Don't Call Me Weasel! By Jedi Tess of Gryffindor

Well, folks, here's Chapter 2 (finally!). Sorry, first the site was down for various commendable causes, then I had some last minute stuff to work through. Anyway, hope ya like it. I'm satisfied and that's enough for me. Chow, dahlings!

Disclaimer: I've decided to be creative and have a new disclaimer for every chapter. In this one I would like to mention that I hate my mother. It has to relevance to what I'm supposed to put here, but I thought I'd add it just the same! Anywho, I've decided to embrace acceptance that I don't own anything I'm writing. Feel the zen . . . yeah, I think it sucks! I wanna own something cool! Grrr . . . .

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The next morning, Ginny awoke to the sound of people speaking in low voices and an irritatingly bright light across her lidded eyes.

"Ugh!" she muttered foggily.

"Oh, good, you're awake," Hermoine's voice said in relief. "We were so worried when we heard you were in the Hospital Wing. Want some breakfast?"

Slowly, Ginny opened her eyes, and then snapped them shut when the sunlight streaming through the window across from her bed nearly blinded her.

"Someone turn the light out," she hissed, still half-asleep and feeling very unwell. Her throat felt stuffed with steel wool and she was suddenly very overheated. She thrashed about a bit until her thick blanket fell away. Then she heard a snort of laughter from Ron.

"Shut up," she grumbled.

"So how're you feeling this morning, Gin?" came the most unwelcome voice of Harry. God, she must look a mess! Thankfully, she was too tired and feeling too "blah" to care as much as she normally would have.

"Thirsty," was all she said. The light plaguing her eyes had faded and when she opened them - albeit cautiously - a second time. The curtains were drawn over the windows; the room was lit only by candles. Hermoine slid her arm behind Ginny's back and helped her sit up against the headboard, backing away in time to avoid being ferociously coughed on. She took a cup filled with clear liquid from the bedside table and pressed it to Ginny's parched lips. The exhausted redhead sipped gratefully, ignoring the dull ache in her throat every time she swallowed.

"Madam Pomphrey told us you had pneumonia," Harry said softly, his expression compassionate. "Sounds lousy."

She sighed. "It is. I've never had a Muggle illness before. It's retched!" She was feeling a bit more awake now and was very appreciative of their company. Being sick made her clingy. She frowned suddenly, causing a loud sneeze.

"You shouldn't be here," she pointed out. "I'm very contagious."

"It's okay," Ron assured her from his seat on the other side of her bed. "Madam P put a half-hour immunity charm on us. We're fine. We've still got fifteen minutes."

"Madam Pomphrey gave me a book to read up on Muggle home remedies for respiratory infections," Hermoine said, cheerily, producing a monstrous book from her already bulging backpack. "It says here that it's really important to maintain a healthy diet, but don't eat anything that doesn't slide down easily."

"We went to the kitchens to ask Dobby if he had anything good," Harry put in, smiling in amusement. He picked up a tray that had gone unnoticed by Ginny until now. It was piled with several pieces of toast, a bowl of rich mashed potatoes, several drinks, several bananas, and a bowl of Neapolitan ice cream. Ginny's eyebrows rose.

"We forgot to tell them we needed breakfast food," Ron explained with a grin. "And they went to so much trouble, we decided you wouldn't give a damn as long as it was edible, soft, and yummy."

"Thanks," Ginny said, and meant it. While Hermoine spoon-fed her - Ginny didn't need it, but Hermoine insisted anyway - 'don't expend energy needlessly! It says so on page 298' - she, with the help of Ron and Harry told Ginny what she had missed the day before. There wasn't much, really, but it was so nice to have someone to talk to and even nicer - for once - to be babied, that Ginny didn't mind the lack of interesting events. At least she hadn't missed anything, except a notice about a Hogsmeade weekend in two weeks.

"By the way, Gin, have you seen Malfoy around?" Ron asked suddenly. "He was in Potions, and then he disappeared right before Care of Magical Creatures. Not that we're complaining or anything," he added hastily, "we were just wondering where the slimy git slithered off to." Harry snorted.

Ginny couldn't help grinning. "He's been in here since yesterday afternoon."

Ron stared. "What? Why?"

"Let's just say that he stuck his nose quite where it wasn't wanted and is now sicker than I am, as a result," Ginny smirked in satisfaction, all guilt from the previous evening vanishing. Finally, she realized, she had gotten to Draco and he couldn't do anything about it!

Ron and Harry burst out laughing. Hermoine tutted at them but failed to hide a grin.

"How'd you do it, Gin?" Harry asked, leaning forward eagerly.

Ginny paused. She wasn't sure she wanted them to know about his visit the night before last or her taking care of him last night. She still wasn't sure why she had done that and thinking about what he had said to her made her feel distinctly uncomfortable.

"Um - he was in here cleaning out bedpans for detention and started been a prat to me and I guess Madam Pomphrey didn't think to give him an immunity charm," she lied quickly.

Ron and Harry seemed to buy this and were even more amused at the thought of Draco cleaning out bedpans by hand. Hermoine, however, gave her a shrewd, probing look that said she'd want more details later. Ginny gulped.

Finally, after Ginny had finished her bizarre but tasty breakfast, Madam Pomphrey came to shoe the three elder students out of the infirmary, assuring them that they would be sick themselves if they stayed any longer.

"Take care, Gin," Hermoine called. "I'll be back to check in on you later."

"Thanks, 'Moine," Ginny returned hoarsely. Her throat was really beginning to ache and she felt sticky and exhausted. Still, it was nice to have friends like Hermoine and Harry; and, however irritating it was that Ron often tried to control her life, she really did love him.

"Must be nice to have your own pep squad," a drawling voice came from the bed across the wing from her. The curtains were drawn - probably the reason Ron and Harry hadn't spotted Draco before - but she knew his voice anywhere.

"Jealous, are you?" she retorted with a sneeze. She took a long drink of water. "Feeling lonely without your cronies and your girlfriends? Notice they haven't come to pay their respects." She put particular emphasis on the plural of the last word. It was much easier to put her not inconsiderable wits to work on him when he was across the room and hidden from view, rather than bearing down on her like a jungle cat to bloody meat. The thought of the egotistical, self-assured, and dignified Draco tearing animal flesh from the bones with blood oozing everywhere made her giggle.

Draco snorted, the effect somewhat lost in a hacking cough.

"Unlike a certain Gryff I could mention, but won't, I don't need to be protected from people I'm afraid of," he returned coolly, and Ginny could almost picture the sneer twisting his delicate features.

"I'm not afraid of you!" Ginny growled, squeezing her water goblet so hard it might have shattered. Later, of course, she would come up with about a hundred more appropriate retorts, such as, "Funny, I could have sworn you used Crabbe and Goyle for more than their dashing good looks," or, "Funny, Malfoy, weren't your little cronies supposed to protect you from getting turned into a ferret? No wonder you don't bother with them anymore." However, Ginny was angry and none of her scathing rejoinders jumped to mind.

"Whatever, Weasel," Draco snorted. "It's okay, really. That's one less girl to keep off my back."

"Don't flatter yourself, Ferret Boy," she snapped. "I can't see why anyone would bother with you anyway."

"No, you wouldn't, would you?" he returned, his voice infuriatingly calm. "It's called good taste, Weasely. Get some."

"Fuck off," she muttered, so angry her brain seemed to have gone on holiday to escape the heat. When she had taken quite a few calming breaths, she voiced a question that had been on her mind since her first year.

"Why can't you be nice?" she demanded, glaring across the Hospital Wing at the curtains shrouding Draco's bed. To her surprise, a sharp - if scratchy - bark of laughter met her inquiry, followed - not really surprisingly - by a sharp cough and sneeze.

"Be nice?" he enunciated thickly, as though trying to be sure that was what she had asked. "What do I look like, a bloody Hufflepuff?"

"You did last night," she ventured, feeling her angry seeping away as the thought of his behavior brought an irresistible curiosity in its wake.

Sudden silence greeted her for several seconds and Ginny knew she'd struck a nerve. Her interest peaked by the pointed lack of any quick-witted comeback, Ginny tried again.

"Well, Malfoy?" she persisted. "Was it all talk?"

Still no response. Fine, he was opting for the 'ignore her and she'll vanish' routine. Worked with some people, perhaps, but Ginny Weasely did not fancy being ignored.

Taking a final gulp of water and blowing her nose, she stood up carefully. Trying to ignore the wave of dizziness that swept over her, she pulled her blanket with her and crept across the Hospital Wing to the curtained residence in which Draco had veiled himself. Tentatively, she reached out and pulled the drapes aside. All she could see was a ball of white linen and duvet cover. Had a section of the jumble not been rising and falling rhythmically, Ginny might have been convinced that he had abandoned the Wing entirely, for the eerie silence was deafening.

"I know you're in there, Malfoy," she quipped. "Hiding from a girl, are you? Don't worry, I won't hurt you. It was just a question." She waited.

After a few moments of silence, she got impatient.

"Look, Draco, I'll turn around so you can put some make-up on - god forbid you should appear human for any bloody reason - but I will talk to you so you might as well give up and come up for air." His response being silence once again, she added sweetly, "Just remember, you don't have to be afraid of looking sick and disgusting in front of me, cuz I reckon you look like that all the time anyway."

The barb about his vanity seemed to have upset the blonde boy, because his tousled - yet still terribly attractive - head appeared over the top of the blankets.

"Take your own advice and fuck off, Weasel," he snapped, glaring at her.

"I don't think I will," she said, once again astounding herself with her own audacity. But then, she had the advantage. Draco didn't look as though he could have sat up without help. Seized with a cruel idea, Ginny crossed to his bed and seated herself at the end, relieved to be sitting again.

"What the hell?" Draco muttered without much conviction.

"Mind if I join you?" she asked cheerfully, not even deflated by the three violent sneezes that followed.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I do!" he glowered as best he could at her. "Get away from me."

"How 'bout I stay here and keep you company?" she offered wickedly.

"How 'bout you get your sorry ass off my bed?" he retorted venomously.

"Nope, I think I like it right here," she said casually, noting with delight that he was forced the bend his legs to keep them from getting sat on. Another fiendish idea occurred to her.

"Anyway," she continued, crawling over him and snatching one of his pillows, "you're not really in a position to remove me, are you?" She saw his already pink cheeks turn almost red in fury, mostly because he knew she was right.

"What do you want?" he asked in defeat, resting his head on his remaining pillows.

"I want to know," she coughed, "why you said all that last night."

"All what?"

"Don't play dumb. You asked me to stay with you."

"I don't remember anything."

"Liar. Why did you ask me to stay?"

"Maybe I thought that if you didn't get any sleep you'd get sicker," he shot back, but to Ginny's ears, the response sounded desperate.

"No, I don't think so," she said, reclining against her stolen pillow and pulling her blanket around her as a fever chill stole over her. "You weren't being a git, for once. You weren't smirking. You were - pleading."

His head appeared again, along with his -bare; oh horror, he was incredibly hot! - chest and shoulders as he propped himself on his elbows with difficulty.

"Get this, little girl," he hissed, looking almost as dangerous as usual. "I don't plead, right? It's just not something I do. And let me tell you, I've had plenty of times that definitely did not involve you where pleading would have been perfectly reasonable."

Something indescribable in his expression gave Ginny paused. His muscular chest momentarily forgotten, she looked into his stormy gray eyes, caught up in the tormented emotions she found there. No longer interested in teasing or bothering him, she slid quietly off the bed and moved to pass through the hangings.

Turning just in front of the opening, she said softly, "I'm sorry, Draco." Then she went back to her own bed, where she lay in a troubled frame of mind until she finally dozed, hoping to sleep off her returning fever.



Draco watched Ginny slip out of his bed and cross to her own, letting the hangings fall behind her. He told himself that he was glad to see her go, but he knew he wasn't. He knew he was just denying the inevitable attraction he had been forming for the little redhead since their collision near the West Tower two days ago.

Perhaps that was why he really wanted her gone. He didn't want to fancy her and he was clinging to the rapidly fading hope that ignoring and insulting her would make her less desirable.

If he had actually believed that might work, he would have been more naïve than she. He was as well impressed by his words last night as she apparently had been. He had asked her to stay and put him to sleep. He had admitted to not wanting to be left alone.

"Weakness," he muttered wrathfully to himself. Draco Malfoy did not have any! The way he had grown up had insured an iron hard shell of what some would call bravery. But Draco knew it to be mere reflex. The more he screamed, and begged, and pleaded, the more heavily he was punished.

Allowances must often be made for people like Draco, my friends. He knew little of love and friends. He had never had a shoulder to lean on in his life. He didn't know the meaning of the word 'trust'. No one had bothered to stop and notice the lost boy, mainly because the boy in question had shunned them or sent them on their way much worse for wear.

Deep down, Draco knew something was wrong. Frustration with himself was the chief cause of his nastiness to others. The capability to be a good, strong man was there. It would, unfortunately, take a dedicated will to break his. And where to find such a will . . .



Draco must have dozed off, for when he awoke again the Hospital Wing was dark. Moonlight shown through the open - open? - window beside his bed. The hangings surrounding his corner of the Wing had been pulled back, revealing his somewhat diminished self to anyone who cared to come have a good laugh.

Too tired to pull them back, he relaxed against his pillows, delighting in the fact that his body temperature seemed to have returned to normal. He pushed back the sheets and let the cool night air blow over his chest.

"Draco?" the voice made him start. Pushing himself onto his elbows and feelings a by now familiar itch in his throat, he swallowed with difficulty and looked across the Hospital Wing toward the source of the speech.

Unsurprisingly, its originator was Ginny Weasely. Oddly enough, she was sitting on the edge of her bed with her feet swinging. Her profile looked pale and ethereal in the beam of night light pouring through the open casement and splashing over her. Her hair glistened waiflike and the duvet that covered her seemed more like an elegant cloak than a blanket.

"What's wrong, Draco?" she asked softly, her voice slightly horse.

"Nothing," he heard himself murmur roughly.

"Please tell me," she begged, her voice echoing in the unnatural silence of the wing. "Please. You can tell me anything, you know. Let me help you."

She stood, almost as though moving in slow-motion. She let the duvet fall onto the bed behind her and moved with a catlike grace to his bedside. Her nightgown fluttered around her, her hair billowing out in a diaphanous cloud of red and gold. She resembled a fiery goddess from the ancient wizarding world that he'd read about in one of his History of Magic books.

She stopped beside him, reaching out a hand to cup his cheek. She smiled, her face glowing.

"We don't have to fight, you know," she reasoned, seating herself on the edge of his bed, her expression kind and compassionate. Her hands ran gently over his cheeks, his neck, his hair. He couldn't speak. She continued.

"Tell me, Draco," she whispered, leaning forward so their lips were mere centimeters apart. "Tell me everything." But before he could, she was kissing him.

Draco had kissed many girls in his life and rarely thought anything of it. He hadn't needed a reason. He had just sort of done it, without a second thought. His kiss was rarely a gentle one, either. It was as harsh and cold as his heart, often drawing blood. But with Ginny, he could feel her innocence, could feel her vulnerability. He was painfully gentle - and he was scared. Scared of the power he had over her. Power that was so tempting to exploit.

He pulled away, hoping she would understand. She did. She gave him an approving look.

"I trust you," she said softly, before pulling back the sheet and climbing into bed next to him. He should have been surprised. Should have been completely blown out of the water. But he wasn't. And he wasn't in any doubt of what to do. He simply pull her to him, his arms around her waist, and rested her head on his chest. They molded together perfectly.

Sickness entirely forgotten, they shared a final kiss and Ginny sighed sweetly.

"Now tell me, you stubborn prat," she kidded, her head pressed into the nape of his neck. But for the first time in his life, Draco wasn't interested in himself. He wanted to ignore his very existence and focus on the beautiful young woman in his arms. He wanted to know Virginia Weasely. Wanted to know everything about her; her happiest moment, her deepest sorrow, her family, her friends - everything.



Draco snapped awake as though his brain had been shot by a large rubber band. It smarted for a few moments while he caught his bearings. It was no longer the middle of the night. The room was still lit by the natural light through the windows. His hangings were still pulled securely around his bed and he shivered with cold.

He opened his eyes. Ginny wasn't in his bed with him. There was no indication that she ever had been.

Draco took a deep breath, opened his mouth, and bellowed at the top of his lunges for a cold shower.

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Wow, look at that skill. It's only been five days and I've been working from 8-5:30 every day this week! Yay for Tessy! Repeat after me: Yay - For - Tessy! I'm beginning to get attached to this story, so I'll try to keep it consistent. I know this isn't as long as the last one. This story was intended to be a one parter. And FYI: no idea where it's going. All I know is that it will last only as long as Ginny and Draco are stuck in the Hospital Wing together, with an epilogue possible at the end (well, duh it's at the end. That's why it's called an epilogue! God, I'm dumb!). That should be at least three more chapters. I'm not used to posting chapter by chapter, since I can rarely finish a long story. I SWEAR I WILL FINISH THIS ONE! Have no fear -Tessy is here!

Right, I'm done. Loves!