AN: Terribly sorry that this installment took ages to come out. I just got back to school and it's been sheer pounding. I've been working and working and working and I was just too dead tired to even consider logging on. I guess the muse hasn't been too inspired lately either.
Thanks for all the reviews. A special thanks to the reviewer who reminded me that Draco's mother's name is Narcissa. I couldn't quite remember it. Review again?
Thanks to my faithful reviewers:
Disclaimer : All characters and setting belong to JK Rowling.
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Draco sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. He started to put on his robes, his movements quick and clumsy. His fingers were trembling and he kept thinking about the look on Ginny's face. The look of disbelief. The look of hurt. The look of pain. He tried not to think about it, but it was impossible. His heart was beating impossibly hard. His lips were trembling, and he had to blink hard. Belatedly he remembered Pansy and when he turned to face her it was with a look of such hatred on his face that Pansy recoiled, fear on her face. "Get out of here." He hissed through teeth clamped together. Hard.
He walked rapidly out of the dorm, willing himself to stay controlled. The painting was still open. He swung out and strode down the corridor. The walk down to the Gryffindor common room seemed long. It was probably short. He was shivering even in the well heated corridor. When he reached the common room, Neville Longbottom was just going in. He started to push Neville aside and climb in, but Neville waylaid him. His look was one of fearful defiance. "You're not supposed to go in here."
Draco sneered. "Who's going to stop me? You?"
"No." said a cold voice from inside. "I will." Ron stood there, looking at him with undisguised contempt. "I don't know what the hell happened between you and Ginny, but if you ever try to go near her again, I will punch you so hard -"
"Ron, stop it." Hermione said. On her face was exasperation and weariness. She nodded at Draco. Her face was firm. "Go away, Draco. You're not going to be getting in here. Not tonight."
Draco started to push past them, but Ron flung him out with a punch. It was a good punch. By the time Draco was able to stand up, the painting was closed.
Draco just looked at it. With every moment that passed, his heart felt colder and colder, until the coldness spread to his entire body and he was shivering uncontrollably on the long trek back to the Slytherin common room.
Ginny looked dully at her textbook. She didn't see the words. All she saw was Draco. Draco with his arm around Pansy. Now he would never know that she had gotten over Harry. He would never know.
The teacher was talking. Ginny wished he would stop. What was there to teach anymore? She had learnt all that was worth learning. What was she doing here? A blinding pain shot through her head. She had a headache. Probably due to the fact that she hadn't slept all night, Ginny thought with desperation. What was she doing here? She got up, stumbling slightly. "I'm sorry." She mumbled. "I don't feel well."
Professor McGonagall looked at her over glasses. "Go straight to Madam Pomfrey." She said briskly, turning back to her class after giving Ginny a piercing look. A fleeting look of sympathy passed over her face, but it was gone instantly.
Ginny walked slowly out of the classroom, but she didn't go straight to Madam Pomfrey. She walked aimlessly. She just needed to be alone for a while. Without thinking, she just kept on walking, until she reached an empty staircase. She sat down dizzily and looked at her hands.
She'd thought he loved her. He'd never said it, but she had thought so, in the way he touched her, in the way he looked at her, in the way he was jealous. She'd thought he respected her enough not to cheat on her.
She'd thought many things.
Many wrong things.
Ginny stood. She tripped on the edge of her robes, and caught quickly at the stair banister. It was a long way to the bottom.
She steadied herself and got off the stairs.
Draco waited in the Hall, his hand clenching and unclenching the goblet he held. He was looking for her. He saw Potter and friends. He couldn't even summon up a nasty thought. Where the hell was she?
Then she came in, with her friends. All three of them were uncharacteristically quiet. Ginny was in the middle, but she was looking at the floor hazily, as if she didn't really see it. Her friends were looking warily at her. Ginny looked so young. So fricking young. So fricking lost. He stood abruptly and strode over to her. They had to talk. He would tell her about Pansy. He would explain. His heart clutched tight in his chest, and he was reminded of his father's many silent, subtle reminders. Never show emotion. It was a weakness, a weakness for freaks like Potter. Voldemort didn't like emotion. Not emotions other than fear and hate.
He came up to her. "Can we talk?"
Ginny recoiled. She didn't say anything, but her face whitened. Connie and Fran discreetly melted away. Well, Connie discreetly. She had to tug on Fran's arms once or twice. "There's nothing to talk about." She said quietly.
Draco growled. "There's plenty to talk about. You saw something that didn't mean anything."
Ginny looked up and faced him and on her face was a startling whiteness more alarming than any of her blushes. She flinched when he reached out to touch her. It was as if she couldn't stand his touch now that he had touched Pansy. That hurt. Draco had always known that many of the Gryffindors considered him filth. He didn't give a damn. But for Ginny, Ginny, to recoil from his touch, like she considered him filth - "That's what you said yesterday." She said, her voice trembling and fluctuating. "You said that to me when I saw you in the corridor with her. You told me that there was nothing to be jealous about. You lied to me."
"I didn't fucking lie to you!" Draco said desperately. "I didn't! It doesn't mean anything. I was horny. I couldn't sleep with you. She came on to me. It happened like that. I swear, Ginny, I swear that it meant nothing. It has nothing to do with you and me."
"I don't care." Ginny said, rubbing her arms, not looking at him. "You don't do that - you don't just sleep with someone - when you're supposed to be dating someone else." She let out a sob, and a small hand flew to her mouth, and she started shaking her head. "I was going to tell you that I was completely over Harry! I was going to tell you that I loved you! Then to find you there, with someone else!" She started backing away, tears seeping down over her cheeks. "Stay away from me. Stay away from me."
"No, I will not fucking stay away from you." Draco said distinctly. In his belly was a growing feeling of alarm. Maybe it wouldn't be all right after all…
Maybe she wouldn't listen…
Maybe there would never be a you and me again…
I loved you…
I was completely over Harry…
All these past tenses.
"Ginny, please." He wasn't begging yet, but he would be soon. At that thought Draco felt a clutch more potent than his alarm, his pain, his fear. A clutch that had nothing to do with his feelings for Ginny and everything to do with his pride.
Since he'd first fallen in love with this girl, his pride had taken enormous beatings.
Can it take another one?
Ginny was swiftly composing herself. She had pride too, this girl. His girl. She wanted to come back to him, he could see that, in the softened look in her pain stung eyes, in the different way she held herself, quietly tense. She had always been able to read him, and he knew now that she knew what it meant for him to come to her this way, to almost-beg. Two things were warring in her, the image of him with Pansy and the image of him almost-begging. Pride against love. Pain against pleasure.
"Ginny -"
Confusion.
"Ginny - "
Why couldn't he say anything?
He wanted it to be over.
He loved her.
He hated her.
He -
He didn't know.
He just didn't fucking know!
He wanted her back. That much he knew.
Ginny looked at him. Her mouth opened, the sweet red mouth he had kissed so often. "I don't know." She stammered. Her voice cracked, as if she hadn't spoken for a while. "I don't know, Draco. I want to, but I -"
"You need time to think." Draco said, calming himself. His voice grew cool. "I'll wait, Ginny." He voice grew cooler. "But not for too long."
Ginny looked at him, just looked at him, and he knew then that she saw that he really was the son of Lucius Malfoy. Lucius Malfoy as she knew him. He knew it even as his back became straighter and the tilt of his chin prouder, and he knew it as surely as he knew that his actions, minute as they might be, were pushing her away.
I love you. The thought, unbidden and desperate, rose to his lips and he spoke them as if in a dream. Ginny looked at him again, but he couldn't bear the honest pain in her eyes. He couldn't bear the fact that she had flinched from his touch.
He couldn't bear the fact that she went to sit down, after gently laying a hand on his robes, with Connie and Fran. He couldn't bear the fact that Potter and her idiot brother pulled up their chairs and sat next to her.
He couldn't bear the fact that he had driven her to it.
"I wish she would tell us what happened." Ron said quietly. His brown eyes were anxious as he looked sadly at his Potions homework and then at the quiet figure of Ginny as she sat by the fireplace in a pose similar to that Harry had recently adopted. Hermione felt a pang of sympathy, both for Ron and for Ginny. It was obvious that whatever had happened had been harrowing for Ginny. It was equally obvious that Ron was genuinely hurt that his baby sister wouldn't confide in him. It was also obvious that Ron sympathized deeply with her and was pained that Ginny was pained.
The whole Draco-Ginny affair had cast a pall over the whole Gryffindor common room. Like Ron, Fred and George, - contributing normally 75% to the Gryffindor noise level - were sitting, subdued, every so often casting beseeching looks at Ginny.
Hermione felt a sudden pang - she was getting a lot of sudden pangs lately - of envy towards Ginny. Certainly if she, Hermione, had broken up with someone, the only people who would have noticed were Harry and maybe Ron. Not that she wanted to be hurt as much as Ginny had, but she wanted to know that if she had, people would actually have noticed and - was it too much to ask - cared!
"She'll tell you when she -" Harry stopped and started over. "She'll tell you when she can, you know? When she - well, when she can! You know."
Amazingly articulate. Hermione thought sarcastically and berated herself for it. She looked curiously at Harry. There was a feverish look about him. His jet black hair was ruffled wildly - well, more wildly than usual, then - and his eyes were bright and, well, bright. Feverishly bright. Well, she was being amazingly articulate herself, wasn't she?
Ron nodded sagely, as if that speech of Harry's had made sense. Maybe it actually had, in Ronworld. "I know." He said mournfully. "But I still wish she would tell us what happened."
Hermione didn't know which was worse, Ron raging over Ginny, or Ron mooning over Ginny.
I wish Ron would just get a life of his own!
She cast a glance at Fred and George, who were still looking meek.
Maybe it's a Weasley thing.
It had better be a Weasley thing.
Ginny was thinking.
She loved Draco.
She had been hurt by Draco.
She was afraid to get back together with Draco in case he hurt her again.
She was afraid to not get back together with Draco because she loved Draco.
That, was Ginny Weasley's problem, in a nutshell.
A particularly big nutshell, but a nutshell nevertheless.
Ginny sighed. It seemed to her, at the moment, that she had to get back together with Draco. Already she missed him, missed the warm - and frequently hot - presence, the guy she had, God Help Her, come to love.
But not just yet.
She had to get over the memory of seeing him with Pansy first.
A pain shot through her.
Maybe not just-in-a-long-while yet.