Cruel Beauty

Rating: PG-13

Summery: Alternate Universe. When Ginny was six years old her parents died and she was left in the care of her mother's beautiful yet cruel sister. She raises Ginny with misguided views on love, will Ginny be able to love or is she too late to save?

Disclaimer: Anything that you recognize is not mine

A/N Hey I'm sorry if I gave the impression that I was revealing who killed Maria this chapter. It's coming soon, probably next chapter or the one after. However, I am enjoying reading your guesses about who killed our dear Maria. So far most have been either Draco or Velena, hmm, seems like it would be one of them doesn't it. *cackles evilly* guess you'll have to wait and see. In the meantime, read and review!

Chapter Fourteen

Bring Me To Life

How can you see into my eyes
like open doors.
Leading you down into my core
where I've become so numb.
Without a soul
my spirit's sleeping somewhere cold
until you find it there and lead it back home.

Now that I know what I'm without
you can't just leave me.
Breathe into me and make me real
Bring me to life. Evanescence (Such a perfect song for this story!)

"I'm sorry." I heard my own words reverberate off the walls; did I really just say that? Apparently Draco thought the same thing because he hadn't moved for a few minutes. When he finally came out of the frozen shock he simply kept opening and closing his mouth, as he couldn't find the words to say.

I sighed and pulled him back to my compartment. When we were inside I activated silencing and locking charms to make sure that we weren't interrupted.

Draco finally found the ability to speak, "what did you say?" He asked sharply.

"You heard me so don't ask me to repeat it. You should know that it is a once in a lifetime opportunity to receive an apology from an Evansole, so don't waste it.

He nodded dumbly. "Why though?"

"Why what? Why am I apologizing?" He nodded again. "Oh my god, fine if you want to hear it so badly; you were right, being alone gets boring and I missed what we had. There I said it."

He smiled and I sat down with a huff. He sat beside me and began to gloat, "I knew that you would come around. I knew that it was impossible to not have feelings, I knew that you would get jealous!"

"What are you talking about? I wasn't jealous of anything."

"Oh be realistic Virginia, you were jealous of my relationship with Cara." Oh, he was talking about her. All right, I admit I was a tiny bit envious of her, but it wasn't like I was going to admit it.

"Alright, if you want to live in your own little dream world and pretend that's true, then be my guest." He just continued to smile.

"Play it that way if you want. But it's not important now, what is important is that you now understand that we should be together." Before I could even try to deny anything he practically pounced on me. His cold lips were on my neck, and god help me, it felt good.

His mouth worked its way up my neck until it reached my own. Suddenly my mind began working again; his mouth, the same one that I so often saw grace parts of Cara's body was now on mine. I pulled away and saw the desperate look in his eyes. I had to look away, what was I thinking? This was Draco, I didn't feel this way about him, he was the stable part of my life, so why was he making me feel so insane?

I unconsciously licked my lips and could still taste him there. I craved more and I knew that he did as well. It just seemed wrong though, we had always been close but I had thought of it as more of a family type of relationship; we protected each other.

I closed my eyes and leaned against the seat; why did something so wrong have to feel so right? Draco began stroking my short hair in a therapeutic way. I reopened my eyes and it was as if I was seeing Draco truly for the first time. He looked almost angelic as his hands attempted to rub away the stress that I was feeling. I knew that I would probably regret it, and I knew that we had about no chance of working out; but I needed this, I needed him.

I pulled his already close head down against mine and started the most amazing kiss of my life. My first real kiss with Draco was my first and I have to say that it was worth the almost fifteen year wait. This time I was returning the kiss and everything became hazy. My normally sharp mind could only focus on the person in front of me and things began to spin out of control as we grasped on to each other for strength.

I wasn't sure how far things were going to go, and I never had the opportunity to find out. There was a petite girl banging against the glass of the door, looking very upset. I pulled away from Draco and smirked at Cara; I hoped that she knew that he never wanted her in the first place.

Draco sighed and reluctantly got up, "this will only take a minute," he promised me. He took the charm off and opened the door. "Cara, it was fun and all, but I really don't think that we are going to work out." He turned and started to walk back into the compartment; he closed the door and replaced the appropriate charms. Cara stormed off but he didn't seem to care in the least.

He retook his place beside me. "Don't you feel even a little bad about using that girl?" I asked him.

Draco looked thoughtful for a moment. "No," he finally decided. With that he ended the conversation by capturing my lips with his own for the third time that day.

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For the rest of the train ride Draco and I, ahem, discussed things. When we parted I felt that it was ironic that just when we finally got together we had to leave each other.

When I arrived "home" Velena shook her head in disgust at my appearance. She told me that I was not allowed to leave the house until I did something about my god-awful hair. I went up to my room and looked in the mirror, my hair was pretty bad. It had become frizzy and I had curls sticking out in every direction.

I sighed and grabbed my wand. I magically straightened it again and saw a drastic improvement. Without the curl making it bounce up my hair was now about an inch below my chin. I ran a brush through it and felt relieved to have silky hair once more. I stared at the freckles and I contemplated getting rid of them but I decided not to; they would infuriate Velena.

I went back downstairs a few hours later for dinner. I sat in my place next to my aunt; she stared at my intently. "You still look horrid; but it is an improvement." With that stated I knew that I would be allowed to leave the house.

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The second of July arrived and with it came my fifteenth birthday. By that time my hair had grown out to my shoulders and was actually starting to look good again. I opened my closet and discovered that my new clothes were all things that clashed horribly with my freckles. Nice subtle hint Velena.

I stayed for breakfast but left straight after. Draco wanted me to come to the Manor so that he could give me my birthday gift and eat dinner with his family. I knew that I should have been nervous; I had never met Lucius before and I heard that he was cruel. But after dealing with my aunt for so long, I was sure that I could handle him.

I flooed to Draco's and found that he was waiting for me at the fireplace. He intended to kiss me briefly but that quickly escaladed to more. I ran my hands through his fine smooth hair and found that I had missed him; even though we had just met last week at Diagon Alley.

When we were both satisfied we went up to Draco's room so that he could give me my birthday present.

He instructed me to sit on the bed while he opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a box wrapped in Slytherin colors. He handed it to me and I gracefully took off the paper and pulled the lid off of the white box. Inside were two books, one black, the other red.

"What are these?" I asked.

"Something that I thought that you should have." I opened the red one and saw the first page. It read Property of Molly Evansole: DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU WISH TO BE CURSED INTO NEXT WEEK!

"My mother's diary," I whispered. I looked at him in disbelief, "how did you get this?"

"That's not important; I just thought that you should know about your mother. Look at the other one." I picked up the black book and opened the cover, anxious to see what surprise would lie inside. Maria Ann Sanchez was written on the white sheet.

"This was Maria's?" He nodded. I ran my hand over her name, "why?"

"You need closure on the situation." I gave him the first hug that I had ever gave in years.

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I put both diaries away so that I could read them alone. After that we spent the rest of the day simply enjoying each other's company. Draco instructed me of things not to say during dinner and how I should speak to his father.

Draco was afraid of his father. Lucius was powerful and someone that you did not want to make your enemy. Draco was aware of this; so he lived in fear of his father. And he resented Lucius for it. Draco did not want to be afraid of anyone or anything; but he couldn't get past the childhood fear of his father.

Dinner was typical. It was something that I could have very well stayed at my own house for. There was a long table in their dining hall that would seat twelve. Lucius sat at the head of the table; Draco sat on his right, Narcissa on his left, and me beside Draco.

"So Virginia, how are you getting along at Hogwarts?" Lucius initiated conversation.

"Very well sir, thank you for asking." My response came automatically from my years of being taught conversational manners.

Draco added to my comment, "Virginia is the top of her class father. No one else is even close to her scores."

Lucius turned his attentions to his son. "Draco, how were your marks this year? I do hope that muggle born girl did not get the better of you again."

"I have not received my OWLS yet father, but in classes, I beat her scores in every single one." I smiled; Draco had worked hard at his classes this year. Had it not been for Hermione he would have been at the top of his class with very little effort.

The dinner continued with Lucius prying into my life, trying to determine if I was good enough to associate with a Malfoy. I assumed that I passed the test; at the end of the meal Lucius rose and informed Draco of what a lovely girlfriend that he had.

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Draco walked me to the fireplace and kissed me goodnight. I arrived back home and found that Velena had already retired for the night.

I went to my room and provided myself with light from my wand. I stared at Draco's gifts for a while; trying to decide which one I wanted to read first. I picked up my mother's, I really didn't know very much about her.

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A/N I hope that chapter was okay, it's the first time that I've ever written anything semi-romantic. In the next chapter we find out some interesting things about Molly that just might change the way our dear Virginia views things. Also in the next chapter, new Maria information that will shock you. If you saw this coming, then I really must commend you on your psychic powers! Thanks for reading and please review!!!!!! You're reviews really make my day!

Thank you to:

Firefly of hell, k00lgirl1808, celeste, nirvana, AnGeL*Of*MiNe, zainab, Sara, ToykoGal89, Lyss, marchione, Ace of Spades, fantasyangel, Katherine K, SugargGirl, icefaery, frananddragon, and S.e.a

Questions

Celeste- even though this chapter kind of answered it anyway, yes the Draco/Ginny action is soon, lol!

AnGeL*Of*MiNe and Zainab- yes, she is going to be pretty again. And she is already starting to get there!

ToykoGal89-yes, she was jealous. (but she'll never admit to Draco, lol!)

Ace of Spades- Hmm…I don't think that they are supposed to, but oh well. She didn't really mean to say that, it just kind of came out. (something that happens to me often!)

Frananddragon-You'll find out soon, probably chapter sixteen, because I have a whole story line of how she finds out and it doesn't really fit in with what I'm planning for the next chapter. (Thanks for your guess and reasoning!)

S.e.a- I'm not really sure what's with the whole Hufflepuff thing either. Just an impulse that I had to write in a Hufflepuff, even though she didn't have a very good role!

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO REVIEWED!!!!