Epistolary Exchange
by Sarea Okelani
PG-13

Notes: Yesterday, Fearthainn asked for happy D/G ... so here it is ... doesn't get much fluffier than this, folks. Just a ficlet.

Summary: Ginny's trying to study, but the library is a very distracting place.


No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library. -- Samuel Johnson

~.~

Ginny felt a slight tug on the sleeve of her robe, and looked away from the Potions question that was, for the moment, stumping her. Mary Beth Treynor was kneeling next to her chair, eyes wide with hope. Ginny noticed the small piece of parchment the fourth year held in her hand. It had been folded into a square.

"Could I bother you to give this to Draco?" Mary Beth whispered, clearly not wanting to alert the other students studying in the library.

"Why don't you hand it to him yourself?" Ginny said, barely bothering to whisper back. "He's right next to me."

Mary Beth flushed a deep red and began to stammer. "Oh -- I couldn't possibly --"

Sighing in irritation, Ginny snatched the rectangular missive from the other girl and hurled it into Draco Malfoy's lap. Mary Beth let out a squeak and rushed back to her table, where her friends were watching the proceedings with great interest. Ginny turned back to her homework, studiously ignoring Mary Beth's whispering friends and Draco nonchalantly opening the note next to her.

Seconds later, she felt a light tap on her shoulder. She thought about ignoring him, but knew that this would only encourage more persistent attention. If these annoyances would only stop, she might be able to get some work done! Ginny slammed her quill down and turned to face him. "What!" she meant to snarl.

Meant to, but only got "Wh--" out before she was unceremoniously stopped by Draco's hungry mouth. Her eyes closed automatically even as her hand reached out to push him away. But wait, the hand was now tangling in his hair. What was she doing? Ah, she meant to yank his head away by his hair ... good plan. Yet this did not seem to be happening. Stupid hand. Her pulse leapt crazily, the way it always did when he very wrongly stole kisses from her, especially when he stroked his tongue against hers like that, as if telling her it knew just how to please her, and if she was very, very good, it would do just that. A strange but pleasant throbbing sensation was making itself known in her abdomen ... and elsewhere, too.

Finally, Ginny was able to rear back and pull away from him. "What in the world do you think you're doing?" she snapped. Her breathing wasn't quite steady and her mouth felt swollen. Stupid Draco.

Draco was the picture of innocent surprise. He folded his arms on the table. Ginny tried not to notice that he had rolled up the sleeves of his white Oxford shirt, leaving his strong forearms bare. "Why, just doing as you requested in your note." He indicated the parchment. "I was only trying to be obliging."

It took Ginny a second to process what he was saying. She made several fragmented sounds of rage. "That wasn't from me, you git!" she said. She had told him countless times to stop stealing kisses from her, as she simply did not feel that way about him. "As if I would ask you to--"

"Wasn't it? I didn't quite reach the end of the letter," admitted Draco unrepentantly.

Ginny growled. She wanted to choke him with his loosened green-and-silver school tie.

"Sorry about that," said Draco unconvincingly. "Anything I can do to make it up to you?"

"You've done quite enough already," snapped Ginny. "Just go back to what you were doing and stop bothering me!"

Draco shrugged and surprisingly, did as he was told. Fuming, Ginny turned back to her work, but not before she looked over at Mary Beth's table and saw them all glaring daggers at her. Well, really. This was hardly her fault. She certainly hadn't asked Draco to kiss her, and -- wait a minute.

"Did that note actually ask you to kiss her?" She always knew Mary Beth was a slut. How dare the girl proposition Draco in such a manner ... and use Ginny to do it!

Draco made a noncommittal sound, not looking up from his homework. The scratching of his quill got on Ginny's nerves and she plucked it out of his hand.

"Did it?"

"Not in so many words," said Draco, looking pointedly at his purloined writing implement. "I took a bit of interpretive license."

"Let me see it."

Draco crossed his arms, arching an eyebrow. "Let me think about it for a moment. No."

"Why not?" Ginny knew she was a being out of line, but that wasn't going to stop her.

"Let's think for a moment, shall we? It wasn't written by you. It wasn't addressed to you. These facts indicate that you have no rights whatsoever with regard to this letter."

Ginny gritted her teeth. "Since I had to suffer through your gross misinterpretation of the note, I think I'm entitled to know what it actually does say."

Draco shot her an injured look, but was unable to sustain it for long. He grinned, looking at her with eyes like pools of quicksilver. "Suffer? Oh, is that the new term for 'enjoy immensely'?" His voice dropped an octave, and his hand dropped under the table to trace her bare knee with a broom-roughened finger. "I could feel how much you liked it..."

"Don't change the subject!" she hissed, shoving his hand away, though it promptly returned. "Tell me what it said!"

Draco looked smug and embarrassed at the same time as he quoted, "'Whenever I see you, I'm in a fog; you are someone I'd really like to snog.'"

Ginny was appalled. "And you thought I wrote that?"

"I was prepared to overlook the lack of sophistication. Love does strange things to a person. Or so I've heard. And you are a Weasley."

Ginny, still holding the quill she had taken from him, counted slowly to ten to keep from jabbing it into his eye. Unfortunately, she only made it to three. Fortunately, Draco caught her wrist before the tip of the quill actually got anywhere near his eye. He took it out of her hand with infuriating ease.

"Ah, thank you for holding this, Weasley," he said casually, as if he had not just caught her trying to stab him with it.

Ginny briefly considered shoving him out of his chair and throwing a book at his impeccably groomed head, but knew the resulting commotion would only get her thrown out of the library by Madam Pince, and she absolutely had to finish the homework Snape had assigned.

One day soon, Ginny promised herself as Draco turned back to his work as if nothing had happened, while she was having trouble focusing on the words in front of her. Yes, one day in the very near future, she would give Draco Malfoy exactly what he was asking for with this aggravating behavior, and she would enjoy every single minute of it.

Ginny wasn't to know it then ... but she had no idea just how right she was.

~.~

A library is ... a place where love begins. -- Rudolfo Anaya.
The End.
Sarea Okelani is the author of 8 other stories.
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