Of Binding Spells and Chartreuse

December 20^th, 1997.

Diagon Alley.

It had to have been at least fifteen minutes now that she'd been stuck outside. Still, George hadn't come up to tell her that the coast was clear yet. So Ginny resigned herself to remain where she was a little while longer, shifting position and trying to find some comfortable way of crouching wedged behind an animated Father Christmas statue that kept booming "Ho, ho, ho!" directly into her left ear. Sunlight sparkled on the new-fallen snow that blanketed Diagon Alley. Wizards, witches, and Hogwarts students bustled by, chatting excitedly about Christmas plans. The windows of the shopfronts glittered, holly wreathed all the buildings, and carols drifted through the air. It all would have been very lovely, except that Ginny's winter robes were hung in a closet inside the shop and she'd taken off her woolen sweater whilst she worked, which meant that now she was half-kneeling in a patch of grimy snow in a short-sleeved cotton blouse.

Two sets of footsteps crunched through the snow and paused directly in front of her.

"Why are you stopping here?" asked a shrill, breathy voice. "I have to be at Madame Malkin's at two o'clock. I need to see if the robes for the Yule party are ready."

Ginny grimaced horribly, glad that her pocket mirror couldn't see her undoubtedly awful expression. Pansy Parkinson!

"You can run along, if you like," drawled a second voice.

And Draco Malfoy! I might've known.

"But you have to see them. You have to find out if they're going to go with your robes."

"I'm not going to go there and stand around for hours on end and die of bloody boredom."

"I could tell you about them, I suppose."

"All right," sighed Draco, "what sort of fashion atrocity are you going to commit this time?"

"They're green silk with chartreuse lace trim--"

"Pansy, how many times do I have to tell you that you should never wear green? It makes you look like an anemic frog. And chartreuse. The color ought to be banned and only sold by government order. I've only ever seen one person in all my life who might look good in chartreuse."

"Oh, really?" Pansy's eyes glittered. "And who could that possibly be?"

"It's none of your concern. Anyway, can't you go and get your robes by yourself? Do you really have to be tethered to me all the time? I mean, is that a necessary part of this...arrangement?"

Ginny peeped out. Pansy was clenching her teeth together. "But, Draco, that's why I wanted you to see them," she said in a falsely sweet tone of voice. "What would I do without the benefit of your fashion advice? You could have a lovely career in robe designing, if you ever decide to turn queer."

"There are times," Draco said, his voice poisonously pleasant, "when it doesn't seem like the worst option in the world, Pansy. Warrington has a wicked backhand with a Bludger, you know. I'm sure he'd do a better job of jerking me off than you've ever done."

Ginny's eyes widened. Apparently, the pairing of Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson was not exactly the fairy-tale romance she had always pictured it to be--if, that is, the fairy tale involved a couple so horrible that they fully deserved each other and could never have been inflicted on anyone else. Their argument was shamefully fascinating to overhear, but on the whole she wished they'd go and have it someplace else. A particularly cold gust of wind blew through the short-sleeved blouse Ginny wore. Her nose began to twitch.

When she looked up again, Pansy had whirled on Draco, and was speaking in a low, furious voice. "I've had just about enough of this. I don't care what you do on your own time, Draco! You can screw the entire Slytherin Quidditch team twenty-four hours a day, for all I care. But while we're together--and you know that we have to be together now--you'll treat me with a bit more respect."

"Don't I treat you with respect?" Draco asked, his voice filled with mock hurt. "It's been weeks since I shagged Xanthia Morgan while you were in the next room taking tea with your mother."

"Ooh!" Pansy stamped her foot. Unfortunately, the movement shook the statue of Father Christmas, which wasn't particularly well balanced. It began to topple over onto Ginny. She grabbed onto it, lost her balance, and fell loudly in the snow, presents spilling out of the bag on top of her. Pansy and Draco both turned towards her, proving, thought Ginny, that once more her fervent prayers to magically disappear from view during an embarrassing moment had gone unanswered. There's simply got to be a way to do that! Maybe I could talk to Professor Flitwick about a charm after Christmas break.

Pansy regained her composure so quickly that Ginny wasn't sure she'd ever lost it.

"What are you doing, Weaslette?" she sneered. "Grubbing in the snow for knuts that might have fallen out of people's pockets? Everyone's shopping today, so you might actually have some luck." She glanced at Draco for support. From the expression on his face, it was clear that she had found none.

"Run along, Pansy," he said, his eyes on Ginny. "I'll take care of the littlest Weasley."

"But--"

"You'll be late for your appointment at Madame Malkin's. Scoot."

Pansy's eyes narrowed. It was not an attractive look for her. Still, thought Ginny, Pansy looked stunningly pretty, as always, with her glossy dark hair cut in its neat pageboy, her large, dark eyes framed by tangled black lashes, her expensive robes, and her perfect makeup. Really, she looks like her entire head was applied with a small brush. I wonder if the Parkinson family has specialized house-elves just to take care of Pansy's makeup?

"What's going on here?" Pansy asked Draco.

He made little ushering-away motions with his hands, not bothering to look at her.

Pansy's face went blank, and then stretched into an amused smile. "Really, Draco darling," she drawled, "she's hardly up to your usual standard."

"Variety is the spice of life," said Draco, reaching out a hand towards Ginny. He wants to help me up, she thought stupidly. She took it, realizing belatedly that it was the first time she'd ever actually touched his skin. She'd expected him to feel cold and unpleasantly snake-like, but he didn't at all. His hand was warm and smooth in hers. She got to her feet and brushed off her trousers, uncomfortably aware that she had put on her oldest, shabbiest pair to restock the shelves that day. Her hair was probably a mess, too. At least Pansy had gone, but she wished Draco Malfoy would stop looking at her like that.

"Now, what does this situation make me think of?" he asked her. "I can almost call it to mind..."

How the bloody hell should I know? she almost snapped. "Thank you for helping me up, Malfoy," she said instead, aware that her voice was very ungracious. "Now, if you don't mind, I have to--"

He snaps his fingers. "I remember now. Looking at you reminds me of the time when that annoying house-elf we had... Doobie? Bubbi?"

"Dobby. Wasn't he with your family for thirty years?"

"Whatever. Anyway, it was the time he locked himself out in the snow as punishment for allowing the syllabub to come to the table just the tiniest bit runny during an important dinner. He was out there for hours, I think. There were icicles hanging off his nose by the time I finally saw him out in the courtyard and let him in."

"That's dreadful," said Ginny, peering round to see if anyone could see her with him.

"I wouldn't say that. He never did it again... It's really very efficient, the way house-elves punish themselves."

Ginny shivered. In the throes of embarrassment at being seen floundering around in the snow by Pansy Parkinson, she had almost forgotten how cold it really was.

"Cold?" Draco asked, his voice almost kindly.

"Yes. It's December, and I'm wearing short sleeves. Now if you'll excuse me--"

"If I were the chivalrous sort," he said idly, "I suppose I would give you my cloak, Weasley. But I'm cold, too."

"It's not important," she said icily. "I'm going back into the shop." When she glanced through the window and craned her neck, though, she still saw Fred's bright red head hovering near the side room. He was apparently talking to someone she couldn't see, and Ginny had a sneaking suspicion that she knew who it was. "Damn," she muttered. "I can't, not yet."

"Oh?" He looks at her inquisitively. "What are you doing out here, anyway?"

The chill wind blew through her clothing as if it were made of especially thin parchment, and made her too cold to think clearly. "Trying to avoid someone," she said.

Ginny realized what a mistake she'd made to tell Draco Malfoy the truth about anything a millisecond before he looked over her shoulder to scan her brothers' shop. She chanced a quick look as well, and groaned inwardly. Harry had come out of the side room and was standing near the back. He was clearly visible. She gritted her teeth, fully expecting a smart remark from Malfoy.

"Really," was all that he said. His tone was quite pleasant. She looked at him suspiciously.

"Listen, Weasley," he continued, "you want to warm up? I can't give you my cloak, but come with me for a drink. How about some hot buttered rum? I know the perfect place in Knockturn Alley. Gris-Gris, it's called--"

"I'm meeting someone for dinner," Ginny said stiffly. She'd gone too far, and told him much too much. Damn him for always seeming to make that happen. It had been this way ever since August, and every time she was reminded of it, she firmly told herself that this bizarre... thing... between herself and Malfoy had to end.

He raised one perfect eyebrow. "Would that be the same person you're hiding from?"

"Why do I even talk to you?" Ginny muttered.

Malfoy flashed her a grin. His teeth were dazzlingly white and even. "You can't resist my stunning wit and charm?"

Ginny's lips twisted in something that was not quite a smile. She didn't know the answer to her question. She'd never known it. When he'd given her that look on the June day in Hogsmeade as she hung onto Harry's arm, Ginny would never have been able to imagine that in six months she'd reach a point where she regularly exchanged halfway civil conversation with Draco Malfoy. But somehow she had. And she knew exactly when it had started.

Part Four

August 10^th, 1997.

Diagon Alley.

It was a hot, still summer evening, and Ginny was restocking shelves in the back of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. It was a dull, tiring job that made her back ache and had put a crimp in her neck, but it had to be done. The student rush would start soon, and the shop had to ready to re-open then, after its renovation. Even now, there was a trickle of Hogwarts hopefuls knocking at the still-bolted door, or peering in the plate glass windows. And since Fred and George weren't about to let her anywhere near the Amazing Annex, she was responsible for stocking, ordering, and tracking the more pedestrian merchandise.

"The astonishing variety of wares in the Amazing Annex will make our name, Ginny. You wait and see," Fred had said solemnly back in May, when Ginny had visited the shop in order to talk to her brothers about working there. "There isn't another joke shop that carries them; Gambol and Japes wouldn't touch them with a twenty-metre wand."

"Well, outside of that one in Knockturn Alley," George had chimed in.

"True, true. But not really competition for the likes of us. Too many customers really don't care to risk life and limb simply because they choose to purchase--er--adult items for the discriminating witch and wizard. Now we, on the other hand--" Fred made a grand gesture around the shop "--maintain a family atmosphere. With the one exception of the Annex."

"It does sound interesting," Ginny said. "I'm sure I could come in all the time over the summer, and during the hols, too." She was already headed for the little green door with its brass knob, the one that led to the back room Fred and George had dubbed the Amazing Annex after several weeks of trying to come up with a more interesting name.

Fred effortlessly stopped her with one large, Quidditch-roughened hand. "Ah, ah, Ginny," he said. "I don't think you quite understand. You see, there's one condition of you working here."

"What's that?" Ginny had asked, not even trying to struggle. She'd long ago learned that resistance was futile when it came to Fred.

"You can't go anywhere near the Annex," said Fred.

"Mum'd kill you if she knew," agreed George.

"Well, I think she'd kill us first," said Fred, thoughtfully. "Then you. Then a number of quite random people."

"Oh, all right!" Ginny had sighed, suppressing all the arguments that had come to her mind. Most of them began with "I'm not nine years old, you know!" She had a sinking feeling that none of them would get her very far.

Besides, if she was only allowed to work there she was sure that she could sneak a peek, sooner or later.

Fred and George frequently had to leave her alone to mind the shop whilst they dealt with suppliers, or arranged for deliveries. So Ginny had tried the door of the Annex many times, but they had obviously protected it with a Locking spell considerably beyond her abilities to crack. She had high hopes of doing so eventually. Now, she sat up, moved her fingers over her aching back, feeling the ligaments stretch and the cartilage shift, and wondered if maybe this quiet August day was a good time to try again. The twins were negotiating with The International Sisterhood of Hags, Union #104 over illegal Level 3 viruses for a new product called Ebola Eggnog, and neither one would be back for a while yet. She hadn't taken a break since lunch. Maybe... maybe...

Her hand was on the doorknob when she heard the footsteps. That front door's supposed to be locked! Well, I could've forgot after I went out for lunch, I suppose.

"We're closed!" she called.

The footsteps continued. Maybe it's Colin. He wasn't supposed to come and take me to dinner for another hour, but maybe he's early. "I'm back here," she yelled.

"You really should lock that door," said an all-too-familiar voice, low and drawling and almost lazy-sounding. She hadn't actually heard it in several months. But she could never mistake it for anyone else's voice.

"Malfoy," she hissed, turning to face him.

The rays of the summer sun were deepening towards night, and they cast long shadows through the plate glass windows in front. He walked through one of them, then out into the sunlight again. His hair looked so bright that the light shining off it nearly blinded her, and his face was a blur. She rubbed her eyes, every muscle in her body tensing. He stopped in front of her.

"If I were a robber, you know, I could have every Knut of your money by now," he said casually. "If you have any, that is."

"I'll have you know that Fred and George are doing very well with the shop," Ginny said, and then clamped her mouth shut, scowling. What am I doing, even talking to him? Have I lost my mind? Could I throw a good Bat-Bogey hex while he's off his guard? It certainly worked last year. Oh balls, no I couldn't. My wand's up at the front cash register.

"What are you doing here, Malfoy?" she asked guardedly.

He leaned against a filing cabinet. "Isn't this a shop?"

"Yes. But it's closed. Didn't you see the sign on the door?"

He shrugged. "Didn't bother to look, Weasley. So they have you working here now?" He looked her up and down, his eyes flicking briefly yet somehow lazily across her tank top and shorts set. "You must bring in loads of extra business," he said softly. "Especially to the--ahem--Amazing Annex."

Ginny had taken off her robes while she was working. She decided at that moment that she had never fully appreciated before just how much there was to be said for good thick robes. They would have concealed the fiery blush was currently spreading up her chest and neck. As it was, however, it was displayed for Malfoy to see.

"Why on earth would you care about the Annex?" she blurted. "I'm sure you could have representatives from the manufacturer come and deliver that sort of thing to Malfoy Manor. No! I know how it must work. Your own private bed-elf supplies everything you need!"

Malfoy laughed quietly. He had a strange laugh, she thought. Very restrained, as if he was afraid someone would overhear him. Oh, what's wrong with me!

"Get out, Malfoy," she said with as much dignity as she could muster.

"No, I don't think so. I just got here. And anyway I don't have a bed-elf. Zabini does; if you ever want to hear about them, he goes on about his by the hour. I want to hear about the Amazing Annex." He sat on a box marked Weasley's Wizard Wheezes--Special Delivery. Do not open without fully trained Aurors on hand! and crossed one leg over the other in a comfortable way, apparently preparing for a long stay.

Ginny took a step backwards, and then narrowed her eyes, looking at Malfoy appraisingly. For some reason, he found her embarrassment more entertaining than whatever Junior Death Eater activity he otherwise would have been up to today. Merlin only knew why. And for some even more inexplicable reason, he found it amusing to sham at civility with her. Her spine stiffened. You want to play games, Malfoy? We'll play games.

"I'm afraid I don't have the key to the Annex," she said, in a falsely pleasant voice. "Fred keeps it, you know. But I can give you a sort of virtual tour." She picked up a joke wand from an open box and began to use it as a pointer, outlining an imaginary map on the wall.

"When you walk in the door, the first thing you see is the Crumple-Horned Snorkack Horn Display. They vibrate naturally, you know."

"That explains why Lovegood was so eager to find them," murmured Malfoy. She ignored him.

"Next," said Ginny, "we have the complete Little Lady line of Mesmerizing Magic Wands. Then there are Vibrating Sugar Quills, perfect for getting through those boring History of Magic classes. They're quite popular with the students. We carry the latest model of the Helpful Handy House-Elf, complete with ears that twirl in three different directions, the Fishnet Fantasy Line of Personal Enhancement Robes, Sizzling Sorceress Brand Personal Lube, and Wanton Witch Wanda, the Luscious Latex Love Doll." She stole a quick glance at him. His grey eyes were very amused.

"And, of course," she said, "we do have an item that I'm sure would be of great personal interest to you, Malfoy. Professor Murray's Magical Extenders for Those Extra Centimetres. Guaranteed to stay in place under the most vigorous use. We don't have any Extra-Extra-Smalls right now, but they can be special ordered. You might find those very useful, Malfoy. You know." She winked at him. "Just in case you ever get tired of hearing your girlfriends complain that you aren't quite... adequate... to the task at hand. You don't want to be... caught short at a time like that, do you? And we sell those in brown paper sacks. No-one will ever know." Ginny gave him a very sweet smile.

Malfoy laughed. "What a wickedly sharp little tongue you have, Weasley! I never would have guessed. But wouldn't you send owls to everyone who's ever been in Gryffindor the moment I left the shop?"

"No. But I might take out an ad in the Daily Prophet," she said demurely. "Will it be necessary, Malfoy?"

"Not in the least," was all he said, but his eyes said much more. Ginny felt bravado drain out of her like air from a balloon .

"I'm busy," she said, turning abruptly. "Really busy. Extraordinarily busy..." She whacked the joke wand against the box on a shelf as she turned, and it became a rubber chicken, flying into the air with a loud gobble. She shrieked and scrambled away from the falling box. After a moment, she peeked up, and saw that it had not fallen on her head. Malfoy was carefully replacing it on a shelf. How did he do that?

"You ought to be more careful, Weasley," he said. "Are you always this clumsy?"

Only when you're around! Luckily, her brain had caught up with her mouth by then, and Ginny didn't actually say the words. But he was making her nervous, and she wanted him gone.

"Look, what do you really want, Malfoy?" she asked. "If it's to embarrass me, I suppose you've succeeded. If it's to buy something, you'll have to wait until Fred and George get back. If you honestly think they'd sell you something without hexing you."

He looked at her. She looked at him closely for the first time since he'd come into the shop--for the first time ever, really. Even at the height of summer heat, he was still wearing robes, when most witches and wizards had discarded them for Muggle clothing almost all the time. His gleaming, pale hair was perfect, as always, not a strand out of place, and his shoes were shined to a high gloss. The perfection of him was intimidating even though he wasn't physically perfect at all. He was too thin, too pale, his face still too narrow and sharp, his cheekbones too high, his eyes too bright and too large. She needed to stop looking at him, and she knew it, but she could not seem to make herself do it.

Malfoy took a deep breath, and seemed about to speak.

The front doorbell tinkled. The sound broke the spell.

"Will you just go?" Ginny hissed. "That's probably Fred and George back early! Go out the back."

Malfoy nodded, and turned to go. It didn't make any sense at all. Ginny knew it. But she wanted him to say goodbye to her, and he did not.

"Goodbye and good riddance," she muttered under her breath, instead. "And I hope I never see you again!"

He turned back to her, all his white teeth flashing in a sudden grin. "Really?" he said, in a voice that was almost a purr. Then he was gone.

Colin Creevey's brows knitted together in a perplexed way when he came into the back of the store and saw Ginny sitting on the floor. "What are you doing down there, Gin?" He sat next to her. "Are they making you scrub that floor with a toothbrush again so the Cleaning spell doesn't disturb all the joke wands? They're working you too hard, you shouldn't put up with it. Or Fred is, anyway."

"Hi, Colin. No, that's not it," said Ginny. "What time is it?"

"Almost eight. Aren't those brothers of yours back from the hags yet? When are you going to get to eat?"

"He was here longer than I thought," she said abstractedly. "And we actually had something resembling a civil conversation. I don't believe it. No--it's worse than that. I believe it, but I don't understand it."

"He? Who's he? Did Harry come in? I've never heard the two of you have anything but a civil conversation. It's a bit dull to listen to, actually," said Colin thoughtfully.

"No," sighed Ginny. "It was Draco Malfoy."

Colin's eyebrows shot up until they nearly hit his hairline. "Oh ho, is it so? Do tell."

"There's nothing to tell. I'm starving, Colin. Let's go have dinner." She made as if to get up. He pulled her back down to the floor by the edge of her shorts.

"We can't go anywhere until your brothers get back. C'mon. Dish."

"The only dish I want to see has steak and kidney pie in it. And I just saw Fred and George outside." Ginny got up and headed for the door, Colin reluctantly following.

***

Although he spent an hour in the taproom of the Leaky Cauldron tormenting her for details, she resolutely refused to give them, and at last he subsided.

"You've always told me everything before," he said sulkily. "Didn't I tell you about the time when Ernie MacMillan punched me in the nose after I took a picture of him and Susan Bones in that broom closet?"

"Yes, Colin." Ginny pushed a bite of steak about on her plate with a fork.

"And didn't I tell you and only you when I finally came out last year?"

"Yes, Colin."

"And didn't I share all the details with you when I started dating Justin Finch-Fletchley, not that that ended very well. I can't imagine why he objected to me taking nude photographs of him while he was asleep in the Room of Requirement--"

"Well, I think it was the way they got posted in the Gryffindor common room, Colin."

"That wasn't my fault!" Colin exclaimed. "How was I to know that that roll was going to get mixed up with the Quidditch team photos?"

"Never mind!" Ginny flapped a hand impatiently. But in truth, she didn't mind the way in which the subject had been changed. She knew that she couldn't tell anyone about that strange, strange hour with Draco Malfoy in the back room of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, not even Colin, who had become her confidant in the past year. And it doesn't matter anyway. It's not as if it's ever going to happen again, she thought.

But it did. That evening was the first time they had ever really spoken to each other civilly, but it was not the last. Ginny never saw Malfoy when she was with other people, or when he was, but he kept turning up at odd times--while she was working by herself in the shop, when she was walking down Diagon Alley in the evening, or when she was eating ice cream at Florescan Fortescue's. In the autumn, she sometimes passed him in the hall with Crabbe, Goyle, and his gang of Slytherins, Pansy or some other girl generally hanging off his arm. His gaze skipped over her like water off a hot stone, and she had tried to pretend that she didn't feel disappointed. Because, of course, she couldn't feel any such thing when it came to Malfoy, and so she clearly didn't.

But over the first Hogsmeade weekend, when she was helping Fred and George in the shop for the day, Malfoy turned up after they'd gone to talk to a supplier and she was alone. He'd brought her a scone with butter on it. Pride demanded that she refuse it, but Ginny was starving, and hunger had won out. He hadn't been particularly polite. He'd wondered aloud if the Weasleys had enough money to feed her, as such was apparently not the case, considering the way she was going at that scone. But the next Hogsmeade weekend, he was there as well. Ginny never had figured out why on earth he was in Diagon Alley when all of his friends were in Hogsmeade, and she had had to receive special permission to help her brothers the way she did. She never asked, and he never told her. But she knew now what she had tried very hard not to know before. She could never tell anyone about this. Luna knew, but she could be trusted to keep her mouth shut. Colin knew, but and he'd never bothered her for details again after that first time. But... she now had a strange, irregular sort of... thing... with Malfoy.

He wasn't exactly kind to her, and she was never precisely pleasant to him. He mocked her and needled her, and nothing made his teeth flash in that maddening grin like thoroughly getting her goat with some cutting comment. But it was a real grin, not the smirk he'd always shown everyone else she knew. He was showing her some part of himself that she had never before dreamed even existed, that was a thing apart from his carefully crafted persona as the Slytherin Prince, and she did not have the strength to turn him away entirely, as she swore she would do next time after each odd encounter. But surely it couldn't go on much longer. Malfoy would tire of... well, of whatever this was, and then it would be over. I absolutely won't speak to him over the Christmas holidays, Ginny resolved firmly that December. It'll be a clean break.

After all, if things continued as they were, Harry might eventually find out. And Ginny had already decided that she would never, ever allow that to happen.