Sounds Like More Than Words

by aprilhope

Sequel to The Scent of Shoulders and Secrets, and the 5th and final part in my Five Senses of DG series. Draco and Ginny write letters to their parents, revealing their relationship.

Sounds Like More Than Words
by AHS

Ginny's Letter

Dear Mum and Dad,

Sorry it's been so long since I've written! I know you like to know what's going on with me. School is fine, and my grades are good. Beyond that... well, I'll get to that, really. But first...

How are you guys? Dad, how's work? What loony Muggle contraption have you become obsessed with lately? Mum, is he driving you spare talking about it? (Just kidding, Dad.) Mum, how are the plans going for Bill's wedding? You know, I've been thinking that I haven't really been fair to Fleur, and I want you to know I'm going to try and be nicer to her from now on. All right, now you're thinking, Where is my daughter and who is actually writing this letter? But, no, it's me. I'm not saying it's going to be easy, but I've come to realize the importance of being able to let go of your first impressions of people. Because maybe your impression was wrong. Or maybe it was right, but far from complete.

Where am I going with this, you ask? Okay, here goes... Remember all those times (hoping there weren't as many as I think) when I said Draco Malfoy was evil or mean or horrible or a Ferret Face or that I put the Bat-Bogey hex on him? Well, those were first impressions... that, I'll grant you, lasted over years. But let's take another look.

Draco is not evil. Considering that evil is precisely what he was raised... no, trained... to be, I think he turned out to be amazingly good. He can be mean, yes. As he says, he's good at it, and why waste a talent? But he is much more restrained, much more selective with it than he used to be. And he is never mean to me. He is not horrible at all. When someone makes you smile when you see them... when someone learns how to smile just for you... and when they risk everything their life has been to make you smile, that's anything but horrible. Ferret Face... that was just a nickname Ron came up with two years ago when the fake Moody turned Draco into a ferret. Funny at the time, but considering that it was really Barty Crouch Jr. doing that to him, kind of terrifying to think about now. Draco's face is a very handsome one, with a tendency towards smirking we believe is genetic, but also a surprising capacity for softness. The Bat-Bogey... he completely deserved. I have no plans to use it on him in future, but he brings up that hex all the time, and we joke that if he doesn't do what I want I'll get him with it again. I think he's as proud of my flair for it as you are, Dad.

So, you must be wondering now why I'm saying these things... why all of a sudden I seem so close to Draco Malfoy, of all people. Mum, Dad, it's because... Draco is my boyfriend.

Please calm down, both of you. Mum, I can sense you getting ready to send a Howler already, but please wait and finish reading this letter. Now... I can't really explain just how this relationship came to be, but... I saw an unexpected, very human, side of Draco... a tiny bit of oddness that actually served to prove he was just a normal boy... and we started talking. Really talking, not our usual insulting. Something formed, and before we knew it, we were declaring "us against the world" at a school party. We've been officially together for one month. I'm really happy... like, I'm not trying to figure out where I fit in anymore, or make someone feel something they don't, or make myself feel something I don't. I'm just where I'm supposed to be, finally.

Mum, before you call me a scarlet woman, Dean and I broke up before anything happened with Draco, and it was a really nice breakup, too. Of course, you're probably thinking more about Harry right now. I know I cried on you many times over the years due to my crush on him, and I think you were hoping you would have him for a son-in-law one day. But I got well past those schoolgirl fantasies a while ago, and now you need to do the same.

Dad, I know how much you hate the Malfoys... but by "Malfoys," you pretty much just mean Lucius. Have some sympathy for Draco then, for being raised by that man. He can't help the family he was born into. But I was surprised to learn recently that Draco, in fact, is not blind to his father's evil. He doesn't want to be like his father, as a man, and especially not as a Death Eater. He felt he was doomed for that destiny for a long time, but he doesn't anymore. He said I make him brave enough to break away.

I know both of you (Dad in particular) are still having trouble even fathoming me dating and having boyfriends at all. I know I'm the youngest, and I'm your only daughter, and you'll always think of me as your little girl. I know you're protective of me, and right now every parental warning siren you have must be screaming danger. But please... let me drown it out. Draco will surprise you both, like he did me. He is not Michael Corner... He doesn't try to tell me what I should think or feel. Even when he is sure he's right, which is all the time. He is not Dean Thomas... who I just didn't feel enough for, and then resented when he would be nice to me. Not feeling enough for Draco will never be a problem. And he is not Harry Potter... He's not an eleven-year-old's dream, dreamt so big that even admiring and caring for him as I do, the reality of him could never measure up.

See, that's what's so funny to me now. I had all the best, most positive thoughts in my head about Harry. Most of them were true, but he could still never be as perfect as the dream. My heart completely set him up to fail. Draco, on the other hand, was all the bad stuff in my head. Only negative thoughts about him. Some were true, some weren't. But when I started getting to know him, he had nowhere to go but up in my estimation. I actually said to him once, when we were first talking, that low expectations don't help matters. But they seem to have helped us. I've been getting to discover him slowly... I still am, every day... and every new bit of Draco is like a revelation.

And, just in case, no I am not under the Imperius Curse. That is what Ron will try to sell you, among other ridiculous theories. Me being with Draco has put a strain on my relationship with my pigheaded brother, but it's better than it was at first. Hermione is really good at getting Ron to see sense. (You have to at least be happy those two are finally together, I bet.) I wish I could say Ron and Draco will be friends someday, but I just don't think I see that ever happening. Then again, would last year's me have been able to see being Draco's girlfriend? Not a chance, so there you go.

So, now for the point of this letter... Yes, checking in with you was the point, and telling you about Draco and me was the point, but I do have a specific request. Christmas is coming up in a couple of weeks, and the only thing I want for a present this year is to be able to bring Draco home with me when I visit. He might go spend a day with his mother, as she's alone this year (since his father's in Azkaban), but he says his best chance for a happy Christmas is to spend it with me, and I feel the same. He really does want to meet the two of you properly as well, under these new circumstances. Now, if you are considering this (thank you!), you're probably worried about Ron, Hermione, and Harry. Hermione can deal with Draco fairly well, but the boys are a bigger problem, so here's my suggestion. Hermione said that her parents would love to have her home for Christmas this year and that she's allowed to bring guests, so she's thinking of inviting Ron to stay with them. Possibly Harry too, if he doesn't stay at his new girlfriend's house... who happens to be, by the way, the last girl he ever imagined he'd be with, but that doesn't keep him from being nearly as happy as I am. Anyhow, that way, you can get to know Draco without any major blowups. And Harry and Ron can come spend the day at the Burrow when Draco goes to see his mother (haven't decided if I'd go with him for that or not), and probably return with tons of Muggle stories to tell, Dad.

Wow, this is the longest letter I've ever written. I hope I said something in all these pages that got to you, that made you understand, or at least want to. Please say yes about Christmas. I want the people I love there together. I want you to see us together, because I swear then it will start to make sense. We just work.

I love you both and I miss you!

Ginny

P.S. Mum, please make sure there is plenty of ketchup in the house at Christmas. I'll tell you why later!

xxxxx

Draco's letter

Dear Mother,

There will come a point in this letter where I will be addressing Father. I do this because there are things I need to say to him, even though I know he cannot receive this letter in Azkaban. Just please bear with me as I get it out. And, whatever you do, do not try and defend him to me.

I hope you are well, Mother. I do worry about you being in that big house all by yourself, and I hope you find things to do to content yourself that don't involve staying numb all day. I don't know if what I'm about to tell you will help or hurt with that, but I can't stop myself from telling you any longer.

I remember a saying Father came up with long ago, that you liked so much you had our house elf embroider it on a pillow... Happiness is a crutch for those who cannot handle money and power. The Malfoy family motto. But you know what? It's crap. I'd only experienced the money and power before, but now I know that wonderful "crutch" personally. I know what happiness feels like now... what it tastes like, looks like, smells like, and sounds like. And the answer to all of the above for me is Ginevra Weasley.

Yes, you read that correctly. Weasley. The sole daughter, better known as Ginny. She is my girlfriend.

You did a brilliant job raising me as a Class A snob, so I can anticipate all your objections... Yes, she belongs to a family of blood traitors. But she is still pureblood, and isn't that what you've always wanted for me? Yes, they are poor. Maybe that wouldn't be such the case if she weren't one of seven children, but apparently Mr. Weasley decided he actually liked kids rather than deciding to stop once he had one to mold in his image. No, she is not with me for my money. The most she has let me buy her was one large box of chocolates from Honeyduke's. In fact, it's our one-month anniversary tomorrow (listen to me, remembering anniversaries), and I have nothing to give because I can't think of anything good enough for her that she won't refuse because it cost too much.

Give up your dreams of a Malfoy-Parkinson merger... or marriage, one day. With or without Ginny, that was never going to happen. Besides, I'm willing to bet Pans will have lost your favour once you learn who her new boy toy is... She fancies herself in love with Harry Potter. I think she's lost her marbles, but she tells me I'm in no place to talk. So, I leave her to her insanity and concentrate on Ginny, gladly.

I'll even dispute one final ridiculous aspersion against our relationship. One that's not worth wasting parchment on, but that someone actually wasted breath bringing up to me the other day. Ginny is not a spy for Potter or Dumbledore or anyone else, with me to gather some sort of secret evil information. Nor am I with her as a spy for Father or the Death Eaters at large. We are with each other for each other. And I have no loyalty to the Death Eaters, and less than that to Father.

Father... Lucius... I don't care what you think about Ginny and me. It turns out, I don't care what you think about anything anymore. I have spent my life trying to live up to everything you wanted me to be, which was really just another you. Giving up nearly every chance I ever had to have actual friends. Relying on the only things I knew, the things you taught me... bullying, bragging, and general intimidation. But you know what? The last thing the world needs is another you. I am done being your puppet.

For most of my life, your approval was what I wanted most. Occasionally it was given, but it never lasted, and it never made me feel you loved me. Mother did, and does, so I can tell the difference. You never said it, at any point of my growing up that I can remember, but I assumed it for a long time just because that's supposed to be a parent-child thing. But if I disappointed you... if you thought I'd made you look bad... suddenly you'd be yelling at us that I wasn't your son. Unfortunately, we look exactly alike, so I'm afraid that was wishful thinking. I learned, though, not to disappoint you.

Perhaps that's why I've continued to fall in line behind you over these past three and a half years since I first saw you clearly, without a son's worshipping gaze. When I came to see you as capable of true evil. That you could do something like that to her. She was guilty of nothing, save her last name, and she was only eleven years old. I didn't even like her then, but I think I felt a sad sort of connection to her from the time I found out. You were so proud of yourself. You bragged about how you slipped Riddle's journal in with her schoolbooks. She spent her first year at Hogwarts possessed, forced to attack her classmates, nearly dying herself, and everything was going according to plan for you. And you had to tell me about it, just after the fact, so you could curse and complain about how Potter foiled all your hard work. Do you know how much I hate you just for the fact that I'll always have to be part grateful to Potter and his stupid hero complex, for the rest of my life, because of what you did? If Ginny had died...

I refuse to finish that sentence. I will not waste the thought on you. Maybe I am wasting my time with this very letter. Maybe neither of you can understand the concept of happiness well enough to even grasp what I'm saying. Mother, you told me you understood it once, the day I was born. I'm sorry it couldn't last beyond that. Father, does your resurrected Dark Lord make you happy? Did using the woman I love to earn your place as his favourite make you happy? How about your son knowing without a doubt that you would sacrifice him as easily as you did her if that would somehow please Voldemort? Then be happy, Lucius, inside your cell. Be very happy.

Mother, I will be spending Christmas holiday with Ginny. Unless her family locks her in a tower to keep her away from me, in which case I will spend my holiday trying to climb up it and get her out. I don't want you to be alone, so I will be coming to spend a day with you, and I might bring Ginny as well. Please be nice, and please wait until we're gone to have cocktails, all right? Thank you... for reading, and for actually loving me.

(Did I just say please and thank you?? How bizarre is that? That is Miss Weasley's influence.)

Draco

P.S. - I'm sure you don't know what happened to that cow American babysitter (the chips and ketchup incident?), but if you ever see her, tell her thanks. Toss her a wink for good measure. I'll explain later... possibly... no, I think not.

xxxxxxxx

Draco and Ginny sat in the library, supposedly studying for midterms. However, they found the letters they'd each agreed to write to their parents to be a much more interesting assignment. Draco had been reading Ginny's, and vice versa, for a while. Who finished first was hard to tell, as they kept rereading favorite lines until they sensed the other looking at them, and they faced each other.

"Well done," said Draco, still amazed by how she'd spoken of him.

"You, too," said Ginny, teary eyes threatening to spill over. "What you said... about me. Your father using me..."

"I swear I didn't know until it was all over. When I got home after the end of school that year, he wouldn't shut up about it. I'd like to think I'd have done something to help you if I'd known earlier, but... probably not. After that... that must be when Pansy says I started looking at you..."

"No, not that. I meant... this part, here." And she placed the letter between them, pointing with a shaky finger to the sentence, Did using the woman I love to earn your place as his favourite make you happy?

"What about it?" Draco hadn't been aware he'd written that until he'd finished and read the letter himself, but he had decided not to change it.

"Did you mean it? The... 'woman I love' part?"

Draco placed her letter over his and leaned forward. "Did you mean it when you were asking your parents if I could come for Christmas and you said...?" He pointed to, I want the people I love there together.

Ginny blushed. She had read her letter, but she hadn't even realized what her own words meant.

"It's a little less blatant, mind you, but still..." Draco stopped. Looking at her, he could tell she meant it. Just like she could tell that he did. But she had to ask.

"I asked first. So what's your answer?"

"My answer is... tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow. One month? You read my gift dilemma. I'm thinking this is something meaningful yet cheap that you might approve of receiving."

Ginny couldn't help it. Excitement bubbled up in her throat and she let out a little squeak of joy at the thought of what was coming. Draco laughed, and Madam Pince stalked by, shushing them both frighteningly.

"I can't believe we're giving matching gifts," said Ginny, purposely using an overly girly voice much like Lavender Brown's. "That is just toooooo cute." She rested her chin on her hands, folded in front of her, and sighed. "So, I really don't get anything until tomorrow?"

He responded to her play-pouty eyes by opening one of his textbooks, pulling out a dried dark pink flower, and handing it to her.

"What is this?"

"That, my dear little Weasel, is Red Campion. Like the ingredient in your shampoo that supposedly makes you smell so incredible, even though you may notice it has no discernible fragrance. And it didn't even weeks ago, when I picked it, the day we had our talk on the Quidditch pitch. Still, colorful little wildflower... reminded me of you somehow. So I saved it."

"Draco Malfoy picked a flower?"

"Yes, he did," he said with dignity intact, and only a mild grimace. "And after you mentioned your shampoo, I looked it up. Listen to this..." Draco thumped an open book in front of him.

"Draco Malfoy is reading about flowers?" Her mouth curled up in waves of held in laughter.

"Ginny Weasley needs to hush up and listen... you little minx," he whispered, beginning to read. "The scientific name of Red Campion is Silene dioica. The second part, dioica, means two houses... Slytherin and Gryffindor, perhaps?"

"Gryffindor and Slytherin," she corrected, an eyebrow quirked. "What does the first part of the name mean?"

"The name Silene is ancient," he read, "derived from the Greek sialon meaning 'saliva'. So... two houses snogging. What a clever little flower. That's definitely us."

"Mm hmm. Anything else?"

"Known as snake's flower."

"Okay, that's a bit spooky," admitted Ginny, looking at the serpent Slytherin emblem on his robes.

"And old wives' tales claim that he who picks Red Campion, their father will die... Let's hope those old wives had more sense than my father's did. We can only hope."

"Draco, do you really mean that? You know I hate your father, but he is still your father. You don't have to wish him dead just for me."

"Wishing could be good for me. I'm more used to just demanding." He placed the flower in her hair, behind her ear, and took her hand. "Put away your worried face. You read the letter. You know how I feel. You know it's not only for you. But when I say things like just now... I guess they're mostly just words."

"You're still talking about your father, right? Because there were other parts of the letter... parts that mentioned me a lot... that I thought sounded like more than words."

"Sounds like I got my point across then. And to think McGonagall says my essays are all style and no substance."

"Better than being accused of no style, right?" Ginny blew a raspberry at him and got another dirty look from Madam Pince. "By the way, who accused me of being a spy?"

"Professor Snape."

"Hah! That figures."

"I don't know. I'm not entirely sure he was accusing you. When he was warning me to 'extricate' myself from you, it almost sounded like he was accusing me. I'm starting to not be able to tell what side that man is on."

"Might I remind you, your own line has gotten rather blurry, Draco."

"I am on my side, as always, and your side. And if they're not the same, we make a new side that's ours. Deal?"

Ginny smiled and leaned closer. "Seal it with a kiss."

And they did.

"This is practice for under the mistletoe at your parents' house."

"Uh... Merlin, this should be interesting."

end

A/N: OMG, I totally left this open for a sequel and I know it. I didn't mean to, but it happened! This was a 5 part series, so there will be no part 6. There are only five senses after all, lol. But, I have an idea for a short... one part only, I swear... that would be a little sequel to the whole series. Not just DG, it would also involve RHr and Harry/Pansy, in equal measures. NO idea when I'd actually write it (maybe Christmas, lol), but just thought I'd tell you it's in my head before somebody asks! Thanks, everyone, for reading and encouraging me!