If Only

Jeni Draco's Girl

~~

After breakfast the next morning, Sunday, Jeni met up with Henri in the entrance hall. They had planned to go out by the lake again – it was a beautiful Autumn, and all the leaves were turning shades of red and gold. It was Jeni's favourite season, and she intended to spend as much of it outside as she could.

Diablos purred contentedly from Henri's arms. Henri sighed. 'You are getting far too fat to be carried everywhere, you know?' he told the feline. It just peered up at him pleadingly with its huge headlight eyes. Henri groaned. 'Don't look at me like that,' he snapped. Diablos looked away. Henri groaned again and dumped the cat on the stone floor. Diablos screeched angrily at him and stalked out the door, closely followed by the Slytherin and the Ravenclaw.

Jeni sighed at the glorious sight of Autumn. It was truly beautiful. Someone tapped her on the arm.

'Want to go flying?' he asked.

Jeni looked at Henri. Henri nodded encouragingly.

'We can go over the forest…'

Jeni wavered.

But only for an instant.

The Forbidden Forest was putting on a spectacular display of Autumnity.

'Let's go!'

And before she knew it, Jeni had been swept off her feet by a tall blond on a Firebolt. A far cry from a towering knight on a white horse, but…she'd take what she could get in the meantime.

Jeni was experiencing a large sense of de-ja vu. Real de-ja vu. After all, she was seated on a broomstick, in front of Draco, and fast approaching the forest. Well, fast approaching until he came to what would have been a screeching halt in a muggle car. This served Draco's purpose exceedingly well, as Jeni flew forward under the influence of inertia, and he had an excuse to grab her around the waist and pull her back against him.

Jeni rested her head on Draco's shoulder, and looked back up at him. Draco smiled. It was a very romantic few seconds before Jeni sat forward again to look at the leaves below.

Although she couldn't see, Draco smirked from behind her, then, with one arm around her waist to keep her from falling, he feinted straight downwards, only to pull up just as their feet skimmed the top branches, a red-gold leaf in his free hand.

When they reached hovering height once more, he loosed his arm from around Jeni's waist and she swung her right leg over to sit sideways facing him.

Draco made a show of presenting Jeni with the leaf. She giggled, amused, but accepted it in an aristocratic fashion.

'So, does this classify as a date?' he asked.

'Well, you asked, I accepted,' Jeni began, counting off on her fingers, 'We went somewhere, you gave me a…er…leaf…, there's only one thing missing,' she said, left pointer resting lightly on her right pinky.

'And what would that be?' Draco asked, leaning forward to rest his forehead against hers.

Jeni smirked slightly, a bare shadow of Draco's own, before, surprised at her own confidence, she whispered, 'You haven't kissed me yet.'

Draco returned the smirk before touching his lips to hers. Jeni was slightly surprised that her only thought was of falling off, but that was soon forgotten as Draco's arms moved to encircle her waist, pulling her closer to him.

Jeni slid her hands up around his neck, closing the few centimeters left between them in a second. She could feel his feathery soft hair under her fingers, and the heat coursing through her veins was amazing. She couldn't feel the slight chill of the early Autumn day at all.

A loud whistle from below brought her back to reality, and, breaking away, she peered over Draco's shoulder towards Hogwarts and the lake where there was a small crowd of onlookers staring up at them. Jeni flushed bright red right up to her hairline, and moved back from Draco, her arms still resting around his neck, his still around her waist. When he looked down and saw the gathering, he only grinned wickedly.

'How's about going down and meeting your fans?' he asked, flashing a devilish smile at her.

'MY fans?… Fans!?' was all Jeni could manage.

'Yes, your fans,' Draco told her. Jeni would have sworn she could detect a hint of pride in his tone. 'So far as I can tell, most of them are Slytherin guys…I doubt they'd be whistling at me.'

If possible, Jeni only blushed even harder. Draco simply turned the broom around, quite calm, and steered them back towards the ground.

When they landed, Jeni looked at everything but the group of guys waiting there for them. She followed Draco back towards the castle, trying to ignore those following Draco and slapping him on the back in a congratulatory manner. He seemed to be taking it all very good-naturedly. Jeni stared at the grass beneath her feet.

'Hey,' said Henri on Jeni's other side.

She smiled weakly, still slightly awed and confused by the…er…welcoming committee. 'Hey,' she returned.

Henri grinned. 'Told you that you'd go on a second date.'

Jeni frowned. 'You didn't tell the rest of the Slytherins too, did you?'

'Well…' Henri wavered.

Jeni glared.

'Okay, okay…we had bets on whether you'd go or not…'

Jeni closed her eyes and counted to ten. One, two, three, four…stuff this, she thought.

She turned and punched Henri as hard as she could in the arm. Admittedly, this wasn't very hard  - Henri just stood there looking rather amused. But it did help Jeni calm down. She took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly.

'Okay,' she began, and when no one listened, she yelled, 'STOP!'

Thankfully they did.

'Okay,' she began again. 'No more bets. None. No speculating, no saying, "Hey, I wonder". At ALL.' She looked around. 'Am I clear?' Muttering and nodding. 'Good. It's not called a private life for nothing, you know.' She turned and continued up to the castle, leaving a group of slightly stunned Slytherins behind her.

Only one followed, casually slinging his arm around her shoulders.

'I'm impressed.' His breath tickled her ear.

She scowled. 'Yeah, well, I'm not going to put up with it.'

'You've only made yourself seem greater in their eyes. Not many lay down the rules like that to Slytherins. Well, actually, no one that I've ever seen.'

'It wasn't "laying down the rules",' Jeni snapped. 'It was standing up for my human rights. Last time I checked, I was one of the species, you know.'

He gave her a one armed hug. 'Getting better,' he told her, 'getting better.'

~~

DUN-DUN-DA-DA!! *flicks wand* Chapter 13, COMPLETO! I rock…thanks to CS, RLJ, EMMA and MELANIE, whose support has meant a lot to me. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! Also to everyone who's been reviewing, I LOVE YOU!

Alright…now, I realise that inertia is a funny kind of word to have in a fanfic, but we're doing it in science at the moment and so it's kinda been drilled into my brain. If you don't know what inertia is, it's basically that things like to keep doing what they're already doing. So it's like how you can pull a table cloth out from under the glasses and stuff without them falling over if you pull it fast enough (don't try this at home, I WILL NOT be held accountable for you breaking any glasses or ANYTHING) because the force is applied to the cloth, not the glasses, and the glasses like being where they are just fine, thank you very much.

Ok…there's been enough fluff in this chapter. *Sees fluff bunny hop past behind her computer* OH NO YOU DON'T! *gets up to chase and recapture it to put back in the cage…*

CYA!