The Rape of the Lock

Chapter Nine: Breaking and Entering

This story's rated 'R' for adult content and Raisins (icky!)

I know I haven't updated in a long time. Sometimes life gets in the way.

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Ginny stood in the hallway, trying to appear nonchalant while her stomach churned and every muscle in her body was uncontrollably twitching. There was only a small space of time, thirty minutes at the most, when everyone would be gone and they could slip in. The boys knew how important this was, how could they be late?

Someone was approaching, and she faced the wall, trying to hide although her flaming hair would give her away to anyone who happened to even glance her way.

"Hey," Harry said, and Ginny turned to face him. His nose had been bloodied, and had a nice bruise forming between the bridge and his left eye. As he pulled out the invisibility cloak, she noticed him favor his right arm.

"What happened to you?" her voice was a whisper as they crept the last length of the hallway, over the place where Harry and Ron had found Hermione the night before.

"You should see the staircase," Harry tried to laugh.

"Don't even try that with me, you git. Who were you fighting with? And where's Ron?" Ginny took a moment to put two and two together. "Oh, Harry, you've been fighting with Ron?"

"Is this really the best time to be having this conversation?"

Ginny pressed her lips together. "I suppose not. All hail Malfoy." They stepped through the door to the Slytherin common room and looked around warily before going down the hallway to Malfoy's room.

Mindy's directions had been perfect. Ginny slipped out the key that the girl had stolen and opened the door to the Head Boy's bedroom. It was amazing. For a moment Ginny found herself imagining what it would be like to be swept off her feet in a place like this, to have someone kissing her neck while she looked up at the mural on the ceiling. Then she remembered whose lips would be doing the kissing in this bedroom, and snapped back to reality.

Harry, less of a romantic, was already opening drawers and searching for something. They weren't sure what they'd find. And it was possible that the impeccable Malfoy wouldn't leave any clues at all. But they loved Hermione, and they had to look.

"Look at this, Harry. All these books on mind control and telepathic suggestion." The volumes on the shelf by Malfoy's desk were almost exclusively on these topics. "Do you think that this is possible?"

"If there's anything that going to Hogwarts has taught me, it's that nothing is impossible. Check and see if he's marked anything."

Ginny started to pull out the books and flip through them, then carefully place them back where she found them. "Do you think he's been coercing Hermione into, you know, things with him?"

"I don't know. Not everything with him is about that. Some of it is about the ruthless pursuit of and the corrupt use of power." Harry spoke absentmindedly as he rifled through Malfoy's nightstand. "Here it is."

"What?"

"I don't know, but anything he keeps locked inside a box inside the drawer of a nightstand in a locked room that he has the only key to has got to be important." Harry took his wand out from his back pocket. "Alohomora."

They were both surprised it worked. The box popped open to reveal several little vials of jewel-toned liquids and a slip of parchment that looked like someone had spent hours folding and unfolding it.

"A chance will arise to prove he is wise . . ." Harry read a little out loud before scanning the page. "This part, here. Ron found it on the underwear note."

"Excuse me?"

"No time, look at the clock." Indeed, the beautiful little mahogany desk clock inlaid with mother of pearl showed that they only had a few minutes to get their acts together and get out of Malfoy's bedroom. Mindy promised to keep Malfoy away, but she had only so much control over the King of Slytherin.

Ginny, who in a different reality might have been an excellent laboratory scientist, put a few drops of each of the liquids onto a spare piece of parchment she had in her pocket. It would do no good to leave things missing and destroy their advantage. Harry tried to memorize the little poem in the little time he had, but when Ginny was finished with the vials he put the paper back and locked the box, carefully placing it back in the drawer where he'd found it.

While their heads knew that they had designed an excellent plan with the collaboration of the person Malfoy trusted most, their glands apparently thought different. Giddy with adrenaline, hearts pumping like mad, they made their way back to the Gryffindor common room. On the way, Ginny placed the key in a chink in the stonework Mindy had shown her. There were any number of spells that would show that Ginny had touched the key or that her and Harry had been inside Malfoy's room. So the trick to getting away with it was never even letting him suspect.

The littlest Weasley felt exhilarated, dangerous, dark, almost sexy as they re-entered their own common room under cover of invisibility cloak. And no matter how awkward previous encounters had been, she was a sucker for medium, dark, and scar-faced. And his bruises almost made him more attractive. Ginny had never fallen out of love with Harry. Their relationship had just become inconvenient.

The Boy Who Lived had resigned himself to becoming The Boy Who Loved, -ed, as in past tense, forever. But here the object of his adoration was, displaying a subtle change in expression, a small shift in posture, that clued him in subconsciously that she was thinking in present tense. Maybe even future.

Before both of their intellectualism could get in the way, Ginny pressed her lips into Harry's at the same time as he embraced her. The movement of their shoulders made the cloak ripple into an iridescent puddle on the floor. They both smelled like fear and success, the dark spicy smells of Malfoy's chambers mixed with nervous sweat and all the words they'd wanted to voice for months.

Someone behind them cleared his throat. Then coughed, or sort of gagged and squeaked a little. Ginny froze, then closed her eyes and formed a curt smile as she turned around to face her brother. Harry was already facing him with a nervous look in his eyes.

"Don't make me recount to you, dear brother, all the times I've walked in on you and Hermione. And don't try to act pathetic, either. You and Harry look about equally banged up. Idiot boys thinking that violence solves everything."

"Hey, it's not like that!" Ron protested.

Harry bristled as well. "He practically called me a rapist."

Ginny tried to shut out the feelings that this was her fault. "Well you both know Harry never hurt anyone who didn't deserve it. And that littlest brother Ron can't help being over-protective. He's the only one left who can be."

Both boys were annoyed to be analyzed in this way.

"You two kiss and make up."

"This is ridiculous, Gin, we'll find a way when we're ready."

Her jaw was steel. "Do it."

"'m sorry, mate," both boys uttered barely audibly.

"What, no kiss?" Hermione was watching over the back of the couch. "You two could at least humor a girl."

Hermione looked more like herself than she had since the end of sixth year. There was a stack of homework about a mile high in front of her, and a moving comic book (obviously Ron's) sitting in the armchair across from her.

"Am I supposed to be dead or something? Why don't you two join us, we're having a lot of fun."

Ginny shrugged and sat down next to Hermione. Harry hedged a little more. "I think Ron and I have something else to talk about. Upstairs."

"Oh, don't tease," Hermione joked as the boys walked up the stairs.

Ginny flipped through Ron's comic book and covertly watched over the top of it as Hermione finished homework twice as fast as ever, like nothing had happened. The rolls of parchment were filling up with tiny handwriting in violet ink, and the only hint that anything was out of the ordinary was how careful Hermione was with her wrists.

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"I don't like the sound of that poem," Ron said up in the dormitory.

"That whole 'kill a Gryffindor and get lots of evil power' thing was especially grating," Harry agreed. "But it looks like Malfoy can't do anything until he wins the Cogito. Which, on top of being unlikely, is a long way off."

"He's not going to leave Hermione alone in the meantime. He has to keep her from winning the contest. And Mindy has to keep being his mistress, pretending like she still likes him. Honestly, if I were her, I couldn't do it."

Harry made a face. He didn't understand why it wasn't Mindy's fault that she'd fallen in [bed] with Malfoy, even if she was fighting for the good now. Girls can't sleep with people without emotion. Mindy, in Harry's opinion, may have been their greatest asset, but she was also their biggest risk. If any inflection of anything she said during pillow talk flicked any switches in Malfoy's head, it would be an insurmountable setback. But Ron and Ginny trusted the Slytherin girl unconditionally. "Yeah, but if we do anything to stop it, we may not be able to save that Gryffindor's life."

"So we wait." Ron loosened his tie. "I'd almost rather sleep with Malfoy."

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Ginny had enlisted the help of some Potions geeks in figuring out Malfoy's vials by fluttering some eyelash at them. But the only time they could be assured that no one would be prowling around the classrooms was during the Cogito. In the meantime, Hermione was acting so normal, it was abnormal. But nobody dared question her about it, lest she go back to being angry and depressive.

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It's been said that the hardest thing to do is wait. And that's what Draco had to do. Wait until the next Monday. All the days in between felt blurry, light, nonexistent as he went to classes, studied for the Cogito, rolled around with Mindy. She didn't talk as much, and he was grateful not to have to think of things to say back. Sometimes, when he was alone, he would take out the little box, and staring at the vials the Technicolor would go back into the world. They sang evil little tunes to him. He felt thrills that had [almost] nothing to do with sex. Pure lust for violence, to feel someone squirm, to destroy their very soul . . . Soul? Anyway, to prick Granger until something righteous leaked out of her.

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At the moment, Mindy was the object of Draco's pricking and it was awful. Before, of course, she had regretted it. Almost dreaded padding up the corridor to his room and knocking. But once inside, she had power. Mindy was one of the few teenage girls who understood the power they could take with their body, their innocence. In a way, she could thank Draco for her empowerment. But at the moment, she was locked in a little room with all the lights cut off. She wore her eyeliner darker, her lips were red, she wore stockings with garters and tried to be the girl she was before she met herself in the mirror and despised her reflection.

Just a couple months ago, shopping in the city with a few friends, it got to be late and she saw them. The charmed girls, they called them, because they had to work so much magic to make sure they didn't get pregnant, sick, or worse. And she couldn't imagine people who bought and traded sex. Who used their bodies to get what they wanted.

Now she was using the same spells. There was the small incantation to keep herself from being fertile, the little herbs that kept her from actually having her monthly in case he wanted her, and the wand waving just in case -- she had no idea where he had been before her. And Draco didn't even pay her money.

To her friends, the ones she had left, he was her boyfriend. Only she knew that the small gifts he gave her were only to exert his power over her. To make her owe him more than she did just for sitting next to him and speaking to him while meeting his eyes. He was the perfect person according to everyone she knew. Like a flawless diamond. You can't love anyone without any little cracks to hold on to.

But nobody could love anyone who is all cracks, she told herself, and the only way to hide them is to lay here underneath him. It was hard to be disgusted in this place, in this beautiful room, with this beautiful person being so intimate with her. This was supposed to be more than she could ever hope for.

For the first time she could see outside her little trap. She was using him, fooling him into a false sense of security. Mindy had all the power, and he was her little puppy to play with. The words weren't as comforting as she thought they would be. In fact, they spurred whole new thoughts, overwhelming ones:

Now you're just like him. Is that what you want?

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Author's note: Review me if you want another chapter. Otherwise, I'd be happy to spend my time knitting Hogwarts scarves and living in my imaginary world without shrimp.