Salsa, Storage Closets, and Something Else

You might never know

that I want you to know

what's written inside of your head

--Oasis, "Hey Now"

*

"Aaargh!" screamed Ginny Weasley in frustration. "Is there no justice in this world?"

Draco Malfoy looked up lazily from his perch on an oversized box of soft-drink covers. "Weasley, put down the straws. You look ridiculous."

Ginny sent him an icy glare. "I don't give a damn if I look ridiculous. The only person who's a witness to this is you, and honestly, I can't recall the last time your opinion mattered much to me. Besides, if it gets us out of here, who cares what I looked like doing it?"

"Somehow, I really don't think that drinking straws are going to accomplish what the supernatural and brute force have failed to do," snorted Draco.

"Brute force?" Ginny laughed malevolently. "Brute force? Do you expect me to believe for one second that any act on an object by you could be considered brute force? Malfoy, for God's sake, your muscle mass hasn't increased since the age of twelve!"

"Brawn does not necessarily equal brains," retorted Draco.

"In your case it does. The amount of one is always equal to itself." Ginny threw the battered, bent straw that she had been attempting to shove through the keyhole onto the cracked tile floor.

"I can think of a few other things that one is equal to," Draco commented with an awful sneer.

Ginny's eyes narrowed. "Such as?"

"The square of any number to the zero power."

Ginny gawked in utter disbelief. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"It's very simple, Weasley. One of the basic concepts of algebra."

"So where the hell did that come from?" Ginny stood up.

Draco looked puzzled for a moment, then shook his head. "You know, I really have no idea."

Ginny stared at him for a moment. "I think I was right all along, you know."

"What?"

"You really are mentally imbalanced." She exhaled, and sat on a neighboring crate. "Here we are, in some cramped storage closet in some..... seedy club, and you're talking about algebraic concepts. It's worse than I thought."

"It's better than being called stupid," Draco replied. "I'll take what I can get, thank you very much."

Ginny repressed the little voice telling her to mutter, "obviously". Instead, she turned to Malfoy. "So, Mister Mathematician Brainiac, what do we do now?"

Draco said nothing.

*

"Where are we?"

Harry Potter turned to Hermione Granger, waiting for an answer.

Hermione bit her lip. "Um, I think we're somewhere in Southie. I can't be too sure."

"And just how did we wind up here?"

Hermione's cheeks flushed. "Well, you try navigating the streets of Boston at nine o'clock at night, in a strange neighborhood, with your hormonal boyfriend's lips pressed against your neck!"

"Well," Harry responded sarcastically, "I'm terribly sorry, Herm, but I think I left my hormonal boyfriend back at the club."

Hermione stared at him open-mouthed for a full minute, and burst out laughing.

This time, Harry was the one red in the face. "Oops, I guess that came out the wrong way."

"You bet it did." Still chuckling, Hermione leaned up against him. "Are we ever going to get home?"

"I don't know, Herm," Harry replied slowly, "but I really think we should."

Hermione turned around to face him. "Do you really want to do this?"

"Do you want to?"

"I asked you."

"It depends on if you want to."

"What?" Hermione threw her hands up in the air, unfortunately forgetting that Harry was directly behind her.

"Ouch!" Harry rubbed his temple.

Hermione cringed. "Oops, sorry."

"S'okay." However, he continued to massage the point at which Hermione's hand had collided with his face.

Hermione smiled mischievously, and stood on her toes. "Sweetie, do you want me to make it all better?" she whispered in his ear. "I've got a few ideas....."

Harry grinned. "Sounds good to me....."

*ten minutes later*

"But Officer, I swear we weren't doing anything wrong!" Hermione exclaimed.

The man in blue snorted. "Yeah, right. If you two weren't engaging in indecent behavior, then I'm the President."

"Um, hail to the Chief?" Harry tried desperately.

"You foreign tourists!" the officer exploded, his Boston accent making his rants practically unintelligible. "I don't care what they let you do back in merry ol' England, here in Massachusetts, you do not engage in this sort of thing of street corners! You save it for the hotel room or the bathroom or wherever the hell it is that you plan on doing it in!"

Hermione's eyes narrowed. "Well, then, why don't you just trot yourself back down this street and give them-" she motioned to a group of scantily clad women calling to cars- "their Miranda rights? Isn't that what you get paid for?"

"Oh, so you wanna play smart there, Missy? Well, you know what we civil servants do to tarts like you and their little male friends?" The policeman chuckled malevolently, causing his bulging waistline to dance around his belt.

"No," Hermione retorted sarcastically, "seeing as I'm just a 'foreign tart', I don't. Why don't you do me the favor of telling me?"

"Hermione....." Harry muttered under his breath nervously, "just tell the guy that we're going to be going home....."

The blue-clad officer grinned nastily. "How's about you two get in this here squad car? I think a little time down at the station would put you two in place....."

*

"Truth or dare?"

Draco paused. "Umm….. truth."

"All right." Ginny closed her eyes in deep thought. "What haven't I asked you yet?"

The things that people will do out of sheer boredom, Draco mused. Who would have thought that I'd be spending my evening in a closet, playing Truth or Dare with Ginny Weasley? This has to be one of the most unexpected occurrences in my entire life, and that includes being turned into a bouncing ferret.

"I honestly have no idea."

Ginny checked her Indiglo watch. 10:27. "Hmm. I wonder….. ooh! I know….."

"Please don't tell me that you're going to ask me what I think you're about to ask me," Draco groaned.

Ginny grinned wickedly. "Too bad. Come on, ‘fess up. When'd you lose it? To who?"

"Ginny, are we talking about virginity or my favorite socks?"

"Yeah, Malfoy, I want to know whatever happened to those lovely, thick woolen socks," Ginny responded sarcastically. "I was looking to borrow them next week. You're just dancing around the question."

"Is there any particular reason as to why you're treating me like one of your gossipy friends?" Draco asked with a grimace.

Ginny stretched out on the floor. "I figure that if I have to spend time with you, I may as well try to make it as pleasant as it can possibly be. Tell me: would you rather be spilling your deepest secrets, or bellowing your lungs out? I know which one I'd prefer."

"Do I really have to answer this?"

"Yes."

"Fine." Draco drew a deep breath. "Sixth year, under the Quidditch bleachers, Pansy Parkinson. And I was essentially coerced into it, so it won't do you any good to make snide comments."

"What do you mean, coerced?" Ginny asked, a small smile playing around her lips.

Draco sighed, and leaned against a crate. "Let's put it this way: if I hadn't agreed, I'd have met a fate involving Peeves, my boxer shorts, and certain humiliation in front of the entire Transfiguration class."

"Ouch." Ginny shook her head. "You know, I don't think that it was all that painful for you to answer that question."

Draco turned to face her. "And why the bloody hell not?"

"Because I don't recall asking for the location, but thanks."

Draco scowled. "Do you know the American legal grounds for justifiable homicide, Weasley? Because I do, and you're dangerously close to subpoena territory."

"Oh, so we're back on surname terms, Malfoy?"

"If you're going to be a smartass, then yes, we are."

Ginny laughed. "And to think that I had almost cracked through the infamous Draco Malfoy's cold façade. Guess I was wrong."

His steel-grey eyes narrowed to slits.

"You know, Weasley, you may think you know me, but you really don't."

Ginny's lip curled. "Well, maybe if you'd actually let someone get to know you for once…… but God forbid anyone try to carry on a conversation with the likes of you."

Draco tried to prevent his face from registering an expression of distress. "Am I really that intolerable?"

"Draco," Ginny replied, sighing, "when you walk into a room, it takes all of Ron's willpower for him not to say ‘Hey, look, the Iceman cometh.'"

"Sorry if I'm not Mr. Congeniality," Draco snapped. "I've got a few comments to make about your brother, but I'll keep my mouth shut."

Ginny stared at him, open-mouthed.

"What?" Draco asked in irritable confusion.

"Draco," she breathed, "I think you've just had a major psychological breakthrough."

"And what would that be, Dr. Freud?"

Ginny rolled her eyes. "Nonetheless….. do you realize that for the first time in almost ten years, you actually held your tongue when it came to making a snide remark about my brother?"

At this pronouncement, Draco was thunderstruck. "I did what?"

Ginny merely grinned. "Draco, I think there may be hope for you, after all."

"Right, Ginny. There's about as much of a chance as that as there is of me entering holy matrimony with Schlott Geitzburg."

"Hey, it's the new millennium. Anything can happen." Ginny shrugged.

"You just might be right about that," Draco said thoughtfully. "Now, back to you. Truth or Dare?"

"Truth," Ginny answered without hesitation.

"Why do you hate me so much?"

Ginny was silent for a bit, though blinking furiously. Then—

"I— I— well, Draco, think about it for a moment. We spend a good 80% of our time squabbling and bickering relentlessly. I think you're a stuck-up elitist snob, and you think I'm a hopelessly depraved tramp. You're an MIT undergrad; I scrape money together by reading palms in city basements. You're practically my brother's mortal enemy. For eight years, you've treated me as if I'm the nastiest, lowest form of life imaginable. You're a Malfoy, I'm a Weasley, our families have always hated each other with a passion, we've always hated each other—"

"Ginny, you're dead on. But, forgive me if I'm wrong, but I don't see either of our fathers standing around calling each other fleabags or bottom-feeders," Draco stated quietly, eyes oddly bright. "Do you think that any of the above allegations would have merit— or even exist— if it's not for that?"

Ginny stared at the ceiling. "I don't know. I honestly don't know. It's not as if I've given the matter a great deal of thought."

"Neither have I, but it doesn't take a degree in social anthropology to see that all of our hatred and animosity can be traced back to our parents. And for God's sake, they're back in England. For all we know, they think us to be dead, or worse." Draco paused to draw breath, then started again.

"Do you have any idea what it's like to wake up one morning and realize that every preconceived notion you had about everyone you know is entirely inaccurate? I do. Figuring out that we do need your brother's smart-assed remarks for the purpose of entertainment, that we do need Granger's logical intellect for when everyone else has gone nutters, and that we do need Potter to come along and save the world every once in a while wasn't the most pleasant experience. I can vouch for that. Discovering that your sidekicks are good for little more than ignorant support and that your parents are about as lackadaisical as possible about your upbringing-- and potentially fragile mental state-- is even worse."

Ginny had long since been stunned into reticence, and didn't offer an opinion.

"Listen, Ginny, you might not be the most intelligent, or the most beautiful, or the most agreeable girl in the world, but I think that it's about time for me to stop living in my father's world and copying my father's opinions. Fighting with you makes no sense, and I think—" for the first time, Draco stumbled. "I think that we should just call it a truce."

Ginny sat for awhile with the same expression of astonishment on her face as before.

"Well?" Draco pressed.

"Draco, you're behaving like we're practically Romeo and Juliet or something," Ginny said slowly.

Draco raised an eyebrow. "Really? Well, I guess I may as well make it a completely farcical situation, then."

Ginny tried to ask, "What are you talking about?" but soon found that she couldn't, due to the fact that he had just covered her lips with his.

The kiss only lasted for a few seconds, but Ginny could have sworn that an hour had passed by the time Draco pulled away. He sat there, staring at her with a completely dumbfounded expression contorting his features.

"I'm— I'm sorry," he stammered, "I don't know what came over me—"

But this time, Ginny had apparently had enough.

"Oh, would you just shut the bloody hell up? I think you've done more than enough speaking tonight," she whispered fiercely, pulling his face back to hers.

*

"This is all your fault!"

"No, it's your fault! Who's the one who pissed off the cop? It sure as hell wasn't me!"

"Who's the one who got us into this mess in the first place?"

"You!"

Harry and Hermione hadn't even been out of the 5th Precinct Station for thirty seconds, and a fight had broken out already.

"No, you!"

"You're dreaming!"

Hermione stood in front of him, hands on hips, eyes blazing. "You know what? Fine! Maybe this was my fault! But I don't have to stand around here and take this shit from you!"

"So where are you planning on going? Home? Neither of us even know where that is!" Harry threw his hands in the air.

"Who said anything about there being an us in this equation any longer?"

"Hermione, we get thrown into a police station for one itty-bitty misdemeanor and you're breaking up with me?" Harry asked in disbelief.

"Maybe I am! Maybe that's how this is all supposed to be! Look at the history of our relationship for a minute—as soon as we start dating, the most evil force in the world drives us out of England. Come to think of it, we haven't even had an actual date in nearly a year, because someone keeps on getting wounded—"

"I've told you a million times, I did not drop that monitor on Malfoy's head!"

If Hermione heard this, she chose to ignore it. "--or ill or something like that. And now, as soon as we finally decide that we're ready to have sex--" it's a good thing that no one else has to hear this, she thought— "what happens? We get lost and dragged into a police station! I think someone up there's trying to tell us something!"

Harry looked to be silently mulling over her words, trying to find the right retort. Suddenly, the fuming expression was gone, replaced by complete serenity and sanguinity. Dumbfounded, Hermione checked behind him to see if aliens had abducted her soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend.

"You know what?" Harry said calmly, as if he hadn't heard a word Hermione had said, "I think you're right. Someone is trying to tell us something." He pulled a small box out of his jeans pocket. "Hermione, will you marry me?"

"Hermione? Uh-oh…… oh, God……"

Hermione, who had been all set to deliver a scorching reply to whatever he had planned to throw at her, had promptly fainted.

*to be continued……*