Title: Fallen

Pairing: Draco/Ginny

Author: Gwendolyn

Rating: G

E-mail: simplypumpkinpieyahoo.com

Feedback: Any comments would be greatly appreciated.

Disclaimer: All characters belong to Jo Rowling. I'm only borrowing them.

Summary: Can he let go of his past to start a new future with her? One- shot.

How the mighty have fallen. Those words flashed in his weary mind as he stood outside the door, the twisted and devastating events of the past fleeting hours twirling about in a successive and seemingly perpetual loop, causing a sickness to develop in the depths of his gut. Shivering, his brain attempted to reason whether it was rain and frigid midnight air whirling around him, or the coldness of his own soul that caused the reaction. A soul, that stood here now, casting aside its former existence, laying bare the purity of emotion, as its fate lay in the hands of the small whisp of a girl that lay just beyond the corridor before him.

Mere hours ago his flame-haired spitfire had been in his presence, wrapped in his arms oblivious to the harsh reality of the world surrounding them. Lost in their own space, in each other, in the emotions firing through their veins, in the very core of their beings, pulling them together across the seemingly unfathomable gap that society and family had placed between them and momentarily allowing them to cross that shaky bridge that lead them to one another.

Yet all that had been destroyed, leaving the passage in crumbled, irreparable ruins, destroyed by the repercussions of his foolish pride. How simple-minded he had been, so foolish to believe for even but a moment that their opinions of him were more important than his flooding emotions for that woman. Feelings that flowed through him with such indescribable force, steering him in all directions, living him so dazed and dizzy that he scarcely realized when he had crashed upon the shores of love. Yes, love. Only too late had he discovered the truth. And now his light, the only illumination in the blackness of his heart had burned out and left him alone in the shadows, without even the faintest glimmer of hope to hold onto.

He was hollow; his insides ripped and ravaged leaving nothing but and vacant shell of the man that once existed. His pride, which he had clung to so desperately, he was here to shed and leave upon her doorstep, for the emotions swimming about in his head were too unfathomably deep to dismiss. At that moment, he would have unhesitantly handed her the heavens, his very life, for just one more fleeting moment in her good graces. This aching need within him demanded to be sated and he could deny neither it nor her no longer.

Visions of her tear-stained face, glistening with the pain his deceitful tongue had scorched upon her replayed. He cursed this deadly serpent within his mouth that lashed out and sunk its fangs into her tender flesh, poisoning her with its toxic venom; the deadly words it hissed at her coiling about in his mind. He could practically hear her heart shattering at their sound, and he stood here now attempting to adhere the pieces together once again.

Whispering a disdainful farewell to the loathsome creature he had so long been, he reached up and lightly rapped upon her door. A symbolism so strangely literal it seemed to him, that this door stood between him and crossing the threshold into his new existence, his key to redemption lying just beyond this wooden barrier.

And then the were no more barriers, and she stood before him, hands crossed defiantly in front of her as puffy russet eyes bore into his lifeless granite orbs. Time seemed to stretch forever as they gazed upon one another, she trying to muster all the hatred she held for his betrayal, and he attempting to recall the words of his heartfelt soliloquy he came to spout before her. Searching for any words to bestow upon her to rectify the wrongs he had done, he fought an inner war with the conflicting demons and knights in his soul, the darkness and the light, his honor and his love, hoping one of the would win the battle and end the tension of this moment.

Gazing upon her now, it seemed it was the first he had truly seen her, and devotion won as he slowly stepped into the glow and dismissed his dignity, exposing his bleeding soul, leaving it vulnerable before her, as he spoke the words he never dared imagine would escape past his lips. Words he was previously forbidden to say, but now were the only ones that would save him.

"I'm sorry." It felt foreign to him, and he could barely choke them out above a whisper, but their message reached her ears as her mouth retraced itself in a slight smile. The fiery twinkle returned to her eyes and reflected back in his as the bridge slowly began to rebuild. Stepping aside, she beckoned him to follow, slowly leading him beyond the threshold and into a new beginning. A beginning that would end with the two of them.