Ginny lay awake next to Malfoy, to excited to sleep. It felt as if every cell in her body was throwing a small party to celebrate her almost freedom. Now the only problem was leaving. Obviously she couldn't just walk out into the Malfoy Manor in the middle of the day, which didn't necessarily present a problem at this very moment, but she didn't want to just leave with Malfoy liable to wake-up and find her missing either. This resulted in an odd paradox, after a week of wanting nothing more than Malfoy's hasty return; all she wanted now was for him to leave her alone.

It took her until dawn was breaking on the horizon to drift off into an uneasy sleep. Lucky for her she wasn't a sleep talker, so she needn't worry about revealing anything to Malfoy while she was dreaming. After only two hours of sleep though, she felt a hand crawl across her stomach and drawl her close.
"Uhhh," she groaned, and tried to push the hand away, "I'm tired," she mumbled

"Wake-up Gin," a cold, yet familiar drawling voice said.

'No, sleep," she said again and rolled over so the hand now rested on her waist. She was semi-conscious that she should give the owner of this (rather annoying) hand some attention, but her mind was still to clouded with sleep to properly care. The voice chuckled and said, "Have it your way than," and seconds later Ginny was properly awake, due to a large bucket of ice water that now drenched her and the bed.

"FRED, GEORGE! I'M TELLING MUM!!!" she automatically screamed upon being yanked from sleep. But after closer inspection, it wasn't Fred, George, or any Weasley for that matter, but a Malfoy who had conjured and dumped the bucket of ice water in question.

"Nice to see you up Ginny," Malfoy said, his cruel ice dancing at his clever trick.

"Draco!" she said, finally coming to her senses, "I'm freezing will you dry this bed up please, and my hair for that matter?" He pulled Ginny roughly out of the bed and her teeth began to chatter a little more violently.

"Siccus," he said and the bed was miraculously dry.

"My hair?" she asked meekly, holding out a section of her sopping wet red curls for Draco to see and involuntarily shivering a bit more.

"Cold Ginny?" Oh no, she thought not again, why does he always have to say my name too? But like Ginny always did, she played along.

"Freezing," she said making sure she shivered slightly. She saw his eyes rake once over her naked figure, taking in certain features that were more prominent in the cold. Then came the hands pushing her back onto the now the bed. Appropriately, she giggled and reached up to pull him closer. Only one of two more times, she thought and let him have his way.

But it was much more than one or two, because Draco spent all the next week with Ginny. Ginny, who was hoping that with Draco's return her nerves would allow her illness to retreat, was quite disappointed to find that her nerves didn't like her that much, and insisted on causing her more nausea. Draco had taken every meal with Ginny that week, and spent every night in her room. They settled into a nice schedule. He'd be room for breakfast having spent the night, leave at nine a.m. and return four hours later at one p.m. for lunch. Then he'd leave to attend to "business," but as to what exactly he was up to Ginny was never told. At exactly four o'clock Zally would pop in with a snack, and at exactly nine p.m., not a minute sooner or later, Draco would appear carrying two dinner trays and the two would have a late dinner together. After that Ginny would giggle and blush, and Draco would feel powerful. Then the whole process would be repeated once again the next day. By the fifth day, Ginny was about ready to burst. The longer she was here the more likely Draco was to check the charm on the door. Every time he passed through it a small little flitter of nervousness would rise in her stomach.

Draco meanwhile, was enjoying his last few weeks of summer more than he previously thought he would. His father was finally allowing him to accompany him on Death Eater business, and although they weren't doing anything much, seeing as how it was in the daytime, he was on a power high unlike any other. When he wasn't helping his father, he was with Ginny. Draco was beginning to realize something about Ginny; he loved her. Not in the way a Husband loves a Wife, or a Father loves a Son, or even the way a Boy loves a Dog. Draco loved Ginny like a Child loves a Broomstick, as a possession. He loved coming to Ginny and seeing her looking at him with those big brown eyes. He loved when he would take her between the sheets and make her moan out loud. Even more he loved when he would get her to scream in pain. Deep down, he knew part of what she was doing was just an act but not only did he love that she felt she needed to pretend to him, but he was confident that she only covered up a few things but was genuinely glad to see him every night and actually sad to see him go in the morning.

During the days his father showed him wonderful things. Sometimes he would display for him all of the dark artifacts he had previously been forbidden to see, and other times he got to go into the muggle world and reek a bit of havoc. That, by far, is what he loved doing most. Whether it was breaking down busses just for kicks, or a few harmless muggle killings. If there was one thing he learned that summer it was that he couldn't wait until he became a Death Eater.

"Draco," his father said as they were returning to the manor on the fifth night of their excursions, "I have something special for us to do tomorrow, but we may be home late."

"What will be doing?" he asked, but his father didn't answer him, knowing the pains of curiosity. Draco seeing no answer was going to be supplied, went into Ginny's room like he always did at night.

"Draco!" she called when he entered the room.

"Same time as always," he said sitting down at Ginny's little table.

"I get so lonely when you're gone during the day," she said sitting down across from him and allowing Zally to drape her napkin across her lap, "What will I do once you leave for school?" Although, Ginny had no intention of being here come September first, she felt it would be appropriate to say something on the subject to keep up the guise of her complete and utter devotion to Draco.

"Well, I will see you when I'm home for Winter Holidays and I can owl you every so often during term," he said, that arrogant smirk back on his face.

"But I'll be so lonely without you! I practically go nutters when you don't return for a week. What will I do for a whole four months?" The smile got bigger. Ginny was starting to wonder about Draco's intelligence level if he honestly believed that a girl he kidnapped would spend her days pining away for him. But Draco was raised in a different world. Since birth he had been cooed at by nannies, coddled by his mother and wooed by pure-bloods and muggle born witches alike. There could be no doubt that Draco was the most mislead child in the Wizarding World and most likely, the whole of Britain. Ginny missing him while he was gone seemed most natural to a boy who was bread to live so far from reality.

"I'm sure you'll get by without me Ginny. Perhaps I'll give you a port key to a sitting room with pleasure reading books. The library has far to many Dark Arts books for me to let you go there." Having Dark Arts books wasn't a crime. The ministry gave permits to those families they "deemed worthy" who they believed could use the books for research to battle the Dark Arts. Lately Ginny had been toying with the idea of finding something that would incriminate the Malfoys in case Lucius managed to worm his way out of the kidnapping and rape charges that she was planning on bringing against him.

"Draco, what kind of business do you do day?" she asked suddenly.

"Things with my father," he said and made to give her a quelling look only to find her looking down, moving her food around her plate with her fork.

"What sort of things?" she asked, hoping her inquiry was coming of as pure admiration and not as the Spanish Inquisition that it was.

"Things that don't concern you in any way shape or form," he replied, his tone a clear indication that the subject was now dropped.

"I'm full," she announced and pushed her plate away seeing that there was no real point in perusing the subject any further now.

"But you've hardly touched you're food." She just shrugged. "Well I'm not to hungry either," he pushed his plate away and Zally popped away with them.

"Perhaps you feel like a game of chess?" he asked.

"I'd love to play chess," she said. The only thing Ginny truly enjoyed here was playing chess with Draco. He was in fact quite good and she got to stop pretending to be an airhead for once and really concentrate without the fear of Draco's ever-present power trip dying off. She had only beaten him once. Draco's response to her call of, "check" then "checkmate," had been to not acknowledge her checkmate but just pick her up and carry her to the bed. After that Ginny had surmised that Draco had serious issues when it came to intimacy and she also began to feel very sorry for his future wife. There was no telling what he was capable of if his authority was challenged and to top it off, the boy never got tired!

Draco led her to the chess table and she sat down. Calling Zally, he ordered a glass of wine and she requested a glass of butterbeer. Ginny studied him while they continued to play. The way the candlelight created a halo around his impeccably blonde hair, and his delicate, clearly aristocratic, hands hovered above the chess pieces before he would swiftly make his move, or the simple way he would sip his wine than sit back and watch her with fascination as she contemplated her next move. Whatever it was, there was something different about Draco lately. Ever sense they had started on this little routine of theirs Draco had changed. Ginny could tell that he somehow found himself more sophisticated or possibly just older now. Where he used to drink butterbeer at night he now had wine or a variety of other alcohols. Although Ginny wanted to believe she had something to do with this transformation, she was hardly going to kid herself. Of course now that she knew Draco was doing things with his father while he was gone, she highly suspected that had something to do with that his change.

"Checkmate," Draco suddenly said snapping her from her thoughts, Ginny looked down at the board. How had that happened? She could have sworn her king was highly protected. Then she spotted it. One pawn was out of place; one single detail had lost her the game.

"I swear Draco," she said looking up at him, "I'll never beat you again in this game." He smiled that arrogant smile that Ginny couldn't help but want to slap him for.

"Let's go to bed," he said and pulled her up to her feet. Taking her hand, he led her to the large bed then scooped her up and laid her down upon it. Another nightly routine was set into play.