November 2008
Wizarding London, England
Grimmauld Place
Wednesday
Ginny Potter was having a frustrating day off. First of all, she was infinitely pregnant and could barely breathe half the time. Secondly, her daft husband and all of his dark-magic fighting friends had come over last night to celebrate Harry's victory at the review board. Ginny was glad as well, he'd been so wound up about it, but nothing NOTHING was going to get the smell of cigar smoke and out of her kitchen drapes.
She'd shooed a very hungover Harry and Lyra off to work early with a sparse breakfast and absolutely no sympathy. Midweek shenanigans, like a bunch of bleeding teenagers, she thought to herself.
She bustled around the ruined room, spelling up spills when she was startled from her grumbling by a rushed knock on the door.
Oh what's this now? As if I didn't have enough to do. She was grateful that her mother had agreed to take the children so she could catch up on some things in the nursery to prepare for the baby. Another baby, what was I thinking...
There was another impatient knock as she waddled down the long corridor. "Alright! I hear you!" She called, annoyed.
She opened the front door and was presented with the handsome and almost contrite looking face of Draco Malfoy.
"Uh..." Ginny said.
"May I come in?" He asked nervously.
"What?" She asked, stunned?
"I need to talk to you," he explained, as if that made any sense either.
She stammered for a moment. "I wouldn't go this way. We have a ghost that doesn't like you much, you see. Come round the back, by the kitchen," She instructed.
"Fine," he huffed proudly and disappeared down the alley.
Ginny shut the front door still not entirely sure what was happening. "Marius?" She called.
"I am here, Mrs. Potter," the ghost replied.
"Draco Malfoy is here. He's the man who-"
"I know who he is," the ghost said whirling an eddie of sand in agitation a ways down the long corridor.
"Yes. Well, I'm going to let him in though the kitchen, please don't blast him, okay?" She said, walking back down the hallway. She paused a moment before adding "Well...unless he's being an awful little ferret. In that case, by all means. You know I absolutely trust your judgement."
"Thank you, Mrs. Potter," the ghost said fondly.
"Thank you, Marius," she said with a smile. She rather liked the family ghost.
She opened the back door and he pushed in past her without a word.
"Do come in," she said sarcastically.
"It smells like a bloody ashtray in here," he stated with a frown, sitting himself down at the long table.
Ginny scoffed. "I know that, thank you very much. I will have you know that your little girlfriend played a part in all that debauchery," she informed him.
He snorted. "Lyra doesn't smoke."
"No she doesn't. She got right well snockered last night and tried a drag from one of Gold's Eqyptian pipes. Almost lost her supper all over the hearth. It wasn't pleasant, but it was funny," she replied.
He chuckled and looked into the fire, seemingly lost in thought.
"What are you doing here, Malfoy?" She asked, startling him from his musings.
"I wanted to talk to you...about Lyra," he replied.
"Why me?" She inquired.
"Because my mother loves me too much to be candid and my ex-wife is...my ex-wife. Plus, you know Lyra and she respects you," he explained.
"Right," Ginny replied skeptically. "Get on with it, then."
"I know that she's in a difficult situation with everything that's happening and I want to help her. I know she's stressed out and I don't know what to do," he began.
"Break up with her. Let her date someone who isn't made entirely of red flags. Are we done here?" Ginny quipped with a sardonic smirk, bracing herself for the blonde wizard's venomous push back. She was disappointed, however, when he just stared down at her dining room table, looking crushed and lost. Oh gods. My feet are swollen to banana boats and now I've a sad rat on my hands. That's just excellent...
She wandered over to sit across from him. "What else?" She asked.
He sighed heavy and long. "Lyra overheard Astoria and I arguing and she said some nasty things that I think reinforced a lot of...insecurities that she has about herself and us. I cocked this up badly the last time and I want her to feel...I want her to know that I love her and I would do anything to see her safe and happy."
"Well...have you tried telling her that you love her and that you would do anything to see her safe and happy?" Ginny inquired.
He pulled back in revulsion. "Of course not! Are you insane? That would terrify her!" He exclaimed.
"And you know that how?" The redhead asked.
He snorted indignantly. "Because I just do."
"What have you done so far?"
"She asked for space last night, so I gave it to her. I'm trying not to push when I sense that she'd prefer I leave things alone," he explained.
Ginny quirked her lips. "I mean, that's all well and good, but where's the action? And most importantly, where's the jewelry? I mean, you've gotten me more jewelry lately than your own girlfriend and, frankly, Ferret I am appalled," she paused. "Thank you, by the way. They're stunning on me."
"So I've heard," he replied tiredly. "I don't want her to think I'm trying to buy her forgiveness. It's driving me mad," he said putting his face in his hands.
"Thank the gods you don't have any qualms about buying my forgiveness," Ginny quipped.
"Do you? Forgive me, that is?" Draco asked.
Ginny arched an auburn eyebrow in surprise. "How can I possibly? You haven't apologized," she pointed out.
Draco balked. Malfoys don't apologize. They don't admit fault. Why should he apologize? He had no memory of it. His proud nose twitched in agitation.
Ginny tilted her head at him knowingly.
Draco didn't compel her when she was little and he didn't remember blowing up her house but it was undeniable that his family had hurt the witch in front of him in innumerable ways. His father would never even recognize it, his mother would simply pretend it didn't happen. That really only left one person to own up to it.
He inhaled warily. "Alright you pushy thing! I'm sorry for blowing up your house and for scaring you and the Potterlings. I'm sorry for calling you Weaselette...as recently as last week and I'm sorry that I will probably always think your husband is a wanker, as related to the fact that he really is just a huge wanker." He took a pause and began again in a softer tone. "I'm sorry that my nasty father put a horcrux in with your schoolbooks that compelled you when you were a girl and I'm sorry that I didn't give a damn or even think about it until he did a similar awful to me and Lyra reminded me," he said seriously, unable to meet her eye. This level of honesty was so fundamentally antithetical to his Malfoy upbringing that he could practically feel his grandfather rolling in his grave.
He waited for her to laugh. To gloat. To reject him gleefully.
She said nothing. She was stunned.
They sat in silence awhile. It was getting weird. He was just about to stand up and see himself out when Ginny spoke.
Ginny cleared her throat awkwardly. "Go on...about the bit with Lyra," she clarified.
Draco sighed. "I want to be everything for her. Buy everything for her. Do everything for her. I want her to be happy always and never want for a thing. I understand that that is unrealistic but I don't even know where to begin and once I start, I'm afraid I'll scare her away," he mused.
Ginny cocked her head. "I think some of this is coming from you simply not knowing how to behave in relationships very well. Clearly you know her, but what are the things that you do that reliably make her happy, that improve her life?"
He groaned miserably. "Not enough, I can tell you that much."
"No. Stop whining. Think," Ginny fired, snapping her fingers at him.
He scowled at her for a moment, chastised by her unwillingness to put up with his bellyaching. "I can calm her down sometimes when she's nervous," he offered.
"How?" She asked.
"By talking to her," he said.
"What do you say?"
"Er...I remind her that she's not alone, that I'm with her, that she's brave," he explained.
"What else?"
"I heal her when she's hurt," he added.
"Why?"
"She asks me to. Says she likes feeling my magic on her skin."
"Hmm."
"I give her plenty of orgasms," he said cockily.
"Oh come on! Don't torture me with mental images of your pasty white corpse doing unspeakables to my friend," she protested.
"I make her laugh. Challenge her. Make her think," he amended.
"Well listen, mental scaring aside, all of those things you're describing come from presence. By simply being with her and trying your best to support her. I'm not a legilimens, but I read Lyra pretty well. I think what she's looking for is someone who is willing to put in the work and I imagine she's afraid to open herself up fully to you because she's worried you won't do it. I mean you love her, sure, but love without sacrifice loses trust and love without trust isn't the kind of love you can depend on. So why bother," she explained.
Draco was gobsmacked by the young witch's keen insight. "What should I do?" He asked.
"Tell her the truth. That you love her, that you want to do everything you can to make it last and then do just that," she explained.
He nodded.
"Perhaps buy her some bloody jewelry while you're at it!" She exclaimed with an exasperated huff.
He snorted.
"I don't know how this will make you feel and frankly I don't really care, but you should know that your relationship sounds pretty normal. It sounds like two complicated people trying to find a partner in each other. Expect that you'll fight, expect that you'll struggle and muck it up sometimes. Muddle through your bad days and appreciate the good," she explained.
"So that's it, then?" he asked.
"What's it?"
"You're saying that the big secret making something like this work is that there is no big secret to making something like this work," he mused.
She smiled. "I'm saying there's no shortcut. No way to buy success overnight."
"What about the jewelry? Isn't that buying it?" He asked.
"No. Don't you project that on to the jewelry. The jewelry is bigger than you are. The jewelry never did anything to anybody but sparkle and bring joy," Ginny counseled him very seriously.
"So I should buy her jewelry," he joked.
"Yes. And feel free to also buy me jewelry," she quipped.
"Right," he quipped, absentmindedly.
"Harry hates it, you know," she informed him hopefully.
"Does he?" Draco replied, perking up. "Alright, Potterwife. You have my attention," he said with a smirk. "When's your birthday then?"
"Eleventh of August," she replied happily. "When's yours?"
"Fifth of June," he replied. "Why?"
"Honestly? Because other than thinking that you're a near total bastard and recalling that you can be transfigured into an adorable rodent, I know practically nothing about you," she said. "It's weird given that we more or less grew up together," she remarked.
"I wouldn't say we grew up together. I worked pretty hard to keep myself stringently separated from the riff-raff, thank you very much," he replied sarcastically.
"I have to ask you. What was growing up even like for you? You were such a arse...sorry. I mean, you have a child, I have children. They...they aren't born mean. They're made mean," she mused, daring to poke the bear.
He frowned. "It wasn't as if my father was like 'alright, son. make sure you hate the following sorts of people,'" he explained. "I suppose it started with that I was taught that I was special, and not special in the way that all parents tell their children, but special in ways that would provide me with actual privileges as I moved through the world. First as a wizard, second as a pureblood and thirdly as a Malfoy."
"Ah," Ginny responded.
"The hardest part of that lesson is that it has, more or less, proven to be true, which makes it hard to give up as a perspective. You, for example, are a witch and a pureblood. Can you honestly tell me that being those things has never provided you with benefits you didn't deserve?" He asked.
"No. I can't," she replied thoughtfully. "I see your point."
"The problem is that somewhere along the line I picked up the lesson that special people were entitled to things non-special people were not and since I was just about the most special thing there was, I deserved more than they did. I didn't see other people as equals, I saw them as tools, I...I still do a lot of the time," he admitted. "It's easy to be mean to a tool. It's like it doesn't count. Like it's not real."
"Given that, how did you and Lyra even become friends?" Ginny asked.
He snorted. "I'm sure it will come as no surprise to you that I tried very hard not to be Lyra's friend and she simply wouldn't allow it."
Ginny laughed. "That doesn't surprise me in the least."
"I liked her almost instantly and then I felt guilty for liking her because she wasn't special. I remember thinking that my father would probably try and get Snape fired if he knew that I was studying with an American witch who had no money and no connections," he explained.
"When did it change?" She asked.
"With legilimency, actually. Lyra saw me. That is, she saw some things about me that I didn't like. I expected her to ridicule me for them as my father would, but instead she told me that it was okay. That I was normal and shouldn't worry so much. For the first time ever, the idea of being normal made me feel free in a way that being 'special' never had because it let me really connect with someone outside my family," he said.
"Blimey," Ginny muttered.
"What?" He asked.
"Er...it's just that you're like...thoughtful...full of thoughts. I didn't expect that...no offense."
He laughed. "What did you think I was doing all those years? Sitting pinch-faced behind a desk writing insults?"
"Well...yes? And making those Potter Stinks badges," she replied.
"Ha! Those were brilliant! I think I still have some at my Mother's. Would you like one?"
"Some days, more than you can possibly know," she replied dryly.
Draco laughed until his sides hurt. They had tea. It wasn't a completely terrible way to pass the morning.
