Disclaimer: I don't intend to infringe on any copyrights laws, I just want to exercise my freedom of speech.
Hogsmeade
He woke early on Saturday and dressed speedily but carefully. He had Hogsmeade all planned. They would go separately; he would excuse himself to buy a present for his mother (which he had already bought) and meet her at the Shrieking Shack. Then they would go into the woods into a clearing he had discovered a few years ago and have a picnic. The only part missing from his plan was the picnic.
He dreaded going down into the kitchens, mingling among the house-elves. Not only did they not like him, but they sensed it and cowered subserviently whenever he caught them cleaning the Common Room during the night. Besides, he had heard that the Malfoy's old house-elf Dobby was here and he wondered how many elves had been told of his father's brutality.
On the second night in Hogwarts, the Slytherin first years were given a tour of the castle by the Slytherin Prefects. Without the knowledge of the teachers, the first years learned secret passages, secret rooms, and general locations of classrooms and bathrooms. One stop on the tour was the entrance of the kitchens and instructions on how to open it. He had never tried to come to the kitchens before. Standing in front of the painting of fruit, he remembered the prefect's voice, telling them "All you have to do is tickle the pear." He reached out his hand, feeling very silly at tickling the painting, but to his surprise and relief the fruit shrunk into a pear-shaped handle, which he turned before pushing the painting and stepping into the kitchen.
It was extremely warm and house-elves swarmed the kitchens, chopping, stirring, frying, baking and cleaning the messes others had left behind. The portrait closed behind him and he stood, watching in awe at the quick movements of the elves transferring the food to four long tables, almost identical to the tables in the Great Hall. The only difference was the lack of table settings; there were none. A squeak told him he had been noticed.
"Young mister Malfoy, sir. We are not expecting you sir." It was Dobby, the formerly dismissed house-elf, wringing his hands as if he expected some punishment for addressing him.
"Dobby?"
"Yes, sir." He was dressed ridiculously in a knotty woolen hat, a pair of shorts with hearts on them, a violet sock on one foot and a bright orange one on the other.
"Is there any way I can get a picnic basket with food?"
"Yes, sir. Right away, sir." He ducked into one of the doors that Draco assumed was pantry, three other elves at his heels. Two of them wore tea towels with the Hogwarts crest, one wore a skirt, a blouse, and a hat that matched her skirt, all which were scorched and stained. They emerged soon after, Dobby carrying a large basket covered with a towel.
"Here's your food, sir." Dobby handed the basket shakily to him. Draco found it was quite heavy. "There's a blanket in there too, sir, for sitting on. Just leave the basket in your room tonight and Dobby will come get it, sir." Dobby turned to leave.
"Wait."
"Yes, sir?"
"Er…thanks." If Ginny's smile was beautiful, Dobby's was too from sheer enthusiasm. Well, no, it wasn't, but it sure was enthusiastic.
"Where do you want to go after this?" Pansy walked arm in arm with Blaise, who Draco had told his plan to and was now doing her best to distract Pansy. They were in Honeydukes, examining the shelves upon shelves of candy. The basket was in his pocket, having been shrunk, and it was a weight he was not used to. It reminded him of where he had to go and what he had to do.
"I need to check in some jewelry shops for a gift for my mother," he told Crabbe and Goyle when Pansy was checking the price of Cloud Candies, a Chinese treat that had recently been introduced in England. Crabbe and Goyle were too distracted by the free samples tray to notice and since their mouths were too full, they could only grunt in response.
He slid away easily through the sea of Hogwarts robes. The crowds thinned as he approached the Shack and then completely disappeared as he climbed the hill. She was already there, leaning against the side of the Shack, profiled against the trees. She watched as he walked to her.
"Ready?"
"Yup."
He led the way through the woods. The Forbidden Forest wasn't as wild near Hogsmeade, mainly because the creatures that inhabited the forest didn't want to get too close to the humans in the settlement. The clearing was about 15 meters into the forest, the well-worn path covered for the first five meters by thick, magically-enhanced brush. He had never shown anyone this spot before.
The clearing was small, the trees on all sides providing the illusion of privacy. In the spring the grass was lush and long, but as it was the end of November, the ground was frozen and foreboding. He took the basket out of his pocket, unshrunk it, spread the blanket on the ground, placed a warming charm on the blanket, then took her hand and assisted her onto the blanket as if he were helping her walk down stairs. The charm he had done worked well, the heat seeping through his cloak to heat him.
"You thought of everything," she said, a little awed.
"Well, I have been trained in the arts of courtly etiquette."
"Really?" He nodded.
"If you ever need a waltzing partner, than I'm your man. I also know the proper response for persons of every title, with how much money, and level of evil."
"And for persons of my lack of evil, title, and money the proper response is 'treat like scum'?"
"Yes. You see how easily I defy tradition." She smiled.
"What did you bring?"
"To be honest, I don't know. Let's find out." They attacked the basket with the fervor of children unwrapping presents on Christmas morning. Dobby had packed a canteen of cream of corn soup, a tuna fish sandwich, a corned beef sandwich, an egg salad sandwich and – to Draco's surprise – a sandwich with Nutella and raspberry jam. He didn't expect Dobby to remember his favorite kind of sandwich. Along with the sandwiches were thinly sliced potatos that had been baked, another Manor staple, and a flask of Pumpkin juice. For dessert, there were small raspberry cheesecakes; he expected that he would be seeing more of these at dinner. "Which would you like?"
"I'll take the tuna."
"Good, then I can have my favorite." He reached for the sandwiches, passed hers to her. "I'm afraid Dobby thought that there was only going to be one person eating this so we'll have to share the drink. You can have the soup, if you like."
"Isn't Dobby your old house-elf?"
"Yeah." She chewed thoughtfully.
"Then he would have made this lunch to your tastes."
"I suppose he would have." She perused the food objects carefully.
"Your favorite sandwich, of course, which is?"
"Nutella and raspberry jam."
"The potato slices, one of your favorite snacks?"
"Best if lightly salted."
"The other sandwiches…"
"Are ones I find tolerable. Dobby used to make my lunches and I would complain if there was something I didn't like and he would be punished." He sipped from the flask. "Sometimes I would complain for fun."
"But – that's horrible!"
"Well I was a horrible little rascal," he said with cheeky affection. She looked back at the food.
"Raspberry cheesecake? Two raspberry items?"
"They're my favorite fruit."
"I'll have to remember that." He could see his reflection in her eyes which were locked with his.
"Are you a lesbian?" He interjected into the silence.
"Am I a what!?!" She nearly dropped her sandwich.
"Are you a lesbian?" He repeated.
"Oh, you abominable boy! How could you even think…you muggle-hating…villain-worshipping…careless…FRUITCAKE!" He could almost feel the heat radiating off of her as she worked up her anger. She slapped him. It hurt.
"Ah. There's that temper…"
"WHAT TEMPER!?!" she shrieked, making another go at him, but he caught her arm.
"The Weasley temper. I'd been wondering where it had got to. You really shouldn't bottle up your emotions like that, Weasley, you might get a bad reaction."
"Ginny." She spat.
"Pardon?"
"My name's Ginny."
"No, I don't like Ginny much, and Gin makes you sound like some sort of tonic – though that's better that a fruitcake – but I'd be fine with Virginia." He caught her eyes again. They were still alight with her just-passed fury.
"Virginia it is." She looked at her hand, tingly from the contact with Draco's face and then at the red welt on his face. "Er…sorry about that." He chuckled.
"It's all right." She placed her hand on his cheek, much more gently than she had before.
"No, it's not." The pain faded and she took her hand away. He touched his cheek, surprised.
"What did you do? And how did you do that?"
"I…I can do magic through my hands. Only healing magic and only simple things like healing cuts and bruises, or in your case welts." She looked down, as though she thought he would be ashamed of her.
"Virginia…" She seemed fascinated with his shoelace. He struggled for the right words. "That's a wonderful gift." She breathed shallowly, staring at a point on his shoulder and when she spoke, her voice was quiet and even.
"Fred and George used to tease me about never getting cuts or bruises when I was little. I had discovered that if I held my hand to the injury and thought about it being normal, it would become normal. Even my mum thought it was weird that I never got bumps and bruises as a toddler when I would walk into everything.
"Bill was the only one who never teased me about it, or at least not meanly. The others, they would get into trouble for their cuts and scrapes and since I never had any, I never got into trouble. He left, though, for Hogwarts when I was two and I would miss him horribly. Every time he came back he would bring me something. Sometimes it was a picture, often of his friends acting comically in the Gryfinndor common room, and when he was old enough to go to Hogsmeade he would bring sweets. I remember one time he brought home an entire bag of Fizzing Whizbees and Mum had to bring me down from the ceiling with her wand." She smiled in rememberance and continued, forgetting he was there. "My other brothers would play with me too, but we all divided into playgroups. Charlie would stick with the twins who stuck to each other. Percy was always more a loner, always worried we would get into trouble. One by one (or two) they all left for Hogwarts, making me miss them and they would come back with more stories that made me yearn for Hogwarts. Ron and I were great friends until he left for Hogwarts and came back with new friends and plenty of exciting stories. When he talked about Harry – I had seen him on the platform and though he wasn't particularly attention grabbing, I thought about him almost constantly because he was The Boy Who Lived – he had all these heroic stories about Quidditch and the Philosopher's Stone…what I could I do but have a crush on him. And all summer long I thought about going to Hogwarts, I was finally going to be there and he would be there too. I was so excited. Bill came back one week in mid-July. He had been in Egypt working for Gringotts and I was so happy to see him. He was much bigger than I was, always has been until recently, and he swung me around like Papa used to when I was little and he was younger. The last day he was there, he gave me this." She pulled her necklace out of her shirt and showed him the charm. "It's an Ankh, an Egyptian symbol of immortality. It belonged to Nefertiti, wife of the Pharaoh Akhenaten. She was supposed to be the most beautiful Egyptian woman and he had helped break into her tomb. He's allowed to keep one object from every raid, you see, and this was his first." She fingered it lovingly as she spoke.
"Muggles can not find the tomb because it has Muggle repelling charms all over it. Her own husband did not even know she was a witch. The only person who knew, was her favorite artisan, a man names Thotmas. They were lovers and he made the most famous Egyptian bust that the Muggles have, and when you look at it, you can see how much he loved her. He was a muggle, and swore not to reveal her secret, but her husband discovered their affair. Akhenaten burst into Thotmas' workshop when Thotmas was completing the bust, and killed him, but he could not bring himself to destroy the statues of his beautiful wife. Nefertiti, already having heard of her husband's discovery, shut herself in the tomb she had already prepared for herself. She placed the charms and jinxes and obstacles to prevent any Muggle or Wizard from entering before climbing into her sarcophagus and suffocating herself. The hieroglyphs she had carved on the wall told her reason: to live without my love would not be living at all.
"The bust still remains incomplete, only an eye left undone. When Bill broke into the chamber, he found this necklace with her wand. The lid to the sarcophagus had been levitated on and the wand and necklace were still grasped in her skeletal hand. One arm had been folded over her heart, like a customary Egyptian corpse, but the other, her wand arm, lay defiantly straight, stretched out beside her body. She was left handed, like I am.
"The Ankh is a symbol of the Egyptian Gods, symbolizing immortality. Bill said it was for good luck. He said not to worry about school. She had taken it off before she died, as if when she wore it, she could not die. He thought maybe it would protect me in some way. But it didn't. First year was horrible, and the only thing the necklace did for me was keep me alive…" She looked up at him, remembering he was there, then rolled onto her back to avoid his gaze. "You're not interested in this stuff, though."
"Why wouldn't I be?" he asked, moving closer to her so that he looked down over her. He wondered what the necklace had been keeping her alive from.
"Because you're you."
"And…"
"And this is just petty, little-girl stuff. You want big-girl stuff; snogging and the like."
"You're right, I do." His little self would have cheered if it had a mouth. He bent over her and she closed her eyes, opening them when she realized he was simply hovering. "Tell me something, Virginia."
"Anything," she breathed, and at that moment she felt she would.
"Are you a lesbian?"
"Are you tactless?"
"Completely, now answer my question." He still hadn't moved.
"I've had boyfriends in the past: Micheal Corner, Dean Thomas. And how could you forget my wonderful, tease-worthy crush on Harry Potter."
"But you don't have a boyfriend now. So answer my question."
"No, I'm not."
"Good." And he kissed her, brushing his lips gently to hers before pressing them more firmly against hers. She was eager, pushing her tongue into his mouth and he moved over her as she deepened their kiss. She moaned as he pressed his stiffened self to her, wanting her to know exactly what he felt and for her to do something about it. Thier mouths devoured each other in hot fury. She didn't care that they were snogging in broad daylight, in a place anyone who wanted to could see them. He tasted familiar; kissing him was like coming home.
"You know," he stopped kissing her, voicing the snide comment that had leapt into his mind, "You probably know more about the Ancient Egyptians than Granger." And then he devoured her some more.
That night he lay awake in bed. If he thought hard enough his lips tingled with her kiss and his body hummed with her touch. All they had done was snog, upsetting the picnic basket in the process. She had started laughing, rolling her body snuggly into his as she shook and he had laughed too when she tickled him. He had finally stopped her wandering fingertips and they decided to part ways, lest someone discover them. The rest of the day he had spent wandering the streets with the other Slytherins, looking for presents for father and his newly released aunt and uncle. Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange had been released from Azkaban by the Dark Lord a year ago; he didn't know them well. He had picked out some serpent shaped earrings for his aunt, and matching serpent cuff-links for his uncle, both silver.
Sighing, he rolled onto his side. He had bought something for Ginny too, but wondered whether or not he would give it to her. Sure they did their homework together almost every night, and had talked a bit after homework. Last week he had only sat with Blaise because he felt guilty abandoning her every night. She didn't seem to mind, asking how his "project" was going. His project would be over tomorrow and then he could forget all about his snog with Ginny Weasley.
Her hair shone around her like a halo. She was tickling him and he laughed, trying to roll away from her on the down mattress, which made him sink farther in. He caught her hands and shoved them over her head, pinning her beneath him. She didn't mind and kissed him. He had never been kissed like this. She used her tongue to tease him, licking at his tongue playfully. They were naked beneath the sheets.
The room was very pale, the walls painted a pale yellow even lighter than his hair, the sheets were a pale pink, the furniture was made of a whitewashed yellow wood. She leaned on a sea of Teddy bears and dolls, and she pulled him down with her, burying them in the stuffed animals until they found the pillow. It too was pink, edged in yellow lace with a faded picture of a unicorn on it. Light peeked through the stuffed animals, lighting her face. She grinned wickedly and kissed him again, wrapping her arms around him like he was her favorite plaything. He somehow knew he was.
Lovingly, he touched her body, stroking his hands along her breasts, her stomach, the dimples in her lower back that he knew were sensitive. His hair wasn't slicked back and her hand played with it, stroking it and measuring its length down his face. She tucked a bit in his mouth and he laughed and she laughed with him and he hugged her to him, happy to have her there.
She wasn't satisfied with his hugs and moved on top of him, touching him in the place that wanted it the most and kissing his wrists, making him shiver with desire. The stuffed animals had fallen off or been pushed off the bed and he could see her clearly as she lowered herself onto him, the morning light making her glow. He had heard of people glowing after sex or pregnant women glowing, but never during sex. He breasts bounced and he watched, mesmerized until the inevitable happened and she collapsed on him, breathing heavily. She was slick with her sweat, and he with his own, and they fell asleep like that curled together in the sheets.
"Thank you, Draco," she said.
~~~~~
So that was the chapter that caused the rating – well, no, it wasn't, that was the first chapter. But being a former NC-17 writer, I can't help but slip a little wet dream in from time to time. This was by far the easiest chapter to write. It sped out of me with such rapidity and movement that I haven't felt since I wrote 16 pages for "Pigeons Plot in Secrecy" in one sitting. Nutella, for those who don't know what it is, is hazelnut butter. It's got some chocolate in it and is very good. I recommend you all go and buy it as a treat to your taste buds.
The stuff about Nefertiti is a mixture of fact and fiction. Let me sort out the fact for you. Nefertiti was married to Akhenaten, an Ancient Egyptian pharaoh. Akhenaten was very ahead of the times, renouncing the polytheistic religion of his predecessors and creating a new monotheistic one. He moved the capital to Akhetaten which he planned and had built for them. Little is known about Nefertiti except that she was beautiful, so beautiful that they said she could not be described. After their deaths, censors scoured Egypt, destroying and defacing any statues or mentions in writing they could find of Akhenaten and his wives. Nefertiti's tomb has not been found. They were forgotten.
Thotmas was one of the artisans that worked on Akhetaten. The bust of Nefertiti does exist, it was found in his shop along with several other statues of her. Only these were untouched and her beauty shows through the gentle carving. The bust is done in a realistic style, unlike traditional statues, and seems to have an almost personal touch to it. Because the artisan's shoppe had been overlooked and not looked for, the statues within were kept wonderfully preserved. The main flaw to it is that one eye has been left undone. There is much speculation as to why this eye was never finished. Some say Thotmas refused to finish it because of an altercation with Nefertiti. Others say he left his shop before he could finish and never got the chance to return, forced out and taking the eye piece with him. Others say that they were lovers and Nefertiti broke the affair off and he refused to finish the eye. At first, it was thought the eye simply fallen out, but the workshop has been scoured and the piece that belongs there was never found. What seems true is that a great amount of care and passion went into the piece; I feel it must have been a lover's passion that made him carve her in such a realistic manner, contrary to traditional art. I have already supplied my version of the story.
Adie: I'm keeping you in suspense about the "mysterious shadows", BWAHAHAHAHA – erm, sorry. I forgot myself for a minute.
Anime10473: lol, you're just a bubble of energy, aren't you? Thank you for the lovely, long review and your many suggestions. Even though I already had this chapter planned and half-written I did think about them but the mystery guy suggestion made me change one sentence I had already written, so thank you very much. I'm sorry I made Draco so tactless, but how easy is it to ask "Are you a lesbian?" It's like asking someone on the Underground: "How would you like to come home with me tonight and dance naked in the moonlight?" So Draco has no tact. Sorry. ;-).
SicDreamsInc: Don't worry, I won't tell anyone, lol. And I don't mind if you use the Chinese language. It's not mine after all. It's such a beautiful language, or at least Manderin is. It's like whispering on the wind ::sigh:: and Cantonese is harsh and angry…I'd equate it to how German sound to us English speakers but more natural for me so I'll just live with my angry speech, which is heavily accented anyways. Wow, I got off on a major tangent. By the way, those are dialects.
jane-valar: Even if you're not much of a reviewer (I'm using your words, not mine) I still appreciate you taking the time to review. And everyone wants to know about the mystery people, even me – wait I do know who those are. ::grins wickedly::
Gothic Retaliation: Thanks!
Ren: As I said to Anime, Draco has no tact. He's a teenage boy and therefore had no tact. I surely hope I'm keeping true the characters; I like to avoid altering canon as much as possible. Besides, Harry Potter's like the Bible for me. No. I lied. That would be the "Kama Sutra".
You reviewers are my heroes. I'm going to sleep and dream happy Draco/Ginny dreams with reviews floating around my head like cherubs and smile because I am in review heaven. ::sigh:: You people make me so happy!