salt is a weapon

letter to a friend: we're on a break!

2008-02-25T14:40:59Z

Hi guys,

I'm really sorry for completely vanishing the past month: There was a big upset in RL when school picked up again after winter break. It finally got resolved, for the better, but it set me back a couple crucial weeks, so I've been running around trying to stay caught up. Then I got slammed with written assignments for all my classes at the same time last week, so in short, the last thing I wanted to do was sit in front of a computer after sitting in front of a computer all day writing longass papers.

In light of midterms this week and the next, I just wanted to say I'll probably be gone for a while. To be honest, I was really dissatisfied with the grades I got in a couple classes last year. Mainly b/c I know I could've spent a lot more time studying instead of just going out w/ friends or bumming around online.

Anyway! See you guys in a month or so. I'll miss you, and hopefully I'll see you now and again on AIM?

Leila

recs + untitled draco/ginny fic

2008-01-10T14:45:45Z

Aww, remember the days when my entries consisted of linking you to places?

dgficexchange: Sign-ups start Sunday, January 13 and run for a week. ARE YOU READY?

Tonight Means Somewhere Far From here is this AWESOME mix sandi_wandi made from this prompt:

we're not alone but no one speaks English, so we're free
to look into each other's minds
and see what we're thinking like we always used to
i miss talking to you
- Harvey Danger, Private Helicopter

From The Darkness is a Prison Break fic from greyskygirl, non-compliant with S3's "Good Fences" episode. But it should be how the show turns out. Michael/Sara, NC17.

"He wouldn't want you to do this," he says flatly. "Hell, he wouldn't even want me to tell you about it." He is challenging her, Sara knows, waiting for her to latch onto the first flimsy excuse he presents.

Harry/Ginny art from itsbeenvery! Ginny is SO pretty.

Two things I was thinking about (haha because I only had 2 thoughts all day): 1) You never read about a fugly vampire. SHOW ME. 2) What fashion designer/clothing brand is considered all-American? Like, VERY American? Tommy? Is it because of the models/ads they use? Whyy?

Title: UNTITLED!
Ship: Draco/Ginny
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Chance meetings at the bar.
A/N: This is INCOMPLETE! I just keep adding scenes as I go along. 3 short scenes behind the cut. It's also really unedited.

She thought she recognized one of the patrons slumped at the counter. There was something about the color of the hair. Pulling her wraps off, she made her way to the bar.

“Butterbeer, please.” Butterbeer, she had learned, tasted consistently good in every country, and in her experience, Apparating or traveling by Portkey after a few drinks was not something she cared to repeat.

She dropped the requisite three Sickles on the counter and accepted her tankard. She took a large sip, wincing briefly as her tongue was scalded. She discreetly tried to confirm peripherally the identity of the man sitting on the stool beside her.

“I thought it was you,” she said in surprise.

Grey eyes focused on her face. “Yes?”

“Ginny Weasley,” she said, holding out her hand. “I was a year below you at Hogwarts.”

Draco Malfoy blinked, but that was the only visible reaction to her name. “Oh, yes. I remember you. Chaser.”

He shook her hand. His palms and fingers were cold and slightly sticky from the alcohol. She felt the calluses of Quidditch.

“Yeah, I was,” she beamed. When no response was forthcoming, she said, “So what are you doing here?”

“I have a meeting here.”

“Here?” She looked around the loud room.

“At the hotel I’m staying at, actually, but it’s not until later.”

“I never thought I’d meet you here.”

He shrugged, drank some more. “What are you doing here?”

“The lines at the Portkey and Apparation ports are backed up because of the holidays,” she said matter-of-factly. “It won’t be my turn for some time yet.”

She watched him turn the now empty tumbler around and around and then roll it back and forth across the bar, trapping it with his fingers.

“What do you do now?” she asked conversationally. “I work for the Ministry.”

“I’m not surprised,” he said without a trace of sarcasm. “I take care of the family business. Right now I’m handling the import/export division.” He straightened on the barstool and waved the bartender over for a refill of whiskey.

**

The next time she saw him, it was downstairs in a hotel bar in Rome. He recognized her, she could tell by the way his eyebrows lifted. She walked over to him.

“You again?” he said in greeting.

“Me again,” she agreed. “Another meeting?”

He made a sound of confirmation and checked his watch. She took a moment to observe him discreetly. He was dressed impeccably as before in an expensive dress robes, the knot of the tie loosened slightly so that she could see the pale throat. The glass on the bar looked like the same drink he’d had back in Berlin.

“You stay here often?” she asked amicably.

He shrugged. “It’s Zabini’s. He gets me a good room.”

“I’m waiting for someone,” she explained.

He seemed amused, but no more interested as he gave her a glancing look over, taking in the short cream dress and the heels that put her to within three inches of his height. “Nice,” he acknowledged. “Anyone I know?”

She folded her arms across her chest and said somewhat defensively, “It’s not Harry.”

He looked at her again, a warm appreciation shining faintly in his eyes. “I didn’t think it was,” he said quietly.

She flushed hot-cold and chose not to respond to the comment that sounded like a compliment. “I have to go.”

“So do I,” he said, straightening off the stool and swallowing the rest of his drink. Waving at the bartender, he asked for his tab and paid it. He gave her another study with dark grey eyes, this one longer and more lingering. “See you around, Weasley.”

**

It was back home in England when she saw him again, a couple months later. The pub was filled with patrons celebrating the outcome of the World Cup. She was squeezed into the corner booth, laughing through an alcoholic haze and a whole lot of cigarette smoke.

“Next rounds on me,” she called, and struggled to her feet, climbing over laps to extract herself from the booth.

She fought her way to the bar and ended up crammed between a bulky German and a…Draco Malfoy.

“Malfoy!” she exclaimed, tapping him on the arm.

He was nursing a tankard of what smelled like ale. “Weasley,” he greeted her cordially. “Nice night.”

“Yeah,” she said happily. She flagged down the bartender and requested another round of drinks before turning towards him again. “Did you catch the game?”

He shook his head. “I just Portkeyed in.” He nodded to the Wizarding Wireless blaring from the corner. “Sounds like it was a good game.”

“The best,” she agreed.

A surge of people behind her pushed her up against the bar. He reached out and caught her shoulder, pulling her slightly into him and away from the crush. Their elbows touched.

“Look, you want to come over? I’m sitting with some people from Hogwarts,” she offered.

He hesitated before answering. “No date tonight, Weasley?”

“No, just a group of us from school. You’ll find them all right.”

He relaxed, but shook his head. “Better not. I need to make an early morning. Thanks for the offer anyway, Ginny.”

She watched him leave, the pale blond head moving unhindered and unimpeded towards the door.

question

2008-01-07T03:27:15Z

Saw this from moreteadk and decided to take the test. I was averaging 97-98 wpm listening to Sarah McLachlan, but then my iTunes random hit Gym Class Heroes's "The Queen and I" and I hit my high of:

112 words

Touchtyping

Lesson: music that pumps you up also hypes up your fingers!

All my D/G people are following round 4 of dgficexchange, yes yes? Featuring layout by twinklepug, sign ups start in about a week!

So, also got a question for you: Which of your own fics/art are you most proud of? Follow-up: Which fic/art of yours do most readers like? Same fic, y/n? I was going to ask which one is your favorite, but that might not be the one you're most proud of :P (It isn't for me!) Feel free to link me!

I've been wondering this for a while. I have this theory that the one you're proud of isn't usually the one most people seem to like. Example: The Barest Hint of Lemon is the fic I'm still getting reviews for. But, for many reasons, it's not what I'd put up as my best work. It's not that I don't like it, it's just...not what I'm most proud of.

On a related note, without a doubt, my absolute WORST has to be this D/G I wrote in 2004 called "Love, Ginny." Oh my god. It was worse than some of the earlier BSB fics I wrote. Best thing ff.net ever did was wipe my account clean and destroy that fic. Except like a year later I found out streetscribbles saved it. And then her computer got wiped and I thought now it's truly gone. And then she told me she somehow recovered it. Love, Ginny: The Fic That Just Wouldn't Die. Morbid fascination compelled me to ask her to send me the fic, to see if it was as bad as I remembered. It was so much more than that, I cannot say. For a while, before she sent it to me, I was debating whether I should put it up as a "how far I've come" thing, but for the good of all, that thing will never be up for public viewing.

layout blather + fandom + random + LIFE!

2007-12-10T23:34:13Z

New layout! I was going to change the colors from the default pink and black, but I think I'll let 'em stay for now. Will also fix up header later. (B, are you thinking of a certain love letter? ;D)

I've been talking to jandjsalmon about the dgficexchange, and I'm thinking I'll help mod the spring exchange! Exciting stuff.

A friend sent this to me, and I'm sharing it b/c I think it's pretty neat, and kind of funny: How to Read a Person Like a Book!

I had Chinese over the weekend and came up with these 2 fortunes from my fortune cookies:

Energy spent now preparing for tomorrow is sure to bear tasty fruit,

Finish your works on hand. Don't be greedy.

In light of it being FINALS WEEK this week and the next, I find them very apt. B/c not only did I not study over the weekend, but I started writing new fic for fun instead. ALWAYS! Always when I have finals/papers, I write other crap instead. And I'm like...2/3s done with a fic. And 0/5 pages done on my final piece. And I have 2 finals on Tuesday and Wednesday. O JOY TO THE WORLD.

Also I saw The Golden Compass this weekend. It was enjoyable! I rate 6/10. Excellent acting in The Golden Compass + fantastic effects - editing/plot :( Still, it was entertaining. I think I just didn't expect much; I have low expectations when it comes to good book --> movie.

i want a dracobird to hug

2007-07-03T19:44:11Z

itsbeenvery drew me Dracobird + Draco/Ginny art!!! D/G fans, we're so very lucky. It's fabulous and I won't spoil the surprise so just go see!

There is a MAKE-HAPPY COMMISSION MEME going on and PARTICIPATE! That is how the Dracobird came to LIFE.

There are some Grey's Anatomy fans on my flist, and I'm happy to (belatedly) pimp greys_exchange, which is a gift to tide you all over during the summer break.

Okay so I was more or less offline for 1-2 weeks and it's like I missed all this great stuff. I get 25 entries a page on my flist and after going back like 4 pages I got hungry and stopped. (eating: a Costco hotdog ♥) So if I missed anything plz tell me!

Also, I didn't pre-order book 7 mainly because I currently don't have a confirmed address or anything. Is going out and buying it day of going to be a problem? Yes/No? I remember for book 6, a friend gave it to me. Book 5, I got from Costco, I'm pretty sure, but I don't remmeber if that was day of. Book 4 a friend got (don't know how) and I just read it in one sitting. Book 3 was from a family member long after it had come out and it was the first Harry Potter book I ever read.

I watched Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer. I like the Silver Surfer b/c he's really cool and has got a melt-y looking physique and was more or less spared the HORRIBLE DIALOGUE.

Also, I added an epilogue to Returning to London aka the bird flu fic :P Anyway it weels a little more rounded now I HOPE!

OKAY and now I'm going to make pasta for lunch! Must go mince garlic/onions/tomatoes and chop those mushrooms! Ya that's right. Costco hotdog for breakfast and awesome spaghetti for lunch in less than 2 hours. AWESOME! Except the last time I sliced and diced onions I got onionjuice in my right eye and it burned like NOTHING.

random recs

2007-06-15T06:04:01Z

I keep meaning to rec this: The ABC's of Demon Hunting (art) by gnatkip. Best. Damn. Thing. And it became a FONT, TOO! More here at gnatkip's Supernatural fanart gallery.

Also, I pulled this from misconstrue's recs/bookmarks ages ago and found it again today! See: Hot Library Smut, or, sex libris

Lastly: The Hype Machine, which tracks down the uploaded mp3s on a bunch of music blogs. Great for discovering new artists or songs.

Speaking of songs, what I've been listenign to lately:

Aerosmith - What It Takes
Backstreet Boys - Helpless When She Smiles
Calexico - All Systems Red (acoustic)
Devics - Song for a Sleeping Girl
Explosions in the Sky - Your Hand in Mine (Goodbye) [.m4a]

More alphabet uploads tomorrow 'cause it's REALLY HOT and I can't stand just sitting.

I keep rereading the first 6 Harry Potter books (except for book 2 because...I don't know what happened to that one, haven't seen it in years and I'm starting to think I never owned it) and I can't aughhh wait to read book 7. So absolute last thing: FIA is running a Deathly Hallows Theory contest with super cool prizes.

Fic: "Guns Up" (1/2)

2007-03-24T19:41:06Z

Title: Guns Up (1/2)
Ship: Sarkney
Rating: R
Summary: There's this saying: the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
A/N: This is supposed to be a standalone one-shot, but I took a break and a second part was writen anyway, which is almost done. Anyway, this "one-shot" is broken up into 2 parts because...I'm not done yet but it came to a natural break and also I have to go out and get medicine so I thought I'd just post it first.

The noisy jangle of keys doesn’t stir her. She is so tired that it is only something discordant that is disturbing her from sleeping. She keeps her eyes closed. They do this a lot at random intervals to jar her, keep her uptight and on the edge so that she’s unable to unwind. Knocking her unbalanced, keeping her senses off-kilter. They have been doing this more frequently because the sessions are not going well.

The voice is from another life. She has heard many accents in her life, German, different Chinese dialects from different regions, Mexican-Spanish and Argentinean-Spanish, Russian. British English, of course, Cockney, Londoners, Sheffield. However, his boarding school-bred accent is strangely unusual and creepy in that it didn’t originate from any one country, like it was built instead on snobbery and elitism. The enunciation, the careful precision, the meticulous diligence attended to his words, is a memory just beneath the shiver-rippple-surface of her mind. It’s a voice you want to listen to. Remote, confident, neutral, smooth, but not in a slick way, his speaking was metered, even, and emotion was in subtle degrees. The equivocalness of his speech, the way everything he says can be interpreted two different ways is an enviable, albeit at times annoying, talent.

His voice is out of place here, and it wasn’t just the English she hasn’t heard in a long time. At the same time, she supposed it make a sort of sick sense. With effort, she opens her eyes and her lips move. She wants to tell him to stop that, stop it, she’s so tired, she’s just so tired…

“Wouldn’t you like to come out to play?”

She raises her head. She mouths his name soundlessly.

Sark only smiles in response, and shakes the keys in her face again.

***

Sark is swearing at her.

She is underwater.

Move, dammit, move!

She is underwater, sluggish and floating at the same time. Drifting past the dim rooms and dark cells peacefully, following Sark docilely. She doesn’t follow him because of blind faith; she trails slowly after him because he told her to. Sark is familiar, he isn’t faceless. She is glad that she does not have to think. She is glad that Sark is thinking, moving ahead, strafing with his gun, although the sound is too loud in her ears, drumming too deeply into her head. Sark is capable. He has a handle on this situation.

Her bare feet step in something sticky, and she chances a slow look down. Blood. They continue on. Sark running ahead, Sydney sailing along in the tow.

Sark’s fingers are clamped tightly around her wrist, his thumb on a pressure point but not exerting any force on it. He drags her along and then pushes her ahead of him, yanking at her arm hard when she stumbles. She sucks at the inside of her cheek in reaction.

She sees the gun before Sark does, but she cannot react. Sark’s attention is diverted by fire from behind them, almost too late he notices the guard ahead. He shoves her against the wall out of his way with one hand; he squeezes the trigger hard, twice, and the threat is eliminated.

“We’re ready for extraction. ETA 2 minutes,” Sark is saying raggedly into his cell phone, pressed hard by the gunfire in pursuit.

She sinks down against the wall, feeling the bullet-ridden plaster behind her head. By the indentions, the unevenness of the wall, she counts at least three bullet holes.

Sark looks down at her in disgust and opens his palm, and drops a stream of shell casings in a steady sound of plinkplinkplinkplink as they hit the floor.

***

Sark’s hotel room view is magnificent, worth whatever exorbitant price he’s paying. She stares at the city lights and the lit walkways connecting each high-rise building. She knows she’s been here before, but she’s not sure where it is…the cities start looking alike, after a while, Rome and Hong Kong and Chicago. The cities all have an undercurrent. She stares at the pinprick electric lights and starts slipping under. The night is inky, the light planetary and cool, blue-purple like the bruise on the underside of her arm, flowering out from her elbow.

Sark hangs up the phone and watches her reflection in the black window for a moment.

“I suggest you get in the shower,” he commands. “You’ve acquired a distinctly unpleasant odor.”

She moves too slowly for his liking, so he helps her by yanking her shirt over her head and dropping it unceremoniously to the floor. When his hands fall to the waistband of her pants, something in her stirs and she jerks back and slaps his hands away. She has never resorted to slapping someone before to make them stop. It’s a civilian instinct that everyone has. She’s been trained better than that.

“I can do it,” she snarls irritably instead of don’t touch me, and Sark smiles like he’s won something. She doesn’t cover herself, and he doesn’t look as he leaves.

There’s dirt and other things beneath her fingernails. The water turns tepid and then just wet and cold before all the dark gray and brown washes off her skin, muddying the water into the same color the water would run when she washed her paintbrush and palate after painting—just inky black and thick, smokestack gray. When she was a child. When her mother was there.

She smells like one bottle of hotel shampoo and two flat cakes of complimentary soap when she steps out of the tub wrapped in the soft terrycloth robe that feels like the best silk kimono. Sark is kneeling by the mini-fridge, and he pauses briefly to eye her with consideration before continuing to go through the contents of the mini-fridge.

“Here,” he announces, dropping a can of Heineken on the mattress. “Temporary cold compress.” He motions at her face. “To keep the swelling down. Someone will bring up an icepack.”

She rolls the aluminum can down the side of her face slowly. The iciness and condensation soothes, water dripping down onto her terrycloth robe. Her hands hurt, and upon examination, she realizes that her knuckles are raw pink-red.

“You’re not hungry?” Sark asks.

She suddenly realizes that she smells food. Her eyes flick to the silver tray and white tablecloth covered cart, with the bone china bowl and bottle of red standing beside it.

“Yes,” she says. “I’m hungry.”

***

The soup is for her. The wine is for him.

“Where are we?”

“Hong Kong.”

“How did you find me?”

“I make it a point to know useful information.” Sark plays idly with the dessert knife. It flashes in her eyes when the blade catches the light of the lamp behind her. Her hand in her lap clenches like an uncontrollable muscle jerk. He makes her nervous, the knifeplay in his skilled hand sets her on edge. The spoon in her hand shakes subtly, and the soup shivers in the silver.

She controls her reaction. Concentrates on the soup. It is light and clear. Retunes herself to him, asks, “Why?”

He pours a shallow amount in his wineglass and wets his lips in lieu of an answer. He appears to concentrate only on his drink, appreciative and clearly enjoying it, but not worshipful. His blue eyes do not cloud over with alcohol. He is in control.

“You have many people looking for you,” he states matter-of-factly.

“What do you want?”

“Do you feel sympathy to your captors?” Sark inquires.

She might have rolled her eyes at his obvious stalling tactic in the past and shot back a caustic remark, but right now she can only function on the most basic level and doesn’t bother answering.

“I didn’t think so. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think I’m mistaken when I say you wouldn’t turn down the chance for retribution?”

Right now, she just wants to sleep. Sark hadn’t let her sleep in the van. In fact, he had twisted her arm sharply, forcing out gasp of pain and demanded that she stay awake. She glares at him.

“Sydney,” Sark reminds gently.

Sydney flinches. She babbles, “Your motive. It’s this. You want me to kill them. This is why.”

Sark shrugs, a lift and drop of the shoulder that says he does things that serve his purpose. She gets nothing else from him.

***

She wakes up during the night, her body shuddering abruptly awake. It isn’t a myoclonic jerk or anything natural like that; she has become used to half-sleeping with the fear of something falling loudly near her head, or a sudden burst of pain somewhere else on her body. It’s a conditioning that has become instinctive reflex.

It is a brief waking. The glow of the flat-screen television illuminates little, BBC is muted, and the lamplight on the desk is barely there, too. Sark is watching her with dark eyes, his body still, lax in the leather seat, and she is aware then that she had fallen asleep to the sound of his fingers tapping smoothly on his laptop. He has paused briefly, apparently having noticed her movement.

She looks back at him, the side of her face pillowed on the mattress; the soft pillow had been too soft. Her hair is in her eyes, and he says nothing, so she closes her eyes again.

***

The second time she wakes up, it is to roll over and retch over the side of the bed. The taste of the soup is in her nose and mouth. Her throat feels splintered and sandpapery.

Sark presses a wet towel to her forehead; he smoothes back her hair as she shakes and shakes, every shudder a violent recoil he absorbs with his body. He sits on the bed beside her, the weight dipping the mattress slightly so she leans against his leg, panting over the bed edge.

“Is this fair, Sydney?” he murmurs, wiping her mouth. “Don’t you want to balance the equation? I’m only proposing an alliance. We share mutual interests, you and I.”

She knows what he’s trying to do. He’s so good. He tells her what she wants to hear, and he does it so well, his voice so mild and understanding, his touch so gentle and lingering. He’s a master at talking to people.

***

Sark insists that she take another shower in the morning.

The sun bakes her legs by the time she wakes up again, sweat cooled on her skin from the air-conditioning, her mouth cottony and dry. Her muscles are sore without even being used, and she feels stiff and heavy. The clock on the nightstand says it is near three in the afternoon. Sark is still working at the desk, although this time he appears to be examining some satellite pictures. She can’t be sure. She can’t be bothered to know.

“Good morning,” Sark greets, closing his laptop screen. Apparently, he can be bothered to maintain the old habits. “You need a shower, Sydney dear.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” she answers without much feeling. She won’t pass up a shower just to spite him.

“I’ll send for lunch once you’re in. The lunch special is mushroom risotto.” He adds politely although they both know it’s only a formality, “if you have no objections.”

She ignores him and concentrates on making her way to the bathroom without falling. He doesn’t approach her; he returns to what he was doing.

“Sydney.”

She stops at the door to the bathroom.

“After your lunch, I promise to be forthcoming.”

The shower feels good, even better than the tub. She rolls her shoulders back beneath the pulsing jets of water and breathes in the heavy steam. She takes the time to make an impersonal examination of her body. There’s tendon damage in her leg, and the muscle of her left arm has been pulled. She remembers an unyielding pressure on the arm, bending it back. There are bruises in indiscriminate places, a few of them are superficial, some of them are old and fading, others are newer, more colorful.

She wonders where everyone is. As the water massages her back, she wonders who has been looking for her, and where. And how could they have missed her, and how could Sark find her. She hasn’t seen anyone in the real world for a long time, and she feels like she is the last person on earth; it’s just her and Sark.

The shower makes the underwater-fever goes away, and when she finally steps out, she feels balanced. Sharp. Game on.

Sark has ordered a side dish of vegetarian spring rolls to go with the risotto. The savory food is almost too rich, the taste too heavy and seasoned, too pronounced on her tongue. She sits on the edge of the bed and concentrates on eating.

“I took the liberty of ordering some clothes for you. As fetching as that robe is, it’s best we keep your presence discreet.”

She barely glances at them. “Talk, Sark.”

“Very well.” He asks brusquely, “Do you know what happened to you?”

A mission gone wrong in the wrong country.

“A silo.”

He nods approvingly. “A routine assignment, information retrieval. You were apprehended by a rogue militarist group that calls themselves the Nexus. They specialize in munitions trade, but recently they’ve made the transition to biochemical weapons. They move their base of operations every few months. They don’t do contractual work. Per employer, they do one job every two years. Potential customers put out word; the Nexus finds them and offer their services, if they find the job to their liking.”

“So they’re mercenaries.” She pronounces this with relief. She knows mercenaries. They’re the same. Selfish, expendable, concerned only with self-survival. They rarely think for themselves, rarely take on projects that haven’t been assigned to them.

Sark looks like he knows what she’s thinking. He corrects, “A very selective and organized group of mercenaries.”

Maybe the question isn’t how could Sark find her. Sark has always found her. He has run interference with all the affiliations she has tied herself to in the past; she is never quite sure when he will make an appearance or not. He has passed in and out of her life so many times. Anyway, it is something to consider.

***

Sark has a good eye.

It makes sense—so does she. She can look at a man and know how tall he is within a inch, she can estimate how far down it is from any point. She has that kind of eye, trained to make naked-eye measurements that are accurate and precise.

But Sark is really good. The clothes laid out for her on the bed complement her body as though it had been tailored to fit, and so do the undergarments. This, she thinks dispassionately, says a lot about Sark.

She starts to cry, the still, soundless kind of weeping when she fastens her bra. Reaching back awkwardly strains her shoulders, her arm, feels like the wound is breaking open again, and the simple act brings memories not quite fully compartmentalized. She washes her face, schools the muscles into control. It takes time.

“I’ve already checked us out of the hotel,” Sark says when she finishes changing. Is it just her, or did his eyes gleam from seeing that his selection was a perfect choice?

“Why?”

“Because,” he says impatiently as though she were a child, “It’s not in our best interests to remain in the same place for too long.”

“I don’t owe you,” she tells him coldly.

Her body is tense, ready, prepared. She can take him on. She knows she can beat him. The opportunity to best each other in a physical fight, body against body, never really came up. He always managed to make a getaway, or else something would interfere. But she is relishing a fight. She wants the sweat, the blood flowing in her head, mouth, veins. She can taste the grunts and thud of impact, the whoosh of breath. She’s tense, ready, prepared. She doesn’t show any visible signs of it. Her hands remain lax at her sides, her body still uncoiled, but the tension is there in her breath. She feels her muscles knot just a bit, and the response is a twinge of pain she welcomes in anticipation. He won’t like the rejection. He’ll fight her. They’re in a small room. There’s no escape.

Sark only looks at her. It’s a look that says everything. I uncaged you, it says. I have opened doors for you. I have killed for you. You owe me.

“Do you have ties to someone else?” he inquires reasonably. “Do you feel some sort of obligation to someone else?”

She thinks, Francie Will Vaughn Dad Mom me me me. She doesn’t owe him.

“I have a plane waiting. My pilot has filed a flight plan to Geneva, but a change could be arranged, should you want it.”

“What’s in Geneva?” She can’t help herself.

Sark smiles at her. It says, I will unleash you. “I have a private hospital in Geneva.”

She remembers: the hospital, the infected patient, Vaughn, Japan. Her lip curls. “A business front,” she quotes.

He shrugs delicately. “I believe you could use the facility to recover.”

This is a reasonable suggestion. He has the money, the means. She needs time. She can use him without guilt. She can compartmentalize her aversion to him and what he is because what he says is rational. She won’t let anger get in the way of doing what makes sense.

“Fine,” she says brusquely. “I’ll go to Geneva with you.”

part 2/2 will kept posted soonish! Just need to finish the end.

So highlights of the past week or so: had a great time, which naturally leads to getting sick because of late hours outside. Also, the weather kept changing from hot to cold. Anyway, I got sick as anything and it sucks! I have so much CRAP to do that's just not worthwhile at all, and I feel really despondant about it but it may just be the fever talking.

If anyone has Without You Here by the Goo Goo Dolls can you upload it for me? I've never heard it before today. Thank you!

Fic: "The Absence" (2/2)

2006-11-20T01:52:57Z

Fic: "The Absence" (1/2)

2006-11-20T01:52:40Z

Title: The Absence
Ship: Draco/Hermione
Rating: R
Summary: It all begins when Draco is declared insane.
A/N: Two years ago, I promised (probably in exchange for some Orlando/Leila fic) onecrimsontie a D/Hr fic. So, for onecrimsontie--for international phone calls and cheer packages, everything in between.

Big thank you to streetscribbles for reading this monster and brainstorming titles with me :D It's been a long, painful process. Thank you for helping me with it!

Hello
Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me.
~ Comfortably Numb, Pink Floyd

Hermione doesn’t understand why Draco Malfoy isn’t sent to St. Mungo’s. Just because they don’t know what’s wrong with him—well, they do, that seems rather obvious, it’s more like they don’t know the cause—or the fact that he’s the son of known Death Eaters surely doesn’t mean they wouldn’t admit him.

Granted, paranoia is very much the feeling in the air right now. People are very suspicious of Purebloods with a long lineage. Old prejudices have resurfaced, and it is entirely probable that he has been refused help because of who his parents are, condemned by the very blood he valued so much. Still, it doesn’t seem right, or fair.

New travels fast: within a day, beginning four minutes after Terry Boot leaves the hospital wing without the toothache he had gone in with, passes the library and sees the first student he happens across, it starts. The wildfire has caught the dry grass.

Draco Malfoy is crazy.

No one went to see him, as far as she knew. Many students gossiped, but for the most part he had died, or rather, ceased to be. Apparently, many of them were under the impression that it was contagious.

The loss of his mind seems to mean the loss of humanness. Hermione has seen a few students pantomiming what they clearly think is the behavior of a lunatic to the jeers and laughter of their peers—lolling tongues, drool, and crossed and rolling eyes.

She suspects that Harry lost his temper in Potions on purpose, that he had been waiting for Snape to provoke him so he could run his mouth off because Snape has always been liberal in giving Harry detentions for even the most minor infractions. Harry isn’t famous for his self-control. No suspicions would be aroused; it is the perfect cover.

When Harry informs them at lunch that Filch has assigned him to clean the bedpans without magic, there’s something unsaid and furtive in his voice, and he blinks and gulps down his food to avoid any questions and in his haste, almost gags on a piece of chicken. There’s subterfuge in his eyes.

That night, Hermione stares at page 287 in Healing Herbcraft for an hour before she stands up, the book sliding from her lap to the floor, landing with a soft plot of bending pages on the thick carpet. The boys in Harry’s dorm are engaged in a heated discussion about what will happen to the Quidditch game, how the points are going to be awarded, and she runs upstairs unnoticed.

Harry never locks anything, but she’s brought her wand just in case. He’s made it easy for her though; the Invisibility cloak, silky, cool, and sleek, is lying right on top of everything in his trunk, and it blossoms out, pooling in her hands. Its absence from the trunk disturbs a few other objects: Harry’s socks that she guesses were from Dobby, his broom-maintenance kit, and pieces and small splinters of a broken mirror.

The cloak swishes close as she draws it around her, and the material is so lightweight that she feels colder with it on than without it.

She passes through the double doors of the hospital wing. The moonlight pours forth through the windows at the head of each bed on the right of the large room, and each bed gleams with bright whiteness. It’s beautiful how white the beds are. Each bed is severely tucked down, not a wrinkle in the sheets, not a shadow of a dent in the feathered pillows, shining. There is snow drift piling up outside on each windowsill. The hospital wing is filled with a cold, planetary light, and she breathes in for a moment, enjoying the smell of cleanness and freshness, Muggle hospitals with antiseptic and bacterial sprays and latex a very distant memory.

There’s a muted light on in Madam Pomfrey’s office, and she spots Harry dutifully wiping out a bedpan. Occasionally his eyes dart to the only private screen that is drawn up fully around the bed, but for the most part he keeps his eyes lowered, scrubbing halfheartedly at the bedpan, a chastened student doing his detention. Hermione wants to whisper to him that she’s there, but she doesn’t and she’ll never know why she didn’t.

She almost trips over a small footstool but catches herself, freezing in an awkward pose with her leg back and her arms flung out to grab at the nearest bed, cringing all the while and her eyes flying to Harry, who doesn’t notice a thing.

The back of her neck hot, she concentrates on stealth as she eases the partition open a bit, checking back at Harry and Madam Pomfrey briefly. She’s all right; she takes a moment to steady herself, darting a nervous glance at Harry again before composing herself. She slips past the screen and is on the other side.

Draco Malfoy is lying on the bed, and she almost loses all composure in a scream but catches herself, breath whistling sharply through her mouth because his eyes are open and he’s staring at the spot where she’s standing, concealed by the Invisibility Cloak. No, not at her, just at a point past her shoulder.

But he’s not moving, just staring, and nothing else. Nothing changes in his eyes. Her breathing evens, and then catches again as she watches him. He’s lying in a bed with sheets perfectly tucked around him, pulled up high, an inch away from the base of his throat. He is paler than usual, and even though he looks emaciated, thinner, gray in his wan face, red at the corners of his eyes, he seems lovelier, almost in an effeminate way. It’s the way he appears fragile. His sharp features, the jaw, the patrician nose, made even more pointed when he narrows his eyes and flattens his lips in a smirk, have been taken away by what keeps him in this bed.

Pressing a shaking hand to her mouth, she moves closer to Malfoy. She moves so close that she can see the pulse at his throat. His breathing is quiet and not labored. There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with him other than the physical signs of a tired, hungry body. Other than that he seems all right.

Hermione studies the faint blue veins, the paperthin lids, the soft skin at his temples. Just as she’s stretching out a hand, Harry appears, edging around the screen without so much as a sign of disturbance.

In her haste to get away from him, Hermione bumps backwards into a corner of the screen. Harry is pressing forward, gaping at Malfoy and doesn’t notice. Clearly, whatever Harry meant to find, it wasn’t Malfoy lying like this, thin and pale enough to see bone.

“Malfoy,” Harry tries, testing the waters as he moves around to stand at the foot of the bed.

Hermione steps back again, edging to the side some more, but Harry continues to move forward until they face each other on either side of the bed. They both look down at Malfoy.

“Malfoy,” Harry whispers again, and the way he says it is a wave of his hand in front of the bedridden boy’s eyes, uncertain and tentative.

Malfoy doesn’t stir, of course, he just stares, unseeingly, or maybe seeing something past the screen, the hospital wing, the walls of Hogwarts.

Harry shifts uncomfortably.

They stand on opposite sides of the bed, quiet and subdued. She leaves when Harry does, and when she looks back at Malfoy, she makes the conscious decision to come back and stay a little while longer.

***

Students have more to gossip about the next day.

“I think he’s finally lost it,” says Susan Bones in hushed tones in the Charms corridor as they walk back from Herbology.

“Completely around the bend,” Ernie Macmillan murmurs in knowing agreement. “I had to deliver a note to Madam Pomfrey, and Dumbledore and Snape were there.”

“What was Snape doing?” Harry wants to know.

“From what I’ve heard, he’s been pouring potions down Malfoy’s throat, but he doesn’t seem to change,” Ernie confides. “I heard Snape’s really forcing Malfoy to take these remedial potions, for some reason, Malfoy doesn’t want them.”

“I think he’s faking it,” Ron voices. “Trying to get out of the tests, maybe…”

“I don’t think so,” Ernie dismisses this notion, and interjects self-importantly, “I watched him when Madam Pomfrey was in her office. He just stared at the ceiling. I watched him for five minutes; he didn’t even blink once.”

“Do they know what’s wrong with him?” Dean Thomas asks curiously, part of another group passing by and slowing down at this discussion, eager to hear more.

Everyone looks expectantly at Ernie, who has been there and seen the invalid.

“Well…no.” As though he couldn’t bear the disappointed and unsatisfied looks around him, he adds quickly, “But I heard Dumbledore say that he was truly non compos mentis.”

Hermione glances away quickly. Everyone absorbs this silently.

At night, twilight time, Hermione goes back. She does without Harry’s Invisibility Cloak this time because she’s prepared an excuse for Madam Pomfrey. But she happened to know that the school nurse liked to take a drink at this time with Sprout and McGonagall in the staff room.

Malfoy is half-reclined, half sitting up in the bed, a book propped up in his lap.

“I knew it,” Hermione breathes quietly. “I knew you were only pretending.”

***

He slams the book shut.

“You can’t complain, can you, because then they’d know you’re not crazy,” she declares triumphantly.

“Why do you force your repulsive presence on people who don’t want it?” he retorts, glaring hatefully at her.

There’s a sinister current running through the air between them.

“What I don’t understand is why you’re doing this,” she said. “People are saying it’s because of the war.”

“Mudblood, Mudblood, Mudblood,” Draco chants, his eyes fixed on her.

“Malfoy, shut up,” Hermione snarls, advancing on him. “I know you’re faking—”

“MUDBLOOD!” Draco screams at the top of his lungs.

She forces the slur not to matter. It hadn’t mattered before, not the first time he said it when she had understood it to be something truly awful, and yet it was his word, not a word in her dictionary and so it hadn’t mattered. For some reason, it does now. Maybe it’s because she knows its definition. It is part of her vocabulary.

“Silencio,” Hermione snaps, aiming her wand at him.

Draco continues howling at her, but the insult has been muted. He’s sitting on the bed, fists clenched, chest heaving, his face red.

Hermione glances hastily around the partition. Unfortunately, she can hear footsteps hurrying down the long corridor. She frantically withdraws the spell from Malfoy, who seems to be louder than before, and runs out of the Hospital Wing, hearing his screams echo down the hallway after her.

***

“Miss Granger,” says Snape after Advanced Potions, his voice sour and deriding, halting her hasty exit, “I assume you’re going to visit Mr. Potter in the hospital wing.” At her uncomprehending nod, he pushes a small stack of books across his desk. “Then would you be kind enough to bring these books up to Mr. Malfoy.” It is not a question.

The question leaps off her tongue before she thinks. “Is he awake?”

Snape looks at her coldly. “To my knowledge, Mr. Malfoy is usually awake and it is a question of whether he is cognizant or not, but I fail to see how the private, personal issue of another student is any of your concern.”

Does Snape know? “Then what are the books for?”

“Ms. Granger, you are in danger of yet again not minding your own business,” Snape warns, glaring at her. “Five points from Gryffindor for questioning a teacher.”

She takes the books and leaves.

Ron is craning his neck wildly, attempting to catch a glimpse of Malfoy, but he subsides when Hermione sits down on the other side of Harry’s bed, blocking his view.

“Weird, isn’t it, that Malfoy’s just over there?” Ron comments. “I never thought…” He lapses into silence again, avoids Hermione’s eyes, and glances out the window.

Harry eyes the books she’s carrying. “Are those for me, Hermione?”

“No, for Malfoy. Snape asked me to bring them up.”

Harry frowns, and she is sure he is remembering what Malfoy was like, alone at night, just staring. Thankfully, he doesn’t ask any questions.

She sets the books aside and turns her attention to Harry, who took a bludger to the back in Quidditch practice.

“Hermione,” Harry says awkwardly, wincing as she hovers over him, “Really, I’m fine. You don’t have to…”

“Shut up,” Ron mutters under his breath. “Just play along…let her mother you.”

As they’re distracted with furtive whispers they think she can’t hear, Hermione sneaks another glance at the other occupied bed in the otherwise empty hospital wing. The screen is still pulled around the bed, and inside the protective space, she sees the silhouettes of Madame Pomfrey and Dumbledore, standing beside the bed, conferring in low, discreet voices.

The next day, Hermione goes to Madam Pomfrey and makes a formal request to assist in the hospital ward. Hermione is interested in studying as a Mediwizard in the future, and could she please familiarize herself in the actual setting of a hospital ward?

Madam Pomfrey is only too glad to have the help of such a reliable, clever witch and consents immediately.

***

Hermione casts a charm around the space within the screen before he speaks. There, he can scream as loudly as he wants to, she tells him.

“Get out of here,” Draco hisses venomously. “Don’t contaminate me.”

“From what I hear, I’m the one who should be afraid of catching something foul,” says Hermione coolly. “Tell them you’re not crazy.”

“This isn’t any of your business!” Draco explodes. “Stop meddling!”

“Tell them,” Hermione snaps, her wand gripped tightly in her sweaty hand.

“I am crazy,” he snarls. “I’m gone. There’s nothing here.” He gestures wildly at his head, and the twisted, jeering smile he wears is ugly.

It scares her, but she doesn’t let it show. “No, you’re pretending—”

“It comes and goes,” Draco interrupts, and he is wearing the most hateful expression she has seen from him. “Sometimes I’m fine, and sometimes I’m eight years old. I know. When I’m fine, Madam Pomfrey and Snape still talk to me like I’m crazy before they realize I’m not anymore. So who are you to tell me about myself, you stupid Mudblood.” He’s so angry he’s spitting.

She tries desperately to defuse the situation, but it is another major blunder. “Is this about the war? It’s clever and effective, pretending to be so insane that you’re bedridden. You don’t have to be afraid, Draco, there’s people who can help you—”

He has been glaring at her with immense derision and dislike, and at this, his eyes widen and he spits, “I’m not scared.”

She laughs at how obvious he is, and he colors, cheeks flushing a deep red that looks unattractive in his pale face.

“I’ve nothing to be afraid of,” he says scornfully. “It’s you who should be afraid. There’s going to be a new world, and there’s no place for your kind in it.”

“You’re racist.”

“Yeah, what of it? I believe we are the better kind. Stronger, smarter…”

“You’re the leper.” She glares at him, breathing hard. “People like you should be locked up where they can’t contaminate everyone else with your foul, ridiculous, ludicrous ideas…”

This time, he laughs a short, hoarse sound of disbelief in her face. “Did you just plagiarize my words, Granger? Because that’s odd, innit, that’s what I said of you. It’s what I’ve been saying for years. Typical. You’ve never had an original idea in your life.”

What he says hurts. She supposes, that after trying so many times, the odds are that he has to get it right eventually, has to hit the spot that would just render her speechless and without refutation. She’s defenseless, and he’s relentless.

“You think you’re better than I am…you think you’re smarter than I am, better, and that I don’t think for myself. And you look down on me for it.”

“That’s rich,” she chokes out, “That I don’t think for myself.”

“You think I’m a bully,” Draco continues in his feverish outburst, overriding her voice, “but what the bloody fuck do you think you are when you rush to answer every single question in class, and then outside of classes, when in normal, real people conversations, you act like you just can’t believe it when someone hasn’t read the same boring book you have that’s full of pointless trivia that you just toss out to show that you know something they don’t. I’ve heard you,” he accuses viciously with relish, “talking that way to Potter and Weasel, so don’t deny it. You patronize them for not knowing something obscure and POINTLESS. I don’t know how they put up with you, I really don’t. Face it, Granger, you are not the opposite of me.” Draco looks like he wants to hit her, or throw something sharp and heavy at her. “I’m not your antithesis, far from it. You’re blind, dumb, and ignorant. Face it.”

She can’t believe he sees her that way. She could tell him what she sees of him and his future—nothingness, not even a footnote in history textbooks about Harry Potter. She could tell him that she sees him as petty, spoiled, coward, stupid, not even second best, not even considered worthy competition, lying here, pathetic and weak, weak, weak.

“You want to know when I’m crazy? You want to know when I’m not pretending?” His chest heaves, and he leans forward, fists bunched tight, body taut, muscles stressed, and he says in a harsh whisper, “It’s when I can tolerate you.” He smiles with satisfaction. “That’s right. It’s when I can stand to have you in the same room as me and not want to strangle you. I know the curse for it, my aunt taught it to me. She said it would be a useful spell, one of the most entertaining ones. ‘If you don’t want to get their dirty blood on you,’ she said. You make them strangle themselves, they’ll even bleed from the eyes sometimes if you do it right.”

Hermione gasps, and she’s scared. She’s never been so scared that she’s at a loss, not since first year when she panicked in face of the very real Devil’s Snare. Her wand is slack, dangling from limp fingers. She’s afraid because she’s choking, she can’t force enough air into her lungs, and the oxygen that she does get is so cold and sharp it feels like her lungs and throat are being cut to ribbons from glass inside her. She’s scared because for a long moment, she thinks Draco Malfoy has just done as he told her: he’s strangling her to death. Her hands fly to her throat, and she realizes that he hasn’t done anything, that she’s not being murdered, and that it was all just her imagination.

“Get out of here,” Draco snarls, turning his face away from her.

***

He is not a lost boy, Hermione reminds herself as she steals back to Gryffindor Tower in the early non-hours. Draco Malfoy is not a project you can fix. He doesn’t want pity. He doesn’t even really want attention anymore.

Hermione realizes that it isn’t quite sympathy that draws her back to the hospital wing every night. She feels curiosity churning in her stomach, digging deeper into her mind, and when she closes her eyes tiredly in her bed and sees him behind her eyelids, she knows what it is. The need to know, to understand has wormed into her; she recognizes it and turns over onto her side towards the window and away from the other slumbering occupants in the room. Her pillow becomes wet and her face cold because she’s just lost herself to the need to know the truth.

***

She thinks she can see the madness in his eyes, the loss of reason.

She has never understood him. How could someone think like that, after all? His racism she had reasoned away as jealousy that she was far more talented and smarter than he, or else it could have been explained by his upbringing; he had been conditioned to “think” that way, to behave so mindlessly. His hatred of her had made sense only in a forced formulaic way, in a way that it was expected, and normal for him to hate her. But she had never understood the cause.

Now she can see that it was really crazy because the crazy people never knew or would admit they were crazy; they clung to denial that was impenetrable. He was impervious to reason.

Now she can see the madness, it is obvious. It’s there in his eyes. Delirium. It manifests in so many little signs. But most of all, it is as he said—sometimes he can tolerate her, other times he is consumed by his hatred for her. She has learned to identify those times and to excuse herself from working in the infirmary.

She doesn’t think he’s faking it. Vomiting, seizing up, his fits…He’s not strong enough for that. She cannot believe that he would allow his dignity to be so trampled. Draco Malfoy is not strong enough to fake this. He’s a coward, a weakling—he likes to play at being the leader, but he’s really a follower. The opposite of Harry, who resents attention and leadership, but accepts it anyway because is comes naturally to him, just as Draco Malfoy has always been naturally inclined to seek attention and status, gravitating towards others like him. Pride is everything.

The times when he doesn’t seem to mind her, she brings him books, discusses the philosophy of magic with him, the anatomy of a spell, the composition of a wand. The war feels very distant from her, for the both of them.

***

“A first year’s parents were killed,” says Hermione, her eyes and mind faraway. “He couldn’t stop crying and screaming. I heard him, when I walked past McGonagall’s office.”

She’s sitting on the end of Draco’s bed, legs drawn up to her chest, chin resting on her knees, arms wrapped around herself in the manner of holding herself together. Her shoes are on the floor, and through her socks, her toes are digging into the sheets. In the silence of the hospital wing, she can hear the raw scream echoing again, ringing in her ears.

Draco is hunched in on himself, like he is trying to curl in on himself, and his body shakes slightly from the cold that presses in from outside. He sneers a bit. “What am I supposed to say?”

Hermione shakes her head, her eyes troubled, her tone abstracted. “There’s nothing you can say.”

Draco stares unblinkingly at the ceiling. He can do this for an abnormally long time. “Practice,” he had told her before, sounding pleased with himself. She can remember when he used to blink a lot, furtive and up to something, or else he was sneering so his eyes narrowed to a squint, or else he was furious and losing control of all reason and temper, or else he was scared.

She remains quiet, not regretting bringing up the day’s event, but not wishing to be the first to speak.

Draco wets dry lips with his tongue, still staring at the ceiling, looking straight up, and says, “You should tell him that there’s no one in particular for him to be angry at. You should tell him that he should not go home to his relatives because they will treat him like he’s incompetent of dealing with his grief, and he cannot be complacent. He shouldn’t be. That’s the last thing he should be because then it’ll be harder for him later on, and he’ll either be an outcast because no one knows what act around him, or he’ll be pitied for the rest of his life. And you should make sure he knows that there’s no one for him to be angry, and that being righteously angry is the worst Gryffindor trait you can possibly have, and that its only resolution is to end up in a box next to his parents. You should tell him that before it’s too late. Or else you’ll just have someone else obsessed with getting even, and I should think you know by now that that’s not exactly living.”

This is the most he’s ever said that wasn’t said in a heat of anger. His words are carefully chosen, she can tell, and his tone is precisely controlled.

Hermione begins uneasily, “Is that—” but thinks again and cuts herself off before she can fully ask, is that what you would have wanted to hear? Would that have made you different, given you powers to change your mind, redirect you so you wouldn’t have ended up here? Would that have changed you?

Draco smiles a hard, patronizing smile at her, more like a sneer than anything else, mocking her with grey eyes, knowing what she was about to say but not helping her out. “Anyway,” he says, returning his gaze back to the ceiling, “that’s what I would say.”

Hermione is silent, digesting his words and seeing how they fed her stomach. Not too well. She feels unsettled, disturbed, and this seems to be something he does to her so well. She relives his words (so unnaturally calm for Draco Malfoy! she marvels, and so unnaturally wise, the right thing to say), hearing again the cold consciousness of what he was saying. She hears some truth, and it sounds both foreign and familiar. She is riveted by him; what he says resonates in her head, rippling through her mind, disturbing every thought she’s had.

***

He’s twisting in the sheets when she gets there the next morning, moaning and thrashing. He tries to throw up on Madam Pomfrey, who is holding Draco’s left arm. She shies instinctively behind the partially drawn-up screen.

“Really, Severus!” Madam Pomfrey exclaims, highly aggravated. “The illness can’t possibly be as bad as this!”

“Would you prefer the boy linger like this or chance that this potion will restore his mind?” Snape snarls back, gripping Draco’s other arm.

“His health is at risk here! Perhaps we ought to Stun him—”

“Father!” Draco howls above them. “Father help me!”

“No,” Snape rejects, sneering derisively, his sallow face pale. “There’s no telling whether that will counter the potion. This affliction is to his mind; he must remain conscious!”

“You,” Draco screams at Snape. “You’re supposed to let me do what I want! Father said!”

His voice is abruptly cut off and for a moment, he chokes. His spine has become as rigid as a board, and yet he is still straining up against Snape and Pomfrey.

Snape sees her. His sallow face becomes livid in an instant. Snape’s almost apoplectic with rage as he chokes out, “Miss Granger—interfering—none of your business—points—GET OUT!”

Draco doesn’t seem to remember the incident when she returns in the evening, so she doesn’t bring it up. She fills his silence with empty drivel about her day, preparations for the N.E.W.T.s, the Quidditch game between Ravenclaw and Slytherin.

Draco shivers again, and this time she sees. “Cold?”

“It’s just the room, it’s bloody drafty.”

She peels back the sheets tucked down beneath the mattress around him. She slides into the bed beside him, she turns to face him because he can’t look at her, and she wraps her arms around him. Their weight on the bed dips them closer; they sink into each other. She feels momentarily grounded that they still have substance, that they can push at something and there will be give from their force. Because sometimes she feels like she and Malfoy are sunbeams, bright and light but insubstantial, and it is surprising how easily this fear is quelled just by the way their bodies are solid. She moves, bends, curves so she’s lying flush against him, from ankle to hip. He shivers in her arms, she eases him into her to absorb the tiny jerks of his body like recoils with hers. Her breath heats his skin, and she laves his skin with her whisper, “I’ll keep you warm.”

***

It’s killing her, the not knowing. She can’t sleep, eat, study, she can’t talk to Harry and Ron, she becomes quiet, withdrawn, thinking, considering all the possibilities of what might have happened. She speculates that perhaps he ran into a boggart or some other magical creature that stole his soul away, and she pores through the books, fingers tumbling down spines and trapping pages, trying to find something that would drive someone insane.

There’s a lot of historical evidence, a lot of spells, a lot of jinxes, charms, curses, objects, creatures that might make someone lose their senses. There’s almost too much.

She’s overweighed by both personal research and schoolwork, and she tried to juggle them at first, devoting every break, every spare moment to her studies and every night to gathering, absorbing information. But it doesn’t work; she’s slipping in classes and coursework as the scales tip heavy with her curiosity.

Her professors notice, and now they are concerned, many of them puzzled and a few of them alarmed by her unusual behavior. Hermione Granger is known for her excellence in academics. Hermione Granger is a girl with good priorities. This is not Hermione Granger.

“Are you quite all right, Ms. Granger?” Professor McGonagall stares at her, eyes boring into her. “Is there something on your mind?” she inquires more kindly.

Hermione bites the inside of her cheek hard. “No, I guess I’m just overwhelmed by all the work.”

“Perhaps you want to consider dropping a course,” Professor McGonagall says gently. “It’s perfectly all right, shouldn’t harm your academic standing at all. Seventh year is particularly demanding. It is a point where many outstanding students falter. No one would think less of you if you were to lighten your courseload.”

“I think I’ll be better after the holidays,” she tells Professor McGonagall. “I think I just need a break.”

“Yes,” considers McGonagall, “I quite think you do.”

***

She feels like she barely talks to Ron and Harry anymore. They aren’t in as many of the same classes as they used to be; she’s taking more Advanced classes than they are. But when their paths do cross, she still feels very distanced, as though she and the boys have their own sets of very different problems that occupy them.

“They say you spend a lot of time with Malfoy,” Harry says on one of his rare trips to the library. He has come to talk her out of the castle because it’s a good day and she’s been holed up for too long that she’s starting to look sick. “What do you two talk about?”

Outside, the weather is much colder than it is indoors. Winter feels like clear notes like a sharp whistle on still air, and she wraps her arms around herself to ward off the chill. This year they saw early snows, and the Hogwarts grounds have been completely transformed. Harry isn’t the only one to have an idea to go out walking around; she sees in the distance other groups of people walking slowly through the snow.

“Who says that?” Hermione demands.

Harry falters. “Just—people, you know.”

“He’s just there. I work there. No one goes to see him. What am I supposed to do?”

“Nothing. I don’t care—I don’t mind, Hermione, I just asked. Look,” he says, exhaling shortly. “Ron wants you to come stay with him. Us. For Christmas, and maybe afterwards. Your parents say it’s all right; I’ve spoken to them. Come on,” he says, interpreting her silence. “You’ve always liked being at the Burrow. And besides, everyone really wants to see you.”

“Christmas at the Burrow?” She considers this for a moment. “Yes,” she says at last, “But I can’t spend the summer there. I planned on asking Dumbledore if I could stay at school, help out, or work at St. Mungo’s. I have to come back,” she said apologetically, because Harry looks pained.

A spasm of emotion crosses Harry’s face, but he controls it quickly. Besides, she’s preoccupied with other things on her mind. “Yeah,” Harry says thickly. “That’s fine, too.”

***

Lamps lit, moonlight, dark pale floor cold floor snow pure white beds curled around each other facing out, toes sticking out in the cold, feet trapping the inner edges of the blankets.

She leaves in the morning for the Burrow with Ron and Harry. “I’ll be back in three weeks,” she promises strongly.

“No one’s coming for me,” he says in response. “My father. He’s not coming. And he’s probably forbidden my mother to come too.”

“Why don’t they send you to St. Mungo’s? Why are you still here?”

Draco gave her an odd look. “Maybe because I’m a lost cause.”

Hermione doesn’t know what lost causes are. The Gryffindor in her resents giving up without having exhausted all possible solutions and still she doesn’t accept defeat gracefully. And the rational part of her argues that the odds say there’s always a solution.

She tucks her head beneath his chin and breathes in. For some reason, she has the oddest feeling that she could forget him, and very easily it would be like this had never happened.

***

After Christmas, he’s still there, the same as before.

Pale trees bloom, white birches peeling. Tiny buds are developing, not quite blossoming yet. It’s spring in the air.

It’s stupid and silly, but Hermione has a thought hoping for the best of this year, that he’ll be regenerated whole and not remain a spirit. Springtime is renewal.

Even though she knows he hates it and it’s not right to (and she would hate it, too), she feels sorry for him. She pities him for the talent wasting away, and that he isn’t stronger and more able. He doesn’t ever feel sorry for himself. On the contrary, at times he seems to like it.

Draco has taught her how to sense, she realizes as she walks down the hallway to the hospital wing. He probably hadn’t intended to, but there it is. She sees colors of things, she notices the smells, the sounds, the texture and even the air she tastes. It’s because of how sharp everything is around him.

“Hermione, welcome back,” Madame Pomfrey greets her. “I thought you would have gotten your fill of the hospital wing by now.”

“Oh, no. I become more and more interested in healing as a job when I leave Hogwarts,” Hermione responds earnestly. “Do you need any assistance now? I just wanted to come up and say hello.”

“No, not at the moment, but it’s still flu season so I expect there’ll be students coming up here soon enough. I do need someone to watch the ward while I speak with Professor Snape. I’ll be just about an hour, dear. I am sorry to put you to work just when you’ve arrived.” Madam Pomfrey glances at Draco’s bed somberly. “Although, I am sad to say, perhaps watching over the wing is a futile gesture…”

Her eyes flick nervously to Draco’s bed even as she smiles cheerfully, “Of course not, I don’t mind at all.”

Madame Pomfrey has left the ward to Hermione’s supervision for the next hour, so she rolls the next bed over beside Draco’s after moving aside the screen. Hermione leans back against the headboard and inhales deeply the hospital wing and its perfume of spicy Pepper-Up Potion, the faint smell of chrysanthemum tea (it had healing properties, and Madame Pomfrey was trying something new), the coolness of the air, waiting for Draco to wake up. When she opened her eyes, Draco was awake and staring at her.

“It smells clean,” she defended, embarrassed and nervous because he hadn’t yet spoken and she couldn’t tell who he was.

“It doesn’t smell like anything,” he says bluntly. “You smell.”

At a loss for words and insulted, she finally managed to say coldly, “Excuse me?”

“You smell like lotion and other things.” Draco smiles. “You smell like the library.”

She colors, pink cheeks, the back of her neck heating up, blood rushing red. “What do you mean, like the library? Like old books?” She thinks of mothballs and dust.

“Like paper, a lot of paper. Like the wood of the tables and shelves, and new parchment and ink. Mostly you just smell like a small forest that no one has found yet and so it’s fresher. Cleaner.” He contemplates for a moment, wrinkling his nose, and adds thoughtfully, “Also it has to do with your shampoo. Something fruity.”

“Oranges,” Hermione says blankly, staring at the base of his throat. “Clementine.”

He nods, enlightened. “Yes, that’s right. I thought tangerine.”

Her face is hot, and she feels naked, her hands wrung tightly together in her lap, fingers and knuckles white. She can feel her pulse hammering away, and she isn’t quite sure where to look. But Hermione is a Gryffindor, so she finally stops her wild, darting gaze to look at him, her teeth sinking into her bottom lip.

Draco is looking back at her. His face has flushed a blotchy, dull red also, and he’s sitting rather stiffly.

“Thank you,” Hermione finally speaks, floundering for a moment. “That was…kind.”

“Did you bring more books?”

“Yes.” She drags them out of her suitcase and places them on the nightstand beside his bed. “As you requested. And one of my favorites.”

Draco barely glances at New Theory of Numerology. “I thought your favorite was Hogwarts, A History.”

“That’s just for fun reading. Well, this is fun too.” She says awkwardly, “How was your Christmas?”

He says drolly, “Uneventful. Everyone went home. No one new came around.”

“I’m sorry. But I got you…something.” She hands him a cheerily wrapped present and wishes she hadn’t bothered with wrapping paper after all. It seems like a taunt.

“What is it?” Draco looks at the object in his lap.

“It’s just—just open it.”

“Chocolate,” he reveals a moment later.

“You don’t have to say anything. I just wanted to do it.”

“Thanks, anyway.”

“You’re welcome,” Hermione says softly. She slides off her bed and begins to push it back into its original position, explaining, “Madam Pomfrey will be back any minute. I’m tired, so…I think I’ll just see you tomorrow?”

“Sure,” he says.

It’s a mistake, she thinks to herself as she drags her suitcase on her way to Gryffindor Tower, it’s a mistake to think that Draco has no one else but her, that he waits for her. He has nothing to do but wait for her.

***

Hermione stops short inside the infirmary.

“What’s this?” she asks nervously.

He raises a hand; it jerks to a stop by the leather ties binding him to the bed. “What is there to explain?”

“Why? What did you do?”

“You always think it’s me,” he says sourly. When she doesn’t answer, he says shortly, “I tried to leave.”

Her hand flutters over the knot on his left wrist.

“Don’t bother. They’re magicked, you’ll need your wand.”

It would be no trouble to dispense with the magical binds, but she senses correctly that he doesn’t want to draw attention to the fact that he’s restrained. Hermione sits down on the edge of his bed. “Where were you going?” she asks after a moment.

Draco frowns at her. “It’s none of your business.”

“The dungeons? Out of Hogwarts? Where?” she persists.

“Away,” he snaps and swears softly, “Fucking nag, you’re just like Parkinson.”

This stings, but she doesn’t let it show, or point out that Pansy hasn’t been to see him, ever. Before she can speak, he continues, blowing out his breath impatiently. “I don’t know what you keep coming around here for anyway. Potter and Weasel not giving enough stimulating conversation you have to talk to someone who’s lost his mind?” Under his breath, he mutters, “Don’t understand you.”

“Maybe you can’t understand me, but I can understand you.” Hermione moves closer to the bed.

He’s watching her, looking strangely arrested. He’s changed again. Hermione pauses, tense, waiting to see who emerges from his silence. She studies the mercurial grey eyes carefully and prompts, “Draco?”

He’s assessing her, giving her a masculine appraisal, pewter-grey eyes roving her face, lingering on her lips and meeting her eyes.

“I just want to,” he whispers. “I just want to do this…” and he groans, aching. He arcs upwards. “Kiss me, Hermione.”

She can see some self-hate clouding his eyes; he hates that he’s asking, on the brink of begging. He hates giving in, and in some way this is like losing the Snitch to Harry for him. And still he can’t stop himself.

Hermione settles down on him, her knees pressing deep into the soft mattress, her arms taking her weight as she places her hands carefully on either side of his head. “Like this?” she whispers anxiously above his lips. “Like this?”

His eyes crinkle even as they turn dark like mercury. “I don’t know; you’re not kissing me.”

She covers his lips with hers. His lips are soft and a little chapped. His mouth is very dry, his lips slightly chapped. He tastes bitter, the taste of the last potion Snape made for him; he tastes like healing herbs and there, that’s probably crushed rattleroot, and that’s powdered bezoar…

It is a mysterious slide of tongues and taste of his mouth and it is the sweetest, strangest, most beautiful kiss anyone has ever given her.

His long fingers brush hers, and the sensation ripples through her, feeling like magic and when she raised her wand in Ollivander’s and gave it an experimental flick. The warmth floods through her. She feels powerful, and there is that absolute, certain feeling of rightness.

Hermione wants him. Like the first touch of magic, she wants more. She wants his hands on her, and she crushes herself to him, sinking down into him so she can lie against that lean, hard body. His tongue flicks, tickles the roof of her mouth. They break away, and he runs his teeth down the line of her neck as she bows her head over him, resting her forehead against his; she shudders, shaking on top of him. His eyes are grey, dull from lack of health, but his lips curve and she feels his breath warm against her mouth.

“There, now I have it too,” says Hermione softly, beaming down at him, her hair curtaining their faces from the hospital wing.

They kiss and kiss and kiss until both their faces are flushed red, smiling at each other nervously.

She grips his larger hands, his long fingers, twines them together so their knuckles bump. “If you could, what would you do right now?” she asks seriously.

His eyes are serious. “If I could I would spread your hair across the pillow and I would kiss you again.”

She smiles. “Okay.”

He smiles wanly back. “Okay.”

***

The next day, he is unwell again. Madame Pomfrey doesn’t let her into the Hospital Wing. He is bawling something indecipherable; it is so bad that Dumbledore and the other Hogwarts staff have gathered in the room.

He loses energy and health every time his mind lapses. That night, he is withdrawn and appears even thinner. She wants to curl around his body, share the space and warmth, but she can’t tell what he knows tonight. So she lets the space have him. She eases onto a bed, drawing her legs up and sitting cross-legged as she waits for morning.

He appears resigned to her presence, and only when she’s sure that he’s asleep does she unfold cramped legs and stumble her way to his bed. Hermione huddles closer to the bed. She leans over him. His eyes are shut.

“I want to pick you apart,” she whispers. “I want to get lost in you, but I want to find you, too. I want to see your mind. But I don’t, also, because you’re more mysterious to me than you’ve ever been. I always thought I knew who you were, childish and cruel, but now I think I know you, and I still don’t know you well enough. I want to unlock you and see the workings of your mind, but I don’t want to solve you.”

She wishes her breath would be enough to warm him and her touch enough to heal. She flutters her fingers briefly over his closed eyes before returning to Gryffindor tower.

***

Hermione rests her chin in her hand as she examines his closed face.

“Why are you here?”

“Why are you here?” he asks in return.

Hermione frowns at him in annoyance and clarifies, “How did you get like this? What happened?” When he doesn’t respond, she adds impatiently, “Don’t you think it’s time we stopped avoiding it?”

“I looked into the mirror.”

“What?”

“The mirror…” Draco’s voice is wistful. “The Mirror of Erised.”

Part 2/2

Fic: "Naked-Eye Viewing"

2006-06-20T17:33:42Z

Title: Naked-Eye Viewing
Ship: Draco/Ginny
Rating: R
Summary: Draco tries his hand at seeing the future.
A/N: How can I possibly write Draco/Ginny when I haven't, really, seriously, for months? Apparently, late nights and The Fader's "No Sleep 2Nite" will do it. Feedback is LOVE!

You speak in tongues, you read my mind
I'd give it all to see a sign
but you're taking forever
time stands still and you stay one step closer away

~ One Step Closer Away, Finger Eleven

She turned her head away from his seeking lips.

"What is it?" he asked, astonished.

She shook her head wordlessly. Her hair moved against the skin of his hands, brushing against his cheek, the texture unbelievably soft and silky. He reached out to capture a strand, to curl it around his fingers, to tug at it teasingly, but she evaded him again. This time, the move to put distance between them was obvious.

"Gin."

"I'm not someone you can use to sleep at night," she said quietly and very gently, meeting his eyes.

The space yawned between them, widening deeper in the night. She was so still he had to strain to see her, his eyes still momentarily blinded from the too-sudden extinguishing of bright light, but all his senses, carefully attuned and straining to see her, slowly revealed the gleam of pale moonlight on her bare shoulder. The room was so dim, so inky black, and she was the only thing illuminated. His eyes were drawn to her; his world had narrowed down to a scope that was focused tight on her. Her and her red hair, the freckles on that soft skin that looked like alabaster in the white light from the window, the seriousness of her face...He was only distantly aware that he felt surprise.

"I never--" he began.

Ginny cut him off gently with the hard look in her clear brown eyes. "I know. I know." And she sighed.

He was suddenly impatient. He needed her, dammit, he needed this. She was taking it away. The peace, the pleasure, the pause from pain. Draco sucked in a breath loudly.

"What happened," he asked.

"What do you mean?"

"What happened? Something must have happened. You were fine last night." He studied her critically. No, she looked the same. He met her gaze intently and said meaningfully, full of the confidence of his aristocratic upbringing, "You wanted me last night."

She blushed. "I did."

She still wanted him. It was obvious. It was so obvious.

"Ginny," Draco said persuasively.

True, he had a long way to go in controlling his temper and mastering Occlumency, and it was also true that he wasn't as quick with a wand as Potter. But this, this he was good at. Little boys raised to believe they could have anything they wanted either suffered traumatic realizations later on that that was not in fact true, or they went on blissfully ignorant of any other reality, or they accepted the truth, dispensed with their ignorance and sought to acquire everything they did want. Draco belonged to the third category. He meant to get what he wanted. A seducer was so much more effective than a blackmailer, or--and this had taken a while for him to learn--a bully, or a debater. He knew this, he knew how to do this. Assured, confident once more, he reached out.

He touched her, rough-padded thumb circling the bone at her ankle. Ginny didn't flinch or pull away or frown at him, but her eyes were unreadable. He thought perhaps he saw some of the heat there, from before, but he couldn't be sure. His hand closed around her ankle and slid up her leg. Draco leaned forward and moved his lips to the side of her neck. Her skin was cool and cold, but he could feel her warming beneath his palm.

"I have a thousand reasons," Ginny whispered, so loud in his ear. As he drew back to look at her, she said, "I made a list of a thousand reasons why not."

"Why not?" He kissed her.

His hand was flat against the side of her face, his thumb pressed to the top of her delicate jawbone, inches below her ear, hooking in there and holding her face to meet him. His tongue slipped between their open mouths and touched hers; he absorbed her body's shiver with his own. Lips, lips, Ginny's lips. Soft, pliant, generous. His other hand sprawled at her spine, and he felt like they were swaying slightly together, sitting on the motel bed.

He increased the pressure, coaxing, drawing her out. Patience, he counseled.

He broke away, a hot whisper in her ear, “Come on. Come on, Gin.”

He ran both his thumbs down the graceful arc of her neck as she bowed her head forward, letting her hair fall to hide her face. Still guarded.

Draco frowned against her skin and moved his mouth up to the edge of her ear, nipping lightly as his hands flattened beneath the curve of her breasts. He fit a finger to the hollow at her throat, feeling the quick, uneven staccato, reveling silently in the gasp that ghosted across his face, so close to hers. His other hand fell down to her knee, moving her legs, other hand threading his fingers through her hair.

“Maybe…maybe afterwards. After…this.”

She made no move to leave, but there was no effort to reciprocate. There was no give, no flexibility. Draco saw the hollows of her cheeks. He stared unblinkingly at her, aching.

After this. After agendas and plans, coded letters, invisibility cloaks and dirty motels on the side. After this, he would like to take her someplace clean. He wouldn’t feel so grimy, wouldn’t have the day’s sweat on him. It would be September by then, hopefully, it all went well and as planned if luck would have it, it would be September then. The planets would be out and bright, some of them achieving their best visibility so that a telescope wouldn’t be needed. The moon would not be a sliver, but a quarter moon. He could see her clearly, every curve, every freckle, the scars from Quidditch, from tumbles, other things. There would be a warm wind. There wouldn’t be this hard bed and harder floor. He would take her outside, down to the grounds. The grass would be soft and smelling sweet of dew. She would lie down in the tall grass and he would spread his hands over her. He would look at her, admire her, see everything so clearly. He would trace the planets on her body.

Floorboards creaked, something disturbing the stillness.

Ginny jumped, breaking eye contact, sliding back off the bed in a rush of pale, shaking limbs. The panic and fear was momentary, only fleeting, but he saw the change in her face and recognized it for what it was. For a moment, he couldn't believe it. Not Ginny. Not his Ginny, who was Gryffindor, so brave, almost reckless, who always scared him so badly. She wasn't afraid, she didn't look like the other witches and wizards who scurried through the empty streets, speeding up at any shifting shadow.

"Dammit." He scrambled to his feet, the soles of his feet cold on the stone floor as he strode over to the door. His toes dug into the dirty cracks between the stones as he listened. "No one's there," he said at last, turning away.

But Ginny had turned away from him again. Her slender fingers were nervously working the buttons of her shirt back in its hole, fluttering over the shirt. She dragged the jeans over her hips much more quickly, running a hand through her hair. She grabbed her wand, stuck it in her back pocket, glanced around the room quickly. She moved hurriedly to the door, and she passed very, very near him.

He was standing naked in the cold, just in front of the door, far from the bed, next to her. He didn't make the mistake of reaching for her again.

Fanmix!

2006-06-07T13:30:33Z

This is my first fanmix ever, and it is for Supernatural because in case I haven't totally spammed everyone in comments and IMs, I am addicted. Feedback is very much appreciated ♥

Explanation: A cover-all for Supernatural, touching on the brothers' relationship, their crusade, the demons they hunt. If there be a theme, then it's probably that they're haunted by their own demons and driven to the road, to do the things they do. Re the album art: the small text reads no rest for the weary and the crossed out characters read peace in Chinese. Following that vague theme, I chose "Things That Go Bump" for the title because of all the scary things they confront that keep them awake at night. The end.

01. Santana feat. Everlast "Put Your Lights On"
Hey now, all you killers
Put your lights on, put your lights on
Hey now, all you children
Leave your lights on, you better leave your lights on

02. Apoptygma Berzerk "In This Together"
And in your troubled eyes I see
Someone who carried me somehow
Don't you see it's you and me against the world

03. Metallica "Enter Sandman"
Sleep with one eye open
Gripping your pillow tight
Exit light
Enter night

04. Snow Patrol "Somewhere A Clock Is Ticking"
Wage your war
Another soldier, says he's not afraid to die
Well I am scared
In slow motion, the blast is beautiful

05. Bob Schneider "Come With Me Tonight"
we can lose ourselves
not find our way back home
till the whole world feels just like a saturday night
without a care in the world

06. Natalie Merchant "Golden Boy"
Beauty untamed
Stupid and wild
Poster boy, you're society's child
Cut your teeth
Cut your mouth
Cut it out

07. U2 "Original of the Species"
I'll give you everything you want
Except the thing that you want
You are the first one of your kind
And you feel like no-one before
You steal right under my door

08. Matchbook Romance "Monsters"
we are the shaken
we are the monsters
underneath your bed
believe what you read

09. Switchfoot "This Is Your Life"
Yesterday is a promise that you've broken
don't close your eyes, don't close your eyes
this is your life and today is all you've got now

10. Placebo "The Bitter End"
Since we're feeling so anesthetised
In our comfort zone
Reminds me of the second time
That I followed you home

11. Dave Matthews Band "Out of My Hands"
Out on my window ledge
I don't feel safe
And I stay
Looking down on you

12. Fuel "Hemorrhage (In My Hands)"
Memories are just where you laid them
Dragging the waters til the depths give up their dead
What did you expect to find?
Was it something you left behind?

Bonus Track: Snow Patrol feat. Martha Wainwright "Set Fire to the Third Bar"
After I have travelled so far
We'd set the fire to the third bar
We'd share each other like an island
Until exhausted, close our eyelids

ZIP FILE, 60.9 MB

* Caps by bluebear_74
* Brushes & textures by blimey_icons
* I cannot be the only one to find it ironic that Santana's song, "Put Your Lights On" was on his album titled Supernatural. I found that out when I was looking for the lyrics :)

The Vending Machine meme! (Economy!Blaise..and what OTP?!)

2006-05-16T14:03:01Z

1. Thank you to everyone who filled out the poll! It was mildly surprising and very interesting.

2. Today by onecrimsontie. I've recced this before, but I'm doing it again because I just re-read it. This fic is an unbelievable piece of work. It's the trio, gen-fic, and you should read it because it is really, really good. It's also short as one-shots go, so definitely read and enjoy!

Here's the thing. I've been trying to write, really have, and I've scrapped everything I've started with. Something is not clicking, or something. I get to about 400 words and then I save it, and start something new. This could all be a lack of perseverance on my part, not enough effort, or it could be that I'm not inspired, or something. I tried writing every ship that even vaguely interested me.

I've seen this done many times in the past, called the drabble meme, but I'm not because what if I can't even work up 100 words or so? What if I can't even write a SENTENCE? That would be disappointing for both parties, I think.

It's like hitting the vending machines to see if something will drop down. Maybe it won't because it's just stuck there and that fucking sucks, but there's always the good day when you get a free Snickers/Twix/Lion bar/whatever candy/chips bag you like. I know I'm a dork.

So here's your mission (PLEASE PLEASE ACCEPT IT!):

The Vending Machine meme:
Please post 1) a pairing OR character of your choice, and 2) a line of dialogue.

I will then try my very best to write, erm, 50-100 words or so. But I make no promises! Maybe I'll suck and flop out and my brain can't handle anything. So don't expect a drabble. But maybe you'll get one. Maybe a drabble will become a fic (that would be the best scenerio). Maybe a fic will be good. Who knows?

Anything is game from these fandoms: Alias, Harry Potter, Prison Break, Veronica Mars. Okay, so just four fandoms. Darn, I thought there were more.

PLEASE FEED ME :D Or you, however you look at it.

Just the Blaise parts for my lovely Min, who went off about how I was neglecting him for two hours in AIM today.

1.

“No. No. Absolutely not.”

“Blaise—”

“Absolutely not. I refuse. I’m going to Draco and I’m going to tell him his stupid plan failed. You should be working out whatever problem you have with him, together." Blaise stressed this. "I am not an intermediary. I am not a hotline for help!”

“Blaise, it’s only fair that you help me.”

“Fair?”

“You helped Draco,” she pointed out.

That was a fine example right there how irrational Weasleys were, Blaise thought. Exhibit A, Ginny Weasley.

2.

“What are you doing here!” Blaise slammed the door shut and locked it, his composure vanishing instantly, the memory of his recent encounter with Draco coming back. Draco’s eyes had looked capable of murder by death vision. “Draco’s just down the hall!”

“I know, I already saw him,” she said, far too calmly.

“Ginny, you can’t be serious.”

“Just don’t drop your balls, and this will all be fine,” snapped Ginny, turning away to glower out the window, her expression unhappy.

Blaise couldn’t ever remember dropping balls of any sort before in his life, but he got her point.

3.

LEILA: Blaise jerked in reflex. It was like a violent twitch. Violent because he knocked Draco from his chair onto the floor.
JENN: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
JENN: AHAHAHAHAHHAA
JENN: i<3blaise
JENN: I<3BLAISE

JENN: Blaise spun around wildly, then clutched his head as he realized that that hadn't been the best of ideas in his somewhat state. He did one last backwards glance at shrubbery before slowly walking away. There was no one hiding in Malfoy's shrub bushes, he told himself wearily.
LEILA: WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO DO
JENN: Then Min and Jenn popped out and tackled Blaise to the ground.
JENN: "Ooompf!"
JENN: "Min! JENN! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? GET OFF HIM, YOU'RE RUINING MY FIC!"
LEILA: OH. MY. GOD.
JENN: Orlando stumbled out of the bushes a moment later. "Oy. What am I doing--"
JENN: "OB!"
JENN: "Ha! I knew that would distract her!"
JENN: "Smart thinking, Min."
JENN: Blaise didn't give a damn about masculinity anymore. "MALFOY!!!!"
JENN: From across the garden Draco's expression went from charming to peevish. "Not now, Zabini! I'm asking Granger out! She IS my OTP!"

Okay, that wasn't Economy, that was onecrimsontie and me in AIM :)

After Sex

2006-03-07T19:02:53Z

Title: "After Sex"
Ship: Draco/Ginny
Rating: R
Summary: Exactly what the title says. A little conversation post-sex.
A/N: Oh my god, my first Draco/Ginny in a LONG fucking time. 498 words, small ficlet with no plot. Best I could do *weeps* I've got that longer D/G fic, it's about 5000 words right now, and will probably be posted in 3 or 5 parts. But I'm not going to post it until it's all done. And it's just not working right now.

“Was it really necessary for you to stick me with that Stunner? I had a bloody headache all day, you bint.”

His voice was deeply irritated and tinged with complaint.

“We have to keep up appearances,” said Ginny, resting her forehead against his sweaty shoulder, her breathing gradually evening. “And no one would believe it of me if I’d just stood idly by. In the future,” she said, voice muffled as she closed her teeth at the spot where neck met shoulder, lips curving as he hissed, “don’t provoke my brothers when I’m present. Family loyalty and all that, you know. And,” she added in a whisper, “at least I didn’t use the Bat-Bogey hex.”

“You could try being a little nicer to me,” Draco said mildly, frowning, unmoving from his sprawled position on the desk, propped up on his elbows. His pants were still loose over his hips, unzipped. Muscles relaxed, blond hair damp and falling into grey eyes, he was like a painting of Mars after an assignation with Venus. He blinked.

“Yes, but didn’t I make it up to you?” She grinned at him cheekily and slid off the desk.

Draco eyed the curve of her bottom as she bent down and fished beneath the desk for her plain cotton panties and slipped them on, and privately agreed that yes, by all means, she had remedied his headache.

Ginny could feel him watching her as she wriggled into her skirt and tugged it firmly into place, smoothing the material down her hips with her hands. “Besides, you don’t want me to be nice,” she said matter-of-factly, now buttoning her shirt. “People might suspect something.”

His frown deepened, but he only raised an eyebrow and said, “Come here.”

She hesitated and then shrugged, going over to stand between his long legs. His fingers went deftly to the buttons of her shirt as he proceeded to finish the job for her. He was efficient in his task, sliding the small buttons into its tiny hole in the cloth. Halfway done, he seemed to linger, fingers brushing against the swell of skin over her bra. Ginny shivered in reflex, enjoying the contact as she knew he did, and gazed at his bent head.

“There’s no putting this to rights,” she sighed, fingers tangling in her hair as she attempted to comb it out.

Draco looked at her openly, her hair mussed, lips swollen, the flush suffusing her face. She looked the very picture of a girl thoroughly loved, and although he knew he could, he didn’t offer to charm his marks away.

“Hurry back to Gryffindor Tower now,” he said lazily, settling back on his elbows. He usually stayed behind while she left first, liking to enjoy the post-coital bliss and languor of limbs. “You’re right, people might suspect something.”

Ginny flashed him a smile that made him want to drag her down to lie alongside him on the table again, and gathering her bag and books, left.

"A Certain Private Conversation"

2006-02-07T17:33:56Z

So, it's been a while. I definitely recommend trying a new ship if you're locked in writer's block. During my unofficial hiatus, I have watched Munich and liked it and have discovered deep wells of sarcasm in me in response to possibly the most idiotic teacher I have had and hopefully will ever have.

Title: A Certain Private Conversation
Ship: Harry/Pansy
Rating: R
Summary: A hero, a journalist, two beers and a story on the table.
A/N: Written per bk11’s request, and I hope this is satisfactory. Thank you to bubbleforest for taking the first look. And oh, thanks to streetscribbles for “sharing the joy,” I suppose :D

A Certain Private Conversation

I fear I have nothing to give.
~ Fear, Sarah McLachlan

“Do you want your story or not?” he demands, knowing the answer.

The color is high in her cheeks, and her eyes are clear and hard. She’s pissed off, and he really doesn’t give a shit.

“Well, do you?” he presses, goading her, backing her into a corner. He wants to hear the words; he wants this victory even if he has to force it from her.

“Yes,” she bites out. She pauses and admits baldly, “You know I do.”

He draws a shaky breath and wishes he hadn’t started this little battle with her. He wishes she would be a bigger, more blatant bitch, and to be vicious as he knows she can be. He doesn’t want her to confess anything to him; he doesn’t want her to give in. Even if it’s to him. He just wants a little give. He just wants to hear her how badly she really wants this, to see that she cares because he can’t stand the coldness, the blankness. It’s something leftover from Voldemort, another instinctive reaction that he can’t quite help or stifle, something else Tom Riddle gave him. It’s not the unfeeling that bothers him, it’s the uncaring that he hates. Everyone should care. He hates indifference and apathy with everything that is the opposite of indifference.

“How are you going to take notes?” he questions, bringing himself back to the table and their drinks, to the bar with all its people dripping rainwater onto the floor, to her sitting across from him.

“What do you care,” she shoots back.

He shook his head. “Not how it works. A little less attitude, you’ll get a lot more answers from me.” She doesn’t respond, so he explains, “I don’t want you to get this story wrong.”

“I won’t.”

He nods slowly at her level look. “Okay.”

***

Pansy Parkinson, intrepid reporter, worked a weekly column in the Daily Prophet. It was widely read. She ranted every Saturday in the opinions section for 2000 words on an array of subjects: purebloods, the importance of knowing one’s lineage, the running of the Ministry and its various departments, why the war took so long, and the like. She rarely had anything good to say of any topic, but for some reason it proved to be a popular read.

Harry suspected this was because people liked having someone to hate, and conversations often followed the vein of denouncing her latest article, followed by a vindictive listing of why “the dumb bint needs a reeducation and hey, didn’t she graduate Hogwarts with you, Harry? What was that like?”

He wasn’t in any way inclined to feel sympathetic for her. A good portion of her word count was spent rejecting Auror Harry Potter as a hero. Adjectives she had used to describe him included “egomaniac,” “political poster boy,” “stunted maturity growth,” “relic of the days of Voldemort,” and his personal favorite, “Ministry’s boy toy.”

***

The engagement party for Ginny Weasley and her coworker, Dougray Shelley, was held at The Golden Pumpkin, the restaurant of the five star Savoy hotel, where the happy couple had rented out a section of the restaurant. Harry found himself at a table with a few of his former Hogwarts Quidditch teammates, and the refilling of alcohol was well-matched by the speed at which the stories were blurted out and reminisced.

Two witches and a wizard came in. Harry recognized two of the newcomers—Blaise Zabini, owner of the premier pharmaceutical company that specialized in beauty products and self-made billionaire—beauty was expensive, and it made money. Standing by his side, looking haughtily around the inside, was Pansy Parkinson.

Her hair was still trimmed short, cut in a stylish bob that ended above the nape of her neck. She didn’t look so flat anymore—the nose didn’t look as squashed, her hair wasn’t cut as sternly, and her robes didn’t fall straight down. She was still short, though, and frankly, Harry thought, she still looked like a bitch.

He stood, intending to seek Ginny so as to thank her and tell her he was leaving. A loud, drunken roar of protest rose from his dinner companions, most loud of all and most sloshed a pair of Weasley twins.

“Where d’you think you’re going?” George demanded loudly. “No no no no no, we’re not done yet! Lee’s going to pen our Quidditch memoirs! We’ve got to make sure he gets it all right!” he declared, and banged his fist on the table.

“We hardly see enough of you as it is,” Katie Bell protested, and Angelina nodded reprovingly, “You’re always working, Harry…”

“I really have to go,” he muttered, face red from both wine and embarrassment at the attention. Several other patrons of the restaurant, apart from their ensemble, were looking over as well.

Ginny came to his rescue. “Leaving already, Harry?”

“Yeah, I have—stuff to do,” he finished lamely. “Thanks for dinner, Gin, this was fun. And er, congratulations to the two of you.”

“Thanks,” Ginny beamed. “Get some rest, won’t you? You look awful. You’d better not show up like that at Mum’s next week or she’ll smother you.”

“Thanks,” Harry grinned back. “Just work, I guess. Cheers, Ginny.”

As he walked through the restaurant, winding his way to the door, Blaise and Pansy took a seat at the hotel bar. Neither of them looked at him, and Pansy’s voice drifted over to him: “Everyone wants to know whether Zabini will expand into other products, but before we get to that, what is the institution that the proceeds of your new charity line will be going to?”

Harry snatched at his cloak that someone had held out to him and burst out onto the street. Winter was blowing in, and he drew on his cloak, pulling it around him and hunching his shoulders. The chill wind was strong, and a page of a newspaper blew past, the block headline visible: A decade of peace.

He hadn’t been sleeping well lately. Ten years was a milestone, a marker to be noted and remembered. So everyone remembered—candles magically lit, burning long into the night, pictures and lists of names reprinted, old testimonies and accounts recalled. Everyone was seeing ghosts.

It didn’t help that Pansy Parkinson was in her element. She had plenty of material to work with, and seeing her pissed him off. He’d really prefer to never see her again.

***

“Your last article touch a few nerves, Miss Parkinson?”

“Why do you say that, Tumus?” She called back to the aging doorman in her apartment building as she unlocked her mailbox.

“The Ministry sent a search crew over, Miss Parkinson.”

“Of course they did.”

This was the third time this year that her apartment had been searched. Everyone was subject to Ministry searches that were sanctioned to root out the remaining Voldemort supporters. This branch of the Ministry was its own feature in her column, criticized scathingly and without mercy.

She took the stairs up to the third floor. The door to her apartment was already open, and a Ministry signed and stamped notice of approved search was charmed to her door. Ministry officials crowded her apartment, wands out, low voices murmuring complex spells of revealing and breaking concealment charms.

A wizard stood to the side, just inside the front door, arms crossed over his chest, observing the proceedings. Pansy’s lip curled unconsciously in a sneer: Harry Potter. He was watching without comment, an utterly bored expression on his face.

“Typical,” she remarked, announcing her presence to the room. The Aurors stopped their wand movements, and Harry turned. “Harry Potter, standing around and doing absolutely nothing…and getting the credit. Let me guess, you’re supervising?”

He clenched his teeth visibly before responding. “I’m here only to log and document the process.”

“Right,” she drawled, dumping her purse on the couch as she brushed past him. “Take your time. It’s not like I haven’t anything better to do than wait around for you to finish searching fruitlessly.”

Harry made a continuing gesture, the wizards all continued their search, and said irritably, “You and I both know this is a pointless exercise. It’s a waste of Ministry resources and time. But it’s protocol. So here we are.” He shrugged, the frustration evident in the movement.

“It’s not like I enjoy it either,” she pointed out, rolling her eyes.

“Yeah, well.” He shrugged again, eyes on a wizard lifting her grandmother’s vase and peering cautiously down the center. “Stop using Death Eater watchwords and phrases.”

“And what words would that be?” She flicked her wand at the stove. Water began to simmer and boil.

“‘Death Eaters reunite,’ ‘enemies of the Ministry,’ ‘judgment day,’ ‘Death Eaters are liberators,’ ‘abolish established institutions,’ ‘anti-Muggle,’ ‘Harry Potter should have died,’” he said expressionlessly. “Taking out your ongoing campaign and its ‘Muggles for slave labor’ slogan would be a good start.”

“Well, I’m flattered. Harry Potter reads my columns!” She opened a cabinet and shook some salt into the pot. Precisely chopped carrots, lettuce, and onions followed, while a large spoon stirred. Her voice lowered and became meaningful, heavy with implication. “Could I get that in writing? It’s just so hard to know what really happens around Harry Potter…”

His face went, if possible, even more removed and shuttered.

She laughed. “Oh, come on, Potter! Ten years later, and still mum? My, my. Perhaps there’s something you don’t want to disillusion your adoring public about? The hero Potter, perhaps not quite so heroic and great? Little children everywhere would lose a precious bedtime story. No, you must think of the masses, mustn’t you? What’s the matter? A little nervous? Am I too close to the truth?”

He finally looked at her, turning strangely barren eyes her way. She froze, her follow-up retort dying on her tongue. The vacant green eyes were too empty, shining and blank, but then he narrowed his eyes in barely suppressed anger. Her pulse quickened, and she lost her breath. Had she finally goaded him to forgetting himself, would he finally let something slip? She had seen pictures of him surrounded by other reporters, and she had seen firsthand herself when he faced journalists. He was always carefully guarded, so wary that he was succinct and curt. What was he so afraid of that made him so close-mouthed, that he’d rather take abuse than risk retaliating and revealing what he knew?

“Thanks for your cooperation,” he snarled. “I think we’re finished.”

No. He had contained his emotions again. At school, he used to be lousy at it, and it had been easier then to pick him apart. Pansy barely hid her disappointment.

The Aurors swept out of the room without a word. The stirring spoon fell onto the countertop; the soup was done.

The aroma swam through the entire room, and he flicked his eyes over at the soup. It was near dinnertime. He would be off work soon. Pansy smiled. “I’d ask you to stay for dinner…but I really don’t care to have your company.”

“Don’t kid yourself,” Harry said shortly, turning to leave. “The feeling’s mutual.”

***

“Has the Ministry assigned me my own personal watchdog?”

Harry’s face was stoic. “Not everything is conspiracy. Consider this an unpleasant coincidence.”

“An Auror, telling me that everything isn’t conspiracy. You’ve turned my world upside down, Potter.”

Harry gripped his umbrella tighter and blinked through the sheet of rain at her. It just figured that he would meet Pansy Parkinson in Diagon Alley on a weather-terrible day when everyone else had stayed at home. “Fanatical supporters are still a very real threat, and you should take it seriously.”

“You said it yourself. ‘It’s been ten years.’ I’d say the threat is extinct.”

“You know it’s not,” he said.

“Is that how the Ministry trains Aurors to get a confession?” She laughed. “Listen, Potter, you and I both know that the only reason why I keep getting these charming little searches is because my parents were Death Eaters. And if that isn’t prejudice, well…” She smiled mockingly at him. At his sharp, angry indrawn breath, she cut him off. “Let me guess. You want to ask me what my problem is.”

“Don’t have to,” Harry muttered. “You’re a fucking bint.”

Pansy’s eyes widened. “How dare you! You don’t know what my problems are.”

“No?” Harry seethes. “I know enough.”

“You don’t know anything—”

“You’re still stuck in the past,” he snarled. “And everyone else has moved on. You just write about what happened a decade ago. You called me a ‘thing of the past,’ but really, it’s you, isn’t it? You’re the one who’s obsessed with everything back then. What’s so great about it back then? When the war was happening and people were dying and what is so great about that? What’s the view look like from back there, Parkinson?”

“You don’t know a goddamned thing,” said Pansy. “You don’t know a goddamned thing.”

“Shut up,” he snapped. “We’re living a reality. What the bloody fuck are you doing?”

“Everyone else wants to forget,” she said. “That’s not moving on. They just want to forget it. They want to pretend it never happened.”

“No, they just don’t want to live with the deaths of their family and friends every single day! It makes me sick,” he said, infusing his words with disdain, “what you do.”

She blinked at him and his hostility and said coolly, “Potter, I don’t care what you think. But let me set the record straight. You don’t know anything about me,” she reiterated slowly. “And where the hell do you come off telling me your prejudiced assumptions? You don’t know where I was in the war, or how I was, and you have no idea how I’ve—” She gave him a cold look that conveyed her opinion that he was beneath her.

“Look,” Harry broke in, just wishing fervently to get out of the rain and to get away from her, “I shouldn’t have called you a bint.” He would be damned before he apologized for anything else.

Pansy stared back at him silently.

“What do you want?” Harry exclaimed. “I apolo—”

“I want to know what happened at the end of the war,” she said evenly, speaking over him and the rain. “You’ve never told anyone, Potter, and I want to be the one to break the story. It’ll make my career. I want a private interview, with you recounting the events at the end. How you were able to kill Voldemort, not how you did.”

“You’re looking for a story that’s not there,” he muttered.

“Do you think I’m stupid?” she asked pleasantly. “I don’t buy that story the Ministry cooked up and fed to everyone. I don’t believe it, and I want to know the truth.”

Harry tried to go around her, but she moved to block him again and he fell back with a heavy, exasperated sigh. “Parkinson, you need a new job. You’re shite at this one. There isn’t anything here, dammit.”

“I don’t believe you,” she said evenly. “You’re lying. Meet me,” she said quickly, because she sensed he was about to make another break for freedom. “Anywhere. Name the time and the place. We’ll have that on-off the record nonsense.”

“You’re telling me I can okay what you print?” Harry asked suspiciously.

“If you have a valid reason that I should withhold some information, I’ll hear you out,” Pansy confirmed.

“Fine.”

“What?”

“Fine. I choose the time and location. Right now.” He jerked his head over at an dingy establishment with a swinging sign: Jack’s Pot. “Over there.” When she started to speak, he backed away, shaking his head in frustration. “Let’s just get this over with.” He sloshed his way through the puddles to the bar without waiting for her.

***

The bar was dimly lit by floating torches. It reeked of old wood and tobacco and fireplace smoke. The bartender, a burly man levitating two foamy glasses, nodded at Harry, who waved at him.

She followed him to a table away from the bar. A torch came over and hovered to the side, rotating slowly in the air. Firelight flickered and shadows shifted on the table, their faces, their corner of Jack’s Pot.

“Typical,” she sneered at him.

He looked at her blankly in return. “What is?”

“This place. Couldn’t afford to take a girl someplace better?”

He gave her a dirty look and retorted, “I didn’t see any point. There isn’t anyone I want to impress.”

A barmaid came over. “Can I get you anything? Hi, Harry.”

“Hi, Fran,” Harry said tiredly, and gave her a smile. “Um. I’ll have a beer.”

“Nothing for me. Not unless you have chardonnay or merlot,” Pansy declined. “Thank you.”

Fran said, “We’ve got a good jug wine.”

“No thank you—oh, I’ll have a beer as well. The same as him.”

***

Fran brought their drinks around a moment later, and Harry promptly drank deeply.

“Now what about your story would drive you to the cups, Potter?” she mused aloud, just barely wetting her lips on the beer.

Pansy couldn’t stop needling him, and she sensed rather than saw him lose a bit of his temper.

His green eyes angry and glaring at her, Harry demanded, “Do you want your story or not?”

***

She feels her face burning, and she manages to say yes you know I do you bastard and hates him for making him say it. She wonders if he can hear her desperation.

She wishes she could just let this go, but she can’t, so here they are.

He asks how she’s going to take notes, and her anger speaks for her.

“I don’t want you to get this story wrong,” he says.

Pansy clenches her fingers tightly and then flexes them out again. “I won’t.”

He assesses her, nods, and acknowledges her answer neutrally, “Okay.”

***

They’re finally sitting in silence, and Harry is agonizing over the dark bottle of his beer. Pansy quietly retrieves a slim, tall notepad and produces a quill to go with it. She arranges an ink bottle and blotter on the table.

He peels at the corner of the label on the bottle, scraping at it with a short fingernail. It pulls apart easily, wet from the condensation, and it turns into a soggy mess.

Phantom pain lances through his scar, and he resists the urge to touch it, to feel for it and ascertain that there really isn’t any pain, that he’s just imagining the sharpness against his forehead, that it’s just another ghost. Harry Potter doesn’t vanquish ghosts. He kills people.

“Potter?”

He lifts his stare from the bottle to her. “What?” he asks cagily.

“Nothing,” Pansy says quietly, and looks back down at her reporter’s notepad.

He hadn’t had to inform families of their losses. He hadn’t had to go around identifying the dead either. He’d try to go along, but Hermione had locked him in Sirius’ house. Afterwards, when they came back, he was still angry. The house showed the signs: chairs flung or kicked halfway across the room, portraits dragged down and stomped on, mirrors broken, and the sofa had been on fire. He had tried to do the most damage to the Black family tree, but the tapestry had repelled all magic. He nearly hexed Hermione, and he didn’t calm down until she said, “Why would you want to do that, Harry? You’ve already—haven’t you—you shouldn’t have had to do that, Harry. Just…let’s leave it at that.”

This, Harry imagined, this farce of an interview was the searching for and putting names to the bodies he hadn’t had a chance to do.

He can remember the rush of it, the frenzy, the panic from the overwhelming numbers of bodies, people blocking him and getting in his way, everyone looking for him. He can remember smashing into Ron, momentarily hidden by a block of members of the Order, and remembering holding onto the little bottle, yanking the stopper out. Are you sure you want to do this, he had wanted to ask Ron, but he hadn’t. Ron had clinked their little bottles together grimly, and said, “Time to be Harry Potter.” And promptly drank. He had quickly followed his example and shook as the change took hold. He had gripped Ron by the shoulder and he had said, looking down at himself, “Five minutes.”

The line of the Order had splintered, and Harry Potter had hurried forward. Ron Weasley dropped back.

He could remember that it was like being caught in an undertow. He stopped fighting against the current and let it sweep him away to someplace else.

***

Five minutes was barely enough time for Harry to make his way to the edge of the fighting. He felt the change back rippling through him; his strides shortened. And unfortunately, he hadn’t gotten further away. Antonin Dolohov saw him.

He ducked a curse thrown by Dolohov, and he saw Hermione weave around a pair of bodies, locked together, to intercede.

Harry came to a stop, remembering the last time Dolohov and Hermione had faced each other.

Dolohov’s mask had one long tear that had ripped through it and it hung around his neck; he pulled it off with one careless hand. From the smile on his face, Harry knew that the Death Eater remembered Hermione, too, and Dolohov raised his wand and made the rapid slashing movement.

Hermione was silent also, but she made a similar gesture. Dolohov staggered back.

“After you used that one on me, did you really think I wouldn’t have learned to block it?” asked Hermione coolly, her eyes hard and triumphant. Her wand arm did not tremble. She threw a glance at Harry. “Harry, go!”

He veered away, pride beating in his chest. When he was a distance away from the crush of the fighting, he whispered the locating spell. His wand emitted a small green speck of light that bobbed in front of him like it was saying, come on, come on, join in the hunt! Before racing away. Harry followed after it, tracking the faint green light.

He dodged another wayward curse, tore around the corner of a hedge, and came face to face with Draco Malfoy.

They both halted, surprised.

Malfoy raised his wand, but he had always had faster reflexes than the Slytherin Seeker. Draco’s movement was a fruitless gesture.

Harry pointed his wand at him, looking furiously around for the locator light, it was just like Malfoy to get in his way, there wasn’t any time to waste, his friends were buying him time with their lives and where was that goddamned light?

Malfoy raised his free hand and swatted at a tiny green pinprick of light that was fading even smaller before his face.

“Potter,” he sneered. “Running away?”

“Search and destroy,” Harry snarled, and snapped, “Don’t touch that!”

“What is it?”

Harry didn’t answer. He wasn’t about to tell Malfoy that he was tracking the last horcrux, that he was close to finding it, and that, with luck, this would all be over soon.

He caught on very suddenly.

Lucius Malfoy made his son into a horcrux. Voldemort’s absolute servant, slave to Voldemort in every way. And Lucius Malfoy’s son! Lucius Malfoy, whose ideologies and loyalties changed on the winds of fortune. It was one of the stupidest things he had ever heard of, but he supposed it must have appealed to the younger Tom Riddle, to have the son of one of his loyal servants carry an essence of Voldemort—a new generation of what he stood for and believed in.

Watching Malfoy finger the wand held limply at his side, Harry warned Malfoy sharply, “Remember that I’m faster than you are.”

Or perhaps not so stupid.

How many times had he wished Malfoy would die, just die already? Did Dumbledore suspect this? Had this been another harsh truth Harry had been protected from? Had it always had to have been this way? Could Voldemort have known what kind of person Harry would be?

He didn’t know what to do. He was trembling, his wand shaking, and he was having a hard time seeing because his eyes hurt. His scar really, really hurt.

“I can’t,” he whispered, and then hating himself, dragged up every nasty memory of Malfoy that he had. It wasn’t difficult. The insults about his parents, to the Weasleys, working alongside Umbridge, ruining so many things just to get Harry in trouble, the snobbery, the way he treated Hagrid and Hermione and Neville, his father and oh god Bellatrix was his aunt and what they did to Sirius…this strengthened him a bit, feeling the familiar rush of all-consuming hatred for Malfoy and all things Malfoy, and his wand arm steadied, resolved.

Malfoy’s face was ashen. This wasn’t school. This was war, and this was not holding back. Neither of them would withdraw, and no one would interrupt them or force them to stop. He knew it.

“Going to kill me, Potter?” he said. He didn’t sneer.

Harry remained silent.

“I can pay you,” Malfoy said in a low voice. “Whatever you want.”

Harry found himself shaking his head before he even knew he was doing it.

“If you don’t want money, I’ll get you information. I’ll tell you anything,” Malfoy said desperately. “I know where the second stronghold of Death Eaters is!”

He wanted to close off his ears. He didn’t want Malfoy to start doing him favors now. His scar twinged, Voldemort somehow sensing their confrontation, and then Harry’s scar started to really fucking hurt.

“I tell you, I know where it is!” Malfoy’s voice climbed higher. “You don’t believe me? I can show you, I can take you there—”

“Shut up!” There might be another way. He tried to think, but Malfoy was moaning, repeating promises and swearing new bribes.

“Please believe me,” Malfoy said frantically, breathing hard, “I can help you.”

“I do,” Harry gasped, “I believe you.”

***

He can’t justify himself. There’s the people who believed in him for a reason that was entirely not of his doing or choosing, and then there was the boy who only believed in his twisted, fucked up family and blood and money. But he still can’t justify himself. So after a few years Harry stopped trying to.

***

Pansy is still. She’s stopped taking notes. Harry thinks that he can’t remember when she stopped taking notes, but it must have been around the time that he ran into Draco.

He had known what this was about, of course. She had wanted to know the truth. Not about the war. About Draco. Draco Malfoy’s name had not been on the list of Death Eaters, killed or in Azkaban. Probably, Harry thinks dully, probably Pansy Parkinson had seen the published list in the Daily Prophet; probably she had pored over it once, twice, checking for Draco’s name and not finding it. Probably she had pried and dug and no one had or could tell her what happened to Draco.

She hates him. She hates him, the boy who hated Draco at school, who outdid Draco, who contributed to humiliating Draco, who had even tried to kill Draco with his own hands on a few occasions, after all that, he is the one who knows what happened to Draco. He’s the one who remembers Draco.

And probably, Harry imagines, she had clung to some small hope that Draco had been alive. That because he hadn’t named as a Death Eater, maybe he had been redeemed, at the end, that he had changed sides and that he had fled and was in hiding, living comfortably but discreetly in the countryside or France or someplace like that.

“What are you going to do?” Harry inquires wearily. “Call him the true hero of the war?”

“He is, isn’t he?” Pansy says.

Harry is silent.

“I can’t write it, anyway,” she continues.

“Why the hell not?”

“Do you want me to?” she retorts, eyes glittering. “I thought you didn’t want me reminding people of the war and the nastiness and the unfairness of it. Or maybe you’re feeling guilty? Is this your way of apologizing to Draco?” The derision is clear in her voice.

Harry clenches his jaw and says through his teeth, “I don’t have to apologize to him for anything.”

“Of course you don’t,” Pansy sneers. “Killing your peer. He was seventeen, Potter. Don’t you see? If I wrote this article, I’d just be glorifying the already great Harry Potter. The masses would rush to adore you. ‘Look how he suffered in silence all these years.’ ‘Can you imagine having to bear that burden?’ ‘No boy should have to make that decision.’ They would rush to comfort and it would be hail Harry Potter for months.”

Any sympathy he might have felt for her, as always, vanishes. He wants to scream, slap her, really hit her. The memory is still ringing in his ears, and he can taste the blood from his lip all over again, feel the sweat in his eyes, the slight fogging over of his glasses, and she is mocking all of that.

He stands abruptly and drops a Galleon to cover their drinks. He stares down at her for a long time and decides he has nothing to respond to that.

“You got your interview. Print whatever you want. Try to get the facts right,” Harry says tightly.

***

It was Seeker senses, fine-tuned by Auror training, that made him turn in time to face her. She came barreling out the side door and slammed into him before drawing back. “Don’t you dare walk out on me, Potter.”

He had staggered back from the impact and hissed at the ache in his ribs. “What is your problem?”

“You’re just like you’ve always been,” she accuses. “A bloody Gryffindor, so fucking presumptuous, thinking you know everything and everyone. You’re so full of it,” she spat. “People change. Draco changed. You slaughtered him.”

“Draco Malfoy did not change.”

“He did. You made him change, you think if you had let him go he would’ve gone back to Lucius Malfoy? You Gryffindors pigeonhole everyone into these neat little roles, and nothing and no one can ever break out of them because it upsets your entire belief system.”

“I think he would have run back home very scared and then the next time I saw him, he would have tried to kill me.”

“Don’t you ever give anyone a fucking chance, you bastard?”

“All right then,” Harry says roughly. “Convince me. Convince me that you’ve changed.”

“I don’t have to prove anything to you.”

He gives her a long look. “Right.”

“How?”

“I don’t know!” He sighs. “Just forget it.”

She kisses him.

It’s the kind of fast kiss that’s full of dares and just a taste of the beer she took one sip of. The kind of fast kiss where he’s caught off guard, completely surprised, and when he opens his mouth to demand what is going on, why is she looking at him that way, like she’d like to murder him and something else, he gets, instead of answers, a breath full of soft skin and perfume. A fast kiss like the ones where there’s just a bit of too much momentum, so there’s some force propelling him back and a brief bumping of noses, but it’s also the kind of fast where the pressure of lips is quick and fleeting and light, just a pressing of her mouth to his and then gone.

He is shocked. All the tension has left his body, and he’s just standing there, breath forming on the air.

“What—” he utters. “That—was that supposed to be some kind of proof?”

She raises her chin in that fuck you Potter way. “I wouldn’t have done that ten years ago.”

Harry can’t believe that there can be someone like Pansy Parkinson existing in the world.

He hauls her against him and it is a slide of tongues and warm breath and cold hands on his face on her waist, just beneath the hem of her shirt. Her fingers go to his face, pulling off his glasses so that they dangle from her fingers and then drop silently to the ground. He feels Pansy’s teeth graze his bottom lip, and his fingers tighten, grasping at her shirt, her skirt, the strip of skin just beneath her sweater. Her fingers are tangling in his hair, and she is pressed up against him, legs clamped around one leanly muscled thigh. He likes the soft gasp of her breath hitching as his hands slide up beneath her sweater. Pansy nips at his mouth again, and he shudders against her. He really can’t believe this. He’s got his back to a dirty wall behind a bar, a dumpster two feet away, and Pansy Parkinson—Harry shuts his eyes and forgets to think and as Pansy scrapes fingers down chest and he feels her nails through the thin material, he reaches out to the dumpster and holds on.

This is wrong in so many ways. He is bruising her lips with his, not really caring if it hurts her, and he isn’t like this, normally. He hasn’t ever lost control like he did when he was still a student at Hogwarts. When Sirius had died, he had exploded in the confined space of Dumbledore’s office, and since then he hadn’t suffered such a bad loss of control as he was experiencing now. Pansy’s fingernails dig through his shirt into his shoulders, sliding down his side to rest on the waistband of his pants and they are not going to have sex in an ally like this.

“Stop,” Harry says raggedly, distracted and determined, “Stop.”

Pansy struggles for breath and then asks through swollen red lips, “What were you trying to convince me?”

He reacts again to that inflection in her voice and kisses Pansy again, slanting his lips hard across hers.

“Believe what you want to believe,” Harry tells her.

Atrophy In The Library

2006-01-15T21:08:30Z

Wow. There were so many different styled fics, and it was a fun experience :) I signed up on a whim, and I'm glad I did. Am proud of fic, and flattered and happy that people enjoyed it.

Honored by the readers at dmhgficexchange:

And thank you to whoever nominated the fic at Dangerous Liasons Awards and the readers who voted there!

Title: Atrophy in the Library
Ship: Draco/Hermione
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Names, terms, etc. don't belong to me. The book titles do, however. Took me the better part of an hour trying to make them up *headdesk*
Author's Notes: Written for the dmhgficexchange. HBP spoilers are included. Special thanks to onecrimsontie for the usual beta and feedback routine.
Summary: Hermione finds her own personal library in Draco Malfoy.

( It’s not like they’re friends. )

Am back at school. Jetlagged. Going to sleep now, so as to wake up for 9 o'clock class tomorrow morning.

Real Life and "Planets"

2005-11-09T13:24:52Z

I got my midterm grades back, and I did really fucking well! I didn't expect that, but it has reminded me what I'm doing here and that I've been doing something right.

Got hooked on Smallville from watching S4. Tom Welling. I'm shallow and stuff, I know it, but he is so hot it's ridiculous. And although there are many things wrong with that show, it was still enjoyable. A few cringeworthy moments, but overall, I like it. I've also gotten back into Gilmore Girls (YAY) and one of my friends plans on buying S5, so I'm going to kill myself with all the Logan.

Title: Planets
Paring: None
Rating: PG-13
Summary: That 11-year-old, the one with the correct posture and the sulky, sullen look on his face—that is Sirius Black. In two minutes he will have another reason to hate his cousin Bellatrix even more. In seven minutes, he will suffer awkward, stiff farewells from his parents, and then he will board the Hogwarts Express. And in twenty-four minutes and thirty-nine seconds, he will meet James Potter.

A/N: Challenge #25, when Sirius met James, written for sirius_loving.I must have been crazy to choose this prompt. It felt too big for me to handle, and I almost wrote a cop-out of a fic, maybe still have done so, but anyway, here it is. Feedback = love.

( The date is September 1st, 1970; the place is Platform 9¾ at Kings Cross station. )

"Surfacing In Unknown Waters"

2005-09-29T15:08:59Z

Title: "Surfacing In Unknown Waters"
Ship: Sarkney
Rating: Mature
Disclaimer: Alias and its characters belong to J.J. Abrams.
Summary: She is the leper. No one is willing to take her; no one is daring enough to touch her.
A/N: When a plot bunny bites, it hangs on like the devil, all teeth and just so annoying, and the only way to quash it is to appease it. Over 2000 words, and all in a day. Crazy. Feedback appreciated :P

There is an abandoned jet hangar lying north on highway 101. An hour out of L.A., it’s almost right on the beach. The waves aren’t smooth enough to tempt the surfers, and the shore is too rocky. It isn’t scenic enough for couples. But mostly, it is the secret acknowledgement that the jet hanger hasn’t been abandoned by gunrunners and smugglers and drug traffickers that dissuades people from encroaching onto the beach. It is a resting point for people traveling up and down the west coast; the layover where everyone smokes and keeps one eye on their baggage. Planes never touch down for very long—a quick refueling and then the plane turns back down the small runway. Occasionally, business takes place. The transactions are efficiently taken care of.

Law enforcement agencies regard it as a source of information, a resource more than a hindrance. Better left alone, anyway.

It is the perfect place to meet.

January is cold, and at 5 in the morning, it is cold almost everywhere in the world. Her lips are chapped from the dry wind. Standing behind the scraggly bushes on the cliff, overlooking the airstrip down below, tennis shoes trampling the sparse grass shoots, she resents him for making her wait. She doesn’t like to be alone with her thoughts. She stares at the dotted electric blue runway lights and the long strips of green flanking the dark runway. The ocean roils and shifts in breaks itself on the shore.

The wind keeps blowing her hair into her face and into her mouth; she finally pulls it back and holds it with one hand before she gives up, giving in to the wind.

The car shifts silently and pulls up over the sand and gravel. He shifts the stick to P, leaves the keys in, engine running silently, and is motionless behind tinted windows. She glares through the dark windshield. He finally emerges from the car, gleaming chrome and smooth metal, shuts the door firmly. Sark walks around the car to stand beside her at a respectful distance.

She grimaces. “New car?” she says disparagingly, observing that he looks immaculate even when dressed casually.

Pale lips quirk. “A rental.”

A plane, a jet, shoots overhead, trailing a streak of gray exhaust. The sound breaks and washes over them. He waits until the sound is an echo before he speaks again.

“Twenty minutes ago, your colleagues issued a standing order signed by the Department of Defense to ground all flights from LAX,” he tells her in clipped tones. “The false lead won’t hold in another hour. We need to re-route you.”

She stares blindly out at the slate-gray, icy Pacific, leans into nothing, grips the icy guardrail with stiff fingers.

“Irina has suggested we smuggle you onto, ironically, Andrée Yemen’s cargo plane. He’s on his way down to Mexico to bring back munitions.” Sark flicks his eyes briefly in the direction of the hangar. “His plane leaves in ten minutes.”

Another plane explodes off the runway into the grey, pinking dawn.

“Sydney,” Sark says, his voice gentle. She gives him a startled look. “You understand what is happening?”

“Yes.”

She is the leper. She is infectious pestilence, and she cannot remain on American soil. Not even the people dealing with suspicious goods and the shadowy concept of making either a fortune or losing everything will take her. Everyone fears contamination by association. No one will touch her.

“Yemen has a Cessna 152 seaplane. I have underwater gear available for you. I had to convince the owner to let me buy it from him, and then he insisted that I fill out the proper forms.” There is a faintly apologetic note in his voice.

“That’s why you were late?” She laughs; it is the wind that thins it, makes it sound empty and hollow. “Your skills in persuasion are slipping.”

He inclines his head and this time he follows through with a smile. “Perhaps.”

He waits patiently, but she knows an internal clock is ticking away and he is feeling the minutes. It is one of the earlier tricks of their trade—to always know how much time had passed, to calculate the passage of time by way of the senses. She had always played it off as a parlor trick with Francie and Will.

“Mexico is nice.”

“Mexico is useful,” he corrects. “You can acquire what you need in Mexico. Irina will contact me with further information on your status. Your goal is to maintain a low profile. Should you be compromised, we would, of course, coordinate an extraction. However, given the situation, that may prove difficult. You should avoid that circumstance.”

“Sark,” she says through her teeth. “I know that.”

However, she is glad. Sark has never withheld anything from her—not a beating, not his scorn, not himself. He has never pulled his blows; Sark will never make things easy for her. He calls her on everything. He is acerbic, cynical, smugly blunt, never insouciant. Friends lie. Your enemy is the one who tells you the truth. He may and probably will be a fucking bastard about it, but he will give you the truth. When it serves his purpose. And generally speaking, if it means causing you pain, that serves his purpose. Secure in the knowledge that Sark will always be Sark, a great inconvenience and focus for her hate of all things wrong in her life, she feels oddly reassured.

7 more minutes.

Seven minutes is a long time. He shows no reaction, no strain, no sign that he is still waiting for an answer. She wonders what he will do if she refuses to sneak onto Andrée Yemen’s plane. She wonders what instructions her mother has given him. What will he do with her, if she rejects this plan that he has followed up till the last 7 minutes, where the success of the plan depends on her, that it is out of his hands? It is weird to be Sark’s responsibility, but with her mother several large bodies of water away, she is sure that Sark has been given explicit directions to follow.

She wonders what his contingency plan is. Sark always has an escape plan. Whether by design or luck, Sark lands on his feet.

She looks at him, savoring something that is familiar but strange at the same time. Feeling peaceful with Sark nearby is new. His blond hair, after its close crop courtesy of CIA custody, is in its perfect disarray again. Against the backdrop of the pale morning and dark sea, his eyes are very blue. She looks at the smoothness and hard line of his jaw, and he looks very young. She wants to touch him, absorb his aloofness.

She doesn’t want to believe that he is here because of her mother. He is risking a lot for someone else. This time, she has absolutely no use to him. Except, maybe, if he turned her in. Her government will pardon him for all his past crimes. If he turned her in.

A plane, the fifth since she arrived, burst from airstrip and into the sky with a deafening scream of engines and thrusters.

She feels time winding down.

“You said we were destined to work together,” she says.

She sees curiosity in his eyes. He is aware of her.

“Yes,” Sark says carefully, eyes gleaming with interest and surprise and something else. “Sydney, may I just say—”

“Shut up,” she tells him, and for once, maybe it’s because he sees the crazy look in her eyes, for once, Sark shuts up and watches her.

The boarding school bred British accent reminds her that this is Sark. She steps forward, closer to him. He regards her with a wariness people might exhibit to a strange animal, cautious because they don’t know how much wildness it has and whether it is rabid or not.

She steps so close she can watch the pulse at his neck, the faint blue veins, can tell the skin is soft at his temple and his eyelids. She steps in even more, and she can feel his breath on her skin. She inhales and smells mostly salt and sand and wind. He isn’t wearing the expensive cologne today. It is too early for that, and he only came to meet her.

She reaches out and brushes her fingertips against his forehead, moving aside that curl of blond hair. She feels the soft texture. Sark doesn’t step away from her, and something lodged deep within her shifts.

She thinks about Vaughn and the look on his face when he told her she had to give in. You can’t run this time, Syd. You can’t beat these odds.

Beat this.

She steps into a dip in the sand, uneven ground, and unexpected, it throws her weight into him. He stumbles back a bit, but he reacts instinctively: he grips her upper arms, brings her close. When she tilts her head back and touches her lips to his, it is almost an afterthought. But she did it in purpose.

He doesn’t reciprocate immediately. Maybe he thought she had finally lost her mind, succumbed to madness, that she was just doing a crazy person thing.

The wind hikes up a notch. Little flecks of sand bite against her skin and she feels like she is being sandpapered down, running out of resources, worn out, rubbed raw.

Sark’s mouth moves beneath hers. She has kept her eyes open, and she sees him looking back at her, clearheaded. She bites his bottom lip and soothes it with a quick lick of her tongue. She wants him to be just as crazy as she is.

She isn’t in control anymore. Sark’s tongue presses, invades, hot and slick in her mouth. He is good at kissing, and his hands are good at touching her.

The bumper of his rental hits the back of her knees. She loses her footing again, and before she can regain it, he nudges at her. He bends her back, hand cupping her head. She feels the heat of the engine beneath the hood, feels the car motoring away silently. A truly gorgeous car.

She slides her hands up and down his forearms, feeling the coiled muscles there, feels the strain as he braces and supports himself against the car. She wraps a leg around his back as he moves his mouth away, presses persistent kisses along her neck. She arches her back in response, digs a hand through the fabric of his shirt. She feels the money in it. He’s pulling at her sweater; she sits up, tugs it over her head, and drops it, where it slides down the hood of the car and lands on the ground. She shivers in the chill wind, and wraps a hand in the short curls of his hair. He gets the hint and his body covers hers, mouth grazing her bra and then closing over a peak and pulling upwards. She groans, and when he stops, cries out at the unfairness so that his lips curve upwards in what could be a smirk or a smile.

He laves her skin with the warmth of his mouth, tonguing generously, and his hands roam low.

He’s parked just off the shoulder of the highway. Anyone rounding the curve of the hill, coming over that crest over there, anyone could see. A trucker, an early riser, people from San Francisco coming down to Disneyland…but it is too early for even the religious.

“Sydney,” Sark moans raggedly.

The joining is quick, rushed, combustion, and she does her best to make him lose his mind, forces him to let go of his control, aims to break his restraint, to make him forget time. She clutches him to her, holds him as he drives in and pulls out. The wind blows cool over her heated, feverish, sweat-slick skin. He bites down hard at the spot where her neck meets her shoulder and she comes with a sob in his ear. Her reaction trips his, and he follows her into the complete languor of limbs, like someone injected them with an anesthetic and they are seized with heavy paralysis, feeling the torpor in their systems.

Sark doesn’t let her go. His hand languidly strokes hair, fingers pulling gently through the knotted strands tangled by the wind and sorting through the love-knots he has left. His lips caress her jugular vein, ghosting a touch over her skin with his other hand, smoothing down across her belly, stroking at her hip. She feels the warmth of his handprint on her skin, inhales in the air, struggles to regain her breath.

“You just missed your flight,” Sark informs her.

She laughs, and curled into him, laughing into the tight space of heat between their bodies, it sounds genuine and rueful and full of what they have just done.

She presses her forehead against his and whispers, breaths mingling, “Road trip?”

"A Christmas Story"

2005-09-25T16:17:19Z

Fic for nyruserra, who commissioned me at the_fund and asked for Fred/Hermione, Post-Hogwarts, fluffy-romance. I can't believe I've finished it so quickly. It's over 3000 words! *is pleased*

Title: "A Christmas Story"
Pairing: Fred/Hermione
Rating: PG13
Summary: It's that magical time of year, and Hermione buys a gift for herself at Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes.

Weasleys’ Wizarding Wheezes was busy all year round, but like all other shops, business peaked during certain holidays and then some. The twins had commented upon the frequency of Hogwarts students near the end of the year, right around exam periods, and the store was also especially popular on Valentine’s Day. Inevitably, however, it was Christmas that ushered in the customers in hordes accompanied by a stinging wind and flurries of snow.

However, it was now twenty minutes till closing time, and the shop was mostly empty. She would never have a better opportunity.

Hermione took a deep breath and darted in.

***

Thursdays were his day off, but Fred had been called in to figure out what had gone wrong with the Mad Hatters—snobby tea cups that would provide different types of tea and a lengthy discourse on a variety of subjects . The Mad Hatters had become violently aggressive and needed to be dealt with, Ginny had reported to him firmly through the Floo.

He had arrived to discover that her assessment hadn’t been exaggerated. Donning a cheerful apron with dancing reindeer—this could get messy, he thought grimly—he rolled up his sleeves, sent Ginny home, asked her to send George in her place, and set off to do battle. His twin had arrived five minutes ago and it now appeared that George’s presence in the shop quota was up.

“George, I’m not joking. These things are evil. You cannot leave me here to deal with them. You made these.”

“You exaggerate,” said George dismissively. “Anyway, just lock them up and lock up the shop. Today’s our day off; we’ll handle them tomorrow. I have a date with Annabelle Zemeckis, and I don’t intend to be late.” He sniffed himself. “Do you think I overdid the cologne?” George didn’t wait for an answer; he started for the door.

“Close the door, git!” Fred snapped, but just outside the door to the back room, he received the pop of Apparation and silence for an answer. Just as his fingers closed around his wand and he opened his mouth to say Colloportus, one of the Mad Hatters bolted.

Fred lunged after the Mad Hatter hopping desperately for freedom. “Come back here, you stupid, bloody—”

He threw himself on top of it, which, in retrospect, might have looked impressive to the group of young children standing by the counter, but ultimately wasn’t an entirely clever thing to do. He smashed the teacup against the floor, feeling the porcelain crack, and he swore. The mother of the children shot him a dirty look, he returned it in kind, and she ushered her children away.

Fred shoved himself up from the floor, sweeping away crumbles of porcelain embedded in his palms.

And then he saw his little brother’s girlfriend standing frozen a few feet away near the Foul-Mouthed Gingerbread Men.

“Hermione!” Fred kicked the door to the back room shut, hearing the crunch as another Mad Matter broke itself against it, and winced. He brushed his hands down the front of his apron and hurried around the counter.

To his surprise, Hermione blushed deeply and ducked her head down slightly. “Hello, Fred!” she said brightly a moment later, traces of pink still suffused in her face. “I didn’t realize you would be in.”

***

Hermione was mortified to find Fred there—she had been sure that both twins took Thursdays off and left the store in the hands of Ginny or one of their mutual friends.
Fred was looking at her expectantly.

“Are you looking for Ginny?” he inquired. “I came in to fix our Mad Hatters. Figured I could handle the customers at the same time, so I told her to go home. She’s probably at the Burrow.”

“Oh, no,” said Hermione hastily. “I’m not looking for Ginny.” Although, she mourned silently, Ginny’s presence would have been preferable to the twins. And of the twins, she would have given anything for it not to have been Fred. Fred! “I just got off work, and—”

Fred’s eyebrows rose. “Ah, so the Ministry does give breaks. Wouldn’t have known it from what we see of Perce, or rather, the lack of him. Why don’t we ever see you around our humble establishment to sup with us?”

She reddened at the playfulness in his voice. “I’ve been busy. So—ah, how are you? Ron told me the shop is doing very well this hols…”

“Very well,” Fred said cheerfully.

***

Hermione was hiding something.

Fred was sure of this. He was as sure of this as he was sure that one of the more rabid Mad Hatters had just tried to chew his fingers off; he was as sure of it as he was sure that he hated lettuce stew and the thick winter socks his mum kept pressing on him to wear ever since November had arrived.

Fred made his career in mischief. He had subterfuge in spades. He ate up people’s lies and fibs and spat them out like tobacco. His childhood heroes were Hermes, Odysseus, Jack the giant slayer. No one put things past him. Certainly not here, where he was the proprietor of the best mischief-making shop since Zonko’s.

But most of all, Fred was certain of this because Hermione was a truly a terrible improvisational liar.

She was avoiding his eyes, standing there in her dark blue winter coat dusted with snow, blushing, which was not just very fetching but very telling. And she wasn’t getting to her point. If there was one thing Fred Weasley knew about Hermione Granger, it was that she always had a point and she didn’t beat around the bush.

Now, however, she was hiding her point, and he was determined to get it out of her. He was the master of extracting secrets. Hermione had a secret, even if it was just a little one, his curiosity had been piqued, and now he was going worm it out of her with every means possible, even if he had to seduce it out of her.

Fred thought about that for a moment, imagining a truly spectacularly failed seduction, and almost laughed aloud. Seducing Hermione Granger! That ranked up there with Kissing McGonagall and Trying To Seduce Your Baby Brother’s Girlfriend: horrifying and a terrible fates.

***

Fred’s face was bright with amusement, and Hermione cursed whatever luck it was that had sent him.

“I’ll let you get back to whatever you were doing then,” Hermione said, hoping he would get the hint. “I’m just going to do a little bit of browsing…”

Fred’s eyes had lit up and his face broke out into a wide grin. “Hermione Granger, not only visiting my shop, but looking to buy a product?” His voice was gleeful; his eyes dancing.

“Fred, please.” Hermione made a face like she had a headache.

“So, what do you want? The Ministry becoming too dull for you? You need a Skiving Snackbox? Surely not a Portable Swamp. Or, look, these are new, we call them Protean Dollops, you just squeeze out a bit—”

“No, Fred!” Hermione burst out, feeling panicky and imagining Fred leading her about the shop, pointing out every possible item except for the one she wanted because probably, he couldn’t imagine her wanting it. “I—I can find it myself! I’ll call you if I need help.”

Fred stood there for a moment, rocking on his heels. At last, he nodded and said, “Well, I’ll let you get to it then. Let me know when you want to ring up your purchase.” He gave her another long look and then nodded, and disappeared into the back room.

***

A while later, Fred was tallying up Hermione’s items. He suspected most of them were gifts for her Muggle family and relations, as they were all fairly innocuous items. Hermione kept glancing at her watch, and he tried to ring up her purchase as fast as possible.

The last item, buried beneath all her other things, was completely unexpected.

“Ah,” said Fred, mind blanking. “For a friend?”

“Yes,” Hermione said in a rush, latching onto the excuse in a way that said she was lying.

“Oh,” said Fred. “Well, then. We made improvements on them, you know…” His voice trailed off and he stuffed the Patented Daydream Charm into the bag.

“Seven Galleons and fourteen Sickles,” he said.

She left Fred standing behind the counter, arms hanging motionless at his sides.

The image of her fuzzy brown head was seared into his mind. A Patented Daydream Charm! What on earth did she want with one of those? And him! Making it into such an awkward moment. Why hadn’t he said something, anything, nodded understandably and teased her about ickle Ronniekins not taking the lead? He should have done anything but stare with his mouth hanging open slightly like a ninny.

He thought about her lying on her bed at home, eyes closed, blissful and serene expression on her face, a smile curving her lips, her cheeks slightly flushed, that brilliant mind whirling away, daydreaming of…

A crash from the back room reminded him of the Mad Hatters that had probably torn apart the room by now, and he dashed back to assess the damage.

Nursing a wounded thumb morosely and thinking of Hermione, Fred was disturbingly sedate when Ron dropped by just as Fred was locking up the register.

His younger brother stomped in, snow falling from him in clumps. As soon as his feet left the Sno-Welcome Mat, the little rug shook itself over, dusted the snow under it, and settled down on top of the snow. After a day of entrants and exits, it was getting rather damp.

“Christmas stinks,” Ron announced with a black look on his face. “I hate buying…gifts.”

Ron was the sort who never knew what to get anyone. His gifts were always sincere, so everyone pardoned him for it. Fred and George prided themselves on being the best gift-givers of the Weasleys. When Ginny was five, she had become the recipient of a gift-giving contest amongst the older Weasleys. All of them had outdone their usual standards, even Ron, but in the end, Ginny had preferred Charlie’s gift over theirs. Fred dismissed this as a deciding contest, seeing as Charlie had provided Ginny with a ride on a Welsh Green dragon, and that wasn’t exactly fair play.

“Don’t know what to get?” Fred asked, thinking furiously about how to bring about the subject of Hermione.

Ron gave a grunt in response and walked around the shop.

“How’s Hermione?” Fred asked casually, finally ditching all ideas as implausible and decided to just go with the upfront way—all subtlety would be lost on Ron.

Ron gave him a blank look. “Dunno. Fine, I guess. Hey,” Ron brightened, “D’you have anymore of those Peppermint Pandas? George let me sample one. It’s brilliant.”

Some boyfriend Hermione had snagged.

“That shelf, but don’t touch any if all the samples are gone.”

“What do you get a girl, anyway?” Ron muttered, wandering over and eyeing a shelf of Peppermint Pandas.

“A girl or a girlfriend?” inquired Fred.

Ron shrugged. “Both, I guess.”

“Candy is always good,” Fred offered abstractly.

“Yeah, I suppose,” Ron sighed, clearly disheartened. “Well, maybe I’ll ask Charlie. Are you Apparating home?”

“Give me a minute.”

***

A week later, with the promise of Christmas approaching in less than seventy-two hours, Hermione had not ceased to be the star of Fred’s dreams, which had now become like a sort of ongoing episode.

In his more lucid, pragmatic moments, he told himself that he had no business wondering and inquiring after what Hermione Granger daydreamed about.

However, if there was any time of the year that he wanted to put away Hermione from his mind, December was not it. December was entirely the wrong month to forget Hermione.

December meant Harry and Hermione were invited to dinner every night. Harry usually showed up, but Hermione had family, so she was a sporadic guest. In the past, she usually spent the morning of Christmas Eve and the afternoon of Christmas with the Weasleys, but this year her parents were celebrating Christmas in Australia, so she became a frequent presence.

Christmas Eve, he arrived at the Burrow to find that Molly had already commandeered the kitchen. Hermione was speaking with Percy when he entered, and she didn’t look over even as he gave a loud hello to everyone around and everyone responded with a distracted greeting in response.

There was a quick lunch break from making the Christmas Eve feast—cold sandwiches of cheese and ham and tomatoes and even colder water. Hermione sat between Harry and Ron and talked to Bill.

Lunch was only a short reprieve—they were sent off to clean and decorate the Burrow while Molly continued her cooking rampage. His mum spared a moment from her culinary duties to cause him more grief when he passed through the kitchen: “Fred, are you wearing your thick socks? George wears them.”

“Yes, mum,” he sighed, pulling up his trousers to show her the pair he had put on that morning, the one with somersaulting elves.

“You actually wear those?” George murmured as he walked by, levitating a dish of pot roast before him. “An Illusion Charm, my dear brother. She never checks anymore.”

Fred darted him a baleful look and wandered into the living room, where he caught Ron sneaking gifts under the tree.

“Who’s that for?” he asked.

“Hermione.” Ron stowed the bulky package beneath the tree.

“What are you giving her, a rock?”

“No, books,” Ron snapped.

“What kind of book has six corners?”

“So I’m not very good at wrapping!” Ron exclaimed, face reddening. “What’s it to you?”

“I just thought you’d exert a little more effort when it came to a girlfriend! Honestly, hasn’t Bill or Charlie taught you anything in keeping a girl?”

Ron gave him a look that conveyed exactly what he thought: that Fred was completely around the bend. “Hermione’s not my girlfriend.”

“What? Yes, she is!” Fred insisted irritably.

“No, she’s not! I think I would know better than you!”

“You came by the store to pick up a present for your girl—”

“You said ‘a girl or a girlfriend,’ and I said ‘both’ and I meant two gifts for both, you prat!”

Fred elbowed him for the impudence. Also, he felt rather stupid. “So who’s the girlfriend?”

“You don’t know her,” Ron muttered, yanking Hermione’s gift away from Fred.

“How do you know I don’t know her?”

“I just do!” More scuffling, and then, “Pansy Parkinson!” slipped out. Ron’s eyes were panicky. “But you can’t tell anyone, Fred!”

“You have my word,” Fred assured him. “So you’re not going out with Hermione?”

“No.”

“Oh,” said Fred, enlightened.

***

Christmas Eve dinner promised great things of Christmas Day’s dinner—Molly gave them just a taste of what was to come. Hermione sat at the end of the table, Harry on her right, and talked to Arthur about airplanes and other Muggle appliances. Fred sat at the opposite far end of the table, lathering his cornbread with butter and shaking salt over it and thinking about this new development in which Hermione Was Not Ron’s Girlfriend.

After dinner, he was still thinking on this. He was so distracted that he didn’t even jump into the engaging conversation on Quidditch finals in England, where everyone was asking Harry if he thought his team could beat the Falcons. He was so preoccupied that he failed to notice that slowly, everyone began to disperse as the hours climbed higher and later. When he finally looked away from the dying fire, he saw Hermione closing a book, apparently just having finished reading it. Firelight glazed her hair and softened her face.

She looked around with a slightly dazed look—Patented Daydream Charm aftereffect! Fred’s mind cried—and blushed when she saw Fred.

His pants had ridden up slightly as he sank down into the squishy sofa that could possibly eat him alive. Hermione, sitting primly on the very edge of the sofa, stared at his feet. He caught her looking at his socks.

“Well, I’m off to bed then—”

“I think I’ll go to sleep—”

They lapsed into silence. Right then. Fred leapt to his feet.

“Good night,” they both muttered, and hurried for the stairs.

***

The kitchen of the Burrow was a kind of gastric heaven. On every available surface, there lay food.

Charlie had made roast pork and chicken breasts and corn, and Ginny’s famous mashed potatoes was present as well. Fleur always made some French dish with an unpronounceable name that Fred was never sure whether he liked or not; Bill always brought something exotic, like a Thai dish or Moroccan appetizer. Hermione made gingerbread men spiced with nutmeg, clove, and cinnamon; Harry usually brought something store-bought, this year it was an impressive dish of sweet peas around a turkey that dripped gravy. Ron made a surprisingly good eggnog, dark rum, heavy cream, sweet sugar, and a bit of nutmeg. Molly’s pièce de résistance was an ice cream cake: melting hot dark chocolate capped with cold vanilla—the cake tasted of buttercream, pralines, hazelnut, toffee, and the ice cream part of it was vanilla and caramel swirled together.

People came and went throughout the day, dropping for some eggnog or hot chocolate, exchanging holiday news and greetings and wishes for the New Year. As the day went on, Molly worked harder, firing out directions in the kitchen like a general directing his troops. The smell of food became stronger and crisper, and people stayed longer and longer, happy to just inhale the food.

Christmas dinner was a feast. The first few minutes was filled with deep breaths of inhalations and wide eyes and tall plates and full mouths and quick swallows. Everyone lingered over their plates and remained in their seats, unable to move because a great contentment had settled over them and seized their lazy limbs. And to think, they still had to open presents! May Christmas never end, they all thought.

Two hours later, Fred was entering the living room just as Hermione was leaving it. He was intent on pretending he had not noticed her, so the voice that cried out above their heads surprised them both.

Fred glimpsed Hermione, holding a clementine orange and looking very startled, before his eyes lifted to the doorway above them.

***

“Uh oh. Mistletoe!” sang the sprig of magicked mistletoe from above. “Uh oh. Mistletoe! Uh oh. Mistletoe! Uhohmistletoeuhohmistletoeuhohmistletoeuhohmistletoeuhohmistletoe!”

Hermione clapped her hands over her ears. “Who put that there!” she cried over its tinny voice.

Fred’s heart sank at her expression, already feeling the magical tug towards her. “I’ll make it quick,” he muttered, trying to look as though he wasn’t about to take great pleasure from what so obviously distressed her.

***

“I’ll make it quick,” said Fred, with no amount of enthusiasm.

Hermione’s face burned at the bracing expression on his face. “Since you’re so clearly averse against the idea,” she said waspishly, whipping out her wand. “I’ll save us both since you’re incapable of doing anything right. Incendio!”

***

A burning twig dropped onto Fred’s shoulder; he brushed it off distractedly and watched as Hermione hurried away, red-faced. He took a few steps after her and stopped.

Back in the hall, he heard his father’s aghast voice.

“Where did that mistletoe go? George? Did you do something to it?”

Fred felt as though there were something particularly wrong about that moment, like there was something he should have understood but had failed to grasp completely.

“Arthur Weasley,” he heard his mum’s voice, “Am I to understand you put that mistletoe up there for me?”

And then some mechanism in his brain clicked and whirled and slipped into place. Fred dashed after Hermione. He saw footprints in the snow leading near the backyard where everyone else was playing a game of leisurely Quidditch, and he sped up, breath puffing before him in the air.

“Wait, Hermione!” he panted. “Back there—I didn’t mean—I mean, I wanted—I didn’t not want to kiss you!” he blurted, and waited for her to sort through the negatives.

It didn’t take her long. Understanding changed her eyes.

“Ah, look. Do you mind?” Fred didn’t wait for an answer.

Her lips were soft and pliant beneath his. Fred wanted to memorize the texture, the scent, the sensation. Her hand came up to settle lightly on his shoulders, fingers touching his neck in a way that made him shiver. The clementine orange dropped from loose fingers to land with a soft plop in the snow at their feet. Hermione’s mouth was warm and tasted like eggnog and chocolate, some foreign, mysterious chocolate that was better than anything he’d ever had at Honeydukes. They stood there, sinking deeper into the slushier part of the snow, lips pressed together, breaths mingling.

Head swimming dizzily, Fred managed to ask, “The Patented Daydream Charm. That’s what got me to thinking—well, I mean—what did you want with it?”

Hermione smiled back at him. “That’s none of your business, Fred Weasley.” At his disappointed look, she laughed in his ear, pulled him closer to her, and murmured, “But I’ll let you try to kiss it out of me.”

"Summer Nostrum" for _citanul

2005-09-17T00:20:25Z

Title: "Summer Nostrum"
Pairing: Sirius/Ginny
Rating: PG13
Summary: Just a moment during the summer of No. 12 Grimmauld Place. Ginny watches Sirius. That's kind of all there is to it, I'm afraid :[

A/N: This is for _citanul, who guessed correctly that the reason why I wanted Rachel Yamagata's "Worn Me Down" is because I've been sort of obsessed with The O.C.. No worries, it's not a big thing, just a thing that I watch. Like an entertainment thing. No new fandom or anything like that. Anyway, _citanul asked for Sirius/Ginny, PG or PG13.

“There goes another one! Catch him, Sirius—!”

Chair scraped backwards, tottering on two legs, and then clattered to the kitchen floor. Sirius leapt, changing as he went, and when he his the ground, he landed on all fours, pinning the doxy trying desperately to escape. Padfoot snarled, big paws trapping the black-haired fairy, all dog and snapping jaws, growls low in the throat, asserting a warning of dominance in the animal language. The doxy stopped trying to bite him.

“Good hunting, Sirius,” Fred Weasley grinned over his shoulder from where he stood at the sink, hands full trying to contain his own doxy. “Ginny, give the hunter a hand, won’t you?”

Ginny rose from her seat at the table, spraying the doxy with Doxycide, and extracted the motionless fairy. Doxy secure, Sirius changed back, the change from dog to man effortless and graceful, teeth still bared back in a triumphant grin. He swept his hair out of his eyes with a careless hand.

“You’ll want to be careful with those, Fred,” he continued wryly, carrying on their conversation as though there had never been an interruption, “Biting Fairies are ferocious creatures that are very good at escaping.” He deposited the doxy in the sink.

George reappeared in the kitchen, holding another unconscious fairy. “That was close. This one,” he shook the unconscious little figure at them, “almost got into Sirius’ mum’s portrait.”

Sirius’ lips flattened, but he only said, “Get them out of here before your mother comes back and lets me have it about not keeping you lot under control.”

“Right you are,” Fred said hastily, turning to cram the doxies into a bag. The twins had found several doxies that had somehow escaped Molly Weasley’s cleaning rampage in a room on the second floor and brought the creatures down to the kitchen to experiment. “So, Doxycide lasts only an hour or so. Must remember that.”

“Yes, we’ll have to find some way of containing them,” George agreed thoughtfully. “No telling what the Doxycide does to their venom.”

The twins marched out of the kitchen, their heads together, doxies in a bag with an Unbreakable Charm cast on it. No. 12 Grimmauld Place returned to stifling silence.

Sirius went back to lounging in his seat again, doodling on the morning’s copy of The Daily Prophet, wearing that bored and annoyed look he wore so often lately.

Despite Sirius not having gone out in more than a month, and his skin was pale and he was very thin for a man his height, so that he looked under the weather, Ginny could see traces of handsomeness. In flashes—when he smiled, that quirk of lips revealed teeth, and his strong neck when he turned his head as though he had scented something on the wind. His eyes were always very dark but sometimes in moments of cynicism, they gleamed brightly with irony.

And when he was sincerely amused, his laughter was transforming. It changed his face and his body, his being. The lines and planes of his body relaxed and the hollow features of his face became less empty and sharp.

Sirius Black was one of those people who, when they laughed, made everyone else want to laugh along with them. Everyone’s moods seemed to run close to the frequencies of Sirius’ moods.

Ginny sat at the kitchen table, looking at her book, Herbcraft For Horticulturists, and trying to scrutinize Sirius’ profile at the same time. He had that tense, stiff look like one who was just looking for an excuse to bolt…so she remained very still, reading the same blurry sentence over and over again in her peripheral vision.

Finally Sirius heaved a deep groan and dropped the stub of a pencil as he looked over at Ginny.

“Sorry I’m not much company,” he said wearily but kindly, exhaustion deep in his eyes as he looked away again to gaze out the window.

“It’s okay,” she assured him, wishing she could say something else, continue the stilted conversation.

He gave her an unconscious smile. “Yeah, well, can’t imagine anyone making good company in this environment.”

Ginny tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear and shrugged.

“You know Harry may be coming to stay here?” he said suddenly.

“What?” Ginny blurted. “Do the others know?”

Sirius shook his head. “Not yet. Arthur doesn’t want to get their hopes up. Dumbledore says he’s safer where he is, and there aren’t any Aurors to be spared for a pick up…”

“If he’s not happy there, he’s going to do something reckless,” Ginny said.

Sirius scratched at a scar near his elbow. “Well, I’m trying to convince them to let him stay here. Voldemort has spies everywhere…he’ll use anyone to kill Harry.”

Ginny suddenly felt very cold in the hot kitchen with pressing walls. Sunlight and the outside pressed in on them.

Sirius gives her a clear look. “You won’t say anything to them, Ginny? I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s been on my mind…”

“I won’t say anything,” she promised, sliding off her stool, feeling her shirt stick to her front and back. “I’m going to see about the doxies.”

The combination of Sirius’ words, said with no intention of hurting her, the guilt she felt, the heat—all of that mixed well into a nightmare. There were no images, no people featured in the nightmare, just inky blackness and feelings of intense terror and the feeling of drowning.

Ginny felt her way carefully down the stairs, fingers slipping down the banister, placing her feet carefully so as not to make a sound.

“Ginny?”

She made a startled move backwards and banged her elbow into the wall.

“Lumos.” Reflected light flared in Sirius’ eyes. He held his wand up higher, revealing a solitary bottle on the kitchen table. “I’m sorry,” he said contritely, tiredly, “I didn’t mean to scare you. What are you doing?”

“I—” Ginny swallowed and licked her lips. “I couldn’t sleep.” She confessed in her next breath, “Nightmare.”

Sirius’ eyes changed. Maybe he saw the wildness in her eyes, recognized something he saw, sympathized, whatever it was, he slid his chair back from the table and said, “Oh, Ginny.”

And it seemed—it seemed so inviting a gesture, so familiar, one person offering comfort to another—Ginny took it. She flew across the kitchen to him, and Sirius caught her up easily. Ginny drew her legs up. She wore a long shirt that was almost a nightgown, a hideous second-hand affair, that had hitched up a bit, and she could feel the texture of Sirius’ rough jeans on her bare legs. Her arms went automatically around his neck, and she locked her fingers together.

Sirius tucked her head under his chin. Ginny felt the warmth of his chest, lap, embrace. Smelled the scent of Sirius and alcohol near his lips as he sighed.

“We weren’t made for this, Ginny,” he said heavily.

Ginny held him tighter. “What?”

He began a slow rocking motion and said absently, “Being helpless. Loyal to the end and not being able to do anything. It’s bloody…frustrating.” He let out a bark of laughter.

“I want to help,” she whispered, not sure what she wanted to help with, exactly.

Sirius’ hand smoothed her hair, the gesture soothing.

They stayed like that for a long time, frozen.

Also, someone commissioned me at the_fund! So, a Fred/Hermione one-shot has now taken precedence over all other fics and will be posted in the coming week.

"Great Romances"

2005-08-22T02:56:00Z

mynuet has gathered all the nominated classics and voting as begun! You can vote for the long fics here and the short fics here.

Whoever nominated "Here, Tonight"...thank you. I did see that :P

Furthermore, I just learned from inkpuddle that the fandom newsletter sunday_prophet is looking for a third editor. If you're interested, send them an email at sundayprophet@gmail.com and let them know!

I've had an epiphany, although it's not really an epiphany, more of a lack of willpower, and that is that I'm just going to write what I can write. By that I mean I revoke my vow of not starting anything new until I complete something. For example, I discovered that while I'm stuck on a few fics, streetscribbles and I brainstormed and ended up working on a D/Hr piece that's coming along nicely. I've never been good at writing Hermione, but by following Bet's lead, I manage not to mangle her post-HBP-mangled character. Anyway, it's really fun.

Also, I began fixing up The Road Too Far. Slow going.

The beginning of my New Untitled D/G Fic, which is now titled. This isn't even a full chapter, but it's the set up, un-betaed and unedited.

“Suspended!”

“For ‘discourteous and inappropriate behavior that reflects badly on the team.’ Well, anyway, it’s all his fault. Don’t look at me like that.”

“It’s just that I’ve never heard of anyone getting kicked off a Quidditch team for breaking up with a boyfriend.”

“I didn’t get kicked off, I got indefinitely suspended. And it wouldn’t even have happened if that bloody—cheap—tart!—wasn’t Malcolm’s cousin. He wants me to apologize to the bint, can you imagine? Apologize to the woman who was shagging my boyfriend. He’s around the bend!”

“Well—”

“If he thinks suspending me will pressure me into doing it, he’s got another thought coming. I’m not hanging around here for him to make up his mind on when to let me play again.”

“Hang on, what are you saying?”

Ginny Weasley dragged her traveling suitcase out from the top shelf of her closet. It fell heavily on its side and the clasps unlocked. “I’m going on a holiday,” she declared, bending down to examine the well-worn suitcase that had accompanied her to different countries. One of her Quidditch gloves was still in it, left over from their last game in Romania. They had trounced the Romanian team soundly, she recalled with relish.

Penny Wood, Oliver Wood’s younger sister and loyal friend to Ginny Weasley, was continuing to be loyal by not arguing. She sat down on the edge of Ginny’s bed in the Burrow and looked at her friend, who was still staring into the open suitcase.

Ginny had made the papers when she had hexed Jonas Fox, star Seeker for Britain’s national team. And until about two days ago when he was caught with his trousers round his ankles, he had also been England’s best hope in years for securing a quick catch for the Snitch, and thus claiming the World Cup in a victory for England.

Outraged at the abuse towards his Seeker and the insult to his cousin, also known as the bint, Charles Malcolm, head coach for the team, had suspended Ginny. Ginny had gone from being a popular player to scapegoat maligned in the streets, workplaces, and bars in a matter of hours after The Daily Prophet did its fine reporting on the issue.

“But where will you go?” Penny reasoned.

Ginny jerked her eyes away from her Quidditch gear. “I don’t know. Anywhere. What’s a good place to go this time of year?”

Draco/Ginny Fic Recs

2005-08-03T15:38:43Z

This list isn't complete anywhere near being completed; I will be adding to it as well as continuing to update it in the future. ~~For example, you will note that I left out Davesmom's stuff :O~~ Got that listed. Hunting down the rest!

I do want to make a disclaimer: I am not the person anyone should go to in search of D/G fics. Oh, I can give refer to you the D/G fics that are generally regarded as the classics, and I can tell you my favorites. But all this comes down is that the fics I've listed here are the fics I like best. This is my personal rec list. If I haven't listed something, it could very well be that I just haven't read it (as I was making this list, I realized just how little D/G I've actually read). It could also be that I liked it, but I don't consider it a reread. The fics I rec are fics I enjoy rereading, when I have a bad day, when I'm uninspired and not feeling D/G.

Also, an apology to the writers listed - I'm still going around to let everyone know where their fic has been listed because knowing that is nice, and also my feedback, if it hasn't been left already, will come in good time.

That's being said, I hope this list is useful to others beside me as a quick list of links that can get you where you want to go in two clicks or less :)

The Past Didn't Go Anywhere by fearthainn. It is 2010, 12 years after Voldemort's downfall, and Draco Malfoy has returned to England at long last. Realistic post-Hogwarts situation...an enjoyable trip all the way through. PG13. 12 chapters, complete.

I Have Never Felt Your Fear by spankerella. Ginny learns a thing or two about what being a Slytherin can really be like through an unexpected source. R to NC17. 21 chapters, complete.

A Bit of the Dark Sinister by spankerella. Draco and Ginny had a "moment" in the past that resulted in... another person. A person whose Malfoyishness was always mistaken for Weasley spunk. R. 16 chaoters, complete.

Fic by jade_okelani:

Therapy Buddies. Draco and Ginny visit a shrink. R. One shot, complete.

The Hours Between. After hours at Hogwarts, something wicked this way comes. One of my favorite fics, just for the humor and romance and guh. NC17. One shot, complete.

Our Winter. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry has a secret -- deep within its walls, an ancient society of power dwells. Ginny Weasley wants nothing more than membership and all the privilege it ensures. Draco Malfoy holds her future in his hands, provided she adheres to certain terms for one month's time. The end of winter brings with it sorrow, joy, and change. A D/G classic, it also makes me cry, so I try not to read it too often. PG13 to NC17 in various chapters. 13 parts, complete.

You can read more of jade_okelani's fic here.

A Dazzling Synthesis of Sun and Star by inkpuddle. Draco and Ginny and Harry. Angsty, but done beautifully. Flows like cool water. R. One shot, complete.

A Lot to Be Upset About by thegraybook. Draco's feeling left out. Hilarious. PG-13. One shot, complete.

The Truth In Art And Wine by violet_quill. Draco, Ginny, and a business meeting with wine. Lovely and substantial, filled with implication. PG. One shot, complete.

How to Get a Man to Wear Pajama Pants by dragonsangel68. Draco is ill. Molly Weasley insists on ensuring he has his Pepperup Potion and is dressed appropriately. Fluffy and adorable. R. One shot, complete.

Of Snowballs and Smirks by greyskygirl. Everyone has their own unique way of expressing affection. Ginny Weasley's happens to involve snowballs. PG. 7 chapters, complete.

Slow Burn by greyskygirl. Ginny can't forget what they had, and before she moves on, she has to know if he remembers. One of my favorite D/G fics just for the feelings between Draco and Ginny. R. WIP.

Little Red Riding Hood by strangerface. Halloween. Draco feels strangely protective of the youngest Weasley. One of the first D/G's I read. Definitely a big factor in making D/G my OTP. PG13 to R. One shot, complete.

Lost by strangerface. Draco broods. Ginny comforts. PG. One shot, complete.

Where the Heart Lies by lissannej. Draco doesn't want Ginny to get over him. Guh. Jealous!Draco YAY! R. One shot, complete.

The Desk by fearthainn. They've met like this before, in a host of other places. Beautiful moment into D/G. R to NC17. One shot, complete.

Fics by mynuet:

After the Game. Draco drags Ginny into the broomshed after a quidditch match. R. One shot, complete.

Ginny's Bad Day. Ginny is having the worst day of her life...And then it gets better. Very sweet. PG. One shot, complete.

Off and On. Draco and Ginny have had a relationship, on and off, for years. What happens when Ginny decides she needs more? One of my favorites because of persistent!Draco. R to NC17. One shot, complete.

Trial Run. Harry's late night wanderings lead to a different sort of adventure. Draco and Ginny are so good to each other. I love the twist at the end. R to NC17. One shot, complete.

Over Time: First Friends. In a series of vignettes spanning ten years, Draco and Ginny form an enduring friendship, which eventually leads to more. Hilarity ensues. Friendship fics are a personal favorite of mine, and this combines it with D/G. R. Two long parts, complete.

More of mynuet's fiction can be found here.

Fic by sarea_okelani:

Balm. For fast-acting, temporary relief of minor aches and pains associated with unrelieved sexual frustration. R. One shot, complete.

Kissing Booth. It's all for charity. A perfect example of how fic can cheer you up. PG. One shot, complete.

Atypical Lesson. People can usually rely on Hermione for help with their lessons, but sometimes even the archetypal teacher needs a little tutelage. I like this fic because we see things throug Hermione's POV...and we see just how much Draco and Ginny care about each other. NC17. One shot, complete.

When I'm Here. Somewhere in the world, a husband finds his wife at home. There's a category of D/G fics that I call "First Fics," which are basically the fics I read upon getting into the D/G ship. This is one of them. And every time I read it, it still affects me. NC17. One shot, complete.

Why I'm Glad Ginny Is Dating Draco Malfoy. Ron makes a list. Oh, Ron. PG-13. One shot, complete.

Epistolary Exchange. Ginny's trying to study, but the library is a very distracting place. Fluff! PG-13. One shot, complete.

More of sarea_okelani's work can be found here. She's also written two of my favorite Sarkney pieces, here and here.

Fic by sunshinefanfics:

Truth or Dare. Ginny satisfies her uppity roommate's heinous request in this game of truth or dare. NC17. One shot, complete.

The Head Boy's Laundry and The Head Boy's Laundry: Lingerie. The closest she can get to him is his clothing. And the sequel, in which when Draco wakes alone the morning after, he devises a plan to bring her back to him.NC17. One shot, complete and 5 parts, complete.

Drunk. Draco's drunk, and it would appear that Ginny wants to take advantage of him. Excellent. NC17. One shot, complete.

Smoking in the Head Boy's Room. When Ginny enlists Draco's help to teach her how to entice her Ravenclaw crush, she learns more than just technique. NC17. 4 parts, complete.

Hold Me, Heal Me. In a world where Death Eaters reign and good wizards hide in plain sight, preconceived notions must be redefined. NC17. WIP.

Conspiracies of the Mad by inlucescit. Where past is present, and history is future, there are some things that just can’t be forgotten. But it doesn’t matter, because Ginny Weasley doesn’t want to forget. Ever. Oh my god, guh. Tragic and lovely. PG13 to R. One shot, complete.

Seven Days in Paris by inlucescit. "It only takes seven days to fall in love." PG-13. One shot, complete.

Masquerade by inlucescit. In one night, two very different lives unexpectedly intertwined with the aid of lust, love, and 50 million galleons. Now, six years later, one truth does remain: nothing can be hidden forever. PG-13. 15 chapters, complete.

More of inlucescit's D/G fiction can be found here.

Sea of Waking Dreams by Cinnamon. Draco Malfoy has seen his share of nightmares and now, as the war with Voldemort rages around him, it takes Ginny Weasley and a ragged band of orphans to teach him what true love and loyalty really are. This fic made me CRY. R. 18 chapters, complete.

The Little Child To Lead Them by strangerface. Draco Malfoy is a horrible person. Lord Voldemort wants an heir. Can Draco meet the greatest challenge of his life: fatherhood? PG13 to R. 11 chapters, complete.

Fathers, Husbands, Lovers, Sons by kirixchi. Ginny and Draco are married. Lucius is released from prison, and no one knows where they stand. Another one of my firsts - there is no question of love here (er, I meant between the characters, but for the fic too). PG13 to R. 14 chapters, complete.

The Pleasure of Your Company by kirixchi. A Weasley at the Daughters of Hecate Debutante Ball? That's almost as unthinkable as a Weasley and a Malfoy in love! Fluff, a strong plot that I love reading. PG13. 23 chapters, complete.

Window of Your Soul by Rea Yume. An accidental curse by one clueless Weasley leaves Malfoy in possession of a strange new ability. She says this fic is cliched, but I don't feel that at all. It's believable and love. PG13. One shot, complete.

Why Do You Stare? by Rea Yume. When Ginny lets slip something in her sleep and is overheard by Draco Malfoy, what will he do with the information? Another 'First Fic.' Very enjoyable. PG13. One shot, complete.

A Very Good Excuse by Shards of Normality. Dear Professor Snape; Draco Malfoy could not complete his essay because his evil girlfriend lured him to bed. P.S: Was absolutely smashed at time of this letter. PG13. One shot, complete.

Mastering the Art of Pig Wrestling by skoosiepants. Ginny deals with dangerous creatures on a daily basis. Handling Draco Malfoy should be a piece of cake. Right? Hilarious and sweet. PG13. One shot, complete.

Draco/Ginny drabble by lissannej. Draco catches Ginny sneaking around. PG13. One shot, complete.

Heavenly Creatures by Anise. Ginny stays at Grimmauld Place...This fic is heartbreaking to me. It's a very emotional. R to NC17. WIP.

Fics by Davesmom:

Dragon Kisses. Ginny takes a dare, but it doesn't end up quite like she thought. PG. One shot, complete.

Dear Diary. Ginny's sixth year, seen through her diary. PG13. One shot, complete.

Polyjuice Potion. The end of Ginny's sixth year. Snape asks her to be his student assistant next year, but she must be trained by Draco. Will she be able to stand it? PG13. One shot, complete.

Beyond Redemption. 6th year Ginny finds that Draco has focused all his hatred on her. She has to find some way to make him leave her alone, regardless of the cost. PG13 to R. 19 chapters, complete.

More of Davesmom's fics can be found here.

"Implication"

2005-08-01T23:57:12Z

I'm about to have an early dinner with friends, so I'm going to make this quick. The Sarkney one shot I've been working on, formerly titled "Two Years." It also didn't turn out the way I thought it would, but I'm at a loss with it. If I take it somewhere else, I'll fix it up.

Title: Implication
Ship: Sarkney
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Alias and its characters belong to J.J. Abrams.
Warnings: S3, AU. This fic is all about what if Sark hadn't been incarcenated by the CIA for those two years?
Summary: Memory is more than sight or sound. Sark senses.

He had been jumping time zones and continents for the past few weeks. Hopscotching the globe was taking its toll on him. It was possible that he was merely tired, his eyes strained. It was impossible, however, that he wouldn’t recognize Sydney Bristow.

He had grown up with an idea of Sydney Bristow, the ever-elusive Sydney. Irina had shared with him the pictures a surveillance man took of Sydney a few months after he’d risen up into her circles.

“A very discreet associate of mine assists me in a personal endeavor once a year,” she had told him offhandedly while gazing at him intently.

Sydney with her backpack, exiting a classroom. Sydney crossing the campus green. Sydney buying pretzels.

It was simply impossible that he would mistake someone else for Sydney.

***

He had seen her do blonde before, but this time the effect hit him low in his gut.

She wore a dove-gray tailored pantsuit that was cut straight and fell straight, but somehow managed to brush and form around her curves when she moved. She was a combination of sleek and cutting. He had the impression of a sharp knife, metallic but sheathed.

“Sydney Bristow,” he uttered, gaping at her.

Sark stared openly at her in disbelief. Her face was different and the same all at once. Sydney Bristow had never once looked at him like this. She had looked at him with anger, frustration, scorn, condescension, smugness, determination, even fear. She had never looked at him without any emotion.

He shut his mouth silently, staring wildly into her eyes.

“I’m surprised to see you,” he finally said carefully.

She remarked, “Simon said I’d be working with the best.”

And that was different too. Her voice wasn’t flat or emotionless. There was no characteristic Sydney sarcasm. There was…flirtation there. Sark knew it.

“Have we…met before?” The query was out before he could stop it.

“I think I would remember someone like you, Mr. Sark.”

There it was again. Coyness in that lovely voice. He found himself at a loss for words.

Simon wandered over and announced cheerfully, “Well, shall we? Julia, love, you’re going to love working with this man. He’s nothing but ruthless. Kindred spirits and all that. Fellows! We’re on tonight.”

***

“Come on,” groaned Simon. “Julia, fuck me.”

Shadows moving violently against the wall. Sark stared at them, shadow puppets colliding and straining. They were obscured by a large potted plant, shaded by the lack of moonlight. And yet he could see a hand holding fast to slender wrists above heads thrown back in abandon.

Simon’s Spanish villa was big with open space and adjoining rooms and floor to ceiling windowed doors that were always left wide, and still it didn’t seem large enough.

He made his way back to his room, leaving the sounds behind him, and thinking about her eyes that were still the color of muddy almond.

***

They were good together. They worked efficiently. Simon had been right; she was briskly ruthless. He had watched her carefully when she took out a guard at the warehouse, but she hadn’t even waited for him before stalking in. She was, really, the perfect partner.

In the late afternoon, they rolled each other over and over again, pinning each other down to the bed, tongue, lips, teeth, and then a leg sliding around, hooking foot behind ankle, backing knee into knee to make legs give out, turning the tables again and again.

Sark savored every scrape of teeth against his skin and cresent-moon shaped indention in his back and shoulders. He memorized the sound of every elicited groan and gasp.

She was indomitable, but she didn’t mind lying close to him in the aftermath.

He had bedded The Sydney Bristow, and it had broken previous definitions and conceptions of amazing.

***

One night, she slipped.

Hand on his chest, pressing him back into the sheets, wanting to lead. He let her, gladly. Hand moving down his chest, lingering at his thigh, then falling to his knee. Her index finger lazily traced the scar, and she remarked idly, “The pickax must have been deep.”

Chemicals in his brain changed. He stopped breathing for a moment. The meaning was rattling around in his head.

The hand that had drifted back up to his hip was still for only a second, but he knew. He knew she knew that he knew.

He could feel her fear at the truth.

He could feel her hand at his hip, her hair on his thighs, the smoothness and strength of her legs.

When he spoke, his voice was a groan, tinged with impatience and need. “Julia…”

She kissed the inside of his other knee, the one without the scar, and tongued her way back up his body to meet his mouth.

***

Later, arm flung up over his eyes, he analyzed. They knew weapons. It wasn’t so much part of the job as a trained skill. Sark knew the sound of a hammer falling, clicking into place, he knew different bullets and their different paths. It was entirely possible she knew the scar of a pickax. Or maybe she just knew because she recognized her mark on him.

***

He heard the first gate rise, a soft echo that he heard all the way down behind the glass of his cell. Being jailed meant every sense strained for a difference in routine. He listened to the footsteps, and while his mind tensed, his body became stressed still, his senses relaxed. It was the familiarity, probably. Having all his senses attuned to one single thing for a long time meant he had become conditioned to recognize it. It wasn’t an easy habit to break, and one that threatened to break him in the process.

He was probably irrational, hallucinating, imagining things that felt so real to him. He could feel Sydney, whatever that was, whoever she was, pulsing some beat to him, each breath and convulsion of the heart rippling out a signal to him, a Morse code tapping out a message that announced her presence.

He heard her walking down the long hallway as the gates were raised one by one. He remembered that walk of hers, and he let himself remember her other walk.

He had watched her from half-lidded eyes. She had walked down the hall of her flat in panties that revealed her hipbones and a thin shirt that was faded from bleach in several spots. Her walk was languid and at ease, long-legged and a roll at the hips, almost a stroll, not that aggressive, on the offensive, soldier’s walk she took in the field.

He closed his eyes, seeing it, and when she finally rounded the corner, his eyes were still shut, savoring something in the past.

Sark opened his eyes and gave her his best incredulous look.

He thought, she looks too fine-boned. He could see the hollows of her cheeks, and her eyes looked like pale bruises in a face that had been worn too thin.

She kept talking and he kept looking at her.

She responded with a bite in her voice that made him refocus.

“If I’m to understand what you’re saying, you have no idea where you’ve been for the last two years,” he stated, cocking his head to the side.

She didn’t answer.

“None?” He pressed.

She gave him a nasty look, a look so characteristically Sydney. He laughed shortly, thinking of when she had screamed his name.

“Unbelievable!” He forced another laugh, a twist of lips like a grimace and a baring of teeth, glancing away from her briefly as he rubbed the back of his neck with a hand that thankfully didn’t shake, unable to grasp to the fact, to believe, to trust that she wouldn’t be able to see into him and know the truth. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to laugh, it’s just…I’m speechless.” He didn’t wait for her response. “Sydney, if Sloane had intended to abduct you, I wasn’t privy to it.”

“What if I said I still don’t believe you?”

His voice was perhaps not as cold as he would have liked, but more herb-bitter when he spoke. “I’d say it’d make no difference. In 24 hours I’ll be free, and…you’ll remain in the dark.”

He could remember moving over her in the darkness and losing something. The feeling of having dropped something somewhere along the way and not recalling where pressed on his mind. In 24 hours, he would be free to board a plane in search of it.

"And We'll Run (An Easier Way)"

2005-07-29T07:55:09Z

For my dear streetscribbles, have heart, my dear.

Title: And We'll Run (An Easier Way)
Ship: Draco/Hermione
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Mild HBP spoilers. Took a canon HBP event and twisted it.
Summary: Sacrifices are made early on in the war.

The clouds had stolen across the sky before anyone noticed. Students frowned unhappily at their damp papers and slowly trudged inside. Throughout the castle, fires and torches were being lit; lamps were being flicked on. Those who knew the passage to the kitchens tickled the pear in the portrait and asked for hot chocolate and marshmallows. Sofas and armchairs and thick rugs were cheerfully squashed.

The halls were empty, abandoned for warmer nooks and crannies. Even the Slytherins, down in the drafty dungeons, would be warmer there.

The grounds were slick with ice and patches of snow. As the hours dwindled by, the snow started and stopped several times until the snow was several foot deep.

The outside became less wet and muddy. The air became a gossamer scent that was crisp, chilly and bright, earthy and haunting. She could smell bittersweet walnut, pallid flowers, dusty woods and soft herbs. Night-blooming flowers added their notes to the slush. Pale musk, spruce. Magic blossomed boldly in the night.

***

Not knowing what to do was beyond her comprehension.

Girls fancied Harry because he was a hero, a public figure who didn’t like the attention, Quidditch captain. And he wasn’t bad to look at, either.

Girls fancied Draco Malfoy because he wasn’t a hero, and he didn’t want to be. He was a Malfoy, he was certainly good looking, but most of all, it was because he looked so shuttered whenever he wasn’t flaunting or taunting. Girls wanted to draw him out, make him lose control, make him burn. What an accomplishment it would be, to make that pale skin blush, to set him on fire.

He wasn’t in control now, but Hermione didn’t feel any elation. On the contrary, it was a terrible thing to see, and she wished she hadn’t.

His fingers were curled tight and white-knuckled around the sink. His hands were braced against the porcelain, arms rigid, head bowed. She couldn’t see his eyes.

Those eyes suddenly snapped to meet hers in the mirror, and she felt afraid.

“Malfoy,” she uttered, mind going momentarily blank, her wand in her pocket and her hands slack at her sides.

She saw him spin around to face her, and still she wasn’t moving for her wand. The wand pointed at her and the curse that would follow it didn’t come. Instead, he lunged at her.

She gasped as her spine hit the doorknob, and her back arched away from the blunt pain. He held her still, larger, broom-roughened hands digging into her shoulders.

“You think I don’t know you were following me?” he snarled.

“If you have a problem—”

“My problems,” he hissed, “are so much bigger than you.” He let her go and stepped away from her, breathing hard, his breaths making his body shudder. At the door, he paused. “Don’t ever follow me again,” he said, and left.

***

It was only 7, but evening was short and night reigned fast. They would have to be back in their beds soon, before the professors cast the safety wards on the door of the castle.

They walked side by side, near but not quite touching.

She recalled the last time they had been out there. She sank into a snowdrift and he had laughed, looking down at her, buried to her knees by the wet and soft snow.

She had looked up at him, backlit against a breathless backdrop of black night and high moon. He almost looked like a silhouette.

She had been sputtering at the cold when he grasped her hands and tugged her out and into him, holding her firmly against his lean body. He hadn’t been afraid to touch her then. He hadn’t been so withdrawn.

***

“I can help you,” she fumbled, even though she knew it was the wrong thing to say, possibly the worst thing to say.

“Do you think it’s so easy? Do you think it’s easy to tell the Dark Lord no? Do you think it’s easy for me to do this? I don’t have a choice. I don’t have the luxury of being someone—” He seemed to choke on the words. “I can’t be someone—I am a Death Eater, Hermione, do you fucking understand? Do you believe me? Do you want to see it? The Dark Mark? I belong to someone else. I have never belonged to anyone else or anything or anywhere, least of all to you.” His voice was pained. “You always have the right answers, Perfect Prefect Granger, know-it-all, you always know what to do. You’re so bloody moral and black and white and you’re always so bloody right. You’ve always been right,” he snarled breathlessly.

***

Coldly, he demanded, “Do you believe me, Hermione?”

She raised herself up on her toes and kissed him hungrily, feeling the slant of his hard mouth on hers. His lips were cold, but his tongue was hot and he was ever so responsive, no longer passive and shut up, hording himself away.

One hand caressed her cheek as the other gripped her hands tight in a fist, and he said jerkily, “Do you?”

She pulled free of him and wrapped her arms around him, turning her face into his shoulder to breathe in deep the smell of Draco.

He dipped his head down press feverish kisses over her eyes. “Do you believe me?” he asked raggedly.

“I believe in you,” she whispered, twining her arms around his neck, hearing, at last, no more of the crunching of snow beneath their feet, just Draco breathing hard and the wind in dead branches.

***

“Draco,” she sobbed, clutching at his scarf tied around his neck, holding him to her, making it so he couldn’t leave, “Draco, don’t, don’t.”

“What, Hermione?” he asked wearily, and he sounded so tired that she was frightened, and she couldn’t bear to look at him, yet she couldn’t stand to look away either. It hurt to look at him, to see the angry acceptance on his face, and she thought about provoking him, telling him, Harry would fight to hold onto what he wants.

He looked worn to the bone, and she knew she didn’t want to hurt him, even if it meant saving something of him for herself.

“One more time,” she said. She held the ends of his Slytherin green and silver scar tightly, catching his eyes, holding his focus. “Just tell me, just one more time.”

“We have to go, Hermione,” he growled, trying to break free without shoving her aside. “They’re going to cast the wards soon, and they’re going to notice us going in—”

She tightened her grip on him, hauling him close to her. “Tell me.”

He stopped trying to extract himself from her grasp. She felt the rise and fall of his chest, and she saw the resignation in his eyes along with the question, Why?

“I love you,” he said. And then, “Never again.”

She wished he would raise his voice. She wanted to hear it clearly. And then, no, no, no. Don’t tell me never again. Give me your very best lie, but don’t tell me never again.

He gave her something better. Or worse, depending on how she looked at it later.

“You have my soul,” he whispered, brushing his lips along the warmth of her neck. The contact was too brief, the touch too little. She wanted his hands on her face, his arms around her, his long legs trapping hers, and she kept herself very still, so as not to reach out to him again and hold him when she wouldn’t be able to. “Keep it.”

At the castle, she paused.

“Go in first,” she said, lips numb and dry. “I want to stay outside a bit longer.”

He didn’t object.

***

Hermione looked at the snow falling down and looked carefully at all her memories of Draco. There were no flaws now, she decided, examining each memory studiously. She could recall the color of his sweater and the angle he tilted his head.

In the morning, she would go to the library and find a way to make her own Pensieve so those memories could be evergreen.

***

We’re on fire, girl.

She didn’t want to leave him cold.

If you're looking for D/G, look here for "Economy In Love."

"Economy In Love" Chapter Four

2005-07-29T00:10:17Z

I've spent most of the day outside these past two days, so I didn't get the chance I thought I would to finish a few one-shots. But nothing happened today, so I worked hard and finished chapter four of Economy, "Two Years," a Sarkney one-shot, and got a good headstart on another HP fic I'm working on.

And during Italian the other night, I had an idea for a new D/G fic (although I just might make it Blaise, I'd really like to, but I don't know who I want to ship Blaise with), involving a carnivale in Venice, a sort of masquerade over a period of 10 days where everyone parties and drinks a lot and forgets their inhibitions. Must do more research on it.

I also added more to my D/G fic recs list, which is in the making. All in all, productive day!

Title: Economy In Love
Ship: Draco/Ginny
Rating: R
Summary: Ginny needles Draco, Draco feels poked at, and Blaise is Forced Into Doing Something He Does Not Want To Do (Again)

Previous chapters can be found here.

Chapter Four: How to Make Perfect Sense

“You closed down your Floo last night.”

Draco’s voice was thin, and he was regarding Blaise with deep suspicion from behind his desk. Blaise had never noticed before just how intimidating that piece of furniture was.

Blaise raised an eyebrow at him. “Yes, well, you will remember the last time I left my Floo connected to the Network overnight on a weekend. You can hardly blame me for taking precautions.”

“Precautions for what?” Draco demanded from between his teeth. “Precautions?” he repeated, because Blaise hadn’t said anything and he felt he needed to hear the word again.

“What can I say? I appreciate privacy,” said Blaise pointedly. He leaned against Draco’s desk, folding his arms as he asked, “Why were you trying to reach me?”

“Because there’s a Cabal meeting today, and I need to be briefed!” Draco snapped.

Blaise’s eyebrows rose higher. “That’s funny. I didn’t hear anything about it.”

“Maybe if you hadn’t blocked your Floo, you would have,” Draco said coldly. “I need the monthly reports.”

“The month isn’t over yet—”

“Then get me what we have so far,” Draco bit out. “And do it now, will you?”

“Sure,” said Blaise easily, slipping his hands into the pockets of his trousers. “I’ll have them sent up to you before noon.” He paused by the door. “Want me to ask your secretary to bring in some coffee for you? Decaf, of course. You seem a little stressed,” he observed.

“I am not stressed,” Draco began loudly, but lowered his voice into a hiss as Blaise opened the door and Draco’s secretary looked up expectantly.

“No coffee then?” Blaise nodded as though everything made sense to him. “All right. Expect the reports by 11:30 at the latest.”

Draco watched with narrowed eyes as the door closed behind his bastard of a friend and wondered if he could send Blaise on a business trip to Southeast Asia or Russia. Russia. Russia was abysmally cold this time of the year. But Southeast Asia had mosquitoes. That was appealing.

Draco slumped back into his chair. After leaving Potter’s residence, he had drunk himself into a stupor in some awful place called The Coven, but thankfully had retained enough of his senses to panic when a butchy-looking witch began to hint heavily at him for an excursion to her flat. He had fled by Apparation to his office and was sluggish enough to Apparate himself into his desk. Swearing, possibly in need of a kneecap replacement, he had collapsed onto the leather sofa, transfigured a clean sock into a blanket, and subsided into sleep.

The sofa, and he made a mental note to find a new decorator, was apparently only for decoration and not for a tall man to spend the night on. His back hurt, his head hurt, and nothing was going to make him feel better. Nothing.

Now he needed to call together all the heads of the departments for a Cabal meeting. Fucking hell.

_______________

Blaise paused by Draco’s secretary’s desk on his way down to his own office.

“Hi.” Blaise smiled tiredly at her. “Is there a Cabal meeting today?”

She looked away from him with effort. “What? No! Mr. Malfoy never mentioned anything! I never got a memo!”

“We must have missed the same memo, then,” said Blaise cheerfully. “Have a good day.”

He managed to keep up the pretense until he was safely ensconced in his office.

“Oh my god,” he moaned aloud, leaning back heavily against the door.

Ginny had Flooed him at a ridiculous hour, at the break of dawn. And he had certainly just barely refrained from breaking several things in his apartment in despair when she left, instructions still ringing in his ear.

He wondered if he could request a transfer to a Malfoy Industries post somewhere else. Preferably in another country. Like Italy. A few warm nights to the opera house with a lovely Italian companion would surely cure all of this.

_______________

Blaise had been true to his word. A heavy folder of the month’s reports had been dumped on Draco’s desk, waiting for him when he’d returned from a break to the bathroom adjoining his office. He’d cast a Freshening charm on himself, gotten rid of the wrinkles in his clothes with a handy spell Ginny had taught him, and a small Glamour hid traces of a hard night on a hard sofa that ought to be broken up for kindling.

Emerging from the bathroom, feeling remotely better, Draco’s mood had crashed again at the sight of the papers, a result of the fabricated meeting that was now going to take place in the afternoon.

A troubled hour later, he finally shoved the papers aside, meaning to go speak to Blaise and force by any means necessary him to tell him every detail of the past night because frankly, not knowing was worse than knowing. He was on his way to do just that when he became aware of a commotion outside his office. He hastened to the door.

“…if you don’t have an appointment to see Mr. Malfoy, you certainly can’t go inside.”

“I am returning something of his that he’ll be glad to have back! Listen to me,” growled Ginny, “you tell him right now that I’m here to see him.”

Ginny was not above scuffling with the secretary. He hurried back to his desk as he called out irritably, “Eliza, is there a problem?”

“Mr. Malfoy!” Eliza tittered nervously at the door. “There’s someone outside who wants to see you, but she hasn’t arranged an appointment. I’ve told her you’re on your lunch break…”

“Send her in,” he said impatiently, adding, “Accio blanket!”

He was just stuffing the blanket into a drawer in his desk, the only sign that he had spent the night in his office, when Ginny stormed past his secretary, shooting the woman a nasty look.

Draco’s head did not spin for anything. He had inherited his parent’s ability for imperturbability under duress. He was a natural Slytherin, able to compartmentalize and shut down parts of his brain for better, clearheaded reasoning. It as key in his business acumen and key in running Malfoy Industries.

Ginny, however, was a girl who made people’s heads spin. It was a character trait that canceled out his.

_______________

Draco was lounging in the chair behind his desk, long legs stretched out and crossed loosely at the ankles, face blank, when she finally got past the difficult secretary. She had intended to be cool, composed, dispassionate when she met him, but now that he was there, aloof, she felt a wreck. Her face was red from her verbal tussle with the secretary who hadn’t even looked up when she spoke to Ginny in a voice of smooth disdain. And seeing him in the familiar pose he relaxed instinctively into whenever he sunk onto the nearest couch or armchair was doing terrible things to her train of thought.

His elbow was propped up on the arm of his chair, chin braced on his palm, his other hand playing with a quill on his desk. Draco surveyed her, eyes shuttered, his lean and powerfully arresting face impassive. She felt like a mouse.

“You have a new secretary. Did you tell her to not let me in?” Ginny asked quickly, before he could speak.

Draco raised an eyebrow. “No. Eliza is only filling in for two weeks. It’s an intern job for her. You’ll have to forgive her; she doesn’t seem to like many of my female visitors,” he drawled.

Ginny was acutely aware of Draco’s limpid gaze on her face, and her face was smooth as she responded easily, “She has motherly instincts. How cute.” She continued, “Anyway, I came to return this. I must have taken it with me by accident.” She dropped the heavy key to Malfoy Manor on his desk and stepped back, adding more space to the gulf between them. She met his eyes squarely. “And in case you’re interested, I’m working at the Ministry now.”

“You said you’d never work at the Ministry,” Draco recalled, finally abandoning the quill on his desk and sitting forward to drum his fingers.

She was momentarily disconcerted as she focused on his long fingers, the pads rough from his broomstick and small labor, tapping rapidly on the wood. “Um…” Ginny refocused on his face. “Well, I was wrong.” She shrugged delicately. “Everyone makes misjudgments. It’s not so bad.”

His eyes narrowed at the implied meaning behind her words. “Fine. Settle.”

“‘Settle’ – what’s that supposed to mean, ‘settle?’” Ginny demanded, nerves already raw from being in his presence, being too close to him.

“Exactly that.” Draco’s lips twisted into a savage mockery of a smile. “You want to settle for less, that’s fine with me.”

“Not that it’s any of your concern, but I am not ‘settling’ for anything,” Ginny informed him. “I’m trying new things, and—I thought you’d appreciate my being independent!” At his mocking glance, she pressed on in the same breath, “I left you, didn’t I?”

Draco didn’t move, in fact, he stilled all motion, yet he still gave the impression of having jerked back. He studied her with incredulous mercury-colored eyes, but he recovered quickly. As she glared at him, his face lost the startled flush and his gaze darkened to a pewter color.

“You have no idea what you’re talking about, Gin,” he said from between his teeth. “I advise you to—”

“That,” Ginny nodded at the key, “was all I came here for. I have to go, I’m supposed to be a work.”

_______________

Ginny left his office exactly the way she had entered it: angry and making his head spin.

Draco sat back, feeling bereft and cold. Settle? No one settled for a Malfoy. Ginny Weasley was just a stupid girl, stupid, stupid…after all he had done for her, she was still distrustful and ungrateful…as it had been when they had first met.

It was at a party he’d reluctantly thrown to ensure securing a merger with another company. He’d given his secretary a few vague instructions, not really caring either way and trying to construct an excuse that would allow him to put in a few minutes of appearance and then disappear.

“Just make it look nice. I don’t care what they eat, just hire a catering service,” he’d fired at the frazzled woman, who was taking notes as fast as she could with her wand, picturing Patty Dorf, a witch he had been seeing on and off, waiting for him in her best lingerie.

He had been busy counting the minutes until he could vanish when he saw Ginny Weasley.

He’d gaped at her in surprise when he saw her moving across the room. He remembered her at Hogwarts as an athletic girl, slender but not gangly like her idiot brother. She cleaned up very nicely in a dress. He watched as she set down a tray of cocktails beside a large potted plant and reach up to adjust her hair. She looked like a Grecian painting, and as she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth in consternation, that was that. He strode over to her.

“Weasley,” he had said, looking at her carefully.

“Malfoy,” she returned guardedly, juggling the platter of antipasti, waiting with resignation on her face. Probably, he thought, waiting for the barb about Weasleys serving Malfoys.

“I haven’t seen you since Hogwarts,” he began, but her retort had already leapt unbidden to her lips, cutting him off neatly.

“I wouldn’t expect you to know anything about having to work for money and this is just a job that I happen to enjoy except when I meet ponces like you so shut it Malfoy,” she said in a rush.

The startled look on his face made her pause, and Ginny stared back at him wildly, and he watched as she finally comprehended the thirty seconds just past.

For a moment, she hoped that he hadn’t understood a word she said, but the narrowing of his eyes made her heart sink. His face flushed, and she recalled the times he had become angry at school. It was easy to see he was furious.

She opened her mouth to say something, apology in her eyes, but he only nodded stiffly at her, turned, and stalked away.

He could still remember that night. Her catering uniform was a demure black dress with a hem that ended at her knees, showing off nice calves that he had admired at length, and the neckline had been a modest v-cut that hinted at cleavage. The fabric of her dress was something smooth that pooled in his hands and made a soft slithery sound when it rubbed against the skin. Her hair had been pulled back into a businesslike knot, showing off the rounded curve of her shoulders, the graceful column of her neck. It had looked even better down, spilling into his hands as he slipped his fingers through her hair.

He dropped his head into his hands and sighed.

_______________

The ride down the elevator was a miserable one that Ginny suffered in the corner, behind two witches, secretaries, she concluded from their gossipy conversation.

The last time Ginny had managed to provoke Draco to a temper that made him unable to speak was when they had first met after Hogwarts. They’d had their spats before, but one of them had always given in.

She had known she would be catering to a party Draco was hosting, but she hadn’t had anything else to do that night, and she was curious to see him and the place where he lived.

After making a right fool of herself, she’d wandered around the room, working up the courage to approach him.

She had gone up to him to apologize.

“I apologize,” she had said, staring at the pulse at his throat.

“I see,” he said coldly, his voice almost a growl. “And is the company you work aware of the extra lip service you provide on the job?”

There was something very sinful in the way he said that. “I overreacted.”

“You were delusional,” Draco corrected. “Raving on like a crazy person.”

She gave him a dirty look.

“Weasley,” he sighed irritably, otherwise unaffected by her hostility, “If you’ve any hope to last through the night without getting kicked off the premises, you’re going to have to get a sense of humor.”

“I have a sense of humor!” It was an insult, after suffering through years of growing up with Fred and George, to be told that she did not have a sense of humor.

He quirked an eyebrow at her. “Yes, and it’s an excellent lack of one you’ve been exhibiting. Have some wine.” He tipped his glass at her. “Lighten up. It’s an excellent vintage, you know.”

It was a truce, and she took his glass from him, her fingers brushing against his as she curled her fingers around the fragile crystal stem. “Cheers,” she said, sipping a little.

He gave her a slow smile that made her face warm. “Cheers.”

A Whole Lot of Fic In Small Pieces

2005-07-26T07:38:54Z

I started to work on "The Secret Habits of Draco Malfoy," but halfway through, I quit because it wasn't turning out the way I wanted it to. So I thought, fine, to hell with that, I'm gonna write something today. Lost Causes / Stranger Still, my longer, WIP Sarkney, hadn't ever failed me yet, and I went to work on that...and found that I couldn't.

Because I felt vaguely guilty, I opened up Economy In Love Pt. 4 and stared at it. And then I actually began to work on it, which is, quite frankly, amazing. I've finally found the solution to the hole I dug.

And if this isn't a meme, it damn well should be. I think I did a meme like this before, actually. *ponders* But anyway, I just copied and pasted the last bit of what I wrote for each fic, and here it is, the lot of it. Minus two Sarkney fics that may not go anywhere, so I just left those out.

Cookies (but why? I like salted crackers and dip--salsa dip or sour cream and onion dip):

Economy In Love, Chapter Four (Draco/Ginny)

“Weasley,” he had said in surprise, looking at her.

“Malfoy,” she returned guardedly, juggling the platter of antipasti, waiting with resignation for the barb about Weasleys serving Malfoys. She readied her response.

“I haven’t seen you since Hogwarts,” he began, but her retort had already leapt to her lips, cutting him off.

“I wouldn’t expect you to know anything about having to work for money and this is just a job that I happen to enjoy except when I meet ponces like you so shut it Malfoy,” she said in a rush.

The startled look on his face made her pause, and Ginny stared back at him wildly, the thirty seconds just past finally sinking in.

For a moment, she hoped that he hadn’t understood a word she said, but the narrowing of his eyes made her heart sink.

Lost Causes / Stranger Still (Sarkney)

He lowered his book to level a gaze at her. Dante’s Inferno. Sydney didn’t know whether she wanted to hit him, or cry, or burst out laughing at his ridiculous choice of reading material. Maybe all three.

“Are you all right?” he inquired. “You look very…odd.”

It’s what borderline hysteria looks like, buddy. Her lips flattened and her amusement was suddenly gone. “How flattering.”

“Do you want me to flatter you?” His voice was light and genuinely curious. As genuine as Sark could be, anyway.

Two Years (Sarkney)

He had seen her do blonde before, but this time the effect hit him low in his gut.

She wore a dove-gray tailored pantsuit that was cut straight and fell straight, but somehow managed to brush and form around her curves when she moved.

“Sydney Bristow,” he uttered, gaping at her.

Sark stared openly at her in disbelief. Her face was different and the same all at once. Sydney Bristow had never once looked at him like this. She had looked at him with anger, frustration, scorn, condescension, smugness, determination, even fear. She had never looked at him without any emotion.

He shut his mouth silently, staring wildly into her eyes.

“I—I’m surprised to see you,” he finally said carefully.

She remarked, “Simon said I’d be working with the best.”

And that was different too. Her voice wasn’t flat or emotionless. There was no characteristic Sydney sarcasm. There was…flirtation there. Sark knew it.

“Have we…met before?” The query was out before he could stop it.

“I think I would remember someone like you, Mr. Sark.”

There it was again. Coyness in that lovely voice. He found himself at a loss for words.

Wild Horses (Sarkney)

“Ah, Ms. Bristow! You have perfect timing. Let me introduce you to an employee of this company and a friend of mine.” Crane turned to the man standing beside him. “Julian Sark, Sydney Bristow. Ms. Bristow is the securities advisor the company you recommended sent over. She seems very capable,” Crane confided, beaming at Sydney.

She had been exposed to the shocking and the surprising in her past career, so she couldn’t explain the gut-wrenching feeling of disbelief. She was not superstitious. She didn't believe in being cursed. It made some a sort of sick sense that Sark would be here. And yet she found that she was tightly checking every reflex in her body that was aimed in one unified goal: put a bullet in him. End the curse.

Sark held out his hand. “You come with high praises, Ms. Bristow.”

Crane was looking at them with something close to joy, so she shook Sark’s hand, intending to let go as soon as humanly possible.

He gave her a small curl of his lip as he tightened his grip on her hand—pressure that was not enforced.

“Mr. Sark is a troubleshooter for our company,” Crane said proudly. “I assure you, Julian is quite capable as well.”

Her mouth worked oddly and there was a long pause before she managed to say, “I see.”

Untitled Fic For The Summer Sarkney Challenge (Sarkney)

Sunday morning, and she can’t sleep. She goes to work.

Sunday is the only day of the week he isn’t there. She suspects he is aware she drops by on Sundays and keeps away. It’s a small kindness. Or maybe he just has plans on Sundays. Like communion. Maybe he even brought along his own wine.

The Secret Habits of Draco Malfoy (Draco/Ginny)

“You could try being a little nicer to me,” he said mildly, frowning, unmoving from his sprawled position on the desk, propped up on his elbows. His pants were still loose over his hips, unzipped. Muscles still relaxed. Blond hair sweaty and falling into his grey eyes. He blinked.

She could feel him watching her as she wriggled into her skirt and tugged it firmly into place, smoothing the material down her hips with her hands. “You don’t want me to be nice,” she said matter-of-factly, now buttoning her shirt. “People might suspect something.”

His frown deepened, but he only raised an eyebrow and said, “Come here.”

Untitled Bellatrix/Rodolphus Fic (Bellatrix/Rodolphus)

Rodolphus was so robustly alive when he was killing. Bellatrix paused to admire him, this man she hated, she hated everything about him, and in that lapse of concentration, her focus stolen by his beauty, she was hit by a curse.

It hit her in the spine, and her back arched from the pain. The curse seemed to electrify her, pain rippling over every ridge in her spine and forcing her to curl herself against it. A weak attempt to ward away pain. She swallowed with difficulty, her eyes glazing, and she attempted to relax her body, which had gone rigid, to flow into the pain, to accept it and let it run over her, because then it did not hurt so much, then it wasn’t so much pain as it was pleasure. She laughed, a raw, loud sound that was half scream, and she smiled around the pain.

The next moment, Bellatrix lay on the ground, her body still stiff and shaking.

Rodolphus towered over her, a smirk playing on his perfect lips. “Bellatrix, how nice to see you…at my feet.”

Untitled Sequel to The Best Subterfuge (Draco/Ginny)

Not for the first time, Draco wondered whether he had endured some deeply traumatizing experience in his life, been Obliviated, and this was all the result of that stress finally emerging. He must have been truly distressed.

Draco had his reasons for this theory, which he was becoming more and more taken with.

For example, he would not be in this state of—unrest? Unease?—about what to give a girl on Valentine’s Day if it weren’t for some mental trauma long ago.

Yes, Draco decided, he must have undergone a great ordeal and suffered a great deal. The Boy Who Lived To Annoy could not have been as shocked or tortured. Draco Malfoy had some deeply buried depths of unknown suffering.

"Economy In Love" update should happen tomorrow, if I've nothing planned. I often don't know if I have plans until just before an event.