"After all this, you're going to join them?" Ginny asked in disgust.
Draco scowled at her. "I've already joined." He yanked up his sleeve and showed Ginny his Dark Mark, still red on the edges.
She closed her eyes. "Why?"
"Because my father expects me to. Because if I don't, the Dark Lord will just kill me. He expects it of me."
"You don't have to. The Order could-"
"The Order wouldn't have me and you know it."
Ginny folded her arms over her chest. "Where does this leave us?"
"Marry me." Draco reached out and wrapped his arms around her. "Come with me."
She stared at him. "Have you gone mad?"
The corners of his mouth lifted into a rare, sad smile. "I think I have."
"Ginny, love," her mother sighed at her. "When are you going to give me grandbabies?"
Ginny's eyebrows shot up. "I think I'd at least have to be dating someone."
"There are so many lovely gentlemen who ask about you," Molly told her wistfully.
"I'm not interested," Ginny said flatly. "I just got on the team, and things are good. I don't need some bloke to come mess it up." She kissed her mother on the cheek. "I think I better go home. Love you."
When Ginny was safely back at her flat with the floo shut off, she curled up on her couch and let the tears escape. There wasn't a day that she didn't miss Draco. Though a year had gone by, she still felt lost without him. She heard about him and his exploits. Ron and Harry, big bad Aurors that they had become ran around the globe, chasing down rumors and hearsay about him.
Maybe it was time to move on. Oliver Wood had asked her on several dates, and she kept turning him down.
She sat up and brushed away her tears. A year was long enough. A year of loving someone who obviously didn't love her – if Draco Malfoy had loved her, he would have never joined the Death Eaters.
Tomorrow she would ask Oliver out for dinner.
The entire team had gone out to a pub to celebrate a great season. Their last game had been in Ireland, and at the very end, Oliver had hopped off his broom, dropped to one knee and asked Ginny to marry him.
"Marry you?" Ginny whispered, feeling a familiar sensation wash over her body. She clearly remembered the windy night two years ago that someone else had proposed to her. The trees had swayed that night, and so had Ginny's will to live as she watched Draco Malfoy walk away from her. "Yes. Of course!"
She was determined to drink away all thoughts of him. After all, there was no reason to remember him at all. He was dead to her. At least it was a possibility. Her brother had just expressed his frustration over not hearing anything about him for months. She challenged Oliver and their teammates to a drinking contest. "You're buying," she shouted at Coach.
Ginny slammed down her first pint victoriously and turned away from the bar to laugh and taunt her male counterparts, still finishing their own beer. There he was. She turned and found herself face to face with him. I've moved on, she thought, panicked. Even if it has been slow, Oliver asked and I said yes! I've moved on.
"I can't believe you said yes." His voice was lethal.
Her eyes widened, but she knew she couldn't react. If anyone realized who he was, they would kill him on the spot. She stared into his silver eyes, hating the way they still pierced her skin.
Draco stepped forward, grabbed Ginny by the waist, and kissed her.
When their lips met, she knew that the fights she had fought were only imaginary. She hadn't won the battle. Hope for a happy marriage was gone, washed away with Draco's fiery, blazing kiss. She felt his hand move to the pocket of her robe, and then—
"Stop!" Ginny shoved him away.
His hood had fallen off, exposing his perfect, pale face.
The pub was silent.
He glared at her, then turned on his heel and was gone, leaving only the crack of his apparation.
"The things that go with being slightly famous."
She hoped no one else noticed the quiver in her voice.
Ginny didn't drink anymore that evening, but she pretended to.
She kissed Oliver goodnight outside the door of her room at the inn they were staying in and waited until she had bolted the door before reaching into her pocket. As she suspected, there was a small piece of parchment with an address.
Her fingers trembled as she sat at the edge of the bed. Draco. Oh gods, how I love him.
She knew that tomorrow, when the team checked out of the inn, she'd have to explain why she'd used the floo.
Her hands were trembling and her knees were weak as she walked the few steps to the fireplace. She ignored the price chart as she reached into the jar on the mantle and pulled out a handful of the green powder. She ignored her rational mind as she threw it into the grate and shouted the address.
"I wondered if you'd be coming."
Ginny stared silently at the man she had loved for so long. Draco only looked slightly older. She would have never guessed that he lived his life on the run. His pale hair was only slightly longer, and he was as lean as ever, although it looked like he might be slightly more defined. "What are you doing?"
"Me?" He stood to his feet and circled her as if she were his prey. "I'm certainly not accepting marriage proposals."
"Excuse me?"
"You didn't accept mine."
"That's because you decided to run off and join up with Voldemort."
Draco's eyes narrowed. "You knew that. You knew that from the moment you laid eyes on me."
"But I hoped I was wrong."
"Was it easy to replace me?" He was still circling her. "Easy to find a new soul to love?"
"No. It was hard. It still is."
Draco stopped in front of her. "Why are you doing this?"
Ginny lost it. "Are you bloody kidding me?" she screamed. "I waited for you forever! I would have given up everything for you, but marry you after you ran off to become a Death Eater? I thought you would just support them from the sidelines! I didn't know you wanted to help murder people! You've ruined things for me! I spent all that time in school being your secret girlfriend, and then for two years I waited and waited. And what did you do? You went and got that awful Mark!"
He reached out and ran a finger over her cheek.
"Don't touch me! You disgust me!" She slapped his hand away.
"Do you still love me?"
"No. I hate you."
"I know you don't love him."
"Excuse me?" Ginny growled, desperately wanting to hit him. Hexing him wouldn't be enjoyable enough.
"I've seen you with him. You don't look at him the same way you looked at me."
"You spy on us?"
Draco shrugged, his cocky, arrogant move.
"Why are you doing this?"
"Why did you come?"
"To tell you that I hate you," Ginny said, knowing she was lying.
"No you didn't." He was leaning so close to her Ginny could feel his hot breath on her skin, mixed with the faint smell of fags.
"You can't do this to me," she told him, closing her eyes. "I waited for more than a year before I moved on."