I haven't posted here for ages, but I've been working on this story and wanted to make it more widely accessible. It's fun rediscovering Ginny/Draco. I will update when I can. Until then, all comments are appreciated. Enjoy!

Summer arrived early that year, chasing away the chilly fog that lingered between the mountains after the last furious April storms. The sun dawned brightly over Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry on a beautiful Saturday morning, a cheerful backdrop to the ever-same chaos that was the last few weeks of term.

"Finite!"

"But, Professor...!"

Someone, Ginny thought with rising aggravation, needed to be the disciplinarian: the food fight between the Slytherin and Gryffindor tables was about to escalate, and the colleague in charge was clearly too occupied pretending to be absorbed in the Daily Prophet to do anything about it.

She ducked out from under the cold cut meat that flapped feebly in mid-air, glaring at the students left and right. A sauce boat spun past her head on its way back to its proper place in a heavy rain of gravy droplets. Her wand held up like an umbrella to shield herself, Ginny fixed her pointed stare at the teachers' table at the back of the hall.

Professor Draco Malfoy looked up, smirked at the mayhem around him with devilish satisfaction, and began to butter some toast to go with whatever food might be coming down on them next.

Ginny glared determinedly. Beautiful days at Hogwarts were never just that, lest the castle's inhabitants become complacent; and trouble was no less troublesome if it came in a pretty package. Quite the opposite, really.

"Told you," came a gleeful whisper from the left. "Professor Weasley fancies him."

Ginny didn't know if she was more offended at the assertion or the shoddy muffling spell. Forget the teenage boys and their meat fork slingshots; it was the school gossip that got to you, every time.

'Rich,' was nothing but the truth. 'Handsome,' she could grudgingly concede, as well as 'hot,' considering the girls were impressionable seventh years. But any opinions beyond that earned Thusnelda Brown a swift "Ten points from Slytherin."

"But why, Professor?" The girl pouted prettily, tugging at the shiny green velvet bow that was affixed to her equally shiny blonde head.

Ginny sort of wished the breadcrumb tornado would make it to the girls' end of the table once in a while. "For talking with your mouth full." She got out of the way of the inevitable show of teenage virility when she saw an avalanche of bread rolls begin to roll down the length of the Gryffindor table.

At the teachers' breakfast table, Malfoy was already through the first pot of tea and the Quidditch pages of Ginny's subscription to the morning paper, which the owl always, miraculously, delivered to him instead. She cleared her throat, and Malfoy flipped down the top of the newspaper to allow her to feel the full force of his smirk.

Ginny allowed herself a blissful moment of daydreaming about Malfoy's face meeting his plate of eggs, sunny side up.

"She fancies him too," Thusnelda stage-whispered.

"Professor Weasley," Malfoy smirked, "You missed the eruption of the baked bean volcano. It was glorious."

Ginny reached out to pluck a bean from Malfoy's hair, which fell into his face, artfully dishevelled. He must've taken his broom for a flight before breakfast. In spite of herself, she smiled. "Pity."

"Kids these days. What can you do." He pushed out a chair for her with his foot. "They haven't been taught to behave like we were."

At the other end of the table, headmistress McGonagall coughed.

Malfoy surveyed the hall before them, where a Slytherin third-year had just sent the remains of his kippers flying at the Gryffindors with the help of a well-practiced acceleration charm. Bits of fish exploded all over the other house's table. "Poole," Malfoy called out to the boy, who grinned at him, unrepentant, "excellent charmwork. Five points to Slytherin."

"Five points from Slytherin for making a mess," Ginny countered. She poured herself some tea, then flicked her wand at the sugar pot, which began to empty itself into her cup.

"Spoilsport." Malfoy turned his attention back on her, studying the bags under her eyes with interest. "You're late this morning."

Ginny suppressed a yawn. "Grading all that homework took half the night, thanks for asking."

"And a Friday night too. No wonder you look so haggard and miserable." Having to swallow the first insult with her morning tea was one of the more reliable routines on Hogwarts mornings. "Pathetic, Weasley. Here, have the last muffin." He Accioed it out of the bread basket to disappointed looks from Hagrid.

Ginny sent Hagrid an apologetic glance, but stuffed half the muffin into her mouth. It was a little dry and tasted stale, but dealing with Slytherins on an empty stomach only resulted in ulcers. "You don't even know the meaning of 'work', Professor Malfoy, so shut it."

"Ah, Ginny," he smirked, "I know I raised the bar when I taught Defence last year. It's all right; no one expected you to keep up."

"Thanks to your teaching methods, I'm still tutoring those fifth years after hours so they're ready in time for their OWLs. It's your mess, you should sort it out." Tragically, they had a few more weeks left in their rotation, and so Ginny was stuck with end-of-term papers and exam preparations and rebellious students who didn't hand in their homework on time, while he spent his days doing the job that should have been hers alone.

"You're not a natural born teacher, such as I," he said grandly. "But whenever I teach Defence Against the Dark Arts, it makes the parents nervous and they owl the Headmistress. You know how she hates that."

The sugar pot hopped off across the table, now empty. Ginny took a sip of tea. Too sweet. She set it down in the saucer with a clatter. "And whose fault is that," she said in an undertone.

"Not mine." Malfoy emptied out her cup over the side of the table for one of the house elves to clean up, then poured her a new one from his own, precious teapot that he'd brought from his ancestral home.

She took the cup all too gratefully. "You're very cheerful this morning."

"It only appears that way to you because you're so unpleasant. No manners; but what else is new." He drew a deep breath through his long nose as if to catch the sweet smell of triumph. "Come now, Weasley. It's a beautiful morning, the summer holidays are close, there is no way your Gryffindors can beat my Slytherins to the Quidditch Cup anymore-"

"Don't count on it," Ginny protested. "I still think Johnny Jones taking that Bludger to the head was a foul-"

He waved his hand at her like she was an annoying fly buzzing around his head. "My work for this year is done."

If there was anything more annoying than Malfoy in a foul mood, it was Malfoy in high spirits: he wore happiness too well, like an expensive tailored suit that he flaunted shamelessly for all the world to envy. He cocked his head, his fair hair glinting in the fractured light of the morning sun, and smiled at her in the unsettling manner of a crocodile baring its teeth for the kill. "What did Thusnelda do to make you take points off Slytherin?"

"None of your business," Ginny said sweetly.

Grinning, he leaned forward, crowding her over her breakfast plate. "I'm Slytherin Head of House."

He was possibly the only person in Britain who would've claimed that title proudly. There was no one else, Ginny reminded herself for the millionth time. There was no one else. The children needed them to function as a unit, to demonstrate house unity and friendship-

"And you do fancy me, so taking those points was entirely unfair."

Sod house unity. "You wish," she coughed, almost choking on muffin crumbs.

"Hmm." Malfoy looked mildly scandalized at the display of bad manners. "Don't flatter yourself, Weasley."

Ginny coughed out a rude reply, her face beginning to glow red. The Slytherin girls eyed them with interest. Ginny glared at Malfoy, wishing her looks could've caused him to burst into flame, but no matter how hard she tried, she hadn't been able to channel magic through her eyes. Yet.

For once, Malfoy gave up while he was ahead, and so Ginny couldn't get in the last word. "D'you want to get going? I have better things to do than wait around for you."

"You do?" Dervish and Banges had owled about the equipment they had ordered to replace the things that regularly got broken during Defence classes, but there was no rush. Hogsmeade weekends were a rare chance to enjoy some peace and quiet in the castle. She Accioed an apple from across the table.

He intercepted it with the practiced ease of one who played Quidditch often. "I hear the new sweet shop in town has a nice café. I'm partial to the occasional bit of lard cake."

Her almost-empty stomach flipped unpleasantly. "That sounds disgusting."

"You don't know what you're talking about," he said. "If you're nice, I might be persuaded to take you along and show you."

She sighed. Sometimes, she really didn't know why she put up with him. Maybe it was the tea. His tea was good. "Malfoy, the last time we-"

"Oh, fine." He swung away from her to tip his chair back, braced one foot against the edge of the table to dark looks from McGonagall and took a bite of her apple. "It's just that I know how pathetic your social life really is. That fiasco with Dean Thomas, again? Excuse me for trying to help."

"Out of the goodness of your heart?" Over the rim of her cup, she studied his face, all sharp angles against the light of the morning sun. He'd made allowances for the good weather and abandoned the black Professor Snape tribute robes that made him look so sickly. He was pale in his forest green cashmere jumper, but his good cheer brightened up his face in spite of the airs he liked to put on.

"That's right."

"Well," Ginny said, "you could help me with a few things-"

He leered playfully. "I'm listening?"

She ignored him as best as she could. Maybe one day, that would actually work. "You could take over those extra hours of remedial Defence."

Malfoy's face scrunched up like a little boy's. "They don't pay me enough to take on extra hours."

"Is money really an object?" she asked wearily.

"Actually..." His grin was back, wide and mocking. "No."

"So will you help the fifth years with their jinxes, or would you rather pick up the slack next term?"

He considered this at length while Ginny sneaked a second cup of tea from his teapot. The bloody thing twisted its snout into a knot in protest of her handling it, but a little forceful shaking sorted it out. With a splutter, tea gushed out and sloshed over the rim of her cup. She cursed quietly.

"I can tell you need my help," Malfoy said, watching her Scourgify the table cloth. "Fine. Are you still on the defensive jinxes?"

"Most of them have moved on to counter spells, but some are still behind on the basics. I was thinking we could start trying nonverbal defence..."

They talked lesson plans over the last cup of tea until the house elves appeared to clear away the remainder of the students' breakfast. "Oh, is that the time?" Ginny glanced at Malfoy's silver pocketwatch. "We should get going."

"I've been saying that." He rose, his teapot clutched under his arm. "Let me get my coat."

"It's too warm out for a coat."

"Just because you have no style does not mean I'll be seen out and about half-dressed," he informed her loftily. "I'll meet you in the front hall in five minutes."

Ginny watched him stride off, shaking her head.

The front hall was abandoned, most of the students having left for Hogsmeade already. The large doors were thrown open to let in a balmy breeze. Ginny stood in the door for a minute, breathing deeply, enjoying the air and the sunshine that filtered into the cracks of the ancient castle walls and chased away the shadows.

A small group of Slytherin third-years came up from the dungeons and crossed the hall. The students stuck closely together, giggling among themselves as they hurried past her, but a flash of bright blue in their midst caught Ginny's eye. She looked closer; the blue had vanished, but she noticed a small boy among the taller students. His face was unrecognizable, but then, it would be.

"Teddy?"

The boy winced, but kept walking with his friends.

"Teddy Lupin!" Ginny hollered across the courtyard.

The Slytherins scattered, laughing, leaving the smaller boy lagging behind.

Ginny caught up with him halfway down to the gate. "What are you doing?"

"Going to Hogsmeade, Professor," the boy said blithely, but the nervous squeak of his voice gave him away. He was of average height and size, his hair a nondescript brown and his features as plain as could be. Ginny was impressed: Teddy must have been practising his transformations.

She put her hands on her hips, giving the boy a stern look that would've done her mother proud. "You know only third-year students and older are allowed Hogsmeade visits, Teddy."

"Congratulations, Weasley. Give it a few years and you'll be McGonagall."

Teddy Lupin's face brightened along with his hair, which was suddenly a pale shade of blond. Kid knew his audience, Ginny thought, and turned to glare at Malfoy.

"Stop undermining my authority," she hissed.

Malfoy ignored her blissfully. "What's going on? Ted, is that you?"

So caught, Teddy dropped the disguise completely. His features rearranged themselves, shrunk and twisted until his real face appeared under his unkempt blond fringe, all wide brown eyes which he turned imploringly on Malfoy. "Dra... Professor Malfoy, everyone is going into Hogsmeade-"

"Everyone who is a third-year or older and has permission from a guardian." Malfoy might have been willing to overlook the rules sometimes, especially for his Slytherins, but crossing Teddy's grandmother was a different matter. He bent slightly so he could look into Teddy's eyes. "Now that Professor Weasley has caught you, I can't just pretend I didn't see you leave."

Ginny harrumphed. When the boy pulled a sullen face like he did then, he looked a tiny bit like Malfoy. She wondered if that was deliberate or actual family resemblance.

"Your grandmother would kill me if I let you go and something happened to you," Malfoy told Teddy in a quiet, conspiratorial voice.

"You're scared of grandmum?" Teddy seemed to find this funny: his hair changed to his preferred shade of bright blue, which had caught Ginny's eye in the first place.

"Of course," Malfoy said. "Only Gryffindors pick battles they can't win. Run along, Ted. Off to the common room."

The boy looked so dejected at the ruined plan that Ginny found herself softening. "Maybe you can get special permission for a trip to Hogsmeade when Harry visits next week." She made a mental note to owl Harry later. "Now run along, you heard Ma-, Professor Malfoy," she tacked on when she saw Malfoy's appalled face. Someone had to be mature and stop giving the students the impression that their teachers were constantly bickering.

"Thank you, Professor Weasley!" Teddy looked cheered as he scampered off to the dungeons.

Ginny chuckled. "That boy will give us many a headache yet."

"Tell me about it," Malfoy said with an air of pride. "He's a big hit in the common room. Two days ago, I caught him impersonating Flitwick. Merlin help us when he learns to transform himself to adult size."

Ginny was not the only one who would have liked to see the boy sorted into Gryffindor so she could watch over him, but she supposed there was an upside to Teddy going into Slytherin: it had given Malfoy an opportunity to bond with his young cousin that he might not otherwise have sought. "So you two are getting on?"

He shrugged as if he didn't care one way or another, which was ridiculous because Malfoy was incapable of feeling indifferent about anything. "He's one of my own. Even if Mrs Tonks wishes that he wasn't."

High praise indeed. Ginny smiled.

"I had almost managed to forget that Potter will be gracing us with his company." Malfoy sighed comically. Harry was coming in for a special lecture on Defence Against the Dark Arts as part of the newly-established partnership between the Auror office and Hogwarts, much to the delight of many of the students, who were looking forward to the celebrity visit if only for the deviation from the usual routine. Not everyone shared in the excitement, though. "I'm surprised he made time in his busy schedule of running around, playing hero-"

"Jealous?" she asked sweetly.

He snorted; she wouldn't be surprised to see him spewing fire, one of these days, like a proper dragon. "Not me. Who'd want to be an Auror, anyway? I'm an educator. A priest in the temple of knowledge. A keeper of the sacred grail of wisdom. The guiding light to the future of Britain's finest-"

She laughed. He would enjoy having a ready-made audience of impressionable youngsters. "Don't forget pain in my arse."

"Ungrateful wench," he said. "You couldn't teach here without me."

"And vice versa," she reminded him.

"Touché." He had a bright, contagious smile when he bothered to show it. "I suppose you're not entirely useless. And you actually managed to build a halfway decent Quidditch team, these past few years. Not as good as Slytherin, of course, but. Great season."

"Oh, you think?" It was stupid to play coy with him; he'd pick right up on it. Ginny had long suspected that his charming moments were all part of a cunning plan to lull her into a false sense of security while he thought of the best way to cheat her out of a job or, possibly, her last nerve.

No one had really had a plan for after the war: none of them had really expected to survive. But she'd been sixteen and hopeful; she'd had ideas. Going back to Hogwarts hadn't been one of them, but she'd be damned if she let Malfoy show her up.

Still, his compliments, though cloaked in mockery, were rare. It was harder to resist his good cheer than she liked; but then again, she'd been around him long enough to know that Malfoy's ideas of fun usually led to really dreadful hangovers.

"We make a pretty good team," Malfoy smirked, startling her from her thoughts. "I couldn't be the cool teacher without you to compare myself to."

"No one calls you the 'cool teacher'," she scoffed.

"How would you know?" He flounced through the gate, past a gaggle of girls who stuck their heads together and giggled. Malfoy tossed his hair for effect, turning to look smugly at Ginny.

"Your mother send you your special shampoo again?" she sighed. "Bewitching Blonde, lightens and brightens-"

"Envy is an ugly sentiment, Weasley," he smirked.

"Oh, please. You're losing your hair, anyway."

He turned his nose up, sniffing indignantly at the air. "I am not!"

Grinning, Ginny reached up high to smooth back his hair, but he darted out from under her hands, the corners of his mouth curling in anticipation of the next insult.

"If I've lost hair, it's because I've torn it out trying to deal with you." He shook his head so his hair fell in his face again.

She glanced up to meet his bright, amused eyes, and couldn't help smiling. "Good thing too," she told him, tugging at the sleeve of his inevitable coat to pull him along down the road to Hogsmeade, away from the giggling students. "Without your hair, you'll look less like your father when you get older."

"Is that supposed to be a compliment? Ah." For a moment, his gaze seemed to slip past her into the middle distance, and Ginny didn't have the shadow of a doubt he was drawing up an unflattering comparison between her and her mother. She waited for it with a sense of inevitability, but then Malfoy just smiled in that unsettling way of his that made her stomach flip. "Well. You are right, my best years are ahead of me. Malfoys age like a fine potion."

"They become more deadly?" she guessed.

"That too."

She had to laugh. It was too beautiful a day to be tired. The sun was warm on her skin as they strode through the gates and onwards to the village, and the air tasted sweet, of fresh grass and green leaves, a promise of summer. They climbed down the rocky path to the foot of the hill, where it broadened and became a sloping road that led into Hogsmeade.

The village had come alive under the beautiful weather. The little thatched houses gleamed with new coats of paint, all their windows thrown wide to let in the light like flowers opened to the sun. The main street was swarming with students and villagers, who crowded in front of the shops' window displays or stopped in the middle of the road for a chat. Ginny walked on purposefully; Dervish and Banges was the last shop down the road.

"And what have we here." Malfoy had lagged behind, looking around the bustling high street. He caught up with her now, long legs matching her stride easily, and jerked his chin towards a newly decorated shop window. A bright pink awning with gilded letters bore the shop's name: 'The Magical Bonbonnière'. China teapots of all sizes were displayed in the window, as well as an assortment of candy in tall glass jars and several enormous cakes, piled high with layers upon layers of cream. A delicious smell wafted through the open door.

It was a pity, really, that Honeydukes was right across the street: the patron at the Bonbonnière was wiping down the counter sadly, all alone, while the customers frequented the established shop. Ginny felt her stomach rumbling. "Business before pleasure, Malfoy."

"I've always thought that was a stupid principle," he said. "I don't want to be doing business that isn't also pleasurable."

"That's because you're five years old inside," she shrugged, "And a Slytherin too."

He grinned at her. "It's a good way to get by."

Ginny was sceptical; there was something deeply unsettling about the insights she'd had into The Universe According To Malfoy on the late nights they'd sat together, grading papers with a little liquid helper courtesy of Professor Singh, the new Potions master. After two or three glasses of liqueur, and hours of Malfoy's crazy rambling, the world tended to shift ever so slightly on its axis until Ginny felt off-balance and unsure of everything.

She didn't need any of that today. Or ever. "What do you want to do first, then?"

"Take a cup of tea and a biscuit," he said immediately, strolling up to the window of the new shop. Inside, the owner looked up hopefully.

Ginny shook her head, wondering if he really meant for them to go sit in the tidy little café together as if they were civilised people. It seemed like a new recipe for disaster. "No, thanks."

He turned to smirk at her. "Who said you were invited?"

She resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at him. "You did, at breakfast."

"Really? I don't recall."

How he'd made it so she was fishing for an invite, she had no idea. Ginny released a long-suffering sigh before the pressure that was building inside could make her head explode. "Like I said, I wasn't interested anyhow." She marched off.

Malfoy fell into step beside her again. "And why not?"

The constant back-and-forth of him changing his mind was enough to give anyone whiplash. "Are you kidding?"

"Oh, come on." He gave her a sly look. "It's not like I asked you to go to Madam Puddifoot's together."

She imagined them sitting at Madam Puddifoot's among snogging student couples and shuddered. "Good. I'd rather kill myself."

"Charming, Weasley. I'm sure I don't know why you were so popular at school." Malfoy grinned like he'd gotten up that morning with the sole purpose of annoying her as much as humanly possible. His cheer always did precede his nastier moments; it was one of the rules of nature, like the turns of the season, the ebb and flow of the tide, the- "Although - I heard you did have certain talents."

"As a matter of fact, I do." She brandished her wand, which made him whoop and retreat a few steps. "Bat Bogey Hex?"

His laugh was more of a mad cackle; it made people turn their heads to look at them. Rolling her eyes, Ginny grabbed his arm and steered him into the post office a little further down the road.

"Please," he laughed, "Don't play shy now, Weasley. Is there any man left that you haven't taken to Madam Puddifoot's?"

"Yes. You," she said, breezing past him through the door.

Behind the counter sat a clerk, who looked up from the Quidditch pages of the Prophet as she entered. "Can I help you?"

"I'd like to send a note to London?" Ginny took up a quill and parchment at the customers' desk and penned a quick message to Harry, confirming his appointment at Hogwarts for the next week and asking him to make time for Teddy. She ignored Malfoy completely until she had paid and they stepped out of the post office, and he had the good sense to stay quiet or she would have hexed him.

"You aren't usually so unsociable," he complained as they strode down the road towards Dervish and Banges with new purpose. "I would think we deserved a spot of fun now and then, what with the war ruining our youth and all... I know, I know," he preempted when he saw her draw breath, "'Evil Death Eater', I'm not allowed to complain, every sixteen-year-old should be lucky enough to serve the Dark Lord or die."

It was the one argument he could never win, and she had often wielded it like a weapon in their first few years back at the school, flung it in his face to watch him wince, and hurt, and retreat. All of it was true, and saying it out loud was only fair; all of it, except one thing. "You know I never said that last part."

She knew, after all, what it was to do Tom Riddle's bidding, helpless like a puppet on a string. Still, Madam Puddifoot's was a thing of the past: a part of a long-ago life that had been simpler in many ways. They could never go back.

Malfoy had the single-minded zeal of a particularly nasty mother dragon when he wanted something, but Ginny could try to distract him. Sometimes, it even worked. "Can you remember what was on my shopping list?"

He blinked at the non-sequitur, but then he said, "I thought the point of making a shopping list was to take it along when you shop," and darted out of reach, laughing, when she raised her arm to smack him. "Are you sure it's not in your pocket?"

Her skirt pockets, when she emptied them out at the counter of Dervish and Banges, contained a few Sickles and Knuts, candy wrappers, a broken quill, a confiscated deck of Exploding Snap and lots of lint, but not her shopping list. Fortunately, between the two of them and the order she'd sent in ahead, she and Malfoy managed to remember most of what was needed to restock the supply closet for her class.

"A Probity Probe would be good to have, don't you think? For practice, to see if the kids can make their Revelio work?" Ginny had Mr Dervish wrap one up. "And get us a few dozen Secrecy Sensors, too, please?"

"My stock is low," Mr Dervish said after checking a few boxes on his crammed shelves. "I can sell you eight today and backorder the rest?"

Malfoy leaned against the counter, idly playing with a Remembrall. "What for? Someone is always lying about something."

"That's a cheerful world view," Ginny commented, shrinking the parcels that had already been packed up so they fit into the pockets of her skirt.

"It's only the truth." He tossed her the Remembrall, which she caught awkwardly with her left hand. Instantly, it turned red. He smirked. "Now what have you forgotten?"

Huffing, Ginny set the orb down to pay. "I don't know. I'll owl when I remember, sir, all right?"

"Certainly, Miss Weasley. Good day to you." Mr Dervish didn't seem sorry to see them take their banter and Ginny's scattered brain elsewhere.

They stopped outside the shop to count the miniature parcels. "I think we got everything." Ginny slipped a few into the pockets of Malfoy's billowing black coat as well. "Now all I need is the Instant Darkness Powder that my brother promised me, and I can have that NEWT practice session with the seventh years."

"You play around with joke products in your lessons and call that teaching." He shook his head, chuckling. "Ingenious. Really, sometimes I think you're-"

There was a shriek, followed by the high, tinkling sound of glass shattering. Halfway down the street, two teen boys burst through the door at Honeydukes, arms locked around each other in choke holds. They stumbled a few steps and crashed to the ground, where they rolled around, each fighting for the upper hand.

"Is that..." Malfoy hurried forward and made a grab for one of the boys, whom he hauled upright by his collar. Ginny recognized a short, heavyset Slytherin fourth-year from her class. "Webber," Malfoy barked, "We allow Hufflepuffs to provoke us now? Where is your dignity?"

The Hufflepuff boy – a pimply third-year who seemed to be missing clumps of his sandy hair – jumped up and clawed at Malfoy's back, trying to reach around Malfoy to get at his opponent.

"Hey! Ow! Would you stop! Weasley, some help?"

Ginny caught the boy by the sleeve before he could climb Malfoy's back like a monkey racing for the last banana on the tree. "Peters? What are you doing?"

The boy's head turned slowly; his eyes were glassy and hooded. He blinked at Ginny like he was half asleep.

Ginny huffed. They'd had to talk to the staff at the Three Broomsticks twice this year already about keeping the barrels of firewhiskey under lock and key. She was sure her generation hadn't been this unruly, and that was saying something. "Enough now, boys! Stop!" A tittering crowd of students had gathered around them in a half-circle. "Carry on, everyone," Ginny said, glaring until even the giggling seventh-years retreated.

The Honeydukes shopgirl stood at the door, which hung, broken, off one hinge. She wrung her pudgy hands.

"Reparo," Ginny said, and the shards of glass sprung together, the door righting itself with a loud crack. "Boys," she shrugged. She gave Peters, the Hufflepuff, a warning glance before she let him go. The fight had gone out of him; he just stood there, shaking his head slowly.

Malfoy was twisting his lean body into frightening shapes, trying to rub his own bruised back. "They will both receive detention," he told the shopgirl with grim satisfaction. "Webber, you've had enough for today. Go back to the castle." The Slytherin boy, Ginny noticed at a closer look, wore the same dumb, glassy-eyed expression as the other student. They must've gotten into the firewhiskey in perfect accord before they fell out and started fighting.

Webber raised a hand in slow motion like it was being pulled by an invisible string, and slurred, "He started it! I didn't even do anything."

"Did not!" the Hufflepuff boy chewed out the words like a wad of old gum. "He...he..." He ran a hand over his plucked scalp. "I dunno."

Ginny harrumphed, and instantly felt like McGonagall. From the corner of her eye, she saw Malfoy smirk. "I don't even want to hear it. Go back to the castle, we'll talk about this later."

For two people who'd just been at each other's throats, they turned as one now without protest and slowly trudged down the road back to the school together. Ginny shook her head.

Malfoy shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. "Well. What is their punishment going to be?"

She nudged him. "Since when are you such a strict disciplinarian?"

He raised a sardonic eyebrow. "Please. I wasn't raised in a barn, like some. I was raised-"

"A spoiled brat?"

"I wish. Have you met my father?"

"Yes. And your mother, whenever she comes to visit to fuss over you and bring you sweets from home," Ginny reminded him.

Malfoy's angular face seemed to soften around the edges. "Sweets don't mean she wasn't strict."

Ginny couldn't imagine Mrs Malfoy ever disciplining her precious baby. If he was a decent teacher, it was only because he enjoyed being in charge, always had, ever since he himself had been a Prefect at school.

"So what do you think we should do with those boys?" She gestured in the direction the pair had disappeared.

"Make them scrub the toilets in the Quidditch locker rooms," Malfoy said with relish. "Have them stand in as targets at your seventh years' Defence practice. Put them on kitchen duty with the house elves-"

"I think I'll have them do lines. On the dangers of intoxication."

Malfoy looked appalled. "I had to do detention in the Forbidden Forest once. As a first year! Lines! Honestly, Weasley."

"I'm sure you deserved it," Ginny said primly.

"I did not!"

"Well, you still don't get to take it out on your students," she shrugged. "They're kids. They should get to do stupid things, get into the Firewhiskey once in a while."

He shook his head. "The Three Broomsticks. Such a quality establishment. I'll send them a howler."

"Don't bother." Ginny smirked at him. "I'll talk to the owner in person."

"Now you're making me feel sorry for him." He inclined his head. "I think we should cheer up Rosalind a little. I need some licorice wands."

"Licorice wands, Malfoy? Really?"

"They're for Ted. He likes them."

Ginny had to bite back a smile. "You're his teacher. Don't embarrass him."

"They'll find their way into his bag, I'm not going to give them to him. What do you take me for, an idiot?" he scoffed.

"Would you really like to know?"

Malfoy turned on his heel, his black cloak swishing dramatically, and marched into Honeydukes, past the flustered shopgirl who still stood on the threshold, watching the teachers bicker.

Ginny gave her an apologetic look as the two of them followed Malfoy into the shop. "Sorry for the trouble, Rosalind. We'll talk to those boys, see that it doesn't happen again."

The girl nodded doubtfully. "The boss won't be pleased if he finds out I can't handle the students' Hogsmeade weekends, and I really need these shifts."

"Your boss is going to be pleased if you make a big sale, isn't he." Malfoy suddenly sprung out from behind a shelf like a jack-in-the-box, an enormous bag of licorice wands under his arm. He leaned over the counter and smiled at the shopgirl in a winning manner that, in Ginny's opinion, only made him look particularly insane. "I'd like to make an order. You deliver, don't you? My kids deserve a treat for beating Gryffindor to all the prizes this year."

Ginny gritted her teeth. The Quidditch Cup was lost, sure enough, but the House Cup was still fair game. "Not yet."

"Ah well." He turned his wicked grin on Ginny. "It's only a matter of time. My Slytherins know not to disappoint me." Spotting a chocolate frog hopping across the counter, he caught it in his hand and bit off a leg. "We'll start with a hundred of these. But I don't want any that have collectible cards of Harry Potter, you understand?"

The shopgirl brightened. "Yes, sir."

"Fifty licorice wands...three tubs of Every Flavor Beans, but not every flavor, obviously, only the good ones...fifty sugar quills...I think you should write this down." He began to rattle off an enormous order, to the excitement of the shopgirl and the amazement of two elderly witches, who eyed Malfoy like he was the devil, come to curse all children with sugar highs.

Ginny glanced around, despairing once again over the moment of carelessness that had ultimately led to her ending up here, and with a maniac for a colleague too. At his worst, Malfoy seemed intent on driving her insane, one way or another; at best, he managed to make Ginny look bad in comparison by spoiling the children rotten.

"Can we go now?" She jerked her chin at the line of students which was forming behind him at the counter.

"All right! We have students to punish." Malfoy scattered a handful of Every Flavour Beans, which he'd sampled, on the counter. "Clean that up, will you? And have my order sent up to the castle."

"Yes, sir," the shopgirl beamed at him.

The bell sang a cheerful "Thank you!" as they exited the shop, Malfoy prancing ahead with his nose in the air like a conceited pony.

"That was crazy and excessive," Ginny commented.

"You say that like it's a bad thing," he grinned.

Maybe he couldn't be blamed for the mad streak that ran in his family, but Ginny really wasn't above teasing him for it. "What are you going to do with fifty pounds of candy?"

"We live in a school, Weasley," he told her, very slowly like he suspected she was stupid. "Candy is currency. And it's going to buy me a quiet end of term."

"Have you ever gotten anything in life without bribery?" she wondered.

"Yes." Malfoy glanced over at her, his pale eyes glittering as with some secret delight, and gave her a smug sort of smile. "I got this job, didn't I. Race you back home."

And with a crack, he had disapparated.