~***~
13. The 'Gift'
~***~
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the stupid plot!
~***
(A/N: Okay - I know this is categorized as being a Romance/Humor, and it was at the beginning, but it kinda' turned out to be more of a Romance/Angst - anyway, I just want you guys to know I am aware of that, and I'm sorry if anyone who just started reading this fic has felt a little misled.
This story has just kind of grown into this thing, and I'm thinking about extending it to be a chapter or two a bit longer than I originally had planned, so if you have comments or whatever, let me know.
Also, I know there are some spelling and grammar errors, especially in earlier chapters and I apologize - I'll really try to go back and fix those. The errors in the past chapter came up three or four different times while I was trying to post, and no matter what I did to fix them on my computer, they just kept staying that way on the document manager, so I finally just posted it - sorry again, I know they're annoying.
This chapter is dedicated to those of you that reviewed, and continue to keep up - or rather, put up - with my sporadic updates - I really appreciate your opinions, and your input. Oh, and I love you! I hope you guys like this one! THANK YOU! ^-^ ~ Lee)
~***~
She truly felt like she might faint.
He was really here, after a summer of dreaming, and she knew what he was, who he was, and here she stood, still stupidly waiting for a kind word after what she'd done to him.
Ginny took a moment to study him, her chest aching with the need to reach out and touch him. He had matured since she'd seen him last. He looked frighteningly even more like his father, with his frosty eyes and hair. If she wasn't mistaken, he seemed to have grown taller, and his shoulders had broadened, definitely, but there was something else that made him seem so much older. There was a hardness about him that spoke volumes of his experiences of the past year.
There was very little of the selfish, thoughtless boy about him anymore. He'd grown in more ways than in just his outward appearance.
This was a man, and he was definitely dangerous. Especially to her.
The changes in him were so at odds with her memories that it startled her. He was Draco, and yet so evolved in his usual mannerisms it made her feel as if she'd never really known him.
He'd moved beyond the juvenile cruelties of his childhood, and what he'd grown into was far darker, so tangibly sinister and brooding, that she found herself actually frightened by him.
Draco had been forced into adult responsibility harshly and without warning, and it showed.
Ginny realized then that though she'd thought she was trying to protect him, her lie had hurt him more than it had helped him. No one had loved him his entire life, and she'd been unbelievably cruel herself by giving him her love and then cutting herself off from him completely.
"You must hate me," she suddenly heard herself say flatly, and she wanted badly to take the words back. Tears gathered behind her eyes, as she stared up at him, and waited.
As expected, Draco took her words for what they had subconsciously been - an invitation.
He stepped up to her, and she found she couldn't breathe. For a long moment there was only the muffled sound of the train wheels lapping over the tracks, and then he spoke, his eyes narrowing slightly as he closely watched her, no doubt trying to gauge her reaction so he could jump on her next words.
"What do you want me to say? That I don't? I'll lie to you if that's what you want," he announced carelessly, crossing his arms.
"Why are you in here?" Ginny returned woodenly.
"Really now, have I ever had to have a reason to torment you?"
She felt her skin prickle at his mocking tone.
"Please don't do this."
"Do what, Weasel?"
He observed her unblinkingly, and she had to drop her eyes momentarily to escape his scrutiny.
"You're being childish," she murmured desperately.
"No - childish is telling someone you love them, and then taking it back," he suddenly snarled so fiercely that she instinctively took a step back at the lightning quick transformation in his appearance. Her heart leapt into her throat, and she felt her heels bang into the seat behind her as she moved back yet again as he slowly advanced on her.
Her fear must have shown on her face, for the anger seemed to drain from his pale features as he cut his eyes at her.
"What's wrong, Ginny? Are you scared?"
His taunt made her blush hotly, and she focused on the thin scar marring his high cheekbone. "N - No."
Draco smirked, and the movement drew her attention to his lips. Her longing, confused glance paused seconds longer than it should have.
Of course he noticed, and he leapt on it.
"Want me to kiss you, now, do you?"
Ginny's eyes jumped up to his again, and she shook her head quickly.
"No - "
"Gin, come on - you can't give a guy an invitation like that and expect him not to accept," he said silkily, and unfolded one of his arms to reach out a hand and grasp her small chin.
"Draco, please,"
"You really are scared of me, aren't you? So polite, all of a sudden. What happened to that flame haired, temper mental little brat who had the nerve to challenge me to a duel?"
Ginny couldn't answer - she was too busy making herself look anywhere but at him. Particularly his lips.
What perverse little imp had possessed her to make her send Hermione away?
Draco gave her chin a gentle tug upwards, and her heart stopped dead in her chest as he bent his head and kissed her for the first time in months.
~***~
Draco felt his heart race madly in his chest as he touched his lips to hers against his better judgment. He really had no idea what had come over him to kiss her - it was all he'd been able to think about from the moment he'd stood in the doorway and seen her looking so small and pale and irresistibly vulnerable.
His hand trembled where he had it curled under her soft chin, and he moved it, reaching out blindly to bury it in the wild, sinfully soft mass of warm red curls tumbling in lovely, endless waves over her shoulders.
Her warm lips parted hesitantly under his, and a flood of emotion so strong it made him weak, also made him unwillingly whisper her name against her.
"Ginny."
The rough, agonized sound of his own voice made him flinch, and he pulled away from her hastily, dropping his hand from her hair, hating himself for his sudden clumsiness.
The velvety softness of her large brown eyes looking up at him from beneath her lashes made his heart lurch in his chest in remembered pain.
The compartment door slid open behind him, and he heard Ron Weasley's muffled curse.
"What are you doing in here, Malfoy?"
Draco drew in a harsh breath, and forced an unpleasant smile to his lips. "Just.visiting."
He watched Ginny blink, and take a shuddering breath as well.
"Ginny, are you all right?"
He rolled his eyes at the sound of Harry's lowered voice behind him too.
"I - I'm fine," she got out at last, her eyes dropping from his.
Draco clenched his jaw, and took another step back from her.
"Well, Gin - I'd say it's been nice, but." he gave an elegant shrug, and turned gratefully away towards the door. "I'll see you around, I suppose. Try not to break too many hearts this year."
He paused and looked pointedly at Harry, whose steady green gaze stared back at him with infuriating composure.
Draco felt his smirk falter as he saw a spark of pity in those hated eyes, and he snarled a furious, incoherent curse before pushing past the two boys and disappearing into the corridor beyond.
~***~
"She dealt her pretty words like blades, As glittering they shone, And every one unbarred a nerve Or wantoned with a bone."
Emily Dickinson, Poems
~***~
"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."
~***~
'All is not well; I doubt some foul play.' -William Shakespeare, Hamlet 1.2.254
~***~
Draco had known the little wrapped box held nothing good the moment he'd returned to his dorm and found it resting on his bed.
It was September twelfth, a little over a week since school had begun. It was the evening of his birthday, but he was the only one who knew, remembered, or even remotely cared.
Gone were the days of the expensive, massive presents his parents would send along to the school, the days when he delighted in showing off his wealth, and selfishly wrote back to his parents in complaint when he received less than he thought he deserved.
His mother had apparently forgotten, or more likely, couldn't be bothered.
Draco stared dumbly down at the note, and the small, open box beside it on his bed, and read the grandly looping script in purple ink again, disbelieving.
"Draco - I know you'll be pleased with this gift. I know you wanted her - I always have, you see, right from the off. You thought you could hide it from everyone else - but you couldn't hide it from me. I saw you - I saw you watching her, always staring at that maddening red hair of hers whenever she was around. You were obsessed with it."
Draco swallowed, his breaths becoming more and more agitated.
"I've left her a lovely surprise to wake to in the morning, my love - can you imagine the look on her face when she realizes her only glory is gone? I wish I could be there to see it..."
He stared at the last line with blurring eyes, literally seeing red.
"Well, you have it now, Draco - I've brought it to you! Happy bloody Birthday."
And the flourishing signature.
"Love Always, Pansy"
The girl wasn't just outright mad - she had a bloody death wish.
Draco could slowly feel rising in him past the shock, a blind, unrestrained fury. He looked down and couldn't help staring again.
A long, impossibly thick, flame red ponytail lay silkily across his lap, and he gently rubbed a smooth, shiny curl between his shaky fingers almost absently, as he watched the fire he sat before bathe the locks in a golden - orange light.
~***~
Ginny's eyes blinked open reluctantly, so heavy were her lids with sleep. In that moment, she wished she'd never woken up - she'd been dreaming, about Draco, but he'd loved her again, and she'd wanted him more then anything just to hold her.
The dream had been so real, so heart achingly perfect, that she'd fought against it ending, and now that it had, she found herself close to tears.
The dorm was still dark, and she sighed in relief as she turned over in her bed, and pushed her cheek into her pillow, closing her eyes again, hoping to go back to sleep.
That was when she noticed her hair wasn't flattened beneath her cheek, or tickling her nose in that annoying way it always did. She opened her eyes again, and frowned, one hand reaching up to run her fingers through her long curls.
Instead of meeting a soft resistance, her fingers passed through coarsely cut, short - cropped curls, and air.
Ginny gasped and sat up, feeling her head with both hands frantically - her hair!
She sobbed out loud, and scrambled off the bed, making enough racket in her haste to get to the bathroom to wake some of the other girls in the sixth year dorm.
Ginny grabbed her wand, and ran into the bathroom, breathing a ragged 'Lumos!' out of her tight throat as she paused, shivering, before a mirror.
Her wand dropped to the stone floor with a clatter a moment later and rolled away into the darkness.
~***~
Draco left the headmasters office with a grim countenance early the next morning.
Ginny was in the Infirmary, being treated for shock.
Harry had told him earlier when he'd finally come to his senses and raced up to the Gryffindor Tower to see for himself if she was all right, that Pomfrey had had initially, to put her to sleep, she'd been so traumatized.
He'd told himself over and over again she wouldn't want to see him, that it might make her feel worse if she knew he'd seen her with her hair butchered. Of course she would feel horrible, who wouldn't - but he had to see her, to make sure she was all right, for himself.
He was nearly driven mad by the fact that he'd let Pansy hurt her - he'd managed to divert many of the threats returning to school had posed her, but Pansy, that bitch had gotten in, gotten by again, somehow, and he felt responsible.
He knew he shouldn't care, shouldn't let himself feel for her, but it was impossible.
Draco tried not to think as he willingly skipped his first class, and made his way to the Infirmary - only to be told by Pomfrey herself at the entrance, firmly, that Ginny wasn't to see anyone.
After the old cow closed the doors in his face, he closed his eyes, and leaned against them in frustration.
"Wouldn't let you in, either, huh?"
Draco opened his eyes and spun around to see - no one.
He blinked, and then cursed, and rubbed his reddened, sleep deprived eyes with the back of his hand.
Someone sighed, and then there was a rustle of fabric, and Potter and Weasley appeared from thin air.
Startled, Draco frowned, and then he noticed the Invisibility cloak hanging from Harry's shoulder.
"What do you want, Malfoy? Come to tease Ginny, have you?"
He watched a red - faced Ron step forward threateningly, and then Harry's arm blocked him.
"I wanted to see if she was all right," Draco muttered scathingly, "not that it's any of your business, Weasley."
Ron pushed Harry's arm out of his way, but the dark haired boy fisted a hand in the back of his friend's robes and dragged him back.
"Relax, Ron - he's not here to hurt her."
"Right, I'll believe that, after all he's put her through - "
"All I've put 'her' through? You must be joking. How about all she's put 'me' through?" Draco snapped angrily.
"Do you have any bloody idea what it's like to wake up one day and realize you've just fallen in love with the enemy? You want to talk about shock and trauma!"
The two boys stared at him, and he glared back, his teeth bared.
Then Harry shook his head, and tossed the cloak at him.
Ron looked at him in disbelief.
"Be back in five minutes," Harry told him flatly. "Don't let her know you're there - you don't tell her, or anyone, you saw her."
"Harry -"
Draco looked at a bewildered Ron and then nodded shortly.
"I'm serious, Malfoy - you say a word - "
"Right, right, or I'll die a horrific death at the hands of the boy who lived. Just keep your sidekick here muzzled long enough for me to get in the bloody door." Draco smirked at a furious but silent Ron, and dragged the cloak over his head before Harry thought better of loaning it to him.
~***~
Ginny was awake, crying, lying in her bed and staring at the ceiling.
Ginny had thought she could handle it; Ron and Harry and Hermione had been at the door earlier, wanting to see her, but she couldn't see them. She couldn't take the curious stares or the pitying glances. And Draco.she'd heard Madam Pomfrey tell him off.
The thought of facing him looking the way she did only made her sob again.
She wasn't a vain person, she really wasn't - but she looked downright hideous. What Pansy had done -
Ginny rolled onto her stomach and cried into her pillow, glad the Infirmary was empty save for her.
"Ginny."
She was half drowned when she heard the indistinct voice - she turned her head to look, and could see no one.
The delicious scent of an expensive cologne lingered in the air, though, confirming the fact that her visitor was unmistakably, breathtakingly male.
She really couldn't place the scent, though it was very familiar.
"Harry?"
There was no answer.
"Harry? Is that you?"
"No, it's not 'Harry'," came the low voice again.
Frustrated at her inability to place the soft, deep voice, she wiped at her tears and shook her head.
To her knowledge no one but Harry had an Invisibility cloak at Hogwarts.
"Who are you? What do you want? Did you follow me to see if you could get a glance at my head, so you pass along how horrible it looks to all your friends?" Ginny reached up and touched her patch of ruined curls with a trembling hand.
"There, you've seen it firsthand - now you can go and gossip about it - and don't forget to add the fact that whoever hacked off my hair put a charm on it so that when Pomfrey tried to make it magically re - grow, half of what little there was left, fell out! So go and give away all the sordid little details - " her voice caught on a frustrated sob, and she turned away toward her pillow again.
"Ginny, wait, please.I only wanted to.see that you were all right."
Ginny swept the hood back up over her head and snapped shakily, "Do I look like I'm all right? I'm half bald and being stalked by a boy I can't even see - I'm just smashing, thanks!"
A low laugh rumbled from the shadows, and she paused, looking back over her shoulder.
"How dare you laugh at me?" She asked, outraged.
"You'd be surprised by just how much I'd dare," the voice said with dark humor.
"Draco?" Silence met her claim. She dragged her blanket half over her head in horror, and then she got angry.
"Was it you? Were you and Pansy working together? Do you hate me that much? Did you do this to me?" Her voice shook with rage. "What did you do with it? Where is my hair?"
"Do I look the bloody lost and found? Why would I cut off all of your hair? It was beautiful right where it was."
Ginny's angry expression faltered, and her shoulders drooped beneath her blankets. He made no move to reveal himself, and she was glad. She didn't think she could handle actually watching him look at her.
"Why are you here?"
"I already told you - I wanted to see for myself that you were okay. Don't be upset."
Her distress was evident in her voice as she whispered, "Why would she do this? I haven't done anything to her - I mean, I hardly even knew her, and all the things she's done to me. I don't understand it. I'm nobody.I couldn't have done anything."
"It's not your fault - you didn't do anything, Ginny. Pansy is an ugly, petty, jealous bitch."
"Jealous? Of me?" Ginny laughed tearfully in disbelief. "Right. Who would be jealous of me? A poor girl, with orange hair and ragged clothes -"
"You don't even know how lovely you are," he commented gently in a barely audible tone that made her start crying again.
"Don't cry.oh, for God's sake, woman, Dumbledore said it'll only take about a month for Pansy's charm to wear off - and then Pomfrey can do her thing, and your hair will be fine again."
"A month? A month! What the hell am I supposed to do until then?"
"I'll get you a really big hat - "
"Oh, go away."
"Not until I know you're going to be all right," he stated with infuriating stubbornness.
Ginny sniffed, and wiped her eyes with her blanket. "I'm just so tired, Draco. I'm tired of all of this. I don't know how much more I can take."
"Look at how much you've made it through already," he said carefully.
"Only because you were there through most of it," she confessed, finding it easier to talk to him now that she didn't have to look at him. "I think you keeping me angry is what did it. Half of the time I was too busy thinking of nasty things to say to you to be scared of anything that happened. I never thought I'd fall in love with you, I just thought I was finally losing it - "
He drew in a sharp breath, and she immediately knew she'd said something wrong.
"Draco, I'm so sorry I - I wasn't thinking."
"I have to go,"
"Wait, I want to apologize. For what I said, at Christmas." Ginny ducked her head and closed her eyes. "I do love you. Honestly. I love you more then I ever thought I could love anyone. So much that it scares me."
"Gin - "
She heard the Infirmary doors suddenly open then, and Ginny gasped as Madam Pomfrey walked in around the screen around her bed.
She sat rigid, waiting for Pomfrey to notice Draco, but if she did, she didn't mention it.
"Oh, Miss, you're awake. How are you feeling, dear?"
"I'm.better."
Ginny swallowed, and managed a weak smile as she looked over the stout woman's shoulder and the edge of the screen, and watched the doors swing open and shut again.
He'd called her 'lovely'.
~***~
(A/N: I have absolutely NO idea when Draco's birthday really is - I totally made that date up. If anyone does know, tell me, so I can correct it. Okay, here's the rough part - asking you guys to review and tell me whether or not this chapter worked, or if it was just awkward and lame. I need your opinions! Now - on to the next chapter! ^-^ ~ Lee)
TBC (
13. The 'Gift'
~***~
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the stupid plot!
~***
(A/N: Okay - I know this is categorized as being a Romance/Humor, and it was at the beginning, but it kinda' turned out to be more of a Romance/Angst - anyway, I just want you guys to know I am aware of that, and I'm sorry if anyone who just started reading this fic has felt a little misled.
This story has just kind of grown into this thing, and I'm thinking about extending it to be a chapter or two a bit longer than I originally had planned, so if you have comments or whatever, let me know.
Also, I know there are some spelling and grammar errors, especially in earlier chapters and I apologize - I'll really try to go back and fix those. The errors in the past chapter came up three or four different times while I was trying to post, and no matter what I did to fix them on my computer, they just kept staying that way on the document manager, so I finally just posted it - sorry again, I know they're annoying.
This chapter is dedicated to those of you that reviewed, and continue to keep up - or rather, put up - with my sporadic updates - I really appreciate your opinions, and your input. Oh, and I love you! I hope you guys like this one! THANK YOU! ^-^ ~ Lee)
~***~
She truly felt like she might faint.
He was really here, after a summer of dreaming, and she knew what he was, who he was, and here she stood, still stupidly waiting for a kind word after what she'd done to him.
Ginny took a moment to study him, her chest aching with the need to reach out and touch him. He had matured since she'd seen him last. He looked frighteningly even more like his father, with his frosty eyes and hair. If she wasn't mistaken, he seemed to have grown taller, and his shoulders had broadened, definitely, but there was something else that made him seem so much older. There was a hardness about him that spoke volumes of his experiences of the past year.
There was very little of the selfish, thoughtless boy about him anymore. He'd grown in more ways than in just his outward appearance.
This was a man, and he was definitely dangerous. Especially to her.
The changes in him were so at odds with her memories that it startled her. He was Draco, and yet so evolved in his usual mannerisms it made her feel as if she'd never really known him.
He'd moved beyond the juvenile cruelties of his childhood, and what he'd grown into was far darker, so tangibly sinister and brooding, that she found herself actually frightened by him.
Draco had been forced into adult responsibility harshly and without warning, and it showed.
Ginny realized then that though she'd thought she was trying to protect him, her lie had hurt him more than it had helped him. No one had loved him his entire life, and she'd been unbelievably cruel herself by giving him her love and then cutting herself off from him completely.
"You must hate me," she suddenly heard herself say flatly, and she wanted badly to take the words back. Tears gathered behind her eyes, as she stared up at him, and waited.
As expected, Draco took her words for what they had subconsciously been - an invitation.
He stepped up to her, and she found she couldn't breathe. For a long moment there was only the muffled sound of the train wheels lapping over the tracks, and then he spoke, his eyes narrowing slightly as he closely watched her, no doubt trying to gauge her reaction so he could jump on her next words.
"What do you want me to say? That I don't? I'll lie to you if that's what you want," he announced carelessly, crossing his arms.
"Why are you in here?" Ginny returned woodenly.
"Really now, have I ever had to have a reason to torment you?"
She felt her skin prickle at his mocking tone.
"Please don't do this."
"Do what, Weasel?"
He observed her unblinkingly, and she had to drop her eyes momentarily to escape his scrutiny.
"You're being childish," she murmured desperately.
"No - childish is telling someone you love them, and then taking it back," he suddenly snarled so fiercely that she instinctively took a step back at the lightning quick transformation in his appearance. Her heart leapt into her throat, and she felt her heels bang into the seat behind her as she moved back yet again as he slowly advanced on her.
Her fear must have shown on her face, for the anger seemed to drain from his pale features as he cut his eyes at her.
"What's wrong, Ginny? Are you scared?"
His taunt made her blush hotly, and she focused on the thin scar marring his high cheekbone. "N - No."
Draco smirked, and the movement drew her attention to his lips. Her longing, confused glance paused seconds longer than it should have.
Of course he noticed, and he leapt on it.
"Want me to kiss you, now, do you?"
Ginny's eyes jumped up to his again, and she shook her head quickly.
"No - "
"Gin, come on - you can't give a guy an invitation like that and expect him not to accept," he said silkily, and unfolded one of his arms to reach out a hand and grasp her small chin.
"Draco, please,"
"You really are scared of me, aren't you? So polite, all of a sudden. What happened to that flame haired, temper mental little brat who had the nerve to challenge me to a duel?"
Ginny couldn't answer - she was too busy making herself look anywhere but at him. Particularly his lips.
What perverse little imp had possessed her to make her send Hermione away?
Draco gave her chin a gentle tug upwards, and her heart stopped dead in her chest as he bent his head and kissed her for the first time in months.
~***~
Draco felt his heart race madly in his chest as he touched his lips to hers against his better judgment. He really had no idea what had come over him to kiss her - it was all he'd been able to think about from the moment he'd stood in the doorway and seen her looking so small and pale and irresistibly vulnerable.
His hand trembled where he had it curled under her soft chin, and he moved it, reaching out blindly to bury it in the wild, sinfully soft mass of warm red curls tumbling in lovely, endless waves over her shoulders.
Her warm lips parted hesitantly under his, and a flood of emotion so strong it made him weak, also made him unwillingly whisper her name against her.
"Ginny."
The rough, agonized sound of his own voice made him flinch, and he pulled away from her hastily, dropping his hand from her hair, hating himself for his sudden clumsiness.
The velvety softness of her large brown eyes looking up at him from beneath her lashes made his heart lurch in his chest in remembered pain.
The compartment door slid open behind him, and he heard Ron Weasley's muffled curse.
"What are you doing in here, Malfoy?"
Draco drew in a harsh breath, and forced an unpleasant smile to his lips. "Just.visiting."
He watched Ginny blink, and take a shuddering breath as well.
"Ginny, are you all right?"
He rolled his eyes at the sound of Harry's lowered voice behind him too.
"I - I'm fine," she got out at last, her eyes dropping from his.
Draco clenched his jaw, and took another step back from her.
"Well, Gin - I'd say it's been nice, but." he gave an elegant shrug, and turned gratefully away towards the door. "I'll see you around, I suppose. Try not to break too many hearts this year."
He paused and looked pointedly at Harry, whose steady green gaze stared back at him with infuriating composure.
Draco felt his smirk falter as he saw a spark of pity in those hated eyes, and he snarled a furious, incoherent curse before pushing past the two boys and disappearing into the corridor beyond.
~***~
"She dealt her pretty words like blades, As glittering they shone, And every one unbarred a nerve Or wantoned with a bone."
Emily Dickinson, Poems
~***~
"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."
~***~
'All is not well; I doubt some foul play.' -William Shakespeare, Hamlet 1.2.254
~***~
Draco had known the little wrapped box held nothing good the moment he'd returned to his dorm and found it resting on his bed.
It was September twelfth, a little over a week since school had begun. It was the evening of his birthday, but he was the only one who knew, remembered, or even remotely cared.
Gone were the days of the expensive, massive presents his parents would send along to the school, the days when he delighted in showing off his wealth, and selfishly wrote back to his parents in complaint when he received less than he thought he deserved.
His mother had apparently forgotten, or more likely, couldn't be bothered.
Draco stared dumbly down at the note, and the small, open box beside it on his bed, and read the grandly looping script in purple ink again, disbelieving.
"Draco - I know you'll be pleased with this gift. I know you wanted her - I always have, you see, right from the off. You thought you could hide it from everyone else - but you couldn't hide it from me. I saw you - I saw you watching her, always staring at that maddening red hair of hers whenever she was around. You were obsessed with it."
Draco swallowed, his breaths becoming more and more agitated.
"I've left her a lovely surprise to wake to in the morning, my love - can you imagine the look on her face when she realizes her only glory is gone? I wish I could be there to see it..."
He stared at the last line with blurring eyes, literally seeing red.
"Well, you have it now, Draco - I've brought it to you! Happy bloody Birthday."
And the flourishing signature.
"Love Always, Pansy"
The girl wasn't just outright mad - she had a bloody death wish.
Draco could slowly feel rising in him past the shock, a blind, unrestrained fury. He looked down and couldn't help staring again.
A long, impossibly thick, flame red ponytail lay silkily across his lap, and he gently rubbed a smooth, shiny curl between his shaky fingers almost absently, as he watched the fire he sat before bathe the locks in a golden - orange light.
~***~
Ginny's eyes blinked open reluctantly, so heavy were her lids with sleep. In that moment, she wished she'd never woken up - she'd been dreaming, about Draco, but he'd loved her again, and she'd wanted him more then anything just to hold her.
The dream had been so real, so heart achingly perfect, that she'd fought against it ending, and now that it had, she found herself close to tears.
The dorm was still dark, and she sighed in relief as she turned over in her bed, and pushed her cheek into her pillow, closing her eyes again, hoping to go back to sleep.
That was when she noticed her hair wasn't flattened beneath her cheek, or tickling her nose in that annoying way it always did. She opened her eyes again, and frowned, one hand reaching up to run her fingers through her long curls.
Instead of meeting a soft resistance, her fingers passed through coarsely cut, short - cropped curls, and air.
Ginny gasped and sat up, feeling her head with both hands frantically - her hair!
She sobbed out loud, and scrambled off the bed, making enough racket in her haste to get to the bathroom to wake some of the other girls in the sixth year dorm.
Ginny grabbed her wand, and ran into the bathroom, breathing a ragged 'Lumos!' out of her tight throat as she paused, shivering, before a mirror.
Her wand dropped to the stone floor with a clatter a moment later and rolled away into the darkness.
~***~
Draco left the headmasters office with a grim countenance early the next morning.
Ginny was in the Infirmary, being treated for shock.
Harry had told him earlier when he'd finally come to his senses and raced up to the Gryffindor Tower to see for himself if she was all right, that Pomfrey had had initially, to put her to sleep, she'd been so traumatized.
He'd told himself over and over again she wouldn't want to see him, that it might make her feel worse if she knew he'd seen her with her hair butchered. Of course she would feel horrible, who wouldn't - but he had to see her, to make sure she was all right, for himself.
He was nearly driven mad by the fact that he'd let Pansy hurt her - he'd managed to divert many of the threats returning to school had posed her, but Pansy, that bitch had gotten in, gotten by again, somehow, and he felt responsible.
He knew he shouldn't care, shouldn't let himself feel for her, but it was impossible.
Draco tried not to think as he willingly skipped his first class, and made his way to the Infirmary - only to be told by Pomfrey herself at the entrance, firmly, that Ginny wasn't to see anyone.
After the old cow closed the doors in his face, he closed his eyes, and leaned against them in frustration.
"Wouldn't let you in, either, huh?"
Draco opened his eyes and spun around to see - no one.
He blinked, and then cursed, and rubbed his reddened, sleep deprived eyes with the back of his hand.
Someone sighed, and then there was a rustle of fabric, and Potter and Weasley appeared from thin air.
Startled, Draco frowned, and then he noticed the Invisibility cloak hanging from Harry's shoulder.
"What do you want, Malfoy? Come to tease Ginny, have you?"
He watched a red - faced Ron step forward threateningly, and then Harry's arm blocked him.
"I wanted to see if she was all right," Draco muttered scathingly, "not that it's any of your business, Weasley."
Ron pushed Harry's arm out of his way, but the dark haired boy fisted a hand in the back of his friend's robes and dragged him back.
"Relax, Ron - he's not here to hurt her."
"Right, I'll believe that, after all he's put her through - "
"All I've put 'her' through? You must be joking. How about all she's put 'me' through?" Draco snapped angrily.
"Do you have any bloody idea what it's like to wake up one day and realize you've just fallen in love with the enemy? You want to talk about shock and trauma!"
The two boys stared at him, and he glared back, his teeth bared.
Then Harry shook his head, and tossed the cloak at him.
Ron looked at him in disbelief.
"Be back in five minutes," Harry told him flatly. "Don't let her know you're there - you don't tell her, or anyone, you saw her."
"Harry -"
Draco looked at a bewildered Ron and then nodded shortly.
"I'm serious, Malfoy - you say a word - "
"Right, right, or I'll die a horrific death at the hands of the boy who lived. Just keep your sidekick here muzzled long enough for me to get in the bloody door." Draco smirked at a furious but silent Ron, and dragged the cloak over his head before Harry thought better of loaning it to him.
~***~
Ginny was awake, crying, lying in her bed and staring at the ceiling.
Ginny had thought she could handle it; Ron and Harry and Hermione had been at the door earlier, wanting to see her, but she couldn't see them. She couldn't take the curious stares or the pitying glances. And Draco.she'd heard Madam Pomfrey tell him off.
The thought of facing him looking the way she did only made her sob again.
She wasn't a vain person, she really wasn't - but she looked downright hideous. What Pansy had done -
Ginny rolled onto her stomach and cried into her pillow, glad the Infirmary was empty save for her.
"Ginny."
She was half drowned when she heard the indistinct voice - she turned her head to look, and could see no one.
The delicious scent of an expensive cologne lingered in the air, though, confirming the fact that her visitor was unmistakably, breathtakingly male.
She really couldn't place the scent, though it was very familiar.
"Harry?"
There was no answer.
"Harry? Is that you?"
"No, it's not 'Harry'," came the low voice again.
Frustrated at her inability to place the soft, deep voice, she wiped at her tears and shook her head.
To her knowledge no one but Harry had an Invisibility cloak at Hogwarts.
"Who are you? What do you want? Did you follow me to see if you could get a glance at my head, so you pass along how horrible it looks to all your friends?" Ginny reached up and touched her patch of ruined curls with a trembling hand.
"There, you've seen it firsthand - now you can go and gossip about it - and don't forget to add the fact that whoever hacked off my hair put a charm on it so that when Pomfrey tried to make it magically re - grow, half of what little there was left, fell out! So go and give away all the sordid little details - " her voice caught on a frustrated sob, and she turned away toward her pillow again.
"Ginny, wait, please.I only wanted to.see that you were all right."
Ginny swept the hood back up over her head and snapped shakily, "Do I look like I'm all right? I'm half bald and being stalked by a boy I can't even see - I'm just smashing, thanks!"
A low laugh rumbled from the shadows, and she paused, looking back over her shoulder.
"How dare you laugh at me?" She asked, outraged.
"You'd be surprised by just how much I'd dare," the voice said with dark humor.
"Draco?" Silence met her claim. She dragged her blanket half over her head in horror, and then she got angry.
"Was it you? Were you and Pansy working together? Do you hate me that much? Did you do this to me?" Her voice shook with rage. "What did you do with it? Where is my hair?"
"Do I look the bloody lost and found? Why would I cut off all of your hair? It was beautiful right where it was."
Ginny's angry expression faltered, and her shoulders drooped beneath her blankets. He made no move to reveal himself, and she was glad. She didn't think she could handle actually watching him look at her.
"Why are you here?"
"I already told you - I wanted to see for myself that you were okay. Don't be upset."
Her distress was evident in her voice as she whispered, "Why would she do this? I haven't done anything to her - I mean, I hardly even knew her, and all the things she's done to me. I don't understand it. I'm nobody.I couldn't have done anything."
"It's not your fault - you didn't do anything, Ginny. Pansy is an ugly, petty, jealous bitch."
"Jealous? Of me?" Ginny laughed tearfully in disbelief. "Right. Who would be jealous of me? A poor girl, with orange hair and ragged clothes -"
"You don't even know how lovely you are," he commented gently in a barely audible tone that made her start crying again.
"Don't cry.oh, for God's sake, woman, Dumbledore said it'll only take about a month for Pansy's charm to wear off - and then Pomfrey can do her thing, and your hair will be fine again."
"A month? A month! What the hell am I supposed to do until then?"
"I'll get you a really big hat - "
"Oh, go away."
"Not until I know you're going to be all right," he stated with infuriating stubbornness.
Ginny sniffed, and wiped her eyes with her blanket. "I'm just so tired, Draco. I'm tired of all of this. I don't know how much more I can take."
"Look at how much you've made it through already," he said carefully.
"Only because you were there through most of it," she confessed, finding it easier to talk to him now that she didn't have to look at him. "I think you keeping me angry is what did it. Half of the time I was too busy thinking of nasty things to say to you to be scared of anything that happened. I never thought I'd fall in love with you, I just thought I was finally losing it - "
He drew in a sharp breath, and she immediately knew she'd said something wrong.
"Draco, I'm so sorry I - I wasn't thinking."
"I have to go,"
"Wait, I want to apologize. For what I said, at Christmas." Ginny ducked her head and closed her eyes. "I do love you. Honestly. I love you more then I ever thought I could love anyone. So much that it scares me."
"Gin - "
She heard the Infirmary doors suddenly open then, and Ginny gasped as Madam Pomfrey walked in around the screen around her bed.
She sat rigid, waiting for Pomfrey to notice Draco, but if she did, she didn't mention it.
"Oh, Miss, you're awake. How are you feeling, dear?"
"I'm.better."
Ginny swallowed, and managed a weak smile as she looked over the stout woman's shoulder and the edge of the screen, and watched the doors swing open and shut again.
He'd called her 'lovely'.
~***~
(A/N: I have absolutely NO idea when Draco's birthday really is - I totally made that date up. If anyone does know, tell me, so I can correct it. Okay, here's the rough part - asking you guys to review and tell me whether or not this chapter worked, or if it was just awkward and lame. I need your opinions! Now - on to the next chapter! ^-^ ~ Lee)
TBC (