(This fic was written for the lovely Sarea Okelani.)



Once upon a time there was a girl, and she was rather ordinary. She had bright red hair, or perhaps bright orange might be a better description, and more freckles than could possibly be counted, and more brothers than she wanted to count. She had a very long neck and a small head, and her left eyebrow had a funny quirk in it. It didn't seem like nature was ever going to endow her with great height, or the kind of figure that graced the magazines her brothers had hidden in every corner of their home. About the only thing that made her different from normal witches was that she had once had a brush with evil, and that wasn't exactly the sort of thing one advertised. Well, at least, she didn't care to; she thought that acting like her roommate at Hogwarts, who insisted on wearing black lace dresses and heavy black eyeliner and a thick coating of white rice powder on her face to give her a suitably tragic pallor... Well, it was just silly. There wasn't anything romantic about being gloomy, no matter what "Clytemnestra" insisted on thinking.

Still, the girl thought, there were worse things she could be. She wasn't particularly ugly, or stupid, and sometimes being unnoticeable had benefits, such as when she could skip class with no one the wiser. Except Snape's class. She shuddered a bit at the memory of the detention she'd had the one time she'd tried. On the benefit side, though, no member of her family had ever had such good marks in Potions as she did, due to the impetus of wanting to avoid the full wrath of Severus Snape directed at her ever again.

More importantly, though, it meant that no one noticed when she spent her time staring, or if they did, that she wasn't simply staring off into space. She'd made a habit of staring in all sorts of situations, usually picking a spot on the wall and gazing fixedly at it, so that nobody would ever notice the times when she was most definitely staring at something. Or rather, someone.

He wasn't beautiful. His nose was too long, and his chin too pointy. He was thin - bordering on weedy - and she didn't know what he used in his hair, since it looked like he coated it with lard, but of course a Malfoy would never touch such a plebian substance. He had a wretched sense of humor, and she hated it that most of the time, it made her laugh, although that had to be hidden, too, before everyone thought she was just as daft as Luna.

It didn't seem possible to stop watching him, though. Even her crush on Harry had never been this bad, and that was pretty bad. So her eyes were on him always when they were anywhere in each other's vicinity, and even sometimes when they weren't supposed to be, but she was hidden underneath the stands watching him practice at quidditch, or in a dark booth at the back of the Three Broomsticks where everyone knew only the Slytherins sat. She watched him and she wondered why, but then she watched him more and, when she was honest with herself, she knew.

She didn't watch him because she enjoyed it, or even because she wanted to, although both were true. Rather, she watched him for the same reason that a magnet always pulls together with its opposite, or the reason why witchlight and water merge to make something that is neither, but something entirely different which serves as the base for the strongest potions. She couldn't resist it, and there was no use in trying - all that she could do was hope that it was only temporary, some sort of aberration, and that it would go away eventually, leaving her in peace.

Sometimes, though, he would look back.

At first, she hadn't thought anything of it; everyone's eyes had a tendency to drift, and she'd met many gazes that considered and dismissed her as they passed. That his happened to pass over her wasn't all that surprising, considering how much she looked at him, although whenever she would notice it happening, she would take care to switch her attention for a while, to focus on the way that his long fingers would move, or the gleam of his shoes which were always perfectly polished, or the way that the expensive fabrics he wore moved and stretched over his shoulders.

It changed one day, when she really had been absently staring off into space, just in his general direction, and then when she finally came out of her reverie his eyes were on hers and he winked. She had blushed furiously, determinedly looking away from him and firmly scolding herself every time her eyes tried to drift towards him. She'd skipped watching him practice that afternoon, hiding in her room and trying to concentrate on the transfiguration homework she'd ignored in favor of getting her potions work done.

He hadn't winked at her again, or said anything to his friends, unless he'd done so when she wasn't there to read his lips. But then, if he had, they'd all stare at her or laugh or something, and they didn't. The only thing that had changed was that sometimes, when she would stare at Draco (for that's what she thought of him as now; she'd developed a habit of saying his full name out loud so that no one would notice that she didn't automatically say 'Malfoy' in tones of disgust)... Sometimes, he'd stare back, and they'd stay caught in each other's eyes until something happened to make the outside world intrude.

It was strange. She felt like she knew him, but they'd barely ever exchanged a word, and even that had never been what might be called conversation. Still, it existed, and she didn't know what to call it, or what to think of it. She just kept watching him, and ignoring the little voice inside that said that this wasn't going away. The school year dripped away, minute by minute, interspersed with endless moments lost in his eyes.

They never spoke. She noticed that he still teased Harry, Ron, and Hermione mercilessly, but she also noticed that he stopped making generalized comments about the Weasleys, choosing instead to focus on her brother's many deficits. Some days, she heartily agreed with Draco's assessments, although it didn't mean she loved Ron any less. He still called Hermione names, although she noticed that, after a few times when she had scowled at him for a particular word or phrase and then refused to look at him, his choice of epithets tended to focus on Hermione's looks or study habits rather than her birth. This realization had caused Ginny to smile at him blindingly, and for him to look unbearably smug in return.

It was quite possible that she should be horrified, because one day she found herself thinking that he wasn't bad looking, at all. His face was still thin and sharp, but now she thought 'aristocratic' rather than 'pointy'. She had caught herself mentally describing his eyes as stormy and mercurial and quicksilver, and scolded herself firmly for being so unbearably soppy, but she still thought it. The body beneath his robes didn't seem stringy anymore, especially since he'd developed the habit of flying shirtless during practices on hot days, so she'd had a chance to study his musculature in detail that she would vividly recall when laying in bed at night, the covers over her head so none of her roommates could ask why she was blushing.

Now it was time to go home for the summer, the leaving feast done with, the trunks packed, and the Express trip over. She had thought, perhaps, that she might go looking for him on the train, but then what would she do? All she knew how to do was stare at him, and she wasn't sure enough of her welcome to take the chance. Now the ride was over and she was holding onto a battered suitcase that held most of her clothes, her trunk having been stuffed to overflowing with books and potions materials for the extra homework she'd been assigned. She stood on the fringes of her family, looking around, hoping to at least be able to look at him one more time before she couldn't see him for months.

She caught sight of him stepping off the train and her eyes followed him as he moved. A quick look around showed her that his mother was standing behind and apart from the Weasleys, so that he would have to pass close enough to Ginny that she could reach out and touch him, if she had the courage. She didn't think she did, and looked down at her feet so she wouldn't see him leave her behind.

However, instead of sweeping past her he turned abruptly, one hand tilting her face and the other going around her waist to crush her to him in a kiss that struck like lightning, burning through all of her senses so that all her world was made up of him. She dropped her suitcase, uncaring that the old latches popped open on the impact and spilled her clothes all over the floor of the station. She didn't hear the gasps of her family, or his mother saying his name in shocked tones, just his breath against her skin and the sound of their mouths working frantically against each other as months of tension resolved themselves.

Finally he stepped back, and they stared into each other's eyes for a long moment before he smiled. "Don't forget me over the summer, Weasel."

"As if I could, Ferret."

The first day of school was much like any other, except that she hadn't seen him yet. Rumor had run rampant as to why, from the simple one involving him missing the train, as said by Pansy Parkinson, to the version which everyone swore they had heard from Blaise Zabini, which involved mayhem and destruction and the murder of the Malfoy heir at the hands of his mother for the crime of having kissed the Weasley girl in front of everyone at the train station at the beginning of the summer. This was the favored version, and Ginny swore that she was going to scream if one more dewy-eyed twit compared her to Juliet.

Now she was walking around the castle, running a dogsbody errand for her brother. There was no earthly reason why he couldn't have delivered his own broom to Madame Hooch to have it tested for illegal enhancements, and normally she would have told him so, but for now she welcomed the excuse to get away from people for a while. She'd taken her own broom in the day before, grumbling about the idiots who had gotten caught and thus made life difficult for everyone. Today she was grumbling still, although for different reasons. Stupid, silly girls. Of course he wasn't murdered. He couldn't be. Zabini had to be an idiot.

Continuing her inner reassurances, she looked up at the castle and caught a flash of white against dark green. She strained her eyes and her heart lifted as she recognized it as a person with distinctive blond hair.

"Up!" she cried, then looked at her skirt dubiously. There was no way to straddle the broom without showing her knickers to the world, and suddenly it didn't seem like such a bright idea to fly up to him. The flash of blond moved, though, and she firmed her resolve and mounted the broom sidesaddle, her hands on either side of her as she rose. As Ginny got closer she started being able to see details of the gothic arch he stood in front of, the deep emerald of the heavy curtains behind him, the ring on his right hand which rested on the windowsill. His eyes were closed, his eyelashes fanning over his cheekbones just as she had memorized them, and that gave her a moment to arrange herself.

He opened his eyes to see her leaning back on the broom, his smirk on her lips. Their eyes met and nothing had changed, or perhaps everything had. "Malfoy."

"Weasley," he said calmly, as if it were common for girls to hover in mid-air in front of him. If she hadn't watched him so much, she'd think maybe it was.

"Welcome back," she said, then lost any chance of seeming smooth and controlled as she had to correct against a gust of wind that blew her towards the window.

Before she knew what was happening she was being pulled from her broom, one hand still clutching it desperately, her knee stinging from where it had scraped against the stone. "Now welcome me properly," he said, and panic was replaced by a different kind of clenching in her stomach.

His hands seemed huge as they wrapped around her waist and pulled her close, her bum just barely resting on the windowsill. His lips crashed onto hers and she clutched at him with one arm while her other still clung to the broom. She felt like she had been starving, and at last was able to feast.

"Mine," he muttered against her skin, kissing frantically the skin of her jaw and neck and collarbone. It made her shiver and she ran a hand through his hair, making the strands fall forward. She inched further onto the ledge as she pushed closer to him, wanting to feel his body against hers. One of his hands went to grip the edge of the window for balance but he kept kissing her, as if nothing could ever make him stop.

He wasn't holding her waist now, was running his hand down her thigh, and she knew what she should say wasn't to sigh his name, but it was all she could do. He was lightning that flowed through her veins, and the way his hand was pushing up the side of her skirt couldn't possibly be wrong, because it was exactly what she wanted, even if she hadn't known she did until just now. "I missed you," he murmured, his hand resting just at the top of her leg.

"Me too." She pulled away to give him a small smile. "I was worried you'd realize over the summer you didn't like being stared at."

"And I was worried you'd start staring at Scarhead again over the summer and then forget to switch back to a worthier target when we got back." He didn't look worried in the slightest, but she giggled anyway and would have said something teasing back, if they hadn't been interrupted by a loud squawk from somewhere below. "I must admit I didn't miss him very much at all," Draco said as Ron shouted up some rather vile threats.

"He's not so bad once you get to know him," Ginny said seriously, then turned and shrieked, "Sod off, you deranged orangutan!"

There was a moment of silence from below, then a renewed bellow of outrage and condemnation. Draco merely said, "Orangutans are peaceful, though, aren't they?" before ostentatiously licking her throat.

"My apologies to the orangutans of the world," she said breathlessly, pushing closer to him and feeling a tingle inside as her chest brushed over his. Ron's voice was joined by others, some shouting lewd comments and some cheering them on. Ginny ducked her head and burrowed her face into his shoulder, and Draco glared at the crowd that was rapidly growing in size.

"Do you want to come in?" he said, his voice a deep rumble with her ear pressed against his skin.

She bit her lip worriedly. "Draco, I... I don't know if I'm ready for--"

"Just to talk," he said rapidly, looking a bit panicked. "I mean, it's not that I don't want... That, but I don't want to rush you."

Ginny smiled at him and thought that, just maybe, the fluttering in her chest might be something like love. "Okay," she said softly, her eyes soft as she looked soulfully into his for a moment. He stepped back slightly, pulling her along, and soon she was straddling the windowsill, one foot on solid ground and the other still in the air. She paused, then looked down at the increasingly hysterical Ron.

"Oh, brother dear..." His vituperation cut off abruptly as he saw the evil little smile on his sister's face and felt dread crawling up his spine. "Catch." She flung the broom as hard as she could and she and Draco (and a good sized crowd) watched as Ron threw himself to skid along the grass in order to catch the broom before it landed on the hard ground.

Draco laughed and put his arms around her in a hug before helping her step away from the windowsill and into a small dark room. "You know, Weasley, I think I may like you."

"Thank you," she said primly, then threw her arms around him and kissed him passionately.

~.~

The art for this fic is at Lyra's gallery, located at http://dracoandginny.com/lyra