Ginny was sitting in the back of a stretch limousine, gazing out at the city lights of Los Angeles. She would have never thought that she would be in a muggle limousine, never mind one that was moving through the brilliant streets of Hollywood and owned by a vampire.
Well, technically, Wolfram and Hart owned the car. But Angel ran the company, and that amounted to the same thing in her eyes.
The young witch’s mind was whirling so fast that it was very hard to pin down any one thought long enough to examine it.
So many things had happened in the past few days, even the past few hours, that she could scarcely believe it was reality.
They had been told, in no uncertain terms, that they were not going to be heading back to Hogwarts this year. It was too dangerous for them there. Voldemort, it seemed, had recruited some terribly evil allies, and he was certain to plan an attack on Hogwarts or Hogsmede if they remained at the school.
At least, this was according to a man who knew Dumbledore. They hadn’t been told why the headmaster trusted this man enough to remove them from school, and they certainly hadn’t been told who this man was. All that they were told was that they were not going back to school. Instead, they were going to stay with a group of strangers they had no reason to trust, in a place unknown to the Order. It was better that way, Dumbledore told them. They would be able to keep in touch through a third party, but the last they would actually see of any of the Order would be the guards that took them to catch their plane at Heathrow airport. The plane that would take them to California.
That had stunned them. California.
Not only were they going to stay with people they had never met, people that “aren’t witches or wizards, per say, but you can’t exactly call them muggles, either,” but they were going to be living in America. In California, away from the wizarding world. They would be living like American muggles.
Harry had been livid. They were treating him more like a child at 17, when he was a legal wizard, then they had treated him at 14 after the Triwizard tournament. Ron had been upset at the fact that they were going to be missing his last year as captain of the Quidditch team. Hermione had been distraught when she had to give up her Head Girl badge to Padma Patil, but had tried to look on their exile as a learning experience. Whereas Ginny . . .
Ginny was still trying to make up her mind about the situation.
It wasn’t as if she hated school. It was Hogwarts, after all, and a very interesting school to go to. She enjoyed all of her classes. Even potions, though the others students seemed to despise it. Ginny thought potions, if you could overlook the fact that Snape was a biased and cruel git and just do the lessons, to be a great class. And, though she would admit it to no one, she actually thought of it as one of her favourites.
But, apart from the classes about magic, which they had been assured they would still be studying, regardless of where they were living, there wasn’t anything that was holding Ginny to the school.
Being a chaser on the Gryffindor Quidditch team was fun enough, she supposed, but it just wasn’t the thrill for her that it was for the boys. Perhaps when Harry and Ron graduated, people would actually realize that she was on the team, notice that she had some talent of her own. There would also be the added bonus of her big brother, and her surrogate big brother, gone, and unable to berate her for practicing what they considered ‘unnecessarily dangerous’ Quidditch moves. Sure, she’d miss the game, she guessed, but it was not enough to make her pine for home like the others would, or enough to make her despise the idea of living in the U.S.
Ron had expressed worry to her about her having to leave her friends all behind. He, at least, would have his two best friends with him, he had told her. The comment had stung a great deal. The reason for that was twofold. For one, it hurt her that her brother didn’t think of Harry and Hermione as her friends as well, or himself as a friend of hers, for that matter. She had had a very hard time making friends after the incident in her first year, and had spent most of the rest of her time at Hogwarts in the company of her brothers and their friends. It also hurt her that Ron paid so little mind to her life that he hadn’t realized that the only real friend she’d ever managed to make hadn’t returned to school after Easter break in her fifth year. Other that the ‘golden trio’, Luna was the only person she thought of as a friend, and Ron seemed to have not even realized that Ginny had had no friends to speak of after the girl’s disappearance.
She’d thought a lot about Luna today. That lady at Wolfram and Hart, Fred, (she’d had a little chuckle with Ron over the fact that a girl shared the name of one of their mischievous twin brothers), had reminded her a little of Luna. Also, there was the sudden and unexpected reappearance of the other student that had gone missing last year. It had sparked the hope in Ginny that the same thing might occur with Luna. The girl had simply never returned from holidays, and all Ginny knew was what it said in the owl she got from the girl. Luna had told her simply that her father had decided that it was too dangerous to go back to school, and that she would get in touch with Ginny when she could. But Luna hadn’t written to her since. The fact that Draco had popped back into their lives so simply had made Ginny wonder if Luna could return the same way.
But of course not. Things like that never happened to good people, like her or Luna. They only ever happened to Death Eating gits like Draco.
But that statement lacked conviction, even if she’d only made it in the confines of her own mind.
She looked over to where he was sitting. She was still amazed that the back of a regular muggle car could hold the eight people in it. The Slytherin was sitting up near the front by Dawn, staring sullenly out the window. His arms were crossed and he looked as if he was trying to disappear into the leather seats. Dawn was having a whispered conversation with Wesley and Gunn, who had been ordered to take them back to the Hyperion, whatever that was. The girl was trying to draw the boy beside her into the discussion, but he would just shake his head and sink deeper into his seat.
Yes, Ginny couldn’t be as sure about his status as a future Death Eater as she had been back in fourth year when she’d hit him with the Bat Bogey hex.
The pouting boy in the back of the car with her wasn’t the same boy that was proud to be one of Umbridge’s lackeys. His looks had changed so much that he was barely recognizable. He’d changed his hair, and it was no longer a badge that proclaimed him a Malfoy. His clothes were that of a typical muggle teen, and his hair matched. His whole look was something that Ginny would have never thought to see on Draco Malfoy. Hell, it seemed that he didn’t even use that name here.
There was also some kind of mark on his left forearm, in the place generally reserved for the Dark Mark on Death Eaters, and it had concerned her for a moment. But she was positive that it couldn’t be. Dumbledore would have never sent them here if that were the case. The headmaster would have known. Snape was a very loyal spy for the order, and if Malfoy had been initiated into the ranks of Voldemort’s Death Eaters, Snape would have known, and told the order. The mark had to be something else. Ginny was surprised that she was as curious about it as she was. But she supposed she just wanted reassurance that it wasn’t a skull, and that there was no more to her curiosity than that.
His appearance wasn’t the only thing about him that had changed, though.
He’d fought vampires. Draco, the boy who had been scared of the forbidden forest, according to her brother. The boy who had been overly melodramatic about a scratch from a Hippogriff. This boy had fought vampires earlier that evening. He’d done it without magic, no less. He’d gone after them physically, with muggle fighting techniques. And it had helped save her life.
Not helped saved her life, Ginny forced herself to admit. Saved her life. He’d done it as efficiently as Harry had in the Chamber of Secrets in her first year. Sure, she’d been conscious and able to move at the time, which had helped with her rescue. But Draco had known what to do, and had killed her captor. He’d vanquished the thing that had tried to kill her. The thought made Ginny warm all over.
Or it had, until Angel had shown up and Ginny had been forcibly reminded that his actions had nothing to do with her personally, but instead had to do with the fact that she was his responsibility. Whatever his new life consisted of, certain things seemed to be expected of him. One of those expectations was that he would be keeping the four Gryffindors alive. He hadn’t done what he had done because he wanted to help her, but because of necessity and obligation.
But there had been something, some miniscule flicker in his eyes when he’d seen her in that vampire’s arms, that told Ginny that he might just be the tiniest bit regretful if she were to die.
That thought brought Ginny to the most significant change in Draco. Well, what she saw as the most significant change, anyways. The redhead knew others would say it was his clothes, or his hair, or that his best friend was nothing more than a muggle. But not Ginny. If someone were to ask her, Ginny would say that the most noticeable change in Draco Malfoy was the look in his eyes. The change in them was nearly unbelievable to her.
The eyes of the Draco Malfoy that she’d hexed back in her fourth year had been cold. They’d been superior, calculating, and gleeful at the thought of causing them a lot of trouble. But the most distinct thing about them was that they had been truly heartless. Draco Malfoy had been a boy who had never been taught any of the warmer emotions. He’d been taught to hate, to be cruel, to use malice to his advantage. He’d been taught to be the best, to believe himself above all others, and to have utter contempt for anyone whose status was not equal to his. All of that could be seen if you looked deeply enough into his eyes. At least, that had been the case for Ginny. But she had learned something else when she’d looked into those steel colored eyes on that fateful day, for she had also seen confusion in them. He had not understood the bond between his enemies. He couldn’t grasp their unshakeable belief in the cause they were fighting for, and their trust in their allies. He really couldn’t understand why they fought, and what it was that made them fight so hard, what gave them their determination to fight on the side he was sure would lose. They fought with their hearts, and he couldn’t comprehend that. The confusion in his eyes, Ginny had known, was because he couldn’t make sense of their belief, because he had no beliefs of his own. He simply did as he was instructed by his father.
The other reason for his confusion was that he didn’t understand their feelings, their friendship, their loyalty, their love. He had never felt these things for himself.
It had softened Ginny a bit towards Draco, looking into his eyes and coming to know in a flash of revelation that he didn’t recognize love because he had never had any, not even from his parents. He was simply a pawn for them to use for their own gain.
Though seeing all of this in his eyes had been a sudden and surprising realization for Ginny, and a sudden discovery of a talent for empathy her mother had told her ran in the family and that she might someday possess, it had not been enough for her to forgo the bat bogey hex she had shot at him. He was, no matter his reasons, their enemy. But the discovery she had found in his gaze had made her think, later on, of Draco Malfoy in a way that had nothing to do with how she could make his life unbearable.
The eyes that he had looked at her, at all of them, with since they had arrived in Los Angeles were not the eyes that had widened in surprise when he had been hit with Ginny’s hex. There were all sorts of emotions in them now that she was sure had never even been possible for him to have before.
Instead of the blinding hatred she would have expected of him when he looked on the ‘golden trio’, she had instead seen resignation, a sense of responsibility, and resentment and annoyance. He still seemed to dislike the three, but it wasn’t with the unqualified and unwarranted hatred that he’d possessed at Hogwarts.
Draco’s eyes, when he had spoken with Dawn, were the eyes of someone else entirely. This had been especially true when he had come back after shopping with Harry and Ron in the mall. There was loyalty, friendship, and caring in his eyes when he had looked at Dawn. And when the subject of his hair had come up, strangely enough, it had caused a flash of grief to dart through them.
What had happened to Draco since he had left Hogwarts, Ginny didn’t know. What she did see, though, was that someone had taught the boy about things he had never learnt before, and the lesson had come at a great price. He had been taught to love, because only someone who could love could feel the kind of grief she had seen in him. And only the loss of someone you loved could cause that kind of emotion.
Had he had a girlfriend? The thought caused a weird stab of some unknown emotion to pass through Ginny, but she didn’t stop to analyze it. She shouldn’t be having emotions about Draco Malfoy, other than the regular loathing, of course. Then again, it was probably just pity for his supposed loss that she was feeling. After all, this person seemed to be the reason that the Slytherin was now a tiny bit human.
But Ginny dismissed the idea of a girlfriend as she remembered Dawn’s soft words to Draco in the food court. ”It was really brown, you know. He had to dye it to get it this colour.” The girl had been referring to the natural platinum colour of Draco’s hair, and that someone had had hair that colour, though they had had to dye it that way, whatever that meant. And that person was a he.
Maybe it was a boyfriend that he’d lost? She gave a mental snort at the thought. No. Ginny Weasley was pretty sure that Draco Malfoy didn’t fancy boys. After all . . .
She blushed at the direction her thoughts were about to take, and cut them off abruptly. It really wouldn’t do to start thinking about that again. Especially with him not ten feet from her.
Ginny chanced a glance at the boy who occupied her thoughts. He was staring out the window, the sunglasses he’d worn earlier in the day stowed away in his front pocket.
As if sensing her gaze, he suddenly turned to her and their eyes locked. His eyes were filled with a deep sadness, anger, and something else she didn’t want to name, but that created a small lick of fire in her belly.
It hit Ginny fully at that moment that this boy before her was not the Draco Malfoy that she had known. Draco Malfoy had had a grey gaze of hard steal, inherited from his father. Whereas the boy who looked at her now, this boy who these people called J.J. Summers, had eyes that flashed silver.
As if he had sensed the train of her thoughts, he slid his sunglasses out of his pocket, slid them on his face, and turned as away from her as he could get in the car.
Yes, if anyone ever asked her, Ginny Weasley would have to say that the most distinctive change in the Slytherin was the change in his eyes.
But she certainly couldn’t say that it was the most sudden change. If the redhead were honest with herself, she’d have to admit that his eyes had started to change before he’d even left Hogwarts. She’d seen the beginning of the change up close and personal, that day of the Gryffindor vs. Slytherin Quidditch match in the snow, the last day anyone at Hogwarts had seen Draco Malfoy.
The weather had been terrible. The storm had been a combination of snow, sleet, and freezing rain, and had resulted in all of the players freezing to their broomsticks. Gryffindor had beaten Slytherin 170 to 60, Harry having made yet another spectacular game ending catch of the snitch. Although her team had won, Ginny Weasley had felt very little like celebrating. The game had ended with the redheaded chaser being wet, frozen, and developing a case of the sniffles.
Not only that, but the taunts that her brother and Harry had been throwing at Malfoy had really gotten under her skin. Not that she felt sorry for the Slytherin git. Not at all. She gave as good as the rest of them when it came to Draco Malfoy. She’d gotten in his way of tailing Harry for the snitch at every opportunity, taunted him about the bat bogey hex she’d hit him with the year before, and she’d even managed to knock him off of his broom without getting a penalty for it.
But she had still thought that Harry and Ron had aimed below the belt with their jeers. Granted, it was something Malfoy regularly did himself when taunting them, but Ginny still felt it had been in bad taste to twit him about his father being in Azkaban, especially since they’d been partly responsible for putting Lucius there. All in all the game on that snowy December day had put her in a foul mood and she had been decidedly annoyed with herself for having any kind of soft feelings for Draco whatsoever, even if it was simply pity.
She’d taken an extra long time to shower, not only to allow her frozen body to warm up, but also to avoid being dragged up to the victory party by her teammates. She was in a sour temper, and just wanted to be on her own for a while.
Because of this, she had found herself quite alone and almost out past curfew in the hallways that led to the kitchen. She had been hungry after the game and, though she could have gone up to Gryffindor tower and eaten at the party that would certainly still have been carrying on, she had craved just a few more minutes of solitude.
She had been on her way to beg some food from Dobby when she’d been thrown into the wall by the angry body that had brushed by her as if he owned the corridor.
Ginny looked up after catching her breath to see Draco Malfoy striding away as if he hadn’t even noticed the collision.
“Hey, ferret-face!! The least you could do is apologize for nearly running me over,” she’d yelled at him, the echo of her voice in the hall freezing him in his tracks. “If you do it nicely enough, I might even decide not to hex you, this time.”
He turned around, and the look on his face had made her instantly regret saying anything to him. She should have let it go, and been happy that he’d ignored her existence.
He had stridden back towards her, his eyes flashing almost silver in the dim light of the dungeon corridor.
“It’s you!! Why are you always here? Why are you always around? Why can’t you leave me alone? Why can’t I escape you?” By the time he had finished his little tirade, he had reached the spot where she stood, pushed her back against the wall, and had trapped her with an arm on either side of her head.
Ginny had felt a flash of fear, but had refused to let it show on her face. She was a Weasley. She was tough. She had six older brothers, two of whom had made pranking a way of life. She was a Quidditch player. She was in Gryffindor, house of the brave. She’d once managed to land a great hex on the Slytherin who was now threatening her. She didn’t have to be afraid of Draco Malfoy. And she certainly would never allow that fear to show if she did have it.
Ginny had pulled herself up to her full height, which was considerably less than that of Draco’s, and had raised her chin defiantly, meeting his steely gaze with one of her own. It was then, at that moment, that Ginny had seen the beginning of the change that would happen to Draco’s eyes before she would next see him. Instead of the ruthlessly superior look that she had been accustomed to seeing, his eyes had borne a look of uncertainty, loss of control, and the tiniest bit of something else Ginny couldn’t quite name.
“Because you want to,” she finally told him, and his eyes had widened, letting her know that he really hadn’t expected a response to the question. The only reason that she’d answered, really, was because she had wanted to taunt him. He’d caught her off guard, and had caused a quick flash of fear in her that she had needed to squelch. So she’d found her Gryffindor backbone and had decided to fight back. “You can’t escape me, snake boy, because you want to.” She had pushed herself up on her toes, trying to get as in his face as she possibly could. “You want to, and I will never let you get what you want.” She had laughed at the incredulous expression that had overtaken his face. Score one more for the Weasley team.
While she had still had the element of surprise, she had dropped back down to her heels, had pushed his left arm away from the wall, and had stepped away from him.
She had started to stomp up the corridor while she still had the upper hand, but she hadn’t been able to resist the opportunity to attack him while he appeared to be down. Spinning around, she had found him still staring after her as if unbelieving that she had actually managed to get away from him.
“See, I managed to escape. Perhaps you just aren’t smart enough.” She had shaken her head, no closer to comprehending what the hell he had been talking about then she had been when he’d forced her back against the wall. “What in the ruddy hell are you talking about anyways, ferret? Can’t get away from me? Can’t escape me?” She’d propped each of her fists on a hip, and had tilted her head to the side to look at him quizzically. “I think that you might have concussed yourself in that fall off of your broom, Malfoy. I’d recommend a visit to Madame Pomfrey.” His eyes had narrowed at her statement. “Has it escaped your notice, git, that this is a boarding school? Could that be the reason that I am always around? It means, Malfoy, that not only do I go to school here, but I live here too. Unbelievable that I’d tend to be around the place that I live. Honestly, I thought that you were meant to be smarter then those gorillas you hang around with.”
He had still been looking at her as if she had been speaking a foreign language. Exasperated now, Ginny had decided that she had spent enough of her day trying to puzzle out Draco Malfoy. He was not worth the time.
Besides, she still had not had anything to eat. And she’d be out past curfew as it was if she was still intent on sneaking into the kitchens to visit Dobby.
Deciding that she was hungry enough to risk the loss of house points, she’d turned away from him and started, once again, to head towards her original destination.
She had only managed to take three or four steps before Draco had broken out of his shocked stupor and had, with his seeker reflexes, caught her and once again backed her against the nearest wall. This time, he had kept a hand on each of her shoulders so that she would not be able to escape him as easily.
“What is it with you, Weasley? Why aren’t you afraid of me, like the rest of the school? Why can you get to me? Why can’t I control you?” He had shaken her slightly, and she’d wondered if she should really start to worry if the fall that she’d caused had resulted in some damage that would be affecting his current mental state. “I should be able to control you. I should be able to control you like I can control the other students in this school. You should fear me, but you don’t. I don’t have control.” He had shaken her again, and Ginny had silently agreed with him about his lack of control. “I don’t control anything anymore. Not my choices, not my future, not my life, and certainly not you.” He’d leaned into her then, his eyes level with her own, and they’d flashed silver, setting off butterflies in her stomach, the kind that Ginny had only ever felt for Harry before.
Actually, if Ginny were to be completely honest with herself, the look she’d seen in Malfoy’s eyes had done things to her that Harry Potter’s eyes had never managed to do.
“I can’t even control myself! I can’t keep away from you. You’re everywhere. In the halls, at meals, at Quidditch. Even here. I’d thought I was free, that I would never see you again.” The statement had caused Ginny to furrow her brows in confusion, but he had continued to talk, not giving the redhead a chance to decipher his words. “But still, here you are.” He had raised his right hand to stroke her cheek, brush her hair behind her ear, his left hand keeping her pinned against the stone. The sparks she had felt as his Quidditch roughened fingers had brushed against her cheek had caused her eyes to widen in surprise. He had leaned closer still, and when next he spoke, his warm breath had fanned across her cheek, causing shivers to trip down her spine. “You’re in my thoughts, you’re in my dreams,” he had again stroked her hair, and the action had caused her breath to quicken. The air had taken on a tension and a thickness, pressing in on them with an almost physical weight, cocooning them in a world all of their own. “Merlin, Ginny.” His voice had taken on a husky quality. She had found, much to her personal consternation, that she very much enjoyed the sound. “I might never see you again.” He had leaned towards her, brushing his nose through her hair as if he were smelling it. “How am I supposed to never see you again?”
Draco had pulled away slightly then, allowing his gaze to travel back to her eyes. “What the hell are you doing to me, Weasley?” He had shaken her yet again, but both the shake and the way he had said her name lacked the usual Malfoy venom. His gaze had drifted to her lips, lingering there, and something in his eyes had hardened slightly, as if he had made a decision. “Well, sod it all.”
Before Ginny had been able to figure out what he was intending, his lips were fused to hers, his hands fisted in her hair, his arms pulling her against him. Just as suddenly as the kiss had started it had ended, with Draco pushing her bodily away from him.
Ginny had blinked open her eyes in surprise and, though shocking to her, acute disappointment at the loss of contact.
Draco’s sudden and unexplained actions had left Ginny’s mind spinning, her body singing, and her heart pounding. Her breath had quickened, and her face had flushed. She’d looked at him and Malfoy had appeared to be as surprised by the kiss as she had been.
He had taken a couple of quick steps backwards and had wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. Not in disgust, Ginny had thought, but more like if he could erase the taste of her kiss, it would erase the event itself.
“Damn it, Weasel.” Though he had been exasperated, the derogatory shortening of her family name had none of the hatred with which it was normally imbued. Instead, it had been said with a hint of wonder, as if he had been having a very hard time believing that that could be her name. “Why in the bloody hell can’t I get you out of my soddin’ brain?”
For the rest of her life, Ginevera Molly Weasley would never be able to say what had possessed her to ask the question, but, in that moment, she had felt that she would never be able to breathe again if she didn’t. “Is it that bad having me in your head?”
His head had shaken reluctantly, as if controlled not by Draco but by an outside source.
“Do you want me out of your head?” she’d asked him next.
“Merlin, no.” He had gasped in surprise at the fact that the words had come out of his mouth, and at the fact that he had meant them. He had backed into the wall then, as if the distance from her would help him regain his Slytherin aptitude for deception and secrecy, and keep him from telling her anything else.
Something had driven Ginny to step forward, something in her having told her to reduce the distance between them.
“Well, why would you never see me again?”
“I can’t answer that question, Weaslette.” His words were strained, as if he had had to force them out. And Weaslette had come out sounding like an affectionate nickname rather than the venomous insult that Draco had always used it as.
The redhead had taken a step closer to him, and then another, the distance between them being diminished almost completely by her actions. “Will you really never see me again?”
He had looked into her eyes and had found himself unable to lie to her. “Probably not . . . Ginevra.”
She hadn’t even known that he knew her full first name, and it was the fact that he did, and the warmth that had swept through her at the sound of her name on his lips that had fueled her next actions.
“I guess it won’t matter what I do to you then, right?” Before he had had a chance to respond, his arms had been full of warm, wonderful redhead, and his lips had been covered by hers. He had reacted instinctively, his arms coming up around her back, pulling her closer. His hands had cradled he head, turning it to deepen the kiss. Her own hands were not idle, one of them had clutched the back of his robes, the other had drifted to the hair at the nape of his neck. At the feel of her nails softly scratching at his skin, he had pulled her even closer still.
The sensation of their bodies pressed so closely together had caused Ginny’s lips to part to issue a surprised gasp, and Draco had taken the opportunity to slip his tongue inside to explore the warm confines of her mouth.
The velvet caress of Draco’s tongue had elicited a moan of pleasure from the back of her throat, and one of his hands had fisted in her hair at the sound.
His other arm had dropped to wrap around her waist, trying to pull her closer still, but their school robes made that impossible, and Draco had grunted in frustration, and had started to gather the material of Ginny’s robe in his hand.
The kiss was unlike anything that Ginny had ever felt before. It had never been like this with Michael, with Dean. Fireworks were exploding behind her closed eyelids, she was tingling all the way to her toes, and the touch of his tongue on the roof of her mouth was sending warm waves spilling down her spine like hot fudge pouring over ice cream.
It was spectacular, more magical than any spell she’d ever performed with her wand, and everything those muggle romance novels Hermione read in secret had reported a kiss should be. Still, it wasn’t enough. Ginny wanted more.
With this thought in mind, Ginny had maneuvered her own tongue to enter Draco’s mouth and explore the sweetness within.
It was the first tentative caress of velvet smoothness in his mouth that had snapped Draco back to his senses.
He had grabbed her and forcibly pushed her away, holding her out at arms length, both of their breathing harsh and ragged.
Neither of them had spoken, both teens just standing in the hall, staring intently into each other’s eyes.
Draco’s had gone a warm liquid silver, a colour the complete opposite of the cool steel grey they usually were.
Hers were a rich chocolate brown, and filled with something Draco had never thought to see directed at him from her. Wonder, longing, and just the tiniest hint of desire.
The pair had stood there, breathing heavily into the complete silence of the corridor.
“I . . . Gin. . . I.” Draco had made several attempts to speak, staring at her flushed face and sparkling eyes, before he had taken two steps backwards, and then had simply turned and fled from her.
Ginny had stood there for a few more moments, holding her trembling fingers to her kiss swollen lips, before turning and slowly walking towards Gryffindor tower, completely forgetting about the hunger that had been leading her to the kitchens. She had walked all the way to her room in a complete daze, and it had only been pure luck that had kept her from running into anyone on the way there.
And Draco Malfoy, for the first time in his life to Ginny’s knowledge, had been absolutely true to his word, and had never seen her again.
Until today.
Ginny snapped back to reality with a rather harsh jolt to realize that Hermione was now sitting quite close to her, with a hand on her shoulder. “Ginny, are you okay?” From the worry in her voice, Ginny could tell that it hadn’t been the first time that the older girl had spoken to her while she had been lost in her reverie. Ginny nodded absently in response to the question, not looking at Hermione because her gaze was still fixed on the boy sitting almost opposite of her.
It wasn’t until Hermione had brought her back to the present that Ginny had even noticed that her eyes were locked firmly on the profile of Draco Malfoy.
“Are you sure that you’re okay? You seemed to be very lost in thought. Something on your mind?”
Whether it was Hermione’s repeated question or the weight of Ginny’s stare, Draco turned away from the window he had been so resolutely staring out of and lowered his glasses low enough so that Ginny could see his eyes. The flash of silver in them told her that Draco had a pretty good idea of where it was that her mind had wandered.
“Yeah, Weaslette, someone on your mind?” He raised his eyebrow at her in question before pushing his sunglasses up to their previous position on his face.
Ginny blushed profusely at his implication, but thankfully Hermione hadn’t noticed his change in the phrasing of the question. The other girl just examined Ginny’s now flushed face. No one else in the car had even seemed to notice Draco speaking, being occupied with their own conversations.
Ginny turned her back on Draco to give her full attention to Hermione. “I’m sorry, Hermione. I must have been wrapped up in my thoughts.”
“Yes, Mr. Wyndam–Pryce certainly had a lot to tell us about slayers and vampires. I can see how you’d be caught up in thoughts about the things he said.” Ginny caught a snort of derision coming from Draco’s side of the car, but when she shot a glare at him, he was once again staring out of the window. Only this time something had caught his attention on the other side of the glass.
Hermione simply continued as if she hadn’t noticed the lapse of attention from Ginny. “It was very enlightening, but I’m confused as to why he felt the need to tell us all of the things that he did. I understand the relevance of the information on vampires, as it relates to Angel, but I still don’t understand why he imparted all of the knowledge on vampire slayers.” Hermione shot a glance at Wesley, but the Englishman was still engrossed in the whispered conversation that he was having with Dawn and Gunn. Ginny only had a quick moment to wonder what it was that the teenage girl had to talk about at that length with the two older men before Hermione continued to speak. “I can only assume that the story of the slayer has something to do with the people that we will be staying with.”
“The people protecting us, you mean,” Ginny whispered harshly at Hermione, not wanting to attract anyone’s attention.
“Fine. Protecting us. Either way, Dumbledore told us that these people weren’t exactly muggles, right? They have a working relationship with a vampire, and they obviously know about magic, and witches and wizards. Maybe they have something to do with the slayer, as well. Or maybe . . . “ Hermione’s speculation was interrupted when the car slowed to a stop and the driver got out to circle the limo and open the door for them.
“Not to worry, Granger,” Draco told Hermione, as he climbed out of the car, motioning for the girls to do the same. “All of your questions are about to be answered.”
When the girls stepped out onto the sidewalk, they saw that they had arrived at a many storied building, lights aflame in the various windows that were set in the different wings. Draco waved a hand at the imposing building. “Welcome to the Hyperion Hotel, home of Champion Industries.” He started towards the front door with a stride that Ginny had never before seen from him. He looked calm, relaxed. He looked comfortable. It hit her, watching him walk, what the difference in Draco was.
He looked as if he had come home.
“F.Y.I., Granger,” Draco tossed over his shoulder as he pulled on the door handle. “The girls who live here tend to call the place Slayer Central.”