A/N: Okay, after my best friend read my RHr short, Thoughts, she wanted me to write more HP fic. Her first assignment was to write "a fluffy, fun Draco/Ginny story... with a theme of ketchup." Yes, that is the theme she came up with. Ketchup. With that in mind, I did my best to straddle the line of completely-silly-nonsense and could-almost-imagine-that-happening-yumminess. I had fun. Takes place early HBP year. Oh, and I borrowed Draco's insult in 2nd paragraph from Rimmer on Red Dwarf.
A Taste For Red
by AHS
Draco Malfoy's favorite color had always been red. He would never admit such a thing, of course. His father had informed him quite clearly what his favorite color was going to be when he was only four, and that had hardly been a surprise. Even the blanket his newborn form had been brought home from the hospital in was a vivid shade of Slytherin green.
Then Draco came to Hogwarts and was forced to watch all the Gryffindor losers ponce around in their red and gold. You stole my color, you simple-minded gimboids! It just wasn't right. He had been raised with a very strong sense of entitlement, but unfortunately most of what he was entitled to seemed to suck.
Maybe that was why he was reduced to sneaking into the Hogwarts kitchen in the middle of the night, like some peasant, just to get a little of his favorite food... if you could call it a food. More like secret shame. Ketchup.
It was not allowed in his parents' house. His mother said it was common, and his father presumably disapproved of the color. Well, then they shouldn't have hired that cow American babysitter! She and her stupid fried potato wedges got him hooked on that glorious dipping sauce. Now he wasn't sure if it was the tangy tomato taste he liked, or simply that it was forbidden.
"See, I can be a rebel like Potter and his band of merry misfits," Draco declared as he burst into the kitchen, scaring the worker elves away and locating a ketchup bottle in triumph.
"Aww, Malfoy. If you want to join our club, I can put a word in for you. The word might be prat, but..."
Draco's eyes widened at the sound of an amused voice coming from just behind the icebox. His horror was confirmed as the hiding place was abandoned and the girl Weasel came into view. He would never be afraid of a girl, especially a Gryffindor, but he'd been on the receiving end of her Bat-Bogey hex... and seen how much she enjoyed it.
"Back off, Weasley! Drop your wand! By order of a Prefect!"
"Yeah, pull the other one," Ginny laughed, shaking her head. "I'm not dropping my wand. But relax. I promise I won't hex you unless you make a move on me."
He blinked, taking her words in probably the wrong way as he watched her walk past him and open a cupboard. She was in some kind of silk dressing gown, for fuck's sake! She was standing on her tiptoes, rummaging for something, and bouncing slightly as she did. Draco had done his level best to ignore her burgeoning breasts when they were hidden under robes, but this was too much to ask. She might be poor, a Weasley, and generally inferior to him, but she was still... well, gorgeous. Stop bouncing! He risked contact in order to gain control, bumping her aside.
"What is it you want?" he barked.
"Chocolate syrup," said Ginny, sheepishly.
"Accio chocolate syrup," said Draco, aiming his wand vaguely at the middle of the room. Suddenly, other cupboards opened and a line of chocolate syrup bottles came floating towards them. He helped her catch the dozen of them before asking sarcastically, "Will that be enough?"
"Um... yes, thanks." He handed her the last one and their hands touched very briefly. Warm, she thought, surprised by him for the third time in as many minutes. "I've got a bit of a sweet tooth. And Chocolate Frogs just aren't as good to me, especially since they're always hopping away."
"Fascinating," he said, rubbing his hands on his robes to get the feel of her off, while trying to sound bored. The thought of her and sticky sweet syrup combined was rather interesting, in fact, but he needed her to leave.
"So what are you doing down here after hours, Draco?"
The use of his first name surprised him so much that he forgot to insult her again.
"Besides being a 'rebel,' I mean... Lord of all Prefects," Ginny grinned. Glancing to where he'd been standing before she made herself known, she spied his prize. "What's with the ketchup?"
"What's with the blasted syrup?" he shot back, much too defensively.
Ginny's eyebrows jumped up. She wasn't getting a look at another side of Draco Malfoy, was she? That would mean he had more than one. It boggled the brain. "You mean this is a weird little midnight snack thing for you, too?"
"Please, Weasley. Girls love chocolate. Your sister Ron's done more for the sweets industry than should be possible for someone with no money. You can't call that weird."
She let the dig at Ron pass, so confused that he seemed to be competing to be the less normal of the two of them. Hey, that's all you, Ferret Boy. Still, she had to contradict him, even if that meant accidentally defending him.
"Not if you put it on ice cream or something. I chug it like it's butterbeer. My mum says it's disgusting and very unladylike." She took one of her bottles and sat down with it on the floor. "But it's sooo good," she finished, then waving her hand at him bizarrely. "Come here. Bring your ketchup."
Draco wondered if she could have confunded him without him seeing, because he was actually walking towards her. Did I just take an order from a Weasley?? He flatly refused, however, to sit on the floor. Before he could even voice a snobby objection, Ginny and her wand had brought a tea towel to lie upon the floorspace in question.
"The kitchen elves keep the floor spotless, but I wouldn't want to risk offending your delicate bottom."
Malfoys did not blush... at least not on their faces. Draco sat down with all the dignity he could muster. "It's fine, thank you," he spat. "Now what exactly is the purpose of me lowering myself this way?"
"I thought we'd have a duel, of sorts."
Draco tightened his grip on his wand.
"Not that sort of duel. Paranoid, much? I mean... first one to an empty bottle. No magical assistance. And if you puke, you lose."
"What? You've gone soft in the head, you have. Or you already were. I'm going to bed."
Ginny was having too much fun, for some reason, to let him go just yet. She grabbed a handful of his robes when he moved to stand up, pulling him back down.
"Do you want it to get out that we were caught together after hours having a secret rendezvous?"
"What?? That's... that's..." Not a half bad idea. "Me and you?" He gave an over the top shudder. "You're mad. No one would buy that."
"I am in my nightclothes, after all. It doesn't look good," she whispered, leaning forward.
Looks bloody fantastic from here.
"I scream for a professor and, even if Snape shows up, you'll have a lot to answer to."
He eyed her evilly and appreciatively. "You are devious and twisted, little Weasel... more than I gave you credit for. You're on."
"Brilliant. I warn you, though. I've been known to finish one of these in under a minute."
"I warn you, I'm not cleaning up the mess when your pretty little head explodes from the sugar. I'll leave you to the elves."
His casual use of the word "pretty" to describe her hit Draco just a moment or two after it hit Ginny. A shy look passed over her face, for what was certainly the first time that night. She did have a pretty head, now that he was seeing it up close. Her hair was not the crass orange of her brothers', but a true deep red... a coppery merlot. Maybe that explained why, the longer he looked at her, the more he was beginning to feel... ever so slightly... intoxicated.
"Draco?"
"Nothing!" came his oddly indignant reply. How dare she think I was thinking...? Because I was not! "Enough time wasting. Let's do this stupid thing. Ready, set..."
He never said "go," but she had known he wouldn't and was not left behind. Both flipped open the tops to their respective bottles, raised them to their mouths in an instant, and knocked them back. Ahh, the ketchup's flavor was long-missed for Draco, but his focus was somewhat divided... watching her out of the corner of his eye. She started with the tip of the bottle a few inches from her open mouth, her hands squeezing, making the chocolate drip, then pour enthusiastically down her waiting throat. Then she just stuck it between her perfect pink lips and sucked on it, cheeks flexed and eyes closed in apparent bliss.
Draco shifted uncomfortably where he sat, and not because he was sitting on the floor. He was ordering himself to concentrate, thinking how Quidditch was bad enough, but there was no way he could let himself lose to Ginny Weasley at something this infantile and inane, when he realized he had won. His bottle was empty.
"Ha! How about that, little Weasel?" He waved his empty bottle in front of her face, trademark smirk planted firmly on his. To his relief, she stopped sucking and set her bottle down.
"Damn," she said, holding her stomach. "I am impressed, Draco. I truly am. I didn't think you had it in you. Course, ketchup is rather easier than chocolate, but..."
"What are you on about? This was all your bloody stupid idea!"
"I know. I'm just saying, chocolate's so much heavier, isn't it, so it wasn't really a fair competition."
"That's just because you lost!"
"You're probably right. Ah well. Next time we'll switch!"
"Next time? There is no next time!" All that sugar... She had to be high. "Let's just pretend there wasn't even a this time!"
"Why? This was fun. I know you're much too competitive and full of yourself to let a dare pass you by, especially from one so unworthy as me. Or, if I'm not enough to lure you, pretend it's Harry challenging you."
Hmm, let me think, who do I find more alluring? Draco thought, with a roll of his eyes.
Seeing the eye roll, Ginny wondered why she was making the effort, and turned around to leave.
"If there's a risk of seeing Potter in his unmentionables, I'd rather snog a hippogriff... But, if it's you, I might not mind."
She turned back towards him with the greatest little smile slowly creeping into her face. He took a few steps closer to her.
"You're not going to mention this to anyone, are you?"
Her smile fell some. "Embarrassed you were talking to someone so far below your station, Lord Malfoy?"
His chest tightened for a second in panic, thinking his father was there, then he relaxed with a surprising laugh. "No, more like the whole me consuming mass quantities of ketchup thing. Although, I did win."
"Yes, you did," she relented, her smile back up. "And no, I won't tell anyone. Who would believe me?"
"Not even Potter, or your brother? Or... what's his name... your boyfriend... Thomas?"
Ginny was surprised he knew about her and Dean. Not that it was any kind of secret, but just that he was paying any kind of attention. "No, none of them. For my sake more than yours. You think I want Dean to know what a pig I am?"
"How come you can share that with me, then, and not him?"
"Because I like him."
Draco wasn't at all bothered by the implications of that answer. He smiled. "You've... got some syrup, just there," he said, pointing to the corner of her mouth. He wasn't sure why he was being helpful, unless it was to see her tongue snake out to lick the bit of chocolate away, which it did.
She'd never seen him smile before tonight... at least not without something smirky, sneaky, or otherwise not good behind it. It was quite nice. "Thanks. And you... well..." Ginny giggled. "You look like a vampire, actually. More than usual."
Before Draco could bother with finding the coolest way to remove this excess ketchup from his face, she was sidling up to him. Close enough that he could feel the silk of her gown, though not quite her. He was wondering if it was possible that her ever efficient tongue was going to give a repeat performance, aiding him this time. Only slightly less exciting, her index finger made a trail up his chin, up to the edge of his bottom lip, removing the still fresh ketchup. To his astonishment, he did see her tongue again, when it came out to lick her finger clean.
"Yummy."
"Yes, indeed," Draco whispered, mouth suddenly dry, despite all that ketchup.
"I love ketchup. I can see why you're so snagged on it. It's sweet, but it's got this bite to it."
Maybe it was the word "bite," so soon after calling him a vampire... or maybe it was just her... but he suddenly grabbed Ginny and bent her slightly back, zeroing in on her lovely neck. His lips just touched her skin once, maybe twice, and whether or not he intended to do any major nibbling is a moot point, because she poked him in the crotch with her wand before he had a chance.
"I have more tricks up my sleeve than just the Bat-Bogey, Malfoy. Don't do that again," she said in a calm, deadly voice.
Draco gulped, frozen until she finally moved the wand. Then he laughed and did a little swagger, to play his actions off. "Calm yourself, little Weasel. It was a gag. My vampire reputation, you know."
Ginny didn't know if she believed that or not, but she was going to let it go until he added...
"Besides, you're only pissed off because you liked it."
She stared him down, chewing on the inside of her lip, determined that he was wrong. Listing reasons, like... He's evil. He's everything there is to hate about Slytherin. He hates all your friends (and maybe you). He's not even that good-looking... Okay, that is just a lie. But, to cap it all, you have a boyfriend already!
Her mind was reduced to screaming at her, It's MALFOY!, and she finally told herself to shut up. She had liked it. And part of her wished she hadn't put a stop to it so fast.
Knowing what she had to do, she called out, "Accio ketchup," hoping there was more. A large bottle floated across the kitchen and into her hand. Draco looked perplexed and a bit worried.
"Maybe you're right, Draco. Maybe I did like it. Maybe I've even been flirting with you."
He couldn't believe it. He was right. How could he have ever doubted himself? Here she was, moving closer and closer to him...
"But, for now, I am spoken for. So, on behalf of Dean..."
She took the cap right off of the bottle, reached up high as she could, and poured the entire contents over his head.
He watched the red drip down his shoulders and cover the green of his robes. It seemed right somehow. He knew he should be enraged, but he was too busy enjoying her in action.
Something about him covered in ketchup, the white blond of his hair now a makeshift red, was just so... a word she'd thought would never apply to Draco Malfoy... adorable. She had to get out of there before she let him play vampire again.
Wiping a stray glob of ketchup from her wand, Ginny turned and walked away. Just by the door, she looked over her shoulder at him. "Until next time," she said with a wink, copper hair shining. And she was gone.
Until next time. For now, I am spoken for.
Standing there, completely covered in low-class tomato sauce, he had never felt better. And, no, he didn't like ketchup that much. But the fire in her cheeks and the flame of her hair... the brief taste of her skin... covered him from the inside.
"Delicious," he said, licking his lips.
Draco Malfoy had a new taste for red.