A/N: I would like to say 'Thank You!' to all those of you who have reviewed so far. This chapter is going to be a little more… well, slightly more angsty, I believe, and I think that this is one that's going to give Draco a little problem. Hope you like it.
Gutterflower
"Sympathy"
Ginny stared at Draco, disbelief written all over her paled face. Draco paced around her bedroom, folding his arms and staring at random objects around her room. Granted, it wasn't as shabby as Draco had pictured it would be, but then again, it was no Malfoy splendor…
Why was he thinking about things like money? There were other things to be thought about, other things that were more important than wealth and family stature, and…
"What did you just say?" Ginny asked him, following his movement with her eyes. Draco never stopped pacing, fearing that if he did, he would forget something, or say the wrong thing, or something stupid that a Malfoy never, ever did.
"I said no. That's not what I wanted."
"Quit lying to me, Draco!" Ginny began crying again, clutching ever harder at the sheets. She eased herself back onto her pillows against the headboard and continued to watch Draco pace about her room. She was feeling very emotion, very angry… Draco shouldn't have feelings. Draco was just a stupid little bastard who didn't care about anybody but himself. There was nothing good about Draco. He's just some stupid… stupid, mindless drone.
"Who the hell said that I'm lying? You have trust issues, Ginny…" Draco stopped pacing and looked down at the redheaded girl that he remembered being outgoing and adventurous and happy, beginning his fourth or fifth year at Hogwarts. Now she was bedridden, sickly looking, and silent for the most part.
"Oh, I have some trust issues, do I?" She threw the covers off of herself and slowly raised herself off of her bed, wincing at the slight pain the shot up through her abdomen. "Can you blame me? Can you honestly blame me for having trust issues when it comes to you, Draco Malfoy?"
She was right, Draco realized. He had been… well, himself, around her, which was reason enough for her to not trust him… at all.
"I guess not."
"You guess not, huh? What, now you have a conscience? After everything's ended, you get a conscience? You're horrible… you're a horrible, horrible person. Get out."
Draco stuttered. "Wh-what? I told you, Weasley… I'm sorry."
"Weasley? You're sorry, Weasley? I don't think so. You're not sorry… you're not sorry at all. You just want to get the charity work over and done with, so that you can go on and complete your vain life the way your vain family has always done. Get out. Get out, now."
Draco watched her for a moment. Perhaps she was lying, and didn't really want him to leave? But then again, Draco reminded himself; he did cause more trouble than he was worth… He gave Ginny a sympathizing look and disapparated back home.
Ginny watched the place where Draco had been standing for a long moment after he had left. She half expected him to pop back up and say, "Hey, guess what? I'm joking, and this is all a horrible dream. Gotchya, didn't I?" But that moment never came. She had really told him to leave her alone, and he really did - which was rather surprising in itself… but what was more surprising was the look on Draco's face when she had told him off.
Was a Malfoy truly capable of feeling any human emotion… sympathy, most of all?
*****
Within a few days, Ginny was feeling incredibly better, both physically and mentally. She had gotten out of bed and had dropped out of her angry state, and had begun cleaning the entire of the Burrow. Mrs. Weasley was incredibly surprised to see her daughter on her hands and knees, scrubbing the bathroom floor the muggle, old-fashioned way. The cleaning seemed to up Ginny's spirits, so Mrs. Weasley let her be.
Ginny, Molly and Arthur Weasley had decided to keep it to themselves that Ginny had been pregnant. It was a hard enough experience for them all as it was, without having to tell the rest of the family of the problem. Not to mention, the pain of bringing up the loss of the baby was hard enough on Ginny, without having everyone sympathize for her. Ginny would tell them when she was ready, if she wanted to. It was none of Mr. or Mrs. Weasley's business when it came to that.
But things were slowly beginning to patch up. Ginny was no longer confined to herself, but was slowly beginning to come out of her shell. Although she still wouldn't confess as to whom the father of her child had been, or why Draco Malfoy had come to see her… Ginny was otherwise almost the same as she had been before this had happened.
And for that, Mrs. Weasley had been eternally grateful.
The week after Ginny had come home, the family gathered at the Burrow for a small feast in honor of Ginny's recovery, though the family had said that the feast was just a small gathering that was really needed - and not to mention, why not honor the fact that everyone was now old enough to get on with their lives? The entire Weasley family, along with Harry and Hermione, gathered at the Burrow for a very hectic supper.
Ron, Harry, and Hermione were getting ready to enter Auror training. Although Hermione didn't want to work in the Auror field itself, per say, she decided that working in office for the Auror's, doing paperwork and helping out with the overall cause would be the right kind of job for her. Not to mention; the training that one underwent for becoming an Auror would become very useful in the future.
Conversation between the large group was filled with exciting rumors and undecided plans for the future. After a long hour or so of useless gossip, the attention of the group turned toward Ginny. Questions came spouting out toward her about why she had been bedridden, why she had been sick, why? Ginny shrugged all of the questions off and answered with the suavest lie that she could muster. After all, lying was not one of her strengths.
But her lies seemed to please the crowd. They all turned back to their talk until dinner was complete and time to clean up the kitchen was imminent. Ginny, Hermione, and Mrs. Weasley cleaned up the dishes and went to the kitchen to clean up.
In the kitchen, Hermione leaned closer to Ginny to talk while they cleaned up. Hermione was all smiles and happy - Harry and she had been together for nearly two years that day. "Guess what?" she whispered into Ginny's ear. Ginny turned to her in question. "I think I'm pregnant."
"Oh…! That… that's wonderful, Hermione," Ginny said. Inside of her, Ginny felt her stomach clench at the thought of pregnancy and felt the pain within herself of loss.
*****
Draco walked along the halls of Malfoy Manor, not watching where he was going, not caring where his feat took him. Many times, he ran into servants in the corridors, and many times, he found himself facing dead ends and portrait-covered walls. He simply didn't care, anymore. Not that he cared to begin with, but… This was an entire different thing, altogether.
He had told Ginny that he was sorry for what he'd done to her. He had felt an extreme pain and a sense of loss, and not to mention, the strong, strong pain of guilt that usually ran away from his wrath. But did Ginny listen to him? No. She hadn't heard a single word coming out of his mouth, and in a sense, he didn't honestly blame her.
Not after what he'd done.
Though he knew that he had done something incredibly wrong, he had no recollection of it - for the most part. He had been so incredibly sloshed that he could only remember blurred outlines of things and random feelings that blended all together…
But he did know that it was his fault. Yes, he remembered that quite well.
One thing was for sure, however. Draco was honestly, truly sorry and wished that he could take everything all back.
Draco looked up to see where his feet were carrying him and found himself inside of his father's bar. Lucius Malfoy had a large amount of alcohol hidden behind a cupboard and had light alcohol sitting on the bar counter. Draco sat down at the bar and pulled out a few of the harder drinks out of the cupboard.
Smiling, he tipped back the bottles and let one after the other pour its contents into his waiting mouth. The sweet warmth from alcohol lifted his spirits slightly, and he felt himself loosen under the influence. He laughed and set a bottle of brandy back on the top of the counter.
"I'm worthless!" he shouted at the top of his lungs, though nobody heard a word he said. He laughed again and pulled himself off of the stool he was sitting on. He teetered dangerously, but held hard onto the counter. "Draco Malfoy is a fucking pathetic loser, with no ambition, with no life…!"
He pulled himself along the length of the bar, leaned over to grab the brandy bottle which was still ¾ full, and proceeded to walk out of the rather tiny room. It was one of the smaller rooms of the manor, on the west side of the house - and Draco's room was in the east wing of the manor. He held his free palm against the wall and led himself back toward his bedroom.
After a series of tipping forward and landing flat on his face on his way to his room, thirty minutes later he arrived in his rooms. Draco slammed the door shut behind him, took another swing of his bottle, and then threw that across the room. The bottle of brandy, with less than ¼ of the drink left inside of it, hit the solid wall and shattered, falling into a heap at the floor. Draco teetered toward the mound of glass bottle shards.
Draco slumped, sliding down the length of a wall into a heap next to the bottle shards. He pulled his knees up to his chest and buried his face into his knees. He cried.
"I'm worthless. I'm worthless! There's nooooooooo meaning to my life… Can't do anything right."
He laughed bitterly at himself, leaning his head back against the cold of the concrete wall. He unclenched his knees and put his hands on the floor near his sides. One hand slipped along the jagged edges of the bottle shards and sliced open. He picked up one of the glass shards, brought it to his face, and looked at it.
And then he started to cut.
The sad excuse for a Malfoy dragged the jagged piece of glass across his forearms and sliced through the pale skin, leaving behind it a trail of blood that began oozing out of the fresh cuts. Draco didn't seem to notice, because he continued to slice up his forearm, and then began hacking up the other. Blood covered the front of his robes.
After he cut up his arms, he set the glass down. He gave a sad little chuckle and slammed the back of his head against the concrete wall.
"I can't even be a father." He shut his eyes a let a tear trickle down his cheek. "How many times do I have to say I'm sorry?"
*****
Stranger than your sympathy
This is my apology
I'm killing myself from the inside out
And all my fears have pushed you out
I wish for things that I don't need
All I wanted
And what I chase won't set me free
All I wanted
And I get scared but I'm not crawling on my knees
Oh yeah, everything's all wrong, yeah
Everything's all wrong, yeah
Where the hell did I think I was?
Stranger than your sympathy
I take these things so I don't feel
I'm killing myself from the inside out
Now my head's been filled with doubt
It's hard to live the life you choose
All I wanted
When all your luck's run out on you
All I wanted
Oh yeah, it's easy to forget, yeah
And you choke on the regrets, yeah
Who the hell did I think I was?
Stranger than your sympathy
All these things you stole from me
I'm not sure where I belong
Nowhere's home, and I'm all wrong
And I wasn't all the things
I tried to make believe I was
And I wouldn't be the one to kneel
Before the dreams I wanted
And all the talk and all the lies
Were all the empty things disguised as me
Yeah, stranger than your sympathy
"Sympathy"
Ginny stared at Draco, disbelief written all over her paled face. Draco paced around her bedroom, folding his arms and staring at random objects around her room. Granted, it wasn't as shabby as Draco had pictured it would be, but then again, it was no Malfoy splendor…
Why was he thinking about things like money? There were other things to be thought about, other things that were more important than wealth and family stature, and…
"What did you just say?" Ginny asked him, following his movement with her eyes. Draco never stopped pacing, fearing that if he did, he would forget something, or say the wrong thing, or something stupid that a Malfoy never, ever did.
"I said no. That's not what I wanted."
"Quit lying to me, Draco!" Ginny began crying again, clutching ever harder at the sheets. She eased herself back onto her pillows against the headboard and continued to watch Draco pace about her room. She was feeling very emotion, very angry… Draco shouldn't have feelings. Draco was just a stupid little bastard who didn't care about anybody but himself. There was nothing good about Draco. He's just some stupid… stupid, mindless drone.
"Who the hell said that I'm lying? You have trust issues, Ginny…" Draco stopped pacing and looked down at the redheaded girl that he remembered being outgoing and adventurous and happy, beginning his fourth or fifth year at Hogwarts. Now she was bedridden, sickly looking, and silent for the most part.
"Oh, I have some trust issues, do I?" She threw the covers off of herself and slowly raised herself off of her bed, wincing at the slight pain the shot up through her abdomen. "Can you blame me? Can you honestly blame me for having trust issues when it comes to you, Draco Malfoy?"
She was right, Draco realized. He had been… well, himself, around her, which was reason enough for her to not trust him… at all.
"I guess not."
"You guess not, huh? What, now you have a conscience? After everything's ended, you get a conscience? You're horrible… you're a horrible, horrible person. Get out."
Draco stuttered. "Wh-what? I told you, Weasley… I'm sorry."
"Weasley? You're sorry, Weasley? I don't think so. You're not sorry… you're not sorry at all. You just want to get the charity work over and done with, so that you can go on and complete your vain life the way your vain family has always done. Get out. Get out, now."
Draco watched her for a moment. Perhaps she was lying, and didn't really want him to leave? But then again, Draco reminded himself; he did cause more trouble than he was worth… He gave Ginny a sympathizing look and disapparated back home.
Ginny watched the place where Draco had been standing for a long moment after he had left. She half expected him to pop back up and say, "Hey, guess what? I'm joking, and this is all a horrible dream. Gotchya, didn't I?" But that moment never came. She had really told him to leave her alone, and he really did - which was rather surprising in itself… but what was more surprising was the look on Draco's face when she had told him off.
Was a Malfoy truly capable of feeling any human emotion… sympathy, most of all?
Within a few days, Ginny was feeling incredibly better, both physically and mentally. She had gotten out of bed and had dropped out of her angry state, and had begun cleaning the entire of the Burrow. Mrs. Weasley was incredibly surprised to see her daughter on her hands and knees, scrubbing the bathroom floor the muggle, old-fashioned way. The cleaning seemed to up Ginny's spirits, so Mrs. Weasley let her be.
Ginny, Molly and Arthur Weasley had decided to keep it to themselves that Ginny had been pregnant. It was a hard enough experience for them all as it was, without having to tell the rest of the family of the problem. Not to mention, the pain of bringing up the loss of the baby was hard enough on Ginny, without having everyone sympathize for her. Ginny would tell them when she was ready, if she wanted to. It was none of Mr. or Mrs. Weasley's business when it came to that.
But things were slowly beginning to patch up. Ginny was no longer confined to herself, but was slowly beginning to come out of her shell. Although she still wouldn't confess as to whom the father of her child had been, or why Draco Malfoy had come to see her… Ginny was otherwise almost the same as she had been before this had happened.
And for that, Mrs. Weasley had been eternally grateful.
The week after Ginny had come home, the family gathered at the Burrow for a small feast in honor of Ginny's recovery, though the family had said that the feast was just a small gathering that was really needed - and not to mention, why not honor the fact that everyone was now old enough to get on with their lives? The entire Weasley family, along with Harry and Hermione, gathered at the Burrow for a very hectic supper.
Ron, Harry, and Hermione were getting ready to enter Auror training. Although Hermione didn't want to work in the Auror field itself, per say, she decided that working in office for the Auror's, doing paperwork and helping out with the overall cause would be the right kind of job for her. Not to mention; the training that one underwent for becoming an Auror would become very useful in the future.
Conversation between the large group was filled with exciting rumors and undecided plans for the future. After a long hour or so of useless gossip, the attention of the group turned toward Ginny. Questions came spouting out toward her about why she had been bedridden, why she had been sick, why? Ginny shrugged all of the questions off and answered with the suavest lie that she could muster. After all, lying was not one of her strengths.
But her lies seemed to please the crowd. They all turned back to their talk until dinner was complete and time to clean up the kitchen was imminent. Ginny, Hermione, and Mrs. Weasley cleaned up the dishes and went to the kitchen to clean up.
In the kitchen, Hermione leaned closer to Ginny to talk while they cleaned up. Hermione was all smiles and happy - Harry and she had been together for nearly two years that day. "Guess what?" she whispered into Ginny's ear. Ginny turned to her in question. "I think I'm pregnant."
"Oh…! That… that's wonderful, Hermione," Ginny said. Inside of her, Ginny felt her stomach clench at the thought of pregnancy and felt the pain within herself of loss.
Draco walked along the halls of Malfoy Manor, not watching where he was going, not caring where his feat took him. Many times, he ran into servants in the corridors, and many times, he found himself facing dead ends and portrait-covered walls. He simply didn't care, anymore. Not that he cared to begin with, but… This was an entire different thing, altogether.
He had told Ginny that he was sorry for what he'd done to her. He had felt an extreme pain and a sense of loss, and not to mention, the strong, strong pain of guilt that usually ran away from his wrath. But did Ginny listen to him? No. She hadn't heard a single word coming out of his mouth, and in a sense, he didn't honestly blame her.
Not after what he'd done.
Though he knew that he had done something incredibly wrong, he had no recollection of it - for the most part. He had been so incredibly sloshed that he could only remember blurred outlines of things and random feelings that blended all together…
But he did know that it was his fault. Yes, he remembered that quite well.
One thing was for sure, however. Draco was honestly, truly sorry and wished that he could take everything all back.
Draco looked up to see where his feet were carrying him and found himself inside of his father's bar. Lucius Malfoy had a large amount of alcohol hidden behind a cupboard and had light alcohol sitting on the bar counter. Draco sat down at the bar and pulled out a few of the harder drinks out of the cupboard.
Smiling, he tipped back the bottles and let one after the other pour its contents into his waiting mouth. The sweet warmth from alcohol lifted his spirits slightly, and he felt himself loosen under the influence. He laughed and set a bottle of brandy back on the top of the counter.
"I'm worthless!" he shouted at the top of his lungs, though nobody heard a word he said. He laughed again and pulled himself off of the stool he was sitting on. He teetered dangerously, but held hard onto the counter. "Draco Malfoy is a fucking pathetic loser, with no ambition, with no life…!"
He pulled himself along the length of the bar, leaned over to grab the brandy bottle which was still ¾ full, and proceeded to walk out of the rather tiny room. It was one of the smaller rooms of the manor, on the west side of the house - and Draco's room was in the east wing of the manor. He held his free palm against the wall and led himself back toward his bedroom.
After a series of tipping forward and landing flat on his face on his way to his room, thirty minutes later he arrived in his rooms. Draco slammed the door shut behind him, took another swing of his bottle, and then threw that across the room. The bottle of brandy, with less than ¼ of the drink left inside of it, hit the solid wall and shattered, falling into a heap at the floor. Draco teetered toward the mound of glass bottle shards.
Draco slumped, sliding down the length of a wall into a heap next to the bottle shards. He pulled his knees up to his chest and buried his face into his knees. He cried.
"I'm worthless. I'm worthless! There's nooooooooo meaning to my life… Can't do anything right."
He laughed bitterly at himself, leaning his head back against the cold of the concrete wall. He unclenched his knees and put his hands on the floor near his sides. One hand slipped along the jagged edges of the bottle shards and sliced open. He picked up one of the glass shards, brought it to his face, and looked at it.
And then he started to cut.
The sad excuse for a Malfoy dragged the jagged piece of glass across his forearms and sliced through the pale skin, leaving behind it a trail of blood that began oozing out of the fresh cuts. Draco didn't seem to notice, because he continued to slice up his forearm, and then began hacking up the other. Blood covered the front of his robes.
After he cut up his arms, he set the glass down. He gave a sad little chuckle and slammed the back of his head against the concrete wall.
"I can't even be a father." He shut his eyes a let a tear trickle down his cheek. "How many times do I have to say I'm sorry?"
Stranger than your sympathy
This is my apology
I'm killing myself from the inside out
And all my fears have pushed you out
I wish for things that I don't need
All I wanted
And what I chase won't set me free
All I wanted
And I get scared but I'm not crawling on my knees
Oh yeah, everything's all wrong, yeah
Everything's all wrong, yeah
Where the hell did I think I was?
Stranger than your sympathy
I take these things so I don't feel
I'm killing myself from the inside out
Now my head's been filled with doubt
It's hard to live the life you choose
All I wanted
When all your luck's run out on you
All I wanted
Oh yeah, it's easy to forget, yeah
And you choke on the regrets, yeah
Who the hell did I think I was?
Stranger than your sympathy
All these things you stole from me
I'm not sure where I belong
Nowhere's home, and I'm all wrong
And I wasn't all the things
I tried to make believe I was
And I wouldn't be the one to kneel
Before the dreams I wanted
And all the talk and all the lies
Were all the empty things disguised as me
Yeah, stranger than your sympathy
