Disclaimer: I don't own anything but the idea (which I think is original, but ya never know). Anywho, the whole kitten-caboodle belongs to J. K. Rowling.

Chapter 2: Letter of Immense Amusement

As Healer Kelley so lovingly put it, Draco was a 'special case', which apparently meant that Ginny had to spend most of her time with him. She was the only nurse assigned to him, and Draco seemed to be a particularly needy patient.

"Hey there, Irish." Draco said happily, smiling at a disgruntled Ginny from his hospital bed.

"What do you want this time, Malfoy?" She asked, getting rather sick of him trigger happy finger. Healer Kelley had given Draco a button that, when he pushed it, a small beeper that Ginny was forced to carry around would vibrate, telling her that Draco yet again needed her assistance with something.

"My arm hurts." He stated plainly.

"How... nice for you...?" Ginny said, raising her eyebrows.

"I can't cut my food." Draco said, smirking as he nodded toward the beef and mashed potatoes in front of him. Ginny growled, but obeyed, not wanting to give Kelley more to yell at her about.

"You're really pathetic, you know that?" Ginny hissed, seizing his fork and knife and savagely cutting the meat.

"Yes, actually I do." Draco said, making Ginny cut with even more vigor. "Jesus Irish, what do you have against my food?"

"It's not the food I have a problem with." Ginny muttered angrily. "It's the person consuming it."

"So you feel the need to mutilate my food?" Draco asked. Ginny sighed loudly and slowed down her pace.

"Happy?" Ginny asked acidly.

"Smaller pieces." Draco said, smiling as Ginny let out a low growl. "And add salt to the potatoes."

Ginny seized the salt shaker and purposefully missed the potatoes, scattering salt over the open cuts on Draco's nearby hand.

Draco swore loudly and snatched his hand away, muttering, "Classy, real classy."

Healer Kelley had basically cut Ginny off from all of her other patients, leaving her only with Draco. So, after a few days of trying, and failing, to get 'alone time' in the nurse's lounge, Ginny just sat in Draco's room, waiting for him to bug her once again with some miniscule problem.

"Whatcha got there, Irish?" Draco asked after a few minutes of silence.

"Nothing." Ginny sighed, shoving the letter she was reading in her pocket and fixing Draco with a glare. "Do you want something?"

"Yea," He said, almost as an afterthought. "Could you come here and fix my pillow for me?"

Ginny rolled her eyes, hating her job more and more by the day. She knew that Draco knew that he was perfectly capable of most of the things he asked her to do. He had only a broken leg and some strange spell put on his ribs. It was a rare curse that the healers were still trying to find a cure for where, every time he moved his spine the ribs would turn inward. He nearly punctured a lung when he tried to fix the blankets around his legs. That was mainly the reason why he was still at St. Mungo's.

Ginny reached over to fix Draco's pillow, making sure to 'accidentally' knock his head with her hand as she did so. Before she knew what was happening, Draco had leaned forward and snatched the note Ginny had hastily put away out of her pocket.

Draco let out a stifled cry of pain and clutched his stomach, all the while keeping the note out of Ginny's reach.

"That hurt like hell, but it was totally worth it." He said, rubbing his ribs.

"I hope you stabbed yourself in the kidney." Ginny muttered angrily, crossing her arms and getting ready for he mocking to begin.

"So, what do we have here..." Draco said slyly, opening up the note. His eyes got big as he started to read it, and a smirk began to form on his face.

"A love note?" Draco scoffed. "From Potter no doubt."

"So what if it is?" Ginny asked, feeling her face go red.

"It's just a bit predictable, that's all." Draco said, seeming more interested in the note then in their conversation. Ginny tried, unsuccessfully, to distract him with miniscule insults. But Draco responded by reading the letter out loud.

"'My love,'" Draco started mockingly, making Ginny sink down further in the chair she had pulled up beside his bed. Draco made a kind of muttering noise, skipping over the parts he didn't seem to find insult-worthy. "'You're amazing,' blah blah blah. 'I wish I was with you,' yadda yadda... 'Your eyes,'" He began dramatically. "'are like two bright emeralds that are always happy—"

Draco stopped suddenly, a thoughtful look on his face as he leaned over, only wincing slightly, to look into Ginny's eyes. For some strange reason, and almost to Ginny's horror, she found herself short of breath.

"First of all," Draco started softly, never loosing eye contact with Ginny. "Your eyes are brown."

"Oh," Ginny said, flushing as she looked at the ground and Draco leaned back against his pillow again. "Well, he has other things on his mind... and, he hasn't seen me in a while..."

"Right," Draco said, the smirk back on his face as he returned to the letter. "Well, at least he got your hair color right. Though," he added, glancing up at Ginny before peering back down at the letter. "I'm not sure if I would describe it as 'a symbol of the fiery love for you in my heart.'"

"That's because you're not romantic." Ginny said stiffly, finally grabbing the letter and putting it in her back pocket.

"Is that so?" Draco asked, raising a single eyebrow as he crossed his arms. "So you find this constant, sappy rambling romantic, do you?"

"It's not as idiotic as you paint it out to be." Ginny said, almost defensively.

"Enlighten me." Draco said calmly.

"It doesn't have to be a long, elegant poem with lines and lines of descriptive, rhyming words." Ginny said stuffily. "I just find it so romantic to receive a letter from someone I love, telling me how much they adore me."

"So it's purely egotistical." Draco said knowingly, smirking when Ginny fixed him with a glare. "Couldn't you two just go fuck in the woods or something?"

"How is that romantic?" Ginny asked with a hint of disgust.

"You don't find sex romantic?" Draco asked, sincerely shocked.

"I guess sex is just more of a visceral experience for me." She said honestly.

"So shagging like a couple of dogs doesn't woo you?" Draco smirked.

"This conversation is over." Ginny said, hiding a grin as she left to go burn her letter from Harry. Just in case.

After this rather interesting conversation, Ginny felt a bit more open toward Draco. They continued to have conversation such as these, often dripping with sarcasm and mockery, and occasionally turning into a fight where insult were thrown back and forth until Ginny got up and left in a huff. Oddly enough, these fights always seemed to be started by Ginny, or was she imagining it?

"Hey there, Irish." Draco said happily, a few days after a particularly horrible fight. "Long time no see."

"It's always been my opinion that evasion solves most problems." Ginny said, not being able to help it as a tiny smile adorned her face. "What do you want this time?"

"The presence of your company?" Draco said unconvincingly. Ginny raised her eyebrows and crossed her arms impatiently. Draco sighed, saying with defeat, "My foot itches."

"You're pathetic." Ginny said, rolling her eyes.

"I'm saving the healers a trip out here to repair my lungs." Draco said defensively, gingerly rubbing his cursed ribs.

Ginny, throwing her dignity and pride out the window, bent over and scratched Malfoy's smelly foot.

"You need a shower." Ginny commented, crinkling her nose as she continued her 'job'.

"How about a sponge bath?" Draco said, wagging his eyebrows.

"Go fuck yourself." Ginny muttered, wiping her hands on her scrubs with disgust as she pulled the blanket back over Draco's foot and sitting down in her usual chair.

"Snippy snippy, Ms. Virginia." He said, shaking his head innocently.

"That's not my name." Ginny said.

"So you do prefer 'Irish'!" Draco said victoriously.

"No," Ginny laughed. "My full name isn't Virginia. It's Ginevra."

"What kind of a name's Ginevra?" Draco scoffed.

"It's the kind of a name that someone named 'Draco' is in no position to question." Ginny said haughtily.

"Ginevra, huh?" Draco said, seeming to roll the name over in his head.

"Here come the sarcastic comments..." Ginny sighed.

"No, honestly, it's a lovely name," Draco said. Ginny wasn't sure if he was joking or not. "It's just... it's so unusual."

"And Draco's the most common name in the world?" She asked angrily.

"Well, compared to the rest of your family, your name sticks out like a sore thumb."

"Excuse me?"

"I mean, come on; 'These are my children, Fred, George, Ron, and Ginevra.' Is that why they called you Ginny? Trying to make you sound more normal, are they?" Draco asked seriously.

"Why do you insist on mocking me?" Ginny asked angrily.

"I'm not mocking, just asking." Draco said, shrugging his shoulders. "But, honestly, Ginevra is a very nice name."

"Sure." Ginny said sarcastically.

"No, seriously!" Draco said, suddenly feeling the need to prove his true feelings. "There's even a painting with that name; Ginevra de Benci by Leonardo da Vinci."

"I didn't know you knew anything about Muggle art." Ginny said, sounding mildly interested.

"Much to my father's disgust." Draco added. "He wouldn't allow anything muggle related into his house. So I have my own little art collection in a cottage in the country. It's the only place I can go where no one will find me."

"Really? A cottage in the country?" Ginny asked, raising her eyebrows in interest.

"Pretty hot, huh?" Draco said, wagging his eyebrows lazily. "I betcha wanna shag me now, don't you?"

Ginny rolled her eyes, but the smile never left her face.

Ha ha! I made it! It's Friday—albiet, late Friday—and I posted on time! Woo-hoo! Anyways, here are the thank yous to all of my lovely, lovely reviewers whom all totally rock my socks. In the words of Wayne and Garth from Wayne's World: I'm not worthy! I'm not worthy!

Blatant Discontent: heehee, where do I come up with this stuff? Well, it's exceptionally easy when you have a brilliant mind, such as myself... ahem ok, the honest answer is—I have no idea. Most of my stuff I can credit to Friends, South Park, or (especially in this chapter) Igby Goes Down. But as for 'Irish', I have no freakin' clue where that came from. Alas, perhaps we will all never know...

DarkFlower2113: ha ha, I have proved you wrong once again!... or—well—once, at least. There is no way I will drop this fic—it's my baby! It's my itty bitty baby girl... or... something. And if I'm lying, may God, Zeus, or whoever the hell is up there strike me down!... or, ya know, make me stub my toe or something...

WiDz: I did! Woot! I swear on my Harry Potter books that I will update every Friday till...ya know...it's finished or something...

purus.flere: oooo, cool name. Sorry, I'm kinda obsessed with neat-o names (which isn't very obvious when you look at my own name. What can I say, I'm not exactly creative). I think the obsession began when I started looking up the meaning for all of the HP characters freaky names. The sad thing is is that I'm probably going to go looking for what your name means or something once I post this...my life is rather sad...

fcuking cathy: heehee. Your name makes me laugh. I love the fcuk brand. They have a perfume called Scent to Bed, and my friend has a shirt that says 'Lucky Fcuk.' The teachers got so pissed off... strange things make me laugh...

Merit Somnia: Aw, hoorah! I have a devotee! That makes me happy. Though, I've been looking over some of my old fics, and I must say, I must have been smoking something strong to think that that crap was good. Nearly every freakin' fic ends with an engagement—and they're only 17!!! And, I mean, can you say OOC? Le sigh, hopefully this fic is better.

Stompy-Sanji: Aw, thanks so much! I promise to read your story as soon as I find the time. Probably in, like, six days once I'm freed from the burden of the dreaded Driving Class. I really don't think that I need to endure 24 freakin' hours of this class just to learn how to drive a car. Grrr....

Herbie: Oh no! Poor Herbie!!! School affects all of us, and strikes fear into the hearts of even the smallest of hearts. ::sigh:: I am one of the fortunate ones who doesn't have to start school till Aug. 30. Boo-ya!!!... sorry. That was inconsiderate. I shouldn't have put so many exclamation points. One would suffice. Anyways, stay strong my friend, it'll all be over in, like, 9 more months of hell left!

Lauren: heehee, thanks! I promise to update every Friday—as I've explained to both WiDz and DarkFlower2113 using Harry Potter books to swear upon and both God and Zues to smite me down if I don't update. Yea, it'd make a lot more sense if you were inside my head right now...

save the squirrels: heehee, I know, I kinda felt sorry for Harry too—cause it's obvious that, seeing as this is both a romance and a fic written by me, Draco and Ginny are going to fall in love. But, never fear, I show what happens to Harry in the last chapter.

Actrez: lol, I just got finished talking to you for an hour. Isn't it such a small world? Heehee, did you notice where I got the knickers-in-a-twist line from? 10 Things I Hate About You!!! Except I British-ized it. Yes, British-ized. It's a word. Maybe more of a hybrid-word—but still a word!

Straycat: haha, I would looooooove to kill Kelley. I would love it so much I'd marry it. Unfortunately, I'm a newly converted Hindu and have decided to follow the non-violent example of Mahatma Gandhi... ok, honestly? I think he's fun to write and I'm too busy watching Wayne's World over and over to take the time to think of a creative way to kill him. Heehee, oh well.

If you want me to e-mail you when I update, just give me you e-mail address in the review and I'd be happy to do it :)

A/N: Ok, I must confess, I had help with some of this stuff. The line about sex being a visceral experience for Ginny was a modification of a line from Igby Goes Down. Also the line, "It's the kind of a name that someone named 'Draco' is in no position to question," is straight from Igby Goes Down (with a name change). I must confess, I love that movie! You must all go rent it.