A/N: If you recognize it, it's JKR's; if you don't, it's mine. Or it's authentic history, as this thing was researched to death. Yup, this is also up at fictionalley, but this version is very slightly different in places. Nothing major, it just evolved that way. Marie-France is referred to earlier, and Alistor Moody's name is spelled right. And yes, there is a Yahoo group coming soon, with the work of both me and the wondrously talented VioletJersey. Oh. And, btw, JOTH is going to be every bit as long as GoF. That's the way I write 'em. God only knows how many chapters it will run into. Just so you know… (cackled evilly.)
"Mmmmm," said Pansy Parkinson as Draco Malfoy pressed a little line of kisses along her throat, her head thrown back. Her hands moved under her robes, caressing his back, easing round front to his chest. "Do you like that?" she asked.
Oh, yes, I like it fine. I just don't like you. The words were on the tip of his tongue as it lingered over the pulse at Pansy's bony collarbone, but, on reflection, he knew that it would be far better not to say them. His hands pulled her closer, feeling her tiny frame, her ribs separate and distinct beneath his fingers. She moved back, cocking her head towards the hedge behind them.
"Did you hear a noise? I heard a noise." She smoothed down her pink robes. "That's all we need, to get caught by creepy old Snape. Not that I think he'd give you detention." She giggled. "He'd probably want to watch."
Thanks, Parkinson. There's nothing quite so stimulating as thinking about Snape watching me snogging you; has it all over staring at Playwizard centerfolds.
The noise was not repeated, but he did not move towards her again. She nestled against his chest. He fought down an urge to shove her off the bench. It wasn't really Pansy's fault, after all. She tried to put her arms around him again, but Draco's muscles stiffened, subtly pushing her away. Pansy cleared her throat.
"I don't know, I think these robes make me look fat. Do you think I look fat?"
"No, Pansy." Draco shook his head, rolling his eyes slightly. Girls ought to be given a list of topics not to bring up or even think about on a date, and asking if they looked fat should be written at the top in blazing red letters. Of course, he really couldn't talk. Number one on the boys' list was likely to be snogging a girl who made your skin crawl, just because you felt this sort of desperate unfocussed desire that had to go somewhere before it tore you apart.
She shifted on the bench and apparently decided to change the subject. "Are you going home for Christmas holidays?"
Well, there was number two. On his own personal list, anyway. "I don't know," said Draco. "I suppose so."
"But we had to tell Snape last week if we were staying."
"Father hasn't told me yet."
"Oh."
There was something about that one syllable, Draco decided, that sounded strange on Pansy's lips. As if she knew something he didn't... Did she? "What about you?"
She jumped slightly, as if she'd been deep in thought. "I'm going home of course. I don't know how cheerful it's likely to be."
"Yes, I know what you mean," said Draco curtly.
Pansy sighed. "It's a bit of a low point for us, you know?" She emphasized the word slightly, and Draco knew what she meant.
The wind rustled through the bushes, bringing the scent of roses to them both. Draco remembered the overgrown rose gardens at the von Drachen estate in Linz, blooming when they were supposed to, in summer. There was something rather creepy and unnatural about roses in December for all that it was supposed to be charming. Linz. Oh Gods, how he wished he were there now. Or stepping on board the ship to head there for the Christmas holidays, or even staying here at Hogwarts, anywhere on earth except Malfoy Manor--
"Your birthday's going to be over the holidays, isn't it?" Pansy was asking. Draco dragged his mind out of the peaceful fields and woods of Bavaria with an effort.
"The day after Boxing Day, yes."
She leaned back further against his chest. "Your seventeenth birthday..." He knew what she was thinking. It was what he was thinking, as well. "So, are they going to--"
He tapped a finger against his lips, scowling at her.
"Oh, of course, I'm sorry. Not very clever to talk about it here. Too much punch!" She giggled. "But there might be surprises in store for you... you never know..."
She did know something he didn't!
"What have you heard?" he whispered intensely in her ear.
"Oh, that tickles. I pick up things. I overhear Mum and Dad at home. And..." Her last word trailed off tantalizingly.
Draco glowered down at her. Her smile was teasing; that look was meant to be enticing, he supposed, but at that moment he wanted nothing so much as to shake her by her thin shoulders and get the whole truth out of her. A fleeting image flashed through his mind of grabbing her by the throat and choking her until she gasped out all her secrets; her dark eyes mocked his silvery ones, and the violence of his feelings overflowed in the only way available. She growled as he grabbed her and started ravaging her mouth with his; he snarled as she tore at the front of his robes, and, with the finesse of two wild animals battling over a kill, they fell on each other.
Later, thinking the whole thing over in the relative privacy of his prefect's room in the Slytherin dormitory, Draco would be profoundly grateful to Colin Creevey. When the boy stumbled out of the hedge a few minutes later clutching his camera and sprawled onto the stone bench, however, he seemed a most unwelcome intrusion.
"Ooh! Oh, I'm sorry!" he gasped. His round face blushed bright red. "Not a good moment, is it?"
Draco yanked his head up from Pansy's bare chest. " What the hell are you doing here, Creevey?"
"Complete accident!" Colin backed away from Draco's murderous expression. "Never meant to-- er, you really ought to pull your trousers up, Malfoy--" He ducked as Draco took a swing at him.
"Get off me!" shrieked Pansy. Colin pushed himself up, but his hands, unfortunately, were very much on Pansy's not-quite-clothed body as he did so. He backed away from Draco across the bench, raising his Hasselblad.
"I'll-- I'll take a picture of you!" he threatened in a squeaky voice.
"I'll smash your camera," Draco said flatly, reaching out to make good the threat.
Flash!
"You little bastard!"
Colin scampered down the path with the agility of a rat. "Ha-ha!" he called over his shoulder as he ran. Draco tried to chase him, became entangled in his own trousers, and fell headlong onto the path with a thud. Oof. Gingerly, he picked bits of gravel from his cheek. Then he heard the shrill sound of giggling. He turned to see Pansy clutching the side of the bench and snorting with laughter.
"Stop laughing," he said, picking himself up.
"Oh, I can't help it, you looked so funny--" She was seized by new transports of merriment.
"Don't you dare to laugh at me!"
She patted the bench next to her. "Come on, Draco. Why don't you let me finish what we started."
"No." He turned away from her and began buttoning his robes.
Her mouth fell open. "No?"
"Do you have a hearing problem? No."
"Boys don't tell me no."
"This one just did."
Pansy put her hands on her hips. "What's the matter with you?"
Oh, how he itched to tell her; the words were on his lips, scalding, furious words.
Her voice grew wheedling. "You must be nervous. I'll bet that's it. You've never done this before, have you?"
"Yes, I most certainly have, and no, that's not it. "
Pansy looked at him with unflattering surprise. "Who? It was Milicent Bulstrode, wasn't it, after she lost all that weight?"
Draco was silent.
"Or that sixth-year prefect, what was her name, Xanthia?"
He finished fastening the top button on his velvet dress robes.
"Or Sadina von Tussel... Is it true what everybody says, does she really have handcuffs permanently fixed to her bedposts?"
Yes, yes, and yes. To all your questions, Pansy. But if it's any consolation, I despised all of them every bit as much I do you. All of them except... Marie-France. But a wave of hurtful sensual memories pierced him, as always, when he thought of his cousin, Marie-France Tessier, and of the Christmas holidays one year before. No, it would never do to remember her, and the beaches of St. Tropez, and the little spray of salt roses, pink as her cheeks. He ran a hand through his hair, restoring it to its customary neatness.
"What you need," she said spitefully, "is a harem."
Hmm... it would simplify matters, wouldn't it?
"You don't really care anything about anyone, do you, Malfoy?" Pansy looked into the darkness.
"Don't tell me that you care about me, Parkinson." Reverting to last names was, he supposed, a sign that the romantic portion of the date had come to an end. What a relief.
"Oh, I don't. Don't think I do." She looked at him with glittering eyes. "Neither does anyone else, you know." And then she was laughing at him again, very softly.
"Stop it. Stop that!"
"Or you'll do what?"
"Don't-- push me like that," he said through gritted teeth. "Or you'll be sorry."
"Then why don't you try making me sorry, Malfoy," she whispered, and he nearly jumped on her out of sheer anger and frustration and all the feelings coiled deep in the pit of his stomach that needed some kind of release, somewhere, with someone.
"No. No, I won't," he said instead.
"You were happy enough to try five minutes ago."
What she said was true. That fact only made him angrier.
"Do you want to know the truth?" he spat. "All right, I'll tell you. I can't stand having you or any of those other Slytherin bitches anywhere near me ninety percent of the time. You all make me want to throw up. The only time I can endure being near any of you is when I want a shag so badly that I don't care how much I hate you, and the moment I've got what I needed out of you, you could fall off the face of the earth for all I care. In fact, I wish all of you would. Especially you."
"You can't mean that."
"I do. If you knew what I really thought of you, you'd run screaming down that path."
Pansy turned her face away. "I suppose you haven't noticed that none of those other girls have exactly been hanging about you lately."
Draco said nothing, because there was nothing to say. She was right. His little triumphs with Xanthia and Milicent and Sadina were all very much in the past.
"They know. They know that it's over. They know that your father's become--"
He gripped her wrist. "Don't say another word. Not one more."
"You're hurting me. Oh! Let go. "
"Should be around your throat. Pity it isn't. Maybe I'll--"
"You're mad," she whispered.
He leaned his face down to hers. "Don't-- ever-- say-- that."
"Why? Does it make you afraid?"
It did. He would have died before admitting it to her. But she already knew something; he was sure of it.
"It is true what they say, then, isn't it? About your father? It's true that he's been--"
"Shut up!" Draco's tortured cry hung in the air between them. There was a long moment of silence. Pansy's face was white and frightened. Draco realized that he'd been advancing on her, pushing her further and further back along the bench, and he knew from the numb, tingling feel of it that his own face was suffused with fury and fear. Suddenly, unexpectedly, he was ashamed of himself. Without another word, he rose and stalked down the gravel path.
The soft wind, the indistinct murmuring of happy students strolling, the scent of roses-- it was all more than he could bear. Draco needed to feel cold lashing at his face, icy fingers down his spine, solitude. Only one place to go, then. He turned his steps toward the high north tower. The endless steps of the winding stone staircase left his thigh muscles burning, but he welcomed the pain. Alone, oh God he'd be alone there, it was all he wanted. But even as he reached the balcony, he heard the rustling of other footsteps behind his. Cursing softly, he slipped behind a large bush at the edge of the terrace.
The footsteps Ginny had heard hesitated, stopped, then headed in her direction. Sure enough, it must be Neville. Ginny groaned at the thought of all the apologizing she'd have to do. But then she heard the faint sound of other footsteps. Not the same as the first set. No, these were-- she listened closely-- at least two people walking together. So much for solitude! She stood indecisively, biting her lip. As she wondered what to do, an arm snaked around her and a hand went over her mouth.
"Mmph!" She struggled in vain. The arms holding her were thin but wiry and strong, and they pulled her back against a lithe, sinewy body that held her firmly. She saw out of the corner of her eye that whoever had his hands on her was a little shorter than she, but then many boys were; there was a movement of black velvet dress robes swirling around him. This was not Neville! Ginny jerked her head to the side and caught a flash of blond hair, the profile of a pale face with a small, straight nose and pointed chin, the glint of a strangely light eye--
Oh God.
"Malfoy?" she asked incredulously.
"Be quiet," he whispered.
"Let go of me!"
In response, his arms tightened around her even further. They felt like iron bands; she never would have guessed from looking at him that he was so strong. Not that she'd ever spent any time looking at him, of course. He pulled her head down to his mouth.
"Someone else just came up here. In fact--" Draco peered between branches of the bush. "At least three people from what I can see. Now, do you really want us to be seen together? Everyone at Hogwarts would hear about it within the hour."
"No!"
"Then keep your mouth shut." He gave her a slight shake to emphasize his words.
An angry retort sprang to Ginny's lips, but she bit it back. The footsteps were coming closer. She tensed in Draco's arms, and was still. Through the irregular green leaves of the bush, she saw a figure leaning against the stone balustrade. Cornelius Fudge? She squinted at him. Yes, it was; she'd certainly seen him with Dad often enough to be sure of that.
"Lovely night, isn't it," he said to someone behind him. "Such a treat to enjoy this sort of weather in December, don't you think?"
"That's as may be." The second person moved out from the shadows with a clump-thump, clump-thump, clump-thump. Just behind her ear, Ginny heard Draco suck in his breath. She could feel his chest moving, too. A strange sensation. She'd never, never been anywhere near this close to him, not since the first day she ever saw him in Diagon Alley, jibing at Harry. Harry. Probably still looking for her along with the others. The thought made her shift a little, restlessly, which only caused Draco to grasp her more tightly.
"Don't! I'm not trying to get away," she said as quietly as she could.
He hardly seemed to hear her. "Mad-eye Moody," he said. "What's he doing here?"
"I'm sure I don't know. What, are you afraid he's going to turn you into a ferret?"
"I wasn't talking to you." Draco's grip did not loosen.
The Minister of Magic turned again, in the other direction, and spoke to a third person. "The view's delightful, Albus, isn't it?"
Ginny saw the familiar figure of Professor Dumbledore step out onto the balcony and into her field of vision. "A very clear night," he said musingly. "I do believe that the Milky Way is visible."
Fudge cleared his throat. "Well, as pleasant as all this is, it's rather cold on this side." He pulled his pinstriped robes more closely about him. "I must say that I really don't quite understand why we've been brought up here."
"Discussion," growled Moody.
"But what can there be to discuss?"
Moody leaned against the balustrade next to Dumbledore. "Very private place, this north tower. Good if you don't want to be overheard."
Dumbledore nodded gravely.
"Now, really, gentlemen... overheard?" Fudge laughed a bit nervously.
"They picked the wrong place, didn't they?" muttered Draco.
"I thought you said we should be quiet," said Ginny.
"So I did. Shh."
"I've been hearing things," said Moody. "Rumblings. Some of the Death Eaters are moving again."
Fudge made an impatient movement with his hand. "Rubbish. There's nowhere for them to move."
"That's what you think."
"Moody, do be reasonable."
"Yep. That's what I always am. Reasonable. Which means listening to reason. Which means paying attention to what's going on about me." Moody turned so that he was fully visible, and the cold white light of the moon flooded over his scarred face. It seemed about as expressive as a block of wood, but there was an alertness on it that was impossible to mistake.
The other man sighed. "Since it seems necessary, Professor Moody, to provide a recap of events-- may I remind you that we've heard nothing of, er, You-Know-Who in well over a year?"
"So what did the Department of Mysteries finally decide?" drawled Moody. The twisted face looked almost amused.
Fudge shrugged. "As to that, you know very well. So far as can be determined, the Priori Incantatem spell had a quite unexpected effect. V- I mean, You-Know-Who was so ill established in a physical form that such powerful magic jolted him from it. Quite permanently, as far as we can tell. None of his followers have ever been able to return him to what he was."
"He remains only as a spirit of malice," said Dumbledore quietly, and Ginny realized that it was the first time the Headmaster had spoken. "Gnawing the ends of his old plots,choking on his own evil, but never able to take form or shape again."
"Quite," said Fudge, a relieved tone in his voice. "Goodness. I feel like a schoolmaster myself!" He attempted a chuckle, which fell flat.
"So why are you still afraid to say his name, Fudge?" asked Moody.
"I don't like the sound of it, that's all," the other man snapped. "Don't tell me that you think Voldemort-- there, all right, I've said it-- has a prayer of rising again!"
Moody paused. "No," he finally said. "No, I don't."
"Then there's nothing to worry about."
Moody leaned towards Fudge. "There were other powers than Voldemort," he said. "Older ones. And darker."
"Yes, well, nothing fascinates me quite so much as history, my dear man, but the dead past doesn't concern us now."
"Dead," Moody said derisively, under his voice. "Dead, is it?"
Fudge turned to Dumbledore as if he hadn't heard. "Which reminds me. Albus, you really ought to relax some of the security about Hogwarts, you know. It simply isn't necessary anymore. And quite honestly we don't really have the manpower to keep it up."
"I think it will remain, for the time being," Dumbledore said gravely.
"Well, as you wish. And now, I really must return; the tips of my ears must be frozen by now." Fudge reached up and felt them, shivering. On the threshhold of the stairs, he turned. "Truthfully, Albus-- and, er, Moody-- a little less paranoia would suit you better."
They stayed where they stood as Fudge trotted down the stairs, his footsteps receding. Then Moody said, "Stupid git."
"Cornelius is rather short-sighted, I'm afraid," said Dumbledore thoughtfully.
"He's lucky if he can see anything written in red letters a metre high and shoved right under his nose."
"I had hoped-- well, no matter. You could have been clearer about Grindelwald, you know."
Moody snorted. "It wouldn't have done any good and you know it. He wanted to dismiss me as a raving old crackpot anyway; why make it easier for him?"
"I suppose you're right." Dumbledore turned, and Ginny wondered if they were both going back down. And that name. Grindelwald. Where had she heard it before? But then he leaned closer to Moody and spoke in a lower tone. "I believe that we must go ahead with the plan."
The other man nodded. "We don't have a choice. He'd never listen to reason."
"How close is it to readiness?"
"Everything's set up in the lower dungeon. We have containment in the clock tower. The Tenere spell did the trick, all right-- I've been there twice myself and returned."
"Alistor!" Dumbledore put his hand on Moody's shoulder. "That was incredibly risky."
"So you're saying the plan's not?" Moody asked dryly.
"You have a point." The headmaster looked at him. "It doesn't seem to have done you any harm."
"Nope. And it won't do them any either."
"I wonder," said Dumbledore, staring out into the darkness, "if it is right to involve... They may agree, but they won't really understand."
"Does anyone? Did I? Did you?"
"No. I suppose not." Dumbledore sighed.
"Then there's only one thing we're waiting for. We need a sixth. And no, I don't know who, not yet. I'll know when I find them. I think--" Moody began clumping towards the door "-- I think I'll be led to them. Looking won't do any good. And now we'd better go. We've been up here far too long already. You never really know who might be listening." Ginny gulped at that.
"So... the hunt for Al-Juhara Har-am begins?" said Dumbledore softly.
"Yes," replied Moody. Both men nodded, as if a sign and countersign had been given. And maybe they had been, thought Ginny. Her head was spinning wildly. She didn't have the faintest idea what their last words meant, but almost none of the rest of the conversation had made any sense, either.
They were alone on the balcony. Ginny shivered, feeling the cold wind across her low-necked robe for the first time, and huddled closer to the warm body behind hers in the split second before she remembered that it was Draco Malfoy. Then she struggled to get away.
"Let me go," she said, trying to sound unafraid.
"In a minute." Draco's hand actually seemed to be tightening on her wrists.
"Ow-- you're hurting me-- I'll scream!"
He put a hand over her mouth. She bit it.
"I ought to strangle you," he said.
"Try it," she said.
Draco trapped both her hands beneath his and forced her against the balustrade. He's going to push me over, Ginny thought almost calmly. I heard something I wasn't supposed to hear and now I'm going to die for it. And my last sight in this life is going to be Malfoy's face. I wonder, if I go to hell does that mean I have to keep seeing his face for all eternity? But long moments passed, and nothing happened.
"I'm not going to do anything to you, Weasley," he said. "Just tell me why you were here, and I'll let you go."
"I wanted some--fresh air," she said weakly.
He snorted. "The air on the ground wasn't fresh enough?"
"With everyone running about shagging in the gardens, no, it wasn't." If she was really going to get pushed over the edge of the north tower by her worst enemy, Ginny decided that there was no point in being meek.
Draco laughed mirthlessly.
"What's so funny?"
"Your stupid friends don't know how sharp that little tongue of yours really is, do they?" He leaned closer to her, and his face was absolutely without expression, the silvery eyes glittering like miniature moons. "Potter and your stupid brother and that jumped-up mudblood Granger... they all think you're a sweet, innocent little girl, don't they?"
Ginny gulped, unsure what to answer. The conversation had taken a sudden and strange turn. He was frightening her, but in a different way than when she'd thought he was going to heave her over the edge of the tower. She didn't really think he'd do that now. But she felt no safer than she had before. The parchment rustled in her hands, and she remembered that she'd been holding it all the time. From the Desk of Hermione Granger was stamped on the top. Draco sucked in his breath and tried to grab it from her; she held on so tightly that it ripped in half. Impatiently, he shoved the two torn edges together. They both stared at it.
Two cones were balanced on each other with several straight lines intersecting them, each headed in a different direction. On another part of the paper was drawn a tunnel with two flat mouths, snaking across the parchment. There were little charts and graphs. There were scribbled words. Forward timeline. Spacelike. Backward timelike. Here-now. Future. Past. None of it made a bit of sense to Ginny. She couldn't tell if it did to Draco, either; his face was as blank as ever. Too late, she snatched her half away. He did the same with his.
"You sneaked up here to listen to them," he said, his voice dangerously soft.
"I didn't--"
"Did you hear what you wanted to hear?"
Ginny felt the rough stone of the balustrade against her back.
"Did you understand what they were talking about? You did, didn't you?"
Draco had pushed her all the way along the stone railing, and she flinched at the look in his eyes. "No. I don't know anything, I don't understand anything, I don't-- let go of me, Malfoy!" Ginny gave a wild, uncoordinated leap away from him, and fell, swinging in space.
Her legs scrabbled at nothing. Her feet kept striking the lower part of the balcony, trying to find something to stand on, but there was no solid surface. Draco was still holding her by the wrists, and for a wild instant Ginny was absolutely sure he was going to let go.
But then he was pulling her up, she was clutching at the stone, his arms were hauling her over the edge, and she was landing on blessed solid ground. Ginny wobbled against him, too weak to walk or even stand. She could feel that she was leaning against Malfoy completely,, but she was too dazed to care. Her heart was thumping so hard that she was sure it would burst out of her chest any moment. "You are clumsy, aren't you, Weasley?" she heard him saying, but she didn't care about that either.
When she came to herself again, she was sitting on the stone bench of the balcony, and her head was in a lap of warm, soft robes. A hand was holding a cup of punch to her lips. She grimaced at the taste. It was pretty much pure Old Ogden's Firewhisky by this point. "Where'd that come from?" she asked in a croak.
"Someone left it here, I suppose," replied a voice. She shook her head, opening her eyes fully, and recognized Draco Malfoy.
"You-- ooh." She tried to sit up, but her head spun so violently that she dropped back down again.
"I've never driven a girl to attempted suicide before," he said thoughtfully. "I don't know whether to feel flattered or insulted."
"I hate you," she said weakly.
"Gratitude is what most people would express after having their lives saved, but, apparently owing to a lack of ready cash in the Weasley household for etiquette lessons--"
"I wouldn't have slipped if you hadn't been forcing me off the balcony in the first place!"
"That was a bit more than a slip."
He was right. Ginny closed her eyes. Deep within, she wondered if a small part of her had wanted to jump, after all. "Thanks," she said stonily. "I suppose this means that I owe you one."
"Perhaps."
"What do you want me to do? Let's get it over with."
Draco's eyes swept her form-fitting robes, lingering a bit longer than strictly necessary on the strategically located tear the rough stone rail had made in the bodice. "Let me think about it. We'll discuss-- payment-- later."
"Oh! You really are disgusting, Malfoy." She struggled to a half-sitting position and could go no further. Her head fell back against his chest and little as she liked the position, Ginny was forced to hold it for the moment.
The air didn't feel nearly so cold now, with someone next to her.Of course, that was just because it was another carbon-based warm-blooded form of life. She still despised Draco Malfoy as much as ever.
And she was afraid that some inexplicable thing had suffered a sea-change between them. Changed in the space of a breath, of a few heartbeats. All because he had saved her life.
Ginny took a deep breath. She should leave immediately. She needed to get back down to the gardens. She had to return to where they were all looking for her. Where her brother would say reproachful things, Hermione would sniff, Neville would take her stiff hand in his clammy one, and Harry would avoid her hungry eyes.
Even sitting next to Malfoy suddenly seemed preferable to that.
He was silent as well. They both sat like stone statues. His arms were still around her waist. She could hear his heartbeat, strong and fast under the soft robes. It was a moment out of time, out of reality, out of all the enmity that had ever been between him and her.
Across the lake, the tower clock chimed the carillon.
"It's almost midnight," Draco said.
"Yes." Ginny remembered how she'd dreamed of this time, when the clock struck midnight at the Yule Ball. Back when she thought that surely Harry would ask her this year. She'd imagined them under a sprig of mistletoe in some secluded corner of the garden. And he'd kiss her. But it was not to be, never to be.
The clock whirred. Draco moved his hand up, under her chin, and tipped it up to his face.
The clock struck. And his lips came down on hers.
For a second, Ginny was frozen with shock. But it was nothing like she'd imagined a kiss from Draco Malfoy might be (not, of course, that she'd ever spent even a millisecond imagining such a thing, oh no.) That was her undoing. If it had been violent and demanding, she would have had no trouble breaking it and pushing him off her. But it wasn't. It was as gentle as the soft brush of a pheonix feather against her mouth. And she was the one who put her hands on either side of his head and felt his soft hair on her fingertips and kissed him back, kissed him with all the wild hunger and anger and pent-up frustration in her.
The clock struck six. She heard him groan under her. His hands moved her back against the bench so that they shifted positions and she was under him, bent so that her hair brushed the stone, his lips were everywhere on her bare skin and she heard herself moaning, now--
The clock struck eight. He pulled her up to him, easing a green satin strap off her shoulder, his mouth moving down further. She arched her back and cried out something, whether a word, a name, or simply a sound, she never knew. Her hands clutched at his back and she felt the spare strong muscles under her fingers--
The clock struck ten. She opened her mouth for him as far as it would go and he was devouring her; she gave herself up to him entirely, the blood in her veins had been replaced by boiling, thick honey; there was a mist before her eyes, something bright flashed across her retinas but she scarcely saw it; all her senses had been reduced to the feel on his hands and mouth on her--
The clock struck twelve. The last low, booming toll faded away. Sensation came back to her.
She was half-sitting, half-lying on a stone bench, a cold wind blowing over her half-naked chest. Her legs were sprawled awkwardly apart. Kneeling between them was Draco Malfoy, who was pulling down her robes from the top.
"Get off me!" She made her hands into fists and pounded them on his back.
"What?" he muttered, looking up, his silvery eyes unfocussed.
"OFF!" Oh God, he was smirking at her, and his mouth was smeared with her coral lipstick.
"I do believe we've found a way for you to pay me back."
"Stop it!"
"Weasley, we've barely even begun," he said in a purr. "Of course, it is rather cold out here, isn't it? Fancy coming back to my room? It's quite private-- well, there's Blaise Zabini, but we can always put a Silencing charm on the bedcurtains-- or not, if you like, Blaise is quite the voyeur, you know--"
"I'm going to be sick. I mean it. I really am. Oh God, what's wrong with me?"
"Nothing that a good shag wouldn't cure," drawled Draco. "You've been a virgin too long, Ginny. That's your problem. Or are you one?" He lifted an eyebrow at her.
"You'll never know!" She tried to snatch her hand away as he reached out for her wrist, but Draco was too fast for her. "Don't, I don't want you touching me!" Her voice rose almost to a screech.
"That's not the way it seemed thirty seconds ago."
Ginny struggled with him for a moment, her teeth set. Her hair tumbled down around her face and she could feel the tears threatening to spill over her eyelashes, but she was determined not to cry in front of Draco Malfoy. He held her arm easily, his face amused. "Just let go of me. I mean it," she said.
"Your lips may say no, but your eyes say yes." His voice mocked her. He was pulling her back down on the bench.
With one wild surge of strength, she yanked away from him. She drew her arm back and slapped his elegant patrician face with all her strength. The sound was like a crack of thunder. He put a hand to his cheek, which was marked by a perfect red imprint of her hand. "Ah," was all he said. She stared at him in horror, and then turned and ran blindly down the staircase.
A/N: Ah yes, a cliffhanger. Mwah ha. Review! Review! Pretty please.