Chapter 9- Dinner and Games
*****Draco*****
Draco had messed up Saturday pretty well, caring too much what Potter was up to. Of course, it had pleased him that Potter had a girl running off crying, but the idiot boy didn't have to make such a scene of it. It didn't help that… as well as things had been going with him and Ginny in general, he still wasn't sure that she wouldn't rather been in Madame Puddifoot's with Potter- if it weren't for the horrible pain and permanent damage that her snogging Potter would cause. But Draco didn't want to win a girl like that, even Ginny Weasley.
"Dobby?" Draco called into the kitchen, busy even though dinner was long over.
"Little Master, sir has come to visit Dobby!" the elf squealed.
"I'm not your master anymore, Dobby," Draco pointed out uncomfortably. It was also a childish name that he hadn't minded before Hogwarts, but he was fifteen now.
"Dobby is knowing. You is needing Dobby's help, Little Master?" Dobby asked anyway.
"Yeah, if you can. I don't want to get you in trouble. But, Wednesday night, instead of dinner, I wanted to surprise Ginny with a private dinner for Valentine's day. Up on the seventh floor, I guess, because it's too cold outside," Draco shrugged. By the lake seemed like the most romantic spot, but it wouldn't be great in the middle of February.
"Oh oh!" Dobby squeaked, "Dobby is knowing the perfect place! Dobby is taking care of everything and showing Little Master tomorrow!" he declared. "His Weazy is loving it, sir!"
"You- should probably call her Ginny. And- what do I owe you, Dobby, for your time?" Draco asked.
"No money!" Dobby declared. "Dobby is wanting to do it! Dobby is busy now," he added, shooing Draco out of the kitchens. He was a strange little elf.
The next day, Draco swore to never underestimate a house elf again.
The castle had a room that would become anything you wanted. The Come and Go Room, Dobby called it.
Dobby set the place up for a private dinner, and it reminded Draco a bit of the common room mixed with the Manor's dining room, but smaller and more inviting than either, and less green. It was surprisingly elegant, considering the strange assortment of colours that Dobby chose to wear himself- though it now always seemed to include Draco's old Slytherin hat with holes for ears.
And, Dobby showed Draco how to change the room himself too, amazing. The place had such potential. It was almost all too easy, but Draco hoped Ginny would be impressed with him anyway, even if Dobby technically deserved most of the credit. And Draco was grateful that the elf forgave easily.
*****Ginny*****
"You know I wouldn't shove you down the stairs," Draco laughed as he led her by the hand while she was blindfolded. Any of her brothers would completely overreact if they saw her trusting a Malfoy like this, but it wasn't like he could hurt her- or would want to. But it didn't mean she was comfortable with it. She'd grown up with too many older brothers to be too trusting, maybe.
"Well it really better be a nice dinner, not a prank, or I'll plan a hundred years of marriage to make you regret it," Ginny reminded him.
Ginny wasn't sure why it had to be so secret on the walk, when he was obviously leading her to the room on the seventh floor they often snogged in. Ginny hoped he had managed to sneak real dinner from the kitchens, and not just planned on them eating chocolate and snogging.
"Just a second," Draco cautioned, "And I'll show you how I did it after dinner," he said. "Just through this door," he coaxed, leading her with both hands now, and closing the door behind them. Draco pulled the blindfold away. "Do you like it?" he asked immediately.
It was gorgeous, reminding her of the Malfoy dining room, but smaller and more comfortable, with an elegant table big enough for maybe four instead of twenty, and couches and a fireplace over to the side. It was bigger than the room they usually talked and snogged in, bigger than any random room she'd seen in Hogwarts except-
Draco Malfoy had just taken her to the Room of Requirement.
Luckily, surprise wasn't a weird expression right now. "It's unbelievable," she said. "Beautiful. How did you manage it?" she asked.
"Dobby did a lot of it really. I'll show you the trick before we leave. Dinner?" he asked, pulling out a chair for her. And she did see quite a few of her favourites already on the table. It was sweet that he had come to be on good terms with the strange little elf.
"Well, it looks lovely," Ginny said, sitting down. He didn't have to do anything, he'd already taken her to Hogsmeade. It wasn't really his fault that their trip was… it wasn't really ruined, it was just uncomfortable.
The two of them worked as a… whatever they were… easily in a room by themselves. When other people were around- especially Harry or any Weasleys… it all just seemed impossible. A Weasley and a Malfoy couldn't stand being in the same room together, much less have an amicable marriage. But when she saw Draco watching her, hoping she liked everything, it didn't feel crazy. "And it tastes delicious," she added after her first bite. Draco smiled broadly.
"Yeah, the room's great. He calls it the Come and Go Room, and it seems like it would be a pretty comfortable place to be sometimes, yeah? It can make whatever we ask it. I've tested it out a bit and gotten better at it. You have to think really specific thoughts, but I made it look like the prefect's bath, or my bedroom at home, anything. I don't know where everything comes from, but I didn't have trouble taking things out of the room either. Though it wasn't for long, and I brought it back, because then I wondered if it was stolen from someone when I found books that I'm pretty sure are from the library, and I checked and the library copy was missing, but it could have been a coincidence, because it's definitely made other things for me that I can't find anywhere in Hogwarts," Draco detailed excitedly. "So, I think it finds what it can and makes what it can't."
"That's fascinating," Ginny said. Draco had explored the room way more than any of the rest of them had- or at least more than anyone Ginny knew had. A prefects' bathroom did have potential.
Those baths were big enough to swim in, and there wasn't even the chance of being caught using the place as a fourth year- because of course she'd managed to get into one before. This room could do even better anyway, she imagined. But if anyone from the DA saw her leaving with Draco, they might think she'd told him everything. And it would be even worse if Draco tried to use the room during a DA meeting. The room protected against that, right?
"Can anyone get in while we're in here?" Ginny asked.
"Dobby said we'd be hidden, but I haven't tested it with anyone else," Draco said. "We can try after this," he offered. "And you can have a turn making the room whatever you wanted."
"Do you think it can make a quidditch pitch?" Ginny asked.
"We won't know until we try," Draco shrugged.
Quidditch, the other thing that occupied her time when she was trying to not think about classes. Her first game was only three days away, and Ron was getting worse the closer they got to it. Which put a lot more pressure on her to get a quick catch.
And she should just be enjoying this really awesome date that Draco put together for her. And he was friendly with Dobby, even though he was Draco Malfoy, of the family who had made the weird little elf miserable.
Ginny was glad that she could be genuinely surprised at everything that the room did. For instance, it made brooms appear that Draco could tell was his and another member of the Slytherin team's, but it also made about half a quidditch pitch, but with hoops shorter than the ones outside, and Ginny didn't think they were the same anyway. It was a very nice second Valentine's Day.
*****Draco*****
Was it too much to hope for Ginny to catch the snitch, but her brother to have let so many quaffles in that it didn't matter and Gryffindor would have no chance at the Cup?
And certain more observant members of his house had been looking at him ever since Ginny stepped onto the field, and he knew it was because of the Nimbus 2001 she rode. Something else he'd have to ignore and hope no one else made an ordeal over. And all of that was far too much hoping for Draco Malfoy.
But in the first ten minutes of the game, it seemed like Weasley was trying to give Draco exactly that. The Gryffindor chasers looked decent, but Weasley let in almost everything that a Hufflepuff chaser threw out. He was allowing almost a goal a minute, and the rest of the team couldn't keep up. Was Weasley less abysmal in practice? Surely there was someone in the house who could stop a quaffle? And people said that Draco only made the team because of nepotism, but it seemed that either being a Weasley or being Potter's best friend had been enough for their keeper.
Ginny would get distracted watching the chasers or her youngest elder brother. And the beater twins kept one of them closer to Ginny than any of their other players. They weren't operating at their potential if they weren't trusting her as a player, when she was one of the best flyers in the school, and was plenty conscious of where the bludgers were. And the Gryffindor captain should have noticed the problem and addressed it if they did this in practice.
Fortunately for Ginny, Summerby hadn't developed into any great talent in the last months. Ginny caught the snitch in the end, bringing Gryffindor to an embarrassingly narrow win, two hundred to one hundred seventy. Hufflepuff had scored seventeen goals to Gryffindor's five, in a twenty minute match. Draco hadn't even heard his song among the Hufflepuff section, though a few Slytherins had taken it up again. Despite the match not mattering much to their standing, the hatred of Gryffindor ran deeply.
If the Gryffindor captain had any sense, they'd be having keeper tryouts again the next day.
*****Draco*****
Banning the Quibbler under threat of expulsion was the surest way that every student would read Potter's article, from first year Hufflepuffs to seventh year Slytherins. And surely everyone had to believe Potter now? Tyrannical regimes rarely tried so hard to shut out lies. And now Draco had the uncomfortable distinction of the entire school talking of how Potter had outed his father as a Death Eater, among other things. This was also true for Theodore, Crabbe, and Goyle, but none of them had commented to Draco, and Draco had been likewise silent. Crabbe and Goyle were of the same mindless stock as their fathers, and Draco hadn't had a real conversation with Theo in so long… And there was the threat of expulsion if Umbridge could prove he had read the thing- not that Umbridge would suspect Draco of it. She was a Death Eater sympathizer, even if... Tom wouldn't want her among his people.
If Draco had been born into any other year, the majority of his roommates wouldn't have been children of Death Eaters. Most Slytherin students worked by making connections and drawing exactly the right amount of attention to themselves to succeed at their desired level post-graduation. Was ambition supposed to be a bad thing now? Snape said at the beginning of each year that Slytherins often possessed cleverness, resourcefulness, determination, and a certain disregard for the rules. And in the rest of his speech, he instructed them that they would follow any rule that he set before any of them, regardless of blood purity or family standing.
And there was brotherhood, supposedly uniting Slytherins together because they were generally disliked by the remaining three houses. Sometimes this was even true. And in response to the Quibbler article attacking some of their own, Slytherins utilized the defence tactic of intensifying the mocking of Weasley- well, Ron Weasley. There were too many of them to not use first names sometimes. It was something that would draw attention and hurt that Gryffindor crowd without directly associating them with the families of named Death Eaters, which every other Slytherin would be careful to do, even Pansy Parkinson.
*****Ginny*****
When the whole castle was preoccupied with the Quibbler article (Luna mentioned how happy her father was with the sales, even though father and daughter didn't quite see what was so special about the piece), the Gryffindor quidditch team quietly tried one practice with Cormac McLaggen without telling Ron.
The boy was a sixth year who had approached Angelina after Gryffindor's first game, promising he could be a better keeper than Ron, and he brought it up again after the second game. Apparently, he had missed the keeper tryouts because he ate a pound of doxy eggs on a bet. To show his "Gryffindor bravery." Ginny had wondered then if they wanted someone like that on their team, but… at this point, they'd try anything, and no one had been close to decent at the tryouts.
It was horrible.
McLaggen saved the first few shots, and Ginny started to wonder how Ron would take the team actually accepting his resignation.
Then the sixth year started trying to tell the Chasers how they could do their job better- which resulted in an easy shot with McLaggen more than five yards from any of the rings.
"Get back in the damn rings!" Angelina shouted. "If you think you can be a Chaser, try out next year when, thank Merlin, I'll be gone!" Ginny withheld a groan; she'd hate having to pass to McLaggen. She really wished she could get a quaffle and take a shot on him just then.
He saved… probably more shots than Ron would have, even on a good day, but he was so damned annoying. He told Ginny she wasn't putting proper effort into seeking practice- which was true, but none of his business, and it was more of a try out than a normal practice. And she'd proven herself helping them win a game already, and he wasn't even on the team. Cormac actually tried to take the beater bat away from George to 'show him how it should be done.'
Fred might have lobbed a bludger right at McLaggen just then, which caught him entirely unawares while George abandoned the keeper and the bat. The crack on McLaggen's shoulder that signaled the end of practice was satisfying, and if he couldn't detect a speeding bludger because he was trying to wrestle the bat away from a teammate, could he really be trusted in a game? At least Ron had never had to be helped off the field.
"No one tells Ron, and we'll convince him that he can do better," Angelina declared wearily as they trekked back to the castle.
Fortunately, McLaggen's ego would keep him quiet as well. Ron would just have to be better, and next year… the team would be entirely different. Angelina, Alicia, Fred, and George were all seventh years. The Gryffindor team had been the youngest team on average when Ginny came to the school, even though they didn't have any new players. But in four years, only Oliver Wood had left.
Ginny wondered if she could tell Draco and trust him not to tell Ron in a particularly bad moment. Probably if she made him promise, he wouldn't, but it maybe wasn't worth the risk. But he would find it all hilarious, and Ginny found herself wanting to hear his response.
*****Ginny*****
Hearing about the new centaur teacher almost made Ginny wish she was taking Divination- almost. It sounded like centaurs could legitimately predict the future, which was interesting. But could they teach humans how to do it? And even if she did think that Trelawney was a fraud, Umbridge had no right to treat the woman like that. Ginny had never been prouder to have Minerva McGonagall be her Head of House than when the woman stood up for Trelawney- even though McGonagall's dislike for the subject was well known.
Most of the girls around her age were more interested in the new teacher's appearance than his teaching methods anyway. Sure, Ginny could acknowledge that his human half was rather attractive, and his horse coat was a lovely colour, and Ginny did love horses. But surely the rest of him was too different to discourage even a theoretical crush? Sure, centaurs were at least as intelligent as humans, but the physical incompatibilities… had to be discouraging. Any man who boasted that he was "hung like a horse"... was clearly lying. And Ginny was no prude but… for Merlin's sake, he didn't wear robes, or trousers, or anything. Something she definitely wouldn't be talking to Draco about, or anyone else.
But, with Trelawney not allowed to teach anymore, how long would it be before Hagrid followed? And by putting herself up against Umbridge, McGonagall could be putting her own job in danger- which was the last thing the school needed. It was bad enough that they weren't getting any defence teaching, they didn't need to add transfiguration too. Though, Ginny was actually learning more about defending herself against the dark arts than she ever had. She was really close to a corporeal patronus, which would make her the first of her siblings at Hogwarts. Bill could do it, but Ginny didn't think even Charlie could.
But most importantly, anything that gave Umbitch more power over their home was awful and needed to be stopped. Ginny would wager that Fred and George had a few ideas to do just that. Their inventions were getting more impressive all the time, and she hoped that they would soon be put to better use than just skipping Umbridge's class. Which reminded her that she needed to convince George to give her more of their skiving snackboxes soon.
A/N: The words that Draco said that Snape used to describe Slytherins were sort of a quote from Dumbledore to Harry. But, perhaps Albus got it from somewhere else… or vice versa. And I do believe that British wizards would use both pounds and yards as measurements.