Disclaimer: I do not own anything but the plot.
Summary: Even as I gaped in horror, Ginny emitted a happy giggle, one that I had not heard in years. How had none of us noticed? How much more to their story was there?

The halls were dark, and I depended on the solidity of the wooden rail lining the wall to lead me. Old wooden stairs creaked beneath my feet, signaling to the silent house my slothful presence. My feet shook spasmodically in the icy cold air, but it was the last, last day, and soon I would be back in my own home, toasty under thick, wool covers.

Swiftly sprinting off the third-to-last step, I landed with a thump on the carpet and smiled, proud of the silence it recommenced. Ron had warned me against Grimmauld Place – especially at night; the place was dreary, though, and I wanted something warm.

My hands sought the smooth tile wall of the kitchen for the Muggle-style light switch. Suddenly, a sharp pain smarted in my toes, and I hopped about silently, cursing all the evils of the world for forgetting my wand upstairs.

I caught onto the frosty texture of the counter and remembered the eerily recent incident similar to my present circumstances. That had been June, though, and it hadn’t been nearly as dark.

Excepting the previous night, I had not seen Ginny since June fifth, and that had been a night for the books. June fifth was Draco Malfoy’s birthday, and the mere fact that any of us – our rather large circle or Gryffindors, Ravenclaws, and Hufflepuffs alike – had acknowledged it as such marked it as the day of all things new.

June fifth had been the first time Ron had ever told me how much he hated Luna Lovegood. Ginny had overheard, and a huge brawl had ensued, but the main problem was figuring out the cause of his sudden hostility for the peaceful Ravenclaw.

June fifth had been the first day that Ginny had missed the Weasley family dinner. Molly seemed frantic in preparation for the festivities, and I later found out that Ginny had not been too courteous about informing her mother that she would not be present.

June fifth had been the first time that the Weasley family accepted that Draco Malfoy was a part of life – if rather unpleasant and overly prominent.

Six months after graduating Hogwarts, Ginny had been bumped up to the highest Ministry official status: supervisor of the Department of Aurors and Officers. I had been extremely proud of her, as she had graduated with no outstanding ambitions or practiced skills, and I was well aware that she spent strenuous amounts of time at her department, training and preparing her employees to be better than the best.

One year later, Ron had stormed into our flat, bellowing, “Hermione, who the hell gave Ginny the position of supervisor of that bloody department? I want him skinned!”

As it was, Malfoy had not been a definite cause of aggravation for the Order when he fought magical criminals, but after the news broke, he may as well have been one of them. Ron and Harry were so incensed at his relationship with Ginny, that he had not been able to appear at work for a week for fear of truly getting skinned.

I told Ron over and again that Malfoy wasn’t dangerous, and he wasn’t. I wasn’t worried that Ginny would die at his hands, or that she would go over to the dark side, or that she would come to any peril as a result of her relations with Malfoy. As the facts stood, however, Ginny’s heart was on the line, and the rest of the world believed that it weighed much more than her physical safety.

Nothing any of us argued could swerve Ginny off the beaten path, and the more we aggravated her, the more creative became her revenge. “I have to go now” escalated to “Draco’s waiting for me at the Manor, and I don’t want the sheets to get cold.”

On her twentieth birthday, she revealed to me that they had not even gone further than kissing – yet the comments had served their purpose, and, late last November, she had Apparated into the flat I shared with Ron, shrieking at the top of her lungs about the bloody nose my husband had given Malfoy.

I knew then that their relationship had escalated to something more serious, because she refused to speak to her brother until this past March, when I begged her to come celebrate his birthday.

It wasn’t her attitude or her deliberate disregard of everything we warned her about with Malfoy – his treatment of women, his many affairs, his public lifestyle, his dark connections, and his easy (and, admittedly, quite possible) refusal of her attention – but that she chose to trust him over people she had known her entire life that cut us the deepest.

After our meeting in March, she led a strictly reserved lifestyle. I ceased to notice the lack of her presence, actually, until her frenetic mother coaxed me into paying her daughter a visit on that fateful day of June fifth.

I Flooed quickly into their flat, shutting my eyes tightly. “Ginny, you and Malfoy had better be decent!”

A familiarly cold voice resonated from my right. “Honestly, Granger, the things you must think of us.”

Ginny’s giggle filled my ears then, and I looked up, sighing with relief at a healthy and happy Ginny. She smiled at me, weaving a hand through her wet hair, and crossing her free arm over her worn red bathrobe. Malfoy stood tall in black dress-robes next to her, a stark contrast to her small, plump frame. If this was all they did on any given day, why cancel on her mother’s dinner?

“Er, Ginny, I was hoping to have a word alone with you.”

Malfoy gazed at me appraisingly, and I blushed. Finally, he cleared his throat and turned to Ginny. Brushing a confident hand through a small strand of her red hair, he drawled, “I understand that I’m not wanted, Granger, I don’t need you incessantly pointing it out every time you spontaneously appear in our home.” And then, more quietly, he murmured, “Je serai dans notre chambre.”

I rolled my eyes, skeptical that he really thought I couldn’t understand basic French, and watched as he strode down the never-ending hall. Ginny cleared her throat then, in a way quite reminiscent of the way Malfoy had done it, and stepped closer, shyly crossing her arms. “Hi.”

I smiled a friendly smile and said, “Ginny, your mum is literally losing her mind in front of our eyes. Why aren’t you going to dinner?”

A scowl appeared instantly. “Hermione, you should understand, above all else, that what I need is support. I have risen occupationally to measures above and beyond what they ever expected of me, and I did it on my own. I have chosen a path of life that is new to me and to everyone else in that blasted family, and I’ve done it alone. And finally, in this seemingly insignificant, easily forgettable aspect of my life, I have made my choices, and I had to suffer their consequences alone. I want support, Hermione, and the only person to ever offer it is the one who has no obligation to do so.”

I bit my lip, ashamed under her aged gaze, and glanced at the clean floor, emanating magical warmth and softness even through my thick black boots.

Suddenly, “You are as ignorant as the rest of them, aren’t you?”

I raised my eyes to see amused shock in hers. She tilted her head carefully and narrowed her eyes. “Oh, Hermione.”

I grimaced, trying not to let her words affect me, but they did, and in that moment, for the first time in my life, I saw that I had been one-upped. For the first time in my life, I was facing a person who knew more than I, and who was more willing to understand, unlike me, the things that she did not.

“Ginny, this isn’t about your silly relationship with your siblings, or the rivalry you have going over who will last longer under pressure! Your family thinks that you have abandoned it, but I know you, and they deserve better than what you’re giving them.”

Ginny scoffed then, a big, hurt frown on her face, and shook her head. “It’s time for you to look at it in a different light, Hermione. Try to see that it is I who deserves more than they are giving me.”

Before I could say much else, Malfoy reappeared, long robes swinging behind him, and stepped into our little fire. He was about to speak to Ginny when he suddenly looked up and seemed to notice me. I stared, boggled, as he uttered a soft “oh” and then, with a simple glance, dismissed me. He stepped up to Ginny, hands playing with the belt on her robe, and murmured, “Il obtient le froid.”

I had never been a French scholar, but these were words I had learned simply through listening to my supervisors speak, and yet I was utterly confused as to what they meant.

Ginny grinned up at him, bright hair shining magnanimously with her smile. I glanced curiously at Malfoy, whose perfect, stoic face gazed in amusement down at hers, fingers weaving impatiently through the rough material of her belt.

I chanced a cursory glance at the scene around us, and was surprised to see the red and yellow coloring of furniture, quite a change from the black and gray tones that I had previously seen in December. I smiled to myself; Ginny’s fiery stubbornness was coming out.

I sighed. “Ginny, I won’t keep you, but this is something that needs to be said. Ron only wants what is best for you. I – “

My phone rang. I had bought it mainly to keep in contact with my parents, but lately, Ron had taken a fancy to dialing the number and speaking over the line, and I had a suspicion that it was him. “Ron wants to talk to you,” I said sweetly, extending the portable toward her.

She scowled, but lifted it to her ear nevertheless. “Don’t call me that,” she murmured angrily, and I watched as she struggled between screaming hexes at him over the phone and breaking the phone itself into tiny little pieces. After a few more minutes of listening to heated ranting on the other end, Ginny tensed up and shouted, “Don’t call me that!”

Tears were streaming down her face now, and I heard her sob with pain, “It’s his birthday,” before Malfoy snatched the phone out of her hands, smacked it closed, and tossed it through the air at me. I caught it with my wand, levitating it toward me, and stared with wide eyes at his angry, angry face.

His nostrils flared, and he extended a hand to the door, opening it wide and glaring at me pointedly. I lifted my chin and stepped closer to my friend. “Ginny, it’s whose birthday?”

She wiped tears off her cheeks and pointed to the blond seething by the door. “Draco’s. We were about to have dinner when you came.”

Overridden with embarrassment, I nodded and approached the door, calling, “We love you, Ginny, remember that. Have a good birthday,” I added to no one in particular, already on my way out.

When I had returned to the Burrow, Ron was pacing the living room, and the entire family was in an uproar.

“I can’t believe that you would think that it’s a good idea! Do you not know who Malfoy is? That bloody git changes women like socks! Ginny deserves better than that! He will hurt her like he hurt all the rest of them!”

Luna dug herself deeper into the sofa cushions, arguing in a small voice, “They’re happy, Ron.”

I broke in before any more words could be exchanged. “All right, everyone, calm down. Dinner is on the table, and Mrs. Weasley put a lot of effort into preparing it; the least we can do is go enjoy it. Ron, you need to control yourself. Harry, that snitch does not deserve the cruelty you are exposing it to, could everyone please just stop hurting everyone?”

And then I tripped.

That rotten snitch weaved in between my legs, and I stubbed my toe on a sharp projection from the table. Jumping about in agony, I wondered how much more than that it had hurt Ginny when she saw that her own family was not behind her. That was when I officially, however reluctantly, accepted the relationship between her and Malfoy.

And now here I stood, engulfed in cold darkness, waiting for the sting to end. Ginny and Malfoy were sleeping in the next room, and I carefully refrained from grumbling my complaints.

Convinced that a cup of hot chocolate simply wasn’t worth the effort, I began to make my silent way back up the stairs when I heard a soft noise. I walked slowly to the living room, and froze as I saw that the couple I had so avoided waking had, in fact, been up anyway.

A bright flush lit my face as I watched the scene with interest. On a crowded, transfigured divan, Ginny lay on her back with Malfoy sprawled somewhat half-way above her. Her hand brushed the back of his neck gently as he kissed up and down her neck and chest. Then, I saw what made my blood run cold.

Still brushing his lips over her skin, Malfoy gently lifted the bottom of Ginny’s nightdress up over her stomach, exposing a very small, but quite visible, bump to the cool night air. The arm rubbing her stomach bore the faded Dark Mark.

All my hatred, all my prejudice, and all my ideology slipped away as he slowly kissed his way down to her stomach - affectionate and erotic at once – and paused. He laid his head softly onto the pale, freckled bump, and his eyes closed.

Even as I gaped in horror, Ginny emitted a happy giggle, one that I had not heard in years. Brushing her hands playfully through his hair, she murmured, “Come on, you ninny, you checked ten minutes ago. It won’t just start kicking out of your sheer willpower.”

Malfoy looked up at her with a sneer. “It’s entertaining. I can hear your stomach digesting.”

Ginny slapped his chest, embarrassed, and then paused. “Can you hear his stomach, too?”

Malfoy smirked and whispered, “That’s not quite physically possible yet, but I’ll check back in a few months.”

Suddenly, he rose onto his elbows, fully covering her body with his, and began kissing her in a way I was sure Ron would not appreciate. Ginny giggled again, kissed his nose gently, and whispered for him to go to sleep. He nodded shortly and lay on his side, one hand still on her bare midriff, rubbing circles over her bright freckles.

I had to hold onto the wall for support when I saw the bright gleam of his radiant wedding band, shining from his finger for the world to see. How had none of us noticed? How much more to their story was there?

As I watched the two of them simultaneously fall asleep, I figured that she deserved nothing less than Malfoy. From what I had seen, he offered her more than any of us could ever dream of tendering, and if she loved him for it, he deserved her back.