7/12/21
Author's Note: This chapter was a nightmare to write. I'm so glad it's finally posted. :)
Prompt claiming is still open for the Draco/Ginny Fic Fest, which is happening over on the Draco x Ginny discord! If you are looking for an opportunity to give writing a Draco/Ginny story a try, check out the #draco-ginny-fic-fest channel. Prompt claiming is open until August 9th, and all stories are due on August 16th. Or if you're just interested in reading, then keep an eye out for new stories to be posted on AO3 in August! Message me if you'd like a link.
Holidating
by idreamofdraco
Summer Solstice 2006 (Part 2)
For a small village, the Ottery St. Catchpole summer solstice festival swarmed with more people than Draco had anticipated. Perhaps he and Pansy really wouldn't have been intruding on an intimate neighborly affair if they'd attended without George's blessing. No one paid them any mind as they meandered through the crowd, children rushing past them sweaty and laughing, adults looking relaxed and happy as they perused the booths that lined the pathways.
Bonfires burned on top of the nearest hills, acting as beacons for witches and wizards seeking out the festival. When he and Pansy had arrived, Draco had noticed how sweet the smoke smelled, as if it had been ritually scented with flowers and oils. Down in the valley where the festival was in full swing, Draco couldn't smell the bonfires anymore. Instead, smoke from wood-burning pits where whole pigs roasted over fires and the yeasty scent of breads in all varieties, floated in the air, making his stomach complain with hunger.
Pansy tugged on his arm as she turned to inspect a booth selling handwoven baskets. She tapped his shoulder to get his attention, even though he was already facing the direction she was moving in. "I have no need for a basket, but I want one," she said while drooling over the intricate designs and styles.
Draco's lips twitched upward. Nothing sold here at the festival would look anything like the wares in Hogsmeade or Diagon Alley. Pansy could count on anything she bought here to be unique and of good quality. Perhaps even better quality than what she might find in a London boutique.
While she conversed with the vendor, Draco scanned the crowd for a sign of any Weasley. George said he and Verity would be here, and he'd told Draco to say hello when he arrived. But after the way their last meeting had ended, Draco thought it might be better to give him some space.
The idea of helping Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes had been growing in Draco's mind over the last several months—he supposed since St. Patrick's Day, though the idea had been planted on New Year's Eve—just percolating in the background of his thoughts. It had coalesced into an actual plan when he'd stepped inside the shop the other day and seen how sad and bare it looked. Then George had come downstairs with a wildness in his eyes, an expression Draco had recognized from his own reflection during his sixth year at Hogwarts. George had the look of a man who was in over his head and didn't know how to climb out of the pit he'd dug himself into. If he didn't seek help soon, that pit could become a grave.
Draco had not truly expected George to accept his offer of help. He had delivered the offer wrong, without any planning whatsoever. He should have taken George's pride and fear into consideration, coaxed him with assurances that Draco was not asking for control of the shop and only providing capital. The next time he mentioned investing in Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, Draco would be prepared. Maybe he could even talk to Ginny about it beforehand.
If she ever spoke to him again, that is.
Just as she crossed his mind, she also crossed his field of vision. The crowd parted, revealing the bonfire in the middle of the festival grounds and the revelers dancing around it. Ginny held hands with a dark-headed blonde that must have been Lovegood and a smiling brunette—Verity. They danced around the fire, the chain of people tugging Ginny this way and that, making her stumble and throw her head back with laughter as she righted herself, never breaking the chain by keeping a hold on her friends' hands.
She looked well enough when she was laughing, not like the woman at the end of her rope that the press had captured in photographs.
The crowd closed in around the bonfire, blocking her from view, but Draco found his gaze lingering in that direction, as if he could see through all of the obstacles between them.
"Is she that way, then?" Pansy asked as she took Draco's arm again. On her other arm, dangling by one of its handles, was a plaited basket woven with multicolored materials. He couldn't imagine what she would possibly use it for.
"Who?" Draco asked.
"Don't pretend with me," she said softly. And then in a louder voice, "Well? Lead the way!"
He didn't question her. Instead, he did as she commanded and led the way through the throng of people to the bonfire, Draco's face already burning at how transparent he was. It shouldn't have been embarrassing. The whole purpose of this trip was to look for Ginny, to speak to her. But Pansy knew him better than anyone, and it was a bit mortifying to be known by someone so well that his private thoughts couldn't truly remain private.
They stopped at the edge of the circle of people that surrounded three-quarters of the bonfire. The fourth side of it was edged with a stage where musicians drummed and strummed and fiddled. A singer belted out a folk song in a lilting voice. Draco narrowed his eyes, some of the musicians looking familiar somehow.
"Didn't they play at The Leaky Cauldron on St. Patrick's Day?" Pansy asked.
Ah, so that's why he recognized them. An amazing feat considering how many drinks he'd had that night. Cheering Charms mixed with alcohol were a formidable combination.
Mystery solved, he turned his attention back to the bonfire as the music came to an end. The dancers all turned on their heels to face the audience and bowed and curtsied as one before departing, making way for new dancers to take their place.
Pansy left Draco to catch up with Ginny and her friends before she became absorbed by the throng of people and disappeared. He stuffed his hands in his pockets as all four women turned to look at him. Then Pansy drew Ginny away while Verity and Lovegood approached him. With smiles on their faces, so at least it seemed they didn't hate him.
If upsetting her future sister-in-law and her fiance couldn't turn her against him, then Draco was fairly certain Verity was incapable of hating anyone. And Lovegood? If anyone had a reason to hate him, it should have been her, but even months spent in his family's cellar during the height of the war didn't convince her to glare at him or turn up her nose or slap him. Draco wondered if her reaction to him had less to do with her temperament and more to do with the nickname her classmates had ungraciously graced her with at Hogwarts.
He hoped she didn't mention her kidnapping and imprisonment at Malfoy Manor. That would be rather awkward.
So naturally, with a curious tilt of her head, she said, "You know, I don't think we've been face to face like this since my stay at your family's estate."
Verity's brows rose in interest. "Oh! When did this happen?"
A scowl pulled Draco's features down as his stomach jumped up into his throat.
"During the war," Lovegood replied.
"It wasn't a pleasant holiday," he ground out, his jaw locking against the admission spilling from his lips. "She was the Dark Lo—I mean, his—prisoner. My family held her hostage to punish her father for openly supporting Potter. Used her as leverage to make him stop."
Verity's mouth formed an 'O' of surprise. She glanced uncertainly between him and Lovegood as if she expected an explosion of emotion to occur at any second. Or maybe that's what Draco expected. He held himself together tightly, his muscles trembling from the effort not to fidget or look uncomfortable. Lovegood, on the other hand, shrugged.
"I had Mr. Ollivander for company. He had so many interesting stories to tell when he was well enough to tell them."
She had a blithe attitude, but she didn't meet Draco's eyes, and he knew why. Ollivander had been imprisoned at Malfoy Manor for over a year, and he'd been tortured—personally—by Voldemort multiple times. The wandmaker had been weak, ill, perhaps near death when Potter and his friends had rescued him.
And Draco had done nothing. He hadn't witnessed the torture himself—the secrets Voldemort had been trying to extract had been too precious for Draco's ears—but he had delivered meals to the man on occasion. To Lovegood, too. She'd tried speaking to him sometimes and he'd ignored her, too sick at the thought of having her in the lower levels of his house that he hadn't been able to make eye contact. He'd refused to acknowledge she was there, pretended for his own sake that the meals he delivered to the cellar were for an unwanted pet instead of a shackled human being.
A weight fell on his shoulder. Lovegood awkwardly patted him with a small smile on her face. "There, there."
"Why are you comforting me?" he asked incredulously.
"Would you like to comfort me instead?"
"I—er…."
"Yes?" Her eyes widened, which seemed impossible since they were always wide to begin with. Draco's hands fluttered at his sides as if anticipating catching her eyeballs when they fell out of her head. Thankfully, they stayed inside her eye sockets where they belonged.
His face warmed. He wished he could blame the heat on the nearby bonfire. "Do you… need to be comforted?"
"No," Lovegood said, her smile widening in sincerity. She skipped away before Draco could react or think of something to say. She left him and Verity staring in bewilderment until she disappeared into the crowd.
"I love that woman," Verity said, her eyes sparkling with admiration. When she blinked and turned toward him, her expression narrowed into determination. "So, what did you do to George before you left the shop? He looked sick for the rest of the day."
He contemplated whether he should speak frankly about George's business matters. The fact that she was asking meant George didn't tell her about Draco's offer. Did that mean she wasn't aware of what was plaguing him about the business even though she worked there, helped with the science and development of the products, and would soon be George's wife?
She placed a hand on Draco's arm and he jumped. Why were all of Ginny's friends so touchy? Pansy intruded upon his time and space, but she'd never been this handsy and he just wasn't used to it.
"Come on," she cajoled with a little smile, "is it so bad?"
Draco didn't think his face gave any of his thoughts away, so Verity must have already sensed something was wrong even if she didn't know for sure. He decided he didn't know enough about the situation to unwittingly let the kneazle out of the bag, so answering honestly couldn't hurt.
"I don't know. He won't talk about whatever is bothering him. I offered him some money, but he refused it." He winced at the memory of how badly he'd presented his offer.
"You offered money?"
Draco bristled. "So? I have it. I'm not using it. Why not let someone else use it who could make something out of it?"
Verity didn't seem to be listening. Her gaze drifted elsewhere, staring off into the distance as she bit down on her lip.
"George doesn't like charity."
"It wasn't charity," Draco snapped, making Verity jump.
"Then what was it?" she challenged, her voice harder than he'd ever heard it before.
Up until this moment, Draco had written Verity off as sweet and a little silly. But it seemed she had a backbone in her that snapped into place to protect the people she loved. He wasn't sure why this surprised him considering what he knew about the other women in the Weasley family.
He didn't know how to answer her, so how could he prove he wasn't a threat?
"It was just an idea I had," he said. "Ever since New Year's Eve, I've been thinking about what I'm doing with my life. George said if he had a fraction of my money, he'd use it to open another location. I wouldn't even miss a fraction of my money, so why shouldn't he have it?"
"I dunno. There are other people who have it worse than George does, so why him and not them?"
In his entire life, Draco had never considered the needs of other people before. Especially people he didn't know. Strangers. The theoretical population of the country that wasn't as privileged as he was. He had always thought of other people as a mythical entity, or maybe like a pest, unworthy of his acknowledgment. But they were real people with lives of their own and families and struggles, financial or otherwise. Why did Draco have all this wealth while other people suffered and fought for every scrap they owned? He had a feeling the answer would be deeply uncomfortable, which is why he'd never confronted the question before. He'd grown up believing the Malfoys deserved everything they had and more, and he'd never felt a need to examine that belief further.
Maybe he could help other people like George. People who had dreams and the drive and desire to make those dreams a reality except for the obstacle of lacking capital, lacking time, or the burden of too many responsibilities weighing them down. Draco could remove the obstacle. He could give people money and use his family's connections to help make dreams come true. Dreams like starting a business. Conducting research. Erasing debt.
Draco could give his money to the kind of people who would use it to make the world a better place, even if all they did to achieve that goal was to make children laugh with a joke product. Maybe he couldn't undo all the harm his family had caused during the war—or before. But if a fraction was enough to turn one person's life around, maybe it would be enough to start to turn the world around.
Verity was still waiting for a response and Draco got the feeling she would be persistent about this. He couldn't tell her he'd only just realized other people besides himself and his miniscule circle of reluctant friends existed, so he scoured his brain for something else to say that wouldn't earn him a contemptuous glare or a hex.
Before he could respond, Verity said, "Maybe because other people aren't Ginny's brother?" She said it with a smirk and an invisible elbow nudge.
Draco latched onto her suggestion. "Yes, of course. It's easier to help someone I know in need. And we're friends… of a sort… aren't we?"
"Friendship. Yes. That's exactly why you offered money to a man you've had an unfriendly acquaintance with your whole life. It was the spirit of friendship."
He narrowed his eyes at her, his lips pressing together tightly. If he disagreed with her, he'd only look desperate to hide a truth she thought she'd uncovered. And if he agreed, she could take his agreement literally or the way she meant it. No matter what he said, she'd be smug about it.
"I don't like what you're implying," he said instead.
Her eyes rounded with innocence. "What on earth am I implying?"
He opened his mouth to speak and then snapped it shut. She'd set him up to admit something he wasn't willing to admit. Not that he needed to speak to admit anything, because it seemed everyone on the planet saw right through him.
Verity leaned toward him, her voice lowering. "What are you doing here exactly? Are there no summer solstice festivals where you live? Or did you come all this way just to see—"
Draco turned his back on her and disappeared into the nearest throng of people before she could say the next word. Jettisoning himself out of the conversation wasn't the politest thing he could have done, but his heart raced the more he dug himself deeper, and he had to get himself out of this hole any way possible before the muscle gave out entirely and someone buried him there.
Here lies Draco Malfoy
June 5, 1980 - June 21, 2006
Died instead of admitting his secret feelings.
That's what his tombstone would say.
He blindly shoved through groups of friends and families, not certain where he was going, but only slowing once his heart did. The scent of something fried and sweet wafted on the breeze, making his stomach growl. Draco followed it to a stand where an elderly couple served fried sweet bread.
He handed over some Sickles (eleven, to be exact, but he tried not to dwell on that) in exchange for a piece of fried dough smothered with butter and honey. He practically shoved the food down his throat, devouring it in three large bites. And then he purchased another one, this time covered in icing sugar and sliced strawberries with a drizzle of chocolate sauce. This one he savored, taking more thoughtful bites so he could actually appreciate the crunchy outside of the bread and the soft, doughy inside. The combination of the sweet, juicy strawberries and the chocolate sauce was divine, and the icing sugar was, literally, the icing on top of the whole dessert, by adding more sweetness to an already sweet meal.
The food calmed him down further. For some people, consuming sweets had a physiological effect, such as hyperactivity or a pounding heart. For those with a low tolerance for sugary substances, perhaps even a headache or a stomach ache.
When sugar hit Draco's blood stream, the world centered itself. He felt like he could think clearly. He also experienced some of the good and bad physiological consequences, but a stomach ache was a small price to pay for the brief rush of happiness that filled him.
He wandered through the valley, observing some of the festival games and tasting more of the festival food. The sun had been close to setting when he and Pansy had arrived. It was twilight now. Along with the large bonfire in the center of the valley and the smaller ones on top of the surrounding hills, fairy lights sparked to life around the stalls and tents, and even along the paths so no one could lose their way. The festival's energy changed as darkness fell, became hushed and somehow more excited than before, filled with anticipation.
"Oh, excuse me!" someone said as they slammed into Draco's side, in a hurry to go… somewhere.
He opened his mouth to complain until he spotted Lovegood's bulbous eyes and dirty blonde hair.
"Oh, Draco! You must come. We're about to perform!"
Without waiting for a response, she grabbed his hand and pulled him along behind her, back to the center bonfire. She released him next to Verity and Pansy, and then she departed toward the stage.
"Where have you been?" Pansy asked in exasperation.
Instead of answering her, he leaned down to her and in a quiet voice asked, "How did your talk with Ginny go?"
Pansy's mouth spread into a smile, and she gave him two thumbs up. Her arms were now laden with bags in addition to the basket she'd purchased earlier. Some of the bags had leafy vegetables sticking out of their tops.
He wanted to ask more, but she shushed him as a line of people climbed onto the stage. There was Fleur Delacour—no, she was a Weasley now—holding Victoire on her hip at the front of the line. Then Arthur and Percy Weasley. Sarah Fawcett, a Ravenclaw Draco vaguely remembered from Hogwarts. And then Ginny and Lovegood were the last onto the stage.
Around the bonfire, couples posed with hands clasped and raised in the air, waiting for music to start. The crowd swelled with people who must have come from other parts of the festival just for this performance.
The band began to play, Ginny and her family and friends opened their mouths to sing, and the dancers twirled in time to the music.
Draco only had eyes for Ginny. Her dress was butter yellow, and her hair was plaited in a crown on top of her head, flowers dotting the plaits like the tiniest jewels. She pressed one hand flat on her stomach, the other she used to swing her skirt with the music. It was obvious how much she enjoyed singing by the flush in her cheeks and the radiant smile on her lips.
Together, the group hardly sang at a professional level. Victoire only knew half the words and screamed them all tunelessly, treating the melody as a suggestion rather than a requirement. Lovegood spun around her friends on stage with a Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes sparkly that Draco recognized from New Year's Eve in each hand. The speed at which she waved the sparklies allowed her to draw mesmerizing figures in the air to the audience's delight. Because she put so much effort into her interpretive dance, her voice suffered in quality. There were nice moments, too, however. Percy and Arthur's baritone and bass tones complemented the women, and any flaws in the tune only served to give the song more character.
Each singer got an opportunity to perform a solo, and when Ginny stepped forward to sing, she rocked with the fiddle's harmony, her dress swishing against her legs. Draco's gaze sharpened on her, as if he were a knife and she the whetstone. Under an arch of twinkling fairy lights, the flames from the fire casting dancing shadows on her skin, her voice ran over him and through him. His heart raced, but it felt like the sugar rush of a recently devoured basket of strawberries, their juices coating his lips and dripping down his chin and neck. She sang about a lonely farmer's daughter dreaming of a future on her own farm with a strapping lad, and Draco wanted to be that lad. He wanted to be the dress swishing against her legs. He wanted to be the hand on her stomach.
His mouth went dry.
Draco had come to this festival to talk to Ginny under false pretenses, and the worst part was—the person he had been lying to was himself. He could no longer pretend that he was interested in being her holidate again. Holidating wouldn't satisfy his craving for her. It wouldn't be enough to curb his insatiable curiosity and need to have her touching him at all times. Whether they were strolling through a crowd together or dancing or—he couldn't even think the word without growing hard—fucking, he wanted her near, wanted to see her smile, wanted her breathless. How did he convince her that she wanted the same?
As the song came to an end, a fluttery, sugar-coated sensation zipped through Draco's bloodstream.
Before he could talk himself out of acting, he moved toward the stage.
Two hours ago…
Ginny's heart was pounding as Pansy ushered her away from her friends, away from Draco, toward a quieter patch of grass outside of the bonfire's vicinity. The crowd swallowed them whole and spit them back out on the other side, the noise level much lower the further they fled from the music and revelers.
Fleeing was the only word for what she and Pansy were doing. Maybe they weren't actually fleeing anything, but the urgency in Pansy's stride, the way she gripped Ginny's arm, felt like an emergency. They were practically running and Ginny was possibly metaphorically running, too. She'd only caught glimpses of Draco while she danced around the fire, they'd only had long enough to catch each other's gaze for the briefest moment, before Pansy whisked her away.
Relief made Ginny's heartbeat slow. It had nearly been two months since she'd last seen Draco, since their awful argument, but somehow the weeks they'd been apart had felt too long and too short at the same time. On the one hand, she wanted Pansy to drag her as far away from Draco as possible. On the other, she wanted to run back to him and tell him everything she'd been too cowardly and too angry to say in the weeks since she saw him last.
"What are you doing here?" asked Ginny as the absurdity of Draco and Pansy attending her local festival finally sank in. What the hell. It was one thing for Ginny to bring Draco to the Burrow, but for both of them to show up in Ottery St. Catchpole out of the blue? She pulled her arm out of Pansy's grasp and came to a stop to wait for an explanation.
"I have something to say," Pansy announced.
Ginny shook her head, not because she didn't want to hear Pansy out (though maybe she didn't; she was a little shell-shocked and confused by her mere presence), but because she'd just noticed that one of Madam Summerfield's baskets dangled from Pansy's arm. It seemed whatever she had to say wasn't too urgent if she'd gone souvenir shopping before seeking Ginny out.
"Draco wanted to see you, but he didn't think you wanted to see him. And it's all because of me." Her brows knit together and she bit her lip, as if she didn't quite know how to continue.
"I'm sorry," Ginny said. "I'm not understanding what's happening right now."
Pansy sighed. And then she rallied, her spine stiffening into a straight line and her chin rising. The uncertain expression transformed into one of pure resolve.
"On St. Patrick's Day, I think I gave you the wrong impression when I attempted to interrogate you about your holidates. I didn't think about how it would make you feel if someone you didn't know approached you in public and started asking you for personal details about your life. I just got excited about Draco making a new friend. He never laughed at your holidates. I did, because everything Draco does is funny to me, but Draco didn't tell me about them for my amusement. He told me about them so I'd leave him alone. Some people think I'm kind of annoying."
Ginny felt like she'd fallen into an alternate universe of some sort. Sure, she'd seen this not completely unpleasant side of Pansy Parkinson on St. Patrick's Day, but everyone had been massively inebriated except for George, and Ginny had chalked up Pansy's behavior to the influence of those absurdly potent charmed cocktails.
When she thought about it, Pansy had always been obnoxious. At Hogwarts, Ginny remembered her as loud, gossipy, and blunt, and those aspects of her personality had not seemed to change since their school days.
Ginny said, "So… what is it you're trying to say unsuccessfully?"
Pansy reached out to Ginny and placed a hand on her shoulder. "I'm terribly sorry for being meddlesome and making you feel like you couldn't trust Draco. It's me you shouldn't trust. I'm a nosy bitch."
Ginny patted the hand on her shoulder awkwardly. "I forgive you, I guess?"
Pansy grasped Ginny's other shoulder, and Ginny got a basket to the stomach. "Don't forgive me unless you mean it. But please forgive Draco. You have no idea how private he is." She turned her head to the side and muttered, "Mostly because he has no one else to talk to," as if Ginny wasn't standing right there and couldn't hear every word.
Ginny took a step back until Pansy's arms fell back to her sides. "Okay, okay. I forgive both of you. Circe give me strength." If this is how Pansy acted all the time, it was no wonder Draco had caved and spilled all the details about their holidating agreement to her. She was tenacious when she wanted something.
"Great! That's a load off my conscience."
"You have a conscience?" Ginny asked without thinking. She pressed her lips together, her face burning.
"It's tiny. And it only exists where Draco is concerned."
So much devotion to a man with whom she wasn't romantically involved. Pansy thought so highly of him. "Why?" Ginny asked after a moment of thoughtful silence as Pansy once again ushered her down a pathway, this time at a more leisurely pace.
"Because I'm his only friend." She gave Ginny a curious look, full of expectations that Ginny didn't know how to meet. "He's not always a very good one back, but he's the only person among the people we grew up with who acts like the war meant anything. Everyone else pretends it was a setback towards a larger goal, and that one day The Cause will come out on top. But in the years since the war, I've learned I don't want that. Are you familiar with mee-cro-wah-vays?"
Ginny stared blankly. "Uh…."
"Muggles use them to reheat food. Because they don't have magic! They recreated what we can do with a spell using science!"
"Microwave…?"
"Oh, darling, your accent is horrific," Pansy said, and then moved on without missing a beat. "I was so angry after the war. Angry we lost, but also angry that I was so scared of the man that was supposed to be our champion. If The Dark Lord was right, then why had I been afraid of him? I read that he was a half-blood. If I cared so much about blood purity, then why did I follow someone who didn't have pure blood? It just didn't make sense. So I did some soul-searching—I even wandered into the Muggle world for a bit."
Ginny's jaw dropped at the revelation.
"As you can probably tell, my accent is nearly flawless," she preened.
"Your… British Muggle accent?"
Pansy ignored her. Her voice lowered and she seemed to grip Ginny's arm a little tighter, pulling her more closely into her side. "When Draco moved out of the manor, it gave me hope that maybe he was doubting things the way I did. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined him agreeing to holidate you. So… I over-enthused. I am annoying when I get that way, and I made you the victim of my strong personality and curiosity. I'm truly, desperately sorry for making you uncomfortable. I hope you won't punish Draco for my lack of boundaries."
Ginny's heart pounded erratically at the possibility of Pansy's sincerity. The thing was… Ginny believed every word she said. Why would she lie? There was no benefit to Pansy for denouncing her former beliefs or apologizing for Ginny's sake. It seemed an elaborate scheme just to convince Ginny to holidate Draco again for Pansy's amusement. And Draco's frustration with Ginny at the Remembrance Day gala hadn't been feigned, so Pansy would not only have to convince Ginny to resume the holidates, but Draco, too. And if she wasn't trying to convince them to holidate again, then what did she gain from Ginny forgiving Draco?
Ginny didn't know Pansy well, but she thought she understood her well enough to recognize that Pansy was used to demanding and cajoling until someone gave in to her. Elaborate machinations were too subtle for her blunt personality.
"Okay," Ginny said, patting Pansy's hand looped through her arm. "I do forgive you. Honestly. And… and I don't blame Draco anymore."
Pansy let out a short shriek of excitement.
"But!" Ginny interjected. "It's not that easy. After that kiss, I don't know if Draco will ever want to talk to me again."
Pansy's whole body froze, stopping them in the middle of the path to the annoyance of the disgruntled family behind them.
"AFTER WHAT?"
Warmth flooded Ginny's face. "Did Draco tell you that I kissed him?"
"HE MOST CERTAINLY DID NOT!"
"Oh." The warmth in her face bled down her neck and into her heart. The pounding muscle beat harder at the thought that Draco had managed to preserve some semblance of privacy from Pansy. Even if he'd only withheld that tiny detail from her to save himself from mockery, her ignorance was proof of his ability to withstand her persistence.
Pansy opened her mouth, eyes wide and wild with disbelief. Then she snapped her mouth closed so forcefully, her teeth made an audible sound. They continued walking and Pansy chewed on her lips, but she said nothing.
Ginny watched the display of emotions across her face with fascination. "It's killing you not to know, isn't it?"
"So much," she said in an agonized whisper.
"I'm afraid if I told you what happened, you wouldn't think very much of me."
The sounds of the festival, of vendors shouting, children playing games, music, the solid patter of people's feet pounding into the dirt pathways swelled around them, seeming to grow louder as Ginny waited for Pansy's response. Out of the corner of her eye, Ginny glanced at her face and discovered a thoughtful expression. She had half-expected some sort of joke-insult. Something like, "I already don't think very much of you." But Pansy didn't say that.
Instead she said, imbuing thoughtfulness into her tone as well, "I'm guessing the kiss was inspired by Potter's engagement?"
A sigh escaped Ginny's lips. "Am I that transparent?"
"I don't know you well enough to see through you, but I know Draco. If he wouldn't forgive you for kissing him, then there must have been something else about the kiss that set him off. I don't know if you know this, but Potter is a bit of a trigger for him."
A smile tugged at the corners of Ginny's mouth.
"You should talk to him. He came here to see you. That must be a good sign, right?"
Ginny scanned Pansy's face for deception, but she was cool now. Smooth and collected. It really didn't matter whether Draco had come to the summer solstice festival to yell at her or ask her to be his holidate again. Ginny wouldn't be content until she talked to him, too, so she could apologize for her abominable behavior.
In the moments right after Draco stopped the kiss, she hadn't understood his anger. She'd been selfish, only thinking of herself and her hurt without considering how her actions could have been hurtful to him. In the days that followed, seeing Rita Skeeter's photograph floating around every publication had brought some clarity to the situation that Ginny had lost in the heat of the moment. She'd used Draco to assuage her pain, and Draco had not consented. Not to the kiss initially, and not to being used emotionally. Mortification and her belief that Draco was enjoying her life falling apart in the press had kept her from reaching out to him to apologize.
Maybe she should have done it anyway. Or maybe at the time she'd made this realization, he wouldn't have been receptive to her apology.
A wave of hope surged inside her. It was the summer solstice, Ginny's favorite holiday and a time of new beginnings. Anything was possible.
Ginny and Pansy met up with Luna—who greeted Pansy like an old friend. Together, the three of them roamed the festival, doing a bit of shopping here and there.
Pansy threw gold at everything that caught even a passing interest. A leather thigh holster for a wand; a light, embroidered summer cloak; handmade jewelry; and even some of Mr. Berryhill's prized parsnips. There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to what Pansy purchased, but she spread her wealth all over the valley and she didn't even attempt to haggle.
Ginny had grown up seeing the same vendors attend this festival annually. They depended on festival sales to sustain them through the rest of the year, so Pansy's gold was deeply appreciated, and her generosity did not go unnoticed by Ginny. She added this fact to her mental list of new things she was learning about Pansy.
"Are you going to watch us perform?" Luna asked Pansy as they sat on a patch of grass and watched the sun complete its descent below the horizon while they sipped on mulled wine.
"Perform?"
"It's a tradition for the families in Ottery St. Catchpole to put on a performance," Ginny explained. "The festival used to be a lot smaller, just a gathering of Weasleys, Fawcetts, Lovegoods, and Diggorys. So the performances were a way to entertain each other. As the festival grew, we invited musicians and opened the stage to other acts, but we still perform at least one song every year."
Pansy's eyes glittered with anticipation. "I would not miss that for anything."
Before today, that pronouncement combined with Pansy's expression would have set Ginny on edge waiting for an insult to land. She would have thought Pansy's interest stemmed completely from a desire to watch Ginny and her family and friends make fools of themselves. She would have expected laughter at their expense. But after spending the last couple of hours with her, and hearing how much she'd grown since the war, Ginny only felt pleasure at Pansy's excitement.
Maybe she was just as wrong to trust Pansy as she was to trust Draco, but she didn't think so. Both of them had been Sorted into Slytherin for a reason, but that didn't mean they were bound to the values they'd carried at eleven years old. Maybe Pansy had lied about how much her values had changed after the war, but Ginny couldn't reconcile her behavior with any reasonable explanation for deceiving them all.
Luna left them to buy some sparklies from the Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes stall and then met Ginny next to the stage. Ginny was still thinking of Pansy's hope for Draco's change of heart when they climbed onto the stage a little after sundown. Her thoughts must have conjured him, because she spotted him in the audience immediately. That platinum blond hair glistened in the twilight under the light of the bonfire, a beacon calling out to her and her alone. She tried to force her gaze to roam because if she didn't watch herself, it would keep getting drawn back to him. Seeking out Ron and Hermione in the audience didn't work. Or her mum and Penelope. Her ties to her family weren't strong enough to overcome her desire to look and look and look at Draco, to soak in his appearance, to drown under the weight of his attention.
He was staring at her, and Ginny gave up avoiding him and stared back, her whole body flushing with embarrassment at the memory of their last encounter.
The band began to play, and she pushed her thoughts of the gala away to focus on the music. Sarah Fawcett was singing her solo now, a verse about a child who had lost her kitten. Ginny listened, admiring the tone of childlike heartbreak she added to the melody that made the audience laugh. The neighboring families in Ottery St. Catchpole had been performing together at the summer solstice festival for years, even before Ginny was born. Singing this song was as natural and familiar to her as flying a broom. Even so, she always got emotional when her dad sang the verse about the old man reminiscing about summer solstices with his late wife, and during the final verse when all the characters attended the festival and received their happy endings.
The song had always made Ginny feel like summer was as much of a beginning as New Years was. If she could make it to the summer solstice festival, she'd get a fresh start for the rest of the year. After the Remembrance Day gala, she'd been desperate for the festival to arrive so she could wash away her resentment and sadness with fried festival foods and dancing and music.
The festival had distracted her for a little while. Dancing around the bonfire earlier had almost erased the memory of dancing with Draco on Remembrance Day and St. Patrick's Day. At least until she spotted him in the crowd, his icy eyes on her as she danced, and all she could think about since that moment was what it would feel like to dance with him here, on her favorite holiday, in her favorite place in the world, with all of her favorite people. Harry hadn't even crossed her mind once today. She'd only thought of Draco.
Ginny stepped forward to sing her solo about the lonely farmer's daughter, who dreamed of a partner and true love as she worked from sunup to sundown. She'd performed this song for years and never had she been more nervous than she was now with Draco watching her. His arms were crossed over his chest, but his posture was loose. He stared at her with a blank intensity she couldn't decipher, though her body seemed to know exactly what that expression meant. Every inch of her skin tightened. Every sweep of her skirt against her bare legs sent a signal straight between her thighs.
The tension didn't ease after she finished her verse. As she stepped back into line and Percy moved forward for his solo, she let her mind drift, let herself imagine.
If she hadn't kissed Draco on Remembrance Day, she could have invited him to the summer solstice festival as her holidate. Instead of Verity, Pansy, or Luna, Ginny could have spent the day with Draco, playing games, tasting the food, dancing around the bonfire, and then laying in the grass to reclaim their breath and enjoy the sun on the longest day of the year. It could have been a blissful day without end.
But when it did end, maybe she would have kissed him under the fireworks, and maybe it would have been magical in a way that had nothing to do with wands or spells. Ginny wouldn't know, because she'd ruined things on Remembrance Day by kissing Draco for the wrong reasons.
That night, she hadn't accepted she had been the one in the wrong, but she had realized it the next day as soon as she'd seen Rita Skeeter's article and the photograph accompanying it. The frigid fury on Draco's face had filled Ginny with shame and haunted her for weeks since that encounter. It was burned into the back of her eyelids. She saw it on the Quidditch pitch during practice and in the middle of matches. She saw it when she fought with sleep every night.
She had soothed herself with the thought that Draco was enjoying her suffering and laughing at her humiliation in the press with Pansy. The certainty that she had merely been an amusement was the only reason she hadn't contacted him to apologize for the kiss. Burning both in shame and anger, Ginny had considered them even in their behavior towards each other and had been unwilling to cross the line that divided them.
Maybe it was too late for apologies and he had only come to the festival to tell her so.
The song ended, and Ginny climbed off the stage in a daze that affected her balance and made her vision a blur. She blamed it on the mulled wine from earlier, but she was afraid it was a heartsickness that had grown inside her during the course of a song.
Draco waited for her at the bottom of the stairs, and Ginny's heart leapt, suddenly cured.
He looked at her the same way he'd looked at the ice cream sundae he'd been eating at Fortescue's on Boxing Day, when they'd agreed to become holidates. A shiver raced down her spine as his eyes glided down her frame and then back up. He smirked when he reached her face, no doubt because of the flush suffusing her cheeks.
"Can we talk?" he asked.
Ginny nodded and he led her away from the stage. Within moments they reached a less populated area. Most of the festival attendees were at the bonfire now watching the various performances families in surrounding villages had prepared for tonight. The vendors were already packing up their stalls, just waiting for the fireworks show to begin, signalling the end of the public festival. This meant Ginny and Draco were practically alone when they finally stopped at a crossroads of several paths that led to different parts of the festival. Anyone else who wasn't watching the performances was too busy with last minute shopping or trying to find the best view for the fireworks.
Draco dug around in his pocket before extracting something and handing it to her. A tiny scrap of fabric and a doll-sized pair of boots sat on his palm.
"Er… thanks?" Ginny said, taking them from him.
"They're yours," he explained, lips twitching upwards in amusement. "The clothes you left at my flat the morning after St. Patrick's Day."
Ginny recognized the tiny shirt and boots now, shrunk down for easy transport. The heat in her face descended to the rest of her body at the reminder of the state in which they had awoken that morning. She'd been so mortified and angry, she'd left in her socks.
A realization hit her along with the memory. Draco had propositioned her, and she'd assumed he hadn't been serious, just teasing her to get her to leave his flat faster. What if he hadn't been teasing her at all? What if he'd been serious?
The embarrassed heat pooled between her legs, transforming into a different kind of heat as she remembered—how had she forgotten?—the way Draco had offered to thoroughly break Holidating Rule #3 with her. On the floor. Against the door. Perhaps he would have accommodated her in his chair, if she'd had the nerve to ask him. He might not have made her beg for it, either.
"Circe give me strength," she muttered as she dropped her face into her clenched hands. She'd imagined that morning progressing differently so many times since March, but there had always been a tint of resentment to her fantasies due to the assumptions she'd made. Now, when she thought about that morning with the understanding that Draco might have actually wanted her…?
She couldn't breathe.
Large hands wrapped around her wrists, pulling them away from her face. She looked up, and that didn't make breathing any easier. Silver eyes watched her warily, which was a fair reaction because her behavior was bizarre. She couldn't make herself act like a normal person. She was thinking about the grip on her wrists and how much better it would feel if he pushed her down onto a flat surface and held her there.
Good Gryffindor. It had been, what? A year since the last time she'd had sex? She trembled when that word crossed her mind.
"Draco," she entreated, and then she stopped. What could she say? I'm sorry for not accepting your offer earlier. Is it too late to beg you to fuck me now? No, she couldn't ask him for anything until she apologized.
"Are you ill?" he asked, releasing one of her hands to brush the back of his fingers against her cheek, her forehead, checking for signs of a fever.
She was feverish alright, just not the kind of fever he expected. She didn't have enough willpower to wave his hand away. In fact, she thrived on his touch, relishing the novelty of physical contact. Her skin came to life everywhere he touched her, and where he didn't, she anticipated a caress instead, which was nearly as torturous. "No."
He paused and then let his hands drop, even the one that had been holding her wrist. "I see," he said.
Did he see? Ginny would die of embarrassment if he guessed what was happening to her right now, if he noticed how a strong grip and some light petting affected her.
She could no longer meet his eyes. "I'm sorry."
"What are you sorry for?" he asked, his voice low, nearly gentle. Not truly gentle, though, because there was a sharpness in his words.
"Kissing you when I was upset. It was wrong." It was also wrong the way her skin contracted as she said the word kissing, her nipples puckering in preparation of more touches. "I won't ever do that again." Her body sagged in disappointment.
"Are you sorry for anything else?"
She nodded at the ground by his feet, the only safe place to look. "I'm sorry for making assumptions about your intentions. You never gave me a reason to believe you weren't genuine with me, but it was hard to believe anyway."
His feet shifted. Was he about to leave? Or was he just making himself more comfortable? Ginny clenched her hands tighter, squishing her clothes in her palms. She transferred them to a pocket of her dress. Now that he'd returned them, she'd have to return his formal jacket to him as well.
A soft fingertip nudged her chin upward. Somehow, even though she'd been looking down, she'd missed the movement of his arm.
His expression was blank, but not cold. He was hiding from her, and Ginny was jealous because she wanted to hide, too.
"The person you trusted most in the world broke your trust. I'm sorry I didn't realize how far that broken trust would extend," he said.
It took a moment to sink in that he was apologizing for losing his temper at the gala. What a rare moment this was, she thought with wonder. Draco Malfoy apologizing. Showing compassion. Who was this man?
He took another step closer to her, his finger still under her chin, preventing her from looking away and forcing her head to tilt back more.
"You're forgiven for the kiss and the assumptions," he said, his breath warm on her forehead. In the weeks since she'd last seen him, she'd forgotten how tall he was.
"Your anger was justified. I forgive you, too."
"Good. Because I came here to ask you something."
Ginny's breathing hitched. What little breath she had leaked out of her lungs like a balloon with several holes poked in it. Draco was close enough, he might even be able to hear the disturbing squeaky sound of the balloon deflating. Her heart kept pumping away like everything was normal, which caused a bit of distress behind Ginny's ribcage.
Her lung balloons inflated with hope, but the hope kept escaping with all her air.
Draco's long pause made her wonder if he was waiting for her to answer a question she hadn't heard. But she looked closer at his blank face and realized it wasn't blank at all. She hadn't noticed at first because of the flickering fairy lights wrestling with the darkness, but he looked at her with small creases in the corners of his eyes and lips that were slightly downturned. Whatever he wanted to ask, he was hesitant about it. Cautious.
"Yes?" she said in as encouraging a tone as she was able.
He opened his mouth, and was abruptly interrupted by the bang and fizzle of a Weasleys' Wildfire Whizbang exploding high in the air above them. Another shot up into the sky after the first one, shattering into a neon flower that elicited gasps of awe from the vendors and stragglers nearby.
Draco had immediately moved his hand from her chin to her shoulder, holding her as if he meant to shield her from the blast of the first whizbang. Ginny couldn't help but stare at his upturned face, tracing the sharp lines of his jaw connecting to his chin, jutting up to outline his slightly parted lips and pointed nose. His pale skin was the perfect screen to project the fireworks' glow.
Ginny held her breath this time, trapping it in her lungs. Not because she needed the air but because she was afraid the slightest movement would snap Draco out of his spell and he'd break their half-embrace.
Spells always wore off at some point, though, and this one ended too soon for Ginny's liking.
When he looked down at her again, his expression had softened. No more creases around his eyes. No more cautious frown. Instead his features were smooth, and he wore a cautious smile.
"You wanted to ask me something?" Ginny asked, eager to return to the moment just before the fireworks show started, hope filling her ravaged lungs.
"Yes. I've wandered all over this festival without running into George. Can you tell me where to find him?"
That… that was it? That was the important question he'd come to the festival to ask her?
Ginny thought she did a terrible job hiding her disappointment, and unless she was imagining it, Draco grinned harder.
"Sure," she said with a lack of enthusiasm. "He'll be on the other side of that hill."
She led him down a path and out of the valley where George launched the fireworks a safe distance from the festival. They walked in silence, but Ginny felt that silence like a caress on the back of her neck. She felt the absence of his hand as their arms swung next to each other, fingers nearly brushing multiple times. She tortured herself by keeping her arm hanging there just in case of an accidental touch rather than snatching her hand away and stuffing it into a pocket. She felt his eyes on her every time she outpaced him and drifted a little ahead.
When they arrived at George's stockpile, she was a mess of tension and uncertain whether or not Draco felt it, too. She might have thought so before the Remembrance Day gala. That was why she'd kissed him, wasn't it? Because she had sensed he would gladly reciprocate. Now, though? She didn't know if he still wanted her the way he'd wanted her on March 18th. Had she been wrong and imagined his interest all along? Or had he changed his mind after her behavior in May?
"'Lo! Ginny!" George greeted as he noticed her approach. He squinted through the darkness, the light from a circle of bluebell flames illuminating him while keeping his surroundings shrouded. "Who's that you got with you?"
"Just me," Draco said.
George jumped as they pierced the circle of light, his eyes widening before he turned back to the line of whizbangs laying on the ground, specifically arranged for this particular fireworks show. He seemed nervous around Draco, which was strange to Ginny. They'd gotten along well enough on New Year's Eve and St. Patrick's Day.
He selected the next whizbang and slid it into a launch tube before igniting the fuse at the top with his wand tip. Then he stepped back, waving Ginny and Draco further away as well, until all three of them were nearly outside of the light.
The whizbang flew up into the air with its eponymous whizzing sound and burst at the peak of its flight, a dragon made of sparks blasting out of the packaging with a roar that shook the valley. It was so realistic, Ginny nearly forgot it was made of magic, and she laughed that the blob George had demonstrated on New Year's Eve was meant to look like this all along.
"I see you two made up," George said, tone serious.
The observation startled Ginny, but how many times had he tried to ask her about the Rita Skeeter article in the last two months? Now Draco was at their family's local summer solstice festival, with Ginny, and the expression Rita had captured on film was nowhere to be found on his face.
"All's forgiven," Draco said with a lingering look at Ginny that made her face burn.
Maybe whatever he'd come to the festival to ask her no longer mattered now that they'd forgiven each other for the way they'd both behaved at the gala. Maybe he'd only meant to ask her a question if she hadn't forgiven him so easily.
"I'm glad to hear it," George said, but there was a coldness to his words that Ginny didn't understand. Before she could think how to ask him about it, he turned to Draco, meeting his eyes at last. "Would you like to help me ignite the whizbangs?"
"Sure."
Draco didn't actually look sure at all, but he followed George to the launch tube and Ginny remained where she was, where it was safest.
Their mouths moved as George showed Draco how to load the tube and ignite the fuse, but she couldn't hear what they were saying. Call it paranoia, but all did not seem well between Draco and her brother, and she wished she knew the cause. The last time all three of them had been together, they'd seemed fine, which must mean they had seen each other outside of Ginny's holidates with Draco.
Very suspicious.
They came back to Ginny's side as they waited for the whizbang to launch, neither speaking while in her presence. And so it went, again and again. Ginny felt like an outsider, a third wheel. But if she'd been intruding, Draco could have sent her away as soon as they found George. He hadn't asked her to leave… so she stayed.
She was stewing in her annoyance at their secret camaraderie when a premature blast and a scream rent the night. Her heart pounded as she ran to Draco who had doubled over in pain and was now whimpering.
"What happened?"
George's face was pale. "I don't know. I guess it was a bad product. Got mixed in with the approved ones. Is he… is he going to faint?"
Draco listed to the side, and Ginny had to prop herself under his shoulder to keep him upright. Groaning, he held out his hand, and her stomach dropped as she realized one of his fingers had been blasted off at the knuckle.
"Oh Circe, oh Circe, oh Circe," she said as she tried not to panic. "The finger. We have to find it. Maybe it can still be reattached."
"Who's going to reattach it? You?" George asked, nearly hysterical.
"No, you idiot! A Healer at St. Mungo's!"
George began to search the ground in the limited light while Ginny wrapped Draco's hand in his own shirt to stem the bleeding. If Ginny hadn't had a full grown man—an exceptionally tall one—weighing her down, she would have pulled out her wand and Summoned the finger to her. Her brother was practically useless, holding up every rock and twig he found until Ginny could explain to him that his discoveries were not in fact human fingers. For someone who had also had an appendage blown off at one point in his life, he was handling Draco's injury poorly.
In the end, Draco was the one who found his own finger. He pointed his good hand at the ground and moaned to alert Ginny, who charged George with wrapping the finger in her shrunken shirt and stuffing it back in her pocket.
"What do I do now?" George asked. He was a total wreck, more so than Draco, who was the one with an open wound where one of his fingers should be.
In a firm voice, Ginny said, "You need to go through the rest of your supplies and make sure there are no more faulty products. If you can't do that by yourself, then you need to find Verity." George nodded at her, which did not reassure her that he actually understood a word she said. "Listen to me. This is serious. What if you sold one of those faulty products to someone today? You have to figure out how this happened. Go get Verity. She can help you with this."
He shook his head and babbled something about ruination and Verity calling off the wedding and she thought she even heard Fred's name in there.
"George, I'm sorry, I don't have time for this. We can talk later, but you have to talk to Verity now. And someone needs to tell Pansy what happened to Draco. Do you understand?"
He nodded again. "Yes. Of course. Yes."
Ginny didn't wait to see if he did as she told him to do. Clutching Draco tightly to her chest, his bloody hand tucked between them, she Disapparated.
By the time Ginny escorted Draco across the threshold of his flat, the summer solstice bonfires had long been extinguished, except for the one, she knew, in the Burrow's garden that would remain lit until dawn. Her family usually continued the festivities at home, eating and dancing until the sun began to peek over the horizon, at which time she and her siblings would either climb into their old beds if too inebriated to travel or make the journey home for a few minutes' sleep before heading off to work. The tradition was one of Ginny's favorites, especially as she'd grown older and her siblings had moved out of the Burrow and started their own families. Summer solstice and Christmas were the only holidays that she got the opportunity to see most of her family members for such a lengthy span of time, and she always took advantage of their company, like soaking up sunshine on the longest day of the year.
As she climbed up the stairs with a heavy man half-draped over her shoulder, Ginny wondered if her family had continued the celebration at the Burrow after the festival or if the aftermath of the whizbang mishap had made that impossible.
It seemed appropriate that Ginny had just spent the longest night at St. Mungo's at the end of a solstice. She wished she could have partied with her family instead, and yet….
"No more stairs. Here. Here," Draco implored, his voice deep with exhaustion and slurred from an extremely effective pain potion.
Ginny paused in front of the door to the study, memory slithering down her spine playfully. She was glad she wouldn't have to climb any more stairs or enter his bedroom, but the room was haunted by the ghost of St. Patrick's Day Past teasing her with visions of a path she'd denied herself.
She hefted him through the door. The fire in the hearth flared to life upon their entrance just as it had in his Malfoy Manor bedroom on Easter. Ginny got the feeling Draco was cold-natured or prone to chills.
He complained like a fussy toddler when she tried to sit him down on the loveseat, and she sighed in exasperation. "Use your words, Draco! What do you want?"
"My chair," he pouted.
Pivoting to accommodate his request, she helped him into his armchair and even lifted his feet onto the ottoman for him. Because she was just nice like that. Beginning at St. Mungo's, she'd given him a pass for whinging all night considering how much blood he'd lost, the nature of his wound, and the fact that her brother was the cause of his injury. If she needed to make amends for George's mistake, then so be it.
Draco immediately burrowed into the chair, his arms crossing as if he still couldn't get warm.
Ginny found a blanket and draped it over his torso and legs, tucking it in so it wouldn't fall when he inevitably fell asleep. She was careful of his hand, which was bandaged and wrapped in a sling, resting on his stomach. Before she could withdraw completely, his uninjured hand captured hers, trapping it on top of the sling so she wouldn't leave, and Ginny made room for herself on the ottoman next to his feet.
"Can you believe Flinch-Fetchley is a Healer?" he asked, a smile drawing the corners of his lips upwards even as his eyelids drooped.
"It was quite surprising," she agreed. Warmth filled her at the sight of his sleepy, drugged face, and the source of the warmth was not the fireplace at her back. "Finch-Fletchley is a bit difficult to say in your condition. Why don't you stick with Justin?"
"Good Healer, that Justin."
"Yes," Ginny agreed again, though she laughed, too.
Hours earlier, Draco's opinion had been the opposite when Justin had walked into the hospital room and immediately made a finger-related joke, which he completed with a strange gesture, aiming his pointer fingers at Draco as if threatening to shoot a spell at him without a wand. Draco had immediately demanded a new Healer, insisting that an insensitive idiot could not possibly reattach his finger properly.
Justin, the insensitive idiot, had reattached it beautifully, though. Except for a light scar circling the top of the knuckle and a little bit of stiffness that Draco would have to exercise out himself, no one would be able to tell he'd had his finger surgically reattached with magic. By a Muggleborn Healer using hybrid-Muggle healing techniques, no less.
Draco had been unconscious during the procedure and then high on pain potions ever since.
"Ginny," he said on a sleepy exhale. "Ginny."
She leaned forward to better hear him, her body somehow more aware of him even though he was her sole focus. His warm breath against her cheek, his bare skin touching hers where he tapped her hand for attention, both beacons that wouldn't let her forget his nearness and helplessness.
"You should get some rest," she whispered, trying to pull her hand away. He only held onto it harder, his strength surprising given the rest of him was liquid and loose, practically a puddle the way he slouched in his chair, head lolling to the side.
His eyelids flickered as if trying to blink away the drugging effect of the potion. Instead, he looked disturbed, the anesthetic he'd been given for the procedure making his eyelids close out of sync with each other.
"Oh, Circe," Ginny breathed, covering his eyes with her hand. "Quit that."
He was agitated now, trying to sit up and unable to accomplish it by himself.
"I need you," he said, his exhaustion-hoarse voice stroking all of Ginny's nerve endings. Every single one of them lit with pleasure. Her breath caught in her throat until he finished his sentence, "To tell Lovegood."
He was doing his best to make eye contact and doing so poorly. His eyes crossed trying to focus on her face.
"Luna?"
He nodded, his chin drifting further and further toward his chest. In a moment, his head would be too heavy to lift and maybe then he would finally sleep. "Right. Luna. Tell Luna." He went quiet.
Ginny leaned in again, waiting for him to continue. If he'd fallen asleep, she should leave him like that and then sneak out the door. Since he'd chosen this chair as his final resting place, he wouldn't need her anymore tonight.
But her curiosity gnawed at her. She couldn't stop thinking about Pansy's apology earlier in the day, her tale of self-improvement. It seemed impossible to believe that catty, snobbish, mean Pansy Parkinson had learned from the mistakes of her past and even grown to appreciate Muggle culture. But what about Luna? How could Ginny explain how well Luna and Pansy had gotten along today? As if they'd already been friends? Luna might have been desperate for a friend at Hogwarts, but she had so many now, and she was respected among her magizoologist colleagues. Why would Luna befriend a bully unless Pansy no longer was one?
And if Pansy Parkinson was capable of growth, did that mean Draco was, too?
"What should I tell Luna?" Ginny prompted, her voice soft enough to be a gamble whether he would hear her not.
He managed to raise his head all the way up until he tilted it against the back of the chair, and his eyes were clearer now than they'd been before, as if he was finally looking at Ginny and truly seeing her.
She hadn't expected his lucidity, and now she felt foolish sitting so close to him, crowding him into the chair. Her mind wanted to take that imagery and twist it into something she shouldn't. How easily she could slide onto his lap and straddle his thighs. They were practically that close already, only she was perched on the ottoman instead of his body. If she changed position, it would essentially be a requirement for him to hold on to her hips, and she would have to wrap her arms around his neck.
She shook her head furiously, just once, to dislodge her desires from this situation. It didn't matter how clearly he looked at her now. Draco was an hour out from a medical procedure and under the influence of a potion. This was not the time for her imagination to sprint away from her.
Draco reached up to grab a lock of her hair that had come out of her plaited crown after hours of dancing and wandering the festival grounds and sitting in a hospital room and shaking her head to rid her demon mind of inappropriate thoughts. He tugged on it gently and that slight jab of pain shot all the way through her, lighting her up from the inside, out.
"Tell Luna I'm sorry," he said, each word delivered exactly, as if he, too, was finding it difficult to keep his thoughts in line.
He sighed, his eyes closing. He leaned his head against the chair back as if settling in for the rest of the night.
Ginny felt the loss of him as if he had left the room. He was drowsy and drifting but lucid enough. She could ask him anything and maybe he would answer honestly. When would she ever have an unguarded Draco in her midst again? Anxiety spiked through her as she considered what she should ask, and she felt like a character in a bedtime story trying not to waste the last of three wishes.
"Draco?" she whispered. Truly, if he didn't answer her, she would leave him in peace. Ginny might have had a long night in a hospital chair waiting for Draco during the reattachment procedure, but he was the one who had gone through the ordeal.
"Hm?" he grunted.
"Why did you agree to go to the Remembrance Day gala with me?"
Holiday or not, the celebration of Remembrance Day was a celebration of Draco's failures. Of course she was glad Draco had failed everything he'd attempted at the Battle of Hogwarts and during the course of the war, but she had thought him too proud to put himself in a situation where someone could rub his nose in those failures. To him, attending the gala with her had never been a question, and that had only fueled Ginny's belief that he was exploiting their holidates for amusing stories. Why else would he readily accept her invitation?
He sighed, and Ginny didn't know how to interpret that exhalation. She didn't have time to analyze his every breath before he spoke. "I just… wanted to see you in a pretty dress."
It took her a moment to translate the sleepy mumbles, and then her cheeks rushed with warmth when she realized what he said. She leaned even closer to him when he continued.
"And I did. You were beautiful. Most beautiful witch there."
He could have shoved his hand in her ribcage and Ginny's heart wouldn't have constricted as much as it did hearing him call her beautiful as if it were true.
It hadn't felt true in so long. After months of loss and confusion from her failed relationship and declining career, after weeks of headlines pitting Ginny against Cho and the worst candid photographs of herself ever to grace a magazine cover, after all her childhood hopes and dreams had died… she had felt like a shriveled thing unworthy of light and destined to squirm in darkness. Like maybe being least loved and alone was her destiny.
Draco had only called her beautiful, but she trusted that he meant what he said—and not just because he was half-asleep and floating on the high of a potion.
Her self-doubt had caused her to think the worst of him. What kind of man would he become if she expected more? And what kind of woman would she become if she believed she deserved more?
"Draco?"
His grunt was guttural this time, just a sound. He was more asleep than awake now.
"Whatever you did, you'll have to tell Luna you're sorry yourself. I know you can do it."
He snorted, a short puff of air of amusement, and his lips curved upward into the softest of smiles.
For a long moment, Ginny considered staying with him, just in case he needed her, but her dress and skin were covered in bloodstains and she was exhausted and in need of time alone to think about everything that had happened last evening. Besides, he wouldn't need her. If she prepared the next doses of the potions he'd been prescribed to help speed his healing and prevent infection and set them on the table next to his chair, they'd be there when he woke up. His pain would be gone (In his finger, anyway. The pain in his back from sleeping in an armchair would be a different story.) and he could begin the exercises Justin had suggested to strengthen his grip again. He didn't need her. Not tonight anyway.
Ginny, on the other hand, was very needy, and she realized her reluctance to leave Draco's flat was a symptom of her neediness.
Since Boxing Day, Ginny had used holidating Draco to help her feel less alone on the holidays, to keep her from obsessing over Harry's absence at her side. But she didn't want Draco to simply act as a placeholder until something better came along, something real. She wouldn't treat a friend that way, and over the last several months, he had become something like a friend to her, at least until she'd ruined everything on Remembrance Day. Ginny wanted to be with him not because of how Harry made her feel, but because of how Draco made her feel. He deserved that much.
As she measured out doses of potions, doubt clawed its way out of her stomach and sat uncomfortably in her throat. She nearly dropped the vials in her shaky hands.
Had she been needy with Harry?
Her mind raced too quickly for her to gather her thoughts. She was simply too exhausted, too shell-shocked by the idea that she might not have been self-aware enough to notice whether she'd been too dependent on Harry—and if she had, whether her neediness had chafed against him.
It was a good thing she'd already decided not to stay because she needed time to think about this potential revelation and its validity.
However, she couldn't stop herself from tucking the blanket around Draco again and gently pushing loose silver hair out of his face. The strands were silky and inviting, and she wished she could run her fingers through it. The fire crackled and flickered, casting shadows on his peaceful expression, making him look sinister in sleep.
She withdrew her hand. And then before she could change her mind, she left the flat.