Chapter Twenty:
He was on the phone when she made her way into the room, still moving slowly after several days in bed. She hadn’t been sick as long as he had, though, for which she was thankful. And if she was honest, the experience hadn’t been as unpleasant as it could have been, for which any thanks she felt needed to be directed at the blond currently sitting on the couch on the other side of the room. Not that she didn’t want to be thankful to him, he’d done quite a bit to help her out when he hadn’t really had to.
He could have handed her over to Coral who would have been more than willing to see to her needs while she was sick. But he hadn’t, although he hadn’t seemed thrilled with the idea, he’d checked on her every few hours, brought her medicine and tea and soup. He’d even spent time with her just talking or watching TV. No, she could readily and willingly admit she was grateful to the teen she had been living with for the past few months, it was just strange to equate that same person with the Draco Malfoy from Hogwarts. Or at least it really should be, but somehow the Draco Malfoy from Hogwarts was starting to blur in her mind, having been slowly replaced by the Draco at the Tonks’ house. It had just happened so gradually that it wasn’t until the mental revisions had picked up their pace while she’d been ill that she found herself surprised by the results.
Shaking her head at the thought, the young witch forced herself to focus on what he was so absorbed in as she made her way across the room. It took a second for the blond’s words to register, but when they did it was clear exactly what he was talking about. More lessons. Ginny lowered her still slightly achy body to the couch beside him and suppressed a groan at the idea of jumping back into preparations that were, based on the lessons she had already endured, sure to be challenging, most likely painful, and definitely exhausting. Not to mention long. Very long.
Draco looked up absently as she sighed at the thought, acknowledging her presence with a nod as he wrapped up his conversation. She waited for him to hang up the phone, but didn’t give him time to start speaking, knowing by the businesslike expression on his face that as soon as he opened his mouth, their conversation would be completely consumed by planning and strategy. As much as she felt the distinct urgency to get back to work, she also felt a need to say this.
“Draco, I want you to know how much I appreciate everything you’ve done the last few days. You might actually have a future as a nurse after this is all over,” she joked, trying to let him know how much of a help he had been without annoying him with what he would see as being sappy.
He had frowned at her in confusion when she’d started speaking, but as soon as her meaning became clear, he turned his attention back to the papers in front of him. The blond shifted in his seat, not meeting her eyes and instead maintaining strict focus on his notes, though he acted as if he would respond before shutting his mouth with a clack as she went on.
“I’m sure I wouldn’t have gotten better as quickly without your help.”
Draco took quick advantage of the opening, speaking somewhat more hurriedly than necessary with his clipped reply. “Good. We can’t afford to lose any more time.”
Ginny nodded in agreement, too busy trying to decide if the redness in his cheeks could possibly be a blush to really respond. Past experience with the blond, including the months at the Tonks’ left her nearly unable to believe the sight. And yet, as he shuffled the papers rather purposefully, she was almost positive that the young wizard was indeed blushing. She blinked several times as she tried to process it, but before she’d completely managed to, she found herself having to shift mental gears to catch up with what he was saying as he promptly began detailing his idea and the research he had been doing on it.
“...If Nagini’s in a coma, not only will she stay unconscious and manageable for however long we need to work out how to destroy the Horcrux within her, but she should appear to just be asleep to the Dark Lord if he does try to check on her through their bond.”
The redhead regarded him with a furrowed brow for only a moment as she thought through everything that he had said so far. The idea of putting Voldemort’s pet into a coma was an answer to all of the problems they had come up with so far in regards to dealing with this part of their task and Ginny couldn’t hold back a quiet sigh of relief at one more obstacle overcome. Knowing that what they needed to accomplish was actually possible within the constraints of Muggle technology was a serious boost to her flagging confidence, even as her partner continued with a more cautious tone.
“The tricky part is going to be delivering the drugs to induce the coma without Nagini or Voldemort realizing that something is happening. The tranquilizer gun will give us enough distance to stay hidden from the snake, but we will still have to hit her in a location that she won’t be able to see the dart in the time it takes for the tranquilizers to knock her out.”
A slight frown formed on her face as the young witch took in his words. For his part, Draco absently leafed through a few of the papers he was holding as he spoke, then pulled one out and laid it on the table in front of him. Ginny sat next to him on the couch and leaned over to see what he was studying so intently. The pictures on the sheet showed several different views of a large snake that appeared to be the same type as Nagini. She wasn’t even aware she was shivering until a mug of hot tea was shoved gently into her hands.
“Don’t go getting sick again, we don’t have the time.” The subtle concern in his quiet words and the look in his grey eyes when they met hers for a few long seconds took the sting out of his otherwise caustic statement and made it clear that despite his words, Draco had no misconceptions about what had caused her reaction. Neither mentioned it, however, the witch simply taking a sip of his tea with a nod before resolutely turning her attention back to the page.
“If we hit her right here,” the blond stated, pointing at a spot behind the snake’s head on the picture, “no amount of twisting should allow her to see the dart.”
Ginny nodded, still studying the picture. “That’s a pretty small area to hit, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it is. I’ve set up some lessons for us both with standard rifles and the tranquilizer gun we will be using. Carren has a friend that was in the Australian special forces who was able to get a former sniper he knows to train us. By the time he’s done with us, Nagini won’t know what hit her. Literally.”
“How long does the drug take to work?”
“The tranquilizer will kick in within a few minutes and will last more than long enough for us to administer the coma drugs, but we’ll have to be careful about the dosage. Too little and she could wake up or remain aware enough for Voldemort to get some idea what is going on. Too much and she could die and Voldemort could realize what we’re doing and be ready for the Order, go on the offensive before the Horcrux is dealt with and the Order is able to attack, or even send Death Eaters in to kill us before we can get out with the snake.”
The witch and wizard exchanged concerned but determined glances in silence before he shuffled through the papers once again to pull out a pair of sheets covered with various charts and graphs.
“The dosages of both sets of drugs are determined by weight,” he explained, giving her one piece of paper, “the weight of a snake like Nagini is estimated based on these factors,” he continued as he handed her the other piece. “I could try to make a guess, but-”
“-I have first hand memories of Nagini that give me a much better idea of what she weighs and therefore how much to give her. At least once I figure all this out,” Ginny finished with a resigned expression as she skimmed over the detailed and rather confusing data. “Well, I guess I know what I’ll be doing for the next day or two. How soon do we have to know how much of the drugs we’ll need?”
Draco waved his hand absently. “I estimated the amounts based on your description and the largest known snakes of her type, then rounded up quite a bit when I ordered everything. We’ll have more than we’ll need, we just have to know how much to bring with us when we go. You’ve got some time to figure it out,” he assured her.
He could see her shoulders rise and fall as if she’d taken and released a large breath before she raised her eyes from the papers. “Good, this is going to take a while to wrap my head around and we can’t afford for my calculations to be off, like you said.”
“No we can’t.”
Ginny took another breath. His words were certainly not the most comforting or reassuring, but they were true and she knew ignoring that in favor of her feelings may well mean disaster for them, and for the Order as a whole. And really, when it came down to it, knowing that her partner would be honest with her about what was going on and what needed to be done, especially in regards to the Muggle methods which she knew so little about, was actually comforting in and of itself. Still, it stung a little. Then she met his gaze and noticed the hint of a smile he wore and the sting went away, along with her doubts. She could do this. It might take a little time and some hard work on her part, but she could figure it out. She had learned how to jump out of a plan, after all, she could learn this too.
The redhead set the papers aside with a barely perceptible sigh, focusing on all the things she had learned since she had moved in with the Tonks’, things she had never imagined existed until Draco had shown her. Not the least of which was that Draco Malfoy was a dependable, even at times likable, person to work with. He was organized, thorough, and almost disturbingly creative with coming up with ways for them to get around the anti-magic wards. Ginny shook her head, keeping herself from dwelling on the scariest of his ideas for them. He said it would work, that they could do it and he hadn’t been wrong yet, so she would trust him. He had trusted everything she had told him from her second-hand memories without any real concrete reason to do so, yet she had questioned him more than once. It was time for her to start giving him the same trust he’d shown her.
She waited a few seconds after making the decision, almost expecting herself to regret it or feel some lingering doubts or discomfort. Several heartbeats passed and nothing happened, no heavy feeling in her gut, no niggling voice in the back of her mind reminding her what had happened the last time she had trusted a handsome young Slytherin wizard. In that moment her heartbeat stuttered in her chest, not because of any intruding fears, but because of the sudden appearance of another emotion altogether. Handsome? The word echoed in her mind, since when had Draco Malfoy been handsome?
Ok, so he’d never been unattractive, it had really only been his trademark sneer and sour disposition which had kept him from being attractive to her. Since she’d started staying with him at the Tonks’ however, those factors had stopped effecting her view of him both mentally, and apparently physically. Ginny’s mind spun at the realization that she had been attracted to him for some time now and not even truly realized it. Or at least not acknowledged it. But now she couldn’t ignore it any longer. She was okay with trusting him, even with her life, surely accepting the fact that she was physically attracted to him shouldn’t be that hard to do.
The problem, she found as she struggled to tune back in to what the blond was telling her about the equipment he had ordered them, was the thoughts that accompanied the idea of her attraction. Namely, the idea that his physical appearance wasn’t the only thing that was attractive to her. Images began to flash through her mind’s eye of her time at the Tonks’ house. Draco showing her how to operate the television with a slight scowl, Draco grudgingly helping her to purchase a Muggle jacket when she realized she couldn’t use her cloak, Draco shooting her a grin as they landed simultaneously at the bottom of the faux rock wall and then seeming surprised with himself for doing so, Draco listening to her talk about her diary induced nightmares and patting her hand awkwardly in comfort. She saw him playing happily with his Muggle friends, saw him laying sick in bed and thanking her quietly when he thought she’d left the room with his dirty soup bowl, she saw him sitting at her sick bed explaining football to her without prompting or complaint when he could have been out with his friends, having heard Aaron and the others call him more than once to get together during her illness.
She felt a moment of confusion as his words began to register amidst her spinning thoughts, the witch starting to panic for a moment as he mentioned Carren’s phone call. Had she spoken out loud? No, she realized with a long mental sigh, he was talking about Carren’s arrangements on their behalf for weapons training and marksmanship classes.
“What time will we be going to the first lesson?” she asked in an attempt to look as though she hadn’t spent the last ten minutes lost in her thoughts instead of listening to the training schedule he and the others had put together for them.
Draco paused in his run down of the difference between the rifles and tranquilizer guns they would be learning to use, thankfully not looking surprised or annoyed by her sudden question. “Carren should be here in about an hour to take us over and introduce us to our instructor,” the blond answered with a quick glance at his watch.
Ginny nodded and took the opportunity to redirect her thoughts. “We should probably have something to eat before we go, then.”
She stood and made her way into the kitchen as soon as he started to nod in response, busying herself getting things out of the fridge while he set out dishes and silver wear. It didn’t take long for a simple breakfast to be thrown together and soon they were both seated at the small table, enjoying their meal in a companionable silence that the redhead half expected to turn uncomfortable in light of her recent thoughts. To her surprise, nothing of the sort happened, as before she had a chance to become overly conscious of the blond across from her, he had drawn her into an easy conversation about the football game they had watched together while she was sick. They talked and argued good-naturedly about the teams in between bites and even continued to do so when the doorbell interrupted them.
The witch shook her head as Draco called out a laughing rebuttal to her comment about the Manchester goalie while heading into the living room to let his friend into the house. She laughed herself as she gathered the dirty dishes, figuring that the two would settle in on the coach and chat for a few minutes before they left. To her mild surprise however, both came back to the kitchen, the short-haired young man giving her a polite nod and sitting at the table while the wizard joined her at the sink.
Carren took the cup of coffee the pretty redhead offered with a mock scowl at Draco, preparing to bring up a game on his cell phone to wait for the two to finish getting ready to go. He’d barely started the application when he realized that there was a much more entertaining show that was playing out in front of him. It had been almost two weeks since he had last been to the Tonks’ house, he and the others having stayed away while first the blond and then the redhead had recovered from their illness. In that time, it seemed as though something had changed. While the two housemates had gotten along quite well since shortly after she had come to stay at Coral and Garald’s, the interaction he was witnessing now was something else all together.
While he hadn’t expected his friend to lead him to the kitchen on his arrival, he’d taken his off-hand comment of cleaning up as explanation enough, but as the two worked together to tidy the kitchen the teenager began to wonder. It had been suggested more than once between Aaron, Blake, and himself that Draco might have a passing fancy for Ginny, but it had always been said half jokingly. Now it seemed it might be time to say it in full seriousness.
Quite a bit of seriousness indeed, the teen dare-devil noted as he continued to watch. The blond took the dishes from her hand with more concentration than the task warranted, seeming overly concerned with making sure that their hands didn’t touch in the process and keeping his gaze fixed decidedly elsewhere on the one instance that their fingers brushed. It was a shame, Carren noted, as he might have seen the slight blush that pinked her cheeks at the contact if he had only been looking in her direction.
It was all the short haired you man could do to keep from laughing at the covert looks the housemates shot each other when the other was occupied elsewhere. As it was, by the time the dishes had been rinsed and placed in the dishwasher, the table wiped and the lingering ingredients placed back in the fridge, a small knowing smile twisted his lips. The expression drew a questioning look from Ginny and a confused scowl from Draco as they all headed out. Carren simply shook his head and straightened his face with no small effort, thinking that for being sick in bed for most of the time, his friend seemed to have come out of the water fight significantly better off then he had.
End Chapter Twenty
He was on the phone when she made her way into the room, still moving slowly after several days in bed. She hadn’t been sick as long as he had, though, for which she was thankful. And if she was honest, the experience hadn’t been as unpleasant as it could have been, for which any thanks she felt needed to be directed at the blond currently sitting on the couch on the other side of the room. Not that she didn’t want to be thankful to him, he’d done quite a bit to help her out when he hadn’t really had to.
He could have handed her over to Coral who would have been more than willing to see to her needs while she was sick. But he hadn’t, although he hadn’t seemed thrilled with the idea, he’d checked on her every few hours, brought her medicine and tea and soup. He’d even spent time with her just talking or watching TV. No, she could readily and willingly admit she was grateful to the teen she had been living with for the past few months, it was just strange to equate that same person with the Draco Malfoy from Hogwarts. Or at least it really should be, but somehow the Draco Malfoy from Hogwarts was starting to blur in her mind, having been slowly replaced by the Draco at the Tonks’ house. It had just happened so gradually that it wasn’t until the mental revisions had picked up their pace while she’d been ill that she found herself surprised by the results.
Shaking her head at the thought, the young witch forced herself to focus on what he was so absorbed in as she made her way across the room. It took a second for the blond’s words to register, but when they did it was clear exactly what he was talking about. More lessons. Ginny lowered her still slightly achy body to the couch beside him and suppressed a groan at the idea of jumping back into preparations that were, based on the lessons she had already endured, sure to be challenging, most likely painful, and definitely exhausting. Not to mention long. Very long.
Draco looked up absently as she sighed at the thought, acknowledging her presence with a nod as he wrapped up his conversation. She waited for him to hang up the phone, but didn’t give him time to start speaking, knowing by the businesslike expression on his face that as soon as he opened his mouth, their conversation would be completely consumed by planning and strategy. As much as she felt the distinct urgency to get back to work, she also felt a need to say this.
“Draco, I want you to know how much I appreciate everything you’ve done the last few days. You might actually have a future as a nurse after this is all over,” she joked, trying to let him know how much of a help he had been without annoying him with what he would see as being sappy.
He had frowned at her in confusion when she’d started speaking, but as soon as her meaning became clear, he turned his attention back to the papers in front of him. The blond shifted in his seat, not meeting her eyes and instead maintaining strict focus on his notes, though he acted as if he would respond before shutting his mouth with a clack as she went on.
“I’m sure I wouldn’t have gotten better as quickly without your help.”
Draco took quick advantage of the opening, speaking somewhat more hurriedly than necessary with his clipped reply. “Good. We can’t afford to lose any more time.”
Ginny nodded in agreement, too busy trying to decide if the redness in his cheeks could possibly be a blush to really respond. Past experience with the blond, including the months at the Tonks’ left her nearly unable to believe the sight. And yet, as he shuffled the papers rather purposefully, she was almost positive that the young wizard was indeed blushing. She blinked several times as she tried to process it, but before she’d completely managed to, she found herself having to shift mental gears to catch up with what he was saying as he promptly began detailing his idea and the research he had been doing on it.
“...If Nagini’s in a coma, not only will she stay unconscious and manageable for however long we need to work out how to destroy the Horcrux within her, but she should appear to just be asleep to the Dark Lord if he does try to check on her through their bond.”
The redhead regarded him with a furrowed brow for only a moment as she thought through everything that he had said so far. The idea of putting Voldemort’s pet into a coma was an answer to all of the problems they had come up with so far in regards to dealing with this part of their task and Ginny couldn’t hold back a quiet sigh of relief at one more obstacle overcome. Knowing that what they needed to accomplish was actually possible within the constraints of Muggle technology was a serious boost to her flagging confidence, even as her partner continued with a more cautious tone.
“The tricky part is going to be delivering the drugs to induce the coma without Nagini or Voldemort realizing that something is happening. The tranquilizer gun will give us enough distance to stay hidden from the snake, but we will still have to hit her in a location that she won’t be able to see the dart in the time it takes for the tranquilizers to knock her out.”
A slight frown formed on her face as the young witch took in his words. For his part, Draco absently leafed through a few of the papers he was holding as he spoke, then pulled one out and laid it on the table in front of him. Ginny sat next to him on the couch and leaned over to see what he was studying so intently. The pictures on the sheet showed several different views of a large snake that appeared to be the same type as Nagini. She wasn’t even aware she was shivering until a mug of hot tea was shoved gently into her hands.
“Don’t go getting sick again, we don’t have the time.” The subtle concern in his quiet words and the look in his grey eyes when they met hers for a few long seconds took the sting out of his otherwise caustic statement and made it clear that despite his words, Draco had no misconceptions about what had caused her reaction. Neither mentioned it, however, the witch simply taking a sip of his tea with a nod before resolutely turning her attention back to the page.
“If we hit her right here,” the blond stated, pointing at a spot behind the snake’s head on the picture, “no amount of twisting should allow her to see the dart.”
Ginny nodded, still studying the picture. “That’s a pretty small area to hit, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it is. I’ve set up some lessons for us both with standard rifles and the tranquilizer gun we will be using. Carren has a friend that was in the Australian special forces who was able to get a former sniper he knows to train us. By the time he’s done with us, Nagini won’t know what hit her. Literally.”
“How long does the drug take to work?”
“The tranquilizer will kick in within a few minutes and will last more than long enough for us to administer the coma drugs, but we’ll have to be careful about the dosage. Too little and she could wake up or remain aware enough for Voldemort to get some idea what is going on. Too much and she could die and Voldemort could realize what we’re doing and be ready for the Order, go on the offensive before the Horcrux is dealt with and the Order is able to attack, or even send Death Eaters in to kill us before we can get out with the snake.”
The witch and wizard exchanged concerned but determined glances in silence before he shuffled through the papers once again to pull out a pair of sheets covered with various charts and graphs.
“The dosages of both sets of drugs are determined by weight,” he explained, giving her one piece of paper, “the weight of a snake like Nagini is estimated based on these factors,” he continued as he handed her the other piece. “I could try to make a guess, but-”
“-I have first hand memories of Nagini that give me a much better idea of what she weighs and therefore how much to give her. At least once I figure all this out,” Ginny finished with a resigned expression as she skimmed over the detailed and rather confusing data. “Well, I guess I know what I’ll be doing for the next day or two. How soon do we have to know how much of the drugs we’ll need?”
Draco waved his hand absently. “I estimated the amounts based on your description and the largest known snakes of her type, then rounded up quite a bit when I ordered everything. We’ll have more than we’ll need, we just have to know how much to bring with us when we go. You’ve got some time to figure it out,” he assured her.
He could see her shoulders rise and fall as if she’d taken and released a large breath before she raised her eyes from the papers. “Good, this is going to take a while to wrap my head around and we can’t afford for my calculations to be off, like you said.”
“No we can’t.”
Ginny took another breath. His words were certainly not the most comforting or reassuring, but they were true and she knew ignoring that in favor of her feelings may well mean disaster for them, and for the Order as a whole. And really, when it came down to it, knowing that her partner would be honest with her about what was going on and what needed to be done, especially in regards to the Muggle methods which she knew so little about, was actually comforting in and of itself. Still, it stung a little. Then she met his gaze and noticed the hint of a smile he wore and the sting went away, along with her doubts. She could do this. It might take a little time and some hard work on her part, but she could figure it out. She had learned how to jump out of a plan, after all, she could learn this too.
The redhead set the papers aside with a barely perceptible sigh, focusing on all the things she had learned since she had moved in with the Tonks’, things she had never imagined existed until Draco had shown her. Not the least of which was that Draco Malfoy was a dependable, even at times likable, person to work with. He was organized, thorough, and almost disturbingly creative with coming up with ways for them to get around the anti-magic wards. Ginny shook her head, keeping herself from dwelling on the scariest of his ideas for them. He said it would work, that they could do it and he hadn’t been wrong yet, so she would trust him. He had trusted everything she had told him from her second-hand memories without any real concrete reason to do so, yet she had questioned him more than once. It was time for her to start giving him the same trust he’d shown her.
She waited a few seconds after making the decision, almost expecting herself to regret it or feel some lingering doubts or discomfort. Several heartbeats passed and nothing happened, no heavy feeling in her gut, no niggling voice in the back of her mind reminding her what had happened the last time she had trusted a handsome young Slytherin wizard. In that moment her heartbeat stuttered in her chest, not because of any intruding fears, but because of the sudden appearance of another emotion altogether. Handsome? The word echoed in her mind, since when had Draco Malfoy been handsome?
Ok, so he’d never been unattractive, it had really only been his trademark sneer and sour disposition which had kept him from being attractive to her. Since she’d started staying with him at the Tonks’ however, those factors had stopped effecting her view of him both mentally, and apparently physically. Ginny’s mind spun at the realization that she had been attracted to him for some time now and not even truly realized it. Or at least not acknowledged it. But now she couldn’t ignore it any longer. She was okay with trusting him, even with her life, surely accepting the fact that she was physically attracted to him shouldn’t be that hard to do.
The problem, she found as she struggled to tune back in to what the blond was telling her about the equipment he had ordered them, was the thoughts that accompanied the idea of her attraction. Namely, the idea that his physical appearance wasn’t the only thing that was attractive to her. Images began to flash through her mind’s eye of her time at the Tonks’ house. Draco showing her how to operate the television with a slight scowl, Draco grudgingly helping her to purchase a Muggle jacket when she realized she couldn’t use her cloak, Draco shooting her a grin as they landed simultaneously at the bottom of the faux rock wall and then seeming surprised with himself for doing so, Draco listening to her talk about her diary induced nightmares and patting her hand awkwardly in comfort. She saw him playing happily with his Muggle friends, saw him laying sick in bed and thanking her quietly when he thought she’d left the room with his dirty soup bowl, she saw him sitting at her sick bed explaining football to her without prompting or complaint when he could have been out with his friends, having heard Aaron and the others call him more than once to get together during her illness.
She felt a moment of confusion as his words began to register amidst her spinning thoughts, the witch starting to panic for a moment as he mentioned Carren’s phone call. Had she spoken out loud? No, she realized with a long mental sigh, he was talking about Carren’s arrangements on their behalf for weapons training and marksmanship classes.
“What time will we be going to the first lesson?” she asked in an attempt to look as though she hadn’t spent the last ten minutes lost in her thoughts instead of listening to the training schedule he and the others had put together for them.
Draco paused in his run down of the difference between the rifles and tranquilizer guns they would be learning to use, thankfully not looking surprised or annoyed by her sudden question. “Carren should be here in about an hour to take us over and introduce us to our instructor,” the blond answered with a quick glance at his watch.
Ginny nodded and took the opportunity to redirect her thoughts. “We should probably have something to eat before we go, then.”
She stood and made her way into the kitchen as soon as he started to nod in response, busying herself getting things out of the fridge while he set out dishes and silver wear. It didn’t take long for a simple breakfast to be thrown together and soon they were both seated at the small table, enjoying their meal in a companionable silence that the redhead half expected to turn uncomfortable in light of her recent thoughts. To her surprise, nothing of the sort happened, as before she had a chance to become overly conscious of the blond across from her, he had drawn her into an easy conversation about the football game they had watched together while she was sick. They talked and argued good-naturedly about the teams in between bites and even continued to do so when the doorbell interrupted them.
The witch shook her head as Draco called out a laughing rebuttal to her comment about the Manchester goalie while heading into the living room to let his friend into the house. She laughed herself as she gathered the dirty dishes, figuring that the two would settle in on the coach and chat for a few minutes before they left. To her mild surprise however, both came back to the kitchen, the short-haired young man giving her a polite nod and sitting at the table while the wizard joined her at the sink.
Carren took the cup of coffee the pretty redhead offered with a mock scowl at Draco, preparing to bring up a game on his cell phone to wait for the two to finish getting ready to go. He’d barely started the application when he realized that there was a much more entertaining show that was playing out in front of him. It had been almost two weeks since he had last been to the Tonks’ house, he and the others having stayed away while first the blond and then the redhead had recovered from their illness. In that time, it seemed as though something had changed. While the two housemates had gotten along quite well since shortly after she had come to stay at Coral and Garald’s, the interaction he was witnessing now was something else all together.
While he hadn’t expected his friend to lead him to the kitchen on his arrival, he’d taken his off-hand comment of cleaning up as explanation enough, but as the two worked together to tidy the kitchen the teenager began to wonder. It had been suggested more than once between Aaron, Blake, and himself that Draco might have a passing fancy for Ginny, but it had always been said half jokingly. Now it seemed it might be time to say it in full seriousness.
Quite a bit of seriousness indeed, the teen dare-devil noted as he continued to watch. The blond took the dishes from her hand with more concentration than the task warranted, seeming overly concerned with making sure that their hands didn’t touch in the process and keeping his gaze fixed decidedly elsewhere on the one instance that their fingers brushed. It was a shame, Carren noted, as he might have seen the slight blush that pinked her cheeks at the contact if he had only been looking in her direction.
It was all the short haired you man could do to keep from laughing at the covert looks the housemates shot each other when the other was occupied elsewhere. As it was, by the time the dishes had been rinsed and placed in the dishwasher, the table wiped and the lingering ingredients placed back in the fridge, a small knowing smile twisted his lips. The expression drew a questioning look from Ginny and a confused scowl from Draco as they all headed out. Carren simply shook his head and straightened his face with no small effort, thinking that for being sick in bed for most of the time, his friend seemed to have come out of the water fight significantly better off then he had.
End Chapter Twenty
Leave a Review