J.K.Rowling is the rightful owner of Harry Potter and all of the characters and places in the Harry Potter world.
After going to Hogwarts for five years, and working my way through my 6th year, one room throughout the entire school persisted to be my favorite. The Room of Requirement beat all other rooms in so many ways that I couldn't seem to stay away from it. When Harry started the DA in my 4th year, I was so afraid that my favorite room would be almost permanently taken over. Lucky for me, the DA didn't last as long as hoped due to Umbridge, stupid woman.
For a while I had assumed that the Room of Requirement only let one group of people inside it at a certain time. (I thought that was the reason why only the DA could get into the room when we were having a meeting.) I still haven't learn the exact rules and reasoning for this room, but I did learn that more than one group of people, or multiple people in the room for different reasons, could be there at the same time. I remember the day in my 5th year that I had finally discovered this…
I had had a particularly bad day. Harry Potter had confessed his love for me, even though my feelings for him had died off during my 3rd year. As politely as I could, I had told him that I simply had no feelings for him, and instead of acting like a gentleman, he threw a temper tantrum. Yes, the savior of the magical world cannot control his temper. After telling me that I wouldn't get a better offer than him, that the sex would be the best anyone in the school could offer, and that I wasn't pretty enough for anyone else to appreciate me, he topped it off by physically taking a hold of my arm to lead me towards his bedroom. By this point in time I was completely fed up, so I threw a Bat Bogey Hex at him. Before it had completely taken control over him, he punched me in the stomach so hard that my body flew across the air and hit the closest wall. It hurt like hell.
As I tried to get up to walk way, Ron cornered me and told me that if I was going to be a slut, then I might as well go out with Harry instead of hurting his feelings. It's true that I had had many boyfriends throughout my years in Hogwarts, but I'd never let anyone go past second base with me. I knew that I wasn't really a slut, and since I was in too much pain to think up a good comeback, I got up and started to walk towards the Room of Requirement.
When I reached the Room of Requirement, I repeatedly thought in my head, I need someplace safe where I can hide; I need someplace safe where I can hide, I need someplace safe where I can hide, until the door opened. As I walked through the door and closed the door behind me, I realized that I was hidden from the inhabitants of the room. The room had literally hidden me from the world. I was behind some kind of plexiglass wall that I could see through, but I assumed the person inside of the wall couldn't see me. The person in the room was sitting at an easel, painting a portrait of someone. As I started walking around the room in my plexiglass hallway, I noticed who the person was, and drew in a deep breath.
Draco Malfoy. Draco Malfoy painted? I couldn't seem to get my breathing under control, so I lowered myself carefully to the floor and put my face between my knees until I felt less like throwing up. As I glanced again towards the figure at the easel, it hit me who he was drawing. The person had red hair and was in a Gryffindor robe. It was either Ron or I. I couldn't breathe and my knees again became my friend.
As calmly as I could, I got my breathing under control before standing up and leaning against the glass wall. The figure Draco, I mean Malfoy, was painting was definitely a girl. He was painting a picture of ME!?!? How was that possible? I took a glance around the room and noticed paintings of lots of people in the school. There was one of Crabbe and Goyle looking tough, one of Blaise Zabini and Pansy Parkinson cuddling on what looked to be a couch and portraits of people who I didn't even recognize. One corner of the room didn't seem to have any lighting in it, but as I looked closer, I noticed a picture of the Golden Trio together, but it had been crossed out multiple times with all different colors of paint. What did they do to him that made him hate them so much?
That was over a year ago, and I still return to that glass hallway of a room to see Draco paint. He painted portraits of people with amazing likeness, and only painted them multiple times, as far as I could tell, if he didn't like something about the portrait or if he actually liked the person and wanted to paint them because they were friends. I was one of the people that he painted over and over again. Maybe he felt that the likeness was wrong. I could never really tell. A couple people that he never repainted were Harry, Hermione, and Ron. The crossed out picture stayed in the corner throughout the entire year.
One thing about him that always confused me was how many times he painted me. He painted me at least once a week, always mixing different colors together, me in different poses, in different outfits. I had my own corner of the room now, where he put all of the portraits of me, and there seemed to be about seventy paintings of me. Sometimes I wondered where he got all of the supplies, but I just assumed that he got them because he was rich.
As the year went on, it became a natural thing for my classes to end and for me to head to the Room of Requirement. I'd bring my homework with me, and I'd do my homework while I'd watch Draco paint. As the year went on, it was hard to continue calling him Malfoy when I could easily call him by his first name. I wondered if he thought of me as Ginny after painting so many pictures of me. I'd probably never know.
Although my love for the Room of Requirement had never faltered in my entire life at Hogwarts, some part of me was afraid that something would happen that would exploit my hiding place to the world. I had so many fears that the Room of Requirement would be found in a first years travels through the halls as they explored the castle. Or Filch might burst in and disrupt Draco, or me and then Draco. My brain seemed to be on overload all of the time, and it was starting to reach a place where I knew I'd go crazy if it got much higher on the scale of overload in my head. It continued to go towards overload as my heart started to show me that I might have feelings for Draco.
It was a Thursday. I'd just finished my last class of the day, Potions, and I was on my way to the RofR (as I refer to it occasionally.) Harry still hadn't given up on the idea that the only person I wanted was him, Ron still thought of me as a slut, and had spread that viewpoint throughout the entire school after I rejected Harry a year ago. As I left my Potions class, I was thrust against the wall, where I landed with a humph."Ginny, why won't you date me? You know we'd be good together!" Harry started whispering in my ear as I struggled to stand up from my sitting position on the floor. Harry needed to pick a side with me, violence or love, but not both. It came off as a sick husband who abuses his wife but then cuddles her as she lies bleeding on the floor. This wasn't the kind of person who I ever wanted to date.
"Harry, we've gone over this. I don't want to date you, and I think you don't really want to date me either. You just want to date me so that Ron will feel relieved that I'm not being a slut." By now I was standing, and was trying to find an opening for me to run away through. Harry's body, unfortunately, resembled that of some huge football star in America, and I couldn't seem to find any opening for a girl of my size to fit through.
"Oh Ginny, come on. Just give me one try. Just a little bit of a try?" Harry was now proceeding to run his fingers up and down my arms. My body has stiffened automatically at his touch, but he didn't seem to notice, or he just didn't care.
Before I could respond, a voice came from my right and Harry's left.
"Couldn't find anyone else to torture, Potter? Or did you just need someone to enact your sick fantasies with?" Draco Malfoy was leaning against the wall, his arms crossed across his chest. "Even I wouldn't sink so low as to force a woman into doing something she doesn't wish to do. That's called rape, unless you're unfamiliar with the word," Draco continued.
As soon as Draco had spoken, Harry's body had stiffened and he had started to look anywhere but at Draco. My outward expression showed fear, but inside I couldn't help but glow with happiness that Draco had rescued me from Harry. Part of me wondered about the warm feeling inside of me, but I brushed the thoughts aside as I focused on Harry and Draco.
"It's none of your business what I do or do not do, Malfoy." Harry snarled, finally turning his attentions towards Draco. As he turned towards Draco, he grabbed my arm roughly before proceeding to rub my breast through my shirt while gloating at Draco. As soon as he started to touch me, I began to fight against him, but all he did was restrain me more. I couldn't keep the look of disgust from my face as he continued to touch me as I continued to fight against him.
I hadn't thought to look or ask Draco for help against Harry's advances before I felt myself being released and heard a crash. My eyes hurriedly looked upwards as I saw Harry knocked out against the wall and Draco standing beside me, breathing heavily.
Before I could stop myself, I said, "Draco, are you ok?"
"What's it to you, Weasley?" Draco said before walking briskly down the hall.
I was momentarily hurt, before I realized that I could go watch him inside the RofR to see what his true feelings were towards the scene that had just occurred.
As soon as I reached the RofR I walked into my secret room that was hidden from Draco's view, and gasped. Draco had taken the picture of the Golden Trio and had taken a knife to it. Most of the knife marks were on Harry's face, but some new marks were also adorning Hermione and Ron's faces. I watched him, half in awe and half in sorrow, for Draco was obviously mad. Before I realized what I was doing, I had walked outside of the RofR, only to enter it again, but this time not behind my see-through wall.
"Draco…" I whispered, the word floating off my tongue to reach his ears as I quietly shut the door behind me.
His movements abruptly stopped as he flew around and pointed his wand and the knife at me. I threw myself against the door and covered my face with my arms, before slowly taking my arms away and looking at him.
"I'm sorry." I said, simply watching his face as I told him my story. I told him about how I had watched him for years, and how I never understood why he drew so many pictures of me, and before I could stop myself, I told him something that I hadn't even fully admitted to myself. "And, to top it all off, I think I'm falling for you," I said before quickly covering my mouth with my hand as my eyes grew wide.
Through out my story he had slowly lowered the knife and his wand. By the end of my story, they were both completely lowered and he was staring at me with something that looked like a cross between shock and something else…something else I couldn't describe in his eyes.
"Ginny…" He whispered, before clearing his throat and starting to walk closer to me. "Ginny, I feel the same way."
My eyes widened for a second time in a span of two minutes before Draco was right in front of me. He had somehow disposed of his weapons and had started to slowly run his hands up and down my arms. I started to shake before slowly closing my eyes.
I should have known better than to have closed my eyes, but it was a natural reaction that I couldn't control. The second after my eyes closed, soft lips met mine, and I melted under their touch.
The single kiss was just that, a soft touch of two souls and two hearts together.
We continued to meet in the Room of Requirement to talk and to kiss. Sometimes he would paint me as I posed, or even as I just randomly laughed or had a weird expression on my face. After my seventh year at Hogwarts, we eloped before telling my family the big news. The look on their faces was one that I will never forget, but I will also never regret my decision to become Mrs. Draco Malfoy. We will be together forever, and nothing can change that.