Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to JKR and company; I am the owner of all that is different in this story.
be gentle with me
It turned out to be not such a good idea to fly with her so scantily dressed. Propelled by wind, arrows of cold sliced through the invisibility cloak, sweater, and button-up shirt to find their marks on him, chilling him to the core. Draco took off the full body-bind after about ten minutes of flying and Ginny didn't try to throw him off or jump down but clung to him, burying her cold face in his shoulder and greedily taking any heat he provided. She felt like ice against him and by the time they had reached Hogsmeade, his hands were chaffed and freezing, numbly clutching the broom handle. Rapidly, he changed his plans and swerved down to land. As soon as his feet touched the ground she sprinted, her cloak a black flag behind her. Draco envied anyone who saw her front and hit her with a body bind. She fell face forward into the snow. Draco sighed and walked over to pick her up, brushing snow tenderly off of her face. After exchanging his cloak with hers, he propped her invisible form beside his broomstick and turned the corner, setting off for any inn he could find.
He didn't have to walk long before finding a little inn called the Pheonix Nest.. It was a charming little place if one judged by the outside, two stories high, with snow spread across the thatched roof as if every flake were put purposely in place. A lamp hung at each side of the door way, lighting a sign that hung just above them proclaiming its name to the world. No lights shone through the windows, but as Draco approached the inn, he saw the windows were so covered in soot that it was probably impossible to look out of them. It would suit his purpose. He walked inside. At the front desk an ancient concierge snored slightly, leaning on the desk in front of him, a red welt of a fist print showing that he had been like that for quite some time. Draco rang the small bell and the old man jumped.
"How may I help you?" he asked, after blinking a few times and fumbling with his hand on the desk to retrieve a pair of glasses that looked like they hadn't been washed in several decades. The concierge was old and looked as though he would keel over at any moment. A cane, worn with use, hung on the edge of the worn, wooden counter. Indents of quills pressed letters in the surface, like every guest had decorated it with their name. The room was lit only by a fire in the corner of the room and an ancient, dusty electrical lamp on the desk that sputtered every five minutes to the second.
"I'd like a room."
"May I ask for how long?" The old man brought his glasses down to the edge of his shirt and rubbed furiously at the dirty oil encrusted on the glasses.
"No, I'll pay by the night." Draco saw recognition in the creaking, old man's eyes once the newly cleaned glasses were placed before the man's eyes. With blond hair and eyes as pale as Draco's were, he was always recognized as a Malfoy and treated as one: with respect.
"Yes, right away, Mr. Malfoy." Hastily, the concierge snatched up his cane and hobbled over to a rack with rusting skeleton keys. His fingers fumbled as he grabbed one and he hobbled up the stairs with difficulty, leading Draco up the ill-lit staircase and down the musty hallway. The dark green carpet emitted puffs of dusts over Draco's shoes as he walked. The concierge stopped in front of door number 14.
"Please enjoy your stay," he wheezed, opening the door for Draco and bowing him in. The hand that gave Draco the key was old and withered, the skin draping off the skeleton like curtains. Draco closed the door and listened as the old man's feet steps faded and the creaking of the floorboards stopped. He walked across the room and unlatched the window, the dust coming off on his fingers. He cringed at the creaking of the window's hinges as he opened it and looked down over the sill. It wasn't too far to the ground, but unmarred snow lay beneath the sill (that now had his hand imprinted in its dust). This method of sneaking out now useless, he turned back to the door and opened it. The hinges whined against being used and the floorboards creaked in protest of being walked on. When he reached the front desk, he found the concierge to be sleeping again, for which he was thankful. He snuck noisily out the door and down the picturesque, cobbled street to the place where Ginny and his broomstick were hidden. Still the old man didn't wake up.
When he found them, they weren't where Draco had left them, or at least not exactly. Ginny and the broomstick had fallen down. Snow had slid into her cloak and negligee so that she was covered in cold, wet, snow. He stripped her off the wet cloak, enclosing her in the dry, warm one he had been wearing and picked up his broomstick, mounted it and flew slowly towards the open window of the room so that they would be fully concealed under the wet invisibility cloak. Once there he shoved her rigid body through the window first, wincing when he heard her fall to the floor and climbed through after her, pulling the broomstick after him.
She lay on the floor, staring up at him with wild eyes. He turned away from her and latched the window. Although her body was rigid, her eyes followed his every movement. He delayed releasing her from the body-bind by putting a silencing spell on the room. He turned back to her, only to be faced yet again by her unwavering gaze. The room was chilled from the open window and he lit a fire in the grate, trying to shake off the unnerved feeling that was encroaching upon him. The fire burned pink – a slightly embarrassing fact that he couldn't change – while he watched her warily from across the room. Carefully, he knelt and spread the invisibility cloak out before the fire to dry. He would need it later tonight and it wouldn't be much help if it froze to him as he was returning.
"Enervate!" He spoke the incantation from the other side of the room, keeping as much distance between himself and her nearly naked form. He expected her jump up from where she lay and berate him while calling for help but she instead drew herself into her cloak, coughing and shivering. Draco felt an odd twinge in his chest.
"Come by the fire," he said, walking towards her as if he were approaching a tiger. She looked up at him, as if just remembering he was there, and fainted.
He stopped still, watching her shivering figure on the floor, her arm bent uncomfortably beneath her. Thoughtless, his arms reached for her, lifting her up and carrying her to the bed. It was covered with a patched quilt and her hair seemed to glow in the firelight, despite the darkness. The cloak was slightly damp and he hesitated before removing it from her, revealing the wet, clingy, transparent material of her negligee. Draco frowned. He knew he'd have to remove it as it was wet and cold but he couldn't quite trust himself around a naked girl; he could barely trust himself around a nearly naked girl. Slowly, he pushed the straps off her shoulders and tugged the material down to reveal her breasts, inch by inch. She was so cold. He could feel himself grow excited at the thought of seeing her bare breasts and he stared, captivated, at the material inching downwards. Just a little more and he'd see her nipples. Just a little more… He could see the very tops of the rosy buds that had perked to the material that slid over them. His cheeks felt warm.
CRACK
He didn't notice her wake up or see the hand that stung his cheek in the same place she had already slapped him.
"What do you bloody think you're doing?" She screeched, pulling back from him as he rubbed his cheek. It would most definitely bruise, he thought. When he looked back at her, she had pulled the negligee back up.
"Getting you out of those wet clothes." She moved to slap him again and he caught her wrist. He could see the nipples still perked beneath the filmy material. Catching his glance, she too looked down and shrieked before hurriedly covering her breasts with her hands. Draco didn't think he'd seen anything more erotic. She blushed crimson, and Draco wondered vaguely if she was still cold.
"You pervert!"
"I don't think there's a boy alive who wouldn't look if you were wearing what you are." The firelight settled into the angry expression of her face.
"Just – "
"Look. You're going to get sick if you keep wearing that. Not only is it unbelievably thin, it's wet."
"I'll do fine, thank you." Draco sighed and got up from the bed. He pulled his sweater over his head and smirked at her outraged gasp.
"What do you think you're doing?!?" Draco's fingers nimbly unbuttoned his shirt.
"Well, you have to have something to wear. Here," he held out the shirt to her, "Oh come on. It's not like it will kill you. And you'll more likely catch pneumonia from that thing –" he gestured towards her "– than my shirt."
Grudgingly, Ginny took the shirt, not looking at him or his bare chest. "Turn around." Draco smirked.
"It's not like I'll see anything I haven't already." His smiled deepened as her mouth puckered.
"Just do it." He sighed.
"Fine." He walked over to the fire, the rustlings increasing his erection. Discreetly, he adjusted himself in his pocket to conceal the evidence of his arousal. The pink flames danced, laughing at his predicament. The rustlings stopped and he turned around. Once he did, he knew he shouldn't have.
The shirt was baggy but stopped just below her butt. And it was his shirt. She made his shirt, the shirt he had worn only moments before, look like the sexiest article of clothing he could ever imagine. She walked forward, somewhat self-conscious, with the wet clothes in her hands. He turned back to the fire, watching her out of the corner of his eye as she dragged a chair from the desk to in front of the fire and lay the clothes on the chair. His heartbeat quickened at the sight of her filmy thong. The only thing she was wearing was his shirt. It was the only thing keeping her from being naked.
"I should kill you," she whispered, standing beside him and staring into the pink flames.
"Then why don't you."
"I don't know." He watched as she walked over to the bed. The room was gloomy, a dusty candle on the overused bed stand. A dark painting hung above the bed showing a mountain scene, but the varnish was so aged that one had to nearly press ones nose against it to make out the picture. His eyes focused on the bed. There was only one bed and Ginny sat on the edge, looking up at him expectantly, her hair wet and making the shoulders of the shirt damp.
"Why did you take me?" she asked innocently, her eyes wide and making her look much younger than she was.
"I don't have to answer that." Draco tried his best to keep his voice even.
"I suppose you don't. Are you going to let me go?"
"Why would I? I went through so much to get you out."
"You went through so much!" Draco sighed and walked over to the bed. He picked up his sweater and pulled it over his head. The wool scratched his chest uncomfortably but he ignored it and picked up his invisibility cloak that was still damp. She watched as he went to the door and locked it before turning to her.
"I'll be back in the morning."
"You're not staying the night?" the words escaped her before she had thought about them, surprising both her and Draco.
"I will, if you like…"
"I most certainly do not," she said huffily. She pulled back the covers and settled in them, turning her back to them while listening for the sounds of him leaving. Instead she heard him put down the cloak and walk over to the bedside.. He stood for a very long moment before taking off his sweater and sitting on the side of the bed. Ginny stiffened, preparing to rear at him if he tried to join her in the bed. But the moment turned to minutes, and minutes turned into eternity, and during that time, the instinct to sleep overcame her instinct to fight and she relaxed drowsily. She barely noticed when a corner of the covers was pulled back and another form slipped in beside her. She steadied her breathing as an arm slipped around her middle securely and the form that carried the scent that saturated the shirt she wore snuggled warmly against her. Gently, a pair of lips pressed against the top notch of her spine.
~~~~~
When Ginny awoke the next morning it was to a dark, cold, empty room. An indent was left where her bedfellow had slept last night and when she rolled into it, she found it to be still warm and smelling like her bedfellow. The magical fire had been taken away and she wished it hadn't been, not only did it feel like the cold crept in every crack in the room, but she had like the dark pink flames.
She peeked her eyes over the edge of the covers. A faint light came in through the window, but more light shot through the cracks in the edges of the window, slashing across the room and hitting the opposite wall. To the left of the bed, a pile of ancient newspapers and books lay on the desk along with a withered quill and a half-empty bottle of ink. To her right, beyond the bed stand was the wall that concealed the bathroom. She reached for the candle that had been set on the table a long time ago and it lit at her touch. The room was still dark, but in the weak light she could see the wallpaper, though not faded, was peeling and so much dust had settled in the molded border at the edge of the ceiling that the recesses looked black.
She slipped out of the bed and hurried over to the fireplace, huddling into herself as if it would keep her warmer. The cloak she had left by the fire was now dry and she wrapped herself in it, finding it chilled from the air. Upon the dusty mantle, she found a stack of old parchment and beside the hearth a pile of logs and kindling so she spent the first hour happily busy lighting a fire using the candle on the bed stand.
Until her stomach reminded her that it was lunchtime and she hadn't had breakfast.
Then she abandoned her dirty pursuit and went into the adjacent bathroom. The sink looked like the only thing that had been cleaned or used in the past ten years. She stuck her head under the tap and drunk until her stomach was filled with water. The tub was dubiously clean and so she left the bathroom and wandered over to the desk. Sweeping dust off of the book covers, Ginny sifted through the newspaper, finally settling on a positively ancient novel that turned out to be as dry as its pages. Still shivering, despite her proximity to the fire, she changed out of Draco's shirt back into her thong and negligee, wearing the shirt over it for warmth and the cloak over that before she crept back into the bed that was now cold. She knew she looked ridiculous but who did she have to impress?
Memories from the past night flittered across her mind as she settled down to nap from sheer boredom. Draco Malfoy…she had hated him ever since she could remember…she had been kidnapped by him…she had fought back against him…she had been bullied and teased by him…she had stood up to him…she had kissed him…she had been closer to him than she had ever wanted to be…she had slept with him for an entire night…
It hadn't ever been like that with Dean or Micheal.
Maybe she wasn't scared because it was a relief to be away from it all, to be away from them all. They thought they knew her down to the smallest molecule. They thought they knew her better than she knew herself. And Draco hadn't tried to judge her yet. He hadn't tried to impose his opinions on her life. All he had done was taken her away from it all. That wasn't so bad. But she knew she could have gotten away if she had fought harder. Why hadn't she fought harder?
~~~~~
"Have you seen Ginny?" Harry asked Hermione once she had sat down to breakfast in the Great Hall, dropping her overloaded book bag on the ground.
"No, I assume she's still sleeping," she said, piling eggs onto her plate before leaning closer and adding in a lower voice, "she and Dean had a late night last night so I think we should let them sleep in."
"No they didn't," Harry said, slightly startled. "Dean didn't leave last night."
"I found a note from Dean about it. Besides, you don't know that," she challenged.
"I'm pretty sure I do."
"Is there room for me in this conversation," Ron said, sitting beside Hermione.
"Oh, we – we were just talking about…about…" Hermione stuttered.
"About Professor Trewlaney. I was telling her how much better it was without her," Harry finished. Ron squinted at Hermione critically, as if he could make her spill the truth by seeing her better, before accepting her answer and digging into her food.
"I'll check up on Ginny after breakfast," Hermione whispered once Ron was busy asking one of the Chasers if they knew when the next Quidditch practice was.
~~~~~
Dumbledore stared knowingly over his half-moon glasses as he watched Draco and Lucius Malfoy depart from Hogwarts in one of the horseless carriages, that chilly afternoon. He could tell Draco was embroiled in something he did not want to be a part of. But he didn't know what and he didn't know how to help Draco. Draco was like an iceberg; he was completely untouchable and if you did touch him, you went down.
Somehow, he had felt it necessary to let Ginny be kidnapped. He wasn't a diviner, but on occasion he could pick up certain trends and one of them was between the Malfoy males and the Weasley women, or the women that would become the Weasley women. If any force came in between them, altering the path that joined the families in hate, then their future would take a rocky, unpredictable course. It was best to let the smooth path preside and wait for the outcome without outer intervention. He didn't know how he knew that Ginny would be kidnapped by Draco, but the hatred was founded in an ancient magic that reverberated in the air around him. Ever since being bound to Hogwarts, he had felt any ancient force. He had become part of an ancient force and thus was the receptor of others.
Back in the carriage, Draco pressed his forehead to the cool glass.
"Sit up properly," his father barked and Draco commanded obediently. He had been trained long ago to be an obedient puppy. "This will leave you off at the platform. I expect you to get the girl and take her to the manor. I will send the carriage at around 7 tonight. Be ready."
Without so much as a farewell, his father apparated with a crack, startling the thestral into speeding down the drive and to the station to Hogwarts. By the time they had reached the platform, the thestral had calmed and Draco hurried out of the carriage, dragging his trunk behind him. He made his way to the inn, the residents of Hogsmeade taking no notice in him. The innkeeper was not at his post and so Draco slipped in unnoticed, hovering his trunk up the stairs and to his room.
Ginny was sleeping when he entered the room; he thought it amazing that she didn't wake up to the creaking of the door. She looked positively angelic, her even breathing raising and lowering the bedspread. A lock of hair fell across her face and his fingers itched to tuck it back, to have some contact with her. Instead he turned away and rolled the trunk to the foot of the bed and opened. He had stolen a set of Hogwarts robes from the laundry and some food from the kitchens and he unpacked these, setting the robes at the foot of the bed and the food on the nightstand.
He noticed then that the clothes that had been spread on the chair in front of the fire had gone and a non-magical fire cracked in the hearth. The flames that licked the logs were becoming smaller and smaller and he tossed another log onto the fire before sitting down to watch her gentle breathing.
