DISCLAIMER: Everything Harry Potter related belongs to J.K. Rowling and related companies. Any specific references will be noted at the bottom of the chapter.
fifteen. sun.
Just as she had finally fallen asleep, Ginny heard the early morning birds starting to stir outside. Turning a tear-stained cheek towards the window, the earliest rays of sunlight started to seep through the curtains. She sighed, shifting to lay flat on her back, staring up at the gold embellishments of the decorated ceiling. She might as well get up, though it was barely six o' clock. She had stayed in last night, completely missing dinner, though her appetite was nonexistent by that point. Instead, Ginny stayed locked up in her room, huddled into a ball on her bed, and alternately cried her heart out into Lena's sympathetic lap, who comfortingly stroked her hair, and milling about their large room calling Draco every foul name she could think of.
Ginny rolled over and sat up gingerly. Stepping into her slippers, she walked into the bathroom and saw her exhausted face looking right back at her. Her eyes were puffy and the lids were lined pink, contrasting horribly against her fair skin. Her freckles looked even more daunting against her tired face, dark circles forming underneath her eyes. She hated crying. It made her feel like a weak, little girl all over again. Ever since her first year, she forced herself to become stronger to get past her inner demons. Even if in this case, her heart was stomped on by a foul, cold, cruel blond. That was what she had to do: be proactive by fixing her current predicament. Her hand reached for the tap, and she splashed some water on her face before deciding to climb back into bed.
She tossed and turned for another hour, unsure of whether to get out of bed, or just stay in until the last possible minute. Her stomach growled in support of getting out of bed sealed the deal. As she walked up to the wardrobe, she saw Lena stirring, murmuring in her sleep. It was still rather early to be up and ready for breakfast, but Ginny decided she may as well get down to business.
After grabbing the nearest clean dress and cardigan, Ginny brushed her hair back into a neat ponytail, careful to make sure not a hair was out of place. She had about half an hour before breakfast. Before heading to the dining room, however, the nervous redhead hoped to catch Narcissa before the morning meal.
Grabbing her things, she quietly headed out of the room, the door shutting behind her in a quiet click. Her small heeled shoes clicked loudly against the quiet marble floors. Most of her fellow classmates were still in bed or just beginning to stir. She followed the usual path of stairs and corridors to her destination: Narcissa Malfoy's study.
Ginny paced for a few moments in front of the door. She had seen the glow of light pooling out underneath the door and knew that her teacher must be inside. There was no way to leave Charm School at this point; she was too far in. Besides, that was taking the coward's way out, and she was determined to stand her ground at any cost. There had to be some kind of compromise to be made. Taking a deep breath, she rapped her knuckles firmly on the door.
She blinked and stepped back as the door magically opened for her. Ginny timidly walked in, and came face to face with an impeccable Narcissa Malfoy. She looked up at the redhead through her dark eyelashes and inquisitive blue eyes. As usual, she looked radiant in poppy yellow robe and her hair was styled elegantly, this time in a French bun. Her hand was wrapped around that trusty quill of hers, still hovering above her notebook. Adjacent to that was a freshly brewed cup of tea, the steam languidly rising up to the heavens.
"Yes, Miss Weasley? Is everything alright?"
Ginny awkwardly cleared her throat. How was she supposed to tell her teacher that her son was an inconsiderate arsehole and she once again hated his guts?
"Sorry to disturb you so early this morning. I just really needed to speak with you."
Narcissa promptly set her quill into its holder and closed her notebook, folding her hands on top of it. Ginny took that as a sign to sit and pulled up one of the armchairs opposite of Narcissa. She sighed then gulped, trying to think of how to best tell her what was wrong. She felt a little immature running to Draco's mother at the first sign of trouble. Ginny also felt guilty for possibly getting Draco into trouble with his mother, perhaps the only authority figure left in his life. Who cares? A voice spoke up in her head. They no longer had any relationship of any kind; so what did she care what happened to him? It irritated her that she cared more than she would like to admit.
"Are you going to begin or must I prompt you?" Narcissa prodded gently but with a sense of impatience.
"Right," Ginny said, though kept her eyes focused on her hands in her lap, which were anxiously wringing the skirt of her dress. "I… I don't know how else to say this, but I need to switch Ball partners, Madam."
"Excuse me?"
Gathering up every ounce of Gryffindor courage, Ginny willed herself to meet Narcissa's gaze. The older woman merely looked confused. "Due to… unforeseen events, I must request a change in partners. Or… better yet, perhaps a partner isn't really needed at all."
"A partner is a key requirement of participating in the Ball," Narcissa replied, frowning.
Best not push your luck, Gin. "Right. Well, perhaps a switch of some sort?"
"May I ask why?" Narcissa implored.
Ginny squirmed uncomfortably in her seat. She was praying that Mrs. Malfoy would simply take her word for her it and fulfill her request. Even if Draco was going to be an insensitive, conceited bastard, she was going to take the higher road. After all, Gryffindors were noble. More importantly, it was the best form of revenge.
"I… would rather not say. But what has transpired does not follow this Conservatory's mission," Ginny slowly answered, sounding too formal for her liking. The seriousness in her tone sounded so foreign to the normally jovial Ginny.
"I see," Narcissa simply answered, after realizing she was not going to get another word out of her student. "Well, I will take your request into consideration and let you know."
"T-Thank you," Ginny stuttered, letting out a sigh of relief. She was shocked at how understanding and nonjudgmental Narcissa was being. Not wanting to be in the office a minute longer for fear of bursting out and spilling yesterday's events, Ginny gathered her belongings and made her way to the door.
There was a shrill buzz in his ear, though he couldn't make out what the noise was. Irritated, Draco grabbed a pillow from underneath him and sandwiched his head between the pillows, hoping to drown out the noise. Instead, it mysteriously got closer. And now somehow his pillow had disappeared from above him.
"Draco Lucius Malfoy! Don't you dare ignore me! You get out of this bed this instant!"
On any other day, Draco would have listened. But he was exhausted. Yesterday's events kept replaying over and over in his mind, and had kept him up last night. Things that normally wouldn't have even phased him several months ago. What was about this situation that made it so different?
"Don't make me levitate you out of this bed, young man."
Luckily his head was facing away from his mother, so she missed frown forming on his face. How in the hell had she found him here? She wasn't supposed to know that Draco had been sleeping in his real room the whole time rather than that assigned so-called dormitory. Maybe if he wrapped the blanket around himself even tighter, he could finally drown out his mother's angry tone enough so it would be dull white noise. If only.
"…Levoisa…"
Draco's blanket was suddenly snatched from his balled fists, floating high above his bed near the ceiling. With a growl, he turned over and sat up in bed. The blanket was cast aside, leaving an extremely upset Narcissa Malfoy in front of it.
"Nice to see you too, Mother," Draco grumbled, glowering at her through foggy grey eyes. "Just what do I owe the pleasure?"
"You mean besides the fact that you're breaking one of my rules?" Narcissa retorted, crossing her arms across her chest.
He rose from the bed and lightly brushed past his mother to retrieve his dressing gown. Tightening the belt around himself, he turned to look at her. "You decided that that was worth coming in person to reprimand me for?"
"I knew you were here the whole time," she replied wryly, her icy blue eyes growing simultaneously colder and alight with fire.
Draco raised his eyebrows.
"How would it look if the headmistress' own son can't even follow the rules?" Narcissa asked pointy. Her eyes were growing larger and angrier by the second. It was a sign that he was truly in deep shit, and had done something his mother would not gloss over so easily.
"But maybe I should punish you and force you to stay in that room with Blaise for the remainder of the program."
How tempted he was to ask just what on earth did he do to deserve her wrath so early in the morning. But Draco was not about to unknowingly admit to any sort of wrongdoing. Narcissa would have to come out and say it if she really wanted to give him a lecture.
As if knowing this, Narcissa frowned in acknowledgement. "What have you done to the Weasley girl?"
"Nothing," he responded a little too gruffly.
"Then why was she in my office minutes ago looking like a shell of herself?" Narcissa asked, placing a hand on her hip.
Draco ran a hand through his extremely disheveled blond hair. It was sticking up in too many directions to count from the previous night's restless tossing and turning. "How should I know?"
"How could you mess this up, Draco?" Narcissa's voice rising an octave.
"Why does it bloody matter what happened with Gi-Weasley?" Draco shouted, catching himself. If Ginny refused to call him by his name, then he would too. It was back to formalities. He took a deep breath, willing himself to calm down. There were few people he could truly be himself with it, and unfortunately his mother was one of the few people that could read him easily. It was easy to forget to compartmentalize feelings in front of the few he trusted.
"I don't need her. The family name has been doing just fine without the Weasley girl mucking things up."
"There will be no cursing in my home!" Narcissa chastised.
Draco felt himself grow bolder despite the warning bells blaring in his head. "Besides, this Conservatory doesn't have a hundred percent success rate. It's not like you ended up with your match."
She looked up at him with pursed lips, forming a tight line. "That's because I was paired with Rabastan Lestrange. He looked nervous and flighty even at that age."
Draco shivered upon hearing the creepy man's name. Both of the Lestranges were off their rockers in different ways, having been raised from a first generation Death Eater. At least his own father hadn't been tainted by Voldemort from birth. He shook himself from these thoughts and turned his attention back to his mother. Though he wanted to drop himself into an armchair, he couldn't sit down and lose the literal higher ground at this moment.
Looking up angrily at her petulant, stubborn son, Narcissa let out a small snarl of frustration. Draco hid his smirk, knowing she was refusing to allow herself to be a hypocrite and curse, but unable to find the right words to tell him off. Something shifted in his mother's eyes, frosting her cool blue stare with iciness and a sense of foreboding washed over him. It felt more like Narcissa was looking down on him, rather than the other way around. No matter how tall he was or how much older he got, Narcissa always had the way of making him feel like he was a little boy getting chastised just from the deadly look in her eyes.
"You two go ahead and be bullheaded then," Narcissa snapped. "We'll see what happens.""
Before he could ask what she was going on about, she disappeared with an angry pop!
Draco dropped himself into the armchair, cradling his head in his hands from exhaustion and frustration. Nracissa's words felt like a warning, and he had no idea what to expect from her. As fiercely as his mother loved him and would protect him in every way she knew how, that same ferocity was also used to teach him a lesson.
He lifted his head up at a realization. You two go ahead and be bullheaded. The two of them? Ginny hadn't ended up telling on him? In a strange way he commended her for not ratting him out, as others who hated his guts were quick to tell tall tales. But of course she wouldn't, she wasn't a Slytherin, but a goody two shoes Gryffindor.
Rubbing a long-fingered hand across his face, he slowly stood up, reluctant to face the long day in front of him.
The rest of the day passed in a haze for Draco. At breakfast Ginny completely rebuffed him, choosing to sit at the far end of the table, completely opposite from him and Blaise. But at least she had showed up this meal. He was worried when she hadn't shown up to dinner, her favorite meal. Well, every meal was her favorite, so it was completely valid to wonder about a Weasley's well-being if they were missing from the dining table.
Draco had attempted to make his way over to try to get her to talk to him, but Ginny completely ignored him. As if he was one of the antique paintings hung in the luxurious dining room, always passed by without a second thought. Lena had also shot him a deathly glare that basically amounted to "fuck off," so he wisely made his way back to his breakfast plate.
Later, when he slumped into his seat in the lecture room, Draco kept finding himself staring at her silky scarlet waves. She sat there primly, quill in her hand, stuck in that notebook of hers. Ginny looked stiff, almost as if she could feel his eyes on her. A few times he leaned forward, tempted to call out her name, but quickly reeled himself back in, sensing that she would ignore himself at all costs.
It felt as if the past several weeks had been erased and they were back at square one, week one. Everything that they had gone through completely fell away, as though time had reset. It was making him anxious and uncomfortable. Determined to be as stubborn as she was, he refused to allow himself to look at her for the remainder of the class.
However, a hellish forty five minutes later, when they broke for lunch, Draco found his eyes wandering over to the far end of the table. Ginny was actually smiling and laughing, the warm light returning to her large, brown eyes. The minute she saw his pensive grey eyes staring at her, the light faded, her smile dropped, and she quickly turned away.
Draco's attempt at being cold and detached like Ginny wasn't working. The almost hour he had spent determined not to look at her had instead become a period of forcing himself to not think about her, when in reality he still was. There was no denying it. No matter how hard he tried, he simply couldn't quash his strong feelings for Ginny Weasley.
He scowled into his lunch. Normally when he made a mess of things, Draco could rectify his mistakes with flowers or jewelry or something else abhorrently expensive. Weasley was not that kind of woman. Her affections could not be bought. Which was actually one of the reasons he had grown to respect and like her for. Damn it all.
This is why Draco hesitated getting involved with her in the first place. Feeling were far too much work to sort through and clouded judgement about everything. It was easier to remain detached and play the field strategically. Feelings made him vulnerable. Draco Malfoy did not like having his guard down. So he did what he knew best, he compartmentalized his feelings just as he had done in the past. Only the most honest feeling wouldn't stay put in its compartment.
The next morning, Ginny pulled out the one pair of black trousers she brought from her wardrobe and a crisp, maroon blouse. After having to do trial runs of make-up and hair along with all of those snug dress fittings, she just wanted to be comfortable. After running a brush in her hair and grabbing her things, she turned to the door, only to be struck by an obstacle in her path.
Lena was standing in front of the door defiantly, arms crossed. "Not so fast, Ginny."
"What is it?" Ginny asked tiredly. "We're going to be late for breakfast if we don't get a move on."
"I talked to Blaise yesterday and he told me the truth about the bet and Draco."
"So?" Ginny retorted. "I don't care what happened. He used me for his entertainment. I'm not a plaything to be thrown away once he's done with it!"
Lena threw her hands up in frustration. "But that's not what happened! Not exactly, anyway. I think Draco really cares about you. Besides, you two were adorable together."
"Yeah, while he was chatting me up with his likely rehearsed lines," Ginny said with a roll of her eyes. "And like the idiot I am, I fell for it."
"Oh please, he throws a barb at you, you throw a snarky line back at him. It's kind of your guys' M.O.," Lena explained. "Besides, it's totally meant to be! He comes from a rich family, you come from a… not as rich family. He seems like he's a complete snob but deep down he's not as bad as you think he is. You're smart, gorgeous, and can keep him in line. See? Brilliant!"
If only Ginny could roll her eyes on loop. This was the corniest thing she'd ever heard.
"Lena!" Ginny exclaimed. "We're not some Austenian couple!"
"It's not my fault it's a classic trope," Lena countered. "But clichés have to come from somewhere!"
Ginny squeezed her eyes shut and pinched the bridge of her nose in an effort to calm herself down.
Opening her eyes, she said, "Look, even if I did want to know the so-called truth, I'm not ready to deal with him and his stupid smirk right now. Now can we please get down to breakfast? Before I blow the door off from behind you?"
Draco slid into his new spot across from Blaise at the dining table, feeling tired, though Blaise was nowhere to be found. He had slept longer than usual but didn't wake up feeling refreshed as he had hoped. Feeling the ravenous rumble in his stomach, he reached for a crumpet and butter. Though he was trying to stay focused at the task at hand, Draco found his eyes wandering, hoping to see a familiar glimpse of red dispersed somewhere in the dining room. His eyes eventually fell on Ginny, who seemed to be in a serious conversation with Lena.
He reached for his morning cup of tea, grey eyes unable to tear away from the redhead that looked a little less glum today. He looked down at his freshly brewed drink. The amber colored liquid reminded him of Ginny's eyes, warm and sweet. Bringing the cup to his lips for a sip, the tea tasted bitter and burned the roof of his mouth. Draco glared in her direction crossly, as if it was Ginny's fault that his morning tea no longer tasted the same.
"Maybe I'll just switch to coffee," Draco muttered to no one in particular.
"Why? So it can be black like your soul?" A familiar voice drawled.
Draco looked up to see Blaise settling in across from him, cheerily stacking his plate with bangers and mash. He looked well-rested and ready to take on today's challenge. Draco scowled again.
"You know what they say," Blaise continued as Draco continued to silently glower at him. "Absence makes the heart grow fonder."
"Oh, shove off, Zabini. What are you my great gran?"
"Just throwing the truth out there," Blaise shrugged.
"How about getting your nose out of my business?" Draco snapped.
To his surprise, Blaise dropped the usual light and sarcastic tone he usually touted around. "Look, Draco, you need to sort out your priorities," he explained seriously. "Because my girl won't sit with me so long as you're on the outs with Weasley."
Draco rolled his eyes as Blaise gulped down freshly squeezed orange juice made from the orchards on the Manor's ground.
"It's something you should've done way before shit hit the fan," Blaise added.
The blond said nothing but focused on the plate in front of him. He pushed his breakfast around with his fork on the plate absently, picking at the food rather than digging in like he had anticipated doing minutes ago. He hated when Blaise was right; even a broken clock was right twice a day. Draco had hit a new low.
He reached again for his cup of tea, only for the liquid to swirl coldly in his mouth. Quickly swallowing, he set the cup back on its saucer, mentally chastising himself for foolishly expecting to get different results. A tinkle of laughter floated by his ear, tantalizing and torturing him at the same time. It was Ginny's light, airy laughter hanging in the air.
Looking back, Draco realized that he should have never gotten close to her. Everything had gone too far, for the both of them. He knew he had flown too close to the blazing, red sun.
A/N: I got several new follows since the last chapter, so thanks all for following, as well as the people who have been supporting throughout! FFNet was being weird and wouldn't let me post this for a few hours, ugh. I'm going to apologize in advance if there's a longer gap with the next chapter. I'm moving so I may not be able to get the next chapter up as soon as I'd like. Anyway, I do hope you leave a review on the way out, they really make my week and I like to hear what you think!