Draco sat at Ginny's bedside, staring at her pale, unmoving face. There was noise and commotion all around, but all he could hear was the deathly quiet that seemed to surround her, a cocoon of absolute stillness.

"I hated you, you know." He wasn't sure where the words were coming from, but they wouldn't stop. "I hated you more than anyone or anything, because I loved you so much and I couldn't make myself stop."

He sat down next to her bed and took a drink of the glass of ice water by her bed. "Crazy Americans. They know you don't need it, but they still leave water out for you." He sighed and shook his head.

"I must be exhausted to blather like this. All these bloody years of waiting for you to stop being so utterly moronic and I come back to this… It's just like a bloody Weasley to be so inconsiderate." He laughed then, a harsh sound that was almost a sob.

His hand traced gently over her face, the freckles she had hated seeming garish against the dead whiteness of her skin. "I fucked other women, you know. Don't think I didn't. Some brainless tarts, some geniuses to rival your old pal Granger, blondes and brunettes

and redheads, all of them beautiful and rich and totally infatuated with me."

"But damn it, none of them were you, with your freckles and your cheekiness and the way you always made me feel like I'd earned your smiles, like you thought I was something besides a good looking bloke with an old family name and pots of money." He seized her hand then, grasping it in both of his as if by force of will he could transfer warmth to her cold fingers.

Draco laughed again, but this time the misery had given way to a cold mockery. "But it wasn't enough, was it? No, Precious Potter saves the world and gets the girl, because heroes need brave, beautiful girls, and the world needs heroes, not the likes of Draco

Malfoy."

"Do you have any idea how frightened I was when I read you had been kidnapped?" His tone changed abruptly to become accusatory as his grip on her unfeeling hand grew tighter. "I was going mad, couldn't eat or sleep for worrying, and it turns out you'd just gone walkabout, swanning around the damn colonies like some kind of bloody dilettante holiday-maker."

His tone was soft, a lost boy's lament, as he said, "If you wanted to run, why couldn't you have run to me?"

He closed his eyes, wishing that they wouldn't burn so with grief and exhaustion, allowing himself to sink into the strange bubble of silence that seemed to hang over her still form.

"Deserve better… Stupid pregnant bint." Her voice was weak, roughened by the tubes and potions that had been forced down her throat to keep her alive.

His hand tightened around hers to the point of pain. "You damned little fool. Didn't you know I'd have taken you however I could get you?"

Ginny smiled fuzzily, her mind still not fully sharp. "It's really you."

He snorted, but couldn't stop himself from tracing her cheek with one trembling finger. "Who would I be, the tooth fairy?"

Her eyes closed and she leaned into his touch. "Please stay. Need you…" She drifted off to sleep again, still smiling, and Draco eased his grip but kept hold of her hand.

"You're not getting rid of my so easily this time," he whispered, settling further into the chair beside her bed to continue his vigil.

"She doesn't, you know." The tranquility he had just found was broken by the voice he least wanted to hear. "She has her family and she has me. What would she need you for?"

"Sod off, Potter." Draco didn't even bother to lift his faze from Ginny's still face.

Harry's face twisted with anger as he looked at the one man he'd ever thought he hated, holding tenderly the hand of the one woman he'd ever thought he loved. "You wouldn't even be here if she hadn't signed those idiotic papers."

"But she did, and here I am." Draco shrugged, still not looking at the Boy-Who-Lived.

"Damn it, that was MY baby she lost, Malfoy. All these years it's been MY bed she's in."

Harry's movement towards the bed halted abruptly as Draco finally lifted his head and stared at Harry with all the hatred and bitterness that had accumulated from years past. "I know, Potter. I know everything about her, from her favorite color to the crook of her

pinky toe."

Harry would have spoken, but Draco cut him off. "She thought you needed her, and that the world needed you, so she turned her back on me and I was fool enough to let her. I won't be the same kind of fool twice. This time, I'll fight for her."

"That's enough." Neeko's voice crackled with authority as she stared down the two bristling males. "You two want to fight like dogs over a bone, you go outside. Baby girl needs rest, and you two should know better than to bother her."

Draco nodded sharply and turned his back on Harry. "I told her I wouldn't leave, and I won't."

(Have I mentioned the streak of sadism in my character? Hands up, everyone who thought I'd killed her...)