Chapter 22: Logic
Draco, hands behind his head, stared up at the canopy of his four-poster bed. If getting it out of their systems meant they could do THAT frequently, he was ready to make the sacrifice over and over and over again. Ginny was extremely inexperienced—Draco often had to guide her with his words or direct her fumbling hands—but somehow her naivety made it all the more enjoyable.
His eyes traveled to his left where Ginny lay asleep beside him, hands clutching at the blanket. She was out of place in his room. Perhaps it was the enchanted moonlight seeping in from the small, fortress-like windows, but Ginny's perfect skin seemed to glow contrasting sharply against the black and green of Draco's dorm. Good versus evil right here in his own room.
Yawning, Draco turned on his side towards Ginny. His body seemed naturally inclined to mold itself against her, and Draco was too sleepy to stop it. He tugged at the blanket, covering his bare torso and blinked several times until his eyelids closed altogether.
It could have only been minutes, however, before he was woken by an eerie green glow coming from the fireplace.
"Draco," a voice hissed not too quietly. Draco let his eyes close again, the fireplace had not just been talking to him. "Draco!" the voice said more impatiently, making Draco bolt upright. He scrambled off his bed, fully awake after glimpsing his father's head in the fireplace, and threw on a robe. He glanced at Ginny, praying to Merlin she would stay asleep, and hurried to the fireplace where he dropped on all fours.
"I see you've been busy," Lucius' bobbing head said, smirking up at Draco with pride.
"Father, I..." Draco began, shooting a quick look over his shoulder at the vague form of Ginny. Of course he chose to reply right now, when a family enemy was curled up, sound asleep in a bed mere meters away.
"I'm glad to see you've been putting your birthday present to good use. That Parkinson girl, is it? Or maybe a naïve little Ravenclaw? Perhaps an experienced and talented Slytherin..."
"It's just a girl, father," Draco said hurriedly, hoping to end the conversation on Draco's bedfellows as soon as possible. He needed to get answers while Ginny was still asleep.
"I see. Well what was so bloody important then?" Lucius snapped, his hopes of getting a play-by-play dashed.
This certainly was not ideal. How could Draco talk to his father when Ginny could wake up at any moment? How would it look to find Draco and his father whispering through the fireplace about murders? Draco swallowed, he would just have to risk it and be careful. Lucius would be furious if Draco asked for a rain check.
"I wanted to know, sir, about my test... and the girl I killed." Lucius stared back at him, showing no sign of comprehension. Draco continued, lowering himself closer to the fireplace. "The one they brought to me was...the, er, little Weasley girl, but when I returned to school..."
"And if you HAD seen that vile Mortensen child before you?" Lucius interrupted, his face flickering in and out with the curling flames. "Would you have cared at all? No, you would have thought you were doing a service to the world by getting rid of that ogre. But very innocent, familiar Ginevra Weasley...the Dark Lord somehow knew it would be more difficult for you."
"Ginevra?" Draco wrinkled his nose slightly. He hadn't known that was her real name. Draco would be the first to point out that the Weasley's were not a thinking sort of people, but even THEY would have enough sense to realize that name was awful, surely.
"I can tell you, I was far from pleased when they brought a Weasley look-a-like out," Lucius said with the utmost hatred in this voice. "But the Dark Lord said he had his reasons."
Draco tried to swallow the knot in his throat. How much did the Dark Lord know, he wondered, recalling how it had felt like Voldemort had literally been inside his mind. "Why didn't they just bring the real Weasley, then?"
Lucius seemed to growl before responding. "That bloody family is heavily protected, and all of their mutant children are carefully watched. It would not have been safe. I do not know what your connection is with the Weasley, Draco, but stay the hell away from them!"
A rustling noise and a sleepy sigh came from the bed. Draco looked nervously back as the silhouette of Ginny's body as she rolled over and draped an arm over where Draco SHOULD have been.
"I'll let you get back to your companion," Lucius said more calmly, a smirk once again tugging at his lips.
"Thank you, sir," Draco managed to stutter out as he watched his father's head disappear in the weakening green flames. He waited until every ember died out before exhaling and rising to his feet to pad softly back to his bed.
Discarding his robes, adding to the disordered pile on the floor, Draco slipped under the covers and watched as Ginny's long eyelashes fluttered before opening completely. It was only by the grace of Merlin that she hadn't woken up before and overheard the entire exchange.
"Where did you go?" she asked quietly, their foreheads pressing lightly together as Ginny curled sleepily against him.
"To get a drink," Draco lied, his hand finding its way to the bare small of her back where it began tracing up and down Ginny's spine.
"I thought I heard talking," Ginny whispered, mouth moving while her eyes began to close again.
"It was a dream. Go back to sleep," Draco replied in a soothing voice that surprised even him to hear and even more so, to use. He continued to massage Ginny's back lightly until her breathing was steady and her lips parted slightly. That had been a close call. The last person that needed to be informed about the workings of the Dark Lord was a Weasley, especially considering Draco's part in the whole affair.
This was a gamble—the biggest gamble of Draco's life. He was becoming involved with the enemy. This HAS to be temporary, Draco thought to himself, his jaw clenching naturally. Every time they were together, every moment they were near each other was dangerous.
Lucius had warned him while speaking through the Floo Network to stay away from the Weasleys. But Lucius wasn't at Hogwarts, and now inside the dorm room, no one existed except Draco and Ginny.
Something was tickling Draco's forearm, tracing a pattern lightly across his skin. Was he being summoned? No, surely the Dark Lord wouldn't summon him on a cold, dark Saturday morning when Draco was so comfortable under his mound of feather-stuffed blankets. Voldemort's cruelty could not go THAT far. Draco stirred slightly and the tickling stopped.
Blinking several time, Draco willed himself to wake up. It took a moment before his eyes managed to focus and recognize the face of Ginny Weasley peering over him, a mass of red hair curls spilling over her bare shoulders and down the white sheet clinging to her torso. Surprised to find the girl watching him, Draco's breath caught in his throat and he pulled himself to a sitting position quickly, leaning against the headboard.
"I didn't mean to scare you," Ginny said hurriedly, moving away slightly as if unsure of what Draco would do if provoked early in the morning.
"I wasn't scared," Draco replied indignantly, crossing his arms over his bare chest to hide its involuntary heaving. "I'm just not accustomed to people hovering over me when I'm sleeping, that's all."
Ginny's cheeks reddened noticeably. There was a moment's silence between the two as Draco tried to appear unflustered and Ginny looked away to hide her embarrassment.
"I wasn't hovering..." she finally said. "I just...that is, I happened to notice your..." Draco looked at her expectantly as the youngest Weasley struggled over her words, the blush on Ginny's cheeks only growing more apparent. "For Merlin's sake!" she said, exasperated at her own incompetence. She tugged Draco's right arm away from where it was crossed and turned it over to reveal the Dark Mark. The two stared at the black brand in silence, Draco immediately beginning to consider using a memory charm.
He cursed himself for having been stupid enough to not hide it? Of course, there hadn't been much time to think things through when Ginny told Draco to take her to his dorm room—he hadn't been terribly clear headed at the time.
"It's You-Know-Who's Mark, isn't it?" she asked in an uncharacteristically small voice, never taking her eyes off the vague form of the entwined snake and skull.
Draco wrenched his arm away from her. How could she be surprised? Surely Ginny could not be naïve enough to think everything people said about the Malfoys were just rumors. Her own brother had been calling Draco a Death Eater since first year. And while Ronald Weasley wasn't known for his intellect nor his intuition, Ginny should have been prepared. Immediately his defenses went up.
"What about it?" Draco growled in a way that reminded him of Lucius. He glared at his bedmate who looked back at him with wide, frightened eyes. Ginny remained unmoved for so long, Draco was sure someone had hit her with a Petrificus Totalus spell from behind. Her silence was beginning to unnerve him. Perhaps performing a memory charm was an option after all.
Draco turned away from her and slid off the bed, inhaling sharply as his bare feet made contact with the cold stone floor. Crossing the room towards his dresser, Draco put on a pair of boxers. "You knew who you were dealing when this all started, Weasley. I've never given you a reason to think I was any different than who I am." Draco tugged on a t-shirt as well, his words muffled slightly as the neck elastic got caught on his nose.
"Did you just get it?" Ginny asked, trying to sound as if she was inquiring after a new article of clothing or something equally trivial. She turned on the bed to face him, never letting go of the sheet. It made sense she was asking, Draco hadn't gone through his initiation yet the first time he and Ginny were together.
If Draco were smart he'd end everything now. It was getting too dangerous already. Draco ignored that thought. "Look, if this is going to work, you can't ask me questions about...well, any of that and I won't ask you questions about...well, whatever it is the members of the Potter Club do." Ginny rolled her eyes at him, but Draco pretended not to notice and continued. "The less you know, the better for both of us it will be. We'll continue acting as we always have, except now we will have sex until it's out of our systems." It sounded logical, after all, it was only a physical obsession.
Ginny raised an eyebrow, her cheeks reddening again. "So we will still hold onto our mutual hatred of each other...You'll still think of me as a lower-class witch, and I can still call you a smarmy git..."
"...It'd be strange if you didn't. And when the time comes, I will be on my own side and you on yours, free from guilt. Neither one of us will have been a traitor," Draco finished for her. Could it really be that simple? Something inside Draco screamed a resounding "no!" again. Draco overlooked it—he'd already gotten away with murder after all. This would be similarly effortless.
Ginny seemed to be contemplating what Draco had said—she had her bottom lip between her teeth again and a hand toyed with the ends of her hair. Draco began picking up some of the clothes around the room, pretending not to watch or show his interest.
"What time is it?" She asked abruptly.
"A quarter passed 5," Draco groaned after checking his watch a second time. They were going to need to have a serious talk about Saturday mornings if Ginny insisted rising this early.
"Oh Merlin," she said nervously, practically leaping out of the bed and rushing passed Draco in a flesh-toned blur. "My suitemates can't find my bed empty again!" Draco stood back in awe as the girl dressed at lighting speed—probably something you had to learn when the you were youngest of an unnaturally large family, Draco supposed.
"I don't think I can sleep here anymore," Ginny said hurriedly as she stepped into the tight jeans Draco's hands were admiring the night before.
"What? It's only been twice," Draco said in shock. Any girl with half a brain would give her wand to sleep in Draco's room and in his bed. The Weasley was obviously not thinking clearly at the moment. "I'm not sleeping in a Gryffindork room. I would not place a toe in the common room," Draco said defensively, wrinkling his nose at the thought and crossing his arms over his chest broodingly.
"Well that's fine, Draco, because my suitemates are not as easy to get rid of as your band of apes," Ginny snapped back, sitting on the end of Draco's bed to lace up her shoes and looking away from him purposefully.
"So it's broom closets and empty classrooms then for us," Draco states matter-of-factly. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but somehow Draco rather liked the little Weasely in his bed. What was the matter with him? "That's just fine with me," he said a little more enthusiasm then he had planned.
Ginny looked at him hesitantly, their choices not terribly appealing to her either it appeared. "Right...well, I should get back before the house wakes up. I'll just, uh, see you, then...smarmy git..." she added, shooting Draco a slight grin before heading for the door.
"Meet me later," Draco called to her back, making Ginny turn and look at him. "There's, uh, a broom closet I've been meaning to try out on the fifth floor. Around eight?"
The rosy hue Draco liked so much returned to Ginny's cheeks. "If I can get away..." With that she opened the door, looked both ways and stepped into the hallway. With a contented sigh, Draco headed back to his bed, not ready to start his Saturday without another few hours worth of sleep.