Draco took a deep breath, and then began the spell.
"Secreta – "
But he did not finish.
The weasel had started to change in his hands.
Draco dropped his wand, moving farther away from the edge of the bed and watching in awe as the weasel's fur meshed into freckled skin.
As she grew bigger, he dropped her into his lap, unable to hold her twisting form.
And there she was.
Ginny Weasley lay sprawled on top of Draco Malfoy.
In his bed.
------
Draco had hardly enough time to think before the door to his room flew open and Professor McGonagall swept in and came abruptly to a stunned stop.
Ginny gasped and turned her head to the horrified professor, staring wide-mouthed through her curtain of fiery orange hair.
"M-Miss-Miss Weasley?" Professor McGonagall uttered, thunderstruck.
"Professor McGonagall," Draco began hastily, "we were just –"
"What in the name of Merlin is going on here?" McGonagall interjected, her face turning from stunned to furious in a matter of seconds. She glared at the couple on the bed, that were now looking like a pair of deer caught in the headlights. Ginny Weasley was hastily detaching herself from Malfoy, who was quickly moving away from her, toward the headboard.
"Professor, I –"
"No, Miss Weasley! Quiet! You have been missing without a trace for four days. Your friends are worried. Your teachers are worried. Your parents were notified and are with Dumbledore in his office right this very moment, and here you are, camping out in Malfoy's bedroom? And you Malfoy. You have been attending classes for the past few days, so you know the gravity of this situation. Ginny Weasley just disappeared. And you have been strutting around calmly, ignoring the confusion and desperation, merely spending your days looking forward to coming back here to Miss Weasley and- and- well, you know and what, I'm sure. This is outrageous! Hogwarts Castle is a school, not a whorehouse. I expected better of you both – yes, even you Malfoy."
Malfoy scoffed.
Professor McGonagall ignored him, continuing on with her rant.
"I was on my way in here to inform you that you have been accepted into Professor Snape's advanced potions class for your last semester, but if I have anything to do with it – anything at all, that is the last thing you will be doing. No, I plan to do everything in my power to assure that you and Miss Weasley are punished most severely. And," she smiled sadistically, her eyes lighting up, "I will be informing both of your parents of your abominable misbehavior."
Any color that Malfoy's face had held before she uttered those words drained out of it in an instant.
"I don't suppose, Professor," he began, knowing it was hopeless, "that that would include my father?"
McGonagall's terrible grin widened.
"You had better start supposing it, Malfoy; I will personally make sure that your father is the first to know."
Malfoy's stomach dropped to his feet.
"And you Miss Weasley," McGonagall began, "isn't it convenient that your parents are already here? I knew you'd think so."
McGonagall noticed fear flash through the girl's eyes. She had unmistakably just witnessed her parents' reaction to her sleeping with a Malfoy. Well, it was no one's fault but her own.
"Now," McGonagall sighed, adopting a severe look, "you will accompany me to the headmaster's office, where we will sort this out and…devise a punishment."
She spoke these last words so vehemently that she spat with each one. Draco even thought that if he weren't about to be murdered by his father and stowed in one of the many secret rooms his house held, he might have found this marginally amusing. Sadly, he did not.
The four-poster bed creaked as Ginny and Draco eased off it, their faces stark white. They followed McGonagall out into the Slytherin common room and into the dungeon hallway. They threw quick glances at each other once in a while, each one a mix of misery, terror, and unchecked loathing. They tried walking as slowly as they could so as to delay their impending murders, but whenever McGonagall noticed them lagging behind, she would bark, "Malfoy! Weasley! I do not have time for idiots! Get. Moving."
In no time at all, the trio had reached the stone gargoyle perched outside the hidden entrance of Dumbledore's office.
"Exploding bonbons."
The gargoyle instantly came to life and stepped aside, leaving them free to enter. Draco and Ginny boarded the moving staircase and arrived outside Dumbledore's door in McGonagall's wake.
Sobbing drifted out into the entryway and the distraught voice of Mrs. Weasley could be heard.
"Ou-our only girl. We th-th-thought we'd l-lost her once before, but dear Harry – dear, d-dear Harry – rescued her. But this time n-nobody has any id-dea! Our G-Ginny is g-gone forever."
The calm voice of Dumbledore drifted through the door, laced with sorrow, condoling Ginny's grieving parents.
Ginny cringed and her heart sped.
This couldn't just be explained away…
Ginny was an illegal Animagus. The truth of her being in Malfoy's room would bring the force of the law down on her, whereas pretending McGonagall had indeed assumed correctly about their…questionable position would bring shame to her and her family. She weighted the options and decided that in the long run, it would probably be best to go along with McGonagall's story and face the school punishment (which she assumed would be detention with Snape until the end of the century) and her family, rather than the Ministry. The trouble was, though, that Malfoy had no reason whatever to go along with McGonagall's story. In all honesty, he had done nothing wrong. He found a weasel and took it as a pet. She was the one who broke the law. She was about to signal to Malfoy to try and convince him to take her side when McGonagall rapped loudly on the large wooden door.
Ginny held her breath.
"Come in," Dumbledore sighed.
She pushed the door forward and stepped in.
Draco and Ginny hung back in the hallway, out of sight.
McGonagall's face twisted furiously. She trudged back into the hallway and grabbed a hold of their arms, dragging one of them on either side of her, into the room.
Mrs. Weasley gasped, delighted, and swept over to her daughter, enfolding her in a one-way hug. Mr. Weasley smiled and let out a breath that looked as if he had been holding it since the first news of Ginny's disappearance had reached him. Dumbledore smiled, picked a lemon drop out of the bowl on his desk and popped it into his mouth, sitting up in his tall chair.
"Please do sit down, Miss Weasley, Mr. Malfoy." Dumbledore offered them lemon drops. They refused as politely as they could.
"Headmaster!" McGonagall began sharply. "As far as I am concerned, this is no reason whatever to offer them sweets! Do you know where, exactly, I found Miss Weasley?"
Dumbledore remarked politely that he did not. The grins on the Weasleys' faces faded somewhat.
McGonagall took a deep breath, preparing to break the news.
"In Mr. Malfoy's bedroom!"
Mrs. Weasley gasped, horrified. Her husband's jaw tightened; he glared at Malfoy.
"His bedroom?" Mrs. Weasley whispered in terror.
"Yes indeed," McGonagall confirmed, "and I can tell you now – she was not there against her will."
"No!" Mrs. Weasley's eyes widened.
"Yes! And when I got there, they were, they were, well, you know, they were…"
McGonagall made a few very odd hand gestures before continuing, obviously trying to explain just what it was they were doing.
Mrs. Weasley let out a shriek like a banshee's. It spilt the air, ringing on in everyone's ears, making the hair on their arms stand up as if it too, were in terror. And with that, Mrs. Weasley collapsed onto the floor in a dead faint.
"Well," began Dumbledore matter-of-factly as Arthur Weasley bent down over his wife, "…that was certainly quite unexpected."
---
When Mrs. Weasley had come to and everyone had calmed down the slightest, itsiest, teensiest bit, it was Ginny and Draco's turn to 'explain themselves.'
"Well," Ginny began shakily, "you see, it was like this…"
She trailed off feebly, unable and unwilling to make up anything to do with how she had supposedly slept with Draco Malfoy. Repeatedly. And then go on and tell it to two professors. And her parents.
Draco sat in the silence of Ginny's attempted explanations and thought. Although he hadn't known at first that it was Ginny he was keeping for a pet, he had guessed as much pretty early on. It was mostly his fault they were in this mess. He did not care for the Weasley girl, but he figured he might as well try to buy her some favor and take the blame on himself. After all, her parents were in the room. He had enough humanly compassion to understand that it was in no circumstances fun to explain how you've had sex with your enemy, most especially when its your parents you're explaining it to.
"It was my fault," Draco began. He crossed legs on Dumbledore's desk and leaned back in his chair, running his fingers through his platinum-blond hair. He glanced at Ginny, who stared back at him, her eyes wide. "I seduced her."
Mrs. Weasley gave a small whimper and hid her face in her hands. Mr. Weasley looked ready to kill.
"Is that so, Mr. Malfoy?" Dumbledore asked, his attention focused on unsticking two lemon drops. For some reason he looked highly amused.
"Yes sir," Malfoy agreed, crossing his arms on his chest.
"Ah," Dumbledore eyed Draco over the top of his half moon spectacles.
"A while ago, actually," Malfoy went on, getting a bit carried away, "About a year I should say. We've been going out ever since. And beyond that…" he paused for dramatic effect "…we're in love."