Oh that was thoroughly delightful! Thank you, and well done.

a cute ending...

This was so adorable, funny, wonderfully written, and all around a great read! I only wish it was longer! Am heading off now to check out your other fics. :)

AHHHH!!! (Note my excessive need for exclamation points) Totally loving this!!

That was so funny...I love the boyfriend jab!

Awww....I agree that's got to be love.

Thank you for the story and I can't wait to read more =)

Ginny is not as good at this as she would have thought.

Not that she has daydreamed, planned, or even pondered this before. But if she had, Ginny is fairly certain that she would expect kissing in total darkness to be, if not easy, at least accomplishable. After all, people do it all the time, right?

Well, Ginny doesn’t. She’s always been able to see where her lips are going, and her eyes close after the kissing is already fully underway. She has never been accused of being a bad kisser, quite the opposite actually – which is why this is especially humiliating.

“Agh – the bloody – ow!” Draco screeches, jerking backwards. “What the – are you trying to kill me?”

“No!” Ginny snaps, because when she’s embarrassed she tends to take it out on people. “You moved! I was going to kiss you!”

Then, as an afterthought, “Lumos.”

Draco is leaning back against the wall, hands clutching his nose. His face is all screwed up in pain, and he is far from being the extremely entranced boy she had hoped. Instead, he’s just hurt and indignant. Why do Ginny’s plans never go the way they’re supposed to?

Still… It’s perhaps wrong to choose this moment to be stunned by his (masculine) beauty, but Ginny is. Maybe it’s the dim light that outlines him exactly right, or the way he’s just a little taller than her (ah, that’s it, she must have misjudged the height difference in the dark) or maybe it’s just the extremely close proximity (Filch’s closets are not exactly known for being large and roomy). In any case, Draco is appealing to Ginny on a very raw, visceral level right now, and she really wants to just kiss him.

Unfortunately, Draco has other plans. The moment she moves forward, he throws up his hands in a defensive shield. “Whoa, whoa,” he says. “Just… stay over there, Weasley. You might get my eye next.”

Ginny flushes deeply again, and even when she spots the slight smirk at the corners of his mouth and knows he’s messing with her on purpose now, she’s still not entirely sure that he doesn’t also really mean it.

Is he honestly through with her?

“But seriously,” Draco says, one hand coming back to rub gingerly at his nose while the other remains holding her off, “how are you not hurting? That was – I swear you nearly broke my nose.”

Ginny sniffs. “I,” she states with superiority, “have a very high pain threshold.”

Draco snorts, then winces and curses softly. Ginny smirks briefly at him, before returning to business.

She has decided that if Draco thinks he is through with her, a decent snog will change his mind. And even if it doesn’t – well, then she’ll at least get a decent snog, which will no doubt encourage her to keep on trying. He can protest all he wants (and Ginny will probably leave the light on this time), but they will kiss before they leave this closet.

She steps as close as she can and reaches for his hand to push it out of the way, but Draco grabs her wrist and holds it. “Weasley,” he says in a voice a little deeper than usual, “What do you think you’re doing?”

Ginny takes a deep breath. His eyes are curiously intense, and she can tell he’s actually serious this time. He knows what she’s trying to do, that’s not what he’s asking – he’s asking why. If she answers truthfully, she will be making herself vulnerable in the worst way.

She meets his eyes and does not blink (she is a Gryffindor, you know). “Securing a boyfriend.”

Draco looks –surprised, and – maybe? –pleased too. For half a second.

Then he smirks, and it’s just dripping with so much raw sexuality that Ginny can’t believe nothing has burst into flames yet. Or that nobody’s naked.

Ooh. That’s a nice image.

“Well,” Draco says, and he’s still leaning up against the wall, but somehow he’s lounging now, and sort of inviting her to just come closer and closer, “you’re not exactly going about it the right way.” His hand twists on her wrist and draws Ginny up to him, and she comes eagerly, thinking, yes, yes. “Shall I show you how?”

Draco’s hand is in the process of wrapping around Ginny’s back and hers are resting on his chest. Their feet are entangled in the narrow free space amongst the mops and dustpans, and his head is getting closer and closer to hers, his eyes burning. Ginny is more than ready to succumb to that look they hold, but –

She bursts out laughing. Draco stops short, and for a few seconds, Ginny is just laughing hysterically in his stiff grip.

“What, exactly, are you laughing at, Weasley?” Draco sounds almost petulant, and it only makes Ginny laugh harder.

“You – you – should I be worried, Draco?” Ginny chortles. “I mean I have to admit, I never would have thought that you would be able to give me advice on how to get a boyfriend, but you know it actually explains quite a bit –”

Draco’s cheeks turn pink, and he abruptly releases her. Ginny falls back into a crammed shelf, still laughing crazily, and her wand drops from her hands and goes out. “You – ” he says, and Ginny knows he wouldn’t be meeting her eyes if she could see his face, “I never said – stop laughing, dammit!”

Ginny can’t. She can’t really breathe either, which is a little unfortunate, but this is just so priceless, after all the look on his face...

When she finally recovers, Draco is sulkily silent. “Ah, come off it,” Ginny says, wiping her eyes. “You have to admit that was funny.”

He makes no sound, which Ginny takes as no I don’t. She bites her lip to avoid laughing again.

“Fine. Okay, I’m done. Really.” Ginny peers around for him in the darkness. “Argh, what happened to my bloody wand? I can’t see a thing.”

“Good,” Draco says, and for some reason he’s not exactly petulant anymore. “Then maybe I can teach you a thing or two.”

A hand reaches out from – somewhere, brushes her shoulder. It catches, and another one lands on her other shoulder. Together, they slowly move up.

“The trick is,” Draco says conversationally as he cups Ginny’s cheeks and tilts her head back slightly, “to go slow. You don’t need to pounce on your partner like a ravenous beast, you know.”

Ginny would say something in her defense here, but Draco has somehow effectively flipped the mood again, and she can’t really do anything but hold still. His thumbs brush the corners of her lips.

“Look before you leap,” Draco says, “so to speak.”

Then his lips descend carefully upon Ginny’s, and pretty much all thoughts other than oh yes leave her head. Draco really is good at this, as good as Ginny was bad, and her eyes slip closed (even if it makes no difference) as she melts into his embrace.

Oh yes. This is good. This is very, very good, and Ginny is getting very into it. She’s kissing back hard, and her hands are doing that thing where they don’t know whether to stay in his hair or clutching onto his neck or shoulders and what began as a relatively chaste press of lips is rapidly heating up this little supply closet.

Draco presses Ginny back up against some metal shelves, and she yanks him closer; he trips on a stray mop-handle and a pile of things go crashing into a wall. Neither of them really notice, as they are too busy taking a quick break to breathe.

“Does this mean I’m your boyfriend now?” Ginny asks, or probably pants.

Draco actually laughs, goes, “Cheeky–” and cuts himself off to kiss her again, hard. Ginny’s fingers skim the edge of his shirt and he groans.

He retaliates by doing something that makes Ginny moan shamefully loudly, and it’s just perfect and hot and –

Light floods them, blinding and sobering. They instinctively jerk away from each other, and Ginny bangs her funny bone into the corner of the shelf, making her grip it and curse in pain.

She spies her wand on the floor, engulfed in a very tall shadow, and suddenly begins to pray. Please, please, let it be no one, please don’t let this be happening, please-

“Mr. Malfoy,” a stern, disapproving, familiar voice says. “Miss Weasley.”

Ginny slowly lifts her head, squinting in horror at the terrible shape in the doorway. This can’t be, it’s all her worst nightmares come true –

Snape smirks and his voice is just that horrible blend of sarcastic and humiliating and completely (and utterly degradingly) amused. “If you would care to step out of the supply closet.”

---

Normally, Ginny does not enjoy examining Professor Snape’s polyturgs. It is a punishment reserved for the worst of the worst (meaning usually Neville Longbottom) because it takes time, discipline, and an iron stomach. Oh, and a complete knowledge of how to spell away the worst sort of muck. Worse, if a student misses a single spot, Snape will gleefully hand them over to Filch.

It’s clearly a stressful business. Still, today is slightly different, namely because of the boy standing next to her (he, by the way, is actually cleaning out cauldrons – because apparently making out and making lots of noise in a supply closet is a minor offense if you are Draco, but doing the same is almost expel-worthy if you are a Weasley, which is typical).

Normally Ginny would be furious at Draco, for the disparity in their punishments if nothing else. But after a full two hours of smirking, he sets down his last gleaming cauldron (to be honest, Ginny would have expected him to be terrible at cleaning them by hand, but it appears his potions skill extends down to every last little detail – which is also just typical) and takes one of the remaining two polyturgs himself, scrunching up his nose in distaste.

Draco Malfoy is not the sort of boy that would do that for anyone. It takes someone special – and she isn’t talking about dark curly hair or affectionate dispositions or even very generous chests here – special as in someone he truly cares about. And even if he feels perfectly free insulting her and laughing at her attempts to kiss him and interrupting her and smirking at her and whatever else, Ginny has confidence that she may have actually won this little war of theirs. Because he will do all of this with glee, but at the same time as he explains why exactly having a bumpy nose is relevant (“When you charge at someone like a hippogriff and try to kiss them, it makes it that much more painful, Weasley” “You really are gay, aren’t you, if you’ve been noticing that about my brothers”) he will be peering into that one hole no one can explain on the higher part of the polyturg’s torso, checking for black spots.

And that’s got to be love.


....And THAT is my favorite part of this chapter AND story. :)

XOXO, JT