A/N* aiy its been a while, I know, sorry! School sucks like a mother. But here's the 4th chapter! And I wrote another one-shot, called Conspiracies of the Mad, but I did that one by hand so I still need to type it up…so somewhere between this chapter and chapter 5 that one will be up. =D
Chapter 4. Intoxication
"Malfoy?"
Time must have been suspended as Ginny turned around, her pulse ricocheting with anticipation. She wasn't quite sure whether to be happy or enraged that he was finally here, and she stared with blatantly dumbfounded awe. "Malfoy," she said again, only this time it was more of a statement.
He looked exactly the same, if not better, leaning against the doorframe with that smug smirk on his handsome face and the same, disinterested glint in his silver eyes. Granted, without the flush in his cheeks he was as pale as ever, but that flush had taken numerous unmentionables to work up, and she probably would've been rather jealous had it been there at the moment. "That's my name," he said, looking quite amused at her speechlessness.
"I—uh—wow," she stammered.
He rolled his eyes. "Now I know I'm breathtaking, Weasley," he said dryly, "But try not to faint, okay?"
"How'd you know who I was?" Ginny said suspiciously, wondering—no, hoping he had indeed found out.
"Well for one," Draco retorted, "You have that disgusting Weasley hair. And secondly, I wouldn't let anyone in my mansion without knowing who they are."
A surge of disappointment coursed through her veins, even more at the indisputable contempt apparent in his voice. She was, quite plainly to him still the youngest weasel, Ron's little sister and Harry Potter's pesky admirer. If only you knew, she thought wryly, darting a glance at Sebastian, who was watching their entire interlude quietly.
"Oh," she said, not sure whether it was appropriate to snap at him. The old Virginia Weasley would've never stayed silent, but then again, the old Virginia Weasley would've never made deals with Pansy or slept with Draco, for that matter.
"Well then," he moved into the room with one lackadaisical stride. Gods he was beautiful, Ginny thought dizzily, so cold and untouchable. "You've been working here for a long time, I presume."
She nodded numbly. "Since Sebastian was born."
"I see," he said distastefully, the sneer from Hogwarts appearing upon his face. But he wasn't the same annoying boy from school, Ginny told herself. He was, in all measures, still spiteful and unnervingly calm, but seeing him take in her plain blue dress with an expertly condescending eye, she had to admit there was a different air around him now. It was, perhaps, what had attracted her to the mysterious masked man back at Flint's ball, the unavoidable eloquence and opulence that emanated from the folds of his rich black robes. Involuntarily, her eyes traveled up the length of his slender torso, eyeing the broad chest evident through layers of clothing, and then to his face, liking what she saw every bit of the way.
"My god, Weasley," Draco interrupted her thoughts. "Didn't your mother ever tell you that staring is rude?"
"I'm not staring," she defended quickly, blushing with a fury.
"Right," He drawled. "And I'm not rich. In all honesty, weasel, I'm used to women fawning over me." A lazy smile came across his face now. "But you were so busy ogling you missed every single word I just said."
"Oh," her breath hitched as he rolled his eyes at her. "Um, I'm sorry then, Mr. Malfoy. What exactly did you say?"
Draco folded two arms across his chest and settled into the chaise. "I didn't, Weasley, but you wouldn't know that, now would you?"
She scowled now, no longer charmed by his looks and recalling indeed the great prat he'd presented himself to be during their school years. But the sharp reply that in any other circumstance would've leapt off her tongue stayed lodged in her throat as he stretched lissomely, and she couldn't help but remember the way his touch felt. If anything, Draco seemed to notice her lack of speech, and tossed her a curious glance of well-masked puzzlement. "Guess you're still that dense, aren't you?" He smirked.
"I'm—you—uh—no," she managed to stutter out.
Draco cocked an eyebrow. "What was that?"
"No," she said hurriedly, realizing somewhere she was making a gigantic fool out of herself. "I, um, I said no. As in I'm not dense." Now would be a good time to run away, she thought grimly, but her feet—along with the rest of her quickly blushing body—were rooted to the ground.
Her thankfulness was inexpressible, thus, when Sebastian piped up. "Miss Weasley, guess what?"
Both adults snapped towards the unexpected speaker, who sat quite serenely with what would've appeared to be an innocent grin. "Uh, yes, Sebastian?" Ginny recovered, flashing the child a warm smile.
"I think my wish might come true," Sebastian replied, golden eyes lighting up.
"Your wish?"
"Merlin, Weasley," Draco snorted. "You're only job is to take care of the goddamn child, and you can't even pay attention. What kind of nanny are you, anyways?"
"I'm not a nanny, I'm a governess," Ginny said sharply. "And you're one to talk, using such language upon an impressionable young child."
He narrowed two mercury eyes and said in a low, silky voice, "Grown a backbone in the last few minutes now, have we?"
She chose to ignore him. "What wish, Sebastian?"
"You know, the one I made on my birthday," he answered. "When I blew out the candles."
"Blew out the—now why would you do that?" Draco said suspiciously. "Tell me it doesn't have anything with what I learned in muggle studies."
"Miss Weasley says it's tradition," Sebastian explained, his cheer faltering.
"Oh, did she now?" Draco's eyes grew to dangerous slits. "And pray tell, Weasley, why do you feel the need to associate the Malfoy heir—" He blanched as he said this, imagining the smugly satisfied look on Pansy's face "—with muggles?"
"Not everyone's as biased as you, you know," Ginny shot back, her temper truly wearing short.
"Muggles," Draco bellowed.
"We've established that fact," Ginny said.
"Weasley, this is a pureblood child," Draco hissed. At least knowing how selective Pansy is with her men, I would think he is, he added mentally. "Beyond that, he is the child that will represent the Malfoy name. What the bloody hell were you thinking?"
"He's just a child, Malfoy," Ginny protested. "I wanted him to have some fun on his birthday."
"Fun?" Draco roared. "Fun? You want fun, throw a party. God knows the boy's mother has enough of my money."
A crestfallen sigh overcame Ginny, and she glanced at Sebastian with pitiful doe brown eyes. "I-I couldn't."
"Really?" Draco snarled. "And why not? Oh, I understand. Too poor to have ever had a party, eh?"
She looked torn between sympathy for Sebastian and extreme hurt at his disdainful words. But it was Sebastian who spoke. "She couldn't because I haven't any friends."
"You—" Draco was at a loss for words.
A trace of a smile came upon his ghostly pale face now. "It's not easy being filthy rich, you know," He said, sounding more like Draco at twenty than a six-year-old child, and once again impressing both of them with his proficiency. "I would think that you would know." Silence overcame the room, Draco gawking at the quiet boy and Ginny reeling from the intense hatred that had been directed towards her earlier. "I need to go to the loo," Sebastian finally said, hopping off his massive bed.
"Sebastian," Ginny called, stopping him just outside the door. "What did you wish for?"
His gaze flickered from Ginny to Draco. "I wished for a father," He said, and then disappeared.
Draco groaned from his seat on the velvety green chaise. "Did you hear that?" Ginny said, her voice devoid of accusation and hurt.
He raised those luminous gray eyes and fixed her with a blatantly weary stare. "Hear what?"
"He said he thinks his wish might come true," Ginny replied. "Which means it hasn't yet. You've been gone for seven years of his life, but—" She hestitated, the uncertaintly apparent in her voice.
"But?" He prompted.
"But you can still make it come true, Draco Malfoy," she said softly.
And without another word, she fled the room.
~*~
"He's here, master."
"Who?" Draco snapped.
The house-elf quivered in the doorway of his massive den. "Er, Mr. Zabini, master."
"Oh. Send him in." So Blaise was here, Draco thought. Through his last few years at Hogwarts, he'd developed a comforting alliance with the dark-haired Slytherin, who was, much surprisingly, quite like him in many sense, and who'd oddly enough been there for Draco during the roughest of times. He was also, consequently, the only visitor Draco had during those dark weeks in Canada.
"Draco Malfoy," A familiar voice rang out heartily. "It's been a while since I've seen you in your natural habitat."
"I wouldn't exactly call it mine," Draco chuckled, "Now that Pansy has decided to redecorate."
"Hear, hear," Blaise agreed, patting him on the back congenially.
"I assume you received my owl?"
Blaise nodded solemnly, pulling out a wrinkled parchment from beside him. "All two words of it. May I read to you: 'Blaise—home.'" He stuffed the yellowed paper back into the folds of his robe and smiled broadly. "I nearly died with shock at seeing how long it was, you know."
"Funny," Draco replied dryly.
"Aren't I?" Blaise settled himself down on the leather couch. "So tell me, old friend, what's been bugging that intelligent mind of yours?"
"Well get this," Draco said leaning across his grand oak desk. "It turns out that there's a little boy, aged six, running rampant around my mansion."
Blaise shot up. "It can't be."
Draco nodded grimly. "And his name is Sebastian Aurelius Malfoy."
"I like the name," Blaise remarked.
"That's what I told my idiot of a wife," Draco snorted. "She didn't. But then again, given her brain capacity, I'm not too surprised."
"So how are you faring with this kid?" Blaise wanted to know.
"Pansy, for the first time, has done something right," Draco shook his head. "Or at least part of it right. She hired a nanny."
Blaise arched an eyebrow, Malfoy fashion. "Oh?"
"But the nanny is Virginia Weasley," Draco said conspirationally, causing his friend to double in laughter and shock.
"Weasley?" Blaise choked. "As in, red-haired, whiny little sister of Ron Weasley with that god-awful temper?" Draco nodded, bothered by his incredulity but somehow not able to place it. "What's she like now? Still dream about Potter?"
"She's different," Draco said slowly.
"Different, how? Is she secretly married to that mudblood Granger?" He went on laughing, and Draco frowned, thinking about their earlier conversation. He'd expected a confrontation, remembering the feisty spunk with which she'd yelled at him during his sixth year. Time would've only sharpened her edge, he figured, and he was well prepared for her torrents of insults and infamous Weasley temper. But there had been none. Instead, she seemed almost. . .happy to see him, if he could stretch it that far. He wasn't dense—he saw the sidelong glances she tossed his way when she presumed him to be focused on Sebastian.
She looked different, that was for sure. Her hair was somehow straight now, not the same, frizzy mess that had rendered her so much like Granger but sleek and properly pulled back into a dull yet admittedly neat bun. The freckles had faded mostly, and without them she seemed paler than ever. There were little lines that could be detected etched faintly around the eyes, and for the most part they were, well, tired. She'd also filled out quite a lot, put on enough kilograms so she wasn't quite overweight but curvy enough to look like a woman instead of that miserable excuse of a stork-like body she'd had all throughout school.
No, that wasn't what struck him peculiar though. There was something else different about her, though, beyond that. Something that bothered him deep inside, something he couldn't quite place. And then it hit him.
Her eyes had lost their spark.
And for some reason, some unmentionable reason, he felt guilty, as if he were responsible for the dullness in those giant amber eyes. Somewhere in his ancestry, there had been a seer, and he had inherited some sort of power—not quite so he could actually read minds or forecast the future, but enough to channel feelings in a powerful manner, thus resulting in a sharp perspecuity when it came to emotions. It was how he always knew which buttons to push with the infamous trio, and it was why he could feel Weasley's bitter disappointment when he'd made a comment about her poverty earlier. She's bound to get angry, Draco told himself, you're just being nutters. "Nah, they're about to be sisters-in-law," Draco pushed away his uneasy feelings as Blaise's laughter cut into his thoughts.
"So the mudblood's banging the muggle-lover now," Blaise hiccuped.
"Something like that," Draco agreed.
"Well, I still can't believe it," Blaise declared once his amusement was in check. "You, a father!"
"It's not that hard to believe," Draco smirked. "But at any rate, I'm not the father."
"You're—you're—you're joking, right?" Blaise's mouth flapped open like a fish out of water.
Draco shook his head grimly. "Not in the least. I've never, actually, well, you know."
Blaise frowned. "What?"
He lowered his voice. "I never slept with Pansy."
"What?" Blaise reeled. "But she's your wife."
"I know," Draco replied. "Not by choice, of course, you know that. I loathe the woman. I itch to slap a divorce on her sorry little arse."
"So?" Blaise shrugged. "Why didn't you take that sorry little arse out for a spin?"
"You wouldn't understand," Draco muttered. "You never did understand her repulsiveness. Doesn't matter though, because some other bloke has fucked my wife." He let out a low, amused laugh, a chilling laugh, really. "Not to say that I mind, but the woman's got me backed into a corner here. She's making me pretend the little brat's mine. Would've violated the pre-nup, you know, if people were to find out about his paternity."
"I don't get it," Blaise said, strolling to Draco's liquor cabinet and pawing through the alcohol. "Why are you letting Parkinson string you along like this?"
"Because seven years ago, I let my guard down," Draco answered flatly, burying his head in his hands. "Seven years ago, I met this amazing creature at Flint's masquerade, you know, the one that Rita Skeeter tried so hard to get an invitation to?"
"And failed, I might add," Blaise commented with a devilish smile as he removed the glass cork to a particularly large bottle of scotch. "Don't tell me you shagged the girl?"
"Best night of my life," Draco said flippantly. "Don't regret it one bit. What I do regret, though, is falling asleep so Flint could find me the next morning and report it back to my all-too-eager-for-blackmail wife.
"Flint," Blaise pondered for a moment, reaching for a glass to pour his drink in. "Don't tell me Flint's the father, because I'll go pound his womanizing arse into bloody smithereens if he's cheating on Vanessa again—"
"Hey, Zabini," Draco reached out and punched his friend lightly. "Was she that good in bed? It's been eight years, you know. You have to let go sometime."
Blaise tossed his empty glass angrily onto the floor, where it promptly smashed and skidded into the wall. "I know, I know," He shoved two frustrated hands through his short brown hair. "She left me for Flint, that sodding bastard, because her bloody father said I was a player. Me! A player! Where does he fucking come off?"
Draco restrained a laugh. "No idea."
Blaise reached into the cabinet for another glass. "I just miss her, that's all," he said ruefully, clinking the bottle to pour.
"You don't plan to break that one, do you?" Draco raised one eyebrow.
"Oh," Blaise seemed to notice his discarded glass for the first time. "Sorry. I can re-imburse that."
"No need," Draco waved his hand. "I still don't understand this attachment to Vanessa Flint though."
Blaise downed the glass. "I don't either. But I think—I think I might have loved her." He fingered the intricate carvings nervously, glancing away.
"Love," Draco said caustically, "is for fools."
"Yeah, I know," Blaise mumbled.
Silence.
"So who's the bloke that knocked Pansy up?"
Draco shrugged. "I was hoping you could find out."
Blue met gray as a fleeting understanding passed between the two men through the bond they had unintentionally forged known as friendship. A smirk curved Blaise's lips, a smirk that resembled Draco's so eerily well. He raised the glass and wiggled his eyebrows before gulping the rest of his alcohol.
"Well then. Let the games begin."
~*~
Holy. Shit. Malfoy had returned.
Draco Malfoy, the very man she had so foolishly believed herself to be in love with, the man she had paused her life for, had returned. "Asshole," she muttered, drunkenly raising a glass of vodka to her lips. Then why does the mere sight of him send flutters all throughout your body? A tiny yet incredibly annoying voice said. It was the question she'd been trying to figure out in that hot and crowded pub all night, drinking herself into a stupor.
"Lady, are you okay?" The bartender asked gently. He was but a blur in her vision, of course, and she managed a weak smile.
"Oh yes," Ginny reached into her pockets. "I want another shot of that."
"I think you've had enough tonight," he said dubiously.
"Am I the customer or what?" She jabbed a finger at him, but missed his chest. "The customer. Is. Always. Right."
He shrugged, holding two hands up in protest. "Okay, okay, coming right up."
Nearly ten shots later, she apparated to her flat. It was, of course, only on her fourth try that she actually managed to apparate to the correct place, and if she had been sober she probably would've winced upon apparating in on a random wizard shagging his boyfriend senseless. But luckily, she was now soundly in the lobby of her quaint apartment, and with the help of a shocked neighbor, she managed her way to the stairs.
"Is this where I live?" She said with a large smile.
"Yes, Miss Virginia," the kindly woman steadied her, trying her best not to wince at the disgraceful display.
"Thanks," Ginny replied, stumbling to her door.
There were loud, distinct voices coming from her home, and she pressed against the wood limply. "You're not serious," a male voice demanded. He sounds familiar, Ginny thought.
"I am," replied another voice. Female, and distinctly cultured.
"But why?"
"Oh you know why, Harry. Don't play stupid with me."
"What is this, revenge?"
"You could say that."
Ginny fumbled with the door, wanting nothing more at that moment than to rest her head. "Gods, they're so bloody loud," she mumbled as the voices continued. She withdrew her wand and aimed it towards the shiny brass knob. "Alotamora!" She said in a commanding tone—the best she could muster with all the alcohol pulsing through her system.
While the door remained locked, the voices stopped abruptly.
"Aleehamora!" She tried again.
And then the door swung open, and Harry was staring at her with very wide, puzzled green eyes. "Ginny?"
"Hello, luv," Ginny slurred. "Who were you talking to?"
He eyed her inebriated state, from her disheveled bun to her glazed brown eyes. "Ginny?" He said cautiously. "Have you been drinking?"
She swept past him into the room, and then turned around sharply. "Of course not!"
He stepped close, sniffing at her breath. "Gods, Gin, you're drunk as a sailor," he exclaimed. "You never drink unless something really bad has happened. Are you okay?"
"I'm just dandy," she replied brightly, and then frowned. "Who are you again?"
He looked at her as if she'd grown another head. "What?"
"Who are you?" She repeated. "I live here, right? So who are you?"
"I'm your fiancé," Harry said, torn between laughing and feeling imperceptibly ridiculous.
Two loud popping sounds echoed throughout the room, and Ron appeared with Hermione on his arm. "Hope you don't mind us dropping in like this, but—" His jaw went slack as he took in the scene before him.
"Ginny?" Hermione squeaked.
Ginny swayed uncertainly, glancing between the two fuzzy characters. "He's my fiancé," she said happily, pointing a vague finger towards Harry. "I knew he'd come for me."
"Uh, yes," Ron said for lack of anything better to say. "That's right, Harry's your fiancé."
"Harry?" Ginny asked confusedly. "Why am I marrying Harry? I'm in love—" she hiccupped loudly, causing Hermione to wince. "—with Malfoy."
And then she promptly passed out.
~ End of Chapter 4
A/N* ::giggles insanely:: I loved writing inebriated!ginny ^_^ especially because my one-shot is a darkfic. Man I started this one out to be not as fluffy as IS…I meant it to be all serious and dark and crap but GAH! It's just so easy to write inebriated!ginny! now REVIEW!!! And I have no time to do special thanks at this moment but you know I love you all.