Breaking the Rules

Breakfast in the Great Hall was a loud affair. Noises at the Gryffindor table were inevitably the loudest, but Ginny felt separate from it, as if she just didn't belong. She glanced across at the Slytherin table and was met by a pair of grey eyes, watching her. It wasn't the first time she'd noticed him following her movement, his eyes filled with malice, calculation and slight puzzlement. Quickly she looked away, instead choosing to stare at Harry Potter, who was involved in an animated 'discussion' across the table about Quiddich.

This shift in Ginny's attention hardly went unnoticed and the grey eyes watching her narrowed.. The little Weasel seemed uncomfortable, Draco thought. It was all part of his new move to finally get one-up on the Boy Who Lived. Potter had been winning the game for far too long. Granger and the Weasel were too close to Potter and they could stand up to him, but the little Weasel? She was weak.

In furtherance of his plan, he had begun stalking her in the corridor, catching her alone--and she was often alone--and tormenting her, trying to frighten her. Potter would know Draco was using the girl to get to him, and Draco knew that he would suffer even more than her.

However, Draco had become increasingly convinced that nobody could be a cowed and meek as this girl. She hardly ever spoke, never asserted herself and followed Potter with the dedication of a puppy. So Draco was determined to reveal the real little Weasel. The problem was, nothing seemed to work. His standard-issue barbs about their family situation--tried and tested on the little Weasel's brother--just caused her to give him a testy glance and hurry away. Snipes about her appearance didn't even earn him that and Draco Malfoy wasn't used it being ignored. He was almost out of resources, but his original plan was working admirably. Little Weasel was looking edgy, constantly scanning around for him and acting even more mouselike than usual. Even Weasel, who wouldn't notice his nose if it weren't glued to his face, was starting to sense that something was wrong with his darling little sister.

Draco smirked as he watched the Mouselike Weasel abruptly stand up and leave the Great Hall. He waited a moment, then followed, a predator stalking its prey.

Ginny strode out of the Hall, silently fuming. She didn't really know why she was angry. It was just a vague resentment risen to the surface. Ultimately she was sick of being ignored by her brother and his friends.

"What will Potter do without his shadow?"

Ginny swung around and rolled her eyes. Of course, she recognised that smug drawl.

"Malfoy," she snapped. "Can we get today's quota of insults done quickly? I need to go and clip my toenails."

Draco grinned, showing two lines of perfect white teeth, "Finally the little Mouse bites."

Ginny said nothing.

"You shouldn't wander around the halls alone," He purred. "Someone might do something to you."

Ginny looked around. The corridor they stood in was indeed completely deserted.

"What are they going to do?" she sneered, raising her brows.

Draco was amazed. This was the Ginny hidden underneath all this time? Why, with her sneers and her smirks and her eyebrows, she was almost Slytherinish!

Almost.

"Well," Draco replied, thrown off his stride more than he cared to admit. "They could pummel you and steal your books."

"Malfoy, I have six older brothers. I'd survive a little pummeling."

Draco found himself wondering whether he preferred the old mouselike Ginny, though she had annoyed him intensely. He hated women who challenged him. Time to take this upstart little Gryffindor snippet down a notch.

Ginny hoped she was looking more convincing than she felt. Actually, below her very real anger, she was terrified that he really would pummel her, or at least call Crabbe and Goyle to do it for him. It seemed, in her experience, to be a very Malfoyish thing to do.

Meanwhile, Draco was looking at her very oddly. He was staring at her, eyes half lidded, lips parted. Completely unexpectedly, he leant over, grabbed her around the waist and kissed her on the lips.

Utterly unprepared, Ginny's mind took this moment to take a mental side-trip, reflecting on the amazing smoothness of Draco's skin--not a pore in sight, and Ginny was in a position to know. When her mind returned, she was astonished to find herself still kissing Draco Malfoy. Indeed, kissing Draco Malfoy was quite an enjoyable experience.

Masking her regret admirably behind an overt show of disgust, Ginny turned her head and shoved at Draco's arm, still around her waist. He let her go, but something flickered in his eyes.

"Are you going to explain yourself?" she demanded.

No response.

Draco, for his part, was disturbed. He had intended the kiss to frighten Ginny, to cow her so she could go running back to the Terrible Trio and hopefully get Potter pissed off enough to finally strike back. However, Ginny didn't seem very cowed. Disgusted, angry, confused, but not meek. He, on the other hand, was feeling a distinct need to crawl under the nearest rug and hide. There were spikes rolling up and down his spine, and his tongue felt glued where is was, virtually cutting off his breathing. On top of this he was tingling. Gradually, he became aware that Ginny had begun ranting.

"... and don't you dare think I liked that, you miserable, slimy, grotty, insufferable... inch-worm!"

Inch-worm? Draco frowned. He'd never been called an inch-worm before, and he wasn't sure that he liked it.

"I hate you, I hate your father, and I'm sure--though I've never met her--that your mother is insufferable too. I think your name's stupid and sounds like 'daggy malformed' and you stink! On top of this, I bet none of your relatives back to the time of Charlemagne have done an honest day's work and I sincerely want to know if your bloodsucking leech ancestry is on your mother's or father's side. "

As Ginny's decibel level exceeded that of a muggle aeroplane taking off, Draco closed his eyes and massaged his temples. He was forced to a grudging respect of Ginny's range and creativity of insults, but despite this, he was desperate to shut her up.

"You and your hoity-toity, insolent smuggery, your smarmy gri--"

Ginny's tirade was cut off when pushed into her, pinning her against the wall with his body and kissed her once more. Although slightly disappointed that her rage had been interrupted while she was in such fine form, Ginny decided that kissing Malfoy was something she could definitely get used to.

If he wasn't such a Slytherinish, immoral prat, that is.

Draco's heart was pounding in his chest and the tingling started again as he explored the youngest Weasley's mouth with his own.

Dammit, Malfoys did not tingle.

Draco had heard the merits of kisses as silencing devices, and although he had never used it himself, many Slytherin seventh-years swore by it. Using it now, he conceded it was very effective. Not to mention enjoyable.

If only she wasn't such a moralising Gryffindor prune.

Bah! Malfoys took their pleasure where they would!

He smirked into her lips and let his hands wander, aware that she was doing the same.

Eventually, the need for air interrupted, as it has a habit of doing.

Ginny let the silence drag on.

Eventually she muttered, "I don't get you, Malfoy."

He smirked. "There's not much to get."

Ginny spent the day deep in thoughtful isolation and was somewhat galled to realise nobody had noticed the difference.

Except Draco, who had passed her class just as she had been staring out the door. He had winked at her, then snickered as she glared and pointedly turned away and ignored him.

Class ended quickly, and Ginny hurried up to the common room, then down to the Great Hall, eager to get a little bit of work done before dinner. She sat in her usual spot at the Gryffindor tale and pulled out some Arithmancy homework.

Bored silly, and dying or something to distract her from complex magical equations, she was hardly surprised when Draco's oily voice interrupted her.

"If it isn't the Mouselike Weasel," he sneered.

"Sod off, Malformed," she retorted, not even looking up from her work.

"Maybe if you keep working hard on those problems, you'll be able to sell the answers to someone else so your family can afford food this week."

"Or maybe I should donate the money I earn to charity instead. How about the Personality for Malfoy Fund?"

"Look, little Mouse. If personalities were for sale, you know perfectly well my Father would have bought me one by now." Draco returned, and although she hadn't looked at him, Ginny hardly needed to in order to imagine the rolled eyes and sardonic eyebrow quirk which would have accompanied this comment.

Ginny snorted.

"Malfoy," came an enraged yell. "Stop corrupting my sister!"

Ginny looked up to see Ron charging down the Hall, wand at the ready and Hermione and Harry following him, looking harried.

Harry looking harried. Ginny's lips twitched.

Draco's eyes had darkened and he snapped his fingers. Instantly Crabbe and Goyle appeared and flanked him.

Ginny reflected that looming and menacing were probably two of the only talents those two had been born with.

"Hey Weasel," Draco called, secure now with his flunkies. "I was wondering, which side of your family has the wart hog ancestry?" his eyes slid to Ginny momentarily, looking sly.

Ginny nearly swallowed her tongue. How dare he take her insult and throw it back at her brother? The very nerve!

However, Ginny's annoyance at the outrageous theft of her insult was nothing compared to Ron's apoplectic rage at the slur Draco had delivered. Wand forgotten, he lunged at Draco and managed to wallop him soundly on the cheekbone before falling. By this time, Harry and Hermione had arrived to help Ron up. While he was distracted by their fussing, Ginny looked over at Draco, who had all-but collapsed onto the Gryffindor bench and was sitting with his head cradled in his hands. Not without sympathy, she lent over to him.

"My brother packs a punch, doesn't he?" she muttered, unsettled by the pang of worry she had felt for Draco, when really her loyalties should lie completely with her brother.

Draco didn't reply. Crabbe and Goyle were cracking their knuckles, waiting for the excuse to pound Ron, and incidentally his friends, into a bloody pulp. Instead, Draco swayed on the bench.

Ginny began to get really concerned. "Maybe you should go to the hospital wing, she whispered to him."

Draco laughed snidely. "What? And make your brother think he's won?"

"You might have a concussion."

Draco looked at her, and she took in the dark bruise flowering over his cheekbone. "I'm fine, he muttered," standing up.

A glance at Crabbe and Goyle, and the three of them strode out of the Great Hall. Only Ginny would have noticed that Draco's stride was wavering slightly, almost as if he were drunk.

Ginny was wandering around the Castle aimlessly. She didn't want to go back up to the Common Room and listen to Ron milking his five minutes fame shamelessly. At the rate he was going, Ron was going to be commissioning an 'I decked Malfoy, ask me how!' shirt range any day now.

Ginny realised she was straying toward the Slytherin dungeon and quickly turned and headed out onto the grounds. It was dark outside, and Ginny realised that she was going to have to return to the Gryffindor Tower soon, for lights out. The candles lit inside the building offered eerie illumination of the Lake as she wandered past, heading in a large loop around the castle.

"Weasley."

She swung around. Draco was strolling towards her. His left cheek was in shadow, hiding the bruise from Ron's attack.

"We must stop meeting like this."

Ginny shrugged. "That's easy, I'll leave."

"Don't do that."

He had reached her now, and was looking down at her. His lips were smiling, but his eyes were cold as usual. "Are you always alone?" he asked.

"Solitude is therapeutic," she replied nonchalantly.

"It makes it incredibly easy for me to accost you though, doesn't it?"

"I can stand up to you, Malfoy."

Malfoy's retort was cut off as, without any warning, he sneezed.

Despite herself, Ginny was concerned. "Are you sick?"

Draco shook his head. "No, I have allergies. There's a plant out here which always makes my head go stuffy."

Ginny couldn't help giggling as Draco sneezed again. "That's so cute!" she exclaimed.

Draco scowled. He sat down with a flounce on the grass and stared up at her challengingly. With a mental shrug, she sat down next to him and stared out across the lake.

They sat in silence for a while, then out of the corner of her eye, Ginny noticed Draco staring at her. She turned to face him and without warning he leaned in and kissed her again.

"Be my girlfriend."

"What?" Ginny nearly choked.

"You know... picnics in the greenhouses, dates to the DaDA classroom, secret trysts behind the tapestries. Be my girlfriend."

"Why would you want me to be your girlfriend?"

Draco ticked off the reasons on his fingers. "One: it would annoy the hell out of the Terrible Trio. Two: it would be a new and radical move for me and make people forget about Weasley punching me in the face."

"So far you're not really tempting me. Malfoy."

He slanted a sly look at her. "Three: it would be fun to kiss you every day."

Ginny blinked, frowned, began to shake her head. Then she stopped and thought about it.

"Oh what the heck. Yes, I'll be your girlfriend."

"Really?"

"But you have to buy me lots of expensive presents."

"Darling, if there's one thing I'm good at, it's buying expensive presents."

Ginny wandered back up to the Common Room, feeling slightly dazed. She came through the Portrait Hole to hear Ron announcing loudly to a hoard of interested Gryffindors that tomorrow he was going to do more than deck Malfoy for daring to annoy his sister. He was going to make his life a living hell.

Ginny, possessed of a streak of devilry similar to that of her twin brothers, stalked up to Ron and clamped her hand down on his shoulder.

"Ron, if you even continue to consider doing such horrible things to my boyfriend, then, brother or no brother, I will never, ever, speak to you again." Then she swung on her heel and strode up towards her dorm room, grinning like the Cheshire Cat.

Below her, Ron had opened and closed his mouth a few times, before managing to say in a strangled voice to Harry, "What did she say?"

Harry, equally robbed of words, only squeaked a few times.

Draco climbed into the Slytherin Common Room deep in thought. His housemates would never understand this move in the game. It was virtually against the rules to consort with an enemy like a Weasley.

"Draco, honey, go out with me," Blaise Zabini purred from her perch on the arm of one of the Common Room chairs.

She asked him this every day, and every day he avoided answering. He didn't really like Blaise for all her rich, pure-blood, Dark Wizard upbringing. He certainly didn't enjoy her company.

"Sorry my dear, I'm now a taken man."

Blaise raised an eyebrow. "Dare I ask, by whom?"

"Ginny Weasley."

Blaise nearly fell off her seat in shock.

"That mousy little nobody? Why?"

"I wouldn't underestimate her, Blaise. She's disaffected with the Gryffindor wunderkind and I judge that she's just right for the picking. Imagine the coup if we can turn on of the Weasley brood to our side."

Blaise gave a feline smile. "So you don't have feelings for her?"

"Feelings aren't involved, Blaise. It's against the rules."

He hurried away from her, and up towards his dorm room, a silly smile playing on his lips. He could never tell Blaise the truth--that he had asked Ginny out because he liked her.