a/n: i forgot to mention this before the prologue. this story is a/u. it occurs post hbp but ignores the draco story line. it is also complete and will have five chapters.
Harry had pitched her. He had told her that they couldn't be together. He had told her it was for her own good, her own safety. He had said it would be too dangerous for her to be important to him, that she would be used as leverage against him. He had not asked her whether or not it was a risk she was willing to take. He had not given her a choice in the matter.
She thought he was a fool. She thought he needed as many people around him as possible. She thought he could have at least mentioned the possibility that they would get back together when it was all over, but he had not, he had simply said it was over.
She had to get away. Everyone was crying about Dumbledore's death. She knew she would have been rather upset about herself if someone idiot hadn't superceded that pain with one more acute. As it was, if she remained in the crowd any longer she would be caught up in drying as many tears as possible, in reassuring as many people as possible, and in being as strong as possible for the ridiculous number of people that turned to her for everything.
She wanted to cry. No, she had to cry. If she had any say in the matter no tears would fall, but as it was they were falling anyway and she had to escape before someone noticed. The only place to go and be sure that no one would find her was the astronomy tower, the one from which Dumbledore had fallen. No one would go up there, of that she was certain.
Once she made it to the top, she settled herself on one of the large windowsills, curled her knees up to her chest, hugged them, and let the tears fall freely, crying as she had not cried in years. She was crying for more than the heart Harry had broken. She was crying because no one had followed her, even though she would have told them to leave her alone if they had it still would have been nice to know someone cared. She was crying because she was worried about Harry, more worried than she was hurt. She was crying because she missed Dumbledore. She was crying because she did want someone to dry her tears, someone she could lean on, and she knew they would have to get close to her against all of her objections and attempts to push him away. She had hoped Harry would make it through her defenses. Well, at least he wasn't giving up because of them, but she knew he probably would have if he had only stayed long enough to reach them. Who would be fool enough to pursue someone who, from all appearances, did not was to be found?
That was where and how Draco found her. He all but erupted into curses when he saw her there, sitting on the sill, crying like there was no end to sorrow. He had come up here to escape all the tears. He had come up here before he went insane with the desire to do something, anything, to make them stop. He tried to turn around and leave her alone as she so obviously wanted to be, but he couldn't move. It occurred to him that he had never seen her cry. He thought he had seen every girl in school cry publicly at least once, even Granger, but now he realized that the little Weasel had never shed a tear for others to see. The more he thought about it he began to recall her sitting beside almost every bawling girl and slowly easing the deluge, even some of the Slytherin house calmed through her ministrations. It also occurred to him that she possessed the same quiet strength his mother did, though it didn't always remain quiet. She always seemed to know what needed to be done and how to do it and more often than not the other students followed her lead, when she stepped up to take it, that is. Suddenly he realized that she had come up here to prevent others from seeing her cry, to preserve herself from their half-assed attempts to comfort her. She had come up here to hide her pain, to protect herself while she was vulnerable.
He remembered his mother's attempts to hide from him when she cried, trying to protect him from her pain. He remembered his mother's attempts to endure the pain on her own and knew that, no matter how much she tried to convince him that she could, pain had a way of destroying people if it wasn't shared. Hell, he was proof enough of that, wasn't he? He couldn't let Ginevra Weasley become like him; he couldn't let her defenses turn her cold and bitter. He had to find a way to dry her tears, but he had to find a way to do so without letting her know that he needed someone as badly as she did.
Finally, after what seemed like forever, he decided that, even though it was a bad idea, it was the one chance he had. If he could distract from her pain, replace it with indignation…it was the best he could do.
Mustering the most contemptuous tone he could, he added a hint of disbelief and called out, "Weasley?"
She jerked her head up and glared at him, not bothering to hide or wipe away her tears. She didn't say anything, just glared.
He mentally squared his shoulders against that look. He didn't know that she would have given anyone the same response and he couldn't prevent the desire to be honest with her, anything to clear her dark expression. Subconsciously strengthening his own defenses, he demanded, "What the hell are you doing here?"
She did not appreciate the interruption and was in no mood to deal with the Ferret. "Crying," she answered darkly.
He rolled his eyes, "I can see that, but why aren't you with you boyfriend? Aren't girls supposed to revel in crying on their boyfriends' shoulders?" He winced at his own harshness. At least there was no reason to fear she would think he cared.
She clenched her jaw and her eyes flashed, but was it from pain or anger? "I wouldn't know what girls are supposed to feel, but don't you have to have a boyfriend in order to have a boyfriend's shoulder to cry on?" She wasn't about to show him mercy even though there was no way he could have known Harry had pitched her, but…that couldn't be regret in his eyes, could it?
How was he supposed to know Potter had pitched her? He tried not to let regret for what he had said reach his eyes and decided there was no out but to press the nerve he had found. "Finally develop some sense and pitch the git?" he asked cruelly.
She hadn't moved and continued to fix him in an unrelenting stare. Pure loathing seethed up and eclipsed any curiosity about the depths he hid. "Yes," she bit out sarcastically, "I'm up here crying my eyes out because I pitched him."
He sneered to hide his wince at the pain in her voice. Genuine curiosity broke through and he couldn't stop himself from asking, "Why do girls waste tears on prats who are thick enough to fuck up a good thing?"
Disbelief crossed her features. Could he possibly be calling her a good thing?
He realized too late that he had just insinuated that he believed she was a good thing.
She still didn't move, but an odd curiosity began to underlie her pain and ire. "We cry," she began to explain, "because, once you've trusted someone not to hurt you and they do, it is too late to deny them the ability. To do so is to live in denial."
He waved off her explanation as so much absurdity. "It seems that you should count yourselves lucky to be free from any prick who would abuse that which has been so naively trusted to him."
"Yeah," she agreed with him, "and sometimes we do, but that doesn't instantly end the pain. It may speed the healing, but there is still a wound to be healed." She mentally shook herself and demanded, "What the hell do you care whether or not we cry anyway? You always leave the room when tears start to fall, whether you caused them or not."
He clenched his jaw against the truth of how many tears had been his fault over the years. He sneered in an effort to regain control. "I don't care. I simply find it disgusting the way girls fall for wanks who could never dream of deserving them and then pine for them once they have revealed their true colors, accepting them back more often than not."
She tensed with the effort not to stand and intensify the confrontation. "We fall for who we fall for. There is no explanation, as likely as not, for why we are attracted to certain wanks as you call them, and we pine for them because…fuck it. When you love someone, if it's real, and sometimes when it isn't, you are willing to forgive them, allow them another chance, because you realize that everyone makes mistakes, even me, even you."
He tried to sound like he thought she was a fool rather than honestly curious and oddly hopeful, "Maybe, but a mistake that hurts someone's feeling is one thing, a mistake that breaks her heart is something else entirely."
"In order to have your heart broken," she sounded like she was explaining something she couldn't believe it was necessary to explain, "you must first relinquish control of it and once you've done that… well, you don't have control, do you?"
He growled in frustration. This debate was getting ridiculous and would probably end up exposing his own rather fragile heart. "That's my point! Why trust someone with it before you know whether or not they're trustworthy?"
"And how," she demanded, once again getting angry, "are we supposed to know if you're trustworthy if you've never been given the chance to prove yourselves?"
It was his turn to sound like he was speaking to an idiot, "You trust them with a little before you trust them with all."
She was beginning to pick up on the fact that while she included herself as part of the feminine population she was defending he was not including himself in the masculine population he was condemning. "When you fall for someone you trust them with your heart. You trust them to protect it and care for it. You give them the ability to break it. Once it's been broken you have a choice. You can reclaim it, put it back together yourself, and then decide whether to take that risk with someone else or not, or you can leave it where it is, hoping he will realize his mistake and put it back together himself. When you do that, however, you also give him the opportunity to walk on the pieces as he goes about his life. It's the same with family. It's the same with friends. Anyone you trust, anyone you love, has the power to hurt you and the only way to make any advances in any relationship is to trust more than you've been given reason to. Just because you have fun with someone on occasion doesn't mean he'd be a good friend, just because someone is a good friend doesn't mean he'll be a good lover, and just because someone is a good lover doesn't mean he will be forever. There are no assurances in love and everyone plays the fool, but a wise man knows being foolish once or twice does not make you a fool. A courageous man knows that without fear there is no bravery. A strong man knows that without pain there is no pleasure. A content man knows that without grief there is no joy. Girls allow blokes to hurt them, to make them cry, because we hope that they won't, and you'll find, if you ask them, that blokes experience just as much heartache for the same reason."
She was prying to deeply into his eyes for any amount of comfort.
"If you care so little for the tears and pain for another," she asked, "and none at all for me, why didn't you simply leave when you saw me here?"
He couldn't believe his luck, she had provided him with the perfect opportunity to remind her he was a soulless prick. He answered as coldly as he could, "I had hoped to drive you off so I could have the tower to myself."
Her blood boiled. She finally stood and walked toward him. "Congratulations, the tower is yours," she bit out. "Thank you for making a bad day worse," she added as she pushed passed him to the trap door and the ladder down. She spun around when she heard his voice again.
He didn't know what made him say it and he wished with every fiber of being that he hadn't, but for some reason, before he could think, he had said under his breath, "You aren't crying anymore."
She didn't know whether that meant he had known how much she hated to cry or if it simply meant that he hated to see her cry, but there was no denying it meant at least one of the possibilities. That meant that he had purposefully distracted her from that which was making her cry. He had purposefully made her angry and defensive so she would stop feeling hurt and alone. "Unbelievable," was all she said.
He just stood there, unsure of what to do. Something told him that nothing he said now would convince her he hadn't cared whether she cried or not and so he simply waited to see how she would react when she recovered from her shock.
She took a couple of steps back so that she was standing just in front of him with barely a hand's distance separating them.
He flushed.
She noticed a faint white scar across his cheek. It ran from the outside toward his nose. It looked for all the world like he had been backhanded and a ring had broken the easily scarred skin of his face. She reached up and almost traced it but stopped at the last moment, catching herself just before she touched him. Lowering her hand, she stated more than asked, "You protect your mother, don't you?"
He almost closed his eyes as he felt her hand lift to his face and balled his fists at his side when she pulled back. Something in him had wanted her to trace that old scare his father had given him. It was probably the oldest mark he had from his father's cruelty. He didn't know what process had led her to her conclusion, but his response was barely heard and he answered in a gruff and defensive tone, "Someone has to."
"The strong can't take chances," she was speaking more to herself than to him, "they couldn't indulge in weakness even when if it was safe, even if there was someone strong enough to be their strength. No, they have to stand on their own even after their back has broken under the weight." Her eyes were clouding over again, but she wouldn't let herself cry. For once, she held back her tears to protect another, rather than herself. She had come to her conclusion, that he was strong for his mother, because of the way he looked at her, because of the way he seemed to fear anyone knowing that his heart beat like everyone else's, because his fear of being found, his desperation to hide, had the appearance of one hiding another, of personal sacrifice. She knew too well what it was like to be strong for another at the expense of your own heart. Hadn't she told Harry she understood? Hadn't she long ago convinced her family that she was fine? Her experience in the Chamber of Secrets had them all so scared she had needed to convince them she was fine to calm their fears regarding her. When she woke up from a nightmare she stifled her scream and kept it to herself rather than worry them.
He looked at her questioningly. Was it possible she understood? No! He couldn't hope. It would be too dangerous if he even hoped that she understood, that she would be able to comfort him without first requiring him to break down. He pushed past her in a hurry to leave her presence.
She grabbed his arm to stop him. When he turned his head back she caught his eye and held it too. "Draco," she said softly but firmly, "you don't have to cry to know the shoulder's there and you don't have to fall to know someone will catch you."
Again, he acted without thinking. Her words had an effect he could not understand, whether he could accept them or not. Before he knew he was moving he felt her hair against his hand as he grabbed the back of her neck and before he had regained control he had pulled her into the first kiss he had ever cared about. What surprised him more than his actions, though, was when she did not pull away.