Ginny's nerves were on end as she approached Hermione's office. The door
was closed but she could see more than one dark form behind the smoked
glass. She also felt guilt for lying and with holding knowledge of her
memory lapse from the former head girl, but she had to get the book. Draco
had told her to before he left for Greece a week ago.
Now here she stood before Hermione's office gathering all her Gryffindor courage to knock. She lifted her hand to knock when the door opened and she was looking up into the green eyes of Harry Potter. He seemed shocked as he stood motionless looking down at her.
"Harry." She said smiling nervously. 'Did they have to make this harder?' "That was a great game last week."
"I guess." Harry said scratching the back of his black head. He stepped to the side giving Ginny room to walk in.
Hermione was sitting behind her desk. Her brown curls pulled into a tight ponytail creating a sort of dome at the back of her head. It reminded Ginny of the short time in her sixth year when Dean Thomas had gone through his art stage. He grew his dark hair out, wore large sunshades, a red beret, and insisted on using words like 'dig it', 'daddy-o', and called everyone 'a cool cat.'"
"Hey Ginny." Hermione greeted the red head from behind her desk. "What can I do for you?"
"Oh." Ginny squeaked nervously rubbing the bottom of her light blue robes between her sweaty fingers. "I was wondering if I could borrow a book."
Hermione gave Ginny a questioning look. It was common knowledge Hermione didn't lend her books out and Ginny was quick to explain herself. She lied to Hermione telling her that she needed to borrow the book for further investigation of a deatheater.
"It's all for the better good." She smiled nervously.
Hermione was reluctant but Ginny pressed, proclaiming "I'll bring it back good as new."
Ginny let out a sigh of relief as Hermione climbed the sliding ladder. She pulled the red leather book from it's place and handed it to Ginny.
"Oh, deja vu." She said carefully placing her foot on each rung.
"Same cat or different cat?" Harry asked.
Both Hermione and Ginny looked at him puzzled. She sometimes did not understand Harry's strange since of humor. He mumbled something about his cousin's favorite movie .
Hermione shook her head as she stepped off the ladder. "It just feels like I've done this before." She finished sitting down in the brown chair behind her desk.
"Best not to tell Lavender. She'll swear it was from a past life." Harry chuckled from his chair. He was sitting slumped low in his chair, his long legs perching his worn out tennis shoes on Hermione's desk. The act reminded Ginny of someone but she couldn't remember who.
"Don't be ridiculous Harry." Hermione scolded, swiping at Harry's feet but with a Seeker's reflexes he pulled them from her reach, before positioning them again.
Hermione gave an exaggerated sigh and Ginny knew she was going to allow Harry to leave his dirty shoes where they were. "You know I don't nor will I ever believe in the preposterousness of reincarnation. All I was saying was it felt like I had done this before. You know what I mean. Don't you Ginny?" She asked addressing Ginny for the first time since she had sat down.
Ginny tried to stop the uncontrollable nervous fit of giggles but failed. "Yeah sure." She giggled, clutching the book to her chest and hating herself for never being able to lie properly.
Harry and Hermione were looking at her and Ginny was glad for once that Ron wasn't there. He would have known there was something wrong, that she was lying. Then he would have used that brilliant chess player mind of his and put two and two together. He would brand her a traitor for working for a Malfoy. Her father would be more disappointed in her than her first year and her brothers would disown her. Everyone would hate her forever.
Ginny knew she was being irrational but she felt as trapped as a caged pixie. Her brother's best friends observing her giggling self as if she were a grindylow in an aquarium. She had to get out of Hermione's office and she had to get out now.
"Look at the time." Ginny grinned pushing her robe and jumper sleeve back to reveal a bare wrist. "I have to go. Money is time. Time is money." She turned to Hermione. "Thanks for the book and I promise to bring it back. Good as new."
Ginny nearly ran out the door and down two stairwells to her office. Clasping the book to her chest and gasping for breath she collapsed against the closed door. Her two co-workers staring questioningly at her.
'Malfoy owes me big time.' She thought to herself.
~*~*~*~*~*~
While Ginny was collapsing against a door at the ministry, Draco was many countries away arguing with a purple robed wizard in a tiny hut outside of Sikourio.
"What do you mean you don't have it?!" Draco yelled standing up so he could tower over the gangly man. It was an intimidation tactic he learned from his father.
The man, Draco was asked to call Brutus, had just told him that he had sold the rare dagger Draco had traveled from London to buy.
"I mean I don't have it." The African-Asian wizard answered. His deep voice never wavering under the glare of the taller angrier man. Draco felt his jaw flinch as he ground his teeth, desperately attempting to control his temper. He had been refereed to Brutus after searching Knockturn Alley high and low for the very unique dagger.
"Well who did you sell it too?" Draco spat through his teeth. His patience run as thin as this man's bony wrists. He had wasted an entire week of his mother's precious time hunting down this crazy-useless-bone collecting- weapon trading-hut living-wanker.
"Oh, I'm not sure I should say Mr. Longbottom. I don't think I really remember.." He trailed off. His beady black eyes looked up to Draco's gray with a greedy glint.
Draco understood the man's implication and dug through his dark robes for one of his trusty black sacks. He pulled it from it's home and threw the bag at the haggard man with disgust. "You can remember now can't you."
"Ah, yes it seems I can." Brutus answered. He was absently playing with a necklace of yellowed werewolf teeth he wore around his neck. "I remember selling it to a young Mr. Zabini."
"Zabini." Draco repeated, hoping his ears had not deceived him. "Are you sure?"
"Yes, Zabini." The man assured, dumping the gold onto the wood paneled floor of his hut. His beady eyes watering as he took in the heap of gold.
"I will definitely remember to do business with you more often Mr. Longbottom." He laughed piling the galleons into six neat stacks.
"No." Draco said pulling out his wand. "You won't."
He pointed his wand at the tiny man on the floor and closed his eyes.
"Obliviate!." Draco's voice rang clear as his spell hit the man. His dark face seemed almost whimsical as he asked the familiar question, "Who are you?"
"No one." Draco replied, his voice flat. He turned on his heel pushing the bamboo curtain out of his way as he stepped out of the dark hut, into the Greek evening sun.
~*~*~*~
Ginny threw the red leather bound book onto Draco's desk. The gold lettering reflecting the green and white setting sun from the stained glass windows behind his desk.
"D' ya know how hard it was to get that bloody thing?" Ginny asked. She was angry Draco had not even bothered to owl her since his return two days ago. Not owling to see how she did with fetching the book.
'Maybe because he could give a rat's fat arse, Ginny.'
His eyes moved from the book by his feet to Ginny. They held the same bored expression they always held.
"Well do you?" She repeated, tucking an untamable red strand behind her ear.
"You wouldn't happen to know where Blaise Zabini is would you?" He asked ignoring her question.
Ginny opened her mouth to say something and closed it. She wasn't expecting that reply. A snide remark of 'No, and I care even less.' or 'Should I? I'll make sure and put it on my list of things to discover before I impale myself on a pitchfork in my front lawn.' She was not expecting to be interrogated about the whereabouts of Blaise Zabini.
"Well do you?" Her urged lifting a pale eyebrow up at her.
"Why would I know where Blaise Zabini is?"
"Well your brother attacked his home less than a month ago, stealing everything his family held dear to them."
"Ron did not attack, he invaded. He didn't steal, he confiscated."
"Call it what you like Ginny. I could careless, but do you know where he is?" Draco asked again.
"You know I grew up with six brothers," Ginny sat down on the couch he had next to the fireplace. "If you keep talking to me this way. It'll just take longer to get the information out of me."
Draco moved quietly from his seat as she had been settling herself comfortably on his coach. She was surprised when she found him leaning against the front of his desk, his legs crossed casually at the ankles. His unreadable gray eyes darker with the loss of light, holding no amusement.
"Trust me, Ginny." His voice was soft. "If I wanted something. Not even the most stubborn cow could keep it from me. Now, where is Blaise Zabini."
"Not in Azkaban if that's where your thinking. Someone tipped him off and he ran before Ron's team go there. It wasn't a complete lost though, they gathered enough evidence to convict the little coward if he ever comes back."
Draco stood silent. Ginny guessed he was digesting this information and was thinking of his next course of action. His silence encouraged her to keep going.
"Well, it was just your run of the mill deatheater goodies."
"Great." He looked away pushing the charcoal sleeves of his fitted jumper a quarter up his forearm as he crossed them over his chest.
"What's all the interest in Blaise Zabini, anyway?" Ginny pressed. What was Draco's fascination with the deatheater? Ginny had a friend in classifieds who had checked into Draco's background for her. His folder had been more like a filing cabinet but his only connections to the Dark Lord were his father and his manor.
"Nothing of your concern. All you need to worry that pretty little redhead of your's about is finding the other three quarters of my map."
"Our map." She corrected smiling at his sneer.
"Well, three-fourths my map." He replied tilting his head to look at Ginny again. "So about this book of yours?"
~*~*~*~
"This is useless." Draco spat throwing the delicate book Ginny had brought him on the couch barely missing the redhead. He had spent three weeks reading it and the last two hours reading boring page after boring page. There was no information in the way of locations for finding the other three pieces. He had found a tracking spell between pages three-hundred sixty and four-hundred but it only worked if you were in close proximity. The book and tracking spell were useless. Like his quarter of the map was useless without the other three pieces. Giving his mother less of a chance then a Hufflepuff has in hell.
"It is not." Ginny argued from the floor. Her back was against the couch and stacks of rare books encircled her. She had a large one open and covering her lap.
"Is so." He replied, summoning a gold-paged book off the top of one of the four stacks around her.
He had required nearly all the reference books, diaries, and journals off Knockturn Alley and from some of his father's old friends. He didn't tell Ginny some were from the Manor's library.
He heard Ginny sigh in defeat grabbing the mudblood's book from behind her head. Using it to cross-reference one she already had.
"There are lot's of mentions of Cairo." Ginny said. She curled a lock of thick red hair behind her ear. Her head snapping from one book to the other.
"Well, that might be due to the fact that you're reading The Chronicles of Cairo." "I guessed that much. It's just." She stumbled as she looked back to the three books opened around her. "It doesn't end at the second novel. Where's the third?"
"I suspect still in Cairo." He replied, keeping his focus on the gold pages of his book, The Journal of Seraphim White. He was waiting for that little Gryffindor mind of her's to ask why, and he would explain that the third book was very expensive, not that he couldn't afford it. He didn't want to buy it on principle, Malfoy's did not pay such high prices for the frivolous.
Fortunately, they had learned enough from the first two installments to justify the buying of the third. Ginny had read to him two conditions to retrieving this particular corner of the map. Only someone of Egyptian decent, who also had the ability to read hieroglyphics could take the map from it's altar. Draco didn't fret when Ginny had made a fuss about not knowing anyone that fit that description. She noted that Hermione could read Hieroglyphics, but as far as her knowledge went Hermione was not of Egyptian decent. He simply smirked and nodded his head at her little frustrated tantrum. He had someone in mind but he was reluctant to cross that bridge.
He shifted his eyes keeping his head still and his face impassive as he waited for her to respond. To his annoyance she sat contentedly on the floor. Her red hair cloaking her face as she read from the big books in her lap, her thumb between her two front teeth. A nervous habit he had discovered she had at the while observing her at the quidditch game.
He was compelled, by his own childish pride, to use nasty but reliable school tactic to make his presence felt. He could call her poor, comment on her century-old Oak-tree stump of a mother.
"Well," She sat up with her book. Her red hair was falling out of her face.
Draco smirked to himself as his eyes quickly went back to his book. 'Gryffindors are so predictable.'
"I suggest you get your skinny arse down there and get it." Draco held his book tightly, asking himself if he had heard her correctly. 'Yes.' His mind assured him. 'Yes, you have.'
"Since, when does a Malfoy take orders from a Weasley. The tiniest, most insignificant to boot." He sneered, happy to know he could still get a rise from her, as his eyes flicked up to watch her flush pink. "Actually I should send you down there. Make you do some of the work."
Ginny opened her mouth to say something but nothing came out, so Draco continued.
"Unfortunately, I don't trust you with my money. You might try to run off and feed that overgrown family of yours."
He finally looked up from his book when he felt Ginny's anger so close to his desk. Her face wasn't as flushed as he was hoping but she was quite pale. The white of her skin contrasted with the deep brown of her eyes producing eyes made of ebony as she looked down at him, the first time Draco could remember her ever doing so. He was tempted to ask her if it was something he'd said, as if it was commonplace to insult her family and her honor. Instead, he just lifted an eyebrow innocently.
She smiled sweetly at him, an unsettling smile that unnerved Draco. It was the kind of smile given from a madman or in his case a madwoman.
"Fuck you."
"Come again." He asked. Her voice had been so sickeningly sweet that he was sure he hadn't understood her. Besides, Ginny Weasly didn't use words like that.
"Fuck you!" She repeated slowly, pronunciation given to each syllable. "I was just trying to be helpful, but no. You have to be the great spoiled overbearing git you are!"
Draco drowned her out as he searched the drawers of his desk. Ginny Weasley had better uses than ranting, and he was going to put her to them as soon as he found the dark purple coin pouch. It had been his mother's when she was young, something to hold her pocket money.
"I don't even know why I'm working for you?" She continued.
"Because I'm paying you a lot and you can't stand being away from my irresistible charm." He lazily commented opening the top left hand drawer.
He found it in the second drawer and pulled it out by it's silver cord. He kept the old pouch close because it reminded him of his mother. He bitterly smiled as he opened the soft velvet bag and deposited some gold and silver from his own pouch an act he'd seen her perform many times. "And now to hear that you don't trust me. Not that I care, but I don't know what kind of working relationship we have if."
"Here!" He interrupted throwing the bag at her. Her reflexes, not being that of a seeker or even a keeper, weren't too bad and with difficulty she caught the bag.
He was going to send her to Diagon Alley to buy him a traveling cloak, in turn giving her a false since of trust. If she thought he trusted her, then she would trust him. He was going over these wicked thoughts in his head, when the most unusual thing happened. She closed her eyes tightly and started gasping for breath. It reminded Draco of the time he'd watched her sleeping when she had been calling for her mother. She quickly came out of her convulsion giggling and with a clearly, forced smile.
"What was I saying?" She asked ringing the dark coin purse in her hands.
"Just how wonderful I am and how grateful you are to be working for a man like me." He smirked.
Something was definitely different about Ginny Weasley.
*~*~*~*
Outside of Cairo:
"Mr. Malfoy back so soon." The dark complected wizard greeted, adjusting the golden tassel of his rust-brown fez.
"I came back for the last book. Finally found a use for it." He drawled, swinging the brown sack in his hands.
The petite man smiled revealing missing canines, as his dark eyes went to the sack Draco was carrying. He spun and disappeared deeper into the shop. Draco decided, while he waited for the man, to see what else he had in his shop observing the artifacts in the center of the dark and dusty pyramid.
The man reappeared, the gold tassel a top his head swinging back and forth. In one arm he held the silver bound book and the other held a torch. Draco eyed the torch, wondering how far the man had to go in the tomb to retrieve it.
"Here it is." He announced slamming the book on to the counter, sending month old dust onto Draco's expensive black robes. "Sorry." He mumbled trying to dust them off, but Draco stepped out of his reach. He could afford new robes but he couldn't afford to get the filth of this man off him. "Now do you have what I want, Mr. Malfoy."
Draco sucked on his teeth as he hoisted the brown burlap sack onto the counter next to the book. A mysterious red liquid staining it's bottom.
"Excellent." The grubby little man licked his lips grabbing for the bag.
Draco moved swiftly and grabbed his own part of their trade.
"Not a word." Draco said feeling nauseous as the man dipped a dirty hand into the bag bringing green and red matter to his lips.
"Not a word." The fez wearing demon agreed, through a mouthful of Christmas colored matter. It made Draco feel as if his coffee and muffin were going to meet him, before he made it out of the tomb.
*~*~*~*
A tall man with pale blonde hair leaned against a wall of the pyramid he'd abandoned for support. He was trying his best not to retch before the hoards of wizard-tourists admiring the pyramids around them in the dead city. His broad shoulder's giving to his thinner forearms that were wrapped protectively around an ash-gray book.
He bumped into a enfeebled homeless native, who was wrapped in dirty dark- brown robes. He looked to have been pleading for knuts and sickles all day.
"Watch where your going?" He snapped, backing away from the other man. His cheeks were bright pink, from the sun or his annoyance, and his blonde hair was falling into his face. He looked more disheveled then anyone had ever seen a Malfoy.
"Sorry." The man mumbled stumbling away from him and closer to the tomb. He gripped his hole covered cloak around him tighter.
The taller man swiftly pulled his wand from a pocket of his robes, and in the frustration of not being able to control his nausea pointed it at the man. The infamous Malfoy self-control wavering. His left hand was steady as he held his weapon before him. His eyes, silver in the noon sun, betraying his anger and irritation.
"Not worth it." He groaned in disgust before pushing past a family of blondes witches, who were taking pictures with their tour guide. The man under the hood smiled as he turned into the crypt. The tomb was musty and smelled uncharacteristically of copper. He ignored the foul stench as he found his way down the long passages. He stood to his full height, the limp and hunched back non-existent as he moved further into the pyramid. Finally, he reached his destination, and pulled back his dirty hood to reveal a ponytail of sleek shoulder length black hair and his violet eyes took in the brain eating filth before him.
"Mr. Zabini." The shop owner greeted the young man with a smile of troll blood and brains.
Disclaimer: Of course I don't own anything except the eccentric OC who will most likely never pop-up again.
Author's Note on Reviews: riverchic1998, blazefury, and VirtualFaerie: Yall Rock. And thanks so much for the reviews.
Either way thanks for reading and if you get a chance review. If not that's okay too.
Now here she stood before Hermione's office gathering all her Gryffindor courage to knock. She lifted her hand to knock when the door opened and she was looking up into the green eyes of Harry Potter. He seemed shocked as he stood motionless looking down at her.
"Harry." She said smiling nervously. 'Did they have to make this harder?' "That was a great game last week."
"I guess." Harry said scratching the back of his black head. He stepped to the side giving Ginny room to walk in.
Hermione was sitting behind her desk. Her brown curls pulled into a tight ponytail creating a sort of dome at the back of her head. It reminded Ginny of the short time in her sixth year when Dean Thomas had gone through his art stage. He grew his dark hair out, wore large sunshades, a red beret, and insisted on using words like 'dig it', 'daddy-o', and called everyone 'a cool cat.'"
"Hey Ginny." Hermione greeted the red head from behind her desk. "What can I do for you?"
"Oh." Ginny squeaked nervously rubbing the bottom of her light blue robes between her sweaty fingers. "I was wondering if I could borrow a book."
Hermione gave Ginny a questioning look. It was common knowledge Hermione didn't lend her books out and Ginny was quick to explain herself. She lied to Hermione telling her that she needed to borrow the book for further investigation of a deatheater.
"It's all for the better good." She smiled nervously.
Hermione was reluctant but Ginny pressed, proclaiming "I'll bring it back good as new."
Ginny let out a sigh of relief as Hermione climbed the sliding ladder. She pulled the red leather book from it's place and handed it to Ginny.
"Oh, deja vu." She said carefully placing her foot on each rung.
"Same cat or different cat?" Harry asked.
Both Hermione and Ginny looked at him puzzled. She sometimes did not understand Harry's strange since of humor. He mumbled something about his cousin's favorite movie .
Hermione shook her head as she stepped off the ladder. "It just feels like I've done this before." She finished sitting down in the brown chair behind her desk.
"Best not to tell Lavender. She'll swear it was from a past life." Harry chuckled from his chair. He was sitting slumped low in his chair, his long legs perching his worn out tennis shoes on Hermione's desk. The act reminded Ginny of someone but she couldn't remember who.
"Don't be ridiculous Harry." Hermione scolded, swiping at Harry's feet but with a Seeker's reflexes he pulled them from her reach, before positioning them again.
Hermione gave an exaggerated sigh and Ginny knew she was going to allow Harry to leave his dirty shoes where they were. "You know I don't nor will I ever believe in the preposterousness of reincarnation. All I was saying was it felt like I had done this before. You know what I mean. Don't you Ginny?" She asked addressing Ginny for the first time since she had sat down.
Ginny tried to stop the uncontrollable nervous fit of giggles but failed. "Yeah sure." She giggled, clutching the book to her chest and hating herself for never being able to lie properly.
Harry and Hermione were looking at her and Ginny was glad for once that Ron wasn't there. He would have known there was something wrong, that she was lying. Then he would have used that brilliant chess player mind of his and put two and two together. He would brand her a traitor for working for a Malfoy. Her father would be more disappointed in her than her first year and her brothers would disown her. Everyone would hate her forever.
Ginny knew she was being irrational but she felt as trapped as a caged pixie. Her brother's best friends observing her giggling self as if she were a grindylow in an aquarium. She had to get out of Hermione's office and she had to get out now.
"Look at the time." Ginny grinned pushing her robe and jumper sleeve back to reveal a bare wrist. "I have to go. Money is time. Time is money." She turned to Hermione. "Thanks for the book and I promise to bring it back. Good as new."
Ginny nearly ran out the door and down two stairwells to her office. Clasping the book to her chest and gasping for breath she collapsed against the closed door. Her two co-workers staring questioningly at her.
'Malfoy owes me big time.' She thought to herself.
~*~*~*~*~*~
While Ginny was collapsing against a door at the ministry, Draco was many countries away arguing with a purple robed wizard in a tiny hut outside of Sikourio.
"What do you mean you don't have it?!" Draco yelled standing up so he could tower over the gangly man. It was an intimidation tactic he learned from his father.
The man, Draco was asked to call Brutus, had just told him that he had sold the rare dagger Draco had traveled from London to buy.
"I mean I don't have it." The African-Asian wizard answered. His deep voice never wavering under the glare of the taller angrier man. Draco felt his jaw flinch as he ground his teeth, desperately attempting to control his temper. He had been refereed to Brutus after searching Knockturn Alley high and low for the very unique dagger.
"Well who did you sell it too?" Draco spat through his teeth. His patience run as thin as this man's bony wrists. He had wasted an entire week of his mother's precious time hunting down this crazy-useless-bone collecting- weapon trading-hut living-wanker.
"Oh, I'm not sure I should say Mr. Longbottom. I don't think I really remember.." He trailed off. His beady black eyes looked up to Draco's gray with a greedy glint.
Draco understood the man's implication and dug through his dark robes for one of his trusty black sacks. He pulled it from it's home and threw the bag at the haggard man with disgust. "You can remember now can't you."
"Ah, yes it seems I can." Brutus answered. He was absently playing with a necklace of yellowed werewolf teeth he wore around his neck. "I remember selling it to a young Mr. Zabini."
"Zabini." Draco repeated, hoping his ears had not deceived him. "Are you sure?"
"Yes, Zabini." The man assured, dumping the gold onto the wood paneled floor of his hut. His beady eyes watering as he took in the heap of gold.
"I will definitely remember to do business with you more often Mr. Longbottom." He laughed piling the galleons into six neat stacks.
"No." Draco said pulling out his wand. "You won't."
He pointed his wand at the tiny man on the floor and closed his eyes.
"Obliviate!." Draco's voice rang clear as his spell hit the man. His dark face seemed almost whimsical as he asked the familiar question, "Who are you?"
"No one." Draco replied, his voice flat. He turned on his heel pushing the bamboo curtain out of his way as he stepped out of the dark hut, into the Greek evening sun.
~*~*~*~
Ginny threw the red leather bound book onto Draco's desk. The gold lettering reflecting the green and white setting sun from the stained glass windows behind his desk.
"D' ya know how hard it was to get that bloody thing?" Ginny asked. She was angry Draco had not even bothered to owl her since his return two days ago. Not owling to see how she did with fetching the book.
'Maybe because he could give a rat's fat arse, Ginny.'
His eyes moved from the book by his feet to Ginny. They held the same bored expression they always held.
"Well do you?" She repeated, tucking an untamable red strand behind her ear.
"You wouldn't happen to know where Blaise Zabini is would you?" He asked ignoring her question.
Ginny opened her mouth to say something and closed it. She wasn't expecting that reply. A snide remark of 'No, and I care even less.' or 'Should I? I'll make sure and put it on my list of things to discover before I impale myself on a pitchfork in my front lawn.' She was not expecting to be interrogated about the whereabouts of Blaise Zabini.
"Well do you?" Her urged lifting a pale eyebrow up at her.
"Why would I know where Blaise Zabini is?"
"Well your brother attacked his home less than a month ago, stealing everything his family held dear to them."
"Ron did not attack, he invaded. He didn't steal, he confiscated."
"Call it what you like Ginny. I could careless, but do you know where he is?" Draco asked again.
"You know I grew up with six brothers," Ginny sat down on the couch he had next to the fireplace. "If you keep talking to me this way. It'll just take longer to get the information out of me."
Draco moved quietly from his seat as she had been settling herself comfortably on his coach. She was surprised when she found him leaning against the front of his desk, his legs crossed casually at the ankles. His unreadable gray eyes darker with the loss of light, holding no amusement.
"Trust me, Ginny." His voice was soft. "If I wanted something. Not even the most stubborn cow could keep it from me. Now, where is Blaise Zabini."
"Not in Azkaban if that's where your thinking. Someone tipped him off and he ran before Ron's team go there. It wasn't a complete lost though, they gathered enough evidence to convict the little coward if he ever comes back."
Draco stood silent. Ginny guessed he was digesting this information and was thinking of his next course of action. His silence encouraged her to keep going.
"Well, it was just your run of the mill deatheater goodies."
"Great." He looked away pushing the charcoal sleeves of his fitted jumper a quarter up his forearm as he crossed them over his chest.
"What's all the interest in Blaise Zabini, anyway?" Ginny pressed. What was Draco's fascination with the deatheater? Ginny had a friend in classifieds who had checked into Draco's background for her. His folder had been more like a filing cabinet but his only connections to the Dark Lord were his father and his manor.
"Nothing of your concern. All you need to worry that pretty little redhead of your's about is finding the other three quarters of my map."
"Our map." She corrected smiling at his sneer.
"Well, three-fourths my map." He replied tilting his head to look at Ginny again. "So about this book of yours?"
~*~*~*~
"This is useless." Draco spat throwing the delicate book Ginny had brought him on the couch barely missing the redhead. He had spent three weeks reading it and the last two hours reading boring page after boring page. There was no information in the way of locations for finding the other three pieces. He had found a tracking spell between pages three-hundred sixty and four-hundred but it only worked if you were in close proximity. The book and tracking spell were useless. Like his quarter of the map was useless without the other three pieces. Giving his mother less of a chance then a Hufflepuff has in hell.
"It is not." Ginny argued from the floor. Her back was against the couch and stacks of rare books encircled her. She had a large one open and covering her lap.
"Is so." He replied, summoning a gold-paged book off the top of one of the four stacks around her.
He had required nearly all the reference books, diaries, and journals off Knockturn Alley and from some of his father's old friends. He didn't tell Ginny some were from the Manor's library.
He heard Ginny sigh in defeat grabbing the mudblood's book from behind her head. Using it to cross-reference one she already had.
"There are lot's of mentions of Cairo." Ginny said. She curled a lock of thick red hair behind her ear. Her head snapping from one book to the other.
"Well, that might be due to the fact that you're reading The Chronicles of Cairo." "I guessed that much. It's just." She stumbled as she looked back to the three books opened around her. "It doesn't end at the second novel. Where's the third?"
"I suspect still in Cairo." He replied, keeping his focus on the gold pages of his book, The Journal of Seraphim White. He was waiting for that little Gryffindor mind of her's to ask why, and he would explain that the third book was very expensive, not that he couldn't afford it. He didn't want to buy it on principle, Malfoy's did not pay such high prices for the frivolous.
Fortunately, they had learned enough from the first two installments to justify the buying of the third. Ginny had read to him two conditions to retrieving this particular corner of the map. Only someone of Egyptian decent, who also had the ability to read hieroglyphics could take the map from it's altar. Draco didn't fret when Ginny had made a fuss about not knowing anyone that fit that description. She noted that Hermione could read Hieroglyphics, but as far as her knowledge went Hermione was not of Egyptian decent. He simply smirked and nodded his head at her little frustrated tantrum. He had someone in mind but he was reluctant to cross that bridge.
He shifted his eyes keeping his head still and his face impassive as he waited for her to respond. To his annoyance she sat contentedly on the floor. Her red hair cloaking her face as she read from the big books in her lap, her thumb between her two front teeth. A nervous habit he had discovered she had at the while observing her at the quidditch game.
He was compelled, by his own childish pride, to use nasty but reliable school tactic to make his presence felt. He could call her poor, comment on her century-old Oak-tree stump of a mother.
"Well," She sat up with her book. Her red hair was falling out of her face.
Draco smirked to himself as his eyes quickly went back to his book. 'Gryffindors are so predictable.'
"I suggest you get your skinny arse down there and get it." Draco held his book tightly, asking himself if he had heard her correctly. 'Yes.' His mind assured him. 'Yes, you have.'
"Since, when does a Malfoy take orders from a Weasley. The tiniest, most insignificant to boot." He sneered, happy to know he could still get a rise from her, as his eyes flicked up to watch her flush pink. "Actually I should send you down there. Make you do some of the work."
Ginny opened her mouth to say something but nothing came out, so Draco continued.
"Unfortunately, I don't trust you with my money. You might try to run off and feed that overgrown family of yours."
He finally looked up from his book when he felt Ginny's anger so close to his desk. Her face wasn't as flushed as he was hoping but she was quite pale. The white of her skin contrasted with the deep brown of her eyes producing eyes made of ebony as she looked down at him, the first time Draco could remember her ever doing so. He was tempted to ask her if it was something he'd said, as if it was commonplace to insult her family and her honor. Instead, he just lifted an eyebrow innocently.
She smiled sweetly at him, an unsettling smile that unnerved Draco. It was the kind of smile given from a madman or in his case a madwoman.
"Fuck you."
"Come again." He asked. Her voice had been so sickeningly sweet that he was sure he hadn't understood her. Besides, Ginny Weasly didn't use words like that.
"Fuck you!" She repeated slowly, pronunciation given to each syllable. "I was just trying to be helpful, but no. You have to be the great spoiled overbearing git you are!"
Draco drowned her out as he searched the drawers of his desk. Ginny Weasley had better uses than ranting, and he was going to put her to them as soon as he found the dark purple coin pouch. It had been his mother's when she was young, something to hold her pocket money.
"I don't even know why I'm working for you?" She continued.
"Because I'm paying you a lot and you can't stand being away from my irresistible charm." He lazily commented opening the top left hand drawer.
He found it in the second drawer and pulled it out by it's silver cord. He kept the old pouch close because it reminded him of his mother. He bitterly smiled as he opened the soft velvet bag and deposited some gold and silver from his own pouch an act he'd seen her perform many times. "And now to hear that you don't trust me. Not that I care, but I don't know what kind of working relationship we have if."
"Here!" He interrupted throwing the bag at her. Her reflexes, not being that of a seeker or even a keeper, weren't too bad and with difficulty she caught the bag.
He was going to send her to Diagon Alley to buy him a traveling cloak, in turn giving her a false since of trust. If she thought he trusted her, then she would trust him. He was going over these wicked thoughts in his head, when the most unusual thing happened. She closed her eyes tightly and started gasping for breath. It reminded Draco of the time he'd watched her sleeping when she had been calling for her mother. She quickly came out of her convulsion giggling and with a clearly, forced smile.
"What was I saying?" She asked ringing the dark coin purse in her hands.
"Just how wonderful I am and how grateful you are to be working for a man like me." He smirked.
Something was definitely different about Ginny Weasley.
*~*~*~*
Outside of Cairo:
"Mr. Malfoy back so soon." The dark complected wizard greeted, adjusting the golden tassel of his rust-brown fez.
"I came back for the last book. Finally found a use for it." He drawled, swinging the brown sack in his hands.
The petite man smiled revealing missing canines, as his dark eyes went to the sack Draco was carrying. He spun and disappeared deeper into the shop. Draco decided, while he waited for the man, to see what else he had in his shop observing the artifacts in the center of the dark and dusty pyramid.
The man reappeared, the gold tassel a top his head swinging back and forth. In one arm he held the silver bound book and the other held a torch. Draco eyed the torch, wondering how far the man had to go in the tomb to retrieve it.
"Here it is." He announced slamming the book on to the counter, sending month old dust onto Draco's expensive black robes. "Sorry." He mumbled trying to dust them off, but Draco stepped out of his reach. He could afford new robes but he couldn't afford to get the filth of this man off him. "Now do you have what I want, Mr. Malfoy."
Draco sucked on his teeth as he hoisted the brown burlap sack onto the counter next to the book. A mysterious red liquid staining it's bottom.
"Excellent." The grubby little man licked his lips grabbing for the bag.
Draco moved swiftly and grabbed his own part of their trade.
"Not a word." Draco said feeling nauseous as the man dipped a dirty hand into the bag bringing green and red matter to his lips.
"Not a word." The fez wearing demon agreed, through a mouthful of Christmas colored matter. It made Draco feel as if his coffee and muffin were going to meet him, before he made it out of the tomb.
*~*~*~*
A tall man with pale blonde hair leaned against a wall of the pyramid he'd abandoned for support. He was trying his best not to retch before the hoards of wizard-tourists admiring the pyramids around them in the dead city. His broad shoulder's giving to his thinner forearms that were wrapped protectively around an ash-gray book.
He bumped into a enfeebled homeless native, who was wrapped in dirty dark- brown robes. He looked to have been pleading for knuts and sickles all day.
"Watch where your going?" He snapped, backing away from the other man. His cheeks were bright pink, from the sun or his annoyance, and his blonde hair was falling into his face. He looked more disheveled then anyone had ever seen a Malfoy.
"Sorry." The man mumbled stumbling away from him and closer to the tomb. He gripped his hole covered cloak around him tighter.
The taller man swiftly pulled his wand from a pocket of his robes, and in the frustration of not being able to control his nausea pointed it at the man. The infamous Malfoy self-control wavering. His left hand was steady as he held his weapon before him. His eyes, silver in the noon sun, betraying his anger and irritation.
"Not worth it." He groaned in disgust before pushing past a family of blondes witches, who were taking pictures with their tour guide. The man under the hood smiled as he turned into the crypt. The tomb was musty and smelled uncharacteristically of copper. He ignored the foul stench as he found his way down the long passages. He stood to his full height, the limp and hunched back non-existent as he moved further into the pyramid. Finally, he reached his destination, and pulled back his dirty hood to reveal a ponytail of sleek shoulder length black hair and his violet eyes took in the brain eating filth before him.
"Mr. Zabini." The shop owner greeted the young man with a smile of troll blood and brains.
Disclaimer: Of course I don't own anything except the eccentric OC who will most likely never pop-up again.
Author's Note on Reviews: riverchic1998, blazefury, and VirtualFaerie: Yall Rock. And thanks so much for the reviews.
Either way thanks for reading and if you get a chance review. If not that's okay too.