Ginny lay back against the scratchy burgundy blanket and closed her eyes. The trees from the forest lent their special fresh pine scent to the air and she knew there would never be a more perfect afternoon.

A petal soft touch brushed across her cheek and she smiled, inhaling deeply; gardenias, if she wasn't mistaken, and transfigured from something else, no less, because gardenias didn't bloom at Hogwarts.

"I don't see why that blanket's got to be pink," he informed her sullenly.

"It's not, it's burgundy," she corrected.

"Burgundy, magenta, scarlet, it's not bloody green, is it?"

"I wasn't aware you knew so many red colors, Mr. Malfoy," she said with a smile. It was an old argument. Sometimes, she thought he only started it to keep himself from turning into a sentimental old fop. Draco rebelled against any colors not within the green-silver-black-gray spectrum he was so fond of. They were his house colors, yes, but more importantly, they were his colors, the ones that his identity were built around from the silver-blond of his hair to the gray of his eyes, to the black little heart most everyone assumed he had. Colors were an armor to Draco and a bone of contention between the two of them.

He grew silent on the color bit and she felt the gardenias kiss her cheek, her jaw, then his fingers tunneled though the hair at the side of her head until they were fastened in them. His hands moved under her head and she felt him move her hair until it was fanned out all around her. Long, nimble fingers extracted his wand and she heard him mumbling spells a few moments before he began sifting through her hair again, parting it here or there, and soon, the smell of gardenias was so overwhelming she had to open her eyes and see what he'd done.

To her right, she could see his hand working on the last piece of her hair, threading it with perfect gardenias enchanted silver; next to them, gardenias enchanted black. The blanket beneath them had been changed to green and his eyes were all the gray she'd ever want, staring down at her like she was his damnation and salvation in the form of a silly, wholly inappropriate little girl.

The hand that held his wand moved over her body, and again he murmured softly until her clothes, too, had changed, her school robes re-woven into artful falls of silver and green. This was the sort of day they'd never had. He was always moody, always mercurial at best, and she usually fought him, usually asserted independence in the face of his arrogance, but today... today she wanted to be his canvas. Today she wanted him to make her over in the image of his ideal Goddess draped in whatever he wished. Today, she hoped he might look at everything he made her and appreciate more everything she used to be. She looked up at him and noted he seemed to be mulling something over, coming to some sort of decision. Finally, he spoke.

"I think perhaps the brown can stay," he murmured, and his fingers drew gentle lines around the corners of her eyes. "And I suppose I can do with a bit of red," he added, and his fingers tunneled through her hair as he leaned down to claim her mouth in a kiss.

Ginny kept an enchanted silver gardenia in her hair for the rest of term.

~

END