Chapter Three: Let the Games Begin

"Hello Seb," Ginny said cheerfully, successfully hiding all her doubts behind a lively smile.

"Miss Weasley," he greeted her coolly.

Ginny suddenly felt awash with confusion. He seemed completely unexcited to see her. In fact, judging from his expression he even seemed a bit… inconvenienced?

"How are things?" she asked awkwardly pushing hair behind her ear self-consciously.

"Good thank you," he answered blandly watching her with an ambiguous look.

"Did you miss me?" she ventured somewhat nervously but attempting to pitch her tone as carefree.

"Should I have done?" There was a coldness to his face that hadn't been there before. Although he looked superficially the same, from the dark blue eyes to the unruly dirty blonde hair, there was something new about him, something Ginny couldn't put her finger on: something belying description.

"Well I'd say so." The redhead felt her temper rise slightly at his lack of commitment; sure she wasn't head over heels for him, but they did have something. At least she thought they did. "Since when I left you couldn't wait to see me."

That seemed to have stumped him. If Ginny had not been so caught up in wondering what had happened to him in the last four days she would have seen 'Seb' searching desperately for words.

"I'm sorry," he finally said. Ginny looked up into troubled blue eyes. What was he apologising for? For not being enthusiastic? For not contacting her? For not… liking her? What had happened in the last four days? Suddenly she found that she didn't want to break up with him after all, it was a complete turn around from her previous feelings… now that she was faced with the prospect before she'd even really given him a chance.

Draco was internally cursing himself. He'd done all his research on this Sebastian guy. And to be honest he wasn't a particularly fascinating character: dead boring to be honest. He'd gone to medical school, he had two sisters, he had an apartment in Soho, he'd been a Ravenclaw and his favourite colour was blue. That was really as far as it went. Apparently what Draco hadn't found out was that Harvey was dating, how could he have overlooked that?

But was he dating Weasley? And for how long? Were they serious? Did he like her more than she liked him or the other way around? A relationship made his whole job nearly twice as hard because in all other respects Dr. Harvey was a complete loner and therefore the perfect candidate to impersonate.

"Sorry for what?" Ginny finally asked.

Draco searched for words again, feeling mentally like a fish out of water. "It's been really busy for the last few days," he finished lamely.

Ginny looked around at the almost empty hospital ward and cocked an eyebrow at him. "Busy huh?"

Finally Draco just threw a bit of caution to the winds. Judging from the youngest Weasley's manner towards him he figured they can't have been together that long so maybe she didn't know all that much about Harvey's real personality. This meant he could improvise – it might actually add some interest to this otherwise boring mission.

"What can I say? I work quickly."

Ginny's brown eyes snapped back to his face, surprised at the arrogant tone to his voice. She'd never noticed anything even near to that before.

"Who are you? And what did you do with Sebastian?" she asked lightly, jokingly.

Draco froze internally but decided his best course of action was to blag it. "Oh he's tied up in the backroom," he replied ironically, responding to the levity in her voice.

The original awkwardness of their meeting was gone, replaced with a cautious flippancy. "So what're my tasks for today?" Ginny asked, the back of her mind still wondering whether her kind-of boyfriend really was on drugs or something.

She was the Mediwitch! And Harvey's girlfriend to boot. Ah, Draco thought, he was going to have a lot of fun with this assignment after all. The Weaselette wasn't that bad looking; he could just have some fun with her until the end of his job and then dispose of her, betrayal would be such a sweet type of revenge for all the years her family had blighted his existence at Hogwarts. A relationship with no strings – the best kind. Maybe he'd even be able to find out some useful information, after all she was the sister of the Weasel King who was Scarhead's best friend. Possibly a long shot but so far all he'd done was piss about in the hospital wing trying not to arouse suspicion.

"Well, as you can see; the Hospital is both clean and tidy. So today there is very little to be done, tomorrow, however, we have some scheduled patients to be imported from Treetops Sanctuary across the river. They will need to be well for the Front line within the next couple of weeks." Draco read most of this from the brief that had been planted on his desk, but didn't let Ginny see that so that it looked like he actually cared.

"So what are we going to do for the rest of the day then Doctor?" Ginny asked suggestively, batting an eyelid. She couldn't help it, sure, she wasn't sure if she liked the guy, but flirting just came naturally.

Draco fought the urge to pull a face. He fought it really hard but still ended up with a part sneer, part surprise and part curious look on his face that only looked as though he had trodden in a puddle of honey. "Well," he stumbled lamely. "What do you want to do?"

Ginny relaxed. This was the Seb she knew; always slightly perplexed. Maybe the coldness from earlier was just because he'd had a bad night or something. "How about dinner?" she suggested.

Again he fought the urge to pull a face. He didn't wine and dine at the best of times and he'd never dream about doing it for a Weasley. What if they really did have no table manners?

Ginny caught the look on his features but wrongly interpreted the hesitation as shyness. "So flying then?" The redhead remembered the last time they'd gone flying near the Burrow and he'd thrown a funny turn because she'd flown through the forest at speed. Something seemed different about him now though, something she couldn't identify.

"Flying. You're on." He turned briskly back to his desk, abruptly signalling the end of their conversation.

Ginny narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. "See you later then."

Draco found himself outside the hospital on a wide stretch of grass, broom in hand, at 7.30 that evening. He had been waiting for Weasley for nearly 20 minutes and any vague resemblance of a good mood had quickly dissipated in the chill summer breeze that hinted at autumn on the horizon.

Finally he depicted the garish ginger glow of the youngest Weasley appearing at the bottom of the stairs. She hurried towards him and he noted dispassionately that she really was abominably short with very little to recommend her. He remembered at Hogwarts she had been held by most of the male population as a very good-looking witch, he hadn't understood why then either.

"Sorry," she apologised, looking flustered. "Lost track of time."

Not even a decent excuse, he observed. At his icy gaze she looked away self-consciously, tucking hair behind her ear.

He looked down and readjusted his broomstick ready for him to get on it but when he looked back at her she was nowhere to be seen.

"Catch me if you can," she challenged from above before whooshing into the gathering darkness.

Ginny kept one eye carefully trained over her shoulder; although Seb wasn't a very confident flyer she still didn't want to get caught unawares. She wheeled through the night sky finally seeing the familiar figure shoot up to join her. The redhead was surprised that he seemed to be gaining on her, usually the doctor wasn't particularly competitive in their flying chases and – even if he had been – her skill on the broom had become natural and easy after practically being raised on one.

She was further surprised then when it became clear that her kind-of boyfriend obviously meant business and she was in danger of being caught up with somewhat quickly. Maybe he'd been practising whilst she'd been gone?

Ginny tried a few basic manoeuvres to see how superficial his skill went. She circled, looped-the-loop and banked in quick succession revelling in the freedom the broom offered.

Yet he was still behind her, and gaining fast by the looks of things!

Not prepared to lose her own challenge or her pride, Ginny decided that desperate times called for desperate measures. Gripping the front of the broom tightly she shot straight towards the ground searching out some cover in which to lose him. She skimmed low over a small lake, so close to the broom that the tail twigs in the broom nearly went into the water in place of her feet.

Without losing any speed, she found what she had been looking for in the unfamiliar territory and shot under tree cover, her cloak blending with the darkness under the boughs.

Draco had gritted his teeth; he thought this would have been a piece of cake: since when had the Weasleys had any sort of talent on a broom? He had found her loop-the-loop laughable, her dive mediocre and her water skating only relatively skilful. Now, however, not only could he barely pick her out beneath the trees, but he could barely distinguish the trees! He just knew that he would plough into a tree at goodness-knows-how-fast and get himself killed and all because of a silly little girl. Finally they broke out from beneath the trees and he managed to get a good look at just how far ahead of him she was: some distance. However then she swung round and came to a stop, as he neared he caught the look of surprise on her face as she looked at him.

"You've improved," she remarked once they were within speaking distance.

"You're crazy," he replied.

"Perhaps"

"Perhaps? You nearly got me killed!"

"Stop being such a baby. You didn't have to follow"

Draco would rather have been killed than admit defeat to her so he remained silent. Ginny watched him with an unreadable expression;

"You're not going to tell me not to do it again?"

Draco shrugged; he really didn't care one way or the other, but he supposed he should keep up the pretence. "Would you listen?"

All throughout their conversation they'd been drifting ever nearer the ground and Ginny fluently dismounted before shaking her head.

"No, probably not"

Draco also got off his broom and stood very close to her suddenly determined to try and make her feel uncomfortable. "And why would that be Miss Weasley?"

She smirked back at him, only a little put out by his sudden nearness. Ginny put her face very close to his, daring him to make the next move. "Guess."

Draco suddenly regretted his desire to try and make her feel awkward since the sudden proximity was making him feel quite hot under the collar.

This thought broke him out of the hypnosis that her eyes had brought upon him and he was suddenly aware that they were standing in the middle of a field in the middle of the night and worse he was having lustful thoughts about a Weasley. Which was only because he hadn't had a woman in weeks he assured himself.

"We should go back," he announced, not missing the look of disappointment in her eyes. He smirked; "Maybe another time." And then walked off leaving her staring after him in confusion.

Ginny frowned to herself, what was wrong with her? She didn't usually just throw herself at men, but then, she thought, she never really had to. What had changed with Seb? Why had he become so different… and why did she find it so much more attractive than she had four days ago?