A/N: My muse, Maggie, is simple girl. All she likes are plot bunnies and reviews. So be kind to Maggie and feed her review cookies please.
Thank you to Lbandoly for her wonderful work as beta for this piece! It is so wonderful to be working with her again. The muse and I are thrilled.
No copyright infringement intended. All characters are the property of JKR, Scholastic, and any number of other companies with more money than I've ever dreamed of seeing. I didn't make any money off of this, so please don't sue.
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The vibrant beat of the music pulsed through her body as it rang throughout the club seeming to shake the very foundation. She felt like her heartbeat had altered itself to match the tempo of the baseline as it thrummed through the teeming dance floor. Her eyelids fluttered open and closed and open again as she wavered on the edge of awareness, almost drunk on a mixture of adrenaline, fire whiskey, and the familiar spicy pungency of alcohol and sweat that filled the air.
Everything around her flooded her senses making her thoughts swim just that much more.
Her body moved in a primal echo of the music that flooded around and through her. Unfamiliar warm hands dug into the fabric covering her hips, fixing her against a lean sculpted body that molded itself to her backside. They dipped and swayed in unison with the swells and falls in the music. The crowd around them moved and pulsed. The energy around her swam wild and out of control. It made her nearly dizzy with intoxication. Dancing in the core of the teeming, sweating masses, she absorbed being in the crush of them all and yet being completely free. She smiled darkly to herself. The oxymoron of it all had not escaped her in the least. Surrounded by hundreds of people, some in unspeakably intoxicated conditions and yet here she felt freer than she had in far too long. This was exactly why she had come to love this place so much and to think what she wanted had been right here, under her wand, the whole time.
The first time she'd come in looking for an escape from the daily grind of her normal life. All she had wanted was a place she could escape once in a while that would fill her with a sense of being outside of herself, yet allow her to find a piece of herself that she had abandoned. She had craved fulfillment but refused to walk the path that she knew led to it. After all, she couldn't believe he wouldn't have her even if she threw herself at his feet naked, chained and pleading for him to use her, would he? He had walked away for good the last time and she had been under no delusions otherwise. That had been ten years earlier. So she had attempted to find other avenues to attain what she desired. She had strived and failed.
It had been achingly hard at first to turn her back on the life she had lived for four years. She often didn't know what was harder; walking away from the influx of money that came with him and the others that gladly emptied their wallets and their organs or to walk away from the pain and fulfillment that came with their use of her body in whatever ways filled their deepest, darkest fantasies. Still she had done it and become the respectable witch that she had started out to become before her path had gone so twisted. She had a charms mistress certificate that was hard earned, in so many indefinable ways, and had spent the following years proving why there was no mistaking that she had in fact earned that title. She had defied what everyone had expected of the youngest Weasley child. She was not some doting house witch, spitting out a parcel of babies, but rather a career witch with all her goals attainted.
But the fact remained that no matter how well she did her work or how satisfying that portion of her life was, she was never truly satisfied. There was always something missing. There was a twist, an ache, a slice, just severed and out of her reach. It had become unbearable.
She had taken her fill of dead-end dates with so called Mr. Right who turned out to be Mr. Never Fucking Will Be. She had spent more than a fair bit of time simply wrapped up in her work, because working was safer than lingering on that desire to seek what was unfulfilled. She had even tried sating the aches on her own with a host of aids. But the fact remained that what she needed could only be found in the seedy underbelly of the world. If she wanted it, truly needed it, she would have to seek it out. It would not seek her.
So she sought out a rundown hell hole that had formerly been a tiny inn on the wrong side of London just past her thirty-fifth birthday. It didn't shock her one whit to find the Madame that had once run the establishment was still holding the reins. If it had shocked the Madame to find a grown up Ginny standing on her steps once more, she hadn't shown it, much to her credit.
Ginny brushed the hands away from her hips as the song ended and moved her way off the floor towards the bar without a backward glance. Her throat was dry and sweat was trickling between her breasts. She lifted a delicate chain from her breast and pulled a small pendant from beneath her corseted top. She turned it over in her palm. The face of the watch glowed as she pressed her finger to the tiny button to the side. With a sly smile, she edged her way onward, slipping the watch back inside her top to rest in the valley between her breasts. If her information was correct, the owner should be arriving at any moment for his evening.
Ginny had been correct in paying a visit to her former Madame. Women like that keep tabs on people; both former working girls like herself and on former clients. She had known more about Ginny when they sat down to talk than she likely knew about herself. Had Ginny not already been familiar with how the woman operated, she might have been frightened. Instead, she knew she was going to have the information she sought, the only question would be at what price. She had been right. Ginny's one and only wizard client was not the house's only wizard client. In fact it seemed that many wizard men had a particular kink for what they referred to as 'dirty muggle blood girls'. While she didn't particular understand it, she was willing to see to the services to any and all so long as they paid and her girls weren't hurt… more than they were willing to be anyway. Ginny had nodded ruefully knowing full well what those men wanted and what sort of men they were to being with. They were the sort that claimed only pureblood women were good enough to marry, to carry on the family lines; the sort of men that had sided with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and led them all into war. Still it was one similar wizard that she needed information on. He was the reason she had come in the first place.
She sidled up to the bar and ordered a double fire whiskey, neat. The bar tender eyed all seven and half stone of her and raised an eyebrow. "Are ye right certain about that miss?" he asked in a deep Scottish lilt. "This must have been your third or fourth of those in the last hour. Those are mighty strong for a wee thing such as yourself, don't you ken?"
She slapped two galleons on the bar in front of her. "Are you suddenly my mum? Pour already."
The bartender gave a slight shake of his head but moved anyway to grab her coins. "Lady, this…" Just as he did a hand reached over her small shoulder and stayed the bartender's hand. "Is there a problem, Gregor?"
Ginny smirked. She would know that voice anywhere. It was impossible to have gone to school with him that many years and have so many personal experiences with him and not recall it almost as well as she knew the sound of her own. She would have to pay a special visit to the Madame to thank her. Her information had been spot on and was well worth what it had cost to acquire. He had arrived almost exactly as the clock struck ten-thirty and the first place he had gone was to the bar to check with his keep.
The barkeep shook his head. "None at all, Drake. The lady's just had a few too many. 'Twas just telling her this would be her last for a while if she be drinking doubles of the hard this eve. She's a sodden wee lass to be throwing back doubles of fire whiskey like its water you ken?"
She felt his hand move to her shoulder and urge her to turn toward him. She knew a caution on drinking too heavily in his establishment was coming until she felt, more than heard, the slight gasp as he saw who was standing face to face with him. She gave him a lilting smirk. "Hello Draco. Long time no see."
"Ginerva." He stood staring at her for a moment. "Pour two of whatever the lady is having and Gregor, don't worry about her tonight. I'll keep her out of trouble." The bartender nodded and turned to make the drinks clearly thinking nothing of his boss taking control of the situation.
"I see you've done well for yourself," Ginny said as she looked at him, taking in all the changes he had made to himself. She didn't know what she had expected. He had come to her in so many ways. Sometimes in his nicest robes, fit to spend a day at the Ministry like a bureaucrat and others in ragged worn clothing that she was certain had never seen the inside of Malfoy Manor. The man before her was so different from the man that had once paid her visits. This man fit the club he stood inside, all dark and sexy, rough around the edges and refined good looks in a pair of dark trousers that looked like they had been molded to his firm thighs. She had almost forgotten how alluring he could be to just look at. He had a charcoal vest on that did nothing to hide how fit he still was.
Anyone who saw him wouldn't have a clue he owned the place. He looked like any one of the couple hundred that were packed like a swarm of bees into every corner of the place. He blended into the masses instead of sticking out and making his position widely known; another very noticeable change. His hair was short and styled into the popular muggle faux hawk. It was something seen almost never among wizards, even among the Hogwarts students if pages of Quibbler and Witch Weekly were to be believed. Then again what did either of those publications actually know about fashion. It looked unbelievably boyish on one hand and roguish on the other. There was a hint of something she remembered in his eyes but she couldn't place a name to what. Those eyes, so light where almost unreal, she had always loved his eyes. She couldn't stop herself from staring. He looked so… she couldn't rightly put it into words.
He cleared his throat. "It was something to distance myself from my past." He let the sentence hang. She didn't need his failures laid out before her; she had lived through them, the same as everyone else had. Still she knew he suffered at the time the same as all the rest. "If I've done well, it's become I've been happy doing it," he said. Gregor sat their drinks down by Ginny's left hand and turned away to help another patron down the bar.
He leaned around her and grabbed his still flaming fire whiskey. "Grab your glass, let's go somewhere a little less crowded," he said as he turned away. She nodded her assent to his back and picked up her glass to follow him.
They wound their way through the grinding crowds to cross the back of the immense open floor; sometimes having to hold her glass aloft to keep from spilling its contents on herself or some unsuspecting patron. Some were huddled together in cliques drinking and carousing, others crowded around tall chair less tables talking loudly in small groups over the din of the music and, her personal favorite, were the absurdly drunk that seemed to throw themselves in her path. She laughed, more than a little tipsy herself, and made her way around them trying to keep pace behind a sober man who was obviously on a mission. They made their way to the closest set of wide metal stairs and worked their way up to a balcony that ran the entire length of the room on either side of the mammoth dance floor. She moved close enough behind him to shout over his shoulder, "Where are we going?"
He tossed his blonde head back and yelled over the music. "You'll see," continuing up without stopping, not even for the girl who was laid out on one of the stairs clearly strung out on more than just alcohol. She thought she saw the slightest shake of his head at having to do so but couldn't tell in the dim light. He raised his right arm and signaled to something, or rather someone that she couldn't see, off in the distance once they made it to the landing. She just barely caught the scarcely visible spark that had shot off from the tip of the wand that was held in that hand when he had done so. In the oddly flashing strobe lights of the club, the tiny light of the spell would blend in. She couldn't help but shake her head at the sheer craftiness of it. Clearly his Slytherin side was up to par.
They moved between dancing couples and couples that clearly had other things to occupy their minds into a far corner. Suddenly Draco stopped and took her right hand in his left, holding it out to the darkened wall. Out of the corner of her eye Ginny noticed the tip of Draco's wand once more poking out of the shirt sleeve of his right wrist, held just below the tip. With a slight shimmer, a whole new section of balcony came suddenly into view. There was no one on it at all. It was as well appointed as the rest of the club had appeared to be but past all the people and clearly hidden from view, looking like a dark empty wall to those who couldn't see past its barrier. "That's some charm," she said to herself.
"You haven't seen the half of it, yet," he said mysteriously. Tossing a glance back at the patrons to see who might be watching, he quickly pulled her into the empty balcony. Moving his hand from her hand to her shoulder, he roughly guided her to turn and face out toward the dance floor. "Look down, but don't walk forward," he said as he sat his drink down on a nearby table. Where the main balcony had solid four foot railings that had to be looked over to see the dance floor below, the empty section had no railings. The floor just stopped, hanging over an infinite mob of people in motion.
She gasped and her eyes grew wide. "You could walk right off and fall onto the dance floor," she said half horrified and half thrilled.
He nodded, "If it wasn't charmed against such recklessness, yes. It was mainly made this way so I could keep an eye on everything at once, if I needed to. It can get dramatic in here at times. I wanted a view that afforded me a sense of being omniscient without being swallowed up by the hangers-on." He sighed. "It's also infinitely quieter here. The wonders of a good sound barrier charm. It doesn't keep it out completely but it muffles it well enough to keep you from going home with a splitting migraine every evening."
With her back still facing him, looking out over the crowd she tiptoed to the side of the open floor. "I think it's safe to say you've achieved dramatic views. I can even see the unworldly line to the loo."
He chuckled. "That's were the worst of our trouble happens wouldn't you know. A few drinks in a jealous woman and she turns into a troll sized bitch." He stepped up beside her, looking out over the crowds. "Why are you here?"
She turned and looked at him. His face was all the same sharp angles it had been, but something in the set of his jaw was different, harder, more defined, than she recalled. Looking back over the crowd she settled on a version of the truth. "I came looking for an escape. A little research and a shopping trip or two later and I had talked myself into seeing if Pulse lived up to the rumors it produced." She turned and walked to an overstuffed black leather chair that sat across from its twin and took a seat. She lifted her nearly forgotten glass to her mouth and gulped half its contents in one go. It burned going down and she reveled in it. It had been so long since anything had left any burn in its wake that she seemed to settle for even the smallest hints of it now.
He lifted an eyebrow but didn't question her drinking habits. "There is a lot of that here. Lots of straight-laced types that let it all hang out for a few hours here, pretending to be something they aren't," he said ominously.
She looked back over the heaving crowd. "Perhaps it's something they are, but can't allow themselves to be or they don't know how to be that all the time."
He watched her speak for a moment before taking a long drink of his own. "Is that what you are now? One of those that can't or doesn't know how? The woman I remember knew exactly how to be what she needed to be."
Ginny smiled ruefully and toyed with her glass. "That was ten years ago; times change and people with it."
He nodded slowly. "You still haven't said why you're here. You can't expect me to believe you wandered into the one club in London that I own by happenstance. I find that less and less likely by the moment."
She laughed darkly. "Irony has a strange way of going about things. I did come here the first time all by my little self. You know this is tame compared to some of my past exploits."
"You said it yourself… past," he interjected.
She made a face that he couldn't quiet place an emotion to but continued despite his interruption. "When it wasn't enough…" She stopped, thought and started again. "When it wasn't exactly what I was looking for I went to the one place that might give me the information I was seeking."
He closed his eyes and breathed in deep. He bloody well knew where she went. He knew the muggle Madame kept tabs on him. She had made it clear, when he first started visiting that particular establishment, that she wasn't unwise to who he was or what he was. She had her ways and she would keep her information up-to-date and mostly private. But for the right price a person could get a bit of that information for themselves if they knew to come looking. Ginny was no one's fool. She would have known to go looking, given their prior history. "Bitch sent you back here."
Ginny smirked and took a drink in answer. "I would have come back eventually one way or another. I'm rather taken with the place. You can get brilliantly lost within yourself after a few rounds of Old Ogden's and all the near orgasmic dancing that goes on down there," she said pointed vaguely toward the dance floor. "It wasn't as lost as I wanted to be, but it got the job mostly done."
He walked as far as he could to the other end of the empty balcony without having to shout past his own spell. "Then why go looking for me? That's what you went back there for wasn't it? I couldn't imagine it was to get back into that business." It took everything he had to not bite out that he had spent enough on her for her to afford to live comfortably for the rest of her life even if she had never gotten a job. Merlin only knew what she had made off her other Johns in that time.
She drank the last sip from her glass and sat it on the low table in front of her knees. "Yes."
He snapped around. "Yes it was to go back to that business? Bloody fuck…"
She jumped up. "No! Not that," she shouted, her feet not quite steady beneath her. "It was for information on you. I wanted to find you. I needed to know if there was anything left of what was between us." Suddenly her stomach turned. "Bugger, this was a bad idea." She grabbed the chair to steady herself for a second, trying to not watch him stare at her. "Look, just forget about it. Forget you ever saw me. Forget I ever set foot in this place. Just forget," she whispered as she turned and headed back towards the main balcony.
She didn't stop when she heard him call her name or stop to look to see who might be looking in the direction of the charmed darkened wall when she half walked, half stumbled from the empty balcony to the crowded one, now even more packed with drunken lovers trying to find a dark corner to snog away the hours before they had to go back to whatever their reality was. Frustrated tears filled her eyes and threatened to spill down her cheeks. Why had she convinced herself that this was such a good idea? That she could find him and reclaim the part of herself that she felt missing so desperately. That was the crux of the situation if ever there was, she thought to herself, as she swiped the back of her hand across her eyes. Desperation.
She thought she heard him call her name once more and fought harder to move her way the last few feet to the door. When had the crowd grown this thick, she thought as she shoved her way past a girl that could have been a dead ringer for Pug-faced Parkinson fifteen years ago.
Finally, she slipped out the door and the cool night air rushed over her overheated skin. She wouldn't come back again. No matter how great the need was, she would not come back. She would make her way home and pretend that this little trip down memory lane was all a figment of her imagination.
She passed the first and second blocks heading out of the side street that led to Pulse unhindered. She would reach the end of the road and turn left towards the tube station at Oxford Circle to grab a seat on the Central line for the long ride back home to Buckhurst Hill. She was far too inebriated to apparate safely without risk of splinching.
Just as she reached the corner and was stepping out to cross the street that marked the third block of her long trek home, a hand slapped on her bare shoulder stopping her in her tracks. She screamed, whipped around, with one hand already on her thigh reaching for her wand where it was safely tucked in a special pocket in the seam of her pants, the other swinging around wildly at the person behind her. Her hand solidly connected with the Draco's arm, blocking her from smacking him in the face.
"Bloody fuck woman. First you march your arse into my establishment making a fuss at the bar, in an attempt to get to me I believe, then you run out on me, then you aim to hit me like a crazed banshee. Should I prepare to protect my manhood from your next assault?"
She gaped at him. "You assaulted me! I was protecting myself."
He lifted an eyebrow. "If stopping you from running was assault, then think what you will witch."
She puffed up. "Then why did you stop me if I'm such a bother? You should have let me go on about my way." She wrenched her shoulder from his grasp and turned back toward to her goal. The tube station was only five blocks away. She could get that far before she broke down and rehashed the lost cause she had chased like a lost firstie.
He shook his head and followed her. When he caught up to her, he grabbed her wrist and guided her into a darkened alley between the next two buildings. Listening to her pathetic attempts to tell him to leave her alone, he stood looking at her skeptically. She no more wanted that then he actually wanted to follow in his father's footsteps as a boy. Stubborn bent that she was just couldn't go about anything the easy way.
Giving up on her shutting up on her own, he pushed her up against the rough brick walls, pinning her arms beside her head and roughly pressed his lips to her open mouth. The taste of whiskey and something completely her teased his senses as his lips claimed hers. She didn't even fight back, her mouth instantly acquiesced to his, giving him the power over her he was seeking. He slipped his tongue along her bottom lip and into her willing mouth. Tongues battled against one another, licking, tasting and suckling. He pulled his tongue back and nipped roughly at her bottom lip before sucking it into his mouth. She moaned against his mouth, deep, hungry. Her hips lifted from against the wall, seeking his; stopped only by the thigh that found its way between her spread legs forcing pressure against her heated core. He used his thigh to press her arse back against the wall and ground his thigh into her making her moan deeper. He nipped one last time at her lip, almost hard enough to break skin before breaking the kiss.
He smirked at her; eyes closed, head tossed back again the rough brick, looking half drunk and half used. She always had looked so beautiful after their time together. He had nearly forgotten. "You always were easy to shut up, Ginny. If I couldn't get you to mind your manners and shut up, I could always force you to do it." Brown eyes snapped open, staring into gray. "You couldn't think I was going to let you come back into my life, make that sort of announcement, and then let you walk back out again?"
Clearly he hadn't figured the alcohol into the situation or perhaps it was the fact that he was still holding her firmly to the wall, with no sign of giving her an out but it loosened her tongue in that moment and all that came with it was venom.
She wrenched her arms in his hands, scrapping her wrists against the brick trying vainly to escape his grasp. She never had been able to break away from him. He had always enjoyed that fact. "That's what you did to me, you sodden bastard," she spit. "You came into my magic-free side life and turned it on its head, spoiling me for everyone but you, make a grand announcement in the midst of something great, then dropped of the buggerin' face of the earth, you prick." She slumped back, settling for not getting away from him. Instead she kicked at him, one booted foot connected with his shin in a weak attempt at giving him a taste of the pain she felt so many years past. Tears pooled at the corners of her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. In all the times he had made her cry, this was one of the few times he hadn't meant to do so.
He let her hands go and quickly gathered her in his arms. "I didn't do it to hurt you, Ginny. I was trying to not hurt you." Her hands balled into fists and pounded into his chest and she cried into his shirt. He turned her around so his back was to the wall and slid down it, pulling her into his lap as he sat. Her fists unclenched long enough to curl into his shirt and grip it as if holding on for dear life. How many times had he held her like this after they had played? How many times had he held her while she cried; tears of sadness, pain, fear, violent remembrance, happiness, joy, freedom, understanding… love? If there was an emotion, she had experienced it in some way between them during their times together and he had never left her without allowing her to come down from it until that last time. The time he let himself share his own, he left her. He was a bleeding cad. It was a wonder she didn't issue his memory to the depths of hell and forget she had ever known him.
Her tears faded to whimpers before she spoke again. "You did an awful job of not hurting me..." She let the sentence hang. There was no need to explain further. No need to add further cutting words.
He nodded into the darkness. "I see that now, but at the time it seemed for the best. It was obvious why you hadn't walked away from the business. I knew in some way I was holding you to something that would eventually destroy you. I couldn't do that to you." He leaned his chin on the top of her head. "I cared too much about you."
She looked up at him, "You could have asked. I would have walked away from it if you had just said something instead of walking away."
He shook his head. "To what Ginny? You would have walked away from what was paying your bills for an ex-would-be Death Eater that everyone you care about hates, that couldn't offer you anything at the time except money? I had that in spades but nothing else. No respect, no name to rely on, very little family support," he bit out. "You deserved more than I could have given you. Money and a satisfying, if dangerous, sex life does not make a life whole. You would have been lonely and angry within months. I know. I always was then. I couldn't let you join me on that road even once I knew you had long since decided to stay with the job as long as I kept on visiting."
She slid out of his lap, pulling her legs up close to her body. "How could you have possibly known that?"
He gave her a knowing look. "The same way you found me now. Meddling old cunt. The Madame always did know everyone better than we seemed to know ourselves. She sent word one day that I should begin to distance myself. You were starting to take less and less clients. A day would come when you would end your contract with her on good terms. She would be happy to find me another to entertain my personal kinks if I so desired but the fact remained you were on the way out. It would be three years before I walked away and you finally said no more."
She dropped her chin to her knees. "I cut back on clients after the first year. I had paid almost all of my tuition and had begun to look for an apprentice position for the following. I needed the time free to study and I knew I could afford the change."
"It was only logical. You knew why you got in the business; you knew why you would have to get out of it."
She gave a sad laugh. "Charms work doesn't pay nearly so well. Still I've managed to hang onto most of what I walked away with."
He laughed despite the topic. "I'm not surprised." They sat silently for a while before he once again broke the silence. "Why try to find me now?"
She smiled sadly. "In the most basic of terms, I missed you. I moved on. I left the job the next day and went full ahead into my studies. I looked like Hermione for a while, my head always in a book or research for several projects I had in mind for the apprentice position I had at the time. It's incredibly easy to immerse yourself into work when one has something they don't want to think about. Charms had never seemed so interesting. I didn't move on from my apprenticeship position a full year after you left even though I had my Masters in it for most of that year. I insisted on staying until I was finally told they couldn't teach me anymore, they were only holding me back. I even dated on and off. But let's call a spade, a spade. When everyone is measured up to Draco Malfoy, they are all going to come away wanting for something. I gave up on that after a few years. It just felt like a waste of time."
He couldn't help but smirk. "Not everyone can be this good looking pet."
She laughed. "None of them are." She fiddled with the hem of her shirt. "I tried a few times to achieve that state of bliss we always found together. It's fun sure, but there is no connection and there are certain limitations that even magic can't overcome without a second person there to aid the situation."
His eyebrows lifted. "Did my little charms mistress attempt to make magic to help her have better solo sex?" He could tell even in the dark that her cheeks were stained a pleasant shade of pink. "You did," he exclaimed. "What I would have given to have been one of Loony's invisible creatures to get a view of those experiments," he said with a laugh.
She looked down. "Some perhaps, not all. Some went bad. There are a few new scars from those that aren't the sort you want to explain to Aurors. No one will ever know what some of those spells are capable of. It was not the intent meant behind them at all," she said as she unconsciously rubbed at her left wrist.
He grabbed her left arm and pulled it to him, roughly pushing up her shirt sleeve. He knew almost ever scar on her. Mostly because she had always refused to take those blasted healing potions he took the time to brew before visiting her once things grew to the point where they were needed. There was a thick ring of mangled scar tissue two inches thick around her wrist. It was not his. It was not from one of the others she had been with at the time. "How?"
"It was supposed to be a binding charm, meant to provide the feeling of freezing or heated manacles around your wrists, ankles, so forth without actually transfiguring the manacles from something else since a temperature charm on those wouldn't have been as stable. As it turned out, the temperature charm isn't at all stable on the non-conjured variety either. No matter what I did, I always ended up with that. I left the scar on purpose as a reminder that some very innocent things can be deadly. It could be fun if used lightly in trusting hands, if it worked, but could you imagine the damage they could do in the wrong hands with the temperature charms so out of control that they did that in seconds every time?" she asked.
His thumb rubbed over the tormented skin. He knew exactly what someone with ill intent could do with a spell like that. He was so glad she was the sort of woman willing to guard its very creation from the sort that would have used it for those evil ideas. "You didn't create it to harm anyone. I'm not blind. Even I can see that you're still too Gryffindor for that sort of reckless violence."
She gave a hollow laugh. He let go of her wrist as she started to pull against him. She tugged her sleeve back down. "Reckless. Isn't that your very definition of Gryffindor? I would never have had any sort of feelings for you at all if I wasn't reckless. I was reckless the day I wandered off into muggle London to Christmas shop without a clue where I was going and no muggle money left on me to get back to the Leaky. I was reckless to take the offer that would land me a working girl. I was reckless to accept a client I knew was a wizard when I had been avoiding the ones that came through the house. I was reckless to let things between us develop past a business transaction. I was reckless in every little thing we did together, reckless in letting you go, and then reckless in daring to try and find you again. It might as well be my life's motto. I've had more practice at it than that, of course, but that covers the last several years, give or take."
"Why did you come find me now, Ginny? What made you say, 'enough is enough' and hunt for me after ten years? I could have been married with a pair of blonde haired Malfoy kids dodging my every step by now. What made you opt for reckless one more time to risk finding me? What made you miss me so much to cause you do to do that? I just don't understand." He didn't miss her lift her eyes just a little and the gleam sparkling in them when he all but announced he was still single and heirless.
"Because I had to know if I had been comparing every man I met to a rose coloured memory of a man that didn't exist anymore. Or was there some chance in the universe that I could get him and what I felt back. There was something deep inside that kept my faith alive. I fell in love with you when I knew I shouldn't and then you told me your had feelings for me and I couldn't let it go. How do you let something like that go? I had to know if you still felt the same way."
"I wish you hadn't waited ten years," he replied with a smirking grin.
She laughed. "I always was awfully stubborn. It takes me a while to figure things out sometimes. It took a year of you demanding things in our meetings for me to understand that was the part I liked the best after all."
He stood up and dusted himself off. He had the urge to burn the clothes he was wearing in the grate when he got home after sitting in that alley for the better part of an hour with Merlin only knows what on the ground around him. He shook it off and leaned down over her, his mouth dangerously close to her ear. "Then perhaps you need to pick yourself up and come along. We have time to make up for don't you think," he whispered darkly.
finite incantatem