great deliberation, he realized it was guilt. His eyes snapped open.
What the hell did he have to feel guilty about?
Ginny.
"Damn it!"
"Shut-up Malfoy, we're tryin' to sleep here!"
He glared over at Ron's bed and swallowed against the unfamiliar feeling. An odd lump had appeared in his throat.
Guilty. Right. Feeling guilty about having been with women he'd never even thought twice about after their encounters were over.
Guilty because he knew Ginny would be crushed if she ever found out.
Well, why should she be? They weren't a couple. They weren't 'together'. He could go over there and snog that bloody Granger if he'd a mind to, and not feel a bit of guilt…Ron Weasleywould have his nuts up a tree, but still.
He hadn't really even known Ginny Weasley existed before the beginning of the first term – he had absolutely no reason to guilty.
Draco tried to settle himself more comfortably against his lumpy mattress and flat pillow, and wondered if this was what his Great, Great, Great Aunt, Princess Analisa had felt like when those stupid Muggles had made her sleep on that bloody pea…
It didn't take anyone very long to realize the next morning, that Fred and George had been at it again.
For instance, everyone soon discovered that if they even tried to breath a curse word, all that emitted from their mouths was a squawk, not unlike that of a chicken.
Needless to say, the twins were nearly hysterical over their pancakes at breakfast, even as their Mum was shouting herself witless, her furious speech interrupted by many sharp squawks.
Ginny was so embarrassed she couldn't bring herself to look up from her plate, and strands of her hair kept getting in the syrup.
Finally, Fred and George were banished off to their old room as if they weren't grown men with a flat in London, and a flourishing business.
The chaos went on for perhaps another hour, her Mum muttering beneath her breath, brandishing her wand, her father making a hasty exit, beating a path through the snow that had fallen, from the back door to his tinkering shed.
When Bill and Charlie started cursing on purpose just so they could laugh at each other, Molly nearly kicked them out of the kitchen, leaving only Harry, Ginny, Hermione, Draco and Ron.
When faced with the fact that he was probably about to be roped into doing the dishes, Ron quickly finished his breakfast and nudged an unusually glowering Harry.
"Let's get our brooms and head out. It's starting to snow a bit hard, and I wanted to show you that new move – "
Ginny sent her brother a glare as he and Harry stood up from the table, but didn't say a word. She really didn't feel much like making a fuss over the dishes in front of Draco.
"I'm going to go do some homework," Hermione mumbled, and wandered off as well.
Ginny slumped slightly in her chair.
"Wanna' join us, Malfoy?" Ron, his Gryffindor scarf looped around his neck, reappeared with his broomstick, Harry right behind him.
"In a minute, sure. I'm going to, er…help clean up."
Ginny started and looked up, and Ron and Harry paused in their flight towards the door.
"You're what?"
"Go on – somebody has to help Ginny," Draco said smoothly.
"Ought to take a page out of that boy's book, the two of you," Molly called from inside the pantry.
Harry was already unwinding his scarf. "I'll stay – "
"No, it's all right – you go on, too, Draco," Ginny said protestingly.
"You two go on – I'll just grab my broom," said Draco quickly.
The two boys left grudgingly, and Ginny frowned at Draco when he made no move to leave.
"They weren't going to leave me alone with you," he told her, rolling up the sleeves on his velvety black shirt. "So – how exactly does one do dishes?"
Ginny would have laughed out loud had she not known Draco would have been greatly offended.
His long blonde hair was slightly wilted from the heat of the dishwater he'd been bent over, and fell limply across his furrowed brow. A slowly dissolving pile of bubbles was dabbed across one shoulder, and more frothy white bubbles dusted the fine blonde hair on the backs of his forearms.
Ginny slipped the last dish into the cupboard, and threw a hand towel over his shoulder as he let the dirty water out of the sink.
"So – would you make dishwashing a profession?"
Draco rinsed his hands, scowling with displeasure at the wrinkled state of his fingers, and then dried them and his arms with the towel. "Certainly not. That had to be one of the most tedious, disgusting jobs I've ever had the misfortune of doing. Touching other people's plates – revolting."
Ginny shrugged. "I suppose you'd look at it that way. You've probably had servants to do all that for you."
"This is servant's stuff," he agreed, but then he caught her around the waist and gave her a swift peck on the lips. "Just being with you made it worthwhile, though."
"I've heard that one before," she replied breathlessly, thinking of that evening she spent digging Flobberworms with him, of all things.
"But I meant it then, too," Draco answered, and released her.
She abruptly busied herself wiping down the table and counters.
"How can you tell the difference? Between Fred and George, I mean?"
"Freckles," Ginny replied off handedly, draping her towel over the sink to dry.
"Sorry – freckles?"
"Yeah. If anyone took the time to look close enough, they'd notice Fred has this funny little freckle right beneath his left ear – it's really pale, you can miss it very easily, but it's there." She smiled at Draco hesitantly, pushed her hair behind her ear, and shrugged. "I've never pointed it out, you know. Didn't want to spoil their fun."
Draco was watching her intently when the back door banged open and Ron, looking blue tinged and damp from the snow, stuck his head in. "You comin' or what, Malfoy?"
"Yes, we're coming. Hang on." Draco grabbed her hand and led her out of the kitchen.
"Where are we going?"
He smirked and pulled her after him up the stairs. "Get something warm on – and your broom. I have something to show you."
Confused, yet feeling fuzzy inside that he'd decided to include her, Ginny did as he'd instructed and then met him back downstairs a few minutes later.
She dashed down the last few steps, her trusty Firebolt in hand, and nearly swallowed her tongue at the sight of him. He was wearing some sort of long, leathery black coat, with a split up the back, and thin, fingerless black leather gloves. The silver and green of his Slytherin scarf draped around his throat, bringing out the gray of his eyes didn't help either. As if that wasn't enough, he was leaning almost casually on a racing broom.
But it wasn't just any racing broom.
"That's – that's – " Ginny found her lips couldn't form the words. There was too much eye candy. It was causing a sensory overload.
"That's a Firebolt 450," Draco said almost boredly, though his silvery eyes were sparkling.
It was all Ginny could do to move her legs and follow him outside. She was in complete awe.
Had there ever been a doubt that she loved this man?
(A/N: Yes, that was a Princess And The Pea joke up there. Don't ask. Man-Whore. :giggles hysterically: )