- AN UNLIKELY RESOLUTION -

Author: ladeesarah001
Category: Harry Potter
Rating: M (mature themes)
Published: 15 September, 2010
Completed: No
Beta: Priyanka

Note that this story is written in first and third person, chapters alternate.

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all recognisable characters belong to the creative and talented J.K. Rowling.

– CHAPTER 1 –

Dragon's Blood

Dragon's Blood was tradition. It was where they always went after their inevitably stressful weeks. No one, aside from the others like them, knew how difficult their lives were; no one thought that the life of an heir was anything but smooth sailing, but they were wrong. Despite outward appearances, the expensive robes and the hoards of witches falling prostrate at their feet, their lives were hard and demanding. Theirs were not the carefree lives portrayed by the Daily Prophet and photographed by Witch Weekly; their lives, everything that they were, revolved around duty and honour.

Every man who sat sprawled around the luxury VIP room was duty bound to take over the family business, expected to find a pretty wife, to marry young, and honour bound to produce a male heir to carry on the line and continue the family name. Without question, they were expected to adhere to their parents' beliefs and the timeless traditions of the oldest and most respected Pureblood families. These were the very beliefs and traditions that had relegated them to their current predicament, the beliefs and traditions that they had been too young to comprehend, the same beliefs and traditions which were currently the cause of their precarious situation.

Since Potter's heralded victory in the Battle of Hogwarts, waged some three years earlier, things had changed in the Wizarding World. The names of the old families had been all but shunned; many of the patriarchs, and even some of the matriarchs, enjoying life sentences in Azkaban. This meant that their offspring had to step up and take over the family businesses while dealing with all of the fallout of their parents' actions and choices. The families may have temporarily lost the respect to which they were so accustomed, but their ancestors would come back from the dead before they became poor as well. The only man at the table who had thus far escaped his fate, if only for a short while, was Marcus Flint, who spent his time playing Chaser for the notorious Falmouth Falcons; his mother had taken over the family business, allowing him to pursue his dream and play professional Quidditch.

The Dragon's Blood was as classy and exclusive as clubs came; it was Unplottable, and you couldn't get in without first having been invited there by someone else. The club had four entrances, all painstakingly warded and disillusioned using ancient magics. The entrance that the young men frequented was located in Knockturn Alley, and from that dingy parlour, they were able to quickly grasp the rotten apple core that transported them to the exclusive club. This was the only entrance that the young wizards could use since they hadn't yet been shown any of the other three entrances; the club's physical location was so secret that the wizards doubted that even the owner knew the club proper's location.

Everything in the club was related to the number twelve, in deference to the twelve known uses of dragon's blood. The walls were clad in rich Tyrian purple velvet and all the furnishings made from a deep ebony coloured wood. The Dragon's Blood positively oozed sophistication and class, which was more than could be said for some of the floozies that some classless wizards had brought to the club.

"Does anyone need anything?" asked a chipper voice.

The excitable female was very out of place in the club's subdued atmosphere, especially since the question was asked without being laced with the customary innuendo. For this reason alone, the small witch singularly captured the attention of every wizard at the table as they waited for their de facto leader to respond, a title that Draco Malfoy had not relinquished, despite his family's spectacular fall from grace.

"Weaslette," Draco drawled, "don't you recognise me?"

"Of course I recognise you," the redheaded witch replied, poorly masking the irritation in her voice. "However, I'm working, and most of the people who come here are looking for anonymity, so greeting you would have most likely been inappropriate and unwelcome."

"Here here!" Theodore Nott toasted the feisty witch's words before downing the rest of his drink.

"A round of Firewhiskey for the table." Draco placed the group's order and dismissed his former schoolmate in a single breath.

Not to be outdone, much less intimidated, the small redhead smiled as she replied, "Of course, I'll bring the bottle then, shall I?"

"An excellent idea," crowed Blaise Zabini. "Indeed you should."

Silence reigned at the table in the redhead's wake. The witch had been correct in her assumption that the group of wizards wished to be left alone, but her display of fearless wit was also the most interesting thing that had happened to them all night.

"That was interesting," grunted Marcus Flint.

"Of course it was," Adrian Pucey agreed with a snort. "She's a redhead and a Gryffindor."

When Ginny Weasley returned to the table with a tray of Firewhiskeys and the previously promised bottle of the fiery alcohol, she once again found herself commanding the attention of the entire table of wizards.

"A witch of her word," Blaise mused as he refilled his already drained glass of Firewhiskey. The young wizard was clearly impressed that she would trust them with the bottle of Blishen's after the minor drunken incident of the night before.

"So you work here then?" Draco asked her gruffly, before she was able to escape their company.

"Obviously," she replied, dropping all pretence of politeness as she rolled her eyes to emphasise her point.

"Already ruffled her feathers," drawled the silky voice of Graham Montague. "I always found Gryffindors to be the most fun; they respond in the most amusing ways."

"I was prompting you to tell me why you are working here, not asking for confirmation of the obvious," reprimanded the bored voice of Draco, completely ignoring Montague's comment.

"It's just a job," the witch replied, following his example and ignoring the jibe from Montague.

"Yes, but why is it your job?" Draco persisted. "Did you get your NEWTS and think to yourself 'Now I can fulfil my wildest dreams and become a waitress at Dragon's Blood?'"

Completely insulted by the blonde wizard's comments, the witch turned to leave, but her progress was halted by long slender fingers curling around her wrist and holding her in place.

"Forgotten something?" Blaise asked her with a smirk, releasing her wrist and placing a handful of galleons on the table.

"No," the redhead replied after a quick glance to confirm what the Italian wizard had placed on the table. "The drinks have been added to you tab."

"Silly girl," chastised Adrian's silken burr over the muttered 'Gryffindors' of the rest of the table. "It's a tip."

This information caused the witch to pause once again. Turning back to the table, she quickly scooped up three of the twenty or so galleons that lay on the table before once again trying to escape the oppressive company of the ex-Slytherins.

"You must take another for putting up with Drake," the accented voice of Blaise stopped her again. Her brain was momentarily flummoxed by the wolfish grin that adorned his aristocratic features.

Determined to escape them this time, Ginny quickly slid another galleon from the table and into her waiting palm just below the lip of the table. Without looking up, she started to stride away from the table of Slytherins eager to put some distance between them.

"Weasley," another of the table's occupants called out to her.

"Yes?" she asked sweetly, turning around to face the table of wizards again, despite it being against her better judgement. When none of the wizards spoke, merely gazing upon her expectantly, she was forced to walk back to the table.

"When does your shift finish?" Draco asked, glass poised near his lips ready for him to take another sip.

Ginny hesitated for a moment before hastily casting a Tempus charm.

"In an hour and a half," she answered.

"You should join us when you get off," Draco said in invitation. She could hear the smirk in his voice from halfway across the club, but she refused to respond and most definitely refused to turn around.

The last hour and a half of Ginny's shift went by uneventfully, and she was especially grateful that the group of Slytherins didn't need anything else since she'd left them the bottle. She only hoped that they didn't get too drunk because her boss would kill her for leaving them the bottle after what happened the night before.

The busy Saturday night at the club wasn't enough to keep her mind from replaying the conversation, if it could even be called that, she and Draco had had. His jibe about working at the club was more than enough to reignite her shame over her indecisiveness. There hadn't been anything wrong with her NEWT scores: she'd been one of the top students to graduate from Hogwarts that year. The problem wasn't her grades or a lack of job offers; her problem was that she was incredibly indecisive and worried, to the point of Hermione-like paranoia, that she would choose the wrong job and wind up doing something she hated. The entire situation was embarrassing, so she hated running into old school friends and having to tell them that she hadn't chosen a career yet. Even worse was running into Malfoy of all people and having to tell him that.

Grabbing her cloak and purse from the staff area located through a door at the rear of the club, Ginny started to make her way to the Knockturn Alley exit. From there, she could easily Apparate home. Before she could get far, a muscular arm draped itself across her shoulders.

"Not leaving without saying goodbye to us were you?" Nott asked her teasingly as he guided her back across the club and into their private room.

"Of course not," Ginny replied with faked confidence as she frantically tried to gauge how much of the bottle of Blishen's aged Firewhiskey had been drunk by the wizards. She was both relieved and concerned when her calculations suggested that the bottle contained nearly as much of the amber liquid as when she had brought it over. Maybe they hadn't had too much to drink, or maybe this was their second bottle?

"Here, love, you can sit on my lap," Nott offered as he dragged her unceremoniously into his embrace and an awkward position on his lap.

"Now, now Theo, Weasley can have her very own chair," Blaise intervened smoothly, the speed of his intervention hastened greatly by the horrified look on Ginny's face.

"Ginny," she corrected automatically.

"Come again?" Blaise asked her, genuinely confused.

"Call me Ginny, not Weasley," she elaborated.

"What sort of name is Ginny?" snorted Montague.

"It's my nickname, short for Ginevra," she defended herself, a little miffed at the drunken Slytherin's antics.

"Well, if we're using nicknames," Blaise emphasised the word in a sinful manner, "we'd best complete the introductions. I am, of course, Blaise, short for Blaise. This is Drake or Draco, Graham, but we call him Montague and Marcus, who we call Flint. Lastly, these are Theo, Greg, and finally Adrian, it's currently a fifty-fifty split between Adrian and Pucey for him."

"Uh, nice to meet you, I guess," Ginny replied noncommittally.

"So, Red, why are you working here?" Blaise asked conversationally.

"Red?" she retorted, clearly unimpressed with Blaise's new pet name for her. In any other company, she would have been immediately offended when an apology wasn't forthcoming, but seated as she was in the snake pit, Ginny was unsurprised. Quickly coming to the conclusion that she wasn't going to be able to leave until they got what they wanted and that she wasn't going to be able to work out exactly what that was by sitting in silence, she decided to answer the question. "It's just a job. I don't know what I want to do, and I'm a little scared of choosing the wrong thing. I quite literally cannot afford to train for a position and then discover I loathe it; I'd be stuck there."

"So you're working here until you work out what you want to do with yourself?" Draco asked her conversationally. However, below the surface, he was screaming at the unfairness of it all. Why was he forced to take over the family businesses while the Weaslette got to be a lush and ponder her options?

"Pretty much," she replied with a shrug, secretly glad that the Slytherins seemed nonplussed by her lack of direction.

"Have you considered Quidditch?" Marcus asked, breaking the silence that was created by his brooding friends. "I remember you were a fairly decent Chaser."

"I did actually. I tried out for the Hollyhead Harpies, and they accepted me onto the team, but I turned the position down," Ginny told Marcus, who was looking at her with an expression that clearly conveyed that he thought her daft.

"Just ignore him, Red," Adrian Pucey interrupted. "He thinks everyone should be aspiring to professional Quidditch."

"No, it's all right. It turns out that I'm incredibly vain, I like my face and appreciate being able to walk without a limp," Ginny sheepishly confessed to the group of Slytherins.

None of the wizards said anything for a moment before, without any warning, Marcus Flint burst into laughter. His deep, gravelly laugh reverberated through the club, disturbing many of the other patrons.

"Well, I'd better be going," Ginny excused herself. "I'm obviously at my limit since I forgot to tell Adrian off for calling me Red."

"Do you still watch Quidditch?" Marcus asked, having finally recovered from his fit of laughter.

Still trying to edge herself away from the Slytherin wizards, who had somehow managed to commandeer a fair portion of her evening, Ginny nodded her affirmation.

"I'll owl you a ticket for the game this weekend," Marcus told her before the entire table of wizards shifted their attention elsewhere.

That the whole lot of them had moved on to other topics of conversation so quickly left Ginny a little miffed, but not so much as the realisation that they had managed to dismiss her, even though she had clearly declared her intentions of leaving. Irritated beyond description, Ginny quickly made her way from the exclusive club, and once she set foot on Knockturn Alley, she quickly Apparated herself to the doorstep of her modest cottage. Slamming the door behind her as she entered her cosy home made her feel a little better, although her mind was still frantically trying to work out what the Slytherins wanted and why they would invite her to a Quidditch match.

A/N: I have this story floating around in my head (particular a scene that slots in much farther down the track) so I started writing it down. Then of course once I finished a chapter I wanted to post it, so now this chapter is here. Unfortunately at the moment I currently have three other stories on the go... so hopefully you now realise why I think myself foolish :)

(08 June, 2011) Uploaded the newly beta'd version of the chapter, thank you Priyanka!