Of Fire and Ice
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Yes, I'm back. :) After taking an EXTREMELY LONG vacation from this story, I have returned per request of Karen (ff.net user name is Pookabunny, go glomp her for me), whom I love dearly. If she hadn't told me she loved this story, I wouldn't have reposted it, and I wouldn't have remembered why exactly I love D/G so freaking much. ::slaps for Slappy:: you rock! Anyway, I have started another story for it, because I am changing it quite a bit. There is no real way to make it fit totally with canon, but I want to get it as close as possible. For first time readers, here's the scoop on da story: I started this fic around fall of 2002, which is scary for me to even think about. I had updated about 4 chapters of it, and gotten 67 reviews for it, when I just basically quit writing it. This happened in like, February. Anyway, Just three or four days ago I got up off my ass (ok, technically I didn't, I actually sat down on my ass, but you know what I mean) and reworked the entire first four chapters. And then I did the dreaded deed: I deleted the old story. Jeez, I hate myself for it still, but I'll get over it. Anyway, here you have it the new, improved, Of Fire and Ice. Enjoy.
A/N- This is in Ginny's POV, but that should be obvious. Draco/Ginny is not really my pairing, but I wrote a bit anyway and I like it. This is going to have to be AU fifth book, because quite frankly I wrote this before it came out and I don't want to take Fred and George out. Nothing drastically wrong with the story mind you, so just give yourself a wee break and pretend you haven't read OOtP yet, savvy?
D/C- This stands for every chapter I will write in this, I'm not really sure how many I'm gonna write. I do not own Ginny Weasley, Draco Malfoy, or any other character created by J.K. Rowling. Duh.
Chapter 1.
The Beginning
I was the flame in his darkness,
I suppose you could say.
People likened us to fire and ice.
I was his fire,
He was my ice.
Together we would form a barrier so formidable,
Even the darkest wizard would shy from it.
But we had no idea.
Day after day we lived at Hogwarts,
Each ignoring the other,
Both of us blissfully oblivious to the tidal wave of occurrences
That were swirling around us to fit into a living puzzle.
A puzzle that,
In the end,
Would be missing just one piece
That piece was us.
Little did we know how far some were willing to go,
Just to fill in that empty space.
This is the story of how the place was filled,
Or wasn't.
This is the story of how we found where we fit into the world,
As well as each other's hearts.
This is the story,
Of Fire and Ice.
(~*~) (~*~) (~*~)
I twisted a piece of long red hair around my finger and stared intently down at the ground, tracing an invisible pattern in the hard wood floor with my foot. On either side of me stood Fred and George. Both looked rather guilty. I suppose I did too.
It wasn't like we MEANT to give Snape purple warts that evidently felt like staying until kingdom come. Its not like we MEANT to turn every single robe in his wardrobe pink with daffodils, so that he had to borrow some of Flitwicks, which, needless to say, were not his size. And it wasn't like we MEANT to cover the dungeon walls with lilac scented slime.
Ok, so maybe we did. But who says he didn't deserve it? He did. But the teachers, with their diuturnal love for rules and the enforcing of rules, held their bias at bay so they could make an appropriate punishment for a long asked for crime without giving in halfway through. The truth is, I think, that Snape has asked for every prank ever played on him, and Dumbledore knows it. But that is not the point.
Professor Dumbledore swept into the small waiting room of his office. He looked reprovingly at us.
"Misters and Miss Weasley." He said in his low, rumbling voice. "Could you be so kind as to step into my office? Professor Snape seems not to trust you in his own."
"Can't imagine why." Fred mumbled under his breath, amused greatly with this whole predicament. He's been in worse ones.
"I'll pretend I didn't hear that, Mr. Weasley. Now please, step in and have a seat, all of you." The professor opened the door with a flourish and herded us three into his private office, and shut the door.
We each took a chair and looked around the room. At the same time, our eyes all landed on a figure that, under other conditions, would have had us rolling on the ground in bursts of crazy laughter. It was, of course, Snape. But he looked slightly changed from a couple days ago. His long greasy hair was covering his face, obviously attempting to hide the warts, which were turning a cheery shade of lavender. He was scrunched down in his chair, trying to make the tiny robes cover as much of his body as was possible. There wasn't much covered in the end. And he smelled faintly of lilac. I assure you this was an improvement to his original smell.
We all looked down in our laps, stifling our laughter in spasms of loud coughing. Dumbledore looked upon us in slight amusement.
"Horrible colds you have there. Would you like a drink of water?" he asked us, unable to hide the sparkle in his eyes.
Finally, regaining some self-control, I answered. "No sir, we're fine, thank you."
"Well we can turn to the subject at hand, then. It seems that Professor Snape has a complaint of you. Would you like to take over from here, Severus, or shall I continue?"
Snape mumbled a small "No sir, you may keep going" which caused us more spasms of coughing.
Dumbledore continued. "It seems that someone has given our professor a rather large case of cursed warts, along with a slightly too tight wardrobe, and the strange gift he has to fill any room he enters with a very distinct and lasting aroma." Dumbledore surveyed us over his moon shaped spectacles. "You three have been accused of this crime. Would you like to defend yourselves, or just take the punishment for cursing a staff member?"
"Well, you see sir," Fred began. "It-…"
I interrupted him. "It was all in good humor, but I guess we went a little far, and we're willing to take the punishment." Fred looked at me flabbergasted, and George looked quite the same way. I silenced them with one of my glares.
Dumbledore smiled down at this little scene. "Very well, since you admitted to the crime, I will only give you three detentions a piece, and 50 points from Gryffindor."
Fred turned his flabbergasted look from me to Dumbledore. "W-w-hat?" George joined in. "It was just a little joke!"
Suddenly, Snape broke in. "Joke my -" he broke off and looked apologetically at Dumbledore. "F-foot." He regained his composure and continued. "You three have asking for trouble for years! Always playing pranks in my class, pulling jokes in the halls. Well I tell you I've had it! I will not see any more of this behavior. If I were the headmaster, you would all be EXPELLED!" he ended his outburst in a shout, and we all cowered in our chairs at the very angry Snape. With or without the purple warts, he made the most imposing figure I had ever seen. "Now." He added, slightly calmer, although a vein in his forehead still throbbed dangerously. "If you would continue, Professor."
Dumbledore, having regained his speech after the very strange outburst from the professor, turned to us three. "And now, will give you your detentions." Fred groaned loudly, not even attempting to hide it. Dumbledore ignored him and went on. "Fred, you will be having detention in the greenhouses." He groaned again. "George, you will be in the trophy room, with Mister Filch. And Miss Weasley, I believe you have been assigned to Professor McGonagall. She will tell you what to do when you report to her classroom in after you leave here. Your detentions will begin today and continue until Wednesday. And fifty points have been taken from Gryffindor. I hope to never see such behavior from my students again. You are all dismissed."
Slowly, we all got up and pushed our chairs back. Nodding to the Headmaster and Professor, we left the room as fast as we could. I, being the good student that I was, was in shock. "THREE DETENTIONS!" I shouted at the twins, who were also looking rather shocked. "AND 50 HOUSE POINTS?? DO YOU KNOW HOW THAT WILL LOOK ON MY RECORDS?"
"Whoa, chill Gin, people are looking at you. Plus you have a perfect record as it is, and this wasn't that bad of a prank… just a couple purple warts…"
I rolled my eyes. They wouldn't understand, many people believe they came out of the womb with a bad record. I sighed. "Well, I'll be heading to [i]detention[/i] now…" I turned the corner and began down the long hallway toward the Transfigurations classroom. "Don't get in more trouble or I'll owl mom!" I hollered to Fred and George right before they were out of sight. I could almost see George roll his eyes.
Sighing, I walked into the classroom. "Professor McGonagall!" I said as I entered the class. "I'm here for-" I broke off as I saw a flash of platinum blond out of the corner of my eye. I turned and came face to face with Draco Malfoy.
"Um." I said, for lack of anything better. I really didn't know Malfoy that well, but for all Ron ranted about him, I knew I should stay as far away from him as possible. "You're... here for detention also?"
He put on his trademark smirk. "Yeah, I am. I'm surprised you are though, Weasel. I thought you were the perfect one."
I glowered at this comment. I hated being perfect, and always thought of that way. And here was some 5th year, who didn't even know me, making fun of it.
"I see I've hit a nerve, Weasel." He smirked again. This smirk of his was getting annoying.
I chose to say nothing. If I ignored him, he'd stop. At least, most people would. But I didn't know Malfoy.
"I see your Dad bought you a new robe." He commented, looking down at my old tattered robe. "Did he finally win the lottery? Of course, I'm surprised he had enough money to even buy a ticket in the first place."
My glower deepened into a venomous look of hatred. Saying the first thing that came to my mind, I spat out "At least my dad loves me!" thinking of the evil elder Malfoy. How could that man love anyone?
This time I saw a flicker in his eyes. "You don't know what you're talking about, Muggle Lover."
And I swear I would have punched his face out if McGonagall hadn't walked in at that exact second. Seeing the looked of disgust that both Malfoy and I had on our faces, she sighed and muttered to herself, "and what do you think you've gotten yourself into now, Minerva?"
She sighed again, set down her books, and walked over to us. "Miss. Weasley and Mr. Malfoy, I have both of you for three days, and". That's all I heard, because at that moment the only thing I could think was "I have to spend three days of detention with that?" I image he was thinking something quite along the same lines.
She continued. "…Over this period, you will be cleaning two of the classrooms in this wing, and because of Miss Weasley, you will also be cleaning the potions dungeon. There are supplies in this closet," she opened up a closet to her left, "And you will be cleaning one room a night. I will be back in three hours, and I want to see this room spotless. Any fighting, and you two will be sentenced to 4 more days of detention together. Is that understood?"
"Yes Ma'am." We both mumbled.
"Good. I will be leaving now." With that, she picked up her books and swept out of the classroom.
For a few minutes, all we did was look at the cleaning supplies, and then disdainfully at each other. Finally, I walked over to the closet and grabbed a mop. "We might as well get started." I said.
Draco didn't respond. He tentatively leaned over and picked up a broom. I began to work, conjuring a bucket of water and beginning to scrub a corner of the room. But Draco just stood where he was, looking with skepticism at the broom. After awhile, I stopped and leaned on my mop. It was my turn to smirk now.
"You've never cleaned before, have you?" I asked, a grin tugging at the corners of my mouth.
"Well, no! It's a job for houselves! Not people!"
I chuckled. "Welcome to the real world, Draco." I paused and then asked, "Well?"
"Well what?"
"Well, are you gonna start, or am I gonna do the work by myself? Or," I asked, letting the grin take over my face, "Or am I gonna have to teach you how to use a broom?"
Draco flushed red, with anger or embarrassment I wasn't sure. "Like I need you to tell ME what to do, Weasel." he spat.
I rolled my eyes. "Suit yourself, but I'll be sure to inform McGonagall exactly HOW much you accomplished tonight."
Without saying a word, but with a very dirty look, he handed me the broom. "First thing, you hold the broom bristles down." I pointed out, trying hard not to laugh. I handed the broom to him, and he held it awkwardly. I figured I was getting somewhere, because it was bristles down now. "Now," I said, "Go to the other side of the room, and start sweeping the dirt into little piles."
I couldn't help but laugh at the face he had on. "What?" I asked. "Have I grown two heads? Or is this work really too hard for the ickle Malfoy?"
He glared at me and went to the other side of the room, sweeping the dirt into piles. I continued scrubbing, and then moved on to removing burn spots from the desks. I looked up at Malfoy once in awhile, and he was actually doing it right. Once he finished putting the dirt in piles, he wordlessly went to the closet and pulled out a duster and began to clean up the piles.
Together, we tackled the desks and the chairs, but all without saying a word to each other. We finally finished everything five minutes before McGonagall got back. As we put away the cleaning things, I looked closely at Draco's face. He had piercing blue eyes, and relatively high cheekbones. His lips weren't smiling, but they weren't smirking either. As I looked at him from up close, I got the impression of a serpent, especially with his long skinny face. Every time I looked at him though, my eyes were drawn again and again to his own.
They were cold, emotionless, and unforgiving. Like ice.
Malfoy's voice broke into my thoughts. "So what did you do, Miss. Perfect?", he asked, sneering.
I glared at him. "What are you talking about?" I asked, keeping my voice level.
He rolled his eyes. "To get detention, idiot. God, you're about as smart as your brother."
I glowered at him and didn't answer.
"Answer me." He said quietly. I got the distinct feeling he was not used to being defied.
"Like I want to talk to you ferret boy." I replied, turning away from him and facing the other direction.
I heard a low growl and a hand roughly grabbed the neck of my robes. Forcing me back around, Malfoy looked straight into my eyes, his own little slits on his face as he contained his anger. He reached up his other hand, and for one heart stopping second I thought he was going to hit me. But he seemed to change his mind. Instead he let me go and pushed me away. "You're not worth it." I heard him mutter.
For that I surely would have hit him, if McGonagall hadn't walked to the room that exact second.
"Saved by the teacher again, Malfoy." I thought to myself. Next time, I promised, he wouldn't be so lucky.
A/N- ::cough:: Yar, I changed quite a bit... not. Well, I definitely changed Malfoy. This guy is gonna be tough to break, I can tell you all that.
And for the record, "diuturnal" IS really a word. I mean it. It means lasting for a long duration of time. Therefore when I said the teachers have a diuturnal love of rules, I meant they had a long lasting need to put people in detention. Basically.
Oh yes, and to anyone who caught the innuendo about the broom ::cough::ALEX::cough:: that wasn't intended, but I'm leaving it there because I find it amusing. Yes, I am perverted. Shut up.
Also, if anyone caught any UBBC code (ie, [i], [b], whatever) please tell me. I posted this first in the fanfiction boards on , so the codes worked there, but will not here.
Xoxo,
Pickle
