Harry Potter One Shots

Something Inside

All rights belong to the author, starlitskyes

It was getting dark in the Quidditch grounds, and the stars twinkled softly against the deep blue sky.

Draco Malfoy walked through, broomstick and robes in hand, intending to have a nice, calming fly on his own in the cool evening breeze—when he suddenly encountered a small, vivid redhead, running up to him, a cheeky grin on her face.

Draco stopped walking automatically, staring at the girl who was approaching him, horror on his pale face. Again? Ginny Weasley had been following him everywhere for the past few weeks, her bright mood and grin in place. He found her mood dampening, sometimes, because she was always more cheerful than he was. He could never understand it.

She didn't try and flirt with him, was not even overly polite to him, like the rest of his female fan club. She baffled him—and annoyed him, endlessly.

"Weasley, why are you here?" demanded Draco, thoroughly irritated, when she danced to a stop right in front of him.

"Well, why are you, Malfoy?" she returned, smiling. "And I'm very happy to see you, too. Don't you ever doubt that, okay?"

"I...have my reasons for being wherever I am," he said coldly, deciding to stop this before it became a conversation and balancing his broom over his right shoulder as he started to move on to the changing rooms. "Now get lost."

"If I do, Malfoy, do you promise to find me?" chirped Ginny, eye gleaming merrily in a way Draco found rather insane—it was mad for people to look so bloody cheerful, he thought resentfully.

Draco's lips twitched, and he narrowed his silvery gray eyes. "I do, Weasley. At least by my next lifetime." He took a step forward, until he was a foot away from the lithe form of Ginny. "Now will you move that arse before I go crazy?"

"Nuh-uh. A lifetime is too long."

"Weasley, move!" Draco said loudly, trying to side-step her. She danced into his way again. "Get out of my way!"

"Shan't!" Ginny sang, swinging her scarlet hair onto her shoulder. "Be nice, and I might consider it."

"All right," he said through gritted teeth, scowling. He took a deep breath. "Weasley, please, will you go away?" He had used the 'P' word, and he thought he'd repent it for the rest of his life. And all for a Weasley. How stupid. "Please?"

Ginny pouted. "Not nice enough. And 'be nice' doesn't mean you've got to tell me to 'go away'!"

"To me, Weasley, it does." He shook his head disparagingly at Ginny's perpetually chipper expression, and began to walk past her again.

He felt a small, clenched fist clutch at his robe, and he stopped in his steps in utter disbelief. "Oh no, you don't, Malfoy."

He whipped around to face her, features displaying a rather amusing mixture of horror and surprise. "Please tell me you did not just grab my robe, Weasley!"

"Believe it or not," Ginny laughed, holding up her hand. "Anyway, you can't just walk away like that. Not from me, ferret-boy!"

Draco clenched his jaw, fighting the impulse to shout at her, and settled on narrowing his gray eyes dangerously at her. "Weasley," he said in that practiced, menacingly quiet voice he'd mastered, "what is your goddamned problem, anyway? Stop following me, for Merlin's sake."

Ginny laughed merrily. "Oh, I have many problems, Malfoy. Come, we'll have a little picnic, and I'll vent to you and tell you all about them."

Draco stared at her in exasperation, before rolling his eyes and striding away. There simply was no hope for a bint like that. Ginny ran behind him easily, and Draco momentarily wondered how her little legs could match his longer stride so quickly. She appeared at his side again, walking with him.