"Home"
It was supposed to be everything she wanted, Ginny thought sadly as she looked around the foyer. She shook her head and walked back up the stairs, back to the master bedroom for another load to bring down. She never thought she'd end up in this big home, trying to manage a household she barely knew anything about or cared about at the beginning.
But originially, it was only going to be for a short time they were living here, Draco told her, and she believed him. They were going to get their own small home, something more suited to them, to their characters. She never imagined Draco would fall in love with his childhood home; she never guessed that he would become so attached to belongings and the sense of the home that welcomed him but overwhelmed her. She had never felt as though she belonged here.
Narcissa still treated her as an outsider, acting surprised and miffed every time she ran into Ginny in the Manor, as though she didn't understand why Ginny was living here with her son. Her haughtiness upset Ginny. They made Ginny strive to avoid Narcissa at all costs, because upsetting her husband's wife with her mere presence was simply not worth the drama it would bring to Ginny. If she did upset Narcissa by asserting her right to be in the Manor as well, Draco would surely hear about it since he was so close to his mother and thus they would both be against her in the end.
Ginny simply couldn't exist in this Manor one more day without Draco to help her find her place in this stuffy household. Narcissa had turning running the household over to Ginny without any instruction or help and then sat back and watched her make a mess of it day after day. Draco was involved in whatever his business entailed, which she had no idea. He left before she woke up and came home far after she and Narcissa had finished a dinner with stilted conversation prepared by house elves who typically forgot what they'd wanted for dinner in the first place. Ginny still hadn't gotten the hang of properly commanding the house elves.
She whirled around as the front door opened. Today would be the one day Draco got home early. For a long moment, they stared at each other over her packed-up belongings.
Day 38, Home
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