Disclaimer: I do not own or am making any money off of this story. Characters belong to J.K. Rowling, song belongs to Dead Poetic.

Author's Notes: thanks for waiting so patiently for this chapter. It's dedicated to my beta-reader, becuz this is her favorite story.

VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: this story, as for right now anyways, does not take place chronologically. Therefore, last chapter, Ginny is in New York. She still lives in England in this one. please try not to be confused and think too much over it.

Thanks to SpiralSpace for catching my Sponge-Bob t-shirt oppsee. Sponge Bob, the time this fic is set, does not exist. Thanks for catchin and correctin me!

Oh, and if you can't get enough of great D/Gs, be sure to click over to for loads of D/G fanfiction. Plus, R and NC-17 rated fics are accepted. BTW, on that site, I'm Dan, but I haven't been able to upload any stories becuz of school and I did it wrong the first time. =/

With my back to the wall you've somehow pinned me up against

Fingernails in the palms of these tightly clenched fists

And I'm somewhere in between a held tongue and a curse

Or I could keep it inside and hide it

In hopes my avoidance will cure it

But there's no time for this

So light it up and let it fly away

A Molotov cocktail, my dreams symbolized in flames

And this routine feels like a knife, entering my back then down my spine.

I've withstood the sting for long enough, and I'm prepared to discard it.

So light it up and let it go away.

So light it up and let it fly away.

Fly away.

Molotov, Dead Poetic

Remember When:

Conflict

"Todd invited me out for dinner again, for St. Valentine's day," Ginny said, trying to fill the awkward void of conversational silence that had fallen. The two friends were catching up as they waited for their orders to arrive. She took a sip of her tea, and making a face, re-heated it with a tap of her wand.

"Oh really?" Louise asked, interested. She looked up; glancing into the rare English sun and brought a tan hand up to shield her placid blue eyes.

"Yeah," Ginny said with a nod, red hair falling onto her shoulders with the movement of her head. She brushed it aside. "Fancy restaurant in Muggle London. I've never been there before," she said neutrally, though her free hand clenched itself in restrained anger.

"But Ginny, aren't you supposed to be leaving tomorrow for New York?" she asked before taking a sip of coffee.

"Our date's tonight," Ginny replied with a hint of malace. 'I should be visiting my family,' she thought angrily, staring down at her reflection in the brassy tea. Her mirror image wrinkled her eyebrows. 'Not going on a date with someone I don't even like.'

"He picks me up at eight." Her own voice sounded strange even to herself. She shuddered; tonight, she would break the news to Todd: she didn't love him. She didn't even particularly like him. She didn't even want to be friends. In short, she wanted nothing to do with him.

Perhaps she wasn't being fair. Ginny bit her lip and wondered if she was being a tad harsh. But Todd, who was a good man, was suffocating her. Smothering her with affection, trapping her with his kisses, killing her with his dreams. Having only been a couple for a year, he was already talking about marriage, a commitment so sacred and emotionally involved that Ginny doubted she'd ever consider herself ready for marriage. But he talked enthusiastically about it, dropping baby names and looking for available flats in London - not New York - London.

He had even suggested that she put her "Little Art Hobby" aside and focus on a degree or specialty that she could make a living off, though she had made it clear to him that she would paint in good times and in bad. She hissed softly at the thought of forsaking her livelihood for a man, remembering how close she had come to smacking him good and hard like her mother had so often done to her brothers.

"Something wrong?" Louise asked, a concern look on her golden face. Ginny felt her face flush with blood but said nothing. "You made a hissing noise," she added helpfully.

"Yes, there is, Louise," Ginny said finally, running her eyes over her friend's face. After a few moments of weighted silence, she spoke again.

"It's Todd."

Louise's watery blue eyes darkened considerably and Ginny felt her heart sink. She had gone through so much trouble to set Ginny and Todd up, and Todd had all but announced their marriage. Louise had been so delighted when they first got together, Todd singing praises about 'gorgeous' Ginny Weasley and how he was so in love with her. Louise had been so proud of them and it tore Ginny in two to tell her.

"What about Todd?" she asked, guarded. Ginny's intense dislike towards Todd temporarily diminished at her friend's disapproval. She wished herself to like him, even a little, if it would make her dear friend happy.

Ginny felt helpless and silly. "It's just that Todd's?" she struggled for the appropriate word. "He's? choking me," she said as her brown eyes went wide to emphsize.

"He's great, Louise, he really is, but he's very over-powering in a relationship. We always go to the cinemas he wants, or the games he wants, and we always do the things he wants. I can't help but feel a little like an arm trophy for him. And it's not that I don't try to suggest that we do something I like, but he seems so off-put that I just give in."

"Oh Ginny, you sound like an old hag who has all the things she could ever desire and still manages to complain!" Louise interrupted. The tone cut away at Ginny's resolve; what could have been said in a joking and friendly way was not.

"That's not all Louise!" Ginny interrupted, a rock forming in her throat. Louise's blue eyes became narrowed slits and she leaned back in her chair, crossing her muscular arms over her chest. "We've only gone out for a year at the most and he already talks about marriage!"

"Marriage is the next step in life, Ginny," she explained calmly. Ginny breathed sharply, her anger rising rapidly.

"I don't want to get married! Not now, anyway! And I don't want to talk about kids, or flats, or careers with anyone, and especially not Todd! Louise, can you believe he wants me to give up painting? He thinks it's a silly hobby of mine and that I should 'focus' on a 'real' career, maybe get a degree in accounting so we can open a firm together! This is not what I want, and it's not what's good for me!"

"It's all about you, isn't it Ginny?" Louise distanced herself away from her friend.

Ginny scowled, irritated. "Well Todd's too damn busy caring about our future life together and how good he'll look wedding an internationally-acclaimed painter that someone has to worry about my well-being!" She paused, forcefully dragging the tears out of her eyes with her thumbs, embarrassed that she was crying in front of her friend.

Louise's face softened. "Ginny, dear, you're getting all worked up over nothing. Todd doesn't mean to hurt you, doll, he really doesn't." Ginny looked up, the rim of her eyes a hot pink. "He loves you." She triple-doggy-dared herself to believe Louise's words ? they were true, and you never turned down a triple-doggy-dare ? but she couldn't.

"That's just it, Louise," Ginny said, her voice barely above a whisper. "I don't love him."

For months, Louise had raved about a man who would perfect for Ginny. She bragged that this miracle man would even make her forget about Draco, a thought that Ginny was horrified to imagine. She finally agreed to be set up on a 'Blind date', as Louise called them, though she secretly wanted Louise to stop talking about him. Todd had immediately claimed the still depressed, overly polite and quiet Ginny for his own, slowly drowning her over the course of a year.

At first, she took to him, willing herself to like such a nice man as Todd, because there weren't many nice men in the world and she felt like she needed to keep one close to her. In a moment of emotional depression and deep trust in Todd on a summer day whose date had embedded itself into her mind, she had shown him a very special painting of hers: a handsome, pale man looking off to the side, surrounded by angels. Instead of the expected kiss of adoration and the fountain of praise, Todd became like stone, glaring at the man ? Draco, she admitted to herself ? as if to kill him. He brushed his girlfriend off with a dry "Pretty picture" comment.

Ginny was crushed that a person she had poured so much of herself into, practically baring her damn soul would so easily dismiss her. And so her hatred of Todd found root in her.

And he only seemed to add fuel to Ginny's internal inferno. Todd, by nature, had always been very narrow-minded while Ginny's mind was open like a window. He had taken a dislike of art ? painting especially ? the moment she had shown him that picture. It was so blaringly obvious that he didn't understand the emotional side of art. He understood the blending of colors to achieve pigment perfection and the different styles of painting well enough. He could recite names of sculptures and painters and monuments of art. He could list names of museums he had been to and legendary pieces of art he had viewed for himself.

But he missed the way Mona Lisa smiled just so the faint apples of her cheeks tinged pink. He skipped over David's physique and commented instead on his nakedness, missing the fact that he stood bare because he wore his pride and faith like a garment. He oversaw the texture and layers on Van Gogh's flowers that made each one different from the one beside it, as though perfection was not achieved through unity, but through diversity. He failed to see the pain on the artist's own face in his self-portrait, tension in the temples and the thinning of his fine red hair.

Todd's eyes swept over the entire picture and declare it seen, viewed, and appreciated, and would move onto the next.

A passion for art, especially paintings, burned Ginny. Todd viewed it as inferior and unproductive; paintings were worthless unless the painter was dead. "If I am to have a good wife," he would say, looking at Ginny with a glint in his eye as he spoke, "She would need to be productive and successful. She must have a social life and must keep little hobbies like doodling," he glared at one of her paintings that hung proudly above her couch, "At home, and to a minimum to make time for a career." Ginny slapped him across the face, hard, and asked him to leave her flat.

And instead of catching her hint that she would not change for him, he only became more overbearing. He aimed to transform the free-willed girl physically and emotionally, which only made her resist him more. He wished to control her, wild like a fairy, into becoming obedient and submissive as a dog.

Their outings somehow always ended with an argument, sometimes over silly things like where to dine and what show to see, and, then again, over larger things. "No", she'd tell him over and over again, "I have no desire to work the books. I don't want to be a secretary. I'm a terrible nurse, so don't even suggest it. Todd, dear, I want to paint!" She reconsidered once, and added as an afterthought, "I'd love to study at the University of Paris for some sort of art degree."

"Surely you joke, my dear Gin-girl," he said, kissing her cheek. She froze like ice; she hated the nickname 'Gin-girl' and the way he said it, and she hated how he had dismissed her dreams as a mere joke. A joke.

She'd bit her lip, telling herself that she would not cry, at least not until he could not see her.

She began to dread the moments when he'd come to her flat to pick her up and the end of the date, when he'd expect a kiss. Ginny would brush her teeth until her gums bled; feeling as though she had spoken an Unspeakable. His name made her cringe in disgust and shake with rage.

He was a really nice man, he truly was. But Ginny couldn't stand him.

Ginny looked at Louise's face. "It's not just because he's not Malfoy, Lou, if that's what you're thinking."

"I couldn't help it," Louise admitted. Ginny didn't bother hiding her hurt.

"It's just that you seemed so hung up about Malfoy," Louise tried.

"I love Malfoy," Ginny said fiercely. "I can't exactly help it Lou, he was my first love; how can I forget him? I mean, even if I didn't love him, how could I forget someone like Malfoy?!" she looked at Louise meaningfully, feelings that had long laid dormant rushing through her. "But I'm not stupid enough to just stand around waiting for him, if I meet someone that I think will do me good, I'll go for it. But Todd isn't that someone." She shook her head.

"And I do still love Malfoy," she repeated wistfully.

"See!" Lou exclaimed, taking a sip of tea.

"But that doesn't mean I'll never love again. Malfoy is not the reason I don't like Todd. It's not even a key factor!" Ginny insisted, cocking her neck to the side.

"Well, you might have already made up your mind not to like any guy who's not Malfoy."

Ginny pretended to be hurt. "Would I really do that?"

"You're awfully devoted to a guy that's supposed to be dead," she replied.

"Shh! Louise, you're not supposed to say that aloud. Just because Voldemort's no longer a threat doesn't mean that Malfoy's not a wanted man!" She thought for a second. "And I'm not just going to give up on Malfoy, anyway. I love him, and that love is a devoted, everlasting, I'll-let-you-kiss-me-in-the-morning-even-though-you-have-dragon-breath kind of love. The kind that you don't and just can't forget."

Lou nodded. "Deep, Ginny, real deep."

Ginny grinned, the sun shining on her freckles so they sparkled.

A polite cough grabbed their attention. The waitress who had taken their orders now stood beside their table with a tray in her arms. They smiled apologetically and moved their elbows away so she could set their plates down. Ginny assured her that everything was fine and that her tea was still hot, and Louise asked for more napkins.

"So what are you going to do, if you really don't like Todd?" Louise asked after the waitress had given her a handful of napkins.

Ginny bit her lip before replying. "I really don't know," she said helplessly. "I'm overwhelmed by him, and it crushes me to know that he likes me so much, and I? don't."

"Ginny," Lou began warmly. Ginny's body filled with a Pepper-Up potion sensation. "You're a great girl, you really are. And I trust that you'll make the right decision and that everything will come together in the end and be all right."

Ginny gave her friend a hard look, smiling slowly. "Lou, if that had come from anyone else, it would have sounded real cheesy."

"I know, Gin, I know. So, I heard you have a party in New York," she began slyly. "Am I invited?"

"Well?" Ginny started, taking a sip of tea. "You and Emilie were, at first, but then I decided to invite some foreign dignitaries who had shown some interest in several of my paintings, and they got the invitation instead. So sorry."

She looked up at Louise's blank face and said, "Just kidding."

"Ginny, if you had been anything but kidding, you would not be breathing right now," Louise said testily. Ginny smiled easily as she reached into her handbag and present Louise with an embossed invitation to her gallery premier.

"What do I wear to these upper class society gatherings?" Lou asked casually as she noted the date of the premier and placed the invitation into her bag.

"Not what you're wearing right now," Ginny said, "That's for sure."

"Understandably, but -" Lou started to say before Ginny cut her off with a smile.

"Hey," she said, bringing her hand to her heart, "It's my first art premier too. Tell you what: when I go to get fitted for a dress with Blaise Zabini-Potter, you come too. I'll have my wicked way with Harry, he can talk to Blaise; we'll hook you up." Ginny winked and Louise laughed at her friend's playfulness.

'This is the way that should Ginny remain: always happy,' She thought to herself as she ate her cooling lunch, casting a quick reheating spell before taking another bite.

"Todd, would you like to come in for a quick cup of tea?" Ginny asked her boyfriend politely as he walked her up to her flat, avoiding his eyes. Of course, he was the one who had given himself the title of 'boyfriend' automatically upon the second date, and Ginny had been too weak to refuse. Inwardly, she dreaded the moment when she'd be expected to kiss him goodbye, and had hoped that this would be a good time to break up with him: over tea in what was left of her kitchen. If she was lucky, she wouldn't need to give him a good night kiss.

He had refused to see her Apparate home from the restaurant and insisted that they drive back together so that he could see her off like a good boyfriend. She cringed and her hands shook through the taxi ride home. He mistook her nervousness as moving jitters and became disgustingly comforting towards her during the ride. Her back became rigid as he placed his hand over hers, and she felt her anger ignite like gas around a flame. 'Just a little longer' she thought as she glared at his hand as his fingers ran circles over her smudged fingers.

"Sure," he replied behind her, his suave voice like a caress. She turned around at him and offered a small smile as she opened the door, her hands pressed against her back. He smiled back a perfect model smile, his brown hair falling into his eyes. He looked perfect tonight, in khakis and a dark blue wool sweater. She, on the other hand, looked like Aubrey Hepburn in a little black dress and open-toed black heels, her hair left down, cascading down her back like a waterfall of red. Black, she had thought, would symbolize something depressing. He hadn't gotten the hint.

Depositing her wand back into her purse, she opened the door and allowed him to walk through, following him through her hallway.

Fewer boxes littered the otherwise empty living room, now that most of her belongings had been flooed to her new apartment in New York. She had been eating dinner at the Burrow with her extended family who wished to see her off for the last two weeks, at her mother's insistence, so they had not protested at Todd's invitation to a Valentine's dinner before she left for The Big Apple like she had hoped they would.

She made a noise and stubbed her toe when she ran into his back and jumped away, apologizing profusely. She looked up just in time to see Todd turning around, his eyes flashing uncharacteristically and his mouth falling down upon hers, using his body to back her up. Although Ginny was not particularly weak, he caught her by surprise and she couldn't push him off. She tried to push him with her hands on his forearms, but he only wrapped his arms around her slim waist. She made another noise when she hit the door rather hard, the deadlock bruising her backside, her eyes wide with pain.

Todd kissed with fervor, urgently pressing his lips to hers. His fingers tangled into her long hair as he cradled her head upward. The heat from his body channeled to hers, making her pink with warmth. Ginny closed her eyes helplessly as her body sparked.

Her bodily response surprised herself; she had never felt so much of a race of heartbeat or a spark of desire whenever they kissed. Now she did, although not for the man kissing her.

But this was the way that she had always wanted to kiss, madly, feverishly. But not by Todd, who was rather clumsy and inexperienced at such emotional kissing, an infant to such strong emotions as deep love and anger. She had always fantasized that Malfoy would kiss her like this, caught up in his strong feelings of desire and love for her.

She hesitantly moved to kiss back and then move away to end the kiss, but as she began, he stopped, resting his forehead on hers. Relief flooded through her as she lifted him off herself slightly.

"Ginny," he said, his voice slightly hoarse. She opened her eyes slowly, staring into Todd's bright blue ones. He continued without her response, which was probably a good thing. "Ginny, I apologize. I've been a terrible boyfriend," he said, running his hand through her hair.

"I've been a complete arsehole to you, telling you what to do and where to work and naming our kids, and I just realized that tonight, over dinner. I haven't been respecting you at all, and you deserve more respect than anyone I know. You're a terrific girl, Ginny, and I love you with all my heart, I just don't know how to.

"This isn't the way courtship should be at all."

"Todd," she whispered, slightly confused. What could cause such a complete turn-around in him? Had Lousie hinted - or even spilled - her growing pain to her boyfriend, who hoped to keep her by her side? More importantly, how could she break up with him now? When would be an opportune time to tell him that he used up his chance with her and had overextended his welcome?

"I really do care for you, Ginny," he whispered, running his thumb over her cheek, and a knife gutted her stomach as she looked into his eyes. They weren't as complex as Draco's dark gray ones, but they still swirled with emotion: contrition, fierce care and love, sorrow. They were placid and clear, like the Hogwarts Lake on a spring day.

"It's ok," she whispered even though it wasn't, scared at the lack of distance between them and the knowledge that her chance had been taken. Resigned and depressed, she said, "I forgive you."

His hand found hers and intertwined their fingers, his lips placed a kiss on hers. "It's not, but thank you." She found that his thumb stroking hers was becoming very distracting, but not romantically. She found it annoying.

"Could you give me another chance?" he asked softly.

'No!' Ginny wanted to scream. 'I don't like you and I hate the way that you treat me! You've had your chance and you lost it; assholes shouldn't get another!'

She nodded meekly. Long distance relationships didn't work anyway.

When he bent her head to kiss her again, she was sure she felt something other than disgust for him, a small twinge in her chest, close to her heart. She sighed in frustration as she thought of the dilemma she had just gotten herself into, finding it easy to ignore Todd's kisses.

Author's Notes: ah ha! A plot twist as it thickens!

Thank you to all who read and reviewed Chapter 3, especially dreamer151 (are they different? I hadn't noticed all that much?. They shouldn't be too different though.), ginandtonic, MoonlightPrincess, RowenaMcKinnon don't worry, I will finish the story? I am determined! If you can't get enough of D/G goodness, check out some of my other stories?. hahaha) maRY, Yasminriddle, Massao-na-Mizu, (thanks! I try to show my enthusiasm about being a Christian, becuz we have "life in the fullest."), Faenix, TokyoPrincess whatever! Black hair is HOT!), Chocolate Muse, SpiralSpace (8O oh wow. That's not fair. I wanna see a Draco with black hair! Thanks for catching that; I think I changed it, and if not, it's changed on ? now it's Teenage Muntant Ninja Turtles?), Vu, Kendraen Ideals (yup, I've read that story, and this rose is similar, but I needed something kinda surprising to excite and draw in readers. Worked, didn't it?), restive silence, Liebling, Yammas, butterfly kisses3 (he was just brainstorming? hahaha), Grumpy1, blackrose62, Christine, Eternal-Damnation, KuTiExAzNxAnGeL, and hart-break all who reviewed chapter 3.

Thanks for reading. Please review!