Disclaimer: Not mine.

A/N: I'm surprised if you're reading this piece, I thought it had been so long everybody had given up on me. This might be my last, I don't do fanfiction so much anymore, but I'm not making any promises. (; Also, I'm sorry to anybody who was expecting a Harry/Ginny. I love H/G with a passion, but I felt like I was limiting myself just because it's my favorite. I hope that you'll try this anyway, it isn't too gushy for you HG-ers, it's more of a sad, morbid piece, kind of the way I'm feeling. I guess it's hard for me to write the fluff I used to, when I wrote those I really didn't have a whole lot of experiences myself with relationships, and now that I have nothing seemed to go so right and I realized that not everything ended happily-ever-after with true love and the perfect kiss. So I've started writing more original, deeper kind of stuff (not fanfiction) and that's why this might be my last work you'll see here, it's not my best but I didn't have a plot to go on.So have a heart, write a review, tell me the honest brutal truth. (:

Huggles,

Hannah

She was sitting by the lake, her hair blowing in a wild frenzy around her as she stared straight ahead. He didn't say anything, he only stood there looking at the back of her as she tossed rocks into the lake.

"What do you want?" she asked, and her voice wasn't hard and cold and icy like before. It was soft and lonely, as though she didn't want to waste the energy to manipulate her words to make them vicious.

"I wanted to see you," he said, and she looked up at him, not quite at him but past him. Her eyes were glazed, and she looked so small and fragile, like she wasn't quite there, as though she would slip away any second. He tried to touch her shoulder, but she flinched and pulled her legs into her chest, wrapping her arms around her patched jeans. As though she were afraid of something, as though she were afraid of him.

"I wouldn't hurt you Ginny," he said, struggling to find the words he wanted.

"Too late," she whispered bitterly, the sentence vile on her own tongue.

"I didn't know it was Percy, I never would have-"

"So, if it had been somebody else's brother it would have been okay?"

Draco didn't have an answer, so he paused and turned to leave, not having anything else to say and not wanting to watch the sad, sharpness of her features. His fault. She rotated as he turned to leave and lightly grabbed his hand. Draco's hands were always cold, and he loved to hold Ginny's, let their warmth seep into his, but today hers were even colder. He squeezed her small pale fingers once, and she finally met his eyes, grey on brown.

Without breaking the gaze, she reached behind her neck and unclasped a chain, slowly pulling it from inside her jumper. On it was a ring, silver with tiny chips of diamond. She had found it in her book bag not long after they had said their first civil words to each other. He wouldn't admit he had given it to her, but she knew he had, because on the inside of the slim band was a deep 'M' engraved into the metal. It was just as well that he did not admit he had given it, because she would never admit to having received it, and instead it stayed under the folds of her robe, pressing against her chest like some secret she alone knew. It had been there for nearly a year, it's presence searing into her skin, and it felt strange to take it off.

"Here," she whispered, and she felt tears welling in the corners of her eyes but refused to let them spill outside their barriers.

"I never gave that to you," he replied, but they both knew the truth. "But even if it was me… I would want you to keep it." He let the ring glide off the silver chain and onto the palm of his hand, sliding it onto Ginny's finger. She trembled at wearing it; she had kept it all this time and never tried it on, as though feeling it around her finger would solidify something that she was half convinced did not exist.

And they looked at each other one more time before he left, because they both knew that there wouldn't be a next time. And then he was alone, and he felt the words he wanted to say echo in his head. I love you, Ginny…

But he wouldn't say them. Love breeds weakness, and Malfoys aren't weak. Malfoys don't love.

She is running outside, and the sun is in her eyes. She's laughing, and a small child with gleaming black hair with chocolate on his cheeks and freckles on his nose is trying to catch her. Her husband is sitting in a rocking chair, watching and smiling. The child falls on his hands, and starts to cry until she bends over to pick him up. There is a gold wedding band on her finger, but as she bends something slips out of her summer blouse, a silver chain with a glint of diamond. She glances around and tucks it back into her shirt, making sure nobody has seen before she rocks the squalling toddler as she walks back to her husband to set the child on his lap. They are in love, it's obvious from the way they look at each other, and the thought hurts Draco. But she is laughing again, and it feels like, as he walks back to get his broom, it is worth it just to see her happy. And he whispers that he loves her as he flies away, and wishes it wasn't too late to tell her.