Title: Breaking Away
Author: ToOtHpIcK
SHIP: Draco/Ginny
Rating: K+ (PG)
A/N: You might find some connections to your life in this – maybe not. Please understand that this is mostly a drabble of sorts. This will not be continued. Short and sweet, and I intend to keep it this way.
Summary: He was a disease that she did not want to get rid of.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot. Everything belongs to JK Rowling.
Time would stop for her the minute he was in her presence. There was nothing but him and the way he brushed past her in the corridors, sending her a sneer if she happened to catch his eye.
She used to feel a flutter of emotion in the pit of her stomach when he would glance her way. No matter what he did – smirk, sneer, insult, harm – she still felt like her feet would lift off the ground and she would whisk away in the breeze. She didn't care that she didn't have a chance with him. She didn't care that he hated her, that his family loathed hers, that her parents and brothers would disapprove, that her friends would try to set her mind straight. She didn't care about anything but him.
She would remind herself daily that there was no chance in hell that she could ever be with him. He was too arrogant and insulting. He would break her and cut her heart with every word thrown in her face, with every touch he would set upon her skin. He was like a disease. The kind that can kill slowly with every mention of the name, of the emotions that sent her heart beating at a rapid pace, of the brush of elbows in the hall, of the insults and degrading words sent to her and her family.
He was a disease, and she didn't want to get rid of him.
She didn't want to let go of her hopeless thoughts of being with him, being the only thing that mattered to him. But she had to. She had to get him out of her mind. She knew that it was wrong and she had to stop thinking about him because there was nothing promising with him.
She made a promise to herself that morning when she woke up that when she passed him on her way to Potions, she would not look at him. She would look away. Then at lunch, she would talk to her friends and stare at her plate and not at his table. Baby steps. All it took were a few baby steps and she would be fine.
Taking a deep breath, she left Transfiguration with her classmates and walked with her group of friends down to the dungeons. The Slytherins were just leaving their Potions class. Seeing his pale blonde hair above the mass of heads, Ginny looked down at her books.
Don't look up. Keep walking. He won't notice you anyway. He has never noticed you. Just keep walking.
She finally looked up when she entered the classroom. She felt accomplished, but something kept pulling on her heart to turn around and stare out the door and down the hall. Just one more glimpse of his retreating form. Just one.
No. You promised.
That night, she pulled herself under her warm sheets. She finally let go of him. One whole day of his nonexistence. And there would be more to come.
Crying and rocking herself to sleep, she never felt more broken before in her life.