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

I would just like to tell you all how embarrassed I am that I've been misspelling two names consistently in EVERY story I've ever written! OH THE SHAME! I'd just like to publicly acknowledge my careless blunders and tell you that it's too late to correct my errors and THIS IS THE END! Okay, maybe not, but it still causes me great humiliation. Anyway, enjoy the story. There's a bit of mush, be warned.

Disclaimer: *Sigh* All characters in this story are property of J.K. Rowling. I own nothing but the plot . . . ah, who'm I kidding? DIE DIE DIE!

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As Hermoine had guessed, Ginny did indeed have viral pneumonia. As she health continued to worsen, Draco's improved. By the following Monday, he would be ready to be released from the Hospital Wing.

The intervening three days were torture for Ginny. She had all but lost her voice, and breathing was difficult. She slept as much as she could, waking only when Madam Pomphrey made her eat and drink, or she had a visit from Harry, Ron, or Hermoine. Little made it down her swollen throat.

On top of all this, she had awoken the evening after Draco had sung her to sleep to find him on his side of the Wing, studiously ignoring her and working on homework. Her tears of pain while being forced to eat were overlooked in favor of Arithmancy charts. Her moans of agony in the early hours of the morning when she would awoke alone in the dark Wing were met with healthy snores.

Why was he ignoring her? If he despised her so, why had he sat with her that night? These questions plagued her almost as badly as her illness and she felt she couldn't bear it. Hermoine's visits were all that sustained her as she lay hour after hour in the infirmary, which may as well have been deserted for all the bustling of the nurse and Draco's lack of communication.

Ginny would have assumed that Draco had been a dream, but for Hermoine's information.

"He admitted that your crying woke him up," the Head Girl told her that Friday. Though working madly to keep her grades at the top of the class (where she, Draco, and Padma Patil were neck to neck), she had gotten special permission to spend the final lesson of every day with Ginny. "You didn't dream anything, Gin."

Ginny sighed. She couldn't talk to Hermoine, so if she had anything to say, she would write it down on a piece of parchment. Usually, she let Hermoine do the talking. The older girl often read to her from the more exciting of her textbooks (filled with romance, bloody battles, and goblin rebellions). Sometimes the Prophet had an article worth noting. Hermoine got particular pleasure out of quoting the much-subdued Rita Skeeter, and Ginny found her friend's glee at being the one to conquer the sharp-witted journalist quite amusing.

The Hospital Wing itself, meanwhile, had been strictly quarantined. No student or teacher was allowed in for longer than an hour, and all had to have immunity charms on them. A separate, unused classroom was made over into a makeshift hospital, as Madam Pomphrey couldn't heal through an immunity charm.

Ginny sighed again. She felt desperately guilty. All this trouble because she had gotten sick. And she'd made Draco sick as well. Granted, it had been his fault, but still . . .

What's wrong with me? Ginny scribbled on her parchment, before handing it to Hermoine.

"Nothing!" Hermoine insisted soothingly. "You know Draco."

She lowered her voice, as the glowering Slytherin was sitting up in bed directly across the Wing.

"He's the ultimate Slytherin. The concept of trusting someone to befriend him, or trusting himself to take care of that person as faithfully in return is terrifying." She paused, looking unsure, then plunged ahead.

"I've been sworn to secrecy, more or less," she admitted, sounding a little guilty, "so I'll keep the details out. But I think you know what Lucious Malfoy's like. Imagine how Draco grew up."

She paused again, staring out the window of the Wing. Then her eyes turned back to Ginny.

"How do you feel about him, Gin?" she whispered. Ginny's eyes widened and she swallowed hard. It hurt a lot and she groaned. Hermoine reached for a water goblet (one of three) on Ginny's nightstand and helped her drink.

Then she pointed her wand at Ginny's throat and mumbled, "Nubium."

The sharp pain in the redhead's chest dulled to a throbbing ache. It was a pain-reducing spell Madam Pomphrey had taught Hermoine when she had begun visiting on a daily basis.

"Might as well make yourself useful, Miss Granger," she had said crossly.

When the ache had been dampened, Ginny reached for the parchment.

I don't know, she wrote, I see how haunted he looks sometimes and I feel the pain as if it's my own. It makes me so sad to think what kind of life must have made him what he is. I'm seen him when he's being helpful and genuine and it's an amazing transformation.

"You want to help him?" Hermoine asked. Ginny nodded, but took up her parchment.

It's more than that, she scribbled, her already flushed face positively flaming.

"How much more?" Hermoine asked gently. Ginny didn't respond. She stared down at her hands. Hermoine reached out her own to touch Ginny's arm.

"Do you fancy him, Gin?" Hermoine said softly. Still staring determinitely down, Ginny nodded. After a moment of silence, her eyes lifted to meet her friend's brandy brown ones. Her look was imploring. Questioning. Begging for an opinion.

"I think it's lovely," Hermoine assured her, smiling sweetly. "What Draco Malfoy needs is someone as loving and strong as you to take care of him. He needs to see that his cynicism about friendship and love is totally unfounded. He needs to understand."

"I know," Ginny's lips formed the words, though it was a soundless comment.

And she really did. But, like all things, understanding was only half the battle fought.

What do I do? she wrote.

Hermoine shrugged.

"It's not like I've ever had to perform this sort of miracle myself," she began, before catching a look at Ginny's expression. "Sorry, I'm not trying to imply that it's impossible. I just don't know, Gin. He fancy's you already. I guess about all you can do is keep on with whatever you're doing to make him like you."

And that would be . . . Ginny wrote impatiently.

"Damned if I know," Hermoine muttered in frustration. "Don't get me wrong, Gin, I think you're an amazing, wonderful young woman and so do half the guys in the school. The part that dumbfounds me is how you managed to totally charm Draco Malfoy into liking you without even knowing you were doing it."

Ugh, was Ginny's response.

"Look, get some sleep," Hermoine commanded, taking the parchment and quill and setting them in the drawer of the bedside table. She helped Ginny take one last sip of water, then fed her some of Doctor Seuss' Sleep Easy Chocolate (he's actually a Wizard, you see. All those books that Muggle children read are really psychic self-help books carelessly discarded by St. Mungo's).

Another roadblock, apart from Ginny not knowing how to augment her own 'animal magnetism' so that she was positively irresistible, was the fact that Draco had no idea how she felt. This brilliant revelation came to her at around three in the morning, when a particularly hard bout of coughing brought her awake with tears of pain already coursing down her cheeks.

This isn't fair! she thought furiously. Deep thinking about things that vexed or upset her helped her take her mind off the pain until Madam Pomphrey came to check on her. If Ginny had had the use of her voice at that moment, she would have been proclaiming her love to him at the top of her lunges, just to be out with it.

But it wasn't that simple. Aside from being completely mute, she was also being completely ignored by the handsome blonde. He was blocking her out, pretending she didn't exist. And that enraged Ginny. What was so bloody wrong with fancying her, anyway? She wasn't a troll, she didn't smell like dung, and she wasn't a goody-good.

She was working herself up, but she couldn't help it. She was so sick of his crap!

She'd show him!

Gathering all her strength, Ginny reached for her bedside table drawer, within which was her wand. Withdrawing, she pointed it at his bed. It wouldn't matter anyway. He'd be gone by tomorrow.

"Upturnum rubos!" she hoped mouthing the hex was good enough, because she wanted to cause some damage! Falling back onto her bed, she dropped her wand into its niche and closed the drawer, her eyes riveted on Draco's bed.

It was glowing orange. For a long moment, it silently shot yellow and blue sparks in all directions. Then it turned neatly on its side and deposited its occupant none too gently onto the stone floor.

For the first time, Ginny was glad she had lost her voice. She heaving with noiseless laughter as the sounds of profuse and colorful slang echoed across the Wing.

"God damn, that fucking hurt! Shit! Weasely, I know that bloody - " but whatever he had been about to blame on her was lost in a pause, accompanied by a soft thump.

Apparently, he had passed out.

Too tired to really consider what the consequences of her actions might be, she slid blissfully back to dreamland, thoroughly pleased with herself.

She was not so please when she discovered the next morning that the thump she had heard had come from his head cracking against the floor, and that his first degree concussion had subsequently added three more days to his hospital stay.

The silver lining of the cloud was that Draco was now very definitely speaking to her.

"I swear you'll pay dearly for this, Weasel," he had hissed the instant Madam Pomphrey had left her bedside the next morning and gone back to her office. A white strip of linen cloth had been wound around his head, and a patch of red revealed that he had in fact been lucky his concussion hadn't been more severe.

She dearly wished she could have spoken to him herself, but instead let Harry, who was visiting without Ron or Hermoine (three guesses as to what they were getting up to), read her written responses aloud. This also served to annoy Draco immensely.

"She says, don't call her Weasel, Mal-ferret - " it was a newly coined nickname that Ron had invented and Harry burst out laughing - "And you don't have any proof that she did it."

"Who bloody else would it have been?" Draco snapped. "You were the only person in this god-forsaken place at the time."

"She says - " Harry's face suddenly split into a nasty smile - "that she never said she didn't do it, either. Guess she was just rubbing in the fact that she's getting away totally clean."

"Oh, sod off, Potter," Draco snarled, and Ginny saw him hands clenched as though they were around Harry's throat.

"She says, 'Harry, you'd better - ' oh, wait, that's for me, isn't it?" he grinned sheepishly. "Reckon I was enjoying that too much. Yeah, I've got Divination in five minutes. Damn!" He leaned down and kissed Ginny's forehead in a brotherly sort of way. Ginny smiled in self-satisfaction when she felt content with the thought of him in that capacity, rather than disappointment that his lips hadn't landed a bit further south of her nose.

Thanks for coming, she scrawled on her well-covered parchment, before letting him take it and set it on her nightstand.

"No problem," he assured her, hoisting his loaded book bag over his shoulder. "'Moine'll come round this afternoon for a bit and Ron's bringing you dinner. See you!"

He smiled and left, leaving Ginny feeling better than she had in all weekend. Sometimes, you just needed a friend. Friends like Harry, who didn't have ulterior motives.

"Well, that was touching," apparently Draco had decided that his target was wide open now that her translator was gone. But he wasn't grinning. He was glaring. Had Ginny not talked to Hermoine earlier, she might have thought he was anger with Harry. But now other ideas occurred to her.

Setting her teeth, she grinned at him. He was jealous! Well, if he didn't stake his claim (as much as Ginny could ever be claimed by anyone, anyway)

"Funny that he's finally paying attention to you, isn't it?" he went on, ignoring her. "You got real lucky, Weasel - " his usual nickname for her was particularly emphasized, as he knew she couldn't tell him not to call her that - "Tell me, did you have to sleep with him?"

Ginny flushed angrily. To suggest that she would sleep with someone just to get their attention was below even his normally nasty standards. Thinking quickly, and knowing she had to respond somehow, she suddenly dove into her nightstand. She pulled out her wand and pointed it over her head.

"Communicadus engorgio!" she mouthed. Then she tapped her wand against her lip, noting with a smirk that Draco was gripping his own, ready to counter any curses she might throw at him.

Looking at her wand, she rested it against her lips and spoke. Sparks flew from the end of her wand and condensed themselves into large words above her head. They read,

"Jealous, Malfoy?"

"You wish, Weasel."

"Don't call me Weasel. You are jealous of Harry. And why shouldn't you be? He's a great guy, after all. Awesome Quidditch player. Good student. People actually like him."

"Oh, yeah, the famous Harry Potter. My hero," Draco snapped.

"You sound like Snape," Ginny actually managed to make the letter flash, neon light style. "Bitter."

"Sod off, Weasely."

"No, I don't think I will."

Suddenly, he was at her side, his face very close to hers.

"I'm warning you," he hissed, his nose brushing hers as he leaned over her. "Don't push me any further or I might - "

"Might what?" Ginny managed to whisper and he was so close that he could have read her lips anyway. "Might actually admit that you like me, so we can bloody stop pussy footing around all the fucking time?" She was getting angry and the pain searing her throat was easy to ignore.

"Oh, that's it, is it?" he smiled nastily down at her. "You were trying to make me jealous? Oh, clever, Weasely. Well thought of. Get this, little girl, I don't fancy you, or whatever you seem to - "

Later, Ginny would never really be able to identify if she had been more angry or in love with him at that moment. When she had snapped, the passion in her mind was a swirling cloud. Her mind went blank as her hands grabbed his face painfully hard and dragged his mouth to hers.

He was clearly taken completely by surprise. His eyes widened as hers closed, and for a moment he remained stiff. Ginny kept her face firmly glued to his, and in less than a second, he was responding in kind.

It was the deepest, most intense feeling Ginny had ever experienced in her life. The instant his mind seemed to have come to terms with the situation, he took the lead, deepening the kiss with his hands planted firmly on either side of her. Her arms traveled to his chest before stretching up to wrap around his neck.

He dropped his chest against hers, arms bending to rest on his elbows, his mouth fiery against her. He tasted vaguely of pineapple, which Ginny faintly recalled thinking of as odd after the whole thing was over.

Time seemed to stop. There was only Draco, his mouth searing hers, demanding all she had to give.

She gave it willingly. She was his.

When, at last, they drew apart, Draco was stretched atop her, his body pressing against hers. She could feel his muscles tense and relax, and shivered.

His breathing was as heavy as hers, and his eyes searched hers. His were stormy with desire, but he was restraining himself.

"Gods, Gin!" his voice was seductively soft with awe. "Don't tell me Potter taught you to kiss like that."

"That bad, huh?" she blushed, her voice barely audible.

"Anyone who can kiss like you just did obviously spends a lot of time practicing," Draco told her. "That kind of kiss should definitely be illegal." But he wasn't smiling.

"What is it?" she asked, knowing her voice was going fast - or what little was left of it. She ran a hand across his cheek, watching his expression.

He was staring down at her with a pained look of uncertainty. Ginny eyed him. She still saw the raw passion reflected in his eyes, but something else had joined it.

Fear.

"It's all right," she tried to assure him, but she could only mouth it. Suddenly, he seemed to snap out of a trance. He slid gracefully off her and got to his feet. She watched him in increasing bewilderment. He stepped back, and the mask of arrogance once again masked his face.

"Cute, Weasel," he said coldly. "Don't try it again."

He turned and left the Wing. Ginny wanted to scream for him to come back, but no sound came from her swollen throat. As the door slammed behind him, Ginny felt her heart rip itself out of her chest and go trotting after him.

She burst into tears.

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Yay! Horrible, icky-poo Draco again. Can't have him turning into a softy, can we? Don't worry, it'll all work out eventually - WHEN I SAY SO! I have the power (can you feel it?). Anyway, keep your eyes open for the next chapter(s).

Loves!

P.S. I really do appreciate your reviews, they've been very helpful.