Sunsets
The morning that he was to leave for Kings Cross Station, Draco Malfoy peered into the mirror, eyeing himself distastefully. The bathroom, one of elegant white marble with delicate designs etched into the counters, was filled with steam, the glass having only a sliver of fog-lessness for Draco to look into. He had just had his shower and cleaned his teeth; he wouldn't bother with his hair, since for some reason, no matter what he did with it, he always looked, in some small way, like his father.
He watched himself in the mirror, the silvery arch of eyebrows over long-lashed eyes; eyes dead and empty, void of feeling or emotion--just observant eyes, eyes that looked and saw all. His hair was wet and mussed, falling onto his forehead in half-moon strands, framing his face and making him look paler and more lifeless than before. His nose, straight and aristocratic pointed back at him, suggesting a great form of authority; his lips thin, but shapely, a light pink color. Cheeks gaunt--a perfect indication of his chosen ignoring of food--sunk into his face, making him look deathly; as if he'd died weeks ago and only just been dug up.
His shoulders stood out straight, slanting down to muscular arms, toned from hours of Quidditch; his chest flat and abbs stiffened into slender, wirey muscle. Broad shouldered and narrow hipped, his ribs, yet another indication of his malnutrition, poked out disconcertingly, seeming out of place with the rest of his proportioned body. Though magic was potent, some scars never vanished; Draco ran his long, strong fingers across the raised bumps of marked skin, wondering over his imperfections, wondering why...
Draco looked in the mirror for minutes on end; to him, time was frozen and all that mattered was the person who glared back, eyes hard and stiff...
Draco saw his father in the mirror, and with one quick motion shattered the glass, falling backwards and clutching his bleeding knuckle.
He looked at the drops of crimson spilling onto the towel wrapped around his waist; how purity was so easily tainted, how dirty he must be...
Ginny almost tripped over her feet that morning, thundering eagerly down the stairs to the kitchen, where Mrs. Weasley was only beginning breakfast. She was in the midst of removing the curlers from her hair, the cucumber mask from her face and breaking four eggs over the pan, when Ginny stomped in. "Well, darling," Mrs. Weasley said, flicking her wand this way and that to get things under way after glancing back at her daughter, "Some one is up awfully early."
"I couldn't stand to sleep another moment," the girl confided, sitting contentedly at the table and looking out at her mother from beneath fluttering lashes, "I just can't wait for it, Mum; it's all so exciting..."
Mrs. Weasley, smiling fondly, took a seat next to her daughter, the two settling together as the eggs fried themselves and some bread toasted away, "It should be nice, dearie--for you, that is. For me, it's sometimes awfully lonely having no one in the house to talk to..." Ginny looked at her mother and frowned, opening her mouth to speak, but Mrs. Weasley spoke first, "I mean, what with Bill and Charlie off here and there, dropping in ocassionally; and by ocassionally maybe once at Christmas and on Mother's Day. Percy is always working and, oh! I just can't stand the thought of you all graduating, then moving out...getting married..."
Ginny laughed suddenly, and Mrs. Weasley stared over, bewildered, "But, Mum, you worry too much! I'll stay at the Burrow once I graduate--that is, until I get married. And then, you won't be lonely, either, because I'll have you plenty of wailing grandchildren in no time!"
The two shared a laugh, Mrs. Weasley glancing over at her daughter in glee, "But, Ginny, darling, have you found him yet?"
"Him?" Ginny inquired.
"Yes, him--the man of your dreams, the one who completes you, the soul mate, the husband..."
Ginny burst out laughed again. "Muuuuum!" she said, grinning, "I'm hardly off fifteen years old and you want me to be married already?"
"I didn't--"
"I'm joking, but Mum, I am only fifteen years old! You can't fall in love at fifteen..."
Mrs. Weasley gave her daughter a look. "Me and your father met at Hogwarts; I met him in my first year in fact, and by my fourth was convinced I was in love with him! After so long being married to him, I'm sure I am, and was..."
Ginny smiled, "But that's you and dad, Mum; you all were the stuff of fairy tales. Soul mates, that what you two were. Things don't happen like that any more."
"Don't be so sure..." Mrs. Weasley said, before swiftly brushing off the conversation, arising from her chair and continuing her bustling morning routine. Ginny watched her mother move about the kitchen for a while longer, just sitting there and watching the plump woman prance about, smiling small smiles ocassionally at the littlest things. She was, very suddenly, overwhelmed with an immense saddness. She wasn't sure how old her parents were, but her father's balding head and her mother grey streak and wrinkles were beginning to become tell-tale.
"Good morning Gin, Mrs. Weasley!" Hermione's voice echoed from the hallway, her bushy untamed hair poking into the kitchen entrance, "Every one had a good sleep?"
And so Ginny's morning began, busy, busy, busy, but with it's serenely peaceful moments, those times when you felt sad, and those times when you were happy...
Draco sat in the cabin, looking out the window at his schoolmates who gathered on the platform. Many were from his year, yet his view was not restricted to them only. There were the Gryffindors, brave and confident, hugging their families away; the Ravenclaws, kissing their parents on the cheek, pertly saying goodbye and being off; the Hufflepuffs, shedding too many tears and sharing too many embraces; and the Slytherins, formally shaking their parents' hands, before marching proudly to the train.
So many differences, and Draco saw them all, though his mind lingered elsewhere, the throbbing pain in his hand hardly being acknowledged. The gash he had received from the shards of broken mirror bled steadily, slowly soaking through the makeshift bandage he had created. He hadn't bothered to request the house elves' help. He didn't need their help, or any one's. The only point was, he was going back to Hogwarts, somewhere his father couldn't ever reach him.
There was a creak at the cabin door and Draco snapped around, looking at his previously unseen guest. He snarled, his eyes first registered red hair and many, many freckles. Then, his eyes saw the rest: it was the girl Weasley, the same one who'd seen him at Diagon Alley; the same one whose hair was not actually red, but a blend of copper and russet, tangled together in a unique blend. The freckles were speckled noticeably over a little nose, her skin milky and porcelain otherwise; and her eyes looking at him curiously.
"Malfoy, what happened to your hand?"
He caught himself, narrowing his eyes at her in hatred. "None of your fucking business." He noticed, with restrained amusement, that there was lipstick on her cheek. Her mother's, most probably. His snappy retort didn't seem to bother her, and that, for some reason, bothered him. "Get out." He stated this calmly, expecting her to obey, before turning his head back towards the window.
To his outrage, she sat herself comfortably down opposite him, eyes looking intently at his soaked-through bandage. "You're an idiot to not change that bandage--or to at least heal the wound. I mean, that's what we have magic for, after all."
He fumed, his heart wrestling out the first embers of a fiery passion within him; he wanted to slap her across the face for her insolence. "Weasley, get the fuck out." He didn't look at her; he was afraid that if he did, he would lose himself in something he did not know.
"Not until you tell me what happened to your hand."
He clenched his fists together, finger nails biting into the tough skin. His teeth gritted, and he found his emotion control leave him. Turning to her, he opened his mouth, looking her straight in the eyes, eyebrows furrowed in anger...Nothing came out as he expected it would. He had wanted to tell her off for her bloody Mud-blood loving insolence; how she was a disgrace to Purebloods everywhere; how she and the rest of her world were dirty and wrong and horrible, and how much he wanted her to die. Instead, his eyes met hers, and a flurry of emotions rushed into him, though none of them were anger. He simply lowered his eyes and said, "Get out."
"No." Her answer was just as surprising to him as his previous retort had been. Slowly, she brought out her wand, and Draco fell his insides churning with sudden apprehension. Would she jinx him, wandless and bleeding? Instead, to his fascination, she pried his wounded hand away from his body, peeling his fingers out from a fist and bringing her wand to his knuckles. She muttered a few words, that Draco recognized vaguely as those healing spells he was so horrid at, and the pain in his hand was suddenly gone. She let go, and he stared down at the hand; beneath the bandages he could feel the skin weaving itself together, sealing back up.
He looked back up at her, eyes flitting to her face, then away again. He felt that anger whell up, a fury that almost controlled him; a strength of emotion that he had not allowed himself to feel since his father had begun beating him. He wanted to hit her, beat her, strangle her to death...And yet, the moment he looked at her, ready to utter obscenities and begin his torment, he found himself speechless and calm. He frowned, looking away and slowly simmering to himself. 'Bitch,' he thought, 'How dare she touch me with her filthy hands?'
"Not even a thank you, Malfoy?" she asked, her voice still as chirpy and annoying, he thought, as ever.
"No."
She sighed. "I'll just be on my way, then," she said, unperturbed by his hostility, "Don't feel much like sitting with a Malfoy, anyways."
She was half out the door, when Draco found the strength to speak coherently, "You have lipstick on your cheek."
He felt her pause. "You're welcome," she said quietly, and then she was gone.
Draco was overwhelmed by a sudden feeling of loneliness, that the cabin was now empty without her presence. The anger that had previously grown in him now dulled to a faint throb, and he found himself regaining control of his emotions. 'What the hell was that?' he asked himself, frustrated, 'What the hell is happening here?' He thought for a disturbing second that maybe the Weasley wanted to be friends or something, but quickly dismissed the thought.
No one wanted to be friends with some one like him.
Slowly, experimentally, he unwrapped the bandage from around his knuckle.
The skin was smooth; not even a scar left to say that she had been there.
Ginny settled herself between Lavender and Parvati, her best friend Helen seated closest to the window next to Hermione. They chattered on about their summers, talking about clothing, tans and, more abundantly, boys--but Ginny wasn't particularly listening. She thought back to Malfoy, the way he had looked sickly and most disturbing, the way he hadn't even seemed to acknowledge the fact that on his knuckle was a particularly nasty gash. He seemed strange, this year; not the Malfoy she knew or remembered--some one completely different.
She thought of the dashingly handsome young boy who terrorized her family continuously, but never seemed to notice her. She didn't take particular notice of him, either; she had much better things to do than think of Malfoys. But last year, he had seemed so much healthier, and boisterous. This year, just now, he may have been rude, but definitely not his boldly mischevious self. She thought back to the last time she'd seen him...being dragged along by his father...
She didn't know why, but she felt a queer kind of compassion towards him; he was a mysterious subject, but she found herself intrigued. Intrigued, but not in any mood to follow up her interest...
"So Gin; you meet any nice looking boys this summer?" And that was all Ginny thought of Draco Malfoy the whole train ride to Hogwarts, though ocassionally she found her mind flitting randomly across him and the memory of his warm hand in hers, the hurt she had taken into her body on his behalf when she had healed his cut, and though that hurt had still deteriorated, the tingles of something strange she felt in the pit of her stomach, something she was more than sure had come from that exchange.
Author's Note: Well this is finished. I also finished Chapter 4 a few days after this, but I won't put it up until next week. And then there may be a delay on that, too, since I'm going to Quebec...anywho I'm trying to update this once a week...Yeah, hope you liked it, review:-)