in which a match is set ablaze
Ginny woke to a pounding headache.
Pulsing and beating and screaming at her to get up. She opened her eyes, the scene in front of her a mess. Broken bottles and bodies lay anywhere with room, and Ginny had passed out among them.
She stood up from the couch she had been lying on, stretching her arms up as she cracked out her back.
Merlin. Her entire body was sore, she quite literally didn’t have a single part of her that wasn’t in pain.
She began to register the bruises on her legs, strange, awkward places that could only be explained by the previous night's raging party. And just as she noticed marks on her upper thighs, no doubt from whatever hapless soul she had chosen for the night, nausea began to rise in her stomach.
Ginny raced to the bathroom, praying that she could manage to keep the puke down long enough to make it.
And then there she was, collapsed over expensive porcelain, puking up whatever the fuck she had last night.
Her throat was burning, and she could feel her heartbeat breaking through her school, and everything was too loud and too shiny and there it was again, nausea, as she heaved up another time.
Cold hands touched her neck, gently grasping her hair from her shoulders.
She grabbed a tissue wiping her mouth with a grimace. She could only taste bile and the few tears that had fallen as she practically hacked up a lung.
“Thanks.” She murmured, leaning back against the body that was perched gently behind her.
“Hm.” The man hummed in response, tying her hair with an elastic for her. An actual rubber elastic band. Now that was going to be a pain to get out later.
“I’m never drinking again.” She muttered, finally turning around to lean against the wall beside her. And sitting just to her right was none other than the homeowner himself. Draco fucking Malfoy.
Honestly, at this point, it truly wasn’t a surprise, but a shiver still ran through her every time she saw him. Something that set her on edge, a warning.
“You say that every time, and yet you’re always here,” Draco replied, grey eyes sweeping over her. Ginny knew she had to look a mess, with ratted hair, vomit breath, and yesterday’s clothes. That wasn’t to say Draco looked any better. He had some silk shirt, wrinkled so badly he had to have been wearing it for at least a couple of days. It hung off his body like a sheet, collarbones and thin hands paired with the dark circles under his eyes, he looked a proper mess.
It was almost funny, how reminiscent he looked to Ginny’s fifth year. What they were doing now was physically messing with him just as much as working with Voldemort. How ironic.
“This was hardly my fault,” Ginny said, with a bitter laugh. “We were mourning.”
Draco followed in her stead, throwing his head back as he let out one of the most in-genuine laughs Ginny had ever heard.
“I would’ve thought you’d mourned more than enough by now,” Draco replied, staring back at her with knowing eyes.
Ginny glared at him, “Don’t be cruel.”
“Well, I’m just saying, Harry marrying Cho should’ve been less of a shock for you - considering everything.” Malfoy gestured at himself, and if Ginny didn’t know him as well as she did, she would've thought it was with cockiness. But at this point, both of them had nothing left but self-hatred and vitriol.
“Mm. My darling husband-of-mine, cheating on me with his mortal enemy. Quite the story it was, but nothing as bad as marrying the girl he had gone out with before me.” Ginny sighed, Harry was nothing if not consistent. “It wasn’t as bad with you. I mean no offence, but you and I are fucked up. Completely and utterly. I was just hoping he wanted a taste for cock, and then would settle down.”
“Well, ultimately he did,” Draco laughed, pulling out a creased newspaper from his pocket.
There, front and centre of The Daily Prophet was a picture of the beautiful couple in wedded bliss. Cho looked radiant, glowing and gorgeous. And Harry? Ginny had never seen him this happy. At least not before the war. Not with her, Draco, any of his friends, and not when she had been pregnant for a perfect three months.
“Don’t remind me,” Ginny murmured, banging her head back against the wall. Now she remembered why this morning was particularly brutal. The paper had given her exactly what the had been looking for - a reason to spiral into the beautiful world of drugs, booze, and whatever potions Draco kept tucked in his hidden cabinets.
“Get up,” Draco ordered, kicking her with the tip of his freezing, bare foot.
Ginny shrieked, batting at him jokingly as a shiver ran through her.
“Wear socks! You’re not an animal.” Ginny frowned, though she did follow through, standing up slowly with her.
“Need I remind you who’s manor you’re currently in?” Draco asked, offering her a thin arm that she gladly took. What a fucked up pair they must look.
“Did you put on the coffee?” Ginny murmured, nudging Draco’s shoulder with her head as she tried to keep her eyes open. The light just seemed to pick apart her brain, pain spreading in waves through her whole body.
“Would you expect any different?” Draco laughed, steering her towards the marble countertops.
Already sitting there was the only person in the entire manor that looked like she had showered - the one and only Pansy Parkinson. Her black hair had been straitened, eyeliner already precisely in place, and her pencil skirt lacked any of the creases that graced Draco and Ginny’s clothes.
It infuriated Ginny.
“Parkinson, how do you do it?” Ginny grumbled, glaring at the other girl as best she could after throwing her literal guts out.
Pansy laughed, an annoyingly perfect laugh because of course doing lines off Ginny’s breasts last night wouldn’t fuck her up in the morning at all.
“A selection of exorbitantly expensive potions darling, so don’t bother asking for advice,” Pansy replied, and Ginny couldn’t help glaring at her lips. Well she wasn’t exactly glaring, but that was much better than gazing, so she decided to stick with that.
Pansy noticed because it was Pansy and she always did.
“I truly would go for a round love, but I did just hear you retching in the back room, and I have no desire to go anywhere near-” Pansy paused, waving her hand gracefully at where Ginny was standing, “...that.”
Ginny flashed Pansy a grimace, “I’m going to spit in your coffee.”
“Ginny love, it’s too early to be flirting!” Draco shouted, from where he was in the pantry.
“You both are awful.” Ginny stated, folding her arms as she glared at where Draco’s voice had come from, “Awful, awful, awful.”
“And yet you keep coming back.” A warm voice said, and a hand gently ruffled Ginny’s hair. Blaise sat down beside her, and he did look like shit. His eyes seemed sunken in, and his lips were bleeding, though truly not as bad as she and Draco.
“It’s Stockholm Syndrome,” Ginny muttered, allowing Blaise to gently run his hand through her hair - she couldn’t help being reminded of Molly when he did.
“No darling, it's addiction.” Pansy replied, before throwing her hands up as Draco poked his head out to give her a look, “I’m not saying she’s alone in it! But addicts are far more fun when they can admit it, otherwise, it’s just a sad delusion.”
“She’s not wrong,” Ginny mumbled, leaning back into Blaise’s touch. “Does anyone know who I was with last night?”
“Luna maybe?” Blaise asked from behind her, “I think you did her last time.”
“Mmm, no. Lovegood left early, something about finding Breezeboofs or something?” Pansy replied, shaking her head.
“Those cannot be real.” Blaise frowned.
“They so are Blaise, I swear she was telling me about it.”
“Pansy my love, were you listening to her talk, or looking at her tits?” Blaise asked, and Ginny couldn’t help the laugh that escaped.
Suddenly a loud pounding rang through the house, stopping Ginny’s laugh short.
“Someone’s in the wards,” Pansy sang, walking over to Draco and flicking him gently on the back of his head.
“Pans, I am far too hungover and far too tired to figure out who it possibly could be, so could you be a dear and open the door?” Draco asked, shaking his head in the direction of the foyer.
Pansy let out a noise of annoyance, but did it anyway, leaving the three in their silence. She broke it far too quickly for Ginny’s taste as she let out a loud laugh, one that left a ringing in her ears - though she couldn’t tell if that was Parkinson or the ever-present nausea.
“Weasley darling, you’re in trouble,” Pansy called, and several footsteps banged their way through the house, Ginny’s only warning of who she was about to see.
And then, there in front of her, stood a rather angry-looking Hermione, a nearly crying Ron, and a very confused Charlie Weasley, leaving Ginny wondering what the fuck was going on.