hello all, I don't think I've updated this since like, October last year, which blimmin 'eck is a long time. It is now my number one priority: this baby needs to be finished. I can't believe this was my first ever fanfic and it's still not done. I mean, it's not even like I've done that many chapters. Well, here we go and enjoy, pleasey doosie. Love to anyone still bothering to read this one.

Disclaimer -I am not JK Rowling.

Last line of previous part: "Okay Draco, what did you do to her?"
FLYING THE NEST PART 16

Draco flushed and stared into his drink. "I didn't do anything to her, Potter. She's just pissed because she can't cook."

"Look, I'm warning you Malfoy…"

"It's Draco –leave it out, Potter, I'm bored of your suspicions."

"Mind your attitude Draco, no one here has to put up with you."

"Empty threat."

Harry thought of retaliating but didn't really want to seek a fight. Whatever had been up with Ginny would just have to be dealt with later. He turned back to the stove and addressed the dinner, which was nearly ready –he'd give it another five minutes, resisting the urge to help it along a bit, magically. When he turned back to the chair, Draco was still sitting in it, now gazing moodily at the ceiling with an affected, aristocratic boredom.

"Could you at least go and call everyone for dinner? I'll lay the table. Do us a favour, if you can, and get Ginny out of her sulk."

"Fine." Draco heaved himself out of the chair in an exaggerated show of fatigue and prowled out of the door and up the stairs. Harry stood there for a second with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He was beginning to have a disturbing hunch about Ginny and Draco. Ron would certainly not like this.

Ginny lay on the floor in Buckbeak's room, where she knew Draco wouldn't want to come looking, if there was any chance that he would, which she doubted. She examined the kiss carefully, privately: from the moment her lips touched his, until (how EMBARASSING) she had remembered herself and ran for it. The hippogriff broke her silence viciously, making a big noise crunching up a mouse head. Yuck.
Severus Snape glanced down at his shot glass and contemplated another slug of Ogden's Old Firewhiskey. He was meditating on the numerous ways he could kill Potter whilst still making it appear like a tragic accident… to depressingly little success. It came as no large shock to him that his cover as spy had finally been blown, he just couldn't help feeling more bitter that the arrogant boy downstairs, who was cooking his dinner, which if it was anything like the way he brewed potions would require a lot of courage to eat, had yet again disobeyed the direct order to practice his Occlumency.

He recalled again last night's discussion: "What do I have to do to get you to understand, Potter? Do we all have to drop dead one by one, before you will get it into that overlarge head of yours that your little visions are of no importance to me whatsoever? Do not assume that you are important."

"No sir."

"Or indeed that we will all hero worship you if you ever do dream anything substantial."

"No, Sir."

"How extraordinarily like your father you are, Potter…"

"YOU SHUT UP ABOUT MY DAD!"

Oh yes, what a pointless exercise. A brief doubt flittered across his mind: perhaps he should not have dragged Potter Senior into the mix again. But damn it, it was so easy.

Snape's trail of thought was interrupted by a smart knock at the door. He hastily shifted a stack of books to shield the incriminating evidence of his uncharacteristic drinking. "Yes, what is it?"

Draco stuck his head round the door.

"Sorry, Professor, I just wanted to tell you that dinner's about to start."

That was his idea of a polite young man. Suitably deferential.

"Thank you, M- Draco. I shall attend presently."

Harry stirred the stew once more and stuck a fork in blindly, to taste. Hmm, good. It seemed alright; maybe his culinary skills were returning after all. Lupin and Hortense apparated into the room behind him, but he was so used to this now that he didn't even flinch.

"Vot's that idiot been up to now?"

"Not sure. Something to do with Ginny. Taste this, would you?"

Hortense opened the cutlery drawer and pulled out a spoon before delving deeply into the stew and came up with a chunk of beef. "Oh… mmm… vot you say… tendy."

"Tender. Good. Well, help yourselves then." Harry turned around and found Snape at his shoulder, which was unnerving to say the least. "Hello, sir."

"That concoction is safe to eat, then?"

Harry declined to answer and spooned as measly a portion as he could get away with onto the Potions master's plate before picking up his own. "We'll let you cook more often, Harry," said Lupin genially, throwing himself into a chair and eating with far more gusto than he'd been capable of since the accident, "fantastic dinner."

"It's a stew, Lupin," said Snape, cynically, tasting his gingerly as if suspecting it to be laced with something deadly.

"Severus, what a thing to say! It's jolly nice of Harry to go to this trouble."

"No, he's right," said Harry, privately thinking that if Snape didn't like his cooking, at least that left more for him. "I'm out of practice. Get hold of some fish and I'll do a haddock, egg and potato bake on Friday."

"Deal!" They heard the unmistakable tread of dragon hide boots on the steps down into the kitchen, heralding Bill's arrival.

"Alright? Sorry, figure work. Calculations, etc. Great Merlin, who'd have a desk job?" he plonked himself down next to Harry, sniffed the stew appreciatively and began eating with an enthusiasm that would suggest he hadn't eaten for days. "Where-s-Gin-ee" he inquired, mouth full of pulverized vegetables and the occasional string of beef.

Ginny was upstairs, back against the wall, being very quickly devoured. No, not by the hippogriff, though the force could amount to one. Hands in her hair… on her face… oh sweet Sengur, everywhere… she fixed her gaze in the ceiling, looking at nothing, struggling to regain some control of the situation. It was only when Draco got under her t-shirt that she suddenly remembered that this could be a very bad idea. "No, wait, Draco… Draco… Malfoy stop!"

They were both breathing heavily. Oxygen was scarce. Draco detached himself from her throat and said, "what?"

"I think we should go and have dinner now."

"WHAT?"

"Shh!"

"Would you just chill out, Weaselette, no one can hear us up here. So where was I…"

"Get off! If we don't go down, Bill will start asking me what I've been up to, and Snape will ask you, and Harry will as both of us, so I really think we should go and have some stew."

Draco braced his arms on the wall either side of her. She felt rather trapped. Their faces were inches apart. There were little flecks of green in his pale blue eyes, which looked sort of scary up close. "You want to get some stew." Well, he didn't sound that happy… "Look, Weaselette…"

"Oh, get over yourself, Malfoy."

"Why don't you just give in? It's very easy to give in."

Something clicked in Ginny's head. Boys. She knew how to play boys. After all, she did have six brothers to practice on. "No, I think I'd rather have stew," and with a shove that was disproportionately forceful considering her smaller stature, she landed the great Draco Malfoy on his arse, superbly crunching onto a new mouse head, and exited with all the grace she could muster. Draco sat there for a while and blinked.

it was short but I hope okay, there will be more soon, but I am very bogged down in work at the moment. I hope this will suffice for the time being.

please review, I do adore them.

skinnyrita xx