Chapter One: The Commission
“Ginny, I want you to draw something for a friend,” Theodore said from his position on her bed.
Ginny nodded distractedly, adding an almost careless streak of violent red to the painting she was currently working on. That done, she dipped her brush into water, cleaning it of color before leaning back and brushing some loose hair from her ponytail behind her ear.
Theodore noted with amusement the fact that the fingers on her left hand, used for mixing paint when she was impatient, had left streaks of vivid color across her pale cheekbone.
“Which friend?” she asked, scrutinizing her painting. This was one of her more abstract paintings, one that she had stumbled out of bed sometime past midnight to draw, half-crazed with focus, using the light of the moon instead of wasting time reaching for her wand and igniting the logs in the fireplace. Spurred on by a fleeting dream, she hadn’t taken time to get a good look at what she had been creating, relying instead on her fingers to do the work without concentrating too hard on what she was actually painting. Until now, that is.
“Oh, bloody hell,” she growled, standing up abruptly and knocking her three-legged stool to the ground angrily.
Theodore, who had been in the middle of starting to say something, stopped and watched her with blatant curiosity. He observed the scene calmly as the redhead practically threw her tools back into place, sending a hateful glare at her most recent work.
“Ginny…?” he questioned cautiously when it seemed like she was calming down. She spared her friend a glance and sighed.
“Sorry, Theo. But look. Do those look familiar to you?” she questioned, gesturing wildly at the painting.
Theo examined it closer. He hadn’t given it more than a cursory glance when he had let himself in. Although much of the Wizarding world raved about the new anonymous painter who went through her agent to sell her work, donating a large sum of her income to charity yet still managing to maintain a lifestyle that was distinctly upper crust, he was sadly one of the few that cared not a whit about the numerous paintings and drawings that she seemed to produce like her mother produced children. He was about as artistically aware and appreciative as a wombat was.
Which is to say, he wasn’t.
“No…?” he asked uncertainly, taking a subconscious step closer. “It’s pretty,” he offered helpfully, and Ginny threw her arms up in frustration.
“No, you ignorant fubsy, it’s not,” she corrected him. “It’s dark and haunted and scary. Look at the eyes.” Theo complied, and stared deeply into the pair of eyes that dominated the painting.
Ginny watched him with a mixed expression of amusement and exasperation. She knew he wouldn’t be able to decipher any deeper meaning from the painting. They had been friends for years, starting in the aftermath of the Final Battle and continuing until now. She had been futilely attempting to get him together with their mutual friend, Pansy Parkinson, for the better part of that time now, and had lately become frustrated with her efforts. Apparently they were both comfortable with ignoring the pheromones the other put out upon a meeting, and Ginny was slowly becoming fed up.
Turning back to the painting, Ginny tried to see what everyone else (besides Theo) would see. The eyes were the only things clearly standing out. Around it, smears of dark colors gave it an oppressive feeling, as if the cool grey eyes, usually a color considered to be unfriendly, were the only bit of hope and humanity that remained. The stripe of red, tearing open the shadows in a streak between the eyes, was a slash of vermilion, an open wound.
“You’re in need of psychological help,” he provided as explanation for the painting, and she rolled her eyes.
“Let me rephrase: where have you seen those eyes?” She couldn’t believe that he was being so thick about this. He must have seen them every day from the moment he had popped out of his mother’s womb, and here he was, claiming ignorance.
Suddenly, he snapped his fingers, looking triumphant.
“Draco’s!” he cried. “I knew they looked familiar.” Ginny resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Theodore was blond, after all, even if he was the most prominent attorney in all of Europe. He was on a break of sorts after his latest case, which involved a Russian witch. Ginny had only barely kept up with the Prophet’s highly detailed tracking of the trial, but apparently it had seemed like a nearly impossible case and he had blasted it out of the water.
“Good job, Theo. Here’s a cookie,” she cooed, tossing him a biscuit she had found by her easel. He scowled at her as it bounced off his chest and onto the ground, before it was replaced with a crafty look.
“So…Draco. Now, Gin-bug, why are you painting our favorite albino friend?” Ginny huffed.
“Only his eyes,” she clarified sharply. “But…” she trailed off, gazing into their grey depths. When had this started?
Immediately after the Final Battle, it had been chaos and tears. Bodies being found, families being reunited, and a sense of bittersweet triumph permeated the air. But out of it all, clutched at her mother’s sobbing bosom, Ginny could distinctly remember her gaze being caught by Draco Malfoy’s. His entire family was a fair distance away from the rest of the people, a tiny triumvirate of dirty designer robes and distinctly uncomfortable expressions.
What had stopped Ginny was the haunted look in his eyes. Everyone else had been, in some way or form, some kind of happy or relieved that Tom Riddle was dead. Deaths or not, at least now they didn’t have much to fear from the megalomaniac. But the distinctive grey eyes had appeared lost. Lost amidst the quietly murmuring crowds, lost and without a purpose. He was out of place in this gathering of grieving Light mages, and it was obvious.
Compared to everyone else, who had lost family members and friends while Draco Malfoy hadn’t lost any family members or any close friends, he had appeared to be even more devastated. Ginny had thought about it, lying in the moonlight at night, and had eventually come to the conclusion that the reason why he had felt so lost, his misery seeming to be all the more present, was because he hadn’t had anyone close to him to lose. All the dead were people he didn’t care about, and that made him realize just how pointless his existence must have been as well.
After all, if you don’t care for anyone enough for their deaths to matter, then no one must care enough for your death to matter, either.
“Ginny,” Theo interrupted, a twinkle in his eye that didn’t bode well for the redhead.
“What?” she asked, instantly suspicious.
“Do you remember what I asked for when I came in?” he questioned innocently. Ginny thought back to the haze that had enveloped her, a result of painting and sinking into the work, and tried to remember what he had been saying.
“Er…no?” she replied sheepishly. Theodore sighed dramatically. He was a snake that was a breed of his own; even Pansy, with all the correct hormones and reproductive organs, wasn’t nearly as overly dramatic as Theo managed to be.
“I’d like for you to draw something for a friend,” he repeated. Ginny dimly recalled those words from earlier.
“Oh, right. A drawing or a painting?”
“Painting, I think. You know that one type that is generally of a person—“ He waved his hands in the air, as if he could pluck the elusive word from the very atmosphere.
“Portrait, you mean?” she asked, stifling her giggle. He nodded seriously.
“Yes, that. Pansy wants to give it as a gift to Draco.” Ginny frowned slightly. What were the odds that she’d have a dream about Malfoy’s haunting eyes when she was about to be commissioned for a portrait for him?
“Who will it be of?” she questioned, already going through mental lists of things needed for a commission of this size. She rarely took commissions, since she preferred to pick the brain of the person who was requesting it, and that required face to face communication of some kind. Ginny preferred that her identity remained secret; she wouldn’t go through Pansy, her agent, if she wanted her name to be public.
“Draco, naturally,” Theo said breezily. “You know how he’s got that narcissistic problem of his. He wouldn’t want it of anyone else. He can request one of those himself, you know.” Ginny’s brain shut down. A portrait of Draco Malfoy? No. Never.
“You do realize that he could easily contact another artist and just get a portrait done that way, correct?” she questioned, attempting to get him to see reason. When he turned to her, a devilish grin on his face, she felt her heart drop to somewhere near her kidneys. A Theodore Nott with that expression on his face meant no good at all.
“I keep on forgetting you do not know Draco like I do,” he said smoothly, stepping closer to Ginny. “You see, he’s actually terribly shy about his body in front of people. Ironic, yes? He keeps the candles extremely dim when he wants to have his wicked—“
“Enough,” Ginny interrupted hastily. “What does this have to do with me painting him? Someone else could still do it—“
“Nude, Ginny dear. Pansy wants a nude portrait of Draco Malfoy.”
Ginny felt the breath leave her body in a whoosh of air.
“Nude?” she demanded, and was embarrassed to hear it come out as a squeak. “Absolutely not! How he agreed to this at all is beyond me—“
“He didn’t agree, Ginny,” Theo interrupted sharply. She felt the violent urge to hit that curling smirk off his face. “Pansy wants it to be a birthday present. A surprise birthday present.” Ginny shook her head.
“Even if I wanted to do this, or if I agreed to it—which I don’t and won’t—that’s impossible. If Malfoy’s so uptight about people seeing him, he won’t agree to sitting for a nude portrait, much less one for a Weasley.” She may have been good friends with both Theodore and Pansy, but Malfoy had always been aloof, sneering, and insulting whenever they ran into each other. “Besides, I can’t paint someone without being able to see them. Pictures won’t do.”
The smirk on his face became a full-blown Slytherin grin, and even though they were long past their school days, Ginny felt an uncomfortable feeling in her stomach. Any snake with that expression meant trouble.
“Draco will be completely unaware of this portrait until it is revealed for his birthday,” he explained patiently.
“I will not Obliviate him, no matter how much of a prat he is,” she stated firmly.
“Not Obliviate, Ginevra, Polyjuice,” he said reverently, and Ginny knew that he was serious about this idea since he used her full name.
“Polyjuice?” she repeated faintly. “Oh, you mean like someone takes a swig of eau de Malfoy and presto, instant model?” He nodded happily in response.
“Precisely,” he confirmed. “Now, Pansy and I are still working out the details, but the proper materials have already been acquired—“
“Wait a minute,” Ginny interrupted sharply, narrowing her eyes at him suspiciously. “What do you mean, ‘the proper materials have already been acquired?’ Is that some kind of code for ‘We’ve been brewing the potion for the past bloody month now and you’re just being told of our plan now?’” He shrugged indifferently.
“We didn’t really see it as a priority to tell you before the potion was done,” he stated imperiously. She scowled at him.
“Well, you two spent the past month wasting your time brewing an illegal potion that won’t even be used,” she informed him, turning around her room in search of some clean clothing. She may be living the life of expensive luxury, but that didn’t mean she managed to do her laundry on a regular basis. Or ever, she corrected herself mentally as she picked up a shirt and took a whiff, deeming it particularly rancid smelling and throwing it back to the ground.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Theo shudder delicately in disgust as he moved his right foot out of the path of the putrid shirt.
“Ginevra—“
“You don’t have any dirt on me, Nott, so don’t even bother attempting to blackmail me. It won’t work,” she said, cutting him off before he even managed to ask a question. The left side of his mouth quirked up in a smile.
“I was actually going to recommend getting a house elf,” he replied, equal parts laughter and revulsion in his voice. She shrugged.
“If I had a house elf, I wouldn’t be able to find anything,” she told him, and he pointedly looked at a pile to the left of her bed. She rolled her eyes.
“That is my carefully stacked special-circumstances resources,” she snapped at him, striding over and pulling an item off of the pile. “See this?” she asked, waving the purple bra at him. She paused, experimentally taking a sniff and grimacing. “…this is in the wrong pile,” she continued sheepishly, tossing it in the near vicinity of the shirt.
Unfortunately for Theodore, she overestimated its location and it landed on his shoe. He squealed in a decidedly unmanly fashion and kicked his foot out instinctively, sending the lingerie soaring into the air and ending up latched onto the edge of a portrait of her mum that she had placed high up on the wall. Her mother took one look at the offending violet silk and fainted dead away. Ginny glanced at Theodore, who was looking embarrassedly at the passed-out figure of Molly Weasley, and began giggling.
When the giggles turned into full-bellied laughter, even Theo had to admit that it was quite hilarious and contributed a few chuckles himself. Ginny had to find some respite by holding the edge of her easel for balance, with one especially violent shuddering laugh nearly knocking her newest painting off and spurring a whole new round of gut gripping mirth.
After a while Ginny finally gave a sigh of contentedness at completing her daily dosage of healthy cachinnation (she had read once in the Prophet that it was a good work out and lowered your blood pressure), Theo turned back to her with that calculating look in his eyes.
“No,” Ginny told him firmly, instantly interpreting it for what it was. “I’m not painting Draco Malfoy in the buff.”
“But it won’t be Draco Malfoy himself in the buff,” he countered, as if that made it any better.
“I’m not doing it,” she repeated again. There was absolutely no way that he could convince her to do this. When the slightly dejected look crossed his face in a last-ditch effort to convince her to do what he wanted, she grinned triumphantly. He really didn’t have any dirt on her, so short of torture, which she knew he wouldn’t do, he couldn’t make her take the commission.
“Money’s not going to persuade you, is it?” he asked hopefully, already knowing the answer. She shot him a dirty look.
“If I cared about money, I wouldn’t be donating three-fourths of my income to various charities,” she informed him coldly. She reached for a green shirt, took a breath of it, and was happy to note that it only smelled like it had been worn once or twice. Heedless of Theodore’s presence in the room, she tossed off her tank top and started to struggle on the other shirt over her bra.
“The painting,” he breathed, inspiration striking while Ginny had her head stuck in the shirt.
“What?” she questioned, voice muffled by the fabric while she pushed her arms through the wrong holes. Theodore watched her efforts, not concerned or charitable enough to help her get her shirt on. If Ginny could have seen his face, she would have been afraid; it was the purely malevolent, triumphant expression he—as well as every other ex-Slytherin—gained when they realized they had their victim right where they wanted them.
“The painting,” he repeated loudly, quickly erasing his expression to be replaced by a mildly interested blank look that he usually reserved for his mother’s tea parties as Ginny’s tousled head sprouted out of the shirt.
“What are you on about?” she asked angrily, irritated by the shirt and his lack of explanation.
“How do you think Draco will feel when he finds out that a certain lovely redhead has dreams about him—and frequently draws various parts of his anatomy?” he questioned curiously, examining his fingernails.
Ginny felt her heart sink even lower. Stated like that, it sounded much worse than it actually was. But it wasn’t a matter of embarrassment; it was a matter of pride. She couldn’t let Draco bloody Malfoy know that she couldn’t get his eyes out of her head!
Raking a hand through her hair to get the loose pieces out of her face, she let out a weary sigh. Theodore grinned triumphantly at this sound of defeat.
“I’ll go tell Pansy,” he told her smugly, walking out of the room.
Oh dear Merlin, Ginny thought, a tiny touch of panic entering her inner voice. Just what have I agreed to?
________________________________________
Theodore Apparated into Pansy’s flat, not bothering with the typically niceties of at least showing up outside of the door. Instead, he appeared in the middle of the living room, glancing around at the elegantly furnished room with disinterest. As typical of an art dealer, she had several paintings on the cream colored walls. He recognized a few signatures that he determined to be Ginny’s, but otherwise honestly couldn’t tell the difference between hers and another artist’s.
He wandered out of the room and into the kitchen, but she wasn’t in there, either. Going further into the apartment, stopping every once in a while to check into one of the rooms along the way—her office, her storage, her guest bedroom, her extra bathroom—before finally finding himself in front of her bedroom. He was able to control the mischievous grin from spreading across his face, but he could do nothing for the way his heart started to beat in overtime in anticipation of walking into Pansy’s room with the chance of possibly finding her in a state of undress.
He pushed the door open silently, eyes searching the room for a scantily-clad Pansy. Unfortunately, the softly glowing candles revealed the fact that she was nowhere in her room. Curiosity perked, he went for her closet, deciding on eliminating the least dangerous area first. When that search turned up no Pansy either, he took a look at the remaining door: the one leading to her bathroom.
Weighing the pros and cons of barging into the bathroom and staying in her bedroom, he decided that a glimpse of a naked, sudsy Pansy would definitely be worth the Crucio he received in return. Ultimately, however, he decided to collapse languorously on her bed. After all, he thought to himself, being courteous now could prove to gain me some extra points later.
He didn’t have to wait long for Pansy to emerge from the bathroom, stringy wet black hair sticking to her cheeks and a rich purple towel clutched around her pale body. Theo was extremely grateful that he had decided to wait for her.
“Theo, what are you doing here?” she questioned calmly when she noticed him, and he couldn’t help but pout a little at her decidedly anticlimactic greeting.
“Just popped over to tell you how things went with our little Gin-bug,” he said breezily, attempting to keep the sullen tone out of his voice and not quite succeeding.
Pansy walked to the closet, smirking to herself when she was positive he couldn’t see her. No need for him to know that she was secretly pleased at his disappointed attitude.
“How’d that go?” she questioned, ambling into the closet and making sure that he saw the towel slipping to the floor before she entered. She heard a mild choking noise and couldn’t help but grin evilly while she dug around for some clothing to wear.
“Oh, perfectly fine,” he responded breezily, not giving away the fact that he had nearly lost his composure upon seeing the towel falling.
“Really?” she asked, a hint of incredulity entering her voice. “I find it hard to believe that Ginny just up and agreed to paint a portrait of Draco in the nude.”
“Well…it did take some persuasion,” Theodore hinted, and she poked her head out the door.
“You blackmailed her? With what?” They had both found it particularly frustrating when they had originally made friends with Ginny quite soon after the Final Battle that she was almost utterly impossible to blackmail: the things she chose to reveal were known by everyone. However, they were both aware of the fact that she had some very dark secrets that she didn’t tell anyone—and they both knew that it was impossible to blackmail someone with knowledge that you didn’t have.
“I happened to walk in on her painting Draco’s eyes before she had a chance to destroy it,” he replied casually, ruffling his curly golden blonde hair disinterestedly as Pansy just stared, shaking herself out of a stupor when she realized what she was doing.
“I knew she had been doing that for ages now, but I never could find any hard evidence, and whenever I did it was already in flames and I wouldn’t have been able to confirm anything,” Pansy said, scowling angrily at the memory of coming across the bonfire and a soot-smudged gleefully manic Ginny.
“I think she had a dream last night that really threw her for a loop since she even took care to lead me through the hoops to determine that it actually was our favorite snakey bastard’s eyes,” he said, rolling his eyes. “You know just how artistically challenged I am. I don’t know how I managed to get such talented friends,” he bemoaned, pushing his head into the pillows in faux-despair.
“And you damn well better be grateful,” Pansy snapped, not completely unable to remove the affection from her voice. She shook her head again, frowning and trying to eradicate the thoughts. Give it up, girl, she advised herself for what seemed like the billionth time. He doesn’t like you like that. However much she wished it otherwise.
“Don’t worry, I am,” Theo told her, winking. She rolled her eyes.
“Sometimes you are,” she admitted, before continuing on hastily and cutting off his protests. “Anyway, since Ginny agreed everything’s moving along smoothly, yes?” Theo shot her a look that plainly said he didn’t appreciate the topic being changed, before he answered her question anyway.
“Yes. We have two weeks; Ginny can come over sometime during the first week, but after that it’ll be far harder to keep Draco away, since we’re supposed to be helping him plan that blasted birthday party of his.” Theo scowled. He didn’t like the public bashes that Draco insisted on having to keep his public image in “good shape.” But then again, he thought with a smirk, I don’t really care if the majority of the Wizarding world things I’m raving, do I? Draco cared about little things like that.
“So, two weeks before the big birthday bash and then our little soiree, correct?” Pansy clarified, jotting it down in her mental events organizer.
“Yes,” Theodore said, playing with the sheets while keeping an eye on Pansy. She had wandered over to her dresser and was idly twirling her wand, which was alternately shooting green and purple sparks out of its end.
“It won’t be hard to infiltrate the Manor…” she trailed off thoughtfully, already imaging all sorts of wild locations they could place the portrait.
“…and have Ginny there to show just how wonderfully snarky and perfect for our dear Draco she is,” Theodore finished, smirking triumphantly. Pansy nodded decisively, sharing his smirk.
“And then we wouldn’t have to deal with our two best friends moaning about their lack of love life and abundance of lust life,” Pansy added with a small sneer of annoyance. The last part was unequivocally true about Draco, but not Ginny; she did moan about her lack of proper boyfriends, but not nearly as frequently as Draco since a) she wasn’t quite as whiny as he was and b) she simply wasn’t as much of a womanizer (Or would it be manizer? Pansy thought idly) as he was, either.
“Excellent,” Theo said, rubbing his hands together with a decidedly sinister grin on his face. Pansy returned the look with joy.
Who knew that playing the role of nefarious matchmaker could be so much fun?
“Ginny, I want you to draw something for a friend,” Theodore said from his position on her bed.
Ginny nodded distractedly, adding an almost careless streak of violent red to the painting she was currently working on. That done, she dipped her brush into water, cleaning it of color before leaning back and brushing some loose hair from her ponytail behind her ear.
Theodore noted with amusement the fact that the fingers on her left hand, used for mixing paint when she was impatient, had left streaks of vivid color across her pale cheekbone.
“Which friend?” she asked, scrutinizing her painting. This was one of her more abstract paintings, one that she had stumbled out of bed sometime past midnight to draw, half-crazed with focus, using the light of the moon instead of wasting time reaching for her wand and igniting the logs in the fireplace. Spurred on by a fleeting dream, she hadn’t taken time to get a good look at what she had been creating, relying instead on her fingers to do the work without concentrating too hard on what she was actually painting. Until now, that is.
“Oh, bloody hell,” she growled, standing up abruptly and knocking her three-legged stool to the ground angrily.
Theodore, who had been in the middle of starting to say something, stopped and watched her with blatant curiosity. He observed the scene calmly as the redhead practically threw her tools back into place, sending a hateful glare at her most recent work.
“Ginny…?” he questioned cautiously when it seemed like she was calming down. She spared her friend a glance and sighed.
“Sorry, Theo. But look. Do those look familiar to you?” she questioned, gesturing wildly at the painting.
Theo examined it closer. He hadn’t given it more than a cursory glance when he had let himself in. Although much of the Wizarding world raved about the new anonymous painter who went through her agent to sell her work, donating a large sum of her income to charity yet still managing to maintain a lifestyle that was distinctly upper crust, he was sadly one of the few that cared not a whit about the numerous paintings and drawings that she seemed to produce like her mother produced children. He was about as artistically aware and appreciative as a wombat was.
Which is to say, he wasn’t.
“No…?” he asked uncertainly, taking a subconscious step closer. “It’s pretty,” he offered helpfully, and Ginny threw her arms up in frustration.
“No, you ignorant fubsy, it’s not,” she corrected him. “It’s dark and haunted and scary. Look at the eyes.” Theo complied, and stared deeply into the pair of eyes that dominated the painting.
Ginny watched him with a mixed expression of amusement and exasperation. She knew he wouldn’t be able to decipher any deeper meaning from the painting. They had been friends for years, starting in the aftermath of the Final Battle and continuing until now. She had been futilely attempting to get him together with their mutual friend, Pansy Parkinson, for the better part of that time now, and had lately become frustrated with her efforts. Apparently they were both comfortable with ignoring the pheromones the other put out upon a meeting, and Ginny was slowly becoming fed up.
Turning back to the painting, Ginny tried to see what everyone else (besides Theo) would see. The eyes were the only things clearly standing out. Around it, smears of dark colors gave it an oppressive feeling, as if the cool grey eyes, usually a color considered to be unfriendly, were the only bit of hope and humanity that remained. The stripe of red, tearing open the shadows in a streak between the eyes, was a slash of vermilion, an open wound.
“You’re in need of psychological help,” he provided as explanation for the painting, and she rolled her eyes.
“Let me rephrase: where have you seen those eyes?” She couldn’t believe that he was being so thick about this. He must have seen them every day from the moment he had popped out of his mother’s womb, and here he was, claiming ignorance.
Suddenly, he snapped his fingers, looking triumphant.
“Draco’s!” he cried. “I knew they looked familiar.” Ginny resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Theodore was blond, after all, even if he was the most prominent attorney in all of Europe. He was on a break of sorts after his latest case, which involved a Russian witch. Ginny had only barely kept up with the Prophet’s highly detailed tracking of the trial, but apparently it had seemed like a nearly impossible case and he had blasted it out of the water.
“Good job, Theo. Here’s a cookie,” she cooed, tossing him a biscuit she had found by her easel. He scowled at her as it bounced off his chest and onto the ground, before it was replaced with a crafty look.
“So…Draco. Now, Gin-bug, why are you painting our favorite albino friend?” Ginny huffed.
“Only his eyes,” she clarified sharply. “But…” she trailed off, gazing into their grey depths. When had this started?
Immediately after the Final Battle, it had been chaos and tears. Bodies being found, families being reunited, and a sense of bittersweet triumph permeated the air. But out of it all, clutched at her mother’s sobbing bosom, Ginny could distinctly remember her gaze being caught by Draco Malfoy’s. His entire family was a fair distance away from the rest of the people, a tiny triumvirate of dirty designer robes and distinctly uncomfortable expressions.
What had stopped Ginny was the haunted look in his eyes. Everyone else had been, in some way or form, some kind of happy or relieved that Tom Riddle was dead. Deaths or not, at least now they didn’t have much to fear from the megalomaniac. But the distinctive grey eyes had appeared lost. Lost amidst the quietly murmuring crowds, lost and without a purpose. He was out of place in this gathering of grieving Light mages, and it was obvious.
Compared to everyone else, who had lost family members and friends while Draco Malfoy hadn’t lost any family members or any close friends, he had appeared to be even more devastated. Ginny had thought about it, lying in the moonlight at night, and had eventually come to the conclusion that the reason why he had felt so lost, his misery seeming to be all the more present, was because he hadn’t had anyone close to him to lose. All the dead were people he didn’t care about, and that made him realize just how pointless his existence must have been as well.
After all, if you don’t care for anyone enough for their deaths to matter, then no one must care enough for your death to matter, either.
“Ginny,” Theo interrupted, a twinkle in his eye that didn’t bode well for the redhead.
“What?” she asked, instantly suspicious.
“Do you remember what I asked for when I came in?” he questioned innocently. Ginny thought back to the haze that had enveloped her, a result of painting and sinking into the work, and tried to remember what he had been saying.
“Er…no?” she replied sheepishly. Theodore sighed dramatically. He was a snake that was a breed of his own; even Pansy, with all the correct hormones and reproductive organs, wasn’t nearly as overly dramatic as Theo managed to be.
“I’d like for you to draw something for a friend,” he repeated. Ginny dimly recalled those words from earlier.
“Oh, right. A drawing or a painting?”
“Painting, I think. You know that one type that is generally of a person—“ He waved his hands in the air, as if he could pluck the elusive word from the very atmosphere.
“Portrait, you mean?” she asked, stifling her giggle. He nodded seriously.
“Yes, that. Pansy wants to give it as a gift to Draco.” Ginny frowned slightly. What were the odds that she’d have a dream about Malfoy’s haunting eyes when she was about to be commissioned for a portrait for him?
“Who will it be of?” she questioned, already going through mental lists of things needed for a commission of this size. She rarely took commissions, since she preferred to pick the brain of the person who was requesting it, and that required face to face communication of some kind. Ginny preferred that her identity remained secret; she wouldn’t go through Pansy, her agent, if she wanted her name to be public.
“Draco, naturally,” Theo said breezily. “You know how he’s got that narcissistic problem of his. He wouldn’t want it of anyone else. He can request one of those himself, you know.” Ginny’s brain shut down. A portrait of Draco Malfoy? No. Never.
“You do realize that he could easily contact another artist and just get a portrait done that way, correct?” she questioned, attempting to get him to see reason. When he turned to her, a devilish grin on his face, she felt her heart drop to somewhere near her kidneys. A Theodore Nott with that expression on his face meant no good at all.
“I keep on forgetting you do not know Draco like I do,” he said smoothly, stepping closer to Ginny. “You see, he’s actually terribly shy about his body in front of people. Ironic, yes? He keeps the candles extremely dim when he wants to have his wicked—“
“Enough,” Ginny interrupted hastily. “What does this have to do with me painting him? Someone else could still do it—“
“Nude, Ginny dear. Pansy wants a nude portrait of Draco Malfoy.”
Ginny felt the breath leave her body in a whoosh of air.
“Nude?” she demanded, and was embarrassed to hear it come out as a squeak. “Absolutely not! How he agreed to this at all is beyond me—“
“He didn’t agree, Ginny,” Theo interrupted sharply. She felt the violent urge to hit that curling smirk off his face. “Pansy wants it to be a birthday present. A surprise birthday present.” Ginny shook her head.
“Even if I wanted to do this, or if I agreed to it—which I don’t and won’t—that’s impossible. If Malfoy’s so uptight about people seeing him, he won’t agree to sitting for a nude portrait, much less one for a Weasley.” She may have been good friends with both Theodore and Pansy, but Malfoy had always been aloof, sneering, and insulting whenever they ran into each other. “Besides, I can’t paint someone without being able to see them. Pictures won’t do.”
The smirk on his face became a full-blown Slytherin grin, and even though they were long past their school days, Ginny felt an uncomfortable feeling in her stomach. Any snake with that expression meant trouble.
“Draco will be completely unaware of this portrait until it is revealed for his birthday,” he explained patiently.
“I will not Obliviate him, no matter how much of a prat he is,” she stated firmly.
“Not Obliviate, Ginevra, Polyjuice,” he said reverently, and Ginny knew that he was serious about this idea since he used her full name.
“Polyjuice?” she repeated faintly. “Oh, you mean like someone takes a swig of eau de Malfoy and presto, instant model?” He nodded happily in response.
“Precisely,” he confirmed. “Now, Pansy and I are still working out the details, but the proper materials have already been acquired—“
“Wait a minute,” Ginny interrupted sharply, narrowing her eyes at him suspiciously. “What do you mean, ‘the proper materials have already been acquired?’ Is that some kind of code for ‘We’ve been brewing the potion for the past bloody month now and you’re just being told of our plan now?’” He shrugged indifferently.
“We didn’t really see it as a priority to tell you before the potion was done,” he stated imperiously. She scowled at him.
“Well, you two spent the past month wasting your time brewing an illegal potion that won’t even be used,” she informed him, turning around her room in search of some clean clothing. She may be living the life of expensive luxury, but that didn’t mean she managed to do her laundry on a regular basis. Or ever, she corrected herself mentally as she picked up a shirt and took a whiff, deeming it particularly rancid smelling and throwing it back to the ground.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Theo shudder delicately in disgust as he moved his right foot out of the path of the putrid shirt.
“Ginevra—“
“You don’t have any dirt on me, Nott, so don’t even bother attempting to blackmail me. It won’t work,” she said, cutting him off before he even managed to ask a question. The left side of his mouth quirked up in a smile.
“I was actually going to recommend getting a house elf,” he replied, equal parts laughter and revulsion in his voice. She shrugged.
“If I had a house elf, I wouldn’t be able to find anything,” she told him, and he pointedly looked at a pile to the left of her bed. She rolled her eyes.
“That is my carefully stacked special-circumstances resources,” she snapped at him, striding over and pulling an item off of the pile. “See this?” she asked, waving the purple bra at him. She paused, experimentally taking a sniff and grimacing. “…this is in the wrong pile,” she continued sheepishly, tossing it in the near vicinity of the shirt.
Unfortunately for Theodore, she overestimated its location and it landed on his shoe. He squealed in a decidedly unmanly fashion and kicked his foot out instinctively, sending the lingerie soaring into the air and ending up latched onto the edge of a portrait of her mum that she had placed high up on the wall. Her mother took one look at the offending violet silk and fainted dead away. Ginny glanced at Theodore, who was looking embarrassedly at the passed-out figure of Molly Weasley, and began giggling.
When the giggles turned into full-bellied laughter, even Theo had to admit that it was quite hilarious and contributed a few chuckles himself. Ginny had to find some respite by holding the edge of her easel for balance, with one especially violent shuddering laugh nearly knocking her newest painting off and spurring a whole new round of gut gripping mirth.
After a while Ginny finally gave a sigh of contentedness at completing her daily dosage of healthy cachinnation (she had read once in the Prophet that it was a good work out and lowered your blood pressure), Theo turned back to her with that calculating look in his eyes.
“No,” Ginny told him firmly, instantly interpreting it for what it was. “I’m not painting Draco Malfoy in the buff.”
“But it won’t be Draco Malfoy himself in the buff,” he countered, as if that made it any better.
“I’m not doing it,” she repeated again. There was absolutely no way that he could convince her to do this. When the slightly dejected look crossed his face in a last-ditch effort to convince her to do what he wanted, she grinned triumphantly. He really didn’t have any dirt on her, so short of torture, which she knew he wouldn’t do, he couldn’t make her take the commission.
“Money’s not going to persuade you, is it?” he asked hopefully, already knowing the answer. She shot him a dirty look.
“If I cared about money, I wouldn’t be donating three-fourths of my income to various charities,” she informed him coldly. She reached for a green shirt, took a breath of it, and was happy to note that it only smelled like it had been worn once or twice. Heedless of Theodore’s presence in the room, she tossed off her tank top and started to struggle on the other shirt over her bra.
“The painting,” he breathed, inspiration striking while Ginny had her head stuck in the shirt.
“What?” she questioned, voice muffled by the fabric while she pushed her arms through the wrong holes. Theodore watched her efforts, not concerned or charitable enough to help her get her shirt on. If Ginny could have seen his face, she would have been afraid; it was the purely malevolent, triumphant expression he—as well as every other ex-Slytherin—gained when they realized they had their victim right where they wanted them.
“The painting,” he repeated loudly, quickly erasing his expression to be replaced by a mildly interested blank look that he usually reserved for his mother’s tea parties as Ginny’s tousled head sprouted out of the shirt.
“What are you on about?” she asked angrily, irritated by the shirt and his lack of explanation.
“How do you think Draco will feel when he finds out that a certain lovely redhead has dreams about him—and frequently draws various parts of his anatomy?” he questioned curiously, examining his fingernails.
Ginny felt her heart sink even lower. Stated like that, it sounded much worse than it actually was. But it wasn’t a matter of embarrassment; it was a matter of pride. She couldn’t let Draco bloody Malfoy know that she couldn’t get his eyes out of her head!
Raking a hand through her hair to get the loose pieces out of her face, she let out a weary sigh. Theodore grinned triumphantly at this sound of defeat.
“I’ll go tell Pansy,” he told her smugly, walking out of the room.
Oh dear Merlin, Ginny thought, a tiny touch of panic entering her inner voice. Just what have I agreed to?
________________________________________
Theodore Apparated into Pansy’s flat, not bothering with the typically niceties of at least showing up outside of the door. Instead, he appeared in the middle of the living room, glancing around at the elegantly furnished room with disinterest. As typical of an art dealer, she had several paintings on the cream colored walls. He recognized a few signatures that he determined to be Ginny’s, but otherwise honestly couldn’t tell the difference between hers and another artist’s.
He wandered out of the room and into the kitchen, but she wasn’t in there, either. Going further into the apartment, stopping every once in a while to check into one of the rooms along the way—her office, her storage, her guest bedroom, her extra bathroom—before finally finding himself in front of her bedroom. He was able to control the mischievous grin from spreading across his face, but he could do nothing for the way his heart started to beat in overtime in anticipation of walking into Pansy’s room with the chance of possibly finding her in a state of undress.
He pushed the door open silently, eyes searching the room for a scantily-clad Pansy. Unfortunately, the softly glowing candles revealed the fact that she was nowhere in her room. Curiosity perked, he went for her closet, deciding on eliminating the least dangerous area first. When that search turned up no Pansy either, he took a look at the remaining door: the one leading to her bathroom.
Weighing the pros and cons of barging into the bathroom and staying in her bedroom, he decided that a glimpse of a naked, sudsy Pansy would definitely be worth the Crucio he received in return. Ultimately, however, he decided to collapse languorously on her bed. After all, he thought to himself, being courteous now could prove to gain me some extra points later.
He didn’t have to wait long for Pansy to emerge from the bathroom, stringy wet black hair sticking to her cheeks and a rich purple towel clutched around her pale body. Theo was extremely grateful that he had decided to wait for her.
“Theo, what are you doing here?” she questioned calmly when she noticed him, and he couldn’t help but pout a little at her decidedly anticlimactic greeting.
“Just popped over to tell you how things went with our little Gin-bug,” he said breezily, attempting to keep the sullen tone out of his voice and not quite succeeding.
Pansy walked to the closet, smirking to herself when she was positive he couldn’t see her. No need for him to know that she was secretly pleased at his disappointed attitude.
“How’d that go?” she questioned, ambling into the closet and making sure that he saw the towel slipping to the floor before she entered. She heard a mild choking noise and couldn’t help but grin evilly while she dug around for some clothing to wear.
“Oh, perfectly fine,” he responded breezily, not giving away the fact that he had nearly lost his composure upon seeing the towel falling.
“Really?” she asked, a hint of incredulity entering her voice. “I find it hard to believe that Ginny just up and agreed to paint a portrait of Draco in the nude.”
“Well…it did take some persuasion,” Theodore hinted, and she poked her head out the door.
“You blackmailed her? With what?” They had both found it particularly frustrating when they had originally made friends with Ginny quite soon after the Final Battle that she was almost utterly impossible to blackmail: the things she chose to reveal were known by everyone. However, they were both aware of the fact that she had some very dark secrets that she didn’t tell anyone—and they both knew that it was impossible to blackmail someone with knowledge that you didn’t have.
“I happened to walk in on her painting Draco’s eyes before she had a chance to destroy it,” he replied casually, ruffling his curly golden blonde hair disinterestedly as Pansy just stared, shaking herself out of a stupor when she realized what she was doing.
“I knew she had been doing that for ages now, but I never could find any hard evidence, and whenever I did it was already in flames and I wouldn’t have been able to confirm anything,” Pansy said, scowling angrily at the memory of coming across the bonfire and a soot-smudged gleefully manic Ginny.
“I think she had a dream last night that really threw her for a loop since she even took care to lead me through the hoops to determine that it actually was our favorite snakey bastard’s eyes,” he said, rolling his eyes. “You know just how artistically challenged I am. I don’t know how I managed to get such talented friends,” he bemoaned, pushing his head into the pillows in faux-despair.
“And you damn well better be grateful,” Pansy snapped, not completely unable to remove the affection from her voice. She shook her head again, frowning and trying to eradicate the thoughts. Give it up, girl, she advised herself for what seemed like the billionth time. He doesn’t like you like that. However much she wished it otherwise.
“Don’t worry, I am,” Theo told her, winking. She rolled her eyes.
“Sometimes you are,” she admitted, before continuing on hastily and cutting off his protests. “Anyway, since Ginny agreed everything’s moving along smoothly, yes?” Theo shot her a look that plainly said he didn’t appreciate the topic being changed, before he answered her question anyway.
“Yes. We have two weeks; Ginny can come over sometime during the first week, but after that it’ll be far harder to keep Draco away, since we’re supposed to be helping him plan that blasted birthday party of his.” Theo scowled. He didn’t like the public bashes that Draco insisted on having to keep his public image in “good shape.” But then again, he thought with a smirk, I don’t really care if the majority of the Wizarding world things I’m raving, do I? Draco cared about little things like that.
“So, two weeks before the big birthday bash and then our little soiree, correct?” Pansy clarified, jotting it down in her mental events organizer.
“Yes,” Theodore said, playing with the sheets while keeping an eye on Pansy. She had wandered over to her dresser and was idly twirling her wand, which was alternately shooting green and purple sparks out of its end.
“It won’t be hard to infiltrate the Manor…” she trailed off thoughtfully, already imaging all sorts of wild locations they could place the portrait.
“…and have Ginny there to show just how wonderfully snarky and perfect for our dear Draco she is,” Theodore finished, smirking triumphantly. Pansy nodded decisively, sharing his smirk.
“And then we wouldn’t have to deal with our two best friends moaning about their lack of love life and abundance of lust life,” Pansy added with a small sneer of annoyance. The last part was unequivocally true about Draco, but not Ginny; she did moan about her lack of proper boyfriends, but not nearly as frequently as Draco since a) she wasn’t quite as whiny as he was and b) she simply wasn’t as much of a womanizer (Or would it be manizer? Pansy thought idly) as he was, either.
“Excellent,” Theo said, rubbing his hands together with a decidedly sinister grin on his face. Pansy returned the look with joy.
Who knew that playing the role of nefarious matchmaker could be so much fun?
Author notes: Thanks to Melissa for beta-ing and letting me use her as a idea board! The next one should be out in about a week or so. This is my favorite story I've every written, so review and let me know how you like it!
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