La douleur exquise
Author's note: « La douleur exquise » is a French expression with no exact English translation. It literally translates as "the exquisite pain," however, it refers to the pain of unrequited love. A better explanation would be the pain of wanting someone you know you can't have, someone out of reach. It is heart-wrenching, but addictive, which is why "unrequited love" doesn't quite capture the meaning. Unrequited love refers to a relationship state, while « la douleur exquise » refers more to the state of mind.
Also, pardon any mistakes in French, as it is only my second language. Thanks to AnastasiaDreams for being my sounding board and beta.
This story is the result of binge-reading anything on the Kennedys and Alexander Hamilton, as well as listening to the Hamilton cast recording for hours on end. I wanted to capture a sense of greatness in its infancy.
Written for writerdragonfly at the DG Forum for the winter 2016 exchange. This story won for "best fanfiction overall," "best chaptered fic," and "mod's pick."
Disclaimer: I do not own HP.
Prologue: we'll always have Paris
So this is what it feels like to match wits
With someone at your level! What the hell is the catch? It's
The feeling of freedom, of seein' the light
It's Ben Franklin with a key and a kite! You see it right?
~ Satisfied, lyrics and composition by Lin-Manuel Miranda for Hamilton the Musical
He's always been more her brother's enemy. Ginny can almost count on one hand their interactions before the War. She's pitied him in the past … Well, maybe not always. But she's felt the burn of standing too close to Darkness. It leaves a mark that never entirely erases, even when the Dark Mark begins to fade.
He's never been her enemy, but she never imagines that one day he would be her friend.
Ginny meets him again in Paris, of all places. He stops in the Delacour boulangerie in Montparnasse, near the Wizarding district one morning. She's in the first year of her apprenticeship and only just grasping the language.
Malfoy rattles off a complicated order in rapid French, if only to see her struggle to follow. When she tries to clarify in English, he persists in French, smirking in that old way of his that takes her back to Hogwarts immediately. She flushes and responds in clipped tones, daring Malfoy to mock her accent.
He doesn't.
He shows up the next morning for a repeat performance, taking pleasure in her awkwardness even if he doesn't mock her for it. Ginny almost wishes that he did. She'd know how to act then and she could probably get away with a hex or two.
Before she knows it, this becomes routine. Sometimes he stops by during the lunch hour, and once or twice, she accepts his offer of lunch with confusion. It isn't nice. Malfoy's never nice, but somehow it isn't awkward either. It takes her a few weeks to realise that he is lonely for something familiar from home. Even if it is a Weasley.
She feels strangely buoyed, like she's finally got her sea legs after floundering for months in this foreign, sophisticated city.
One afternoon when the boulangerie is slow, Monsieur Delacour lets her go early, urges her to explore the city. "Faire une flânerie," he says. Take a walk. Ginny wanders around Montparnasse, feeling lonely. After growing up in the crowded Burrow, she isn't yet used to so much time alone. She can't be one of those flâneurs, idling, walking about aimlessly.
Inside the Wizarding bookstore La Literati, she Floos to the 8th arrondissement, where the British Embassy is located on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. A small, nondescript false archway serves as the Wizarding entrance. In the distance, she sees the tricolour flying above the entrance gate of the Élysée Palace.
She watches a few people pass through the stone archway as schoolchildren passed through the platform of 9 ¾ at King's Cross in London. It's almost three and Malfoy will shortly introduce the British Ambassador for an important speech. Which he had complained about in spades that morning in the boulangerie as she served him fresh coffee and pain au chocolat.
"I do all the work and Marlowe gets all the credit," he fumed.
She sat down and watched him thumb through his notes. "Well, now you know how that feels, eh Malfoy?"
"She doesn't even speak French," was his answer.
"Non!"
He didn't reply, but she watched a slow smile tug at the corners of his mouth.
Ginny doesn't know why she has carefully stored away that information nor why she stands in front of the Embassy door and watches people pass by and through the archway. But the thought of that slow smile, the enormous pile of parchments propels her forwards.
She enters behind another couple murmuring about the Ambassador's expected announcement. She catches some of the words and follows them to a conference room. Ginny hides in the back and watches Malfoy shift papers at the podium and consult other officials as the press files in. He looks amazingly official … and good, if she is honest with herself.
Malfoy begins the speech in French, an accent so clear that no one could have guessed English to be his first language. He is natural and confident, even charming. He has a way with public speaking that she's never experienced in person. When he introduces Ambassador Marlowe, there is a distinctive drop in the crowd's energy as the ambassador begins her rehearsed speech on the normalisation of Anglo-French economic and diplomatic relations after the War.
Ginny doesn't hear a word. There is a funny sort of fluttering in her chest. She flattens herself along the wall in order to move to his side of the room, positioning herself so that he may see her and know that someone appreciates his hard work. Though she hardly knows why. They aren't friends. Exactly.
His eyes catch hers and she swears he goes still. Or maybe she does.
Her heart does a strange little boom.
She stays for the entire conference, and watches Malfoy navigate the press, take complicated questions that Marlowe seems ill equipped to answer. He pulls dense ideas into simple explanations in both languages with an ease that makes her appreciate his intelligence for the first time in their acquaintance. Afterwards, when the crowd dissipates, and there is only a handful of people milling about, congratulating themselves on a successful presser, Malfoy approaches her. He doesn't say anything about surprise, so she doesn't feel the need to explain herself.
"Let's get dinner," he says, placing a hand at the small of her back, guiding her to the door. And there it goes again. Her heart. Boom.
They have coq au vin at a small place near his flat, a posh old building in the Wizarding end of Le Marais, and far from the Delacours' home in the Faubourg St. Antoine. He surprises her again, having expected him to prefer an exclusive restaurant, but this is comfort food, like Madame Delacour serves for leisurely weekend meals. It's almost disappointing, because Ginny could mock him for gourmet meals at three-starred Michelin restaurants, for something so plainly stereotypical and touristy for his set. But, she has the sinking feeling that Draco Malfoy is nothing like she's ever expected.
At his knowing smirk, she realises that he likes surprising her. It's different from the mocking, disdainful smirks she knew at school and she doesn't mind it. Perhaps that's most surprising of all.
They are still served in a private dining area and served the best wines. It's disconcerting, like they can smell the money on him, but the waiters are somehow not obsequious.
"This, I could get used to," she says, taking another sip and savouring the rich, velvet smoothness of the red wine. "What is it?"
"Were you not listening to the sommelier at all?" An eyebrow raised, amused. At school, she'd been mortally offended by that eyebrow on occasion. Then, it had been so disdainful and she'd never met anyone so capable of packing that much disdain into their eyebrow. It made her irritated and envious. Except now – well, it just somehow highlights the handsome lines of his features. Aristocratic, her batty old aunt Muriel would say.
It's the first time that Ginny ever recognises why so many girls at Hogwarts had mooned over him. She takes another hurried sip to hide her sudden and inexplicable embarrassment at her thoughts. Malfoy's staring at her strangely and she realises that she has neglected to respond to him at all. Note to self, she thinks, stop being a mooning teenaged girl. At nineteen, she should be past that.
"No," she admits. "I wasn't listening." If there is a butter dish anywhere in their vicinity, Ginny is sure that her elbow will find it before the end of dinner.
"So your complete inattention extends to the other side of the counter as well?" He grins. That is strangely appealing too.
"I have no idea what you mean."
"Sure Weasley."
She flushes. She cannot understand why her mental faculties seem to have deserted her just because Malfoy looks pretty in the candlelight.
The waiter appears to silently refill their glasses.
"It's a Dugat-Py burgundy by the way," he answers her earlier question.
Ginny nearly chokes. "Dugat-Py?" No wonder it's so good. "But that's –"
"Don't worry about it, Weasley. I invited you, I'm paying," he says shortly.
He doesn't seem to like attention being called to price or payment. It probably offends his aristocratic sensibilities. Somehow, this detail shores up her bearing and her eyes narrow. This is familiar ground. It's easier to be irritated with him, even if it is an unreasonable irritation. "Why did you invite me?"
"I was hungry and you were there?"
"Charming," she snorts. "So you would have invited anyone who happened to be near you?"
Malfoy considers her for a moment, his hand poised over his glass. "You are being very strange, Ginevra."
Ginny flushes at the use of her given name. She likes the way it sounds in his dulcet clipped tones. Like it is a sophisticated name and a Weasley is never sophisticated. "I just want you to admit that you apparently enjoy spending time with a Weasley."
"You are very sure of yourself." She expects him to scoff, but he seems amused.
"Perhaps," she concedes.
"But, that will never happen."
"Never say never."
"How original." He rolls his eyes.
"Maybe not original, but it's true," she says loftily. "I'll get you to admit it." She cocks her head to the side, grinning. "You may not know it yet, but no one can resist me for long, Draco."
She swears that he murmurs something at that, though she cannot catch the words, so she nudges him playfully beneath the table. His eyebrow arches perfectly again, sparking a pang of want through her chest.
"Are you playing footsie with me?"
She flushes again. Damn him. "No!"
Malfoy laughs softly.
Suddenly, Ginny is certain that one of her firmest and most immediate goals in life is to embarrass him. She snorts, then giggles. She wants to blame this uncharacteristic giddiness on the wine, except she hasn't had that much to drink.
"This is strange," she concludes.
He nods, "yes it is," and downs his glass.
Sometimes they argue, because they wouldn't be a Malfoy or a Weasley if they didn't argue. But, a new but startling awareness encroaches upon her vision of Malfoy. She sees greatness in him, a tiny spark germinating, and it thrills through her. She's not surprised when he tells her that one day he will be Minister for Magic. Not that he wants to be – but that he will be. He wants power, but he wants to change the world too. He doesn't tell her this, but she sees this too.
She tells him about working with the Delacours, how she loves French cooking and baking and pastry, and wants to open her own boulangerie in Diagon Alley one day. It seems prosaic after his own dreams, but he listens. Intently. He has a talent for that.
If anyone were to tell schoolgirl Ginny that she'd be sitting across from Draco Malfoy at dinner willingly and enjoying herself, she would have hexed them. Probably with the Bat Bogey hex several times over. She almost wants to pinch or hex herself now. This being friendly with a Malfoy is not very Weasleyish at all, but she doesn't exactly feel like a Weasley around him.
And it's the most fun she's had since arriving in Paris.
It's very late when Malfoy walks her back to his flat so that she can Floo directly to the Delacours. It's a strangely gentlemanly behaviour she does not expect from him. She turns back to him before stepping into his oversized fireplace.
"Ready to admit that you enjoyed spending time with a Weasley?"
His answering smirk looks more like a smile. "Not yet."
"See you tomorrow, Draco," she says, watching him lean against the wall, his hands in his pockets. The thought that she will see him in the morning makes her smile softly to herself.
"Goodnight, Ginevra."
Ginny isn't sure why, but she never mentions Seamus, her boyfriend. When Seamus shows up to visit the next time that the Daily Prophet sends him to cover an exhibition game between the Appleby Arrows and the Parisian Buteurs, she watches Seamus and Malfoy circle each other, surprised by their antagonism. Malfoy has never been Seamus's enemy either.
Kyla's Prompt #2
Basic premise: Ginny is not pining, okay? She's just... respectfully admiring from a distance. It might only be the two meter distance between their flats, but still. (Or: Ginny and Draco become neighbors, then friends. Only, she's totally in love and he's totally oblivious.)
Must haves: Pining!Ginny, Oblivious!Draco, a shared pet, and established Draco & Ginny friendship. Post Hogwarts.
No-no's: Child death, cheating.
Rating range: Any. ;)
Bonus points: Equally Pining!Draco. Draco working in a non-conventional field. Family matchmaking.