Author's Note: Yes, Chapter 4 has arrived. Draco-Ginny interaction, and some inebriation. Que divertido! Please, I am groveling at your cyber feet! Read and review, but mostly, read and enjoy. That is my main goal. Have fun, and if you can, let me know how you like it!
Disclaimer: Not mine. Duh. Same as the last three chapters, more or less. If you don't recognize it from the books, it's mine.
Puffy Red Eyes
Chapter 4: Emptying Whiskey Bottles/Stomachs
Draco stood with his back against the wall, watching Ginny Weasley slip further and further away from him.
Turning back to his tea, he bit his lower lip. Why had he just snogged Ginny Weasley? The question kept reverberating in his mind, driving him mad.
Who did she think she was, trying to be his girl? She was a dammned Weasley. She wasn't fit to clean his socks. He hated everything about her. From her impoverished family to her stupid brother, to those ridiculously innocent eyes, down to the raggedy clothes she wore.
She did have a logical reason. Draco's eyes darkened significantly. Stupid Potter. He was the reason. Draco had half a mind to ignore the little brat. Why had he agreed to take a part in her naïve attempt to grab Potter back?
That was at least one question Draco could answer, thought he didn't like it. Those eyes. She'd given him one baleful look with those sad brown eyes, and all reasoning left him. He'd even kissed her! She had to go, she had far too much control over him.
No! He thought. No one has control over me, I'm Draco fucking Malfoy! I control people, people bow down to me, people are scared of me…
Draco's thoughts were still on Weasley when Crabbe and Goyle walked (limped, actually) up. They flopped into two vacant chairs next to Draco, fuming.
Draco took in Crabbe's pained look and bloody wrist.
"What happened to you two?" He asked, in his usual Draco sneer.
Crabbe glared at him from beneath his brows.
Goyle looked nervously from Draco to Crabbe.
"That skinny little Weasley bitch ran into Crabbe. We was gonna teach her a lesson, but…" he trailed off, staring at Crabbe for support.
Crabbe merely scowled. "We pushed her into a corner, just to scare her. The little weasel kicked me in the knee and half-buried her nails in my wrist." He said, holding out the offending limb, which was still dripping with blood.
Draco refrained from smirking and turned to face Goyle.
"And you?" He drawled lazily.
Goyle had the decency to flush. "Well, she…uh…got loose from Crabbe, and kicked me…or kicked my feet out from under me." He looked down, ashamed of himself.
Draco found it difficult to suppress a snigger, giving Weasley a mental hand-shake. Good job, weasel, he thought.
Crabbe brought him back to reality. "What are we going to do?" He asked, his question directed at Malfoy.
Draco arched one thin blonde eyebrow. "Do? Why should we do anything?"
Crabbe shot Goyle a confused look. "Aren't we gonna do something to her? Scare her? Scuff her up? Beat her?"
Something Weasley had said earlier flashed through Draco's mind. "You'd beat up a girl smaller than you?" He asked, mercury eyes flashing.
Crabbe shrank back, astonished.
"She deserves it! She made me bleed!" Crabbe shouted.
Draco snarled at him. No way he was telling these goons he was supposedly "dating" the little rat. Some other time, perhaps.
"The weasel and I are engaged in a business proposition, which requires an equal effort on both sides, so obviously, I need her to be on amiable terms with me, and having two of my acquaintances 'scuff her up' as you put it so eloquently, would not be very beneficial to our arrangement, now would it?" He said, his teeth clenched, not quite sure why he was sticking up for Weasley against his two closest acquaintances. He didn't like the annoying brat, he didn't have anything but scorn for her and her family.
Stupid, poor, filthy, Muggle-loving twits, the lot of them.
Goyle looked at Crabbe, and shrugged, appeased by the variety of words too large for their pea-sized brains to process.
Standing up abruptly, Draco flung some money on the table, and stalked off.
Goyle and Crabbe exchanged a puzzled glance, and followed suit, They'd deal with the rat in due time.
Jenna was staring intently at Ginny from her spot on the floor as the latter struggled to describe the kiss she'd shared with Malfoy.
"Wait 'til I tell your brother you kissed ferret-face!" Jenna laughed.
Ginny sat up from where she'd been reclining on the floor next to her friend. "No, no way, Jenna, you can't! You can't tell Ron, you can't tell anyone!"
Jenna pouted prettily. "Why not?"
Ginny rolled her eyes again. "If Ron found out that Malfoy had kissed me, what do you think he would do?"
Jenna pretended to think, looking very much like Goyle when someone asked him a simple question.
"He'd kill Malfoy."
"Exactly. And while that wouldn't be too much of a tragedy, I don't want my brother rotting away in Azkaban for a rotten git like Malfoy." Ginny said, looking pleadingly at Jenna, her eyes large and sad.
Jenna glanced away from those eyes, but she seemed drawn to them. "Ah! Alright, alright! I give, just don't look at me with those huge puppy eyes!" She pretended to frown disapprovingly.
Ginny grinned back at her. "Works every time."
Jenna glared at her, and her stomach rumbled. Placing a hand over it, she rubbed it hungrily. "Get your bum off the floor, we're going to get some ice-cream!" She said, standing stiffly from sitting on the floor for so long.
Ginny's eyes lit up. "Ice-cream!" She squealed. Her sweet-tooth was somewhat of a laughing matter between the two girls.
Jenna nodded as she pulled on an overcoat. "Put a sweater on, it's cold out."
Ginny smiled, pulling a black hooded sweatshirt on over her head. "It's not fair. Your parents let you go wherever you want, and they don't care. You have so much freedom, you have no idea how bloody lucky you are." She smoothed out her hair.
Jenna stopped smiling. "No, I'm not. My parents aren't even home. They're too busy half of the time having huge dinners and costly parties. They don't have time to notice me."
She sat down on her black office chair. Ginny kneeled next to her, looking apologetic.
"Oh, Jen, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that. Your parents love you, and they do all of this for you, they do. I didn't mean to-"
Jenna smiled at her reassuringly and cut her off. "Thanks, Gin, but don't indulge me with a Jenna pity-party." She wiped away the tears that had been forming in her golden eyes.
Ginny tugged gently on her shirt. "Come on, girl, we need to get you some ice-cream."
Later that night, Draco staggered into his room, finding it difficult to walk in a straight line. His bad mood (thanks to Weasley) had gotten worse when he had come home to his mother's note saying she had to leave for France for a few weeks.
His mood was made worse by his mother's stash of alcohol left in plain sight.
Collapsing on his bed, he briefly wondered why his mother had left her precious bottles out, before feeling a sickening pull in his abdomen.
Shit. He ran to the bathroom, heaving insanely.
"Ginny, what's the matter? You look as pale as a ghost." Jenna cried, touching her friend's arm worriedly.
Ginny felt sick to her stomach, and nausea was subduing her rapidly. Her ears were ring, and her cheeks felt feverish. "I don't feel too great, Jen. I'm just going to run to the loo for a second." She said, pulling herself from the seat.
Ginny had barely managed to lock the door when she began to retch, her body shaking with the force of her sickness. What the hell? She held her head over the toilet, one hand keeping her red curls out of the danger zone, and emptied her stomach.
After several minutes, Ginny exhaled slowly. Whatever it had been, the mysterious sickness had passed, thankfully.
Ginny reached over and pulled some toilet tissue from the roll. Wiping her mouth with the tissue paper, Ginny flushed the toilet and stumbled over to the sink. She wet a paper towel under the faucet, drenching it with cold water. She lifted the cool rag to her forehead, then pulled it across her cheeks, and along her jawline.
She stared into the mirror, and the eyes of Draco Malfoy.
Startled, Ginny jumped back away from the mirror as one would from a poisonous snake. It was now reflecting her face, how it should appear now, pale and shocked.
Stepping tentatively towards the mirror, Ginny touched her face. Mirror-Ginny did the same. Ginny leaned back against the wall. Was that an illusion? Or did she just connect to Malfoy? Had she really seen him?
He'd looked very much in pain, and rather sick, as she did. His usually pale face was flushed with faint color, and was contorted in agony. His eyes were squeezed shut.
Ginny walked back to her table with a sense of foreboding. Should she tell Jenna? Back at the table, her friend had jumped up, and was holding a strange small piece of metal.
"Sorry, but we're going to have to cut this short. Mum just phoned me." She said, waiving the metal contraption at Ginny.
Muggle technology, she thought to herself.
"Apparently, my dad was just in touch with the icy Narcissa Malfoy. She had to leave for France or something suddenly, and wanted dad to check on ferret-face, you know, make sure he was still alive (not like she'd care is he wasn't). Unfortunately for us, dad can't make it right now, he's busy with another client, and mum's well…not a witch, so..."
She tossed some green strips of paper.
Ginny tore her gaze away from the strange currency called "dollars" used in the Muggle world to turn to Jenna. "Wait. You're dad knows the Malfoys?"
Jenna nodded her head as she ushered Ginny out of the ice-cream parlour. "Regretfully. He does business dealings with Lucius Malfoy."
Ginny turned to her friend as they stepped out onto the street. "Well, what can one say to that besides, I'm sorry?"
Back at Malfoy Manor, Draco was heaving over the silver basin in his private bathroom. Shit, he thought, his stomach twisting again.
Curse his mother, for leaving him alone like this.
Curse his father, for leaving period.
Curse the damn revolt on Voldemort, because thanks to his fall, house-elves got two days off a week, and vacations.
And of course, this would be the night the regular staff had off, and of course, the two other elves would have chosen this week for vacation.
DONG. Shit, Malfoy thought again. The front door-bell.
He was about to call for one of the house-elves before realizing that they were all gone.
Damnit. Wiping off his face with a green towel, he shakily got to his feet.
He took two wobbly steps, then fell to the floor with a thud.
Ginny and Jenna were standing outside Malfoy Manor, waiting for someone to answer the door, or rather, waiting for the customary elf to.
Jenna was tapping her foot impatiently. "Gods! I don't believe this! I don't have time to deal with Malfoy, I've got to watch over my next-door neighbor's kids in ten minutes.
She glanced exasperatedly at the door, willing it to open.
Ginny giggled at her friend. "Jenna, I know the way back to your place. Why don't you go ahead, and I'll wait a little longer to see if ferret-face is here. I won't be but a little while. He'll probably kick me out quickly, which is fine by me."
Jenna grinned gratefully at her red-headed friend. "Thanks Gin, you're the best." Tossing her long, black braids over her shoulder, Jenna disappeared down the street.
Ginny turned and rang the door bell once more. She waited another five minutes. Gods, Malfoy, get you smarmy ass down here.
She tried the elaborate silver door handle, and was surprised to find it was unlocked.
She stuck her head inside the house. It was dark and empty.
"Hello? Malfoy?" She called, her timid voice echoing in the cavernous hall. The roof seemed to stretch up into eternity, and was covered in snakes in various shades of green.
She nearly jumped out of her skin as she heard a dull, banding noise from somewhere right above her. It reminded her of the ghoul in her attic back at home.
Sighing, she located the staircase (rather hard to miss) and began to ascend the meticulously crafted marble stairs.
At the top, she found herself staring down a seemingly endless corridor with green carpeting and silver torches that threw eerie shadows across her path. Lined up on the wall in matching silver serpentine frames were paintings, presumably of Malfoy's pure-blooded ancestors.
Ginny stepped forward hesitantly. She nearly shrieked as an unearthly moaning sounded from behind the door on her left, followed by another thud.
Ginny was skittish now, and was shaking visibly. "M-malfoy?" She stammered.
Pushing the half-opened door open completely, Ginny stepped inside.
This had to be Malfoy's room. The huge four-poster bed denoted his Slytherin appreciation, decorated with green pillows with silver snakes embroidered in the top-left corners, and green hangings. The flag hanging over the darkened window was undeniably Slytherin, showing off the Slytherin mascot, the serpent.
Ginny followed the faint retching sound to a semi-closed door. "Malfoy?" She asked.
Draco suddenly stopped heaving. The pain and nausea stopped abruptly and inexplicably. "Weasley?" he croaked, recognizing her soft voice, and furious that it sent chills down his spine. Shouldn't she be making him sick, and not the other way around?
The door opened, and there, in the doorway, stood Ginny Weasley, looking very much like an angel, from her red curls to her scuffed converses. She looked, tired, and sick, however. Oddly enough, she looked as he felt. Her face was pale and drawn.
He was about to throw a snide remark at her when she caught sight of him.
"Draco!" she gasped, running to where he'd last crumbled to the floor. As she knelt beside him, his insides clenched, but not from nausea. She'd called him Draco. No one except his parents called him Draco, but somehow it sounded different coming from her.
When she said it, it wasn't a name she was spitting out like venom, or like it was a piece of trash. She'd said it warmly, and softly, her voice tinged with-concern? Angst?
He struggled to sit up. She wrapped an arm around his bag, helping him to sit up. The effort was too much for him, and he fell back against her chest, his head sliding down into her lap as she sat firmly on the ground.
He looked up at her as she placed a cool hand on his forehead. Her big brown doe eyes were wide with fright, her spare hand over her mouth.
"Sick, Weasley?" He growled.
Ginny swallowed. "Christ, Draco, what did you do to yourself?" She breathed, trying not to stare at his body (he was wearing a light black silk tank top) as she cradled his head in her lap, or stare into his steely eyes.
Draco laughed ironically, then grimaced.
"Wanted to know how it felt to get smashed." He grinned.
Ginny gasped, then rolled her eyes. "Smart, Malfoy, real smart. How much did you drink, then, eh?"
Draco shrugged. "Bottle." He mumbled.
Ginny's eyes widened. "You drank a whole fucking bottle?" She screamed.
Draco's head was pounding, and her screeching wasn't helping. "Shut it Weasley, or I might have to kiss you and do it myself. Couldn't wait to get your lips back on mine, could you?" He sneered.
Ginny resisted slapping him. "What did you drink?"
Draco's eyes crossed and uncrossed. "Uh…Ogden's Firewhiskey."
Ginny really did hit him that time.
Draco touched his reddening cheek, staring up at her. "What the hell Weasley, I've got a headache!" He grumbled, trying not to hit her back.
Ginny frowned down at him. "Are you insane?"
Draco shrugged, thinking of their earlier kiss. "Maybe." He leered, tugging at a red curl that had escaped and fallen down to her chest.
She frowned at him again, then started hefting him to a sitting position.
Draco jerked as her hands slid around his waist. "What do you think you're doing, Weasley?" He yelled, although he was rather glad she didn't let him go.
Ginny sighed. "I'm getting you to bed, Malfoy." She said simply.
Draco grinned drunkenly and reached up to tug at her sweatshirt. "That's fine with me, but you've still got far too many clothes on for bed."
Ginny nearly hit him again, and would have, had she not have gotten too far with pushing Malfoy up. "Pervert." She hissed, shrugging out of his grasp.
She stood up and grabbed him under the armpits. OK, girl, ready? One, two, three!
She yanked hard, lifting Malfoy up on his feet. "Steady?" She asked.
Draco's head was spinning. "Yeah."
"Good." Ginny said, moving around to his front as just in time to catch him as he pitched forward.
Draco couldn't help but grin at their compromising position. His head buried in Weasley's firm chest, he could feel her feminine warmth radiating from underneath her sweatshirt. He could smell her body lotion. Again, citrus. For a second, he wondered if her hair smelled like oranges again, and contemplated smelling it to find out.
Ginny had other problems. Draco was leaning on a very delicate spot, and Ginny found her cheeks flaming with embarrassment. She carefully pulled his torso up so that his head rested in the crook of her shoulder, his face buried in her hair. She wrapped an arm around his back and pulled him forward a few inches.
Straining, she turned to him. "A little help would be useful here, Draco."
Draco was enjoying the view enough as it was, but decided to comply.
"Wait." He said, as she stared lugging him back to his bed. He made a quick swipe at an open bottle of Madame Minimita's Magical Minty Mouthwash. He chucked his head back, emptying half the bottle as he swished a mouthful of strong-smelling peppermint liquid around in his mouth. With some difficulty he leaned over the sink and spat it out, wiping at his mouth with a green towel.
He licked his lips and inhaled sharply, sending a cool rush down his throat, expelling the unpleasant taste in his mouth. "Much better." He said, taking an awkward, lurching step.
Moving his feet sluggishly, he managed, with Ginny's help, to make it to his bed.
Ginny was breathing heavily by the time Draco was sitting on his bed.
Draco waggled his eyebrows at her. "Tired, and we've only made it to bed. Tsk, tsk, Weasley, what are you going to do to keep up with me once we actually get in bed?" He asked, suggestively.
Ginny turned away so he wouldn't see her face flush.
"Do you have any pain reliever, Malfoy?" She asked, looking around for a bottle of aspirin, or Madame Spruce's Perky Solution, both of which were equally effective.
Draco stared at her face. "Yeah. It's sitting on the edge of my bed." He said, looking meaningfully at her.
Ginny's mouth hung open.
That was too much for Draco.
He sat up suddenly, and slid his hand around the back of her neck, pulling her face to his. Ginny was too stunned to do anything but look at him. Malfoy nearly lost himself in her eyes, and the tiny gasp she let out was so enticing, he couldn't help but see what it tasted like.
He pressed his lips to hers, delighting in the moist warmth of her mouth.
Draco's eyes were shut in delight, and he was experiencing waves of heat rushing over him. She surrendered to him, and he pushed his tongue between her lips.
She gasped in surprise and joy at the same time, letting him explore her mouth thoroughly and timidly kissed back, tasting the cool, icy sweet taste of his mouth. A deep moan vibrated through her throat, and she could feel Draco smiling into her lips. Then she responded back, pressing her body against his.
Draco nearly bit off his own tongue in shock. So much for him being in control. Not that he minded, though. The experience was altogether a pleasurable one. Electricity washed through them, from one to the other. It was so amazing, he barely had time to acknowledge he was kissing Weasley…again.
He pulled her back onto the bed, and slid his hand under her sweatshirt, beginning to pull it up off her.
Ginny's eyes flew open. This was not where she wanted to go! Not with Draco. Not right now. She struggled to pull away from him. He looked up at her. He planted a kiss on her neck, and his hand moved back to her sweatshirt again.
Ginny pushed his hand away, trembling ferociously. "No!" She shouted, scrambling up from his bed, stopping five feet from it.
Her shoulders were shaking, and she wasn't sure how much longer she could remain standing.
Draco was staring at her back from the bed. Her body was trembling, out of control.
He stood up, made sure he wasn't going to fall, and walked over to where she stood, shaking. He put a hand on her shoulder, and she flinched.
He stared at her back with hatred.
"What is it? Do I repulse you? Does getting close to me make you sick? Is that it? Answer me Weasley, you scheming rat! You know what, you make ME sick. You and your pathetic Muggle-loving family. You're so poor and filthy it's an insult to my family's name that I even go to the same school as you. You're no better that the stupid Mudbloods like Granger. You don't belong with the other purebloods. You're a disgrace. You're nothing compared to me, you rotten wretch. Look around you! I'm Draco fucking Malfoy! Mine is everything you'll never have you little bitch!" He spat venomously, seething with rage.
Ginny didn't dare turn back to him. She was positive if she did, he wouldn't hesitate in hitting her, he sounded so furious. So this was who he was. Not five minutes ago he'd been tender and sweet, and now that his "plans" were ruined, he showed his true colors.
Ginny was shaking with suppressed agony. He was ripping her to shreds, and she couldn't gather her wits about her enough to throw something back at him.
"I'm sorry." She whispered, and she truly was, but she just wasn't ready.
She bolted for the door, not sure whether or not he'd heard her, nor really caring. She just wanted to get away. She flung open the door, tears prickling in her eyes and catching in her eyelashes, blurring her vision. She flew down the dark corridor, and stumbled down the stairs. With one glance back, she threw herself out the front door and ran.