Driving Forces

In all of her life, Ginny had never been so bored. As the youngest of the seven Weasley children, she was used to something always happening. Fred and George were usually getting into trouble, or causing it. Bill and Charlie were always good for a few thrilling stories, with themselves as the heroes of course. Ron always seemed to be discussing some secret with Hermione and Harry; and thus very interesting to spy on. Percy, well, Percy was always good for a laugh. Albeit, at his own expense.

Much to her dismay she was not at home in her room at the Burrow; nor was she in the girls dormitory at Hogwarts. She was, unfortunately, stuck in a dimly lit excuse of a dungeon. Stuck down here with, of all things, Draco for company. At this moment she lay on her back, with her legs propped up on 'her wall', counting the stones. Sad truth was, neither her heart nor her mind were completely in it. She kept zoning out after counting each stone.

1,485… They should really paint the walls. Gray got boring to stare at all the time.

1,486… Blue. Blue would be nice. Or, perhaps red and gold. Just like Hogwarts.

1,487… Green and silver were out of the question.

1,488… Colors were not the only thing out of the question.

1,789… It was really quite a shame.

1,714… He could be half-nice if only he would let himself.

1,798… She was not going to think about him anymore.

1,987… Not about how he could have let her die of poison.

1,988… Not about his hollow eyes when he demanded to know the month.

1,990… Not about how he looked with his shirt off.

1,891… Not about… hang on… 1,891?

"Drat!" she grumbled. Lost count again. Merlin's Beard. She was bored to tears!

"What is it this time?" came the sardonic drawl from the other side of the room.

"I lost my place again. At this rate I'll never find out how many there are." She grumped.

"6,539." came Draco's immediate reply.

"How do you… oh. Never mind." She grumbled.

She often forgot how long he had spent down here. Six months. That was a long time to survive locked up inside this dismally gray room with no company. Honestly, she was surprised that anyone could have lasted that long. If she spent one week down here she was going to be completely batty. Lock her up in St. Mungo's. Off her rocker. Gone to fly with the Honkypoffs. Er.. Hunklypuf. Hicklyponk? Drat. If only Luna were here. She could probably help her add to the list of random things. Good help was so hard to find these days.

"I'm going nuts. The boredom is killing me.' She whined as she sat up and turned to face her fellow cellmate.

He was laying half propped up against his wall and, as usual, watching her. She twitched. He was always watching her. It was reminding her of a wild animal stalking its prey. It made her wonder just how stable his mindset was. She knew that if he finally snapped; she could remain out of his reach, but still, she found it positively unnerving. Even when she paced across her side of the room, his eyes would follow her. Couldn't he find something else to do? Count the stones on his side of the room perhaps?

"Why do you keep on staring at me?" she finally demanded.

"You are the only thing in this room I do not have memorized yet." He replied shrugging one shoulder.

"Listen Mal… Bla… Dra… what am I supposed to call you now anyway?" she huffed in irritation.

"Superior works for me." Drawled Draco.

"Superior!" she mimicked angrily as she folded her arms across her chest. Over her dead body she thought furiously. He apparently accurately deduced how likely she was to call him that.

"Well, I suppose that would be a bit much." He allowed grandly.

Ginny scowled at him 'a bit much'?. Why did she have to be stuck down here with this arrogant git for company? Why did she have to be stuck down here at all? She could have been making extra money, and saving up for those truly spectacular dress robes. But no; here she was, sitting with a half dressed arrogant pure blood. Waiting for a summons that would probably explain why she was here in the first place. A summons that she was, quite honestly, dreading. She had no wish to meet You-Know Who face to face.

She heard a sigh and a grumble from his side of the room. She jerked her mind out of the thoughts they had become ensnared in, and looked at him.

"Just call me Draco. No use standing on formality down here. With your Gryffindor mind, you are likely to forget anything else anyway." He shifted to find a more comfortable position to lie in.

Ginny growled at him. Pure-blood Prat. Slimy Slytherin. Flailing Ferret. Malignant Malfoy. Dumb Draco. Arrogant… Arrogant…. Humm… another word that started with 'A' to describe him. Drat. Nothing was coming to mind. Oh, well, as soon as she got her wand, got another wand, she could always call him a Jinxed Jerk. Oh Chocolate Frogs! She was going to die of boredom. It was, she decided, an unappealing way to go.

"What are you mumbling about over there Weasel." Draco's amused query only served to annoy her more than she had been.

"I have a name. Why don't you use it you stupid Ferret." She growled. There was a long pause before he finally answered.

"I don't know it." He grumbled.

"What?" snapped Ginny.

"Don't get all your feathers in a ruffle." He said raising his hands as if to stave off any attack she might launch. "I'm sure I heard it somewhere, I just never needed, or cared, to know. You were always the littlest Weasel, or the only girl of the Weasley family." He finished with an unapologetic shrug.

"Demanding, arrogant, insensitive, haughty,… Slytherin!" she snarled clenching her hands into tight fists. Oh, what she wouldn't give for her wand.

Draco let out a bark of laughter and arched one amused eyebrow at her. She gritted her teeth. If she could get to him, she would strangle him. He was annoying, rude, and mean. Moreover, damn him, she was not bored when she talked to him. That she acknowledged, was probably the worst part of this whole fiasco. She sat stuck in a dark room with Draco for company. And part of her was enjoying the bantering. She was going to turn him into a Ferret and give him to Buckbeak when she got out of here. And to top it off she was going to ask him a question before she had gotten sidetracked.

She rubbed her temples. Normally her mind didn't go galloping off in seven different directions at once. She was generally the most logical person in her entire family. So why couldn't she remember what she was going to ask him? She started to panic. Her mind was already traveling off on it's own. She started to gnaw upon her lower lip. She wouldn't last a month.

"It gets better eventually." Ginny glanced up at Draco's blank expression from across the room. "The mind eventually calms down and you are able to gain control over it once more. At first, the stress of not being able to freely move the body somehow over-stimulates the brain. Then, slowly, the residual panic slowly dies down and you once again are able to force it along patterns that are more normal. This is just the first stage of their subtle torture." Ginny listened to his cool, calm and rational voice.

"How do you always seem to know what I'm thinking?"

"You have an expressive face. It shows your every thought and emotion. Quite entertaining to watch actually. Besides, I went through it as well. I should be able to recognize the signs. If I made it with my mind in relatively one piece, you should to. In theory at least." He mused.

She whimpered. Great! The one who earlier, was calmly talking about snapping her neck still considered himself mostly sane. This was a good time to start worrying. Or maybe she had completely bypassed that point and needed to Floo back and catch it again. But did she even want to? Which brought up an interesting question. When would she consider herself insane? Didn't people who were insane never think that they were? So if she were to follow along that train of thought then as long as she thought she was crazy then she wasn't. Or, was she admitting she was crazy to keep from going insane?

"The trick is to find something that will keep you going when you want to give up." His lazy drawl jerked her out of her roaming thoughts again. "What are your driving forces normally?"

"Boredom and curiosity." She said glumly.

He whistled. "Not a good combination under the best of circumstances."

"I don't know if I can do this." she said in a soft voice. "How long did it take for your mind to settle down?" she asked in a desperate bid for a bit of assurance.

She should have known better than to ask for reassurance from a Slythern.

"Don't know. It might have been a week, or it might have been a month. Hard to tell. You will either make it or not." His detached voice did nothing to help her flagging self esteem.

"Did it ever occur to you that you could have said something supporting? Maybe like 'I know you can do it'." She asked bitterly.

She watched as he stood up and walked towards the center of the room to get a better look at her. For a moment, he stared at her in puzzled bemusement with his arrogant smirk that she remembered from school. She got the feeling that he viewed her as an interesting puzzle he had yet to find all of the pieces too. An oddity in his world put down here simply to relieve his boredom.

"I don't know if you will be able to remain sane. Why would you want me to lie to you?" he asked after a long pause. To her disbelieve he wasn't mocking her at all. He was genuinely curious.

"Well, for one thing, it would have made me feel a lot better." She grumbled. "I wouldn't be worrying quite so much if you had."

"What do you want Red? Do you want me to make sure you do not worry, or do you want me to help you live to regret this?" the knowing question grated on her nerves. She hated when she was wrong. She hated that he knew, that she knew she was wrong. He was waiting wordlessly for her answer.

"Can't I have both?" she was whining she knew. She hated to whine.

"The world doesn't work that way." He said as he waved his hand to encompass the room. "Evil wins. And if it doesn't, then the price is too high. Still evil is not defeated. That is the way the world works." Draco smiled grimly.

"It doesn't have to be that way." Protested Ginny.

"No good deed goes unpunished." His dark words startled Ginny. For a moment she caught a glimpse at the madness he kept locked behind his normally expressionless eyes.

She wondered at how long it would be before he saw dark things moving deep within her eyes. She wondered if he had been alone the whole time or if other people had passed through. The thought sent chills up and down her spine. To be alone was one thing. To watch other people come and go would be something else entirely. Perhaps, she thought; that would explain his strange, quasi acceptance of her presence. He was desperate for someone, anyone, to talk with.

That was a scary thought.