A/N: Really guys? I've posted every day the last four days and gotten close to 700 views, but no reviews?

Good thing I'm bringing in everyone's favorite pre-6th-book interpretation of a Slytherin. :P


Chapter 5: Better Read Than Dead

Ginny was close enough to the desk now that she could make it to the seat without stumbling over anything, and took a few careful steps, nudging piles of books aside with her feet. Even the desk chair housed a stack of dusty leather-bound volumes. As she lifted them (heavy, yes, but she wasn't about to ask Malfoy for help, and she was perfectly capable of doing it on her own), she wrinkled her nose, and had barely dumped the books on the desk in time to bring her sleeve-covered hands to her nose to cover her squeak of a sneeze.

Shaking her head and crinkling her nose with a small scowl, she managed to pull the seat out and move things on the desk enough to make space for her to work.

"Do you have some sort of how-to for this? Or parchment, or-" she looked toward Malfoy as she spoke, and found that he was casually stepping through the books, hands in his pockets and a self-satisfied smirk on his lips, managing it far more gracefully than she had.

Well, of course he was: she'd cleared all the books out of his way.

The fact that he maneuvered with no difficulty made Ginny more cross than she already had been. Making it look so easy… the prick.

Once he'd reached her little island free of clutter, he perched himself on the edge of the desk and waved his wand, conjuring up a roll of parchment. He tossed it, and the summoned quill and ink, on to the desk in front of her. "Title, author, date of publication – it's all on there." He gestured dismissively with one hand, and pulled one foot up to rest on the desk as he glanced around.

Ginny was slightly confused. She'd expected a barb of some sort. She didn't run into Malfoy all that often, but every time it seemed to be all banter and threats. For him to actually give her a straight answer was a first – even if it was a dismissive one.

"So if you can't read, Weaslette, how did you pass your OWLs?" He was sneering at her again.

Ginny realized she'd been staring, and blinked a few times. His pale brows raised as he eyed the scroll in her hands, pointedly. "It's not going to write itself."

She glared and unrolled the parchment, flattening the top of it under one of the thick books as she unrolled it and set up her quill and ink. A quick glance over the ledger made it clear that the task was quite simple, and Ginny realized that this was still the detention planned for the third year chavette that she'd switched places with. She brightened a bit at that, and opened the first book on the stack next to her, beginning to copy down its information.

After ten or fifteen minutes had passed in silence, Ginny managing to copy the catalogue information for several books, she piped up. "How did you pass your OWLs, Malfoy? Did your father pay off the examiners?" She spoke the words casually, calmly, not even looking at him as she continued her work, but a small vicious smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

He didn't respond with words, instead leaning across the desk to look at her work. Before she could realize what exactly he was doing, he'd dragged a finger through her newest entries right up through the rest of the list, smudging ink across the parchment. "Oops." The word was dripping with icy revenge, and when Ginny looked up, her mouth open in offended shock, he was staring at her with a calculated smirk. "Looks like you'll have to copy it all over, Weasley."

She shut her mouth with a snap, and clenched her jaw. She wanted so badly to slap his hand away from the parchment, but she didn't trust herself not to punch him. So she stayed still. And he took that opportunity to-

It was like he was moving the offending finger, still smeared in ink, in slow motion. She caught his eyes in disbelief as his finger pressed into her forearm and dragged along the sleeve of her jumper, leaving a trail of ink. "Oops," he said again, smirk widening, staring her straight in the eyes, daring her to protest.

The room seemed to be humming with Ginny's unspoken rage. She wanted so badly to hit him – to break a finger on him, as she had MacDougal - but she was frozen. She knew the potential consequences.

….Fuck it, he deserved it-

But before she could grab his hand to wrench his knuckles apart, he was pulling it away, looking toward the door which had just been kicked open. "Oi, Draco-" Both of them stood, breaking the tension, turning away from one another as the newcomer entered, jovially.

He was tall as well, though shorter than Malfoy, Ginny would've estimated his height at a little over 180cm (5'11" or so), with black hair and olive-toned skin that seemed to glow even in the low torchlight of the book-filled room. His eyes had barely seemed to see her, instead looking to the blonde. Truth be told, she wasn't really looking at him either. She'd turned her back to the two boys, feeling herself shaking with suppressed rage.

The newcomer was chatting to Malfoy, something about Hogsmeade and the winter hols, but Ginny couldn't hear over the angry ringing in her ears. She was fuming, feeling herself uncomfortably hot, and rolled her shoulders a couple of times, pacing, trying to release some of the rage that had built inside of her. She shook her head, and realized that this small space was already far too warm before Malfoy had lit the fuse of her anger. At this point, her jumper was ruined for the night, anyway – she wouldn't be able to clean it until she returned to her dorm and retrieved her wand – so she tugged at the hem and pulled it up over her head.

"I was just thinking we could- meet… well hel-lo…"


A/N: Cliffhanger! I can assume most of you can guess what may have just happened, but if not you'll be finding out at this time tomorrow! I have 9 chapters written now! And pretty consistent muse, too, so I should be posting regularly until it decides to desert me. How can we keep it from deserting me? Well, leave a review! The good, the bad, the suggestions or daydreams or wicked schemes – let me know! It keeps my muse alive!