Abandon
His mouth pressed onto hers urgently, and he felt fear break out in his skin, crawling in his blood. She wouldn't die. She couldn't. He would never let her die. His hands planted firmly on her shoulders, he prodded her with his kiss, not even knowing exactly what he was doing. All he knew was that he needed to kiss her, he needed to feel her lips again, and he wouldn't let her do this to herself. And then something happened that wanted to make him crumble in the floor.
She opened her eyes. Through the blood-stained strands of her hair were the amazing brown eyes that he fell in love with not too long ago, and they were shimmering with tears. She didn't want to blink, it seemed. Her mouth turned into a glorious smile that he knew would never leave his memory, not ever.
And when she looked at him and spoke his name as softly as possible, the whisper echoing in his mind, Draco's heart seemed to be fulfilled with something so unexplainable, something that reached into him and shook him, something that made his chest burn, something that made him frightened of the emotions that were mingling inside him together.
Because she was alive, and she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
~*~
His hands locked with hers, entwined fingers that brushed against each other to surface only emotions known in the chest. She glanced at him worriedly, pushing a strand of silver-blonde away from his face, her smile growing tired, her eyes weary.
"Rest," he advised her gently.
"I don't want to," Ginny protested weakly, settling into the warmth of her pillow as she observed him disdainfully. He looked exhausted, and she felt regret knowing that she had caused that exhaustion, that tired, dead look that was visible in the depths. "Stay," she tried again, trying to make her voice as audibly strong as possible.
The offer was too tempting to refuse when her features were begging him. He nodded reluctantly, touching her wrinkles with the tips of his fingers, her hair tangled in between his fingers as he watched her fall asleep, her eyelids closed, a smile erupting in her lips seconds before she fell into deep slumber.
~*~
His heartbeat was slowly faltering, the twitch in his lips turning into a sardonic uplift that touched the corners of his mouth. He was living on the floor, struggling with his soul, the scream urging itself upward her throat. He couldn't stand the imprisonment, he was reliving memories that he could only regret. He was unconscious with a solid state washing over him like steel, the tears struggling in frustration to taint his cheeks, the tremble of his body shaking, crossing, dying on this bed. His pulse was rendering like a beatless hollow, his fingers were wrung like a surrendered leaf that had coiled far beyond it's natured reach.
He was going to die. After all these years of loving someone so preciously, he was going to die. He hadn't done anything wrong except kept her to herself, and there was nothing, nothing that was wrong about that, was there? He was innocent. He was truly, truly innocent. If he wasn't innocent, what else would he be? His legs ran over each other, fighting to take over embrace of his movement, his eyelids fluttering but never opening. He was drowning in darkness that caused him severe pain - severe pain that was the truth, similar to wings it flew in front of his eyes as he pulled out his hand enviously, wanting to reach it, wanting to touch it, wanting to bruise the thing that could give him his only sanity. He touched it. With the tips of his fingers, the soft feathers threatened to unfurl against his very fingernails, to unseal what was real once and for all.
But then a small murmur awoke him, the truth was vanishing away into many blocks of black ice, dissolving into something he would only see when he died.
His eyes opened, seeking their only escape from the horrific state, pondering the edges of his blurred vision. He saw a girl crouched over at the chair beside him, the familiar waver of her auburn hair tucked behind her ears neatly, her small gown fitting her securely around the waist but loosely around the loop of her neck. He would never know the truth. It was right there, in front of him, evidence of his addiction, evidence of his insanity, and he had thrown it away, he had thrown it away, just to wake up with her next to him, recovered.
"Ginny," Devon whispered, his hand outstretched to touch his beautiful doll, his beautiful addiction, his beautiful, pure, nothing --
But after a faint glimpse of her smile, he saw tears crawling at the outline of her mouth --
and she vanished. Devon fell into sleep, dizziness caressing his face. He wondered vaguely before he fell if she had ever been real.
~*~
Loss of sanity is loss of contact. You can't see anybody else except yourself when you're in that one moment where you're about to slash somebody's head off. There's your heart beating in your head, there's your pulse quickening like seconds that roll by in turmoil. You'll never understand this answer until you try to keep it inside. When you keep it inside it sizzles like a mass of blood that refuses to burst, and it grows larger, and larger, like a bubble that never pops. But when you stick a fingertip inside, it grows into the fingertip almost as if it were rubber, crowding your skin as if it were thick, black liquid that seems to quietly stream across your nail and into the middle of your palm - and then, everything stops.
Everything stops. There's no motion, no sound, no anything until that black liquid is rejoiced into your mouth once more, rinsing your throat with it's traumatic charisma. It tastes colorless, emotionless, until you swallow, and it seems as if you're swallowing your own tongue, your saliva is dripping across your stomach, it's an ocean, it's a flood, almost as if it were water, but it's not, because just as everything seems to get peaceful, it burns inside once more, eating away at your intestines, eating away at your tiny little bones.
Ginny was addicted to pain.
It was just the way it was supposed to be. Pain that fed her, pain that loved her, pain that surrounded her and suffocated her until she would break. She wanted to be hurt by Devon, to be hurt by Draco, because if she didn't, it wasn't real. Something this good, something so amazing as love couldn't be real - it had to painful, it just had to. Agonizing, she always thought life was agonizing. And yet, there was pain to touch her. What if she had no pain anymore?
She needed a new supply of pain, something, a needle, to sting into her flesh and disripute the unlikely, angry, hollow, and sad blood that was pain. It had to run through her viens because if it didn't, her heart would stop any second. Addiction, addiction, addiction.
Her supply had run out.
Addiction, addiction, addiction, her mind sang mockingly at her.
Her life was beginning to feel florescent, too much light that touched her eyes. She needed darkness. What ever would happen without the darkness?
She needed more pain. More, more, more. Just a little more supply. It couldn't hurt. She settled herself to the warmth of her pillow and let her eardrums drown into it's sound, let her nostrils flare into the fragrances, let her body become limp, and forced herself not to curl her body in a huddling position. She relived the memories, the truth, and the senses. The raping, the suffering, the torturing. She was five, and Ron had eaten her birthday cake. She was ten, and everybody wore new clothes but her. She was eleven, and Harry had saved her. She was fourteen, and Harry acted as if she was a child. She was eighteen, and she had scowled particularly foully at a silver-haired boy. She was nineteen...
A smile faltered slightly against her lips as she relaxed into the embarrassment, the anger, the sadness, the love, the hate all at once, droning inside her mind, repeating itself...she was crawling, crawling in the bloodshed that was her most favorable, most morbid drug that was intoxication - pain.
Addiction, addiction, addiction.
~*~
Oh, how sadistic his world could be. In his arms was the girl he had thought nothing but about, and yet a frightening sensation was a snake, slithering across the holes of his burned heart. He pushed the strands of her hair away, wishing for her to awake, but she didn't. She lay still and hopeless, stiff and calm, as if she would never feel anything ever again. His fingers burned in it's usual tingling as he touched the light skin of her midriff through the robe, a sardonic uplift of his mouth erupting at his lips. He wondered how it would feel to touch every piece of her skin, pleasure her, make love to her, caress her body with his. It seemed almost impossible to even think about, although the vivid images were forcing themselves to flash through his mind. Her hair was tickling his nose slightly. He gave a soft sigh against her neck, his breath hovering amongst the air, as swerved as cracked glass.
"I am addicted," Ginny muttered underneath her breath as her body wavered to the left, pressing against him. He didn't question her.
He didn't dare. Instead, he buried his face into her hair, enjoying the pricking in his wrists that indicated something he never thought he would be - it was more than bliss.
It was happiness.
"Me too," Draco agreed, his eyes closed, her strands still cascading across his closed eyelids.
~*~
Hermione took several drinks from her coffee before saying a word and choking instantly. "You're who, now?"
The woman shifted uncomfortably in her seat, finally regaining her posture and leaning over on the table, her fingers grazing her chin. "Dina. Mother of Draco Malfoy?" She waved her hand compulsively, as if saying 'hello,' in a long, drawling voice, showing the small gold band placed on her finger, glimmering it's tiny white gem.
"No, no," Harry protested, still in disbelief that he was in reality as his fists clenched underneath the table, with only Draco's expression to subdue him to amusement if he had heard this ludicrous statement of hers.. "Narcissa Malfoy is the wife of Lucius Malfoy. Therefore, Narcissa is the mother of Draco Malfoy." He stared at her intensely, as if pondering the doubts of her fully intact sanity.
She blinked. "Lucius married? Again?" Her cool, calm and collected series seemed to be over abruptly. Taking a swift puff of her cigarette, she drew her eyes around anyone but the two people sitting across from her on the dining table, her bottom lip trembling. "I see," she said, clearing her throat slightly. "Well...be that as it may. I think I am entitled to find my own son."
"Your son," echoed Hermione in a dull, dead-prone voice.
Dina nodded eagerly, her eyes glittering once more before whispering in a soft voice that came out in a unintentional hiss, "I've heard about it. It's in the papers."
"Papers." Harry stared at her, his boring into hers. Such a fancy-dressed, skimpy, but glamorous woman with glitter spaced on her eyelids, her breath carrying the stifling fragrance that was an unpleasant smell of smoke was telling him that Malfoy was her son.
And although this was not significant in the particular factor, Harry found it quite shocking that she was a redhead.
"Yes," she responded hurriedly, her eyes running over his face, skimming his features. "Yes. It's not a feature story, but the fact that Devon and Draco are both in St. Mungo's is a large gossip-drawing article. Oh, and that Weasley girl, of course," she scoffed, waving her hand dismissively in the air, gesturing in it. "But that's not important. Everyone wants to know what happened. I mean, how can two - oh, alright," she corrected after recieving a firm glare on Harry's part, "Three people could end up in St. Mungo's at the same day, same setting, same time. And I came to town to find out what's going on. Mindy told me very little at home."
"You know Mindy?" Harry interrupted promptly. "How?"
"That's not important," Hermione said in a strangled voice. "Miss...err, will you please please excuse us?"
"Of course," Dina said hastily, her feet now placing themselves on the table as she leaned back, her eyes closed. "Talk all you want."
Hermione was about to say angrily that this was not what she meant, but Harry grabbed her arm, and fortunately, they were able to reach in quiet agreement to hover amongst the cabinets and face each other, not talking for countless moments.
"What?" Harry finally said, with a dumbfounded expression.
"What?" Hermione repeated in explosion. "What?! Is that all you can say, Harry? This woman is claiming to be Ginny's boyfriend's -" she motioned in the air frantically. "Well, you know! Mother!" Her body was wracking in both fury and puzzlement.
"Draco's not Ginny's boyfriend," Harry merely replied.
"That - so - not - point," Hermione sputtered between gritted teeth. "Look at her!"
So Harry looked, and observed the lady that was visible thirty feet away, now chewing on the white length of her cigarette, then looked back at Hermione, who's sweat-stained hair was strewn over her face.
"Well, she's a redhead," Harry finally observed.
"Argh!" Hermione exclaimed in frustration and in relent. "Harry, can't you for once have an intelligent conversation - for once!"
"Are you calling me not intelligent?" Harry asked in a pained voice.
"It's not called 'not intelligent'. It's called 'are you saying I lack intelligence', at least say that," Hermione said curtly, her bottom lip curling in distaste. "Harry? Are you even listening?"
"She's a redhead," he murmured aimlessly.
"My God..." Hermione said, burying her face in her hands, twirling the brown strands at her fingers. "Harry! What do we do now?"
"Kiss?" Harry suggested keenly, the words rolling off his tongue without any thought traveling through his mind beforehand. He scolded himself, grimacing.
Hermione looked up, outraged. "What?"
"I said - err, lisp?" he tried meekly. "'Mione, why don't you go up to Ginny's room, write to your parents, and rest. I'll take care of this."
"You will?" Her eyes brightened quickly. "Thanks," she said, relieved. "But don't do anything stupid."
"Have I ever?" Harry tried to reassure her, and himself.
Hermione stared at him blankly for a few seconds before replying, "Do you really want me to answer that?"
He shook his head in defeat after thought of that particular question, and too many unfortunate memories filled his mind. She took two glances at him and Dina before retreating back to the living room, and he could hear her footsteps fade and falter ever so slowly within minutes.
"So," Dina said coyly, rising from her chair, the cigarette falling from her hand and crumbling on the floor like a small tissue staining the tiles of the floor. "Now that we're alone..." she waved her fingers, as if they were itching to fiddle with the collar of his shirt, a small smirk produced on her lips, lopsided but sly. Her pale skin was now flushed with red from eagerness.
Cunning. Glamorous, she seemed as she stepped on the cigarette with the heel of her shoes, raising a suggestive eyebrow at the youthful boy that was approximately twenty years younger.
"Oh, yes," muttered Harry underneath her breath. "She might be a redhead...but she's definitely a Malfoy."
~*~
Ginny appeared to be altering her clothes when he awoke, leaning on his elbow, gazing fixedly upwards at her. She almost seemed to be glowing along with the fresh, new evening that beamed amongst them. Her brown eyes shining with purity, her body moving along many layers of fabric as she twirled a piece of hair that encircled her finger playfully, looking back at the reflection of a hand mirror. The clothes that fit her slender body were recognized instantly by Draco as a long-sleeved turtleneck the color of faint lavender and nuzzled around her waist securely, along with a long black skirt that reached to her knees, wavering against her kneecaps. She turned to him and with a look that identified the fact she was startled, a small blush brushed against her cheeks. "Oh," she said offhandedly. "You're awake."
"And you're beautiful," Draco managed to stammer out, and immediately regretted it as the thumps of his chest increased their pace. What right did he have to get sentimental all of a sudden? She's a Weasley, he reminded himself bitterly, but found that he did not care anymore. He liked when she wrinkled her nose, shifted her body uncomfortably, when her shoulders shook with fury, and most of all, her gorgeous hair, and her annoying habit to chew on the strands every so often because she was nervous. And of course, her laugh. It was the most incredibly exquisite sound he had ever heard in his life, natural and throaty. As soon as he had started to concentrate on the little things, he found it very difficult to restrain himself from the emotions surrounding him. His chest burned whenever she was near, and he began observing her features more frequently, her motions, the twist of her lips or the red tips of her ears. He felt a tingling sensation whenever she touched him, kissed him, or grazed him tenderly. He wanted to suffocate into her, into her warmth, hold her down and make sweet love to her, wanted his lips to linger in her skin and burn marks into her flesh so she would never forget him. A pain clutched itself in his stomach at the thought of losing her. It's not going to happen, he told himself. You already almost lost her once, you're not going to spoil this again. Screw everything else, he advised himself.
"Draco?" Ginny said tentatively. "Why aren't you blinking?" she asked curiously, inclining her head. He found it very intoxicating that her hair brushing against the sleeve of her sweater and seemed to be lost in light pink.
"Oh, I am not?" Draco questioned carelessly. "Oh, well. Are you feeling better?"
She nodded carefully. "My head aches a little, and so does my throat, but I can get over it. How about you?"
"I am feeling a lot better," he told her in a suggestive tone, his eyes glued to the lower regions below her neck.
"Draco," she said in a warning tone. "Listen, Mum's going to pick us up this afternoon, she and Dad are sorting things out, they're trying to ignore the Daily Prophet, it's all in the papers--"
"Your mother is going to pick me up?" Draco looked unseeingly doubtful.
"Well, yes," Ginny murmured. "Unless..."
"Unless?" Draco prodded.
"Unless you don't want to come home with us. I could just as easily owl your mother..." Ginny bit her tongue quickly at the outraged look spreading over the silver-blonde's face.
"Yeah, sure," he sputtered.
The particular word mother drew her back into attention. Gulping down repression, she opened her mouth to speak - but found she couldn't. She couldn't ruin his happiness, he seemed vaguely joyful all of a sudden, and she didn't want to be the cause if it ever ruined. "So," she forced herself to say, plastering a false smile to her face. "We still have a little time before Dad signs the papers. What do you want to do?"
"Well, what do you want to do?" Draco said teasingly, sitting upright in bed, his arms outstretched as he allowed himself a small yawn. "Well?"
"Well..." she whispered, nearing toward him as she placed the hand mirror clumsily at the chair beside his bed. "Perhaps we could..."
"Talk?" he raised an eyebrow that clearly told her he did not want to talk at this specific moment.
"Or maybe...something else," Ginny said dreamily, her footsteps growing closer. When she reached a one foot limit of him, she leaned over, her hands pressing down to the sides of the bed, her forehead brushing against his. He felt a tingling sensation rise as his eyes locked with the heart-shaped locket dangling across her chest. "Like..."
"Kiss," Draco said at once. Ginny's eyes locked with his for several moments before their lips met and captured one another. The tenderness filled them both like an overcoming yearning that longed into their bodies. He pressed himself more roughly against her murmuring in sweet mirth at the feel of her hips against his, but she did not give in easily to his physical contact. Instead, she teased him with her lips, letting them edge at the side of his mouths before meeting the center of it, letting her breath brush his chin slightly, their lips barely touching now, the only other thing he felt was her hand gently on his shoulder, as if not to rush things, which annoyed him greatly. He groaned in disapproval, softly, but loud enough for her to hear it, and watched her smile, hair hanging at the side of her face. He would've loved to make her laugh and hear his beloved sound, but found his hands doing more interesting things, like sliding up her sweater...
"No," she found herself saying. "I just put that on."
"I won't tear it," he said in a small, promising voice. "Please? Just let me take it off a little."
"Draco," she said in an exasperated tone, trying to refrain from crying out. How had allowing herself to his touch felt so good before? His fingers were fumbling with the hemline of his skirt now, and the burning vibes that ran through her legs, but she ignored it warily. "Draco, I've got to tell you something."
"What is it?" A look of vague concern fell over his face and his hands hesitantly wandered away from her skirt, his hands placed firmly on the blankets strewn over the bedspread at the back of him.
She spoke, her voice coming out dry as she tugged her sweater down, concealing the exposed parts of her stomach. Her range growing unsteadily, she swallowed before speaking again quickly, hearing the door swing open faintly in the background, but ignored it. This was the time. She had to tell him now. If she didn't, who would? "It's about your mother."
"Too right it is," said a familiar voice from behind them.
~*~
It was Hermione, who looked as if she had just gotten out of bed. Her clothes crumbled and wrinkled slightly, her hair mussed, her cheeks flushed, dark circles emmitted under her eyelids, her lips dry and chapped, looking massive in a furry overcoat with her hair swept off her shoulders in a messy but bouncy ponytail. "Ginny," she greeted with a small smile, avoiding Draco's inquiring eyes. "Ready to go?" she asked, inclining her head timidly at the redhead.
"Where's my --" Ginny prompted at once, thinking of her father.
"They're occupied at home, sorry," Hermione said a bit breathlessly without letting her finish the question quickly enough, referring to Ginny's parents. "I was told to pick you up. That is alright, isn't it?" she asked in a suspicious tone, glancing at Draco pointedly. "Was I interrupting something...?" she suggested, the corners of her mouth threatening to uplift sarcastically.
"No!" Ginny responded, flustered. "No, of course not. Draco and I were just...talking," she lied, waving her hand dismissively.
"Talking," Hermione said, nodding, even though doubt flashed through her eyes, mingled with amusement. "Talking with his legs open and you leaning over him?" she hissed in an undertone so the ludicrous statement only reached her eardrums.
Almost at once, Ginny's already pink cheeks began to increase it's pace into the color of fresh amber sprinkling over her skin. "Let's go, shall we? Oh, wait!" she turned around to gaze apologetically at Draco. "I forgot. Draco, we'll wait until you change."
"Oh, Ginny," Hermione prompted eagerly. "Draco's not going to the Burrow with us."
"Excuse me?" Ginny's head snapped around, her hair fluttering over her eyes. "He's not what?" she sputtered in outrage. Something that tasted like both vomit and fear began to spread throughout her tongue as she said this. Her eyes widened in disbelief, her hands shaking every so often, the auburn left in her skin went pale, and every freckle seemed to reduce it's size to a miniscule particle. "He's not going with us?"
"No, he's not," Hermione retorted curtly. "Now get your stuff."
"No," Ginny protested. "I am not leaving him here."
"Ginny, it's okay," Draco's voice said from behind her. "I don't have to go to the Burrow."
"It's not okay," Ginny's voice faltering softly. "It's not okay at all. He's going to come with us. What's going on here? Is it Mum or Dad? Because I am sure they'll let him stay for at least one more day. Is it Ron?" she guessed, her shoulders shaking with fury. "I knew it! It's Ron, isn't it? Well you can tell him I am not ever, going to give him his teddy bear ever again if I find it one more time stashed in the living room hallway closet, tell him --"
"Ginny!" Hermione interrupted, with a voice of concern for her sanity, as she was droning on, her face colorless, her voice with infuriation audible. "It's not that. Draco's going to be picked up and registered home with somebody else."
"Who?" Ginny challenged, tugging at her skirt uncomfortably. "Who?"
"It's none of your concern," Hermione replied sternly. "Will you please go to the front desk and ask for your stuff?"
"Who is it?" Ginny pried. "Who?" A girlfriend? a portion of her mind suggested in a small voice. No, she thought back. Not a girlfriend...no, that can't be it! she thought helplessly.
"Ginny!" Hermione said in an exasperated tone as she saw the terror erupting into Ginny's features. "Do what I said!"
Ginny eyed her beadily with a dangerous smile that clearly said, 'fine, but I'll get you for this,' and with a furious black glance, and a grasp of her hand mirror, she said not another word and walked out of the door, slamming the door behind her.
"Who's picking me up? Father?" Draco quipped after she had gone.
Hermione gazed at him for several moments before shaking her head from side to side hesitantly. "Not your father."
"My mother, then?" he drawled in bored disapproval.
Hermione bit her lip vigorously before answering. "You could say that."
"What's going on, Granger?" Draco asked, a puzzled expression pouring over his face.
"Draco..." she started to say, but the door swung open once more, and another redhead announced her arrival by the clunky footsteps of her long-heels, revealing slowly slim hips, a slender body, her heaving chest, long neck and graceful face, her gray eyes sparkling through the mane of her red-flamed hair, the red dress fitting around her every curve, every piece of her tall length as her shoulders shrugged recklessly.
"I am sorry I am late," Dina said hastily, brushing a piece of hair across her temples.
~*~
"What's going on here?" Ginny demanded furiously as she entered the Burrow. The familiar scent hovered beneath her nostrils, the fragrance of oak and the smell of Weasleys, refreshing and scented like soap and water mingled together. She settled back into the warmth of the place, and felt a smile crawl into her mouth. She was home. She was home once more to the lopsided 'castle' that was small and cozy and would always be the most safe haven she could think of, excluding Hogwarts, the school she used to attend many years ago, of course.
"Ginny, dear! Oh, I am glad you're home!" her mother greeted from the kitchen with a joyful wave. But something was wrong with the smile plastered on her face. Ginny knew it was a false, weary smile, the smile she wore when she used to pick up supplies for a new school year and only had three galleons to spare. It was a frightened expression in the old, plump but timid face and beyond her wrinkles. "Ah, Hermione. I left letters from your parents in the bedroom," she notified the brunette who gave her a thankful nod and rushed past her, and soon footsteps were to be heard walking upstairs. Mrs. Weasley faced Ginny at last, and Ginny was startled to see that her eyes glinted with liquid. She stammered slightly, murmuring under her breath as she brushing them away with the egde of her apron before returning to gaze at her only daughter.
"It's just sad," she told her, her voice dreamy and hopeless. "He was a terrible man, always horrible to your father, and of course, I even thought nastily about him getting fired off the Ministry, I thought the conflict on him would stand after what happened with Harry at fifteen, but think of how his son will react to the news."
"What?" Ginny raised her eyebrows in bewilderment, worrying for her mother's lack of sanity at this particularly strange moment. "Mother? Are you ...feeling good?"
"I am feeling - sympathetic, I suppose you could say, Ginny. It doesn't concern me, but I wonder where he will go," she said in wonderment as she turned her back to her daughter and stirred the contents in the stove boiling on fire. Ginny knew there was something wrong. For one thing, her mother usually tended to magic to cook, and for another thing, her apron was down to her knees, a place where Molly Weasley would certainly not dispose of the cooking fabric. It was usually tied around her neck professionally and hanging against her stomach, fluttering every so often. Ginny noticed with a pitiful glance that her mother had lost weight in her face, and her freckles were becoming colorless. However, the weight seemed to now go onto her stomach and her legs, which were now a bit more plumper than she had seen.
"Mother, who are you talking about?" Ginny asked, her bottom lip trembling slightly in amusement at a sudden thought that rushed through her mind. She ignored it, even though it seemed catastrophically impossible. No, she told herself firmly.
"Draco - I think that's his name, the homeless boy?" Mrs. Weasley prompted, tasting the blurry stream of colors in her spoon and making a disgusted face at once. She turned around and wiped the perspiration off of her neck, shoulders and forehead before sitting down, the apron still tangled within her legs.
"He's not homeless, mother," Ginny responded, a laugh catching in her throat. "His father kicked him out."
"Well, unfortunately, he will not follow his father's orders anymore," Mrs. Weasley murmured, shaking her head in disapproval. "Ginny, I am feeling a sick. Would you be a dear and cook dinner? Fred and George are coming over from their new place to see how you're doing. Oh! God, I almost forgot. How, are you doing, Ginny dear?" she asked kindly, inclining her head tiredly at her.
Ginny pushing the locks of red away from her face and gazed at her mother fixtedly before retorting, "I am feeling good, mother. Good."
"That's, that's good," Mrs. Weasley said, her words catching in the middle of a yawn. "Well, I shall take a nap." And with that, she concentrated fondly on the floor and didn't notice the apron still clinging to her feet, wavering across the floor tiles as she walked.
~*~
Dinner was scheduled promptly at eight o'clock. Ginny spent the rest of her afternoon cooking and cleaning the skin until every face could be seen on the silverware, until every palm could be addressed and reflected on the forks and spoons, until the knives were sheer and shiny and dripping with water and dried with the edge of a paper towel or handed to Hermione to brush her wand against and murmur a quick incantation under her breath. Mrs. Weasley tended to herself upstairs, Mr. Weasley was up with her, Hermione, Harry, and Ron beadily eyed each other uncomfortably at the table, every so often peering at their cleaned empty plates, awaiting anything to occupy their spaces.
"So," Hermione quipped, her hair falling loose around her neck, only strands from her ponytail that was now disoriented in a fashion that fell over her sides. "Ron, when --"
"Can we please not talk?" Ron interrupted angrily, his fists clenching underneath the table. The usually pale, freckled face was now filled with fury in it's features, as well as a fair portion of red.
"What's with you?" Hermione inquired, her voice injured and curious.
"Nothing. I'll be upstairs," the redhead replied hastily, not even bothering to push in his chair as he walked clumsily through the kitchen. His footsteps faded away and were heard by the creaking of the bottom stairs as he ran upwards.
"Seriously, what's wrong?" she asked, turning her head to Harry, who didn't look the slightest bewildered, but disappointed. Harry glanced over at Ginny cautiously before lowering his voice and leaning his face forward so that his words were whispered and barely audible in her eardrums -
"He found the letter." Harry poised backwards into his chair, his legs raised slightly onto the table, satisfied with that answer. Hermione stared at him blankly.
"Letter?" she asked in wonderment, raising an eyebrow at Harry before sipping her glass of water prestigiously, the liquid chilling her throat.
"Yes. It was from Devon, old and battered. The snow melted a while ago, and Ron found it when he came home on the doorstep." He shook his head in disapproval.
"This is not making any sense!" Hermione hissed, wrinkling her nose in puzzlement. "I was the one that threw the letter in the snow, but why would Ron be angry about it?"
Harry gave a roll of his shoulders, identifying a shrug. "He was probably angry because of what it said?" he suggested.
"What did it say?" Hermione murmured under her breath as Ginny turned her head and smiled at them before she began making circular motions with her wand over her steaming pot that had the sweet fragrance of apple cider erupting across from it in steamy foams.
Harry bit his lip before answering, his eyes alarmed, as if he had just thought of a particular fact. "I don't know," he retorted softly, the whisper echoing througout the atmosphere like a red gash through the white, invisible air.
~*~
Draco had never felt like ice before. It was a peculiar sensation that trickled into his spine when his eyes locked with hers, and that emotion, that feeling, that thought -- her eyes are just like mine, he had thought, in an oblivious daze that transfixed his limbs and broke his body. "Hello," he drawled in a greeting, feeling his joints being too far burned for him to wriggle and settle into the warmth of his bed. "Who - I am sorry, who are you?"
The fact that he was being polite to her, the fact that her eyes brightened the moment she saw him and the fact that she grew breathless, looking alive, red blushing on her cheeks, curls in a craze that enveloped her face snugly within it's many strands, flowering down under her arms. "I am..." she wrung her hands, surrendering them to him. He found himself reaching for them, and not even knowing it. In midair he caught himself, withdrawing sharply and profusely disturbed. If this was a stranger, then how come it felt as if she was his blood, that somehow managed to rush out of his bloodstream and splatter onto the floor before him and transform into a human-sized person that could smile and make her eyes sparkle and make him melt.
"Well," she started again, straightening the dress that hugged her slender body, "I am Dina."
Now that Hermione had left the room it felt as if a million winds were forcing past him. "Dina?" he echoed blankly, with no reassurance of recgonization. "And why, exactly are you picking me up? Dina?" he added after an afterthought.
"Oh," Dina said, flustered, as if the question was not supposed to, not allowed to be asked, and would never be answered. Her voice was hoarse, but quiet all the same, deep but low, something indescribable, something supernatural, the way he couldn't describe the way he felt around Ginny. This seemed just like her voice. "Well. It's getting late," she said, avoiding the question abruptly. "And I really need to get you to the registration check-out. Can we - can we talk about this later? When you've dressed?" she nodded pointedly at his robe and he laughed nervously. The laugh came like vomit, clear and unwashed, pure but not real.
"I suppose," he told her hesitantly. "Can you leave the room?"
"Of course," Dina replied, her voice filled with relief as if she had been waiting to be asked to leave all this time. "Take your time."
With a wave of the end of her dress sprinting across her pale but slightly freckled skin, she walked, her heels making massive ringings of apprehension as she shut the door behind her.
It echoed throughout the whole room and mocked Draco's eardrums, asking them to bleed.
~*~
Pleading. It was the only thing to get what she wanted. What Ginny wanted was her life back. But whatever she did to try to regain her composure, she found herself losing it. As she asked Hermione to finish setting the dinner table, she grasped a small bottle of firewhiskey and walked up to her bedroom until she collapsed on the bed, exhaustion filling her like a million different types of water splashing the truth over her cheekbones, grazing them, trickling down her skin. She drank until her pulse seemed to falter, she drank until her heart ran cold, and her blood went into a violent shade of blue. There was no mistaking it. She was losing it.
And worst of all, Draco wasn't there. Draco wasn't there to console her, hold her, tease her or even argue with her. It gave her a gentle relief whenever Draco was around, smirking arrogantly or flaunting his egoticstical pride, or having his skin brush against hers. She needed him to make the pain lessen, or worse, she needed him to fill the pain until it became absolutely, tolentery blissful. The bittersweet taste dissolved into her tongue and lingered at the tip of her tongue, waiting to plunge forward. She couldn't understand the world anymore, couldn't distinguish her emotions. Several times Devon had pinned her down and had his way with her, pushing against her forcefully, making her whimper, making her bleed, making her scream. The memories flooded back but she couldn't reach them, because if she did, it would be far too much.
Just too much.
Do you know what pain is? she wanted to ask people, she wanted to tell them what real pain was. Real pain was this. Pain wasn't getting over your thirty-sixth boyfriend even though you're so beautiful you'll find a new one soon. Pain wasn't losing one of your sixty thousand friends and forgetting them after a week. Pain wasn't that. It was something like breaking, something like thrashing, numbing, crashing. It wasn't getting angry over a silly tease or a joke. It wasn't. Pain was being ridiculed everyday, pain was tearing yourself outside but keeping your features invisible. Pain was taking all that shit and keeping it inside into a little box in your heart and wishing you could never open that and go through the files. Pain was when you knew you didn't want this to happen, but it was fate, and if it didn't happen, then you wouldn't have your strength. You're more stronger than you'll ever know, Ginny told herself firmly, chewing on the strand of hair that kept falling over her eyes. The tears never came, however. It would take more than firewhisky to get all the anguish, the distrust, the hatred out of her. And she wasn't even sure if she was ready to let it go.
She fell asleep, her legs parted slightly, her arms side to side. But at least she wasn't curled onto herself helplessly, the memories cracking within her skull under the pillow, concealed, hidden, needing her own security.
~*~
His heart dropped to the ground. It was a strange feeling of loss, the weight raising in his chest.
His robe dropped to the ground. He felt bare, naked.
Maybe it was because he really was.
He dressed slowly. His pants brushing against his legs, his kneecaps, his slender hips and closing the zipper aimlessly. His fingertips fluttered across the grasp of the opening, as if asking what to do next, and his mind couldn't comprehend what was happening. It was just - her eyes. Her gray, glowering eyes. They were just like his.
Not like his mother's, Narcissa's. She had eyes that were tinted slight blue, not gray.
But this - this woman. She was anonymous, unmarked, unknown. But if she was unmarked, how come she could feel hovering between them, the connection - how come his heart caught in his throat, similar to the reaction he had to Ginny, except this feeling was nothing, nothing. Pure. Simple. Blunt. He didn't know anything anymore.
Maybe because there was nothing else to know.
His fingers fumbled with the buttons of his shirt.
~*~
Ginny felt herself rising awake from the familiar shake of her shoulders as she opened her eyes. For a moment - even for the half of a second, she knew, that she was back in the past, sixteen, and her brother was waking her for sleeping over late on the day back to Hogwarts. Her hair would be frizzy and unclean, pouring over her face, and she would scowl at her brother for fifteen minutes for actually wake her from the sweet, unconscious death she had been enjoying.
"Get up, Gin!" Ron's voice would reach her eardrums in an unpleasantly expanded manner.
"Shut up," she would grumble underneath her breath.
Ron would tackle with her for several moments afterwards until she rose from bed, and she remembered one particularly amusing memory of how she kicked him one day when he wasn't expecting it, and he had to go to Hogwarts with a nosebleed until Hermione reluctantly agreed to mend it with a swish and flick of her wand.
But this time, it was Ron. Ron, who was older, and his features were not of joy or of happiness. He looked sullen, solid. She half-rose from her bed upright forcing a smile onto her face.
"Hey," she said sleepily. "What is it?"
Ron started to speak, but his lips seemed wordless.
"Don't tell me it's about your teddy bear," she said, faking exasperation. "How many times do I have to suffer about your teddy bear?"
Ron offered her a humorless smile and stuffed his hands in his pockets. He appeared to be searching for something, and when slight victory glinted his eyes, he handed it to her. She took it curiously.
"It's for you," he told her, in a slightly provoking voice.
It was several pieces of parchment, elegantly written in sloppy but endearing cursive. She needn't to crease the folds to know whose handwriting it was. Raising her head, she was unnerved to see that Ron had walked away from her bed and was now approaching the door. Barely managing an acknowledgement of dinner leftovers downstairs, he left, shutting the door quietly behind him.
Ginny returned her attention to the letter, separating any sticky substance in between them, or pieces of flawless grass. She pulled it to her eyes and let them peer at the words, let them distinguish them. It was something she had never read before. It was half a letter, half a poem. The tears burning in her eyes refused to drop any time soon. She read it over and over until time seemed to stop, until every movement went rigid, and until every breath she breathed seemed to stand still.
~*~
Draco couldn't speak. Any sarcasm, ridiculing insult had rushed out of his mind and wandered elsewhere. He was beside her, not speaking, turning to look at her eyes every so often. She didn't seem to mind, but was shifting uncomfortably as she walked. Their footsteps colliding both sounds with each other, Draco found himself taking sharp breaths without knowing. He didn't know what to think; he didn't know what to say or to do. His mind pondered on Ginny, where she was, how she was doing, and wondering if she was thinking about him at this particularly peculiar moment. Countless minutes passed by when the woman stopped walking and turned her head. It was remarkable the portion of resemblance her hair had to Ginny's - it poured over her face, but this woman had obviously had experience with it far too many times to let it bother her - she merely pushed it away recklessly.
"Draco," she spoke, her voice trembling slightly.
"Who are you?" he asked promptly, finding an escape of his lips.
The woman recollected herself as her arms went protectively over her chest. With a hesitant look, she cleared her throat and spoke once more, this time her voice solid, and when she spoke the words she spoke, he felt himself rise in ease, felt himself being drifted away and never coming back. "I am - I am your mother."
Draco found his voice. "Oh." That single word rung throughout his eardrums and hovered beyond his lips, wishing to go away, wishing to float away. He wondered if he should leave it behind, but he didn't know how. And he didn't know what to leave behind. He was expecting it - he felt as if the words dissolving in his brain were not the words she had spoken. He gave her a calculating look before drawing his eyes away, far away where nobody else could see.
Her lips separated, parting in surprise, her eyes glittering still. "You're - you're not shocked," she said bluntly.
Draco didn't respond at first. His body was numb and discharged, indescribable. He could see blurs in his vision, black at his hearing. He was fifteen again, and he was in his father's study, or what used to be his. He was murmuring to himself lightly, he was scribbling on a piece of parchment, writing a letter to his father of all the things he had done wrong, although he knew it would never reach him in Azkaban. He wrote of all the things he hated about him, how he thought the surname Malfoy was supposed to define something - something, he didn't know what, but something to listeners, how he felt the need to punish him every time he was displeased, how he hated him. But then at the end, it seemed as if the letter was going offhand. His hand was writing but his brain was controlling it. At the end, he wrote that he didn't mean that he hated him - because if he hated him, he would hate himself as well. That yearning sensation was burning in his chest again as the memory faded away, slightly distraught. The yearning to be in the Burrow again, even to have Ron wake him up and use profanity while doing so. It was lingering at the tip of his tongue, waiting to be spoken for a million eternities. If there was such a thing called eternity, Draco wanted to be cleaned, rinsed and suffocated into it.
"The Burrow," he let himself whisper. He allowed his mouth to say it. He allowed it completely.
The woman - who seemed to observe him carefully before answering, nodded as if she understood. But nobody would ever understand it - the burning sensation spreading throughout his tongue, nuzzling his chest. He wanted to be back to the Burrow, near Ginny, fight with Ron, tease Harry - it was all coming back again.
He could never leave it behind. It was his eyes, the only way he could see.
Perhaps it was because Draco had been blind all this time.
~*~
Ginny could not be identified. There was nothing anybody could do to rid of the pain plunging in her chest, the sorrow filling her veins. It was an empty, losing feeling. She had lost something true to her, but she could not find out what it was, or even, why it was gone. She sat for countless seconds, minutes and hours, yearning for her pain again. There was too much emptiness in her heart. She couldn't rewind, or unwind anything. Her tendrils of auburn fell over the letter, colliding with the now splattered ink from her tears.
Her tears were forsaken. There would be no more tears left, because she was burning inside, dying inside, and being ripped apart.
The letters were useless, the empty wine bottles were never invisible. She didn't know what life meant to her. Life fell from her hands as she settled into the blissful warmth of her pillow. There was nothing left to do but close her eyes and fall into a sleep in which she promised she would never rise from again.
~*~
But, of course, eventually, the vision had to be subdued once more. She rose from bed with a different determination that scared her, frightened her. But she would never get on with her life if she didn't do it. It was chilling her wrists, betraying her blood. Peeling off the clothes she had on for more than five hours, she dressed in dark robes and pulled the black hood so that it enveloped her face with pieces of fabric and concealed her hair.
She knew where to go. She knew what she wanted. She knew how to do it.
Tucking her wand inside her left sleeve, she let her fury overtake her. It was an evil, a bittersweet evil that fulfilled her chest and controlled her mind. It was better than dissolving melted chocolate in her mouth, it was better that licking off remains of a taste she could call her favorite, it was better than that tingling sensation whenever she brushed against someone, it was better than deja vu, and could always be better than a blissful nightmare.
Hell, it was better than sex.
Ginny Weasley no longer wanted to be controlled by someone else, like a doll that hung limply to her side. She wanted power over someone, power that was tempting her, power that was persuading her. It was a power she had felt before but had never gave into it's lovely, red blood. She pushed the strands of hair and placed it securely behind her ears to stay put.
And she took a step.
And another.
~*~