Saint-Seducing Gold

Chapter Three: In a Kiss

"Come, he hath hid himself among these trees to be consorted with the humorous night: Blind is his love and best befits the dark."

-----

The Drowned Rat was not a place that Draco Malfoy normally frequented. The low-class pub and nightclub didn't stock his favorite whiskey and always seemed to be crowded with the kind of people he was forbidden to associate with; however, it also happened to be the only establishment within a reasonable distance from the school that would sell underage wizards alcohol. Created some hundreds of years ago by thoughtful locals, the Drowned Rat had always had good business and was still in no danger of being shut down by any complaining Hogwarts faculty. As long as it stayed that way, Draco intended to take advantage of its opportunities. After all, he wasn't about to waltz into the strip club around the corner and expect no punishment, even if he was a Malfoy.

And, as his misery dictated, his name was the very thing that held the whiskey glass in his hand tonight.

"I still can't believe it," the blonde muttered to himself, shaking his head. "No one turns down a Malfoy." The sour-faced bartender wiping down the counter paused to give him a suspicious glance, but Draco turned his head and pushed his empty glass forward. Grunting, the bartender left his rag on the countertop and reached for a bottle of whiskey to fill Draco's glass.

"Hard times, mate?" Blaise Zabini asked amiably, having just sauntered up to the counter. Draco gave his fellow Slytherin a baleful look and took the proffered glass from the bartender's hand. "That bad, eh?" continued Blaise with a smile. He leaned against the bar and ran a hand through his hair. Draco resolved to hold his tongue and sipped at his whiskey.

Blaise shook his head and grinned in the wake of his friend's silence. "You took my advice then?" he drove on. "You talked to the girl?" Draco had been driving Blaise batty with his endless day-dreaming and he figured the only way to get his friend back was to at least make him confront the object of his desire.

Draco mumbled something noncommittal in reply to Blaise's inquiry. Blaise's dark eyes flashed with a thousand and one prepared taunts as he said somewhat-triumphantly and somewhat-exasperatedly, "So, you couldn't screw your nerve up after all."

"No!" Draco slammed his glass down, and the whiskey in it leapt up and sloshed onto the counter. The bartender started and the crystal goblet he'd been cleaning slipped from his momentarily nerveless fingers to crash against the floor with the resounding sound of breaking glass. Several people sitting at the bar turned to stare at the irate Slytherin. "That's just it! I asked her to go out with me, and she turned me down!"

Blaise gave Draco a wide-eyed look of incredulity, his eyebrows in danger of disappearing into his hairline. "You're kidding," he said. "She turned you down?" Suddenly he burst into gales of laughter.

Overcoming his fit of anger, Draco narrowed his eyes and nodded shortly, draining the remainder of his whiskey so that he wouldn't have to watch his best friend laugh his ass off at Draco's expense. Blaise only laughed harder. "You, the prince of Slytherin himself? Who is this girl? She's gotta be one hell of a chick to turn you down!"

"Oh, shut up, Zabini," Draco muttered. He eyed the sullen bartender, now sweeping up the shards of the goblet, and waggled his empty glass under the man's nose. "Well? What am I paying you for?" The man let his broom clatter to the floor and bared his yellow teeth at Draco in the semblance of a smile as he pulled out the whiskey bottle and took Draco's glass.

Blaise snorted derisively. "Come now, Malfoy. You must admit that it is a tad bit funny. This has got to be the first time in your life that anyone at school has ever said no to you." He paused. "Besides Harry Potter, of course."

"Yes. Thank you very much for reminding me," Draco snapped. He snatched the half-filled glass from the bartender and began to gulp whiskey, wincing as he swallowed. Patil and Potter, they were all the same. No Gryffindor seemed to have any taste.

"Oh ye of little faith... Look, Draco, just because this girl didn't lay her soul at your feet like most females do, it doesn't mean you've lost your touch!"

"You think I care about that, Blaise?" Draco eyed his friend briefly in disdain before grabbing the bottle from the bartender and pouring his own glass full. The man's eye twitched a moment, and then he took a deep breath and bent to pick up his broom. This was his last day of work before a much-needed vacation, and then he would be through dealing with pretentious teenagers.

"Well, what are you mad about, then? Your name still holds weight among the rest of the wizarding world, Draco; who cares what one girl rejected? She's a fool, and most likely doesn't deserve you. I just think that-" Blaise stopped, and stared at Draco chugging his whiskey with a grimace on his face. "Mate, you are going to kill yourself drinking like that. Bartender-" He turned to the man who snapped around a little too fast, his eye twitching visibly this time. "Bartender, two shots of tequila. And keep them coming." The bartender moved slowly to do his bidding. "Come on, we haven't got all day!" A murderous gleam shone in the man's eyes as he thumped a bottle of tequila and two shot glasses down on the counter.

"Tequila, Zabini? I don't want that. The whiskey is fine, believe me."

The bartender made to take one of the shot glasses away, but Blaise smacked his hand away.

"No, it's not. Leave that alone and drink this instead." He pushed the whiskey bottle resting on the counter away (causing the bartender to scramble in order to catch the bottle before it slid right off the newly washed surface) and nudged a shot glass in Draco's direction.

Draco stared at the glass. "What am I supposed to do with this? It's empty."

Blaise rolled his eyes. "Hey, bartender! Do you want to lose your job? Fill up this man's glass!"

The bartender stood behind the counter, clutching the bottle of half-gone whiskey in his arms, and staring at Blaise and Draco in homicidal rage. "That is IT!" he said loudly. He dropped the bottle and it smashed on the floor, glass and liquid flying in all directions. "I've had it with you self-righteous kids! I'm not a slave, you know! I may be a squib, and unfit for much else than this kind of work, but, Merlin, isn't there a bone of decency in you people?! I've had it! I'm leaving! Pour your own damn drinks!" And with that declaration, he whipped off his apron, jammed a hat on his head, and stalked out the door. The dwarf managing the exit ran after him calling, "Get back here, Floyd! Your shift's not over until midnight and I need more help...!" His voice faded off into the distance as it became apparent that Floyd had genuinely 'had it.'

For a moment, the entire bar was silent, then someone began to laugh, and soon, everyone went back to what he or she was doing.

"See that? Did you see that?" Draco bowed his head in despair. "Even total strangers have no respect for my authority! Admittedly he didn't necessarily know that I was a Malfoy but still, it just doesn't seem fair." He trailed off, mumbling to himself in dejection.

Blaise shrugged. "Here." He poured Draco a shot of tequila and handed him a lime. "Drink up," he ordered, pouring his own shot and salting the edge of his hand.

Draco looked sideways at Blaise. 'Why do I ever listen to you?" He grabbed the shot glass, tossed the tequila down his throat, and bit into the lime. "Mmm, not bad." He licked his lips and peered thoughtfully at the fruit.

Blaise rolled his eyes again as he downed his own shot. "What you need, Draco," he said upon finishing his drink, "is a little cheering up. Here." He set a stack of coins on the counter. "Have a few drinks on me. I'm going to go find you a one-night stand."

"A girl? Blaise, I don't really-" But the other boy was gone before he could finish the thought. Draco sighed, and Parvati's face flashed through his mind. It's only a schoolboy crush, he scoffed in his mind. She's not worth my time.

But the truth was that she had mortally wounded his pride. And pride was everything to a Slytherin, not to mention a Malfoy. What would his father say if he ever found out about this?

"He won't find out. No one has to know." Draco nodded his affirmation and poured himself another shot of tequila. And if that didn't work, well, he would just have to drown his troubles until he forgot about them, too.

-----

It took Ginny almost an hour to get to Hogsmeade. She'd nearly forgotten the location of the one-eyed witch statue, and hadn't been aware of just how long the tunnel leading to Honeydukes' basement was. As she emerged into the lamp lit streets of Hogsmeade, she breathed in the night air and tasted freedom. Suddenly anything seemed possible.

At first, Ginny had been a bit apprehensive about her decision. She'd lingered in the tunnel, wondering if her venture was worth it, but all it had taken was her thoughts straying back to Colin for her resolve to return. She didn't care what happened to her tonight, as long as she didn't remember it. And - straightening her dusty clothes and making sure that Harry's Invisibility Cloak was tucked safely into her satchel - she set off to find the one place that she was sure could take care of her memory.

The Drowned Rat was, of course, an underground operation. Ginny had to push her way through the throng of patrons in a respectable pub called the Prince's Haven to get to the entrance of the Drowned Rat. A dwarf was standing in the corner of the Haven, looking surly, and clutching a purple bag in one hand. Ginny tentatively approached him.

"Uh, excuse me?" she began, unsure of whether she'd found the right place.

"Yeah?" the dwarf gruffly replied, peering up at her out of two strangely glittering black eyes.

"I, um, want a table in the back," she said quickly, giving him the words her brothers had mentioned as the ticket in. "Crowds disturb me."

"Is that so?" The dwarf eyed her up and down for a moment. "You're awfully young, missy."

Ginny pulled back. "Sorry? Isn't sixteen old enough?" Her nerves abruptly calmed, and her temper flared before she could control it.

The small man chuckled. "Of course, darlin'. But there's no magic allowed in the back room. Just give old Dane here your wand, and you're all set." He held out the purple bag.

Ginny bit her lip and slipped her wand into the bag before she could think too much about it. After all, her brothers had boasted about coming here hundreds of times. Why should she hesitate?

Dane closed his hands over the top of the bag as soon as the wand slipped inside. He leered alarmingly and waved a hand at the open door behind him. Ginny blinked. Surely that door had not been there a moment before..? But that hardly mattered. She shouldered her bag decisively - clutching it to make sure of the Invisibility Cloak's presence within - and started forward into the adjacent room.

Her first reaction to the Drowned Rat was noise, and lots of it.

There must be some set of silencing wards on this place, she mused as she edged along the wall, trying not to draw any attention to herself. It wasn't hard. The pub was chock full of teenagers too distracted for any number of reasons to take notice of the petite redhead. Tables crowding the room were full of people who held aloft drinks and yelled at people across the room, only to laugh when they couldn't hear the response. An enchanted radio was blasting music onto a small but packed dance floor. Teenage couples seemed to have claimed every spare corner of the place, unashamedly exploring each other's bodies without much thought to decency.

Out of nowhere, a strange young man was quite suddenly standing at her side.

"Hey, beautiful," he crooned, voice more than a bit slurred. "Wanna dance?"

Before Ginny had a chance to respond, a girl waltzed up with two cloaks in her arms. "Come on, Marty," she sighed, grabbing the boy's arm. "It's time to go." The boy made his unenthusiastic opinion on this idea be heard (if ineloquently) but his companion only rolled her eyes and dragged him off to what looked to be another door at the end of the crowded bar. Ginny, whose cheeks were still a bit red from the unexpected encounter, noted the door as the exit and made her way across the rest of the pub to find herself an empty stool at the bar.

"What'll it be, honey?" the voluptuous woman behind the counter asked, leaning toward Ginny as she pushed her bag under her stool and tugged out her leather-bound journal, a quill, and a red ink bottle. Ginny glanced at the woman, still slightly terrified by her situation, and responded quickly with the decision she'd come up with back in the tunnel. It had to be something that she would feel, but not necessarily taste.

"Vodka," she said quietly, roaming in her pocket for coins. The woman eyed her money, eyed Ginny, and then reached behind her for a shot glass and a tall bottle full of clear liquid.

Ginny nodded her thanks as the woman poured her share and left, off to check on her other customers. Ginny watched her go, then downed the shot and closed her eyes. It was cool going down but burned at the end, not an altogether unpleasant sensation. It felt strangely freeing for her to be able to sit here, drinking whatever she liked, with no one to tell her otherwise. Normally this would be the moment at which her mother or some older brother would come charging into the room to ruin whatever experiment she happened to be in the middle of. For once, it felt nice to be ignored.

She set the small shot glass aside and opened up her journal. Writing held a uniquely cleansing quality for Ginny; it always had, even despite the whole Tom Riddle incident in her first year at Hogwarts. Writing made all of her problems disappear - if only for a time - and she could control how her life turned out on paper at the very least.

Dipping her quill into the bottle of red ink, Ginny let the first drops of ink stain the page. Red was always her ink of choice; it reflected her way of thinking that writing was baring her soul; she was writing in crimson blood the words that made up her life. Watching the red drops mar the perfection of the white paper, Ginny smiled. She was beginning to feel better already.

-----

Draco was having a hard time remembering exactly how many drinks he'd had. He could remember returning to the bar in between the dances with all the strange girls Blaise kept introducing him to, but he'd stopped consciously counting drinks after his third shot of tequila. Now, as he came back to the bar again, out of breath with laughter, and leading his present dance partner by the hand, he suddenly noticed that the woman behind the counter didn't seem to be giving him any more alcohol. She was giving him an impatient look, saying something about a drink limit after eleven o'clock.

Draco gave the girl beside him a quick and careless kiss before shoving her back out on the dance floor. "Be there in a minute!" he told her, as she gave him a slightly injured look. "I just hafta take care of this loony first..." He swung back around to stare at the bartender and pounded a fist on the counter, making empty glasses rattle. "Now, what do you mean, no more drinks?"

"Just what I said, Mr. Malfoy," she said waspishly, her lips pursed in irritation. "You're not allowed any more drinks. You've reached your limit." The hateful woman removed Draco's glass from the counter and gave him a bland look that told him to bugger off. If she hadn't been so nice-looking, Draco might've let loose the string of blasphemies threatening to leave his lips.

"But!" he spluttered instead, searching for an argument. The sudden thought came to him that if he claimed he was a Malfoy, it wouldn't get him far, although he couldn't quite think why that should be. A Malfoy got everything he demanded.

"Draco, there you are! Aileen says you told her--hey, what's going on?" Blaise stared at the woman holding Draco's empty glass, then at Draco who was standing there with his mouth open but no noise coming out.

"He's reached his drink limit," the bartender explained flatly, as she turned to go attend to her other patrons. Draco closed his mouth with a glare, and made a move to go after her but Blaise restrained him.

"You know, she's probably right, Malfoy. How many drinks have you had tonight?" Draco didn't answer the pointless question; the bartender had gone down to the far end of the bar, and Draco's gaze had been drawn to a girl who was sitting there scribbling furiously away in a notebook with one hand and sipping from a small glass of vodka with the other hand. She looked strangely familiar, but he couldn't quite place her as her head was bent and he couldn't see her face.

The dark-haired boy beside him glanced down at his wristwatch and swore loudly. "It's getting late. Hey!" Blaise snapped a finger in Draco's face. The blonde looked at his friend, startled. "We should go. Come on, get your cloak. I'll just fetch Grahm and we'll head back."

Draco watched Blaise wriggle his way back onto the dance floor and wondered briefly how long Grahm had been there. He couldn't remember his cousin's presence at all. Shrugging it off, he resumed his stare at the redhead still scrawling away in her notebook. She looked up as the bartender approached with a bottle to refill her glass and Draco finally got a good look at her face.

"Weasley!" he whispered to himself in shock, laughing a bit. Ginny went back to her writing, so intent on her quill that she didn't notice the people hovering over her shoulders, trying to see what it was she wrote. A few stray strands of red hair fell in her eyes and she impatiently brushed them aside. Draco tilted his head, and stared, watching carefully as she dipped her quill into a bottle of red ink and bit her lip in concentration as she began to write again. He wondered what could be so engrossing a subject that she was oblivious to the world around her.

An idea came to him then that he could prove his Malfoy heritage by being the first to find out just what she was writing about, and he got up to go show those people that he could take her attention away from her words. Just then, Blaise showed up again, Grahm in tow. The younger Slytherin was smiling and waving at a group of giggling girls sitting together at a nearby table. They waved back and threw kisses at him. Blaise rolled his eyes and motioned to Draco.

"Ready?" he asked wearily. "We have to get out of here before Grahm finds himself yet another girlfriend." Grahm grinned and shoved the bangs out of his eyes.

"You're just jealous because you don't have a girlfriend," he told Blaise impudently, sticking out his tongue. Blaise's dark eyes flared to life.

"I do so," he retorted. "Jaclyn's going out with me." Those eyes dared Grahm to say more, but Grahm didn't heed the warning.

"I meant a proper girlfriend, Zabini. Not some Mudblood whore." His mouth twisted in distaste.

"She's as Slytherin as you or I!" Blaise cried, defending said girlfriend's honor. Jaclyn Matoski was indeed a Slytherin, a prefect in fact, but in Draco's circle, it was Pureblood or nothing, and Blaise was forever receiving flak for falling outside of that. Grahm chose the wrong night to provoke him however, and when he snorted in reply to Blaise's statement, Blaise tackled him to the ground.

Draco ignored the minor fistfight (they would make up; they always did), and slipped off. The people surrounding Ginny began to leave, heading over to the growing crowd around the two warring Slytherins, and Draco smiled to himself. He approached the Gryffindor girl from behind, and leaned over her shoulder. She took no notice of him, so absorbed was she in her task, and he had a chance to read her words. Unfortunately, Ginny's handwriting wasn't quite as neat as his own practiced cursive, and he couldn't make out most of it. He scanned the page, disappointment rising in him, when a word abruptly caught him off-guard. It was his name, Draco, written there in her slanting red handwriting for all to see. He pulled back in astonishment and stared at her curiously. She was writing about him? She was using his first name? That was certainly a surprise, not to mention he hadn't thought the subject of him alone could elicit so much concentration on her part.

He leaned over her again, trying to see what the rest of it said, when she jumped and turned to face him.

"Malfoy?" she asked, looking a bit dazed.

He never knew what made him do it. Weeks later, he still pondered his motives. Perhaps it was his surprise that she could think about him hard enough to lose interest in the world around her; perhaps it was the way she looked so startled by his appearance, her lips half-parted and her brown eyes wide and questioning; perhaps it was simply the amount of alcohol racing through his veins which was definitely enough to make him do the most un-Draco-like things. Whatever the motivation, the sudden urge to kiss this innocently pretty girl sitting in front of him overtook his mind, and he darted forward to press his lips against hers with all the force that he possessed.

-----

Ginny's eyes flew wide open and her hands rose to push Draco away, but he had her firmly by the shoulders and refused to let her go. Slowly, Ginny began to realize that she was being very thoroughly kissed by someone who definitely knew how to very thoroughly kiss. Despite herself, she responded, and her hands dropped to rest on his arms, her chin tilting up toward him. A rush of adrenaline pulsed through her body, making her feel as though she were snared in some strange sort of whirlpool, drowning without a wish to be saved. All her thoughts were caught up in Draco as she tasted the ice and lime and bitter salt of his mouth. The kiss held passion without the fury she'd expected from someone like Draco Malfoy.

Quite abruptly, as though some spell had been broken, the two pulled away from each other. Their startled gazes found each other and locked on. Ginny focused on Draco's eyes - grey eyes shining with an odd fever - and felt light-headed as her lips continued to tingle from his electric touch.

"Come on, Drakey. Let the girl go. It's time to go home." Blaise's aggravated voice sliced through their silent stupefaction. Draco turned around, vaguely surprised to see Blaise and Grahm striding toward him, but Ginny quickly came to her muddled senses and ducked her head in humiliation, cramming her things into her bag and rushing for the door. She was taking her wand back from the dwarf at the door, when Draco caught up with her.

"Let's run away," he whispered with an underlying note of anxiety in his voice. His fingers trembled with excitement as he seized her hand. Ginny looked up at him as he took his own wand from the dwarf and found her picture of him as the heartless Slytherin leader melting away as she took in his disheveled silver-blonde hair and unnaturally shining eyes. Now he was merely Draco, the boy who'd kissed her when everything else in her world was wrong.

"Draco!" It was Blaise and Grahm, still looking for their friend after he'd abandoned them. Draco shot her a distraught look. Ginny felt panic rising in her, then registered with faint incredulity the distress in Draco's face, and couldn't stand the thought of their accidental meeting ending this way.

"Okay," she whispered back, lacing her fingers through his.

A genuine grin spread across the Slytherin's face as he nodded and pushed the door open. Ginny giggled helplessly as they fled the Drowned Rat together, running down the alleyway they'd emerged into and then turning to race down Hogsmeade's empty streets. Their feet pounded painfully on the cobblestones and their hair was whipped about by the wind as they ran, but Ginny hardly noticed. A heady euphoria had taken control of her mind, and she didn't notice the small voice in her head protesting her actions either. Vehemently, the little voice was informing her that Draco was a Slytherin, and more than that, a Malfoy, and she had no reason to trust him. He stole your wand, the little voice hissed. You hate him. He's a spoiled brat with a fat head. But a larger voice overrode that mentality, too drunk and inexplicably happy with the fire she'd seen in Draco's eyes, and the fearful eagerness she'd felt in his embrace. She'd never seen him smile like that at anyone, and it made her feel extraordinarily sublime in a way she couldn't quite slow her thoughts down enough to comprehend.

-----

"Malfoy!"

Draco cursed good-naturedly as he spared a moment to look over his shoulder and spot his fellow Slytherins running after him and Ginny. It was nice and strange at the same time to have friends so concerned for him. He tugged on Ginny's hand and they pelted down a side street, both giggling madly and gasping for breath. Draco was full of an odd lightness he'd never felt in anyone else's company. A Malfoy did not run around in the middle of the night, drunk, escaping from friends, and holding the hand of a girl who should have been one of his mortal enemies. He felt free from all restrictions and shouted aloud in exultation at the white moon, hanging low in the sky.

Ginny pulled him down another alley, and began whispering something incoherent.

"Stop, Draco," she was saying through her immutable laughter. "We'll get caught! Stop shouting."

He stopped and stared at her, trying to see her face in the darkness. Her giggles halted as her breathing slowed and she leaned back against the building beside them. He thought maybe she was blushing, but he couldn't tell.

"Lumos!" he mumbled, holding his wand out. Ginny blinked owlishly at him, and held her hands up over her eyes. Draco smiled; she was blushing. He let the light from his wand fade and hastened forward to kiss her again. This time, Ginny responded immediately, her fingers knotting in his hair and pulling him forward, toward her, almost painfully. Draco let her as the kiss was too good to stop. Ginny kissed like no one he knew: with all of herself. She held nothing back like a Slytherin would. Draco felt it only right that he return the favor and he pressed nearer, closing the space between them with his body. Ginny tasted like vodka, but beneath that was something unexpected, like the tang of dark chocolate - a forbidden richness.

"Draco?" Grahm's hesitant voice drifted unwanted into their ears. The two teenagers sprang apart and gave each other panicked looks. Then Ginny dissolved into giggles again.

"Here," she whispered softly. "Hold still." She drew a swath of shimmering fabric from her bag and shook it out.

"Is that--" Draco started loudly, incredulous.

"Shh!" Ginny commanded him with a smile. She swung the Invisibility Cloak over their heads and pushed Draco up against the wall so that they were standing side by side.

"Draco?" Grahm asked again, and the two runaways saw his light appear at the entrance to their alleyway.

"I know I saw them head this way." And that was Blaise. They watched the two Slytherins creep down the alley with their wands held in front of them. Grahm shivered violently without a cloak, and his light bobbed up and down crazily. It shone in Draco's eyes and he glanced at Ginny with another frantic look. Ginny seemed unruffled.

"They can't see us!" Draco realized with a whisper. He giggled behind his hands like a giddy child with a secret.

Ginny punched his shoulder. "Shut up!" she hissed. "Do you wanna get caught?" But she was laughing too, her shoulders shaking as she leaned against Draco for support.

"Shh! Did you hear that?" Blaise stopped in his tracks about ten feet away from them and swiveled his head around, trying to pinpoint their laughter. Draco grinned wickedly and covered Ginny's mouth with his hand. The grin widened when she made a muffled sound of outrage and clapped her own hand over his mouth. They stood still as statues that way until the two boys finally shrugged and gave up, walking away.

Draco let out a long breath of relief against Ginny's palm, and yelped when she reacted by biting his hand. He pulled the injured member away and blew on it, shooting her a hurt look. The cloak slipped to their shoulders and Ginny gave him an amused smile.

"You're rather jumpy, Malfoy," she said softly.

Draco stuck his tongue out at her rather childishly. "You make me jumpy," he said, unintentionally slurring his words. Ginny giggled again and smoothed the hair from his face in an oddly tender gesture.

"Come on, Head Boy" she said, eyes dancing in excitement as she pulled the cloak back up over their heads. "I know where we can be alone."

-----

Draco didn't question it when he found himself in the basement of Honeydukes three hours later having an actual conversation with Ginny Weasley. He smiled as he finished a story, and waited to hear Ginny's comment.

"I can't believe you did that!" Ginny cried, laughing aloud. Draco had come to like the sound of her laughter very much in the space of the past few hours. It had a pleasant cadence akin to falling water that made him want to listen to it, quite unlike Pansy's high fluty laugh or Blaise's masked chuckle. "You really asked Dumbledore to change your House's colors?"

"Well, I hate green!" Draco explained with a grimace. "All of Malfoy Manor is decorated in green. Harry Potter's eyes are green. I'm sick of green! Leave green to the Irish!" Ginny laughed even harder at the expression of righteous madness on Draco's face.

"I suppose," she finally grinned in agreement.

The two lapsed into a comfortable silence. Draco wondered at the strangeness of it all. Ginny wasn't just a Gryffindor and a Weasley, she was also a year younger than him and a girl, but somehow he found it easier to talk to her than any of his so-called friends. He'd told her things tonight he'd never even think about telling anyone else and she understood his thoughts so readily that it almost scared him.

Ginny stood from where she'd been seated on an overturned crate, and approached Draco with certain apprehension in her gaze. "What if we don't remember this in the morning?" she said gravely, reaching up to touch his cheek.

Draco eyed the stolen bottle of whiskey sitting three-quarters empty on the floor and didn't comment. He'd just been trying to remember a time when he felt happier than he did right now, and he didn't want reasonable thought interfering with that. "So what?" he replied softly, and moved to kiss her again. Ginny returned the kiss with a measure of desperation she was trying not to feel, but Draco ignored that too, pulling her closer so that he could erase the doubt from her mind. Ginny tripped over the whiskey bottle as she stepped toward him, and she fell forward with a shriek, knocking Draco over too so that they ended up on the floor in a heap of tangled limbs, laughing crazily in their inebriated state.

Smiling, Ginny stared up at the ceiling and wondered aloud, "Draco, why is it that we've known each other for all these years and never talked?"

Draco turned on his side to face her. "Well, that's easy," he said, waving his hands about in explanation. "You're a Measley, and I'm a Walfoy. Wait..." He blinked as Ginny began to laugh so hard that tears came to her eyes. "No, that's not right."

As her laughter waned, Ginny edged closer to Draco and snuggled her head against his chest. "Oh, who cares?" she whispered drowsily, closing her eyes.

Draco barely registered surprise when he realized she'd promptly fallen to sleep. He stared at her contentedly slumbering form curled around his own, and merely smiled. He truly couldn't remember being happier, alcohol or not. And as his eyes slowly drifted shut, he let himself dream that maybe someday he'd feel that happy all the time.