Chapter Five: Memories of Goodbye...

Ginevra went to her studio, there were things to distract her there. At home she would only think. At home she would remember. She didn't want to remember.

She had let go at the picnic. She had forgotten. The look in his eyes when he asked her to dinner brought everything back. That look was supposed to hers! It was supposed to belong to Ginevra Weasley, but he had been looking at Jennifer Wells with those eyes. She had thought he was as stuck in the past as she was. Apparently she was wrong. He had moved on. She needed to move on. She couldn't. She loved him and she would always love him. She couldn't let him fall in love Jennifer Wells. She couldn't continue to be someone else. She couldn't tell him either. What was she going to do?

It had been nine years since he had left. It had been nine years since he had turned his back on her.

The war was over. The last battle had been fought and won. They were free. She had gone to meet him at the place they had agreed upon months ago, a quiet clearing by a brook in a forest somewhere in Scotland. He had found it on a mission and had shown it to her through legillimancy, she was quite a legillimens now. She heard a noise behind her and turned to face him. He took her in his arms and they held each other as if their lives depended on it, as if they would never let go.

"I can't stay." His face was buried in her hair.

She jerked back and looked at him. "What?"

He turned away from her. "I can't stay here. I can't stay in your world."

"Why not?" She was confused, and scared.

"I don't belong here. There isn't a place for me." He turned back to her. His eyes were so hollow, so far away.

She started to cry. "You do belong here! You belong with me! Isn't that enough? We'll find a place! We'll make a place for us, for just the two of us!"

He shook his head and she crumbled to the ground. It broke his heart. He wanted to go to her and hold her, but he knew if he did he would never leave. He had to leave. "I'm sorry. It just won't work." With that he had walked away. He left her there, crying, all alone.

"He told me where to find you." Blaise sounded as though they had just lost the war. She didn't know how long she had been sitting there, but she had stopped crying.

"Why would he do that?" She still hadn't looked up.

"Because, believe it or not, he loves you." Blaise sat down next to her.

She jerked her head up. 'THEN WHY DID HE LEAVE!"

"I don't know." There was silence. "You didn't tell him, did you?"

"When would I have told him, as he was walking away? Oh, by the way, that world you say you don't belong in, yeah, well, I'm not sure I do anymore either." Her tone was bitter. "Besides, I haven't been back yet. I don't what they'll do."

"Do you want me to come with you?" He wrapped an arm around her.

"No. I better go back alone." She laughed bitterly. "Maybe if they know he broke my heart they'll forgive me?" She almost looked hopeful, but mostly pained.

"Maybe," was all he could think of to say. They just sat there until it grew dark. "If you find yourself needing a friend, or a place to stay, you know where to find me."

She nodded. It was time to go home, time to find out if she had a home anymore.

She fumbled with her keys, trying to unlock the door to the gallery. Would he have stayed if he had known how her family would react? Would he have stayed if he had known she was all alone without him? She wondered if Blaise had ever explained why she had left her family. For that matter, did he know she had left her family?

Blaise had caught up with Sarah just outside the park before she had caught up with Ginevra. He told her to go home and he'd call her in the morning. He reached the gallery just as Ginevra broke down, unable to find the right key through her tears. He gently took the keys from her and let them in.

"Does he know? Does he know I left home?"

"He knows we don't write each other."

"What does that mean?"

"I'm not sure."

He led her back to her studio where she had a couch and they sat down.

"He doesn't know what happened."

"No."

She looked up at him with all the pain and hurt and loneliness of nine years in her eyes. "But it was proved! I was proved right! We were proved right! He was proved true! How could they still... Why couldn't they... THEY WERE THE ONES THAT BETRAYED HIM!" She got up and started pacing, gesticulating wildly. "If there had been a question, fine! But there wasn't! It was obvious. There was no denying it. The diversion went off without a hitch. It couldn't possibly have worked without him on our side! So WHY did they still call me a traitor and a fool? Why did they still run me off for having trusted him?" She turned and stared at Blaise with a very defeated expression. "Why did they turn me away for trusting a man who walked out of my life in order to prevent them from turning me away? Why are we apart because he doesn't belong in a world I have no place in?"

"He didn't know."

"Do you have it with you?"

He pulled the picture out of his pocket and showed it to her.

"Give it to him."

He nodded.

He walked her home before returning to the hotel. He found Draco sitting on the couch staring at the picture of the cliff he had kept in his wallet. Blaise sat next to him and pulled out the picture he was finally free to deliver.

"This is for you."

"It's the cliff. I already have five copies."

"Turn it over."

Draco,

You never let me say goodbye. You left before I could say goodbye. I don't know why I'm writing this. I will probably never allow Blaise to deliver it. Maybe I simply need to explain how I feel whether you ever hear or not. I do not belong anywhere if you are not there. I have no world without you so I don't know what world you think of when you think you don't belong in it. I'm not in London anymore. I never will be again if I can help it. I had no home to go to after you left. I tried, hoping they would accept me again, but they did not. It was strange. I should have been angry. I should have been hurt. They were my family and they were turning me away. As they stood before me, though, all I saw was your back. As they spoke all I heard was your last words. I left them without looking back. Would you have left if you had known? Would you still be with me if you knew what they would do?

I have sent you Blaise. He will care for you as I cannot. I cannot bear the thought of you existing alone. I am sorry if he is hard on you, he does not understand why I am leaving him as well. If I stay in contact with him he will always attempt to get us back together and I do not want you facing that pressure. I do not want to strain your relationship with the one friend you have, so I sent him to you.

I love you Draco. I always will. Rember that.

Ginevra

"WHAT HAPPENED!" Draco stood and stared down at his friend. "HER FAMILY TURNED HER AWAY? WHY!"

Blaise sighed and stood to look Draco in the eye. "Because she trusted you."

All color drained from Draco's face. "What do you mean?" His voice was deathly cold.

"Remember the Order member you had to kill to maintain your cover?" Draco nodded. "Well, no one believed that was the reason. Everyone believed you had either betrayed us or were never really on our side to begin with. It had been awefully hard to convince them we weren't death eaters in the first place and everyone who had doubted the decision to trust us used that action to prove they were at least half right. I stood up for you, obviously, but my opinion didn't matter and I had to adopt silence quickly or they would have turned on me as well. Ginevra defended you fiercely, though. She fought tooth and nail to convince them of the truth. She failed, miserably. They had decided it was safer just to cut the diversion entirely and leave you out there than risk walking into a trap. She refused to let it go. She argued until she was blue in the face the diversion was not only safe but necessary. They would not relent and ordered her to drop it. She got up and walked out. She was the one who helped you mount the diversion. Without her you would have been high and dry and a lot more lives would have been lost. It didn't matter that she had been right. It didn't matter that the diversion had obviously worked. It didn't matter that your loyalty and the value of your contribution were undeniable. They still turned on her. They still refused to accept her back. When she returned home they called her a traitor. They called her a traitor and told her she had no place there."

Draco disapparated.