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Disclaimer: I own nothing! I'm just borrowing! ^_~

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(A/N: Hey guys – it's me. Just wanted to thank you all for the enthusiasm with which you greeted this story – I know it's awkward, but I'm still finding my way with it, and hopefully it'll get better as it goes. I really appreciate you taking the time to make comments and reviews, and just as a warning there is ONE use of a certain four letter word in this chapter ::gasp:: and also, this chapter is positively rife with sappiness and angst – again. -^-__-^-  ::ducks:: Sorry, sorry…BUT this chapter is mostly about Ginny and Harry having a bittersweet goodbye, which is really sad because Harry doesn't even have firsthand knowledge of their relationship! ::sniff:: It's just paving the way for Draco and Ginny. Anyway…so sorry if it's lame, and sorry about the shortness. ^_^)

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4. Rites Of Passage

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"Every stage of life leads to the next one, and although we may understandably attempt to hold back time and remain in one comfortable place, it is not within our power as mortals to turn the moving cycle of life into a stagnant hiding place – whenever we feel we have reached the goal and achieved our designs, another deeper or higher goal materializes beyond it, so that every end is really a preparation for something else, and we begin the cycle again." - From The Mythic Tarot

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Ginny hadn't said a word about a possible future relationship growing between her and Harry, but both boys knew exactly what she'd been talking about.

The sudden pain in Harry's expression made her stomach turn in on itself, and she felt like a complete ass.

Why couldn't she have just kept her mouth shut?

Ginny put a hand to her temple again, and dared a look between her fingers at Draco – her breath again left her just at the sight of him, even though she wanted to slug him again for standing there with that unsettlingly triumphant grin on his perfect face.

She cringed inwardly as he opened his mouth, knowing whatever came out of it would sound acerbic and self-satisfied.

"I can't tell you how nice it is to know that that overdeveloped sense of courage and valor of yours got you absolutely nowhere, Potter."

Ginny felt her jaw drop in outrage. No one could ever accuse Draco Malfoy of having a grasping understanding of the use of tact!

Even as she opened her own lips to say the words that came flooding forth, she knew she was going to regret it, but her temper and her need to defend Harry got the better of her.

"It got him far enough," she snapped tauntingly in a cold voice, her eyes flashing.

Harry's dark head snapped up at her inference, his eyes wide behind his glasses as a red flush crept up his cheeks.

Draco's expression changed from gloating to stricken to murderous in the space of a single instant.

Ginny snapped her eyes closed and tightly fisted her hand in her hair. What the hell was wrong with her? What had she been thinking, saying such a thing?

Footsteps sounded across the floor, and she opened her eyes reluctantly to see Draco stalking past Harry, his expression now icy enough to make her blood run cold.

After he had exited the Library, she and Harry were left alone, staring at each other uncertainly.

After a very long silence, Harry cleared his throat, still looking more than a little embarrassed.

"So, I'm taking it you know how I really feel about you right now," he said in a quiet tone.

Ginny felt her tears return again as she looked at him, and dropped her head to stare at her feet. Everything felt so odd, even her own body – she had reached her full height and weight already by this time, but there were subtle changes that wouldn't happen for another year or so, that the absence of was making her feel a bit lost.

A familiar embrace enveloped her suddenly, and she gave herself up to it completely, relieved in a way she'd never again thought she'd be after Harry's disappearance, more than reluctant to let go.

Because she knew she had to end it between them before it had even really begun…

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Draco knew better than to look back through the tapestry – look at where his earlier eavesdropping had gotten him -  but he couldn't help himself.

He saw just what he'd been expecting, and felt the muscles in his abdomen clench painfully despite his best efforts to hold onto his abrasive anger.

Ginny had her head buried in Harry's shoulder, and the boys arms were wrapped around the girl so tightly it had to be paining her. But Ginny didn't seem to be caring overly much…

The crippling hurt he felt at the sight that greeted him made him shake his head in bewildered denial.

He let the tapestry fall, and suddenly found himself sitting in a boneless heap on the cold stone floor, his back against the wall.

The overload of emotions nearly crushed him – he wasn't used to feeling so much.

Draco leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes, feeling the overwhelming need to break something. Preferably Harry Potter's skull.

'You're acting like a fool,' he desperately tried to tell himself. 'How can you lose your head so completely over a girl who's so beneath you? How can you actually feel love for her, a common Weasley?'

It was a good argument, one he'd made many times before, but it was getting old and worn by that point. There wasn't any use in denying it – he'd already spoken the words to her out loud.

But just because he was in love with her, it didn't mean he had to like it.

And just what the hell had that snide little statement of hers back there meant? That she and Potter had actually had sex?

The thought of it alone was enough to make him think about committing a bloody murder!

'Let it go, Draco,' he told himself out loud, running a hand through his hair. How could he lose his head over something that hadn't even happened yet? Something, that according to Ginny herself, couldn't happen?

Draco had to focus on getting himself under control for several minutes – he couldn't walk back into the Slytherin common room with his emotions there for all to see – his housemates could smell weakness like a rabid animal, and if he went in there feeling like he did now –

He stood finally with a deep breath, surrounding the confusing wealth of emotions in his chest with a wall of self control that had the blissfully numbing effect of ice.

If he hadn't known it was already impossible, he'd have turned his back, and forced himself to just completely forget her very name.

But why even bother trying? She wouldn't be in Potter's arms for very much longer - she was his now, after all.

Or she would be, anyway.

Draco masked his fierce expression with a careless smirk and forced himself to start walking away as a couple of first year Slytherin girls rounded a corner and started moving towards him. He had to concentrate on other things, now – like how and why he'd have allowed himself to become a follower of Voldemort in the not so distant future…

He'd deal with Ginny in the morning.

He didn't have to bother forcing the smirk by the time he passed the giggling first years.

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Ginny and Harry awkwardly broke apart as they heard noises outside the library tapestry.

A pair of whispering Slytherin girls entered the room, and Ginny met Harry's eyes in silent agreement before she followed him out into the hall – Draco was nowhere to be seen.

Ginny felt Harry take her hand, and was overcome with such a wave of nostalgia that she nearly began crying again.

They walked in mutual silence back up to the common room,  which was thankfully empty by then.

Ginny found it very ironic that Harry unknowingly led her to sit on the very window seat where everything between them had started, to end it.

She watched Harry lower himself onto the cushion next to her, and draw up his knees to his chest in an instinctive gesture of self-protection.

"It doesn't seem at all fair, you know," he finally said out loud, staring at the floor. "I haven't gotten to see anything of what our life together would have been like – "

Ginny recalled their last words before his disappearance and shook her head. "It's best this way."

"I know…I know that you've had a year to get over it as well…but I haven't." He looked back up at her with fierce green eyes and she had to glance away.  "I don't know what happened between us, Ginny, but I know it had to have been good."

Unable to talk, she only nodded. It had been.

"Are you sure this is how it has to be?" He asked with quiet urgency, leaning forward to place a hand on her leg. "Maybe there was some mistake – "

Ginny stood up, wrapping her arms around herself to ward off the chill coming in from the window. "It can't happen, Harry – it's not worth the cost of your life."

"Don't you think I should be allowed to be the judge of that?"

"It's not, Harry!" She turned on him, blinking against her tears. "Do you want to know what I said to you right before you left? Do you?"

"Ginny – " Harry stood, shaking his head. "Don't."

"No, I'll tell you – I said I hated you, Harry. I told you I hated you, and you never came back!"

Harry was watching her helplessly, and she bit her lip to keep from saying anymore.

"No, Harry," she said sadly in a near whisper, "believe me – it is better this way…"

 'You never deserved that.'

She watched him swallow hard, and turn away – but she stopped him.

"Harry – I just want you to know…I am very sorry for the way I treated you – have been treating you lately. I was just so torn up and confused – "

A small, bittersweet smile ghosted across his lips.

"Don't worry about it. It never happened, Ginny – none of it."

"It never happened, Ginny – none of it..."

Ginny waited until he'd disappeared up the stairs to his dorm before she again collapsed on the cold window seat and cried until she couldn't anymore.

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Draco lay awake in his bed later, knowing he'd never in a million years sleep that night.

He was too busy wondering what the hell Ginny and Potter were up to.

A nice little reunion fuck, maybe?

Draco growled, and rolled onto his stomach, punching his pillow so hard a seam split and feathers came bursting out. He cursed, and gave the offending pillow a heave, watching it fly across the dark dorm room and smack Blaise Zabini right in the middle of his annoying, snoring face.

The boy woke up with a shout, spitting feathers angrily, and Draco smirked in satisfaction at having been able to spoil at least one other person's night.

"PEEVES!" Zabini shouted in fury, succeeding in waking up the other, more temper mental occupants of the room as well, who were not at all happy with their sleep being disturbed.

Draco watched the ensuing chaos with dark amusement, until a half dead looking Snape staggered in, eyes blurred from sleep, bellowing for quiet and voicing death threats that made everyone go pale and dive for their respective beds.

Draco felt only slightly better, however. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Ginny – and his mind was whirling with the information he'd received earlier. Considering all that he and Ginny had been doing together lately, he'd nearly dismissed everything as just being some kind of joke of hers – but it had soon become very apparent that it was no joke.

With the knowledge of  his possible future came fear, sharp and unrelenting, and wholly unwanted.

Sure, he'd entertained thoughts of becoming a Death Eater as a stupid kid, when he was desperate for his fathers affection, hatefully jealous of the attention Harry Potter received. He'd grown past that, mostly – there was no glory in killing, no satisfaction in serving under a Dark Lord destined to be defeated…

No, there was no way he'd ever join Voldemort – for all his power, the old man was weak – and then there was the fact that Draco was loyal to no one but himself.

He was mulling over the night's events, and the possible consequences, when he finally drifted off into a troubled sleep.

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TBC