“Oh! I hate him!” Ginny exclaimed as she threw herself into the empty library chair across from her best friend, Luna Lovegood. She slammed her fists into the tabletop for emphasis.

Luna looked up from her book with a slightly misty expression and asked, “Who do you hate?”

“Malfoy!” Ginny yelled. She caught sight of Madam Pince out of the corner of her eye and cast a Silencio charm over the table. No use getting into trouble. “He’s an awful, miserable, insufferable… evil git!”

Luna nodded lightly, her radish earrings swaying. “It usually is him,” she said. “What is it this time?” She was quite used to her friend ranting about the Slytherin boy. It seemed she complained about something he’d done everyday.

Ginny rolled her eyes. “I was walking down the corridor and he tripped me! Just out of the blue! I wasn’t doing anything… didn’t even know he was there! Then he caught me and tried to make it seem like it wasn’t his fault! He said if only I were able to afford better shoes I wouldn’t fall so often!”

“That doesn’t seem too bad,” Luna replied with a shrug. She looked back down at her book, but Ginny was still going.

“Well, I informed him that I bought these shoes, new, at the beginning of term with the money I earned over the summer. But then he, of course, had to make a remark about me needing to work because my parents can’t afford all us kids!” She threw her hand into the air in a motion of exasperation before crossing them over her chest.

“And I assume it went downhill from there as usual,” Luna stated serenely. “You didn’t hex each other, did you?”

“No,” Ginny said, rolling her eyes. “But I wish I had! Malfoy needs a good hexing! Sodding git! Really, what makes him so special?”

Luna looked at her with one eyebrow raised. “Well he can’t be all that bad. He is very good looking, you know. Have you noticed his eyes?”

Ginny had, in fact. How could she not. They were so pale, you wouldn’t expect them to be able to reveal any emotion. And of course, his didn’t. Except when he slipped.

Like when he was yelling at her, for instance. They would get really dark and almost seemed to crackle. Just before he made a comment about her family, they would flash with something like glee.

One time she’d even seen him when he was laughing with his friends. His eyes had been bright and clear, seeming almost silver. They’d sparkled with a happiness he rarely showed.

“Well, as the are prominently displayed on his face,” Ginny replied, a little more harshly than she’d intended, “yes, I’ve seen them.”

Luna sighed and closed her book. “No. Not seen. Noticed. As in, really taken a good look. They say the eyes are the window to the soul.” Her own eyes drifted off to look at something only she could see.

“Who says that?” Ginny demanded angrily. What did Luna care if she noticed Malfoy’s eyes, anyway? What difference would it make to her?

“Oh, you know…” Luna replied vaguely.

Ginny shook her head and slouched in her chair. She fumed about Malfoy to herself, letting her friend get back to her studying.


*~


Luna slipped quietly through the door to one of the many unused classrooms later that day. She smiled softly at her boyfriend of two months, Blaise Zabini. “Hi,” she whispered.

Blaise slipped off of his perch on one of the desks and strolled casually towards her. “Hi, yourself,” he muttered, reaching up to flip a lock of Luna’s golden blond hair. He gave her an affectionate smile that never failed to turn her legs to jelly.

They kissed happily for a minute, then settled in to talk. “So, did Draco come ranting to you this afternoon?” Luna asked.

“Always,” Blaise replied with a roll of his eyes. “Every time the two of them fight, I get a minute by minute recap. The joys of being that boys best friend!”

Luna giggled. “Me, too! It’s kind of funny, actually. Ginny always comes flying in, arms waving, yelling at the top of her lungs. She almost got us kicked out of the library today.”

“Well, I’m just glad Draco caught me while I was outside,” Blaise told her. “I’m not so happy that he interrupted my essay, though.” He gave a dramatic grimace and shook his head for effect, smiling when Luna laughed.

“I wish they’d just snog and be done with it,” Luna said with a sigh. “They can’t seem to admit that they like each other. It’s starting to get old.”

“I have an idea,” Blaise said, his eyes gleaming in a very Slytherin fashion. Luna felt goose bumps on her arms as she leaned in eagerly.


*~


Draco marched through the corridors, head held high, relishing the satisfaction he felt whenever a student ran from him. It was Saturday, so he had no classes. His plans included walking around as if he owned the place, scaring first-years, and studying.

Not very gratifying, actually. It always had been in years past, but this year… things were different. He couldn’t really describe it either. Like starting his sixth year had changed everything.

The only thing he even really enjoyed anymore was provoking the Weaslette. She was easy to rile up and her reactions were priceless. With that hair of hers, she looked absolutely dangerous when angry. It resembled fire streaming down around her face, making it look like she was going to explode.

Shaking off his thoughts, Draco swept into the Great Hall for breakfast. He snapped at a second-year Gryffindor who was blocking his way to his table and smirked when they jumped away. Hey, just because he felt different didn’t mean he had to act like it.

He dropped into his seat and nodded at the other Slytherins. Blaise smirked in return. “Got any brilliant plans for the day?” the dark-haired wizard asked.

Draco shrugged. “Oh, you know. The usual.” He speared a piece of meat and began to eat.

He flicked his glance to the Gryffindor table and spotted the Weasley girl eating with her friends. Typical. She glanced up and caught his gaze, pulling a face. Draco sneered at her in return.

Blaise cleared his throat and Draco turned around slowly. “What do you want?” he asked. His friend wasn’t usually like this. Mostly he asked about plans and then went off on his own things.

“Nothing,” Blaise replied casually, spooning a bite of eggs into his mouth. “Have you started on your Arithmancy test yet?”

Draco looked the other boy up and down carefully. “You know, Blaise,” he said calmly. “Subtlety has never been one of your strong points, so you might as well just tell me.”

“Tell you what?” Blaise asked with a shrug.

“Whatever it is you’re trying to keep from me,” Draco replied, starting to get frustrated. Blaise hadn’t lied to him in years because he could always tell. And here he was showing all the usual signs of secrecy that Draco knew so well.

Blaise shook his head. “You’re paranoid, Draco. Not everyone always has a secret, you know.” He turned back to his dinner and pushed his hash browns around on his plate.

“I am not paranoid!” Draco insisted. But when they’d finished eating, he found himself following Blaise, determined to get it out of him one way or another. Whatever it was.

Blaise smirked and shook his head again as he meandered through the corridors. Draco glared sullenly, but refused to make a fool out of himself by pressing the issue.

Finally they pulled up outside of a non-descript wooden door. Draco didn’t recognize where they were and looked around curiously. There weren’t any other doors in the hall, just a couple of ugly statues.

Blaise turned around and cocked an eyebrow at his friend. “You’re still following me,” he stated. He crossed his arms lightly over his chest and cleared his throat. He looked decidedly nervous.

“Yes, I am,” Draco replied. “My aren’t you observant today.” He mimicked his friend’s posture and sneered.

Blaise’s eyes slid over to the door for a second, then jerked back to Draco. “Well, if you’ll excuse me,” he said. “I have better things to do than baby-sit you.”

Draco turned quickly, before Blaise could even finish forming a protest, and turned the knob. He pushed the door open and stepped into the room… just as Ginny Weasley walked in from the other side.

“Bloody hell!” they both said at the same time. They turned back to their respective doors in time to see them literally melt into the stone on either side, becoming a solid wall.

Draco pounded on the stone while Ginny yelled loudly. He figured that would have been a better idea, as all he got was several bruises and even a small scrape. He turned back around and glared around the room.

There was no furniture or cushions or even rugs. Two torches were mounted on each wall and a chandelier hung from the ceiling, so there was no want of light. The plain grey-green stone was dull and chipped, as if it had been there forever.

“Why did the doors close?” Ginny asked quietly as she leaned against the wall, taking stock of the room for herself. As if in answer, a piece of parchment appeared in her hand. She looked down in surprise and read it, her expression quickly changing to one of horror.

She spun to face the wall and yelled, “Luna! When I get out of here, I’m going to kill you! Luna?!”

Draco snatched the paper out of her hand. “’To make the doors reappear, a kiss between persons is required,’” he read aloud. “Oh, no. You’ve got to be kidding.” Kiss a Weasley? Why not just ask him to cut out his eyes and eat them?

Ginny grabbed the paper back and shredded it. “Well, better get comfortable, Malfoy,” she said heatedly. “’Cause there’s no way in hell I’m ever kissing you!”

“Good. I’m glad to see we’re on the same page.” With that, they went to opposite corners of the room and sat down, glaring at the walls.

Each second seemed to stretch on for hours as they angrily ignored each other. The silence was deafening as it echoed between them, begging to be broken. But both stubbornly refused to speak to the other.

Finally Ginny, giving in first, asked, “So, Malfoy. How do you come to be in this… whatever this is?” She gestured vaguely at the blank walls around them. She thought ironically that this must be what it was like to be in prison.

Draco shrugged and related his tale of Blaise’s treachery. There was nothing better to do, after all. Why not pass the time by talking. “Well, how about you?” he asked as he finished.

“Unlike you, Malfoy,” she replied, sticking her nose in the air haughtily, “I trust my friends implicitly. When Luna said she had something she had something she wanted to show me, I followed. No trickery necessary.”

“Ah, but she did trick you,” Draco countered, feeling very smug. He raised one eyebrow and looked around to indicate that she was just as stuck as he was, trust or no.

Ginny smirked. “Technically, no,” she said. “She didn’t lie at all. She told me she had something to show me, I didn’t ask what, and I ended up here.”

“I didn’t say she lied,” Draco said. “I said she tricked you. There’s a difference. Would you have come here if you knew I would be here? Or even if you knew this was a, er… kissing room?”

“Of course not,” Ginny replied automatically. Then she clamped her lips shut and glared at him.

Draco nodded knowingly and they lapsed into silence once again. The air crackled around them, their anger nearly tangible in its intensity. They both began to wish for something to distract themselves.

Is that roses? Ginny wondered as she caught a whiff of something.

Draco had already noticed it and blocked it from his mind. Things like that were not worthy of a Malfoy. Stupid romantic nonsense.

Ginny leaned back into her corner and started counting the stones in the ceiling. Draco observed that her freckles weren’t as prominent as her brothers’ were. That, coupled with her cute little button nose, created a very alluring picture. Wait! What was he just thinking? Were those really roses he smelled, or was it some strange potion designed to induce insanity?

He threw his own head back in frustration and glared at the chandelier. This gave Ginny her turn to look at him unnoticed. She’d never denied that he was attractive. It was just him that she didn’t like. His awful temper and the way he seemed to think that he was better than everyone else just because of his name and his money.

But really, just now, the way his hair was falling back from his face, it actually made her want to run her fingers through it. And his scowl was even nice. Not as nice as his smirk, but still. That’s it! She’d officially lost it!

Ten more minutes passed, but to the occupants of the room, it seemed about a hundred times longer. Draco lowered his gaze once more to Ginny, who was now counting the stones in the floor. “So,” he began. “Still pining after Scarhead?”

Ginny’s eyes came up to meet his with a menacing slowness that started a heat in his middle. “Not that it’s any of your business, but no. I gave up on Harry quite a while ago.”

“Oh,” Draco said. Good. Brilliant response. It seemed he couldn’t get his brain to function when she was looking at him like that. “Well, at least one Weasley shows promise for good sense.” Better.

Ginny rolled her eyes. “Really, Malfoy,” she said in exasperation. “Don’t you have any better material by now? After five years, I’ve gotten kind of bored with all the same jokes.”

“I don’t use the same jokes,” Draco replied defensively. He was very pleased with some of the things he came up with, actually. And lots of people seemed to think he was funny.

“Once you’ve heard one Weasley joke, you’ve heard them all,” Ginny mumbled. “And trust me… they’re not that good, anyway.”

Draco stood up angrily. “My jokes are just fine! Maybe you’re just too stupid to understand!”

Ginny looked up at him from her seat on the floor. “Well then explain to me,” she said, “why you and your group are the only ones who ever laugh.”

Because me and my friends are the only ones with enough class and brains!”

Now Ginny jumped up angrily. “Is that a fact? You think you’re smarter that everyone else? What about Hermione? She’s better than you in everything!”

“Pure luck!” Draco snapped, his hand drifting up to hover over his wand. And discovered that it wasn’t there. “My wand!” he yelled.

Ginny reached for hers, only to come to the same conclusion. “Two for Blaise and Luna, zero for us,” she sighed. “Now I can’t even fight with you decently!”

They collapsed back onto the floor for a third silence. This one lasted longer than the others, though it was occasionally broken by a sigh or the shifting of robes into a more comfortable position.

“What time is it, do you suppose?” Ginny asked after a while. “I’m starting to get hungry, even though my last memory of civilization was of food.”

Draco laughed in spite of himself. It was funny. And just out of the blue like that, he wasn’t prepared enough to control his reaction. He quickly stopped himself and shrugged. “Tuesday?” he replied, only half-joking.

Ginny sighed. “Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad,” she said. “One little kiss and we can get out of here. We’d never even have to look at each other again. No one ever died because of a kiss, right?”

“If you even think about coming over here,” Draco threatened, scowl firmly in place, “you’ll become evidence against that theory.”

She nodded and they fell silent yet again. After a while, however, Draco’s own hunger became too strong to ignore. His stomach growled loudly and Ginny giggled.

“Fine,” he snapped angrily, jerking himself to his feet. “We’ll do it, and then we’ll leave, and if anyone finds out, I will kill you.”

Ginny sighed, both in relief that she could finally get out and dread that she actually had to do this. She slowly pulled herself to her feet, trying to keep her dignity intact in the face of being forced to kiss a Malfoy.

They met in the middle of the room, neither of them wanting to go farther than the other and appear anxious. Shifted their feet nervously, they brought there lips together for the barest of seconds. Then they jumped away from each other as if they’d been burned and whirled to leave, only to find that the doors were still, in fact, solid stone walls.

“What?” Ginny wailed, truly distressed that she had given in and done all that and it hadn’t even worked. She was still trapped with Malfoy. “Why didn’t the door come back?”

Another piece of paper appeared in her hand. Draco leaned over and they read it together. You call that a kiss? Put your heart into it!

“Do you think this is funny?” Draco yelled around to the room as Ginny shredded this second note. “And do you really have to do that?” he asked her. He was very aware of how ridiculous he probably looked, yelling at a room, and was irritated enough already.

“It makes me feel better,” she replied. “Well, not really, but that’s the idea.” She had to bite her lip to keep from laughing at his furious expression. She was upset, too, but it was funny to watch him react.

Draco sighed. “Well, I guess we need to try again. Ready for take two?”

“Do I have a choice?” Ginny muttered, but she nodded and stepped forward.

Draco raked his fingers through his hair and said, “Here goes nothing.” He lowered his face and pressed his lips to hers, cautious at first, then a little more firmly.

Ginny felt sparks flitter from one nerve to the next the instant they made contact. She shut her eyes and tried to remember that they were only doing this to escape. Whether she was reasoning with herself or trying to calm her reaction, she didn’t know.

One of Draco’s hands slipped to her waist, to keep her still, of course, and he shifted his mouth for better access. It wasn’t too bad, actually. She smelled like home-cooking and flowers and she was soft in all the right places.

After what seemed like a decent amount of time for a snog, he pulled away, almost feeling reluctant, even though that was completely ridiculous. Ginny’s eyes fluttered open and she pulled her hands away from his chest. Funny, she didn’t remember having put them there.

She turned around to face the door, blushing like one of the silly girls she liked making fun of, then her shoulders sagged. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she mumbled.

Draco glanced up from where he’d been inexplicably fascinated by her fiery hair. Sure enough, the doors were still decidedly stone. He felt a warm tingle settle into his stomach as he came to the conclusion that they would have to try again. “What now?” he asked.

A third note appeared, this time in his hand. Ginny leaned over his arm, her hair tickling his neck, and read aloud, “’A kiss goes two ways.’ What?! What’s that supposed to mean? We were both a part of that!” Her voice gradually grew higher as she went along, cracking on the last word.

Draco thought back to the kiss, expecting to feel a shudder of revulsion. When he didn’t, he just shrugged his shoulders. This made Ginny’s hair move against his neck again and he realized how close she was standing.

He reached out his hand to push her away and found himself instead brushing his fingers over her hip. “Actually, you just stood there,” he replied with a smirk as she stepped away from him, eyes wide.

Ginny shook her head, feeling an odd combination of horror and excitement. Malfoy kissing her hadn’t been as bad as she’d expected and she found herself almost wanting to do it again.

But at the same time, she didn’t want him anywhere near her. He was Malfoy, after all. The lingering tightness in her belly must have been fright. There was just no way she was attracted to him.

“So, er…” Draco began hesitantly, pushing his hair back again. “Do you want a minute to prepare, or what?”

Ginny shook her head forcefully. “We’ve already tried twice. What’s one more? Besides, I want to get out of here.” So I can kill Luna, she mentally added.

Draco watched her mouth as she spoke, strangely mesmerized. He slowly brought his grey eyes up to her brown ones and smirked. “Well, then let’s get it over with.”

Ginny blushed again and nodded. She tipped her face up and Draco ran one finger across her jaw, surprising them both, before kissing her again.

Ginny felt a jolt of electricity and responded right away. Well, okay. So she hesitated a second, but quickly, anyway. She slipped her hands up to Draco’s neck and up into his hair, losing herself in the new, and decidedly pleasant sensations.

He ran his tongue over her bottom lip and she opened her mouth without hesitation. He tasted minty and slightly sweet. She moaned softly, enjoying the kiss despite herself. He was talented, she had to admit. And she felt strangely comfortable in his arms, pressed against his chest.

Draco delved deeper into her mouth upon hearing her moan, relishing her cinnamony taste and the soft pressure of her lips on his own. He tangled one hand in her hair, which really was as soft as it looked, tilting her head back further. The other hand slid under her shirt to caress the bare skin of her lower back.

Ginny shivered and clenched her fingers in Draco’s fine hair. They shifted closer to each other so that there was barely any space left between them. Draco groaned and shifted his hand higher beneath her shirt and pressed her lips a little harder.

Someone cleared their throat and Draco reluctantly pulled away. Ginny’s eyes were glazed and her lips looked red and thoroughly kissed. He smiled softly and kissed her nose. She smiled back and sighed dazedly, wrinkling the appendage.

Then they both remembered why they’d pulled apart in the first place and turned around. The doors were open and Blaise and Luna stood side by side, arms crossed and eyebrows raised. They looked extremely pleased with themselves.

Ginny looked back up at Draco and breathlessly asked, “Do we kill them now or later?”

Draco looked into her upturned face and a Slytherin smirk appeared across his features. “Definitely later,” he replied, bending down to steal another kiss.

Ginny giggled and melted into him, secretly thanking Luna for locking her in there.

-THE END