A/N: Eh, I wrote this awhile ago, but it's just been sitting in my Documents folder, growing dusty, most likely. I'm not really a big fan of it, but I figure that since I actually put forth effort into writing it, I might as well put it up.
To Be or Not To Be
It was early, and Ginny was awake.
The sun had barely risen above the horizon, giving everything that untouchable, glazed look. As she made her way from the castle to the far side of the lake, Ginny took in the scent of the fresh air and the way the bright sun reflected quietly off of the water. This was undoubtedly her favorite time of the day.
She loved how everything was so still, so afraid to disrupt the beautiful tranquility that encompassed the grounds of Hogwarts. She loved the way the sun glimmered and shone brighter than any Lumos spell ever cast. But, most of all, it was the rat of hope that leaked from every inch of nature she loved. It was as if everything had its own story, yet everyday, they started over again. A new day. A new life. A new beginning.
That was what compelled Ginny to wake bright and early and make her way down to the lake. It wasn't that she disliked sleep or being around the other students of Gryffindor Tower. It was that she loved the freedom and power she felt as she walked through the untainted grounds. The feeling of being not-so-alone even when she quite clearly was.
On that particular morning, however, Ginny felt more along than ever. It seemed as though even Mother Nature was out to get her: everywhere she looked, things in two – paired in couples – moved through her vision. Two birds flew overhead, two Merpeople dove deeper into the lake, two flowers sprouted together outside the Herbology labs. Even the trees seemed out to get her, out to show her that two was infinitely better than one. She put her head down and continued walking to her destination, her heart aching all the while.
Never had she ever felt this way before. Even when Tom Riddle invaded her body and mind, she didn't feel so empty. It was as if someone reached into her chest and pulled her heart right out. She was alone and alone felt so empty that even the hope that usually rose with the new day couldn't quite dawn.
She sighed. When did she start feeling like this? How can someone so cheerful, so proud and brave and strong become someone so lifeless, so abandoned seemingly overnight? She searched insider herself for the answers, but no matter how hard she tried, only one answer, one name came to mind: Harry Potter.
And it wasn't even as though he'd meant it. Quite the opposite, in fact. He'd let her down gently, just a few nights ago, and he didn't even have to say a word. It was in his eyes. Those big, pure green eyes that radiated innocence and beauty from every angle you looked. They held no lies. He held no lies. How could she blame him? How could she blame the Boy Who Lived?
Ginny willed herself not to cry as she came upon her destination: a clearing in the forest that overlooked the lake and the castle. It was her favorite part about the grounds. And it was her best kept secret. There she could read or write or think or scream or stand or hope or live or die or just be, totally, completely, and fully undisturbed. There was no pressure or mockery or hatred there. It was a little slice of Heaven without the hassle of going through the gates. Ginny could think of nothing she wanted more in that moment than to just sit and stare and be alone with the world around her. To stand and shout and let her emotions bleed from her body. To remember who she once was and to become that person again. To forgive, to forget. But mostly just to be.
That's why she was completely shocked when she pushed the lower branches out of her way and discovered a pale, dull-eyed boy sitting in her usual spot, breathing slowly and gazing somewhat fearfully out over the lake. Draco started as she came closer, and though her mind told her to turn back, that this was against all rules, her body wouldn't let her.
For what she wanted more than to be alone was to not be alone, to sit in silence in the company of another with no expectations or promises or demands.
His expression changed from fear to hatred in a heartbeat, but before he could spit out a usual insult, Ginny sat down and quietly asked, "What are you doing here?" for she found she hadn't the energy to be spiteful.
Draco narrowed his eyes and glared at her, watching her every movement and considering her true intentions, but before his mind could think, his mouth took over.
"What does it look like I'm doing here, Weasley? Knitting a sweater?" he shot out vehemently.
Even he was a bit surprised at his retort, but he didn't show it. Instead he simply looked at her, waiting for her to huff and puff and stomp away like on any other given day, though something in the pit of his stomach hoped otherwise. He wanted company, reassurance, and even if she was a filthy Weasley blood-traitor, she was still somebody. And anything was better than being left alone with the voices inside his head. Anything.
"I didn't know Malfoy's knew how to knit," Ginny merely said, glancing out over the lake and up towards the castle, the sun rising steadily behind the Tower in which she lived.
Draco continued staring at her, checking for underlying insults and the like but came up empty-handed. He wondered if Ginny simply wanted company, like he, but brushed that thought aside. "We don't," he replied, shrugging.
He looked away as Ginny smiled slightly, as if amused by his words, and questioned both of their motives for still sitting in each other's presence, watching the sun rise into the brilliant blue Friday morning sky together. He was so caught up in his thoughts that he almost missed her next query.
"So what are you doing here then?" she repeated, slowly raking her eyes across the lake and onto his face.
He looked at her, the way she was sitting in between a slouch and perfectly straightened. How the dawning sun lit up her hair in so many different colors that Draco stopped trying to identify each one. The way her usually bright and chocolate eyes seemed lifeless and sad. He hoped that he didn't look as equally appallingly thrown together but didn't let his mind linger too much on his appearance – a first.
He quickly returned his eyes to the lake and answered coolly, "I couldn't sleep, if you must know. Goyle snores. Loudly. Though I imagine your oaf of a brother does much the same, so you are probably more immune to such horrendous noises."
She nodded and laughed a tiny chuckle, one so quiet that Draco could've imagined it. "Ron does snore, and when we're back home at the Burrow, I can hear him in my room. It's terribly upsetting when all you want to do is sleep to get rid of the awful images and voices lurking about your head." Ginny stiffened a little bit at her lax privacy and dared another quick glance at Draco. To her astonishment, he was staring directly at her with a bemused sort of expression on his face.
"What!" she said loudly and looked away, crinkling her nose as she began to laugh. Silence soon fell upon them like a heavy rain descending from the sky as they both continued to stare out over the lake. The sun was almost to the top of the castle before the heavy silence was finally broken.
"What are you doing up here, Weasley?" Draco asked timidly, drumming his long, slender fingers on his knee. "Shouldn't you be following after your hero of a boyfriend? Or has he cast you aside and broken your little heart already?"
By the way Ginny shuddered away at his words as though she'd been stung by a bee, he knew he'd been right. He sneered at no one in particular and looked away from her, not able to bear the flaws of love and heartbreak and betrayal that oozed from her every pore. Another silence fell upon them until it was broken by Ginny's quiet voice.
"Mmm," she whispered as she took her slightly-watered eyes off the beautiful scenery in front of her and looked down at her own hands. "Actually, if you must know, I was going to knit a sweater for you, but since it's not up to your standards, maybe I'll knit one for Goyle instead. After all, in between living with you and following you around all day, I'm sure he could use a little pick-me-up." He sneered at her in annoyance, and she grinned in spite of herself. "I couldn't sleep, Malfoy, same as you. Well, actually," she paused, taking a breath. "I come here often. Every morning, in fact. To think. To get away. To," she paused again, searching her brain for the right words. "To just be, I guess," she finished lamely, shrugging as she shoved her hands into her cloak.
Draco slowly nodded. "Or not to be," he replied quietly, discomfited and angered at his own weakness in confiding in an enemy. Or anyone at all, really. Had his father been sitting right next to him at that moment, Draco was sure that Lucius would've been mortified.
But then again, his father was not sitting next to him, nor was he even anywhere remotely near him. His father was rotting away in Azkaban, and Draco was at Hogwarts. Alone, like usual.
Draco pushed all thoughts out of his head and concentrated on the rising sun, how the reds and oranges and yellows blended into the sky and bled over onto the lake's surface, creating a halo that seemingly surrounded every bit of land he could see. He suddenly longed for the comfort of his four-poster bed, needing to escape the confines of being so intimately small on this vast planet, for Malfoy's were never small and never confined and never need reassuring that they weren't alone in this world.
Because really, he thought, aren't we all alone?
He shook his head as Ginny sighed. "Or not to be," she repeated in accordance, noticing Draco's intake of breath at her surprisingly easy agreement. Ginny had never thought of it like that before. She had always found that spot to be rather poetic, like her very own sonnet tucked away in her pocket and looked at by her eyes only. A place where only she could venture, somewhere where she could live her own life and be whoever she wanted to be, or not, not be. Though she wasn't quite sure what she didn't want to be. Harry Potter's girlfriend? No, she was almost positive that's what she wanted to be. Wasn't she?
She suddenly remembered the boy sitting next to her and let her mind wander over his life and his choices, or at least what she knew of the both, which was hardly anything except that he was a prat and spoiled and far from being a hero in her eyes. Maybe there was more to his story. She waited a moment before pursuing something further and chancing her thoughts. Before the silence enveloped them once more, she simply asked, "So what are you not being then?"
Draco narrowed his eyes once again but didn't remove his gaze from the castle and the slowly-rising aura the sun's rays were creating. What was he not being? That was not so much the question that needed answering. The real question was what did he not want to be? He could answer that. Oh, Merlin, he could answer that.
He didn't want to be a Death Eater, but he didn't want to fight on the same side as Saint Potter, the Do-No-Wrong advocate for every bloody Gryffindor in the world (that thought alone made him shudder). He didn't want to become like his father, but he didn't want to become anyone else, either. He didn't want to disappoint anyone, but he mostly didn't want to disappoint himself. How could he do all of that and yet still come out on top, like a true Malfoy should? How could he be what everyone expected and what he wanted all at the same time? How far could someone be stretched before broken apart at the seams?
But everything was more complicated than just answering silly, little questions in his head. There was never a simple solution, not when the journey to your destiny came to a fork in the road. The trouble was figuring out which path to take.
Ginny noticed his silence and watched as eyes glaze over. She knew she was staring, but it wasn't that often that someone (let alone a Weasley) got to see a side of Malfoy that wasn't always angry and pompous and outright superior. She quickly wondered what he was thinking, and in her heart, despite his horrible and malicious nature, she hoped he wasn't raging a battle inside his own head. One was too lonely a number to be overwrought with war. Especially when the only person who could save you was yourself.
He abruptly shook his head, chasing his thoughts away for what must've been the fifth time that morning, and Ginny hastily averted her eyes. Even though she reckoned she liked this side of Draco better than the usual one, she knew how awkward she'd feel being caught lost within her own incoherent thoughts in front of the enemy.
"I'm not sure, really, but even if I was, I wouldn't discuss it with you, Weasley," he finally said, his usual Draco Malfoy sneer in place. She glanced back over at him as chills receded down her spine at the harshness of his words. Whether or not he realized that her gaze was upon him, he did not reveal, so she kept right on staring, her eyes roaming all over his body as if for the very first time.
Ginny looked at his long, elegant legs as they stretched across the forest floor, the black of his trousers like impending death against the green of the grass. Her eyes inched upward and onto his chest, enthralled by the up and down motion of his steady breathing. She blinked a few times before finally lighting her eyes back up to his face. She subconsciously gnawed upon her chapped, light pink lips as his own swam in and out of her vision until she realized with horror that they were facing in her direction. She gulped and once again raised her eyes until they were even with his pair. She gasped and ran her tongue over her lips in nervousness before turning her head and taking her gaze away, noticing the manner in which Draco arrogantly cocked his right eyebrow. It wasn't that she didn't want to look at him or that she was too embarrassed to stare anymore; it was that she found she couldn't bear it.
He's beautiful, a voice whispered inside her head. She tried pushing it out but realized she couldn't because she knew it was true. And so she simply stared out at the lake, letting those thoughts consume her once again, somehow realizing that maybe, in her heart of hearts, having the position of Harry Potter's girlfriend wasn't meant to be filled by her.
This time he was the one to stare. Draco took in the way her arms wrapped around her bent knees and how her nails were slightly bitten down a bit too far below her cuticles. He noted just how vibrant her ginger hair was, how alive it seemed to be, and how it flowed down around her shoulders so freely, so unabashedly that he suddenly longed to run his fingers through it. Just as he moved his gaze to her freckled face (which he found he didn't seem to mind all that much), she let out a quiet sigh that encased her entire body.
She could be beautiful, he thought. If she wasn't a Weasley.
Ginny cleared her throat and began to stand up. Her stomach was rumbling, and surely it was time for breakfast. Even though she would've much rather continued to sit and watch the day pass with Draco, she knew it must end and didn't think she could bear being the one left sitting there alone. She finally noticed Draco's eyes upon her, and before she could stop herself, she said, "Nobody should be forced to be someone they're not, to live the life of a lie. Choose your own path, Malfoy, the one that's right for you." And rather than let him retort one of his infamous snide remarks, Ginny had moved past the clearing and vanished into the forest.
Draco slightly widened his eyes as he sat watching the place she had just been standing. Had she actually just said that? Nobody besides Dumbledore had the audacity to ever say anything of the sort to him before. He smirked as he reclined himself back upon his elbows and watched the lake shimmer under the early-morning sun, letting her words absorb into his blood.
Maybe she really was beautiful.
As she made her way back up the familiar, winding path to the castle, Ginny's mind reeled. She couldn't believe she'd just blurted that out. It was right then that she realized just how much she hadn't thought of Harry that morning or the aching inside her body that had seemed to have slightly diminished since she'd woken up.
And with a lighter heart and one last glance out over the lake, she opened the front doors and felt something unexpected.
A new beginning.