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Eleven

The kiss broke, leaving her panting for breath. She opened her eyes slowly finding burnished silver staring straight back at her.

"I'm not just some toy you can play with you know."

His brows dipped in thought, but he didn't pull away from her.

"I'm not playing." If it was a possible, his gaze of steel heightened in intensity.

"That's all you've ever done," she snapped in retort, feeling inexplicably irritated.

"It's been an awfully long game then hasn't it?" He refused to let her make him pull away, it felt too good holding her in his arms.

Silence fell between them, sinking into the cracks and hollows of the small hut. They were linked inextricably to each other; they were both the opposite of one another, but also the reflection. They were made to save each other, but also to destroy, to love, but also to hate, to understand, but also to dismiss. However much they strayed never mattered because there was something – a greater power perhaps, or maybe just plain coincidence – that wouldn't let them stay apart for long, something always called them back.

That didn't mean she would just forget the past.

"Who couldn't you get her back? Why couldn't you save her?" Her voice was hard, but Draco could see salt water pooling beneath her dark pupils.

"I tried," he replied, allowing her to disentangle herself from him.

"You should have tried harder," Ginny insisted, her voice choking at the last syllable.

"I'm sorry." His voice echoed with the millions of times he'd said it, his blonde head bowed.

Something within Ginny ignited, a rage. Anger at his meekness, why did he not stand up for himself and his actions? Why couldn't he lift his chin, look her in the eye, and tell her he did all he could? Why wouldn't he point out the Harry, and Dumbledore, and countless others, were just as much to blame as him? Why couldn't he be strong?

"Don't apologise," she snapped, red hair flying. "You're not the person I once loved." With that she was gone, whirled out of the door by an invisible breeze.

Draco stood stock still, watching the door where she had disappeared. What had he done to insight so much rage? There was a lot he regretted, but he could not tell her that.

Should he go after her?

No, he sat calmly by the unlit fire, she would be back. Arthur started to whinge slightly from where he lay, previously asleep, in the corner.

Draco paced to the edges of the makeshift crib and absently pulled the baby into his arms. Ginny's last words ricocheted around his head.

She'd loved him once? Yes, he supposed, at Hogwarts, but he had thrown that all away in carelessness. In ambition. What had she loved about him though?

But how could she blame him singularly for Holly's disappearance? Shouldn't Potter have kept a closer eye on his daughter?

The blonde paced ever more quickly as the thoughts in his brain speeded up with indignance.

Yes, Ginny may own his heart. She always had. But she did not own his mind, and he would not let her blame him for everything that had gone wrong in her life.

Arthur grizzled louder, twisting slightly in Draco's arms and demanding his attention. The ex-Slytherin set about lighting the fire so as to warm the baby, but Arthur would have to wait until Ginny had returned from her stand before he was fed.

Ginny stalked moodily through the woods, not caring that she was making a lot of noise or that she was walking blindly and did not know where to go.

A small rivulet halted her progress and forced her to locate herself atop a boulder overlooking the stream. The sky was darkening slowly, casting misty shadows across the naked trees.

She glared at the stream, muttering. "Why did he even come back for me? I mean I didn't need his help anyway." She ignored the falsity of this, instead continuing to glower at the water.

Footsteps shuffled behind her, causing her to stiffen. Ginny knew who it was.

"You shouldn't have followed," she snapped angrily.

A stone skimmed past her to the surface of the water, and then beyond to the opposite riverbank. She watched without comprehension, how was that possible?

"Really?" his voice was monotonic, giving away nothing as usual.

"Yes," she exclaimed, still not turning around. "I don't want to talk to you."

"Is that all you came here to say?" his voice was not plaintive, it was commanding.

"Just a second," Ginny growled spinning to face him. But the words that were about to come died in her throat. She found herself staring at Draco as she had known him many years ago. She could only see half his profile because he was talking to someone else.

To her. Or to a her that was her, then. It was almost confusing enough to hurt.

"So you came all this way just to tell me that we're safe?" His tone was hard as he advanced across the grass. Advanced on a Ginny that she couldn't see.

This was the Draco she'd fallen in love with back then. He had been hard, unforgiving, ambitious… but there was a softer side. A side that allowed his to love her.

But it never stopped him from leaving her.

She scowled. And, before her eyes, the mirage disappeared, leaving nothing but dead trees and scrub where the past had been to visit her.

Ginny watched, wondering. Had she just imagined it? She climbed slowly down from the large stone crevice finally noticing that she wasn't entirely sure where she was…

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