My Perfect Angel

By like a falling star

I'm not used to speaking in such a way.

No "thou art more lovely and more temperate"s for me. Of course, us Malfoys have been immersed in literature and appreciation of the fine arts since birth, and no one can ever accuse a Malfoy of being brash or uncultured, but it is simply against the very nature of our beings to start spouting Shakespeare or spinning poetry.

Which is why my speaking in such a manner seems all too curious. 

Ginny Weasley certainly is something.

She's an angel. And what a perfect angel she is.

Not Potter's angel, nor the Weasleys' angel, but mine. All mine, though, technically, she belongs to Potter.

I remember what happened in my fourth year, very clearly. By then I'd taken to watching her, watching the youngest, seemingly least outstanding Weasley grow up, watching and wishing for what I couldn't have. Then one day she just came up to me, her eyes bright and brimming with heartfelt emotion, and told me that she loved me. Take me, she'd said. Take me, Draco.

And she'd called me Draco. Draco. Not Malfoy, not ferret-face, but Draco.

I took one look at her, her hair a gleaming ginger despite the dim glow from the dungeon oil lamps, pencil-straight and un-mussed by wandering hands; her eyes wide and passionate, filled with the truth and nothing but the truth; and her hands shaking, a barely perceptible tremble, but still there, shaking because she knew this was a dangerous step forward yet strangely determined to move on.

And I had to say no.

I had to resist the urge to smooth a strand of that beautiful red hair, to run a finger down that white, high-boned cheek, to say yes.

But I couldn't. Beauty is an innocence too pure and fragile to touch. I couldn't take her, because all I needed was one wrong move, and her innocence would be shattered, her beauty made hollow. One false step, and her rightful perfection would be stained with my sins, marred with my guilt. I didn't want to be the cause of that.

So instead, I had to curl my lips into a sneer, insult her with all the poise and coolness that a Malfoy should possess, and watch her shoulders slump, her mouth curve downwards, her eyes droop as she walked away, her head held high despite the sobs that threatened to escape.

Predictably, she's now with Potter. But she still loves me. I know it. I see her staring at me sometimes, her eyes following me around the room, sad and questioning and hopeful, all at the same time. And sometimes for a moment, just for one fleeting moment, my eyes lock into hers, and the world is right again. And then I have to pull away, for it is what is required of me.

She's my angel.

My perfect angel.

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