Author's Notes: I bet you all thought I dropped of the face of the planet. Actually, I probably did for a little while. Anyway, this is a one-shot, very random, and very short. But it was an idea that popped up. I'm not completely happy with it yet, so I might still make changes to it; I just wanted to put it up there. Please review!
Residue
There was nothing special about her at all.
She was not beautiful, or even somewhat pretty. Merlin, she didn't even have the remotely interesting characteristic of being ugly. Ginny Weasley was just…sort of…there.
Her hair was a nice color, he guessed; a rusty copper that had tendencies to bounce and behave on occasion.
However, for the most part, it lay there. Flat, and almost lank in a messy ponytail.
'She was probably born in a stupid ponytail,' Draco thought.
He admired her slender body from afar.
Not because it was unbelievably arousing, but just because it was there.
Really, he just wanted her to turn around; so he could see her –
Oh, there they were.
There they are, he thought.
Flat, and boring, like her stupid hair. However sometimes, like just then, they were the most fascinating things he had ever seen.
Her eyes.
Merlin.
Draco's breathing hitched a little.
Her eyes were sometimes a muddy brown; and the dullness they sometimes portrayed revealed nothing more than lackluster marbles.
Now, though, they were how he wanted them. Still muddy brown, but implausibly deep. They tried to hide a darkness that everyone already knew about, but that she was unwilling to give freely. There was gloom in her twin orbs. Chambers with a lock she swallowed in her irises, that no one could reach.
But what he loved most, was enraptured with and trapped inside of, was the emotion in them.
Raw, dripping pain.
Oh, it was delicious.
He could care less if it was a rather psychopathic tendency to delight in someone's inner turmoil, but he was dying.
Well, not literally, but she could kill him with that look. And like the masochist he was, he would enjoy it. Lap it up like a good boy, and wait salivating and impatient for more.
She could possibly teach him something new about that stinging emotion, pain. And that was saying something. She could impale him with her words and her eyes and love it. Never love him, of course. But what the hell would he want that for anyway?
A steady gaze fixed upon him, Ginny walked along the corridor to where Draco was standing.
The wall where the hourglass of each house determined their fate at the end of the year was forgotten. A few rocks fell into the Slytherin hourglass. Somewhere, Snape was being altruistic, or maybe a Slytherin did a good deed.
Right.
He waited for her, seemingly aloof, but with tautness in his face. His hands were clenched in fists, but loosened as she approached. He did not bother to hide the fact that he was ogling her and she noticed.
"A picture would last much longer," she said.
"I'm surprised you still care about House Points," said Draco, ignoring her comment. His eyes were transfixed on her own.
Ginny relaxed against the wall, imitating Draco's detachment.
"Well, of course they don't matter to you; you'll be graduating this year. What would you care about a banner and a load of points for?"
He nodded. "What for indeed."
There was a pause. 'She'll want to speak first,' thought Draco. 'I'll be polite.'
"I didn't think you liked me," said Ginny bluntly.
So much for manners.
Draco's mouth twitched. "I don't."
"I know you don't."
He gave her a look that was clearly questioning whether she was in the right frame or not for any type of conversation.
"Then why did you ask?"
"I knew you were going to respond in the negative. I wanted to see if you would be honest."
Draco's eyebrow rose.
"You came over here to ask me a question that you knew the answer to, so that you could tell me I was lying."
"Yes! Wait, no…I only meant…"
Draco came closer.
"What do you mean?"
"I only meant…that…I wanted to ask you something, even though I knew you would lie; just to see if you'd tell the truth."
"That still made absolutely no sense."
"If you'd just listen to me – "
"I would if you were saying anything of importance. Don't waste my time." He began to walk away.
"I wanted to know why you watch me all of the time!" she burst. "I came to ask you to…please stop looking at me," she said.
It was completely random and almost amusing in its childlike recalcitrance that Draco would have laughed had he not seen her small hands shaking.
Of course he wasn't going to leave.
"I know you watch me. All the time. And I…you don't understand how it makes me feel…"
There was no doubt that she was flustered, and was not sure of what she wanted to say. But instead of being flushed, she was pale as death, pale as him. Their likeness spurred him on.
"Yes, I do," he spoke.
Draco stepped forward so that he was right in front of Ginny. He stooped a little, just enough to look at her directly in the face. He could feel little puffs of her breath on his lips. Maybe she was scared. How exciting.
"You don't," Ginny rejoined. "You shouldn't even try. I promised myself long ago that only someone I loved would have that right. And believe me when I say you're clearly out of the running."
She wanted to be obstinate? In that case he would play with her.
How naïve she was.
"What if I told you I loved you, then?" he whispered.
It was dangerous for something so pure to have eyes of evil. All they needed was a little provocation…
Ginny stepped back angrily. "You don't! You like what you see inside of me, what could erupt at any time. You want to corrupt me because it would be easy, and part of me would want it. God, what you could do to me…and what I'd allow…" She tapered off. "But you couldn't love me."
"I could learn," said Draco quickly. He would break her; she had all but admitted that at least a part of her would not fight. What a child, he thought. She doesn't even know what she wants.
Ginny shook her head. "Only you would love someone to hurt them."
"You would hurt me as well," he countered. "I see it in you –"
Ginny covered her eyes, ashamed of what could be seen, and no sooner did Draco grab her wrists and hold them fast.
"Doesn't it haunt you to not answer the need? It will call you forever."
Whispers in the dark…
Why, hello again, Virginia.
A warm, warm smile.
Hello, Tom.
Ginny shut her eyes. "Don't you dream about it? Revel in it as you lie in your Gryffindor sheets? Pain. It pulsates within you, and you can't forget it, you can't push it away. I see it, even if no one else does –"
"I feel it!" Ginny shouted, looking at Draco again. "You don't need to tell me," she spat. "It bites at my heels, and tears my flesh away, a little more each night. And sometimes, I'd like to give in. I think of you watching me, and what you want of me, and I almost do. It hurts. You want me because you like seeing something inside of me that is all you are. Something like that inside of someone like me; I bet you're so entertained by that. You get off on it, don't you?" Her eyes glittered.
"You enjoy it, and that disgusts me."
Draco snorted derisively, and Ginny looked at him in the eye.
"Do you fancy that our common pain creates some sort of kinship between us? A bond? You won't admit that I will never come to you because you're just a lost little boy yourself. You're very alone and you're lonely. And you'd like a toy. That's all it is."
Draco scoffed, and Ginny pulled her wrists away from his firm hold, her tone softening unwillingly.
One could be only so cruel to the tormented – the fellow tormented.
Good evening, Young Malfoy.
Good evening, my Lord.
"What I see in you is someone who I would be if I gave into evil, into pain. But I don't have that in me, Draco…"
"Liar," he whispered. "It's obvious that you do. It's splayed all over your beautiful eyes."
Ginny drew back.
Such beautiful eyes you have, Virginia.
Blush.
Thank you, Tom.
"What you see is only a nightmare, seeping into the day. What's different about the two of us though, is that I will never succumb to it. I know that I'll wake up, barely breathing, and choking in my own pain, but I'll wake up."
"Because you're afraid," Draco bit out.
This is your life now, Draco. It has been marked.
"You won't try because you're weak," Ginny retorted.
There was silence. The world could have been at war, and the two of them would have stayed like that, together.
Draco sneered at Ginny. "So will do you do? Try and forget about it, like a good little girl? He will always be there; as will I, Virginia. Voldemort has long since forged your path. There's no need to dream for anything else."
Sweet dreams, Virginia.
Only if you're there, Tom.
She just shook her head very slightly, and looked very sad, but unapologetic.
"No," she said. "No. Those are your dreams. I'm finished with that." She turned away from him, seconds away from leaving. "I've left those behind. And you with them," she whispered. "Goodbye, Draco."
Ginny's light footsteps clipped the floor as she walked away. Her knee length skirt swished faintly around her pale legs, and she stepped into a spot of light. There was someone coming her way. And her face briefly remained in shadow as she craned her neck to see who was at the end of the hallway – Harry, Salvation.
Draco watched her eventually laugh aloud at something the dark haired boy said. Harry hugged her close to chase away the shadows, creating a charged awareness present for lovers. They walked away together; Salvation and Redemption.
And gradually, Draco could no longer recognize her. There was now sun shining onto her smile, and her cheeks reddened. Her dark eyes seemed to glow, dimming the pain. She was very much out of his reach, although he had held her just moments ago.
Draco wondered what he felt about that. Sadness, maybe?
He searched for the emotion, but it wasn't there. It was buried deep within him, and had yet to be released. All he felt was a tinge of regret that she saved such beautiful eyes for someone so seemingly undeserving, who could not appreciate all she could be; the bad alongside the good. Ginny wanted neither, she only wanted the happy.
How boring.
This is your life now, Draco, it has been marked.
All the same, Draco supposed that she and Harry would get married one day, and Harry would be good to her.
They would have children, and Ginny would forget about him, if she hadn't already.
She would like that, Draco thought. Redemption, Salvation.
It was still a shame.
Something inside of him shifted, only a little, but it happened. And so he admitted that maybe he was a little sad.
But these things pass by, he said to himself.
And they eventually fade; drip away like droplets on a windowpane.
Sometimes.
Perhaps it would stay there and just linger under the recesses of his consciousness, as clear wax runs quickly down the side of a candle; only to harden and build up at the bottom. It might end up being a thought for him to forget until he was utterly broken down, and in the introspective and private moment before death, he could admit that he had loved her, in his own way.
Draco liked the idea. It was melodramatic, and probably silly. But it had enough pain and beauty behind it to still be real.
He decided to put it away until that moment before darkness, for safe keeping.
And maybe for sweet dreams.
* * * * * *
Please review!
~Femme.