Wednesday, October 18, 2001
Ginny walked two feet ahead of Draco as they made their way through Diagon Alley and onto Charring Cross Road. Draco paused long enough to take off his robes and stow them away in his bag, revealing jeans and a quality grey cardigan. Ginny wasn't expecting that.
She peeked over her shoulder from time to time, expecting to see an unsettled man shrinking away from the throngs of muggles as they crossed the street and walked two blocks down for Ginny's favorite café but was disappointed there too. Draco Malfoy seemed relatively at ease as he followed her at her chosen distance, smirking when he caught her peeking back.
She said nothing the whole way, her head held high.
They found a pair of seats by the window at the café and Ginny gestured for Draco to order first when the server asked what they wanted. He ordered a coffee – two milks, no sugar – and a slice of lemon cake. Ginny, hoping to see the pureblood scion trip up, mumbled out a request for a pot of earl grey and whatever their freshest scone is. She tilted her head somewhat to the side and surveyed the bitter blond, noticing how he took his coffee but saying nothing.
"It was weird when we noticed the first time too," Draco muttered, thanking the server with a smile when she brought over their drinks and snacks.
They sat in silence, Draco waiting to hear why he was sitting here, and Ginny looking for the words. She'd had more than enough words when she was whining to her mother and no shortage when Pansy stomped into her flat months ago and the two had the fight of their lifetime. Hermione had tried to talk to Ginny but Ginny wouldn't spend her words on her friend, who for everything Ginny had said in the past few months, had handled her petulance with grace.
Sometimes I miss the Hermione who would yell and scream and run off crying. Much easier to win when your opponent flies off in a huff.
They had argued a lot when the idea of rescuing Draco was first brought up. Ginny voted no, but her vote meant nothing. Hermione had the idea in her head and even when the fight to free Malfoy killed her relationship with Ron, Hermione could not be swayed. That she somehow perverted Harry to her side and Weasley's be damned turned Ginny firmly against the muggleborn.
But Ron was still her best friend. George still met with her for coffee every few weeks, running complex spell weaving ideas and potion combinations past the witch related to his latest hi-jinks. Her dad and Percy were still among her greatest friends in the Ministry. The only Weasley to take offense to any of it was Ginny, and her mother who was only offended on Ginny's behalf.
But the more Ginny repeated her slanders, the more childish they sounded. When her mother would echo many of the same sentiments, dismayed that Harry would consort with another man and that Draco would have the gall to show his face in public, Ginny could feel her stomach churn. It ruffled her feathers but for the longest time she was too angry to make sense of why.
"How are they?" Ginny finally asked, forcing herself to look Malfoy square in the eyes. He matched the look, wondering if this was some sort of misguided Gryffindor attempt at uncovering information.
"Harry is with my cousins today. You'll be happy to know that Teddy can't even stand to be in the same room as me," Draco explained, and it did in fact bring a small smile to Ginny's face.
"Hermione is surrounded in a fort of Transfiguration books, finishing up on an article she had actually forgotten about. She promised something to the editor weeks ago and he owled her yesterday saying he can't wait to see what she's arguing this time. So now she's more or less dead to the rest of us until she finishes a draft," Draco explained, enjoying the way Hermione's nowadays calm curls reverted back to their previously frazzled, uncontrollable rage.
"Is her hair getting ridiculous?" Ginny asked with a tentative, noticing the hint of a smile on Draco's face. He merely nodded and took a long sip from his coffee.
Ginny settled back into her seat and thought of her friends. She hadn't seen any of them since she declared civil war. She missed Luna and Astoria especially, but Hermione had been one of her first girlfriends and her rock for much of her adolescence. She was one of the few people who never forgot that Ginny still had nightmares of waking up with chicken blood drenching her clothes and the feeling of something slithering in her soul.
"Why am I here, Weasley?" Draco asked. He didn't raise his voice or have anything in his tone to suggest he was accusing her of anything.
"Weasley, am I? Noticed you use Ron and Hermione and Harry's names, but I'm still just Weasley, huh?" Ginny asked, her tone humorous as she delayed while trying to figure out an answer. Draco merely shrugged, watching as her smile failed to reach her eyes and she bit the corner of her bottom lip.
"It's taken a bit of getting used to but Ron's a good man at his core. He hated me when we were kids and for good reason, but he's been fair to me since I came to live with Harry and Hermione. He didn't have to. You've proven that much," Draco added at the end, his tone borderline spiteful. He tore a chunk of his lemon cake free and chewed it slowly, watching as the ginger across from him flinched slightly.
"I don't regret saying no," she immediately responded, her voice even and unrepentant. "I had been vocal from the beginning about leaving you in there to rot and not only did they ignore me but they asked me to be your get out of jail free card? And then treat me like the enemy when I hold my ground and say no? No, I have no regrets there."
Draco said and did nothing. He could perfectly imagine Hermione, so focused on her appeal, that she didn't notice anyone arguing against her. He could perfectly imagine Harry expecting Ginny to set aside her hate or anger just because 'it's the right thing to do' and be utterly shocked when she denied him.
We aren't all heroes.
"I don't blame you for not wanting to chain yourself down with me. I wouldn't have in your position. I do take some point with you tearing Hermione down to your family as if she hasn't been a part of it for years, but that's rather rich coming from me," Draco admitted, shrugging lightly as Ginny smirked. She looked up from her scone, torn apart to crumbs but no part eaten, and with a sigh resigned to the idea that Draco Malfoy wasn't a Death Eater. At least not really.
They were never exactly known for their self-deprecating humor.
"Yeah, well I know I've been a shit. Knowing is the first step, right? You've got loads of experience there."
Draco smirked and bowed his head, agreeing.
"Knowing you're an arse and pulling your head out of one are two different tasks though. I'm learning that the slow way," Draco admitted, suddenly remembering his gasp of indignation when Luna suggested he pull his head out of his arse during a particularly terse session.
Ginny couldn't help but separate this man from the boy he had been growing up. Draco Malfoy, Slytherin prince and pureblood darling, had been all cold, sharp angles and cruel insults on repeat. This man was less angular, less rigid, and somehow more pensive. Not so black and white.
"You're different now, from what you were before. I wonder how much of that came from your prison sentence," Ginny asked, conceding that he maybe wasn't the monster she had labelled him as but instead had grey matter to him.
"Things changed for me years before I was locked away like an animal, Weasley," Draco admitted in a low tone, looking around swift to make sure no one was in listening distance. "Who wouldn't you kill if it meant the most powerful dark wizard in the world would stop torturing your mother? What would you be willing to do if it meant getting your father out of prison?"
Ginny didn't answer, and Draco didn't expect her to.
"Hermione and the others were brought to my house in that last year, just a few weeks before the final battle," Draco said, shifting the narrative away from rhetorical questions. Ginny nodded, having heard all of the details from the trio and from her brother and sister-in-law in the months that followed. "I stood there, watching, as my aunt tortured Hermione. It felt like it went on for hours but it couldn't have been more than twenty minutes. At one point Hermione coughed up blood on the floor and it was bright red. And I had honestly up until that moment thought that her blood would look different from mine."
Draco was speaking just above a whisper at this point, his expression heavy with regret.
"I wasn't just stupid at 11. I was cruel. I made one of the most powerful witches of our generation wonder if she deserved magic. It's a fucked up twist of fate that she would decide I deserve more than prison after everything I put her and the rest of the world through."
Ginny nodded, privately happy to know Malfoy at least agreed with her. If she'd have been told weeks ago she would find middle ground with Draco Malfoy and find solace in that, she would have jinxed the messenger. Now it was a kind of tentative truce. She would never be the pure hearted heroine Harry wanted but seriously, no one was. She was done resenting him for expecting better from her and done hating herself for not being it.
Maybe if I'm lucky Harry'll fall madly in love with Malfoy. Now that would be worth the price of admission.
Ginny snorted at her internal dialogue, earning a raised eyebrow from Malfoy, but she shook her head and waved her hand, ignoring him. She waved for the server and ordered them a second round of drinks and asked the blond if he's been flying much since he got sprung, and the two started working to find mutual grounds.