An Ideal Death-Eater

"Mum, just go to bed already! It's near midnight and you‘ve sent the Floo powder out with Pig. They‘ll be back eventually."

Mrs Weasley looked at her daughter, twisting her hands and sparing a glance toward her husband for reassurance.

"Ginny's right, Molly. We should go to bed. I have to be at work early tomorrow to help the Department of Transportation with the Knight Bus situation since they‘re short handed."

Shaking her head, Mrs Weasley sighed. "I suppose there's no help for it. I'm only glad that you work for the Ministry, Arthur. Otherwise, we'd have no Floo powder either!"

Mr Weasley only patted her on the shoulder while she continued. "I suppose you'll stay up to wait for them, Ginny?"

Her daughter nodded and went back to scrubbing the dishes she had set aside in all the confusion from earlier in the evening. The twins' homecoming had been anticipated heartily, the explosions and rough housing had not. She looked up at her mother's retreating form and blew a strand of red hair out of her eyes. Poor Mum, she thought to herself.

The kitchen was set to rights slowly. Broken crockery was swept into a box for her mother to repair in the morning, and the table was wiped down and set with a new tablecloth. By the time Ginny was done, her hands had gone back to being their normal colour and appearance instead of the red, wrinkled messes they were when she had finished the dishes.

A kettle went on the fire to boil and her special cup came out of the pantry along with some tea and sugar. Ginny sat down at the small kitchen table, aching for the use of her wand to make the water heat up faster. She opened a jar in the middle of the table and took out a biscuit to munch on while the kettle steamed.

Ginny was just about to pick up the Daily Prophet when Draco sauntered into the kitchen. He raised an eyebrow at her and sat down.

"What are you doing awake?" Ginny asked, annoyed by his very presence. A smirk graced his face.

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

Ginny snorted. "Not really. But I was relishing the fact that I had the kitchen to myself just now, and then you had to come and ruin it."

"Poor baby," Draco said, nicking the newspaper from in front of her.

"I was about to read that!" Ginny snapped, reaching out to grab it back when the kettle behind her started screaming ‘I‘m hot! I‘m boiling hot!'.

"Oh, making some tea are you? Pour me a cup," Draco yawned, leaning back against his chair and twining his stocking-covered feet on the table. Ginny narrowed her eyes as he opened the paper and obscured his face from view. He'd have some tea, all right!

She rose from her chair and walked over to the kettle, taking another cup down from the cupboard while she lifted the pot off the hook. Two cups of tea were poured, both with liberal amounts of cream and sugar. One cup went to the table on her side, the other was allowed to trickle onto Draco's leg before she set it to rights. Draco cried out and stood, flapping his pyjama leg to get the hot liquid away from his skin.

"Oh my, how clumsy of me," Ginny giggled while holding out the rest of his tea. "There's still some left though."

Draco growled and snatched the cup, slamming it onto the table with force enough to make more spill over the sides. "What's wrong with you, woman?"

Ginny shrugged and sat down opposite of him, carefully taking a sip of her own scalding hot tea. "Seemed like the thing to do."

"Did it?" The look he gave her was dangerous and Ginny would be quailing if she had been paying attention, but she was reaching for another biscuit and didn't see as she continued to prattle.

"Yes, I'm not your bloody servant, you know."

"You've a terrible mouth on you for such a little thing," Draco grumbled as he sat down and wiped ineffectually at his pyjamas with a crumpled handkerchief, pulling his dressing gown closer around his chest.

Ginny looked up and smirked as she took a bite of her biscuit, sugar covering her lips. Draco pushed the jar towards her before picking up the paper again. "Go ahead, eat them all if it'll keep you quiet."

Snorting, Ginny pushed them away. "I wouldn't give you the pleasure, Malfoy."

Draco rolled his eyes and reached for his cup, but the bandage around his wrist unravelled and fell to the floor. "Sod it," he swore softly, bending to retrieve it.

Ginny caught a glimpse of his arm; flesh only just covering the wound and she could tell it was starting to get infected. Sighing, she stood up and came around the table toward him.

"That bandage is dirty, you need a fresh one."

Draco snarled somewhere in the back of his throat at her and made to pull his arm away from her seeking fingers. She ignored him and put a firm hand on the skin just above his wrist. "Come with me to the tap."

He didn't want to, but Ginny pulled him up and walked over to the sink. The water ran warm and she shoved his hand under the tap, scrubbing at the wound gently with her soft fingers. She could hear Draco grit his teeth in pain and had to admire his control once again.

Ginny picked at the knot on his other wrist and threw the bandage away, giving that wound the same treatment before she patted both wrists dry with a towel. From the cupboard above, she took out a jar of purple ointment and a roll of linen.

"Sit down," Ginny commanded, placing the medical supplies on the table. Draco complied, quietly watching her every move. Scooping up some of the ointment, she spread it liberally over the wounds, rubbing in small circles to work it into the skin. Ginny took out the roll of linen and wrapped it around Draco's wrist a few times before tearing it off with her teeth and splitting the cloth down the middle so she could wrap the ends around into a knot.

"There's one," she sighed, brushing away a vagrant strand of hair with the back of her hand before furrowing her brow. "I don't mean to pry, but how did you get these anyway?"

Draco gazed at her dispassionately. "Rope," he said, voice tightening.

"Rope?" Ginny's eyebrows shot up while she smeared the other wrist with ointment, studying the wound carefully. "Someone tied you up?"

"In a way, but I'd prefer not to talk about it if you don't mind."

"Oh, right," Ginny said, still rubbing his hand absently.

Draco lifted one corner of his mouth in amusement. "Are you going to put the bandage on or hold my hand all day?"

"What?" Ginny looked down and blushed. "Oh, sorry." She grabbed the spool of cloth and started wrapping his other wrist.

"Perfectly all right, I know I have an effect on women."

Ginny sniffed while she bent over her work. "Full of ourselves, are we?"

Draco shrugged. "It's true, they can't keep their hands off me."

As if to make his point, he glanced down to where she was tying off the linen. Ginny let his arm drop and ran an absentminded finger over her lips, unconsciously smearing them with a bit of the ointment.

"Were you born an arse or do you do it for the attention," she said hotly after a minute, sitting in her seat again. The tea she'd left on the table earlier was cold now and she set it down with a sour expression.

"It isn't for attention from you, so rest easy, little weasel."

Ginny gritted her teeth, to think that she had just helped the prat! "I have a name, Malfoy."

He smirked and reached into his dressing gown for a cigarette. "I have a name, too, Weasley."

Sighing, she reached out a hand. "Since you're apparently going to be here for at least a few more days, you may as well call me Ginny."

Draco lifted an eyebrow before setting down his pack of cigarettes. "Draco," he lifted the proffered hand and quickly dropped it back. "Very nice to meet you," he stated, sarcasm fairly dripping from each word.

Ginny laughed despite herself and rose to make some more tea. "This is cold, do you want some fresh?"

"Only if you promise not to spill it on me again, a man can only take so much."

Ginny felt her lips quirk. "I suppose that I can restrain myself."

*~*~*~*~*

Ginny made them fresh tea and was pursing her lips to blow on it when she suddenly stopped. Her lips remained pursed in a comical moue. Draco glanced up and snorted, shaking his head as he turned a page and went back to the paper. This shook Ginny out of her contemplation and she looked up, annoyed.

"I was just thinking, Mal— Draco, and it occurred to me that you still haven't given me an explanation of how you managed to find those pictures of me."

He looked up, vaguely surprised. "Why do you feel I owe you anything?"

Ginny glared at him, her arms crossed over her chest. The action pushed her breasts up slightly, causing them to spill over the top of her blouse. Draco smirked, remembering that the youngest Weasley had very nice breasts. Or they would be, if it wasn't for the freckles. The skin that peeked over though was a creamy shade of pale without a spot in sight. Maybe they had faded since the pictures had been taken.

Draco realised he was staring and jerked his eyes up to her face uncomfortably. The glower she directed at him intensified and he almost blushed. Then he crumpled his brow and stared stonily at the newspaper, small print swimming in front of his unfocused eyes. Draco tossed the paper on the table with a snarl.

"All right," he bit out. "Your little friend left them in the library."

"Colin left his portfolio in the library? He would never do something so stupid." Ginny tossed her head and sniffed, clearly not believing him.

Draco let one corner of his mouth lift in a leer. "Well, he was rather . . . flustered, I suppose."

"Flustered? About wh— " Ginny stopped, her eyes getting round. "Oh, was that when you caught him with— "

"Ernie Macmillan? Right on target, you are. They were so engrossed in each other that they didn't even notice I was there." Draco shivered slightly. "Still gives me nightmares."

Ginny put a hand over her mouth, giggling softly. "Poor Colin! He was so embarrassed when he told me about it later."

"Poor Colin? Poor Draco, is what you should be saying. I was scarred for life from that."

Ginny cackled some more before donning a stern expression. "Just because I'm laughing doesn't make me any less angry. Why did you sell the pictures to Playwizard?"

Draco shrugged. "Seemed like the thing to do. I knew that your brother and Potter would be furious. Not to mention that it ticked you off something wild. All in all, it was a win-win situation. How could I pass it up?"

Dazzling his eyes with her rage, Ginny slammed her cup down on the boards, coming around the table to hover over him. The sensation of having to look up at her was novel, especially since her magnificent cleavage was in his direct line of sight. Said cleavage heaved with indignation while she fumed for a moment, thinking of what to say. Finally, she smacked him on the face with an open palm seemingly on whim.

"What is wrong with you, anyway?" Ginny asked, her lips quivering when they weren't being used to speak. "How could you do that to me just to get back at my brother and his friends? I'm a human being you know."

Tears were building in her eyes, and Draco glanced down at his knees so he didn't have to look at them. But when she spoke next, he could hear them trickling in her voice and it made the fire in his chest build to a crescendo, sparks flying through his veins.

"I have feelings, you know." Ginny trembled out, her voice cracking on the third word. Draco couldn't say anything; he only stared at the ground as his head began to roar.

"At least look at me, you good for nothing prat!" The sound was watery and sizzled when it hit his ears. It made him more furious. She could make him feel these things, what he assumed was guilt and regret for hurting someone who had just taken care of him. It wasn't supposed to be this way!

"I didn't think of it like that," Draco managed to say, putting a hand to his burning cheek. When he raised his eyes to look at Ginny, he saw that she had stepped back. Her face drooped in exhaustion and she sat back down in her chair.

"All I want is an apology. You've done horrible things to me in the past, but I can be the bigger person and forgive you. If— " she broke off, tilting her head to the side to study him while wiping away her tears. "If you apologise, I'll put it behind me."

Draco gazed at her from across the table, wondering for a moment if he even cared, found that he did, and scowled at the realisation. "I— " He took a breath, not wanting to say the words that came out. "I apologise. Now bring me another cup of tea."

Ginny blinked at him for a moment in wonder, and then howled. "You— " she giggled. "Get your own fecking tea!" She put a hand up to cover her mouth, still chuckling. "Bring me a cup of tea, indeed."

Draco narrowed his eyes, chuffed briefly, and went back to his paper, crossing his feet at the ankles to put them on the table. Ginny was still tittering and he hunched further down into his seat, pulling the daily up so he didn't have to look at her. This is how he was still sitting when Harry and Hermione walked into the kitchen a few moments later.