The Secrets Beneath The Oxy Glo.

“You know Ron’ll kill me if he finds you here.” Ginny said slightly to the man standing on her front stoop.

“Ron can kiss my rosy white arse for all I care.”

“Well you might as well come in. I wasn’t expecting company so you will have to forgive me while I finish cleaning the drapes.” She moved aside to let him in. Closing the door quietly behind him, she took a moment to admire the vision of masculine beauty in front of her.

While he had always been rather attractive when they were in school, the year after had certainly improved on what she had then thought could not be improved upon. His hair was still platinum and his eyes were still that sexy metal grey. He was still slender but it was a well-defined muscular kind of slender that his muggle clothes showed off so well. He was in a pair of dark jeans that clung to his arse like a second skin and his shirt was not much looser, it molded to his upper body, hugging his frame and leaving Ginny feeling a bit light headed. Of course, she had been feeling like that ever since the first time he kissed her during her sixth year at Hogwarts.

Ginny brushed past Draco in the narrow entrance hall to lead the way into the kitchen. His eyes widened as he got his first good look at what she was wearing. Clad in very short cut-offs that exposed her legs from the tips of her toes to the top of her thighs, he could see the tiny rose tattoo that was just below her hip on the outside of her left thigh. Her top looked like it would fall off if the slightest breeze brushed her. He could tell that it was securely tied behind her neck and around the middle of her back but it still seemed to him like her bathing suit covered more then this outfit did. Not that he was complaining or anything; he was just having some trouble concentrating on why he came. Then again, half of why he came was just to be near her, even if only for a short while before he pissed her off and she kicked him out again.

Ginny led him into the large sunny kitchen. After seating him at the table in her breakfast nook, she just looked at him for a moment before climbing behind him on the bench to take the last of the drapes down from the windows in the kitchen. She stretched up to start unhooking the material before looking over her shoulder and catching him staring at her legs.

“Just let me get these last two down and I’ll get some lemonade for you. And stop staring at my legs before I kick you.” She gave him a smirk worthy of a Malfoy when he moved his eyes up to meet hers.

“As long as you touch me with any part of your beautiful self I will be a happy man.”

She reached down to slap his shoulder lightly. “There now you can be happy.” She stuck her tongue out at him and turned back to unhooking her drapes.

Draco’s mouth went dry when she leaned over and his heart lurched in his chest at her touch. He watched silently as she finished getting the drapes down and placed them in a huge tub of water in the middle of her kitchen floor. She turned toward the cooler, got out the pitcher of lemonade, and set it on the counter. He rose from the table and moved around the tub of weird soapy water to stand behind her.

“Ginny, why won’t you leave with me?”

“You know why. I can’t just leave my family like that, and now since Ollivander died I have to be here to take care of the business. He was like a second father to me after Dad passed. I couldn’t just throw away his life work, not when he did so much for me.” Ginny paced her hands on the counter and leaned on them. She could not bear to look at him, not when she knew that they both broke a little bit more inside every time they went through this. She felt tears prick her eyes as he continued.

“Fine, then I’ll stay here. Just be with me, Gingersnap; please just be with me.” His voice faded to a whisper before breaking at the end.

“I want that so much, Draco, but I can’t. Not while you have that mark on your arm. Not until you prove yourself innocent," she replied, her annoyance at his lack of understanding bubbling within her.

“Why should I prove myself? Lucius deserved to die, even if only for what he did to you. I would have thought that people would have been happy about that.”

She whipped around and yelled at him; his latest response lighting her short fuse. “They are, Draco, but you never proved that you did it, that you were working against Voldermort not for him. That is what needs to be proved. Not that you didn’t kill Lucius.” She advanced on him, her now apparent fury a palpable thing. She pushed him, causing him to stumble back a step. “Why do you keep coming here? Why do you keep putting me through this?” She pushed him again and he fell backwards into the tub of soapy water behind him.

Draco just stared up at her unbelieving that she had pushed him into the tub full of dirty wash water with her drapes. He sputtered a bit before glaring at her and holding out his left arm, “Well, are you going to help me out of here or not?”

“Promise not to pull me in with you?” Ginny eyed his arm warily as she moved closer and reached for him.

“I promise nothing.” Grinning wickedly, he shot up from the tub, grabbed Ginny around the waist, and pulled her in with him.

Ginny turned as they fell so that she landed with her back to his chest. She allowed herself this brief moment of intimacy; she missed him so much over the years. She pulled his arms tighter around her and interlaced her fingers with his. Staring down at their hands she sighed wistfully, thinking about how nice it would be to once again wake up in his arms every day. Slowly, as she stared at his long artistic hands, she became aware of a niggling in the back of her mind that this was not right. He was marked and she could not let it go.

Glancing down at his left arm, eyes searching for the hated mark that kept them apart, the one that had been there not even five minutes before while he had been sitting at her table, she rose up from against him grabbing his arm in both her hands and stared uncomprehendingly at where his mark should be. “Where is it? I thought glamour and cosmetic spells didn’t work on it?”

“Work on what?”

“On the marks, you daft twit, what else would I be concerned about. What did you do to it? I just saw it, I know I did.”

“What are you going on about, woman?”

“Your mark. It’s gone.”

“What?” He sat up so fast he nearly caused Ginny to fly off his lap and out of the tub. Pulling his arm back from her grasp, he stared at it before pulling out his wand and muttering a couple revealing spells over it. Nothing happened. His arm remained as smooth and unblemished as the rest of him not even a scar was left behind. “What the hell do you have in this tub? My clothes aren’t going to disappear are they?” he quirked an eyebrow at her as he asked.

“My rose is gone too.” She said faintly as she stood up and looked down at her leg.

“What is it? What the hell can remove tattoos and dark marks without even leaving a scar behind?”

“Oxy Glo.” She smiled before throwing herself back into his arms and kissing him as if her very life depended on the contact between them.

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A/N: This one shot gave me a devil of a time. I started it no less then 5 times before being able to get through it. I credit the idea to elf grrl, if it was not for one of our many conversations this plot bunny would never have been hatched, much less completed. In addition, of course a huge thank you to Aurora Rezanya and Alexandria Malfoy for beta’ing this as well as The Plan (which will be here soon) for me.