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A/N - A bittersweet one-shot.
Disclaimer - I don't own HP. Don't sue.
The Rewards of Virtue
They were neither of them particularly romantic by nature. Distrustful of strong emotions in principle, they did not recognize it when they fell into love – how, it was not important – and refused to acknowledge it when they found themselves faced with an unprecedented situation.
A Weasley, in love with a Malfoy.
It would never work.
Young enough – naïve enough – to believe that they could order their lives as they pleased, and arrogant enough to believe that their efforts mattered in the war, they chose to turn their back on wild passion, on the reckless belief in true love and soul mates. Pragmatic and sensible to the last, following common sense like a religion, they went their different ways, believing that they had done the right thing, and that they would soon get over it.
*****
War showed them how truly wrong they had been to walk away from love. As they fought, they watched families torn apart, men and women and children alike murdered indiscriminately, and they realized what they had so carelessly given up.
But by then it was too late.
Draco Malfoy disappeared in the very last week before the end. There were many theories, many varying reports – some said that he had been discovered spying for the Ministry, while others said that he had bolted with the rest of the big fish, fleeing to the continent before they were caught.
Whatever the truth, he was gone, and Ginny was left alone to mourn.
Such was the reward of virtue, and caution, and common sense.
****
“Was it true?” she would ask herself years later, old and grey, with her grandchildren by her knee. “Could it really have been true?”
It had been such a short period of her life, really: six weeks of burning passion, fumbling, experimenting, and stepping oh-so-cautiously over the great Slytherin-Gryffindor divide. Of course it wouldn’t have worked.
But oh, how sweet it had been while it lasted…
*******
“Do you remember?” he would ask her, if he ever saw her again. “Do you remember what we once had?”
Sometimes he thought he could imagine her there before him; see her, as she had once been, her dark eyes earnest, the smallest wrinkle in her brow as she concentrated on her answer. Sometimes he heard her on their very last day of innocence –
“Draco, there are more important things to worry about than our relationship. Once the war is over…”
But the war was long over, now, and it was more than sixty years too late for them and the discussion they had so earnestly postponed. If he ever got the chance to go back, to speak to her again as they had on that last day, he would say –
“There is nothing more important than love, Ginny. Absolutely nothing…”
Such was the wisdom of long, long years of life and loss. But would they have listened, then, on that day – full as they had been of their own virtue?
*****
Disclaimer - I don't own HP. Don't sue.
The Rewards of Virtue
They were neither of them particularly romantic by nature. Distrustful of strong emotions in principle, they did not recognize it when they fell into love – how, it was not important – and refused to acknowledge it when they found themselves faced with an unprecedented situation.
A Weasley, in love with a Malfoy.
It would never work.
Young enough – naïve enough – to believe that they could order their lives as they pleased, and arrogant enough to believe that their efforts mattered in the war, they chose to turn their back on wild passion, on the reckless belief in true love and soul mates. Pragmatic and sensible to the last, following common sense like a religion, they went their different ways, believing that they had done the right thing, and that they would soon get over it.
*****
War showed them how truly wrong they had been to walk away from love. As they fought, they watched families torn apart, men and women and children alike murdered indiscriminately, and they realized what they had so carelessly given up.
But by then it was too late.
Draco Malfoy disappeared in the very last week before the end. There were many theories, many varying reports – some said that he had been discovered spying for the Ministry, while others said that he had bolted with the rest of the big fish, fleeing to the continent before they were caught.
Whatever the truth, he was gone, and Ginny was left alone to mourn.
Such was the reward of virtue, and caution, and common sense.
****
“Was it true?” she would ask herself years later, old and grey, with her grandchildren by her knee. “Could it really have been true?”
It had been such a short period of her life, really: six weeks of burning passion, fumbling, experimenting, and stepping oh-so-cautiously over the great Slytherin-Gryffindor divide. Of course it wouldn’t have worked.
But oh, how sweet it had been while it lasted…
*******
“Do you remember?” he would ask her, if he ever saw her again. “Do you remember what we once had?”
Sometimes he thought he could imagine her there before him; see her, as she had once been, her dark eyes earnest, the smallest wrinkle in her brow as she concentrated on her answer. Sometimes he heard her on their very last day of innocence –
“Draco, there are more important things to worry about than our relationship. Once the war is over…”
But the war was long over, now, and it was more than sixty years too late for them and the discussion they had so earnestly postponed. If he ever got the chance to go back, to speak to her again as they had on that last day, he would say –
“There is nothing more important than love, Ginny. Absolutely nothing…”
Such was the wisdom of long, long years of life and loss. But would they have listened, then, on that day – full as they had been of their own virtue?
*****
The End.
LadyRhiyana is the author of 16 other stories.
This story is a favorite of 1 members. Members who liked The Rewards of Virtue also liked 36 other stories.
This story is a favorite of 1 members. Members who liked The Rewards of Virtue also liked 36 other stories.
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