"I've never done anything bad," Ginny confessed, staring at her drink. It was only her first, and it was about halfway empty. She had been at the bar for an hour now, and next to her drink was a glass of water and a little bowl of peanuts. Always the responsible one.

Beside her, the blond raised an eyebrow in question. As if sensing the question, Ginny continued on, ignoring the fact that the blond beside her (a certain Draco Malfoy, to be precise) wasn't even her date. They had been pushed together by the large amount of people frequenting the new bar, abandoned by their respective parties and left to drinking away their woes.

Or, at least, that was what Ginny was doing. She was pretty positive that Draco was just hoping fervently for his date to return from the loo so he could escape her maudlin presence.

"I mean, of course I've made mistakes. Merlin, I've made some mistakes," she said, partly to herself this time.

It seemed to Draco that she wasn't going to continue, lost in the thoughts of yesterday. He had noticed the peculiar black hole of sorrow that seemed to originate from the redhead, and it appeared that a bunch of the bar patrons did as well, giving her a wide berth as if they might get sucked down into her depressive mood.

"Have you ever drunk anything before?" he questioned skeptically, eyeing her drink critically. She continued on, oblivious of the fact that he had said anything. Really, it wasn't normal for someone to be so depressed after only a couple of drinks.

"But I've never deliberately done something bad. I mean, sure, I messed around, but break a rule? Date the wrong guy? Steal? The thoughts never even crossed my mind."

Draco rolled his eyes. Did she even realize who she was talking to?

"Look, Weasley, I can see you're finally having doubts about this whole 'walk in the grace of the Light' farce that's been shoved down your throat since birth, and I can tell you know that after twenty-odd years it's about time you figured it out. And although I know I must look like the perfect candidate for Mr. I-look-like-a-handkerchief-so-please-cry-on-me, you'll have to excuse me because I'm currently off duty." To his chagrin, it seemed like the alcohol was turning her deaf on top of being an emotional wreck, because she simply plowed on ahead without any sign of acknowledging his words.

"I just don't want my frontal lobe to be like a raisin," she pouted.

Draco blinked, taken aback. First, he had entirely no idea just what the little Weasley was talking about. He had been partially lost before, but now it was more like being lost with Longbottom, a predicament that almost always would end worse than it had started.

And second (he attributed this one to the drink in his hand), when she pouted just like that, he suddenly saw her as a member of the opposite sex rather than a conglomeration of bones, blood, and Weasley red hair. Now she looked like a conglomeration of fair skin, pouty lips, and Weasley red hair (the last of which strangely didn't look quite as repulsive as it should have).

Disturbed by these thoughts, he considered leaving the little Weasley there at the bar. But despite himself he had discovered that he was intrigued by this daughter of the Light and girlfriend of the Boy Who Wouldn't Die, so he decided to stick around and drink some more at the bar while pretending like he wasn't listening to her confusing remarks.

"Hermione warned me against that, you know," she commented conversationally, taking a swig of her drink (in Draco's opinion, it was more like a sip). It had been quite surprising to hear, especially coming from Hermione, that if she didn't get out and do something out of the ordinary, her frontal lobe would shrink like a raisin. And while Ginny sure as hell wasn't a paragon of innocence or virtue, it had been quite a nasty shock for someone like Hermione Granger to be telling her she needed to let loose a little more.

It was quite tragic, really. Ginny had then enlisted the help of some girls from her office and had promptly been dumped at the bar. She had asked the bar tender politely if he could stash all their purses behind the bar for her, and he had generously agreed. But that left her here, rambling to herself (because Malfoy certainly wouldn't actually be listening) with a half-finished drink that she probably wasn't going to finish properly.

"Raisiny frontal lobes are quite bad, I hear," she pointed out. "Beyond the obvious fact that the term has 'raisin' in it, there's also the fact that the atrophy of any body part is just plain nasty."

"You know, maybe the reason why you don't get out much is because you use words like 'atrophy' in a completely casual situation," Draco said with an accompanying eye roll.

"Is there really something wrong with me?" she asked woefully, and Draco felt the unusual urge to comfort her.

It's so she doesn't get all weepy, he was quick to reassure himself. Yeah. That's it.

"Have you really never done anything bad?" he questioned doubtfully. "Not even cheated on a test? I mean, in History of Magic you could have yelled the answers out to any of Binns' tests and he wouldn't have noticed. Don't tell me you didn't take advantage of such an opportunity."

Ginny turned her head, appalled.

"Cheating? I would never sink so low as to..." She trailed off in the middle of her indignant protest, glaring at a snickering Malfoy.

"I bet you haven't even picked up a Knut without asking anyone nearby if it was theirs," he challenged.

Ginny refused to respond, deciding that an incident that sounded remarkably similar didn't need to be spoken of in his presence, especially since it would only confirm his theory.

Not that he needed any help confirming it; his triumphant smirk told all.

"You haven't," he said smugly. "I knew it."

Ginny sniffed haughtily, flicking her hair over her shoulder in an attempt to put a barrier in between Malfoy and her. It proved largely ineffectual, mostly because she was still facing him so she could keep any eye on his slimy and decidedly unhandsome features. Someone like Draco Malfoy was most assuredly the bottom of the bucket. She was quite positive that just standing next to him was lowering her already subterranean reputation.

She was also nearly one hundred percent sure that she would utterly fail the class that taught lying to oneself, and decided to ignore the way his hair fell rakishly across his fair brow, framing his startlingly grey eyes in jagged tips of blond.

"The opportunity just never presented itself," she defended. "And even if it did, I'm not sure I'd even recognize it if it hit me in the face." She looked up from her drink and felt her stomach plummet at the look on Malfoy's face.

"Do you want to do something...bad with me?" he asked her in a husky voice, leaning toward her enticingly.

Ginny felt herself being drawn like a moth to a white-hot flame, and tried to ignore the fluttering of her heart. It was probably just a heart murmur or something equally misleading like that, anyway...

"I'm not sure," she demurred, looking down at her loosely held glass. "It would depend on what it is." The smirk seemed to spread from one ear to the other until he looked like one self-satisfied cat that had just found out the canary also came with a barrel full of catnip.

Although the Malfoy equivalent of "catnip" would probably be "the left ears of Malfoy enemies", Ginny thought in a macabre and entirely too disturbing way.

She resisted the urge to raise her hand to her own left ear and confirm that it was still in place.

"I think we should..." he said slowly, each word dripping out of his mouth like the sweetest of honey, so thick it was almost crystallized and slower than molasses. Ginny was hanging on his every word, waiting to see just what awfully bad thing he was going to propose they do. "...dine and dash," he finished triumphantly.

The gasp slipped out of Ginny's horrified lips before she could help it.

"We couldn't!" she whispered fervently, adding a frantic shake of her head. "That's just so...wrong!"

Draco scoffed, rolling his eyes.

"Oh, pardon me, Weasley, I must have incorrectly assumed you were joking when you spent the last quarter of an hour moaning about your lack of ability to do anything 'bad'."

Ginny flushed angrily, sending him a half-worried glance. "But still, we couldn't do that," she said, glancing down the bar to make sure no one was overhearing their dastardly plans. "It's not even the good kind of bad!"

She decided to ignore the expression that crossed his face just then.

"Don't try to back out, Weasley," he goaded, putting his drink down and standing. "You're going to do something bad. And that something is dining and dashing." He raised an eyebrow challengingly, daring her to do this particular dead of wicked with Draco Malfoy, of all people.

Ginny wasn't that fond of his challengingly look. She was a Weasley, gosh darned it, and Weasleys weren't afraid to do anything that a Malfoy would do. Including dining and dashing.

But...

"Are you sure?" she asked hesitantly, looking around cautiously. Her coworkers would probably be fine without her—they had probably forgotten about her already, anyway—and she didn't really have any particular reason to say no, besides the obvious that dining and dashing was such a bad thing she hadn't ever even considered it.

"Yes, yes, now come on! Hurry up. Let's get out of here before they catch us," he told her urgently, shooing her along.

Ginny stood up quickly, looking around nervously to make sure no one was on to them.

"Go! Dammit, Weasley, come on!" he said in a loud whisper, pushing her towards the exit and giving her the rush of excitement and urgency with that single push.

With a giggle of exuberant laughter, she took off like a shot towards the door, Malfoy half a second behind her as they weaved through the people.

It was about time she shook free of her goody two-shoes image, anyway.

~*~

Bar patrons looked confusedly after the blond and the redhead that had taken off like the Wild Hunt was after them. It had seemed as if...they were fleeing from something.

The bartender shrugged, pocketing the galleons left by the blond man. Who was he to question the eccentric natures of his customers, as long as they paid?