Disclaimer: In the first chapter.

Chapter Three
Tall Tales

Draco blinked, trying to keep himself from dozing for the fourth or fifth time in the past hour. He was certain that they had been trapped for at least two hours, but as he had no watch, he had not the vaguest idea of what time it really was.

Hand it to a Weasley to throw your sense of time out of proportion, he thought bitterly. Blinking away an itching tiredness that kept trying to close his eyes, Draco switched his gaze from the small, blue fire to Ginny, who was now sitting with her knees drawn up to her chin, and blinking dazedly at the flame, as though not really seeing it. Her bright red hair shone dazzlingly in the blue light, making it seem lighter, almost a dull pink, in the gloom of the closet.

His eyelids sagged again, and Draco rubbed at them fervently, wanting desperately to stave off sleep: who knew what that girl would do to him once he was unconscious? Several sinful, unbidden thoughts surfaced, but Draco pushed them to the back of his mind, irritated.

As much as he enjoyed blaming Ginny for this predicament, it really had been his decision to meet her here that had landed him in this position, and it frustrated him to think that, if he dozed off, she would be free to go if she awoke. Furthermore, he was not comforted in the fact that it was largely his fault that he was locked in a supply closet in the dead of night with a Gryffindor girl, let alone Ginny Weasley.

Draco felt his stomach turn and heartbeat speed up slightly. Numerous more perverse imaginings pestered him excitedly, but he refused to satisfy his true longings by entertaining them.

True though it was that he detested Gryffindors, his mind seemed to have slipped up somehow when attempting to hate Ginny. Make no mistake, Draco really did find her irksome at best, infuriating the rest of the time, but, he came to realize, it was all part of her charm. She was deliciously cunning, sweet in an almost forbidding sense of the word, and more often than not, Draco found himself captivated by how confused she left him. He was certain that she could not be a normal girl (if you could call any of the Gryffindors "normal", that is), as he was completely bewildered as to how you could despise someone and yet, find them incredibly appealing at the same time.

Of course, Draco had not breathed a word of his bemused infatuation with her to anyone: who would believe him, even if he did? And if anyone did believe him, what kind of reputation would that earn him? Falling for a Gryffindor, and a Weasley no less! Thank God Lucius Malfoy had no idea…

Still blinking rapidly to avoid nodding off, Draco drew his feet up under his body, so that he was sitting uncomfortably on his ankles. Painful, perhaps, but so long as he stayed awake, he would be forced to remain in that position.

Looking briefly at Ginny again, he saw that she had fallen asleep. Her chest rose and fell peacefully with every breath, and her face had relaxed as she slumbered. Draco watched her carefully as she slept on, the blue, flickering flame giving off the illusion of expression, as though she were about to stir and open her eyes.

Still watching her quietly, Draco matched his breathing to hers, and before he realized what had happened, his head rocked backwards onto the shelf, eyes closing gently, and he was asleep.

AN: Apologies that this is a really, really short chapter, but I've been going through the plot possibilities and I figured I needed to write in somewhere something that would explain Draco's side of the story. Unfortunately, when I wrote all of this out, I realized that I hadn't really set myself up to continue with the story within the space of a chapter, without changing the plot to suit the length of the chapter. So I decided to end it early to avoid confusing myself. Anyway, preview time again.

Chapter four will take a while to finish, but for what I'm hoping to put into it, I think it will be worth it. The point-of-view switches back to Ginny in this chapter, and that's all I can really say about it without giving too much away. Should be posted before it gets too late tonight, I'm thinking on taking a long break this evening for relaxing and dinner.

Thanks again for reading,
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