August 3, 2010
400 words, according to OpenOffice word count.
Ginny grumbled to herself all the way from the Floo to the lift, annoyed at being turned into an errand girl when Ron was idiotic enough to leave his lunch at home. When the lift doors opened, she stormed out mindlessly, turning down the left corridor, as she had been instructed, and barging through the first door, as she had not.
It was very clear that she had gone wrong somewhere when Draco Malfoy shot up from the overturned bucket he'd been sitting on, wearing the navy blue robes of Magical Maintenance. What she wanted to do was apologize, back out of the doorway, and walk away—a long, long way away—but she was frozen in place, even as her face burned like fire.
After a startled moment of silence, Draco said, "So! Come to have a laugh, have you?"
"W-what?"
"It took you long enough. How long's it been? A year and a half, right?" He sneered.
"A year and half since what?" she asked, still bewildered by these turn of events.
He grabbed her arm and yanked her into what she now recognized as a broom closet and slammed the door shut behind her.
"I'm sure your dad told you all about how I begged him for a job, and now I clean toilets after people take a shit."
"I didn't know anything about that!" she cried in outrage. He'd backed her up against the door, compressing her against the hard surface. She was painfully aware of every inch of him, and remembered clearly the last time she'd seen him, spoken to him, the last news she'd heard of him.
It hurt her in more ways than one how strongly her heart was beating, as if he was someone to be excited about, as if she cared about him or something.
He pressed against her, one of his hands splayed next to her head and her eyes fluttered closed though she didn't know what to expect.
Then she was sprawled out on the floor, he having opened the door behind her.
"Don't ever come back here," he said, pulling the door closed.
She stared at the slab of wood in angry astonishment, her heart racing like a sprinter's.
Picking herself up, she yelled, "Yeah? Well, who cares about you anyway? Not me!" And then she stormed off to look for Ron.