Disclaimer: The regular disclaimer still stays in place, I owe nothing but the AU and OC. The rest belongs to JKR.(dg)
Chapter 26
There, sitting on the marble floor of an old bathroom, the Malfoy Heir had rocked on his hips, hugging himself with all the strength he could manage. Life was a bad joke. A twisted artwork of Cupid. After dreaming about her for night and day, when it was time to be with her…no he could not think of it. It was a sinister play of Fate.
Draco had by now realized how deeply had he fallen in love with his dear "Weaslette". The first time he had called her, he loved how she had coloured. Anger. Unlike Granger, Ginny could bring forth ripples of mirth within him, he loved bantering with her. But with others watching him, he had watched his own mouth. Not that his father had helped in the matters. No, that slimy bastard had to go and hand over Voldemort's piece of soul to that girl.
Draco had felt the sheer pain of having allowed the Dark Lord to skip around his head. How painful, beguiling and tormenting the whole experience would have been for little Ginny Weasley. In those days, he was rather proud of the fact that the youngest Weasley was not as fool as her brother. Or was not as useless as she might have looked initially. She did have nasty spells learnt up already. She was a witch to toy with. But one would need to read her through and through to do that. Word wars with Granger was amusing, but with Ginny, words would fail, the tension that he would feel around her was different, more animalistic.
She was a wild child. "An adventure to go on," he had heard some Slytherin junior housemates to wistfully mutter in the common room, and he had wondered what magic did she hold in her fingers, that even the snakes could be drugged to such a stupor. And this drug was sitting just on the other side of the door. This drug, even he had tasted. This drug, no she was his wife, His, she was Draco's wife. Let the world dig its own grave. Ginny was Draco's, end of the debate. If he could have it in his way, he would surely skin anyone and everyone who would dare to speak ill of her, look at her with wrong intentions!
He would give away everything to just see those flaming red hair fan over that midnight blue sheets. She was nature's painting. He had long since stopped calling her Weaslette. He had seen how fierce a duelist she had grown up into. She was Red. His Red. The true single burning flame behind his business venture, "Red". Though how ironic, he was to pine and starve for her, and she would continue to hate him with every ounce of her being. His new wife.
He had lowered his throbbing head so that his cheek could touch his chest. Vanilla, lemon, cocoa butter, her scent, her essence…holding the fabric between his two fingers he had realized, he had been wearing his wife's tunic. Well, they had been loose enough. And the war had indeed seen him worst to wear. He had been reduced to a gangly excuse.
Still her scent was inviting. She was not Potter's anymore. That man had vanished from the face of the earth. She was his. Only his. What was the first dream he had of her? Why of course the one where he had shared her broomstick. He had run his hands over her well-shaped thighs…and she had elbowed him! He had nearly yelled at Pansy, given away his secret desires, laying open his deepest fantasies. Draco had chuckled at that memory. She had only grown more seductive. His Red.
"Malfoy?"
He had banged his head against the door. Again, and again. Malfoy, Malfoy, Malfoy Malfoy! Why was he always just Malfoy!
"Malfoy, are you okay? Look, I need to use the washroom…"
In one swift motion, he had stood up, wiping his eyes with his sleeves, he had forcefully opened the door, without even looking at her, he had stripped off her tunic and had flung the cloth at her direction. He was angry, he was hurt, he was past caring. Since she was not bothering to show compassion, why should he? He had heard her gasp. Like she was really enjoying his nakedness! What a hypocrite!
He had pulled open the dresser, grabbed the first thing his hands had closed upon. His nightshirt, putting it on with the practiced move, he had gone across the room, to the bed. This bed had borne the marking of his first night. Stupid Cupid! That first night, she had turned him into a beggar! Blinking away his tears, he had grabbed at a pillow and had turned to leave.
The candle lights had made her skin glow, her hair, tousled with their mechanical coupling had tangled into a huge mesh, her freckles had reappeared over her flushed face. Why did she have to be this ethereally beautiful? Her lips, if he could kiss her just this once? He would happily die the very next moment! She had wrapped the midnight blue sheets around her, and she was holding the simmering ceremonial tunic in her hands. He wanted to tell her so many things. He wanted to show her, open his heart out to her. Tell her for the very first time, things he had never dared to speak of.
"Malfoy?"
Jolted out of his reverie, Draco had snarled at her and had stomped out of the door, closing it shut with a reverberating bang. As long as he was just Malfoy to her, he was not going to show her his face. At that moment, Draco Lucius Malfoy had hated himself and his dead family more than anything in this world.
When she had felt him hover over her, she had tried to think of Harry. She had desperately tried to think of the many times; she had the chance to kiss him. He was not clumsy, and he had been reserved. He had held himself back. She on the other hand had always been the active participant. She had been the zealous one to topple him in a secluded alcove and to have saddled him. But Harry had come back to his senses before she could have shrugged off his robes before she could have taken things further.
How dare Draco Malfoy could come to this conclusion that Ginny Weasley would allow him to touch her? He had gambled with her safety. She was going to accept him only on those grounds. Ferret, rich, slimy bastard. Even if he had given away most of his fortune, look at this property, bloody hell look at this snake ring, red and glittering! He was still rich enough to ly down and simply do nothing. Ginny did not care what the lies he might have fed the world to let him go free. Acceptable, he had been working as a second man to Snape. But he was a spy. And you cannot trust those two-faced bastards.
Right from the very beginning she had vowed to make things painfully difficult for him. No he will not get pleasure out of this. Never in this lifetime will she give in to his advances. She was not a woman to be wooed with flowers, jewelry, luxury trips to exotic places. She was Ginny Weasley, a loyal at heart till the very end. But to whom was she loyal to?
She had felt him shift again, going deeper, that did hurt, tearing her very heart! She had cried herself out into that damn pillow. Out of vengeance, she had grabbed at his hand and had sunk her teeth into his pale skin, have that Ferret, A weasel doesn't take things lying down! The whelp had not screamed, had not budged from his perch, he had plowed on and on, like a possessed man, maybe he liked it rough!
She hated it, her first approaching climax. She hated this law, she hated Greyback, she hated the fact that her happy family had been torn apart and had been reduced to battered and lost souls. She hated Harry Potter for breaking it up with her before the war. She hated it when after winning, he did not reconcile. How easily had he stood in front of one dreamy Luna and had kissed her with such adoration?
Ginny had left the room then and there. She had stomped back to the barn at the burrows and had trashed the place in rage. She missed Mum, Dad, Fred, Ron…she missed their bustling lunch and dinner, she missed family…here in this grandeur house, she left like a trapped butterfly.
Fresh bouts of rage and anguish had rippled through her prone body, and she has glad she could direct all of it to the man making her quiver under him. "I hate You". She had cried out finally. He had torn away himself from her as if she had succeeded in inflicted physical damage. Did the binding spell carry settle jinx, if they had failed to consummate their marriage? She had clumsily sat up, checking herself, she could still feel the sizzle of magic course through her magic. She could also feel a foreign magical entity. That would belong to Malfoy of course. Twirling around her magical tendrils, caressing through her veins, it was an oddly welcoming sensation.
She had heard him cry and wail, beside the bed... Slapping the floorboard, again and again, he had screamed, "No, no, no, no, why me, why it is always me, why…." "Why can you see, I am not my father, not my father, not, not, him, never." Crouching on her knees, she had crawled to the edges. Peering over, she had to hold on to the frame, so that she would not topple over him. In the flickering candlelight and the burning fireplace, Draco Malfoy's back was riddled with crisscrossed scars. Puncture wounds, stab wounds.
She knew of the Sectumsepra spell incident, she had been too put off that the ferret had survived that attack. But along with those tell-tale scars, there were many others, old, and older still, healed one as well as half-healed one. They rose over his pale white skin, pinkish distorted marks, disfiguring the fallen Slytherin Prince. She had tried still, that could just a ploy, a glamour to make her pity him?
"Malfoy?"
Without looking back, he had pulled at the first thing he could get a hold of. That was her Tunic, for merlin's sake! He had pulled himself up, thrown over the sheer piece of cloth on him, and had literally thrown himself away, into the bathroom.
Alone, shocked, baffled, Ginny Malfoy had whispered to the empty room, "What the fuck was that about?"
A/N: Thoughts please, to love them right in these troubled times.
