Disclaimer: nope, don't own the books yet. Ok so I have copies. But I don't have the rights. I'd like them though.
Summary: So far Ginny and Draco have had the obligatory run-into-each-other-and-threaten-for-a-while scene. Not much really.
~~~^~~~
When Ginny Weasley returned to Hogwarts for her sixth year, she was wearing a Prefect badge, and held the confidence of many Gryffindors and more besides in the younger grades. She had shot up over the summer, and now almost towered over many of the other girls. Her long red hair, usually pulled back tight in a firm plait, was today worn free and flowed out behind her as she traveled across the grounds. The look in her eyes, if you were brave (or lucky) enough to stare into them, was one of anticipation and preparation. She knew something was changing in the air, and while the rest of the world was going crazy searching for Voldemort and his Death Eaters, Ginny would be searching for reason in her own life and the lives of others. She would also be searching everybody for signs of sympathy for The Dark Lord’s ‘cause’. She didn’t want a repeat of last year’s massacre…
Ginny shook her head to rid herself of the memories. She didn’t want to think of the terrible things Lucius Malfoy had done in his insane rampage through the school. Too many innocent students had lost their lives that day. Hogwarts may be the safest place in the Wizarding world, but it was still vulnerable. Ginny refused to be afraid of what could happen to her on her quest to protect the remaining students. She refused to be afraid of anything, and she had no need to be, not with Head Boy Draco Malfoy by her side…
~~~^~~~
"I don’t understand, Malfoy. How come -"
"Well you never were one to understand, were you, Crabbe? I want you and Pansy to leave me alone for a while. Maybe all year. Go find somebody else to follow around for a while. I hear Blaise is available. The three of you would get on very well, I should think."
"But there’s nobody else…"
"Go make some new friends then. Don’t you understand, you idiot? You see me as something I’m not, something I haven’t been for a very long time. I have things I need to do, and I can't do them with you around. Now get lost."
Draco Malfoy was seething with anger, a position most boys on their first day of their last year at school, especially as Head Boy, would not normally be in. But Draco was not a normal boy. And his current position was rather unusual. He watched Crabbe’s eyes fill with sudden tears, and continued to watch him with stormy eyes until the suddenly crying boy had left the common room. Crabbe had already lost his best friend the previous year, and now he had lost his idol. Draco pitied the boy, but he knew he couldn’t risk having Crabbe and Parkinson hanging around. They were too close emotionally to their parents, and Draco didn’t want any information being ‘accidentally’ passed on. He turned back to his scrutiny of the view from the window, feeling like a small part of his life that had been coming to an end for some time had finally died.
He didn’t cry. He never cried. His father had taught him well in that respect. Gin had once told him that he should be able to cry, and that crying was good for the system. He didn’t want to think about tears.
~~~^~~~
"Ginny!"
Ginny spun quickly, her wand in her hand, to see Draco standing there, gasping for air.
"You shouldn’t run so much. You’re just not a runner, Draco."
He smirked at her. "Well my broomstick is gone now, isn’t it? What else am I going to do?"
Ginny had almost forgotten that all the student’s brooms had been taken that week to aid with the resistance. Quidditch was a thing of the past, much to the chagrin of Draco, the Seeker for Slytherin House.
"I need to talk to you," Draco said once he caught his breath. Ginny sat down on the grass to listen. When Draco needed to talk, it had to be important. He didn’t talk a lot. He hardly talked at all, really.
"A letter came this morning. My mother’s disappeared. Nobody seems to know where she is, not even my father."
Ginny gasped. "What happened?"
"Nobody knows. But everybody seems to think she’s dead. That’s probably true. I wouldn’t be surprised if my father did it too."
Ginny was shocked by her friend’s seeming acceptance of his mother’s apparent death.
"Are you all right, Draco?" For the first time, she found herself seriously concerned about him.
"I’ll be fine. It was bound to happen one of these days. I wasn’t bowled over by it or anything. But…" His seemingly calm exterior faltered for a moment. "…I didn’t think it’d hurt this much."
"Draco...” Ginny almost reached a hand out to touch his shoulder, but drew back at the last moment. “It’s okay to cry sometimes, you know. Nobody will think any less of you. And anyway, nobody’s here but us. Your reputation wouldn’t be ruined or anything."
Draco looked at her for a moment. Why couldn’t she see? He didn’t need to cry. The only thing he needed to do was… But she would never let him get close enough. And the apparent fear of his touch that she still carried gave him more pain than his mother’s death…
~~~^~~~
Draco sighed loudly. That had been only one and a half years ago. And nothing had really changed that much between the two of them in all of that time. One day he would tell her how it was that he felt… One day. That day, of course, was not today. Today was the day every sixth and seventh year student prepared the grounds for a new onslaught of tiny boys and girls wanting to learn how to use magic. Wanting to be able to protect themselves, their families and their friends. He had only learnt such a short time ago what that felt like.
When the Slytherin door opened, Draco was surprised to see his mentor and head of house, Professor Severus Snape standing there. Well, perhaps standing was the wrong word. Leaning was maybe better. When the Professor had lost his leg defending a group of Muggle-Borns from Death Eaters in Draco’s fifth year at Hogwarts, Draco’s views of the world had severely changed along with a few other things inside of him.
"Hi, Professor. Do you need a hand?"
The tall serious teacher shook his head and slowly made his way to the closest chair. The way he leant heavily on his staff still slightly disturbed Draco. It was a reminder of the man’s humanity and mortality.
"Malfoy… I wished to speak to you. You have gone through something that no person, young or old, should have to go through. You witnessed your father’s insanity closer than any of us. You lost a lot that day, perhaps more than any of the rest of us. You really should be bouncing off these walls, screaming and yelling. But you’d rather stand there and stare out that window. …What are you always looking at out there, by the way?"
Draco blushed and tore his eyes from the beautiful red-haired prefect issuing orders to her fellow students; a born leader. He came and sat in a chair opposite his teacher.
"I don’t scream because I don’t need to. And I do yell. Sometimes. If I do, I just put a silence charm on the room I’m in so I don’t disturb anybody. I am fine, Professor. Maybe not completely, but enough to keep functioning as a human. And I haven’t lost everything. I’ve still got…" He felt his face flush slightly as he realized he had almost told Snape of his feelings for his one true friend who could never be more.
"You’ve still got love?"
Draco stared at the floor.
"Don’t let go of that. If you don’t have that love, you have a very good chance of losing everything. And so do we all." And with that mysterious final comment, the Professor stood shakily and made his way to the door.
"Professor!" Draco called out to him, not taking his eyes from the floor. "…Thank you."
Snape looked at the boy on whose shoulders the fate of the entire world would rest.
Why him?, he thought to himself. He’s too young yet…
~~~^~~~
"Come to the Yule Ball with me?"
Ginny had not been prepared for that. "What?"
Draco shrugged, attempting to appear as nonchalant as possible. "It’s fine if you don’t want to. I’m sure I won't have any trouble finding a girl who does. I just thought it could give us a chance to get to know each other better. Since we’re friends now and all. Besides, it might take your mind off…" His voice trailed off as he realized he shouldn’t have opened his big mouth.
"It might take my mind off my father?" Ginny’s face had hardened. But after sizing him up for a moment, she smiled gently. “Why not? But just as friends, mind you."
Draco managed a snort. "What else? I don’t think of you as anything else, Weasley." It was the hardest lie he'd ever had to tell.
"I, uh, don’t have anything to wear though, and I can’t get something from Hogsmeade anymore." Passes out had been cancelled after a Death Eater was caught stalking a Muggle-born third year two months ago.
"Come up to the Slytherin Tower tomorrow night at 10. I might have something that would suit."
Ginny never thought to ask why he would have girls’ clothes. But she never thought to ask him a lot of questions that maybe she should have.
The next night Ginny ‘borrowed’ Harry’s invisibility cloak and sneaked out of the Gryffindor Tower. She still didn’t want her brother or his friends to know about her growing friendship with their ‘mortal enemy’. She knew Ron would probably challenge Draco to a duel or something equally silly and get himself injured, and that would be the end of it. Well, she was fourteen now and quite old enough to make decisions of her own. …Most of the time.
When she got to Slytherin House, she saw Draco leaning casually against the wall. Well, at first it looked as if it was casual. But the invisibility cloak gave Ginny the wonderfully useful ability to come right up to Draco without him knowing about it. So she did. His eyes were open, fixed on the corridor that she had just come from. His brow was knotted, and his lips were tight. Ginny realized with slight surprise that Draco Malfoy was biting his lip. Draco Malfoy was nervous. Yet another thing she had noticed that year in the strangely changed Malfoy.
She quietly headed back down around the corner, slid the cloak over her head, hid it carefully in a niche in the wall and quickly headed towards Draco. He stood up straight, his arms still folded across his broad chest.
"You’re late, Weasley."
Ginny frowned, hands on her hips. "You know I really wish you wouldn’t call me that. I have a name. Learn it."
He smirked. "Well excuse me Miss Ginevra. I’ll try not to offend you again. Tonight, at east." He sneered wickedly at her, and for some reason Ginny’s heart skipped a beat.
"Come on in, I’ll get you the dress."
The success of the previous year’s Yule Ball with Durmstrang and Beauxbaton had sparked the idea with Dumbledore to repeat the morale-improving event every year, especially after the tragedy of the recent battle in London. The battle where Professor Snape lost his leg. The battle in which Ginny’s father had been killed.
The Slytherin Common Room was empty when Draco brought Ginny into it, the first Gryffindor welcomed into Slytherin Tower in the entire history of Hogwarts. Draco knew this, and the faint smile playing on his lips betrayed his thoughts to the girl at his side.
"Look Malfoy, I don’t want to be here any more than you want me in here. I’m not really in the mood for sanctity breaking or whatever. Do you have something to show me or not?"
"Impatient aren’t we, Miss Ginevra?"
"Stop calling me that. Just call me Ginny like everybody else."
Draco looked at her for a moment. "All right… Ginny." Saying her nickname to her face like that, he had to use a great deal of self-control not to grab her and kiss her… He quickly turned away and picked up a beautiful green satin dress from the table.
"I don’t know if it’ll fit you or anything," he lied. He had magically created the dress that morning to always fit her exactly. After watching her for months without daring to touch her, he knew every curve of her body.
Ginny gasped. "Where did you get this?"
"It used to be my mother’s." It wasn’t that much of a lie really. His mother had taught him the spell after all.
"Your mother’s too tall for this!"
Draco shrugged. "She wasn’t always. This was her favourite dress when she was at Hogwarts. She lent it to me last year, Just in case I find somebody who…" he coughed lightly. "Well. I just hope it fits."
She held it up against herself. "Thank you Draco," she smiled. "I’m sure it will." And then she hugged him. He closed his eyes and breathed in her scent. Ginny wasn’t wearing a perfume, but somehow she smelled just like wildflowers. He slid his arms around her waist, holding her tight against him. He would have stayed like that forever if she had let him, but she slipped deftly out of his embrace. She smiled at him once more, but this new smile seemed less comfortable, less friendly than the first smile. It was almost as if she was suddenly… not afraid of him… but not quite so comfortable around him anymore. With that smile Draco felt a part of him fall away, and his attitude became colder and more like the old Draco.
"You should leave. Take the dress with you. If it doesn’t fit, just… give it back to me if you want. Otherwise I will see you around."
And Ginny fled.
~~~^~~~
Ginny sat by the lake, the darkening sky above her starting to show pinpoints of stars. She wondered why that particular memory had come back to her. She remembered that Yule Ball of course. It was the first time anybody had seen the two of them together. Everybody had jumped to the wrong conclusion of course. They always did. And nobody had been happy about it. Except perhaps professors Dumbledore and McGonagall, and altogether possibly Snape. But they had just been happy that Ginny wasn’t completely and utterly focusing on her father’s murder…
"Boo," a quiet voice whispered in her ear. Ginny jumped, and Draco laughed.
"Jumpy miss," he said fondly, dumping himself down beside her on the grass. "It never ceases to amuse me how easily you can be startled."
"Yes, well, I wish you wouldn’t. I was thinking about something and you pulled me quite suddenly from my thoughts. You know how I feel about being disturbed."
Draco laughed again. "You’re always disturbed, Gin. What were you thinking about?"
She blushed. "Nothing." For some reason, she didn’t really want Draco knowing she was thinking about their past. It wasn’t all chocolate frogs after all. Quite a bit had actually been a lot more like Bertie Bott’s every flavour beans… There’d been the amazingly good times, the times where one or the other was in mortal danger and the other was sick with worry, there were the uncomfortable times, and of course there had been those two weeks after that Yule Ball…
"Hah! Nobody blushes over nothing, especially you." But he didn’t push the matter. He’d quickly learned over the past few years that you didn’t push Ginny Weasley. She pushed back twice as strong. It was one of the things he had come to love about her.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, watching the sky grow darker and lights inside Hogwarts appear. Ginny leant her head on Draco’s shoulder, and a moment later he placed his arm lightly around her. The two of them would often sit out by the lake watching sunsets or sunrises, students playing or students studying, sometimes even students… well. Their friendship had reached that level of closeness where you could lie in each other’s laps without thought of anything more. At least that was how it was for Ginny.
Draco could hardly keep himself from pulling her into a passionate embrace and kissing her for hours. But somehow he managed to keep control. He had been taught self-control all his life, to hide his true emotions and only show the person you wanted them to see. But then, his father had taught him these things. And look where it had gotten him. Draco tried not to think of Azkaban and the Dementors too much, but sometimes it was the only thing in his mind.
As he sat there by the lake with the love of his life in his arms, Draco Malfoy wondered (and not for the first time) what Ginny would do if he kissed her.
~~~^~~~
Coming soon, chapter III - Pain
Featuring the forging of the friendship... and not much else...
Summary: So far Ginny and Draco have had the obligatory run-into-each-other-and-threaten-for-a-while scene. Not much really.
When Ginny Weasley returned to Hogwarts for her sixth year, she was wearing a Prefect badge, and held the confidence of many Gryffindors and more besides in the younger grades. She had shot up over the summer, and now almost towered over many of the other girls. Her long red hair, usually pulled back tight in a firm plait, was today worn free and flowed out behind her as she traveled across the grounds. The look in her eyes, if you were brave (or lucky) enough to stare into them, was one of anticipation and preparation. She knew something was changing in the air, and while the rest of the world was going crazy searching for Voldemort and his Death Eaters, Ginny would be searching for reason in her own life and the lives of others. She would also be searching everybody for signs of sympathy for The Dark Lord’s ‘cause’. She didn’t want a repeat of last year’s massacre…
Ginny shook her head to rid herself of the memories. She didn’t want to think of the terrible things Lucius Malfoy had done in his insane rampage through the school. Too many innocent students had lost their lives that day. Hogwarts may be the safest place in the Wizarding world, but it was still vulnerable. Ginny refused to be afraid of what could happen to her on her quest to protect the remaining students. She refused to be afraid of anything, and she had no need to be, not with Head Boy Draco Malfoy by her side…
"I don’t understand, Malfoy. How come -"
"Well you never were one to understand, were you, Crabbe? I want you and Pansy to leave me alone for a while. Maybe all year. Go find somebody else to follow around for a while. I hear Blaise is available. The three of you would get on very well, I should think."
"But there’s nobody else…"
"Go make some new friends then. Don’t you understand, you idiot? You see me as something I’m not, something I haven’t been for a very long time. I have things I need to do, and I can't do them with you around. Now get lost."
Draco Malfoy was seething with anger, a position most boys on their first day of their last year at school, especially as Head Boy, would not normally be in. But Draco was not a normal boy. And his current position was rather unusual. He watched Crabbe’s eyes fill with sudden tears, and continued to watch him with stormy eyes until the suddenly crying boy had left the common room. Crabbe had already lost his best friend the previous year, and now he had lost his idol. Draco pitied the boy, but he knew he couldn’t risk having Crabbe and Parkinson hanging around. They were too close emotionally to their parents, and Draco didn’t want any information being ‘accidentally’ passed on. He turned back to his scrutiny of the view from the window, feeling like a small part of his life that had been coming to an end for some time had finally died.
He didn’t cry. He never cried. His father had taught him well in that respect. Gin had once told him that he should be able to cry, and that crying was good for the system. He didn’t want to think about tears.
"Ginny!"
Ginny spun quickly, her wand in her hand, to see Draco standing there, gasping for air.
"You shouldn’t run so much. You’re just not a runner, Draco."
He smirked at her. "Well my broomstick is gone now, isn’t it? What else am I going to do?"
Ginny had almost forgotten that all the student’s brooms had been taken that week to aid with the resistance. Quidditch was a thing of the past, much to the chagrin of Draco, the Seeker for Slytherin House.
"I need to talk to you," Draco said once he caught his breath. Ginny sat down on the grass to listen. When Draco needed to talk, it had to be important. He didn’t talk a lot. He hardly talked at all, really.
"A letter came this morning. My mother’s disappeared. Nobody seems to know where she is, not even my father."
Ginny gasped. "What happened?"
"Nobody knows. But everybody seems to think she’s dead. That’s probably true. I wouldn’t be surprised if my father did it too."
Ginny was shocked by her friend’s seeming acceptance of his mother’s apparent death.
"Are you all right, Draco?" For the first time, she found herself seriously concerned about him.
"I’ll be fine. It was bound to happen one of these days. I wasn’t bowled over by it or anything. But…" His seemingly calm exterior faltered for a moment. "…I didn’t think it’d hurt this much."
"Draco...” Ginny almost reached a hand out to touch his shoulder, but drew back at the last moment. “It’s okay to cry sometimes, you know. Nobody will think any less of you. And anyway, nobody’s here but us. Your reputation wouldn’t be ruined or anything."
Draco looked at her for a moment. Why couldn’t she see? He didn’t need to cry. The only thing he needed to do was… But she would never let him get close enough. And the apparent fear of his touch that she still carried gave him more pain than his mother’s death…
Draco sighed loudly. That had been only one and a half years ago. And nothing had really changed that much between the two of them in all of that time. One day he would tell her how it was that he felt… One day. That day, of course, was not today. Today was the day every sixth and seventh year student prepared the grounds for a new onslaught of tiny boys and girls wanting to learn how to use magic. Wanting to be able to protect themselves, their families and their friends. He had only learnt such a short time ago what that felt like.
When the Slytherin door opened, Draco was surprised to see his mentor and head of house, Professor Severus Snape standing there. Well, perhaps standing was the wrong word. Leaning was maybe better. When the Professor had lost his leg defending a group of Muggle-Borns from Death Eaters in Draco’s fifth year at Hogwarts, Draco’s views of the world had severely changed along with a few other things inside of him.
"Hi, Professor. Do you need a hand?"
The tall serious teacher shook his head and slowly made his way to the closest chair. The way he leant heavily on his staff still slightly disturbed Draco. It was a reminder of the man’s humanity and mortality.
"Malfoy… I wished to speak to you. You have gone through something that no person, young or old, should have to go through. You witnessed your father’s insanity closer than any of us. You lost a lot that day, perhaps more than any of the rest of us. You really should be bouncing off these walls, screaming and yelling. But you’d rather stand there and stare out that window. …What are you always looking at out there, by the way?"
Draco blushed and tore his eyes from the beautiful red-haired prefect issuing orders to her fellow students; a born leader. He came and sat in a chair opposite his teacher.
"I don’t scream because I don’t need to. And I do yell. Sometimes. If I do, I just put a silence charm on the room I’m in so I don’t disturb anybody. I am fine, Professor. Maybe not completely, but enough to keep functioning as a human. And I haven’t lost everything. I’ve still got…" He felt his face flush slightly as he realized he had almost told Snape of his feelings for his one true friend who could never be more.
"You’ve still got love?"
Draco stared at the floor.
"Don’t let go of that. If you don’t have that love, you have a very good chance of losing everything. And so do we all." And with that mysterious final comment, the Professor stood shakily and made his way to the door.
"Professor!" Draco called out to him, not taking his eyes from the floor. "…Thank you."
Snape looked at the boy on whose shoulders the fate of the entire world would rest.
Why him?, he thought to himself. He’s too young yet…
"Come to the Yule Ball with me?"
Ginny had not been prepared for that. "What?"
Draco shrugged, attempting to appear as nonchalant as possible. "It’s fine if you don’t want to. I’m sure I won't have any trouble finding a girl who does. I just thought it could give us a chance to get to know each other better. Since we’re friends now and all. Besides, it might take your mind off…" His voice trailed off as he realized he shouldn’t have opened his big mouth.
"It might take my mind off my father?" Ginny’s face had hardened. But after sizing him up for a moment, she smiled gently. “Why not? But just as friends, mind you."
Draco managed a snort. "What else? I don’t think of you as anything else, Weasley." It was the hardest lie he'd ever had to tell.
"I, uh, don’t have anything to wear though, and I can’t get something from Hogsmeade anymore." Passes out had been cancelled after a Death Eater was caught stalking a Muggle-born third year two months ago.
"Come up to the Slytherin Tower tomorrow night at 10. I might have something that would suit."
Ginny never thought to ask why he would have girls’ clothes. But she never thought to ask him a lot of questions that maybe she should have.
The next night Ginny ‘borrowed’ Harry’s invisibility cloak and sneaked out of the Gryffindor Tower. She still didn’t want her brother or his friends to know about her growing friendship with their ‘mortal enemy’. She knew Ron would probably challenge Draco to a duel or something equally silly and get himself injured, and that would be the end of it. Well, she was fourteen now and quite old enough to make decisions of her own. …Most of the time.
When she got to Slytherin House, she saw Draco leaning casually against the wall. Well, at first it looked as if it was casual. But the invisibility cloak gave Ginny the wonderfully useful ability to come right up to Draco without him knowing about it. So she did. His eyes were open, fixed on the corridor that she had just come from. His brow was knotted, and his lips were tight. Ginny realized with slight surprise that Draco Malfoy was biting his lip. Draco Malfoy was nervous. Yet another thing she had noticed that year in the strangely changed Malfoy.
She quietly headed back down around the corner, slid the cloak over her head, hid it carefully in a niche in the wall and quickly headed towards Draco. He stood up straight, his arms still folded across his broad chest.
"You’re late, Weasley."
Ginny frowned, hands on her hips. "You know I really wish you wouldn’t call me that. I have a name. Learn it."
He smirked. "Well excuse me Miss Ginevra. I’ll try not to offend you again. Tonight, at east." He sneered wickedly at her, and for some reason Ginny’s heart skipped a beat.
"Come on in, I’ll get you the dress."
The success of the previous year’s Yule Ball with Durmstrang and Beauxbaton had sparked the idea with Dumbledore to repeat the morale-improving event every year, especially after the tragedy of the recent battle in London. The battle where Professor Snape lost his leg. The battle in which Ginny’s father had been killed.
The Slytherin Common Room was empty when Draco brought Ginny into it, the first Gryffindor welcomed into Slytherin Tower in the entire history of Hogwarts. Draco knew this, and the faint smile playing on his lips betrayed his thoughts to the girl at his side.
"Look Malfoy, I don’t want to be here any more than you want me in here. I’m not really in the mood for sanctity breaking or whatever. Do you have something to show me or not?"
"Impatient aren’t we, Miss Ginevra?"
"Stop calling me that. Just call me Ginny like everybody else."
Draco looked at her for a moment. "All right… Ginny." Saying her nickname to her face like that, he had to use a great deal of self-control not to grab her and kiss her… He quickly turned away and picked up a beautiful green satin dress from the table.
"I don’t know if it’ll fit you or anything," he lied. He had magically created the dress that morning to always fit her exactly. After watching her for months without daring to touch her, he knew every curve of her body.
Ginny gasped. "Where did you get this?"
"It used to be my mother’s." It wasn’t that much of a lie really. His mother had taught him the spell after all.
"Your mother’s too tall for this!"
Draco shrugged. "She wasn’t always. This was her favourite dress when she was at Hogwarts. She lent it to me last year, Just in case I find somebody who…" he coughed lightly. "Well. I just hope it fits."
She held it up against herself. "Thank you Draco," she smiled. "I’m sure it will." And then she hugged him. He closed his eyes and breathed in her scent. Ginny wasn’t wearing a perfume, but somehow she smelled just like wildflowers. He slid his arms around her waist, holding her tight against him. He would have stayed like that forever if she had let him, but she slipped deftly out of his embrace. She smiled at him once more, but this new smile seemed less comfortable, less friendly than the first smile. It was almost as if she was suddenly… not afraid of him… but not quite so comfortable around him anymore. With that smile Draco felt a part of him fall away, and his attitude became colder and more like the old Draco.
"You should leave. Take the dress with you. If it doesn’t fit, just… give it back to me if you want. Otherwise I will see you around."
And Ginny fled.
Ginny sat by the lake, the darkening sky above her starting to show pinpoints of stars. She wondered why that particular memory had come back to her. She remembered that Yule Ball of course. It was the first time anybody had seen the two of them together. Everybody had jumped to the wrong conclusion of course. They always did. And nobody had been happy about it. Except perhaps professors Dumbledore and McGonagall, and altogether possibly Snape. But they had just been happy that Ginny wasn’t completely and utterly focusing on her father’s murder…
"Boo," a quiet voice whispered in her ear. Ginny jumped, and Draco laughed.
"Jumpy miss," he said fondly, dumping himself down beside her on the grass. "It never ceases to amuse me how easily you can be startled."
"Yes, well, I wish you wouldn’t. I was thinking about something and you pulled me quite suddenly from my thoughts. You know how I feel about being disturbed."
Draco laughed again. "You’re always disturbed, Gin. What were you thinking about?"
She blushed. "Nothing." For some reason, she didn’t really want Draco knowing she was thinking about their past. It wasn’t all chocolate frogs after all. Quite a bit had actually been a lot more like Bertie Bott’s every flavour beans… There’d been the amazingly good times, the times where one or the other was in mortal danger and the other was sick with worry, there were the uncomfortable times, and of course there had been those two weeks after that Yule Ball…
"Hah! Nobody blushes over nothing, especially you." But he didn’t push the matter. He’d quickly learned over the past few years that you didn’t push Ginny Weasley. She pushed back twice as strong. It was one of the things he had come to love about her.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, watching the sky grow darker and lights inside Hogwarts appear. Ginny leant her head on Draco’s shoulder, and a moment later he placed his arm lightly around her. The two of them would often sit out by the lake watching sunsets or sunrises, students playing or students studying, sometimes even students… well. Their friendship had reached that level of closeness where you could lie in each other’s laps without thought of anything more. At least that was how it was for Ginny.
Draco could hardly keep himself from pulling her into a passionate embrace and kissing her for hours. But somehow he managed to keep control. He had been taught self-control all his life, to hide his true emotions and only show the person you wanted them to see. But then, his father had taught him these things. And look where it had gotten him. Draco tried not to think of Azkaban and the Dementors too much, but sometimes it was the only thing in his mind.
As he sat there by the lake with the love of his life in his arms, Draco Malfoy wondered (and not for the first time) what Ginny would do if he kissed her.
~~~^~~~
Coming soon, chapter III - Pain
Featuring the forging of the friendship... and not much else...
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