Attention

Chapter Three

Draco awoke in his own bed, alone and annoyed. After he'd refused to tell Pansy who the source of the handprint was, she had suddenly become afflicted with a mysterious headache and sent him packing back to his own dormitory. Bugger.

What was worse, he'd fallen asleep on the bruise, which was now delightfully throbbing. He swung his feet over the side of the bed and dropped gracefully to the floor, then walked over to the mirror above his bureau, lit his wand, and scowled critically at his illuminated reflection.

'Up already?' grunted Vince.

'Go back to sleep,' said Draco. 'It's only seven.'

'Mm... 'kay,' Vince muttered, snorted, then began to snore violently.

The handprint really wasn't that obvious, he decided after a minute of turning his head this way and that, angling his wand to test different lighting effects.

Draco dressed carefully as always, poked Vince and Greg awake, made sure they'd lumbered off to the toilets armed with toothbrushes, shampoo, towels, and wands, then headed out through the common room to the Great Hall for breakfast.

He wasn't surprised to see Ginny Weasley already there, but he was surprised to see her unguarded. No Potter, older brother, or best friends flanked her protectively. Rather, she was sitting alone, reading the newspaper while her spoon stirred her porridge. One hand lay absently on her lips; the other held the paper.

The way she had her fingers to her lips was... enticing. He rather thought that she was remembering the previous evening. Rather hoped she was, in fact.

He sat down quietly, carefully placing his bag on the floor so it wouldn't make any noise, and poured himself some coffee. The hall was empty of everyone but the two of them and some fifth-year Ravenclaws who were talking quietly over an Arithmancy book, so Draco took the opportunity of being unobserved to watch her openly.

As she was facing the door, and thus the wall along which the Slytherin table ran, he could see her expression over the newspaper. He didn't think she was actually reading it; besides, the post owls hadn't arrived yet, so it had to be yesterday's edition. The front page had a picture of a square-jawed witch with a monocle, that new Minister Bones, he recognised, and the woman was leaning forward and speaking forcefully. He vaguely recalled an article about goblin relations and the Beast, Being, and Spirit Division of the Ministry. Dull stuff.

But Ginny's eyes, though fixed on the article inside the paper, were not moving. Her fingers, however, were rubbing along her lips. Touching what Draco had touched, rubbing over a rough patch on her upper lip that he recalled being chapped, the lips moving ever so slowly as if kissing her finger.

He watched the fingers swiping back and forth, back and forth, very slowly, sensually, until his entire attention was focussed on those fingers and the lips and the patches of freckled skin he could see around it. It was so slow, the circle she made--lower lip, upper lip, skipping back down the lower lip halfway along the upper.

Draco put his cup down with a loud thunk.

Ginny looked up, met his eyes, and, after a single moment of startled recognition, glared. Then she sneered at him and deliberately turned a page of her newspaper, shaking it rather more noisily than was necessary. She grabbed the spoon, which meanwhile had kept its steady path around the bowl, and proceeded to eat her porridge at Draco.

He scowled back at her, but she was now pointedly reading the newspaper. So he proceeded to serve himself some breakfast with excrutiating deliberateness.

About twenty minutes later, after Draco had filled up on eggs and kippers, the post arrived with a package of sweets from his mother and a forwarded letter from his father. Draco saw the heavy vellum and sighed. He didn't want to read it, he really didn't. It would just be more banality, more 'Draco--my son--my heir--the Dark Lord--blah, blah blah.'

Draco put the letter in his bag for later and opened the sweets package. Sugar Quills, nougat, Ice Mice, and some chocolate. He smiled fondly. His mother might have been focussed on things other than her son, but the superficial gesture of sending sweets was still nice, especially because she hated Ice Mice and sent them anyway. The package followed his letter into the bag; he didn't want Greg or Vince finding the sweets and stealing them.

The rest of the school filtered down gradually, yawning, grumbling, chattering, and complaining about classes. Draco felt a slight jolt whenever anyone mentioned Defence Against the Dark Arts--he still had to use that Dementor book. He'd do it tonight; Defence was tomorrow morning, so there should be enough time, he decided.

Pansy flitted into her seat next to Draco and began gabbling at him, last night's debacle apparently forgiven, if not completely forgotten. He rather fancied that she had a hole in her head out through which his faults regularly fell.

'So I heard a rumour that Filch caught Padma Patil and Justin Finch-Fletchley--you know--doing it,' she began, and Draco tuned out.

Potter, Weasley, and Granger had just walked into the hall. Draco watched as they walked past the Slytherin, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff tables and settled themselves around Ginny.

When Potter sat down, Draco saw Ginny's eyes flicker over to him. There was a half-second when her eyes were not yet up to the level of his, and during that moment he could see her cataloguing the handprint, just as he knew she would. Her eyes narrowed just slightly, and her expression became calculating. Then their eyes met, and this time it was Draco who looked away, because Potter was sitting next to her, and he didn't want to deal with Potter, who was far too eager to leap to the defence of his hangers-on.

'...and it was just horrid, Draco, I mean, can you imagine it? Pink! And mauve! On the same set of robes...'

'Horrid,' Draco murmured. 'I can't possibly imagine.'

Pansy took a breath to continue ranting on about the latest issue of Modern Witch, but Draco spoke before she could.

'I need to go.' His eyes strayed very briefly to Ginny's lips, which were moving in conversation to one of her friends. 'I'll meet you at lunch.'

He kissed Pansy dutifully on the cheek, took an apple from a basket on the table, swung his bag over his shoulder, and got gracefully to his feet. 'See you,' he said, and before Pansy could whine that he never paid enough attention to her, he walked away.