AUTHOR'S NOTE: Right, so I'm not high off of anything right now. Well, alright, maybe I've had two cokes or so, but that's it. So, here's chapter six. I don't know why I'm updating this story and not my other one because I have less of this one actually written, but here it is. This is more Draco-Ginny interaction stuff. Ejoy. Twist at end, huzzah! Next chapter is a doozie. Hehe.
DISCLAIMER: Not mine if it belongs to J. K. Rowling.
Mistaken Liaisons
Chapter Six: Showers and Pancakes
Within four minutes of her being in the shower, Draco was ready to kill himself.
It appeared…that Ginny Weasley was a shower singer. And it appeared…most unfortunately to Draco, who had at least two pillows clapped over each ear…that she wasn't very good.
He winced as she hit an off key that could kill half the population of China, not hearing the water turn off and the sounds cease.
Hands still shoved so far into his ears they grasped his own oesophagus and tried to throttle him, he stomped into the back of the apartment. Flinging the door open with a blast of his wand, he was all too prepared to hex her voice box out of her and chuck it down the toilet to fester with all the other shit in the world.
What he wasn't prepared for was to take on a full-grown, nicely proportional Weasley sans any kind of clothing but a small bath towel wrapped round her body. Barely. Said Weasley's eyes flew open in shock, her mouth falling open as well.
They both gawked at each other for an adequate five minutes before Ginny blinked, shook her head slightly and cleared her throat, breaking Draco from his abstraction. "Malfoy, could you hand me a towel, Blaise seems to have taken the last big one once again." She said smoothly, a trace of amused annoyance lining her voice as well as a desire to run very far away at a very fast pace and never look back.
Draco blinked repeatedly, as if trying to decide what was going on, why Weasley was so damn calm, and where the hell she'd gotten hips like that in the past ten years. Ginny scoffed and strode past him, bumping him with her shoulder. "Nevermind, I'll get it myself." She growled, stalking into Blaise's room as she cursed the momentous fall of the chivalric system that kept her in the company of such unmentionably un-knightly bastards.
She shuffled around in Blaise's ridiculously-clean-for-a-male laundry bin for a moment before coming up with a battered green towel. She dropped the small white one she was wearing, oblivious (or maybe just unconcerned) that Draco was standing agape in the doorway, and pulled the larger green one around her. "Better." She said to herself, wrapping her short hair in the small white towel.
She stopped her flouncing about at the doorway to arch an eyebrow at Draco for a moment before continuing on into the kitchen. Draco followed, shaking himself of the bad, bad, bad thoughts he'd been having centring Ginny Weasley. She was standing at the stove, waving her wand about at pans that moved about and did things Draco was entirely unaccustomed to.
"What the devil is that?" he asked, pointing to this weird, tan, cream-ish coloured thick liquid that was being allowed to heat and bubble over the flame. Ginny turned to him, stirring eggs with her wand. She looked from the pan, to him, and then back to the pan with a strange expression on her face as though she was having difficulty deciding whether to laugh or cry.
"Pancakes, Malfoy." She said slowly, staring at him. He stepped back a bit, peering at the now-sizzling batter with interest. "You have had pancakes before, haven't you?" Ginny asked, wondering if she laugh at his stupidity or cry at the thought that he'd never seen pancakes before. He turned to glare at her. "Of course I've had pancakes before, you culinary twit." He snarled, face grimacing before turning back to the batter as an invisible spatula flipped it over, revealing the golden brown underside. "But I didn't know this was how they started out…they're all…gooey." He said uncertainly.
She let out a laugh, flicking her wand at the butter, which shot over to the pancakes. "How very articulate of you, Malfoy. What, you've never made pancakes?" she asked curiously. He scoffed, not taking his eyes off the pancakes. "Of course not. That's what the house elves are-" he stopped, correcting himself almost bitterly "-were for." He finished, pulling away with a disgusted look on his face and dropping into one of the seats at the kitchen table.
Ginny felt her mouth sliding into a frown and she pitied him, even though she was angry at herself for doing so. The boy had never made pancakes before. That was just plain sad. Ginny remembered when she was young, before she went to Hogwarts, her mum would wake her up every morning to make breakfast together in what Hermione later told her was a disgustingly 'Braidley Bunch' manner. Or something like that; Ginny never followed muggle television. Ginny wondered what kind of childhood Draco had had, and her frowned deepened. Somehow, Narcissa Malfoy didn't seem the 'hey, son, let's go make pancakes together' type anymore than Lucius seemed the 'let's go play Quidditch' type. Nope, the Malfoys certainly didn't seem very Braidley Bunch at all.
Sighing, knowing she would regret it later, she wiped her hands on the front of her towel. Flicking her wand, the food disappeared from the pans and reappeared on a large platter. Coming over to Draco, she grabbed his hand, pulling him up from the seat.
He seemed so surprised he didn't even pull away, only allowed her to pull him over to the stove. She pulled out some materials with her wand. Pulling out a large bowl, she turned to Draco. "First we start with the flour…"
……………
"Oh, fuck. Bloody buggering brainless bint!"
Draco arched one flour-dusted eyebrow. "Nice alliteration." He commented as Ginny flung her apron off and shoved her white-caked hands under the kitchen faucet. "You stupid nitwit." she berated herself angrily as she glanced once more at the clock, which showed Blaise's hand somewhere between 'lunch' and 'impatience'.
The clock underneath it showed Ginny she was almost an hour late to her lunch date with Blaise at the Ice Bird. Ginny tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, oblivious to the soggy flour still on her fingers, which she threaded into her red hair.
"Damn. I lost track of time." She glanced at the towering stack of pancakes looming impressively on the kitchen table. Once Draco had gotten the hang of it, he wanted to do it over, and over, and over…Ginny chalked it up to twenty-seven years of never having made a pancake. By which calculations, she reckoned Draco had outdone his quota by a few years.
"Listen, I've got to go meet Blaise for lunch. I won't be long…you want some lunch?" she asked, pulling off the boxers she'd thrown on while Draco was on his million and twelfth pancake and running over to the sofa. "No." Digging in the cushions gave Draco a most decent view of her knicker-clad backside, which he'd nearly managed to convince himself he wasn't appreciating when a slight pull in his trousers told him otherwise.
Sitting down to obscure the 'problem', he watched as Ginny pulled a pair of jean trousers from the cushions of the sofa and proceeded to pull them on. Pulling on a striped corduroy shirt over her thin vest, she snatched up her wand and slid into a pair of comfortable shoes. "Got to dash, be back soon, love you!" she Apparated with a pop, leaving Draco to contemplate her unique choice in wording.
……………
Blaise was tapping his fingers on the thick oak table inside the dimly lit tavern when Ginny Apparated into the foyer. She rushed over to Blaise's table, looking adorably sheepish. He also liked the cute smudges of flour on her nose and cheeks and in her hair.
It made her seem so much more difficult to berate, however.
"'S'about time." Blaise growled as Ginny leaned down and pressed a hullo kiss to his cheek. She slid into the booth across from Blaise. "Sorry." She said guiltily. Blaise sniffed. "Affronted." He claimed. Ginny rolled her eyes. "Indifferent." She retorted as a tall waiter brought her a glass of tea.
Ginny looked up and nodded her head in thanks. Blaise glared at her suspiciously. "Alright, what's wrong with you?" he asked sceptically, forgetting about Lei entirely. Ginny glanced up over the rim of her glass. "What are you on about, Zabini?" she growled slightly challengingly. Blaise smirked knowingly. "Who is he?" he asked.
Ginny arched an eyebrow. "Who is who?" she asked. Blaise grinned. "You never pass up a chance to flirt up a good-looking waiter and that bloke was sexy as hell." "You're noticing?" Ginny cut in. Blaise ignored her. "So who's this new chap you've met to make you give up flirting opportunities?"
Ginny stared at him in disbelief. "You've really got to stop doing this." It was Blaise's turn to look confused. "Wha-?" "Get out of my head!" Ginny growled. Blaise laughed. "So…who is it? Darby?" he asked, recalling the name she'd moaned earlier that morning. Ginny gave him a weird look. "Darby? Good Lord, no." she scoffed, folding her menu and ordering, waiting for Blaise to do the same. As soon as the waiter had left, Ginny turned back to Blaise. "I haven't seen Darby in ages. How did you know about him?" she asked curiously, a tang to her voice that he chose to ignore for now.
Blaise tried to think of a plausible answer for that one. He couldn't. "You said his name in your sleep this morning. I figured he had to be of rather large significance in your life." Ginny snorted, her nostrils flaring. "Not recently." She snorted. Blaise decided she wasn't going to be kiss-and-tell on this. He tried his previous tactic.
"So…who is he?" Ginny narrowed her eyes at him. "There's no one right now. There is no 'he'." She said firmly. Blaise grinned. "That's a lie and you know it." He said, smirking at her. He was startled to see her fists clenching and her nostrils flaring.
"Lay off Zabini." She growled. Blaise's hand fell to the table with a thud, forks and knives rattling and clinking against each other. People turned to look at the source of the commotion, but Blaise disregarded them. "Oh my giddy aunt." He breathed, taking in her flushed cheeks. "It's Malfoy isn't it?" he exhaled. Ginny's face paled at an almost painful rate. "Zabini, you great prick…" she said weakly.
Blaise smiled at her brilliantly. "This is bloody awesome!" Ginny's head snapped up so fast Blaise swore he heard the bones in her spine cracking in protest. "W-what?" she asked, blinking uncomprehendingly. "I'm sorry, I must have missed something crucial here because I think- and this might be where I've gone wrong- that we just established my painfully obvious- at least to you- attraction to Malfoy." She stared at him, as if expecting him to say something contrary. He didn't; just kept on grinning like a goddamn Cheshire cat.
"Yeah. That's brilliant." Blaise stated again. Ginny was about to tackle him and bring out the straightjacket when Blaise's face split in half into a magnificent grin. "Oh Merlin…this is the most incredible thing that's ever happened…if you two get together…" Ginny's eye broke in with a arbitrary twitch "…if my two best friends fall for each other, it will be the coolest flat party ever!" he punched a fist in the air, reminding Ginny of things she'd like to do involving Blaise and fists and punching.
"Blaise…" Ginny growled threateningly. Blaise unwisely ignored her. "And you could be civil to each other and you could fall in love and you could move into the same room and you could date and get married and have lots and lots of ferret and weasel babies running all over the place and-" "Blaise." Ginny's voice was death incarnate. Blaise cut off his reverie of having his two best mates living together in peace with him forever. "What?" he asked of the curiously venomous glare in Ginny's eyes. The fork she was bending in her hand was a bit odd as well.
"There is nothing, and may I stress that there will never be anything between me and the magnificent vaulting ferret, and that includes itty bitty ferret-bastards." She snapped, for some reason having to struggle to keep down a smirking grin that was forming on her lips. Not funny, not funny, not funny, not funny…think of Malfoy…damn, very funny…Malfoy…never making pancakes before…not funny…
Blaise saw a smile quivering on her lips and latched onto it. "You like Malfoy." He sang in a crooning sing-song voice. Ginny couldn't hold down the grin. Rolling her eyes, she laughed lightly along with Blaise. "Alright, so he's attractive." She relented as Blaise dug into his newly-arrived pasta. "And he has a nice arse." Blaise's head lifted and he glanced at her from underneath his bangs. "You're noticing?" he asked. Ginny flamed red and growled at him.
Grinning alfredo sauce at her, Blaise made a low chuckling noise. Ginny rolled her eyes again and speared a slice of fish on her knife. "I hate you." She growled, biting into her food.
……………
"You call this place an art gallery?"
Ginny rolled her eyes, tucking red hair behind her ear. "Malfoy, please be sensible just this once and do shut up." She clicked her tongue, steering him by his elbow over to a modern-looking steel bar. The waitress behind it glanced up at them through magenta eyes.
"Oi, GingerAle!" The witch with frighteningly short black hair pushed lime-green sunglasses up to the top of her head so she could plant a kiss of Ginny's cheek as the red-head leaned over the bar. Draco was gawking at the decidedly odd woman, whose ears were a series of hoops, beads, bands, and studs, and whose nose had a sparkly jewel on it.
Ginny laughed and turned suddenly to Draco. "My manners…Draco, this is Eurythmia, better known as Rthymi, my dear friend and owner of this art bar." Rythmi arched a studded eyebrow at Ginny as she shook Draco's hand (her own heavily bangled, white nails painted ten different colours). Ginny rolled her eyes. "Stupid git's unaccustomed to any art not centuries old." She rolled her eyes. Rythmi quickly dropped Draco's hand, looking at him with supreme distaste.
"You one of those Renaissance-Baroque-Realism sons-a-bitches? The yuppie little antiques, classical, uptight, 'art appreciators'?" she asked, sneering at him. Draco in turn, arched an eyebrow at Ginny, who again sighed and rolled her eyes. "Translation; are you into just classical art, or do you like modern art?" she sighed.
Draco scoffed. "Can you honestly call anything done in the past few centuries 'art'?" he scoffed. Ginny winced, glancing at the paintings lining the walls, all modern, abstract, or idealistic, and most signed Eurythmia at the bottom. Rythmi glared harshly at Draco. "Yes, I can."
Stepping on Draco's toes, Ginny led him away, mouthing 'sorry' to Rythmi behind his back. The magenta-eyed witch slid her glasses over her eyes and continued to stick Butterbeer bottle caps to the ceiling with her wand.
Ginny's main goal that night was keeping Draco away from the paintings, stopping him from staring at the many 'interesting' and diverse people that littered Magic's Modern Masterpiece, and last but most certainly not least, getting as shite-faced as possible.
Draco was just concentrating on getting shite-faced.
…………
Blaise was yawning so loudly as he Apparated into his apartment, that he was afraid he would wake the other occupants of the flat. Shedding his coat and outer robes silently, he stealthily made his way into Ginny's room. It had been close onto half two when he'd finally managed to escape both Editing and Lei.
Creeping around on his toes, he dropped his things into the dark corner of Ginny's room and slid into the bed next to her. Or rather, next to where she should have been. Sitting up, he stared for a moment before realizing how completely stupid it was to do so in the dark.
A muttered 'Lumos' later and he was staring at the illuminated empty space in the large bed. Casting a glance around the room, he noticed her coat and robes were missing from her door rack. She was still out…with Malfoy.
Somehow the idea struck him as disagreeable. Being reasonable, he wondered why exactly? After all, he was an old, good friend, and she was his best friend…it would be the greatest thing ever if they got together. Ginny would be lucky to finally find someone to be her 'forever'. But as he drifted off to a restless sleep, he caught himself feeling the beginning tangs of jealously and wondering if it really was so great after all.