AN: A lot of you have been wondering each time we get to the end of a chapter, if this is the end or not -- trust me when I say, when we get to the end, you'll know it. There will be a big "END" written there, along with some author's endnotes. That end, however, isn't that far off. *g*

This is part a of the last chapter. Part b should be ready no later than Monday night. An epilogue will follow sometime next week. I promise that all the time invested will be worth it, and that everything really will turn out right in the end. ;-)

To be safe, I'm giving this one an R for a sexual situation that really can't be edited.

As always, all my non-slashy-love to Sarea, who is more of an inspiration than she knows.

~

Chapter 11: Romeo and Juliet, Meet Draco and Ginny

"He kissed me and now I am somebody else." -- Gabriella Mistral, He Kissed Me

~

So I'm not running away from home after all. If you talked back (which, I've got to say again, I'm awfully glad you don't) you'd probably be glad I'm staying, because really, what else have you got to do all day but listen to me? Now that I think about it, I should spend less time feeling sorry for myself, and more time feeling sorry for you.

I know I've made the right decision. Neither of us was ready to be the only people in each other's lives. And it's just not possible for me to abandon my family forever -- I physically can't do it. I kept seeing this image in my head, of the clock in our kitchen at home, the dial that says Ginny forever pointing to 'Whereabouts Unknown' or, heaven forbid, 'In Mortal Danger.' Mum would go mad staring at it.

The only question that remains is, what am I supposed to do with the rest of my life, carrying around a broken heart? I really don't think it's going to heal. I broke a dish of Mum's once, and she tried a 'Repairo' spell on it, and it just wouldn't work.


"When it's in too many pieces, it's no good trying to fix it," she'd said, "because it never goes back together right again."

That's exactly how I feel, like I've been broken into too many pieces, and someone's tried to 'Repairo' me, but no matter how hard they try, I just won't go back together right again.

I miss him. It's only been an hour since I left him, I'll be seeing him tomorrow, and I miss him with an ancient ache, pounding against the pieces of my broken heart.

And now, on top of it all, I've resorted to writing ridiculously cliché sentiments in the pages of my diary. How am I to

~

"This is getting to be a habit with you," Ginny noted as she shut her diary.

"Sorry," Ezra mumbled. "I didn't realize anyone else would still be up. I was meeting Seamus , and . . ."

"And we members of the Eternally Screwed With By Fate club always meet up this late in the Gryffindor common room," Ginny noted sadly. "Seamus not joining us tonight? I'd say he's as much a part of it as you and me."

"He wanted some time alone," Ezra said, a slight hitch in her voice.

"Why?" Ginny asked softly.

"Because I told him everything," Ezra confessed. "I tried breaking up with him earlier today, but he kept going on about not accepting it without a good reason. Kept saying that he loved me, making a big deal of it. I told him he shouldn't love me, and that if he was smart, he'd get as far away from me as possible." A tear fell down her cheek. "He said he would, if I told him I didn't love him. So . . . I did."


"Oh, Ezra," Ginny said lamely, getting up and coming to sit beside Ezra, where she'd just collapsed onto the couch.

"It's not fair!" Ezra sobbed. "I've just found someone that I love, and it's all going to be taken away. I'm going to have an awful life, with an awful marriage and there's nothing I can do about it. It's not fair to me, or to Seamus , or to you. It's not even fair to that miserable little troll I have to marry!"

"No, it's not fair at all," Ginny agreed quietly. "But whinging about it isn't going to help."

"Ginny," Ezra said, sounding aggrieved.


"I'm sorry," Ginny said firmly, "but you're going to have to get off this self-pity kick you've been on for the better part of your life. Marrying Draco is not a fate worse than death. I would kill to be you, Ezra," she said desperately.

"But I don't love him," Ezra said, somewhat hysterically. "You do, and bully for you, but I can't stand him!"

"That's not true," Ginny said stubbornly, "it's not true on either of your parts. You resent each other, but you shouldn't. You're both involved, and if you're going to survive it, you're going to have to be in it together. I intend to tell him the same thing."

"It's easy for you to say," Ezra began hotly.


"No, it's really not," Ginny said simply. "It's the hardest thing I've ever had to say, but I'm going to, because I care about you both too much to let it go. It's got to be you and him against everything else, because you'll both be eaten alive if it isn't. There's so much coming, Ezra, so much I still don't know . . . but the one thing I do know, is that we're all going to have to pick sides. We're going to have to trust each other, and if you and Draco can't be in love, at the very least, you can be partners."

"You don't understand," Ezra stubbornly insisted. "You can't imagine what it's like to have your entire life's happiness decided by a couple of plotting old men!"

"Right," Ginny said stiffly, "I'm sure Seamus and I have no idea what that feels like." Gathering up her diary and quill, Ginny stood up and turned to leave.

"I'm sorry," Ezra called out. "I'm so sorry you've gotten hurt--"

"Don't be sorry," Ginny said stoically, not turning around. "Just make sure it's worth it, Ezra. Make sure all this pain doesn't turn into what your father's want it to. If you can't do it for yourselves, or each other, or, Lord knows, for the future of the world, please, do it for Seamus and me and for what we've lost."

Then, Ginny headed up to the girl's dormitories, leaving Ezra staring behind her.

~

The next day seemed to go by like a blur, the time slipping away no matter how hard Ginny tried to make it last.

Breakfast was a tense affair, Ginny avoiding Ron's questions of why she looked so tired. Once Harry and Hermione came down to breakfast, he backed off, the three of them going into a huddle for the rest of the morning. Ginny had never been so grateful for their troika before in her life. The last thing she wanted was to explain to people who didn't like Draco that she was despondent over losing him.

Morning dragged on, but the moment afternoon came, the moment she trudged down to the lake and saw him standing by the water, head bowed in almost poetic defeat, time seemed to rush by.

He greeted her with a kiss, and it made her cry; he teased her about the way her brother had been casting him dirty looks over breakfast, and it made her cry. The way he brushed his knuckles against her cheek made her cry, and when he started to read from one of the books she'd brought, the sound of his voice made her cry, because she imagined it was the way he'd sound reading his children to sleep.

"And then the noble wizard slit his own wrists because he could tell the love his life wasn't even listening, the end," Draco concluded dryly.

"Sorry," Ginny said, blinking. The sun was setting and the crisp night air was upon them. She had been lulled by the sound of his voice, she realized.

"Where were you?" he asked curiously.


"Right here," she assured him. His head rested in her lap and she sat upright against a tree. Her fingers drifted through his hair lazily. "Just feeling sorry for myself."

"I think you're bored off your arse by A Wizard by Any Other Name."

"Could be," she conceded with a small grin, staring down into his face.

Tossing A Wizard by Any Other Name aside, Draco rifled through her bag until he produced a book of mythology from her Muggle Studies class. He flipped through it as though he were looking for something in particular.

"What are you looking for?" she asked softly.

"Something Ezra and I never read together," he said firmly. "Something that can just be yours and mine."

"I like the sound of that." She continued to stroke his hair as he looked, memorizing the expression on his face so that she could always remember how beautiful he was when he concentrated totally on something.

"Here we are," he pronounced at last, and he began to read.

This time, Ginny was unable to do anything but concentrate fully on the story, enthralled with the tale of Cupid and Psyche.

In the fable, Cupid, the son of Gods, fell in love with Psyche and gave her everything her heart desired. Defying his mother's wishes, he married Psyche and all that he asked of her was that she not look upon his face. He made love to her in the dark and left her alone in a grand house in the day. Psyche's sisters, jealous of their sister's good fortune, convinced Psyche that her husband was a terrible and monstrous serpent, and that she must look upon him, and if it was so, kill him.

But Cupid was no monster; his golden ringlets and snowy skin the perfect accompaniment for a being with wings of an angel. Psyche injured Cupid terribly, physically by accidentally spilling the oil from her candle upon his flesh and emotionally by betraying his trust.

Cupid left Psyche, and she was forced to wander the earth in search of her lover. Finally, she came upon Cupid's mother, Venus, and begged her for her help. Venus devised a series of tests impossible in scope, sure that Psyche would fail. Seeing this, Cupid lent his resources to Psyche's aid, allowing her to succeed at each of his mother's tasks.

"Then Cupid," Draco said, his voice possessing the gentle timbre of a natural storyteller, "as swift as lightning penetrating the heights of heaven, presented himself before Jupiter with his supplication. Jupiter lent a favoring ear, and pleaded the cause of the lovers so earnestly with Venus that he won her consent. On this he sent Mercury to bring Psyche up to the heavenly assembly, and when she arrived, handing her a cup of ambrosia, he said, 'Drink this, Psyche, and be immortal; nor shall Cupid ever break away from the knot in which he is tied, but these nuptials shall be perpetual.' Thus Psyche became at last united to Cupid, and in due time, they had a daughter born to them whose name was Pleasure." He paused, brows knit, staring down at the book for a moment. "Not much of an ending, is it?" he said at last. "More like it just ends."

"Not really," Ginny disagreed. "They lived happily ever after, didn't they?"

"It's not going to be us, Gin," Draco said harshly. Harsher than he'd intended, she could tell, from the instant flair of guilt in his eyes.

It was pitch-black now, and Draco had been reading by the light of his wand. She took the book from his hand and set it aside, both her hands losing themselves in his hair, massaging his scalp gently.

"No," she agreed quietly. "It won't be us. But we do have something, Draco, something no one will ever be able to take away from us."


"And what's that?" he asked, his voice tinged with bitterness.

"How much I love you," she told him in a sure, quiet voice. "And how much I know you love me, even if you do have a bit of trouble saying the words unless I'm upset with you."

"I love you," he said, almost grudgingly. "I've said it before."

"Yes, and now you've said it again," she agreed, her voice smug.

"Witch," he muttered.

"Not just yet," she disagreed. "I've got another year at school still."

"Brat," he growled as he sat up, pulled her beneath him and began kissing her senseless. Muttering an incantation under his breath, Draco doused the light on the end of his wand.


"Don't fancy looking at me?" she murmured playfully.

"Don't fancy any of the perverts up in Gryffindor Tower looking at you," he muttered, undoing the emerald cloak she wore.

Their mouths met again and again, gentle, playful presses of lip to lip as they divested one another of clothing. His hands took greedy passes at her skin, moving over her body at a hurried, near frantic pace, as though he would never be able to touch enough of her. Ginny was torn between closing her eyes, to pretend this wouldn't be the last time she'd ever hold him, and keeping them open wide, to memorize the exact position of each of the stars in the sky as he made love to her.

Wrapped up in his arms, their bodies rocking together gently, Ginny caught their reflection in the still waters of the lake. They were beautiful, tangled together, and as she stared, she realized Draco was looking at the same thing. They both turned toward each other at once, and she reached her hand up to brush the silver-blond hair away from his face.

"What else is there?" she asked desperately, their foreheads pressed together, beads of sweat mingling against their flesh, her brain short-circuiting in the face of this precious, simple closeness. "There can't possibly be another world out there besides this one, there just can't be."

He didn't answer, only kissed her again and again and again, until she forgot what she was trying to say, forgot that other world, forgot everything but how easy it was to love him.

Later, beneath the darkened sky, still wrapped around each other, she remembered how to think and worry and ache. And in her head she heard words whispering over and over, not in her voice, nor in Draco's, not in any voice she could recognize clearly, but they were an answer, the only answer she had, the only shred of hope she had to cling to:

It'll all turn out right in the end.

~

To be continued