♥ "The Games We Play" for Sheckson ♥
Title: The Games We Play
Author: midnight_birth
Rating: R
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: Canon but EWE, AU in only the fact that I chose to have Snape still alive (I couldn’t bring myself to have another Potions professor), scenes of sexual nature, and slightly foul language in places.
Author's Notes: With my sincerest apologies to the mods and the rest of the community for this being quite late, but real life threw a pile of unavoidable circumstances my way. It’s no excuse, and I hope I can someday be forgiven. I really hope you enjoy it! ♥
Summary: Ginny is sure that Malfoy cannot possibly be better than her in anything, and is willing to bet on it when he insists non-too-nicely that he is above and beyond her in Advanced Potions. But as the competition becomes more heated and they start spending more and more time together, both may just realize they’re investing more than they’ve bargained for.
The Games We Play
“Late again,” Snape remarked without looking up from his papers, and Ginny heard a few Slytherins behind her snicker. “What is it this time? The Giant Squid stole your schedule?”
“I’m sorry, I was -”
“Rhetorical question, Ms Weasley. Surely you don’t expect me or anyone else in this class to want to listen to your excuses? Detention after class. Now sit.”
Ginny groaned inwardly and made her way to the back of the class. She wasn’t late that often, but Snape seemed to have a memory of an elephant, and a selective one at that. He may be a war hero and the bunch of them owed him their lives, but the man was still a git, Ginny decided, planting herself into a chair. A git with a definite bias. She would’ve loved to see him at least once give Draco Malfoy, who always strolled into class over fifteen minutes late, a detention, but Snape didn’t so much as bat an eye. Ginny was certain that Malfoy could barge into class straddling Firenze and Snape still wouldn’t even make a remark.
“Why do you even bother showing up at all, Weasley?” Malfoy hissed at her from one desk over.
Ginny wasn’t in the mood for this, so she turned her attention to her work, ignoring Malfoy. But Malfoy never gave up that easily.
“Why on earth would you be late?” he persisted. “You don’t even have any friends to lose track of time with.”
Just ignore him, she told himself, her fists clenching around her robes. Malfoy undoubtedly had a gift, and that gift consisted of being able to snoop out the most painful, sore subjects and hit the nail on the head. She could deal with the rest of them; they could say whatever they wanted about her and she remained completely unfazed, but Malfoy always managed to get to her. And while she could ignore the others because the things they said about her were mostly not true or inconsequential, Malfoy’s remarks were right on the mark. It was true what they said, she realized - people got much angrier at others for being right than for being wrong.
It was two months into the school year, and the year was going rocky for her. For the past six years, she had gotten used to being constantly surrounded with friends and family. Though she’d say it was a bother, she still loved the fact that throughout her whole time at Hogwarts, she always had an older brother or brothers there if she ever needed them. It was true that the case was the same last year, since Ron hadn’t come back, but she was too busy and worried about the war, she was still surrounded by Dumbledore’s Army and her friends, and she felt that by studying advanced spells, she was helping Harry in her own way and was completely immersed in the idea.
This year, she felt alone in a place that didn’t feel very familiar to her anymore. Many students hadn’t come back to Hogwarts so soon after the final battle, and many didn’t need to. They could get any job they liked in their field as it was. Harry was already accepted the Auror training program, Luna had picked up the management of her father’s magazine, the Patil twins had decided to finish their last year at Beauxbatons, Neville was traveling to Australia for a year on an internship before applying to Hogwarts as a professor, and Ron was helping George out with the store until George could get back up on his feet and planning to join Harry later on. Ginny wasn’t entirely sure where everyone else had dispersed to, but she found herself at Hogwarts in a tiny class of seventh years most of whom she hadn’t really known with no one to talk to. She didn’t want to come back, but molly insisted that all of her children finish their education. She made an exception for Ron, because his place in the ministry was sealed and George couldn’t go on by himself. After losing Fred, he had planned on closing the shop, but his family couldn’t let him. Ginny could only imagine how hard it was for George to continue the business that was his and Fred’s dream, but knew that if they let George give up, they would lose him too.
Hermione also came back, but she had a very specific arrangement with McGonagall, and Ginny almost never saw her. Being the only “eighth year” aside from Malfoy, Hermione had private N.E.W.T.-level classes, and spent the rest of her time in Hogsmeade with Ron and George.
Ginny spent the rest of the class listening to Snape and paying too much attention in order to distract herself from Malfoy’s malicious comments. It seemed to her that he didn’t leave her alone out of boredom - he had no one else to torture, and bothering her had become a habit. The lower-year Slytherins trailed after him like lost puppies, which she found sickening but, to her surprise, he didn’t seem to take kindly to that, either. Most of the time she found him alone wandering the corridors, or with a couple of other boys resembling Crabbe and Goyle who didn’t seem to speak. Sometimes, it seemed that the things he said to her he didn’t even process beforehand - it was like a habit he often didn’t notice he had. It bothered her even more that he could get to her so much without even trying.
When Snape had finally dismissed them, she felt relief wash over her. Even though she wasn’t looking forward to staying one-on-one with Snape for the next however many hours, at least Malfoy wouldn’t be there to badger her with hurtful remarks. She glanced over at him with evident irritation and impatience when he, too, made no movement to leave. He raised his eyebrows back at her and smirked. All of a sudden, she had a burning desire to stick out her tongue at him - something she used to do when her brothers got on her nerves when she was little - but prevented herself by quickly looking away. She wasn’t going to descend to that… yet.
“Mr Malfoy, you may start brewing,” Snape spoke suddenly, when the last student had filed out of the classroom. He got up from behind his desk and made for the door. “And I believe I can trouble you to preside over Mrs Weasley’s detention?”
“Certainly, Professor,” Malfoy answered and watched Snape walk out of the classroom with a malicious grin.
Ginny stared after him, unbelieving and angry. Not only did she now have to spend more time with Malfoy - and one-on-one - but Snape had actually had the nerve to leave him in charge of her. Malfoy seemed to be enjoying the fact immensely, looking over at her with a self-satisfied look that didn’t promise anything good for her.
“Now what should I make you do for your detention today?” he drawled, walking over to the shelved with ingredients and picking out a few things. “Or how about I make you write an essay about why I am so great?”
“Well, it wouldn’t be a very long essay,” she snapped at him.
“Oh, no?”
“Well, considering “nothing” is only one short word.”
Ginny could see Malfoy look insulted for a second before the imperturbable mask snapped back into place. Perhaps she could get to him after all. He placed the pile of ingredients on his table and pulled out a small piece of paper that she assumed was filled with instructions for the potion he was brewing. Her pride prevented her from asking what exactly he was doing, but she craned her neck when he wasn’t looking to try and figure it out. Malfoy definitely didn’t need extra lessons in potions - he dominated the class.
“I don’t hear you writing,” Malfoy said, turning around sharply to catch her trying to make out what was written on the paper he was holding.
“I’m not writing you anything,” she fired back.
“Well, I am sure Professor Snape isn’t going to be happy when he hears that.”
“And I’m sure Snape will feel whatever you want him to feel,” she mumbled bitterly.
“I beg your pardon?”
The implication didn’t escape him, and he was glaring at her suspiciously now. Slowly, the realization of what had suddenly made Malfoy so angry hit and she smiled to herself.
“I said,” she repeated loudly, “that I am sure Snape will feel whatever you want him to feel.”
“And that means?”
“That means that you’re an ass-kisser, Malfoy, and the only reason you’re great in potions and not a hell of a lot else is because Snape gives you preferential treatment.”
This time, Malfoy didn’t even try to compose himself. She felt a surge of pride and satisfaction to see the expression on his face, but frowned slightly when she realized that of all the things she could have said to him, what she did not only insulted him, but actually hurt him. But she wasn’t going to let himself feel bad. Malfoy went out of his way in trying to make her feel horrible, so why should she feel guilty at giving him a taste of his own medicine? Besides, she didn’t consider her statement unfair; she knew little of the extent of Malfoy’s knowledge on brewing, but if Snape gave him preferential treatment everywhere else, would it be that unreasonable to believe he did it with grades, too?
But she had to admit, the furious look on Malfoy’s face was starting to worry her a little. Had she been unfair, or was Malfoy’s pride really that fragile? For a moment, she wondered whether he would actually hex her. Instead, to her surprise, he turned around without a word and went back to his work. Now that was uncharacteristic.
She went back to her books, but eventually found herself reading over the same line, not really registering the words her eyes were gliding over. She kept stealing glances at the boy beside her, immersed now in his work. She observed as he cut skilfully and quickly, handling the equipment and ingredients with evident ease and confidence. Had she been wrong? She got out of her chair soundlessly and made her way around Malfoy to stand at the table. Finally getting a good look at the instruction on the paper, she realized she hadn’t ever even heard of the potion he was brewing. It definitely didn’t look like extra credit work.
“What is this stuff?” she couldn’t help asking. He gave her a condescending look and didn’t say anything. “Ok, fine, Malfoy!” she gave up. “I was wrong - you’re good at potions and I’m sorry, ok?” It wasn’t for his sake she was saying it, she reasoned with herself. But she didn’t want to be like him. Just because he enjoyed being cruel and unfair, it didn’t mean it made it ok for her to be, too.
“You really think you’ve upset me somehow?” he asked with a smirk and she frowned. “Very sweet of you to be so noble and apologize, but don’t fool yourself into thinking that something that comes out of your mouth can have any effect on me. Not that your opinion ever mattered or held any sway, Weasley, but why would it matter to me if you make an accusation not based in any truth out of sheer bitterness?”
“Bitterness?”
“Well, someone of your skills accusing someone of my skills of not having attained my results fairly is quite understandable,” he said calmly. “It makes it easier for you to accept that I am absolutely superior to you when it comes to potion-brewing.”
All feelings of guilt and remorse were forgotten as she stared at him, anger boiling her blood and making her in urgent need to punch something - preferably his face. She could accept being wrong, but she couldn’t in a million years accept the fact that Draco Malfoy was better than her at anything. That would be simply insulting.
“You think you’re superior to me?” she asked, scoffing. “You’re a whole different kind of delusional, aren’t you?”
“Can you brew this?” Malfoy asked, nodding to the cauldron.
“It doesn’t take a genius to follow instructions.”
“I’ve been interested in brewing from a very young age,” Malfoy told her, pouring a foul-smelling red liquid into the cauldron and making the mix hiss and boil. “Unlike yours, my parents could afford to get me the best books and the best tutors. Professor Snape had agreed to teach me Advanced Potions - something not covered even in N.E.W.T.-level courses, because it was obvious my skills were way beyond anyone else’s level. But you are telling me that you can match them?”
Ginny stared at him defiantly, but a small voice at the back of her head was whispering with a note of warning. Potions were never a passion of hers, and the only reason she always got high marks in it was because she was an overall good student. She knew very well, however, that when you added passion to the mix, it increased skill dramatically, and Malfoy truly seemed to have that. To add to that, she had never tried her hand at Advanced Potions, and Malfoy would of course have a hand up having already mostly completed his seventh year before and studying much more advanced things. But to admit defeat and back down now would not only mean losing, which she couldn’t stand, but losing to Malfoy. She had to avoid that at all costs. Besides, she was sure that if Malfoy could do it, she could surely figure it out. She couldn’t let him win; he was obviously mocking her and besmirching any skill she had at all, and she had to defend her dignity.
“Yes, actually, that is exactly what I’m saying,” she replied haughtily, and he grinned. It seemed that was exactly what he had wanted her to say.
“I accept your challenge,” he said, “and these are the terms. Professor Snape will choose a potion for both of us to research and brew that neither of us have ever done.
“But -”
“And before you even say it,” he interrupted her severely, “I will not let him give me an advantage. I have no doubt that I can best you, and for me to best a Weasley by cheating would be pathetic, and, I’m sure, will not feel as good as it would if I beat you fairly. We will prepare for it and study it together, from the same resources and materials, and then brew it together. Whoever does it correctly wins.”
“And how am I supposed to know you’re not getting help on the side?” she asked him with a raised brow. A lot of this arrangement seemed to rely on mutual trust and individual honesty, and she highly doubted that any of that could ever be reached between the two of them.
“You wouldn’t know, but I will. A victory over you that way would not be a victory. Also, if you think that I would doubt for a second my superiority and your certain looming failure, you don’t realize exactly how much I despise you.”
She glared at him. Unarguably, he did have a valid point. He seemed completely sure that he was entering into a competition that he couldn’t possibly lose, so there really wasn’t anything that she could do that would make him think differently and want to resort to cheating. And Ginny was sure she knew exactly how much he despised her - it was probably equally mutual, and she somehow felt no suspicion that he was telling her a lie.
“Fine!” she said finally. “It’s a deal.” She stuck out her hand with a scowl and he looked down at it, with his arms crossed on his chest.
“You expect me to touch that?”
“Yes, Malfoy,” she growled. “We made a deal, and now we shake on it. It’s the way you seal a verbal contract. I could do without touching you too, you know, but that’s just the way it works.”
He grasped her hand and gave it a rough shake, squeezing too hard and making her feel like he intended to break her hand.
“And I am sure you can do with a lot of touching me,” he told her with a sleazy smile, “but unfortunately, you are far from my type.”
Ginny gave him a grossed out look, gathered her stuff into her bag, and stormed out of the classroom. She sincerely prayed that she would somehow manage not to kill him in the following days.
~
“Would you stop muttering to yourself!” she barked at him, and he scowled at her from across the table.
It was late, as neither of them wanted to be seen with the other, and they were hiding out in the very back corner of the library inside a small alcove that had two desks facing each other and was partially hidden from view. To further that, Ginny had charmed a nearby statue to move over and block the entrance, so they were now completely hidden from prying eyes. When she was little, she used to love building forts akin to that one - it made her feel very secure and protected, but with Malfoy there she just felt trapped.
“I’m reading!”
“Read to yourself!”
Snape looked apprehensive and bored when they explained their competition to him, but it seemed that Malfoy could indeed convince him to do most things within a reasonable limit, because he finally waved over a thick book and picked out a random potion. It was a pain-dulling potion, designed to numb the worst, most painful injuries and temporarily relieve the pain. He had advised them that it was a rare potion that used some of the world’s strongest poisons, and told them flatly to please not consume it or anything that came in contact with it, and if they chose to do so, to not hold him responsible if they happened to survive it. The next night, they found a private place in the library, brought a pile of books, and started their research.
Ginny could already feel the stress of the upcoming task, and she could see that Malfoy was taking it seriously, too. It was indeed very complicated, and especially so because a lot of ingredients that went into it had to be brawn as well, and they didn’t have a lot of time when all their school-work was done. She knew that she wasn’t going to have an easy time of it, and knew also that while the potion took hours to prepare, the tiniest mistake at the beginning stages would make the potion unusable and toxic, which made her extremely nervous.
When it came down to it, she wasn’t very organized. She did things sporadically and out of order, reading out of a few books at the same time, making hasty notes nobody aside from her would ever be able to decipher, and underlining different sections in her notes with different colors. She knew this would hinder her greatly in the meticulous task she was going to undertake. She was shocked, thus, to once look over at Malfoy’s notes and see that they looked as if they were a clean copy for publishing - everything was organized in neat charts and columns, everything was legible and very easy to follow, and, in fact, a monkey could probably have an easy job of following his notes. She didn’t know why - he had never given her a reason to think him unorganized or sloppy, but she had to admit that she was mildly impressed and slightly nervous on her own behalf. She always envied Percy the same skill, and she wasn’t expecting the same amount of effort from Malfoy. He never came across as someone who gave a damn, though his marks had always been good.
They tended not to talk, which suited Ginny just fine. From the beginning, she had a feeling that it was going to be very awkward. She had tried studying together with past friends and boyfriends, but could never do it efficiently. She was an outgoing, friendly person from the time she was a little girl, but sitting with someone silently and not talking for a prolonged period of time made her restless and uncomfortable. Surprisingly, that wasn’t the case with Malfoy. At first, she had thought it was because they were enemies and had nothing to talk to each other about, but with time, no matter how much she tried to deny it, she realized that she felt comfortable being in his presence because of the way he conducted himself when he studied. She didn’t constantly think about whether he was bored or tired and she didn’t constantly sneak off to the bathroom to check her hair and make sure she was looking her best. Even though he was rude and picked on the smallest flaw he could find in her when he took breaks from being completely immersed in her book, she never felt insecure about the way she looked. There was something about the way Malfoy looked at her that, subconsciously, made her feel confident.
It was their second week of study sessions, and Madame Pince had to move the statue again when the time neared midnight and give them an irritated look. She seemed to make peace with their arrangements, probably thinking they were studying for their N.E.W.T.s, and spying on them here and there until she was absolutely assured they weren’t doing anything else. Ginny cringed inwardly when she thought of what the old librarian had assumed they were up to at first.
“Time to get going,” she told them, and then added, nodding at the books, “You always get the same ones. You can leave them here if you like. No one ever uses this corner of the library - it’s too close to the Restriction Section for my liking, so I don’t usually let students study here.”
They were shocked to walk out into the hallways and find themselves in almost complete darkness. Ginny looked around her unsurely. All the candles that usually floated along the walls and lighted the way for Prefects and wandering ghosts seemed to be gone. Could they have been switching it?
“The Astronomy students,” Madame Pince noted, locking the doors of the library and walking over to a door that Ginny assumed to lead to her quarters right beside it. “They were observing something or other here just under an hour ago, and they usually get rid of all the lights to see the skies better. They’ll be back by the morning, don’t you worry about that, so just use your wands for now.”
She disappeared behind the door and Ginny looked into the darkness with a frown. The fact that there were less students at Hogwarts this year and the security was much tighter than it had been just a couple of years ago accounted for the fact that the halls were completely deserted and silent at that time of night. It’s not that she was afraid, parse - she knew Hogwarts was completely safe now, but it was more of an unreasonable childish dislike of dark, open, echo-filled places where she couldn’t see everything around her. For the first time since they started getting together during the evenings to study, she regretted that the dungeons were in the opposite direction from where she was walking. Which was why she was taken aback to find Malfoy start to walk stiffly beside her when she took off down the hallway with a deep breath.
“What are you doing?” she asked suspiciously. Was he afraid to go by himself?
“Walking,” he answered simply, not looking over at her.
“The dungeons are not in this direction,” she pointed out with a frown.
“Oh, is that so?” he asked sarcastically, making a face. “You see, after attending this school for seven years and longer now, I still can’t quite figure out where everything is.”
Ginny scowled. “Drop the crap, Malfoy. Why are you following me?”
“If I was following you, I would be behind you. As it stands, I am beside you, thus it’s safe to assume that I am accompanying you.”
“I don’t need a vocabulary lesson, Malfoy!” she snapped, getting more irritated.
A bright light blinded her for a second and she realized that they had walked through the dark corridor and right out in front of the Gryffindor common room entrance, which was brightly lit. She looked over behind her into the darkness, surprised that she hadn’t even noticed it, being too caught up arguing with Malfoy. She was even more surprised when Malfoy turned on his heels and started to walk back. Her mouth fell open. He didn’t... did he?
“Wait!” she called out, and ran up to stand beside him again. “Did you just walk me here for the sake of walking me here?” Malfoy rolled his eyes but didn’t respond, making Ginny gape. “Because it was dark?”
She wasn’t sure whether to feel insulted at his presumption that she needed a walking partner, check for signs of insanity, or allow herself to think that he had just done a nice thing for her. The last thing was out of the question, she decided, so there simply had to be something malicious behind it. But he simply walked beside her, making her forget her fear, and was now aiming to go back, not as much as acknowledging what he had done. She had no idea how to react appropriately. Even if he had done it out of some kind of insane wave of kindness, she couldn’t bring herself to thank him. It seemed that doing that would make her cross an invisible line between hate and an awkward civility, and she wasn’t sure that was a good idea for them.
“Well, why the sudden kindness?” she asked him mockingly, raising her eyebrows.
“This had nothing to do with kindness,” he told her, shrugging. “It’s called manners. It may be a bad habit, considering it’s you and all, but I was brought up with a level of etiquette I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”
“Oh, please,” she said, anger rising inside her again. It didn’t matter if Malfoy was capable of good deeds - he somehow managed to balance them out with being a complete git the rest of the time. “I am pretty sure that manner or no manners, when it comes to me you couldn’t care less if I was eaten by wild wolves.”
He looked over at her, and in the dimness she couldn’t make out his face and his expression. “I am pretty sure you’re right.”
He started walking away now, and she stood staring after him. There was something about the way he had said that that didn’t exactly feel like an insult. There was no bite to it, and even though she couldn’t put a finger on what had made her feel that way, she knew there was something different about this whole situation, and especially his last words.
“Oh, why don’t you just stuff it!” she called after him in frustration. How could she even let Malfoy get her confused? What did she even care for what he meant?
“Gladly!” he called back cheerfully, and waved his hand.
Ginny stood for a moment without moving, then finally understood the innuendo, scoffed and turned on her heels. She didn’t care. If she happened to dream about Malfoy in unexpected ways the way she had the night before, it would be purely and disgustingly coincidental.
~
It seemed a small enough event, but somehow it managed to turn everything around. It seemed more awkward and difficult to be around him now, and even their usual tête-à-tête felt almost forced. It was like neither of them knew even how to argue with the other anymore. As hard as she tried to first figure out the reason for this change, and then convince herself she didn’t really care either way, both attempts had been unsuccessful. And it didn’t help at all that after Malfoy’s unexpected act of chivalry, she caught herself observing him and noticing things she hadn’t before more and more often.
Sometimes, in unexpected moments of clarity, she felt a familiarity about the way the whole thing made her feel, but it was almost as if her mind didn’t really want her to figure anything out. The fact that she even had anything to figure out when it came to Malfoy scared her.
Another week had come and gone filled with schoolwork and late study sessions that, in turn, were filled with awkward insults and uncomfortable silence, and it was time to start brewing. Ginny had met Malfoy in the dungeons at quarter past eight and they silently began to prepare for the brewing of certain ingredients. She knew that now was the time to really put her mind to it and pay attention - they had reached the most difficult part of their task, but she felt it incredibly hard to concentrate. To her surprise and relief, it seemed Malfoy wasn’t on top of his game, either. They dropped and spilled things, bumped into each other repeatedly, and simply couldn’t get organized to start the actual brewing.
“You don’t seem to be ready for this, Weasley,” Malfoy noted with amusement when she had broken her fifth beaker.
“Not so shining yourself today,” she shot back, busying herself with cleaning up the glass. “Just pay attention to your own work and bugger off.”
“Angry much?” he asked, and she shot him a murderous look. “As you can very well see, I’m not concerned at all about this potion, and without cheating, too. I’m almost surprised you still haven’t accused me of that again.”
“You can’t deny that you’re an ass-kisser,” she told him, disposing of the glass carefully. “And your pride aside, you can’t really be that blind to not see why I would accuse you of it in the first place. It’s not like trying to get things in the easiest of ways and trying to get things by sucking up or flinging your name into people’s faces is something you haven’t consciously and repeatedly done.”
He chuckled and gave her a pitying look. “Not everyone is so proud that it blind us to the benefits of doing certain less savoury things to get what we want rather than work like a horse and then get no appreciation for it,” he told her. “I won’t deny I know how to get what I want out of people and I equally won’t deny that I use that talent liberally, but you can’t deny that in the end, I end up with what I need, and with much less stress.”
“The end does not justify the means!” She rounded on him, holding another beaker in her hands. She wasn’t sure why this conversation was getting her so angry. It was one of the most coherent and least awkward conversations they’ve had all week, after all, and she should have felt relieved that they were interacting in their typical way again.
“Not everyone who is ambitious is so much so that they would go to any lengths to get what they want,” Malfoy told her, and she could see a smidgen of the same anger she saw the first time she accused him of cheating. “You think I’m so blind that I don’t notice that Professor Snape tends to be a git? You think I haven’t had moments in my life where all I wanted was to tell him to stuff it full of walnuts?” He raised a brow at her questioningly. “But can you tell me what, exactly, doing that would have accomplished? People are simple. A lot of them would bend over backwards if you stroke their ego or tell them what they want to hear. Of course, you can be “honest” and “courageous” and always tell people what you think of them, or whatever you feel like saying at the time, but in the end, knowing you were honest hardly outweighs the knowing that you just shot yourself in the foot and cut your chances of ever getting anywhere in half. I tell people what they want to hear and they give what I want to have, and it’s a fair trade that works out for everyone.”
Ginny could feel anger surging through her again. She had woken up angry, and most anything was bound to set her off, but what made her so mad now was that what Malfoy said actually made sense to her. She had always despised Slytherin’s main value - ambition without consideration, and was sure that there was no excuse for ass-kissing and stepping over people to get to the top, but what Malfoy had said was simple and true. She didn’t want to agree with him, but no matter how much she raged, denied it, or argued against it, she knew deep inside that regardless of all that, it made perfect sense to her. And that made her angrier than she had felt in a long time.
Suddenly, she heard a crack and then a sudden sharp, shooting pain in her left arm.
“Would you watch what you’re doing!” Malfoy shouted, and before she could even realize what had happened, she found her hand being tightly clutched by Malfoy’s.
She gasped when she looked down only to find her hand bleeding profusely. She hadn’t realized she was squeezing the beaker in her hand way too tightly, and the glass finally gave way and shattered in her hand, cutting it and wedging itself into it. While the realization, closely followed by the almost blinding surge of pain that being conscious of an injury brought sank in, Malfoy had somehow managed to pick the bigger pieces of glass out of her palm, and was now muttering something and tapping her hand with his wand.
“What are you -”
“Shut up!” he barked at her, and tapped her hand two more times. Ginny was surprised to see the flow of blood recede drastically.
“Relax, Malfoy, it’s not a big deal,” she muttered, and tried to pull her hand away, but he seemed to have no intention of releasing it.
Reaching into his pocket, he brought out a handkerchief and wrapped it tightly around her wound, now almost not bleeding at all, and then finally dropped her hand and looked up to meet her eyes.
She didn’t know what came first - the realization or the anticipation, but she felt her whole body tense. He was looking down at her, and she could feel the warm and nearly painful burst of adrenalin at the bottom of her stomach. She felt as if she was floating outside of her body, because she was completely aware of their position - him standing over her, looking down into her face, and her looking up at him, cradling her wounded hand in the other, her lips partially opened. She had recognized the feeling at the bottom of her stomach, and she felt no doubt of what was coming next.
“Don’t,” she whispered, but she knew that he could see no resistance behind her eyes. He knew as well as she did that she wouldn’t push him away now.
It was a whole different line they were about to cross, and her common sense was screaming at her to stop and think about what she was doing and what that would mean. It was bizarre, unfamiliar, and unexplainable, but she didn’t want to think about anything. When or how or most especially why.
Slowly, he leaned toward her until she could feel his hot breath on her lips. Their lips were touching now, but he wasn’t leaning into the kiss. She could taste him, but only just. It seemed to her they were standing like that forever, their lips touching and their eyes closed, until finally she leaned forward, pressing their lips together. It seemed it was the confirmation he was waiting ford, because slowly, his hands found their way to her lower back and pulled her close to him. She knew there should be a million questions she should be asking. Did she have feelings for him? Did he for her? Were they just caught up in the moment, or had this been coming, unbeknownst to them, for a long time? And, most importantly, regardless of anything else, was she making a mistake?
But she didn’t want to think about any of that. The kiss was becoming deeper and more passionate, and she just wanted to feel it. It had been a long time since someone had held her like that. In fact, it was Harry the past summer, but with him it was expected and familiar and, though nice, not exactly what she would call exciting. This was completely new and unpredictable, and she felt something she hadn't felt until now - lust.
It surprised her that out of the two of them, Malfoy seemed the more unsure one. Granted, he kissed her and held her with skill - it was definitely not his first time, and he definitely didn’t doubt his abilities when it came to that, but it seemed he wasn’t sure of how far he could push her. He seemed to pull back slightly every time their kiss became too overwhelming, and keep his hands on her lower back. Ironically, he was moving much slower than most guys she had ever kissed. She understood, of course. She, too, was half expecting him to come to his senses and push her away in disgust any moment.
Finally, she was sure that he wasn’t going to, and she couldn’t hold back any longer. She wanted to be closer, and she wanted him to know that. Desperately, she threw open his robes and clawed at his shirt until she untucked it from his trousers and ran her hands up his bare skin. He seemed surprised for a moment and then swept her into his arms non-too-gently, ridding her of her robes in a quarter of a second and half ripping half unbuttoning her shirt and then his own. Making short work of her bra as well he pressed their naked upper bodies close together, making her moan. Lifting her up easily, he sat her on the nearby desk and looked down at her, seemingly drinking in the smell and sight of her body.
He stepped closer and brought their lips together again, stroking her legs and lifting her skirt slowly as he went. Her hand fisted in his hard when he stroke her inner thigh gently and then brushed over her underwear. When he rubbed her now swollen clit gently through the cloth, she sank her nails into his back and threw her head back.
Suddenly, he stopped and jumped back as if stung. She snapped her head up to look at him in shock. He wouldn’t dare stop now, would he? They were too far in for him to realize he didn’t want to do this. She was turned on enough to throw him against a wall and shag him against his will if that was what it was going to take. But one look at his face was enough to tell her it wasn’t her - something was wrong. He was staring right past her. Swirling around, she gasped and brought her hands to cover her face, too mortified to have the presence of mind to even cover herself.
Snape was standing in the doorway, one of his hands still on the doorknob, his face carrying a look that she would laugh at heartily was she not naked and sitting on a desk with her legs spread apart. Snape seemed to come to his sense almost at the same time as Malfoy, who grabbed his robes off the floor and draped it over Ginny, effectively covering her nakedness. Even he seemed to be at a complete loss for words.
“I don’t remember signing out my classroom for purposes of copulation,” Snape spoke finally in a strained voice. Ginny still couldn’t face him, but she imagined he looked disappointedly at Malfoy for doing what he was doing with her, of all people.
“Professor, we were just -”
“I don’t need what you were doing put to words!” Snape barked angrily. “The only thing I need is a good kick in the head to make me forget this. For Merlin’s sake, Draco!”
Ginny removed her hands from her face when the door slammed shut behind Snape and glanced over at Malfoy, who was stifling what she was sure was a smile. When their eyes met again, they both frowned. The fact that Snape had discovered them wasn’t important at the moment for either of them. Snape had walked in just in time to stop them from doing something they would never be able to undo, and it seemed that the weight of it all had just hit both of them.
“We just -”
“Yeah.”
They stared at each other for a couple of more minutes before Malfoy shrugged and took a step toward her. “Shall we go on?” he asked.
“What?” She blanched and he looked at her questioningly. “You mean you still want to do this?” she asked in shock.
“If I didn’t want to do this, I wouldn’t have started doing it,” he told her seriously and she rolled her eyes. “So, what, are we going to talk about our feelings now and what it means to us?” he asked wearily.
“Do you want to be with me?” she asked quietly.
“It’s not self-evident?” he asked sarcastically, gesturing to his more-than-apparent erection.
“I don’t mean that way.” She shook her head and sighed. He shrugged. “Then, yes, we’re going to have to talk about our feelings.”
He stared at her and she wondered if he was going to say something insulting and just walk away. If sex was the only thing he wanted and she denied it to him, it seemed the easiest thing to do. He did indeed pick up his clothes and walked purposefully toward the door. With his hand on the doorknob, he stopped and turned back to look at her.
“Tomorrow. Dinner. I’ll pick you up at eight outside your common room. There is a place in Hogsmeade that my father recently invested in, and I need to make an appearance there anyway.”
Without another word, he walked out. She sat on the table for a while, dangling her legs and thinking, and then grinned. It wasn’t anything certain, and he was still Malfoy, but she was willing to give it a try. She had attempted something that seemed obvious for her with Harry, but even though they got along great and seemed perfect for each other from the very start, it still hadn’t worked out. So maybe, she thought, something that didn’t readily offer itself up as perfect was much more suitable for her, and it felt right. She wouldn’t know until she tried it. She looked around the room at the untouched ingredients they never got around to brewing. Competing with Malfoy turned out to be more fun than she thought it would be, and she wasn’t opposed to doing it again. In fact, she had just the perfect bet.
ORIGINAL REQUEST:
Briefly describe what you'd like to receive in your fic (art)
I'd like to receive a fic that has Draco and Ginny fighting over who can get the best grades in Advanced Potions, which ultimately would lead to some late study sessions and spying would ensue. I'd like them to start off liking nothing of one another, and then realizing through their competition that there might be something between them
The tone/mood of the fic: Love a bit of fluff, not too much smut but just enough. A little humor is always appreciated
An element/line of dialogue/object you would like in your fic: I love Draco making inappropriate comments like "Stuff it, Draco" "Gladly", or something among those lines
Preferred rating of the the fic you want: M or R.
Canon or AU? Canon-ish.
Deal Breakers (anything you don't want?): A desperate Ginny fawning over Draco; I like her with a little attitude!
Author: midnight_birth
Rating: R
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: Canon but EWE, AU in only the fact that I chose to have Snape still alive (I couldn’t bring myself to have another Potions professor), scenes of sexual nature, and slightly foul language in places.
Author's Notes: With my sincerest apologies to the mods and the rest of the community for this being quite late, but real life threw a pile of unavoidable circumstances my way. It’s no excuse, and I hope I can someday be forgiven. I really hope you enjoy it! ♥
Summary: Ginny is sure that Malfoy cannot possibly be better than her in anything, and is willing to bet on it when he insists non-too-nicely that he is above and beyond her in Advanced Potions. But as the competition becomes more heated and they start spending more and more time together, both may just realize they’re investing more than they’ve bargained for.
The Games We Play
“Late again,” Snape remarked without looking up from his papers, and Ginny heard a few Slytherins behind her snicker. “What is it this time? The Giant Squid stole your schedule?”
“I’m sorry, I was -”
“Rhetorical question, Ms Weasley. Surely you don’t expect me or anyone else in this class to want to listen to your excuses? Detention after class. Now sit.”
Ginny groaned inwardly and made her way to the back of the class. She wasn’t late that often, but Snape seemed to have a memory of an elephant, and a selective one at that. He may be a war hero and the bunch of them owed him their lives, but the man was still a git, Ginny decided, planting herself into a chair. A git with a definite bias. She would’ve loved to see him at least once give Draco Malfoy, who always strolled into class over fifteen minutes late, a detention, but Snape didn’t so much as bat an eye. Ginny was certain that Malfoy could barge into class straddling Firenze and Snape still wouldn’t even make a remark.
“Why do you even bother showing up at all, Weasley?” Malfoy hissed at her from one desk over.
Ginny wasn’t in the mood for this, so she turned her attention to her work, ignoring Malfoy. But Malfoy never gave up that easily.
“Why on earth would you be late?” he persisted. “You don’t even have any friends to lose track of time with.”
Just ignore him, she told himself, her fists clenching around her robes. Malfoy undoubtedly had a gift, and that gift consisted of being able to snoop out the most painful, sore subjects and hit the nail on the head. She could deal with the rest of them; they could say whatever they wanted about her and she remained completely unfazed, but Malfoy always managed to get to her. And while she could ignore the others because the things they said about her were mostly not true or inconsequential, Malfoy’s remarks were right on the mark. It was true what they said, she realized - people got much angrier at others for being right than for being wrong.
It was two months into the school year, and the year was going rocky for her. For the past six years, she had gotten used to being constantly surrounded with friends and family. Though she’d say it was a bother, she still loved the fact that throughout her whole time at Hogwarts, she always had an older brother or brothers there if she ever needed them. It was true that the case was the same last year, since Ron hadn’t come back, but she was too busy and worried about the war, she was still surrounded by Dumbledore’s Army and her friends, and she felt that by studying advanced spells, she was helping Harry in her own way and was completely immersed in the idea.
This year, she felt alone in a place that didn’t feel very familiar to her anymore. Many students hadn’t come back to Hogwarts so soon after the final battle, and many didn’t need to. They could get any job they liked in their field as it was. Harry was already accepted the Auror training program, Luna had picked up the management of her father’s magazine, the Patil twins had decided to finish their last year at Beauxbatons, Neville was traveling to Australia for a year on an internship before applying to Hogwarts as a professor, and Ron was helping George out with the store until George could get back up on his feet and planning to join Harry later on. Ginny wasn’t entirely sure where everyone else had dispersed to, but she found herself at Hogwarts in a tiny class of seventh years most of whom she hadn’t really known with no one to talk to. She didn’t want to come back, but molly insisted that all of her children finish their education. She made an exception for Ron, because his place in the ministry was sealed and George couldn’t go on by himself. After losing Fred, he had planned on closing the shop, but his family couldn’t let him. Ginny could only imagine how hard it was for George to continue the business that was his and Fred’s dream, but knew that if they let George give up, they would lose him too.
Hermione also came back, but she had a very specific arrangement with McGonagall, and Ginny almost never saw her. Being the only “eighth year” aside from Malfoy, Hermione had private N.E.W.T.-level classes, and spent the rest of her time in Hogsmeade with Ron and George.
Ginny spent the rest of the class listening to Snape and paying too much attention in order to distract herself from Malfoy’s malicious comments. It seemed to her that he didn’t leave her alone out of boredom - he had no one else to torture, and bothering her had become a habit. The lower-year Slytherins trailed after him like lost puppies, which she found sickening but, to her surprise, he didn’t seem to take kindly to that, either. Most of the time she found him alone wandering the corridors, or with a couple of other boys resembling Crabbe and Goyle who didn’t seem to speak. Sometimes, it seemed that the things he said to her he didn’t even process beforehand - it was like a habit he often didn’t notice he had. It bothered her even more that he could get to her so much without even trying.
When Snape had finally dismissed them, she felt relief wash over her. Even though she wasn’t looking forward to staying one-on-one with Snape for the next however many hours, at least Malfoy wouldn’t be there to badger her with hurtful remarks. She glanced over at him with evident irritation and impatience when he, too, made no movement to leave. He raised his eyebrows back at her and smirked. All of a sudden, she had a burning desire to stick out her tongue at him - something she used to do when her brothers got on her nerves when she was little - but prevented herself by quickly looking away. She wasn’t going to descend to that… yet.
“Mr Malfoy, you may start brewing,” Snape spoke suddenly, when the last student had filed out of the classroom. He got up from behind his desk and made for the door. “And I believe I can trouble you to preside over Mrs Weasley’s detention?”
“Certainly, Professor,” Malfoy answered and watched Snape walk out of the classroom with a malicious grin.
Ginny stared after him, unbelieving and angry. Not only did she now have to spend more time with Malfoy - and one-on-one - but Snape had actually had the nerve to leave him in charge of her. Malfoy seemed to be enjoying the fact immensely, looking over at her with a self-satisfied look that didn’t promise anything good for her.
“Now what should I make you do for your detention today?” he drawled, walking over to the shelved with ingredients and picking out a few things. “Or how about I make you write an essay about why I am so great?”
“Well, it wouldn’t be a very long essay,” she snapped at him.
“Oh, no?”
“Well, considering “nothing” is only one short word.”
Ginny could see Malfoy look insulted for a second before the imperturbable mask snapped back into place. Perhaps she could get to him after all. He placed the pile of ingredients on his table and pulled out a small piece of paper that she assumed was filled with instructions for the potion he was brewing. Her pride prevented her from asking what exactly he was doing, but she craned her neck when he wasn’t looking to try and figure it out. Malfoy definitely didn’t need extra lessons in potions - he dominated the class.
“I don’t hear you writing,” Malfoy said, turning around sharply to catch her trying to make out what was written on the paper he was holding.
“I’m not writing you anything,” she fired back.
“Well, I am sure Professor Snape isn’t going to be happy when he hears that.”
“And I’m sure Snape will feel whatever you want him to feel,” she mumbled bitterly.
“I beg your pardon?”
The implication didn’t escape him, and he was glaring at her suspiciously now. Slowly, the realization of what had suddenly made Malfoy so angry hit and she smiled to herself.
“I said,” she repeated loudly, “that I am sure Snape will feel whatever you want him to feel.”
“And that means?”
“That means that you’re an ass-kisser, Malfoy, and the only reason you’re great in potions and not a hell of a lot else is because Snape gives you preferential treatment.”
This time, Malfoy didn’t even try to compose himself. She felt a surge of pride and satisfaction to see the expression on his face, but frowned slightly when she realized that of all the things she could have said to him, what she did not only insulted him, but actually hurt him. But she wasn’t going to let himself feel bad. Malfoy went out of his way in trying to make her feel horrible, so why should she feel guilty at giving him a taste of his own medicine? Besides, she didn’t consider her statement unfair; she knew little of the extent of Malfoy’s knowledge on brewing, but if Snape gave him preferential treatment everywhere else, would it be that unreasonable to believe he did it with grades, too?
But she had to admit, the furious look on Malfoy’s face was starting to worry her a little. Had she been unfair, or was Malfoy’s pride really that fragile? For a moment, she wondered whether he would actually hex her. Instead, to her surprise, he turned around without a word and went back to his work. Now that was uncharacteristic.
She went back to her books, but eventually found herself reading over the same line, not really registering the words her eyes were gliding over. She kept stealing glances at the boy beside her, immersed now in his work. She observed as he cut skilfully and quickly, handling the equipment and ingredients with evident ease and confidence. Had she been wrong? She got out of her chair soundlessly and made her way around Malfoy to stand at the table. Finally getting a good look at the instruction on the paper, she realized she hadn’t ever even heard of the potion he was brewing. It definitely didn’t look like extra credit work.
“What is this stuff?” she couldn’t help asking. He gave her a condescending look and didn’t say anything. “Ok, fine, Malfoy!” she gave up. “I was wrong - you’re good at potions and I’m sorry, ok?” It wasn’t for his sake she was saying it, she reasoned with herself. But she didn’t want to be like him. Just because he enjoyed being cruel and unfair, it didn’t mean it made it ok for her to be, too.
“You really think you’ve upset me somehow?” he asked with a smirk and she frowned. “Very sweet of you to be so noble and apologize, but don’t fool yourself into thinking that something that comes out of your mouth can have any effect on me. Not that your opinion ever mattered or held any sway, Weasley, but why would it matter to me if you make an accusation not based in any truth out of sheer bitterness?”
“Bitterness?”
“Well, someone of your skills accusing someone of my skills of not having attained my results fairly is quite understandable,” he said calmly. “It makes it easier for you to accept that I am absolutely superior to you when it comes to potion-brewing.”
All feelings of guilt and remorse were forgotten as she stared at him, anger boiling her blood and making her in urgent need to punch something - preferably his face. She could accept being wrong, but she couldn’t in a million years accept the fact that Draco Malfoy was better than her at anything. That would be simply insulting.
“You think you’re superior to me?” she asked, scoffing. “You’re a whole different kind of delusional, aren’t you?”
“Can you brew this?” Malfoy asked, nodding to the cauldron.
“It doesn’t take a genius to follow instructions.”
“I’ve been interested in brewing from a very young age,” Malfoy told her, pouring a foul-smelling red liquid into the cauldron and making the mix hiss and boil. “Unlike yours, my parents could afford to get me the best books and the best tutors. Professor Snape had agreed to teach me Advanced Potions - something not covered even in N.E.W.T.-level courses, because it was obvious my skills were way beyond anyone else’s level. But you are telling me that you can match them?”
Ginny stared at him defiantly, but a small voice at the back of her head was whispering with a note of warning. Potions were never a passion of hers, and the only reason she always got high marks in it was because she was an overall good student. She knew very well, however, that when you added passion to the mix, it increased skill dramatically, and Malfoy truly seemed to have that. To add to that, she had never tried her hand at Advanced Potions, and Malfoy would of course have a hand up having already mostly completed his seventh year before and studying much more advanced things. But to admit defeat and back down now would not only mean losing, which she couldn’t stand, but losing to Malfoy. She had to avoid that at all costs. Besides, she was sure that if Malfoy could do it, she could surely figure it out. She couldn’t let him win; he was obviously mocking her and besmirching any skill she had at all, and she had to defend her dignity.
“Yes, actually, that is exactly what I’m saying,” she replied haughtily, and he grinned. It seemed that was exactly what he had wanted her to say.
“I accept your challenge,” he said, “and these are the terms. Professor Snape will choose a potion for both of us to research and brew that neither of us have ever done.
“But -”
“And before you even say it,” he interrupted her severely, “I will not let him give me an advantage. I have no doubt that I can best you, and for me to best a Weasley by cheating would be pathetic, and, I’m sure, will not feel as good as it would if I beat you fairly. We will prepare for it and study it together, from the same resources and materials, and then brew it together. Whoever does it correctly wins.”
“And how am I supposed to know you’re not getting help on the side?” she asked him with a raised brow. A lot of this arrangement seemed to rely on mutual trust and individual honesty, and she highly doubted that any of that could ever be reached between the two of them.
“You wouldn’t know, but I will. A victory over you that way would not be a victory. Also, if you think that I would doubt for a second my superiority and your certain looming failure, you don’t realize exactly how much I despise you.”
She glared at him. Unarguably, he did have a valid point. He seemed completely sure that he was entering into a competition that he couldn’t possibly lose, so there really wasn’t anything that she could do that would make him think differently and want to resort to cheating. And Ginny was sure she knew exactly how much he despised her - it was probably equally mutual, and she somehow felt no suspicion that he was telling her a lie.
“Fine!” she said finally. “It’s a deal.” She stuck out her hand with a scowl and he looked down at it, with his arms crossed on his chest.
“You expect me to touch that?”
“Yes, Malfoy,” she growled. “We made a deal, and now we shake on it. It’s the way you seal a verbal contract. I could do without touching you too, you know, but that’s just the way it works.”
He grasped her hand and gave it a rough shake, squeezing too hard and making her feel like he intended to break her hand.
“And I am sure you can do with a lot of touching me,” he told her with a sleazy smile, “but unfortunately, you are far from my type.”
Ginny gave him a grossed out look, gathered her stuff into her bag, and stormed out of the classroom. She sincerely prayed that she would somehow manage not to kill him in the following days.
~
“Would you stop muttering to yourself!” she barked at him, and he scowled at her from across the table.
It was late, as neither of them wanted to be seen with the other, and they were hiding out in the very back corner of the library inside a small alcove that had two desks facing each other and was partially hidden from view. To further that, Ginny had charmed a nearby statue to move over and block the entrance, so they were now completely hidden from prying eyes. When she was little, she used to love building forts akin to that one - it made her feel very secure and protected, but with Malfoy there she just felt trapped.
“I’m reading!”
“Read to yourself!”
Snape looked apprehensive and bored when they explained their competition to him, but it seemed that Malfoy could indeed convince him to do most things within a reasonable limit, because he finally waved over a thick book and picked out a random potion. It was a pain-dulling potion, designed to numb the worst, most painful injuries and temporarily relieve the pain. He had advised them that it was a rare potion that used some of the world’s strongest poisons, and told them flatly to please not consume it or anything that came in contact with it, and if they chose to do so, to not hold him responsible if they happened to survive it. The next night, they found a private place in the library, brought a pile of books, and started their research.
Ginny could already feel the stress of the upcoming task, and she could see that Malfoy was taking it seriously, too. It was indeed very complicated, and especially so because a lot of ingredients that went into it had to be brawn as well, and they didn’t have a lot of time when all their school-work was done. She knew that she wasn’t going to have an easy time of it, and knew also that while the potion took hours to prepare, the tiniest mistake at the beginning stages would make the potion unusable and toxic, which made her extremely nervous.
When it came down to it, she wasn’t very organized. She did things sporadically and out of order, reading out of a few books at the same time, making hasty notes nobody aside from her would ever be able to decipher, and underlining different sections in her notes with different colors. She knew this would hinder her greatly in the meticulous task she was going to undertake. She was shocked, thus, to once look over at Malfoy’s notes and see that they looked as if they were a clean copy for publishing - everything was organized in neat charts and columns, everything was legible and very easy to follow, and, in fact, a monkey could probably have an easy job of following his notes. She didn’t know why - he had never given her a reason to think him unorganized or sloppy, but she had to admit that she was mildly impressed and slightly nervous on her own behalf. She always envied Percy the same skill, and she wasn’t expecting the same amount of effort from Malfoy. He never came across as someone who gave a damn, though his marks had always been good.
They tended not to talk, which suited Ginny just fine. From the beginning, she had a feeling that it was going to be very awkward. She had tried studying together with past friends and boyfriends, but could never do it efficiently. She was an outgoing, friendly person from the time she was a little girl, but sitting with someone silently and not talking for a prolonged period of time made her restless and uncomfortable. Surprisingly, that wasn’t the case with Malfoy. At first, she had thought it was because they were enemies and had nothing to talk to each other about, but with time, no matter how much she tried to deny it, she realized that she felt comfortable being in his presence because of the way he conducted himself when he studied. She didn’t constantly think about whether he was bored or tired and she didn’t constantly sneak off to the bathroom to check her hair and make sure she was looking her best. Even though he was rude and picked on the smallest flaw he could find in her when he took breaks from being completely immersed in her book, she never felt insecure about the way she looked. There was something about the way Malfoy looked at her that, subconsciously, made her feel confident.
It was their second week of study sessions, and Madame Pince had to move the statue again when the time neared midnight and give them an irritated look. She seemed to make peace with their arrangements, probably thinking they were studying for their N.E.W.T.s, and spying on them here and there until she was absolutely assured they weren’t doing anything else. Ginny cringed inwardly when she thought of what the old librarian had assumed they were up to at first.
“Time to get going,” she told them, and then added, nodding at the books, “You always get the same ones. You can leave them here if you like. No one ever uses this corner of the library - it’s too close to the Restriction Section for my liking, so I don’t usually let students study here.”
They were shocked to walk out into the hallways and find themselves in almost complete darkness. Ginny looked around her unsurely. All the candles that usually floated along the walls and lighted the way for Prefects and wandering ghosts seemed to be gone. Could they have been switching it?
“The Astronomy students,” Madame Pince noted, locking the doors of the library and walking over to a door that Ginny assumed to lead to her quarters right beside it. “They were observing something or other here just under an hour ago, and they usually get rid of all the lights to see the skies better. They’ll be back by the morning, don’t you worry about that, so just use your wands for now.”
She disappeared behind the door and Ginny looked into the darkness with a frown. The fact that there were less students at Hogwarts this year and the security was much tighter than it had been just a couple of years ago accounted for the fact that the halls were completely deserted and silent at that time of night. It’s not that she was afraid, parse - she knew Hogwarts was completely safe now, but it was more of an unreasonable childish dislike of dark, open, echo-filled places where she couldn’t see everything around her. For the first time since they started getting together during the evenings to study, she regretted that the dungeons were in the opposite direction from where she was walking. Which was why she was taken aback to find Malfoy start to walk stiffly beside her when she took off down the hallway with a deep breath.
“What are you doing?” she asked suspiciously. Was he afraid to go by himself?
“Walking,” he answered simply, not looking over at her.
“The dungeons are not in this direction,” she pointed out with a frown.
“Oh, is that so?” he asked sarcastically, making a face. “You see, after attending this school for seven years and longer now, I still can’t quite figure out where everything is.”
Ginny scowled. “Drop the crap, Malfoy. Why are you following me?”
“If I was following you, I would be behind you. As it stands, I am beside you, thus it’s safe to assume that I am accompanying you.”
“I don’t need a vocabulary lesson, Malfoy!” she snapped, getting more irritated.
A bright light blinded her for a second and she realized that they had walked through the dark corridor and right out in front of the Gryffindor common room entrance, which was brightly lit. She looked over behind her into the darkness, surprised that she hadn’t even noticed it, being too caught up arguing with Malfoy. She was even more surprised when Malfoy turned on his heels and started to walk back. Her mouth fell open. He didn’t... did he?
“Wait!” she called out, and ran up to stand beside him again. “Did you just walk me here for the sake of walking me here?” Malfoy rolled his eyes but didn’t respond, making Ginny gape. “Because it was dark?”
She wasn’t sure whether to feel insulted at his presumption that she needed a walking partner, check for signs of insanity, or allow herself to think that he had just done a nice thing for her. The last thing was out of the question, she decided, so there simply had to be something malicious behind it. But he simply walked beside her, making her forget her fear, and was now aiming to go back, not as much as acknowledging what he had done. She had no idea how to react appropriately. Even if he had done it out of some kind of insane wave of kindness, she couldn’t bring herself to thank him. It seemed that doing that would make her cross an invisible line between hate and an awkward civility, and she wasn’t sure that was a good idea for them.
“Well, why the sudden kindness?” she asked him mockingly, raising her eyebrows.
“This had nothing to do with kindness,” he told her, shrugging. “It’s called manners. It may be a bad habit, considering it’s you and all, but I was brought up with a level of etiquette I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”
“Oh, please,” she said, anger rising inside her again. It didn’t matter if Malfoy was capable of good deeds - he somehow managed to balance them out with being a complete git the rest of the time. “I am pretty sure that manner or no manners, when it comes to me you couldn’t care less if I was eaten by wild wolves.”
He looked over at her, and in the dimness she couldn’t make out his face and his expression. “I am pretty sure you’re right.”
He started walking away now, and she stood staring after him. There was something about the way he had said that that didn’t exactly feel like an insult. There was no bite to it, and even though she couldn’t put a finger on what had made her feel that way, she knew there was something different about this whole situation, and especially his last words.
“Oh, why don’t you just stuff it!” she called after him in frustration. How could she even let Malfoy get her confused? What did she even care for what he meant?
“Gladly!” he called back cheerfully, and waved his hand.
Ginny stood for a moment without moving, then finally understood the innuendo, scoffed and turned on her heels. She didn’t care. If she happened to dream about Malfoy in unexpected ways the way she had the night before, it would be purely and disgustingly coincidental.
~
It seemed a small enough event, but somehow it managed to turn everything around. It seemed more awkward and difficult to be around him now, and even their usual tête-à-tête felt almost forced. It was like neither of them knew even how to argue with the other anymore. As hard as she tried to first figure out the reason for this change, and then convince herself she didn’t really care either way, both attempts had been unsuccessful. And it didn’t help at all that after Malfoy’s unexpected act of chivalry, she caught herself observing him and noticing things she hadn’t before more and more often.
Sometimes, in unexpected moments of clarity, she felt a familiarity about the way the whole thing made her feel, but it was almost as if her mind didn’t really want her to figure anything out. The fact that she even had anything to figure out when it came to Malfoy scared her.
Another week had come and gone filled with schoolwork and late study sessions that, in turn, were filled with awkward insults and uncomfortable silence, and it was time to start brewing. Ginny had met Malfoy in the dungeons at quarter past eight and they silently began to prepare for the brewing of certain ingredients. She knew that now was the time to really put her mind to it and pay attention - they had reached the most difficult part of their task, but she felt it incredibly hard to concentrate. To her surprise and relief, it seemed Malfoy wasn’t on top of his game, either. They dropped and spilled things, bumped into each other repeatedly, and simply couldn’t get organized to start the actual brewing.
“You don’t seem to be ready for this, Weasley,” Malfoy noted with amusement when she had broken her fifth beaker.
“Not so shining yourself today,” she shot back, busying herself with cleaning up the glass. “Just pay attention to your own work and bugger off.”
“Angry much?” he asked, and she shot him a murderous look. “As you can very well see, I’m not concerned at all about this potion, and without cheating, too. I’m almost surprised you still haven’t accused me of that again.”
“You can’t deny that you’re an ass-kisser,” she told him, disposing of the glass carefully. “And your pride aside, you can’t really be that blind to not see why I would accuse you of it in the first place. It’s not like trying to get things in the easiest of ways and trying to get things by sucking up or flinging your name into people’s faces is something you haven’t consciously and repeatedly done.”
He chuckled and gave her a pitying look. “Not everyone is so proud that it blind us to the benefits of doing certain less savoury things to get what we want rather than work like a horse and then get no appreciation for it,” he told her. “I won’t deny I know how to get what I want out of people and I equally won’t deny that I use that talent liberally, but you can’t deny that in the end, I end up with what I need, and with much less stress.”
“The end does not justify the means!” She rounded on him, holding another beaker in her hands. She wasn’t sure why this conversation was getting her so angry. It was one of the most coherent and least awkward conversations they’ve had all week, after all, and she should have felt relieved that they were interacting in their typical way again.
“Not everyone who is ambitious is so much so that they would go to any lengths to get what they want,” Malfoy told her, and she could see a smidgen of the same anger she saw the first time she accused him of cheating. “You think I’m so blind that I don’t notice that Professor Snape tends to be a git? You think I haven’t had moments in my life where all I wanted was to tell him to stuff it full of walnuts?” He raised a brow at her questioningly. “But can you tell me what, exactly, doing that would have accomplished? People are simple. A lot of them would bend over backwards if you stroke their ego or tell them what they want to hear. Of course, you can be “honest” and “courageous” and always tell people what you think of them, or whatever you feel like saying at the time, but in the end, knowing you were honest hardly outweighs the knowing that you just shot yourself in the foot and cut your chances of ever getting anywhere in half. I tell people what they want to hear and they give what I want to have, and it’s a fair trade that works out for everyone.”
Ginny could feel anger surging through her again. She had woken up angry, and most anything was bound to set her off, but what made her so mad now was that what Malfoy said actually made sense to her. She had always despised Slytherin’s main value - ambition without consideration, and was sure that there was no excuse for ass-kissing and stepping over people to get to the top, but what Malfoy had said was simple and true. She didn’t want to agree with him, but no matter how much she raged, denied it, or argued against it, she knew deep inside that regardless of all that, it made perfect sense to her. And that made her angrier than she had felt in a long time.
Suddenly, she heard a crack and then a sudden sharp, shooting pain in her left arm.
“Would you watch what you’re doing!” Malfoy shouted, and before she could even realize what had happened, she found her hand being tightly clutched by Malfoy’s.
She gasped when she looked down only to find her hand bleeding profusely. She hadn’t realized she was squeezing the beaker in her hand way too tightly, and the glass finally gave way and shattered in her hand, cutting it and wedging itself into it. While the realization, closely followed by the almost blinding surge of pain that being conscious of an injury brought sank in, Malfoy had somehow managed to pick the bigger pieces of glass out of her palm, and was now muttering something and tapping her hand with his wand.
“What are you -”
“Shut up!” he barked at her, and tapped her hand two more times. Ginny was surprised to see the flow of blood recede drastically.
“Relax, Malfoy, it’s not a big deal,” she muttered, and tried to pull her hand away, but he seemed to have no intention of releasing it.
Reaching into his pocket, he brought out a handkerchief and wrapped it tightly around her wound, now almost not bleeding at all, and then finally dropped her hand and looked up to meet her eyes.
She didn’t know what came first - the realization or the anticipation, but she felt her whole body tense. He was looking down at her, and she could feel the warm and nearly painful burst of adrenalin at the bottom of her stomach. She felt as if she was floating outside of her body, because she was completely aware of their position - him standing over her, looking down into her face, and her looking up at him, cradling her wounded hand in the other, her lips partially opened. She had recognized the feeling at the bottom of her stomach, and she felt no doubt of what was coming next.
“Don’t,” she whispered, but she knew that he could see no resistance behind her eyes. He knew as well as she did that she wouldn’t push him away now.
It was a whole different line they were about to cross, and her common sense was screaming at her to stop and think about what she was doing and what that would mean. It was bizarre, unfamiliar, and unexplainable, but she didn’t want to think about anything. When or how or most especially why.
Slowly, he leaned toward her until she could feel his hot breath on her lips. Their lips were touching now, but he wasn’t leaning into the kiss. She could taste him, but only just. It seemed to her they were standing like that forever, their lips touching and their eyes closed, until finally she leaned forward, pressing their lips together. It seemed it was the confirmation he was waiting ford, because slowly, his hands found their way to her lower back and pulled her close to him. She knew there should be a million questions she should be asking. Did she have feelings for him? Did he for her? Were they just caught up in the moment, or had this been coming, unbeknownst to them, for a long time? And, most importantly, regardless of anything else, was she making a mistake?
But she didn’t want to think about any of that. The kiss was becoming deeper and more passionate, and she just wanted to feel it. It had been a long time since someone had held her like that. In fact, it was Harry the past summer, but with him it was expected and familiar and, though nice, not exactly what she would call exciting. This was completely new and unpredictable, and she felt something she hadn't felt until now - lust.
It surprised her that out of the two of them, Malfoy seemed the more unsure one. Granted, he kissed her and held her with skill - it was definitely not his first time, and he definitely didn’t doubt his abilities when it came to that, but it seemed he wasn’t sure of how far he could push her. He seemed to pull back slightly every time their kiss became too overwhelming, and keep his hands on her lower back. Ironically, he was moving much slower than most guys she had ever kissed. She understood, of course. She, too, was half expecting him to come to his senses and push her away in disgust any moment.
Finally, she was sure that he wasn’t going to, and she couldn’t hold back any longer. She wanted to be closer, and she wanted him to know that. Desperately, she threw open his robes and clawed at his shirt until she untucked it from his trousers and ran her hands up his bare skin. He seemed surprised for a moment and then swept her into his arms non-too-gently, ridding her of her robes in a quarter of a second and half ripping half unbuttoning her shirt and then his own. Making short work of her bra as well he pressed their naked upper bodies close together, making her moan. Lifting her up easily, he sat her on the nearby desk and looked down at her, seemingly drinking in the smell and sight of her body.
He stepped closer and brought their lips together again, stroking her legs and lifting her skirt slowly as he went. Her hand fisted in his hard when he stroke her inner thigh gently and then brushed over her underwear. When he rubbed her now swollen clit gently through the cloth, she sank her nails into his back and threw her head back.
Suddenly, he stopped and jumped back as if stung. She snapped her head up to look at him in shock. He wouldn’t dare stop now, would he? They were too far in for him to realize he didn’t want to do this. She was turned on enough to throw him against a wall and shag him against his will if that was what it was going to take. But one look at his face was enough to tell her it wasn’t her - something was wrong. He was staring right past her. Swirling around, she gasped and brought her hands to cover her face, too mortified to have the presence of mind to even cover herself.
Snape was standing in the doorway, one of his hands still on the doorknob, his face carrying a look that she would laugh at heartily was she not naked and sitting on a desk with her legs spread apart. Snape seemed to come to his sense almost at the same time as Malfoy, who grabbed his robes off the floor and draped it over Ginny, effectively covering her nakedness. Even he seemed to be at a complete loss for words.
“I don’t remember signing out my classroom for purposes of copulation,” Snape spoke finally in a strained voice. Ginny still couldn’t face him, but she imagined he looked disappointedly at Malfoy for doing what he was doing with her, of all people.
“Professor, we were just -”
“I don’t need what you were doing put to words!” Snape barked angrily. “The only thing I need is a good kick in the head to make me forget this. For Merlin’s sake, Draco!”
Ginny removed her hands from her face when the door slammed shut behind Snape and glanced over at Malfoy, who was stifling what she was sure was a smile. When their eyes met again, they both frowned. The fact that Snape had discovered them wasn’t important at the moment for either of them. Snape had walked in just in time to stop them from doing something they would never be able to undo, and it seemed that the weight of it all had just hit both of them.
“We just -”
“Yeah.”
They stared at each other for a couple of more minutes before Malfoy shrugged and took a step toward her. “Shall we go on?” he asked.
“What?” She blanched and he looked at her questioningly. “You mean you still want to do this?” she asked in shock.
“If I didn’t want to do this, I wouldn’t have started doing it,” he told her seriously and she rolled her eyes. “So, what, are we going to talk about our feelings now and what it means to us?” he asked wearily.
“Do you want to be with me?” she asked quietly.
“It’s not self-evident?” he asked sarcastically, gesturing to his more-than-apparent erection.
“I don’t mean that way.” She shook her head and sighed. He shrugged. “Then, yes, we’re going to have to talk about our feelings.”
He stared at her and she wondered if he was going to say something insulting and just walk away. If sex was the only thing he wanted and she denied it to him, it seemed the easiest thing to do. He did indeed pick up his clothes and walked purposefully toward the door. With his hand on the doorknob, he stopped and turned back to look at her.
“Tomorrow. Dinner. I’ll pick you up at eight outside your common room. There is a place in Hogsmeade that my father recently invested in, and I need to make an appearance there anyway.”
Without another word, he walked out. She sat on the table for a while, dangling her legs and thinking, and then grinned. It wasn’t anything certain, and he was still Malfoy, but she was willing to give it a try. She had attempted something that seemed obvious for her with Harry, but even though they got along great and seemed perfect for each other from the very start, it still hadn’t worked out. So maybe, she thought, something that didn’t readily offer itself up as perfect was much more suitable for her, and it felt right. She wouldn’t know until she tried it. She looked around the room at the untouched ingredients they never got around to brewing. Competing with Malfoy turned out to be more fun than she thought it would be, and she wasn’t opposed to doing it again. In fact, she had just the perfect bet.
ORIGINAL REQUEST:
Briefly describe what you'd like to receive in your fic (art)
I'd like to receive a fic that has Draco and Ginny fighting over who can get the best grades in Advanced Potions, which ultimately would lead to some late study sessions and spying would ensue. I'd like them to start off liking nothing of one another, and then realizing through their competition that there might be something between them
The tone/mood of the fic: Love a bit of fluff, not too much smut but just enough. A little humor is always appreciated
An element/line of dialogue/object you would like in your fic: I love Draco making inappropriate comments like "Stuff it, Draco" "Gladly", or something among those lines
Preferred rating of the the fic you want: M or R.
Canon or AU? Canon-ish.
Deal Breakers (anything you don't want?): A desperate Ginny fawning over Draco; I like her with a little attitude!