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The Games We Play

"Oi… Oi Red. Wake up."

The words drifted around in Ginny's mind for a moment before they took root and registered. She spared a small portion of her brain to identify the speaker. Draco. What was he doing on a Muggle beach she wondered. For that matter, when did the hot sand get so cold? She unwillingly drifted from a deep slumber to find herself in a less than perfect sleeping position. She doubted her hip would ever take its natural place again. At least not with out help. And, she noted regretfully, no sunny beach.

She slowly cracked open one eye and spotted Draco in the middle of the room. He was watching her again. Drat. Didn't he know that made her nervous? He must have seen her open her eye because he smirked at her. Yup. He probably knew. Git. Didn't he have anything better to do than annoy her? Er.. never mind.

"Wah… What do you want ferret?" she grumbled sleepily. It seemed that she had only been asleep for a moment. Considering how long it had taken her to fall asleep, she really didn't want to wake up for less than a full scale rescue. Complete with a basket full of real food. Or some pumpkin juice. Her stomach rumbled. Damn. She was really getting tired of this dark, dank, and cold hole.

"Well, Well. It would seem that I'm not the only one who is grumpy when I wake up." Draco sounded entirely too cheerful. Ginny made a rude gesture that one of the twins had taught her when their mother wasn't looking. The Deatheater poster boy had the nerve to laugh at her. She growled at him.

"Go way." She mumbled as she pulled the sleeve of her outer robe up to cover her face.

"Would that I could Red. Would that I could. Now wake up." He demanded.

"Doona wanna anocmft ed. ." She mumbled.

"What?" Draco demanded. "Was that supposed to mean? And pull your head out from under your robes."

Ginny threw off her outer wizarding robe and glared at the current bane of her existence. He looked unimpressed. If only she had gotten Snape to teach her his evil glare. Her glare fell short of maximum scariness; most likely this was due to her yawn. Oh, well. Win some, loose some. Now, if only she could win her freedom and loose the amazing bouncing ferret.

"I said," she grumbled. "That I don't want to get up. And do not call me Red. For the last time my name is Ginny. Ginevra Aurora Weasley. Use it." The stupid pride of Slytheren House still looked singularly unimpressed. Green was an ugly color anyway, so there.

"But Red is so much more descriptive. Not to mention, it would be much easier to remember. It doesn't matter though. Get up. You need to be alert." Draco's command grated against her pride. Since when did he get to decide when she needed to be up?

"Leave me alone Draco. I let you go back to sleep, so you let me." She grouched irritably. How dare he start to think he could order her around?

"This is different. Get up now." His face lost all semblance of mocking humor and replaced it with steel like determination.

He was not about to give this up she realized. He was serious about not letting her go back to sleep. Bloody Hell. She just wanted some sleep. Was that to much to ask?

"Ok, I give. Why is this different?" she demanded.

"You need to get up and go over to the wall." He instructed.

"You woke me up to go stand by a wall?" She was going to strangle him with his own chain. The arrogant prat was just asking for it.

"Just go and do it." He gestured impatiently at the wall.

Ginny pushed to her feet, tugged all of her clothing back into the right alignment and headed to her wall. She turned to look at Draco to discover that he had retreated to his wall as well. She could barely make out his silhouette in the ever present shadows.

"Now what?" she asked.

"Press your ear to the wall and listen very carefully. Then press your fingertips lightly to the stone as well. Tell me what you hear." She saw the shifting of his shadow as he followed his own advice.

As she did as he instructed she wondered about what she could possibly notice. For a long moment, she heard nothing. Just as she was sure that Draco had made all of this up to use as an excuse to wake her up she noticed something. Under her feather light touch, she felt the tiniest vibration of the stone. At that same instant, she noticed muffled sharp bursts of sound. She turned to Draco.

"What is it?" she asked, her curiosity running rampant.

"Deatheater Revel. What you hear and feel are the repercussions of them Apparating directly into the building." the clipped explanation caused her heart to stutter.

"What did you say?" yelped Ginny as her sleep befuddled brain jumped into full alert.

"Deatheater Revel." He explained. "Every so often the Dark Lord will call all of his minions to him and they basically have a huge party. The best part is that we get to be part of the entertainment." Ginny noticed that Draco's tone had gone flat and emotionless again.

She stood frozen by the wall, her fingertips still resting on the cold stone. Terror flooded through her system. It was one thing to find herself kidnapped and thrown into a dungeon with the likes of him; but now she would have to face a room full of Deatheaters. Because, surely if they were looking for a bit of fun, they were sure to want to see the newest 'entertainment' they had acquired.

"So… so what do we do?" she asked helplessly. "Do we know when they will be down here to get us? Are we supposed to just sit here helplessly and wait until they summon us?" agitated, she started to pace along the wall.

As she paced from corner to corner, she wrapped her robes tighter around herself and tried to contain her growing panic. One of the first things she had learned by hanging out with so many Auror's in the past few years, not to mention Ron, Harry and Hermione, was that blind panic would get you killed. She took several deep and calming breaths. She forced her fear to subside, and inch by inch, she regained a small bit of control over her emotions.

"You better now?" came Draco's flat voice. He was now standing in the middle of the room looking at her. As she stared at his expressionless face, she realized she would have to practice her own blank look if she wanted him to stop reading her so accurately. It was starting to get very annoying.

"Yes, what can we do to be ready?" she asked. Maybe with the two of them working together they might find a way to break out of this place.

"Don't get so excited. We can't break out." He shook his head in frustration.

"Well, what can we do?" asked Ginny as she rolled her eyes in exasperation.

"First, come over here." He waved his arm to gesture the center of the cell. The one place that they could both reach. Ginny eyed him warily. From the moment she had awoke down here she had made it a point not to get very close to him. His eyes glittered in challenge. Drat, he knew. She was really going to have to work on that blank expression.

Ginny took another deep breath and stepped forwards. Nothing happened so she took another. As she neared the center of the room, she felt unreasonably exposed. When she finally stood before Draco she looked up and frowned at him. Did he have to be so tall? He smirked at her. Ohhh, what she wouldn't give to take that smirk off his face. He probably wouldn't smirk if she ki… er, killed him.

"Now what?" she asked as she tilted her head back to glare at him.

"Turn around and take a seat." He motioned her to sit at his feet with one hand.

"You have got to be kidding." She seethed. Sit at his feet indeed. Even if she trusted him, she wouldn't do such a thing. And trust was one of the furthest things on her mind at the moment.

"Relax Red. If it's the only way, I'll even sit down first." He offered magnanimously

"Ginny." She ground out.

"What?" his drawl couldn't sound more board with her if he tried. She gritted her teeth.

"My name is Ginny." If she clenched her teeth any tighter she would break them.

"Yeah, I remember. Now sit." He instructed.

"Not until you call me Ginny." She insisted stubbornly

"Alright, if I call you Ginny do you promise to sit down?" he asked grudgingly

"Yes." She agreed after a moment.

"Good. OK then Red, if that's the way you want it. Ginny, sit." He commanded as his eyes laughed at her.

Ginny gaped at him in astonishment. How dare he treat her like a dog? Sit indeed. If he thought that for one moment that she would sit after that. He defiantly had another thing coming.

"Aah ahh. Don't even think about it. I did my half of the bargain; you follow through on your promise. Or do you not keep your promises." He taunted.

Ginny debated with herself for a moment. Honor promise, or beat down a stupid prat. Promise she grudgingly decided. Slowly, reluctantly, she sank to her knees. He was lucky that she set such store by her promises. But then, he probably already knew that. She watched warily as he sat down in front of her.

"Alright, now turn around." He ordered.

"Why?" she asked suspiciously.

"I'm going to braid your hair." He offered blandly.

"Your going to do what?" Ginny blinked a few times. He had to be off his rocker for sure.

"I'm going to braid your hair, now turn around." He repeated mildly vexed.

"Braid my hair? Why?" she asked a little bemused.

"So that when you are gasping for a breath to use on the next scream, you don't anciently inhale and choke on your own hair. It also prevents them from grabbing a single lock of hair and pulling. It's less painful the more hair they grab at a time." The grim words resonated throughout the room.

Ginny, still numb from the shock of his announcement, allowed Draco to turn her around. She knew that when she was brought before the Deatheaters would be bad; but knowing about it and taking steps to prepare for it were entirely different. She sat motionless as she allowed Draco to braid her hair.

The next few minutes had to be one of the strangest of her entire life. If someone had told her last year that she would have Draco Malfoy er… Black, to braid her hair she would have called St. Mungo's to have them admitted. Odder still, he knew what he was doing. He tilted her head up, and she felt him start the gentle tug and twist motion needed to French braid her hair. When he got to the end of the braid she heard a ripping of fabric. She tilted her head sideways to see him tear a strip out of a tattered piece of cloth, his old shirt she realized.

"Done." He said as he tied the end of her hair with the scrap.

"Thanks." Ginny mumbled as she felt the back of her head for her braid. It was surprisingly tight and straight. He had done this before. She wondered where and why he had learned to do it so well. She turned around to thank him only to see his back.

"You want me to braid yours?" she offered eyeing his shoulder length hair.

"Why if it wouldn't be too much trouble, and if you don't have any previous engagements." His sarcastic drawl made her long to smack him in the head.

Two things stopped her. One, he was quite a bit bigger than she was and, if she remembered right, he had good reflexes. The chances of her getting back to her corner unscathed weren't good. Two, it truly did feel good to have her hair braided and not waving around everywhere. And three, it would be a bad idea to piss off the one person she had to talk to down here. Control the temper.

She stifled her more violent impulses and started to running her hands through his hair to get the tangles out. And if she was just a tad bit more rough than she would have been, well… what could she say? She grinned in satisfaction as Draco let out an involuntary grunt of pain. Revenge taken care of, she gentled her hands and was soon braiding at a quick pace.

Since his hair was still relatively short she finished soon. She was reaching for the tie he had ready and was handing over his shoulder when she noticed a flicker of movement upon the top of his left arm. Ginny blinked and looked closer. She watched fascinated as it crept over the shoulder and come to a stop upon his shoulder blade.

Ginny let out a coo of delight. It was a small green and silver dragon tattoo. She watched it and was entranced. It was about five inched long with the tail. Fascinated she poked it. It's reaction was to try to claw and bite at her. When this didn't work it blew fire at her; red and orange colored ink flowed across Draco's back.

"Oh, when did you get him?" Ginny asked completely oblivious to fact that Draco had gone perfectly still as she played with the tiny dragon.

"Just before Christmas." He gritted out between his teeth.

"He is so cute!" Ginny laughed as the small dragon chased after her finger.

It leaped and clawed and bit it's way across Draco's back as it chased Ginny's finger. The subtle ink flow was simply amazing. She laughed as it tripped over its own tail and started to slide down Draco's back. The little dragon dug his claws in, stoped his downhill slide, and lunged at the finger that Ginny held just above his head further up on Draco's shoulder.

"Would you stop that?" snapped Draco.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize you could feel him move, he is amazing." Ginny laughed as the little dragon crouched down and watched her; its tail was lashing back and forth waiting in anticipation. Much like a cat would.

"It's not him I feel playing all over my back." He growled.

Ginny stared at him uncomprehendingly for a moment. Then she glanced down at her hand. The same hand that she had just trailed lightly across Draco's back. She stared at her hand in disbelief. Had she just ran her hand over the back of him? He was the single most Arrogant, rude, mean, and nasty Slythern that went to Hogwarts. Shocked, she gaped at the hand that had betrayed her.

"Sorry." She mumbled.

"Stay down we still have things to go over." He grumbled as she started to rise.

"Like what?"

"Like what to expect up there." He sighed.

For the next several minutes, he outlined what she could expect to see and, what could be done to her. Ginny felt her stomach turn. Surely, she thought, most of those things no human being could, would possibly do to someone else. He said something about how many Deatheaters that would be attending that snagged her notice.

"How many was that again? She asked.

"All of them. About three hundred or so."

Ginny's heart gave a leap. All of them, Snape would be there. She could either get him to rescue her, or at the least he could tell everyone where she was. She never would have thought that she would be anticipating the arrival of him. Life was very strange sometimes. Oh, well, she would be out of her in no time. Relief washed through her. She felt Draco grab a hold of her shoulders and stared at her intently.

"So there is a traitor." He growled in victory.

Ginny froze. How could she forget that she had no idea which side he was truly on? She had no idea if her whole purpose down here was to flush out any traitor that the Order may have put in here. Draco was grinning like a maniac. She felt herself shrink as far away as his grip would allow. As he gazed at her, she saw his grin fade.

"Now you listen to me, and hear me well. When we get up there do not, I repeat do not, try to contact the traitor in any way. Do not look around for them; do not even look as if you might have a sliver of hope to survive this. Don't do anything to compromise the traitors identity. They are the only chance we have of getting out of this alive. Do you understand?" he shook her for emphasis and she agreed. If only to get him to stop shaking her.

He released her and stepped away and started to pace. Every so often he would reach up to brush is hair back, only to drop them again as he remembered it was now braided. On one of his turns she happened to catch is eye. She sucked in a breath. His lifeless eyes were now anything but. She swore she saw life returning to his features.

Life? Whispered a little voice. That is not life. She watched the shadows move around within his eyes seeming to writhe and seethe. She felt an uneasy prickle dart up her spine. That was not life, that was madness.

Just as she was about to ask him if he was ok, the she heard footsteps upon the stone ceiling. They got louder and louder until they finally stopped by the grate in the ceiling that let in their meager amount of light.

"Come, come, it is time to pay homage to your host." The watery voice giggled.

Ginny looked up and was unable to control her terror. It was time.