Love is a dark thing. Sometimes it can unseat you, rock your entire life. Sometimes it can make you forget promises you made to others whom you loved once, even more deeply.
Ginny did not realise that she was guilty of this.
Till Now.
She placed the yellowed parchments of letters she and Draco had written to each other during the War back into the box she had found them in. She had come across them while clearing out the cedar wood box where she kept everything that was precious to her.
She sat on the plush beige carpeted floor, in the luxuriously furnished master bedroom in the Malfoy Manor, she could not help thinking of Draco. He was across the hallway in his study pondering over documents.
She could just picture him, knowledge procured from being his wife for seven years – sitting in his large chair, leaning backwards, legs spread out beneath the desk as he studied the documents in his hand, brow furrowed, wheat blonde hair framed his chiselled face in waves, just like his son's.
Strawberry blonde hair a tussled mess on his head, flopping all over his pale forehead.
That was the first thing she remembered of her son as she laid her eyes on him, upon entering the tiny office of Ministry of Magical Social Services, and instantly knowing that he was theirs.
His pale skin and silver gray eyes practically shrieked 'Malfoy'. Worse than the roaring sound in her head, as her knees buckled and she knew for sure she was going to fall.
But Draco caught her, his arms instinctively reaching out and grabbing her under her armpits.
He was always there, to catch her every time she fell. Not Harry, nor her brothers but Draco.
She looked at him then, really saw her husband for the first time after all those seven years together.
And she felt, not the dull anger she usually felt against him for marrying her, impregnating her, then leaving her to pursue his ideals rather than take care of her, for looking out for the Greater Cause rather her's and their child's well-being, but she felt untainted affection for him, for almost always being there.
It was that day as they sat in the office to discuss the means of getting their son back that she recollected every moment of those eight and a half months that she had carried her son inside her, and the one week she had nursed him, held him in his arms, drowning herself in those gray eyes that sparkled up at her – that was the only reasons she had for living then.
And when they had taken him away, after that one week, her entire world had ended. And for seven years, a gaping chasm had filled her, one that she assumed could only be filled by finding her son again and loving him.
But then as she sat in the office, between Draco and Harry, with Ron and Percy standing behind them, she felt sorry, pity for this boy.
He seemed unnaturally uncomfortable and kept glancing at Edward Parkinson, a stout, mild mannered man, for reassurance of some sort.
His whole world had been upended and Ginny definitely knew how that felt. She realised that her son was not hers, any longer.
Their son Matthias, was the adopted son of Edward Parkinson, former deatheater. This was stated very clearly in the legal documents presented to them.
Sure they could fight him for custody by citing the recent rumours that he was heading the recent rise in pro-dark arts activities but those were intangible rumours. Besides, the boy looked well taken care of and well brought up. He displayed more fear for Draco than Parkinson.
Parkinson also would not let the boy go without a fight.
Ginny was torn between wanting her son back and making this child happy.
But something happened that made her decision final. Matthias had wanted to go to the toilet and then, "Dad..?" And when both Edward and Draco answered him, Ginny stood abruptly gesturing for a private moment with Draco.
As they stood outside in the hallway,
"He's not happy." She spoke softly, looking up at Draco's impassive face.
They both knew whom she was referring to.
"It doesn't seem right to pluck him out of an environment and family he's so comfortable and happy in-"
"But," A look of confusion crossed Draco's aristocratic features, "You're his mother and you've always wanted him back.."
"I care for him and I want him to be happy. Besides, Edward and Patricia are his parents now."
She thought Draco might slap her for saying that but instead his eyes softened.
"You're perfect, y'know." And she had blushed like a school girl, right in front of the man she had been with for seven years.
"Besides, we can always visit him now and then."
So it was decided. They would never get their son back. They could press charges against the deatheaters if they wanted, for kidnapping Ginny and their son and physical assault but there was no point in that since Edward had not been any one of the deatheaters involved – he had been out in the frontlines fighting and Ginny could not remember who exactly were the deatheaters who had beat her.
Harry and her brothers were not very happy to say the least but they kept silent in the presence of Draco's warning looks.
As they left the office that day, Edward placed his hand on Draco's shoulder, nodding at him with a look of respect on his face,
"Thank you." He looked utterly thankful.
"Say bye, Matt." And Matthias had waved at them, smiling for the first time that morning.
Ginny, filled with longing to touch him, had reached out and hugged him. He had been surprised by his embrace but hugged her back. As they broke apart, he smiled up at her and her heart melted.
Then Patricia's voice filtered into her thoughts.
"You're a lucky boy, Matt. You have two mummys and daddys now." Matt had laughed and walked off to his parents. Ginny had no regrets and from the look on Draco's face neither did he.
Draco, though, would never forget the first time he saw his son. Having never been there for his birth this was truly the first time he was seeing his son. It was at Harry Potter's daughter's drama performance.
Ginny had refused come but Draco, out of sheer courteous obligation that he would always owe Harry for rescuing and finding his wife when he himself had been unable to do so, had to go.
That was how he found himself sitting beside Harry Potter and his excited wife Hannah, waiting for their daughter Heidi's performance to begin.
According to the brochure he held in his slightly trembling hand, their play, a combined one between all grades in that wizardry nursery school, was about to start in ten minutes time.
His hand trembled for Draco was never really comfortable around children ever since having lost his own.
That was why Ginny had not come with him today. This would have caused the avalanche of grief over her head to come crashing down on her. She had never been the same since the War, since she lost their son to the deatheaters who had taken her prisoner.
They had imprisoned her till she gave birth to the baby, then after letting her hold their son and breastfeed for him for one whole week, they had taken him away. Ginny had fought, screamed and begged but to no avail. They just beat her up and dumped her bruised and battered body in some alley.
All that while he had been trying to make his way back home. He had been devastated, his joy at finding the olive branch, which would aid in the complex charm to vanquish Voldermort dissipating the moment Severus told him that Ginny had disappeared.
By the time he got back, too was too late. Their baby was gone. Ginny was in St. Mungo's unconscious but recovering, having been found by Harry.
For a while then, Draco hated Harry for rescuing Ginny. He had feared that Ginny would use the fact that he had not been there for her, against him and leave him. But his fears were ungrounded.
For when she aroused from her unconscious state, she had asked for him, Draco, no one else.
She had clasped his hands in her as he sat beside her on the bed, and begged his forgiveness for losing her son and not fighting harder to keep him.
Draco had shaken his head, tears streaming down his cheeks, crying harder than he ever had in his entire life. He had never seen Ginny so anguished before and it tore at him. She had nothing to apologize for. That was exactly what he told her.
Then she had buried her face in his chest before looking up at him, still crying. Then she had told him how she had insisted, that they at least named the baby 'Matthias'.
Amidst all that, it had meant a great deal to her. Draco had not wanted to tell her that it was unlikely they would listen to her. It would shatter her along with everything else.
Dumbledore had said it was all up to fate now, the part that this boy would have to play in helping the magical world. There was little they could do.
The past seven years had been difficult – every two steps forward they took one step back.
Their marriage was far from a peaceful one but Draco could never leave Ginny. He loved her too much and could not live without her. Besides, she needed him. He was her rock; the one person she could count on and she knew he knew this.
The stage curtains flared open as they teacher came out to introduce the play.
The first scene unfolded and as Draco's eyes flitted over the children indifferently, the pang in his chest so familiar now he did not even feel it.
Till his eyes rested on him.
The boy at the far end.
"That's my son." Draco stated matter-of-factly and instinctively. He did not have to think about it. He was dead sure.
"How do you know?"
"I know my son when I see him."
Harry looked at the boy Draco had nodded at, so matter-of-factly. The strawberry blonde hair was not the giveaway but those distinct Malfoy silver-gray eyes. The boy stood tall among the rest of his peers, even from a distant his bearing was noble.
Harry's eyes filled with tears as emotion took over him. Draco and Ginny's child. He knew how utterly completely torn both of them had been losing him, especially Ginny.
She just had not believed that they had actually taken her son away from him. Harry remembered how she had begged for her baby when he had found her, in a delirious, damaged state.
And there was the boy standing there, beside his own daughter, smiling at her and then glancing into the audience.
The smile was what confirmed it for Draco – Ginny's very own contagious, beautiful smile on the boy's face.
Draco stood up, abruptly before even Harry could stop him. He brushed past them and walked towards backstage. Nothing, no one could stop him from getting his son back, not for himself but for Ginny.
To remove that haunted look in those previously sparkling brown eyes, the tears that welled up in them every time he mentioned trying again, having another child.
She would shake her head, walk away saying that their child was not a curry bowl that once broken, you replaced. Her words tearing Draco's heart.
She loved him, he knew that. Deep down she did love him but sometimes the love was buried so deep he was not sure anymore. His Ginny had changed and he had no one to blame but the Deatheaters for that.
He had changed too, and now seeing his son, he felt an incredible numbness. He was so sure he did not even think he was wrong.
He did not feel joy, perhaps that would come when he brought their son back to Ginny, seeing those blank expressionless eyes light up.
"Malfoy." Harry was right behind him. They had not given up the childish practice of calling each other by their last names. It was almost a mark of camaraderie between them.
"Let me deal with this, Potter."
He approached the teacher standing in the sidelines.
"Who is that boy?" He pointed.
She shot him a wary look before realizing who he was – Decorated War Hero, double agent Draco Lucius Malfoy and who he was with.
Besides, Draco's aristocratic commanding presence made everyone listen to him and answer him. Something even Harry could not do.
"Matthias Parkinson." Draco froze, all the actions he had planned to take, words that he had planned to say flew out of his head.
That was his son. There was little doubt of it.
Trying to regain his breath and compsure,
'That is my son." He stated again.
Harry nodded, ever the man of actions in even the worse situations, turned to the teacher and asked for the boy's school records.
He and Draco sat on the backstage steps, reading it.
As Draco leaved through his dental records, his medical records, he felt the gaping chasm in his chest being filled slowly.
It was Harry who proposed going to the Ministry of Magic to gain custody of Matthias and Draco agreed.
At first, upon reading the records he had felt nothing but white hot anger against the Parkinson for taking his son away but after meeting them through a series of meeting and observing their interactions with Matthias he felt otherwise.
And thus had agreed with Ginny's decision.
He had never dared voice it for he knew how much she had wanted him back, longed and ached for their firstborn.
He remembered what she said when he went home that night and told her.
"Oh Draco, did you say his name was Matthias?" And when he nodded, she had started crying.
And he knew how fragile and beautiful she looked when she cried, her eyelids turning pale blue and tears running down her face.
He loved her, more than she could ever know. Matthias coming back or not coming back would not have changed that.
Draco looked up as the door of study opened.
Ginny stood in the doorway, looking at him.
Lately she had been giving him these intent, acutely observing gazes. Not that he minded.
Ginny studied him, from where she stood. Desire spiked in her, and as he looked up at her, his eyes lined with concern, one eyebrow arched questioningly, she had a sudden urge to swaddle him gently, in a blanket, keep him from harm.
The letters reminded her of the Draco she had fallen in love with – haughty, careless, prideful, dangerous and romantic.
Yet he had been forced to change due to the War, losing his child, his father killed, his mother passing away, their marriage. He had mutuated into a more mature, responsible, overprotective, reserved and determinedly silent man.
She should have been grateful that he had not left her or been unfaithful to her but she had not, till that day at the office and till now.
That was why she had headed for his study, to see him, to look at him.
"What is it, Virginia?" He asked finally as she was silently studying him for too long, the ponderous gaze on her face giving her away.
"Come with me," Ginny said surprising herself. "I want to show you something."
He stared at her, and then followed. The mansion was hushed and cool as they padded down the hallway.
She locked the bedroom door behind them and walked out of her cotton pants, amazed at her own boldness – they did not do things like this anymore.
Leaning back with her palm on the wood of their dresser, planting her legs apart and rising up on her toes, she coaxed Draco out of his belt.
Caught between puzzlement and excitement, he tried to figure out what way to move. He kissed her, with his lips trying to draw her to the bed.
Ginny had different ideas. She leaned further back, her hands up under his shirt as she stood with breasts pressed up against his chest.
Obligingly, Draco stepped out of his pants and bent his knees. He emerged, just the way she remembered all ropy and strong.
He raised his face to her then and she saw his eyes grow hooded, his jaw tense as they always had when another element walked into the room – the harshness and urgency of a man simply hot for a woman.
"You are some lady," Draco said, his voice low, almost without moving his mouth, "You look eighteen, Gin. You look like you did on the grass behind the greenhouse."
She pulled him under her, into her, with her hands along his hips, finding a place on his chest to plant her open lips and suck at him.
"Draco," She said, "Draco. Do it. Just do it."
'Let me..here.." Draco cupped her breasts, diving between them, inhaling her.
Ginny bucked against him with desire, driving her hips against his with a bluntness that startled them both.
They were both pouring sweat by the time Ginny pushed Draco down on the bed, locking her legs around him, suddenly terrified that he would let go before she caught up with him and this would mean something it had never meant before, not just an ordinary miss.
"Wait for me." She whispered.
He pulled her arms around then and pinioned them with his own, so that she lay on top of him but held fast and unable to move. There was no space between them except the space Draco created with small coring movements of his hips.
And then gratefully, Ginny felt him strike the centre of her soul, felt the beginning of the burn and then the fire, just like the first time.
At that instant, she felt Draco buck and spill, and felt him wet and heavy beneath her, smelling of magic, salt and pine, the purest man she had ever known.
All those years, since after the War, she realised now, the most she had managed to feel was a surface sizzle when they linked, the light off a sparkler that quickly sputtered. This time the burn had gone all the way through. She was glad that they had that left.
Several hours later,
She curled up against his body watching him sleep, having just awakened from her own weariness induced slumber.
He sat up with a jolt and seeing her beside him, lay back on the bed, pulling her roughly against him.
"I missed that."
"What?"
"You staring at me sleeping."
Ginny laughed, a sexy belly laugh that echoed around the quiet room.
"We could have another child." She spoke up, after a while.
"We could." Draco was cautious.
"Move on, you know."
"Yes.."
"We've been waiting all these years for him to come back and now that he had but we know we can't really have him, we should just let go you know."
"I know." He smirked at her.
Ginny rolled her eyes, before brushing away a strand of hair that had fallen between his eyes.
She raised herself up on her elbows, so that she could look at his face, his eyes.
"I love you.. I forgot for a while how much I love you ..but I do,.. I do love you.."
Draco felt the ice in his gut melt away, slowly but surely.
"Will you marry me?" His question startled her.
"We're already married, you silly man." She laughed.
" We never had a proper wedding. I think we should have one." Ginny's eyes brightened at his suggestion.
"A honeymoon as well?" He nodded and she squealed.
Her eyes misted up as he grinned jauntily at her. "We can start all over again."
A fresh beginning was just what they needed.
And so let us leave Virginia and her Dark Knight to their new lives…
FINITE