Something To Sleep To
A few months later...
Graduation was coming up soon. Everyone was caught up in studying for their O.W.L.s or N.E.W.T.s, or being nostalgic and remembering their first year (and up); remembering fears and the many adventures of Harry Potter. All of the seventh years were following their closest friends around, and the chasing the few friends who'd gotten away to try and reconnect before the big celebration. The sixth years and few fifth years that had friends graduating started crying, making promises to write and floo as often as possible, and could I please come visit you? The few who were losing a boyfriend or girlfriend cried frequently, getting behind in their school work and studying for finals. Each tower prepared to say goodbye to the seventh years and prepared for the sixth years to move up. Everyone ran through the typical motions of times around a graduation.
Ginny ran through the motions of everyday life.
Ginny's conscience was split in half. Sure, she was losing friends and her last brother, but this could be a plus. Being both the oldest in the school and being free of a brotherly protection, she could do whatever she wanted to. The graduation also freed her of people she'd been less than fond of lately, such as Hermion and Malfoy, which would make ignoring him all the more easier. She couldn't determine if this last thing was good or bad.
Her days were spent in either the library, the common room, or out in one of the feilds. With the end of the school year, the weather started to get warmer and warmer, making studying outside an all too glorious option. Ginny knew a good opportunity when she saw one.
To everyone else, it looked like a new Hermione had been born. Everyone else thought that Ginny spent her days studying for finals, barely living and hardly eating. Was she even sleeping lately? No one knew. And Ginny wasn't volunteering any information.
Free time outside of lunch and 'studying' was spent reconnecting with Harry. She couldn't explain why after the "break up" with Malfoy had left her wanting attachment to Harry, but it had and she was. He was practically the only person she talked to anymore. Teachers worried slightly, classmates hardly noticed, and Ron was in a jealous rage of a fit. Everyone who had been close to Ginny knew that something had happened to her a few months back, and Ron thought that Harry knew what it was. Ron thought that Harry knew everything, when he didn't, and Ron thought that this was unfair. Ginny didn't care too much to correct him.
Outside under a willow, Ginny sat with an open book. She lifted her eyes off of the pages and allowed herself to entertain a few thoughts about Malfoy and Harry. It was a rare occasion that she thought about whether or not she made the right decision breaking things off. Malfoy said that he loved her, and he could have possibly been the only person to tell her that and know her for what she really was. Harry would tell her soon, she could tell, but he didn't know her like Malfoy did. Maybe things were best that way.
Still, somewhere in the back of her head, she wanted to be able to work things out with him. He was right; with the fall of Voldemort, Lucius had been killed. Things could possibly work out between them, and he'd offered her the world. She wanted so badly to have the world. Or the part of the world that she could share with him. She'd never tell him that, though. Especially now that she had Harry again.
Harry easily allowed Ginny to come back into his life. He missed her, she knew. She apologized for just leaving him and then returning months later, no word of explanation offered. He accepted, thinking how unnecessary it was but knowing her well enough to not point that out. Ginny wanted to keep him in her life, because Harry Potter offered a sense of security and normalcy, regardless of how famous he was. Things with him were progressing to a relationship status.
Ginny gladly welcomed this in spite of her disposition with Malfoy.
Hearing the sound of the bell, Ginny began packing up her things. This was the end of her free block, and her attendance required in potions. If she rememebered correctly, Malfoy was on his way out of potions and into a free block. He'd probably head into his common room or to the Quidditch mound, but either way she could expect to pass him in the halls.
It wasn't even more than a minute after coming to this conclusion that she passed him in the hallway. They were the only two, both walking alone. She sneaked a peak at his face.
Beautiful, Draco thought.
So are you..., Ginny thought in return.
"What did you just say?", Draco asked, quickly stopping and pulling her back to him.
Blinking, and a slight gasp, Ginny asked, "What?"
"I thought I heard you say something."
Ginny shook her head as she said, "It must have been someone who sounds like me. I certainly didn't say anything to you."
"But no one sounds like you."
She shrugged once or twice. "I don't know what to tell you then." Her eyes lowered to his hands, a potions text and another book, somehow familiar but unplaceable, in them. "Enjoy the reading." Then she continued to class, which she hoped she wouldn't be late to. Detention was the last thing she needed, but it would seem that fate hated her, because the Wheel of Fortune only ever gave her what she didn't need. And Snape would always be merciless.
Draco headed out to the Willow, meanwhile, where Ginny had just been. He'd watched her a few times while she sat there and read. He'd sit out there the same way that she did, back up again the tree, knees tucked towards his chest. The book in his hands that Ginny noticed was held close to his heart, like it had every night as he fell asleep. This was routine for him. This was his closing goodbyes, absorbing every memory and giving himself new ones, new tiny connections. Draco refused to leave Hogwarts without the best memories he could have. He wished that he could somehow turn them into a scrapbook, so he could have something solid once he left. He refused to forget anything, and it was getting harder to remember the smaller details he'd once remembered. Upon realizing this, he hoped that perhaps he was getting over the redhead. Wrong answer. Obsession still overcame his mind and consciousness. It's just that now things were harder. Reasons more unclear. His entire mind a blure.
Leaving the school year, he felt, was hardest on him. The closing of the year and his school education forcing him to leave behind the one thing he loved and wished to claim as his own. She refused to be claimed. At least by him.
He'd noticed that in the few months they'd been apart, she'd become more and more friendly with Potter. He couldn't decide if it was to piss him off or if she was just trying to 'get over him' by picking up where she left off. Either would make sense. Maybe it was a mixture of both. Her actions were getting merkier and merkier to him. She'd become an enigma, her being suddenly a mystery to him, when once upon a time he knew everything about her so well. He used to be able to tell exactly what she was thinking just by the way she walked, and now... Oh, how he wished she would just tell him what was on her mind. Allow him to once again understand her as though they were meant to live for so much more than a forbidden fling.
He assumed that at the end of the year, goodbye formal, Ginny would attend with Potter. Maybe she'd allow him the honor of just one dance.
He wouldn't count on it.
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Ginny and Harry sat in the common room staring at the fire, sitting close together, his arm wrapped around her to keep her close to him. Their voices were low and the conversation kept to themselves, smiles skimming their faces at a few comments. Their current topic being graduation. Ginny admitted to Harry she was scared to lose him. He'd been taken aback a little, but he recovered for her sake. He found it obvious that he needed to be strong for Ginny after her decleration. It surprised him, actually, that she could need anyone. Lately, she'd be so independant, so self-reliant, so... alone. It didn't make any sense, but he enjoyed being her source of comfort and security. It made things more real for him, more real for them.
Harry instinctively pulled his friend closer.
"How's studying for N.E.W.T.s?", Ginny asked, taking a leap from the scentimental side to the school side of graduation.
A face revealed everything Ginny could possibly need to know about this topic, but she continued anyways.
"Is Potions killing you? It's killing everyone."
"Yes.", Harry admitted. "Snape is such a git that even the most perfect of my potions aren't passing his N.E.W.T. grading system. I'm going to fail, I can already tell. Unlike Hermione. Unlike you."
"Oh, come off it. You know he won't grade you, and I'm sure who ever does will find your potions perfectly acceptable. And besides, there's always a second choice. You don't have to be a victim to your legacy forever, you know. You really could just play Quidditch for the rest of your life."
"I wish. Too many people are counting on me for me to be so selfish."
"Well, I'm counting on you to be there for me."
He looked at her with questions in his brain and confusion in his eyes. "Ginny?", he whispered softly.
"I mean... You know, Harry. I don't see why we couldn't try that dating thing."
Harry paused. Where had that come from?, he wondered. Here they were, discussing Snape and his evilness, and she flat out asks him out. She had never been that courageous. Why now?
"I think that would be quite nice."
News of the couple spread quickly upon Pavarti seeing the holding hands. Speculations had been floating around the Gryffindor tower, but now school wide students gossiped about Harry Potter's new girlfriend, and how the story would end right where it started; with Ginny in love with Harry. The news hit Ron before Harry had a chance to even think of a way to tell him, and after a day or two of Ron just thinking of it as nothing less than incestuous, he got over it. He realized he'd rather have his best friend, whom he trusted and had known Ginny forever, therefore knew all of her sides, date his sister, rather than a thug like Malfoy. Ginny snorted when she heard this. Oh, the irony. Hermione had hesitantly congradulated them, unsure if she was yet on neutral terms with the youngest Weasley. Harry was gracious in accepting, Ginny was not.
Word of the couple reached Malfoy, and he lashed out. How dare she do this to him? How dare she call him beautiful, and then pull this? How dare she not tell him first? How dare she not prepare him? How dare she make him fall in love, make him want a life with her, and then not choose him? How. Dare. She.
Tears came to his eyes that night while he laid in bed, thinking of how he really would have to see the two of them together at the ball.
But for the first night in about four months, Draco did not sleep with the book that Ginny had almost checked out that day a week after things were broken off.
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Right, so, I began this story two years ago when I was a Freshman. Now I'm a Junior, and a lot has changed in my life. I'm a better writer now than I was then, but a lot less angsty. I'm sorry if you agree with me and think this chapter sucks as much as I do. I could do better, I really do. I've tried many times in the past six months to come back to this story and start the fourth chapter, but none of it really stuck. Today ended up being a day where I sat down and wrote and wrote and wrote for three hours straight. It's mostly a filler chapter, no real Draco/Ginny interaction, but it sets things up, and catches the reader up on where everyone is and how they feel. It's a little short (a little under two thousand words, or possibly a little over.) I'm trying to keep up with this story, and not just neglect it. Finishing this is one of my few goals for High School.
Thanks to everyone who's reviewed, sorry it took so long, and I hope you continue to read.
V.S.
P.S. Imagine my surprise when I found out HTML is out now.