Attention

Chapter Eleven

For a good thirty seconds after the door had closed, Ginny sat on her toilet seat, frozen with shock. She could not feel her fingers or her feet; all the blood had rushed to her thighs, which were tingling with the effort of keeping her legs against the stall door. But she didn't notice this--all she could think of, or try to think of, was what Pansy and Millicent had said.

Blood. Sex. Power. Millicent, a Death Eater. Draco, destined for something. Hermione, in danger.

At that moment, Ginny would have given anything to go back five minutes, back to a time when she didn't know these things, when Draco Malfoy was only a snooty prat; when Pansy and Millicent were just sluts and bullies; when Hermione and Lucius Malfoy only belonged in the same sentence if it was talking about house-elves. She felt a queer sensation of having passed through a barrier, as though she was on the other side of an invisible wall. Was this what losing your innocence felt like?

Her thoughts churned, and she blinked furiously whilst the rest of her sat utterly still. It was too much, she couldn't think, she couldn't make heads nor tails of it. Then, with a sudden clear calm, she realised that she had to get moving--she had to find Hermione and warn her.

Mechanically Ginny finished on the toilet, flushed, washed her hands, dried them carefully, and walked out of the bathroom. As soon as the door had closed, panic overtook her and she broke into a run.

The corridors teemed with students jostling in their hurry to get from one lesson to another. Ginny herself had to be in Potions in--she checked her watch--three minutes, and there was no sign of Hermione. What did she have Tuesday morning? Arithmancy, Runes, Care of Magical Creatures? No, she'd dropped that...

Transfiguration, that's what she had. Transfiguration, along with Harry and Ron and most of the seventh year.

Ginny dashed up another staircase, flew unpleasantly through Nearly Headless Nick, shouted an apology back at him, and came to a crashing halt as she nearly collided with Harry and Ron.

'What's up?' Harry asked, reaching out an arm to steady her.

'Where are you going?' asked Ron. 'Shouldn't you be in a lesson?'

'I've got Potions in two minutes,' Ginny said quickly, looking past Ron, 'but I need to find Hermione. I overheard--in the bathroom--Oh, where is she?'

'She's still talking to Flitwick,' Ron said, jerking his head back the way he and Harry had come. 'Wanted to--'

Ginny didn't wait for Ron to finish before she was running again. As she rounded a corner she hit something solid and fell over, landing with a painful thud on the stone floor.

'Watch where you're going, Weasley!' said a voice above her.

Ginny groaned into the grout and let her nose rest against the floor for a breath. She felt like part of some ridiculous melodrama on the wireless: As our heroine dashes through the castle to warn her friend, she runs into the very person she least wants to see...

She got to her feet and saw that Draco Malfoy was retrieving his fallen books. She fought briefly with her mother's etiquette training, lost, and reluctantly went over with the intention of helping him pick them up.

'Don't touch,' he said coldly.

Something in Ginny snapped, and she heard a snarl escape her lips as she stood up. 'Fuck off, Malfoy,' she said angrily. 'There are more important things in life. Your ex-girlfriend is out to kill you, you know?'

She made to stomp off angrily, but Malfoy reached out with surprising speed and grabbed her by the wrist.

'Let go of me,' she demanded.

'No,' Malfoy said. He let his books fall to the floor again, took both Ginny's wrists in his hands, and pushed Ginny up against the corridor wall. He held her hands out to the sides, away from her body, to keep her from going for her wand. He'd learned.

'Let go of me, Malfoy!' Ginny's voice bounced off the walls and came back to her, high-pitched and frightened. If her knees hadn't turned to jelly, she would have kicked him in the groin.

'Not until you tell me what you've heard.' His face was only inches from hers.

Ginny was tempted to lean forward and bite him on his pale nose. 'She's your girlfriend, you ask her. I'm late for Potions. Let me go.' She tried to twist her wrists free, but he was larger than she was. She thought of her wand, tucked away in her back pocket.

'What did you hear?' Malfoy hissed. 'Tell me!'

Malfoy was trying, Ginny realised, to sound intimidating and confident, but the catch in his voice belied him.

She also realised that being pinned up against a wall was something her body liked. Even if the person doing it was the worst prat in the world.

'Tell me!' he repeated, more urgently.

Ginny felt a rush of relaxation. Malfoy needed her. He wouldn't harm her because if he did, she wouldn't tell him anything. She was in charge here.

She took a calming breath and looked him in the eyes. 'Millicent's a Death Eater.'

Malfoy met her gaze. 'I know. I've seen her Mark. What else is new?'

'Pansy's slept with your father.'

'I know that, too. She's a slut. Doesn't mean she's out to kill me.'

'Why are you so scared?'

'I'm not scared.' He put his chin forward.

'Pansy's written to your father to tell him you've broken up.'

Malfoy blinked several times. 'My father would have heard eventually.' He tried to shrug. 'So I've messed up an arranged marriage.'

'She thinks you're in love with Hermione.'

Malfoy threw his head back and laughed out loud. 'In love with the Mudblood? With the chipmunk?'

Ginny shrugged as best she could with her arms out to her sides. Although her pulse was still racing, she ignored it. 'That's what she thinks. Doesn't matter if it's true, does it? If your father thinks you and Hermione are going to elope any day now, he'll kill you. But you know what? I don't give a shit what your father does to you, I just want to keep him away from Hermione.'

Malfoy's face went pale. 'Don't lie,' he said.

Ginny let out a huff of disbelief.

He continued, 'You do give a shit. You do care.'

'About you? The arrogant son-of-a-bitch whose father--'

'I'm not my father!' Malfoy shouted, startling Ginny. He threw his hands up, freeing her wrists. 'Fucking hell, I'm not--'

He stopped suddenly. Ginny's wandtip was at his throat.

'What will it be this time?' Malfoy asked contemptuously. His face had turned pink. 'More Bat-Bogeys?'

Ginny's hand shook only slightly. 'Why did you kiss me?' she asked.

'What?'

'Last week. In the library. Why?'

'Because I could.'

'You had no right--'

'I am a Malfoy,' he hissed. 'I can have whatever I bloody well want.'

He'd said the exact same thing last week.

'I thought you said you weren't your father,' Ginny said.

'What?' he repeated.

'You know perfectly well what. You say you're not your father, but you throw the Malfoy name around like you're already head of the family. You look like him, you walk like him, you talk like him. You think being a Malfoy makes you the fucking ruler of the universe.'

'The Malfoys are a very old--' Malfoy began haughtily, but Ginny laughed him into silence.

'What does it matter how old your family is if your own father wants to kill you?'

'My father wouldn't kill me,' he barked.

'Are you sure of that?'

Malfoy went very still and backed off an half an inch; Ginny wanted to go for her schoolbag and run away, far away, but didn't feel quite stable enough to move yet. The wall held her up.

Malfoy stood in front of her, limp, silent, pale. Young and scared. All the anger that had made him so intimidating and powerful earlier had fled. 'He wouldn't...' he said very quietly.

Ginny contemplated the fear in his eyes and the sag of his shoulders, and ignored her trembling knees. The ignorant prick. He deserved every inch of what was coming to him.

'Like I said, I don't care what happens to you,' Ginny lied. She ducked around him, picked up her bookbag, and walked away.

She had only gone a few steps when she heard Malfoy whisper, 'Wait.'

Ginny stopped in spite of herself.

Malfoy's words were quiet but intense: 'I'm not my father. I don't want to be my father. I'm not a Death Eater, and I'm not going to be one--'

The idiot. Ginny turned around. 'You are really thick.'

He stared at her.

Ginny walked the few steps back to him and poked him in the chest with her wand. He winced.

'Being a Malfoy means more than just money and a tapestry of fancy names,' Ginny said. 'I thought you would know, you go on about it often enough. You're the Malfoy heir, Draco. You're going to be a Death Eater whether you like it or not.'

She walked away.

When she finally reached Potions, trembling, furious, and wishing she could have talked to Hermione, Professor Snape gave her a week's detention for being ten minutes late.

This, Ginny decided, was definitely a bad day.