You Are The Only One

Summary – DG, Post Hogwarts, a tad AU-ish. What happens when your marriage does not turn out the way you envisioned? Would you stay, knowing that life would be a bit worse? Or would you cut and leave? Most importantly does true love last a lifetime? Ginny and Draco struggle to find out the answers before it is too late.

DISCLAIMER – Anything you recognise is not mine.

EPILOGUE

My love, my true mate,

Lost by the Fates,

Found by the moon.

My love, my true mate,

Come to me

Now, don't delay.

(Repeat three times)

Zsuzsanna E. Budapest, "A Love Spell,"

The Goddess in the Bedroom

It was during her sixth year, his last year at Hogwarts, that it all began. Ever since that Christmas, Draco had been acting out of sorts. He stopped bullying the first years, rarely put down Gryffindors, and even ignored the Hogwarts trio, pretending that they did not exist. Or maybe he really did stop noticing them.

And this all for one reason: he had been snagged by love. Draco Malfoy, the last person anyone expected to be a target. He, who had vowed never to let passion control him, had been hooked. Soon it became obvious with whom he was enraptured. Almost everyone saw Draco mooning around after the youngest Weasley, much to his or her disbelief.

Ginny herself did not even notice, disbelieving and completely indifferent to the rumours. Draco had sprouted to a towering six feet and four inches so Ginny never could see the expression on his face as he walked past her or happened to be in close proximity to her. If she had been taller, Ginny would have noticed that whenever Draco looked at her, his mouth was open as if there were words that wished to spill out on their own accord to convey what he was too frightened and too prideful to speak.

It continued this way until the first week of spring when Draco finally plucked up the courage to kiss her. After the Slytherin against Ravenclaw match, Draco had caught sight of Ginny walking along the corridor alone, without Potter, her loving friend Creevey, or that loony girl from Ravenclaw.

The adrenaline rush of winning the match, heightened by the thick spring fever in the air, caused Draco to act deliriously, he came up behind her and put his hands on her waist. He was already leaning against her and backing her against the stoned wall, before Ginny fully registered what was happening.

Ginny had difficulty pushing him away. He was close enough to her that she could smell the mixture of cloves and cinnamon that she imagined he topped his cereal with each morning, and a dark smell too, the smell of the human body coming at her where deep inside there were organs suspended by a chemistry separate from hers.

Before she knew it, she was letting him kiss her, and she was kissing back, and just as deeply. Then a sudden noise startled them, breaking them apart.

"You'd better go," she told him.

"Okay," Draco said dumbly, confused by how hot-and-cold she was, wanting more all the same. "We could go somewhere else."

"Tomorrow," Ginny vowed. "And the next night and the night after that."

So, with a rare yet handsome smile, he was gone.

And so was Ginny, she ran all the way back to the Gryffindor common room.

She was so dizzy when she stepped through the portrait hole that she had to sit on the chair in front of the fireplace with her head between her knees to stop herself from fainting. It was then that she truly understood the meaning of the word 'confused.'

Confused was exactly how Draco looked when he stood at the foot of the stairs, waiting to accompany Ginny to the Great Hall for breakfast each morning. He wore that confused expression as though he had been drawn to her without reason or forethought. He was confused when she kissed him, when she told him to go, when she said she never wanted to see him again, when she told him she liked him.

Draco was not the only one as Ginny was in obscurity herself. She had no idea what to do with the boy or with the fact that his kisses made her feel all sorts of wicked emotions she should not feel for such a boy. She had even written his name on a piece of paper and burned it on the last Friday of that month on the quarter moon, to rid herself of her desire for him. It did not help. Nothing did.

She was spending too much time with him as well. They had taken to meeting at the beech tree by the lake after supper, where they kissed for hours even though Ginny had a hundred more pressing things to do. They kissed until their lips were fevered and bruised, getting their hands into each others pants, wanting each other so much they could not think of anything else.

Worst of all, no one seemed to approve of him, least of all her brother, whose protests had to be muted due only to Ginny's continuous threats to hex him.

Then, one night a month later, Ginny became confident in her feelings for Draco. That was the night when, Harry came to talk to her after a long closed-door session with Professor Dumbledore.

The Headmaster had revealed to him that Draco had decided to join their side, to join the Order and fight against Voldemort. He was even willing to use his connections to give them an edge in The Second War. It was a bold step, a gesture, Ginny would only find out much later, motivated by love more than anything else.

After thanking Harry for sharing this information and promising him that she would not tell anyone else, not even Hermione or Ron, she slipped out of the common room. She walked through the dark corridors until she reached the Head Boy's dormitory, the room where Draco slept with all the curtains drawn.

He was so deeply asleep that he did not open his eyes until she lay down beside him. She could feel the heat of his body, the fever he had had for a year. Ginny took off her clothes then; she did not want anything between them. She felt cool, like a stone fished from the lake. Just seeing him made a chill go down her spine. It was then that she realized that Draco was taking his life in his hands each time he was with her.

Ginny was so close; it was like a wave had come over him. With her in bed next to him, he was drowning. That was what desire did to a person. That was what it did to both of them.

"Am I dreaming?" Draco asked. "Are you really here?"

Staring at her in disbelief, he noticed that Ginny had a delicate band of freckles across her nose and cheeks. He knew then that if he saw her every single day for the rest of his life, he would manage to be surprised and thrilled each time.

With her arms around him, Draco found the sugary scent that anyone who got close enough could not help but notice. He kissed her then, kissed her in a way that proved if she was ever thinking of getting out of this, she had better stop now.

After he made love to her that night, he had the urge to get down on his knees and ask her to marry him even though she had another year at Hogwarts to go.

Ever since then, they were inseparable. They were in their own world, a place so dreamy and complete they did not have to acknowledge that other human beings existed. Ginny thought during that time that it would be perfectly fine if Draco Malfoy was the only person in the world, she would be happy if all she saw was his face, nothing more.

Everyone in Hogwarts knew about Draco and Ginny; the news that they were officially a couple swept through the school like wild fire. Even Nearly Headless Nick congratulated Draco on his good fortune. They were the couple watched by professors and students alike and discussed in the library and the Three Broomsticks.

Fairies followed them whenever they were out on the grounds for a walk. House elves congregated every time they snuck into the kitchen for food.

Every time Ginny sat on a log by the lake with a muggle stopwatch to time Draco as he did his regular morning runs (he wanted to get himself into better physical condition as part of his preparation for The War,) the toads climbed out of the mud to sing their deep, bloodless song, and by the time Draco finished his run, he had to step over a mass of damp grey- green bodies in order help Ginny down.

A circle of pale yellow light seemed to hover around Draco and Ginny those days, the light rising and fanning out across the castle and above the rooftops. The air itself turned lemony when they were around. In those moments, it was easy to think about the possibilities that never before have crossed your mind. It was as if hope, scarce in these dark times, appeared out of nowhere, to settle beside you. It was not going anywhere; it would not desert you.

Even those who did not believe in hope anymore, those who did not dare believe in Dumbledore and The Order vanquishing the Dark side, began to. For here it was in the treetops, in the hallways. It was difficult not to believe in the inherent goodness of the world when one looked at Draco and Ginny with their arms looped around each other. (Except for Ron and a rather 'unwilling – to – trust – a – possible – Deatheater' Hermione, of course. It was only much later that they found out that Draco had chosen the Light side.)

During the War, things had been exceptionally bad. While Draco worried for Ginny's safety, she spent her nights pining for him. She missed him even more those days, she dreamt of him night after night.

At one time, she dreamt that she and Draco were making love, and when she woke, she missed him more than ever. All that morning she was weak in the knees, as though she had really just left her lover's bed. Worst yet was that everyone around her was distant and preoccupied with the War one way or another.

Once during those months, Ginny caught a fever that broke only when Draco appeared by her side begging her to marry him then and there. She refused. If anything, marriage would just make things worse for her, she knew she would not be able to concentrate on her work during the day as a healer.

Draco, on the other hand, rarely went back to the Malfoy Manor. He hated it now more than ever since his mother was gone. She had fled to Canada, desperate to escape the War that had taken both her husband and son away from her. He had reached an all time low – watching people dying all around him, their blood on his hands, never being able to see his love. He fought well, too well. He was so focused on his duties that no one could talk to him.

Something was so wrong with Draco that you could see it in his eyes. When he knelt down beside Harry in the trenches, his unhappiness interrupted Harry's concentration causing him, on more than one occasion, to misfire his curses. As they walked back from the battles together at the end of each day, Harry felt as though he were alone. He often tried to talk to Draco about Ginny, but he refused.

"I don't dare think of her," he told Harry, "I might never live to see her again and that's not the worst of it."

It was at the time when the War was most intense that Ginny began to have vivid nightmares. She saw Draco lying out in the battlefield, dead or hurt beyond belief. On the nights when she felt she might have nightmares, she tried the old trick her mother taught her when she was small; she washed her hair with lemon juice and took a book to bed, intent on reading just before she fell asleep.

Nevertheless, even when she rinsed her hair, the lemon juice always smelled bitter, and somehow her mind always wandered to Draco. Fortunately, dreams were only dreams. Soon hope and faith were restored.

The day the War ended, the day Voldemort was killed, the day a Deatheater's misfired curse killed Lucius, it was that night when Draco stood on the front porch of the Burrow, in the dim dusk light, having just buried his father. He seemed so fragile and helpless that Ginny could only put her arms around him and stay there with him, on the swing in the front porch.

That night when everyone else was in bed, they went up to Ginny's bedroom, took their clothes off under the covers and laughed the way they used to when it was that cold in Draco's room at Hogwarts. When they made love, they not only felt each other's bodies, but also the way they used to be. The sheer delight of knowing somebody so well was so staggering it made them weep when it was over and hold each other tightly until dawn.

Somehow, their experience through the War proved exactly how strong their love was and how much their relationship could withstand. So before the year was out, before the War decorations could be dealt, Ginny and Draco got married; the Malfoy Manor their home sweet home.

Children had never been a serious consideration until the following year when Ginny had offered to baby-sit Charlie's nine month old son, Scott, at his house last minute. Conveniently, Scott had been asleep when she arrived.

Still relative newlyweds and very madly in love with each other, Ginny had arranged for Draco to come over as soon as he tied up things at work. They were on the couch, kissing, when the baby woke up. There had been no warning, no slow escalation of louder and louder cries – suddenly the baby was screaming his head off, as if he had been stuck with the pain curse.

Ginny panicked. Draco did not. He simply told her to sit tight while he conjured a bottle of milk, leaving his wife there in tears. Ginny felt absolutely desperate – the pitch of the baby's cry had intensified. After a few minutes though, the crying stopped and Ginny took off her shoes so that she could creep unheard up the stairs.

When she got to the nursery, Ginny stood in the doorway and listened to the squeak of the rocking chair and the greedy sound of the baby's swallowing.

Ginny could not figure out how Draco had known to put the baby over his shoulder after he had had his bottle, how could he have known to gently rub Scott's back until he fell asleep. As she heard him hum a lullaby so sweet you knew you were not meant to overhear, she knew with a stunning certainty that she wanted to have babies with this man. There were no two ways about it.

When she found out she was pregnant not too much later, Ginny felt a surge of heat near her heart. Draco, as Ginny expected, was cautious but delighted. On the first day of her eighth month, Ginny woke up and decided that she could not go through with it after all. It was not being pregnant, she had gotten used to that – the insomnia, the heartburn, the pressure on her bladder. It was the idea of labour that terrified her. Her threshold for pain was not that high.

When she told Draco, he had simply smiled at her, a smile of compassion. "You, my love are going to breeze through it," he said, "and do you know why?"

Ginny shook her head, baffled.

"Because I love you."

The best part was that, because of the look of unadulterated love in his eyes, she believed him.

Everything was different yet the same now. Love, genuine love, was a fragile thing. Love could perish when a husband worked seven days a week, when spouses did not make the effort to communicate regularly. The routine pressures of living could dull the keen edge of a loving relationship.

Love had to be maintained and protected if it was going to survive. It had to be watered and cultivated like a plant, or it would wither and die. That was what Draco and Ginny had learned. That was what changed between the both of them this time around. Everything was different yet so similar to the first few years they had shared.

Since Ginny and Rafael moved back into Malfoy Manor, the house itself seemed to change. It was as if it welcomed the return of those familiar sounds: laughter, the pit patter of a child's footsteps, a woman's voice, and those soft, soothing lovers' moans. By the following January, roses had begun to grow up along the porch railing, choking out ragweed for a change. The house itself even stayed surprisingly warm.

When Venus Malfoy was born ten days overdue at home, a horrid snowstorm brewing outside, the chandelier with the glass teardrops moved back and forth all on its own. Through out the night, it sounded as if a river were flowing right through the house; the noise was so beautiful and so real that the house elves came out of the kitchen to make certain the house was still standing and that a meadow had sprouted in its place.

At midnight, after a few hours of surprisingly easy labor, Venus was born. Immediately, everyone noticed how luminous she was, very much like a star.

Even Ginny, who thought it impossible to love another child as much as she loved Rafael, found herself falling in love with this angelic girl. Her skin was soft as apricots, and her eyes were the color of the October sky. She was their love child – a representation of their undying love for each other and the endless possibilities of their relationship.

Ginny looked up to meet Draco's weary yet excited eyes and smiled. When she looked at Draco, she remembered everything about him: the way the bed creaked when he sat down and pulled off his boots, the smell of blueberry pancakes (his favourite breakfast) on Sunday mornings. When she looked at him carefully, she could see the boy he used to be, right there beneath his skin, and she had the urge to kiss him. When he looked at her the way he was looking at her now, she knew he was seeing her for who she really was and that was more than she could ever ask for.

"I love you," she told him.

"Still?" he asked, smiling down at her and their baby.

"Always."

THE END

A/N

I thought I stated it pretty clearly that he went to knockturn alley in a bid to use dark magic to find out if the child was his or not. I don't understand how you don't understand it…No one else seemed to have that complain..most of the other reviews were rather teary..lol..

Hoped you liked this epilogue, it's just to tie up all the few loose ends that's all. I might have a sequel but i have no idea what i would write about...unless you readers have any good ideas?

Pressing that review button and giving me some feedback would be absolutely ACE. Thanks.