The next morning, Ginny left with Harry, Ron, and Hermione as she always did, to go down for breakfast. Ron pulled Hermione along by the hand ahead of Ginny when Hermione paused as though she might speak to her. Harry only looked dolefully at her and hurried up to Ron and Hermione. Ginny sighed and trailed along behind. Then she got the surprise of her life. There, at the bottom of the stairs of Gryffindor tower, was Draco, leaning against the wall, waiting on her. Ginny grinned at him and hurried down the stairs past the trio to him.
He kissed the top of her head and said, “Good morning, Weas-“
Ron was suddenly there and in Draco’s face. “What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing Malfoy?”
Draco drew himself up to full height, and turned to Ron with a sneer. “I’m escorting your sister to breakfast, Weasley.”
“You bloody well will not!”
Draco raised an eyebrow. He looked so smug and arrogant; Ginny knew it would only serve to infuriate Ron more. She thought Draco might know that too. “What exactly do you intend to do to stop me?”
Ron stepped closer to Draco, and Ginny saw him clench his fist. ‘Time to defuse this situation’, she thought, as she stepped between them and turned to Ron. “Ron please stop it. I want to go with Draco.”
“He’s got you under some sort of spell. Did you give her a love potion, Malfoy?” snapped Ron, his face growing redder.
“While you might need to resort to such measures to get Granger to pay attention to you Weasley, I don’t have to.” Draco said condescendingly.
Ginny turned to Draco and pleaded, “Please let’s just go Draco.”
Draco looked as though he was ready to abandon the posturing and go with Ginny but then Ron said, “Ginny! You will not go with this…this death eater. I won’t allow you to act like some wanton bint.”
Ginny spun back around and faced Ron, anger welling up inside her now. “What do you mean, wanton bint? Better yet, what do you mean, you won’t allow me? Since when do you tell me what to do? It would do you well to remember you’re my brother, not my father Ronald Weasley. And even if you were in some sort of situation to order me around, I make my own decisions about what I will or will not do with my life, or whom I do it with. Take a good look at me Ron, I’m not the five year old who followed you around anymore, I’m sixteen years old. Wanton bint, indeed, you dictorial prat!”
Ron had gone from red-faced to white with anger. He bellowed down at Ginny, “Don’t you know what you’re doing? You can’t possibly. I won’t let you, I won’t.”
He grabbed Ginny by the shoulders and shook her violently. Before she knew what was happening, Draco was on them in a flash, shoving Ron backwards, then lunging forward to take Ron’s collar and pull him up close, as he had Zanbini the night of the dance. Ginny saw him clench his fist and draw it back. Then he snarled and lowered it. His voice was low and the look in his eyes was scary as he hissed at Ron, “Don’t-Touch-Her-Ever-Again. If you have a problem with me, then you and I will settle it, just the two of us. But I don’t care if you are her brother; I don’t care how much she loves you or how much she’s begged me NOT to hit you. Even if it means she never speaks to me as long as we live, if you do it again, I WILL rip out your guts, Weasley, then stomp them into the dirt. Do-Not-Touch-Ginny.”
“You don’t tell me what to do with my own sister, Malfoy!” Ron spat out and shoved Draco backwards.
Draco stumbled backwards, and as he recovered Ginny saw what was coming quite clearly. There was about to be a fistfight in the corridor and two people Ginny loved were going to be hurt and in trouble. Not to mention Harry standing on the sidelines, and Ginny wasn’t sure that he would leave it a fair fight if he saw Draco was besting Ron. So she did the only thing she could think of to stop the situation. She jumped in front of Ron and connected her fist firmly with his mouth.
Ron staggered backwards. Reaching up to touch his mouth, he looked at his hand, seeing blood. “Ginny, you hit me!” he exclaimed.
“That’s right!” Ginny yelled at him. “And I’ll do it again. You leave me alone Ron Weasley, do you hear? You leave me alone!”
Ginny spun around and hurried down the hall. Draco gave Ron one last sneer and hurried to catch up to her.
He found her sitting on a bench round the corner. He sat down beside her and took her hand. Ginny winced and he turned her hand over to examine her tender knuckles. “You ought to put some ice on these. They’re going to be sore.” He kissed them gently, and pulled out his wand, chanting a quick pain spell.
“I can’t believe you hit him.”
“It was all I could do, with you two about to tie up. I was afraid it wouldn’t have stopped at just a fistfight, and you’d have both been expelled for hexing each other. I ought to hit you too, the way you goaded him. You didn’t have to do that.” She said, glaring at Draco.
Draco nodded and said, “Yes I did.”
Ginny thought about this for a moment and realized Draco was right. He was who he was, he hadn’t hidden that from her, he even talked nasty to her sometimes. It simply wasn’t possible for him to walk away from someone insulting him, especially when that someone was Ron. Ginny sighed and leaned her head against his shoulder. “Yes, I know. This is only the beginning, you know. He’ll take a day or two to get over the shock of me punching him, and then he’ll regroup and attack again. He’s a stubborn git. It will take quite a bit to make him give up.”
Draco leveled a look at her. “Princess, he may never give up. He doesn’t like me, and I don’t like him. That’s been the way it was since before you and I even knew each other. Frankly, I don’t see it changing. It may always be this way with him. Does that make a difference to you?”
Ginny shook her head. “Not enough to make me change anything.”
Draco smiled and pulled her up from the bench. “Good. Now, would you like to go to breakfast?”
“You know, I think my stomach would turn if I had to look at Ron while I’m eating right now. If you’re not hungry, why don’t you walk with me back to the common room to get my books? We can walk to class together.” She wanted to show him that she meant for all of Hogwart’s to know about them.
Draco waited beside the fat lady’s portrait and flirted shamelessly with her while Ginny slipped in to get her books and get away before the trio made it back from breakfast. She grabbed two apples from the bowl on the table in front of the fireplace as she left, and tossed one to Draco as they idly walked down the hall towards the classrooms. To her surprise, Draco actually took her books from her and carried them as he escorted her to the Arithmancy classroom. Professor Vector looked startled to see Draco Malfoy standing with Ginny Weasley in the doorway, but covered his shock by quickly floating to the other side of the classroom to write problems on the chalkboard.
“You have Divinations after this, then lunch, right?” asked Draco and Ginny nodded. “Fine. I have advanced Potions this morning, but I’ll meet you at the bottom of the ladder. We’ll walk to lunch together, ok?”
Ginny nodded again, and Draco handed over her books and kissed her soundly on the mouth. She could taste the apple he’d been eating on his lips and smiled. She stood for a moment and watched him sidle gracefully down the hall towards the dungeons. Then Professor Vector cleared his throat and suggested she come sit down.
After Divinations, true to his word, Draco was waiting at the bottom of the ladder when she climbed down. He confiscated her books again, and tucking both his and hers under his arm, then took her hand and laced his fingers through hers. As they walked down the corridor towards the great hall, students glanced and them, then startled and unbelieving, whipped round to look again. Yes, Draco Malfoy was really holding Ginny Weasley’s hand.
Ginny giggled and whispered in Draco’s ear, “They look as though they’ve seen an ogre passing out chocolate frogs.”
Draco whispered back, “Yes as much as I like shocking people, it isn’t what I intended. It just … it just feels so good to just walk down the hall and hold your hand. To be a normal couple.”
“Yes it does, “Ginny agreed, standing on tiptoe impulsively to kiss him on the cheek. He saw it coming though, and whipped his head around to catch the kiss on the mouth anyway.
When they got to the great room, Ginny started to pull her hand away, so they could separate and go to their separate tables but Draco tightened his grasp. The whole room was stunned to sudden silence as they walked across the room to the Gryffindor table. Ginny happened to look over at the teachers’ table and saw Snape roll his eyes at their public display. Professor McGonagall looked shocked as did Hagrid, but Dumbledore just steepled his hands before his face and looked interested. Ginny wondered what he would think of the Slytherin-Gryffindor match.
Draco stopped at Ginny’s usual seat, beside Hermione, across from Ron and Harry. She sat down and he leaned in to kiss her nose. Then he bowed low to Ron and Harry. Somehow, he managed to make what was considered a subservient gesture look arrogant and condescending. He was goading Ron, of course and Ginny tried to scowl at him, but ended up smiling when he winked at her. How typically Draco.
He strode back to the Slytherin table and sat down. Ginny glanced at him throughout the meal and saw him glower a time or two at some of the others at the table. Likely they were giving him a hard time about snogging with a Gryffindor. At one point, she looked up to see Pansy Parkinson shaking her finger at him and frowned. She saw Draco raise his eyebrow and say something to her. She spun about and flounced back to the end of the table. Draco smirked across the room at her when he caught her looking. She smirked back and bit her roll.
When he saw her push her plate away, he quickly rose and came back across the room. As she got up, he bent his arm at the elbow and tucked her hand into the crook. Together, they walked out of the room leaving Ron white hot with fury and everyone else goggling at their backs.
Just as Ginny predicted, Ron regrouped and attacked again and again through the next month or so. He wrote to his parents and brothers, and the letters started pouring in for Ginny. First came the one from her mother, asking her if she knew what she was doing, reminding her how her father felt about Draco’s father, and what Lucius Malfoy had done to her in her first year at Hogwart’s. Ginny and Draco had discussed what had happened with Tom Riddle’s diary and while he was horrified, Draco said he didn’t know, and Ginny believed him. Then came the letter from her father, telling her she was forbidden to speak to Draco, running on about embarrassing the family with ties to death eaters and what not. Ginny had sat down and answered them, explaining that Draco was not a death eater, that he didn’t agree with his father’s tactics, and while he might have different opinions than they did, than even she herself did, he certainly would never hurt anyone. She reminded them that they had raised her to be tolerant of other people’s opinions, and not to dismiss them as human beings, simply because she disagreed with them, and that was what she was trying to do with Draco. And she told her father quite plainly that while he might make it hard for her to see Draco, she would not quit seeing him, no matter what the consequences for that might be.
The letters from both Charlie and Bill were less intense in disapproval as they both graduated and never knew Draco personally. She answered them both civilly but firmly, telling them she was old enough to know her own mind.
The letter from Percy was exactly what she thought it would be. Smarmy and condescending. He berated her for hurting mother and father, commented on her poor taste in the male species and told her that she was sadly lacking in good judgment. He suggested that she run future decisions about her life by him before she acted. She wrote back and told him to bugger off.
The note from the twins, however, was unexpected. They simply said they were going to be in town, checking possible sites for a second joke shop, during the next scheduled school trip to Hogsmeade. They invited her to meet them for lunch, and to bring Draco.
“Shall I tell them we’ll come?” Ginny asked Draco.
“They aren’t going to get me off away from the school and then pound me are they? There is after all two of them and only one of me.” Draco asked, looking up from the piano.
“I don’t think so, “ Ginny replied, looking again at the note. “It’s generally not their style to pound people. They’d rather slip you a crippler candy cane, and have you lose the use of a limb for a few days.”
“Well, that’s a comforting thought.” Said Draco, twisting his mouth up.
“Fear not luv, I’ll protect you from the wicked twins.” She said, falling into his lap at the piano bench.
He nuzzled her ear and said, “Yes, you and that mighty left hook.”
“Just be sure they don’t slip a canary cream into your food.”
He kissed the top of her head and said, “Good morning, Weas-“
Ron was suddenly there and in Draco’s face. “What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing Malfoy?”
Draco drew himself up to full height, and turned to Ron with a sneer. “I’m escorting your sister to breakfast, Weasley.”
“You bloody well will not!”
Draco raised an eyebrow. He looked so smug and arrogant; Ginny knew it would only serve to infuriate Ron more. She thought Draco might know that too. “What exactly do you intend to do to stop me?”
Ron stepped closer to Draco, and Ginny saw him clench his fist. ‘Time to defuse this situation’, she thought, as she stepped between them and turned to Ron. “Ron please stop it. I want to go with Draco.”
“He’s got you under some sort of spell. Did you give her a love potion, Malfoy?” snapped Ron, his face growing redder.
“While you might need to resort to such measures to get Granger to pay attention to you Weasley, I don’t have to.” Draco said condescendingly.
Ginny turned to Draco and pleaded, “Please let’s just go Draco.”
Draco looked as though he was ready to abandon the posturing and go with Ginny but then Ron said, “Ginny! You will not go with this…this death eater. I won’t allow you to act like some wanton bint.”
Ginny spun back around and faced Ron, anger welling up inside her now. “What do you mean, wanton bint? Better yet, what do you mean, you won’t allow me? Since when do you tell me what to do? It would do you well to remember you’re my brother, not my father Ronald Weasley. And even if you were in some sort of situation to order me around, I make my own decisions about what I will or will not do with my life, or whom I do it with. Take a good look at me Ron, I’m not the five year old who followed you around anymore, I’m sixteen years old. Wanton bint, indeed, you dictorial prat!”
Ron had gone from red-faced to white with anger. He bellowed down at Ginny, “Don’t you know what you’re doing? You can’t possibly. I won’t let you, I won’t.”
He grabbed Ginny by the shoulders and shook her violently. Before she knew what was happening, Draco was on them in a flash, shoving Ron backwards, then lunging forward to take Ron’s collar and pull him up close, as he had Zanbini the night of the dance. Ginny saw him clench his fist and draw it back. Then he snarled and lowered it. His voice was low and the look in his eyes was scary as he hissed at Ron, “Don’t-Touch-Her-Ever-Again. If you have a problem with me, then you and I will settle it, just the two of us. But I don’t care if you are her brother; I don’t care how much she loves you or how much she’s begged me NOT to hit you. Even if it means she never speaks to me as long as we live, if you do it again, I WILL rip out your guts, Weasley, then stomp them into the dirt. Do-Not-Touch-Ginny.”
“You don’t tell me what to do with my own sister, Malfoy!” Ron spat out and shoved Draco backwards.
Draco stumbled backwards, and as he recovered Ginny saw what was coming quite clearly. There was about to be a fistfight in the corridor and two people Ginny loved were going to be hurt and in trouble. Not to mention Harry standing on the sidelines, and Ginny wasn’t sure that he would leave it a fair fight if he saw Draco was besting Ron. So she did the only thing she could think of to stop the situation. She jumped in front of Ron and connected her fist firmly with his mouth.
Ron staggered backwards. Reaching up to touch his mouth, he looked at his hand, seeing blood. “Ginny, you hit me!” he exclaimed.
“That’s right!” Ginny yelled at him. “And I’ll do it again. You leave me alone Ron Weasley, do you hear? You leave me alone!”
Ginny spun around and hurried down the hall. Draco gave Ron one last sneer and hurried to catch up to her.
He found her sitting on a bench round the corner. He sat down beside her and took her hand. Ginny winced and he turned her hand over to examine her tender knuckles. “You ought to put some ice on these. They’re going to be sore.” He kissed them gently, and pulled out his wand, chanting a quick pain spell.
“I can’t believe you hit him.”
“It was all I could do, with you two about to tie up. I was afraid it wouldn’t have stopped at just a fistfight, and you’d have both been expelled for hexing each other. I ought to hit you too, the way you goaded him. You didn’t have to do that.” She said, glaring at Draco.
Draco nodded and said, “Yes I did.”
Ginny thought about this for a moment and realized Draco was right. He was who he was, he hadn’t hidden that from her, he even talked nasty to her sometimes. It simply wasn’t possible for him to walk away from someone insulting him, especially when that someone was Ron. Ginny sighed and leaned her head against his shoulder. “Yes, I know. This is only the beginning, you know. He’ll take a day or two to get over the shock of me punching him, and then he’ll regroup and attack again. He’s a stubborn git. It will take quite a bit to make him give up.”
Draco leveled a look at her. “Princess, he may never give up. He doesn’t like me, and I don’t like him. That’s been the way it was since before you and I even knew each other. Frankly, I don’t see it changing. It may always be this way with him. Does that make a difference to you?”
Ginny shook her head. “Not enough to make me change anything.”
Draco smiled and pulled her up from the bench. “Good. Now, would you like to go to breakfast?”
“You know, I think my stomach would turn if I had to look at Ron while I’m eating right now. If you’re not hungry, why don’t you walk with me back to the common room to get my books? We can walk to class together.” She wanted to show him that she meant for all of Hogwart’s to know about them.
Draco waited beside the fat lady’s portrait and flirted shamelessly with her while Ginny slipped in to get her books and get away before the trio made it back from breakfast. She grabbed two apples from the bowl on the table in front of the fireplace as she left, and tossed one to Draco as they idly walked down the hall towards the classrooms. To her surprise, Draco actually took her books from her and carried them as he escorted her to the Arithmancy classroom. Professor Vector looked startled to see Draco Malfoy standing with Ginny Weasley in the doorway, but covered his shock by quickly floating to the other side of the classroom to write problems on the chalkboard.
“You have Divinations after this, then lunch, right?” asked Draco and Ginny nodded. “Fine. I have advanced Potions this morning, but I’ll meet you at the bottom of the ladder. We’ll walk to lunch together, ok?”
Ginny nodded again, and Draco handed over her books and kissed her soundly on the mouth. She could taste the apple he’d been eating on his lips and smiled. She stood for a moment and watched him sidle gracefully down the hall towards the dungeons. Then Professor Vector cleared his throat and suggested she come sit down.
After Divinations, true to his word, Draco was waiting at the bottom of the ladder when she climbed down. He confiscated her books again, and tucking both his and hers under his arm, then took her hand and laced his fingers through hers. As they walked down the corridor towards the great hall, students glanced and them, then startled and unbelieving, whipped round to look again. Yes, Draco Malfoy was really holding Ginny Weasley’s hand.
Ginny giggled and whispered in Draco’s ear, “They look as though they’ve seen an ogre passing out chocolate frogs.”
Draco whispered back, “Yes as much as I like shocking people, it isn’t what I intended. It just … it just feels so good to just walk down the hall and hold your hand. To be a normal couple.”
“Yes it does, “Ginny agreed, standing on tiptoe impulsively to kiss him on the cheek. He saw it coming though, and whipped his head around to catch the kiss on the mouth anyway.
When they got to the great room, Ginny started to pull her hand away, so they could separate and go to their separate tables but Draco tightened his grasp. The whole room was stunned to sudden silence as they walked across the room to the Gryffindor table. Ginny happened to look over at the teachers’ table and saw Snape roll his eyes at their public display. Professor McGonagall looked shocked as did Hagrid, but Dumbledore just steepled his hands before his face and looked interested. Ginny wondered what he would think of the Slytherin-Gryffindor match.
Draco stopped at Ginny’s usual seat, beside Hermione, across from Ron and Harry. She sat down and he leaned in to kiss her nose. Then he bowed low to Ron and Harry. Somehow, he managed to make what was considered a subservient gesture look arrogant and condescending. He was goading Ron, of course and Ginny tried to scowl at him, but ended up smiling when he winked at her. How typically Draco.
He strode back to the Slytherin table and sat down. Ginny glanced at him throughout the meal and saw him glower a time or two at some of the others at the table. Likely they were giving him a hard time about snogging with a Gryffindor. At one point, she looked up to see Pansy Parkinson shaking her finger at him and frowned. She saw Draco raise his eyebrow and say something to her. She spun about and flounced back to the end of the table. Draco smirked across the room at her when he caught her looking. She smirked back and bit her roll.
When he saw her push her plate away, he quickly rose and came back across the room. As she got up, he bent his arm at the elbow and tucked her hand into the crook. Together, they walked out of the room leaving Ron white hot with fury and everyone else goggling at their backs.
Just as Ginny predicted, Ron regrouped and attacked again and again through the next month or so. He wrote to his parents and brothers, and the letters started pouring in for Ginny. First came the one from her mother, asking her if she knew what she was doing, reminding her how her father felt about Draco’s father, and what Lucius Malfoy had done to her in her first year at Hogwart’s. Ginny and Draco had discussed what had happened with Tom Riddle’s diary and while he was horrified, Draco said he didn’t know, and Ginny believed him. Then came the letter from her father, telling her she was forbidden to speak to Draco, running on about embarrassing the family with ties to death eaters and what not. Ginny had sat down and answered them, explaining that Draco was not a death eater, that he didn’t agree with his father’s tactics, and while he might have different opinions than they did, than even she herself did, he certainly would never hurt anyone. She reminded them that they had raised her to be tolerant of other people’s opinions, and not to dismiss them as human beings, simply because she disagreed with them, and that was what she was trying to do with Draco. And she told her father quite plainly that while he might make it hard for her to see Draco, she would not quit seeing him, no matter what the consequences for that might be.
The letters from both Charlie and Bill were less intense in disapproval as they both graduated and never knew Draco personally. She answered them both civilly but firmly, telling them she was old enough to know her own mind.
The letter from Percy was exactly what she thought it would be. Smarmy and condescending. He berated her for hurting mother and father, commented on her poor taste in the male species and told her that she was sadly lacking in good judgment. He suggested that she run future decisions about her life by him before she acted. She wrote back and told him to bugger off.
The note from the twins, however, was unexpected. They simply said they were going to be in town, checking possible sites for a second joke shop, during the next scheduled school trip to Hogsmeade. They invited her to meet them for lunch, and to bring Draco.
“Shall I tell them we’ll come?” Ginny asked Draco.
“They aren’t going to get me off away from the school and then pound me are they? There is after all two of them and only one of me.” Draco asked, looking up from the piano.
“I don’t think so, “ Ginny replied, looking again at the note. “It’s generally not their style to pound people. They’d rather slip you a crippler candy cane, and have you lose the use of a limb for a few days.”
“Well, that’s a comforting thought.” Said Draco, twisting his mouth up.
“Fear not luv, I’ll protect you from the wicked twins.” She said, falling into his lap at the piano bench.
He nuzzled her ear and said, “Yes, you and that mighty left hook.”
“Just be sure they don’t slip a canary cream into your food.”
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