Disclaimer: I do not own anything from the amazing world of Harry Potter!
Chapter 26: All Falls Down
Somewhere in the middle of the night Ginny's body and mind could no longer handle the agony of her despair, confusion and sheer terror of the future and it made the decision for her to shut down for some much need, albeit tortured sleep.
She awoke sometime mid morning and at first could not let herself believe what had occurred. Praying that it was all a dream, she slipped off of the bed and shuffled her way across her room and through the bathroom where she slowly opened Draco's door. What she saw frightened her even more, if that was even possible. Everything in his room was in complete disarray. Chairs were overturned and papers were strewn about, nothing was in its proper place as if he had uncharacteristically spent the night just violently attempting to destroy everything. Draco himself, though, was nowhere to be found.
She quickly shut the door and rushed back to her own room, still not quite believing what she had seen. Ginny couldn't handle it any longer. She would not just sit here and let things go back to the way they were before.
She was in love with him, she always had been and always would be, it was as simple as that and a return of the cold cruel Draco would probably kill her. She pressed her hand to her abdomen. That man was never going to be around her child. No, she had the best piece of Draco and, money or no money, she was going to take it and run.
She wiped this most recent round of tears away from her eyes and sprung to action. Hurrying over to her desk she owled Hallie to come right away and ordered the bird to try their flat first then Theo's. She then proceeded to magic all of her clothes into a suitcase. Had she paused to consider what she was doing she probably would not have taken anything that had been bought for her while at the Manor but she was too distracted to think of such things.
15 minutes later, in the middle of her frenzy a response came that Hallie would be over soon.
Once she had finished Ginny quickly shrunk everything she owned and stuck it into her pocket. She then calmly sat down in one of the chairs to wait for her friend's arrival. As she waited she could not force her mind to stay in the present and it floated back to the one memory that she had never allowed herself to think of until the night before last when it had floated into her dreams as if it were an omen predicting once again the downfall and utter destruction of their relationship. She knew there would be no hope of holding back a new round of tears as her mind slipped once again into the past.
Within twenty minutes Hallie had arrived. She burst into Ginny's room with a concerned expression plastered on her pretty face. She found her friend curled into a ball with her knees drawn up to her chest and tears silently streaming down her face. "Ginny? What's wrong? What happened baby?"
"I'm leaving him Hallie."
Hallie was speechless. Of all the things that she had expected to come out of Ginny's mouth that had not even made it into the top twenty. "I don't understand."
"He is cruel and jealous and spiteful and I refuse to spend another night under the same roof as him." Ginny replied in an uncharacteristically monotone voice that sent a chill through Hallie.
Hallie stared at her friend confused. It was as if she had no clue who the broken little person in the armchair was. She couldn't possibly be her best friend. She didn't know what to say. "Are… Are you sure? Slow down. You might just be over reacting love. Let's talk about this."
"I'm leaving. I don't want to talk about it. I want you to take me home… but if you won't help me then I will go by myself."
"No! I will help you! Come on Gin. Let's go downstairs. Luna is there waiting, we were at lunch when I got your owl." She opened her arms to Ginny.
Ginny simply nodded, stood up and walked into Hallie's open arms. The two then slowly made their way downstairs.
Before they had even reached the bottom step though Narcissa and Luna heard their steps and hurried out of one of the nearby rooms to intercept the pair.
Ginny shrunk back as she saw the two women who had come to accost them. She should have known she would not get out that easily.
Luna immediately launched into a tirade, firing questions at Ginny while Hallie tried to answer but Ginny was not interested in either of them. She had her eyes locked directly on her mother-in-law trying to gauge her for a reaction.
Narcissa's face wore a perfectly placed Malfoy mask but upon further examination of her tiny friend's demeanor she broke down and opened her arms wide to the distraught Ginny.
Ginny rushed to her and a whole new wave of tears flowed out. "I'm sorry." She whispered. "I tried."
Narcissa leaned back to look down into Ginny's eyes. "Of course you did. I'm not sure what happened but I'm sure you have your reasons darling. Will you at least sit down and have a cup of tea before you leave? Maybe explained what happened?"
Ginny hesitated. She really was not sure if it was a good idea to linger in the house when he could essentially be back at any minute but she also felt that she owed it to Narcissa to at least explain a little of what had happened to the woman who had done so much for her.
The whole group moved into the sitting room that Luna and Narcissa had so recently vacated.
Within moments the tea was there and the houseelves had served them all in their normal timely fashion.
Ginny tried to take a small sip of her tea but quickly decided that she really was not going to be able to stomach it. She decided the best thing to do was to go right into her explanation. "Alright I feel like the first thing I should say is that our ruse was never a real ruse Cissa. Draco and I really were together back at Hogwarts and when this whole charade began it just seemed like telling the truth was the easiest way to go about it."
"I cannot lie, I knew back then that Draco had to be dating someone but I never pressed him because I could tell he was trying to hide the fact. It never seemed like a problem and he was just so happy for a while… I never did understand why it all changed though."
Ginny instinctively grimaced. Here it was once again, an opening, a moment that almost begged for Ginny to come out with the truth and share that most painful of memories. A moment that seemed so small but that determined the course of the last years of her life in so many ways.
"Now I'm really not even sure where to begin…"
Draco flung himself down on the couch in his room. "How could you do this to me?" he asked his voice barely above a whisper.
"What are you talking about?" she wheeled around on him, furious at his trying to point fingers at a time like this. "Draco I am not doing anything to you. My family and friends need me. They need the powerful old magic that is coursing through my veins to defeat the evil that has plagued our world for thirty years."
"But why does it have to be you that has to go and save the world?" he sat up and he reached out to grab her hips and pull her entire body towards him despite her attempts to wiggle away. He hugged her hips and leaned his head into her abdomen. "I don't want to lose you."
He was sure that she could feel his lips on her stomach. Certain she could feel the tension in his muscles from trying to hold onto her and never let her go. And she was utterly positive that she could acutely feel his pain at losing her just as he could feel her grief at having to leave him.
"Oh Drae, you aren't going to lose me. I am going to be fine. It's just that the war effort needs my help and I can't say no." she ran her fingers through his fine white blond hair and hugged his head closer to her. She needed for him to understand her sorrow and her love.
He pressed his lips to the small strip of exposed abdomen that her shirt allowed and muttered "Let Saint Potter save the world, your mine," his lips never leaving her skin.
She leaned down and placed a soft kiss on the top of his platinum head. "Everyone I love is out there endangering their lives to make this world a better place. I should be too."
Draco immediately let go and pushed himself off the couch. "Oh, everyone you love? What? Do I not matter anymore? Or where you just lying every time you said you loved me?"
Ginny realized her mistake in wording and tried in vain to pull him to her and apologize. "No! I didn't mean it like that. Of course I still love you! Draco, I have fallen so totally and completely in love with you. I want to be with you forever."
He jerked his arm from her grip and crossed the room. "I'm sure. That is why you are trying to leave me." He starred at her trying to convey every emotion he was feeling in one look.
The pain in his eyes broke her heart. She had to fix it before she lost everything. "Oh Draco, they are my world, but without you there is no sun, no joy, no love. You are everything that I need to survive." She slowly crossed his bedroom to the place he was standing.
Draco's whole body tensed as she approached him. She reached out and wrapped her arms around him trying to get ever line of her body to match up to his and rested her head against his shoulder. Gradually she could feel the tension leave his muscles and he slumped against her to join her in the embrace.
Ginny lifted her head to look into that amazing pair of silver eyes and was startled to see them glistening with unshed tears. Draco Malfoy was crying because of her. She felt her heart actually break. "What can I do?" she choked out around tears of her own. "How can I fix it so that I can make it better for you?"
He did not respond for a moment as he tried to collect himself enough to speak. He finally choked out, "Stay."
Ginny buried her face into his neck afraid to say the words she had to next for fear of injuring him further. "I can't… Harry's letter…"
He tensed and sprung away from her. "Oh so it's Potter is it?"
"No, Draco!" Ginny tried in exasperation. She had known saying his name was not a good idea, why had she done it?
"I see how it is. Finally decided to crawl back to Saint Potter have we? The Gryffindor Golden Boy still superior to the Slimy Slytherin Prince?"
"Stop it no! Never! I love y…" she tried.
He cut her off brutally spinning with his back towards her. "Get out."
"What?" Ginny said shocked. She tried to advance towards him. "But Draco…"
"I SAID GET OUT!" he spun around screaming his livid eyes so full of pain but his body language threatening.
Ginny could do nothing but grab her bag an run from the room, tears streaming down her face.
"So what happened next?"
"What do you mean?"Ginny asked confused but without any real life in her voice.
"Did you leave?"
"Of course I left. The war effort needed me."
"Well I don't understand how this story explains why you hate each other."
"I don't hate him."
"Ok fine, severely dislike… it just seems like you two had a really bad fight."
"He was mad at me because I went straight back to my room, packed my trunk and flooed directly to Grimmauld Place, the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix."
"But why?"
"I didn't think I could handle seeing him again so I was brash and decided while I was that hurt that I should forgo a further goodbye. Unfortunately for me, when he discovered that I had just left rather than let us make up that made him extremely angry. So angry in fact that a few months later when the war was over I tried to owl him and go see him but I never got a response which in turn made me angry. When he finally did reply after nearly a month it was to arrange a meeting so that he would be able to reject me coldly in person, the only service he ever really gave to me. I lost him over something as stupid as poorly chosen wording… and we have remained angry at each other for three years."
"I don't believe that. You two were so in love the last time I saw you!" Hallie interjected for the first time. Narcissa reached out and softly grabbed her young friend's hand. They were all upset about this most recent turn of events.
"Oh we have become very good at playing our parts, so good in fact I think we had begun to fool each other and ourselves… I certainly believed that I was falling back in love with him. That's all over now though. I am done pretending. I don't care about the money anymore… I don't know if I ever even did."
"No." Hallie said as Luna nodded in complete agreement.
"What are you going to do now dear?" Narcissa asked quietly.
"I am going home to sort my life out… maybe spend some time at the Burrow just to clear my head and hide a bit. Please don't tell him that I'm gone or where I went. I know he'll figure it out soon enough."
Narcissa nodded slowly. "Alright… if that is what you want."
"It is… I'm so sorry that things worked out this way but I just want to thank you Cissa, for everything. I have loved being a part of your family and I'm sorry it has to end this way. Will you please explain to the rest of the family for me? I don't know if I can face them again…" she paused and contemplated. Should she tell Cissa about the baby? She deserved to know but Ginny didn't want Cissa to cause some kind of scene when all Ginny wanted was to escape or more importantly, gods forbid, to tell Draco. But the baby would be her grandchild and not telling Cissa could jeopardize the potential of a secret relationship between Cissa and the child. She decided that telling her was really the only thing to do and so she continued: "Especially since I'm taking the next Malfoy away."
"What?" Narcissa blurted out in a most uncharacteristic way.
"I'm pregnant Cissa." Ginny blushed and dropped her eyes from the older woman's powerful gaze.
"It's Draco's?" she asked tentatively.
"Of course." Ginny responded.
"But I didn't think you all were…" she motioned awkwardly with her hands while trying to maintain some sense of her Malfoy decorum.
Ginny's blush deepened. "No we have been, once at the Halloween Ball but we have really been together again since the New Year's party."
"Wow." Luna said. "Good job keeping that secret Gin. That is over a month without any of us knowing."
"Well that definitely explains some things… How far along are you?" Narcissa questioned.
"Hallie was the only one who guessed. Draco and I had decided to just keep it to ourselves originally just to see how things worked out, obviously a good plan in retrospect. As for how far along I am, I haven't been to see a specializing healer yet but just from my general training at the academy I figure I am about 5 weeks along."
Narcissa reached out and lovingly tucked a stray strand of long red hair behind Ginny's ear. "Oh my dear, you are in so much deeper than any of us even expected."
Her comment made the tears that Ginny had somehow quelled start to spring to life again. She dropped her face into her hands and let it all go. "I know."
All three of the other women immediately stood and wrapped their arms around the crying redhead to try to comfort her.
"It's all a lie." She sobbed. "I have been trying to talk myself out of it all night but I really do love him. I have always loved him but we just don't work. We just can't seem to keep ourselves together and on the same page. There is always some kind of stupid miscommunication or misstep that manages to rip apart. I would rather leave now while I am still able to think clearly then face what will happen at the end of the contract because it is all just an act. I can't take being fired from being in love."
Hallie dropped down to her knees and lifted Ginny's chin. "But he loves you too. We can all see it. It isn't just an act for him either."
"For a moment I believed that…" she began but she quickly stopped herself. "But I just can't anymore…"
"Ok." Narcissa said quietly. She kissed Ginny softly on the forehead and stood up. Despite what she knew in her heart about the young couple she also knew that there was nothing that could be said to change the young woman's mind. For now the best idea was to just let her go.