A/N: Harry Potter characters belong to JK Rowling, lyrics are again those of Savage Garden.

Hey
If we can't find a way out of these problems
Then maybe we don't need

this
Standing face to face
Enemies at war we build defences
And secret

hiding places

I might need you to hold me tonight
I might need you to

say it's alright
I might need you to make the first stand
Because tonight

I'm finding it hard to be your man

Hey
More than angry words I hate

this silence
It's getting so loud
Well I want to scream
But bitterness

has silenced these emotions
It's getting hard to breathe
So tell me isn't

happiness
Worth more than a gold diamond ring?
I'm willing to do

anything
To calm the storm in my heart
I've never been the praying

kind
But lately I've been down upon my knees
Not looking for a

miracle
Just a reason to believe

I might need you to hold me

tonight
I might need you to say it's alright
I might need you to make the

first stand
Because tonight I'm finding it hard to be your man

Do you

remember not long ago?
When we used to live for the nighttime
Cherish each

moment
Now we don't live we exist
We just run through our lives
So

alone
That's why you've got to hold me

Hey
If we can't find a way

out of these problems
Then maybe we don't need this
Standing face to

face
Enemies at war we build defences
And secret hiding places

I

might need you to hold me tonight
I might need you to say it's alright
I

might need you to make the first stand
Because tonight I'm finding it hard to

be your man

It was late, and he was alone. That was all he knew for sure. He couldn't remember how many glasses of brandy he'd had, but on last glance the bottle had been empty.

Probably best. Draco knew he was far from coherent, and Ginny would be mad when she came home.

Ginny! Her name triggered something in his brain, the fog of alcohol making it almost indiscernible to his mind's eye. He sucked in a breath; the empty snifter fell to the ground and shattered. Draco took no notice of the glass; instead he stood and walked to the mantle above the hearth. It was lined with pictures of his family, all moving and laughing, happiness evident in every shot. Draco had argued with Ginny about displaying family photographs in public areas of the house. Ginny had argued back that the den was not a public area; he chose who came in and out of the room, not like in the drawing or dining rooms. Her logic was hard to argue with, and he never enjoyed arguing with her, so he had relented.

He picked up a picture of just his wife. The photograph was framed in gold, Napoleonic ivy, and it set off Ginny's colouring perfectly. He had taken the picture on their honey-moon. He had taken her to Greece, apperating from island to island, not even really caring where they were, just happy to be together. In the photo, Ginny wasn't looking at the camera, but off into the distant sunset. Her hair was long and loose around her shoulders; she was clad in only a green bikini. She wasn't tanned, but her freckles had all merged together giving her the colour of weak tea. She had been softer then, all curves and smooth skin. It was the look in her eyes that always captured him, so far-away at a time when they should be focused on him. He still wondered at her ability to captivate him, and yet seem so unaffected.

His hand clenched around the frame, all his anger surging back in full force. He gave her everything he had, his heart, his soul, his name, and his money. In that order. For which he had received nothing in return. Someone had once said marriage was a lot of giving and taking, you give they take and vice versa. In this marriage, he did all the giving and none of the getting. Of course, a part of his brain argued, Ginny gave you Dominic. But that was as much for her own joy as for his. He had given up everything for her, everything she had asked for, material or emotional, he had given it willingly. She had taken it all and never reciprocated.

Ginny kept things from him, she snuck around behind his back, and he had never asked. Not once in the twelve years they had been married, had he asked what she was hiding. Draco felt that when she was ready to tell him, she would. He was sick of waiting, he was sick of doing all the giving, and he wanted what was his due.

He had done everything he could to make her happy, to prove that she could trust him. When those bloody gits at the MOM had wanted him to show them all the Manor's secrets in order for them to search his house and confiscate any suspect items, Draco had refused to do it at first. It was bad enough that he had been forced to hand over Crabbe and Goyle to prove to Potter and the Weasel that he was not a Death Eater. Betraying his father, no matter his crimes, was too much to ask. The ministry couldn't threaten him, he was clean from the mess Lord Voldemort had made. When Ginny had looked at him later that day he had seen disappointment in her eyes. She knew he had refused them, and was disappointed in him. Not that she had said so. No quite the opposite in fact. She had said that it was his father, his house, and his belongings and she would stand behind whatever decision he made. But that wasn't what the look said, and the look told him the truth. She would never ask him to do something he didn't want to do, not since Hogwarts, not since he proved he wasn't a mini Lucius Malfoy. He had no intention of losing his soul.

She would never understand that he hadn't switched sides, merely chosen the winning side. He liked to win, and he'd waited to pick sides until he was sure of victory. By the end of his sixth year, he had known Potter would win. It didn't mean he liked blood traitors like the Weasley's, or mudbloods such as Granger. But he loved Ginny, even then, he didn't have to like or agree with her friends. They were going to win the war, and he planned to land on the correct side. Ginny had been proud, assuming she'd had something to do with it, which in the end she had.

Over the years Draco had learned to curtail his language in front of her, saving it for chats with his like-minded associates. He loved Ginny and she had been the one to give him enough strength to turn his back on his father, but she would never understand him. She had promised him that his name and his money meant nothing to her, she just wanted him. Whatever that was worth.

He doubted if she would still want him.

It really didn't matter to her that they were rich; in fact it made her uncomfortable.

Draco had made a very wise financial decision at the end of the war. The Death Eaters and other believers of the cause were being rounded up by the Ministry. They were charged and sent to Azkaban, their assets confiscated. The only way to avoid losing your wealth as a Death Eater was to prove your son was innocent. Draco and Blaise Zabini were the only two male heirs without the Dark Mark. Both young men had kept their own property and other assets, and used them to buy everyone else's profitable assets. A broker of course approached the ministry officials and offered to take the pressure off of them, let the ministry do its job and some private investor would manage the properties. Over worked, and understaffed, the MOM had been in no position to refuse. Draco and Blaise now owned more than half of the wizarding wealth of Britain.

Ginny hated it, the money and prestige, the endless social engagements. She would rather be with her children, or with him making more she had said suggestively after a particularly long run of parties two Christmases ago. Draco snorted at the memory, did she want to have a litter of Malfoy's running around Britain the way the Weasley's did? The Zabini's were civilized enough to have only one child, and they certainly didn't have the manners to keep their hands to themselves in public even. For all Draco could tell, his business partner never slept except on business trips which required he stay over-night. Then he complained bitterly about it for the next two weeks!

The picture on his desk created a lump of guilt and regrets which settle in his stomach. It was of Ginny again, this time with Dominic as a baby. The little boy had just displayed his first magical ability; both Draco and Ginny had been awe-struck. Dom had stopped Ginny's coffee from scalding her in a moment of carelessness. The pair, his heart and soul, sat in front of a large picture window in the dinning room, sunlight creating a halo around them. Ginny's skin was milky white in the picture and she looked alternately into the camera and down at her son happier than he'd ever seen her.

The last time he'd looked at his wife her skin was coloured with pain and damaged by his hand. His wedding ring, his father's old signet-ring, had left a large scrape across her cheek-bone. The symbol of his undying love for Ginny had ripped into her face.

And she just sat there, staring at him with a blank expression. That had frightened him most, her silent acceptance of his actions. Where had his wife gone? What had happened to her abundant Gryffindor courage? The Ginny Weasley he knew would never have just sat there and taken that kind of abuse silently! But she wasn't Ginny Weasley anymore; she was Virginia Malfoy, wife of the esteemed Draco Malfoy. And in such a role she didn't question her husbands actions, he did as he saw fit. That's what Draco had instilled in her, constantly trying to teach Ginny her place, the way he expected her to behave in public. They spent so much time in public, they, as in he and Ginny, had no private life anymore. Not since Lydia was born and Draco had consolidated the businesses under one name. Draco and Ginny had become Mr. and Mrs. Draco Malfoy, please, call me Virginia, Mrs. Malfoy is my mother-in-law, everyone in the circle smiles or laughs as they deem appropriate. The women warm up to her, and the men look approvingly at him as though to say, lucky you to have a witty wife. It had become a well rehearsed scene for him, one he feared she might repeat to people they had already met, embarrassing everyone.

She had yet to embarrass him once in the past twelve years, but that did not alleviate his fears. She was an outsider, not his social equal. He loved her, and shared her bed it was true. Mother of his children, of his heir she may be, but Ginny Weasley was not his social equal and didn't know the intricacies of social decorum. Never mind that she had not once slipped up at a social gathering never embarrassed either of them. He was still, at this exact moment, worried she might.

"You are a fool Draco Malfoy." His voice was frighteningly sober, as the reality of those words hit him.

Ginny was gone. She hadn't been back all day. There was no note saying where she was or when she'd be back and he received no owl from her. She had left this morning with the children, no word to him or anyone else judging by the fact that he wasn't dead at the hands of six crazy red-heads. Draco stumbled back to the chair by the fire and slumped into it.

There he stayed, until early afternoon the next day when an owl swooped in and thrust a letter in his direction. It was from Ginny. As soon as he had the letter, the owl took off again.

Draco,

Meet me next week at 12 Grimmauld Place by 1:30 and dressed as inconspicuously as possible (i.e. in muggle clothes).

G.

That was it. That brief note was the only information he had about Ginny and his children. No the kids are fine, we all miss you. Nothing. She was at Potter's. The realization dawned on him suddenly. Ginny had run from him to Harry Potter, seeking protection from The Boy Who Lived.

The knot of guilt tied itself tighter, changing from guilt to jealousy and finally to anger. She still trusted Potter, more than she trusted her family, and more than she trusted him. Some things never changed.