Author's Note: My exams are almost over! Just two days to go! Thanks to my reviewers and your encouraging reviews. Here's chapter 14 for you!

Chapter 14

Draco sat anxiously on the couch in Ginny's living room, waiting for her to come back home. After his father had called, he immediately apparated into Ginny's apartment. He wasn't expecting to be able to but he tried anyway and found himself in her living room and he realized that she had changed the wards around her apartment. He was gladly surprised about that but the emptiness of the apartment that greeted him left him cold.

What was he going to tell Ginny when she comes back? He can't just tell her that he's leaving her because his sorry excuse of a father came by to say hello and asked him to lead the Death Eaters for a useless uprise. Leaving her? Was he really leaving her? Yes, he thought to himself, but even he was unconvinced. How can he leave her? She's the only right thing in his life. Lucius Malfoy had to get in his way again. How he hated him.

I don't have a choice, he thought. If he refuses his father, he puts the lives of Ginny and the people around her on the line, people he had begun to see as his own friends. Except for that prat, Ron, he thought bitterly. But Ginny loves them, and taking away anything Ginny loved was the last thing on his list. Did he really care for her that much? Why was he so taken with this girl? He used to see her as his inferior; as a pureblood traitor; a mudblood loving, naive little girl and a year ago, if anyone told him that he and Ginny were the perfect couple, he would have smacked that person to hell and laugh. But now, that was he wanted everyone to accept and say; that they are the perfect couple.

Then he thought about the Death Eaters and the uprise of the Dark Side. He shuddered as images of the masked and hooded witches and wizards flashed in his mind. The Dark Mark on his arm had disappeared when the Dark Lord died but every now and then, he would imagine it stinging and then his blood would turn cold and he would be so immersed with fear that he wasn't able to move. Now that he thought about it, it happened most whenever he was in the Manor. He knew that something dark and evil was lurking there at the Manor, unseen and unknown of; that was why he never brought Ginny there; no matter how tempting it was to lay her on his king sized bed and silken sheets. He always checked the Manor for anything unusual or out of place but then again, the Manor itself had always been mysterious and so full of secrets. He never liked it there without his mother.

He sat there, thinking and waiting until finally, he drifted off to a dreamless slumber.

It wasn't until he heard a shuffling noise coming from the fireplace that he woke up. He looked up and stood up at the sight of Ginny brushing dust off her robes, unaware of his presence. Draco took a moment to just look at her, her tall figure that was curvy in all the right places, her fair skin dotted with freckles, her beautiful face framed by her flaming red hair. She was beautiful just like that. He smiled.

Ginny suddenly felt like she was being stared at, and sure enough, when she looked up, she saw the person she most wanted to see: Draco Malfoy. She smiled and quickly ran up to him and brought his head down to her face to give him an urgent, needy kiss. Draco hesitated a bit, but the heat and passion overwhelmed him and he kissed her back. He pulled her up to him, wrapping her legs around his waist as he held her by the waist. He laid her down on the couch, their kisses getting hotter and hotter by the second. How could he even think of leaving her when she kept on doing this to him? And then he realized what he was here for in the first place. He opened his eyes, and quickly but reluctantly stood up, leaving a confused and slightly hurt Ginny on the couch. She immediately sat straight when she saw Draco's urgent, panicked look. She furrowed her eyebrows in confusion.

"What's wrong, Draco?" she asked. She watched Draco's expression turn from gentle and confused to hard and determined.

"Red, we can't do this anymore," he blurted. Ginny's eyebrows rose.

"What do you mean?" Ginny asked, the hurt evident in her voice. It was breaking Draco to see the hurt in her eyes but he remained adamant. He needed to end this.

"That means I'm breaking up with you, Weasley," he snapped. Ginny gasped as her eyes widened, taking note of the way he had adressed her and the burstful way he spoke to her.

"What?" Ginny asked exasperatedly. This time, she too, stood up and faced him, anger and slight confusion etched on her face. Draco felt a pang of pride and respect for her. She was hurt but she was taking this like a queen.

"You heard me," Draco said. "I'm breaking up with you," he said each word slowly as if he was teaching a child. Ginny felt her anger rising. How could he do this after everything they went through? After the way she had defended him?

"Fine," Ginny snapped. "But the least you can do for me now is to explain as to why you're having this little change in attitude."

"I don't need to explain myself to you, Red," Draco said. Ginny raised an eyebrow. "I can't stand your brother's temperaments and I hate being the reason of your fights."

"This is about my brother?" Ginny asked exasperatedly. "Will it kill you to try and make an effort to get along with him?"

Draco hated that about her. The way she always managed to contradict him somehow. But then again, he also loved that about her.

"This isn't about him, Ginny. I just don't like the way our relationship is hitting off right now."

"What's so wrong about it?"

"Everything," he yelled.

Ouch. That hurt. Ginny fought the tears that were forming in her eyes as she swallowed the lump in her throat and then the most unexpected thing happened. The back of hand made contact with his cheek really hard that his head turned sideways. Ginny could see the mark of her hand darkening against his pale face but did not regret doing it. She looked at him through narrowed eyes and through gritted teeth, she said, "Get out of my house."

Draco turned to look at her, fighting the urge to put his hand to his face where she had just backhandded him. It was fucking painful. He looked at her with what he hoped appeared to her to be anger and hate.

If only you knew the real reason I'm doing this, he thought and with one last look, he apparated away with a loud 'pop'. Ginny took a deep but shaky breath and then, without a warning, she collapsed onto the couch, crying her eyes out. She punched the couch over and over, screaming. She took hold of the vase on the coffee table and threw it against the door, shattering into little pieces.

Meanwhile, Draco was leaning against the wall just outside her apartment. He closed his eyes, pain squeezing at his heart as he listened to the broken cries of the only woman he loved. After hearing something hard hit against the door and moments later, the shatter of glass, he briskly brushed the tears that he had unconsciously shed and walked a few distances away from her door to apparate to the Manor without her hearing.

That evening, Draco sat on the chair behind his desk in his office, a glass of whisky in his hand, trying to numb the pain he was feeling inside as he sat thinking. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately. It was inevitable. He had rebuilt his life little by little and now, it was crumbling back into pieces. He knew Ginny was beyond mad but he was glad that she was. That way, her anger at him would make her stay away from him and that would keep her alive. He sighed despite of himself. He couldn't help but think that it wasn't supposed to end this way. It wasn't supposed to end at all. He rubbed the cool glass against his sore cheek and couldn't help but feel a little bit proud of her. She was one bloody hell of a fighter that Ginny. But then he remembered the sound of her cries and screams, so broken and hurt and his heart squeezed again. He didn't mean to make her break down like that, he just wanted to make her angry at him so she would stay away from him.

He drained his glass and stood up to refill it but before he could, he heard a shuffling noise from the fireplace, he looked to see the form of a very curvaceous woman stepping out of the fireplace. Dark wavy hair, long red nails, skin-tight robes and plunging neckline that showed off her body could only mean one person: Pansy Parkinson. He looked at the woman in front of him and couldn't help but think how cheap she looked. Everything about her, from her thick make up to her scant clothing, disgusted Draco, although he was pretty distracted about that plunging neckline. He didn't smile or greet her.

"Draco," she said approaching him, her arms spread wide open expecting him to embrace her but when he didn't, she tiptoed to give him a kiss on the lips but Draco turned his head sideways. Pansy raised an eyebrow and shrugged, kissing him on the cheek instead. She then settled herself into Draco's chair behind his desk, placing her long legs on the desk and crossing them at the ankles, the split in the skirt of her robes revealing her fair, smooth skin.

Draco looked at her stoically, refilled his glass with whisky and after taking a gulpful, said, "What do you want?"

"Is that how you entertain your guests, Draco? Give me a glass of whatever your having first," she demanded. Draco relented and poured her a glass of whisky and levitated it to her. Anything to just get this little encounter over with so she could just go away and leave him alone. She took hold of the glass and drained it in one gulp, not even flinching at the burning sensation the alcohol caused in her throat. She set down the empty glass on his desk and smiled seductively.

"You've had your drink, now tell me why you're here," Draco said in a low, dangerous voice. Her heady, strong perfume was almost choking as she stood up, walking to him as she sat on the edge of the table. She pulled Draco by his robes closer to her so that he was in between her legs, running her hands over his hard, muscled chest. She leaned closer, nibbling at his ear as she breathed into his ear, "Your father sent me, Draco. Told me to help you loosen up a bit." She giggled. Draco filled with loath. He hated giggling girls; unless it was Ginny who was giggling.

At the thought of Ginny, Draco grabbed both her hands and pushed her slightly away from him, giving her an angry look. Pansy laughed shrilly, like a hag; very unlike Ginny's bell-like elegant laugh.

"My, my, your father was right. You are tense, Draco," she said, her eyes twinkling with amusement. "Let go of my hands, Draco. I can do better things with them," she said, smiling seductively at him. Draco narrowed his eyes at her and Pansy wriggled her wrists out of Draco's wrist as she jumped at him and immediately kissed him on the lips, running her toungue along his mouth to gain entrance, her right hand moving down to his crotch, taking note of the heat building up there. Draco's mind kept telling him to push her away, but his body was betraying him by responding to Pansy's erotic touches. He mustered all the the energy he had to push Pansy away and what he saw when he opened his eyes made him quickly forget Pansy was touching him and he shoved her off the desk, leaving her whimpering on the floor.

"Ginny, it's not what you think," he said quickly, walking to Ginny who was standing next to the fireplace, arms crossed and a fiery look in her eyes.

"Don't come near me," she warned, taking a few steps back as he approached her. He halted, feeling wounded at her expression. "I come here to convince you to take back your decision and to fight for us and this is what I get?" Ginny asked in a low and dangerous voice. Pansy, who was still on the floor, looked at the scene in front of her amusingly and smirked. The Weaselette and the Slytherin Prince were a couple? How unusual.

"Gin, it's not like that, let me explain," Draco said. He was feeling so helpless and guilty but most of all, he felt so angry with himself for giving in to Pansy.

"No, no," she said, waving her hand casually as if to dismiss the thought, "Like you said, you don't have to explain anything to me, Draco. I'm just so sorry that I was stupid enough to think that you were just maybe having some kind of brain delusion or something earlier. Obviously, I was wrong." She looked towards Pansy's direction and glared at her. She looked at Pansy with loath from her toes and up until she met her blue eyes. Pansy smiled sweetly at Ginny who raised her eyebrows in disgust. She took out her wand to apparate but before she could, Draco grabbed her lower arm tightly.

"Ginny, will you please fucking wait for a minute and bloody let me explain?" he pleaded but the look of loathing, anger and pain in Ginny's once warm, brown eyes and her set jaw was enough to make him loosen his grip on her arm. She shrugged him off roughly, causing him to stumble a little and with that she apparated away. There was only one person she could go to and know would understand her: Harry Potter.

Copyright of JK Rowling