Five reviews:o) How lovely! Thanks you guys!

Sorry this chappie took so long to get up. We actually had it written but with the hectic end-of-school nonsense, there wasn't time to upload it and sooo… You get the picture. However! It's up now. Rejoice!

Love from Oklahoma and Texas

Cat and Ash

Ginny came home two nights later to find her living room transformed into a seduction trap. Candles were lit all about the room, a low, sultry music was playing in the background, and the scent of champagne was heady as Gabriel sat in the center of them room swirling two elegant glasses of the drink in his hands.

Despite her recent qualms of his true intentions, she smiled shyly and acquiesced as she sat beside him, bringing the glass to her lips to take her first sip of the drink when there were three rough knocks on the door. Ginny peered curiously at the door; Gabriel's nostrils flared with frustration as he removed his hand from her waist. "Who could that be?"

Unknowingly, the youngest Weasley stood and simply replied over her shoulder, "You stay there, I'm sure it's just someone with the wrong apartment number," she assured herself. If it had been Ron or another one of her siblings, they simply would have walked in, even Harry and Hermione. Brows furrowed she leaned forward to open the door, her eyes widening at her guest.

Draco had never been so drunk in his life.

He'd started off with one, seen a redhead (who may have very well been related to her) and downed a few more… and a few more… and a few more… but no matter how many shots he downed, no matter how blurry his vision got, he couldn't get rid of that blasted image. Her, looking up at him with those big, brown eyes. Smiling. Trusting. Damn her. Damn her to hell.

Who did she think she was getting him all worked up like this? She had no right to make him think about her or to make him worried about her. For Christ's sake, he'd tried to save her life and what did she do? Accused him of only wanting her for another fuck.

… Not that another fuck wouldn't have been incredibly welcome.

Damn her! He didn't deserve this! He was being a genuinely good person for once in his life, and he was going to tell her so, even if it meant banging down her door to do it.

He had it all worked out. He was going to set her in her place, and she'd beg him for forgiveness. Of course, in his drunken stupor, the only thing that came out of his mouth when that door opened was "You… are wrong."

"Ginny, who is that!" Gabe called from the living room.

"Uh, a little girl.. selling cookies, I'll be right there!" She yelled back before turning to Draco. "You!" she accused, jabbing her index finger into his shoulder. "Your nerve," she continued before lowering her voice and pulling him into the apartment as she instantaneously pulled open the closet door and jammed him in there, following after. "What do you think you are doing showing up at my door drunk off your arse, Draco Malfoy?"

Reaching up to pull the string above her to turn on the light, her black halter rode up a few inches on her stomach revealing a flat midriff. She crossed her arms over her chest, displaying a nice line of cleavage, however, she failed to notice this as she glared up at him. "Well?" she hissed.

Draco blinked at her. She was doing that on purpose, wasn't she? Exposing her stomach, pushing up her breasts, forcing him to notice just how lovely and positively… "You have no… no…" Fuck. What was that word again? His face contorted into one of confusion as he tried to remember the word that had so rudely decided to wander from his train of thought.

"Patience for you? That's right," her nose crinkled before she continued. "Are you drunk?"

"No." he replied automatically. She could kindly ignore the unbelievably strong smell of alcohol on his breath.

With an eye roll, she grabbed him by the wrist and began to drag him into the kitchen, yelling at Gabe, "I'm just getting my wallet Gabe, I'll be right there." He grunted in response.

Walking through the kitchen doors, she whipped around to face Draco. "What in the hell do you think you are doing showing up at my home drunk, Malfoy?" She hissed in a stage whisper as she grabbed for her glass of champagne, needing it dearly at this point.

"I'll take that." The glass was easily snatched right out of her hand by the blonde, who eyed it with a raised brow. Champagne. Wonderful! More alcohol! Oddly colored, that champagne. More bubbles, too. His eyes widened considerably. Oddly colored… more bubbles… Poison! Gabriel was trying to poison Ginny, the bloody bastard! He had to save her (Never mind the fact that he'd come with every intention of making her feel like a complete ass). But how? How to make sure she didn't drink it? There was only one way in his foggy mind. Drink it himself. And that's exactly what he did.

"Cheers." He mumbled, and down it went. It wasn't so bad at first. For a moment, he actually thought he might've been hallucinating… and then the glass dropped to the ground and shattered into tiny little pieces. Draco turned from her and grasped onto the counter, teeth gritted. Fuck that hurt! "Should… probably… go…" Was this death? Was he honestly going to die drunk as hell in Ginny Weasley's kitchen? A gasp of pain escaped his lips as he glanced at her from the corner of his eye.

Ginny's brown eyes grew to the size of saucers as she stared at Draco as he doubled over. Merlin, what was wrong with him? "Draco?" Her voice quivered as she reached for his shoulder, "Draco, what's wrong!" Her voice began to panic.

His grip tightened on the counter. She was touching him, actually touching him. A faint smile made its way onto his lips. She didn't hate him after all. "Leaving now..." His knuckles were white from his death grip, and as soon he'd taken a few steps, they were equally white on a different piece of counter.

"DRACO!" She cried frantically as he collapsed against the counter once again, his teeth gritted as if he were restraining himself. Grabbing her wand, she quickly uttered the spell and had him levitating towards her bedroom a few feet down the hall. Settling him down upon her heavily pillowed bed she immediately turned towards the door and left as she walked to the other side of the hall towards her study, throwing open the cupboard doors and quickly began grabbing potions into her hand before jogging back towards Draco. "Drink this.. and this.." she continued, thankful for her mediwitch capabilities.

He looked up at the blurry redhead above him, squinting. Her lips were moving, weren't they? Was she saying something? Was it important? Her face was getting darker. Everything was getting darker as Draco just stared up at her, the poison painfully taking its toll on his body.

"DRACO!" She yelled once again, her voice a half sob. Grabbing a murky brown potion she parted his lips with her finger as she raised his head up with her other hand, attempting to slide the thick liquid down his throat. "Come on.. come on.. do it for me.. please," she pleaded, her eyes going slightly blurry themselves.

"Ginny?" A questioning voice sounded from down the hall. "Are you okay?"

She ignored it as she stared intensely into Draco's eyes. "Please..." she sobbed.

His chest, which had hardly been rising and falling, ceased to move at all then. His eyes stared blankly up at her, devoid of life.

Oh, god. Oh, god. Oh, god. Not him. Not now. Not like this. Ginny's eyes spilled over with tears as she collapsed upon his chest, her arms folded together across his stomach, her face buried in them as her shoulders shook with sobs.

"Ginny, what's wro-" Gabe stopped as he took in the scene, his eyes going from confusion to fury as he recognized Draco. "What's he doing here?" He questioned, without a flicker of concern for Ginny.

"Dead!" she yelled back. her anger compounding onto him. "After he took a sip of my champagne he-" she stopped, realization hitting.

"You bastard! YOU TRIED TO POSION ME?"

"That's ridiculous," he began, even though he knew denial was asinine at this point.

"Get out of here, out of my life, I never want to see you again!" She screamed at the top of her lungs, eyes blood red with rage.

Taking a step back, Gabe's eyes widened as he reached out for Ginny, gripping at any sympathy whatsoever. "Gin, I swear-"

"And don't you dare call me that, I hate you and never want to speak to you again! The next time you see me I swear to God I'll kill you," she backed him into the hallway where she slammed the door shut on his face, her back collapsing against the door as her body shook with sobs. A few moments later her front door slammed shut, signifying Gabe's departure. Her crying continued.

It was unbelievably quiet at first, then a bit louder as time went on. Coughing, choking even, as bit of the brown fluid that had shoved down his throat slowly dribbled down the side of his mouth.

Ginny's cries had simmered down to weak whimpers by this point and her eyes slowly lifted as she heard Draco's struggling. Standing quickly, she urgently grabbed Draco by the shoulders and turned him onto his stomach, his face off the bed as he vomited the bile onto the floor, his body shaking in convulsions. Pushing his hair back off his face, she quietly shushed him, attempting to soothe him. "Draco, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..." her quivering voice managed.

Blink. Blink. She stared at the passed out Draco laying beside her for a few moments, speechless, before lying his head down on a pillow, a small smile on her face. Hours passed as she cleaned him up, as well as the room, and began whispering spells over his body to save him, as even though he had excreted the majority of the poison from his body, it could still bring horrible effects, and even death. Seeing as how that's what it was meant for with her. But, she pushed that out of her mind for the moment, she couldn't focus on herself right now, not when Draco depended on her. For the third time that night, she swiped a wet washcloth across his sweating brow and sat down in a chair opposite him and continued waiting.

Draco felt horrid when he awoke the next morning. Every part of his body ached, particularly his head and stomach, though he supposed that had a great deal to do with his immense alcohol consumption the night before. He sat up to look around and immediately regretted it. His head gave such a painful throb that he couldn't help but cry out, which didn't help the headache much either, mind you.

He examined the room with tired eyes. He knew this room. Ginny's room. "Gin…" he croaked, before remembering what she'd so coldly said to him a few nights prior. "ny."

Walking across the room, she sat down beside him on the bed, leaning over him as if examining her patient. "Yes, I'm here," she smiled warmly as her palm reached up to feel his forehead. "How are you feeling, Draco?"

"Like hell." he muttered. "What didyou do to me last night, woman?"

Her face darkened as she spoke, "Gabriel poisoned my champagne.. you drank it foolishly enough," she accentuated her ending as she stared at him as if he'd brought it upon himself.

He looked at her like she'd lost her mind. "I drank your poisoned champagne. Did I know it was poisoned?"

Shifty eyes. "Well.. I suppose... not..."

He smacked his face with his hand. "Oh, good Lord. I drank it on purpose." Which meant he was drunk out of his ever-loving mind, which meant he could've said anything to her. "I didn't... uh... say anything, right?"

She looked at him, confusion clouding her face. "What are you talking about?" She felt his forehead again.

He carefully took her hand from his forehead and set it back in her lap, before sliding his legs to the edge of the bed with a grimace. "I should go home before someone sees me."

"No!" She all but screamed, "You can't leave. You're not well enough, if you leave now you're just looking to get yourself killed." She eased his shoulders back down, "You're staying right here where I can watch over you. It's my fault you're like this in the first place," she chided herself as she began to ease his arms from his robe.

Screaming was bad, very bad. Draco flinched as another painful throb wracked his brain. "Ginny, this is--" Blink. Was she undressing him? Mind out of the gutter, Draco! "You don't need to do this. I'm fine."

"Yes, I do," she slipped the robe off his shoulders tenderly, careful not to hurt him more. Setting it on the chair beside her she then grabbed a blanket off of the end of the bed and gently draped it over his body.

Draco waited to argue with her until after she'd finished touching him. Hell, if he was going to be forced to lose a bit of ego, he was going to enjoy it. "You don't. I was the drunken idiot who drank the damned thing instead of dumping it out."

"Draco, please," she pleaded, "Let me do this." Keeping her eyes intense on his she levitated a small tube of potion to his lips. "It'll help with the headache," she explained.

He sighed and grabbed the hovering potion, obviously having given in to her. It was rather disgusting-looking, and for a brief moment Draco pondered just what it might be made of. Then, deciding it was probably better not to think of it, he downed it with a grimace. "Sick."

Taking the glass from him, she rested it on the nightstand beside the bed, tucking the blanket up around his sides. "Get some rest," she whispered, her eyes sorrowful as she began to leave. "I'm sorry," she whispered as she closed the door, apologizing for not believing him.

End Chapter 5.