As You Wish - Chapter 15
Ginny woke up the next morning annoyed. Just straight up pissed. She had let Daphne get into her head too much and she had gone to bed without letting Draco know. She had undressed in a huff, throwing her clothes around her room without care, kicking off her shoes, and running a hand down her body to turn her back to her normal self.
What started out as a fun way to get out into the world was starting to become a burden. Crystal's whole concept was a joke. Ginny knew how ridiculous the name sounded, and made a point to use the pronunciation from a movie she had seen. One of the female characters took the female lead out to lunch and splashed some fancy champagne on her, calling it "holy water". Ginny thought the entire concept was outlandish, which only made her choice in alias even more amusing to her.
And her first night out, although somewhat shaky at times, was an enjoyable experience. Blaise was easy to be around and he did an excellent job of keeping an eye on her. He even told her how he had to carry her upstairs to her room after the party since Astoria got the two of them absolutely sloshed.
But now, now Crystal was too much the center of attention. She had done too good of a job blending in to Draco's social circle and she felt stifled. She hated constantly needing to be en guard when around the Greengrass sisters and she hated that she was fearful of stepping outside the safety of Draco's home. There were so many times that she longed to simply walk through Diagon Alley and the rest of London, not caring who she saw or what she could encounter. The fact that she had only run into Harry so far was a miracle, as far as she was concerned.
Ginny thought Crystal meant as close as she could get to freedom in her predicament, but she was quickly realizing that it had become another form of imprisonment.
Worst of all, though, was the fact that she couldn't talk about it with Draco. She sighed as she thought about him. He had been so accommodating of her throughout most of their arrangement and she always felt joyful about being a true help to her masters. But this arrangement was still meant to be for his benefit. And what if he used all three of his wishes to meet his own goals?
That last thought gave her pause. Was she really thinking, perhaps even assuming, that he was going to use his last wish to free her? Had she convinced herself that this version of him that she was getting to know would really be so selfless?
Ginny brought her knees up to her chest and hugged them as tight as she could. She wiggled her toes and his childhood teddy bear appeared in front of her. She picked it up, a trail of red fog left in its wake, and brought it close to her face. She wanted to scream into it, but instead inhaled deeply. Ah, she thought, feeling her shoulders relax. This must've been what baby him smelled like. The bear smelled like fresh linen, roses, and a powdery musk. She thought of how often the poor bear must have been cleaned, a small hand dragging it into his mother's atrium, and the powdery scent only babies have.
Those thoughts made her smile and she thought back to their conversation at the Manor. He did say that most of his indoctrination happened when he was accepted to Hogwarts. And he looked like a very normal baby in the photos that she saw. So maybe she should have faith in her current master. Maybe she should rely less on his words for now, and more on his actions. Because his actions indicated that he did care for her in some capacity. He was the one who comforted her the day she saw Harry, after all.
Before she could continue that train of thought, she heard a knock on her door.
"Ginny?"
Shit! She let go of the teddy bear and watched as her red fog enveloped it, taking it back to its hiding spot in the Bottle. "What is it?" She began frantically waving the fog away.
"Can I come in?"
Ginny looked down at herself. She had taken to sleeping in her underwear as she had gotten older and her current ensemble of a loungewear bra and undies was not the look. "Gimme just a second!"
She threw on an oversized shirt that was long enough to cover a majority of her upper body and ran to the door.
She opened it slightly in case the shirt could lift up to reveal anything. "Morning," she said with a smile.
Draco felt like he was in a daze when she opened her bedroom door. Her hair was still down, tousled about her head without care. Her face was flushed from trying to rush to open the door for him, and her lips seemed to be still glistening from the lip balm Ginny used before bed. He felt it was the closest he would ever get to waking up next to her. His breath hitched at the thought and he wanted to burn the sight of her into his mind. Another treat to himself.
"W-Were you going to come downstairs for breakfast? Remember Blaise is coming over to watch the next movie in that series you were showing us."
"Oh, right! I'll be down in, like, 10 minutes."
Draco chuckled. "Take your time. I know how much you like your morning routine. Plus, Blaise shouldn't be here for another 15 minutes, so we can probably handle waiting for you."
"Oh, thank Merlin," Ginny breathed out. She opened the door just a bit more so she could get one of her arms out. "Go on ahead and I'll meet you in the kitchen." She began shooing Draco away from her room, turned around and closed the door behind her to get ready.
On the other side of her door stood Draco, his face becoming pink, his eyes widening as he realized that Ginny greeted him wearing nothing (as far as he knew) but a t-shirt. He crouched down, holding onto his knees. "Her thighs really are that fit," he mumbled into his arms, deciding that yes, he was the type that wanted Ginny to crush him between her thighs as he made his way towards her — oh, fuck.
He hurried back to his room. He needed to do something about this situation before Blaise showed up.
Draco made his way to the kitchen, knowing that he was a bit later than the estimate he gave Ginny for Blaise's arrival.
The pair were already seated at the table, deep in conversation when Draco sat down next to her.
Blaise noticed the change in the seating arrangement immediately. "What took you so long?" He was used to his friend sitting next to him, but he realized that the last few times he'd been over to Draco's place, said friend slowly began sitting next to his genie.
"I, uh, realized that I didn't take a shower last night and needed to fix that before you got here."
The other man narrowed his eyes. He wasn't going to press the topic, but he wasn't an idiot. He had lived with Draco long enough as teenagers to know that his friend preferred showering in the evening and if he was taking a "quick shower" in the morning, he wasn't just getting himself clean.
Blaise's scrutiny was not lost on Draco and he had the dignity to turn a little bit pink. The other Slytherin looked from Draco to Ginny, an old signal the pair used if they were trying to ask about someone near them. Draco took a sip of his breakfast tea to better hide his face and gave Ginny a sideways glance as a reply to his friend. Blaise's eyes widened and his eyebrows shot up. It wasn't the right time to pester Draco further, but there was always tomorrow at work. He smiled in contentment and leaned back in his chair, tilting his head upward at Draco to let him know that they'd continue their conversation later.
The entire time this unspoken conversation was taking place, Ginny was serving up a plate for her master, setting it down before him just as Blaise leaned back in his chair. "Don't feel like you need to rush. I don't know if Blaise is done eating, but I'm still finishing up."
"Oh, yeah. I'm all good here, Gin." Blaise said, handing her his plate.
Gin? Draco thought, finding himself irritated all of a sudden. "I thought Ginny was your only nickname?" he asked, turning to his genie.
She shrugged in response. "It's the one most people know, but once Harry started calling me that, my brothers started using Gin from time to time, so it's fine."
Still irritated, Draco hurried through his breakfast, not wanting to know how close Gin and Blaise had gotten.
"Did you know that when that actor kicked that helmet, he really was partially screaming in pain since he broke his foot?" Ginny announced absent-mindedly as she ate popcorn, her eyes never leaving the tv screen.
"I mean, that has to hurt, but they could just fix it up immediately, right?" That was Draco, next to her on the couch, his eyes also still on the tv screen.
She chuckled. "Muggles don't have the ability to do something like that."
"What?" This was said simultaneously by Blaise and Draco. Blaise looking horrified, Draco looking incredulous.
The genie waved a hand in front of her TV to pause the movie. "How do you think they heal after breaking a bone?"
"I mean, we haven't thought about it too much, but can't they just put some kind of salve over the wound?" Draco said, still incredulous.
Ginny began laughing in earnest. "They most definitely cannot just 'put some kind of salve over the wound.' They have hospitals and doctors like we do, and those folks will immobilize the wound with a cast of some kind, or they perform surgery to manually fix the issue. They don't have Skele-Grow or Episkey to help them out with that."
Draco placed a hand over his mouth in horror at the word "surgery" since he was, at least, familiar with that concept.
"Remind me to be a wizard in my next life, wouldn't you, Draco?" Blaise said, tapping his friend's shoulder a couple of times for effect.
The genie rolled her eyes at their dramatics. "Shall we continue?"
"Okay, so out of the characters we've seen so far, who do you think you would be?" Blaise asked once the ending credits began to roll.
Draco snorted. "Obviously I'm Aragorn."
The other two looked at each other before doubling over in laughter. Draco crossed his arms over his chest, petulantly sinking down into the sofa. Their laughter seemed never ending.
"I can't breathe! Oh my god, I can't —" Ginny gasped out, tears rolling down her cheeks.
"What's so funny about me being Aragorn?" Draco finally shouted. "The man is a do-er, he's respected, he's loyal, and he's supposed to be the king. Isn't that not me?"
"So then would Ginny be Arwen?" Blaise asked, calmed down enough to have the presence of mind to sneak in that question.
The blond began turning red instead of pink. He suddenly envisioned himself and his genie as those two characters, on a dimly lit bridge in Rivendell, grasping hands as Ginny's now long, flowing hair fluttered in the breeze. Her thin, silk dress clinging onto her skin as though it had been poured onto her. "Well, I —"
"Pfft," Ginny thankfully interrupted with, oblivious to the implication of Blaise's question. "I am obviously Eowyn. She hasn't had her big moment yet, but just you wait." She paused, bringing a finger up to her lip as she began thinking. "No, Draco, you remind me too much of both Legolas and his dad, Thranduil. We haven't seen the movies with him in them yet, but you can sometimes bring that kind of energy, as it were."
"Why do I feel like you just insulted me?" Draco asked, narrowing his eyes at her.
Ginny threw her hands up as though she was pleading her innocence. "You'll just have to wait and see, I guess."
"Are you crying?" Blaise asked as he chewed his pizza. The trio had decided to watch the last movie in the series after taking a break for lunch. They were now towards the end of the third film and, as it was close to dinner, Ginny had conjured up some pizza boxes for them. "Unrelated, but, Gin, how do you get the crust so thin?"
Before Ginny could answer, Draco interrupted. "Is it wrong for me to find everyone bowing at the hobbits an emotional experience?" His genie handed him a box of tissues.
"Don't worry; that scene got me the first few times I watched this. And circling back to your question, Blaise, I realized I tend to gravitate between either New York or Detroit-style pizza after being in America for as long as I have. The thinner crust is the New York-style one." Ginny grabbed the last slice in the box in front of her, whisking away said box to the trash.
As she, too, began to chew on her bite of a simply divine slice of a white sauce pizza she shamelessly duplicated from a shop one of her masters liked to frequent, Ginny took a moment to assess her current surroundings.
This was nice, she realized. And while she had felt this for quite a bit of time now, spending the day watching movies, eating whatever they wanted; it felt like a moment from a bygone era. It reminded her of days in the Gryffindor common room, reading books, gossiping with her classmates about boys, and desperately trying to look cool, but not so cool that Harry couldn't think of her as attractive.
Her pizza began tasting salty. She placed her food down and tapped her cheeks. Dwelling on those times always made her heart ache in a way that couldn't be fixed by pizza and movies alone. Plus, it wouldn't do to worry Draco. She felt that he was always cautious about bringing up her past life whenever they were alone; as though things would go back to how they were in school if he reminded her of how he used to be.
While they hadn't truly discussed their time in school, Ginny wasn't in a rush to bring up the topic. There were so many things that had happened in the time since that showed her that she may not have to worry about the prospect of being seen as herself, with Draco, as much as she thought she would.
"Okay, yeah, seeing all of it, I get why you'd be Eowyn."
Blaise's words roused Ginny from her thoughts. "Thank you!" she dramatically announced, throwing her arms up in triumph.
"You definitely would've pretended to be a man if you were in her situation," he continued, nodding sagely.
"Exactly!" Ginny cried out again. "With the amount of brothers I have, if I was told that I couldn't do something they could do, I would have 100 percent done it, dressed as a man, out of pure spite."
"Very on brand for you." Blaise nodded again.
"So what about the one with the other character you said I was most like?" Draco asked, staring down his genie through narrowed eyes.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands together. "That's a whole 'nother trilogy, that honestly shouldn't have been a trilogy, but I digress." She paused to catch her breath. "We can start that one the next time you both are free."
"Ughhh," the pair of men cried out, with Draco slinking further down into his seat in protest.
Ginny began laughing at the sight. It warmed her up the way being around loved ones does and made her forget about her previous self-doubt. "You'll be fine. It's not like these movies are going anywhere. We can watch them whenever we want."
Draco looked up at Blaise from his weird position on the couch. "We'll have to check with Margaret regarding our schedule for the next few weeks. This is a matter of utmost importance."
"Couldn't agree more. We've become too invested." Blaise looked down at his watch, standing up once he realized the time. "Gin is definitely right about not needing to start another movie tonight, though, especially since we both have work in the morning."
Draco glared at Blaise after his pointed use of "we". "I hate it when you're right," he grumbled. "I guess I'll see you in, what, twelve hours?"
The other man chuckled. "Something like that. Make sure he actually goes to sleep and then drags himself into work, alright, Gin?"
"Don't worry; I'll harass him out of the house tomorrow morning." Ginny stood up, walking towards the stairs in the foyer. "Come on, you two, the more you stall, the more I'm going to treat you like how my mum treated my brothers when they were trying to avoid bed."
She said her goodbye to Blaise before heading up the stairs. "I better not find you sleeping on the couch tomorrow morning," she called down to her master as she headed into her room.
Draco finally stood up from his odd position on the sofa, stretching his arms above his head, and plodded upstairs. While he knew that Blaise was serious about checking their schedules to continue their movie watching, he also knew that his friend was planning on ambushing him tomorrow. When he got to the top of the stairs, he looked down the hallway to where Ginny's room was.
"I must be out of my damn mind," he muttered, wondering how she had so quickly invaded so many of his thoughts. Instinctually, he felt that he should be pushing her away from him, lest she be discovered. He was used to what people thought of him, but he didn't like the idea of her somehow being perceived as less than because she was associating with him. She was the woman who was supposed to marry the Boy Who Lived. But even that description wasn't fair to her. Ginny was her own person, and he wanted her to be celebrated for what she could do. Not for who she decided to associate with.
That line of thinking ended when he realized that he was standing outside her bedroom door. He could hear her walking about, music softly playing as she readied herself for bed. He thought again of her from this morning — eyes still sleepy, hair disheveled, cheeks flushed, and lips plump. She had never looked more beautiful. But those thoughts were all he could treasure at the moment. He had to remind himself that he was in a contract with Ginny, and it would, without a doubt, be a dick move for him to force her into something simply because he wanted her.
He sighed, and walked back to his bedroom. He closed the door and immediately started stripping down to prepare for his nighttime shower. He took extra care taking off the clothing covering his lower half since something just had to make an appearance as he stood outside Ginny's door.
"I'm a fucking mess," he said, waiting for the water in his shower to warm up. He looked down at his erection and sighed in frustration. "Alright; might as well finish what you fucking started," he stated before walking in and reminding himself to aim down when he came.
A/N - Thank you for reading! Please review!