Draco had been haunted by Rosalina incessantly ever since he had pushed Ginny away in the hallway. He could not sleep at all; he hadn't for the two weeks that had passed since then. All of his strength throughout the days came from the energy potion he took that became increasingly concentrated as the days passed and the normal dosage became insufficient.

He wandered the halls at night because he could not sleep, and did not want to waste his nights alone in the dark amidst the snores of Crabbe and Goyle. Not that they weren't wasted anyways.

Tonight was the night, though, that his numb consciousness would be snapped back into life. Draco could feel this in his bones, and anticipated release from the bondage of the apathy that stemmed from hurt and ruin.

One or the other

Draco thought about the excitement, the revelation that seemed to surround him and flow through him but that he could not absorb.

Something was going to happen, something big. something terrifyingly enigmatic; terrifyingly good or terrifyingly atrocious.

Or maybe nothing at all, maybe I just want release so badly that I'm starting to kid with myself.

Ginny lay in her bed, weary and sleepless, thinking about how to kill herself. She ruled out potions or spells, hanging, or drowning. She had been suffocated for the last six years, and she didn't want that to be how it ended. She decided that she wanted to jump; highly symbolic, jumping onto the Void. And the fall would give her those few moments of freedom as she soared through the air. It felt weird, planning her own death, but oddly satisfying. This was the one thing she could control. Ginny impatiently decided that she wanted out NOW. She snuck into Harry's room and filched his Invisibility cloak, leaving a note telling him where to find it. She snuck unnoticed to the highest tower, a place she had gone to for peace many times before. She would find peace there now, once and for all.

Ginny opened the door of the tower and stepped out onto her favorite perch. She stepped up to the balcony and dropped Harry's cloak. She magicked a brick loose and settled it on top of Harry's cloak so that it would be there for him to find in the morning.

Slowly she stripped down to her favorite bra and shorts, and stepped up to the balcony's edge. She reveled in the feel of the cold wind giving her goose bumps across her arms, her legs, her neck, and the tops of her breasts.

She climbed up onto the low wall that separated her from thin air. The stone was smooth and cool beneath her bare feet. Ginny took a deep breath, said a secret goodbye to her family, and leapt. In the moment that her feet left the edge, she felt a deep pang of regret, and her mind flew one last time to the image of a pale white hand caressing her hair…

Draco, on his rounds about the castle, decided to head towards his favorite place to think in peace. He was about to walk through an open door to the balcony of the highest tower at Hogwarts, when he saw movement. Ginny pulled off Harry's invisibility cloak and weighed it down with a stone.

Twenty-five points and detention for being out late at night, ten more for destroying school property…

His breath caught as Ginny slowly pulled off her robes, and then her shoes and socks. She was standing in a simple black bra and a pair of grey, black, and green plaid shorts. The colors contrasted sharply with her creamy pale skin and freckles, and her red hair that blew around her in the wind, giving her an eerily sepulchral appearance before the backdrop of a perfectly clear midnight sky.

Then she walked to the low wall surrounding the balcony, and stepped on top of it.

Draco wondered to himself, what is she…

And then his racing heart froze when Ginny jumped.