Rating:
PG
House:
Schnoogle
Characters:
Draco Malfoy Ginny Weasley Harry Potter Hermione Granger Ron Weasley
Genres:
Action Romance
Era:
Multiple Eras
Spoilers:
Philosopher's Stone Chamber of Secrets Prizoner of Azkaban Goblet of Fire
Stats:
Published: 07/19/2002
Updated: 10/20/2002
Words: 46,936
Chapters: 10
Hits: 26,478

Prince of Unicorns

Cinnamon

Story Summary:
Nothing lasts longer than a Malfoy's thirst for revenge. Nothing, that is, except for the memory of a Garden Gnome, and Ginny is about to become tangled in both as she searches for her own adventure in the Forbidden Forest.

Chapter 08

Chapter Summary:
Nothing lasts longer than a Malfoy's thirst for revenge. Nothing, that is, except for the memory of a Garden Gnome, and Ginny is about to become tangled in both as she searches for her own adventure in the Forbidden Forest.
Posted:
10/17/2002
Hits:
1,605

Prince of Unicorns
By Cinnamon

Chapter Eight

Ginny was panting for breath after running through the forest. She threw the doors open that led to the inner courtyard, expecting Draco to be standing there, waiting for her.

“Draco!” she called as she ran into the snowy courtyard, waiting for him to call out to her.

He was still lying on the cold stone marble and her cry echoed and then there was hushed silence. He hadn’t awakened.

She approached him cautiously, biting her mittened hand to keep from crying. His face, if possible, was even paler than the day before, so white that it seemed to glow the way a unicorn did when seen next to fresh snow. His eyelashes still made stark black shadows on his skin, and his lips were still relaxed in death.

“Draco?” she whispered, her voice cracking. They had failed; he was dead; she had really killed him. All these thoughts and more slammed into her mind then and she started to cry. “Don’t be dead,” she begged, shaking him by the shoulders. “Come on, Draco, please, please, don’t be dead.” But still, his eyes remained closed, and she lay him back down on the pillow she had brought him yesterday.

It must have snowed in the middle of the night because a light sprinkling of moisture lay over his body, glittering like tears on his eyelashes. Melted drops of snow. She brushed them away impatiently, still choking on her painful sobs.

“I’m so sorry,” she whimpered. “I guess I didn’t do the spell right, I failed at this like I’ve failed at everything else. Oh, Draco, I’ve killed you, I’m sorry. Please, please, please wake up? Please?” She pulled him upright again, angling him so he was lying across her lap and stroking his face desperately. “Please?” she repeated in a soft whisper. He didn’t move and, as a last resort, she pulled his face close to hers and kissed his cold lips. They didn’t move beneath hers and, giving up at last, she lay him carefully back down on the pillow and crawled off the altar, falling to her knees in the snow and burying her face in her hands, crying brokenly.

She missed when his eyes flickered a little and his fingers twitched a few moments later. He opened his eyes and squinted up at the stars above. He could hear her crying nearby but still did not quite have the strength to speak. He took a deep, deep breath, his heart rate slowly speeding up, returning to normal. Then he slowly sat up.

Ginny was collapsed in the snow beside the altar sobbing, with a crown of small white flowers in her hair, and, for a moment, he didn’t know what to say to her. Finally, with a small grin, he drawled, “Crying for me, Weasley?”

She jerked and looked up at him, her eyes huge and shining with tears. She swallowed huskily and then croaked, “No. No, I… I stubbed my toe on the altar.”

Draco laughed but didn’t argue with her, because he was sort of confused about the whole thing himself. He rolled his shoulders and grimaced at the tightness there. “This being dead stuff blows,” he mumbled. Then, almost afraid to look, he glanced at the blanket Ginny had covered him with. “Bloody hell!” he cried. “That’s the largest Gryffindor crest I’ve ever seen!”

Ginny laughed through her tears and leapt to her feet, grabbing his arm to help him down. “You’re alive!” she cried “I was so scared you were dead! Not that I would have cared either way,” she corrected quickly, even as she steadied him when he stumbled after reaching the ground. His legs were too weak to hold him yet.

“Of course,” he said, wincing as he started to get feeling back in his legs. He wasn’t sure exactly what to say to her anymore and nervousness was not something Draco was used to feeling. He was about to ask her what had been going on at Hogwarts when someone else spoke from the doorway.

“How cute. I should have known.”

It was Copper, and he was furious.

Ginny spun around and whimpered, shrinking back against Draco. “Copper,” she breathed. “How did you know?”

Copper was shaking with rage. “What, you thought I’d trust you? A Weasley? After what you did to my mother?”

Ginny was shaking her head, trying desperately not to cry. “Copper, I didn’t do anything to your mother.”

Draco was still desperately trying to get his strength back, leaning heavily against the altar. Copper glanced at him scornfully and then turned his attention back to Ginny, whose nails were digging into Draco’s arm. “Didn’t you?” Copper sneered. “I never told you my mother’s last name. It was Mandrynn Weasley. A distant aunt of yours, I believe.”

Ginny still didn’t understand. Draco was beginning to. “Hands up who didn’t see this coming,” he snorted, rolling his eyes. “Honestly, I think I read this plot last week in Witch Weekly’s soap opera section. A Malfoy and a Weasley. How passé and overdone. In my family, we only call her a Tramp, no one ever bothered to tell me she was a Weasley.”

Ginny shot him a hurt look but Draco didn’t tear his eyes away from Copper. “They betrayed her,” he was hissing. “My mother’s own family abandoned her to Malfoy’s cruelty. They betrayed her! Her mother, her father, her siblings, all of them! You think I’d trust you after that, Weasley?” He had turned back to Ginny. “I hooked a magical thread to your crown so that I’d know where you went even when I couldn’t see. Of course I knew you came here, and I knew it had to have something to do with him. You’ve got betrayal in your veins and I really didn’t expect anything better.”

Draco had gradually pushed himself away from the altar, his strength slowly coming back. Ginny felt him move and glanced up at him worriedly. He still didn’t look at her, keeping his eyes locked on Copper, who had raised his hands in the air and seemed to have started muttering a spell.

“I need my wand,” Draco hissed.

“His pocket,” Ginny whispered back. “It’s in his pocket.”

He finally glanced at her, giving her a quick, reassuring grin, before snatching her wand from her trembling hand and shouting, “Accio wand!”

His wand flew out of Copper’s pocket and into Draco’s hand, and he quickly raised it over his head.

He was too late, and blue fire jolted from Copper’s fingertips, screaming towards them. Draco shoved Ginny’s wand back into her hand and pushed her out of the way, sending her falling into the snow, and he dove in the other direction, rolling quickly and pointing his wand at Copper. “Stupefy!”

Copper froze and Draco lunged to his feet. “Run!” he shouted to Ginny, who was still scrambling to get up. She followed him out of the inner courtyard and into the caverns, slamming the doors behind her.

“We’ve got go get to Dumbledore,” she panted, hurrying after Draco.

“First we’ve got to get away, that won’t hold a wizard of his power long.” Draco was running down the hall, scanning the area quickly. Finally, he found what he was looking for. A door on the left side of the hallway opened into a tiny room with a toilet in it. “Quickly, take off the crown,” he instructed.

Ginny clutched it. “I can’t. If I don’t have the crown, the losing spells and curses will be able to touch me, we’ll never find our way out.”

“We’ve got more of a chance without it than we do with it. He’ll find us for sure. Take it off and flush it, then he’ll be chasing the plumbing all day.”

Ginny still held the crown uncertainly. “Draco—”

“Trust me.”

Three days ago, she would have laughed in his face. Now, she handed him the crown of flowers and watched as he dropped it into the toilet and flushed. He smiled at her, a real smile, not a smirk or a sneer, but a warm, grateful smile. “C’mon. It’ll be all right.”

He grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the bathroom and they ran down the cavern hallway together, Ginny shooting terrified glances over her shoulder every few steps.

***

Ron glanced around nervously. “Where’s Ginny? Did we lose her?”

“Ages ago,” Hermione said, biting her lip.

“Maybe we should head back,” Harry suggested.

They had been wandering through the forest for some time now, though they had lost any sign of Ginny.

“Let’s keep looking,” Ron begged. “Please, my life depends on this. Mum’ll kill me.”

“All right,” Harry agreed, only because he knew Ron was worried sick about Ginny.

Hermione suddenly shouted, “Ginny! Ginny, where are you?”

“Hermione!” Harry snapped. “That’s probably not the smartest thing, considering we don’t know what’s out here! Anything could hear you and—” He broke off abruptly, going a little pale. “What is that?”

Ron and Hermione spun around to look. A unicorn had appeared, watching them nervously. It was pawing the snow and snorting every so often, as if fighting the urge to flee.

“It’s Ginny’s unicorn!” Ron hissed, taking a few quick steps towards it.

The unicorn shied away, rising on its back legs and kicking the front ones a little, shaking its white mane.

“Ron!” Hermione whispered. “Don’t you remember? They don’t like boys.” She moved in front of him, reaching out one hand towards the unicorn and approaching cautiously, speaking in a low, soothing voice. “We’re looking for Ginny, have you seen her?”

“Hermione, its just an animal,” Harry said, irritated. “It doesn’t understand.”

The unicorn had gone very still, looking directly into Hermione’s eyes. Then it tossed its head once more, snorting.

“Where is she?” Hermione whispered.

The unicorn turned and took a few steps back the way she had come before glancing over her shoulder, as if waiting for Hermione to follow.

“Follow it,” Hermione said, walking after the unicorn. “I bet it’ll lead us to Ginny.”

Still looking skeptical, Harry and Ron followed Hermione and the unicorn, deep into the forest.

They didn’t speak until they stood before two large golden doors that had been built into the side of a snowy hill. Beyond it, mostly covered by a thick row of trees, they could see ruins covered in snow.

“What is it?” Harry asked, studying the ruins carefully.

“Is Ginny here?” Hermione asked the unicorn, who seemed to nod, taking a few nervous steps back. “She’s in there,” Hermione said, turning to Ron. “She is. C’mon.”

She pushed the doors open and stepped inside. A staircase led nearly straight down into a series of underground caverns. Ron followed right after her and Harry a little more hesitantly.

Ron glanced at the spider webs in the corners of the entryway and shuddered. “Ginny,” he mumbled. “What on earth have you gotten yourself into this time?”

***

“What do you know about the spells he’s enchanted the caverns with?” Draco asked as they ran.

Ginny was having trouble catching her breath. “He said ‘misdirection spells’. I think they’re in the hall, if you run into one, he told me you get sucked into a chamber. I don’t know what sort of chamber.”

Draco smiled grimly. “Probably the same kind we have at my house. A security system. Each chamber is sort of like a maze, a puzzle. If you take the wrong way, you die.”

Ginny winced. “You should have let me keep the crown. We could have made it to the doorway—”

She didn’t get the chance to reply because the ground suddenly shifted beneath her and, crying out in panic, she fell forward, tangling her hands in Draco’s robes so she wouldn’t lose him as everything around her spun madly, the colours bleeding out of everything.

When the colours had finally dripped back into their places, they were in a different chamber. Ginny was gasping for breath and terrified, still clutching Draco’s back. She could hear a strange, soft whimpering noise and it took her a moment to realize it was her. She swallowed and made herself stop before pulling away from Draco and looking around.

The room was larger than the one she and Draco had been imprisoned in, and much brighter as well. Thousands of tear-shaped crystals the size of Ginny’s smallest fingernail, were attached in a waterfall around a spindle of gold, making a chandelier that sent flickering golden candlelight dancing in small droplets on the walls. They stood in the center of the room, bathed in light, and before them was a heavy door. To Ginny’s left, she could see a magnificent painting of a woman, dressed in luxurious swaths of heavy velvet, the dusky colour of dark rose. Amethysts hung around her throat and a headpiece held her curling blonde hair off her forehead. The headpiece was gold and set with amethysts that matched the ones at her neck. It sat around the crown of her head in dangling strings of gems and fell over her forehead, each vine of jewels coming together and entwining in the center, spiraling upwards into a horn, like a unicorn’s horn. She was smiling a slightly malicious smile and her hands were folded like claws on her lap. Her beautiful green eyes seemed to glitter with secrets.

Directly across from her was the portrait of a man, dressed as richly as the woman, in forest green silk trousers and a frilly white shirt that frothed at the neck and the cuffs. One of his feet, encased in a shining black boot, was propped up on a stool, and he rested one forearm on his knee arrogantly, lips twisted in a smirk. His hair was dark auburn and fell in waves to his shoulders, his cold blue eyes staring directly at the woman in the portrait across.

Ginny glanced away from the man in the portrait, his eyes giving her the unnerving feeling that he could see through her robes. Judging from what she knew of the portraits at Hogwarts, which had been able to move and speak, this might not be all that far from the truth.

A small murmur had begun in the back of her mind when she had first appeared in the room, and Ginny was aware now of the gentle whispering slowly getting louder. She touched her forehead worriedly, and soon it seemed like the voices in her head were shouting.

Strangers.

There are strangers.

Look, a little doll, a little plaything.

Kill her. We can put her in the box with the other dolls.

Yes, yes. Kill her so I can play with her. Shall we kill her, darling?

The mad voices spun around and around in her mind, faster and faster and faster until Ginny felt sure that her head was going to split in half from the pain. She clutched her head and fell to her knees, shrieking, tears running down her face. Still, the voices continued, like tiny wings flapping about the inside of her mind.

“Make it stop,” she screamed, scratching at her temples. She was crumpled into a little ball on the carpet, and Draco quickly fell to his knees beside her. He grabbed her shoulders.

“What? What is it?” He pulled her up into a sitting position, pushing her hair out of her face and studying her eyes, dark with panic. “What’s wrong?”

“Make them stop,” she sobbed, pushing away from him and getting shakily to her feet. “Shut up! Shut up! I’m not a doll! I’m not! Stop it!” She ran towards the man’s painting and started scratching at it, still screaming. The man just smiled down at her patiently and Ginny slumped to the floor, her screams quieting into painful whimpers.

Draco ran a hand through his hair, glancing around desperately. He didn’t know what was going on with her.

The woman in the painting slowly winked at him and fury ran through his veins. He didn’t know what was going on but he knew, somehow, that the paintings were the cause.

Acting on instinct, Draco walked towards the painting, scowling fiercely. He reached into the painting and wrapped his hand around the woman’s horn. With a quick jerk of his wrist, he snapped the horn off and dropped it onto the woman’s lap.

Her eyes weren’t glittering with secrets any longer and she was no longer smiling. Her eyes began to shine with something like tears as a slow drop of blood gathered where the horn used to be. It slowly dripped down her forehead and then, as Draco watched, tiny veins of red appeared all over the woman’s pale face, as if the paint were cracking. The veins grew so numerous that eventually her white skin had turned the dusty colour of her gown and her eyes slowly went black. She looked, now, more like a dirty skeleton with gaping holes where her eyes had been.

There was a shriek and a blast of cold wind from the other side of the room and Draco spun around to watch the man, who had spent eternity staring across at the woman he had just killed. The man’s skin, as well, was breaking into dusty cracks. What was the point of eternity waiting for victims to become lost and wander into their room if she was not there to make the bodies into dolls for?

A few seconds later, the room was silent, and Ginny was lying very still on her back, her eyes closed.

Draco approached her cautiously. “You all right?”

She rolled over suddenly and vomited onto the carpet, whimpering after she had finished and falling against the wall. Draco watched her uncertainly.

“Does it still hurt?”

She shook her head. “I could hear them in my head,” she whispered. “I thought my skull was going to crack open like an egg.”

“They’re gone now,” he said. She nodded, standing up carefully. She nearly fell and Draco grabbed her arm to steady her. “All right?” he asked.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said, pulling away from him and walking towards the door. It opened at her approach and she stepped out into the corridor.

Draco looked back once at the skeleton woman in the painting and then shut the door behind him.

***

“What is this place?” Ron whispered as he followed Hermione down the corridor.

“I have no idea,” Harry replied.

“It doesn’t feel right,” Hermione said, shaking her head. “It’s like the air is slightly off or something. Something’s wrong.”

“We’re wandering around in some dark caves,” Harry said dryly. “Of course it’s not right.”

“Do you think Ginny’s really in here? I mean, maybe the unicorn—” Ron broke off with a small cry and ran forward, picking something up off the ground. “Oh my god.”

“What is it?” Hermione asked, squinting through the darkness.

“Ginny’s mitten,” Harry whispered.

“We have to find her!” Ron started running and, after a quick, startled glance, Hermione and Harry ran after him. None of them were prepared when they ran into a misdirecting spell, the world spinning around them as they were carried off to some other part of the caverns. They all fell, landing on a rough floor. It took a few minutes to untangle themselves, and then they stood up.

“What happened?” Harry asked.

“We walked right into a spell! I can’t believe that! How could we be so stupid?” Hermione stomped her foot angrily and glanced about the little room they found themselves in.

The floor was stone, the walls were bare, and there didn’t appear to be a door. All along the perimeter, there appeared to be a crack about the width of a hand, and Harry inspected it.

“That’s curious,” he said. “There’s another floor below us, I can see the door.”

“How are we supposed to get down there?” Hermione asked.

The floor started to shake, and then it started moving upwards, and they suddenly realized what was about to happen.

“We’re going to be crushed! Like bugs!” Harry cried. “We have to get to the floor below or we’re as good as dead!”

“Bugs!” Ron shouted, reaching for his pocket. He pulled out the bag of sweets Fred and George had sent him.

“Ron!” Hermione scolded. “This is no time for sweets!”

“Fred and George sent these to me! I just hope...” He trailed off, dumping the sweets into his palm and sorting through them quickly. “Yes! Here’s one! A Cricket-Lick-It! Fred and George just invented it this summer! It’s a lollipop, you lick it and turn into a cricket for about two minutes, they tested it out on Gin. She was not impressed.”

“We can turn into crickets and crawl through the crack!” Harry cried.

“Exactly. We’d best hurry.” Ron glanced worriedly up at the quickly-approaching roof. They were nearly there. He tore the wrapping off the sweet and licked it quickly, passing it to Harry. A second later, Ron screamed as his body convulsed and shrunk, twisting in to a strange shape. Soon, he was a cricket and scurrying quickly towards the edge of the floor. He could hear Hermione and Harry, crickets as well, following, and hoped they made it to the ground before they changed back… it was a far distance when you were this small, after all.

He felt his skin begin to itch as he cleared the rising floor and, terrified he’d transform before he reached the ground far below, he pushed away from the wall, chirping loudly as he fell.

He transformed in the air and hit the ground hard enough to tear the knees of his trousers open. Hermione and Harry hit the ground soon after, both of them moaning.

“Crickets,” Hermione scoffed. “I can’t believe…”

Harry was smiling. “Remind me to thank Fred and George for that, Ron.”

Ron couldn’t stop laughing. “Don’t worry, Harry, I’ll thank them so much that you won’t have to.”

They picked themselves up off the ground and made their way to the door, stepping cautiously back into the corridor.

***

Ginny was feeling distinctly uncomfortable as she and Draco cautiously made their way down the cavern hallway. She had just vomited in front of Draco Malfoy, the most attractive, richest, cruelest boy in school. She wanted the floor to open up and swallow her.

“All right?” Draco asked again, glancing at her. Ginny could almost allow herself to believe he was concerned, except she knew he was just checking on her because he was worried that he wouldn’t be able to find his way out of the caverns and through the forest without her. Not that she was being much help, but really, that was hardly the issue.

“Like you care,” she said, scowling.

His eyes widened a little bit and then narrowed as he nodded curtly. “Fine.”

And again, Ginny felt something like guilt wash over her. She sighed, tossing her hair over her shoulder and trying to ignore the feeling. It wasn’t all that easy.

“Are we still lost?” he asked her finally, after the silence had grown intolerable. “Do you recognize this place yet?”

Ginny rolled her eyes. “It’s a cave, Malfoy, like all the others. I don’t know where we are.”

He finally spun around to face her, his eyes glowing with sudden anger. “Alright, Weasley, I wasn’t going to ask, but I’ve changed my mind. What the hell is your problem?”

“My problem? I don’t like you, Malfoy. I thought you knew that. I’m sorry to hurt your feelings or anything, but it’s true.” She sneered at him coldly, and was completely unnerved when he laughed scornfully.

“I should have told you, Weasley. I really should have.”

“Told me what?” She asked, a little uneasy.

“The spell you did on me. You thought I was unconscious. I wasn’t. It was like a dream for me. Distant, but I was still aware of what was going on. I could still hear, and I could still feel. Everything.”

Ginny opened her mouth to snap something back in reply, and then, as realization slowly dawned on her, she closed her mouth, her eyes going wide. She whimpered low in her throat, and the only words she could think of to say were, “Oh god.” He’d heard her. He’d felt her. Talking to him. Checking on him. Smoothing the blanket over him. Touching him. Sure, that had been an accident, but when poor little ugly Ginny Weasley sexually assaults the hottest boy in school, who would believe it was an accident? Who would believe she hadn’t meant to? She had cried over him. Begged him not to be dead. Oh god. Oh god, she had kissed him.

She pressed her hand to her mouth, looking at him in horror, and then she turned and ran as fast as she could away from him.

“Ginny,” Draco called after her. He swore quietly before running after her, grabbing her arm and forcing her to stop and face him. “Ginny!” He said firmly, shaking her a little. “Calm down.”

“I think I’m going to be sick,” she mumbled thickly.

“You just puked a while ago,” he said sharply. Her eyes filled with tears and he sighed. “What part’s freaking you out most, then? That you were worried about me? That you felt me up? Or that you thought I was dead and kissed me?”

She was shaking her head desperately, trying to pull away, but he wouldn’t let go.

“Ginny!” he snapped.

She finally smiled a little, just a tiny bit. “This is the first time you’ve ever called me Ginny.”

He rolled his eyes. “I called you Ginny when you made out with Copper. Now answer me.”

“The whole thing makes me sick. I don’t like you, Malfoy, I don’t, I just… I…”

“Listen, all right? I understand, I do. You were scared and acted irrationally. I know it wasn’t real.”

“Then why did you throw it in my face? Besides, I didn’t feel you up. It was an accident.”

He grinned. “I promise, if I hadn’t been nearly dead, I wouldn’t have cared either way.” She glared at him and he hurried to continue. “And I wasn’t throwing it in your face, I was just trying to… I don’t know. I just thought you should know.”

“I’m really, really sorry,” she whispered.

He scowled. “Let’s just forget it.” He turned and walked away.

Ginny watched for a moment and then hurried after him. “Draco, I—”

She never got the chance to finish because the walls shifted again, the similar feeling of disorientation came over her, and Ginny flinched, squeezing her eyes shut.

When it settled again, they were in a dark chamber, almost like the one Draco had been chained up in when they had first been captured. They were standing on a platform and before them were a dozen glowing puddles of various colours, shining like molten metal in the dim torchlight. Black stepping-stones were scattered randomly throughout the room.

“Oh bloody hell,” she cursed.

“This doesn’t look so hard,” Draco said. “We just have to hop from stone to stone to the door on the other side.”

“You’ve said it yourself a thousand times, Draco, I’m the clumsiest person in school, except maybe for Neville.” She was scowling, but he only smirked at her before hopping onto the first stone, gracefully of course.

“I think each puddle is a different sort of potion,” he said as he hopped to the next one. Ginny stepped cautiously onto the first stone, looking at the molten puddles doubtfully.

It was silent except for their feet hitting the stones as they hopped from one to the other, and half way across, Draco called, “Watch out for that one, it’s slippery.”

Ginny had already jumped and she landed awkwardly on the slippery stone, her arms flying out as she tried desperately to catch her balance. Her feet were sliding and she gasped once before falling backwards into a yellow puddle behind her.

It was strange, she sank into the puddle like it was a deep pool of water, her head slipping below the slippery liquid before she managed to remember to swim. She began to panic as she flailed her arms, sucking in a mouthful of the spell before her head burst upwards into the air again. Draco grabbed her by the back of her robes, cursing. He kept cursing even as he pulled her onto the stones and dragged her the rest of the way to the other side. When they had reached it, he let her go and she fell to her knees, still coughing up yellow liquid.

“Spit out as much as you can, you didn’t swallow it, did you?” Draco asked, watching her. He didn’t want to touch her any more than necessary.

She spat, sucking in a great lungful of air, and then sat back, pushing her slimy hair out of her face. She was panicking. “What did I fall into?”

“Did you swallow any?”

“I think so.”

“Shit. Okay. Let’s just hope it wasn’t a death potion or a pain potion or—”

Ginny got to her feet, narrowing her eyes. “Oh.”

“What?”

“I think I know what it was.”

Draco grabbed her arm. She had nearly fallen over. “What was it?”

“Sleep spell,” she mumbled, and Draco cursed again.

“C’mon, let’s get out of here,” he said finally, wrapping an arm about her shoulders and leading her through the door. She laid her head on his shoulder as he practically carried her into the next room

This room was large and long, lit up brightly, and empty, except for a door on the far side, but Draco didn’t pay any attention to that. Ginny’s knees were giving out beneath her and he lowered her carefully to the floor, leaning her against the wall. She was slimy with the potion and he desperately hoped that it only came into effect if he swallowed it.

“Ginny?” he asked after a moment.

Her eyes had been closed and she opened them, blinking sleepily up at him. “Hmm?”

“You’re going to fall asleep here, aren’t you?” he sighed.

“Can’t help it,” she murmured, her eyes fluttering shut again. Then she opened them, reaching up and grabbing his hand. “You won’t leave me here, will you?”

“I suppose I should,” he said, scowling. “But I won’t.”

“Promise?” she asked sleepily.

Draco sat heavily beside her. “Yeah. Even if it means my crazed ancestor will find me and probably kill me, I won’t leave you.”

Ginny made a sleepy purring sound in her throat and before Draco was aware of what she intended, she had crawled onto his lap, laying her head on his shoulder and her hands on his chest.

“Ginny!” he gasped, trying to slide her back to the floor. She had fallen asleep, however, and he glanced down at her face and sighed. “Damn it.” But what harm could there be in letting her sleep there? After all, she was so drugged from the potion she’d fallen into that she would never even remember this when she woke up, so no one would ever know. He could hold her until she woke up and no one would ever find out.

He brushed her slimy hair out of her face and sighed, awkwardly wrapping one arm around her shoulders to make sure she didn’t slip off his lap, the other hand slipping around to rest on the small of her back. She was breathing deeply and wasn’t even aware his hands had moved.

That thought sparked many other thoughts about what else he could do that she would never have to know about, but Draco forcefully restrained these and leaned his head back against the stone wall.

Besides, he reminded himself firmly, She’s a Weasley.

The longer he was forced to stay with her, the less that seemed to matter.