SOMEWHERE OUT THERE
Last time I talked to you
You were lonely and out of place
You were looking down on me
Lost out in space
We laid underneath the stars
Strung out and feeling brave
I watched the red orange glow
I watched you float away
Down here in the atmosphere
Garbage and city lights
You've gone to save your tired soul
You've gone to save our lives
I turned on the radio
To find you on satellite
I'm waiting for this sky to fall
I'm waiting for a sign
All we are
Is all so far
You're falling back to me
You're a star that I can see
I know you're out there
Somewhere out there
You're falling out of reach
Defying gravity
I know you're out there
Somewhere out there
- Our Lady Peace
Harry
walked briskly down the concrete pathway through Hogsmead,
heading in the general direction of Three Broomsticks where he was to meet
Ginny, Luna, Colin, Fred and George.
The latter two had dropped by to check out their competition - Zonko's. Harry had come mainly to check up on Ginny, as
foretold and advised by her very concern elder brother
Ron.
Harry, however saw it as more a meeting with a good friend than with his best
friend's sister.
Where Ron was dense, Ginny was not and where Hermione was a bit of a prude,
Ginny was not, providing him with just the kind of friend he had needed and
still did.
So absorbed in his thoughts was Harry that it took him a moment to realize someone
was blocking his path.
Someone clad in dragonskin boots, expensive but
pretty fine taste Harry thought to himself, and emerald robes.
"Malfoy." Harry
stated as a form of greeting.
The blonde tall man who stood before him looked an inexplicably spoilt as ever
from the black thestral skinned gloves right down to
his initials DM engraved on the sides of each of his boots.
"Potter." Draco
nodded at him.
Harry was not surprised at meeting him having been informed earlier by Ginny
about his position at Hogwarts but he had not expected this early in his visit.
Oh well, better now than later.
Harry slipped his hands into his robes, fingering his wand. Just in case, one
never really knew what Malfoy was up to.
A slight sneer crossed Draco's lips.
"You don't have to clutch your wand, Potter. Trust me,
I have no intentions of hexing you." He stated, bemused.
Harry stared at him, eye to eye, just as tall as he was.
"Constant vigilance." Harry shot back,
quoting their fourth year DADA Professor Moody.
He was a tad surprised by Malofy's civility. Perhaps
he was plotting something worst.
"So be it." Draco stated,
the air of resignation about him palpable before walking off.
Was Malfoy trying to be nice? Harry wondered as they
parted ways. The thought itself felt too strange to be even spoken aloud.
"Something's up." Harry told the rest as
they sat sipping their drinks at Three Broomsticks after recounting the whole
incident.
Ginny though was surprisingly quiet.
The incident had not surprised her because of her previous experience with Malfoy especially when they were in the library.
She had not told anyone about that because the personal value of that meeting
very great to her. It was not everyday that she was able to reach that depth in
conversation with anyone.
Sitting across from Harry and beside her brothers, she did not notice Luna
shooting her questioning glances.
"Perhaps he's gone soft. You know after the War, his idol's dead, his two
sidekicks, what were their names?" Fred snapped his fingers trying to
remember.
"Crabbe and Goyle." Harry supplied, helpfully exchanging
grins with Ginny.
"Ah! Yes! Both of them locked up." Fred continued. Everyone else
nodded, that seeming the most plausible explanation.
"Change of topic. He's still a Malfoy so we
shouldn't give him the privilege of being talked about for more than five
minutes." George stated.
"We've overshot." Colin pointed out politely.
Then they launched into a discussion of whether Wizard's Wheezes had more
products than Zonko which led to ¡®when the bloody
hell was Ron going to prefess his love for Hermione¡¯
(in Fred's words).
Even Harry did not have the answer to the latter.
Ginny was laughing pretty hard as he recounted an incident where Ron tried to
kiss Hermione but the girl had thought he was trying to find ways to pick on
her.
"Well, well. If it isn't Potty and the Weasles having a reunion."
Draco drawled as he stood there by the table, staring
down at them with visibly glazed eyes.
Ginny who was sitting the nearest to him could smell the strong stench of Friewhiskey He was drunk.
Ginny looked at him disgusted, the smell overpowering. Harry must have got a
whiff himself because he was shaking his head in disapproval.
"Why the laughing? What's the joke? Tell me the
joke!" He demanded, sneering.
"Gone soft? I take it back.": Geroge murmured while Colin stifled a laugh.
Their Potions Professor drunk would make a good story that would last for
decades.
"Malfoy, you're drunk so I suggest you shut
up." Harry spoke, in that Auror voice of his,
cold, distant and filled with authority.
"Who in bloody hell are YOU to tell ME to SHUT UP!" He leaned down
into Harry's face to roar the last two words.
By now, everyone else in the pub had stopped to watch this unfolding scene.
Harry did not flinch staring right back at Draco.
It was Ginny who got up and reached across, putting a hand on Draco's arm and pulling him away from Harry.
He staggered backwards, glancing around to see who had touched him so gently.
The last thing he remembered seeing before blacking out were a pair of dark
brown eyes looking down at him with a look that nobody had ever used on him
before.
"Hell! What are we going to do now?" George moaned, his peaceful
evening of teasing his sister, and drinking butterbeer
disrupted
"Carry him back." Ginny stated matter of factly
as she stood, looking down at the crumpled form of the normally very held together Draco.
Harry made a face but he realized Ginny was serious.
"Well, I'll take one arm and Fred you can take the other." Harry
instructed a tad reluctantly but seeing no other choice.
"Actually, why can't we leave him lying in the drain somewhere."
George suggested.
"Sounds good." Colin added.
"Don't be impractical. We may hate him but we should not stoop to his
level." Luna spoke up.
Ginny smiled at her, knowing that she could always count on her. Luna, however did not smile back. She seemed to be looking
at Ginny thoughtfully.
So
with Fred and Harry holding on to each arm, they lifted him up and dragged him
all the way back to Hogwarts using the secret passageway of course.
Harry, however kind did not want to be seen by the whole of Hogsmead
helping one of his supposed enemies. Ditto for Fred.
They moment they reached the witch with the hump, Colin was sent ahead to give
warning for anyone approaching.
"It's best no one catches him in this state and us helping him."
Ginny had explained and there had been nods of agreement all around.
Luna walked behind them a good distance to keep off anyone who happened to be
coming up from behind.
In this fashion, they moved towards the stairs leading down to the dungeon,
where according to Fred, the Potions Professor's room was located.
They were silent, Harry and Fred lugging the dead weight of Malfoy
and the rest of them holding their breath in bated anticipation and tension of
being found.
Just as they reached the top of the stairs,
"Miss. Lovegood!"
Everyone froze in their tracks at the sound of Professor Macongall's
voice.
She was coming down the corridor yet to turn the corner and see them.
Luna had spun around to face her, pasting her usually distant look on her face.
Ginny looked around frantically, her mind whirling. Even Harry looked panicked.
With a sudden burst of inspiration, she turned towards Harry.
"Harry! Go! Maconagll loves you!"
With that she pushed Harry towards Luna, simultaneously grabbing the other arm
of the still unconscious Draco, motioning to her
brothers and racing down the stairs into the dungeons.
They stopped at the foot of the stairs, breathless and listening to Harry sweet
talk Professor Maconcnagll - something which was not
hard to do since he was after all The Man who killed Voldermort.
"I don't believe this is for bloody Malfoy,
someone I would have hexed upon sight." George muttered as they looked for
his room after Harry and Luna had rejoined them.
They managed to find his room after a while. Fred dumped him on the bed, where
he lay sprawled and dead to the world.
The room was done up in dark green, even the bed spreads which were nothing but
the best silk from China.
It was obvious who the owner of the room was, someone rich and very much a Slytherin.
"Let's get out of here." Fred spoke, echoing everyone else's
thoughts.
'No Gryffindor can be in such a room too long. Positively
lethal." George commented as they stepped out of the room.
Ginny, the last one out, closed the door silently behind her, making sure it
was not locked. She had some things to tend to.
They made a brief trip to Dumbledore's office, where he ordered some things
from Fred and George's shop and chatted with the rest inquiring about school
and ignoring the groans from Colin upon mentioning the new Potions Professor.
He had insisted that there was a reason for everything and thus, the hiring of
Mr. Malfoy.
Luna, however was quieter than usual glancing from
time to time at Ginny who sat beside Harry pretending to be absorbed in the
conversation, her mind a million miles away.
Afterwhich Harry, Fred and George bade them goodbye
and Ginny took off to the hospital wing telling Colin that she had a slight
headache.
It was an obvious lie.
Upon reaching the hospital wing, she asked Madam Promfrey
for a cup of beetelnut juice pretending to have a bad
throat.
Madam Promfrey looked at her suspiciously before
giving her one.
Ginny ignored the suspicious glances coming her way as she walked out of the
hospital wing carrying the cup of steaming juice in her hands.
Madam Promfrey probably thought she was getting it
for a drunk friend.
Beetlenut juice was not only soothing for a bad
throat but also made the effects of hangover milder.
Mug in hand, she headed down to the dungeons again. She did not notice dirty
blonde haired girl waiting just outside Malfoy's room
door.
"So this is what all that was about."
Luna's knowing voice filled the silent night air as Ginny drew to a halt in
front of her, shocked, splling some juice all over
her robes and the floor.
"Lu-"
"What are you doing Ginny?" Luna asked resignedly looking at her best
friend whom she had been observing the whole evening and prided herself on
knowing her well enough to have predicted this action of hers.
"I don't know." Ginny sighed; looking down at the cup she was holding,
inwardly wondering the reason behind her actions tonight, every one of them.
It was his eyes, she realized. The way he had looked when they had talked in
the library.
Those pools of murky gray blue had not been icy cold as they normally were but
had been deep oceans of sorrow and melancholy.
It had touched her, reached into the core of her soul, and touched the shy,
lonely, sad girl she had once been.
He may be her Professor but he was only a year older after all.
Luna saw her friend thinking and pondering.
"Perhaps you do now." She mentioned softly. Ginny nodded.
"Are you going to stop me?" She asked a tad worriedly.
Luna shook her head.
"Just don't get hurt, Gin." She murmured, opening the door for her to
walk by.
'I'll just be a friend." Ginny whispered back, smiling.
Luna nodded, not agreeing but just to make her friend happy. Besides she did
not want to hint at anything more than a friendship for suggestion was a
powerful tool.
Draco woke up at around noon the next day heavy headed,
thankful it was a Sunday which meant no lessons.
He noticed the unfamiliar mug on his bedside table through half closed eyes.
He had no idea how he had gotten back into his room and did not wish to know.
At least not for now.
He sat up slowly, his muscles creaking especially the
ones at the base of his skull.
He gingerly placed his feet on the floor.
Too exhausted by all this movement to stand up, he reached across for the mug.
It had been enchanted to be kept warm.
It was beetelnut juice and he was grateful for
whichever kind soul's act this was.
He gulped it down, finding relief in its bitter sweet taste that flooded his
body soothing his aching muscles and head.
He placed the mug down and lay down back in the bed, staring up at the ceiling
fan watching it rotate hypnotically.
His mind wandered and just before his heavy as lead eyelids could drop and he
could slip back into dreamless slumber,
a vision of sorts, more like a memory of a pair of beautiful brown eyes filled
his mind's eye.
What made those molten chocolate eyes beautiful was not so much their color but
the concern that pooled in them.
He wondered whom they belonged to.
With that thought he slipped back into slumber.
A/n I
know you guys are very very confused right now..some parts seem like its
missing but there are just a lot of unanswered questions that's all..all which will be answered in
due time..
so do review..and
please be kind since this my first draco ginny fic and ill wait for twently reviews to upload the next chapter..the one where it all begans.
