Over Time: First Friends

Six months later:

"Don't forget to put up the wards." Ginny managed to look stern despite wearing a ridiculous bobbled hat and mittens. "And make sure all the doors are locked the muggle way, too."

"And I suppose I should also conjure a bloody moat around your bloody house." Draco's patience was wearing thin.

Ginny looked as if she was considering it, then shook her head. "The neighbors would never stand for it. But that reminds me, be careful if you go outside. There's a couple of traps in the lawn. And don't disapparate out without a plan to get back in."

The last thread of his patience snapped. "Honestly, Weasley, I bet not even Moody is that paranoid!"

"Moody does not have a vengeful Fred and George after him. And Ron would probably help them, the lousy wanker." Ginny scowled, then reached up and kissed his cheek. "Anyway, I'm late. I'm not sure what time I'll get back, so thanks for watching the place."

She disapparated before he could say anything further, and so he found himself alone with a three headed mutt which had a doleful expression. "It only works when she does it, you mangy bastard."

The dog whuffed and turned its back ostentatiously, all three noses firmly in the air. Draco chuckled and started wandering around. Ginny usually came to his place, so he'd never really spent any time at the small house she had bought with the profits from her small business. There were all sorts of muggle things around, but that was part of her work, after all.

Being alone in Ginny's house led to a great moral dilemma, in which the part of him that knew it would be immoral and unethical to snoop fought valiantly against the part of him that knew this was a golden opportunity that might yield good blackmail results. This lasted for about ten seconds before he started prowling around, opening drawers and rummaging through them.

He froze on the threshold of her bedroom, shocked by how different it was from the rest of the house. Where the rest of the house was a paean to clean lines and neutral colors, her bedroom was all jewel tones and sumptuous looking pillows and sensual fabrics. He'd never in his life seen a room that more clearly stated that its owner was a hedonist, normally a word he did not associate with Ginny Weasley in the slightest. "Well, well. All these years and she's still full of surprises."

There were some framed pictures on her bureau. He snorted at the one of her as a bride, her dress hitched up as she chased Potter around, laughing and throwing wedding cake at him. One of her mother and father on their wedding day, looking blissful and unable to keep their hands off each other. One of his wedding, the photographic version of him forever scuffling with Blaise Zabini. Nieces and nephews galore, being chased around by harried looking older Weasleys. He picked up one of Ginny in a hospital gown holding a newborn and smiled as he watched her rock the baby with an expression of complete adoration on her face. She'd be a good mother.

Dropping the photo like a hot coal at the thought, he moved on to explore elsewhere. "Oh, hell no." The tube of fuschia lipstick that would look absolutely awful on her got dropped into the garbage can with no ceremony. Apparently she kept her medicine cabinet stocked in case of maladies ranging from broken bones to botched transfigurations, and he chalked that up to the twins' influence. Just as he was about to get to serious snooping in her bedroom, the doorbell rang and the dog started howling in three part harmony.

Grumbling, he went to the monitoring equipment and tried to remember what she had said about how to check who was at the door. He pushed a button and got a horrible screeching as his only reward. Pushing buttons at random, he got the noise to turn off, but still made no progress on actually identifying the person who was still at the door. Cursing, he decided to skip Ginny's paranoiac measures and simply open the damn door.

"Malfoy? I thought this was where Ginny Weasley lives..." Draco scowled fiercely as he saw who had chosen to grace Ginny's doorstep.

"Wood." To call Draco's tone friendly would be to call the Sahara damp.

Oliver Wood squirmed a bit, but persevered. "So, uh, is Ginny here?"

"No." Draco moved to shut the door, but Oliver put his foot in the way.

"Do you know when she's supposed to get back? I'd needed to talk to--" Something in Draco's expression finally made it through and Oliver swallowed, hard. "Yes, well, why don't I give her a call tomorrow, then?"

The door slammed behind him, hard, and Draco snarled to himself as he prowled around the house looking for something to do. Snooping had lost its appeal, given there was a remote possibility he might find out something about that moronic quidditch obsessed troll. All her video game related things were at his house, since she'd gotten tired of hauling it over there most nights. He went to the kitchen and threw open cabinets until he had an enormous bag of crisps and a bottle of scotch, both of which he took with him to sit in front of Ginny's enormous television.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The pre-dawn stillness was broken by the shattering of glass. "Malfoy, you great sodding bastard, get your lazy arse out of bed."

Blearily, trying to avoid the broken glass on the ground, Draco threw open the french doors and leaned over the balcony railing. "Weasley, you deranged cow, what are you on about, vandalizing my property at an ungodly hour?"

"It's my bloody house, you prat. Let me in." Ginny did not sound particularly pleased, and he had the passing thought that draining the bottle while watching strange drawings called "cartoons" all night was not one of his best ideas.

He stumbled back into the bedroom, grabbed his wand, and then stood at the balcony long enough to say, "Accio Weasel." Once her feet were solidly on the ground he grunted and turned to crawl back onto the bed.

"That's my bed! Out!" The only response was a snore. "Oh, fuck it." Yanking all of the sheets off of Draco's prone form, she plopped down beside him and curled up to sleep off the effects of the night.

"Ginny!" The shout had her shooting upwards, only to go back down again when she tried to open her eyes and the light made it painful. She'd been asleep, although she wasn't sure how long. She was in her bed, so that was a plus. Now to try to remember something after she'd had that last margarita. Well, besides getting onto a table to dance with a tall beefy man named Sven who was wearing nothing but a blue g-string. The voice that had shouted at her was saying something else now, in a normal, if amused and pompous, tone. "And did you learn a lesson, young lady?"

"Never trust mixed drinks." Ginny managed to stand up, holding on to one of the posts of the bed until she could trust her balance. She ignored the sniggering from the voice that could only be Percy, and thought vaguely that she needed to send Etoile a thank you card for taking some of the starch out of his underpants. She made it to the bathroom, wincing at the light but persevering in her quest for the life saving elixir she was sure her medicine cabinet held. "Oh, bloody buggering hell!" She was out of hangover potion.

A moan of pain came from her bedroom and she held a hand to her forehead, which she could swear was throbbing. "Percy? Is there someone out there besides you?"

"Blond chap. Not wearing much besides one of your sheets, as far as I can see." She rolled her eyes and thought maybe Percy had gotten a bit too casual. "Doing a bit of entertaining, were we?"

"He couldn't have been any good, I don't remember any of it." Splashing cold water on her face had helped, and she found some muggle aspirin at the bottom of one of the drawers.

"I would make clever comments about that, but right now I need a hangover potion too much to take advantage of that opening." Draco's voice floated past the closed bathroom door just as Ginny was noticing that she was still fully dressed under the comforter she had been wrapped in.

Breathing a sigh of relief, she made her way out of the bathroom and back towards the bed. More sleep sounded like a really good idea. "I'm going back to sleep. You two prats make sure to lock up when you leave."

Percy rolled his eyes as he repaired the glass in the french doors that had apparently been shattered by a rock. "No need to ask about the magic while intoxicated incident. Both of you are alive, so whenever you're capable of it, you can pop down to the ministry and pay the fine."

"Weasley, if you don't have a hangover potion on you, bugger off." Under the circumstances, Draco's growl was less than impressive.

Ginny poked him in the side. "Shove over, bed hog."

"Ginny, I do need to talk to you, urgently." Percy finished with the door and pulled the sheets off of her face.

Ginny cracked one eye open and glared at him balefully. "Urgently, someone is on fire, or urgently, there's a too thin cauldron somewhere out there?"

"Urgently, I need to tell my best man something about the bachelor party before the rest of our brothers get to her." Percy knelt so that he was eye to eye with Ginny. "Please, Gin?"

"You're the best /man/?" Draco seemed to find this endlessly amusing, laughing until a sharp elbow to the kidneys made him groan and stumble off to the bathroom.

"All right, Percy." Ginny sat up and looked at her brother. "What about the bachelor party?"

Percy fidgeted, his ears turning bright red. "I, ah, I..." He pulled himself together and said, with considerable pomposity, "I would prefer if the bachelor party did not take place at a public strip club. It doesn't convey the kind of image I think is necessary for someone in my position."

"You realize if I don't have strippers, the other boys will take it out on me forever. Fred and George have already vowed revenge for being passed over." Ginny looked at his pleading face and relented. "All right, Percy. I've got a plan."

He smiled and dropped a kiss on her brow. "I knew I could count on you. You really are the best."

She took the praise as her due and waved a hand negligently. "Just be a love and buy me some hangover potion, will you? Now, before you go back to work?"

"Enough for two, Weasley, and I won't tell the Weasel's other brothers about this lovely conversation." Draco came out of the bathroom looking awful, his hair damp and looking a bit like dandelion fluff.

Percy raised a supercilious eyebrow. "Considering you just woke up in my sister's bed, I don't think your threats of blackmail count for much."

"We need his house for my plan, Percy. Just go buy the damn potion." Ginny's hand was fumbling on the nightstand for something to throw and Percy hastily disapparated.

"Nice save, Weasel. I have mentioned lately that you're a wonderful, caring person, right?" Draco's voice came from somewhere around the footboard, under the bedspread that he'd found and wrapped around himself.

She nodded, not that he could see the gesture. "I do need your house, though." A memory floated to her consciousness and she said, "Did Oliver come by to get those papers he needed?"

"He came by. Didn't mention papers, just stood there looking as moronic as humanly possible." Never let it be said a Malfoy told a lie... When unnecessary. "Amazing how he's gone to seed since Hogwarts."

Ginny yawned hugely. "I thought he looked pretty good, but I guess your taste runs more to rough trade." He moved enough to hit her with a pillow and she snickered as she drifted off to sleep.