AN: First off, I'm not Singaporean or Malaysian. Getting close though, very very close. One thing - no, Harry is not going down the dark path. I realize Ron and Hermione are moving really slowly, but that's just how I envision them. I don't really have anything to say but THANK YOU to all my reviewers. Another person I'd like to thank is Static - whom due to Satan's influence I forgot to mention - because I love all her reviews. And Kei - who paid me the ultimate compliment - thank you so much. I'm going to compile a list someday. Really. Till then, Chocolate is Good, Ice Cream is Good, Reviews are Good.
Disclaimer: All characters and setting belong to JK Rowling. For now.
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Ginny gripped Draco's hand tightly, unconsciously, as if she wasn't aware of it. Draco looked up and a slight frown dotted his expressionless face. Harry Potter was walking their way, hands stuffed into robe pockets, head bent. He was alone - surprisingly enough - and he didn't seem to be aware that he was about to collide with them. Draco didn't intend to awaken that awareness. He shifted slightly, so that they were walking away from Harry. He looked at Ginny, and the frown became more distinct. Her red head was bent in a pose identical to Potter's.
"Is something wrong?" Draco inquired, the very picture of concern. Outwardly, anyway. The Malfoy indifference.
Ginny looked up and smiled weakly, her eyes straying to Potter, who was trudging along, his slender body drooped and his black hair a mess. As usual. She looked back at Draco. "No." She hesitated. Then repeated again, "No."
Draco raised an eyebrow. "I see." He said.
They walked in silence. Draco wondered why they were walking. He hated exercise of any sort, and the sun often burned him even when he was only out for a few minutes. The Malfoy skin. His mother often said, with the tinkling, half-mad laugh that Draco hated. "Can we sit?" he asked, somewhat plaintively.
Ginny pulled him under a tree and cast an anxious look at his nose. She didn't say anything, though, and just looked at him, not lovingly or adoringly, but impersonally, as if she was looking at his features and not him. "What?" Draco asked, picking up one long curl and pulling it out so that it seemed straight. The sunlight rippled off the ruddy redness of it and Draco appreciated the effect. His mother had taught him to appreciate beauty. His father had taught him to crush it.
"I like looking at you." Ginny replied simply. "You are very handsome."
Draco laughed and gave her a kiss. "Of course." He said smugly. "I have the Malfoy looks."
Ginny laughed and narrowed her eyes at him. "You vain thing."
"It's not vanity." Draco said, even more smugly. "It's just true."
Ginny laughed again. Her face grew pensive, and Draco didn't think she was aware of the fact. There was something wrong - she had been absorbed all day, but she didn't seem inclined to tell him about it. And from the way her grip on him had tightened when she caught sight of Potter - Draco didn't know - with a clenching of his heart - if he wanted to know.
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Lucius Malfoy looked at Lord Voldemort, who was sitting across from him in the cavernous room, his long fingers steepled under a sharply cut chin. "I don't like thisss." Voldemort said, his tones, as always, sounding faintly reminiscent of a snake. He turned the picture of Lucius' wife and son around and regarded them through cold red slits. "I have heard disssturbing reportss of your boy."
Lucius didn't blink. His face remained unmoving. "If you mean," he said, slowly and deliberately, "The reports of him dating the Weasley whore - they are perfectly correct."
Lord Voldemort fixed his gaze on him, in a way that Lucius didn't particularly enjoy. "And you have not done anything about it?"
"There is hardly anything to be done at this point." Lucius shrugged. "The girl does no harm, and if we were to - eliminate - her at this point, we would only alienate the boy."
"We would not want that." Voldemort breathed, sucking back the breath thinly and leaning forward. "But I do not like it. Girlss - they can be very dangerousss and I do not want to lossse your boy at this point." He leaned back and studied Lucius. "He may well be the besst Death Eater I have ever had."
Lucius permitted himself a cold smile. "I have tried to ensure that."
Voldemort smiled.
"Yesss." He said, almost contemplatively. "You have."
He changed the subject abruptly and his tones, so rich and slithery, changed into harsher, sharply inflected tones. "Kill the girlss family."
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"I can't believe that Hermione tried to put a binding curse on me!" Ron complained to Harry, who was listening quietly. There was a new, sadder look on Harry's face, the kind of sadness that had never been there even when Cho had been ignoring him. "I just ask her for some help on the Charms and she goes all mental on me. How am I supposed to pass my Charms exam now?"
"The way you always do?" Seamus suggested, snickering. "On prayers and a bit o' luck?"
"You want something to pray about Finnigan?" Ron threatened, lifting a fist.
Seamus just snickered louder than ever. "Yeah, go on with ye."
Ron pulled down his fist. "Hey, Harry, wanna have a go at some Quidditch?"
"I thought you wanted to study."
"Eh, you're right. Now that Hermione's not helping me - for some reason -"
"Girls, eh, Ron?" Dean commiserated, his eyes guiltily sneaking over to where Connie sat. "Can't understand 'em."
"- I'll have to study harder. Mum wasn't too pleased over my O.W.Ls - dunno why - I scored better than Fred or George. . ."
"Everyone scored better than Fred and George -" Seamus put in.
" . . . not enough to satisfy her, though - Dad was orright with them until Mum started in on him -"
"Isn't that always the way?' Dean asked sadly, shaking his head in understanding.
" - then Dad got on my case - as if that wasn't enough, Percy had to go on in with one of his lectures - "
"I reckon Percy's gay." Dean said quietly to Seamus, who nodded in agreement.
" - and now I've got to get good marks else Mum will make me study all summer."
"Rotten." Seamus flicked back his robes and clapped Ron on the back. "I guess I'll leave you to your studying."
Ron nodded, looking tragic.
Dean left quietly as well, and Ron turned to his books, casting a slightly wary look at Harry, who had picked up his Transfiguration book and was leafing through it silently. As far as Ron knew - which wasn't very far - he hadn't spoken for about - well, a long time, anyway.
Ron heaved a sigh. Dunno what's going on around here, but I'm glad school's over in a week.
He snuck a look at Hermione.
Well, that was what he told himself, anyway.
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Hermione cast an unconsciously regretful look towards Ron, who was sitting with Harry. Harry was looking with glazed eyes at his book. Hermione didn't know if that was the result of too much studying - she severely doubted that - or the thing that had been bothering him for the past few weeks.
The thing named Ginny.
But Hermione had better things to think about than the redhead who had everyone falling all over themselves for her. Well, who had Ron falling all over himself for her with every mood swing. Not that Hermione was jealous jealous. Not jealous jealous - because, after all, Ginny was Ron's sister. No, she was jealous jealous because Ron cared so much about Ginny, while -well, Ron didn't care so much about Hermione. Not so much to the extent that he'd go ballistic everytime Hermione spoke to Victor Krum.
Hermione scowled unconsciously, so fiercely that Neville, who had been about to ask her to help him with his Charms homework gave her an alarmed look and backed off without saying a word. Hermione didn't look at Ron.
For about two seconds.
She looked at him again. He was frowning to himself in that bewildered, frustrated way that always heralded a flinging down of the textbook he was immersed in and a - as of late - nasty curse. Not the magic kind. The verbal kind.
She hoped he failed his Charms test.
Hermione felt a guilty thump of her heart just for thinking it.
No, she didn't.
Well, that was what she told herself, anyway.
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A white head and a red head, pressed so closely together that it looked like one huge mass of hair. Harry watched it, ignoring the fatal, hopeless twist of the red mass of muscle people called his heart. He watched as Draco emerged from the tangle of hair, whispering something softly to Ginny. He watched as Ginny smiled - a smile so soft only a girl - one particular girl - could smile like that - up at him, and unconsciously laid a hand on his left arm, so gently Harry instinctively looked down at his own arm. But nothing disturbed the neat lay of robe over arm, no murmur of displaced wind over his skin. He looked up again watching as Draco led Ginny from the room, for one moment unguarded tenderness in his eyes. That was the one thing that consoled Harry. Well, half-consoled him, anyway.
That Draco loved her as much as he did.
Harry almost laughed at the irony of it.
All his life, things had come without him trying.
He'd defeated Voldemort as a baby without trying.
He'd inherited a fortune without trying.
He'd made the best friends ever - Ron and Hermione - without trying.
He'd fallen in love with Ginny without trying.
And before he'd even gotten a chance to try, for the first fucking time in his life, to try for the most important thing - Ginny herself . . .
He had lost.
Without getting a chance to try.
Lost to a Death Eater's son, a person who would most likely become a Death Eater himself.
The very people he was supposed to be a representative against.
Wasn't that funny.
Wasn't that so fucking funny.
Harry hoped someone up there was laughing, because he sure as hell wasn't.
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Ginny sat cuddled in Draco's arms.
For all his thinness, Draco had muscles of whipcord, so lean that you couldn't see them under his robes, so strong you couldn't help but feel them.
She loved his hands.
Beautiful hands, representing all that was male and strong about him.
Sure hands, always knowing where to touch, how to touch, when to touch.
Long fingers, as if he had been born to be a piano player or a surgeon. Somewhere in the recesses of her mind, Ginny knew that Voldemort had unusually long fingers. But Voldemort had never had fingers like this, with green and blue veins pulsing just under the skin, strong fingers, that spelt authority and arrogance when they gestured, and when they didn't.
Smooth palm, as if he hadn't done a day's work in his life.
He probably hadn't.
A callus in the web spanning the distance between his thumb and forefinger, from the rough spot on his wand.
The hands she adored touched her on the cheek, revealing the soft love he would never verbalize.
She could live with that.
For now.
She kissed him.
He took over immediately.
Tongue in her mouth, hot male tongue.
Hands on her back, hot male hands.
Not soft love, this.
Passionate love.
Desire.
On both their parts.
Draco broke away, breathing heavily, sweat beading the line between his forehead and his ridiculously fluffy white hair.
Baby-soft hair.
Ginny loved seeing him like this.
It was the only time he couldn't look cool or arrogant.
He looked hot and lustful.
Not for the first time, Ginny wondered what he would be like in bed.
Not that she was going to find out.
Not for the next few years anyway.
If he was anything as good as he was at kissing . . .
Best to stop that line of thought.
Draco's breathing finally evened out and he swept his mouth down on hers again.
The cycle continued.
The kiss-me-till-I-want-to-tear-off-your-clothes-but-can't cycle.
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Ron turned the corner.
He was on his way to his Charms exam.
He had studied his brains out, his butt off, and his eyes were still sore.
He was gonna ace that test.
He bumped into Draco Malfoy.
Ron reverberated off the locker.
Draco's bounce was absorbed into the wall.
Ron scowled, his face turning bright red.
"Why don't you look where you're going?" he hissed.
Cold anger swept into Draco's eyes and was quickly replaced by a smirk that was designed to goad and infuriate. "I tend to block out the unimportant things." He drawled insolently.
Ron turned as red as the Weasley hair was purported to be. As red as the Weasley hair actually was. He sputtered. "Oh - yeah?" he retorted.
Draco just smirked harder. "Oh yeah." He mocked.
Ron swept out his wand.
Draco just looked at him, raising one insolent white eyebrow.
"Albino." Ron jeered.
Draco's chin flushed.
It was gone as quickly as it had come.
He had hit a nerve.
"Mudblood lover." Draco hissed.
"Don't you dare call Hermione a Mudblood!" Ron snarled, leaping for Malfoy's throat.
Malfoy sidestepped easily and Ron went crashing into the wall. He spun around and pointed at Malfoy. Malfoy flung himself at him and sent the wand flying out of his hand. Ron dug his knee into Malfoy's groin.
Malfoy whitened, clutching his crotch. Goodbye my redheaded kids. He thought in a blur of agony. He doubled over on the ground, writhing in pain. He managed to get out his wand and point it at Ron.
He'd learnt a few nasty tricks himself.
A small curse said.
At first Ron didn't feel any different. Then his face paled so much that Malfoy's heart actually leapt.
Maybe he was gonna die of a heart attack.
Ron clutched his own crotch.
Or lack thereof.
Ron's eyes rolled up in his head and he passed out.
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Ron lay in the hospital bed, looking at Hermione, whose eyes were both shocked and horrified.
Where's your gratitude, witch? He felt like screaming. I was defending your honour, and in return I get my crotch vanished, and you can't even say you're sorry?
"Oh Ron!" Hermione finally said.
No. That was the wrong tone.
That was exasperation, not apology.
"I've told you I don't care about being called a Mudblood!"
Ron crossed his arms and glared.
His most vital parts had been missing. . .
"I've told you dozens of times!"
. . . he'd had to tell MADAM POMFREY about it . . .
"And you missed your charms exam!"
. . . and then she'd asked him what SIZE, what goddamn SIZE it was . . .
"Professor Flitwick is refusing to give you a substitute test."
. . . it had been fourteen hours before he'd gotten his equipment back . . .
"Oh, Ron."
. . . and all she could FUCKING DO was NAG!
Ron growled impotently - as he had been for the past fourteen hours - at her. "God I'm glad school's almost over." He snarled.
Hermione sniffed.
Well, at least they were friends again.
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"Look!" Draco pointed up at the sky.
Ginny looked up.
Draco kissed her on the neck and fell with her to the ground. Ginny laughed and closed her eyes, savouring the feel of his hot breath on her neck.
Ginny didn't notice how Draco guarded her so that no part of her hit the hard ground.
Ginny didn't notice the slow, tender hand that touched her curls briefly and was snatched back guiltily.
Ginny didn't notice the other hand that groped at the edge of her hem, and was snatched away with equal vengeance.
Ginny didn't notice the sweetness of the look that Draco gave her as her eyes closed, the almost worshipful look, the lingering, reverent touch on her hair.
Ginny didn't notice how slowly and gently Draco lowered his head, as if not to startle her as he placed soft kisses on her face, warm sun and warm lips.
Harry did.