Abandon
Devon turned around in a swift, precluded motion, and felt his head upturn slightly. Ever since the hospital, his reflexes had still remained daft. At first, the image before him was clearly a delusion. But when he blinked, the picture never faded away. She was standing in front of him, her shoulders shaking, but her pale face luminous in the dim light, her hood over her hair, now falling and hanging loosely off the side of her face, grazing with it's soft fabric.
"Hello," Ginny greeted tonelessly.
"Ginny," Devon prompted, the name sliding off his tongue, rolling off of it unattractively in it's familiar drawl as he fought to hide his surprise, his shock, his fear. "What do you want?"
She gave a soft laugh. Devon had always admired her laugh, it was a sweet, natural sound, that escaped from her lips, sometimes in a giddy-like manner, sometimes in a hysterical manner, but what fit was that she didn't change it, it was always real, always true.
"You thought you could get away with this, did you?" she questioned, raising an inquisitive eyebrow. "Well, you thought wrong."
"Get away with what?" Devon echoed innocently, his features turning vaguely concerned for her sanity. "Ginny, I haven't seen you in a year."
Instead of being satisfied with anger, he received nothing less but a smile from her. And he didn't like it one bit. It was a knowing smile. Her shoulders had stopped shaking, they stiffened, but with that smile spread across her face, he knew something was going to happen - and he wouldn't know beforehand, he wouldn't be able to stop it.
"Bastard," she merely retorted.
"What are you doing here, Ginny?" he demanded once more, something unfamiliar lingering in the contents of his stomach.
"Well," Ginny said carefully, her voice dead-prone and dull as she reached into her sleeve. And in her fingers rolled her wand, which she pointed at his forehead, making circular motions with it ever so slowly, her eyes locking into hers. Her eyes were speaking to him, telling him that she had the advantage this time. He knew his heart shouldn't be racing but along with it was his quickening pulse, the shock, the memory, everything fading away around him.
She spoke, if it was possible, with a more calmed, forced clear voice. "I am here to kill you."
~*~
Draco knew something was wrong. It was in his blood, his skull, his mind as he turned the knob to Ginny's room and peered in. Nobody was there. The two beds placed half a foot beside each other were both empty, their bedspreads hanging over messily, crumbled. They were nothing but white spread over the carpet. He opened the door completely to it's extension and stepped in cautiously, whispering her name frantically.
Nobody answered. "Ginny?" he asked, his voice growing louder. "Ginny?"
Still, no response. Complete quiet. There was almost no sign of movement in the room, and there seemed no sign that there ever was. His stomach lurched almost painfully as he withdrew his hand from the knob and began to observe his surroundings. His chest was yearning for the sight of the redhead once more - he needed something familiar and petite fill it's warmth against him. On the verge of leaving, he turned swiftly, but his foot caught on one of the elements on the floor. Curiously, he leaned over and picked it up. An almost blank piece of parchment with only tiny little cursive letters at the top, obviously the only remains of a long letter.
And I will do anything to get my princess.
I will do anything to get you back.
Devon
Draco stuffed it carelessly in the back pocket of his jeans. He was about to look for the other pieces of this 'letter', but at that particular moment, the door swung open, and Harry's face was visible between the ledges, his mass of raven-black hair in a messy form as usual, his green eyes glowering in disappointment, and his face pouring in apprehension.
"Malfoy!" he cried in surprise. "What are you doing here? And why's your mo- I mean, why's Dina down there?"
"She's with me," Draco merely replied curtly. He was visibly upset that Harry was present. "What're you doing here?" he asked, annoyed.
"Are you still angry about - about that?" Harry asked tentatively, pausing, referring to the 'incident' in St. Mungo's that Draco had long forgotten but was now recalling with unease.
"Yes, and the fact that you are still alive ensues anger as well," he quipped jovially with a raise of an eyebrow. "Do you know where Ginny is?"
Harry shook his head in wonderment. "No. I was coming here to look for her. Maybe she went outside," he suggested.
"Why would she do that?" Draco questioned. "You don't think he - well..." he trailed off in a concerned, suggestive tone.
Harry's lips parted wordlessly before he actually spoke, his voice audible. "No," he finally answered, a determined gleam shining in his eyes. "He wouldn't do that. Listen, could you - could you and your mother - well..." he looked distinctively uncomfortable. "Could you guys - perhaps...leave?"
"Leave?" Draco echoed in a melodramatic voice. "Are you out of your mind? Do you even think I acknowledge what's happening is even real? I don't believe she's my mother."
"Look," Harry said in a reasonable voice. "I know you have a lot of problems," he started to say, then when he saw the sliver-blonde's protest, he held a hand upwards. "But Mr. and Mrs. Weasley already have the Burrow crowded. Downstairs, Mrs. Weasley is cooking for Mindy. And Fred and George are moving back home for a while to look after Ginny."
"Mindy?" Draco exclaimed in utmost terror. "Mindy's - Mindy's his - his ..."
"Sister," Harry finished, waving his hand dismissively. "I know that, you know that, but she doesn't know yet. And your mother is in the living room, clouding the whole place with her cigarette."
"That's not my fault!" he insisted. "I don't want to be isolated alone with her, okay? I don't even know her first name, for all I know, she could be my own father in disguise."
Harry bit his lip slightly, grimacing at the mention of Draco's father. Pity fulfilled him canonically as he hung his arms limply at his sides. His fingers wrung together behind him as he shifted back and forth, back and forth, like a doll when it cradles, rocking, waiting.
"What?" Draco asked, inclining his head. "Why do you look like that?"
Harry shook his head. His heartbeat was racing, urging him forward, pleading for him not to wait, to tell him now, to tell him now about -- but no, it was not the time.
"Nothing," he whispered, then shook himself, recollecting his composure rather quickly. "Let's go downstairs and see what we can do to help, shall we?"
At that very moment, Harry and Draco had reached the doorway plausibly when they heard a familiar voice ringing downstairs.
"Draco Malfoy, get down here!" it shouted in a sing-song voice. It was a smooth, clear, low voice, with a breathy atmosphere that was it's significance.
It was Narcissa Malfoy's.
~*~
There was a sound in her eardrums.
It rang clearly in her earlobes, refusing to go, refusing to leave.
It was the sound of fear. Fear that made her wince, fear that made her shake. It was overtaking her, evaporating her anger, her sadness, her sanity. The boy she had trusted for over a year, the boy that had kissed her gently, grasped her tendery, grazed her lovingly was standing before her, and she had her wand in front of her, ready to fight, ready for revenge, ready for murder.
Murder. The word was like a drop of realization in her stomach, threatening to break her spinal cord, to break her chest, to wrench it apart. Her blood pounded in several places, but she wasn't even sure if it was her mind or her blood. There was a symphonic rising, hovering amongst the air and tingling apprehension upon them.
Years were seconds, and hours were years. It was mindless, it was tuneless, it was careless, it was reckless.
It was pure, flawless nothing. It was a loss. It was something forgotten.
Something that never existed. Something she never wanted to exist.
She was crippled. She tried to back away but the force was too powerful, it was pushing her, prodding her, prying her spirit and crawling her at her skin.
"You can't do it," he hissed in a violent voice. "You never could." His words faltered away, echoing in the distance. Echoing in the distance, where distance could never be reached.
Her wand trembled forward and fluttered slightly in her finger at midair before it drooped over, falling to the floor with a thump as massive as the thump at her heart. She closed her eyes, and she let the tears fall at last.
Because her heart was thumping for him. The yearning, the longing, had not only been for Draco. It had been for Devon. It was seconds, in which she called years that she fell into his grasp once more, his arms entangled tightly around her, pulling her against him. She had to surrender, she couldn't fight. She could never kill someone - someone that - that. It hurt to think. It hurt to pain. It hurt to cry, it hurt to feel.
She could never kill someone she loved.
~*~
It was last fall. The crisp, cool air that frosted the windows were neglected to be looked into that morning.
"I am not beautiful," she protested teasingly. "I know you're just saying that to get what you want."
Devon parted his lips in mock-surprise. "I wouldn't do that!"
She laughed. He always made her laugh hysterically, made her tip her head back and let the glorious hair graze her cheekbones, letting the choked, rasped, sounds escape from her lips. And when she laughed, he would smile with admiration, with adoration, as if she was something special, as if she consisted of something that nobody else could ever hold in their hearts.
Devon tightened his grip on her shoulders and leaned forward, his face lowering, his lips upturned into a ambitious grin. "Kiss me?"
"Kiss you," she breathed, fluttering her eyes closed before their eyes met. It was last fall.
It was last fall when she had that feeling. That first, refreshing, terrifying, sudden emotion. She had felt it before, but this time it's intensifying charge was rushing through her like a splash of the ocean as she drowned. That emotion - she couldn't distinguish it into proper words, proper sentences. Love was not to comprehend, it was to feel, and she was feeling it with remarkable unease. Even with love, there was something mingled within, and it was called distrust.
Even when Devon's eyes met hers, locked with hers, pleaded with hers, caressing his pupils with pure love, pure trust, pure wisdom, telling her that they loved her - there was still something beyond his features, his eyes, his heart that was inside. It was invisible to her eyes, but it was real - it was black, hateful gruesome contents that were unfurling, uncoiling, never shown.
~*~
There was something else wrong. Draco could feel it, burning in his chest, recoiling from his heart. He could feel something happening, it was hovering amongst the air as he walked downstairs, drawing closer to a dream he had never seen before. Narcissa was sitting elegantly, one leg crossed with an ankle, another slim dress hugging her slender body, her pale white skin shining, her smooth, soft complexion, and the only luminous thing, once again, was her lips, which were painted bright red with lipstick that never seemed to come off, even when Narcissa slid over the remains with her tongue. She, the wife of Lucius Malfoy was dusting something off the lap portion of her dress, glancing around the small and messy kitchen.
"Draco," she greeted, waving her hand dismissively and rising. "Finally. And who are you?" she questioned in a demanding voice. Harry cowered behind Draco slightly, grimacing as he spoke.
"Harry," he replied.
"Ah," Narcissa wrinkled her nose in disgust. "Draco, did I not teach you never to stay at pig sties? That - that Moddy," she said, rolling her eyes upwards and gracefully fluttering her long, silver-blonde wisped eyelashes.
"Molly," Draco and Harry automatically corrected.
"Huh," Narcissa said in an echoing voice in a tone of distaste. "Doesn't she know how to decorate, at least? She seems to be awfully polite. As if she knew what had happened." She raised an eyebrow inquiringly. "You didn't tell her, did you?" her voice rose with an edge.
Before Draco could think of an answer - the words that escaped from his mouth appeared to be quite, wordless. His lips parted and made movements but a dreaded thump dropped to her stomach and upturned, because someone else had entered the cramped, unwashed kitchen. Draco and Harry needn't the footsteps of her heels, neither the fragrance of smoke that hovered beneath their nostrils almost instantly as she came. The door shut closed as she leaned against it, one hand placed loosely on her hip, the other failingly hanging against her side with a plate left with the remains of dinner, her hair sweat-stained in auburn curls that plastered to her face.
"Well, well, well," Dina announced mockingly, tugging at the hemline of her dress so that it grew further beyond her knees. "Narcissa, I assume?"
Narcissa gazed at her intently for several moments. "Correct. And, who, may ask are you?" she raised a perfectly-aligned eyebrow at the redheaded woman.
Dina gave her a reckless smile. It was ruthless, it was careless, and it was murderous. It wasn't a satisfied smirk or a pathetic uplift of her mouth - it was real. It made her wrinkles visible, it made her chin quiver, and it made her seem like a woman that was not, at all, actually, flawless. She made it a crime to be flawless, because there was supposed to be no such thing.
"Well," she said softly, like a murmur underneath her breath, her voice carrying with the air amongst the room in a half-regretfully thoughtless, half-amused, "I am - the other woman."
~*~
If there was a love that turned her heart upside-down and made her stomach swirl around, it was this love. It was a love so needy, so hateful, but yet so content. She didn't count the seconds, the minutes, the years that passed by them, the strings of hair that had loosened and now created circular movements at her shoulders. He grasped her, peeling off the fabric off her body, and she closed her eyes, letting the sensations overtake her, letting the air, the atmosphere, suffocate them. There was nothing else to do but relent, nothing else to do but regret, nothing else to do then surrender.
She surrendered. She fell to her knees, dead-prone and lifeless, surrendering. He touched her exposed skin softly, tenderly, grazing, softening, and kissing. His touch lingered everywhere as he head tipped back, her hair wavering at her bare, naked back, her lips parting wordlessly, wanting to say something, say something, describe the pain, the anger that he was causing her, describe how her heartbeat raced so many million lights that she knew she was in eternity, a place where everything vanished and everything happened.
It was a love. She did love him. Except there was that one thing - even though he made her feel nothing like anybody else had ever made her feel, there was that one thing. Even though he turned them into a world called eternity where they would never part, there was that one thing. Even though his touches weakened her and although he filled her loss, filled it so tightly that she felt adequate in his embrace, there was that one thing.
Even though she had known him for over a year, loved him for over a year, filled the space between them always, and they had always connected, always sufficed in something that was more than magic, it was something heart-wrenching, knowingly. Because there was still that one, small thing, that raced through her mind and pentrated her vision, because there was that one thing that was wrong.
His eyes weren't gray.
And his hair wasn't silver-blonde.
That one thing -- that one, miniscule thing that broke her heart apart, tore it into pieces, scattered it around and burned into ashes, reliving once more.
He wasn't Draco.
And soft as a whisper as he pushed into her passageway, and whispered as a murmur, and murmured as a tremor --"And he never will be."
That sentence was guarded in the air and trembled into the place with vanishing vision and the million lights, where the heavens could only listen.
And somewhere where maybe, just, maybe, if Ginny listened closely enough, her eardrums could hear the answer.
It went beyond, if possible, eternity.
~*~
"Fight," Harry murmured in a gleeful, sing-song voice beneath his breath. When he saw the mingled look of both disgust and outrage on Draco's face he gave him an apologetic smile, and then turned immediately to the two women who were both glaring at each other with cool, collected smiles imprinted on their face.
"Well," Narcissa said, with a shrug of her shoulders as she stood upright, straightening the creases on her dress. "I don't know what you're talking about," she told Dina in a careless, violent hiss that shook the walls apart. "But I must be going soon. I just need to talk to my son, Draco," she added bitterly.
Dina tipped her head back and gave a visibly audible laugh before she locked her gray eyes with hers. "He's not your son," she told her, the words rising above the air. There was something cold, crooked, lopsided about the way she said it, a defensive tone but in a rage of horror, anger, and distrust. "He's not your son at all."
Narcissa stammered her words. "I- I raised him!"
"I. Gave," Dina replied with a tremor in her voice, choked, as if there was a lump in her throat rising but she could not rid of it. "Fucking. Birth. To. Him."
Narcissa's face flushed, and her eyes became narrowed dangerously.
"And you know it," she mumbled half-heartily. "So I don't see why you need to be here. I am going to have a little talk with Lucius --"
This time, it was Narcissa Malfoy's turn to laugh. She gave a laugh, a hideous, vacant laugh, with nothing fulfilled, nothing embraced, nothing embarked upon it. "Well, you can't."
"You can't," she echoed, a laugh between her mirth, and with a sorrowful imitation of Dina's, she embellished. "Because. Lucius is. Fucking. Dead."
Harry felt Draco stiffen and fall into forever, his body writhing, shaking in realization, in shock, but had no time to catch him.
~*~
There was no answer from the heavens when Ginny awoke, her sweat-stained hair plastered thickly to her forehead, her head tucked in Devon's lap securely. He was asleep, his head rolling off into his side, his eyes closed. She could see his veins on his wrists penetrating at his skin, and had an insane urge to pin a needle through it, to taint his bloodstream apart.
How dare he do this? How dare he make her relive feelings for him again? How dare he? She sat upright, and with a patience as a virtue, she brushed the dust off her robes off, and gathered the sleeves loosely across her arms. She picked up her wand from the floor and tucked it into her pockets this time. The slow process in which she dressed more properly sent a knife to her skull, her heart, but she avoided it at all costs.
There was no choice. She loved him - she wanted to show him, that she could be strong. Strong without him, survive without his presence in her life.
That it was time to let go.
But it wasn't. Not yet.
And she wondered if there ever would be a time.
But she couldn't seem to recollect her feelings, emotions, heart-wrenching twist of thoughts right at this particular moment. She needed to see the other person that carried half of her heart in his palm and squeezed it ever so recklessly, to see which person would fill her heart most.
It frightened the hell out of her just to think about it. But there was no time to worry right now. All she needed was a decision, and this was like a waterfall freezing in slow motion, waiting to be turned over and never conceal it's waves anymore, nor ever. She needed the waterfall to splash over her, because she couldn't stand her life being frozen. She could only do what she thought would make the waterfall - well, fall.
She was going home.
~*~
The Burrow seemed mournful, deserted, naked, and bare when she arrived in front of it. She stepped toward it cautiously, her heart racing - her pulse quickening, and the ice in her lungs melting - it was a slow process. Her footsteps took her nowhere, for they were only sound, and she could only hear sound, not feel it. When she reached to the door, before pulling it open, she knocked it softly at first.
No answer.
She thumped her fist against it loudly, a panic rising in her chest. What had happened? Why wasn't anyone answering? She thumped a bit more thunderously, her knock vicious as her heartbeat. When it swung open at last, her heart lurched, jumping into her throat.
There stood Mindy, who had equipped her body in a loose robe, with a lock of hair twirling amidst her finger, her face peeking out the surface of the door. "Ginny!" she breathed in a small, high-pitched voice. "What are you doing here?"
"I could ask the same of you," Ginny responded curtly. "Excuse me, Mindy, this is my home."
"Oh..." Mindy looked startled at this, her eyes glittering. "Yes, I know, but Ginny..." she glanced around frantically behind and around her before stammering in an apologetic tone, "There's - far too many things going on here..."
"What things?" Ginny prompted, interrupting instantly, gulping down the lump rising in her throat. "What's going on? Let me in." Her features grew angry. "Now!" she demanded.
"Oh, oh," Mindy murmured under her breath as she stepped aside, with the door open for the redhead. Ginny stepped it with a suspicion laying upon her spine as she gazed intently around the insides of the Burrow. It seemed the same - except there was something different.
Because for once in a lifetime, the Burrow was quiet.
Shunting a doubtful-looking Mindy aside, she raced past the living room and the kitchen to get upstairs, her breath lowering in shaky miniscule awakenings. With the tips of her fingers, her hands shook as she reached the door of her room. She turned the knob and entered the curious atmosphere and caught her breath in her throat.
Draco had fallen asleep on her bed.
With a sense of reality, the feeling of content dropping in her stomach, at seeing his pale features once more, his head rolling off his shoulder, his legs drawn up to his chest like a small newborn awaiting care, she drew near to him, closing the door behind her. His fingers were clawed at the bedspread, gnawing at the fabric with the tips of his nails.
"Draco?" she whispered, letting the whisper hover right above his earlobe. She could almost see her breath in the air, fresh, and white.
He gave a small whimper in reply, his eyelashes like the blown snow. She touched his eyes with her fingers, pressing down the creases in wonderous motions. The feeling of his skin felt new again - the same, tingling emotion rose to half her heart and filled her stomach in bewilderment. It was a question, asking itself, unfurling itself in her mind - why, why, why.
How, how, how. How could she give someone up like this? She could never let such a person go. She curled herself against him, feeling the warmth of his stomach, the warmth of his chest, and the coldness in his neck. Their bodies gracefully molded into each other. She knew he was awake, but she would rather he kept his eyes closed. She didn't want to be awake with him, she wanted to be with him, just there, just there, just blunt. She liked his hair tickling her cheekbone, she liked his slender hands transfixing onto her hips and grazing her sides. It was just - almost perfect, that they were asleep together like this, or pretending to sleep. It didn't matter, the world erased around them, and a quill wrote upon them.
It wasn't to hear, to see, or to grasp. It was to feel, and it felt as if they had been perserved together in an embrace for a thousand years, for a million tears.
But when something wet, something liquid dribbled her eyes to her chin, she knew the tears weren't hers this time.
~*~
Love was a dreadful thing. It twisted her insides and fluttered her heart, upturning over into a million eternities and a trillion forevers. She tucked herself into him, refusing to think about which boy she would choose - she merely wanted to be present in his arms. She knew she was a sick, sick person who never thought of the consequences. But for once, she didn't care. She didn't care why Draco was crying, she didn't care who she was going to choose, and for once, she didn't care, refused to care about life.
It gave her a content, controlled feeling that rose in her throat and trickled her blood.
But she knew when she awoke to the reality that suffocated her breath, her blood would be trickling right at the middle of her heart.
~*~
His saliva tasted bitter. His nerves were weakening, his disbelief lengthening. His father couldn't be dead. His father, who had raised him for more than twenty years - couldn't be dead. This couldn't be happening. Life couldn't be like this. Life couldn't be so tormenting, so terrible. There would have to be a miracle, he thought to himself confidently.
There had to be a miracle, he told himself. Life can't be bad for a whole year - there has to be some kind of miracle - some kind...
But it would take a long time before he learned what exactly the miracle was, and if it was already right there, sleeping in his arms.
~*~
She was asleep, her body sprawled across the couch in an uncannily eagle-spread manner. He nudged her legs together and prodded her head delicately against the pillow she was intending to aim at. Harry felt his heart rise, flutter and sputter in it's violet spit. He touched the brown strands with a gentle pushing within his fingers. It created a distance of tingling that traveled beyond his blood and pricked at his very skin. He observed her amber-flushed skin, her exhausted poise, her legs seemed weak, numb from lack of sleep.
He touched her chin with the tip of her finger. She seemed to tilt her head before a murmur caught in her throat.
Harry sighed, exasperated, his finger still protruding on her chin. There were far many things going on for him to tell her. He had argued with himself for these past three years, telling himself every second she was around, every minute she could hear sound, every single year, he worried himself by glancing at her and having that terrified emotion splattering across his very stomach. He had never told her, he had never told her that he loved to smell the fragrance that windswept around her, he had never told her he loved the way she always laughed or smiled with an uncertain aura, or atmosphere.
He touched the skin of her neck and felt her lips softly, heat penetrating in his temples. A voice, faint and faraway made him jump slightly, snapping himself back into the vision of the suffocation reality provided.
"Crush?" Mindy questioned from the doorway, her eyes wide and curious, her head peeking between the door.
Harry shifted uncomfortably to the side so that Hermione's outstretched feet barely brushed against his legs.
"You could say that," he muttered, turning a bright shade of auburn.
"Love, then?" she quipped, prying.
"You could say that," Harry repeated slowly.
Mindy raised a lazy eyebrow as she twirled her hair in between her fingers. "Haven't told her yet?"
"You could say that," Harry echoed mournfully with a grasp of regret at once.
"Never going to tell her because it might get in the way of a over-seven-year-friendship?" Mindy offered in a calculating voice.
"You could say --" Harry froze, glancing at her unsteadily. "You're good."
"Cookies?" she said, gesturing in the air.
Harry breathed a small yes before he rose from his chair, threw one more regretful, discharging glance at the beautiful woman spread across the couch and followed Mindy to the kitchen.
~*~
Hermione found that a pounding was growing in her ears and sinking into her skull. She was sure the footsteps had grown faint, faltered, and left, but she didn't dare open her eyes. She rolled over to her own side, her fingers entangled together, her shoulders shaking slightly.
It seemed to come together, three thousand blurs uniting to make one single image, make one single sentence that should have changed her life; Harry - Harry, her best friend, loved her in more ways than one.
She should've been screaming inside, she should've been filled with a shy joy, an elapse of something, anything similar to happiness or bliss.
Instead, she was bleeding inside.
The thing she wanted for more than five years was settling into her, and she couldn't, ever, ever have it, grasp it with her hand or even brush past it with the tips of her fingers lingering inside.
Because - the terrible reason uncurled, unfurled, unstoppable.
Because - there was someone else.
And nobody, nobody must ever find out who.
~*~
Ginny sat upright in her bed, in a sudden sweat that ran through her skin and trickling across the tips of her toes. She was aware of a loss, a loss of a presence, an emptiness beside her. She turned her head and immediately grew alert of what it was. The fragrance wavered across his side of the bed, but his body was gone, only the wrinkles, crases and sweet smell to leave an imprint on the bedspread.
She could even breathe him. It was disbelief that filled her, mingling with a charge of hope.
When she breathed, she breathed him, and when she suffocated, she choked on his emotion, along with hers. She felt an ache in her abdomen as she pressed her feet to the carpet, letting her toes sink into the soft material. It was like feeling it for the first time. She had slept, and now she was awakening into a familiar but nevertheless new scent.
It was then that she realized her shoes had been slipped off, and her clothes had been changed from their usually disoriented status to a long t-shirt that went below her knees and beneath that, a pair of faded jeans that she had gotten passed down from Bill when she was fifteen. Ginny felt an upturn of her lips, the gentle caress grazing her throat.
"Draco?" she questioned.
"Here," said a small voice faintly from faraway.
Ginny turned her body swiftly and found herself staring into his back as he lay across Hermione's bed, his eyes tightly closed.
"Did you change my clothes?" she asked teasingly.
"No," he answered. "I asked Potter to do it while I went far, far away from the - undressing. However, there was a particularly amusing moment when he was raising your shirt above your head and I accidentally came in too soon."
"Why?" Ginny asked in bewilderment, half-nervous, half-flustered. "Why did you have to ask Harry to do it?"
"I am lazy," he responded vaguely, his eyes fluttering open slightly as he turned his head and grinned at her weakly.
"Your eyes are red," Ginny remarked in a concerned tone. "Do you want me to heal it? Or something?"
"No, no," Draco told her, rubbing his eyes vigorously. "I'll be fine. I should be going back - back - to..." the words trailed off in a whisper gesturing itself invisibly above.
"Where?" Ginny asked, but the question faltered, thrown away in a gust of air. He appeared to be asleep once more, or at least, pretending.
Ginny frowned, her bottom lip trembling, a headache penetrating at the side of her forehead. Too many things were going on, too many things she could grasp, and hold onto firmly with her hands, because they brushed past the tips of her fingers. She walked in a slow pace to the window and leaned against it, watching the snow melt, but ripples of rain that looked like broken shadows filling it's place.
~*~
Draco didn't have a place to go.
It was clear, blunt, echoed in his eardrums several times.
He tried hard not to distinguish it, he tried hard to force himself not to comprehend it.
He had told both his 'mothers' to leave. His father was gone.
Well, at least you have another mother to take his place, his mind reminded him sardonically.
Draco was going - well, insane. Laughter burst out of his lips, escaping in a faltered heartbeat, wavering across the room. He laughed as he closed his eyes, until his throat was dry and blood was pounding in his ears. He laughed until he felt sure the world was cracking into the atmosphere and until the end of time, and the stopping of seconds.
The last laugh surrendered to the heavens, floating away before his mouth closed, all tears and laughter forsaken as he slept.
~*~
He knew he was not sane.
It was like learning or knowing that you needed water to survive, or that air was what you breathed to live, or that you blinked - you blinked every single second. Sanity was not thrown upon him. It was not there to live by, to suffice by.
Sanity was only a thing others had, and he didn't.
His wand kept him company. He wavered it across his chest several times, priding himself. He had no intention to die. No intention at all. But he couldn't stand it in this hole he called the Manor, he couldn't stand having his wife sit across from him, when he was thinking about someone else, when he was thinking - when he was loving, yearning for that person. He found himself picturing himself caressing her, pulling her close.
His fingers wrung, and so did his black, crippled, ashen heart.
He needed to runaway.
But then -- what if they came looking for him? What if she ran after him?
He knew he had to do the only thing to make nobody look for him, ever.
It was a plan. He would not be distraught. He told his wife he would be going on a little business trip.
And he never came back.
Lucius Malfoy died a million times, according to the murmurs of nearby 'witnesses' and secret glances between relatives, who hung their head in shame, shook their head in mock disappointment, or gave a knowing smile.
And yet, here he was, present and still, alive and well, raising his head and looking at the world above.
~*~
Ginny remembered her first time as clearly as the snow, almost identical, but not quite yet, in their fluttering flakes down to the earth in a heavenly manner. It was Autumn, the leaves splattered across the grounds beside the Burrow, the birds chirping merrily, and the sunlight eclipsed, hidden by the darkness of the night. She recalled her parents had gone to see Bill, who had a little 'accident' at that time period. She remembered Ron accompanying them, and Fred and George had taken this as a sign to go to Ron's room, stroll around innocently, and rush through his belongings.
Devon had come over, of course. She had brushed her feet across the stairs, eighteen, refreshed, and invitingly. She found herself counting exactly how many footsteps it took to the door. Every single second she counted, a flashing heat, burning in her skull, and the yearning longing in her chest. She needed to keep that emotion inside, tucked into a small box at the corner of her heart, to wash through later, to read the files.
Unfortunately, her feelings were difficult to analyze. The light-headed dizziness, disbelief and glee that she had found someone - someone who loved her, someone who she could tease, someone, even if he was a muggle, she remembered thinking, even if he was one, it wouldn't matter one single bit to her. After all, it wasn't as if her parents, embellishing her father, would have any problem with it. It was a dazed dream in which she walked through an illusion as she turned the knob and stepped aside.
Devon entered just like a dream. His legs were long and like steel, hard to break, harder to observe with her eyes. He was wearing the same thing he had on yesterday, which gave her a strangely endearing flutter of her heart. Ginny wasn't shallow - but he had never looked so gorgeous, and she felt that locking, that feeling grow hollow and race in her chest. It was as if she was gulping down ice that broke and froze her insides. The fact that she knew - knew in her heart, that this had to be unreal.
He knew, he knew by her features exactly why she was gazing at him. She remembered shivering uncontrollably at the chilling wind that pushed past them through the open, exposed door. He snapped the door shut and smiled at her timidly, twirling a strand of her red hair in his fingers. She sustained the smell, the fragrance of him, she sustained the feeling of him against her chest.
Her heartbeat faltered into glass that splashed over her abdomen.
She couldn't breathe as they walked upstairs.
She remembered it took thirty steps to the door.
And she remembered, she remembered, she would love him that exact amount - thirty more years.
~*~
She should've known. Ginny should've known Hermione still kept one after all these years. Hermione was always organized, prepared for anything, prepared for destruction. The matter of it was, Ginny felt a timid rising thump bleeding in her chest as the the miniscule hour glass dangled across her sweater.
She was going to do something she wanted to do for years. She was going to do something that would permanently change history, that would relive the pain and fade it away, wash it away like the water of tears.
She turned it over. She turned it over how many times she could not count, but the time was fading away around her, caressing her whole body in flashing, blinding drips of colors.
The world was creasing, and it's lines were becoming broken once more.
She was going back in time.
~*~