Chapter Six

And She Screams

"Down!" Ginny screamed, throwing a spell at Sirius.

"You'll have to do better than that, Miss Weasley," Sirius crowed. Ginny ducked behind a rock outcropping. Cedric and Draco joined her. For some reason she'd been assigned the role of leader in these games between them and Sirius. Not that she was bad at it but it was different. After pining after Harry for so many years, she was used to falling into a following type role.

"What now, Ginny?" Cedric asked. "Sirius and those house elves have us surrounded."

Ginny racked her brain for something, anything that could get them out of there. There was the exploding man trick. That wouldn't work too well, not in this big an area unless they could get all the elves together. The version of the exploding man that she knew wouldn't kill them but would just knock them out. She knew she shouldn't be hesitating to kill them all but she'd hung out with Hermione too much.

And Cedric was sure to tell Hermione if she tried it.

So that plan was out. What else? God, what else?

"Magic hands," she said.

"Huh?" Draco and Cedric said.

"It's incredibly hard to do and I can't do it on myself but I can show you how to do it to me," she began.

"Don't be stupid. You'll do it on me," Draco said.

"Draco!"

"The more we argue, the better chance he has to kick our asses. Again."

She twisted her lips but bent over his hands, muttering spells. It took a few moments, with Cedric holding up their shield.

"Now what does this do?" Draco asked, looking down at his hands, which were glowing a faint green.

"For the next ten minutes, you can catch any spell thrown at you and throw it back."

"Damn that sounds useful!" Cedric exclaimed.

"Yeah, but when it wears off you're more than likely to pass out," she said.

"Oh," both the guys said.

"Well, wish me luck," Draco said. He grabbed Ginny's chin and stole a lingering kiss.

Ginny readied her wand, trying to ignore the weak feeling in her knees. She hadn't mentioned that the spell took a lot out of the caster as well as the inevitable toll on the recipient.

She got to her feet, leaning a bit more heavily on the outcropping than she wanted to. Draco was standing a few feet away, his hands ablaze with green as he caught spells and threw them back. Ginny was glad Draco had talked her into it. His aim was much better than hers.

She threw a few spells of her own. She could feel the drain of the Magic Hands spell but Draco looked fantastic out there.

Finally it ended. The lights came up in the room and Sirius, who was missing a chunk of hair on the left side of his face, came out, beaming at the three of them.

"Nicely done, Ginny, Draco, Cedric. You work well together."

"Nah, we just take her orders very well," Cedric said, slipping an arm around Ginny's waist. He gave her a look that said he'd noticed her behavior or at least guessed about it.

"Magic Hands? Inventive use. I was expecting the Exploding Man," Sirius said.

"Me? Be predictable? Never," Ginny said.

Draco suddenly dropped to his knees. Sirius grabbed his arm before he went all the way down. "Whoa, there, lad. Takes a bit out of you, doesn't it?"

Sirius saw to it that Draco was standing on his own then looked at Ginny. "How about you?"

"I'm fine," she said firmly, making sure he got her drift. He seemed to for he turned to Cedric.

"Did I get you with that last spell?" he asked.

"Barely singed," Cedric said.

"Well I think this calls for a celebration," Sirius said. "Shall we?"

"Sounds good to me," Draco said. "Can we have cake?"

"You are quite addicted to cake," Ginny noted.

"That stuff is divine! Ginny, you can't say it isn't. Do you know where they got the recipe?" he asked Sirius.

"Ask Ginny, she gave it to them," Sirius said.

"My mum's recipe," she said. "We..." she stopped that line right there when she caught sight of Draco's face. He was very easy to read some days. It hurt her almost physically to know that his family was so fractured. It was worse knowing that his father would never want to reconcile.

"C'mon. I'll teach you how to make it," she said, linking arms with him and ignoring the slight quiver in her legs. Chatting happily, she led him down to the kitchens.

(A/N: I had fun with this chapter. Trust me that Magic Hands and The Exploding Man will both come back in later chapters.