Valentine Attention
by The Eighth Weasley
Draco watched her across the Great Hall. She was giggling at something Longbottom had just said, leaning in and patting his shoulder, grinning down at a card. Longbottom and her? Together! His lip curled. Longbottom wasn't good enough.
Then he saw, with relief, Longbottom turn and offer another card to Granger, and Granger laughed and patted him on the arm too. So. Longbottom was being a sweetie to all the girls... how sick. How typically Gryffindor.
Draco's eyes fell back onto Ginny's face. She was smiling down at the card, but still looked distant, as though she was merely acting the part. Good.
No one else deserved her smile.
He scowled at her.
She looked up just then, and their eyes met. She saw the scowl, and he knew she was adding it to her mental files of his facial expressions. In the split second that they held eye contact, he knew what she was thinking:
Mildly affectionate scowl; is annoyed at the Valentine, but can tell that I don't really want it. Similar to the scowls given on January 25, January 12, December 21, and September 14 - and he thinks I don't know about that one.
And then she looked away, but on her lips was the smile - the smile that was just for him, that slightly sardonic smile with the shake of the head that only happened when he did something that amused her but that she didn't understand.
Draco looked back at his steak and kidney pie, unaware that the same smile curved his lips, and that Ginny saw it and catalogued it, too.
--fin--