Title: Angel Standing By (Walk Away)
Author: Amanda Mancini (thefreakygeek@hotmail.com)
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Romance/Drama
Summary: "I know exactly what it's like to try to
make someone notice you, to wish they'd just give you a little
praise to show they cared. But no matter what you do, no matter
how hard you try, he'll never notice, and he'll never care."
Disclaimer: All characters belong to J.K.
Rowling, Publishers, and Warner Bros. The song Angel Standing
By belongs to Jewel. Idea of 'grunge style robes' for the
Weird Sisters is from Heidi's Surfeit of Curses and used
without permission. No profit is being made from this piece of
fanfiction.
Author's Note: Dedicated to Sabrina Rosa Rodin, still my favourite cousin, as well
as all the members of DracoGinnyFanfic
and Penumbra_fic
for their help and support.
Chapter I: Never
Ginny Weasley remembered a time when she'd always smile. Even when she was unhappy, which hadn't been very often, she would smile because the mere action would make her feel better. Not to mention that everyone would think she was happy and they'd be happy too. They'd all be happy together.
Even though Ginny still smiled, she wasn't happy anymore. In fact, Ginny hadn't been happy for over three years. Ever since she'd been manipulated by the evil Who-Must-Not-Be-Named in her first year. Her brothers had all recounted their favourite tales of the school, but Ginny would never look back at Hogwarts fondly.
Bill had been the cool one: one of the rare, intelligent non-conformists. Charlie was the Quidditch Captain, and went down in Hogwarts history as one of it's best seekers. Percy was... well, Percy. Perfect Percy, top marks. They were a lot to be compared to, yet Fred and George stood out. They were funny, and everybody liked them. And Ron, he had it the best! He was friends with Harry Potter. He was famous for driving the family car into the Whomping Willow!
Ginny, she was nothing but the baby girl of the family. she was the only one who helped her mother with the household chores, becasue dusting and cleaning were girly jobs. And it wasn't like de-gnoming the garden was hard enough so that all the boys had to do it... Or maybe it was. If only they'd let her try and decide for herself.
The more time passed, the more burdens and stresses presented themselves to her: she was growing up. In that one summer before her fourth year, Ginny didn't really notice when she became so self-concious anout hersef, her looks, her actions. It just happened. that way. And it was always worse when he was around.
"Hey Ginny!" Harry had told her as he and Ron made their way to her brother's bedroom.
"Hi!" she'd always answer over-enthusiastically, cursing the devil for always making her blush like that when he was around. She hated her redness with a passion (as if the hair wasn't enough) and sometimes forced herself to avoid him, Harry, just to save herself from the embarassment. But of course, it didn't stop her from sneaking peeks from the corner of her eyes.
Strange, how Harry didn't seem all that different from last summer. The Weasleys had all expected him to be depressed and passive, but it was like he acted as if nothing ever happened at the Tri-Wizard Tourament. But no matter how Harry tried to fool them, Ginny noticed the veil of paranoia that fell over him when in a public or open place. She saw it Diagon Alley: She'd been admiring him from behind when she realised just how often he'd smooth his unruly bangs onto his forehead, over his scar.
He must have felt someones eyes on him, or perhaps he was just being paranoid again, but at that very moment we whipped around and caught her staring straight at him. Feeling the redness crawling into her cheeks (again) she quickly looked away, embrarrassed, only to see that just across the road through the window of another store someone was staring at her. She saw that pompous Draco Malfoy sneer at her maliciously and turn away. He didn't need words to taunt her.
"I guess Potter didn't like your valentine!" Ginny shuddered and pushed the memory away as she trudged into Florean Fortesque's Ice Cream Parlour to buy something that would cheer her up.
But just because he didn't need words didn't mean he wouldn't use them, though. In fact, only a week after the start of the school term, Draco cornered her as she'd been making her way (alone) to Potions.
"Still gawking after Potter, little Weasel? What, do you think he'd actually care about you?"
She glared at him, and would have tried to throw something back at him if he hadn't straightened his robes to better display the prefect badge that had been sewn to them. It was a threat: Ginny would have lost Gryffindor points by defending herself (no doubt Malfoy would have lied about her,) so instead she just ran off to her destination while trying to keep the tears behind her eyes. It was for the better, she decided, since she'd never been good at comebacks and would have embarrassed herself more anyways.
Ginny never really remembered Malfoy having been so nasty to her before. Sure, he'd picked on her because she was a Weasley, but he spent a lot more time fighting with Ron. It hurt when she realised that her brother hadn't even noticed the abuse she was going through. Not him or Harry or even Hermione were around her long enough to see, and that was only something more for Malfoy to point out.
"Why doesn't your big brother help you out, little Weasel?" he drawled "Are hero Potty or Mudblood going to fly in and rescue you?" Those were the comments that hurt the most even compared to the insults to her family because deep down, Ginny wondered the same thing. Determined not to show weakness, Ginny would always just hold her head high, pretend she hadn't heard him and walk away.
It's too bad that method didn't always work. Sure, it was fine when Malfoy would be in the library only an aisle away from her, nudging towards Harry and sneering at her. But one evening mid-October, as she'd been on her way to The Great Hall, he went too far. She'd been walking with (or, rather, behind) her brother and his friends, and Malfoy had actually hd the guts to grab her sharply by the wrist and pull her so quickly into an empty classroom that she didn't even have the time to make a sound.
"Now now, Red, do you actually think that by tailing Potty he'll notice you."
That had been the final straw. Maybe it was because she was because she'd just dealt with him too much, or maybe it was because her wrist hurt, but either way it made her do something she'd never done before.
Ginny attacked him.
Well, attacked maybe isn't the right word. She angrilly pulled her wrist from Malfoy's grasp, and then pushed him in the chest with all the force she could muster. From the look of utter disbelief embedded on his pale face, you could just see that this was not what he'd been expecting from Little Weasel.
"Stop it!" she hollered, unable to keep herself from crying "Why can't you just leave me alone! Why do you do to this to me? What did I ever do to you?!"
Draco just stared blankly at her and sputtered something incomprehensible, unable to think of anything he could answer her with. By that point, Ginny had expelled what she'd been holding in for all those months and was now on empty. An awkward silence settled between them for a few moments until Ginny turned around and made her way to the door. But just as reached out for the doorknob, she felt Draco's hand grasp her should and gently spin her around.
"Don't cry," he told her, his voice softening (but only a bit.) "I just don't see why you're always chasing after some prat who'll never notice you. You're too good for Potter, Ginny. You deserve better." Face still expressionless, he reached to her face to wipe a tear away with his thumb. She jerked her head away before he could.
"Shut up, Malfoy." She stepped as far away from him as she could, which was only two paces away with her back pressed against the think wooden door. "You don't underst-"
"How do you know whether or not I understand?" he interupted sourly. "You're the one who doesn't understand, because I know exactly what you're doing. I know exactly what it's like to try to make someone notice you, to wish they'd just give you a little praise to show they cared. But no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, he'll never notice, and he'll never care." For those three seconds Draco had looked her straight in the eye, and in those three seconds, Ginny had seen more emotion then she'd ever thought him capable of. He turned sharply and pulled open the door, which sent her flying, and left.
