What annoyed her was that he wouldn’t meet her gaze in the hallways, not even deigning to give her the slightest, almost imperceptible inclination of the head that he had before the Incident (as she privately termed it; she’d wanted to think of some snazzy acronym, preferably to a swear word, something really profane, but didn’t have the energy).
And what really sent her into boiling rage was that it was what she’d requested, wasn’t it? But she stuck to it; it wasn’t worth going through all the trauma she’d had to get him to agree just for her to back down.
Plus, it would mean he’d won. (Which he hadn’t. No, definitely not. He had to date Parkinson, hadn’t he? Perhaps her end of the stick was better. At least Harry didn’t have a saccharine voice or plumped up knocke… Ugh. Strike that thought.)
Time passed. Her heart didn’t, surprisingly enough, wilt and die the hundredth day after they split (though it did, disturbingly, give an odd, alarming beat she’d never felt before when their eyes met once in the Great Hall, entirely by accident).
She tried not to think about the fact that she’d actually been counting the days since the split; it was already disturbing enough that she now had to sit on the other side of the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall to avoid staring at him during mealtimes.
One gormless look (Harry’s, of course) at mealtimes was quite enough, thank you very much.
Harry stopped being surprised by her flinching away from him when he tried to kiss her, but he was entirely allayed by her weak smile and her saying that she wanted to take it very slow.
Very. Slow.
She quietly wondered what it said about their relationship that he was so busy staring at her that he’d acquiesce or agree to anything she said.
Harry’s vacuous smile when he looked at her didn’t altogether disappear (if anything, it intensified as the time passed), but she told herself it would start to annoy her less. Eventually.
She did once have an odd dream which began with her slapping the look off his face, which satisfied her immensely, but the expression appeared to have all the sticking power of limpets dipped in superglue, and even in her dream she was unable to accomplish it.
Ron and Hermione and the rest of the occupants of the Gryffindor Tower did finally stop congratulating them, but that provided very little comfort.
The Bat-Bogey Hexes she dished out to achieve this did quite cheer her up, though, for a minute or two.
She sometimes thought she’d never heal. Perhaps when people said “Oh, him? I’ve gotten over him!”, waving their hands dismissively, as she’d seen Lavender doing just the other day when asked about Seamus, they merely meant that they’d gotten used to the constant ache in their chests.
She thought it was cured the day Terry Boot cornered her and kissed her, but then she realised it was because she could see his blond hair falling between them when she gazed through her half-closed eyes, and pushed him hastily off (hexing him for good measure, of course).
Harry’s leg healed from the nasty dragon burn (incurable with magic) he’d sustained when he accompanied Hagrid on his visit to Norbert, so he could take over Seeking duties again.
She spent the extra time from not having to attend Quidditch practice studying; her marks had never been better. Even Snape had bestowed a rare smile on her, the day she’d been the only one in the whole class not to botch the difficult Numbing Draught they’d been told to brew (which said a lot, really, that she wasn’t quite prepared to read into).
She couldn’t quite get to sleep at night, though. She took to wandering around the castle (really, she’d always had such a flair for the melodramatic; she was just like that mad woman from Jane Eyrie! Or Eye or Eir or something like that.)
Sometimes she’d bring some book or other when she sneaked around the castle after curfew; she’d sit there and pretend she was reading (if to no-one but herself) while she sat in abandoned broom closets or the Potions Classrooms and just breathed.
Occasionally, it sounded almost like it did when she used to curl up with Draco, when they’d breathe the same breath, share the same space.
That night, she hastily ducked into a closet to escape Filch, who was crooning to Mrs Norris (she always felt faintly disturbed at the twisted way he smiled at the cat).
She stood just on this side of the door, looking through the smallest crack in the door, until she heard the smallest noise behind her and turned.
It was Draco, propped up against one corner of the cramped cupboard (which was, in other words, just several inches away from her) with a book Levitated in front of his face and that special spell that she’d seen in her accidental reading lighting up the end of his wand; the one that no-one outside a delineated space could see, looking at her in the strangest way.
No wonder she hadn’t noticed him.
She stared wordlessly at him, then back around and faced the door. Filch seemed to be taking an awfully long time outside.
‘Probably too busy shagging his cat to leave and save you,’ her mind babbled inanely.
She heard him turn a page behind her, and concentrated on not twitching whenever his warm breath tickled the hair on the nape of her neck.
Ginny almost flinched, however, when she heard him put the book away, small rustling noises in the dark magnified by her nervous, sharpened senses.
She concentrated on the still warm presence right behind her, not even noticing when Filch’s footsteps grew softer and eventually faded into silence.
She could almost feel him just being there, not doing anything but existing, whatever it was between them palpable enough to tickle the skin on the curve of her back.
“Stop it, Draco,” she whispered after a lifetime of quickened heartbeats and even breaths, wondering for a moment what exactly she was asking him to stop, then really did jump when he pushed past her, opening the door and standing there for a moment looking at her.
Ginny watched, mesmerized, as he lifted a hand slowly, to touch her cheek, the weight of his fingertips cool against her skin.
She squeezed her eyes shut against the look in his eyes and heard him leave, the movement of air stirring her own robes in the silence.
Ginny thanked Merlin for the small mercies which took her mind off things as she made her way to the classroom the Duelling Club was conducted in these days, Colin by her side. Harry, Ron and Hermione were, thankfully, having Detention (something about Harry hexing Boot when he heard he’d kissed Ginny, the other two of course stepping up to stop him; it apparently resulted in the corridor being covered in slime).
Dumbledore had decided that with the advent of the war, the old Duelling Club should be started up once more, albeit not with a certified idiot conducting the class; this time it was Snape and Flitwick, who had indeed been a duelling champion in his younger days.
“Right, class, gather round,” Flitwick squeaked, gesturing at all of them, “Today we will be practicing the Noxious memorius spell mentioned in the last session. Pair up!”
Ginny winced; she wasn’t looking forward to this particular spell. What it did was plunge the victim of the spell straight into their worst memories, rendering them temporarily incapacitated. This was an acceptable winning stroke, although rather difficult to cast. Ginny was personally not looking forward to finding out whether her mind considered her time in the Chamber of Secrets, or the Incident, her worst memory.
She faced Colin.
“Alright, you can go first,” he replied to her look of mute appeal. She was nice enough not to mention the nervous tic in his left eyelid.
“Noxious memorius!” she shouted, swishing her wand in the rather complicated hand motion before pointing it at Colin.
He completely failed to go rigid, have his eyes glaze over, or scream.
“Fine,” she sighed at her failure, “You have a go.”
The last thing she saw was Colin pointed his wand at her, before she opened her eyes to complete darkness.
She could feel the cold stone pressing into her back, chilling her through the thin cotton of her robes.
“Lumos,” she heard someone hiss, then she saw Tom Riddle’s face illuminated with the light from her wand. She couldn’t help but feel a little insulted that the Incident wasn’t the worst memory she had, but let it pass.
Ginny stared, fascinated, as he slowly turned to point the wand at her.
She blinked, and was suddenly back in her own time.
“Hey, that worked!” Colin’s slightly rotund face was jubilant. “I even got the counter curse right!”
“Yeah,” she smiled at him, “You did.”
They practiced the spell a few more times (she got it right on the second try) before Snape interrupted the class.
“Professor Flitwick and I,” he said smoothly (she always thought that he managed to speak so smoothly because of his general greasiness), “have decided to let you experience a real duel.”
The murmur of excitement in the class was quickly checked when he continued.
“I will be assigning you opponents. Since you are in pairs now, choose one person to go first; the other will be your duel second. Don’t forget, now; the idea is to have your opponent fight themselves, not you.”
Colin gestured frantically at her, and she nodded, resigned.
She grimaced when she heard, “Miss Parkinson, I believe you will enjoy your duel with Miss Weasley.”
Parkinson came over, trailing clouds of sickly perfume.
“Wh… Where’s your second?” Colin stammered; he’d always been more than slightly intimidated by her.
“Oh, he’s just coming,” she said, crinkling her nose in disgust at having to speak to him, as Draco materialised silently behind her. Ginny turned her head away.
“You may begin,” Snape boomed, and they took up their Duelling stances.
“You’re not going to win this, Weasley,” Parkinson hissed as they began circling one another.
‘You already have,’ Ginny thought glumly, seeing Draco standing protectively behind Pansy’s shoulder out of the corner of her eye.
She struck, helpless fury speeding up her movements, while Parkinson was still raising her wand. Bright white light shot out of the end of her wand.
There was a beat during which everyone froze.
Parkinson felt the boils raising on her face with trembling fingers and let out a horrified scream.
“My face! What have you done to my ¬face, you… you toad!”
“That’s not very nice,” Ginny said coolly, casting a quick Expelliarmus and catching Pansy’s wand as it sailed out of her unresisting grip.
Parkinson ran off to find Flitwick, sobbing.
Ginny saw movement out of the corner of her eye, and turned just in time to raise her wand and defend herself against Draco’s own Expelliarmus. She snarled at the thought that he was more than ready to attack her.
.
“Just us, now,” he rasped after dispelling her quick Tantellegra.
A quick slew of curses and hexes followed, neither of them managing to get anything in. They kept having to dodge wayward spells from the other Duelling parties.
She noticed the slightest hesitation before every curse he cast, as though he had to steel himself to do it, and had to admit it was there in her movements too, slowing her down just that crucial bit.
“But if it means losing you, I’ll still take it!” she heard, her memory replaying, and suddenly moved, as quick as the time she hit him with the Bat-Bogey Hex, as quick as the time she hexed Terry Boot, as fast as she had ever cast a curse.
“Complaisantus,” she yelled, her voice cracking.
His eyes widened as he felt his arm moving of its own volition, then narrowed as he realised it was moving in the movements for an Obliviate spell.
She could see the muscles in his wrist working as he tried to stop himself, as he realised what she was making him do. His movements slowed, but still continued, jerkily.
His mouth opened, muscle in his jaw clenching and unclenching.
She watched as his lips moved. It looked painful. His lips started to form an ‘o’.
She doubled over as a spell hit her.
“Stop!” Snape yelled, casting a quick spell to dispel all the magic in the room.
Ginny straightened up slowly as she turned to look around at the disarray. It rather reminded her of Lockhart’s first lesson, actually.
Draco relaxed and started to massage his jaw.
She turned to Colin until she noticed that he’d been Stunned, probably by accident from one of the other groups.
The few groups that had continued to use their wands started to laugh at the large number of people engaged in tussles.
Snape eventually managed to sort it out to a minimum of fuss and injury and a maximum of outraged hissing.
“Ten points each of the people who did not engage in physical,” his lip curled, “sparring. Now get out of here.”
The classroom cleared remarkably quickly, the two professors levitating the unconscious to the Infirmary, the marginally injured trailing after them.
She stood outside the classroom for a long moment and felt dazed as the corridor emptied of people.
She didn’t protest when she felt someone guiding her away.
She looked up at Draco as he propped her against the wall in the alcove beside the Gryffindor portrait.
“Hello.” she said blankly.
“Hi,” he ran his fingers through his hair in frustration, “Look, are you all right?”
“All right?” she repeated, eyes focused somewhere through his head.
“Are. You. All. Right.” He said slowly.
“Am I all right?” she repeated softly to herself, clearly mulling over the question and pondering its deeper intricacies.
“Well?” he was obviously getting annoyed.
“Well.”
“Stop. Stop bloody repeating what I say!”
“Bloody repeating,” she rolled the syllables over her tongue, relishing how they sounded. “Bloo-dy reee-peeaaaa-ttinnnnggggg.” She giggled.
“Argh!” he thumped the wall beside her and she flinched away, looking at the opposite wall in fright.
His rage deflated.
“Okay. We’ll just bring you to the infirmary, okay?”
She dragged her eyes up to focus slowly on a spot slightly to the left of his nose and he sighed, taking hold of her wrist and started pulling.
The Infirmary, when they eventually got there, was packed. He managed to get Madam Pomfrey to attend to her by looking very important and Head-Boy-ish. Ish.
Then he left. Quickly, with a sneer firmly fixed on in case anyone noticed him.
She opened her eyes to utter blackness and an odd rustling sound and had, for a moment, an awful feeling of déjà vu. Then memory came rushing back.
Madam Pomfrey had fixed her up with a quick swish of her wand, then wanted to sent her back to the Gryffindor dorms.
Ginny had fixed her with her Puppy-eyed Look of Doom, as her brothers had termed it, and Pomfrey’d melted and allowed her to spend the night at the Infirmary.
Ginny didn’t particularly feel like going back to the dormitories and letting Harry rest an arm over her shoulders while she did her work, or listening to the prattle of the girls, excitedly discussing the day’s events. Nor did she feel like being interrogated by Ron about what had happened at the Duelling Club in his absence.
She left it at that. Some things didn’t bear too much looking into.
She heard the door click open and suddenly remembered the noise that had woken her up.
Draco, looking wretched, pale skin barely showing up against the darkness of the room.
“All right, Weasley?”
She nodded carefully. Her head still ached, slightly.
“I. I just thought I’d come check up on you.”
She didn’t say anything. If she concentrated, and looked hard enough, she could just see the movements of his throat as he swallowed.
She saw him force the tension out of his muscles and drape himself into a nonchalant position, balanced on the edge of the chair by her bed with his legs propped up beside her.
“So, Weasley, where did you learn that spell from? It’s powerful Dark Magic, it is. Something little Weaslettes shouldn’t be playing with.”
She chose her words carefully.
“I’ve been… doing a lot of reading.”
“But the Complaisantus curse? That’s a step away from Imperius.”
She shrugged.
“At the risk of sounding clichéd, I’d have to say that there are still things you don’t know about me, Malfoy.”
“Indeed.”
They stared at one another for a moment. Ginny turned her head to look out of the window.
“Look, if you want me to do it, I will.”
“Mmm.” She didn’t bother pretending not to know what he was talking about.
“Well, do you want me to or not?”
“Don’t you ever listen to your professors, Draco?” she sighed, “Snape said to win, make your opponent struggle with themselves, not you.”
“My, my, does the little weasel read people well. First you managed Pansy, then me.”
“You know, it says a lot that when you don’t know how to react, you sneer instinctively.”
He tensed.
“Anyway, it’s not as if Parkinson was hard. You were, quite, but then I realised that the last thing you’d want would be for me to forget the huge impact you had on my life. It’s not particularly difficult to see that your ego is the only thing you care about.”
His mouth opened violently, but then he closed it, instead taking her hand and inspecting it in the dim moonlight.
“But I managed not to, didn’t I? I didn’t curse you. You were hit by a curse from that Irish git.”
“And Malfoy’s ego survives to enjoy another day.”
He laid her hand gently back onto the bedspread.
“Have it your way, Weasley.”
(A/N They really don’t listen, you know. Please review?)
And what really sent her into boiling rage was that it was what she’d requested, wasn’t it? But she stuck to it; it wasn’t worth going through all the trauma she’d had to get him to agree just for her to back down.
Plus, it would mean he’d won. (Which he hadn’t. No, definitely not. He had to date Parkinson, hadn’t he? Perhaps her end of the stick was better. At least Harry didn’t have a saccharine voice or plumped up knocke… Ugh. Strike that thought.)
Time passed. Her heart didn’t, surprisingly enough, wilt and die the hundredth day after they split (though it did, disturbingly, give an odd, alarming beat she’d never felt before when their eyes met once in the Great Hall, entirely by accident).
She tried not to think about the fact that she’d actually been counting the days since the split; it was already disturbing enough that she now had to sit on the other side of the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall to avoid staring at him during mealtimes.
One gormless look (Harry’s, of course) at mealtimes was quite enough, thank you very much.
Harry stopped being surprised by her flinching away from him when he tried to kiss her, but he was entirely allayed by her weak smile and her saying that she wanted to take it very slow.
Very. Slow.
She quietly wondered what it said about their relationship that he was so busy staring at her that he’d acquiesce or agree to anything she said.
Harry’s vacuous smile when he looked at her didn’t altogether disappear (if anything, it intensified as the time passed), but she told herself it would start to annoy her less. Eventually.
She did once have an odd dream which began with her slapping the look off his face, which satisfied her immensely, but the expression appeared to have all the sticking power of limpets dipped in superglue, and even in her dream she was unable to accomplish it.
Ron and Hermione and the rest of the occupants of the Gryffindor Tower did finally stop congratulating them, but that provided very little comfort.
The Bat-Bogey Hexes she dished out to achieve this did quite cheer her up, though, for a minute or two.
She sometimes thought she’d never heal. Perhaps when people said “Oh, him? I’ve gotten over him!”, waving their hands dismissively, as she’d seen Lavender doing just the other day when asked about Seamus, they merely meant that they’d gotten used to the constant ache in their chests.
She thought it was cured the day Terry Boot cornered her and kissed her, but then she realised it was because she could see his blond hair falling between them when she gazed through her half-closed eyes, and pushed him hastily off (hexing him for good measure, of course).
Harry’s leg healed from the nasty dragon burn (incurable with magic) he’d sustained when he accompanied Hagrid on his visit to Norbert, so he could take over Seeking duties again.
She spent the extra time from not having to attend Quidditch practice studying; her marks had never been better. Even Snape had bestowed a rare smile on her, the day she’d been the only one in the whole class not to botch the difficult Numbing Draught they’d been told to brew (which said a lot, really, that she wasn’t quite prepared to read into).
She couldn’t quite get to sleep at night, though. She took to wandering around the castle (really, she’d always had such a flair for the melodramatic; she was just like that mad woman from Jane Eyrie! Or Eye or Eir or something like that.)
Sometimes she’d bring some book or other when she sneaked around the castle after curfew; she’d sit there and pretend she was reading (if to no-one but herself) while she sat in abandoned broom closets or the Potions Classrooms and just breathed.
Occasionally, it sounded almost like it did when she used to curl up with Draco, when they’d breathe the same breath, share the same space.
That night, she hastily ducked into a closet to escape Filch, who was crooning to Mrs Norris (she always felt faintly disturbed at the twisted way he smiled at the cat).
She stood just on this side of the door, looking through the smallest crack in the door, until she heard the smallest noise behind her and turned.
It was Draco, propped up against one corner of the cramped cupboard (which was, in other words, just several inches away from her) with a book Levitated in front of his face and that special spell that she’d seen in her accidental reading lighting up the end of his wand; the one that no-one outside a delineated space could see, looking at her in the strangest way.
No wonder she hadn’t noticed him.
She stared wordlessly at him, then back around and faced the door. Filch seemed to be taking an awfully long time outside.
‘Probably too busy shagging his cat to leave and save you,’ her mind babbled inanely.
She heard him turn a page behind her, and concentrated on not twitching whenever his warm breath tickled the hair on the nape of her neck.
Ginny almost flinched, however, when she heard him put the book away, small rustling noises in the dark magnified by her nervous, sharpened senses.
She concentrated on the still warm presence right behind her, not even noticing when Filch’s footsteps grew softer and eventually faded into silence.
She could almost feel him just being there, not doing anything but existing, whatever it was between them palpable enough to tickle the skin on the curve of her back.
“Stop it, Draco,” she whispered after a lifetime of quickened heartbeats and even breaths, wondering for a moment what exactly she was asking him to stop, then really did jump when he pushed past her, opening the door and standing there for a moment looking at her.
Ginny watched, mesmerized, as he lifted a hand slowly, to touch her cheek, the weight of his fingertips cool against her skin.
She squeezed her eyes shut against the look in his eyes and heard him leave, the movement of air stirring her own robes in the silence.
Ginny thanked Merlin for the small mercies which took her mind off things as she made her way to the classroom the Duelling Club was conducted in these days, Colin by her side. Harry, Ron and Hermione were, thankfully, having Detention (something about Harry hexing Boot when he heard he’d kissed Ginny, the other two of course stepping up to stop him; it apparently resulted in the corridor being covered in slime).
Dumbledore had decided that with the advent of the war, the old Duelling Club should be started up once more, albeit not with a certified idiot conducting the class; this time it was Snape and Flitwick, who had indeed been a duelling champion in his younger days.
“Right, class, gather round,” Flitwick squeaked, gesturing at all of them, “Today we will be practicing the Noxious memorius spell mentioned in the last session. Pair up!”
Ginny winced; she wasn’t looking forward to this particular spell. What it did was plunge the victim of the spell straight into their worst memories, rendering them temporarily incapacitated. This was an acceptable winning stroke, although rather difficult to cast. Ginny was personally not looking forward to finding out whether her mind considered her time in the Chamber of Secrets, or the Incident, her worst memory.
She faced Colin.
“Alright, you can go first,” he replied to her look of mute appeal. She was nice enough not to mention the nervous tic in his left eyelid.
“Noxious memorius!” she shouted, swishing her wand in the rather complicated hand motion before pointing it at Colin.
He completely failed to go rigid, have his eyes glaze over, or scream.
“Fine,” she sighed at her failure, “You have a go.”
The last thing she saw was Colin pointed his wand at her, before she opened her eyes to complete darkness.
She could feel the cold stone pressing into her back, chilling her through the thin cotton of her robes.
“Lumos,” she heard someone hiss, then she saw Tom Riddle’s face illuminated with the light from her wand. She couldn’t help but feel a little insulted that the Incident wasn’t the worst memory she had, but let it pass.
Ginny stared, fascinated, as he slowly turned to point the wand at her.
She blinked, and was suddenly back in her own time.
“Hey, that worked!” Colin’s slightly rotund face was jubilant. “I even got the counter curse right!”
“Yeah,” she smiled at him, “You did.”
They practiced the spell a few more times (she got it right on the second try) before Snape interrupted the class.
“Professor Flitwick and I,” he said smoothly (she always thought that he managed to speak so smoothly because of his general greasiness), “have decided to let you experience a real duel.”
The murmur of excitement in the class was quickly checked when he continued.
“I will be assigning you opponents. Since you are in pairs now, choose one person to go first; the other will be your duel second. Don’t forget, now; the idea is to have your opponent fight themselves, not you.”
Colin gestured frantically at her, and she nodded, resigned.
She grimaced when she heard, “Miss Parkinson, I believe you will enjoy your duel with Miss Weasley.”
Parkinson came over, trailing clouds of sickly perfume.
“Wh… Where’s your second?” Colin stammered; he’d always been more than slightly intimidated by her.
“Oh, he’s just coming,” she said, crinkling her nose in disgust at having to speak to him, as Draco materialised silently behind her. Ginny turned her head away.
“You may begin,” Snape boomed, and they took up their Duelling stances.
“You’re not going to win this, Weasley,” Parkinson hissed as they began circling one another.
‘You already have,’ Ginny thought glumly, seeing Draco standing protectively behind Pansy’s shoulder out of the corner of her eye.
She struck, helpless fury speeding up her movements, while Parkinson was still raising her wand. Bright white light shot out of the end of her wand.
There was a beat during which everyone froze.
Parkinson felt the boils raising on her face with trembling fingers and let out a horrified scream.
“My face! What have you done to my ¬face, you… you toad!”
“That’s not very nice,” Ginny said coolly, casting a quick Expelliarmus and catching Pansy’s wand as it sailed out of her unresisting grip.
Parkinson ran off to find Flitwick, sobbing.
Ginny saw movement out of the corner of her eye, and turned just in time to raise her wand and defend herself against Draco’s own Expelliarmus. She snarled at the thought that he was more than ready to attack her.
.
“Just us, now,” he rasped after dispelling her quick Tantellegra.
A quick slew of curses and hexes followed, neither of them managing to get anything in. They kept having to dodge wayward spells from the other Duelling parties.
She noticed the slightest hesitation before every curse he cast, as though he had to steel himself to do it, and had to admit it was there in her movements too, slowing her down just that crucial bit.
“But if it means losing you, I’ll still take it!” she heard, her memory replaying, and suddenly moved, as quick as the time she hit him with the Bat-Bogey Hex, as quick as the time she hexed Terry Boot, as fast as she had ever cast a curse.
“Complaisantus,” she yelled, her voice cracking.
His eyes widened as he felt his arm moving of its own volition, then narrowed as he realised it was moving in the movements for an Obliviate spell.
She could see the muscles in his wrist working as he tried to stop himself, as he realised what she was making him do. His movements slowed, but still continued, jerkily.
His mouth opened, muscle in his jaw clenching and unclenching.
She watched as his lips moved. It looked painful. His lips started to form an ‘o’.
She doubled over as a spell hit her.
“Stop!” Snape yelled, casting a quick spell to dispel all the magic in the room.
Ginny straightened up slowly as she turned to look around at the disarray. It rather reminded her of Lockhart’s first lesson, actually.
Draco relaxed and started to massage his jaw.
She turned to Colin until she noticed that he’d been Stunned, probably by accident from one of the other groups.
The few groups that had continued to use their wands started to laugh at the large number of people engaged in tussles.
Snape eventually managed to sort it out to a minimum of fuss and injury and a maximum of outraged hissing.
“Ten points each of the people who did not engage in physical,” his lip curled, “sparring. Now get out of here.”
The classroom cleared remarkably quickly, the two professors levitating the unconscious to the Infirmary, the marginally injured trailing after them.
She stood outside the classroom for a long moment and felt dazed as the corridor emptied of people.
She didn’t protest when she felt someone guiding her away.
She looked up at Draco as he propped her against the wall in the alcove beside the Gryffindor portrait.
“Hello.” she said blankly.
“Hi,” he ran his fingers through his hair in frustration, “Look, are you all right?”
“All right?” she repeated, eyes focused somewhere through his head.
“Are. You. All. Right.” He said slowly.
“Am I all right?” she repeated softly to herself, clearly mulling over the question and pondering its deeper intricacies.
“Well?” he was obviously getting annoyed.
“Well.”
“Stop. Stop bloody repeating what I say!”
“Bloody repeating,” she rolled the syllables over her tongue, relishing how they sounded. “Bloo-dy reee-peeaaaa-ttinnnnggggg.” She giggled.
“Argh!” he thumped the wall beside her and she flinched away, looking at the opposite wall in fright.
His rage deflated.
“Okay. We’ll just bring you to the infirmary, okay?”
She dragged her eyes up to focus slowly on a spot slightly to the left of his nose and he sighed, taking hold of her wrist and started pulling.
The Infirmary, when they eventually got there, was packed. He managed to get Madam Pomfrey to attend to her by looking very important and Head-Boy-ish. Ish.
Then he left. Quickly, with a sneer firmly fixed on in case anyone noticed him.
She opened her eyes to utter blackness and an odd rustling sound and had, for a moment, an awful feeling of déjà vu. Then memory came rushing back.
Madam Pomfrey had fixed her up with a quick swish of her wand, then wanted to sent her back to the Gryffindor dorms.
Ginny had fixed her with her Puppy-eyed Look of Doom, as her brothers had termed it, and Pomfrey’d melted and allowed her to spend the night at the Infirmary.
Ginny didn’t particularly feel like going back to the dormitories and letting Harry rest an arm over her shoulders while she did her work, or listening to the prattle of the girls, excitedly discussing the day’s events. Nor did she feel like being interrogated by Ron about what had happened at the Duelling Club in his absence.
She left it at that. Some things didn’t bear too much looking into.
She heard the door click open and suddenly remembered the noise that had woken her up.
Draco, looking wretched, pale skin barely showing up against the darkness of the room.
“All right, Weasley?”
She nodded carefully. Her head still ached, slightly.
“I. I just thought I’d come check up on you.”
She didn’t say anything. If she concentrated, and looked hard enough, she could just see the movements of his throat as he swallowed.
She saw him force the tension out of his muscles and drape himself into a nonchalant position, balanced on the edge of the chair by her bed with his legs propped up beside her.
“So, Weasley, where did you learn that spell from? It’s powerful Dark Magic, it is. Something little Weaslettes shouldn’t be playing with.”
She chose her words carefully.
“I’ve been… doing a lot of reading.”
“But the Complaisantus curse? That’s a step away from Imperius.”
She shrugged.
“At the risk of sounding clichéd, I’d have to say that there are still things you don’t know about me, Malfoy.”
“Indeed.”
They stared at one another for a moment. Ginny turned her head to look out of the window.
“Look, if you want me to do it, I will.”
“Mmm.” She didn’t bother pretending not to know what he was talking about.
“Well, do you want me to or not?”
“Don’t you ever listen to your professors, Draco?” she sighed, “Snape said to win, make your opponent struggle with themselves, not you.”
“My, my, does the little weasel read people well. First you managed Pansy, then me.”
“You know, it says a lot that when you don’t know how to react, you sneer instinctively.”
He tensed.
“Anyway, it’s not as if Parkinson was hard. You were, quite, but then I realised that the last thing you’d want would be for me to forget the huge impact you had on my life. It’s not particularly difficult to see that your ego is the only thing you care about.”
His mouth opened violently, but then he closed it, instead taking her hand and inspecting it in the dim moonlight.
“But I managed not to, didn’t I? I didn’t curse you. You were hit by a curse from that Irish git.”
“And Malfoy’s ego survives to enjoy another day.”
He laid her hand gently back onto the bedspread.
“Have it your way, Weasley.”
(A/N They really don’t listen, you know. Please review?)
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