When Doves Cry
Chapter 15: The Origin of Love
Disclaimer: they're not mine
A/N:
Last time I saw you
We had just split in two.
You were looking at me.
I was looking at you.
You had a way so familiar,
But I could not recognize,
Cause you had blood on your face;
I had blood in my eyes.
But I could swear by your expression
That the pain down in your soul
Was the same as the one down in mine.
That's the pain,
Cuts a straight line
Down through the heart;
We called it love.
So we wrapped our arms around each other,
Trying to shove ourselves back together.
We were making love
-The Origin of Love, Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Ginny's heart pounded as she stared at the front page of the Daily Prophet which had just arrived by owl. Her eyes darted from picture to picture, pausing every now and again to re-read the headline.
Love In Three Acts: Ginny Potter and Draco Malfoy's secret affair revealed.
It couldn't be happening; it couldn't. Ginny closed her eyes before peeling them open to read the headline one last time, praying as she did that the word would have changed in the absence of her gape.
They didn't.
"Four years ago," the article began.
Four years ago this reporter came to you with reports of a blooming romance between former Death Eater ally Draco Malfoy and war hero Harry's Potter's girlfriend, Order poster child Ginny Weasley. The two had been close friends for years, and in the absence of Potter after the defeat of lord Voldemort, the bond between the unlikely duo only seemed to grow. Malfoy took a job in Hogwarts' School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the spring of Weasley's seventh year, and it was then that reports of a potential relationship between them began coming into The Prophet. While several of the incidents reported in that article have since been proven to be untrue, all of them may not have been as misleading as the parties alleged after the release of 'In Love and War.'
Yesterday evening Jennifer Warwick, ex-fiancée of Mr. Malfoy, came to me with an account of a passionate love affair between Malfoy and the now Mrs. Potter, one that has only just now come to its hilt.
"Draco really took care of Ginny after Harry disappeared and James was born," Warwick said. However what she didn't know until very recently when her ex-fiancé confided in her was just how close Mrs. Potter and Mr. Malfoy had become in they're time together.
No one blinked when Malfoy escorted Weasley to the Memorial Ball; however what no one knew until now is that after the ball, Malfoy and Weasley retreated to his flat in Greece, where they could escape from prying eyes and explore their feelings. There our source informed us, Weasley and Malfoy began their passionate affair finally declaring their long felt love for one another. One can only imagine the happiness each must have felt as they found a new start in one another after each had experience so much loss.
It was not to last however, as just when the week was ending the two were interrupted with the news that Harry Potter had been found. The news was false, but the scare had been enough to derail the budding relationship. It was after this that Malfoy became involved with Warwick.
The affair between the two had seemingly ended long ago, but it is now known that for several weeks now Mrs. Potter has been living not with her husband in the home he purchased for her just under a year ago, but with Draco Malfoy in his expansive manor. Not only this but just last night it was discovered that Mrs. Potter is several months with child. The question is, once again, whose child is it?
This reporter feels that it is safe to assume that with the current state of her marriage, and her current choice of residence that this child, unlike her last child in question, will not come out a spitting image of The-Boy-Who-Lived and leads one to question if we can truly be sure of the paternity of any of Mrs. Potter's children.
The article had one or two more paragraphs but Ginny simply could read any more of it. How could Jen have done that to her and to Draco? And the pictures…Ginny knew where they had come from, but it was impossible. They were of her trip to Greece with Draco. One revealed her sitting wrapped in nothing but Draco's satin sheets and another displayed the two kissing in a small Greek restaurant they had eaten at one night. Ginny hadn't seen the pictures since the night she put them away and no one but her even knew that they existed.
"That's impossible!" Ginny heard Draco exclaim from his office. He was awake. Swallowing and taking a deep breath Ginny folded up the paper and carried from the kitchen to Draco's office where she found him gaping at the wall.
"Draco…" she began.
"Ginny did you go into my safe?" Draco asked before she could say anything else.
"No," Ginny looked at him, slightly confused.
"I've been robbed. I can't believe it. I've been robbed." Draco seemed to truly be in shock. "You're the only person besides me that knows how to get in, and besides Jen I suppose."
Suddenly the pictures weren't such a mystery anymore.
"Draco…"
"Not now Ginny."
"Draco you need to see this," Ginny said shoving the paper under his face. He hastily read it and took a moment before fully processing what he has just seen and tearing the paper from Ginny's hands.
"I'm going to kill her," Draco finally spoke as he sat down the paper. "I'm so sorry Gin," Draco said sincerely, turning to look at her.
"No I'm sorry," Ginny gushed back. "I always seem to bring you down with me when it comes to things like this. I really never intended…"
"This is not your fault Ginny," Draco assured her.
"Its not your fault either," she said.
"I can't believe Jen would…how did she even know you were pregnant?"
"Good question," Ginny sat down in Draco's desk chair.
"And the pictures…"
"They were in the things I gave you to keep for me when Harry came home," Ginny told him. "With my piensive."
"So all this time, if I wanted, I could have gone in there and discovered everything."
Ginny nodded. "I knew you wouldn't," she shrugged. "And maybe a small part of me wouldn't have minded if you had."
Draco shook his head and looked down at the paper.
"I have to say you do look amazing in this one," Draco wriggled his eyebrows at her causing her to laugh. "There we go. There's a smile. This will all be fine Gin, we'll figure it out; however at the moment I have someone I need to pay a visit to. I'll see ou when I get back?"
Ginny nodded waved goodbye to Draco. Once he had left she turned back to the article hitting her head down onto the table as she wondered what was to come from this mess.
"Well come in Draco." Draco was greeted dryly as he barged through Jen's bathroom door. "What brings you by?" Her saccharine smile made Draco want to slap her, but instead he kept his cool and joined Jen in her game.
"You never stopped by the other night." Draco sat down in the chair in the corner, propping his feet up on the chest that sat at the foot of the bed.
"Oh I did," Jen replied sweetly as she continued on with doing her hair. "But you seemed to be having a very important conversation with Ginny, so I decided to let you two be."
So that was how Jen had known.
"How is Ginny?"
"Pregnant," he replied shortly.
"Pregnant? Oh my!" Jen feigned shock. "How scandalous. Impregnated while she's separated from Harry. I wonder who the father could be Draco."
"Harry I'd imagine," Draco said in a low voice.
Jen got up and walked over to her dresser, pulling out clothing for the day. Draco took the opportunity to seize her and pin her against the wall.
"How could you do this? How dare you do this." He growled.
"How could I? How dare I? How could you Draco? How dare you." Her voice lowered from a shout of bitter amusement to a whisper of appall.
"Don't you think she's been through enough?"
"You would only think of her. How she's feeling." Jen shook her head. 'What about me Draco? What about the one you were supposed to marry? The one you pushed away after you called her the name of another woman in a moment of intimacy? What about the one that ? The one you pushed away after you called her the name of another woman in a moment of intimacy? What about the one that you came to convincing you still loved her and always had, while you were getting the woman you really love pregnant? What about her? Don't you think she'd been through enough?"
Draco backed away from Jen. "Jen I'm not the father of Ginny's child."
"Draco don't…"
"Ginny is three months pregnant. She moved in with me two and a half ago. Harry's the father."
Jen paled.
"But when I heard you talking…"
"How much did you even here?"
"I'm pregnant," Jen said, taking a seat on the bed, letting the realization of her mistake settle in.
Draco sighed and sat beside her.
"Nice choice in photographs," Draco unrolled the paper in her hands and glanced at it before handing it to Jen.
She clearly hadn't seen it as she took in the giant front page spread.
"Oh Draco, I'm so sorry." She tossed the Prophet aside. She paused before looking at him and saying, "But you would have done something just as drastic you know."
"I most certainly would not…. Who am I kidding? Damn straight I would have," he let out a small laugh.
"I wish there was something I could do to fix it Draco. I really do."
"It'll be fine. It will all blow over in a few weeks. We've been threw it before. We lived."
"How's Ginny?"
"She was more worried about me than herself."
"Just like you were more worried about her. I guess that's why it was so easy to believe the baby was yours. You two just care about each other so much. I'm not sure I'll ever really understand it."
"Ginny was the first person to ever really know me, and I was the first one who ever saw her as the little hell's angel we all know she's capable of being, and I think we'll always have a bond because of that, but there's so much more to the equation and when you sort through all the mess, in the end, I love you."
Jen seemed surprised by the declaration.
"I love you Jen."
"I love you too."
Ginny felt a warm draft as the door to the balcony opened and shut and another body joined her in the brisk late March air.
"How did it go?" she asked, sure that Draco had been to Jen's.
"It's not going well Ginny."
Ginny froze. It wasn't Draco. She turned around and faced the man standing behind her.
"Harry…"
"Ginny what is this?" Harry questioned, sadness evident in his eyes.
"Harry, I've wanted to tell you…" Ginny licked her lips.
"So its true?" Harry's eyes widened a little.
"No!" Ginny exclaimed. "Well most of it isn't…"
Harry sighed. "Ginny I need more answers than that."
"Draco and I aren't having an affair. I swear it on my life Harry. You have to believe."
"If you tell me your not then I believe you Gin. I trust you."
Ginny looked down in shame.
"But we did…we…the part about Greece is true. But Harry you have to understand. You'd been gone so long and…"
"Ginny I'm not mad. Do have any idea how blessed I felt when after three years I came home and found you still waiting for me? Never in a million years would I have expected you to remain monogamously mine when you didn't even know if I was alive for three years. I just don't understand why you didn't tell me Ginny. You've always held up this façade that the idea of you and Draco as anything more than friends was beyond laughable, but clearly that's not true Ginny."
"I didn't know how! How do I tell you something like that Harry?"
"Its hard, but you just do it. It would have been a shock Ginny but I deserved to know."
"Don't tell lecture me on telling people things they deserve to know Harry," Ginny spat at him.
"No. Ginny I refuse to have you attack me for that anymore. This article is proof that you're capable of keeping just as much from me and I'm capable of keeping from you."
Ginny began to defend herself but Harry stopped her.
"I'm not angry Ginny. I'm not. But I don't want you to be angry with me anymore either. And I want you to see that maybe the problems between us now aren't anyone's fault, but a failure in communication. We need to talk if we're ever going to work things out Gin."
Ginny remained silent, unsure of how to respond.
"Sirius," Harry began, "has been so upset with you over this. He keeps muttering about how stubborn you're being, and how your better than how you've been reacting, and how your stronger than you're proving yourself to be. I don't really think he's angry at you though. I think he's worried about you. He told me all kinds of stories about you from the years I was gone. He talked about how you never gave up hope, and even when he was on his last strings, ready to give up, he'd hear you talk about me and he'd know he couldn't give up. And the way you've handled the past weeks Gin…gods I've felt guilty. For someone who went through so much for me to give up on ur relationship so easily. I feel like I've broken you Gin."
"Time broke me Harry. Not you. Three years of keeping my head high. Three years of being the person to hold up everyone else when I was about to fall down myself. I couldn't do it anymore. Not again. I just didn't have it in me. I think I ran out of steam."
"I miss you Ginny."
"I miss you too. I wish things could just go back to the way they were…"
"They've started to. Sirius and Snape have left the house. I'm flying again Gin, and I'm planning on going back to playing next week. I want to get our lives back on track. But I can't do that with you living here. Come home Ginny. Come home so we can start to fix everything"
Ginny could tell Harry was anticipating a fight to her surprise as she said. "Alright."
"A…alright? Alright? You mean it?"
"I mean it. I want to come home Harry. I'm ready."
Harry sighed in relief and buried his head in Ginny's neck.
"Gods I've missed you Gin," he said and he inhaled her scent. "I love you."
Ginny could feel tears brimming in her eyes as the warmth of Harry's body against hers set tingles through her body. "I love you too."
They remained silently in that position relishing the sensation of being in one another's arms after so long.
"Harry?" Ginny prompted.
"Yeah?" Harry's voice was muffled in Ginny's shoulder.
"About the article…" she began. "The part about me being pregnant…"
Harry chuckled against her. "Skeeter really knows how to create a nice little twist huh?"
"Harry that parts true too." Ginny smiled as she felt Harry freeze.
He looked up at her. "Its mine right?" he raised an eyebrow.
Ginny smacked him teasingly.
Taking her face in his hands Harry gently pulled her towards his own and kissed her gently.
"Lets go home," he said.