Hair Like Fire
Chapter 2: Embers in the Dark
Their relationship started off normally enough. A snide comment from him when they were passing in the hall, a not so subtle dig when they ran into eachother into the library. Both were slightly startled to realize that their accidental meetings were quickly become not so accidental and their insults not so abrasive. He made a habit of going to Gryffindor quidditch practices to 'spy' and she often purposely sat at 'his' table in the library.
During their not so accidental encounters they found that despite their different family backgrounds, their different oppinions, they had no qualms about speaking to each other. About anything – Almost anything. While they had no trouble telling the other about most of their feelings, they had an unspoken agreement to never talk about their feelings towards eachother. This made it particularly easy to ignore a shiver down the spine when they accidentally brushed hands or the sensation in their stomachs when they saw the other unexpectedly.
"If you're going to attempt to do something with that rat on your head, Weasley, at least make up your mind first,." Gah, this just sounds awkward. You know, when you put half your hair up and half down? That's what its supposed to be, but I'm not sure that's clear.
"You should be talking, Malfoy. You are aware that you look like an albino ferret when you wear all black?"
With this brutal honesty, they came to know each other in a weird sort of way. Draco knew that Ginny often tapped her feet when she having trouble with an essay, and Ginny discovered that Draco had very inexcusably girlish habits.
"Damn, it broke again. Do you have another quill, Malfoy?"
"Too poor to afford proper quills Weasley? Front pocket on the left."
She rolled her eyes and opened the pocket. A few seconds later he heard muffled giggles and looked over.
"Cuticle cream, Malfoy?" She said, barely suppressing her laughter.
A slight blush colored his cheeks, but always the Malfoy, he simply said, "You might try some, Weasley, as your own are sadly neglected."
As weeks and months hurtled by the pair, their feelings for eachother grew. But as their feelings grew, so did their ignorance of these said feelings. Ginny, being a girl had of course inherited the ability for emotion. But also being a Weasley, her emotional capacity was only slightly larger than that of a teaspoon. And Draco was convinced that he was utterly incapable of caring for any other living being but himself. In the Malfoy house, to care only for oneself was to survive. To love other beings was to die.
So they both denied it for a time.
When they finally realized it he was already out of school and with the dark mark. When they finally realized it, they did so seperately, without any inkling that the other had realized it, too. When they finally realized it, it wasn't a slow awakening or a gentle blooming of understanding. It was more of an explosion.
An atomic bomb lying in wait silently, harmlessly, until in the middle of the night he woke up after a particularly horrifying nightmare in a series of nightmares that culminated of her dying increasingly grisly deaths.
She gasped, wiped her hand across her forehead and felt it come back covered in sweat. An almost physical dagger of fear was thrust into her chest as she remembered his body lying lifeless on the ground.
And with sudden clarity, they realize.
She loves him. He loves her.
But by then, it was much too late.
