Disclaimer: If you recognise anything, it's not mine.

AN: Added 19/04/04. From here on in I'm changing Virginia to the correct name, Ginevra. It might also interest fans to know that Molly Weasley's maiden name is Prewett. It probably won't interest anyone to know that I prefer Virginia, and now I cry. Cry I tell you.

A Taste Of Cherries.

Friday morning, and he woke to a shaft of sunlight streaming through a gap in the green velvet curtains. Shadows hung around the canopied ceiling like cobwebs, and his whole body ached from yesterday's practice. Draco closed his eyes, buried his face in the pillow, tried to will himself back to sleep. He was seeing - he had seen beautiful pictures . . . it had been a good dream. At least, what he remembered was good. He was in a place, somewhere. With people. And a something.

He growled inaudibly into the pillow. It was no good. He was awake and the dream was long gone, pushed out of existence by the bright sun, sun over the shadows and a body that was starting to growl back at him. Friday morning. Practice until you're ready to drop, until you're ready to fall, until you're ready to make your father proud. Until you feel like a breath of wind, white wind over green robes - white hair over green grass.

Warm. His bed was warm, and, in the way of all beds, much more comfortable than it had been last night, when he'd spent two very boring hours trying unsuccessfully to get to sleep. Draco sat up, pretending it wasn't going to hurt, leaning against the headboard while he woke up a little more. The house elves had already opened the window curtains, and for a moment the sun felt as deliciously warm as his blankets. Honey sun, he thought lazily. Closed his eyes against the light, making a wider gap in the bed-curtains to let the honey in. Behind him, a distinctly female voice sighed in pleasure.

Draco's eyes shot open and he was sure his heart skipped a beat. What the fuck? A girl. A girl in his bed. He was frozen, utterly unable to act. Pansy? Pansy had been pretty weird lately, but somehow he doubted she'd be weird enough to crawl into his bed in the wee hours. Livia Zabini? She'd been giving him the eye too, of recent weeks, and he had the impression that she wanted to be asked out. But would she seriously pull a stunt like this? No. Under all of the surface panic and rationalisation, Draco felt a chilling certainty that it had something to do with his father.

Where was his wand? In his bedside table, impossibly far away. The girl (the Death Eater) would hear the table creak as the drawer opened. His father, his father but it couldn't be his father; it couldn't be Draco's father because Draco's father was dead. Killed in the last battle between the Dark Lord and Dumbledore's forces. Killed when Voldemort was killed.

The cold knot of terror in his stomach loosened for a second, and he dared to move, his entire body tensed and ready (fight or flight) to save itself and he looked - he turned his body just a little, and looked behind him.

Instantly, the terror disappeared. In that same second, Draco felt his entire brain turn upside down as it struggled to make sense of what it was seeing.

What the fuck?!

In his almost-seven years at Hogwarts and his almost-eighteen years at Malfoy Manor, Draco Malfoy had seen many strange things, but none of these even came close to striking him as completely dumb as this. On his bed, in a tangle of green blankets, white sheets and red hair, lay a very fast asleep, very naked Ginevra Weasley.

Propelled by the incredible force of the thought of six red-haired brothers, Draco scrambled out of the warm bed onto the stone floor, stumbling as he caught his foot in the white over-sheet. Ginevra Weasley. Ginny. Fuck. What the hell had happened last night?! Frantically, tugging on a black dressing gown over (only, oh shit, what would those bloodthirsty Weasleys do if they knew he'd been half-clothed the whole time) only his pyjama pants he reviewed, desperately, the events of yesterday. Thursday . . . no Weasley activity. Dinner normal, Potions homework . . . bed . . . He had definitely been alone last night, he was sure of it. Staring at the bed, he noticed for the first time dark bruises - two, three on her throat and oh no, I am not seeing that the curve of her breast. They were almost black, and were accompanied in various places by what had to be bite marks.

His eyes wide and disbelieving, he saw Ginny stretch languidly, a dreamy look on her face, and blink once. Twice. Her eyes flew open, much as Draco's had earlier, and her expression changed rapidly as she studied the green-draped ceiling above her with a kind of helpless terror. Snatching the white sheet to her, she struggled up, her eyes fixing on Draco as she pushed tousled red hair from her stricken face.

"Malfoy?" she whispered, staring at him as though she'd never seen him before.

Hearing her speak kicked Draco instantly into action. "I don't know what you're doing here, Weasley, but if anyone sees you we're both dead." He said shortly.  "Here," and turning away from her, he dug a black t-shirt and a cloak from his drawers, throwing them in the general location of the bed. "Quick, put these on. It's nearly six, so you've got a pretty fair chance of getting back to your own dorm before anyone's up."

Behind him, he heard fabric move as Ginny got dressed. Keeping his eyes firmly on the view from his window Draco did his best to ignore the mental images those sounds conjured up. Ignoring. Doing good, Draco. Doing really good with the ignoring.

It wasn't going very well at all.

Finally, he heard a breath that sounded like pain and she said, "Alright."

She was paler still against the black of the cloak, and even with the hood pulled up like that he saw a dazed look in her eyes. "Come on," he said, throwing a cloak over his own shoulders as he led her carefully into the dormitory hall.

Hooded and cloaked, they moved silently out of the Serpent's Nest and through the corridors of Hogwarts. At the foot of Gryffindor Tower Draco stopped, looking down at her. "What the hell is going on?" he whispered, wincing inwardly at the cliché.

Ginny bowed her head for a moment, looking sick as she twisted a corner of his cloak in her hands, and said, "Meet me by the statue of Boris the Bewildered in an hour. I'll . . . I don't know if I - I'll try to explain."

She hurried away, and Draco leaned against the wall, staring after her for what felt like a long time.